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Title: Outcast Robin or Your brother and mine
A cry from the great city
Author: L. T. Meade
Release date: March 20, 2025 [eBook #75665]
Language: English
Original publication: London: John F. Shaw and Co, 1906
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUTCAST ROBIN OR YOUR BROTHER AND MINE ***
[Frontispiece: "She was trying to smother her sobs when she felt the
bed-clothes jerked vigorously. Robin had awakened, tumbled, no one
knew how, off his couch, and toddled to her side."--Page 42]
_Outcast Robin_
_Or_
_Your Brother and Mine_
_A Cry from the Great City_
BY
L. T. MEADE
AUTHOR OF "SCAMP AND I," "A KNIGHT OF TO-DAY,"
"GREAT ST. BENEDICT'S," ETC.
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
_NEW EDITION_
LONDON
JOHN F. SHAW AND CO.
43 PATERNOSTER ROW
CONTENTS.
_PART I._
HIS PARENTAGE AND TRUE DESCENT.
CHAP.
I. The New Baby was called Robin
II. No one can say the Dolphin was not doing its Work well
III. "Would it not be possible to get rid of the Baby?"
_PART II._
WHAT WE DID FOR HIM.
I. We placed him in the Home provided by us for such cases
II. The Deed was done which was to alter Robin's Life
III. Helen put Robin into the Dead Child's Place
IV. The Woman was growing Human
_PART III._
WHAT WE DID NOT DO FOR HIM.
I. Though she was a Thief, yet Robin should be Honest
II. He was no longer her Guardian Angel
III. Crime showed him only her Smiling Face
IV. The Shops from End to End were widely open
V. Even Justice and the Law might have stood still
_PART IV._
HOW HE FARED.
I. His Brother--the Philanthropist
II. What the Country Folks did for him
III. The Shelter of the Streets
IV. Honesty was not the Best Policy
_PART V._
HIS FATHER AND OURS TO THE RESCUE.
I. A Little Child shall lead them
II. How the Street Children Live
III. Somebody Rescued Nobody's Neighbour
PART I.
_HIS PARENTAGE AND TRUE DESCENT._
"Who bids for the little children--
Body and soul and brain?
Who bids for the little children--
Young and without a stain?
'Will no one bid,' said England,
'For their souls so pure and white,
Aad fit for all good or evil
The world on their pages may write?'"
CHARLES MACKAY
--_The Souls of the Children._
OUTCAST ROBIN;
OR,
_YOUR BROTHER AND MINE._
CHAPTER I.
_THE NEW BABY WAS CALLED ROBIN._
The sun itself seemed to be keeping holiday on the morning on which
my brother opened his eyes on the world. The day was a June day, one
of those days when the people who are fortunate enough to live in the
country feel quite too lazy to work--when a delicious languor, a rich
hazy beauty pervades the grass, trees, flowers, as well as the more
distant landscape. The sort of day when those who reside in Eaton
Square, or any other part of Belgravia, sit peacefully and enjoy the
scent of the freshly arranged window gardens, and look forward with
interest to a drive in the Park by-and-by.
Yes, the sun was keeping holiday, and pouring down right genially and
right lovingly his happy rays on the earth.
Impartial, as betokens all true sovereignty, was this king of day; no
idea had he of favouring the rich more than the poor. Had this not
been his invariable and unexceptionable rule, it is highly probable
that Mrs. Timbs, of Blind Alley, Spitalfields, London, would have
been left, if not in darkness, yet in considerable fog and obscurity.
Mrs. Timbs had given birth an hour ago to her sixth son and tenth
child, and she herself was just preparing to take holiday, the first
holiday she had had for years. Supposing a choice to have been given
her, she might have preferred to slave on a little longer; but it was
not to be; she was about to stop working from morning to night, and
almost from night to morning again: she was about to stop feeling
hungry and cold; she was going away to a better place than she had
ever known before; in short, Mrs. Timbs was going to die.
The sun, impartial and kind, struggled through the dusty window, and
lay in two golden bars on the pillow. One of these grand bars of
light took the new-born baby's red face into its embrace and
glorified it; the other warmed the dying mother's cheek.
Patty and Molly, the two elder girls, aged respectively thirteen and
fourteen, stood by the side of the bed; the sun's rays did not touch
them; they stood in shadow, fit emblem of the long and dusty bit of
road they had to tread before they could look for rest and a holiday,
poor things!
Seven other children played happily in the court below. The father
was at work, and would not be back before evening.
When the neighbour, who with officiousness but much kindness had been
going in and out of the room, saw that death was really close at
hand, she bent over the woman, and asked her if she would not like to
say good-bye to the little 'uns h'outside?
"No," replied the dying mother feebly; they were having a good time,
and she would not disturb them.
Then, taking hold of the hands of Patty and Molly, she begged of
them, not with her lips, but with her eyes, to take care of the baby.
She had no words left, poor dumb and dying soul! but her imploring
eyes were eloquent.
A moment or two later, without a struggle, she bade good-bye to her
work-a-day life for ever.
The sun, having fulfilled its mission, softly, glidingly, but surely,
left the room, and the ten orphan children and the dead mother were
alone. The seven who had played so unconsciously and merrily in the
court had come in, and began, some of them to scramble on the bed, to
peer at and touch the mother's cold cheek, others to kick each other,
and scream and cry on the floor. Molly filled the kettle and made
down the fire in case father should come home to tea, and Patty tried
to soothe and nurse the new baby.
In these attempts she was unsuccessful, for although he had lain very
quiet when the sun's rays had seemed to bless his little red face, he
wailed and wailed now, and refused to be comforted.
The seven intermediate children were called Sally, Phil, Dick, Tom,
Janey, Bill, and Joe. Getting tired at last of quarrelling and
touching mother's dead cheek, they clustered round Patty, to examine
and admire the new baby.
"'He's a queer 'un," said Dick, aged ten. "My h'eyes I look at 'is
red 'air--he's a carrots, and no mistake."
"No, he ain't," said Tom; "he's a reg'lar tip-topper, _I_ say."
Tom's reason for this burst of admiration was in no way caused by his
love for the baby, but from the desire, fostered by circumstances
within him, to contradict and oppose Dick.
Presently one child began to pinch the new baby's toes, and another
to try and pull him out of Patty's arms.
Patty, however, the motherly one of the family, sat firm.
"Stop that!" she said, administering a slap with right good-will and
sure aim all round; then, when the storm of sobs and shrieks which
this proceeding had called forth died away--
"Wot'll we call 'im? Timbs is 'is surname, safe enough, but he must
'ave a chrissen name, same as h'all of us."
"Mother used to give us our chrissen names," said little Janey in an
awed voice, realising, for the first time as she spoke, that mother
was really gone.
"Call 'im anythink," said Phil roughly. "Tom'll do fine; no, we 'ave
a Tom; and Joe--wy, that 'ere young 'un's Joe. My h'eyes and stars!
there ain't any name left fur the new baby; wot a lark!"
The children's imagination was not vivid, nor their vocabulary large;
and the Joes, Toms, Dicks, and Phils being already used up, and held
strenuously to by their owners, there seemed in truth no name left
for the tenth baby.
Phil proposed that either Tom or Joe should resign theirs in favour
of the new-comer. Tom and Joe refused to comply, on which occasion
fresh quarrelling ensued.
"I have it," said Molly, clapping her hands: "there's the bird book."
Yes; they possessed one book, and Molly could read.
It was a book with coloured engravings of birds with gay plumage.
Robin Red-breast graced the frontispiece. Need the children go any
farther? The new baby was called Robin.
CHAPTER II.
_NO ONE CAN SAY THS "DOLPHIN" WAS NOT DOING
ITS WORK WELL._
The father of all this family, and the widower of this dead woman,
came in about ten o'clock, a good deal the worse for drink; but this
being Timbs' normal condition, at least his condition whenever his
children held intercourse with him, caused them now no surprise.
The children knew that he would come home drunk, and also knew that,
either drunk or sober, he would express no sorrow for mother; he had,
as they roughly worded it, given her far more kicks than halfpence of
late. Never did any of them, except Patty and Molly, remember father
to have addressed a kind word to mother; for just about the time that
the other children could begin to exercise their memories, Timbs had
begun another practice,--a practice which took from mother all chance
of loving words, and from them all hope of the comforts of life.
Just then he had taken up visiting the Dolphin, and the Dolphin had
exercised the influence it might be expected to exercise over him.
Many a church has failed in its duty, but places like the Dolphin
never fall short in this particular!
Not they; they have their own master to serve, and they serve him
well. They go warily but surely to work, beginning with the bodies
of men and women, and ending with their souls.
Can it be possible that if the Church, too, began with the bodies of
men, it would have more success? This may be so; there is such a
thing as learning even of an enemy.
The Dolphin having got Timbs within its clutches, quietly, but
surely, effected his ruin. He was a very fine man when he entered
those doors; he had great physical power; he stood six feet high.
Those were the days, when, in full work, strong in body, vigorous and
shrewd in intellect, Timbs had owned a small house of his own in not
too poor a street; a house where geraniums flourished in the windows,
and white muslin curtains graced the best sitting-room.
Those were the palmy days remembered so well by Patty and Molly, when
mother possessed a nice bonnet and shawl, and father and she went for
a walk in the Park on Sunday evenings.
In those days mother's face was smiling and her cheeks rosy, and she
had a pleasant word for every one; in those days, too, father used to
kiss them, and bring home for their edification that wonderful book
of birds in penny parts.
If there was anything that Molly and Patty still loved, it was that
bird book, carefully stitched together, and bound in a brown linen
cover. That book they never would allow to go to the pawnshop; it
was the only thing left to them of their halcyon days.
But these days were now all over; from the time the Dolphin had
received father into its deadly embrace, this pleasant state of
things had passed away. Ruin had come,--gradually, of course, but
none the less surely. Down, step after step, had the family
descended; each fresh child at its birth opening its eyes in a poorer
room, on poorer surroundings.
Mrs. Timbs had worked harder and harder, and gone out in more and
more shabby clothes, and one by one taken the little comforts away to
the pawnshop, never to bring them back again. She turned her hand
patiently to any means by which an honest penny might be earned, for
hers was a brave nature: she went out charing, she took in
needlework, she took in washing; but however willing the spirit, the
poor human body was weak. The face of Mrs. Timbs grew thin and
hollow, the frame of Mrs. Timbs became skin and bone. Of her heart
no one spoke, no one thought; but there was a pathos about her eyes,
and a few lines about her mouth, which showed that her heart was not
at rest. Neither Timbs nor his wife were religious people. In their
palmy days they had never gone to church; they had spent Sundays in
the Park or resting at home. Very innocent Sundays they had passed
in those days, but in no sense of the word religious ones. In her
happy days Mrs. Timbs had never sought after God. She knew of God,
of course; she knew also something of the Bible, and had even once
gone so far as to tell to Patty and Molly the story of Moses being
drawn out of the water; but with religion in a practical way she did
not trouble her head. Her idea was that religion was a very dull
thing; that there was a great deal of moonshine and false sentiment
about religious people, but that, of course, it was useful for
consumptive and dying folks to think about it.
Neither in her dark days did she turn to religion; but a verse from
the old Book she had neglected and cast aside, floated now and then
before her mind, rang now and then in her ears.
"Come unto Me, and I will give you rest," was the verse.
At night, when she lay down with every limb aching, she thought of
this verse; in the morning, when she rose to her unthankful toil, it
returned to her. All the last few months before Robin was born, this
verse went about with Mrs. Timbs, and became the echo of her every
wish.
The ruin, however, that the Dolphin effected indirectly on Mrs.
Timbs, was nothing nothing at all to the ruin it directly effected on
her husband.
In the first place, it undermined his health--his eyes grew dim, his
frame weak and stooping, his powerful arm nerveless. He was a mason
by trade, and, before he went to the Dolphin, could ascend any height
without dizziness; but he had to give all this up now; he suffered
from burning thirst, he loathed all wholesome food; in short, the
health of the man was gone, and he had already passed through two
attacks of _delirium tremens_.
In the next place, the Dolphin attacked his mind.
Timbs was a clever fellow; plenty of thought had he, and plenty of
ingenuity: he could reason out a point with any one, and win the day
for his own opinions too, which opinions were honest and right
enough. He had a turn for mechanics, he liked to read, he liked to
digest what he had read. What works of a useful and educational
tendency he could afford, he took in, in weekly parts; but, with the
exception of the book of birds, they had long since disappeared into
that great caldron for dissolving all home comforts, the pawn-shop.
And the man never missed what had once been his pride, never
regretted for an instant what once he could hardly live without, for
his brain was dull and clouded, his thinking powers gone. No, Timbs
never troubled himself to think now; the Dolphin had done this for
him.
To complete his ruin, this mistress of iniquity attacked his soul.
There were many good points in the man once, he had been a loving
husband and a kind father; his little children used to cling about
his neck and kiss him; his wife's face used to brighten at his
approach. He was liked too by the neighbours, for he was
good-natured and obliging.
But now he beat his wife, he cursed his children--they fled at his
approach, they shrank in terror from his glance; no pity moved him,
no tears softened him.
In short, the Dolphin had made not a brute, but a devil of what had
once been created in the likeness of God.
The children of this couple grew up as such children would be likely
to grow up, stunted in body, undeveloped in mind.
The poor mother could hardly feed them, much less attempt to educate
them: the father endeavoured to injure, but not to improve them.
Molly and Patty were the best of the group. Molly and Patty had as
babies been properly fed. As little children they had enjoyed some
of the good things of life; they also could remember kind words and
tones with a ring of love in them. Consequently they were the
strongest in body, and the best in soul.
They were by no means either good or amiable, but they were less bad
and less unamiable than the seven who came beneath them. These
little girls were employed at a factory where they managed to support
themselves, and so lighten their mother's burden; and though they
told lies, and though in every possible way they cheated their
employers and quarrelled with their neighbours, yet they loved their
mother; they loved each, the other. There was quite a tender
attachment between this rough little pair. I think either would have
died for the other. As for the seven below them--the seven who had
always been starved and used roughly, on whom the world had always
frowned, and never, even in infancy, smiled--these little miseries,
who drew in starvation, cruelty, hunger, with their first
breath--why, they grew up something like Cain. If every man's hand
was against them, so would their hands be against every man.
Of the men and women who grow out of such children, the prisons are
full; and for such children, though no man takes pity on them, I
think the angels weep.
Sally, Phil, and Dick were thieves, practised and clever little
thieves, already. Joe, Tom, Janey, and Bill were following in their
steps.
All this, the ruin of this whole family, was owing to the Dolphin.
No one can say that it was not doing its work well.
It was not with any strong hope of father's return that Molly had put
down the kettle for tea. But though she had not done it with a hope,
she had certainly done it with a longing. It was very important,
indeed, now that mother was dead and a new baby come that father
should, if possible, be brought in sober.
Having put down the kettle, she went into the neighbour's room, the
same poor woman who had been kind to them that morning.
"Mrs. Jenkins," she said, "I'm mortal feared 'bout the new baby."
"Why so, my dear? he's a nice 'ardy little chap; he won't die, Molly."
"Oh! it ain't that," said Molly; "but yer knows wot dad is in 'is
cups, and he did sware dreadful wen Bill was born."
"The unnat'ral brute!" ejaculated Mrs. Jenkins. "Well, but, Molly,
you can hide the little 'un, sure-_ly_."
"'Ee'd be positive to ax fur 'im, ma'am; besides, the baby must be
fed. No, but ef we could catch father sober. I've bin thinkin'--I
remember"----
"Set down, gal. Yer all of a tremble."
"I remember, Mrs. Jenkins, ma'am, wen father--I remember wen father
was real kind, and he kissed Patty and me, and he was fond o' mother.
'Tis ages back now, but Patty and me, we remembers of it. And wot
I'm thinkin' is, ef we could catch 'im sober, why, I'd tell 'im 'bout
mother, and mebbe 'ee'd get soft-'arted to the little 'un!"
Molly expressed her thoughts very badly, in broken and poor words and
with indistinct utterance; but the heart of the child was shining in
her eyes, and Mrs. Jenkins understood her.
"Ef _an'think_ 'ill move 'im, 'tis the sight as he'll clap 'is h'eyes
upon in yer room to-night. You run back, Molly, gal; and I'll make
fur the Dolphin, and ef he's not too long there h'already, I'll bring
'm in home, by hook or crook. Oh! and stop; 'ere's a drop o' milk
fur the baby."
But Mrs. Jenkins was unsuccessful. Timbs had been at the Dolphin for
an hour and more. Even there, into that abode of horrors did the
brave woman follow him; but the message she tried to deliver, and the
very awful news she tried to break to the miserable drunkard, were
drowned in jeers and laughter. If Mrs. Jenkins was not kicked out,
it was only because she fled in terror.
CHAPTER III.
"_WOULD IT NOT BE POSSIBLE TO GET RID OF
THE BABY?_"
It was past ten o'clock when Timbs tottered home, and threw himself
on the bed. The children, even Molly and Patty, were asleep, tired
out. The new baby never stirred; the drunkard lay like a log, and
the dead woman rested best of all. The moon shone in on the white
face of the dead, on the bloated face of the drunkard, on the evil
faces of the children, who might have been looking like little angels
just now but for his sin. The moon passed on, and for a short time
the room was in darkness; then the twilight before the dawn appeared,
making objects ghastly and uncertain; then the dawn, then the full
light of day. Contrary to his wont, Timbs was the first to wake.
His head ached less than usual that morning, his brain was less
confused; in short, he was more himself, and more capable of
understanding and taking in the scene he was about to witness. He
had been dreaming, in a confused sort of way, of his wife--of his
wife as she used to be years ago. A pretty, rosy-faced woman was
Sally Timbs in those days, and Timbs was proud of her. In his dream,
which only lasted a few moments, he had recrossed the abyss, and
stood once more on the old solid ground. In his dream, he was back
again in the days when the Dolphin did not know him, nor he the
Dolphin. He had a comfortable home, and Molly and Patty were pretty
children, with curling hair and bright faces.
