Jerry Jacksmith, of lower London

Chapter I

Stirring Events in Little Whelk Street. jjpfftfEITHER Dr. Clover nor any other fashionilfj| able "ladies' doctor" was present to j W/ assist at the auspicious event, nor did the ~~o^)% knocker of the house door wear a kid glove in token of the delicacy of the situation, nor was the kitchen bell rigorously muffled, so that the butcher ancl the baker applying for orders might be baulked of the bliss of ringing thereon an ear-splitting peal. What should Doctor Clover know of anything that took place in Little Whelk Street, St. George's - in - the - East '? That accomplished medical practitioner, a record of whose achievments appeared pretty frequently in the first portion of the leading column of the Times, resided in Mayfair, and though he had probably read of savage regions lying east of the Monument, as far as any personal acquaintance with the locality in question went Whelk Street a might, for him, have been situated in the Caribee Islands.

Again, as regards the ungloved nakedness of the knocker ! The fact is, there was no knocker attached to the door of the domicile where the Jacksmiths lived. There had been one years ago, but the two iron "nuts" that secured it on the inner side came in handy for a job one of the lodgers happened to be engaged on, and consequently the knocker itself became detached and was surreptitiously conveyed to the old iron shop ancl sold for a penny, and had never since been replaced. By way of substitute, there was a latch-string, that, passing through the hole in one of the panels of the door, gave admission to anyone who tugged hard enough at it. There was no kitchen bell, but there was a kitchen. But the butcher or the baker had no business there. Nobody had, excepting those who brought old boots to mend to the cobbler who rented it.

Nevertheless a baby was about to be born at number three ! It would be impossible to imagine anything more superfluous. Carrying coals to Newcastle, water at Riverhead, salt to the sea, are each regarded as being eminently symbolical of the superfluous, but they might claim to be acts of high utility compared with the introduction of yet another child to add to the already teeming infant population of Little Whelk Street. They swarmed there already, and only for bad drainage, vitiated air, dirt and neglect, and a few other things detrimental to baby life, Little Whelk Street could never have contained a single generation of the human creatures brought into the world there. Feline life has always been proverbial for its tenacity, but allowing a cat nine existences, or, in other words, assuming that the chances of its outliving the disorders natural to its kind and its perils by flood ancl field are nine to one in its favour as compared with those of any other quadruped, a baby of Whelk Street might safely be backed for battling through vicissi tudes to which the stoutest little Grimalkin ever born must have speedily succumbed.

The superior infant stumbles and strikes its head against a leg of the nursery table, and such serious symptoms develop themselves it is deemed necessary to send for the doctor. The babe of Whelk Street, temporarily deposited on the top step of a steep flight, ancl left there to balance itself as it best can while its nurse disports with her friends at skip -rope, presently falls headlong clown the stony precipice : and though it may be slightly stunned, its conscious ness is speedily restored by a smart spanking, and it requires no treatment, medical or other wise, but the application of a bit of cold brick to its bruises. From early in the morning until late at night, .all through the summer time, are never fewer than three or four ragged bantlings sprawling at play in the roadway, but not once a month is such a thing heard of as one of them being run over.

Mangy mongrels are their constant com panions ancl playmates all through the dog days, but hydrophobia is unknown in the neighbourhood. Nothing comes amiss to these babes of the slums in the way of ailment. With the other children they partake of mimic " feasts," the basis of which is a raw carrot or turnip — ancl sour gooseberries, unripe plums, and oranges, the decaying yellow coats of which are richly covered with blue flip, are relished as delicacies of the season- — and they increase and multiply. You see it is not as though each separate abode was occupied by only one family. As many rooms as there were in each domicile, there were as many renters. So that assuming every dwelling consisted of eight rooms, and taking the progeny of each married couple as averaging five— a low estimate indeed ! — there you had forty youngsters in each dwelling, and of these ten, probably, would not have passed the period of teething.

Ten babies to each house, ancl thirty houses in the street. Whew ! no wonder they swarmed on the pavement, in the roadway, on the steps of the houses, and so thickly bestrewed passages ancl stairs, that when the parish doctor came hurrying to number three (he had been sent for four times before he responded to the summons, but he was worked terribly hard, poor fellow,) he trod on a couple of prostrate sucklings and had to pacify them with lozenges, which he carried for the purpose, before he could complete his ascent to the third floor front, where he was very anxiously expected. An addition to the infant population was such a frequent occurrence, and the matrons of Little Whelk Street were, generally speaking, hard working poor souls, compelled to play the part of bread-winners as well as their husbands, and an hour wasted was a penny lost and a very serious sacrifice for them to make.

