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going somewheres. Thats where Im a going. She told me, down in Tom-all-Alones, as she come from Stolbuns, and so I took the Stolbuns Road. Its as good as another. He always concluded by addressing Charley. What is to be done with him? said I, taking the woman aside. He could not travel in this state, even if he had a purpose, and knew where he was going! I know no more, maam, than the dead, she replied, glancing compassionately at him. Perhaps the dead know better, if they could only tell us. Ive kept him here all day for pitys sake, and Ive given him broth and physic, and Liz has gone to try if any one will take him in (heres my pretty in the bed her child, but I call it mine); but I cant keep him long, for if my husband was to come home and find him here, hed be rough in putting him out, and might do him a hurt. Hark! Here comes Liz back! The other woman came hurriedly in as she spoke, and the boy got up with a half obscured sense that he was expected to be going. When the little child awoke, and when and how Charley got at it, took it out of bed, and began to walk about hushing it, I dont know. There she was, doing all this, in a quiet motherly manner, as if she were living in Mrs Blinders attic with Tom and Emma again. The friend had been here and there, and had been played about from hand to hand, and had come back as she went. At first it was too early for the boy to be received into the proper refuge, and at last it was too late. One official sent her to another, and the other sent her back again to the first, and so backward and forward; until it appeared to me as if both must have been appointed for their skill in evading their duties, instead of performing them. And now, after all, she said, breathing quickly, for she had been running, and was frightened too, Jenny, your masters on the road home, and mines not far behind, and the Lord help the boy, for we can do no more for him! They put a few halfpence together and hurried them into his hand, and so, in an oblivious, half-thankful, half-insensible way, he shuffled out of the house. Give me the child, my dear! said its mother to Charley, and thank you kindly too! Jenny, woman dear, good night! Young lady, if my master dont fall out with me, Ill look down by the kiln by and by, where the boy will be most like, and again in the morning! She hurried off; and presently we passed her hushing and singing to her child at her own door, and looking anxiously along the road for her drunken husband. I was afraid of staying then, to speak to either woman, lest I should bring her into trouble. But I said to Charley that we must not leave the boy to die. Charley, who knew what to do much better than I did, and whose quickness equalled her presence of mind, glided on before me, and presently we came up with Jo, just short of the brick-kiln. I think he must have begun his journey with some small bundle under his arm, and must have had it stolen, or lost it. For he still carried his wretched fragment of fur cap like a bundle, though he went bare- headed through the rain, which now fell fast. He stopped when we called to him, and again showed a dread of me when I came up; standing with his lustrous eyes fixed upon me, and even arrested in his shivering fit. I asked him to come with us, and we would take care that he had some shelter for the night. I dont want no shelter, he said; I can lay amongst the warm bricks. But dont you know that people die there? returned Charley. They dies everywheres, said the boy. They dies in their lodgings she knows where; I showed her and they dies down in Tom-all-Alones in heaps. They dies more than they lives, according to what I see. Then he hoarsely whispered Charley, If she aint the tother one, she aint the forrenner. Is there three of em then? |
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