Eric, a waif

by Emma Leslie

But he bravely kept back the tears of grief and dismay, and went on with his task of sweeping up the stable-yard, while old Toby and the landlord adjusted their quarrel over him.

He longed to say, "I will not stay in this place to hear my mother called a witch;" but she had made him promise that if he could possibly get employment in Summerleigh, he would not venture into the world beyond, until he was older. And so, for this promise sake, he held his peace.

Before he went home in the evening, the landlord contrived to give him half a rye loaf and a bottle of cider for his supper; but, though he was hungry and faint, the boy could not eat just yet.

Going into the inner room, where all that he could see of his mother still lay, he threw himself on his knees beside the bed, and sobbed out his grief and fears for the future.

"Oh, mother, mother!" he sobbed. "Let me go away from this place; I can never stop here. Anything would be better than stopping here with that old Toby for a master. Let me find my way to London, and try to get work there. I have waited as you told me for God to send a messenger to help me, but nobody has come but the landlord of The Magpie, and surely he wasn't God's messenger—he can't help me much."

It was a relief to the boy to pour out his grief and fear and doubt in this fashion, but he had no intention of breaking his promise; and hard as it was to think that Tyler could be the expected messenger of mercy who was to come and help him out of his difficulties, he had no intention of breaking away from the engagement he had made to work in the stable under old Toby.

But he grew calmer and more content before he rose from his knees; and as he folded back the sheet to look at the waxen face that lay beneath, he whispered once more, "I will keep my promise, mother, and stay here as long as I can."

He heard the next day that arrangements had been made for the funeral, but it would cost all the money their poor furniture would fetch to pay for it, and the owner of the cottage wanted that for another tenant by the end of the week, so that before Sunday, Eric would be homeless as well as motherless.

This was a difficulty the landlord had not foreseen when he engaged him to help Toby, but it did not make him the less determined to befriend the lad, although his wife saw in it a reason for sending him before the justice of the peace, to have him transported as a beggar, and thus rid Summerleigh of him for ever.

"There's no occasion for that," said her husband quickly; "the boy is not a beggar, and never likely to become one, unless he is driven to it. Remember you were left motherless, and might have shared a similar fate, if my mother had not taken pity on you." And with this timely reminder, that never failed to bring Mrs. Tyler to reason, the landlord left her, to think out for himself a plan of lodging Eric.