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Updated: June 26, 2025
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."
"It seems fur to warm a chap," he said again, as he crept under the wretched blanket which Mrs. Skimmidge designated and charged for as a bed. From that day forward Wikkey was possessed by one idea that of watching for the approach of the "big chap," following his steps along the crossing, and then, if possible, getting a word or look on which to live until the next blissful moment should arrive.
Then the question arose, where was Wikkey to pass the night, followed by a whispered dialogue and emphatic "Nothing will be safe" from the lady of the house. All of which the boy perfectly understanding, he remarked: "I aint a prig; I'll not take nothink."
Wikkey stood looking after him with two big tears rolling down his dirty face; it was so long since any one had called him a poor little chap, and he repeated the words over and over as he threaded his way in the darkness to the dreary lodging usually called "Skimmidges," and kept by a grim woman of that name.
"Is anythink amiss, Lawrence?" "No, Wikkey I was only thinking;" then, plunging on desperately, he continued: "I was thinking how I could best make you understand what I said last night about Someone Who sees everything you do Someone Who is very good." "Cut on, I'm minding. Is it Someone as you love?" Lawrence reddened. What was his feeling towards the Christ?
So Reginald came on such evenings as he could spare, and Wikkey, no longer averse, listened as he told him of the Fatherhood of God, of the love of the Son, and of the ever-present Comforter; of creation, redemption, and sanctification, and all the deep truths of the faith, receiving them with the belief that is born rather of love than of reason; for though the acuteness of the boy's questions and remarks often obliged Reginald to bring his own strong intellect to bear on them, they arose from no spirit of antagonism, but were the natural outcome of a thoughtful, inquiring mind.
But at last there came a season of desolation very nearly verging on despair. Day after day for a week ten days a fortnight did Wikkey watch in vain for his hero.
Oddly enough the imputation of cheekiness rankled in his mind in a most unusual fashion not that Wikkey entertained the faintest objection to "cheek" in the abstract, and there were occasions on which any backwardness in its use would betray a certain meanness of spirit: for instance to the natural enemy of the race the Bobby it was only right to exhibit as much of the article as was compatible with safety.
Sometimes, however, Wikkey was too tired for talking, and could only lie still and listen while Lawrence and the curate conversed, the expression of his eyes, as they passed from one to another, showing that he understood far more than might have been expected. One evening, in the middle of March, after he had been carried up-stairs, the cousins sat talking over their charge.
In the morning Wikkey was quieter and perfectly sensible: but the pinched look on his face, and the heavy labored breathing, told plainly that he was sinking.
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