I .itiiiiil' 1 [ THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLEKSc Frontispiece. CHARLES DICKENS'S STORIES FROM THE CHRISTMAS NUMBERS OP "Household Words" and "All the Year Round" 1852-1867 EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY CHARLES DICKENS THE YOUNGER MACMILLAN AND CO. LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1896 All rights reserved ^v ^^^yK CopTKionT, 1896, By MACMILLAN AND CO. J. S. Gushing & Co. —Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. CONTENTS. PAGB The Poor Relation's Story 1 The Child's Story 10 The Schoolboy's Story 14 Nobody's Story 23 The Seven Poor Travellers 28 The Holly-Tree Inn 60 The Wreck of the Golden Mary 79 The Perils of Certain English Prisoners .... 119 Going into Society 196 The Haunted House 206 A Message from the Sea . . . . . . . 233 Tom Tiddler's Ground 298 Somebody's Luggage 321 Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings 365 Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy 396 Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions 421 Mugby Junction 456 No Thoroughfare 513 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS .... FrOtltlSpieCe THE schoolboy's STORY 15 THE HOLLY-TREE 51 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY' 80 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS .... 121 GOING INTO SOCIETY 197 THE HAUNTED HOUSE . . 207 TOM tiddler's ground 299 somebody's luggage 323 MRS. LIRRIPER's LODGINGS 367 MRS. LIRRIPER 397 DOCTOR MARIGOLD 423 MUGBY JUNCTION 457 THE SIGNAL-MAN 601 NO THOROUGHFARE 514 iz INTRODUCTION. Thf stories which were published in the Christmas Num- bers of "HovTsehold Words" and "All the Year Round" have often been referred to as Christmas stories, and are hXcl so described on the title page of the book m whrch they were republished by Chapman & Hall. With the e^x- cention of "The Holly-Tree Inn," however their connection wMi Christmas was of the slightest, and that there was no original intention of making that connection any stronger is shown in the letter in which Charles Dickens invited the Eev James White to contribute to the first of the fries, "I Romid of Stories by the Christmas Fire" 'We are not getting onr Christmas Extra Number together," it said "and I think you are the boy to do, if yon will, one of the stories I propose to give the number some fireside name, aic to make it consist entirely of short stories supposed to be old^y a family sitting round the fire. I don't care about fJrre^-ring to Ghristmas at all, nor do I design to connect them together, otherwise than by their names. THs!ni the main, was the plan of all the numbers which followed with the exception of "The Penis of Certain EnS pT^oners" and "No Thoroughfare," which were sto?ies complete in themselves and occupying the whole of ^^iLTh^rcSs Dickens's woi-k connected -.h these numbers appears in the present volume, together with one of Wilkie \?ollins's contribiitions which ai;e necessary for the complete telling of some of the s or es^ ,^^'\' orv of republished here Collins's chapter "^eluding the s^^^^^^^ " The Wreck of the Golden Mary," and the story called ihe Seafaring Man " in " A Message from the Sea.' Neither ot ftese hal been reprinted until now. The second chapter of "The Perils of Certain English Prisoners " does not appear L the English reprint of the Chnstmas Jum^^^ although the number has since been published complete m another volume. xii INTRODUCTION. That these Christmas Numbers were extremely and pro^ gressively popular is well known, and it may suffice to say here that the eighty thousand copies of "The Seven Poor Travellers " grew into the three hundred thousand of " No Thoroughfare/' with every prospect of further increase in the future. But by this time Charles Dickens was tired of the peculiar and exacting work which the Christmas Numbers involved, and took the opportunity of the commencement of a New Series of " All the Year Eound " to discontinue them, refer- ring to them in the announcement of the New Series in the following words : " The Extra Christmas Number has been so extensively, and regularly, and often imitated, that It IS m very great danger of becoming tiresome. I have therefore resolved (though I cannot add, willingly) to abolish iiJo *^^g.^ig^est tide of its success." This was written in 1868. Since then the Christmas Number has increased and multiplied to an extent which nobody in those days would have thought possible. Whether quality has kept pace with quantity is another matter. CHAELES DICKENS THE YOUNGER. or NOTES. A ROUND OF STORIES BY THE CHRISTMAS FIRE. (The Christmas Number of "Household Wjyrds " for 1852.) The Poor Relation's Story. The Child's Story. TThe two stories here reprinted were Charles Dickens's contri bution to the " Round of Stories," which had no introduction oi "framework." "The Child's Story" seems to have particularly struck so good a judge as Mrs. Gaskell, herself the author of " The Nurse's Story " in the same number, for we read m a letter of the 17th of December, 1852, from Charles Dickens m reply to one of hers (which has not been preserved), " I received your kind note yesterday morning with the truest gratification, for 1 am the writer of ' The Child's Story ' as well as of ' The Poor Relation s. I assure you, you have given me the liveliest and heartiest pleasure by what you say of it."] ANOTHER ROUND OF STORIES BY THE CHRISTMAS FIRE. {The Christmas Number of ''Household Words" for 1853.) The Schoolboy's Story. Nobody's Story. riN the winter of 18.53 Charles Dickens was travelling in Italy with Wilkie Collins and Augustus Egg, but occupied himself even then in writing under all sorts of difficulties In sending "The Schoolboy's Story" to W. H. Wills, the sub-editor of "Household Words," in a letter dated " Rome, Thursday afternoon, Nov. 17th, 1853 " he said : " The enclosed little paper for the Christmas Num- ber is in a character that nobody else is likely to hit and which is pretty sure to be considered pleasant. Let Forster have the MS. xiii xiv CHRISTMAS NUMBERS. with the proof, and I know he will correct it to the minutest point. I have a notion of another little story, also for the Christmas Num- ber. If I can do it at Venice, I will, and send it straight on. But it is not easy to work under these circumstances. In travelling we generally get up about three ; and in resting we are perpetually roaming about in all manner of places, not to mention my being- laid hold of by all manner of people. ... In making up the Christmas number, don't consider my paper or papers, Mdth any reference saving to where they will fall best. I have no liking, in the case, for any particular place."] THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. {The Christmas Numhei^ of ^'Household Words "for 1854.) In Two Chapters. Chapter I. — The First Poor Traveller. Chapter II. — The Road. [This was the first of the Christmas Numbers for which Charles Dickens wrote a " framework," in which the stories of other con- tributors were set with a greater or less degree of plausibility, and to which he also usually added short stories of his own. It was in seven chapters, with " The Road " to wind up with. "The story of Richard Doubledick" was afterwards used for one of the "Readings," and proved as popular with hearers as it had been with readers. Writing to M. de Cerjat in January, 1855, Charles Dickens said of it : " The first ten pages or so — all under the head of ' The First Poor Traveller ' — are written by me, and I hope you will find, in the story of the soldier which they contain, something that may move you a little. It moved me not a little in the writing, and I believe has touched a vast number of people. We have sold eighty thousand of it." Watts's Charity still remains in Rochester, but, like the relics of most " pious founders," has been greatly changed, as to its scope and objects, during the last few years. A quaint monument to Watts is the most prominent object on the wall of the southwest transept of the Cathedral, and underneath it is now placed a brass thus inscribed : " Charles Dickens. Born at Portsmouth, seventh of February, 1812. Died at Gadshill Place, by Rochester, ninth of June, 1870. Buried in Westminster Abbey. To connect his memory with the scenes in which his earliest and his latest years were passed, and with the associations of Rochester Cathedral and its neighbourhood which extended over all his life, this Tablet, with the sanction of the Dean and Chapter, is placed by his Executors."] NOTES. XV THE HOLLY-TREE INN. (The Christmas Number of "Household Words" for 1855.) In Three Chapters. Chapter L — The Guest. Chapter IL — The Boots. Chapter III. — The Bill. [Originally in seven chapters. The Boots's story was used afterwards for one of the short Readhigs, and was always one of the most popular of the series. More than one attempt has been made to dramatise this httle story — the first was at the Adelphi by Benjamin Webster, who tried a sort of hash of all the stories in the number — but uni- formly, as might have been expected, with unsatisfactory results.] THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. Being the Captain's Account of the Loss of the Ship, AND THE Mate's Account of the Great Deliverance of her People in an Open Boat at Sea. {The Christmas Number of ''Household Words" for 1856.) In Two Chapters. Chapter L — The Wreck. Chapter IL — The Deliverance. [The original number was in three parts — " The Wreck " ; " The Beguilement in the Boats," which contained the stories by other contributors ; and " The Deliverance." This was the joint work of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, " The Wreck " having been written by the former, " The Deliver- ance " by the latter. " The Deliverance " was not included in the English reprint, and is now republished for the first time.] xvi CHRISTMAS NUMBERS. THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS And their Treasure in Women, Children, Silver, and Jewels. (.The Christinas dumber of "Household Words" for 1857.) In Three Chapters. Chapter L — The Island of Silver Store. Chapter IL — The Prison in the Woods. Chapter IIL — The Rafts on the River. [The first and third chapters of " The Perils of Certain English 1 risoners " were written by Charles Dickens. The second chapter was the work of Wilkie Collins. These three chapters formed the whole ol the number, there being no additional stories by other writers.] . "^ A HOUSE TO LET. (The Christmas Number of "Household Words " for 1858.) ['J A House to Let " was originally in six chapters, but only a small portion of the framework (if any) was written by Chailes iJickens, and it has consequently not been reprinted here. There- fore 1 have only republished a short story '* Going into Society," which he contributed to the general contents of the number, and which, under the name of "Mr. Chops, the Dwarf" became very popular as one of the shorter Readings.] THE HAUNTED HOUSE. (The Chnstmas Number of "All the Year Round" for 1859.) In Three Chapters. Chapter L — The Mortals in the House. Chapter IL — The Ghost in Master B.'s Room. Chapter IH. — The Ghost in the Corner Room. [This, the first Christmas Number of " All the Year Round " was in its original form in eight chapters. ' Of "The Mortals in the House," Jack Governor is a slight sketch NOTES. xvii of Clarkson Stanfield, and in the name at least of Mr. Undery may be traced Mr. Ouvry, 'who was for many years Charles Dickens's "friend and solicitor." As is so often the case in Charles Dickens's writings there are several autobiographical touches in " The Ghost in Master B.'s Room," notably in the passage, "I was taken home, and there was debt in the house as well as death, and we had a sale there. My only little bed was so superciliously looked upon by a power unknown to me, hazily called The Trade, that a brass coal-scuttle, a roasting-jack, and a bird-cage were obliged to be put into it to* make a lot of it, and then it went for a soBg. So I heard men- tioned, and I wondered what song, and thought what a dismal song it must have been to sing."] A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. {Being the Christmas Number of "All the Year Round ^^ for 1860.) In Five Chapters. Chapter I. — The Village. Chapter II. — The Money. Chapter III. — The Club-Night. Chapter IV. — The Seafaring Man. Chapter V. — The Restitution. [In the original number "The Club-Night" contained stories by other writers, and was divided into five parts. " The Village " and " The Club-Night " were by Charles Dickens ; " The Money " and " The Restitution " by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins; and "The Seafaring INIan " by Wilkie Collins. " The Club-Night " and " The Seafaring Man " are now reprinted for the first time. Captain Jorgan was a fanciful sketch of Captain E. E. Morgan, in whose ship Charles Dickens came home from his first visit to America, and who was for many years a commander in the Grinnell line of sailing packets between London and New York. Charles Dickens wrote to him after the publication of " A Message from the Sea " : "I hope you will have seen the Christmas Number of ' All the Year Round.' Here and there in the description of the seafaring hero, I have given a touch or two of remembi-ance of Somebody you know, very heartily desiring that thousands of peo- ple may have some faint reflection of the pleasure I have for many years derived from the contemplation of a most amiable nature and most remarkable man."] xviii CHRISTMAS NUMBERS. TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. {The Christmas Number of ''All the Year Round '* for 1861.) In Three Chapters. Chapter I. — Picking up Soot and Cinders. Chapter II. — Picking up Miss Kimmeens. Chapter III. — Picking up the Tinker. [Mr. Mopes had a real prototype near Stevenage, in Hertford- shire, and the description here of his retreat and of his personal appearance is little, if at all, exaggerated. The Christmas Xumbers were, at about this time, making their way to the extraordinary success which they ultimately attained. " The news of the Christmas Number," Charles Dickens wrote, in December, 1861, from Preston, where he was reading, " is indeed glorious, and nothing can look brighter or better than the pros- pects of the illustrious publication."] SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. {The Christmas Number of "All the Year Mound" for 1862.) In Four Chapters. Chapter I. — His Leaving it till called for. Chapter II. — His Boots. Chapter HI. — His Brown Paper Parcel. Chapter IV. — His Wonderful End. [Charles Dickens's own opinion of the wonderful waiter — surely one of his completest and most vivid character pictures — ran as follows: "I have been at work with such a w^ill that I have done the opening and conclusion of the Christmas Number. They are done in the character of a waiter, and I think are exceed- ingly droll._ The thread on which the stories are to hang, is spun by this waiter, and is, purposely, very slight ; but has, I fancy, a ridiculously comical and unexpected "end. The waiter's account of himself includes (I hope) everything you know about waiters, presented humorously."] The number was originally in ten chapters. NOTES. xix MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. {The Christmas Number of ''All the Year Round" for 1863.) In Two Chapters. CiiArxER I. — How Mrs. Lirriper carried on the Business. Chapter II. — How the Parlours added a Few Words. [This number originally consisted of seven chapters. Of its success Charles Dickens wrote : " Mrs. Lirripyer is indeed a most brilliant old lady. God bless her ! "] MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. {The Christmas Number of "All the Year Round "for 1864.) In Two Chapters. Chapter I. — Mrs. Lirriper relates how she went on and WENT over. Chapter II. — Mrs. Lirriper relates how Jemmy topped up. [Originally in seven chapters. That Charles Dickens sometimes thoroughly enjoyed the hu- mour of his own work is very well known. Writing to John Forster about "Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy," he said: "I can report that I have finished the job I set myself, and that it has in it something — to me at all events — so extraordinarily droll, that though I have been reading it some hundred times in the course of the writing, I have never been able to look at it with the least composure, but have always roared in the most unblushing man- ner. I leave you to find out what it was." It was the encounter of the Major with Mr. Buffle. Forster had a very high opinion of Mrs. Lirriper. " The tri- umph of the Christmas achievements in these days was Mrs. Lirriper," he says. " She took her place at once among people known to everybody ; and all the world talked of Major Jemmy Jackman and his friend, the poor elderly lodging-house keeper of the Strand with her miserable cares, and rivalries, and worries, as if they had both been as long in London and as well known as Norfolk-street itself. A dozen volumes could not have told more than those dozen pages did. The ' Legacy ' followed the ' Lodgings ' in 1864, and there was no falling off in the fun and laughter."] CHRISTMAS NUMBERS. DR. MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. {The Christmas Number of ''All the Year Round'' for 1865.) In Three Chapters. Chapter I. — To be taken Immediately. Chapter II. — To be taken with a Grain of Salt. Chapter III. — To be taken for Life. [Originally in eight chapters. Of the delightful Dr. Marigold, Charles Dickens wrote, in various letters, thus : " If people at large understand a Cheap Jack, my part of the Christmas Number will do well. It is wonderfully like the real thing; of course, a little refined and humoured." "I do hope that in the beginning and end of the Christmas Number you will find something that will strike you as being fresh, forcible, and full of spirits." Describing the composition of the little story, he wrote : " Tired with ' Our Mutual,' I sat down to cast about for an idea, with a depressing notion that I was, for the moment, overworked. Suddenly, the little character that you will see, and all belonging to it, came flashing up in the most cheerful manner, and I had only to look on and leisurely describe it." " I received your letter in praise of Dr. Marigold," he wrote, later, to Lord Lytton, " and read and re-read all your generous words fifty times over, with inexpressible delight. I cannot tell you how they grati- fied and affected me." Forster was unquestionably right in calling Dr. Marigold " a splendid example of his humour, pathos, and character." AVriting to Charles Kent, Charles Dickens said : " I hope and believe that the Doctor is nothing but a good 'un. He has perfectly astonished Forster, who writes, ' neither good, gooder, or goodest, but super-excellent ; all through, there is such a relish of you at yom' best, as I could not have believed in after a long story.' " The long story was " Our Mutual Friend," then recently finished. The public appreciation of " Dr. Marigold" was as great as that of friendly critics. The sale of the number considerably exceeded two hundred thousand. "Dr. Marigold" was as successful on the platform as elsewhere, and became, perhaps, the greatest favourite of all Charles Dickens's Readings. Its first public presentation was preceded by a "trial reading," of which Mr. George Dolby, in his excellent book, " Charles Dickens as I knew him," gives the following account : " The audience consisted of his family, and Mr. Robert Browning, Mr. Wilkie Collins, Mr. Charles Fechter, Mr. John Forster, Mr. Arthur Chappell, Mr. Charles Kent, and myself. It is hardly NOTES. xxi necessary to say that the verdict was unanimously favourable. Everybody was astonished by the extraordinary ease and fluency with which the patter of the Cheap Jack was delivered, and the subt- lety of the humour which pervaded the whole presentation." Mr. Dolby also mentions " the interesting fact that, although to many of his hearers at that eventful rehearsal of ' Dr. Marigold,' it was the first time it had been read, Mr. Dickens had, since its appearance as a Christmas Number, only three months previously, adapted it as a Reading, and had rehearsed it to himseK considerably over two hundred times." Of the effect of the Reading on the public, Mr. Dolby adds : '"Dr. Marigold,' as a Reading, more than realised the anticipations of even the most sanguine of Mr. Dickens's friends, whilst the public, and those who in various ways were more immediately interested in the Readings,'were convinced that up to that time they had had but a very faint conception of Mr. Dickens's i)owers either as an adapter or an elocutionist." Of the ghost story which Charles Dickens contributed to " Dr. Marigold's Prescriptions," he wrote to Miss Mary Boyle : " I am charmed to learn that you have had a freeze out of my ghost story. It rather did give me a shiver up the back, in the writing."] MUGBY JUNCTION. {The Christmas Numher of ''All the Year Round ''for 1866.) In Four Chapters. Chapter I. — Barbox Brothers. Chapter II. — Barbox Brothers and Co. Chapter III. — Main Line. — The Boy at Mugby. Chapter IV. — No. 1 Branch Line. — The Signalman. [Originally in eight chapters. " Mugby Junction," though certainly not so admirably good as some of its predecessors, attained the extraordinary sale of two hundred and fifty thousand copies in its first week. The ghost story was suggested by a wild chalk-pit which breaks the long tunnel between Higham and Strood stations, near Gadshill. The famous " Boy at Mugby " was taken from a real boy, and it was at Rugby Station that he presented himself to Charles Dickens. Mr. Dolby thus describes the meeting, an accident having necessi- tated a change of carriage at Rugby : " While I was busy superin- tending the transfer of the light baggage, Mr. Dickens came along the platform in a state of great excitement, and requested me to accompany him to the refreshment-room. Then, standing in the xxii CHRISTMAS NUMBERS. doorway, and pointing with his finger, he described the picture he particularly wished to impress on my mind, ' You see, Dolby, — stove to right hand — torn cocoanut matting on floor — counter across room — coffee-urn — tea-urn — plates of rusks — piles of saw- dust sandwiches and shrunken-up oranges — bottles — tumblers — and glasses on counter — and, behind counter, note particularly Our Missis.' . . . When the train was fairly off again, IMr, Dickens proceeded to explain. Entering the refreshment-room, he and Mr. Wills had each asked for a cup of coffee, which was supplied to them. While W^ills was feeling in his pocket for some small change wherewith to pay, Mr. Dickens reached across the counter for the sugar and milk, when both articles were suddenly snatched away from him and placed beneath the counter, while his ears were greeted with the remark, made in shrill and shrewish tones, 'You sha'n't have any milk and sugar till you two fellows have paid for your coffee.' This speech was delivered by the woman whom he had pointed out to me as ' Our Missis ' ; and it gave infinite amuse- ment to a page in buttons, who, with that demoniacal spirit which seems to seize some boys at the idea of somebody else ' catching it,' was so overjoyed that he burst out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter." " The Boy at Mugby " made a fairly successful reading, but " Barbox Brothers " was not so fortunate. A trial reading filled the minds of the author and other practical judges with misgiv- ings which were amply justified by the results. It became appar- ent on the first public Reading that Barbox did not contain the elements of platform popularity, and was promptly dropped out of the list.] NO THOROUGHFARE. {The Christmas Number of "All the Year Round" for 1867.) [This, the last of Charles Dickens's Christmas Numbers, was complete in itself. Of the five portions into which the story is divided, " The Overture " and " The Third Act " were written by Charles Dickens ; the second act was the work of Wilkie Collins ; and the first and fourth acts were written in collaboration by the two authors. Over three hundred thousand copies of this number were sold. John Forster says that "'No Thoroughfare' was transformed into a play for Mr. Fechter, with a view to which it had been planned originally," by Wilkie Collins during Charles Dickens's absence in America, but this is not strictly accurate. The plav was put together by Charles Dickens, AVilkie Collins, Fechter, and Benjamin Webster, the actor-manager of the Adelphi Theatre. When Charles Dickens went to America, he left me to look after his interests in the play, with instructions to attend rehearsals and take such steps in the way of alteration or cutting as I might think NOTES. xxiii fit, but not to interfere or produce my credentials unless, in my judgment, that course became absolutely necessary. As it was impossible to get Collins and the two actors to agree, I was obliged, to the general consternation, to interfere one day, and to cut about three-quarters of an hour out of the mountain act at one fell swoop. However, we all got on very well afterwards ; and the play was a great success, admirably acted as it was by Fechter as Obenreizer, Webster as Joey Ladle, George Belmore as Bintrey, Henry Neville as Vendale, Miss Carlotta Leclercq as Marguerite, and a generally efficient cast. My father wrote to me from America in reply to my report of the first night : " It was a great relief and delight to me, for I had no confidence in its success, being reduced to the confines of despair by its length. If I could have rehearsed it, I"'should have taken the best part of an hour out of it." I think it must have been at least an hour and a half that 1 got out of it !] STOEIES FROM CHRISTMAS NUMBEES. From "A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire,'' the Extra Christ- mas Number of ^^ Household Words," Christmas, 1852. THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. He was very reluctant to take precedence of so many respected members of the family, by beginning the round of stories they were to relate as they sat in a goodly circle by the Christmas fire ; and he modestly suggested that it would be more correct if "John our esteemed host " (whose health he begged to drink) would have the kindness to begin. For as to himself, he said, he was so little used to lead the way that really But as they all cried out here, that he must begin, and agreed with one voice that he might, could, would, and should begin, he left off rubbing his hands, and took his legs out from under his arm-chair, and did begin. I have no doubt (said the poor relation) that I shall surprise the assembled members of our family, and particularly John our es- teemed host to whom we are so much indebted for the great hos- pitality with which he has this day entertained us, by the confession I am going to make. But, if you do me the honour to be surprised at anything that falls from a person so unimportant in the family as I am, I can only say that I shall be scrupulously accurate in all I relate. I am not what I am supposed to be. I am quite another thing. Perhaps before I go further, I had better glance at what I am sup- posed to be. It is supposed, unless I mistake — the assembled members of our family will correct me if I do, which is very likely (here the poor relation looked mildly about him for contradiction) ; that I am nobody's enemy but my own. That I never met with any particu- lar success in anything. That I failed in business because I was unbusiness-like and credulous — in not being prepared for the in- terested designs of my partner. That I failed in love, because I I 2 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. was ridiculously trustful — in thinking it impossible that Christiana could deceive me. That I failed in ray expectations from my Uncle Chill, on account of not being as sharp as he could have wished in worldly matters. That, through life, I have been rather put upon and disappointed in a general way. That I am at present a bache- lor of between fifty-nine and sixty years of age, living on a limited income in the form of a quarterly allowance, to which I see that John our esteemed host wishes me to make no further allusion. The supposition as to my present pursuits and habits is to the following effect. I live in a lodging in the Clapham Road — a very clean back room, in a very respectable house — where I am expected not to be at home in the day-time, unless poorly ; and which I usually leave in the morning at nine o'clock, on pretence of going to business. I take my breakfast — my roll and butter, and my half-pint of cof- fee — at the old-established coffee-shop near Westminster Bridge ; and then I go into the City — I don't know why — and sit in Garraway's Coffee House, and on 'Change, and walk about, and look into a few ofiices and counting-houses where some of my relations or acquaintance are so good as to tolerate me, and where I stand by the fire if the weather happens to be cold. I get through the day in this way until five o'clock, and then I dine : at a cost, on the average, of one and threepence. Having still a little money to spend on my evening's entertainment, I look into the old-established coffee-shop as I go home, and take my cup of tea, and perhaps my bit of toast. So, as the large hand of the clock makes its way round to the morning hour again, I make my way round to the Clapham Road again, and go to bed when I get to my lodging fire being expensive, and being objected to by the family on account of its giving trouble and making a dirt. Sometimes, one of my relations or acquaintances is so obliging as to ask me to dinner. Those are holiday occasions, and then I gen- erally walk in the Park. I am a solitary man, and seldom walk with anybody. Not that I am avoided because I am shabby ; for I am not at all shabby, having always a very good suit of black on (or rather Oxford mixture, which has the appearance of black and wears much better) ; but I have got into a habit of speaking low, and bemg rather silent, and my spirits are not high, and I am sen- sible that I am not an attractive companion. The only exception to this general rule is the child of my first cousm, httle Frank. I have a particular affection for that child, any he takes very kindly to me. He is a diffident boy by nature ; and m a crowd he is soon run over, as I may say, and forgotten. He and I, however, get on exceedingly well. I have a fancy that the THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 3 poor child will in time succeed to my peculiar position in the family. We talk but little ; still, we understand each other. We walk about, hand in hand ; and without much speaking he knows what I mean, and I know what he means. When he was very little indeed, I used to take him to the windows of the toy-shops, and show him the toys inside. It is surprising how soon he found out that I would have made him a great many presents if I had been in cir- cumstances to do it. Little Frank and I go and look at the outside of the Monument — he is very fond of the Monument — and at the Bridges, and at all the sights that are free. On two of my birthdays, we have dined on k-la-mode beef, and gone at half-price to J:he play, and been deeply interested. I was once walking with him in Lombard Street, which we often visit on account of my having mentioned to him that there are great riches there — he is very fond of Lombard Street — when a gentleman said to me as he j^assed by, " Sir, your little son has dropped his glove." I assure you, if you will excuse my remarking on so trivial a circumstance, this accidental mention of the child as mine, quite touched my heart and brought the fool- ish tears into my eyes. When little Frank is sent to school in the country, I shall be very much at a loss what to do with myself, but I have the intention of walking down there once a month and seeing him on a half holi- day. I am told he will then be at play upon the Heath ; and if my visits should be objected to, as unsettling the child, I can see him from a distance without his seeing me, and walk back again. His mother comes of a highly genteel family, and rather disapproves, I am aware, of our being too much together. I know that I am not calculated to improve his retiring disposition ; but I think he would miss me beyond the feeling of the moment if we were wholly sejDarated. When I die in the Clapham Road, I shall not leave much more in this world than I shall take out of it ; but, I happen to have a miniature of a bright-faced boy, with a curling head, and an open shirt-frill waving down his bosom (my mother had it taken for me, but I can't believe that it was ever like), which will be w^orth noth- ing to sell, and which I shall beg may be given to Frank. I have written my dear boy a little letter with it, in which I have told him that I felt very sorry to part from him, though bound to con- fess that I knew no reason why I should remain here. I have given him some short advice, the best in my power, to take warn- ing of the consequences of being nobody's enemy but his own ; and I have endeavoured to comfort him for what I ifear he will consider a bereavement, by pointing out to him, that I was only a superfluous 4 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. something to every one but him ; and that having by some means failed to find a place in this great assembly, I am better out of it. Such (said the poor relation, clearing his throat and beginning to speak a little louder) is the general impression about me. Now, it is a remarkable circumstance which forms the aim and purpose of my story, tha,t this is all wrong. This is not my life, and these are not my habits. I do not even live in the Clapham Road. Com- paratively speaking, I am very seldom there. I reside, mostly, in a — I am almost ashamed to say the word, it sounds so full of pre- tension—in a Castle. I do not mean that it is an old baronial habitation, but still it is a building always known to every one by the name of a Castle. In it, I preserve the particulars of my his- tory ; they run thus : It was when I first took John Spatter (who had been my clerk) into partnership, and when I was still a young man of not more than five-and-twenty, residing in the house of my Uncle Chill, from whom I had considerable expectations, that I ventured to propose to Chris- tiana. I had loved Christiana a long time. She was very beauti- ful, and very winning in all respects. I rather mistrusted her widowed mother, who I feared was of a plotting and mercenary turn of mmd ; but, I thought as well of her as I could, for Christiana's sake. I never had loved any one but Christiana, and she had been all the world, and far more than all the world, to me, from our childhood ! Christiana accepted me with her mother's consent, and I was rendered very happy indeed. My life at my Uncle ChiU's was of a spare dull kmd, and my garret chamber was as dull, and bare and cold, as an upper prison room in some stern northern fortress i^ut havmg Christiana's love, I wanted nothing upon earth f would not have changed my lot with any human being Avarice was, unhappily, my Uncle Chill's master-vice. Though he was rich he pinched, and scraped, and clutched, and lived miser- ably As Christiana had no fortune, I was for some time a little tearful of confessing our engagement to him; but, at length I wrote him a letter, saying how it all truly was. I put it into his hand one night, on going to bed. As I came down-stairs next morning, shivering in the cold I3ecember air ; colder in my uncle's unwarmed house than in the street, where the winter sun did sometimes shine, and which was at all events enhvened by cheerful faces and voices passing along : I carried a heavy heart towards the long, low breakfast-room in which my uncle sat. It was a large room mth a small fire, and there was a great bay window in it which the rain had marked in the night as if with the tears of houseless people. It stared upon THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 5 a raw yard, with a cracked stone pavement, and some rusted iron railings half ui^rooted, whence an ugly out-building that had once been a dissecting-room (in the time of the great surgeon who had mortgaged the house to my uncle), stared at it. We rose so early always, that at that time of the year we break- fasted by candle-light. When I went into the room, my uncle was so contracted by the cold, and so huddled together in his chair be- hind the one dim candle, that I did not see him until I was close to the table. As I held out my hand to him, he caught up his stick (being infirm, he always walked about the house with a stick), and made a blow at me, and said, " You fool ! " " Uncle," I returned, " I didn't expect you to be so angry as this." Nor had I expected it, though he was a hard and angry old man. "You didn't expect!" said he; "when did you ever expect? When did you ever calculate, or look forward, you contemptible dog?" " These are hard words, uncle ! " "Hard words? Feathers, to pelt such an idiot as you with," said he. " Here ! Betsy Snap ! Look at him ! " Betsy Snap was a withered, hard-favoured, yellow old woman — our only domestic — always employed, at this time of the morn- ing, in rubbing my uncle's legs. As my uncle adjured her to look at me, he put his lean grip on the crown of her head, she kneeling beside him, and turned her face towards me. An involuntary thought connecting them both with the dissecting-room, as it must often have been in the surgeon's time, passed across my mind in the midst of my anxiety. " Look at the snivelling milksop ! " said my uncle. " Look at the baby ! This is the gentleman who, people say, is nobody's enemy but his own. This is the gentleman who can't say no. This is the gentleman who was making such large profits in his business that he must needs take a partner, t'other day. This is the gentleman who is going to marry a wife without a penny, and who falls into the hands of Jezebels who are speculating on my death ! " I knew, now, how great my uncle's rage was ; for nothing short of his being almost beside himself would have induced him to utter that concluding word, which he held in such repugnance that it was never spoken or hinted at before him on any account. " On my death," he repeated, as if he were defying me by defying his own abhorrence of the word. " On my death — death — Death ! But I'll spoil the speculation. Eat your last under this roof, you feeble wretch, and may it choke you ! " 6 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. You may suppose that I had not much appetite for the break- fast to which I was bidden in these terms ; but, I took my accus- tomed seat. I saw that I was repudiated henceforth by my uncle; still I could bear that very well, possessing Christiana's heart. He emptied his basin of bread and milk as usual, only that he took it on his knees with his chair turned away from the table where I sat. When he had done, he carefully snufted out the candle ; and the cold, slate-coloured, miserable day looked in upon us. "Now, Mr. Michael," said he, " before we part, I should like to have a word with these ladies in your presence." "As you will, sir," I returned ; "but you deceive yourself, and wrong us, cruelly, if you suppose that there is any feeling at stake in this contract but pure, disinterested, faithful love." To this, he only replied, " You lie ! " and not one other word. "We went, through half-thawed snow and half-frozen rain, to the house where Christiana and her mother lived. My uncle knew them very well. They were sitting at tlieir breakfast, and were surprised to see us at that hour. "Your servant, ma'am," said my uncle to the mother. "You divine the purpose of my visit, I dare say, ma'am. I understand there is a world of pure, disinterested, faithful love cooped up here. I am happy to bring it all it wants, to make it complete. I bring you your son-in-law, ma'am — and you your husband, miss. The gentleman is a perfect stranger to me, but I wish him joy of his wise bargain." He snarled at me as he went out, and I never saw him again. It is altogether a mistake (continued the poor relation) to sup- pose that my dear Christiana, over-persuaded and influenced by her mother, married a rich man, the dirt from whose carriage wheels is often, in these changed times, thrown upon me as she rides by. No, no. She married me. The way we came to be married rather sooner than we intended, was this. I took a frugal lodging and was saving and planning for her sake, when, one day, she spoke to me with great earnest- ness, and said : " My dear Michael, I have given you my heart. I have said that I loved you, and I have pledged myself to be your wife. I am as much yours through all changes of good and evil as if we had been married on the day when such words passed between us. I know you well, and know that if we should be separated and our union broken off, your whole life would be shadowed, and all that THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 7 might, even now, be stronger in your character for the conflict with the world would then be weakened to the shadow of what it is ! " "God help me, Christiana!" said I. "You speak the truth." " Michael ! " said she, putting her hand in mine, in all maidenly- devotion, " let us keep apart no longer. It is but for me to say- that I can live contented upon such means as you have, and I well know you are happy. I say so from my heart. Strive no more alone ; let us strive together. My dear Michael, it is not right that I should keep secret from you what you do not suspect, but what distresses my whole life. My mother : w^ithout considering that what you have lost, you have lost for me, and on the assur- ance of my faith : sets her heart on riches, an^l urges another suit upon me, to my misery. I cannot bear this, for to bear it is to be untrue to you. I would rather share your struggles than look on. I want no better home than you can give me.- I know that you will aspire and labour with a higher courage if I am wholly yours, and let it be so when you will ! " I was blest indeed, that day, and a new world opened to me. We were married in a very little while, and I took my wife to our happy home. That was the beginning of the residence I have spoken of; the Castle we have ever since inhabited together, dates from that time. All our children have been born in it. Our first child — now married — was a little girl, whom we called Christiana. Her son is so like little Frank, that I hardly know which is which. The current impression as to my partner's dealings with me is also quite erroneous. He did not begin to treat me coldly, as a poor simpleton, when my uncle and I so fatally quarrelled ; nor did he afterwards gradually possess himself of our business and edge me out. On the contrary, he behaved to me with the utmost good faith and honour. Matters between us took this turn : — On the day of my separa- tion from my uncle, and even before the arrival at our counting- house of my trunks (which he sent after me, not carriage paid), I went down to our room of business, on our little wharf, over- looking the river; and there I told John Spatter what had happened. John did not say, in reply, that rich old relatives were palpable facts, and that love and sentiment were moonshine and fiction. He addressed me thus : "Michael," said John, "we were at school together, and I gen- erally had the knack of getting on better than you, and making a higher reputation." "You had, John," I returned. "Although," said John, "I borrowed your books and lost them; 8 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. borrowed your pocket-money, and never repaid it ; got you to buy my damaged knives at a higher price than I had given for them new; and to own to the windows that I had broken." "All not worth mentioning, John Spatter," said I, "but cer- tainly true." " When you w^ere first established in this infant business, which promises to thrive so well," pursued John, "I came to you, in my search for almost any employment, and you made me your clerk." " Still not worth mentioning, my dear John Spatter," said I ; "still, equally true." " And finding that I had a good head for business, and that I was really useful to the business, you did not like to retain me in that capacity, and thought it an act of justice soon to make me your partner." " Still less worth mentioning than any of those other little cir- cumstances you have recalled, John Spatter," said I ; " for I was, and am, sensible of your merits and my deficiencies." " Now, my good friend," said John, drawing my arm through his, as he had had a habit of doing at school ; while two vessels out- side the windows of our counting-house — which were shaped like the stern windows of a ship — went lightly down the river with the tide, as John and I might then be sailing away in company, and in trust and confidence, on ^ our voyage of life; "let there, under these friendly circumstances, be a right understanding be- tween us. You are too easy, Michael. You are nobody's enemy but your own. If I were to give you that damaging character among our connection, with a shrug, and a shake of the head, and a sigh ; and if I were further to abuse the trust you place in me " "But you never will abuse it at all, John," I observed. " Never ! " said he ; " but I am putting a case — I say, and if I v>^ere further to abuse that trust by keeping this piece of our com- mon affairs in the dark, and this other piece in the light, and again this other piece in the twilight, and so on, I should strengthen my strength, and weaken your weakness, day by day, until at last I found myself on the high road to fortune, and you left beliind on some bare common, a hopeless number of miles out of the way." "Exactly so," said I. " To prevent this, Michael," said John Spatter, "or the remotest chance of this, there must be perfect openness between us. Noth- ing must be concealed, and we must have but one interest." " My dear John Spatter," I assured him, " that is precisely what I mean." "And when you are too easy," pursued John, his face glowing THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 9 with friendship, "you must allow me to prevent that imperfection in your nature from being taken advantage of, by any one ; you must not expect me to humour it " "My dear John Spatter," I interrupted, " I donH expect you to humour it. I want to correct it." "And I, too," said John. " Exactly so ! " cried I. " We both have the same end in view ; and, honourably seeking it, and fully trusting one another, and having but one interest, ours will be a prosperous and happy partnership." " I am sure of it ! " returned John Spatter. And we shook hands most affectionately. I took John home to my Castle, and we had a very happy day. Our partnership throve well. My friend and partner supplied what I wanted, as I had foreseen that he would ; and by improving both the business and myself, amply acknowledged any little rise in life to which I had helped him. I am not (said the poor relation, looking at the fire as he slowly rubbed his hands) very rich, for I never cared to be that ; but I have enough, and am above all moderate wants and anxieties. My Castle is not a splendid place, but it is very comfortable, and it has a warm and cheerful air, and is quite a picture of Home. Our eldest girl, who is very like her mother, married John Spat- ter's eldest son. Our two families are closely united in other ties of attachment. It is very pleasant of an evening, when we are all assembled together — which frequently happens — and when John and I talk over old times, and the one interest there has always been between us. I really do not know, in my Castle, what loneliness is. Some of our children or grandchildren are always about it, and the young voices of my descendants are delightful — 0, how dehghtful ! — to me to hear. My dearest and most devoted wife, ever faithful, ever loving, ever helpful and sustaining and consoling, is the price- less blessing of my house; from whom all its other blessings spring. We are rather a musical family, and when Christiana sees me, at any time, a little weary or depressed, she steals to the piano and sings a gentle air she used to sing when we were first betrothed. So weak a man am I, that I cannot bear to hear it from any other source. They played it once, at the Theatre, when I was there with little Frank; and the child said wondering, " Cousin Michael, whose hot tears are these that have fallen on my hand ! " Such is ray Castle, and such are the real particulars of my life therein preserved. I often take little Frank home there. He is 10 THE CHILD'S STORY. very welcome to my grandchildren, and they play together. At this time of the year — the Christmas and New Year time — I am seldom out of iny Castle. For, the associations of the season seem to hold me there, and the precepts of the season seem to teach me that it is well to be there. " And the Castle is " observed a grave, kind voice among the company. " Yes. My Castle," said the poor relation, shaking his head as he still looked at the fire, "is in the Air. John our esteemed host suggests its situation accurately. My Castle is in the Air ! I have done. Will you be so good as to pass the story." From "A Round of St07nes by the Christmas Fire," being the Extra Christmas Number of "Household Words "for Christmas, 1852. THE CHILD'S STORY. Once upon a time, a good many years ago, there was a traveller, and he set out upon a journey. It w^as a magic journey, and was to seem very long wiien he began it, and very short when he got half way through. He travelled along a rather dark path for some little time, with- out meeting anything, until at last he came to a beautiful child. So he said to the child, " What do you do here ? " And the child said, " I am always at play. Come and play with me ! " So, he played with that child, the whole day long, and they were very merry. The sky was so blue, the sun was so bright, the water was so sparkling, the leaves were so green, the flowers were so lovely, and they heard such singing-birds and saw so many butterflies, that everything was beautiful. This was in fine weather. When it rained, they loved to watch the falling drops, and to smell the fresh scents. When it blew, it w^as delightful to listen to the wind, and fancy what it said, as it came rushing from its home — where was that, they wondered ! — ■ whistling and howl- ing, driving the clouds before it, bending the trees, rumbling in the chimneys, shaking the house, and making the sea roar in fiiry. But, when it snowed, that was best of all ; for, they liked nothing so well as to look up at the white flakes falling fast and thick, like down from the breasts of millions of white birds ; and to see how smooth and deep the drift was ; and to listen to the hush upon the paths and roads. THE CHILD'S STORY. 