The Little Princess of Tower Hill
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CHAPTER V.
BILLY'S ILLNESS
All that day Billy anxiously watched the baby; he tore off her wet clothes, and wrapped the blanket and the sheet tightly round her, and then he coaxed a neighbor to expend one of his pennies on milk, which he warmed and gave with some broken bread to the little hungry creature. He forgot all about himself in his anxiety for Sarah Ann, and as the day passed on, and she did not sneeze any more, but sat quite warm and bright and chirrupy in his arms, he became more and more light-hearted, and more and more thankful. In his thankfulness he would have offered a little prayer to God, had he known how, for his mother was just sufficiently not a heathen to say to him, now and then, "Don't go out without saying your prayers, Billy, be sure you say your prayers," and once or twice she had even tried to teach him a clause out of Our Father. He only remembered the first two words now, and, looking at the baby, he repeated them solemnly several times. At last it was time to go to bed, and as Sarah Ann was quite nice and sleepy, Billy hoped they would have a comfortable night. So they might have had, as far as the baby was concerned, for she nestled off so peacefully, and laid her soft head on Billy's breast.
But what ailed the poor little boy himself? His head ached, his pulse throbbed as he lay with the scanty blankets covering him; he shivered so violently that he almost feared he should wake Sarah Ann. Yes, he, not the baby, had taken cold. He, not the baby, was going to have brownchitis or that hinflammation which he dreaded.
The mischief had been done when he tore off his jacket and ran home, through the pitiless sleet, in his ragged shirt-sleeves. Well, he was glad it was not Sairey Ann, and mother would soon be home now, and find her baby well, and not starved, and perhaps she would praise him a little bit, and tell him he was a good boy. He had certainly tried to be a good boy.
All through the night – while his chest ached and ached, and his breath became more and more difficult, and the baby slumbered on, with her little downy head against his breast – he kept wondering, in a confused sort of way, what his mother would say to him, and if the Our Father, in the only prayer he ever knew, was anything like the father who had been cruel, and who had run away from him and his mother a year ago.
All his thoughts, however, were very vague, and as the morning broke, and his suffering grew worse, he was too ill to think at all.
CHAPTER VI.
THE END OF HIS TROUBLES
Tom Jones, having secured the baby's comforter, the thin Paisley shawl, and the little winsey frock, ran as fast as he could to a pawnbroker's hard by.
There he received a shilling on the articles, and with this shilling jingling pleasantly in his pocket he entered an eating-house which he knew, and prepared to enjoy some pea pudding and pork.
Tom expended exactly the half of the shilling on his dinner; he ate it greedily, for he was very hungry indeed, and then he went back into the street, with sixpence still to the good in his trouser pocket.
With sixpence in his pocket, and a comfortable dinner inside of him, Tom felt that his present circumstances were delightfully easy. He might walk about the streets with quite fine gentlemanly airs for an hour or two, if he so willed. Or he might flatten his nose against the shop windows, or he might play halfpenny pitch and toss. His circumstances were really affluent, and of course he ought to have been correspondingly happy. The odd thing was that he was not very happy; he could not get Billy's white face out of his head, and he could not altogether forget the icy cold feel of the baby's little arms, when he slipped off that brown winsey frock.
Tom was as hard a boy as ever lived, and a year ago his conscience might not have troubled him, even for playing so wicked a prank as he had done that day. But since then he had met with a softening influence. Tom Jones had been very ill with a bad fever, and during that time had been taken care of in the London fever hospital.
In that hospital, the wild, rough street boy had listened to many kind and gentle words and had witnessed many noble and self-denying actions.
Two or three children had died while Tom was in the hospital, and the nurses had told the other children that this death only meant going home for the little ones, and that they were now safely housed, and free from any more sin and any more temptation.
Tom had listened to the gentle words of the kind Sister nurse, without heeding them much.
But the memory of the whole scene came back to him to-day, all mingled strangely with Billy's pale face and the baby's cold little form, until he became quite compunctious and unhappy, and finally felt that he could not spend that remaining sixpence, but must let it burn a hole in his pocket, and do anything, in short, rather than provide him with food and shelter. Tom was accustomed to spending his nights under archways and huddled up in any sheltered corner he could discover.
