IV

One thing shed a light over the days as it approached, and then left

them dark till the hope of its return brought a dubious twilight. Once a

month, on a Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Reeve had promised to come and see

the two children. She might have come oftener, for considerable

allowance was made for family affection. But it was difficult enough in

four weeks to lay by the few pence which would take her down to the

suburb. Punctually at two she was at the gate, and till four she might

sit with the children in the lodge. Not much was said. They clung to

each other in silence. Or she undid the boy's stiff waistcoat, and

looked at his grey shirt, and tried to accustom herself to her Lizzie's

short hair and heavy blue dress. Many others came too, and sat in the

same room--eloquent drunkards appealing to heaven, exuberant relatives

with apples and sweets, unsatisfied till the children howled in answer

to their pathos, girls half-ashamed to be seen, and quiet working

mothers. As four struck, good-bye was said, and with Lizzie's crying in

her ears Mrs. Reeve walked blindly back through the lines of suburban

villas to the station. Twice she came, and, counting the days and weeks,

the children had made themselves ready for the third great Saturday.

Carefully washed and brushed, they sat in their separate day-rooms, and

waited. Two o'clock struck, but no message came. All the afternoon they

waited, sick with disappointment and loneliness. At last, seeing the

matron go by, Alfred said: "Please, mum, my mother ain't come to-day."

"Not come?" she answered. "Oh, that _is_ a cruel mother! But they're all

the same. Each time, sure as fate, there's somebody forgotten, so you're

no worse off than anybody else. Look, here's a nice big sweet for you

instead! Oh yes, I'll tell them about your little sister. What's your

name, did you say?"

As he went out along the corridor, Alfred came upon Looney hiding behind

an iron column, and crying to himself. "Why, what's the matter with

you?" he asked.

"My mother ain't been to see me," whined Looney, with unrestrained sobs;

"and Clem says 'e's wrote to tell 'er she'd best not come no more, 'cos

I'm so bad."

His mother had been for years at the school herself, and after serving

in a brief series of situations, had calculated the profit and loss, and

gone on the streets.

"Mine didn't come neither," said Alfred. "Matron says they're all like

that. But never you mind, 'ere's a nice sweet for you instead."

He took the sweet out of his own mouth. Looney received it cautiously,

and his great watery eyes gazed at Alfred with the awe of a biologist

who watches a new law of nature at work.

Next day after dinner Lizzie and Alfred met in the hall, as brothers and

sisters were allowed to meet for an hour on Sundays. They sat side by

side with their backs to the long tablecloths left on for tea.

"She never come," said Alfred after the growing shyness of meeting had

begun to pass off.

"You don't know what _I've_ got!" she answered, holding up her clenched

fist.

"I s'pose she won't never come no more," said Alfred.

"Look!" she answered, opening her fingers and disclosing a damp penny,

the bribe of one of the nurses.

"Matron says she's cruel, and 'as forgot about us, same as they all do,"

said Alfred.

Then Lizzie took up her old wail. The penny dropped and rolled in a fine

curve along the boards.

"There, don't 'e cry, Liz," he said. And they sat huddled together

overcome by the dull exhaustion of childish grief. The chapel bell began

to ring. Alfred took a corner of her white pinafore, wetted it, and

tried to wash off the marks of tears. And as they hurried away Lizzie

stooped and picked up the penny.

A few minutes later they were at service in their brick and iron chapel,

which suburban residents sometimes attended instead of going to church

in the evening.

"My soul doth magnify the Lord," they sang, following the choir, of

which the head-master was justly proud. And the chaplain preached on the

text, "Thou hast clothed me in scarlet, yea, I have a goodly heritage,"

demonstrating that there was no peculiar advantage about scarlet, but

that dark blue would serve quite as well for thankfulness, if only the

children would live up to its ideal.

"This is a wonderful institution," said the chaplain's friend after

service, as they sat at tea by the fire. "It is a kind of little Utopia

in itself, a modern Phalanstery. How Plato would have admired it! I'm

sure he'd have enjoyed this afternoon's service."

"Yes, I daresay he would," said the chaplain. "But you must excuse me

for an hour or so. I make a point of running through the infirmary and

ophthalmic ward on Sundays. Oh yes, we have a permanent ward for

ophthalmia. Please make yourself comfortable till I come back."

His friend spent the time in jotting down heads for an essay on the

advantages of communal nurture for the young. He was a lecturer on

social subjects, and liked to be able to appeal to experience in his

lectures.

V

Next morning came a letter written in a large and careful hand: "My dear

Alfred,--I hope these few lines find you well, as they don't leave me at

present. I fell down the office stairs last night and got a twist to my

inside, so can't come to-day. Kiss Liz from me, and tell her to be good.

