the mangle skreeks so, whilst the two littlest often cries a deal, and
makes a noise because Sally don't mind 'em well. How old is she? Oh,
Sally's six, only she ain't a useful gal, and always was fond of
slipping out and playing in the court with the other gals and boys, as
always comes up to play because there's no carts and 'busses coming by.
You'll come some day, then, mum? Don't you go when I ain't at home.
Good-bye, mum. Don't want another indy-rubber ring, do you?"
Another day and I was looking out near the Mansion House for my little
hero, when my heart sank at the sight of a gathering crowd, generally a
danger signal, in that busy way.
"What's the matter, my man?"
"Matter? Why it's a wonder it don't happen five hundred times a day.
That's what it is--a runnin', an' a dodgin', an' a bobbin' about in
amongst the 'osses' feet, and a gettin' runned over, as a matter o'
course, at last."
Yes, at last, as I found on elbowing my way through the gaping crowd,
feasting their eyes upon the sight of a little muddied bundle of
clothes, above which appeared a little, old-looking, scared, quivering,
and pain-wrung countenance, while two muddy hands tightly clutched a
dirty parcel of evening papers to his breast.
"He ain't much hurt, bless you," said a policeman. "You're all right,
ain't yer, old man? Now then, try and get on yer legs."
The little muddy object stared wildly round at the many faces, and his
lips moved, but no sound came; while as the policeman tried to lift him
up, a low, sobbing, heart-wrung cry came from the poor child's breast,
and drew a compassionate murmur from the crowd.
"It's them Hansoms, you see," said a man beside me; "they cuts along
full roosh; and one of 'em caught the poor little chap, threw him down,
and the wheel went right over him."
"Well, where does it hurt, eh?" said the policeman, not unkindly.
The dim eyes were turned up to the speaker; the papers clutched tightly
to the muddy breast; the poor child's lip quivered for a moment, and
then Nature was kind to the little sufferer, and he fainted.
"Fetch a cab," I said, kneeling down beside the little fellow, and
gently touching the leg which showed the mark of the cab wheel.
"Is it broke, mum?" said the policeman.
I nodded; the cab came up; and there, with the little fellow supported
between us, the policeman and I were rumbling over the stones, and on
our way to Guy's Hospital. But it is no such easy task to make your way
amidst the dense throng of vehicles crowding the bridge, and some time
elapsed--time enough for the poor boy to revive a bit, and look about
him in a confused, half-stunned way, as if not able to realise his
position. At last he spoke:
"I hadn't sold 'arf of 'em," he cried, looking at his dirty newspapers,
"and no one won't buy 'em, now;" when the mental pain proved harder to
bear than the bodily, and the boy began to cry.
"There, don't do that," said the policeman; "that won't do no good. But
here we are."
"Does it hurt you much, Bill?" I said gently, and the boy looked
wonderingly at me, as if asking how I knew his name.
"Not so werry much," he said, with the bottom lip still quivering; "but
mother will be in such a way. Don't let them hurt me any more."
Bore it like a hero he did, and then I left him bright and cheerful,
asking a nurse how long it would be before he could run again and sell
his papers, while to me he said: "Tell her it ain't bad, mum please, and
that she ain't to cry much, and as soon as I get better I'll sell twice
as many papers to makeup for it; and you'll give her that sixpence I
took out of my trousers, and I think I must have lost a penny when I
got--knock--knock--"
The quivering of the lip began once more, for the recollection of the
accident was too strong for the little fellow's fortitude, and soon
after I was once more amongst the hurrying footsteps on my way to
execute my sorrowful commission by Brick Lane.
A thickly-inhabited part--thickly inhabited by our poorer brethren, by
disease engendering smells, by fogs, by smoke, by misery and
wretchedness unutterable. Dirty butchers' shops, dirty bakers' shops,
open shops where wretched vegetables are vended, shops for sheep's heads
and faggots, tripe and sausage shops, brokers' so replete with dirty,
time-worn furniture that chairs and tables and stump bedsteads are
belched forth upon the narrow pave. Here was a chair with a crick in
its back, there a lame table; higher up a cracked looking-glass, while
lower down was a wash-tub and four rusty flat-irons. Great Eastern
carts and waggons were blocking the way, and now and then side streets
revealed the busy mysteries of the goods department. Now I put my foot
into an old iron tray full of rusty keys. Extricating myself, I kicked
against some jangling iron work, and then hurried on past the shop where
the best price was given for old bones; and now I came to a small red
board, hung by a string to the bolt of a parlour window-shutter. There
was a painting in yellow upon the board--a painting of a very
gouty-legged, heavy-bodied mangle; while beneath it was the legend:--
"Mangling Done Here."
