CHAPTER V.

DAVIE GAINS A NEW NAME.

THE next day, in the early part of the afternoon, Davie had a visit from his mother. He cried a little when first he saw her, he could not help that, but he quickly brightened up again, and became deeply interested in what she was telling him. And no wonder, for it was really a marvellous story.

She told him, she had felt so much better after he had left her on the previous Wednesday morning that she was able to finish the trousers, take them back, and get the money for them. With that she had bought some coal, and quite a nice little supper. But, alas! no Davie had come home to help eat it, and all night long she had sat up for him, getting more and more anxious as hour after hour went by.

As soon as possible the next morning she went out in search of him. It had occurred to her that very possibly he had met with an accident, and so she went to hospital after hospital to make inquiries.

"And oh! Davie," she said, breaking off in her story, and speaking in a husky voice, "you can't think how glad, and yet how sorry, I was to find you at last."

He gave the hand he held in both his own a sympathizing squeeze.

"But I found something else besides you," she continued, after a moment's pause, and in a steadier voice. "What do you think it was?"

"I don't see as there 'could' be anything else besides me."

"Yes, but there was—'a five-pound note.' Fancy that!"

Davie stared at her in utter astonishment. He had heard of such a thing, of course, but he had never seen one, and he had always thought of it with something approaching awe. Surely his mother must be joking!

"Ah! You may well look surprised, but it's true, all the same for that."

"'Whoever' gave it to you, mother?"

"It has to do with your accident, dear, and perhaps we'd best not talk about that. The doctor told me I wasn't to say anything that would upset you."

"It won't upset me, mother, dear. I'd like to know."

"Well, it seems that the carriage that ran over you belonged to some rich people, who were on their way to a grand ball that the Lord Mayor was giving to a lot of little ladies and gentlemen. They were that sorry about you, you can't think. Davie, and the gentleman actually got out of his carriage and came along with you to the hospital. And he left a five-pound note, and said that as soon as ever your friends were heard of, they were to have it, and since that—but you are 'sure' this doesn't make you feel worse, Davie?"

"No, it makes me better, because when I'm listening to you, I don't seem to feel the pain so much."

"Not content with that, then, the gentleman came here again the next day. He came himself, Davie, he didn't send a servant. And he asked for my address, and, do you know, his wife, such a grand lady, a Lady something—Lady Cloudesley, that's it—actually came and saw me. The twins were as dirty as they could be, and the room in such a mess, but down she sat, and talked away as free as if she had been a poor woman herself. But oh! She was so gentle and kind, and I declare, if she didn't cry when I told her what terrible straits I'd been put to. And she told me to take heart and not fret, for she would give me work that would pay better than the trouser-finishing, and that it wouldn't be long before she came to see me again. She said, too, that she should come and see you as soon as ever she could."

Davie was right when he told his mother that it made him "better" to listen to her. It drew off his attention from himself, and he made a great many inquiries about the lady on his own account. It pleased him to hear about her and the little boy, for he had often thought of him, wondering what caused him to be dressed up in such a gorgeous fashion, and where he could possibly be going. He eagerly asked other questions about the ball.

"Did 'everybody' go dressed up like that?" "What did the children 'do' when they got there?"

But Mrs. Willis only knew the bare fact that on the memorable night of Davie's accident there 'had' been a ball at the Mansion House, and that the little boy in the carriage was the son of Sir John and Lady Cloudesley, the lady and gentleman who had been so kind to her.

Davie, however, learnt more of the subject, when about a week after that, Lady Cloudesley came to pay her promised visit.

He was very shy for a little while, and his "Yes, my lady," and "No, my lady," the only replies which he ventured to make, were uttered in a whisper.

But presently she began talking to him about her son, her only child, and then Davie plucked up courage to tell her how he had seen him that night of the accident, as "the little gentleman" stood looking out of the carriage window.

Lady Cloudesley took up the story from that point, and went on to say that when she and her boy arrived at the Mansion House, the rooms were already full of children, and how some were dressed like fairies, and some like knights, and some in national costumes.

Davie looked puzzled at that; he did not understand what was meant by "national costumes." And seeing it, Lady Cloudesley paused to explain. Her little son, for instance, was dressed as the royal princes of France used many years ago to dress. Then the children had danced in beautiful rooms that were brilliant with a hundred lights, and she told him what a pretty sight it was to see them gliding over the polished floor, as their feet kept time to the music.

At that word Davie grew more interested than ever. Music? Was there music? Yes. Was he fond of music? Ah! Wasn't he! And that led to such delightful conversation that the little invalid forgot he was talking "to a real lady as had a grand name," and was quite sorry when at length she rose to wish him good-bye.

As she did so, she took from a basket that she carried on her arm, a lovely bunch of grapes, and laid it on Davie's bed within reach of his hand. Certainly he had "seen" as fine in the large shops in Regent Street, but that he should ever "taste" such fruit had never entered his head in his wildest dream. Lady Cloudesley left, promising to come again some day, and well pleased with the boy's evident amazement and delight.

By so small a thing as a word, a look, the simplest action, or a gift so insignificant that it seems hardly worth the bestowal, what happiness do we afford to our poorer brethren! Surely the vibration of their hearts' joy on earth must be sometimes so deep and so full that holy angels in heaven beholding it must feel the beat of the throb, and be thrilled with the gladness that has first entered a human heart.

