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EPISODES IN AN OBSCURE LIFE
Strahan & Co., Publishers
56, Ludgate Hill, London
1871
EPISODES IN AN OBSCURE LIFE
STRAHAN & CO., PUBLISHERS
56 LUDGATE HILL, LONDON
1871
[-1-]
INTRODUCTORY.
THE publication of these Experiences was not sought by me. It was the suggestion of the friend who found out that I had
kept a diary, got hold of it, and persuaded me to let him make extracts
from it, and then further persuaded me to expand those extracts into something
like literary shape; not (as he was candid enough to tell me) because he thought
that there was anything remarkable in the diarist, but because the people
amongst whom I have spent the greater part of my life - normal as they have long
seemed to me - seemed out-of-the-common to him, Of course, however, I trust that
in letting these records be taken from their obscurity I have not been
influenced by vanity, or other unworthy motive. Vanity, though, do I say?
In spite of the self-flattery with which the most secret diaries are written,
trying to persuade the writer through his eyes (when there is no one else to be
deceived) that he is a better [-2-] man than his heart tells him that he is, even my own
confessions will show that I have small reason to be vain.
Young people, I suppose, would reckon me old. At any rate, I
remember blooming young brides who are now grandmothers, and children that I
have nursed have now children of their own; but (if any man can read his
own heart) I may honestly say that no proffer of preferment would tempt me to leave the squalid district in which my
hairs have grown grey. I should like to lay them within the shadow of the
mother-church in which I began my East- End labours. Wise sanitary arrangements
have rendered this impossible, but I hope to be buried in the Tower Hamlets'
Cemetery. In a fluctuating population like that in which I have laboured,
personal ties are very often suddenly snapped; but I have a personal attachment
to the type of people who have been so long my neighbours, and it would
gratify me to know that my old body would sleep within the circle of the smoke
and noise in which they spend their troublous lives.
It would be affectation - falsehood - to insinuate that I was
always thus contented. Clergymen, like other men, have their ambitions, and,
perhaps, have as much justification for them, and quite as honest a
justification, as laymen have, in the hope of 'securing a sphere of greater
usefulness.' But then clergymen are no better judges than other men of what is
really for their good. I feel now (if I may say so without irreverence to God's
government) that it would have been a great mistake if, in the days when I was by
no means inclined to utter a coy nolo praeferri, I had obtained a
benefice. I was
[-3-] meant to be a curate amongst struggling people, if,
without conceit, I may suppose that I was specially meant to be anything; and I
am thankful that I found this out early enough in my career to be able to throw
full bodily strength, as well as, I trust, my whole heart's devotion, into
curate's labours, without looking upon them as a parenthetical, painful
preparation for rest (in this world) - otium cum dignitate. Many a heart-ache have those
labours caused me, and yet I have found in them an exceeding great reward.
They have been obscure enough, but I would humbly offer a
prayer that God may in his goodness bless this humble record of them to the
furtherance of the Gospel - peace on earth, good-will amongst men - harbinger and antepast
of heavenly joys.
[-4-]
II.
'LITTLE CREASES'
WHEN I first came up to town, it was to become junior
curate of one of the East End's mother-churches. I lodged in a baker's first-floor rooms. The residence could boast of some
'amenities.' When I looked out of
my window in rainy weather, I could see - thanks to the under-ground
bake-house - the pavement beneath a dry patch in the midst of sloppiness on all
sides; and the snow melted there almost as soon as it fell. But, per contra,
the sickly-sour scent of the new bread was at times almost stifling, and the
floury black-beetles marched up in such squadrons from the bake-house, that I
was forced to keep a hedge-hog; and the antidote turned out to be almost as
great a nuisance as the bane. I am ashamed to say that at first my temper was
ruffled by these trivial annoyances. Just because there was nothing to boast of
in bearing them, they annoyed all the more. It was
[-5-] 'Little Creases' who shamed me out of my puerile pettishness.
