X
When Dicky retreated from the landing and shut the door behind him, he slipped the bolt, a strong one, put there by Josh Perrott himself, possibly as an accessory to escape by the window in some possible desperate pass. For a little he listened, but no sound hinted of attack from without, and he turned to his mother.
Josh Perrott had been out since early morning, and Dicky, too, had done no more than look in for a moment in search of dinner. Hannah Perrott, grown tired of self-commiseration, felt herself neglected and aggrieved—slighted in her state of invalid privilege. So she transferred some of her pity from her sore neck to her desolate condition as misprized wife and mother, and, the better to feel it, proceeded to martyrise herself, with melancholy pleasure, by a nerveless show of "setting to rights" in the room—a domestic novelty, perfunctory as it was. Looey, still restless and weeping, she left on the bed, for, being neglected herself, it was not her mood to tend the baby; she would aggravate the relish of her sorrows in her own way. Besides, Looey had been given something to eat a long time ago, and had not eaten it yet; with her there was nothing else to do. So that now, as she dragged a rag along the grease-strewn mantelpiece, Mrs. Perrott greeted Dicky: "There y' are, Dicky, comin' 'inderin' 'ere jest when I'm a-puttin' things to rights." And she sighed with the weight of another grievance.
Looey lay on her back, faintly and vainly struggling to turn her fearful little face from the light. Clutched in her little fist was the unclean stump of bread she had held for hours. Dicky plucked a soft piece and essayed to feed her with it, but the dry little mouth rejected the morsel and the head turned feverishly from side to side to the sound of that novel cry. She was hot wherever Dicky touched her, and presently he said:—"Mother, I b'lieve Looey 's queer. I think she wants some med'cine."
His mother shook her head peevishly. "O you an' Looey 's a noosance," she said. "A lot you care about me bein' queer, you an' yer father too, leavin' me all alone like this an' me feelin' ready to drop, an' got the room to do an' all. I wish you 'd go away an' stop 'inderin' of me like this."
Dicky took but another look at Looey and then slouched out. The landing was clear, and the Ropers' door was shut. He wondered what had become of the stranger with the tall hat—whether he was in the Ropers' room or not. The thought hurried him, for he feared to have that stranger asking him questions about the clock. He got out into the street, thoughtful. He had some compunctions in the matter of that clock, now. Not that he could in any reasonable way blame himself. There the clock had stood at his mercy, and by all Jago custom and ethic it was his if only he could get clear away with it. This he had done, and he had no more concern in the business, strictly speaking. Nevertheless, since he had seen the woman's face in the jamb of the door he felt a sort of pity for her that she should have lost her clock. No doubt she had enjoyed its possession, as, indeed, he would have enjoyed it himself, had he not had to take it instantly to Mr. Weech. And his fancy wandered off in meditation of what he would do with a clock of his own. To begin with, of course, he would open it, and discover the secret of its works and its ticking: perhaps thereby discovering how to make a clock himself. Also he would frequently wind it up, and he would show the inside to Looey, in confidence. It would stand on the mantelpiece, and raise the social position of the family. People would come respectfully to ask the time, and he would tell them, with an air. Yes, certainly a clock must stand eminent among the things he would buy, when he had plenty of money. He must look out for more clicks: the one way to riches.
As to the Ropers, again. Bad it must be, indeed, to be deprived suddenly of a clock, after long experience of the joys it brought; and Nora Walsh had punched the woman in the face, and clawed her hair, and the woman could not fight. Dicky was sorry for her, and straightway resolved to give her another clock—or, if not a clock, something that would please her as much. He had acquired a clock in the morning; why not another in the afternoon? Failing a clock, he would try for something else, and the Ropers should have it. The resolve gave Dicky a virtuous exultation of spirit, the reward of the philanthropist.
Again he began the prowl after likely plunder that was to be his daily industry. Meakin Street he did not try. The chandlers' and the cook shops held nothing that might be counted a consolatory equivalent for a clock. Through the "Posties" he reached Shoreditch High Street at once, and started.
