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“You’re right, doctor,” he replied, smiling. “Two inches to the left, and the iron rim of the bucket would have broken my skull instead of my shoulder, eh? and then my boy could have carried on the business.”
“You take it very philosophically,” I said.
“To be sure, doctor. Why not? A man must die some time; and he may just as well die at work, as a miserable creature in bed. I expects to die by my business, straightforward and honourable. The pitcher that goes oftenest to the well is sure to be broken at last,” he added, with a laugh. “I’m a pitcher always going to the well, and shall be broken at last.
“I’ve been a well-sinker ever since I was quite a lad; my father was a well-sinker afore me, and he got sent to sleep with the foul air at the bottom of a well, and never got waked again; and I, being the eldest of six, and only fourteen, had to set at it to keep the family, while father’s master, being a kind-hearted sort of man, took me on, and gave me as good wages as he could, for my father had been a sort of favourite of his, from being a first-class, steady workman. My grandfather was a well-sinker too, and he got buried alive, he did, poor old chap, through a fall of earth; while his father – my great-grandfather, you know – was knocked on the head by the sinker’s bucket; for the rope broke when they were drawing it up full of earth, and it fell on the old gentleman, and ended him. I ain’t got killed yet, I ain’t; but my turn’ll come some day, I suppose, for it’s in our profession, you know. But then you must have water; and ours is a very valuable trade – so what is to be will be, and what’s the good of fretting? It don’t do to be always fidgeting about danger in your way through life, but what we have to do is to go straight ahead, and do our duty, and trust to Providence for the rest.
“Now, after all these years – and I’m ’most fifty, you know – I never look down a well without having the creeps, and I never go down one without having the creeps; for they’re queer, dark, echoing, shadowy, grave-like sort of holes, and one thinks of the depth, and the darkness, and the water, and of how little chance there is of escape, and so on, if one fell; and perhaps this is a bit owing to one or two narrow escapes I’ve had, and them making me a bit nervous. Soon as I get right to work I forget all the fidgeting, but the first starting is certainly rather nervous work for me, though I don’t believe as I ever told any one of it before.
“That well down at Rowborough need to be like a nightmare to me, and laid heavier upon me than any, well ever did before; but I kept on to my work like the rest, and we gradually went on lower and lower, step after step, month after month, always expecting to strike a main-spring, but never succeeding. Now it was loamy earth, then yellow clay, then gravel, then blue clay, then more gravel, then sand for far enough, then flinty soil, and then chalk, and so on month after month; but never any water worth speaking about. Of course we struck water times enough, and it bothered us a good deal to stop it out, but it was only from little upper springs, while what we wanted was the deep spring from far below – one that, when we tapped it, should come up strongly and give a good supply of water for the deep well.
“We were years digging that well – years; for money being in plenty, and them wanting a good supply of water, our orders were to keep on, and we did dig – down, down a good six hundred feet; and, mind you, the farther you get from the surface the slower the work gets on, on account of the time taken in sending the stuff up. Now, when I talk of six hundred feet, you mustn’t suppose I mean a bored well, quite a little hole, perhaps six inches across, but one dug all the way, and a good nine foot in diameter.
“That was a fine well – is a fine well, I may say – with one of the best supplies of clear soft water in this country, and that too in a place where good water is terribly scarce. Our firm had the job; and I was one of the men put on at the beginning, and I was on it till it was finished.
“We did not go straight down all the way, but when we got down to the chalk made a sort of chamber, and cut out sideways for a bit, and then began digging down again another shaft, this making it more convenient for the drawing up of the rubbish dug out; every scrap of which had, of course, to be taken to the surface.
“You perhaps hardly think of what it is being lowered down five hundred feet in a bucket, and then working by the light of a lantern in the bottom of the pit, whose walls you have to take care shall be carefully bricked up as you go on down, for fear they should fall in upon you. It is that hot you can hardly bear it, for very little fresh air comes down there; while, if it was not for smothering the thoughts, one might always be in dread of an accident. Now here, instead of feeling afraid of an incoming of the water, what we were most afraid of was that we should never get any water at all; and after all the labour bestowed on the place, it seemed quite disheartening to strike upon nothing but beggarly little rills worth nothing. But our governor was a George Stephenson sort of a man, and he had taken it into his head that we must get to water sooner or later, and he used to say that when we did strike it there would be plenty. So we dug on, slowly and surely, day after day, month after month, till some of the men got scared of the job on account of the depth, and left it. We had had no accidents, though, for everything had been worked out carefully and quietly, and though this was an underground place, every part was finished as carefully and truly as if it had been in full light of the sun.
“Last of all, we’d got down a good six hundred feet, while, according to appearances, it seemed that we might go on a good six hundred more before we got to water; while in my case it seemed to be now part of my regular life to go down there, day after day, to work my spell, and I used to dig and lay bricks, dig and lay bricks, without thinking about water, or when it was coming, though the governor used to warn us to be careful in case when it did come it should come very fast.
