Bill Napper smoked a dozen whiffs. Then he said: "An' what should I 'ave to do with the two 'undred pound? Buy anythink?"
Not directly that, the promoters explained. It would finance the thing—just finance it.
"'Oo'd 'ave the money then?"
That was perfectly simple. It would simply be handed over to Minns and his friend, and they would attend to all the details.
Bill Napper continued to smoke. Then, beginning with a slight chuckle at the back of his throat, he said: "W'en I got my money, I went to a lawyer's for it. There was two lawyers—one layin' low. There was two fust-rate lawyers an' a lot o' clurks—City clurks—an' abank an' all. An' they couldn't 'ave me, not for a single farden—not a farden, try an' fiddle as they would.... Well, arter that, it ain't much goodyoua-tryin' it on, is it?" And he chuckled again, louder.
Minns was indignant, and Minns's friend was deeply hurt. Both protested. Bill Napper laughed aloud. "Awright, you'll do," he said; "you'll do. My 'abits may be simple, but they ain't as simple as all that. Ha—ha! 'Ere, 'ave a drink—you ain't done no 'arm, an' I ain't spiteful. Ha—ha!"
It was on an evening a fortnight after this that, as Bill Napper lay, very full of beer and rather sleepy, on the bed—the rest of his household being out of doors—a ladder was quietly planted against the outer wall from the back-yard. Bill heard nothing until the window, already a little open, was slowly pushed up, and from the twilight outside a head and an arm plunged into the thicker darkness of the room, and a hand went feeling along the edge of the chest of drawers by the window. Bill rolled over on the bed, and reached from the floor one of a pair of heavy iron-set boots. Taking the toe in his right hand, and grasping the footrail of the bedstead with his left, he raised himself on his knees, and brought theboot-heel down heavily on the intruding head. There was a gasp, and the first breath of a yell, and head, arm, shoulders, and body vanished with a bump and a rattle. Bill Napper let the boot fall, dropped back on the bed, and took no further heed.
Neither Minns nor his friend ever came back again, but for some time after, at Victoria Park, Minns, inciting an outraged populace to rise and sweep police and army from the earth, was able to point to an honorable scar on his own forehead, the proof and sign of a police bludgeoning at Tower Hill—or Trafalgar Square.
V.
Things went placidly on for near ten months. Many barrels of beer had come in full and been sent empty away. Also the missis had got a gold watch and divers new bonnets and gowns, some by gift from Bill, some by applying privily to the drawer. Her private collection of bottles, too, had been cleared out twice, and was respectable for the third time. Everybody was not friendly with her, and one bonnet had been torn off her head by a neighbor who disliked her airs.
So it stood when, on a certain morning, Bill being minded to go out, found but two shillings in his pocket. He called upstairs to the missis, as was his custom in such a pass, asking her to fetch a sovereign or two when she came down; and as she was long in coming, he went up himself. The missis left the room hurriedly, and Bill, after raking out every corner of the drawer (which he himself had not opened for some time) saw not a single coin. The missis had no better explanation than that there must have been thieves in the house some time lately: a suggestion deprived of some value by the subsequent protest that Bill couldn't expect money to last forever, and that he had had the last three days ago. In the end there was a vehement row, and the missis was severely thumped.
The thumping over, Bill Napper conceived a great idea. Perhaps after all the lawyers had done him by understating the amount his brother had left. It might well have been five hundred pounds—a thousand pounds—anything. Probably it was, and the lawyers had had the difference. Plainly, three hundred pounds was a suspiciously small sum to inherit from a well-to-do brother. He would go to the lawyers and demand the rest of his money. He would not reveal his purpose till he saw the lawyers face to face, and then he would make his demandsuddenly, so that surprise and consternation should overwhelm and betray them. He would give them to understand that he had complete evidence of the whole swindle. In any case he could lose nothing. He went, after carefully preparing his part, and was turned out by a policeman.
"After that," mused Squire Napper, going home, "I suppose I'd better see about getting a job at Allen's again. He can't but make me gaffer, considering I've been a man of property."
"A POOR STICK."
Mrs. Jennings (or Jinnins, as the neighbors would have it) ruled absolutely at home, when she took so much trouble as to do anything at all there—which was less often than might have been. As for Robert, her husband, he was a poor stick, said the neighbors. And yet he was a man with enough of hardihood to remain a non-unionist in the erector's shop at Maidment's all the years of his service; no mean test of a man's fortitude and resolution, as many a sufferer for independent opinion might testify. The truth was that Bob never grew out of his courtship-blindness. Mrs. Jennings governed as she pleased, stayed out or came home as she chose, and cooked a dinner or didn't, as her inclination stood. Thus it was for ten years, during which time there were no children, and Bob bore all things uncomplaining: cooking his own dinner when he found none cooked, and sewing on his own buttons. Then of a sudden came children, till in three years there were three; and BobJennings had to nurse and to wash them as often as not.
Mrs. Jennings at this time was what is called rather a fine woman: a woman of large scale and full development; whose slatternly habit left her coarse black hair to tumble in snake-locks about her face and shoulders half the day; who, clad in half-hooked clothes, bore herself notoriously and unabashed in her fulness; and of whom ill things were said regarding the lodger. The gossips had their excuse. The lodger was an irregular young cabinetmaker, who lost quarters and halves and whole days; who had been seen abroad with his landlady, what time Bob Jennings was putting the children to bed at home; who on his frequent holidays brought in much beer, which he and the woman shared, while Bob was at work. To carry the tale to Bob would have been a thankless errand, for he would have none of anybody's sympathy, even in regard to miseries plain to his eye. But the thing got about in the workshop, and there his days were made bitter.
