Now, I knew very well that as a missionary I had often made a fool of myself. I knew much better than the professor my unfitness for the work, for, gracious me! it has knocked me out of time too often for me not to have realized it. Still, I was a bit nettled when I found that I was the only one in a wrong place. I had not even the comfort of a partner in distress; but I recovered from the shock, and comforted myself with the thought that they must be a splendid lot of men when I was the worst among them.
Yet it gave me pause. What if he were right? Fifteen years I had been blundering among poor humanity, hoping and fearing, racking my brains, never knowing when to give in, though often lifeless from the expenditure of nervous energy. Fifteen years I had been realizing that I could only move others to the extent I felt for them, and that there is no healing without loss of virtue. What if the professor were right? It troubled me, for I thought of the poor, the unfortunate, the downcast, and the heterogeneous mass of humanity one meets with in our London police courts. Some other fellows might have done them so much more good, might have comforted more broken hearts, and might have ‘rescued’ in a wholesale fashion what time I had been peddling and meddling with solitary individuals.
Still, I felt I had done my best, and I knew that there were eyes that brightened when I looked into them; I knew that I had made some little ones happy, that I had strengthened some despairing wretches, and had helped in some degree to lift the great burden of sorrow that presses upon the human heart; and besides, was there not the delicate compliment conveyed that I might have been an Irving or a Toole, or—ecstatic thought!—a writer for the Daily Telegraph? I began to think the professor was right, and though I had never been in a theatre till I had passed my fortieth birthday, I felt I had dramatic instincts and a relish for comedy.
My mind went back forty-five years, and I remembered that from a poor, starved, and small Sunday-school library I had got Defoe’s ‘History of the Plague.’ How it thrilled and absorbed me! ‘Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!’ ever rang in my ears, so with a rattle (lads made them in those days) in a little old Staffordshire town I ran about the streets shouting out: ‘Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!’ I remembered, too, that I emulated the poor half-witted drunken piper in the ‘dead-cart,’ and blew unearthly noises on a tin whistle, innocently asking: ‘I ain’t dead, am I?’
But whatever prospects I may have had of becoming an actor were doomed to early death, and it happened on this wise. A large travelling theatre came often to our town. How well I remember it, with its framework of thin deal painted green, and its patched and torn roof! Every evening on an elevated stage at the front the company in full dress disported themselves, the band played, the whip cracked, and there were pressing invitations to the small crowd to ‘Walk up! Walk up!’ How they responded may be gathered from the fact that one night the master of the ceremonies giving the usual invitation made a slight variation, and it came out as follows: ‘Walk up, walk up, ladies and gentlemen, and see one of Shakespeare’s most beautiful tragedies, entitled——’ Here he became anxious as to the size of the house, and putting his head through the canvas to look, he soon drew it back, and called out to one of the company: ‘Only five in.’
I never got inside this booth, but those who did told fascinating tales. One Shakespearian night ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was to be performed, and as Romeo did not come on, the ‘house’ waited in expectancy the while. The stage manager came to make some explanation, but before he could speak one of the company rushed on to the stage, and called out to him: ‘Romeo’s drunk!’ But the messenger was closely followed by the pot-valiant Romeo, who roared out: ‘’Tis false, you dastard! Romeo is not drunk!’ and promptly knocked the accuser down.
Coppers were scarce in those days; lads, at any rate, did not get many, so we searched the thin boarding for cracks or apertures through which to gain, if not a free pass, at any rate a free look. I had found one, and was with the aid of a pocket-knife improving my opportunity, when something cut short my aspiration for the stage. It was only the butt-end of the horse-whip that had cracked so merrily on the outside stage, but it was quite sufficient to cut short my view of ‘Maria Martin,’ to make me sore for days, and to end my acquaintance with the stage till I saw the ‘Sign of the Cross’ at the new Alexandra Theatre, when, I am sorry to say, I liked Nero best. But I have never been able to command or direct my sympathies, for I well remember when I first read Milton that I had considerable admiration for Satan, and was always anxious to know how he was getting on. My curiosity on that point has been more than satisfied since I have been a police court missionary.
With all respect to the professor of phrenology, it is no fault of mine that I did not figure behind the footlights and ‘tear a passion to tatters.’ I never had the chance. But as to tragedy and comedy—well, I have in London seen plenty of each, though I have never been able yet to tell exactly one from the other. Things are so mixed up in life that sometimes I feel inclined to cry where other people laugh, for I have found that real comedy has too often a sadly pathetic side.
As to my being a writer for the Daily Telegraph, the possibility of it never dawned upon me, and in my most ambitious days I never dreamed of, let alone aspired to, such a giddy height. It is very sad to think how much the public and myself have lost through the proprietors of that paper failing to put me on their brilliant staff. I wish that I had met that professor forty years ago. But I am to make some amends for my mistake, for I find myself writing a book, and I can quite feel with Byron ‘’Tis pleasant sure to see one’s name in print— A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in’t.’
I cannot promise you flowing periods, for of the rules of composition I know nothing; my grammar is uncertain, and as to spelling, why, I often have to turn to my dear wife and ask, ‘Margaret, how do you spell such and such a word?’ and she always knows; she is ever so much better than a dictionary. But, alas! before twelve years of age I was at work fourteen hours a day in an iron foundry in good old Staffordshire. Three farthings per week my father paid for me during the few years I went to school; it was a penny a week school, but they made a reduction on a quantity: two brothers for three halfpence, three for twopence, and so on. There was a large family of boys at our house, so if I could have gone to school a few more years I should have gone almost for nothing, and dad would have saved something. But he evidently thought I could earn something, and littles were useful then, so at the age stated I found myself in the foundry. It is now the fashion, I know, to make light of the schools of those days, and certainly there was much about them to provoke wonder; but I never hear the pedagogues of those times sneered at without feeling a desire to show fight on their behalf. They had their own way of doing things, but personally I doubt if they are done much better now, with all our resources. Perhaps they could not teach much, but they taught it well, and they had a power of instilling into boys a love of knowledge, which is perhaps even better than knowledge itself; for their boys were not in a great hurry to forget what they had learned, but rather sought to add to it after leaving school. What if they did use the cane freely? I never knew a boy get it but what he richly deserved it, and with it all the schoolmaster and his boys were much better friends, and a much better influence was exercised in those days than I am afraid is the case now.
The schoolmaster knew his boys then, and had a comparatively free hand in teaching them. If he found a boy who learned quickly, he advanced him without waiting for the end of the year, regardless of examination, and this produced a spirit of emulation among the boys. Every Friday afternoon those boys who had worked well during the week were allowed ‘recreation’—in the winter by means of chess and draughts, both of which he taught us; in the summer-time he would take an occasional walk with us.
Ours being a Church school, we had to go to Sunday-school and church twice every Sunday, and woe be to the lad on Monday who had not conducted himself well on Sunday! for he got something that he was not able to rub off in a hurry. The Sunday-school was held in the chancel of an old church, the remaining part of which was a picturesque ruin. Here at nine every Sunday morning all the boys from the day-school assembled,