Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished: A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure

Whether it was the tender tone of Giles’s voice, or the words that he uttered, or the strength of his grasp that subdued Mrs Frog, we cannot tell, but she gave in suddenly, hung down her head, and allowed her captor to do as he pleased. Seeing this, he carefully replaced her bonnet on her head, drew the old shawl quite tenderly over her shoulders, and led her gently away.

Before they had got the length of the main thoroughfare, however, a female of a quiet, respectable appearance met them.

“Mrs Frog!” she exclaimed, in amazement, stopping suddenly before them.

“If you know her, ma’am, perhaps you may direct me to her home.”

“I know her well,” said the female, who was none other than the Bible-nurse who visited the sick of that district; “if you have not arrested her for—for—”

“Oh no, madam,” interrupted Giles, “I have not arrested her at all, but she seems to be unwell, and I was merely assisting her.”

“Oh! then give her over to me, please. I know where she lives, and will take care of her.”

Giles politely handed his charge over, and went on his way, sincerely hoping that the next to demand his care would be a man.

The Bible-woman drew the arm of poor Mrs Frog through her own, and in a few minutes stood beside her in the desolate home.

“Nobody cares,” muttered the wretched woman as she sank in apathy on her stool and leaned her head against the wall.

“You are wrong, dear Mrs Frog. I care, for one, else I should not be here. Many other Christian people would care, too, if they knew of your sufferings; but, above all, God cares. Have you carried your troubles to Him?”

“Why should I? He has long ago forsaken me.”

“Is it not, dear friend, that you have forsaken Him? Jesus says, as plain as words can put it, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ You tell me it is of no use to go to Him, and you don’t go, and then you complain that He has forsaken you! Where is my friend Hetty?”

“In hospital.”

“Indeed! I have been here several times lately to inquire, but have always found your door locked. Your husband—”

“He’s in prison, and Bobby’s gone to the bad,” said Mrs Frog, still in a tone of sulky defiance.

“I see no sign of food,” said the Bible-nurse, glancing quickly round; “are you hungry?”

“Hungry!” exclaimed the woman fiercely, “I’ve tasted nothin’ at all since yesterday.”

“Poor thing!” said the Bible-nurse in a low tone; “come—come with me. I don’t say more. You cannot speak while you are famishing. Stay, first one word—” She paused and looked up. She did not kneel; she did not clasp her hands or shut her eyes, but, with one hand on the door-latch, and the other grasping the poor woman’s wrist, she prayed—

“God bless and comfort poor Mrs Frog, for Jesus’ sake.”

Then she hurried, without uttering a word, to the Institution in George Yard. The door happened to be open, and the figure of a man with white hair and a kind face was seen within.

Entering, the Bible-nurse whispered to this man. Another moment and Mrs Frog was seated at a long deal table with a comfortable fire at her back, a basin of warm soup, and a lump of loaf bread before her. The Bible-nurse sat by and looked on.

“Somebody cares a little, don’t you think?” she whispered, when the starving woman made a brief pause for breath.

“Yes, thank God,” answered Mrs Frog, returning to the meal as though she feared that some one might still snatch it from her thin lips before she got it all down.

When it was finished the Bible-nurse led Mrs Frog into another room.

“You feel better—stronger?” she asked.

“Yes, much better—thank you, and quite able to go home.”

“There is no occasion for you to go home to-night; you may sleep there,” (pointing to a corner), “but I would like to pray with you now, and read a verse or two.”

Mrs Frog submitted, while her friend read to her words of comfort; pleaded that pardon and deliverance might be extended, and gave her loving words of counsel. Then the poor creature lay down in her corner, drew a warm blanket over her, and slept with a degree of comfort that she had not enjoyed for many a day.

When it was said by Mrs Frog that her son Bobby had gone to the bad, it must not be supposed that any very serious change had come over him. As that little waif had once said of himself, when in a penitent mood, he was about as bad as he could be, so couldn’t grow much badder. But when his sister lost her situation in the firm that paid her such splendid wages, and fell ill, and went into hospital in consequence, he lost heart, and had a relapse of wickedness. He grew savage with regard to life in general, and committed a petty theft, which, although not discovered, necessitated his absence from home for a time. It was while he was away that the scene which we have just described took place.