“We did most part of our work by buckets and windlass; but, all the same, we had stagings and ladders down to the bottom, ever so many feet; and one day when I was down with a mate – only us two right at the bottom, though, of course, there were others at the stages and top – I was digging away and filling the bucket, giving the signal and sending it up, when I got looking at the course of bricks my mate was laying, and, as you will see, bricklayers in wells lay their bricks one under the other, and not one on the top of another like they would in building a house.
“All at once he says to me, ‘Just shovel this gravel away again; there ain’t room to get a brick under.’
“‘There was plenty of room just now,’ I says, ‘for I took notice. The bricks give a little from up above.’
“Well, he thought so too, and went on with his work, while I went on with mine, picking and shovelling up the loose gravel and putting it in the bucket; but, though I worked pretty hard, I seemed to make no way; and, instead of him being able to go on and lay another course of bricks, he had to take a shovel and help me.
“‘It’s rum, ain’t it?’ he says, after we’d been digging hard for about an hour. ‘Something’s wrong; or else the place is bewitched. Here we haven’t sunk an inch this last hour, I’ll swear, though we’ve sent up no end of bucketfuls. There’s the last course of bricks just where it was, and I’m blest if I don’t think it’s sunk a bit in!’
“‘Well, it does look like it,’ I said, ‘certainly; and I ’spose the brickwork’s giving a bit from the tremendous weight up above. You’ve been working too hard, Tom,’ I says, laughing, ‘and your work hasn’t had time to set.’
“‘Well, I’ve only kept up with you,’ he says, quite serious; ‘but I ’spose it’s as you say, and we’ll take it a bit easier, for this is labour in vain.’
“It really looked so, for after another hour we seemed to be just where we were before, and I began almost to think it very likely something really was wrong, but what I couldn’t tell. This was something new to me, for I had never been in so deep a well before, and I felt puzzled. It seemed no use to dig, for we got no lower; and once I really thought that instead of our getting any deeper, we were making the well shallower; but the next moment I laughed at this stupid thought, and filled and started the bucket, when, dinner-time being come, we laid down our tools, and made our way up to daylight; but before I started, I could not help feeling more puzzled than ever, for now, on one side, there was the bottom course of bricks quite below the loose gravel and sand.
“I didn’t say anything to my mate, and, truth to tell, I forgot all about it the next moment, for I was thinking of dinner; and I didn’t recollect it again until after two, when we were nearly at the bottom, when it came back with a flash, and I then seemed to see the cause of it all.
“I was at the bottom, and Tom above me, and we were just below the last staging, when I heard a strange roaring, rumbling noise that turned my very blood cold; for it seemed to me then, as I stood on, the rounds of that bottom ladder, that a wild beast was breaking loose, and about to tear at me and drag me off the rungs, and for a few seconds I couldn’t speak or move, till Tom sings out:
“‘Hallo! what’s up?’ and that seemed to give me breath.
“‘Up, up!’ I shouted; ‘the water!’ and he started climbing again as hard as he could, and me panting and snorting after him, for, with a tremendous bubbling, roaring rush, the water, that had been forcing the earth slowly upwards for hours past, had now pushed its way through, and as we reached the second stage, we heard the one below us regularly burst up, and saw the ladder we had just left sink down.
“Heard in that hollow, echoing well, hundreds of feet from the surface, and under such circumstances, the roar of the water was something awful to listen to. We could not see it, but it was coming up seething and bubbling like a fountain, while the pressure beneath must have been something fearful.
“As we got higher our progress was slower, for the men on the upper stages were before us; and though they had taken the alarm from our shouts and the bellowing of the water, they did not travel so fast as we did. Stage after stage was forced up, and ladder after ladder sunk down as we got higher, and never did I feel such a relief as when we stood in the chamber cut out of the chalk, where we could look up and see the little ring of daylight far above us; and then, half a dozen men as we were, we clung to the bucket and rope, and gave the signal for them to wind up, the water leaping round our feet as we slowly rose.
“As it happened it was a new and a strong rope, or it must have given way with the tremendous strain put upon it, and I shivered again and again as we swung backwards and forwards, while my only wonder now is that some of us did not fall back from sheer fright.
“But we reached the surface safely, with the water bubbling and running after us nearly the whole way, for it rose to within fifty feet of the top, and has stayed at that height ever since; but though one man fainted, and we all looked white and scared, no one was hurt. Ah! it was the narrowest escape I ever had.
“Our tools we lost, of course, but a great deal of the woodwork and many of the short ladders floated up, and were brought out. It would take a good deal to make me forget the well that grew shallower the more we shovelled out the gravel. For a supply of water no town can be better off than Rowborough; and then, look at the depth – six hundred feet!”
Poor old Goodsell had a hard time of it, and suffered great pain before I got his shoulder well, and even then he never was able to carry on his occupation as of old. For it was a terrible accident, the rope breaking, and a bucket used in drawing up the earth from a well falling upon his shoulder; and, as he said, a couple of inches more to the left, and he would have been killed.
