Original Penny Readings: A Series of Short Sketches

Gone it was, and no mistake; and I suppose Bob must have been right; and, though the cap went on a good ’un about losing his curiosity, it warn’t no good at all.

“Some of you knows something of it,” says the cap to old Jam, as we called him for short.

“Captain Sahib no got god of his own at home that he want black fellow’s,” says old Jam very grandly, but making a great salaam a’most down to the deck.

But the cap only grumbled out something, and went off, for he didn’t want to offend the men.

One day we had a sad upset – one as gave our chaps the horrors, and made them restless to get out of the place, and worse, for after that the men were always looking out for the crocodiles, and bodies, and things that came down the great stream, while now everything they saw floating, if it was only a lump of rotten rushes or a bit of tree-trunk, got to be called something horrid. Then the chaps got tired of its being so hot, and discontented at having not enough to do, I s’pose, for a ship’s crew never seems so happy as when the men are full swing an’ at the work.

Well, it so happened that in two places the cap had had little swing stages slung over the side for the men who were touching up the ship’s ribs with a new streak of paint; and there the chaps were dabbing away very coolly as to the way they worked, but very hotly as to the weather, for the sun comes down there a scorcher when there’s no breeze on. I was very busy myself trying to find a cool place somewhere; and not getting it, when the man over the bulwarks gives a hail, and I goes to see what he wanted, which it was more paint, because he didn’t want to come up the side, and get it himself. So I takes the pot from him, and gets it half filled with colour, and goes back to the side all on the dawdle-and-crawl system just like the other chaps on deck.

“Now then,” I says, “lay hold;” but my gentleman didn’t move, for there he was, squatted down and smoking his pipe; when, finding it comforting, he wouldn’t move.

“I say,” he says, looking up, “just see if them lashings is all right; for, if I was to go down here, it’s my idee as I shouldn’t come up again for the crockydiles, and I don’t kear about giving up the number of my mess jest yet; so look out.”

“Well, lay hold of this pot,” says I, reaching down to him as far as I could.

“Wait a minute,” he says, when he began to groan himself up, and next moment he would have reached what I was holding to him, when I heard something give, a sort of crack; then there was a shriek and a loud splash, and I saw the poor fellow’s horror-stricken face for an instant as he disappeared beneath the water.

“Man overboard!” I shouted, dropping the paint, and running to the rope which held the dinghy; when sliding down I was in her in a moment, and shoving along towards where the poor chap went down. First I looked one way, then another, and kept paddling about expecting that I should see his head come up, while now at the sides half the crew were looking over, for they had forgotten all about feeling tired or lazy in their anxiety to be of use.

“There, look out,” cried Bob Davis; “he’ll come up there where that eddy is, and then I watched there and leaned over the sides ready to catch hold of the poor chap when he came up.”

“Let her float down with the stream,” shouted the captain, excitedly; “he must come to the top directly,” and so I let her float down; kneeling there as I did, ready to snatch at anything which appeared. The river was running down muddy and strong, so that you could see nothing but the swirling about of the current, as it came rushing round by the ships and boats moored there, and I began to think that the poor fellow would soon be sucked under one of the big hulls, when it seemed to me that there was more swirling and rushing about of the water than usual, for my little boat began to rock a little and some bubbles of air came rising up and floating atop of the water.

Here he is now, I thinks, getting hold of the boat-hook, and holding it just a little in the water, when all at once I turned quite sick and queer, for there was a great patchy stream of blood came up, and floated on the surface, slowly spreading out, and floating down the stream, when in a sort of mad fit I made a thrust down as far as I could reach with the hook to bring something up, and sure enough I caught against something, but the next moment there was a snatch and a jerk, and I had to let go of the hook, to save being pulled overboard, when I clung shuddering to the thwarts, and saw the long shaft disappear under water.

The chaps on board our ship roused me up, or I think I should have turned quite dizzy, and rolled out of the boat; but now I jumped up, and setting an oar out of the stern, paddled a little further down, trying hard to make myself believe that the poor chap would come up again. But no, nothing more was seen of him but the bubbles on the top of the water, and that horrid red patch which came directly after.

