Chapter II: What the Country Folks DID for Him

That night Robin, for the first time, as far as man was concerned, utterly friendless, lay down under an archway to sleep. He had often slept under archways, and his position outwardly was no different from what it had been the night before. The philanthropist's pocket handkerchief had yielded him a bun for his supper; he was not hungry, he was stupid and tired from sorrow, and he quickly fell asleep; but his sleep was not happy, his loneliness pursued him even into the land of dreams. He was alone, quite alone, that was the thought that haunted him. Suddenly he was awakened by a very gentle sound in his ear, and the sensation of something warm rubbing his cheek.

There was light enough on that summer evening for him to see the cause of the gentle sound and the warmth. A large, well-fed tabby cat had curled herself up close to him, was purring the softest, most soothing purr of satisfaction, and was looking at him from out of her comfortable face with considerable interest, and even affection. The fact was, the cat had wandered too far from home, was a trifle hungry, and a trifle cold; she found a few crumbs about Robin, and a little heat in remaining close to his person. It was her intention to spend the night with him.

All his little life Robin had been fond of animals. The very first present Helen had given him had been a blind puppy, which in the excess of his affection he had worried to death. Now he hailed the arrival of the large, sleek cat with delight. He pressed her in his arms, and laid his cheek against hers; and when he felt the quick beat of her heart against his own, his great loneliness vanished. Thus his second sleep was sound and happy.

When in the early morning he awoke and prepared to set off to pilfer in Covent Garden, his friend rose also; but her services, as far as he was concerned, were at an end. She refused his caresses, whisked her tall at his approach, and, vanishing round the corner, disappeared in the direction of her own happy home. Nevertheless, for a few hours she had comforted him, and he whistled more merrily that day under the vague hope that she would return the next night to the same archway, and allow him to stroke down her soft rich fur, and take her in his arms once more. But his hope was vain; the grey cat was faithless, and again he was alone.

He sat down under the archway, pressed his little head on his childish hands, and tried to think. He had never known such utter loneliness before, and it was now loneliness without hope. There was no chance now of Helen returning to him. Days, weeks, months would not bring Helen back to him. She had been shut up in prison for years, and years seemed as long as eternity to the little child. He missed Helen, he missed the attic where he had been happy for so long. He thought again of that last night when they had been so contented together. How kind Helen had been to him that night! and what bright promises she had made for the future! They were going away in a ship--he and she; going across the ocean to a bright and pleasant land, where the fields were green, and the flowers blossomed in numbers. They were to leave the dingy, dirty city, and go to a place where they would neither be hungry nor unhappy again. It all sounded very delightful to Robin, and it would have happened had Helen not been put in prison. His tears dropped heavily as he thought of it now. He fell asleep after a time, for a child will sleep through every sorrow; but he awoke the next morning feeling dull and unrefreshed.

For the first time his gay heart had utterly failed him. He did not go as usual to Covent Garden. He had a penny in his pocket: with this penny he bought some breakfast at a coffee-stall, then walked aimlessly along the streets. As he did so, a great waggon full of hay passed slowly by. A boy, a good deal older than Robin, had curled himself up in the back part of the waggon, and was preparing to have a ride and a sleep in the fragrant hay.

Just as the great load was passing where Robin stood, the driver discovered this boy, and with a heavy slash of his whip unearthed him from his hiding-place.

"Look here, yer young warmint: ef I catches yer at that ere work agen, 'tis to the p'leece I'll 'and yer h'over, and then yer'll know wot the Lock-h'up's like."

The boy slunk away, but Robin's heart awoke with a new hope as these words sounded on his ears. He believed he had discovered a way back to Helen. When Helen was arrested, she was taken to the Lock-up. That was the place where every one on whom the police were able to lay their hands was taken. From the Lock-up they went to be tried; from their place of trial they were sent to prison. Helen herself had told Robin this, and it occurred to him now, with a great flutter of hope in his heart and a flash of fresh light in his eyes, that he had found a way back to Helen. How often he had trembled and turned pale at the word--the dreadful word, Prison! but nothing now was half so horrible as this loneliness, without his one and only friend. He would even go to prison to find Helen again; and here--here was the way made plain to him. If he, instead of that other boy, got up into that warm bed amongst the hay, why, then, the driver would send him to the Lock-up; and from thence, after a time--he hoped a short time--he should go to prison and find his beloved Helen again.

This idea had scarcely entered his head before his resolve was taken. His movements were light and agile as a bird's; he ran behind the waggon, vaulted into the place where the other boy had been, and curled himself up in the warm, fragrant hay.

