Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished, Robert Michael Ballantyne [best free e book reader .txt] 📗

three and fourteen years were connected with the Institution--scattered among the various works of usefulness conducted for the young.

Under "_Work among Lads_," he found that those big boys whom one sees idling about corners of streets, fancying themselves men, smoking with obvious dislike and pretended pleasure, and on the highroad to the jail and the gallows--that those boys were enticed into classes opened for carpentry, turning, fretwork, and other attractive industrial pursuits-- including even printing, at a press supplied by Lord Shaftesbury. This, in connection with evening classes for reading, writing, and arithmetic--the whole leading up to the grand object and aim of all--the salvation of souls.

Under other heads he found that outcast boys were received, sheltered, sent to Industrial Homes, or returned to friends and parents; that temperance meetings were held, and drunkards, male and female, sought out, prayed for, lovingly reasoned with, and reclaimed from this perhaps the greatest curse of the land; that Juvenile Bands of Hope were formed, on the ground of prevention being better than cure; that lodging-houses, where the poorest of the poor, and the lowest of the low do congregate, were visited, and the gospel proclaimed to ears that were deaf to nearly every good influence; that mothers' meetings were held--one of them at that old headquarters of sin, the "Black Horse," where counsel and sympathy were mingled with a Clothing Club and a Bible-woman; that there were a Working Men's Benefit Society, Bible-Classes, Sunday-School, a Sewing-Class, a Mutual Labour Loan Society, a Shelter for Homeless Girls, a library, an Invalid Children's Dinner, a bath-room and lavatory, a Flower Mission, and--hear it, ye who fancy that a penny stands very low in the scale of financial littleness--a Farthing Bank! All this free--conducted by an unpaid band of considerably over a hundred Christian workers, male and female--and leavening the foundations of society, without which, and similar missions, there would be very few leavening influences at all, and the superstructure of society would stand a pretty fair chance of being burst up or blown to atoms--though the superstructure is not very willing to believe the fact!

In addition to all this, Sir Richard learned, to his great amazement, that the Jews won't light their fires on the Sabbath-day--that is, on our Saturday--that they won't even poke it, and that this abstinence is the immediate cause of a source of revenue to the un-Jewish poor, whom the Jews hire to light and poke their fires for them.

And, lastly, Sir Richard Brandon learned that Mr George Holland, who had managed that mission for more than quarter of a century, was resolved, in the strength of the Lord, to seek out the lost and rescue the perishing, even though he, Sir Richard, and all who resembled him, should refuse to aid by tongue or hand in the glorious work of rescuing the poor from sin and its consequences.


CHAPTER TEN.


BALLS, BOBBY, SIR RICHARD, AND GILES APPEAR ON THE STAGE.

As from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step, so, from the dining-room to the kitchen there is but a stair. Let us descend the stair and learn that while Sir Richard was expounding the subject of "the poor" to little Di, Mr Balls, the butler, was engaged on the same subject in the servants' hall.

"I cannot tell you," said Balls, "what a impression the sight o' these poor people made on me."

"La! Mr Balls," said the cook, who was not unacquainted with low life in London, having herself been born within sound of Bow-Bells, "you've got no occasion to worrit yourself about it. It 'as never bin different."

"That makes it all the worse, cook," returned Balls, standing with his back to the fireplace and his legs wide apart; "if it was only a temporary depression in trade, or the repeal of the corn laws that did it, one could stand it, but to think that such a state of things _always_ goes on is something fearful. You know I'm a country-bred man myself, and ain't used to the town, or to such awful sights of squalor. It almost made me weep, I do assure you. One room that I looked into had a mother and two children in it, and I declare to you that the little boy was going about stark naked, and his sister was only just a slight degree better."

"P'raps they was goin' to bed," suggested Mrs Screwbury.

"No, nurse, they wasn't; they was playing about evidently in their usual costume--for that evenin' at least. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it. And the mother was so tattered and draggled and dirty--which, also, was the room."

"Was that in the court where the Frogs live?" asked Jessie Summers.

"It was, and a dreadful court too--shocking!"

"By the way, Mr Balls," asked the cook, "is there any chance o' that brat of a boy Bobby, as they call him, coming here? I can't think why master has offered to take such a creeter into his service."

"No, cook, there is no chance. I forgot to tell you about that little matter. The boy was here yesterday and he refused--absolutely declined a splendid offer."

"I'm glad to hear it," returned the cook.

"Tell us about it, Mr Balls," said Jessie Summers with a reproachful look at the other. "I'm quite fond of that boy--he's such a smart fellow, and wouldn't be bad-looking if he'd only wash his face and comb his hair."

"He's smart enough, no doubt, but impudence is his strong point," rejoined the butler with a laugh. The way he spoke to the master beats everything.

