The Eternal City | Page 3

in its icy bed, and he
took it out and breathed on it to warm it, and then put it in his bosom.
The sound of a child's voice laughing and singing came to him from
within the house, muffled by the walls and the door. Across the white
vapour cast outward from the fanlight he could see nothing but the
crystal snowflakes falling wearily.
He grew dizzy, and sat down by one of the pillars. After a while a
shiver passed along his spine, and then he became warm and felt sleepy.
A church clock struck nine, and he started up with a guilty feeling, but
his limbs were stiff and he sank back again, blew two or three breaths
on to the squirrel inside his waistcoat, and fell into a doze. As he
dropped off into unconsciousness he seemed to see the big, cheerless
house, almost destitute of furniture, where he lived with thirty or forty
other boys. They trooped in with their organs and accordions, counted
out their coppers to a man with a clipped moustache, who was blowing
whiffs of smoke from a long, black cigar, with a straw through it, and
then sat down on forms to eat their plates of macaroni and cheese. The
man was not in good temper to-night, and he was shouting at some who
were coming in late and at others who were sharing their supper with
the squirrels that nestled in their bosoms, or the monkeys, in red jacket
and fez, that perched upon their shoulders. The boy was perfectly
unconscious by this time, and the child within the house was singing
away as if her little breast was a cage of song-birds.
As the church clock struck nine a class of Italian lads in an upper room
in Old Compton Street was breaking up for the night, and the teacher,
looking out of the window, said:
"While we have been telling the story of the great road to our country a
snowstorm has come, and we shall have enough to do to find our road

home."
The lads laughed by way of answer, and cried: "Good-night, doctor."
"Good-night, boys, and God bless you," said the teacher.
He was an elderly man, with a noble forehead and a long beard. His
face, a sad one, was lighted up by a feeble smile; his voice was soft,
and his manner gentle. When the boys were gone he swung over his
shoulders a black cloak with a red lining, and followed them into the
street.
He had not gone far into the snowy haze before he began to realise that
his playful warning had not been amiss.
"Well, well," he thought, "only a few steps, and yet so difficult to find."
He found the right turnings at last, and coming to the porch of his
house in Soho Square, he almost trod on a little black and white object
lying huddled at the base of one of the pillars.
"A boy," he thought, "sleeping out on a night like this! Come, come,"
he said severely, "this is wrong," and he shook the little fellow to
waken him.
The boy did not answer, but he began to mutter in a sleepy monotone,
"Don't hit me, sir. It was snow. I'll not come home late again.
Ninepence, sir, and Jinny is so cold."
The man paused a moment, then turned to the door rang the bell
sharply.
II
Half-an-hour later the little musician was lying on a couch in the
doctor's surgery, a cheerful room with a fire and a soft lamp under a
shade. He was still unconscious, but his damp clothes had been taken
off and he was wrapped in blankets. The doctor sat at the boy's head
and moistened his lips with brandy, while a good woman, with the face

of a saint, knelt at the end of the couch and rubbed his little feet and
legs. After a little while there was a perceptible quivering of the eyelids
and twitching of the mouth.
"He is coming to, mother," said the doctor.
"At last," said his wife.
The boy moaned and opened his eyes, the big helpless eyes of
childhood, black as a sloe, and with long black lashes. He looked at the
fire, the lamp, the carpet, the blankets, the figures at either end of the
couch, and with a smothered cry he raised himself as though thinking
to escape.
"Carino!" said the doctor, smoothing the boy's curly hair. "Lie still a
little longer."
The voice was like a caress, and the boy sank back. But presently he
raised himself again, and gazed around the room as if looking for
something. The good mother understood him perfectly, and from a
chair on which his clothes were lying she picked up his