1

On a fine warm evening in late summer, over a hundred years ago, a boy might have been seen leading a donkey across Southwark Bridge in the city of London. The boy, who appeared to be about fifteen, was bright-eyed and black-haired, and looked as if he had spent most of his life out of doors; he carried a knapsack, and wore rough, warm garments of frieze. Both boy and donkey seemed a little bewildered by the crowds round about them: the streets were thronged with people strolling in the sunshine after their day's work.

Halfway across the bridge the boy paused, took an extra turn of the donkey's halter round his wrist, and pulled out of his pouch a grubby and much-handled letter, which he proceeded to study.

"Come and stay with me for as long as you like, my dear Simon," he read, for the twentieth time. "I have lately moved from Park Lane to lodgings that are less expensive, but sufficiently comfortable and commodious for us both. I have two rooms on the top floor of this house, belongs to a Mr. and Mrs. Twite. The Twites are an unattractive family, but I see little enough of them. Moreover the windows command a handsome view of the river and St. Paul's Cathedral. I have spoken of you to Dr. Furnace, the Principal of the Art Academy in Chelsea where I sometimes study and he is willing to accept you as a pupil. Through my visits to this Academy I have made another most interesting acquaintance to whom I wish to introduce you. More of this when we meet. Yours, Gabriel Field, M.D. PS. Kindly remember me to Sir Willoughby and Lady Green, Miss Bonnie and Miss Sylvia Green, and all other friends in Yorkshire."

The letter was addressed from Rose Alley, Southwark, London.

The boy named Simon looked about him somewhat doubtfully and, after a moment's hesitation, accosted an elderly and rather frail-looking man with sparse locks who was walking slowly across the bridge.

"I wonder, sir," he said politely, "if you can direct me to Rose Alley? I believe it is not far from here."

The old man looked at him vaguely, stroking his beard with an unsteady hand.

"Rose Alley, now? Rose Alley, dear me? The name is indeed familiar..."

His hand stopped stroking and his eyes roamed vacantly past Simon. "Is that your beast?" he asked absently, his gaze lighting on the donkey. "Ah, I remember when I was a lad in the forest of Epping, I had a donkey; used to carry home bundles of firewood for a penny a load..." His voice trailed off.

"Rose Alley sir," Simon said gently. "I am searching for the lodgings of a Dr. Field."

"Dr. Field, my boy?"

"Yes, sir, Dr. Gabriel Field."

"That name, too, seems familiar. Dear me, now, dear me, was it Dr. Field who put the bread poultice on my knee?" He advanced his knee and stared at it, seeming mildly surprised to find that the bread poultice was no longer there with Dr. Field's bill attached to it.

Simon, watching him, had not noticed an extremely dirty urchin who had been hovering near them. This individual, a sharp-looking boy of eleven or twelve who seemed to be dressed in nothing but one very large pair of trousers (he had cut holes in the sides for his arms) now jostled against Simon, contriving at the same moment to tread on his toes, flip his nose, and snatch Dr. Field's letter out of his hand. He then ran off, singing in a loud, rude manner,

"Simple Simon came to town,
Riding on a moke.
Donkey wouldn't go,
Wasn't that a joke?"

"Hey!" shouted Simon angrily. How did the boy know his name? "Give back that letter!"

He started in pursuit, but the boy, thumbing his nose derisively, crumpled up the letter and tossed it over the rail into the water. Then he disappeared into the crowd.

"Eh, deary me," said the old man, sighing in a discouraged manner. "The young people grow rougher and ruder every day. Now, what was it you were saying, my boy? You wanted the address of a Dr. Poultice? A strange name, a strange name—very. So far as I know there's no Dr. Poultice in these parts."

"No, Dr. Field—Dr. Gabriel Field in Rose Alley," said Simon, still vainly trying to catch a glimpse of the boy.

"Dr. Alley? Never heard of him. Now when I was a lad in the forest of Epping there was a Dr. Marble..."

Simon saw that he would get no good out of the old man, so he thanked him politely and walked on across the bridge.

"Did I hear you say you wanted Rose Alley?" said a voice in his ear. He turned with relief and saw a smallish, brisk-looking woman with pale blue eyes and pale sandy hair and a bonnet that was most ingeniously ornamented with vegetables. A small bunch of carrots decorated the brim, a couple of lettuce-leaves curled up rakishly at one side, and a veritable diadem of radishes was twined tastefully round the back.

