THE BAKER.—ON AND ON.—THE CHURCH BELL.—A DIGRESSION.—A FAMILIAR HYMN.—THE
BOYS’ HOME.
JAN stopped at last from lack of breath to go on. His feet had been
winged by terror, and he looked back even now with fear to see the Cheap
Jack’s misshapen figure in pursuit. He had had no food for hours, but
the pence the dark gentleman had given him were in his chalk pouch, and
he turned into the first baker’s shop he came to to buy a penny loaf. It
was a small shop, served by a pleasant-faced man, who went up and down,
humming, whistling, and singing,—
“Like tiny pipe of wheaten straw,
The wren his little note doth swell,
And every living thing that flies”—
“A penny loaf, please,” said Jan, laying down the money, and the man
turned and said, “Why, you be the boy that draws on the pavement!”
For a moment Jan was silent. It presented itself to him as a new
difficulty, that he was likely to be recognized. There was a flour
barrel by the counter, and as he pondered he began mechanically to sift
the flour through his finger and thumb.
“You be used to flour seemingly,” said the baker, smiling. “Was ’ee ever
in a mill? ’ee seems to have a miller’s thumb.”
In a few minutes Jan had told his story, and had learned, with amazement
and delight, that the baker had not only been a windmiller’s man, but had
worked in Master Lake’s tower mill. He was, in fact, the man who had
helped George the very night that Jan arrived. But he confirmed the fact
that it was Sal who brought Jan, by his account of her, and he seemed to
think that she was probably his mother. He was very kind. He refused to
take payment for the loaf, and went, humming, whistling, and singing,
away to get Jan some bacon to eat with it.
When he was alone, Jan’s hand went back to the flour, and he sifted and
thought. The baker was kind, but he had said that “it was an ackerd
thing for a boy to quarrel with’s parents.” Jan felt that he expected
him to go home. Perhaps at this moment the baker had gone, with the best
intentions, to fetch the Cheap Jack, and bring about a family reunion.
Terror had become an abiding state of Jan’s mind, and it seized him
afresh, like a palsy. He left the penny on the counter, and shook the
flour-dust from his fingers, and, stealing with side glances of dread
into the street, he sped away once more.
He had no knowledge of localities. He ran “on and on,” as people do in
fairy tales. Sometimes he rested on a doorstep, sometimes he hid in a
shutter box or under an archway. He had learned to avoid the police, and
he moved quickly from one dark corner to another with a hunted look in
his black eyes. Late in the night he found a heap of straw near a
warehouse, on which he lay down and fell asleep. At eight o’clock the
next morning he was awakened by the clanging of a bell, and he jumped up
in time to avoid a porter who was coming to the warehouse, and ran “on
and on.”
It was a bright morning, and the sun was shining; but Jan’s feet were
sore, and his bones ached from cold and weariness. Yesterday the
struggle to escape the Cheap Jack had kept him up, but now he could only
feel his utter loneliness and misery. There was not a friendly sound in
all the noises of the great city,—the street cries of food he could not
buy, the quarrelling, the laughter with which he had no concern, the
tramp of strange feet, the roar of traffic and prosperity in which he had
no part.
He was so lonely, so desolate, that when a sound came to him which was
familiar and pleasant, and full of old and good and happy associations,
it seemed to bring his sad life to a climax, to give just one strain too
much to his powers of endurance. Like the white lights he put to his
black sketches, it seemed to bring the darkness of his life into relief,
and he felt as if he could bear no more, and would like to sit down and
die. The sound came through the porch of a church. It was the singing
of a hymn,—one of Charles Wesley’s hymns, of which Master Swift was so
fond.
The sooty iron gates were open, and so was the door. Jan crept in to
peep, and he caught sight of a stained window full of pale faces, which
seemed to beckon him, and he went into the church and no one molested
him.
There is a very popular bit of what I venture to think a partly false
philosophy which comes up again and again in magazines and story books in
the shape of satirical contrasts between the words of the General
Confession, or the Litany, and the particular materials in which the
worshippers, the intercessors, and the confessing sinners happen to be
clothed. But, since broadcloth has never yet been made stout enough to
keep temptation from the soul, and silk has proved no protection against
sorrow, I confess that I never could see any thing more incongruous in
the confessions and petitions of handsomely dressed people than of ragged
ones. That any sinner can be “miserable” in satin, seems impossible, or
at least offensive, to some minds; perhaps to those who know least of the
reckless, callous light-heartedness of the most ragged reprobates.
This has nothing to do, it seems to me, with the fact that a certain
degree of outlay on dress is criminal, on several grave accounts; nor
even with the incongruous spectacle of a becoming bonnet arranged during
the Litany by the tightly gloved fingers of a worshipper, who would
probably not be any the more devout for being uncomfortably conscious of
bad clothes. An old friend of my childhood used to tell me that she
always thought a good deal of her dress before going to church, that she
might quite forget it when there.
