George Fenn - A Little World

Vehicles seldom passed down Brownjohn Street; the warning “Hi!” was rarely uttered by the driver, and the children ran in and out of the burrows of the human warren, wild and free, until old enough to be trained to prey upon their fellows. But they partook more of the rat than of the rabbit in their nature, for they were small-sized, careworn street Arabs, whose names would yet become famous in the “Hue and Cry,” or, under the head of “Police Intelligence” in the morning papers.

Dense, dismal, close, swarming, dirty, with the flags broken, and the gutters heaped up with refuse – such was Brownjohn Street; for dandies no longer escorted beauty homeward to such and such a number, in a sedan-chair, with running footmen and link-bearers to clear the way. But, teeming with population as was Brownjohn Street, those swarms were not all of the genus homo – the place upon this bright summer morning, when the sun was struggling with the mists and foul exhalations, was a perfect rus in urbe . The sound of the Italian’s organ was drowned by the notes of birds, as lark, canary, and finch sang one against the other in glorious trills, telling of verdant mead and woodland grove, as they hung in cages by the hundred outside dingy windows high and low.

The shops were full of birds from floor to ceiling. One place had its scores of wooden cages, some eight inches square, each containing its German canary-immigrant, another window was aviary and menagerie combined; but no shop displayed so great a variety as the one bearing the name of “D. Wragg, Naturalist, Dealer in British and Foreign Birds.”

Grey parrots shrieked, bantams crowed, ferrets writhed and twisted like furry snakes, rabbits thrust their noses between the bars of a parrot’s cage, a pair of hedgehogs lay like prickly balls in the home lately vacated by a lark, and quite a dozen dogs were ranged outside over the area grating, in rabbit-hutches, to the great hindrance of the light and the washing of Mrs Winks, then being carried on in the cellar-kitchen.

There was a door to D. Wragg’s shop, if you could get through it without hanging yourself in the chains, with collars attached, swinging from one post, and avoid knocking down the dragons which watched from the other side.

Not that these last were inimical monsters, for they were but dragon-pigeons, watching with an anxiety in their soft eyes which told of expected food or water.

It was different though with the dogs, since they snapped openly at trousers’ legs, out of which garments, they had been known to take pieces, in spite of a general reputation for harmlessness.

The pinky cockatoos also possessed a firmness of beak that was by no means pleasant if they could manage a snip. But once past the door, and you were pretty safe amidst the wonders which met your eye: a couple of knowing-looking magpies gazing at you sideways; a jay, the business of whose life seemed to be to make two hops with the regularity of a pendulum; squirrels and white mice, which spun round their cages and fidgeted and scratched; a doleful owl blinking in a corner; a large hawk, which glared with wicked eyes from cage to cage, as if asking who would die next to make him a meal, as he stood on one leg, and smelt nasty, in another corner; squealing parroquets and twittering avadavats; bullfinches which professed to pipe, but did not; and a white hare, fast changing its hue, which did tattoo once on the side of its hutch.

And even when you had seen these, you had not seen all, for in every available or unavailable place there was something stowed, living or dead.

Love-birds cuddled up together, budgerigars whistled and scratched, while in one large wire cage, apparently quite content, about fifty rats scurried about or sat in heaps, with their long, worm-like tails hanging out in all directions from between the wires, as if they were fishing for food, and snatched at the chance of getting a bite. One sage grey fellow sat up in a corner, in an attitude evidently copied from a feline enemy, whom he imitated still further as he busied himself over his toilet, pawing and smoothing his whiskers, like an old buck of a rat as he undoubtedly was, and happily ignorant that before many hours were past he would be sold with his fellows by the dozen, and called upon to utter his last squeak while helping to display the gameness of one of the steel-trap-jawed terriers, trying so hard to strangle themselves, and making their eyeballs protrude as they hung by their collars, tugging in the most insensate way at chains that would not break.

And here, amidst trill, whistle, screech, squeak, coo, snarl, and bark – amongst birdseed, German paste, rat and mouse traps, cages, new and secondhand, besides the other wonders which helped to form D. Wragg’s stock-in-trade, was Patty Pellet, whose bright, bird-like voice vied with those of the warblers around, and whose soft, plump form looked as tender, as lovable, and as innocent as that of one of the creamy doves that came to her call, perched upon her shoulder, and – oh, happy dove! – fed from the two ruddy, bee-stung, honeyed lips, that pouted and offered a pea or a crumb of bread to the softly cooing bird, which seemed to gaze lovingly at the bright face, the brighter for the dark framing of misery, vice, and wretchedness by which it was here surrounded.

Patty was enjoying herself that morning, seeing, as she called it, to Janet’s pets; for in spite of the vileness of the neighbourhood, she was often here, in consequence of her strange friendship for the adopted daughter of Monsieur Canau, who lodged on D. Wragg’s first floor. The acquaintanceship had originated in the visits of the Frenchman and his ward to the house in Duplex Street in quest of violin-strings, and through similarity of tastes, had ripened into affection between the girls, in spite of something like dislike evinced at first by Jared Pellet, and something more than dislike displayed by his wife, who, however, ended by yielding, and treating in the most motherly fashion the object of Patty’s regard, and of late many pleasant evenings had been spent by Canau and Janet in Jared Pellet’s modest parlour, on which occasions the little house resounded with wondrous strains, until the children were so wakeful that they rose in revolt, and the instruments had to be silenced.

Patty’s friend had just left her visitor and gone up-stairs in answer to a summons from Monsieur Canau, while the proprietor of all this wealth sat in his back room, a pleasant museum of stuffed departed stock-in-trade. He was smoking his pipe, and spelling over the morning’s paper, taking great interest in the last garrotting case – merely called, in those days, a violent assault – so that Patty, left alone, was enjoying herself, as was her custom, in dispensing seed, red sand, chickweed, and groundsel, and other food – with water unlimited – to the hungry many.

“Have you brought me anythink to do for you, my dovey?” said a voice, and a round red fat face appeared from somewhere, being thrust into the shop between a parrot’s cage, and a bunch of woolly and mossy balls, such as are supplied to young birds about to set up housekeeping.

“Nothing this morning, Mrs Winks,” trilled Patty.

“Not nothink, my dovey? no collars, nor hankychys, nor cuffs? The water’s bilin’, and the soap and soda waitin’, so don’t say as you’ve brought nothink as I can wash.”

“Nothing – nothing – nothing,” laughed Patty; “but be a dear old soul, and fetch me a pail of clean water, so that I can fill the globe for Janet before she comes back.”

“Of course I will, my pet; only fetch me the pail, or I shall be knocking of something down if I come any further.”

Patty handed the pail as requested to Mrs Winks, correcting very mildly a spaniel that leaped up at her as she did so. She then disappeared for a few minutes, to return bearing in her little hands a large globe, in which were sailing round and round half-a-dozen goldfish, staring through the glass in a stupid contented way, as their bright scales glistened and their fat mouths opened and shut in speechless fashion. Then, as she set the globe down upon the counter, there came a loud panting from the passage – a heavy rustling – and the next moment it was evident that Mrs Winks had made her way to the front, for she now puffed her way in at the shop-door, bearing the well-filled pail.