“And you’ve run away, and don’t mean to go back any more?”
“I’ll never go back again,” I answered, with great sincerity. “I daren’t go back.”
“I see,” said Mouldy, sagaciously nodding his head. “What was it that you nailed?”
“Nailed?”
“Ay! prigged, don’t you know? Did they ketch it on you, or did you get clean off with it?”
“What do you mean? Did they ketch what on me?”
“Well, that’s good!” laughed Mouldy. “How should I know what it was you stole? I wasn’t there, was I?”
“But I didn’t steal anything. It was because I was whacked so, that I ran away.”
The boys looked incredulous; and Mouldy laid his forefinger along the side of his nose, and winked impressively.
“So you ran away on’y because you was whacked, eh?” observed Ripston.
“Only! If you ever had any such weltings as I’ve been used to, you wouldn’t say ‘only.’”
“But did you get reg’lar wittles, and all that?” “Pretty fair.”
“And a reg’lar bed—reg’lar don’t you know, with sheets and blankets, and a bolster?”
“Why, of course,” I replied.
“Oh! of course, is it?” sneered Ripston; “and you wants us to believe that you gets all this—your wittles, and your bed with sheets to it—and just because you was whacked you run away and are afeard to go home again? You’re a jolly liar, that’s what you are.”
“Else a jolly fool, which is wuss,” spoke Mouldy, decidedly.
“You ain’t obliged to believe me; but what I’ve told you is all true,” was all I could say.
“Well, strange things does happen and so p’r’aps it is,” said Ripston; “but what I ses is this—a chap wot runs away from good wittles and comfor’ble lodgin’s just because he gets whacked, oughter to be kept out of ’em till he learns the walue of ’em.”
“I wish somebody would grub me, and give me a comfor’ble lodgin on them terms,” interposed Mouldy.
“They wouldn’t get much profit on yer, Mouldy,” grinned his companion; “but don’t you be afeard; he’s done something more’n he peaches to, only he won’t say, because he thinks we’ll split; and werry natural.”
Ripston was younger than Mouldy—two years younger, at least; but it was evident from his manner and speech that his worldly experience was very wide.
All the time this conversation had been going on, we had been scudding along at as brisk a pace as Mouldy’s slipslop boots would permit, up the Old Bailey and by Newgate, (where my companions having inquired whether I knew at which door they brought people out to hang ’em, and received from me an intimation that I did not, kindly paused for a moment to enlighten me,) out into Ludgate Street, and across the road into turnings and twistings dingier than any I had yet met with. Had it been daylight, the effect of perambulating such narrow, gloomy courts and alleys would have had anything but an enlivening effect on one’s spirits; but, instead of daylight, it was pitchy dark; and when I reflected that every step I took carried me farther away from home—from that home which, miserable and cruel as it had been to me, my companions, who might be regarded as competent judges in such matters, had declared that I was a jolly fool for leaving,—I began to be filled with remorse, and tears forced themselves into my eyes. Had I been compelled to talk, I should undoubtedly have betrayed my emotion; but, as luck—good or bad—would have it, my companions had settled down to silence; indeed, the shuffling trot had begun to tell on them, leaving them no spare breath for conversation. So we sped along, I keeping a little in the rear, till at last we suddenly emerged from the dingy alleys and turned into the wide, gas-lit Strand.
Chapter XIII. The Dark Arches and the inhabitants there, I witness a lark, as performed by them. My first night’s lodging in a van.
It’s old Daddy Riddle
Late as it was—nearly eleven o’clock—there was plenty of noise and bustle, and so many people about, that it was as much as we could do to keep up the trot without danger of being knocked over, or at least of having our toes trod on.
“Come on,” said Ripston, looking over his shoulder, “we’re nearly there.”
This remark cheered me considerably. Since we had turned into the Strand, I had been thinking what a beautiful part of the town Mouldy and the other boy lived in, or at least near, and how much I should like to live there too; but then followed the alarming thought that my companions were going “home”—home to their lodgings. They had told me so. I had not been invited to come with them; I had accompanied them voluntarily, and could expect nothing better than that they would presently turn into the house where they lodged, leaving me to get on as best I could. But Ripston had said, “Come on; we are nearly there.” Nearly at his lodgings that meant, of course; and I was invited to come on.
I had lagged behind a good bit, partly because I was so very tired, and partly because a minute or so before somebody had trod on my left heel; but I responded to Ripston’s invitation as cheerily as possible, and put my best leg foremost.
All of a sudden, however, I missed both of them; they had vanished as completely as though they had melted.
Where were they? Perhaps I had run past them. It seemed hardly likely, careful as I had been to keep my eyes on them; but there was no other solution to the mystery.
I turned back a few paces, calling out their names, but nobody answered. I hurried on twenty yards or so, and called out “Ripston” as loud as I was able. Still no reply, and not a trace of them to be seen.
The depression that had fallen on me so heavily while we were making our way through the courts and alleys, and which the glare and liveliness of the highway had nearly dispelled, now returned with greater force than before. My dismal conviction was, that the boys had designedly given me the slip. They didn’t like my company, and finding themselves so near home, they had not scrupled to cut me in this unceremonious manner. Perhaps even they had altogether misled me in telling me that they were going near to Covent Garden Market; for all I knew to the contrary, Covent Garden might be altogether another road—I might be miles farther away from it than when I started!
This last reflection was of so overwhelming a character, that I could no longer control my grief.
I stepped off the path, and looked disconsolately this way and that down the long endless-looking road, and then I brought up. against a lamp-post and began to give vent to my sorrow to a tune which, no doubt, had it been long persisted in, would speedily have brought a mob round me.
Suddenly, however, to my great joy, a well-recollected voice saluted my ears.
“Smiffield! where are you?”
Smithfield was not my name, but that was the place where my two friends had encountered me, and no doubt they gave me that name from knowing no other. Besides, it was Mouldy’s voice, unmistakably.
“Here I am,” I replied. “Where are you?”
“Here; don’t you see?”
I did not see. The voice seemed to come out of one of the private doorways by the side of the shops just opposite to which I was standing, but which I could not for my life make out. Besides, that was the last place I should have thought of looking, not dreaming that my friends were respectable enough to occupy such splendid lodgings.
Presently, however, a boy darted out of one of the said doorways, for so it seemed, and seized me by the arm.
“Is that you, Mouldy?” I asked.
“’Course it’s me,” replied he, impatiently, and giving me a jerk forward. “Come on, if you’re a-comin’.”