the boy’s sense of injury gave way, and became, indeed, utterly routed the next morning by a feeling of importance. mrs. rastin bustled in and prepared a breakfast that filled the room with a most entrancing scent of frying fish; to show her sympathy she sat down with him to the meal, and ate with excellent appetite, beguiling the time with cheery accounts of sudden deaths and murders and suicides that she, in the past, had had the rare good fortune to encounter. mrs. rastin took charge of the keys belonging to the chest of drawers, remarking that so far as regarded any little thing that bobbie’s poor dear mother might have left, she would see that right was done just the same as though it were her own. holidays being on at the board school which bobbie intermittently attended, mrs. rastin said how would it be if he were to take a turn in hoxton street for a few hours whilst she turned to and tidied up?
“jest as you like,” said bobbie agreeably.
“don’t you go and get into no mischief, mind,” counselled mr. rastin.
“trust me,” said the boy.
“keep away from that shoreditch set, and take good care of yourself. you’re all alone in the world now,” said mrs. rastin, pouring the last drop from the teapot into her cup, “and you’ll ’ave to look out. you ’ain’t got no mother to ’elp you.”
“by-the-bye,” said bobbie, “who’s going to cash up for putting the old woman away?”
“me and a few neighbours are going to see to it,” remarked the lady with reserve. “don’t you bother your ’ead about that. run off and—just a minute, i’ll sew this black band round the sleeve of your coat.”
“whaffor?” asked the boy.
“why, bless my soul!” exclaimed mrs. rastin. “as a sign that you’re sorry, of course.’
“that’s the idea, is it?”
“some one’ll ’ave to buy you a collar, too, for tuesday.”
“me in a collar?” he said gratified. “my word, i shall be a reg’lar toff, if i ain’t careful.”
“what size—i think that’ll hold—what size do you take, i wonder?”
“lord knows,” said the boy. “i don’t. i’ve never wore one yet.”
if in hoxton that day a more conceited boy than robert lancaster had been in request, the discovery would have been difficult. he strolled up p. 13and down hoxton street, where the second-hand furniture dealers place bedsteads brazenly in the roadway, and when shop people, standing at their doors, glanced at the crape band on his sleeve he stood still for a while in order that they might have a good view.
a good-natured jewess in charge of a fruit stall called to him and inquired the nature of his loss, and on bobbie supplying the facts (adding to the interest by various details suggested by his imagination) the jewess gave an enormous sigh and, as token of sympathy, presented him with two doubtful pears and a broken stick of chocolate. bobbie went up towards new north road inventing further details of a gruesome nature, in the hope of finding other shopkeepers similarly curious and appreciative, but no one else called to him, and at a confectioner’s shop, where he waited for a long time, a girl with her hair screwed by violent twists of paper came out and said that if he did not leave off breathing on their window she would wring his neck for him; upon bobbie giving her a brief criticism in regard to the arrangement of her features, she repeated her threat with increased emphasis, and as there was obviously nothing to be gained by further debate, he strolled off with dignity through fanshaw street, arriving presently at drysdale street. the boys here were boys with an intolerably good opinion of themselves, because they lived in a street over which the railway passed; this made them hold themselves aloof from the other youths of hoxton, and go through life with the austerity of men who knew the last word about engines. it seemed to bobbie lancaster that a chance had now arisen to humiliate drysdale street and to lower its pride.
“cheer!” he said casually.
“cheer!” said the two boys. they were marking out squares on the pavement for a game of hop-scotch. “got any more chalk in your pocket, nose?”
the boy called nose searched, and shook his head negatively. “daresay i can oblige you,” remarked bobbie.
“look ’ere,” said the first boy with heated courtesy, “did anyone ast you come ’ere standin’ on our pavement?”
“no,” acknowledged bobbie.
“very well, then! you trot off ’fore you get ’urt.
“who you going to get to ’urt me?” asked bobbie.
“going to get no one,” said the first boy aggressively. “going to do it meself.”
“i should advise you to go into training a bit first,” said bobbie kindly. “them arms and wrists of yours i should sell for matches; your boots you might get rid of as sailin’ vessels.”
“’old my jacket, nose,” said the boy furiously. “i’ll knock the stuffin’ out of him ’fore i’m many minutes older.”
