L. T. Meade

“ Now was Flo’s time. She had only a few moments to effect her escape and the dog’s escape. A dreadful meaning had Maxey’s words for her—her dog’s life was in peril.
Never heeding an acute agony which had set in by this time in her right foot, she made her way to Scamp’s side, and first putting her arms round his neck, entreated him in the most pathetic voice to be quiet and not to betray them by any more barking.
If dogs cannot understand words and their meanings, they are very clever at comprehending tones and their meanings. ”

“ So the most ignorant among us have a light to guide us. Let us be thankful if it is a star so bright as that of mother’s love. For, strange to say, the older lad, the boy who stood in the dock with that brazen, unabashed face, the clever, accomplished London thief, who though not unknown to the police, had hitherto by his skill and cunning almost always escaped the hands of justice, he too, down deep in his heart of hearts, thought of his mother; he took one quick, furtive glance around as if to look for her, then, apparently relieved, folded his arms and fixed his bold eyes on Mr Vernon. ”

“ She had never touched a penny that was not her own, she was just and true in all her dealings. She was proud of saying—and the pride had caused her sunken, dying eyes to brighten even at the last—that none of her belongings, however low they had fallen, had ever seen the inside of a prison, or ever stood in a prisoner’s dock. They were honest people, and Dick and Flo must keep up the family character. Come what might, happen what would, they must ever and always look every man in the face, with the proud consciousness, “I have stolen from none.” ”

“ She was only Flo, working as a translator of old boots and shoes, down in a dark cellar—she had no fine dresses, no pretty ornaments, no money, she was hungry and cold, and generally miserable, and as far as she could possibly see there was never any chance of her being anything else.
She generally came down from her high imaginings to this stern reality, with a great burst of tears, only one sad thought comforting her, to be alive at all she could never be worse than she was, she could never sink any lower. ”

“ For day after day, by little and little, as she was able to bear it, Mrs Jenks told her what she herself called the Story of God.
She began with Adam and Eve, and explained to her what God had done for them; she described that lovely Garden of Eden until Flo with her vivid imagination saw the whole scene; she told how the devil came and tempted Eve, and how Eve fell, and in her fall, dishonesty, and sin, and misery, all came into the world. And because sin was in the world—and sin could not remain unpunished—Adam and Eve must die, and their children must die, and all men must die. ”

“ Flo was a poor child, the child of low people, but she had a refined nature, a true lady’s heart beat in that little breast. All the finer instincts, all the cravings of a gentle and high spirit, were hers. Pretty things were a delight to her, the sound of sweet music an ecstasy. Born in another sphere, she might have been an artist, she might have been a musician, but never, under any circumstances, could she have led a common-place life.
The past six weeks, notwithstanding her anxiety and sorrow about Dick, had been one bright dream to her. ”

“ In the cellar there was never daylight, so though the sun was shining outside, Flo had to strike a match, and poking about for a small end of tallow candle, she applied it to it. Then, seating herself on her cobbler’s stool, while Jenks and Dick squatted on the floor, and Scamp sat on his hind legs, she unpacked the yellow bowl; and its contents of roast goose, sage and onions, with a plentiful supply of gravy and potatoes, being found still hot, the gutter children and gutter dog commenced their supper. ”

“ She grew tired—awful tired, as she herself expressed it, so weary that not even her love for Dick and Flo could keep her with them, so exhausted that no rest but the rest of the grave could do her any good. So she went to her grave, but before she went her children had promised her to keep honest boy and girl, to grow up honest man and woman, and this promise was to them both more precious than their lives. ”

“ Then, suddenly, words Mrs Jenks had said to her yesterday came into her head.
“When you want food, or anything else very bad, and you don’t know how to get it, then is the time to ask God for it. All you have to do is to say up your want, whatever it be, in as few, and small, and simple words as you like, and though you speaks down in your dark cellar, God will hear you up in Heaven, and if ’tis any way possible He’ll give you what you want.”
Flo remembered these words of Mrs Jenks’ now with great and sudden gladness. ”

