AT THE FOUNDLING GATES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5739, 5 December 1896, Page 2

AT THE FOUNDLING GATES.

(W. Petl Ridge in "St James's Budget.") ■ Outside the high railings a few women are this morning resting, and these now and again look through at the distant Doric-shaped building expectantly. They are stern matrous for the most part ; and when their children escape to run across to the small drinMng-fountain in the road, with its noseless stone lady atop holding out an empty jug (representing Charity), they call them insistently and tell the children that if they don't behave themselves their fathers shall be told of the way they have been carrying on, and then (add the stern mothers confidently) — then we shall see what happens. Ono or two young cabmen stroll up from the rank in Guildford Street and are inclined to offer badinage; but such is the severity of the matrons that the 3 r oirag cabmon change their minds and go back to their wooden house to read again tho back page of the Sporting Life. The bearded attendant inside the closed iron gate walks up and down the paved way in front of his miniature mansion, and orders off an impudent stray pigeon which, having fed well at the expense of a cab-horse with a hole in its bag, has hopped up the long gravelled road to see what is really going on. "Ere's one of 'em coming out naow. Who's she, I wonder ?", "That," remarks a lady in a maroon dress, defiantly, "is a friend of mine, if you must know. And if you've got anythink to say against her, novr's the time to say it." "Nothing further from my mind, mem." " Ho, very well, then ! Don't let's 'avc any 'ints, that's all. We're none of. us perfect, and I daresay, if the truth was known . Well, Susan ?" interrogatively to the red-eyed young woman who has come ont of the gateway : " How'd it go off ?» Susan finds her, handkerchief, in the shape of a small damp ball of linen, and shakes her head dolefully and sighs. It's a great wrench, says Susan, and she only hopes the pooi 1 little thing will be happy. " 'Appy ?" echoes the Maroon Dress encouragingly. "Why, of course she'll be 'appy. I've seen 'em on Sunday mornings in their cloaks and their stror 'ats, and you can see that they're as 'appy as 'appy can bo. Like so many inegels, only dressed different." Susan, but half persuaded, says but how about her? To think of the poor little thing being handed over to what they call the country mother, and going right away Heaven knows where— to Sussex or come other outlandish, place, and she (Susan) never so much as to set eyes on it again — well, it don't bear thinking of. " Look 'ere now, my dear." Maroon Dress, being really a good soul, affects an extravagant cheerfulness. "You come along out into the Gray's Inn Eoad with me, and I'll take you to a place where they sell a scone that is 'ome-made, and a cup of tea that you can abslootly rely upon." The two move away east. "And after all, now, don't you see, you'll get a fresh situitiou, and you won't 'aye no tie, and nobody need be a penny the Mind where you're coming with your pram, little girl! Why not look where you're going, instead of staring at me and my friend ?" The matrons, in view of the deeply interesting nature of. the event, postpone the execution of their respective household duties; and one who has a net bag as though she had been fishing, and who seems to have caught a vegetable-marrow and some French beans and a potato or two, and to have had altogether rather good sport, becomes quite dictatorial on the subject of the proceedings now going on away in the secretary's office of the distant building, and contradicts without hesitation every statement made by anybody else ,- is, indeed, so eager to do this, that presently she contradicts herself ; and when this is pointed out to her she becomes very cross, and remarks that some veople think they know, but they don't know. How she came to be acquainted with a-U the facts was through a cousin of her late husband's, now married to a oil and colour merchant King's Cross way, and as well off in a manner of speaking as the days are long. Oil and colour merchant knows no more about it (adds the informative matron confidentially) than the man in the moon. And why should he ? "I'm sure!" agree the other matrons, acquiescently. And you may take it from the informative matron that these are the regulations, which is to say the rales, that you have to abide by. That the mother gives up all right to the little dear, and that the Fondling takes it over. See ? And away it goes, and it's brought up as John Farrar, say, or Emily Waters, or what not, according to the fancy of the Fondling or the nature of the sect ; and then presently, in year 3to come, back it comes from the country grown up to, say, five years old or thereabouts, and the Fondling takes it in hand and educates it and prepares it to earn a livelihood. And (says the informative matron), supposing the mother gets well off and would like to have the kid with her, she can come to the Fondling, and can say to the Fondling, " Pardon me interrupting," she can say, "but l should like to 'aye my orfspring," she can say, "back again, me being now in a peesition to bring him or her up, as the case may be." And if the Fondling, making inquiries, finds that such are the facts, the Fondling hands the child over. But supposing — the informative matron stoops to pick up an errant potato which has escaped from the net— supposing the mother don't want it back, why the child may go down on his or her bended knees and beg and implore the Fondl'ng to say who its mother is, but do you think the Fondling will do that? "Not it!" says the informative matron acutely. "The- Fondling's got more sense." A young woman in a brown cloak comes cheerfully from the distant building along the long broad line of flagstones to the gate. She exchanges a few optimistic remarks with the bearded attendant about the weather ; the bearded attendant is of opinion, miss, that there's rain about. Brown Cloak, on the contrary, thinks that if s going to keep fine, sir, until she. gets home. She is persistently joyous, and seems anxious to talk as much as possible, and when she is not talking she hums an exhilarating air. "It's a rare old performance inside there," says Brown Cloak, gleefully. " You're ushered into a room, and, say you are the doctor — well, you're standing there, and" (to another interested woman), "say you are the secretary, you're sitting there, and me, I'm 'ere with my — with the baby— and there's the nurse, as it might be, there. Very well, then !" " Ast a lot of inquisitive questions, don't they?" ■■■■ ■ " There's two doors to the room," Brown Cloak goes steadily on with her description, " and tho doctor examines, the child, and then its age, and its names and everything is all booked, and presently, when you've signed the what-you-call-it — the document, you know " " Wouldn't catch me signing no document." "Why, fhen" — Brown Cloak hesitates here a little — " then all you've got to do is just to— to kiss the little beggar and say good — good-bye, ye know. And the doctor gives a nod, and out the nurse carries the baby through one door, and out you come by tho other. And the whole business don't take more than ten minutes, and I must say, if it's the last word I utter on this earth, if I never say so much as another sentence, I must say that everybody's" — Brown Cloak swallows something—" everybody's as kind as they can possibly be, 1 must say that for 'em." " I've 'card different," remarks a gloomy matron. " Don't you go by what you 'ear ; you go by what you kiiow." "Personally, I don't prefess to know Tinihjll^^LJ^^^jauJ^^k^^fi^J2^^^i^Mh|

matron. The gloomy matron sniffs with a superior manner, and turns casually a mere wire of a wedding-ring on her finger, the while Brown Cloak hums a pollca. "Thanks be, I 'ad my 'cad screwed on the right way when I was a girl. I 'ad good parents, I 'ad, and if you must know, I can inform yon that I was merried at St Giles's by the Eev I-forget-his-bothering-nime, before I was nineteen year old, and there's the church there still, and " * " 1 dessay," says Brown Cloak. " But if I stay listeniu' 'ere all day I shan't get back to my place of business, shall I ? vGood morning." The group breaks up ; the matrons sort their children and go off with, them through Guildford Street to G ray's Inn Eoad ; in the tributaries of which dinner is to be prepared and ironing to be done. Brown Cloak, being part of the way down Lamb's Conduit Street, stops and looks back ; perceiving that the women 'had gone, she returns slowly to the iron railings, grips the horizontal outer bar with each hand, and looks very intently and very wistfully at the distant building. And now on Brown Cloak's cheek there are tears.