One sultry summer night, when I was still quite a novice in
London, the beetles had kept me awake by crawling over me, and dropping from the
bed-curtains like windfall fruit. In the early morning the scent of the hot
bread came steaming up the stairs, and to get the nearest approach to fresh air
within my power, I half-dressed and threw up one of my sitting-room windows. As
I was leaning out of it, the police-sergeant, who lodged in the room above,
clumped up the staircase. 'Morning, sir,' he said, stopping at the open door. 'Up
early. Can't sleep, eh? Well, it is rather close; but just you look at
that little gal cuttin' along there. This is a palace to where she has been
a-sleepin', an' yet she's off to the market pipin' like a little lark. She's
thankful for the 'eat, she is. It's bitter work for her when she's to turn out in
the winter mornin's. I do pity that poor little soul. I've little gals of my
own. Little Creases she's known as, and she's been at the cress-sellin', off an'
on, this two years, though she ain't eight yet. Creases! She don't look
much like a Croesis, do she, sir?' and, with a grin at his pun, the pitying
policeman mounted towards his bed.
The little girl to whom he had called my attention wore a
fragment of a black straw bonnet, with gaping thinks in its plait, through which
her matted curls bulged like bows of dirty silk. A limp, ragged, mud-hued calico
frock reached to where the calves ought to have been in her bare, skinny little
legs. That was all her dress. In
[-6-] one hand she carried a rusty iron tray, thumping upon it,
tambourine-fashion, with the other, as an accompaniment to 'The days when we went gipsying,' which she sang, as she trotted along, in a clear, sweet little voice
that justified the police-sergeant in likening her to a lark. At the end of the
street she put the empty tray upon her head, and merrily shrilling out, 'Pies!
pies all 'ot! all 'ot!' turned the corner and disappeared.
The next time I saw the sergeant I asked him where Little
Creases lived. 'Bottom house in Bateman's Rents; that's Miss Creases's address
when she's at home,' was his answer. I can't rightly remember just now which
room it is, but you ask any one about there where Little Creases dosses, and
they'll show you, sir. She lives with her granny. They're a rough lot down
there, but they've some sort of a respect both for the old gal an' the little
'un, an' they won't insult you, sir, if they think you wants to do 'em a kindness.
I'll go with you an' welcome, if you like, when I'm off; but they'll think more
on ye, sir, if you don't go with one of us. No, sir, the Force ain't
popular, and yet it's only our duty that we try to do; and monkey's allowance we
get for doin' on it. If you want to ketch the little un in and awake, you'd
better go somewheres between six and seven in the evenin'. The little un has to
tramp a weary way to sell her stuff;. an' she's glad enough, I'll go bail, to go
to her 'by-by,' as my littlest calls it, when she's had her grub. You know your
way to the Rents, sir? Second turnin' to the left, arter you pass the Duke o'
York. You can't mistake it, sir - the name's up jist inside the archway.'
[-7-] On the following evening I found my way to Bateman's Rents. The archway was
almost choked with gasping loungers, who looked at first very sullenly at me;
but when I inquired after Little Creases, and used the very term which the
sergeant had taught me - much as a Moravian missionary might use his first
conciliatory bit of Esquimese - the loungers relaxed into a general grin. 'She've
jest come in, sir,' said a hulking rough, leaning against a post. 'Jim, go and
show the parson where Little Creases dosses,' and at this repetition of
the friends-making pass-word there was another general grin.
Jim, a shock-headed youth, whose dress consisted of a one-sleeved shirt and a
pair of trousers with a leg and a half, upheld by a single brace of greasy
twine, speedily piloted me to the bottom of the Rents, and up a filthy, creaking
staircase to the first-floor back of the last house. 'Creases!' he shouted, as we
stopped at the open door of a dark little dungeon of a room, ' 'ere's a parson
a-lookin' arter ye. Whatever 'as you been a-doin' on?'