This time his movements aroused less suspicion. In the morning he had no particular prize in view, and loitered at every shop, waiting his chance at anything portable. Now, with a more definite object, he made his promenade easily, but without stopping or lounging by shop-fronts. The thing, whatsoever it might be, must be small, handsome, and of an interesting character—at least as interesting as the clock was. It must be small, not merely for facility of concealment and removal—though these were main considerations—but because stealthy presentation were then the easier. It would have pleased Dicky to hand over his gift openly, and to bask in the thanks and consideration it would procure. But he had been accused of stealing the clock, and an open gift would savour of admission and peace-offering, whereas in that matter stark denial was his plain course.
A roll of printed stuff would not do; apples would not do; and fish was wide of his purpose. Up one side and down the other side of High Street he walked, his eye instant for suggestion and opportunity. But all in vain. Nobody exposed clocks out of doors, and of those within not one but an attempt on it were simple madness. And of the things less desperate of access, nothing was proper to the occasion; all were too large, too cheap, or too uninteresting. Oddly, Dicky feared failure more than had he been hunting for himself.
He tried further south, in Norton Folgate. There was a shop of cheap second-hand miscellanies; saddles, razors, straps, dumb-bells, pistols, boxing gloves, trunks, bags, and billiard-balls. Many of the things hung about the door-posts in bunches, and within all was black, as in a cave. At one door-post was a pistol. Nothing could be more interesting than a pistol—indeed, it was altogether a better possession than a clock; and it was a small, handy sort of thing. Probably the Ropers would be delighted with a pistol. He stood and regarded it with much interest. There were difficulties. In the first place, it was beyond his reach; and, in the second, it hung by the trigger-guard on a stout cord. Just then, glancing within the shop, he perceived a pair of fiery eyes regarding him, panther-like, from the inner gloom; and he hastily resumed his walk, as the Jew shop-keeper reached the door and watched him safely away.
Now he came to Bishopsgate Street, and here at last he chose the gift. It was at a toy-shop; a fine, flaming toy-shop, with carts, dolls and hoops dangling above, and wooden horses standing below, guarding two baskets by the door. One contained a mixed assortment of tops, whips, boats, and woolly dogs; the other was lavishly filled with shining, round metal boxes nobly decorated with coloured pictures, each box with a little cranked handle. As he looked, a tune, delightfully tinkled on some instrument, was heard from within the shop. Dicky peeped. There was a lady, with a little girl at her side, looking eagerly at just such a shining round box in the saleswoman's hands, and it was from that box, as the saleswoman turned the handle, that the tune came. Dicky was enchanted. This—this was the thing, beyond debate; a pretty little box that would play music whenever you turned a handle. This was a thing worth any fifty clocks. Indeed, it was almost as good as a regular barrel organ, the first thing he would buy if he were rich.
There was a shop-boy in charge of the goods outside the window, and his eyes were on Dicky. So Dicky whistled absently, and strolled carelessly along. He swung behind a large waggon, crossed the road, and sought a convenient door-step; for his mind was made up, and his business was now to sit down before the toy-shop and wait his opportunity.
A shop had been boarded up after a fire, and from its doorstep one could command a perfect view of the toy-shop across the broad thoroughfare with its crowded traffic—could sit, moreover, safe from interference. Here Dicky took his seat, secure from the notice of the guardian shop-boy, whose attention was given to passengers on his own side. The little girl, gripping the new toy in her hand, came out at her mother's side and trotted off. For a moment Dicky reflected that the box could be easily snatched, but after all the little girl had but one; whereas the shop-woman had many, and at best could play on no more than one at a time.
He resumed his watch of the shop-boy, confident that, sooner or later, a chance would come. A woman stopped to ask the price of something, and Dicky had half crossed the road ere the boy had begun to answer. But the answer was short, the boy's attention was released too soon.
At last the shop-woman called the boy within, and Dicky darted across—not directly, but so as to arrive invisibly at the side next the basket of music-boxes. A quick glance behind him, a snatch at the box with the reddest picture, and a dash into the traffic did it.
The dash away would not have been necessary but for the sudden reappearance of the shop-boy ere the box had vanished amid the intricacies of Dicky's jacket. Dicky was fast, but the boy was little slower, and was, moreover, bigger, and stronger on his legs. Dicky reached the other pavement and turned the next corner into Widegate Street, the pursuer scarce ten yards behind. It was now that Dicky first experienced "hot beef"—which is the Jago idiom denoting the plight of one harried by the cry "Stop thief!" Down Widegate Street, across Sandys Row and into Raven Row he ran his best, clutching the hem of his jacket and the music-box that lay within. Crossing Sandys Row a loafing lad shouldered against the shop-boy, and Dicky was grateful, for he made it a gain of several yards.
