to the history of the hard fight against a sudden rush of water told me by the sturdy toiler, who shuddered and turned pale as he recalled the desperate fight for life, and then, in lowered tones, narrated how he had found his poor mate’s body washed into a narrow culvert, I felt quite satisfied, and I don’t think I shall ever make any explorations in a sewer.
In fact, I never see a grating open, or meet one of the sturdy fellows in his blue Jersey shirt and high boots without thinking of my patient, and the risks such people run to earn their daily bread.
Chapter Five.
My Black Patient
There’s a very terrible disease upon which a great deal has been written, but not a great deal done. In fact, it is difficult to deal with special diseases brought on by the toiler’s work. It is a vexed question what to do or how to treat the consumption that attacks the needle-grinders and other dry grinders; the horrible sufferings of those who inhale the dust of deadly minerals; the bone disease of the workers in phosphorus and many other ills brought on by working at particular trades.
The disease I allude to in particular is one that attacks that familiar personage, the chimney sweep, and I have often had to treat some poor fellow or another for it.
There was one man who stands in my note-book as J.J. – John Johnson, I had under my care several times, and we came to be very good friends, for under that sooty skin of his – I never saw it once really clean – there was a great deal of true humanity and tenderness of heart, as I soon found from the way in which he behaved to his wife.
“Why don’t you chimney sweeps – Ramoneurs as you call yourselves now – invent a better cry than svi-thee-up?”
“Ramoneur,” he said with a husky chuckle. “Yes, that’s it, doctor. Fine, aint it? I allus calls myself a plain sweep, though. That’s good enough for me.”
“But you might do without that yell of yours,” I said. “London cries are a terrible nuisance, though I don’t know that I’d care to have them done away with. Your svi-thee-up don’t sound much like sweep.”
“Svi-thee-up, svi-thee-up,” he cried, as he lay there in bed, to the utter astonishment of his wife. “Don’t sound much like sweep? No, it don’t; but then one has to have one’s own regular cry, as folks may know us by. Why, listen to any of them of a morning about the street, and who’d think it was creases as this one was a hollering, or Yarmouth bloaters that one; or that ‘Yow-hoo!’ meant new milk? It ain’t what we say – it’s the sound of our voices. Don’t the servant gals as hears us of a morning know what it means well enough when the bell rings, and them sleepy a-bed? Oh, no, not at all! But there’s no mussy for ’em, and we jangles away at the bell, and hollers a good ’un till they lets us in; for, you see, it comes nat’ral when you’re obliged to be up yourself, and out in the cold, to not like other folks to be snugging it in bed.
“But, then, it’s one’s work, you know, and I dunno whether it was that or the sutt as give me this here coarse voice, which nothing clears now – most likely it was the sutt. How times are altered, though, since I was a boy! That there climbing boy Act o’ Parliament made a reg’lar revolution in our business, and now here we goes with this here bundle o’ canes, with a round brush at the end, like a great, long screw fishing-rod, you know, all in jints, and made o’ the best Malacky cane, so as to go into all the ins and outs, and bend about anywhere, till it’s right above the pot, and bending and swinging down. But they’re poor things, bless you, and don’t sweep a chimbley half like a boy used. You never hears the rattle of a brush at the top of a chimbley-pot now, and the boy giving his ‘hillo – hallo – hullo – o – o – o!’ to show as he’d not been shamming and skulking half-way up the flue. Why, that was one of the cheery sounds as you used to hear early in the mornin’, when you was tucked up warm in bed; for there was always somebody’s chimbley a being swept.
“Puts me in mind again of when I was a little bit of a fellow, and at home with mother, as I can recollect with her nice pleasant face, and a widder’s cap round it. Hard pushed, poor thing, when she took me to Joe Barkby, the chimbley sweep, as said he’d teach me the trade if she liked. And there was I, shivering along aside her one morning, when she was obliged to take me to Joe, and we got there to find him sitting over his brexfass, and he arst mother to have some; but her heart was too full, poor thing, and she wouldn’t, and was going away, and Joe sent me to the door to let her out; and that’s one of the things as I shall never forget – no, not if I lives to a hundred – my mother’s poor, sad, weary face, and the longing look she give me when we’d said ‘Good bye,’ and I was going to shut the door after her. Such a sad, longing look, as if she could have caught me up and run off with me. I saw it as she stood on the step, and me with the door in my hand – that there green door, with a bright brass knocker, and brass plate with ‘Barkby, Chimbley Sweep,’ on it. There was tears in her eyes, too; and I felt so miserable myself I didn’t know what to do as I stood watching her, and she came and give me one more kiss, saying, ‘God bless you!’ and then I shut the door a little more, and a little more, till I could see the same sad look through quite a little crack; and then it was close shut, and I was wiping my eyes with my knuckles.
“Ah! I’ve often thought since as I shut that door a deal too soon; but I was too young to know all as that poor thing must have suffered.
“Barkby warn’t a bad sort; but then, what can you expect from a sweep? He didn’t behave so very bad to us little chummies; but there it was – up at four, and tramp through the cold, dark streets, hot or cold, wet or dry; and then stand shivering till you could wake up the servants – an hour, perhaps, sometimes. Then in you went to the cold, miserable house, with the carpets all up, or p’r’aps you had to wait no one knows how long while the gal was yawning, and knick-knick-knicking with a flint and steel over a tinder-box, and then blowing the spark till you could get a brimstone match alight. Then there was the forks to get for us to stick the black cloth in front of the fireplace, and then there was one’s brush, and the black cap to pull down over one’s face, pass under the cloth, and begin swarming up the chimbley all in the dark.
“It was very trying to a little bit of a chap of ten years old, you know – quite fresh to the job; and though Barkby give me lots of encouragement, without being too chuff, it seemed awful as soon as I got hold of the bars, which was quite warm then, and began feeling my way, hot, and smothery, and sneezy, in my cap, till I give my head such a pelt against some of the brickwork that I began to cry; for, though I’d done plenty of low ones this was the first high chimbley as I’d been put to. But I chokes it down, as I stood there with my little bare toes all amongst the cinders, and then began to climb.
“Every now and then Barkby shoves his head under the cloth, and ‘Go ahead, boy,’ he’d say; and I kep’ on going ahead as fast as I could, for I was afeared on him, though he never spoke very gruff to me; but I had heard him go on and cuss awful, and I didn’t want to put him out. So there was I, poor little chap – I’m sorry for myself even now, you know – swarming up a little bit at a time, crying away quietly, and rubbing the skin off my poor knees and elbows, while the place felt that hot and stuffy I could hardly breathe, cramped up as I was.
“Now, you wouldn’t think as any one could see in the dark, with his eyes close shut, and a thick cap over his face, pulled right down to keep the sutt from getting up his nose – you wouldn’t think anyone could see anything there; but I could, quite plain; and what do you think it was? Why, my mother’s face, looking at me so sad, and sweet, and smiling, through her tears, that it made me give quite a choking sob every now and then and climb away as hard as ever I could, though my toes and knees seemed to have the skin quite off, and smarted ever so; while I kep’ on slipping a bit every now and then, for I was new at climbing, and this was a long chimbley, from the housekeeper’s room of a great house, right from under ground, to the top.
“Sometimes
