It was strange that what Fé would have trembled to confess in the broad daylight he felt strong and brave enough to acknowledge by the light of the pale moon. He crawled up, after a few minutes' thought, and after diving about his ragged bed, he found his cap, and took from the leaf his precious sixpence; then he crept to the side of Mrs. Crump's bed, shivering, but determined. But suddenly he halted, and gave a scream of fright; a band of moonlight fell across the bed, and certainly there lay Mrs. Crump, but her nightcap had slipped off, and her black wig lay on a chair by her bedside. Poor Fé, in his childish ignorance, had never had a doubt about the wig; in fact, he had never understood that people wore such things. When he saw Mrs. Crump without hair, and the moonlight making her still more awful-looking, he was quite overwhelmed with fear.
The old woman rose up hastily at the scream, and she saw only little Fé quite motionless, with a wild, strained look of fright in his eyes. When she made out in a half-asleep way that it was the child she detested who had dared to disturb her, wigless and asleep, her wrath boiled up, and when the same moonbeam showed her the shining silver clasped in the little hand, it fell hissing and spluttering and burning hot on the poor child's head, as he knelt speechless and trembling with fright.
She made up her mind in one instant that it must be some money he had taken for the flowers, and had kept back from her. "You wicked, thievish boy!" she shrieked. "I'll teach you to thieve, and then pry about arter people be a-bed; so good as I've been to ye, too. Ye jest leave my door for good to-night."
And in a fit of passion she rolled out of bed, scolding and shaking poor Fé the while. She pulled him down the three creaking steps and out into the cold wet street—and there, with one more cruel push, she left him, friendless and alone.
With a sob and a gasp he saw her shut the door, but the fright and shaking had been too much for his weakened frame. He seemed for a few moments to feel again all the dreadful pain and anguish he remembered having felt when he was very ill once long ago. His aching, weary little head seemed too heavy for him to bear, and with a moan of pain he fell forward, and lay where he fell insensible.
and sorrowed for the little heir, and for her own unkindness in throwing the beams of her light just across old Mrs. Crump in her bed, and she stooped and kissed the poor boy as he lay on the hard cold stones, and tried in vain to warm him with her silvery light.
Bad old Mrs. Crump slept late on into the next morning, and this was the reason that she knew nothing more of what happened to the poor friendless little heir.
A doctor set out very early next morning to see a poor invalid woman who lived in the same street as little Fé's cruel guardian.
He was a short, plain little man, but his beaming smile hid the ugliness, and made the face tell that he was true and kind and good, and the eyes seemed to think it best to tell their own tale, in case the smile alone might not be trusted, and they glistened and shone, and told of every kindly thought and feeling of which the little man carried a big heart-full.
He was a clever doctor, and this woman he knew was poor. He did not expect payment from her, neither did he from the white-faced, crippled boy lying in the street, with mud on his face and clothes, and clinging to his brown hair. But he lifted him into his carriage tenderly and lovingly, and ordered his servant to drive quickly to the hospital.