But it was one of those winds it is impossible to avoid—a whistling wind, keen as needles, and curiously capable of winding round corners without abating in power. It came full blast in at the narrow arched entrance, and with such force that it was still full blast, and laden with splinters of icy snow it had picked off the shore and off the barges, when it reached the water-cart, peppering the shallow partition behind which I was crouched. Of course, much allowance was to be made for the time of year and season now, and when I had last visited the arches; but the fullest allowance I could make did not account for the terrible way in which that wind served me. Every succeeding gust of it converted my flesh into “goose-flesh,” from my forehead to my heels. It nipped my ears, it glided down my back between my collar and neckerchief as though it were no thicker than a knife-blade; and if I raised my head a little to avoid the unpleasant sensation, it whipped in at my mouth and routed about within me, producing noises as though I were an empty bottle. I was compelled to hold on my muffin cap with both my hands, until my fingers smarted with cold as though they had been burnt. Half-an-hour of such treatment was as much as I could stand. It was quite a treat to get up, and with my hands in my breeches pockets, to run up and down, stamping over the slippery cobble-stones to take the numbness out of my toes.
But, with the reader’s permission, I will make short work of describing how I spent that melancholy February day. There occur in every one’s lifetime days that are nice to remember—“red-letter” days, as they are called; likewise, there are days that cling not the less tenaciously to the memory on account of their ugliness. I don’t know if these ugly days have a special name—lead-colour, or other; but the day in question—the February day—is as much part of my old remembrance as though it had been notched in my brain, as Crusoe used to notch his days in the pole. How cold I was! how empty, and shivery, and downhearted! I think there was not a quarter of any one hour of the many I passed in that dreadful place that was spent like the preceding. On the cart—in the cart; daring everything to escape the horrible wind, until I had thawed and soaked up nearly every bit of ice it contained; hopping round the water-cart, skipping over its shafts, and going down on to the bleak, oozy river-bank to play a solitary game at duck-stone.
Towards the afternoon I was so hard driven that I resolved to attempt to make a fire. There were bits of coal enough to be picked up on the shore, as well as bits of wood; but what I wanted was a lucifer-match. How to procure one was the great difficulty. Outside, on the river, there were plenty of coal-barges and men at work on them, and some of the men were smoking. Easy enough it would be to beg a lucifer-match of one of these, if I durst ask; but how could I, rigged as I was in that muffin-cap and swallow-tail? They would be sure to ask me questions; to talk about me amongst themselves, or to other people, perhaps, and so lead to my apprehension. The only way to obtain the match, and, at the same time, to avoid such danger, was to divest myself of part of my workhouse attire, and begrime my face and hands, so that I might pass for a mudlark.
It was a terrible operation, simple as it may seem—all the more terrible, no doubt, because of my still being qualmish and shaky from my long spell of illness. Mudlarks never wore shoes or stockings; so these had to be pulled off, leaving me on my tender feet, (they were very tender, as I recollect,) smarting on the icy stones. Mudlarks never wore caps nor jackets; off they came. Mudlarks were muddy to the knees—to the elbows; their faces were smeared with mud. With my naked legs and white feet to walk directly into the river slush was my next job—slush black as ink, and with a thickish rind of ice to break through to get at it—to dip my arms into it, and with my muddy fingers smear my face. Mudlarks invariably carried an old saucepan to put their gleanings in as they collected them; luckily enough, there reposed an old saucepan, its handle just peeping up out of the mud, under the stem of a coal-barge.
So set up, I walked boldly up to the coal-heavers, and in a civil way asked one of them if he happened to have a lucifer-match about him that he could spare. The person asked, by way of reply caught up a clinker and threw it at me, cleverly hitting the knuckles of the hand that grasped the filthy old saucepan, and causing me to drop it; whereat the jolly coal-heavers, much amused, set up a laugh, and pelted me with bits of coal until I was glad to run—squelch—squelch—through the mire, and take refuge in the lee of a barge, aboard which there was nobody but one old fellow pumping water out of the vessel. As he saw me approaching, he ceased his occupation, and, catching up a boat-hook lying handy, ran to the head of the barge, and, stooping over, began fiercely poking at me with it. Luckily, it was too short to reach me.
“Out you come, you warmint!” he exclaimed. “Out you come, you awful young prig! Jest out of prison, and at it again directly—hey? Out you come!”
“I hain’t out o’ prison, mister,” I replied, beginning to cry; “I never was in prison.”
“Not out o’ prison, you awful young liar! Why, look at your hair! If that ain’t a gaol crop, what is it?”
“It’s the work’us,” I answered, completely breaking down. “I’ve been in the work’us, and had my head shaved ’cos I had the fever; and I’ve run away from, the work’us; and all I asked them coves for was a lucifer to make a bit of fire, ’cos I was so cold; and then they began to pelt me. See here!”—and I held up my knuckles to show him how they were bleeding.
Sprawling on the barge, with his white head craning over the black prow of it, the old fellow regarded my up-turned, muddy, tear-stained visage searchingly, and, as it seemed, found enough of truth in it to shake his previous suspicions.
“You are such a awfully artful crew, that there’s no believin’ one o’ you; howsomever, since it’s only a match you want, here it is, and welcome. Here’s two, ’fear one goes out.”
And to land them to me dry and sound, he stuck them into a crack at the end of the boathook, and lowered them down to me.
But, alas! my endeavours were fruitless. I had half stripped and begrimed myself—I had borne the pelting of the brutal coal-heavers—all in vain. I had coals, and I had wood, and I had a bit of paper; but the whole were damp; and with deep sorrow I saw my two lucifers one after the other expire, leaving no result behind them. I looked out on to the shore, and though the jolly coal-heavers were still at work, the barge on which the friendly old man had been working was now quite deserted. Therefore there remained nothing for me to do but to go down to the water’s edge and wash the mud off my arms and legs and face, leaving them to dry in the wind for want of a towel. Then I put on my stockings and shoes, and my cap, and my swallow-tail coat, and, by way of promoting the circulation of my blood, performed several walking matches, from one end of the arches to the other, against the quarter chimes of Saint Clements Danes.
At two o’clock, or thereabouts, it began to snow steadily and heavily; but so far from being sorry to see this, I was delighted. Thought I, it will soon be all right now; they can’t stand much of this; they’ll soon be home. But though I sat on the bottom step of the flight down which they always used to come till I was chilled to the bones, they didn’t come. Other people did—some whose faces I knew, and others who were strange to me; but I kept in the dark. I didn’t want a mob round me, asking a lot of questions as to why I didn’t go home to the workhouse.