At the door a bottomless chair was laid sideways to restrain the
inquiring dispositions of a treacly-faced child, playing with an old
brass candlestick, which it ever and anon sucked with great apparent
relish; while upon my knocking loudly, the child howled furiously until
a woman, with crimply white hands and steaming, soap-suddy arms, made
her appearance.
"Does Mrs Perks reside here?" I said.
"Oh, bother; no, she don't," was the answer; and then I stood alone.
I was wrong, for I had evidently hit upon a rival establishment where
mangling was done; but a little more searching brought me to where I
could hear the creaking and groaning of the stone-burdened machine as it
slowly rolled backwards and forwards in sight of the passer-by, and I
soon had a pale face, clean-looking window sobbing bitterly as I told of
the mishap.
"But you're not deceiving of me; he's not worse than you say? Oh, my
poor, poor boy!"
There was the mother spoke in those last words--the mother's heart
asserting itself, and showing that the love of the poorest and most
uneducated is, after all, but the same as may be found amongst the
greatest of our land.
"You see, he is so good, and old, and kind, and earns so much, that
since my poor husband died he's been such a stay. And now for him, too,
to be in a 'osspital it does seem so hard! I can't help taking on a
bit, about it; for he never seemed like other boys, playing and liking
to run about the streets; for all he thinks about is to earn money and
bring it home. Once he brought me five shillings and three-pence
halfpenny in one week, as much as I can make myself some times with the
mangle; and then, poor boy, he'd pull off his jacket and wet soppy
boots, and turn away at that handle, after tramping about through the
cold muddy streets all day. He's never tired, he says, and he lights my
bit of fire of a morning, and helps wash his brothers, and now--oh! what
shall I do?"
But the thought of her boy's suffering made the poor woman dry her eyes,
and by the time she was composed we were back again in the street where
Guy's Hospital stands, and then, after muttering a hope that Sammy would
mind his brother Pete didn't set his pinafore a fire, the mother entered
the building, and we parted.
"And how's the leg, Bill?" I asked him some time later.
"A'most well, mum, ony I can't get it quite straight yet, being a bit
drawn; but it never hurts now."
"Down by Brick Lane still?"
"No, ma'am; mother lives close by Camberwell, in one o' them streets out
o' Walworth Road, and does clear starching now; and as soon as the leg
gets quite well I'm a-going to have a barrer."
But his ambition was never gratified, for soon after the little hero was
in a respectable situation and doing well.
CHAPTER FOUR.
A MORNING WITH MISERY.
I give these as so many random recollections of my life or narratives
related to me from time to time, and I have, as being more in keeping
with the mood in which they are written, naturally given prominence to
those which lean towards the sad and pathetic side of life. My dealings
with little Bill encouraged me to visit here and there in the poorer
portions of London, at first in fear and trembling, for the rougher men
that hung about the entrances to the courts and often blocked the way
inspired me with horror and dread, but somehow before long I found that
I had become known, and I and my basket were welcome visitors in many a
dark home, and at last I had no hesitation in penetrating the worst
portions of that doleful district, back of Drury Lane and the portion
swept away to make room for the Courts of Justice.
I remember well one morning that I had with misery in its haunts and my
search for a house of whose occupants I had been told. I had been
considering for some few minutes rather at fault, when I came upon a
group of boys engaged in a game of buttons upon the pavement, and my
inquiring for Burt's Buildings created quite a little scene of
excitement.
"Burt's Buildings, ma'am?" said one, as all rose to stare at me. "It's
first turning to the left after you gets down Popper's Court."
"No 'tain't now," cried another, "you let me tell the lady. It's the
first turning to the left past old Blacke's where the lamp hangs as Jim
Pikehurst broke; and then you goes--"
"No you don't ma'am, it's up this way, ma'am. He means Burt's Court,
where they're pulling down. I'll show you ma'am."
"But are you sure you know?" I said.
"No, ma'am," cried half-a-dozen in chorus, "he don't know, ma'am, not a
bit."
