Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: PLAYMATES. Page 38]
[Illustration: Title page]
_Alone in London_
_By the Author of
"Jessica's First Prayer," "Little Meg's Children," etc._
LONDON:
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY,
56, PATERNOSTER Row; 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD:
AND 164, PICCADILLY.
Right of Translation Reserved.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. NOT ALONE
II. WAIFS AND STRAYS
III. A LITTLE PEACEMAKER
IV. OLD OLIVER'S MASTER
V. FORSAKEN AGAIN
VI. THE GRASSHOPPER A BURDEN
VII. THE PRINCE OF LIFE
VIII. NO PIPE FOR OLD OLIVER
IX. A NEW BROOM AND A CROSSING
X. HIGHLY RESPECTABLE
XI. AMONG THIEVES
XII. TONY'S WELCOME
XIII. NEW BOOTS
XIV. IN HOSPITAL
XV. TONY'S FUTURE PROSPECTS
XVI. A BUD FADING
XVII. A VERY DARK SHADOW
XVIII. NO ROOM FOR DOLLY
XIX. THE GOLDEN CITY
XX. A FRESH DAY DAWNS
XXI. POLLY
[Illustration: Chapter I headpiece]
CHAPTER I.
NOT ALONE.
It had been a close and sultry day--one of the hottest of the
dog-days--even out in the open country, where the dusky green leaves
had never stirred upon their stems since the sunrise, and where the
birds had found themselves too languid for any songs beyond a faint
chirp now and then. All day long the sun had shone down steadily
upon the streets of London, with a fierce glare and glowing heat,
until the barefooted children had felt the dusty pavement burn under
their tread almost as painfully as the icy pavement had frozen their
naked feet in the winter. In the parks, and in every open space,
especially about the cool splash of the fountains at Charing Cross,
the people, who had escaped from the crowded and unventilated back
streets, basked in the sunshine, or sought every corner where a
shadow could be found. But in the alleys and slums the air was heavy
with heat and dust, and thick vapours floated up and down, charged
with sickening smells from the refuse of fish and vegetables decaying
in the gutters. Overhead the small, straight strip of sky was almost
white, and the light, as it fell, seemed to quiver with the burden of
its own burning heat.
Out of one of the smaller thoroughfares lying between Holborn and the
Strand, there opens a narrow alley, not more than six or seven feet
across, with high buildings on each side. In the most part the
ground floors consist of small shops; for the alley is not a blind
one, but leads from the thoroughfare to another street, and forms,
indeed, a short cut to it, pretty often used. These shops are not of
any size or importance--a greengrocer's, with a somewhat scanty
choice of vegetables and fruit, a broker's, displaying queer odds and
ends of household goods, two or three others, and at the end farthest
from the chief thoroughfare, but nearest to the quiet and respectable
street beyond, a very modest-looking little shop-window, containing a
few newspapers, some rather yellow packets of stationery, and two or
three books of ballads. Above the door was painted, in very small,
dingy letters, the words, "James Oliver, News Agent."
The shop was even smaller, in proportion, than its window. After two
customers had entered--if such an event could ever come to pass--it
would have been almost impossible to find room for a third. Along
the end ran a little counter, with a falling flap by which admission
could be gained to the living-room lying behind the shop. This
evening the flap was down--a certain sign that James Oliver, the news
agent, had some guest within, for otherwise there would have been no
occasion to lessen the scanty size of the counter. The room beyond
was dark, very dark indeed, for the time of day; for, though the
evening was coming on, and the sun was hastening to go down at last,
it had not yet ceased to shine brilliantly upon the great city. But
inside James Oliver's house the gas was already lighted in a little
steady flame, which never flickered in the still, hot air, though
both door and window were wide open. For there was a window, though
it was easy to overlook it, opening into a passage four feet wide,
which led darkly up into a still closer and hotter court, lying in
the very core of the maze of streets. As the houses were four
stories high, it is easy to understand that very little sunlight
could penetrate to Oliver's room behind his shop, and that even at
noon-day it was twilight there. This room was of a better size
altogether than a stranger might have supposed, having two or three
queer little nooks and recesses borrowed from the space belonging to
the adjoining house; for the buildings were old, and had probably
been one large dwelling in former times. It was plainly the only
apartment the owner had; and all its arrangements were those of a man
living alone, for there was something almost desolate about the look
of the scanty furniture, though it was clean and whole. There had
been a fire, but it had died out, and the coals were black in the
grate, while the kettle still sat upon the top bar with a melancholy
expression of neglect about it.
James Oliver himself had placed his chair near to the open door,
where he could keep his eye upon the shop--a needless precaution, as
at this hour no customers ever turned into it. He was an old man,
and seemed very old and infirm by the dim light. He was thin and
spare, with that peculiar spareness which results from the habit of
always eating less than one can. His teeth, which had never had too
much to do, had gone some years ago, and his cheeks fell in rather
deeply. A fine network of wrinkles puckered about the corners of his
eyes and mouth. He stooped a good deal, and moved about with the
slowness and deliberation of age. Yet his face was very pleasant--a
cheery, gentle, placid face, lighted up with a smile now and then,
but with sufficient rareness to make it the more welcome and the more
noticed when it came.
