A neat, quiet home; an invalid wife sitting in a chair by the fire, tenderly holding a little frail boy; a crippled girl standing with her hand in the child's; a low hoa.r.s.e voice pleading, "You'll take care of 'em, Tom! You'll let that dreadful drink alone, and feed them as are so helpless instead!"

That was the picture, and as Tom heard the woman say what she proposed "was better than starving," he knew in his heart how cruelly he had broken the promise he had made to his dying wife.

"I'll take 'im right away up to the attic if ye like," the woman went on, "and then," indicating Cherry by a movement of her hand, "she won't hear nor see nothink."

The man shook his head.

"One thing, she do keep 'im quiet when we don't want 'im. And if she makes a fuss I'll find a way to shut 'er mouth; that I will, don't yer fear."

Cherry lay and quaked. Well she knew all that was implied in this low-toned conversation, both towards her little brother and herself. But she too had seen, as by a flash, another scene. A woman on a dying bed, whispering with an earnestness which impressed every word on her child's memory, "Cherry, if you're in any trouble, tell Jesus--ask Him to help you. Oh, Cherry, if I did not know you love Him, my heart would break.

Jesus, will help you. Tell d.i.c.kie that I always said that."

Cherry thought of it now, at first with a hopeless feeling that things had been so bad for so long that she feared Jesus did not hear; and then with a rebound she determined never to give up what her beloved and dying mother had bequeathed to her. "She always spoke true," she thought, with a sudden lightening of her terrible burden, and her head nestled against d.i.c.kie's with a certain dim belief that rescue of some sort would come some day.

The crowded inhabitants of the room had one by one sunk into slumber; even her father had ceased tossing about and swearing at all around him.

Still Cherry lay broad awake, thinking over all the events of the last year, and remembering now with a sort of awe how she _had_ called upon her Lord Jesus last May, when things had been so dreadfully bad with little d.i.c.kie, and how He had heard her, and had sent d.i.c.kie a long and dangerous illness, which had made him quite unable to be taken out on hire with old Sairy as heretofore.

She remembered now with thankfulness, though she had not looked upon it as the answer at the time, that somehow the kind carpenter who had been repairing their wretched room had taken notice of d.i.c.kie, and had given him a blanket and some grapes, and how his wife had brought him many a nice meal from their table.

Cherry's life was so hard that she had taken all that happened, both bad and good, with a sort of apathy; but to-night it all came over her afresh, and she realized that this had perhaps been the way her Lord Jesus had answered her despairing prayer for little d.i.c.kie.

Then she would pray again; and this time instead of asking only for him to be taken away from the cruel woman everybody called "old Sairy," she would pray that he might have a nice home, and love and care.

Cherry did not say those words, but in her simple language she asked what she wanted, and after that, with a strange sense of the burden lifted on to shoulders which were very strong, she closed her eyes and at last fell asleep.

And even the next day, when d.i.c.kie woke, and old Sairy handed him a piece of bread, Cherry took the matter with equanimity, saying to herself over and over again, "I've told Jesus, and He's goin' to see to it."

But when d.i.c.kie had eaten the bread ravenously, he turned his little face back again to Cherry's shoulder, and said with a shudder, "Don't yer let me go 'long o' them, Cherry, don't yer!" Then Cherry's heart misgave her, and she looked at her still sleeping father, and then at old Sairy, as if to measure her possibility of resistance.

But Sairy gave her a glance which withered her up, like the raw February air which was rushing in at the open door, and hissed out in an undertone which made her shiver, "If yer don't mind what yer about, it 'ull be the worse for _'im_, and that I tell yer."

An hour after, when she saw them set off as of old, the man with d.i.c.kie, and old Sairy with somebody's wailing baby, her heart died within her.

The room had almost cleared. Only a weakly young mother with her babe were left, and two sleeping drunken men.

As Cherry lifted her heavy sorrowful eyes they met those of the woman.

"Come 'ere, dear," she said gently; "don't you take on about the little 'un. It won't 'urt 'im to be out o' doors, and if you 'aven't food to give 'im, ain't it a deal better as they should feed 'im? I 'eard what them two said last night, and it's true as he's pretty nigh starvin'."

"Yes, but you don't know," whispered Cherry, looking round fearfully; "if it was only taking him out I shouldn't care; but--"

At this moment her father roused up and shook himself.

"Eh, gal, so they're gone?" with a coa.r.s.e laugh; "and to-night we'll get a bit of supper, and some'ut to drink."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Then the woman seizes d.i.c.kie again, and begins to tie somethin' on his eyes, and he fights and screams with all his little might."--p. 136.]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XII.

"INASMUCH."

March was nearly over, when one night Jem woke to see Meg standing at the window. It was moonlight, and he could see her outline distinctly against the bright sky.

"Is anything the matter, Meg?" he asked anxiously.

"Hush!" exclaimed Meg earnestly. "Jem, night after night I hear the same. I thought it must be my fancy, but I'm certain it's not. There!

can't you hear those screams?"

Jem got up and came to the window, more with the intention of soothing Meg than of listening to his neighbours. He had too long been used to London sights and sounds to be alarmed at a little crying in the night.

Meg held her breath, and on the night air were certainly borne unmistakable cries of some child, either in great fear or pain.

"Jem!" said Meg again in a frightened whisper, "which house did you say d.i.c.kie used to live in?"

"D'ye mean d.i.c.kie's attic?"

"Yes; where we went," said Meg, with her teeth chattering.

"Get into bed!" he implored. "Meg, you'll catch your death o' cold, my dear. I'll stay and listen here, if it 'ull do any good."

Meg retreated, and Jem gazed out into the dimness. Still he could hear what had so affected Meg, and as he looked, and his eyes became accustomed to the moonlight, which could not shine down into the depths of the courtyard below, but still shed a hazy light on it all, he began to see which-were-which of the houses behind; and could trace--there the back windows of a certain public-house--there the blank darkness of an empty building--and there the twinkling lights in houses which he knew to be general lodgings.

It was from one of these he fancied, up the next court, that the cries came; and as he stood reckoning it up, he turned to Meg and said,

"It _is_ d.i.c.kie's attic, I believe! There's a light there, and people movin' back and forwards. Perhaps some one's ill."

"No," said Meg, sitting up, "it's n.o.body ill. It's some child being beaten or hurt. Oh, Jem, _could_ you go and see--could you get in there, do you think?"

"Not to-night, my girl. But to-morrow I'll see if I can hear anything of it. It's the house where I worked, so they'll know me most like, and not think I'm intrudin' on 'em."

"Jem! that blanket weighs on me," said Meg with a sob. "Those children ought to have had it all this time; but whenever I've been up to the attic to see, the people have been so rough to me, and the other rooms were all let out to several families in each."

"I know," said Jem, coming away from the window, "and very likely he'd have took the children elsewhere, especially if he didn't want you to interfere with 'em, Meg."

Poor Meg, with a weary sigh she lay down on her pillow and tried to sleep. The house where they fancied the sound came from was so near theirs at right angles, that a conversation could be carried on from the back windows if any one had chosen.

As Meg lay wakeful and sad, she fancied she could still hear the cries, growing fainter and fainter, till either they ceased, or Meg ceased to be able to catch them.

The next morning Jem and she consulted as to what could be done; Jem averring, very truly, that "folks wouldn't stand people coming to make inquiries after crying children."

"I should not so much mind if it were not for Cherry's hints," said Meg; "but, Jem, I could make something, or you could buy a few oranges to take in your hand, and say you had brought them for d.i.c.kie if you could find him. Would that do?"