James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

of stools, while on the other side of the fire, and lying against the wall, was a black shapeless heap, from which proceeded a sound of snoring, and plainly denoted the whereabouts of the person asleep hinted at by Sam. I did not advance many steps into the shed, nor did I make much noise; enough, however, to rouse a little dog that was lying with its master on the black heap. The dog growled and barked, and the boy awoke.

“What do you want a-teasin’ of him, Sam? he ain’t hurtin’ you, is he?” asked a figure black as the heap it rose from, except for the white eyeballs which the light of the fire revealed. “Shut the door, will yer? Ain’t my rhumatiz bad enough, beggar you, but you must set the draught blowin’ in upon me? Will you shut that door, cuss you?”

I couldn’t tell whether it was the voice of a man or a boy, it was such a strange-sounding one—half gruff and half whistling, and trembling with rage. Looking intently at the figure, I could now see that it had risen to its hands and knees, and looming in the ruddy duskiness, it certainly looked big enough for that of a man. As the figure raised its voice, the dog raised its; so that there was all at once a considerable uproar.

“You make a mistake,” said I, edging back towards the entry; “it ain’t Sam—it’s me.”

“Cuss you! Now shut the door!” and at the same moment something that looked like an old Wellington boot shot past my face, and banged against the door-post just behind.

It wasn’t likely that I was going to shut the door, at least, from the inside, and so trap myself in with such an ugly customer. I, however, bad no objection to shutting it from the outside, and this I was about to do when up came Sam, the light of his lantern showing his grinning face.

“Halloa! I thought I seed you go into the kitchen a little while ago,” said he; “why didn’t you shove the door open, like I told you?”

I briefly explained to Sam the events of the last few minutes.

“Come on back,” said he, laughing, and grasping one of my hands in his paw, black as ink; “there ain’t no call to fear Spider; it would take him as long crawlin’ off his bags as far as the door, as you might to get as far as the turnpike.” “It wasn’t the dog I was frightened of,” said I, “it was the man what was layin’ by the fire.” “Well, that’s Spider,” replied Sam; “that’s what his name is. ‘Man ’ you calls him! I never seed such a man. Come on; the guv’nor said you was to sit in the kitchen, don’t you know?” Sam pushed open the door and went in, and I followed, taking care this time to give the figure on the soot-bags no excuse for shying his other boot at me.

“Who was that that was here just now, banging and slamming and letting in the wind, enough to blow a feller’s bones out of their sockets?” demanded Spider, in the querulous voice of one who has long lain an invalid; “did you see him? Who was it, Sam?”

“Who was it? Why, a young swell, Lord Fluffum’s youngest son, come to ask arter you, and bring you some jint ile. Tell you what, Spider, you’ll get yourself into a row one of these days chuckin’ them boots of yours about; you’re alwis at it”

“Oh! my poor bones!” groaned Spider, whining like a dog in pain; “then why don’t they shut the door after ’em, Sam? How would they like the wind let into ’em, if their jints was all of a screw, like mine is? Who did you say It was, Sam? I didn’t hit him, did I?”

“Not werry hard; he’s one of them swells as don’t holler for nothing, as it happens, and so he ain’t werry angry with yer. Here he is.”

And he stepped aside and held up the lantern, that the cripple might have a fair view of me. By the same means I got a fair view of him, poor fellow. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old, judging from his size; but, attired as he was in black rags, and crouching on his knees, with one hand resting on the soot-bags that were evidently his bed, and the other performing the double service of lifting his hair from his eyes and shielding them from the glare of the lantern-light, he might have passed for a decrepit old man of seventy.

“I begs your pardon, sir,” said he, humbly; “it’s my pain as gets over me, and makes me forget myself at times. I hope I didn’t hurt you, young gen’lman?”

Before I could, answer, Master Sam burst into an explosion of mirth.

“That’s beautiful, that is! that’s rippin’! He took me in, Spider; but not so much as that. Why, he ain’t no young swell, you jolly fool; he ain’t nobody. He’s on’y a new boy wot’s a-comin’ ’prentice or somethin’ here; that’s right, ain’t it, old flick?”

“Yes, that’s right,” I replied; “I’ve come to learn the trade of bein’ a chimbley-sweep.”

“Come here to learn the trade!” repeated the Spider, the expression of pain momentarily vanishing from his puckered face in his astonishment. “Well, that’s a rum start.”

“Hain’t it? it’s the rummest start as ever I heard on,” giggled Sam.

“How do yer mean?” I asked; “why can’t I learn it? ’Course I ain’t goin’ to set about it in my best clothes. Mr. Belcher’s goin’ to find me some common sort of togs to work in.”

“Oh, there’s no fear of spiling your togs!” observed Sam, whom the whole business seemed to highly amuse.

“It mightn’t spoil some sort of togs,” I replied, with a scornful glance at poor Sam’s wretched rags. “I shouldn’t, like to get the soot over my clothes wot I wears of Sundays, so I tell yer. I’m going to have another suit to follow my trade in.”

“But there ain’t no trade here to foller,” said the perplexed Spider. “Since the Act o’ Parlyment the trade’s all fell to nothink. You can’t learn to be a chimbley-sweep without chimbleys to practise on—don’t yer know?”

As the reader may imagine, although this rather puzzled me, I was not at all sorry to hear it.

“Oh! well, I ain’t pertickler,” I remarked; “any sort of work’ll do for me. What do all the other boys work at?—what do you two work at?”

“Spider don’t work at all—he’s past it,” explained Sam; “he’d ha’ been sacked when the the others went, on’y he was bound for seven ’ears, and the parish would not take him off the guv’nor’s hands. There used to be eight on us; but they’re all gone ’cept me and Spider.”

“But you sweeps chimbleys, sometimes, don’t you?” I remarked to Sam; “you looks as though you did.”

“No, I don’t,” returned Sam, grinning; “I goes about a bit, of mornin’s, with Ned Perks and the guv’nor to machine jobs; but that ain’t nothink. It’s night jobs wot keeps the concern goin’—night jobs down in the country. I goes with the gov’nor and Ned, and minds the cart.”

“What sort o’ jobs is them country jobs?” I inquired; “is it climbin’ up factory shafts?”

“I don’t know what it’s climbin’ up,” replied Sam; “fact, I don’t think it’s climbin’ up anythink—do you, Spider?—’cos they take the machine and things with ’em.”

“And they don’t bring home no sut! It’s a rummy go to me altogether,” replied poor Spider, who, being at that moment seized with a fresh rheumatic pain, wriggled back to his bed, and there lay groaning and making whistling noises through his closed teeth.

Before poor Spider could sufficiently recover from his rheumatic twinges to continue the conversation, (which had begun to grow very interesting to me,) the voice of Mr. Belcher was heard calling on me to come into the house; and, directed by Sam, I found my way to a back door, and was from thence conducted by my new master to the parlour.