A GREAT AND MEMORABLE DAY

When young Stephen Welland was conducted by John Seaward the missionary into a large field dotted with trees, close to where his accident had happened, he found that the children and their guardians were busily engaged in making arrangements for the spending of an enjoyable day.

And then he also found that this was not a mere monster excursion of ordinary Sunday-schools, but one of exceedingly poor children, whose garments, faces, and general condition, told too surely that they belonged to the lowest grade in the social scale.

“Yes,” said the missionary, in reply to some question from Welland, “the agency at George Yard, to which I have referred, has a wide-embracing influence ­though but a small lump of leaven when compared with the mass of corruption around it.  This is a flock of the ragged and utterly forlorn, to many of whom green fields and fresh air are absolutely new, but we have other flocks besides these.”

“Indeed!  Well, now I look at them more carefully, I see that their garments do speak of squalid poverty.  I have never before seen such a ragged crew, though I have sometimes encountered individuals of the class on the streets.”

“Hm!” coughed the missionary with a peculiar smile.  “They are not so ragged as they were.  Neither are they as ragged as they will be in an hour or two.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that these very rough little ones have to receive peculiar treatment before we can give them such an outing as they are having to-day.  As you see, swings and see-saws have been put up here, toys are now being distributed, and a plentiful feast will ere long be forthcoming, through the kindness of a Christian gentleman whose heart the Lord has inclined to `consider the poor,’ but before we could venture to move the little band, much of their ragged clothing had to be stitched up to prevent it falling off on the journey, and we had to make them move carefully on their way to the train ­for vans have brought us only part of the way.  Now that they are here, our minds are somewhat relieved, but I suspect that the effect of games and romping will undo much of our handiwork.  Come, let us watch them.”

The youth and the missionary advanced towards a group of the children, whose souls, for the time being, were steeped in a see-saw.  This instrument of delight consisted of a strong plank balanced on the trunk of a noble tree which had been recently felled, with many others, to thin the woods of the philanthropist’s park.  It was an enormous see-saw! such as the ragged creatures had never before seen ­perhaps never conceived of, their experiences in such joys having been hitherto confined to small bits of broken plank placed over empty beer barrels, or back-yard fences.  No fewer than eight children were able to find accommodation on it at one and the same time, besides one of the bigger boys to straddle in the centre; and it required the utmost vigilance on the part of a young man teacher at one end of the machine, and Hetty Frog at the other end, to prevent the little ragamuffins at either extremity from being forced off.

Already the missionary’s anticipation in regard to the undoing of their labour had begun to be verified.  There were at least four of the eight whose nether garments had succumbed to the effort made in mounting the plank, and various patches of flesh-colour revealed the fact that the poor little wearers were innocent of flannels.  But it was summer-time, and the fact had little effect either on wearers or spectators.  The missionary, however, was not so absorbed in the present but that he felt impelled to remark to Welland:  “That is their winter as well as summer clothing.”

The bicyclist said nothing in reply, but the remark was not lost upon him.

“Now, Dick Swiller,” said the young man teacher, “I see what you’re up to.  You mustn’t do it!”

Richard Swiller, who was a particularly rugged as well as ragged boy of about thirteen, not being in the habit of taking advice, did do it.  That is, he sent his end of the plank up with such violence that the other end came to the ground with a shock which caused those who sat there to gasp, while it all but unseated most of those who were on the higher end.  Indeed one very small and pinched but intelligent little boy, named by his companions Blobby, who looked as if Time, through the influence of privation and suffering, had been dwindling instead of developing him, ­actually did come off with a cry of alarm, which, however, changed into a laugh of glee when he found himself in his teacher’s arms, instead of lying “busted on the ground,” as he afterwards expressed it when relating the incident to an admiring audience of fellow ragamuffins in the slums of Spitalfields.

Blobby was immediately restored to his lost position, and Swiller was degraded, besides being made to stand behind a large tree for a quarter of an hour in forced inaction, so that he might have time to meditate on the evil consequences of disobedience.

“Take care, Robin,” said Hetty, to a very small but astonishingly energetic fellow, at her end of the see-saw, who was impressed with the notion that he was doing good service by wriggling his own body up and down, “if you go on so, you’ll push Lilly Snow off.”

Robin, unlike Dick, was obedient.  He ceased his efforts, and thereby saved the last button which held his much too small waistcoat across his bare bosom.