"Yes, Dr. Field's lodgings in Rose Alley," said Simon, relieved to find someone who looked able to answer his question, for, though the little woman's bonnet was eccentric, her mouth was decided and her eyes were very sharp.

"Don't know any Dr. Field but I can tell you the best way to get to Rose Alley" she said, and reeled off a set of directions so complicated that Simon had much ado to get them into his head. He thanked her and hurried on, repeating, "Two miles down Southwark Bridge Road, past the Elephant and Castle Inn, past Newington Butts, through Camberwell, then take a left turning and a right fork..."

But hey! he said to himself when he had gone half a mile, didn't Dr. Field say that from his window he had a view of the river Thames? And of St. Paul's Cathedral?

He turned round. St. Paul's Cathedral had been in view while he stood on Southwark Bridge. But now it was out of sight.

That woman must have been wrong, Simon thought, beginning to retrace his steps. She must have been thinking of some other Rose Alley. I'll go back until I am once more within sight of St. Paul's and the river, and ask somebody else. What a place this London is for confusion!

He presently reached the bridge once again, and this time was luckier in his adviser. A studious-looking young man with a bag of books said he was going to Rose Alley himself. He led Simon off the bridge around a couple of corners, and into a tiny cobbled lane giving directly onto the river front. There were but half a dozen tall, narrow, shabby houses on either side, and at the far end a patch of thistly grass sloped down to the water.

Simon had forgotten the number of the house where Dr. Field lodged, but when he asked which belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Twite the young man pointed to the last house on the right, Number Eight, which stood with its back to the bridge and its side to the river.

Simon tethered his donkey to some broken railings and knocked on the door, which was in need of a coat of paint.

For a long time there was no reply. He knocked again, louder. At that, a window flew open and a child's head popped out.

"There's nobody in but me," she snapped. "Whose donkey is that?"

"Mine. Is this the house of Mr. and Mrs. Twite?"

"Yes it is. I'm Miss Twite," the brat said with a haughty air. "What d'you want?"

"I'm looking for Dr. Field."

"There's no Dr. Field here. Can your donkey gallop? What's its name?"

"Caroline. Do you mean Dr. Field is out?" The child looked thoroughly unreliable and Simon was not sure whether to believe her.

"Can your donkey gallop?" she repeated.

"If you'll come down and answer the door I'll give you a ride on her," said Simon. She vanished like lightning and reappeared in the doorway. She was a shrewish-looking little creature of perhaps eight or nine, with sharp eyes of a pale washed-out blue and no eyebrows or eyelashes to speak of. Her straw-colored hair was stringy and sticky with jam and she wore a dirty satin dress two sizes too small for her.

"Is Dr. Field out? Do you know when he'll be back?" Simon said again.

She took no notice of his question but walked up to the donkey and untied it. "Lift me on its back," she ordered. Simon good-naturedly did so, urged the reluctant Caroline to a trot, and led her to the end of Rose Alley and back. Miss Twite hung on to the saddle with loud exclamations.

"Mind out! Not so fast, you're shaking me! She's bumping, make her slow down! Oo, your saddle's hard!"

When they arrived back at Number Eight she cried, "Give me another ride!"

"Not till you tell me when Dr. Field will be back."

"Don't know."

"Well, where are your father and mother?"

"They've gone to Vauxhall Gardens with Penny and Grandpa and Aunt Tinty and they won't be back till midnight past."

"Why aren't you with them?"

"Acos I threw Penny's hat on the fire," she said, bursting into giggles. "Oo, how they did scold! Pa walloped me with a slipper, leastways he tried to, and Ma said I mightn't go out, and Penny pinched me. Spiteful cat."

"Who's minding you?"

"I'm minding myself. Give me another ride!"

"Not just now. The donkey's tired, she and I have come all the way from Yorkshire this week. If you're good you shall have another ride later, perhaps." Simon was learning cunning. But Miss Twite looked at him with a knowing, weary eye and said, "Gammon! I know yer 'later perhaps!'"

"Would you like to give the donkey some carrots?" Simon said, visited with inspiration.

