Captain Bayley's Heir

CRIPPLE boy was sitting in a box on four low wheels, in a little room in a small street in Westminster; his age was some fifteen or sixteen years; his face was clear-cut and intelligent, and was altogether free from the expression either of discontent or of shrinking sadness so often seen in the face of those afflicted. Had he been sitting on a chair at a table, indeed, he would have been remarked as a handsome and well-grown young fellow; his shoulders were broad, his arms powerful, and his head erect. He had not been born a cripple, but had been disabled for life, when a tiny child, by a cart passing over his legs above the knees. He was talking to a lad a year or so younger than himself, while a strong, hearty-looking woman, somewhat past middle age, stood at a wash-tub. "What is all that noise about?" the cripple exclaimed, as an uproar was heard in the street at some little distance from the house. "Drink, as usual, I suppose," the woman said. The younger lad ran to the door. "No, mother; it's them scholars a-coming back from cricket. Ain't there a fight jist!" The cripple wheeled his box to the door, and then taking a pair of crutches which rested in hooks at its side when not wanted, swung himself from the box, and propped himself in the doorway so as to command a view down the street. It was indeed a serious fight. A party of Westminster boys, on their way back from their cricket-ground in St. Vincent's Square, had been attacked by the "skies." The quarrel was an old standing one, but had broken out afresh from a thrashing which one of the older lads had administered on the previous day to a young chimney-sweep about his own age, who had taken possession of the cricket-ball when it had been knocked into the roadway, and had, with much strong language, refused to throw it back when requested.