Alley Urchin

by Josephine Cox

  Saturday night saw most hard-working folk hereabouts heading in the direction of the nearest ale house, the Navigation. It was across from the canal bank at the top of Angela Street and it was from there that the jolliest and loudest accordion music emanated, telling its tale up and down the canal and bringing the bargees from their cabins.

  ‘D’yer hear that, me darlin’?’ chuckled Sal, a deep grin lighting up her wrinkled face, and her feet giving a little joyful skip as she swung from the mattress. ‘You stay an’ get yer sleep,’ she told Molly with a crafty look. ‘That coal shovellin’ fair wore you out, I know.’

  In a minute, Molly had got from the bed and collected her dry clothes from outside. ‘I’m coming with you,’ she informed Sal, and Sal knew from that determined look on Molly’s small face that it was no use arguing.

  ‘All right then, young ’un.’ She fetched her flat neb-cap from its nail behind the door and rammed it over her grey wispy hair. ‘But I want none of yer naggin’, like last time! We’ve a few bob in us purse, an’ I mean ter have a pleasant pint . . . an’ happen a game o’ cards.’ She hurried out of the hut, leaving Molly to close the door and secure it. ‘Follow me if yer must. But yer ain’t telling me what I should an’ shouldn’t do!’

  Molly stayed a small distance behind as Sal’s bent and untidy figure scurried away in her odd, dipping gait. Every now and then she would pull the long shawl about her and make sure her flat cap was secure on her head; all of her sharp jerky actions betrayed her frustration that Molly was on her heels and, before the evening was out, would no doubt remind her that playing cards was a fool’s game. Had Sal forgotten how she lost her lovely barge through playing cards? Forgotten! Sal hated being reminded of it. How could she forget? How would she ever forget losing the barge that had been a treasured home to her and Marlow all those years? She couldn’t forget, and she had no intention of doing so. But, she did intend winning it back, an’ that was a fact! It was only a matter of time, that was all. A matter of time.

  Molly had grown wise to Sal’s moods and tantrums, so she intended to tackle the subject from a new angle, although she hoped it would still get the message across. The opportunity presented itself when a big chestnut cob went by on the towpath, pulling behind it a brightly painted barge, with a swarthy-looking fellow at the tiller, whistling a jolly tune. ‘Evenin’ to yer,’ he called when he saw the two figures hurrying in the direction of the Navigation. ‘Lookin’ ter cool yerself down and wet yer whistle at the same time, eh?’ he laughed.

  ‘T’ain’t no business o’ yourn if we are!’ Sal retorted, jerking her shawl over her shoulders and beginning to mutter to herself. The man took no offence, for he knew of old Sal and her misfortunes. ‘Take care o’ yerself, Sal,’ he called out, ‘an’ mind out for the young ’un.’

  At the last minute before he disappeared away round the curve in the canal, Sal thought better of her surly mood and came to the water’s edge to shout after him: ‘Thank you very much, bless yer. An’ you mind how yer go, me darlin’!’ Whereupon, seeing him wave an acknowledgement, Sal caught Molly into her shawl, saying with a little laugh, ‘See that, Molly? . . . We’ve still got a few friends, you an’ me, eh?’

  Molly saw her chance. ‘What’s it like, living on a barge, Sal?’ she asked, looking up with round innocent eyes. She was secretly pleased when Sal took the bait.

  ‘What’s it like? Oh, it’s grand, Molly lass . . . right grand! There’s no better life in this ’ere world, than rovin’ the waterways in yer own barge . . . wi’ yer own pots an’ pans an’ the treasures about yer.’ Of a sudden, her eyes grew sad and a look of nostalgia came into her weathered old face. ‘The good Lord shoulda struck me dead fer losin’ that grand old barge,’ she murmured. Molly was hopeful that Sal would not be tempted to go gambling tonight.

  Having arrived at the Navigation on Mill Hill, Molly took her place on the flagstones beneath the window of the snug. ‘Shall I look after some of yer money?’ she asked of Sal. ‘There might be pickpockets and ruffians about tonight.’

