CHAPTER IX.

Sally, walking about the streets the next morning, with her baby in her arms, was aware that a critical change in her prospects was impending, which threatened to separate her and the child who was now part of her life; and as far as such a mite as she can be said to determine, she resolved that such a separation should never take place. She would run away into the wide, wide world.

She set off at as good a pace as her little legs could achieve, but the child she carried was no light weight for one of her tender years, and before she had extricated herself from the labyrinth of courts, alleys, and narrow streets which intersected Rosemary Lane, she was exhausted. Leaning against the wall, she looked up to the sky with a sad and weary face. She had never forgotten the beautiful dream she had dreamt on the night of her brother's return, and it now recurred to her, bringing with it a dim hope that something wondrous might happen to aid her in her difficulty. If she had been acquainted with the history of Jack and his Beanstalk, she would have audibly wished for a tree--up which she could climb into a kinder land than Rosemary Lane. But although no miracle brought light to Sally's troubled soul, something happened which seemed to her very wonderful.

She had halted immediately before a cobbler's stall, and the face she saw as she looked down to earth was that of Seth Dumbrick the cobbler--no other, indeed, than the cobbler who in Sally's dream had appeared to her in the clouds, mending boots and shoes for the angels. Here was the realisation of Sally's dim hope. Fancies of grand processions and magic trees and angels in the clouds thronged her mind, revolving around two central figures--the sweet figure of her beautiful child, and the strange one of this queer-looking cobbler whose chin had not met razor's edge for a week.

Seth Dumbrick, observing Sally's agitation, and also attracted by the children, paused in his work, and spoke to Sally. She did not hear the words, but the voice of the man was kind, and that was sufficient to give colour to her hope.

"O Mr. Dumbrick," she exclaimed, pressing her hands to her breast, and gazing upon the cobbler with eyes open to their fullest extent. "It was you I dreamt of--it was you!"

"Ah, Sally," was Seth Dumbrick's calm comment, "it was me you dreamt of, eh? What sort of a dream?"

"Oh," cried Sally, "so good--so beautiful!"

"Tell me the dream," said Seth.

Sally gave him a practical reply. "I am so tired, and so hungry! And so's my baby."

Seth's eyes wandered to the baby, who was staring at him solemnly.

"Yours?" he gravely asked of Sally.

"Mine," as gravely answered Sally, with an emphatic nod.

A smile passed over the cobbler's lips. His stall was curiously built in front of a flight of steps leading down to a cellar, in which he lived, and as he sat at work on his platform his face was almost on a level with the pavement. Now, as Sally made reference to her tired and hungry condition, she peered into this cellar. It was dark and safe. If she and her baby could hide there, no one in the world would be able to separate them.

"May I come in?" she begged.

"Come along," said Seth.

There was room on the platform for the children, and Sally, with her baby, joyfully squeezed in, and nestled in the corner, where they could see and be seen by the cobbler, but were almost quite hidden from the passers-by in the street. Seth Dumbrick then, reaching out his hand, opened a little cupboard on his right, and taking from it a loaf of bread, cut two thick slices, over which he spread a careful layer of dripping from a yellow basin. Sprinkling these liberally with salt, he gave them to the children, and proceeded with his work while they ate.

Every movement he made was watched with admiration by Sally, and the disclosure of the cupboard containing food was to her something almost magical.

Seth Dumbrick was a character in the neighbourhood. Not a person in Rosemary Lane was on visiting terms with him, and the children, as they passed and repassed, were in the habit of casting longing looks into the dark shadows of the cellar which had never yet received a guest, and which was popularly supposed to contain rare and precious deposits. The circumstance of his having been seen at various times carrying bottles and jars with living creatures in them imparted an additional interest to his habitation. He was never seen in a public-house or a place of worship.

