Original Penny Readings: A Series of Short Sketches

Waiting for ’Arry

Well, sir, yes; perhaps it was his own fault, a good deal of it, and yet I thinks sometimes as those big folks above us might do something for us to make things better. But that’s neither here nor there; we was hungry, both on us, and he took it and got nabbed, and he’s a taking it out in here; and I allus takes a walk round every morning before going out for the day with my basket. Seems like to do me good, though I can’t see him; for I know he’s there. And then I count up the days as well as I can so as to know when he’ll come out, and ’tain’t surprising as sometimes they seems so long, that I get my cheek up again the wall and has a good cry.

But that don’t do no good, you know – only makes one feel a bit lighter; and then I’m up and off, so as to save all I can again my chap comes out; and then, good luck to us, I hope times ’ll mend.

Down the Dials we live. Not in the main street, you know, but just off in a court, and right up atop in the garret. You see, ’Arry gets his living by birds, and we can keep ’em alive up there better. Poor little things! they dies fast enough now; but when we lived on the ground-floor back it was awful. I s’pose it was the closeness and bad smells, for the little things would turn rough all over, and wouldn’t eat, and then next morning there they’d be with their pretty little bright eyes half closed, and looking so pitiful that I used to cry about it, and then ’Arry used to call me a fool; but I know he didn’t mind, for he allus put his arm round me and give me a kiss.

Pore little soft, downy things; it used to be sad enough to have ’em shut up behind them bars, beating their little soft breasts, and seeming to say, “Let me out! let me out!” but when they died it was ever so much worse. Sometimes of a night I’ve woke up to hear a little scratching noise and a rustling in one of the cages; and then I’ve known what it meant, for it’s one of the pore thing’s little spirits flown away from this weary life.

’Arry used to be soft over it too, for he’s werry fond of his birds, and when one went away from us like that, he used to roll the little body up in a bit of stiff paper, and take it down in the country with him and bury it.

“Seems hard to ketch the poor things,” he used to say; “but we must get a living somehow.”

When we got up atop of the house there was more light, and a bit of sun sometimes, so that the birds lived better, and used to sing more, and we sold a-many.

You see ’Arry had his nets, and traps, and call-birds, and in the fine weather we used to go down in the country together ketching linnets, and goldfinches, and redpoles. Sometimes we’d bring home a lark’s or a nightingale’s nest, and I used to help him all I could – cutting turves, and getting chickweed, and groundsel, and plantain, moss and wool for canary nests, and mosses and sprays for the bird-stuffers to ornament with, besides grasses of all kinds. There’s allus sale for them sorter things, you know, and it’s a honest living.

Why, it was like getting into heaven to run down with ’Arry into the bright country – away from the dirt, and noise, and smoke; and I used to make him laugh to hear me shout and sing, and to see me running along a bank here to pick flowers, or stopping there to listen to the larks, and even running arter the butterflies; but he used to like it, I think, and allus took me with him when he could, for his mother lives with us and feeds the birds when we’re out. Spring, and summer, and autumn, it was allus beautiful: flowers and fruit, and bright sunshine, and soft, gentle rain, and the sweet, sweet scent of the earth after. Oh, sir, shut yourself up for a month in a dirty room in a close court, where you can hardly breathe – live from hand to mouth, and p’raps not have enough – and then go out into the bright sunshine and on the breezy hills, with the green, shady woods there, and the sparkling stream there – the bees humming about on the heath bells, and all pure, and bright, and golden with the furze and broom – and then feel how it all comes over you, choking like, as if you were so happy you must cry, for it’s all too sweet and beautiful to bear!

’Arry allus laughed at me, but I know him and his ways, and what it means when his eyes look so bright, and there’s a twitching about the corners of his mouth: and the more wild and happy I seemed, the quieter he’d grow, poor boy, and then he’d take my basket away and carry it hisself atop of his cages and sticks and nets, and “Go along, my gal,” he’d say, so that I should be free and light. For he’s a good fellow is ’Arry, and never lifted his hand again me once in all the six years we’ve been married, not even when he came home a bit on.

