The Little Princess of Tower Hill

CHAPTER I.

BILLY'S BABY

Billy was a small boy of ten; he was thin and wiry, had a freckled face, and a good deal of short, rather stumpy red hair.

He was by no means young-looking for his ten years; and only that his figure was small, his shoulders narrow, and his little legs sadly like spindles, he might have passed for a boy of twelve or thirteen.

Billy had a weight of care upon his shoulders – he had the entire charge of a baby.

The baby was a year old, fairly heavy, fairly well grown; she was cutting her teeth badly, and in consequence was often cross and unmanageable.

Billy had to do with her night and day, and no one who saw the two together could for a moment wonder at the premature lines of care about his small thin face.

A year ago, on a certain January morning, Billy had been called away from a delightful game of hop-scotch. A red-faced woman had come to the door of a tall house, which over-looked the alley where Billy was playing so contentedly, and beckoned him mysteriously to follow her.

"Yer'd better make no noise, and take off those heavy clumps of shoes," she remarked.

Billy looked down at his small feet, on which some very large and much-battered specimens of the shoemaker's craft were hanging loosely.

"I can shuffle of 'em off right there, under the stairs," he remarked, raising his blue eyes in a confident manner to the red-faced woman.

She nodded, but did not trouble to speak further, and barefooted Billy crept up the stairs; up and up, until he came to an attic room, which he knew well, for it represented his home.

He was still fresh from his hop-scotch, and eager to go back to his game; and when a thin, rather rasping woman's voice called him, he ran up eagerly to a bedside.

"Wot is it, mother? I want to go back to punch Tom Jones."

Alas! for poor Billy – his fate was fixed from that moment, and the wild bird was caged.

"Another time, Billy," said his mother; "you 'as got other work to see to now. Pull down the bedclothes, and look wot's under 'em."

Billy eagerly drew aside the dirty counterpane and sheet, and saw a very small and pink morsel of humanity – a morsel of humanity which greeted his rough intrusion on her privacy with several contortions of the tiny features, and some piercing screams.

"Why, sakes alive, ef it ain't a baby," said Billy, falling back a step or two in astonishment.

"Yes, Billy," replied his mother, "and she's to be your baby, for I can't do no charring and mind her as well, so set down by the fire, this minute and mind her right away."

Billy did not dream of objecting; he seated himself patiently and instantly, and thought with a very faint sigh of Tom Jones, whose head he so ached to punch.

Tom Jones would be victorious at hop-scotch, and he would not be present to abate his pride.

Well, well, perhaps he could go to-morrow.

CHAPTER II.

MORE TROUBLE

Day after day passed, and month after month, and Tom Jones, the bully of Aylmer's Court, quite ceased to fear any assaults from a certain plucky and wiry little fellow, who used to fly at him when he knocked down the girls, and who made himself generally unpleasant to Tom, when Tom too violently transgressed the principle of right and justice.

Not that Billy Andersen knew anything of right and justice himself; he was mostly guided by an instinct which taught him to dislike everything that Tom did, and perhaps he was also a wee bit influenced by a sentiment which made him dislike to see any thing weaker or smaller than himself bullied. Since that January morning, however, Billy's head and heart and hands were all too full for him to have any time to waste upon Tom Jones.

The girls and the very little ones of the court crowded round Billy the first time he went out with his charge. One of the biggest of them, indeed, carried the little thing right up into her own home, followed by a noisy crowd eager to make friends with the little arrival. Billy was flattered by their attentions, but he preferred to keep his charge entirely to himself.

At first, it was his head and hands alone which were occupied over the baby, but as she progressed under his small brotherly care, and wrinkled up her tiny features with an ugly attempt at a smile, and stretched out her limbs and cooed at him, he began gradually to discover that the baby was getting into his heart. From the moment he became certain on this point, all the irksomeness of his duties faded out of sight, and he did not mind what care or trouble he expended over Sarah Ann.

Mrs. Andersen, true to her word, had given Billy the entire charge of this last addition to her family. Her husband had deserted her some months before the birth of the baby, and the poor woman had about as much as she could do, in earning bread to put into her own mouth and those of her two children.