This particular night he was lucky enough to find a cart half-full of hay, and here he would doubtless have had a delicious sleep, had not the baby and Billy come into his dreams. The baby and Billy between them managed to give poor Tom a horrible time of it, and at last he felt that he could bear it no longer: he must go and give Billy the sixpence which remained out of his shilling.
He started tolerably early the next morning, and carefully turning his face away from the bakers' shops and coffee-stalls as he passed them, he found himself presently in Aylmer's Court.
He had conquered himself in the matter of the bakers' shops and the coffee stalls, and in consequence he felt a good deal elated, his conscience became easier, and he began to say to himself that very few boys would restore even a stolen sixpence when they were starving. He ran up the stairs, calling out to a neighbor to know if Billy Andersen was within.
"I believe yer," she replied; "jest listen to That 'ere blessed babby, a-screamin' of itself into fits; oh! bother her for as ill-mannered a child as ever I came across."
Tom ran up the remainder of the stairs, and entered Billy's attic without knocking.
There he saw a sight which made him draw in his breath with a little start of surprise and terror; the baby was sitting up in bed and crying lustily, and Billy was lying with his back to her, quite motionless, and apparently deaf to her most piteous wails.
Billy's usual white face was flushed a fiery red, and his breathing, loud and labored, fell with solemn distinctness on Tom's ears.
Tom knew these signs at a glance; he had seen them so often in the fever hospital.
Shutting the door softly behind him, and first of all taking the baby in his arms and thrusting a sticky lollipop, which he happened to have in his waistcoat pocket, into her mouth:
"Be yer werry bad, Billy Andersen?" he said, stooping down over the sick boy.
"Our Father," replied Billy, raising his blue eyes and fixing them in a pathetic manner on Tom. "'Tis our Father I wants."
"Why, he were a bad'un," said Tom; "he runned away from yer, he did; I wouldn't be fretting about him, if I was you, Billy lad."
"'Tis the other one – 'tis t'other one I means," said Billy in a weak gasping voice. "I has 'ad the words afore me all night long – our Father; tell us what it means, Tom, do."
"I know all about it," said Tom in a tone of wisdom; "I larned about it in hospital. There, shut up, Sairey Ann, do; what a young 'un yer are for squallin'. Our Father lives in heaven, Billy, and he'll – he'll – oh! I am sure I forgets – look yere, wouldn't yer like some breakfast, old chap?"
"Water," gasped Billy, "and some milk for the babby."
Tom found himself, whether he wished it or not, installed as Billy's nurse.
He had to run out and purchase a penny-worth of milk, and he had also the forethought to provide himself with a farthing's worth of bull's eyes, one of which he popped into Sarah Ann's mouth whenever she began to howl.
Never had Tom Jones passed so strange a day. It did not occur to him that Billy was in any danger, but neither did it come into his wild, untutored, hard little heart to desert his sick comrade.
By means of the lollipops, he managed to keep Sarah Ann quiet, and then he kindled a tiny fire in the grate, and sat down by Billy, and gave him plentiful drinks of cold water whenever he asked for them.
Billy shivered and flushed alternately, and his blue eyes had a glassy look, and his breath came harder and faster as the slow sad day wore away.
Tom, however, never deserted his post, satisfying his own hunger with a hunk of dry bread, and managing to keep Sarah Ann quiet.
Toward evening, Billy seemed easier; the dreadful oppression of his breathing was not quite so intense, and the flush on his face had given way to pallor.
Tom lit a morsel of candle and placed it in a tin sconce, and then he once more sat down by his little comrade. For the first time then Tom noticed that solemn and peculiar look which Billy's well-known features wore. He puzzled his brain to recall where he had last seen such an expression; then it came back to him – it was in the fever hospital, and the little ones who had worn it had soon gone home.
Was Billy going home? The baby lay asleep in Tom's arms, and he looked from her to the sick child whose eyes were now closed, and whose breath was faint and light.
"Shall I fetch a doctor, old chap?" he whispered.
Billy shook his head.
"Tell us wot yer knows about our Father," he said in a very low and feeble voice.
