Scamp and I: A Story of City By-Ways

Then at last, on the day she saw Regent Street and the Queen, and tasted ’ot roast goose for the first time, then too she discovered that Jenks was a thief. Then she related her interview with Jenks, and how he had promised to leave Dick alone, and not to teach him his wicked trade, and how on those terms she had allowed him to remain in the cellar; and then at last, when she was feeling so sure and so happy, he had deceived her, and now she was in great trouble, in great and bitter trouble, both the boys in prison, both thieves, and now mother could never rest any more.

Here Flo broke down and sobbed bitterly.

“I think if I were you, I would leave all that about your dear mother to God, my child,” said little Mrs Jenks. “His ways are not as our ways. If I were you, I would not fret about your mother – I would just leave her to God.”

“Who is God?” asked Flo, stopping her tears and looking up.

“Who is God?” repeated Mrs Jenks. “Why, He’s the King of Glory I had to tell you about; and now I remember, at the trial to-day you seemed to know very little about Him – nothing, in fact. Well, you shall not leave this house without knowing, I promise you that. Why, God – God, little Darrell, He’s your best friend, and your poor mother’s best friend, and Dick’s best friend, and my – that is, Jenks’ best friend too. He loves you, child, and some day He’ll take you to a place where many poor people who have been sad, and hungry, and wanting for everything down here, are having rest, and good times for ever.”

“And will God give me a good time in that place?” asked Flo.

“Yes. If you love Him He will give you a better time than the Queen has on her throne – a time so good, that you will never want to change with anybody in all the world.”

“Tell me about God,” asked Flo in a breathless voice, and she left her stool and knelt at Mrs Jenks’ feet.

“God,” said little Mrs Jenks, putting down her work and looking up solemnly, “God – He’s the Father of the fatherless, and you are fatherless. God’s your Father, child.”

“Our – Father – chart – ’eaven,” repeated Flo.

“Your Father in Heaven – yes, that’s it.”

Then the little woman paused, puzzled how best to make her story plain enough and simple enough for the ignorant child. Words came to her at last, and Flo learned what every child in our England is supposed to know, but what, alas! many such children have never heard of; many such children live and die without hearing of.

Do we blame them for their social standing? do we blame them for filling their country with vice and crime?

Doubtless we do blame them, we raise our own clean skirts and pass over on the other side. In church we thank God that we are not as these men are – murderers – thieves – unclean – unholy. Let them go to prison, and to death – fit ends for such as they.

True! virtue is to them not even a name, they have never heard of it at all.

The fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness has never come in their path. Their iniquities are unpurged, their sins unpardoned.

Christ, it is certain, would wash them white enough, and give them a place in His kingdom; but they know nothing of Christ, and we who do know, to whom His name is a sound too familiar to excite any attention, His story too often read, too often heard of, to call up any emotion – we are either too lazy, or too selfish, or too ignorant of their ignorance, to tell them of Him.

Now for the first time Flo learned about God, and about God’s dear Son, our Saviour. A little too about Heaven, and a very little about prayer.

If she spoke ever so low, down in her dark cellar, God would hear her, and some day, Mrs Jenks said, He would come for her, and carry her away to live with Him in Heaven.

Only a glimmering of the great truth could be given at one time to the child’s dark mind, but there is a vast difference between twilight and thick darkness, and this difference took place in Flo’s mind that day.

She listened with hardly a question – a breathless, astonished look on her face, and when Mrs Jenks had ceased speaking, she rose slowly and tied on mother’s old bonnet.

“May I come again?” asked Flo, raising her lips to kiss the little woman.

“Yes, my child, come again to-morrow. I shall look out for you to-morrow.”

And Flo promised to come.

Chapter Eleven

Maxey’s Young ’Un

As Flo walked down the street, the wonderful news she had heard for the first time completely absorbed her mind, so much so that she forgot that Dick was a thief, that Dick and Jenks were both suffering from the penalty of their crime, that she was returning to her cellar alone, without even Scamp to keep her company. The news she had heard was so great, so intensely interesting in its freshness and newness, that she could think of nothing else.

