James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

Mrs. Burke was down on me like a thunderbolt. Without waiting for an explanation, or even to pick up Polly, she seized me by the hair, and bumped my head several times against the door-jamb. She made a claw at my ears to wring them, and missing them through a wriggle on my part, scored my cheek with her nails, and set the blood trickling. She punched me about as though she was one prize-fighter, and I was another.

“I’ll wring your ugly shnout off, you dirty shwine,” said she, and proceeded to take my nose between the knuckles of her fore and middle fingers. The pain was enough to drive me mad.

I must have been mad or very nearly, for I made a scramble at her cruel hand, and getting her thumb in my mouth, I dug my teeth into it. It must have hurt her very much, judging from the way she halloed. She let go my face, and in an instant I ducked under her arms, and bolted up the alley as fast as my legs would carry me.

Whether Mrs. Burke (I would much rather speak of her so than by any other name, if the reader has no objection) followed me with a view to giving chase, is more than I can say.

Once out of Fryingpan Alley, I never once turned or looked behind me. I passed good Mrs. Winkship sitting on her coke-measure, and she, judging, as I suppose, from my affrighted appearance, that I was fleeing from danger, called out, “Run, Jimmy, run! good luck to you.” Arrived at the mouth of the alley, a boy with three-pen’orth of hot rum in his hand was at that moment turning in, and to avoid running against him I turned to the left, taking Mrs. Winkship’s parting advice earnestly to heart.

When I was thousands of miles from England, the thought would often come into my head, how would it have been if that boy had not been coming in with the rum and water, and I had turned to the right instead of the left? Had I done so, and kept straight on, I should by and by have found myself in the parks, in the fields, out in the country. Then I might have become a plough-boy, a field labourer,—a young fellow with a smock-frock, and a “billycock” hat and cloddy boots; I might—. But there, where’s the use of indulging in “ifs,” and “buts,” and “might have beens?” To the left it was. Down Turnmill Street, through Cow Cross, and still straight on until Smithfield Market was reached.

If it was not my good luck that inclined me to run in this direction, that it was so, was my very decided impression at the time. Had Mrs. Burke followed me, my legs might not have been of much use as against hers in a running-match over a level course; but in Smithfield Market it was odds in my favour. I was well used to the pens, being in the habit of spending my rare playtimes there in the games of “touch” and “chevy;” and unless Mrs. Burke was as good at vaulting and jumping as she was at punching and pummelling, she would have had no chance against me.

It was not a market-day, and the place was as quiet and as deserted as it always is at such times. Finding myself amongst the pens, my instinct of self-defence led me to hurry to that part of the market where the pigs were sold. I had heard boys of my acquaintance say, “Oh, don’t let’s play in the pig part, it’s so precious slippery.” So it was, and especially to people who were not used to it.

I climbed to a top bar in the pig shambles, and looked anxiously about me, and soon convinced myself that although Mrs. Burke might have set out after me, she had either lost sight of me or run herself to a standstill. My perch was a capital one for surveying purposes, and I could see all round about for a considerable distance. Everybody, however, that I could make out was quite strange, and did not even look towards me.

It was quite as well that they did not, or perhaps one would have stopped, then another, till a mob had got round, and the policeman had come up to inquire what was the matter.

And when I come to reflect on the deplorable pickle I was in, I wonder that somebody did not take notice of me. To be sure, it was a neighbourhood in which ragged and outcast little boys were not scarce, but my appearance was ten times worse than that of the ordinary ragged outcast. Naturally, I had begun to cry when Mrs. Burke took to punishing me with such diabolical cruelty. I had cried all the way as I ran, and I was crying now. Panting from my long run, sobbing with rage, and pain, and spite, with my tears mingling with the blood that trickled from the wounds Mrs. Burke’s nails had inflicted on my cheeks and on my nose; with my hair all uproarious and uncovered by a cap; with my naked feet all muddy, and my jacket all torn and tattered; there I sat on a bar in the pig-shambles on the noon of a Wednesday in the merry month of May.

This is the picture I see on looking back on those dismal times. When it happened, however, I thought nothing about it particularly, I’ll be bound. Ever since my mother died, how nearly a year and a quarter ago, I had had but one pair of boots; and the navy cap with the big peak, in which I followed the black load to Clerkenwell church-yard, was the last that covered my head. As for my tears, they had grown to be more familiar with me than smiles, and a scratch or a bruise more or less was, thanks to the Irishwoman’s liberality, not worth thinking about.

I had ears, eyes, thoughts but for one thing, and that was Mrs. Burke’s coming after me. Knowing the sort of woman she was, I was the more apprehensive. Though she had been sure of me by running me down fairly and openly, I knew that she would very much prefer lying in wait for me in the rear and suddenly pouncing out on me. It was to guard against so terrible a calamity that I had to keep a sharp look-out It was not until the church clocks chimed four that I began seriously to reflect on what I should do.

Should I go home? How dare I? She would kill me; she would wring my head about again, and punch me with her bony knuckles. More than once she had threatened to cut my liver out No doubt she was cruel enough, and, worse than all, now she had excuse enough; for, however she might treat me, it would be enough for her to hold up her thumb to compel my father to acknowledge that it served me right What could I say to my father in justification of my savage act? (for I had come to the conclusion that it was a savage act.) I had dropped the baby! With nothing else expected of me than to sit still and hold her tight, I had let her go and hurt her, I didn’t know how much. This was a feature of the business which hitherto had altogether escaped me—how much was Polly hurt? She went down a tremendous bump, and she screamed in a very frightful manner. Perhaps some of her bones were broken! Perhaps that was the solution to the otherwise unaccountable circumstance of my mother-in-law not following me. Clearly it was no use to think of going home.

Where, then, should I go? By this time it was dusk and the lamplighter was about, and the pig-market became a very dismal place to stay in. I wound my way through the pens till I got to the front row, which is in a line with the thoroughfare called Long Lane, and there I once more sat for further reflection.

I daresay I sat there—on the second bar, with my legs dangling towards the path, my body within the pen, and my arms resting on the top bar—for half-an-hour or more, trying hard to think of my affairs, leaving the “home” aspect quite out of the question; but it was of no use: the darker it got the hungrier I grew. I found myself thinking more and more on What Would be my probable fate if I did go home. I called to my mind the most severe whacking I had ever received, with how much it hurt, and whether, supposing on this occasion I got double, ( that was the least I could expect,) I could possibly stand it. I really believe that I had almost convinced myself that I could, when suddenly I felt something touch my hand, and looking up, saw a gentleman holding two penny-pieces between his finger and thumb.