“What a sweet face the child she calls Lilly Snow has ­if it were only clean,” observed Welland.  “A little soap and water with a hair brush would make her quite beautiful.”

“Yes, she is very pretty,” said the missionary and the kindly smile with which he had been watching the fun vanished, as he added in a sorrowful voice, “her case is a very sad one, dear child.  Her mother is a poor but deserving woman who earns a little now and then by tailoring, but she has been crushed for years by a wicked and drunken husband who has at last deserted her.  We know not where he is, perhaps dead.  Five times has her home been broken up by him, and many a time has she with her little one been obliged to sit on doorsteps all night, when homeless.  Little Lilly attends our Sunday-school regularly, and Hetty is her teacher.  It is not long since Hetty herself was a scholar, and I know that she is very anxious to lead Lilly to the Lord.  The sufferings and sorrows to which this poor child has been exposed have told upon her severely, and I fear that her health will give way.  A day in the country like this may do her good perhaps.”

As the missionary spoke little Lilly threw up her arms and uttered a cry of alarm.  Robin, although obedient, was short of memory, and his energetic spirit being too strong for his excitable little frame he had recommenced his wriggling, with the effect of bursting the last button off his waistcoat and thrusting Lilly off the plank.  She was received, however, on Hetty’s breast, who fell with her to the ground.

“Not hurt, Hetty!” exclaimed the missionary, running forward to help the girl up.

“Oh! no, sir,” replied Hetty with a short laugh, as she rose and placed Lilly on a safer part of the see-saw.

“Come here, Hetty,” said John Seaward, “and rest a while.  You have done enough just now; let some one else take your place.”

After repairing the buttonless waistcoat with a pin and giving its owner a caution, Hetty went and sat down on the grass beside the missionary.

“How is Bobby?” asked the latter, “I have not found a moment to speak to you till now.”

“Thank you, sir, he’s better; much better.  I fear he will be well too soon.”

“How so?  That’s a strange remark, my girl.”

“It may seem strange, sir, but ­you know ­father’s very fond of Bobby.”

“Well, Hetty, that’s not a bad sign of your father.”

“Oh but, sir, father sits at his bedside when he’s sober, an’ has such long talks with him about robberies and burglaries, and presses him very hard to agree to go out with him when he’s well.  I can’t bear to hear it, for dear Bobby seems to listen to what he says, though sometimes he refuses, and defies him to do his worst, especially when he ­”

“Stay, dear girl.  It is very very sad, but don’t tell me anything more about your father.  Tell it all to Jesus, Hetty.  He not only sympathises with, but is able to save ­even to the uttermost.”

“Yes, thank God for that `uttermost,’” said the poor girl, clasping her hands quickly together.  “Oh, I understood that when He saved me, and I will trust to it now.”

“And the gentleman who called on you, ­has he been again?” asked the missionary.

“No, sir, he has only come once, but he has sent his butler three or four times with some money for us, and always with the message that it is from Miss Diana, to be divided between Bobby and me.  Unfortunately father chanced to be at home the first time he came and got it all, so we got none of it.  But he was out the other times.  The butler is an oldish man, and a very strange one.  He went about our court crying.”

“Crying!  Hetty, that’s a curious condition for an oldish butler to be in.”

“Oh, of course I don’t mean cryin’ out like a baby,” said Hetty, looking down with a modest smile, “but I saw tears in his eyes, and sometimes they got on his cheeks.  I can’t think what’s the matter with him.”

Whatever Mr Seaward thought on this point he said nothing, but asked if Bobby was able to go out.

Oh yes, he was quite able to walk about now with a little help, Hetty said, and she had taken several walks with him and tried to get him to speak about his soul, but he only laughed at that, and said he had too much trouble with his body to think about his soul ­there was time enough for that!

They were interrupted at this point by a merry shout of glee, and, looking up, found that young Welland had mounted the see-saw, taken Lilly Snow in front of him, had Dick Swiller reinstated to counterbalance his extra weight, and was enjoying himself in a most hilarious manner among the fluttering rags.  Assuredly, the fluttering rags did not enjoy themselves a whit less hilariously than he.

In this condition he was found by the owner of the grounds, George Brisbane, Esquire, of Lively Hall, who, accompanied by his wife, and a tall, dignified friend with a little girl, approached the see-saw.

“I am glad you enjoy yourself so much, my young friend,” he said to Welland; “to which of the ragged schools may you belong?”

