If the worshipful magistrate flattered himself that the reprimand he had
addressed to Reginald that afternoon would move his hearer to self-
abasement or penitence, he had sadly miscalculated the power of his own
language.
Every word of that "caution" had entered like iron into the boy's soul,
and had roused in him every evil passion of which his nature was
capable. A single word of sympathy or kindly advice might have won him
heart and soul. But those stinging, brutal sentences goaded him almost
to madness, and left him desperate.
What was the use of honesty, of principle, of conscientiousness, if they
were all with one accord to rise against him and degrade him?
What was the use of trying to be better than others when the result was
an infamy which, had he been a little more greedy or a little less
upright, he might have avoided?
What was the use of conscious innocence and unstained honour, when they
could not save him from a sense of shame of which no convicted felon
could know the bitterness?
It would go out to all the world that Reginald Cruden, the suspected
swindler, had been "let off" for lack of evidence after three days'
imprisonment. The victims of the Corporation would read it, and regret
the failure of justice to overtake the man who had robbed them. His
father's old county friends would read it, and shake their heads over
poor Cruden's prodigal. The Wilderham fellows would read it, and set
him down as one more who had gone to the bad. Young Gedge would read
it, and scorn him for a hypocrite and a humbug. Durfy would read it,
and chuckle. His mother and Horace would read it. Yes, and what would
they think? Nothing he could say would convince them or anybody. They
might forgive him, but--
The thought made his blood boil within him. He would take forgiveness
from no man or woman. If they chose to believe him guilty, let them;
but let them keep their forgiveness to themselves. Rather let them give
the dog a bad name and hang him. He did not care! Would that they
could!
Such was the rush of thought that passed through his mind as he stood
that bleak winter afternoon in the street, a free man.
Free! he laughed at the word, and envied the burglar with his six
months. What spirit of malignity had hindered Mr Sniff from letting
him lose himself in a felon's cell rather than turn him out "free" into
a world every creature of which was an enemy?
Are you disgusted with him, reader? With his poor spirit, his weak
purpose, his blind folly? Do you say that you, in his shoes, would have
done better? that you would never have lost courage? that you would have
held up your head still, and braved the storm? Alas, alas, that the
Reginalds are so many and the heroes of your sort so few!
Alas for the sensitive natures whom injustice can crush and make cowards
of! You are not sensitive, thank God, and you do not know what crushing
is. Pray that you never may; but till you have felt it deal leniently
with poor Reginald, as he goes recklessly out into the winter gloom
without a friend--not even himself.
It mattered little to him where he went or what became of him. It made
no odds how and when he should spend his last shilling. He was hungry
now. Since early that morning nothing had passed his lips. Why not
spend it now and have done with it?
So he turned into a coffee-shop, and ordered coffee and a plate of beef.
"My last meal," said he to himself, with a bitter smile.
His appetite failed him when the food appeared, but he ate and drank out
of sheer bravado. His enemies--Durfy, and the magistrate, and the
victims of the Corporation--would rejoice to see him turn with a shudder
from his food. He would devour it to spite them.
"How much?" said he, when it was done.
"Ninepence, please," said the rosy-cheeked girl who waited.
Reginald tossed her the shilling.
"Keep the change for yourself," said he, and walked out of the shop.
He was free now with a vengeance! He might do what he liked, go where
he liked, starve where he liked.
He wandered up and down the streets that winter evening recklessly
indifferent to what became of him. The shops were gaily lighted and
adorned with Christmas decorations. Boys and girls, men and women,
thronged them, eager in their purchases and radiant in the prospect of
the coming festival. There went a grave father, parading the pavement
with a football under his arm for the boy at home; and here a lad, with
his mother's arm in his, stood halted before an array of fur cloaks, and
bade her choose the best among them. Bright-eyed school-girls brushed
past him with their brothers, smiling and talking in holiday glee; and
here a trio of school-chums, arm-in-arm, bore down upon him, laughing
over some last-term joke. He watched them all.
Times were when his heart would warm and soften within him at the
memories sights like these inspired; but they were nothing to him now;
or if they were anything, they were part of a universal conspiracy to
mock him. Let them mock him; what cared he?
The night drew on. One by one the gay lights in the shops went out, and
the shutters hid the crowded windows. One by one the passengers
dispersed, some to besiege the railway-stations, some to invade the
trams, others to walk in cheery parties by the frosty roads; all to go
home.
