Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished by Robert Michael Ballantyne (readict books txt) 📕

enough to enable her to trace Mr Twitter out. Comforting herself as well as she could with this reflection, she sat down in a dark corner on a cold door-step, and, covering her face with both hands, wept as though her heart would break.

Gradually her sobs subsided, and, rising, she hurried away, shivering with cold, for her thin cotton dress was a poor protection against the night chills, and her ragged shawl was--gone with the baby.

In a few minutes she reached a part of the Whitechapel district where some of the deepest poverty and wretchedness in London is to be found. Turning into a labyrinth of small streets and alleys, she paused in the neighbourhood of the court in which was her home--if such it could be called.

"Is it worth while going back to him?" she muttered. "He nearly killed baby, and it wouldn't take much to make him kill me. And oh! he was so different--once!"

While she stood irresolute, the man of whom she spoke chanced to turn the corner, and ran against her, somewhat roughly.

"Hallo! is that you?" he demanded, in tones that told too clearly where he had been spending the night.

"Yes, Ned, it's me. I was just thinking about going home."

"Home, indeed--'stime to b'goin' home. Where'v you bin? The babby 'll 'v bin squallin' pretty stiff by this time."

"No fear of baby now," returned the wife almost defiantly; "it's gone."

"Gone!" almost shouted the husband. "You haven't murdered it, have you?"

"No, but I've put it in safe keeping, where _you_ can't get at it, and, now I know that, I don't care what you do to _me_."

"Ha! we'll see about that. Come along."

He seized the woman by the arm and hurried her towards their dwelling.

It was little better than a cellar, the door being reached by a descent of five or six much-worn steps. To the surprise of the couple the door, which was usually shut at that hour, stood partly open, and a bright light shone within.

"Wastin' coal and candle," growled the man with an angry oath, as he approached.

"Hetty didn't use to be so extravagant," remarked the woman, in some surprise.

As she spoke the door was flung wide open, and an overgrown but very handsome girl peered out.

"Oh! father, I thought it was your voice," she said. "Mother, is that you? Come in, quick. Here's Bobby brought home in a cab with a broken leg."

On hearing this the man's voice softened, and, entering the room, he went up to a heap of straw in one corner whereon our little friend Bobby Frog--the street-Arab--lay.

"Hallo! Bobby, wot's wrong with 'ee? You ain't used to come to grief," said the father, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder, and giving him a rough shake.

Things oftentimes "are not what they seem." The shake was the man's mode of expressing sympathy, for he was fond of his son, regarding him, with some reason, as a most hopeful pupil in the ways of wickedness.

"It's o' no use, father," said the boy, drawing his breath quickly and knitting his brows, "you can't stir me up with a long pole now. I'm past that."

"What! have 'ee bin runned over?"

"No--on'y run down, or knocked down."

"Who did it? On'y give me his name an' address, an' as sure as my name's Ned I'll--"

He finished the sentence with a sufficiently expressive scowl and clenching of a huge fist, which had many a time done great execution in the prize ring.

"It wasn't a he, father, it was a she."

"Well, no matter, if I on'y had my fingers on her windpipe I'd squeeze it summat."

"If you did I'd bang your nose! She didn't go for to do it a-purpose, you old grampus," retorted Bobby, intending the remark to be taken as a gentle yet affectionate reproof. "A doctor's bin an' set my leg," continued the boy, "an' made it as stiff as a poker wi' what 'e calls splints. He says I won't be able to go about for ever so many weeks."

"An' who's to feed you, I wonder, doorin' them weeks? An' who sent for the doctor? Was it him as supplied the fire an' candle to-night?"

"No, father, it was me," answered Hetty, who was engaged in stirring something in a small saucepan, the loose handle of which was attached to its battered body by only one rivet; the other rivet had given way on an occasion when Ned Frog sent it flying through the doorway after his retreating wife. "You see I was paid my wages to-night, so I could afford it, as well as to buy some coal and a candle, for the doctor said Bobby must be kept warm."

"Afford it!" exclaimed Ned, in rising wrath, "how can 'ee say you can afford it w'en I 'aven't had enough grog to _half_ screw me, an' not a brown left. Did the doctor ask a fee?"

"No, father, I offered him one, but he wouldn't take it."

"Ah--very good on 'im! I wonder them fellows has the cheek to ask fees for on'y givin' advice. W'y, I'd give advice myself all day long at a penny an hour, an' think myself well off too if I got that--better off than them as got the advice anyhow. What are you sittin' starin' at an' sulkin' there for?"

This last remark was addressed gruffly to Mrs Frog, who, during the previous conversation, had seated herself on a low three-legged stool, and, clasping her hands over her knees, gazed at the dirty blank walls in blanker despair.

