Arthur Morrison

“ Johnny replied, with simple distinctness. “You wanted mother to give you my money every week, though in fact she’s been letting me keep it. Well, here’s my last week’s money”—he shook it in his hand—“and I’ll give it you if you’ll stand up here and fight me.”
“What? Fight you? You?” Mr. Butson laughed; but he felt a secret uneasiness.
“Yes, me. You’d rather fight a woman, no doubt, or a lame girl. But I’m going to give you a change, and make you fight me—here.” Johnny flung his jacket on the ground and his hat on it.
“Don’t be such a young fool,” quoth Mr. Butson loftily. ”

“ They went up the slope, across tiny glades, and between thick clumps of undergrowth gay with dog-roses, Bessy’s eyes and ears alert for everything, tree, bird, or flower; now spying out some noisy jay that upbraided their intrusion, now standing to hark for a distant woodpecker. Johnny enjoyed the walk too, but with a soberer delight; as became an engineer taking a day’s relaxation amid the scenes of childish play now half forgotten. ”

“ The operation was one that every engineer’s apprentice grew apt at, and exceptional dexterity like Johnny’s was a matter of pride, a distinction zealously striven for, an accomplishment to exercise at every opportunity. Johnny felt that he had passed with honours on the memorable day when Cottam, the gaffer, roared to him from the other end of the shop to come and attend to his eye, afflicted with a sharp grain of brass. ”

“ This was that at last he had let the cottage, at three-and-sixpence a week, to a decent woodman and his wife. And so, wearing a new neckcloth, and with three weeks’ rent in his pocket, Bob Smallpiece appeared in Harbour Lane one spring morning, a vast astonishment of leather and velveteen, such as had never before brought a Blackwall housewife to attention in the midst of her dusting and sweeping. No name was painted over the shop, but no stranger could pass its red and blue and green without stopping to look; least of all Bob Smallpiece, in quest of the place itself. ”

“ Presently he turned into the back-house and emerged with a tin pot and a brush. “I’m a goin’ treaclin’ a bit,” he said. “Come, Johnny?”
The boy pulled his cap from his pocket, fetched a lantern, and was straightway ready, while Bessy sat to her belated tea.
The last pale light lay in the west, and the evening offered up an oblation of sweet smells. All things that feed by night were out, and nests were silent save for once and again a sleepy twitter. Every moment another star peeped, and then one more. ”

“ Everywhere the houses and the flagstaffs and the fences took new coats of many colours, changing as the season went, and the paint-pot traffic fell into a vaster confusion. As tops were “in” among the boys, the smell of paint grew day by day, and when the marble season began little else could be smelt. With July came Fairlop Friday, and Bessy wondered at the passing of a great model of a rigged ship on wheels, drawn by horses, and filled with jubilant shipwrights on their way to Epping Forest, in accord with yearly custom. ”

“ Here branched the track by which he had made for Theydon; there was the tree under which he had last seen the old man’s lantern-light; and then the slade opened, glorious with heather. Brambles and bushes about the pits were changed—this grown higher and wider, that withered off; and the pits—the smaller pits, at least, seemed shallow enough holes under the eyes of a man of near six feet. The deepest pit—the pit—was farthest; and Johnny could see a man, whose figure seemed vaguely familiar, sitting on its edge. ”

“ Her head fell on his shoulder, and she broke into an agony of tears. “O Johnny, Johnny, that is cruel! You don’t know how cruel it is! I shall never like anybody better than you—never half so much. Don’t be unkind! I’ve not one friend in the world but you, and I do love you more than anything.”
With that Johnny was ready to kick himself for a ruffian. He looked about, but nobody else was in the shadowy street. He kissed Nora, he called himself hard names, and he quieted her, though she still sobbed. ”

“ For in such a matter of business the widow and the orphan needing money are the weak party, humble and timid, watching small signs with sinking hearts, and easy to beat: and a man of business worth the name of one, takes advantage of the fact for every penny it will bring. So the smart young man, looking more contemptuous than ever, and dusting his fingers with his pocket-handkerchief, flung Nan May an offer of five pounds for the lot. ”

