‘Oh well, then, we’ll lie down if you really want us to,’ said Micky, and as it never occurred to Kitty to dispute what he had decided, the matter was regarded as settled.
On their way to the Meeting Aunt Grace told the children a little about the lecturer, whom she had already met in London. For several years he had worked so devotedly in one of the very worst parts of the great city that at last his health had given way, and the doctors had said that for the present, at all events, it would be madness to take any but light country duty. At the time the verdict had almost broken his heart, for he was quite wrapped up in his people, above all in the poor little children of the parish, many of whom were being brought up as pickpockets. It had been a great consolation to him, however, when he was offered the Chaplaincy of this Home, where he knew that his work would still lie among children like those he had left.
‘Some of them, indeed, are the very same,’ added Aunt Grace. ‘For instance, I know of one boy there—that is, I think he is there still, though he must be about the age for leaving by now—whose life Mr. Faulkner once saved. He wasn’t a clergyman then, but a doctor, and this boy was lying at death’s door with diphtheria. He had been horribly neglected by some cruel people with whom he lived, and by the time Mr. Faulkner discovered him the illness had been allowed to get such a hold that the child would probably have been choked by some horrible stuff that was growing in his throat if Mr. Faulkner hadn’t sucked up the poisonous stuff through a tube which he put into the throat. Of course, it was a terribly dangerous thing to do—indeed, he caught the illness through doing it—but it saved the boy’s life. Before that time he had been one of the most abandoned little child-thieves in the parish, but ever since he has been absolutely devoted to Mr. Faulkner, and he is now growing up into a very fine character. I believe he hopes to go out as a Missionary one day, which would be a wonderful end for anyone who began as a little pickpocket.’
‘Mr. Faulkner must be a saint,’ said Emmeline.
‘So he is,’ agreed Aunt Grace heartily; ‘but I don’t know,’ she added, with a whimsical little smile, ‘whether he’ll any more fit your idea of a saint than Fir-tree Cottage did that of a cottage.’
Aunt Grace was right. Emmeline could not help feeling a little shock of surprise when, soon after they had taken their seats in the schoolroom, a curly-haired little man, with a round, merry face, came and stood before the great white lantern-sheet, and she realised that this must be the Lecturer.
‘Why, that man’s a little boy!’ remarked Kitty, in a stage whisper.
And, indeed, there was something very boyish in his appearance. Not that they had much time to study it, for in another moment the lights were lowered, a hymn appeared on the lantern-sheet, and after it had been sung through lustily the lecture began.
The first picture shown represented a room in London—such a filthy, miserable room as the children could never even have imagined. On a ragged mattress in one corner lay a little boy, so thin that he was more like a skeleton than a child. He had been almost dying, it appeared, when he had been discovered by the Society to which the Home belonged, and rescued from death, or worse, for the room had been kept by a wicked man who was bringing up this child and a number of others to a life of crime.
The next picture was far less harrowing to the feelings of the audience, for it showed the same boy fat, and clean and comfortable after a few years spent in the beautiful Home among the Surrey hills, where Mr. Faulkner was now Chaplain. He had since joined the Royal Navy, said the clergyman, and was now learning to serve his King and country as a brave man should, instead of making a livelihood by robbery.