On the night of the day about which we have been writing, a woman,
dressed in "unwomanly rags" crept out of the shadow of the houses near
London Bridge. She was a thin, middle-aged woman, with a countenance
from which sorrow, suffering, and sin had not been able to obliterate
entirely the traces of beauty. She carried a bundle in her arms which
was easily recognisable as a baby, from the careful and affectionate
manner in which the woman's thin, out-spread fingers grasped it.
Hurrying on to the bridge till she reached the middle of one of the
arches, she paused and looked over. The Thames was black and gurgling,
for it was intensely dark, and the tide half ebb at the time. The
turbid waters chafed noisily on the stone piers as if the sins and
sorrows of the great city had been somehow communicated to them.
But the distance from the parapet to the surface of the stream was
great. It seemed awful in the woman's eyes. She shuddered and drew
back.
"Oh! for courage--only for one minute!" she murmured, clasping the
bundle closer to her breast.
The action drew off a corner of the scanty rag which she called a shawl,
and revealed a small and round, yet exceedingly thin face, the black
eyes of which seemed to gaze in solemn wonder at the scene of darkness
visible which was revealed. The woman stood between two lamps in the
darkest place she could find, but enough of light reached her to glitter
in the baby's solemn eyes as they met her gaze, and it made a pitiful
attempt to smile as it recognised its mother.
"God help me! I can't," muttered the woman with a shiver, as if an
ice-block had touched her heart.
She drew the rag hastily over the baby's head again, pressed it closer
to her breast, retraced her steps, and dived into the shadows from which
she had emerged.
This was one of the "lower orders" to whom Sir Richard Brandon had such
an objection, whom he found it, he said, so difficult to deal with, (no
wonder, for he never tried to deal with them at all, in any sense worthy
of the name), and whom it was, he said, useless to assist, because all
_he_ could do in such a vast accumulation of poverty would be a mere
drop in the bucket. Hence Sir Richard thought it best to keep the drop
in his pocket where it could be felt and do good--at least to himself,
rather than dissipate it in an almost empty bucket. The bucket,
however, was not quite empty--thanks to a few thousands of people who
differed from the knight upon that point.
The thin woman hastened through the streets as regardless of passers-by
as they were of her, until she reached the neighbourhood of Commercial
Street, Spitalfields.
Here she paused and looked anxiously round her. She had left the main
thoroughfare, and the spot on which she stood was dimly lighted.
Whatever she looked or waited for, did not, however, soon appear, for
she stood under a lamp-post, muttering to herself, "I _must_ git rid of
it. Better to do so than see it starved to death before my eyes."
Presently a foot-fall was heard, and a man drew near. The woman gazed
intently into his face. It was not a pleasant face. There was a scowl
on it. She drew back and let him pass. Then several women passed, but
she took no notice of them. Then another man appeared. His face seemed
a jolly one. The woman stepped forward at once and confronted him.
"Please, sir," she began, but the man was too sharp for her.
"Come now--you've brought out that baby on purpose to humbug people with
it. Don't fancy you'll throw dust in _my_ eyes. I'm too old a cock for
that. Don't you know that you're breaking the law by begging?"
"I'm _not_ begging," retorted the woman, almost fiercely.
"Oh! indeed. Why do you stop me, then?"
"I merely wished to ask if your name is Thompson."
"Ah hem!" ejaculated the man with a broad grin, "well no, madam, my name
is _not_ Thompson."
"Well, then," rejoined the woman, still indignantly, "you may move on."
She had used an expression all too familiar to herself, and the man,
obeying the order with a bow and a mocking laugh, disappeared like those
who had gone before him.
For some time no one else appeared save a policeman. When he
approached, the woman went past him down the street, as if bent on some
business, but when he was out of sight she returned to the old spot,
which was near the entrance to an alley.
At last the woman's patience was rewarded by the sight of a burly little
elderly man, whose face of benignity was unmistakably genuine.
Remembering the previous man's reference to the baby, she covered it up
carefully, and held it more like a bundle.
Stepping up to the newcomer at once, she put the same question as to
name, and also asked if he lived in Russell Square.
