There are some poor criminals that never have a chance: circumstances
are against them from the first, as they explain, with tears, to
sympathetic mission-readers. Circumstances had always been against
Scuddy Lond, the gun. The word gun, it may be explained, is a friendly
synonym for thief.
His first name was properly James, but that had been long forgotten.
"Scuddy" meant nothing in particular, was derived from nothing, and was
not, apparently, the invention of any distinct person. Still, it was
commonly his only name, and most of his acquaintances had also nicknames
of similarly vague origin. Scuddy was a man of fine feelings, capable of
a most creditable hour of rapturous misery after hearing, perhaps at a
sing-song, "Put Me in my Little Bed," or any other ditty that was rank
enough in sentiment: wherefore the mission-readers never really
despaired of him. He was a small, shabby man of twenty-six, but looking
younger; with a runaway chin, a sharp yellow face, and tremulously sly
eyes; with but faint traces of hair on his face, he had a great deal of
it, straight and ragged and dirty, on his head.
Scuddy Lond's misfortunes began early. Temptation had prevailed against
him when he was at school, but that was nothing. He became errand boy in
a grocer's shop, and complications with the till brought him, a howling
penitent, to the police court. Here, while his mother hid her head in
the waiting-room, he set forth the villainy of older boys who had
prompted him to sin, and got away with no worse than a lecture on the
evils of bad company. So that a philanthropist found him a better
situation at a distance, where the evil influence could no longer move
him. Here he stayed a good while--longer than some who had been there
before him, but who had to leave because of vanishing postal orders.
Nevertheless, the postal orders still went, and in the end he confessed
to another magistrate, and fervently promised to lead a better life if
his false start were only forgiven. Betting, he protested, was this time
the author of his fall; and as that pernicious institution was clearly
to blame for the unhappy young man's ruin, the lamenting magistrate let
him off with a simple month in consideration of his misfortune and the
intercession of his employer, who had never heard of the grocer and his
till.
After his month Scuddy went regularly into business as a lob-crawler:
that is to say, he returned to his first love, the till: not narrowly to
any individual till, but broad-mindedly to the till as a general
institution, to be approached in unattended shops by stealthy grovelling
on the belly. This he did until he perceived the greater security and
comfort of waiting without while a small boy did the actual work within.
From this, and with this, he ventured on peter-claiming: laying hands
nonchalantly on unconsidered parcels and bags at railway stations, until
a day when, bearing a fat portmanteau, he ran against its owner by the
door of a refreshment bar. This time the responsibility lay with Drink.
Strong Drink, he declared, with deep emotion, had been his ruin; he
dated his downfall from the day when a false friend persuaded him to
take a Social Glass; he would still have been an honest, upright,
self-respecting young man but for the Cursed Drink. From that moment he
would never touch it more. The case was met with three months with hard
labor, and for all that Scuddy Lond had so clearly pointed out the
culpability of Drink, he had to do the drag himself. But the
mission-readers were comforted: for clearly there was hope for one whose
eyes were so fully opened to the causes of his degradation.
After the drag, Scuddy for long made a comfortable living, free from
injurious overwork, in the several branches of lob-crawling and
peter-claiming, with an occasional deviation into parlor-jumping. It is
true that this last _did_ sometimes involve unpleasant exertion when the
window was high and the boy heavy to bunk up; and it was necessary, at
times, to run. But Scuddy was out of work, and hunger drove him to
anything, so long as it was light and not too risky. And it is
marvellous to reflect how much may be picked up in the streets and at
the side-doors of London and the suburbs without danger or vulgar
violence. And so Scuddy's life went on, with occasional misfortunes in
the way of a moon, or another drag, or perhaps a sixer. And the
mission-readers never despaired, because the real cause was always
hunger, or thirst, or betting, or a sudden temptation, or something
quite exceptional--never anything like real, hardened, unblushing
wickedness; and the man himself was always truly penitent. He made such
touching references to his innocent childhood, and was so grateful for
good advice or anything else you might give him.