11 They had plenty of the finest toys in the world, and the most astonishing picture-books : all about scimitars and slippers and turbans, and dwarfs and giants and genii and fairies, and Blue- beards and bean-stalks and riches and caverns and forests and Val- entines and Orsons : and all new and all true. But, one day, of a sudden, the traveller lost the child. He called to him over and over again, but got no answer. So, he went upon his road, and went on for a little while without meeting anything, until at last he came to a handsome boy. So, he said to the boy, " What do you do here 1 " And the boy said, " I am always learn- ing. Come and learn with me." So he learned with that boy about Jupiter^and Juno, and the Greeks and the Romans, and I don't know what, and learned more than I could tell — or he either, for he soon forgot a great deal of it. But, they were not always learning ; they had the merriest games that ever were played. They rowed upon the river in sum- mer, and skated on the ice in winter ; they were active afoot, and active on horseback ; at cricket, and all games at ball ; at prison- ers' base, hare and hounds, follow my leader, and more sports than I can think of; nobody could beat them. They had holidays too, and Twelfth cakes, and parties where they danced till midnight, and real Theatres where they saw palaces of real gold and silver rise out of the real earth, and saw all the wonders of the world at once. As to friends, they had such dear friends and so many of them, that I want the time to reckon them up. They were all young, like the handsome boy, and were never to be strange to one another all their lives through. Still, one day, in the midst of all these pleasures, the traveller lost the boy as he had lost the child, and, after calling to him in vain, went on upon his journey. So he went on for a little while ^vithout seeing anything, until at last he came to a young man. So, he said to the young man, " What do you do here ? " And the young man said, "I am always in love. Come and love with me." So, he went away with that young man, and presently they came to one of the prettiest girls that ever was seen — just like Fanny in the corner there — and she had eyes like Fanny, and hair like Fanny, and dimples like Fanny's, and she laughed and coloured just as Fanny does while I am talking about her. So, the young man fell in love directly — just as Somebody I won't mention, the first time he came here, did with Fanny. Well ! he was teased some- times — just as Somebody used to be by Fanny; and they quar- relled sometimes — just as Somebody and Fanny used to quarrel; and they made it up, and sat in the dark, and wrote letters every day, and never were happy asunder, and were always looking out for 12 THE CHILD'S STORY. one another and pretending not to, and were engaged at Christmas time, and sat close to one another by the fire, and were going to be married very soon — all exactly like Somebody I won't mention, and Fanny ! But, the traveller lost them one day, as he had lost the rest of his friends, and, after calling to them to come back, which they never did, went on upon his journey. So, he went on for a little while without seeing anything, until at last he came to a middle- aged gentleman. So, he said to the gentleman, " What are you doing here 1 " And his answer was, " I am always busy. Come and be busy with me ! " So, he began to be very busy with that gentleman, and they went on through the wood together. The whole journey was through a wood, only it had been open and green at first, like a wood in spring ; and now began to be thick and dark, like a wood in summer ; some of the little trees that had come out earliest, were even turning brown. The gentleman was not alone, but had a lady of about the same age with him, who was his Wife ; and they had children, who were with them too. So, they all went on to- gether through the wood, cutting down the trees, and making a path through the branches and the fallen leaves, and carrying bur- dens, and working hard. Sometimes, they came to a long green avenue that opened into deeper woods. Then they would hear a very little distant voice cry- ing, " Father, father, I am another child ! Stop for me ! " And presently they would see a very little figure, growing larger as it came along, running to join them. When it came up, they all crowded round it, and kissed and welcomed it ; and then they all went on together. Sometimes, they came to several avenues at once, and then they all stood still, and one of the children said, " Father, I am going to sea," and another said, " Father, I am going to India," and another, " Father, I am going to seek my fortune where I can," and another, " Father, I am going to Heaven ! " So, with many tears at parting, they went, solitary, down those avenues, each child upon its way ; and the child who went to Heaven, rose into the golden air and vanished. Whenever these partings happened, the traveller looked at the gentleman, and saw him glance up at the sky above the trees, where the day was beginning to decline, and the sunset to come on. He saw, too, that his hair was turning grey. But, they never could rest long, for they had their journey to perform, and it was necessary for them to be always busy. At last, there had been so many partings that there were no THE CHILD'S STORY. 13 children left, and only the traveller, the gentleman, and the lady, went upon their way in company. And now the wood was yellow ; and now brown ; and the leaves, even of the forest trees, began to fall. So, they came to an avenue that was darker than the rest, and were pressing forward on their journey without looking down it when the lady stopped. " My husband," said the lady. "I am called." They listened, and they heard a voice a long way down the avenue, say, "Mother, mother ! " It was the voice of the first child who had said, " I am going to Heaven!" and the father said, "I pray not 'yet. The sunset is very near. I pray not yet ! " But, the voice cried, " Mother, mother ! " without minding him, though his hair was now quite white, and tears were on his face. Then, the mother, who was already drawn into the shade of the dark avenue and moving away with her arms still round his neck, kissed him, and said, " My dearest, I am summoned, and I go ! " And she was gone. And the traveller and he were left alone together. And they went on and on together, until they came to very near the end of the wood : so near, that they could see the sunset shining red before them through the trees. Yet, once more, while he broke his way among the branches, the traveller lost his friend. He called and called, but there was no reply, and when he passed out of the wood, and saw the peaceful sun going down upon a wide purple prospect, he came to an old man sitting on a fallen tree. So, he said to the old man, " What do you do here 1 " And' the old man said with a calm smile, "I am always remembering. Come and remember with me!" So the traveller sat down by the side of that old man, face to face with the serene sunset ; and all his friends came softly back and stood around him. The beautiful child, the handsome boy, the young man in love, the father, mother, and children : every one of them was there, and he had lost nothing. So, he loved them all, and was kind and forbearing with them all, and was always pleased to watch them all, and they all honoured and loved him. And I think the traveller must be yourself, dear Grandfather, be- cause this is what you do to us, and what we do to you. 14 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. From ^'Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire," being the Extra Christmas Number of ^^ Household Words "for Christmas, 1853. THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. Being rather young at present — I am getting on in years, but still I am rather young— I have no particular adventures of my own to fall back upon. It wouldn't much interest anybody here, I suppose, to know what a screw the Reverend is, or what a griffin she is, or how they do stick it into parents — particularly hair- cutting, and medical attendance. One of our fellows was charged in his half's account twelve and sixpence for two pills — tolerably profitable at six and threepence apiece, I should think — and he never took them either, but put them up the sleeve of his jacket. ^ As to the beef, it's shameful. It's not beef. Regular beef isn't veins. You can chew regular beef. Besides which, there's gravy to regular beef, and you never see a drop to ours. Another of our fellows went home ill, and heard the family doctor tell his father that he couldn't account for his complaint unless it was the beer. Of course it was the beer, and well it might be ! However, beef and Old Cheeseman are two different things. S3* is beer. It was Old Cheeseman I meant to tell about; not the manner in which our fellows get their constitutions destroyed for the sake of profit. Why, look at the pie-crust alone. There's no flakiness in it. It's solid — like damp lead. Then our fellows get nightm.ares, and are bolstered for calling out and waking other fellows. Who can wonder ! Old Cheeseman one night walked in his sleep, put his hat on over his night-cap, got hold of a fishing-rod and a cricket-bat, and went down into the parlour, where they naturally thought from his appearance he was a Ghost. Why, he never would have done that if his meals had been wholesome. When we all begin to walk in our sleeps, I suppose they'll be sorry for it. Old Cheeseman wasn't second Latin Master then ; he was a fel- low himself. He was first brought there, very small, in a post- chaise, by a woman who was always taking snuflF and shaking him — and that was the most he remembered about it. He never went home for the holidays. His accounts (he never learnt any extras) were sent to a Bank, and the Bank paid them ; and he had a brown suit twice a year, and went into boots at twelve. They were always too big for him, too. In the Midsummer holidays, some of our fellows who lived THE SCHOOLBOY'S STOKY. 16 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. within walking distance, used to come back and climb the trees outside the playground wall, on purpose to look at Old Cheeseman reading there by himself. He was always as mild as the tea — and that's pretty mild, I should hope ! — so when they whistled to him, he looked up and nodded ; and when they said, " Halloa, Old Cheeseman, what have you had for dinner ? " he said, " Boiled mut- ton;" and when they said "An't it solitary. Old Cheeseman?" he said, " It is a little dull sometimes : " and then they said, " Well, good-bye. Old Cheeseman ! " and climbed down again. Of course it was imposing on Old Cheeseman to give him nothing but boiled mutton through a whole Vacation, but that was just like the sys- tem. When they didn't give him boiled mutton, they gave him rice pudding, pretending it was a treat. And saved the butcher. So Old Cheeseman went on. The holidays brought him into other trouble besides the loneliness ; because when the fellows began to come back, not wanting to, he was always glad to see them ; which was aggravating when they were not at all glad to see him, and so he got his head knocked against walls, and that was the way his nose bled. But he was a favourite in general. Once a subscription was raised for him ; and, to keep up his spirits, he was presented before the holidays with two white mice, a rabbit, a pigeon, and a beautiful puppy. Old Cheeseman cried about it — especially soon afterwards, when they all ate one another. Of course Old Cheeseman used to be called by the names of all sorts of cheeeses — Double Glo'sterman, Family Cheshireman, Dutchman, North Wiltshireman, and all that. But he never minded it. And I don't mean to say he was old in point of years — because he wasn't — only he was called from the first. Old Cheeseman. At last, Old Cheeseman was made second Latin Master. He was brought in one morning at the beginning of a new half, and presented to the school in that capacity as "Mr. Cheeseman." Then our fellows all agreed that Old Cheeseman was a spy, and a deserter, who had gone over to the enemy's camp, and sold him- self for gold. It was no excuse for him that he had sold himself for very little gold — two pound ten a quarter and his washing, as was reported. It was decided by a Parliament which sat about it, that Old Cheeseman's mercenary motives could alone be taken into account, and that he had " coined our blood for drachmas." The Parliament took the expression out of the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius. When it was settled in this strong way that Old Cheeseman was a tremendous traitor, who had wormed himself into our fellows' secrets on purpose to get himself into favour by giving up every- THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 17 thing he knew, all courageous fellows were invited to come forward and enroll themselves in a Society for making a set against him. The President of the Society was first boy, named Bob Tarter. His father was in the West Indies, and he owned, himself, that his father was worth Millions. He had great power among our fel- lows, and he wrote a parody, beginning, " Who made believe to be so meek That we could hardly hear him speak, Yet turned out an Informing Sneak ? Old Cheeseman." — and on in that way through more than a d®zen verses, which he used to go and sing, every morning, close by the new master's desk. He trained one of the low boys, too, a rosy-cheeked little Brass who didn't care what he did, to go up to him with his Latin Grammar one morning, and say it so : ISfominativus 2^'^onominum — Old Cheeseman, raro exiwimitur — was never suspected, nid distinc- tionis — of being an informer, aut emphasis gratia — until he proved one. Ut — for instance, Vos damiiastis — when he sold the boys. Quasi — as though, dicat — he should say, Preta^rea nemo — I'm a Judas ! All this produced a great effect on Old Cheeseman. He had never had much hair ; but what he had, began to get thinner and thinner every day. He grew paler and more worn ; and sometimes of an evening he was seen sitting at his desk with a precious long snuff to his candle, and his hands before his face, crying. But no member of the Society could pity him, even if he felt inclined, because the President said it was Old Cheese- man's conscience. So Old Cheeseman went on, and didn't he lead a miserable life ! Of course the Reverend turned up his nose at him, and of course she did — because both of them always do that at all the masters — but he suffered from the fellows most, and he suffered from them constantly. He never told about it, that the Society could find out ; but he got no credit for that, because the President said it was Old Cheeseman's cowardice. He had only one friend in the world, and that one was almost as powerless as he was, for it was only Jane. Jane was a sort of wardrobe woman to our fellows, and took care of the boxes. She had come at first, I believe, as a kind of apprentice — some of our fellows say from a Charity, but / don't know — and after her time was out, had stopped at so much a year. So little a year, perhaps I ought to say, for it is far more likely. However, she had put some pounds in the Savings' Bank, and she was a very nice young woman. She was not quite pretty; but she had a very frank, 18 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. honest, bright face, and all our fellows were fond of her. She was uncommonly neat and cheerful, and uncommonly comfortable and kind. And if anything was the matter with a fellow's mother, he always went and showed the letter to Jane. Jane was Old Cheeseman's friend. The more the Society went against him, the more Jane stood by him. She used to give him a good-humoured look out of her still-room window, sometimes, that seemed to set him up for the day. She used to pass out of the orchard and the kitchen garden (always kept locked, I believe you !) through the play-ground, when she might have gone the other way, only to give a turn of her head, as much as to say " Keep up your spirits ! " to Old Cheeseman. His slip of a room was so fresh and orderly that it was well known who looked after it while he was at his desk ; and when our fellows saw a smoking hot dumpling on his plate at dinner, they knew with indignation who had sent it up. Under these circumstances, the Society resolved, after a quantity of meeting and debating, that Jane should be requested to cut Old Cheeseman dead; and that if she refused, she must be sent to Coventry herself So a deputation, headed by the President, was appointed to wait on Jane, and inform her of the vote the Society had been under the painful necessity of passing. She was very much respected for all her good qualities, and there was a story about her having once waylaid the Reverend in his own study, and got a fellow off from severe punishment, of her own kind comfort- able heart. So the deputation didn't much like the job. However, they went up, and the President told Jane all about it. Upon which Jane turned very red, burst into tears, informed the Presi- dent and the deputation, in a way not at all like her usual way, that they were a parcel of malicious young savages, and turned the whole respected body out of the room. Consequently it was entered in the Society's book (kept in astronomical cypher for fear of detec- tion), that all communication with Jane was interdicted : and the President addressed the members on this convincing instance of Old Cheeseman's undermining. But Jane was as true to Old Cheeseman as Old Cheeseman was false to our fellows — in their opinion, at all events — and steadily continued to be his only friend. It was a great exasperation to the Society, because Jane was as much a loss to them as she was a gain to him; and being more inveterate against him than ever, they treated him worse than ever. At last, one morning, his desk stood empty, his room was peeped into, and found to be vacant, and a whisper went about among the pale faces of our fellows that Old Cheeseman, unable to bear it any longer, had got up early and drowned himself. THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 19 The mysterious looks of the other masters after breakfast, and the evident fact that Old Cheeseman was not expected, confirmed the Society in this opinion. Some began to discuss whether the President was liable to hanging or only transportation for life, and the President's face showed a great anxiety to know which. How- ever, he said that a jury of his country should find him game ; and that in his address he should put it to them to lay their hands upon their hearts and say whether they as Britons approved of in- formers, and how they thought they would like it themselves. Some of the Society considered that he had better run away until he found a forest where he might change clothes with a wood- cutter, and stain his face with blackberries^; but the majority beheved that if he stood his ground, his father — belonging as he did to the West Indies, and being worth Millions — could buy him off". All our fellows' hearts beat fast when the Reverend came in, and made a sort of a Roman, or a Field Marshal, of himself with the ruler; as he always did before delivering an address. But their fears were nothing to their astonishment when he came out with the story that Old Cheeseman, " so long our respected friend and fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowledge," he called him — yes ! I dare say ! Much of that ! — was the orphan child of a disinherited young lady who had married against her father's wish, and whose young husband had died, and who liad died of sor- row herself, and whose unfortunate baby (Old Cheeseman) had been brought up at the cost of a grandfather who would never consent to see it, baby, boy, or man : which grandfather was now dead, and serve him right — that's my putting in — and which grand- father's large property, there being no will, was now, and all of a sudden and for ever. Old Cheeseman's ! Our so long respected friend and fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowledge, the Reverend wound up a lot of bothering quotations by saying, would "come among us once more" that day fortnight, when he desired to take leave of us himself, in a more particular manner. With these words, he stared severely round at our fellows, and went solemnly out. There was precious consternation among the members of the Society, now. Lots of them wanted to resign, and lots more began to try to make out that they had never belonged to it. However, the President stuck up, and said that they must stand or fall together, and that if a breach was made it should be over his body — which was meant to encourage the Society : but it didn't. The President further said, he would consider the position in which they stood, and would give them his best opinion and advice in a 20 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. few days. This was eagerly looked for, as he knew a good deal of the world on account of his father's being in the West Indies. After days and days of hard thinking, and drawing armies all over his slate, the President called our fellows together, and made the matter clear. He said it was plain that when Old Cheeseman came on the appointed day, his first revenge would be to impeach the Society, and have it flogged all round. After witnessing with joy the torture of his enemies, and gloating over the cries which agony would extort from them, the probability was that he would invite the Reverend, on pretence of conversation, into a private room — say the parlour into which Parents were shown, where the two great globes were which were never used — and would there reproach him with the various frauds and oppressions he had en- dured at his hands. At the close of his observations he would make a signal to a Prizefighter concealed in the passage, who would then appear and pitch into the Reverend, till he was left insensible. Old Cheeseman would then make Jane a present of from five to ten pounds, and would leave the establishment in fiendish triumph. The President explained that against the parlour part, or the Jane part, of these arrangements he had nothing to say ; but, on the part of the Society, he counselled deadly resistance. With this view he recommended that all available desks should be filled with stones, and that the first word of the complaint should be the signal to every fellow to let fly at Old Cheeseman. The bold ad- vice put the Society in better spirits, and was unanimously taken. A post about Old Cheeseman's size was put up in the playground, and all our fellows practised at it till it was dinted all over. When the day came, and Places were called, every fellow sat down in a tremble. There had been much discussing and disput- ing as to how Old Cheeseman would come ; but it was the general opinion that he would appear in a sort of triumphal car drawn by four horses, with two livery servants in front, and the Prizefighter in disguise up behind. So, all our fellows sat listening for the sound of wheels. But no wheels were heard, for Old Cheeseman walked after all, and came into the school without any preparation. Pretty much as he used to be, only dressed in black. "Gentlemen," said the Reverend, presenting him, "our so long respected friend and fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowl- edge is desirous to offer a word or two. Attention, gentlemen, one and all ! " Every fellow stole his hand into his desk and looked at the President. The President was all ready, and taking aim at Old Cheeseman with his eyes. What did Old Cheeseman then, but walk up to his old desk, THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 21 look round him with a queer smile as if there was a tear in his eye, and begin in a quavering mild voice, " My dear companions and old friends ! " Every fellow's hand came out of his desk, and the President suddenly began to cry. " My dear companions and old friends," said Old Cheeseman, "you have heard of my good fortune. I have passed so many years under this roof — my entire life so far, I may say — that I hope you have been glad to hear of it for my sake. I could never enjoy it without exchanging congratulations with you. If we have ever misunderstood one another at all, pray my dear boys let us forgive and forget. I have a great tenderness for you, and I am sure you return it. I want in the fulness of a grateful heart to shake hands with you every one. I have come back to do it, if you please, my dear boys." Since the President had begun to cry, several other fellows had broken out here and there : but now, when Old Cheeseman began with him as first boy, laid his left hand affectionately on his shoul- der and gave him his right ; and when the President said " Indeed, I don't deserve it, sir ; upon my honour I don't ; " there was sob- bing and crying all over the school. Every other fellow said he didn't deserve it, much in the same way; but Old Cheeseman, not minding that a bit, went cheerfully round to every boy, and wound up with every master — finishing off the Reverend last. Then a snivelling little chap in the corner, who was always under some punishment or other, set up a shrill cry of " Success to Old Cheeseman ! Hooray ! " The Reverend glared upon him, and said, "i/r. Cheeseman, sir." But, Old Cheeseman protesting that he liked his old name a great deal better than his new one, all our fellows took up the cry; and, for I don't know how many minutes, there was such a thundering of feet and hands, and such a roaring of Old Cheeseman, as never was heard. After that, there was a spread in the dining-room of the most magnificent kind. Fowls, tongues, preserves, fruits, confection- eries, jellies, neguses, barley-sugar temples, trifles, crackers — eat all you can and pocket what you like — all at Old Cheeseman's expense. After that, speeches, whole holiday, double and treble sets of all manners of things for all manners of games, donkeys, pony-chaises and drive yourself, dinner for all the masters at the Seven Bells (twenty pounds a head our fellows estimated it at), an annual holiday and feast fixed for that day every year, and another on Old Cheeseman's birthday ^ — Reverend bound down before the fellows to allow it, so that he could never back out — all at Old Cheeseman's expense. 22 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. And didn't our fellows go down in a body and cheer outside the Seven Bells ? no ! But there's something else besides. Don't look at the next story- teller, for there's more yet. Next day, it was resolved that the Society should make it up with Jane, and then be dissolved. What do you think of Jane being gone, though ! " What ? Gone for ever ? " said our fellows, with long faces. " Yes, to be sure," was all the answer they could get. None of the people about the house would say anything more. At length, the first boy took upon himself to ask the Reverend whether our old friend Jane was really gone 1 The Reverend (he has got a daughter at home — turn-up nose, and red) replied severely, "Yes, sir, Miss Pitt is gone." The idea of calling Jane, Miss Pitt! Some said she had been sent away in disgrace for taking money from Old Cheeseman ; others said she had gone into Old Cheeseman's service at a rise of ten pounds a year. All that our fellows knew, was, she was gone. It was two or three months afterwards, when, one afternoon, an open carriage stopped at the cricket field, just outside bounds, with a lady and gentleman in it, who looked at the game a long time and stood up to see it played. Nobody thought much about them, until the same little snivelling chap came in, against all rules, from the post where he was Scout, and said, " It's Jane ! " Both Elev- ens forgot the game directly, and ran crowding round the carriage. It was Jane ! In such a bonnet ! And if you'll believe me, Jane was married to Old Cheeseman. It soon became quite a regular thing when our fellows were hard at it in the playground, to see a carnage at the low part of the wall where it joins the high part, and a lady and gentleman standing up in it, looking over. The gentleman was always Old Cheese- man, and the lady was always Jane. The first time I ever saw them, I saw them in that way. There had been a good many changes among our fellows then, and it had turned out that Bob Tarter's father wasn't worth Millions ! He wasn't worth anything. Bob had gone for a soldier, and Old Cheeseman had purchased his discharge. But that's not the car- riage. The carriage stopped, and all our fellows stopped as soon as it was seen. " So you have never sent me to Coventry after all ! " said the lady, laughing, as our fellows swarmed up the wall to shake hands with her. " Are you never going to do it ? " " Never ! never ! never ! " on all sides. I didn't understand what she meant then, but of course I do now. I was very much pleased with her face though, and with NOBODY'S STORY. 23 her good way, and I couldn't help looking at her — and at him too — with all our fellows clustering so joyfully about them. They soon took notice of me as a new boy, so I thought I might as well swarm up the wall myself, and shake hands with them as the rest did. I was quite as glad to see them as the rest were, and was quite as familiar with them in a moment. " Only a fortnight now," said Old Cheeseman, " to the holidays. Who stops ? Anybody ? " A good many fingers pointed at me, and a good many voices cried " He does ! " For it was the year when you were all away ; and rather low I was about it, I can tell you. " Oh ! " said Old Cheeseman. " But it's solitary here in the holiday time. He had better come to us." So I went to their delightful house, and was as happy as I could possibly be. They understand how to conduct themselves towards boys, they do. When they take a boy to the play, for instance, they do take him. They don't go in after it's begun, or come out before it's over. They know how to bring a boy up, too. Look at their own ! Though he is very little as yet, what a capital boy he is ! Why, my next favourite to Mrs. Cheeseman and Old Cheeseman, is young Cheeseman. So, now I have told you all I know about Old Cheeseman. And it's not much after all, I am afraid. Is it % From ^^ Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire" being the Exti'a Christmas Number of ^^ Household Words "for Christmas, 1853. NOBODY'S STORY. He lived on the bank of a mighty river, broad and deep, which was always silently rolling on to a vast undiscovered ocean. It had rolled on, ever since the world began. It had changed its course sometimes, and turned into new channels, leaving its old ways dry and barren ; but it had ever been upon the flow, and ever was to flow until Time should be no more. Against its strong, unfathomable stream, nothing made head. No living creature, no flower, no leaf, no particle of animate or inanimate existence, ever strayed back from the undiscovered ocean. The tide of the river set resistlessly towards it ; and the tide never stopped, any more than the earth stops in its circling round the sun. He lived in a busy place, and he worked very hard to live. He had no hope of ever being rich enough to live a month without 24 NOBODY'S STORY. hard work, but he was quite content, God knows, to labour with a cheerful will. He was one of an immense family, all of whose sons and daughters gained their daily bread by daily work, pro- longed from their rising up betimes until their lying down at night. Beyond this destiny he had no prospect, and he sought none. There was over-much drumming, trumpeting, and speech-making, in the neighbourhood w^here he dwelt ; but he had nothing to do with that. Such clash and uproar came from the Bigwig family, at the unaccountable proceedings of which race, he marvelled much. They set up the strangest statues, in iron, marble, bronze, and brass, before his door ; and darkened his house with the legs and tails of uncouth images of horses. He wondered what it all meant, smiled in a rough good-humoured way he had, and kept at his hard work. The Bigwig family (composed of all the stateliest people there- abouts, and all the noisiest) had undertaken to save him the trouble of thinking for himself, and to manage him and his affairs. " Why truly," said he, "I have little time upon my hands; and if you will be so good as to take care of me, in return for the money I pay over " — for the Bigwig family were not above his money — "I shall be relieved and much obliged, considering that you know best." Hence the drumming, trumpeting, and speech-making, and the ugly images of horses which he was expected to fall down and worship. "I don't understand all this," said he, rubbing his furrowed brow confusedly. "But it has a meaning, maybe, if I could find it out." " It means," returned the Bigwig family, suspecting something of what he said, " honour and glory in the highest, to the highest merit." " Oh ! " said he. And he was glad to hear that. But, when he looked among the images in iron, marble, bronze, and brass, he failed to find a rather meritorious countryman of his, once the son of a Warwickshire wool-dealer, or any single countryman whomsoever of that kind. He could find none of the men whose knowledge had rescued him and his children from ter- rific and disfiguring disease, whose boldness had raised his fore- fathers from the condition of serfs, whose wise fancy had opened a new and high existence to the humblest, whose skill had filled the workingman's world with accumulated wonders. Whereas, he did find others whom he knew no good of, and even others whom he knew much ill of. " Humph ! " said he. "I don't quite understand it." So, he went home, and sat down by his fire-side to get it out of his mind. NOBODY'S STORY. 25 Now, his fire-side was a bare one, all hemmed in by blackened streets; but it was a precious place to him. The hands of his wife were hardened with toil, and she was old before her time ; but she was dear to him. His children, stunted in their growth, bore traces of unwholesome nurture ; but they had beauty in his sight. Above all other things, it was an earnest desire of this man's soul that his children should be taught. " If I am some- times misled," said he, " for want of knowledge, at least let them know better, and avoid my mistakes. If it is hard to me to reap the harvest of pleasure and instruction that is stored in books, let it be easier to them." But, the Bigwig family broke out into violent family quarrels concerning what it was lawful to teach to this man's children. Some of the family insisted on such a thing being primary and indispensable above all other things ; and others of the family in- sisted on such another thing being primary and indispensable above all other things ; and the Bigwig family, rent into factions, wrote pamphlets, held convocations, delivered charges, orations, and all varieties of discourses ; impounded one another in courts Lay and courts Ecclesiastical ; threw dirt, exchanged pummellings, and fell together by the ears in unintelligible animosity. Meanwhile, this man, in his short evening snatches at his fire-side, saw the demon Ignorance arise there, and take his children to itself. He saw his daughter perverted into a heavy slatternly drudge ; he saw his son go moping down the ways of low sensuality, to brutality and crime ; he saw the dawning light of intelligence in the eyes of his babies so changing into cunning and suspicion, that he could have rather wished them idiots. " I don't understand this any the better," said he ; " but I think it cannot be right. Nay, by the clouded Heaven above me, I pro- test against this as my wrong ! " Becoming peaceable again (for his passion was usually short- lived, and his nature kind), he looked about him on his Sundays and holidays, and he saw how much monotony and weariness there was, and thence how drunkenness arose with all its train of ruin. Then he appealed to the Bigwig family, and said, " We are a labour- ing people, and I have a glimmering suspicion in me that labouring people of whatever condition were made — by a higher intelligence than yours, as I poorly understand it — to be in need of mental refreshment and recreation. See what we fall into, when we rest without it. Come ! Amuse me harmlessly, show me something, give me an escape ! " But, here the Bigwig family fell into a state of uproar absolutely deafening. When some few voices were faintly heard, proposing 26 NOBODY'S STORY. to show him the wonders of the world, the greatness of creation, the mighty changes of time, the workings of nature and the beauties of art — to show him these things, that is to say, at any period of his life when he could look upon them — there arose among the Bigwigs such roaring and raving, such pulpiting and petitioning, such maundering and memorialising, such name-calling and dirt- throwing, such a shrill wind of parliamentary questioning and feeble replying — where "I dare not" waited on "I would" — that the poor fellow stood aghast, staring wildly around. "Have I provoked all this," said he, with his hands to his affrighted ears, " by what was meant to be an innocent request, plainly arising out of my familiar experience, and the common knowledge of all men who choose to open their eyes? I don't understand, and I am not understood. What is to come of such a state of things ! " He was bending over his work, often asking himself the ques- tion, when the news began to spread that a pestilence had appeared among the labourers, and was slaying them by thousands. Going forth to look about him, he soon found this to be true. The dying and the dead were mingled in the close and tainted houses among which his life was passed. New poison was distilled into the always murky, always sickening air. The robust and the weak, old age and infancy, the father and the mother, all were stricken down alike. What means of flight had he? He remained there, where he was, and saw those who were dearest to him die. A kind preacher came to him, and would have said some prayers to soften his heart in his gloom, but he replied : " what avails it, missionary, to come to me, a man condemned to residence in this fcetid place, where every sense bestowed upon me for my delight becomes a torment, and where every minute of my numbered days is new mire added to the heap under which I lie oppressed ! But, give me my first glimpse of Heaven, through a little of its light and air ; give me pure water ; help me to be clean ; lighten this heavy atmosphere and heavy life, in which our spirits sink, and we become the indifferent and callous creatures you too often see us ; gently and kindly take the bodies of those who die among us, out of the small room where we grow to be so familiar with the awful change that even its sanctity is lost to us ; and. Teacher, then I will hear — none know better than you, how willingly — of Him whose thoughts were so much with the poor, and who had compassion for all human sorrow ! " He was at his work again, solitary and sad, when his Master came and stood near to him dressed in black. He, also, had suf- NOBODY'S STORY. 27 fered heavily. His young wife, his beautiful and good young wife, was dead ; so, too, his only child. "Master, 'tis hard to bear — I know it — but be comforted. I would give you comfort, if I could." The Master thanked him from his heart, but, said he, " you labouring men ! The calamity began among you. If you had but Uved more healthily and decently, I should not be the widowed and bereft moarner that I am this day." "Master," returned the other, shaking his head, "I have begun to understand a little that most calamities will come from us, as this one did, and that none will stop at our poor doors, until we are united with that great squabbling family -yonder, to do the things that are right. We cannot live healthily and decently, unless they who undertook to manage us provide the means. We cannot be instructed unless they will teach us ; we cannot be ra- tionally amused, unless they will amuse us ; we cannot but have some false gods of our own, while they set up so many of theirs in all the public places. The evil consequences of imperfect instruction, the evil consequences of pernicious neglect, the evil consequences of unnatural restraint and the denial of humanising enjoyments, will all come from us, and none of them will stop with us. They will spread far and wide. They always do ; they always have done — just like the pestilence. I understand so much, I think, at last." But the Master said again, "0 you labouring men! How seldom do we ever hear of you, except in connection with some trouble ! " " Master," he replied, " I am Nobody, and little likely to be heard of (nor yet much wanted to be heard of, perhaps), except when there is some trouble. But it never begins with me, and it never can end with me. As sure as Death, it comes down to me, and it goes up from me." There was so much reason in what he said, that the Bigwig family, getting wind of it, and being horribly frightened by the late desolation, resolved to unite with him to do the things that were right — at all events, so far as the said things were associated with the direct prevention, humanly speaking, of another pestilence. But, as their fear wore off, which it soon began to do, they resumed their falling out among themselves, and did nothing. Consequently the scourge appeared again — low down as before — and spread avengingly upward as before, and carried off vast numbers of the brawlers. But not a man among them ever admitted, if in the least degree he ever perceived, that he had anything to do with it. So Nobody lived and died in the old, old, old way ; and this, in the main, is the whole of Nobody's story. 28 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. Had he no name, you ask ? Perhaps it was Legion. It matters httle what his name was. Let us call him Legion. If you were ever in the Belgian villages near the field of Water- loo, you will have seen, in some quiet little church, a monument erected by faithful companions in arms to the memory of Colonel A, Major B, Captains C, D, and E, Lieutenants F and G, Ensigns H, I, and J, seven non-commissioned officers, and one hundred and thirty rank and file, who fell in the discharge of their duty on the memorable day. The story of Nobody is the stoiy of the rank and file of the earth. They bear their share of the battle • they have their part in the victory; they fall; they leave no name but m the mass. The march of the proudest of us, leads to the dusty way by which they go. ! Let us think of them this year at the Christmas fire, and not forget them when it is burnt out THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. IN TWO CHAPTERS. Chapter I. THE FIRST POOR TRAVELLER. Strictly speaking, there were only six Poor Travellers • but being a Traveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor as I hope to be, I brought the number up to seven This word of explanation is due at once, for what says the inscription over the quaint old door ? j i u Richard Watts, Esq. by his Will, dated 22 Aug. 1579, founded this Charity for Six poor Travellers, who not being Rogues, or Proctors May receive gratis for one Night, Lodging, Entertainment, and Fourpence each. It was in the ancient little city of Rochester in Kent, of all the good days m the year upon a Christmas-eve, that I stood reading this inscription over the quaint old door in question. I had been tr^t'TI-'.^^w!."'^^-^^"^'^"^ ^''^'''^''^^ '^^d had seen the starting out of it like a ship's figure-head; and I had felt that I THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 29 5ould do no less, as I gave the Verger his fee, than inquire the i^ay to Watts's Charity. The way being very short and very plain, [ had come prosperously to the inscription and the quaint old door. " Now," said I to myself, as I looked at the knocker, " I know [ am not a Proctor ; I wonder whether I am a Rogue ! " Upon the whole, though Conscience reproduced two or three pretty faces which might have had smaller attraction for a moral Groliath than they had had for me, who am but a Tom Thumb in that way, I came to the conclusion that I was not a Rogue. So, beginning to regard the establishment as in some sort my property, bequeathed to me and divers co-legatees, share and share alike, by the Worshipful Master Richard Watts, I steppM backward into the road to survey my inheritance. I found it to be a clean white house, of a staid and venerable air, with the quaint old door already three times mentioned (an arched door), choice little long low lattice-windows, and a roof of three gables. The silent High-street of Rochester is full of gables, with old beams and timbers carved into strange faces. It is oddly garnished with a queer old clock that projects over the pavement out of a grave red-brick building, as if Time carried on business there, and hung out his sign. Sooth to say, he did an active stroke of work in Rochester, in the old days of the Romans, and the Sax- ons, and the Normans ; and down to the times of King John, when the rugged castle — I will not undertake to say how many hun- dreds of years old then — was abandoned to the centuries of weather which have so defaced the dark apertures in its walls, that the ruin looks as if the rooks and daws had pecked its eyes out. I was very well pleased, both with my property and its situation. While I was yet surveying it with growing content, I espied, at one of the upper lattices which stood open, a decent body, of a wholesome matronly appearance, whose eyes I caught inquiringly addressed to mine. They said so plainly, "Do you wish to see the house?" that I answered aloud, "Yes, if you please." And within a minute the old door opened, and I bent my head, and went down two steps into the entry. " This," said the matronly presence, ushering me into a low room on the right, " is where the Travellers sit by the fire, and cook what bits of suppers they buy with their fourpences." " ! Then they have no Entertainment ? " said I. For the in- scription over the outer door was still running in my head, and I was mentally repeating, in a kind of tune, "Lodging, entertainment, and fourpence each." "They have a fire provided for 'em," returned the matron, — a mighty civil person, not, as I could make out, overpaid; "and 30 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. these cooking utensils. And this what's painted on a board is the rules for their behaviour. They have their fourpences when they get their tickets from the steward over the way, — for I don't admit 'em myself, they must get their tickets first, — and some- times one buys a rasher of bacon, and another a herring, and another a pound of potatoes, or what not. Sometimes two or three of 'em will club their fourpences together, and make a sup- per that way. But not much of anything is to be got for four- pence, at present, when provisions is so dear." "True indeed," I remarked. I had been looking about the room, admiring its snug fire-side at the upper end, its glimpse of the street through the low mullioned window, and its beams over- head. "It is very comfortable," said I. " Ill-con wenient," observed the matronly presence. I liked to hear her say so ; for it showed a commendable anxiety to execute in no niggardly spirit the intentions of Master Richard Watts. But the room was really so well adapted to its purpose that I protested, quite enthusiastically, against her disparagement. " Nay, ma'am," said I, " I am sure it is warm in winter and cool in summer. It has a look of homely welcome and soothing rest. It has a remarkably cosy fire-side, the very blink of which, gleam- ing out into the street upon a winter night, is enough to warm all Rochester's heart. And as to the convenience of the six Poor Travellers — " "I don't mean them," returned the presence. "I speak of its being an ill-con wenience to myself and my daughter, having no other room to sit in of a night." This was true enough, but there was another quaint room of corresponding dimensions on the opposite side of the entry : so I stepped across to it, through the open doors of both rooms, and asked what this chamber was for. "This," returned the presence, "is the Board Room. Where the gentlemen meet when they come here." Let me see. I had counted from the street six upper windows besides these on the ground-story. Making a perplexed calculation in my mind, I rejoined, "Then the six Poor Travellers sleep up-stairs 1 " My new friend shook her head. " They sleep," she answered, "in two little outer galleries at the back, where their beds has always been, ever since the Charity was founded. It being so very ill-conwenient to me as things is at present, the gentlemen are going to take off* a bit of the back-yard, and make a slip of a room for 'em there, to sit in before they go to bed." "And then the six Poor Travellers," said I, " will be entirely out of the house?" THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 31 "Entirely out of the house," assented the presencCj comfortably- smoothing her hands. " Which is considered much better for all parties, and much more conwenient." I had been a little startled, in the Cathedral, by the emphasis with which the effigy of Master Richard Watts was bursting out of his tomb ; but I began to think, now, that it might be expected to come across the High-street some stormy night, and make a dis- turbance here. Howbeit, I kept my thoughts to myself, and accompanied the presence to the little galleries at the back. I found them on a tiny scale, like the galleries in old inn-yards ; and they were very clean. While I was looking at them, the matron gave, me to understand that the prescribed number of Poor Travellers were forthcoming every night from year's end to year's end ; and that the beds were always occupied. My questions upon this, and her replies, brought us back to the Board Room so essential to the dignity of "the gentlemen," where she showed me the printed accounts of the Charity hanging up by the window. From them I gathered that the greater part of the property bequeathed by the Worshipful Master Richard Watts for the maintenance of this foundation was, at the period of his death, mere marsh-land ; but that, in course of time, it had been reclaimed and built upon, and was very consider- ably increased in value. I found, too, that about a thirtieth part of the annual revenue was now expended on the purposes commem- orated in the inscription over the door ; the rest being handsomely laid out in Chancery, law expenses, collectorship, receivership, poundage, and other appendages of management, highly compli- mentary to the importance of the six Poor Travellers. In short, I made the not entirely new discovery that it may be said of an establishment like this, in dear old England, as of the fat oyster in the American story, that it takes a good many men to swallow it whole. "And pray, ma'am," said I, sensible that the blankness of my face began to brighten as the thought occurred to me, " could one see these Travellers 1 " " Well ! " she returned dubiously, " no ! " " Not to-night, for instance ! " said I. "Well!" she returned more positively, "no. Nobody ever asked to see them, and nobody ever did see them." As I am not easily balked in a design when I am set upon it, I urged to the good lady that this was Christmas-eve ; that Christmas comes but once a year, — which is unhappily too true, for when it begins to stay with us the whole year round we shall make this earth a very different place ; that I was possessed by the desire to treat the Travellers to a supper and a temperate glass of hot Was- 32 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. sail ; that the voice of Fame had been heard in that land, declar- ing my ability to make hot Wassail ; that if I were permitted to hold the feast, I should be found conformable to reason, sobriety, and good hours ; in a word, that I could be merry and wise myself, and had been even known at a pinch to keep others so, although 1 was decorated with no badge or medal, and was not a Brother, Ora- tor, Apostle, Saint, or Prophet of any denomination whatever. In the end I prevailed, to my great joy. It was settled that at nine o'clock that night a Turkey and a piece of Roast Beef should smoke upon the board ; and that I, faint and unworthy minister for once of Master Richard Watts, should preside as the Christmas- supper host of the six Poor Travellers. I went back to my inn to give the necessary directions for the Turkey and Roast Beef, and, during the remainder of the day, could settle to nothing for thinking of the Poor Travellers. When the wind blew hard against the windows, — it was a cold day, with dark gusts of sleet alternating with periods of wild brightness, as if the year were dying fitfully, — I pictured them advancing tow- ards their resting-place along various cold roads, and felt delighted to think how little they foresaw the supper that awaited them. I painted their portraits in my mind, and indulged in little heightening touches. I made them footsore ; I made them weary ; I made them carry packs and bundles ; I made them stop by finger-posts and milestones, leaning on their bent sticks, and looking wistfully at what was written there ; I made them lose their way ; and filled their five wits with apprehensions of lying out all night, and being frozen to death. I took up my hat, and went out, climbed to the top of the Old Castle, and looked over the windy hills that slope down to the Medway, almost belie^dng that I could descry some of my Travellers in the distance. After it fell dark, and the Cathe- dral bell was heard in the invisible steeple — quite a bower of frosty rime when I had last seen it — striking five, six, seven, I became so full of my Travellers that I could eat no dinner, and felt constrained to watch them still in the red coals of my fire. They were all arrived by this time, I thought, had got their tickets, and v/ere gone in. — There my pleasure was dashed by the reflection that probably some Travellers had come too late and were shut out. After the Cathedral bell had struck eight, I could smeU a delicious savour of Turkey and Roast Beef rising to the window of my adjoin- ing bedroom, which looked down into the inn-yard just where the lights of the kitchen reddened a massive fragment of the Castle Wall. It was high time to make the Wassail now ; therefore I had up the materials (which, together with their proportions and combinations. THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 33 I must decline to impart, as the only secret of my own I was ever known to keep), and made a glorious jorum. Not in a bowl ; for a bowl anywhere but on a shelf is a low superstition, fraught with cooling and slopping ; but in a brown earthenware pitcher, tenderly sufltbcated, when full, with a coarse cloth. . It being now upon the stroke of nine, I set out for Watts's Charity, carrying my brown beauty in my arms. I would trust Ben, the waiter, with untold gold ; but there are strings in the human heart which must never be sounded by another, and drinks that I make myself are those strings in mine. The Travellers were all assembled, the cloth was laid, and Ben had brought a great billet of wood, and had laid it artfully on the top of the fire, so that a toucli or two of the poker after supper should make a roaring blaze. Having deposited my brown beauty in a red nook of the hearth, inside the fender, where she soon began to sing like an ethereal cricket, diffusing at the same time odours as of ripe vineyards, spice forests, and orange groves, — I say, hav- ing stationed my beauty in a place of security and improvement, I introduced myself to my guests by shaking hands all round, and giving them a hearty welcome. I found the party to be thus composed. Firstly, myself. Sec- ondly, a very decent man indeed, with his right arm in a sling, who had a certain clean agreeable smell of wood about him, from