Robert Michael Ballantyne
Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished: A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure
Chapter Ten.
Balls, Bobby, Sir Richard, and Giles appear on the Stage
As from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step, so, from the dining-room to the kitchen there is but a stair. Let us descend the stair and learn that while Sir Richard was expounding the subject of “the poor” to little Di, Mr Balls, the butler, was engaged on the same subject in the servants’ hall.
“I cannot tell you,” said Balls, “what a impression the sight o’ these poor people made on me.”
“La! Mr Balls,” said the cook, who was not unacquainted with low life in London, having herself been born within sound of Bow-Bells, “you’ve got no occasion to worrit yourself about it. It ’as never bin different.”
“That makes it all the worse, cook,” returned Balls, standing with his back to the fireplace and his legs wide apart; “if it was only a temporary depression in trade, or the repeal of the corn laws that did it, one could stand it, but to think that such a state of things always goes on is something fearful. You know I’m a country-bred man myself, and ain’t used to the town, or to such awful sights of squalor. It almost made me weep, I do assure you. One room that I looked into had a mother and two children in it, and I declare to you that the little boy was going about stark naked, and his sister was only just a slight degree better.”
“P’raps they was goin’ to bed,” suggested Mrs Screwbury.
“No, nurse, they wasn’t; they was playing about evidently in their usual costume—for that evenin’ at least. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it. And the mother was so tattered and draggled and dirty—which, also, was the room.”
“Was that in the court where the Frogs live?” asked Jessie Summers.
“It was, and a dreadful court too—shocking!”
“By the way, Mr Balls,” asked the cook, “is there any chance o’ that brat of a boy Bobby, as they call him, coming here? I can’t think why master has offered to take such a creeter into his service.”
“No, cook, there is no chance. I forgot to tell you about that little matter. The boy was here yesterday and he refused—absolutely declined a splendid offer.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” returned the cook.
“Tell us about it, Mr Balls,” said Jessie Summers with a reproachful look at the other. “I’m quite fond of that boy—he’s such a smart fellow, and wouldn’t be bad-looking if he’d only wash his face and comb his hair.”
“He’s smart enough, no doubt, but impudence is his strong point,” rejoined the butler with a laugh. The way he spoke to the master beats everything.
“‘I’ve sent for you, my boy,’ said Sir Richard, in his usual dignified, kindly way, ‘to offer you the situation of under-gardener in my establishment.’”
“‘Oh! that’s wot you wants with me, is it?’ said the boy, as bold as brass; indeed I may say as bold as gun-metal, for his eyes an’ teeth glittered as he spoke, and he said it with the air of a dook. Master didn’t quite seem to like it, but I saw he laid restraint on himself and said: ‘You have to thank my daughter for this offer—’
“‘Thank you, Miss,’ said the boy, turnin’ to Miss Di with a low bow, imitatin’ Sir Richard’s manner, I thought, as much as he could.
“‘Of course,’ continued the master, rather sharply, ‘I offer you this situation out of mere charity—’
“‘Oh! you do, do you?’ said the extraordinary boy in the coolest manner, ‘but wot if I objec’ to receive charity? Ven I ’olds a ’orse I expecs to be paid for so doin’, same as you expecs to be paid w’en you attends a board-meetin’ to grin an’ do nuffin.’
“‘Come, come, boy,’ said Sir Richard, gettin’ redder in the face than I ever before saw him, ‘I am not accustomed to low pleasantry, and—’
“‘An’ I ain’t accustomed,’ broke in the boy, ‘to ’igh hinsults. Do you think that every gent what years a coat an’ pants with ’oles in ’em is a beggar?’
“For some moments master seemed to be struck speechless, an’ I feared that in spite of his well-known gentleness of character he’d throw the ink-stand at the boy’s head, but he didn’t; he merely said in a low voice, ‘I would dismiss you at once, boy, were it not that I have promised my daughter to offer you employment, and you can see by her looks how much your unnatural conduct grieves her.’