The only window of the room gave on a high dead wall within arm's-length of
it; and though half of the window-panes were broken, the room on that hot
evening was very close as well as dark. It was very dirty also, and so was the
parchment-skinned old woman who sat crouching, from the force of habit, over the
little rusty, empty grate. Opposite her sat Little Creases, on the floor. The
old woman's half-backed arm-chair, and the low bedstead on which she and her
granddaughter slept together, were almost all the furniture. The scantiness of
the bed-clothes did not matter so much in that sultry [-8-] weather; but, hot as it was, it almost made one shiver to
think of lying under them in winter.
'Yes, sir,' said the old woman when I had seated myself on the
bed, and stated why I had come, 'Bessie an' me 'as 'ad our tea. No, we don't light
a fire this time o' year. It's heasy to git a potful o' bilin' water somewheres or
other - our pot don't take much to fill it. It ain't much the neighbours can do
for us, but what they can they will, I must say that. No, I don't think I could
git any on 'em to clean up my room. They hain't got the time, an' if they 'ad they hain't got the water.'
I was young then, and had a weakness for giving a
professional turn to conversation; pluming myself on
my clerical cleverness when I had lugged in a text of
Scripture, apropos of anything - more often, in fact, of nothing. I began
to talk about the woman of Samaria and the water of life, in a way that I could
not help feeling was hazy even to myself. The old woman listened to me for a
time in sulkily patient silence, although plainly without the slightest
comprehension of what I meant. I was having my say; she thought, and she would
get hers by and by, and would get all the more out of it, if she 'behaved proper'
whilst I was talking. She was full of complaints, when her turn came; especially
at the hardship of her having to support a great girl like Bessie, although, so
far as I could make out, Bessie contributed at least her full share of the cost
of the old woman's room-keeping. Finding that I had small chance of hearing
anything about Little Creases, except the amount of bread she ate, in her
self-contained grandmother's pre-[-9-]sence, I proposed that Bessie should visit me at my lodgings
next morning; and to this arrangement the grandmother grudgingly consented, when
I had promised to make good the loss which the little girl would incur through
giving up her work.
I was amused to see how I sank in the 'social' estimation of
my new acquaintances when they learnt that I was lodging at a baker's. 'Wilson'
was a very rich man in their opinion, and 'made good bread, an' guv fairish
weight - better than the English bakers, though he was a Scotchman;' but
Bessie and Granny had at times bought bread of Mr Wilson, and therefore looked
upon themselves as his patronesses, and at me as a 'kind o' make-believe sort o'
gen'leman' to be lodging on his first-floor. They evidently felt
comforted when they heard that Little Creases was to knock at the private door.
I was looking out for her when she knocked. Had I not been,
the 'slavey' most likely would have ordered her off as 'a himpident match-gal as
wouldn't take No.'
Bessie was rather shy at first, but when she was asked what
she would like to have, she suggested, 'Wilson sells stunnin' brandy-snaps,' with
a glibness which showed that she had the answer ready on her tongue. Whilst she
was munching her anticipated dainties, I got a little of her history out of her,
which I will put together here, as nearly as I can in her own words:-
'My name's Bessie - ye called me so yerself. Some calls me
Little Creases, an' some jist Creases- 'cos I sells 'em. Yes, Bessie, I s'pose,
is my Chris'n name. I don't know as I've got another name. Granny 'as. Marther's
[-10-] 'er Chris'n name, an' sometimes folks calls 'er Missis Jude - sometimes they calls
'er Hold Winegar, but that ain't horfen.
