At last, carefully as they were all worked, and tedious as the job was,
the jacket, vest, and trousers were finished. They were brushed, and
rubbed with spirits of turpentine to remove every trace of grease, and
then wrapped up carefully in a white sheet, with two pen'orth of camphor
to keep off the moths, and finally they were locked up in Mrs Jenks'
box along with her Sunday gown, shawl, and bonnet.
Flo watched these careful preparations with unfeigned delight. She was
quite as sure now as Mrs Jenks that the lad for whom such nice things
were ready would come back in the spring. Every word of the letter her
patient little fingers had toiled over had gone forth with a prayer, and
there was no doubt whatever in her mind that the God who had given her
her bed, and taken care of her, would do great things for Jenks also.
About this time, too, there actually came to her a little letter, a
funnily-printed, funnily-worded little letter from Dick himself, in
which he told her that he was learning to read and write, that his first
letter was to her, that he was happy and doing well, and that never, no
never, never, _never_ would he be a thief any more; and he ended by
hoping that when the spring came, Flo would pay him a little visit!
When this letter was shown to Miss Mary and to the widow, they agreed
that when the spring came this should be managed, and not only Flo, but
Miss Mary herself, and the widow, and Scamp, and perhaps the widow's
lad, should pay Dick a visit. And Flo pictured it all often in her
mind, and was happy.
Her life was very bright just then, and in the peaceful influence of her
pleasant home she was growing and improving in body and mind. She could
read and write a little, she could work quite neatly, and was very tidy
and clever about the various little household works that Mrs Jenks
taught her; and Miss Mary smiled at her, and was pleased with her; and
thought what a nice little servant she would make when Annie was
married; and Flo looked forward to this time with a grave, half-wistful
pleasure which was characteristic of her, never in her heart forgetting
that to be a good earthly servant she must be God's servant first.
Yes, her cup of happiness was full, but it was an earthly cup, and
doubtless her Heavenly Father felt He could do better for her--anyhow
the end came.
It came in this way. Since Flo arrived and Mrs Jenks had quite
finished making preparations for her lad's return, she had set her sharp
wits to work, and discovered quite a famous receipt for getting up fine
linen.
The secret of this receipt all lay in a particular kind of starch, which
was so fine, pure, and excellent, so far beyond Glenfield's Starch, or
anybody else's starch, that even old lace could be stiffened with it,
instead of with sugar. Mrs Jenks made this starch herself, and through
Miss Mary's aid she was putting by quite a nice little supply of money
for Willie when he came home--money honestly earned, that could help to
apprentice him to an honest trade by and by.
But there was one ingredient in the starch which was both rare and
expensive, and of all places in the world, could only be got good in a
certain shop in Whitechapel Road. Mrs Jenks used to buy it of a little
old Jew who lived there, and as the starch was worthless without it, she
generally kept a good supply in the house.
No Londoner can forget the severe cold of last winter, no poor Londoner
can forget the sufferings of last winter. Snow, and frost, and hail,
bitter winds, foggy days, slippery streets, every discomfort born of
weather, seemed to surround the great metropolis.
On one of these days in February, Mrs Jenks came home quite early, and
as she had no more charing to get through, she built up a good fire, and
set to work to make a fresh supply of starch. Flo sat at one side of
her and Scamp at the other, both child and dog watching her preparations
with considerable interest. She had set on a large brass pan, which she
always used on these occasions, and had put in the first ingredients,
when, going to her cupboard, she found that very little more than a
table-spoonful of the most valuable material of all was left to her.
Here was a state of affairs! She wrung her hands in dismay; all the
compound, beginning to boil in the brass pan, would be lost, and several
shillings' worth thrown away.
Then Flo came to the rescue. If Mrs Jenks stayed to watch what was
boiling, she--Flo--would start off at once to Whitechapel Road, and be
back with the necessary powder before Mrs Jenks was ready for it.
The widow looked out of the window, where silent flakes of snow were
falling, and shook her head--the child was delicate, and the day--why,
even the 'buses were hardly going--it could not be!
But here Flo overruled her. She reminded her of how all her life she
had roughed it, in every conceivable form, and how little, with her
thick boots on, she should mind a walk in the snow. As to the 'buses,
she did not like them, and would a thousand times rather walk with
Scamp. Accordingly, leading Scamp by his collar and chain, which Miss
Mary had given him, she set off.
Mrs Jenks has often since related how she watched her walk across the
court, such a trim little figure, in her brown wincey dress and scarlet
flannel cloak--another gift of Miss Mary's--and how, when she came to
the corner, she turned round, and, with her beautiful brown eyes full of
love and brightness, kissed her hand to the widow--and how Scamp danced
about, and shook the snow off his thick coat, and seemed beside himself
with fun and gaiety of heart.
She did not know--God help her--she could not guess, that the child and
dog were never to come back.
The snow fell thickly, the wind blew in great gusts, the day was a worse
one than Flo had imagined, but she held on bravely, and Scamp trotted by
her side, his fine spirits considerably sobered down, and a thick
coating of snow on his back. Once or twice, it is true, he did look
behind him piteously, as much as to say, "What fools we both are to
leave our comfortable fireside," but he flinched no more than his little
mistress, and the two made slow but sure progress to Whitechapel Road.