One bold attempt Scuddy made to realize his desire for better things. He
resolved to depart from his evil ways and to become a nark--a copper's
nark--which is a police spy, or informer. The work was not hard, there
was no imprisonment, and he would make amends for the past. But hardly
had he begun his narking when some of the Kate Street mob dropped on him
in Brick Lane, and bashed him full sore. This would never do: so once
more implacable circumstance drove him to his old courses. And there was
this added discomfort: that no boy would parlor-jump nor dip the lob for
him. Indeed they bawled aloud, "Yah, Scuddy Lond the copper's nark!" So
that the hand of all Flower and Dean Street was against him. Scuddy grew
very sad.
These and other matters were heavy upon his heart on an evening when,
with nothing in his pockets but the piece of coal that he carried for
luck, he turned aimlessly up Baker's Row. Things were very bad: it was
as though the whole world knew him--and watched. Shopkeepers stood
frowningly at their doors. People sat defiantly on piles of luggage at
the railway stations, and there was never a peter to touch for. All the
areas were empty, and there were no side-doors left unguarded, where,
failing the more desirable wedge, one might claim a pair or two of
daisies put out for cleaning. All the hundred trifling things that
commonly come freely to hand in a mile or two of streets were somehow
swept out of the world's economy; and Scuddy tramped into Baker's Row
in melting mood. Why were things so hard for some and so easy for
others? It was not as though he were to blame--he, a man of feeling and
sentiment. Why were others living comfortable lives unvexed of any dread
of the police? And apart from that, why did other gonophs get lucky
touches for half a century of quids at a time, while he!... But there:
the world was one brutal oppression, and he was its most pitiable
victim; and he slunk along, dank with the pathos of things.
At a corner a group was standing about a woman, whose voice was uplifted
to a man's accompaniment on a stand-accordion. Scuddy listened. She
sang, with a harsh tremble:--
"An' sang a song of 'ome, sweet 'ome,
The song that reached my 'art.
'Ome, 'ome, sweet, sweet 'ome,
She sang the song of 'ome, sweet 'ome,
The song that reached my 'art."
Here, indeed, was something in tune with Scuddy's fine feelings. He
looked up. From the darkening sky the evening star winked through the
smoke from a factory chimney. From anear came an exquisite scent of
saveloys. Plaintive influences all. He tried to think of 'ome
himself--of 'ome strictly in the abstract, so that it might reach his
'art. He stood for some minutes torpid and mindless, oozing with
sentiment: till the song ended, and he went on. Fine feelings--fine.
He crossed the road, and took a turning. A lame old woman sat in a
recess selling trotters, where a dark passage led back to a
mission-hall. About the opening a man hovered--fervent, watchful--and
darted forth on passers-by. He laid his hand on Scuddy's shoulder, and
said: "My dear friend, will you come in an' 'ear the word of the Lord
Jesus Christ?"
Scuddy turned: the sound of an harmonium and many strenuous voices came
faintly down the passage. It was his mood. Why not give his fine
feelings another little run? He would: he would go in.
"Trotters!" quavered the lame old woman, looking up wistfully. "Two a
penny! Two a penny!" But no: he went up the passage, and she turned
patiently to her board.
Along the passage the singing grew louder, and burst on his ears
unchecked as he pushed open the door at the end:--
"'Oosoever will, 'oosoever will,
Send the proclamation over vale an' 'ill;
'Tis a lovin' Father calls the wand'rer 'ome,
'Oosoever will may come!"
A man by the door knew him at once for a stranger, and found him a seat.
The hymn went quavering to an end, and the preacher in charge, a small,
bright-eyed man with rebellious hair and a surprisingly deep voice,
announced that Brother Spyers would offer a prayer.
The man prayed with his every faculty. He was a sturdy, red-necked
artisan, great of hand and wiry of beard: a smith, perhaps, or a
bricklayer. He spread his arms wide, and, his head thrown back, brought
forth, with passion and pain, his fervid, disordered sentences. As he
went on, his throat swelled and convulsed in desperate knots, and the
sweat hung thick on his face. He called for grace, that every unsaved
soul there might come to the fold and believe that night. Or if not all,
then some--even a few. That at least one, only one, poor soul might be
plucked as a brand from the burning. And as he flung together, with
clumsy travail, his endless, formless, unconsidered vehemences of
uttermost Cockney, the man stood transfigured, admirable.