Chapter Four.
My Underground Patient
I had a very singular case, one day, being called in to attend, in a busy part of London, upon a curious-looking man who lay in bed suffering from the effects of bad gas. He was a peculiar-looking fellow, with grizzled black hair, excessively sallow skin, piercing eyes, and his face was as strangely and terribly seamed with the smallpox.
I had some little trouble with his case, which was the result of his having been prisoned for some hours in one of the sewers that run like arteries under London. A sudden flood had come on, and he had been compelled with a companion to retreat to a higher level, where the foul air had accumulated, and he had had a narrow escape for his life.
As he amended! Used to chat with him about his avocation, and I was much struck by the coolness with which he used to talk about his work, and incidentally I learned whence came the seaming in his face.
“You see, sir,” he said, “the danger’s nothing if a man has what you call presence of mind – has his wits about him, you know. For instance, say he’s in danger, or what not, and he steps out with his right foot, and he steps out of danger; but say he steps out with his left foot, and he loses his life. Sounds but very little, that does; but it makes two steps difference between the right way and the wrong way, and that’s enough to settle it all; sound or cripple, home or hospital, fireside or a hole in the churchyard. Presence of mind’s everything to a working man, and it’s a pity they can’t teach a little more of it in schools to the boys. I don’t want to boast, for I’m very thankful; but a little bit of quiet thought has saved my life more than once, when poor fellows, mates of mine, have been in better places and lost theirs.
“I’m a queer sort of fellow, always having been fond of moling and working underground from a boy. Why, when I went to school, nothing pleased me better than setting up what we called a robbers’ cave in the old hill, where they dug the bright red sand; and there, of a Wednesday afternoon, we’d go and climb up the side to the steep pitch where it was all honeycombed by the sand-martins, and then, just like them, we’d go on burrowing and digging in at the side, scooping away in the beautiful clean sand, till I should think one summer we had dug in twenty feet. Grand place that was, so we thought, and fine and proud we used to be; and the only wonder is that the unsupported roof did not come down and bury some half-dozen of us. Small sets-out of that sort of course we did have, parts of the side falling down; but as long as it did not bury our heads we rather enjoyed it, and laughed at one another.
“Well, my old love for underground work seemed to cling to me when I grew up, and that’s how it is I’ve always been employed so much upon sewers. They’re nasty places, to say the best of them; but, then, as they’re made for the health of a town, and it’s somebody’s duty to work down in them, why, one does it in a regular sort of way, and forgets all the nastiness.
“Now, just shut your eyes for a few minutes and fancy you’re close at my elbow, and I’ll try if I can’t take you down with me into a sewer, and you shall have the nice little adventure over again that happened to me – nothing to signify, you know, only a trifling affair; but rather startling to a man all the same. The sewerage is altered now a good deal, and the great main stream goes far down the river, but I’m talking about the time when all the sewers emptied themselves straight into the Thames.
“Now, we’ve got an opening here in the street on account of a stoppage, and we’ve gone down ladder after ladder, and from stage to stage, until we are at the bottom, where the brick arch has been cut away, and now I’m calling it all up again, as you shall hear.
“I don’t think I ever knew what fear was in those days – I mean fear in my work, for, being the way in which I got my daily bread, danger seemed nothing, and I went anywhere, as I did on the night I am speaking of. It was a very large sewer, and through not having any clock at home, I’d come out a good hour before my time. I stopped talking to the men I was to relieve for some little time, waiting for my mates to come – the job being kept on with, night and day. Last of all, I lit a bit of candle in one of the lanterns, and, taking it, stepped down into the water, which came nearly to the tops of my boots, and began wading up stream.
“Now, when I say up to the tops of my boots, I mean high navigator’s boots that covered the thigh; and so I went wading along, holding my lantern above my head, and taking a good look at the brickwork, to see if I could find any sore places – it being of course of great consequence that all should be sound and strong.
“Strange wild places those are when you are not busy! Dark as pitch, and with every plash in the water echoing along quite loud when by you, and then whispering off in a curious creepy way, as if curious creatures in the far-off dark were talking about it, and wondering at you for going down there. Over your head the black, damp brickwork; both sides of you, wet, slimy brickwork; and under your feet slippery brickwork, covered inches deep with a soft yielding mud that gives way under your feet, and makes walking hard work. In some places the mud is swept nearly clean away, and then you go splashing along, while always in a curious, echoing, musical way, comes the sound of running water, dripping water, plashing water, seeming always to be playing one melancholy strange tune, sad and sweet, and peculiar. Busy at work, one don’t notice it, but when looking about, as I was, it all seemed to strike me in a way I can’t explain.
“Slowly on through the running water, holding my lantern up, and always looking at the same sight – a little spot of brickwork shining in the light of my bit of candle, and all beyond that black darkness. The light shone, too, a little off the top of the water in a queer glimmering way, as at every step I took there were little waves sent on before me to go beating and leaping up against the sides. But every now and then I could hear a little splash, and see the water on the move in a strange way in front, presenting just the same appearance as if some one was drawing a stick through it, and leaving a widening trail behind.