At home things grew worse. To return at half-past five, and find the children still undressed, screaming, hungry, and dirty, was a matter of habit: to get them food, to wash them, to tend the cuts and bumps sustained throughthe day of neglect, before lighting a fire and getting tea for himself, were matters of daily duty. "Ah," he said to his sister, who came at intervals to say plain things about Mrs. Jennings, "you shouldn't go for to set a man agin 'is wife, Jin. Melier do'n' like work, I know, but that's nach'ral to 'er. She ought to married a swell 'stead o' me; she might 'a' done easy if she liked, bein' sich a fine gal; but she's good-'arted, is Melier; an' she can't 'elp bein' a bit thoughtless." Whereat his sister called him a fool (it was her customary good-by at such times), and took herself off.
Bob Jennings's intelligence was sufficient for his common needs, but it was never a vast intelligence. Now, under a daily burden of dull misery, it clouded and stooped. The base wit of the workshop he comprehended less, and realized more slowly, than before; and the gaffer cursed him for a sleepy dolt.
Mrs. Jennings ceased from any pretence of housewifery, and would sometimes sit—perchance not quite sober—while Bob washed the children in the evening, opening her mouth only to express her contempt for him and his establishment, and to make him understand that she was sick of both. Once, exasperated by his quietness, she struck at him; and for a moment he was another man. "Don't do that, Melier,"he said, "else I might forget myself." His manner surprised his wife: and it was such that she never did do that again.
So was Bob Jennings: without a friend in the world, except his sister, who chid him, and the children, who squalled at him: when his wife vanished with the lodger, the clock, a shade of wax flowers, Bob's best boots (which fitted the lodger), and his silver watch. Bob had returned, as usual, to the dirt and the children, and it was only when he struck a light that he found the clock was gone. "Mummy tooked ve t'ock," said Milly, the eldest child, who had followed him in from the door, and now gravely observed his movements. "She tooked ve t'ock an' went ta-ta. An' she tooked ve fyowers."
Bob lit the paraffin lamp with the green glass reservoir, and carried it and its evil smell about the house. Some things had been turned over and others had gone, plainly. All Melier's clothes were gone. The lodger was not in, and under his bedroom window, where his box had stood, there was naught but an oblong patch of conspicuously clean wall-paper. In a muddle of doubt and perplexity, Bob found himself at the front door, staring up and down the street. Divers women-neighbors stood at their doors, and eyed him curiously; for Mrs. Webster, moralist, opposite, had not watched the day'sproceedings (nor those of many other days) for nothing, nor had she kept her story to herself.
He turned back into the house, a vague notion of what had befallen percolating feebly through his bewilderment. "I dunno—I dunno," he faltered, rubbing his ear. His mouth was dry, and he moved his lips uneasily, as he gazed with aimless looks about the walls and ceiling. Presently his eyes rested on the child, and "Milly," he said decisively, "come an' 'ave yer face washed."
He put the children to bed early, and went out. In the morning, when his sister came, because she had heard the news in common with everybody else, he had not returned. Bob Jennings had never lost more than two quarters in his life, but he was not seen at the workshop all this day. His sister stayed in the house, and in the evening, at his regular homing-time, he appeared, haggard and dusty, and began his preparations for washing the children. When he was made to understand that they had been already attended to, he looked doubtful and troubled for a moment. Presently he said: "I ain't found 'er yet, Jin; I was in 'opes she might 'a' bin back by this. I—I don't expect she'll be very long. She was alwis a bit larky, was Melier; but very good-'arted."
His sister had prepared a strenuous lectureon the theme of "I told you so"; but the man was so broken, so meek, and so plainly unhinged in his faculties, that she suppressed it. Instead she gave him comfortable talk, and made him promise in the end to sleep that night, and take up his customary work in the morning.
He did these things, and could have worked placidly enough had he been alone; but the tale had reached the workshop, and there was no lack of brutish chaff to disorder him. This the decenter men would have no part in, and even protested against. But the ill-conditioned kept their way, till, at the cry of "Bell O!" when all were starting for dinner, one of the worst shouted the cruellest gibe of all. Bob Jennings turned on him and knocked him over a scrapheap.
A shout went up from the hurrying workmen, with a chorus of "Serve ye right," and the fallen joker found himself awkwardly confronted by the shop bruiser. But Bob had turned to a corner, and buried his eyes in the bend of his arm, while his shoulders heaved and shook.
He slunk away home, and stayed there: walking restlessly to and fro, and often peeping down the street from the window. When, at twilight, his sister came again, he had become almost cheerful, and said with some briskness, "I'm a-goin' to meet 'er, Jin, at seven. I know where she'll be waitin'."
He went upstairs, and after a little while came down again in his best black coat, carefully smoothing a tall hat of obsolete shape with his pocket-handkerchief. "I ain't wore it for years," he said. "I ought to 'a' wore it—it might 'a' pleased 'er. She used to say she wouldn't walk with me in no other—when I used to meet 'er in the evenin', at seven o'clock." He brushed assiduously, and put the hat on. "I'd better 'ave a shave round the corner as I go along," he added, fingering his stubbly chin.
He received as one not comprehending his sister's persuasion to remain at home; but when he went she followed at a little distance. After his penny shave he made for the main road, where company-keeping couples walked up and down all evening. He stopped at a church, and began pacing slowly to and fro before it, eagerly looking out each way as he went.
His sister watched him for nearly half an hour, and then went home. In two hours more she came back with her husband. Bob was still there, walking to and fro.
"'Ullo, Bob," said his brother-in-law; "come along 'ome an' get to bed, there's a good chap. You'll be awright in the mornin'."
"She ain't turned up," Bob complained, "or else I've missed 'er. This is the reg'lar place—where I alwis used to meet 'er. But she'llcome to-morrer. She used to leave me in the lurch sometimes, bein' nach'rally larky. But very good-'arted, mindjer; very good-'arted."
She did not come the next evening, nor the next, nor the evening after, nor the one after that. But Bob Jennings, howbeit depressed and anxious, was always confident. "Somethink's prevented 'er to-night," he would say, "but she'll come to-morrer.... I'll buy a blue tie to-morrer—she used to like me in a blue tie. I won't miss 'er to-morrer. I'll come a little earlier."
So it went. The black coat grew ragged in the service, and hobbledehoys, finding him safe sport, smashed the tall hat over his eyes time after time. He wept over the hat, and straightened it as best he might. Was she coming? Night after night, and night and night. But to-morrow....