The poor woman realised the situation better than her drunken husband did. As a bird-fancier he contributed little, almost nothing, to the general fund on which this family subsisted. He was a huge, powerful fellow, and had various methods of obtaining money--some obvious and others mysterious--but nearly all his earnings went to the gin-palace, for Ned was a man of might, and could stand an enormous quantity of drink. Hetty, who worked, perhaps we should say slaved, for a firm which paid her one shilling a week, could not manage to find food for them all. Mrs Frog herself with her infant to care for, had found it hard work at any time to earn a few pence, and now Bobby's active little limbs were reduced to inaction, converting him into a consumer instead of a producer. In short, the glaring fact that the family expenses would be increased while the family income was diminished, stared Mrs Frog as blankly in the face as she stared at the dirty blank wall.

And her case was worse, even, than people in better circumstances might imagine, for the family lived so literally from hand to mouth that there was no time even to think when a difficulty arose or disaster befell. They rented their room from a man who styled it a furnished apartment, in virtue of a rickety table, a broken chair, a worn-out sheet or two, a dilapidated counterpane, four ragged blankets, and the infirm saucepan before mentioned, besides a few articles of cracked or broken crockery. For this accommodation the landlord charged ninepence per day, which sum had to be paid _every night_ before the family was allowed to retire to rest! In the event of failure to pay they would have been turned out into the street at once, and the door padlocked. Thus the necessity for a constant, though small, supply of cash became urgent, and the consequent instability of "home" very depressing.

To preserve his goods from the pawnbroker, and prevent a moonlight flitting, this landlord had printed on his sheets the words "stolen from ---" and on the blankets and counterpane were stamped the words "stop thief!"

Mrs Frog made no reply to her husband's gruff question, which induced the man to seize an empty bottle, as being the best way of rousing her attention.

"Come, you let mother alone, dad," suggested Bobby, "she ain't a-aggrawatin' of you just now."

"Why, mother," exclaimed Hetty, who was so busy with Bobby's supper, and, withal, so accustomed to the woman's looks of hopeless misery that she had failed to observe anything unusual until her attention was thus called to her, "what ever have you done with the baby?"

"Ah--you may well ask that," growled Ned.

Even the boy seemed to forget his pain for a moment as he now observed, anxiously, that his mother had not the usual bundle on her breast.

"The baby's gone!" she said, bitterly, still keeping her eyes on the blank wall.

"Gone!--how?--lost? killed? speak, mother," burst from Hetty and the boy.

"No, only gone to where it will be better cared for than here."

"Come, explain, old woman," said Ned, again laying his hand on the bottle.

As Hetty went and took her hand gently, Mrs Frog condescended to explain, but absolutely refused to tell to whose care the baby had been consigned.

"Well--it ain't a bad riddance, after all," said the man, as he rose, and, staggering into a corner where another bundle of straw was spread on the floor, flung himself down. Appropriately drawing two of the "stop thief" blankets over him, he went to sleep.

Then Mrs Frog, feeling comparatively sure of quiet for the remainder of the night, drew her stool close to the side of her son, and held such intercourse with him as she seldom had the chance of holding while Bobby was in a state of full health and bodily vigour. Hetty, meanwhile, ministered to them both, for she was one of those dusty diamonds of what may be styled the East-end diggings of London--not so rare, perhaps, as many people may suppose--whose lustre is dimmed and intrinsic value somewhat concealed by the neglect and the moral as well as physical filth by which they are surrounded.

"Of course you've paid the ninepence, Hetty?"

"Yes, mother."

"You might 'ave guessed that," said Bobby, "for, if she 'adn't we shouldn't 'ave bin here."

"That and the firing and candle, with what the doctor ordered, has used up all I had earned, even though I did some extra work and was paid for it," said Hetty with a sigh. "But I don't grudge it, Bobby--I'm only sorry because there's nothing more coming to me till next week."

"Meanwhile there is nothing for _this_ week," said Mrs Frog with a return of the despair, as she looked at her prostrate son, "for all I can manage to earn will barely make up the rent--if it does even that-- and father, you know, drinks nearly all he makes. God help us!"

"God _will_ help us," said Hetty, sitting down on the floor and gently stroking the back of her mother's hand, "for He sent the trouble, and will hear us when we cry to Him."

"Pray to Him, then, Hetty, for it's no use askin' me to join you. I can't pray. An' don't let your father hear, else he'll be wild."

The poor girl bent her head on her knees as she sat, and prayed silently. Her mother and brother, neither of whom had any faith in prayer, remained silent, while her father, breathing stertorously in the corner, slept the sleep of the drunkard.


CHAPTER FOUR.


SAMUEL