James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

“What’s the matter Smiff? I say, Smiff, it’s all right, ain’t it? You ain’t purtendin’? You are a draper’s cove, ain’t yer?”

To my great relief, at that very moment the stage-curtain drew up on the first scene of the “Seven Steps to Tyburn;” and, to hide my confusion, although the stage was a mist to me, I clapped my hands, and cried “Bravo!” with the noisiest.

There are a few people, acquaintances of my ragamuffinhood, with whom, before all others, I should like now to meet, that I might, as far as lay in my power, discharge my obligations to them; and, without doubt, the talented author of “The Seven Steps to Tyburn” is reckoned amongst the number. Should this meet his eye, if he will call on the publisher he can obtain my address, and I cordially invite him to come and see me. If, since he produced the celebrated domestic drama in question, the world has dealt kindly with him, and he is now prosperous and wealthy, (I have a faint suspicion that I detected the limnings of his masterly pen in a three-volume novel, entitled, “The F——of the F——,” recently published,) I have a bottle of “comet port” it will give me great delight to share with him. If—and such, alas! is the common fate of genius—he is still the threadbare man—altered only as regards the colour of his hair and the plumpness of his features—who, napless hat in hand, appeared before the curtain, responsive to the demands of a delirious audience, on the memorable evening of my visit to the Shoreditch gaff, why, then, if the small matter of ten pounds or so is of service to him, I am very sincerely his to command.

As my mind dwells on the events of that night, I am straight translated to that fourpenny box, and I can see Ripston, with his dirty face and his mouth a little ajar, so rapt, that he positively forgets to breathe in the ordinary way, and resorts to irregular and stertorous gasps and grunts in the unavoidable performance of that operation of nature. I can see the rattail plaits of hair of the two young women that occupied the seat in front of us hanging below the blue “curtains” of their straw bonnets. I can see—and I swear I never have seen its like since—the pattern of the gown the old woman who sat on my left-hand wore, the three plain rings on her “marriage finger” when she clapped her hands, and the mangey-looking old boa she wore about her neck, although it was hot enough to make the ham-sandwiches the young men brought round along with the play-bills and the ginger-beer, uncomfortably limp and clammy. I can see the audience, and the stage, and the orchestra, with its two performers, a harper and a fiddler; and I can see the play from first to last. In the modest hope that the readers who have taken an interest in my fortunes and misfortunes up to this point will not be averse to know something of the drama that so opportunely influenced them, I have been at the pains to set down the most salient features of “The Seven Steps to Tyburn.”

In the first and second steps it is difficult to make much of the hero of the piece; indeed, as regards the first stage, he can scarcely be said to take a “step” at all, being a mere babe in arms. However, as every one knows, whatever direction they may take, the seven “steps,” or “stages,” or “phases,” or “ages,” of human existence must date from the mewling and puking period, and so long as the delineator does his best to meet any difficulty such an immutable ordination may bring upon him, nothing can be said about it.

The gifted playwright in question encountered this difficulty, and provided for it with a neatness and adroitness that is not the least amongst the remarkable features with which the drama abounds. The father of the hero is by trade a costermonger, and by name Harry Wildeye. His wife is Ellen Wildeye, (daughter of a reduced gentleman who, smitten by Harry’s manly appearance as he delivered his wares at her father’s house, gave ear to his passionate vows of everlasting adoration, and became his bride,) and their offspring in arms is christened Frank. The rising of the curtain showed the home of Harry Wildeye, clean as scrubbing-brush could make it, but scantily furnished, its sole contents being a bottomless chair, two inches of candle stuck in a ginger-beer bottle, and an empty bread-tray. It was night, and the besotted wretch had just returned from his tavern orgies. Harry Wildeye is an irreclaimable drunkard, and in dumb show (there was no speaking allowed at the Shoreditch “gaff”) he took care to make the audience understand beyond the possibility of mistake as to his condition, by staggering and reeling across and across the stage, and applying a gin-bottle he carries with him to his lips, and keeping it there long enough to imbibe, at least, a pint of the intoxicating spirit. His wife, with dishevelled hair, and a hectic flush on her cheeks, evidently at the very last stage of a galloping consumption, was at the farther end of the room with her infant (the future Stepper) in her arms, kneeling at a rusty grate, in vain attempting to kindle a fire to warm her shivering babe, with no more promising material than two old shoes (she is barefoot) and a stay busk;—the busk of the very stays which at that very moment encircle her agonised bosom, as an artfully dislocated button of her gown body unmistakably reveals.

So intent was she on her occupation, that despite the noise her tipsy husband makes in staggering to and fro, she failed to hear him—she remained, indeed, innocent of his hateful presence while he sang “Jolly Nose,” and being vociferously encored, sang it again. Having politely bowed his acknowledgment of the compliment conferred on him, he deliberately crossed over to where his wife was, and by way of reminding her that he had come home, approached her from behind, and drew her for a short time about the stage by her dishevelled hair, she screaming the while, and hugging her babe in a way that was heartrending to behold. Presently, however, he flung her from him, and turned all his pockets inside out, to show that he had no money, and then he slapped the gin-bottle significantly, that she might understand what it was he wanted a little money for. Having struck this posture—empty pockets, extended and solicitous left hand, and gin-bottle grasped in right, exactly is promised on the bills outside—he retained it, while his unfortunate wife, still kneeling, first clasped her hands despairingly, and then, plunging one of them into the pocket of her gown, withdrew therefrom a handful of pawnbrokers’ tickets, and placing them in the empty bread-tray, which happened to be lying handy, and suddenly raising her face and regarding him like Ajax defying the lightning, held out the lot, and offered it to him as a significant reply to his inhuman demand. This was her attitude as promised on the bills, and having struck it she stuck to it, thereby completing the picture. The effect was tremendous, and for quite a minute the gaff resounded with stamping and kicking of feet, and whistlings, and shouts of “brayvo” and “hen-core.” The old lady beside me was so deeply affected by the harrowing spectacle, that she pulled out of her basket a scent-bottle of curiously large size, and turning away as though ashamed to exhibit so much weakness, took a long and hearty nip.

Exhilarated by such unmistakable signs of popular approval, the drunkard proceeded to fresh acts of barbarity. He dragged his wife three times round the stage by her hair, and then once more furiously renewed his demands for pecuniary assistance, stamping his foot and holding out his hand. By way of answer she shook her head until her hair obscured her vision, and showed him her empty pockets. Laughing derisively, he kicked her four times heavily with his hob-nailed boots, and then, plucking a pawn-ticket from the bread-tray, dashed it contemptuously in her face, at the same time shaking her gown-sleeve between his finger and thumb, thereby plainly enough indicating how she might raise a trifle if she were so minded. Then, with a wild, despairing cry, she resorted to the bread-tray, and selected therefrom two other tickets, on which were respectively inscribed, (in rather larger characters than is commonly met on such documents,) “Flannel petticoat, ninepence;” “Stuff petticoat, and small things, fifteenpence;” thus graphically intimating to him and the audience that, willing as she might be to oblige him, as in wifely duty she was bounden, womanly pride, as well as the dictates of common decency, made it imperative on her to decline his suggestion.