"Don't mind."

He pulled a handful of carrots out of the pannier and broke them up.

Miss Twite was delighted with the privilege of feeding Caroline, and almost shed her world-weary air. Seeing her absorbed, Simon quietly walked through the front door of the house and up a steep and dirty flight of stairs, past several landings. At the top of the house two doors faced one another. Simon remembered that Dr. Field had said there were two rooms; doubtless both of these were his. But no reply came from either door when he tapped; it appeared that the child had been speaking the truth and Dr. Field was indeed out.

It could surely do no harm to wait for him here, however, Simon thought. By this time he was decidedly fatigued, and a kitten, which had been asleep in his knapsack, at this moment woke up and mewed to be released.

Simon opened one of the doors and looked through into the room beyond.

As soon as he saw the window he recognized the view that Dr. Field had described—the river, and Southwark Bridge, and an expanse of mud gleaming pink in the sunset below the tethered barges. Beyond towered the dome of St. Paul's. But, strangely enough, the room, which had a faintly familiar smell, did not contain a single stick of furniture.

"Perhaps this room is for me and I am to buy my own things," Simon thought, and recrossed the landing, remembering with a grin Dr. Field's previous lodgings in Park Lane, where painting equipment, easels, palettes, and bottles of turpentine jostled pills and medicine phials, while a skeleton lounged on the sofa.

But the other room, too, was bare. It did contain a little furniture—a bed, table, and chair, and a worn strip of drugget on the floor. But there were no covers on the bed and it was plain that this room, too, was unoccupied.

Simon scratched his head. Could he have made a mistake? But no, Dr. Field had distinctly written "Mr. and Mrs. Twite, Rose Alley, Southwark," and here, sure enough, was the Twite house in Rose Alley. Here was the top room with the view of St. Paul's. The only thing lacking was Dr. Field himself. Perhaps he had not yet moved from his other lodgings? And yet Simon had received the letter with the new address a full two months ago, and had then written to Rose Alley saying when he proposed to arrive. Could something have changed or delayed the doctor's plans? Simon ran down the stairs again, resolved on trying to get a little more help from young Miss Twite.

He arrived none too soon for poor Caroline. Having finished the carrots—Simon observed traces of carrot on the child's face and deduced that the donkey had not received a full ration—Miss Twite had contrived to clamber onto Caroline's back from the railings. Using a rusty old umbrella she was urging the donkey at a fast trot along Rose Alley.

Simon ran after them and grabbed the bridle.

"You little wretch!" he remarked. "Didn't you hear me say Caroline was tired?"

"Fiddlesticks!" said Miss Twite. "There's plenty of go in her yet." She raised the umbrella, and Simon twitched it neatly out of her hand.

"So there would be in you if I beat you with an umbrella."

"Are you going to? I'll tell my Pa if you do!" Miss Twite eyed him alertly.

Simon couldn't help laughing, she looked so like an ugly, scrawny little bird, ready to hop out of the way if danger threatened. He led Caroline back to her pasturage and dumped Miss Twite on the steps of Number Eight.

"Now then, tell me once and for all—where is Dr. Field?"

"What Dr. Field? I don't know any Dr. Field!"

"You said just now he was out."

"I only said that to get a ride," said Miss Twite, bursting into a fit of laughter and throwing herself from side to side in the ecstasy of her amusement. "I've never met Dr. Field in my life."

"But he was going to move here—I'm almost sure he did move here," said Simon, remembering the words in the doctor's letter—"The Twites are an unattractive family but I see little enough of them"—didn't that sound as if he were already moved in? And this specimen of the Twite family was unattractive enough, heaven knows!

"There's no Dr. Field living here and never has been," said the child definitely.

"Who lives in your top rooms?"

"They're empty."

"Are you sure Dr. Field isn't coming soon?"

"I tell you, no!" She stamped her foot. "Stop talking about Dr. Field! Can I have another ride?"

"No, you cannot," said Simon, exasperated. He wondered what he had better do.

If only Mr. or Mrs. Twite were here, they might be able to throw some light on this puzzling situation.

"Is that a kitty in your knapsack?" said Miss Twite. "Why do you keep it there? Let it out. Let me see it!"