“An’ this was true, for poor Miss Di sat there with her hands clasped, her eyes full of tears, her eyebrows disappearin’ among her hair with astonishment, and her whole appearance the very pictur’ of distress. ‘However,’ continued Sir Richard, ‘I still make you the offer, though I doubt much whether you will be able to retain the situation. Your wages will—’
“‘Please sir,’ pleaded the boy, ‘don’t mention the wages. I couldn’t stand that. Indeed I couldn’t; it would really be too much for me.’
“‘Why, what do you mean?’ says master.
“‘I mean,’ says Impudence, ‘that I agree with you. I don’t think I could retain the sitivation, cause w’y? In the fust place, I ain’t got no talent at gardenin’. The on’y time I tried it was w’en I planted a toolip in a flower-pot, an’ w’en I dug it up to see ’ow it was a-gittin on a cove told me I’d planted it upside down. However, I wasn’t goin’ to be beat by that cove, so I say to ’im, Jack, I says, I planted it so a purpus, an’ w’en it sprouts I’m a-goin’ to ’ang it up to see if it won’t grow through the ’ole in the bottom. In the second place, I couldn’t retain the sitivation ’cause I don’t intend to take it, though you was to offer me six thousand no shillin’s an’ no pence no farthin’s a year as salary.’
“I r’ally did think master would ha’ dropt out of his chair at that. As for Miss Di, she was so tickled that she gave a sort of hysterical laugh.
“‘Balls,’ said master, ‘show him out, and—’ he pulled up short, but I knew he meant to say have an eye on the great-coats and umbrellas, so I showed the boy out, an’ he went down-stairs, quite quiet, but the last thing I saw of him was performin’ a sort of minstrel dance at the end of the street just before he turned the corner and disappeared.”
“Imp’rence!” exclaimed the cook.
“Naughty, ungrateful boy!” said Mrs Screwbury.
“But it was plucky of him,” said Jessie Summers.
“I would call it cheeky,” said Balls, “I can’t think what put it into his head to go on so.”
If Mr Balls had followed Bobby Frog in spirit, watched his subsequent movements, and listened to his remarks, perhaps he might have understood the meaning of his conduct a little better.
After he had turned the corner of the street, as above mentioned, Bobby trotted on for a short space, and then, coming to a full stop, executed a few steps of the minstrel dance, at the end of which he brought his foot down with tremendous emphasis on the pavement, and said—
“Yes, I’ve bin an’ done it. I know’d I was game for a good deal, but I did not think I was up to that. One never knows wot ’e’s fit for till ’e tries. Wot’ll Hetty think, I wonder?”
What Hetty thought he soon found out, for he overtook her on the Thames embankment on her way home. Bobby was fond of that route, though a little out of his way, because he loved the running water, though it was muddy, and the sight of steamers and barges.
“Well, Bobby,” she said, laying her hand on his shoulder, “where have you been?”
“To see old Swallow’d-the-poker, Hetty.”
“What took you there?” asked the girl in surprise.
“My legs. You don’t suppose I’ve set up my carriage yet, do you?”
“Come, you know what I mean.”
“Vell, then, I went because I was sent for, an’ wot d’ye think? the old gen’l’man hoffered me the sitivation of under-gardener!”
“You don’t say so! Oh! Bobby, what a lucky boy—an’ what a kind gentleman! Tell me all about it now,” said Hetty, pressing her hand more tenderly on her brother’s shoulder. “What wages is he to give you?”
“No wages wotsomever.”
Hetty looked into her brother’s face with an expression of concerned surprise. She knew some tradespeople who made her work hard for so very little, that it was not difficult to believe in a gentleman asking her brother to work for nothin’! Still she had thought better of Sir Richard, and expected to hear something more creditable to him.
“Ah, you may look, but I do assure you he is to give me no wages, an’ I’m to do no work.”
Here Bobby executed a few steps of his favourite dance, but evidently from mere habit, and unconsciously, for he left off in the middle, and seemed to forget the salient point of emphasis with his foot.