From here and there came deep amens. Then more, with gasps, groans, and
sobs. Scuddy Lond, carried away luxuriously on a tide of grievous
sensation, groaned with the others. The prayer ended in a chorus of
ejaculations. Then there was a hymn. Somebody stuffed an open hymn-book
into Scuddy's hand, but he scarce saw it. Abandoning himself to the
mesmeric influence of the many who were singing about him, he plunged
and revelled in a debauch of emotion. He heard, he even joined in; but
understood nothing, for his feelings filled him to overflowing.
"I 'ave a robe: 'tis resplendent in w'iteness,
Awaitin' in glory my wonderin' view:
Oh, w'en I receive it, all shinin' in brightness,
Dear friend, could I see you receivin' one too!
For you I am prayin'! For you I am prayin'!
For you I am prayin', I'm prayin' for you."
The hymn ceased; all sat down, and the preacher began his discourse:
quietly at first, and then, though in a different way, with all the
choking fervor of the man who had prayed. For the preacher was fluent as
well as zealous, and his words, except when emotion stayed them, poured
in a torrent. He preached faith--salvation in faith--declaiming,
beseeching, commanding. "Come--come! Now is the appointed time! Only
believe--only come! Only--only come!" To impassioned, broken entreaty he
added sudden command and the menace of eternity, but broke away
pitifully again in urgent pleadings, pantings, gasps; pointing above,
spreading his arms abroad, stretching them forth imploringly. Come, only
come!
Sobs broke out in more than one place. A woman bowed her head and
rocked, while her shoulders shook again. Brother Spyers's face was
alight with joy. A tremor, a throe of the senses, ran through the
assembly as through a single body.
The preacher, nearing his peroration, rose to a last frenzy of
adjuration. Then, ending in a steadier key, he summoned any to stand
forth who had found grace that night.
His bright, strenuous eyes were on the sobbers, charging them, drawing
them. First rose the woman who had bowed her head. Her face uncovered
but distorted and twitching, still weeping but rapt and unashamed, she
tottered out between the seats, and sank at last on the vacant form in
front. Next a child, a little maid of ten, lank-legged and outgrown of
her short skirts, her eyes squeezed down on a tight knot of
pocket-handkerchief, crying wildly, broken-heartedly, sobbed and
blundered over seat-corners and toes, and sat down, forlorn and
solitary, at the other end of the form. And after her came Scuddy Lond.
Why, he knew not--nor cared. In the full enjoyment of a surfeit of
indefinite emotion, tearful, rapturous, he had accepted the command put
on him by the preacher, and he had come forth, walking on clouds,
regenerate, compact of fine feelings. There was a short prayer of
thanks, and then a final hymn:--
"Ring the bells of 'eaven, there is joy to-day,
For a soul returnin' from the wild!"
Scuddy felt a curious equable lightness of spirits--a serene
cheerfulness. His emotional orgasm was spent, and in its place was a
numb calm, pleasant enough.
"Glory! glory! 'ow the angels sing--
Glory! glory! 'ow the loud 'arps ring!
'Tis the ransomed army, like a mighty sea,
Pealin' forth the anthem of the free!"
The service ended. The congregation trooped forth into the evening; but
Scuddy sat where he was, for the preacher wanted a few words with his
converts ere he would let them go. He shook hands with Scuddy Lond, and
spoke with grave, smiling confidence about his soul. Brother Spyers also
shook hands with him and bespoke his return on Sunday.
In the cool air of the empty passage, Scuddy's ordinary faculties began
to assert themselves; still in an atmosphere of calm cheer. Fine
feelings--fine. And as he turned the piece of coal in his pocket, he
reflected that, after all, the day had not been altogether unlucky--not
in every sense a blank. Emerging into the street, he saw that the lame
old woman, who was almost alone in view, had risen on her crutch and
turned her back to roll her white cloth over her remaining trotters. On
the ledge behind stood her little pile of coppers, just reckoned. Scuddy
Lond's practised eye took the case in a flash. With two long tip-toed
steps he reached the coppers, lifted them silently, and hurried away up
the street. He did not run, for the woman was lame and had not heard
him. No: decidedly the day had not been blank. For here was a hot
supper.
"ALL THAT MESSUAGE."