Kitabı oku: «Sturdy and Strong: or, How George Andrews Made His Way», sayfa 2

George felt that he had better remain where he was. Bill had told him the evening before that the horses and carts generally set out again at about nine o'clock, and he thought he had better wait till they had gone before he slipped down below. Closing his eyes he was very soon off to sleep again. When he woke, Bill was sitting by his side looking at him.

"Well, you are a oner to sleep," the boy said. "Why, it's nigh ten o'clock, and it's time for us to be moving. Ned will be going off in a few minutes, and the stables will be locked up till the evening."

"Is there time to eat our bread and cheese?" George asked.

"No, we had better eat it when we get down to the market; come along."

George at once rose, shook the hay off his clothes, and descended the ladder, Bill leading the way. There was no one in the stable, and the yard was also empty. On reaching the market they sat down on two empty baskets, and at once began to eat their bread and cheese.

CHAPTER II.
TWO FRIENDS

"I did wake before, Bill," George said after he had eaten a few mouthfuls; "but you were out."

"Yes, I turned out as soon as the carts began to come in," Bill said, "and a wery good morning I have had. One old chap gave me twopence for looking arter his hoss and cart while he went into the market with his flowers. But the best move was just now. A chap as was driving off with flowers, one of them swell West-end shops, I expect, by the look of the trap, let his rug fall. He didn't see it till I ran after him with it, then he gave me a tanner; that was something like. Have yer finished yer bread and cheese?"

"Yes," George said, "and I could manage a drink of water if I could get one."

"There's a fountain handy," Bill said; "but you come along with me, I am agoing to stand two cups of coffee if yer aint too proud to take it;" and he looked doubtfully at his companion.

"I am not at all too proud," George said, for he saw that the slightest hesitation would hurt his companion's feelings.

"It aint fust-rate coffee," Bill said, as with a brightened look on his face he turned and led the way to a little coffee-stall; "but it's hot and sweet, and yer can't expect more nor that for a penny."

George found the coffee really better than he had expected, and Bill was evidently very much gratified at his expression of approval.

"Now," he said, when they had both finished, "for a draw of 'baccy," and he produced a short clay pipe. "Don't yer smoke?"

"No, I haven't begun yet."

"Ah! ye don't know what a comfort a pipe is," Bill said. "Why, when yer are cold and hungry and down on your luck a pipe is a wonderful thing, and so cheap; why, a ounce of 'baccy will fill yer thirty pipes if yer don't squeeze it in too hard. Well, an ounce of 'baccy costs threepence halfpenny, so, as I makes out, yer gets eight pipes for a penny; and now," he went on when he had filled and lit his pipe, "let's know what's yer game."

"You mean what am I going to do?" George asked.

Bill nodded.

"I want to get employment in some sort of works. I have been an errand-boy in a grocer's for more than a year, and I have got a written character from my master in my pocket; but I don't like the sort of thing; I would rather work with my own hands. There are plenty of works where they employ boys, and you know one might get on as one gets older. The first thing is to find out whereabouts works of that sort are."

"There are lots of works at the East End, I have heard tell," Bill said; "and then there's Clerkenwell and King's Cross, they aint so far off, and there are works there, all sorts of works, I should say; but I don't know nuffin' about that sort of work. The only work as I have done is holding hosses and carrying plants into the market, and sometimes when I have done pretty well I goes down and lays out what I got in Echoes, or Globes, or Evening Standards; that pays yer, that does, for if yer can sell them all yer will get a bob for eight penn'orth of papers, that gives yer fourpence for an hour's work, and I calls that blooming good, and can't yer get a tuck-out for a bob! Oh, no, I should think not! Well, what shall it be? I knows the way out to Whitechapel and to Clerkenwell, so whichever yer likes I can show yer."

"If Clerkenwell's the nearest we may as well try that first," George said, "and I shall be much obliged to you for showing the way."

The two boys spent the whole day in going from workshop to workshop for employment; but the answers to his application were unvarying: either he was too young or there was no place vacant. George took the disappointment quietly, for he had made up his mind that he would have difficulty in getting a place; but Bill became quite angry on behalf of his companion.

