"Oh, here's the boy, gentlemen!"
Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now, boy! But stop a
minute. Caution. This boy must be put through a few preliminary paces.
Name Jo. Nothink else that he knows on. Don't know that everybody has two
names. Don't know that Jo is short for a longer name. Thinks it long
enough for him. Spell it? No. He can't spell it. No father, no mother, no
friends. Never been to school. What's home? Knows a broom's a broom, and
knows it's wicked to tell a lie. Don't recollect who told him about the
broom or about the lie, but knows both. Can't exactly say what'll be done
to him after he's dead if he tells a lie to the gentleman here, but
believes it'll be something wery bad to punish him, and so he'll tell the
truth. "He wos wery good to me, he wos," added the boy, wiping his eyes
with his wretched sleeves. "When I see him a-laying so stritched out just
now, I wished he could have heerd me tell him so. He wos wery good to me,
he wos."
The jury award their verdict of accidental death, and the stranger is
hurried into a pine box and into an obscure corner of that great home for
the friendless and unmourned,--the Potter's field,--and night falls,
hiding from sight the new-made grave.
With the night comes a slouching figure through the tunnel court, to the
outside of the iron gate of the Potter's field. It holds the gate with its
hands, and looks in between the bars. Stands looking in for a little
while. It then takes an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step, and
makes the archway clean. It does so very busily and trimly; looks in again
a little while, and so departs.
Jo, is it thou? Well, well?
Though thou art neither a gentleman nor the son of a gentleman, there is
an expression of gratitude and of loyalty, worthy of gentle blood,
indicative of noble character, in thy muttered reason for this:----
"He wos wery good to me, he wos."
Once more without a friend, Jo sweeps his crossing day after day. Before
the stranger came into his life, he had drifted along in his accustomed
place, more unreasoning than an intelligent dog; but the hand of a human
comrade had been laid in his, and it had awakened his humanity; and now as
he sweeps he thinks--about the stranger--wonders where he has gone to, and
how he died.
As it seemed to Jo that the world was bounded on all sides by the events
in Tom-all-Alone's, he was not at all surprised one day to have another
stranger come to his crossing and ask him many questions concerning the
dead man. He was glad to talk of him, to tell again all that he knew of
his life and death, and to show where they had buried him. The interview
over, Jo is overwhelmed to find his hand closed over a piece of money
larger than he has ever owned before.
His first proceeding is to hold the piece of money to the gas-light, and
to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow gold. His next is to give
it a one-sided bite at the edge, as a test of its quality. His next, to
put it in his mouth for safety, and to sweep the step and passage with
great care. His job done, he sets off for Tom-all-Alone's, stopping in the
light of innumerable gas-lamps to produce the piece of gold, and give it
another one-sided bite as a reassurance of its being genuine; and then
shuffles off, back to his crossing; little dreaming--poor Jo!--that
because of his presence at the inquest, and because of this interview, the
rest of his existence is to be even more wretched than his past has been.
He little dreams that persons great and powerful in the outer world were
connected with the secret of his friend's life and death; but it is even
so, and those who fear to have anything brought to light concerning him,
hire officers to hunt Jo away from Tom-all-Alone's,--the only home he has
ever known,--to keep him as far out of reach as possible, because he knew
more about the stranger than any one else. He does not understand it at
all, but from that minute there seems always to be an officer in sight
telling him to "move on."
At a summons to his shop one day, Mr. Snagsby, the law-stationer (in whose
employ the dead man was, and who has always been kind to Jo when chance
has thrown him in his way), descends to find a police constable holding a
ragged boy by the arm. "Why, bless my heart," says Mr. Snagsby, "what's
the matter?"
"This boy," says the constable, calmly, "although he's repeatedly told to,
won't move on."
"I'm always a-moving on, sir," cries the boy, wiping away his grimy tears
with his arm. "Where can I possibly move to more nor I do?"
"Don't you come none of that, or I shall make blessed short work of you,"
says the constable, giving him a passionless shake. "My instructions are
that you are to move on."
"But where?" cries the boy.
