SKETCHES OF LONDON LIFE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXI, Issue 7228, 30 April 1884, Page 3

SKETCHES OF LONDON LIFE.

Queer Samaritans. [J. Greenwood, in the Daily Telegarph.] At the side of the road opposite the hospital a laden haycart was standing, and as I paused for a minute to observe the sick, and the maimed, and the lame passing in and out at the institution’s charitable portals, my attention was attracted to the behaviour of two little lads, who, from my point of observation, were partially screened by the haycart. At first I thought they were at play, but I soon perceived that their demeanour was too anxious for that. They were two ragged Pascals, not more than twelve or thirteen either of them, and my second thought was that their intentions were larcenous, and that they had designs against the haycarter’s unprotected whip or horsecloth. For a few moments they would remain quiet, and peeping between the spokes of the wheel towards the road, as though they expected the carter to come from that direction, and then they would walk quickly to and fro. I was the more impressed that they were up to no good from the circumstance thao when a policeman hove presently in sight they shot away to the right and to the left, but in a minute or two came back again to repeat their previous movements, though, if possible,’more warily than before. ‘ I did the pair of ragamuffins injustice, however. As they continued to watch, there came out at the hospital gate a boy about their own age, but pale-faced and delicate-looking, as one who has been long lying. O in bed. He was limping and helping himself slowly along with the aid of a hospital crutch; and when he had proceeded a few yards he came to a standstill, and looked wistfully this way and that, as though expecting that there would be some one there to meet him. While he was so engaged a shrill whistle greeted his ears. It came from the immediate vicinity of the haycart, and looking in that direction the discharged hospital patient saw, as did I, a spectacle, that, judging from the pleased expression in his white face, afforded him great gratification. To me it was unaccountable. The two ragamuffins before mentioned were indulging in demonstrations of delight of a most Extraordinary kind. They had joined hands and were engaged in a gleeful dance, from which they suddenly desisted to thrust their dirty fingers into their mouths and blow shrill blasts, after which they took up the dance again at the point where they so abruptly left off, and kept it up till the boy with the crutch made as though ho was crossing the road to join them, when they energetically warded him back with their hands, and shook their heads and instructed him in pantomime to go further down the road, and take the first turning to the left, where they would join with him. What made the business more perplexing was that all the time this was going on they were in manifest fear or the policeman. They kept watch for him, and he happening to make his appearance agaim they darted out of sight in an instant. They must have gone a roundabout way to the place ot rendezvous, for, although the little lad with the crutch whom I kept in sight was of necessity compelled to walk slowly, he had arrived at the turning his friends indicated and proceeded some distance down it before they made their appearance. Divested of the comical element it was an affecting meeting. The lame ooy but one hand at liberty, and that g one of them, who held it hard and cordially shook it, while the nothing else to catch hold of, hud an affectionate grip on the btick ■ ™ crutch, and wiped lus eyes on hw lagged old can. " I’m that buatm glad to see you.’’ L remarked, in sheepish apology, “that dashed if I can help it. 1 stood too far off to hoar distinctly more of the affectionate greetings that passed between them, but it seemed that I was too close for the suspicious two whom I had seen evading theoonstable. They gayome a quick look and whispered to their friend, on which the three went down the street, till, finding that I was leisurely sauntering

behind them, they turned into a convenient coffee shop to bo rid of me. Unmistakable was their consternation when I presently turned in there too, and took a seat in the compartment where they were partaking of coffee and bread and butter. The boy who had wiped his eyes with his cap scowled defiantly, as he remarked, “ If you want any thing of us, mister, you’d hotter out with it, and let us know what it is! ” “ I can tell yon what I want in a very few words/' I replied, reassuringly, “1 saw you two young follows waiting for your friend hero, and I saw how kindly you gneted him. It pleased me to see it, and what I want to know is if you have any objection to something better than bread and butter to eat with your coffee—a steak, perhaps, or some eggs and bacon. If