"Show the light, Pearson."
The second subordinate maneuvered the lantern. "On'y a kid. And I never see sich a state as he's in. No boots. No stockings. Just look at them feet. And his hands all of a mush. Gawd!" said the Foreman Shunter.
"What'll you do about it, Job?" said subordinate number one.
"Do about it?" said the Foreman Shunter sharply. "Do about what?"
"Might let him go this time?" said subordinate number two.
The boy opened his eyes.
"I'll take him 'ome to the missus and give him some breakfast," said the Foreman Shunter with an air of asperity.
The odd thing was that both subordinates seemed silently to approve this grave dereliction of a foreman shunter's duty.
"Can you walk, me lad?"
"O' course he can't, Iggins, not with them," said the Foreman Shunter. "Can't stand on 'em, let alone walk on 'em. Here, catch holt o' the bawsket."
The Foreman Shunter took the boy in his arms and carried him away from the goods yard as he would have carried a baby.
"Leave the bawsket at No. 12 when you come off duty," he called back to the first subordinate.
"Right, Job, I will," said the first subordinate rather respectfully, and then as the Foreman Shunter passed out of hearing, the first subordinate said to his mate, "Fancy taking a thing like that 'ome to your missus."
In the meantime the boy was shivering and whimpering in what he felt to be the strong arms of the police.
"Let me go, mister, this once," he whined as awful recollections surged upon him. He had been getting terribly hurt all through the night, but he knew that he was going to be hurt still more now that the police had got hold of him.
But his faint whimpers and half-hearted wriggles were without effect upon the majesty of the law.
"Lie still. Keep quiet," growled the Foreman Shunter, adding as quite an impersonal afterthought, "Blast you!"
It seemed a very long time to the boy before he came to prison. Up one strange street and down another he was carried. As he lay in the arms of the police he could make out lamp after lamp and row after row of houses in the darkness.
It was a long way to the station.
"Let me go this once, mister," he began to whine again. "I'll not do it no more."
"Quiet, blast you," growled the large, rich voice of the police.
At last they came to a door, which in the uncertain light seemed exactly similar to one he had passed through on an occasion he would never forget to his dying day. He began to cry again miserably. Perhaps they would give him something to eat – they did so before – but he would not be able to eat anything this time if they offered it, not until they had done what they had to do.
He could hear sounds a little way off … inside the prison. He gripped convulsively the rough overcoat of his captor. How vividly he remembered it all! They gave it two other boys first. Again he could hear their screams, again he could see the blood running down their bare legs.
He must try to be a man … he remembered that one of the other boys had laughed about it afterwards … he must try to be a man … at least that had been the advice of a fatherly policeman in spectacles who had presided over the ceremony…
"Mother … that you…" The terrific voice of his captor went right through him. "Where are you, Mother? Show a light."
Suddenly a door at the end of the passage was flung open. There came a blinding gush of gaslight.
"Why, Job … whatever…!"
"I'll set him on the sophy."
"Yes, on the sophy. Goodness gracious me!"
The boy realized that he was on a horsehair sofa, and that a fine, clean, handsome-looking lady was standing with her mouth open in front of him.
"Goodness gracious, Job!"
"Come all the way from Blackhampton in a truck this morning. By the 5:40 Express."
"Well, I'm blessed if I ever see such a hobject. I'll give him some tea and a bit o' bacon, and some bread and butter, and then I'll get some o' that mud off him."
"Some of it's blood," said the Foreman Shunter.
"Yes, I see it is. Never … did … I … see … anythink … like him. I'll make the tea; the kettle's boiling." The voice of Mother was the nearest thing to music the boy had ever heard. It was better even than that of the ladies who sang in the bar of the Wheat Sheaf, the Red Lion, and the Crown and Anchor, outside which places he had always stayed to listen when he could conveniently do so. This room was not in the least like the police station. And he was quite sure that the lady called Mother had nothing whatever to do with…
"Set him a bit nearer to the fire, Job," – yes, the voice was music – "and put this round him."
"This" was an old coat.
VI
"I'll give it him in a saucer," said Mother. "It'll be cooler that way."
A saucer of tea was offered to the boy.
"Can you hold it, me lad?"
"Yes, lady," he said, faintly.
"Lap it up, then. Better let me try it first." She sipped a little out of the saucer. "Yes, that's right enough."
The tea was so perfectly delicious that he swallowed it at a gulp. Mother and the Foreman Shunter watched him with surprise.
"Now for a bite o' bread and butter," said Mother, sawing away at a quartern loaf.
The boy seized the bread and butter like a hungry dog. Mother and the Foreman Shunter stood looking at him with queer, rather startled faces.
"I never see the likes o' that, Job."
"No, never," said the Foreman Shunter, solemnly. "Damn me."
"What's your name, boy?"
"Enry Arper, lady."
"Enry what?"
"Enry Arper, lady."
"Could you eat a bit o' bacon, do you think?"
The boy nodded with an eagerness that made the Foreman Shunter laugh.
"I see nothing to laugh at, Job Lorimer," said his wife sharply. Tears had come into her eyes. She whisked them away with a corner of her apron, and then gave a sniff of remarkable violence. "And they call this a Christian land."
"You never heard me call it that, Mother," said the Foreman Shunter.
"More shame to you, then, Job Lorimer."
"I know this," said the Foreman Shunter, speaking in a slow and decisive manner, "whatever this country is or whatever it ain't, there's as much Christianity in it as there is in that hearthrug. And there ain't a bit more."
"Shut
