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Victorian London - Publications - Social Investigation/Journalism - Mysteries of Modern London, by One of the Crowd [James Greenwood], [1883] - Waiting for the Bells
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[-64-]
WAITING FOR THE BELLS.
THE RHEUMATIC OLD NIGHT-CAB DRIVER - A HERO UNKNOWN TO HIMSELF - WAITING FOR THE BELLS IN A CELL AT PORTLAND - A QUEER SORT OF WARMING-PAN - THE PENITENT PRISONER AND HIS WIFE'S PHOTOGRAPH - LISTENING TO THE BELLS IN THE OLD MEN'S WARD OF THE WORKHOUSE - IN THE HOSPITAL - SICK MOTHER, THE CHILDREN AT HOME-WHAT THE BELLS SAID AND WHAT THEY PROMISED.
IT
was a poor old and rheumatic night-cab-man whose vehicle I hired on New
Year's Eve to carry me from one part of London to
another, and it having just then struck a quarter to twelve o'clock, he wheezed out from behind his muffler
that he wished me a Happy New Year. I returned the compliment, wishing him the same, and inquired
if his present prospects promised to that effect?
"Well, I don't know, sir," he replied "I lives in hopes. I
don't know of anything to prewent it, 'cept it is the rheumatics. If I can only
keep off them I think I might manage to rough it through the new year, same as I
have the old."
"If you are subject to rheumatism," I remarked,
"wouldn't it be as well to find some sort of work to do that might keep you
out of the night air and the bad weather. It would be better for you to be a.
day cabman than a night one, at any rate."
"Well, that's all 'cordin' to circumstances," he
replied, with a. bit of a chuckle and as though he was about to relate a good
joke - [-65-] "D'ye see, sir, it is because I am given to rheumatics
that I am a night cabman. It's part of it, in a manner of speaking. It's this
way. My old lady - my wife, I mean - helps out the few shillings I earn by going out
doing a bit of washin' and charin'. Well, I used to drive a day cab, and go to
bed o' nights like other people. But when the rheumatics are on me I groan and
toss about as soon as I get warm under the blankets in a way that don't make me
a very pleasant bedfellow, I can tell you. The old lady can't get a wink of
sleep. She don't complain. Not she; she's too good a sort. But I know.
And how could she at sixty-eight stand at the wash-tub all day if she don't get
any sleep o' nights? That's why I turned night cabman. I can't earn as much, but
it makes things comfortable at home, don't you see. By the time I get home in
the morning the old lady has had her night's rest, and I can turn into bed and
groan and kick about as much as I want to."
And seemingly quite innocent of being unselfish almost to the
extent of heroism, the kind-hearted old fellow pulled up his woollen comforter
over his blue nose, and climbed up on to his driving seat.
"The bells are a.goin' it pretty, ain't they, sir?" he
remarked. "And I tell you what; I'd a sight sooner be a-driving a night cab
and hearing of 'em than I'd be layin' awake, like many in all manner of places
are, and listening, and thinking about what perhaps wasn't very pleasant."
Lying awake and listening, who shall tell their number? The
sick, the sad, the sorrowful, in homes where comfort reigns, in hospitals, in
workhouses and prisons, in convict strongholds even, where the blackest sheep of
the human fold are penned. Very moving pictures of wakeful ones
rise before the mind's eye of one who has moved amongst those poor branded
wretches, and knows something of their habits and ways. Of the convicts at
Portland, for instance, in their separate, little, horribly cold houses of
corrugated zinc, and their asphalte floors. So biting is the air within these
places on winter nights, that the incarcerated ones are in the habit of
extemporising a warming-pan to abate the shivering of their limbs when they
retire to bed.
All the utensils of their cell are of zinc, including a bowl
with a wooden handle for washing purposes. They burn candle to light them after
dark, a certain number of inches being allotted to each man, and on a certain
signal sounding bed-time the candles are all supposed to be extinguished; but
having served him as a lamp, the Portland convict has a way of making his bit of
candle serve him as a fire also. Instead of extinguishing it he claps his
washing bowl over the flame until the metal vessel is almost too hot to touch
and then he wraps it in his jacket, and takes it to his cold mattress, [-66-]
hugging it in his arms as a comforter. He may have another
comforter as well, not by that exercise of his ingenuity; but by hard striving
to do his best to please his keepers he may, in course of time, have conferred
on him the precious privilege of being permitted to receive the photograph of a
friend.