"Well, really, constable, you know," says Mr. Snagsby, "really that _does_
seem a question. Where, you know?"
"My instructions don't go to that," replies the constable. "My
instructions are that this boy is to move on, and the sooner you're five
miles away the better for all parties."
Jo shuffles away from the spot where he has been standing, picking bits of
fur from his cap and putting them in his mouth; but before he goes Mr.
Snagsby loads him with some broken meats from the table, which he carries
away hugging in his arms.
Jo goes on, down to Blackfriars Bridge, where he finds a baking stony
corner wherein to settle his repast. There he sits munching and
gnawing--the sun going down, the river running fast, the crowd flowing by
him in two streams--everything passing on to some purpose, and to one end,
until he is stirred up, and told to move on again.
Desperate with being moved on so many times, Jo tramps out of London down
to St. Albans, where, exhausted from hunger and from exposure to extreme
cold, he takes refuge in the cottage of a bricklayer's wife. A young lady
who happens to be making a charity call on the woman in the cottage--sees
his feverish, excited condition, and questions him.
"I am a-being froze," said the boy hoarsely, with his haggard gaze
wandering about. "And then burnt up, and then froze, and then burnt up,
ever so many times in an hour, and my head's all sleepy, and all a-going
mad like--I'm so dry--and my bones isn't half as much bones as pains."
"When did he come from London?" the young lady asked.
"I come from London yesterday," said the boy himself, now flushed and hot.
"I'm a-going somewheres. Somewheres," he repeated in a louder tone. "I
have been moved on and moved on, more nor I wos afore. Mrs. Snagsby, she's
allus a-watching and a-driving of me. What have I done to her? And they're
all a-watching and a-driving of me. Everyone of them's doing of it from
the time when I don't get up to the time when I don't go to bed. And I'm
a-going somewheres, that's where I'm a-going!"
So in an oblivious half-insensible way he shuffled out of the house. The
young lady hurried after him, and presently came up with him. He must have
begun his journey with some small bundle under his arm, and must have lost
it or had it stolen, for he still carried his wretched fragment of a fur
cap like a bundle, though he went bareheaded through the rain, which now
fell fast.
He stopped when she called him, standing with his lustrous eyes fixed on
her, and even arrested in his shivering fit. She urged him to go with her,
and though at first he shook his head, at last he turned and followed her.
She led the way to her home, where the servants, sorry for his pitiable
condition, made a bed for him in a warm loft-room by the stable, where he
was safely housed for the night and cared for.
The next morning the young lady was awakened at an early hour by an
unusual noise outside her window, and called out to one of the men to know
the meaning of it.
"It's the boy, miss," said he.
"Is he worse?" she asked.
"Gone, miss!"
"Dead?"
"Dead, miss? No. Gone clean off!"
At what time of the night he had gone, or how or why, it seemed hopeless
ever to divine. Every possible inquiry was made, and every place searched.
The brick-kilns were examined, the cottages were visited, the woman was
particularly questioned, but she knew nothing of him; the weather had been
for some time too wet, and the night itself had been too wet, to admit of
any tracing of footsteps. Hedge and ditch, and wall and rick, and stack
were examined for a long distance round, lest the boy should be lying in
such a place insensible or dead; but nothing was seen to indicate that he
had ever been near. From the time when he left the loft-room he vanished,
and after five days the search was given up as hopeless. Where had poor Jo
moved on to now?
For some time it seemed that no one would ever know, but at last, not so
very long after this, a physician, Allan Woodcourt by name--who had known
something of Jo and his story--was wandering at night in the miserable
streets of Tom-all-Alone's, impelled by curiosity to see its haunts by
gas-light. After stopping to offer assistance to a woman sitting on a
doorstep, who had evidently come a long distance, he walks away, and as he
does so he sees a ragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching
close to the walls. It is the figure of a youth whose face is hollow, and
whose eyes have an emaciated glare. He is so intent on getting along
unseen, that even the apparition of a stranger in whole garments does not
tempt him to look back. Allan Woodcourt pauses to look after him, with a
shadowy belief that he has seen the boy before. He cannot recall how or
where, but there is some association in his mind with such a form.