But others had joined in the hunt, and Dicky for the first time began to fear. This was a bad day—twice already he had been chased; and now—it was bad. He thought little more, for a stunning fear fell upon him: the fear of the hunted, that calculates nothing and is measured by no apprehension of consequences. He remembered that he must avoid Spitalfields Market, full of men who would stop him; and he knew that in many places where a man would be befriended, many would make a virtue of stopping a boy. To the right along Bell Lane he made an agonised burst of speed, and for a while he saw not nor remembered anything; heard no more than dreadful shouts drawing nearer his shoulders, felt only the fear. But he could not last. Quick enough when fresh, he was tiny and ill-fed, and he now felt his legs trembling and his wind going. Something seemed to beat on the back of his head, till he wondered madly if it were the shop-boy with a stick. He turned corners and chose his way by mere instinct, ashen-faced, staring, open-mouthed. How soon would he give in, and drop? A street more—half a street—ten yards? Rolling and tripping, he turned one last corner and almost fell against a vast, fat, unkempt woman whose clothes slid from her shoulders.
"'Ere y' are boy," said the woman, and flung him by the shoulder through the doorway before which she stood.
He was saved at his extremity, for he could never have reached the street's end. The woman who had done it (probably she had boys of her own on the crook) filled the entrance with her frowsy bulk, and the chase straggled past. Dicky caught the stair-post for a moment's support, and then staggered out at the back of the house. He gasped, he panted, things danced blue before him, but still he clutched his jacket hem and the music-box lying within. The back door gave on a cobble-paved court, with other doors, two coster's barrows and a few dusty fowls. Dicky sat on a step where a door was shut and rested his head against the frame.
The beating in his head grew slower and lighter, and presently he could breathe with no fear of choking. He rose and moved off, still panting, and feeble in the legs. The court ended in an arched passage through which he gained the street beyond. Here he had but to turn to the left,and he was in Brick Lane, and thence all was clear to the Old Jago. Regaining his breath and his confidence as he went, he bethought him of the Jago Row retreat, where he might examine his prize at leisure, embowered amid trucks and barrows. Thither he pushed his way, and soon, in the shade of the upturned barrow, he brought out the music-box. Bright and shiny, it had taken no damage in the flight, though on his hands he found scratches, and on his shins bruises, got he knew not how. On the top of the box was the picture of a rosy little boy in crimson presenting a scarlet nosegay to a rosy little girl in pink, while a red brick mansion filled the distance and solidified the composition. The brilliant hoop that made the sides (silver, Dicky was convinced) was stamped in patterns, and the little brass handle was an irresistible temptation. Dicky climbed a truck and looked about him, peeping from beside the loose fence-plank. Then, seeing nobody very near, he muffled the box as well as he could in his jacket and turned the handle.
This was, indeed, worth all the trouble. "Gently Does the Trick," was the tune,and Dicky, with his head aside and his ear on the bunch of jacket that covered the box, listened; his lips parted, his eyes seeking illimitable space. He played the tune through, and played it again; and then, growing reckless, played it with the box unmuffled, till he was startled by a bang on the fence from without. It was but a passing boy with a stick, but Dicky was sufficiently disturbed to abandon his quarters and take his music elsewhere.
What he longed to do was to take it home and play it to Looey, but that was out of the question; he remembered the watch. But there was Jerry Gullen's canary, and him Dicky sought and found. Canary blinked solemnly when the resplendent box was flashed in his eyes, and set his ears back and forward as, muffled again in Dicky's jacket, it tinkled out its tune.
Tommy Rann should not see it, lest he prevail over its munificent dedication to the Ropers. Truly, as it was, Dicky's resolution was hard to abide by. The thing acquired at such a cost of patience, address, hard flight and deadly fear was surely his by right—as surely, quite, as the clock had been. And such a thing he might never touch again.
But he put by the temptation manfully, and came out by Jerry Gullen's front door. He would look no more on the music-box, beautiful as it was: he would convey it to the Ropers before temptation came again.
