Crying for the Light Volume I Part 4

'Nor in the country nayther,' said the policeman. 'It would be a good job if the whole place were burnt down.' The policeman always backed up the opinions of his wors.h.i.+p the Mayor, as, indeed, he did those of all his betters. It was a habit that paid.

'Well, the poor boy looks really ill; can't you get him into the hospital?' asked the actress.

'I am sorry,' said the Vicar, 'but the committee of the hospital don't meet for a week, and we can do nothing in such a case. If it had been winter we could have sent him to the soup-kitchen; but in the summer-time we are not prepared for such an irregularity.' At length a happy thought struck him. Turning to the boy, he said, 'What's your name, my little man?'

'Little Beast.'

'Little Beast! Good heavens! what a name for a child. Who gave you that name?'

'Mother. Mother allus calls me Little Beast, 'cause I won't let her hit brother.'

The boy spoke honestly, that was clear. There was some good in him; the devil had not yet got him in his grip. Was he to be saved? The Mayor, and the Town Clerk and the Vicar seemed inclined to answer that question in the negative. A pa.s.sage of Scripture-a word of the Master's-came into the actress's recollection as she looked at the little waif, ragged, half starved, filthy, in their midst. Said the Master, when His disciples asked Him which should be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, taking a little child and setting him in their midst, 'Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and whoso receiveth one such child in My name receiveth Me. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven.'

'Save the child,' whispered the woman's heart of the actress; 'to-morrow it will be too late, and human law, with all its terrors, will track him, and he will be a rebel against man and G.o.d.'

'Excuse me,' said the Mayor, 'but the train has been signalled, and will be in in a few minutes.'

'I am ready,' said the lady, 'but the child goes with me.' The child seemed to nestle under her wing, as it were. He was frightened by the others.

'You don't mean that!' 'It is impossible!' 'What an idea!' were the respective utterances of Mayor, Vicar, and Town Clerk, who simultaneously stepped back a step or two, as if doubting whether the lady were in full possession of her senses and were desirous to settle that question by a fuller survey a little further off. It is astonis.h.i.+ng how great a sensation is produced in this Christian country when anyone tries to reduce Christianity to practice, to get it to talk modern English, to bring it down from the clouds, and to make it walk the streets. Just then the station bell rang.

'Now, my little man, won't you come along with me?' said the actress to the lad. The little fellow opened his eyes-they were fine ones, and testified to the beating of a clear, undefiled, honest heart within-and joyfully a.s.sented.

'Please get him a gla.s.s of milk, and some sandwiches and biscuits; put them on a tray,' said the actress to the stolidly staring policeman, who was so overcome that, quite unconsciously, he found himself holding the ragged boy by the hand, and administering to him what little refreshment there was to take, and putting him in a first-cla.s.s carriage, having first carefully covered him over with one of the actress's shawl's, that the shame of his nakedness might not appear, as if he were a young n.o.bleman's son.

'They are rum critters, them actresses,' said the policeman on recovering his dazed senses, as the train moved off, leaving the local dignitaries rather crestfallen, as they stood on the platform bidding adieux with their hats in their hands, and their uncovered, bald heads glistening in the summer sun.

'They are indeed, Jenkins,' said the Mayor, wiping his hot face with his pocket-handkerchief, evidently pleased that the actress had gone and relieved the town of one juvenile difficulty.

'At any rate, to whom does this boy belong?'

'Why, to Widow Brown, who is off on the tramp; but I don't believe it is her boy, after all.'

'Very likely not; but we are well rid of the lad and his mother, I think I know her.'

'Of course you do. There has been scarcely a Monday all this summer but she has been brought up as drunk and disorderly. I believe she is perfectly incorrigible; and yet she was a tidy, decent sort of woman when she first came to live here,' said the Town Clerk. 'She took to drinking when her husband died, and she has been going from bad to worse ever since.'

Ah, when one is low, and wants to forget one's wickedness, and poverty, and misery, there's nothing like a drop of drink. It may be rather cowardly to take it, but we are not all heroes; and as long as the drink lasts, you are in a world of suns.h.i.+ne and good fellows.h.i.+p. There is a magic power in drink to make the old young, the sick whole, the poor rich. No wonder the homeless and dest.i.tute take to it. Till the people are better lodged and better fed, intemperance must be the curse of Great Britain.

