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THE HOLE IN THE WALL
by
ARTHUR MORRISON
LondonEyre & Spottiswoode
The Hole in the Wall was first published in 1902First published in The Century Library, 1947
The Century Library is printed in England by Billing andSons Ltd., Guildford and Esher, for Eyre & Spottiswoode(Publishers) Ltd., 15 Bedford Street, London, W.C. 2, andbound by James Burn and Company Ltd., Royal Mills, Esher
_To_ MRS. CHARLES EARDLEY-WILMOT
CONTENTS
I. STEPHEN'S TALE
II. IN BLUE GATE
III. STEPHEN'S TALE
IV. STEPHEN'S TALE
V. IN THE HIGHWAY
VI. STEPHEN'S TALE
VII. STEPHEN'S TALE
VIII. STEPHEN'S TALE
IX. STEPHEN'S TALE
X. STEPHEN'S TALE
XI. STEPHEN'S TALE
XII. IN THE CLUB-ROOM
XIII. STEPHEN'S TALE
XIV. STEPHEN'S TALE
XV. STEPHEN'S TALE
XVI. STEPHEN'S TALE
XVII. IN BLUE GATE
XVIII. ON THE COP
XIX. ON THE COP
XX. STEPHEN'S TALE
XXI. IN THE BAR-PARLOUR
XXII. ON THE COP
XXIII. ON THE COP
XXIV. ON THE COP
XXV. STEPHEN'S TALE
XXVI. STEPHEN'S TALE
XXVII. IN THE BAR-PARLOUR
XXVIII. STEPHEN'S TALE
XXIX. STEPHEN'S TALE
XXX. STEPHEN'S TALE
CHAPTER I
STEPHEN'S TALE
My grandfather was a publican--and a sinner, as you will see. Hispublic-house was the Hole in the Wall, on the river's edge at Wapping;and his sins--all of them that I know of--are recorded in these pages.He was a widower of some small substance, and the Hole in the Wall wasnot the sum of his resources, for he owned a little wharf on the riverLea. I called him Grandfather Nat, not to distinguish him among amultitude of grandfathers--for indeed I never knew another of myown--but because of affectionate habit; a habit perhaps born of the factthat Nathaniel Kemp was also my father's name. My own is Stephen.
To remember Grandfather Nat is to bethink me of pear-drops. It ispossible that that particular sort of sweetstuff is now obsolete, and Icannot remember how many years have passed since last I smelt it; forthe pear-drop was a thing that could be smelt farther than seen, andoftener; so that its smell--a rather fulsome, vulgar smell I nowbelieve--is almost as distinct to my imagination while I write as it wasto my nose thirty years ago. For pear-drops were an unfailing part ofthe large bagful of sticky old-fashioned lollipops that my grandfatherbrought on his visits, stuffed into his overcoat pocket, and hard to getout without a burst and a spill. His custom was invariable, so that Ithink I must have come to regard the sweets as some natural productionof his coat pocket; insomuch that at my mother's funeral my muddledbrain scarce realised the full desolation of the circumstances till Idiscovered that, for the first time in my experience, my grandfather'spocket was void of pear-drops. But with this new bereavement the worldseemed empty indeed, and I cried afresh.
Associated in my memory with my grandfather's bag of sweets, almost morethan with himself, was the gap in the right hand where the middle fingerhad been; for it was commonly the maimed hand that hauled out the paperbag, and the gap was plain and singular against the white paper. He hadlost the finger at sea, they told me; and as my notion of losing a thingwas derived from my Noah's ark, or dropping a marble through a grating,I was long puzzled to guess how anything like that could have happenedto a finger. Withal the circumstance fascinated me, and added vastly tothe importance and the wonder of my grandfather in my childish eyes.
He was perhaps a little over the middle height, but so broad and so deepof chest and, especially, so long of arm, as to seem squat. He had somegrey hair, but it was all below the line of his hat-brim; above that itwas as the hair of a young man. So that I was led to reason that colourmust be washed out of hair by exposure to the weather; as perhaps in hiscase it was. I think that his face was almost handsome, in a rough,hard-bitten way, and he was as hairy a man as I ever saw. His shortbeard was like curled wire; but I can remember that long after I hadgrown to resent being kissed by women, being no longer a baby, I gladlyclimbed his knee to kiss my grandfather, though his shaven upper-lip waslike a rasp.