He awoke from this dream with the word "wife" on his lips. I think,
had she been alive then he would have given her a kind word. Would
to God his dream had come to him yesterday! He said "Wife," and then
lay still; for a brief half-instant, after awaking, he lay still--he
had really forgotten that he was not what he dreamed he was, a
prosperous and successful man: when the knowledge returned to him,
which of course it did very quickly, he still lay without moving; he
was busy sending back the dream, which had been pleasant, but was now
hideous, into some far recesses of his memory.
Then he moaned uneasily, said "Wife" in a harsher key: his morning
headache was returning to him; she should get up and make him a cup
of tea.
Why did not she stir? He saw her outline quite distinct under the
thin counterpane. How sound she was sleeping! He was about to give
her a push--a push a trifle less hard than usual, but still a
push--when something, he knew not what, seemed to stay his hand; he
sat up and looked at her.
When Timbs looked at his dead wife, he also looked all his sins full
in the face.
He knew instantly what had happened. He darted out of bed, and fell
on his knees, not to pray--he had never prayed in his life--but
because he trembled so, he could not stand. The dead face, pinched,
drawn, and white, had a fascination for him.
He touched it with his trembling fingers; he longed intensely to get
away from it, and yet he could not stir. His knees felt bound with
irons to the floor; his hands must, whether he liked it or not, touch
that cold cheek; his eyes must rest on his wife's dead face. And all
the time he was looking also at his sins. He knew that he had killed
Sally; that he had finished the work the Dolphin had set him to do.
He had committed murder!
His thoughts took no connected form, for his mind was too much gone,
and even this shock failed to clear that muddled brain; but he felt
horrible, and he knew that he deserved hell. Sally was dead; lying
stiff by his side all night a corpse had been, and he had been
dreaming of his wife as rosy-faced and beautiful. He had awakened
and felt thirsty, and thought that he would order her up to make him
a cup of tea. Even in dying that patient woman would have struggled
to obey him; but now she was dead. He might storm at her now, but
she would not heed him; he might beat her now, but she would not feel
his blows. Sally was too great for him at last. She had passed
beyond his power--she was dead!
He had killed her; he and the Dolphin had worn her to what she was.
She was dead, and he deserved hell.
These, though hardly in sustained thought, but in confusion frightful
as a nightmare, were some of the sensations of this poor lost wretch.
After a time his bodily thirst overcame his mental pain, and he
stumbled to his feet, and looked about him for something to drink.
The kettle, placed by Molly there the night before, still hung over
the ashes in the grate.
He took a draught from it eagerly, drinking from the spout.
As he set it down again he heard an infant's cry. The feeble, sharp
cry of a new-born baby smote on his ear. A strange look came into
his face at that cry--a new expression which he had certainly not
worn a moment before. Then he had been at the verge of remorse, of
sorrow, of repentance; a word, a touch, almost a look, would have
taken the man then into the Valley of Humiliation, through which and
the Shadow of Death he might have passed into a new life; but at the
baby's cry the agony on his face gave way to an expression of
selfishness and cunning.
There was another mouth to be fed, and he must feed it; there was
another child to take from the Dolphin's spoils. He pictured the
whole state of affairs vividly enough now. The wife who worked so
hard, and earned far more than he of late had earned, was gone, and
Molly and Patty would persecute him for money to buy milk and food
for this fresh and unwelcome mouth.
The older children might manage as they could, but the baby must take
from his spoils and lessen his enjoyment.
Would it not be possible for him to get rid of the baby!
Not to take away its life, but to hand it over to the State. He had
heard of such things being done. He could carry the new baby to the
workhouse--not to a very near workhouse--and leave him there. Just
outside the workhouse doors, in a place where he would be certain to
be seen, he could leave him. He never thought of a search being
instituted--of the missing child being asked for; his brain was too
much addled, too much confused, to connect danger to himself in the
act.
He considered the idea a cunning and clever one; an idea by which he
could get rid of this unwelcome addition to his family.
And the baby would be provided for by the State; much better off too;
he rubbed his hands over the thought.
By this time his transient sorrow for Sally had departed, and he was
only anxious to take away the baby before the other children should
awake.
Molly, stretched on some straw on the floor, slept, too weary to
stir; and the new baby lay in her arms and cried. He was hungry,
and, deprived of his mother's love and mother's care, life in its
first dawning was hardly pleasant to him.
Timbs had no difficulty in removing the baby from Molly's arms. He
wrapped a tattered shawl about him, and laid him down, while he
fumbled for his own hat, by the side of the dead woman.
The dead mother's face had a smile on it, and even in death she would
have welcomed her child; the father, all the heart in him swallowed
up by the Dolphin, now in life rejected him.
It was not five o'clock yet, when Timbs, carrying the baby, went out.
There were few people about; he chose unfrequented paths; he was
hardly noticed.
The little bundle in his arms, soothed by the motion, forgot its
hunger, and went to sleep.
Timbs selected a workhouse quite in the east-end, and a long way off.
Outside the heavy and dreary black doors he laid the baby.
PART II.
_WHAT WE DID FOR HIM._
"'I bid,' said Beggary, howling,
'I bid for them, one and all!
I'll teach them a thousand lessons--
To lie, to skulk, to crawl!'"
CHARLES MACKAY
--_Souls of the Children._
CHAPTER I.
"_WE PLACED HIM IN THE HOME PROVIDED BY US
FOR SUCH CASES._"
Robin having been thus early in life deprived of both his parents--of
his mother by death, of his father by desertion--it became our duty
to provide for him. He, being bone of our bone and flesh of our
flesh, must not be left to starve and die; we must start him in life
with at least a fair chance of success; and being obliged to stand
_in loco parentis_ to this baby, we placed him in the home provided
by us for such cases. We gave of our money, that Robin and other
orphans and permanently deserted children might be brought up, until
the age of sixteen, in the workhouse.
We did not do this willingly. It is the first duty in life that
parents should provide for their own children, and with this law we,
as Britons, never like to interfere.
Accordingly, when the miserable baby was found on the steps of the
workhouse, the first thing necessary was, if possible, to discover
his parents; and, if possible, to hand him back to them. To aid us
in this, the police were set on the track; the child was examined,
any peculiarities with regard to his appearance noted down, and
search instituted in various ways. Perhaps, however, with all our
searching, nothing would have been found out but for a fact quite
overlooked by Timbs.
In due time, in Blind Alley, Mrs. Timbs had to be buried, her death
inquired into, and the missing baby asked for.
A baby of two days old missing in Blind Alley--a baby of two days old
unaccounted for in the union at David's Row, Whitechapel: the link
was complete, the police and the State triumphant. Timbs was
outwitted; he had reckoned without his host; the unwelcome burden was
to be returned upon his hands: but not only so; his offence was
punishable, the law would punish him.
Timbs, wishing neither for the baby nor the punishment, again called
his scattered wits to work; this time with better success. He
absconded, deserting not only the baby, but the nine older children.
He was no great loss to any of them, and none of them, not even Molly
and Patty, troubled themselves to look for him; they believed he had
gone to America. For my part, I am glad to let his name drop out of
Robin's story. I have never heard of him since.
By this act of Timbs he certainly managed to punish the State for not
thankfully and without a murmur accepting his one child, for now
several more had to be housed, fed, and trained in the way that they
should go. On investigation, it was found quite impossible for Molly
and Patty, working as diminutive "hands" at a factory from eight in
the morning to half-past five in the evening, and earning
respectively for this labour sixpence and sevenpence a day, to take
care of any members of the family but themselves.
The little thieves were accordingly sent to reformatories, and the
other children to Paul's Gate pauper school. For the present the
baby, Robin, was to remain in the workhouse, at the door of which his
father had placed him. He was to be put into the infirmary and taken
care of by the pauper women, and if he proved a healthy child, at the
age of two years he would be forwarded for the purposes of education
to the school at Paul's Gate.
Thus far he was provided for.
In the investigation that followed the baby's arrival, there was
found, pinned to his dirty pink frock, the identical coloured print
of Robin Redbreast, after which the children had called him This
print had been cut out of the book of birds, and fastened on the
baby's dress on the sly, by Phil, for the purpose of annoying Patty;
but the use of it now was, that when the chaplain came to baptize the
child, he called him Robin; and this pretty name, joined to his
pretty face, helped to make the child a favourite, even in so poor a
place as the workhouse infirmary.
There were numbers of babies in all the wards of the workhouse
infirmary--babies of poor deserted mothers, orphan babies, babies of
the honest but half-starving poor, babies also--and there were many
of these--of idle, drunken, and reckless parents, who looked upon the
workhouse as a provident club, very useful for a day of need. The
babies, as a rule, came and went with their mothers, the orphans and
deserted children alone making a home of the workhouse infirmary.*
* George Hartley, author of "The Parish Net," says, that in England
alone, 18,000 children are annually deserted and taken to the
workhouses of the country.
It was not a cheerful place for a young life to open in--by no means
a cheerful place; the spirits of pauperism and dependence were too
much about, and the sick and dying were too near the little lives
that should hardly know just yet what sickness and dying meant.
But though not a good place, by no means the place we would choose to
bring up our own babies in, there might have been worse abodes for
the dawning of life even than the workhouse infirmary. It was
decidedly a good thing for Robin that his father had laid him down
outside those stern-looking black doors, for what his life would have
been brought up in Blind Alley, deprived of his mother, no words can
say.
The other little Timbses, starved as they undoubtedly were, in their
babyhood at least were caressed, and largely blessed with a whole
wealth of mother love poured out upon them by the poor faithful heart
now in its grave. But Robin would have been starved without the
love, so the workhouse was a much better place for him. There at
least he was clothed and fed, and in a measure, and after a fashion,
well taken care of.
His life, begun thus smoothly, might have gone on to its fitting
close. He might have gone through the usual career of a pauper
child--in process of time joined his brothers and sisters at the
pauper school at Paul's Gate; in process of time also, have been
apprenticed to a trade, and have eventually turned out, with the
thousands of paupers, badly--or again, with the thousands of paupers,
well; for after all that has been said and written against them, the
pauper schools train perhaps as well on the monster system, as any
other schools on the monster system, all such systems being, however,
directly contrary to nature, and therefore bad.
CHAPTER II.
_THE DEED WAS DONE WHICH WAS TO ALTER
ROBIN'S LIFE._
Robin might have gone on, on this uniform plan; have been prepared
for the world of which he knew nothing, on this uniform pattern; his
dress, food, education, moral training, body, mind, soul, an exact
counterpart of the boy standing next him.
In this case he would have been uninteresting, and his story
certainly need never have been written; but circumstances came in the
way, and the waif and stray at his birth was all too quickly to
become a waif and stray again.
I have said that Robin had a pretty name, and was a pretty boy. The
former may, of course, be a matter of taste, though _I_ think
Robin--reminding me as it does of that dear, brown-coated,
red-breasted, bright-eyed bird of winter--pretty; but with regard to
his appearance there was no second opinion; with regard to the beauty
of his little face there was but one voice. In this matter, all who
saw him cried, "Ay."
Mrs. Timbs had once been pretty; John Timbs, before he visited the
Dolphin, had been a fine-looking man; but on none of their children
had any portion of their good looks descended, until Robin came.
This can hardly be wondered at.
Robin might have grown up like the other little Timbses had he
continued to live in Blind Alley, but in the workhouse he developed
into a beautiful boy.
His hair, pronounced by his undiscerning brothers and sisters carroty
at his birth, had shaded off into little tight rings and clustering
curls of dark auburn tipped with gold; his complexion was fair, his
eyes brown, velvety, spaniel-like; his little limbs were round and
white.
Even the workhouse ugly blue calico could not disfigure this boy. He
was the pride of the place, the show child whom all visitors admired
and petted; his looks spoke volumes for his good treatment, and
during his stay at David's Row, the infirmary got quite a name for
the excellence of its management.
Things were in this state, and Robin was the pet of the old women,
the darling of the young, the favourite of all--even the dying would
not die without kissing Robin farewell. Robin was in this high
favour and happiness, for he was a very happy child, when one day a
fresh inmate was brought into the ward.
Robin was rather more than a year old at this time.
The fresh visitor, or casual--for she only came for a time--was
young. She was entered in the parish books as twenty-two--her name,
Helen Morris--married, deserted by her husband, earned money by
button-holing. This was her brief history, or at least all of it she
chose to tell. She came into the infirmary to be cured of a certain
illness which the doctors said they could cure her of. As soon as
ever this was accomplished, she would leave.
She was rather good-looking, had black eyes which no one cared to
trifle with, and a habit of compressing her lips, which the nurses
and pauper women declared afterwards they could not abide.
Curiosity, however, is a weed which can flourish apace even in the
pauper ward of a workhouse infirmary, and curiosity was very rife
about Helen Morris.
In appearance she was certainly above her present surroundings, but
then in dialect, no poor woman there spoke worse; that is when she
did speak, for she would scarcely speak at all. Those who wanted to
draw her out, took pains, but the pains led to no results. In vain
the strongest and best cups of tea were brought to her bedside by
neighbours who hoped to be rewarded by a little confidence for these
services; in vain the most tempting portions of the workhouse viands
were piled upon her plate; in vain looks of sympathy were directed
towards her. If Helen had a history, she did not choose any one
there to know of it. All day long she lay on her narrow bed,
suffering a good deal, but uncomplaining, uncommunicative.
In the bed next to Helen's was a young woman of about her own age,
dying of consumption. This young woman used to fret a great deal at
the thought of leaving a tiny fair baby who was also in the
workhouse. One day the news had to be broken to this poor young
mother that her baby was dead. In reality death meant union for her,
but she wept and moaned most bitterly and passionately over the
little corpse.
When she grew calm, Helen opened her lips once to address her.
"Ef I was you, I'd draw it mild," she said. "When God H'almighty's
makin' it hup to yer in this fashion, I'd draw it mild."
"How?" asked the consumptive young woman in astonishment.
"Ain't yer a-dying?"
"Yes, I be."
"And ain't the kid dead? and yer a-goin' to 'ave 'im h'all to yerself
in God H'almighty's world. Ugh! the ongratitude of some folks."
Here Helen closed her eyes with a gesture of disgust; but these
remarks did not tend to make her a favourite.
A few days after, the consumptive young woman died, and the bed next
to Helen's was empty.
She was lying one afternoon, her eyes as usual shut, her lips as
usual compressed with some thought which surely was keeping the poor
heart within very restless, when Robin, fast asleep, was laid on the
empty bed by her side. He looked beautiful in his sleep, his fair
cheeks flushed, his bright curls shading his handsome little face.
"Bless him for a beauty, the darlint!" said an Irish woman, as she
covered him up tenderly. When the Irish woman went away Helen turned
on her side, opened her eyes slowly, and gazed at the sleeping boy.
She had never noticed him before; when any workhouse child came in
her way she invariably shut her eyes and compressed her lips. What
the other women blamed her, and shrank most away from her for, was
her dislike to children, for this is a sin no true woman will forgive.
But now she gazed at Robin with a strange look; at first it was
agony; her face began to work, her black eyes to flash. She bit her
lips and clutched convulsively at the sheet, then tears started to
her eyes, she buried her head under the clothes, and her sobs shook
the bed.
She was trying to smother her sobs when she felt the bed clothes
jerked vigorously. Robin had awakened, tumbled, no one knew how, off
his couch, and toddled to her side. He could not speak, but the
universal tyrant and pet could imperiously demand attention. Little
did the beautiful baby know what this innocent action would lead to.
The storm-shaken woman dragged him into her bed, covered him with
caresses, and then let him go. No one had observed this little
scene, but the deed was done which was to alter all Robin's life.
CHAPTER III.
_HELEN PUT ROBIN INTO THE DEAD CHILD'S PLACE._
Helen's history was this--a clever, bright girl, wanting in
principle, wanting in every religious thought, she grew up without
even proper moral training. She was an only child. Her father kept
a small tobacconist's shop; he was hard-working and honest; her
mother, a very ignorant woman, was also honest. They were fairly
well-to-do and they both idolised Helen. She made their lives
miserable by her idle, wild, and disobedient ways. She would learn
no trade, she would settle to no employment, she was self-willed,
bad-tempered, she was even lightly spoken of. All this rendered the
old couple unhappy, but her marriage at nineteen broke their hearts.
She was not good herself, by no means even morally good, but her
husband was one of the worst of men. He treated her cruelly,
brutally; at the end of a year he deserted her.
By this time her parents had died; she had no money, she had no one
to help her, and she had a child.
But this, though it appeared so dark, was the brightest and best part
of her life.
She had never loved her father and mother, she had never loved her
husband, but she passionately loved her child. For the first time
something good awoke in her heart; with the baby's eyes and the
baby's touch came the first desire of her whole life after right.
She was glad the child's father was gone; his father was all evil,
but the child himself was all purity and sweetness. She was
naturally the most idle of women, but for the child's sake she would
be industrious. She was by no means honest: she had, since her
birth, committed a thousand small thefts, but the child must have
honest bread, for nothing evil should touch him. She learned
button-holing, a very poor trade, and by it she managed to subsist
and to support the child. She slaved from morning to night. She
shared a miserable attic with another girl. Into this attic the sun
poured in summer, and the rain dropped in winter, but Helen minded no
hardships; she had her child, and this was the happiest and best
period of her life.
She never had the child baptized; she gave him no name; he was just
baby to her--her baby, her darling. He was a sweet little fellow,
very bright and winning; he had a way of drawing looks from that wild
woman's eyes, and sentences from her untutored heart, that must have
made the angels smile with pleasure; but for some reason, known best
to his Heavenly Father, he was not to be left with her. When he was
a year old, the baby died.
