HOME AGAIN

Time passed away, and Bobby Frog said to his mother one morning, “Mother, I’m going to England.”

It was a fine summer morning when he said this.  His mother was sitting in a bower which had been constructed specially for her use by her son and his friend Tim Lumpy.  It stood at the foot of the garden, from which could be had a magnificent view of the neighbouring lake.  Rich foliage permitted the slanting sunbeams to quiver through the bower, and little birds, of a pert conceited nature, twittered among the same.  Martha Mild ­the very embodiment of meek, earnest simplicity, and still a mere child in face though almost a woman in years ­sat on a wooden stool at Mrs Frog’s feet reading the Bible to her.

Martha loved the Bible and Mrs Frog; they were both fond of the bower; there was a spare half-hour before them; ­hence the situation, as broken in upon by Bobby.

“To England, Bobby?”

“To England, mother.”

Martha said nothing, but she gave a slight ­an almost imperceptible ­ start, and glanced at the sturdy youth with a mingled expression of anxiety and surprise.

The surprise Bob had expected; the anxiety he had hoped for; the start he had not foreseen, but now perceived and received as a glorious fact!  Oh!  Bobby Frog was a deep young rascal!  His wild, hilarious, reckless spirit, which he found it so difficult to curb, even with all surroundings in his favour, experienced a great joy and sensation of restfulness in gazing at the pretty, soft, meek face of the little waif.  He loved Martha, but, with all his recklessness, he had not the courage to tell her so, or to ask the condition of her feelings with regard to himself.

Being ingenious, however, and with much of the knowing nature of the “stray” still about him, he hit on this plan of killing two birds with one stone, as it were, by briefly announcing his intentions to his mother; and the result was more than he had hoped for.

“Yes, mother, to England ­to London.  You see, father’s last letter was not at all satisfactory.  Although he said he was convalescent and hoped to be able to travel soon, it seemed rather dull in tone, and now several posts have passed without bringing us a letter of any kind from him.  I am beginning to feel anxious, and so as I have saved a good bit of money I mean to have a trip to old England and bring Daddy out with me.”

“That will be grand indeed, my son.  But will Mr Merryboy let ye go, Bobby?”

“Of course he will.  He lets me do whatever I please, for he’s as fond o’ me as if he were my father.”

“No; he ain’t that,” returned Mrs Frog, with a shake of the head; “your father was rough, Bobby, specially w’en in liquor, but he ’ad a kind ‘art at bottom, and he was very fond o’ you, Bobby ­almost as fond as he once was o’ me.  Mr Merryboy could never come up to ’im in that.”

“Did I say he came up to him, mother?  I didn’t say he was as fond o’ me as my own father, but as if he was my father.  However, it’s all arranged, and I go off at once.”

“Not before breakfast, Bobby?”

“No, not quite.  I never do anything important on an empty stomach, but by this time to-morrow I hope to be far on my way to the sea-coast, and I expect Martha to take good care of you till I come back.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” said Martha, looking up in Mrs Frog’s face affectionately.

Bob Frog noted the look, and was satisfied.

“But, my boy, I shan’t be here when you come back.  You know my visit is over in a week, and then we go to Sir Richard’s estate.”

“I know that, mother, but Martha goes with you there, to help you and Hetty and Matty to keep house while Tim Lumpy looks after the farm.”

“Farm, my boy, what nonsense are you talking?”

“No nonsense, mother, it has all been arranged this morning, early though it is.  Mr Merryboy has received a letter from Sir Richard, saying that he wants to gather as many people as possible round him, and offering him one of his farms on good terms, so Mr Merryboy is to sell this place as soon as he can, and Tim and I have been offered a smaller farm on still easier terms close to his, and not far from the big farm that Sir Richard has given to his son-in-law Mr Welland ­”

“Son-in-law!” exclaimed Mrs Frog.  “Do you mean to say that Mr Welland, who used to come down an’ preach in the lodgin’-’ouses in Spitalfields ’as married that sweet hangel Miss Di?”

“I do mean that, mother.  I could easily show him a superior angel, of course,” said Bob with a steady look at Martha, “but he has done pretty well, on the whole.”

“Pretty well!” echoed Mrs Frog indignantly; “he couldn’t ’ave done better if ’e’d searched the wide world over.”

“There I don’t agree with you,” returned her son; “however, it don’t matter ­Hallo! there goes granny down the wrong path!”

Bob dashed off at full speed after Mrs Merryboy, senior, who had an inveterate tendency, when attempting to reach Mrs Frog’s bower, to take a wrong turn, and pursue a path which led from the garden to a pretty extensive piece of forest-land behind.  The blithe old lady was posting along this track in a tremulo-tottering way when captured by Bob.  At the same moment the breakfast-bell rang; Mr Merryboy’s stentorian voice was immediately heard in concert; silvery shouts from the forest-land alluded to told where Hetty and Matty had been wandering, and a rush of pattering feet announced that the dogs of the farm were bent on being first to bid the old gentleman good-morning.

