Mother Meg.

by Catharine Shaw.

CHAPTER I.

PITILESS.

"Put 'im down, 'e can walk as well as anythink."

It was a cold day in May, when the sun was hidden behind leaden clouds, and the wind swept along the streets as if determined to clear them of every loiterer who should venture to a.s.sure himself that it was not March, and could not be so cold.

The few people who had ventured out in spring clothing bid fair to "repent it many a day," and those who were happy enough to have winter wraps drew them closer, and hurried along, the sooner to get into some shelter. The omnibus men dashed their arms across their b.r.e.a.s.t.s for warmth, and everybody, gentle or simple, looked nipped up with the strong east wind.

"Put 'im down," said a hard-featured woman, who was walking slowly along by the side of the road; "it won't matter 'is walkin' now."

The man thus addressed was a thin, brow-beaten looking individual, who was carrying a child of some three years old in his arms. His clothes were threadbare, his knees peeped through his worn trousers, and his whole appearance was most deplorable. The woman by his side was as poorly clad as himself, outwardly at least, but seemed to suffer less from it. She was not thin, and if looked at closely, appeared to be well fed, and perhaps to have no lack of drink either. She carried a small infant in her arms, wrapped in a large dirty shawl.

The three-year-old child had a pale, suffering little face, which looked as if tears were often very near. His eyes were terribly weak, and when he was set down by the man he looked as if he would have fallen. But the woman disengaged one of her hands, and said impatiently, dragging him towards her, "Come along, d.i.c.kie, none o' yer nonsense; walk on like a good boy."

The child gave one glance at her stern face, and then tottered on silently, occasionally rubbing his poor little eyes with the back of his tiny hand.

The wind met them round the corners; it seemed to be everywhere, and at every gust the miserable-looking party looked more miserable still.

"How much 'ave yer took?" asked the man, as if he could turn and run home.

The woman felt for her pocket, and after some fumbling she said in a low voice, "Two-and-eight, I should think."

"Won't that do?" said the man, shivering. Then glancing sideways at the child, he went on, "'E'll not walk many more steps, and if you don't take care 'e'll not be hout to-morrer, nor next day neither; 'e's most done, 'e is."

The woman turned round and was going to speak, when a respectable couple, dressed in warm cloth, silks, and furs, came in sight.

In a moment her manner changed. "Take 'im up," she said in a wheedling tone, "'e's tired, 'e is, and cold; carry 'im a bit, George."

The child, too cold and weary to care, was taken resistlessly into the man's arms, and laid his head on his shoulder, and the party paused, looking expectantly at the lady and gentleman who were fast approaching.

"My good woman, this is a bitter day for such little ones to be out,"

said the gentleman kindly; "have you far to go?"

"Over London Bridge, sir, down that way."

"That's a long distance," he exclaimed; "and you all look perished with the cold."

"That we are, sir," answered the woman, sniffing, "and my good man, sir, just now was a-saying that though we hadn't took a ha'penny, sir, this day, we must give it up. But it's hard to see 'em suffer, sir, and have no bread nor firing to give 'em."

The man shook his head dolorously at each sentence, and the weak little child shut his eyes, as a fresh gust of wind seemed ready to blind him altogether.

"That child ought not to be out on such a day as this at all," said the lady almost severely.

"What is poor folk to do, my lady?" asked the woman, "there's no work, and there's no food; and surely we'd be better to get a bit of broken victuals or a copper from some Christian gentleman than to starve at home, like rats in a hole!"

"Well, well," said the gentleman with a ponderous sigh, "it makes one's heart ache, Clarissa. Here, my good woman, go home now and buy some food and coals, and get that poor child warm."

He gave her a shilling and pa.s.sed on, and the woman, catching sight of a policeman whom she recognized bearing down upon them, they hastily turned the other way and set off in the direction of London Bridge as fast as they could go.

The man knew it was useless to put d.i.c.kie down to walk, for he had seen all day that the child was very ill. His light weight, however, was not a great trouble, for he was very small for his age, and now was so thin and emaciated with hardship that the man doubted if he should ever carry him again.

"I wish yer'd git some one else," he exclaimed at last, for some remnants of humanity were left in his heart, and he had not carried that tender little mite for six months without some feeling as near akin to love as he was capable of.

His wife turned on him sharply. "Yer know we can't! There's lots o'

reasons why 'e is the best one as we can git. Look at them soft brown curls of 'is, what allers takes the ladies, and 'is small size for carryin'; and then yer know as well as I do as 'is mother's dead, and 'is father ain't of no account, and is glad to git a pint or two in return for our havin' 'im. I wish you wouldn't be such a simpleton, George."

The man sighed. Long ago he had given up contending with his imperious wife, but sometimes as now, he walked along morosely, and his thoughts were best known to himself.

"I'd save 'im from it if I could," he muttered to himself, "but I've thought that 'afore, and it ain't no use. Still I shan't forgit--though I ain't no good at anythink now."

They had now reached London Bridge, and soon after turned down one of the narrow streets leading from the main thoroughfare, and again under a long low archway running beneath the first floor rooms of one of the houses, and so emerged into a court squalid and forlorn, which contained the house they called home.

Just as they were turning in at the door a crippled child of some thirteen or fourteen years came down the stairs to meet them. She silently held out her arms for little d.i.c.kie, and without vouchsafing more than one dark look at the woman's face, and then another hopeless one at her little brother's, she slowly ascended again, step by step, till weary and panting she laid him down on an old mattress in the corner of the crowded room where she lived.

"d.i.c.kie," she moaned, burying her face in his neck, where the soft waves of his golden-brown hair felt like silk against it, "d.i.c.kie, are they goin' to kill you right out? d.i.c.kie----!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER II.

THE WEDDING-DAY.

"I mean to take care of you, my girl; leastways I'll do my best."

The words were spoken by a man of about twenty-five, in a workman's dress, as he led his bride in at the door of her future home.

"I know that," she answered, looking up almost wistfully, for there had been a different tone in the ending of his sentence to that in which it had begun.

"It's not such a place as I should like to ha' brought you to, Meg; but work's been slack, and--there, you know all that!"

Meg stepped in and looked around; her glance was shy and somewhat fearful. Should she be afraid to see what her young husband had prepared for her?

She clasped his hand tightly, and the firm pressure in return rea.s.sured her. Whatever it might be, love had done it from beginning to end.

For Meg had come out of the sweet country with its sunny meadows, and cowslips and b.u.t.tercups. She had left, fifty miles away, the dear fragrant garden, where only this morning her mother had gathered such a posie as had never been seen before; she had left the cottage where every china mug and shepherdess was like a bit of her life; she had left the situation in the grand house at the end of her mother's garden, where she had lived for four years in the midst of every luxury. And this is what she had come to: two small rooms in a high London house, in one of the streets turning out of a wide but gone-down thoroughfare near London Bridge.