CHAPTER VIII.

MR. SHAFTO.

SANDY had no desire to slip away from the friendly guardianship of Mrs. Shafto. Her words had strengthened the new hope in his heart, that the grave was not the end of those children he had seen buried in it, and he wished to learn more about this strange and good news. He kept close beside her, though she seemed less inclined to talk to him than when they were going to look for his mother. She could not trust herself to speak, for her heart was full of the sad and terrible sight she had just left.

Mrs. Shafto was also a little anxious about Sandy, who followed her so closely, as closely as a stray and homeless dog might have done, and for whom she had undertaken a kind of responsibility. Though they were not as miserable and degraded as the people she had been seeing, they were very poor, she and her husband; so poor that, but for her own hard and incessant work as a needlewoman, they would often have to go without sufficient bread to eat.

What was she to do with this great, growing lad out of the streets, as wild and ignorant as a young savage; a thief very probably; with no spark of good in him, except his love for his little sister? She knew very well that her husband would grudge any help given to Sandy if it deprived him of the least comfort, or demanded of him any self-denial. But she could not endure the thought of thrusting him away, uncomforted and unhelped, into the open street, with no sort of home to find refuge in. She could not treat a dog so; and of how much more worth was this boy than a dog! Besides, it was Johnny who had found him first, and brought him home—her lame lad, who seemed to know so well what Christ would have him do, and how to tread gladly in his Lord's steps. She could not go back to the house, and tell him she had cast off Sandy, and left him in the great wilderness of London.

On went Mrs. Shafto, still sadly and in silence, across the square grave-yard, and through the gloomy shop, with its small coffin open on the counter—a coffin that would have just fitted the dead baby she had kissed. Sandy followed her, his bare feet making no sound upon the floor; but he stopped at the door of the kitchen, for there was a strange person there—not his new friend, Johnny Shafto.

This person was a tall lanky man, about forty-five years old, whose thin long legs were stretched quite across the hearth, as though no one else needed to sit by the fire. He was lolling in the comfortable padded chair in the best corner, his hands hanging idly from his wrists, and his arms from his shoulders, as if he never had done and never could do one hearty task of work. His face was narrow and gloomy, with straight hair falling over it; and his head drooped as if he found it too much trouble to hold it upright. He looked up lazily as Mrs. Shafto went in, and spoke to her with a fretful voice.

"What a time you've been," he said, "gadding about on a Sunday evening on other people's business, and I've been wanting my tea this half-hour. Nobody asked me to stay at the school; I suppose they think nothing of me for being an undertaker, without any business either. If I had a thriving trade, and kept a mourning coach or two, it would be a different thing. They never seem to remember that I'm a Shafto, and my grandfather was their minister in his time. If my father had done his duty by me, they would have been ready enough, every one of them, to invite me to tea. Where have you been to, Mary?"

She was hastily taking off her bonnet and shawl before getting the tea ready, and now both her face and voice quivered as she answered.

"I've been seeing a sad sight," she said; "Johnny will have told you about the poor boy that has lost his sister? Well, him and me have been to a police station—a place I was never in before, and we've seen a poor dear dead little creature, no bigger than my Mary when she was taken from me; a poor murdered baby, and I cannot get the sight out of my head."

"You've got such a poor head," said Mr. Shafto, "always running on other folks. I dare say you never thought of mentioning that your husband was an undertaker, and had a coffin he could sell cheaply, and would bury it as reasonably as anybody in London; now did you?"

"I never thought of it," she answered.

"That's just what I say," he continued, triumphantly; "you never do remember things useful, when we've a child's coffin in stock. Why don't you shut that door?"

Mrs. Shafto stepped back to the doorway, and whispered to Sandy to sit down in the dark shop for a few minutes, till tea was ready. Then she shut him out of the bright little kitchen, and went softly up to her husband, speaking in a voice lower and unsteadier than usual.