you would like it you have but to say the word, and I’ll order it and pay for it.” It is always boat to go straight to the point with boys of this class, and the likeliest of all ways to enlist their confidence is to offer them something comforting and substantial to eat. My unexpected offer sot them laughing, though they couldn’t quite believe in it until the waitress was summoned and the stakes ordered. When the dish came in, fragrant and with plenty of gravy, and I paid down the price of it, their lingering doubts were allayed. “ You’ll ’souse the cheek I gave you just now, mister,” the scowling young gentleman remarked, “ but, ’pon my sivvy, we took you for the police.” “ I am sorry that you have been doing anything tiiat should make you afraid of a policeman,” I replied: “ I saw you two dodging about behind the cart, and I saw you run when you spied the constable on the other side of the road, and I wondered what you could have been up to to make you so anxious to avoid him. But I won’t press you to tell me if you would rather not do so.” “ Oh, if it comes to that, mister,” returned the boy with the cap—his companion hadn’t one—“ it wasn’t because we was ‘ wanted ’ —for prigging I mean—was it. Scarper ?” This to the boy from the hospital, who made answer with unexpected vehemence that if the law was so jolly hard-hearted to punish two coves for doing no worse than them two coves—indicating those on either side of him with the point of his knife and the prongs of his fort—had done, the law ought be thundering well ashamed of himself. “ And don’t believe you would have had anything done to you,” he continued, addressing them, “ you might have been took afore the beak, and got a ’mander (remanded) for a week just to see how I was getting on, and then you’d have been discharged, with p’r’aps ’arf-a-crown give to each of you for your kindness in sticking to me like you did.” Oh, ah! it’s all very well to talk about a ’mander just to see bow you was getting on,” remarked the boy who had not yet spoken; but s’pose it was found that you wasn’t getting on, but that you was going off—and if ever a chap looked like snuffing it, it was you. Scarper, old chap that night, when we got so desp’rit that we called in the policeman—then what would it have been ? You heard what the bobby said —leastways, you didn’t, because you was clean off your ’ed. But me and Grinder beard him. His words were, ‘Well, you two kiddies have done a nice thing for yourselves. If this boy dies you’ll be good for manslaughter, and that’ll be a matter of five years’ penal, and p’r’aps more, for each of you. As it is,’ ses he, ‘ it’s six months’ ’ard, and as soon as I’ve got him to the orspital,’ he says, ‘ I shall take the pair of you to the station.’ And if that was right then it is right now, and me and Grinder have been making ourselves scarce ever since.” “ Look here, mister,” said Grinder, who, having polished his plate with a last piece of bread, reserved for the purpose, was now at liberty for conversation, “ it happened in this way. We three, not hai ing any regler homes nor a steady job of work to Stick to, hike about for a living, and we live in the cellar of a empty house wot’s been condemned for pulling down. Nat’rally we don’t pay any rent, and so nobody in particular knows we live there. Well, once we were hiking a goodish way from home, up to’rds Clapton way. It was late in the evening. We was going through a mews, with garden walls on each side, when we hears the sound of the clucking of chickens t’other side of a wall, and Scarper said if we would give him a Mate up he would get over, and see what kind of breed they were. Well, we did so, but he hadn’t been gone a minute when we hears a man hollering, and Scarper be comes scrambling back in sneb a precious burry that he couldn’t wait for us to give him a help down, but jumps off the top of wall, which was a high ’un, and when he tried to get up off the ground he couldn’t, ’cos his leg was broke. It wouldn’t have happened, very likely, only Scarper he bad a lot of eggs in his cap, which he was carrying, in his mouth, and two of the fowls that were dead, by the legs, in one hand, and that made him orkard at jumping. And the wust of it was that when he fell the eggs all were smashed, and he rolled over among ’em, making himself in an awful mess. We could hear the chap t’other side come right up to the wall after Scarper, and he’d have been right among us next minute only that the back gate was locked, and be hadn’t got the key of it. He had to go back to the house to fetch it, and we had plenty of time to get away clear of all if -we had had the use of our legs.” “ It didn’t occur to you to be off, and leave Scarper to bis fate ?” Grinder looked at Billy and then at the boy with the crutch, and then they all looked at me, and I could see that I had fallen several per cent in their