On the very next day he returned, and it so happened that on the same day Hetty was discharged from hospital “cured.” That is to say, she left the place a thin, tottering, pallid shadow, but with no particular form of organic disease about her.

She and her mother had received some food from one who cared for them, through the Bible-nurse.

“Mother, you’ve been drinkin’ again,” said Hetty, looking earnestly at her parent’s eyes.

“Well, dear,” pleaded Mrs Frog, “what could I do? You had all forsaken me, and I had nothin’ else to comfort me.”

“Oh! mother, darling mother,” cried Hetty, “do promise me that you will give it up. I won’t get ill or leave you again—God helping me; but it will kill me if you go on. Do promise.”

“It’s of no use, Hetty. Of course I can easily promise, but I can’t keep my promise. I know I can’t.”

Hetty knew this to be too true. Without the grace of God in the heart, she was well aware that human efforts must fail, sooner or later. She was thinking what to reply, and praying in her heart for guidance, when the door opened and her brother Bobby swaggered in with an air that did not quite accord with his filthy fluttering rags, unwashed face and hands, bare feet and unkempt hair.

“Vell, mother, ’ow are ye? Hallo! Hetty! w’y, wot a shadder you’ve become! Oh! I say, them nusses at the hospital must ’ave stole all your flesh an’ blood from you, for they’ve left nothin’ but the bones and skin.”

He went up to his sister, put an arm round her neck, and kissed her. This was a very unusual display of affection. It was the first time Bobby had volunteered an embrace, though he had often submitted to one with dignified complacency, and Hetty, being weak, burst into tears.

“Hallo! I say, stop that now, young gal,” he said, with a look of alarm, “I’m always took bad ven I see that sort o’ thing, I can’t stand it.”

By way of mending matters the poor girl, endeavouring to be agreeable, gave a hysterical laugh.

“Come, that’s better, though it ain’t much to boast of,”—and he kissed her again.

Finding that, although for the present they were supplied with a small amount of food, Hetty had no employment and his mother no money, our city Arab said that he would undertake to sustain the family.

“But oh! Bobby, dear, don’t steal again.”

“No, Hetty, I won’t, I’ll vork. I didn’t go for to do it a-purpose, but I was overtook some’ow—I seed the umbrellar standin’ handy, you know, and—etceterer. But I’m sorry I did it, an’ I won’t do it again.”

Swelling with great intentions, Robert Frog thrust his dirty little hands into his trouser pockets—at least into the holes that once contained them—and went out whistling.

Soon he came to a large warehouse, where a portly gentleman stood at the door. Planting himself in front of this man, and ceasing to whistle in order that he might speak, he said:—

“Was you in want of a ’and, sir?”

“No, I wasn’t,” replied the man, with a glance of contempt.

“Sorry for that,” returned Bobby, “’cause I’m in want of a sitivation.”

“What can you do?” asked the man.

“Oh! hanythink.”

“Ah, I thought so; I don’t want hands who can do anything, I prefer those who can do something.”

Bobby Frog resumed his whistling, at the exact bar where he had left off, and went on his way. He was used to rebuffs, and didn’t mind them. But when he had spent all the forenoon in receiving rebuffs, had made no progress whatever in his efforts, and began to feel hungry, he ceased the whistling and became grave.

“This looks serious,” he said, pausing in front of a pastry-cook’s shop window. “But for that there plate glass wot a blow hout I might ’ave! Beggin’ might be tried with advantage. It’s agin the law, no doubt, but it ain’t a sin. Yes, I’ll try beggin’.”

But our Arab was not a natural beggar, if we may say so. He scorned to whine, and did not even like to ask. His spirit was much more like that of a highwayman than a beggar.