No, sir, they don't call 'er that to 'er face. Granny 'ud give it back to 'em if
they did, an' they ain't a bad lot - not them as we lives with. No, I can't
remember when I fust come to live with Granny - 'ow could I? I was jist a babby,
Granny says. Oh, Granny does whatever she can - she ain't a lie-a-bed. Sometimes
she goes hout cheerin' now, but she ain't strong enough for that, an' the work
an' what she gits to drink makes 'er precious cross when she comes 'ome. Yes, I
love Granny, though she do take hall I arns. She've a right to, I s'pose. She
says so, anyways, cos she took me when father and mother died, an' father 'ad wexed
'er. No, I can't remember nuffink o' them - an' I don't see as it matters
much. There's kids in the Rents as as got fathers an' mothers as is wuss hoff
than me. Well, I s'pose, when I grows up, I can spend what I gits accord-in' to
my own mind. But I 'on't forgit Granny. She may growl, but she never whopped
me - an' some on 'em does get whopped. Yes, sir, I knows I ought to be
thankful to Granny for takin' care on me afore I could git my hown livin' - didn't
I say so? No, I can't read, an' I can't write. I never went to school. What's
the good o' that to folks like me as 'as to arn their livin'? I know 'ow much I
oughter give a 'and for my creases, an' then 'ow to split 'em up inter bunches, an'
I'm pickin' up the prices o' hother thinx at the markets, an' that's hall a gal
like me need know. Readin' an' writin' may be hall wery well for little gals as
can't 'elp theirselves, but I [-11-]
don't see as it would be hany 'elp to me. Yes, I likes to look at picturs
sometimes in the shops, but I can make out what they means - them as I cares
about - wi'out readin'. Where does I git my creases? Why, at the markit. Where
else should I git 'em? Yes, it is cold gittin up in the dark, an' the
creases feels shivery when you git a harmful, when the gas is a-burnin'. But
what's the good o' growlin' when you've got to do it? An' the women as sells 'em
is horfen kinder in the winter, though they looks half-perished theirselves,
tuckin' their 'ands under their harms, wi' the frost on 'em. One on 'em last winter
guv me a fair markit-'and when I 'adn't got no stock-money, an' the browns to git
a cup o' cawfee an' a bread-and-butter. Golly, that did do me good, for it was
hawful cold, an' no mistake. If it 'adn't been for the pain in 'em, my toes an'
fingers seemed jist as if they didn't belong to me. But it's good fun this time
o' year. We 'ave our larks when we're a-pumpin' on the creases, an' a-settin' on
the steps tyin' 'em up. Rushes we ties 'em with. No, we 'avn't to pay for the
rushes - they're gived us by them as sells the creases. Yes, I think I've seed
rushes a-growin'-in 'Ackney Marshes - but there wasn't much in that, as I could
see. I'd rather be where there was houses, if that's country. It's
sloppier than the streets is. No, I don't go to church. Granny says that she
used to go, but they never give her nufflnk, so she dropped it. 'Sides, Sunday's
when I sells most. Folks likes a relish a-Sundays for their breakfastes an'
teases; an' when I ain't a-walkin' about, I likes to git a snooze. 'Sides, I hain't no clothes fit to go to church in. No, an'
[-12-] I don't go to theaytres an' that, nayther - I sh'd like to if
I'd got the browns. I've 'eared say that it's as fine as the Queen a-hopenin'
Parli'ment - the Forty Thieves at the Pawilion is. Yes, I've seed the Queen once.
I was in the Park when she come along wi' them fine gen'lemen on 'ossback
a-bangin' away at the drums an' that; I s'pose them was the Parli'ment. I never
was so far afore, an' I ain't been since, an' I was wery tired, but I squeeged
in among the folks. Some on 'em was swells, an' some on 'em was sich as me, an'
some on 'em was sich as shopkeepers.One hold feller says to me, says he, "What
do you want 'ere, my little gal?" "I want to see the Queen, an' Prince
Halbert, an' the Parli'ment gen'lemen," says I. "I'm a Parli'ment gen'leman,"
sags he, "but I ain't a goin' down to-day." I worn't a-goin' to let 'im think he
could do me like that, for he worn't dressed nigh so smart as Wilson a-Sundays.
