Scamp and I: A Story of City By-Ways

Chapter One
I’d Choose to be a Queen

The time was the height of the London season for 1875; the height of that gay time when the parks, and streets, and shops are full, when pleasure-promoters are busy keeping up a fresh supply of every form of entertainment, when pleasure-seekers are flocking to the garden parties, and strawberry parties, the operas, and theatres, and all other amusements provided for them; when the world – the world at least of Regent Street, and Piccadilly, of Eaton Square, and all Belgravia – looks so rich and prosperous, so full of life and all that makes life enjoyable.

It was that gay time when no one thinks of gloom, when ambitious men dream of fame, and vain women of vanity, when the thoughtless think less than any other time, and when money seems to be the one god that rules in every breast.

This was the time in the merry month of May, when one afternoon, at the hour when Regent Street is brightest and fullest, a little ragged urchin of about ten pushed his way boldly through the crowd of carriages and people surrounding Swan and Edgar’s, and began staring eagerly and fearlessly in at the windows.

He was the only ragged child, the only representative of poverty, within sight, and he looked singularly out of place, quite a little shadow in the midst of the splendid carriages, and brilliant and prosperous men and women.

The few who noticed him wondered languidly what brought him there, why he intruded his disreputable little person in the midst of scenes and people with which he never had, and never could have, anything in common.

The little fellow seemed to guess the thoughts which a few in the crowd favoured him with, and in his own way to resent them. In and out among the rich and fashionable people his small head kept bobbing, his agile body kept pushing.

He avoided the police, he escaped unhurt from under the impatient horses’ legs, he was never stationary, and yet he was always there. He pressed his dirty little form against more than one fine lady’s dress, and received more than one sharp reprimand, and sharper tap on the head, from the powdered and liveried footmen.

Still he held his ground and remained faithful to Swan and Edgar’s. He was a dirty, troublesome little imp, but on his worn and prematurely old face might have been seen a curious, bright expression. Those who looked at him might have pronounced him hungry, certainly poor, but, for the time being, not at all unhappy.

Round and round the splendid establishment he dodged rather than walked, examining with a critical eye the mantles and costumes on view in the windows; then he carefully looked over and reckoned the carriages, gazed up with a full, bright, impudent stare into the face of more than one proud and titled dame, and at last, apparently satisfied, turned his back on the gay shop and gay crowd, and set off down Regent Street at a swinging pace. Presently, by means of a series of short cuts, he found himself in Old Compton Street, from thence he proceeded through Seven Dials into a street which we will call Duncan Street.

He had come this distance very quickly, and had withstood several temptations to linger on his road. A band of musical niggers, who danced, and sang, and played the bones, had waylaid him in vain; his own particular chum, Jenks, had met him, and called to him to stop, but he had not obeyed; the shrimp man, who always gave him a handful, had come directly in his path. He had paused for nothing, and now dashing headlong, not into a house, but through a hole in the pavement, down a slippery ladder, into a cellar, he called out “Flo.”

From the bright sunshine outside, the gloom of this Place, lit by the flickering flame of one tallow candle, was profound. Its roof was on a level with the road, its floor several feet below the gas-pipes and sewage; it had no window, and its only means of light and ventilation was through the narrow opening in the pavement, against which a ladder was placed.

The ragged boy, rushing down these steps, made his way to a cobbler’s stool, in the middle of the room, on which was seated a little girl busily repairing an old boot, while a heap of boots and shoes, apparently in the last stage of decay, were scattered round her. This child, a year or so younger than the boy, had the utterly colourless appearance of a flower shut away from the sunshine.

“Flo,” said her companion eagerly.

A little voice, very thin, but just as eager, responded with, —

“Yes, Dick dear.”

“Is you up to a bit o’ ’joyment this ’ere blessed minit, Flo?”

“Oh, Dick! is it the shops, and the picters, and the fine ladies? Is it, Dick?”

“Yes; queens, and ladies, and lords goin’ about in golden carriages, and shops full up to bustin’, and we a standin’ and a lookin’ on. Better’n wittles, eh?”

“Oh yes, Dick!”

She threw aside the old boot, held out her dirty little hand to Dick, and together the children scampered up the broken, rickety ladder into the air and light of day.

“Now, Flo, you ’as got to put your best foot forrard, ’cos we ’as a goodish bit o’ a way to tramp it. Then I’ll plant you front o’ me, Flo; and when we gets there, you never mind the perleece, but look yer fill. Oh, my heyes! them is hosses!”