It was not easy to devise likely means. Their door was shut fast, of course. For a little while he favoured the plan of setting the box against the threshold, knocking and running off. But an opportunity might arise of doing the thing in a way to give him some glimpse of the Ropers' delight, an indulgence he felt entitled to. So he waited a little, listened a little, and at last came out into the street and loafed.
It was near six o'clock, and a smell of bloater hung about Jerry Gullen's door and window; under the raised sash Jerry Gullen, close cropped and foxy of face, smoked his pipe, sprawled his elbows, and contemplated the world. Dicky, with the music box stowed out of sight, looked as blank of design and as destitute of possession as he could manage; for there were loafers near Mother Gapp's, loafers at the Luck Row corner—at every corner—and loafers by the "Posties," all laggard of limb and alert of eye. He had just seen a child, going with an empty beer-can, thrown down, robbed of his coppers and a poor old top, and kicked away in helpless tears; and the incident was commonplace enough, or many would have lacked pocket-money. Whosoever was too young, too old, or too weak to fight for it, must keep what he had well hidden, in the Jago.
Down the street came Billy Leary, big, flushed and limping, and hanging to a smaller man by a fistful of his coat on the shoulder. Dicky knew the small man for a good toy-getter (which=watch-stealer),—and judged he had had a good click, the proceeds whereof Billy Leary was battening upon in beer-shops. For Billy Leary rarely condescended to anything less honourable than bashing, and had not yet fallen so low as to go about stealing for himself. His missus brought many to the cosh, and his chief necessity—another drink—he merely demanded of the nearest person with the money to buy it, on pain of bashing. Or he walked into the nearest public house, selected the fullest pot, and spat in it: a ceremony that deprived the purchaser of further interest in the beer and left it at his own disposal. There were others, both Ranns and Learys, who pursued a similar way of life; but Billy Leary was biggest among them—big men not being common in the Jago—and rarely came to difficulty: as however he did once, having invaded the pot of a stranger, who turned out to be a Mile End pugilist exploring Shoreditch. It was not well for any Jago who had made a click to have Billy Leary know of it; for then the clicker was apt to be sought out, clung to, and sucked dry; possibly bashed as well, when nothing more was left, if Billy Leary were still but sober enough for the work.
Dicky gazed after the man with interest. It was he whom his father was to fight in a week or so—perhaps in a few days: on the first Sunday, indeed, that Leary should be deemed fit enough. How much of the limp was due to yesterday's disaster and how much to to-day's beer Dicky could not judge. But there seemed little reason to look for a long delay before the fight. As Dicky turned away a man pushed a large truck round the corner from Edge Lane, and on the footpath beside it walked the parson, calm as ever, with black clothes and tall hat, whole and unsoiled. He had made himself known in the Jago in course of that afternoon. He had traversed it from end to end, street by street, and alley by alley. His self-possession, his readiness, his unbending firmness, abashed and perplexed the Jagos, and his appearance just as the police had left could but convince them that he must have some mysterious and potent connexion with the force. He had attempted very little in the way of domiciliary visiting, being content for the time to see his parish and speak here a word and there another with his parishioners. An encounter with Kiddo Cook did as much as anything toward securing him a proper deference. In his second walk through Old Jago Street, as he neared The Feathers, he was aware of a bunch of grinning faces pressed against the bar window; and as he came abreast, forth stepped Kiddo Cook from the door, impudently affable, smirking and ducking with mock obsequiousness, and offering a quart pot.
"An' 'ow jer find jerself, sir?" he asked, with pantomime cordiality. "Hof'ly shockin', these 'ere lower classes, ain't they? Er—yus; disgustin', weally. Er—might I—er—prepose—er—a little refreshment? Allow me!"
The parson, grimly impassive, heard him through, took the pot, and, instantly jerking it upward, shot the beer, a single splash, into Kiddo's face. "There are things I must teach you, I see, my man," he said, without moving a muscle, except to return the pot.
Kiddo Cook, coughing, drenched and confounded, took the pot instinctively and backed to Mother Gapp's door, while the bunch of faces at the bar window tossed and rolled in a joyous ecstasy; the ghost whereof presently struggled painfully among Kiddo's own dripping features as he realised the completeness of his defeat, and the expedience of a patient grin. The parson went calmly on.
