Unfortunately, at that time there was a good deal of antagonism between Church and Dissent. Generally, we know, it is otherwise, and they love each other as fellow-Christians ought—a love that does you good to contemplate. As the Dissenters gave the feed, it occurred to the Vicar and his curates to make a house-to-house inspection—to see for themselves the nakedness of the land, and to relieve it accordingly. At the bar of the White Horse the new move was announced, and Carroty Bill, as he sat smoking and drinking, hit on a plan of which he said nothing to his female partner—for wife she never was—till the time had come to carry it out. Said he, when he heard the Vicar was to come:
‘Here, Joe, you come along with me.’
‘No; I want to go with mother.’
‘You come along with me, or it will be the worse for yer, I can tell yer,’ said Carroty Bill, with a look which forbade all further thought of disobedience on the part of the poor boy.
‘You’ll make the boy as bad as yerself,’ said the woman, ‘let him come along with me.’
‘Not if I know it,’ said the ruffian.
‘Why, wot’s up?’ asked the woman.
‘Wot’s that to you? The boy must come.’
And with a swelling heart, and a tear in his eye, the boy went. He was filthy, and ragged, and half starved. Yet there was something noble about the little lad’s face; had he been washed, and well dressed, and well fed, with his curly hair and fine forehead and bright blue eyes, he would have been as handsome a little fellow as was to be seen in the town.
‘Don’t lead him into mischief,’ said the poor woman imploringly.