"You're chaffin'," says I; "why hain't you got a 'oss, an' a goold coat, an'
summat to blow?" Then he busted out larfin' fit to kill isself; and says he, "Oh,
you should 'ear me in Parli'ment a-blowin' my own trumpet, an' see me a-ridin'
the 'igh 'oss there." I think he was 'alf-silly, but he was wery good-natur'd - silly
folks horfen is. He lifted me hup right over the people's 'eads, and I see the
Queen wi' my own heyes, as plain as I see you, sir, an' Prince Halbert, too,
a-bowin' away like them himages in the grocers' winders. I thought it was
huncommon queer to see the Queen a-bowin'. I'd 'spected that all on us would
a-'ad to bob down as hif we was playin' 'oney-pots when she come by. But, law,
there she was a-bowin' away to [-13-] heverybody, an' so was Prince Halbert. I knew
'im from the picturs, though he didn't seem 'arf so smart as the gen'leman that druv the
'osses. What a nice-lookin' gen'leman, though, that Prince Halbert is! I do
believe that himage in the barber's winder in Bishopsgate, with the goold sheet
on, ain't 'arf as 'ansome. Wisher may die hif he didn't bow to me! The queer hold
cove I was a-settin' on, guy me 'is 'at to shake about like the other folks - law,
'ow
they did shake their 'ats an' their 'anker chers, an' beller as if they'd bust
theirselves! An' Prince Halbert grinned at me kind-like; an' then he guv the Queen a nudge, an' she grinned, an' guv me a bow too, an' the folks all
turned round to look at me, an' I felt as hif I was a swell. The hold cove was
huncommon pleased, an' he guv me a 'arf-a-bull, so Granny said he was a real
Parli'ment gen'leman arter all.'
'And what did you do with the money, Bessie?' I asked.
'Guv it to Granny.'
'But didn't you get any of it?'
'Oh, yes. Granny'd a blow out o'trotters, an' she guv me one,
an' huncommon good it were.'
A little girl who had sold water-cresses for two years, with
no more memorable treat than a trotter, could not be injured, I thought, by a
little indulgence. If I confirmed Bessie in her opinion that, in the
complimentary words she had already used in reference to me, I wasn't 'sich a bad
sort, arter all,' I might be able to 'get hold' of her, and eventually do her
more good than giving her a little passing pleasure. Still I was at a loss how
to [-14-] carry out my plan of giving her a day's treat; so I asked her
to choose her entertainment for herself.
'Well,' she answered promptly, 'I should like to 'ave some more
to heat bimeby;' and then, after a minute's pause, 'an' I should like to go up
the Moniment. I've horfen seed the folks at the top like rats in a cage; an' I
should like to 'ave a look down through them railin's, too.'
Little Creases' costume, although it attracted little
attention to herself, was likely to make a clerical companion stared at, even in
London's crowded streets, where men brush past each other never
heeding,- frowning, and laughing, and even talking, as if they were in a dark,
double-locked room alone, instead of publishing their secrets of character, at
any rate, in broad noon, to the one m ten thousand who may have leisure or
inclination to notice them. I thought, however, that it would be a bad beginning
with Bessie, if I wished to secure her confidence, to seem to be ashamed of her
clothes. So I got my hat, and proposed that we should start at once. When I took
hold of her hand outside the front door, I could see that she thought that in my
case, as in that of her parliamentary friend in the Mall, wit was not equal to
good-will. We were chaffed a little as we walked along. A policeman asked me if
I wanted to give the little girl in charge, and when I answered that the little
girl was taking a walk with me, looked more than half inclined to take me into
custody myself. 'Oh, he's a-doin' the good Samaritan dodge in public, Bobby,'
explained a sneering on-looker; 'lettin' 'is light shine afore men. He don't
mean no more mischief than that. I know the ways o' [-15-] them parsons. They'd be precious deep, if they knew how.' I
must confess that this gloss upon my behaviour did annoy me, because I felt that
I had laid myself open to it. But is it not a satire on our Christianity that we
should think it 'very odd' to see a person in whole clothes talking to one in
rags, unless the continuously clad person be either bullying or benefiting the
intermittently clad from the top of a high cliff of universally admitted social
superiority?