  ‘Don’t you worry yer little head about my purse, Molly lass,’ protested Sal, with an impatient wag of her finger. ‘Yer talkin’ to the best pickpocket an’ ruffian in the whole o’ Lancashire!’ With that, she disappeared inside. A few moments later, the window of the snug was slid up and out came two hands, with a small jug of sarsaparilla and a pork pie. ‘Get that down yer, lass,’ Sal’s ruddy face appeared, ‘an’ if yer little arse goes ter sleep on them cold flagstones, get yersel’ off home. I can find my own way later.’

  ‘Oh aye!’ came a man’s cheery voice from inside. ‘An’ ’appen thi’ can . . . straight into the bloody cut!’ There erupted a roar of appreciative laughter, as Sal promptly told Molly, ‘P’raps ye’d best wait fer me after all. When I go ter Paradise, it’ll be downing a bucket o’ best ale, not a belly full o’ canal water!’

  ‘’Course I’ll wait.’ Molly had no intention of going back to the hut without Sal.

  ‘Yer a good ’un,’ Sal told her, as she handed over the stone jug and the pork pie. There came another wave of laughter as she added with a chuckle, ‘Enjoy yer meal, Molly lass. An’ don’t forget to thank the gentry fer it!’

  Molly settled down as the window was slid shut above her. She wondered what kind of meal the same ‘gentry’ might be settling down to this very evening. ‘Best roast, all steaming and crackly,’ she said softly to herself. ‘And the finest port in fancy glasses.’ All manner of images conjured themselves up in her imaginative mind: one was of a long, polished table and little servants in smart, black frocks with white collars and cuffs, starched so stiff they dare hardly move for fear of cutting themselves. She’d heard folks talking about the gentry, and Molly didn’t care much for what she heard. As she bit into the hot, succulent pork pie with its fine flaky pastry, she wondered whether, if one of them should turn up now and offer to change places, she might be tempted. The answer was no! She and Sal hadn’t got much, it was true. But they’d got each other, and they didn’t go in for lying and cheating, the way folks claimed the gentry did. It was said that the gentry would even rob their own kind if there was a profit to be made. Well, that wasn’t the way with proper folk! If one of the gentry was to show his face here and now, Molly would tell it to be off, and no mistake!

  There was one, though, that she might exchange a few kindly words with, and that was the boy in the market yesterday. The boy with dark hair and friendly green eyes, whose mammy she had robbed. Molly felt no remorse about taking the woman’s purse, because she had seen how that woman had harshly treated the boy when he had accidentally stepped on her expensive boots. Molly’s attention had been drawn by the awful fuss Martha Trent made and, feeling upset for the poor boy, had given his mammy the chance to make a fuss for a different reason by stealing her purse. Molly was not sorry about that at all. But she was worried that she wasn’t able to get to know the boy. He looked so nice, so friendly, and when he saw her cheeky wink, Molly was sure that he had tried not to laugh. She liked him, but she didn’t suppose she would ever see him again. Even if she did, it would be safer for her and Sal to keep well out of sight – especially since Sal had told her that the boy’s grandfather was Justice Caleb Crowther. That fellow wanted her put away, and though Molly wasn’t afraid of much else, other than her darling Sal falling into the canal on a dark night, she was afraid of this Justice Crowther, for it was well known that he was a bad and cruel man, with a particular hatred for bargees, poor folk, and for what he scornfully called ‘alley urchins’.

  Molly took pleasure from her memory of the boy, yet she felt awfully sorry that he had been cursed with such a man for his grandfather, while she had been blessed with someone like Sal to look after her. But then Molly giggled as she dwelled on that a bit longer, because she wasn’t rightly sure whether Sal looked after her . . . or whether she looked after Sal. ‘It’s a bit o’ both,’ she decided at length, taking a healthy bite out of the pie and afterwards enjoying a great nose-tic
kling gulp of sarsaparilla. ‘We look after each other, so we do!’

