Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 1 [of 3]

by J. Ewing Ritchie

It was late when the train reached London, and the actress and her charge were deposited at the King’s Cross railway-station. The little fellow had slept all the way up, and sorely were his eyes dazzled with the glitter of the gas lamps, and his ears stunned as cab after cab drove away.

Muffling herself as much as possible, and dragging the little fellow after her, the actress rushed along the platform to where a neat brougham was drawn on one side, waiting for its owner.

‘Oh, you’re here, Jarvis, are you?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ was the reply, as the coachman touched his hat. ‘Drive home, ma’am?’ said he interrogatively.

‘Oh no; drive me to Clifford’s Inn. Jump in, my little man,’ she said to the poor boy, and, following herself, the brougham was soon spinning along Gray’s Inn Road.

‘I hope Wentworth will be at home,’ said the lady to herself.

‘I wonder what lark missus is up to,’ thought Jarvis, as the brougham made its way amongst the cabs and omnibuses, chiefly burdened with a pleasure-loving and theatre-going community returning from their night’s amusements.

Jarvis had one special virtue—unbounded confidence in his mistress. He had been a valued coachman in a gentleman’s family, but in an ill hour for himself he had unwittingly got mixed up with bad companions, through meeting them in a public-house; and when they had been detected and tried at the Old Bailey, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment as one of the gang, though he had no more to do with their crime than the man in the moon. The policemen, however, had others of the gang who had sworn that he was one of themselves, and he was taken off to Holloway, where, as he asserted his innocence, and refused to be comforted, the chaplain, who wanted him to see that Providence had some good end in view in his unjust incarceration, had come to regard Jarvis as a very wicked fellow indeed. In time, however, he managed to make his innocence clear to the Home Office, having devoted to that purpose all the savings of his life, and he was suffered to go free. As he was leaving, there was a little crowd at the prison gate of pals waiting to welcome the emancipated and to rejoice with those that rejoice, at the nearest public-house. Benevolent people also were there, inviting the released to a little breakfast and a religious service close by.

Jarvis accepted the invitation; but as the address took rather a personal turn and assumed him guilty when not, he walked out of the room in no pleasant state of mind, and in the raw, cold, foggy morning stumbled against one of the men who had borne false witness against him. An altercation ensued, which ended in his knocking down his quondam acquaintance, and in his being collared by the police. For that offence he was straightway taken before the magistrate and let off with a fine, which quite exhausted the little sum given him that morning on leaving gaol. In his desire to earn an honest penny he went to his old master, only to find him dead, and the place shut up. In vain he sought out all whom he knew in the days of his respectability; they received him coldly, were sorry to hear of his misfortunes, and hoped he might meet with some employment, but could do nothing for him themselves.

Day by day he wandered thus in quest of employment, day by day he grew shabbier, day by day he felt himself less able to rise superior to his difficulties. At length, overcome by despair, he walked down to one of the Metropolitan bridges, and jumped over. The Fates seemed propitious, and in another minute he would have been as completely drowned as he wished, had not a boat belonging to the Thames police been on the very spot to which, unconsciously, he floated. He was heaved on board, dried, and refreshed, and the next morning taken before the magistrate, to whom he explained how unfortunate he had been, how he had no one in the world to care for him, and how thoroughly tired he was of life. The magistrate remanded him for a week, in order that he might once more enjoy the inestimable blessing of being talked to by the prison chaplain. In the meanwhile the case got into the newspapers, and it was then that it caught the eye of our heroine. Calling for a cab, she made her way to the police-court, and when, in the course of a few days, the man was released, made him her coachman and gave him a home. Clean and smart, with contentment stamped on his honest face, no longer with the wan cheek of starvation, no longer his eye heavy with disappointment and despair, active and hearty and happy, there was not a better or cleverer Jehu in all London town.