"If I let you see it," said Simon cautiously, "will you let me stay the night? I could sleep in your top room. I'll pay you of course," he added quickly.

She hesitated, chewing a strand of her stringy hair. "Dunno what Ma or Pa would say. They might beat me. And what 'bout the donkey? Where'll she go?"

"I'll find a place for her." There was a row of little shops round the corner, greengrocer's, butcher's, dairy—Simon thought it probable that he could find lodgings for Caroline behind one of them. He was not going to risk leaving her tethered in the street with this child about.

"Will you promise to give me another ride tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"But Pa only lets by the week," she said swiftly. "It's twelve-and-six the week, boots and washing extry, and a shilling a day fires in winter. If you stayed the week you could give me a ride every day."

"All right, you little madam," said Simon, rapidly reckoning how long his small stock of money would last.

"Hand over the twelve-and-six, then."

"Not likely! I'll give that to your father."

She accepted this defeat with a grin and said, "Show me the kitty, then."

"First I want to buy some food and find a place for the donkey. You'd better be putting sheets on the bed." Miss Twite made a grimace but trailed indoors, leaving the front door ajar.

When he had bought milk and eggs at the dairy Simon arranged to stable Caroline with the milk roundsman's pony for half a crown a week, this sum to be reduced if she was ever borrowed for the milk deliveries. Simon was not quite satisfied with this arrangement—the sour-looking dairywoman had too strong a resemblance to young Miss Twite for his taste and he wondered if they were related—but it would do for the time.

He purchased a quantity of cold ham and a loaf of bread and then returned to Rose Alley where the door still stood open.

Surprisingly enough, young Miss Twite had taken a pair of sheets and blankets up to the top room and was rather carelessly throwing them over the bed.

"Now let's see the kitty," she said.

Simon's kitten was equally eager to be let out from its traveling-quarters, and gave a mighty stretch before mewing loudly for bread and milk.

"I suppose you're hungry too," Simon said, noticing Miss Twite's hopeful looks at the loaf.

"Aren't I jist? Ma said I was to miss my dinner on account of burning Penny's hat—spiteful thing."

"Who's Penny?" Simon asked, cutting her a slice.

"My sister. Oo, she's a horrible girl. She's sixteen. Her real name's Pen-el-o-pe." She mouthed it out disgustedly.

"What's yours?"

"Dido."

"I never heard that name before."

"It's after a barge. So's Penny's. Can I have another bit?"

He gave her another, noticing that she had already eaten most of the ham.

"Can I take the kitty down and play in the street?"

"No, I'm going to bed now, and so's the kitty. Tell your father that I've taken the room for a week and I'm waiting for Dr. Field."

"I tell you," she said, turning in the doorway for emphasis, "there ain't any Dr. Field. There never has been any Dr. Field."

Simon shrugged and waited till she had gone. Then he went across into the room that faced onto the river and stared out of the window. It was nearly dark by now, and the opposite bank glittered with lights, some low down by the water, some high up on St. Paul's. Barges glided upstream with the tide, letting out mournful hoots. Dr. Field had been here, Dr. Field had seen this view. Dr. Field must be somewhere. But where?

Simon soon went to sleep, though the mattress was hard and the bedding scanty. At about one in the morning, however, he and the kitten, who was asleep on his chest, were awakened by very loud singing and the slamming of several doors downstairs.

Presently as the singer apparently mounted several flights of stairs, the words of the song could be distinguished:

"My Bonnie lies over the North Sea,
My Bonnie lies over in Hanover,
My Bonnie lies over the North Sea
Oh, why won't they bring that young man over?
Bring back, bring back,
Oh, bring back my Georgie to me, to me..."

Simon realized that the singer must be one of the Georgians, or Hanoverians as they were sometimes called, who wanted to dethrone King James and bring back the pretender, young Prince George of Hanover. He couldn't help wondering if the singer were aware of his rashness in thus making known his political feelings, for, since the long and hard-fought Hanoverian wars had secured King James III on the throne, the mood of the country was strongly anti-Georgian and anybody who proclaimed his sympathy for the pretender was liable to be ducked in the nearest horse-pond, if not haled off to the Tower for treason.

