Crying for the Light Volume Ii Part 4

Suddenly she was awoke by the policeman's grasp.

'Well, old 'oman,' said he, 'you've been having a nice time of it here.'

'And why not?' said she, waking up to a sense of her condition. 'Why not? What's the harm of sleeping out here? I arn't kicking up a row-I arn't creating a disturbance-I arn't screaming "Perlice!" am I? I arn't in no ways disrespectful or aggravatin'-why can't you let me be?'

''Cause it is agin the perlice regulations,' was the reply.

'The perlice regulations, what are they?'

'Why, that you must not stop here, and it is as much as my place is worth to let you.'

'Oh, p'liceman, don't be hard on a poor old woman that's enjoying the hevening hair!'

'No, I can't,' said he. 'I am going over the bridge. When I come back, don't let me find you here. You've had a nice little nap. You must be as fresh as a daisy now.'

'Perhaps I am, and perhaps I am not,' said the poor woman, as she renewed her aimless walk.

In a few minutes she was in the Strand, just as the theatres were emptied of admiring crowds. Of course the poor woman knew all about such matters. Many a time in the pride of youth had she spent an evening in the pit. Many a time, at a later period, she had sold lucifer matches at the pit doors, and many were the coppers she had earned thereby.

She liked to see the bright lamps, and the swells, and the women, as well as anyone else. The sight, she said, did her old eyes good. That night the crowd had been unusually large. The last theatrical star, as she learned from the bills, Miss Kate Howard, had been performing, and all the world and his wife had come there to see.

'Lor' bless me!' said Sal to herself, 'I'll go to the stage-door at the back. I've seen a good many of these women in my time. I'd like to see what this one is like. I suppose she is like all the rest of 'em, as fine as paint and fine feathers can make 'em, but not of much account, neither. Many of 'em ain't much better than me, after all.'

She turned up a side-street, hurried down another, and soon was at the stage-door.

A brougham was drawn up before it; on the box a page was seated. As she looked, her first impulse was to scream out his name. It was her Sloville boy, looking clean and respectable.

'Wait a bit, Sally,' she said to herself. 'This is a serious business.

It ought to be made to pay. Oh, my fine young gentleman belongs to the popular actress. Ah, if I can come the broken-hearted mother dodge it ought to bring me a fiver.'

Presently there was a rustle under the stage-door, and a pressure of the crowd without. The actress appeared wrapped up and well attended. As she leaped into the brougham she told the driver to make the best of his way home.

'Gad! I know that voice,' said a gentleman in the crowd. 'It is that girl Rose; good heavens! where's her home? Oh, there you are, Harry,'

said he, speaking to the manager as he stood at the door watching the brougham as it drove away. 'You've done it to-night, you have! Where on earth does that woman live?'

'Well, Sir Watkin, I can tell you, but it is no good. She lives with her mother.'

'And is married?' he eagerly exclaimed.

'Yes, to be sure. No, not married, but just about to be so.'

'Then, I am after her!' he exclaimed. 'Faint heart never won fair lady.'

'It is a wild goose-chase, Sir Watkin;' but Sir Watkin was off in a hansom, nevertheless, not before, however, our Sal had made an effort to secure him, which effort he impatiently evaded, bidding her 'go to the d----' and not bother him.

'You nearly had him then, old girl,' said a ragged bystander, in a voice perfectly familiar to her ear. It was the tramp's chum from Mint Street.

'You here?' said she, in a tone which did not express delight. 'I thought yer was as tight as my old man.'

'Not exactly; as soon as I missed you I thought I'd see that you did not come to harm.'

'Thank you for nothin',' said the woman angrily.

'Now, don't be angry,' he said, with a good-natured smile, 'now I've come. I wants to do yer a good turn. That old tramp will be cotched to-morrow as sure as eggs is eggs, and I thought I'd better tell ye to keep out of the way.'

'Out of the way; wot do you mean? Do you think I've been up to anything?'

'No, of course not,' said the chum in a mocking tone; 'but appearances ain't promising, and that is all I've got to say. You'd better work yer way along with me to-night.'

'Where to?'

'Down Drury Lane way; it ain't safe to be in the Boro'.'

'But lor, bless me, how you've altered!' said Sal. 'You had a couple of arms; wot have you done with one?'

'Oh, it is b.u.t.toned down by my side.'

'And your boots, where are they?'

'Hid away in my clothes. Ain't it a capital dodge? I gets lots of coppers when I thus go out cadging. I was goin' to perform on the bridge, when I saw you walk past, and then I followed. I ain't made much money to-night. Perhaps we'd better go home.'