which I judged him to have something to do with shipbuilding. Thirdly, a little sailor-boy, a mere child, with a profusion of rich dark brown hair, and deep womanly-looking eyes. Fourthly, a shabby-genteel personage in a threadbare black suit, and apparently in very bad circumstances, with a dry suspicious look ; the absent buttons on his waistcoat eked out with red tape ; and a bundle of extraordina- rily tattered papers sticking out of an inner breast-pocket. Fifthly, a foreigner by birth, but an Englishman in speech, who carried his pipe in the band of his hat, and lost no time in telling me, in an easy, simple, engaging way, that he was a watchmaker from Geneva, and travelled all about the Continent, mostly on foot, working as a journeyman, and seeing new countries, — possibly (I thought) also smuggling a watch or so, now and then. Sixthly, a little widow, who had been very pretty and was still very young, but whose beauty had been wrecked in some great misfortune, and whose manner was remarkably timid, scared, and solitary. Seventhly and lastly, a Traveller of a kind familiar to my boyhood, but now almost obsolete, — a Book-Pedler, who had a quantity of Pamphlets and Numbers with him, and who presently boasted that he could repeat more verses in an evening than he could sell in a twelvemonth. All these I have mentioned in the order in which they sat at 34 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. table. I presided, and the matronly presence faced me. We were not long in taking our places, for the supper had arrived with me, in the following procession : Myself with the pitcher. Ben with Beer. Inattentive Boy with hot plates. Inattentive Boy with hot plates. THE TURKEY. Female carrying sauces to be heated on the spot. THE BEEF. Man with Tray on his head, containing Vegetables and Sundries. Volunteer Hostler from Hotel, grinning, And rendering no assistance. As we passed along the High-street, comet-like, we left a long tail of fragrance behind us which caused the public to stop, sniffing in wonder. We had previously left at the corner of the inn-yard a wall-eyed young man connected with the Fly department, and well accustomed to the sound of a railway whistle which Ben always carries in his pocket, whose instructions were, so soon as he should hear the whistle blown, to dash into the kitchen, seize the hot plum- pudding and mince-pies, and speed with them to Watts's Charity, where they would be received (he was further instructed) by the sauce-female, who would be provided with brandy in a blue state of combustion. All these arrangements were executed in the most exact and punctual manner. I never saw a finer turkey, finer beef, or greater prodigality of sauce and gravy ; and my Travellers did wonderful justice to everything set before them. It made my heart rejoice to observe how their wind and frost hardened faces softened in the clatter of plates and knives and forks, and mellowed in the fire and supper heat. While their hats and caps and wrappers, hanging up, a few small bundles on the ground in a corner, and in another corner three or four old walking-sticks, worn down at the end to mere fringe, linked this snug interior with the bleak outside in a golden chain. When supper was done, and my brown beauty had been elevated on the table, there was a general requisition to me to " take the corner ; " which suggested to me comfortably enough how much my friends here made of a fire, — for when had / ever thought so highly of the corner, since the days when I connected it with Jack Horner? However, as I declined, Ben, whose touch on all con- vivial instruments is perfect, drew the table apart, and instructing my Travellers to open right and left on either side of me, and form THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 35 round the fire, closed up the centre with myself and my chair, and preserved the order we had kept at table. He had already, in a tranquil manner, boxed the ears of the inattentive boys until they had been by imperceptible degrees boxed out of the room ; and he now rapidly skirmished the sauce-female into the High-street, dis- appeared, and softly closed the door. This was the time for bringing the poker to bear on the billet of wood. I tapped it three times, like an enchanted talisman, and a brilliant host of merrymakers burst out of it, and sported off by the chimney, — rushing up the middle in a fiery country dance, and never coming down again. Meanwhile, by their sparkling light, which threw our lamp into the shade, I filled the glasses, and gave my Travellers, Christmas ! — Christmas-eve," my friends, when the shepherds, who were Poor Travellers, too, in their way, heard the Angels sing, " On earth, peace. Good-will towards men ! " I don't know who was the first among us to think that we ought to take hands as we sat, in deference to the toast, or whether any one of us anticipated the others, but at any rate we all did it. We then drank to the memory of the good Master Richard Watts. And I wish his Chost may never have had worse usage under that roof than it had from us. It was the witching time for Story-telling. " Our whole life, Travellers," said I, "is a story more or less intelligible, — generally less ; but we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended. I, for one, am so divided this night between fact and fiction, that I scarce know which is which. Shall I beguile the time by telling you a story as we sit here 1 " They all answered, yes. I had little to tell them, but I was bound by my own proposal. Therefore, after looking for awhile at the spiral column of smoke wreathing up from my brown beauty, through which I could have almost sworn I saw the efiigy of Master Richard Watts less startled than usual, I fired away. In the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, a rela- tive of mine came limping down, on foot, to this town of Chatham. I call it this town, because if anybody present knows to a nicety where Rochester ends and Chatham begins, it is more than I do. He was a poor traveller, with not a farthing in his pocket. He sat by the fire in this very room, and he slept one night in a bed that will be occupied to-night by some one here. My relative came down to Chatham to enlist in a cavalry regi- ment, if a cavalry regiment would have him ; if not, to take King George's shilling from any corporal or serjeant who would put a bunch of ribbons in his hat. His object was to get shot ; but he 36 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. thought he might as well ride to death as be at the trouble of walking. My relative's Christian name was Richard, but he was better known as Dick. He dropped his own surname on the road down, and took up that of Doubledick. He was passed as Richard Doubledick ; age, twenty-two ; height, five foot ten ; native place, Exmouth, which he had never been near in his life. There was no cavalry in Chatham when he limped over the bridge here with half a shoe to his dusty feet, so he enlisted into a regiment of the line, and was glad to get drunk and forget all about it. You are to know that this relative of mine had gone wrong, and run wild. His heart was in the right place, but it was sealed up. He had been betrothed to a good and beautiful girl, whom he had loved better than she — or perhaps even he — believed ; but in an evil hour he had given her cause to say to him solemnly, " Richard, I will never marry another man. I will live single for your sake, but Mary Marshall's lips" — her name was Mary Marshall — '' never address another word to you on earth. Go, Richard ! Heaven forgive you ! " This finished him. This brought him down to Chatham. This made him Private Richard Doubledick, with a determination to be shot. There was not a more dissipated and reckless soldier in Chatham barracks, in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, than Private Richard Doubledick. He associated with the dregs of every regiment; he was as seldom sober as he could be, and was constantly under punishment. It became clear to the whole barracks that Private Richard Doubledick would very soon be flogged. Now the Captain of Richard Doubledick's company was a young gentleman not above fi.ve years his senior, whose eyes had an ex- pression in them which affected Private Richard Doubledick in a very remarkable way. They were bright, handsome, dark eyes, — what are called laughing eyes generally, and, when serious, rather steady than severe, — but they were the only eyes now left in his narrowed world that Private Richard Doubledick could not stand. Unabashed by evil report and punishment, defiant of everything else and everybody else, he had but to know that those eyes looked at him for a moment, and he felt ashamed. He could not so much as salute Captain Taunton in the street like any other ofiicer. He was reproached and confused, — troubled by the mere possibility of the captain's looking at him. In his worst moments, he would rather turn back, and go any distance out of his way, than en- counter those two handsome, dark, bright eyes. One day, when Private Richard Doubledick came out of the THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 37 Black hole, where he had been passing the last eight-and-forty hours, and in which retreat he spent a good deal of his time, he was ordered to betake himself to Captain Taunton's quarters. In the stale and squalid state of a man just out of the Black hole, he had less fancy than ever for being seen by the captain ; but he was not so mad yet as to disobey orders, and consequently went up to the terrace overlooking the parade-ground, where the oflBcers' quar- ters were ; twisting and breaking in his hands, as he went along, a bit of the straw that had formed the decorative furniture of the Black hole. " Come in ! " cried the Captain, when he knocked with his knuckles at the door. Private Richard Doubledick pulled off his cap, took a stride forward, and felt very conscious that he stood in the light of the dark, bright eyes. There was a silent pause. Private Richard Doubledick had put the straw in his mouth, and was gradually doubling it up into his windpipe and choking himself. "Doubledick," said the Captain, "do you know where you are going to *? " "To the Devil, sir?" faltered Doubledick. "Yes," returned the Captain. "And very fast." Private Richard Doubledick turned the straw of the Black hole in his mouth, and made a miserable salute of acquiescence. " Doubledick," said the Captain, " since I entered his Majesty's service, a boy of seventeen, I have been pained to see many men of promise going that road ; but I have never been so pained to see a man determined to make the shameful journey as I have been, ever since you joined the regiment, to see you." Private Richard Doubledick began to find a film stealing over the floor at which he looked ; also to find the legs of the Captain's breakfast-table turning crooked, as if he saw them through water. "I am only a common soldier, sir," said he. "It signifies very little what such a poor brute comes to." "You are a man," returned the Captain, with grave indignation, " of education and superior advantages ; and if you say that, mean- ing what you say, you have sunk lower than I had believed. How low that must be, I leave you to consider, knowing what I know of your disgrace, and seeing what I see." " I hope to get shot soon, sir," said Private Richard Doubledick ; " and then the regiment and the world together will be rid of me." The legs of the table were becoming very crooked. Doubledick, looking up to steady his vision, met the eyes that had so strong an influence over him. He put his hand before his own eyes, and the breast of his disgrace-jacket swelled as if it would fly asunder. 38 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. "I would rather," said the young Captain, "see this in you, Doubledick, than I would see five thousand guineas counted out upon this table for a gift to my good mother. Have you a mother?" " I am thankful to say she is dead, sir." "If your praises," returned the Captain, "were sounded from mouth to mouth through the whole regiment, through the whole army, through the whole country, you would wish she had lived to say, with pride and joy, ' He is my son ! ' " "Spare me, sir," said Doubledick. "She would never have heard any good of me. She would never have had any pride and joy in owning herself my mother. Love and compassion she might have had, and would have always had, I know ; but not — Spare me, sir ! I am a broken wretch, quite at your mercy ! " And he turned his face to the wall, and stretched out his imploring hand. "My friend — " began the Captain. " God bless you, sir ! " sobbed Private Richard Doubledick. " You are at the crisis of your fate. Hold your course unchanged a little longer, and you know what must happen. / know even better than you can imagine, that, after that has happened, you are lost. No man who could shed those tears could bear those marks." " I fully believe it, sir," in a low, shivering voice said Private Richard Doubledick. " But a man in any station can do his duty," said the young Captain, " and, in doing it, can earn his own respect, even if his case should be so very unfortunate and so very rare that he can earn no other man's. A common soldier, poor brute though you called him just now, has this advantage in the stormy times we live in, that he always does his duty before a host of sympathising wit- nesses. Do you doubt that he may so do it as to be extolled through a whole regiment, through a whole army, through a whole country ? Turn while you may yet retrieve the past, and try." " I will ! I ask for only one witness, sir," cried Richard, with a bursting heart. " I understand you. I wall be a watchful and a faithful one." I have heard from Private Richard Doubledick's own lips, that he dropped down upon his knee, kissed that officer's hand, arose, and went out of the light of the dark, bright eyes, an altered man. In that year, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, the French were in Egypt, in Italy, in Germany, where not ? Napo- leon Bonaparte had likewise begun to stir against us in India, and most men could read the signs of the great troubles that were coming on. In the very next year, when we formed an alliance THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 39 with Austria against him, Captain Taunton's regiment was on service in India. And there was not a finer non-commissioned officer in it, — no, nor in the whole line — than Corporal Richard Doubledick. In eighteen hundred and one, the Indian army were on the coast of Egypt. Next year was the year of the proclamation of the short peace, and they were recalled. It had then become well known to thousands of men, that wherever Captain Taunton, with the dark, bright eyes, led, there, close to him, ever at his side, firm as a rock, true as the sun, and brave as Mars, would be certain to be found, while life beat in their hearts, that famous soldier, Serjeant Richard Doubledick. Eighteen hundred and five, besides being the great year of Trafalgar, was a year of hard fighting in India. That year saw such wonders done by a Serjeant-Major, who cut his way single- handed through a solid mass of men, recovered the colours of his regiment, which had been seized from the hand of a poor boy shot through the heart, and rescued his wounded Captain, who was down, and in a very jungle of horses' hoofs and sabres, — saw such wonders done, I say, by this brave Serjeant-Major, that he was specially made the bearer of the colours he had won ; and Ensign Richard Doubledick had risen from the ranks. Sorely cut up in every battle, but always reinforced by the bravest of men, — for the fame of following the old colours, shot through and through, which Ensign Richard Doubledick had saved, inspired all breasts, — this regiment fought its way through the Peninsular war, up to the investment of Badajos in eighteen hun- dred and twelve. Again and again it had been cheered through the British ranks until the tears had sprung into men's eyes at the mere hearing of the mighty British voice, so exultant in their valour ; and there was not a drummer-boy but knew the legend, that wherever the two friends, Major Taunton, with the dark, bright eyes, and Ensign Richard Doubledick, who was devoted to him, were seen to go, there the boldest spirits in the English army became wild to follow. One day, at Badajos, — not in the great storming, but in repel- ling a hot sally of the besieged upon our men at work in the trenches, who had given way, — the two officers found themselves hurrying forward, face to face, against a party of French infantry, who made a stand. There was an officer at their head, encourag- ing his men, — a courageous, handsome, gallant officer of five-and- thirty, whom Doubledick saw hurriedly, almost momentarily, but saw well. He particularly noticed this officer waving his sword, and rallying his men with an eager and excited cry, when they fired in obedience to his gesture, and Major Taunton dropped. 40 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. It was over in ten minutes more, and Doubleclick returned to the spot where he had laid the best friend man ever had on a coat spread upon the wet clay. Major Taunton's uniform was opened at the breast, and on his shirt were three little spots of blood. "Dear Doubledick," said he, "I am dying." "For the love of Heaven, no!" exclaimed the other, kneeling down beside him, and passing his arm round his neck to raise his head. " Taunton ! My preserver, my guardian angel, my witness ! Dearest, truest, kindest of human beings ! Taunton ! For God's sake ! " The bright, dark eyes — so very, very dark now, in the pale face — smiled upon him; and the hand he had kissed thirteen years ago laid itself fondly on his breast. " Write to my mother. You will see Home again. Tell her how we became friends. It \\all comfort her, as it comforts me." He spoke no more, but faintly signed for a moment towards his hair as it fluttered in the wind. The Ensign understood him. He smiled again when he saw that, and, gently turning his face over on the supporting arm as if for rest, died, with his hand upon the breast in which he had revived a soul. No dry eye looked on Ensign Richard Doubledick that melan- choly day. He buried his friend on the field, and became a lone, bereaved man. Beyond his duty he appeared to have but two remaining cares in life, — one, to preserve the little packet of hair he was to give to Taunton's mother ; the other, to encounter that French officer who had rallied the men under whose fire Taunton fell. A new legend now began to circulate among our troops ; and it was, that when he and the French officer came face to face once more, there would be weeping in France. The war went on — and through it went the exact picture of the French officer on the one side, and the bodily reality upon the other — until the Battle of Toulouse was fought. In the returns sent home appeared these words : " Severely wounded, but not dan- gerously. Lieutenant Richard Doubledick." At Midsummer-time, in the year eighteen hundred and fourteen. Lieutenant Richard Doubledick, now a browned soldier, seven-and- thirty years of age, came home to England invalided. He brought the hair with him, near his heart. Many a French officer had he seen since that day ; many a dreadful night, in searching with men and lanterns for his wounded, had he relieved French officers lying disabled ; but the mental picture and the reality had never come together. Though he was weak and suff'ered pain, he lost not an hour in getting down to Frome in Somersetshire, where Taunton's mother THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 41 lived. In the sweet, compassionate words that naturally present themselves to the mind to-night, "he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." It was a Sunday evening, and the lady sat at her quiet garden- window, reading the Bible ; reading to herself, in a trembling voice, that very passage in it, as I have heard him tell. He heard the words : " Young man, I say unto thee, arise ! " He had to pass the window ; and the bright, dark eyes of his debased time seemed to look at him. Her heart told her who he was ; she came to the door quickly, and fell upon his neck. " He saved me from ruin, made me a human creature, won me from infamy and shame. 0, God for ever bless him ! As He will, He will ! " "He will!" the lady answered. "I know he is in Heaven!" Then she piteously cried, "But 0, my darling boy, my darling boy!" Never from the hour when Private Richard Doubledick enlisted at Chatham had the Private, Corporal, Serjeant, Serjeant-Major, Ensign, or Lieutenant breathed his right name, or the name of Mary Marshall, or a word of the story of his life, into any ear except his reclaimer's. That previous scene in his existence was closed. He had firmly resolved that his expiation should be to live unknown ; to disturb no more the peace that had long grown over his old offences ; to let it be revealed, when he was dead, that he had striven and suffered, and had never forgotten; and then, if they could forgive him and believe him — well, it would be time enough — time enough ! But that night, remembering the words he had cherished for two years, " Tell her how we became friends. It will comfort her, as it comforts me," he related everything. It gradually seemed to him as if in his maturity he had recovered a mother ; it gradually seemed to her as if in her bereavement she had found a son. Dur- ing his stay in England, the quiet garden into which he had slowly and painfully crept, a stranger, became the boundary of his home ; when he was able to rejoin his regiment in the spring, he left the garden, thinking was this indeed the first time he had ever turned, his face towards the old colours with a woman's blessing ! He followed them — so ragged, so scarred and pierced now, that they would scarcely hold together — to Quatre Bras and Ligny. He stood beside them, in an awful stillness of many men, shadowy through the mist and drizzle of a wet June forenoon, on the field of Waterloo. And down to that hour the picture in his mind of the French officer had never been compared with the reality. The famous regiment was in action early in the battle, and re- 42 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. ceived its first check in many an eventful year, when he was seen to fall. But it swept on to avenge him, and left behind it no such creat- ure in the world of consciousness as Lieutenant Richard Doubledick. Through pits of mire, and pools of rain ; along deep ditches, once roads, that were pounded and ploughed to pieces by artillery, heavy waggons, tramp of men and horses, and the struggle of every wheeled thing that could carry wounded soldiers ; jolted among the dying and the dead, so disfigured by blood and mud as to be hardly recog- nisable for humanity ; undisturbed by the moaning of men and the shrieking of liorses, which, newly taken from the peaceful pursuits of life, could not endure the sight of the stragglers lying by the way- side, never to resume their toilsome journey ; dead, as to any sen- tient life that was in it, and yet alive, — the form that had been Lieutenant Richard Doubledick, with whose praises England rang, was conveyed to Brussels. There it was tenderly laid down in hos- pital ; and there it lay, week after week, through the long bright summer days, until the harvest, spared by war, had ripened and was gathered in. Over and over again the sun rose and set upon the crowded city ; over and over again the moonlight nights were quiet on the plains of Waterloo : and all that time w\as a blank to what had been Lieutenant Richard Doubledick. Rejoicing troops marched into Brussels, and marched out ; brothers and fathers, sisters, mothers, and wives, came thronging thither, drew their lots of joy or agony, and departed ; so many times a day the bells rang ; so many times the shadows of the great buildings changed ; so many lights sprang up at dusk ; so many feet passed here and there upon the pave- ments ; so many hours of sleep and cooler air of night succeeded : indifferent to all, a marble face lay on a bed, like the face of a re- cumbent statue on the tomb of Lieutenant Richard Doubledick. Slowly labouring, at last, through a long heavy dream of confused^ time and place, presenting faint glimpses of army surgeons whom he knew, and of faces that had been familiar to his youth, — dearest and kindest among them, Mary Marshall's, with a solicitude upoi it more like reality than anything he could discern, — Lieutenant • Richard Doubledick came back to life. To the beautiful life of calm autumn evening sunset, to the peaceful life of a fresh quiet room with a large window standing open ; a balcony beyond, ii which were moving leaves and sweet-smelling flowers ; beyond, again, the clear sky, with the sun full in his sight, pouring its goldei radiance on his bed. It was so tranquil and so lovely that he thought he had into another world. And he said in a faint voice, you near me ? " THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 43 A face bent over him. Not his, his mother's. " I came to nurse you. We have nursed you many weeks. You were moved here long ago. Do you remember nothing 1 " "Nothing." The lady kissed his cheek, and held his hand, soothing him. " Where is the regiment ? What has happened ? Let me call you mother. What has happened, mother 1 " "A great victory, dear. The war is over, and the regiment was the bravest in the field." His eyes kindled, his lips trembled, he sobbed, and the tears ran down his face. He was very weak, too weak to move his hand. " Was it dark just now ? " he asked presently. " No." " It was only dark to me ? Something passed away, like a black shadow. But as it went, and the sun — the blessed sun, how beautiful it is ! — touched my face, I thought I saw a light white cloud pass out at the door. Was there nothing that went out ? " She shook her head, and in a little while he fell asleep, she still holding his hand, and soothing him. From that time, he recovered. Slowly, for he had been desper- ately wounded in the head, and had been shot in the body, but making some little advance every day. When he had gained suffi- cient strength to converse as he lay in bed, he soon began to remark that Mrs. Taunton always brought him back to his own history. Then he recalled his preserver's dying words, and thought, " It comforts her." One day he awoke out of a sleep, refreshed, and asked her to read to him. But the curtain of the bed, softening the light, which she always drew back when he awoke, that she might see him from her table at the bedside where she sat at work, was held undrawn ; and a woman's voice spoke, which was not hers. "Can you bear to see a stranger?" it said softly. "Will you like to see a stranger ? " "Stranger !" he repeated. The voice awoke old memories, be- fore the days of Private Richard Doubledick. "A stranger now, but not a stranger once," it said in tones that thrilled him. "Richard, dear Richard, lost through so many years, my name — " He cried out her name, "Mary," and she held him in her arms, and his head lay on her bosom. " I am not breaking a rash vow, Richard. These are not Mary Marshall's lips that speak. I have another name." She was married. "I have another name, Richard. Did you ever hear it?" 44 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. "Never!" He looked into her face, so pensively beautiful, and wondered at the smile upon it through her tears. " Think again, Richard. Are you sure you never heard my altered name ? " "Never!" " Don't move your head to look at me, dear Richard. Let it lie here, while I tell my story. I loved a generous, noble man ; loved him with my whole heart; loved him for years and years; loved him faithfully, devotedly ; loved him with no hope of return ; loved him, knowing nothing of his highest qualities — not even know- ing that he was alive. He was a brave soldier. He was honoured and beloved by thousands of thousands, when the mother of his dear friend found me, and showed me tliat in all his triumphs he had never forgotten me. He was wounded in a great battle. He was brought, dying, here, into Brussels. I came to watch and tend him, as I would have joyfully gone, with such a purpose, to the dreariest ends of the earth. When he knew no one else, he knew me. When he suffered most, he bore his sufferings barely murmur- ing, content to rest his head where yours rests now. When he lay at^the point of death, he married me, that he might call me Wife before he died. And the name, my dear love, that I took on that forgotten night — " "I know it now!" he sobbed. "The shadowy remembrance strengthens. It is come back. I thank Heaven that my mind is quite restored ! My Mary, kiss me ; lull this weary head to rest, or I shall die of gratitude. His parting words were fulfilled. I see Home again ! " Well! They were happy. It was a long recovery, but they were happy through it all. The snow had melted on the ground, and the birds were singing in the leafless thickets of the early spring, when those three were first able to ride out together, and when^people flocked about the open carriage to cheer and congratu- late Captain Richard Doubledick. But even then it became necessary for the Captain, instead of re- turning to England, to complete his recovery in the climate of South- ern Fmnce. They found a spot upon the Rhone, within a ride of the old town of Avignon, and within view of its broken bridge, which was all they could desire; they lived there, together, six months ; then returned to England. Mrs. Taunton, growing old after three years — though not so old as that her bright, dark eyes were dimmed — and remembering that her strength had been bene- fited by the change, resolved to go back for a year to those parts. So she went with a faithful servant, who had often carried her son THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 45 in his arms ; and she was to be rejoined and escorted home, at the year's end, by Captain Richard Doubledick. She wrote regularly to her children (as she called them now), and they to her. She went to the neighbourhood of Aix ; and there, in their own chateau near the farmer's house she rented, she grew into intimacy with a family belonging to that part of France. The intimacy began in her often meeting among the vineyards a pretty child, a girl with a most compassionate heart, who was never tired of listening to the solitary English lady's stories of her poor son and the cruel wars. The family were as gentle as the child, and at length she came to know them so well that she accepted their invitation to pass the last month of hei* residence abroad under their roof All this intelligence she wrote home, piecemeal as it came about, from time to time ; and at last enclosed a polite note, from the head of the chateau, soliciting, on the occasion of his approaching mission to that neighbourhood, the honour of the company of cet homme si justement c^l^bre. Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick. Captain Doubledick, now a hardy, handsome man in the full vigour of life, broader across the chest and shoulders than he had ever been before, despatched a courteous reply, and followed it in person. Travelling through all that extent of country after three years of Peace, he blessed the better days on which the world had fallen. The corn was golden, not drenched in unnatural red ; was bound in sheaves for food, not trodden underfoot by men in mortal fight. The smoke rose up from peaceful hearths, not blazing ruins. The carts were laden with the fair fruits of the earth, not with wounds and death. To him who had so often seen the terrible reverse, these things were beautiful indeed ; and they brought him in a softened spirit to the old chateau near Aix upon a deep blue evening. It w^as a large chateau of the genuine old ghostly kind, with round towers, and extinguishers, and a high leaden roof, and more windows than Aladdin's Palace. The lattice blinds were all thrown open after the heat of the day, and there were glimpses of rambling walls and corridors within. Then there were immense out-buildings fallen into partial decay, masses of dark trees, terrace- gardens, balustrades ; tanks of water, too weak to play and too dirty to work; statues, w^eeds, and thickets of iron railing that seemed to have overgrown themselves like the shrubberies, and to have branched out in all manner of wild shapes. The entrance doors stood open, as doors often do in that country when the heat of the day is past ; and the Captain saw no bell or knocker, and walked in. 46 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. He walked into a lofty stone hall, refreshingly cool and gloomy after the glare of a Southern day's travel. Extending along the four sides of this hall was a gallery, leading to suites of rooms; and it was lighted from the top. Still no bell was to be seen. "Faith," said the Captain halting, ashamed of the clanking of his boots, " this is a ghostly beginning ! " He started back, and felt his face turn white. In the gallery, looking down at him, stood the French officer — the officer whose picture he had carried in his mind so long and so far. Compared with the original, at last — in every lineament how like it was ! He moved, and disappeared, and Captain Richard Doubledick heard his steps coming quickly down into the hall. He entered through an archway. There was a bright, sudden look upon his face, much such a look as it had worn in that fatal moment. Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick ? Enchanted to re- ceive him ! A thousand apologies ! The servants were all out in the air. There was a little fete among them in the garden. In effect, it was the fete day of my daughter, the little cherished and protected of Madame Taunton. He was so gracious and so frank that Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick could not withhold his hand. " It is the hand of a brave Englishman," said the French officer, retaining it while he spoke. " I could respect a brave Englishman, even as my foe, how much more as my friend ! I also am a soldier." "He has not remembered me, as I have remembered him; he did not take such note of my face, that day, as I took of his, "-thought Captain Richard Doubledick. "How shall I tell him?" The French officer conducted his guest into a garden and pre- sented him to his wife, an engaging and beautiful woman, sitting with Mrs. Taunton in a whimsical old-fashioned pavilion. His daughter, her fair young face beaming with joy, came running to embrace him ; and there was a boy-baby to tumble down among the orange trees on the broad steps, in making for his father's legs. A multitude of children visitors were dancing to sprightly music ; and all the servants and peasants about the chateau were dancing too. It was a scene of innocent happiness that might have been invented for the climax of the scenes of peace which had soothed the Captain's journey. He looked on, greatly troubled in his mind, until a resounding bell rang, and the French officer begged to show him his rooms. They went up-stairs into the gallery from which the officer had looked down ; and Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick Avas cordially welcomed to a grand outer chamber, and a smaller one THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 47 within, all clocks and draperies, and hearths, and brazen dogs, and tiles, and cool devices, and elegance, and vastness. "You were at Waterloo," said the French officer. "I was," said Captain Richard Doubledick. "And at Badajos." Left alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he sat down to consider, What shall I do, and how shall I tell him 1 At that time, unhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought between English and French officers, arising out of the recent war ; and these duels, and how to avoid this officer's hospitality, were the uppermost thought in Captain Richard Doubledick's mind. He was thinking, and letting the time run out in which he should have dressed for dinner, when Mrs. Taujiton spoke to him outside the door, asking if he could give her the letter he had brought from Mary. "His mother, above all," the Captain thought. "How shall I tell her?'' "You will form a friendship with your host, I hope," said Mrs. Taunton, whom he hurriedly admitted, "that will last for life. He is so true-hearted and so generous, Richard, that you can hardly fail to esteem one another. If He had been spared," she kissed (not without tears) the locket in which she wore his hair, " he would have appreciated him with his own magnanimity, and would have been truly happy that the evil days were past which made such a man his enemy." She left the room ; and the Captain walked, first to one window, whence he could see the dancing in the garden, then to another window, whence he could see the smiling prospect and the peaceful vineyards. "Spirit of my departed friend," said he, "is it through thee these better thoughts are rising in my mind ? Is it thou who hast shown me, all the way I have been drawn to meet this man, the blessings of the altered time 1 Is it thou who has sent thy stricken mother to me, to stay my angry hand 1 Is it from thee the whis- per comes, that this man did his duty as thou didst, — and as I did, through thy guidance, which has wholly saved me here on earth, — and that he did no more 1 " He sat down, with his head buried in his hands, and, when he rose up, made the second strong resolution of his life, — that neither to the French officer, nor to the mother of his departed friend, nor to any soul, while either of the two was living, would he breathe what only he knew. And when he touched that French officer's glass with his own, that day at dinner, he secretly forgave him in the name of the Divine Forgiver of injuries. Here I ended my story as the first Poor Traveller. But, if I 48 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. had told it now, I could have added that the time has since come when the son of Major Richard Doubledick, and the son of that French oflQcer, friends as their fathers were before them, fought side by side in one cause, with their respective nations, like long- divided brothers whom the better times have brought together, fast united. Chapter II. THE ROAD. My story being finished, and the Wassail too, we broke up as the Cathedral bell struck Twelve. I did not take leave of my Travel- lers that night ; for it had come into my head to reappear, in con- junction with some hot coffee, at seven in the morning. As I passed along the High-street, I heard the Waits at a dis- tance, and struck off to find them. They were playing near one of the old gates of the City, at the corner of a wonderfully quaint row of red-brick tenements, which the clarionet obligingly informed me were inhabited by the Minor-Canons. They had odd little porches over the doors, like sounding-boards over old pulpits ; and I thought I should like to see one of the Minor-Canons come out upon his top step, and favour us with a little Christmas discourse about the poor scholars of Rochester ; taking for his text the words of his Master relative to the devouring of Widows' houses. The clarionet was so communicative, and my inclinations were (as they generally are) of so vagabond a tendency, that I accom- panied the Waits across an open green called the Vines, and as- sisted — in the French sense — at the performance of two waltzes, two polkas, and three Irish melodies, before I thought of my inn any more. However, I returned to it then, and found a fiddle in the kitchen, and Ben, the wall-eyed young man, and two chamber- maids, circling round the great deal table with the utmost anima- tion. I had a very bad night. It cannot have been owing to the turkey or the beef, — and the Wassail is out of the question, — but in every endeavour that I made to get to sleep I failed most dismally. I was never asleep ; and in whatsoever unreasonable direction my mind rambled, the eflfigy of Master Richard Watts perpetually embarrassed it. In a word, I only got out of the Worshipful Master Richard Watts's way by getting out of bed in the dark at six o'clock, and tumbling, as my custom is, into all the cold water that could be accumulated for the purpose. The outer air was dull and cold THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 49 enough in the street, when I came down there ; and the one can- dle in our supper-room at Watts's Charity looked as pale in the burning as if it had had a bad night too. But my Travellers had all slept soundly, and they took to the hot coffee, and the piles of bread-and-butter, which Ben had arranged like deals in a timber-yard, as kindly as I could desire. While it was yet scarcely daylight, w^e all came out into the street together, and there shook hands. The widow took the little sailor towards Chatham, where he was to find a steamboat for Sheerness ; the lawyer, with an extremely knowing look, went his own way, without committing himself by announcing his intentions ; two more struck off by the cathedral and old castle for Maidstone ; and the Book-Pedler accompanied me over the bridge. As for me, I was going to walk by Cobham Woods, as far upon my way to London as I fancied. When I came to the stile and footpath by which I was to di- verge from the main road, I bade farewell to my last remaining Poor Traveller, and pursued my way alone. And now the mists began to rise in the most beautiful manner, and the sun to shine ; and as I went on through the bracing air, seeing the hoar-frost sparkle everywhere, I felt as if all Nature shared in the joy of the great Birthday. Going through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossy ground and among the brown leaves enhanced the Christmas sacredness by which I felt surrounded. As the whitened stems environed me, I thought how the Founder of the time had never raised his benignant hand, save to bless and h^al, except in the case of one unconscious tree. By Cobham Hall, I came to the village, and the churchyard where the dead had been quietly bur- ied, "in the sure and certain hope" which Christmas time inspired. What children could I see at play, and not be loving of, recalling who had loved them ! No garden that I passed was out of unison with the day, for I remembered that the tomb was in a garden, and that " she, supposing him to be the gardener," had said, '' Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away." In time, the distant river with the ships came full in view, and with it pictures of the poor fishermen, mend- ing their nets, who arose and followed him, — of the teaching of the people from a ship pushed oft" a little way from shore, by reason of the multitude, — of a majestic figure walking on the water, in the loneliness of night. My very shadow on the ground was eloquent of Christmas ; for did not the people lay their sick where the mere shadows of the men who had heard and seen him might fall as they passed along 1 50 THE HOLLY-TREE. Thus Christmas begirt me, far and near, until I liad come to Blackheath, and had walked down the long vista of gnarled dd frees in Gr;enwich Park, and was being steam-rattled through the mists now closing in once more, towards the hghts of London .Brightly they shone, but not so brightly as rny own fire and he bri4ter faces around it, when we came together to celebrate the dly And there I told of worthy Master Richard Watts, and of mj'supper with the six Poor Travellers who were neither Rogues nor Proctors, and from that hour to this I have never seen one ot them again. THE HOLLY-TREE. IN THREE CHAPTERS. Chapter I. THE GUEST. I HAVE kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bash- ful man. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody ever did suppose it, but I am naturally a bashlul man. This is the secret which I have never breathed until now. I mio-ht greatly move the reader by some account of the innu- merable places I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called upon or received, the innumerable social evasions 1 have been o-uilty of, selely because I am by original constitution and character a bashful man. But I will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me. , , v That object is to give a plain account of my travels and dis- coveries in the Holly-Tree Inn ; in which place of good entertain- ment for man and beast I was once snowed up. It happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever from Angela Leath, whom I was shortly to have married, on making the discovery that she preferred my bosom friend. From our school^ days I had freely admitted Edwin, in my own mmd, to be lar superior to myself; and, though I was grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natural, and tried to forgive tliem both. It was under these circumstances that I resolved to go to America — on my way to the Devil. ^ x^ i • Communicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, but resolving to write each of them an affecting letter conveying my blessing and forgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore should carry to the post when I myself should be bound for the New THE HOLLY TREE. 52 THE HOLLY-TREE. World, far beyond recall, — I say, locking up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as I could with the prospect of being generous, I quietly left all I held dear, and started on the desolate journey I have mentioned. The dead winter- time was in full dreariness when I left my chambers for ever, at five o'clock in the morning. I had shaved by candle-light, of course, and was miserably cold, and experienced that general all-pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged which I have usually found inseparable from untimely rising under such circumstances. How well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet-street when I came out of the Temple ! The street-lamps flickering in the gusty north-east wind, as if the very gas were contorted with cold ; the white-topped houses; the bleak, star-lighted sky; the market people and other early stragglers, trotting to circulate their almost frozen blood ; the hospitable light and warmth of the few coffee-shops and public-houses that were open for such customers ; the hard, dry, frosty rime with which the air was charged (the wind had already beaten it into every crevice), and which lashed my face like a steel whip. It wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the year. The Post-office packet for the United States was to depart from Liverpool, weather permitting, on the first of the ensuing month, and I had the intervening time on my hands. I had taken this into consideration, and had resolved to make a visit to a cer- tain spot (which I need not name) on the farther borders of York- shire. It was endeared to me by my having first seen Angela at a farm-house in that place, and my melancholy was gratified by the idea of taking a wintry leave of it before my expatriation. I ought to explain, that, to avoid being sought out before my resolution should have been rendered irrevocable by being carried into full effect, I had written to Angela overnight, in my usual manner, lamenting that urgent business, of which she should know all par- ticulars by-and-bye — took me unexpectedly away from her for a week or ten days. There was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its place there were stage-coaches ; which I occasionally find myself, in com- mon with some other people, affecting to lament now, but which everybody dreaded as a very serious penance then. I had secured the box-seat on the fastest of these, and my business in Fleet-street was to get into a cab with my portmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the Peacock at Islington, where I was to join this coach. But when one of our Temple watchmen, who carried my portmanteau into Fleet-street for me, told me about the huge blocks pf ice that had for some days past been floating in the river, having THE HOLLY-TREE. 53 closed up in the night, and made a walk from the Temple Gardens over to the Surrey shore, I began to ask myself the question, whether the box-seat would not be likely to put a sudden and a frosty end to my unhappiness. I was heart-broken, it is true, and yet I was not quite so far gone as to wish to be frozen to death. When I got up to the Peacock, — where I found everybody drinking hot purl, in self-preservation, — I asked if there were an inside seat to spare. I then discovered that, inside or out, I was the only passenger. This gave me a still livelier idea of the great inclemency of the weather, since that coach always loaded particu- larly well. However, I took a little purl (which I found uncom- monly good), and got into the coach. When„I was seated, they built me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of making a rather ridiculous appearance, I began my journey. It was still dark when we left the Peacock. For a little while, pale, uncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished, and then it was hard, black, frozen day. People were lighting their fires ; smoke was mounting straight up high into the rarefied air; and we were rattling for Highgate Archway over the hardest ground I have ever heard the ring of iron shoes on. As we got into the country, everything seemed to have grown old and grey. The roads, the trees, thatched roofs of cottages and homesteads, the ricks in farmers' yards. Out-door work was abandoned, horse- troughs at roadside inns were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged about, doors were close shut, little turnpike houses had blazing fires inside, and children (even turnpike people have children, and seem to like them) rubbed the frost from the little panes of glass with their chubby arms, that their bright eyes might catch a glimpse of the solitary coach going by. I don't know when the snow began to set in ; but I know that we were changing horses somewhere when I heard the guard remark, " That the old lady up in the sky was picking her geese pretty hard to-day." Then, indeed, I found the white down falling fast and thick. The lonely day wore on, and I dozed it out, as a lonely traveller does. I was warm and valiant after eating and drinking, — par- ticularly after dinner ; cold and depressed at all other times. I was always bewildered as to time and place, and always more or less out of my senses. The coach and horses seemed to execute in chorus Auld Lang Syne, without a moment's intermission. They kept the time and tune with the greatest regularity, and rose into the swell at the beginning of the Refrain, with a precision that worried me to death. While we changed horses, the guard and coachman went stumping up and down the road, printing off their shoes in the snow, and poured so much liquid consolation into themselves with- 54 THE HOLLY-TREE. out being any the worse for it, that I began to confound them, as it darkened again, with two great white casks standing on end. Our horses tumbled down in solitary places, and we got them up, — which was the pleasantest variety I had, for it warmed me. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snow- ing. All night long we went on in this manner. Thus we came round the clock, upon the Great North Road, to the performance of Auld Lang Syne by day again. