Such was the home in which little Dick was reared. Fortunately he was the only child. His father took little notice of him. His mother was not without affection for him, but it was constantly deadened by the almost stupefied state in which she lived. The child seldom knew real hunger, for there was generally something to be found in the three-cornered cupboard to which he had free access, nor did he often get the hard words and blows that are so apt to fall to the lot of the unfortunate children of drinking parents. Neither Nason nor his wife were ranked amongst the more brawling and disorderly inhabitants of Roan's Court; though drink stupefied and rendered them helpless and good-for-nothing often for days together, especially after Nason had had a good haul into his big clothes-bag, and had turned its contents into money. But as for the dirt, untidiness, and general discomfort of their abode, they might have won the prize in this respect had one been offered for the most wretched room.
Dick was a queer little figure to look at, though he had the brightest face possible. He used to be clothed entirely out of his father's rag-bag. Nason had three of these bags, which hung up on three nails in their cellar room. One was blue, made of strong material, for the reception of old garments; the second, of stout canvas, was for rabbit-skins; and the third for bones. Out of the blue bag used to come forth jackets, which were by no means worn out, as well as jackets well patched and darned. The latter always fell to Dick's share, as the better ones were more valuable to turn into cash. As to the fit, that was considered to be utterly unimportant. If only they were large enough for Dick to squeeze into them, or small enough for him to be able to walk about in them, that was deemed sufficient; so the little fellow would at one time be seen to be almost bursting through his things from their tightness, and at another he looked like a walking clothes-peg with his garments hanging loosely upon him. But it was all the same to Dick, whether they were tight or loose, and his bright eyes and curly head were what people looked at most after all. Dick's life for the first few years was a very free and easy one. He made dirt pies beautifully as soon as he was able to walk, being instructed in that art by some children a little older than himself who lived next door. Then came the ball-playing age—for even the poorest youngsters contrive to get balls somehow or other—and Dick had his to roll about long before he knew how to play with it. A little later on his amusement was to stroll about the streets, peep in at the shop windows, look longingly at the tempting piles of oranges and lollipops on the stalls at the corner of the street, and occasionally, but very rarely, produce a halfpenny from his pocket with which to purchase a scrap of the said lollipops, or one of the smallest and most sour of the oranges.
But the greatest delight of Dick's life was to go to Covent Garden Market to look at the flowers, his love for which seemed born with him in a remarkable degree. He was in a perfect ecstasy of delight the first time he went there in company with some other children, who like himself had nothing to do but to stroll about the streets. What they looked at with indifference, Dick gazed upon with rapture, and from that day he constantly found his way to the same spot, which was at no great distance from Roan's Court. He was there so often that his appearance became familiar to the stall-holders, and they sometimes employed him in running errands or doing little jobs for them, rewarding him with an apple or orange, or, if it were towards the evening, perhaps a bunch of flowers that had begun to fade. Nothing ever pleased him so much as to have them to take home; and then he tenderly put them in a cracked mug on the window seat, where he could see them as soon as he awoke in the morning. In after years he used to say that his first idea of God was taken from those flowers; that their beauty carried off his mind in wonder as to the greatness of the Power that made them. The strange contrast between them in all their loveliness and the dingy dirty room he lived in, had doubtless much to do with the effect they produced on his mind.
Dick knew little about religion. Once or twice he had peeped into a church when service was going on, but had not cared to stay long; not at all understanding what he heard, and feeling rather alarmed at the man in the black gown whom he saw sitting near the door to keep order.
But though Dick was a stranger to both church and Sunday-school, an instructor was raised up for him in a quarter no one would have expected. Not far from Covent Garden, in a single room, lived an old man named John Walters, who had a small pension from a gentleman whose servant he had once been, and who increased his means by doing a variety of jobs about the market, where he was quite an institution. This old man loved his God and loved his Bible. He lived quite alone. His wife had been dead some years, and the only child he ever had, a boy, died of measles when he was about twelve years of age.
Perhaps it was the remembrance of this boy made him notice little Dick as he lingered day after day about the market; but he might never have spoken to him had it not been for an incident which we will relate.
One day as a woman from the country was beginning to put up her fruit and vegetables, she tripped and upset her basket of apples, which rolled away in every direction. Dick was standing near and helped to pick them up. The woman was anxious to collect them all, for they were a valuable sort of apple which sold for a good price for dessert, and every one was precious. Several rolled away to a distance and lodged under a heap of empty hampers. Dick ran amongst the hampers and picked them up; as he did so he slipped three of them into the capacious pockets of the very loose clothes he had on, which had lately been produced from the blue bag and would have fitted a boy nearly twice his size. There was an Eye above that saw him commit this theft, that Almighty Eye which never sleeps; but there was also a human one upon the little boy at the moment, and it was that of old John Walters. He was standing very near, but was concealed by some tall shrubs. He saw Dick turn round to look if any one could see him before he put the apples in his pocket, and this made him watch what he was about; and he also saw him go up to the woman with several apples in his hands, which he gave her. She warmly thanked him, and returned him one as a present for the trouble he had taken. It was getting late in the afternoon, and Walters was soon going home. He felt unhappy about Dick, who reminded him of his own boy. He thought he looked like a neglected lad who had no one to teach him how wrong it is to steal. He did not like to bring him into disgrace and trouble in the market by accusing him of taking the apples, neither did he feel it would be right in him to see a child steal and take no notice. "For," thought he, "if he goes on from one thing to another he may come to be a housebreaker in course of time; but if stopped now, a boy with such a face as that may become an honest, good man." Then after a few minutes' thought he said to himself, "'Tis one of Christ's little ones, and so for the Master's sake I'll have a try at him." Meanwhile Dick was devouring the apple the woman had given him, with the not unpleasant recollection that the pleasure to his palate would be repeated three times over, since he had three more in his pocket. I am afraid the said pleasure was in no way diminished by the consciousness that they were stolen. I do not mean to say that he was a thief habitually, for he was not. Some boys make thieving a trade and exult in it. Dick had sometimes purloined what was not his own, in the same manner that he had done the apples. He did not look out for opportunities, but if one such as this came in his way he did not try to resist the temptation.
He was rather startled when he felt some one lay a hand firmly on his shoulder. It was the hand of John Walters, who said to him—
"I want to speak a word to you, my man. Come home with me and I'll give you a cup of tea. I'm going to have mine directly." Dick looked up into his face. It was a very kindly one, though rough and furrowed with years; He did not feel afraid of it; so he went off with Walters, for the cup of tea sounded tempting. It was not often such a chance fell in his way. He walked by the old man's side and answered all his questions as to his name, and where he lived, and what his father did, etc., and by the time Walters knew all about him, they had arrived at the room which he rented in a small back street of some people who kept a little shop.
It was but a humble abode, but it seemed a palace to Dick compared with his own. In the first place, it was quite clean, for the woman of whom Walters rented it was careful to keep it well swept, and he himself did all the tidying and dusting part. Then the furniture was better than what Dick was accustomed to see in any of the rooms in Roan's Court. There was a little round table in the middle of the room, and another at the side with two or three large books on it.