“What do you mean, Bobby?—be earnest, like a dear boy, for once.”
“Earnest!” exclaimed the urchin with vehemence. “I never was more in earnest in my life. You should ’ave seen Swallow’d-the-poker w’en I refused to ’ave it.”
“Refused it?”
“Ay—refused it. Come Hetty, I’ll explain.”
The boy dropped his facetious tone and manner while he rapidly ran over the chief points of his interview with Sir Richard.
“But why did you refuse so good an offer?” asked Hetty, still unable to repress her surprise.
“Because of daddy.”
“Daddy?”
“Ay, daddy. You know he’s fond o’ me, is daddy, and, d’ye know, though p’r’aps you mayn’t believe it, I’m raither fond o’ him; but ’e’s a bad ’un, is daddy. He’s bent on mischief, you see, an’ ’e’s set his ’art on my ’elpin’ of ’im. But I wont ’elp ’im—that’s flat. Now, what d’ye think, Hetty,” (here he dropped his voice to almost a whisper and looked solemn), “dad wants to make use o’ me to commit a burglary on Swallow’d-the-poker’s ’ouse.”
“You don’t mean it, Bobby!”
“But I do, Hetty. Dad found out from that rediklous butler that goes veepin’ around our court like a leeky pump, that the old gen’l’man was goin’ to hoffer me this sitivation, an ’e’s bin wery ’ard on me to accept it, so that I may find out the ways o’ the ’ouse where the plate an’ waluables lay, let ’im in some fine dark night an’ ’elp ’im to carry off the swag.”
A distressed expression marked poor Hetty’s reception of this news, but she said never a word.
“Now you won’t tell, Hetty?” said the boy with a look of real anxiety on his face. “It’s not so much his killin’ me I cares about, but I wouldn’t bring daddy to grief for any money. I’d raither ’elp ’im than that. You’ll not say a word to nobody?”
“No, Bobby, I won’t say a word.”
“Vell, you see,” continued the boy, “ven I’d made myself so disagreeable that the old gen’l’man would ’ave nothin’ to do with me, I came straight away, an’ ’ere I am; but it was a trial, let me tell you, specially ven ’e come to mention wages—an sitch a ’eavenly smell o’ roasted wittles come up from the kitchen too at the moment, but I ’ad only to look at Miss Di, to make me as stubborn as a nox or a hass. ‘Wot!’ thinks I to myself, ‘betray that hangel—no, never!’ yet if I was to go into that ’ouse I know I’d do it, for daddy’s got sitch a wheedlin’ way with ’im w’en ’e likes, that I couldn’t ’old hout long—so I giv’ old Swallowed-the-poker sitch a lot o’ cheek that I thought ’e’d kick me right through the winder. He was considerable astonished as well as riled, I can tell you, an’ Miss Di’s face was a pictur’, but the old butler was the sight. He’d got ’is face screwed up into sitch a state o’ surprise that it looked like a eight-day clock with a gamboil. Now, Hetty, I’m goin’ to tell ’ee what’ll take your breath away. I’ve made up my mind to go to Canada!”
Hetty did, on hearing this, look as if her breath had been taken away. When it returned sufficiently she said:
“Bobby, what put that into your head?”
“The ’Ome of Hindustry,” said Bobby with a mysterious look.
“The Home of Industry,” repeated the girl in surprise, for she knew that Institution well, having frequently assisted its workers in their labour of love.
“Yes, that’s the name—’Ome of Hindustry, what sends off so many ragged boys to Canada under Miss Macpherson.”
“Ay, Bobby, it does a great deal more than that,” returned the girl. “Sending off poor boys and girls to Canada is only one branch of its work. If you’d bin to its tea-meetin’s for the destitute, as I have, an’ its clothin’ meetin’s and its mothers’ meetin’s, an—”
“’Ow d’ye know I ’aven’t bin at ’em all?” asked the boy with an impudent look.
“Well, you know, you couldn’t have been at the mothers’ meetings, Bobby.”
