The boy was moved and awed, and hurriedly answered—
“I ken that, faither, but I couldna help the thought getting into my heid. I’ll run down to Mr Borland’s, and ask him to trust you two loaves till your hand gets weel. It’ll be nothing to him; I’ve seen you bring hame as much into your wages.”
The father remained silent, but after a little pressing and pleading, said with a weary sigh—
“Do as you please; it’ll sune be a’ ower noo.”
The boy darted out of the house, afraid that his father might change his mind and command him to stay.
Johnny, be it observed, was in rags, and wore boots which a cinder-gatherer would have passed in contempt in a dust-heap. Pinching hunger had given him a haggard and disreputable look, and all that he wanted to pass for one of my “bairns” were a dishonest heart and hand.
Ten minutes’ walking brought him to the baker’s shop, which he thought was Mr Borland’s, but which had been quitted by that master more than a year before, in favour of one in a better locality. However, it was a baker’s shop still, and Johnny, noticing no change in the name, and seeing the place closed, began to knock gently at the door in hope that the occupant might be still within. There was no answer, and at length the boy, with a hazy idea that the baker might live behind the shop, went through a narrow entry to have a look at the back.
By the dim light he picked out the window of the back shop. There were bags of flour and shelves of loaves dimly discernible within, but no light and no human face. A moving thing he did see, and a pair of shining eyes gruesome enough to have frightened the wits out of one less hungry, but a steady look for a moment or two showed him that the living creature was only a cat, which had got shut in, and was now mewing most piteously, as if imploring to be let out. The misery of another creature often draws us from our own. Johnny became interested in the cat, and its desperate scratchings and mewings, and, after watching it for some time—quite forgetful of the fact that he might be watched as well—said to himself—
“It would be easy to push up the window and let the puir brute out.”
Accordingly, putting his small strength to the frame, he raised the sash high enough to let the cat scramble out into freedom. But, alas! his efforts did not end there.