The silver fell unheeded on the stones. The thing of rags did not even raise its head, but a low, broken voice muttered,—
“It be too late now; let ‘em take me to prison, let ‘em send me ‘cross the sea to Buttany, let ‘em hang me, if they please. I be ‘s good for nothin’ now,—nothin’!”
Altered as the voice was, it struck Percival as familiar. He looked down and caught a view of the drooping face. “Up, man, up!” he said cheerily. “See, Providence sends you an old friend in need, to teach you never to despair again.”
The hearty accent, more than the words, touched and aroused the poor creature. He rose mechanically, and a sickly, grateful smile passed over his wasted features as he recognized St. John.
“Come! how is this? I have always understood that to keep a crossing was a flourishing trade nowadays.”
“I ‘as no crossin’. I ‘as sold her!” groaned Beck. “I be’s good for nothin’ now but to cadge about the streets, and steal, and filch, and hang like the rest on us! Thank you kindly, sir,” and Beck pulled his forelock, “but, please your honour, I vould rather make an ind on it!”
“Pooh, pooh! didn’t I tell you when you wanted a friend to come to me? Why did you doubt me, foolish fellow? Pick up those shillings; get a bed and a supper. Come and see me to-morrow at nine o’clock; you know where,—the same house in Curzon Street; you shall tell me then your whole story, and it shall go hard but I’ll buy you another crossing, or get you something just as good.”
Poor Beck swayed a moment or two on his slender legs like a drunken man, and then, suddenly falling on his knees, he kissed the hem of his benefactor’s garment, and fairly wept. Those tears relieved him; they seemed to wash the drought of despair from his heart.
“Hush, hush! or we shall have a crowd round us. You’ll not forget, my poor friend, No.—— Curzon Street,—nine to-morrow. Make haste now, and get food and rest; you look, indeed, as if you wanted them. Ah, would to Heaven all the poverty in this huge city stood here in thy person, and we could aid it as easily as I can thee!”
Percival had moved on as he said those last words, and looking back, he had the satisfaction to see that Beck was slowly crawling after him, and had escaped the grim question of a very portly policeman, who had no doubt expressed a natural indignation at the audacity of so ragged a skeleton not keeping itself respectably at home in its churchyard.