Now, it is grievous to relate that notwithstanding all Billy's devotion and good nature, Sarah Ann was by no means a nice baby. In the first place, she was very ugly – not even Billy could see any beauty in her rather old and yellow face; in the next place, she had a temper, which the neighbors were fond of describing as "vicious." Sarah Ann seemed already to have studied human nature for the purpose of annoying it. She cried at the wrong moments, she cut her teeth at the most inopportune times, she slept by day and stayed awake at night, in a manner enough to try the patience of an angel; she tyrannized over any one who had anything to do with her, and in particular she tyrannized over Billy.

Night after night had Billy to pace up and down the attic, with Sarah Ann in his arms, for nothing would induce the infant to spend her waking moments except in a state of perpetual motion.

In vain Billy tried darkness, and his mother tried scolding. Sarah Ann, when placed in her cot, screamed so loud that all the neighbors were aroused.

When once, however, this strange and wayward little child had got into Billy's heart, he was wonderfully patient with all her caprices, and treasured the rare and far-between smiles she gave him, as worth going through a great deal to obtain.

On fine days Billy took Sarah Ann for a walk; and even once or twice he went with her as far as Kensington Gardens, where they both enjoyed themselves vastly, under the shadow of a huge elm tree.

It was on the last of these occasions, just before the second winter of Sarah Ann's existence, that that small adventure occurred which was to land poor Billy in such hot water and such perplexity.

Sarah Ann was quite nice that afternoon; she cooed and smiled, and allowed her brother to stroke her face, and even to play tenderly with the tiny rings of soft flaxen hair which were beginning to show round her forehead.

Billy's heart and head were quite absorbed with her, when a harsh, mocking laugh and a loud "Hulloa, you youngster," caused him to raise his head, and see, to his unutterable aversion, the well-remembered form of Tom Jones.

"Well, I never; and so that's the reason you've bin a-shunnin' of me lately; and so you've been obliged to go and turn nursemaid; well – well – and you call yourself a manly boy."

"So I be manly," retorted Billy, glaring angrily and defiantly at his adversary. "I don't want none of your cheek, Tom Jones, and I'd a sight rayther be taking care of a cute little baby like this than idling and loafing about and getting into trouble all day long – like yourself."

"Oh! we has turned nice and good," said Tom Jones, trying to affect a fine lady's accent; "ain't it edifying – ain't it delicious – to hear us speaking so well of ourselves? Now then, Billy, where's that punched head you promised me a year ago now? I ain't forgot it, and I'd like to see you at it; you're afeard, that's wot you are; you're a coward, arter all, Billy Andersen."

"No, I ain't," said Billy, "and I'll give it yer this 'ere blessed minute, if you like. Yere, Sarah Ann darling, you set easy with yer back up agin' the tree, and I'll soon settle Tom Jones for him."

Sarah Ann strongly objected to being removed from Billy's lap to the ground; all her sunshiny good temper deserted her on the spot; she screamed, she wriggled, she made such violent contortions, and altogether behaved in such an excited and extraordinary manner, that Tom, who by no means in his heart wished to test Billy's powers, found a ready excuse for postponing the moment when his head must be punched, in her remarkable behavior.

"Well, I never did see such a baby," he began; "now, I likes that sort of a baby; why, she have a sperrit. No, no, Billy, I ain't going to punch you; now, I'd like to catch hold of that 'ere little one" – but here Billy frustrated his intention.

"You shan't touch my baby; you shan't lay a hand on her," he exclaimed, snatching Sarah Ann up again in his arms, and covering her with kisses.

"Well, see if I don't some day," said Tom; "you dare me, do you? Well, all right, we'll see."

As Billy walked home that afternoon, he was a little troubled by Tom's words; he knew how vindictive Tom could be, and there was an ugly light in his green eyes when he, Billy, had refused to give him the baby.

Tom was capable of mischief, of playing such a practical joke as might cause sad trouble and even danger to poor little Sarah Ann. Hitherto Billy had kept all knowledge of the baby's existence from Tom Jones. What evil chance had brought him to Kensington Gardens that day? Troubles, however, were not to fall singly on poor Billy Andersen that day. He was greeted on his return to his attic by eager words and excited ejaculations. It was some time before his poor little dazed head could take in the fact that his mother had broken her leg, and was taken to the hospital. He must then for the time being turn the baby's breadwinner as well as her caretaker.

CHAPTER III.

TOM JONES' TRICK

The neighbors were full of suggestions to Billy at this crisis of his fate.