In much confusion ­for he was rather shy ­Welland made several abortive efforts to check the see-saw, which efforts Dick Swiller resisted to the uttermost, to the intense amusement of a little girl who held Mrs Brisbane’s hand.  At last he succeeded in arresting it and leaped off.

“I beg pardon,” he said, taking off his cap to the lady as he advanced, “for intruding uninvited on ­”

“Pray don’t speak of intrusion,” interrupted Mr Brisbane, extending his hand; “if you are here as Mr Seaward’s friend you are a welcome guest.  Your only intrusion was among the little ones, but as they seem not to resent it neither do I.”

Welland grasped the proffered hand.  “Thank you very much,” he returned, “but I can scarcely lay claim to Mr Seaward’s friendship.  The fact is, I am here in consequence of an accident to my bicycle.”

“Oh! then you are one of the poor unfortunates after all,” said the host.  “Come, you are doubly welcome.  Not hurt much, I hope.  No?  That’s all right.  But don’t let me keep you from your amusements.  Remember, we shall expect you at the feast on the lawn.  You see, Sir Richard,” he added, turning to his dignified friend, “when we go in for this sort of thing we don’t do it by halves.  To have any lasting effect, it must make a deep impression.  So we have got up all sorts of amusements, as you observe, and shall have no fewer than two good feeds.  Come, let us visit some other ­Why, what are you gazing at so intently?”

He might well ask the question, for Sir Richard Brandon had just observed Hetty Frog, and she, unaccustomed to such marked attention, was gazing in perplexed confusion on the ground.  At the same time little Di, having caught sight of her, quitted Mrs Brisbane, ran towards her with a delighted scream, and clasping her hand in both of hers, proclaimed her the sister of “my boy!”

Hetty’s was not the nature to refuse such affection.  Though among the poorest of the poor, and clothed in the shabbiest and most patchy of garments, (which in her case, however, were neat, clean and well mended), she was rich in a loving disposition; so that, forgetting herself and the presence of others, she stooped and folded the little girl in her arms.  And, when the soft brown hair and pale pretty face of Poverty were thus seen as it were co-mingling with the golden locks and rosy cheeks of Wealth, even Sir Richard was forced to admit to himself that it was not after all a very outrageous piece of impropriety!

“Oh!  I’m so glad to hear that he’s much better, and been out too!  I would have come to see him again long long ago, but p ­”

She checked herself, for Mrs Screwbury had carefully explained to her that no good girl ever said anything against her parents; and little Di had swallowed the lesson, for, when not led by passion, she was extremely teachable.

“And oh!” she continued, opening her great blue lakelets to their widest state of solemnity, “you haven’t the smallest bit of notion how I have dreamt about my boy ­and my policeman too!  I never can get over the feeling that they might both have been killed, and if they had, you know, it would have been me that did it; only think!  I would have ­ been ­a murderer!  P’raps they’d have hanged me!”

“But they weren’t killed, dear,” said Hetty, unable to restrain a smile at the awful solemnity of the child, and the terrible fate referred to.

“No ­I’m so glad, but I can’t get over it,” continued Di, while those near to her stood quietly by unable to avoid overhearing, even if they had wished to do so.  “And they do such strange things in my dreams,” continued Di, “you can’t think.  Only last night I was in our basket-cart ­the dream-one, you know, not the real one ­and the dream-pony ran away again, and gave my boy such a dreadful knock that he fell flat down on his back, tumbled over two or three times, and rose up ­a policeman!  Not my policeman, you know, but quite another one that I had never seen before!  But the very oddest thing of all was that it made me so angry that I jumped with all my might on to his breast, and when I got there it wasn’t the policeman but the pony! and it was dead ­quite dead, for I had killed it, and I wasn’t sorry at all ­not a bit!”

This was too much for Hetty, who burst into a laugh, and Sir Richard thought it time to go and see the games that were going on in other parts of the field, accompanied by Welland and the missionary, while Hetty returned to her special pet Lilly Snow.

And, truly, if “one touch of nature makes the whole world kin,” there were touches of nature enough seen that day among these outcasts of society to have warranted their claiming kin with the whole world.

Leap-frog was greatly in favour, because the practitioners could abandon themselves to a squirrel-and-cat sort of bound on the soft grass, which they had never dared to indulge in on the London pavements.  It was a trying game, however, to the rags, which not only betrayed their character to the eye by the exhibition of flesh-tints through numerous holes, but addressed themselves also to the ears by means of frequent and explosive rendings.  Pins, however, were applied to the worst of these with admirable though temporary effect, and the fun became faster and more furious, ­especially so when the points of some of the pins touched up the flesh-tints unexpectedly.