I paddled here and paddled there, trembling all over the whole time, but it was of no use, and at last when I was some distance off, and they began shouting for me, I put out both sculls, and rowed back, when mine wasn’t the only pale, sickly looking face aboard, for there were the men talking in whispers, and the other chap that had been painting came off of his stage, while if the captain had persisted in trying to get that bit of painting finished, I believe the men would have all mutinied and left the ship. But he didn’t, for though he couldn’t have liked to see the ship half done, he said nothing about it, for there was no one to blame, since that poor lost man rigged up his own stage; and all the rest of the time as we stopped there in the Hooghly – Ugly as we calls it – the cap and the mate used to spend hours every day practising rifle shooting at the crocodiles, as must have been the end of my poor ship-mate.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

A Tale of the Great Passion

In the good old times – the very good old times, before trade, competition, and the spreading of knowledge, had upset and spoiled everything – sending people off in a mad hurry, here, there, and everywhere; by road, rail, and river; sea, sky, and last, but not least, blown through tubes to their journey’s end; in the good old times, before people thought about Atlantic cables, or understood the meaning of the words cheap and clear, chivalry used to flourish throughout our land: everybody who did not happen to have been born a vassal, serf, or villein, was a knight, and used to wear a first-class suit of mail – rather uncomfortable suits, by the way, that took no end of emery powder and Bath brick to keep them clean; besides which they were terribly cold in winter, and horribly hot in summer, and had the unpleasant propensity of rubbing the skin off the corners of the person. But then it all appertained to knighthood, and it was very glorious to go pricking over the plain as a gallant upon a Barclay and Perkins style of horse, and shining like an ironmonger’s shop on a market day; excepting such times as it rained, when the lordly gallant would most probably ride rusty while his waving plumes would hang streaky and straight. But those were the days. Every man was his own lawyer then, and if any base varlet offended his knighthood, he exclaimed – “Grammercy!”

“By my halidame,” or something of that kind, and most probably ended by having the aforesaid base varlet pitched neck and crop into the lowest dungeon beneath the castle to amuse himself after the fashion of the gentleman who stayed so many years in Chillon’s dungeon, deep and old. “Reading, Riting, and Rithmetic,” were then of no account; for the knights of old, when they had anything to do with a deed, made their marks with their swords.

Well, in these good old times, when knights, troubadours, damsels in distress, tourneys, tyrannical barons, and all those most romantic accessories for keeping up the aforesaid good old times, flourished upon our soil, there stood a goodly castle at Stanstead, of the same breed as those at Bishop Stortford, and Saffron Walden, and a great many other places that don’t concern the thread of our story the slightest bit in the world; and in this said flint and mortar, thick-walled, uncomfortable building, where there was neither gas, glass, nor china, dwelt one Sir Aylmer de Mountfitchett, a tremendous swell in his way, one who conceived that he had only to look to conquer, like the Roman barbarian he had once heard tell of as having visited this isle. Now Sir Aylmer had come in for his property early in life, from the fact of his father, who was own brother to the celebrated Red Cross Knight, who came home and put the warder into such a ferment, making him blow his horn so loudly, and call till he was hoarse, at a time when a voice lozenge, or a “haporth” of Spanish liquorice could not have been had for love nor money – well! from the fact of his father having rubbed his head so sharply against the edge of a pagan’s scimitar that it – that is to say, Sir Aylmer’s father’s head – fell off, and was lost, so that his brother came home from the holy wars without him; and young Sir Aylmer went into mourning by stepping into his father’s shoes, and doing a bill with the Jew of the neighbourhood – payable at sight, fifty per cent, interest; and he took a third in cash, a third in pictures, and the remainder in Bass’s pale ale and best French kid gloves.

Now as soon as the young knight could have it all his own way, he had the best suit of armour well rubbed up; the best horse in the stable well rubbed down; put an extra quantity of bears’ grease upon his hair – the hair of his head, for the mirrors of those days were so imperfect that he could not discover his beard; and lastly he sallied forth like a true knight in search of adventure.

Now if I were to write the whole of the adventures of this gallant knight, I should require the entire space of the Times every day, and have to keep on writing “to be continued in our next” until there was enough to form a respectable library; but as either the reader or the writer might be fatigued, I content myself with relating the influence that the great passion first had upon the gallant young knight.