"Abednego!" cried a sharp female voice. "Abednego, will you hold your hush this instant! Hold your hush and come downstairs—I've your nightcap a-warming and a hot salamander in the bed—and besides, you'll wake the neighbors!"

"Neighbors be blowed!" roared the voice of the singer. "What do I care about the neighbors? I need solitude. I need to commune with Nature. I'm going to sleep up in the top room—mind I'm not called in the morning till eleven past when you can bring me a mug of warm ale and a piece of toast."

The steps came, very unsteadily up the last flight of stairs. The kitten prudently retired under the bed just before the door burst open and a man lurched into the room.

He carried a candle which, after several false tries, he succeeded in placing on the table, muttering to himself, "Cursed Picts and Jacobins! They've moved it again. Every time I leave the house those Picts and Jacobins creep in and shift the furniture."

He turned toward the bed and for the first time saw Simon sitting up and staring at him.

"A Pict!" he shrieked. "Help! Ella! There's a Pict got into the house! Bring the poker and the ax! Quick!"

"Don't talk fiddlesticks," the lady called up the stairs. "There's nothing up top that shouldn't be there—as I should know. Didn't I scrub up there with Bath brick for days together? I'll Pict you!"

"Are you Mr. Twite?" Simon said, hoping to reassure the man.

"Ella! It speaks! It's a Pict and it speaks!"

"Hold your hush or I'll lambast you with the salamander!" she shouted.

But as the man made no attempt to hold his hush but continued to shriek and to beseech Ella to bring the poker and the ax, there came at length the sound of more feet on the stairs and a lady entered the room carrying, not the ax, but a warming pan filled with hot coals, which she shook threateningly.

"Come along down this minute, Abednego, or I'll give you such a rousting!" she snapped, and then she saw Simon. Her mouth and eyes opened very wide, and she almost dropped the warming pan, but, retaining her hold on it, shortened her grip and advanced toward the bed in a very intimidating manner.

"And who might you be?" she said.

"If you please, ma'am, my name is Simon, and I rented your top rooms from your daughter Dido this evening—if you're Mrs. Twite, that is?" Simon said.

"I'm Mrs. Twite, all right," she said ominously. "And what's more, I'm the one that lets rooms in this house, and so I'll tell that young good-for-nothing baggage. Renting room to all and sundry! We might have been murdered in our beds!"

Simon reflected that it looked much more as if he would be the one to be murdered in his bed. Mrs. Twite was standing beside the bed with the warming pan held over him menacingly; at any moment, it seemed, she might drop the whole panful of hot coals on his legs.

She was a large, imposing woman, with a quantity of gingerish fair hair all done up in curlpapers so that her head was a strange and fearsome shape.

In order to show his good intentions as quickly as possible Simon got out his money, which he had stowed under the pillow, and offered Mrs. Twite five half crowns.

"I understand the room is twelve-and-six a week," he said.

"Boots and washing extra!" she snapped, her eyes going as sharp as bradawls at sight of the money. "And it'll be another half crown for arriving at dead of night and nearly frightening Mr. Twite into convulsions. And even then I'm not sure the room's free. What do you say, Mr. Twite?"

Mr. Twite had calmed down as soon as his lady entered, and had wandered to a corner where he stood balancing himself alternately on his toes and his heels, singing in a plaintive manner,

"Picts and pixies, come and stay, come and stay,
Come, come, and pay, pay, pay."

When his wife asked his opinion he answered, "Oh, very well, my dear, if he has money he can stay, I've no objection if you are satisfied. What is a Pict or two under one's roof, to be sure?"

Simon handed over the extra half crown and was just about to raise the matter of Dr. Field when Mr. Twite burst into song again (to the tune, this time, of "I Had a Good Home and I Left") and caroled,

"A Pict, a Pict, she rented the room to a Pict,
And I think she ought to be kicked."

"Come along, my dove," he said, interrupting himself, "the Pict wants to get some sleep and I'm for the downy myself." Picking up the candle he urged his wife to the door.

"I thought you wanted to commune with Nature," she said acidly, pocketing the money.

"Nature will have to wait till the morning," Mr. Twite replied, with a magnificent gesture toward the window which had the unfortunate effect of blowing out the candle. The Twites made their way downstairs by the glow of the warming pan.

Simon and the kitten settled to sleep once more and there were no further disturbances.