Brownsmith's Boy Part 33

True enough there was Master Shock, lying flat on his chest with his chin resting in his hands, and his feet kicking up behind, now going up and down, now patting together, for he had taken off his boots.

Shock was having a good stare over the market from his elevated position on the top of the baskets; and, taking a good aim as I thought, I threw the little hard stale cabbage, and then dodged round the side of the cart. I stood aghast directly after, beside a pile of baskets, and watch a quarrel that had just begun a dozen yards away, where a big red-faced man was holding a very fluffy white hat in his hand and brushing it with his arm, and bandying angry words with a rough-looking young market porter, who, with a great flat basket under one arm and his other through a knot, was speaking menacingly--

"Don't you hit me again."

"Yes, I will, and knock your ugly head off if you do that again," said the man with the white hat.

"Do what again?"

"Do what again!--why, throw rotten cabbages at my hat."

"I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't."

"Why, half-a-dozen here saw you do it. You've got hold of the wrong man, my lad, for larks; so now, then!"

I saw him stick on his white hat all on one side, and he looked very fierce and severe; while I felt covered with shame and confusion, for I knew that it was my cabbage that had done the mischief.

_Whop_!

That was another right in my ear, and I turned angrily upon Shock, forgetting all about the man with the white hat and the half-conceived idea of going up to him and telling the truth. But there was Shock staring about him from a dozen feet above my head, and singing softly, "I've been to Paris and I've been to Dover;" and the cabbage had struck me on the other side, so that unless Shock had learned how to project decayed cabbage after the fashion of boomerangs it could not have been he.

There was a group of bare-legged boys, though, away to my left--a set of ragged objects who might have pa.s.sed for Shock's brothers and cousins, only that they were thin and unwholesomely pale, and extremely dirty, while although Shock was often quite as dirty, his seemed to be the wholesome dirt of country earth, and he looked brown, and healthy, and strong.

Then I became aware of the presence of Ike, who said with a grim smile:

"Don't you heed them, my lad. I see one of 'em chuck it and then turn round. Wait a bit and I shall get a charnce, and I'll drar my whip round one of 'em in a way as'll be a startler."

A quick busy-looking man came bustling up just then, had a chat with Ike, and hurried off, carrying away my companion; and as soon as he had gone a bruised potato struck the side of the cart, and as I changed my position a damaged stump of a cauliflower struck Basket on the flank, making him start and give himself a shake that rattled all the chains of the harness before resettling down to the task of picking the corn out of the chaff in his well-filled nose-bag.

My first idea was to call Shock down from where he was see-sawing his legs to and fro till his feet looked like two tilt-hammers beating a piece of iron, and then with his help attack the young vagabonds who were amusing themselves by making me a target for all the market refuse they could find.

Second thoughts are said to be best, and I had sense enough to know that nothing would be gained by a struggle with the young roughs. So, gaining knowledge from my previous experience, I changed my position so as to get in the front of some st.u.r.dy-looking men who were all standing with their hands in their pockets c.h.i.n.king their money. I had yet to learn that they were costermongers waiting for prices to come down.

Directly after _whiz_! came something close by my head and struck one of the men in the face, with the result that he made a dash at the boys, who darted away in and out among the baskets, whooping and yelling defiance; but one ran right into the arms of a man in uniform, who gave him three or four sharp cuts with a cane and sent him howling away.

This episode was hardly over before Ike was back, and he nodded as he said:

"He's coming direckly to sell us off."

"Shall you be able to sell the things, then, this morning?"

"Sell 'em! I should just think we shall; well too. There's precious little in the market to-day."

"Little!" I exclaimed. "Why, I thought there would be too much for ours to be wanted."

"Bless your young innocence! this is nothing. Bad times for the costers, my boy; they'll get nothing cheap. Here you, Shock, as you are come, help with these here ropes; and mind, you two, you look after these new ropes and the sacks."

"Look after them!" I said innocently.

"Yes," said Ike with a queer look; "they gets wild and into bad habits in London--walks away, they does--and when you go and look for 'em, there you finds 'em in marine store-shops in the dirty alleys."