“Oh! for the matter o’ that, no more could you.”
“True, but I’ve heard of them all many and many a time; but come, tell me all about it. How did you come to go near the Home of Industry at all after refusing so often to go with me?”
“Vell, I didn’t go because of bein’ axed to go, you may be sure o’ that, but my little dosser, Tim Lumpy, you remember ’im? The cove wi’ the nose like a button, an’ no body to speak of—all legs an’ arms, like a ’uman win’-mill; vell, you must know they’ve nabbed ’im, an’ given ’im a rig-out o’ noo slops, an’ they’re goin’ to send ’im to Canada. So I ’appened to be down near the ’Ome one day three weeks past, an’ I see Lumpy a-goin’ in. ‘’Allo!’ says I. ‘’Allo!’ says ’e; an’ then ’e told me all about it. ‘Does they feed you well?’ I axed. ‘Oh! don’t they, just!’ said ’e. ‘There’s to be a blow hout this wery night,’ said ’e. ‘I wonder,’ says I, ‘if they’d let me in, for I’m uncommon ’ungry, I tell you; ’ad nuffin’ to heat since last night.’ Just as I said that, a lot o’ fellers like me came tumblin’ up to the door—so I sneaked in wi’ the rest—for I thought they’d kick me hout if they knowed I’d come without inwitation.”
“Well, and what then?” asked Hetty.
Here our little street-Arab began to tell, in his own peculiar language and style, how that he went in, and found a number of ladies in an upper room with forms set, and hot tea and bread to be had—as much as they could stuff—for nothing; that the boys were very wild and unruly at first, but that after the chief lady had prayed they became better, and that when half-a-dozen nice little girls were brought in and had sung a hymn or two they were quite quiet and ready to listen. Like many other people, this city Arab did not like to speak out freely, even to his sister, on matters that touched his feelings deeply, but he said enough to let the eager and thankful Hetty know that not only had Jesus and His love been preached to the boys, but she perceived that what had been said and sung had made an unusual impression, though the little ragged waif sought to conceal it under the veil of cool pleasantry, and she now recognised the fact that the prayers which she had been putting up for many a day in her brother’s behalf had been answered.
“Oh! I’m so happy,” she said; and, unable to restrain herself, flung her arms round Bobby’s neck and kissed him.
It was evident that the little fellow rather liked this, though he pretended that he did not.
“Come, old gal,” he said brusquely, “none o’ that sort o’ thing. I can’t stand it. Don’t you see, the popilation is lookin’ at us in surprise; besides, you’ve bin an’ crushed all my shirt front!”
“But,” continued Hetty, as they walked on again, “I’m not happy to hear that you are goin’ to Canada. What ever will I do without you, Bobby?”
Poor girl, she could well afford to do without him in one sense, for he had hitherto been chiefly an object of anxiety and expense to her, though also an object of love.
“I’m sorry to think of goin’ too, Hetty, for your sake an’ mother’s, but for daddy’s sake and my own I must go. You see, I can’t ’old hout agin ’im. W’en ’e makes up ’is mind to a thing you know ’e sticks to it, for ’e’s a tough un; an’ ’e’s got sitch a wheedlin’ sort o’ way with ’im that I can’t ’elp givin’ in a’most. So, you see, it’ll be better for both of us that I should go away. But I’ll come back, you know, Hetty, with a fortin—see if I don’t—an’ then, oh! won’t I keep a carridge an’ a ridin’ ’oss for daddy, an’ feed mother an’ you on plum-duff an’ pork sassengers to breakfast, dinner, an’ supper, with ice cream for a relish!”
Poor Hetty did not even smile at this prospect of temporal felicity. She felt that in the main the boy was right, and that the only chance he had of escaping the toils in which her father was wrapping him by the strange union of affection and villainy, was to leave the country. She knew, also, that, thanks to the Home of Industry and its promoters, the sending of a ragged, friendless, penniless London waif, clothed and in his right mind, to a new land of bright and hopeful prospects, was an event brought within the bounds of possibility.