He is gradually emerging from Tom-all-Alone's in the morning light,
thinking about it, when he hears running feet behind him, and, looking
around, sees the boy scouring toward him at a great speed, followed by the
woman.
"Stop him! stop him!" cries the woman; "stop him, sir!"
Allan, not knowing but that he has just robbed her of her money, follows
in chase, and runs so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times; but
each time the boy makes a curve, ducks, dives under his hands, and scours
away again. At last the fugitive, hard pressed, takes to a narrow passage
which has no thoroughfare. Here he is brought to bay, and tumbles down,
lying down gasping at his pursuer until the woman comes up.
"Oh you Jo," cries the woman, "what, I have found you at last!"
"Jo?" repeats Allan, looking at him with attention,--"Jo? Stay--to be
sure, I recollect this lad, some time ago, being brought before the
coroner!"
"Yes, I see you once afore at the Inkwich," whimpered the boy. "What of
that? Can't you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? An't I unfortnet
enough for you yet? How unfortnet do you want me for to be? I've been
a-chivied and a-chivied, fust by one on you and nixt by another on you,
till I'm worritted to skins and bones. The Inkwich warn't my fault; I done
nothink. He wos very good to me he wos; he wos the only one I knowed to
speak to me as ever come across my crossing. It ain't very likely I should
want him to be Inkwich'd. I only wish I wos myself!"
He says it with such a pitiable air that Allan Woodcourt is softened
toward him. He says to the woman, "What has he done?"--to which she only
replies, shaking her head,----
"Oh you Jo! you Jo! I have found you at last!"
"What has he done?" says Allan. "Has he robbed you?"
"No, sir, no. Robbed me? He did nothing but what was kind-hearted by me,
and that's the wonder of it. But he was along with me, sir, down at St.
Albans, ill, and a young lady--Lord bless her for a good friend to
me!--took pity on him and took him home--took him home and made him
comfortable; and like a thankless monster he ran away in the night and
never has been seen or heard from since, till I set eyes on him just now.
And the young lady, that was such a pretty dear, caught his illness, lost
her beautiful looks, and wouldn't hardly be known for the same young lady
now. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do you know that this is all
along of her goodness to you?" demands the woman.
The boy, stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing his dirty forehead
with his dirty palm, and to staring at the ground, and to shaking from
head to foot.
"You hear what she says!" Allan says to Joe. "You hear what she says, and
I know it's true. Have you been here ever since?"
"Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone's till this blessed morning,"
replies Jo, hoarsely.
"Why have you come here now?"
Jo looks all around and finally answers, "I don't know how to do nothink
and I can't get nothink to do. I'm very poor and ill and I thought I'd
come back here when there warn't nobody about and lay down and hide
somewheres as I knows on till arter dark, and then go and beg a trifle of
Mr. Snagsby. He wos allus willing fur to give me something, he wos, though
Mrs. Snagsby, she wos allus a-chivying me--like everybody everywheres."
"Now, tell me," proceeds Allan, "tell me how it came about that you left
that house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as to pity you
and take you home?"
Jo suddenly came out of his resignation, and excitedly declares that he
never known about the young lady; that he would sooner have hurt his own
self, and that he'd sooner have had his unfortnet head chopped off than
ever gone a-nigh her; and that she wos wery good to him she wos.
Allan Woodcourt sees that this is not a sham.
"Come, Jo, tell me," he urged.
"No, I durstn't," says Jo. "I durstn't or I would."
"But I must know," returns Allan, "all the same. Come, Jo!"
After two or three such adjurations, Jo lifts up his head again, and says
in a low voice, "Well, I'll tell you something. I was took away. There!"
"Taken away?--In the night?"
Ah! very apprehensive of being overheard, Jo looks about him, and even
glances up some ten feet at the top of the boarding, and through the
cracks in it, lest the object of his distrust should be looking over, or
hidden on the other side.
"Who took you away?"
"I durstn't name him," says Jo. "I durstn't do it, sir."
"But I want, in the young lady's name, to know. You may trust me. No one
else shall hear."