Flo, seen by daylight, had brown eyes, very large and soft; curling, golden brown hair, and a sweet gentle little face. Had she been a lady she would have been pronounced a lovely child, and in all probability would have been a lovely child, but her cellar-life had produced sharp shoulders, a complexion of greyish-white, and a certain look of premature age and wisdom, which all children so brought up possess. She raised her hand now to shade her face, as though the daylight pained her, looked round eagerly, then tightened her clasp of Dick.

“Is there blue, and yaller, and red, and majinta dresses in them ’ere winders, Dick? and is there lace on ’em? and is there welwet and silk dresses, Dick?” Dick winked, and looked mysterious.

“Silk gownds, and satin gownds, and welwet gownds,” he replied, “and gownds – some trimmed with wot looks like paper cut into ’oles, and gownds made o’ little round ’oles hall over. And the bonnets in them shops! My heyes, Flo! them bonnets ’ave got about hevery bird in Saint Martin’s Lane killed and stuffed, and stuck in ’em. But come,” he added, hastily bringing his vivid description to a close, “the lords and ladies will be gone.”

He held the slight little fingers placed in his, with a firm hold, and together they trotted swiftly from their dark Saint Giles’s cellar, to the bright fairy-land of Regent Street.

There were plenty of people, and carriages, and grand ladies and gentlemen still there; and the dresses were so fine, and the feathers so gay, that Flo, when she found herself really in their midst, was speechless, and almost stunned. She had dreamed of this day for months – this day, when Dick was to show her the other side of London life, and she had meant when the time came to enter into it all, to realise it if possible.

She and Dick were to carry out quite a pretty play; they were to suppose themselves a grand lady and gentleman; Flo was to single out the nicest looking and most beautifully dressed lady present, and imagine herself that lady; those clothes were her clothes, those silken dresses, those elegant boots and gloves, that perfect little bonnet, were all Flo’s; the carriage with its spirited horses was hers, and the fine gentleman with the splendid moustache seated by her side, was none other than Dick.

They had arranged the whole programme; the carriage was to drive off rapidly – where?

Well, first Dick said they would stop at a restaurant, and instead of, as the real Flo and Dick did, standing a sniffin’ and a sniffin’ outside, they would walk boldly in, and order – well, beef, and potatoes, and plum-pudding were vulgar certainly, but once in a way they would order these for dinner. Then back in the carriage to Swan and Edgar’s, where Flo would have the creamiest of silk dresses, and a new bonnet with a pink tip, and Dick, who was supposed to be in perfect attire as it was, would talk loudly of “my tailor,” and buy the most beautiful flower, from the first flower-girl he met, to put in his button-hole. Then at night they would have a box at the theatre.

Their whole plan was very brilliantly constructed, and Dick, having got Flo into a capital position, just opposite a row of lovely dresses, with carriages close up to the footway, and grand ladies sweeping against her tattered gown each moment, was very anxious for her to begin to carry out their play.

“Come, Flo,” he said, giving her a nudge. “S’pose a bit, Flo. Which fine lady’ll yer be? Look at that ’ere little ’un, in blue and white, I guess she’s an hearl’s wife. Come, Flo, choose to be her. I’ll be the hearl, and you the hearl’s wife, Flo.”

“Be hearls the biggest swells?” asked Flo.

Dick opened his eyes.

“Bless us!” he said. “Why, Flo, I’m ’shamed o’ yer hignorance. Why there’s markises, and dooks, and there’s kings and queens – all them’s bigger than hearls, Flo.”

“Is queens the biggest of all swells?” asked Flo.

“Sartinly, they be the biggest woman swells.”

“Then, Dick, I’ll s’pose to be the biggest swell, I’ll s’pose to be a queen. Find me hout a queen to take Pattern of, Dick.”

“Oh! Flo, there ain’t none yere, there be but one queen, Flo, and ’ers away, locked hup at Bucknam Palace. You can’t s’pose to be the queen, Flo, but I guess we’ll be the hearl and the hearl’s wife, and let us s’pose now as we is turnin’ in fur our dinners, and the kivers is orf the roast beef, and the taters is ’ot and mealy, and a whackin’ big puddin’ is to foller.” At this juncture, when Dick’s imagination was running riot over his supposed dinner, and Flo’s little face was raised to his with a decided gesture of dissent, a hand was laid familiarly on his shoulder, and turning quickly he discerned the smiling, mischievous face of his friend Jenks.

“Wot ails the young ’un?” said Jenks.

Dick was ashamed of his play beside his tall friend (Jenks was fourteen), and answered hastily —

“Nothing.”

But Flo replied innocently, and in an injured tone —

“I wants fur to be a queen, and there is no queens hout this arternoon fur me to take pattern of.”