In these early days I lived with my mother in a little house of a shortrow that stood on a quay, in a place that was not exactly a dock, nor awharf, nor a public thoroughfare; but where people from the dock tryingto find a wharf, people from a wharf looking for the dock, and peoplefrom the public thoroughfare in anxious search of dock and wharves, usedto meet and ask each other questions. It was a detached piece ofBlackwall which had got adrift among locks and jetties, and was liableto be cut off from the rest of the world at any moment by the arrival ofa ship and the consequent swinging of a bridge, worked by two men at awinch. So that it was a commonplace of my early childhood (though thesight never lost its interest) to observe from a window a ship, passingas it were up the street, warped into dock by the capstans on the quay.And the capstan-songs of the dockmen--_Shenandore_, _Mexico is coveredwith Snow_, _Hurrah for the Black Ball Line_, and the like--were as muchmy nursery rhymes as _Little Boy Blue_ and _Sing a Song o' Sixpence_.These things are done differently nowadays; the cottages on the quay aregone, and the neighbourhood is a smokier place, where the work is doneby engines, with no songs.
My father was so much at sea that I remember little of him at all. Hewas a ship's officer, and at the time I am to tell of he was mate of thebrig _Juno_, owned by Viney and Marr, one of the small shipowning firmsthat were common enough thirty years ago, though rarer now; the sort offirm that was made by a pushing skipper and an ambitious shipping clerk,beginning with a cheap vessel bought with money raised mainly by pawningthe ship. Such concerns often did well, and sometimes grew into greatlines; perhaps most of them yielded the partners no more than acomfortable subsistence; and a good few came to grief, or were keptgoing by questionable practices which have since becomeillegal--sometimes in truth by what the law called crime, even then.Viney had been a ship's officer--had indeed served under GrandfatherNat, who was an old skipper. Marr was the business man who had been aclerk. And the firm owned two brigs, the _Juno_ and another; though howmuch of their value was clear property and how much stood for borrowedmoney was matter of doubt and disagreement in the conversation of matesand skippers along Thames shore. What nobody disagreed about, however,was that the business was run on skinflint principles, and that thevessels were so badly found, so ill-kept, and so grievouslyunder-manned, that the firm ought to be making money. These things bythe way, though they are important to remember. As I was saying, Iremember little of my father, because of his long voyages and shortspells at home. But my mother is so clear and so kind in my recollectionthat sometimes I dream of her still, though she died before I was eight.
It was while my father was on a long voyage with the _Juno_ that therecame a time when she took me often upon her knee, asking if I shouldlike a little brother or sister to play with; a thing which I demandedto have brought, instantly. There was a fat woman called Mrs. Dann, whoappeared in the household and became my enemy. She slept with my mother,and my cot was thrust into another room, where I lay at night andbrooded--sometimes wept with jealousy thus to be supplanted; though Idrew what consolation I might from the prospect of the promisedplaymate. Then I could
not go near my mother at all, for she was ill,and there was a doctor. And then ... I was told that mother andbaby-brother were gone to heaven together; a thing I would not hear of,but fought savagely with Mrs. Dann on the landing, shouting to my motherthat she was not to die, for I was coming. And when, wearied withkicking and screaming--for I fought with neighbours as well as with thenurse and the undertaker, conceiving them to be all in league to depriveme of my mother--when at last the woman from next door took me into thebedroom, and I saw the drawn face that could not smile, and my tinybrother that could not play, lying across the dead breast, I so behavedthat the good soul with me blubbered aloud; and I had an added grief inthe reflection that I had kicked her shins not half an hour before. Ihave never seen that good woman since; and I am ashamed to write that Icannot even remember her name.
I have no more to say of my mother, and of her funeral only so much asrecords the least part of my grief. Some of her relations came, whom Icannot distinctly remember seeing at any other time: a group of elderlyand hard-featured women, who talked of me as "the child," very much asthey might have talked of some troublesome article of baggage; and whoturned up their noses at my grandfather: who, for his part, was uneasilyrespectful, calling each of them "mum" very often. I was not attractedby my mother's relations, and I kept as near my grandfather as possible,feeling a vague fear that some of them might have a design of taking meaway. Though indeed none was in the least ambitious of thatresponsibility.
