CHAPTER III.

LOST IN LONDON.

FOR a minute or two Sandy stood still again, bewildered and motionless, as at first, staring at the place where Gip ought to have been by her mother's side, and hardly able to believe that he should not see her white little face looking up suddenly from among the rags, and hear her cry,—

"Here little Gip are, Dandy!"

The wind and rain beat against the window, and soaked through the paper that covered most of the panes. Down in the alley there was an unusual stillness. All at once he fancied he could hear Gip crying and wailing in the storm, and could see her toddling with her naked feet on the wet stones, with her damp hair hanging over her little face. What a many streets there were in London, with so many turnings! and Gip was lost among them, wandering about alone in the rain and the wind and the darkness, trying to find Sandy, and crying for him to come and carry her home again. He felt as though his heart would break at the mere thought of it.

It was only for a minute or two that Sandy lingered, for there was no time to lose. Then he crept very cautiously towards his sleeping mother, and felt carefully in her pocket. No; she had not come home till every penny was spent; neither had he a penny in the world.

But he carried away with him his stock of fusees; for he had made up his mind during that minute or two, that as soon as he found little Gip, he would bear her off to some distant part of London, and go home no more to their drunken mother. He felt almost triumphant when this plan crossed his mind, in spite of his deep distress. Gip would soon be old enough now to run by his side, and when she was tired, he would carry her; and they would live together in any hole or corner. He knew several, where, if he put Gip next to the wall, and lay outside himself, perhaps she would not feel the rain and cold so very much. Some of the other fusee boys would help him when they were in luck, and he would help them in his turn. One thing he was resolved upon—he would never go back to his mother again, never!

He went slowly down into the quiet alley, still hoping he might hear Gip cry from some dark corner.

He called to her, at first softly, then more and more loudly, until some of the neighbours opened their doors or windows, and asked what was the matter, and why he was making that row?

"Mother's been and lost Gip," he answered, catching at the hope that perhaps she was safely lodged in one of their dwellings; "is there anybody as has seen her? It is a awful night, fit to drown the cats as are out of doors, and she's sich a little gel. Mother's dead drunk, and doesn't know a word about her. Hasn't anybody seen little Gip?"

The women chattered to one another across the narrow alley about Nancy Carroll and her drunkenness, but not one of them knew anything of Gip, except that she had been seen with her mother going down into the street a little before dark. One or two hinted that maybe she had been made away with as a trouble, and Sandy's blood ran chill at the mere thought of such a terrible thing.

"No, no!" he cried. "Nobody 'ud have the heart to do that; she's sich a pretty little gel. No, no! Mother 'ud never do sich a thing as that; she'd be good to her at times, she would, when she were herself; and little Gip wasn't never a trouble."

"Drink 'ill make Nancy Carroll do anything!" said a sharp-voiced woman, who prided herself upon not getting drunk oftener than once a week, and then upon a Sunday, when business was slack.

Sandy did not linger to discuss the dreadful question with her; he was only the more eager to be off, and prove the suspicion false, by finding Gip somewhere. Tucking up his stock-in-trade, by which he was to support Gip and himself, as securely as he could under his jacket, he turned away, and ran down the dark archway into the street.

But once there, which way was he to turn—to the right hand or the left? In the alley this perplexity had not troubled him, for there were not two directions where Gip could wander. There were spirit-vaults which his mother frequented at each end of the street. Every way there stretched around him a tangled network of streets, with lanes and alleys and courts crossing one another, extending for hundreds of miles. True, little Gip could not have wandered very far off as yet, for she was too small and weakly; but if Sandy chose one direction, perhaps she would be paddling away just in the opposite one, and every step he took would set them farther and farther apart.

First of all, he went to both of the spirit-vaults, which were crowded this wet night, and searched in every corner, asking the busy assistants behind the counters if they had seen a little girl all alone. But she was not there, and there was nothing else to guide him to her. Yet a choice had to be made, and trusting himself to his luck, Sandy set off running as fast as he could through the now deserted streets, peeping into every doorway with his quick, searching eyes, and shouting "Gip! Gip!" up every archway and passage where she might have found shelter, if she had had sense enough.

It was a miserable night, one that Sandy could never forget, if he lived to be a hundred years old. The rain came down pitilessly, and the gusts of wind tore past him, blowing open his tattered clothes, as to force a way for the cold rain to beat against his bare skin. But his dread for Gip made him almost unconscious of his own wretchedness and weariness and hunger. She had no shoes, had little Gip, or a bonnet, or a jacket; nothing but a worn-out cotton frock, which he had picked up very cheaply in Rag Fair; so cheap and worn that his mother had not found it worth while to sell it again.

To think of Gip out in this rain and wind was agony to him; and he could very well bear the smaller misery of being wet and chilled to the bone himself. Along the silent streets, over crossings, round corners, Sandy pressed on at the top of his speed, resting now and then to take breath on a doorstep for a short minute or so, until the eastern sky grew grey and the clouds overhead were no longer black, and the morning came, and all the great city woke up slowly; but yet he had not found Gip. She was lost still.

As the streets filled, he knew his chance of seeing or hearing her would be very small. But he could not give up the search. It seemed as if he could not live without little Gip. Why to lose her in this way would be a hundred times worse than to see her lying dead in her small coffin, like the other babies, and watch the lid nailed over her peaceful face, and follow her with quiet tears to the cemetery a long way off; where the ground swallowed them up, and there was an end of them! They would never be cold, or famished, or beaten any more. Why had not Gip died rather than this dreadful misfortune happen to her? He would never give up seeking for her until he found out whether she was living or dead.

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