say,’ said the tramp’s friend, ‘where do you think that woman’s gone?’
‘Gone; how should I know? Perhaps she’s gone back to Sloville.’
‘To Sloville! why?’
‘To look after the boy.’
‘A child of hers?’
‘What do you want to know for?’ said the tramp angrily. ‘You’re too inquisitive by half,’ said he, in a drunken tone, and in the next moment he sank into a drunken sleep. And the questioner – he, too, in a moment was in the Land of Nod, dreaming of the days of innocence, when he was a bright, happy boy, guarded with a mother’s love and father’s care, in a well-appointed home, with gardens where grew fruits and flowers, and musical with the song of birds; where the sun shone bright and the air was balmy; in a home where care and filth and sorrow and disease and want and woe seemed almost unknown. His pals carried him off to bed. Suddenly he woke up and asked himself where he was. Presently he lifted himself up in bed and looked around. At the far end a dim gas-light helped him to realize the horrors of his situation. He was in a long, filthy, evil smelling, low room, with thirty beds in a row, side by side, packed as close together as sardines in a box. Every bed was occupied. And as he gazed on the sad faces near him he gave a scream which drew down on him many a curse.
‘Hush! why can’t you be quiet?’ said the deputy keeper, ever fearful of the police.
But the scream was renewed.
‘Why, I’m blessed,’ said one, ‘if he ain’t got the D.T.!’
Could anything be more horrible, as the angry keepers mocked and jeered and maddened him? Struggling and shrieking, he was borne off by men stronger than himself to the nearest hospital, and for awhile there was peace.
CHAPTER XIII.
CONCERNING SAL
And where had the woman gone? Westward, we are told by the poet, the course of empire takes its way. She had gone west, and very naturally; not at first, she was too artful for that – her old man, as she called him (she did not know his proper name), might be after her, and she had had enough of him, and wanted to be free. In this case she had not two strings to her bow. She was not thinking of accepting a new keeper in the case of the one cashiered. She simply wanted to be free – at any rate for awhile. As to the child left behind, she had no thought of that. Somebody would give it a crust and a night’s lodging. Then it would roam into the streets to be picked up by the police, and supported by the British taxpayer.
We are a very humane people. The more people neglect their offspring, the more ready are we to look after them. If Sal, as she was called, had been a true and tender-hearted woman, she would have dragged the little fellow out with her into the cold, raw night away from Sloville. He might have caught his death o’ cold, and then and there ceased to be a blessing to her or anybody else. As a waif off the streets he had a better chance of being clothed, and fed, and educated, and cared for, and planted out in life. It is thus we reward our rascals. It is thus we relieve fathers and mothers of their responsibility, do our duty, ease our consciences, and offer a premium to vice.
Finding the way clear, our Sal emerged from her hiding-place, and made her way, as much hidden as possible by the dark shades of lofty walls, towards Waterloo Bridge. She was a remarkable woman, was our Sal. Her father was an agricultural labourer, earning his ten or twelve shillings a week, and bringing up a numerous family on that exceedingly limited sum. At the National school she had learned, in a very imperfect way, to read and write, to do a little needlework, and to curtsey to her betters.
As she grew up, she displayed alike her good looks and good manners. As to morals, they were not to be expected of a girl who lived in a cottage with but one sleeping room for the entire family, and whose good looks exposed her to the bucolic amativeness of the Bœotians of the district. All her ambition was to go to London in service in a superior family. She had known girls leave that district and come back real ladies, though they were as low down in the world as herself. One of the girls, a little older than herself, had gone to London, and turned gay; and what was the result? That she was living with the son of a lord, and she and all the other girls, who soon learned the story, were quite eager to be off to win, if possible, a similar prize.
Surely that was better than hard work, or remaining satisfied with the station in which God had placed them, as they were told every Sunday they ought to be – if that only meant marriage with Hodge, and the workhouse when she and Hodge would be past work. It was all very well to be called a good girl by the Rector’s wife, to be confirmed, whatever that might mean, as a matter of course, by the Bishop, to sing in the parochial choir, and once a year to be admitted to the privileges of the Sunday-school treat; but that did not buy her a new bonnet, or prevent her wearing her old clothes, or save her from doing a lot of drudgery at times when she preferred romping in the hayfields with Farmer Giles’s sons, strapping young fellows, just as rustic and as ignorant as herself.
A time came when she went out to service at a country house just by. A London lady of fashion saw her, was attracted by her appearance, and got her to come to town. The illustrious aristocrat she married was taken with the kitchen wench, as her ladyship indignantly termed her, and then there was a row, and the poor girl was ignominiously discharged to hide her head where she could, and to give birth to an illegitimate child. That aristocratic admirer was Sir Watkin Strahan.
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