“There it was again – a scratching of tiny claws and a hurried rush up my breast, over my shoulder, something wet and cold brushing my face, then the half-leap, half-start I gave, and the sharp splash in the water as the beast leaped off me. And then it came quicker and faster – two and three – six – a dozen upon me, and as I tore them off they bit me savagely, making their little teeth meet in my hands, and hanging there; while more than one vicious bite in the face made me yell out with pain.
“The horrible fear seemed now to have gone, strange as it may appear to say so. I was mad with rage now, and fought desperately for my life, as the rats swarmed round and attacked me furiously, without giving me a moment’s rest. I had a large knife, which I managed to get open and strike with, but it was more than useless, for my enemies were so small and active and constant in their attacks that I could not get a fair blow at them, and dashing away the blade I was glad enough to fight them with their own weapons, and bit and tore at them, seizing them one after another in my hands, and either crushing or dashing them up against the sides of the sewer.
“But it seemed toil in vain, for as I dashed one off half a dozen swarmed up me, over my arms and back, covering my chest, fastening on to the bare parts of my neck, and making my face run down with blood.
“‘Can’t last much longer!’ I remember thinking; but I felt that I must fight on to the last, and I kept on tearing the squeaking vermin off, and crushing them in my hands, often so that they had no chance of biting; but there must have been hundreds swarming round me, waiting until others were beaten off to make a lodgment. Now I was dashing up stream as hard as I could, in the hope that I could shake them off; and as I waded splashing along I tore those off that were upon me, but they hunted me as dogs would a hare; and though it was dense black darkness there, so that I groped my way along with outstretched hands, it seemed to me that the little beasts could see well enough, and kept dashing up me as fast as I could beat them off.
“Splashing along as I was, I had a better chance of keeping the vermin off; but then I could not keep it up. I must have been struggling about for hours now, and was worn out, for even at the best of times it is terribly hard work walking in water; and now that I was drenched with it, and had my great thigh boots full, the toil was fearful, and I felt that I must give in.
“‘I wouldn’t mind so much,’ I thought, ‘if I could find a dry spot where I could lie down;’ but the idea of this double death was dreadful, and spurred me on again to new efforts, so that I kept on rushing forward by spurts, my breath coming in groans and sobs, while I kept the vermin off my face as well as I could.
“‘It’s all over!’ I groaned at last, sinking on my knees close to the side of the sewer, and nearly going under, as my legs slipped in the ooze at the bottom. But I stopped that by trying to force my nails in one of the cracks between the slimy bricks, and as the rats came at me there was only my head and neck up above the filthy water; while I gave a long shriek that drove them back for a moment. And now it seemed to me that I could see the little wretches coming at me, and, yes – no – yes, I could see a faint gleam on the top of the water, and then it was brighter, and I heard a shout which I believe I answered, though I can recollect no more.
“Well, they ain’t such very deep marks, sir – only just through the skin, you know; but they spoil a man’s beauty, which they say is just skin-deep. Lots of people have thought as I’ve had the smallpox very bad, and I let them, for this here as you’ve heard the whole story about is one of the things as I don’t like to bring up very often. I always feel as if I’d been very close to the end and had been dragged back, which makes me feel solemn, and I always back out when any mate tries to draw the story out of me, for they’re uncommon fond of hearing it over and over again. Joe Stock – that’s one of them – he could tell you the part as I can’t about how they hunted for me and shouted till they were tired – going miles, you know, for it would surprise you to thoroughly know what there is under the streets of London.
“‘Harry,’ he’s said to me before now, ‘I never see such a sight in my life, and when I saw you get up off your knees, mate, and come a reeling towards me, I’m blest if I didn’t think it was somethin’ no canny, and I nearly dropped my lantern and ran for it. There was your face all streaming down with blood, and your hands the same, and as to the noise you was making – ugh!’ he’d say, ‘it was awful bad.’
“And now, just one word of advice, sir – don’t you never go down no sewers without two or three bits of candle in your pocket – high up in the breast of your jacket, you know – and plenty of lucifers in a watertight tin box, or perhaps you may get in such a mess as I did.”
Very good advice, no doubt; but after seeing the place where three men went down to work some short time since, listening to the hollow musical drip of the water, and the strange whisperings of the long tunnels; after listening to the history of the hard fight against a sudden rush of water told me by the sturdy toiler, who shuddered and turned pale as he recalled the desperate fight for life, and then, in lowered tones, narrated how he had found his poor mate’s body washed into a narrow culvert, I felt quite satisfied, and I don’t think I shall ever make any explorations in a sewer.
In fact, I never see a grating open, or meet one of the sturdy fellows in his blue Jersey shirt and high boots without thinking of my patient, and the risks such people run to earn their daily bread.
Chapter Five.
My Black Patient
There’s a very terrible disease upon which a great deal has been written, but not a great deal done. In fact, it is difficult to deal with special diseases brought on by the toiler’s work. It is a vexed question what to do or how to treat the consumption that attacks the needle-grinders and other dry grinders; the horrible sufferings of those who inhale the dust of deadly minerals; the bone disease of the workers in phosphorus and many other ills brought on by working at particular trades.
The disease I allude to in particular is one that attacks that familiar personage, the chimney sweep, and I have often had to treat some poor fellow or another for it.
There was one man who stands in my note-book as J.J. – John Johnson, I had under my care several times, and we came to be very good friends, for under that sooty skin of his – I never saw it once really clean – there was a great deal of true humanity and tenderness of heart, as I soon found from the way in which he behaved to his wife.
“Why don’t you chimney sweeps – Ramoneurs as you call yourselves now – invent a better cry than svi-thee-up?”
“Ramoneur,” he said with a husky chuckle. “Yes, that’s it, doctor. Fine, aint it? I allus calls myself a plain sweep, though. That’s good enough for me.”
“But you might do without that yell of yours,” I said. “London cries are a terrible nuisance, though I don’t know that I’d care to have them done away with. Your svi-thee-up don’t sound much like sweep.”
“Svi-thee-up, svi-thee-up,” he cried, as he lay there in bed, to the utter astonishment of his wife. “Don’t sound much like sweep? No, it don’t; but then one has to have one’s own regular cry, as folks may know us by. Why, listen to any of them of a morning about the street, and who’d think it was creases as this one was a hollering, or Yarmouth bloaters that one; or that ‘Yow-hoo!’ meant new milk? It ain’t what we say – it’s the sound of our voices. Don’t the servant gals as hears us of a morning know what it means well enough when the bell rings, and them sleepy a-bed? Oh, no, not at all! But there’s no mussy for ’em, and we jangles away at the bell, and hollers a good ’un till they lets us in; for, you see, it comes nat’ral when you’re obliged to be up yourself, and out in the cold, to not like other folks to be snugging it in bed.
“But, then, it’s one’s work, you know, and I dunno whether it was that or the sutt as give me this here coarse voice, which nothing clears now – most likely it was the sutt. How times are altered, though, since I was a boy! That there climbing boy Act o’ Parliament