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. I forget now where we were at noon on the second day, and where we ought to have been ; but I know that we were scores of miles behindhand, and that our case was growing worse every hour. The drift was becoming prodigiously deep ; landmarks were getting snowed out ; the road and the fields were all one ; instead of having fences and hedge-rows to guide us, we went crunching on over an unbroken surface of ghastly white that might sink beneath us at any moment and drop us down a whole hillside. Still the coachman and guard — who kept together on the box, always in council, and looking well about them — made out the track with astonishing sagacity. When we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a large drawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended on the churches and houses where the snow lay thickest. When we came within a town, and found the church clocks all stopped, the dial-faces choked with snow, and the inn-signs blotted out, it seemed as if the whole place were overgrown with white moss. As to the coach, it was a mere snowball ; similarly, the men and boys who ran along beside us to the town's end, turning our clogged wheels and encouraging our horses, were men and boys of snow ; and the bleak wild solitude to which they at last dismissed us was a snowy Sahara. One would have thought this enough : notwith- standing which, I pledge my word that it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. We performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day ; seeing nothing, out of towns and villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, and sometimes of birds. At nine o'clock at night, on a Yorkshire moor, a cheerful burst from our horn, and a welcome sound of talk- ing, with a glimmering and moving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy state. I found that we were going to change. They helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head be- came as white as King Lear's in a single minute, " What Inn is this ? " "The Holly-Tree, sir," said he. "Upon my word, I believe," said I, apologetically, to the guard and coachman, "that I must stop here." Now the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the post- THE HOLLY-TREE. 55 boy, and all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the wide-eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant to go on. The coachman liad already replied, "Yes, he'd take her through it," — meaning by Her the coach, — "if so be as George would stand by him." George was the guard, and he had already sworn that he ivould stand by him. So the helpers were already getting the horses out. My declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not an announce- ment without preparation. Indeed, but for the way to the announce- ment being smoothed by the parley, I more than doubt whether, as an innately bashful man, I should have had the confidence to make it. As it was, it received the approval even of the guard and coachman. Therefore, with many confirmations of my inclin- ing, and many remarks from one bystander to another, that the gen- tleman could go for'ard by the mail to-morrow, whereas to-night he would only be froze, and where was the good of a gentleman being froze, — ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause was added by a humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely well received), I saw my portmanteau got out stiff*, like a frozen body ; did the handsome thing by the guard and coachman ; wished them good night and a prosperous journey ; and, a little ashamed of myself, after all, for leaving them to fight it out alone, followed the landlord, landlady, and waiter of the Holly-Tree up-stairs. I thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which they showed me. It had five windows, with dark red curtains that would have absorbed the light of a general illumination ; and there were complications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that went wandering about the wall in a most extraordinary manner. I asked for a smaller room, and they told me there was no smaller room. They could screen me in, however, the landlord said. They brought a great old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I sup- pose) engaged in a variety of idiotic pursuits all over it ; and left me roasting whole before an immense fire. My bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase at the end of a long gallery ; and nobody knows what a misery this is to a bashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs. It was the grimmest room I have ever had the nightmare in ; and all the furniture, from the four posts of the bed to the two old silver candlesticks, was tall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted. Below, in my sitting-room, if I looked round my screen, the wind rushed at me like a mad bull ; if I stuck to my arm-chair, the fire scorched me to the colour of a new brick. The chimney-piece was very high, and there was a bad glass — what I may call a wavy glass — above it, which, when I stood up, just showed me my an- 66 THE HOLLY-TREE. terior phrenological developments, — and these never look well, in any subject, cut short off at the eyebrow. If I stood with my back to the fire, a gloomy vault of darkness above and beyond the screen insisted on being looked at ; and, in its dim remoteness, the drapery of the ten curtains of the five windows w^ent twisting and creeping about, like a nest of gigantic worms. I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some other men of similar character in themselves ; therefore I am embold- ened to mention, that, when I travel, I never arrive at a place but I immediately want to go away from it. Before I had finished my supper of broiled fowl and mulled port, I had impressed upon the w^aiter in detail my arrangements for departure in the morning. Breakfast and bill at eight. Fly at nine. Two horses, or, if need- ful; even four. Tired though I was, the night appeared about a week long. In oases of nightmare, I thought of Angela, and felt more depressed than ever by the reflection that I was on the shortest road to Gretna Green. AVhat had / to do with Gretna Green ? I was not going that way to the Devil, but by the American route, I remarked in my bitterness. In the morning I found that it was snowing still, that it had snowed all night, and that I was snowed up. Nothing could get out of that spot on the moor, or could come at it, until the road had been cut out by labourers from the market-town. When they might cut their way to the Holly-Tree nobody could tell me. It was now Christmas-eve. I should have had a dismal Christ- mas-time of it anywhere, and consequently that did not so much matter ; still, being snowed up was like dying of frost, a thing I had not bargained for. I felt very lonely. Yet I could no more have proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though I should have liked it very much) than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate. Here my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were bashful too. Besides being far too shamefaced to make the pro- posal myself, I really had a delicate misgiving that it would be in the last degree disconcerting to them. Trying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, I first of all asked what books there were in the house. The w^aiter brought me a Booh of Roads, two or three old Newspapers, a little Song- Book, terminating in a collection of Toasts and Sentiments, a little Jest-Book, an odd volume of Peregrine Pichle, and the Senti- mental Journey. I knew every word of the two last already, but I read them through again, then tried to hum all the songs (Auld THE HOLLY-TREE. 57 Lang Syne was among them) ; went entirely through the jokes, — in which I found a fund of melancholy adapted to my state of mind ; proposed all the toasts, enunciated all the sentiments, and mastered the papers. The latter had nothing in them but stock advertisements, a meeting about a county rate, and a highway robbery. As I am a greedy reader, I could not make this supply hold out until night ; it was exhausted by tea-time. Being then entirely cast upon my own resources, I got through an hour in con- sidering what to do next. Ultimately, it came into my head (from which I was anxious by any means to exclude Angela and Edwin), that I would endeavour to recall my experience of Inns, and would try how long it lasted me. I stirred the firq, moved my chair a little to one side of the screen, — not daring to go far, for I knew the wind was waiting to make a rush at me, I could hear it growl- ing, — and began. My first impressions of an Inn dated from the Nursery ; conse- quently I went back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found myself at the knee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a green gown, whose specialty was a dismal narrative of a landlord by the roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disap- peared for many years, until it was discovered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert them into pies. For the better devo- tion of himself to this branch of industry, he had constructed a secret door behind the head of the bed ; and when the visitor (op- pressed with pie) had fallen asleep, this wicked landlord would look softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the other, would cut his throat, and would make him into pies ; for which purpose he had coppers, underneath a trap-door, always boiling ; and rolled out his pastry in the dead of the night. Yet even he was not in- sensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to sleep without being heard to mutter, " Too much pepper ! " which was eventually the cause of his being brought to justice. I had no sooner disposed of this criminal than there started up another of the same period, whose profession was originally housebreaking ; in the pursuit of which art he had had his right ear chopped off one night, as he was burglariously getting in at a window, by a brave and lovely servant-maid (whom the aquiline-nosed woman, though not at all answering the description, always mysteriously implied to be herself). After several years, this brave and lovely servant-maid was married to the landlord of a country Inn ; which landlord had this remarkable characteristic, that he always wore a silk nightcap, and never would on any consideration take it off. At last, one night, when he was fast asleep, the brave and lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap on the right side, and found that he had no 68 THE HOLLY-TREE. ear there ; upon which she sagaciously perceived that he was the clipped housebreaker, who had married her with the intention of putting her to death. She immediately heated the poker and t-erminated his career, for which she was taken to King George upon his throne, and received the compliments of royalty on her great discretion and valour. This same narrator, who had a Ghoul- ish pleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the utmost confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within her own experience, founded, I now believe, upon Raymond and Agnes, or the Bleeding Kun. She said it happened to her brother-in-law, who was immensely rich, — which my father was not ; and immensely tall, — which my father was not. It was al- ways a point with this Ghoul to present my dearest relations and friends to my youthful mind under circumstances of disparaging contrast. The brother-in-law was riding once through a forest on a magnificent horse (we had no magnificent horse at our house), attended by a favourite and valuable Newfoundland dog (we had no dog), when he found himself benighted, and came to an Inn. A dark woman opened the door, and he asked her if he could have a bed there. She answered yes, and put his horse in the stable, and took him into a room where there were two dark men. While he was at supper, a parrot in the room began to talk, saying, " Blood, blood ! Wipe up the blood ! " Upon which one of the dark men wrung the parrot's neck, and said he was fond of roasted parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the morn- ing. After eating and drinking heartily, the immensely rich, tall brother-in-law went up to bed ; but he was rather vexed, because they had shut his dog in the stable, saying that they never allowed dogs in the house. He sat very quiet for more than an hour, think- ing and thinking, when, just as his candle was burning out, he heard a scratch at the door. He opened the door, and there was the Newfoundland dog ! The dog came softly in, smelt about him, went straight to some straw in the corner which the dark men had said covered apples, tore the straw away, and disclosed two sheets steeped in blood. Just at that moment the candle went out, and the brother-in-law^, looking through a chink in the door, saw the two dark men stealing up-stairs ; one armed with a dagger that long (about five feet) ; the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and a spade. Having no remembrance of the close of this adventure, I suppose my faculties to have been always so frozen with terror at this stage of it, that the power of listening stagnated within me for some quarter of an hour. These barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the Holly- Tree hearth, to the Roadside Inn, renowned in my time in a THE HOLLY-TREE. 59 sixpenny book with a folding plate, representing in a central com- partment of oval form the portrait of Jonathan Bradford, and in four corner compartments four incidents of the tragedy with which the name is associated, — coloured with a hand at once so free and economical, that the bloom of Jonathan's complexion passed with- out any pause into the breeches of the ostler, and, smearing itself off into the next division, became rum in a bottle. Then I remem- bered how the landlord was found at the murdered traveller's bedside, with his own knife at his feet, and blood upon his hand ; how he was hanged for the murder, notwithstanding his protesta- tion that he had indeed come there to kill the traveller for his saddle-bags, but had been stricken motionkss on finding him already slain; and how the ostler, years afterwards, owned the deed. By this time I had made myself quite uncomfortable. I stirred the fire, and stood with my back to it as long as I could bear the heat, looking up at the darkness beyond the screen, and at the wormy curtains creeping in and creeping out, like the worms in the ballad of Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene. There was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school, which had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these. I took it next. It was the Inn where friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fouls, and be tipped. It had an ecclesiastical sign, — the Mitre, — and a bar that seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug. I loved the landlord's youngest daughter to distraction, — but let that pass. It was in this Inn that I was cried over by my rosy little sister, because I had acquired a black eye in a fight. And though she had been, that Holly-Tree night, for many a long year where all tears are dried, the Mitre softened me yet. "To be continued to-morrow," said I, when I took my candle to go to bed. But my bed took it upon itself to continue the train of thought that night. It carried me away, like the enchanted carpet, to a distant place (though still in England), and there, alighting from a stage-coach at another Inn in the snow, as I had actually done some years before, I repeated in my sleep a curious experience I had really had there. More than a year before I made the journey in the course of which I put up at that Inn, I had lost a very near and dear friend by death. Every night since, at home or away from home, I had dreamed of that friend ; some- times as still living; sometimes as returning from the world of shadows to comfort me ; always as being beautiful, placid, and happy, never in association with any approach to fear or distress. It was at a lonely Inn in a wide moorland place, that I halted to pass the night. When I had looked from my bedroom window 60 THE HOLLY-TREE. over the waste of snow on which the moon was shining, I sat down by my fire to write a letter. I had always, until that hour, kept it within my own breast that I dreamed every night of the dear lost one. But in the letter that I wrote I recorded the circum- stance, and added that I felt much interested in proving whether the subject of my dream would still be faithful to me, travel-tired, and in that remote place. No. I lost the beloved figure of my vision in parting with the secret. My sleep has never looked upon it since, in sixteen years, but once. I was in Italy, and awoke (or seemed to awake), the well-remembered voice distinctly in my ears, conversing with it. I entreated it, as it rose above my bed and soared up to the vaulted roof of the old room, to answer me a question I had asked touching the Future Life. My hands were still outstretched towards it as it vanished, when I heard a bell ringing by the garden wall, and a voice in the deep stillness of the night calling on all good Christians to pray for the souls of the dead ; it being All Souls' Eve. To return to the Holly-Tree. When I awoke next day, it was freezing hard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow. My breakfast cleared away, I drew my chair into its former place, and, with the fire getting so much the better of the landscape that I sat in twilight, resumed my Inn remembrances. That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, in the days of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness. It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the mid- night wind that rattled my lattice window came moaning at me from Stonehenge. There was a hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally preserved Druid I believe him to have been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off" ; who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for the reappearance, on the verge of the horizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mutton for many ages. He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them ; likewise, that any one who counted them three times nine times, and then stood in the centre and said, " I dare ! " would behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken dead. He pre- tended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him to have been famil- iar with the dodo), in manner following : He was out upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day, when he dimly discerned, going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace, what he at first supposed to be a gig-umbrella that had been blown from some conveyance, but what he presently believed to be a lean dwarf man upon a little pony. Having followed this object for some distance THE HOLLY-TREE. 61 without gaining on it, and having called to it many times without receiving any answer, he pursued it for miles and miles, when, at length coming up with it, he discovered it to be the last bustard in Great Britain, degenerated into a wingless state, and running along the ground. Resolved to capture him or perish in the attempt, he closed with the bustard ; but the bustard, who had formed a coun- ter-resolution that he should do neither, threw him, stunned him, and was last seen making off due west. This weird man, at that stage of metempsychosis, may have been a sleep-walker or an en- thusiast or a robber ; but I awoke one night to find him in the dark at my bedside, repeating the Athanasian Creed in a terrific voice. I paid my bill next day, and retired fram the county with all possible precipitation. That was not a commonplace story which worked itself out at a little Inn in Switzerland, while I was staying there. It was a very homely place, in a village of one narrow zigzag street, among mountains, and you went in at the main door through the cow- house, and among the mules and the dogs and the fowls, before ascending a great bare staircase to the rooms ; which were all of unpainted wood, without plastering or papering, — like rough packing-cases. Outside there was nothing but the straggling street, a little toy church with a copper-coloured steeple, a pine forest, a torrent, mists, and mountain-sides. A young man belonging to this Inn had disappeared eight weeks before (it was winter-time), and was supposed to have had some undiscovered love affair, and to have gone for a soldier. He had got up in the night, and dropped into the village street from the loft in which he slept with another man ; and he had done it so quietly, that his companion and fellow-labourer had heard no movement when he was awakened in the morning, and they said, "Louis, where is Henri?" They looked for him high and low, in vain, and gave him up. Now, outside this Inn, there stood, as there stood outside every dwelling in the village, a stack of firewood ; but the stack belonging to the Inn was higher than any of the rest, because the Inn was the rich- est house, and burnt the most fuel. It began to be noticed, while they were looking high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the live-stock of the Inn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to the top of this wood-stack ; and that he would stay there for hours and hours, crowing, until he appeared in danger of splitting himself. Five weeks went on, — six weeks, — and still this ter- rible Bantam, neglecting his domestic affairs, was always on the top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes out of his head. By this time it was perceived that Louis had become inspired with a violent animosity towards the terrible Bantam, and one morning 62 THE HOLLY-TREE. he was seen by a woman, who sat nursing her goitre at a little window in a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough billet of wood, with a great oath, hurl it at the terrible Bantam crowing on the wood- stack, and bring him down dead. Hereupon the woman, with a sudden light in her mind, stole round to the back of the wood- stack, and, being a good climber, as all those women are, climbed up, and soon was seen upon the summit, screaming, looking down the hollow within, and crying, " Seize Louis, the murderer ! Ring the church bell ! Here is the body ! " I saw the murderer that day, and I saw him as I sat by my fire at the Holly-Tree Inn, and I see him now, lying shackled with cords on the stable litter, among the mild eyes and the smoking breath of the cows, waiting to be taken away by the police, and stared at by the fearful village. A heavy animal, — the dullest animal in the stables, — with a stupid head, and a lumpish face devoid of any trace of sensibility, who had been, within the knowledge of the murdered youth, an embezzler of certain small moneys belonging to his master, and who had taken this hopeful mode of putting a possible accuser out of his way. All of which he confessed next day, like a sulky wretch who couldn't be troubled any more, now that they had got hold of him, and meant to make an end of him. I saw him once again, on the day of my departure from the Inn. In that Canton the headsman still does his office with a sword ; and I came upon this murderer sitting bound to a chair, with his eyes bandaged, on a scaff'old in a little market-place. In that instant, a great sword (loaded with quicksilver in the thick part of the blade), swept round him like a gust of wind or fire, and there was no such creature in the world. My wonder was, not that he was so sud- denly despatched, but that any head was left unreaped, within a radius of fifty yards of that tremendous sickle. That was a good Inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady and the honest landlord, where I lived in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and where one of the apartments has a zoological papering on the walls, not so accurately joined but that the elephant occasionally rejoices in a tiger's hind legs and tail, while the lion puts on a trunk and tusks, and the bear, moulting as it were, appears as to portions of himself like a leopard. I made several American friends at that Inn, who all called Mont Blanc Mount Blank, — except one good-humoured gentleman, of a very sociable nature, who became on such intimate terms with it that he spoke of it familiarly as " Blank ; " observing, at breakfast, " Blank looks pretty tall this morning ; " or considerably doubting in the courtyard in the even- ing, whether there warn't some go-ahead naters in our country, sir, that would make out the top of Blank in a couple of hours from first start — now ! THE HOLLY-TREE. 63 Once I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of England, where I was haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie. It was a Yorkshire pie, like a fort, — an abandoned fort with nothing in it ; but the waiter had a fixed idea that it was a point of ceremony at every meal to put the pie on the table. After some days I tried to hint, in several delicate ways, that I considered the pie done with ; as, for example, by emptying fag-ends of glasses of wine into it ; putting cheese-plates and spoons into it, as into a basket ; put- ting wine-bottles into it, as into a cooler ; but always in vain, the pie being invariably cleaned out again and brought up as before. At last, beginning to be doubtful whether I w^as not the victim of a spectral illusion, and whether my health ami spirits might not sink under the horrors of an imaginary pie, I cut a triangle out of it, fully as large as the musical instrument of that name in a power- ful orchestra. Human prevision could not have foreseen the result — but the waiter mended the pie. With some effectual species of cement, he adroitly fitted the triangle in again, and I paid my reckoning and fled. The Holly-Tree was getting rather dismal. I made an overland expedition beyond the screen, and penetrated as far as the fourth window. Here I was driven back by stress of weather. Arrived at my winter-quarters once more, I made up the fire, and took another Inn. It was in the remotest part of Cornwall. A great annual Miners' Feast was being holden at the Inn, when I and my travelling com- panions presented ourselves at night among the wild crowd that were dancing before it by torchlight. We had had a break-down in the dark, on a stony morass some miles away ; and I had the honour of leading one of the unharnessed post-horses. If any lady or gentleman, on perusal of the present lines, will take any very tall post-horse wdth his traces hanging about his legs, and will con- duct him by the bearing-rein into the heart of a country dance of a hundred and fifty couples, that lady or gentleman will then, and only then, form an adequate idea of the extent to which that post- horse will tread on his conductor's toes. Over and above which, the post-horse, finding three hundred people whirling about him, will probably rear, and also lash out with his hind legs, in a man- ner incompatible with dignity or self-respect on his conductor's part. With such little drawbacks on my usually impressive aspect, I appeared at this Cornish Inn, to the unutterable wonder of the Cornish Miners. It was full, and twenty times full, and nobody could be received but the post-horse, — though to get rid of that noble animal was something. While my fellow-travellers and I were discussing how to pass the night and so much of the next 64 THE HOLLY-TREE. day as must intervene before the jovial blacksmith and the jovial wheelwright would be in a condition to go out on the morass and mend the coach, an honest man stepped forth from the crowd and proposed his unlet floor of two rooms, with supper of eggs and bacon, ale and punch. We joyfully accompanied him home to the strangest of clean houses, where we were well entertained to the satisfaction of all parties. But the novel feature of the enter- tainment was, that our host was a chair-maker, and that the chairs assigned to us were mere frames, altogether without bottoms of any sort ; so that we passed the evening on perches. Nor was this the absurdest consequence ; for when we unbent at supper, and any one of us gave way to laughter, he forgot the peculiarity of his position, and instantly disappeared. I myself, doubled up into an attitude from which self-extrication was impossible, was taken out of my frame, like a clown in a comic pantomime who has tumbled into a tub, five times by the taper's light during the eggs and bacon. The Holly-Tree was fast reviving within me a sense of loneliness. I began to feel conscious that my subject would never carry on until I was dug out. I might be a week here, — weeks ! There was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with an Inn I once passed a night at in a picturesque old town on the Welsh border. In a large double-bedded room of this Inn there had been a suicide committed by poison, in one bed, while a tired traveller slept unconscious in the other. After that time, the suicide bed was never used, but the other constantly was ; the disused bedstead remaining in the room empty, though as to all other respects in its old state. The story ran, that whosoever slept in this room, though never so entire a stranger, from never so far off", was invariably ob- served to come down in the morning with an impression that he smelt Laudanum, and that his mind always turned upon the sub- ject of suicide ; to which, whatever kind of man he might be, he was certain to make some reference if he conversed with any one. This went on for years, until it at length induced the landlord to take the disused bedstead down, and bodily burn it, — bed, hang- ings, and all. The strange influence (this was the story) now changed to a fainter one, but never changed afterwards. The oc- cupant of that room, with occasional but very rare exceptions, would come down in the morning, trying to recall a forgotten dream he had had in the night. The landlord, on his mentioning his perplexity, would suggest various commonplace subjects, not one of which, as he very well knew, was the true subject. But the moment the landlord suggested " Poison," the traveller started, and cried, " Yes ! " He never failed to accept that suggestion, and he never recalled any more of the dream. THE HOLLY-TREE. 65 This reminiscence brought the Welsh Inns in general before me ; with the women in their round hats, and the harpers with their white beards (venerable, but humbugs, I am afraid), playing outside the door while I took my dinner. The transition was natural to the Highland Inns, with the oatmeal bannocks, the honey, the venison steaks, the trout from the loch, the whisky, and perhaps (having the materials so temptingly at hand) the Athol brose. Once was I coming south from the Scottish Highlands in hot haste, hoping to change quickly at the station at the bottom of a certain wild historical glen, when these eyes did with mortification see the landlord come out with a telescope and sweep the whole prospect for the horses ; which horses were away picking up their own liv- ing, and did not heave in sight under four hours. Having thought of the loch-trout, I was taken by quick association to the Anglers' Inns of England (I have assisted at innumerable feats of angling by lying in the bottom of the boat, whole summer days, doing nothing with the greatest perseverance; which I have generally found to be as ejffectual towards the taking of fish as the finest tackle and the utmost science), and to the pleasant white, clean, flower-pot-decorated bedrooms of those Inns, overlooking the river, and the ferry, and the green ait, and the church-spire, and the country bridge ; and to the peerless Emma with the bright eyes and the pretty smile, who waited, bless her ! with a natural grace that would have converted Blue-Beard. Casting my eyes upon my Holly-Tree fire, I next discerned among the glowing coals the pict- ures of a score or more of those wonderful English posting-inns which we are all so sorry to have lost, which were so large and so comfortable, and which were such monuments of British submission to rapacity and extortion. He who would see these houses pining away, let him walk from Basingstoke, or even Windsor, to London, by way of Hounslow, and moralise on their perishing remains ; the stables crumbling to dust ; unsettled labourers and wanderers biv- ouacking in the outhouses ; grass growing in the yards ; the rooms, where erst so many hundred beds of down were made up, let off to Irish lodgers at eighteenpence a week ; a little ill-looking beer-shop shrinking in the tap of former days, burning coach-house gates for firewood, having one of its two windows bunged up, as if it had received punishment in a fight with the Railroad ; a low, bandy- legged, brick-making bulldog standing in the doorway. What could I next see in my fire so naturally as the new railway-house of these times near the dismal country station ; with nothing particular on draught but cold air and damp, nothing worth mentioning in the larder but new mortar, and no business doing beyond a conceited ajQfectation of luggage in the hall 1 Then I came to the Inns of 66 THE HOLLY-TREE. Paris, with the pretty apartment of four pieces up one hundred and seventy-five waxed stairs, the privilege of ringing the bell all day long without influencing anybody's mind or body but your own, and the not-too-much-for-dinner, considering the price. Next to the provincial Inns of France, with the great church-tower rising above the courtyard, the horse-bells jingling merrily up and down the street beyond, and the clocks of all descriptions in all the rooms, which are never right, unless taken at the precise minute when, by getting exactly twelve hours too fast or too slow, they unintentionally become so. Away I went, next, to the lesser road- side Inns of Italy ; where all the dirty clothes in the house (not in wear) are always lying in your anteroom ; where the mosquitoes make a raisin pudding of your face in summer, and the cold bites it blue in winter ; where you get what you can, and forget what you can't ; where I should again like to be boiling my tea in a pocket-handkerchief dumpling, for want of a teapot. So to the old palace Inns and old monastery Inns, in towns and cities of the same bright country ; with their massive quadrangular staircases, whence you may look from among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of heaven ; with their stately banqueting-rooms, and vast refectories ; with their labyrinths of ghostly bedchambers, and their glimpses into gorgeous streets that have no appearance of reality or possibility. So to the close little Inns of the Malaria districts, with their pale attendants, and their peculiar smell of never letting in the air. So to the immense fantastic Inns of Venice, with the cry of the gondolier below, as he skims the cor- ner ; the grip of the watery odours on one particular little bit of the bridge of your nose (which is never released while you stay there) ; and the great bell of Saint Mark's Cathedral tolling mid- night. Next I put up for a minute at the restless Inns upon the Rhine, where your going to bed, no matter at what hour, appears to be the tocsin for everybody else's getting up ; and where, in the table-d'hote room at the end of the long table (with several Towers of Babel on it at the other end, all made of white plates), one knot of stoutish men, entirely dressed in jewels and dirt, and hav- ing nothing else upon them, ivill remain all night, clinking glasses, and singing about the river that flows, and the grape that grows, and Rhine wine that beguiles, and Rhine woman that smiles and hi drink drink my friend and ho drink drink my brother, and all the rest of it. I departed thence, as a matter of course, to other German Inns, where all the eatables are soddened down to the same flavour, and where the mind is disturbed by the apparition of hot puddings, and boiled cherries, sweet and slab, at awfully unex- pected periods of the repast. After a draught of sparkling beer THE HOLLY-TREE. 67 from a foaming glass jug, and a glance of recognition through the windows of the student beer-houses at Heidelberg and elsewhere, I put out to sea for the Inns of America, with their four hundred beds apiece, and their eight or nine hundred ladies and gentlemen at dinner every day. Again I stood in the bar-rooms thereof, tak- ing my evening cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail. Again I listened to my friend the General, — whom I had known for five minutes, in the course of which period he had made me intimate for life with two Majors, who again had made me intimate for life with three Colonels, who again had made me brother to twenty-two civilians, — again, I say, I listened to my friend the General, lei- surely expounding the resources of the establisl]tment, as to gentle- men's morning-room, sir; ladies' morning-room, sir; gentlemen's evening-room, sir; ladies' evening-room, sir; ladies' and gentle- men's evening reuniting-room, sir ; music-room, sir ; reading-room, sir ; over four hundred sleeping-rooms, sir ; and the entire planned and finished within twelve calendar months from the first clearing off of the old encumbrances on the plot, at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars, sir. Again I found, as to my individual way of thinking, that the greater, the more gorgeous, and the more dollar- ous the establishment was, the less desirable it was. Nevertheless, again I drank my cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail, in all good-will, to my friend the General, and my friends the Majors, Colonels, and civilians all; full well knowing that, whatever little motes my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, they belong to a kind, generous, large-hearted, and great people. I had been going on lately at a quick pace to keep my solitude out of my mind ; but here I broke down for good, and gave up the subject. What was I to do ? What was to become of me 1 Into what extremity was I submissively to sink ? Supposing that, like Baron Trenck, I looked out for a mouse or spider, and found one, and beguiled my imprisonment by training it ? Even that might be dangerous with a view to the future. I might be so far gone when the road did come to be cut through the snow, that, on my way forth, I might burst into tears, and beseech, like the prisoner who was released in his old age from the Bastille, to be taken back again to the five windows, the ten curtains, and the sinuous drapery. A desperate idea came into my head. Under any other circum- stances I should have rejected it ; but, in the strait at which I was, I held it fast. Could I so far overcome the inherent bashfulness which withheld me from the landlord's table and the company I might find there, as to call up the Boots, and ask him to take a chair, — and something in a liquid form, — and talk to me 1 I could. I w^ould. I did. 68 THE HOLLY-TREE. . Chapter II. THE BOOTS. Where had he been in his time? he repeated, when I asked him the question. Lord, he had been everywhere ! And what had he been ? Bless you, he had been everything you could men- tion a'most ! Seen a good deal 1 Why, of course he had. I should say so, he could assure me, if I only knew about a twentieth part of what had come in his way. Why, it would be easier for him, he expected, to tell what he hadn't seen than what he had. Ah ! A deal, it would. What was the curiousest thing he had seen ? Well ! He didn't know. He couldn't momently name what was the curiousest thing he had seen, — unless it was a Unicorn, — and he see hijn once at a Fair. But supposing a young gentleman not eight year old was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, might I think that a queer start 1 Certainly. Then that was a start as he him- self had had his blessed eyes on, and he had cleaned the shoes they run away in — and they was so little that he couldn't get his hand into 'em. Master Harry Walmers' ftither, you see, he Uved at the Elmses, down away by Shooter's Hill there, six or seven miles from Lun- non. He was a gentleman of spirit, and good-looking, and held his head up when he walked, and had what you may call Fire about him. He wrote poetry, and he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and he done it all equally beautiful. He was uncommon proud of Master Harry as was his only child ; but he didn't spoil him neither. He was a gentleman that had a will of his own and a eye of his own, and that would be minded. Consequently, though he made quite a companion of the fine bright boy, and was delighted to see him so fond of reading his fairy-books, and was never tired of hearing him say my name is Norval, or hearing him sing his songs about Young May Moons is beaming love, and When he as adores thee has left but the name, and that ; still he kept the command over the child, and the child tvas a child, and it's to be wished more of 'em was ! How did Boots happen to know all this 1 Why, through being under-gardener. Of course he couldn't be under-gardener, and be always about, in the summer-time, near the windows on the lawn, a mowing, and sweeping, and weeding, and pruning, and this and that, without getting acquainted with the ways of the family. Even supposing Master Harry hadn't come to him one morning THE HOLLY-TREE. 69 early, and said, " Cobbs, how should you spell Norah, if you was asked ? " and then began cutting it in print all over the fence. He couldn't say he had taken particular notice of children before that ; but really it was pretty to see them two mites a going about the place together, deep in love. And the courage of the boy ! Bless your soul, he'd have throwed off his httle hat, and tucked up his little sleeves, and gone in at a Lion, he would, if they had happened to meet one, and she had been frightened of him. One day he stops, along with her, where Boots was hoeing weeds in the gravel, and says, speaking up, "Cobbs," he says, "I like yoiiy "Do you, sir? I'm proud to hear it." "Yes, I do, Cobbs. Why do I like you, do you think, Cobbs?" "Don't know. Master Harry, I am sure." " Because Norah likes you, Cobbs." " Indeed, sir? That's very gratifying." "Gratifying, Cobbs? It's better than millions of the brightest diamonds to be liked by Norah." " Certainly, sir." "You're going away, ain't you, Cobbs?" "Yes, sir." "Would you like another situation, Cobbs?" "Well, sir, I shouldn't object, if it was a good 'un." " Then, Cobbs," says he, "you shall be our Head Gardener when we are married." And he tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away. Boots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal to a play, to see them babies, with their long, bright, curling hair, their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a rambling about the garden, deep in love. Boots was of opinion that the birds believed they was birds, and kept up with 'em, singing to please 'em. Sometimes they would creep under the Tulip-tree, and would sit there with their arms round one another's necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a reading about the Prince and the Dragon, and the good and bad enchanters, and the king's fair daughter. Sometimes he would hear them planning about having a house in a forest, keeping bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk and honey. Once he came upon them by the pond, and heard Master Harry say, "Adorable Norah, kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or I'll jump in head-foremost." And Boots made no question he would have done it if she hadn't complied. On the whole. Boots said it had a tendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself — only he didn't exactly know who with. " Cobbs," said Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was water- ing the flowers, "I am going on a visit, this present Midsummer, to my grandmamma's at York." " Are you indeed, sir ? I hope you'll have a pleasant time. I am going into Yorkshire, myself, when I leave here." "Are you going to your grandmamma's, Cobbs?" 70 THE HOLLY-TREE. " No, sir. I haven't got such a thing." " Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs ? " " No, sir." The boy looked on at the watering of the flowers for a little while, and then said, " I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs, — Norah's going." "You'll be all right then, sir," says Cobbs, " with your beautiful sweetheart by your side." " Cobbs," returned the boy, flushing, " I never let anybody joke about it, when I can prevent them." "It wasn't a joke, sir," says Cobbs, with humility, — "wasn't so meant." "I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and you're going to live with us. — Cobbs ! " "Sir." " What do you think my grandmamma gives me when I go down there 1 " " I couldn't so much as make a guess, sir." "A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs." " Whew !" says Cobbs, " that's a spanking sum of money, Master Harry." "A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that, — couldn't a person, Cobbs ? " " I believe you, sir ! " "Cobbs," said the boy, "I'll tell you a secret. At Norah's house, they have been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being engaged, — pretending to make game of it, Cobbs ! " "Such, sir," says Cobbs, "is the depravity of human natur." The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes with his glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with " Good night, Cobbs. I'm going in." If I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was a going to leave that place just at that present time, well, he couldn't rightly answer me. He did suppose he might have stayed there till now if he had been anyways inclined. But, you see, he was younger then, and he wanted change. That's what he wanted, — change. Mr. Walmers, he said to him when he gave him notice of his inten- tions to leave, " Cobbs," he says, "have you anythink to complain of? I make the inquiry because if I find that any of my people really has anythink to complain of, I wish to make it right if I can." "No, sir," says Cobbs; "thanking you, sir, I find myself as well sitiwated here as I could hope to be anywheres. The truth is, sir, that I'm a going to seek my fortun." " 0, indeed, Cobbs ! " he THE HOLLY-TREE. 71 says ; " I hope you may find it." And Boots could assure me — which he did, touching his hair with his bootjack, as a sahite in the way of his present calling — that he hadn't found it yet. Well, sir ! Boots left the Elmses when his time was up, and Master Harry, he went down to the old lady's at York, which old lady would have given that child the teeth out of her head (if she had had any), she was so wrapped up in him. What does that Infant do, — for Infant you may call him and be within the mark, — but cut away from that old lady's with his Norah, on a expedi- tion to go to Gretna Green and be married ! Sir, Boots was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left it sev- eral times since to better himself, but always eome back through one thing or another), when, one summer afternoon, the coach drives up, and out of the coach gets them two children. The Guard says to our Governor, "I don't quite make out these little passengers, but the young gentleman's words was that they was to be brought here." The young gentleman gets out ; hands his lady out; gives the Guard something for himself; says to our Governor, " We're to stop here to-night, please. Sitting-room and two bedrooms will be required. Chops and cherry-pudding for two ! " and tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much bolder than Brass. Boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establish- ment was, when these two tiny creatures all alone by themselves was marched into the Angel, — much more so, when he, who had seen them without their seeing him, give the Governor his views of the expedition they was upon. "Cobbs," says the Governor, "if this is so, I must set off myself to York, and quiet their friends' minds. In which case you must keep your eye upon 'era, and humour 'em, till I come back. But before I take these measures, Cobbs, I should wish you to find from themselves whether your opinion is correct." " Sir, to you," says Cobbs, " that shall be done directly." So Boots goes up-stairs to the Angel, and there he finds Master Harry on a e-normous sofa, — immense at any time, but looking like the Great Bed of Ware, compared with him, — a drying the eyes of Miss Norah with his pocket-hankecher. Their little legs was entirely off the ground, of course, and it really is not possible for Boots to express to me how small them children looked. " It's Cobbs ! It's Cobbs ! " cries Master Harry, and comes running to him, and catching hold of his hand. Miss Norah comes running to him on t'other side and catching hold of his t'other hand, and they both jump for joy. "I see you a getting out, sir," says Cobbs. "I thought it was 72 THE HOLLY-TREE. you. I thought I couldn't be mistaken in your height and figure. What's the object of your journey, sir 1 — Matrimonial 1 " "We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green," returned the boy. " We have run away on purpose. Norah has been in rather low spirits, Cobbs ; but she'll be happy, now we have found you to be our friend." " Thank you, sir, and thank t/ou, miss," says Cobbs, " for your good opinion. Did you bring any luggage with you, sir 1 " If I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honour upon it, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush, — seemingly a doll's. The gentleman had got about half a dozen yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprising small, a orange, and a Chaney mug with his name upon it. "What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir? "says Cobbs. "To go on," replied the boy, — which the courage of that boy was something wonderful ! — "in the morning, and be married to-morrow." "Just so, sir," says Cobbs. "Would it meet your views, sir, if I was to accompany you ? " When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, " Oh, yes, yes, Cobbs ! Yes ! " " Well, sir," says Cobbs. " If you will excuse my having the freedom to give an opinion, what I should recommend Avould be this. I'm acquainted ^vith a pony, sir, which, put in a pheayton that I could borrow, would take you and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior (myself driving, if you approved), to the end of your journey in a very short space of time. I am not altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty to-morrow, but even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth your while. As to the small account here, sir, in case you was to find yourself running at all short, that don't signify ; because I'm a part proprietor of this inn, and it could stand over." Boots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and jumped for joy again, and called him " Good Cobbs ! " and " Dear Cobbs ! " and bent across him to kiss one another in the delight of their confiding hearts, he felt himself the meanest rascal for deceiving 'em that ever was born. " Is there anything you want just at present, sir ? " says Cobbs, mortally ashamed of himself. " We should like some cakes after dinner," answered Master Harry, folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at him, "and two apples, — and jam. With dinner we should like THE HOLLY-TREE. 73 to have toast-and-water. But Norah has always been accustomed to half a glass of currant wine at dessert. And so have I." " It shall be ordered at the bar, sir," says Cobbs ; and away he went. Boots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speak- ing as he had then, that he would far rather have had it out in half a dozen rounds with the Governor than have combined with him ; and that he wished with all his heart there was any impossible place where those two babies could make an impossible marriage, and live impossibly happy ever afterwards. However, as it couldn't be, he went into the Governor's plans, and the Governor set off for York in half an hour. The way in which the women of that house — without exception — every one of 'em — married and single — took to that boy when they heard the story, Boots considers surprising. It was as much as he could do to keep 'em from dashing into the room and kissing him. They climbed up all sorts of places, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of glass. They was seven deep at the keyhole. They was out of their minds about him and his bold spirit. In the evening. Boots went into the room to see how the run- away couple was getting on. The gentleman was on the window- seat, supporting the lady in his arms. She had tears upon her face, and was lying, very tired and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder. " Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, fatigued, sir 1 " says Cobbs. " Yes, she is tired, Cobbs ; but she is not used to be away from home, and she has been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do you think you could bring a biffin, please 1 " " I ask your pardon, sir," says Cobbs. " What was it you — ?" " I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very fond of them." Boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and, when he brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with a spoon, and took a little himself ; the lady being heavy with sleep, and rather cross. "What should you think, sir," says Cobbs, " of a chamber candlestick ? " The gentleman approved ; the chambermaid went first, up the great staircase ; the lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the gentle- man ; the gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his own apartment, where Boots softly locked him up. Boots couldn't but feel with increased acuteness what a base deceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly, over- 74 THE HOLLY-TREE. night) about the pony. It really was as much as he could do, he don't mind confessing to me, to look them two young things in the face, and think what a wicked old father of lies he had grown up to be. Howsomever, he went on a lying like a Trojan about the pony. He told 'em that it did so unfort'nately happen that the pony was half cHpped, you see, and that he couldn't be taken out in that state, for fear it should strike to his inside. But that he'd be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that to-morrow morning at eight o'clock the pheayton would be ready. Boots's view of the whole case, looking back on it in my room, is, that Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, was beginning to give in. She hadn't had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up to brushing it herself, and its getting in her eyes put her out. But nothing put out Master Harry. He sat behind his breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own fiither. After breakfast. Boots is inclined to consider that they drawed soldiers, — at least, he knows that many such was found in the fire-place, all on horseback. In the course of the morning, Master Harry rang the bell, — it was surprising how that there boy did carry on, — and said, in a sprightly way, " Cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighbourhood 1 " "Yes, sir," says Cobbs. "There's Love-lane." " Get out with you, Cobbs ! " — that was that there boy's ex- pression, — " you're joking." "Begging your pardon, sir," says Cobbs, "there really is Love- lane. And a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it to yourself and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior." " Norah, dear," said Master Harry, " this is curious. We really ought to see Love-lane. Put on your bonnet, my sweetest dar- ling, and we will go there with Cobbs." Boots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, when that young pair told him, as they all three jogged along together, that they had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year as head-gardener, on accounts of his being so true a friend to 'em. Boots could have wished at the moment that the earth would have opened and swallowed him up, he felt so mean, with their beaming eyes a looking at him, and believing him. Well, sir, he turned the conversation as well as he could, and he took 'em down Love-lane to the water-meadows, and there Master Harry would have drowned himself in half a moment more, a getting out a water-lily for her, — but nothing daunted that boy. Well, sir, they was tired out. All being so new and strange to 'em, they was tired as tired could be. And they laid down on a THE HOLLY-TREE. 75 bank of daisies, like the children in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep. Boots don't know — perhaps I do, — but never mind, it don't signify either way — why it made a man fit to make a fool of him- self to see them two pretty babies a lying there in the clear still sunny day, not dreaming half so hard when they was asleep as they done when they was awake. But, Lord ! when you come to think of yourself, you know, and what a game you have been up to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap you are, and how it's always either Yesterday with you, or else To-morrow, and never To-day, that's where it is ! Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty clear to Boots, namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses, Junior's, temper was on the move. AVhen Master Harry took her round the waist, she said he " teased her so ; " and when he says, " Norah, my young May Moon, your Harry tease you ? " she tells him, " Yes ; and I want to go home ! " A biled fowl, and baked bread-and-butter pudding, brought Mrs. Walmers up a little ; but Boots could have wished, he must pri- vately own to me, to have seen her more sensible of the woice of love, and less abandoning of herself to currants. However, Master Harry, he kept up, and his noble heart was as fond as ever. Mrs. Walmers turned very sleepy about dusk, and began to cry. There- fore, Mrs. Walmers went off to bed as per yesterday ; and Master Harry ditto repeated. About eleven or twelve at night comes back the Governor in a chaise, along with Mr. Walmers and a elderly lady. Mr. Walmers looks amused and very serious, both at once, and says to our missis, " We are much indebted to you, ma'am, for your kind care of our little children, which we can never sufficiently acknowledge. Pray, ma'am, where is my boy ?" Our missis says, " Cobbs has the dear child in charge, sir. Cobbs, show Forty ! " Then he says to Cobbs, " Ah, Cobbs, I am glad to see you I I understood you was here ! " And Cobbs says, " Yes, sir. Your most obedient, sir." I may be surprised .to hear Boots say it. perhaps ; but Boots assures me that his heart beat like a hammer, going up-stairs. " I beg your pardon, sir," says he, while unlocking the door ; "I hope you are not angry with Master Harry. For Master Harry is a fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honour." And Boots signifies to me, that, if the fine boy's father had contradicted him in the daring state of mind in which he then was, he thinks he should have "fetched him a crack," and taken the consequences. But Mr. Walmers only says, " No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. Thank you ! " And, the door being opened, goes in. 76 THE HOLLY-TREE. Boots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees Mr Walmers go up to the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face Then he stands looking at it for a mmute, looking wonder- fully like it (they do say he ran away with Mrs. Walmers) ; and then he gently shakes the little shoulder. '' Harry, my dear boy ! Harry ! " -, r^ w Master Harry starts up and looks at him. Looks at Oobbs too. Such is the honour of that mite, that he looks at Cobbs, to see whether he has brought him into trouble. " I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself and come home." "Yes, pa." ^ . Master Harry dresses himself quickly. His breast begins to swell when he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more as he stands, at last, a looking at his father : his father standing a looking at him, the quiet image of him. " Please may I " — the spirit of that little creatur, and the way he kept his rising tears down ! — " please, dear pa — may I — kiss Norah before I go ? " "You may, my child." So he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the way with the candle, and they come to that other bedroom, where the elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walm- ers Junior, is fast asleep. There the father lifts the child up to the pillow, and he lays his little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor unconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, and gently draws it to him, —a sight so touching to the chambermaids who are peeping through the door, that one of them calls out, " It's a shame to part 'em ! " But this chambermaid was always, as Boots informs me, a soft-hearted one. Not that there was any harm in that girl. Far from it. Finally, Boots says, that's all about it. Mr. Walmers drove away in the chaise, having hold of Master Harry's hand. The elderly lady and Mrs. Harry AValmers, Junior, that was never to be (she married a Captain long afterwards, and died in India), went off next day. In conclusion. Boots put it to me whether I hoLl with him in two opinions : firstly, that there are not many couples on their way to be married who are half as innocent of guile as those two children ; secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing for a great many couples on their way to be married, if they could only be stopped in time, and brought back separately. THE HOLLY-TREE. 77 Chapter III. THE BILL. I HAD been snowed up a whole week. The time had hung so lightly on my hands, that I should have been in great doubt of the fact but for a piece of documentary evidence that lay upon my table. The road had been dug out of the snow on the previous day, and the document in question w^as my Bill. It testified emphatically to my having eaten and drunk, and warmed myself, and slept among the sheltering branches of the Holly-Tree, seven days and nights. I had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours to improve itself, finding that I required that additional margin of time for the completion of my task, I had ordered my Bill to be upon the table, and a chaise to be at the door, " at eight o'clock to-morrow evening." It was eight o'clock to-morrow evening when I buckled up my travelling writing-desk in its leather case, paid my Bill, and got on my warm coats and wrappers. Of course, no time now remained for my travelling on to add a frozen tear to the icicles which were doubtless hanging plentifully about the farm-house where I had first seen Angela. What I had to do was to get across to Liverpool by the shortest open road, there to meet my heavy baggage and embark. It was quite enough to do, and I had not an hour too much time to do it in. I had taken leave of all my Holly-Tree friends — almost, for the time being, of my bashfulness too — and was standing for half a minute at the Inn door watching the ostler as he took another turn at the cord which tied my portmanteau on the chaise, when I saw lamps coming down towards the Holly-Tree. The road was so padded with snow that no wheels were audible; but all of us who were standing at the Inn door saw lamps coming on, and at a lively rate too, between the walls of snow that had been heaped up on either side of the track. The chambermaid instantly divined how the case stood, and called to the ostler, " Tom, this is a Gretna job ! " The ostler, knowing that her sex instinctively scented a marriage, or anything in that direction, rushed up the yard bawl- ing, " Next four out ! " and in a moment the whole establishment was thrown into commotion. I had a melancholy interest in seeing the happy man who loved and was beloved ; and therefore, instead of driving off at once, I remained at the Inn door when the fugitives drove up. A bright- eyed fellow, muffled in a mantle, jumped out so briskly that he almost overthrew me. He turned to apologise, and, by Heaven, it was Edwin ! 78 THE HOLLY-TREE. " Charley ! " said he, recoiUng. " Gracious powers, what do you do here?" . , . , "Edwin," said I, recoiling, "gracious powers, what do you do here % " I struck my forehead as I said it, and an insupportable blaze of light seemed to shoot before my eyes. He hurried me into the little parlour (always kept with a slow fire in it and no poker), where posting company waited while their horses were putting to, and, shutting the door, said : " Charley, forgive me ! " ^ , , , " Edwin ! " I returned. " Was this well % When I loved her so dearly ! When I had garnered up my heart so long ! " I could say no more. He was shocked when he saw how moved I was, and made the cruel observation, that he had not thought I should have taken it so much to heart. i . i • I looked at him. I reproached him no more. But I looked at him. "My dear, dear Charley," said he, "don't think ill of me, I beseech you ! I know you have a right to my utmost confidence, and, believe me, you have ever had it until now. I abhor secrecy. Its meanness is intolerable to me. But I and my dear girl have observed it for your sake." He and his dear girl ! It steeled me. " You have observed it for my sake, sir % " said I, wondering how his frank face could face it out so. << Yes ! — and Angela's," said he. I found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like a labouring humming-top. " Explain yourself," said I, holding on by one hand to an arm-chair. " Dear old darling Charley ! " returned Edwin, in his cordial manner, " consider ! When you were going on so happily with Angela, why should I compromise you with the old gentleman by making you a party to our engagement, and (after he had declined my proposals) to our secret intention % Surely it was better that you should be able honourably to say, ' He never took counsel with me, never told me, never breathed a word of it.' If Angela sus- pected it, and showed me all the favour and support she could — God bless her for a precious creature and a priceless wife ! — I couldn't help that. Neither I nor Emmeline ever told her, any more than we told you. And for the same good reason, Charley ; trust me, for the same good reason, and no other upon earth ! " Emmeline was Angela's cousin. Lived with her. Had been brought up with her. Was her father's ward. Had property. " Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin ! " said I, embrac- ing him with the greatest affection. THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 79 " My good fellow ! " said he, " do you suppose I should be going to Gretna Green without her ? " I ran out with Edwin, I opened the chaise door, I took Emme- line in my arms, I folded her to my heart. She was wrapped in soft white fur, like the snowy landscape : but was warm, and young, and lovely. I put their leaders to with my own hands, I gave the boys a five-pound note apiece, I cheered them as they drove away, I drove the other way myself as hard as I could pelt. I never went to Liverpool, I never went to America, I Avent straight back to London, and I married Angela. I have never until this time, even to her, disclosed the secret of my character, and the mistrust and the mistaken journey into which it led me. When she, and they, and our eight children and their seven — I mean Edwin's and Emmeline's, whose eldest girl is old enough now to wear white for herself, and to look very like her mother in it — come to read these pages, as of course they will, I shall hardly fail to be found out at last. Never mind ! I can bear it. I began at the Holly-Tree, by idle accident, to associate the Christmas-time of year with human interest, and with some inquiry into, and some care for, the lives of those by whom I find myself surrounded. I hope that I am none the worse for it, and that no one near me or afar off is the worse for it. And I say. May the green Holly- Tree flour- ish, striking its roots deep into our English ground, and having its germinating qualities carried by the birds of Heaven all over the world ! THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. IN TWO CHAPTERS. Chapter I. THE WRECK. I WAS apprenticed to the Sea when I was twelve years old, and I have encountered a great deal of rough weather, both literal and metaphorical. It has always been my opinion since I first pos- sessed such a thing as an opinion, that the man who knows only one subject is next tiresome to the man who knows no subject. Therefore, in the course of my life I have taught myself whatever I could, and although I am not an educated man, I am able, I am thankful to say, to have an intelligent interest in most things. A person might suppose, from reading the above, that I am in the habit of holding forth about number one. That is not the case. THE WRECK OF THE "GOLDEN MART THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MABY. 81 Just as if I was to come into a room among strangers, and must either be introduced or introduce myself, so I have taken the liberty of passing these few remarks, simply and plainly that it may be known who and what I am. I will add no more of the sort than that my name is William George Ravender, that I was born at Penrith half a year after my own father was drowned, and that I am on the second day of this present blessed Christmas week of one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, fifty-six years of age. When the rumour first went flying up and down that there was gold in California — which, as most people know, was before it was discovered in the British colony of Australia — I was in the West Indies, trading among the Islands. Being in command and likewise part-owner of a smart schooner, I had my work cut out for me, and I was doing it. Consequently, gold in California was no business of mine. But, by the time when I came home to England again, the thing was as clear as your hand held up before you at noon-day. There was Californian gold in the museums and in the goldsmiths' shops, and the very first time I went upon 'Change, I met a friend of mine (a seafaring man like myself), with a Californian nugget hang- ing to his watch-chain. I handled it. It was as like a peeled walnut with bits unevenly broken off here and there, and then electrotyped all over, as ever I saw anything in my life. I am a single man (she was too good for this world and for me, and she died six weeks before our marriage-day), so when I am ashore, I live in my house at Poplar. My house at Poplar is taken care of and kept ship-shape by an old lady who was my mother's maid before I was born. She is as handsome and as up- right as any old lady in the world. She is as fond of me as if she had ever had an only son, and I was he. Well do I know wher- ever I sail that she never lays down her head at night without having said, " Merciful Lord ! bless and preserve William George Ravender, and send him safe home, through Christ our Saviour ! " I have thought of it in many a dangerous moment, when it has done me no harm, I am sure. In my house at Poplar, along with this old lady, I lived quiet for best part of a year : having had a long spell of it among the Islands, and having (which was very uncommon in me) taken the fever rather badly. At last, being strong and hearty, and having read every book I could lay hold of, right out, I was walking down Leadenhall Street in the City of London, thinking of turning-to again, when I met what I call Smithick and Watersby of Liverpool. I chanced to lift up my eyes from looking in at a ship's chronom- eter in a window, and I saw him bearing down upon me, head on. 82 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. It is, personally, neither Smithick, nor Watersby, that I here mention, nor was I ever acquainted with any man of either of those names, nor do I think that there has been any one of either of those names in that Liverpool House for years back. But, it is in reality the House itself that I refer to ; and a wiser merchant or a truer gentleman never stepped. " My dear Captain Eavender," says he. " Of all the men on earth, I wanted to see you most. I was on my way to you." " Well ! " says I. " That looks as if you 2vere to see me, don't it ? " With that I put my arm in his, and we walked on towards the Royal Exchange, and when we got there, walked up and down at the back of it where the Clock-Tower is. We walked an hour and more, for he had much to say to me. He had a scheme for chartering a new ship of their own to take out cargo to the diggers and emigrants in California, and to buy and bring back gold. Into the particulars of that scheme I will not enter, and I have no right to enter. All I say of it is, that it was a very original one, a very fine one, a very sound one, and a very lucrative one beyond doubt. He imparted it to me as freely as if I had been a part of him- self. After doing so, he made me the handsomest sharing offer that ever was made to me, boy or man — or I believe to any other captain in the Merchant Navy — and he took this round turn to finish with : " Ra vender, you are well aware that the lawlessness of that coast and country at present is as special as the circumstances in which it is placed. Crews of vessels outward-bound desert as soon as they make the land; crews of vessels homeward-bound, ship at enormous wages, with the express intention of murdering the captain and seizing the gold freight ; no man can trust another, and the devil seems let loose. Now," says he, "you know my opinion of you, and you know I am only expressing it, and with no singular- ity, when I tell you that you are almost the only man on whose integrity, discretion, and energy — " &c., &c. For, I don't want to repeat what he said, though I was and am sensible of it. Notwithstanding my being, as I have mentioned, quite ready for a voyage, still I had some doubts of this voyage. Of course I knew, without being told, that there were peculiar difl&culties and dangers in it, a long way over and above those which attend all voyages. It must not be supposed that I was afraid to face them ; but, in my opinion a man has no manly motive or sustainment in his own breast for facing dangers, unless he has well considered what they are, and is able quietly to say to himself, "None of these perils can now take me by surprise ; I shall know what to do for the best in any of them ; all the rest lies in the higher and THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 83 greater hands to which I humbly commit myself." On this prin- ciple I have so attentively considered (regarding it as my duty) all the hazards I have ever been able to think of, in the ordinary way of storm, shipwreck, and fire at sea, that I hope I should be pre- pared to do, in any of those cases, whatever could be done, to save the lives entrusted to my charge. As I was thoughtful, my good friend proposed that he should leave me to walk there as long as I liked, and that I should dine with him by-and-bye at his club in Pall Mall. I accepted the in- vitation and I walked up and down there, quarter-deck fashion, a matter of a couple of hours ; now and then looking up at the weather- cock as I might have looked up aloft; and now and then taking a look into Cornhill, as I might have taken a look over the side. All dinner-time, and all after dinner-time, we talked it over again. I gave him my views of his plan, and he very much approved of the same, I told him I had nearly decided, but not quite. "Well, well," says he, " come down to Liverpool to-morrow with me, and see the Golden Mary." I liked the name (her name was Mary, and she was golden, if golden stands for good), so I began to feel that it was almost done when I said I would go to Liverpool. On the next morning but one we were on board the Golden Mary. I might have known, from his asking me to come down and see her, what she was. I declare her to have been the completest and most ex- quisite Beauty that ever I set my eyes upon. We had inspected every timber in her, and had come back to the gangway to go ashore from the dock-basin, when I put out my hand to my friend. "Touch upon it," says I, "and touch heartily. I take command of this ship, and I am hers and yours, if I can get John Steadiman for my chief mate." John Steadiman had sailed with me four voyages. The first voyage John was third mate out to China, and came home second. The other three voyages he was my first officer. At this time of chartering the Golden Mary, he was aged thirty-two. A brisk, bright, blue-eyed fellow, a very neat figure and rather under the middle size, never out of the way and never in it, a face that pleased everybody and that all children took to, a habit of going about sing- ing as cheerily as a blackbird, and a perfect sailor. We were in one of those Liverpool hackney-coaches in less than a minute, and we cruised about in her upwards of three hours, look- ing for John. John had come home from Van Diemen's Land barely a month before, and I had heard of him as taking a frisk in Liverpool. We asked after him, among many other places, at the two boarding-houses he was fondest of, and we found he had had a week's spell at each of them ; but, he had gone here and gone there. 84 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. and had set off "to lay out on the main-to'-gallant-yard of the high- est Welsh mountain " (so he had told the people of the house), and where he might be then, or when he might come back nobody could tell us. But it was surprising, to be sure, to see how every face brightened the moment there was mention made of the name of Mr. Steadiman. We were taken aback at meeting with no better luck, and we had wore ship and put her head for my friends, when as we were jogging through the streets, I clap my eyes on John himself com- ing out of a toy-shop ! He was carrying a little boy, and conduct- ing two uncommon pretty women to their coach, and he told me afterwards that he had never in his life seen one of the three before, but that he was so taken with them on looking in at the toy-shop while they were buying the child a cranky Noah's Ark, very much down by the head, that he had gone in and asked the ladies' per- mission to treat him to a tolerably correct Cutter there was in the window, in order that such a handsome boy might not grow up with a lubberly idea of naval architecture. We stood off and on until the ladies' coachman began to give way, and then we hailed John. On his coming aboard of us, I told him, very gravely, what I had said to my friend. It struck him, as he said himself, amidships. He was quite shaken by it. "Cap- tain Ravender," were John Steadiman's words, "such an opinion from you is true commendation, and I'll sail round the world with you for twenty years if you hoist the signal, and stand by you for ever ! " And now indeed I felt that it was done, and that the Golden Mary was afloat. Grass never grew yet under the feet of Smithick and Watersby, The riggers were out of that ship in a fortnight's time, and we had begun taking in cargo. John was always aboard, seeing everything stowed with his own eyes ; and whenever I went aboard myself early or late, whether he was below in the hold, or on deck at the hatchway, or overhauling his cabin, nailing up pictures in it of the Blush Roses of England, the Blue Belles of Scotland, and the female Shamrock of Ireland : of a certainty I heard John singing like a blackbird. We had room for twenty passengers. Our sailing advertisement was no sooner out, than we might have taken these twenty times over. In entering our men, I and John (both together) picked them, and we entered none but good hands — as good as were to be found in that port. And so, in a good ship of the best build, well owned, well arranged, well officered, well manned, well found in all respects, we parted with our pilot at a quarter past four o'clock in the afternoon of the seventh of March, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, and stood with a fair wind out to sea. THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 85 It may be easily believed that up to that time I had had no lei- sure to be intimate with my passengers. The most of them were then in their berths seasick; however, in going among them, tell- ing them what was good for them, persuading them not to be there, but to come up on deck and feel the breeze, and in rousing them with a joke, or a comfortable word, I made acquaintance with them, perhaps, in a more friendly and confidential way from the first, than I might have done at the cabin table. Of my passengers, I need only particularise, just at present, a bright-eyed blooming young wife who was going out to join her hus- band in California, taking with her their only child, a little girl of three years old, whom he had never seen ; a sedate young woman in black, some five years older (about thirty as I should say), w^ho was going out to join a brother; and an old gentleman, a good deal like a hawk if his eyes had been better and not so red, who was always talking, morning, noon, and night, about the gold discovery. But, whether he was making the voyage, thinking his old arms could dig for gold, or whether his speculation was to buy it, or to barter for it, or to cheat for it, or to snatch it anyhow from other people, w^as his secret. He kept his secret. These three and the child were the soonest w^ell. The child was a most engaging child, to be sure, and very fond of me : though I am bound to admit that John Steadiman and I were borne on her pretty little books in reverse order, and that he was captain there, and I was mate. It was beautiful to watch her with John, and it was beautiful to watch John with her. Few would have thought it possible, to see John playing at bo-peep round the mast, that he was the man who had caught up an iron bar and struck a Malay and a Maltese dead, as they were gliding with their knives down the cabin stair aboard the barque Old England, when the captain lay ill in his cot, off Saugar Point. But he was ; and give him his back against a bulwark, he would have done the same by half a dozen of them. The name of the young mother was Mrs. Ather- field, the name of the young lady in black was Miss Coleshaw, and the name of the old gentleman Avas Mr. Rarx. As the child had a quantity of shining fair hair, clustering in curls all about her face, and as her name was Lucy, Steadiman gave her the name of the Golden Lucy. So, we had the Golden Lucy and the Golden Mary ; and John kept up the idea to that extent as he and the child went playing about the decks, that I believe she used to think the ship was alive somehow — a sister or com- panion, going to the same place as herself. She liked to be by the wheel, and in fine weather, I have often stood by the man whose trick it was at the wheel, only to hear her, sitting near my feet, 86 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. talking to the ship. Never had a child such a doll before, I sup- pose ; but she made a doll of the Golden Mary, and used to dress her up by tying ribbons and little bits of finery to the belaying- pins ; and nobody ever moved them, unless it was to save them from being blown away. Of course I took charge of the two young women, and I called them "my dear," and they never minded, knowing that whatever I said was said in a fatherly and protecting spirit. I gave them their places on each side of me at dinner, Mrs. Atherfield on my right and Miss Coleshaw on my left ; and I directed the unmarried lady to serve out the breakfast, and the married lady to serve out the tea. Likewise I said to my black steward in their presence, " Tom Snow, these two ladies are equally the mistresses of this house, and do you obey their orders equally ; " at which Tom laughed, and they all laughed. Old Mr. Rarx was not a pleasant man to look at, nor yet to talk to, or to be with, for no one could help seeing that he was a sordid and selfish character, and that he had warped further and further out of the straight with time. Not but what he was on his best behaviour with us, as everybody was ; for we had no bickering among us, for'ard or aft. I only mean to say, he was not the man one would have chosen for a messmate. If choice there had been, one might even have gone a few points out of one's course to say, " No ! Not him ! " But, there was one curious inconsistency in Mr. Rarx. That was, that he took an astonishing interest in the child. He looked, and I may add, he was, one of the last of men to care at all for a child, or to care much for any human creature. Still, he went so far as to be habitually uneasy, if the child was long on deck, out of his sight. He was always afraid of her fall- ing overboard, or falling down a hatchway, or of a block or what not coming down upon her from the rigging in the working of the ship, or of her getting some hurt or other. He used to look at her and touch her, as if she was something precious to him. He was always solicitous about her not injuring her health, and constantly entreated her mother to be careful of it. This was so much the more curious, because the child did not like him, but used to shrink away from him, and would not even put out her hand to him with- out coaxing from others. I believe that every soul on board fre- quently noticed this, and not one of us understood it. However, it was such a plain fact, that John Steadiman said more than once when old Mr. Rarx was not within earshot, that if the Golden Mary felt a tenderness for the dear old gentleman she carried in her lap, she must be bitterly jealous of the Golden Lucy. Before I go any further with this narrative, I will state that our 1 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 87 ship was a barque of three hundred tons, carrying a crew of eighteen men, a second mate in addition to John, a carpenter, an armourer or smith, and two apprentices (one a Scotch boy, poor little fellow). We had three boats ; the Long-boat, capable of carrying twenty- five men ; the Cutter, capable of carrying fifteen ; and the Surf- boat, capable of carrying ten. I put down the capacity of these boats according to the numbers they were really meant to hold. We had tastes of bad weather and head-winds, of course ; but, on the whole, we had as fine a run as any reasonable man could expect, for sixty days. I then began to enter two remarks in the ship's Log and in my Journal ; first, that there was an unusual and amazing quantity of ice ; second, that the nights were most won- derfully dark, in spite of the ice. For five days and a half, it seemed quite useless and hopeless to alter the ship's course so as to stand out of the way of this ice. I made what southing I could ; but, all that time, we were beset by it. Mrs. Atherfield after standing by me on deck once, looking for some time in an awed manner at the great bergs that surrounded us, said in a whisper, " ! Captain Ravender, it looks as if the whole solid earth had changed into ice, and broken up ! " I said to her, laughing, "I don't wonder that it does, to your inexperi- enced eyes, my dear." But I had never seen a twentieth part of the quantity, and, in reality, I was pretty much of her opinion. However, at two p.m. on the afternoon of the sixth day, that is to say, when we were sixty-six days out, John Steadiman, who had gone aloft, sang out from the top, that the sea was clear ahead. Before four p.m. a strong breeze springing up right astern, we were in open water at sunset. The breeze then freshening into half a gale of wind, and the Golden Mary being a very fast sailer, we went before the wind merrily, all night. I had thought it impossible that it could be darker than it had been, until the sun, moon, and stars should fall out of the Heavens, and Time should be destroyed ; but, it had been next to light, in comparison with what it was now. The darkness was so profound, that looking into it was painful and oppressive — like looking, with- out a ray of light, into a dense black bandage put as close before the eyes as it could be, without touching them. I doubled the look- out, and John and I stood in the bow side-by-side, never leaving it all night. Yet I should no more have known that he was near me when he was silent, without putting out my arm and touching him, than I should if he had turned in and been fast asleep below. We were not so much looking out, all of us, as listening to the utmost, both with our eyes and ears. Next day, I found that the mercury in the barometer, which had 88 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. risen steadily since we cleared the ice, remained steady. I had had very good observations, with now and then the interruption of a day or so, since our departure. I got the sun at noon, and found that we were in Lat. 58° S., Long. 60° W., off New South Shet- land ; in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn. We were sixty-seven days out, that day. The ship's reckoning was accurately worked and made up. The ship did her duty admirably, all on board were well, and all hands were as smart, efficient, and contented, as it was possible to be. When the night came on again as dark as before, it was the eighth night I had been on deck. Nor had I taken more than a very little sleep in the day-time, my station being always near the helm, and often at it, while we were among the ice. Few but those who have tried it can imagine the difficulty and pain of only keeping the eyes open — physically open — under such circumstances, in such darkness. They get struck by the darkness, and blinded by the darkness. They make patterns in it, and they flash in it, as if they had gone out of your head to look at you. On the turn of midnight, John Steadiman, who was alert and fresh (for I had always made him turn in by day), said to me, " Captain Ravender, I entreat of you to go below. I am sure you can hardly stand, and your voice is getting weak, sir. Go below, and take a little rest. I'll call you if a block chafes." I said to John in answer, "Well, well, John ! Let us wait till the turn of one o'clock, before we talk about that." I had just had one of the ship's lanterns held up, that I might see how the night went by my watch, and it was then twenty minutes after twelve. At five minutes before one, John sang out to the boy to bring the lantern again, and when I told him once more what the time was, entreated and prayed of me to go below. " Captain Ravender," says he, " all's well ; we can't afford to have you laid up for a single hour; and I respectfidly and earnestly beg of you to go below." The end of it was, that I agreed to do so, on the understanding that if I failed to come up of my own accord within three hours, I was to be punctually called. Having settled that, I left John in charge. But I called him to me once afterwards, to ask him a question. I had been to look at the barometer, and had seen the mercuiy still perfectly steady, and had come up the companion again to take a last look about me — if I can use such a word in reference to such darkness — when I thought that the waves, as the Golden Mary parted them and shook them off, had a hollow sound in them; something that I fancied was a rather unusual reverberation. I was standing by the quarter-deck rail on the starboard side, when I called John aft to me, and bade him listen. He did so with the THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 89 greatest attention. Turning to me he then said, " Rely upon it, Captain Ravender, you have been without rest too long, and the novelty is only in the state of your sense of hearing." I thought so too by that time, and I think so now, though I can never know for absolute certain in this world, whether it was or not. When I left John Steadiman in charge, the ship was still going at a great rate through the water. The wind still blew right astern. Though she was making great way, she was under short- ened sail, and had no more than she could easily carry. All was snug, and nothing complained. There was a pretty sea running, but not a very high sea neither, nor at all a confused one. I turned in, as we seamen say, all standings The meaning of that is, I did not pull my clothes off — no, not even so much as my coat : though I did my shoes, for my feet were badly swelled with the deck. There was a little swing-lamp alight in my cabin. I thought, as I looked at it before shutting my eyes, that I was so tired of darkness, and troubled by darkness, that I could have gone to sleep best in the midst of a million of flaming gas-lights. That was the last thought I had before I went oft*, except the prevailing thought that I should not be able to get to sleep at all. I dreamed that I was back at Penrith again, and was trying to get round the church, which had altered its shape very much since I last saw it, and was cloven all down the middle of the steeple in a most singular manner. Wliy I wanted to get round the church I don't know ; but I was as anxious to do it as if my life depended on it. Indeed, I believe it did in the dream. For all that, I could not get round the church. I was still trying, when I came against it with a violent shock, and was flung out of my cot against the ship's side. Shrieks and a terrific outcry struck me far harder than the bruising timbers, and amidst sounds of grinding and crashing, and a heavy rushing and breaking of water — sounds I understood too well — I made my way on deck. It was not an easy thing to do, for the ship heeled over frightfully, and was beat- ing in a furious manner. I could not see the men as I went forward, but I could hear that they were hauling in sail, in disorder. I had my trumpet in my hand, and, after directing and encouraging them in this till it was done, I hailed first John Steadiman, and then my second mate, Mr. William Rames. Both answered clearly and steadily. Now, I had practised them and all my crew, as I have ever made it a custom to practise all who sail with me, to take certain stations and wait my orders, in case of any unexpected crisis. When my voice was heard hailing, and their voices were heard answering, I was aware, through all the noises of the ship and sea, and all the crying of the passen- 90 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. gers below, that there was a pause. "Are you ready, Rames?" — " Ay, ay, sir ! " — " Then hght up, for God's sake ! " In a mo- ment he and another were burning bkie-lights, and the ship and all on board seemed to be enclosed in a mist of light, under a great black dome. The light shone up so high that I could see the huge Iceberg upon which we had struck, cloven at the top and down the middle, exactly like Penrith Church in my dream. At the same moment I could see the watch last relieved crowding up and down on deck ; I could see Mrs. Atherfield and Miss Coleshaw thrown about on the top of the companion as they struggled to bring the child up from below ; I could see that the masts were going with the shock and the beating of the ship ; I could see the frightful breach stove in on the starboard side, half the length of the vessel, and the sheath- ing and timbers spirting up ; I could see that the Cutter was dis- abled, in a wreck of broken fragments ; and I could see every eye turned upon me. It is my belief that if there had been ten thou- sand eyes there, I should have seen them all, with their different looks. And all this in a moment. But you must consider what a moment. I saw the men, as they looked at me, fall towards their ap- pointed stations, like good men and true. If she had not righted, they could have done very little there or anywhere but die — not that it is little for a man to die at his post — I mean they could have done nothing to save the passengers and themselves. Hap- pily, however, the violence of the shock with which we had so determinedly borne down direct on that fatal Iceberg, as if it had been our destination instead of our destruction, had so smashed and pounded the ship that she got off in this same instant and righted. I did not want the carpenter to tell me she was filling and going down ; I could see and hear that. I gave Rames the word to lower the Long-boat and the Surf-boat, and I myself told off the men for each duty. Not one hung back, or came before the other. I now whispered to John Steadiman, " John, I stand at the gangway here, to see every soul on board safe over the side. You shall have the next post of honour, and shall be the last but one to leave the ship. Bring up the passengers, and range them behind me ; and put what provision and water you can get at, in the boats. Cast your eye for'ard, John, and you'll see you have not a moment to lose." My noble fellows got the boats over the side as orderly as I ever saw boats lowered with any sea running, and, when they were launched, two or three of the nearest men in them as they held on, rising and falling with the swell, called out, looking up at me. THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 91 " Captain Ravencler, if anything goes wrong with us, and you are saved, remember we stood by you ! " — " We'll all stand by one another ashore, yet, please God, my lads ! " says I. " Hold on bravely, and be tender with the women." The women were an example to us. They trembled very much, but they were quiet and perfectly collected. " Kiss me. Captain Ravender," says Mrs. Atherfield, "and God in heaven bless you, you good man ! " "My dear," says I, "those words are better for me than a life-boat." I held her child in my arms till she was in the boat, and then kissed the child and handed her safe down. I now said to the people in her, "You have got your freight, my lads, all but me, and I am not coming yet a\^ile. Pull away from the ship, and keep off ! " That was the Long-boat. Old Mr. Rarx was one of her comple- ment, and he was the only passenger who had greatly misbehaved since the ship struck. Others had been a little wild, which was not to be wondered at, and not very blamable ; but, he had made a lamentation and uproar which it was dangerous for the people to hear, as there is always contagion in weakness and selfishness. His incessant cry had been that he must not be separated from the child, that he couldn't see the child, and that he and the child must go together. He had even tried to wrest the child out of my arms, that he might keep her in his. " Mr. Rarx," said I to him when it came to that, " I have a loaded pistol in my pocket ; and if you don't stand out of the gangway, and keep perfectly quiet, I shall shoot you through the heart, if you have got one." Says he, "You won't do murder, Captain Ravender!" "No, sir," says I, " I won't murder forty-four people to humour you, but I'll shoot you to save them." After that he was quiet, and stood shivering a little way off, until I named him to go over the side. The Long-boat being cast off, the Surf-boat was soon filled. There only remained aboard the Golden Mary, John Mullion, the man who had kept on burning the blue-lights (and who had lighted every new one at every old one before it went out, as quietly as if he had been at an illumination); John Steadiman ; and myself. I hurried those two into the Surf-boat, called to them to keep off, and waited with a grateful and relieved heart for the Long-boat to come and take me in, if she could. I looked at my watch, and it showed me, by the blue-light, ten minutes past two. They lost no time. As soon as she was near enough, I swung myself into her, and called to the men, " With a will, lads ! She's reeling ! " We were not an inch too far out of the inner vortex of her going down, when, by the blue-light which John Mullion still burnt in the bow of the Surf-boat, we saw her lurch, and plunge to the 92 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. bottom head-foremost. The child cried, weeping wildly, "0 the dear Golden Mary ! look at her ! Save her ! Save the poor Golden Mary ! " And then the light burnt out, and the black dome seemed to come down upon us. I suppose if we had all stood atop of a mountain, and seen the whole remainder of the world sink away from under us, we could hardly have felt more shocked and solitary than we did when wc knew we were alone on the wide ocean, and that the beautiful ship in which most of us had been securely asleep within half an hour was gone for ever. There was an awful silence in our boat, and such a kind of palsy on the rowers and the man at the rudder, that I felt they were scarcely keeping her before the sea. I spoke out then, and said, "Let eveiy one here thank the Lord for our preservation!" All the voices answered (even the child's), "Wc thank the Lord ! " I then said the Lord's Prayer, and all hands said it after me with a solemn murmuring. Then I gave the word " Cheerily, men. Cheerily ! " and I felt that they were handling the boat again as a boat ought to be handled. The Surf-boat now burnt another blue-light to show us where they were, and we made for her, and laid ourselves as nearly along- side of her as we dared. I had always kept my boats with a coil or two of good stout stuff in each of them, so both boats had a rope at hand. We made a shift, with much labour and trouble, to get near enough to one another to divide the blue-lights (they were no use after that night, for the sea-water soon got at them), and to get a tow-rope out between us. All night long we kept together, sometimes obliged to cast off the rope, and sometimes getting it out again, and all of us wearying for the morning — which appeared so long in coming that old Mr. Rarx screamed out, in spite of his fears of me, " The world is drawing to an end, and the siln will never rise any more ! " When the day broke, I found that we were all huddled together in a miserable manner. We were deep in the water ; being, as I found on mustering, thirty-one in number, or at least six too many. In the Surf-boat they were fourteen in number, being at least four too many. The first thing I did, was to get myself passed to the rudder — which I took from that time — and to get Mrs. Atherfield, her child, and Miss Coleshaw, passed on to sit next me. As to old Mr. Rarx, I put him in the bow, as far from us as I could. And I put some of the best men near us in order that if I should drop there might be a skilful hand ready to take the helm. The sea moderating as the sun came up, though the sky was cloudy and wild, we spoke the other boat, to know what stores they had, and to overhaul what we had. I had a compass in my THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 93 pocket, a small telescope, a double-barrelled pistol, a knife, and a fire-box and matches. Most of my men had knives, and some had a little tobacco : some, a pipe as well. We had a mug among us, and an iron spoon. As to provisions, there were in my boat two bags of biscuit, one piece of raw beef, one piece of raw pork, a bag of coffee, roasted but not ground (thrown in, I imagine, by mistake, for something else), two small casks of water, and about half a gallon of rum in a keg. The Surf-boat, having rather more rum than Ave, and fewer to drink it, gave us, as I estimated, another quart into our keg. In return, we gave them three double hand- fuls of coffee, tied up in a piece of a handkerchief; they reported that they had aboard besides, a bag of biscuit, -a piece of beef, a small cask of water, a small box of lemons, and. a Dutch cheese. It took a long time to make these exchanges, and they were not made without risk to both parties; the sea running quite high enough to make our approaching near to one another very hazard- ous. In the bundle with the coffee, I conveyed to John Steadiman (who had a ship's compass with him), a paper written in pencil, and torn from my pocket-book, containing the course I meant to steer, in the hope of making land, or being picked up by some vessel — I say in the hope, though I had little hope of either de- liverance. I then sang out to him, so as all might hear, that if we two boats could live or die together, we would ; but, that if we should be parted by the weather, and join company no more, they should have our prayers and blessings, and we asked for theirs. We then gave them three cheers, which they returned, and I saw the men's heads droop in both boats as they fell to their oars again. These arrangements had occupied the general attention advan- tageously for all, though (as I expressed in the last sentence) they ended in a sorrowful feeling. I now said a few words to my fellow- voyagers on the subject of the small stock of food on which our lives depended if they were preserved from the great deep, and on the rigid necessity of our eking it out in the most frugal manner. One and all replied that whatever allowance I thought best to lay down should be strictly kept to. We made a pair of scales out of a thin scrap of iron-plating and some twine, and I got together for weights such of the heaviest buttons among us as I calculated made up some fraction over two ounces. This was the allowance of solid food served out once a day to each, from that time to the end ; with the addition of a coffee-berry, or sometimes half a one, when the weather was very fair, for breakfast. We had nothing else what- ever, but half a pint of water each per day, and sometimes, when we were coldest and weakest, a teaspoonful of rum each, served out 94 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. j as a dram. I know how learnedly it can be shown that rum is poison, but I also know that in this case, as in all similar cases I have ever read of — which are numerous — no words can express the comfort and support derived from it. Nor have I the least doubt that it saved the lives of far more than half our number. Having mentioned half a pint of water as our daily allowance, I ought to observe that sometimes we had less, and sometimes we had more ; for much rain fell, and we caught it in a canvas stretched for the purpose. Thus, at that tempestuous time of the year, and in that tempest- uous part of the world, we shipwrecked people rose and fell with the waves. It is not my intention to relate (if I can avoid it) such circumstances appertaining to our doleful condition as have been better told in many other narratives of the kind than I can be expected to tell them. I will only note, in so many passing words, that day after day and night after night, we received the sea upon our backs to prevent it from swamping the boat ; that one party was always kept baling, and that every hat and cap among us soon got worn out, though patched up fifty times, as the only vessels we had for that service ; that another party lay down in the bottom of the boat, while a third rowed ; and that we were soon all in boils and blisters and rags. The other boat was a source of such anxious interest to all of us that I used to wonder whether, if we were saved, the time could ever come when the survivors in this boat of ours could be at all indifferent to the fortunes of the survivors in that. We got out a tow-rope whenever the weather permitted, but that did not often happen, and how we two parties kept within the same horizon, as we did. He, who mercifully permitted it to be so for our consola- tion, only knows. I never shall forget the looks with which, when the morning light came, we used to gaze about us over the stormy waters, for the other boat. We once parted company for seventy- two hours, and we believed them to have gone down, as they did us. The joy on both sides when we came within view of one an- other again, had something in a manner Divine in it ; each was so forgetful of individual suffering, in tears of delight and sympathy for the people in the other boat. I have been wanting to get round to the individual or personal part of my subject, as I call it, and the foregoing incident puts me in the right way. The patience and good disposition aboard of us, was wonderful, I was not surprised by it in the women ; for all men born of women know what great qualities they will show when men will fail ; but, I own I was a little surprised by it in some of the men. Among one-and-thirty people assembled at the THE AVRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 95 best of times, there will usually, I should say, be two or three un- certain tempers. I knew that I had more than one rough temper with me among my own people, for I had chosen those for the Long-boat that I might have them under my eye. But, they soft- ened under their misery, and were as considerate of the ladies, and as compassionate of the child, as the best among us, or among men — they could not have been more so. I heard scarcely any com- plaining. The party lying down would moan a good deal in their sleep, and I would often notice a man — not always the same man, it is to be understood, but nearly all of them at one time or other — sitting moaning at his oar, or in