Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - Robert Michael Ballantyne (best ebook reader txt) 📗

a heavy sleep, with his still innocent-looking features tinged with the first blight of dissipation.

"Sammy," said the father, in a husky voice, as he shook him gently by the arm; but the poor boy made no answer--even a roughish shake failed to draw from him more than the grumbled desire, "let me alone."

"Oh! God spare and save him!" murmured the father, in a still husky voice, as he fell on his knees by the bedside and prayed--prayed as though his heart were breaking, while the object of his prayer lay apparently unconscious through it all.

He rose, and was standing by the bedside, uncertain how to act, when a heavy tread was heard on the landing, the door was thrown open, and the landlady, announcing "a gentleman, sir," ushered in the superintendent of police, who looked at Mr Twitter with a slight expression of surprise.

"You are here before me, I see, sir," he said.

"Yes, but how did you come to find out that he was here?"

"Well, I had not much difficulty. You see it is part of our duty to keep our eyes open," replied the superintendent, with a peculiar smile, "and I have on several occasions observed your son entering this house with a companion in a condition which did not quite harmonise with his blue ribbon, so, after your good lady explained the matter to me this morning I came straight here."

"Thank you--thank you. It is _very_ kind. I--you--it could not have been better managed."

Mr Twitter stopped and looked helplessly at the figure on the bed.

"Perhaps," said the superintendent, with much delicacy of feeling, "you would prefer to be alone with your boy when he awakes. If I can be of any further use to you, you know where to find me. Good-day, sir."

Without waiting for a reply the considerate superintendent left the room.

"Oh! Sammy, Sammy, speak to me, my dear boy--speak to your old father!" he cried, turning again to the bed and kneeling beside it; but the drunken sleeper did not move.

Rising hastily he went to the door and called the landlady.

"I'll go home, missis," he said, "and send the poor lad's mother to him."

"Very well, sir, I'll look well after 'im till she comes."

Twitter was gone in a moment, and the old landlady returned to her lodger's room. There, to her surprise, she found Sammy up and hastily pulling on his boots.

In truth he had been only shamming sleep, and, although still very drunk, was quite capable of looking after himself. He had indeed been asleep when his father's entrance awoke him, but a feeling of intense shame had induced him to remain quite still, and then, having commenced with this unspoken lie, he felt constrained to carry it out. But the thought of facing his mother he could not bear, for the boy had a sensitive spirit and was keenly alive to the terrible fall he had made. At the same time he was too cowardly to face the consequences. Dressing himself as well as he could, he rushed from the house in spite of the earnest entreaties of the old landlady, so that when the distracted mother came to embrace and forgive her erring child she found that he had fled.

Plunging into the crowded thoroughfares of the great city, and walking swiftly along without aim or desire, eaten up with shame, and rendered desperate by remorse, the now reckless youth sought refuge in a low grog-shop, and called for a glass of beer.

"Well, I say, you're com--comin' it raither strong, ain't you, young feller?" said a voice at his elbow.

He looked up hastily, and saw a blear-eyed youth in a state of drivelling intoxication, staring at him with the expression of an idiot.

"That's no business of yours," replied Sam Twitter, sharply.

"Well, thash true, 'tain't no b-busnish o' mine. I--I'm pretty far gone m'self, I allow; but I ain't quite got the l-length o' drinkin' in a p-public 'ouse wi' th' bl-blue ribb'n on."

The fallen lad glanced at his breast. There it was,--forgotten, desecrated! He tore it fiercely from his button-hole, amid the laughter of the bystanders--most of whom were women of the lowest grade--and dashed it on the floor.

"Thash right.--You're a berrer feller than I took you for," said the sot at his elbow.

To avoid further attention Sammy took his beer into a dark corner and was quickly forgotten.

He had not been seated more than a few minutes when the door opened, and a man with a mild, gentle, yet manly face entered.

"Have a glass, ol' feller?" said the sot, the instant he caught sight of him.

"Thank you, no--not to-day," replied John Seaward, for it was our city missionary on what he sometimes called a fishing excursion--fishing for men! "I have come to give you a glass to-day, friends."

"Well, that's friendly," said a gruff voice in a secluded box, out of which next minute staggered Ned Frog. "Come, what is't to be, old man?"

"A looking-glass," replied the missionary, picking out a tract from the bundle he held in his hand and offering it to the ex-prize-fighter. "But the tract is not the glass I speak of, friend: here it is, in the Word of that God who made us all--made the throats that swallow the drink, and the brains that reel under it."

Here he read from a small Bible, "`But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way.'"

