Sturdy and Strong Part 4

"I am afraid, Bill, that I can't explain all this to you, for I am not accustomed to talk about such things. My mother talks to me sometimes, and of course I went to church regularly; but that's different from my talking about it; but you know what we have got to do is to try and please G.o.d, and love him because he loves us."

"That's whear it is," Bill said; "that's what I've heard fellows say beats 'em. If he loves a chap like me how is it he don't do something for him? why don't he get you a place, for instance? You aint been a-prigging apples or a-putting him out. That's what I wants to know."

"Yes, Bill, but as I have heard my mother say, it would be very hard to understand if this world were the only one; but you see we are only here a little time, and after that there's on and on and on, right up without any end, and what does it matter if we are poor or unhappy in this little time if we are going to be ever so happy afterwards? This is only a sort of little trial to see how we behave, as it were, and if we do the best we can, even though that best is very little, then you see we get a tremendous reward. For instance, you would not think a man was unkind who kept you five minutes holding his horse on a cold day, if he were going to give you enough to get you clothes and good lodging for the rest of your life."

"No, I should think not," Bill said fervently; "so it's like that, is it?"

George nodded. "Like that, only more."

"My eye!" Bill murmured to himself, lost in astonishment at this new view of things.

After that there were few evenings when, before they nestled themselves down in the hay, the boys did not talk on this subject. At first George felt awkward and nervous in speaking of it, for like the generality of English boys, however earnest their convictions may be, he was shy of speaking what he felt; but his companion's eagerness to know more of this, to him, new story encouraged him to speak, and having in his bundle a small Bible which his mother had given him, he took to reading to Bill a chapter or two in the mornings when they had not to go out to the early market.

It is true that Bill's questions frequently puzzled him. The boy saw things in a light so wholly different from that in which he himself had been accustomed to regard them that he found a great difficulty in replying to them.

George wrote a letter to his mother, telling her exactly what he was doing, for he knew that if he only said that he had not yet succeeded in getting work she would be very anxious about him, and although he had nothing satisfactory to tell her, at least he could tell her that he had sufficient to eat and as much comfort as he cared for. Twice he received replies from her, directed to him at a little coffee-house, which, when they had had luck, the boys occasionally patronized. As time went on without his succeeding in obtaining employment George's hopes fell, and at last he said to his mate; "I will try for another fortnight, Bill, and if at the end of that time I don't get anything to do I shall go back to Croydon again."

"But yer can earn yer living here!" Bill remonstrated.

"I can earn enough to prevent me from starving, but that is all, Bill. I came up to London in hopes of getting something to do by which I might some day make my way up; if I were to stop here like this I should be going down, and a nice sight I should be to mother if, when she gets well enough to come out of the infirmary, I were to go back all in rags."

"What sort of a place is Croydon?" Bill asked. "Is there any chance of picking up a living there? 'cause I tells yer fair, if yer goes off I goes with yer. I aint a-thinking of living with yer, George; but we might see each other sometime, mightn't we? Yer wouldn't mind that?"

"Mind it! certainly not, Bill! You have been a good friend to me, and I should be sorry to think of you all alone here."

"Oh, blow being a good friend to yer!" Bill replied. "I aint done nothing except put yer in the way of getting a sleeping-place, and as it's given me one too I have had the best of that job. It's been good of yer to take up with a chap like me as don't know how to read or write or nothing, and as aint no good anyway. But you will let me go with yer to Croydon, won't yer?"

"Certainly I will, Bill; but you won't be able to see much of me. I shall have to get a place like the last. The man I was with said he would take me back again if I wanted to come, and you know I am all day in the shop or going out with parcels, and of course you would have to be busy too at something."

"What sort of thing do yer think, George? I can hold a hoss, but that aint much for a living. One may go for days without getting a chance."

"I should say, Bill, that your best chance would be to try and get work either in a brickfield or with a market-gardener. At any rate we should be able to get a talk for half an hour in the evening. I was always done at nine o'clock, and if we were both in work we could take a room together."

Bill shook his head.