Before this, indeed when he left the Ropers' room, and just after Dicky had started out, he had looked in at the Perrotts' quarters to speak about the clock. But plainly no clock was there, and Mrs. Perrott's flaccid indignation at the suggestion, and her unmistakable ignorance of the affair, decided him to carry the matter no further, at any rate for the present. Moreover, the little hunchback's tale was inconclusive. He had seen no clock in Dicky's possession—had but met him on the stairs with a bulging jacket. The thing might be suspicious, but the new parson knew better than to peril his influence by charging where he could not convict. So he duly commiserated Hannah Perrott's troubles, suggested that the baby seemed unwell and had better be taken to a doctor, and went his way about the Jago.
Now he stopped at the truck by Dicky's front door and mounted to the Ropers' room. For he had seen that the Jago was no place for them now, and had himself found them a suitable room away by Dove Lane. And so, emboldened by his company, the Ropers came forth, and with the help of the man who had brought the truck, carried down the pieces of their bedstead, a bundle of bedding, the two chairs, the pink vases and the strip of old carpet, and piled them on the truck with the few more things that were theirs.
Dicky, with his hand on the music box in the lining of his jacket, sauntered up by the tail of the truck and, waiting his chance, plunged his gift under the bundle of bedding and left it there. But the little hunchback's sharp eyes were jealously on him, and, "Look there!" he squealed. "'E put 'is 'and in the truck and took somethink!"
"Ye lie!" answered Dicky, indignant and hurt, but cautiously backing off; "I ain't got nothink." He spread his hands and opened his jacket in proof. "Think I got yer bloomin' bedstead?"
He had nothing, it was plain. In fact, at the tail of the truck there was nothing he could easily have moved at all, certainly nothing he could have concealed. So the rest of the little removal was hurried, for heads were now at windows, the loafers began to draw about the truck, and trouble might break out at any moment: indeed, the Ropers could never have ventured from their room but for the general uneasy awe of the parson. For nothing was so dangerous in the Jago as to impugn its honesty. To rob another was reasonable and legitimate, and to avoid being robbed, so far as might be, was natural and proper. But to accuse anybody of a theft was unsportsmanlike, a foul outrage, a shameful abuse, a thing unpardonable. You might rob a man, bash a man, even kill a man; but to "take away his character"—even when he had none—was to draw the execrations of the whole Jago; while to assail the pure fame of the place—to "give the street a bad name"—this was to bring the Jago howling and bashing about your ears.
The truck moved off at last, amid murmurings, mutterings and grunts from the onlookers. The man of the truck pulled, Roper shoved behind, and his wife, with her threadbare decency and her meagre, bruised face, carried the baby, while the hunchbacked boy went by her side. All this under convoy of the Reverend Henry Sturt.
A little distance gave more confidence to a few, and when the group had reached within a score of yards of Edge Lane, there came a hoot or two, a "Yah!" and other less spellable sounds, expressive of contempt and defiance. Roper glanced back nervously, but the rest held on their way regardless. Then came a brickbat, which missed the woman by very little and struck the truck-wheel. At this the parson stopped and turned on his heel, and Cocko Harnwell, the flinger, drove his hands into his breeches-pockets and afiected an interest in Mother Gapp's window, till, perceiving the parson's eyes directed sternly upon him, and the parson's stick rising to point at him, he ingloriously turned tail, and scuttled into Jago Court.
And so the Ropers left the Jago. Dove Lane was but a stone-throw ahead when some of the load shifted, and the truck was stopped to set the matter right. The chest was pushed back and the bedding was lifted to put against it, and so the musical-box came to light. Roper picked it up and held it before the Vicar's eyes. "Look at that, sir," he said. "You'll witness I know nothing of it, won't you? It ain't mine an' I never saw it before. It's bin put in for spite, to put a theft on us. When they come for it you'll bear me out sir, won't you? That was the Perrott boy as was put up to do that, I'll be bound. When he was behind the truck."
But nobody came for Dicky's gift, and in the Jago twilight Dicky vainly struggled to whistle the half-remembered tune: and to persuade himself that he was not sorry that the box was gone.