The step he had taken was a daring one, and for a time his heart beat high with a feeling of half hope, half fear; then the luxury of his present berth, after the cold dreariness of last night's resting-place under the archway, told on his weary limbs. His head began to nod, his brown eyes to close, and presently the little fellow fell fast asleep. It seemed to him hours, almost a lifetime, before he awoke again.

The motion of the slow-going waggon had brought on very sweet and dreamless sleep, and when he opened his eyes he was sorely puzzled to know where he was. His wonder was all the greater, because now the waggon had come to its destination, the horses had been taken away, and Robin found himself tilted further and more securely into his hiding-place.

When memory returned to him, which of course it did after a little time, he still lay without moving; he was really too comfortable to stir. Then he stretched out his hand, and drew the fragrant hay close to him, and smelt it: finally, curiosity awoke in his breast; he raised his head cautiously and looked out. The scene he saw astonished him; nay more, it nearly took his breath away. Bending over the waggon, sheltering all its great load of hay, was a vast, wide-spreading oak tree. The leaves of this great tree were so close to Robin when he put out his head, that some of them actually brushed against his forehead. He raised his eyes to look up into this world of green. Beyond it, looking bluer than he had ever beheld it before, he caught a glimpse of the sky. A bird, his own namesake in fact, sang down to him from the boughs of the oak tree. He pushed his head out a little farther, and gazed eagerly about him.

A whole brood of yellow, downy chickens, led by their anxious parent, were pecking, scratching, fighting for the seed which dropped from the hay. These chickens had come close to Robin, and one or two of them even saw him, and stared up impudently with their bright black eyes. A little farther on he saw a house--a house with a deep porch, covered over with creepers and bright flowers. Lying half within the shelter of the porch was an old watch-dog, fast asleep. A couple of children, sunburnt and rosy-cheeked, played near the dog.

Away in the distance were fields studded with haycocks; fields, also, wavy with the yet unripe corn. But close, close to the old house, almost within a stone's throw of where Robin lay, was a smaller field, studded also--richly studded; but with something else,--white, white daisies.

The moment he saw the field with the daisies--for from Helen's description he knew they must be daisies--his quick wits returned to him, and he remembered why he had got into the waggon--and why, in short, he was here at all. The sight of the daisies had brought back the coloured picture in the old attic--had brought back, with a painful heart-longing, the thought of Helen. Well! he was all right, he was certain now to be taken to the Lock-up--certain now to be given back to Helen. If the other boy, who was only a few moments in that delightful hiding-place, was worthy of so severe a punishment, how thoroughly must he--Robin--deserve it! He had been a long time in the waggon; he had been asleep amongst the hay. No--there was certainly no fear--not the very least fear of his escaping punishment. He chuckled to himself at the thought, and wondered what the people, who by-and-by would send him to the Lock-up, would think did they know that while they believed they were punishing him, they were in reality furthering his dearest wishes? These pleasant ideas had just occurred to him when a fresh object appeared to distract his attention.

A woman came out of the house, and stood in the porch just where Robin, by raising his head very cautiously, could get a full view of her. She was a very comely, rosy-faced woman. Such a woman as Robin had never seen in all his life before. Her round, apple-blossom cheeks, her contented eyes, her smooth forehead, all denoted that she and want--she and care--she and suffering--were strangers. She and they had never exchanged a hand-clasp. Into her life of full and plenty, these destroyers had not intruded. Shading her eyes from the hot rays of the afternoon sun, the woman looked around her, to right and left of her. Presently her eyes fell on the two little children at her feet; she smiled down at them, then said in her rich, cheery tones--

"Run into the house, Pansy and Cherry. Dinner's ready--a nice apple turnover for each little pet."

Laughing and clapping their hands, the sunburnt children disappeared, and the woman was about to follow them, when a peculiarly clucking sound from the old hen, which still remained close to Robin, drew her attention.

She stepped across the farmyard, came near the downy brood of chickens, and began reckoning them with a very satisfied expression on her comely face.

A slight rustling in the straw overhead caused her to raise her eyes, and there and then she encountered the fixed, half-frightened, half-impudent gaze of the little waif and stray who had been brought to her doors.

It took but an instant for Robin to tumble out of his hiding-place, to go on his knees and whine out with a piteous intonation--

"Please, please 'm, 'ow soon'll yer send me to the Lock-h'up?"

"Bless us and save us!" said Mrs. Martin, the farmer's wife. She fell back a pace or two in her astonishment, and flushed deeply, half with fear, half with amusement.

"Where did you come from, little boy?" she asked, when she could find her voice.

"From Lunnon, please, lady. Please, am I to be took to the Lock-h'up?"