esteem. “ Slowed if I can make out,” remarked Grinder, reproachfully, “ a genelman who stands steaks free as wot you do asking such a question. Didn’t I tell you we lived together and hiked out together ? Werry well then, how could it occur to ns to cut our lucky and leave him ? No! ’Taint likely we were going to leave him 5 but we didn t know what to do, for we heard the chap holler out, ‘ Jane, where’s the key of the back gate ? ’ There was a good heap of stable stuff a little further on, so Billy and I we pulled a lot of it on one side and put Scarper in, and laid in ourselves, and pulled the stuff, over us, only just in time before we heard voices coming down the mews, and it was the chap of the house coming round from the front, and he had a policeman with him. ‘ I could swear to the rascal that robbed the hen house, »ve heard the gentleman say, ‘ cos he’s got a light patch on. the back of bis trousers, which are dark ’uns. I saw that,’ ho says, ‘as he was clambering up the wall. So the p’liceman says, ‘ Here’s the two fowls, sure enough, and hero’s some broken eggs ; but I reckon the young willins are a mile off by this time. But pr’aps you’U stop down to the station along o’ me, and give a description of the chap you saw. Wo could see the p’licemon’s lantern through the chinks of straw we had pulled over us, and they were so close that we wore afraid a’most to breathe for fear they should hoai us j but they wont off. Scarper was always a good plucked one. He was in that pain with Ms broken log that it was as much as ho could do to keep ii’ea l groaning out loud, but ho put a bit 01 nis meket in his mouth to prevent lus doing it. He was all of a tremble, and when m went to stand him on his pins ho squeele on so it was lucky that the p’liceman an the other chap were out of hearing. >' e daren’t take him to a doctor’s after wnat we had heard, even if we knew where to find ®ne, and Scarper didn’t want us to. All he wanted was to be somehow got home ; which it were a tidy long way from the part of Clapton whore we was to very near old Hackney Church. But we had a try for it. We took it in turns to give him a pig-a-baok. It was a tough job, and gave Billy and me a sweating, but we managed it somehow. Wo only had one penny amongst us, and when we got about,half way Scarper was groaning to that degree we were afraid somebody would stop us and want to know what was the

matter, so, while I had him on my back outside a public-house, Billy he goes in and gets half a pint of beer and brings it out, and we make Scarper drink all of it, and that cheered him up a bit, and he didn’t groan much more until we got him home, Tlum ho fainted dead off with the rough, handling. Having to get into our lodgings unbeknown to anybody, we couldn’t get ut by the front way j we had to get over the palings of the yard at the back and make our way into the house through the wash'us winder. It was the palings that did it. While Billy was histing him over the boards and I was on the other side ready to take him, he came down a dead weight into my arms, without a cry or move. I thought it was all over with him then. So did Billy, It was pitch dark, and we couldn’t see him while we were in the yerd j but wc had some matches and a bit of candle in the cellar, and there was something that seived us as a bed we could lay him on if we could only get him there. So we carried him, and got him through the wash’us winder, and struck a light and had a look at him. And jolly well frightened we were when we did it, I can tell you, mister! He hadn't got a bit of colour in his face, and his month was a little way open, and so was hia eyes, and he had no more movement than a dead body Las. But we knew he wasn’t dead, because we could feel his heart beating. We had a old kettle we used to make our tea in, and that had some water in it, and we poured some out of the spout over his face, and we put a bit of pepper up his nose, and that set him sneezing, and he come to. Billy was for fetching somebody in then, and chancing the rest, but Scarper begged us not to. If we could bind up his leg with something, he said, what would be broke in it would soon jine together again, and none of us would get locked up. So we got off his boot, and ripped up the trousers leg, but we couldn’t find the broken part, which it wasn’t likely when it was swelled about as big as two legs; butScarper said it was somewhere between his knee and Ms ankle. So I took off my shirt—it didn’t much matter, the weather wasn’t cold—and tore it into strips and dipped, ’em into cold water, and bound it round, after which be felt a little easier. We didn’t have any money to buy him anything to do him good; but Billy be bad a good pair of boots on, and he took ’em round to a leaving shop that kept open late and raised eighteen pence on ’em, and brought in some oatmeal and half-a-quartem of spruce, wMch