Here there was a threatening gesture from my would be guide, and a
defiant war-whoop in reply, but uttered in retreat, and the next minute
I was standing amongst the rags of one of the inns of court, in company
with a little sallow skinned boy about ten, dressed in a great deal of
trousers and very little shirt. The weather being warm, this completed
his costume, if I except the dirt with which he was largely decorated.
In company with a similarly costumed boy of his own age, he was now
making a light repast off a piece of black, gristly stuff which they
called "fungus;" but whose odour announced it to be the composition of
glue and treacle used by printers for their ink-rollers. My boy--that
is to say, the one who became my guide--was at the same time forming
designs upon the broken pavement by placing one of his bare feet in the
black gutter, full of unutterable abominations, and then printing the
foot--heel, sole, and toes--upon various dry spots. Now he would
contract his toes, now expand them, and then seem to derive much
pleasure from making the foul black mud of the gutter ooze up between
them in little gushes which met and formed a dirty stream upon his
instep.
Whose house did I want? Well, I only wanted leading to the place
itself; and after divers wanderings in and out, I stood in Burt's
Buildings, and looked about, with more than one curious pair of eyes
watching me. On my right were a couple of uninhabited tenements--
tenements untenable--the grating in front rusty and worn, the walls foul
with mud, every window that could be reached by stick or stone broken,
every available ledge loaded with an assortment of stones, bones,
cabbage-stumps, oyster shells mingled with those of the cockle,
periwinkle, and whelk; while the remaining eight or nine houses in the
court were at first sight in the same predicament, though the second
glance told that all their windows were not broken, while further
inspection showed that attempts had been made in a variety of ways to
repair the breaches made by time and the smaller builders of the place.
Paper seemed much in favour in some sashes; wood and pieces of slate in
others; one gashly breach was stopped by an old rusty tea tray, which
well covered four broken squares; while rags, straw, and a variety of
articles which would have required analysation to catalogue, displayed
themselves obtrusively at every turn.
By slow degrees little signs showed that, although the inhabitants
presented themselves but little, yet there were dwellers here. At one
window a bright red and yellow tulip grew in an old black teapot, whose
nose and handle evidently helped to form the rubbish heap down one of
the gratings. At another window there was a small bird-cage--such a
small cage for the restless linnet within, which breasted the wires
incessantly, ever twittering and bringing thoughts of far-off
blue-arched campaigns, where the trees were delicate with their bright
golden green, and the emerald turf was spangled with the flowers of
spring. Again, at another window, two or three articles of washed
clothing had been hung out to dry, and secured by shutting the window
down upon them. While the next instant came a whoop and a yell, and a
troop of children swept back into the before silent court, from which
they had evidently been drawn by some foreign attraction. The babies
were there, tied in the customary drabby, washed-out shawl, swaying in
the most top-heavy manner. The mothers were there now, at door and
window, to shriek out warning or threat; while now appeared the first
male inhabitant in the shape of a closely-cropped man, with a bull head
and a black pipe, a villainous countenance, and a little dog which he
nursed as he looked out of one of the windows, and stopped at intervals
to spit upon one particular broken slab in the court below.
"This here's Burt's Buildings," said my guide; who then spun the penny I
gave him into the air, caught at it, struck it upon the edge, when down
it fell, and rolled to the grating of an empty house and was gone; but
hardly quicker than the little boy had leaped forward and thrown himself
down upon his face, to peer between the rusty bars.
Who could have resisted the dismay and misery of that boy's face as he
raised it to mine? or have failed to enjoy the sudden change to hope and
delight as the hand which went to a pocket placed another coin in his
hand, to send him turning the wheel along the court till he had
disappeared; while half a score of the young builders formed themselves
into a committee of inspection, and wedged their noses down between the
bars in their endeavour to catch a glimpse of the lost coin.
And now I was at Burt's Buildings, for what had I come, but to see
misery; and I saw her, gaunt, and foul, and wan, looking at me from
every landing as I slowly ascended step by step the creaking old stairs,
which threatened to give way once and for all beneath my weight, as they
hung to the wall, while the balustrade seemed to have disappeared a bit
at a time for firewood. I saw misery looking out at me from the dark
eyes of a woman, who coughed painfully at intervals, as she told me of
how she found bread for herself and three children.
