James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

Unless, however, you had private means of information, and knew of these repeated changes in Mr. Pike’s establishment, you would never have suspected them. If Bob died on Tuesday, Jack, who took his place, would by the following Saturday become his exact counterpart—just as grimy, just as ragged, just as weak-eyed, and addicted to winking and blinking in the sun. He would not at present, perhaps, have acquired the sore knees and elbows that, previous to his demise, distinguished Bob, the dead one; but that difference could not be discovered by the casual observer. The sore knees and elbows were sure to appear in the course of a few weeks, however, as well as the cough and the half-gagged voice, which sounded as though it proceeded from a throat loosely stuffed with wool.

Mr. Pike was popularly believed to be a cruel brute. The boys were for ever begging bits of old rag of the women in the alley to tie about their poor knees, and save them a little of the cruel chafing against the sooty chimney bricks; but so sure as Mr. Pike discovered them so bandaged, off would come the rags at one ruthless snatch, and the boy would be taken down into the cellar to have his wounds dabbed with brine for half-an-hour, to “harden” them. It was currently reported amongst the juvenile inhabitants of the alley that Mr. Pike’s method of teaching a boy to climb a chimney was as simple as it was efficacious, and consisted in his tying one end of a cord round the boy’s tongue, the said cord extending up the chimney and hanging over the edge of the chimney pot; then Mr. Pike would mount to the roof of the house, and, grasping the end of the cord there to be found, the lesson would begin. If the boy climbed satisfactorily, (which, being altogether new to the business, was not at all likely,) all very well; but if he halted or bungled, Mr. Pike would give his end of the cord such a jerk as speedily brought the climber to his senses. It was an ordinary joke of Mr. Pike’s to light a handful of shavings, sprinkled with pepper, in the grate of a chimney in which a lad of his might be idling. Once he sent a boy up a chimney, and he never came down any more; and the only way to account for his disappearance was, that Mr. Pike had fired so many shavings that the poor lad was entirely consumed. Either this, or that he had escaped out at the chimneypot. Indeed, the latter supposition, on account of the boy being seen in Shoreditch a fortnight afterwards, was admitted by the least romantic of the inhabitants to be the most probable.

I lay awake so long regaling on the above and similar horrors, as to hear the Dutch clock in the kitchen strike twelve, and one, and two. Then I fell asleep, and slept until the same clock was striking ten, which, after all, was not so very long a sleep, considering that I had had scarcely any rest at all through the two nights preceding. Mrs. Winkship and her niece, however, must have been up at their usual time, which, as I knew of old, was an early time—time sufficient to have prepared and finished their breakfast; time sufficient to have made a journey to some ready-made clothes shop and back again, for there lay the result of the journey across the back of a chair by the bedside—a stout cloth jacket and waistcoat, and new corduroy trousers; while under the chair reposed a bran-new pair of boots—nicer-looking, even, than those Mr. Barney cheated me out of—and a pair of comfortable socks. On the chair was a shirt, and hanging to the knob at the back of the chair was a cap. There could be no doubt that the suit was mine, so I at once jumped up and dressed myself in it; and then, putting my head out at the door, and spying Mrs. Winkship enthroned on the coke measure at the street door, I called out to her, bidding her good morning.

I don’t know how much my suit cost, but if the sum exceeded the value of the gratilication the good old woman evinced at my appearance, it must have been something immense. She brought me some warm water to wash my hands and face, and with her own hands, and with her own brush, brushed my hair and anointed it with her own pomatum. “Now look in the glass,” said she. “What do you think of that? Why, you’re as fine as fust-o’-May, Jimmy!”

“They ain’t much like a sweep’s togs—are they, ma’am? I shan’t like to go up a chimnbly in these,” I remarked, eyeing myself proudly, and indulging in a glimmer of hope that her views on the chimney-sweeping subject might have changed.

“I should think not, ” replied she, sharply. “Any rags is good enough for that sort of work. You must keep these for Sundays, Jim. I daresay that Belcher will be able to find you a suit good enough to wear o’ work-a-days. Martha has gone over to Camberwell now, and I daresay she will be back, bringing Belcher with her, by the time you have finished your breakfast.”

Soon after breakfast, however, Martha returned without Mr. Belcher, and with a message that he was engaged until the evening, when he would drive over in the pony-cart. I got considerable comfort out of the mention of the pony and cart. It was substantial proof that Mr. Belcher was not such a poor beggar of a sweep as Mr. Pike, at all events.

For safety’s sake I kept close within doors all day long; and shortly after dark there came a knock at the door, and Mr. Belcher made his appearance. He wasn’t a bit like a sweep, being white instead of black, and wearing a smart hat and a drab overcoat. He was a tall, strong-looking man, middle-aged, and with a stoop in his shoulders; he was pitted with small-pox, too, as badly as Martha was, and was pale and cadaverous-looking; and his mouth was an ugly-looking mouth, the yellow teeth of his upper jaw projecting over the lower, and being for the most part exposed to view. I didn’t like the look of him a bit.

“Well, Jane, what’s the pertickler bis’ness?” he asked of Mrs. Winkship. If he was in no other way like a sweep, he was in his voice, which was of the husky, muffled sort, just like Mr. Pike’s.

It seemed that Martha had been charged not to tell him what he was wanted for; and now that his sister-in-law, in a few words informed him of her wishes as regarded myself, it appeared to me that he didn’t look best pleased.

“That the youngster?” he asked, looking at me.

“That’s him. Stand up, Jimmy.”

“He’s a tall ’un. How old is he?”

“Under nine—eight last birthday. That isn’t too young—is it?” said Mrs. Winkship.

“Lor’, no!—too old, I was thinkin’. Nothing like beginnin’ with ’em when their bones is lissum,” replied Mr. Belcher; and then, after turning me about a bit, he shook his head, as though not perfectly satisfied with the survey.

“Pity to make a sweep of him, ain’t it?” said he—”nice, decent-looking boy like he is?”

“Well, p’r’aps it is a pity; but it’s the best we can do, take my word for it, Dick. You’ll take him—won’t you?”

“Trade’s wery slack, replied Mr. Belcher, dubiously; “sides, that blessed Act o’ Parlyment, wot’s just passed, has quite cut up the boy-trade. I sacked a boy o’ny last week.”

“I know all about the Act o’ Parlyment,” said Mrs. Winkship, testily; “and” (perceiving that her relative was inclined to hang back from her proposition) “likewise I know that you still keep climbers, because you told me so the last time you was here.”

“Ah, that’s for the shaft-work, Jane,” Mr. Belcher replied. “I question if he’s narrer enough for shaft-work.”

So saying, he took a rule from his pocket, and placed it across my shoulders.

“He’d find it a squeedge,” observed Mr Belcher, at the same time passing his hands over my chest and back. “You see, Jane, he ain’t like a lad with flesh on him, what might be pulled down to the proper dimensions. I shouldn’t be able to allow him to get another ounce of flesh on him if I took him; it ’ud be wicked to allow it; he’d be sticking in the middle of a flue, or somethink, if I did. Why, there was just such a case at a sawmills shaft—ninety-eight feet high it was—up Bermondsey way; there the poor lad stuck, just