"You are right, for once," he said. "Here is a child, and a pretty heavy one, too. It has been deserted by someone; and a heartless creature she must have been, for in another half hour it would have been frozen to death, if you had not heard it."

The woman was out of bed now.

"It is a boy," she said, opening the shawl, "about two years old, I should say.

"Don't cry, my boy--don't cry.

"It's half frozen, Sam. The best thing will be to put it into our bed, that has just got warm. I will warm it up a little milk. It's no use taking it into the ward, tonight."

Ten minutes later the child was sound asleep; the porter--who was a good-natured man--having gone over to sleep in an empty bed in the house, leaving the child to share his wife's bed.

In the morning the foundling opened its eyes and looked round.

Seeing everything strange, it began to cry.

"Don't cry, dear," the woman said. "I will get you some nice breakfast, directly."

The kindness of tone at once pacified the child. It looked round.

"Where's mother?" he asked.

"I don't know, dear. We shall find her soon enough, no doubt; don't you fret."

The child did not seem inclined to fret. On the contrary, he brightened up visibly.

"Will she beat Billy, when she comes back?"

"No, my dear, she sha'n't beat you. Does she often beat you?"

The child nodded its head several times, emphatically.

"Then she's a bad lot," the woman said, indignantly.

The child ate its breakfast contentedly, and was then carried by the porter's wife to the master, who had already heard the circ.u.mstance of its entry.

"It's of no use asking such a baby whether it has any name," he said; "of course, it would not know. It had better go into the infants' ward. The guardians will settle what its name shall be. We will set the police at work, and try and find out something about its mother. It is a fine-looking little chap; and she must be either a thoroughly bad one, or terribly pressed, to desert it like this. Most likely it is a tramp and, in that case, it's odds we shall never hear further about it.

"Any distinguishing mark on its clothes?"

"None at all, sir. It is poorly dressed, and seems to have been very bad treated. Its skin is dirty, and its little back is black and blue with bruises; but it has a blood mark on the neck, which will enable its mother to swear to it, if it's fifty years hence--but I don't suppose we shall ever hear of her, again."

That afternoon, however, the news came that the body of a tramp had been found, frozen to death in a ditch near the town. She had apparently lost her way and, when she had fallen in, was so numbed and cold that she was unable to rise, and so had been drowned in the shallow water. When the master heard of it, he sent for the porter's wife.

"Mrs. d.i.c.kson," he said, "you had better take that child down, and let it see the tramp they have found, frozen to death. The child is too young to be shocked at death, and will suppose she is asleep.

But you will be able to see if he recognizes her."

There was no doubt as to the recognition. The child started in terror, when he saw the woman lying in the shed into which she had been carried. It checked its first impulse to cry out, but struggled to get further off.

"Moder asleep," he said, in a whisper. "If she wake, she beat Billy."

That was enough. The woman carried him back to the house.

"She's his mother, sir, sure enough," she said to the master, "though how she should be puzzles me. She is dressed in pretty decent clothes; but she is as dark as a gypsy, with black hair.

This child is fair, with a skin as white as milk, now he is washed."

"I daresay he takes after his father," the master--who was a practical man--said. "I hear that there is no name on her things, no paper or other article which would identify her in her pockets; but there is two pounds, twelve shillings in her purse, so she was not absolutely in want. It will pay the parish for her funeral."

An hour later the guardians a.s.sembled and, upon hearing the circ.u.mstances of the newcomer's admission, and the death of the tramp, they decided that the child should be entered in the books as "William Gale,"--the name being chosen with a reference to the weather during which he came into the house--and against his name a note was written, to the effect that his mother--a tramp, name unknown--had, after leaving him at the door of the workhouse, been found frozen to death next day.

William Gale grew, and throve. He was a quiet and contented child; accustomed to be shut up all day alone, while his mother was out washing, the companionship of other children in the workhouse was a pleasant novelty and, if the food was not such as a dainty child would fancy, it was at least as good as he had been accustomed to.

The porter's wife continued to be the fast friend of the child whom she had saved from death. The fact that she had done so gave her an interest in it. Her own children were out in service, or at work in the fields; and the child was a pleasure to her. Scarce a day pa.s.sed, then, that she would not go across the yard up to the infants' ward, and bring Billy down to the lodge; where he would play contentedly by the hour, or sit watching her, and sucking at a cake, while she washed or prepared her husband's dinner.

