"Can you give me no medicine for him, or tell me what food he ought to take or what? Surely there's a _chance_ of his getting better?"

Mr Pilch laughed quietly.

"About as much chance of his pulling through that as of jumping over the moon. The kindest thing you can do is to let him die as soon as he can.

He may last a day or two. If you want to feed him, give him anything he will take, and that won't be much, you'll find. It's a bad case, young fellow, and it won't do you any good to stop too near him. No use my coming again. Good-night."

And the brusque but not unkindly little quack trotted away, leaving Reginald in the dark without a gleam of hope to comfort him.

"Gov'nor," said the weak little voice from the bed, "that there doctor says I are a-goin' to die, don't he?"

"He says you're very ill, old boy, but let's hope you'll soon be better."

"Me--no fear. On'y I wish it would come soon. I'm afeared of gettin'

frightened."

And the voice trembled away into a little sob.

They lay there side by side that long restless night. The other lodgers, rough degraded men and women, crowded into the room, but no one heeded the little bed in the dark corner, where the big boy lay with his arm round the little uneasy sufferer. There was little sleep either for patient or nurse. Every few minutes the boy begged for water, which Reginald held to his lips, and when after a time the thirst ceased and only the pain remained, nothing soothed and tranquillised him so much as the repet.i.tion time after time of his favourite stories from the wonderful book, which, happily, Reginald now knew almost by heart.

So the night pa.s.sed. Before daylight the lodgers one by one rose and left the place, and when about half-past seven light struggled once more in between the rafters these two were alone.

The boy seemed a little revived, and sipped some milk which Reginald had darted out to procure.

But the pain and the fever returned twofold as the day wore on, and even to Reginald's unpractised eye it was evident the boy's release was not far distant.

"Gov'nor," said the boy once, with his mind apparently wandering back over old days, "what's the meaning of 'Jesus Christ's sake, Amen,' what comes at the end of that there prayer you taught me at the office--is He the same one that's in the _Pilgrim_ book?"

"Yes, old boy; would you like to hear about Him?"

"I would so," said the boy, eagerly.

And that afternoon, as the shadows darkened and the fleeting ray of the sun crossed the floor of their room, Love lay and heard the old, old story told in simple broken words. He had heard of it before, but till now he had never heeded it. Yet it seemed to him more wonderful even than _Robinson Crusoe_ or the _Pilgrim's Progress_. Now and then he broke in with some comment or criticism, or even one of his old familiar tirades against the enemies of his new hero. The room grew darker, and still Reginald went on. When at last the light had all gone, the boy's hand stole outside the blanket and sought that of his protector, and held it till the story came to an end.

Then he seemed to drop into a fitful sleep, and Reginald, with the hand still on his, sat motionless, listening to the hard breathing, and living over in thought the days since Heaven in mercy joined his life to that of his little friend.

How long he sat thus he knew not. He heard the voices and tread of the other lodgers in the room; he heard the harsh groan of the bolt on the outer door downstairs; and he saw the candle die down in its socket.

But he never moved or let go the boy's hand.

Presently--about one or two in the morning, he thought--the hard breathing ceased, and a turn of the head on the pillow told him the sleeper was awake.

"Gov'nor, you there?" whispered the boy.

"Yes, old fellow."

"It's dark; I'm most afeared."

Reginald lay on the bed beside him, and put an arm round him.

The boy became more easy after this, and seemed to settle himself once more to sleep. But the breathing was shorter and more laboured, and the little brow that rested against the watcher's cheek grew cold and damp.

For half an hour more the feeble flame of life flickered on, every breath seeming to Reginald as he lay there motionless, scarcely daring to breathe himself, like the last.

Then the boy seemed suddenly to rouse himself and lifted his head.

"Gov'nor--that pallis!--I'm gettin' in--I hear them calling--come there too, gov'nor!"

And the head sank back on the pillow, and Reginald, as he turned his lips to the forehead, knew that the little valiant soul had fought his way into the beautiful palace at last, and was already hearing the music of those voices within as they welcomed him to his hero's reward.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME.

