Because his heart was full of little Gip, he saw all these things as he had never seen them before. Two or three times he had called to a child moping alone, as if it were an entire stranger to the other children about it, but none of them had answered to the name of Gip. At length he went home, heartsick and very sorrowful.
Mrs. Shafto had been sewing away busily whilst Johnny was absent, fretted by her husband's persistent fears that Sandy had carried something off with him, and by his slow, lazy search through all the shelves and drawers which the boy might have rifled. Several times he fancied something was missing, and would not let her rest until she put down her work, and found what he was moaning over as gone. She was in very low spirits herself. It was so odd of the boy, she thought; he had seemed to cling so much to her last night. Could it be that he was afraid of her promise at the police station, that she would keep her eye upon him? Did he suppose she meant to make a sort of prisoner of him? If Sandy tried to keep out of their way, there was very little chance that either she or Johnny would come across him again. London was too wide a place for that.
It was growing quite dusk in the quiet grave-yard, and the tall head-stones looked taller and blacker than in the day-time; the gas was lit, though it was turned very low, in the gloomy shop, not for the chance of any customers coming to Mr. Shafto, but for the sake of the persons who employed his wife to sew for them. John was lingering about the grave-yard, hardly caring to carry his sad face into his mother's presence, and feeling that his father's fretful speeches would be too hard for him to bear, when a shrill, low whistle just behind him made him start as if he were frightened. It was still light enough for him to see Sandy, whose bare feet had made no sound at all upon the flagged pathway.
"Oh! Sandy! Sandy!" he cried. "How could you run away from us? I'm so glad you're come back."
"Why, I didn't run away," answered Sandy. "I crept away early this mornin', because I don't want nothink of you, but to come and see you at odd times. The master, he don't like me bein' here, he don't. So I crept away quiet; and one of my pals lent me arf-a-dozen of fusees, and I were in luck to-day, and sold 'em sharp, and bought some more; and now I've got fourpence halfpenny, besides a meat pie I've bought. Oh! I wish little Gip were here!"
He could not bear to think of little Gip's delight, if she could only see the meat pie, and go with him to spend the money, which was safely tied in a corner of his ragged pocket with a bit of string.
"Sandy," said John, "I've been searching for little Gip all day."
"Ah!" sighed Sandy. "But you'd never know her if you see her. I'd know her miles and miles away. I s'pose Jesus 'ud know her, wouldn't He? Or it's no use me arskin' Him to look out for her."
"To be sure He knows her," answered John, earnestly. "He knows us all by our names, and He's sure to know all the little children when He's so fond of them; every one of them, every one of them. Don't doubt that, Sandy. He's sure to take care of Gip. Don't you know that once He lived in heaven with His Father, but when He saw how lost and miserable we were, and how we should never, never find the way to heaven ourselves, He came down into the world, and lived like we do, and was always seeking those that were lost?"
"It were very good of Him," said Sandy; "but I never heard tell of it afore."