They were not all women, for there was one quiet little man in theirmidst, who, when not eating cake or drinking wine, was sucking the bonehandle of a woman's umbrella, which he carried with him everywhere,indoors and out. He was in the custody of the largest and grimmest ofladies, whom the others called Aunt Martha. He was so completely in hercustody that after some consideration I judged he must be her son;though indeed he seemed very old for that. I now believe him to havebeen her husband; but I cannot remember to have heard his name, and Icannot invent him a better one than Uncle Martha.
Uncle Martha would have behaved quite well, I am convinced, if he hadbeen left alone, and would have acquitted himself with perfect proprietyin all the transactions of the day; but it seemed to be Aunt Martha'simmovable belief that he was wholly incapable of any action, even thesimplest and most obvious, unless impelled by shoves and jerks.Consequently he was shoved into the mourning carriage--we had two--andjerked into the corner opposite to the one he selected; shovedout--almost on all fours--at the cemetery; and, perceiving him enteringthe little chapel of his own motion, Aunt Martha overtook him and jerkedhim in there. This example presently impressed the other ladies with theexpediency of shoving Uncle Martha at any convenient opportunity; sothat he arrived home with us at last in a severely jostled condition,faithful to the bone-handled umbrella through everything.
Grandfather Nat had been liberal in provision for the funeral party, andthe cake and port wine, the gin and water, the tea and the watercress,occupied the visitors for some time; a period illuminated by many moralreflections from a rather fat relation, who was no doubt, like most ofthe others, an aunt.
"Ah well," said the Fat Aunt, shaking her head, with a deep sigh thatsuggested repletion; "ah well; it's what we must all come to!"
There had been a deal of other conversation, but I remember this remarkbecause the Fat Aunt had already made it twice.
"Ah, indeed," assented another aunt, a thin one; "so we must, sooner orlater."
"Yes, yes; as I often say, we're all mortal."
"Yes, indeed!"
"We've all got to be born, an' we've all got to die."
"That's true!"
"Rich an' poor--just the same."
"Ah!"
"In the midst of life we're in the middle of it."
"Ah yes!"
Grandfather Nat, deeply impressed, made haste to refill the Fat Aunt'sglass, and to push the cake-dish nearer. Aunt Martha jerked UncleMartha's elbow toward his glass, which he was neglecting, with a suddennod and a frown of pointed significance--even command.
"It's a great trial for all of the family, I'm sure," pursued the FatAunt, after applications to glass and cake-dish; "but we must bear up.Not that we ain't had trials enough, neither."
"No, indeed," replied Aunt Martha with a snap at my grandfather, asthough he were the trial chiefly on her mind; which Grandfather Nat tookvery humbly, and tried her with watercress.
"Well, she's better off, poor thing," the Fat Aunt went on.
Some began to say "Ah!" again, but Aunt Martha snapped it into "Well,let's hope so!"--in the tone of one convinced that my mother couldn't bemuch worse off than she had been. From which, and from sundry otherremarks among the aunts, I gathered that my mother was held to have hurtthe dignity of her family by alliance with Grandfather Nat's. I havenever wholly understood why; but I put the family pride down to thetraditional wedding of an undoubted auctioneer with Aunt Martha'scousin. So Aunt Martha said "Let's hope so!" and, with another suddenfrown and nod, shoved Uncle Martha toward the cake.
"What a blessing the child was took too!" was the Fat Aunt's nextobservation.
"Ah, that it is!" murmured the chorus. But I was puzzled and shocked tohear such a thing said of my little brother.
"And it's a good job there's only one left."
The chorus agreed again. I began to feel that I had seriously disobligedmy mother's relations by not dying too.
"And him a boy; boys can look after themselves." This was a thin aunt'sopinion.
"Ah, and that's a blessing," sighed the Fat Aunt; "a great blessing."
"Of course," said Aunt Martha. "And it's not to be expected that hismother's relations can be burdened with him."
"Why, no indeed!" said the Fat Aunt, very decisively.