is good don’t you know, mister, for sprains and bruises, and we made him a whole lot of gruel in the kettle, and put the spruce in it, and made it nice and sweet, but he couldn’t tackle much of it. We was lucky in having a good lot of wood and plenty of cinders, and we made a good fire, and set up with him all night, wMch I don’t tMnk Billy any more than me cares about such a job ever again. It was just like being in a haunted house. It wasn’t so much the scratching and the squeaking of the rats, or the creaking and banging of the old doors upstairs, the locks being off and the windows broken, as Scarper Mmself. He would lay quiet sometimes for an boar at a stretch, and Billy and me squatting together before the fire would fall into a doze, when all at once we’d hear a sharp cry of ‘ Police!’ or ‘ Stop ’em!’ ‘ Hold ’em!’ ‘ Bring the handcuffs!’ and we’d jump up in a fright, for the voice wasn’t abit like Scarper’s, and it didn’t seem that it could have been Mm, he being in a hardbreathing sort of sleep. , He got worse towards morning, Ms head being that hot it seemed to burn your hand when you laid it on Ms forehead. We were in a regler fix, don’t you see, because we didn’t know what medsun was good for him. So Billy he goes to an old woman he knew, asked her what was good for a chap who was out of sorts (he didn’t say anything about the broken leg) and had a burning, throbbing headache. And the old woman said that the best thing was to get a couple of leeches and put them on Ms temples, so as to draw out some of the hot blood. So Billy buys the leeches—eightpence they cost, out of the last shilling we had—but be didMt tMnk to ask the old woman what part of a chap’s head was called bis temples. Blest if I knew. We thought it must be a bumpy part, so we laid ’em one each side of Scarper’s forehead, but the beggars wouldn’t ketch bold and bite any more than if you had laid ’em on a doorstep. We tried ’em on the knobby parts behind Ms ears, and held ’em down, but it was no use, and at last they got away somehow, and we couldn’t find ’em again. Next we tried him with a couple of pills, but he was getting more and more off bis head, and when we wanted to get Mm to take them he cried out that we wanted to poison Mm, and hollered ‘ Murder !’—so there was another penny wasted. We only had threepence left, and Billy recollected that when his young sister had the fever they put ice on her head, but that wasn’t till after she’d had her hair shaved off. But we didn’t have a razor, and if we bad it wasn’t likely Scarper would have stood to our using it on Mm after the row he kicked up about our trying to poison him with the pills. So we borrowed a pair of scissors, and Billy held Ms head while I cut off all his hair as closeas I could, and then we got three-pen’orth of ice at the fish shop, and put it iu one of Ms stockings and laid it on Ms head. One way and another it took us pretty nigh all day to do what we did for Mm; but we was a precious sight wuss off then than when we made a start. He was regler raving by the time it was growing dark again, and we had burnt up all our wood, and hadn’t got a ha’penny to buy any more candle, and there was poor Scarper raving and wanting to get out of bed. So we screwed up our minds then to chance it, and Billy sat on him and kept him down, while I went and fetched a “ p’liceman, and they took him off to the hospital wot he’s just come out of. And we ain’t seen the p’liceman since, and jiggered if we want to. We couldn’t go and see Mm, of course, while he was there, but we came across a woman whose husband was lying in the same ward, and she used to let us know how Scarper was getting on, and she gave us the tip when he was coming out.” “ And where are you going now ? ” I enquired of poor Scarper, who had listened with almost as much interest to the story as myself, the greater part of it being new to him, “ not back to the cellar of the old house, I trust ? ” “ He’s a goin’ to Clapton,” responded the irrepressible Grinder, before the invalid could answer for himself. “ He’s been a telling us coming along He’s goin’ now to thewery house where he ,r o t his leg broke, where wo were nick —I should say looking after them fowls. When he was lying there, and they thought he wouldn’t get over it, ho told all about it to one of the sisters and it was then found out that the gen lemon at Clapton was one of the reg’lar subscribers to the hospital, so they wrote and told him. And the lady and the daughter have been acoming to see Scarper, bringing him flowers and tMngs. And now he’s going to their house, and he thinks they’re going to send him into the country. And jolly good luck to you. Scarper; though prap’s we might never set eyes on you any more, old boy. Never mind, we’!! go with you as far as Clapton, anyhow.” And in loving company the queer trio shortly afterwards took their departure.