Shock and I set to work helping to unfasten the ropes, which were laced in and out of the basket-handles, and through the iron stays, and beneath the hooks placed on purpose about the cart, after which the ropes were made into neat bunches by Ike, who pa.s.sed them from hand to elbow over and over and tied them in the middle, and then in a row to the ladder of the cart.

The baskets were just set free when the busy-looking man came back along with a tall red-nosed fellow. I noticed his red nose because it was the same colour as a book he held, whose leather cover was like a bad strawberry. He had a little ink-bottle hanging at his b.u.t.tonhole and a pen in his mouth, and was followed by quite a crowd of keen-looking men.

"Now, Jacob," said the little man, and clapping his hand upon the thin man's shoulder he stepped up on to the top of a pile of barge-baskets, whose lids were tied down with tarred string over the cauliflowers with which they were gorged.

Then, as I stared at him, he put his hands on either side of his mouth and seemed to go mad with satisfaction, dancing his body up and down and slowly turning round as he yelled out:

"Strawby's! strawby's! strawby's!" over and over again.

I looked up at Ike, whose face was as if cut out of mahogany, it was so solid; then I looked round at the people, but there wasn't a smile.

n.o.body laughed but Shock, who grinned silently till he saw me watching him, and then he looked sulky and turned his back.

Just then Ike, who seemed as solemn as a judge, climbed up the wheel and on to the cart with another man following him; and as the crowd increased about our cart I realised that everything was being sold by auction, for the busy man kept shouting prices quickly higher and higher, and then giving a tap with a pencil on a basket, entering something in a memorandum-book, while his red-nosed clerk did the same.

I stared to see how quickly it was all done, Ike and the strange man handing down the baskets, which were seized and carried away by porters to carts standing at a distance; and I wondered how they would ever find out afterwards who had taken them, and get the money paid.

But Ike seemed to be quite satisfied as he trampled about over the baskets, which were handed rapidly down till from being high up he was getting low down, before the busy-looking man began to shout what sounded to me like, "Flow--wow--wow--wow!" as if he were trying to imitate barking like a dog.

Half the crowd went away now, but a fresh lot of men came up, and first of all baskets full of flowers were sold, then half-baskets, then so many bunches, as fast as could be.

Again I found myself wondering how the money would be obtained, and I thought that Old Brownsmith would be sure to be cheated; but Ike looked quite easy, and instead of there being so many things in the market that ours would not sell, I found that the men around bought them up eagerly, and the baskets grew less in number than ever.

I glanced round once or twice on that busy summer morning, to see the street as far as I could grasp packed with carts, and to these a regular throng of men were carrying baskets, while every here and there barrows were being piled up with flowers.

All about us too, as far as I could see by climbing up to the ladder over Basket's back, men were shouting away as they sold the contents of other carts, whose baskets were being handed down to the hungry crowds, who were pushing and struggling and making way for the porters with the heavy baskets on their heads.

By degrees I began to understand that all this enormous quant.i.ty of garden produce was being bought up by the greengrocers and barrow-dealers from all over London, and that they would soon be driving off east, west, north, and south, to their shops and places of business.

I should have liked to sit perched up there and watching all that went on, but I had to move to let Ike drag back the baskets; then I had to help handing out bunches, till at last the crowd melted away, and the busy man closed his book with a snap.

"Very good this morning," he shouted to Ike; and then climbing down he went off with his red-nosed clerk, and the people who were about followed him.

"Getting warm, mate?" said Ike, grinning at me.

"Yes," I said; "the sun's so hot, and there's no wind here."

"No, my lad; they builds houses to shut it out. Soon be done now. You and Shock get down and hand up them baskets."

He pointed to a pile that some men had been making, and these I found all had "Brownsmith, Isleworth," painted upon them, and it dawned upon me now that those which had been carried away would not be returned till next journey.

"That's it," said Ike. "Market-gardeners has to give a lot o' trust that way."

"But do they get the baskets all back again, Ike?" I said.