Postlethwaite was again shouted at so as to make him understand the road he had to follow; but from the odd jumble that, owing to his imperfect hearing, he made of the names of the different streets, it was deemed advisable that the several turnings he had to take, and the names of the various thoroughfares he had to traverse, should be written down for him, and then he could make no blunder.
The list having been prepared, the poor deaf man was started on his errand. But no sooner did the wretched individual emerge into the Strand, than the crowd and hurry of the dense throng that streamed along, half in one direction and half in another, so bewildered him, that, as he stood to look at the names of the streets, he was twisted round and round, first this way and then the other, by the impatient passengers; so that, what with the novelty of the scene he felt at the sight of so many vehicles whose approach he knew he could not hear, and what with the jostlings of the people, and the vertigo superinduced by the continual gyrations that he was forced to make by the crowd, the poor man got so confused in his mind, that in a few minutes it was impossible for him to tell which way he had come or whither he was going, and the consequence was that, with the best possible desire to go right, he proceeded in the very opposite direction to that which he had been instructed to follow.
It was useless for the poor deaf beetle-like countryman to ask his way of any of the strangers; for even in the stillness of home it required the lungs of a Surrey tragedian to make him comprehend what was said; but, amid all the roar of the commercial tide of London, it was sheer waste of breath to endeavour to make the least impression on his leathery tympanum. Moreover, like the generality of people who are a “little” hard of hearing, he was so eager to hide his infirmity, and to put those addressing him to as little extra trouble as possible, that he was always ready to catch at half a meaning, and consequently, from some faint analogy in the sound, was continually putting constructions on what was said that were diametrically different from what was intended.
Hence it was but natural, when poor Postlethwaite requested of the passers-by to be put in the right way towards his destination, that he was, owing either to his own infirmity, or to the wickedness of the London boys, invariably sent in the wrong.
And here, in the midst of the London crowd and London roguery, tossed about from street to lane, from lane to square, and from square again to park, we must for awhile leave the bewildered and melancholy serving-man wandering—like Mr. Leigh Hunt’s memorable pig—up “all manner of streets.”
Postlethwaite had not been gone long when a policeman brought Jobby back to his temporary home, but in a very different state from that in which he had left it. Mrs. Sandboys herself had to look at him twice before she could make up her mind that another shameful trick was not about to be practised upon her in the form of a false case of affiliation.
The new suit of clothes which his mother had purchased for the youth at Cockermouth was gone, and in its place he now wore a man’s ragged old pea-jacket—once blue, but now foxy with age—and a pair of trousers as wide as windsails, and smeared with tar, so that they bore a strong resemblance to coal-sacks; while on his head was a dirty old straw-hat, with a low crown and broad brim, that reminded one strongly of an inverted soup-plate. The jacket was tied together at the button-holes by bits of rope-yarn; for the miserable young gentleman had no shirt to his back, nor had a shoe or a stocking to his feet.
The truth was, as the policeman proceeded to explain to his terrified mother, Master Jobby had been what in the eastern districts of the Metropolis is technically termed “skinned.”
The lad’s story was soon told. Led on by the delight of the posturers’ performance, he had followed the “School of Acrobats” for miles. Then he had suddenly lighted upon a Punch and Judy Show, and this had so tickled his boyish fancy, that he wandered with it half over London. After this, a street-band of Ethiopian serenaders had bewitched him; their lamp-black faces, their white-paper wristbands and collars, and their fuzzy horsehair wigs, together with the banjos and kettle-drums, and the rattle of the bones, and the chuckle of the nigger-laugh,—all were so new and strange to the boy, that he travelled after them in all directions. Then, as he was growing footsore with his long rambles, an engine at full speed, with the horses galloping, and the firemen in their shiny helmets seated along each side of the machine, went tearing past; and when Jobby saw the people hurry after it, he, too, joined in the crowd. As he ran along, he asked some of the mob who accompanied him, what it all meant; and learning that a fire was raging down at Shadwell, he hurried on the quicker and the lighter to see the sight. But though he kept up with the crowd through many a street and past many a turning, yet, when he reached the Docks, he began to feel so weary, while the sight of the forest of masts showing above the walls and roofs, so took his boyish fancy, that he came to a dead halt, and letting the engine go on its way, entered the gates of the London Docks.