James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

Then the ghostly form came over to where its unlucky son was sitting, and regarded him pityingly, and took his hand in its and stroked his hair. With the violence of his emotion, Frank Wildeye’s chains rattled, at which sound the tender ghost shuddered and wept, and taking the chains in its hand raised them that the captive might for a time be eased of their weight. All this time the harp and the fiddle were playing music sad and soft, and the motherly ghost leaned over Frank caressing him, while Frank’s bosom heaved with a force that might be easily perceived by the people in the back row of the gallery. Then, taking from its bosom a similar scroll to that she exhibited when in the flesh in the first step, she unrolled it, and there was plain to all who could read, (I couldn’t, but the two young women in front read it aloud and I heard them)—“A Mother’s Love is Everlasting.” Then, hearing a noise at the lock of the dungeon door, she hastily rolled up and replaced the scroll, and kissing her son on both cheeks and on the forehead, vanished the way she came; and Jack Ketch, (with the fatal noose in his hand,) and the Chaplain, and Sheriffs, coming in next moment to take the culprit off to the gallows, the play was brought to an end.

At the falling of the curtain the shouts of approbation were deafening, and there was a universal and tempestuous demand for Mr. Roshus Fitzherbert, the representative of Frank Wildeye, who, hand-in-hand with his ghostly mother, and still wearing his chains, came forward, expressed his everlasting gratitude for the handsome manner in which the audience had received the new piece. The ghost (whom I was given to understand was the wife of the manager) then spoke in similar terms, and announced that “The Seven Steps to Tyburn” would be repeated every evening till further notice. She then, in the most generous manner, made a pathetic appeal on behalf of the gifted author of the piece, whom she described as a struggling man with a large family, to which there had very lately, and on those premises, been an addition—a very heavy addition, in the shape of twins—a boy and a girl.

This last item of intelligence was received with renewed applause by the audience, especially the female portion of it, and there ensued a unanimous call for the author, or, as they expressed it, “the chap as made it up.” With a promptitude that bespoke his vigilance as a public servant, “the chap as made up” “The Seven Steps to Tyburn” made his appearance; and when quiet was in some degree restored, he made a neat little speech concerning the piece, which, he said, he was afraid was weakish towards the end, excusing himself, however, on the ground that, circumstances kindly alluded to by the worthy manageress—coming sudden and unexpected, and just as he was in the middle of the fifth act—had naturally flurried him, to say nothing of the expense, which, however, as a husband and an Englishman, he was proud and happy to incur, and with their kind patronage hoped to be able to defray to the utmost farthing.

Again the gaff resounded with applause, seconded by a more substantial mark of the esteem in which the audience held the talented gentleman, as well on account of his literary worth as his domestic virtue and heroism, by a liberal shower of pence and half-pence. For my part I was too young to recognize his claims on public sympathy on part of the grounds urged. I only saw in him “the chap as had made up” the touching and deeply-affecting drama I had just witnessed, and in the fulness of my gratitude I threw him a fourpenny-piece out of my remaining one-and-tenpence. I was so completely subdued that I was ashamed to look Ripston in the face for fear he might see the tears in my eyes. As we were making our way out of the gaff, he observed:

“What a stunnin’ piece, eh, Smiff? Just shows yer how a cove gets on to be wusser and wusser, till he ain’t able to stop hisself! ‘Mother’s lore is everlastin’,’ didn’t that there bill say? I ’spose that means that arter mothers is dead they looks down on yer, and sees yer ways of goin’ on, eh, Smiff?”

“I ’spose that’s wot it does mean.”

“The bills didn’t say step-mothers, Smiff; that one of your’n ’ud have to look up ’stead of down, if she wanted to look arter you, arter she turned her toes up; what do you say, Smiff?” said Ripston, laughing.

I made something like a laugh by way of answer, but felt at the moment further from laughing than anything I can think of.

“Well, that makes no odds; you’ve got a regler mother to look down on yer, if she wants to; ain’t yer, Smiff? Why, what’s the matter? What are yer cryin’ about, Smiff?”

We had got as far as the lobby leading to the street by this time.

“Oh, Rip!”

“Come on, yer young fool; you shouldn’t come to see cuttin’ pieces if yer can’t stand ’em better than this. Hain’t you got a hankcher? Here, ketch hold of mine.” And Ripston kindly handed me from his jacket something that looked like a fragment of a dirty duster. We had halted in a recess in the lobby, and the people hurrying out took no notice of us.

“Oh, Ripston!”

“Come outside and have some gingerbeer. You ain’t well; that’s wot’s the matter with you; I can’t abear to be seen walkin’ with a cove wot’s snivellin’; come on, and let’s get out. It’s gettin’ late, don’t yer know—past ten by this, I reckon; and ten’s my time for gettin’ in, and there’s a tidy step for me to go. How far have you got to go, Smiff? What’s your time of gettin’ in?”

He asked this last question quite suddenly, and as though a shadow of the suspicion that once before in the course of the evening had flashed across his mind, had again occurred to him.

“Whereabouts is the draper’s where you’ve got a place?” he repeated, laying a hand on my shoulder.

“I hain’t got a place at a draper’s at all, Rip,” I whispered into his ear; making up my mind to the desperate resolve to tell him all about it, and take his advice on the matter.

“You don’t live at a draper’s at all?”

“No.”

“Where do you live, then? at what shop, I mean?”

“At no shop at all.”

“Well, if it ain’t a shop, what bisness is it? It must be a bisness of some kind, don’t yer know?”

“Bob yer head down lower, Rip. It ain’t no bisness at all; leastways, unless the old trade was a bisness.”

“The old trade!” repeated Rip, with amazement in his eyes as he scanned my respectable suit from top to bottom. “Why, you don’t mean to say, Smiff, that you ain’t bin and changed arter all? Oh, swelp me, Smiff, don’t tell a cove that.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve changed right enough,” I replied in bitterness; “I’ve changed from wuss to wusser—jest like you was a sayin’ jest now, Rip, that’s how I’ve changed.”

Ripston made no reply to this confession, but stood for fully half-a-minute scratching his head and staring at me as though considerably bewildered as to what, under such very peculiar circumstances, had best be done. He scratched his head at first, softly and meditatively, but the movement grew momentarily fiercer, which, from old experience, I knew to be an infallible sign that he was making up his mind as to the mode of treatment of the knotty point under discussion; presently, with a prodigious and sweeping scratch that nearly swept his cap off, he said,

“Was that wot you was a cryin’ for, Smiff?”

“It was,” I replied in all honesty.

“And you wishes it was different?”