"No, my good woman," replied the burly little man, with a look of
mingled surprise and pity, "my name is _not_ Thompson. It is Twitter--
Samuel Twitter, of Twitter, Slime and--, but," he added, checking
himself, under a sudden and rare impulse of prudence, "why do you ask my
name and address?"
The woman gave an almost hysterical laugh at having been so successful
in her somewhat clumsy scheme, and, without uttering another word,
darted down the alley. She passed rapidly round by a back way to
another point of the same street she had left--well ahead of the spot
where she had stood so long and so patiently that night. Here she
suddenly uncovered the baby's face and kissed it passionately for a few
moments. Then, wrapping it in the ragged shawl, with its little head
out, she laid it on the middle of the footpath full in the light of a
lamp, and retired to await the result.
When the woman rushed away, as above related, Mr Samuel Twitter stood
for some minutes rooted to the spot, lost in amazement. He was found in
that condition by the returning policeman.
"Constable," said he, cocking his hat to one side the better to scratch
his bald head, "there are strange people in this region."
"Indeed there are, sir."
"Yes, but I mean _very_ strange people."
"Well, sir, if you insist on it, I won't deny that some of them are
_very_ strange."
"Yes, well--good-night, constable," said Mr Twitter, moving slowly
forward in a mystified state of mind, while the guardian of the night
continued his rounds, thinking to himself that he had just parted from
one of the very strangest of the people.
Suddenly Samuel Twitter came to a full stop, for there lay the small
baby gazing at him with its solemn eyes, apparently quite indifferent to
the hardness and coldness of its bed of stone.
"Abandoned!" gasped the burly little man.
Whether Mr Twitter referred to the infant's moral character, or to its
being shamefully forsaken, we cannot now prove, but he instantly caught
the bundle in his arms and gazed at it. Possibly his gaze may have been
too intense, for the mild little creature opened a small mouth that bore
no proportion whatever to the eyes, and attempted to cry, but the
attempt was a failure. It had not strength to cry.
The burly little man's soul was touched to the centre by the sight. He
kissed the baby's forehead, pressed it to his ample breast, and hurried
away. If he had taken time to think he might have gone to a
police-office, or a night refuge, or some such haven of rest for the
weary, but when Twitter's feelings were touched he became a man of
impulse. He did not take time to think--except to the extent that, on
reaching the main thoroughfare, he hailed a cab and was driven home.
The poor mother had followed him with the intention of seeing him home.
Of course the cab put an end to that. She felt comparatively easy,
however, knowing, as she did, that her child was in the keeping of
"Twitter, Slime and ---." That was quite enough to enable her to trace
Mr Twitter out. Comforting herself as well as she could with this
reflection, she sat down in a dark corner on a cold door-step, and,
covering her face with both hands, wept as though her heart would break.
Gradually her sobs subsided, and, rising, she hurried away, shivering
with cold, for her thin cotton dress was a poor protection against the
night chills, and her ragged shawl was--gone with the baby.
In a few minutes she reached a part of the Whitechapel district where
some of the deepest poverty and wretchedness in London is to be found.
Turning into a labyrinth of small streets and alleys, she paused in the
neighbourhood of the court in which was her home--if such it could be
called.
"Is it worth while going back to him?" she muttered. "He nearly killed
baby, and it wouldn't take much to make him kill me. And oh! he was so
different--once!"
While she stood irresolute, the man of whom she spoke chanced to turn
the corner, and ran against her, somewhat roughly.
"Hallo! is that you?" he demanded, in tones that told too clearly where
he had been spending the night.
"Yes, Ned, it's me. I was just thinking about going home."
"Home, indeed--'stime to b'goin' home. Where'v you bin? The babby 'll
'v bin squallin' pretty stiff by this time."
"No fear of baby now," returned the wife almost defiantly; "it's gone."
"Gone!" almost shouted the husband. "You haven't murdered it, have
you?"
"No, but I've put it in safe keeping, where _you_ can't get at it, and,
now I know that, I don't care what you do to _me_."
