Crying for the Light: or, Fifty Years Ago. Volume 2 of 3. James Ewing Ritchie

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СКАЧАТЬ especially if you happened to be the owner of a watch or had a sovereign or two in your pocket, nor did the police much care to explore its mysteries. Somehow or other the place bore a bad name, and has ever done so since the days of Jonathan Wild and his merry men, who at one time are reported to have resided there. In its low lodging-houses were to be found the very scum of the earth – the virtuous and deserving poor, as they would have us believe they are, always in search of employment, which they unfortunately never find – who are dishonest, and lazy, and improvident, and drunken, and dissolute, very much against their own inclination, and to their own intense disgust – the victims of the wicked landlord or wickeder capitalist. They live in the lodging-houses of the district, which are generally pretty full, at the rate of fourpence a night, except when the hop-picking is on, when away the inmates tramp by the hundred down to the pleasant hop-gardens of Kent, or Sussex, or Hampshire, carrying with them all the filth and squalor of the town, tainting the air and polluting the fair face of Nature as they pass along. It is true that now the city missionary follows in their steps, otherwise it would be a bad look-out indeed.

      Turning down into the street, avoiding the policeman who happened to be on duty at the time, one summer evening might be seen a man and a woman. They were tired and dusty, and had evidently travelled far. On both was the mark of Cain, and they were fleeing from justice to quarters where guilt and shame find convenient repose. They knocked at a door, where, after they had been surveyed through a wicket, they were received on the payment of such small sum as the deputy-keeper was legitimately entitled to charge. It was a big room into which they entered, with a great fire at one end, at which various cooking operations were going on; and on the benches at the side some slept, or smoked, or talked, or read, as the fancy suited them. Behind was a yard, in which one or two were engaged in the process familiarly known as cleaning themselves up.

      Neither the place nor the company would have been attractive to a decent working man. There was a foulness in the air and talk of the place which would have revolted him, yet in that crowd of needy and disreputable creatures were men who had been to college and had had the benefit of a University education, and women who had known something of the sunshine of life; alas! all – all were given over to evil, utterly lost and reprobate. It was not ignorance, not misfortune, not a wicked world, that had made them what they were. They had been the architects of their own lives. They had to lie on the beds they had made. Society is much troubled about them. What if society were to leave them alone, and to look better after the really deserving poor, who are always present with us – who are so low down in the world as to be compelled to take wages on which they cannot possibly live – who require and deserve the utmost sympathy from all classes of the community in their sorrow and distress and struggles? These are the weak, whose burdens the strong are bidden, in the Book to which most of us appeal for instruction and guidance, to bear.

      ‘Why, ye’re soon back again,’ said one of the inmates, engaged in the interesting operation of frying a Yarmouth bloater – ‘you’re soon back again; I thought you was down at Sloville.’

      ‘Lor’ bless you! we han’t been near Sloville for years.’

      ‘Ah, I remember, I heard you were in the Black Country.’

      ‘Yes, we was there, but the fact was we had to hook it!’

      ‘Oh, I see, up to the old trick!’ said he with a smile.

      ‘Perhaps,’ was the reply.

      The fact was that one afternoon the tramp and the woman met with an old farmer coming home from market a little the worse for liquor, and him they had kindly relieved of his watch, as he was far too gone to be able to take proper care of it himself. The old farmer, naturally, was aggrieved, and tried to defend himself. This led to a little compulsory action on the part of his friends, and he was left senseless by the roadside, while they made the best of their way out of the neighbourhood.

      Fortune always favours the brave, and our friends were in this respect no exception to the general rule. They had had rather a successful campaign – visiting lonely lanes untrodden by the police, and robbing romantic young ladies fond of the country of what jewellery they might happen to wear. People are always asking us to pity the poor worn-out tramp. I am rather inclined to pity his victim.

      ‘But where’s the kid?’

      ‘Oh, we left him behind. But, lor’ bless you, we know where to find him again. He’s safe to be in Parker’s Buildings, or somewhere thereabout.’

      ‘Got any money about you?’

      ‘Not much worth speaking of – not quite done for, either,’ continued the tramp. ‘Look here,’ said he, peering cautiously about, and drawing out of his coat-pocket a very dirty and ragged handkerchief, in which was wrapped up a watch – an old-fashioned one, but real silver, nevertheless. Seeing no one was looking on, he proudly exclaimed: ‘What do you say to that?’

      ‘A beauty, but why didn’t yer spout it at once? Suppose the peeler had collared yer – what a mess ye would have been in.’

      ‘Lor’ bless ye, I wa’nt such a flat as that. What could I ’ave got for it on the tramp? Now, it is good for a round sum.’

      ‘Shall I go and spout it?’ said the old acquaintance.

      ‘Yes, me and missus have walked enough to-day; but ain’t it rather late?’

      ‘Yes, but there is the shop at the corner. You know they are not particular.’

      And that was quite true. The head of that respectable establishment generally contrived to do a good deal of business, in spite of the law and the police, and, if the receiver is as bad as the thief, was a very bad man indeed. In a little while the messenger returned, bearing with him a bottle of gin, a couple of pounds of rump steak, and the other materials for a good supper, and a certain amount of cash, which he handed over to the new-comer, and which seemed perfectly satisfactory. As eagles round the carcase gathered the few casuals that happened to be present. Most of them were old gaol-birds, all of them were the slaves of drink – quarrelsome or good-tempered according to their respective temperaments. They were ready for any feat, or not averse to any crime, if it could be done in a sneaking, underhand manner. Literally their hands were against everyone, and everyone’s hands against them. But now they were all on the best of terms. There was a little drink going on; who knew but what a drop might fall to their share. At any rate they were all glad to see Carroty Bill as they called him once more in their midst; in the line of life they affected his ruffianism made him a hero.

      That night was an extra scene of festivity at the lodging house; one of the inmates had been bagged, and had served his time, and had come back resolved to qualify himself as soon as possible for another term of imprisonment, at the expense of the unfortunate taxpayer. And there was a good deal of sociable enjoyment in accordance with the old saying, that when the wine is in the wit is out.

      ‘Anybody been in trouble, since I was here?’ asked our friend the tramp.

      ‘No, nothing particular – drunk and disorderly, that’s all. But we’ve had some narrow shaves, and the sergeant told the guvnor last night that ’e’s got his heye on hus.’

      ‘His eye be blowed! But who is yon cove?’

      ‘Oh, a poor banker’s clerk.’

      ‘And the fellow he’s talking to?’

      ‘Him with the red nose? Oh, we call him the Professor. He’s from Oxford University he says, and gives himself very high and mighty airs when he’s in his cups. But they’re all right.’

      ‘I’ll soon let you know who I am,’ said a lad who was listening СКАЧАТЬ