James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

“If I had known it was beggin’, let alone cadgin’, you wouldn’t have caught me at it,” I replied. “Anybody may have that fourteenpence for all that I shall touch it. Where is it, ma’am?”

“Never you mind where it’s gone; you don’t want that sort of money, Jimmy. As money it’s right enough, and much good may it do the poor creetur as it was sent to; but it ain’t good money to spend by the one as gets it. What did she say about them dirty rags that you toоk as well, Martha?”

“Bless you! she was up to her eyes in thankfulness about ’em. She set to cuttin’ ’em down at once, to make little Billy a pair.”

What did this mean! What “old rags” did Mrs. Winkship allude to? To what old rags could she allude but to my dirty old fustian trousers, since the woman to whom they had been taken “at once set about cutting them down to make little Billy a pair.” Good luck to little Billy! he was quite welcome to ’em, as well as to the jacket, and to that disgraceful one-and-twopence-halfpenny into the bargain. Where was the good-natured barrow-lender’s kindness going to end? Certainly, not at ridding me of the wretched garments for which I had swopped away my workhouse clothes. The flannel shirt and drawers she had dressed me in were perfectly warm and comfortable, but scarcely fit to appear in publicly. Perhaps, however, I might, after all, be mistaken as regarded the “old rags” discussed between Martha and my benefactress. It would be better to know the truth at once. Whilst wondering in my mind what would be the best way to gain the required information without asking bluntly for it, I spied a biggish-sized button lying on the mantelshelf.

“Do you want that button for anything per-tickler, ma’am?” I asked of Mrs. Winkship.

“Not very particular. Why?”

“Because it ’ud jest do to sew on my jacket; the top button has been off ever since I first had it”

“Drat the dirty thing, and every button on it,” replied she. “You’ll never see that any more, Jimmy.”

“Never see it any more, ma’am!” I exclaimed, (little hypocrite!)—”shan’t I? I hope I shall, though. Cert’n’y, it wasn’t much of a jacket! but it was better than none.”

“Don’t you trouble; you shall have a jacket,” replied the good soul, patting my head kindly. “I wish that was the hardest part of the business, Jimmy.”

And having so mysteriously expressed herself, she took a pull at the hot rum-and-water, and afterwards, instead of setting it on the mantelshelf again, sat nursing it on her knee, looking into the fire thoughtfully. Martha, who was busy darning a stocking, was quiet too.

“What is the hardest part of it, ma’am?” I asked, after enduring the tantalising silence for fully a minute; “do you mean the trousers?” The question seemed to tickle the old woman’s fancy immensely, and she chuckled over it so that the spoon tingled against the glass she held on her lap.

“No, it ain’t the trousers either, Jimmy,” she presently answered; “it’s what I’m to do with you. Something must be done with you, you know. You ain’t to go to ruin, because them as ought to know better turns their backs on you.” It wasn’t the words so much as the way in which she said them—holding my small hand in her jolly fat one the while—that affected me. I was very young and very ignorant; but I must have been a natural-born ruffian to have remained unmoved after a declaration of such a character.

“Thanky, ma’am,” I replied, with tears in my eyes, at the same time gratefully grasping as many of her fingers as my fist would contain; “you always was a good sort towards me, ma’am.”

“The question is, what can I do? You can’t stay here, you know. There’d be a pretty Bedlam if they found you along o’ me.”

“No, ma’am, I mustn’t stay here,” I promptly responded; “I should be afraid to.”

“That’s the thing. You see you are such a little chap to go on your own hook, else I might set you up with some sort of a stock, and put you in the way of sellin’ it.”

“There’s that barking bis’ness you was speak-in’ of one time, ma’am,” I suggested; “p’r’aps you might know of somebody as would take me at that.”

But she shook her head.

“There’s plenty as would take you at that,” said she; “but what ’ud be the good? You’d be found out in a week.”

“Something of a trade would be the thing,” quietly put in Martha, as she sat darning her stockings; “if we knew anybody with a trade, now, as would take him, aunt?”

“Ah! if we did,” answered her aunt, stirring the remains of her grog testily; “how many ‘ifs’ go to a bushel, Martha?”

“Well, I was a-thinking, aunt—but I s’pose you wouldn’t call that a trade?”

“What?”

“Chimney-sweeping. There’s cousin Belcher at Camberwell, you know, aunt, he keeps boys.” The suggestion acted like magic on Mrs. Winkship. For an instant regarding Martha with a glance of gratitude and admiration, she emptied her glass with a relish, and clicked her finger and thumb.

“That’s it!” exclaimed she, triumphantly; “that’s the identical ticket. Just like my thick head, leading me forty miles round to find what’s just under my nose. We’ve hit on the right think at last—eh, Jimmy?”

I dutifully answered, “Yes, ’m,” though, in truth, I was not so dazzled by the brilliancy of the notion as Mrs. Winkship was. Chimney-sweeping might be a trade; but, decidedly, it was not one I should have hit on had I been free to choose. My thoughts on the matter might have been different had it been put to me a few hours back—about this same time the night before, for instance—when, famished and ragged, I huddled down in the stable heap in the mews; but, to a boy who had supped off chicken hash and mutton-chops, and who sat on a soft sofa, tucked up in soft flannel and clean frilled linen, the prospect of climbing up a chimney was not particularly enticing.

“Drat it all! I’m so glad the thought should have popped into your head, gal,” continued Mrs. Winkship, evidently liking the idea more each moment; “it is worth a Jew’s eye. It perwides for the case all round, just as if it was made for it. Fust of all, it’s a trade, and one that it’s easy to learn and follow, and money to be made at it. You know Dick Belcher was quite as poor as this boy when he started, Martha; then, it’s a good way off and in a part where nobody would think of looking for him; besides which, it’s a bis’ness of which the very natur on it is to disguise and make look different, so that your own parents might pass you by in the street and never know you! That settles it Make us another jorum, Martha; the last didn’t do me a bit of good—it never does when I’m worritted in my mind; and, if you like, you may mix yourself and Jimmy a thimbleful, just for a night-cap. Fust thing in the mornin’, Martha, you take the omlibus over-to Camberwell, and bring Belcher back with you.”

Notwithstanding the many inducements to comfortable repose provided by my good-natured friend the barrow-woman—the soft bed made on the sofa before the fire, the luxurious sheets and blankets, to say nothing of the spirituous “nightcap” I had at her recommendation imbibed—it was some considerable time after she had bade me good-night and carried off the candle ere I could get to sleep.

The fact is, the more I pondered on the probabilities of my becoming a chimney-sweep, the less I liked them. Nor were my objections purely whimsical. As long as I could remember, a sweep had resided in Fryingpan Alley, and he had two boys—not his sons, but apprentices—and a more wretched pair it was hard to imagine. I say that Mr. Pike—our sweep—had two apprentices, and so he had invariably; but not invariably the same two. Six or seven months was the longest they ever lasted. Either they ran away, or the workhouse people (they were parish apprentices) fetched them back to the “house” again, or they died, and were carried off in a shell in the dusk of the evening to lie in the parochial bone-house until the next convenient burying-day.