“ If Miss Mary, sitting there in her summer muslin, surrounded by every comfort, thought that Flo would rejoice in the fact that these places, unfit for any of God’s creatures, were shut up, she was vastly mistaken. Dark and wretched hole of a place as number 7, Duncan Street, was, it was there her mother had died, it was there she and Dick had played, and struggled, and been honest, and happy. Poor miserable shred of a home, it was the only home she had ever possessed the only place she had a right to call her own. ”

“ But when the race was over, and the name of Galopin, the winning horse, was in everybody’s mouth, and men, some pale and some flushed with their losses, turned broken-hearted away; and men, some pale and some ruddy with their gains, joined in the general cheer; then Flo began again to think of and miss her absent companions. Already vast numbers of tramps were returning to London—the kind little woman by her side had also expressed a wish to go, but nowhere were Jenks and Dick in sight. ”

“ Nothing could ever make that fire anything but bright, nothing could ever make that room anything but clean, but the widow herself had lost her old cheery look, she shivered, and drew close to the warm blaze. This might be caused by the outside cold, for the snow lay thick on the ground, but the expression on her brow could hardly come from any change of weather, neither could it be caused by the death of Flo.
Mrs Jenks sorrowed for the child, but not rebelliously—perhaps not overmuch. Those who loved her hardly spoke of her going away as a death at all. ”

“ This friend was the dog, Scamp. We can never speak with certainty as to the positive feelings of the dumb creatures, but it is plain that ever since Flo turned into this bad street Scamp—as the vulgar saying has it—smelt a rat. Perhaps it called up too vividly before his memory his old days with Maxey—be that as it may, from the time they entered the street he was restless and uneasy, looking behind him, and to right and left of him, every moment, and trying by all means in his power to quicken Flo’s movements. ”

“ Only the poor, the very, very poor know what this storm is in all its terrors, and the desolate little child sitting there in this dark cellar felt it in its full power that night. Dick was gone from her, Dick was a thief, he was in prison, gone perhaps never to come back—and Jenks was gone, he had done wrong and tempted Dick, and broken his word to her, so perhaps it was right for him to go—and Scamp, dear Scamp, who had done no harm whatever, was stolen away. ”

“ Had the dog been there he would have soothed her: the look in his eyes, the solemn slow wag of his unwieldy tail, would have comforted her, would have spoken to her of affection, would have prevented her feeling utterly alone in the world.
And this now was Flo’s sensation.
When this awful storm of loneliness comes to the rich, and things look truly hard for them, they still have their carpeted floors, and easy-chairs, and soft beds, and though at such times they profess not to value these things in the least, yet they are, and are meant to be, great alleviations. ”

“ No Londoner can forget the severe cold of last winter, no poor Londoner can forget the sufferings of last winter. Snow, and frost, and hail, bitter winds, foggy days, slippery streets, every discomfort born of weather, seemed to surround the great metropolis.
On one of these days in February, Mrs Jenks came home quite early, and as she had no more charing to get through, she built up a good fire, and set to work to make a fresh supply of starch. Flo sat at one side of her and Scamp at the other, both child and dog watching her preparations with considerable interest. ”

“ All her cares, her anxieties for Dick even, swept away, Flo had stept into a state of existence that to her was one of luxury.
The effect on many a nature, after the first burst of thankfulness was over, would have been a hardening one. The bright sunshine of prosperity, without any of the rain of affliction, would have dried up the fair soil, withered, and caused to die, the good seed. ”

“ Mrs Jenks was one of the most frugal little women in the world; never a crumb was wasted in her little home, but she always managed to have something savoury for every meal, and the savoury things she bought were rendered more so by her judicious cooking. Her red herrings, for instance, just because she knew where to buy them, and how to dress them, did not taste at all like poor Flo’s red herrings, cooked against the bars, and eaten with her fingers in the Duncan Street cellar. ”