And it is found that among the ruffian company there are many
of the younger men who are married, who perhaps weakly, rather than wickedly,
have slid into the ways of crime and met with its terrible punishment, and hail
this boon with inexpressible gratitude, since it enables them to have in
their keeping the pictured face of the wife who, despite all their faults, they
still love very dearly, and for whose sake they swear each night before they
close their eyes that when their sentence expired, they will lead an amended
life, and enjoy the blessings of a happy home again.
One may be sure that on the last night of the Old Year the
wife's portrait will not be forgotten. In the black darkness and with it pressed
to his lips the sobbing thief will lie and listen for the striking of twelve on
the great prison bell- the knell of the shameful year and the ushering in of the
New Year, only a few months of which, perhaps, will be tainted with convict
recollections, and then for precious liberty! Then is he a man again, with her
trusting face to cheer him and her faithful courage to make him strong. Good
resolutions but too often fail, yet Heaven knows this man is earnest enough as
he lies awake and listens for the striking of the bell-to do what? To kiss the
tear-stained photograph at each separate chime, and whisper anew his solemn
promises as to the future.
Again, in the workhouses the church bells may be heard within
the whitewashed walls, especially in the stillness of the night, and, when they
have the long account of twelve to proclaim, how many are lying awake, staring
at the dark and listening! In the old folks' dormitory, for instance, a woeful
watch-night is it for scores of those whose shrunken cheek presses the hard
pillow, and the more so, perhaps, after the mild excitement that Christmas
brings into even a workhouse ward. It brings couples together that at ordinary
times the Poor-law sets asunder; and there is the banquet of roast beef and
pudding, and the half-pint of beer, and maybe the unwonted luxury of a quarter-
ounce of snuff or a half-ounce of tobacco. All very proper and enjoyable to such
an extent that for the time being it makes the grey- haired paupers
forget everything but the treat in progress. But the worst of it is, after such
stirring times, there comes reaction.
Their stagnant lives have been for a little while stirred,
but when the commotion has ceased the dreariness that ensues seems worse to bear
than before. Nor are they in the least cheered by old memories
that-ghost-like-come crowding round the narrow pallet as soon as the gas is put
out. These ghosts of the past begin to assemble the night after Christmas night,
and their number increases, for one calls up another, and the links of the chain
are innumerable, until the crowd culminates on the last night of the old year,
and whether he will or no the poor old workhouse man or woman is compelled to
hold a dismal review. No one word is spoken, though the dormitory contains
five-and-forty beds all of a row, but there is not an iron [-67-]
bedstead there that ghosts of the past have not gathered
round, thicker and thicker as the hands of the clock climb up with tiny strides,
and presently reach midnight.
I don't know how it might be were the choice really before
me, but as I now think about it, I would a thousand times rather be at rest
beneath the churchyard grass, than be one of those lie- awakes in the old men's
ward, huddled under my shoddy bed rug. If I were a moral old man, and properly
religious, I should bow to my fate with meek resignation, and since no better
might be, make the best of it; but I can scarcely imagine myself in such a
Christian condition of mind as to be able to defy and banish saddening
reflections. I can't conceive a more melancholy object than an old man, past
work and self-dependence, who has outlived the patience of those who had long
borne with him and helped him, just enough to keep their grudged charity in
countenance, forgotten and neglected even by his children, withering out his
remnant of life within a workhouse walls.
Under such circumstances it must be sad indeed to lie awake
on the Old Year's last night and think-and think of old times and old faces-of a
face that once was not Wrinkled and pinched with care, but fresh and blooming, and the crowning blessing of
his young manhood's prime. Who at that time could have dreamt even that in his
old age he would be thankful for workhouse shelter? For years and years he was
perhaps a prosperous man, jovial and hospitable, and with means to gratify his
chief delight, which was to gather his friends and acquaintances around him at
holiday times.
On New Year's Eve, for example, not once nor twice, but a
score of times and more, now he cares to look back, has he sat at the head of
his well-spread table, with welcome guests on every side, and every man with his
glass charged, waiting, as he is now waiting, for chime of midnight, to grasp
each other by the hand and drink a Happy New Year.
Well, well! Thank Heaven that she, his old wife, was taken
from him when that last crushing blow of misfortune fell and ruined him. A
thousand times better- though at the time he thought it the cruelest loss of
all-than that she should have lived to have her white hair shamed with a
workhouse cap. That was five years ago, and now another year is just closing,
and yet another dawning just as desolate, just as hopeless as the last. A long,
long lane with neither break nor turning, and with a pauper's grave yawning for
him at the end! Why, it would be far better if- Ding-dong, ding-dong! There go
the chimes of the parish church at last, and it has struck twelve o'clock and
the spell is broken, and with a sigh the poor old fellow turns on his pillow and
has closed his eyes to sleep it is to be hoped, and so forget all about it.
