tom jones, having secured the baby's comforter, the thin paisley shawl, and the little winsey frock, ran as fast as he could to a pawnbroker's hard by.
there he received a shilling on the articles, and with this shilling jingling pleasantly in his pocket he entered an eating-house which he knew, and prepared to enjoy some pea pudding and pork.
tom expended exactly the half of the shilling on his dinner; he ate it greedily, for he was very hungry indeed, and then he went back into the street, with sixpence still to the good in his trouser pocket.
with sixpence in his pocket, and a comfortable dinner inside of him, tom felt that his present circumstances were delightfully easy.[pg 244] he might walk about the streets with quite fine gentlemanly airs for an hour or two, if he so willed. or he might flatten his nose against the shop windows, or he might play halfpenny pitch and toss. his circumstances were really affluent, and of course he ought to have been correspondingly happy. the odd thing was that he was not very happy; he could not get billy's white face out of his head, and he could not altogether forget the icy cold feel of the baby's little arms, when he slipped off that brown winsey frock.
tom was as hard a boy as ever lived, and a year ago his conscience might not have troubled him, even for playing so wicked a prank as he had done that day. but since then he had met with a softening influence. tom jones had been very ill with a bad fever, and during that time had been taken care of in the london fever hospital.
in that hospital, the wild, rough street boy had listened to many kind and gentle words and had witnessed many noble and self-denying actions.[pg 245]
two or three children had died while tom was in the hospital, and the nurses had told the other children that this death only meant going home for the little ones, and that they were now safely housed, and free from any more sin and any more temptation.
tom had listened to the gentle words of the kind sister nurse, without heeding them much.
but the memory of the whole scene came back to him to-day, all mingled strangely with billy's pale face and the baby's cold little form, until he became quite compunctious and unhappy, and finally felt that he could not spend that remaining sixpence, but must let it burn a hole in his pocket, and do anything, in short, rather than provide him with food and shelter. tom was accustomed to spending his nights under archways and huddled up in any sheltered corner he could discover.
this particular night he was lucky enough to find a cart half-full of hay, and here he would doubtless have had a delicious sleep, had not the baby and billy come into his dreams. the[pg 246] baby and billy between them managed to give poor tom a horrible time of it, and at last he felt that he could bear it no longer: he must go and give billy the sixpence which remained out of his shilling.
he started tolerably early the next morning, and carefully turning his face away from the bakers' shops and coffee-stalls as he passed them, he found himself presently in aylmer's court.
he had conquered himself in the matter of the bakers' shops and the coffee stalls, and in consequence he felt a good deal elated, his conscience became easier, and he began to say to himself that very few boys would restore even a stolen sixpence when they were starving. he ran up the stairs, calling out to a neighbor to know if billy andersen was within.
"i believe yer," she replied; "jest listen to that 'ere blessed babby, a-screamin' of itself into fits; oh! bother her for as ill-mannered a child as ever i came across."
tom ran up the remainder of the stairs, and entered billy's attic without knocking.[pg 247]
there he saw a sight which made him draw in his breath with a little start of surprise and terror; the baby was sitting up in bed and crying lustily, and billy was lying with his back to her, quite motionless, and apparently deaf to her most piteous wails.
billy's usual white face was flushed a fiery red, and his breathing, loud and labored, fell with solemn distinctness on tom's ears.
tom knew these signs at a glance; he had seen them so often in the fever hospital.
shutting the door softly behind him, and first of all taking the baby in his arms and thrusting a sticky lollipop, which he happened to have in his waistcoat pocket, into her mouth:
"be yer werry bad, billy andersen?" he said, stooping down over the sick boy.
"our father," replied billy, raising his blue eyes and fixing them in a pathetic manner on tom. "'tis our father i wants."
"why, he were a bad'un," said tom; "he runned away from yer, he did; i wouldn't be fretting about him, if i was you, billy lad."[pg 248]
"'tis the other one—'tis t'other one i means," said billy in a weak gasping voice. "i has 'ad the words afore me all night long—our father; tell us what it means, tom, do."
"i know all about it," said tom in a tone of wisdom; "i larned about it in hospital. there, shut up, sairey ann, do; what a young 'un yer are for squallin'. our father lives in heaven, billy, and he'll—he'll—oh! i am sure i forgets—look yere, wouldn't yer like some breakfast, old chap?"
"water," gasped billy, "and some milk for the babby."
tom found himself, whether he wished it or not, installed as billy's nurse.
he had to run out and purchase a penny-worth of milk, and he had also the forethought to provide himself with a farthing's worth of bull's eyes, one of which he popped into sarah ann's mouth whenever she began to howl.
never had tom jones passed so strange a day. it did not occur to him that billy was in any danger, but neither did it come into his[pg 249] wild, untutored, hard little heart to desert his sick comrade.
by means of the lollipops, he managed to keep sarah ann quiet, and then he kindled a tiny fire in the grate, and sat down by billy, and gave him plentiful drinks of cold water whenever he asked for them.
billy shivered and flushed alternately, and his blue eyes had a glassy look, and his breath came harder and faster as the slow sad day wore away.
tom, however, never deserted his post, satisfying his own hunger with a hunk of dry bread, and managing to keep sarah ann quiet.
toward evening, billy seemed easier; the dreadful oppression of his breathing was not quite so intense, and the flush on his face had given way to pallor.
tom lit a morsel of candle and placed it in a tin sconce, and then he once more sat down by his little comrade. for the first time then tom noticed that solemn and peculiar look which billy's well-known features wore. he puzzled his brain to recall where he had last seen such[pg 250] an expression; then it came back to him—it was in the fever hospital, and the little ones who had worn it had soon gone home.
was billy going home? the baby lay asleep in tom's arms, and he looked from her to the sick child whose eyes were now closed, and whose breath was faint and light.
"shall i fetch a doctor, old chap?" he whispered.
billy shook his head.
"tell us wot yer knows about our father," he said in a very low and feeble voice.
"our father," began tom. "he lives in heaven, he do. he's kind and he gives lots of good things to the young 'uns as lives with him in heaven. it sounds real fine," continued tom, "the way as our father treats them young 'uns, only the worst of it is," he added with the air of a philosopher, "we 'as to die first."
"to die," said billy, "yes, and wot then?"
"i 'spect," continued tom, "as our father fetches us up 'ome somehow, but i'm very ignorant; i don't know nothing, but jest that there's a home and a father somewheres. look[pg 251] yere, billy, old chap, you ain't going to die, be yer?"
"i 'spect i be," said billy; "a home somewheres, and our father there, it sounds werry nice."
then he closed his eyes again, and his breath came a little quicker and a little weaker, and the solemn look grew and deepened on his white face.
"give me my babby," he said an hour later; "lay her alongside o' me; oh! my darling, darling sairey ann; and i'll tell mother when she comes in."
but mother never got her message, for when next billy spoke, it was in the safe home of our father.
billy's baby grew up by and by, but no one ever loved her better than billy did.