From your loving mother, Mrs. Reeve."

Day followed day, and the mother did not come. The children lived on,

almost without thought of change in the daily round, the common task.

It was early in Christmas week, and the female officers were doing their

best to excite merriment over the decorations. Snow was falling, but the

flakes, after hesitating for a moment, thawed into sludge on the surface

of the asphalte yard. Seeing Alfred shivering about under the shed, the

superintendent sent him to the office for a plan of the school drainage,

which had lately been reconstructed on the most sanitary principles. The

boy found the plan on the table, under a little brass dog which someone

had given the superintendent as a paper-weight.

"A dog!" he said to himself, taking it up carefully. It was a setter

with a front paw raised as though it sighted game. Alfred stroked its

back and felt its muzzle. Then he pushed it along the polished table,

and thought of all the things he could make it do, if only he had it for

a bit. He put it down, patted its head again with his cold hand, and

took up the plan. But somehow the dog suddenly looked at him with a

friendly smile, and seemed to move its tail and silky ears. He caught it

up, glanced round, slipped it up his waistcoat, and ran as hard as he

could go.

"Thank you my boy," said the superintendent, taking the plan. "You've

not been here long, have you?"

"Oh yes, sir, a tremenjus long time!" said Alfred, shaking all over,

whilst the dog's paw kept scratching through his shirt.

"My memory isn't what it was," sighed the superintendent to himself, and

he thought of the days when he had struggled to learn the name at least

of every boy in his charge.

That afternoon Alfred went into school filled with mixed shame,

apprehension, and importance, such as Eve might have felt if she could

have gone back to a girls' school with the apple. Lessons began with a

"combined recitation" from Shakespeare.

"Now," said the teacher, "go on at 'Mercy on me.'"

"'Methinks nobody should be sad but I,'" shouted seventy mouths, opening

like one in a unison of sing-song.

"Now, you there!" cried the teacher. "You with your hand up your

waistcoat! You're not attending. Go on at 'Only for wantonness.'"

"'By my Christendom,'" Alfred blurted out, almost bringing dog and all

to light in his terror:

"'So I were out of prison and kept sheep,

I should be merry as the day is long.

And so I should be here, but that I doubt--'"

"That'll do," said the teacher, "Now attend."

The seventy joined in with "My uncle practises," and Alfred turned from

red to white.

At tea the table jammed the hidden dog against his chest. When he sought

relief by sitting back over the form, Clem corrected the irregular

posture with a pin. At bedtime he undressed in terror lest the creature

should jump out and patter on the boards as live things will. But at

last the gas was turned off at the main, and he cautiously groped for

his pet among his little heap of clothes under the bed. That night

Clem's most outrageous story could not attract him. He roamed Elysian

fields with his dog. Like all toys, it was something better than alive.

And certainly no mortal setter ever played so many parts. It hunted rats

up the nightgown sleeves, and caught burglars by the throat as they

stole into bed. It tracked murderers over the sheet's pathless waste.

It coursed deer up and down the hills and valleys of his knees. It drove

sheep along the lanes of the striped blanket. It rescued drowning

sailors from the vasty deep around the bed. It dug out frozen travellers

from the snowdrifts of the pillow. And at last it slept soundly,

kennelled between two warm hands, and continued its adventures in

dreams.

At the first note of the bugle Alfred sprang up in bed, sure that the

drill-sergeant would come to pull him out first. As he marched

listlessly up and down the yard at drill, the wind blew pitilessly, and

the dog gnawed at him till he was red and sore. At meals and in school

he was sure that secret eyes were watching him. He searched everywhere

for some hole where he might hide the thing. But the building was too

irreproachable to shelter a mouse.

Next day was Christmas Eve. He had heard from the "permanents" that at

Christmas each child received an apple, an orange, and twelve nuts in a

paper bag. He hungered for them. Even the ordinary meals had become the

chief points of interest in life, and the days were named from the

dinners. He was forgetting the scanty and uncertain food of his home,

now that dinner came as regularly as in a rich man's house or the Zoo.

And Christmas promised something far beyond the ordinary. There was to

be pork. At Christmas, at all events, he would lay himself out for

perfect enjoyment, undisturbed by terrors. He would take the dog back,

and be at peace again.

Just before tea-time he saw the superintendent pass over to the infants'

side. He stole along the sounding corridors to the office, and

noiselessly opened the door. There was somebody there. But it was only

Looney, who, being able to count like a calculating machine because no

other thoughts disturbed him, had been set to tie up in bundles of a

hundred each certain pink and blue envelopes which lay in heaps on the

floor. Each envelope contained a Christmas card with a text, and every

child on Christmas morning found one laid ready on its plate at

breakfast. A wholesale stationer supplied them, and a benevolent lady

paid the bill.