"This is worse nor the market," he said. "A chap can pick up a few coppers there, and here we have been a-tramping about all day and aint done nothing."

Day after day George set out on his quest, but all was without success. He and Bill still slept in the loft, and after the first day he took to getting up at the same time as his companion, and going out with him to try and pick up a few pence from the men with the market-carts. Every other morning they were able to lie later, as there were only regular marketdays three mornings a week.

On market mornings he found that he earned more than Bill, his better clothes giving him an advantage, as the men were more willing to trust their carts and rugs to the care of a quiet, respectable-looking boy than to that of the arabs who frequented the Garden. But all that was earned was laid out in common between the two boys, and George found himself seldom obliged to draw above a few pence on his private stock. He had by this time told the Shadow exactly how much money he had, and the boy, seeing the difficulty that George found in getting work, was most averse to the store being trenched upon, and always gave his vote against the smallest addition to their ordinary fare of bread and cheese being purchased, except from their earnings of the day. This George felt was the more creditable on Bill's part, inasmuch as the latter had, in deference to his prejudices, abstained from the petty thefts of fruit with which before he had seasoned his dry crusts.

George had learned now what Bill knew of his history, which was little enough. He supposed he had had a father, but he knew nothing of him; whether he had died, or whether he had cut away and left mother, Bill had no idea. His mother he remembered well, though she had died when he was, as he said, a little chap. He spoke of her always in a hushed voice, and in a tone of reverence, as a superior being.

"We was poor, you know," he said to George, "and I know mother was often short of grub, but she was just kind. I don't never remember her whacking me; always spoke soft and low like; she was good, she was. She used to pray, you know, and what I remember most is as the night afore she was took away to a hospital she says, 'Try and live honest, Bill; it will be hard, but try, my boy. Don't you take to stealing, however poor you may be;' and I aint," Bill said earnestly over and over again. "When I has seed any chap going along with a ticker handy, which I could have boned and got away among the carts as safe as ninepence, or when I has seed a woman with her purse a-sticking out of them outside pockets, and I aint had a penny to bless myself with, and perhaps nothing to eat all day, I have felt it hard not to make a grab; but I just thought of what she said, and I aint done it. As I told yer, I have often nabbed things off the stalls or out of the baskets or carts. It didn't seem to me as that was stealing, but as you says it is, I aint going to do so no more. Now look yer here, George; they tells me as the parsons says as when people die and they are good they goes up there, yer know."

George nodded, for there was a question in his companion's tone.

"Then, of course," Bill went on, "she is up there. Now it aint likely as ever I should see her again, 'cause, you know, there aint nothing good about me; but if she was to come my way, wherever I might be, and was to say to me, 'Bill, have you been a-stealing?' do yer think she would feel very bad about them 'ere apples and things?"

"No, Bill, I am sure she would not. You see you didn't quite know that was stealing, and you kept from stealing the things that you thought she spoke of, and now that you see it is wrong taking even little things you are not going to take them any more."

"That I won't, so help me bob!" the boy said; "not if I never gets another apple between my teeth."

"That's right, Bill. You see you ought to do it, not only to please your mother, but to please God. That's what my mother has told me over and over again."

"Has she now?" Bill said with great interest, "and did you use to prig apples and sichlike sometimes?"

"No," George said, "not that sort of thing; but she was talking of things in general. Of doing things that were wrong, such as telling lies and deceiving, and that sort of thing."

"And your mother thinks as God knows all about it?"

George nodded.

"And that he don't like it, eh, when things is done bad?"

George nodded again.

"Lor', what a time he must have of it!" Bill said in solemn wonder. "Why, I heard a woman say last week as six children was enough to worrit anyone into the grave; and just to think of all of us!" and Bill waved his arm in a comprehensive way and repeated, "What a time he must have of it!"

For a time the boys sat silent in their loft, Bill wondering over the problem that had presented itself to him, and George trying to find some appropriate explanation in reply to the difficulty Bill had started. At last he said:

"I am afraid, Bill, that I can't explain all this to you, for I am not accustomed to talk about such things. My mother talks to me sometimes, and of course I went to church regularly; but that's different from my talking about it; but you know what we have got to do is to try and please God, and love him because he loves us."