"Our Father," began Tom. "He lives in heaven, he do. He's kind and he gives lots of good things to the young 'uns as lives with him in heaven. It sounds real fine," continued Tom, "the way as our Father treats them young 'uns, only the worst of it is," he added with the air of a philosopher, "we 'as to die first."
"To die," said Billy, "yes, and wot then?"
"I 'spect," continued Tom, "as our Father fetches us up 'ome somehow, but I'm very ignorant; I don't know nothing, but jest that there's a home and a Father somewheres. Look yere, Billy, old chap, you ain't going to die, be yer?"
"I 'spect I be," said Billy; "a home somewheres, and our Father there, it sounds werry nice."
Then he closed his eyes again, and his breath came a little quicker and a little weaker, and the solemn look grew and deepened on his white face.
"Give me my babby," he said an hour later; "lay her alongside o' me; oh! my darling, darling Sairey Ann; and I'll tell mother when she comes in."
But mother never got her message, for when next Billy spoke, it was in the safe home of our Father.
Billy's baby grew up by and by, but no one ever loved her better than Billy did.
THE OLD ORGAN-MAN
"The world goes up and the world goes down,
And the sunshine follows the rain."
Charles Kingsley.CHAPTER I.
PLAYING FOR LOVE
He was always called old Antonio, and though he doubtless possessed a surname of some sort, no one seemed to know anything about it. He had white hair, and a bronzed face, and kindly soft brown eyes, and he got his living by pacing up and down the streets and turning a hurdy-gurdy.
This instrument was a rather good one of its class – it could play six different airs, and all the airs were Italian, and even played by the hurdy-gurdy had a little of the sweet cadence and soft pathetic melody of that land of music.
Antonio lived in an attic all by himself, and the grown people wondered at him and asked each other what his history could be, but the children loved him and his music, and were to be seen about him wherever he went.
He looked like a man with a story, but no one had ever troubled themselves to find it out or to ask him any questions. He did, however, receive stray pennies enough to keep him alive, and the street children loved him, and whenever they had a chance danced merrily to his music.
One cold and snowy afternoon, about a week before Christmas Day, old Antonio sat up in his attic and looked gloomily out at the snow-laden clouds.
Nothing but the fact that there was no oil for his stove, and no pennies in his pockets, would have induced the old Italian to brave such inclement weather. But no fire and no food will make a man do harder things than Antonio was now thinking about. He must get something to eat and some fire to warm himself by. He shouldered his hurdy-gurdy and went out.
"Poor Marcia," he said to himself as he trudged along. "Well, well, we of the south are mistaken in the generous land of England. The milk and honey-bah, they are nowhere. The inhabitants – they freeze like their frozen skies. Poor Marcia, no doubt she has long ceased to look for the footfall of her Antonio."
The old man, feeling very melancholy and depressed, walked down several streets without once pausing or attempting to commence his music. At last he stopped at the entrance of a very dull square. He had never yet received a penny in this square, and had often said to himself that its inhabitants had not a note of music among them. He took the square now as a short cut, meaning to strike out toward Holborn and the neighborhood of the shops.
Half-way through the square he stopped. A house which used to be all over placards and notices to let presented a different appearance. It was no longer dead and lifeless. From its windows lights gleamed, and lie could see people flitting to and fro.
He stopped for a moment to look at the house and comment on its changed appearance, then with a slight little start, and a look of pleased expectation, he put down his hurdy-gurdy and began softly to turn the handle and to bring out one by one his beloved Italian melodies.
The first, a well-known air from "Il Trovatore," was scarcely finished before a little dark head was popped up from behind a window-blind, and two soft eyes gazed eagerly across the street at the old organ-grinder.
"Bless her! what a depth of color, what eyes, what hair! she comes from the south, the pretty one."
Antonio nodded his head to her as he made these remarks, and the child, with her face pressed against the pane, gazed steadily back at him, now and then smiling in an appreciative manner.
The six airs were all played out and repeated a second time, and then Antonio, looking up at the sky, from which the snow was still steadily falling, began to think of moving on. In his pleasure at playing for the child he had forgotten all about the money part of his profession. He was indeed indulging in a happy dream, in which Marcia, and a certain little Marcia, who had long ago gone back to God, were again by his side.