“ Butson’s minor bruises were turning green. It was at the stroke of five in the afternoon, and Bessy was minding shop. From the ship-yard opposite a score or so of men came, in dirty dungaree (for it was Friday) , vanguard of the tramping hundreds that issued each day, regular as the clock before the timekeeper’s box. Bessy rose on her crutch, and peeped between a cheese and a packet of candles, out of window. Friday was not a day when many men came in on their way home, because by that time the week’s money was run low, and luxuries were barred. ”

“ It cheered Nan May to see the boy taking so heartily to his work, through all her secret dread that she might lack the means to keep him at it. Johnny glanced anxiously at the clock from time to time, and at last declared that he must knock for Long Hicks, who was plainly forgetting how late it was. And in the end he rushed away to disturb the tall man ten minutes too soon, and hurried off to Maidment and Hurst’s, there to take his own new metal ticket from the great board, and drop it duly into the box.
The afternoon went busily at the factory, and busy days followed. ”

“ Cottam, casting his glance about the shop in search of the simplest possible job for Johnny to begin on, with a steady man at hand to watch him, stopped as his gaze reached Long Hicks, and sent Johnny to help him with his bolts. And so Johnny found the tall man’s surmise verified, and the tall man himself received him with another grin a little less shy. ”

“ Truly London was changed, even more in Nan May’s eyes than in Johnny’s. The people seemed greyer, more anxious, worse fed, than when she lived among them before, a young wife in a smiling world, with the best part of thirty-eight shillings to spend every week. ”

“ There was a narrow way with a few wharf gates, and then an open space, with houses centuries old, fallen on leaner years, but still grubbily picturesque. Hence the old mare trotted through a long and winding street that led by dirty entries, by shops, by big distilleries, by clean, dull houses where managers lived, by wooden inns swinging ancient signs, over canal bridges: to a place of many streets lying regularly at right angles, all of small houses, all clean, every one a counterpart of every other. ”

“ And there was a great, low, misty waste of the dullest possible rubbish, where grass would not grow; a more hopelessly desolate and dispiriting wilderness than Johnny had ever dreamed of or Bessy ever read; with a chemical manure-works in a far corner, having a smell of great volume and range. ”

“ Each dressmaking-class night of late it had been Johnny’s privilege to guard her home-going to the end of that second street—never farther. Twice she had come to dancing, and by that small practice was already Johnny’s superior at the exercise; for a big-shouldered novice of eleven stone two is a slower pupil than any girl of eighteen in the world. ”

“ Across the way was an inn, and by its side a space of open ground whereon some threescore beanfeasters sported at large. Many were busy at kiss-in-the-ring, some waved branches torn from trees, others stood up empty bottles and flung more bottles at them; they stood, sat, ran, lay, and rolled, but each made noise of some sort, and most drank. Plainly donkey-riding had palled, for a man and a boy had gathered their half-dozen donkeys together, and were driving them off.
The people were Londoners, as Bessy knew, for she had often seen others. ”

“ The girls came in gay and chattering from the dressmaking class, and the lads rushed to exchange gymnasium-flannels for the clothes they had come in—all unconscious that they were to be made a show of. They who kept their dancing-shoes on the premises triumphed in their foresight, and Johnny was among them. As for him, he had seen Nora Sansom coming in with the others, alone and a little shy, and he resolved to seize occasion with both hands. ”

“ In short, became an initiated ’prentice engineer. In the trade itself, moreover, he was not slow, and Mr. Cottam had once mentioned him (though Johnny did not know it) as “none so bad a boy; one as can work ’is own ’ead.” Until his first enthusiasm had worn off, he never ceased from questioning Long Hicks, in his hours of leisure, on matters concerning steam-engines; so that the retiring Hicks grew almost out of touch with the accordion that had been the solace of his solitude. The tall man had never met quite so inquisitive an apprentice; engineering was in the blood, he supposed. ”

“ In the gymnasium the instructor, a brawny sergeant of grenadiers, was watching some lads on the horizontal bar. Johnny approached him with a hesitating request for a “free spar.”
“Free spar, my lad?” said the sergeant. “What’s up? Gettin’ cheeky? Want to give me a hidin’?”
“No, sergeant,” Johnny answered. “Not such a fool as that. But I never had a free spar with a man much heavier than myself, and—and I just want to try, that’s all!” ”