"Ha! we'll see about that. Come along."
He seized the woman by the arm and hurried her towards their dwelling.
It was little better than a cellar, the door being reached by a descent
of five or six much-worn steps. To the surprise of the couple the door,
which was usually shut at that hour, stood partly open, and a bright
light shone within.
"Wastin' coal and candle," growled the man with an angry oath, as he
approached.
"Hetty didn't use to be so extravagant," remarked the woman, in some
surprise.
As she spoke the door was flung wide open, and an overgrown but very
handsome girl peered out.
"Oh! father, I thought it was your voice," she said. "Mother, is that
you? Come in, quick. Here's Bobby brought home in a cab with a broken
leg."
On hearing this the man's voice softened, and, entering the room, he
went up to a heap of straw in one corner whereon our little friend Bobby
Frog--the street-Arab--lay.
"Hallo! Bobby, wot's wrong with 'ee? You ain't used to come to grief,"
said the father, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder, and giving him a
rough shake.
Things oftentimes "are not what they seem." The shake was the man's
mode of expressing sympathy, for he was fond of his son, regarding him,
with some reason, as a most hopeful pupil in the ways of wickedness.
"It's o' no use, father," said the boy, drawing his breath quickly and
knitting his brows, "you can't stir me up with a long pole now. I'm
past that."
"What! have 'ee bin runned over?"
"No--on'y run down, or knocked down."
"Who did it? On'y give me his name an' address, an' as sure as my
name's Ned I'll--"
He finished the sentence with a sufficiently expressive scowl and
clenching of a huge fist, which had many a time done great execution in
the prize ring.
"It wasn't a he, father, it was a she."
"Well, no matter, if I on'y had my fingers on her windpipe I'd squeeze
it summat."
"If you did I'd bang your nose! She didn't go for to do it a-purpose,
you old grampus," retorted Bobby, intending the remark to be taken as a
gentle yet affectionate reproof. "A doctor's bin an' set my leg,"
continued the boy, "an' made it as stiff as a poker wi' what 'e calls
splints. He says I won't be able to go about for ever so many weeks."
"An' who's to feed you, I wonder, doorin' them weeks? An' who sent for
the doctor? Was it him as supplied the fire an' candle to-night?"
"No, father, it was me," answered Hetty, who was engaged in stirring
something in a small saucepan, the loose handle of which was attached to
its battered body by only one rivet; the other rivet had given way on an
occasion when Ned Frog sent it flying through the doorway after his
retreating wife. "You see I was paid my wages to-night, so I could
afford it, as well as to buy some coal and a candle, for the doctor said
Bobby must be kept warm."
"Afford it!" exclaimed Ned, in rising wrath, "how can 'ee say you can
afford it w'en I 'aven't had enough grog to _half_ screw me, an' not a
brown left. Did the doctor ask a fee?"
"No, father, I offered him one, but he wouldn't take it."
"Ah--very good on 'im! I wonder them fellows has the cheek to ask fees
for on'y givin' advice. W'y, I'd give advice myself all day long at a
penny an hour, an' think myself well off too if I got that--better off
than them as got the advice anyhow. What are you sittin' starin' at an'
sulkin' there for?"
This last remark was addressed gruffly to Mrs Frog, who, during the
previous conversation, had seated herself on a low three-legged stool,
and, clasping her hands over her knees, gazed at the dirty blank walls
in blanker despair.
The poor woman realised the situation better than her drunken husband
did. As a bird-fancier he contributed little, almost nothing, to the
general fund on which this family subsisted. He was a huge, powerful
fellow, and had various methods of obtaining money--some obvious and
others mysterious--but nearly all his earnings went to the gin-palace,
for Ned was a man of might, and could stand an enormous quantity of
drink. Hetty, who worked, perhaps we should say slaved, for a firm
which paid her one shilling a week, could not manage to find food for
them all. Mrs Frog herself with her infant to care for, had found it
hard work at any time to earn a few pence, and now Bobby's active little
limbs were reduced to inaction, converting him into a consumer instead
of a producer. In short, the glaring fact that the family expenses
would be increased while the family income was diminished, stared Mrs
Frog as blankly in the face as she stared at the dirty blank wall.