That night Bob Frog stood with his dosser, (i.e. his friend), Tim Lumpy, discussing their future prospects in the partial privacy of a railway-arch. They talked long, and, for waifs, earnestly—both as to the land they were about to quit and that to which they were going; and the surprising fact might have been noted by a listener—had there been any such present, save a homeless cat—that neither of the boys perpetrated a joke for the space of at least ten minutes.
“Vy,” observed little Frog at length, “you seem to ’ave got all the fun drove out o’ you, Lumpy.”
“Not a bit on it,” returned the other, with a hurt look, as though he had been charged with some serious misdemeanour, “but it do seem sitch a shabby thing to go an’ forsake my blind old mother.”
“But yer blind old mother wants you to go,” said Bobby, “an’ says she’ll be well looked arter by the ladies of the ’Ome, and that she wouldn’t stand in the way o’ your prospec’s. Besides, she ain’t yer mother!”
This was true. Tim Lumpy had neither father nor mother, nor relative on earth, and the old woman who, out of sheer pity, had taken him in and allowed him to call her “mother,” was a widow at the lowest possible round of that social ladder, at the top of which—figuratively speaking—sits Her Gracious Majesty the Queen. Mrs Lumpy had found him on her door-step, weeping and in rags, at the early age of five years. She had taken him in, and fed him on part of a penny loaf which formed the sole edible substance for her own breakfast. She had mended his rags to the extent of her ability, but she had not washed his face, having no soap of her own, and not caring to borrow from neighbours who were in the same destitute condition. Besides, she had too hard a battle to fight with an ever-present and pressing foe, to care much about dirt, and no doubt deemed a wash of tears now and then sufficient. Lumpy himself seemed to agree with her as to this, for he washed himself in that fashion frequently.
Having sought for his parents in vain, with the aid of the police, Mrs Lumpy quietly kept the boy on; gave him her surname, prefixed that of Timothy, answered to the call of mother, and then left him to do very much as he pleased.
In these circumstances, it was not surprising that little Tim soon grew to be one of the pests of his alley. Tim was a weak-eyed boy, and remarkably thin, being, as his friend had said, composed chiefly of legs and arms. There must have been a good deal of brain also, for he was keen-witted, as people soon began to find out to their cost. Tim was observant also. He observed, on nearing the age of ten years, that in the great river of life which daily flowed past him, there were certain faces which indicated tender and kindly hearts, coupled with defective brain-action, and a good deal of self-will. He became painfully shrewd in reading such faces, and, on wet days, would present himself to them with his bare little red feet and half-naked body, rain water, (doing duty for tears), running from his weak bloodshot eyes, and falsehoods of the most pitiable, complex, and impudent character pouring from his thin blue lips, whilst awful solemnity seemed to shine on his visage. The certain result was—coppers!
These kindly ones have, unwittingly of course, changed a text of Scripture, and, for the words “consider the poor,” read “throw coppers to the poor!” You see, it is much easier to relieve one’s feelings by giving away a few pence, than to take the trouble of visiting, inquiring about, and otherwise considering, the poor! At all events it would seem so, for Tim began to grow comparatively rich, and corrupted, still more deeply, associates who were already buried sufficiently in the depths of corruption.
At last little Tim was met by a lady who had befriended him more than once, and who asked him why he preferred begging in the streets to going to the ragged school, where he would get not only food for the body, but for the soul. He replied that he was hungry, and his mother had no victuals to give him, so he had gone out to beg. The lady went straight to Mrs Lumpy, found the story to be true, and that the poor half-blind old woman was quite unable to support the boy and herself. The lady prevailed on the old woman to attend the meetings for poor, aged, and infirm women in Miss Macpherson’s “Beehive,” and little Tim was taken into the “Home for Destitute Little Boys under ten years of age.”