“I said ‘in a strange way,’ but it wasn’t a strange way to me, for I knew it well enough, and had seen it so often that I took hardly any notice of it. If I had had a strong light I should have seen a little dark shape leap from the opening of a drain into the water, and then disappear for a few moments, to come up again, and swim along quite fast; but with such a light as I had I could only see the disturbed water.
“Bats were old friends of mine, and did not trouble me in the least, as I went on, now turning to the right and now to the left, sometimes going back a little, and then pushing on again, till all at once, without a moment’s warning, out went my bit of candle, and I was in complete darkness.
“Well, I growled a good deal at that – not that I minded the dark, but it put a stop to the bit of overlooking I was upon; and though in most cases I had a bit or two of extra candle, it so happened that this time I hadn’t a scrap, and all I had to do was to get back.
“I suppose I hadn’t gone a dozen yards before I stopped short, with the cold sweat standing all over my face, and my breath coming thick and short, for, instead of the low musical, whispering tinkle of the water, there was a rushing noise I well knew coming along a large sewer to the left, and for want of the bit of presence of mind that I ought to have had then, instead of rushing up stream past the mouth of the opening, I must run down; and then came a curious wild, confused state of mind that I can always call back now when I like to go into the dark for a few minutes – when I was being borne along by a furious rush of water that seemed to fill the sewer, washing me before it now up and now down, like a cork in a stream.
“As a matter of course, I must try to do everything to make matters worse, and keep on fighting against a power that would have borne fifty men before it. But that was an awful minute – I call it a minute, though I dare say the struggle only lasted a few moments – when I seemed dashed against a corner, and there I was fighting my way with the stream carrying me swiftly along, but seeming weaker every moment; and at last I was standing, with my hands thrust into a side drain to keep me steady, while I coughed and panted, and tried to get my breath once more, feeling all the while dizzy and confused, and unable to make out where I was.
“The rush of water was now past, and the sewer two feet above its regular level; but, stunned as I had been, I could not get into my regular way of thinking, nor collect myself as to what I ought to do next; and it is no light thing to be fifty foot under ground in a dark tunnel with the water rushing furiously by, and you not able to think.
“When I say able to think, I mean not regularly, for I could think too much, and that too about things that I did not want to think about, for they troubled me. What I ought to have thought of then was the keeping of myself cool and trying to get out, but I couldn’t move, for I fancied that if I did I must be swept away again. Now, I had often been along the sewers when the water was deeper than it now was and running swifter, but for all that I was afraid to move.
“How I magnified the danger, and made out no end of fanciful images in the darkness, all of them seeming to point to my end, and telling me that I should never get out alive! Then I got calling up all the accidents and horrors of that great place where I was. First I recollected how two poor fellows came down not very far from where I stood – half a mile perhaps – and were working in one of the small drains that was half stopped with soil and rubbish; they were down on one knee, in a bent position, and shovelling the mud back from one to another underneath them, and working towards a man-hole, when a rush of water came, and they struggled on against it till a mate at the man-hole, who stood there with a lantern and shouted, just got hold of the first man’s hand, when there came a sharper rush than ever from above, and the poor fellow was gone. I was one of those who hunted for them the next day, now in one branch and then in another, going up culverts and drains of all sizes, where I thought it possible they could have been swept, for there had been a watch kept at the mouths, and hurdles put down to stop anything from being washed out. A whole week I was on that job before I found both, the last being in a narrow place, where the poor fellows must have crawled.
“Nice thing that was to think of at such a time! But it would come, and I seemed to have no power to stop it. Then I recollected about the mate of mine who lost his life in the foul air which collects sometimes in places where there isn’t a free current; and then, too, about the rat case, where the man who came up off the river-shore got amongst the rats, or else fell down in a fit, and the way he came out was in a basket, for there was nothing left but his bones.
“Ah! nice things these were for a man to get thinking of, shivering as I was there in the dark! But I didn’t shiver long, for I came all over hot and feverish, and I should have yelled for help but I was afraid, for the idea had come upon me that if I made the slightest noise I should have the rats about me; and although it was pitch dark, I seemed to see them waiting in droves, clustering like bees all over the sides of the sewer, clinging to the top and swimming across and across the surface of the water. There they all were plain enough, with their bright black eyes and sharp noses, while I kept on fancying how keen their teeth must be. We always supposed that they would attack a man in the dark, but as we never went unprovided with lights there was never any case known among us of a fight with them. But now, in the dark as I was, I quite made up my mind that they were waiting till I made a movement, and that then they would be swarming over me in all directions; and I shuddered, and my blood ran cold, as I thought of what would follow.
“Every drip – every little hollow splash, or ripple against the side seemed to me to be made by rats; the beating of my heart against my ribs with its heavy throb seemed to be the hurrying by of the little patting animals, and at times I fancied that I could hear their eager panting as they were scuffling by, hunting for me. Bats everywhere, as it seemed to me; and again and again I was feeling myself all over to see if any were clinging to me or climbing up, for the motion of the water as it swept on seemed for all the world like the little wretches brushing against my side.
