1865.
GOOD FOR NOTHING.
"GET away with ye, for an idle good for nothing thief!" exclaimed Mrs. Paton, as with an angry gesture she waved from her door a ragged miserable lad who stood before it. "Never shall you be trusted with another errand by me! To take the biscuits out of the very bag! Don't tell me you were hungry; don't tell me you won't be after doing it again! I was ready, I was, to give you a chance, since I knew that you was a homeless orphan; but I'll not be taken in twice! Go, beg about the streets or starve, or find your way to the workhouse, or the jail! I wash my hands of you, I'll have nothing more to do with ye, I tell you! Ungrateful and good for nothing as you are!" and as if to give force to her words, Mrs. Paton slammed the door in his face.
Rob Barker turned away from the house with the look of a beaten hound. He knew that the reproaches of the woman were not undeserved, that he had not been faithful to his trust. Deprived, when a child, of his parents' care, brought up in the midst of poverty and vice, growing even as the weeds grow, uncared for and unnoticed, save as something worse than useless, he seemed as if born to be trampled upon; he appeared to be bound by no kindly ties to the fellow-creatures who despised him. A feeling of savage despair was creeping over his soul.
"Ay, I'm good for nothing, am I?" Rob muttered, as with slouching gait he sauntered down the street not knowing whither to go, for all the world was alike to him, a desert without a home. Almost fiercely he looked at the passers-by, some on foot, some in carriages, some upon prancing steeds. "They are good for something," thought Rob; "they have their homes and their friends, their kind parents, their merry children. They are loved while they live, and sorrowed for when they die. But I, I have no one left on earth either to love or care for me, or miss me when I'm gone. Life is just one tough hard struggle, there's none will help me through it!"
Rob stopped at the corner of a street, leant against an iron lamp-post, and moodily folded his arms. The bare brown elbows were seen through the holes in his tattered sleeves. His worn-out shoes would hardly hold together.
"I say, you, won't you come in there?" said a voice just behind him. Rob started, he so little expected to be addressed, and turning half round he saw a pale boy, in clothes that were poor but not tattered, who pointed to a door close by, over which was written "Ragged School."
"I'm not wanted there," muttered Rob.
"Every one's welcome," said the little boy, "and it's better to be in a warm room, than standing out here in the cold! I'm late, very late to-day, for I've been sent on an errand, but I think I'm in time for the little address; teacher, she always gives us a bit of a story at the end. I can't wait, but you'd better come in;" and with the force of this simple invitation, Sandy Benne, for such was the young boy's name, drew the half unwilling Rob within the door of a place where a devoted servant of the Good Shepherd was trying to feed His lambs.
Rob did not venture to do more than enter the low white-washed room in which he heard the hum of many voices. A poor-looking room it was; its only furniture, rough benches; its only ornaments, a few hymns and texts in large letters fastened on the wall. Rob stood close by the door, a shy, almost sullen spectator, watching the scene before him. The room was thronged with children, such children as, but for the Ragged School, would have been playing about in the streets. Little rough-headed urchins, who once had been foremost in mischief, pale sickly boys who looked as if they had had no breakfast that morning. Seated, some on the benches, some on the floor, they were conning their tasks with a cheerful industry which might have shamed some of the children of the rich. But a few minutes after the entrance of Rob, at a signal given by the teacher, a tall fair lady in mourning, books and slates were put back in their places, the morning's lessons were ended, and the school looked like a bee-hive when the bees are about to swarm.