On that account alone, and apart from the absence of novelty, it might reasonably have been expected that they would have exhibited no great amount of interest in the advent of Mrs. Jacksmith's sixth child. This was far from being the case, however. There was manifestly such excitement among the married women, it might have been a wedding in the immediate view instead of a birth, only that there was no giggling and fun making as they stood grouped at the street doors nearest to number three, the third floor window of which seemed to have an irresistible attraction for them. Evidently something was amiss ! They laid their heads together, and there was deep concern in the expression on their faces as they whispered what they were talking about, as though it was possible for the subject of their conversation to overhear them, and it would be bad for her if she did.

The " something amiss " included poor Mrs. Jacksmith's husband seemingly. He was employed as stoker at a neighbouring sugar bakery, and had been sent for. He was a loose-limbed, powerful man of slovenly mien, ancl though his eldest girl, who had been despatched for him, was short of breath with running, and, being far ahead in returning, looked back repeatedly and beckoned him impatiently to hasten his steps, he exhibited no inclination to do so. He was conscious that the women at the doors were eyeing him with disfavour, not to say with anger and accusing, as he passed up the street, ancl to make them understand how little he cared for it he made his pace a leisurely one, with one hand in his trouser pocket and the other supporting his pipe. As he approached one of the doorways at which three women were standing he heard one of them remark, " Not that she has much to wish to live for !' If I was the poor creeter I should think I would be better off in heaven, ancl be glad to leave him and get there."

"Oh!" responded another, "but it is the poor children I am thinking about, and, with all her sufferings, I'll wager she's thinking of 'em too !" Jerry Jacksmith heard this, and all of a sudden his heart took to thumping beneath his greasy old waistcoat. He would like to have stopped and enquired of the women if it was his wife they were speaking of, but he knew that this was exactly what they wished, so that they might tell him to his head what they thought of him, so he refrained. But he walked a little faster. What had happened ? He was not the best of friends with his wife when he left her early in the morning. Indeed, they had not been on what might be called affectionate terms for a week past. There was a reason for the coolness. It was just a week since that they had rowed together. In a fit of exasperation he had kicked over the heavy table on which his supper was laid, and it had fallen on her as she was kneeling, doing something at the fire-place, and hurt her very much.

To do him justice, Jerry was sorry for it, but his wife gave him no encouragement to express his regret, and, judging it would be a waste of words, he did not attempt it. But she had real cause for resentment, poor soul ! Jerry had not always been brutal. When they were first married, and, indeed, until a third child was born to them, although not a particularly lively partner, he was hard-working and sober, ancl took an interest in his home. It was not until he was in fair prospect of a fourth blessing that he began to change, and grew thoughtful and sometimes short-tempered. Then instead of thanking his lucky stars, all his cheerfulness forsook him, ancl he assumed the demeanour of a man labouring under an increasing suspicion that he is hardly dealt with. He did not openly grumble, however, and though his wife was afraid to give her mind too freely to guessing the cause of his despond ency, she kept her thoughts to herself.

When, after being away from home all day, he came home in the evening ancl found that the fourth child was born, there was no light of gladness in his eyes. " It is a beautiful little gal," the nurse remarked, as she placed it in his arms, " and the doctor says you ought to be proud of it." Jerry's reply was enigmatical, and delivered with a serio-comic twist of his face. " Oh, cert'nly ! Likewise, and in the ordinary way of things, I ought to like sugar, but, you see, I work at a sugar bakery." But the old woman was not versed in the language of metaphor. She much better under stood the shilling Jerry gave her. " What did he say ?" poor Mrs. Jacksmith, who was lying in the next room, enquired. " He said it was a sweet little dear," replied the nurse, " sweeter than a whole sugar bakery," whereat the mother's mind was much relieved.

" There now!" she said to herself, as she kissed the face of the puffy little pink bundle as it was handed back to her, " ancl all along I have been doubting whether he would be pleased or sorry! It was me he was so anxious about, not the increase." But, although on his next visit, the doctor's bulletin was that " mother and child were getting on quite as well as might be expected," Jerry Jacksmith did not immediately recover his lightness of heart. When he took a seat of evenings to smoke his pipe by the fire, he did not lean back in his chair with his legs crossed comfortably. He sat with his feet tucked in ancl with his shoulders rounded, and puffed out the tobacco smoke not full and free, but in gusty puffs, as smoke emerges from a chimney-pot when the wind is uncertain ancl fretful. A month after her confinement, his wife remarked to him, " I can't make up my mind, Jerry, what baby's name shall be.

