Wikkey | Page 7

Lawrence; it's a big name like you, and a deal nicer nor guvner."
Lawrence gave a little laugh. Was it his duty to inculcate a proper respect for his betters into this boy? If he were going to live it might be; but when he thought how soon all earthly distinctions would be over for Wikkey, it seemed hardly worth while.
"Very well," he said. "By-the-by, Wikkey, have you recollected your own other name?"
"Yes, I've minded it. It's Whiston."
"Do you remember your father and mother?"
"I don't remember no father. Mother, she died after I took to the crossing."
"Do you know what her name was before she was married?"
Wikkey shook his head. "Don't know nothink," he said. Lawrence showed him the old Bible, but it awoke no recollections in the boy's mind; he only repeated, "I don't know nothink."
"Wikkey," said Lawrence again, after a silence, "what made you take a fancy to me?"
"I dunno. I liked the looks of yer the very first time as ever you came over, and after that I thought a deal of yer. I thought that if you was King of England, I'd have 'listed and gone for a soldier. I don't think much of queens myself, but I'd have fought for you, and welcome. And I thought as I wouldn't have had you see me cheat Jim of his coppers. I dunno why;" and a look of real perplexity came into Wikkey's face as the problem presented itself to his mind.
"Did you often cheat Jim?"
"Scores o' times," answered the boy composedly. "We'd play pitch-and-toss, and then I'd palm a ha' penny, and Jim he'd never twig." A quick turn of the bony wrist showed how dexterously the trick had been done, and Wikkey went off into a shrill cackle at the recollection of his triumphs. "He's the biggest flat as ever I came across. Why, I've seen him look up and down the gutter for them browns till I thought I'd have killed myself with trying not to laugh out."
The puckers in the thin face were so irresistibly comical that Lawrence found it hard to preserve his own gravity: however, he contrived to compose his features, and to say, with a touch of severity--
"I can tell why you wouldn't have liked me to see you; it was because you knew you were doing wrong." Wikkey's face expressed no comprehension. "It was wicked to cheat Jim, and you were a bad boy when you did it."
"My stars! why, he could have got 'em from me in a juffy; he was twice my size. I only boned 'em cos he was such a soft."
The explanation appeared perfectly satisfactory to Wikkey, but Lawrence, feeling that this was an opportunity that should not be lost, made a desperate effort and began again--
"It was wicked all the same; and though I did not see you do it, there was Someone Who did--Someone Who sees everything you do. Have you ever heard of God, Wikkey?"
"Yes, I've heard on Him. I've heard the Name times about. ('How used?' wondered Lawrence.) Where is he?"
"He is everywhere, though you cannot see Him, and He sees everything you do."
"Is he good?"
"Very good."
"As good as you?"
"A great deal better." Poor Lawrence felt very uncomfortable, not quite knowing how to place his instructions on a less familiar footing.
"I don't want no one better nor you; you're good enough for me," said Wikkey, very decidedly; and then Lawrence gave it up in despair, and mentally resolving that Reg must help him, he carried Wikkey off to bed.
CHAPTER II.
The following evening Lawrence found a letter from his cousin on his table.
"From what you tell me," Reginald wrote, "I should say that Wikkey must be taught through his affections: that he is capable of a strong and generous affection he has fully proved, so that I advise you not to attempt for the present much doctrinal instruction. ('Doctrinal instruction!' mentally ejaculated Lawrence; 'what does he mean? as if I could do that;' then he read on.) What I mean is this: the boy's intellect has probably, from the circumstances of his life, been too strongly developed to have left much room for the simple faith which one has to work on in ordinary childhood; and having been used chiefly as a weapon, offensive and defensive, in the battle with life, it is not likely to prove a very helpful instrument just now, as it would probably make him quicker to discern difficulties than to accept truths upon trust. I should, therefore, be inclined to place religion before him in a way that would appeal more to his affections than to his reason, and try to interest him in our Lord from, so to speak, a human point of view, without going into the mysteries connected with the Incarnation, and if possible without,