"Ah, but I don't know," replies Jo, shaking his head fearfully, "as he
don't hear. He's in all manner of places all at wunst."
Allan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning at the
bottom of this bewildering reply. He patiently awaits an explicit answer,
and Jo, more baffled by his patience than by anything else, at last
desperately whispers a name in his ear.
"Aye," says Allan. "Why, what had you been doing?"
"Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble 'cept in
not moving on, and the Inkwich. But I'm moving on now. I'm moving on to
the berryin'-ground--that's the move as I'm up to."
"No, no. We will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you?"
"Put me in a horspittle," replies Jo, whispering, "till I wor discharged,
then gave me a little money. 'Nobody wants you here,' he ses. 'You go and
tramp,' he ses. 'You move on,' he ses. 'Don't let me ever see you nowheres
within forty mile of London, or you'll repent it.' So I shall if ever he
does see me, and he'll see me if I'm above ground," concludes Jo.
Allan considers a little, then remarks, turning to the woman, "He is not
so ungrateful as you supposed. He had a reason for going away, though it
was an insufficient one."
"Thank 'ee, sir, thank 'ee!" exclaims Jo. "There, now, see how hard you
was on me. But on'y you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and it's
all right. For you wos wery good to me, too, and I knows it."
"Now, Jo," says Allan, "come with me and I will find you a better place
than this to lie down and hide in."
And Jo, repeating, "On'y you tell the young lady as I never went for to
hurt her, and what the genlmn ses," nods and shambles and shivers and
smears and blinks, and half-laughs and half-cries a farewell to the woman,
and takes his creeping way after Allan Woodcourt.
In a quiet, decent place, among people whom he knows will only treat the
boy with kindness, Allan finds Jo a room.
"Look here, Jo," says Allan, "this is Mr. George. He is a kind friend to
you, for he is going to give you a lodging here. You are quite safe here.
All you have to do at present is to be obedient, and to get strong; and
mind you tell us the truth here, whatever you do, Jo."
"Wishermaydie if I don't, sir," says Jo, reverting to his favourite
declaration. "I never done nothink yet but wot you knows on to get myself
into no trouble. I never wos in no other trouble at all, sir, 'cept not
knowing nothink and starwation."
"I believe it," said Allan; "and now you must lie down and rest."
"Let me lay here quiet, and not be chivied any more," falters Jo, after he
has been assisted to his bed and given medicine; "and be so kind any
person as is a-passing nigh where I used fur to sweep, as to say to Mr.
Snagsby that Jo, wot he knowed wunst, is a-movin' on right forards with
his duty, and I'll be wery thankful!"
At the boy's request, later, Mr. Snagsby is sent for, and Jo is very glad
to see his old friend, and says when they are alone that he "takes it
uncommon kind as Mr. Snagsby should come so far out of his way on account
of sich as him."
"Mr. Snagsby," says Jo, "I went and give an illness to a lady, and none of
'em never says nothink to me for having done it, on account of their being
so good and my having been so unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me
yes'day, and she ses, 'Jo,' she ses, 'we thought we'd lost you, Jo,' she
ses; and she sits down a-smilin' so quiet, and don't pass a word nor yit a
look upon me for having done it, she don't; and I turns agin the wall, I
doos, Mr. Snagsby. And Mr. Woodcot, he come to give me somethink to ease
me, wot he's allus a-doing on day and night, and wen he come over me and
a-speakin' up so bold, I see his tears a-fallin', Mr. Snagsby."
After this, Jo lies in a stupor most of the time, and Allan Woodcourt,
coming in a little later, stands looking down on the wasted form, thinking
of the thousands of strong, merry boys to whom the story of Jo's life
would sound incredible. As he stands there, Jo rouses with a start.
"Well, Jo, what is the matter? Don't be frightened."
"I thought," says Jo, who had stared and is looking around, "I thought I
wos in Tom-all-Alone's again. Ain't there nobody here but you, Mr.
Woodcot?"
"Nobody."
"And I ain't took back to Tom-all-Alone's. Am I, sir?"
"No."