He used to like me to be fond of the country, and we’d go hopping in the autumn time down there in Surrey amongst the lovely hills, where the place is all sandy; and there’s the big fir woods where you go walking between the tall, straight trunks, with the sweet scent meeting you at every step, as you walk over a thick bed of spines. Then out again, where the heath is all purple, and the whortleberries grow; while every hedge is loaded with the great ripe blackberries – miles and miles away from the smoke, but we never thought of the distance till we were going home. Ah! it was enough to make one grudge the people as had money, allus out there in the clear, bright air; and yet I don’t know as they was happier than we when we made our bit o’ fire under a sandy bank, and sat there and had our bit of bread and cheese or a drop o’ tea.

Hopping used to set us up well for some time; and how I used to love it! but the worst of it was when we went back again into the court – so dull and dark, when somehow or other, it allus seemed to come in wet and miserable when we went back home, though the old woman was allus glad to see us, and did all she could to cheer us up; for she never goes out because of her rheumatics. But it was of no use to be low, and we soon settled down again.

All sorts we had in our place: finches, and canaries, and larks, and squirrels sometimes. In the spring-time we used to put pairs of canaries in a big cage, and give ’em stuff to build their pretty little nests; and there was one pair one year as I used to watch, and seem to pity so, for there was the nest and the beautiful eggs, and the little soft, downy, yellow-breasted thing sitting week after week, and no little ones came; and then again and again the same. And I couldn’t help it, you know; but it allus hurt me, and made me have a good cry; for it made me think of three times when, after begging very hard, ’Arry’s mother had let me see a tiny, soft little babe, so delicate and beautiful, with its little hands and lovely pink nails; so pale, and still; there were the little blue veins in the white forehead, and the dimples in the cheeks, while the head was covered with soft golden hair; and the eyes – ah! the eyes were allus the same, closed – closed, and they never looked in mine; while when I put my cheek up against it ’twas allus the same too – cold, cold, cold. Three times; and I shall never have two little lips say “Mother” to me.

’Arry used to say it was just as well, for poor people like us was best without ’em; but it did seem so hard for the little, tiny, soft things never to look upon the daylight, though it was only in a garret up a court.

He’ll be out in another month, ’Arry will, and we’ve kep’ all together as well as we could. You see, I’ve done a great deal in creases of a morning, for they allus sells somehow; then, too, I’ve had a turn at flowers, for people will allus buy them too; young chaps to stick in their button-holes, and gals going to work to put in a jug of water, so as to get the sweet scent of the pretty bright things, that it seems almost as cruel to bring into the City as it does birds. Moss roses, and pinks, and carnations sells best, and I don’t know who loves ’em most, your work-gal from the country or the poor London-bred one. At times I’ve had a fruit-basket, and done pretty well that way; for, you see, I’ve been a bit lucky; and allus had a bit more than we wanted to keep us; though more’n once I thought we must sell the things outer the room.

Poor boy! he’ll be surprised when he comes out, for it was along of hard times that he got his six months. He’d been down on his luck for some weeks, and, though he tried hard, things went again him. I tried to cheer him up, but he got a bit wild and savage, and there’s allus plenty to get a chap like him to join in a plant – robbery, you know, sir; and what with not havin’ enough to eat, and the drink they give him, he got worse and worse; and not being used to it, the other fellows got off, and poor ’Arry was taken.

He wouldn’t peach, bless you; though some of his mates in the job was afraid, and got outer the way. One way and another we got money enough to get him a lawyer, and his case came on; and while I was a-sitting there, trying to keep all the trouble down, I heard the magistrate talk to him, and give him six months’ hard labour, poor lad, when he’d only done it to get food.

He saw me there, and give me a good long look, trying to smile all the time; but I know’d that bright look in his eyes, and the working at the corners of his mouth, and what he was feeling; but I never flinched a bit, but met his look true and steady, for I knew he wanted all the comfort I could give him.

I couldn’t get near him to touch his hand, or I would; and while I was looking hard at the spot where he stood, he was gone; and then the place seemed to be swimming round, and I felt as though I wanted to cry out, and then I came to and found myself sitting on the stones outside, with ’Arry’s mother, and we got away as fast as we could.

Yes; up early, and round here every morning, wet or dry, for I shouldn’t seem to get on well if I didn’t; and long tramps I has: now it’s Farringdon Market for creases; now Common Garding for flowers; or Spitalfields or the Boro’ for fruit – ’cept oranges, and them we gets o’ the Jews; and you may say what you like, but I never finds them worse to deal with than some as calls theirselves Christians.