A CONVERSION.
There are some poor criminals that never have a chance: circumstances are against them from the first, as they explain, with tears, to sympathetic mission-readers. Circumstances had always been against Scuddy Lond, the gun. The word gun, it may be explained, is a friendly synonym for thief.
His first name was properly James, but that had been long forgotten. "Scuddy" meant nothing in particular, was derived from nothing, and was not, apparently, the invention of any distinct person. Still, it was commonly his only name, and most of his acquaintances had also nicknames of similarly vague origin. Scuddy was a man of fine feelings, capable of a most creditable hour of rapturous misery after hearing, perhaps at a sing-song, "Put Me in my Little Bed," or any other ditty that was rank enough in sentiment: wherefore the mission-readers never really despaired of him. He was a small, shabby man of twenty-six, but looking younger; with a runaway chin, a sharp yellowface, and tremulously sly eyes; with but faint traces of hair on his face, he had a great deal of it, straight and ragged and dirty, on his head.
Scuddy Lond's misfortunes began early. Temptation had prevailed against him when he was at school, but that was nothing. He became errand boy in a grocer's shop, and complications with the till brought him, a howling penitent, to the police court. Here, while his mother hid her head in the waiting-room, he set forth the villainy of older boys who had prompted him to sin, and got away with no worse than a lecture on the evils of bad company. So that a philanthropist found him a better situation at a distance, where the evil influence could no longer move him. Here he stayed a good while—longer than some who had been there before him, but who had to leave because of vanishing postal orders. Nevertheless, the postal orders still went, and in the end he confessed to another magistrate, and fervently promised to lead a better life if his false start were only forgiven. Betting, he protested, was this time the author of his fall; and as that pernicious institution was clearly to blame for the unhappy young man's ruin, the lamenting magistrate let him off with a simple month in consideration of his misfortune and the intercession of his employer, who had never heard of the grocer and his till.
After his month Scuddy went regularly into business as a lob-crawler: that is to say, he returned to his first love, the till: not narrowly to any individual till, but broad-mindedly to the till as a general institution, to be approached in unattended shops by stealthy grovelling on the belly. This he did until he perceived the greater security and comfort of waiting without while a small boy did the actual work within. From this, and with this, he ventured on peter-claiming: laying hands nonchalantly on unconsidered parcels and bags at railway stations, until a day when, bearing a fat portmanteau, he ran against its owner by the door of a refreshment bar. This time the responsibility lay with Drink. Strong Drink, he declared, with deep emotion, had been his ruin; he dated his downfall from the day when a false friend persuaded him to take a Social Glass; he would still have been an honest, upright, self-respecting young man but for the Cursed Drink. From that moment he would never touch it more. The case was met with three months with hard labor, and for all that Scuddy Lond had so clearly pointed out the culpability of Drink, he had to do the drag himself. But the mission-readers were comforted: for clearly there was hope for one whose eyes were so fully opened to the causes of his degradation.
After the drag, Scuddy for long made a comfortable living, free from injurious overwork, in the several branches of lob-crawling and peter-claiming, with an occasional deviation into parlor-jumping. It is true that this lastdidsometimes involve unpleasant exertion when the window was high and the boy heavy to bunk up; and it was necessary, at times, to run. But Scuddy was out of work, and hunger drove him to anything, so long as it was light and not too risky. And it is marvellous to reflect how much may be picked up in the streets and at the side-doors of London and the suburbs without danger or vulgar violence. And so Scuddy's life went on, with occasional misfortunes in the way of a moon, or another drag, or perhaps a sixer. And the mission-readers never despaired, because the real cause was always hunger, or thirst, or betting, or a sudden temptation, or something quite exceptional—never anything like real, hardened, unblushing wickedness; and the man himself was always truly penitent. He made such touching references to his innocent childhood, and was so grateful for good advice or anything else you might give him.
One bold attempt Scuddy made to realize his desire for better things. He resolved to depart from his evil ways and to become a nark—a copper's nark—which is a police spy, orinformer. The work was not hard, there was no imprisonment, and he would make amends for the past. But hardly had he begun his narking when some of the Kate Street mob dropped on him in Brick Lane, and bashed him full sore. This would never do: so once more implacable circumstance drove him to his old courses. And there was this added discomfort: that no boy would parlor-jump nor dip the lob for him. Indeed they bawled aloud, "Yah, Scuddy Lond the copper's nark!" So that the hand of all Flower and Dean Street was against him. Scuddy grew very sad.
These and other matters were heavy upon his heart on an evening when, with nothing in his pockets but the piece of coal that he carried for luck, he turned aimlessly up Baker's Row. Things were very bad: it was as though the whole world knew him—and watched. Shopkeepers stood frowningly at their doors. People sat defiantly on piles of luggage at the railway stations, and there was never a peter to touch for. All the areas were empty, and there were no side-doors left unguarded, where, failing the more desirable wedge, one might claim a pair or two of daisies put out for cleaning. All the hundred trifling things that commonly come freely to hand in a mile or two of streets were somehow swept out of the world's economy; andScuddy tramped into Baker's Row in melting mood. Why were things so hard for some and so easy for others? It was not as though he were to blame—he, a man of feeling and sentiment. Why were others living comfortable lives unvexed of any dread of the police? And apart from that, why did other gonophs get lucky touches for half a century of quids at a time, while he!... But there: the world was one brutal oppression, and he was its most pitiable victim; and he slunk along, dank with the pathos of things.
At a corner a group was standing about a woman, whose voice was uplifted to a man's accompaniment on a stand-accordion. Scuddy listened. She sang, with a harsh tremble:—
"An' sang a song of 'ome, sweet 'ome,The song that reached my 'art.'Ome, 'ome, sweet, sweet 'ome,She sang the song of 'ome, sweet 'ome,The song that reached my 'art."
"An' sang a song of 'ome, sweet 'ome,The song that reached my 'art.'Ome, 'ome, sweet, sweet 'ome,She sang the song of 'ome, sweet 'ome,The song that reached my 'art."
