Wikkey | Page 3

last took possession
of the boy's whole soul, it sapped away what little vitality there was in
the small, fragile frame, leaving it an easy prey to the biting wind
which caught his breath away as he crept shivering around the street
corners, and to the frost which clutched the thinly-clad body. The
cough, which Wikkey scarcely remembered ever being without,
increased to such violence as to shake him from head to foot, and his
breathing became hard and painful; yet still he clung to his crossing
with the pertinacity of despair, scanning each figure that approached
with eager, hungry eyes. He had laid out part of Lawrence's half-crown
on a woolen muffler, which at first had seemed a marvel of comfort,
but the keen north-easter soon found its way even through that, and the
hot pies on which he expended the rest did not warm him for very long;
there came a day, too, when he could only hold his pie between his
frozen hands, dreamily wondering why he felt no wish to eat it, why
the sight of it made him feel so sick. A dreadful day that was.
Mechanically, Wikkey from time to time, swept his way slowly over
the crossing, but the greater part of the time he spent sitting at the foot
of the lamp-post at either end, coughing and shivering, and now and
then dozing and starting up in terror lest the "big chap" should have
passed by during his brief unconsciousness. Dusk came on, and then
lamp-light, and still Wikkey sat there. A policeman passing on his beat
saw the haggard face and heard the choking cough. "You'd best be off
home, my lad," he said, pausing a moment; "you don't look fit to be out
on a night like this;" and Wikkey, taking the remark to be only another
form of the oft-heard injunction to "move on," seized his broom and
began sweeping as in an evil dream--then sank down exhausted on the

other side. It was getting late, later than he usually stayed, but
something seemed to warn him that this might be his last chance, and
he remained crouching there, almost too far-gone to be conscious of the
cold; till on a sudden there came, piercing through the dull mist of
returning consciousness, a voice saying:
"Hullo, Wikkey! you are late to-night."
And starting upward with wild startled eyes the boy saw Lawrence
Granby. He staggered to his feet and gasped out:
"You've come, have you? I've been a watching and a waiting of you,
and I thought as you'd never come again."
Then the cough seized him, shaking him till he could only cling to the
lamp-post for support till it was over, and then slip down in a helpless
heap on the pavement.
"Wikkey, poor little chap, how bad you are," said Lawrence, looking
sadly down on the huddled-up figure; "you oughtn't to be out.
You--you haven't been watching for me like this?"
"I've been a watching and a watching," Wikkey answered, in faint
hoarse tones, "and I thought you'd taken to another crossing and I'd
never see you again."
"Poor little chap! poor little lad!" was all the young man could find to
say, while there rose up in his heart an impulse which his common
sense tried hard to suppress, but in vain. "Wikkey," he said, at last,
"you must come home with me;" and he took one of the claw-like
hands in his warmly gloved one, and walked on slowly, out of
compassion for the child's feeble limbs: even then, however, they soon
gave way, and Wikkey once more slid down crying on the pavement.
There was nothing for it but for Lawrence to gather up the child in his
strong arms, and stride on, wondering whether after all it were not too
late to revive the frozen-out life. For one blissful moment Wikkey felt
himself held close and warm, and his head nestled against the woolly
ulster, and then all was blank.

To say that Lawrence enjoyed his position would be going too far.
Whatever might be Wikkey's mental peculiarities, his exterior differed
in no way from that of the ordinary street Arab, and such close contact
could not fail to be trying to a young man more than usually sensitive
in matters of cleanliness; but Lawrence strode manfully on with his
strange burden, choosing out the least frequented streets, and earnestly
hoping he might meet none of his acquaintances, till at last he reached
his lodgings and admitted himself into a small well-lighted hall, where,
after calling "Mrs. Evans," he stood under the lamp awaiting her arrival,
not without considerable trepidation, and becoming each moment more
painfully conscious how extraordinary his behavior must appear in her
eyes.
"Mrs. Evans," he began, as the good lady