"That's whear it is," Bill said; "that's what I've heard fellows say beats 'em. If he loves a chap like me how is it he don't do something for him? why don't he get you a place, for instance? You aint been a-prigging apples or a-putting him out. That's what I wants to know."

"Yes, Bill, but as I have heard my mother say, it would be very hard to understand if this world were the only one; but you see we are only here a little time, and after that there's on and on and on, right up without any end, and what does it matter if we are poor or unhappy in this little time if we are going to be ever so happy afterwards? This is only a sort of little trial to see how we behave, as it were, and if we do the best we can, even though that best is very little, then you see we get a tremendous reward. For instance, you would not think a man was unkind who kept you five minutes holding his horse on a cold day, if he were going to give you enough to get you clothes and good lodging for the rest of your life."

"No, I should think not," Bill said fervently; "so it's like that, is it?"

George nodded. "Like that, only more."

"My eye!" Bill murmured to himself, lost in astonishment at this new view of things.

After that there were few evenings when, before they nestled themselves down in the hay, the boys did not talk on this subject. At first George felt awkward and nervous in speaking of it, for like the generality of English boys, however earnest their convictions may be, he was shy of speaking what he felt; but his companion's eagerness to know more of this, to him, new story encouraged him to speak, and having in his bundle a small Bible which his mother had given him, he took to reading to Bill a chapter or two in the mornings when they had not to go out to the early market.

It is true that Bill's questions frequently puzzled him. The boy saw things in a light so wholly different from that in which he himself had been accustomed to regard them that he found a great difficulty in replying to them.

George wrote a letter to his mother, telling her exactly what he was doing, for he knew that if he only said that he had not yet succeeded in getting work she would be very anxious about him, and although he had nothing satisfactory to tell her, at least he could tell her that he had sufficient to eat and as much comfort as he cared for. Twice he received replies from her, directed to him at a little coffee-house, which, when they had had luck, the boys occasionally patronized. As time went on without his succeeding in obtaining employment George's hopes fell, and at last he said to his mate; "I will try for another fortnight, Bill, and if at the end of that time I don't get anything to do I shall go back to Croydon again."

"But yer can earn yer living here!" Bill remonstrated.

"I can earn enough to prevent me from starving, but that is all, Bill. I came up to London in hopes of getting something to do by which I might some day make my way up; if I were to stop here like this I should be going down, and a nice sight I should be to mother if, when she gets well enough to come out of the infirmary, I were to go back all in rags."

"What sort of a place is Croydon?" Bill asked. "Is there any chance of picking up a living there? 'cause I tells yer fair, if yer goes off I goes with yer. I aint a-thinking of living with yer, George; but we might see each other sometime, mightn't we? Yer wouldn't mind that?"

"Mind it! certainly not, Bill! You have been a good friend to me, and I should be sorry to think of you all alone here."

"Oh, blow being a good friend to yer!" Bill replied. "I aint done nothing except put yer in the way of getting a sleeping-place, and as it's given me one too I have had the best of that job. It's been good of yer to take up with a chap like me as don't know how to read or write or nothing, and as aint no good anyway. But you will let me go with yer to Croydon, won't yer?"

"Certainly I will, Bill; but you won't be able to see much of me. I shall have to get a place like the last. The man I was with said he would take me back again if I wanted to come, and you know I am all day in the shop or going out with parcels, and of course you would have to be busy too at something."

"What sort of thing do yer think, George? I can hold a hoss, but that aint much for a living. One may go for days without getting a chance."

"I should say, Bill, that your best chance would be to try and get work either in a brickfield or with a market-gardener. At any rate we should be able to get a talk for half an hour in the evening. I was always done at nine o'clock, and if we were both in work we could take a room together."

Bill shook his head.

"That would be wery nice, but I couldn't have it, George. I knows as I aint fit company for yer, and if yer was with a shop-keeping bloke he would think yer was going to run off with the money if he knew yer kept company with a chap like me. No, the 'greement must be as yer goes yer ways and I goes mine; but I hopes as yer will find suffin to do up here, not 'cause as I wouldn't like to go down to this place of yourn, but because yer have set yer heart on getting work here."

