Chapter III: The Shelter of the Streets

That night Robin slept under a haycock. He slept very soundly, and far more comfortably than he would have done had he remained in London. Nevertheless, he awoke the next morning with a sore feeling at his heart. His plan of yesterday had failed utterly. No one was kind enough to him to take him to prison. He had tried to go to the Lock-up, but no one would take him there.

It never occurred to him that by committing an open theft he might attain his object; at least, he might so far attain it as to see the inside of a prison.

Robin had been too carefully trained by his thief companions to make open pilfering possible to him. The glory of stealing, was to steal unseen--so thought this ill-taught child.

That night, after losing his way many times, and asking many persons to direct him, he found his way back to London; and so ended his first real adventure without Helen.

He was now truly alone in London, and between his previous life and the life that lay before him there was a great and unhappy difference.

With Helen, who was clever, strong, hard-working, even though the greater part of her work was thieving, he was seldom without food, never without love. The eyes of Helen would look lovingly into his, the lips of Helen would press his lips, and the faithful breast of Helen would often be a shelter for his weary little head. Now all this was over, and the child at the age of eight years found himself utterly alone. Things had never from his birth fared very well with him, but from this time life indeed looked dark. And yet God had gifted this child with much, if only man had done his part. He was strong as a little lion; his face was fair and sweet; the expression in his lovely eyes was sometimes almost angelic. Naturally he was intensely affectionate, and he was brave to foolhardiness. Out of these materials much could have been made, but now the little heart was left to feed on itself, and to drink in evil at every pore.

He loved Helen passionately--just as passionately as she had loved him; as vehemently then did he hate the law which had shut her away from him. For a moment the thought of returning to her had comforted him, but when he found that he could not accomplish his desire, the last straw that bound him to good seemed broken. He chuckled over the philanthropist's pocket handkerchief, and threw away his card, and plunged with all his young soul into sin. Still things went very hard with him, and, as a thief, he scarcely kept starvation at bay. As he sank lower, and his untrained and uncultivated mind ceased to work, his desires were simplified to almost those of a mere animal. He had to provide against certain gnawing pains. He had, on all possible occasions, to escape the "bobbies." Once or twice, for some small acts of petty pilfering, he was had up before the magistrates; but on these occasions, when his small head scarcely reached the bar of the dock, his tender years and innocent face got him off very easily. Thus he began to grow up into a criminal career, with no means of knowing what was wrong, and no power to help himself. Never, in all his life, had the right way been pointed out to this child, and the only kindness and love he could remember came from poor Helen, who had first taught him to be a thief.

On one or two occasions, attracted by his innocent face, the regular thief-trainer had got hold of him. In all low criminal neighbourhoods there are several such characters, who make it a practice to lay hands on young children and skilfully train them in the ways of this terrible calling.

By these people Robin would have been clothed and fed, and would probably, whatever his future fate, not have fallen a prey to starvation and want; but the child had too high a spirit to bear their petty cruelties, and, one by one, he ran away from them all.

So by stealing a turnip off a stall, or a loaf out of a baker's barrow, he managed to keep the "hungry staggers," the disease he most dreaded, at bay.

For the next year and a half this little half-starved waif and stray used to wander about the streets. Now singing a ballad in a full sweet voice, that might have drawn forth admiration in many a fashionable church choir; now selling fusees; now sweeping a crossing; now hiding behind a doorway to devour a stolen prize; passing his nights when he chanced to have a few pence, and could give himself the luxury of a bed, in a miserable low lodging-house, where he was largely instructed in vice; or when he could not, lying down under arches, at the waterside, near the market-places, behind street hoardings, in the open hall-passages of the poor-houses, or in walking the streets throughout the night.

His life in the open air and the variety of his food kept him more or less in health; he was hardy, and thought little of hardships. A true Arab child was he, independent, untamed; and, all things considered, his young heart was most times light as a feather, his laugh gay as a bird's song. He was full of fun and mischief, and would venture in his recklessness to hurl saucy answers at his natural enemies, the police; for he had quickly lost his desire to follow Helen to prison. He would sometimes even dare these worthies to catch him, and then, when the exasperated dignitary of the law advanced one foot for the purpose, he would dart away swift as a bird, cunning as a little fox. He had plenty of companions, and was a favourite with the boys and girls of his own standing and circumstances; his plunder he freely shared with them, but he refused point blank to become "pardiner" with any. Many a boy and girl longed for this post, but Robin was firm, he would secure his own "wittles," he said, and be beholden to none.

Thus time passed, and Helen had worked out a year and a half of her sentence, and Robin was between nine and ten years of age. It was winter then; and winter was, as it ever is to all such children, his hard time. The cold, and rain, and snow of winter, are awful to the little homeless street Arabs. The need for food is much greater than in summer, and the chance of food much less. A thousand ways of earning a penny, by selling flowers or fruit; a thousand ways of pilfering, are all closed at this time of year. Then, too, the nights are so long and so dark. In summer it makes very little difference to a healthy boy where he sleeps, but in winter the case is very different; then the little limbs shiver and freeze, the insufficiently nourished body succumbs, and the young life goes out. Robin began this second winter of Helen's captivity badly. Finding himself rather a marked character with the police, and knowing that if he tried his pilfering practices much longer in his present quarters he would assuredly spend a much longer time than he had ever done before in prison, he had started off with one or two companions into the country, to secure a supply of winter roots, such as groundsel, plantain, &c., for sale. Some children, and even some men and women, did a fair business in this way, but Robin and his companions were unfortunate; in the place they went to, they found very few of the roots they desired, and on their way back to London they were overtaken by an early and violent snow-storm. Chilled, hungry, their miserable rags wet through, they found themselves on their return at night obliged to take what shelter they could obtain under an archway. In the morning Robin got up with a sharp pain in his chest, and a bad cough. In a few days the pain got better, but the cough remained; it was a miserable beginning for a severe London winter. Hitherto he had been bright and gay enough, had laughed off his hunger, had whistled away his loneliness, but now, what with starvation, cold, almost nakedness (for his rags would scarcely keep together), and a cough that seemed to take away all his small remaining strength, the brave little heart began to give way.

The hard battle was becoming too much for this poor child. He used to wander about the streets, thin, pale, shivering, and into many a face did his wistful brown eyes gaze longingly, yearningly; the weaker he grew the more he craved for kindness, the more intensely he longed for Helen. Any one could have saved him then, any hand could have drawn him from the mire.

Well, SOME ONE did.