She walked down, as her wont was, several by-streets, and took several short cuts, and found herself more than once in parts of the town where no respectable person was ever seen.

The gutter children working at their several wretched trades called after her as she passed, one addressing her as “old bonnet,” another asking how much she wanted a-piece for the flowers that dangled so ludicrously on her forehead.

And being a timid child, and, London bred as she was, sensitive to ridicule, she walked on faster and faster, really anxious to find any quiet place where she could sit down and think. At last, as she was passing a more open piece of ground, where a group of boys were playing pitch-and-toss, they, noticing her quickened movements, and rather frightened face, made a rush at her, and Flo, losing all presence of mind, began to run.

Little chance would she have had against her tormentors, had not just then a tall policeman appeared in sight, whereupon they considered it more prudent to give up their chase, and return to their interrupted amusements.

Poor Flo, however, still believing them to be at her heels, ran faster than ever down a narrow lane to her right, turned sharp round a corner, when suddenly her foot tripped against a cellar grating, the grating, insecurely fastened, gave way, and the child, her fall partly broken by a ladder which stood against the grating, found herself bruised, stunned, almost unconscious, on the ground several feet below the street.

For some moments she lay quiet, not in pain, and not quite insensible, but too much frightened and shaken to be capable of movement.

Then a sound within a foot or two of her caused her heart to leap with fresh fear. She sat up and listened intently.

It was a stifled sound, it was the whine of a dog.

For Scamp’s sake Flo had learned to love all dogs. She made her way, though not without pain, to this one now, and put her hand on its head.

Instead of being angry and resenting this freedom, as a strange dog might, a quiver of joy went through the animal, its tail wagged violently, its brown eyes cast melting glances of love at Flo, its small rough tongue tried to lick her face and hands, and there, gagged and tied, but well fed, as yet unhurt, and a platter of broken meat by its side, was her own dog, her lost dog, Scamp.

Flo laid her head on the head of the dog, and burst into tears of joy.

The pain of her fall was forgotten, she was very glad she had knocked against that broken grating, that by this means she had stumbled into this cellar; her dog could accompany her home – she would not be so lonely now.

With her own hands she unfastened the gag, and loosened the chain from Scamp’s neck, and the dog, delighting in his recovered freedom, danced and scampered madly round her, uttering great, deep bays of joy.

Alas! for Scamp, his foolish and untimely mirth excited undue attention to him.

His loud and no longer muffled bark brought two men quickly into the cellar.

Flo had the prudence of mind to hide behind some old boards, and Scamp with equal prudence did not follow her.

“Down, you brute,” said the short thick-set man whom Jenks on a former occasion had addressed as Maxey. “Wot a noise, ’ee’s makin’; the perleece’ll get scent of the young dawg wid his noise,” and the cruel wretch shied a great blow at Scamp, which caused the poor animal to quiver and cry out with pain.

“’Ee’ll be quiet enough afore the night is hover,” said the man’s companion, with a loud laugh. “Lor! won’t it be fun to see the bull-dawg a tearin’ of ’im? I’m comin’ to shave and soap ’im presently; but see, Maxey, some one ’as been and tumbled inter the cellar, down by the gratin’, as I’m alive! See! them two bars is broke right acrost.”

“Run and put them together, then, the best way possible,” called out Maxey, “and I’ll look round the cellar to give it to any one as is in hidin’.”

How fast Flo’s heart beat at those words, but Maxey, though he imagined he had searched in every available nook, never thought of examining behind the three thin boards almost jammed against the wall, and behind which the child had crushed her slight frame.

He believed that whoever had fallen into the cellar had beaten a hasty retreat, and after tying up Scamp more firmly than ever, took his departure.

Now was Flo’s time. She had only a few moments to effect her escape and the dog’s escape. A dreadful meaning had Maxey’s words for her – her dog’s life was in peril.

Never heeding an acute agony which had set in by this time in her right foot, she made her way to Scamp’s side, and first putting her arms round his neck, entreated him in the most pathetic voice to be quiet and not to betray them by any more barking.

If dogs cannot understand words and their meanings, they are very clever at comprehending tones and their meanings.