A week later the two boys were out late in Covent Garden trying to earn a few pence by fetching up cabs and carriages for people coming out from a concert in the floral hall. George had just succeeded in earning threepence, and had returned to the entrance to the hall, and was watching the people come out, and trying to get another job. Presently a gentleman, with a girl of some nine or ten years old, came out and took their place on the footpath.

"Can I call you a carriage, sir?" George asked.

"No, thank you, lad, a man has gone for it."

George fell back and stood watching the girl, who was in a white dress, with a little hood trimmed with swansdown over her head.

Presently his eye fell on something on which the light glittered as it hung from her neck. Just as he was looking a hand reached over her shoulder, there was a jerk, and a sudden cry from the child, then a boy dived into the crowd, and at the same moment George dashed after him. There was a cry of "Stop, thief!" and several hands made a grab at George as he dived through the crowd; but he slipped through them and was soon in the roadway.

Some twenty yards ahead of him he saw the boy running. He turned up Bow Street and then dashed down an alley. He did not know that he was followed until suddenly George sprang upon his back, and the two fell with a crash, the young thief undermost. George seized his right hand, and kneeling upon him, twisted it behind his back and forced him to open his fingers, the boy, taken by surprise, and not knowing who was his assailant, making but slight resistance.

George seized the gold locket and dashed back at full speed into the market, and was soon in the thick of the crowd round the entrance. The gentleman was standing talking to a policeman, who was taking a note of the description of the lost trinket. The girl was standing by crying.

"Here is your locket," George said, putting it into her hand. "I saw the boy take it, and have got it from him."

"Oh, papa! papa!" the girl cried. "Here is my locket again."

"Why, where did you get it from?" her father asked in astonishment.

"This boy has just given it to me," she replied. "He says he took it from the boy who stole it."

"Which boy, Nellie? Which is the boy who brought it back?"

The girl looked round, but George was gone.

"Why didn't you stop him, my dear?" her father said. "Of course I should wish to thank and reward him, for the locket was a very valuable one, and the more so to us from its having belonged to your mother. Did you notice the boy, policeman?"

"No, sir, I did not see him at all."

"Was he a poor boy, Nellie?"

"Not a very, very poor boy, father," the girl replied. "At least I don't think so; but I only looked at his face. He didn't speak like a poor boy at all."

"Would you know him again?"

"Oh, yes, I am sure I should. He was a good-looking boy with a nice face."

"Well, I am very sorry he has gone away, my dear. Evidently he does not want a reward, but at any rate I should have liked to thank him. Are you always on this beat, policeman?"

"I am on night duty, sir, while the concerts are on."

"At any rate, I dare say you know the constables who are about here in the daytime. I wish you would mention the fact to them, and ask them if they get any clew to the boy who has rendered me this service, to let me know. Here is a card with my name and address."

After restoring the locket George made his way to the entrance to the stables, where he generally met Bill after the theater had closed and there was no farther chance of earning money. It was not till half an hour later that the boy came running up.

"I have got eightpence," he said. "That is something like luck. I got three jobs. One stood me fourpence, the other two gave me tuppence each. What do yer say? Shall we have a cup of coffee afore we turns in?"

"I think we had better not, Bill. I have got sixpence. We will put that by, with the sixpence we saved the other day, for the hostler. We haven't given him anything for some time. Your eightpence will get us a good breakfast in the morning."

When they had comfortably nestled themselves in the hay George told his companion how he had rescued and restored the locket.

"And he didn't give yer nuffin! I never heerd tell of such a scaly trick as that. I should ha' said it ought to have been good for a bob anyway."

"I did not wait to see, Bill. Directly I had given the little girl her locket I bolted."

"Well, that were soft. Why couldn't yer have waited to have seen what the bloke meant to give yer?"

"I did not want to be paid for such a thing as that," George replied. "I don't mind being paid when I have done a job for anyone; but this was different altogether."

Bill meditated for a minute or two.

"I can't see no difference, nohow," he said at last. "Yer did him a good turn, and got the thing back. I dare say it were worth five bob."

"A good deal more than that, Bill."