his place, as he looked mistily over the sea. When it happened to be long before I could catch his eye, he would go on moaning all the time in the dismalest manner; but, when our looks met, he would brighten and leave off. I almost always got the impression that he did not know what sound he had been making, but that he thought he had been humming a tune. Our sufferings from cold and wet were far greater than our suf- ferings from hunger. We managed to keep the child warm ; but, I doubt if any one else among us ever was warm for five minutes together; and the shivering, and the chattering of teeth, were sad to hear. The child cried a little at first for her lost playfellow, the Golden Mary ; but hardly ever whimpered afterwards ; and when the state of the weather made it possible, she used now and then to be held up in the arms of some of us, to look over the sea for John Steadiman's boat. I see the golden hair and the innocent face now, between me and the driving clouds, like an angel going to fly away. It had happened on the second day, towards night, that Mrs. Atherfield, in getting little Lucy to sleep, sang her a song. She had a soft, melodious voice, and, when she had finished it, our people up and begged for another. She sang them another, and after it had fallen dark ended with the Evening Hymn. From that time, whenever anything could be heard above the sea and wind, and while she had any voice left, nothing would serve the people but that she should sing at sunset. She always did, and always ended with the Evening Hymn. We mostly took up the last line, and shed tears when it was done, but not miserably. We had a prayer night and morning, also, when the weather allowed of it. Twelve nights and eleven days we had been driving in the boat, when old Mr. Rarx began to be delirious, and to cry out to me to throw the gold overboard or it would sink us, and we sliould all be lost. For days past the child had been declining, and that was 96 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MAKY. the great cause of his wildness. He had been over and over again shrieking out to me to give her all the remaining meat, to give her all the remaining rum, to save her at any cost, or we should all be ruined. At this time, she lay in her mother's arms at my feet. One of her little hands was almost always creeping about her mother's neck or chin. I had watched the wasting of the little hand, and I knew it was nearly over. The old man's cries were so discordant with the mother's love and submission, that I called out to him in an angry voice, unless he held his peace on the instant, I would order him to be knocked on the head and thrown overboard. He was mute then, until the child died, very peacefully, an hour afterwards : which was known to all in the boat by the mother's breaking out into lamentations for the first time since the wreck — for, she had great fortitude and constancy, though she was a little gentle woman. Old Mr. Rarx then became quite ungovernable, tearing what rags he had on him, raging in imprecations, and calling to me that if I had thrown the gold overboard (always the gold with him !) I might have saved the child. "And now," says he, in a terrible voice, "we shall founder, and all go to the Devil, for our sins will sink us, when we have no innocent child to bear us up ! " We so discovered with amaze- ment, that this old wretch had only cared for the life of the pretty little creature dear to all of us, because of the influence he super- stitiously hoped she might have in preserving him ! Altogether it was too much for the smith or armourer, who was sitting next the old man, to bear. He took him by the throat and rolled him under the thwarts, where he lay still enough for hours afterwards. All that thirteenth night. Miss Coleshaw, lying across my knees as I kept the helm, comforted and supported the poor mother. Her child, covered with a pea-jacket of mine, lay in her lap. It troubled me all night to think that there was no Prayer-Book among us, and that I could remember but very few of the exact words of the burial service. When I stood up at broad day, all knew what was going to be done, and I noticed that my poor fel- lows made the motion of uncovering their heads, though their heads had been stark bare to the sky and sea for many a weary hour. There was a long heavy swell on, but otherwise it was a fair morn- ing, and there were broad fields of sunlight on the waves in the east. I said no more than this : " I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord. He raised the daughter of Jairus the ruler, and said she was not dead but slept. He raised the widow's son. He arose Himself, and was seen of many. He loved little children, saying, Sufler them to come unto Me and rebuke them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. In His name, my friends, and I THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 97 committed to His merciful goodness ! " With those words I laid my rough face softly on the placid little forehead, and buried the Golden Lucy in the grave of the Golden Mary. Having had it on my mind to relate the end of this dear little child, I have omitted something from its exact place, which I will supply here. It will come quite as well here as anywhere else. Foreseeing that if the boat lived through the stormy weather, the time must come, and soon come, when we should have abso- lutely no morsel to eat, I had one momentous point often in my thoughts. Although I had, years before that, fully satisfied myself that the instances in which human beings in the last distress have fed upon each other, are exceedingly few, and. have very seldom indeed (if ever) occurred when the people in distress, however dreadful their extremity, have been accustomed to moderate for- bearance and restraint; I say, though I had long before quite satis- fied my mind on this topic, I felt doubtful whether there might not have been in former cases some harm and danger from keeping it out of sight and pretending not to think of it. I felt doubtful whether some minds, growing weak with fasting and exposure and having such a terrific idea to dwell upon in secret, might not mag- nify it until it got to have an awful attraction about it. This was not a new thought of mine, for it had grown out of my reading. However, it came over me stronger than it had ever done before — as it had reason for doing — in the boat, and on the fourth day I decided that I would bring out into the light that unformed fear which must have been more or less darkly in every brain among us. Therefore, as a means of beguiling the time and inspiring hope, I gave them the best summary in my power of Bligh's voyage of more than three thousand miles, in an open boat, after the Mutiny of the Bounty, and of the wonderful preservation of that boat's crew. They listened throughout with great interest, and I concluded by telling them, that, in my opinion, the hap- piest circumstance in the whole narrative was, that Bligh, who was no delicate man either, had solemnly placed it on record therein that he was sure and certain that under no conceivable circumstances whatever would that emaciated party, who had gone through all the pains of famine, have preyed on one another. I cannot de- scribe the visible relief which this spread through the boat, and how the tears stood in every eye. From that time I was as well convinced as Bligh himself that there was no danger, and that this phantom, at any rate, did not haunt us. Now, it was a part of Bligh's experience that when the people in his boat were most cast down, nothing did them so much good as hearing a story told by one of their number. When I mentioned H 98 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. that, I saw that it struck the general attention as much as it did my own, for I had not thought of it until I came to it in my sum- mary. This was on the day after Mrs. Atherfield first sang to us. I proposed that, whenever the weather would permit, we should have a story two hours after dinner (I always issued the allowance I have mentioned at one o'clock, and called it by that name), as well as our song at sunset. The proposal was received with a cheerful satisfaction that warmed my heart within me ; and I do not say too much when I say that those two periods in the four- and-twenty hours were expected with positive pleasure, and were really enjoyed by all hands. Spectres as we soon were in our bodily wasting, our imaginations did not perish like the gross flesh upon our bones. Music and Adventure, two of the great gifts of Provi- dence to mankind, could charm us long after that was lost. The wind was almost always against us after the second day ; and for many days together we could not nearly hold our own. "We had all varieties of bad weather. We had rain, hail, snow, wind, mist, thunder, and lightning. Still the boats lived through the heavy seas, and still we perishing people rose and fell with the great waves. Sixteen nights and fifteen days, twenty nights and nineteen days, twenty-four nights and twenty-three days. So the time went on. Disheartening as I knew that our progress, or want of progress, must be, I never deceived them as to my calculations of it. In the first place, I felt that we were all too near eternity for deceit; in the second place, I knew that if I failed, or died, the man who followed me must have a knowledge of the true state of things to begin upon. When I told them at noon, what I reckoned we had made or lost, they generally received what I said in a tranquil and resigned man- ner, and always gratefully towards me. It was not unusual at any time of the day for some one to burst out weeping loudly without any new cause ; and, when the burst was over, to calm down a lit- tle better than before. I had seen exactly the same thing in a house of mourning. During the whole of this time, old Mr. Rarx had had his fits of calling out to me to throw the gold (always the gold ! ) overboard, and of heaping violent reproaches upon me for not having saved the child ; but now, the food being all gone, and I having nothing left to serve out but a bit of cofi'ee-berry now and then, he began to be too weak to do this, and consequently fell silent. Mrs. Atherfield and Miss Coleshaw generally lay, each with an arm across one of my knees, and her head upon it. They never complained at all. Up to the time of her child's death, Mrs. Atherfield had bound up her own beautiful hair every day ; and I took particular notice that THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 99 this was always before she sang her song at night, when every one looked at her. But she never did it after the loss of her darling ; and it would have been now all tangled with dirt and wet, but that Miss Coleshaw was careful of it long after she was, herself, and would sometimes smooth it down with her weak thin hands. We were past mustering a story now ; but one day, at about this period, I reverted to the superstition of old Mr. Rarx, concerning the Golden Lucy, and told them that nothing vanished from the eye of God, though much might pass away from the eyes of men, "We were all of us," says I, "children once; and our baby feet have strolled in green woods ashore ; and our baby hands have gathered flowers in gardens, where the birds were singing. The children that we were, are not lost to the great knowledge of our Creator. Those innocent creatures will appear with us before Him, and plead for us. What we were in the best time of our generous youth will arise and go with us too. The purest part of our lives will not desert us at the pass to which all of us here present are gliding. What we were then, will be as much in existence before Him, as what we are now." They were no less comforted by this consideration, than I was myself ; and Miss Coleshaw, drawing my ear nearer to her lips, said, " Captain Ra vender, I was on my way to marry a disgraced and broken man, whom I dearly loved when he was honourable and good. Your words seem to have come out of my owi^poor heart." She pressed my hand upon it, smiling. Twenty-seven nights and twenty-six days. We were in no want of rain-water, but we had nothing else. And yet, even now, I never turned my eyes upon a waking face but it tried to brighten before mine. 0, what a thing it is, in a time of danger and in the presence of death, the shining of a face upon a face ! I have heard it broached that orders should be given in great new ships by electric telegraph. I admire machinery as much as any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be for what it does for us. But it will never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and true. Never try it for that. It will break down like a straw. I now began to remark certain changes in myself which I did not like. They caused me much disquiet. I often saw the Golden Lucy in the air above the boat. I often saw her I have spoken of before, sitting beside me. I saw the Golden Mary go down, as she really had gone down, twenty times in a day. And yet the sea was mostly, to my thinking, not sea neither, but moving country and extraordinary mountainous regions, the like of which have never been beheld. I felt it time to leave my last words regarding John Steadiman, in case any lips should last out to repeat them to 100 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. any living ears. I said that John had told me (as he had on deck) that he had sung out "Breakers ahead!" the instant they were audible, and had tried to wear ship, but she struck before it could be done. (His cry, I dare say, had made my dream.) I said that the circumstances were altogether without warning, and out of any course that could have been guarded against ; that the same loss would have happened if I had been in charge ; and that John was not to blame, but from first to last had done his duty nobly, like the man he was. I tried to write it down in my pocket-book, but could make no words, though I knew what the words were that I wanted to make. When it had come to that, her hands — though she was dead so long — laid me down gently in the bottom of the boat, and she and the Golden Lucy swung me to sleep. All that followsj was written hy John Steadiman, Chief Mate : On the twenty-sixth day after the foundering of the Golden Maiy at sea, I, John Steadiman, was sitting in my place in the stem- sheets of the Surf-boat, with just sense enough left in me to steer — that is to say, with my eyes strained, wide-awake, over the bows of the boat, and my brains fast asleep and dreaming — when I was roused upon a sudden by our second mate, Mr. William Rames. " Let me take a spell in your place," says he. " And lt)ok you out for the Long-boat astern. The last time she rose on the crest of a wave, I thought I made out a signal flying aboard her." We shifted our places, clumsily and slowly enough, for we were both of us weak and dazed wdth wet, cold, and hunger. I waited some time, watching the heavy rollers astern, before the Long-boat rose atop of one of them at the same time with us. At last, she was heaved up for a moment well in view, and there, sure enough, was the signal flying aboard of her — a strip of rag of some sort, rigged to an oar, and hoisted in her bows. " What does it mean ? " says Rames to me in a quavering, trem- bling sort of voice. " Do they signal a sail in sight 1 " " Hush, for God's sake ! " says I, clapping my hand over his mouth. "Don't let the people hear you. They'll all go mad together if we mislead them about that signal. Wait a bit, till I have another look at it." I held on by him, for he had set me all of a tremble with his notion of a sail in sight, and watched for the Long-boat again. Up she rose on the top of another roller. I made out the signal clearly, that second time, and saw that it was rigged half-mast high. THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 101 "Rames," says I, "it's a signal of distress. Pass the word forward to keep her before the sea, and no more. We must get the Long-boat within hailing distance of us, as soon as possible." I dropped down into my old place at the tiller without another word — for the thought went through me like a knife that some- thing had happened to Captain Ravender. I should consider my- self unworthy to write another line of this statement, if I had not made up my mind to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — and I must, therefore, confess plainly that now, for the first time, my heart sank within me. This weakness on my part was produced in some degree, as I take it, by the exhaust- ing effects of previous anxiety and grief. Our provisions — if I may give that name to what we had left — were reduced to the rind of one lemon and about a couple of handsfull of coflPee-berries. Besides these great distresses, caused by the death, the danger, and the sufiering among my crew and passengers, I had had a little distress of my own to shake me still more, in the death of the child whom I had got to be very fond of on the voyage out — so fond that I was secretly a little jealous of her being taken in the Long-boat instead of mine when the ship foundered. It used to be a great comfort to me, and I think to those with me also, after we had seen the last of the Golden Mary, to see the Golden Lucy, held up by the men in the Long-boat, when the weather allowed it, as the best and brightest sight they had to show. She looked, at the distance we saw her from, almost like a little white bird in the air. To miss her for the first time, when the weather lulled a little again, and we all looked out for our white bird and looked in vain, was a sore disappointment. To see the men's heads bowed down and the captain's hand pointing into the sea when we hailed the Long-boat, a few days after, gave me as heavy a shock and as sharp a pang of heartache to bear as ever I remember suffering in all my life. I only mention these things to show that if I did give way a little at first, under the dread that our captain was lost to us, it was not without having been a good deal shaken beforehand by more trials of one sort or another than often fall to one man's share. I had got over the choking in my throat with the help of a drop of water, and had steadied my mind again so as to be prepared against the worst, when I heard the hail (Lord help the poor fellows, how weak it sounded !) — "Surf-boat, ahoy!" I looked up, and there were our companions in misfortune toss- ing abreast of us ; not so near that we could make out the features of any of them, but near enough, with some exertion for people 102 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. in our condition, to make their voices heard in the intervals when the wind was weakest. I answered the hail, and waited a bit, and heard nothing, and then sung out the captain's name. The voice that replied did not sound like his ; the words that reached us were : " Chief mate wanted on board ! " Every man of my crew knew what that meant as well as I did. As second officer in command, there could be but one reason for wanting me on board the Long-boat. A groan went all round us, and my men looked darkly in each other's faces, and whispered under their breaths : " The captain is dead ! " I commanded them to be silent, and not to make too sure of bad news, at such a pass as things had now come to with us. Then, hailing the Long-boat, I signified that I was ready to go on board when the weather would let me — stopped a bit to draw a good long breath — and then called out as loud as I could the dreadful question : " Is the captain dead ? " The black figures of three or four men in the after-part of the Long-boat all stooped down together as my voice reached them. They were lost to view for about a minute ; then appeared again — one man among them was held up on his feet by the rest, and he hailed back the blessed words (a very faint hope went a very long way with people in our desperate situation) : " Not yet ! " The relief felt by me, and by all with me, when we knew that our captain, though unfitted for duty, was not lost to us, it is not in words — at least, not in such words as a man like me can com- mand — to express. I did my best to cheer the men by telling them what a good sign it was that we were not as badly off" yet as we had feared ; and then communicated what instructions I had to give, to William Rames, who was to be left in command in my place when I took charge of the Long-boat. After that, there was nothing to be done, but to wait for the chance of the wind dropping at sunset, and the sea going down afterwards, so as to enable our weak crews to lay the two boats alongside of each other, without undue risk — or, to put it plainer, without saddling ourselves with the necessity for any extraordinary exertion of strength or skill. Both the one and the other had now been starved out of us for days and days together. At sunset the wind suddenly dropped, but the sea, which had been running high for so long a time past, took hours after that before it showed any signs of getting to rest. The moon was shin- ing, the sky was wonderfully clear, and it could not have been, THE WRECK OE TH'E GOLDEN MARY. 103 according to my calculations, far off midnight, when the long, slow, regular swell of the calming ocean fairly set in, and I took the responsibility of lessening the distance between the Long-boat and ourselves. It w^as, I dare say, a delusion of mine ; but I thought I had never seen the moon shine so white and ghastly anywhere, either at sea or on land, as she shone that night while we were approach- ing our companions in misery. When there was not much more than a boat's length between us, and the white light streamed cold and clear over all our faces, both crews rested on their oars with one great shudder, and stared over the gunwale of either boat, panic-stricken at the first sight of each other. "Any lives lost among you?" I asked, in the midst of that frightful silence. The men in the Long-boat huddled together like sheep at the sound of my voice. "None yet, but the child, thanks be to God!" answered one among them. And at the sound of his voice, all my men shrank together like the men in the Long-boat. I was afraid to let the horror produced by our first meeting at close quarters after the dreadful changes that wet, cold, and famine had produced, last one moment longer than could be helped ; so, without giving time for any more questions and answers, I commanded the men to lay the two boats close alongside of each other. When I rose up and committed the tiller to the hands of Rames, all my poor fellows raised their white faces imploringly to mine. "Don't leave us, sir," they said, "don't leave us." "I leave you," says I, "under the command and the guidance of Mr. William Rames, as good a sailor as I am, and as trusty and kind a man as ever stepped. Do your duty by him, as you have done it by me ; and remember to the last, that while there is life there is hope. God bless and help you all ! " With those words I collected what strength I had left, and caught at two arms that were held out to me, and so got from the stern-sheets of one boat into the stern-sheets of the other. "Mind where you step, sir," whispered one of the men who had helped me into the Long-boat. I looked down as he spoke. Three figures were huddled up below me, with the moonshine falling on them in ragged streaks through the gaps between the men standing or sitting above them. The first face I made out was the face of Miss Coleshaw, her eyes were wide open and fixed on me. She seemed still to keep her senses, and, by the alternate parting and closing of her lips, to be trying to speak, but I could not hear that she uttered a single word. On her shoulder rested the head of 104 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. Mrs. Atherfield. The mother of our poor little Golden Lucy must, I think, have been dreaming of the child she had lost ; for there was a faint smile just ruffling the white stillness of her face, when I first saw it turned upward, with peaceful closed eyes towards the heavens. From her, I looked down a little, and there, with his head on her lap, and with one of her hands resting tenderly on his cheek — there lay the captain, to whose help and guidance, up to this miserable time, we had never looked in vain, — there, worn out at last in our service, and for our sakes, lay the best and bravest man of all our company. I stole my hand in gently through his clothes and laid it on his heart, and felt a little feeble warmth over it, though my cold dulled touch could not detect even the faintest beat- ing. The two men in the stern-sheets with me, noticing what I was doing — knowing I loved him like a brother — and seeing, I suppose, more distress in my face than I myself was conscious of its showing, lost command over themselves altogether, and burst into a piteous moaning, sobbing lamentation over him. One of the two drew aside a jacket from his feet, and showed me that they were bare, except where a wet, ragged strip of stocking still clung to one of them. When the ship struck the Iceberg, he had run on deck leaving his shoes in his cabin. All through the voyage in the boat his feet had been unprotected ; and not a soul had discovered it until he dropped ! As long as he could keep his eyes open, the very look of them had cheered the men, and comforted and upheld the women. Not one living creature in the boat, with any sense about him, but had felt the good influence of that brave man in one way or another. Not one but liad heard him, over and over again, give the credit to others which was due only to himself; praising this man for patience, and thanking that man for help, when the patience and the help had really and truly, as to the best part of both, come only from him. All this, and much more, I heard pouring confusedly from the men's lips while they crouched down, sobbing and crying over their commander, and wrapping the jacket as warmly and tenderly as they could over his cold feet. It went to my heart to check them ; but I knew that if this lamenting spirit spread any further, all chance of keeping alight any last sparks of hope and resolution among the boat's company would be lost for ever. Ac- cordingly I sent them to their places, spoke a few encouraging words to the men forward, promising to serve out, when the morning came, as much as I dared, of any eatable thing left in the lockers ; called to Rames, in my old boat, to keep as near us as he safely could ; drew the garments and coverings of the two poor suffering women more closely about them ; and, with a secret prayer to be directed for the best in bearing the awful responsibility now laid THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 105 on my shoulders, took my captain's vacant place at the helm of the Long-boat. This, as well as I can tell it, is the full and tme account of how I came to be placed in charge of the lost passengers and crew of the Golden Mary, on the morning of the twenty-seventh day after the ship struck the Iceberg, and foundered at sea. Chapter II. THE DELIVERANCE. When the sun rose on the twenty-seventh day of our calamity, the first question that I secretly asked myself was. How many more mornings will the stoutest of us live to see ? I had kept count, ever since we took to the boats, of the days of the week ; and I knew that we had now arrived at another Thursday. Judg- ing by my own sensations (and I believe I had as much strength left as the best man among us), I came to the conclusion that, unless the mercy of Providence interposed to effect our deliver- ance, not one of our company could hope to see another morning after the morning of Sunday. Two discoveries that I made — after redeeming my promise overnight, to serve out with the morning whatever eatable thing I could find — helped to confirm me in my gloomy view of our future prospects. In the first place, when the few coff'ee-berries left, together with a small allowance of water, had been shared all round, I found on examining the lockers that not one grain of provision remained, fore or aft, in any part of the boat, and that our stock of fresh water was reduced to not much more than would fill a wine-bottle. In the second place, after the berries had been shared, and the water equally divided, I noticed that the sustenance thus administered produced no effect whatever, even of the most momentary kind, in raising the spirits of the passengers (excepting in one case) or in rallying the strength of the crew. The exception was Mr. Rarx. This tough and greedy old sinner seemed to wake up from the trance he had lain in so long, when the smell of the berries and water was under his nose. He swallowed his share with a gulp that many a younger and better man in the boat might have envied ; and went maunder- ing on to himself afterwards, as if he had got a new lease of life. He fancied now that he was digging a gold-mine, all by himself, and going down bodily straight through the earth at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour. "Leave me alone," says he, "leave 106 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. me alone. The lower I go, the richer I get. Down I go ! — down, down, down, down, till I burst out at the other end of the world in a shower of gold ! " So he went on, kicking feebly with his heels from time to time against the bottom of the boat. But, as for all the rest, it was a pitiful and dreadful sight to see of how little use their last shadow of a meal was to them. I myself attended, before anybody else was served, to the two poor women. Miss Coleshaw shook her head faintly, and pointed to her throat, when I offered her the few berries that fell to her share. I made a shift to crush them up fine and mix them with a little water, and got her to swallow that miserable drop of drink with the greatest difficulty. When it was down there came no change for the better over her face. Nor did she recover, for so much as a moment, the capacity to speak, even in a whisper. I next tried Mrs. Atherfield. It was hard to wake her out of the half-swooning, half-sleeping condition in which she lay, — and harder still to get her to open her lips when I put the tin-cup to them. When I had at last prevailed on her to swallow her allowance, she shut her eyes again, and fell back into her old position. I saw her lips moving ; and, putting my ear close to them, caught some of the words she was murmuring to herself. She was still dreaming of the Golden Lucy. She and the child were walking somewhere by the banks of a lake, at the time when the buttercups are out. The Golden Lucy was gathering the buttercups, and making herself a watch- chain out of them, in imitation of the chain that her mother wore. They were carrying a little basket with them, and were going to dine together in a great hollow tree growing on the banks of the lake. To get this pretty picture painted on one's mind as I got it, while listening to the poor mother's broken words, and then to look up at the haggard faces of the men in the boat, and at the wild ocean rolling all round us, was such a change from fancy to real- ity as it has fallen, I hope, to few men's lots to experience. My next thought, when I had done my best for the women, was for the captain. I was free to risk losing my own share of water, if I pleased, so I tried, before tasting it myself, to get a little between his lips; but his teeth were fast clenched, and I had neither strength nor skill to open them. The faint warmth still remained, thank God, over his heart — but, in all other respects he lay beneath us like a dead man. In covering him up again as comfortably as I could, I found a bit of paper crunched in one of his hands, and took it out. There was some writing on it, but not a word was readable. I suppose, poor fellow, that he had been trying to write some last instructions for me, just before he dropped at his post. If they had been ever so easy to read, they THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 107 would have been of no use now. To follow instructions we must have had some power to shape the boat's course in a given direc- tion — and this, which we had been gradually losing for some days past, we had now lost altogether. I had hoped that the serving out of the refreshment would have put a little modicum of strength into the arms of the men at the oars ; but, as I have hinted, this hope turned out to be perfectly fruitless. Our last mockery of a meal, which had done nothing for the passengers, did nothing either for the crew — except to aggravate the pangs of hunger in the men who were still strong enough to feel them. While the weather held moderate, it was not of much con- sequence if one or two of the rowers kept dropping, in turn, into a kind of faint sleep over their oars. But if it came on to blow again (and we could expect nothing else in those seas and at that time of the year), how was I to steer, when the blades of the oars were out of the water ten times as often as they were in ? The lives which we had undergone such suffering to preserve would have been lost in an instant by the swamping of the boat, if the wind had risen on the morning of Thursday, and had caught us trying to row any longer. Feeling this, I resolved, while the weather held moderately fine, to hoist the best substitute for a sail that we could produce, and to drive before the wind, on the chance (the last we had to hope for) of a ship picking us up. We had only continued to use the oars up to this time, in order to keep the course which the captain had pointed out as likeliest to bring us near the land. Sailing had been out of the question from the first, the masts and suits of sails be- longing to each boat having been out of them at the time of the wreck, and having gone down with the ship. This was an accident which there was no need to deplore, for we were too crowded from the first to admit of handling the boats properly, under their reg- ular press of sail, in anything like rough weather. Having made up my mind on what it was necessary to do, I ad- dressed the men, and told them that any notion of holding longer on our course with the oars was manifestly out of the question, and dangerous to all on board, as their own common sense might tell them, in the state to which the stoutest arms among us were now reduced. They looked round on each other as I said that, each man seeming to think his neighbour weaker than himself. I went on, and told them that we must take advantage of our present glimpse of moderate weather, and hoist the best sail we could set up, and drive before the wind, in tlie hope tliat it might please God to direct us in the way of some ship before it was too late. "Our only chance, my men," I said, in conclusion, "is the chance of being 108 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. picked up ; and in these desolate seas one point of the compass is just as likely a point for our necessities as another. Half of you keep the boat before the sea, the other half bring out your knives, and do as I tell you." The prospect of being relieved from the oars struck the wandering attention of the men directly; and they said, "Ay, ay, sir ! " with something like a faint reflection of their former readiness, when the good ship was under their feet, and the mess-cans were filled with plenty of wholesome food. Thanks to Captain Ravender's forethought in providing both boats with a coil of rope, we had our lashings, and the means of making what rigging was wanted, ready to hand. One of the oars was made fast to the thwart, and well stayed fore and aft, for a mast. A large pilot-coat that I wore was spread ; enough of sail for us. The only difficulty that puzzled me was occasioned by the necessity of making a yard. The men tried to tear up one of the thwarts, but were not strong enough. My own knife had been broken in the attempt to split a bit of plank for them ; and I was almost at my wit's end, when I luckily thought of searching the captain's pockets for his knife. I found it — a fine large knife of Sheffield manufacture, with plenty of blades, and a small saw among them. With this we made a shift to saw oft' about a third of an- other oar ; and then the difficulty was conquered ; and we got my pilot-coat hoisted on our jury-mast, and rigged it as nigh as we could to the fashion of a lug-sail. I had looked anxiously towards the Surf-boat, while we were rigging our mast, and observed, with a feeling of great relief, that the men in her — as soon as they discovered what we were about — were wise enough to follow our example. They got on faster than we did ; being less put to it for room to turn round in. We set our sails as nearly as possible about the same time ; and it was well for both boats that we finished our work when we did. At noon the wind began to rise again to a stiff" breeze, which soon knocked up a heavy, tumbling sea. We drove before it in a direc- tion North and by East, keeping wonderfully dry, considering all things. The mast stood well ; and the sail, small as it was, did good service in steadying the boat and lifting her easily over the seas. I felt the cold after the loss of my coat, but not so badly as I had feared ; for the two men who were with me in the stern-sheets, sat as close as thej'^ could on either side of me, and helped with the warmth of their own bodies to keep the warmth in mine. Forward, I told off" half a dozen of the most trustworthy of the men who could still muster strength enough to keep their eyes open, to set a watch, turn and turn about, on our frail rigging. The wind was steadily increasing ; and if any accident happened to our mast, the chances THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 109 were that the boat would broach-to, and that every one of us would go to the bottom. ^ So we drove on — all through that day — sometimes catching sight of the Surf-boat a little ahead of us — sometimes losing her altogether in the scud. How little and frail, how very different to the kind of boat that I had expected to see, she looked to my eyes now that I was out of her, and saw what she showed like on the waters for the first time ! But to return to the Long-boat. The watch on the rigging was relieved every two hours, and at the same regular periods all the brightest eyes left amongst us looked out for the smallest vestige of a sail in view, and looked in vain. Among the passengers, nothing happened in the way of a change — except that Miss Coleshaw seemed to grow fainter, and that Mrs. Atherfield got restless, as if she were waking out of her long dream about the Golden Lucy. It got on towards sunset. The wind was rising to half a gale. The clouds, which had been heavy all over the firmament since noon, were lifting to the westward, and leaving there, over the horizon line of the ocean, a long strip of clear, pale, greenish sky, overhung by a cloud-bank, whose ragged edges were tipped with burning crimson by the sun. I did not like the look of the night, and, keeping where I was, in the forward part of the boat, I helped the men to ease the strain off our mast, by lowering the yard a little and taking a pull on the sheet, so as to present to the wind a smaller surface even of our small sail. Noting the wild look of the weather, and the precautions we were taking against the chance of a gale rising in the night — and being, furthermore, as I believe, staggered in their minds by the death that had taken place among them — three of the passengers struggled up in the bottom of the boat, clasped their arms round me as if they were drowning men already, and hoarsely clamoured for a last drink of water, before the storm rose and sent us all to the bottom. "Water you shall have," I said, "when I think the time has come to serve it out. The time has not come yet." "Water, pray!" they all three groaned together. Two more passengers who were asleep, woke up, and joined the cry. " Silence ! " I said. " There are not two spoonfuls of fresh water left for each man in the boat. I shall wait three hours more for the chance of rain before I serve that out. Silence, and drop back to your places ! " They let go of me, but clamoured weakly for water still ; and, this time, the voices of some of the crew joined them. At this mo- ment, to my great alarm (for I thought they were going mad and turning violent against me), I was seized round the neck by one 110 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. of the men, who had been standing up, holding on by the mast, and looking out steadily to the westward. I raised my right hand to free myself; but before I touched him, the sight of the man's face close to mine made me drop my arm again. There was a speechless, breathless, frantic joy in it, that made all the blood in my veins stand still in a moment. " Out with it ! " I said. " Man alive, out with it, for God's sake ! " His breath beat on my cheek in hot, quick, heavy gasps ; but he could not utter a word. For a moment he let go of the mast (tightening his hold on me with the other arm) and pointed out westward — then slid heavily down on to the thwart behind us. I looked westward, and saw that one of the two trustworthy men whom I had left at the helm was on his feet looking out west- ward, too. As the boat rose, I fixed my eyes on the strip of clear greenish sky in the west, and on the bright line of the sea just under it. The boat dipped again before I could see anything. I squeezed my eyelids together to get the water out of them, and when we rose again looked straight into the middle of the bright sea-line. My heart bounded as if it would choke me — my tongue felt like a cinder in my mouth — my knees gave way under me — I dropped down on to the thwart, and sobbed out, with a great eff'ort, as if I had been dumb for weeks before, and had only that instant found my speech : " A sail ! a sail ! " The words were instantly echoed by the man in the stern-sheets. " Sail, ho ! " he screeches out, turning round on us, and swing- ing his arms about his head like a madman. This made three of our company who had seen the ship already, and that one fact was sufficient to remove all dread lest our eyes might have been deceiving us. The great fear now was, not that we were deluded, but that we might come to some serious harm through the excess of joy among the people ; that is to say, among such of the people as still had the sense to feel and the strength to express what they felt. I must record in my own justification, after con- fessing that I lost command over myself altogether on the discovery of the sail, that I was the first who set the example of self-control, I was in a manner forced to this by the crew frantically entreating me to lay-to until we could make out what course the ship was steering — a proceeding which, with the sea then running, with the the heavy lading of the boat, and with such feeble substitutes for mast and sail as we possessed, must have been attended with total destruction to us all. I tried to remind the men of this, but they were in such a transport — hugging each other round the neck, and THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. Ill crying and laughing all in a breath — that they were not fit to listen to reason. Accordingly, I myself went to the helm again, and chose the steadiest of my two men in the after-part of the boat : as a guard over the sheet, with instructions to use force if necessary, towards any one who stretched out so much as a finger to it. The wind was rising every minute, and we had nothing for it but to scud, and be thankful to God's mercy that we had sea-room to do it in. " It will be dark in an hour's time, sir," says the man left along with me when I took the helm again. " We have no light to show. The ship will pass us in the night. Lay-to, sir ! For the love of Heaven, give us all a chance, and lay-to ! " says Jie, and goes down on his knees before me, wringing his hands. " Lay-to ! " says I. " Lay-to, under a coat ! Lay-to, in a boat hke this, with the wind getting up to a gale ! A seaman like you talk in that way ! Who have I got along here with me ? Sailors who know their craft, or a pack of 'long-shore lubbers, who ought to be turned adrift in a ferry-boat on a pond 1 " My heart was heavy enough, God knows, but I spoke out as loud as I could, in that light way, to try and shame the men back to their proper senses. I succeeded at least in restoring silence; and that was something in such a condition as ours. My next anxiety was to know if the men in the Surf-boat had sighted the sail to the westward. She was still driving ahead of us, and the first time I saw her rise on the waves, I made out a signal on board — a strip of cloth fastened to a boat-hook. I ordered the man by my side to return it with his jacket tied on to the end of an oar ; being anxious to see whether his agitation had calmed down and left him fit for his duty again. He followed my direction steadily and when he had got his jacket on again, asked me to pardon him for losing his self-command, in a quiet, altered voice. I shook hands with him, and gave him the helm, in proof that my confidence was restored ; then stood up and turned my face to the westward once again. I looked long into the belt of clear sky, which was narrowing already as the cloud-bank above sank over it. I looked with all my heart and soul and strength. It was only when my eyes could stand the strain on them no longer, that I gave in, and sat down again by the tiller. If I had not been sup- ported by a firm trust in the mercy of Providence, which had pre- served us thus far, I am afraid I should have abandoned myself at that trying time to downright hopeless, speechless despair. It would not express much to any but seafaring readers if I mentioned the number of leagues off" that I considered the ship to be. I shall give a better idea of the terrible distance there was 112 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. between us, when I say that no landsman's eye could have made her out at all, and that none of us sailors could have seen her but for the bright opening in the sky, which made even a speck on the waters visible to a mariner's experienced sight all that weary way off. When I have said this, I have said enough to render it plain to every man's understanding that it was a sheer impossibility to make out what course the ship was steering, seeing that we had no chance of keeping her in view at that closing time of day for more than another half-hour, at most. There she was, astern to leeward of us ; and here were we, driving for our lives before the wind, with any means of kindling a light that we might have possessed on leaving our ship wetted through long ago — with no guns to fire as signals of distress in the darkness — and with no choice, if the wind^ shifted, but still to scud in any direction in which it might please to drive us. Supposing, even at the best, that the ship was steering on our course, and would overhaul us in the night, what chance had we of making our position known to her in the dark- ness ? Truly, look at it anyhow we might from our poor mortal point of view, our prospect of deliverance seemed to be of the most utterly hopeless kind that it is possible to conceive. The men felt this bitterly, as the cloud-bank dropped to the verge of the waters, and the sun set redly behind it. The moaning and lamenting among them was miserable to hear, when the last speck and phantom of the ship had vanished from view. Some few still swore they saw her when there was hardly a flicker of light left in the west, and only gave up looking out, and dropped down in the boat, at my express orders. I charged them all sol- emnly to set an example of courage to the passengers, and to trust the rest to the infinite wisdom and mercy of the Creator of us all. Some murmured, some fell to repeating scraps out of the Bible and Prayer-Book, some wandered again in their minds. This went on till the darkness gathered — then a great hush of silence fell drear- ily over passengers and crew ; and the waves and the wind hissed and howled about us, as if we were tossing in the midst of them, a boat-load of corpses already ! Twice in the fore-part of the night the clouds overhead parted for a little, and let the blessed moonlight down upon us. On the first of those occasions, I myself served out the last drops of fresh water we had left. The two women — poor suffering creatures ! — were past drinking. Miss Coleshaw shivered a little when I moistened her lips with the water ; and Mrs. Atherfield, when I did the same for her, drew her breath with a faint, fluttering sigh, which was just enough to show that she was not dead yet. The captain stdl lay as he had lain ever since I got on board the boat. The others, THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 113 both passengers and crew, managed for the most part to swallow their share of the water — the men being just sufficiently roused by it to get up on their knees, while the moonlight lasted, and look about wildly over the ocean for a chance of seeing the ship again. When the clouds gathered once more, they crouched back in their places with a long groan of despair. Hearing that, and dreading the effect of the pitchy darkness (to say nothing of the fierce wind and sea) on their sinking spirits, I resolved to combat their despond- ency,, if it were still possible to contend against it, by giving them something to do. First telling them that no man could say at what time of the night the ship (in case she was ^steering our course) might forge ahead of us, or how near she might be when she passed, I recommended that all who had the strength should join their voices at regular intervals, and shout their loudest when the boat rose highest on the waves, on the chance of that cry of distress being borne by the wind within hearing of the watch on board the ship. It is unnecessary to say that I knew well how near it was to an absolute impossibility that this last feeble exertion on our parts could lead to any result. I only proposed it because I was driven to the end of my resources to keep up the faintest flicker of spirit among the men. They received my proposal with more warmth and readiness than I had ventured, in their hopeless state, to expect from them. Up to the turn of midnight they resolutely raised their voices with me, at intervals of from five to ten minutes, whenever the boat was tossed highest on the waves. The wind seemed to whirl our weak cries savagely out of our mouths almost before we could utter them. I, sitting astern in the boat, only heard them, as it seemed, for something like an instant of time. But even that was enough to make me creep all over — the cry was so forlorn and fearful. Of all the dreadful sounds I had heard since the first strik- ing of the ship, that shrill wail of despair — rising on the wave- tops, one moment ; whirled away the next, into the black night — was the most frightful that entered my ears. There are times, even now, when it seems to be ringing in them still. Whether our first gleam of moonshine fell upon old Mr. Rarx, while he was sleeping, and helped to upset his weak brains al- together, is more than I can say. But, for some reason or other, before the clouds parted and let the light down on us for the second time, and while we were driving along awfully through the black- est of the night, he stirred in his place, and began rambling and raving again more vehemently than ever. To hear him now, — that is to say, as well as I could hear him for the wind, — he was still down in his gold-mine; but was laden so heavy with his precious metal that he could not get out, and was in mortal peril 114 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. of being drowned by the water rising in the bottom of the shaft. So far, his maundering attracted my attention disagreeably, and did no more. But when he began — if I may say so — to take the name of the dear little dead child in vain, and to mix her up with himself and his miserly greed of gain, I got angry and called to the men forward to give him a shake and make him hold his tongue. Whether any of them obeyed or not, I don't know — Mr. Rarx went on raving louder than ever. The shrill wind was now hardly more shrill than he. He swore he saw the white frock of our poor little lost pet fluttering in the daylight, at the top of the mine, and he screamed out to her in a great fright that the gold was heavy, and the water rising fast, and that she must come down quick as lightning if she meant to be in time to help them. I called again angrily to the men to silence him ; and just as I did so, the clouds began to part for the second time, and the white tip of the moon grew visible. " There she is ! " screeches Mr. Rarx ; and I saw him by the faint light, scramble on his knees in the bottom of the boat, and wave a ragged old handkerchief up at the moon. " Pull him down ! " I called out. "Down with him; and tie his arms and legs ! " Of the men who could still move about, not one paid any atten- tion to me. They were all upon their knees again, looking out in the strengthening moonlight for a sight of the ship. " Quick, Golden Lucy ! " screams Mr. Rarx, and creeps under the thwarts right forward into the bows of the boat. " Quick ! my darling, my beauty, quick ! The gold is heavy, and the water rises fast ! Come down and save me. Golden Lucy ! Let all the rest of the world drown, and save me ! Me ! me ! me ! me ! " He shouted these last words out at the top of his cracked, croak- ing voice, and got on his feet, as I conjectured (for the coat we had spread for a sail now hid him from me) in the bows of the boat. Not one of the crew so much as looked round at liim, so eagerly were their eyes seeking for the ship. The man sitting by me was sunk in a deep sleep. If I had left the helm for a moment in that wind and sea, it would have been the death of every soul of us. I shouted desperately to the raving wretch to sit down. A screech that seemed to cut the very wind in two answered me. A huge wave tossed the boat's head up wildly at the same mo- ment. I looked aside to leeward as the wash of the great roller swept by us, gleaming of a lurid, bluish white in the moonbeams ; I looked and saw, in one second of time, the face of Mr. Rarx rush past on the wave, with the foam seething in his hair and the moon shining in his eyes. Before I could draw my breath he was a THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 115 hundred yards astern of us, and the night and the sea had swal- lowed him up and had hid his secret, which he had kept all the voyage, from our mortal curiosity, for ever. " He's gone ! he's drowned ! " I shouted to the men forward. None of them took any notice ; none of them left off looking out over the ocean for a sight of the ship. Nothing that I could say on the subject of our situation at that fearful time can, in my opin- ion, give such an idea of the extremity and the Rightfulness of it, as the relation of this one fact. I leave it to speak by itself the sad and shocking truth, and pass on gladly to the telling of what happened next, at a later hour of the night. After the clouds had shut out the moon again, the wind dropped a little and shifted a point or two, so as to shape our course nearer to the eastward. How the hours passed after that, till the dawn came, is more than I can tell. The nearer the time of daylight approached the more completely everything seemed to drop out of my mind, except the one thought of where the ship we had seen in the evening might be, when we looked for her with the morning light. It came at last — that grey, quiet light which was to end all our uncertainty ; which was to show us if we were saved, or to warn us if we were to prepare for death. With the first streak in the east, every one of the boat's company, except the sleeping and the senseless, roused up and looked out in breathless silence upon the sea. Slowly and slowly the daylight strengthened, and the dark- ness rolled off farther and farther before it over the face of the waters. The first pale flush of the sun flew trembling along the paths of light broken through the grey wastes of the eastern clouds. We could look clearly — we could see far ; and there, ahead of us — ! merciful, bountiful providence of God ! — there was the ship ! I have honestly owned the truth, and confessed to the human infirmity under suffering of myself, my passengers, and my crew. I have earned, therefore, as I would fain hope, the right to record it to the credit of all, that the men, the moment they set eyes on the ship, poured out their whole heart in humble thanksgiving to the Divine Mercy which had saved them from the very jaws of death. They did not wait for me to bid them do this ; they did it of their own accord, in their own language, fervently, earnestly, with one will and one heart. We had hardly made the ship out — a fine brigantine, hoisting English colours — before we observed that her crew suddenly hove her up in the wind. At first we were at a loss to understand this ; but as we drew nearer, we discovered that she was getting the Surf- 116 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. boat (which had kept ahead of us all through the night) alongside of her, under the lee bow. My men tried to cheer when they saw their companions in safety, but their weak cries died away in tears and sobbing. In another half-hour we, too, were alongside of the brigantine. From this point I recollect nothing very distinctly. I remem- ber faintly many loud voices and eager faces ; — I remember fresh strong willing fellows, with a colour in their cheeks, and a smart- ness in their movements that seemed quite preternatural to me at that time, hanging over us in the rigging of the brigantine, and dropping down from her sides into our boat ; — I remember trying with my feeble hands to help them in the difficult atld perilous task of getting the two poor women and the captain on board ; — I remember one dark hairy giant of a man swearing that it was enough to break his heart, and catching me in his arms like a child — and from that moment I remember nothing more with the slightest certainty for over a week of time. When I came to my own senses again, in my cot on board the brigantine my first inquiries were naturally for my fellow-sufferers. Two — a passenger in the Long-boat, and one of the crew of the Surf-boat — had sunk in spite of all the care that could be taken of them. The rest were likely, with time and attention, to recover. Of those who have been particularly mentioned in this narrative, Mrs. Atherfield had shown signs of rallying the soonest ; Miss Cole- shaw, who had held out longer against exhaustion, was now the slower to recover. Captain Ravender, though slowly mending, was still not able to speak or to move in his cot without help. The sacrifices for us all which this good man had so nobly undergone, not only in the boat, but before that, when he had deprived him- self of his natural rest on the dark nights that preceded the wreck of the Golden Mary, had sadly undermined his natural strength of constitution. He, the heartiest of all, when we sailed from Eng- land, was now, through his unwearying devotion to his duty and to us, the last to recover, the longest to linger between life and death. My next questions (when they helped me on deck to get my first blessed breath of fresh air) related to the vessel that had saved us. She was bound to the Columbia River — a long way to the north- ward of the port for which we had sailed in the Golden Mary. Most providentially for us, shortly after we had lost sight of the brigantine in the shades of the evening, she had been caught in a squall, and had sprung her foretopmast badly. This accident had obHged them to lay-to for some hours, while they did their best to secure the spar, and had warned them, when they continued on THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 117 their course, to keep the ship under easy sail through the night. But for this circumstance we must, in all human probability, have been too far astern when the morning dawned, to have had the slightest chance of being discovered. Excepting always some of the stoutest of our men, the next of the Long-boat's company who was helped on deck was Mrs. Ather- field. Poor soul ! when she and I first looked at each other, I could see that her heart went back to the early days of our voyage, when the Golden Lucy and I used to have our game of hide-and- seek round the mast. She squeezed my hand as hard as she coulcl with her wasted trembling fingers, and looke^l up piteously in my face, as if she would like to speak to little Lucy's playfellow, but dared not trust herself — then turned away quickly and laid her head against the bulwarks, and looked out upon the desolate sea that was nothing to her now but her darling's grave. I was better pleased when I saw her later in the day, sitting by Captain Raven- der's cot ; for she seemed to take comfort in nursing him. Miss Coleshaw soon afterwards got strong enough to relieve her at this duty; and, between them, they did the captain such a world of good, both in body and spirit, that he also got strong enough before long to come on deck, and to thank me, in his old generous self- forgetful way, for having done my duty — the duty which I had learnt how to do by his example. Hearing what our destination had been when we sailed from England, the captain of the brigantine (who had treated us with the most unremitting attention and kindness, and had been warmly seconded in his eff'orts for our good by all the people under his com- mand) volunteered to go sufficiently out of his course to enable us to speak the first Californian coasting- vessel sailing in the direction of San Francisco. We were lucky in meeting with one of these sooner than we expected. Three days after parting from the kind captain of the brigantine, we, the surviving passengers and crew of the Golden Mary, touched the firm ground once more, on the shores of California. We were hardly collected here before we were obliged to separate again. Captain Ravender, though he was hardly yet in good trav- elling trim, accompanied Mrs. Atherfield inland, to see her safe under her husband's protection. Miss Coleshaw went with them, to stay with Mrs. Atherfield for a little while before she attempted to proceed with any matters of her own which had brought her to this part of the world. The rest of us, who were left behind with nothing particular to do until the captain's return, followed the passengers to the gold-diggings. Some few of us had enough of the life there in a very short time. The rest seemed bitten by 118 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. old Mr. Rarx's mania for gold, and insisted on stopping behind when Rames and I proposed going back to the port. We two, and five of our steadiest seamen, were all the oflBcers and crew left to meet the captain on his return from the inland country. He reported that he had left Mrs. Atherfield and Miss Cole- shaw safe and comfortable under Mr. Atherfield's care. They sent affectionate messages to all of us, and especially (I am proud to say) to me. After hearing this good news, there seemed noth- ing better to do than to ship on board the first vessel bound for England. There were plenty in port, ready to sail, and only wait- ing for the men belonging to them who had deserted to the gold- diggings. We were all snapped up eagerly, and offered any rate we chose to set on our services, the moment we made known our readiness to ship for England — all, I ought to have said, except Captain Ravender, who went along with us in the capacity of passenger only. Nothing of any moment occurred on the voyage back. The captain and I got ashore at Gravesend safe and hearty, and went up to London as fast as the train could carry us, to report the calamity that had occurred to the owners of the Golden Mary. When that duty had been performed. Captain Ravender went back to his own house at Poplar, and I travelled to the AVest of England to report myself to my old father and mother. Here I might well end all these pages of writing ; but I cannot refrain from adding a few more sentences, to tell the reader what I am sure he will be glad to hear. In the summer-time of this present year eighteen hundred and fifty-six, I happened to be at New York, and having spare time on my hands, and spare cash in my pocket, I walked into one of the biggest and grandest of their ordinaries there, to have my dinner. I had hardly sat down at table, before who should I see opposite but Mrs. Atherfield, as bright-eyed and pretty as ever, wdth a gentleman on her right hand, and on her left — another Golden Lucy ! Her hair was a shade or two darker than the hair of my poor little pet of past sad times ; but in all other respects the living child reminded me so strongly of the dead, that I quite started at the first sight of her. I could not tell, if I was to try, how happy we were after dinner, or how much we had to say to each other. I was introduced to Mrs. Atherfield's husband, and heard from him, among other things, that Miss Coleshaw was married to her old sweetheart, who had fallen into misfortunes and errors, and whom she was de- termined to set right by giving him the great chance in life of get- ting a good wife. They were settled in America, like Mr. and Mrs. Atherfield — these last and the child being on their way, when I THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 119 met them, to visit a friend living in the northernmost part of the States. With the relation of this circumstance, and with my personal testimony to the good health and spirits of Captain Ravender the last time I saw him, ends all that I have to say in connection with the subject of the Wreck of the Golden Mary, and the Great Deliverance of her People at Sea. THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. IN THREE CHAPTEBS. Chapter I. THE ISLAND OF SILVER-STORE. It was in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-four, that I, Gill Davis to command. His Mark, having then the honour to be a private in the Royal Marines, stood a leaning over the bulwarks of the armed sloop Christopher Columbus, in the South American waters off the Mosquito shore. My lady remarks to me, before I go any further, that there is no such Christian name as Gill, and that her confident opinion is, that the name given to me in the baptism wherein I was made, &c., was Gilbert. She is certain to be right, but I never heard of it. I was a foundling child, picked up somewhere or another, and I always understood my Christian name to be Gill. It is true that I was called Gills when employed at Snorridge Bottom betwixt Chatham and Maidstone, to frighten birds ; but that had nothing to do with the baptism wherein I was made, &c., and wherein a number of things were promised for me by somebody, who let me alone ever afterwards as to performing any of them, and who, I consider, must have been the Beadle. Such name of Gills was entirely owing to my cheeks, or gills, which at that time of my life were of a raspy description. My lady stops me again, before I go any further, by laughing ex- actly in her old way and waving the feather of her pen at me. That action on her part, calls to my mind as I look at her hand with the rings on it — Well ! I won't ! To be sure it will come in, in its own place. But it's always strange to me, noticing the quiet hand, and noticing it (as I have done, you know, so many times) a fondling children and grandchildren asleep, to think that when blood and honour were up — There ! I won't ! not at present ! — Scratch it out. 120 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. She won't scratch it out, and quite honourable ; because we have made an understanding that everything is to be taken down, and that nothing that is once taken down shall be scratched out. I have the great misfortune not to be able to read and write, and I am speaking my true and faithful account of those Adventures, and my lady is writing it, word for word. I say, there I was, a leaning over the bulwarks of the sloop Christopher Columbus in the South American waters off the Mosquito shore: a subject of His Gracious Majesty King George of England, and a private in the Royal Marines. In those climates, you don't want to do much. I was doing nothing, I was thinking of the shepherd (my father, I wonder ?) on the hill-sides by Snorridge Bottom, with a long staff, and with a rough white coat in all weathers all the year round, who used to let me lie in a corner of his hut by night, and who used to let me go about with him and his sheep by day when I could get nothing else to do, and who used to give me so little of his victuals and so much of his staff, that I ran away from him — which was what he wanted all along, I expect — to be knocked about the world in preference to Snorridge Bottom. I had been knocked about the world for nine-and-twenty years in all, when I stood looking along those bright blue South American waters. Looking after the shep- herd, I may say. Watching him in a half-waking dream, with my eyes half shut, as he, and his flock of sheep, and his two dogs, seemed to move away from the ship's side, far away over the blue water, and go right down into the sky. "It's rising out of the water, steady," a voice said close to me. I had been thinking on so, that it like woke me with a start, though it was no stranger voice than the voice of Harry Charker, my own comrade. " What's rising out of the water, steady ? " I asked my comrade. " What 1 " says he. " The Island." " ! The Island ! " says I, turning my eyes towards it. " True. I forgot the Island." " Forgot the port you're going to ? That's odd, an't it ? " " It is odd," says I. " And odd," he said, slowly considering with himself, " an't even. Is it. Gill?" He had always a remark just like that to make, and seldom another. As soon as he had brought a thing round to what it was not, he was satisfied. He was one of the best of men, and, in a certain sort of a way, one with the least to say for himself. I qualify it, because, besides being able to read and write like a Quar- ter-master, he had always one most excellent idea in his mind. im'm THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 123 'That was, Duty. Upon ray soul, I don't believe, though I admire learning beyond everything, that he could have got a better idea out of all the books in the world, if he had learnt them every word, and been the cleverest of scholars. My comrade and I had been quartered in Jamaica, and from there we had been drafted off to the British settlement of Belize, lying away West and North of the Mosquito coast. At Belize there had been great alarm of one cruel gang of pirates (there were always more pirates than enough in those Caribl^an Seas), and as chey got the better of our English cruisers by running into out-of- the-way creeks and shallows, and taking the land when they were liotly pressed, the governor of Belize had received orders from home to keep a sharp look-out for them along shore. Now, there was an armed sloop came once a year from Port Royal, Jamaica, to the Island, laden with all manner of necessaries, to eat and to drink, and to wear, and to use in various ways ; and it was aboard of that sloop which had touched at Belize, that I was a standing, leaning over the bulwarks. The Island was occupied by a very small English colony. It had been given the name of Silver-Store. The reason of its being so called, was, that the English colony owned and worked a silver mine over on the mainland, in Honduras, and used this Island as a safe and convenient place to store their silver in, until it was annu- ally fetched away by the sloop. It was brought down from the mine to the coast on the backs of mules, attended by friendly Indians and guarded by white men ; from thence, it was conveyed over to Silver-Store, when the weather was fair, in the canoes of that country ; from Silver-Store, it was carried to Jamaica by the armed sloop once a year, as I have already mentioned ; from Jamaica it went, of course, all over the world. How I came to be aboard the armed sloop, is easily told. Four- and- twenty marines under command of a lieutenant — that officer's name was Linderwood — had been told off at Belize, to proceed to Silver-Store, in aid of boats and seamen stationed there for the chace of the pirates. The Island was considered a good post of observation against the pirates, both by land and sea ; neither the pirate ship nor yet her boats had been seen by any of us, but they had been so much heard of, that the reinforcement was sent. Of that party, I was one. It included a corporal and a serjeant. Charker was corporal, and the Serjeant's name was Drooce. He was the most tyrannical non-commissioned officer in His Majesty's service. The night came on, soon after I had had the foregoing words with Charker. All the wonderful bright colours went out of the sea and sky, in a few minutes, and all the stars in the Heavens seemed to 124 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. shine out together, and to look down at themselves in the sea, over one another's shoulders, millions deep. Next morning, we cast anchor off the Island. There was a snug harbour within a little reef ; there was a sandy beach ; there were cocoa-nut trees with high straight stems, quite bare, and foliage at the top like plumes of magnificent green feathers ; there were all tlie objects that are usually seen in those parts, and I am not going to describe them, having something else to tell about. Great rejoicings, to be sure, were made on our arrival. All the flags in the place were hoisted, all the guns in the place were fired, and all the people in the place came down to look at us. One of those Sambo fellows — they call those natives Sambos, when they are half-negro and half-Indian — had come off outside the reef, to pilot us in, and remained on board after we had let go our anchor. He was called Christian George King, and was fonder of all hands than anybody else was. Now, I confess, for myself, that on that first day, if I had been captain of the Christopher Columbus, instead of private in the Royal Marines, I should have kicked Christain George King — who was no more a Christian, than he was a King, or a George — over the side, without exactly know- ing why, except that it was the right thing to do. But, I must likewise confess, that I was not in a particularly pleasant humour, when I stood under arms that morning, aboard the Christopher Columbus in the harbour of the Island of Silver- Store. I had had a hard life, and the life of the English on the Island seemed too easy and too gay, to please me. "Here you are," I thought to myself, "good scholars and good livers; able to read what you like, able to write what you like, able to eat and drink what you like, and spend what you like, and do what you like ; and much you care for a poor, ignorant Private in the Royal Marines ! Yet it's hard, too, I think, that you should have all the half-pence, and I all the kicks ; you all the smooth, and I all the rough ; you all the oil, and I all the vinegar." It was as envious a thing to think as might be, let alone its being nonsensical ; but, I thought it. I took it so much amiss, that, when a very beautiful young English lady came aboard, I grunted to myself, "Ah ! you have got a lover, I'll be bound ! " As if there was any new offence to me in that, if she had ! She was sister to the captain of our sloop, who had been in a poor way for some time, and who was so ill then that he was obliged to be carried ashore. She was the child of a military officer, and had come out there with her sister, who was married to one of the owners of the silver-mine, and who had three children with her. It was easy to see that she was the light and spirit of the Island. THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 125 After I had got a good look at her, I grunted to myself again, in an even worse state of mind than before, " I'll be damned, if I don't hate him, whoever he is ! " My officer, Lieutenant Linderwood, was as ill as the captain of the sloop, and was carried ashore, too. They were both young men of about my age, who had been delicate in the West India climate. I even took that, in bad part. I thought I was much fitter for the work than they were, and that if all of us had our deserts, I should be both of them rolled into one. (It may be imagined wliat sort of an officer of marines I should have made, without the power of reading a written order. And as to any knowledge how to com- mand the sloop — Lord ! I should have sunk her in a quarter of an hour !) However, such were my reflections; and when we men were ashore and dismissed, I strolled about the place along with Char- ker, making my observations in a similar spirit. It was a pretty place : in all its arrangements partly South Ameri- can and partly English, and very agreeable to look at on that ac- count, being like a bit of home that had got chipped off and had floated away to that spot, accommodating itself to circumstances as it drifted along. The huts of the Sambos, to the number of five-and- twenty, perhaps, were down by the beach to the left of the anchor- age. On the right was a sort of barrack, with a South American Flag and the Union Jack, flying from the same staff", where the little English colony could all come together, if they saw occasion. It was a walled square of building, with a sort of pleasure-ground inside, and inside that again a sunken block like a powder magazine, with a little square trench round it, and steps down to the door. Char- ker and I were looking in at the gate, which was not guarded ; and I had said to Charker, in reference to the bit like a powder maga- zine, " That's where they keep the silver, you see ; " and Charker had said to me, after thinking it over, " And silver an't gold. Is it. Gill 1 " when the beautiful young English lady I had been so bilious about, looked out of a door, or a window — at all events looked out, from under a bright awning. She no sooner saw us two in uniform, than she came out so quickly that she was still putting on her broad Mexican hat of plaited straw when we saluted. "Would you like to come in," she said, "and see the place? It is rather a curious place." We thanked the young lady, and said we didn't wish to be troublesome ; but, she said it could be no trouble to an English soldier's daughter, to show English soldiers how their countrymen and countrywomen fared, so far away from England ; and conse- quently we saluted again, and went in. Then, as we stood in the 126 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. shade, she showed us (being as affable as beautiful), how the dif- ferent families lived in their separate houses, and how there was a general house for stores, and a general reading-room, and a general room for music and dancing, and a room for Church; and how there were other houses on the rising ground called the Signal Hill, where they lived in the hotter weather. "Your officer has been carried up there," she said, "and my brother, too, for the better air. At present, our few residents are dispersed over both spots : deducting, that is to say, such of our number as are always going to, or coming from, or staying at, the mine." ("ZTe is among one of those parties," I thought, "and I wish somebody would knock his head off.") " Some of our married ladies live here," she said, " during at least half the year, as lonely as widows, with their children." " Many children here, ma'am ? " "Seventeen. There are thirteen married ladies, and there are eight like me." There were not eight like her — there was not one like her — in the world. She meant, single. "Which, with about thirty Englishmen of various degrees," said the young lady, " form the little colony now on the Island. I don't count the sailors, for they don't belong to us, Nor the soldiers," she gave us a gracious smile when she spoke of the soldiers, "for the same reason." " Nor the Sambos, ma'am," said I. " No." "Under your favour, and with your leave, ma'am," said I, "are they trustworthy 1 " " Perfectly ! We are all very kind to them, and they are very grateful to us." " Indeed, ma'am 1 Now — Christian George King ? " "Very much attached to us all. Would die for us." She was, as in my uneducated way I have observed very beauti- ful women almost always to be, so composed, that her composure gave great weight to what she said, and I believed it. Then, she pointed out to us the building like a powder magazine, and explained to us in what manner the silver was brought from the mine, and was brought over from the mainland, and was stored there. The Christopher Columbus would have a rich lading, she said, for there had been a great yield that year, a much richer yield than usual, and there was a chest of jewels besides the silver. When we had looked about us, and were getting sheepish, through fearing we were troublesome, she turned us over to a young woman, THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 127 English born but West India bred, who served her as her maid. This young woman was the widow of a non-commissioned officer in a regiment of the line. She had got married and widowed at St. Vincent, with only a few months between the two events. She was a little saucy woman, with a bright pair of eyes, rather a neat little foot and figure, and rather a neat little turned-up nose. The sort of young woman, I considered at the time, who appeared to invite you to give her a kiss, and who would have slapped your face if you accepted the invitation. I couldn't make out her name at first ; for, when she gave it in answer to my inquiry, it sounded like Beltot, which didn't sound right. But, when we came better acquainted -^ which was while Charker and I were drinking sugar-cane sangaree, which she made in a most excellent manner — I found that her Christian name was Isabella, which they shortened into Bell, and that the name of the deceased non-commissioned officer was Tott. Being the kind of neat little woman it was natural to make a toy of — I never saw a woman so like a toy in my life — she had got the plaything name of Bell- tott. In short, she had no other name on the Island. Even Mr. Commissioner Pordage (and he was a grave one !) formally addressed her as Mrs. Belltott. But, I shall come to Mr. Commissioner Por- dage presently. The name of the captain of the sloop was Captain Maryon, and therefore it was no news to hear from Mrs. Belltott, that his sis- ter, the beautiful unmarried young English lady, was Miss Maryon. The novelty was, that her Christian name was Marion too. Mar- ion Maryon. Many a time I have run off those two names in my thoughts, like a bit of verse. many, and many, and many, a time ! We saw out all the drink that was produced, like good men and true, and then took our leaves, and went down to the beach. The weather was beautiful; the wind steady, low, and gentle; the Island, a picture ; the sea, a picture ; the sky, a picture. In that country there are two rainy seasons in the year. One sets in at about our English Midsummer ; the other, about a fortnight after our Eng- lish Michaelmas. It was the beginning of August at that time ; the first of these rainy seasons was well over ; and everything was in its most beautiful growth, and had its loveliest look upon it. " They enjoy themselves here," I says to Charker, turning surly again. " This is better than private-soldiering." We had come down to the beach, to be friendly with the boat's- crew who were camped and hutted there ; and we were approach- ing towards their quarters over the sand, when Christian George King comes up from the landing-place at a wolf's-trot, crying, 128 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. " Yup, So- Jeer ! " — which was that Sambo Pilot's barbarous way of saying, Hallo, Soldier ! I have stated myself to be a man of no learning, and, if I entertain prejudices, I hope allowance may be made. I will now confess to one. It may be a right one or it may be a wrong one ; but, I never did like Natives, except in the form of oysters. So, when Christian George King, who was individually unpleas- ant to me besides, comes a trotting along the sand, clucking "Yup, So-Jeer ! " I had a thundering good mind to let fly at him with my right. I certainly should have done it, but that it would have exposed me to reprimand. " Yup, So-Jeer ! " says he. " Bad job." " What do you mean 1 " says I. " Yup, So-Jeer ! " says he. " Ship leakee." "Ship leaky?" says I. "Iss," says he, with a nod that looked as if it was jerked out of him by a most violent hiccup — which is the way with those savages. I cast my eyes at Charker, and we both heard the pumps going aboard the sloop, and saw the signal run up, " Come on board ; hands wanted from the shore." In no time some of the sloop's liberty-men were already running down to the water's edge, and the party of seamen, under orders against the pirates, were put- ting off to the Columbus in two boats. " Oh Christian George King sar berry sorry ! " says that Sambo vagabond, then. "Christian George King cry, English fashion!" His English fashion of crying was to screw his black knuckles into his eyes, howl like a dog, and roll himself on his back on the sand. It was trying not to kick him, but I gave Charker the word, "Double-quick, Harry!" and we got down to the water's edge, and got on board the sloop. By some means or other, she had sprung such a leak, that no pumping would keep her free ; and what between the two fears that she would go down in the harbour, and that, even if she did not, all the supplies she had brought for the colony would be destroyed by the sea- water as it rose in her, there was great confusion. In the midst of it. Captain Maryon was heard hailing from the beach. He had been carried down in his hammock, and looked very bad ; but, he insisted on being stood there on his feet; and I saw him, my- self, come off in the boat, sitting upright in the stern-sheets, as if nothing was wrong with him. A quick sort of council was held, and Captain Maryon soon re- solved that we must all fall to work to get the cargo out, and, that when that was done, the guns and heavy matters must be got out, THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 129 and that the sloop must be hauled ashore, and careened, and the leak stopped. We were all mustered (the pirate-chace party vol- unteering), and told off into parties, with so many hours of spell and so many hours of relief, and we all went at it with a will. Christian George King was entered one of the party in which I worked, at his own request, and he went at it with as good a will as any of the rest. He went at it with so much heartiness, to say the truth, that he rose in my good opinion, almost as fast as the water rose in the ship. Which was fast enough, and faster. Mr. Commissioner Pordage kept in a red and black japanned box, like a family lump-sugar box, some document or other which some Sambo chief or other had got drunk and spilt some ink over (as well as I could understand the matter), and by that means had given up lawful possession of the Island. Through having hold of this box, Mr. Pordage got his title of Commissioner. He was styled Consul, too, and spoke of himself as "Government." He was a stiff-jointed, high-nosed old gentleman, without an ounce of fat on him, of a very angiy temper and a very yellow complexion. Mrs. Commissioner Pordage, making allowance for difference of sex, was much the same. Mr. Kitten, a small, young- ish, bald, botanical and mineralogical gentleman, also connected with the mine — but everybody there was that, more or less — was some- times callen by Mr. Commissioner Pordage, his Vice-commissioner, and sometimes his Deputy-consul. Or sometimes he spoke of Mr. Kitten, merely as being "under Government," The beach was beginning to be a lively scene with the prepara- tions for careening the sloop, and, with cargo, and spars, and rig- ging, and water-casks, dotted about it, and with temporary quarters for the men rising up there out of such sails and odds and ends as could be best set on one side to make them, when Mr. Commissioner Pordage comes down in a high fluster, and asks for Captain Mary on. The Captain, ill as he was, was slung in his hammock betwixt two trees, that he might direct ; and he raised his head, and answered for himself. "Captain Maryon," cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage, "this is not official. This is not regular." " Sir," says the Captain, " it hath been arranged with the clerk and supercargo, that you should be communicated with, and re- quested to render any little assistance that may lie in your power. I am quite certain that hath been duly done." "Captain Maryon," replies Mr. Commissioner Pordage, "there hath been no written correspondence. No documents have passed, no memoranda have been made, no minutes have been made, no entries and counter-entries appear in the official muniments. This 130 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. is indecent. I call upon you, sir, to desist, until all is regular, or Government will take this up." "Sir," said Captain Maryon, chafing a little, as he looked out of his hammock ; " between the chances of Government taking this up, and my ship taking herself down, I much prefer to trust myself to the former." " You do, sir ? " cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage. "I do, sir," says Captain Maryon, lying down again. " Then, Mr. Kitten," says the Commissioner, "send up instantly for my Diplomatic coat." He was dressed in a linen suit at that moment ; but, Mr. Kitten started off himself and brought down the Diplomatic coat, which was a blue cloth one, gold-laced, and with a crown on the button. "Now, Mr. Kitten," says Pordage, "I instruct you, as Vice- commissioner, and Deputy-consul of this place, to demand of Cap- tain Maryon, of the sloop Christopher Columbus, whether he drives me to the act of putting this coat on ? " " Mr. Pordage," says Captain Maryon, looking out of his ham- mock again, "as I can hear what you say, I can answer it with- out troubling the gentleman. I should be sorry that you should be at the pains of putting on too hot a coat on my account ; but, otherwise, you may put it on hind-side before, or inside-out, or with your legs in the sleeves, or your head in the skirts, for any objection that I have to offer to your thoroughly pleasing yourself." " Very good, Captain Maryon," says Pordage, in a tremendous passion. "Very good, sir. Be the consequences on your own head ! Mr. Kitten, as it has come to this, help me on with it." When he had given that order, he walked off in the coat, and all our names were taken, and I was afterwards told that Mr. Kitten wrote from his dictation more than a bushel of large paper on the subject, which cost more before it was done with, than ever could be calculated, and which only got done with after all, by being lost. Our work went on merrily, nevertheless, and the Christopher Columbus, hauled up, lay helpless on her side like a great fish out of water. While she was in that state, there was a feast, or a ball, or an entertainment, or more properly all three together, given us in honour of the ship, and the ship's company, and the other visit- ors. At that assembly, I believe, I saw all the inhabitants then upon the Island, without any exception. I took no particular notice of more than a few, but I found it very agreeable in that little corner of the world to see the children, who were of all ages, and mostly very pretty — as they mostly are. There was one handsome elderly lady, with very dark eyes and grey hair, that I THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 131 inquired about. I was told that her name was Mrs. Venning ; and her married daughter, a fair slight thing, was pointed out to me by the name of Fanny Fisher. Quite a child she looked, with a little copy of herself holding to her dress ; and her husband, just come back from the mine, exceeding proud of her. They were a good- looking set of people on the whole, but I didn't like them. I was out of sorts ; in conversation with Charker, I found fault with all of them. I said of Mrs. Venning, she was proud ; of Mrs. Fisher, she was a delicate little baby-fool. What did I think of this one ? Why, he w^as a fine gentleman. What did I say to that one? Why, she was a fine lady. What could you expect them to be (I asked Charker), nursed in that climate, with the tropical night shining for them, musical instruments playing to them, great trees bending over them, soft lamps lighting them, fire-flies sparkling in among them, bright flowers and birds brought into existence to please their eyes, delicious drinks to be had for the pouring out^ delicious fruits to be got for the picking, and every one dancing and murmuring happily in the scented air, with the sea breaking low on the reef for a pleasant chorus. " Fine gentlemen and fine ladies, Harry ? " I says to Charker. "Yes, I think so! Dolls! Dolls! Not the sort of stuff for wear, that comes of poor private soldiering in the Royal Marine ! " However, I could not gainsay that they were very hospitable people, and that they treated us uncommonly well. Every man of us was at the entertainment, and Mrs. Belltott had more partners than she could dance with : though she danced all night, too. As to Jack (whether of the Christopher Columbus, or of the pirate pursuit party, it made no difference), he danced with his brother Jack, danced with himself, danced with the moon, the stars, the trees, the prospect, anything. I didn't greatly take to the chief- officer of that party, with his bright eyes, brown face, and easy figure. I didn't much like his way when he first happened to come where we were, with Miss Maryon on his arm. " Oh, Cap- tain Carton," she says, " here are two friends of mine ! " He says, "Indeed? These tw^o Marines?" — meaning Charker and self. " Yes," says she, " I showed these two friends of mine when they first came, all the wonders of Silver-Store." He gave us a laugh- ing look, and says he, " You are in luck, men. I would be disrated and go before the mast to-morrow^, to be shown the way upward again by such a guide. You are in luck, men." When we had saluted, and he and the young lady had waltzed away, I said, " You are a pretty fellow, too, to talk of luck. You may go to the Devil ! " Mr. Commissioner Pordaere, and Mrs. Commissioner, showed 132 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. among the company on that occasion like the King and Queen of a much Greater Britain than Great Britain. Only two other cir- cumstances in that jovial night made much separate impression on me. One was this. A man in our draft of marines, named Tom Packer, a wild, unsteady young fellow, but the son of a respectable shipwright in Portsmouth Yard, and a good scholar who had been well brought up, comes to me after a spell of dancing, and takes me aside by the elbow, and says, swearing angrily : " Gill Davis, I hope I may not be the death of Serjeant Drooce one day ! " Now, I knew Drooce always had borne particularly hard on this man, and I knew this man to be of a very hot temper : so, I said : " Tut, nonsense ! don't talk so to me ! If there's a man in the corps who scorns the name of an assassin, that man and Tom Packer are one." Tom wipes his head, being in a mortal sweat, and says he : " I hope so, but I can't answer for myself when he lords it over me, as he has just now done, before a woman. I tell you what, Gill ! Mark my words ! It will go hard with Serjeant Drooce, if ever we are in an engagement together, and he has to look to me to save him. Let him say a prayer then, if he knows one, for it's all over with him, and he is on his Death-bed. Mark my words ! " I did mark his words, and very soon afterwards, too, as will shortly be taken down. The other circumstance that I noticed at that ball was the gaiety and attachment of Christian George King. The innocent spirits that Sambo Pilot was in, and the impossibility he found himself under of showing all the little colony, but especially the ladies and children, how fond he was of them, how devoted to them, and how faithful to them for life and death, for present, future, and everlasting, made a great impression on me. If ever a man. Sambo or no Sambo, was trustful and trusted, to what may be called quite an infantine and sweetly beautiful extent, surely, I thought that morning when I did at last lie down to rest, it was that Sambo Pilot, Christian George King. This may account for my dreaming of him. He stuck in my sleep, cornerwise, and I couldn't get him out. He was always flitting about me, dancing round me, and peeping in over my hammock, though I woke and dozed off again fifty times. At last, when I opened my eyes, there he really was, looking in at the open side of the little dark hut ; which was made of leaves, and had Charker's hammock rJungr in it as well as mine. THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 133 " So- Jeer ! " says he, in a sort of a low croak. " Yup ! " " Hallo ! " says I, starting up. " What ? You are there, are you 1 " " Iss," says he. " Christian George King got news." " What news has he got ? " " Pirates out ! " I was on my feet in a second. So was Charker. We were both aware that Captain Carton, in command of the boats, constantly watched the main land for a secret signal, though, of course, it was Qot known to such as us what the signal was. Christian George King had vanished before we touched the ground. But, the word was already passing from hut to hut to turn out quietly, and we knew that the nimble barbarian had got hold of the truth, or something near it. In a space among the trees behind the encampment of us visitors, naval and military, was a snugly-screened spot, where we kept the stores that were in use, and did our cookery. The word was passed to assemble here. It was very quickly given, and was given (so far as we were concerned) by Serjeant Drooce, who was as good in a soldier point of view, as he was bad in a tyrannical one. We were ordered to drop into this space, quietly, behind the trees, one by one. As we assembled here, the seamen assembled too. Within ten minutes, as I should estimate, we were all here, except the usual guard upon the beach. The beach (we could see it through the wood) looked as it always had done in the hottest time of the day. The guard were in the shadow of the sloop's hull, and nothing was moving but the sea, and that moved very faintly. Work had always been knocked off at that hour, until the sun grew less fierce, and the sea-breeze rose ; so that its being holiday with us, made no dif- ference, just then, in the look of the place. But, I may mention that it was a holiday, and the first we had had since our hard work began. Last night's ball had been given, on the leak's being re- paired, and the careening done. The worst of the work was over, and to-morrow we were to begin to get the sloop afloat again. We marines were now drawn up here, under arms. The chace-. party were drawn up separate. The men of the Columbus were drawn up separate. The ofiicers stepped out into the midst of the three parties, and spoke so as all might hear. Captain Carton was the officer in command, and he had a spy-glass in his hand. His coxswain stood by him with another spy-glass, and with a slate on which he seemed to have been taking down signals. " Now, men ! " says Captain Carton ; " I have to let you know, for your satisfaction : Firstly, that there are ten pirate-boats, strongly-manned and armed, lying hidden up a creek yonder on the 134 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. coast, under the overhanging branches of the dense trees. Secondly, that they will certainly come out this night when the moon rises, on a pillaging and murdering expedition, of which some part of the main land is the object. Thirdly — don't cheer, men ! — that we will give chace, and, if we can get at them, rid the world of them, please God ! " Nobody spoke, that I heard, and nobody moved, that I saw. Yet there was a kind of ring, as if every man answered and approved with the best blood that was inside of him. " Sir," says Captain Mary on, " I beg to volunteer on this service, with my boats. My people volunteer, to the ship's boys." " In His Majesty's name and service," the other answers, touch- ing his hat, " I accept your aid with pleasure. Lieutenant Linder- wood, how will you divide your men ? " I was ashamed — I give it out to be written down as large and plain as possible — I was heart and soul ashamed of my thoughts of those two sick officers. Captain Maryon and Lieutenant Linder- wood, when I saw them, then and there. The spirit in those two gentlemen beat down their illness (and very ill I knew them to be) like Saint George beating down the Dragon. Pain and weakness, want of ease and want of rest, had no more place in their minds than fear itself. Meaning now to express for my lady to write down, exactly what I felt then and there, I felt this : " You two brave fellows that I have been so grudgeful of, I know that if you were dying you would put it off to get up and do your best, and then you would be so modest that in lying down again to die, you would hardly say, ' I did it ! ' " It did me good. It really did me good. But, to go back to where I broke off. Says Captain Carton to Lieutenant Linderwood, "Sir, how will you divide your men? There is not room for all ; and a few men should, in any case, be left here." There was some debate about it. At last, it was resolved to leave eight Marines and four seamen on the Island, besides the sloop's two boys. And because it was considered that the friendly Sambos would only want to be commanded in case of any danger (though none at all was apprehended there), the officers were in favour of leaving the two non-commissioned officers, Drooce and Charker. It was a heavy disappointment to them, just as my being one of the left was a heavy disappointment to me — then, but not soon afterwards. We men drew lots for it, and I drew " Island." So did Tom Packer. So, of course, did four more of our rank and file. When this was settled, verbal instructions were given to all hands to keep the intended expedition secret, in order that the THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 135 women and children might not be alarmed, or the expedition put in a difficulty by more volunteers. Tlie assembly was to be on that same spot, at sunset. Every man was to keep up an appear- ance, meanwhile, of occuioying himself in his usual way. That is to say, every man excepting four old trusty seamen, who were appointed, with an officer, to see to the arms and ammunition, and to muffle the ruUocks of the boats, and to make everything as trim and swift and silent as it could be made. The Sambo Pilot had been present all the while, in case of his being wanted, and had said to the officer in command, five hun- dred times over if he had said it once, that Christian George King would stay with the So- Jeers, and take care of the booffer ladies and the booffer childs — booffer being that natif e's expression for beautiful. He was now asked a few questions concerning the put- ting off of the boats, and in particular whether there was any way of embarking at the back of th^ Island : which Captain Carton would have half liked to do, and then have dropped round in its shadow and slanted across to the main. But, " No," says Chris- tian George King. " No, no, no ! Told you so, ten time. No, no, no ! All reef, all rock, all swim, all drown ! " Striking out as he said it, like a swimmer gone mad, and turning over on his back on dry land, and spluttering himself to death, in a manner that made him quite an exhibition. The sun went down, after appearing to be a long time about it, and the assembly was called. Every man answered to his name, of course, and was at his post. It was not yet black dark, and the roll was only just gone through, when up comes Mr. Commissioner Pordage with his Diplomatic coat on. "Captain Carton," says he, "sir, what is this?" " This, Mr. Commissioner " (he was very short with him), " is an expedition against the pirates. It is a secret expedition, so please to keep it a secret." "Sir," says Commissioner Pordage, "I trust there is going to be no unnecessary cruelty committed 1 " " Sir," returns the officer, "I trust not." " That is not enough, sir," cries Commissioner Pordage, getting wroth. " Captain Carton, I give you notice. Government requires you to treat the enemy with great delicacy, consideration, clemency, and forbearance." "Sir," says Captain Carton, "I am an English Officer, com- manding English Men, and I hope I am not likely to disappoint the Government's just expectations. But, I presume you know that these villains under their black flag have despoiled our coun- trymen of their property, burnt their homes, barbarously murdered 136 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. them and their little children, and worse than murdered their wives and daughters ? " " Perhaps I do, Captain Carton," answers Pordage, waving his hand, with dignity ; " perhaps I do not. It is not customary, sir, for Government to commit itself." " It matters very little, Mr. Pordage, whether or no. Believing that I hold my commission by the allowance of God, and not that I have received it direct from the Devil, I shall certainly use it, with all avoidance of unnecessary suffering and with all merciful swiftness of execution, to exterminate these people from the face of the earth. Let me recommend you to go home, sir, and to keep out of the night-air." Never another syllable did that officer say to the Commissioner, but turned away to his men. The Commissioner buttoned his Diplomatic coat to the chin, said, " Mr. Kitten, attend me ! " gasped, half choked himself, and fook himseJf off. It now fell very dark, indeed. I have seldom, if ever, seen it darker, nor yet so dark. The moon was not due until one in the morning, and it was but a little after nine when our men lay down where they were mustered. It was pretended that they were to take a nap, but everybody knew that no nap was to be got under the circumstances. Though all were very quiet, there was a rest- lessness among the people ; much what I have seen among the peo- ple on a race-course, when the bell has rung for the saddling for a great race with large stakes on it. At ten, they put off; only one boat putting off at a time; another following in five minutes ; both then lying on their oars until an- other followed. Ahead of all, paddling his own outlandish little canoe without a sound, went the Sambo Pilot, to take them safely outside the reef. No light was shown but once, and that was in the commanding officer's own hand. I lighted the dark lantern for him, and he took it from