Reginald Cruden Part 50

"Don't let's part with them if we can help," said Reginald. "Suppose we try to earn something?"

The boy said nothing, but trudged on beside his protector till they emerged from Shy Street and stood in one of the broad empty main streets of the city.

Here Reginald, worn out with hunger and fatigue, and borne up no longer by the energy of desperation, sank half fainting into a doorstep.

"I'm--so tired," he said; "let's rest a bit. I'll be all right--in a minute."

Love looked at him anxiously for a moment, and then saying, "Stay you there, gov'nor, till I come back," started off to run.

How long Reginald remained half-unconscious where the boy left him he could not exactly tell; but when he came to himself an early streak of dawn was lighting the sky, and Love was kneeling beside him.

"It's all right, gov'nor," said he, holding up a can of hot coffee and a slice of bread in his hands. "Chuck these here inside yer; do you 'ear?"

Reginald put his lips eagerly to the can. It was nearly sixteen hours since he had touched food. He drained it half empty; then stopping suddenly, he said,--

"Have you had any yourself?"

"Me? In corse! Do you suppose I ain't 'ad a pull at it?"

"You haven't," said Reginald, eyeing him sharply, and detecting the well-meant fraud in his looks. "Unless you take what's left there, I'll throw it all into the road."

In vain Love protested, vowed he loathed coffee, that it made him sick, that he preferred prussic acid; Reginald was inexorable, and the boy was obliged to submit. In like manner, no wile or device could save him from having to share the slice of bread; nor, when he did put it to his lips, could any grimace or protest hide the almost ravenous eagerness with which at last he devoured it.

"Now you wait till I take back the can," said Love. "I'll not be a minute," and he darted off, leaving Reginald strengthened in mind and body by the frugal repast.

It was not till the boy returned that he noticed he wore no coat.

"What have you done with it?" he demanded sternly.

"Me? What are you talking about?" said the boy, looking guiltily uneasy.

"Don't deceive me!" said Reginald. "Where's your coat?"

"What do I want with coats? Do you--"

"Have you sold it for our breakfast?"

"Go on! Do you think--"

"Have you?" repeated Reginald, this time almost angrily.

"Maybe I 'ave," said the boy; "ain't I got a right to?"

"No, you haven't; and you'll have to wear mine now."

And he proceeded to take it off, when the boy said,--

"All right. If you take that off, gov'nor, I slides--I mean it--so I do."

There was a look of such wild determination in his pinched face that Reginald gave up the struggle for the present.

"We'll share it between us, at any rate," said he. "Whatever induced you to do such a foolish thing, Love?"

"Bless you, I ain't got no sense," replied the boy cheerily.

Day broke at last, and Liverpool once more became alive with bustle and traffic. No one noticed the two shivering boys as they wended their way through the streets, trying here and there, but in vain, for work, and wondering where and when they should find their next meal. But for Reginald that walk, faint and footsore as he was, was a pleasure-trip compared with the night's wanderings.

Towards afternoon Love had the rare good fortune to see a gentleman drop a purse on the pavement. There was no chance of appropriating it, had he been so minded, which, to do him justice, he was not, for the purse fell in a most public manner in the sight of several onlookers. But Love was the first to reach it and hand it back to its owner.

Now Love's old story-books had told him that honesty of this sort is a very paying sort of business; and though he hardly expected the wonderful consequences to follow his own act which always befall the superfluously honest boys in the "penny dreadfuls," he was yet low- souled enough to linger sufficiently long in the neighbourhood of the owner of the purse to give him an opportunity of proving the truth of the story-book moral.

Nor was he disappointed; for the good gentleman, happening to have no less than fifty pounds in gold and notes stored up in this particular purse, was magnanimous enough to award Love a shilling for his lucky piece of honesty, a result which made that young gentleman's countenance glow with a grin of the profoundest satisfaction.

"My eye, gov'nor," said he, returning radiant with his treasure to Reginald, and thrusting it into his hand; "'ere, lay 'old. 'Ere's a slice o' luck. Somethink like that there daily bread you was a-tellin'

me of t'other day. No fear, I ain't forgot it. Now, I say sa.s.sages.

What do you say?"

Reginald said "sausages" too; and the two friends, armed with their magic shilling, marched boldly into a cosy coffee-shop where there was a blazing fire and a snug corner, and called for sausages for two. And they never enjoyed such a meal in all their lives. How they did make those sausages last! And what life and comfort they got out of that fire, and what rest out of those cane-bottomed chairs!

At the end of it all they had fourpence left, which, after serious consultation, it was decided to expend in a bed for the night.

"If we can get a good sleep," said Reginald, "and pull ourselves together, we're bound to get a job of some sort to-morrow. Do you know any lodging-house?"

"Me? don't I? That there time you jacked me up I was a night in a place down by the river. It ain't a dainty place, gov'nor, but it's on'y twopence a piece or threepence a couple on us, and that'll leave a brown for the morning."

"All right. Let's go there soon, and get a long night."

Love led the way through several low streets beside the wharves until he came to a court in which stood a tumble-down tenement with the legend "Lodgings" scrawled on a board above the door. Here they entered, and Love in a few words bargained with the sour landlady for a night's lodging. She protested at first at their coming so early, but finally yielded, on condition they would make the threepence into fourpence.

They had nothing for it but to yield.

"Up you go, then," said the woman, pointing to a rickety ladder which served the house for a staircase. "There's one there already. Never mind him; you take the next."

Reginald turned almost sick as he entered the big, stifling, filthy loft which was to serve him for a night's lodging. About a dozen beds were ranged along the walls on either side, one of which, that in the far corner of the room, was, as the woman had said, occupied. The atmosphere of the place was awful already. What would it be when a dozen or possibly two dozen persons slept there?

Reginald's first impulse was to retreat and rather spend another night in the streets than in such a place. But his weary limbs and aching bones forbade it. He must stay where he was now.

Already Love was curled up and asleep on the bed next to that where the other lodger lay; and Reginald, stifling every feeling but his weariness, flung himself by his side and soon forgot both place and surroundings in a heavy sleep.

Heavy but fitful. He had scarcely lain an hour when he found himself suddenly wide awake. Love still lay breathing heavily beside him. The other lodger turned restlessly from side to side, muttering to himself, and sometimes moaning like a person in pain. It must have been these latter sounds which awoke Reginald. He lay for some minutes listening and watching in the dim candle-light the restless tossing of the bed- clothes.

Presently the sick man--for it was evident sickness was the cause of his uneasiness--lifted himself on his elbow with a groan, and said,--

"For G.o.d's sake--help me!"

In a moment Reginald had sprung to his feet, and was beside the sufferer.

"Are you ill," he said. "What is the matter?"

But the man, instead of replying, groaned and fell heavily back on the bed. And as the dim light of the candle fell upon his upturned face, Reginald, with a cry of horror, recognised the features of Mr Durfy, already released by death from the agonies of smallpox.