"An' sang a song of 'ome, sweet 'ome,
The song that reached my 'art.
'Ome, 'ome, sweet, sweet 'ome,
She sang the song of 'ome, sweet 'ome,
The song that reached my 'art."
Here, indeed, was something in tune with Scuddy's fine feelings. He looked up. From the darkening sky the evening star winked through the smoke from a factory chimney. From anear came an exquisite scent of saveloys. Plaintive influences all. He tried to think of 'ome himself—of 'ome strictly in the abstract, so that it might reach his 'art. Hestood for some minutes torpid and mindless, oozing with sentiment: till the song ended, and he went on. Fine feelings—fine.
He crossed the road, and took a turning. A lame old woman sat in a recess selling trotters, where a dark passage led back to a mission-hall. About the opening a man hovered—fervent, watchful—and darted forth on passers-by. He laid his hand on Scuddy's shoulder, and said: "My dear friend, will you come in an' 'ear the word of the Lord Jesus Christ?"
Scuddy turned: the sound of an harmonium and many strenuous voices came faintly down the passage. It was his mood. Why not give his fine feelings another little run? He would: he would go in.
"Trotters!" quavered the lame old woman, looking up wistfully. "Two a penny! Two a penny!" But no: he went up the passage, and she turned patiently to her board.
Along the passage the singing grew louder, and burst on his ears unchecked as he pushed open the door at the end:—
"'Oosoever will, 'oosoever will,Send the proclamation over vale an' 'ill;'Tis a lovin' Father calls the wand'rer 'ome,'Oosoever will may come!"
"'Oosoever will, 'oosoever will,Send the proclamation over vale an' 'ill;'Tis a lovin' Father calls the wand'rer 'ome,'Oosoever will may come!"
"'Oosoever will, 'oosoever will,
Send the proclamation over vale an' 'ill;
'Tis a lovin' Father calls the wand'rer 'ome,
'Oosoever will may come!"
A man by the door knew him at once for a stranger, and found him a seat. The hymnwent quavering to an end, and the preacher in charge, a small, bright-eyed man with rebellious hair and a surprisingly deep voice, announced that Brother Spyers would offer a prayer.
The man prayed with his every faculty. He was a sturdy, red-necked artisan, great of hand and wiry of beard: a smith, perhaps, or a bricklayer. He spread his arms wide, and, his head thrown back, brought forth, with passion and pain, his fervid, disordered sentences. As he went on, his throat swelled and convulsed in desperate knots, and the sweat hung thick on his face. He called for grace, that every unsaved soul there might come to the fold and believe that night. Or if not all, then some—even a few. That at least one, only one, poor soul might be plucked as a brand from the burning. And as he flung together, with clumsy travail, his endless, formless, unconsidered vehemences of uttermost Cockney, the man stood transfigured, admirable.
From here and there came deep amens. Then more, with gasps, groans, and sobs. Scuddy Lond, carried away luxuriously on a tide of grievous sensation, groaned with the others. The prayer ended in a chorus of ejaculations. Then there was a hymn. Somebody stuffed an open hymn-book into Scuddy's hand, but he scarce saw it. Abandoning himself to themesmeric influence of the many who were singing about him, he plunged and revelled in a debauch of emotion. He heard, he even joined in; but understood nothing, for his feelings filled him to overflowing.
"I 'ave a robe: 'tis resplendent in w'iteness,Awaitin' in glory my wonderin' view:Oh, w'en I receive it, all shinin' in brightness,Dear friend, could I see you receivin' one too!For you I am prayin'! For you I am prayin'!For you I am prayin', I'm prayin' for you."
"I 'ave a robe: 'tis resplendent in w'iteness,Awaitin' in glory my wonderin' view:Oh, w'en I receive it, all shinin' in brightness,Dear friend, could I see you receivin' one too!For you I am prayin'! For you I am prayin'!For you I am prayin', I'm prayin' for you."
"I 'ave a robe: 'tis resplendent in w'iteness,
Awaitin' in glory my wonderin' view:
Oh, w'en I receive it, all shinin' in brightness,
Dear friend, could I see you receivin' one too!
For you I am prayin'! For you I am prayin'!
For you I am prayin', I'm prayin' for you."
The hymn ceased; all sat down, and the preacher began his discourse: quietly at first, and then, though in a different way, with all the choking fervor of the man who had prayed. For the preacher was fluent as well as zealous, and his words, except when emotion stayed them, poured in a torrent. He preached faith—salvation in faith—declaiming, beseeching, commanding. "Come—come! Now is the appointed time! Only believe—only come! Only—only come!" To impassioned, broken entreaty he added sudden command and the menace of eternity, but broke away pitifully again in urgent pleadings, pantings, gasps; pointing above, spreading his arms abroad, stretching them forth imploringly. Come, only come!
Sobs broke out in more than one place. A woman bowed her head and rocked, while hershoulders shook again. Brother Spyers's face was alight with joy. A tremor, a throe of the senses, ran through the assembly as through a single body.
The preacher, nearing his peroration, rose to a last frenzy of adjuration. Then, ending in a steadier key, he summoned any to stand forth who had found grace that night.
His bright, strenuous eyes were on the sobbers, charging them, drawing them. First rose the woman who had bowed her head. Her face uncovered but distorted and twitching, still weeping but rapt and unashamed, she tottered out between the seats, and sank at last on the vacant form in front. Next a child, a little maid of ten, lank-legged and outgrown of her short skirts, her eyes squeezed down on a tight knot of pocket-handkerchief, crying wildly, broken-heartedly, sobbed and blundered over seat-corners and toes, and sat down, forlorn and solitary, at the other end of the form. And after her came Scuddy Lond.
Why, he knew not—nor cared. In the full enjoyment of a surfeit of indefinite emotion, tearful, rapturous, he had accepted the command put on him by the preacher, and he had come forth, walking on clouds, regenerate, compact of fine feelings. There was a short prayer of thanks, and then a final hymn:—
"Ring the bells of 'eaven, there is joy to-day,For a soul returnin' from the wild!"
