James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

To show how high, he placed his hand against the basket heap, within a foot of my face. I could see plainly through the chinks.

“Soft-face-lookin’ kid; no cap; hair wants cuttin’,” continued my father.

“Wot’s the name on him?” asked Ripston, curtly, getting on with his carrot.

“Jim.”

“Well, I knows a Jim,” replied Ripston, after a moment of apparent reflection; “he ain’t altogether like the cove wot you’re a-arstin arter, but he might have altered since you see him last. How long has he been missin,’ mister?”

“Over a month,” replied my father.

“Then the Jim I’m a-speakin’ on is werry likely to be the one. Coves do alter werry quick, don’t yer know? The one as I mean is a short, thick-necked cove; spitted with small-pox; fightin’ weight, ’bout nine stun four.”

“Get out! it’s a boy I mean,” replied my father, impatiently, though evidently completely taken in by Ripston’s gravity; “quite a little feller.”

“How old?” asked Ripston.

“’Tween seven and eight,” spoke my father’s friend.

“’Tween seven and eight!” repeated Ripston, musingly, and scratching his ear with the remains of the carrot. “Sure his name was Jim?”

“’Course I am. Jim Ballisat—that’s wot his name is, cuss him!” replied my father.

“Oh—h, Jim Ballisat!” replied Ripston, as though a sudden light had dawned on him. “Now I knows who yer means. Now I come to hear it agin, that’s wot he said his name was. We calls him Rouser. That’s where the mistake was, don’t yer see, mister?”

“Yes, yes; but where is he? Butcher him! I’d give a penny to have hold on him just now. You seem to know wot he’s called and all about him. Where shall I find him?”

“Lived up Cowcross way, didn’t he?”

“That’s him. Where is he?”

“Father a coster, or summat in that line?”

“Lord’s truth! yes. Well! where is he?” “Cruel cove, ain’t he?—cove as very often larruped Jim with his waist-strap?”

“Oh! he said so, did he? D——n seize him! That’s his gratitood, the young willin!”

“Got a thunderin’ old cat for a stepmother, as tells lies about him, and drinks like a fish, and who—Well, don’t get in a pelt with me, Mister! I’m only tellin’ you wot he told us.”

“Where is he?” roared my father, shaking Ripston by the collar so vigorously, and so close to the baskets, that they were in momentary danger of being overturned.

“Leave go, and I’ll tell yer; not afore.”

And, from Ripston’s tone, I really thought that he was about to betray me.

“Now, out with it!” said my father.

“Well, if you must know, he’s gone a ballastin’.”

“Where? When?” asked my father.

“I dunno where he’s gone, and I don’t care,” Ripston surlily replied. “All I knows about it is this—Yesterday arternoon he meets a cove wot I knows, and the cove ses to him, ‘What cheer, Rouser? What’s a-takin’ you over Wesmister Bridge? Ain’t there nothin’ doin’ in the market?’ So ses Rouser, ‘No more markets for me,’ ses he; ‘my old man is on my tracks, and I’m off.’ ‘Off where?’ asks the cove. ‘Well,’ ses Rouser, ‘I knows a bargeman as lives down Wan’sworth way, and I’m goin’ with him a-ballast-gettin’.’ There, now you knows as much about it as I knows.”

“The thunderin’ willin!” ejaculated my father, who was completely imposed on by Ripston’s statement. “Did he say when he was likely to be back again?”

“Dunno no more perticklers,” replied Ripston “but I shouldn’t wonder if he never did come back.”

“Why shouldn’t you wonder?”

“’Cos he was alwis talkin’ about goin’ to sea,” replied Ripston; “and when he gets on the river, and sees the ships and that, he’ll be off.”

“Oh! that’s it, is it?” remarked my father, with an air of great disappointment, at the same time tucking the donkey-whip under his arm. “Come on, Jack; it’s no use of us huntin’ any longer. Fact is, Jack, he took fright of seein’ you yesterday.”

“Werry likely,” replied Jack.

“Come on. Let him go a-ballastin’. Let him go to blazes, beggar him! What call have I got to go funkin’ arter a butcherin’ little whelp such as he is?”

And to my great delight, having said this, my father turned about and walked off with his friend, while the mendacious Ripston, tickled off his legs nearly by the force of the joke, helped me out of hiding.

After that, during the remainder of the time that I haunted Covent Garden Market, I never once set eyes on my father or his friend.

On the last Sunday in October, following the May when I met Mouldy and Ripston, I fell ill. Although I had kept about, and made no complaint, I had not been really well for several weeks; which, when I come to think on my way of living, seems not at all surprising. It happened that that summer was a particularly rainy one, and sometimes for several days together my clothes would be wet, or at least damp, and I had no opportunity to dry them, or even to take them off at night. Sore throat and pains between my shoulders were chief amongst my ailments. Once I suffered from toothache through a dreadful fortnight. It was horrible. I was obliged to soak my bread in water before I could eat it; and no matter how hard the times, I dare not avail myself of what may be called the natural advantages that belong to a young market prowler. When hard pressed by hunger, a raw turnip, or even a juicy cabbage-stump, is not to be despised; but during that fortnight of torture, my throbbing mouth revolted against all such cold and stringy food, and there was nothing left but to bear with my misfortune until a lucky wind wafted us to the baker’s or the pudding shop. I used to sit the whole night through rocking myself in a corner of the van, to the great annoyance of my partners, who, though, as will presently appear, not at all harsh towards folk plainly ill, could never be brought to understand that there was any necessity for making such a fuss about such a little thing as a tooth. At last an old man who played the fiddle about the streets, and who slept under the dark arches, mercifully extracted the tormentor by tying a bit of catgut round it, and giving it a haul.

But what ailed me on the Sunday evening in question was neither sore throat, nor pains between the shoulders, nor toothache. The summer was fading, and, somehow or other, matters were growing less and less satisfactory at Covent Garden. I say “somehow or another;” but I knew the reason well enough. In ragamuffin slang, the market had grown too “hot” for us. I got to be known there—we all got to be known there, and in a manner that was not at all to our advantage.

Our luck seemed dead against us; we could neither get work, nor the worth of a penny without work. Never a day passed but what one or other of us was made to feel the weight of the beadle’s cane, or the cruel foot of some salesman. This latter punishment was not so bad when met with under the arcade, because the shopkeepers wore light boots, and sometimes mere slippers; but out in the open, where the waggons and carts were, and the owners of the goods with which they were laden wore boots of the toe-cap and clinker school, it was agonising. One time we had Mouldy down with a kick so bad, that he couldn’t do more than just creep one leg before the other for three days.

Everybody was set dead against us—shopkeepers, beadle, salesmen, every one. They didn’t wait till they caught us doing something wrong; soon as ever they saw us, they were down on us with a kick or a cuff—until we were that savage and hungry, we were ready to risk almost anything. About this time Ripston found a way of getting into a cellar in which carrots were stored for the winter. This was indeed a stroke of good fortune—at least, so we thought at the time; but alas! in the course of a very few days we discovered that carrots, although of a very refreshing and relishing nature, are not the sort of things to subsist on entirely. I believe that that week’s feeding on carrots had a great deal to do with my illness.