This was Helen's story--just all that was good in her locked up in a
child's grave. After his death she slaved and worked still, but the
motive power was gone. Now she felt the hardships of her lot; her
health gave way, and in time she found herself obliged to take refuge
in the workhouse infirmary. No creature more ready for desperate
actions, no more hardened soul had ever taken refuge there.
She was in this state, untouched and unmoved by any one, when Robin
came to her, and behold! in one instant the heart that had been as it
seemed for ever locked by one baby, was opened by another. Helen put
Robin into the dead child's place, and she loved him as her own soul.
All this was done in an instant; just one touch of the little hands,
one pressure of the little lips, and the deed was done.
From this hour she began to get better; she no longer lay all day
long with her eyes closed; they were opened wide enough now to watch
Robin. When he laughed, she smiled; when he cried, she frowned; she
would have almost killed in her fury any one who attempted to touch a
hair of his head. But she never called him to her, and not a soul
guessed her feelings.
She got contented, however, and, as a probable consequence, better.
Her disease began to yield to remedies. After a time she could leave
her bed and walk about.
The workhouse children toddled under her feet, but she swept them all
aside, and no one cared to ask her to take care of any of them. Even
Robin, whom she devoured with her eyes, she never offered to touch.
One day, however, the universal favourite was dull and heavy, and the
next day his bright face was missing.
Helen, white as a sheet, went up and asked the matron the reason of
this.
"Oh! little Robin! he has the measles," she replied lightly. "We had
to put him into a ward by himself, and very inconvenient it is. I'm
just looking round now for some woman to go and nurse him, and I'm
sure I don't know who to choose."
"Choose me," said Helen, trembling, but standing firm, and looking
the matron full in the face.
"You! you poor creature! why, you were in your own bed a week ago."
"Yes'm, but I'm most well now, and uncommon 'andy. Send me, matron!"
I don't know why,--perhaps because she was very short of hands just
then, perhaps because the work was light, but the matron did select
Helen for Robin's nurse. The work, as she knew, was very little; the
child was scarcely ill at all; but this step settled his fate. If
Helen had loved him before, she loved him so passionately now that
she could not do without him.
It came into her head to steal Robin from the workhouse, and bring
him up as her own child.
When she left that dreary abode, he should also leave it; and she
would toil and labour for him, and he should be to her in the place
of her dead baby.
CHAPTER IV.
_THE WOMAN WAS GROWING HUMAN._
It was a daring scheme, and one very difficult to carry into
execution; but she was a daring woman and a cunning one, and she went
warily to work.
Such a thing as a pauper woman stealing an unknown orphan child from
the workhouse had never been heard of; such a case had certainly
never been brought before the guardians; their difficulty was not how
to secure and keep children, but how to dispose of those they had
got. Still Helen knew that the law was stringent, and that it would
be utterly useless for her to ask for Robin.
And yet she _must_ have him.
She set her wits to work. Robin's illness was favourable to her
designs, otherwise she could never have carried them out.
It so happened that at this time the workhouse infirmary in David's
Row was undergoing considerable alterations, and was in consequence
more or less in a state of confusion. There was no regular ward
fitted up for infectious cases, which, as a rule, were instantly
removed to the hospitals; but Robin being a baby and a favourite, and
his illness being very slight, the matron put him into a small room
apart from the rest of the building, and this room he and his nurse
had quite to themselves.
He was quickly well again, but was not allowed to return to the other
wards on account of infection; and Helen, now perfectly recovered
herself, remained also to nurse him.
The woman was growing human and happy, when one day, after the
doctor's visit, she was told that she would receive her discharge
that day week. She would have been sent away sooner but for her
services to the boy.
Then the design she had only hitherto thought of calmly, and in the
distance, came close. In a week she was to go, and Robin must go
too--she would not stir from the workhouse without him; no, no power
should drag her from the child.
She was sorely puzzled how to act, and in this difficulty, had she
known anything really of God, she would have certainly asked Him to
help her; as it was, however, she lay awake all night thinking out
her own plan, which was quite bold and clever enough. When she had
thought it well out, she grew calm and played again with Robin. No
fear of her courage failing her in carrying it out.
Helen had a cousin, the young woman who used to share her attic; and
this woman also had a child--a child about Robin's age.
How Helen had hated that child after her own had died! But if she
hated it, neither did its mother love it. She was not like Helen;
she considered her baby a burden, and openly expressed her wish that
it might die, or that she could get rid of it.
This woman came very often to see Helen; generally, for the simple
reason that she could not leave it at home, bringing her child with
her. This child had also just recovered from the measles; therefore,
on the score of infection, it was not required to be kept away.
They came, the cousin and her child, the day after Helen had heard
the news that she was to leave. To this woman Helen confided her
plan in a few short, well-chosen sentences. The woman listened,
demurred, hesitated, finally yielded. She agreed to do what Helen
wished, and promised without fail to come to see her the day before
Helen left.
It was a very daring and dangerous plan, but Helen would run any risk
to obtain possession of Robin.
So softened and changed was she that the matron took a fancy to her,
believed her to be of a more respectable class than her neighbours,
trusted her more than they, and above all things, what Helen most
wished, left her a good deal to herself.
On the appointed day, true to her appointment, Helen's visitor,
bearing the baby, arrived. The visitor's baby was a brown-tinted
child of the gipsy type; his hair had been cut off in the measles.
"Yere's the dye," said the woman, "and yere's the brat. Don't keep
me, Helen, fur, I can tell yer, I'm in a reg'lar fright."
"I won't keep you," said Helen, her white lips working a trifle, her
dark eyes flashing. Quick as thought, she transferred the clothes of
the one baby to the other, snipped off Robin's bright locks, smeared
his little face with the ugly brown dye, and, hoping to quiet any
terror he might feel, pushed a lollipop into his mouth. Then she
placed him in her cousin's arms, who declared with a laugh that she
would not know him anywhere from her own.
"Then go," said Helen, almost pushing her from the room.
The strange baby left behind cried feebly on the workhouse bed, and
the workhouse baby shouted lustily as he was carried away; but crying
babies were no anomaly, and Robin passed muster as the child who had
been brought in half an hour before.
Thus did he escape from the workhouse, from its good and its evil,
and thus did the world receive him to train him up as she thought
best.
How many evil things were waiting for the pure and innocent child on
that evil day! Grinding poverty, to reduce his strength; famine, to
dim his bright young eyes; beggary, to teach him a thousand lessons
in skulking and lying; crime, to make him the plague of the streets
and the victim of the law--then the prison, perhaps the gallows; and
all this because he had won a woman's love, and softened a woman's
wild and breaking heart.
Would it not have been possible, just barely possible, that had a
brother and sister sought out and taken hold of this brother and
sister, they might have led them, through their love for one another,
into a right way?
Then the voices calling Robin would have been, not poverty, but
honest independence; not famine, but enough and to spare; not
beggary, but the labour of his hands; not crime, but godliness; not
the prison, but the home; not the gallows, but a crown of life.
Alas! no brother proved himself brother, no Christian in a Christian
land came to the rescue.
PART III.
_WHAT WE DID NOT DO FOR HIM._
"'And I'll bid higher and higher,'
Said Crime with wolfish grin,
'For I love to lead the children
Through the pleasant paths of sin.'"
CHARLES MACKAY.
--_Souls of the Children._
"Every man you meet is your brother, and must be, for good or
evil."--CHARLES KINGSLEY.
CHAPTER I
_THOUGH SHE WAS A THIEF, YET ROBIN SHOULD
BE HONEST._
It is just possible that had these events happened yesterday instead
of a few years ago, Helen might not have succeeded in carrying out
her design, but as it was she secured her wish. Cleverly done, it
was undiscovered until too late.
It was a busy day in the workhouse, and no one noticed the strange
baby in Helen's ward. When the morning came, she soothed the child
into a heavy slumber with some mixture brought for the purpose by her
cousin, and was able to report him fast asleep when she went before
the guardians to receive her own dismissal.
Helen had been gone an hour before the fraud she had practised was
found out. Great and unusual then was the outcry and indignation.
Robin was a favourite; he had secured for himself an individuality
and a love seldom bestowed upon a workhouse child, and his ugly and
miserable little substitute was not welcomed. But in vain the police
went on the track; advertisements were put up, even rewards offered,
all that was possible done; Robin was never discovered, and the new
baby never claimed.
Very angry were the board of guardians, and considerable sensation
and stir did the unusual event cause. The matron all but escaped
dismissal, and stringent new rules were made. But nothing could get
back Robin, who had been a pride and credit to the whole workhouse
system, and the new baby had to take his place.
He grew up as Robin might have done, learned dependence as Robin
might have learned it. On the monster school system became an
automaton, not an individual; ignorant of the world, went into it;
unprepared for temptation, yielded to it; failed, fell. If crime
does not shorten his days in another way, he will probably return to
the workhouse to die.
This is a common story, and one which points its own moral.
When Helen took away Robin, she did so with the desire to do right.
The feeling she once had about her own child was awakened again for
Robin. For Robin's sake, not for God's sake--she knew nothing then
of God--she would do good, not evil. She returned to her old attic,
she resumed the old trade. A hard and cruel trade at best, it was
harder and crueller than ever now; the times were bad and work was
slack and remuneration low. Labour as she might, she could not keep
starvation at bay. Still for a year she struggled on, endeavouring
for the boy's sake to lead an honest life, but the struggle was too
great to last. One day he cried in vain for the bread she could not
give him, and as for his sake she had endeavoured hard to do right,
so now for his sake she fell. In the low, the very low phases of
society, there are two grades, and from the low to the lowest a steep
step has to be taken. There are those people who earn their bread
anyhow, who pilfer and steal occasionally, who will not stop at a
trifle to secure a penny, who have little conscience and little
principle. These people--overworked, underfed--often see a prison,
and are low, very low undoubtedly. But they are not the lowest, they
are only the occasional criminals--the habitual criminals are a great
step lower than they.
Hitherto Helen had belonged to the former class; more or less all her
life had she belonged to it. She did not consider it wrong to steal;
when theft came in her way, she became a thief; but she was not an
habitual thief, and the greater part of the money she lived on was
honestly come by.
For the last two years--the year of her own child's life and the year
she had lived for Robin--she had been strictly honest; but now, being
sorely tempted, she fell. She resolved to take the child to a place
where even the police would scarcely venture; she would step down
from the low to the lowest. She would become--because she so longed
to keep the boy with her, and because in no other way did it seem
possible for her to keep him--an habitual criminal.
She carried out her design; she and Robin disappeared into those foul
and loathsome places where sin grows rank and strong; those places on
earth which surely show us that hell can begin here.
Helen was a thief always now; she was worse. But she had one pure
spot in her still; she loved the boy: her love for Robin never
lessened or grew cold, and as much as possible she kept from him the
knowledge of her ways, as much as possible she kept him apart from
her evil companions. When she spoke to him she gave him her softest
and best language, and she had dreams--poor, miserable soul!--that
some day he might turn out well.
At first, after she had stolen him from the workhouse, when all
danger of pursuit was over, she used to take him on Sundays into the
fashionable streets, and point out to him the well-dressed children,
and long to deck the pretty boy in garments as gay as theirs; as he
grew older she would lead him by the hand, and show him the happy
children at play, and put crumbs into his pockets, and teach him how
to feed the birds on the Serpentine. As much as possible,
wonderfully so, considering the criminal life she herself led, all
his pleasures were pure pleasures.
This state of things continued until Robin was five years old. He
still had the beautiful eyes, pathetic almost as a little dog's, of
his babyhood; but otherwise the close, unwholesome air, and bad and
insufficient food, had destroyed nearly all of his early beauty.
Just then Helen was convicted of some petty theft, and sentenced to a
house of correction for three months. With little shame on her own
account, she yet suffered agony for Robin. She had small fear of his
wanting food and clothing; she had small fear of not finding him
before her on her return to her old haunts. Yet a mighty dread
pursued her. An habitual criminal herself, she still had one ray of
pure light in her darkened soul. Though she was a thief, yet Robin
should be honest; though she was evil, yet he should be good. This
she hoped, this she longed for, this she dreamt of; and it was the
dread that some one now might acquaint the child with evil that made
her prison hours so long and wretched.
At last her term of imprisonment was over, and she came back to find
the child well in body and apparently untainted in soul. She resumed
her old life, stealing again for him, though she fondly hoped that he
had never stolen.
CHAPTER II.
_HE WAS NO LONGER HER GUARDIAN ANGEL._
One day she was lying on her bed. It was a sultry July day, and the
woman, weary in body and soul, had thrown herself there hoping to
obtain a little rest. Although she had once entered a prison, she
was regarded by her miserable fellow-sinners as a clever hand, and
often prided herself on her own good fortune in evading the police.
But to-day she was, as she expressed it, down on her luck; hers was a
hand-to-hand existence, and to-day there was no bread in the
cupboard, and no money to buy any in her pocket. She had heard also
that the "nippers," as she termed the police, were again on her
track, and she knew that she must change her quarters as quickly as
possible; but she was very tired, so utterly exhausted from want of
sleep and want of food, that she must take one hour of slumber before
she put herself into a place of safety.
The child, who had cried himself sick for want of his breakfast, lay
curled up by her side.
She was lying so, her eyes shut, not yet asleep, but thinking some
bitter and bad thoughts, when the room door was gently opened and a
woman came in. Helen's eyes unclosed quickly enough then, and with
an angry exclamation she rose to her feet.
But the woman who had entered was not an ordinary one, and she showed
no vestige of alarm at the flashing eyes and menacing arm which
greeted her; she had ventured into a place where no policeman would
come alone.
"Don't be angry with me, I want to help you," she said, seating
herself uninvited on a chair, and raising her veil. The face
underneath was white and worn, perhaps a little sad, with a patient
look about the eyes and mouth.
The look of the woman and her courage disarmed Helen's anger; she
made no further resistance, but leaned rather helplessly against the
dirty wall a few paces away.
"I have come to help you," said her uninvited guest again. Now this
was just what Helen in her heart of hearts responded to; she was
hunted down, weary, despondent, and she had come upon very few offers
of help.
"I be rare and 'ungry," she said, "and the little 'un's rare and
'ungry," pointing to the boy, and hoping to abstract money by this
appeal, which was both pathetic and true.
"If you are hungry you must have food," said the woman. She took out
her purse, opened it, drew from its contents a shilling, and gave the
shilling to Helen.
"Go and buy something with that for yourself and the child," she
said. "Come back and eat it here. I will stay until you return."
The eyes of the thief had seen the glitter of gold, but the ears of
the woman had listened to the unwonted tone of kindness, and without
a shadow of even avarice on her face she meekly went out.
When she returned, the lady (she was of gentle birth, but I have
called her woman hitherto, regarding it as a higher name) was feeding
Robin with biscuits ornamented with pink comfits. Robin was
devouring the biscuits, occasionally stopping to admire the
confectionery and to gaze with his lovely eyes at the lady.
"That is a fine boy," said Mrs. Aytoun, addressing Helen; "is he your
son?"
"Yes," said Helen. She always called him her son.
"He is not like you," said the visitor, glancing from the dark woman
to the fair boy.
This remark made Helen suspicious. She ceased to eat the bread and
sausages she had brought in, and glanced meaningly towards the door.
Mrs. Aytoun took the hint conveyed in this look by coming quickly to
the point and object of her visit.
"Your name is Helen?"
"Yes."
"Shall I tell you what I know about you?"
"I don't care."
"You are not an honest woman."
Had the policemen walked into the room Helen's face could not have
grown any whiter than it did at those words. She looked at Robin,
looked at the door, and would have fled had not Mrs. Aytoun laid her
hand on her arm.
"Don't run away; my business is not to frighten, but to help you,
_because_ you are the sort of woman I know you to be."
Helen was silent; she ceased, however, to look towards the door.
"I want to help you," continued the lady, "because, as I said, I know
you to be dishonest; therefore I also know that you must often be
unhappy and half-starved."
"True enough, Missus," said Helen; but then she added in a moment, "I
guess yer one o' them good sorts, ain't yer?"
"I don't know that I am very good, though I love goodness. What do
you mean?"
"Oh, one o' them preachment folks, wot comes and worries poor people
as 'ave other business to h'occupy them."
"I know the people you mean, but I don't think you judge them right."
"I guessed as yer were one o' them."
"Yes, I am one of them--at least, I am a Christian. I believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you?"
"Never heerd o' him," said Helen. "He ain't God, is he?"
"Why do you ask me that? He is God; you have made a very good guess."
"Well, ain't I 'cute?"
"But I am no longer at all surprised at your being the kind of woman
I find you to be," continued Mrs. Aytoun. "You have never been
helped knowingly by Jesus in your life. No wonder you love the bad."
"I was never helped by no one," said Helen.
"You are mistaken there; Jesus has helped you."
Helen started.
"For instance, you love your boy."
"Yes."
"Well, Jesus put that love into your heart; that love has hitherto
been the only thing good in you--am I not right?"
Helen nodded, stared very hard at Robin, and whisked a tear out of
her eye.
"Jesus loves you."
"Look here, missus," interrupted Helen; "that's religion, ain't it?"
"It is the beginning and end of all religion."
"Well, I don't want it. I'm a willin' to be 'elped, but not preached
to."
Mrs. Aytoun paused, and looking hard into the eyes of the restless,
half-starved woman, saw that at least at first she must bring her the
gospel through the loaves and fishes. She then unfolded the plan
that had really brought her there.
Possessed of great wealth, Mrs Aytoun had opened homes for such women
as Helen--for such children as Robin. She had taken several lost
women and neglected children to these pure, sweet, country homes, and
after a few months of the training which true love and kindness can
effect, given them means to emigrate. This grand chance she now
offered to Helen and Robin; she pictured the good and happy life
pleasantly and attractively, and she came at the right moment, for
Helen was weary, perplexed, alarmed.
In the midst of her conversation, a woman came in from a neighbouring
room, ran up to Helen, whispered some words in her ear, four of which
the visitor heard, "_In for a vamp_." She did not know what this
jargon meant, but Helen did only too well: she knew it was the
thieves' latin for convicted of stealing. She knew that the police
were almost on her heels.
