But when he opened the door he was greeted by a cloud of dust; and the landlady called out to him to take himself off, she could not do with him loitering about at that time of day. So Christie turned out again, very heart-sore and disconsolate; and, going into a quiet street, he sheltered for some time from the hot sun under a high wall which made a little shadow across the pavement.
Christie was almost too hot and tired even to be unhappy, and yet every now and then he shivered, and crept into the sunshine to be warmed again. He had a strange, sharp pain in his head, which made him feel very bewildered and uncomfortable. He did not know what was the matter with him, and sometimes he got up and tried to play for a little time, but he was so sick and dizzy that he was obliged to give it up, and to lie quite still under the wall, with the organ beside him, till the sun began to set. Then he dragged himself and his organ back to the large lodging-room. The landlady had finished her cleaning, and was preparing the supper for her lodgers. She threw Christie a crust of bread as he came in, but he was not able to eat it. He crawled to a bench in the far corner of the room, and putting his old organ against the wall beside him, he fell asleep.
When he awoke, the room was full of men; they were eating their supper, and talking and laughing noisily. They took little notice of Christie, as he lay very still in the corner of the room. He could not sleep again, for the noise in the place was so great, and now and again he shuddered at the wicked words and coarse jests which fell on his ear almost every minute.
Christie's head was aching terribly, and he felt very, very ill; he had never been so ill in his life before. What would he not have given for a quiet little corner, in which he might have lain, out of the reach of the oaths and wickedness of the men in the great lodging-room! And then his thoughts wandered to old Treffy in "Home, sweet Home." What a different place his dear old master was in!
"There's no place like home, no place like home," said Christie to himself. "Oh, what a long way I am from 'Home, sweet Home!'"
CHAPTER XII.
CHRISTIE WELL CARED FOR.
"What's the matter with that little lad?" said one of the men to the landlady, as she was preparing their breakfast the next morning. "He's got a fever, or something of the sort. He's been talking about one thing or another all night. I've had toothache, and scarcely closed my eyes, and he's never ceased chatting the night through."
"What did he talk about?" asked another man.