Scamp and I: A Story of City By-Ways

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.

Chapter Three

What the Children Promised Their Mother

In the cellar there was never daylight, so though the sun was shining outside, Flo had to strike a match, and poking about for a small end of tallow candle, she applied it to it. Then, seating herself on her cobbler’s stool, while Jenks and Dick squatted on the floor, and Scamp sat on his hind legs, she unpacked the yellow bowl; and its contents of roast goose, sage and onions, with a plentiful supply of gravy and potatoes, being found still hot, the gutter children and gutter dog commenced their supper.

“I do think ’ees a dawg of the right sort,” said Jenks, taking Scamp’s head between his knees. “We’ll take ’im round to Maxey, and see wot ’ee ses, Dick.”

“Arter supper?” inquired Dick indistinctly, for his mouth was full.

“No, I wants you arter supper for somethink else; and look yere, Dick, I gives you warning that ef you gets reg’lar in the blues, as you did this arternoon, I’ll ’ave no callin’ to you.”