“I don’t believe now that there was a rat near me all the time, for it was all pure imagination. Still the imagination was so strong that it was worse than reality, and even in what came afterwards I don’t think I suffered more. It seems to be that one’s nerves at such a time get worked up to a dreadful pitch, and everything one thinks of seems to come strongly before one, so that if the horror was strung up much tighter, nature could not bear it.
“I could bear no more then as I stood there; and knowing all the while – or feeling all the while – that to move was to bring the rats upon me, I started off, bewildered so that I had no idea where I was, only feeling that I must go with the stream to get out of the sewer, whichever branch I was in. So I tore on with the water up to my middle, but getting deeper and deeper every minute as I ran my hand along the wall, now turning to the left, now to the right, and shuddering every moment as I fancied I felt a rat touch me. But I had been walking and wading along for a good half-hour before I felt one, and then just as I fancied I saw a gleam of light peer out of the darkness right in front, something ran hastily up my breast and shoulder, and then leaped off with a splash into the water.
“If I had not grasped at the slippery side of the sewer and supported myself, I must have gone down; and to have sunk down in four feet of water was certain death, in the state I then was in; but I kept up, and giving a shout, half-shriek, half-yell, I dashed on towards where I fancied I had seen the light.
“Fancied, indeed, for it seemed to grow darker as I went on, and I grew more and more confused every moment. If I could only have known where I was for a single instant, that would have been sufficient, even to knowing only what particular branch I was in; but I was too confused to try and make out any of the marks that might have told me.
“There it was again – a scratching of tiny claws and a hurried rush up my breast, over my shoulder, something wet and cold brushing my face, then the half-leap, half-start I gave, and the sharp splash in the water as the beast leaped off me. And then it came quicker and faster – two and three – six – a dozen upon me, and as I tore them off they bit me savagely, making their little teeth meet in my hands, and hanging there; while more than one vicious bite in the face made me yell out with pain.
“The horrible fear seemed now to have gone, strange as it may appear to say so. I was mad with rage now, and fought desperately for my life, as the rats swarmed round and attacked me furiously, without giving me a moment’s rest. I had a large knife, which I managed to get open and strike with, but it was more than useless, for my enemies were so small and active and constant in their attacks that I could not get a fair blow at them, and dashing away the blade I was glad enough to fight them with their own weapons, and bit and tore at them, seizing them one after another in my hands, and either crushing or dashing them up against the sides of the sewer.
“But it seemed toil in vain, for as I dashed one off half a dozen swarmed up me, over my arms and back, covering my chest, fastening on to the bare parts of my neck, and making my face run down with blood.
“‘Can’t last much longer!’ I remember thinking; but I felt that I must fight on to the last, and I kept on tearing the squeaking vermin off, and crushing them in my hands, often so that they had no chance of biting; but there must have been hundreds swarming round me, waiting until others were beaten off to make a lodgment. Now I was dashing up stream as hard as I could, in the hope that I could shake them off; and as I waded splashing along I tore those off that were upon me, but they hunted me as dogs would a hare; and though it was dense black darkness there, so that I groped my way along with outstretched hands, it seemed to me that the little beasts could see well enough, and kept dashing up me as fast as I could beat them off.
“Splashing along as I was, I had a better chance of keeping the vermin off; but then I could not keep it up. I must have been struggling about for hours now, and was worn out, for even at the best of times it is terribly hard work walking in water; and now that I was drenched with it, and had my great thigh boots full, the toil was fearful, and I felt that I must give in.
“‘I wouldn’t mind so much,’ I thought, ‘if I could find a dry spot where I could lie down;’ but the idea of this double death was dreadful, and spurred me on again to new efforts, so that I kept on rushing forward by spurts, my breath coming in groans and sobs, while I kept the vermin off my face as well as I could.
“‘It’s all over!’ I groaned at last, sinking on my knees close to the side of the sewer, and nearly going under, as my legs slipped in the ooze at the bottom. But I stopped that by trying to force my nails in one of the cracks between the slimy bricks, and as the rats came at me there was only my head and neck up above the filthy water; while I gave a long shriek that drove them back for a moment. And now it seemed to me that I could see the little wretches coming at me, and, yes – no – yes, I could see a faint gleam on the top of the water, and then it was brighter, and I heard a shout which I believe I answered, though I can recollect no more.
“Well, they ain’t such very deep marks, sir – only just through the skin, you know; but they spoil a man’s beauty, which they say is just skin-deep. Lots of people have thought as I’ve had the smallpox very bad, and I let them, for this here as you’ve heard the whole story about is one of the things as I don’t like to bring up very often. I always feel as if I’d been very close to the end and had been dragged back, which makes me feel solemn, and I always back out when any mate tries to draw the story out of me, for they’re uncommon fond of hearing it over and over again. Joe Stock – that’s one of them – he could tell you the part as I can’t about how they hunted for me and shouted till they were tired – going miles, you know, for it would surprise you to thoroughly know what there is under the streets of London.