Then it’s off with your load, and get rid of it as fast as you can; for its heavy carrying miles after miles through the long streets; and it’s a-many faces you look into before there’s one to buy. And last of all, when I get back I can sit and think about ’Arry, and how pleased he’ll be to find as the nets, and cages, and calls, ain’t none of ’em sold. Yes, you can’t help thinking about him, for outside the window there’s the pigeon trap as he was a-making with laths and nails; inside there’s his birds, and the one he was trying to stuff; for he says that’s a good living for a chap, if he’s at all clever; and he used to think that after seeing so many birds alive he could do it right off. So at odd times he used to practise; and there was his scissors and wires, and tow, and files and nippers, and two or three little finches he’d done, perched up on sprigs of wood, with their feathers wound over and over with cotton, and pins stuck in ’em to keep the wings in their places.

But he allus was clever, was ’Arry; and if he’d had a chance, would have got on.

When the sun’s a-going down I gets to the open window, if I’m home time enough; and while the birds are all twittering about me, I get looking right out far away over roofs and chimneys – right out towards where there’s the beautiful country, and then I even seem to see it all bright and clear: trees waving, and grass golden green; and through the noise and roar of the streets I seem to hear the cows lowing as they go slowly through the meadows, and the tinkle of the sheep-bell; while all the clouds are golden, orange, and red. Then, too, the bright stars seem to come peeping out one at a time; and the sky pales, while there’s a soft mist over the brook, and a sweet, cool, freshness after the hot, close, burning day; now, from where I seem to be on a hill-side, there can be seen a bright light here and there from the cottages, and then about me the bats go darting and fluttering silently along; there’s the beautiful white ghost-moths flitting about the bushes, and flapping along, high up, a great owl; and, again, round and round, and hawking about along the wood-side, there’s a large night-jar after the moths; for ’Arry taught me all their names. And at last, in the deep silence, tears seem to come up in my eyes, as I hear the beautiful gushing song of the nightingales, answering one another from grove to grove – pure, bright, and sparkling song that goes through one, and sends one’s thoughts far away from the present.

And those tears coming into one’s eyes seem to shut out all the bright scene, and it goes again; and though there’s the twinkling stars overhead, and the birds nestling around me, yet, instead of the peace and silence, there’s the roar of the court and the streets, the chimneys and tiles all round, the light shining up from the gas, and I know I’m only in the Dials; but it’s sweet to fancy it all, and get away from the life about you for a few minutes; and when ’Arry’s mother sees me like that, she never disturbs me to complain of her aches and pains.

No; never in the country since my boy was taken; but the bright days are coming soon.

Chapter Five.

A Rogue in Grain

“Oh, no; ain’t nothing like such tools as I’ve been used to,” he says. “At my last shop everything was first class, and the place beautifully fitted-up – gas on, new benches, fine joiners’ chest o’ tools, full of beading and moulding planes, and stocks, and bits, and everything first class.”

“Well,” says the guv’nor, “I don’t want to be unreasonable: anything really necessary for the job you shall have; but of course I can’t help my workshop not being equal to your last; but I ’spose it won’t make much difference if you get your wages reg’lar?”

“Oh, no;” he says; it didn’t matter to him; he could work with any tools, he could; ony he did like to see things a bit to rights, and so on to that tune; and then my gentleman gets to work.

“Pity you didn’t stop where you was so jolly well off,” I thinks to myself; and then I goes on whistling, and priming some shutters as the guv’nor had made for a new shop front as he had to put in. You see, ’tain’t many years since our guv’nor was ony a working man like me, ony he managed to scrape a few pounds together, and then very pluckily started for hisself out in one of the new outskirts, where there was a deal of new building going on by the big London contractors, and a deal of altering and patching, which used to be done by the little jobbing men same as our guv’nor. Often and often he’s talked to me about it when working aside me pleasant and sociable as could be; how at times he’d be all of a shake and tremble for fear of going wrong, not knowing how to pay his man or two on Saturday, and obliged to be civil as could be to them, for fear they’d go off and leave him in the lurch over some job or other. Then people didn’t pay up, and he’d have to wait; and then there was the ironmonger and the timber merchant wouldn’t give him credit, being only a small beginner; and one way and another he led such a life of it for the first three years as made him wish again and again as he’d been content to be journeyman and stopped on the reg’lar. But there; he warn’t meant for a journeyman, he was too good a scholar, and had too much in his brains, and, besides, had got such a stock of that “will do it” in his head as made him get on. He knowed well enough that you can’t drive a nail up to the head at one blow, or cover a piece of flatting with one touch of the brush; and so he acted accordingly, tapping gently at first till he’d got his nail a little way in, and then letting go at it till it was chock up to the head, reg’lar fixture; and so on, nail after nail, till he got his house up firm and strong. He didn’t turn master for the sake of walking about with his hands in his pockets; for, as he said to me often, “In my small way, Sam,” he says, “master’s a harder job than journeyman’s.” And so it was; for, come tea-time and the men knocked off, I’ve seen him keep on hard at it, hour after hour, right up to twelve o’clock; while the chaps as left the shop would wink at one another, for some men ain’t got any respect for a hard-toiling master: they’ll a deal sooner slave for some foul-mouthed bully who gives them no peace of their lives.