Growing white even to the lips, she motioned the neighbour out of the
room, caught up Robin in her arms, and holding him tight to her
beating bosom, addressed Mrs. Aytoun:
"That 'ere's true, wot yer a tellin' me?"
"Yes, it is quite true."
"I'd sooner be there nor in quod" (prison). "Is it now we's to come,
missus?"
"I will take you to the refuge at once. I will go with you myself by
train."
"Me and the little un together?"
"You shall sometimes see your child, but the home for little children
is not in the same place."
At these words Helen, who had been moving towards the door, stopped
short, and the look of satisfaction faded out of her face. Very
tight was the pressure of the little sleepy arms round her neck, and
very strong the love for the boy in her heart; her love was stronger
than her fear.
She turned sharp on her visitor, all her gentleness gone, and the old
fierce Helen uppermost again.
"Didn't yer say as my love for the boy wor the o'ny good thing as I
'ad? well, we ain't agoin' to separate 'omes, and we ain't a goin' to
be parted. Yer uncommon ceevil, mum, to think o' it, but me and the
little un don't find it conwenient. There, good even to yer: yer
welcome to the room but not to the company."
Bearing Robin in her arms, she rushed downstairs; nor could Mrs.
Aytoun, though she tried, overtake her.
This good woman, a true sister to the poor, had lost Helen and Robin
through a mistake. She had forgotten a fact which yet a moment
before she herself had pointed out--she had forgotten that the one
Divine ray in the midst of all this moral darkness was Helen's love
for the boy. Through this love she might be saved, but never against
it. She was willing to go through all the dreary routine, for such
it seemed to her, of civilised life with the boy, but never without
him, never far away from him, feeling all the time that he was
learning to love others and forgetting her.
But as she clasped him to her bosom under an archway where for the
present she knew they both were safe, she felt that she had thrown
away both her own chance and his; yet just now, with his little face
close to hers, she was scarcely sorry.
Though a thief herself, she might still keep him from stealing--this
dream she had not yet abandoned.
As she sat so, her hands covering her face, the child pulled her
vigorously by the sleeve. "Look, mammy!" he said, pointing to an old
woman who was selling cherries in halfpenny bags at the opposite
corner; "Robin wants cerries," he pouted.
"Well, dearie," said Helen, "mammy's sorry, but she ain't got a
'ap'ny for her little boy; all those bags costs a 'ap'ny, Robin."
She thought Robin would have cried, but to her surprise he did not;
he looked round at her, smiled, then ran quickly across the road, hid
cleverly behind the old woman: when for a brief instant her back was
turned, secured a bag of cherries, and brought them back to Helen.
Helen saw it all--saw it all, too astonished to speak.
When he returned, and threw the stolen fruit in triumph into her lap,
she stood up and asked him quietly, and with no show of anger, who
taught him to do that:
"Old Moll," he said, mentioning the woman who had taken care of him
when Helen was in prison.
She took the bag of cherries and flung it violently far out of his
reach. Still she never scolded him, or told him he had done wrong.
That night, as he lay in her arms, she kissed him, but not so
fervently as of old. Her love, if not lessened, was lowered--he was
no longer her guardian angel.
From that night Robin was a thief, and Helen an all too ready and
anxious trainer. Not one vestige of right came near the boy, not one
scrap of moral training. It seemed to him as little wrong to prig
handkerchiefs, to steal from fruit-stalls, as it was to eat his
breakfast.
Still, as long as Helen was with him he was happy enough: his
conscience had never been touched, and therefore did not awake; and
though he had hard fare, he had never hard usage. Helen, passionate,
violent, unprincipled, had never given him an angry word in her life.
CHAPTER III.
_CRIME SHOWED HIM ONLY HER SMILING FACE._
This state of things continued until Robin was eight years old.
During all these years he and Helen had clung firmly to each other.
He called her, and believed her to be, his mother, and she gave him
far more love than many mothers bestow upon their children. They had
finally established themselves in the thieves' quarters, where alone
they could feel secure from the watchful eyes of the police, and here
they both lived by stealing.
But though living with the thieves, and sharing in all things their
spoils and their dangers, Helen would make no friends with the men
and women she associated with. She had not a vestige of affection to
bestow upon any one but Robin, and she and the child lived a life
apart. When times were prosperous, she and he shared a small attic
together; when times were hard, and her opportunities for purloining
scarce, they wandered the streets, sheltering at night under arches,
or wherever they could best evade the watchful eye of justice.
During these years Robin was happy. He lived in crime; but crime,
under Helen's wing, showed him only her smiling face. He was so
bright, so precocious, so full of courage and spirit, that before he
was eight years old he was a cleverer thief than Helen herself. The
old professional thieves admired him, and offered Helen large sums of
money to secure him altogether to themselves; but Helen would part
with Robin to no one, and while with her, he was, comparatively
speaking, safe.
Shortly before his eighth birthday a very dark time came to his
adopted mother and himself. In the first place, the police got wind
of the locality where they lived, and in considerable alarm the whole
community had to break up. It was the middle of winter, and Helen
and Robin found themselves penniless in the streets. That seemed a
truly dismal night in the little fellow's life, when, supperless and
homeless, he laid his head on his faithful Helen's breast, and cried
himself to sleep. He remembered it when darker nights came
by-and-by. For three months the two were almost starved. Wherever
they went the police seemed to know them, and they found it nearly
impossible to ply their evil trade. But at the end of three months
the dark cloud appeared to roll away, and the happiest and most
luxurious portion of Robin's young life arrived.
Helen, finding herself so well known to the police, determined to
shift her quarters. London was large; she might go to a part of
London where her face, and the child's face, would be unfamiliar.
Hitherto she had frequented the East-end; here she and those who
lived like her might best pursue their evil sports; but the West
could also afford her a shelter, and to the fashionable West-end she
now directed her steps.
Her first day there was marked with success. Spring was coming on,
the gay world was in town. She stole ten shillings' worth of goods,
and with the money thus secured took possession at once of a small
attic in a court at the back of Westminster. How happy were she and
Robin as they ate their first supper together in that wretched room!
There was no furniture, neither bed nor chair, but on a couple of
pen'orths of straw which Helen purchased they slept luxuriously, and
awoke refreshed.
"But 'tis an ugly room," said the petted child, looking round him as
he demanded his bread and treacle the next morning.
"Never mind, dearie; mother'll brighten it h'up for her pet,"
answered Helen, who could not bear to refuse him anything.
She had again a successful day, but at night she brought into the
empty room neither bed, chair, nor table, but two-and-sixpence worth
of gaily coloured prints, which she proceeded to paste on the walls.
This feat accomplished, both she and Robin considered the place to
look both gay and home-like; nor did they for many days afterwards
add furniture to their store.
For six weeks they lived unmolested in this attic, and those six
weeks were full of happiness to Robin. He had again enough and to
spare, food to eat, a roof to shelter him. Helen was never so
indulgent and loving, and, in addition, he had those coloured prints.
Those brilliantly-coloured prints opened up a new world to Robin.
In the long spring days that had now arrived, he used to awake early,
turn round on his back, and gaze at them. He knew them all by heart.
To him those men and women, who in gorgeous raiment laughed and
smiled and danced, seemed to represent all that was beautiful. Those
impossible flowers, that stage-painted scenery, opened fairy-land to
Robin. Never as long as he lived did he forget the gaudy walls of
his attic home. In reality, the wretched prints spoke of all that
was coarse and low in life; but to the innocent child they meant
beauty, and he learned no evil lessons thereby.
The prints, as I said, were coarse; but one, as great a daub as the
others, treated at least of a pure and child-like theme. A little
girl dressed in white, with curling hair, sat on a bank stringing
daisies into a chain. The bank was an impossible green, the child's
cheeks an unnatural red, the daisies in her lap were like no daisies
ever seen, while the sky over-head lowered down upon her an intense
Prussian blue. But Robin was not an art critic, and to him the
frightful production meant perfection. Of all the illustrations on
the wall, this was his favourite: he liked them all, he loved them
all, but he gave his heart to that little maiden in white, and he
never tired of asking Helen to tell him her imaginary story.
A few weeks passed thus, when one day, as they were out together,
they met an old acquaintance--in short, one of the thieves whom Robin
had known and dreaded when he lived in the thieves' quarters. A
pang, he knew not why, shot through his young heart when he saw him,
and neither was Helen pleased. The man accosted her, however, and
though she would not allow him to see her home, they talked together
for some time. Whatever their conversation--for they spoke partly in
metaphor, partly turning their sentences backwards--it seemed to
excite Helen; her bold, black eyes sparkled with something of their
old fire, her tones grew loud and eager.
Her companion was evidently entreating her to do something. She
hesitated; she looked at Robin; she demurred; finally, she yielded.
That night Robin went to sleep as usual with Helen by his side: he
remembered how passionately she kissed him just before he fell
asleep, but when the morning dawned she was gone. This had never
happened before, and for a moment or two the child felt uneasy, and
gazed around him anxiously; then his fears subsided, and, turning on
his straw bed, he made himself happy watching the little girl in
white, as she strung her daisies. At eleven o'clock Helen returned,
flushed, tired, exhausted, her dress torn, and the paint with which
she had tried to disguise her appearance scarcely washed away from
her face.
She gave Robin his breakfast, locked the door, put the key in her
pocket, and telling him to make no noise, for she was tired and
sleepy, flung herself on her wretched bed, and slumbered all day.
Robin loved her dearly, and he now obeyed her commands to the letter.
He sat down on the floor by her side, gazed from her to his pictures,
from all his pictures to the one beloved picture Finally laid his
curly head next Helen's, and also passed into the land of dreams.
It was almost night when the woman and child awoke. She held out her
arms for him, clasped him to her breast, and kissed him. Her long
sleep had refreshed her, and she was now in capital spirits.
"What shall mother do for her good little boy? Robin has been good
and quiet to-day."
"Tell us a story, mammie!" he answered eagerly.
Helen sat up, smiled, and complied.
"Wot about?" she asked.
"My little gal!" he said, pointing to his pet picture.
Helen had given him many a fanciful account of this child with the
brilliant cheeks; she found herself equal to the occasion now.
"Once," she began, "there wos a little gal, a poor little gal----"
"Werry poor, wos she, mammie?" asked Robin, setting himself
comfortably in her arms.
"Uncommon!" answered Helen in an impressive voice. "She was that
poor that she hadn't a bite to h'eat nor a sup to drink. Orften and
orften, fur twenty-four hours on the stretch, she 'ud taste neither
bite nor sup."
"My h'eyes!" answered Robin. "She must 'ave been pretty nigh fixed."
"Orften," pursued Helen, "she laid herself down from sheer
h'exhaustion, and she would have died but for wan thing."
"Wot wos that?" in a voice of great interest.
"'Er sperrit, lad; she wor h'all made h'up of sperrit, and she 'ud
let nothink daunt 'er. Arter she 'ud rested fur a bit, she'd be h'up
and about again, and then food 'ud come arter h'all."
"How?" asked Robin.
"Oh! she lived on 'er wits."
Robin made no remark, for the simple reason that he knew quite well
what living on one's wits meant. He was silent for a moment, then he
said, looking solemnly at his adopted mother--
"Wot wos that 'ere little gal's name?"
It was now Helen's time to pause and consider, for this asking of the
name was the crucial point of the narrative. The narrative was
always the same,--the same almost to the identical words, for Helen
had told the story of the child in white almost every night since her
picture had graced the walls; but the name must on each occasion be
different, and the finding of a fresh name for each demand for the
thrilling tale taxed her ingenuity to the utmost. Now a happy
thought occurred to her: she remembered the name of the heroine of
the last penny gaff she had gone to.
"Almira," she said; "Almira wos 'er name."
"That's a rare 'un," answered Robin, with a sigh of satisfaction.
"Well," proceeded Helen, "there came a day w'en Almira had nothink to
h'eat,--never a bite. She wandered about h'all day, but try as she
would, she couldn't crib so much as an apple from an old apple-woman;
'er luck was h'all gone dead agen 'er. She went walkin' h'up and
down, and when night came, she was that spent, she sat down on a
door-step and began to cry; and while she was crying another little
gal, dressed in white, wearin' a neat little hat----"
"With daisies on it?" interrupted Robin.
"Yes, trimmed h'awful fine wid daisies. She came h'up, and she gave
little Almira a whole threepenny bit."
Helen said these words calmly, and Robin opened his great eyes wide
at the magnitude of the gift.
"When Almira got the money, she stopped cryin' and stared at the
pretty little gal; and the little gal said--
"'Poor Almira; come and buy a bun.' And she took 'er 'and, and they
bought a real fat bun for a penny, and the little girl gave Almira
back the twopence in change. Then the little gal said again, 'You're
tired, poor Almira, come and sleep;' and she led 'er h'out--right
h'out of the big city into a green, green field, and they lay down
side by side on the soft grass, and the stars came h'out h'in the sky
h'over 'ead. And Almira never slept so sound in 'er life. In the
morning the little gal said, 'Almira, you shall 'ave a beautiful
white frock like mine,' and she dressed little Almira h'all in white
like herself, only Almira had no flowers; but Almira wanted the
flowers, and she began to cry. Then the little gal was sorry, and
she took little Almira a long walk through a wood, and at the other
side of the wood was a field h'all studded h'over with real livin'
daisies as thick as peas, and little Almira sat down and began to
make daisy-chains, just like the picture there."
Here Helen paused. Having come to the point where the illustration
on the wall could be used, she brought her narrative to an abrupt
conclusion; having, indeed, nothing further to say.
Robin gave a deep sigh of satisfaction, but he had a question to ask.
"'Ow did that 'ere little gal in white know Almira's name?" he
demanded.
"Oh! she warn't a real little gal; she was a fairy-gal."
"And does fairies know h'everythink?"
"Lor' bless yer, Robin; you, nor the learnest man livin' couldn't
beat a fairy for knowingness."
"Well, 'tis real pretty," answered Robin, "and I'd like to meet a
fairy as 'ud give me things."
Helen was silent for a few moments, then she said in an abrupt tone--
"Would yer like to see somethink as 'ud--somethink more beautifuller
than the fairy h'ever gave to Almira?"
"Oh yes, yes, mother."
"And yer'el never tell about it to nobody?"
"Never."
"Then come to the winder."
The sun had by this time gone down, and it was by the light of a
bright moon under the tiny skylight that Helen showed to Robin a
brilliant and most valuable diamond ring.
The child gave an exclamation of surprise and delight, as he gazed at
the sparkling treasure.
"Does Robin know wot this 'ul do for 'im and 'is h'old mammie?"
"No, mammie--wot, wot?"
Then Helen sat down again on the floor, and taking the child in her
arms, told him a wonderful story--a story beside which the poor tale
of Almira and her fairy faded into nothing. That ring was very
valuable; it would bring in money--a lot of money. Helen meant to
sell the ring and get the money.
"Would Robin like to know what she intended to do with that money?"
"Yes," answered the eager child in an excited voice.
"Well, she would do a wonderful thing. She was tired of London;
Robin was tired of London: she and Robin should leave London for
ever. Robin liked flowers and green fields; he should sec them--live
amongst them. He and Helen would go away in a big ship, far over the
blue, blue sea, to a far-away country. There they could live in the
green fields, and gather the flowers and be happy--a thousand, ten
thousand times happier than they ever were in London!
"And prig things?" asked Robin. "Will it be h'easy to prig things
h'out there, mother?"
"No, no, laddie; we'll not prig--we'll do nothink there as we did
here."
"But why, mammie?"
"Cause we'll lead an h'altogether fresh life--we'll be honest h'out
there."
"What's honest?" asked the child.
"Never mind; I'll tell you wen we get there."
Robin was silent; Helen clasped him closely in her arms. His
question had caused some emotion in her heart: her hard face was
softened; there was a contraction of pain on her brow.
"What's honest?" asked the little child.
Oh that she could tell him--that she dared to tell him! Helen had
not even yet lost all love for virtue. And at this moment, in that
poor heart, the desire after goodness was strong. When they went to
America, she and the child might give up being thieves. In America
it might be possible for them both neither to starve nor to eat the
bread of dishonesty. Thus, at this moment, the longing that the new
life might be an honest life was the most passionate feeling she had
concerning it.
The child, weary of her silence, fell asleep in her arms. The moon
shone full on the black lashes lying on the round cheek, on the
golden-crowned head, on the sweet smiling lips. Oh! how she loved
him! how sweet it would be to her even yet, notwithstanding all her
sin and defilement, to feel that he might grow up good, virtuous, and
happy!
She took the diamond ring again out of her pocket, looking with
pleasure at its flashing gems. Poor Helen! by this evil road she
thought she could reach the safe path of virtue.
CHAPTER IV.
_THE SHOPS FROM END TO END WERE WIDELY OPEN._
The next morning Helen got up early, gave Robin his breakfast of cold
ham which she had bought in slices, tea and bread and butter. She
also made a capital meal herself. Having washed and put away their
poor breakfast service, which consisted of a cracked old sugar-basin,
a black tea-pot with half a spout, a dinner plate, pewter spoon, and
old knife, she proceeded to tidy herself, and to put on some garments
of a more respectable nature than those she wore on ordinary
occasions. She also made Robin as smart as her resources would
permit. Then taking his hand she went out, locking the attic door
behind her. It was Sunday, and when Helen and Robin got into the
street, they saw some groups of happy-looking children on their way
to Sunday school.
"Are we goin' in the big ship to-day, mother?" enquired the little
boy.
"May-be, may-be, my pet; but don't talk of it," answered Helen.
Her face had an anxious expression to-day; she looked nervously
behind her more than once. Her fine spirits of the night before had
completely deserted her.