Perfectly did this dog’s clear intelligence take in that Flo meant them both to escape, that any undue noise on his part would defeat their purpose. He confessed to himself that in his first joy at seeing her he had acted foolishly, he would do so no more.

When she unfastened him he bounded up the ladder, and butting with his great strong head against the broken grating, removed it again from its place, then springing to the ground, was a free dog once more. Half a moment later Flo was by his side.

There were plenty of people, and idle people too, in the streets, but, strange to say, no one noticed the child and dog, and they passed on their way in safety. A few moments’ walking brought them to Duncan Street, then to their own cellar, down the ladder of which Scamp trotted with a happy, confident air.

Flo followed him feebly, and tottering across the floor, threw herself on her straw bed. Not another step could she go. She was much hurt; she was in severe pain.

Was her foot broken? Hardly that, or she could not have walked at all, but her present agony was so great, that large drops stood on her brow, and two or three sharp cries came from her patient lips.

How she longed for Dick then, or Jenks then, or Janey then. Yes, she had Scamp, and that was something – Scamp, who was lying abject by her side, pouring out upon her a whole wealth of love, who, knowing what she had done for him, would evermore do all that dog could do for her sake. She raised her hand to his head and patted him, glad, very glad that she had rescued him from an unknown but dreadful fate.

But she wanted something else, something or some one to give her ease in her terrible agony, and God, her loving Father, looking down from heaven, saw His little child’s sore need, and though as yet He sent her no earthly succour, He gave to her the blessed present relief of unconsciousness. Flo fainted away.

When she recovered an hour or two later, the scanty light that ever penetrated into the cellar had departed, and at first, when the child opened her eyes in the darkness, pain and memory of all recent events had completely left her. She fancied she was lying again by her mother’s side on that very straw mattress, she stretched out her arms to embrace her, and to ask her the question with which she had greeted her for the last three months of her life.

“Be yer werry tired, mother?”

But then the empty place, the straw where the weary form was no longer lying, brought back remembrance; her mother was not there – her mother was gone. She was resting in her quiet grave, and could never help, or succour, or protect her more.

But then again her thoughts were broken. There were rude noises outside, a frightened cry from Scamp at the foot of the bed, the cellar door was violently opened, two men scrambled down the ladder, and with many oaths and curses began tossing about the wretched furniture, and calling loudly for the missing dog.

Where was he? Not on Flo’s bed, which they unmercifully raked about, unheeding her moans of pain; not anywhere apparently. Vowing vengeance on whoever had stolen the dawg, the men departed at last.

Then again all was silence, and in a few moments a cowed-looking and decidedly sooty animal might, had any light been there to see, have been observed descending from the chimney where he had lain perdu.

Of the life-preserving qualities Scamp possessed a large share, as doubtless before this his story proves.

Perhaps his cur mother had put him up to a wrinkle or two in his babyhood; at any rate, fully determined was he to meet no violent end, to live out his appointed time, and very clever were the expedients he used to promote this worthy object.

Now he shook himself as free as he could of the encumbrances he had met with in the smoky, sooty chimney, and again approached Flo’s side.

She laid her hand on his head, praised him a little for the talent he had shown in again escaping from Maxey, and the dreadful fate to which Maxey meant to consign him; then the two lay quiet and silent.

A child and a dog!

Could any one have looked in on them that night they would have said that in all the great city no two could be more utterly alone and forsaken.

That individual, whoever he might have been, would have gone away with a wrong impression – they were not so.

Any creature that retains hope, any creature that retains faith, which is better, than hope, cannot be really desolate.

The dog had all the large, though unconscious faith of his kind in his Creator. It had never occurred to him to murmur at his fate, to wish for himself the better and more silken lives that some dogs live. To live at all was a blessed thing, to love at all a more blessed thing – he lived and he loved – he was perfectly happy.

And the child – for the first time she knew of and had faith in a Divine Father, she had heard of some one who loved her, and who would make all things right for her. She thought of this love, she pondered over it, she was neither desolate nor unhappy. God and God’s Son loved her, and loved Dick – they knew all about her and Dick; and some day their Father would send for them both and give them a home in His House in Heaven.