Shall we call her Carry or Clara ?" Jerry, who with a glum face was engaged with a pencil and slate, reckoning how many hours' overtime he had made at the factory that week, made answer, " I wish you would call her Corker !" " Why ! whoever heard of such a Christian name as that?" said innocent Mrs. Jacksmith, •" why Corker ?" " Because, old gal," ancl Jerry looked grave, " we don't want any more of 'em. I hain't blaming you, mind. If I was earning a couple of pound a week, I should say ' Go ahead ancl good luck to you. The more the merrier.' It is different when you go on flourishing, and I stick at eighteen shillings. Work out a sum of it," ancl he applied the pencil in his hand to making figures on his slate. " The long ■division of it is anything but a lark. Your young 'uns, and you ancl me make six.

Sixes in eighteen goes thrice. Three shillings a head, take the little 'uns with the big 'uns ! I don't mean, of course, that she should be actually sprinkled ' Corker,' but if she could be regarded in that light I tell you, plump ancl plain, I should like it all the better." This cold-blooded and unfatherly avowal was the cause of the most serious disagreement that up to that period had marred the tolerably even flow of their domestic felicity. Mrs. Jacksmith was possessed of a spirit. She was a flat-built female, of bony development, ancl as fierce in defence of her progeny as a hen with her chicks. She did not cry. She fired up and faced him in a way he little expected. " Who was he to presume to sum up the ways of Providence, with his figuring, and his long divisions, as though the holy bond of matrimony and all that related thereto was a milk score or a chandler shop account ?

If—if — he was a man, why didn't he speak out his mind, ancl not throw out cowardly hints ? Why didn't he give his orders that she should murder one or two of her helpless little ones ? He, with his paltry eighteen shillings a week, and his thrice times sixes ! Let him keep the lot, if he was that greedily disposed, ancl she would work her fingers to the bone working for them at the wash-tub." She worked herself to such a pitch of fury that he was scourged clean out of the house by the tongue-lashing she gave him. She meant to be at him again when he came home, but for the first time in their married life, Jerry returned very late ancl very drunk, and as she opened the door to him she saw that in his eyes that warned her against renewing a breach of the peace, ancl on his commanding her to unlace' his boots she obeyed without a murmur.

Little Clara Carry (for so she had the child christened, disdaining to consult him further in the matter) was not much more than three years. old when Mrs. Jacksmith's impending death caused such a commotion in Little Whelk Street. Jerry had never renounced or retracted his opinion as to a man's family increasing while his wages showed no corresponding advance, and therefore the reader will not be surprised to learn that it was this bone of contention that led to the upsetting of the table, with the alarming results already hinted at. But it was only on this one point that Jerry Jacksmith was reprehensible as a husband and father. Ancl when his eldest girl came breath less to the bakery to tell him that the doctor had been, and had suggested that he should be fetched home without delay, his conscience smote him.

His mind all the morning had been despondent. What was life now to him ? He had health and strength, but how did those gifts, that people made such a fuss about, benefit him ? They didn't belong to him at all, if it came to that; at all events he wasn't free to enjoy them. Health and strength to him meant only ability to drudge for others, to draw the cart to which he was harnessed, and which every other year almost received an addition to the load it was his lot to draw. If it came to that he wasn't nearly as well off as a horse ! A horse could always depend on getting enough to eat and drink, no matter how dear provision's might be, but could he ? What a fool a man was to get married. What did the Bible say? — " A good wife was the crown of her husband." Well, if there was any single man who thought he had more trouble to bear with than his— Jerry's— wife had piled up, and was still piling up for him, he would like to change places with him for half the money, that's all.

It was on account of this, his most recent train of thought, that his conscience now pricked him. According as the message was delivered to him the doctor had said, " This is sad indeed, — with all these little children too ! Let the husband be fetched with as little delay as possible." What could that mean, but that she was in a critical state ? " God-a-mighty !" gasped Jerry, and his pipe fell unheeded from his lips and was broken on the pavement, " what should I do if she was to die ?" I'd sooner have a dozen youngsters to keep, — a score of 'em. Let her get over this, and I'll never growl at her again, or lay a hand on her. I'll promise her that, soon as I see her, ancl that will cheer her up if anything can. I'll -, hold hard though ! Here comes the doctor, so things can't be so bad after all.