"`I've sent for you, my boy,' said Sir Richard, in his usual dignified, kindly way, `to offer you the situation of under-gardener in my establishment.'"

"`Oh! that's wot you wants with me, is it?' said the boy, as bold as brass; indeed I may say as bold as gun-metal, for his eyes an' teeth glittered as he spoke, and he said it with the air of a dook. Master didn't quite seem to like it, but I saw he laid restraint on himself and said: `You have to thank my daughter for this offer--'

"`Thank you, Miss,' said the boy, turnin' to Miss Di with a low bow, imitatin' Sir Richard's manner, I thought, as much as he could.

"`Of course,' continued the master, rather sharply, `I offer you this situation out of mere charity--'

"`Oh! you do, do you?' said the extraordinary boy in the coolest manner, `but wot if I objec' to receive charity? Ven I 'olds a 'orse I expecs to be paid for so doin', same as you expecs to be paid w'en you attends a board-meetin' to grin an' do nuffin.'

"`Come, come, boy,' said Sir Richard, gettin' redder in the face than I ever before saw him, `I am not accustomed to low pleasantry, and--'

"`An' I ain't accustomed,' broke in the boy, `to 'igh hinsults. Do you think that every gent what years a coat an' pants with 'oles in 'em is a beggar?'

"For some moments master seemed to be struck speechless, an' I feared that in spite of his well-known gentleness of character he'd throw the ink-stand at the boy's head, but he didn't; he merely said in a low voice, `I would dismiss you at once, boy, were it not that I have promised my daughter to offer you employment, and you can see by her looks how much your unnatural conduct grieves her.'

"An' this was true, for poor Miss Di sat there with her hands clasped, her eyes full of tears, her eyebrows disappearin' among her hair with astonishment, and her whole appearance the very pictur' of distress. `However,' continued Sir Richard, `I still make you the offer, though I doubt much whether you will be able to retain the situation. Your wages will--'

"`Please sir,' pleaded the boy, `don't mention the wages. I couldn't stand that. Indeed I couldn't; it would really be too much for me.'

"`Why, what do you mean?' says master.

"`I mean,' says Impudence, `that I agree with you. I don't think I _could_ retain the sitivation, cause w'y? In the fust place, I ain't got no talent at gardenin'. The on'y time I tried it was w'en I planted a toolip in a flower-pot, an' w'en I dug it up to see 'ow it was a-gittin on a cove told me I'd planted it upside down. However, I wasn't goin' to be beat by that cove, so I say to 'im, Jack, I says, I planted it so a purpus, an' w'en it sprouts I'm a-goin' to 'ang it up to see if it won't grow through the 'ole in the bottom. In the second place, I couldn't retain the sitivation 'cause I don't intend to take it, though you was to offer me six thousand no shillin's an' no pence no farthin's a year as salary.'

"I r'ally did think master would ha' dropt out of his chair at that. As for Miss Di, she was so tickled that she gave a sort of hysterical laugh.

"`Balls,' said master, `show him out, and--' he pulled up short, but I knew he meant to say have an eye on the great-coats and umbrellas, so I showed the boy out, an' he went down-stairs, quite quiet, but the last thing I saw of him was performin' a sort of minstrel dance at the end of the street just before he turned the corner and disappeared."

"Imp'rence!" exclaimed the cook.

"Naughty, ungrateful boy!" said Mrs Screwbury.

"But it was plucky of him," said Jessie Summers.

"I would call it cheeky," said Balls, "I can't think what put it into his head to go on so."

If Mr Balls had followed Bobby Frog in spirit, watched his subsequent movements, and listened to his remarks, perhaps he might have understood the meaning of his conduct a little better.

After he had turned the corner of the street, as above mentioned, Bobby trotted on for a short space, and then, coming to a full stop, executed a few steps of the minstrel dance, at the end of which he brought his foot down with tremendous emphasis on the pavement, and said--

"Yes, I've bin an' done it. I know'd I was game for a good deal, but I did _not_ think I was up to that. One never knows wot 'e's fit for till 'e tries. Wot'll Hetty think, I wonder?"

What Hetty thought he soon found out, for he overtook her on the Thames embankment on her way home. Bobby was fond of that route, though a little out of his way, because he loved the running water, though it _was_ muddy, and the sight of steamers and barges.

"Well, Bobby," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder, "where have you been?"

"To see old Swallow'd-the-poker, Hetty."

"What took you there?" asked the girl in surprise.

"My legs. You don't suppose I've set up my carriage yet, do you?"

"Come, you know what I mean."

"Vell, then, I went because I was sent for, an' wot d'ye think? the old gen'l'man hoffered me the sitivation of under-gardener!"

"You don't say so! Oh! Bobby, what a lucky boy--an' what a kind gentleman! Tell me all about it now," said Hetty, pressing her hand more tenderly on her brother's shoulder. "What wages is he to