Scamp and I: A Story of City By-Ways

tell herof Him.

  So these two, in their simple, unlearned way, held converse oftentogether on things that the men of this world so seldom allude to, anddoubtless they learned more about God than the men of this world, withall their talents and cultivated tastes, ever attain to.

  It was Mrs Jenks' simple plan to take all that the Bible said in itsliteral and exact meaning, and Flo and she particularly delighted in itsdescriptions (not imagery to them) of Heaven.

  And when Mrs Jenks read to Flo out of the 21st and 22nd chapters of theRevelation, the child would raise her clear brown eyes to the autumnsky, and see with that inner sense, so strong in natures like hers, thegates of pearl and golden streets. God lived there--and many people whoonce were sad and sorrowful in this world, lived there--and it was thelovely happy home where she hoped she and Dick should also live someday.

  "And you too, Mrs Jenks, and that poor lad of yours," she would say,laying her head caressingly on the little woman's knee.

  But Mrs Jenks rather wondered why Flo never mentioned now that otherJenks, her namesake, who was wearing out his slow nine months'imprisonment in the Wandsworth House of Correction.

  Once Flo had been very fond of him, and his name was on her lips twentytimes a day, now she never spoke of him.

  Why was this? Had she forgotten Jenks? Hardly likely.

  She was such a tender, affectionate little thing, interested even inthat poor prodigal lad, whose best robe would soon be as ready, and asbright, and fresh, and new, as Mrs Jenks' fingers could make it.

  No, Flo had not forgotten Jenks, but she had found out a secret.Without any one telling her, she had guessed _who_ the lad was who wasexpected back in the spring; who that jacket, and trousers, and vestwere getting ready for. A certain likeness in the eyes, a certain playof the lips, had connected poor Jenks in prison with Mrs Jenks in thisbright, home-like, little room. She knew they were mother and son, butas Mrs Jenks had not mentioned it herself, she would never pretend thatshe had discovered her secret. But Flo had one little fear--she was notquite sure that Jenks _would_ come home. She knew nothing of hisprevious history, but in her own intercourse with him she had learnedenough of his character to feel sure that the love for thieving was farmore deeply engrafted into his heart than his gentle, trusting littlemother had any idea of. When he was released from prison, badcompanions would get round him, and he would join again in their evilways.

  He could not now harm Dick, who was safe at that good school for two orthree years, but in their turn others might harm him, and the jacket andtrousers might lie by unused, and the crocuses and snowdrops wither, andstill Jenks might not come. He might only join in more crime, and goback again to prison, and in the end break his mother's gentle, trustingheart.

  Now Flo wondered could _she_ do anything to bring the prodigal home.She thought of this a great deal; she lay in her little white bed, thebed God had given her, and told God about it, and after a time a plancame into her head.

  Three times a week she went to Miss Mary's pleasant house to be taughtknitting by Annie, and reading and writing by that lady herself, and onone of these occasions she unfolded her idea to this kind listener, andbetween them they agreed that it should be carried out.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

  TWO LOCKS OF HAIR.

  It was Sunday morning at Wandsworth House of Correction--a fair, lateautumnal morning. The trees had on their bright, many-coloured tints,the sky above was flecked with soft, greyish-white clouds, and tenderwith the loveliest blue. The summer heat was over, but the summerfragrance still dwelt in the air; the summer beauty, subdued, butperhaps more lovely than when in its prime, still lingered on the fairlandscape of Wandsworth common.

  In the prison the walls were gleaming snowy white, but so they gleamedwhen the frost and snow sparkled a little whiter outside, when the hotbreath of fiercest summer seemed to weigh down the air.

  The symbols of the four seasons--the leafless trees, the tender, palegreen trees, the drooping, heavily-laden, sheltering trees, the treesclothed in purple and gold--were unknown to those within the House ofCorrection.

  The prisoners saw no trees from the high windows of their cells. Whenthey walked out in that walled-in enclosure, each prisoner treading inthose dreary circles five feet apart from his fellow, they saw a littlewithered grass, and a little sky, blue, grey, or cloudy, but no trees.