It was ascertained beyond all doubt that Mrs. Andersen would be six weeks, if not two months, away; and this being the case, the neighbors one and all declared roundly that there was nothing whatever for Sarah Ann but to become a workhouse baby. One of them would carry her to the house the very next morning, and of course she would be admitted without a moment's difficulty, and there would be an end of her.

Billy might manage to earn a precarious living by running messages, by opening cab-doors, and by the thousand-and-one things an active boy could undertake, and so he might eke out a livelihood till his mother came back; but there was no hope whatever for Sarah Ann – there was no loophole for her but the workhouse.

To these admonitions on the part of his friendly neighbors, Billy responded in a manner peculiar to himself. First of all, he raised two blue and very innocent eyes, and let them rest slowly and thoughtfully on each loquacious speaker's face; then he suddenly and without the slightest warning winked one of the said eyes in a manner that was so knowing as to be almost wicked, and then without the slightest word or comment he dashed into his attic and locked the door on himself and Sarah Ann.

"Sarah Ann, darling," he said, placing the baby on the floor and kneeling down a few paces from her, "will yer go to the workhouse, or will yer stay with yer h'own Billy?"

Sarah Ann's response to this was to wriggle as fast as possible up to her affectionate nurse, and rub her little dirty face against his equally dirty trousers.

"That's settled, then," said Billy; "yer has chosen, Sarah Ann, and yer ain't one as could ever abear contradictions, so we 'as got to see how we two can live."

This was a problem not so easily managed, for the neighbors took offense with Billy not following their advice, and it was almost impossible for him to leave Sarah Ann long at home by herself. True to this terrible infant's character, she now refused to sleep by day, as she had hitherto done, thus cutting off poor Billy's last loophole of earning his bread and her own with any comfort.

Billy had two reasons which made it almost impossible for him to leave the baby in the attic; the first was his fear that Tom Jones, who still hovered dangerously about, might find her and carry her off; the second was the undoubted fact that if Sarah Ann was left to enjoy her own solitary company, she would undoubtedly scream herself into fits and the neighbors into distraction.

There was nothing whatever for it but for Billy to carry the baby with him when he went in search of their daily bread.

Poor little brave man, he had certainly a hard time during those next two months, and except for the undoubted fact that he and the baby were two of the sparrows whom our Father feeds, they both must have starved; but perhaps owing to a certain look in Billy's eyes, which were as blue as blue could be, in the midst of his freckled face, and also, perhaps, to a certain pathetic turn which the baby's ugliness had now assumed, the two always managed to secure attention.

With attention, came invariably a few pence – fourpence one day – sixpence and even eightpence another. The greater portion of the food thus obtained was given to Sarah Ann, but neither of the two quite starved. Billy counted and counted and counted the days until his mother would be home again; and as, fortunately for him, Mrs. Andersen had paid the rent of their attic some weeks in advance, the children still had a shelter at night.

All went tolerably well with the little pair until a certain bitter day in the beginning of November. Billy was very hopeful on the morning of that day, for his mother's time of captivity in the hospital had nearly expired, and soon now she would be back to take the burden of responsibility off his young shoulders.

Sarah Ann had hitherto escaped cold; indeed, her life in the open air seemed to agree with her, and she slept better at nights, and was really becoming quite a nice tempered baby.

Billy used to look at her with the most old fatherly admiration, and assured her that she was such a darling duck of a cherub that he could almost eat her up.

No, Sarah Ann had never taken cold, but Billy felt a certain amount of uneasiness on this particular morning, which was as sleety, as gusty, as altogether melancholy a day as ever dawned on the great London world.

There was no help for it, however, the daily bread must be found; and he and the baby must face the elements. He wrapped an old woolen comforter several times round Sarah Ann's throat, and beneath the comforter secured a very thin and worn Paisley shawl of his mother's, and then buttoning up his own ragged jacket, and shuffling along in his large and untidy boots, he set forth. Whether it was the insufficient food he had lately partaken of or that the baby was really growing very heavy, poor Billy almost staggered to-day under Sarah Ann's weight. He found himself obliged to lean for support against a pillar box, and then he discovered to his distress that the baby began to sneeze, that her tiny face was blue, and that her solemn black eyes had quite a weary and tearful look.