"Ring the bells of 'eaven, there is joy to-day,For a soul returnin' from the wild!"
"Ring the bells of 'eaven, there is joy to-day,
For a soul returnin' from the wild!"
Scuddy felt a curious equable lightness of spirits—a serene cheerfulness. His emotional orgasm was spent, and in its place was a numb calm, pleasant enough.
"Glory! glory! 'ow the angels sing—Glory! glory! 'ow the loud 'arps ring!'Tis the ransomed army, like a mighty sea,Pealin' forth the anthem of the free!"
"Glory! glory! 'ow the angels sing—Glory! glory! 'ow the loud 'arps ring!'Tis the ransomed army, like a mighty sea,Pealin' forth the anthem of the free!"
"Glory! glory! 'ow the angels sing—
Glory! glory! 'ow the loud 'arps ring!
'Tis the ransomed army, like a mighty sea,
Pealin' forth the anthem of the free!"
The service ended. The congregation trooped forth into the evening; but Scuddy sat where he was, for the preacher wanted a few words with his converts ere he would let them go. He shook hands with Scuddy Lond, and spoke with grave, smiling confidence about his soul. Brother Spyers also shook hands with him and bespoke his return on Sunday.
In the cool air of the empty passage, Scuddy's ordinary faculties began to assert themselves; still in an atmosphere of calm cheer. Fine feelings—fine. And as he turned the piece of coal in his pocket, he reflected that, after all, the day had not been altogether unlucky—not in every sense a blank. Emerging into the street, he saw that the lame old woman, who was almost alone in view, had risen on her crutch and turned her back to roll her whitecloth over her remaining trotters. On the ledge behind stood her little pile of coppers, just reckoned. Scuddy Lond's practised eye took the case in a flash. With two long tip-toed steps he reached the coppers, lifted them silently, and hurried away up the street. He did not run, for the woman was lame and had not heard him. No: decidedly the day had not been blank. For here was a hot supper.
"ALL THAT MESSUAGE."
I.
"All that messuage dwelling-house and premises now standing on part of the said parcel of ground" was the phrase in the assignment of lease, although it only meant Number Twenty-seven Mulberry Street, Old Ford, containing five rooms and a wash-house, and sharing a dirty front wall with the rest of the street on the same side. The phrase was a very fine one, and, with others more intricate, lent not a little to the triumph and the perplexity the transaction filled old Jack Randall withal. The business was a conjunction of purchase and mortgage, whereby old Jack Randall, having thirty pounds of his own, had, after half-an-hour of helpless stupefaction in a solicitor's office in Cornhill, bought a house for two hundred and twenty pounds, and paid ten pounds for stamps and lawyer's fees. The remaining two hundred pounds had been furnished by the Indubitable Perpetual Building Society, on thesecurity of a mortgage; and the loan, with its interest, was to be repaid in monthly instalments of two pounds and fourpence during twelve years. Thus old Jack Randall designed to provide for the wants and infirmities of age; and the outright purchase, he argued, was a thing of mighty easy accomplishment. For the house let at nine shillings a week, which was twenty-three pounds eight shillings a year; and the mortgage instalments, with the ground rent of three pounds a year, only came to twenty-seven pounds four, leaving a difference of three pounds sixteen, which would be more than covered by a saving of eighteenpence a week: certainly not a difficult saving for a man with a regular job and no young family, who had put by thirty pounds in little more than three years. Thus on many evenings old Jack Randall and his wife would figure out the thing, wholly forgetting rates and taxes and repairs.
Old Jack stood on the pavement of Cornhill, and stared at the traffic. When he remembered that Mrs. Randall was by his side, he said, "Well, mother, we done it;" and his wife replied, "Yus, fa', you're a lan'lord now." Hereat he chuckled and began to walk eastward. For to be a landlord is the ultimate dignity. There is no trouble, no anxiety in the world if you are a landlord; and there is no work. You justwalk round on Monday mornings (or maybe you even drive in a trap), and you collect your rents: eight and six, or nine shillings, or ten shillings, as the case may be. And there you are! It is better than shopkeeping, because the money comes by itself; and it is infinitely more genteel. Also, it is better than having money in a bank and drawing interest; because the house cannot run away as is the manner of directors, nor dissolve into nothingness as is the way of banks. And here was he, Jack Randall, walking down Leadenhall Street a landlord. He mounted a tram-car at Aldgate, and all things were real.
II.
Old Jack had always been old Jack since at fourteen young Jack had come 'prentice in the same engine-turner's shop. Young Jack was a married man himself now, at another shop; and old Jack was near fifty, and had set himself toward thrift. All along Whitechapel Road, Mile End Road, and Bow Road he considered the shops and houses from the tram-roof, madly estimating rents and values. Near Bow Road end he and his wife alighted, and went inspecting Twenty-seven Mulberry Street once more.Old Jack remarked that the scraper was of a different shape from that he had carried in his mind since their last examination; and he mentioned it to Mrs. Randall, who considered the scraper of fact rather better than the scraper of memory. They walked to and fro several times, judging the door and three windows from each side of the street, and in the end they knocked, with a purpose of reporting the completed purchase. But the tenant's wife, peeping from behind a blind, and seeing only the people who had already come spying about the house some two or three times, retired to the back and went on with her weekly washing.
They waited a little, repeated the knock, and then went away. The whole day was "off," and a stroll in the Tower Hamlets Cemetery was decided on. Victoria Park was as near, but was not in the direction of home. Moreover, there was less interest for Mrs. Randall in Victoria Park, because there were no funerals. In the cemetery, Mrs. Randall solaced herself and old Jack with the more sentimental among the inscriptions. In the poor part, whose miscellaneous graves are marked by mounds alone, they stopped to look at a very cheap funeral.
"Lor', Jack," Mrs. Randall said under her breath with a nudge, "wot a common caufin! Why, the body's very nigh a-droppin' throughthe bottom!" The thin under-board had, in fact, a bulge. "Pore chap! ain't it shockin'!"