On these occasions the touches of nature became strongly pronounced ­ expressing themselves generally in a yell.  Another evidence of worldly kinship was, that the touched-up ones, instead of attributing the misfortune to accident, were prone to turn round with fierce scowl and doubled fists under the impression that a guilty comrade was in rear!

The proceedings were totally arrested for one hour at mid-day, when unlimited food was issued, and many of the forlorn ones began to feel the rare sensation of being stuffed quite full and rendered incapable of wishing for more!  But this was a mere interlude.  Like little giants refreshed they rose up again to play ­to swing, to leap, to wrestle, to ramble, to gather flowers, to roll on the grass, to bask in the gladdening sunshine, and, in some cases, to thank God for all His mercies, in spite of the latent feeling of regret that there was so little of all that enjoyment in the slums, and dark courts, and filthy back-streets of the monster city.

Of course all the pins were extracted in this second act of the play, and innumerable new and gaping wounds were introduced into the clothing, insomuch that all ordinary civilised people, except philanthropists, would have been shocked with the appearance of the little ones.

But it was during the third and closing act of the play that the affair culminated.  The scene was laid on the lawn in front of Mr Brisbane’s mansion.

Enter, at one end of the lawn, a band of small and dirty but flushed and happy boys and girls, in rags which might appropriately be styled ribbons.  At the other end of the lawn a train of domestics bearing trays with tea, cakes, buns, pies, fruits, and other delectable things, to which the ragged army sits down.

Enter host and hostess, with Sir Richard, friends and attendants.

(Host.) ­after asking a blessing ­“My little friends, this afternoon we meet to eat, and only one request have I to make ­that you shall do your duty well.” (Small boy in ribbons. ­“Von’t I, just!”) “No platter shall return to my house till it be empty.  No little one shall quit these premises till he be full; what cannot be eaten must be carried away.”

(The ragged army cheers.)

(Host.) ­“Enough.  Fall-to.”

(They fall-to.)

(Little boy in tatters, pausing.) ­“I shan’t fall two, I’ll fall three or four.”

(Another little boy, in worse tatters.) ­“So shall I.”

(First little boy.) ­“I say, Jim, wot would mother say if she was here?”

(Jim.) ­“She’d say nothin’.  ’Er mouth ’ud be too full to speak.”

(Prolonged silence.  Only mastication heard, mingled with a few cases of choking, which are promptly dealt with.)

(Blobby, with a sigh.) ­“I say, Robin, I’m gettin’ tight.”

(Robin, with a gasp.) ­“So am I; I’m about bustin’.”

(Blobby, coming to another pause.) ­“I say, Robin, I’m as full as I can ‘old.  So’s all my pockits, an’ there’s some left over!”

(Robin ­sharply.) ­“Stick it in your ’at, then.”

(Blobby takes off his billycock, thrusts the remnant of food therein, and puts it on.)

Enter the brass band of the neighbouring village, (the bandsmen being boys), which plays a selection of airs, and sends a few of the smaller ragamuffins to sleep.

(Sir Richard Brandon, confidentially to his friend.) ­“It is an amazing sight.”

(Host.) ­“Would that it were a more common sight!”

Enter more domestics with more tea, buns, and fruit; but the army is glutted, and the pockets are brought into requisition:  much pinning being a necessary consequence.

(Lilly Snow, softly.) ­“It’s like ’eaven!”

(Hetty, remonstratingly.) ­“Oh!  Lilly, ’eaven is quite different.”

(Dick Swiller.) ­“I’m sorry for it.  Couldn’t be much ’appier to my mind.”

(Host.) ­“Now, dear boys and girls, before we close the proceedings of this happy day, my excellent friend, your missionary, Mr Seaward, will say a few words.”

John Seaward steps to the front, and says a few words ­says them so well, too, so simply, so kindly, yet so heartily, that the army is roused to a pitch of great enthusiasm; but we leave this speech to the reader’s imagination:  after which ­Exeunt Omnes.

And, as the curtain of night falls on these ragged ones, scattered now, many of them, to varied homes of vice, and filth, and misery, the heavy eyelids close to open again, perchance, in ecstatic dreams of food, and fun and green fields, fresh air and sunshine, which impress them more or less with the idea embodied in the aphorism, that “God made the country, but man made the town.”