James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

“If I was you, Jim, I’d take a turn out in the fresh air; not to be gone long, you know; just ten minutes. Come on; I’ll come with you, Jim.”

“But the boy?” said my father.

“P’r’aps he’d be better for it, too.”

“I’d rather leave him. D’ye think we might?”

“Course,” replied Mr. Jenkins. “He won’t mind just for a little while; will you, Jimmy? He will sit here, and see the squirrel run round in his treadmill.”

I said I didn’t mind, though I did mind a very great deal; and away they went, leaving me alone in the room. By this time it was growing darker, and nearly dark. I did not like Mrs. Jenkins overmuch, and had seldom or never been in her room before. It was a perfectly strange room to me; for though I had now been in it more than an hour, there had been so much else to engross my attention, that I had looked about me scarcely at all. There was now, however, nothing left but to look about me. There were several bird-cages, with birds in them, ranged against the wall; but, with the exception of a blackbird, all the birds were asleep, with their heads under their wings—still as balls of feathers. The blackbird was still, too, all but his eyes, which winked and blinked at me whenever I turned my gaze that way. There were, besides, the blackbird and the squirrel, a whale’s tooth on the side-board, and a great-bellied jug with a man’s head, with the mouth wide open for a spout The darker it grew, the stranger everything seemed to get, and bigger and bigger the blinking eyes of the blackbird, till I was afraid to look about me at all, and kept my eyes fixed on the squirrel’s cage on the table, with the little squirrel within spinning round and round in his wire wheel.

The Dutch clock in the corner had ticked off very many more than a few minutes; but my father and Mr. Jenkins did not return. It was quite dark now; and I could see nothing of the squirrel but the white patch on his breast, ever shifting, and rising and falling behind the bright bars of his prison, as he whirled it swiftly round. When I say that this was all I could see, I mean to say that this was all I tried to see. Had I looked about, no doubt I should have found the blackbird’s eyes bigger and fuller of winks than ever; and, possibly, the big-bellied man-jug champing his jaws at me. There was plenty to listen to, however. There was the creaking of the squirrel’s wheel, and the clawing of its feet; there was the ticking of the Dutch clock; and plain above the ticking, and the creaking, and the clawing, a dull tramp-tramp overhead, in the room above, where my mother was. Not a bustling hither and thither, but a leisurely tramp on a beat that extended from the wall to the window; the walk of somebody waiting for somebody else, who, though tardy, is sure.

At last I grew so terribly hot and frightened that I could stand it no longer; and slipping down off the chair, and shutting my eyes that I might not see that dreadful blackbird as I passed him, I groped my way out of Jenkins’s room, and, creeping up the stairs about half-way, there sat down. Had nobody been with my mother but Mrs. Jenkins, I should certainly have gone all the way up; but every now and then I could make out the creaking boots, which effectually warned me off. How could I dare venture to face a man who was so little afraid of my big, strong father that he told him he wasn’t wanted, and shut the door in his face? It wasn’t very comfortable sitting on the pitchy-dark, hard stairs; but it was twenty times preferable to staying in that frightful room below. Besides, there was a real bit of comfort to be found on the stairs, that was as welcome as it was unexpected. There came through the keyhole of our door a bright streak of light, long and narrow, and just enough to illuminate a solitary banister-rail I sat on the stair nighest to this bright rail, and laid hold of it with both my hands. It was long past my bedtime; and still holding on to my rail, and laying my face against it, I presently fell fast asleep.

I awoke in a great fright. How long I had been sleeping I don’t know. The light had vanished from the banister-rail, so that I was completely in the dark; and there came sounds to my ears that completely bewildered me. What with the unaccountable sounds, and the fact of my being but half-awake—and half-dreaming, probably, of the winking blackbird and the big-bellied-man jug, and the other horrors on view in Jenkins’s room—it was not surprising that my leading impression should be that, by some means or another, I was in the wrong house. The longer I thought about it, the plainer it appeared that it must be so. There was a baby in this house; in our house there was no baby. So I scuttled down the stairs as fast as I could, and made for the street-door.

Just as I opened it, in came my father and Mr. Jenkins. My father, indeed, nearly stumbled over me.

“Holloa! What! is it you, Jimmy? Got tired of stopping up there by yourself—eh?” “Bless his young heart!” said Mr. Jenkins. “Don’t you see how it is, Jim? He’s been watching for us at the window, and he’s just come down to let us in.”

“No, I didn’t,” said I, catching hold on father, and mighty glad of the chance, as may be imagined. “We don’t live here. You ’re come to the wrong house, father.”

“Wrong house! You’re dreaming, Jimmy; it’s all right, cock-o’-wax. Come up-stairs.”

“It is the wrong house,” I persisted. “There’s a baby in this house; I heard it crying.”

“Heard a baby crying!” exclaimed my father, eagerly. “Are you sure, Jimmy?”

The mysterious baby answered for itself, at that identical moment, in tones loud enough to be plainly heard.

“D’ye hear that, Jenkins?” said my father. “That’s jolly, aint it? I begin to think it is all right, after all, old man.”

“If it is, we shall precious soon know,” replied old Jenkins. “Come on up-stairs.”

We went up; and before a light could be struck, I was convinced that we were in the right house by the whirring and burring noise the squirrel was making.

“I wonder whether that disagreeable beggar has gone yet?” said my father, standing in the doorway of Jenkins’s room, and evidently of a mind to go up and satisfy himself on the point.

But at that very moment, the disagreeable beggar, as my father called the doctor, made known (or, rather, his boots did for him) that he had not yet departed. Creak! creak! overhead. Creak! creak! to the room-door, the handle of which was turned. Creak! creak! creak! coming down the stairs, which, when my father heard, caused him to beat a sudden retreat, with long and stealthy steps, to the farther end of Jenkins’s room, where he sat down.

“He’s off at last; Jenks,” said he, rubbing his hands cheerfully; “show him a light, old boy. I think it looks well—his going. He wouldn’t go if she was very bad, you know.”

But the disagreeable beggar was not off—at least, not straight off. He had got something to say to my father before he went; and when he reached Jenkins’s landing he halted, and coughed, and tapped at the half-open door with his walking-stick.

Mr. Jenkins, on the way to show him a light, was just in time to confront him.

“Your name is Ballisat, I believe,” said the doctor; “you are the husband of the”—

“No, sir, thanky; it isn’t me. Here, Jim!”

“I’m the one you want, sir,” said my father, coming boldly forward, with me in his arms; “I’m her husband, at your service, mister. And how might she find herself by this time, mister?”

The doctor was the parish doctor—a tall, round-shouldered old gentleman, with white hair, and wearing spectacles.