There was one Geoffrey de Mandeville in those days; and a regular man devil he was, but he had a redeeming feature in the shape of the prettiest niece that ever set a number of thick-headed fellows breaking lances, or knocking their iron-pot covered skulls together in a tournament in her honour. Her eyes were so bright that they gave young Aylmer de Mountfitchett a coup de lodestars and so turned his brain that he went home and determined to make an end of himself. But he did not know how to do it; for, as he very reasonably said – it he cut his head off with his sword, he would be making two ends to himself. So he tried running upon the point of his lance, but it was so blunt that it hurt dreadfully; when all at once a bright thought struck him: – He would take an antidote for his trouble, and follow the advice of his friend, the Scotch knight, Sir Ben Nevis: he would take a hair of the dog that bit him, by trying whether the eyes that wounded so sharply would not cure.

That very night he took a mandoline – which was the kind of banjo popular in those days, – and walked over to the castle at Stortford where the damsel dwelt, and after trying very hard to tune his instrument in the dark – not an easy task when a young man is nervous and keeps catching hold of the wrong peg – he tried a song – a light thing, written by one Alfrede de Tennyesone, beginning – “Come into ye garden, Maude.” Well, the young man sang the song pretty well, considering that he was in one key, and the mandoline in another; while he had no voice at all, and several of the strings of the instrument were really and truly string; so that altogether, though he struck the light guitar and its strings, the effect was not striking, neither were the chords good.

He sang it once as he stood upon the edge of the moat, getting his feet very wet. He sang it twice as he stood there getting his clothes wet, too, for the dew was very heavy. He sang it three times and was beginning to think that a flagon of Rhenish, or one of his bottles of Bass would be very acceptable when —

The lattice was illumined – there was a slight noise, and the casement was opened. Aylmer’s heart beat violently, and he was about to speak, only he was tongue-tied; and, sinking upon his knees in the wet mud, and so spoiling his trunk hose, he awaited the result – his hand involuntarily breaking the silence that his tongue could not break:

“Tumple, tumple; tumple; tumple; turn, turn, turn,” went the mandoline.

Then there was the sound of two bodies falling close by his side, and he sought for them – the pale moon lending her light – and he found —

One of the clumsy coppers they used in those days for half-pence, and a wedge of cold venison pasty, wrapped in a piece of Bell’s Life.

Sir Aylmer de Mountfitchett then heard the casement closed, when from the force of habit he spun the copper in the air, caught it, put it in his pocket; opened the paper, smelt the pasty, – which by the way was not sweet, – pitched it into the moat, and went home in dudgeon; which is the ancient form for expressing that he went back to his castle saying all the bad words that he had picked up through playing skittles and billiards with the fast men of his day.

But the maiden did not always take Sir Aylmer for an Ethiopian serenader, or a Christy’s Minstrel; for at last, instead of throwing him out coppers and wedges of pasty, she used to blow him kisses across the moat. But after a twelvemonth spent at that sort of fun, without success, for not one of the kisses ever reached the mark, the lovers hit upon a plan by which they might enjoy one another’s society, and cease wasting the salutes which they had been sending “out upon the night winds” every evening as soon as it grew dusk.

It was a warm dark night in Autumn and there was high revelry in the castle upon the mound, for Sir Geoffrey had been giving a rent dinner, and according to custom, he had made himself slightly inebriated by drinking sack – a celebrated old beverage famous for enveloping the intellects. The warders of the castle walls had watched whether it was likely that the knight would come out again that night, and then gone to sleep in the room by the portcullis. The moon was not up, and all was still but the croaking of the frogs in the moat, when Sir Aylmer crept up to the edge, and putting his fingers in his mouth gave a long whistle. Directly after there was a slight cough above his head, and the noise of something falling.

After a good deal of fumbling Sir Aylmer’s hands came in contact with a pair of scissors, to which was attached a thread. All had been previously arranged, and at a given signal the thread was drawn up again, having with it, in addition to the scissors, a thin cord – then followed a thick cord – then followed a rope – and then followed a rope ladder – and, lastly, when the ladder was made tight, followed Sir Aylmer de Mountfitchett.

“Hist,” said the lady.

“Hist,” said Sir Aylmer, as he climbed like a very Blondin, the rope that would keep spinning round like a jack, till the young knight felt that he should soon be done brown if it did not stop.

“Hist,” said the lady again.