“ Henry Butson had fallen on good fortune. No more would he endure the humiliation of begging a job of an unsympathetic gaffer. In future his life would be one of ease, free from ignoble exertion and unshamed by dungaree overalls. And he made it so. For a little while, his wife seemed to indulge in an absurd expectation that he would resume his search for occupation of one sort or another. Once she even hinted it, but he soon demolished that fancy, and in terms that prevented any more hints. He had little patience with such foolishness, indeed. The matter was simple enough. Why did a man work? ”

“ Where the tug-engineer, thrusting up his head for a little fresh air, saw but a prentice-lad and his sweetheart on a bollard, there sat Man and Woman, enthroned and exultant in face of the worlds.
The ship swung round on the tide, bringing her lights square and her stem for the opening lock. The chanty went wailing to its end:—
“Blow the man down, bully, blow the man down—
To my Aye! Aye! Blow the man down! ”

“ And Johnny’s guess was a good one. . . . Forthwith his resentment became something more; hate, mere hate for this man who had come between him and his mother—this cadger of suppers thrusting himself into their intimate life. . . .
And yet—perhaps this was simple anger at the slight and the deception; jealousy at finding a stranger as dear to his mother as himself was. Butson might turn out none so bad a fellow. He was very decent over the callipers, for instance. . . . Curse the callipers! ”

“ Moreover, the old man himself had many a time preached strong disapproval of money wasted on funerals; had, indeed, prophesied that if any costliness were wasted on him, he would rise from his coffin and kick a mute. So now that the time had come, a Theydon carpenter made the coffin, and a cab from Loughton was the whole show. The old man’s relations were not, and of Nan May’s most still alive were forgotten; for in the forest cottage the little family had been secluded from such connections, as by sundering seas. ”

“ A stepson, moreover, who watched, and who kept alert ears for any expedient assertion of authority whereat he might raise mutiny; a most objectionable stepson in every way, far too big, and growing bigger every day; who would not forget bygones, and who had a nasty, suggestive way of handling the poker—a large poker, an unnecessarily heavy poker for a sitting-room. And he seemed to suspect things too, and talked unpleasantly of the police; a thing that turned one hot and cold together. So Mr. Butson went more up West, and sought longer solace in the society of the bars. ”

“ But Harbour Lane and thereabout were the most interesting parts, and the pleasantest for Johnny. Just beyond the Stairs, and the old houses, and the Artichoke Tavern, was a dock-inlet, with an extraordinary bridge that halved in the middle, and swung back to each of two quays, to let ships through. Men worked it quite easily, with a winch, and Johnny could have watched for an hour. But just here he caught sight of an acquaintance. For down on the quay below the bridge-end, sitting on a mooring-post, was Mr. Butson. ”

“ Then Bob Smallpiece grasped him above the elbow, and shouted his name.
“What’s the matter, gran’dad?” Johnny demanded. “Ill?”
The old man glared fixedly, and made as though to resume his course.
“Why, what’s this?” said Bob Smallpiece, retaining the arm, and lifting a hand gently to the old man’s hair. It was blood, dotted and trickling. “Lord! he’s had a bad wipe over the head,” said Bob, and with that lifted old May in his arms, as a nurse lifts a child. “Theydon’s nearest; run, Johnny boy—run like blazes an’ fetch the doctor tantivy!” ”

“ More, the bread came in daily in batches, at trade price, and cheese and pickles went merrily. But what went best, and what increased in sale even beyond this point, was the bacon. Some customers called it ham, which pleased Nan May; for indeed her cooking hit the popular taste, and she began to feel a pride in it. Men who went home to dinner would buy bacon to take home for tea; and as many of these lived in Harbour Lane and thereabout, custom soon came from their wives, in soap and candles, treacle and pepper and blacking. ”

“ Mr. Butson was perhaps a shade relieved when he returned home that night and found all quiet, and Johnny in bed. He had half expected that his inopportune return might have caused trouble. But the night after, as he came from the railway station, a little earlier than usual, Johnny stopped him in the street.
“I want to speak to you,” he said. “Just come round by the dock wall.”
His manner was quiet and businesslike, but Mr. Butson wondered. “Why?” he asked. “Can’t you tell me here?”
“No, I can’t. There are too many people about. It’s money in your pocket if you come.” ”

“ Along shore the old Artichoke Tavern, gables and piles, darkened and melted away, and then lit into a little Orion, a bright cluster in the bespangled riverside. Ever some new sail came like a ghost up reach out of the gloom, rounded the point, and faded away ”