“with a shirt like yourn,” said bobbie, edging back a little, “i should keep me jacket on. you’ll frighten all the birds.”
“you’d better be off,” said nose, feeling it safe now to offer a remark. “come down ’ere temorrer, and we’ll spoil your face for you.”
“take a bit o’ doin’ to spoil yourn,” shouted bobbie.
“come down temorrer,” repeated nose defiantly, “and i’ll give you what for.”
“make it the next day,” called bobbie. “i shall be at the cimetry temorrer.”
p. 14“cimetry?” said the two boys with a change of voice.
“cimetry!” repeated master lancaster with pride.
“who is it?”
“mother,” said bobbie.
“come ’ere,” said the first boy putting on his jacket. “tell us all about it.”
“fen punchin’,” requested bobbie cautiously.
“fen punchin’,” agreed the two drysdale street boys.
such was the respect bobbie exacted from the two boys during the truce and after his recital, that they not only allowed him to lose a game of hop-scotch with them, but at his urgent request they took him to the railway arch, and permitted him to climb to a place where, when a train presently went shrieking overhead, a thunderous noise came to his ears that deafened him. the thin boy’s name was george libbis; the other boy’s name it appeared was not really nose but niedermann; called nose for brevity, and because that feature was unusually prominent. with master libbis, bobbie presently found himself on good terms; with nose he had, before saying good-bye, a brief tussle over the possession of a piece of string, and went off with a truculent remark concerning german jews.
he felt so much advanced in society by reason of this entrance into drysdale street circles that he declined games with boys of pimlico walk, and affected not to see trixie bell dancing a neighbour’s baby that was not quite so large as herself, but more muscular. trixie called after him peremptorily, but he went by with his head well up and eyes alert for signs of interest. in charles square his reserve was broken by sudden encounter with ted sullivan. master sullivan, in possession of a toy pistol with small paper caps that snapped quite loudly, told bobbie in confidence that he had half made up his mind to get a mask and go out somewhere and stop the mail coach, shoot the driver, and take all the gold and bank-notes that it carried. upon bobbie inquiring where he proposed to find this mail coach, shoot the driver, and take the bullion, master sullivan declared that there were plenty about if you only knew where to find them, and in confirmation exhibited the coloured paper cover of a well thumbed book, called “dashing dick dare-devil, or the highwayman and the faithful indian girl,” confronted with which evidence bobbie lancaster relinquished his argument and acknowledged that ted sullivan had reason. because these adventures are not to be entered upon without rehearsal and taking thought, the two had a brief game round the tipsy railings of the old square; bobbie starting from the county court was a restive steed conveying a stage coach which bore untold gold, and just as he galloped round by the untidy public-house at the north-west corner, who should rush out upon him but master sullivan with black dirt upon his face so that he should not be recognized, and presenting the toy pistol with a stern warning.
“stir but a single step and i fire.”
upon which, the restive steed tried to gallop over the highwayman and to gallop round him, and eventually to turn and gallop back; the highwayman was just on the point of snapping his last cap and rendering the noble horse senseless when, most inopportunely, the highwayman’s mother appeared at the corner.
“teddy sullivin! come here, ye mis’rable little hound, and let me knock the head off of ye, ye onholy son of a good parint that ye are.”
p. 15this interruption left the struggle at a highly interesting point, but master sullivan before leaving said that he proposed to get a proper revolver, some day, and then there would be larks of the rarest and most exciting kind. meanwhile, added master sullivan as he went off, the watchword was “death to injuns!”
bobbie, after a highly enjoyable morning, went home, where, thanks to mrs. rastin, the house reeked with a perfectly entrancing odour of frying steak and onions. to this meal mrs. rastin invited a lady from downstairs, called the duchess, who wore several cheap rings and spoke with a tone of acquired refinement that had always impressed bobbie very much. he remembered, though, that his mother had warned him never to speak to this lady from downstairs, and when that vivacious lady addressed him at his meal, he refused at first to answer her, thus forcing the conversation to be shared exclusively by the two ladies. they talked of rare tavern nights, the lady from downstairs shaking her head reminiscently as she re-called diverting incidents of the past, declaring that the world was no longer what it had been.