“Hist,” said the knight, as he reached the window-sill.

“Hist,” said the lady again to her panting lover, who felt rather sick and giddy.

“How is the rope fastened?” said the knight.

“To the bed-post,” said the lady modestly.

“Your hand a moment, fair dame,” said the knight, trying to climb on the window-sill.

“Oh! dear me, No!” said the lady, “I could not think of such a thing.”

“But I can’t stay here,” said the knight, “this rope cuts like fury.”

“Oh! but I could not think for a moment of admitting you,” said the lady, “But, hist! speak low, or the Lady Maude will hear.”

“Eh? who?” said the knight.

“The Lady Maude,” said the maiden again.

“And you then are? – ”

“Her hand – ”

What she would have said will never be known, for Sir Aylmer himself said something so startling that the maiden, who had only twisted the rope several times round the post, and retained the end in her hand, suddenly let go. There was a whistling of rope, – a loud scream, – a loud splash, – a great deal of floundering, – and then Sir Aylmer de Mountfitchett hastened home, this time also in dudgeon, and had to be grueled and nose-tallowed for a violent cold which he had somehow caught; while in the archives of the castle might at one time have been seen the following curious manuscript written in a clerkly hand by one Friar Malvoisey, for whom the good dame named therein used to wash.

“Sir Aylmer Mountfitchett

To Sarah Brown.

Balance.....1 merck 11 groates.

Washing doublet and hose clean from ye black mud 111 groates.”

There may be some sceptical people who will doubt the truth of this legend; and to such, as the writer is unable to produce the ancient manuscript, he says in the language of the good old times, “I crave your mercy!”

Chapter Thirty.

Found in the Street

Yes, all sorts, sir, and we takes the innercent and the guilty too sometimes, no doubt on it. Yer see we’re men as generally has everybody’s ill word, and nobody ever has a good word for us unless there’s somebody as wants us, when it’s “Oh, my good man, and ah, my good man,” and at other times they won’t look at us.

I remember once taking a poor chap for stealing bread, and if there’s anything a poor fellow might be forgive it might be that. Well, sir, as I was a-sayin’, I was on my beat one day, or more properly speaking, it was evening, for it was just gettin’ dusk, one November arternoon, and a bitter cold, raw arternoon it was, with the smoky fog givin’ yer the chokes, and gettin’ into yer eyes, and makin’ yer feel all on edge like, and as gritty as if yer was in a bed where someone had been a eatin’ of bread. Folks was lighting up their shops, and I was a-growling to myself and wishin’ it was time to go off duty when I sees a crowd on in front, and there in the middle of it was a floury baker, goin’ on like anything and shakin’ away like any savage at a miserable-looking hollow-faced chap in a wesket and trousers, and his bare arms all a showin’ through his ragged shirt. He hadn’t got no hat, and his skin looked as blue and pinched as if he’d been frozen or just taken out of the river.

“Well,” I says, “what’s up?”

“Take him into custody, p’leeceman,” says the baker.

“No, no, no,” says the crowd. “Now, none of that,” says I.

“Take him into custody, p’leeceman,” says the baker; “he stole a quartern loaf. Comes into my shop a-beggin’, and because I would not give him anythin’ he whips up a quartern loaf and bolts with it, but I ran after him and ketched him.”

Well, I looks at the baker and I looks at the man, and I thinks to myself, “Here’s a case.” But there was nothin’ else for it, so I takes the loaf under my arm, and gets hold of the poor shiverin’ crittur, and away we goes with a long train of boys and sech a follerin of us; but what with the bad night and the long ways as we had to go, they soon all drops off, and we goes along together, me and the poor chap, with only the people a lookin’ at us as we passed ’em.

“P’leeceman,” says my prisoner all at once, and it was the first word he had spoken. “P’leeceman,” he says, “are you a man?”

Well, yer see, sir, I didn’t like my job that evenin’, for it raly did seem as if the poor chap took the bread because he was a starvin’, and he wasn’t a common chap neither, and we knows pretty well what sort a feller is by his looks, I can tell yer. So when he says them words in such an appealin’ way like, I ain’t werry soft, but I didn’t like my job half so much as I did afore. However, it don’t do for us to be soft, so I says quite chuffy, as if I’d cut up rough —

“What d’yer mean?” I says. “Were you ever hungry – ever famishing?”

