Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/608

178 at me in silent horror as I ate and drank of what was brought me. I knew at the time that they had a horror of me, but I couldn't help it.

I was still eating and drinking, and a murmur of discussion had begun to arise respecting what was to be done with me next, when I heard a cracked voice somewhere in the ring say, "My name is Hawkyard, Mr. Verity Hawkyard, of West Broomwich." Then the ring split in one place; and a yellow-faced, peak-nosed gentleman, clad all in iron-gray to his gaiters, pressed forward close to the vessel of smoking vinegar; from which he sprinkled himself carefully, and me copiously.

"He had a grandfather at Birmingham, this young boy, who is just dead too," said Mr. Hawkyard.

I turned my eyes upon the speaker, and said in a ravening manner, "Where's his houses?"

"Hah! Horrible worldliness on the edge of the grave," said Mr. Hawkyard, casting more of the vinegar over me, as if to get my devil out of me." I have undertaken a slight—a very slight—trust in behalf of this boy; quite a voluntary trust, a matter of mere honor, if not of mere sentiment; still I have taken it upon myself, and it shall be (oh yes, it shall be!) discharged.

The bystanders seemed to form an opinion of this gentleman much more favorable than their opinion of me.

"He shall be taught," said Mr. Hawkyard. " (Oh yes, he shall be taught!) but what is to be done with him for the present? He may be infected. He may disseminate infection." The ring widened considerably. "What is to be done with him?"

He held some talk with the two officials. I could distinguish no word save "farm-house." There was another sound several times repeated, which was wholly meaningless in my ears then, but which I knew afterward to be "Hoghton Toweis."

"Yes," said Mr. Hawkyard. "I think that sounds promising; I think that sounds hopeful. And he can be put by himself in a ward, for a night or two, you say?"

It seemed to be the police-officer who had said so, for it was he who replied, Yes! It was he, too, who finally took me by the arm, and walked me before him through the streets, into a whitewashed room in a bare building, where I had a chair to sit in, a table to sit at, an iron