The ignominy of a funeral with no feathers was a thing accepted of course, but the horror of a cheap coffin they had never realized till now. They turned away. In the main path they met the turgid funeral of a Bow Road bookmaker. After the dozen mourning coaches there were cars and pony traps, and behind these came a fag-end of carts and donkey-barrows. Ahead of all was the glazed hearse, with attendants in weepers, and by it, full of the pride of artistry, walked the undertaker himself.
"Now that," said old Jack, "is somethin' like a caufin." (It was heavy and polished and beset with bright fittings.) "Ah," sighed his missis, "ain't it lovely!"
The hearse drew up at the chapel door, where the undertaker turned to the right-about and placidly surveyed the movements of his forces. Mrs. Randall murmured again: "Lovely—lovely!" and kept her eyes on the coffin. Then she edged gently up to the undertaker, and whispered, "What would that kind o' caufin be called, mister?"
The undertaker looked at her from the sides of his eyes, and answered briskly, "Two-inch polished oak solid extry brass fittin's." Mrs. Randall returned to old Jack's side and repeatedthe words. "That must cost a lot," she said. "What a thing, though, to be certain you won't be buried in a trumpery box like that other! Ah, it's well to be rich."
Old Jack gazed on the coffin, and thought. Surely a landlord, if anybody, was entitled to indulge in an expensive coffin? All day he had nursed a fancy that some small indulgence, something a little heavier than usual in the matter of expense, would be proper to celebrate the occasion. But he reflected that his savings were gone and his pockets no fuller than had always been their Wednesday wont: though, of course, in that matter the future would be different. The bearers carried the coffin into the chapel, and Mrs. Randall turned away among the graves. Old Jack put his hands in his pockets, and, looking at the ground, said: "That was a nobby caufin, mother, wasn't it?" Whereunto Mrs. Randall murmured: "Lovely—lovely!" yet again.
Old Jack walked a little further, and asked, "Two-inch polished oak, 'e said, didn't 'e?"
"Solid, an' extry brass fittin's; beautiful!"
"I'll remember it. That's what you shall 'ave if it 'appens you go fust. There!" And old Jack sat on the guard-chain of a flowery grave with the air of one giving a handsome order.
"Me? Git out! Look at the expense."
"Matter o' circumstances. Look at Jenkins's Gardens. Jenkins was a bench-'and at the Limited; got 'is 'ouses one under another through building s'ieties. That there caufin 'ud be none too dear for'im. We're beginnin'; an' I promise you that same, if you'd like it."
"Like it!" the missis ejaculated. "Course I should. Wouldn't you?"
"Wy, yus. Any one 'ud prefer somethin' a bit nobby; an' thick."
And the missis reciprocated old Jack's promise, in case he died first: if a two-inch polished oak solid could be got for everything she had to offer. And, tea-time approaching, they made well pleased for home.
III.
In two days old Jack was known as a landlord all about. On the third day, which was Saturday, young Jack called to borrow half a sovereign, but succeeded only to the extent of five shillings: work was slack with him, and three days of it was all he had had that week. This had happened before, and he had got on as best he could; but now, with a father buyinghouse-property, it was absurd to economize for lack of half a sovereign. When he brought the five shillings home, his wife asked why he had not thrown them at his father's head: a course of procedure which, young Jack confessed, had never occurred to his mind. "Stingy old 'unks!" she scolded. "A-goin' about buyin' 'ouses, an' won't lend 'is own son ten shillin's! Much good may all 'is money do 'im with 'is 'ateful mean ways!" This was the beginning of old Jack's estrangement from his relatives. For young Jack's missis expressed her opinion in other places, and young Jack was soon ready to share it: rigidly abstaining from another attempt at a loan, though he never repaid the five shillings.
In the course of the succeeding week two of his shopmates took old Jack aside at different times to explain that the loan of a pound or two would make the greatest imaginable difference to the whole course of their future lives, while the temporary absence of the money would be imperceptible to a capitalist like himself. When he roundly declared that he had as few loose sovereigns as themselves, he was set down as an uncommon liar as well as a wretched old miser. This was the beginning of old Jack's unpopularity in the workshop.
IV.
He took a half-day off to receive the first week's rent in state, and Mrs. Randall went with him. He showed his written authority from the last landlord, and the tenant's wife paid over the sum of nine shillings, giving him at the same time the rent-book to sign and a slip of written paper. This last was a week's notice to terminate the tenancy.
"We're very well satisfied with the 'ouse," the tenant's wife said (she was a painfully clean, angular woman, with a notable flavor of yellow soap and scrubbing-brush about her), "but my 'usband finds it too far to get to an' from Albert Docks mornin' and night. So we're goin' to West 'Am." And she politely ejected her visitors by opening the door and crowding them through it.
The want of a tenant was a contingency that old Jack had never contemplated. As long as it lasted it would necessitate the setting by of ten and sixpence a week for the building society payments and the ground-rent. This was serious: it meant knocking off some of the butcher's meat, all the beer and tobacco, and perhaps a little firing. Old Jack resolved to waste no more half-days in collecting, but to send hismissis. On the following Monday, therefore, while the tenant's wife kept a sharp eye on the man who was piling a greengrocer's van with chairs and tables, Mrs. Randall fixed a "To Let" bill in the front window. In the leaves of the rent-book she found another thing of chagrin: to wit, a notice demanding payment of poor, highway, and general rates to the amount of one pound eighteen and sevenpence. Now, no thought of rates and taxes had ever vexed the soul of old Jack. Of course, he might have known that his own landlord paid the rates for his house; but, indeed, he had never once thought of the thing, being content with faithfully paying the rent, and troubling no more about it. That night was one of dismal wakefulness for old Jack and his missis. If he had understood the transaction at the lawyer's office, he would have known that a large proportion of the sum due had been allowed him in the final adjustment of payment to the day; and if he had known something of the ways of rate-collecting, he would have understood that payment was not expected for at least a month. As it was, the glories of lease-possession grew dim in his eyes, and a landlord seemed a poor creature, spending his substance to keep roofs over the heads of strangers.
