It has been mentioned that the child was on his knees in the garret,when Trottle first saw him.He was not saying his prayers,and not crouching down in terror at being alone in the dark.He was,odd and unaccountable as it may appear,doing nothing more or less than playing at a charwoman's or housemaid's business of scouring the floor.Both his little hands had tight hold of a mangy old blacking-brush,with hardly any bristles left in it,which he was rubbing backwards and forwards on the boards,as gravely and steadily as if he had been at scouring-work for years,and had got a large family to keep by it.The coming-in of Trottle and the old woman did not startle or disturb him in the least.He just looked up for a minute at the candle,with a pair of very bright,sharp eyes,and then went on with his work again,as if nothing had happened.On one side of him was a battered pint saucepan without a handle,which was his make-believe pail;and on the other a morsel of slate-coloured cotton rag,which stood for his flannel to wipe up with.After scrubbing bravely for a minute or two,he took the bit of rag,and mopped up,and then squeezed make-believe water out into his make-believe pail,as grave as any judge that ever sat on a Bench.By the time he thought he had got the floor pretty dry,he raised himself upright on his knees,and blew out a good long breath,and set his little red arms akimbo,and nodded at Trottle.
"There!"says the child,knitting his little downy eyebrows into a frown."Drat the dirt!I've cleaned up.Where's my beer?"Benjamin's mother chuckled till Trottle thought she would have choked herself.
"Lord ha'mercy on us!"says she,"just hear the imp.You would never think he was only five years old,would you,sir?Please to tell good Mr.Forley you saw him going on as nicely as ever,playing at being me scouring the parlour floor,and calling for my beer afterwards.That's his regular game,morning,noon,and night--he's never tired of it.Only look how snug we've been and dressed him.
That's my shawl a keepin his precious little body warm,and Benjamin's nightcap a keepin his precious little head warm,and Benjamin's stockings,drawed over his trowsers,a keepin his precious little legs warm.He's snug and happy if ever a imp was yet.'Where's my beer!'--say it again,little dear,say it again!"If Trottle had seen the boy,with a light and a fire in the room,clothed like other children,and playing naturally with a top,or a box of soldiers,or a bouncing big India-rubber ball,he might have been as cheerful under the circumstances as Benjamin's mother herself.But seeing the child reduced (as he could not help suspecting)for want of proper toys and proper child's company,to take up with the mocking of an old woman at her scouring-work,for something to stand in the place of a game,Trottle,though not a family man,nevertheless felt the sight before him to be,in its way,one of the saddest and the most pitiable that he had ever witnessed.
"Why,my man,"says he,"you're the boldest little chap in all England.You don't seem a bit afraid of being up here all by yourself in the dark.""The big winder,"says the child,pointing up to it,"sees in the dark;and I see with the big winder."He stops a bit,and gets up on his legs,and looks hard at Benjamin's mother."I'm a good 'un,"says he,"ain't I?I save candle."
Trottle wondered what else the forlorn little creature had been brought up to do without,besides candle-light;and risked putting a question as to whether he ever got a run in the open air to cheer him up a bit.O,yes,he had a run now and then,out of doors (to say nothing of his runs about the house),the lively little cricket--a run according to good Mr.Forley's instructions,which were followed out carefully,as good Mr.Forley's friend would be glad to hear,to the very letter.
As Trottle could only have made one reply to this,namely,that good Mr.Forley's instructions were,in his opinion,the instructions of an infernal scamp;and as he felt that such an answer would naturally prove the death-blow to all further discoveries on his part,he gulped down his feelings before they got too many for him,and held his tongue,and looked round towards the window again to see what the forlorn little boy was going to amuse himself with next.
The child had gathered up his blacking-brush and bit of rag,and had put them into the old tin saucepan;and was now working his way,as well as his clothes would let him,with his make-believe pail hugged up in his arms,towards a door of communication which led from the back to the front garret.
"I say,"says he,looking round sharply over his shoulder,"what are you two stopping here for?I'm going to bed now--and so I tell you!"With that,he opened the door,and walked into the front room.
Seeing Trottle take a step or two to follow him,Benjamin's mother opened her wicked old eyes in a state of great astonishment.
"Mercy on us!"says she,"haven't you seen enough of him yet?""No,"says Trottle."I should like to see him go to bed."Benjamin's mother burst into such a fit of chuckling that the loose extinguisher in the candlestick clattered again with the shaking of her hand.To think of good Mr.Forley's friend taking ten times more trouble about the imp than good Mr.Forley himself!Such a joke as that,Benjamin's mother had not often met with in the course of her life,and she begged to be excused if she took the liberty of having a laugh at it.
Leaving her to laugh as much as she pleased,and coming to a pretty positive conclusion,after what he had just heard,that Mr.Forley's interest in the child was not of the fondest possible kind,Trottle walked into the front room,and Benjamin's mother,enjoying herself immensely,followed with the candle.
