James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

In cases of consumption, as is well known, and as was vividly illustrated on the present occasion, appearances are treacherous; she had finished the ballad with the quaver of a hearty and robust woman, but now she rapidly sank and hurriedly blessing her offspring, expired.

The widow’s demise was the signal for Frank Wildeye to enter seriously into the business of the drama. For a while he was overwhelmed by the suddenness of his bereavement, and wept and pulled his hair as though he held a grudge against it; but after about two minutes he recovered, and began to think about how his mother was to be buried. In dumb show he dug a grave, and lowered her into it, and filled it in, and planted flowers all over it; and then he wrung his hands and shook his head, signifying that, much as he desired it, he did not see how anything of the kind could possibly be done. At last a sudden idea seemed to strike him—an idea of so brilliant a nature as to quite dazzle him and induce him to turn his head from it, and put up both his hands as though the idea was coming it altogether too strong for him. By degrees, however, he seemed to grow used to it, and to be able to stare it boldly in the face. The idea in question seemed to have settled on the shirts his mother had been making, for, hurrying to where they lay, he pounced on them, gathered them in a bundle, and waving his cap, darted out, and disappeared.

In about three-quarters of a minute he returned empty-handed, and accompanied by an undertaker with a coffin on his back. What the bright idea was, and what he had done with the slop shirts, was now equally apparent—he had sold them to buy his mother a coffin! Indeed, any lingering doubts as to this being the state of the case, were speedily dissipated; for, scarcely had the undertaker set down his burden, when in walked two policemen and a gentleman, unmistakably a Jew slop-seller, from his countenance and the tape measure about his neck. In vain Frank Wildeye seized the bottomless chair and dared the owner of the misappropriated property, or the minions of the law, to approach so much as another inch; they rushed at him in a body, and doing no more damage than flooring the Jew by a blow of the chair-back, the heroic boy was secured and led away heavily handcuffed; being allowed, through the kind permission of the police, to pause at every third step and take a lingering and affectionate look at his dead parent This was the second step.

“Werry good, but disapintin’,” remarked Ripston; “he won’t break his mother’s ’art arter all, which he oughter, I think. Certinly, it makes him a horphin, and that tells up in a piece. I dessay it’ll be werry good; but I shan’t like one part on it, I’ll lay a wager.”

“Which part, Rip?”

“Why, the love part. Now his old woman’s dead, and he’s got no father, there’s sure to be love in’t, don’t yer know? there alwis is. It spiles the actin’, I think. If they’d leave it out, and make it up with fencin’ or a duel, or a jolly good murder, that’s wot I should like; summit wot stirs yer up; love don’t stir yer up; leastaways, it don’t stir me up, more’n dancin’ do; jolly rubbish is wot I call all that sort of stuff in a piece, and werry much better left out on it.”

Up went the curtain for the third step, showing a cellar in St. Giles’s, and five thieves carousing round a tub, smoking short pipes, drinking pots of beer, and playing dominoes. That they were supposed to be thieves I learnt from the two young women in front, who had bought a playbill, and were reading from it. They were lanky, low-looking ruffians, with oily turned-under side locks, and shabby clothes buttoned up tight to the chin, giving rise to the suspicion that trade was not so flourishing as to admit of the luxury of a shirt. It gave me considerable satisfaction to see them such blackguardly-looking fellows; they were only thieves, but they were fifty times worse than I was; that was evident at a glance.

Frank Wildeye was one of the five. The term of imprisonment adjudged him for stealing the Jew’s shirts must have been a longish one; and, reasoning from his exceedingly corrupt manners, he must have derived the fullest advantage it was possible for evil communication to confer during the whole period. His pipe was the shortest, his side locks the oiliest, and the most determined in their under-hookedness, and, swelling the chorus to “Nix my dolly, Pals,” as rendered by the oldest thief in the company, his voice was heard loudest and heartiest over all others, and he drank most beer. Presently a thief rapped the tub, and the landlord of the tavern appearing, more beer was ordered and promptly brought.

Cash on delivery, however, appeared to be the straight-forward system on which mine host conducted his business, and while he clapped down the pots with one hand he held out his other for payment. At this every thief slapped all his pockets, and looking at his neighbour, shook his head and laughed. Frank Wildeye did so, and followed the movement by facetiously offering the landlord a bit of chalk. The landlord, however, did not seem to see the joke, and furiously flinging the chalk from him, made as if he were about to take up the beer he had brought, when instantly four strong left hands seized his arm, and four vengeful right hands dived simultaneous into as many pockets in search of clasp-knives. Matters having arrived at this serious pitch, Frank Wildeye, who had stood aloof from this last-mentioned demonstration, laughingly interfered, and made certain signs to the landlord that so far satisfied him that he laughed, and they all laughed, and clapped Frank Wildeye on the back, and then the game of dominoes was resumed; the landlord joining, and Frank Wildeye quitting the stage.

In about as short a time as it would have taken him to have walked a hundred yards in a straight direction, Frank returned, bursting in at the door breathless, and with a face flushed with pride and excitement, and approaching the tub flung down upon it a fat-looking purse, that made a jingle like the dropping of a locksmith’s tool-basket, whereat his brother thieves laughed loud and long; and the eldest one, by way of expressing his intense admiration for Frank’s behaviour, immediately rose, and, approaching the footlight performed a hornpipe much in vogue in certain circles at that period, and known as the “cellar flap.” Meanwhile, Frank and the rest had returned to their beer and dominoes, and were quietly enjoying themselves; all excepting the landlord, who, though he affected to laugh on the production of the purse when the thieves were looking at him, no sooner found himself unobserved than darting a look of implacable hatred at Frank and shaking his fist at him, he hurriedly retired from the apartment

Scarcely, however, had the hornpipe and the applause consequent thereon subsided, when once more the cellar-door was heard to fly open with a crash, and looking in that direction the beholder was astonished to see two policemen with drawn staves, (singularly enough the same two who had previously arrested him on the shirt charge,) accompanied by the traitorous landlord, who, smarting possibly under the sneer conveyed to him by Frank Wildeye in that bit of chalk, had conceived the foul design of denouncing him for the recent robbery of the purse. Then came a fight, in which knives were drawn, and Frank, producing a pistol, fired it point-blank at the treacherous landlord’s head; and, doubtless, it would have blown his perfidious brains out had not one of the officers opportunely struck up the weapon with his staff, on which the courageous young thief, resolved not to be entirely baffled, hurled the pistol with all his might at the landlord’s head, from which the audience had the gratification of seeing a copious stream of what was very like blood instantly issue as the landlord lay extended along the ground. The audience was clearly of opinion that it served the landlord right, and so expressed itself in the most rapturous terms. Frank, however, though fiery and resolute, was of a soft and gentle nature; and, eyeing the prostrate and apparently murdered man for some seconds with an appalled look and hands upraised, he presently sank on his knees, and, withdrawing from his bosom a long ringlet of hair, which was instantly recognised as his mother’s, he pressed it to his eyes, to his lips, to his heart, and appeared to be making some fervent vow. After which he replaced the hair, and passively and in meek resignation held out his hands for the handcuffs, and was led away to slow music.