“why, there’s no cremorne, now,” argued the duchess affectedly.
“true, true!” agreed mrs. rastin.
“argyll rooms, and the rest of it, all swept away,” complained the duchess.
“it’s sickenin’,” said mrs. rastin. “i s’pose they was rare times if the truth was known.”
“you’d never believe?”
“onfortunately,” said mrs. rastin humbly, “i was country-bred meself. i wasted all the best years of my life in service down in essex.”
“why, in my day,” remarked the duchess, smoothing the torn lace at her sleeves, “in my day i’ve sat at the same table with people that you couldn’t tell from gentlefolk, thinking no more of champagne than we do of water.”
“goodness.”
“nobody never thought of walking,” declared the duchess ecstatically. “it was cabs here, cabs there, cabs everywhere.”
“that’s the way,” said the interested mrs. rastin.
“talk about sparkling conversation,” said the duchess with enthusiasm. “they can’t talk like it now, that’s a very sure thing.”
“i don’t know what’s come over london,” remarked mrs. rastin despairingly. “it’s more like a bloomin’ church than anything else. i s’pose you was a fine-looking young woman in those days, ma’am.”
“i don’t suppose,” said the duchess, “there was ever a finer.”
the night of that day became so extended by reason of a generous supply of drink, that bobbie went to bed in the corner of the room and left the two women still reviewing the days and nights that were. he understood their conversation imperfectly (although god knows there was little in the way of worldly knowledge hidden from him), but he decided that the duchess was worthy of some respect as one who had moved in society, and when she stumbled over to him and kissed him, crooning a comic song as lullaby, he felt gratified. he remembered that his mother had kissed him once. it was when he was quite a child; at about the time that his father died. for the first time he found himself thinking of her, and his mouth twitched, but he bent his mind determinedly to the ride that p. 16he was to enjoy in the morning, and having persuaded himself that everything had happened for the best, went presently to sleep, content.
the journey the next morning proved indeed to be all that imagination had suggested, with a high wind added, with the manners of a hurricane. there was a new peaked cap for him to wear; the white collar was fixed with difficulty, being by accident some two sizes too large and bulging accordingly. mrs. rastin, swollen eyed partly with tears, assisted him to dress; herself costumed in black garments borrowed from opulent neighbours in the walk.
a man appeared whom bobbie recognized as the boy nose’s father, and he, glancing round the room, said depreciatingly that there was nothing there worth carting away, but mrs. rastin told him to look at the chest of drawers; to look at the bedstead; to look at the mirror. mr. niedermann, still contemptuous, said that if he gave fifteen bob for the lot he should look down on himself for being an adjective idiot; mrs. rastin reasoned strongly against this attitude, saying that she was quite sure that two pounds five would not hurt him. mr. niedermann intimated, with much emphasis, that, on the contrary, two pound five would do him very grievous injury, apart from the fact that, by offering that sum, he would be making himself the laughing-stock of all hoxton.
a neighbour here looked in to announce that the carriage was waiting, and after a sharp argument, conducted with great asperity on both sides, mrs. rastin climbed down from two pounds five to one pound two-and-six, and mr. niedermann, with a generous flow of language that was in an inverse ratio to his manner of disbursing money, climbed up to that amount, and mr. niedermann’s men came in and took everything away, leaving the room empty and bare. mr. niedermann paid over the amount, assuring mrs. rastin and bobbie that a few jobs of similar character would bankrupt him, and departed, mrs. rastin acutely placing a small bag containing money under a loose plank of the flooring where, as she said to the duchess, it would be, if anything, safer than in the bank of england. the work completed, mrs. rastin showed them out and locked the door, placing the key under the mat. in hoxton street the carriage waited; the gloomy horses, standing with feet extended to avoid being blown away, turned round as the two came up through admiring rows of people as who should say, “oh, you have come at last, then.” the scarlet-faced driver and his colleague were rubbing marks of mud off the black carriage; trixie bell was there, and slipped a clammy piece of sweetstuff into bobbie’s hand as he was about to be lifted into the coach, which piece of sweetstuff he instantly threw away, to the regret of trixie bell and the joy of an infant at whose feet it was thrown, and who apparently thought the age of miracles had come again. the wind took off bobbie’s new cap, carrying it sportively into a puddle. fifty people ran to recover it, and the cap came back with enough of the puddle to give it age. mrs. rastin occupied the journey, as the two gloomy horses trotted to the mortuary, with wise precepts, to the effect that boys who couldn’t keep their new caps on, never by any dexterity or luck or artfulness went to heaven. bobbie did not mind this; he was too much interested in looking out of the window of the carriage. it seemed to him that it was like belonging to the royal family.