"I'm sure it wouldn't be poor Ellen's wish to cause more trouble to herfamily than she has!" And Aunt Martha, with a frown at the watercress,gave Uncle Martha another jolt. It seemed to me that he had really eatenall he wanted, and would rather leave off; and I wondered if she alwaysfed him like that, or if it were only when they were visiting.
"And besides, it 'ud be standing in the child's way," Aunt Martharesumed, "with so many openings as there is in the docks here, quitehandy."
Perhaps it was because I was rather dull in the head that day, from onecause and another; at any rate I could think of no other openings in thedocks but those between the ships and the jetties, and at thelock-sides, which people sometimes fell into, in the dark; and Igathered a hazy notion that I was expected to make things comfortable bygoing out and drowning myself.
"Yes, of course it would," said the Fat Aunt.
"It stands to reason," said a thin one.
"Anybody can see _that_," said the others.
"And many a boy's gone out to work no older."
"Ah, and been members o' Parliament afterwards, too."
The prospect of an entry into Parliament presented so stupefying acontrast with that of an immersion in the dock that for some time theensuing conversation made little impression on me. On the part of mymother's relations it was mainly a repetition of what had gone before,very much in the same words; and as to my grandfather, he had little tosay at all, but expressed himself, so far as he might, by furtive patson my back; pats increasing in intensity as the talk of the ladiespointed especially and unpleasingly to myself. Till at last the food anddrink were all gone. Whereupon the Fat Aunt sighed her last moralsentiment, Uncle Martha was duly shoved out on the quay, and I was leftalone with Grandfather Nat.
"Well Stevy, ol' mate," said my grandfather, drawing me on his knee; "ustwo's left alone; left alone, ol' mate."
I had not cried much that day--scarce at all in fact, since firstmeeting my grandfather in the passage and discovering his emptypocket--for, as I have said, I was a little dull in the head, and tryinghard to think of many things. But now I cried indeed, with my faceagainst my grandfather's shoulder, and there was something of solace inthe outburst; and when at last I looked up I saw two bright dropshanging in t
he wiry tangle of my grandfather's beard, and another lodgedin the furrow under one eye.
"'Nough done, Stevy," said my grandfather; "don't cry no more. You'llcome home along o' me now, won't ye? An' to-morrow we'll go in theLondon Dock, where the sugar is."
I looked round the room and considered, as well as my sodden little headwould permit. I had never been in the London Dock, which was a wonderfulplace, as I had gathered from my grandfather's descriptions: a paradisewhere sugar lay about the very ground in lumps, and where you might eatit if you would, so long as you brought none away. But here was my home,with nobody else to take care of it, and I felt some muddled sense of anew responsibility. "I'm 'fraid I can't leave the place, Gran'fa' Nat,"I said, with a dismal shake of the head. "Father might come home, an' hewouldn't know, an'----"
"An' so--an' so you think you've got to stop an' keep house?" mygrandfather asked, bending his face down to mine.
The prospect had been oppressing my muzzy faculties all day. If Iescaped being taken away, plainly I must keep house, and cook, and buythings and scrub floors, at any rate till my father came home; though itseemed a great deal to undertake alone. So I answered with a nod and aforlorn sniff.
"Good pluck! good pluck!" exclaimed my grandfather, exultantly, clappinghis hand twice on my head and rubbing it vigorously. "Stevy, ol' mate,me an' you'll get on capital. I knowed you'd make a plucked 'un. But youwon't have to keep house alone jest yet. No. You an' me'll keep housetogether, Stevy, at the Hole in the Wall. Your father won't be home awhile yet; an' I'll settle all about this here place. But Lord! what apluck for a shaver!" And he brightened wonderfully.
In truth there had been little enough of courage in my poor little body,and Grandfather Nat's words brought me a deal of relief. Beyond thevague terrors of loneliness and responsibility, I had been troubled bythe reflection that housekeeping cost money, and I had none. For thoughmy mother's half-pay note had been sent in the regular way to Viney andMarr a week before, there had been neither reply nor return of thepaper. The circumstance was unprecedented and unaccountable, though theexplanation came before very long.
For the present, however, the difficulty was put aside. I put my hand inmy grandfather's, and, the door being locked behind us and the key inhis pocket, we went out together, on the quay, over the bridge and intothe life that was to be new for us both.