"Dear John," she said, coaxingly, "it was our Johnny that brought yonder poor lad to our house. He's taken such a fancy to him, it would grieve him sorely if we turned our backs upon him. Maybe Johnny won't be spared to us much longer; and I could never forgive myself if I'd hurt him about anything. Besides, don't you remember, John—you that are such a scholar yourself, and your grandfather minister at the chapel—how the King says, when the Last Day is come, that He counts all we do for these poor creatures of His as if it were done to Him? It looks as if God had brought this boy and Johnny together, and we must not set ourselves against anything He does."

"Where is the boy?" enquired Mr. Shafto.

"He's in the shop, in the dark. I'd light the gas, and give him something to eat there, if you think he's not fit company for us. But it's not pleasant to eat among coffins and plumes. And, dear! dear! how ever shall we be fit company for angels? Though my Johnny 'ill be fit for them, I know; only I'm afraid I shall never be."

"I suppose you'll have your own way," grumbled Mr. Shafto.

"But I want it to be your way too, my dear, fully and freely," she continued, patiently. "I want you to feel, when Sandy's eating our morsel of bread, that he's here in the place of the Lord Jesus. I'm sorry I never thought to say my husband was an undertaker, and would bury the baby reasonably. I know I'd have made it a pretty shroud, poor thing! But that's past and gone; and you must forgive me, John. Why, that's rhyme I've made, you hear. Ah! you're a great scholar, and I don't mind your laughing at me. I may call Sandy in, and put him in a corner where you needn't see him, if you like, for Johnny's sake, you know?"

"Well, he may come in," said Mr. Shafto, dropping his head down again, and stretching out his legs still farther across the warm hearth.

Mrs. Shafto opened the door quietly, and called Sandy in a whisper, placing a chair for him in a corner, as much as possible out of sight of her husband, who did not appear to take any notice of the boy. But he groaned aloud several times, causing Sandy to start nervously, for his mind had been over-strained, and his body was faint with excitement and fatigue. Mr. Shafto's groans seemed to betoken some new and dreadful calamity, and Sandy could scarcely keep himself from bursting into a vehement fit of crying.

But it was not long before tea was ready, and Mrs. Shafto went to the foot of a staircase, which wound like a corkscrew up to the two low rooms in the roof. She called "Johnny!"

And the next moment the tap, tap of a pair of crutches sounded on the floor; and John Shafto came down the crooked staircase slowly and laboriously, till he reached the last step, and his pale face and dazzling eyes peered in at them from the darkness. It was a radiant face, unlike any that Sandy had ever seen, with a happy smile upon it, as though he had learned some great secret, and could never more be overwhelmed by sorrow.

"Where is Sandy?" he asked, for his eyes could not see him in the sudden light. "Have you found little Gip, mother?"

"Not yet, Johnny," she answered, cheerfully; "there's Sandy. Go and sit by him, dear heart; and he'll tell you about what we've been doing."

John Shafto sat down by Sandy, with his hand through his arm, ready to listen eagerly to all he could tell him, asking him questions, and talking about little Gip in his low pleasant voice. Until Sandy felt that, even if little Gip were lost, he would have another friend who would love him, and whom he could love. They whispered together till bed-time, forming plans for seeking and finding poor lost Gip.

That night, after Mr. Shafto had gone to bed, Mrs. Shafto made up a place for Sandy to sleep on the kitchen hearth, with an old mattress and a brown moth-eaten velvet pall out of the shop, which had not been in use for years. It made so grand and magnificent a bed, that Sandy was almost afraid to lie down upon it, and could scarcely believe it was not all a dream.

Once when he awoke, before the fire had quite burned out, and saw the polished warming pan twinkling, and the steel balls glittering in the dim light, he sat up to rouse himself, and think where he could be. Then the remembrance of the lame boy's tender face and pleasant voice came back to him, and he went to sleep again with a strange sense of peace at the thought of the new friend he had found.

———◆———