"John Jones," called out Mrs. Martin, using her by no means weak lungs to some purpose. "I say, John Jones, come here, and be quick about it. See," she added, as the burly driver of the waggon answered her summons, "what you brought back with you along with the unsold hay."

"The young warmint!" exclaimed Jones, scratching his head. "Well, well," thrusting his great hand into the hole where Robin had concealed himself, "he'll catch it. Didn't I tell yer as yer'd catch it?" he added, laying his hand with a rough shake on the child's thin shoulder.

"No, no; that was the other boy!" exclaimed Robin. "I heard yer say as yer'd take the h'other boy to the Lock-h'up, and I wanted to be took, so I 'id h'up among the straw. I say, worn't it warm?"

"Shall I take 'im away, missus?" asked Jones, utterly ignoring Robin's confession, which, indeed--nor can I blame him--he failed to understand.

"By no means," answered Mrs. Martin good-humouredly; "leave the little fellow for a few moments; I daresay he is hungry. Follow me, little one."

There is no doubt that Robin was hungry, ravenously hungry, and he certainly lost neither time nor inclination in following his hostess into the big, bright, warm kitchen, where, indeed, he beheld luxuries his ignorant young soul had never even dreamed of.

By this time Pansy and Cherry had demolished their apple turnovers; and when they saw their mother and the little ragged stranger, they scrambled off their chairs and ran forward to meet them; but Mrs. Martin, perceiving Robin's dirt, would permit of no contact with her own children. She believed herself an excellent Christian and a charitable woman; but both her charity and Christianity would only carry her certain lengths.

Motioning the eager Pansy and Cherry back with a wave of her hand and t quick, sharp word, she called to Robin to follow her to the scullery. Here the kitchen-maid, Betty, regaled him plentifully with cold pork and potatoes; but even she did not care to touch the neglected child.

Robin, however, oblivious of all possible want of manners in his treatment, regarded himself as the luckiest boy in the world. But in the delight of satisfying the cravings of his healthy appetite, he was not so overpowered as to forget his primary object; and when he had finished such a meal as Betty afterwards declared "no Christian 'ad ever got inside of hisself afore," he suddenly darted past her, right into the kitchen, and up to Mrs. Martin's side.

"Stand back, little fellow," said Mrs. Martin, not unkindly, as, coming too near, he trod on her clean print gown.

"Please 'm," said Robin, "I'm a ready now!"

"For what, child?"

"To be took to the Lock-h'up. I 'as h'eat full and plenty, and I'm quite ready."

"But I don't want to send you to any Lock-up, little boy; I am glad you had a meal to eat. Run away now; Betty will show you to the gate: you are quite ten miles out of London."

At these words of Mrs. Martin's Robin felt his buoyant heart utterly failing him. Was it possible that his daring enterprise was going to fail after all?

"Ain't I to be a punished?" he asked.

"No, no; foolish child, what am I to punish you for?"

"Ain't it real bad to curl h'up and go to sleep in the nice 'ot 'ay? I thought as it wor real bad."

"It was not a very nice thing to do, but I forgive you."

"But, oh! 'm please 'm, I doesn't want to be forgive."

By this time Mrs. Martin was both puzzled and annoyed.

"You are talking nonsense, child--what do you want?"

"To be took to the Lock-h'up."

"Little idiot! what do you mean? you must be mad to wish to go to such a place."

"I ain't mad, I ain't--I wants fur to see Helen."

"Who is Helen?"

"Ohl she's my mother, and she's in prison; and ef I went to the Lock-h'up I'd be took back to 'er--oh! oh! oh!"

Here Robin's courage and fortitude failed him, and he began to sob most piteously.

But Mrs. Martin saw neither his tears nor his misery.

Before the revelation he had unwittingly made, both her charity and her Christian principle gave way. What creature was this she had taken into the shelter of her respectable house? had fed, and offered hospitality and kind words to? a little gamin from the London streets, a child whose mother was in prison, convicted of a crime, perhaps a crime of murder, at least convicted of a heinous crime! of course the child of such a person must be a thief, a rogue, all--all that was bad. There was no saying what petty pilferings he had already committed. What a lucky thing she had desired Betty to remain with him in the scullery, or where now would be her silver spoons?

These thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, though still she considered herself too good a Christian to be actually unkind to Robin. She would say no unkind word to him, she would not even search him--though, it must be owned, she rather longed to thrust her hands into the pockets of the ragged boy. No, she would dismiss him quickly, but with no word of reproach.

"You must go away, child," she said. "You must leave this place at once, and never come back again. Now! do you hear? I am sorry I cannot help you further. Betty," turning to her handmaid, "see this boy to the gate; put him out, and lock it after him. You understand me, Betty? you are to lock the gate, and bring me back the key."