“’ere we are, at the gates,” said mrs. rastin, finding her handkerchief. “now mind you cry and behave yourself properly like a good boy, or p. 17else, when i get you ’ome, i’ll give you the best shakin’ you ever had in all your born days.”
“don’t upset yourself,” said the boy.
“i’ll upset you, me lord,” retorted mrs. rastin. “you’ll have to be knocked into shape a bit before you’ll be good for anything; ’itherto you’ve been allowed to do too much jest as you bloomin’ well pleased.”
“now who’s behavin’?” asked bobbie satirically. the carriage went slowly through the opened iron gates and up the broad gravelled walk. “nice language to use in a churchyard, i don’t think.”
“it’s your fault,” said mrs. rastin.
“it’s you that’ll get punished for it,” said the boy, “anyway.”
“another word,” declared mrs. rastin strenuously, “and you don’t get out of the kerrige.”
“try it on,” said bobbie, “if you dare.”
as they had to wait some few minutes outside the chapel the purple-faced driver came round to the window and, holding his ruffled silk hat on, engaged mrs. rastin in conversation, mentioning casually that he knew a place where presently as good a glass of beer could be obtained as the heart desired. mrs. rastin, promising to remember this, mentioned that for the price, she thought it—meaning the coach and horses—by no means a bad turn-out. the purple-faced coachman took this compliment placidly, remarking that it was cutting it pretty adjective fine to do the thing for two pun two, and if it were his show he should decline to put the harness on the horses under two pun twelve. if people liked to go and die, said the coachman firmly, let them pay for it. on mrs. rastin remarking that she supposed it was what we must all come to, the coachman replied that mrs. rastin would be perfectly safe in laying all the money she had got on that.
“now they’re ready for us,” said the coachman. and whistled to his colleague.
bobbie, following the draped case, which was borne on the shoulders of the two men, felt full of regret that he had no audience; mrs. rastin, blown about distractedly by the tempestuous wind, appeared too much occupied to cry. the young curate, in his white surplice, wore a skull cap and looked resentfully at the elements as he spoke the opening words. the liturgy came to bobbie’s ears in detachments when the wind rested for a moment.
“i am the resurrection and the life, saith the lord, he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet. . . .”
“lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days. . . .”
“oh spare me a little that i may recover my strength before i go hence and be no more seen. . . .”
the small procession moved to a shallow opening in the clay earth. the driver and his stolid companion let the long draped case down to the side of this opening, the driver complaining in an undertone of the other’s clumsiness; as lief have a plank of wood to help him, growled the driver. the straps were placed round the long case; the boy watching had difficulty in preventing himself from offering a word of advice.
“man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live. . . .”
“suffer us not in our last hour from any pains of death to fall from thee. . . .”
the stolid man picked up a lump of dry clay and crumbled it.
p. 18“forasmuch as it hath pleased almighty god of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear sister here departed. . . .”
presently a prayer that bobbie knew. he muttered it by rote and without the least desire to consider the meaning of the words. “our fa’r, chart in ’eaven, ’allowed be—” the curate closed the book and controlled his white surplice from the vagaries of the gusty irreverent wind.
“the grace of our lord jesus christ, and the love of god, and the fellowship of the holy ghost, be with us all evermore. amen.”
“this the poor creature’s son?” asked the young curate briskly and cheerfully.
“her only boy, sir.”
“and you are his aunt, eh?”
“no, sir! only a well-meanin’ neighbour; he ain’t got any rel’tives, worse luck.”
“so you’re all alone in the world, my boy? (bother the wind!) now you must make up your mind to be a good lad, because there are plenty of people ready to help good lads, and very few who will waste their time over bad ones.”
“that’s what i tell him, sir,” remarked mrs. rastin ingratiatingly.