Flo had at all times a vivid imagination, since her earliest days it had been her dear delight to have day dreams, to build castles in the air. No well-dressed or happy-looking child ever crossed her path that she did not suppose herself that child, that she did not go through in fancy that child’s delightful life. What wardrobes had Flo in imagination, what gay trinkets adorned her brow, her arms, her neck!

What a lovely house she lived in, what heaps of shillings and sovereigns she possessed! Now and then, in her moments of most daring flight, she had even a handle to her name, and people addressed her as “Lady Flo.” But all the time, while happy in these dreams, she had always known them to be but dreams. She was only Flo, working as a translator of old boots and shoes, down in a dark cellar – she had no fine dresses, no pretty ornaments, no money, she was hungry and cold, and generally miserable, and as far as she could possibly see there was never any chance of her being anything else.

She generally came down from her high imaginings to this stern reality, with a great burst of tears, only one sad thought comforting her, to be alive at all she could never be worse than she was, she could never sink any lower.

She was mistaken.

Last night, lying all alone and waiting for Dick’s trial, lying hour after hour hoping and longing for sleep to visit her, and hoping and longing in vain, she had proved that she was mistaken. Lower depths of sorrow and desolation could be reached, and she had reached them. Through no fault of hers, the stern hand of the law was stretched out to grasp her one treasure, to take her brother away.

Dick had broken a promise sealed on dying lips – Dick was a thief. Henceforth and for ever the brand of the prison would be on him.

When, their punishment over, he and Jenks were free once again, nothing now, no power, or art, or persuasion, on her part could keep those two apart. Together they would plunge into deeper and more daring crime, and come eventually to the bad and miserable end her mother had so often described to her. It was plain that she and Dick must separate.

When the boys were released from prison, it was plain that she and they could not live together as of old. The honest could not live with the dishonest. Her mother had often told her that, had often warned her to be sure, happen what might, to choose honest companions. So Flo knew that unless she too broke her word to mother, they must part – Dick and she must part. And yet how much she loved him – how much her mother had loved him!

He was not grave like her; he had never carried an old head on young shoulders; he was the merriest, brightest, funniest boy in the world – one of those throw-all-care-to-the-winds little fellows, who invariably give pleasure even in the darkest and most shady homes. His elastic spirits never flagged, his gay heart never despaired, he whistled over his driest crusts, he turned somersaults over his supperless hours – he had for many a day been the light of two pairs of eyes. True, he had often been idle, and lately had left the brunt of the daily labour, if not all of it, to Flo. But the mother heart of the little sister, who was in reality younger than himself, accepted all this as a necessity.

Was he not a boy? and was it not one of the first laws of nature that all girls should work and all boys should play?

But now Dick must work with the hard labour the law accords to its prisoners. That bright little face must look out behind a prisoner’s mask, he must be confined in the dark cell, he must be chained to the whipping-post, he must be half-starved on bread and water. Out of prison he was half his time without the former of these necessities of life, and at his age he would not be subjected to hard labour.

But Flo knew nothing of these distinctions, and all the terrible stories she had ever heard of prisoners she imagined as happening to Dick now. So the night before the trial had been one long misery to the sensitive, affectionate child.

Now the trial was over, now Dick was really consigned to prison, or to what seemed to Flo like prison. With their eyes they had said good-bye to each other, he from the prisoners’ dock, she from her place in the witnesses’ box. The parting was over, and she was lying alone in her dark cellar, on her straw pallet, bruised, hurt, faint, but strange to say no longer unhappy, strange to say happier than she had ever been in her life before.

She had often heard of bright things – she had often imagined bright things, but now for the first time she heard of a bright thing for her.

She was not always to be in pain, she had heard to-day of a place with no pain; she was not always to be hungry, poor, and in rags – she had heard to-day of food enough and to spare, of white dresses, of a home more beautiful than the Queen’s home, of a good time coming to her who had always, always, all her life had bad times.

And Dick, though he was a thief, might share in the good time, and so might Jenks.

