Adventures of Working Men. From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon. Fenn George Manville

and made o’ the best Malacky cane, so as to go into all the ins and outs, and bend about anywhere, till it’s right above the pot, and bending and swinging down. But they’re poor things, bless you, and don’t sweep a chimbley half like a boy used. You never hears the rattle of a brush at the top of a chimbley-pot now, and the boy giving his ‘hillo – hallo – hullo – o – o – o!’ to show as he’d not been shamming and skulking half-way up the flue. Why, that was one of the cheery sounds as you used to hear early in the mornin’, when you was tucked up warm in bed; for there was always somebody’s chimbley a being swept.

      “Puts me in mind again of when I was a little bit of a fellow, and at home with mother, as I can recollect with her nice pleasant face, and a widder’s cap round it. Hard pushed, poor thing, when she took me to Joe Barkby, the chimbley sweep, as said he’d teach me the trade if she liked. And there was I, shivering along aside her one morning, when she was obliged to take me to Joe, and we got there to find him sitting over his brexfass, and he arst mother to have some; but her heart was too full, poor thing, and she wouldn’t, and was going away, and Joe sent me to the door to let her out; and that’s one of the things as I shall never forget – no, not if I lives to a hundred – my mother’s poor, sad, weary face, and the longing look she give me when we’d said ‘Good bye,’ and I was going to shut the door after her. Such a sad, longing look, as if she could have caught me up and run off with me. I saw it as she stood on the step, and me with the door in my hand – that there green door, with a bright brass knocker, and brass plate with ‘Barkby, Chimbley Sweep,’ on it. There was tears in her eyes, too; and I felt so miserable myself I didn’t know what to do as I stood watching her, and she came and give me one more kiss, saying, ‘God bless you!’ and then I shut the door a little more, and a little more, till I could see the same sad look through quite a little crack; and then it was close shut, and I was wiping my eyes with my knuckles.

      “Ah! I’ve often thought since as I shut that door a deal too soon; but I was too young to know all as that poor thing must have suffered.

      “Barkby warn’t a bad sort; but then, what can you expect from a sweep? He didn’t behave so very bad to us little chummies; but there it was – up at four, and tramp through the cold, dark streets, hot or cold, wet or dry; and then stand shivering till you could wake up the servants – an hour, perhaps, sometimes. Then in you went to the cold, miserable house, with the carpets all up, or p’r’aps you had to wait no one knows how long while the gal was yawning, and knick-knick-knicking with a flint and steel over a tinder-box, and then blowing the spark till you could get a brimstone match alight. Then there was the forks to get for us to stick the black cloth in front of the fireplace, and then there was one’s brush, and the black cap to pull down over one’s face, pass under the cloth, and begin swarming up the chimbley all in the dark.

      “It was very trying to a little bit of a chap of ten years old, you know – quite fresh to the job; and though Barkby give me lots of encouragement, without being too chuff, it seemed awful as soon as I got hold of the bars, which was quite warm then, and began feeling my way, hot, and smothery, and sneezy, in my cap, till I give my head such a pelt against some of the brickwork that I began to cry; for, though I’d done plenty of low ones this was the first high chimbley as I’d been put to. But I chokes it down, as I stood there with my little bare toes all amongst the cinders, and then began to climb.

      “Every now and then Barkby shoves his head under the cloth, and ‘Go ahead, boy,’ he’d say; and I kep’ on going ahead as fast as I could, for I was afeared on him, though he never spoke very gruff to me; but I had heard him go on and cuss awful, and I didn’t want to put him out. So there was I, poor little chap – I’m sorry for myself even now, you know – swarming up a little bit at a time, crying away quietly, and rubbing the skin off my poor knees and elbows, while the place felt that hot and stuffy I could hardly breathe, cramped up as I was.