"It came hard on me, you see, ma'am, when my poor master died. We were
out of the country, and come up here for work, and very good work he got
till the accident that laid him up for six weeks. Out-patient of the
hospital he was, and they were very kind to him; and though he never
took regularly to his bed, he seemed to dwindle away, and he was took.
Don't think me hard-hearted because I don't cry about it, ma'am; I've
cried till the tears seem as if they would not come any more, and what
one has to do for a bit of bread is so trying at times that one has no
time to be fretting.
"You see, children are so thoughtless, and yet you can't wonder at it--
but as long as they have their meal's victuals that's all they think
about. But then they're very young, you see, and don't know any better.
That big one's seven, and she minds the two others while I go out, and
I always manage not to be gone more than three hours at a time, though
it hinders me a good deal from taking longer beats, for you see I'm out
now-a-days in this pleasant spring weather with flowers. I'd do
needlework, so as to be at home with them, but, oh! it's heart-breaking
work. It was hard enough, I dare say, before there were sewing
machines, but it's dreadful now, and you may work day and night almost
to live. Just fancy being paid so many farthings for making a garment
that has taken hours, while the poor children have been fretful and
miserably cooped up in this one room--half-a-crown a week I pay for it,
because it's one of the most decent, and I like being up at the top of
the house, here, for one seems to get a little more fresh air, even if
it's smoky. The poor bairns didn't seem to breathe down below there,
and grew more white and pasty-looking every day till I got them up here.
"I'm not particular what I sell as long as it is in season and people
will buy. But it's no matter what one takes to, there's scores about
selling the very same thing, and it's quite a fight sometimes for the
next penny. Flowers always did, and I suppose always will, sell well,
and I do the best I can with mine by sprinkling and keeping them fresh,
and setting them out as tasty as I can, so as to catch people's eyes.
There's very few people, no matter how hard they are, but what you can
make the way to their hearts with a pretty, sweet-smelling blossom or
two. I suppose as God made them, He's given them that power, and I've
had your hard City men, who make money all the day long, stop in front
of my basket with the lines softening out of their faces, and a
brightness coming into their eyes that seems to stop for long enough;
and if they buy, say, a bunch of violets or a few wallflowers, they'll
stop about them, not picking and choosing and beating you down, but
pretending to, so that they may hang about the basket, and smell them,
and look at their simple beauty.
"I keep at flowers all I can, for it's a good trade for a poor woman
like me; and even in that one gets one's regular customers. One
simple-looking boy comes and buys rosebuds of me; and I smile to myself,
sadly enough though, for it reminds me of old times, when one's eyes
were bright, and one's face was smooth and fresh-coloured, and Tom used
to say--Well, never mind, ma'am, I won't bother you with that nonsense;
but this customer of mine buys those rosebuds to give to some proud
girl, I feel sure--one as will never look at him; and the poor fellow
always sighs when he buys his roses. One gentleman buys a bunch
regularly to take home to his wife; another for his children; and
work-girls love them dearly, to keep them in water in their rooms. I
call regular at one house, and somehow I always make up my best bunch
for there. You see, it's for a sick girl who has been lying months and
months, and they tell me she will never get better; while the thought of
her seems to remind me of my own trouble, and I feel sorry for her; and
after the servant has taken the sweet, fresh bunch, and paid me for it,
I seem to picture it all--the poor invalid smiling and brightening up at
the sight of the pretty flowers, as she holds out her poor, thin, white
hands for them, and perhaps kisses them, and holds them to her poor pale
face. I don't know that she does--I only seem to fancy it is so.
"Rich and poor, ma'am, all alike, and ready to be customers for a few
flowers; and I often felt cut to see the eager looks some poor creatures
give at them, and how ready they are to part with almost their last coin
to get hold of them. Why, I've known boys who had perhaps a penny to
get a bit of bread-and-butter for their tea come and spend it with me;
and once, bad off as I was myself, I could not take the longing little
fellow's penny, but gave him the flowers.
"You see, it seems to come into the hearts of all God's creatures, I
think, to love the bright country; and when tiny bits of it like are
held before them, it sets them longing, and makes them eager to get
them. But it's hard work at times to know what to do, for flowers fade
and die, and after one has come down to the lavender, and cried that
round the streets, it's getting a hard matter to know what to sell.