CHAPTER III.

GOING UP TO TOWN.

In these degenerate days a first-cla.s.s carriage in an express may be considered as the perfection of travelling, the balloon at present being unmanageable, and the sea as wilful and variable as woman. Time was when we rattled cheerily over the land on the top of a coach-and-four, but that was when men drank brandy-and-water, and wore many-caped coats, and were far more horsey than this smug and mild black-coated generation.

Rarely now does the scarlet-clad guard tootle the much-resounding horn as the four corn-fed steeds trot steadily up hill and down, wakening the far-away echoes, while open-mouthed rustics stop and stare, and rosy-cheeked landladies smile wickedly at the jovial outsiders, who, not having the fear of their own lawful-wedded wives before their eyes, seem to regard their day's journey as a frolic, as, indeed, it was in the good old coaching days, when the driver, an inborn aristocrat, was hail-fellow-well-met with all on his bit of road, and when every pa.s.senger had his story to tell or his joke, which, if not brilliant, at any rate helped to pa.s.s the time away, and to keep everyone in good humour. What a time that was, for instance, at Barnet, when the town was kept alive night and day, as coach after coach came up at full gallop, changed horses at the Red Lion or the Salisbury Arms in the twinkling of an eye, and then made its way on to the great Metropolis, or away to the big cities of the North, with such telling news as that Queen Caroline was dead, or that the Lords had thrown out Reform! It was merry England then, and no mistake; pure air filled the lungs, and sylvan beauty fed the eye, and the further he travelled the better was the traveller in health and spirits. I am not surprised that Mr. Carnegie, the great American capitalist, in order to give his friends an idea of England, and thoroughly to enjoy himself, packed them all on the top of a four-horse coach, and I can well believe that they saw a loveliness in this old land of ours as they drove past ancient castles and ivy-clad churches, and by the side of well-kept parks, with the mansions of our n.o.bles peeping in and out among the trees, and through smiling villages and busy towns, and across wide commons scented with yellow furze or purple with heather, which they could have acquired in no other way. Boxed up in a railway carriage, the roar of the train deafening your ears, and the smoke and the steam of the engine intercepting the view, what can you do but groan over the memory of departed joys? But I must return to Sloville, which, like every other town of its size, has its railway, with its average number of accidents. In a very few minutes the little country town was left behind, in a very few minutes the actress and the boy began to look at one another, and by the time he had eaten up his sandwiches and biscuits he began to feel quite at home.

'You are not frightened?' said the actress.

'No, not a bit.'

He could not well be, with so fair a face opposite his own. Presently he said:

'Ain't this jolly! a deal better than going on the tramp! The old man and mother are allus on the tramp.'

'Then you have no home.'

'Home! What do you mean?'

'Ah, I see you haven't,' said the lady, with a sigh, 'or you would not have asked me that question. Can you read?'

'No-what's that? Anything to eat?'

The actress took out a newspaper.

'There, what does that mean?' she asked.

'Blest if I knows.'

'Ah, I'm afraid you've a good deal to learn. What can you do?'

'Oh, all sorts of things; stand on my head, 'old 'osses, do the Catherine wheel business. Shall I show you?' said the little fellow, emerging from his wrap, and preparing to display his gymnastic powers. 'Dash my b.u.t.tons! the place ain't big enough,' said the boy with a disappointed air.

Presently the train came to a halt, and in a minute the boy was under the seat, exclaiming in a fright:

'Oh, crikey! there's a peeler.'

'Well, he won't hurt you.'

'Oh, won't he; I know better than that!'

'No; you be a good boy, and sit still, and he won't do you any harm; he is coming to look at the tickets.'

The railway official having departed, the lad began to look out of the window, enjoying the way in which the train rattled along through tunnels and over rivers, through fields and villages and towns.

'Now tell me,' said the actress, 'did you ever hear of G.o.d?'

'No; where did he live?'

'Nor of Christ?'

'Oh yes, I've often heard mother say "Oh, Christ!" when father came home drunk.'

'I'm afraid you're a bit of a heathen.'

'Oh yes,' said the boy, with pride; 'people often call me that.'