  ‘Hello, Sal, I ain’t seen you in a long time. How’s the world treating you, eh?’ Sal had turned from the bar with her gill of frothed-up ale, and had almost collided with a thick-set fellow with big, bushy brows and a ’tache which drooped from either side of his top lip to the bottom of his chin, where the ends met to form a closed circle. Sal recognised him as a pal of Marlow’s who had deserted these parts for a merry widow, some ten years before. ‘Where’s Marlow, then?’ continued the fellow, stretching his neck and looking about, then, seeing no sign of Sal’s brother, he brought his soft, brown eyes to look down quizzically at her. ‘The widder got fed up, and threw me out of the door,’ he said casually, ‘it seems my charm wore off. I got back last night . . . staying in lodgings till I get work and a place of my own. Where is he then, eh? . . . Where’s that brother of yourn? If I remember rightly, I owe the bugger a drink.’ Here, he threw back his head and laughed aloud. ‘He warned me the widder would chuck me out afore she’d wed me. And he were right. I shoulda’ listened to him. He always were a sensible bloke.’

  Sal appeared upset by the fellow’s remarks; his reference to Marlow being ‘a sensible bloke’ had cut deep. It was true. Of the two of them, she had always been the one to get them in trouble, and Marlow the one to get them out of it. Whatever would he have thought about her gambling their barge away? God forbid that he should ever find out; although it wouldn’t matter so much if she was to win it back. Oh, but he was gone for good! Marlow wasn’t coming back, or she would have had a sign of it before now. The sea had taken him, she felt it in her bones. Emma Grady had driven him to sail the seven seas, and he was lost. Gone forever, and Sal’s heart broken because of it.

  To hear this fellow talk so fondly of the darling brother she’d lost put Sal in a bitter frame of mind. When she answered him now, it was with a sharp and dismissive tongue. ‘Get outta my way,’ she told him, clutching her gill of ale and nudging her way past him by the use of her elbows. ‘Marlow’s gone. ’E’s gone, d’yer hear? An’ he ain’t never comin’ back!’ She then sat in the corner sulking, but by the time she’d supped the last dregs of ale from the jug, she was softly crying and muttering aloud, ‘Damn and rot every gentry there ever was! Where the bloody hell are yer, Marlow Tanner? An’ where’s that gormless dog o’ yourn, that yer left be’ind ter look after me?’ Sal had searched far and wide for Marlow’s bull mastiff. But she had never found it after it ran off some three years back. ‘I expect it’s gone the same way as Marlow,’ she cried into her glass, ‘an’ I shall never see either of ’em agin!’

  ‘Cheer up, old un, things are never as bad as they seem.’ There was a fine-looking fellow with a spotted scarf about his neck, seated at a table nearby, and he had watched Sal for some time, feeling downright sorry for anybody who could be so miserable about supping a jug of best ale. He had mentioned to another fellow the surprising fact of a woman being admitted into the bar. Straightaway he had been told that Sal Tanner was always the exception, ‘being one o’ the lads, so to speak’. He was also enlightened as to Sal’s misfortunes, in first having her brother leave to make his fortune in foreign parts, and so it now seemed, to have lost his life in the process. ‘Marlow Tanner would never have deserted his sister on purpose, you can rely on it!’ Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Sal had taken very strongly to gambling, and just as folks predicted, she had come up against a better player than herself and lost all her possessions. ‘That barge had been in the Tanner family for generations. Oh, I can tell you, if Marlow’s ghost ever did come back to these parts, it would haunt old Sal to her grave . . . and rightly so, if you ask me!’ The fellow was most unsympathetic to Sal Tanner’s plight, ‘seeing as she brought it on herself. Then, to top it all, she comes back from a hanging with a newborn child that somebody left by the wayside . . . Some whore dropped it there to be rid on it, I expect.’ Here he chuckled quietly, after looking to make sure that Sal wasn’t listening because he knew well enough that she had a vicious temper when put out. ‘Sal reckons the infant was put there by “the little people” . . . for her to raise . . . as a punishment and a burden for her sins.’

  The fellow with the spotted scarf took a more sympathetic view of Sal Tanner’s troubles, having always had his own fair share. ‘Let me get you another gill,’ he offered, leaning over to pat her fondly on the arm and to smile at her with bright blue eyes.