'You're very kind, but I think I shall stop here.'

'No you won't,' said the man.

He had watched the woman, and he had come to the conclusion that something was up. He had seen how she gazed at the lad on the box; how her face betrayed emotion at the sight of the actress; how she had endeavoured to speak to a swell as he was talking to the manager at the stage-door, and he had rapidly formed a conclusion in his own mind that Sal somehow or other had connections which might, in due time, be made subservient to his own interest. He was a sneak and a cur, but he had a plausible way of talking and a certain amount of cunning which he had always turned to excellent account. It was with gratification, then, that he found the woman was half persuaded to listen to his proposals.

Alas! there's many a slip between the cup and the lip. As they stood arguing the matter, a cab dashed up against them, and when he came to his senses he found his Sal, as he called her, had been taken to the accident ward of the nearest hospital.

'That's just like my ill-luck,' said he, with an angry oath, as he turned away in search of cheap lodgings for what was left of the night.

Happily it did not much matter to him if he went to bed late. He was under no necessity to rise early the next morning. The tramp in old times led a merry life. In London, at the present time, he certainly leads an idle one.

Let us follow our Sal to the hospital, one of those n.o.ble inst.i.tutions which are the glory and pride of London, the money to support which had been left long ago by pious founders, and which have been the means of saving many a life, of setting many a broken limb, and of curing many a foul disease. Under its august wall and in its studious cloisters many generations of medical students had been trained up for a profession which has done much to make life worth living, to stay the advance of disease, to battle with grim death. Gibbon tells us the world is more ready to honour its destroyers than its saviours. The taunt is too true.

When it ceases to be that, the medical profession will receive its due homage and reward. The courage of the medical man is quite equal to that of the hero on the battle-field. His ardour in the pursuit of his vocation is greater, and the good he does, what tongue can adequately tell? in generosity, in readiness to relieve human suffering, where is the equal of the medical man? The more ill.u.s.trious he is, the more ready he is to give of his time and money to the poor. There is no truer Samaritan than a medical man.

The hospital was over London Bridge, as the tourist who rushes to Brighton is well aware. It stands a lasting monument to the charitable London publisher known as Guy. It covers a considerable extent of ground, and consists of several buildings more or less detached. Little of the original building remains, as, like the British Const.i.tution, it has grown considerably beyond the general design.

Thomas Guy, Alderman of the City of London, and M.P. for Taunton, who made his fortune by a printing contract, by buying sailors' tickets, and by South Sea speculations, was little aware of what London would become in the Victorian era, or of the enormous amount of suffering and disease that would be reached and alleviated by the hospital of which he was the original founder.

As you enter you have little idea of its extent. On each side are the residences of officers and medical men. Then you go under a porch, where students have their letters addressed them, and look into a s.p.a.cious quadrangle, lined with wards, which were part of the original building.

Further on are newer buildings and museums, fitted up for the use of students, and in every way skilfully planned for the accommodation of patients. On one side is a theatre for surgical operations, a dead-house for post-mortem examinations, and a little green, on which in fine weather patients are permitted to take a little exercise, and to congratulate each other on the fact that this time they have given the old gentleman, who is always drawn with a scythe and an hour-gla.s.s, the slip. Further beyond are the gates which admit the enormous ma.s.s of out-patients, who, alas! most of them require what not even Guy's can give them-fresh air, good food, and a little more cash than they can manage to secure by their daily labour. It is rather a melancholy place to visit. Looking up at the long windows all round you, you can't help thinking what human suffering lies concealed behind them, and misery defying alike the aid of doctor or nurse or chaplain. Science may do, and does do, all it can to make the place healthful. Thoughtful consideration may line the walls with pictures, and make the old wards gay with summer flowers, and the nurse may be the kindest and tenderest of her s.e.x to whom we instinctively turn when in pain, and suffering for relief; but, nevertheless, you feel in a hospital as if you were in a city of the dying and the dead.

Our Sal was at once carried to the accident ward, and taken care of by tender nurses and watchful surgeons. No bones were broken, but she was very much bruised, and the recovery, if she did recover, it was clear would be long and tedious. The chances were very much against her.

Drink and evil living had wrecked her stamina in spite of the fine const.i.tution which she had received from her parents and her early country life. Fever set in, and it seemed as if the poor woman would have sunk. She was often delirious, and her mind wandered.

'There's something that keeps her back,' said her attendant guardian.

'She has either committed some crime she wants to confess, or she has some secret of which she would fain get rid,' and the physician was right.