A week had passed away since Roy was lost. Sunday came round again,
finding Faith no longer in her neat and comfortable home, but a gutter
child, dressed as badly, and in quite as great rags, as the
worst-looking child around her. Meg was her companion and staunch
friend, but it seemed no hardship in Meg's eyes to counsel Faith to pawn
her neat and good clothes, and to receive in exchange garments in which
her father would scarcely recognise her. The money received for the
clothes had enabled the little girls to live for some days; and then
they had sold matches and flowers, and in one way and another had
managed to keep life within them. Faith, though really unaccustomed to
any hardship, had borne up bravely. The hope with which she had
awakened each morning that surely before the evening they would find
Roy, had supported her spirits; but each night as it came, with its
invariable disappointment, until even Meg began to own that she was
puzzled as to what had become of the child, brought an added weight to
Faith's heart. She was more than ever determined not to go home again
without her little brother. But as she lay down on her musty bed on
Saturday evening in the wretched cellar where she and Meg had found for
themselves quarters, hope had vanished to a very low ebb indeed.
Sunday morning dawned. It would be a whole week to-day since she last
had seen her darling little Roy. She felt very, very miserable. No,
hope would not visit her heart that day, and as she lay in bed watching
Meg putting on her clothes, the tears rolled down her pale cheeks, and
dark and sceptical thoughts filled her mind. When Meg noticed her
tears, she spoke.
"It's all a lie, Meg; it's all a big, big lie."
"Wot's a lie," asked Meg, stopping in her dressing, and staring at
Faith.
"Wot you telled me about Jesus. He didn't never love the little
children; ef He loved 'em, and ef He is as strong as you say, He'd ha'
helped us to find my little baby Roy."
A pained look came over Meg's white and careworn face. She did not
answer Faith at all for a moment or two; but having quite finished her
dressing, she bent down over her.
"I ha' made myself as clean as h'ever I could, and I'm off now to
morning ragged school; ef you'll come too, I'll wait fur yer, Faithy."
"No, no," replied Faith, shaking her head. "I'll stay and wait here.
The ragged Sunday-school's all about Jesus, and I don't b'lieve in no
Jesus now."
Meg said nothing more; she smothered a faint sigh, and closing the door
behind her ran down-stairs. She had more than a mile to walk to
Sunday-school, and she was anxious to be in time; but as she walked
along, the pained expression called up by Faith's words had not left her
face.
Meg was a wild, untaught, uncared-for Arab child, a true offshoot of the
lowest of the people. With a touch of gipsy blood in her veins, with
the most ungoverned, uncontrolled passions, she yet was capable of a
devotion, of an affection self-absorbing, self-forgetful. Offered up at
any other shrine, it would have been idolatry; offered at this, it was
worship. Meg loved, something as Mary Magdalene, something as the women
who followed to the sepulchre, must have loved our Lord.
All the love of a most loving nature had Meg given to Jesus. It was not
alone gratitude which inspired this love. "It's jest cause He's so
wonderful beautiful His own self," she would say; and it was agony to
her, greater even than it would be to a mother to hear her little child
abused, to have a word breathed against Him.
Faith's words had wrung her heart. She was very sorry for Faith, very
sorry that she could have so spoken; but she was more sorry for the pain
she feared the words must have caused Jesus.
"I 'ope as yer'll soon let us find the little 'un, for she's beginning
to think real hard things of yer, and I can't abear 'em, I can't abear
'em," said Meg, looking up at the sky, and comforting herself with this
very direct little prayer.
As she was leaving the Sunday-school at the end of the morning's
lessons, it came into her head that perhaps while she and Faith were so
earnestly seeking for little Roy, he might all this time be safely at
home. How stupid of them both never to have thought of this before!
She had heard all about Faith's respectable home from the little girl
herself. Yes; she would go there now and set her mind at rest on this
point before returning to Faith.
She reached the house. There was a common staircase, and the hall door
stood open. She met no one as she ran up-stairs, and her feet, innocent
of shoes and stockings, made no sound. A door was a little open on the
first landing, and Meg, peeping in, saw a man seated by a table. He was
a tall and powerful man, and Meg knew at once that she was looking at
Faith's father.