Even the weary shopmen and shop-girls, released from the day's labours,
hurried past him homeward, and the sleepy cabman whipped up his horse
for his last fare before going home, and the tramps and beggars vanished
down their alleys, and sought every man his home.
Home! The word had no meaning to-night for Reginald as he watched the
streets empty, and found himself a solitary wayfarer in the deserted
thoroughfares.
The hum of traffic ceased. One by one the bedroom lights went out, the
clocks chimed midnight clearly in the frosty air, and still he wandered
on.
He passed a newspaper-office, where the thunder of machinery and the
glare of the case-room reminded him of his own bitter apprenticeship at
the _Rocket_. They might find him a job here if he applied. Faugh! who
would take a gaol-bird, a "let-off" swindler, into their employ?
He strolled down to the docks. The great river lay asleep. The docks
were, deserted; the dockyards silent. Only here and there a darting
light, or the distant throb of an engine, broke the slumber of the
scene.
A man came up to him as he stood on the jetty.
"Now then, sheer off; do you hear?" he said. "What do you want here?"
"Mayn't I watch the river?" said Reginald.
"Not here. We've had enough of your sort watching the river. Off you
go," and he laid his hand on the boy's collar and marched him off the
pier.
Of course! Who had not had enough of his sort? Who would not suspect
him wherever he went? Cain went about with a mark on his forehead for
every one to know him by. In what respect was he better off, when men
seemed to know by instinct and in the dark that he was a character to
mistrust and suspect?
The hours wore on. Even the printing-office when he passed it again was
going to rest. The compositors one by one were flitting home, and the
engine was dropping asleep. He stood and watched the men come out, and
wondered if any of them were like himself--whether among them was a
young Gedge or a Durfy?
Then he wandered off back into the heart of the town. A wretched
outcast woman, with a child in her arms, stood at the street corner and
accosted him.
"Do, kind gentleman, give me a penny. The child's starving, and we're
so cold and hungry."
"I'd give you one if I had one," said Reginald; "but I'm as poor as you
are."
The woman sighed, and drew her rags round the infant.
Reginald watched her for a moment, and then, taking off his overcoat,
said,--
"You'd better put this round you."
And he dropped it at her feet, and hurried away before she could pick up
the gift, or bless the giver.
He gave himself no credit for the deed, and he wanted none. What did he
care about a coat? he who had been frozen to the heart already. Would a
coat revive his good name, or cover the disgrace of that magisterial
caution?
The clocks struck four, and the long winter night grew bleaker and
darker. It was eleven hours since he had taken that last defiant meal,
and Nature began slowly to assert her own with the poor outcast. He was
faint and tired out, and the breeze cut him through. Still the rebel
spirit within him denied that he was in distress. No food or rest or
shelter for him! All he craved was leave to lose himself and forget his
own name.
Is it any use bidding him, as we bade him once before, turn round and
face the evil genius that is pursuing him? or is there nothing for him
now but to run? He has run all night, but he is no farther ahead than
when he stood at the police-court door. On the contrary, it is running
him down fast, and as he staggers forward into the darkest hour of that
cruel night, it treads on his heels and begins to drag him back.
Is there no home? no voice of a friend? no helping hand to save him from
that worst of all enemies--his evil self?
It was nearly five o'clock when, without knowing how he got there, he
found himself on the familiar ground of Shy Street. In the dim
lamplight he scarcely recognised it at first, but when he did it seemed
like a final stroke of irony to bring him there, at such a time, in such
a mood. What else could it be meant for but to remind him there was no
escape, no hope of losing himself, no chance of forgetting?
That gaunt, empty window of Number 13, with the reflected glare of the
lamp opposite upon it, seemed to leer down on him like a mocking ghost,
claiming him as its own. What was the use of keeping up the struggle
any longer? After all, was there not one way of escape?
What was it crouching at the door of Number 13, half hidden in the
shade? A dog? a woman? a child?
He stood still a moment, with beating heart, straining his eyes through
the gloom. Then he crossed. As he did so the figure sprang to its feet
and rushed to meet him.
"I knowed it, gov'nor; I knowed you was a-comin'," cried a familiar
boy's voice. "It's all right now. It's all right, gov'nor!"