The black eyes of Jenks sparkled more mischievously than ever; but he liked Flo, and knew she was fond of supposing herself a great lady.

“Look at that ’ere ’oman,” he said, pointing to a stout old lady in black velvet and white lace shawl; “s’pose you is ’er, Flo. My heyes! wot a precious big swell you would look in that ’ere gownd.”

Here Dick and Jenks both laughed uproariously, but the ambitious little Flo still answered in a fretful tone —

“I’ll not be that ’ere swell, I’ll choose to be a queen.”

“Then come along both o’ yers,” said Jenks, “and see the queen. She ’ave got to pass hout of Bucknam Palace in arf an ’our, on ’er way to Victoria Station. Come, Flo, I’ll ’old yer ’and. Come, Dick, old pal.” The children, only too delighted to be seen anywhere in Jenks’s company, followed eagerly, and led by their clever friend down several by-ways, soon found themselves in the midst of the crowd which had already collected outside Buckingham Palace gates to see the queen.

Flo was excited and trembling. Now she should behold with her own eyes the biggest swell in all the world, and for ever after in her dark Saint Giles’s cellar she could suppose, and go over in her imagination, the whole scene. No vulgar “dook” or “markis” could satisfy Flo’s ambition; when she soared she would soar high, and when she saw the queen she would really know how to act the queen to perfection.

So excited was she that she never observed that she was really alone in the crowd, that Jenks and Dick had left her side.

She was a timid child, not bold and brazen like many of her class, and had she noticed this she would have been too frightened even to look out for the greatest woman in the world. But before she had time to take in this fact there was a cheer, a glittering pageant passed before Flo’s eyes, – she had never seen the Life Guards before! – a carriage appeared amidst other carriages, a lady amidst other ladies, and some instinct told the child that this quietly-dressed, dignified woman was the queen of England. The eager crowd had pushed the little girl almost to the front, and the queen, bowing graciously on all sides, looked for an instant full at Flo.

She was probably unconscious of it, but the child was not. Her brown eyes sparkled joyfully; she had seen the queen, and the queen had seen her.

They were to meet again.

Chapter Two
A Hot Supper

When the royal carriage had passed by, the crowd immediately scattered, and then for the first time Flo perceived that she was deserted by her companions. She looked to right and left, before and behind her, but the little rough and ragged figures she sought for were nowhere visible.

She was still excited by the sight she had witnessed, and was consequently not much frightened though it did occur to her to wonder how ever she should find her way home again. She turned a few steps, – Saint James’s Park with the summer sunshine on it lay before her. She sat down on the grass, and pulled a few blades and smelt them – they were withered, trampled, and dry, but to Flo their yellow, sickly green was beautiful.

She gathered a few more blades and tucked them tenderly into the bosom of her frock – they would serve to remind her of the queen, they had sprouted and grown up within sight of the queen’s house, perhaps one day the queen had looked at them, as to-day she had looked at Flo.

The child sat for half-an-hour unperceived, and therefore undisturbed, drinking in the soft summer air, when suddenly a familiar voice sounded in her ears, and the absent figures danced before her.

“I say, Flo, would yer like somethink real, not an ony s’pose?”

Flo raised her eyes and fixed them earnestly on Dick.

“No, Dick,” she replied slowly, “there beant but one queen, and I’ve seen the queen, and she’s beautiful and good, and she looked at me, Dick, and I’m not a goin’ to take ’er place, so I’ll be the hearl’s wife please, Dick dear.”

The two boys laughed louder than ever, and then Jenks, coming forward and bowing obsequiously, said in a mock serious tone —

“Will my Lady Countess, the hearl’s wife, conderscend to a ’elpin’ o’ taters and beef along o’ her ’umble servants, and will she conderscend to rise orf this ’ere grass, as hotherwise the perleece might feel obligated to give ’er in charge, it being contrary to the rules, that even a hearl’s wife should make this ’ere grass ’er cushion.”

Considerably frightened, as Jenks intended she should be, Flo tumbled to her feet, and the three children walked away. Dick nudged his sister and looked intensely mysterious, his bright eyes were dancing, his shock of rough hair was pushed like a hay-stack above his forehead, his dirty freckled face was flushed. Jenks preceded the brother and sister by a few steps, getting over the ground in a light and leisurely manner, most refreshing to the eyes of Dick.

“Ain’t ’ee a mate worth ’avin’?” he whispered to Flo.

“But wot about the meat and taters?” asked Flo, who by this time was very hungry; “ain’t it nothink but another ‘s’pose’ arter all?”