  The trees are only for the free, not for men and women shut in for thepunishment of their crimes.

  So the seasons are felt in the temperature, but unknown to the sense ofsight.

  On this particular Sunday morning a warder might have been seen pacingslowly down the dismal corridor which divides the dark and lightpunishment cells.

  He was whistling a low tune under his breath, and thinking how by and byhe should be off duty, and could enjoy his Sunday dinner and go for awalk across the common with his wife and the child. He thought of hisSunday treat a great deal, as was but natural, and just a little of theprisoners, whom he apostrophised as "Poor Brutes." Not that he feltunkindly towards them--very far from that; he was, as the world goes, ahumane man, but it was incomprehensible to him how men and boys, whenthey _were_ confined in Wandsworth, did not submit to the rules of theplace, and make themselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit,instead of defying everything, and getting themselves shut up in thosedreary dark cells.

  "And this willan 'ave been in fur four days and nights now," hesoliloquised, as he stopped at the door of one. "Well, I'm real glad'is punishment is hover, though 'ee's as 'ardened a young chap as heversee daylight."

  He unlocked the double doors, which, when shut, not only excluded allsound, but every ray of light, and went in.

  A lad was cowering up in one corner of the wooden bedstead--a lad with ablanched face, and eyes glowing like two coals. The warder went overand laid his hand on his shoulder--he started at the touch, and shiveredfrom head to foot with either rage or fear.

  "Now then, G.2.14," in a kindly voice, "your punishment's hover for_this_ time, and I 'opes you'll hact more sensible in future--you mayget back to your cell."

  The lad staggered blindly to his feet, and the warder, catching hold ofhim, arranged his mask--a piece of dark grey cloth, having eyelet holes,and a tiny bit of alpaca inserted for the mouth--over his face.

  On the back of his jacket were painted in white letters two inches long,H.C.W.S., which initials stood for House of Correction, Wandsworth,Surrey.

  Staying his staggering steps with his strong arm, the warder conductedhim back to his cell, into which he locked him.

  Then the boy, with a great groan, or sigh of relief, threw up his mask,and looked about the little room. He had tasted nothing but bread andwater for the last four days, and his Sunday breakfast, consisting of apint of oatmeal gruel and six ounces of bread, stood ready for hisacceptance, and by the side of the bread was--what?

  Something that made him forget his great bodily hunger, and startforward with a ray of joy breaking all over his sullen face. This waswhat he saw.

  A letter was here--a letter ready for him to open.

  He had heard that once in three months the Wandsworth prisoners wereallowed to write and receive letters. This rule he had heard withindifference--in all his life he had never had a letter--what matter wasit to him whoever else got them.

  He knew how to read and write. Long ago, when a little lad, he hadlearned these accomplishments--he could also decipher the writing ofother people, and spelt his own name now on the little oblong packetwhich had found its way into his cell.

  Yes, it was a _bona fide_ letter, it had a stamp on it, and the Londonpost-mark. It was a _bona fide_ letter, and his letter also--a letterdirected to him. He gazed at it for a moment or two, then took it upand handled it carefully, and turned it round, and examined the back ofit, and held it up to the light--then he put it down, and took a turnthe length of his cell.

  Unless we are quite dunned by creditors, and mean never to open anythingthat is sent to us by th
e post, we have a kind of interest in that sharpdouble knock, and a kind of pleasure in opening our various epistles.

  However many we get, our pulses _do_ beat just a quarter of a shadequicker as we unfasten the envelope. There is never any saying whatnews the contents may announce to us; perhaps a fortune, an advantageousproposal, the birth of a new relation, the death of an old friend, thatappointment we never thought to have obtained, that prize we never hopedto have won: or perhaps, the loss of that prize, the filling up byanother man of that appointment. A letter may bring us any possible orimpossible news, therefore at all times these little missives, with theQueen's head on them, are interesting.

  But what if we are in prison, if we have just been confined for days andnights in the dark cell, fed on bread and water, sentenced to thehorrors and silence of the tomb; if bad thoughts, and hardeningthoughts, and maddening thoughts, if Satan and his evil spirits, havebeen bearing us company? What, if we are only addressed when