V.
On Wednesday afternoon a man called about taking the house, and returned in the evening, when old Jack was home. He was a large-featured, quick-eyed man, with a loud, harsh voice and a self-assertive manner. Quickly old Jack recognized him as a speaker he had heard at certain street-corners: a man who was secretary, or delegate, or that sort of thing, to something that old Jack had forgotten.
He began with the announcement, "I am Joe Parsons," delivered with a stare for emphasis, and followed by a pause to permit assimilation.
Old Jack had some recollection of the name, but it was indefinite. He wondered whether or not he should address the man as "sir," considering the street speeches, and the evident importance of the name. But then, after all, he was a landlord himself. So he only said, "Yus?"
"I am Joe Parsons," the man repeated; "and I'm looking for a 'ouse."
There was another pause, which lasted till old Jack felt obliged to say something. So he said, "Yus?" again.
"I'm looking for a 'ouse," the man repeated, "and, if we can arrange things satisfactory, I might take yours."
Mr. Joe Parsons was far above haggling about the rent, but he had certain ideas as to painting and repairs that looked expensive. In the end old Jack promised the paint a touch-up, privily resolving to do the work himself in his evenings. And on the whole, Mr. Joe Parsons was wonderfully easy to come to terms with, considering his eminent public character. And anything in the nature of a reference in his case would have been absurd. As himself observed, his name was enough for that.
VI.
Old Jack did the painting, and the new tenant took possession. When Mrs. Randall called for the first week a draggle-tailed little woman with a black eye meekly informed her that Mr. Parsons was not at home, and had left no money nor any message as to the rent. This was awkward, because the first building society instalment would be due before next rent-day—to say nothing of the rates. But it would never do to offend Mr. Parsons. So the money was scraped together by heroic means (the missis produced an unsuspected twelve and sixpence from a gallipot on the kitchen dresser), and the first instalment was paid.
Mrs. Randall called twice at Mulberry Street next rent-day, but nobody answered her knocks. Old Jack, possessed by a misty notion, born of use, that rent was constitutionally demandable only on Monday morning, called no more for a week. But on Thursday evening a stout little stranger, with a bald head which he wiped continually, came to the Randalls to ask if the tenant of Twenty-seven Mulberry Street was Mr. Joe Parsons. Assured that it was, he nodded, said, "Thanks! that's all," wiped his head again, and started to go. Then he paused, and "Pay his rent regular?" he asked. Old Jack hesitated. "Ah, thought so," said the little stranger. "He's a wrong 'un.I'vegot a bit o' paper for 'im." And he clapped on his hat with the handkerchief in it and vanished.
VII.
Old Jack felt unhappy, for a landlord. He and the missis reproached themselves for not asking the little stranger certain questions; but he had gone. Next Monday morning old Jack took another half-day, and went to Mulberry Street himself. From appearances, he assured himself that a belief, entertained by his missis,that the upper part of his house was being sublet, was well founded. He watched awhile from a corner, until a dirty child kicked at the door, and it was opened. Then he went across and found the draggle-tailed woman who had answered Mrs. Randall before, in every respect the same to look at, except that not one eye was black but two. Old Jack, with some abruptness, demanded his rent of her, addressing her as Mrs. Parsons. Without disclaiming the name, she pleaded with meek uneasiness that Mr. Parsons really wasn't at home, and she didn't know when to expect him. At last, finding this ineffectual, she produced four and sixpence: begging him with increasing agitation to take that on account and call again.
Old Jack took the money, and called again at seven. Custom or law or what-not, he would wait for no Monday morning now. The door was open, and a group of listening children stood about it. From within came a noise of knocks and thuds and curses—sometimes a gurgle. Old Jack asked a small boy, whose position in the passage betokened residence, what was going forward. "It's the man downstairs," said the boy, "a-givin' of it to 'is wife for payin' awy the lodgers' rent."
At this moment Mr. Joe Parsons appeared in the passage. The children, who had once ortwice commented in shouts, dispersed. "I've come for my rent," said old Jack.
Mr. Joe Parsons saw no retreat. So he said, "Rent? Ain't you 'ad it? I don't bother about things in the 'ouse. Come again when my wife's in."
"She is in," rejoined old Jack, "an' you've been a-landin' of 'er for payin' me what little she 'as. Come, you pay me what you owe me, and take a week's notice now. I want my house kep' respectable."
Mr. Joe Parsons had no other shift. "You be damned," he said. "Git out."
"What?" gasped old Jack—for to tell a landlord to get out of his own house!... "What?"
"Why git out? Y' ought to know better than comin' 'ere askin' for money you ain't earnt."
"Ain't earnt? What d'ye mean?"
"What I say. Y' ain't earnt it. It's you blasted lan'lords as sucks the blood o' the workers. You go an' work for your money."
Old Jack was confounded. "Why—what—how d'ye think I can pay the rates, an' everythink?"
"I don't care. You'll'aveto pay 'em, an' I wish they was 'igher. They ought to be the same as the rent, an' that 'ud do away with fellers like you. Go on: you do your damdest an' get your rent best way you can."
"But what about upstairs? You're lettin' it out an' takin' the rent there. I—"
"That's none o' your business. Git out, will ye?" They had gradually worked over the doorstep, and Randall was on the pavement. "I sha'n't pay, an' I sha'n't go, an' ye can do what ye like; so it's no good your stoppin'—unless you want to fight. Eh—do ye?" And Mr. Parsons put a foot over the threshold.
Old Jack had not fought for many years. It was low. For a landlord outside his own house it was, indeed, disgraceful. But it was quite dark now, and there was scarcely a soul in the street. Perhaps nobody would know, and this man deserved something for himself. He looked up the street again, and then, "Well, I ain't so young as I was," he said, "but I won't disappoint ye. Come on."
Mr. Joe Parsons stepped within and slammed the door.
VIII.
