James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

“Gracious goodness, Jimmy!” was her exclamation, as she discovered me endeavouring to extricate myself from the mob of my own raising, “What! brought down to this? Oh! come along, you wretched little boy; come along this instant, and tell me all about it.”

Had I not known Martha of old as a firm and trusty friend, I should have doubtless resented her grasp on my shoulder—especially as, at the same time, she urged me in the direction of her house, which, as the reader is aware, was unpleasantly close to my own.

“Tell you all about what, Martha?” I asked, as she hurried me down Liquorpond Street. “I don’t want to come any further this way. I don’t want to go near the alley any more. I had enough of goin’ near there the night afore last.”

“I know; I know all about it, you poor starved-lookin’ little mortal,” replied the kind-hearted young woman. “Aunt knows all about it, too. Only this mornin’ she was speakin’ about it. ‘If ever there was a poor boy drove out to ruin, Martha, he’s the one,’ said she. ‘If I was like another woman, and had legs to go about on, I’d walk a good five mile to fall across that boy, if it was only for his mother’s sake.’ And here I find you, and how do I find you?” And Martha wiped her eyes on her apron.

“Thunderin’ hungry, Martha—starved a’most.” And I cried, too, and we stood just opposite the brewery near Leather Lane, crying, one against the other.

“Come on,” suddenly exclaimed Martha, taking hold of my hand; “come on; I can’t, as a Christ’an woman, let you go. Aunt said she would like to fall across you, and so she shall.”

“Come on where?”

“Home, of course.”

“What! to Fryingpan Alley? Not if I knows it.” And I held back resolutely.

“Come on, you’ll be all right. I’ll go first and see that the way’s clear. Not that there’s much occasion,” continued she, casting a pitying glance over my tattered and narrow length; “nobody’ll know you. I shouldn’t, only for your voice.”

So, after a little further persuasion, I was induced to accompany Martha; and when we approached Fryingpan Alley, she left me at a dark and secluded part of Turnmill Street while she went on to see that the coast was clear, and to announce my coming to Mrs. Winkship.

Martha was gone so long—so it seemed to me—that I began to think that she had possibly over-estimated Mrs. Winkship’s regard for me, and that the good lady was not, after all, so anxious for an interview with me as her niece had thought herself justified in inferring. To comfort myself under the disappointment that this reflection brought me, I took to counting the money I had earned by my singing; and, to my great astonishment, found that it amounted to the handsome sum of fourteen-pence-halfpenny. Earned in less than half-an-hour, too! To be sure, the largeness of the sum was partly due to the interposition of the friendly Irishman; but, suppose I deducted half—three-quarters even—from the total on that account, there still remained threepence-halfpenny. Threepence-halfpenny a half-hour was sevenpence an hour—one-and-ninepence for three hours—for the three hours of dark between tea and supper-time! Whew! And I looked anxiously towards Fryingpan Alley, more than half inclined to hope that Martha might not be coming.

She did come, however, and at a brisk rate, too, and with something bulky under her shawl.

“It’s all right, Jimmy,” said she, as she came up to me. “It wasn’t safe to come before, as your stepmother was out in the alley, rowing with Nosey Warren’s wife. She’s gone indoors now.”

“But s’pose she comes out agin? s’pose she should come out agin, and I should run up against her? I don’t think I shall chance it, Martha; thanky all the same. I think I’ll be off another way.”

“No, you won’t, Jimmy; you’ve been off too long as it is,” replied Martha, firmly, spreading herself before me so as to pen me securely in the doorway in which I was lurking. “You come home with me, that’s a good boy. No fear of her knowing you, even though she did run up against you, if you put these on. Look here.”

And as she spoke, Martha produced from under her shawl an old cloth cloak that she probably used herself to wear when she was younger, and one of her old bonnets; and in a twinkling she had the one on my head and the other on my back, and, linking her arm in mine, right-about-faced with me and marched me off towards Fryingpan Alley, with a kind determination there was no resisting.

Had Mrs. Winkship been my nearest relative—my own mother, even—she could not have manifested more dismay at the appearance I presented when divested of the cloak and bonnet

Martha introduced me to her comfortably enjoying her hot rum-and-water before a jolly fire in the back parlour.

“Here he is, aunt. Did you ever see such a pictur?”

To judge from the astonished—almost appalled—look with which Mrs. Winkship, with both her hands raised shoulder high, regarded the said “pictur” as it stood framed in her doorway, it might fairly be said that she had seldom or never seen such a one.

“ This him! This the bright little feller as used to be the image of the poor dead gal as bore him! Good Lord above us! what a spectacle! And all through you, you carneying, two-faced Irish vagabond!” continued the indignant barrow-woman, shaking her fat fist in the direction of Number Nineteen. “All your bringing about, you drunken, draggletail carroty scoundrel! Hang you! if I had you here this minute I’d pummel you, if they gave me a month for it. Come here to the fire, you poor, starved-looking miser’s cat! Have a sip of this, my poor chap. Why, I declare to goodness, Martha, he hasn’t got so much as a bit of shirt on! The lies they’ve been tellin’ about him! Why, it was only the night afore last that we heard of him in a work’us rig, all warm and comfortable; and now here he is without”—

How Mrs. Winkship finished the sentence I do not remember. Cold and famished as I was, the sudden heat of the fire affected me with a strange tingling and giddiness, and I felt myself sliding down on to the hearth-rug.

I must have remained some time in my fainting-fit—or, at least, have crept very slowly out of it—for when I came to myself, certain alterations had been made in my condition, of the progress of which I had been profoundly ignorant. There was a sofa in the back parlour, and I was lying on it. My filthy jacket and trowsers were removed, and replaced, as regards the latter, by what I suppose was a pair of the late Mr. Winkship’s flannel drawers; and, as regards the former, by two articles—the one a flannel waistcoat, (probably the property of the same lamented gentleman,) and an item of linen apparel, with frilled cuffs, and a frill down the open front of it, and so ample that it wrapped under my feet with a full yard to spare. Bless her kind old heart! if it wasn’t one of Mrs. Winkship’s bed-gowns, I am very much mistaken.

I still felt rather swimmy in my head (for which, by the by, a strong flavour in my mouth of Mrs. Winkship’s favourite liquor may partly have accounted) as I raised it from the pillow, (so clean and white—whiter even than the bolster-cases at the workhouse,) and for a few moments looked wonderingly about me, at a loss to know where I was and how I had come there; but presently making out through my hazy eyes the familiar figure of stout Mrs. Winkship bending over the fire-place and stirring something in a little saucepan, the real condition of affairs was made known to me. Martha was not in the room when I awoke, but presently she came in, and placed on the table three magnificent mutton-chops, the bare sight of which drew me up to a sitting posture. I believe I should have got right off the sofa to indulge in a nearer inspection of the tempting meat, only that the mysterious muffling of my legs checked the movement. My suppressed exclamation, however, drew Mrs. Winkship’s attention towards me.