“Wait and you’ll see,” replied Dick with a broad grin.

“Here we ’ere,” said Jenks, drawing up at the door of an eating-house, not quite so high in the social scale as Verrey’s, but a real and substantial eating-house nevertheless.

“Now, my Lady Countess, the hearl’s wife, which shall it be? Smokin’ ’ot roast beef and taters, or roast goose full hup to chokin’ o’ sage and onions? There, Flo,” he added, suddenly changing his tone, and speaking and looking like a different Jenks, “you ’as but to say one or t’other, so speak the word, little matey.”

Seeing that there was a genuine eating-house, and that Jenks was in earnest, Flo dropped her assumed character, and confessed that she had once tasted ’ot fat roast beef, long ago in mother’s time, but had never so much as seen roast goose; accordingly that delicacy was decided on, and Jenks having purchased a goodly portion, brought it into the outer air in a fair-sized wooden bowl, which the owner of the eating-house had kindly presented to him for the large sum of four pence. At sight of the tempting mess cooling rapidly in the breeze, all Flo’s housewifely instincts were awakened.

“It won’t be ’ot roast goose, and mother always did tell ’as it should be heat up ’ot,” she said pitifully. “’Ere, Dick, ’ere’s my little shawl, wrap it round it fur to keep it ’ot, do.”

Flo’s ragged scrap of a shawl was accordingly unfastened and tied round the savoury dish, and Dick, being appointed bowl-bearer, the children trudged off as rapidly as possible in the direction of Duncan Street. They were all three intensely merry, though it is quite possible that a close observer might have remarked, that Dick’s mirth was a little forced. He laughed louder and oftener than either of the others, but for all that, he was not quite the same Dick who had stared so impudently about him an hour or two ago in Regent Street. He was excited and pleased, but he was no longer a fearless boy. An hour ago he could have stared the world in the face, now even at a distant sight of a policeman he shrank behind Jenks, until at last that young gentleman, exasperated by his rather sneaking manner, requested him in no very gentle terms not to make such a fool of himself.

Then Dick, grinning more than ever, declared vehemently that “’ee wasn’t afraid of nothink, not ’ee.” But just then something, or some one, gave a vicious pull to his ragged trouser, and he felt himself turning pale, and very nearly in his consternation dropping the dish, with that delicious supper.

The cause of this alarm was a wretched, half-starved dog, which, attracted doubtless by the smell of the supper, had come behind him and brought him to a sense of his presence in this peremptory way.

“No, don’t ’it ’im,” said Flo, as Jenks raised his hand to strike, for the pitiable, shivering creature had got up on its hind legs, and with coaxing, pleading eyes was glancing from the bowl to the children.

“Ain’t ’ee just ’ungry?” said Flo again, for her heart was moved with pity for the miserable little animal.

“Well, so is we,” said Dick in a fretful voice, and turning, he trudged on with his load.

“Come, Flo, do,” said Jenks, “don’t waste time with that little sight o’ misery any more, ’ees ony a street cur.”

“No ’ee ain’t,” said Flo half to herself, for Jenks had not waited for her, “’ees a good dawg.”

“Good-bye, good dawg,” and she patted his dirty sides. “Ef I wasn’t so werry ’ungry, and ef Dick wasn’t the least bit in the world crusty, I’d give you a bite o’ my supper,” and she turned away hastily after Jenks.

“Wy, I never! ’ee’s a follerin’ o’ yer still, Flo,” said Jenks.

So he was; now begging in front of her, paying not the least attention to Jenks – Dick was far ahead – but fixing his starved, eager, anxious eyes on the one in whose tone he had detected kindness.

“Oh! ’ee is starvin’, I must give ’im one bite o’ my supper,” said Flo, her little heart utterly melting, and then the knowing animal came closer, and crouched at her feet.

“Poor brute! hall ’is ribs is stickin’ hout,” said Jenks, examining him more critically. “I ’spects ’ees strayed from ’ome. Yer right, Flo, ’ees not such a bad dawg, not by no means, ’ee ’ave game in ’im. I ses, Flo, would you like to take ’im ’ome?”

“Oh, Jenks! but wouldn’t Dick be hangry?”

“Never you mind Dick, I’ll settle matters wid ’im, ef you likes to give the little scamp a bite o’ supper, you may.”

“May be scamp’s ’ees name; see! ’ee wags ’is little tail.”

“Scamp shall come ’ome then wid us,” said Jenks, and lifting the little animal in his arms, he and Flo passed quickly through Seven Dials, into Duncan Street, and from thence, through a gap in the pavement, into the deep, black cellar, which was their home.