He wouldn't come away as soon as this if she wasn't out of danger !" Ancl Jerry hurried his steps to meet the medical man who was coming up the street. But their eyes met while they were a few paces apart, and Jerry stopped short, feeling as though an icy-cold mask had been suddenly clapped over his face. He knew what was coming, ancl was so dazed that his power of speech forsook him, and by the movement of his lips he seemed to be under the impression that he still held the pipe between them, and was smoking. The doctor had no liking for Jerry — it wasn't likely he would have— but now he offered him his hand. " You needn't hurry, Mr. Jacksmith," he remarked kindly. "You are too late, I am sorry to tell you. It is a pity she could not see you before she died, poor creature, especially as she seemed so anxious to.

But it is no good speaking of that now. I don't know if it will be any comfort to you to know that the baby is alive (he knew Jerry's views on that subject generally), but it is a poor, weakly little thing and may not be here long. I should take a walk round if I were you before I went home. You will then be able to face it better, may be." But Jerry could only nod his head. He had not heard a quarter of what the doctor said to him. He comprehended nothing beyond the words, " You are too late ;" the rest might have been Greek or Arabic. Left alone, he moved forward again towards the house where he lived, and, still wearing the cold mask, passed dumbly by the group of women at the street door, their accusing glances being quite lost on him. The cobbler who resided in the kitchen had seen him pass the window, and, dropping the old boot he was at work on, came hurrying up the stairs ancl plucked him by the skirt of hia jacket.

"Hist! Jacksmith, old boy! Don't go up. Come clown here a little while. You had best, I think. We've got 'em all down here — baby ancl all." Jerry allowed himself to be persuaded, and followed the good-natured mender of shoes clown into his kitchen. The cobbler's wife was sitting at the fireside, and gathered about her were the five motherless children, their dirty faces showing abundant traces of where the recent tears had trickled. To assuage their cruel sorrow the good woman had treated them each to a substantial slice of bread ancl treacle, and seated in a circle on the hearth-rug they were munching away at it, when the appearance of their father caused their grief to start anew. The full force of his bereavement must have come home to Jerry when, as he sank down on to a chair, they all came about him wailing and sobbing, the eldest girl with her arms round his neck, the younger ones clinging to his knees.

" Oh, mother, mother ! Dear mother ! She has gone, father, she has gone !" Jerry Jacksmith had no proper pockethand kerchief — only a ragged old cluster he used to wipe his perspiring face with when at work in the stokehole. He withdrew this from his pocket, and after a gasping heave or two, broke down completely ancl hid his face. The cobbler's wife, whose cheeks were wet, was hurrying forward to comfort him, but the wise old cobbler prevented her. " Hist, missus ! Let 'em alone. They'll be all the better for it !" And so it was. After a stormy few minutes, there came a lull, and swallowing back his last rising sob, Jerry remarked, as his red eyes glanced round the kitchen, " You said it was clown here, didn't you, Dabbs ? Where is it ? Where's the baby ?" " Oh, that is all right," returned the cobbler's wife.

At least, when I say all right, so it is, expecting each minute to join the angels. It isn't dressed yet, poor little mite, it not seeming worth while. There it is wrapped up warm and lying in the fender." A poor little mite, truly ! The five children followed their father to have a look at it. There it lay, scarce two hours old, within a foot of the ashes, couched in an old gown skirt belonging to the cobbler's wife, and with a dilapidated waistcoat, the property of the cobbler, by way of a counter pane. Deprived of maternal care and thrown on its own resources, it was sucking its tiny fist and feebly blinking at the fire, utterly indifferent if earth claimed it or heaven. This was Jerry Jacksmith, junior ! the hero of these pages.

Chapter II

In Which Jerry the Elder Testifies to the Truth of the Proverb Respecting Promises and Piecrust. j>J|||NE might have supposed that quite a JKtll long time had elapsed since poor Mrs. jiraj Jacksmith departed this life — especially <^jf$ taking into consideration the impressive circumstances attending her demise, and which certainly were calculated to keep those she left behind in mind of her. The stern though silent vows the bereaved sugar-baker had made that mournful morning had, presumably, well-nigh faded from his memory. When, the clay his wife died, surrounded by his motherless little ones, he looked down on the tiny spark of humanity, kindled at the expiring parent flame, as it lay so forlornly in the fender in the cobbler's kitchen, Jerry Jacksmith made many solemn promises. With his heart newly wrung with anguish, ancl urged by contrition, while he stood by the fire-place making the penitential survey, said Jerry to himself : "This is all my doing!