Everything in this man's face was on a grand scale: there was not a mean feature in it. His lips were full and powerful, his nose was large and of a good shape, his great grey eyes had in them a light and depth which were not easily fathomed, and but for his forehead, which hung over his eyebrows like a precipice, he would have been a well-looking man. But this forehead was of so monstrous a bulk that it engrossed the attention of the observer, and except to those with keen and penetrating insight, destroyed all harmony of feature in the face of the man. His flesh was not over clean; his hands were as hard as horn; he had a week's bristles on his chin, and an old red nightcap on his head.

Before the children had finished their slices of bread-and-dripping, Seth, bending forward, took Sally's boots from her feet, and examined them. They were in sad need of repair, and without a word, Seth began to patch and hammer away at them. Sally's eyes glistened with grateful pleasure.

"And now about that dream of yours, Sally," said Seth Dumbrick, as Sally, after partaking of the last mouthful of bread, wiped her lips with her hand. "Did I have a gold-laced hat and silk stockings on?"

"Oh, no," replied Sally, screwing up her lips, "only you was setting on a stool, mending shoes--as you're doing now."

"Well, that's not much of a dream, Sally. You could dream that dream over again this minute, with your eyes wide open."

"No, I couldn't--no, I couldn't!" protested Sally, with a vigorous shake of her head. "You don't know!"

"Well, go on; I was sitting here mending shoes----"

"No, no," interrupted Sally, "you wasn't sitting here."

"Where, then."

"There!" said Sally, pointing with her finger upwards to the sky.

"There!" echoed Seth, with a startled look, following the line of Sally's finger.

"And angels was flying all about you, and it was their shoes you was mending."

And then Sally related the whole of her dream as circumstantially as it was in her power to do. The narration occupied some time, and at its conclusion Sally's face was red with excitement, and an expression of interest was in Seth Dumbrick's features.

"And I was putting a pair of shining slippers on the feet of this little thing," he said, taking the baby in his arms. "I didn't know you had a little sister, Sal."

"I ain't got none; she ain't my sister--she's my baby."

Seth Dumbrick, holding himself aloof from his neighbours, and not being given to idle chatterings, knew none of the particulars of the child's introduction to Rosemary Lane, and he now learnt them for the first time from Sally's lips.

"Poor little castaway!" he said.

"She wasn't dressed like this when she first come," said Sally.

"No! How then?"

"She had nice things, better than I ever seed."

"What's become of 'em?"

"Pawnbroker's," tersely replied Sally.

"Ah! and you've no idea who or where the pretty little creature's mother is?"

"She never had a mother."

"That's not according to nature, Sally. A mother she must have had."

"No; she had a ma, not a mother. I knew she wasn't like us the first moment I ever see her. That was the night brother Ned come home, and me and baby went to bed together. Then I dreamed that dream of you and the angels. Wasn't it a beautiful dream?"

"It was a rare fine dream, Sally, a rare fine dream! Angels! and Seth Dumbrick a-working for 'em! that's the finest part of it. Seth Dumbrick sitting in the sky, with angels begging of him to mend their shoes! And I'll do it too--when I get there. I'll set up as a cobbler in the clouds, and make my fortune. Ha, ha, ha! Sally, go on dreaming like that, and something'll come of it."

"What'll come of it?" asked literal Sally.

Seth Dumbrick rubbed his chin with his horny hand. The bristles were so strong, and his hand was so hard, that the action produced a rasping sound, such as the rubbing of sand-paper produces.

"There was a woman once, Now her name was Southcott--Joanna Southcott it was. Now she was a poor woman, too, as you'll be."

Sally nodded. She had never bestowed the slightest thought upon the matter, but if she had made it the subject of the most serious contemplation she could have had no other expectation than that of a certainty she would be a poor woman all her life.

"Joanna had dreams, and prophesied. She dreamt of angels and the devil, and had a fight with the devil."

"Did she run away from him, and did he run after her," inquired Sally, almost breathless with excitement, for in her mind at that moment the devil stood for the new tenant who, in her own dream, had tried to destroy her treasure-baby.