There was profound silence in the house, and Meg heard the man, whose
face was bowed over his hands, presently say:
"It's a lie, it's all a lie. There is no good God. If there were, He
would never have torn my children away from me like this. And I have
asked Him so often and so long to bring them back again. Yes; God does
not hear prayer. It's a lie, I say. There is no God, no Christ, no
nothing."
"How dare yer!" said Meg, rushing into the room like a little fury. The
man's words had stung her so hard that she lost both fear and
self-control. She rushed at the man, and took his hands and shook them.
"How dare yer, how dare yer!" she repeated. "Oh! yer a wicked, wicked
man to say as there's no Jesus Christ."
Warden--for it was he--started, and stared at the furious little
creature. He did not say a word, or attempt in his utter astonishment
to oppose her. He only gazed hard, as one who was bereft of all reason.
"Oh! there is a Jesus Christ, and you sha'n't dare say there ain't,"
repeated Meg; and then she suddenly flung herself on the floor at his
feet, and gave way to the most violent, most passionate sobs he had ever
heard proceeding from human breast.
He got up and locked the door; then he got water and gave it to Meg. He
was kind rather than otherwise to the poor child. When she was better,
he even brought her over to sit on the sofa where little Roy had slept
his last sleep in that room.
"Now, why did you rush in and speak to me in that strange way?" he
asked.
"'Cause yer drove me near mad. You had no call ter say so dreadful a
thing as that my Jesus Christ worn't there."
"You believe in Him then?" said Warden.
"I believe in Jesus Christ our Lord," said Meg. Her excitement was
spent. She spoke quietly, raising her big, black eyes to heaven. There
was something in her manner which must have impressed even the most
utterly careless and indifferent with its absolute sincerity.
Warden was silent, gazing at her curiously, even with admiration.
"You must not only believe in Him, you must love Him very much," he
said.
"Ay, I love Him; I'd die fur Him most willin'," said Meg, clasping her
hard hands very tight together.
"But He hasn't treated you as He has me," said Warden. "You don't know,
you can't even understand, what has happened to me. I was always a most
respectable man. I tried to do my duty. I had two children. This day
week I had two children, a son and a daughter. Now I have none. They
did not die, but they ran away. The boy went first, then the girl. I
may never see 'em again."
"May be you worn't a werry good father to 'em," said Meg. "May be Jesus
let 'em run away so as to show yer how to be a better father to 'em.
There is some as beats their children, and some as neglec's 'em. I
dunno wot is best. May be Jesus seen as you neglec'ed yer little
children."
Warden felt the lines tightening round his mouth at these words. It was
broad daylight, it was true, and Meg was only a poor, ragged child, but
her face was so solemn, and her big eyes shone with so intense a light,
and she was so absolutely fearless before him, that he felt impressed,
even just a trifle afraid--something as he would have felt had he been
looking at an accusing angel.
"You may have neglec'ed yer little children," she repeated.
When she did so, Warden nodded his head.
"It is true," he said. "It is very true, God forgive me; but I never
meant it. I fear I was a very hard man."
"Then you jest tell Jesus that," said Meg, rising. "You tell Him as you
believes in Him, as you loves Him, as yer real sorry you spoke so
dreffle bitter. It wor awful the way as you _did_ speak; but wot's so
wonderful beautiful in Him is how He furgives. You tell Him as yer
determined to neglec' yer children never no more, and I'm sure as He'll
let yer have 'm back again."
"Little girl," said Warden, "tell me the truth as you profess to love
God. Do you know anything, anything at all, of my little son, my
little, lost son, Roy?"
"No," answered Meg. "I wishes as I did, I don't know nothink; but I
means to pray to Jesus, and Jesus ull help me to find him. I feel as
he'll be found, fur Jesus do love him so werry much."
Meg went away, and Warden, unlocking the door, saw her ragged figure
disappearing down the stairs. He sighed when he saw the last of her.
Then, relocking his door, he returned to his seat by the table. As he
seated himself he remembered that he had neither asked her name nor
where she lived. It would be impossible, then, for him if he wanted her
again to find her.
He sat on perfectly motionless, recalling every word of the strange and
passionate scene just enacted before him. At last his thoughts centred
round one sentence, which began to burn into his heart like fire.
"May be Jesus seen as you neglec'ed yer little children."
He thought and thought, and more and more intolerable each moment became
his feelings. At last he found that there was only one position in
which he could bear them. He slid down from the chair to his knees.
There he remained for some hours.