"That would be wery nice, but I couldn't have it, George. I knows as I aint fit company for yer, and if yer was with a shop-keeping bloke he would think yer was going to run off with the money if he knew yer kept company with a chap like me. No, the 'greement must be as yer goes yer ways and I goes mine; but I hopes as yer will find suffin to do up here, not 'cause as I wouldn't like to go down to this place of yourn, but because yer have set yer heart on getting work here."

A week later the two boys were out late in Covent Garden trying to earn a few pence by fetching up cabs and carriages for people coming out from a concert in the floral hall. George had just succeeded in earning threepence, and had returned to the entrance to the hall, and was watching the people come out, and trying to get another job.

Presently a gentleman, with a girl of some nine or ten years old, came out and took their place on the footpath.

"Can I call you a carriage, sir?" George asked.

"No, thank you, lad, a man has gone for it."

George fell back and stood watching the girl, who was in a white dress, with a little hood trimmed with swansdown over her head.

Presently his eye fell on something on which the light glittered as it hung from her neck. Just as he was looking a hand reached over her shoulder, there was a jerk, and a sudden cry from the child, then a boy dived into the crowd, and at the same moment George dashed after him. There was a cry of "Stop, thief!" and several hands made a grab at George as he dived through the crowd; but he slipped through them and was soon in the roadway.

Some twenty yards ahead of him he saw the boy running. He turned up Bow Street and then dashed down an alley. He did not know that he was followed until suddenly George sprang upon his back, and the two fell with a crash, the young thief undermost. George seized his right hand, and kneeling upon him, twisted it behind his back and forced him to open his fingers, the boy, taken by surprise, and not knowing who was his a.s.sailant, making but slight resistance.

George seized the gold locket and dashed back at full speed into the market, and was soon in the thick of the crowd round the entrance. The gentleman was standing talking to a policeman, who was taking a note of the description of the lost trinket. The girl was standing by crying.

"Here is your locket," George said, putting it into her hand. "I saw the boy take it, and have got it from him."

"Oh, papa! papa!" the girl cried. "Here is my locket again."

"Why, where did you get it from?" her father asked in astonishment.

"This boy has just given it to me," she replied. "He says he took it from the boy who stole it."

"Which boy, Nellie? Which is the boy who brought it back?"

The girl looked round, but George was gone.

"Why didn't you stop him, my dear?" her father said. "Of course I should wish to thank and reward him, for the locket was a very valuable one, and the more so to us from its having belonged to your mother. Did you notice the boy, policeman?"

"No, sir, I did not see him at all."

"Was he a poor boy, Nellie?"

"Not a very, very poor boy, father," the girl replied. "At least I don't think so; but I only looked at his face. He didn't speak like a poor boy at all."

"Would you know him again?"

"Oh, yes, I am sure I should. He was a good-looking boy with a nice face."

"Well, I am very sorry he has gone away, my dear. Evidently he does not want a reward, but at any rate I should have liked to thank him.

Are you always on this beat, policeman?"

"I am on night duty, sir, while the concerts are on."

"At any rate, I dare say you know the constables who are about here in the daytime. I wish you would mention the fact to them, and ask them if they get any clew to the boy who has rendered me this service, to let me know. Here is a card with my name and address."

After restoring the locket George made his way to the entrance to the stables, where he generally met Bill after the theater had closed and there was no farther chance of earning money. It was not till half an hour later that the boy came running up.

"I have got eightpence," he said. "That is something like luck. I got three jobs. One stood me fourpence, the other two gave me tuppence each. What do yer say? Shall we have a cup of coffee afore we turns in?"

"I think we had better not, Bill. I have got sixpence. We will put that by, with the sixpence we saved the other day, for the hostler. We haven't given him anything for some time. Your eightpence will get us a good breakfast in the morning."

When they had comfortably nestled themselves in the hay George told his companion how he had rescued and restored the locket.

"And he didn't give yer nuffin! I never heerd tell of such a scaly trick as that. I should ha' said it ought to have been good for a bob anyway."

"I did not wait to see, Bill. Directly I had given the little girl her locket I bolted."

"Well, that were soft. Why couldn't yer have waited to have seen what the bloke meant to give yer?"

"I did not want to be paid for such a thing as that," George replied.

"I don't mind being paid when I have done a job for anyone; but this was different altogether."