There is no sweet scent in the air—no freshness; what scents there may be, are the very reverse of sweet. The sun smites down upon the closely built houses and dirty pavement and un-watered street, till fever seems to follow in the trail of the sultry days. At each end of such streets there generally stands a busy spirit-vault, which carries on a thriving trade; for the dry air makes every one athirst, and the door swings to and fro incessantly with the stream of men, women, and children passing in and out.
But at the back of these thoroughfares, there lie close alleys and courts, where the heat is still more unbearable. No current of air runs through them; and they are so shut out of sight that those who live in them feel no shame, and no fear of being seen by any one less wretched than themselves. There is a dead level of misery and degradation. The dirt becomes more loathsome, and the diseases bred by it more deadly. Half the children born in them die before they have lived out their twelve months of misery. Only those who are singularly strong, or are specially cared for by their mothers, live into the second year. Babies' funerals are so frequent they excite no notice, except that of the children who have survived the common fate, and who follow the little coffin to the end of their own alley, leaving it there, to be carried away into some dim region, of which they know nothing. As for the mothers, the greater portion of them seem to have lost their natural love for their little ones, and are glad to be rid of a care which would have made their lives a still heavier burden to them.
It was in one of these close, pent-up alleys that a boy was idling, one hot summer noonday, about the door of a small dwelling in the corner farthest from the street,—a poor house, like all the rest, with more panes of brown paper in its windows than of glass. The four rooms of it, two on each floor, were tenanted by as many families, with their lodgers. There seemed to be a little excitement within, and several women were bustling about, and could be seen through the open door going up and down the staircase. At that time of the day there were but few men about the yard; for most of them were costermongers, and were away at work. But the alley was tolerably well filled with almost naked children, playing noisily in the open gutter, or fighting with one another with still louder noise.
The boy joined none of them, but looked on with an absent and anxious face, from time to time peeping in through the open door, or listening intently to every sound in the room at the top of the crazy staircase. All at once he heard a feeble wailing cry; and the tears started into his eyes, why he did not know, but he brushed them off his face hastily, and kept his head turned away, lest anybody should see them.
"Sandy!" shouted a woman's voice from the stairhead. "Sandy, give us your jacket to wrap the baby in."
If it had been the depth of winter, he would have stripped off his ragged jacket willingly for the new baby. He had a passion for young helpless creatures, and he had nursed and tended two other babies before this one, and had seen them both fade away slowly, and die in this unwholesome air.
He did not care much for his mother; how could he, when he seldom saw her sober? But the babies were very precious to him; dearer even than the mongrel cur he had contrived to keep in secret for a long time, but which had been taken from him because he could not pay the duty. There was no duty upon babies;—Sandy remembered that joyfully. The police would take no inconvenient notice of this new little creature. He might carry it about with him, and play with it, and teach it all sorts of pretty tricks, with no danger of losing it.
"Is it a gel or a boy?" he asked eagerly from the woman, who hurried downstairs for his jacket.
"A little gel!" she answered. "A reg'lar little gipsy, with black eyes, and black hair all over its head."
"Let me have her as soon as you can," urged Sandy, rubbing his hands, and dancing upon the doorstep, to let off a little of his pleasurable excitement.