He threw a cloth over his hurdy-gurdy and prepared to mount it on his shoulder.
The moment he did so the child disappeared from the window. There was a quick, eager patter of little feet in the hall, the front door was opened, and the next moment the little dark child was standing by his side.
"Here's sixpence of my very own, and you shall have it, poor man, and thank you for your lovely, lovely music."
"You liked it, dearie?" said Antonio, not touching the sixpence, but looking down at the pretty child with reverence.
"Oh! didn't I just? I used to hear those airs in Italy, and they remind me of my dear mamma."
"Little missy has got eyes dark and long like almonds; perhaps she comes from our sunny south?" said Antonio eagerly.
"No, I am a little English girl; but my mamma was ill, and they took her to Italy, and Marcia nursed her. God has taken my mamma away, and now I am in England, and I don't like it; but I shall only stay here until my father comes home."
"Missy, you make my heart beat when you talk of Italy and of Marcia – but your Marcia, was she young? – the name is a common one, and mine, if the good Lord has not removed her, must be very old now."
"My Marcia was young and good," said the little girl. "I loved her, and I cry for her still. I am so sorry your Marcia is old, poor man. Thank you for the music. I must run in now, or Janet will scold. Good-by. Here's your sixpence."
"No, no, missy. I'll get some pence in the other streets. Let me feel that I played the old airs for you only for love."
CHAPTER II.
A FRIEND IN NEED
Antonio did not stay out much longer in the snow. This enterprise of his had not turned out a profitable one; no one on such a miserable day felt inclined to listen to his Italian airs, the snow seemed to be locking up people's hearts, and he went back to his attic hungry and cold, and quite as penniless as when he started on his expedition. Still there was a glow in his heart, and he was not at all sorry that he had played for the pretty child for love.
He sat down in an old broken arm-chair and wrapped a tattered cloak about him, and indulged in what he called a reverie of Italy and old times. This reverie, as he said afterward, quite warmed him and took away his desire for food.
"The child has brought all back to me like a golden dream," he murmured. "Poor, poor Marcia! why do I think of her so much to-night? and there's no money in the little box, and no hope of going back to her, and it's fifteen years ago now."
The next day Antonio went back to the quiet square off Bloomsbury, and played all his Italian airs opposite the house where he had played them yesterday; but though he looked longingly from one window to another, he could not get any glimpse of the child who reminded him of Italy. As he walked through the square on his way home he could see the people passing to the week-night service at the church, which stood in the center. But no trace of the little one could he catch. As far as money was concerned, he had had a much better day than yesterday, but he went home, nevertheless, disappointed and with quite a blank at his old heart. The next day he hoped he would see the child, and he again went slowly through the square, but he could not catch a glimpse of her, and after doing this every day in vain he soon came to the conclusion that she had gone.
"Her father has come for the pretty one, and she has gone back to the fair south," he murmured. "Ah, well! I never saw such eyes as hers on an English maiden before."
On Christmas Day Antonio shouldered his organ, as usual, and went out.
On this morning he made quite a little harvest; people were so merry and so bright and so happy that even those who did not want his Italian airs gave him a penny to get rid of him.
Quite early in the afternoon he turned his steps homeward. On his way he bought half a pound of sausages and a small bottle of thin and sour claret.
"Now," he said to himself, "I shall have a feast worthy of my Italy," and he trudged cheerfully back, feeling all the better for his walk through the pleasant frosty air.
Antonio never indulged in fires, but he had a small paraffin stove in his attic, and this he now lit, and spread out his thin hands before the poor little attempt at a fire. Then he drank his claret and ate his sausages and bread, and tried to believe that he was having quite a bright little Christmas feast.
There were many voices in the room below, and cheerful sounds coming up now and then from the court, and altogether there was a festive air about everything, and Antonio tried to believe himself one with a merry multitude. But, poor old man, he failed to do so. He was a lonely and very old man – he was an exile from his native country. No one in all this great world of London cared anything at all about him, and he was parted from his good wife Marcia.
Fifteen years ago now they had agreed to part; they both supposed that this parting would be a matter of months, or a year at most.
"The good land of England is paved with gold," said Antonio. "I will go there and collect some of the treasure and then come back for you and little Marcia."
