The effect of composition upon Queeker was such that when he had completed his task he felt greatly tranquillised, and, having shut up his portfolio, formed the sudden resolution of dropping in upon the Durants to tea.
Meantime, and before the love-sick youth had begun the lines above quoted, Katie and her cousin walked home by a road which conducted them close past the edge of those extensive sandy plains called the Denes of Yarmouth. Here, at the corner of a quiet street, they were arrested by the sobbing of a little boy who sat on a railing by the roadside, swaying himself to and fro in an agony of grief.
Katie’s sympathetic heart was instantly touched. She at once went up to the boy, and made earnest inquiries into the cause of his distress.
“Please, ma’am,” said the boy, “I’ve lost a shillin’, and I can’t find it nowheres. Oh, wot ever shall I do? My mother gave it me to give with two other bobs to my poor sick brother whom I’ve comed all this way to see, and there I’ve gone an’ lost it, an’ I’ll ’ave to lay out all night in the cold, for I dursn’t go to see ’im without the money—boo, hoo!”
“Oh, how very unfortunate!” exclaimed Katie with real feeling for the boy, whose soul was thus steeped to all appearance in woe unutterable, was very small, and very dirty and ragged, and had an extremely handsome intelligent face, with a profusion of wild brown curls. “But I can make that up to you, poor boy,” she added, drawing out her purse, “here is a shilling for you. Where do you live?”
“At Ramsgate, ma’am.”
“At Ramsgate?” exclaimed Katie in surprise, “why, how did you manage to get here?”
“I come in a lugger, ma’am, as b’longs to a friend o’ ourn. We’ve just arrived, an’ we goes away agin to-morrow.”
“Indeed! That will give you little time to see your sick brother. What is the matter with him?”
“Oh, he’s took very bad, ma’am. I’m sorry to say he’s bad altogether, ma’am. Bin an’ run’d away from ’ome. A’most broke his mother’s ’eart, he has, an’ fall’d sick here, he did.”