“ I’d Choose to be a Queen. The time was the height of the London season for 1875; the height of that gay time when the parks, and streets, and shops are full, when pleasure-promoters are busy keeping up a fresh supply of every form of entertainment, when pleasure-seekers are flocking to the garden parties, and strawberry parties, the operas, and theatres, and all other amusements provided for them; when the world—the world at least of Regent Street, and Piccadilly, of Eaton Square, and all Belgravia—looks so rich and prosperous, so full of life and all that makes life enjoyable. ”

“ The prison chapel is not constructed to enable the prisoners to gaze about them, and as the only individual Jenks could see was the chaplain, he fixed his eyes on him.
He did this with a little return of his old sullenness, for though he was a good man, and even Jenks admitted this, he was so tired of him. He had seen him so very, very often, in his cell and at chapel. After spending his life amid the myriad faces of London, Jenks had found the months, during which he had never gazed on any human countenance but that of his warder, the governor, chaplain, and doctor, interminably long. ”

“ He sat down and ate his breakfast with appetite and relish; he could enjoy things again; he was still William Jenks to somebody—the boy felt human once more.
But he would not open his letter at once—not he. No irreverent fingers, no hasty fingers, should tear that precious envelope asunder.
When a man only gets a letter after three months of absolute silence he is never over-hasty in perusing its contents. The sweets of anticipation are very good, and must not be too quickly got over, and when a letter is once opened its great charm is more or less gone. ”

“ Had Dick got the money rightly he would have been only too glad to speak of it; so it was clear to Flo that in some wrong manner alone had it come into his possession!
Well! why should she care? They were very poor, they were as low down in the world as they well could be; nobody loved them, nobody had ever taught them to do right. Dick and Flo were “horfans,” same as Scamp was an orphan. The world was hard on them, as it is on all defenceless creatures. If Dick could “prig” something from that rich and greedy world that was letting them both starve, would it be so very wrong? ”

“ She had not made a hard request of Him,—she had only begged that a little child, as poor as herself, should come and give her a cup of cold water,—but the child never appeared, and Flo’s parched lips were still unmoistened. How strange of Mrs Jenks to tell her God would hear and answer prayer—not a bit of it. At least He would not hear little prayers like hers. Very likely He was too busy listening to the Queen’s prayers, and to the great people’s prayers. The great, rich people always had the best of everything, why should they not have the best of God’s time too? ”

“ Words came to her at last, and Flo learned what every child in our England is supposed to know, but what, alas! many such children have never heard of; many such children live and die without hearing of.
Do we blame them for their social standing? do we blame them for filling their country with vice and crime?
Doubtless we do blame them, we raise our own clean skirts and pass over on the other side. In church we thank God that we are not as these men are—murderers—thieves—unclean—unholy. Let them go to prison, and to death—fit ends for such as they. ”

“ If you love Him He will give you a better time than the Queen has on her throne—a time so good, that you will never want to change with anybody in all the world.”
“Tell me about God,” asked Flo in a breathless voice, and she left her stool and knelt at Mrs Jenks’ feet.
“God,” said little Mrs Jenks, putting down her work and looking up solemnly, “God—He’s the Father of the fatherless, and you are fatherless. God’s your Father, child.” ”

“ You pray for yourself, and I pray for you, and so does Mrs Jenks, and better than all, the Lord Christ is ever interceding for you.”
“Then I’ll soon be well,” said Flo.
“Yes, you shall soon be well—but, Flo, there are two ways of getting well.”
“Two, Miss Mary?”
“Yes; there is the getting well to be ill again by and by—to suffer pain again, and sickness again—that is the earthly way.”
Flo was silent.
“But,” continued the lady, “there is a better way. There is a way of getting so well, that pain, and sickness, and trouble, and death, are done away with for ever—that is the heavenly way.” ”

“ A year ago Flo’s mother had died in this cellar. She was a young woman, not more than thirty, but the damp of the miserable cellar, together with endless troubles and hardships, had fanned the seeds of consumption within her, and before her thirty-first birthday she had passed away. She knew she was dying, and in her poor way had done her best to prepare her children for her loss. She taught them both her trade, that of a translator,—not a literary translator, poor Mrs Darrell could not read,—but a translator of old boots and shoes into new ”