Surely, dress has absolutely nothing to do with devotion. And the
impertinent patronage of worshippers in “fustian” is at least as
offensive as the older-fashioned vulgarity of pride in congregations who
“come in their own carriages.” And I do protest against the flippant
inference that good clothes for the body must lower the assumptions of
the spirit, or make repentance insincere; which I no more believe than
that the worship of a clean Christian is less acceptable than that of a
brother who cannot afford or does not value the use of soap.
I am perhaps anxious to defend this congregation, on which Jan stumbled
in the pale light of early morning in the city, from any imputation on
the sincerity of its worship, because it was mostly very comfortably
clad. The men were chiefly business men, with a good deal of the
obnoxious “broadcloth” about them, and with well-brushed hats beneath
their seats. One of the stoutest and most comfortable-looking, with an
intelligent face and a fair clean complexion which spoke of good food,
stood near the door. He wore a new great-coat with a velvet collar, but
his gray eyes (they had seen middle age, and did not shine with any flash
of youthful enthusiasm) were fixed upon the window, and he sang very
heartily, and by heart,—
“Other Refuge have I none!
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me.”
The tears flowed down Jan’s cheeks. It had been a favorite hymn of his
foster-mother, and he had often sung it to her. Master Swift used to
“give the note,” and then sink himself into the bass part, and these
quaint duets had been common at the mill. How delightful such simple
pleasures seem to those who look back on them from the dark places of the
earth, full of misery and wickedness!
In spite of his tears, Jan was fain to join as the hymn went on, and he
sang like a bird,—
“All my trust on Thee is stayed,
All my help from Thee I bring;
Cover my defenceless head
With the shadow of Thy wing.”
It was the hymn after the third collect, and when it was ended the
comfortable-looking gentleman motioned Jan into a seat, and he knelt
down.
When the service was over, the same gentleman took him by the arm, and
asked, “What’s the matter with you, my boy?”
A rapid survey of his woes led Jan to reply, “I’ve no home, sir.”
The congregation had dispersed quickly, for the men were going to
business.
This gentleman walked fast, and he hurried Jan along with him.
“Who are your parents?” he asked. The service had recalled Jan’s highest
associations, and he was anxious to tell the strict truth.
“I don’t rightly know, sir,” said he.
“Are you hungry?”
“Yes, sir,” sobbed poor Jan.
They were stopping before a large house, and the gentleman said, “Look
here, my boy. If you had a good home, and good food, and clothes, would
you work? Would you try to be a good lad, and learn an honest trade?”
“I’d be glad, sir,” said Jan.
“Have you ever worked? What can you do?” asked the gentleman.
“I can mind pigs; but I do think ’twould be best for I to be in a mill,
and I’ve got a miller’s thumb.” Jan said this because the idea had
struck him that if he could only get home again he might hire himself out
at a mop to Master Lake. A traditional belief in the force of the law of
hiring made him think that this would protect him against any claim of
the Cheap Jack. Before the gentleman could reply, the house-door was
opened by a boy some years older than Jan, who was despatched to fetch
“the master.” Jan felt sure that it must be a school, though he was
puzzled by the contents of the room in which they waited. It was filled
with pretty specimens of joiner’s and cabinet-maker’s work, some quite
and some partly finished. There were also brushes of various kinds, so
that, if there had been a suitable window, Jan would have concluded that
it was a shop. In two or three moments the master’s step sounded in the
passage.
Jan had pleasant associations with the word “master,” and he looked up
with some vague fancy of seeing a second Master Swift. Not that Master
Swift, or any one else in the slow-going little village, ever walked with
this sharp, hasty tread, as if one hoped to overtake time! With such a
step the gentleman himself went away, when he had said to Jan, “Be a good
boy, my lad, and attend to your master, and he’ll be a good friend to
you.”
He was not in the least like Master Swift. He was young, and youthfully
dressed. A schoolmaster with neither spectacles nor a black coat was a
new idea to Jan; but he seemed to be kind, for, with a sharp look at
Jan’s pinched face, he said, “You’ll be glad of some breakfast, my lad, I
fancy; and breakfast’s only just over. Come along.” And away he went at
double quick time down the passage, and Jan ran after him.
On their way to the kitchen, they crossed an open court where boys were
playing, and round which ran mottoes in large letters.
“You can read?” said the master, quickly, as he caught Jan’s eyes
following the texts. “Have you ever been to school?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jan.
“Can you write? What else have you learned?”
Jan pondered his stock of accomplishments. “I can write, sir, and
cipher. And I’ve learned geography and history, and Master Swift gave I
lessons in mechanics, and I be very fond of poetry and painting, and”—
The master was painfully familiar with the inventive and boastful powers
of street boys. He pushed Jan before him into the kitchen, saying
smartly, but good-humoredly, “There, there! Don’t make up stories, my
boy. You must learn to speak the truth, if you come into the Home. We
don’t expect poets and painters,” he added, smiling. “If you can chop
wood, and learn what you’re taught, you’ll do for us.”
A smile stole over the face of a shrewd-looking lad who was washing
dishes at the table. Jan saw that he was not believed, and his tears
fell into the mug of cocoa, and on to the bread which formed his
breakfast.