And her case was worse, even, than people in better circumstances might
imagine, for the family lived so literally from hand to mouth that there
was no time even to think when a difficulty arose or disaster befell.
They rented their room from a man who styled it a furnished apartment,
in virtue of a rickety table, a broken chair, a worn-out sheet or two, a
dilapidated counterpane, four ragged blankets, and the infirm saucepan
before mentioned, besides a few articles of cracked or broken crockery.
For this accommodation the landlord charged ninepence per day, which sum
had to be paid _every night_ before the family was allowed to retire to
rest! In the event of failure to pay they would have been turned out
into the street at once, and the door padlocked. Thus the necessity for
a constant, though small, supply of cash became urgent, and the
consequent instability of "home" very depressing.
To preserve his goods from the pawnbroker, and prevent a moonlight
flitting, this landlord had printed on his sheets the words "stolen from
---" and on the blankets and counterpane were stamped the words "stop
thief!"
Mrs Frog made no reply to her husband's gruff question, which induced
the man to seize an empty bottle, as being the best way of rousing her
attention.
"Come, you let mother alone, dad," suggested Bobby, "she ain't
a-aggrawatin' of you just now."
"Why, mother," exclaimed Hetty, who was so busy with Bobby's supper,
and, withal, so accustomed to the woman's looks of hopeless misery that
she had failed to observe anything unusual until her attention was thus
called to her, "what ever have you done with the baby?"
"Ah--you may well ask that," growled Ned.
Even the boy seemed to forget his pain for a moment as he now observed,
anxiously, that his mother had not the usual bundle on her breast.
"The baby's gone!" she said, bitterly, still keeping her eyes on the
blank wall.
"Gone!--how?--lost? killed? speak, mother," burst from Hetty and the
boy.
"No, only gone to where it will be better cared for than here."
"Come, explain, old woman," said Ned, again laying his hand on the
bottle.
As Hetty went and took her hand gently, Mrs Frog condescended to
explain, but absolutely refused to tell to whose care the baby had been
consigned.
"Well--it ain't a bad riddance, after all," said the man, as he rose,
and, staggering into a corner where another bundle of straw was spread
on the floor, flung himself down. Appropriately drawing two of the
"stop thief" blankets over him, he went to sleep.
Then Mrs Frog, feeling comparatively sure of quiet for the remainder of
the night, drew her stool close to the side of her son, and held such
intercourse with him as she seldom had the chance of holding while Bobby
was in a state of full health and bodily vigour. Hetty, meanwhile,
ministered to them both, for she was one of those dusty diamonds of what
may be styled the East-end diggings of London--not so rare, perhaps, as
many people may suppose--whose lustre is dimmed and intrinsic value
somewhat concealed by the neglect and the moral as well as physical
filth by which they are surrounded.
"Of course you've paid the ninepence, Hetty?"
"Yes, mother."
"You might 'ave guessed that," said Bobby, "for, if she 'adn't we
shouldn't 'ave bin here."
"That and the firing and candle, with what the doctor ordered, has used
up all I had earned, even though I did some extra work and was paid for
it," said Hetty with a sigh. "But I don't grudge it, Bobby--I'm only
sorry because there's nothing more coming to me till next week."
"Meanwhile there is nothing for _this_ week," said Mrs Frog with a
return of the despair, as she looked at her prostrate son, "for all I
can manage to earn will barely make up the rent--if it does even that--
and father, you know, drinks nearly all he makes. God help us!"
"God _will_ help us," said Hetty, sitting down on the floor and gently
stroking the back of her mother's hand, "for He sent the trouble, and
will hear us when we cry to Him."
"Pray to Him, then, Hetty, for it's no use askin' me to join you. I
can't pray. An' don't let your father hear, else he'll be wild."
The poor girl bent her head on her knees as she sat, and prayed
silently. Her mother and brother, neither of whom had any faith in
prayer, remained silent, while her father, breathing stertorously in the
corner, slept the sleep of the drunkard.