It was not all smooth sailing in that Home after Tim Lumpy entered it! Being utterly untamed, Tim had many a sore struggle ere the temper was brought under control. One day he was so bad that the governess was obliged to punish him by leaving him behind, while the other boys went out for a walk. When left alone, the lady-superintendent tried to converse with him about obedience, but he became frightfully violent, and demanded his rags that he might return again to the streets. Finally he escaped, rushed to his old home in a paroxysm of rage, and then, getting on the roof, declared to the assembled neighbours that he would throw himself down and dash out his brains. In this state a Bible-woman found him. After offering the mental prayer, “Lord, help me,” she entreated him to come down and join her in a cup of tea with his old mother. The invitation perhaps struck the little rebel as having a touch of humour in it. At all events he accepted it and forthwith descended.
Over the tea, the Bible-woman prayed aloud for him, and the poor boy broke down, burst into tears, and begged forgiveness. Soon afterwards he was heard tapping at the door of the Home—gentle and subdued.
Thus was this waif rescued, and he now discussed with his former comrade the prospect of transferring themselves and their powers, mental and physical, to Canada. Diverging from this subject to Bobby’s father, and his dark designs, Tim asked if Ned Frog had absolutely decided to break into Sir Richard Brandon’s house, and Bobby replied that he had; that his father had wormed out of the butler, who was a soft stupid sort of cove, where the plate and valuables were kept, and that he and another man had arranged to do it.
“Is the partikler night fixed?” asked Tim.
“Yes; it’s to be the last night o’ this month.”
“Why not give notice?” asked Tim.
“’Cause I won’t peach on daddy,” said Bob Frog stoutly.
Little Tim received this with a “quite right, old dosser,” and then proposed that the meeting should adjourn, as he was expected back at the Home by that time.
Two weeks or so after that, Police-Constable Number 666 was walking quietly along one of the streets of his particular beat in the West-end, with that stateliness of step which seems to be inseparable from place, power, and six feet two.
It was a quiet street, such as Wealth loves to inhabit. There were few carriages passing along it, and fewer passengers. Number 666 had nothing particular to do—the inhabitants being painfully well-behaved, and the sun high. His mind, therefore, roamed about aimlessly, sometimes bringing playfully before him a small abode, not very far distant, where a pretty woman was busy with household operations, and a ferocious policeman, about three feet high, was taking into custody an incorrigible criminal of still smaller size.
A little boy, with very long arms and legs, might have been seen following our friend Giles Scott, until the latter entered upon one of those narrow paths made by builders on the pavements of streets when houses are undergoing repairs. Watching until Giles was half way along it, the boy ran nimbly up and accosted him with a familiar—
“Well, old man, ’ow are you?”
“Pretty bobbish, thank you,” returned the constable, for he was a good-natured man, and rather liked a little quiet chaff with street-boys when not too much engaged with duty.
“Well, now, are you aweer that there’s a-goin’ to be a burglairy committed in this ’ere quarter?” asked the boy, thrusting both hands deep into his pockets, and bending his body a little back, so as to look more easily up at his tall friend.
“Ah! indeed, well no, I didn’t know it, for I forgot to examine the books at Scotland Yard this morning, but I’ve no doubt it’s entered there by your friend who’s goin’ to commit it.”
“No, it ain’t entered there,” said the boy, with a manner and tone that rather surprised Number 666; “and I’d advise you to git out your note-book, an’ clap down wot I’m a-goin’ to tell ye. You know the ’ouse of Sir Richard Brandon?”
“Yes, I know it.”
“Well, that ’ouse is to be cracked on the 31st night o’ this month.”
“How d’you know that, lad?” asked Giles, moving towards the end of the barricade, so as to get nearer to his informant.
“No use, bobby,” said Tim, “big as you are, you can’t nab me. Believe me or not as you like, but I advise you to look arter that there ’ouse on the 31st if you valley your repitation.”
Tim went off like a congreve rocket, dashed down a side street, sloped into an alley, and melted into a wilderness of bricks and mortar.
Of course Giles did not attempt to follow, but some mysterious communications passed between him and his superintendent that night before he went to bed.
