Wikkey | Page 9

far awakening first the boy's curiosity, and then his love, went, the method of instruction answered perfectly. For Wikkey did not die at the end of the week, or of many succeeding weeks: warmth and food, and Mrs. Evans' nursing powers combined, caused one of those curious rallies not uncommon in cases of consumption, though no one who saw the boy's thin, flushed cheeks, and brilliant eyes, could think the reprieve would be a long one. Still for the present there was improvement, and Lawrence could not help feeling glad that he might keep for a little while longer the child whose love had strangely brightened his lonely lodgings.
And while Wikkey's development was being carried on in the highest direction, his education in minor matters was progressing under Mrs. Evans' tuition--tuition of much the same kind as she had bestowed years before on Master Lawrence and her sweet Master Robin. By degrees Wikkey became thoroughly initiated in the mysteries of the toilette, and other amenities of civilized life, and being a sharp child, with a natural turn for imitation, he was, at the end of a week or two, not entirely unlike those young gentlemen in his ways, especially when his conversation became shorn of the expletives which had at first adorned it, but which, under Mrs. Evans' sharp rebukes, and Lawrence's graver admonitions that they were displeasing to the King, fast disappeared. Wikkey's remorse on being betrayed into the utterance of some comparatively harmless expression, quite as deep as when one slipped that gave even Lawrence a shock, showed how little their meaning had to do with their use.
One evening Lawrence, returning home to find Wikkey established as usual on the sofa near the fire, was greeted by the eager question--
"Lawrence, what was the King like? I've been a thinking of it all day, and I should like to know. Do you think He was a bit like you?"
"Not at all," Lawrence answered. "We don't know exactly what He was like; but--let me see," he went on, considering, "I think I have a picture somewhere--I had one;" and he crossed the room to a corner where, between the book-case and the wall, were put away a number of old pictures, brought from the "boys' room" at home, and never yet re-hung; among them was a little Oxford frame containing a photograph of the Thorn-crowned Head by Guido. How well he remembered its being given to him on his birthday by his mother! This he showed to Wikkey, explaining that though no one knows certainly what the King is like, it is thought that He may have resembled that picture. The boy looked at it for some time in silence, and then said--
"I've seen pictures like that in shops, but I never knew as it was the King. He looks very sorrowful--a deal sorrowfuller nor you--and what is that He has on His Head?"
"That has to do with a very sad story, which I have not told you yet. You know, Wikkey, though he was so good and kind, the men of that country hated Him, and would not have him for their King, and at last they took Him prisoner, and treated Him very badly, and they put that crown of sharp, pricking thorns on His Head, because He said He was a King."
"Was it to make game of Him?" asked Wikkey, in a tone of mingled awe and distress.
Lawrence nodded gravely, and feeling that this was perhaps as good a moment as any for completing the history, he took the Book, and in low, reverent tones, began the sad story of the betrayal, captivity, and Death. Wikkey listened in absorbed attention, every now and then commenting on the narrative in a way which showed its intense reality to himself, and gave a marvellous vividness to the details of which Lawrence had before scarcely realized the terrible force. As he read on, his voice became husky, and the child's eyes were fixed on him with devouring eagerness, till the awful end came, and Wikkey broke into an agony of weeping. Lawrence hastily put down the Book, and taking the little worn frame into his arms tried to soothe the shaking sobs, feeling the while as though he had been guilty of cruelty to the tender, sensitive heart.
"I thought some one would have saved Him," Wikkey gasped. "I didn't know as He was killed; you never told me He was killed."
"Wikkey, little lad--hush--look here! it was all right at the end. Listen while I read the end; it is beautiful." And as the sobs subsided he began to read again, still holding the boy close, and inwardly wondering whether something like this might have been the despair of the disciples on that Friday evening--read of the sadness of that waiting