"Bah!" said Ned, flinging the tract on the floor and exclaiming as he left the place with a swing; "I don't drink wine, old man; can't afford anything better than beer, though sometimes, when I'm in luck, I have a drop of Old Tom."

There was a great burst of ribald laughter at this, and numerous were the witticisms perpetrated at the expense of the missionary, but he took no notice of these for a time, occupying himself merely in turning over the leaves of his Bible. When there was a lull he said:--

"Now, dear sisters," (turning to the women who, with a more or less drunken aspect and slatternly air, were staring at him), "for sisters of mine you are, having been made by the same Heavenly Father; I won't offer you another glass,--not even a looking-glass,--for the one I have already held up to you will do, if God's Holy Spirit opens your eyes to see yourselves in it; but I'll give you a better object to look at. It is a Saviour--one who is able to save you from the drink, and from sin in every form. You know His name well, most of you; it is Jesus, and that name means Saviour, for He came to save His people from their sins."

At this point he was interrupted by one of the women, who seemed bent on keeping up the spirit of banter with which they had begun. She asked him with a leer if he had got a wife.

"No," he said, "but I have got a great respect and love for women, because I've got a mother, and if ever there was a woman on the face of this earth that deserves the love of a son, that woman is my mother. Sister," he added, turning to one of those who sat on a bench near him with a thin, puny, curly-haired boy wrapped up in her ragged shawl, "the best prayer that I could offer up for you--and I _do_ offer it--is, that the little chap in your arms may grow up to bless his mother as heartily as I bless mine, but that can never be, so long as you love the strong drink and refuse the Saviour."

At that moment a loud cry was heard outside. They all rose and ran to the door, where a woman, in the lowest depths of depravity, with her eyes bloodshot, her hair tumbling about her half-naked shoulders, and her ragged garments draggled and wet, had fallen in her efforts to enter the public-house to obtain more of the poison which had already almost destroyed her. She had cut her forehead, and the blood flowed freely over her face as the missionary lifted her. He was a powerful man, and could take her up tenderly and with ease. She was not much hurt, however. After Seaward had bandaged the cut with his own handkerchief she professed to be much better.

This little incident completed the good influence which the missionary's words and manner had previously commenced. Most of the women began to weep as they listened to the words of love, encouragement, and hope addressed to them. A few of course remained obdurate, though not unimpressed.

All this time young Sam Twitter remained in his dark corner, with his head resting on his arms to prevent his being recognised. Well did he know John Seaward, and well did Seaward know him, for the missionary had long been a fellow-worker with Mrs Twitter in George Yard and at the Home of Industry. The boy was very anxious to escape Seaward's observation. This was not a difficult matter. When the missionary left, after distributing his tracts, Sammy rose up and sought to hide himself--from himself, had that been possible--in the lowest slums of London.


CHAPTER THIRTEEN.


TELLS OF SOME CURIOUS AND VIGOROUS PECULIARITIES OF THE LOWER ORDERS.

Now it must not be supposed that Mrs Frog, having provided for her baby and got rid of it, remained thereafter quite indifferent to it. On the contrary, she felt the blank more than she had expected, and her motherly heart began to yearn for it powerfully.

To gratify this yearning to some extent, she got into the habit of paying frequent visits, sometimes by night and sometimes by day, to the street in which Samuel Twitter lived, and tried to see her baby through the stone walls of the house! Her eyes being weak, as well as her imagination, she failed in this effort, but the mere sight of the house where little Matty was, sufficed to calm her maternal yearnings in some slight degree.

By the way, that name reminds us of our having omitted to mention that baby Frog's real name was Matilda, and her pet name Matty, so that the name of Mita, fixed on by the Twitters, was not so wide of the mark as it might have been.

One night Mrs Frog, feeling the yearning strong upon her, put on her bonnet and shawl--that is to say, the bundle of dirty silk, pasteboard, and flowers which represented the one, and the soiled tartan rag that did duty for the other.

"Where are ye off to, old woman?" asked Ned, who, having been recently successful in some little "job," was in high good humour.

"I'm goin' round to see Mrs Tibbs, Ned. D'you want me?"

"No, on'y I'm goin' that way too, so we'll walk together."

Mrs Frog, we regret to say, was not particular as to the matter of truth. She had no intention of going near Mrs Tibbs, but, having committed herself, made a virtue of necessity, and resolved to pay that lady a visit.

The conversation by the way was not sufficiently interesting to be worthy of record. Arrived at Twitter's street an idea struck Mrs Frog.

"Ned," said she, "I'm