CHAPTER VII.

A SAD SIGHT.

MRS. SHAFTO and Sandy were leaving the alley, disappointed and cast down, when a policeman, who seemed to be lying in wait for them, crossed the street, and laid his hand firmly on the lad's shoulder. Sandy writhed and struggled, but he could not set himself free from the strong grip. A knot of people, principally the inhabitants of the alley, gathered round quickly, and Mrs. Shafto's rosy face grew pale and frightened.

"What has the boy been doing?" she ventured to ask the policeman; for she was hemmed in by the crowd, and could not escape and start away home, as in the first moment of terror she wished to do.

"He's been doing nothing that I know of just now," answered the policeman; "but we want him at the station for a few minutes; and I must take care he doesn't give me the slip. Slippery as eels all this sort are."

"Can I go with him?" she asked again. "I'm very sorry for the boy; and my son Johnny will never rest till he knows what's become of him."

"Are you any relation of his?" enquired the man, looking inquisitively at her decent dress and her face, so different from the women who were crowding about them.

"No," she said: "I never saw him till about an hour ago, when Johnny brought him home to our house. But I came here with him to look for his mother and his little sister, who has been lost all the week; and now his mother is gone away, and not left word where he could find her. Poor boy!"

"Don't you know anything about your mother?" asked the policeman, tightening his hold upon Sandy's arm.

"I've never set eyes on her since last Tuesday night," answered Sandy, earnestly. "She'd been and lost my little Gip, and I swore I'd never go nigh her again till I'd found out Where Gip was. It's my little Gip I wants, not her."

"Should you know Gip if you saw her again?" asked the man.

"Know Gip!" repeated Sandy; but his voice failed him before he could say any more. Know Gip! Why! he knew every little black tangled curl on her head; every funny little look upon her face; every tone of her voice, whether laughing or crying. Know Gip! There was not anything else in the world he knew so well, not even hunger and cold; his own little Gip, whom he had nursed and tended from the very hour she was born!

"Come along with me, then," said the policeman, in a gruff, but not unkindly tone: "it's not far to the station, and maybe I can show you Gip."

There was no need to grasp Sandy firmly now; he would have followed the policeman faithfully to any spot in London. Mrs. Shafto could scarcely keep pace with them, so rapidly did they walk. She could not spare breath to utter a single word; and neither of the other two spoke. Sandy's heart was too full for speech; and the policeman closed his lips tightly, as if no power on earth, except his superintendent, could open them.

Mrs. Shafto was not quite sure she was doing what her husband would like; but she could not bear the idea of Johnny's deep disappointment if she lost sight of Sandy, and they never knew any more about him and lost Gip. Breathless and panting, she reached the entrance of the police station, just as Sandy was vanishing through an inner door.

"You can't go in there, ma'am," said a man, just within the entrance.

"It's a friend of the lad's," called back the policeman; "let her come on."

She found Sandy already standing in front of a high desk, over which appeared the head of an inspector, who was rapidly asking him questions, as if eager to get through the business, about his mother: where she lived, how she got her living, how often she was drunk, how many children she had had, and what they had died from.

"Was she kind to you and Gip?" he enquired, with his sharp eyes fastened on the boy.

"Not partic'ler," answered Sandy; "she'd knuckle me in the streets, and search me for coppers if she thought I'd got any. She weren't partic'ler kind, you know."

"Did you ever hear her threaten to get rid of her baby?"

"She'd swear at me and Gip when she were in drink," said Sandy, "and wish we was all dead and buried, but she weren't a partic'ler bad mother. I know them as has worse. If she hadn't lost little Gip, I'd not say a word again' her, sir. It was all drink as did it. Nobody couldn't be cruel to little Gip, such a good little thing she were, and so pretty."

"Tell me what Gip was like," said the inspector.

Sandy hesitated and stammered. He could see Gip before his eyes now; but how could he tell what she was like? He had not any words in which he could describe her; and he had never thought of her in that way.