Sometimes, when he’s been hard pushed with a job, I’ve known him ask ’em to stay and work a bit of overtime, same as he did my gentleman as had been at such fine shops; but “Oh, no,” he says, “couldn’t do it, thanky,” and away he goes.

Well, now, that ain’t the sort of thing, you know; for one good turn deserves another; and my gentleman wouldn’t have much liked it if he’d been refused a day when he wanted it. But, there, he was a poor sort; and one of those fellows as must have everything exact to pattern, and can’t be put out in the least – chaps what runs in one groove all their lifetime and can’t do anything out of it; and then, when they’re outer work, why, they’re like so many big babies and quite as helpless. But he didn’t stay long; he was too fine, and talked too much. The guv’nor soon saw through him, and paid him off; and, according to my experience in such things, those men as have so much to say, and are so very particular to let the guv’nor know how particular they are not to waste a bit of time, generally turn out the most given to miking – skulking, you know.

I ain’t much of a workman, you know; being only a sort of odd man on the place, doing anything – painting or what not; but me and the guv’nor gets on well together, for I make a point of helping him when he’s hard pushed; and I will say that of him, he’s always been as liberal after as a man could be. Say a job’s wanted quick, what’s the good of niggling about one’s hours exactly, and running off for fear of doing a stroke too much. Go at it, I says, and work with the master as if you take an interest in the job and feel a bit of pride in it. Why, bless your heart, ’tain’t only the three or six-and-thirty shillings a week a man ought to work for, but the sense of doing things well, so as he can stand up aside his fellow-man, and look at his work and say, “I did that, and I ain’t ashamed of it.” Why, I’ve known fellows that bowky about their jobs that they wouldn’t own to ’em afterwards. Sashes all knock-kneed, panelling out of the square, or painters with their paint all blistering and peeling off. No; ’tain’t only for the week’s wage a man ought to work, but for a sense of duty, and so on,

Guv’nor and me gets on very well together, for I was with him in his worst times, when he used to work in his shirt-sleeves aside me; and many’s the time I’ve gone into little contract jobs with him, to calculate the expense, when from being over-anxious to get work he’d take the jobs a deal too low, and so I used to tell him. But we always got on together, and I’ll tell you how it was I got along with him.

I always could carpenter a bit, but most of my time’s been spent as a painter – ’prenticed to it, you know, and spent seven years with a drunken master to learn ’most nothing, ’cept what I picked up myself. Well, I couldn’t get a job in town, so I was on the look-out round the outside, when I came to our guv’nor’s place, where he was at work with two men, and him doing about as much as both of ’em. No use to try on for carpentering, I thinks, so I sets up the painting sign and goes in.

“Well,” says the guv’nor, “I can give you a job if you can grain.”

Now that was a rum ’un, for I was only a plain painter, and no grainer; but after three weeks’ hard lines, wife and family at home, and work awful, it did seem tantalising to a willing man to have a week’s wages shown him if he could only do one particular thing. Of course I had dodged it a bit before, but I wasn’t a grainer, and I knowed it well enough; but I thinks to myself, “Well, this is outside London, where people ain’t so very artis-like in their ideas, and perhaps I can manage it – so here goes. I can but try, and if I misses, why, it ain’t a hanging matter.” So I says, “Well; I wouldn’t undertake none of your superfine walnuts, and bird’s-eye maples, and marbles; but if it’s a bit of plain oak I’m your man.”

“Well,” he says, “that’ll do; it’s only plain oak; and, if you like, you can begin priming and going on at once. There’s paints and brushes, but you must find your own graining tools.”

