One afternoon he was going up Cecil Street towards the railway station with his empty basket, when an adventure befel him which proved of some importance. He saw a neatly dressed little girl with pretty curly hair, kneeling on the pavement beside a rusty grating which admitted the light to a small window below. The child resisted every effort to get her out of the way, holding on to the bars and screaming dismally. Every one seemed in a hurry, for a train to Sandsea was just about to leave, and many Kingsmore people had lodgings in Sandsea that year, going out there in the afternoon.
Roger stooped over the child and said,—
"What's the matter, you poor little thing? Stop crying and tell me, and I'll help you."
"My shilling, my new bright shilling that father gave me."
"Well, where is it?" said Roger.
"It went down there! Father gave it to me, to buy a wooden spade and a tub, for we're going to Sandsea, you know, and I want to dig like the others; and he bid me keep it in my pocket, but I took it out to look at it, and some one hit my elbow, and it fell, and it rolled along, and I—and it went down there!"
"Well now, you dry your eyes and never fear, we'll get the shilling. Why, it's the shut up house—and the train will be gone. Never mind, I can go by the late one for once. Come along, missy, till I find out who has the key of this house. Your shilling is safe enough, for no one can get at it."
He entered the shop next door, a baker's shop, where Roger was well known; and fortunately it turned out that the baker had the key himself, and he at once handed it to Roger.
With the little girl confidently holding his hand, Roger unlocked the door, and saw before him a narrow passage, with a door at the side which opened into the shop. But the place was so dark that the little girl would not enter it, and Roger could see no way of descending to the basement storey. He groped his way to the window, and, after much fumbling, found that the shutters were outside—a fact which he ought to have remembered, for he was quite familiar with the look of the house. Out he went, and having with difficulty removed the heavy bar, he took down one shutter.
Then the light showed him a small shop, and behind the counter, he found a flight of steps going down to the lower storey. Down he went, groped about in darkness, and found a little door by which he could get out into the area; so he ran back for the little girl, and they went out together.