all Captain Ripon could do, no news was obtained of the gypsy, or Tom. For weeks he rode about the country, asking questions in every village; or hurried away to distant parts of England, where the police thought they had a clue.
It was all in vain. Every gypsy encampment in the kingdom was searched, but without avail; and even the police, sharp eyed as they are, could not guess that the decent-looking Irishwoman, speaking–when she did speak, which was seldom, for she was a taciturn woman–with a strong brogue, working in a laundry in a small street in the Potteries, Notting Hill, was the gypsy they were looking for; or that the little boy, whose father she said was at sea, was the child for whose discovery a thousand pounds was continually advertised.
Chapter 2: The Foundling
It was a bitterly cold night in January. The wind was roaring across the flats and fens of Cambridgeshire, driving tiny flakes of snow before it. But few people had been about all day, and those whose business compelled them to face the weather had hurried along, muffled up to the chin. It was ten at night; and the porter and his wife at the workhouse, at Ely, had just gone to bed, when the woman exclaimed:
"Sam, I hear a child crying."
"Oh, nonsense!" the man replied, drawing the bedclothes higher over his head. "It is the wind; it's been whistling all day."
The woman was silent, but not convinced. Presently she sat up in bed.
"I tell you, Sam, it's a child; don't you hear it, man? It's a child, outside the gate. On such a night as this, too. Get up, man, and see; if you won't, I will go myself."
"Lie still, woman. It's all thy fancy."
"You are a fool, Sam Dickson," his wife said, sharply. "Do you think I have lived to the age of forty-five, and don't know a child's cry, when I hear it? Now are you going to get up, or am I?"
With much grumbling, the porter turned out of bed, slipped on a pair of trousers and a greatcoat, took down the key from the wall, lighted a lantern, and went out. He opened the gate, and looked out. There was nothing to be seen; and he was about to close the gate again, with a curse on his wife's fancies, when a fresh cry broke on his ears. He hurried out now and, directed by the voice, found lying near the gate a child, wrapped in a dark-colored shawl, which had prevented him from seeing it at his first glance. There was no one else in sight.
The man lifted his lantern above his head, and gave a shout. There was no answer. Then he raised the child and carried it in; locked the door, and entered the lodge.
"You are right, for once," he said. "Here is a child, and a pretty heavy one, too. It has been deserted by someone; and a heartless creature she must have been, for in another half hour it would have been frozen to death, if you had not heard it."
The woman was out of bed now.
"It is a boy," she said, opening the shawl, "about two years old, I should say.
"Don't cry, my boy–don't cry.
"It's half frozen, Sam. The best thing will be to put it into our bed, that has just got warm. I will warm it up a little milk. It's no use taking it into the ward, tonight."
Ten minutes later the child was sound asleep; the porter–who was a good-natured man–having gone over to sleep in an empty bed in the house, leaving the child to share his wife's bed.
In the morning the foundling opened its eyes and looked round. Seeing everything strange, it began to cry.
"Don't cry, dear," the woman said. "I will get you some nice breakfast, directly."
The kindness of tone at once pacified the child. It looked round.
"Where's mother?" he asked.
"I don't know, dear. We shall find her soon enough, no doubt; don't you fret."
The child did not seem inclined to fret. On the contrary, he brightened up visibly.
"Will she beat Billy, when she comes back?"
"No, my dear, she sha'n't beat you. Does she often beat you?"
The child nodded its head several times, emphatically.
"Then she's a bad lot," the woman said, indignantly.
The child ate its breakfast contentedly, and was then carried by the porter's wife to the master, who had already heard the circumstance of its entry.
"It's of no use asking such a baby whether it has any name," he said; "of course, it would not know. It had better go into the infants' ward. The guardians will settle what its name shall be. We will set the police at work, and try and find out something about its mother. It is a fine-looking little chap; and she must be either a thoroughly bad one, or terribly pressed, to desert it like this. Most likely it is a tramp and, in that case, it's odds we shall never hear further about it.
"Any distinguishing mark on its clothes?"
"None at all, sir. It is poorly dressed, and seems to have been very bad treated. Its skin is dirty, and its little back is black and blue with bruises; but it has a blood mark on the neck, which will enable its mother to swear to it, if it's fifty years hence–but I don't suppose we shall ever hear of her, again."
That afternoon, however, the news came that the body of a tramp had been found, frozen to death in a ditch near the town. She had apparently lost her way and, when she had fallen in, was so numbed and cold that she was unable to rise, and so had been drowned in the shallow water. When the master heard of it, he sent for the porter's wife.
"Mrs. Dickson," he said, "you had better take that child down, and let it see the tramp they have found, frozen to death. The child is too young to be shocked at death, and will suppose she is asleep. But you will be able to see if he recognizes her."
There was no doubt as to the recognition. The child started in terror, when he saw the woman lying in the shed into which she had been carried. It checked its first impulse to cry out, but struggled to get further off.
"Moder asleep," he said, in a whisper. "If she wake, she beat Billy."
That was enough. The woman carried him back to the house.
"She's his mother, sir, sure enough," she said to the master, "though how she should be puzzles me. She is dressed in pretty decent clothes; but she is as dark as a gypsy, with black hair. This child is fair, with a skin as white as milk, now he is washed."
"I daresay he takes after his father," the master–who was a practical man–said. "I hear that there is no name on her things, no paper or other article which would identify her in her pockets; but there is two pounds, twelve shillings in her purse, so she was not absolutely in want. It will pay the parish for her funeral."
An hour later the guardians assembled and, upon hearing the circumstances of the newcomer's admission, and the death of the tramp, they decided that the child should be entered in the books as "William Gale,"–the name being chosen with a reference to the weather during which he came into the house–and against his name a note was written, to the effect that his mother–a tramp, name unknown–had, after leaving him at the door of the workhouse, been found frozen to death next day.
William Gale grew, and throve. He was a quiet and contented child; accustomed to be shut up all day alone, while his mother was out washing, the companionship of other children in the workhouse was a pleasant novelty and, if the food was not such as a dainty child would fancy, it was at least as good as he had been accustomed to.
The porter's wife continued to be the fast friend of the child whom she had saved from death. The fact that she had done so gave her an interest in it. Her own children were out in service, or at work in the fields; and the child was a pleasure to her. Scarce a day passed, then, that she would not go across the yard up to the infants' ward, and bring Billy down to the lodge; where he would play contentedly by the hour, or sit watching her, and sucking at a cake, while she washed or prepared her husband's dinner.
Billy was seldom heard to cry. Perhaps he had wept all his stock of tears away, before he entered the house. He had seldom fits of bad temper, and was a really lovable child. Mrs. Dickson never wavered in the opinion she had first formed–that the dead tramp was not Billy's mother–but as no one else agreed