It is strange how often our fortunes and misfortunes, which we are so apt to suppose depend on our own successes or failures, turn out to have fallen into hands we least expected, and to have been depending on trains of circ.u.mstances utterly beyond our range of imagination.

Who, for instance, would have guessed that a meeting of half a dozen business men in a first-floor room of a New York office could have any bearing on the fate of the Cruden family? Or that an accident to Major Lambert's horse while clearing a fence at one of the --shire hunts should also affect their prospects in life?

But so it was.

While Reginald, tenderly nursed by his old school friend, was slowly recovering from his illness in Liverpool, and while Mrs Cruden and Horace, in their shabby London lodging, were breaking into their last hundred pounds, and wondering how, even with the boy's improved wages and promise of literary success, they should be able to keep a comfortable home for their scattered but shortly to be reunited family-- at this very time a few of the leading creditors of the Wishwash and Longstop Railway a.s.sembled in the old office of that bankrupt undertaking, and decided to accept an offer from the Grand Roundabout Railway to buy up their undertaking at half-price, and add its few hundred miles of line to their own few thousand.

A very important decision this for the little Dull Street family. For among the English creditors of this same Wishwash and Longstop Railway Mr Cruden had been one of the most considerable--so considerable that the shares he held in it had amounted to about half his fortune.

And when the division of the proceeds of the sale of the railway came to be divided it turned out that Mr Cruden's administrators, heirs, and a.s.signs were ent.i.tled to about a third of the value of that gentleman's shares, or in other words, something like a sixth of their old property, which little windfall, after a good deal of wandering about and search for an owner, came finally under the notice of Mr Richmond's successors, who in turn pa.s.sed it over to Mrs Cruden with a very neat little note of congratulation on the good fortune which had made her and her sons the joint proprietors of a snug little income of from 300 to 400 a year.

Of course the sagacious reader will remark on this that it is only natural that towards the end of my story something of this sort should happen, in order to finish up with the remark that "they lived happily ever after." And his opinion of me will, I fear, be considerably lowered when he finds that instead of Reginald dying in the smallpox hospital, and Mrs Cruden and Horace ending their days in the workhouse, things looked up a little for them towards the finish, and promised a rather more comfortable future than one had been led to expect.

It is sad, of course, to lose any one's good esteem, but as things really did look up for the Crudens--as Reginald really did recover, as Mrs Cruden and Horace really did not go to the workhouse, and as the Grand Roundabout Railway really was spirited enough to buy up the Wishwash and Longstop Railway at half-price, I cannot help saying so, whatever the consequences may be.

But several weeks before Mr Richmond's successors announced this windfall to their clients, the accident to Major Lambert's horse had resulted in comfort to the Crudens of another kind, which, if truth must be told, they expected quite as little and valued quite as much.

That worthy Nimrod, once an acquaintance and neighbour of the Garden Vale family in the days of their prosperity, was never known to miss a winter's hunting in his own county if he could possibly help it, and during the present season had actually come all the way from Malta, where his regiment was stationed, on short leave, for the sake of two or three days of his favourite sport in the old country.

Such enthusiasm was worthy of a happier fate than that which befell him.

For on his first ride out his horse came to grief, as we have said, over a hedge, and left the gallant major somewhat knocked about himself, with nothing to do for half a day but to saunter disconsolately up and down the country lanes and pay afternoon calls on some of his old comrades.

Among others, he knocked at the door of an elderly dowager named Osborn, who was very sympathetic with him in his misfortunes, and did her best to comfort him with afternoon tea and gossip.

The latter lasted a good deal longer than the former. One after another the major's old friends were mentioned and discussed and talked about as only folk can be talked about over afternoon tea.

"By the way," said the caller, "I hear poor Cruden didn't leave much behind him after all. Is Mrs Cruden still at Garden Vale?"

"No, indeed," said the lady; "it's a sad story altogether. Mr Cruden left nothing behind him, and Garden Vale had to be sold, and the family went to London, so I was told, in very poor circ.u.mstances."

"Bless me!" said the honest major, "haven't you looked them up? Cruden was a good sort of a fellow, you know."

"Well, I've always intended to try and find out where they are living, but really, major, you have no idea how one's time gets filled up."