"That's not told," answered Seth Dumbrick.

"But she beat him!" suggested Sally, with her little hands tightly clasped.

"She beat him bad, did Joanna. My mother--she was a Devonshire woman, like Joanna--believed in her, and so did a heap of others. And now I come to think of it," said Seth, with a musing glance at the pretty child lying on his leather apron, "there's something strange in Joanna Southcott's name coming into my head in this way. For, you see, Sal, when Joanna was an old woman, she gave out that she was going to be brought to bed with a Prince of Peace; but she never was, more's the pity, for that's the very Prince the world wants badly, and never yet has been able to get. She used to go into trances, used Joanna, and prophesy."

"Tell me," said Sally.

"About 'em? Well, there were so many! She was always at it."

"What's trances?" asked Sally, with feverish excitement, "and what's prophecy?"

"Well, Joanna'd be sitting as you're sitting now, when all at once she'd go off--fall back or forward, insensible. That would be a trance. Then she'd dream something. Then she'd come to, and tell what she dreamt. That'd be a prophecy."

" I do that!" cried Sally, in a fever of excitement. " I fall back and faint dead away--dead away! For a long time. And I don't know nothing that goes on all the time. Oh, my! But I ain't begun to prophesy yet, that I knows on. Tell me, what is prophecy?"

"Something that comes true, or is likely to come true. Now, here and there your dream's a good deal like some of Joanna's dreams. She was a prophetess; my mother had some of her writings. Fine writings, promising fine things. You look out, Sally. You keep on dreaming and fainting dead away, and some day perhaps you'll prophesy."

Sally nodded. Her eyes were full of fire, her little lips were parted in wonder, and in her childish mind strange and yearning hopes and cunning designs were beginning to stir.

"That dream of yours," proceeded Seth Dumbrick, in all earnestness, "might signify something. There's a mighty deal in it to an understanding mind. If you were older than you are, Sally, I'd asked you to commence and prophesy."

Sally answered by another nod. Indeed, fascinated by the earnestness of the speaker, no less than by the mystery which seemed hidden in his words, Sally's head oscillated up and down with regular motion, following with ready acquiescence the current of Seth Dumbrick's utterances.

"Other people have had dreams," said Seth Dumbrick, "that signify something, and led to something. There was Maria Marten. You know about her."

Sally, who had seen the tragedy of Maria Marten, or the Murder at the Red Barn enacted at a penny show, replied eagerly:

"I've seed her! and I've seed the pickaxe--and the grave--and the blood!"

"That all came of a dream. A mole-catcher her father was, and she was a fine young woman. The girl went away from home one fine day, dressed up in man's clothes. She had a sweetheart, and she was going to meet him to be married. But instead of taking her to church her sweetheart took her to the Red Barn, and shot her. Now it was a year afterwards that Maria appeared to her mother in a dream----"

"Yes, yes!" cried Sally. "Dressed in a white bedgownd. She was at the show."

"--and said that she'd been murdered, and buried in the Red Barn. Well, her mother told her dream, and the peopled laughed at her. But the ghost came to her a second time the next night, and a third time the next, and then the mother wouldn't be denied. They went to the Red Barn, and there they found Maria, done up in a sack, and buried under the floor. Every word of it is true. Now," said Seth, graciously and condescendingly, as though he were about to present Sally with a large piece of plum-cake, "I'll tell you something that I wouldn't tell to everybody. I saw that man hung."

Sally gazed at him with eyes dilated to their fullest extent. Seth Dumbrick, gratified at this exhibition of interest, moistened his thumb.

"I was there, and saw him hung. Corder his name was, and it's--ah, it's twenty odd year ago. I was a young man then, and I went to all the executions."

"Why?" inquired Sally, without any special reason for asking; adding as an afterthought, "Was they nice?"

Seth Dumbrick rasped his bristly chin again with his horny hands.

