Volume I Part 1 (2/2)

'Don't lead him into mischief,' said the poor woman imploringly.

'In course not, my dear,' said Carroty Bill sarcastically: 'he's a gentleman, ain't he? and he'll behave as such.' Then, turning to the boy, who was still lingering by the woman's side, he said, 'Come here, you little warmint, or I'll break every bone in your body.'

This conversation was carried on at the White Horse, where the speaker was mostly to be found. The woman gave way; the speaker took the boy to Parker's Piece. Arrived there, he sought out his own apartment, and with the help of the lad cleared it of everything it possessed in the shape of chairs or clothes or table, leaving only a little straw, on which the family were to lie. A dealer just by purchased his household chattels for a song, about as much as they were worth, and Carroty Bill had just time to get a drop at the White Horse and return in an unwonted state of sobriety before the Vicar and his curates entered.

'Dear me,' said the kind-hearted Vicar, 'what wretchedness! How is it you are so badly off?'

'Wife ill, and I got no work to do. It's very hard on a poor fellow like me,' said our carroty friend.

'Ah! it is indeed,' said the Vicar.

'Yes, I little thought as I should have come to this,' said the man, in a desponding tone.

'Ah, well,' said the Vicar, 'perhaps we can help you a little.'

'Thank you, sir, kindly,' said the hardened hypocrite.

'Dear me!' said the Vicar, 'what wretchedness-not a stick in the place!

We must do something to relieve this distressing case. What say you?'

said he to his companions.

'Oh, a pair of blankets and a hundredweight of coal at the least.'

'Yes, and a loaf of bread.'

'Oh yes! and a little warm clothing for the wife and child in the corner.

That's a bright little fellow,' said he, pointing to Joe; 'is that your eldest?'

'No, sir, he ain't one of ours,' said the woman. 'We keep him out of charity. His mother is dead.'

'Dear me!' said the Vicar; 'who would have thought it? What true benevolence! How it does shame us who are better off! How beautiful it is to see the poor so ready to help one another!'

'Ah! it is little we can do, but we allus tries to do our duty,' said Carroty Bill, with the look of a saint and the courage of a martyr, while the forlorn woman seemed the picture of resignation and despair.

'I am sure we might leave a little money here as well,' said the Vicar.

'Oh, certainly,' said both the curates who declared they had never seen more unmitigated poverty anywhere.

And then they went off.

And thus relieved with a little ready cash and food, and cheered with the prospect of blankets and coals and clothes, for which tickets had been left, Carroty Bill was enabled at leisure to rejoice over the effects of his artful dodge, which was told to a crowd of applauding vagabonds, as rascally as himself; while the landlord of the public, already referred to, could not find too much to say on behalf of that Christian charity by which he expected to benefit more than anyone else in that dingy and poverty-stricken locality. The Vicar was quite justified so far as appearances went. It was an unhealthy habitation which he visited, and all the inmates looked sad and ill.

As the Vicar left the apartment of Carroty Bill he knocked at the next door, inhabited by a hard-working shoemaker of freethought tendencies, who hated him and all his ways. The Vicar beat a hasty retreat, as he knew the sharpness of the shoemaker's tongue.

'We don't want none of your cloth here,' said the disciple of St.

Crispin. 'If there were a G.o.d, should we be as wretched as we are?'

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