“‘Harry,’ he’s said to me before now, ‘I never see such a sight in my life, and when I saw you get up off your knees, mate, and come a reeling towards me, I’m blest if I didn’t think it was somethin’ no canny, and I nearly dropped my lantern and ran for it. There was your face all streaming down with blood, and your hands the same, and as to the noise you was making – ugh!’ he’d say, ‘it was awful bad.’
“And now, just one word of advice, sir – don’t you never go down no sewers without two or three bits of candle in your pocket – high up in the breast of your jacket, you know – and plenty of lucifers in a watertight tin box, or perhaps you may get in such a mess as I did.”
Very good advice, no doubt; but after seeing the place where three men went down to work some short time since, listening to the hollow musical drip of the water, and the strange whisperings of the long tunnels; after listening to the history of the hard fight against a sudden rush of water told me by the sturdy toiler, who shuddered and turned pale as he recalled the desperate fight for life, and then, in lowered tones, narrated how he had found his poor mate’s body washed into a narrow culvert, I felt quite satisfied, and I don’t think I shall ever make any explorations in a sewer.
In fact, I never see a grating open, or meet one of the sturdy fellows in his blue Jersey shirt and high boots without thinking of my patient, and the risks such people run to earn their daily bread.
Chapter Five.
My Black Patient
There’s a very terrible disease upon which a great deal has been written, but not a great deal done. In fact, it is difficult to deal with special diseases brought on by the toiler’s work. It is a vexed question what to do or how to treat the consumption that attacks the needle-grinders and other dry grinders; the horrible sufferings of those who inhale the dust of deadly minerals; the bone disease of the workers in phosphorus and many other ills brought on by working at particular trades.
The disease I allude to in particular is one that attacks that familiar personage, the chimney sweep, and I have often had to treat some poor fellow or another for it.
There was one man who stands in my note-book as J.J. – John Johnson, I had under my care several times, and we came to be very good friends, for under that sooty skin of his – I never saw it once really clean – there was a great deal of true humanity and tenderness of heart, as I soon found from the way in which he behaved to his wife.
“Why don’t you chimney sweeps – Ramoneurs as you call yourselves now – invent a better cry than svi-thee-up?”
“Ramoneur,” he said with a husky chuckle. “Yes, that’s it, doctor. Fine, aint it? I allus calls myself a plain sweep, though. That’s good enough for me.”
“But you might do without that yell of yours,” I said. “London cries are a terrible nuisance, though I don’t know that I’d care to have them done away with. Your svi-thee-up don’t sound much like sweep.”
“Svi-thee-up, svi-thee-up,” he cried, as he lay there in bed, to the utter astonishment of his wife. “Don’t sound much like sweep? No, it don’t; but then one has to have one’s own regular cry, as folks may know us by. Why, listen to any of them of a morning about the street, and who’d think it was creases as this one was a hollering, or Yarmouth bloaters that one; or that ‘Yow-hoo!’ meant new milk? It ain’t what we say – it’s the sound of our voices. Don’t the servant gals as hears us of a morning know what it means well enough when the bell rings, and them sleepy a-bed? Oh, no, not at all! But there’s no mussy for ’em, and we jangles away at the bell, and hollers a good ’un till they lets us in; for, you see, it comes nat’ral when you’re obliged to be up yourself, and out in the cold, to not like other folks to be snugging it in bed.
“But, then, it’s one’s work, you know, and I dunno whether it was that or the sutt as give me this here coarse voice, which nothing clears now – most likely it was the sutt. How times are altered, though, since I was a boy! That there climbing boy Act o’ Parliament made a reg’lar revolution in our business, and now here we goes with this here bundle o’ canes, with a round brush at the end, like a great, long screw fishing-rod, you know, all in jints, and made o’ the best Malacky cane, so as to go into all the ins and outs, and bend about anywhere, till it’s right above the pot, and bending and swinging down. But they’re poor things, bless you, and don’t sweep a chimbley half like a boy used. You never hears the rattle of a brush at the top of a chimbley-pot now, and the boy giving his ‘hillo – hallo – hullo – o – o – o!’ to show as he’d not been shamming and skulking half-way up the flue. Why, that was one of the cheery sounds as you used to hear early in the mornin’, when you was tucked up warm in bed; for there was always somebody’s chimbley a being swept.
