James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

The sound brought me to a standstill. I had never once given it a thought as I came along—Mouldy and Ripston would not be at home; they would have been gone to work an hour and a half since. It could hardly have been a more awkward time for me. They certainly would not return until dusk, and I must pass the interim in the best way I could.

It couldn’t be helped; but it certainly was vexing, and quite damped the triumph of my escape from the workhouse. To see Ripston and Mouldy was, of course, the first and most important business—every other hinged on it, indeed. No doubt they were to be found banging about the market; but, putting the question of prudence quite aside, how could I go and seek them? A pretty figure mine was to be seen hunting through Covent Garden! No; it wasn’t to be thought of. I must stow away under the arches, and amuse myself somehow until they returned.

With this resolve, I made my way down the familiar flight of dark, slippery steps, and presently found myself in that quarter of the “arches” where our van used to stand. But, somehow, the place did not appear half so familiar to me as I expected to find it. It had about it an air of desolation that the absence of our van did not account for, and seemed altogether a hundred times darker and lonelier, and drearier and bleaker, than ever before. My footsteps, light and cautious as they were, echoed from the reeking walls; the cobblestones were slippery as glass; while the faint light showed the icicles webbed about the green bricks in every direction.

I hunted about in search of some vehicle in which I might stow away for a few hours; but the only cart I could find was an old water-cart, and that down towards the river end. The water-cart was one of the common sort—a square box with a hole in the top part of it, into which, when in use, the water is pumped; and very pleased I was at finding a hiding-place so snug and sheltered. But it turned out not so nice as I had hoped; a goodish drop of water had been left in it, but it had frozen—not hard enough, however. It seemed firm to the touch; but as soon as I sat on it, it began to thaw, and to soak through the seat of my smallclothes. So I got out of the box, and lay along the top of the cart in the lee of the driver’s perched-up seat as much as possible, so as to avoid the wind.

But it was one of those winds it is impossible to avoid—a whistling wind, keen as needles, and curiously capable of winding round corners without abating in power. It came full blast in at the narrow arched entrance, and with such force that it was still full blast, and laden with splinters of icy snow it had picked off the shore and off the barges, when it reached the water-cart, peppering the shallow partition behind which I was crouched. Of course, much allowance was to be made for the time of year and season now, and when I had last visited the arches; but the fullest allowance I could make did not account for the terrible way in which that wind served me. Every succeeding gust of it converted my flesh into “goose-flesh,” from my forehead to my heels. It nipped my ears, it glided down my back between my collar and neckerchief as though it were no thicker than a knife-blade; and if I raised my head a little to avoid the unpleasant sensation, it whipped in at my mouth and routed about within me, producing noises as though I were an empty bottle. I was compelled to hold on my muffin cap with both my hands, until my fingers smarted with cold as though they had been burnt. Half-an-hour of such treatment was as much as I could stand. It was quite a treat to get up, and with my hands in my breeches pockets, to run up and down, stamping over the slippery cobble-stones to take the numbness out of my toes.

But, with the reader’s permission, I will make short work of describing how I spent that melancholy February day. There occur in every one’s lifetime days that are nice to remember—“red-letter” days, as they are called; likewise, there are days that cling not the less tenaciously to the memory on account of their ugliness. I don’t know if these ugly days have a special name—lead-colour, or other; but the day in question—the February day—is as much part of my old remembrance as though it had been notched in my brain, as Crusoe used to notch his days in the pole. How cold I was! how empty, and shivery, and downhearted! I think there was not a quarter of any one hour of the many I passed in that dreadful place that was spent like the preceding. On the cart—in the cart; daring everything to escape the horrible wind, until I had thawed and soaked up nearly every bit of ice it contained; hopping round the water-cart, skipping over its shafts, and going down on to the bleak, oozy river-bank to play a solitary game at duck-stone.

Towards the afternoon I was so hard driven that I resolved to attempt to make a fire. There were bits of coal enough to be picked up on the shore, as well as bits of wood; but what I wanted was a lucifer-match. How to procure one was the great difficulty. Outside, on the river, there were plenty of coal-barges and men at work on them, and some of the men were smoking. Easy enough it would be to beg a lucifer-match of one of these, if I durst ask; but how could I, rigged as I was in that muffin-cap and swallow-tail? They would be sure to ask me questions; to talk about me amongst themselves, or to other people, perhaps, and so lead to my apprehension. The only way to obtain the match, and, at the same time, to avoid such danger, was to divest myself of part of my workhouse attire, and begrime my face and hands, so that I might pass for a mudlark.

It was a terrible operation, simple as it may seem—all the more terrible, no doubt, because of my still being qualmish and shaky from my long spell of illness. Mudlarks never wore shoes or stockings; so these had to be pulled off, leaving me on my tender feet, (they were very tender, as I recollect,) smarting on the icy stones. Mudlarks never wore caps nor jackets; off they came. Mudlarks were muddy to the knees—to the elbows; their faces were smeared with mud. With my naked legs and white feet to walk directly into the river slush was my next job—slush black as ink, and with a thickish rind of ice to break through to get at it—to dip my arms into it, and with my muddy fingers smear my face. Mudlarks invariably carried an old saucepan to put their gleanings in as they collected them; luckily enough, there reposed an old saucepan, its handle just peeping up out of the mud, under the stem of a coal-barge.

So set up, I walked boldly up to the coal-heavers, and in a civil way asked one of them if he happened to have a lucifer-match about him that he could spare. The person asked, by way of reply caught up a clinker and threw it at me, cleverly hitting the knuckles of the hand that grasped the filthy old saucepan, and causing me to drop it; whereat the jolly coal-heavers, much amused, set up a laugh, and pelted me with bits of coal until I was glad to run—squelch—squelch—through the mire, and take refuge in the lee of a barge, aboard which there was nobody but one old fellow pumping water out of the vessel. As he saw me approaching, he ceased his occupation, and, catching up a boat-hook lying handy, ran to the head of the barge, and, stooping over, began fiercely poking at me with it. Luckily, it was too short to reach me.

“Out you come, you warmint!” he exclaimed. “Out you come, you awful young prig! Jest out of prison, and at it again directly—hey? Out you come!”

“I hain’t out o’ prison, mister,” I replied, beginning to cry; “I never was in prison.”

“Not out o’ prison, you awful young liar! Why, look at your hair! If that ain’t a gaol crop, what is it?”

“It’s the work’us,” I answered, completely breaking down. “I’ve been in the work’us, and had my head shaved ’cos I had the fever; and I’ve run away from, the work’us; and all I asked them coves for was a lucifer to make a bit of fire, ’cos I was so cold; and then they began to pelt me. See here!”—and I held up my knuckles to show him how they were bleeding.