“Well,” I says, “I can’t say I ever was, but I’ve been precious dry.”

“Ah!” he says, with a sigh as went right through me, for I could see there was no sham in him, and then he hangs down his head and walks on without sayin’ a word.

He didn’t say no more, so I thinks perhaps as he was hungry, and I says, you may as well carry this here loaf, and if it is picked why it don’t much matter.

Lord, sir, it was a precious good job we weren’t in a busy street, for I’m blessed if he didn’t ketch hold of my hand with both his and bust out a cryin’ just like a child.

“Hold up, old chap,” I says, “I don’t want to be rough with you. Are yer hungry?”

“It’s those at home,” he says, “those at home; but I can’t help it, I’m weak – weak – weak.”

And I’m blessed if he wasn’t, sir, so weak that he tottered in his walk, and I could see there was no dodge in him, poor chap. Jest then we comes up to an “All hot” can, “Two or none for a penny,” yer knows. Beefsteaks and hot kidney; so I pulls up, makin’ believe as I should like one myself, and we has some half-a-dozen I think I bought, and makes him have best part of ’em; but, Lord bless yer, he wouldn’t touch ’em, but begs of me to take ’em to Number 99, King’s Court.

“For God’s sake,” he says, “take ’em, and I’ll bless yer.”

“Now come,” I says, “none o’ that ere; you’re in custody, you know, so you’ll jest eat them kidney or beefsteak pies, or whatsomever they is, and then come along; and if so be as you wants half-a-dozen hot kidney, or a few taters, or what not, took to number 99, King’s Court, why I knows the man as’ll take ’em, so peg away.”

To ha’ seen him stare you might ha’ thought he’d never had a good word said to him in his life; and when he had had his stare out, if he didn’t lay hold o’ them pies and eat ’em in a way as made one uncomfortable, it seemed so un-Christian like and wolfish.

Well, sir, I never did like my job a takin’ him, but now I hated myself, and s’elp me, sir, if he’d ha’ cut and run if I wouldn’t ha’ gone after him down the wrong street.

When he’d done he looked as if another half-dozen would ha’ been welcome; but I know’d what was what, so I takes him into the first public we passes and orders a pint o’ dog’s-nose, what we calls purl, yer know, and then I does my half pull o’ that, for I knows in his state he couldn’t stand much; and then we goes on towards the station; while the stuff made him open his lips, and he begs on me to go as I had said, and if I could, take half the loaf too. For, says he —

“They’re nearly starved.”

“Who is?” says I.

“My wife and the little ones,” he says.

“More shame for you to let ’em,” says I.

“Man, man,” says he, and he looks me so savage in the face that I thought he meant to hit me. “Man, man,” he says, “I’ve tried all, everything that a husband and father could do; I’ve fought for, prayed for, begged for work; I’ve tramped the great city through day after day; I’ve sought work till I’ve turned home heartsick and weary, to sell, piece by piece, everything we could sell, till look at me,” he says, “look at me; who’d give me work? Who’d believe me honest? Who wouldn’t drive me away as a vagabond if I asked for work? And what did I do to-night? I took what no man would give me – bread for my starving wife and children, and now – God help them, for I can’t!”

He’d been speaking as fierce as a lion at first, and now he broke down all at wunst, and seemed as though he was a-goin’ to bust out a crying again; but he didn’t. And so we walks on, and I breaks the loaf in two pieces, pulls it apart, yer know, sir, crummy way, and when the charge was made, for I found the baker a-waitin’ at the station, for he got there first, I waited to see my prisoner into a cell, and afore he was locked up, I shoves the half-loaf under his arm, and a great-coat as lay over a bench as we went along. Then off I goes arter the baker, who was one o’ your red-faced, chuffy little chaps, one o’ them coves as has sech a precious good opinion o’ themselves. He’d only jest got round the corner when I hails him, and he stops short.

“Well, governor,” I says, “what’ll yer take to drink? give it a name.”

“Oh,” says he, with a bit of a sneer, “you mean what am I a-goin’ to stand?”

“No I don’t,” I says, “for I’ve jest had plenty.”

“What d’yer mean?” sez he.

“Why, that there poor chap as we’ve jest locked up.”