James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

“How do you mean, nothink in your pocket? it’s as good as any other sort of soot, ain’t it?”

“But you musn’t use it as sich,” returned. Sam, impressively; “it’s agin the laws—so the guv’nor hisself told me—to deal in soot what comes out of a church, so they makes him take a hawful oath that he won’t deal in it, but’ll take it away and bury it. That’s Ned Perks’s job; he takes it away and buries it in his back garden. There, now you knows all about it, from fust to last That’s the secret what you’ll have to keep—what you’ll get sixpence a job for keepin’.”

All this Sam told me with an air that was convincing of his perfect belief in the “secret” he had so long and so faithfully kept, and I accepted his statement unhesitatingly. It was a secret! I had been the holder of secrets before, but never of one of such magnitude as this—no, nor anything like. It was like something acted at the “gaff” in Shoreditch. As we shortly afterwards turned into bed, I could not, on account of the presence of Spider, ask Sam any further particulars on the subject; but I couldn’t get a wink of sleep until daylight for thinking about it, and when at last I did close my eyes, I fell into a delightful dream, in which, as I lurked with the swift brown horse under the churchyard wall, several “exy—what’s-o-names,” in shape of ghosts, took possession of the cart, crouching down and hiding in it, waiting for the guv’nor and Ned Perks to come out of the church with their burden of sacred soot, and holding me spellbound against warning them of their frightful peril by voice or gesture. I saw the guv’nor carrying the sweeping-machine, and Ned staggering under a tremendous sack-load, coming up the churchyard-path towards us, and endured tortures from my inability to leave the horse’s head and run to them. On they came. “Now we’re all right, Ned!” said Mr. Belcher. “Now, my brave comrade, we may defy the ‘exy—what’s-o-names’ and all their works. Ha! ha! Let down the tail-board, Jim, and we’ll have it in in a twinkling.” And, still unable to give him any hint of the impending danger, I let down the tail-board, and instantly out swarmed the “exy—what’s-o-names”—three of them—each armed with a pointed stick, sharp as a needle, and as stout and long as a laundry clothes-prop, and falling on us with hideous yells, they spitted us all three through the middle of our stomachs, and so shouldering us, made at a swift pace for the tombstones.

Frightful as was my dream, however, it by no means turned me from my hot desire to become Sam’s successor; nay, on the contrary, I think it rather stimulated my yearning, and my only fear was that Sam’s surmise might after ail turn out to be incorrect, and that it might be Mr. Belcher’s intention for the future to do without a horse-minding boy, or that perhaps he would insist on Spider’s going. Spider couldn’t walk, but he could sit upright on the cart-seat and hold the reins, and that would be quite sufficient for the purpose. This last reflection rendered me a miserable boy all through that day—which was Sunday. I would have questioned Sam further on the subject, but he was away all day with his mother. I did put a fishing question to Spider—

“I wonder who will go with country-cart o’ nights, when Sam’s gone?”

“Who! why, you of course, who else can go?” replied Spider, who seemed not a little astonished that I should entertain any doubt whatever about the matter.

“I thought p’r’aps they might take you,” said I.

“Me! what use should I be? why I couldn’t get into the cart without bein’ lifted in. Whew! a nice cove I am to take a night-ridin’; why, I should be dead in a week. No, whoever goes, it won’t be me, Jim; you may be precious sure o’ that.”

But I couldn’t bring myself to the same opinion. I had known Mr. Belcher, and his foreman Mr. Perks, long enough to know that consideration for poor Spider’s health would not be allowed to balk any business design they might entertain. Spider was nothing but a dead weight on the firm. Was it possible that the whole was a scheme for polishing Spider off, and making an end of him?

To my great joy, however, I was spared another night of tantalising speculation and dreams, for in the course of the evening Mr. Belcher called me into the parlour, and after a little friendly chat on common-place matters, introduced the subject I had so deeply at heart, and formally announced his intention of taking me altogether in Sam’s place. He didn’t go so deeply into the “secret” as I could have wished, merely alluding to the country night-work as “pertickler and private bisness,” concerning which it was confidently expected of me that I should hear and see, and say nothing, “which it’ll be made worth your while so to do,” said Mr. Belcher. “All masters wot keeps ’prentices, Jimmy—and that’s wot you are, in course, though there ain’t no writin’s to show for it—all masters has their secrets. I’ve got mine, and one of ’em I’m a-goin’ to let you into, and perwided you keep it as tight as wax, it’ll be none the wuss for you. Look at Sam; he’s had that there secret to keep, and he’s none the wuss for it, is he? Sam’s a boy wots never been without a tanner in his pocket; he’s a boy wot knows the taste of lots of wittles and drinks, wot boys whose masters carn’t put confidence in never gets a smell on. In course you understand, Jim? A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse, hey?”

“Quite as good, guv’nor, and better, too,” I replied, delighted at Mr. Belcher’s confidence, and none the less at Mrs. Belcher’s kindness and condescension, who was present, and more than once handed me her gin-and-water to sip.

“On the tother hand,” continued Mr. Belcher, “s’pose Sam had cut up rough? S’pose havin’ been trusted with the secrets of his master’s trade, he had kept ’em loose—gone about blabbing, you know; do you know what I should ha’ done to Sam?”

Such a scowl sat on his long white face as he said this, that I didn’t know how to answer him.

“I ’spect he’d ha’ ketched it pretty hot, and serve him right, too,” I replied.

“Hot! I b’lieve yer; hotter than ever a boy ketched it yet,” responded ’Mr. Belfther, laying both his hands on my shoulders, and looking hard into my face the while; “if arter I’d trusted Sam with my trade secrets, he had gone about whisperin’ and blowin on me, I b’lieve I should ha’ killed him. I know I should. I should have felt in such a drefful rage when I heerd on it, that my first hact would have been to have took his—young windpipe, so, and have choked his—young life out on him. Don’t you think that’s wot I should ha’ done, missus?”

“I haven’t got the least doubt on it,” emphatically replied the lady appealed to.

Neither had I the least doubt of it. When Mr. Belcher said, “I should have taken him by the windpipe, so,” he slid his hands up from my shoulders, and so embraced my throat with them that the first knuckles of both his thumbs met and pressed me with a movement that at once convinced me of the ease with which Mr. Belcher could have strangled Sam, if, by his treacherous behaviour, he had merited that punishment. The expression of his eyes while he went through the pantomime of strangling a boy was alarming. It alarmed me, I must confess, although I knew that we were on friendly terms.

“’Course,” said he, “it’s a thing I shouldn’t like to be drove to, and I dessay I should be werry sorry for it arterwards; but that’s how I should ha’ served him, to a dead certainty, if he had aggrawated me. But he didn’t aggrawate me; he was a sensible, wide-awake sort of a boy, just such another as you are, and so he got all the ha’pence and none of the kicks. Enough said. I ain’t a-goin’ to let you into the trade secret now; there’ll be time enough for that when you sees what it’s like, which’ll be to-morrow night— unless the moon shines. ”