“It don’t want no showing,” replied Mouldy, somewhat mollified. “Piller’s the one that lays down for the others to lay their heads on. There can’t be anything plainer than that, can there? He’s soft for their heads; and they keeps him warm. That squares it comfor’ble, don’t yer see?” “Here, out of the way,” exclaimed Ripston, at the same time huddling down into a corner of the van; “don’t let us have any more talk about it; I’m piller; come on.”
“Now, you do as I do, Smiffield,” exclaimed Mouldy, at the same time laying down. But to do as he did was impossible. In the greediest, manner he monopolised the whole of Ripston’s body, leaving no “piller” for my head to repose on but such as was afforded by Ripston’s legs. But there was no use in grumbling, so down I lay.
“Do you feel like going to sleep right off, Rip?” asked Mouldy, after a silence of a few minutes.
“’Course I does; I was half off then, afore you spoke; don’t you feel like goin’ to sleep, Mouldy?”
“I never do somehow arter them combats. My eyes! fancy three coves a-breakin’. into your ship like that, and you only with your shirt and trowsis, and a pair of cutlashes to defend yourself!” “Yes, they puts things on the stage werry neat at that Shoreditch gaff,” replied Ripston, sleepily; “good night.”
“Good night”
There was another lull of about a minute’s duration, and then Mouldy spoke again.
“Sleep, Rip?”
No answer.
“D’ye hear? Sleep, old Rip?”
“Gallus me if I’ll be piller at all if you don’t keep quiet,” replied Ripston, savagely; “now, what’s the matter?”
“I never see such a chap as you; you never likes to lay awake and talk about what you’ve seen,” said Mouldy, in a conciliatory tone.
“Do you mean to say as you’ve woke a fellow up to tell him that!” said Ripston, with increased ferocity.
“I was on’y goin’ to ask you a question, Rip. Do you think it was a real body which the robbers chucked down the well?”
“I’m certain on it; I see’d a hand of it through a hole in the sack,” replied Ripston, maliciously.
“And do you think it was a reg’ler well, Rip; a reg’ler out-and-out well, right into the bowels of the earth, like Sir Gasper said it was?”
“No doubt on it,” responded Ripston.
“I didn’t hear no splash,” urged Mouldy.
“That was ’cos you listened too quick,” said Ripston. “Bein’ so precious deep, you couldn’t ’spect to hear the splash all at once. I heard it about three minutes arterwards.”
Mouldy breathed very hard, but made no reply. He continued to breathe hard for a considerable time, as though he had something on his mind. Presently he gently called Ripston again, but Ripston instantly began to snore in a manner that put all chance of waking him, by any means short of actual assault, quite out of the question. After a second attempt he desisted, and inclining his head towards me, whispered my name. But I was in no humour for conversation, and I, too, affected to be asleep, and made him no reply.
But I was not asleep by a very long way. With my cheek all wet with tears, as it lay pressing the calf of Ripston’s leg, I remained awake thinking of my past career, the foolish step I had taken, and what were my prospects. How different might everything have been by this time, if I had only found pluck enough to have taken the thrashing that Mrs. Burke gave me, as I had taken thrashings almost if not quite as violent, dozens and scores of times! How much better it would have been, even, if when Jerry Pape seized me I had gone home, and once more faced my father and his terrible waist strap! By this time at least it would have been all over, and I should have been snug in my warm bed, in the back-room—snug in bed, and cuddling little Polly. No doubt I should have as yet not quite have done smarting; but at that moment it would have been difficult to have shown me a smart that I would not cheerfully have accepted and endured, the reward for which was that I should be immediately afterwards translated to Fryingpan Alley, with free admission at Number Nineteen, and all my iniquities forgiven.
Poor little Polly! I could not bear to think about her, and yet she was constantly uppermost in my mind. I am sure that the leg of Ripston’s trousers must have been saturated with the tears that I shed, as I called to mind her sweet little ways—how pretty she looked when I dressed her up in the night and pretended that we were going a-walking, and how she would nestle down and, kiss me when Mrs. Burke came in to bring her more bread and butter, and to wrongfully punch me about for eating the first lot.
Where was Polly now? What was she doing? Was she sound asleep—bless her little heart!—in the front-room, or was she at that very moment lying awake in my bed, in the back-room, and expecting me?
Was she all right, as Jerry Pape had assured me she was? How could I trust Jerry? He had shown himself a treacherous rascal Suppose that instead of looking as well as ever she had in her life—as Jerry had said—she was lying ill! Perhaps that fall down the steps had broken her arms or legs, and she had them bound up with rags, and sticks of wood, as I had seen the limbs of the people who went in and out at the hospital gate, as I sat in the early part of the day keeping watch in the pig market!
Perhaps Polly was dead! If such was the case, then was my father’s rage, and his extravagant offer of a shilling for my apprehension, accounted for. Now I came to think of it, Jerry Pape had shown a great deal of confusion when I asked him concerning my little sister. Perhaps Polly was dead, and Jerry knew it Perhaps the tumble on the cobbled stones had killed her, and she was lying all alone in the room, quiet, and dead as Joe Jenkins’s bullfinch!
This last reflection was of so terrible a nature that it stopped my tears, and set my thoughts in altogether a new channel—a very melancholy channel, as in it appeared my mother, with all the strange and terrible circumstances connected with her burial. So I lay awake in the dark until Mouldy was asleep, and snoring as contentedly as Ripston; and the card players and the lads that were tossing halfpence were interrupted in the midst of their wrangling, and cursing, and swearing, by the approach of heavy footsteps, and sent scuttling and climbing into the vans and carts, crying one to the other, “Dowse the glim I here come the nippers.”
That a nipper was a policeman, I well knew; and dreading that Mrs. Burke had placed her case in the hands of the station-house people, I was suddenly filled with a fright that put all my tender thoughts to the rout, and brought to the fore the whole reserve of my selfish solicitude for my own personal safety. As the regular tramping came nearer and nearer, I was so hard driven by apprehension as to be of a great mind to slip over the back of the van, and hide until the police had passed. How I now wished that I had accepted the proposition of my two friends, and become “pillow,” so that they might be lying on and concealing me! Tramp! tramp! not of one nipper, but of three at least, and coming straight up to our van! Straight up, so that my limbs are all atremble, and my face wet with sweat instead of tears; and now the leading nipper hauls himself by the tail-board chain, and with his flashing bull’s-eye lantern lights up the van, as though it were on fire.
But to my inexpressible relief he jumps down again without a word, and on the policemen go, talking about nobody’s business but their own, till their tramping grows fainter and fainter still, and then dies away altogether, as does every other sound except the snoring of the sleepers and the squealing of the rats, till presently, and all unexpected, I drop into forgetfulness.