Chapter Twenty Two.
The Darkest Hour before the Dawn.
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.”
And he proceeded to take it off, when the boy said,—
“All right. If you take that off, gov’nor, I slides—I mean it—so I do.”
There was a look of such wild determination in his pinched face that Reginald gave up the struggle for the present.
“We’ll share it between us, at any rate,” said he. “Whatever induced you to do such a foolish thing, Love?”
“Bless you, I ain’t got no sense,” replied the boy cheerily.
Day broke at last, and Liverpool once more became alive with bustle and traffic. No one noticed the two shivering boys as they wended their way through the streets, trying here and there, but in vain, for work, and wondering where and when they should find their next meal. But for Reginald that walk, faint and footsore as he was, was a pleasure-trip compared with the night’s wanderings.
Towards afternoon Love had the rare good fortune to see a gentleman drop a purse on the pavement. There was no chance of appropriating it, had he been so minded, which, to do him justice, he was not, for the purse fell in a most public manner in the sight of several onlookers. But Love was the first to reach it and hand it back to its owner.
Now Love’s old story-books had told him that honesty of this sort is a very paying sort of business; and though he hardly expected the wonderful consequences to follow his own act which always befall the superfluously honest boys in the “penny dreadfuls,” he was yet low-souled enough to linger sufficiently long in the neighbourhood of the owner of the purse to give him an opportunity of proving the truth of the story-book moral.
Nor was he disappointed; for the good gentleman, happening to have no less than fifty pounds in gold and notes stored up in this particular purse, was magnanimous enough to award Love a shilling for his lucky piece of honesty, a result which made that young gentleman’s countenance glow with a grin of the profoundest satisfaction.
“My eye, gov’nor,” said he, returning radiant with his treasure to Reginald, and thrusting it into his hand; “’ere, lay ’old. ’Ere’s a slice o’ luck. Somethink like that there daily bread you was a-tellin’ me of t’other day. No fear, I ain’t forgot it. Now, I say sassages. What do you say?”
Reginald said “sausages” too; and the two friends, armed with their magic shilling, marched boldly into a cosy coffee-shop where there was a blazing fire and a snug corner, and called for sausages for two. And they never enjoyed such a meal in all their lives. How they did make those sausages last! And what life and comfort they got out of that fire, and what rest out of those cane-bottomed chairs!
At the end of it all they had fourpence left, which, after serious consultation, it was decided to expend in a bed for the night.
“If we can get a good sleep,” said Reginald, “and pull ourselves together, we’re bound to get a job of some sort to-morrow. Do you know any lodging-house?”
“Me? don’t I? That there time you jacked me up I was a night in a place down by the river. It ain’t a dainty place, gov’nor, but it’s on’y twopence a piece or threepence a couple on us, and that’ll leave a brown for the morning.”
“All right. Let’s go there soon, and get a long night.”
Love led the way through several low streets beside the wharves until he came to a court in which stood a tumble-down tenement with the legend “Lodgings” scrawled on a board above the door. Here they entered, and Love in a few words bargained with the sour landlady for a night’s lodging. She protested at first at their coming so early, but finally yielded, on condition they would make the threepence into fourpence. They had nothing for it but to yield.
“Up you go, then,” said the woman, pointing to a rickety ladder which served the house for a staircase. “There’s one there already. Never mind him; you take the next.”
Reginald turned almost sick as he entered the big, stifling, filthy loft which was to serve him for a night’s lodging. About a dozen beds were ranged along the walls on either side, one of which, that in the far corner of the room, was, as the woman had said, occupied. The atmosphere of the place was awful already. What would it be when a dozen or possibly two dozen persons slept there?
Reginald’s first impulse was to retreat and rather spend another night in the streets than in such a place. But his weary limbs and aching bones forbade it. He must stay where he was now.
Already Love was curled up and asleep on the bed next to that where the other lodger lay; and Reginald, stifling every feeling but his weariness, flung himself by his side and soon forgot both place and surroundings in a heavy sleep.
Heavy but fitful. He had scarcely lain an hour when he found himself suddenly wide awake. Love still lay breathing heavily beside him. The other lodger turned restlessly from side to side, muttering to himself, and sometimes moaning like a person in pain. It must have been these latter sounds which awoke Reginald. He lay for some minutes listening and watching in the dim candle-light the restless tossing of the bed-clothes.
Presently the sick man—for it was evident sickness was the cause of his uneasiness—lifted himself on his elbow with a groan, and said,—
“For God’s sake—help me!”
In a moment Reginald had sprung to his feet, and was beside the sufferer.
“Are you ill,” he said. “What is the matter?”
But the man, instead of replying, groaned and fell heavily back on the bed. And as the dim light of the candle fell upon his upturned face, Reginald, with a cry of horror, recognised the features of Mr Durfy, already released by death from the agonies of smallpox.