"She were pretty," he answered, pausing between each word, "very pretty and good; and she'd such funny ways. She were like nobody but Gip, sir."

"Not like yourself, I suppose," said his examiner.

"I don't know what I are like," replied Sandy, looking down at his rough big hands and feet; "I don't think Gip were a bit like me."

"How old was she?"

"She were three year old last summer," he said; "mother were sellin' ripe cherries the day afore Gip were born; that I'm sure of, sir."

"Davis," said the inspector, "take the boy to see the body."

But Sandy did not move when the policeman came forward. He caught hold of the edge of the desk, to save himself from falling, and looked round the room with wild, terrified eyes; eyes that saw nothing which was before them. Everything had faded from his sight, and he saw only little Gip's pretty face mocking at him on every side. What was it the inspector had said? Take him to see the body. He knew well enough what that meant. He was not so ignorant as not to know that all the young children who perished in the streets and alleys about his house did not die simply from illness and bad air and unwholesome food. Often he had heard whispers going about from mouth to mouth that such and such a child had been made away with. But now those words seemed to burn in his brain as if he had never known of such things. He had put away angrily such a thought about his mother and little Gip, when the neighbours had hinted at it. And now she was lying, somewhere close at hand, dead! Not only dead, but murdered! No one touched him, no one spoke to him. His terror-stricken face kept all around him silent for a minute or two.

"Sandy! Sandy!" cried Mrs. Shafto, being the first to speak, and putting her arm round him as she might have done to her own lame son, "my poor dear boy! Perhaps it isn't Gip, after all. Nobody knows that it's Gip. Come with me to look at her. And if it should be Gip, I'll tell you where her soul is gone. It 'ill be nothing but her poor little body here; but Gip 'ill be gone to heaven, where Jesus is. You know nothing about it yet; but I can tell you. Come and see, and then I'll tell you all about it."

"Ay! I'll go," said Sandy, catching her by the arm, and walking with unsteady steps, for he felt sick and giddy. "Take us to see if it's my little Gip."

They passed on without another word, following the policeman down a long narrow passage, to a room, the door of which was locked. Sandy heard the grating of the key as it turned in the wards, and the opening of the door; but he did not dare to lift up his eyes. He held back for a moment, turning away his head, and shrinking as if he could not cross the door-sill. At last he looked in. The policeman had lit one jet of gas just above a long, narrow table; and underneath the bright light lay a small still figure, about the size of Gip, with a covering thrown over it. The man quietly turned down the covering, and in a gentle tone called Sandy to come in, and look at the dead little face.

Mrs. Shafto led him across the floor, whispering that she could tell him where Gip was really gone to, and that she was happier than he could think. Sandy's eyes had grown so dim again that he could see nothing clearly. There was such a haze before them, that the tiny face and little quiet form all seemed in a mist. Mrs. Shafto could see it plainly,—the pinched, worn features, a child's face, with the suffering look of a woman's; but it was at rest now, and at peace, with all the trouble ended, and all the suffering ceased. Her tears fell fast; and she bent over the dead child, and kissed it tenderly.

That awoke Sandy, who stood beside her and it as if in some dreadful dream. He rubbed his bedimmed eyes, and looked closely, though shudderingly, at the little child.

"Why, it's not my Gip at all!" he cried. "She'd black hair, and she were like a gipsy, not a bit like this little gel. No; that isn't Gip!"

He could hardly keep himself from breaking out into laughter, and dancing about the bare, empty room in this sudden deliverance from his agony of dread. But a second glance at the dead face sobered him. What this child was, his little Gip might be somewhere—a terrible thought, which would haunt him all his life long, if he could not find her.

They returned to the inspector's office, for Sandy to declare that the child found was not his lost sister; and after being warned that the police would have an eye upon him, he was allowed to go away in the care of Mrs. Shafto, who had voluntarily given her address, and promised that she also would keep her eye upon the homeless lad.

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