As Bob Frog had said, the following day found him far on his way to the sea-coast.  A few days later found him on the sea, ­wishing, earnestly, that he were on the land!  Little more than a week after that found him in London walking down the old familiar Strand towards the city.

As he walked slowly along the crowded thoroughfare, where every brick seemed familiar and every human being strange, he could not help saying to himself mentally, “Can it be possible! was it here that I used to wander in rags?  Thank God for the rescue and for the rescuers!”

“Shine yer boots, sir?” said a facsimile of his former self.

“Certainly, my boy,” said Bob, at once submitting himself to the operator, although, his boots having already been well “shined,” the operation was an obvious absurdity.

The boy must have felt something of this, for, when finished, he looked up at his employer with a comical expression.  Bob looked at him sternly.

“They were about as bright before you began on ’em,” he said.

“They was, sir,” admitted the boy, candidly.

“How much?” demanded the old street boy.  “On’y one ha’penny, sir,” replied the young street boy, “but ven the day’s fine, an’ the boots don’t want much shinin’, we gin’rally expecs a penny.  Gen’l’min ’ave bin known to go the length of tuppence.”

Bob pulled out half-a-crown and offered it.

The boy grinned, but did not attempt to take it.

“Why don’t you take it, my boy?”

“You don’t mean it, do you?” asked the boy, as the grin faded and the eyes opened.

“Yes, I do.  Here, catch.  I was once like you.  Christ and Canada have made me what you see.  Here is a little book that will tell you more about that.”

He chanced to have one of Miss Macpherson’s Canadian Homes for London Wanderers in his pocket, and gave it to the little shoe-black, ­who was one of the fluttering free-lances of the metropolis, not one of the “Brigade.”

Bob could not have said another word to have saved his life.  He turned quickly on his heel and walked away, followed by a fixed gaze and a prolonged whistle of astonishment.

“How hungry I used to be here,” he muttered as he walked along, “so uncommon hungry!  The smell of roasts and pies had something to do with it, I think.  Why, there’s the shop ­yes, the very shop, where I stood once gazing at the victuals for a full hour before I could tear myself away.  I do think that, for the sake of starving boys, to say nothing of men, women, and girls, these grub-shops should be compelled to keep the victuals out o’ the windows and send their enticing smells up their chimneys!”

Presently he came to a dead stop in front of a shop where a large mirror presented him with a full-length portrait of himself, and again he said mentally, “Can it be possible!” for, since quitting London he had never seen himself as others saw him, having been too hurried, on both occasions of passing through Canadian cities, to note the mirrors there.  In the backwoods, of course, there was nothing large enough in the way of mirror to show more than his good-looking face.

The portrait now presented to him was that of a broad-chested, well-made, gentlemanly young man of middle height, in a grey Tweed suit.

“Not exactly tip-top, A1, superfine, you know, Bobby,” he muttered to himself with the memory of former days strong upon him, “but ­but ­ perhaps not altogether unworthy of ­of ­a thought or two from little Martha Mild.”

Bob Frog increased in stature, it is said, by full half an inch on that occasion, and thereafter he walked more rapidly in the direction of Whitechapel.

With sad and strangely mingled memories he went to the court where his early years had been spent.  It was much the same in disreputableness of aspect as when he left it.  Time had been gnawing at it so long that a few years more or less made little difference on it, and its inhabitants had not improved much.

Passing rapidly on he went straight to the Beehive, which he had for long regarded as his real home, and there, once again, received a hearty welcome from its ever busy superintendent and her earnest workers; but how different his circumstances now from those attending his first reception!  His chief object, however, was to inquire the way to the hospital in which his father lay, and he was glad to learn that the case of Ned Frog was well-known, and that he was convalescent.

It chanced that a tea-meeting was “on” when he arrived, so he had little more at the time than a warm shake of the hand from his friends in the Home, but he had the ineffable satisfaction of leaving behind him a sum sufficient to give a sixpence to each of the miserable beings who were that night receiving a plentiful meal for their bodies as well as food for their souls ­those of them, at least, who chose to take the latter.  None refused the former.

On his way to the hospital he saw a remarkably tall policeman approaching.

“Well, you are a long-legged copper,” he muttered to himself, with an irrepressible laugh as he thought of old times.  The old spirit seemed to revive with the old associations, for he felt a strong temptation to make a face at the policeman, execute the old double-shuffle, stick his thumb to the end of his nose, and bolt!  As the man drew nearer he did actually make a face in spite of himself ­a face of surprise ­which caused the man to stop.

