Personal Reminiscences in Book Making, and Some Short Stories

“Notice it! I should think I did. Why the dream that I had w’en I was layin’ alongside o’ you was o’ that sort exactly. It was all about wittles, too, an’ it’s made me that ’ungry I feels like a ravagin’ wolf.”

“Come along, then, Howlet, an’ you an’ me will ravage somethin’ wi’ them browns o’ mine. We’ll ’ave a good breakfast, though it should be our last, an’ I’ll stand treat.”

“You’re a trump, Stumpy; an’ I’ll tell you my dream as we goes along.”

“Hall right—but mind you don’t come prosy over me. I can’t stand it no more nor yourself.”

“You mind Dick Wilkin, don’t you?”

“What—the young man from the country as I’ve see’d standin’ at the dock gates day after day for weeks without getting took on?”

“That’s him,” continued Owlet, with a nod, as he shoved his hand into his trousers pockets. “He brought a wife and five kids from the country with him—thinkin’ to better hisself in London. Ha! a sweet little town for a cove as is ’ard up to better hisself in—ho yes, certingly!” remarked the precocious boy in a tone of profound sarcasm.

“Well,” he continued, “Dick Wilkin came to better hisself an’ he set about it by rentin’ a single room in Cherubs Court—a fine saloobrious spot, as you know, not far from the Tower. He ’ad a few bobs when he came, and bought a few sticks o’ furniture, but I don’t need for to tell you, Stumpy, that the most o’ that soon went up the spout, and the Wilkins was redooced to beggary—waried off an’ on with an odd job at the docks. It was when they first comed to town that I was down wi’ that fever, or ’flenzy, or somethink o’ that sort. The streets bein’ my usual ’abitation, I ’ad no place in partikler to go to, an’ by good luck, when I gave in, I lay down at the Wilkins’ door. O! but I was bad—that bad that it seemed as if I should be cleared out o’ my mortal carcase entirely—”

“Mulligrumps?” inquired his sympathetic friend.

“No, no. Nothin’ o’ that sort, but a kind of hot all-overishness, wi’ pains that—but you can’t understand it, Stumpy, if you’ve never ’ad it.”

“Then I don’t want to understand it. But what has all this to do wi’ your dream?”

“Everythink to do with it, ’cause it was about them I was dreamin’. As I was sayin’, I fell down at their door, an’ they took me in, and Mrs Wilkin nussed me for weeks till I got better. Oh, she’s a rare nuss is Mrs Wilkin. An’ when I began to get better the kids all took to me. I don’t know when I would have left them, but when times became bad, an’ Dick couldn’t git work, and Mrs Wilkin and the kids began to grow thin, I thought it was time for me to look out for myself, an’ not remain a burden on ’em no longer. I know’d they wouldn’t let me away without a rumpus, so I just gave ’em the slip, and that’s ’ow I came to be on the streets again, an’ fell in wi’ you, Stumpy.”

“’Ave you never seen ’em since?”

“Never.”

“You ungrateful wagibone!”

“What was the use o’ my goin’ to see ’em w’en I ’ad nothin’ to give ’em?” returned Owlet in an apologetic tone.

“You might ’ave given ’em the benefit of your adwice if you ’ad nothin’ else. But what did you dream about ’em?”

“I dreamt that they was all starvin’—which ain’t unlikely to be true—an’ I was so cut up about it, that I went straight off to a butcher’s shop and stole a lot o’ sasengers; then to a baker’s and stole a loaf the size of a wheel-barrer; then to a grocer’s and stole tea an’ sugar; an’ the strange thing was that neither the people o’ the shops nor the bobbies seemed to think I was stealin’! Another coorious thing was that I carried all the things in my pockets—stuffed ’em in quite easy, though there was ’arf a sack o’ coals among ’em!”

“Always the way in dreams,” remarked his friend philosophically.

“Yes—ain’t it jolly convenient?” continued the other. “Well, w’en I got to the ’ouse I set to work, made a rousin’ fire, put on the kettle, cooked the wittles as if I’d bin born and bred in a ’otel, and in less than five minutes ’ad a smokin’ dinner on the table, that would ’ave busted an alderman. In course the Wilkins axed no questions. Father, mother, five kids, and self all drew in our chairs, and sot down—”

“What fun!” exclaimed Stumpy.

“Ay, but you spoilt the fun, for it was just at that time you shoved your fist into my ribs, and woke me before one of us could get a bite o’ that grub into our mouths. If we’d even ’ad time to smell it, that would ’ave bin somethink to remember.”

“Howlet,” said the other impressively, “d’ye think the Wilkins is livin’ in the same place still?”

“As like as not.”

“Could you find it again?”

“Could I find Saint Paul’s, or the Moniment? I should think so!”

“Come along, then, and let’s pay ’em a wisit.”

They were not long in finding the place—a dirty court at the farther end of a dark passage.

Owlet led the way to the top of a rickety stair, and knocked at one of the doors which opened on the landing. No answer was returned, but after a second application of the knuckles, accompanied by a touch of the toe, a growling voice was heard, then a sound of some one getting violently out of bed, a heavy tread on the floor, and the door was flung open.

“What d’ee want?” demanded a fierce, half-drunken man.

“Please, sir, does the Wilkins stop here?”

“No, they don’t,” and the door was shut with a bang.

“Sweet creature!” observed Stumpy as they turned disappointed away.

“Wonder if his mother ’as any more like ’im?” said Owlet.

“They’ve ’ad to change to the cellar,” said a famished-looking woman, putting her head out of a door on the same landing. “D’ye want ’em?”