Our Saviour gave of His good times to thieves, and sinners, and poor people, if only they wanted them, and of course they had only to hear of them to want them.

“May I come down, Flo?” called out Janey’s voice at this juncture, at the cellar door. “Father ’ave beat me hawful; may I come down and set by yer a bit?”

The lame girl was sobbing loudly, and without waiting for Flo’s reply she scrambled down the ladder and threw herself on the bed by the child’s side.

“There now,” she said, panting out her passionate words, “’ee ’ave me hall black and blue, and my lame leg ’urt worse nor hever; and I wish ’ee wor in prison, I do; and I wish I wor dead, I do.”

“Oh! Janey,” said Flo, with a great gasp of longing, “wouldn’t it be nice to be dead?”

This corroboration of her desire startled Janey into quiet, and into a subdued —

“What, Flo Darrell?”

“To be dead, Janey, and ’avin’ a good time?”

“Well,” said Janey, recovering herself with a laugh, “wen I’m down haltogether in the dumps, as I wor a minute ago, I wishes fur it, but most times I ’ates the bear thought o’ it – ugh!”

“That’s cause yer doesn’t know, Janey, no more nor I did till to-day. Plenty of wittles, plenty of clothes, plenty of pretty things, plenty of love, all in the good time as we poor folks have arter we are dead.”

Janey gave her companion an angry push.

“There now, ef yer ain’t more than hagriwating, a comin’ on me wid yer old game of s’posin’, and me fairly clemmed wid the ’unger. There’s no good time fur me, nor never will be, I reckon,” and she again lifted up her voice and wept.

“There’s Our – Father – chart – ’eaven,” began Flo, but Janey stopped her.

“I don’t want ’im – one father’s too much fur me.” Flo was silent – she would tell no more of her sweet message to unbelieving ears.

After a time she spoke in a different tone.

“Janey?”

“Well?”

“I’d like fur to ’ear the Glory song.”

Janey had a good voice, and desired nothing better than to listen to herself. She complied readily.

”‘I’m glad I hever saw the day, Sing glory, glory, glory, When first I larned to read and pray, Sing glory, glory, glory.’

“Why, Flo! my ’eart alive! Flo, ’ere’s Scamp.”

“Sing it again,” murmured Flo.

And Janey did sing it again, and again, and yet again, until the dark cellar seemed to grow full of it, and to be lit up and brightened by it, and to its music the sick and weary child went to sleep.

Chapter Twelve

I was An Hungered and Ye Gave Me Meat

All through the night Flo had visions of bright, and clean, and lovely things. She dreamt that she had left the cellar for ever, that all the musty, ragged boots and shoes were mended, and paid for, and gone, and that instead of earning her bread in that hard and wretched way, God had come and placed her in a beautiful room, looking out on green fields, such as mother had told her of, and given her pure white dresses to make for the angels.

And God looked so kind, and so like what she had imagined her own father to look like, that she had ventured to ask Him what had become of Dick, and God had told her that He Himself was taking care of Dick, and He Himself had placed him in a good school, and all would be well with him. And she thought she sat by the open window and made the angels dresses, and was, oh! so very, very happy; and Scamp lay at her feet, and was also happy; and Mrs Jenks was in the room, ready whenever she liked to tell her more about God, and she too was happy.

Yes, they all were happy, with a happiness Flo had never conceived possible hitherto, and she felt that it was not the nice room, nor the lovely view, nor the pleasant occupation that made her happy, but just because God was near. At last the morning came, and she awoke to find that it all was only a dream.

She was still in the cellar, she must get up as usual, she must work as usual at her old thankless work, the work that barely kept starvation from the door. She felt very faint and hungry, but she remembered that she had two shillings of the money she had earned on the Derby Day locked away in the box where she usually kept mother’s old bonnet. She would get up at once and buy some breakfast for herself and Scamp. She called the dog and told him what she was about to do, and, to judge from the way he wagged his tail and rubbed his head against her hands, he understood her, and was pleased with her intention. Nay, more, to hurry her movements, he placed himself under the ladder, mounted a few rungs, came down again, and finally darted from the ladder to her, and from her to the ladder, uttering short impatient barks.