They had gone a good way, when suddenly Flo remembered a famous short
cut, which, if taken, would save them nearly a mile of road, and bring
them out exactly opposite the Jew's shop. It led through one of the
most villainous streets in London, and the child forgot that in her
respectable clothes she was no longer as safe as in the old rags.
She had gone through this street before--she would try it again to-day!
She plunged in boldly. How familiar the place looked! not perhaps this
place,--she had only been here but once, and that was with her mother,--
but the style of this place.
The bird-fanciers' shops, the rags-and-bones' shops, the gutter
children, and gutter dogs, all painfully brought back her old wretched
life. Her little heart swelled with gratitude at the thought of her
present home and present mercies. She looked round with pity in her
eyes at the wretched creatures who shuffled, some of them drunken, some
starving, some in rags, past her.
She resolved that when she was a woman she would work hard, and earn
money, and help them with money, and if not with money, with tender
sympathy from herself, and loving messages from her Father in heaven.
She resolved that she, too, as well as Miss Mary, would be a sister of
the poor.
She was walking along as fast as she could, thinking these thoughts,
when a little girl came directly in her path, and addressed her in a
piteous, drawling voice.
"I'm starving, pretty missy; give me a copper, in God's name."
Flo stopped, and looked at her; the child was pale and thin, and her
teeth chattered in her head. A few months ago Flo had looked like this
child, and none knew better than she what starvation meant. Besides the
five shillings Mrs Jenks had given her to buy the necessary powder, she
had sixpence of her own in her little purse; out of this sixpence she
had meant to buy a bunch of early spring flowers for her dear Miss
Mary's birthday, but doubtless God meant her to give it to the starving
child.
She pulled her purse out of her pocket, and drawing the sixpence from
it, put it into the hands of the surprised and delighted little girl.
"God bless yer, Missy," she said in her high, shrill tones, and she held
up her prize to the view of two or three men, who stood on the steps of
a public-house hard by. They had watched the whole transaction, and now
three of them, winking to their boon companions, followed the child and
dog with stealthy footsteps.
Flo, perfectly happy, and quite unconscious of any danger, was tripping
gaily along, thinking how lucky it was for her that she had remembered
this short cut, and how certain she was now to have the powder back in
time for Mrs Jenks, when suddenly a hand was passed roughly round her
waist, while a dexterous blow in the back of her neck rendered her
unconscious, and caused her to fall heavily to the ground.
The place and the hour were suitable for deeds of violence. In that
evil spot the child might have been murdered without any one raising a
finger in her behalf. The wicked men who had attacked her seemed to
know this well, for they proceeded leisurely with their work. One
secured the dog, while another divested Flo of her boots, warm cloak,
and neat little hat. A third party had his hand in her pocket, had
discovered the purse, and was about to draw it out, whereupon the three
would have been off with their booty, when there came an interruption.
An unexpected and unlooked-for friend had appeared for Flo's relief.
This friend was the dog, Scamp. We can never speak with certainty as to
the positive feelings of the dumb creatures, but it is plain that ever
since Flo turned into this bad street Scamp--as the vulgar saying has
it--smelt a rat. Perhaps it called up too vividly before his memory his
old days with Maxey--be that as it may, from the time they entered the
street he was restless and uneasy, looking behind him, and to right and
left of him, every moment, and trying by all means in his power to
quicken Flo's movements. But when the evil he dreaded really came he
was for the first instant stunned, and incapable of action: then his
perceptions seemed to quicken, he recognised a fact--a bare and dreadful
fact--the child he loved with all the love of his large heart, was in
danger.
As he comprehended this, every scrap of the prudent and life-preserving
qualities of his cur father and mother forsook the dog, and the blue
blood of some unknown ancestor, some brave, self-sacrificing Saint
Bernard, flowed through all his veins: his angry spirit leaped into his
eyes, and giving vent to a great howl of rage and sorrow, he wrenched
his chain out of the man's hand who was trying to hold him, and
springing on the first of the kneeling figures, fastened his great fangs
into his throat. In an instant all would have been over with this
ruffian, for Scamp had that within him then which would have prevented
his ever leaving go, had not the man's companion raised an enormous
sledge hammer he held in his hand, and beat out the poor animal's brains
on the spot. He sank down without even a sigh at Flo's feet, and the
three villains, hearing from some one that the police were coming,
disappeared with their booty, leaving the unconscious child and dead dog
alone.
The little crowd which had surrounded them, at tidings of the approach
of the police, dispersed, and the drifting hail and snow covered the
dog's wounds and lay on the child's upturned face.
Just then a fire-engine, drawn by horses at full gallop, came round the
corner, and the driver, in the fast-failing light, never, until too
late, perceived the objects in his path. He tried then to turn aside,
but one heavy wheel passed partly over the child's body. The firemen
could not stop, their duty was too pressing, but they shouted out to the
tardy policemen, who at last appeared in view.
These men, after examining Flo, fetched a cab, and placing her in it,
conveyed her to the London Hospital, and one, at parting, gave Scamp a
kick.
"Dead! poor brute!" he said, and so they left him.
They left him, and the pure snow, falling thickly now, formed a fit
covering for him, and so heavily did it lie over him in the drift into
which he had fallen, that the next day he was shovelled away, a frozen
mass, in its midst, and no mortal eye again saw him, nor rough mortal
hand again touched him.
Thus God Himself made a shroud for His poor faithful creature, and the
world, did it but know it, was the poorer by the loss of Scamp.