“Send that little beggar away,” was the irritable rebuff, and the footman flung him aside, not heeding where he fell. The carriage rolled away, and no thought was given to the small human bundle, roughly hurled from the rich man’s path. Then night darkened over the city, and the stars, God’s eternal sentinels, guarded earth as they had done eighteen centuries before when they watched the birth of the incarnate God. And beneath the same shimmering light the boy-warrior lay, all worsted in the strife, as thousands had sunk before, and all unconscious of the cruel hearts that still pulsed on. The torn little cap had fallen off, and the fair golden curls shaded the pale, childish face, turned upward as if in appeal to the Blessed Mother he had seen in his dreams. Was she watching still, and did her kind eyes see the crucifix clutched in the poor cold hands—the crucifix with the dead Christ, whose birth the morrow would celebrate? But the soft feathery flakes fell steadily on, covering the sweet face of the little one. Ah! God of
infinite love and goodness, will the great army with the ranks of sin, and greed, and lust, prosper and thrive and live, while this young soldier, this infant of purest soul and lion heart, lies all unheeded, dying, the victim of cruelty and selfish forgetfulness?
But see—a policeman tramps near, and he comes with stalwart tread, swinging his burly arms, and clapping his gigantic hands to keep the fingers from freezing, for verily death seems to breathe out in the stealthy, deadening cold. Bravely he glances with searching look up and down the broad avenue, then pauses suddenly by the side of the obstruction just without the pavement.
“God and his holy saints forsake me, if this same bundle ain’t a child! Ugh! but it’s an ugly night for this small specimen to be left here! But come, let’s see, my little man,” and he tried to move him. “St. Patrick save me! if I ain’t afraid that he’ll never feel again!” And he dropped the little arm he held, and the crucifix, falling, lay dark against the glittering snow. The sight of the cross at once touched the stout Irishman, and this sturdy six-footed son of the Green Isle, this huge guardian of the great city, gathered the stray lamb to his bosom tenderly, pityingly, as its own mother, and bore it to the station-house. And, full of the warm impulse of his race, he chafed the poor little hands, and lingered by the pallet on which he lay, till great tears fell from eyes that had not seldom looked unmoved on the misery of the metropolis. He raised the child’s crucifix to his lips, and though he hurriedly summoned a physician, he muttered, “Poor little lamb, if he does come back to life, it will only keep an angel longer from Our Lady’s home!”
The man returned to his duty, and hours passed before he was relieved,
but ere he returned to his own home, and the young wife waiting him, he went back to the station-house to look after “the pretty young one” who had died with the cross in his hand; for he fully expected to find him dead on his return.
“We have had hard work to bring him back, Murphy,” said the doctor, as the man walked up to the child. “Only five minutes more, and the cold would have reached the little heart, which was losing all sensation. We have had a time of it, and he has just fallen asleep. These are what we found on him. The card was fastened to his worn jacket, and the crucifix has also a name engraved.” And picking up the card from the table the policeman read, “Kenneth Arnaud, 312 East —— Street.” On the back of the silver cross was the name, “Madelaine Crécy, August 15, 18—.”
“Poor little child! said the policeman. “I’ll take him home, for his house is near my own.”
So he wrapped the sleeping child in an old blanket, and carried him through the storm. A light glimmered on the first-floor front room as he approached the house, and the man stepped in to inquire about his young charge. As he opened the rickety door, the wailing voice of a woman smote him with the agonizing pain it expressed. “The gentleman may remain,” she said, “but for God’s sake find my child. O sir! bring me back my child!” and her sobs and moans were heart-rending. The negress rocked to and fro with the little girl, trying to keep her warm and still her feeble cries for bread, chanting the while in dull monotone, a habit peculiar to her race, and which at this time increased the oppressive gloom of the place, not at all relieved by the flickering tallow-candle, nearly burned out—on the
small bed in the corner the wounded gentleman lay groaning in agony, and impatiently awaiting a messenger he had summoned—a sad eve truly that announced the blessed festival!