The two walked on for some time in silence. Then Helen hailed a
passing omnibus, and mounted on the roof with Robin. This omnibus
took them as far as the Bank. As they passed St. Paul's, they heard
the sweet sound of the bells calling them, and such as them, to
worship God; but neither woman nor child listened or heeded; they
were bound on a very different errand.
When they arrived at the Bank, Helen again took Robin's hand, and
walked quickly with him through the quiet and deserted city into a
very different region. Here she was in well-known quarters, and here
she saw plenty of life and movement. No Sabbath calm met her here.
It was church time--a time when no costermonger who valued his
liberty would dare to remain selling his oranges in Holborn or
Westminster; but here, in Mitre Street, Aldgate, the law which
teaches man to pay some outward respect to the Sabbath seemed neither
to be enforced nor regarded. The shops from end to end were widely
open; the shopkeepers boldly proclaimed their goods; buyers were
bidding, fighting, and pushing their way to newly-discovered
bargains. The streets were actually swarming with costermongers, who
sold cherries, strawberries, ices, and every conceivable and
inconceivable eatable. This busy scene caused Helen not the least
surprise; she walked steadily on through the crowd, nodding now and
then to a chance acquaintance, but entering into conversation with no
one. Anybody who watched her face would have seen that the nervous
expression was more marked there--that she started when each fresh
friend addressed her--that she seemed feverishly anxious to reach her
destination.
It is the law of England that until one o'clock on Sunday morning all
public-houses are obliged to be closed; this law is enforced with
severe punishment to those who transgress it. Nevertheless now, a
little before noon on this Sabbath morning, it was to a tavern or
public-house that Helen bent her steps. No policeman was there to
hinder or say her nay.
Giving Robin a penny to play pitch-and-toss with some other boys, and
telling him to wait for her, she pushed aside the swinging door and
went in. She entered on an unusual scene. This tavern or
public-house was evidently meant to combine a twofold object. The
last things that could apparently be placed in conjunction met here;
the tavern was also a jeweller's shop. It might perhaps be better
described as a second-hand plate and jewel bazaar, to which was
joined a drinking-bar.
Helen, on entering, walked down a passage, and opened another door
covered with green baize. Here she was greeted with an immense cloud
of cigar smoke. In the centre of the room were a crowd of people,
some fifty or sixty, unmistakably Jews. Round the room were ranged
tables literally heaped with precious things--silver spoons, silver
tea and breakfast services, tea-kettles, cups, vases. Watches were
in such numbers that they might have been sold by the half hundred.
On every side brisk business was going on.
When Helen found herself in the midst of this busy, motley crowd she
glanced eagerly round; then, apparently relieved from some anxiety,
marched up with a firm step and business-like air to an old Jew,
whose table, containing rings, brooches, studs, &c., was a little
apart from the others, and pulling out an old purse extracted from it
her treasure--the valuable diamond ring she had shown to Robin the
night before.
The old Jew examined it eagerly, turned it over, flung it on the
counter, took it up again; finally offered Helen fifty pounds for a
gem worth a thousand.
Helen, however, had set her own value on the ring, and was too clever
and knowing to be cheated out of what she considered her due. She
would give the Jew the ring for one hundred sovereigns, paid down in
gold on the spot. Whatever the reason, this offer was not acceded
to; and Helen, with the valuable ring still in her possession, left
the shop to try her fortune elsewhere.
She was excited now, and defiant. Calling Robin, she went along the
street, for a house of a similar character was to be found at the
other end.
Poor Helen! she never thought of danger, when danger of the kind she
most dreaded was at her heels. A policeman now followed her down the
street. When she reached its end, she again told Robin to wait for
her, and promising to return in a few moments, turned the corner.
Then and there she was arrested, and the diamond ring being found on
her person, she was carried off to prison charged with the burglary
she was engaged in two nights before.
CHAPTER V.
_JUSTICE AND THE LAW MIGHT HAVE
STOOD STILL._
Robin waited for Helen for an hour--for two hours. By the end of
this time he was tired at playing pitch-and-toss--tired also of
waiting for his only friend. He was not at all uneasy, however.
Helen had found some reason for starting home without him.
He had won a few pence at his game; he bought a penny bun, wandered
about until he felt tired, then started back at a swinging pace to
his attic in Westminster.
He was really disappointed when he found the door locked and no Helen
within: but he was not alarmed; such things had often happened
before. He lay down on the narrow landing outside the door, curled
himself up like a little dog, and slept till morning.
He was rather surprised at no Helen greeting him in the morning; he
was more disappointed, however, than frightened. His merry heart did
not fail him, and he started on his day's rounds, whistling a gay
street tune, and with a penny in his pocket. He bought some fusees
with his penny, and began to hawk them about for sale, watching with
a keen eye his chance of securing, at least, a pocket handkerchief
when the bobbies were not looking. His one fear in life was the
bobbies, otherwise he had courage sufficient to expend in a worthier
cause.
A little girl and her mother went by; the little girl was dressed
beautifully, she had dainty boots and a white summer frock. As she
passed by Robin, who was hungry, dirty, waiting for his opportunity
to steal, she dropped, without knowing it, a tiny purse made of silk,
and ornamented with silver tassels. The purse itself, independent of
what it contained, was a prize. Quick as thought, Robin darted
forward and secured it, then stepped back into his place as if
nothing had happened.
The child had nearly reached the opposite side of the crossing before
she missed the purse. Her pretty face flushed up and she began to
cry. Robin could not bear this; though a thief, he was
tender-hearted; he ran after the child and gave her back her purse.
In doing this he was giving up his best chance of breakfast, dinner,
supper--no mean sacrifice.
"Oh! thank you," said the child, drying her tears and smiling
joyfully. "I'm so much obliged to you. Where did you find it?
Mother, may I give this poor little boy sixpence for finding my
pretty purse?"
"No, no, dear," replied the mother, who had observed Robin's dirt,
and feared some infectious disease. "I have no spare sixpences about
me, and the boy simply did his duty. Come on!"
"My purse only holds one crown-piece, but I may break that, may I
not, mother?"
"What! your grandfather's present! I am surprised at you, Ada; come
on!"
"Well, I _will_ shake hands with him," said the wilful child, running
up to Robin and taking his brown hand in hers, "Thank you, dear, nice
little boy! I'm so glad to have my pretty purse again."
For an hour after this Robin's heart thumped joyfully; he was so
happy that he forgot to steal; but at the end of that time hunger
compelled him to purloin a silk pocket handkerchief from a fat old
gentleman who was waiting to cross at the Bank. On this spoil he
managed to live for that day and part of the next; and so, stealing a
little, begging a little, working a little, in short, existing "on
his wits," as he termed it, a fortnight and even three weeks, went by.
During all this time he had never heard a single word about Helen.
Night after night he went back to the attic where last they had been
together, but he and she were both strangers in that part, and the
people about could tell him nothing. He became uneasy, frightened;
his buoyant spirits were giving way; he was a very little fellow to
be quite thrown on his own resources in London, and he began
seriously to grieve for the woman whom he believed to be his mother.
One day a crowd of people were pushing and jostling to get into the
court at the Old Bailey. Robin, very fond of mingling in crowds, ran
quickly to join them, and when they filed into the building and
filled that portion of it allotted to the public, he pushed and
struggled with his agile little body until he found himself in a very
prominent position.
The scene before him was novel, he could not understand it. Near him
stood a good-natured-looking woman, of whom he asked some eager
questions. Several people who had committed a daring city burglary
were about to be tried and punished, she told him.
"Wot's a burglary?" asked the young thief, looking up innocently.
"Why, bless us and save us! breakin' into 'ouses, lad, and makin' off
with other folks' belongings. This case about to be tried was one of
shop-lifting, and they do say the parties carried orf, besides gems
innumerable, more 'n a hundred diamond rings. My man, wot's in the
same business, told me h'all about it."
Robin suddenly grew pale and silent. A hundred diamond rings! What
was that tale Helen had told him the last night they were together?
How very flush of money Helen had been that night! What a prime
supper she had treated him to, and how loving she had been! But
surely, surely she had told him something about diamonds, had even
shown him a diamond ring that flashed and sparkled in his hand.
Suddenly, with these rapidly recurring memories, the boy felt himself
growing intensely anxious, intensely old, intensely wise. He had a
kind of presentiment of what was coming, and hardly started when the
next moment Helen herself was led into the prisoners' dock.
During the trial that followed, he scarcely breathed;
incomprehensible as most of it was to him, he listened to every word,
held quiet by a tension and dread which he could not explain away.
Never, until the sentence was pronounced, and Helen Morris was doomed
to five years' penal servitude, did Robin stir. Just then, the
wretched prisoner, whose eyes had hitherto been fixed on the ground,
raised them; the first thing she encountered was the sorrowful gaze
of the only creature on earth she loved. She uttered a shrill sharp
cry, and covered her face with her hands.
At this cry, the torpor, which had hitherto kept Robin quiet, left
him; he became like a little fury, and fighting his way savagely to
right and left, found his way to her side. For one half instant
Helen held him in her arms.
Let him stay there! he may never again receive a loving embrace.
Oh! I think, I think even Justice and the Law might have stood still
for one moment to let that woman and that child take another kiss.
But no, the police dragged him away, the crowd hustled him out. With
jeers and cries of "Thief!" "Son of a thief!" he found himself in the
open air.
The woman who had spoken to him kindly, pointed now at him with a
finger of scorn: and two or three boys, out of mischief, raised the
cry of "Stop, thief!"
The terrified, angry, sorrowful child, began by giving battle--ended
by flying from his tormentors. Down street after street did they
pursue him, each moment adding numbers to their train. He ran
faster, faster; down court and alley. A church with an open door met
his eye; he rushed in for shelter.
Into a crimson-cushioned pew he ran. There was no one there. He
curled himself up on the softest cushion, and in this calm, sacred
spot, cried himself to sleep.
In his sleep he dreamt of Helen, and of the beautiful child who had
spoken to him kindly. His sorrows were forgotten; he was smiling and
dreaming peacefully, when suddenly a hand seized him by his rough
hair, and a voice said rudely--
"Now, then, you little varmint, make yerself scarce, this _minute_.
Lying down and going to sleep in my lord's pew! 'Tis to the p'leece
I should 'and _you_ h'over. What next, I wonder?"
As Robin was being ignominiously expelled from God's house, the organ
was pealing forth solemn strains, the choir-boys were filing into
their places, and my lord himself was approaching his crimson-lined
pew. It was a great festival, for which special preparations had
been made; who can wonder at the verger being annoyed with Robin?
For it had evidently never occurred to this verger, that He for whom
the church was built, He, whom they worshipped with solemn strains of
music, and much pomp and solemnity, had yet considered this little
waif and stray sufficiently worthy of notice to die for him.
PART IV.
_HOW HE FARED,_
"So leave, oh! leave the children
To ignorance and woe,
And I'll come in and teach them
The way that they should go."
CHARLES MACKAY.
--_Souls of the Children._
CHAPTER I.
_HIS BROTHER--THE PHILANTHROPIST._
As Robin was standing rubbing his tear-stained eyes outside the
church door, a man, who considered himself a philanthropist, but was
not, passed by.
He saw the disreputable-looking child, observed that he stood almost
inside the church porch, and thought it a nice opportunity for
holding forth to this young sinner on the error of his ways.
Judging correctly by Robin's outward appearance that he was a little
scapegrace, a regular scamp of the streets, and assuming incorrectly
that he was hardened within, he set to work on the much-practised
principle of making hard, harder.
"Come, come, my lad, what are you idling there for? If you don't
want to go into the church you had better be off about your business.
Don't you know now"--this in a would-be patronising tone--"that
idling is very sinful?"
While the gentleman was speaking, Robin had been running his bright
eyes all over him, and inwardly speculating how best he might secure
his pocket handkerchief: finding, however, that he was expected to
reply, he hung his head and said,
"Dunno."
"You don't know!" repeated the gentleman, getting wroth. "Did your
mother never tell you that verse out of the Bible--'If a man will not
work, neither shall he eat?'"
"Dunno," said Robin, more helplessly than before.
"Gracious me! what ignorance, and in a Christian land! Where do you
go to school, lad?"
"Doesn't go nowheres," said Robin.
"But you are over the age; the Board ought to know of this. What's
your home address?" taking out his pocket-book.
"Eh?" questioned Robin.
"Don't you understand me, child? Where do you sleep at night?"
"Hany wheres."
"Well, where?"
"Nowheres in 'ticlar."
The gentleman returned his pocket-book to the seclusion of his pocket
in a mild, not an acute, fit of despair.
"Did not suppose there was such a case left in London--a homeless
child! Really very interesting; wonder what his ideas of religion
are?"
This man never gave a thought to the poor little starving body.
"Now, my lad, you have heard of God, of course?"
"Yes, zir."
"Ah! What do you know about Him?"
"Don't know nothink but His name--give us a 'ap'ny, zir."
"Gracious me! what depravity! Confesses that he knows nothing of
God, and in the same breath asks for a halfpenny." This the
gentleman whispered to himself; aloud, he said, "Listen, boy, I am
really anxious to help you, but I make it a rule never to give to
beggars. You are a strong lad, and should work for your living. But
your ignorance is frightful; you tell me to my face you know nothing
of your Creator. Now you must go to school--Will you? I will give
you the address of one that will receive you."
"Yes, zir; yes, zir. Give us a 'ap'ny, zir. I be rare and 'ungry,
zir."
"No, I make it a principle never to encourage idling; you must work
for your halfpenny, I have told you this already. There are a
thousand things you can do; go as an errand-boy, sweep a
crossing--your hands were not given you for nothing; but here,"
taking a card out of his pocket, "is the address of a nice ragged
school, opened for little boys like you. Let me persuade you, my
dear lad, to go there this evening; any one will read the address I
have written here for you."
He put the card into Robin's hand and moved off, the boy raising
after him once more his shrill cry--
"I be rare and 'ungry, zir; give us a 'ap'ny, and God bless yer."
A moment or two later the gentleman missed his pocket handkerchief,
which Robin soon sold for a plentiful meal. It never occurred to him
that Robin was the thief, for the child had an innocent, nay,
contradictory as it may sound, an honest, open expression, which
forbade any such thought in connection with him.
The gentleman walked on, pleased with himself and his well-chosen
words: he had read the little street lad a lecture, and put him in
the way of entering the paths of goodness. It never crossed his mind
that he might have employed his time better by giving Robin the
halfpenny he desired; or, better still, by putting him in the way of
earning it for himself. He walked on, well pleased with himself, but
nevertheless shocked for Robin.
"Ignorant of all but the name of the Almighty! Who'd have thought
it? who _would_ have thought it, in our enlightened days, and without
a home, too. I did not suppose there was such a case left in London.
What with our industrial schools, and reformatories, and ragged
schools, and refuges of all sorts, there ought not to be one such
child now left in London."
Quite right, Mr. Philanthropist--there _ought_ not to be; but what if
it has been proved by the most careful computation that cases such as
Robin's, number in our city, not by hundreds, but by thousands?*
* "The number of destitutes, or homeless juveniles under sixteen
years of age in London, cannot be less than thirty thousand."--_From
a paper read before the Social Science Congress at Liverpool, Oct._
1876
CHAPTER II.
_WHAT THE COUNTRY FOLKS DID FOR HIM._
That night Robin, for the first time, as far as man was concerned,
utterly friendless, lay down under an archway to sleep. He had often
slept under archways, and his position outwardly was no different
from what it had been the night before. The philanthropist's pocket
handkerchief had yielded him a bun for his supper; he was not hungry,
he was stupid and tired from sorrow, and he quickly fell asleep; but
his sleep was not happy, his loneliness pursued him even into the
land of dreams. He was alone, quite alone, that was the thought that
haunted him. Suddenly he was awakened by a very gentle sound in his
ear, and the sensation of something warm rubbing his cheek.
There was light enough on that summer evening for him to see the
cause of the gentle sound and the warmth. A large, well-fed tabby
cat had curled herself up close to him, was purring the softest, most
soothing purr of satisfaction, and was looking at him from out of her
comfortable face with considerable interest, and even affection. The
fact was, the cat had wandered too far from home, was a trifle
hungry, and a trifle cold; she found a few crumbs about Robin, and a
little heat in remaining close to his person. It was her intention
to spend the night with him.
All his little life Robin had been fond of animals. The very first
present Helen had given him had been a blind puppy, which in the
excess of his affection he had worried to death. Now he hailed the
arrival of the large, sleek cat with delight. He pressed her in his
arms, and laid his cheek against hers; and when he felt the quick
beat of her heart against his own, his great loneliness vanished.
Thus his second sleep was sound and happy.
When in the early morning he awoke and prepared to set off to pilfer
in Covent Garden, his friend rose also; but her services, as far as
he was concerned, were at an end. She refused his caresses, whisked
her tall at his approach, and, vanishing round the corner,
disappeared in the direction of her own happy home. Nevertheless,
for a few hours she had comforted him, and he whistled more merrily
that day under the vague hope that she would return the next night to
the same archway, and allow him to stroke down her soft rich fur, and
take her in his arms once more. But his hope was vain; the grey cat
was faithless, and again he was alone.
He sat down under the archway, pressed his little head on his
childish hands, and tried to think. He had never known such utter
loneliness before, and it was now loneliness without hope. There was
no chance now of Helen returning to him. Days, weeks, months would
not bring Helen back to him. She had been shut up in prison for
years, and years seemed as long as eternity to the little child. He
missed Helen, he missed the attic where he had been happy for so
long. He thought again of that last night when they had been so
contented together. How kind Helen had been to him that night! and
what bright promises she had made for the future! They were going
away in a ship--he and she; going across the ocean to a bright and
pleasant land, where the fields were green, and the flowers blossomed
in numbers. They were to leave the dingy, dirty city, and go to a
place where they would neither be hungry nor unhappy again. It all
sounded very delightful to Robin, and it would have happened had
Helen not been put in prison. His tears dropped heavily as he
thought of it now. He fell asleep after a time, for a child will
sleep through every sorrow; but he awoke the next morning feeling
dull and unrefreshed.