And who is so likely to lie awake and listen for the solemn
tolling that tells of the old year's [-68-] last moments, and for the merry hopeful peal as those who
have lain long ill in hospital? Mothers with children at home, who she knows
miss her so sorely, though on visiting days those who come to see her, never
fail to bring her a cheerful report of how nicely the house affairs are managed
by the elder sister or a kind neighbour, and endeavour to comfort her with the
assurance that when she is cured of her lingering ailment, she will find
everything at home as bright and comfortable as when she was carried away.
"When" she is cured!
The weary weeks she has waited for some more hopeful reply to
her oft-repeated question:
"When is it likely I may go out, nurse?"
"You must have patience."
That
is the answer invariably. If they would only mention a day, even though it were
a month hence, it would not be so hard to bear with. Well, please God, the new
year may bring with it a favourable change for her, and thinking of those at
home, she pictures them just as they are sitting round the fire with their
father, she listens for the striking of the clock, just as they are listening,
and as though there was wafted to them through the frosty air the words of the
earnest prayer poor mother whispers as the chimes cease. Says father, sitting at
the fire with the children.-
"And now that we've heard it strike, we'll go to bed, youngsters, and Lord send we may
have her among us again many months before we hear new year's bells again."
Lying awake and listening in the silent wards is many a
rough- handed bread winner struck down and rendered helpless for the time by
accident or disease. Lucky for him if he is a prudent man and entitled to sick pay from his club; but, even with that
welcome help, the difference between it and the sum of his wages is so wide that
he needs no telling how matters are at home, and that, with all his good
helpmate's pinching and contriving, the cupboard must sometimes be well nigh
bare and the stock of coals such as to make it necessary to put the hungry grate
on half rations.
He is weary of-the old year for its unkind treatment of him,
and has a superstitious belief that he shall not get better while it lasts. With
the first of January luck may turn over a new leaf for him. So he lies and
watches the clock, and when the hour and the minute hand both declare that they
have ticked their last in the old year's service, and when at the self-same
moment there is borne to his listening ear the merry pealing of church bells,
the poor patient is quite confirmed in his opinion that the year that is come,
and not that which has gone is his true friend, and he turns over and composes
himself for sleep, feeling better already.
But there are others besides women and men who lie in
hospital on New Year's Eve-the children. As everyone is aware, there are in
London several institutions devoted entirely to the reception of poor suffering
little creatures, from baby age to ten or twelve. Take the one in Great Ormond
Street, for example, with its spacious wards and long rows of tiny cots, each
one containing a mite of a child doomed for a time to live a bed-life. Some,
under surgical treatment, are there for months. in certain instances as long as
a whole year.
Patients are there who, with crooked limbs in slow process of
being put straight, are kept in a [-69-] certain position by strong, though slender chains, which show at the cot
side, and to which weights are attached. It is notorious that at the excellent
establishment in question the magic of kindness is so effectually exercised by
nurses and doctors that the most rebellious subject is subdued before even he
himself is aware of it.
Of all child trials none can be crueler or harder to bear than, sick and sad,
to be carried to the hospital by a mother of all people in the world, she to
whom the little sufferer clings closest, and, without a word of preparation or
notice, left among strangers. Hundreds of us, when grown up, talk of dying of a
broken heart, through troubles that are insignificant by comparison. But at the
Children's Hospital the authorities have a way of managing such matters by which
they can almost warrant that a child so left, trembling with fear, and sobbing
as though each sigh, must be its last, will be found a few hours afterwards
contentedly settled in its small couch playing with a toy, or delighted with a
picture book, or engaged in confidential conversation with its next bed-neighbour.
But
there must be times when these little people - especially those whose
infirmities keep them prisoners there along, long time - must grow sad and
homesick, and yearn for the day when brothers and sisters, mother and
father shall be restored to them. Who can doubt, when at the stroke of twelve on
New Year's Eve the bells ring out, many are lying awake and listening to their
music, knowing that they said the new year was come, and hearing who shall say
what whisperings of promise in their pealing voices besides?
Bells,
as we know, chime well with the fanciful imaginations of children. There was
one-he was growing a big boy, too-who once sat on a stone at Highgate and
distinctly heard the bells of Bow Church, in Cheapside, invite him to retrace
his steps Cityward, and promising as an inducement that he should be Lord Mayor
of London. Why, then, should not the midnight bells that ring on New Year's Eve
proclaim to the little hospital patients who, racked with aches and pains,
perhaps lay awake listening, that good times are close at hand, and that the New
Year, being as it were a child itself, would take compassion on them presently,
and make them well and strong. So may it be.