“Puts me in mind again of when I was a little bit of a fellow, and at home with mother, as I can recollect with her nice pleasant face, and a widder’s cap round it. Hard pushed, poor thing, when she took me to Joe Barkby, the chimbley sweep, as said he’d teach me the trade if she liked. And there was I, shivering along aside her one morning, when she was obliged to take me to Joe, and we got there to find him sitting over his brexfass, and he arst mother to have some; but her heart was too full, poor thing, and she wouldn’t, and was going away, and Joe sent me to the door to let her out; and that’s one of the things as I shall never forget – no, not if I lives to a hundred – my mother’s poor, sad, weary face, and the longing look she give me when we’d said ‘Good bye,’ and I was going to shut the door after her. Such a sad, longing look, as if she could have caught me up and run off with me. I saw it as she stood on the step, and me with the door in my hand – that there green door, with a bright brass knocker, and brass plate with ‘Barkby, Chimbley Sweep,’ on it. There was tears in her eyes, too; and I felt so miserable myself I didn’t know what to do as I stood watching her, and she came and give me one more kiss, saying, ‘God bless you!’ and then I shut the door a little more, and a little more, till I could see the same sad look through quite a little crack; and then it was close shut, and I was wiping my eyes with my knuckles.
“Ah! I’ve often thought since as I shut that door a deal too soon; but I was too young to know all as that poor thing must have suffered.
“Barkby warn’t a bad sort; but then, what can you expect from a sweep? He didn’t behave so very bad to us little chummies; but there it was – up at four, and tramp through the cold, dark streets, hot or cold, wet or dry; and then stand shivering till you could wake up the servants – an hour, perhaps, sometimes. Then in you went to the cold, miserable house, with the carpets all up, or p’r’aps you had to wait no one knows how long while the gal was yawning, and knick-knick-knicking with a flint and steel over a tinder-box, and then blowing the spark till you could get a brimstone match alight. Then there was the forks to get for us to stick the black cloth in front of the fireplace, and then there was one’s brush, and the black cap to pull down over one’s face, pass under the cloth, and begin swarming up the chimbley all in the dark.
“It was very trying to a little bit of a chap of ten years old, you know – quite fresh to the job; and though Barkby give me lots of encouragement, without being too chuff, it seemed awful as soon as I got hold of the bars, which was quite warm then, and began feeling my way, hot, and smothery, and sneezy, in my cap, till I give my head such a pelt against some of the brickwork that I began to cry; for, though I’d done plenty of low ones this was the first high chimbley as I’d been put to. But I chokes it down, as I stood there with my little bare toes all amongst the cinders, and then began to climb.
“Every now and then Barkby shoves his head under the cloth, and ‘Go ahead, boy,’ he’d say; and I kep’ on going ahead as fast as I could, for I was afeared on him, though he never spoke very gruff to me; but I had heard him go on and cuss awful, and I didn’t want to put him out. So there was I, poor little chap – I’m sorry for myself even now, you know – swarming up a little bit at a time, crying away quietly, and rubbing the skin off my poor knees and elbows, while the place felt that hot and stuffy I could hardly breathe, cramped up as I was.
“Now, you wouldn’t think as any one could see in the dark, with his eyes close shut, and a thick cap over his face, pulled right down to keep the sutt from getting up his nose – you wouldn’t think anyone could see anything there; but I could, quite plain; and what do you think it was? Why, my mother’s face, looking at me so sad, and sweet, and smiling, through her tears, that it made me give quite a choking sob every now and then and climb away as hard as ever I could, though my toes and knees seemed to have the skin quite off, and smarted ever so; while I kep’ on slipping a bit every now and then, for I was new at climbing, and this was a long chimbley, from the housekeeper’s room of a great house, right from under ground, to the top.
“Sometimes I’d stop and have a cry, for I’d feel beat out, and the face as had cheered me on was gone; but then I’d hear Barkby’s choky voice come muttering up the floo, same as I’ve shouted to lots o’ boys in my time, ‘Go ahead, boy!’ and I’d go ahead again, though at last I was sobbing and choking as hard as I could, for I kep’ on thinking as I should never get to the top, and be stuck there always in the chimbley, never to come out no more.
“‘I won’t be a sweep, I won’t be a sweep,’ I says, sobbing and crying; and all the time making up my mind as I’d run away first chance, and go home again; and then, after a good long struggle, I was in the pot, with my head out, then my arms out, and the cap off for the cool wind to blow in my face.
“And, ah! how cool and pleasant that first puff of wind was, and how the fear and horror seemed to go away as I climbed out, and stood looking about me; till all at once I started, for there came up out of the pot, buzzing like, Barkby’s voice, as he calls out, ‘Go ahead, boy!’
“So then I set to rattling away with my brush-handle to show as I was out, and then climbs down on to the roof, and begins looking about me. It was just getting daylight, so that I could see my way about, and all seemed so fresh and strange that, with my brush in my hand, I begins to wander over the roofs, climbing up the slates and sliding down t’other side, which was good fun, and worth doing two or three times over. Then I got to a parapet, and leaned looking over into the street, and thinking of what a way it would be to tumble; but so far off being afraid, I got on to the stone coping, and walked along ever so far, till I came to an attic window, where I could peep in and see a man lying asleep, with his mouth half open; then I climbed up another slope, and had another slide down; and then another, and another, till I forgot all about my sore knees; and at last sat astride of the highest part, looking about me at the view I had of the tops of houses as far as I could see, for it was getting quite light now.