For the first time his gay heart had utterly failed him. He did not
go as usual to Covent Garden. He had a penny in his pocket: with
this penny he bought some breakfast at a coffee-stall, then walked
aimlessly along the streets. As he did so, a great waggon full of
hay passed slowly by. A boy, a good deal older than Robin, had
curled himself up in the back part of the waggon, and was preparing
to have a ride and a sleep in the fragrant hay.
Just as the great load was passing where Robin stood, the driver
discovered this boy, and with a heavy slash of his whip unearthed him
from his hiding-place.
"Look here, yer young warmint: ef I catches yer at that ere work
agen, 'tis to the p'leece I'll 'and yer h'over, and then yer'll know
wot the Lock-h'up's like."
The boy slunk away, but Robin's heart awoke with a new hope as these
words sounded on his ears. He believed he had discovered a way back
to Helen. When Helen was arrested, she was taken to the Lock-up.
That was the place where every one on whom the police were able to
lay their hands was taken. From the Lock-up they went to be tried;
from their place of trial they were sent to prison. Helen herself
had told Robin this, and it occurred to him now, with a great flutter
of hope in his heart and a flash of fresh light in his eyes, that he
had found a way back to Helen. How often he had trembled and turned
pale at the word--the dreadful word, Prison! but nothing now was half
so horrible as this loneliness, without his one and only friend. He
would even go to prison to find Helen again; and here--here was the
way made plain to him. If he, instead of that other boy, got up into
that warm bed amongst the hay, why, then, the driver would send him
to the Lock-up; and from thence, after a time--he hoped a short
time--he should go to prison and find his beloved Helen again.
This idea had scarcely entered his head before his resolve was taken.
His movements were light and agile as a bird's; he ran behind the
waggon, vaulted into the place where the other boy had been, and
curled himself up in the warm, fragrant hay.
The step he had taken was a daring one, and for a time his heart beat
high with a feeling of half hope, half fear; then the luxury of his
present berth, after the cold dreariness of last night's
resting-place under the archway, told on his weary limbs. His head
began to nod, his brown eyes to close, and presently the little
fellow fell fast asleep. It seemed to him hours, almost a lifetime,
before he awoke again.
The motion of the slow-going waggon had brought on very sweet and
dreamless sleep, and when he opened his eyes he was sorely puzzled to
know where he was. His wonder was all the greater, because now the
waggon had come to its destination, the horses had been taken away,
and Robin found himself tilted further and more securely into his
hiding-place.
When memory returned to him, which of course it did after a little
time, he still lay without moving; he was really too comfortable to
stir. Then he stretched out his hand, and drew the fragrant hay
close to him, and smelt it: finally, curiosity awoke in his breast;
he raised his head cautiously and looked out. The scene he saw
astonished him; nay more, it nearly took his breath away. Bending
over the waggon, sheltering all its great load of hay, was a vast,
wide-spreading oak tree. The leaves of this great tree were so close
to Robin when he put out his head, that some of them actually brushed
against his forehead. He raised his eyes to look up into this world
of green. Beyond it, looking bluer than he had ever beheld it
before, he caught a glimpse of the sky. A bird, his own namesake in
fact, sang down to him from the boughs of the oak tree. He pushed
his head out a little farther, and gazed eagerly about him.
A whole brood of yellow, downy chickens, led by their anxious parent,
were pecking, scratching, fighting for the seed which dropped from
the hay. These chickens had come close to Robin, and one or two of
them even saw him, and stared up impudently with their bright black
eyes. A little farther on he saw a house--a house with a deep porch,
covered over with creepers and bright flowers. Lying half within the
shelter of the porch was an old watch-dog, fast asleep. A couple of
children, sunburnt and rosy-cheeked, played near the dog.
Away in the distance were fields studded with haycocks; fields, also,
wavy with the yet unripe corn. But close, close to the old house,
almost within a stone's throw of where Robin lay, was a smaller
field, studded also--richly studded; but with something else,--white,
white daisies.
The moment he saw the field with the daisies--for from Helen's
description he knew they must be daisies--his quick wits returned to
him, and he remembered why he had got into the waggon--and why, in
short, he was here at all. The sight of the daisies had brought back
the coloured picture in the old attic--had brought back, with a
painful heart-longing, the thought of Helen. Well! he was all
right, he was certain now to be taken to the Lock-up--certain now to
be given back to Helen. If the other boy, who was only a few moments
in that delightful hiding-place, was worthy of so severe a
punishment, how thoroughly must he--Robin--deserve it! He had been a
long time in the waggon; he had been asleep amongst the hay.
No--there was certainly no fear--not the very least fear of his
escaping punishment. He chuckled to himself at the thought, and
wondered what the people, who by-and-by would send him to the
Lock-up, would think did they know that while they believed they were
punishing him, they were in reality furthering his dearest wishes?
These pleasant ideas had just occurred to him when a fresh object
appeared to distract his attention.
A woman came out of the house, and stood in the porch just where
Robin, by raising his head very cautiously, could get a full view of
her. She was a very comely, rosy-faced woman. Such a woman as Robin
had never seen in all his life before. Her round, apple-blossom
cheeks, her contented eyes, her smooth forehead, all denoted that she
and want--she and care--she and suffering--were strangers. She and
they had never exchanged a hand-clasp. Into her life of full and
plenty, these destroyers had not intruded. Shading her eyes from the
hot rays of the afternoon sun, the woman looked around her, to right
and left of her. Presently her eyes fell on the two little children
at her feet; she smiled down at them, then said in her rich, cheery
tones--
"Run into the house, Pansy and Cherry. Dinner's ready--a nice apple
turnover for each little pet."
Laughing and clapping their hands, the sunburnt children disappeared,
and the woman was about to follow them, when a peculiarly clucking
sound from the old hen, which still remained close to Robin, drew her
attention.
She stepped across the farmyard, came near the downy brood of
chickens, and began reckoning them with a very satisfied expression
on her comely face.
A slight rustling in the straw overhead caused her to raise her eyes,
and there and then she encountered the fixed, half-frightened,
half-impudent gaze of the little waif and stray who had been brought
to her doors.
It took but an instant for Robin to tumble out of his hiding-place,
to go on his knees and whine out with a piteous intonation--
"Please, please 'm, 'ow soon'll yer send me to the Lock-h'up?"
"Bless us and save us!" said Mrs. Martin, the farmer's wife. She
fell back a pace or two in her astonishment, and flushed deeply, half
with fear, half with amusement.
"Where did you come from, little boy?" she asked, when she could find
her voice.
"From Lunnon, please, lady. Please, am I to be took to the
Lock-h'up?"
"John Jones," called out Mrs. Martin, using her by no means weak
lungs to some purpose. "I say, John Jones, come here, and be quick
about it. See," she added, as the burly driver of the waggon
answered her summons, "what you brought back with you along with the
unsold hay."
"The young warmint!" exclaimed Jones, scratching his head. "Well,
well," thrusting his great hand into the hole where Robin had
concealed himself, "he'll catch it. Didn't I tell yer as yer'd catch
it?" he added, laying his hand with a rough shake on the child's thin
shoulder.
"No, no; that was the other boy!" exclaimed Robin. "I heard yer say
as yer'd take the h'other boy to the Lock-h'up, and I wanted to be
took, so I 'id h'up among the straw. I say, worn't it warm?"
"Shall I take 'im away, missus?" asked Jones, utterly ignoring
Robin's confession, which, indeed--nor can I blame him--he failed to
understand.
"By no means," answered Mrs. Martin good-humouredly; "leave the
little fellow for a few moments; I daresay he is hungry. Follow me,
little one."
There is no doubt that Robin was hungry, ravenously hungry, and he
certainly lost neither time nor inclination in following his hostess
into the big, bright, warm kitchen, where, indeed, he beheld luxuries
his ignorant young soul had never even dreamed of.
By this time Pansy and Cherry had demolished their apple turnovers;
and when they saw their mother and the little ragged stranger, they
scrambled off their chairs and ran forward to meet them; but Mrs.
Martin, perceiving Robin's dirt, would permit of no contact with her
own children. She believed herself an excellent Christian and a
charitable woman; but both her charity and Christianity would only
carry her certain lengths.
Motioning the eager Pansy and Cherry back with a wave of her hand and
t quick, sharp word, she called to Robin to follow her to the
scullery. Here the kitchen-maid, Betty, regaled him plentifully with
cold pork and potatoes; but even she did not care to touch the
neglected child.
Robin, however, oblivious of all possible want of manners in his
treatment, regarded himself as the luckiest boy in the world. But in
the delight of satisfying the cravings of his healthy appetite, he
was not so overpowered as to forget his primary object; and when he
had finished such a meal as Betty afterwards declared "no Christian
'ad ever got inside of hisself afore," he suddenly darted past her,
right into the kitchen, and up to Mrs. Martin's side.
"Stand back, little fellow," said Mrs. Martin, not unkindly, as,
coming too near, he trod on her clean print gown.
"Please 'm," said Robin, "I'm a ready now!"
"For what, child?"
"To be took to the Lock-h'up. I 'as h'eat full and plenty, and I'm
quite ready."
"But I don't want to send you to any Lock-up, little boy; I am glad
you had a meal to eat. Run away now; Betty will show you to the
gate: you are quite ten miles out of London."
At these words of Mrs. Martin's Robin felt his buoyant heart utterly
failing him. Was it possible that his daring enterprise was going to
fail after all?
"Ain't I to be a punished?" he asked.
"No, no; foolish child, what am I to punish you for?"
"Ain't it real bad to curl h'up and go to sleep in the nice 'ot 'ay?
I thought as it wor real bad."
"It was not a very nice thing to do, but I forgive you."
"But, oh! 'm please 'm, I doesn't want to be forgive."
By this time Mrs. Martin was both puzzled and annoyed.
"You are talking nonsense, child--what do you want?"
"To be took to the Lock-h'up."
"Little idiot! what do you mean? you must be mad to wish to go to
such a place."
"I ain't mad, I ain't--I wants fur to see Helen."
"Who is Helen?"
"Ohl she's my mother, and she's in prison; and ef I went to the
Lock-h'up I'd be took back to 'er--oh! oh! oh!"
Here Robin's courage and fortitude failed him, and he began to sob
most piteously.
But Mrs. Martin saw neither his tears nor his misery.
Before the revelation he had unwittingly made, both her charity and
her Christian principle gave way. What creature was this she had
taken into the shelter of her respectable house? had fed, and offered
hospitality and kind words to? a little gamin from the London
streets, a child whose mother was in prison, convicted of a crime,
perhaps a crime of murder, at least convicted of a heinous crime! of
course the child of such a person must be a thief, a rogue, all--all
that was bad. There was no saying what petty pilferings he had
already committed. What a lucky thing she had desired Betty to
remain with him in the scullery, or where now would be her silver
spoons?
These thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, though still she
considered herself too good a Christian to be actually unkind to
Robin. She would say no unkind word to him, she would not even
search him--though, it must be owned, she rather longed to thrust her
hands into the pockets of the ragged boy. No, she would dismiss him
quickly, but with no word of reproach.
"You must go away, child," she said. "You must leave this place at
once, and never come back again. Now! do you hear? I am sorry I
cannot help you further. Betty," turning to her handmaid, "see this
boy to the gate; put him out, and lock it after him. You understand
me, Betty? you are to lock the gate, and bring me back the key."
CHAPTER III.
_THE SHELTER OF THE STREETS._
That night Robin slept under a haycock. He slept very soundly, and
far more comfortably than he would have done had he remained in
London. Nevertheless, he awoke the next morning with a sore feeling
at his heart. His plan of yesterday had failed utterly. No one was
kind enough to him to take him to prison. He had tried to go to the
Lock-up, but no one would take him there.
It never occurred to him that by committing an open theft he might
attain his object; at least, he might so far attain it as to see the
inside of a prison.
Robin had been too carefully trained by his thief companions to make
open pilfering possible to him. The glory of stealing, was to steal
unseen--so thought this ill-taught child.
That night, after losing his way many times, and asking many persons
to direct him, he found his way back to London; and so ended his
first real adventure without Helen.
He was now truly alone in London, and between his previous life and
the life that lay before him there was a great and unhappy difference.
With Helen, who was clever, strong, hard-working, even though the
greater part of her work was thieving, he was seldom without food,
never without love. The eyes of Helen would look lovingly into his,
the lips of Helen would press his lips, and the faithful breast of
Helen would often be a shelter for his weary little head. Now all
this was over, and the child at the age of eight years found himself
utterly alone. Things had never from his birth fared very well with
him, but from this time life indeed looked dark. And yet God had
gifted this child with much, if only man had done his part. He was
strong as a little lion; his face was fair and sweet; the expression
in his lovely eyes was sometimes almost angelic. Naturally he was
intensely affectionate, and he was brave to foolhardiness. Out of
these materials much could have been made, but now the little heart
was left to feed on itself, and to drink in evil at every pore.
He loved Helen passionately--just as passionately as she had loved
him; as vehemently then did he hate the law which had shut her away
from him. For a moment the thought of returning to her had comforted
him, but when he found that he could not accomplish his desire, the
last straw that bound him to good seemed broken. He chuckled over
the philanthropist's pocket handkerchief, and threw away his card,
and plunged with all his young soul into sin. Still things went very
hard with him, and, as a thief, he scarcely kept starvation at bay.
As he sank lower, and his untrained and uncultivated mind ceased to
work, his desires were simplified to almost those of a mere animal.
He had to provide against certain gnawing pains. He had, on all
possible occasions, to escape the "bobbies." Once or twice, for some
small acts of petty pilfering, he was had up before the magistrates;
but on these occasions, when his small head scarcely reached the bar
of the dock, his tender years and innocent face got him off very
easily. Thus he began to grow up into a criminal career, with no
means of knowing what was wrong, and no power to help himself.
Never, in all his life, had the right way been pointed out to this
child, and the only kindness and love he could remember came from
poor Helen, who had first taught him to be a thief.
On one or two occasions, attracted by his innocent face, the regular
thief-trainer had got hold of him. In all low criminal
neighbourhoods there are several such characters, who make it a
practice to lay hands on young children and skilfully train them in
the ways of this terrible calling.
By these people Robin would have been clothed and fed, and would
probably, whatever his future fate, not have fallen a prey to
starvation and want; but the child had too high a spirit to bear
their petty cruelties, and, one by one, he ran away from them all.
So by stealing a turnip off a stall, or a loaf out of a baker's
barrow, he managed to keep the "hungry staggers," the disease he most
dreaded, at bay.
For the next year and a half this little half-starved waif and stray
used to wander about the streets. Now singing a ballad in a full
sweet voice, that might have drawn forth admiration in many a
fashionable church choir; now selling fusees; now sweeping a
crossing; now hiding behind a doorway to devour a stolen prize;
passing his nights when he chanced to have a few pence, and could
give himself the luxury of a bed, in a miserable low lodging-house,
where he was largely instructed in vice; or when he could not, lying
down under arches, at the waterside, near the market-places, behind
street hoardings, in the open hall-passages of the poor-houses, or in
walking the streets throughout the night.
His life in the open air and the variety of his food kept him more or
less in health; he was hardy, and thought little of hardships. A
true Arab child was he, independent, untamed; and, all things
considered, his young heart was most times light as a feather, his
laugh gay as a bird's song. He was full of fun and mischief, and
would venture in his recklessness to hurl saucy answers at his
natural enemies, the police; for he had quickly lost his desire to
follow Helen to prison. He would sometimes even dare these worthies
to catch him, and then, when the exasperated dignitary of the law
advanced one foot for the purpose, he would dart away swift as a
bird, cunning as a little fox. He had plenty of companions, and was
a favourite with the boys and girls of his own standing and
circumstances; his plunder he freely shared with them, but he refused
point blank to become "pardiner" with any. Many a boy and girl
longed for this post, but Robin was firm, he would secure his own
"wittles," he said, and be beholden to none.
Thus time passed, and Helen had worked out a year and a half of her
sentence, and Robin was between nine and ten years of age. It was
winter then; and winter was, as it ever is to all such children, his
hard time. The cold, and rain, and snow of winter, are awful to the
little homeless street Arabs. The need for food is much greater than
in summer, and the chance of food much less. A thousand ways of
earning a penny, by selling flowers or fruit; a thousand ways of
pilfering, are all closed at this time of year. Then, too, the
nights are so long and so dark. In summer it makes very little
difference to a healthy boy where he sleeps, but in winter the case
is very different; then the little limbs shiver and freeze, the
insufficiently nourished body succumbs, and the young life goes out.
Robin began this second winter of Helen's captivity badly. Finding
himself rather a marked character with the police, and knowing that
if he tried his pilfering practices much longer in his present
quarters he would assuredly spend a much longer time than he had ever
done before in prison, he had started off with one or two companions
into the country, to secure a supply of winter roots, such as
groundsel, plantain, &c., for sale. Some children, and even some men
and women, did a fair business in this way, but Robin and his
companions were unfortunate; in the place they went to, they found
very few of the roots they desired, and on their way back to London
they were overtaken by an early and violent snow-storm. Chilled,
hungry, their miserable rags wet through, they found themselves on
their return at night obliged to take what shelter they could obtain
under an archway. In the morning Robin got up with a sharp pain in
his chest, and a bad cough. In a few days the pain got better, but
the cough remained; it was a miserable beginning for a severe London
winter. Hitherto he had been bright and gay enough, had laughed off
his hunger, had whistled away his loneliness, but now, what with
starvation, cold, almost nakedness (for his rags would scarcely keep
together), and a cough that seemed to take away all his small
remaining strength, the brave little heart began to give way.
The hard battle was becoming too much for this poor child. He used
to wander about the streets, thin, pale, shivering, and into many a
face did his wistful brown eyes gaze longingly, yearningly; the
weaker he grew the more he craved for kindness, the more intensely he
longed for Helen. Any one could have saved him then, any hand could
have drawn him from the mire.