"Leave me alone," cried Looney from habit, "I ain't doin' nuffin."

"All right," said Alfred airily; "I've only come to fetch somethink."

But just at that moment he heard the superintendent's footstep coming

along the passage. There was no escape and no time for thought. With the

instinct of terror he put the dog down noiselessly beside Looney on the

carpet, drew quickly back, and stood rigid beside the door as it opened.

"Hullo!" said the superintendent, "what are you doing here?"

"Nothink, sir, only somethink," Alfred stammered.

"What's the meaning of that?" said the superintendent.

"I wanted to speak to that boy very pertikler, sir," said Alfred.

The superintendent looked at Looney. But Looney in turning round had

caught sight of the dog at his side, and was gazing at it open-mouthed,

as a countryman gazes at a pigeon produced from a conjuror's hat.

Suddenly he pounced upon it as though he was afraid it would fly away,

and kept it close hidden under his hands.

"Oh, that's what you wanted to speak about so particular, is it?" said

the superintendent. "That paperweight's been lost these two or three

days, and it was you who stole it, was it?"

"Please sir," said Alfred, beginning to cry, "'e never done it, and I

didn't mean no 'arm."

"Oh, enough of that," said the superintendent. "I've got other things to

do besides standing here arguing with you all night. I'll send for you

both at bed-time, and then I'll teach you to come stealing about here,

you young thieves. Now drop that, and clear out!" he added more angrily

to Looney, who was still chuckling with astonishment over his prize.

So they were both well beaten that night, and Looney never knew why, but

took it as an incident in his chain of dim sensations. Next day they

alone did not receive either the Christmas card or the paper bag. But

after dinner Clem had them up before him, and gave them each a nutshell

and a piece of orange-peel, adding the paternal advice: "Look 'ere, my

sons, if you two can't pinch better than that, you'd best turn up

pinchin' altogether till you see yer father do it."

On Boxing Day Mrs. Reeve at last contrived to come again. She was

informed that she could not see her son because he was kept indoors for

stealing.

After this the machinery of the institution had its own way with him. It

was as though he were passed through each of its scientific appliances

in turn--the steam washing machine, the centrifugal steam wringer, the

hot-air drying horse, the patent mangle, the gas ovens, the heating

pipes, the spray baths, the model bakery, and the central engine. After

drifting through the fourth standard he was sent every other day to a

workshop to fit him for after life. Looney joined a squad of little

gardeners which shuffled about the walks, two deep, with spades

shouldered like rifles. Alfred was sent to the shoemaker's, as there

was a vacancy there. He did such work as he was afraid not to do, and

all went well as long as nothing happened.

Only two events marked the lapse of time. Mrs. Reeve did not recover

from the "twist in her inside." In answer to her appeal, a

brother-in-law in the north took charge of her two remaining children,

and then she died. It was about three years after Alfred had entered the

school. He was sorry; but the next day came, and the next, and there was

no visible change. The bell rang: breakfast, dinner, and tea succeeded

each other. It was difficult to imagine that he had suffered any loss.

The other event was more startling, and it helped to obliterate the last

thought of his mother's death. After a brief interval of parental

guidance, Clem had returned to the school for about the tenth time. As

usual he devoted his vivacious intellect chiefly to Looney, in whose

progress he expressed an almost grandmotherly interest. Looney sputtered

and made sport as usual, till one night an unbaptized idea was somehow

wafted into the limbo of his brain. He was counting over the faggots in

the great store-room under his dormitory when the thought came. Soon

afterwards he went upstairs, and quietly got into bed. It was a model

dormitory. So many cubic feet of air were allowed for each child. The

temperature was regulated according to thermometers hung on the wall.

Windows and ventilators opened on each side of the room to give a

thorough draught across the top. The beds had spring mattresses of

steel, and three striped blankets each, and spotted red and white

counterpanes such as give pauper dormitories such a cheerful look.

Looney and Clem slept side by side. Before midnight the dormitory was

full of suffocating smoke. The alarm was raised. For a time it was

thought that all the boys had escaped down an iron staircase lately

erected outside the building. But when the flames had been put out in

the store-room below, the bodies of Looney and Clem were found clasped

together on Clem's bed. Looney's arms were twisted very tightly around

Clem's neck, and people said he had perished in trying to save his

friend. Next Sunday the chaplain preached on the text, "And in death

they were not divided." Their names were inscribed side by side on a

little monument set up to commemorate the event, and underneath was

carved a passage from the Psalms: "Except the Lord keep the city, the

watchman waketh but in vain."