Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished: A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure, - [sight word readers .txt] 📗

“Be cautious, Mrs Twitter,” said Mrs Loper. “These very poor girls from the slums of Whitechapel are sometimes dangerous, and, excuse me, rather dirty. Of course, if you know her, that is some security, but I would advise you to be very cautious.”

“Thank you, my dear,” said Mrs Twitter, “I usually am very cautious, and will try to be so on this occasion. I mean her to be rather a sort of nursery governess than a servant.—That is probably the girl.”

She referred to a rather timid knock at the front door. In another second the domestic announced Hetty Frog, who entered with a somewhat shy air, and seemed fluttered at meeting with unexpected company.

“Come in, Hetty, my dear; I’m glad to see you. My friends here know that you are a helper in our Sunday-schools. Sit down, and have a cup of tea. You know why I have sent for you?”

“Yes, Mrs Twitter. It—it is very kind. Our Bible-nurse told me, and I shall be so happy to come, because—but I fear I have interrupted you. I—I can easily come back—”

“No interruption at all, my dear. Here, take this cup of tea—”

“And a crumpet,” added Mrs Larrabel, who sympathised with the spirit of hospitality.

“Yes, take a crumpet, and let me hear about your last place.”

Poor Hetty, who was still very weak from her recent illness, and would gladly have been excused sitting down with two strangers, felt constrained to comply, and was soon put at her ease by the kindly tone and manner of the hostess. She ran quickly over the chief points of her late engagements, and roused, without meaning to do so, the indignation of the ladies by the bare mention of the wages she had received for the amount of work done.

“Well, my dear,” said the homely Mrs Twitter, “we won’t be so hard on you here. I want you to assist me with my sewing and darning—of which I have a very great deal—and help to take care of baby.”

“Very well, ma’am,” said Hetty, “when do you wish me to begin my duties?”

“Oh! to-morrow—after breakfast will do. It is too late to-night. But before you go, I may as well let you see the little one you are to have charge of. I hear she is awake.”

There could be no doubt upon that point, for the very rafters of the house were ringing at the moment with the yells which issued from an adjoining room.

“Come this way, Hetty.”

Mrs Loper and Mrs Larrabel, having formed a good opinion of the girl, looked on with approving smiles. The smiles changed to glances of surprise, however, when Hetty, having looked on the baby, uttered a most startling scream, while her eyes glared as though she saw a ghostly apparition.

Seizing the baby with unceremonious familiarity, Hetty struck Mrs Twitter dumb by turning it on its face, pulling open its dress, glancing at a bright red spot on its back, and uttering a shriek of delight as she turned it round again, and hugged it with violent affection, exclaiming, “Oh! my blessed Matty!”

“The child’s name is not Matty; it is Mita,” said Mrs Twitter, on recovering her breath. “What do you mean, girl?”

“Her name is not Mita, it is Matty,” returned Hetty, with a flatness of contradiction that seemed impossible in one so naturally gentle.

Mrs Twitter stood, aghast—bereft of the power of speech or motion. Mrs Loper and Mrs Larrabel were similarly affected. They soon recovered, however, and exclaimed in chorus, “What can she mean?”

“Forgive me, ma’am,” said Hetty, still holding on to baby, who seemed to have an idea that she was creating a sensation of some sort, without requiring to yell, “forgive my rudeness, ma’am, but I really couldn’t help it, for this is my long-lost sister Matilda.”

“Sister Matilda!” echoed Mrs Loper.

“Long-lost sister Matilda!” repeated Mrs Larrabel.

“This—is—your—long-lost sister Matilda,” rehearsed Mrs Twitter, like one in a dream.

The situation was rendered still more complex by the sudden entrance of Mr Twitter and his friend Crackaby.

“What—what—what’s to do now, Mariar?”

“Sister Matilda!” shouted all three with a gasp.

“Lunatics, every one of ’em,” murmured Crackaby.

It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to add that a full explanation ensued when the party became calmer; that Mrs Twitter could not doubt the veracity of Hetty Frog, but suspected her sanity; that Mrs Frog was sent for, and was recognised at once by Mr Twitter as the poor woman who had asked him such wild and unmeaning questions the night on which he had found the baby; and that Mr and Mrs Twitter, Mrs Loper, Mrs Larrabel, and Crackaby came to the unanimous conclusion that they had never heard of such a thing before in the whole course of their united lives—which lives, when united, as some statisticians would take a pride in recording, formed two hundred and forty-three years! Poor Mrs Twitter was as inconsolable at the loss of her baby as Mrs Frog was overjoyed at the recovery of hers. She therefore besought the latter to leave little Mita, alias Matty, with her just for one night longer—only one night—and then she might come for her in the morning, for, you know, it would have been cruel to remove the child from her warm crib at that hour to a cold and comfortless lodging.

Of course Mrs Frog readily consented. If Mrs Frog had known the events that lay in the womb of the next few hours, she would sooner have consented to have had her right-hand cut off than have agreed to that most reasonable request.