Well, SOME ONE did.
CHAPTER IV.
_HONESTY WAS NOT THE BEST POLICY._
One day in the bitter month of January, after lying under an archway
all night, he got up, feeling very stiff, sore, and hungry--oh! he
was awfully hungry. The night before he had spent the only penny he
possessed in buying a few of those celebrated "Cough-no-more"
lozenges, and now, here he was without his breakfast, and no means of
buying any. It was by no means a pleasant day for a thinly-clad boy
with a racking cough to step out breakfastless; there had been snow
the night before, and now the snow was half-melted under foot, and
overhead the air was very keen and frosty. Robin started off at a
brisk run for Covent Garden; he had no money to lay in any little
stock there, but he might be fortunate enough to "nab" a few oranges
or nuts.
When he arrived, the place was full of eager buyers and sellers, and
Robin recognised several little brother thieves. Never did it seem
to him that the owners of the fruit and vegetables were more on the
alert, and never had he been more starvingly anxious to steal. While
he was standing about, watching his chance, a large burly-faced man
called out to him:
"Look here, my lad; you seems like an honest chap; will you help me
to carry these 'ere big baskets of wegetables to my stall? I'll give
yer sixpence for the job."
"Yes, zir; yes, zir," said Robin joyfully. Pleasanter words had
never fallen on his ears; he had never liked any man so much in his
life.
Not for worlds, not to save his existence, would he have stolen so
much as a farthing's worth from that man's stall. Why? no one had
ever told him it was wrong to steal. Why? he never had a better
chance, for the burly-faced man hardly watched him at all. Ah! but
he said he looked like an honest fellow, and no sweeter words had
ever fallen on the little thief's ears. He worked happily for an
hour, then walked away with his well-earned sixpence, and a glow he
had never experienced before in his breast.
_He_, Robin, looked like an honest fellow; he had learned ere this
what the word "honest" meant; and though he had laughed at the word,
and pretended to deride it, yet in his heart of hearts he had admired
honest fellows, he had envied honest fellows. Those boys and girls
who could look every man fearlessly in the face, who earned their
bread, instead of stealing their bread, in his heart of hearts he had
more than once longed to resemble them. This was an instinct, more
than an active feeling, with him; the instinctive longing of every
one of God's creation after the right. Out of twopence he bought a
hunch of bread and basin of coffee. Never had he enjoyed a more
delicious breakfast. With his remaining fourpence he laid in a stock
of morning papers. He had not dealt in this style of merchandise
before, but the newspaper vendors seemed to him to do a very thriving
business, and he had a kind of dim desire to spend this day, at
least, as an honest fellow. He went down to the Bank, and began to
advertise his property.
"Daily News--Tele--_graph_--Morning pay--_par-s_--pay--_pars_" sang
Robin, imitating the cries of the other boys. He had a sweet voice,
and notwithstanding his troublesome cough, which the celebrated
"Cough-no-more" lozenges had quite failed to take away, he cried his
goods right lustily.
But though he cried himself hoarse and almost sick, he did not cry
away a single one of his store of papers; no one seemed to care for
politics that morning. In vain great public questions, which were
then exciting attention, filled the columns; in vain fresh accounts
of foreign wars, and fresh demands to help our starving countrymen
abroad, stared from the pages; the City men wanted none of these
things to-day, at least they wanted none of them from Robin. The
streets were too dirty, the cold too intense, for these individuals,
already rather late for business, to put their hands into their
pockets for the purpose of drawing out pence, to supply themselves
with foreign news. They neither wanted foreign nor home news just
then. The cold was making them selfish, even more selfish than most
of them were every day. They neither cared for the foreigners' joys
or sorrows, nor for the neighbour's wants. No one stopped to listen
to Robin's cough, nor allowed his heart to look out of his eyes into
Robin's thin, eager face.
So it happened that Robin sold none of his papers; the more fortunate
boys pushed him aside, and jeered at him, and he had no heart to
knock them down, as under other circumstances he would have done.
"Sneak" some of these fellows called him, for they knew, by his way
even of handling his papers, that newspaper vending was not his usual
employment. "Serve him right," cried others, "as if _he_ could call
papers proper!"
So passed by, by those whom he had hoped would have been his
customers, and unkindly treated by his companions, at twelve o'clock,
he tucked his rejected goods under his arm and trudged slowly
westward. As he walked he saw a crowd of eager little children all
pushing against a shut door. The children were dressed very little,
if at all, better than himself. He stopped and demanded what they
were doing there.
"Oh! this 'ere's h'our school," said one little girl. "This 'ere's
the ragged school, and we're goin' to 'ave a feast--buns and oranges,
and tea and coffee--ain't it prime?"
"Don't yo wish yo were comin'?" laughed a big boy, to Robin.
Robin suddenly remembered the card the gentleman had given him a year
and a half ago, and his accompanying remark that the ragged school
was made for little boys like him. His face brightened; he did not
know that school possessed tea, and coffee, and cake, and oranges.
Long ago, had he been aware of this fact, would it have had the
benefit of his society. Squaring his shoulders, and pushing his way
to right and left, he planted himself firmly, one of the nearest to
the door. He had a right to go in there, and he would go.
"What's that for?" said the lad who had spoken before.
"Nothink," said Robin, "on'y that I'm a goin' in."
"Well, that's a good un," laughed all the children in a breath.
"My stars!" continued Robin, unheeding them, "I never knowed as this
'ere wor the fashion of ragged schools--buns and h'oranges. I say,
young uns, ain't we in luck?"
"But you ain't a schollard," said a little girl; "the school feast is
on'y fur the reg'lar schollards, yer know."
"No, I don't," said Robin; "this 'ere's a ragged school, and I'm a
ragged chap. A gent wot understands, telled me h'all about it, and
I'm agoin' in; see ef I ain't."
Here the big boy gave Robin a blow in the face, which Robin returned
with interest; but just then the doors were opened, and Robin, with
about ninety other children, found himself inside the building. How
warm, and pleasant, and beautiful it all looked to the tired and
hungry child; that ceaseless tickle in his throat and chest, which
the Cough-no-more lozenges had failed to relieve, became soothed, and
almost ceased to trouble him.
Yes, his lucky star was decidedly in the ascendant to-day. What a
feed he promised himself by-and-by from those vast piles of cakes,
and what a quantity of tea and coffee he would consume! He was
making up his mind to this, and also to another thing--as honesty was
the best policy, or at least had proved so to-day--he would abstain
from stealing a single crumb from the ragged-school feast; the sense
of honour among thieves prevented his taking from the stores provided
for children as ragged as himself. In the midst of these
meditations, a hand was laid on his shoulder. On his entrance into
the school he had been so much occupied looking round him that he had
never noticed how, one by one, the children, answering to their
names, had filed off into seats; he was the only ragged child now
standing up in the school. The superintendent, a good man, but a
strict disciplinarian, noticed the strange little face, and shook the
lad out of his reverie somewhat roughly.
"Come, come, my boy, you can't stay here; rules must be obeyed; you
are not belonging to the school."
"Yes, I be," said Robin stoutly. "This 'ere's a ragged school, and I
be h'all rags and tatters--see yere," and he held up a thin leg,
naked from the knee down, for inspection.
A titter ran through the ranks of the children; the superintendent
did not know whether the mirth was directed against himself or Robin.
He began to grow angry.
"None of your impertinence, lad--turn out! I have no objection to
your applying for admission to-morrow, as a pupil; but you can't come
to the school feast;" and taking Robin by the shoulders, he pushed
him towards the door. The big boy who had twitted Robin here laughed
aloud. At this the angry blood of the little street Arab flew into
his face, and breaking away from the superintendent's grasp, he flew
at this lad, and had the satisfaction of giving him at least a black
eye, before he was himself expelled from the school.
No one here can blame the superintendent; it would have been
impossible for him to break through the rule which prevented all but
regular and diligent scholars attending the school feast;
nevertheless the little heap of rags and tatters, seated on the
doorstep, felt very bitter, and very sore at heart. Honesty was not
the best policy; he would never be honest again.
He regretted bitterly, standing as he had done so close to those
well-filled tables, that he had not helped himself to some of their
stores.
After a time, with his ceaseless cough, empty stomach, and unsold
papers, he moved listlessly on farther west. Once again he raised
his cry--
"Mornin' pay--_par-s_--pay--_par-s_," but his voice was tired and
feeble, and he soon ceased to trouble himself to do anything but
watch his opportunity for theft.
It had been fine and bright in the morning, but now the sky was
overcast, and fresh snow began to fall. This added much to Robin's
discomfort; it lay white on his jacket, and melted into his ragged
trousers. He crept slowly and painfully down the Strand, pressing
his face against the window-pane of each restaurant as he passed.
How delicious looked the hot and fragrant food! How exasperating the
smell that came out to greet his hungry nostrils! He eagerly watched
the groups of fur-clad women and top-coated men partaking of rich
soups and luscious wines. So hungry was he, that he would have gone
down on his knees for the crumbs they left behind them. He felt very
bitter against these well-dressed people, who were all too busy, too
happy, too rich, to give him a thought; but his bitterest and sorest
feelings were directed against the children, ragged like himself, who
at the school feast were having enough and to spare. The very fact
of their being dressed as badly as himself, and yet be shut out from
their privileges, raised the sorest feelings in his little breast.
He did not know what a "schollard" meant, but he did know what rags
meant, and he and they were alike in rags and tatters.
After a time he left the restaurants, feeling that if he viewed what
was going on within much longer, he should certainly be tempted to do
some desperate deed.
He left the restaurants, and wandered through Trafalgar Square into
Piccadilly. From the Circus he walked on until he found himself in
that part where his path lay between the Park at one side, and the
houses of the great and wealthy on the other. The winter night, the
long, long winter night, was falling now, and so also was the snow.
His neighbours, his brothers, were in those houses, adding comfort to
comfort, luxury to luxury; but adding also in their neglect of him,
and such as him, sin to sin. He was so hungry by this time that he
was almost in despair. Should he run up one of those great flights
of steps, and ring boldly at one of those ponderous bells, and demand
food, just even a piece, a morsel of bread, to keep soul and body
together? No, he could not venture; he was too weak to stand the
angry repulse from the liveried footman who would answer his summons.
He wandered on. Suddenly a cry, a baby cry, smote on his ear, and
peering through the darkness--the street lamps were not lit yet--he
saw a little girl dressed in a white fur jacket and fur cap standing
and sobbing on the pavement.
"Ma-_ma_--Ma-_ma_!" sobbed the baby.
Robin bent over her.
"Wot's h'up, little 'un?" he said in his gentlest tone.
The child stopped crying, surveyed her questioner gravely from head
to foot, hesitated, but finally, after a long gaze into his face,
stretched up her arms, saying coaxingly--
"Take me 'ome, wagged boy."
PART V.
_HIS FATHER AND OURS TO THE RESCUE._
"Of the hearts that daily break,
Of the tears that hourly fall,
Of the many, many troubles of life
That grieve this earthly ball--
Disease and Hunger and Pain and Want,
Now I dreamt of them all!
"Alas! I have walked through life
Too heedless where I trod;
Nay, helping to trample my fellow-man,
And fill the burial sod;
Forgetting that even the sparrow falls
Not unmarked of God."
--HOOD.
"Do not deceive yourselves about the little offensive children in the
street. If they be offensive to you, they are not to Him who made
them. 'Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I
say unto you, Their angels do always behold the face of your Father
in Heaven. It is not the will of your Father in Heaven that one of
these little ones should perish.'"--CHARLES KINGSLEY.
CHAPTER I.
_A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM._
Forgetting in an instant both his hunger and his weakness, Robin
lifted the little child into his arms. She was very pretty; she had
golden curls peeping out under her fur cap, and her eyes were as blue
as the July sky. Robin had never seen anything so lovely as her
little face appeared to him in his life. The feel of her fur clad
arms round his neck comforted and warmed him; he was by no means
anxious to get rid of her. He hurried down the first side street he
could find, and then leant against the wall that was most in shadow,
to take breath and think. He did this because he feared that in the
open street the police would see him, and remove the pretty child
from his care. The moment he took her up she stopped crying, nor did
she speak until Robin paused to rest.
"Are we going 'ome, boy?" she said then.
"Yes, yes, little missy, ef little missy'll tell me where."
"Go on, then," she said, beating his shoulder impatiently.
"But I doesn't know the way. Where'll I take you, pretty little
dear?"
"What 'ou say?" demanded the child.
"Where does missy live? and I'll take 'er 'ome this blessed minit."
"Tupid boy!" repeated the little thing impatiently. "Where I live?
Course I live wid my ma-_ma_; dere! Go on."
Robin moved forward a few paces, a good deal puzzled now, for he saw
the child could not direct him. What should he do with her? Of
course the police would take her off his hands at once; but somehow
he liked to have her with him; he was not nearly so lonely nor hungry
since she was in his arms. Surely he might keep her for one night,
and give her up to the police in the morning; the touch of her
clinging arms was so pleasant to him, and then she was so lovely! He
had seen flowers in shop-windows, he had seen beautiful children, but
never before had so fair a little face been brought close to his own.
In the midst of his meditations the child called out Imperiously,--
"Go on quicker, wagged boy! I hungly, and I want my ma-_ma_."
This remark came upon Robin with a kind of shock; for the last few
minutes he had really, in his excitement and pleasure, forgotten his
own exceeding hunger; but these few words brought it painfully back
to him. He was hungry, and had no means to buy food; that now was a
small thing; but the little child in his arms was also hungry, and he
had nothing to give her; measuring her hunger by his own, he felt
almost agony at the thought of what she must be suffering. He did
not know that the well-fed child had never experienced the true
meaning of that terrible word hunger. But her healthy appetite being
awake, she went on moaning fretfully,--
"I so hungly, so hungly. Dolly _do_ want her supper, and ma-_ma_."
In despair at these cries, which he could not satisfy, Robin was
about really to deliver up the child to the first policeman he could
find, when suddenly out of a shop came a gentleman, with a small end
of a pocket handkerchief hanging out of his coat-tail. This was the
chance Robin had been looking in vain for all day. Quick as thought,
he whispered to the child to be good for an instant, placed her on
the pavement, and darting after his unsuspecting victim, secured the
prize. He came back in high spirits, laughing and pleased now. The
handkerchief was a silk one, and he knew that when disposed of, it
would bring him in enough of money to buy supper both for himself and
the child.
"Missy shall not wait for her mamma," he said. "I'll buy dear,
pretty little miss a cake in no time."
"Cake with gleat plums in it, boy? That's what Dolly likes."
"Werry well, deary; h'any sort yer'll 'ave, as yer wishes for."
Turning into a low street, he sold the handkerchief for eightpence,
purchased two buns stuck over with plums for the child, and a great
hunch of bread and a red herring for himself. The little girl
munched her cake quietly, and Robin thrust a large piece of bread
into his mouth. Now that both their hunger was likely to be
satisfied, his mind was quite made up. He would keep the little
child for one night, though he felt he must resign her in the
morning. Though he knew in the morning he must give her up, yet for
one night he would keep her; for a few hours longer he would feel her
dear little arms about his neck. As he found her, as he had rescued
her from being quite lost in the street, he, felt that he might give
himself this great pleasure. Yes for one night he would keep the
baby.
Where, then, should they pass it, the ragged boy and the dainty and
delicate child? The winter snow was still silently and softly
dropping from the sky; the winter wind sounded melancholy, funereal;
he could not keep the baby in the streets all night; even if he was
strong enough to carry her, he could not dare to expose so delicate
and lovely a little creature to the winter's cold.
Robin had enough, just enough money left after their supper, to
provide the worst and lowest lodging for them both. But some
instinct told the boy that there were words spoken there, and deeds
done, which the little child, even in her babyhood, must never
witness. Passing by an archway, he peered in. Was there?--yes,
there was a cart there, a cart nearly half filled, too, with straw.
With a glad cry the boy darted forward, stumbled into the cart, and
nearly buried himself and the child in the fragrant hay.
"Now, then, missy--poor boy werry tired--we'll rest yere fur a bit."
"And then go on?" said Dolly.
"Yes, missy, that we will."
"Is it far to my mamma now, boy?"
"No, no; werry close now, pretty pet."
"Well, I'se seepy; I'll just sut my eyes while you is resting."
She laid her little head against Robin's shoulder, while he piled the
warm, clean straw thicker about her. Suddenly, when he thought she
was really asleep, she started up.
"Bad, tupid boy! you was lettin' me dop off to seep wifout saying my
py-airs."
"Wot h'ever's them?" said Robin.
Unheeding him, the child scrambled to a kneeling posture, folded her
hands, looked up devoutly.
"'Our Father,'" said Dolly. Then she paused, gazed hard at Robin,
said "Our Father" again, then demanded, "What nex, boy, what the
odder words? Dolly forgets."
"Dunno, missy; dunno nothink 'bout it."
"Tupid! Well 'Our Father' must do for py-air until I get to my
mamma. Now, my verse, my littlest verse, for I so seepy. 'God is
love.' What I say, tupid boy?"
"'God is love,' missy."
"Yes, God love Dolly, and poor, wagged, tupid boy. Good-night,
wagged boy; you may go on when you is rested."
The lips of the beautiful, high-born child were raised to the lips of
the street Arab and the thief; a moment later and two pair of eyes
were closed, and two little hearts were for the present at rest.
Perhaps their guardian angels watched over the children--doubtless
their _Father_ did.
CHAPTER II.
_HOW THE STREET CHILDREN LIVE._
Early, very early in the morning, the full blaze of a policeman's
lantern was turned upon Robin and Dolly, and constable 21Y called out
in his harshest tones--
"Now, then, young warmint, what h'ever is your little game? Why, I
never!"--as his eye fell on Dolly--"ef this ain't Colonel
L'Estrange's child, and the whole place in a hue and cry after her.
So you wanted to steal her, you little thief. You'll soon know the
right of this 'ere job."
