L. Meade - Scamp and I - A Story of City By-Ways

“Ain’t ’ee a mate worth ’avin’?” he whispered to Flo.

“But wot about the meat and taters?” asked Flo, who by this time was very hungry; “ain’t it nothink but another ‘s’pose’ arter all?”

“Wait and you’ll see,” replied Dick with a broad grin.

“Here we ’ere,” said Jenks, drawing up at the door of an eating-house, not quite so high in the social scale as Verrey’s, but a real and substantial eating-house nevertheless.

“Now, my Lady Countess, the hearl’s wife, which shall it be? Smokin’ ’ot roast beef and taters, or roast goose full hup to chokin’ o’ sage and onions? There, Flo,” he added, suddenly changing his tone, and speaking and looking like a different Jenks, “you ’as but to say one or t’other, so speak the word, little matey.”

Seeing that there was a genuine eating-house, and that Jenks was in earnest, Flo dropped her assumed character, and confessed that she had once tasted ’ot fat roast beef, long ago in mother’s time, but had never so much as seen roast goose; accordingly that delicacy was decided on, and Jenks having purchased a goodly portion, brought it into the outer air in a fair-sized wooden bowl, which the owner of the eating-house had kindly presented to him for the large sum of four pence. At sight of the tempting mess cooling rapidly in the breeze, all Flo’s housewifely instincts were awakened.

“It won’t be ’ot roast goose, and mother always did tell ’as it should be heat up ’ot,” she said pitifully. “’Ere, Dick, ’ere’s my little shawl, wrap it round it fur to keep it ’ot, do.”

Flo’s ragged scrap of a shawl was accordingly unfastened and tied round the savoury dish, and Dick, being appointed bowl-bearer, the children trudged off as rapidly as possible in the direction of Duncan Street. They were all three intensely merry, though it is quite possible that a close observer might have remarked, that Dick’s mirth was a little forced. He laughed louder and oftener than either of the others, but for all that, he was not quite the same Dick who had stared so impudently about him an hour or two ago in Regent Street. He was excited and pleased, but he was no longer a fearless boy. An hour ago he could have stared the world in the face, now even at a distant sight of a policeman he shrank behind Jenks, until at last that young gentleman, exasperated by his rather sneaking manner, requested him in no very gentle terms not to make such a fool of himself.

Then Dick, grinning more than ever, declared vehemently that “ ’ee wasn’t afraid of nothink, not ’ee.” But just then something, or some one, gave a vicious pull to his ragged trouser, and he felt himself turning pale, and very nearly in his consternation dropping the dish, with that delicious supper.

The cause of this alarm was a wretched, half-starved dog, which, attracted doubtless by the smell of the supper, had come behind him and brought him to a sense of his presence in this peremptory way.

“No, don’t ’it ’im,” said Flo, as Jenks raised his hand to strike, for the pitiable, shivering creature had got up on its hind legs, and with coaxing, pleading eyes was glancing from the bowl to the children.

“Ain’t ’ee just ’ungry?” said Flo again, for her heart was moved with pity for the miserable little animal.

“Well, so is we,” said Dick in a fretful voice, and turning, he trudged on with his load.

“Come, Flo, do,” said Jenks, “don’t waste time with that little sight o’ misery any more, ’ees ony a street cur.”

“No ’ee ain’t,” said Flo half to herself, for Jenks had not waited for her, “’ees a good dawg.”

“Good-bye, good dawg,” and she patted his dirty sides. “Ef I wasn’t so werry ’ungry, and ef Dick wasn’t the least bit in the world crusty, I’d give you a bite o’ my supper,” and she turned away hastily after Jenks.

“Wy, I never! ’ee’s a follerin’ o’ yer still, Flo,” said Jenks.

So he was; now begging in front of her, paying not the least attention to Jenks – Dick was far ahead – but fixing his starved, eager, anxious eyes on the one in whose tone he had detected kindness.

“Oh! ’ee is starvin’, I must give ’im one bite o’ my supper,” said Flo, her little heart utterly melting, and then the knowing animal came closer, and crouched at her feet.

“Poor brute! hall ’is ribs is stickin’ hout,” said Jenks, examining him more critically. “I ’spects ’ees strayed from ’ome. Yer right, Flo, ’ees not such a bad dawg, not by no means, ’ee ’ave game in ’im. I ses, Flo, would you like to take ’im ’ome?”

“Oh, Jenks! but wouldn’t Dick be hangry?”

“Never you mind Dick, I’ll settle matters wid ’im, ef you likes to give the little scamp a bite o’ supper, you may.”

“May be scamp’s ’ees name; see! ’ee wags ’is little tail.”

“Scamp shall come ’ome then wid us,” said Jenks, and lifting the little animal in his arms, he and Flo passed quickly through Seven Dials, into Duncan Street, and from thence, through a gap in the pavement, into the deep, black cellar, which was their home.

In the cellar there was never daylight, so though the sun was shining outside, Flo had to strike a match, and poking about for a small end of tallow candle, she applied it to it. Then, seating herself on her cobbler’s stool, while Jenks and Dick squatted on the floor, and Scamp sat on his hind legs, she unpacked the yellow bowl; and its contents of roast goose, sage and onions, with a plentiful supply of gravy and potatoes, being found still hot, the gutter children and gutter dog commenced their supper.

“I do think ’ees a dawg of the right sort,” said Jenks, taking Scamp’s head between his knees. “We’ll take ’im round to Maxey, and see wot ’ee ses, Dick.”

“Arter supper?” inquired Dick indistinctly, for his mouth was full.

“No, I wants you arter supper for somethink else; and look yere, Dick, I gives you warning that ef you gets reg’lar in the blues, as you did this arternoon, I’ll ’ave no callin’ to you.”

“I’ll not funk,” said Dick, into whose spirit roast goose had put an immense accession of courage.

“Lor! bless yer silly young heyes, where ’ud be yer supper ef you did? No, we’ll go on hour bis’ness to-night, and we’ll leave the little dawg with Flo. He’s lost, por little willan, and ’ave no father nor mother. He’s an horfan, is Scamp, and ’as come to us fur shelter.”

The boys and girl laughed, the supper, however good and plentiful, came to an end, and then Dick in rather a shamefaced way prepared to follow Jenks; the two lads ran up the ladder and disappeared, and Flo stood still to watch them with a somewhat puzzled look on her woman’s face.

She was eight years old, a very little girl in any other rank of life, but in this Saint Giles’s cellar she was a woman. She had been a woman for a whole year now; ever since her mother died, and she had worked from morning to night for her scanty living, she had put childish things away, and taken on herself the anxieties, the hopes, and fears, of womanhood. Dick was ten, but in reality, partly on account of her sex, partly on account of the nature within her, Flo was much older than her little brother.

It was she who worked all day over those old shoes and boots, translating them, for what she called truly “starvegut” pay, into new ones. It was Dick’s trade, but Flo really did the work, for he was always out, looking, as he said, for better employment.

But the better employment did not come to Dick, perhaps because Dick did not know how to come to it, and Flo’s little fingers toiled bravely over this hard work, and the wolf was barely kept from the door.