But we must not anticipate. A few of our dramatis personae took both an active and an inactive part in the events of these hours. It is therefore imperative that we should indicate how some of them came to be in that region.

About five of the clock in the afternoon of the day in question, Sir Richard Brandon, his daughter and idol Diana, and his young friend Stephen Welland, sat in the dining-room of the West-end mansion concluding an early and rather hasty dinner. That something was pending was indicated by the fact that little Di sat accoutred in her hat and cloak.

“We shall have to make haste,” said Sir Richard, rising, “for I should not like to be late, and it is a long drive to Whitechapel.”

“When do they begin?” asked Welland.

“They have tea at six, I believe, and then the meeting commences at seven, but I wish to be early that I may have a short conversation with one of the ladies of the Home.”

“Oh! it will be so nice, and such fun to see the dear little boys. How many are going to start for Canada, to-night, papa?”

“About fifty or sixty, I believe, but I’m not sure. They are sent off in batches of varying size from time to time.”

“Is the demand for them so great?” asked Welland, “I should have thought that Canadian farmers and others would be afraid to receive into their dwellings what is often described as the scum of the London streets.”

“They were afraid at first, I am told, but soon discovered that the little fellows who came from Miss Macpherson’s Home had been subjected to such good training and influences before leaving that they almost invariably turned out valuable and trustworthy workmen. No doubt there are exceptions in this as in every other case, but the demand is, it seems, greater than the supply. It is, however, a false idea that little waifs and strays, however dirty or neglected, are in any sense the scum of London. Youth, in all circumstances, is cream, and only turns into scum when allowed to stagnate or run to waste. Come, now, let us be off. Mr Seaward, the city missionary, is to meet us after the meeting, and show you and me something of those who have fallen very low in the social scale. Brisbane, who is also to be at the meeting, will bring Di home. By the way, have you heard anything yet about that poor comrade and fellow-clerk of yours—Twitter, I think, was his name—who disappeared so suddenly?”

“Nothing whatever. I have made inquiries in all directions—for I had a great liking for the poor fellow. I went also to see his parents, but they seemed too much cut up to talk on the subject at all, and knew nothing of his whereabouts.”

“Ah! it is a very sad case—very,” said Sir Richard, as they all descended to the street. “We might, perhaps, call at their house to-night in passing.” Entering a cab, they drove away.

From the foregoing conversation the reader will have gathered that the party were about to visit the Beehive, or Home of Industry, and that Sir Richard, through the instrumentality of little Di and the city missionary, had actually begun to think about the poor!

It was a special night at the Beehive. A number of diamonds with some of their dust rubbed off—namely, a band of little boys, rescued from the streets and from a probable life of crime, were to be assembled there to say farewell to such friends as took an interest in them.

The Hive had been a huge warehouse. It was now converted, with but slight structural alteration, into a great centre of Light in that morally dark region, from which emanated gospel truth and Christian influence, and in which was a refuge for the poor, the destitute, the sin-smitten, and the sorrowful. Not only poverty, but sin-in-rags, was sure of help in the Beehive. It had been set agoing to bring, not the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.

When Sir Richard arrived he found a large though low-roofed room crowded with people, many of whom, to judge from their appearance, were, like himself, diamond-seekers from the “west-end,” while others were obviously from the “east-end,” and had the appearance of men and women who had been but recently unearthed. There were also city missionaries and other workers for God in that humble-looking hall. Among them sat Mr John Seaward and George Brisbane, Esquire.

Placing Di and Welland near the latter, Sir Richard retired to a corner where one of the ladies of the establishment was distributing tea to all comers.

“Where are your boys, may I ask?” said the knight, accepting a cup of tea.

“Over in the left corner,” answered the lady. “You can hardly see them for the crowd, but they will stand presently.”

At that moment, as if to justify her words, a large body of boys rose up, at a sign from the superintending genius of the place, and began to sing a beautiful hymn in soft, tuneful voices. It was a goodly array of dusty diamonds, and a few of them had already begun to shine.

“Surely,” said Sir Richard, in a low voice, “these cannot be the ragged, dirty little fellows you pick up in the streets?”

“Indeed they are,” returned the lady.

“But—but they seem to me quite respectable and cleanly fellows, not at all like—why, how has the change been accomplished?”

“By the united action, sir, of soap and water, needles and thread, scissors, cast-off garments, and Love.”

Sir Richard smiled. Perchance the reader may also smile; nevertheless, this statement embodied probably the whole truth.

When an unkempt, dirty, ragged little savage presents himself, or is presented, at the Refuge, or is “picked up” in the streets, his case is promptly and carefully inquired into. If he seems a suitable character—that is, one who is utterly friendless and parentless, or whose parents are worse than dead to him—he is received into the Home, and the work of transformation—both of body and soul—commences. First he is taken to the lavatory and scrubbed outwardly clean. His elfin locks are cropped close and cleansed. His rags are burned, and a new suit, made by the old women workers, is put upon him, after which, perhaps, he is fed. Then he is sent to a doctor to see that he is internally sound in wind and limb. If passed by the doctor, he receives a brief but important training in the rudiments of