“Excuse me,” said Bob, with much of his old bluntness, “are not you Number 666?”

“That is not my number now, sir, though I confess it was once,” answered the policeman, with a humorous twinkle of the eye.

Bobby noticed the word “sir,” and felt elated.  It was almost more than waif-and-stray human nature could stand to be respectfully “sirred” by a London policeman ­his old foe, whom, in days gone by and on occasions innumerable, he had scorned, scouted, and insulted, with all the ingenuity of his fertile brain.

“Your name is Giles Scott, is it not?” he asked.

“It is, sir.”

“Do you remember a little ragged boy who once had his leg broken by a runaway pony at the West-end ­long ago?”

“Yes, as well as if I’d seen him yesterday.  His name was Bobby Frog, and a sad scamp he was, though it is said he’s doing well in Canada.”

“He must ’ave changed considerable,” returned Bob, reverting to his old language with wonderful facility, “w’en Number 666 don’t know ’im.  Yes, in me, Robert Frog, Esquire, of Chikopow Farm, Canada Vest, you be’old your ancient henemy, who is on’y too ’appy to ’ave the chance of axin your parding for all the trouble he gave you, an’ all the ’ard names he called you in days gone by.”

Bobby held out his hand as he spoke, and you may be sure our huge policeman was not slow to grasp it, and congratulate the stray on his improved circumstances.

We have not time or space to devote to the conversation which ensued.  It was brief, but rapid and to the point, and in the course of it Bob learned that Molly was as well, and as bright and cheery as ever ­also somewhat stouter; that Monty was in a fair way to become a real policeman, having just received encouragement to expect admission to the force when old enough, and that he was in a fair way to become as sedate, wise, zealous, and big as his father; also, that little Jo aimed at the same honourable and responsible position, and was no longer little.

Being anxious, however, to see his father, Bob cut the conversation short, and, having promised to visit his old enemy, hastened away.

The ward of the hospital in which Bob soon found himself was a sad place.  Clean and fresh, no doubt, but very still, save when a weary sigh or a groan told of suffering.  Among the beds, which stood in a row, each with its head against the wall, one was pointed out on which a living skeleton lay.  The face was very very pale, and it seemed as if the angel of death were already brooding over it.  Yet, though so changed, there was no mistaking the aspect and the once powerful frame of Ned Frog.

“I’d rather not see any one,” whispered Ned, as the nurse went forward and spoke to him in a low voice, “I’ll soon be home ­I think.”

“Father, dear father,” said Bob, in a trembling, almost choking voice, as he knelt by the bedside and took one of his father’s hands.

The prostrate man sprang up as if he had received an electric shock, and gazed eagerly into the face of his son.  Then, turning his gaze on the nurse, he said ­

“I’m not dreaming, am I?  It’s true, is it?  Is this Bobby?”

“Whether he’s Bobby or not I can’t say,” replied the nurse, in the tone with which people sometimes address children, “but you’re not dreaming ­ it is a gentleman.”

“Ah! then I am dreaming,” replied the sick man, with inexpressible sadness, “for Bobby is no gentleman.”

“But it is me, daddy,” cried the poor youth, almost sobbing aloud as he kissed the hand he held, “why, you old curmudgeon, I thought you’d ‘ave know’d the voice o’ yer own son!  I’ve grow’d a bit, no doubt, but it’s me for all that.  Look at me!”

Ned did look, with all the intensity of which he was capable, and then fell back on his pillow with a great sigh, while a death-like pallor overspread his face, almost inducing the belief that he was really dead.

“No, Bobby, I ain’t dead yet,” he said in a low whisper, as his terrified son bent over him.  “Thank God for sendin’ you back to me.”

He stopped, but, gradually, strength returned, and he again looked earnestly at his son.

“Bobby,” he said, in stronger tones, “I thought the end was drawin’ near ­or, rather, the beginnin’ ­the beginnin’ o’ the New Life.  But I don’t feel like that now.  I feel, some’ow, as I used to feel in the ring when they sponged my face arter a leveller.  I did think I was done for this mornin’.  The nurse thought so too, for I ‘eerd her say so; an’ the doctor said as much.  Indeed I’m not sure that my own ’art didn’t say so ­but I’ll cheat ’em all yet, Bobby, my boy.  You’ve put new life into my old carcase, an’ I’ll come up to the scratch yet ­see if I don’t.”

But Ned Frog did not “come up to the scratch.”  His work for the Master on earth was finished ­the battle fought out and the victory gained.

“Gi’ them all my love in Canada, Bobby, an’ say to your dear mother that I know she forgives me ­but I’ll tell her all about that when we meet ­in the better land.”

Thus he died with his rugged head resting on the bosom of his loved and loving son.