"Can't exactly say why," he honestly answered. "They wasn't particularly nice. I've seen seven men in a string. I can see 'em now, all of a row."

Staring into space upon this gloomy imagining, Seth Dumbrick paused a sufficient time to see the black cap; drawn over the faces of the doomed men, and the ropes adjusted. Which being done, and the men disposed of, he resumed the former topic.

"Then there were other dreams. Here's one. Two men work in a brewery. One kills the other, and heaves the body into the fire under the boiling vat, where it's burned into smoke and ashes. No one knows what's been done, and the story runs that the murdered man is drowned. The murderer goes to another town, and lives there. Now, then. A matter of seven years afterwards the murderer comes back again, and gets work in the same brewery. The first night of his return he goes to bed, and begins to speak in his sleep. Another man's abed in the same room with him, and that man is awake. 'Yes,' says the murderer in his sleep, it's just seven year ago since I did it.' The other man in a kind of careless way, says, 'What did you do seven year ago?' Upon that, the murderer gets out of bed, and crawls about the room. Then stops still all of a sudden. Then stands straight up. Then draws an imaginary knife. Then stabs an imaginary man. Stabs him once, twice, three times. Then stops and listens. Then creeps back to bed. All this the workman that's awake sees, because the moon is shining into the room, and it's all so plain that he can't hardly mistake what it means; but to make sure, he says, 'What was his name?' and the murderer mentions the name of the man who was supposed to be drowned seven years ago. 'Did you kill him?' he asks. 'I did,' says the murderer. 'What did you do with the body?' he asks again. 'I put it,' says the murderer in his sleep, 'into the fire under the vat.' That was enough. The next day he was taken in custody, and was so worked upon that he confessed, and was hung."

Seth Dumbrick related this story so dramatically that Sally thought it as good as a play, quite as good as the Murder at the Red Barn, which she had seen at the penny show.

"Did you see him hung?" she inquired.

"No; it was done in a foreign country, and I missed him. You see, Sally, dreams are significant things sometimes. I don't know what the world would do without 'em. There's the Bible--what would the Bible be without dreams, and visions? Did you ever hear of Pharaoh?"

"No; was he a relation of Joanna's?"

"Pharaoh was a king, one of those you see in the British Museum done up in bundles. He was a Bible man, and had dreams. Then there was Daniel, and all the other prophets--they were always having dreams. I tell you what, Sally. If it wasn't for dreams, there would never have been any prophets. There are your shoes--when you're a grown-up woman, you can pay me for mending 'em."

Sally murmured her thanks, and leant forward to put them on. Seth Dumbrick was also bending forward, and in the act, the precipice of his forehead loomed ominously over Sally, as though it were about to fall upon her. Now, whether it was from some fantastic fear of the occurrence of such a catastrophe, or from her own weak condition, or from the excitement of her mind produced by the strange stories narrated by Seth Dumbrick, Sally, as the cobbler leant over her, gave a sigh, and sank to the ground, with her shoes in her hand.

Somewhat perplexed by the novelty of the situation, Seth Dumbrick raised Sally without exactly knowing what to do with her. The child's eyes were closed, and she made no movement or response to his inquiries as to what was the matter with her. Every moment added to the embarrassment of the situation, and reflecting grimly upon what the neighbours might think if they happened to discover Sally's dark, passive face lying against his knee, Seth Dumbrick decided that the best and most humane plan would be to carry her down to his cellar, and there wait for her recovery. He carried her down, not without tenderness, and then returned for the baby, whom he placed on the ground by Sally's side.

During the short time that Sally was left to herself it might not have been quite a matter of the imagination to fancy that she raised her eyelids cautiously and cunningly, and looked timidly about her. But the cellar was in darkness, and when Seth Dumbrick returned with the baby, Sally lay with closed eyes, and with apparently as little life in her as a stone.

