James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

“I was thinkin’, Jimmy, that you might tell your daddy that you lost the half-crown,” said she, patting my head kindly.

“How could I lose it? You changed it. It was a shilling I took when I went to buy the first quartern of gin.”

“Whist about gin, Jimmy dear! Mightn’t we say that I sint you for a pen’ofth of aniseed for the baby, wid the half-crown to pay for it, and you made a shlip, and dropt it down a gully hole? That’ud be aisy to say, Jimmy dear.”

“Ah! but see the tow’lling I should get”

“Devil a bit of tow’lling, Jimmy, while I was wid you. Be shure, dear, I ’ll tell him as how that a great hulkin’ chap run agin you, and that you couldn’t help it a bit. Never fear for the tow’lling, Jimmy; I’ll bring you clane out of that, you may freely depind. And you may cut away now, and spind the three-ha’pence as fast as you like.”

I went off, though not without some misgivings; and I spent the three-halfpence. It was some time since I had had a ramble, and I thought as she was in such a wonderfully kind humour, I might venture to indulge in one. I went as far as Farringdon Market, and I spent the afternoon there. The market clock striking five reminded me that it was high time I went home.

But I didn’t hurry. Thought I, I’ll let father get home first, and Mrs. Burke will tell him about the half-crown, and it will be all over when I go in.

I don’t know how long he had been home, but when I went up and opened the door, there he was, standing up, and waiting for me, with the waist-belt in his hand. I was for dodging out again, but he caught me by the ear.

“Stop a minnit, young feller,” said he, quite pale with passion; “I warnts a whisper with you. What have you done with that there half-crown?”

“I lost it, father,” said I, in a terrible fright, and looking appealingly towards Mrs. Burke.

“Oh, you lost it! Where did you lose it?”

“Down a gully-hole, father. Ask Mrs. Burke—she knows.”

“I ain’t a-talkin’ to Mrs. Burke; I’m a-talkin’ to you. Now then, out with it, and—mind yer—let us have no lies.” And as he spoke he spat in his hand, and wagged the strap in it.

“Well,” said I, “I was a-going for a pen’orth of stuff for baby, and a chap ran against me, and—and—knocked the money out of my hand.”

“And you ’spect I’m a-going to believe that, do yer?”

I was not much surprised to hear my father say this; but what did surprise me—what completely astounded and appalled me—was to hear Mrs. Burke exclaim, with a derisive laugh—“Yes; that’s how he expicts to come it over us, Jim; that’s the purty yarn he pitched to me when he came back wid the empty cup. Ask him where he has been all the afthernoon, Jim, and how them shtains came on the breast ov his pinafore.”

There were stains on the breast of my pinafore. I had bought a kidney pie with a penny of my three-halfpence, and in the ardour of enjoyment must have overlooked a leak in the bottom of the pastry, through which the gravy had oozed.

“D——n your young eyes,” said my father, shaking me by the shoulder, “you’ve been and prigged that arf-crown, and you’ve been appending it all the arternoon.”

“And so it’s my belief, Jim; but it wasn’t my place to shpeak first,” said the wicked wretch; “and though it goes to the heart of me to recommend it, if you’ll take my advice you’ll let him have it hot and shtrong, Jim. ‘Shpare the rod and spile the child,’ as the scriptur ses, bear in mind.”

And she stood by while my father laid into me with the thick leather strap till the blood trickled. As well as I could, and as plain as my agony would let me, I cried out the whole story to him while the beating was going on, but he heeded not a word that I said, and flogged away till his arm was tired. I felt brimful of fury against her. When the flogging was over, and I had been kicked into the back-room to wait there in the dark till bed-time, she presently came in to fetch something. Loud enough for my father to hear, said she—

“I hope the dressin’ you’ve had will do you good, me boy. Mind you don’t forget when you go to bed to say your prayers for forgiveness.”

“Hang you, I hate you!” I raged at her; and then thinking of the worst thing I had ever heard to say to her, I called out as she went sniggering out at the door—

“Judas! Judas! you ought to live in Turkey.”

But the words did not seem to affect her in the least! she merely turned, with the same ugly smile on her face, to tell me that she hoped I would keep my hands from picking and stealing, and my tongue from lying for the future.

“What was that he said?” I heard my father ask her, in a voice as though his temper had suddenly cooled.

“He ses he hates me. Never mind him, Jim; he’ll know better some day,” said Mrs. Burke, soothingly.

“But what did he say about—about Judas?”

“Did he? I didn’t hear,” replied Mrs. Burke, lightly. “It’s my opinion, Jim, he’s so full of the ould un he don’t know what he’s sayin’.”

If by the “ould un” she meant the devil, Mrs. Burke was quite right when she said that I was full of him. My wrath against her made my throat swell and my eyes feel hot as fire. For the time I felt nothing of the cruel weals that scored my body. Nobody but the devil could have filled my young head with such terrible wishes against her. I wished she might die. I wished that death—my image of death, the dreadful eyeless bird with the sharp spikes—might creep into her bed in the night, and sting and tear her till she was glad to run and hide in the pit-hole.

But nothing of the sort happened. She made her appearance bright and brisk as ever next morning and for many succeeding mornings, until that one came when my father married her.

The wedding was a very quiet one. Not a single individual in the alley knew anything about it, and even I was in utter ignorance that so important an event was about to take place. One evening, however, they—my father and Mrs. Burke—came home together, (I knew that she had dressed in her smartest and gone out in the morning, but that was not a circumstance of such unfrequent occurrence to excite my curiosity,) and they brought home with them a young man, a friend of my father’s, who had, it appeared, obligingly kept an eye on my father’s barrow while he and Mrs. Burke stepped into the church. I was about with the baby when they came home, and was called in and sent for a pint of rum.

When the rum was brought the strange young man filled a glass.

“Well,” said he, “Lord bless every happy couple, I says. May you live long and die happy both on yer. I looks to’ords you, ma’am.”

Mrs. Burke acknowledged the compliment by looking towards the young man and inclining her head smilingly; whereon the young man inclined his head smilingly, and drank off half his rum.

“And I looks to’ords you, Jim,” continued he, grasping my father’s hand. “If you make her as good a husband as wot you are a pal, she won’t have nothink to holler about.”

My father nodded in an affable manner, and the young man having emptied the glass, my father took it and filled it.

“Here ’s the foresaid,” said he, (as a rule he was a man very sparing of his words,) and tossed off the rum at a draught; an example that Mrs. Burke dutifully followed.

She had put the baby into my arms again, and finding nothing to interest me in the conversation that ensued on the rum-drinking, I was about to leave the room when my father called me back.

“Come here, Jim; you see who that is a-sitting on that chair?” and he pointed towards the Irish-woman.

“Of course I do,” I replied, and laughing that he should ask so simple a question.