"She's a-catchin' cold, the blessed, blessed babby," exclaimed poor Billy; "oh, Sairey Ann, darlin', don't you go and take the brownchitis, and break the heart of your h'own Billy. Oh! lady, lady, give us a 'ap'enny, or a penny. Give us a copper, please, kind lady."

The lady so aprostrophized was good-natured enough to bestow a few pence on the starved-looking children, and after a certain miserable fashion the morning passed away.

This was, however, Billy's only money success, and he was just making up his mind to go home, and to prefer starvation in his attic to running the feeble chance of securing any more charities.

Sarah Ann still continued to sneeze and her eyes still looked watery, and Billy was sorrowfully giving up his hope of receiving any more coppers, when he came face to face with his old adversary and tormentor, Tom Jones.

In the anxiety of these latter few weeks, Billy had lost his old fear of Tom, and he was now so spent and exhausted that he greeted him with almost pleasure.

"Oh! Tom, do hold the babby just for one minute, just for me to get a wee bit of breath. I'm all blown like, and I'm afeard as Sarah Ann 'as taken cold; jest hold her for one minute – will yer?"

Tom, who was looking rather white and shaken himself, just glanced into Billy's face, and some gibing words, which were on the tip of his tongue, were restrained.

"Why, yer does look bad, Billy Andersen," he said, and then, without another word, he lifted the baby out of the little lad's trembling arms, and held her in an awkward but not altogether untender fashion.

"Look you here, Billy," he said, "ef yer likes to round quick this 'ere corner, there are two cabs coming up to a house as I passed, and they are sure to want a boy to help in with the boxes, and you maybe earn sixpence or a bob; run round this yere minute – quick, Billy, quick."

"I'd like to, awful well," said Billy, "and the run will warm me, and wouldn't the bob be fine – but, oh! Tom, will yer hold Sairey Ann? and will yer promise not to run away with her? will yer promise sure and faithful, Tom?"

"What in the world should I do that for?" said Tom. "What good would yer Sairey Ann be to me? My h'eyes – I has work enough to get my h'own victuals. There, Billy, I'll not deprive you of the babby; you jest run round the corner, or yer'll lose the chance. There, Billy, be quick; you'll find Sairey Ann safe enough when yer comes back."

The poor thin and cold baby gave a little cry as Billy ran off, but the chance was too good for him to lose; and, after all, what earthly use could Tom have with Sairey Ann?

CHAPTER IV.

WHAT IT MEANT

Poor Billy! After all, Tom had told him a story, for there was no cab whatever waiting in the long and dreary street, into which he ran so eagerly. He ran up and down its entire length, and even stopped at the very number Tom had indicated. A little girl was coming slowly down the steps, and Billy could not help saying to her, "Oh, missy, am I too late, and have all the boxes been stowed away afore I come?"

"There have been no boxes stowed away," said the little girl, stopping and staring in astonishment at the ragged boy.

"Oh, but, missy, out of the two cabs, yer knows."

"There have been no cabs here for many a day," replied the child in a sorrowful, dull kind of tone, which seemed to say that she only wished anything half so nice and interesting would arrive.

Billy saw then that the whole thing had been a hoax, and he flew back down the long street, with a great terror in his heart. Oh! what did Tom mean, and was the baby safe?

There was no Tom anywhere in sight when the poor little boy returned to the more crowded thoroughfare; but a policeman was stooping down and looking curiously at something on the pavement, and one or two people were beginning to collect round him.

Billy arrived just in time to see the policeman pick up a little shivering, crying, half-naked baby. Yes, this baby was his own Sarah Ann, but her woolen comforter, and mother's old Paisley shawl, and even a little brown winsey frock had all disappeared.

"Oh! give her to me, give her to me," sobbed poor Billy; "oh, Sairey Ann, Sairey Ann, yer'll have brownchitis and hinflammation now, sure and certain; oh, wot a wicked boy Tom Jones is."

The policeman asked a few leading questions, and then finding that the baby was Billy's undoubted property, he was only too glad to deliver her into his arms. The poor baby was quiet at once, and laid her little head caressingly against Billy's cheek. Billy tore off his own ragged jacket and wrapped it round her, and then flew home, with the energy and terror of despair. A pitiless sleet shower overtook him, however, and the two were wet to the skin when they arrived at their attic.