The Little Princess of Tower Hill
Page 25
CHAPTER VI.
THE END OF HIS TROUBLES.
Tom Jones, having secured the baby's comforter, the thin Paisley shawl, andthe little winsey frock, ran as fast as he could to a pawnbroker's hard by.
There he received a shilling on the articles, and with this shillingjingling pleasantly in his pocket he entered an eating-house which he knew,and prepared to enjoy some pea pudding and pork.
Tom expended exactly the half of the shilling on his dinner; he ate itgreedily, for he was very hungry indeed, and then he went back into thestreet, with sixpence still to the good in his trouser pocket.
With sixpence in his pocket, and a comfortable dinner inside of him, Tomfelt that his present circumstances were delightfully easy. He might walkabout the streets with quite fine gentlemanly airs for an hour or two, ifhe so willed. Or he might flatten his nose against the shop windows, or hemight play halfpenny pitch and toss. His circumstances were reallyaffluent, and of course he ought to have been correspondingly happy. Theodd thing was that he was not very happy; he could not get Billy's whiteface out of his head, and he could not altogether forget the icy cold feelof the baby's little arms, when he slipped off that brown winsey frock.
Tom was as hard a boy as ever lived, and a year ago his conscience mightnot have troubled him, even for playing so wicked a prank as he had donethat day. But since then he had met with a softening influence. Tom Joneshad been very ill with a bad fever, and during that time had been takencare of in the London fever hospital.
In that hospital, the wild, rough street boy had listened to many kind andgentle words and had witnessed many noble and self-denying actions.
Two or three children had died while Tom was in the hospital, and thenurses had told the other children that this death only meant going homefor the little ones, and that they were now safely housed, and free fromany more sin and any more temptation.
Tom had listened to the gentle words of the kind Sister nurse, withoutheeding them much.
But the memory of the whole scene came back to him to-day, all mingledstrangely with Billy's pale face and the baby's cold little form, until hebecame quite compunctious and unhappy, and finally felt that he could notspend that remaining sixpence, but must let it burn a hole in his pocket,and do anything, in short, rather than provide him with food and shelter.Tom was accustomed to spending his nights under archways and huddled up inany sheltered corner he could discover.
This particular night he was lucky enough to find a cart half-full of hay,and here he would doubtless have had a delicious sleep, had not the babyand Billy come into his dreams. The baby and Billy between them managed togive poor Tom a horrible time of it, and at last he felt that he could bearit no longer: he must go and give Billy the sixpence which remained out ofhis shilling.
He started tolerably early the next morning, and carefully turning his faceaway from the bakers' shops and coffee-stalls as he passed them, he foundhimself presently in Aylmer's Court.
He had conquered himself in the matter of the bakers' shops and the coffeestalls, and in consequence he felt a good deal elated, his consciencebecame easier, and he began to say to himself that very few boys wouldrestore even a stolen sixpence when they were starving. He ran up thestairs, calling out to a neighbor to know if Billy Andersen was within.
"I believe yer," she replied; "jest listen to That 'ere blessed babby,a-screamin' of itself into fits; oh! bother her for as ill-mannered a childas ever I came across."
Tom ran up the remainder of the stairs, and entered Billy's attic withoutknocking.
There he saw a sight which made him draw in his breath with a little startof surprise and terror; the baby was sitting up in bed and crying lustily,and Billy was lying with his back to her, quite motionless, and apparentlydeaf to her most piteous wails.
Billy's usual white face was flushed a fiery red, and his breathing, loudand labored, fell with solemn distinctness on Tom's ears.
Tom knew these signs at a glance; he had seen them so often in the feverhospital.
Shutting the door softly behind him, and first of all taking the baby inhis arms and thrusting a sticky lollipop, which he happened to have in hiswaistcoat pocket, into her mouth:
"Be yer werry bad, Billy Andersen?" he said, stooping down over the sickboy.
"Our Father," replied Billy, raising his blue eyes and fixing them in apathetic manner on Tom. "'Tis our Father I wants."
"Why, he were a bad'un," said Tom; "he runned away from yer, he did; Iwouldn't be fretting about him, if I was you, Billy lad."
"'Tis the other one--'tis t'other one I means," said Billy in a weakgasping voice. "I has 'ad the words afore me all night long--our Father;tell us what it means, Tom, do."
"I know all about it," said Tom in a tone of wisdom; "I larned about it inhospital. There, shut up, Sairey Ann, do; what a young 'un yer are forsquallin'. Our Father lives in heaven, Billy, and he'll--he'll--oh! I amsure I forgets--look yere, wouldn't yer like some breakfast, old chap?"
"Water," gasped Billy, "and some milk for the babby."
Tom found himself, whether he wished it or not, installed as Billy's nurse.
He had to run out and purchase a penny-worth of milk, and he had also theforethought to provide himself with a farthing's worth of bull's eyes, oneof which he popped into Sarah Ann's mouth whenever she began to howl.
Never had Tom Jones passed so strange a day. It did not occur to him thatBilly was in any danger, but neither did it come into his wild, untutored,hard little heart to desert his sick comrade.
By means of the lollipops, he managed to keep Sarah Ann quiet, and then hekindled a tiny fire in the grate, and sat down by Billy, and gave himplentiful drinks of cold water whenever he asked for them.
Billy shivered and flushed alternately, and his blue eyes had a glassylook, and his breath came harder and faster as the slow sad day wore away.
Tom, however, never deserted his post, satisfying his own hunger with ahunk of dry bread, and managing to keep Sarah Ann quiet.
Toward evening, Billy seemed easier; the dreadful oppression of hisbreathing was not quite so intense, and the flush on his face had given wayto pallor.
Tom lit a morsel of candle and placed it in a tin sconce, and then he oncemore sat down by his little comrade. For the first time then Tom noticedthat solemn and peculiar look which Billy's well-known features wore. Hepuzzled his brain to recall where he had last seen such an expression;then it came back to him--it was in the fever hospital, and the little oneswho had worn it had soon gone home.
Was Billy going home? The baby lay asleep in Tom's arms, and he looked fromher to the sick child whose eyes were now closed, and whose breath wasfaint and light.
"Shall I fetch a doctor, old chap?" he whispered.
Billy shook his head.
"Tell us wot yer knows about our Father," he said in a very low and feeblevoice.
"Our Father," began Tom. "He lives in heaven, he do. He's kind and he giveslots of good things to the young 'uns as lives with him in heaven. Itsounds real fine," continued Tom, "the way as our Father treats them young'uns, only the worst of it is," he added with the air of a philosopher, "we'as to die first."
"To die," said Billy, "yes, and wot then?"
"I 'spect," continued Tom, "as our Father fetches us up 'ome somehow, butI'm very ignorant; I don't know nothing, but jest that there's a home and aFather somewheres. Look yere, Billy, old chap, you ain't going to die, beyer?"
"I 'spect I be," said Billy; "a home somewheres, and our Father there, itsounds werry nice."
Then he closed his eyes again, and his breath came a little quicker and alittle weaker, and the solemn look grew and deepened on his white face.
"Give me my babby," he said an hour later; "lay her alongside o' me; oh! mydarling, darling Sairey Ann; and I'll tell mother when she comes in."
But mother never got her message, for when next Billy spoke, it was in thesafe home of our Father.
Billy's baby grew up by and by, but no one ever loved
her better than Billydid.
THE OLD ORGAN-MAN.
"The world goes up and the world goes down, And the sunshine follows the rain."
CHARLES KINGSLEY.