Old Oliver had a visitor this hot evening, a neat, small, dapper
woman, with a little likeness to himself, who had been putting his
room to rights, and looking to the repairs needed by his linen. She
was just replacing her needle, cotton, and buttons in an
old-fashioned housewife, which she always carried in her pocket, and
was then going to put on her black silk bonnet and coloured shawl,
before bidding him good-bye.
"Eh, Charlotte," said Oliver, after drawing a long and toilsome
breath, "what would I give to be a-top of the Wrekin, seeing the sun
set this evening! Many and many's the summer afternoon we've spent
there when we were young, and all of us alive. Dost remember how
many a mile of country we could see all round us, and how fresh the
air blew across the thousands of green fields? Why, I saw Snowdon
once, more than sixty miles off, when my eyes were young and it was a
clear sunset. I always think of the top of the Wrekin when I read of
Moses going up Mount Pisgah and seeing all the land about him, north
and south, east and west. Eh, lass! there's a change in us all now!"
"Ah! it's like another world!" said the old woman, shaking her head
slowly. "All the folks I used to sew for at Aston, and Uppington,
and Overlehill, they'd mostly be gone or dead by now. It wouldn't
seem like the same place at all. And now there's none but you and me
left, brother James. Well, well! it's lonesome, growing old."
"Yes, lonesome, yet not exactly lonesome," replied old Oliver, in a
dreamy voice. "I'm growing dark a little, and just a trifle deaf,
and I don't feel quite myself like I used to do; but I've got
something I didn't use to have. Sometimes of an evening, before I've
lit the gas, I've a sort of a feeling as if I could almost see the
Lord Jesus, and hear him talking to me. He looks to me something
like our eldest brother, him that died when we were little.
Charlotte, thee remembers him? A white, quiet, patient face, with a
smile like the sun shining behind clouds. Well, whether it's only a
dream or no I cannot tell, but there's a face looks at me, or seems
to look at me out of the dusk; and I think to myself, maybe the Lord
Jesus says, 'Old Oliver's lonesome down there in the dark, and his
eyes growing dim. I'll make myself half-plain to him.' Then he
comes and sits here with me for a little while."
"Oh, that's all fancy as comes with you living quite alone," said
Charlotte, sharply.
"Perhaps so! perhaps so!" answered the old man, with a meek sigh;
"but I should be very lonesome without that."
They did not speak again until Charlotte had given a final shake to
the bed in the corner, upon which her bonnet and shawl had been
lying. She put them on neatly and primly; and when she was ready to
go she spoke again in a constrained and mysterious manner.
"Heard nothing of Susan, I suppose?" she said.
"Not a word," answered old Oliver, sadly. "It's the only trouble
I've got. That were the last passion I ever went into, and I was hot
and hasty, I know."
"So you always used to be at times," said his sister.
"Ah! but that passion was the worst of all," he went on, speaking
slowly. "I told her if she married young Raleigh, she should never
darken my doors again--never again. And she took me at my word,
though she might have known it was nothing but father's hot temper.
Darken my doors! Why, the brightest sunshine I could have 'ud be to
see her come smiling into my shop, like she used to do at home."
"Well, I think Susan ought to have humbled herself," said Charlotte.
"It's going on for six years now, and she's had time enough to see
her folly. Do you know where she is?"
"I know nothing about her," he answered, shaking his head
sorrowfully. "Young Raleigh was wild, very wild, and that was my
objection to him; but I didn't mean Susan to take me at my word. I
shouldn't speak so hasty and hot now."
"And to think I'd helped to bring her up so genteel, and with such
pretty manners!" cried the old woman, indignantly. "She might have
done so much better with her cleverness too. Such a milliner as she
might have turned out! Well good-bye, brother James, and don't go
having any more of those visions; they're not wholesome for you."
"I should be very lonesome without them," answered Oliver.
"Good-bye, Charlotte, good-bye, and God bless you. Come again as
soon as you can."
He went with her to the door, and stayed to watch her along the quiet
alley, till she turned into the street. Then, with a last nod to the
back of her bonnet, as she passed out of his sight, he returned
slowly into his dark shop, put up the flap of the counter, and
retreated to the darker room within. Hot as it was, he fancied it
was growing a little chilly with the coming of the night, and he drew
on his old coat, and threw a handkerchief over his white head, and
then sat down in the dusk, looking out into his shop and the alley
beyond it. He must have fallen into a doze after a while, being
overcome with the heat, and lulled by the constant hum of the
streets, which reached his dull ear in a softened murmur; for at
length he started up almost in a fright, and found that complete
darkness had fallen upon him suddenly, as it seemed to him. A church
clock was striking nine, and his shop was not closed yet. He went
out hurriedly to put the shutters up.