I do not know who takes the money at the Monument now. At the
time of which I write the money-taker was a very morose old fellow, who seemed
to regret that the gallery had been caged in. 'You can't fling her over,' he
growled, as we began to mount the weary, winding stairs.
'Did you hear what he said, Bessie?' I asked, with a laugh.
'Oh yes, I 'eared 'im,' little Creases answered gravely;
'but I ain't afeared. I'd scratch so as ye couldn't, if ye wanted to, an' it ain't sich
as you does thinx to git put in the papers. It's chaps as can fight does them
kind o' thinx.'
For a wonder, the day being so fine, we had the gallery at
first to ourselves. 'That's a buster,' said Bessie, as she mounted the last step,
'I'll 'ave a blow now. Law, 'ow my legs
do ache, an' I feel dizzy like. I shouldn't ha' been 'arf so tired if I'd been
a-goin' my rounds.'
'And yet you wanted to come up, Bessie?'
'Well, I know I did - helse I shouldn't ha' come.'
'There are other people besides you, Bessie, that want [-16-]
to get up in the world, and then, when they do get up, are half sorry that they
took the trouble. So you may be content to carry about your tray.'
But analogical moralizing of this kind (as I might have expected, had not those
been the salad days of my surpliced life) shot quite over Bessies head.
'Who said I worn't content?' she asked, in angry bewilderment. What's the
Moniment got to do wi' creases? I shall work them till I can get sumfink better.'
Bessie was more interested when I explained to her the meaning of the
'goold
colly-flower,' as she called the gilt finial; but she was very much
disappointed when she was told that the Great Fire after all had not been caused
by Roman Catholics. 'They'd a done it, if they could, though,' she commentated. I
can't abide them wild Hirish - they's so savage, an' they's so silly. There's Blue
Anchor Court close by the Rents as is full a' Romans, an' they's al'ays
a-pitchin' inter each hother wi'out knowin' what's it all about. Law, 'ow they do
send the tongses an' pokers flyin' of a Saturday night! An' the women is wuss
than the men, wi' their back hair a-'anging' down like a ass's tail. They'll
tear the gownd hoff a woman's back, and shy bricks, an' a dozen on 'em will go in
at one, hif he's a-fightin' wi' their pal an' is a-lickin' on 'im, or heven hif
'e
ain't - an' the men's as bad for that. Yes, the Henglish fights, but they fights
proper, two and two, an' they knows what they's fightin' for, an' they doesn't
screech like them wild Hirish - they's wuss than the cats. No, it ain't horfen
as Hirish hinter-[-17-]feres wi'
Henglish hif the Henglish doesn't worret 'em. Why should they? What call 'as sich
as them to come hover 'ere to take the bread hout o' the mouth of them as 'as a right to
't?'
Bessie's superciliously uncharitable comments on Irish
character were suddenly interrupted by an expression of surprise at the number of churches she saw rising around her through the sun-gilt grey smoke.
'Law, what a sight o' churches ! Blessed if that ain't St Paul's!' When
Bessie had once found an object which she could recognize, she soon picked out others that she
was familiar with - the Mansion House, the Bank, the Exchange, the 'Gate,' as she called Billingsgate, the Custom House, the
Tower, &c. 'Law, 'ow queer it looks hup 'ere!' she constantly kept on exclaiming. The sensation of seeing
a stale sight from a novel stand-point seemed to give her
nore pleasurable excitement than anything she had yet experienced on this to her eventful day. Instead of
leaving her to enjoy her treat, and the new experience to teach, on however
small a scale, its own lesson, I foolishly again attempted to moralize.
'Yes, Bessie,' I said, 'things and people, too, look very differently according to the way they are looked at. You have been taught to hate the Irish, but if you could
see them as some people see them, perhaps you would like them - if you could see them as
God sees them, from a higher place than the Monument, you would love them.'
'Granny says they're nasty beasts,' was Bessie's sullen
answer.