At it I goes like a savage, and then I found as there was a week’s work for me before I need touch the graining; for there was priming, and first and second coats; and so I went on, but thinking precious hard about the bit of graining I should have to do. “Nothing venture, nothing gain,” I says; and that night I was hard at it after work – ah! and right up to four o’clock in the morning – trying to put a bit of oak grain on to a piece of smooth deal. I’d got a brush or two, and some colour, and a couple of them comb-like things we uses; and there I was, with the missus trying to keep her eyes open and pretending to sew, while I painted and streaked, and then smudged it about with a bit of rag; and I’m blest if I didn’t put some grain on that piece of wood as would have made Mother Nature stare – knots, and twists, and coarse grain, and shadings as I could have laughed at if I hadn’t been so anxious. You see, the nuisance of it was, it looked so easy when another man did it: touches over with his colour, streaks it down with his comb, and then with a rag gives a smudge here and there, and all so lightly, and there it is done. But I couldn’t, though I tried till the missus nodded, so I was obliged to send her to bed for fear she’d set her cap afire; and then I goes to the pump and has a reg’lar good sloosh, and touches my face over with the cold water, when after a good rub I goes at it again quite fresh.

I can’t think now how many times I rubbed the paint off with the dirty rag, but a good many I know, and the clock had gone three when I was still at it, with every try seeming to be worse than the last; but still I kept on till I seemed to hear it strike four in a muffled sort of way, and then the next thing I heard was the wife calling me, for it was five o’clock, and I had a long way to walk to get to my work.

As soon as I could get my head off the table, and pull myself together, the first thing I did was to look at my graining; and some how or other it didn’t look so very much amiss; but still it warn’t anything like what it ought to be, as I knowed well enough. All that day I was thinking it over, and best part of that dinner-hour I stopped in the shop trying it on again.

Just as I was going to smudge a piece over, and finish my bit of bread and meat, not feeling at all satisfied, I gives a jump, for some one behind me says, —

“Very neat, indeed. Bit of old oak, I suppose. You’d better do them shutters that style of grain.”

Well, do you know, if I didn’t look at the guv’nor – for him it was – to see whether he warn’t a joking me; but, bless you, no; he was as serious as a judge: so feeling all the while like a great humbug, as I was, I says, “Werry well, sir,” finished my dinner, and then got to work again.

It turned out as I expected, just a whole week before I had to begin graining; and what with about an hour a day, and four more every night, I got on pretty well, especially after giving a chap two pots of ale to put me up to a wrinkle or two; and now I sometimes pass by that very bit of graining, and though of course I could do it a deal better now, I don’t feel so very much ashamed of it.

But along of my guv’nor. What a fight that man did have surely; and how well I used to know when he was running short on Saturdays: he’d look ten years older those times; and over and over again I’ve felt ashamed to take the money; but one couldn’t do without it, you know, on account of the little ones and wife. Last of all, though, we got to understand one another – the guv’nor and me; and this was how it was: he’d been worse nor usual, and was terribly hard-up, for he’d been buying wood and paying for it; for though he could have plenty of credit now as he don’t want it, in those days not a bit of stuff could he get without putting the money down. Well, having next to no capital, this bothered him terribly; and after paying two men on Saturday, I felt pretty sure as he was run close, and stood hanging about in the shop, not knowing whether to go in to the house or be off home; and at last I did go home and told the wife about it, and she said we could hold out two or three weeks very well, if I thought the guv’nor would pay by-and-by. But I soon settled that, for I knew my man, and so I set down quietly to my tea, and was sticking a bit of bread-and-butter in one little open beak and a bit in another, when there comes a knock at the door, and I turned red all over, for I felt it was the guv’nor; and so it was, and he’d brought my wages, when, as he stood in my bit of a kitchen holding out the three-and-thirty shillings, I couldn’t for the life of me help looking at where his watch-chain hung, and it warn’t there.

I meant to do it neatly, and without hurting his feelings, for him and his wife had been very kind to us when we had the sickness in the house; but, you see, it warn’t a bit of graining, and I regularly muffed the job when I told him to let it stand for two or three weeks, as we could do till then. Next moment he had hold of my hand, shaking it heartily, and then next after that he broke down in a humbled, mortified sort of a way; and when the wife hurried the children up the staircase, out of sight, poor chap! he sat down, laid his head on his hand, and groaned.

“Cheer up,” I says, “it’ll be all right soon.”