Billy was seldom heard to cry. Perhaps he had wept all his stock of tears away, before he entered the house. He had seldom fits of bad temper, and was a really lovable child. Mrs. d.i.c.kson never wavered in the opinion she had first formed--that the dead tramp was not Billy's mother--but as no one else agreed with her, she kept her thoughts to herself.

The years pa.s.sed on, and William Gale was now no longer in the infants' ward, but took his place in the boys' school. Here he at once showed an intelligence beyond that of the other boys of his own age. The hours which he had, each day, spent in the porter's lodge had not been wasted. The affection of the good woman had brightened his life, and he had none of the dull, downcast look so common among children in workhouses. She had encouraged him to talk and play, had taught him the alphabet, and supplied him with an occasional picture book, with easy words. Indeed, she devoted far more time to him than many mothers, in her cla.s.s of life, can give to their children.

The guardians, as they went in and out to board meeting, would delight her by remarking:

"That is really a fine little fellow, Mrs. d.i.c.kson. He really does you credit. A fine, st.u.r.dy, independent little chap."

The child, of course, wore the regular uniform of workhouse children; but Mrs. d.i.c.kson--who was handy with her needle--used to cut and alter the clothes to fit him, and thus entirely changed their appearance.

"He looks like a gentleman's child," one of the guardians said, one day.

"I believe he is a gentleman's child, sir. Look at his white skin; see how upright he is, with his head far back, as if he was somebody. He is different, altogether, from the run of them. I always said he came of good blood, and I shall say so to my dying day."

"It may be so, Mrs. d.i.c.kson; but the woman who left him here, if I remember right, did not look as if she had any good blood in her."

"Not likely, sir. She never came by him honestly, I am sure. I couldn't have believed she was his mother, not if she had sworn to it with her dying breath."

Mrs. d.i.c.kson's belief was not without influence upon the boy. When he was old enough to understand, she told him the circ.u.mstances of his having been found at the workhouse door, and of the discovery of the woman who had brought him there; and impressed upon him her own strong conviction that this was not his mother.

"I believe, Billy," she said, over and over again, "that your parents were gentlefolk. Now mind, it does not make one bit of difference to you, for it ain't likely you will ever hear of them.

Still, please G.o.d, you may do so; and it is for you to bear it in mind, and to act so as--if you were to meet them--they need not be ashamed of you. You have got to earn your living just like all the other boys here; but you can act right, and straight, and honorable.

"Never tell a lie, Billy; not if it's to save yourself from being thrashed ever so much. Always speak out manful, and straight, no matter what comes of it. Don't never use no bad words, work hard at your books, and try to improve yourself. Keep it always before you that you mean to be a good man, and a gentleman, some day and, mark my words, you will do it."

"You're spoiling that child," her husband would say, "filling his head with your ridiculous notions."

"No, I am not spoiling him, Sam. I'm doing him good. It will help keep him straight, if he thinks that he is of gentle blood, and must not shame it. Why, the matron said only yesterday she could not make him out, he was so different from other boys."

"More's the pity," grumbled the porter. "It mayn't do him harm now--I don't say as it does; but when he leaves the house he'll be above his work, and will be discontented, and never keep a place."

"No, he won't," his wife a.s.serted stoutly; although, in her heart, she feared that there was some risk of her teaching having that effect.

So far, however, there could be no doubt that her teaching had been of great advantage to the boy; and his steadiness and diligence soon attracted the attention of the schoolmaster. Schoolmasters are always ready to help pupils forward who promise to be a credit to them, and William Gale's teacher was no exception. He was not a learned man--very far from it. He had been a grocer who had failed in business and, having no other resource, had accepted the very small salary offered, by the guardians of Ely workhouse, as the only means which presented itself of keeping out of one of the pauper wards of that inst.i.tution. However, he was not a bad reader, and wrote an excellent hand. With books of geography and history before him, he could make no blunders in his teaching; and although he might have been failing in method, he was not harsh or unkind--and the boys, therefore, learned as much with him as they might have done with a more learned master, of a harsher disposition.

He soon recognized not only William's anxiety to learn, but the fearlessness and spirit with which he was always ready to own a fault, and to bear its punishment. On several occasions he brought the boy before the notice of the guardians, when they came round the school and, when questions had to be asked before visitors, William Gale was always called up as the show boy.