“In course we does, mother, else we wouldn’t ax for ’em. W’ereabouts is the cellar?”

“Foot o’ this stair.”

Descending to the regions below, the two boys groped their way along an underground passage till they came to a door. It was opened by a woman, who timidly demanded what they wanted.

“It’s me, Missis Wilkin. ’Ave you forgotten Howlet?”

With an exclamation of surprise and joy the woman flung the door wide, seized Owlet, dragged him into the room, and embraced him with as much affection as if he had been her own child. Instantly there arose a shout of juvenile joy, and Stumpy could see, in the semi-darkness, that four little creatures were helping their mother to overwhelm his friend, while a fifth—a biggish girl—was prevented from joining them by the necessity that lay on her to take care of the baby.

When the greetings were over, the sad condition of the family was soon explained, and a single glance round sufficed to show that they had reached the lowest state of destitution. It was a back room rather than a cellar, but the dirty pane of thick glass near the roof admitted only enough of light to make its wretchedness visible. A rickety table, two broken chairs, and a bedstead without a bottom was all the furniture left, and the grate was empty.

“We’ve been obleeged to pawn everything,” said Mrs Wilkin, with difficulty suppressing a sob, “and I need hardly tell you why,” she added, with a glance at the children, who were living skeletons.

The baby was perhaps the saddest object there, for it was so thin and weak that it had not strength to cry—though the faces which it frequently made were obviously the result of an effort to do so.

Much interested in the scene, young Stumpy stood admiring it patronisingly for a little, but when he heard the poor woman tell of their desperate struggle to merely keep themselves alive, his feelings were touched, and when he learned that not a bite of food had passed their lips since the previous morning, a sudden impulse swelled his little breast. He clutched his four pennies tightly; glanced quickly round; observed an empty basket in a corner; caught it up, and left the place hurriedly.

He had scarcely gone when the father of the family entered. The expression of his face and his whole bearing and aspect told eloquently of disappointment as he sat down with a heavy sigh.

“Stumped again,” he said; “only a few hands took on.”

The words sounded as a death-knell to the famishing family, and the man himself was too much cut up to take notice of the return of his friend Owlet, except by a slight nod of recognition.

Meanwhile Stumpy ran along several streets in quest of food. He had not far to run in such a locality. At a very small grocer’s shop he purchased one halfpenny worth of tea and put it in his basket. To this he added one farthing’s worth of milk, which the amiable milkman let him have in a small phial, on promise of its being returned. Two farthings more procured a small supply of coal, which he wrapped in two cabbage leaves. Then he looked about for a baker. One penny farthing of his fund having been spent, it behoved him to consider that the staff of life must be secured in preference to luxuries.

At this point the boy’s nose told him of a most delicious smell which pervaded the air. He stood still for a moment and sniffed eagerly.

“Ah, ain’t it prime? I’ve jist ’ad some,” said another much smaller and very ragged street-boy who had noticed the sniff.

“What ever is it?” demanded Stumpy.

“Pea-soup,” answered the other.

“Where?”

“Right round the corner. Look alive, they’re shovellin’ it out like one o’clock for fard’ns!”

Our hero waited for no more. He dashed round the corner, and found a place where the Salvation Army was dispensing farthing and halfpenny breakfasts to a crowd of the hungriest and raggedest creatures he had ever seen, though his personal experience of London destitution was extensive.

“Here you are,” said a smiling damsel in a poke bonnet. “I see you’re in a hurry; how much do you want?”

“’Ow much for a fard’n?” asked Stumpy, with the caution natural to a man of limited means.

A small bowl full of steaming soup was placed before him and a hunk of bread.

“For one fard’n?” inquired the boy in surprise.

“For one farthing,” replied the presiding angel in the poke bonnet.

“Here, young ’ooman,” said Stumpy, setting down his basket, “let me ’ave eleven fard’n’s worth right away. There’s a big family awaitin’ for it an’ they’re all starvin’, so do make haste.”

“But, dear boy, you’ve brought nothing to carry the soup in.”

Stumpy’s visage fell. The basket could not serve him here, and the rate at which the soup was being ladled out convinced him that if he were to return for a jug there would not be much left for him.

Observing his difficulty, the attendant said that she would lend him a jug if he would promise to bring it back. “Are you an honest boy?” she asked, with an amused look.

“About as honest as most kids o’ the same sort.”

“Well, I’ll trust you—and, mind, God sees you. There, now, don’t you fall and break it.”

Our hero was not long in returning to the dreary cellar, with the eleven basins of soup and eleven hunks of bread—all of which, with the previously purchased luxuries, he spread out on the rickety table, to the unutterable amazement and joy of the Wilkin family.

Need we say that it was a glorious feast? As there were only two chairs, the table was lifted inside of the bottomless bed, and some of the young people sat down on the frame thereof on one side, and some on the other side, while Mrs Wilkin and her husband occupied the places of honour at the head and foot. There was not much conversation at first. Hunger was too exacting, but in a short time tongues began to wag. Then the fire was lighted, and the kettle boiled, and the half-pennyworth of tea infused, and thus the sumptuous meal was agreeably washed down. Even the baby began—to recover under the genial influence of warm food, and made faces indicative of a wish to crow—but it failed, and went to sleep on sister’s shoulder instead. When it was all over poor Mrs Wilkin made an attempt to “return thanks” for the meal, but broke down and sobbed her gratitude.

Reader, this is no fancy sketch. It is founded on terrible fact, and gives but a faint idea of the wretchedness and poverty that prevail in London—even the London of to-day!