Proceeding to a quiet neighbourhood which seemed to have been forgotten by the police, he turned down a narrow lane and looked out for a subject, as a privateer might search among “narrows” for a prize. He did not search long. An old lady soon hove in sight. She seemed a suitable old lady, well-dressed, little, gentle, white-haired, a tottering gait, and a benign aspect.

Bobby went straight up and planted himself in front of her.

“Please, ma’am, will you oblige me with a copper?”

The poor old lady grew pale. Without a word she tremblingly, yet quickly, pulled out her purse, took therefrom a shilling, and offered it to the boy.

“Oh! marm,” said Bobby, who was alarmed and conscience-smitten at the result of his scheme, “I didn’t mean for to frighten you. Indeed I didn’t, an’ I won’t ’ave your money at no price.”

Saying which he turned abruptly round and walked away.

“Boy, boy, boy!” called the old lady in a voice so entreating, though tremulous, that Bobby felt constrained to return.

“You’re a most remarkable boy,” she said, putting the shilling back into her purse.

“I’m sorry to say, marm, that you’re not the on’y indiwidooal as ’olds that opinion.”

“What do you mean by your conduct, boy?”

“I mean, marm, that I’m wery ’ard up. Uncommon ’ard up; that I’ve tried to git vork an’ can’t git it, so that I’m redooced to beggary. But, I ain’t a ’ighway robber, marm, by no means, an’ don’t want to frighten you hout o’ your money if you ain’t willin’ to give it.”

The little tremulous old lady was so pleased with this reply that she took half-a-crown out of her purse and put it into the boy’s hand. He looked at her in silent surprise.

“It ain’t a copper, marm!”

“I know that. It is half-a-crown, and I willingly give it you because you are an honest boy.”

“But, marm,” said Bobby, still holding out the piece of silver on his palm, “I ain’t a honest boy. I’m a thief!”

“Tut, tut, don’t talk nonsense; I don’t believe you.”

“Vel now, this beats all that I ever did come across. ’Ere’s a old ’ooman as I tells as plain as mud that I’m a thief, an’ nobody’s better able to give a opinion on that pint than myself, yet she won’t believe it!”

“No, I won’t,” said the old lady with a little nod and a smile, “so, put the money in your pocket, for you’re an honest boy.”

“Vell, it’s pleasant to ’ear that, any’ow,” returned Bobby, placing the silver coin in a vest pocket which was always kept in repair for coins of smaller value.

“Where do you live, boy? I should like to come and see you.”

“My residence, marm, ain’t a mansion in the vest-end. No, nor yet a willa in the subarbs. I’m afear’d, marm, that I live in a district that ain’t quite suitable for the likes of you to wisit. But—”

Here Bobby paused, for at the moment his little friend Tim Lumpy recurred to his memory, and a bright thought struck him.

“Well, boy, why do you pause?”

“I was on’y thinkin’, marm, that if you wants to befriend us poor boys—they calls us waifs an’ strays an’ all sorts of unpurlite names—you’ve on’y got to send a sov, or two to Miss Annie Macpherson, ’Ome of Hindustry, Commercial Street, Spitalfields, an’ you’ll be the means o’ doin’ a world o’ good—as I ’eard a old gen’l’m with a white choker on say the wery last time I was down there ’avin’ a blow out o’ bread an’ soup.”

“I know the lady and the Institution well, my boy,” said the old lady, “and will act on your advice, but—”

Ere she finished the sentence Bobby Frog had turned and fled at the very top of his speed.

“Stop! stop! stop!” exclaimed the old lady in a weakly shout.

But the “remarkable boy” would neither stop nor stay. He had suddenly caught sight of a policeman turning into the lane, and forthwith took to his heels, under a vague and not unnatural impression that if that limb of the law found him in possession of a half-crown he would refuse to believe his innocence with as much obstinacy as the little old lady had refused to believe his guilt.

On reaching home he found his mother alone in a state of amused agitation which suggested to his mind the idea of Old Tom.

“Wot, bin at it again, mother?”

“No, no, Bobby, but somethin’s happened which amuses me much, an’ I can’t keep it to myself no longer, so I’ll tell it to you, Bobby.”