"More nor that! Well, then, he ought to have come down handsome. Didn't yer run like winking, and didn't yer jump on the chap's back and knock him down, and didn't yer run back again? And warn't there a chance, ef one of the bobbies had got hold of yer collar and found it in yer hand, of yer being had up for stealing it? And then yer walks off and don't give him a chance of giving yer nuffin. My eye, but yer are a flat!"

"I don't suppose you will quite understand, Bill. But when people do a thing to oblige somebody, and not as a piece of regular work, they don't expect to be paid. I shouldn't have liked it if they had offered me money for such a thing."

"Well, ef yer says so, no doubt it's right," Bill rejoined; "but it seems a rum sort of notion to me. When people loses things they expects to pay to get 'em back. Why, don't yer see outside the p'lice station, and in the shop winders, papers offering so much for giving back things as is lost. I can't read 'em myself, yer know; but chaps have read 'em to me. Why, I've heerd of as much as five quid being offered for watches and sichlike as was lost by ladies coming out of theayters, and I have often thought what a turn of luck it would be to light on one of 'em. And now yer says as I oughtn't to take the money ef I found it."

"No, I don't say that, Bill. If you found a thing and saw a reward offered, and you wanted the money, you would have good right to take it. But, you see, in this case I saw how sorry the girl was at losing her locket, and I went after it to please her, and I was quite content that I got it back for her."

Bill tried again to think the matter over in his mind, but he was getting warm and sleepy, and in a few minutes was sound off.

Two or three days later the lads had, to their great satisfaction, obtained a job. Walnuts were just coming in, and the boys were engaged to take off the green shucks. Bill was particularly pleased, for he had never before been taken on for such a job, and he considered it a sort of promotion. Five or six women were also employed, and as the group were standing round some great baskets Bill suddenly nudged his friend:

"I say, my eye, aint that little gal pretty?"

George looked up from his work and at once recognized the girl to whom he had restored the locket. Her eye fell on him at the same moment.

"There, papa!" she exclaimed. "I told you if you brought me down to the market I felt sure I should know the boy again if I saw him. That's him, the one looking down into the basket. But he knew me again, for I saw him look surprised when he noticed me."

The gentleman made his way through the women to George.

"My lad, are you the boy who restored the locket to my daughter three evenings ago?"

"Yes, sir," George said, coloring as he looked up. "I was standing close by when the boy took it, so I gave chase and brought it back, and that's all."

"You were off again in such a hurry that we hadn't time to thank you. Just come across to my daughter. I suppose you can leave your work for a minute?"

"Yes, sir. We are working by the job," George said, and looking rather shamefaced he followed the gentleman to the sidewalk.

"This is your boy, as you call him, Nellie."

"I was sure I should know him again," the child said, "though I only saw him for a moment. We are very much obliged to you, boy, papa and me, because it had been mamma's locket, and we should have been very sorry to have lost it."

"I am glad I was able to get it back for you," George said; "but I don't want to be thanked for doing it; and I don't want to be paid either, thank you, sir," he said, flushing as the gentleman put his hand into his pocket.

"No! and why not?" the gentleman said in surprise. "You have done me a great service, and there is no reason why I should not pay you for it. If I had lost it I would gladly have paid a reward to get it back."

"Thank you, sir," George said quietly; "but all the same I would rather not be paid for a little thing like that."

"You are a strange fellow," the gentleman said again. "One does not expect to find a boy in the market here refusing money when he has earned it."

"I should not refuse it if I had earned it," George said; "but I don't call getting back a locket for a young lady who has lost it earning money."

"How do you live, lad? You don't speak like a boy who has been brought up in the market here."

"I have only been here three months," George said. "I came up to London to look for work, but could not get any. Most days I go about looking for it, and do what odd jobs I can get when there's a chance."

"What sort of work do you want? Have you been accustomed to any work? Perhaps I could help you."

"I have been a year as an errand-boy," George answered; "but I didn't like it, and I thought I would rather get some sort of work that I could work at when I got to be a man instead of sticking in a shop."

"Did you run away from home, then?" the gentleman asked.

"No, sir. My mother was ill and went into an infirmary, and so as I was alone I thought I would come to London and try to get the sort of work I liked; but I have tried almost all over London."

"And are you all alone here?"

"No, sir, not quite alone. I found a friend in that boy there, and we have worked together since I came up."