  ‘Yer what?’ It was a long time since any stranger had shown a kindness to Sal, and though it made her suspicious, it also cheered her no end. ‘Offerin’ me a drink, is it, eh?’ she asked, her head cocked to one side and her violet eyes twinkling. Of a sudden she was roaring with laughter, then she became quiet and intimate in her manner. ‘’Ere . . . d’yer have a fancy for me?’ she said in a low, excited voice. ‘Got an urge ter tek me ter bed, have yer?’ It was ages since any man had laid her down, and the thought of a tumble had her all excited. ‘It’ll cost yer a bit more than one gill though, me darlin’,’ she finished with a chuckle and a suggestive wink.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody daft, woman!’ The poor fellow was shocked. ‘I’m offering you a drink out of the goodness of my heart! Whatever gave you the idea that I’d want to take an old soak like you to bed?’

  Sal was on her feet in a minute, sleeves rolled up and looking for a fight. ‘Old?’ she demanded. ‘Old!’ . . . You listen ter me, matey! I’m never old . . . Ask anybody in this bar. They’ll tell yer as I’m not much above forty . . . an’ I’ll warrant you yourself is already long past that, yer cheeky sod!

  ‘Oh well, pardon me,’ replied the fellow with a crafty wink at one and all, ‘but you look nearer eighty!’ At this, everybody there roared their approval . . . with the exception of Sal; however, she did see the funny side to it. What an old fool she was, to think any man could take a fancy to her. Them days were long gone, she was sad to say. ’Ere then!’ She banged her empty jug on the table in front of him. ‘Fill it up. If yer don’t want ter tickle me whistle . . . yer can wet the bugger instead!’ There then followed a great wave of laughter, and various shouts of ‘Good ol’ Sal!’

  ‘’Ave a gill on me, an’ all, luv.’

  Sal took up the offers, and soon she was in high spirits, doing a jig on the bar and showing one and all that she had ‘a good pair o’ legs on me yet’!

  Outside in the growing dusk, young Molly was excited by the feverish hand-clapping and the merry music, and she wished she was old enough to go in and join them. ‘It sounds like Sal won’t be able to put one foot afore the other when they chuck her out,’ she murmured, tapping her feet to the jollity and watching with interest as an old man shuffled by. He had a partly bald head with isolated tufts of grey hair, a long, unkempt beard, and a gaudy, green waistcoat some two sizes too small for his podgy chest. His jacket and trousers were an odd match; the trouser legs stopped short of his ankles and the hem of the jacket came down to his knees. In the light emanating from the pub windows, Molly recognised him as old Gabe Drury, a long-time and loyal friend of Sal’s. ‘Hello, Mr Drury,’ she called out as he was about to disappear into the pub doorway, his legs being the worse for drink and his eyesight somewhat blurred. He reached out both arms to steady himself against the door pillars while he focused on the source of the greeting.

  ‘Well, if it ain’t young Molly . . . Sal Tanner’s little ’un. Inside, is she?’ he asked. When Molly replied that yes, she was inside, he laughed aloud, saying, ‘I shoulda’ known. The music’s allus loudest when Sal Tanner’s around.’ After a concentrated effort, he manoeuvred himself inside and was gone from Molly’s sight. In a moment though, her interest was taken up by the arrival of a two-horse carriage, which drew up some small distance away. In the growing darkness, Molly could see very little of its occupants, although there looked to be two of them, and one appeared to be wearing a top hat. It was a grand sort of carriage, thought Molly, her interest aroused. The kind only used by toffs and the like. She was about to g
et to her feet and maybe sneak a closer look, when the carriage door was flung open, and out climbed . . . not a toff, but an ordinary-looking fellow with a flat cap on his head and a look of slyness about him. When he came so close to her that she could have reached out and touched him, Molly was taken aback because, in spite of his common clothes and the way he pretended to swagger as if he’d had a drink or two, Molly was convinced that he was neither drunk nor ordinary.

  Puzzled by such strange antics, Molly watched him go into the pub, then craned her neck to see whether the carriage might now pull away. But it didn’t. Instead, the gent with the top hat seemed to slink deeper into his seat and all was deathly quiet from that quarter.

  Molly was so intrigued now that, first of all, she got to her tiptoes and took a peep through the window of the bar. There in the farthest corner was the strange man, his eyes staring at a group of men some three tables away, one being Gabe Drury, who appeared to be holding a few boozy regulars entranced by the story he was telling. Then, even as Molly was taking stock of the man, he got up from his seat and moved to within an arm’s reach of Gabe Drury, afterwards conversing with him and showing great interest in every word the old man said.