      “Now, you wouldn’t think as any one could see in the dark, with his eyes close shut, and a thick cap over his face, pulled right down to keep the sutt from getting up his nose – you wouldn’t think anyone could see anything there; but I could, quite plain; and what do you think it was? Why, my mother’s face, looking at me so sad, and sweet, and smiling, through her tears, that it made me give quite a choking sob every now and then and climb away as hard as ever I could, though my toes and knees seemed to have the skin quite off, and smarted ever so; while I kep’ on slipping a bit every now and then, for I was new at climbing, and this was a long chimbley, from the housekeeper’s room of a great house, right from under ground, to the top.

      “Sometimes I’d stop and have a cry, for I’d feel beat out, and the face as had cheered me on was gone; but then I’d hear Barkby’s choky voice come muttering up the floo, same as I’ve shouted to lots o’ boys in my time, ‘Go ahead, boy!’ and I’d go ahead again, though at last I was sobbing and choking as hard as I could, for I kep’ on thinking as I should never get to the top, and be stuck there always in the chimbley, never to come out no more.

      “‘I won’t be a sweep, I won’t be a sweep,’ I says, sobbing and crying; and all the time making up my mind as I’d run away first chance, and go home again; and then, after a good long struggle, I was in the pot, with my head out, then my arms out, and the cap off for the cool wind to blow in my face.

      “And, ah! how cool and pleasant that first puff of wind was, and how the fear and horror seemed to go away as I climbed out, and stood looking about me; till all at once I started, for there came up out of the pot, buzzing like, Barkby’s voice, as he calls out, ‘Go ahead, boy!’

      “So then I set to rattling away with my brush-handle to show as I was out, and then climbs down on to the roof, and begins looking about me. It was just getting daylight, so that I could see my way about, and all seemed so fresh and strange that, with my brush in my hand, I begins to wander over the roofs, climbing up the slates and sliding down t’other side, which was good fun, and worth doing two or three times over. Then I got to a parapet, and leaned looking over into the street, and thinking of what a way it would be to tumble; but so far off being afraid, I got on to the stone coping, and walked along ever so far, till I came to an attic window, where I could peep in and see a man lying asleep, with his mouth half open; then I climbed up another slope, and had another slide down; and then another, and another, till I forgot all about my sore knees; and at last sat astride of the highest part, looking about me at the view I had of the tops of houses as far as I could see, for it was getting quite light now.

      “All at once I turned all of a horrible fright, for I recklected about Barkby, and felt almost as if he’d got hold of me, and was thrashing me for being so long. I ran to the first chimbley stack, but that wasn’t right, for I knew as the one I came up was a-top of a slate-sloping roof. Then I ran to another, thinking I should know the one I came out of by the sutt upon it. But they’d all got sutt upon ’em – every chimbley-pot I looked at, and so I hunted about from one to another till I got all in a muddle, and didn’t know where I was nor which pot I’d got out of. Last of all, shaking and trembling, I makes sure as I’d got the right one, and climbing up I managed, after nearly tumbling off, to get my legs in, when pulling down my cap, I let myself through a bit at a time, and leaving go I slipped with a regular rush, nobody knows how far, till I came to a bend in the chimbley, where I stopped short – scraped, and bruised, and trembling, while I felt that confused I couldn’t move.

      “After a bit I came round a little, and, whimpering and crying to myself, I began to feel my way about a bit with my toes, and then got along a little away straight like, when the chimbley took another bend down, and stiffly and slowly I let myself down a little and a little till my feet touched cold iron, and I could get no farther. But after thinking a bit, I made out where I was, and that I was standing on the register of a fireplace, so I begins to lift it up with my toes as well as I could, when crash it went down again, and there came such a squealing and screeching as made me begin climbing up again as fast as I could till I reached the bend, where I stopped and had another cry, I felt so miserable; and then I shrunk up and shivered, for there came a roar and a rattle that echoed up the chimbley, while the sutt came falling down in a way that nearly smothered me.

      “Now, I knew enough to tell myself that the people being frightened had fired a gun up the chimbley, while the turn round as it took had saved me from