“Fire away, then, mother, an’ remember that the law don’t compel no one to criminate hisself.”

“You know, Bob, that a good while ago our Matty disappeared. I saw that the dear child was dyin’ for want o’ food an’ warmth an’ fresh air, so I thinks to myself, ‘why shouldn’t I put ’er out to board wi’ rich people for nothink?’”

“A wery correct notion, an’ cleverer than I gave you credit for. I’m glad to ear it too, for I feared sometimes that you’d bin an’ done it.”

“Oh! Bobby, how could you ever think that! Well, I put the baby out to board with a family of the name of Twitter. Now it seems, all unbeknown to me, Mrs Twitter is a great helper at the George Yard Ragged Schools, where our Hetty has often seen her; but as we’ve bin used never to speak about the work there, as your father didn’t like it, of course I know’d nothin’ about Mrs Twitter bein’ given to goin’ there. Well, it seems she’s very free with her money and gives a good deal away to poor people.” (She’s not the only one, thought the boy.) “So what does the Bible-nurse do when she hears about poor Hetty’s illness but goes off and asks Mrs Twitter to try an’ git her a situation.”

“‘Oh! I know Hetty,’ says Mrs Twitter at once, ‘That nice girl that teaches one o’ the Sunday-school classes. Send her to me. I want a nurse for our baby,’ that’s for Matty, Bob—”

“What! our baby!” exclaimed the boy with a sudden blaze of excitement.

“Yes—our baby. She calls it hers!”

“Well, now,” said Bobby, after recovering from the fit of laughter and thigh-slapping into which this news had thrown him, “if this don’t beat cockfightin’ all to nuffin’! why, mother, Hetty’ll know baby the moment she claps eyes on it.”

“Of course she will,” said Mrs Frog; “it is really very awkward, an’ I can’t think what to do. I’m half afraid to tell Hetty.”

“Oh! don’t tell her—don’t tell her,” cried the boy, whose eyes sparkled with mischievous glee. “It’ll be sich fun! If I ’ad on’y the chance to stand be’ind a door an’ see the meetin’ I wouldn’t exchange it—no not for a feed of pork sassengers an’ suet pud’n. I must go an’ tell this to Tim Lumpy. It’ll bust ’im—that’s my on’y fear, but I must tell ’im wotever be the consikences.”

With this stern resolve, to act regardless of results, Bob Frog went off in search of his little friend, whose departure for Canada had been delayed, from some unknown cause, much to Bob’s satisfaction. He found Tim on his way to the Beehive, and was induced not only to go with him, but to decide, finally, to enter the Institution as a candidate for Canada. Being well-known, both as to person and circumstances, he was accepted at once; taken in, washed, cropped, and transformed as if by magic.

Chapter Sixteen.

Sir Richard visits the Beehive, and sees many Surprising Things

“My dear Mrs Loper,” said Mrs Twitter over a cup of tea, “it is very kind of you to say so, and I really do think you are right, we have done full justice to our dear wee Mita. Who would ever have thought, remembering the thin starved sickly child she was the night that Sam brought her in, that she would come to be such a plump, rosy, lovely child? I declare to you that I feel as if she were one of my own.”

“She is indeed a very lovely infant,” returned Mrs Loper. “Don’t you think so, Mrs Larrabel?”

The smiling lady expanded her mouth, and said, “very.”

“But,” continued Mrs Twitter, “I really find that the entire care of her is too much for me, for, although dear Mary assists me, her studies require to be attended to, and, do you know, babies interfere with studies dreadfully. Not that I have time to do much in that way at present. I think the Bible is the only book I really study now, so, you see, I’ve been thinking of adding to our establishment by getting a new servant;—a sort of nursery governess, you know,—a cheap one, of course. Sam quite agrees with me, and, as it happens, I know a very nice little girl just now—a very very poor girl—who helps us so nicely on Sundays in George Yard, and has been recommended to me as a most deserving creature. I expect her to call to-night.”

“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?”