LOST IN LONDON.
FOR a minute or two Sandy stood still again, bewildered and motionless,
as at first, staring at the place where Gip ought to have been by her
mother's side, and hardly able to believe that he should not see her
white little face looking up suddenly from among the rags, and hear her
cry,—
"Here little Gip are, Dandy!"
The wind and rain beat against the window, and soaked through the paper
that covered most of the panes. Down in the alley there was an unusual
stillness. All at once he fancied he could hear Gip crying and wailing
in the storm, and could see her toddling with her naked feet on the
wet stones, with her damp hair hanging over her little face. What a
many streets there were in London, with so many turnings! and Gip was
lost among them, wandering about alone in the rain and the wind and the
darkness, trying to find Sandy, and crying for him to come and carry
her home again. He felt as though his heart would break at the mere
thought of it.
It was only for a minute or two that Sandy lingered, for there was
no time to lose. Then he crept very cautiously towards his sleeping
mother, and felt carefully in her pocket. No; she had not come home
till every penny was spent; neither had he a penny in the world.
But he carried away with him his stock of fusees; for he had made up
his mind during that minute or two, that as soon as he found little
Gip, he would bear her off to some distant part of London, and go home
no more to their drunken mother. He felt almost triumphant when this
plan crossed his mind, in spite of his deep distress. Gip would soon
be old enough now to run by his side, and when she was tired, he would
carry her; and they would live together in any hole or corner. He
knew several, where, if he put Gip next to the wall, and lay outside
himself, perhaps she would not feel the rain and cold so very much.
Some of the other fusee boys would help him when they were in luck, and
he would help them in his turn. One thing he was resolved upon—he would
never go back to his mother again, never!
He went slowly down into the quiet alley, still hoping he might hear
Gip cry from some dark corner.
He called to her, at first softly, then more and more loudly, until
some of the neighbours opened their doors or windows, and asked what
was the matter, and why he was making that row?
"Mother's been and lost Gip," he answered, catching at the hope that
perhaps she was safely lodged in one of their dwellings; "is there
anybody as has seen her? It is a awful night, fit to drown the cats as
are out of doors, and she's sich a little gel. Mother's dead drunk, and
doesn't know a word about her. Hasn't anybody seen little Gip?"
The women chattered to one another across the narrow alley about Nancy
Carroll and her drunkenness, but not one of them knew anything of Gip,
except that she had been seen with her mother going down into the
street a little before dark. One or two hinted that maybe she had been
made away with as a trouble, and Sandy's blood ran chill at the mere
thought of such a terrible thing.
"No, no!" he cried. "Nobody 'ud have the heart to do that; she's sich
a pretty little gel. No, no! Mother 'ud never do sich a thing as that;
she'd be good to her at times, she would, when she were herself; and
little Gip wasn't never a trouble."
"Drink 'ill make Nancy Carroll do anything!" said a sharp-voiced woman,
who prided herself upon not getting drunk oftener than once a week, and
then upon a Sunday, when business was slack.
Sandy did not linger to discuss the dreadful question with her; he
was only the more eager to be off, and prove the suspicion false, by
finding Gip somewhere. Tucking up his stock-in-trade, by which he was
to support Gip and himself, as securely as he could under his jacket,
he turned away, and ran down the dark archway into the street.
But once there, which way was he to turn—to the right hand or the left?
In the alley this perplexity had not troubled him, for there were
not two directions where Gip could wander. There were spirit-vaults
which his mother frequented at each end of the street. Every way
there stretched around him a tangled network of streets, with lanes
and alleys and courts crossing one another, extending for hundreds of
miles. True, little Gip could not have wandered very far off as yet,
for she was too small and weakly; but if Sandy chose one direction,
perhaps she would be paddling away just in the opposite one, and every
step he took would set them farther and farther apart.
First of all, he went to both of the spirit-vaults, which were
crowded this wet night, and searched in every corner, asking the busy
assistants behind the counters if they had seen a little girl all
alone. But she was not there, and there was nothing else to guide him
to her. Yet a choice had to be made, and trusting himself to his luck,
Sandy set off running as fast as he could through the now deserted
streets, peeping into every doorway with his quick, searching eyes, and
shouting "Gip! Gip!" up every archway and passage where she might have
found shelter, if she had had sense enough.
It was a miserable night, one that Sandy could never forget, if he
lived to be a hundred years old. The rain came down pitilessly, and the
gusts of wind tore past him, blowing open his tattered clothes, as to
force a way for the cold rain to beat against his bare skin. But his
dread for Gip made him almost unconscious of his own wretchedness and
weariness and hunger. She had no shoes, had little Gip, or a bonnet,
or a jacket; nothing but a worn-out cotton frock, which he had picked
up very cheaply in Rag Fair; so cheap and worn that his mother had not
found it worth while to sell it again.
To think of Gip out in this rain and wind was agony to him; and he
could very well bear the smaller misery of being wet and chilled to the
bone himself. Along the silent streets, over crossings, round corners,
Sandy pressed on at the top of his speed, resting now and then to take
breath on a doorstep for a short minute or so, until the eastern sky
grew grey and the clouds overhead were no longer black, and the morning
came, and all the great city woke up slowly; but yet he had not found
Gip. She was lost still.
As the streets filled, he knew his chance of seeing or hearing her
would be very small. But he could not give up the search. It seemed
as if he could not live without little Gip. Why to lose her in this
way would be a hundred times worse than to see her lying dead in her
small coffin, like the other babies, and watch the lid nailed over her
peaceful face, and follow her with quiet tears to the cemetery a long
way off; where the ground swallowed them up, and there was an end of
them! They would never be cold, or famished, or beaten any more. Why
had not Gip died rather than this dreadful misfortune happen to her? He
would never give up seeking for her until he found out whether she was
living or dead.
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