I've come home here o' nights before now, and gone down on my knees by
that bit of a bed and cried to be taught what to do next to get a bit of
bread for the little ones, whom I've found huddled together fast
asleep--after crying, perhaps, for long enough because mother did not
come home. And shall I tell you why mother did not come home, ma'am?
Well, it was because she had tramped hour after hour, street after
street, to find a customer, and then came home disappointed and
heart-sick. Then, perhaps it would be the crying, or perhaps better
thoughts came into one's ignorant heart; but I've got up better, and
somehow the sun would shine a bit for me the next day, so that I could
make a few pence; and one way and another we manage to live, while
others starve."
Was it one's heart that had grown heavier with listening to the widow's
sorrows? Perhaps so; for certainly the stairs creaked more loudly as I
went down past misery staring from more than one lair, hollow-eyed and
gaunt, as though speaking as the flower-selling widow; and then I stood
once more in the court, threaded my way past the children that flocked
there, several of whom were fishing with bits of string for the lost
coin, and, on reaching the _embouchure_, encountered young Trousers, who
grinned a welcome as I passed, and ceased printing black feet upon the
pavement.
"I ain't spint that there copper," he shouted after me.
"Haven't you?" I said. "What shall you do with it, my man?"
"Give it to mother," said the grimy young rascal, with an earnestness
that there was no mistaking; and I passed on, thinking what a fine lad
that little fellow would have made if planted in different soil with
some one to carefully watch him and tend.
CHAPTER FIVE.
RUTH'S STEPFATHER.
I feel a shrinking--a strange kind of hesitation in narrating some of
these adventures lest the reader should think me full of egotism, and
that I told of my little charities as if proud of what I had done. Pray
chase any such idea from your minds, for I can honestly say that no
feeling of vanity ever existed in mine. I am merely relating the
pleasures of my life, my rambles amongst weeds and flowers--the weeds
and sad lined blossoms of our town.
I was much troubled in my mind as to how I could most help the widow of
Burt's Buildings, and I knew that I could best assist her by helping her
to help herself. One of her great troubles was that she had to leave
her little ones so long, and a strange sense of pain had shot through me
as she spoke of finding them huddled together as they had cried
themselves to sleep. What could I do then?
The thought came: A sewing machine! that which had been her enemy to be
now her friend; and the next morning I was in one of our busiest streets
in front of a large establishment within whose plate-glass doors I saw a
pretty lady-like young woman, busy winding thread upon one of some dozen
of the ingenious little pieces of mechanism, and upon stating my wants
she led me up to a bluff, sharp-looking, grey man whose face seemed to
soften as she spoke before returning to her task.
"Sewing machine ma'am, eh?" he said, eyeing me very sharply. "Own use?"
"No," I said, "I want it for a poor woman to enable her to earn her
living."
"Instalments, ma'am," he said sharply.
"I beg your pardon."
"Want to pay for it by instalments?" he said.
"Oh! no, I will pay for it at once, and you can deliver it to her."
"Oh," he said smiling, "that's twenty per cent, discount."
I looked at him wonderingly, for I did not know what twenty per cent
discount might be.
"I always take twenty per cent discount off these machines," he said,
and I left pleasurably impressed by his ways and those of the young girl
he introduced to me as his daughter, and that little new machine was the
first of several in which I had Mr Smith's kind co-operation and advice
in what were doubtful cases.
The result was a warm intimacy, in the course of which he told me his
little history and that of his daughter--stepdaughter he called her--
Ruth.
"Mine's a curious trade to have taken to," he said, "and I had plenty of
up-hill work, but it has grown to be profitable. Things were at a low
ebb with me when I took it up, while now--"
There, I won't boast, only say that I'm thankful for it. Poverty comes
in at the door, and love flies out of the window, so they say; but
that's all nonsense, or else your poor people would be always miserable,
while according to my experience your poor man is often more
lighthearted than the man with thousands.
I was at my wits' end for something to do, and sat nibbling my nails one
day, and grumbling horribly.
"Don't go on like that, Tom," says my wife; "things might be worse."
"How?" I said.
"Why, we might have Luke at home, and he is doing well."
Luke's our boy, you know, and we had got him into a merchant's office,
where he seemed likely to stay; but I was in a grumbling fit then, and
there was a clickety-click noise going on in the next room which
fidgeted me terribly.