"And in the mean time the good God will give me money enough to keep on the little fruit stall and to support our little sweet one," said Marcia, bravely keeping back her tears.
Antonio came to England, and quickly discovered that the streets paved with gold and the abundant wealth lived only in his dreams. The little money he had brought with him was quickly spent, and he had no means to enable him to return to Italy. Neither he nor his wife could write, and under these circumstances it was only too easy for the couple to lose sight of each other.
Once, a few years back, an Italian had brought him word that little Marcia was dead, and that his wife was having a very poor time of it. When Antonio heard this he came home in a fit of desperation, and finding a small box, bored a hole in the lid, and into this hole he religiously dropped half of all he earned, hoping by this means to secure a little fund to enable him to return to Naples and to Marcia.
The winter, however, set in with unusual severity, and the contents of the little box had to be spent, and poor Antonio seemed no nearer to the only longing he now had in his old heart.
On this particular Christmas Day, after his vain attempt at being merry and Christmas-like, he dropped his head into his hands and gave way to some very gloomy thoughts.
There was no hope now of his ever seeing his old wife again. How tired she must be of standing by that fruit stall and watching in vain for him to turn the corner of the gay and picturesque street!
There she would stand day after day, with her crimson petticoat, and her tidy bodice, and the bright yellow handkerchief twisted round her head. Her dark eyes would look out softly and longingly for the old man who was never coming back. Yes, since the child had gone back to God, Marcia must be a very lonely woman.
After thinking thus for some time, until all the short daylight had faded and the lamps were lit one by one in the street below, Antonio began to pace up and down his little attic.
He was feeling almost fierce in his longing and despair; the patient submission to what he believed an inevitable fate, which at most times characterized him, gave place to passionate utterances, the natural outcome of his warm southern nature.
"Oh, God! give me back Marcia – let me see my old wife Marcia once again before I die," he pleaded several times.
After a little he thought he would change the current of his sad musings, and go out into the street with his hurdy-gurdy. As I have said before, he was always a favorite with the children, and they now crowded round him and begged for that merry Italian air to which they could dance. Antonio was feeling too unhappy to care about money, and it afforded him a passing pleasure to gratify the children, so he set down his barrel-organ in the dirty crowded street, and began to turn the handle.
The children, waiting for their own favorite air, collected closely round the old man; now it was coming, and they could dance, oh! so merrily, to the strains they loved.
But – what was the matter? Antonio was looking straight before him, and turning the handle slowly and mechanically. Suddenly his whole face lit up with an expression of wonder, of pleasure, of astonishment. He let go the handle of the barrel organ, and the music went out with a little crash, and the next instant he was pushing his way through the crowd of dirty children, and was bending over a little girl, with dark hair and dark, sweet, troubled eyes, who was standing without either bonnet or jacket spell-bound by the notes of the old hurdy-gurdy.
"Why, my little one – my little sweet one from the south, however did you come to a dreadful place like this?" said old Antonio.
At the sound of his voice, the child seemed to be roused out of a spell of terror; she trembled violently, she clasped her arms round his knees, and burst into sobs and cries.
"You are my organ-man – you are my own darling organ-man. Oh! I knew it must be you, and now you will take me home to my father."
"But however did you come here, my dear little missy?"
"My name is Mona. I am Mona Sinclair, and Janet my maid – oh! how cruel she is; she was jealous of the dear Marcia I used to have in Italy, and she said she would punish me, and she would do it on Christmas Day. Father has not come home yet, and I have been so unhappy waiting for him, and Janet said she was tired of my always crying and missing my mamma, and she took me for a walk this afternoon, and she met some grandly dressed people, and they wanted her to go with them, and she said she would for a little, and she told me to stand at the street corner, and she would be back in ten minutes, but it seemed like hours and hours," continued the child excitedly, "and I was so cold, and so miserable, and I could not wait any longer, and I thought I would find my own way home, and I have been looking for it ever since, and I cannot find it. I asked one woman to tell me, but all she did was to hurry me into a corner and take off my fur cap and my warm jacket, and she looked so wicked, and I've been afraid to ask any one since; but now you will take me home, you won't be unkind to me, my dear organ-man."