Old Jack went home less happy than ever. He had no notion what to do. Difficulties of private life were often discussed and argued out in the workshop, but there he had become too unpopular to ask for anything in the nature ofsympathy or advice. Not only would he lend no money, but he refused to stand treat on rent days. Also, there was a collection on behalf of men on strike at another factory, to which he gave nothing; and he had expressed the strongest disapproval of an extension of that strike, and his own intention to continue working if it happened. For what would become of all his plans and his savings if his wages ceased? Wherefore there was no other man in the shop so unpopular as old Jack, and in a workshop unpopularity is a bad thing.
He called on a professional rent-receiver and seller-up. This man knew Mr. Joe Parsons very well. He never had furniture upon which a profitable distress might be levied. But if he took lodgers, and they were quiet people, something might be got out of them—if the job were made worth while. But this was not at all what old Jack wanted.
Soon after it occurred to him to ask advice of the secretary of the building society. This was a superficial young man, an auctioneer's clerk until evening, who had no disposition to trouble himself about matters outside his duties. Still, he went so far as to assure old Jack that turning out a tenant who meant to stay was not a simple job. If you didn't mind losing the rent it might be done by watching until the house wasleft ungarrisoned, getting in, putting the furniture into the street, and keeping the tenant out. With this forlorn hope old Jack began to spend his leisure about Mulberry Street: ineffectually, for Mrs. Parsons never came out while he was there. Once he saw the man, and offered to forgive him the rent if he would leave: a proposal which Mr. Parsons received with ostentatious merriment. At this old Jack's patience gave out, and he punched his tenant on the ear. Whereat the latter, suddenly whitening in the face, said something about the police, and walked away at a good pace.
IX.
The strike extended, as it was expected and designed to do. The men at old Jack's factory were ordered out, and came, excepting only old Jack himself. He was desperate. Since he had ventured on that cursed investment everything had gone wrong: but he would not lose his savings if mere personal risk would preserve them. Moreover, a man of fifty is not readily re-employed, once out; and as the firm was quite ready to keep one hand on to oil and see that things were in order, old Jack stayed: making his comings and goings late to dodge the pickets,and approaching subtly by a railway-arch stable and a lane thereunto. It was not as yet a very great strike, and with care these things could be done. Still, he was sighted and chased twice, and he knew that, if the strike lasted, and feeling grew hotter, he would be attacked in his own house. If only he could hold on through the strike, and by hook or crook keep the outgoings paid, he would attend to Mr. Parsons afterward.
X.
One Saturday afternoon, as Mrs. Randall was buying greens and potatoes, old Jack, waiting without, strolled toward a crowd standing about a speaker. A near approach discovered the speaker to be Mr. Joe Parsons, who was saying:—
"——strike pay is little enough at the time, of course, but don't forget what it will lead to! An' strike pay does very well, my frien's, when the party knows 'ow to lay it out, an' don't go passin' it on to the lan'lord. Don't give it away. When the lan'lord comes o' Monday mornin', tell 'im (polite as you like) that there's nothink for 'im till there's more for you. Let the lan'lord earn 'is money, like me an' you. Let the lan'lords pay a bit towards this 'ere strike aswell as the other blaggards, the imployers. Lan'lords gits quite enough out o' you, my feller workers, when—"
"They don't git much out o' you!" shouted old Jack in his wrath; and then felt sorry he had spoken. For everybody looked at him, and he knew some of the faces.
"Ho!" rejoined the speaker, mincingly. "There's a gent there as seems to want to address this 'ere meetin'. P'r'aps you'll 'ave the kindness to step up 'ere, my friend, an' say wot you got to say plain." And he looked full at old Jack, pointing with his finger.
Old Jack fidgeted, wishing himself out of it. "You pay me what you owe me," he growled sulkily.
"As this 'ere individual, after intruding 'isself on this peaceful meetin', ain't got anythink to say for 'isself," pursued Mr. Joe Parsons, "I'll explain things for 'im. That'smylan'lord, that is: look at 'im! 'E comes 'angin' round my door waitin' for a chance to turn my pore wife an' children out o' 'ouse and 'ome. 'E follers me in the street an' tries to intimidate me. 'E comes 'ere, my feller workers, as a spy, an' to try an' poison your minds agin me as devotes my 'ole life to your int'rests. That's the sort o' man, that's the sort o' lan'lord'eis. But 'e's somethink more than a greedy, thievin', overfedlan'lord, my frien's, an' I'll tell you wot. 'E's a dirty, crawlin' blackleg; that's wot else 'e is. 'E's the on'y man as wouldn't come out o' Maidment's; an' 'e's workin' there now, skulkin' in an' out in the dark—a dirty rat! Now you all know very well I won't 'ave nothink to do with any violence or intimidation. It's agin my principles, although I know there's very often great temptation, an' it's impossible to identify in a crowd, an' safe to be very little evidence. But this I will say, that when a dirty low rat, not content with fattenin' on starvin' tenants, goes an' takes the bread out o' 'is feller men's mouths, like that bleedin' blackleg—blackleg!—blackleg!—"
Old Jack was down. A dozen heavy boots were at work about his head and belly. In from the edge of the crowd a woman tore her way, shedding potatoes as she ran, and screaming; threw herself upon the man on the ground; and shared the kicks. Over the shoulders of the kickers whirled the buckle-end of a belt. "One for the old cow," said a voice.
XI.
When a man is lying helpless on his back, with nothing in hand, he pays nothing off abuilding society mortgage, because, as his wife pawns the goods of the house, the resulting money goes for necessaries. To such a man the society shows no useless grace: especially when the secretary has a friend always ready to take over a forfeited house at forced sale price. So the lease of Twenty-seven vanished, and old Jack's savings with it.
And one day, some months later, old Jack, supported by the missis and a stick, took his way across the workhouse forecourt. There was a door some twenty yards from that directly before them, and two men came out of it, carrying a laden coffin of plain deal.
"Look there, Jack," the missis said, as she checked her step; "what a common caufin!" And indeed there was a distinct bulge in the bottom.
THE END.