With one hand he raised Dolly, who, frightened at her strange waking,
was now sobbing bitterly, with the other he tried to detain Robin,
but quick as thought the wiry boy escaped from his hands; he rushed
out of the archway, down a back court, where he stood, in the bitter
winter morning, trembling and shivering as much with anger as with
cold. All night long he had been dreaming of Dolly; never, even for
a moment did he lose the consciousness that she was by his side, and
now, all in an instant, she had been torn away. He had been called a
thief--the thief of the pretty little dear; now she was gone, and he
should never, never see her again. It had been a short-lived and
vivid pleasure; but now that it was over he felt very miserable--more
miserable than he had ever felt in his dark little life before.
Yesterday morning had been bad enough, with his racking cough and his
empty pockets; but yesterday had been nothing to this day, for
between this day and yesterday he had found and lost Dolly. He did
not know until he had lost it what a difference a little love could
make in his life. Why, with that pretty child in his arms, he had
forgotten, actually and completely forgotten, his savage hunger.
Well, he knew he must give her up; she was too sweet and too nice to
share his miserable existence. He knew well, as he dropped off to
sleep last night, that in the morning he must resign her. But he
never meant to have her torn from him like this; he had pictured to
himself at least one short walk with her warm arms clasped round his
neck, a word or two more from the imperious baby-lips, and perhaps,
best and most precious of all, another kiss from Dolly. Tears don't
often come from poor little boys like Robin; but now a few did
trickle down his pale cheeks, and his heart felt very sore.
Why should he not weep? Standing there under that winter sky, the
boy was neighbourless, friendless, homeless! No one owned him, no
one cared for him; had not he cause for his tears? He wandered on
until he came to Oxford Circus, where he was greeted by one of his
companion thieves and pals.
The lad whispered in his ear, "Does yer see that ere sharp-lookin'
man a spyin' of yer?"
"Yes," answered Robin listlessly; "wot of 'im?"
"Wot of 'im?" mimicked his companion; "why, there's a deal of 'im to
my way of thinkin'. He wants to prison yer hup in a school, lad,
that's about it."
At the word "school" Robin's face began to darken with anger and pain.
"School!" he repeated; "I'm a goin' to no school--not I--my, but
yesterday"----
"Yere's the 'spectre, as I'm alive!" interrupted the sharp boy,
quickly vanishing from view; and in truth, before Robin had time to
stir, the man who had watched him came up and laid a firm hand on his
shoulder.
"Where do you go to school, my lad?" he asked, in by no means an
unkindly voice.
"No where's," answered Robin.
"Well, this must be seen to," taking out his note-book. "What's your
name?"
"Joe Williams," answered the little thief readily, glancing up with
his brown eyes full into the inspector's face.
"Your address?"
"First door to the left, three pairs hup, Peter's Court, Seven
Dials," as quickly replied the homeless boy.
The inspector replaced his note-book, assured "Williams" that he
would make inquiries about him, and walked off, while the little
thief was quickly surrounded by admiring street pals who praised his
cleverness, clapped him on the back, and laughed loudly over the joke
of the school inspector being outdone, and looking in vain for
"Williams" in the room three pair up, Seven Dials.
For a time Robin was cheered by the applause of his companions, but
fresh thoughts of Dolly brought fresh tears to his eyes, and he
walked slowly and sadly away. Passing by a coffee-stall, it had the
effect of partly arousing his hunger. He felt in his pocket for
three halfpence which were still left out of his eightpence. A penny
would buy him a basin of hot coffee, a halfpenny would secure to him
a morsel of bread. He was not so hungry as yesterday, but he was
colder, and his cough was worse. He got some breakfast at this
coffee-stall, and then walked on, feeling better. As usual, his
bright eyes roved to right and left for any chance of pilfering that
might occur. He connected no wrong with this; he knew neither right
nor wrong. The law, he understood well, was against thieves; the
police were against thieves; the law and the police were his natural
enemies, they had torn from him Helen, his only friend. He took,
when well and bright, a decided pleasure in outwitting these his
enemies. To-day, however, he was too ill and miserable to take
pleasure in anything. The sky was leaden tinted, and foretold either
more rain or more snow; the short dull winter's day broke gloomily.
Yesterday, when suffering the keenest and sharpest pangs of hunger,
Robin had looked round him in vain for the faintest chance of
stealing. He had looked until night in vain. All the stalls were
well guarded; all the men wore overcoats tightly buttoned up, no
chance of anything sticking out of their pockets; all the ladies held
their purses firmly inside their muffs. To-day, however, when less
hungry and less anxious, a chance, and a golden chance, soon
presented itself.
A lady, stepping into a cab, dropped from her arm a silver bracelet.
She never missed it, and Robin, under the pretence of shutting the
cab door for her, had it quickly in his pocket. As he secured this
valuable prize, he looked into the lady's face and recognised the
person whose little girl's purse he had returned more than a year
ago. Well did he remember how, deaf to her child's pleadings, she
had refused to give him, a ragged starving boy, even a few pence. It
added to his pleasure to reflect that it was _her_ bracelet he had
stolen. Never had so rich a prize fallen in his way; he darted down
an alley to examine it at his leisure; he did not half know its
value, but he was quite clever enough to guess that it would, when
sold, bring him in a sum of money which would keep him above want for
several days. Pocket handkerchiefs and such things he generally
disposed of at the pawn-shops, but the silver bracelet he would take
to a certain old Jew, to whom once or twice before he had brought a
small prize. The Jew in question lived in a place called Frying-pan
Alley.
Entering the shop, Robin pulled out the bracelet and handed it across
the counter.
The Jew, a villanous old fellow, spectacles on nose, took up the
bracelet, turned it round, threw it contemptuously on the counter.
"Tinsel--tinsel," he said, "vorth ver litel. How much ashk for this
von vorthless litel bracelet, boy?"
Robin having made up his mind to demand five shillings, gasped forth
that tremendous sum in a shaky voice.
The Jew took up the bracelet again, fingered it lightly, then,
apparently in a fit of abstraction, dropped it into a box by the side
of the counter.
"Poor, bad, litel boy, I give you no five shilling; I not give you
von shingle shikshpensh. You shtole this litel vorthless bracelet I
return it to the polish, and you, I take you too."
And stretching out his long lean hand, he clutched at Robin with a
vice he could not shake off.
"No, no, no," screamed the boy in terror. "Give me the bracelet--let
me go, let me go!"
"No, I'll not give you up the tinsel bracelet, it is vorth nothing;
but you shtole it, you can't deny. I will return it to the polish,
who may find somebody who loosh the poor tinsel thing. Get you gone,
litel bad thief boy, get you gone!"
And with a violent whirl, which nearly sent Robin on his face and
hands, he was turned from the shop.
Still terrified, for the Jew's manner had been more violent even than
his words, he ran, until, finding himself in other quarters, he sat
down on a doorstep to rest.
Attracted by his ceaseless cough, a respectably-dressed young woman
who was passing by, turned round to look at him.
"Poor little boy! how very ill you look," she said kindly: "here,"
taking out her purse, "is a penny for you; I wish it was more."
She dropped the coin into Robin's lap and hurried on.
The young woman was his own sister Molly, who, steady and
industrious, had managed to prosper in life.
CHAPTER III.
_SOMEBODY RESCUED NOBODY'S NEIGHBOUR._
Robin put the penny into his mouth for safety. Then he sat for a
long time listlessly on the doorstep. Something between snow and
drizzle was falling steadily from the sky, but the street Arab hardly
noticed it: he could not well be colder than he was, and he wanted to
rest, and to ponder an idea.
Never had the life within him ebbed so low; he wanted sorely a little
comfort, and a little love. He had heard, for his companion thieves
had told him so, that prisoners were sometimes allowed to see their
friends. More than anything in the world, he now longed to see
Helen. With his weakness and pain, the desire once more to behold
the face that had always looked at him with kindness, became so
strong as to be almost unbearable. He knew now, for he was older and
wiser, that going to prison for punishment would get him no sight of
Helen; but surely if he found his way to the prison doors, and asked
to see his old friend, the prison authorities would grant his request
This he thought; this he hoped; and if he really saw Helen once more,
life might again become bearable to him. She might show him how to
get strong; she might tell him some way of getting rid of that
terrible cough, of earning at least money enough to keep him from
starving. He had never in the least forgotten how loving, how
tender, how true Helen had been to him; how she had soothed his baby
ailments, and kissed away his small troubles. Yes, he would go to
Helen now; he had heard that she was somewhere in the country; he
would set off at once to the country to find Helen. He did not know
the name of the prison where she was serving out her time; still he
would start off, for some one could be found who would show him the
way, and when once in the country he must surely find Helen.
Rising from his cold seat, rather brightened and comforted by this
thought, he set off, fortifying himself for his journey by buying a
piece of bread out of Molly's penny. He was wonderfully little
hungry to-day; indeed he rather disliked food; but he might need it
by-and-by, and people had told him that there were very few shops in
the country.
Down Piccadilly, past the place where he had seen Dolly last night,
he wandered. He asked several people the way to the country, for his
last expedition in the waggon, when he had slept all the way, had
given him no clue: one and all stared when the ragged child made this
request, smiled, pointed westward. So westward, with the setting
sun, went Robin.
After what seemed to him hours and hours of walking,--for he was so
weak, and his cough so painful, he could only creep along,--he found
himself in West Brompton. Houses were still to the right and left of
him; houses seemed to surround him everywhere. Should he ever get
rid of these houses, and find the country? He paused to eat a piece
of his bread, for his strength was going; but he disliked it--it
almost made him sick. Well, he must soon come to the country.
Suddenly he uttered a joyful cry; he had reached a gateway--a gateway
with the gate thrown back. Through the gateway he saw trees and
grass. Yes, this must lead to the country, if this was not the
country itself.
He went in through the gateway; he had entered the West Brompton
Cemetery.
Cold, nearly as white as the snow, gleamed the marble of the many
monuments.
Robin had not an idea what place he was in. He wandered on until he
came to the part set aside for the very poor: here he threw himself
down on a low grave to rest. He did not know it was a grave he was
lying upon. There was no inscription or writing of any sort on the
grave, nothing but the raised mound of grass. After a time, worn out
with weakness, fatigue, and cold, he fell asleep. It was late when
he awoke: the winter's sun had set, and the winter's night had come
on. His limbs felt strangely numb and stiff; he tottered to his
feet, and began feebly to grope his way forward. In half an hour he
came to a gate; he recognised it as the gate he had come in by: it
was fastened, locked. He wandered on and on; after what seemed to
him an age of walking, he came to another gate: it also was locked.
He perceived then that he could not get out of this place for the
night.
He had still not the faintest idea what place it really was, but the
monuments in the white light, and the cold gleam of the snow on the
grass, frightened him in spite of himself. Wandering round and
round, he came back in time to the same grave on whose mound he had
already slept; he sat down on it again, regarding it, in this strange
and awful place, as something like an old friend.
The sleet and snow had for the last couple of hours ceased to fall,
the clouds had cleared away, the stars dotted the dark blue of the
sky, and the moon, in grand, cold, calm majesty, shed an awful white
light on the graves.
The rich, in their warm luxurious houses, noticed what a severe frost
there was that night; the poor were less saving than usual with their
handfuls of coal. What then must have been the sensations of this
poor little lost child seated alone upon a grave?
He felt the cold terribly, intensely: he was too weary to walk, he
was simply incapable of moving another step; and for a time the
freezing process going on in his poor little body gave him such agony
he could with difficulty keep himself from screaming aloud.
The dead in the graves under his feet could hardly be colder than he
was fast becoming. After a time, however, he grew more comfortable,
the pain became less, until it ceased. He stretched himself on the
grave, closed his eyes, and tried to go to sleep. He hoped he might
soon drop off to sleep, and then, when the gates were open in the
morning, he might continue his journey in search of Helen. But
strange as it may seem, he could not sleep; his body was numb, half
dead, but his mind was active. He thought of Helen, his loving,
faithful friend: he thought of his life with her; of the attic with
the dirty prints. He felt Helen's arms about him, as they had so
often, so often been; he thought of the little girl whose purse he
had returned, and who had clasped his dirty hand in hers; he thought
of the kind-looking woman who to-day had dropped a penny into his
lap; most of all, he thought of the beautiful child, who last night
had laid her golden head on his ragged breast, and who had kissed
him. Many, many had been unkind to Robin, but these four had been
good to him: all the unkind faces faded from his memory, but these
four remained; and of the four, the brightest, sweetest, best, was
the little child's face.
What did she mean when she said "Our Father" last night? He
remembered perfectly how she knelt, how she looked, then how quietly
and peacefully she went to sleep.
"Our Father"--well, he had no father: he had never known anything
about a father; but the words, _whatever_, whatever they meant, must
be good, or Dolly would not have looked so peaceful after saying them.
The look on Dolly's face, after saying these two words, was simply
the look one wears after speaking to the best and most loving friend.
Well! he too would say the words; they might mean nothing, or they
might mean much. They might bring him, too, the peace they brought
to Dolly, and afterwards he might go quietly to sleep.
He struggled painfully on to his half-frozen knees, clasped his hands
as Dolly had clasped hers, looked earnestly up at the clear frosty
sky, and whispered, in a strange stifled tone of supplication, agony,
longing, "Our Father." Nothing more, after these two words he lay
down, and closed his eyes. Once he opened them again, those
beautiful eyes that were surely meant to reflect God's image; he
opened them and smiled. Yes, the words were good words; he felt
peaceful, painless, happy. He was going to sleep really now. Never
since Helen left him had he gone to sleep so restfully.
The four faces seemed to surround him, to shut him in, to soothe him
with loving care; then they faded into the faces of Helen and Dolly,
then into Dolly's face alone, then that too vanished into air, and I
think the little ragged child was left with _Our Father_.
* * * * * *
Yes, with Our Father! for by the look seen half an hour later on his
pale and death-like face it was very plain that the Great Succourer,
shocked with man's neglect, was coming Himself to the rescue of His
little one. Christ, who had died for just such neglected, sinful,
sorrowful creatures, was touched with the feeling of his infirmities,
and the child who was nobody's neighbour, was to be saved by God
Himself.
Schools, reformatories, charitable institutions, had all failed to
reach this one little waif and stray. Without any man being directly
to blame, every man had passed him by. God saw that the time had
come when He Himself must save. He Himself must do the work that men
and women had failed to do. God Himself saved the child: this He did
by putting a thought into the head of one of His humblest children.
By this thought, put into the mind of one young girl, God had pity on
us also, saving us from the guilt which must ever have rested on our
souls had Robin died. For had our brother passed away, while we,
with our riches, our comforts, our blessings, sat by and held out no
hand of succour, for ever and ever it would have been to us one of
those things which we had left undone, which we ought to have done:
and this one sin of omission would have cried loudly to Heaven for
vengeance.
God saw this, and had compassion on us as well as Robin, when He put
a thought into a heart that night.
For just at the moment when Robin was looking up to the sky, and
crying in pitiful supplications to One whom he knew not of, a girl
was kneeling in a poorly furnished room, and earnestly praying.
This was the subject of her prayer--
"My Father in Heaven, help me this year to forget my own sorrow in
helping others."
This, clothed in many words, but with intense feeling and earnest
desire, was her prayer.
When she had risen from her knees, and had wiped away some tears, she
went downstairs. She was the daughter of the porter who kept the
gate by which Robin had entered the cemetery.
Smoking a long pipe, and gazing into the blaze of a cheerful fire,
sat the porter himself.
"Come and make yourself warm, Nell; the night is most bitter," he
said to his daughter.
"Are the cemetery gates locked, father?" she asked of him.
"Yes, yes, child; the best part of an hour ago."
"And it is not snowing; the night is fine."
"There is no snow, but the night is enough to freeze any one who
ventured out into it."
To this remark the daughter made no answer. She stood close to the
ruddy flames, and they, leaping up, revealed a mourning dress and sad
face.
"Well, Nell, what are you thinking of?" asked the old porter, not
unkindly.
"To-morrow will be Sunday, father."
"Ay, ay, child, of course. Sunday follows Saturday as sure as fate."
"And it will be a year to-morrow since mother died."
"Yes, my poor child. I have not forgotten."
"Father, I want to put a wreath of Christmas roses round mother's
grave. You know how she loved them. I have saved
three-and-sixpence, and the florist round the corner has promised me
a nice bunch for that."
"Very well, my dear."
"But I want to measure the grave to-night, so that the wreath may be
just the right size."
Grumbling, expostulating, at last yielding, the old porter
accompanied his daughter. On the grave where the Christmas roses
were meant to hang, they found Robin.
"Not dead yet," said the old porter as he placed his hand on the
boy's cold breast.
"An answer to my prayer," thought Nell.
And as they carried him back to their comfortable home, the music of
a grand old saying was ringing in both their hearts--
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my
brethren, ye have done it unto Me."
And so closed the sorrow of want. The hunger of the body and the
hunger of the heart at length found their needed food--bread and love.
There were no Christmas roses placed that year on the humble grave of
the porter's wife; but Robin was saved.
* * * * * *
This is my brother's story; it has to do with his pain more than his
joy. The dark clouds now having dispersed, and the sun shining on
his path, there is little more to tell of him. He stayed with the
kind porter and his daughter until his health was nearly restored,
and was finally admitted into the Westminster Memorial Refuge at
Streatham. Into this Home, but too little known to the general
public, he, the supposed son of a criminal, had a right to enter.
Here, kind hands were stretched out for such as him; and here he was
rescued, morally as well as physically.
* * * * * *
Last January--yes, it was last January--a young man, earnest,
noble-looking, might have been seen bending over a grave, a very
humble grave, in the West Brompton Cemetery. Placed at the head and
foot of this grave now, were two plain marble slabs: on the head slab
was carved a wreath of Christmas roses.
"Here I lost myself, to find myself," thought Robin, as he turned
away.
THE END.
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