“and don’t forget—” the curate stopped and sneezed. “enough to give anybody a cold,” said he. “good-bye, my lad.”
“say good-bye to the kind gentleman, bobbie.”
“so long,” said bobbie, resenting the interference of mrs. rastin. “look after that cold of yourn.”
“nice thing to say, upon my word,” declared mrs. rastin, manoeuvring the wind. “you’ve got no more idea of etiquette than a ’og. if it wasn’t that your poor mother was lying down there, poor thing, i’d give you a jolly good ’iding.”
“let me ketch you trying at it,” said bobbie defiantly.
thus, without a tear, the boy left the edge of the oblong hole in clay earth, and was blown back to the carriage. though his eyes were dry and his manner aggressive, there came a regretful feeling now all the excitement was over, that he had to resume his position of an ordinary boy with no longer any special claims to respect in hoxton. he wondered vaguely what the next few days would be like. he was not capable of looking beyond that. at the gate mrs. rastin alighted to patronise the house of refreshment so urgently recommended by the driver, and whilst that purple-faced gentleman conducted her to the private bar, bobbie remained in the carriage, and the other man came round and looked stolidly in through the window without saying a word, as though bobbie were a new arrival at the zoo.
when mrs. rastin, in excellent humour, returned, she brought a seed biscuit for bobbie, told him that he was a model boy, and that she wished there were six of him for her to look after.
“you run ’ome to your room,” said mrs. rastin, when the carriage stopped in hoxton street, “the key’s under the mat, and i shan’t be many minutes ’fore i’m with you. wait for me, there’s a deer. i must have a drop of something short.”
in the walk he was hailed.
“i say, bobbie lancaster.”
“now, what is it?”
“my mother says,” began trixie bell, panting, “that you—.”
p. 19“i don’t talk to gels,” said the boy, marching on.
“says that you ain’t in—.”
“be off, i tell you. don’t let me ’ave to speak twice.”
“that you ain’t in good ’ands where you are now.”
“ain’t what?”
miss bell, persistent, repeated the statement.
“you’ll pardon me,” said the boy laboriously, “if i ast a rude question. is your mother still kerryin’ on her business?”
“she is,” said trixie.
“very well, then,” he said, going on, “tell her to jolly well mind it.”
“she says they’re a bad lot,” shouted the girl, “and she says they won’t do you no good.”
“don’t make me come back and pull your ’air for you,” entreated bobbie.
“cow—werd!” bawled miss trixie bell.
“cat!” shouted mr. robert lancaster.
looking back as be pressed open the black door, he saw the youth called nose talking to the small girl, and he felt tempted to return and punish both of them, but it occurred to him that a man with a collar could not afford to appear undignified. he went upstairs. the key not being under the mat, he sat astride the rickety banisters and waited. he had found that morning a half emptied box of fusees, and the time did not seem long.
“don’t tell me the key ain’t under the mat,” said mrs. rastin truculently, as she came up the stairs. “you’re too lazy to look for it; that’s about the truth; you little—.”
“find it yourself, then.”
“why ’ere it is in the door,” said mrs. rastin, “in the door all the time.” she unlocked it. “ain’t you got no eyes, you good-for-nothing?” mrs. rastin stumbled over the mat and went into the dark room. “light a match when i keep telling you.”
in the room, bobbie held up one of the flaming fusees. mrs. rastin blinked, looked round, and screamed shrilly.
“murder!” she wailed. “murder! police! fire! thieves!” she gasped and recovered her breath. “every penny gone of the money that was to keep the young—.”
“what money?” asked the boy. the question seemed to goad mrs. rastin to fury.
“out you go, you little devil,” she cried furiously. she took him by the back of his neck.
“mind my collar,” he shouted.
“out of it,” she screamed. “i was goin’ to be good-natured enough to keep you whilst the bloomin’ money lasted, but now i’ve had enough of it.” she lugged him out, despite his kicks, to the landing. “now then, out you go.”
bobbie fell down the staircase to the bottom. the commotion had excited the house; doors were open.
“come in ’ere,” said the duchess kindly. she wore an old, old satin gown, her lean, rope-like throat uncovered. “you come and live long of us. i’ve of’en wanted a child of me own.”