“All at once I turned all of a horrible fright, for I recklected about Barkby, and felt almost as if he’d got hold of me, and was thrashing me for being so long. I ran to the first chimbley stack, but that wasn’t right, for I knew as the one I came up was a-top of a slate-sloping roof. Then I ran to another, thinking I should know the one I came out of by the sutt upon it. But they’d all got sutt upon ’em – every chimbley-pot I looked at, and so I hunted about from one to another till I got all in a muddle, and didn’t know where I was nor which pot I’d got out of. Last of all, shaking and trembling, I makes sure as I’d got the right one, and climbing up I managed, after nearly tumbling off, to get my legs in, when pulling down my cap, I let myself through a bit at a time, and leaving go I slipped with a regular rush, nobody knows how far, till I came to a bend in the chimbley, where I stopped short – scraped, and bruised, and trembling, while I felt that confused I couldn’t move.
“After a bit I came round a little, and, whimpering and crying to myself, I began to feel my way about a bit with my toes, and then got along a little away straight like, when the chimbley took another bend down, and stiffly and slowly I let myself down a little and a little till my feet touched cold iron, and I could get no farther. But after thinking a bit, I made out where I was, and that I was standing on the register of a fireplace, so I begins to lift it up with my toes as well as I could, when crash it went down again, and there came such a squealing and screeching as made me begin climbing up again as fast as I could till I reached the bend, where I stopped and had another cry, I felt so miserable; and then I shrunk up and shivered, for there came a roar and a rattle that echoed up the chimbley, while the sutt came falling down in a way that nearly smothered me.
“Now, I knew enough to tell myself that the people being frightened had fired a gun up the chimbley, while the turn round as it took had saved me from being hurt. So I sat squatted up quite still, and then heard some one shout out ‘Hallo!’ two or three times, and then ‘Puss, puss, puss!’ Then I could hear voices whispering a bit, and then the register was banged down, as I supposed by the noise.
“Only fancy! sitting in a bend of the chimbley shivering with fear, and half smothered with heat and sutt, while your breath comes heavy and thick from the cap over your face! Not nice, it ain’t; and more than once I’ve felt a bit sorry for the poor boys as I’ve sent up chimbleys in my time. But there I was, and I soon began scrambling up again, and worked hard, for the chimbley was wider than the other one. Last of all I got up to the pot, and out on to the stack, and then again I had a good cry.
“Now, when I’d rubbed my eyes again, I had another look round, and felt as if I was at the wrong pot, so I scrambled down, slipped over the slates, and got to a stack in front, when I felt sure I was right, for there were black finger-marks on the red pot; so I got up, slipped my legs in, and taking care this time that I didn’t fall, began to lower myself down slowly, though I was all of a twitter to know what Barkby would do to me for being so long. Now I’d slip a little bit, being so sore and rubbed I could hardly stop myself; and then I’d manage to let myself down gently; but all at once the chimbley seemed to open so wide, being an old one I suppose, that I couldn’t reach very well with my back and elbows pressed out; so, feeling myself slipping again, I tried to stick my nails in the bricks, at the same time drawing my knees ’most up to my chin, when down I went perhaps a dozen feet, and then, where there was a bit of a curve, I stuck reg’lar wedged in all of a heap, nose and chin altogether, knees up against the bricks on one side, and my back against the other, and me not able to move.
“For a bit I was so frightened that I never tried to stir, but last of all the horrid fix I was in came upon me like a clap, and there I was, half choked, dripping with perspiration, and shuddering in every limb, wedged in where all was dark as Egypt.
“After a bit I managed to drag off my cap, thinking that I could then see the daylight through the pot. But no; the chimbley curved about too much, and all was dark as ever; while what puzzled me was, that I couldn’t breathe any easier now the cap was off, for it seemed hot, and close, and stuffy, though I thought that was through me being so frightened, for I never fancied now but I was in the right chimbley, and wondered that Barkby didn’t shout.
“All at once there came a terrible fear all over me – a feeling that I’ve never forgotten, nor never shall as long as I’m a sweep. It was as if all the blood in my body had run out and left me weak, and helpless, and faint, for down below I could hear a heavy beat-beat-beat noise, that I knew well enough, and up under me came a rush of hot smoke that nearly suffocated me right off; when I gave such a horrid shriek of fear as I’ve never forgot neither, for the sound of it frightened me worse.
“It didn’t sound like my voice at all, as I kept on shrieking, and groaning, and crying for help, too frightened to move, though I’ve often thought since as a little twisting on my part would have set me loose, to try and climb up again. But, bless you, no; I could do nothing but shout and cry, with the noise I made sounding hollow and stifly, and the heat and smoke coming up so as to nearly choke me over and over again.
“I knew fast enough now that I had come down a chimbley where there had been a clear fire, and now some one had put lumps of coal on, and been breaking them up; and in the fright I was in I could do nothing else but shout away till my voice got weak and wiry, and I coughed and wheezed for breath.