But the excitement caused by Lady Cloudesley's visit had been somewhat too much for Davie, and towards the evening he became restless with weariness and pain. Presently he fell into a light slumber. In an hour or two, however, he awoke, feeling rather worse than better. His collar bone was nearly well now, but his leg ached with a dull, "grinding" pain that was hard to endure patiently. Davie thought that if he sang softly to himself, it might help him perhaps to bear it, and accordingly he began humming an air that he had often heard in the streets. The tones, though low, were wonderfully sweet. They reached the ears of the man on the bed next to that of the little singer, and being fond of music, he listened with delight and eagerness. He and Davie had struck up quite a friendship, so he did not hesitate to beg a favour of him.

"Couldn't you sing a bit louder?" he asked, when there came a pause in the humming.

"Yes, I could, but I was afraid, as it might disturb some of the patients."

"I don't see as how it could disturb them. But don't you know something sweeter-like, not quite such a merry tune. There's my missus, she's precious fond of singing hymns to get the little 'uns off to sleep. Couldn't you sing a hymn now?"

"I don't know the words; I know lots of tunes."

"Well, let's have a tune. After all, it don't so very much matter about the words."

Rejoiced to find that his neighbour possessed "a kindred soul," Davie was anxious to do his utmost to afford gratification, and began ransacking his memory for an old fragment of a hymn that he had learnt long ago in his brief and irregular school-days. He was successful beyond his hopes.

"I know most all of the verses of one," he said, after thinking a few minutes. It begins like this:

"'Abide with me, fast falls the eventide!'"

"Ah! Let's have that," responded the man heartily; "it's a rare favourite with the missus."

Accordingly Davie began, and now his voice, clear and sweet to a degree, penetrated to the farthest extent of the ward, flooding it with a melody to which many a sufferer listened entranced, and forgetting his pain, lay soothed and comforted.

At a stated hour the patients were permitted to sing, or visitors to sing to them, but it was now late in the evening, a time when almost perfect quietness was observed in the hospital. The nurse, therefore, was on the point of telling Davie that he must reserve his singing till the next day, but glancing around, she perceived that the look of pain on many a face was exchanged for a peaceful and happier expression, and seeing such was the case, she felt she could not silence the strains that were so powerful to soothe. So she let him go on, and in a few moments became almost as spell-bound as her charges, by the rare sweetness of the boy's voice.

"Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies; Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee; In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me."

Davie had not sung the whole hymn, but he remembered the closing verse, and encouraged by the silence, and carried away by the feeling that "music" always stirred within him, he put into that last one all the power of which he was capable. The words, "Abide with me," rang from one end of the ward to the other, and left echoes so sweet that one might well have believed that a choir of angels had taken up Davie's song, and that its distant strains were descending lightly to tell us for our comfort how near to this pain-ridden world of ours is that city of God, where "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying."

The deep silence that followed was broken by a husky voice from the bed directly opposite to Davie's. Its occupant was a middle-aged man, who, though he had been in the hospital only a few days, had already proved himself to be of a singularly refractory and repellent disposition.

"I have often heard that story about Saul," he said, "and how the wicked spirit was driven out of him by David's music, but I never 'understood' it till now." Then in a steadier voice, he continued, "I'd just got regular work, after having had nothing to do for weeks and weeks. And then I must needs tumble off that ladder, and be laid up for I don't know how long, and perhaps be naught but a poor cripple in the end. Ever since I've been in here I've felt as if I couldn't and 'wouldn't' bear it. But, my lad, your singing has brought a better feeling over me. It took me back again to the time when I was a little chap, and used to hear my mother sing as she went about her work. I hope you'll give us the hymn again to-morrow. I guess there isn't one here as wouldn't feel the better for it."

"Ay, you're right there," said Davie's next bed neighbour; "and I think," he continued in a voice that expressed no small delight at the idea, "as how we'd best call him 'King Davie.' He's been our King David to-night as one might say, only somehow it don't seem natural like to say David to Davie here."

"King" Davie! The words stirred up certain recollections in the boy's mind—recollections that were never long absent, it is true, but which now seemed awakened with an electric thrill. In imagination he saw a crowded church, a fervent, impassioned preacher. Again he seemed to be one of the vast congregation, and to be listening to that ringing voice as it cried with an exceeding earnest cry:

"Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."

He remembered the words and repeated them without a mistake, so great was the impression they had made upon him. The old longing, too, to know what they meant came back with doubled force. He felt instinctively that they bore reference to those things that tended to his eternal peace, and it occurred to him, with a strange sensation of alarm that perhaps he might never get well again.

During the last day or two, he had noticed a grave expression on Dr. Scott's face. And although he always answered his question of "How long will it be before I shall be quite well again, doctor?" with an encouraging "Not so very long, I hope, Davie," it seemed to the boy who was remarkably observant that it lacked the ring of heartiness with which his other questions were answered. Yes, he might die; younger children than he did every day.

On one or two occasions since he had been in the hospital, a lady had come, and sitting down by his bedside, had read to him from the Bible, and talked gently and lovingly about many things of which he had never before heard. She would be able to tell him what he wanted to know, and having resolved to open his mind to her the next time she came, Davie felt comforted.

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