"Well, lad, if you really want work I can give it you."

"Oh, thank you, sir!" George exclaimed fervently.

"And your friend too, if he likes. I have some works down at Limehouse and employ a good many boys. Here is the address;" and he took a card from his pocket, wrote a few words on the back of it, and handed it to George.

"Ask for the foreman, and give him that, and he will arrange for you to begin work on Monday. Come along, Nellie; we have got to buy the fruit for to-morrow, you know."

So saying he took his daughter's hand, and George, wild with delight, ran off to tell Bill that he had obtained work for them both.

"Well, Nellie, are you satisfied?"

"Yes, I am glad you could give him work, papa; didn't he look pleased? Wasn't it funny his saying he wouldn't have any money?"

"Yes; I hardly expected to have met with a refusal in Covent Garden; but you were right, child, and you are a better judge of character than I gave you credit for. You said he was a nice-looking lad, and spoke like a gentleman, and he does. He is really a very good style of boy. Of course he is shabby and dirty now, and you see he has been an errand-boy at a grocer's; but he must have been better brought up than the generality of such lads. The one he called his friend looked a wild sort of specimen, altogether a different sort of boy. I should say he was one of the regular arabs hanging about this place. If so, I expect a very few days' work will sicken him; but I shouldn't be surprised if your boy, as you call him, sticks to it."

The next morning the two boys presented themselves at Mr. Penrose's works at Limehouse. These were sawing and planing works, and the sound of many wheels, and the hoarse rasping sound of saws innumerable, came out through the open windows of the building as they entered the yard.

"Now what do you boys want?" a workman said as he appeared at one of the doors.

"We want to see the foreman," George said. "I have a card for him from Mr. Penrose."

"I will let him know," the man replied.

Two minutes later the foreman came out, and George handed him the card. He read what Mr. Penrose had written upon it and said:

"Very well, you can come in on Monday; pay, eight shillings a week; seven o'clock; there, that will do. Oh, what are your names?" taking out a pocket-book. "George Andrews and William Smith;" and then, with a nod, he went back into his room, while the boys, almost bewildered at the rapidity with which the business had been arranged, went out into the street again.

"There we are, Bill, employed," George said in delight.

"Yes, there we is," Bill agreed, but in a more doubtful tone; "it's a rum start, aint it? I don't expect I shall make much hand of it, but I am wery glad for you, George."

"Why shouldn't you make much hand of it? You are as strong as I am."

"Yes; but then, you see, I aint been accustomed to work regular, and I expect I shan't like it – not at first; but I am going to try. George, don't yer think as I aint agoing to try. I aint that sort; still I expects I shall get the sack afore long."

"Nonsense, Bill! you will like it when you once get accustomed to it, and it's a thousand times better having to draw your pay regularly at the end of the week than to get up in the morning not knowing whether you are going to have breakfast or not. Won't mother be pleased when I write and tell her I have got a place! Last time she wrote she said that she was a great deal better, and the doctor thought she would be out in the spring, and then I hope she will be coming up here, and that will be jolly."

"Yes, that's just it," Bill said; "that's whear it is; you and I will get on fust-rate, but it aint likely as your mother would put up with a chap like me."

"My mother knows that you have been a good friend to me, Bill, and that will be quite enough for her. You wait till you see her."

"My eye, what a lot of little houses there is about here!" Bill said, "just all the same pattern; and how wide the streets is to what they is up Drury Lane!"

"Yes, we ought to have no difficulty in getting a room here, Bill, now that we shall have money to pay for it; only think, we shall have sixteen shillings a week between us!"

"It's a lot of money," Bill said vaguely. "Sixteen bob! My eye, there aint no saying what it will buy! I wish I looked a little bit more respectable," he said, with a new feeling as to the deficiencies of his attire. "It didn't matter in the Garden; but to go to work with a lot of other chaps, these togs aint what you may call spicy."

"They certainly are not, Bill," George said with a laugh. "We must see what we can manage."

George's own clothes were worn and old, but they looked respectable indeed by the side of those of his companion. Bill's elbows were both out, the jacket was torn and ragged, he had no waistcoat, and his trousers were far too large for him, and were kept up by a single brace, and were patched in a dozen places.