Had I not been such a selfish man and unnatural vagabond, my clear Polly might still have been in the land of the living, and happy with this poor little morsel of a child snuggling beside her ! I know it, ancl I own it, and I will do my very best to make amends. In future I will be father and mother as well to my children ! I will toil for them uncomplainingly, ancl think of myself last of all, even to a half-pint of beer and a pipe of tobacco. When the money can be spared, I will treat myself to one or the other, but never while my earnings are required for food ancl comforts for my family, or for clothes or shoes for them to wear." Not even the cobbler's wife, although she was standing close by the whole time, heard a word of this, but he as good as spoke every sentence, ancl, what is more, clenched it with an oath.

And had he faithfully observed those solemn pledges ? Ask his eldest girl Selina, who, in the natural order of things, had taken her dead parent's place, and to the best of her small ability was a mother to her orphaned brothers and sisters, including the youngest of all, aged five weeks. Yes, the " poor little mite," the cobbler's wife had so considerately consigned to the angels, was still alive ! Had the child depended on the prayers of friends and relatives for a prolongation of its doubtful existence, it would have survived the fender period but a short time indeed ? To speak truth, Jerry Jacksmith, junior, could scarcely be regarded in the light of a blessing in a bereaved family. Within four and twenty hours of his birth there seemed to have dawned on him a knowc ledge of the irreparable loss he had sustained, and then he commenced to cry about it, ancl, excepting brief intervals of exhaustion conse quent on the effort, kept it up night and day during the whole of the first month.

If anything could have excused the father's failure to keep the vows he had made, it was having such a severe drawback to contend with. The child's doleful music played him out of the house at six in the morning ; it met him on the stairs when he came home at midday ; it wras the bitter salt that seasoned his humble dinner from the time he took up his knife and fork until he laid them clown again ; and the same dis tracting tune greeted him when he returned weary at night-time, and not unfrequently kept him lying awake until long past midnight. Under such conditions it was, perhaps, not very much to be wondered at if the widower soon began to relent in his vigorous determina tion to make the little creature the object of his especial care, for its mother's sake. " It will be a rare job to bring it up by hand," he had said to himself, ancl, in the earnestness of self-reproach for his ill behaviour to his wife, he almost wished that it might prove to be a more difficult business than in ordinary, so that his cheerful willingness to make sacrifices in its behalf might be put to the severest test.

But poor Jerry had just about as much strength of mind ancl fortitude under his pecu liar affliction as the majority of his male fellow creatures would have manifested. Before he had worn black crape on his sleeve three weeks he found his way, when he left off work in the evening, to his old corner in the tap-room of the "Anchor and Hope," and there he remained until it was time to return home to supper and to bed. Not that his little daughter, Selina, had much to grumble about on that account. At first, at all events. She was her father's housekeeper now, and the control of his home was in her hands. Small hands to have such a heavy responsi bility ! Selina was only thirteen years old, and not big at that. But she was a shrewd one ! She possessed all her mother's sharpness without the acidity, ancl, moreover, she was as patient and busy, and sweet-tempered a little creature as ever was born.

Her father had no idea, previously, of how clever ancl sensible she was, and it gave him great delight, at first, to let her see how implicitly he relied on her. He gave her his wages, keeping back a mere two shillings, just as was his custom with her mother, ancl father and daughter (Selina looked the more diminutive for having discarded the childish frivolity of loose locks, and now wore her hair severely drawn back and twisted into a small hard knot behind) would hold counsel together on Saturday night as to what would be best and most economical for Sunday dinner, with an eye to having some left cold for Monday, and still a remnant out of which a makeshift meal might be contrived for Tuesday. With. the four children all washed and abed, and the baby happily asleep for a brief spell, they to gether overhauled the four little pairs of shoes, and he meekly deferred to her opinion on the important questions of soleing and heeling and patchpieces.

The first Saturday night he actually went to market with her, and carried the basket. But, of course, this blissful state of things could not last. For one thing the infant Jerry (Selina had been to the Registry Office and there had it so named) was a decided obstacle in the way of its continuance. For the first fortnight Jerry the elder remained a martyr to his virtuous resolve, ancl coming home straight from his employment every even ing he stayed indoors till bedtime, despite the squalling of his infant offering. It was Selina herself — and often afterwards she was troubled with qualms of conscience for having been the instigator of his backsliding — who, pitying her father's overtaxed patience, at last suggested that he should go out for an hour, just by way of a change. He feigned reluctance, ancl required no little amount of persuasion, but he went.