Never did sweeter music fall on mortal ears than these broken,
breathless words on the spirit of Reginald. It was the voice he had
been waiting for to save him in his extremity--the voice of love to
remind him he was not forsaken; the voice of trust to remind him some
one believed in him still; the voice of hope to remind him all was not
lost yet. It called him back to himself; it thawed the chill at his
heart, and sent new life into his soul. It was like a key to liberate
him from the dungeon of Giant Despair.
"Why, Love, is that you, my boy?" he cried, seizing the lad's hand.
"It is so, gov'nor," whimpered the boy, trembling with excitement, and
clinging to his protector's hand. "I knowed you was a-comin', but I was
a'most feared I wouldn't see you too."
"What made you think I would come?" said Reginald, looking down with
tears in his eyes on the poor wizened upturned face.
"I knowed you was a-comin'," repeated the boy, as if he could not say it
too often; "and I waited and waited, and there you are. It's all right,
gov'nor."
"It _is_ all right, old fellow," said Reginald. "You don't know what
you've saved me from."
"Go on," said the boy, recovering his composure in the great content of
his discovery. "I ain't saved you from nothink. Leastways unless you
was a-goin' to commit soosanside. If you was, you was a flat to come
this way. That there railway-cutting's where I'd go, and then at the
inkwidge they don't know if you did it a-purpose or was topped over by
the train, and they gives you the benefit of the doubt, and says, `Found
dead.'"
"We won't talk about it," said Reginald, smiling, the first smile that
had crossed his lips for a week. "Do you know, young 'un, I'm hungry;
are you?"
"Got any browns?" said Love.
"Not a farthing."
"More ain't I, but I'll--" He paused, and a shade of doubt crossed his
face as he went on. "Say, gov'nor, think they'd give us a brown for
this 'ere _Robinson_?"
And he pulled out his _Robinson Crusoe_ bravely and held it up.
"I'm afraid not. It only cost threepence."
Another inward debate took place; then drawing out his beloved
_Pilgrim's Progress_, he put the two books together, and said,--
"Suppose they'd give us one for them two?"
"Don't let's part with them if we can help," said Reginald. "Suppose we
try to earn something?"
The boy said nothing, but trudged on beside his protector till they
emerged from Shy Street and stood in one of the broad empty main streets
of the city.
Here Reginald, worn out with hunger and fatigue, and borne up no longer
by the energy of desperation, sank half fainting into a doorstep.
"I'm--so tired," he said; "let's rest a bit. I'll be all right--in a
minute."
Love looked at him anxiously for a moment, and then saying, "Stay you
there, gov'nor, till I come back," started off to run.
How long Reginald remained half-unconscious where the boy left him he
could not exactly tell; but when he came to himself an early streak of
dawn was lighting the sky, and Love was kneeling beside him.
"It's all right, gov'nor," said he, holding up a can of hot coffee and a
slice of bread in his hands. "Chuck these here inside yer; do you
'ear?"
Reginald put his lips eagerly to the can. It was nearly sixteen hours
since he had touched food. He drained it half empty; then stopping
suddenly, he said,--
"Have you had any yourself?"
"Me? In corse! Do you suppose I ain't 'ad a pull at it?"
"You haven't," said Reginald, eyeing him sharply, and detecting the
well-meant fraud in his looks. "Unless you take what's left there, I'll
throw it all into the road."
In vain Love protested, vowed he loathed coffee, that it made him sick,
that he preferred prussic acid; Reginald was inexorable, and the boy was
obliged to submit. In like manner, no wile or device could save him
from having to share the slice of bread; nor, when he did put it to his
lips, could any grimace or protest hide the almost ravenous eagerness
with which at last he devoured it.
"Now you wait till I take back the can," said Love. "I'll not be a
minute," and he darted off, leaving Reginald strengthened in mind and
body by the frugal repast.
It was not till the boy returned that he noticed he wore no coat.
"What have you done with it?" he demanded sternly.
"Me? What are you talking about?" said the boy, looking guiltily
uneasy.
"Don't deceive me!" said Reginald. "Where's your coat?"
"What do I want with coats? Do you--"
"Have you sold it for our breakfast?"
"Go on! Do you think--"
"Have you?" repeated Reginald, this time almost angrily.
"Maybe I 'ave," said the boy; "ain't I got a right to?"
"No, you haven't; and you'll have to wear mine now."