'Yes, Granny has been taught to call them so, just as
[-18-] she teaches you; but if Granny, too, would look at them
differently she would speak of them differently.'
'I don't see as Hirish is much worth lookin' at, any
'ow.'
'Well, but Bessie, you said the churches, and the shops, and
so on, that you've seen all your life, looked so different up here.'
'They don't look a bit nicer,' Bessie answered sharply, having
at last got a dim glimpse of my meaning. 'I'd rayther see the shop windows than
them nasty chimbley pots;' and, fairly floored, I once more desisted from my
very lame attempt at teaching by analogy.
'Now, the river do look nice,' Bessie went on in triumph, as
if pursuing her argument. 'But law, what mites o' thinx the bridges looks hup 'ere!
My! hif that ain't a steamer, an' there's a sojer hin it, I can see is red coat.
It look jist like a fly a-puffin' about in a sarcer. Look at them barges, sir,
wi' the brown sails, ain't that nice? Hif I worn't a gal, I'd go in a barge. It
'ud be so jolly to doss a-top o' the 'ay an' stror an' that, and not 'ave no
walkin'. Ah, them's the docks - there where the ships is as hif they couldn't git
hout. Yes, I've been in the docks - not horfen. They stops sich as me, and hif you
do git hinside, they feels you hover when you comes out, as hif ye'd been
a-priggin'. No, I never did nuffink o' that; Granny oodn't let me if I'd a mind,
an' I shouldn't like to git locked up in the station-'us. Blessed hif the 'osses
doesn't look as hif they was a-crawlin' on their bellies like black beadles!
An' there's a gal ashakin' a carpet in that yard, an' now there's a cove [-19-]
a-kissin' on 'er! He's cut in now, cos an old ooman 'as come hoot. That's the
gal's missis, I guess, but I don't think she seed 'im. Law, what jolly
larks you might 'ave on this 'ere moniment, watchin' the folks without their
knowin' on it. If they was to put a slop hup are he could see 'em a-priggin', but
then he couldn't git down time enough to nail 'em.'
'But God can always see us, Bessie, and reach us, too, when we do wrong.'
'Then why don't He? What's the good o' the pollis? P'r'aps, though, God don't like to see the bobbies a-drivin' poor folk about.
Granny says they're hawful 'ard on poor folk.'
I had again been unfortunate. Of course it would
have been easy to answer poor little Bessie with satisfaction to myself; but
as I felt that it would be only with satisfaction to myself, I was the more dissatisfied that in my prentice
attempts to sow faith in divine government, I should have generated doubts. As the best thing I
could do under the circumstances, I tried to remove
Bessie's prejudice against the police as a body, although
I was disagreeably conscious that, owing to my clumsiness, I had mixed up the
station-'us' and Providence in
a very bewildering fashion in my little hearer's mind.
'Are the police hard to you, Bessie?' I asked.
'Some on 'em is - wary,' she answered.
'Well, Bessie, it was Sergeant Hadfield, that lodges at Mr Wilson's, who told me
where to find you. He spoke quite kindly about you. If it hadn't been for him,
you wouldn't have had your fun up here.'
[-20-] 'I never said nufflnk agin 'im.'
'But if one policeman is kind, why shouldn't others be?'
'P'r'aps they may be, but there's a many as ain't.'
Bessie was a very
obstinate little reasoner; and when I parted from her in Monument Yard, I could
not help contrasting with bitter humiliation the easiness of calling and
fancying one's self a Christian teacher of Christianity, and the difficulty of
acquitting one's self as such. Little Creases will turn up again in these
loosely strung jottings. I will only add here in reference to her, that I walked
home to my lodgings puzzling over those words of the child-loved Lover of
children, 'For of such is the kingdom of heaven.' There seemed somehow an
incongruity between them and the precociously shrewd, and yet lamentably
ignorant, little Bessie; and yet I felt that the poor little Londoner must be as
dear to Jesus as any Judaean boy or girl He ever blessed.