Meanwhile, little Roy pursued his way down the long street which led
from his home to another, which on weekdays was full of shops and gay
with light and many-coloured windows. To-day, being Sunday, the shops
were closed, and the place looked dull. Sobbing slightly under his
breath, and a very little alarmed at the temerity of his own act, little
Roy ran down this street. His object lay very clear before his baby
mind--he was going to meet Faith. Faith was out, and, as he too had
gone out, he would, of course, find her very soon. At the corner of
this second street he came suddenly upon a flaring gin-palace, which,
Sunday though it was, was brilliant with light and full of people. The
bright light streaming right out into the street attracted little Roy.
He stopped his sobbing, paused in his short, running gait, and pressed
his little face against the pane. "Pitty, pitty!" he said to himself--
he even forgot Faith in the admiration which filled his baby soul.
After a time it occurred to him that Faith would be very likely to be in
such a lovely place. The swing-doors were always opening and shutting.
Roy, watching his opportunity, pushed his way in by the side of a ragged
woman and two coarse men. They advanced up to the counter to ask for
gin, but the baby child remained on the threshold. He looked around him
with the wide open eyes of admiration, innocence, and trust. Anything
so lovely gazing at anything so evil had been seldom seen; certainly
never seen before within those walls. The men and women drinking
themselves to the condition of beasts, stopped, and a kind of shocked
feeling pervaded the whole assembly. It was as though an angel had
alighted on that threshold, and was showing those poor hardened wretches
what some of them had once been--what, alas! none of them could ever be
again. Little Roy's cheeks were slightly flushed; his tangled yellow
hair, ruffled more than ever by his running in the wind, surrounded his
head like a halo; and as gradually it dawned upon him that all those
people surrounding him were strangers, his blue eyes filled with tears.
The directness of his aim, the full certainty of his thought were
brought to a stand-still; all movement was arrested by the terrible
certainty that Faith was not there.
"Bless us! who h'ever h'is the little 'un?" said the ragged woman who
had come into the gin-palace with him. "Wot's yer name, my little dear,
and wot h'ever do yer want?"
"'Ittle 'Oy want Fate," said the boy in a clear high tone.
The woman laughed. "Hark to the young 'un," she said, turning to her
companions. "Did yer h'ever hear the like o' that afore? He says as he
wants his fate. Pretty lamb, it 'ull come to him soon enough."
"'Oy want Fate--'Oy do want Fate," said the little child again.
The woman bent down and took his hand.
"No, no, my dear," she said. "You run away home, and never mind yer
fate; it 'ull come h'all in good time; and babies have no cause to know
sech things."
"'Oy do want Fate," repeated the boy. Two other women had now come
round him, and also a man.
"It don't seem no way canny like, to hear him going on like that," said
one of the group. "And did yer h'ever see sech a skin, and sech 'air?
I don't b'lieve a bit that he's a real flesh-and-blood child."
A coarse red-faced woman pushed this speaker away.
"Shame on yer, Kate Flarherty; the child ain't nothink uncanny. He's
jest a baby boy. Bless us! I 'ad a little 'un wid 'air as yaller as
he. You ha' got lost, and run away. Ain't that it, dear little baby
boy?"
This woman, for all her red face, had a kind voice, and it won little
Roy at once.
"Will 'oo take me to Fate?" he said; and he went up to the woman, and
put his little hand in hers. She gave almost a scream when the little
hand touched her; but, catching him in her arms, and straining him to
her breast, she left the gin-palace at once.