The cellar, as has been said, was in darkness, and only to one accustomed to the gloom could the objects it contained be seen. But Seth had lived in the place for years, and from long custom his sight had accustomed itself to the shadows by which he loved--for he was by no means an unhappy man--to be surrounded. As Sally lay before him, he could see her face distinctly.

"I'd best bathe her head with water," he muttered; "it'll liven her up."

Taking a cup, he dipped it into what looked like a large glass tank, and withdrew it full of water. As he raised it from the surface, a stickleback leapt from the cup, and fell, with a little plash, into the tank. Seth, peering into the cup, inserted his fingers, and lifted out two water-beetles, which he deposited in the tank. Then he knelt by Sally, and laved her face.

Seth Dumbrick was a bachelor, fifty years of age, with no ties of kindred, and desiring none as it seemed, but not entirely without companionship. He was the possessor of an aquarium, constructed by himself, having in its centre a device in rocks, and with weeds, lilies, and what water-plants were in season, floating on the surface through the whole of the year. In the aquarium was a strange collection of fish and reptiles, comprising gold and silver fish, sticklebacks, silver pike, water worms and beetles, and as many varieties as Seth could gather and purchase of the fantastic Salamander. Of a certain species of this family of Salamandrid?, with large lustrous yellow spots and stripes which Seth claimed to come from Japan, and which he called his water-leopards, Seth was particularly proud. The rocks in the centre of the aquarium came sheer out of the water to suit the habit of those of his creatures amphibiously inclined, and it was from this aquarium he drew the water to restore Sally to consciousness.

But Sally's attack was one of the most obstinate nature, and she showed no signs of recovery. The more Seth bathed her face and head the more insensible she appeared to become, and Seth, not being accustomed to such "tantrums," as he called them, was doubtful, after a great exercise of patience, whether he was adopting the proper means for the recovery of the patient. And in a little while he was sensible of a creeping fear that Sally had taken her departure from this world of trouble to one where trouble was not known. "But that can't be," he murmured, as he placed his ear to her bosom, "for her heart's beating."

It was beating, and very violently for a child in Sally's weak condition. Seth doubted whether it was natural that the hearts of persons who were in the habit of falling into trances should beat so loudly as Sally's heart was beating now, and while he was considering the knotty point in silent perplexity, Sally's eyelids were cautiously raised, and she strove to pierce the darkness which surrounded her. She saw nothing, not even the eyes of Seth Dumbrick, which were fixed upon hers, in close observance.

"Sally!" called Seth, relieved at this sudden recovery.

Sally's eyelids were immediately closed, and from Sally's lips came no reply. Seth waited and watched for two or three minutes, but Sally was still unconscious. Then Seth, with somewhat of a demonstrative noise, walked towards the steps which led to daylight and the world, and instantly walked back to Sally's side on tiptoe, so softly and noiselessly that the most timid mouse might have been deceived. Sally again opened her eyes, and this time she slightly raised herself from the ground.

"Sally!" again called Seth.

Sally hastily resumed her recumbent position, and was dumb. An expression of comic amusement stole into Seth's face. He went to the aquarium, and dipping in his cup, carefully fished up a water-beetle with a score of slender legs.

"Poor Sally! Poor little thing!" murmured Seth, as he gently placed the water-beetle on Sally's face, over which it instantly began to crawl.

Sally screamed loudly, and jumped up. Seth gave a dry laugh, and replaced the water-beetle in the aquarium.

"Oh, oh!" cried Sally. "Where am I?"

"Don't be frightened, Sally," replied Seth. "You're in my cellar."

"It's so dark!" moaned Sally.

"It won't be after you've been here often," said Seth, in a sly tone. "What's been the matter with you, Sal?"

Sally's answer was prompt. "I've been in a trance."

"And you've had a vision," suggested Seth.

"Oh, yes, yes," cried Sally. "How did you know?"

Seth chuckled. "And you're going to prophesy," he said.

"Yes, yes!"

"Fire away, then," said Seth, shaking with laughter. But his laughter was noiseless, and Sally did not hear it.