me when he embarked. They had blue lights and such like with them, but kept themselves as dark as Murder. The expedition got away with wonderful quietness, and Christian George King soon came back, dancing with joy. " Yup, So-Jeer," says he to myself in a very objectionable kind of convulsions, " Christian George King sar berry glad. Pirates all be blown a-pieces. Yup ! Yup ! " My reply to that cannibal was, "However glad you may be, hold your noise, and don't dance jigs and slap your knees about it, for I can't a-bear to see you do it." I was on duty then; we twelve who were left, being divided into four watches of three each, three hours' spell. I was relieved THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 137 at twelve. A little before that time, I had challenged, and Miss iMaryon and Mrs. Belltott had come in. " Good Davis," says Miss Mary on, " what is the matter 1 Where s my brother 1 " I told her what was the matter, and where her brother was. " Heaven help him ! " says she, clasping her hands and looking ip — -she was close in front of me, and she looked most lovely to 36 sure ; "he is not sufficiently recovered, not strong enough, for mch. strife ! " "If you had seen him, miss," I told her, "as I saw him when le volunteered, you would have known that his spirit is strong ^nough for any strife. It will bear his body, miss, to wherever luty calls him. It will always bear him to an honourable life, or I brave death." " Heaven bless you ! " says shej touching my arm. " I know it. Heaven bless you ! " Mrs. Belltott surprised me by trembling and saying nothing. They were still standing looking towards the sea and listening, after the relief had come round. It continuing very dark, I asked to be allowed to take them back. Miss Maryon thanked me, and she put her arm in mine, and I did take them back. I have now got to make a confession that will appear singular. After I had left them, I laid myself down on my face on the beach, and cried, for the first time since I had frightened birds as a boy at Snorridge Bottom, to think what a poor, ignorant, low-placed, private soldier I was. It was only for half a minute or so. A man can't at all times be quite master of himself, and it was only for half a minute or so. Then I up and went to my hut, and turned into my hammock, and fell asleep with wet eyelashes, and a sore, sore heart. Just as I had often done when I was a child, and had been worse used than usual. I slept (as a child under those circumstances might) very sound, and yet very sore at heart all through my sleep. I was awoke by the words, " He is a determined man." I had sprung out of my hammock, and had seized my firelock, and was standing on the ground, saying the words myself. "He is a determined man." i But, the curiosity of my state was, that I seemed to be repeating I them after somebody, and to have been wonderfully startled by hearing them. As soon as I came to myself, I went out of the hut, and away to where the guard was. Charker challenged : " Who goes there ? " " A friend." " Not Gill ? " says he, as he shouldered his piece. " Gill," says I. " Why, what the deuce do you do, out of your 138 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. | hammock ? " says he. " Too hot for sleep," says I ; " is all right ? " " Right ! " says Charker, "yes, yes ; all's right enough here ; what should be wrong here 1 It's the boats that we want to know of. Except for fire-flies twinkling about, and the lonesome splashes of great creatures as they drop into the water, there's nothing going on here to ease a man's mind from the boats." The moon was above the sea, and had risen, I should say, some half-an-hour. As Charker spoke, with his fi\ce towards the sea, I, looking landward, suddenly laid my right hand on his breast, and said, "Don't move. Don't turn. Don't raise your voice! You never saw a Maltese face here ? " " No. What do you mean 1 " he asks, staring at me. " Nor yet an English face, with one eye and a patch across the nose ? " " No. What ails you ? What do you mean ? " I had seen both, looking at us round the stem of a cocoa-nut tree, where the moon struck them, I had seen that Sambo Pilot, with one hand laid on the stem of the tree, drawing them back into the heavy shadow. I had seen their naked cutlasses twinkle and shine, like bits of the moonshine in the water that had got blown ashore among the trees by the light wind. I had seen it all, in a moment. And I saw in a moment (as any man would), that the signalled move of the pirates on the mainland was a plol and a feint; that the leak had been made to disable the sloop; that the boats had been tempted away, to leave the Island unpro- tected ; that the pirates had landed by some secreted way at the back ; and that Christian George King was a double-dyed traitor, and a most infernal villain. I considered, still all in one and the same moment, that Charker was a brave man, but not quick with his head ; and that Serjeant Drooce, with a much better head, was close by. All I said to Charker was, " I am afraid we are betrayed. Turn your back full to the moonlight on the sea, and cover the stem of the cocoa-nut tree which will then be right before you, at the height of a man's heart. Are you right ? " " I am right," says Charker, turning instantly, and falling into the position with a nerve of iron ; " and right an't left. Is it, GiUr' A few seconds brought me to Serjeant Drooce's hut. He was fast asleep, and being a heavy sleeper, I had to lay my hand upon him to rouse him. The instant I touched him he came rolling out of his hammock, and upon me like a tiger. And a tiger he- was, except that he knew what he was up to, in his utmost heat, as well as any man. THE PEKILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 139 I had to struggle with him pretty hard to bring him to his senses, panting all the while (for he gave me a breather), " Serjeant, I am Gill Davis ! Treachery ! Pirates on the Island ! " The last words brought him round, and he took his hands oflf. "I have seen two of them within this minute," said I. And so I told him what I had told Harry Charker. His soldierly, though tyrannical, head was clear in an instant. He didn't waste one word, even of surprise. "Order the guard," says he, "to draw off quietly into the Fort.", (They called the enclosure I have before mentioned, the Fort, though it was not much of that.) " Then get you to the Fort as quick as you can, rouse up every soul there, and fasten the gate. I will bring in all those who are up at the Signal Hill. If we are surrounded before we can join you, you must make a sally and cut us out if you can. The word among our men is, ' Women and children ! ' " He burst away, like fire going before the wind over dry reeds. He roused up the seven men who were off duty, and had them bursting away with him, before they knew they were not asleep. I reported orders to Charker, and ran to the Fort, as I have never run at any other time in all my life : no, not even in a dream. The gate was not fast, and had no good fastening : only a double wooden bar, a poor chain, and a bad lock. Those, I secured as well as they could be secured in a few seconds by one pair of hands, and so ran to that part of the building where Miss Maryon lived. I called to her loudly by her name until she answered. I then called loudly all the names I knew — Mrs. Macey (Miss Maryon's married sister), Mr. Macey, Mrs. Venning, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, even Mr. and Mrs. Pordage. Then I called out, "All you gentle- men here, get up and defend the place ! We are caught in a trap. Pirates have landed. We are attacked ! " At the terrible word " Pirates ! " — for, those villains had done such deeds in those seas as never can be told in writing, and can scarcely be so much as thought of — cries and screams rose up from every part of the place. Quickly lights moved about from window to window, and the cries moved about with them, and men, women and children came flying down into the square. I remarked to myself, even then, what a number of things I seemed to see at once. I noticed Mrs. Macey coming towards me, carry- ing all her three children together. I noticed Mr. Pordage, in the greatest terror, in vain trying to get on his Diplomatic coat ; and Mr. Kitten respectfully tying his pocket-handkerchief over Mrs. Pordage's nightcap. 1 noticed Mrs. Belltott run out screaming, and shrink upon the ground near me, and cover her face in her hands, and lie, all of a bundle, shivering. But, what I noticed 140 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. with the greatest pleasure was, the determined eyes with which those men of the mine that I had thought fine gentlemen, came round me with what arms they had : to the full as cool and reso- lute as I could be, for my life — ay, and for my soul, too, into the bargain ! The chief person being Mr. Macey, I told him how the three men of the guard would be at the gate directly, if they were not already there, and how Serjeant Drooce and the other seven were gone to bring in the outlying part of the people of Silver-Store. I next urged him, for the love of all who were dear to him, to trust no Sambo, and, above all, if he could get any good chance at Chris- tian George King, not to lose it, but to put him out of the world. "I will follow your advice to the letter, Davis," says he; "what next?" My answer was, " I think, sir, I would recommend you next to order down such henyj furniture and lumber as can be moved, and make a barricade within the gate." "That's good again," says he ; " will you see it done ? " " I'll williugly help to do it," says I, " unless or until my superior, Serjeant Drooce, gives me other orders." He shook me by the hand, and having told off some of his companions to help me, bestirred himself to look to the arms and ammunition. A proper quick, brave, steady, ready gentleman ! One of their three little children was deaf and dumb. Miss Maryon had been from the first with all the children, soothing them, and dressing them (poor little things, they had been brought out of their beds), and making them believe that it was a game of play, so that some of them were now even laughing. I had been working hard with the others at the barricade, and had got up a pretty good breastwork within the gate. Drooce and the seven had come back, bringing in the people from the Signal Hill, and had worked along with us : but, I had not so much as spoken a word to Drooce, nor had Drooce so much as spoken a word to me, for we were both too busy. The breastwork was now finished, and I found Miss Maryon at my side, with a child in her arms. Her dark hair was fastened round her head with a band. She had a quantity of it, and it looked even richer and more precious, put up hastily out of her way, than I had seen it look when it was care- fully arranged. She was very pale, but extraordinarily quiet and still. "Dear good Davis," said she, "I have been waiting to speak one word to you." I turned to her directly. If I had received a musket-ball in the heart, and she had stood there, I almost believe I should have turned to her before I dropped. " This pretty little creature," said she, kissing the child in her THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 141 arms, who was playing with her hair and trying to pull it down, " cannot hear what we say — can hear nothing. I trust you so much, and have such great confidence in you, that I want you to make me a promise." " What is it, miss ? " " That if we are defeated, and you are absolutely sure of my being taken, you will kill me." " I shall not be alive to do it, miss. I shall have died in your defence before it comes to that. They must step across my body, to lay a hand on you." " But if you are alive, you brave soldier." How she looked at me ! " And if you cannot save me from ther pirates, living, you will save me, dead. Tell me so." Well ! I told her I would do that, at the last, if all else failed. She took my hand — my rough, coarse hand— and put it to her lips. She put it to the child's lips, and the child kissed it. I be- lieve I had the strength of half a dozen men in me, from that moment, until the fight was over. All this time, Mr. Commissioner Pordage had been wanting to make a Proclamation to the pirates, to lay down their arms and go away; and everybody had been hustling him about and tumbling over him, while he was calling for pen and ink to write it with. Mrs. Pordage, too, had some curious ideas about the British respect- ability of her nightcap (which had as many frills to it, growing in layers one inside another, as if it was a white vegetable of the arti- choke sort), and she wouldn't take the nightcap off", and would be angry when it got crushed by the other ladies who were handing things about, and, in short, she gave as much trouble as her hus- band did. But, as we were now forming for the defence of the place, they were both poked out of the way with no ceremony. The children and ladies were got into the little trench which surrounded the silver-house (we were afraid of leaving them in any of the light buildings, lest they should be set on fire), and we made the best disposition we could. There was a pretty good store, in point of amount, of tolerable swords and cutlasses. Those were issued. There were, also, perhaps a score or so of spare muskets. Those were brought out. To my astonishment, little Mrs. Fisher that I had taken for a doll and a baby, was not only very active in that service, but volunteered to load the spare arms. "For, I understand it well," says she, cheerfully, without a shake in her voice. "I am a soldier's daughter and a sailor's sister, and I under- stand it too," says Miss Maryon, just in the same way. Steady and busy behind where I stood, those two beautiful and 142 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. delicate yoniig women fell to handling the guns, hammering the flints, looking to the locks, and quietly directing others to pass up powder and bullets from hand to hand, as unflinching as the best of tried soldiers. Serjeant Drooce had brought in word that the pirates were very strong in numbers — over a hundred, was his estimate — and that they were not, even then, all landed ; for, he had seen them in a very good position on the further side of the Signal Hill, evidently waiting for the rest of their men to come up. In the present pause, the first we had had since the alarm, he was telling this over again to Mr. Macey, when Mr. Macey suddenly cried out : " The signal ! Nobody has thought of the signal ! " We knew of no signal, so we could not have thought of it. " What signal may you mean, sir ? " says Serjeant Drooce, looking sharp at him. " There is a pile of wood upon the Signal Hill. If it could be lighted — which never has been done yet — it would be a signal of distress to the mainland." Charker cries, directly : " Serjeant Drooce, despatch me on that duty. Give me the two men who were on guard with me to-niglit, and I'll light the fire, if it can be done." "And if it can't. Corporal " Mr. Macey strikes in. " Look at these ladies and children, sir ! " says Charker. " I'd sooner light myself, than not try any chance to save them." We gave him a Hurrah ! — it burst from us, come of it what might — and he got his two men, and was let out at the gate, and crept away. I had no sooner come back to my place from being one of the party to handle the gate, than Miss Maryon said in a low voice behind me : "Davis, will you look at this powder ? This is not right ? " I turned my head. Christian George King again, and treachery again ! Sea-water had been conveyed into the magazine, and every grain of powder was spoiled ! " Stay a moment," said Serjeant Drooce, when I had told him, without causing a movement in a muscle of his face : " look to your pouch, my lad. You Tom Packer, look to your pouch, confound you ! Look to your pouches, all you Marines." The same artful savage had got at them, somehow or another, and the cartridges were all unserviceable. " Hum ! " says the Serjeant, "Look to your loading, men. You are right so far?" Yes ; we were right so far. "Well, my lads, and gentlemen all," says the Serjeant, "this will be a hand-to-hand affair, and so much the better." He treated himself tu a pinch of snuff, and stood up, square- THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 143 shouldered and broad-chested, in the light of the moon — which was now very bright — as cool as if he was waiting for a play to begin. He stood quiet, and we all stood quiet, for a matter of something like half-an-hour. I took notice from such whispered talk as there was, how little we that the silver did not belong to, thought about it, and how much the people that it did belong to, thought about it. At the end of the half-hour, it was reported from the gate that Charker and the two were falling back on us, pursued by about a dozen. " Sally ! Gate-party, under Gill Davis," says the Serjeant, "and bring 'em in ! Like men, now ! " We were not long about it, and we brought them in. " Don't take me," says Charker, holding me round the neck, and stumbling down at my feet when the gate was fast, "don't take me near the ladies or the children. Gill. They had better not see Death, till it can't be helped. They'll see it soon enough." " Harry ! " I answered, holding up his head. " Comrade ! " He was cut to pieces. The signal had been secured by the first pirate party that landed ; his hair was all singed off, and his face was blackened with the running pitch from a torch. He made no complaint of pain, or of anything. "Good-bye, old chap," was all he said, with a smile. " I've got my Death. And Death an't life. Is it. Gill ? " Having helped to lay his poor body on one side, I went back to my post. Serjeant Drooce looked at me, with his eyebrows a little lifted. I nodded. " Close up here, men, and gentlemen all !" said the Serjeant. "A place too many, in the line." The pirates were so close upon us at this time, that the fore- most of them were already before the gate. More and more came up with a great noise, and shouting loudly. When we believed from the sound that they were all there, we gave three English cheers. The poor little children joined, and were so fully con- vinced of our being at play, that they enjoyed the noise, and were heard clapping their hands in the silence that followed. Our disposition was this, beginning with the rear. Mrs. Ven- ning, holding her daughter's child in her arms, sat on the steps of the little square trench surrounding the silver-house, encouraging and directing those women and children as she might have clone in the happiest and easiest time of her life. Then, there was an armed line, under Mr. Macey, across the width of the enclosure, facing that way and having their backs towards the gate, in order that they might watch the walls and prevent our being taken by surprise. Then, there was a space of eight or ten feet deep, in which the spare arms were, and in which Miss Maryon and Mrs. 144 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. Fisher, their hands and dresses blackened with the spoilt gun- powder, worked on their knees, tying such things as knives, old bayonets, and spear-heads, to the muzzles of the useless muskets. Then, there was a second armed line, under Serjeant Drooce, also across the width of the enclosure, but lacing to the gate. Then, came the breastwork w^e had made, with a zig-zag way through it for me and my little party to hold good in retreating, as long as we could, when we were driven from the gate. We all knew that it was impossible to hold the place long, and that our only hope was in the timely discovery of the plot by the boats, and in their coming back. I and my men were now thrown forward to the gate. From a spy-hole, I could see the wdiole crowd of pirates. There were Malays among them, Dutch, Maltese, Greeks, Sambos, Negroes, and Convict Englishmen from the West India Islands ; among the last, him with the one eye and the patch across the nose. There were some Portuguese, too, and a few Spaniards. The captain was a Portuguese ; a little man with very large ear-rings under a very broad hat, and a great bright shawl twisted about his shoulders. They were all strongly armed, but like a boarding party, with pikes, swords, cutlasses, and axes. I noticed a good many pistols, but not a gun of any kind among them. This gave me to under- stand that they had considered that a continued roll of musketry might perhaps have been heard on the mainland ; also, that for the reason that fire would be seen from the mainland they would not set the Fort in flames and roast us alive ; which was one of their favourite ways of carrying on. I looked about for Christian George King, and if I had seen him I am much mistaken if he would not have received my one round of ball-cartridge in his head. But, no Christian George King was visible. A sort of a wild Portuguese demon, who seemed either fierce- mad or fierce-drunk — -but, they all seemed one or the other — came forward with the black flag, and gave it a wave or two. After that, the Portuguese Captain called out in shrill English, " I say you ! English fools ! Open the gate ! Surrender ! " As we kept close and quiet, he said something to his men which I didn't understand, and when he had said it, the one-eyed English rascal with the patch (who had stepped out when he began), said it again in English. It was only this. " Boys of the black flag, this is to be quickly done. Take all the jmsoners you can. If they don't yield, kill the children to make them. Forward ! " Then, they all came on at the gate, and, in another half minute were smashing and splitting it in. We struck at them through the gaps and shivers, and we dropped THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 145 many of them, too ; but, their very weight would have carried such a gate, if they had been unarmed. I soon found Serjeant Drooce at my side, forming us six remaining Marines in line — Tom Packer next to me — and ordering us to fall back three paces, and, as they broke in, to give them our one little volley at short distance. "Then," says he, "receive them behind your breastwork on the bayonet, and at least let every man of you pin one of the cursed cockchafers through the body." We checked them by our fire, slight as it was, and we checked them at the breastwork. However, they broke over it like swarms of devils — they were, really and truly, more devils than men — and then it was hand to hand, indeed. We clubbed our muskets and laid about us; even then, those two ladies — always behind me — were steady and ready with the arms. I had a lot of Maltese and Malays upon me, and, but for a broadsword that Miss Maryon's own hand put in mine, should have got my end from them. But, was that all ? No. I saw a heap of banded dark hair and a white dress come thrice between me and them, under my own raised right arm, which each time might have destroyed the wearer of the white dress ; and each time one of the lot went down, struck dead. Drooce was armed with a broadsword, too, and did such things with it, that there was a cry, in half a dozen languages, of "Kill that Serjeant ! " as I knew, by the cry being raised in English, and taken up in other tongues. I had received a severe cut across the left arm a few moments before, and should have known nothing of it, except supposing that somebody had struck me a smart blow, if I had not felt weak, and seen myself covered with spouting blood, and, at the same instant of time, seen Miss Maryon tearing her dress, and binding it with Mrs. Fisher's help round the wound. They called to Tom Packer, who was scouring by, to stop and guard me for one minute, while I was bound, or I should bleed to death in trying to defend myself. Tom stopped directly, with a good sabre in his hand. In that same moment — all things seem to happen in that same moment, at such a time — half a dozen had rushed howling at Serjeant Drooce. The Serjeant, stepping back against the wall, stopped one howl for ever with such a terrible blow, and waited for the rest to come on, with such a wonderfully unmoved face, that they stopped and looked at him. " See him now ! " cried Tom Packer. " Now, when I could cut him out ! Gill ! Did I tell you to mark my words ? " I implored Tom Packer in the Lord's name, as well as I could in my faintness, to go to the Serjeant's aid. L 146 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. " I hate and detest him," said Tom, moodily wavering. " Still, he is a brave man." Then he calls out, " Serjeant Drooce, Ser- jeant Drooce ! Tell me you have driven me too hard, and are sorry for it." ^ ^. .. ^ The Serjeant, without turning his eyes from his assailants, which would have been instant death to him, answers : "No. I won't." " Serjeant Drooce ! " cries Tom, in a kind of an agony. " I have passed my word that I would never save you from Death, if I could, but would leave you to die. Tell me you have driven me too hard and are sorry for it, and that shall go for nothing." One of the group laid the Serjeant's bald bare head open. The Serjeant laid him dead. "I tell you," says the Serjeant, breathing a little short, and waiting for the next attack. " No. I won't. If you are not man enough to strike for a fellow-soldier because he wants help, and because of nothing else, I'll go into the other world and look for a better man." r - 1 4. Tom swept upon them, and cut him out. Tom and he tought their way through another knot of them, and sent them flying, and came over to where I was beginning again to feel, with inex- pressible joy, that I had got a sword in my hand. They had hardly come to us, when I heard, above all the other noises, a tremendous cry of women's voices. I also saw Miss Maryon, with quite a new face, suddenly clap her two hands over Mrs. Fisher's eyes. I looked towards the silver-house, and saw Mrs. Venning — standing upright on the top of the steps of the trench, with her grey hair and her dark eyes — hide her daughter's child behind her, among the folds of her dress, strike a pirate with her other hand, and fall, shot by his pistol. The cry rose again, and there was a terrible and confusing rush of the women into the midst of the struggle. In another moment something came tumbling down upon me that I thought was the wall. It was a heap of Sambos who had come over the wall ; and of four men who clung to my legs like serpents, one who clung to my right leg was Christian George King. "Yup, So-Jeer!" says he, "Christian George King sar berry glad So-Jeer a prisoner. Christian George King been waiting for So-Jeer sech long time. Yup, yup ! " What could I do, with five-and-twenty of them on me, but be tied hand and foot 1 So, I was tied hand and foot. It was all over now — boats not come back — all lost ! When I was fast bound and was put up against the wall, the one-eyed English convict came up with the Portuguese Captain, to have a look at me. THE PERILS or CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 147 " See ! " says he, " Here's the determined man ! If you had slept sounder, last night, you'd have slept your soundest last night, my determined man." The Portuguese Captain laughed in a cool way, and, with the flat of his cutlass, hit me crosswise, as if I was the bough of a tree that he played with : first on the face, and then across the chest and the wounded arm. I looked him steady in the face without tumbling while he looked at me, I am happy to say ; but, when they went away, I fell, and lay there. The sun was up, when I was roused and told to come down to the beach and be embarked. I was full of aches and pains, and could not at first remember ; but, I remembered quite soon enough. The killed were lying about all over the place, and the pirates were burying their dead, and taking away their wounded on hastily-made litters, to the back of the Island. As for us pris- oners, some of their boats had come round to the usual harbour, to carry us off". We looked a wretched few, I thought, when I got down there ; still, it was another sign that we had fought well, and made the enemy suffer. The Portuguese Captain had all the women already embarked in the boat he himself commanded, which was just putting off" when I got down. Miss Maryon sat on one side of him, and gave me a moment's look, as full of quiet courage, and pity, and confidence, as if it had been an hour long. On the other side of him was poor little Mrs. Fisher, weeping for her child and her mother. I was shoved into the same boat with Drooce and Packer, and the remainder of our party of Marines : of whom we had lost two privates, besides Charker, my poor, brave comrade. We all made a melancholy passage, under the hot sun, over to the mainland. There, we landed in a solitary place, and were mustered on the sea sand. Mr. and Mrs. Macey and their children were amongst us, Mr. and Mrs. Pordage, Mr. Kitten, Mr. Fisher, and Mrs. Belltott. We mustered only fourteen men, fifteen women, and seven children. Those were all that remained of the English who had lain down to sleep last night, unsuspecting and happy, on the Island of Silver-Store. 148 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. Chapter II. THE PRISON IN THE WOODS. There we all stood, huddled up on the beach under the burning sun, with the pirates closing us in on every side — as forlorn a company of helpless men, women, and children as ever was gathered together out of any nation in the world. I kept my thoughts to myself; but I did not in my heart believe that anyone of our lives was worth five minutes' purchase. The man on whose will our safety or our destruction depended was the Pirate Captain. All our eyes, by a kind of instinct, fixed themselves on him — excepting in the case of the poor children, who, too frightened to cry, stood hiding tlieir faces against their mothers' gowns. The ruler who lield all the ruffians about us in subjection, was, judging by appearances, the very last man I should have picked out as likely to fill a place of power among any body of men, good or bad, under heaven. By nation, he was a Portu- guese ; and, by name, he was generally spoken of among his men as The Don. He was a little, active, weazen, monkey-faced man, dressed in the brightest colours and the finest-made clothes I ever saw. His three-cornered hat was smartly cocked on one side. His coat-skirts were stiftened and stuck out, like the skirts of the dan- dies in the Mall in London. When the dance was given at the Island, I saw no such lace on any lady's dress there as I saw on his cravat and ruffles. Round his neck he wore a thick gold chain, with a diamond cross hanging from it. His lean, wiry, brown fingers were covered with rings. Over his shoulders, and falling do^\ u in front to below his waist, he wore a sort of sling of broad scarlet cloth, embroidered with beads and little feathers, and holding, at the lower part, four loaded pistols, two on a side, lying ready to either hand. His face was mere skin and bone, and one of his wrinkled cheeks had a blue scar running all across it, which drew up that part of his face, and showed his white shining teeth on that side of his mouth. An uglier, meaner, weaker, man-monkey to look at, I never saw ; and yet there was not one of his crew, from his mate to his cabin-boy, who did not obey him as if he had been the greatest monarch in the world. As for the Sambos, including especially that evil-minded scoundrel, Christian George King, they never went near him without seeming to want to roll before him on the ground^ for the sake of winning the honour of having one of his little dancing- master's feet set on their black bullock bodies. There this fellow stood, while we were looking at him, with his hands in his pockets, smoking a cigar. His mate (the one-eyed THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 149 Englishman), stood by him; a big, hulking fellow he was, who might have eaten the Captain up, pistols and all, and looked about for more afterwards. The Don himself seemed, to an ignorant man like me, to have a gift of speaking in any tongue he liked. I can testify that his English rattled out of his crooked lips as fast as if it was natural to them ; making allowance, of course, for his foreign way of clipping his words. "Now, Captain," says the big mate, running his eye over us as if we were a herd of cattle, " here they are. What's to be done with them 1 " " Are they all off the Island 1 " says the Pirate Captain. "All of them that are alive," says the mate.. " Good, and very good," says the Captain. " Now, Giant-Georgy, some paper, a pen, and a horn of ink." Those things were brought immediately. "Something to write on," says the Pirate Captain. "What? Ha ! why not a broad nigger back 1 " He pointed with the end of his cigar to one of the Sambos. The man was pulled forward, and set down on his knees with his shoul- ders rounded. The Pirate Captain laid the paper on them, and took a dip of ink — then suddenly turned up his snub-nose with a look of disgust, and, removing the paper again, took from his pocket a fine cambric handkerchief edged with lace, smelt at the scent on it, and afterwards laid it delicately over the Sambo's shoulders. " A table of black man's back, with the sun on it, close under my nose — ah, Giant-Georgy, pah ! pah ! " says the Pirate Captain, putting the paper on the handkerchief, with another grimace ex- pressive of great disgust. He began to write immediately, waiting from time to time to consider a little with himself; and once stopping, apparently, to count our numbers as we stood before him. To think of that vil- lain knowing how to write, and of my not being able to make so much as a decent pothook, if it had been to save my life ! When he had done, he signed to one of his men to take the scented handkerchief off the Sambo's back, and told the sailor he might keep it for his trouble. Then, holding the written paper open in his hand, he came forward a step or two closer to us, and said, with a grin, and a mock bow, which made my fingers itch with wanting to be at him : " I have the honour of addressing myself to the ladies. Accord- ing to my reckoning they are fifteen ladies in all. Does any one of them belong to the chief officer of the sloop ? " There was a momentary silence. 150 THE PEKILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. "You don't answer me," says the Pirate Captain. "Now, I mean to be answered. Look here, women." He drew one of his four pistols out of his gay scarlet sling, and walked up to Tom Packer, who happened to be standing nearest to him of the men prisoners. " This is a pistol, and it is loaded. I put the barrel to the head of this man with my right hand, and I take out my watch with my left. I wait five minutes for an answer. If I don't get it in five minutes, I blow this man's brains out. I wait five minutes again, and if I don't get an answer, I blow the next man's brains out. And so I go on, if you are obstinate, and your nerves are strong, till not one of your soldiers or your sailors is left. On my word of honour, as a gentleman-buccanier, I promise you that. Ask my men if I ever broke my word." He rested the barrel of the pistol against Tom Packer s head, and looked at his watch, as perfectly composed, in his cat-like cru- elty, as if he was waiting for the boiling of an egg. " If you think it best not to answer him, ladies," says Tom, " never mind me. It's my trade to risk my life ; and I shall lose it in a good cause." "A brave man," said the Pirate Captain, lightly. "Well, ladies, are you going to sacrifice the brave man 1 " "We are going to save him," said Miss Maryon, "as he has striven to save us. / belong to the Captain of the sloop. I am his sister." She stopped, and whispered anxiously to Mrs. Macey, who was standing with her. " Don't acknowledge yourself, as I have done — you have children." " Good ! " said the Pirate Captain. " The answer is given, and the brains may stop in the brave man's head." He put his watch and pistol back, and took two or three quick puff's at his cigar to keep it alight — then handed the paper he had written on, and his penfull of ink, to Miss Maryon. "Read that over," he said, "and sign it for yourself, and the women and children with you." Saying those words, he turned round briskly on his heel, and began talking, in a whisper to Giant-Georgy, the big English mate. What he was talking about, of course, I could not hear; but I noticed that he motioned several times straight into the interior of the country. "Davis," said Miss Maryon, "look at this." She crossed before her sister, as she spoke, and held the paper which the Pirate Captain had given to her, under my eyes — my bound arms not allowing me to take it myself. Never to my dying day shall I forget the shame I felt, when I was obliged to acknowl- edge to Miss Maryon that I could not read a word of it ! THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 151 "There are better men than me, ma'am," I said, with a sinking heart, " who can read it, and advise you for the best." "None better," she answered, quietly. " None, whose advice I would so willingly take. I have seen enough, to feel sure of that. Listen, Davis, while I read." Her pale face turned paler still, as she fixed her eyes on the paper. Lowering her voice to a whisper, so that the women and children near might not hear, she read me these lines : " To the Captains of English men-of-war, and to the commanders of vessels of other nations, cruising in the Caribbean Seas. " The precious metal and the jewels laid up iji the English Island of Silver-Store, are in the possession of the Buccaniers, at sea. " The women and children of the Island of Silver-Store, to the number of Twenty-Two, are in the possession of the Buccaniers, on land. "They will be taken up the country, with fourteen men prisoners (whose lives the Buccaniers have private reasons of their own for preserving), to a place of confinement, which is unapproachable by strangers. They will be kept there until a certain day, previously agreed on between the Buccaniers at sea, and the Buccaniers on land. "If, by that time, no news from the party at sea, reaches the party on land, it will be taken for granted that the expedition which conveys away the silver and jewels has been met, engaged, and conquered by superior force ; that the Treasure has been taken from its present owners ; and that the Buccaniers guarding it, have been made prisoners, to be dealt with according to the law. " The absence of the expected news at the appointed time, being interpreted in this way, it will be the next object of the Buccaniers on land to take reprisals for the loss and the injury inflicted on their companions at sea. The lives of the women and children of the Island of Silver-Store are absolutely at their mercy ; and those lives will pay the forfeit, if the Treasure is taken away, and if the men in possession of it come to harm. " This paper will be nailed to the lid of the largest chest taken from the Island. Any officer whom the chances of war may bring within reading distance of it, is warned to pause and consider, be- fore his conduct signs the death-warrant of the women and children of an English colony. " Signed, under the Black Flag, "Pedro Mendez, " Commander of the Buccaniers, and Chief of the Guard over the Enghsh Prisoners." 152 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. " The statement above written, in so far as it regards the situa- tion we are now placed in, may be depended on as the truth. " Signed on behalf of the imprisoned women and children of the Island of Silver-Store." "Beneath this last line," said Miss Maryon, pointing to it, "is a blank space, in which I am expected to sign my name." "And in five minutes' time," added the Pirate Captain, who had stolen close up to us, " or the same consequences will follow which I had the pleasure of explaining to you a few minutes ago." He again drew out his watch and pistol ; but, this time, it was my head that he touched with the barrel. " When Tom Packer spoke for himself, miss, a little while ago," I said, "please to consider that he spoke for me." " Another brave man ! " said the Pirate Captain, with his ape's grin. " Am I to fire my pistol this time, or am I to put it back again as I did before ? " Miss Maryon did not seem to hear him. Her kind eyes rested for a moment on my face, and then looked up to the bright heaven above us. "Whether I sign, or whether I do not sign," she said, "we are still in the hands of God, and the future which His wisdom has appointed will not the less surely come," With those words slie placed the paper on my breast, signed it, and handed it back to tlie Pirate Captain. " This is our secret, Davis," she whispered. " Let us keep the dreadful knowledge of it to ourselves as long as we can." I have another singular confession to make — I hardly expect anybody to believe me when I mention the circumstance — but it is not the less the plain tnith that, even in the midst of that frightful situation, I felt, for a few moments, a sensation of hap- piness while Miss Maryon's hand was holding the paper on my breast, and while her lips were telling me that there was a secret between us which we were to keep together.. The Pirate Captain carried the signed paper at once to his mate. "Go back to the Island," he says, "and nail that with your own hands on the lid of the largest chest. There is no occasion to hurry the business of shipping the Treasure, because there is nobody on the Island to make signals that may draw attention to it from the sea. I have provided for that ; and I have provided for the chance of your being outmanoeuvred afterwards, by Eng- lish, or other cruisers. Here are your sailing orders" (he took them from his pocket while he spoke), "your directions for tlie THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 153 disposal of the Treasure, and your appointment of the day and the place for communicating again with me and my prisoners. I have done my part — go you, now, and do yours." Hearing the clearness with which he gave his orders ; knowing what the devilish scheme was that he had invented for preventing the recovery of the Treasure, even if our ships happened to meet and capture the pirates at sea ; remembering what the look and the speech of him had been, when he put his pistol to my head and Tom Packer's ; I began to understand how it was that this little, weak, weazen, wicked spider had got the first place and kept it among the villains about him. The mate moved ojff, with his orders, towards the sea. Before he got there, the Pirate Captain beckoned another of the crew to come to him ; and spoke a few words in his own, or in some other foreign language. I guessed what they meant, when I saw thirty of the pirates told off together, and set in a circle all round us. The rest were marched away after the mate. In the same manner the Sambos were divided next. Ten, including Christian George King, were left with us ; and the others were sent down to the canoes. When this had been done, the Pirate Captain looked at his watch ; pointed to some trees, about a mile off, which fringed the land as it rose from the beach ; said to an American among the pirates round us, who seemed to hold the place of second mate, " In two hours from this time ; " and then walked away briskly, with one of his men after him, to some baggage piled up below us on the beach. We were marched off at once to the shady place under the trees, and allowed to sit down there, in the cool, with our guard in a ring round us. Feeling certain from what I saw, and from what I knew to be contained in the written paper signed by Miss Mary on, that we were on the point of undertaking a long journey up the country, I anxiously examined my fellow prisoners to see how tit they looked for encountering bodily hardship and fatigue : to say nothing of mental suspense and terror, over and above. With all possible respect for an official gentleman, I must admit that Mr. Commissioner Pordage struck me as being, beyond any comparison, the most helpless individual in our unfortunate com- pany. What with the fright he had suffered, the danger he had gone through, and the bewilderment of finding himself torn clean away from his safe Government moorings, his poor unfortunate brains seemed to be as completely discomposed as his Diplomatic coat. He was perfectly harmless and quiet, but also perfectly light-headed — as anybody could discover who looked at his dazed eyes or listened to his maundering talk. I tried him with a word 154 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. or two about our miserable situation ; thinking that, if any subject would get a trifle of sense out of him, it must surely be that. " You will observe," said Mr. Pordage, looking at the torn cuffs of his Diplomatic coat instead of at me, " that I cannot take cog- nisance of our situation. No memorandum of it has been drawn up; no report in connection with it has been presented to me. I cannot possibly recognise it until the necessary minutes and memorandums and reports have reached me through the proper channels. When our miserable situation presents itself to me, on paper, I shall bring it under the notice of Government ; and Government, after a proper interval, will bring it back again under my notice ; and then I shall have something to say about it. Not a minute before, — no, my man, not a minute before ! '• Speaking of Mr. Pordage's wanderings of mind, reminds me that it is necessary to say a w^ord next, about the much more serious case of Serjeant Drooce. The cut on his head, acted on by the heat of the climate, had driven him, to all appearance, stark mad. Besides the danger to himself, if he broke out before the pirates, there was the danger to the women and children, of trust- ing him among them — a misfortune which, in our captive con- dition, it was impossible to avoid. Most providentially, however (as I found on inquiry), Tom Packer, who had saved his life, had a power of controlling him, which none of the rest of us possessed. Some shattered recollection of the manner in which he bad been preserved from death, seemed to be still left in a corner of his memory. Whenever he showed symptoms of breaking out, Tom looked at him, and repeated with his hand and arm the action of cutting out right and left which had been the means of his saving the Serjeant. On seeing that, Drooce always huddled himself up close to Tom, and fell silent. We — that is. Packer and I — arranged it together that he was always to keep near Drooce, whatever happened, and however far we might be marched before we reached the place of our imprisonment. The rest of us men — meaning Mr. Macey, Mr. Fisher, two of my comrades of the Marines, and five of the sloop's crew — were, making allowance for a little smarting in our wounds, in tolerable health, and not half so much broken in spirit by troubles, past, present, and to come, as some persons might be apt to imagine. As for the seamen, especially, no stranger who looked at their jolly brown faces would ever have imagined that they were pris- oners, and in peril of their lives. They sat together, chewing their quids, and looking out good-humouredly at the sea, like a gang of liberty-men resting themselves on shore. " Take it easy, soldier," says one of the six, seeing me looking at him. "And, if THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 155 you can't do that, take it as easy as you can." I thought, at the time, that many a wiser man might have given me less sensible advice than this, though it was only offered by a boatswain's mate. A movement among the j^irates attracted my notice to the beach below us, and I saw their Captain approaching our halting- place, having changed his fine clothes for garments that were fit to travel in. His coming back to us had the effect of producing unmistakable signs of preparation for a long journey. Shortly after he appeared, three Indians came up, leading three loaded mules ; and these were followed, in a few minutes, by two of the Sambos,. carrying between them a copper full of smoking meat and broth. After having been shared among the pirates, this mess was set down before us, with some wooden bowls floating about in it, to dip out the food with. Seeing that we hesitated before touching it, the Pirate Captain recommended us not to be too mealy-mouthed, as that was meat from our own stores on the Island, and the last we were likely to taste for a long time to come. The sailors, without any more ado about it, professed their readiness to follow this advice, muttering among themselves that good meat was a good thing, though the devil himself had cooked it. The Pirate Captain then, observing that we were all ready to accept the food, ordered the bonds that confined the hands of us men to be loosened and cast off, so that we might help ourselves. After we had served the women and children, we fell to. It was a good meal — though I can't say that I myself had much appetite for it. Jack, to use his own phrase, stowed away a double allowance. The jolly faces of the seamen lengthened a good deal, however, when they found there was nothing to drink afterwards but plain water. One of them, a fat man, named Short, went so far as to say that, in the turn things seemed to have taken, he should like to make his will before we started, as the stoppage of his grog and the stoppage of his life were two events that would occur uncommonly close together. When we had done, we were all ordered to stand up. The pirates approached me and the other men, to bind our arms again ; but, the Captain stopped them. " No," says he. "I want them to get on at a good pace ; and they will do that best with their arms free. Now, prisoners," he continued, addressing us, "I don't mean to have any lagging on the road. I have fed you up with good meat, and you have no excuse for not stepping out briskly — women, children, and all. You men are without weapons and without food, and you know nothing of the country you are going to travel through. If you 156 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. are mad enough, in this helpless condition, to attempt escaping on the march, you will be shot, as sure as you all stand there, — and if the bullet misses, you will starve to death in forests that have no path and no end." Having addressed us in those words, he turned again to his men. I wondered then, as I had wondered once or twice already, what those private reasons might be, which he had mentioned in his written paper, for sparing the lives of us male prisoners. I hoped he would refer to them now — but I was disappointed. " While the country allows it," he went on, addressing his crew, " march in a square, and keep the prisoners inside. Whether it is man, woman, or child, shoot any one of them who tries to escape, on peril of being shot yourself if you miss. Put the Indians and mules in front, and the Sambos next to them. Draw up the pris- oners all together. Tell off seven men to march before them, and seven more for each side ; and leave the other nine for the rear- guard. A fourth mule for me, when I get tired, and another Indian to carry my guitar." His guitar ! To think of the murderous thief having a turn for strumming tunes, and wanting to cultivate it on such an expedition as ours ! I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the guitar brought forward in a neat green case, with the piratical skull and cross-bones and the Pirate Captain's initials painted on it in white. " I can stand a good deal," whispers Tom Packer to me, looking hard at the guitar ; " but con-found me, Davis, if it's not a trifle too much to be taken prisoner by such a fellow as that ! " The Pirate Captain lights another cigar. " March ! " says he, with a screech like a cat, and a flourish with his sword, of the sort that a stage-player would give at the head of a mock army. We all moved off, leaving the clump of trees to the right, going, we knew not whither, to unknown sufferings and an unknown fate. The land that lay before us was wild and open, without fences or habitations. Here and there, cattle wandered about over it, and a few stray Indians. Beyond, in the distance, as far as we could see, rose a prospect of mountains and forests. Above us, was the piti- less sun, in a sky that was too brightly blue to look at. Behind us, was the calm murmuring ocean, with the dear island home which the women and children had lost, rising in the distance like a little green garden on the bosom of tlie sea. After half-an- hour's walking, we began to descend into the plain, and the last glimpse of the Island of Silver-Store disappeared from our view. The order of march which we prisoners now maintained among ourselves, being the order which, with certain occasional variations. THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 157 we observed for the next three days, I may as well give some description of in this place, before I get occupied with other things, and forget it. I myself, and the sailor I have mentioned under the name of Short, led the march. After us came Miss Maryon, and Mr. and Mrs. Macey. They were followed by two of my comrades of the Marines, with Mrs. Pordage, Mrs. Belltott, and two of the strongest of the ladies to look after them. Mr. Fisher, the ship's boy, and the three remaining men of the sloop's crew, with the rest of the women and children came next ; Tom Packer, taking care of Ser- jeant Drooce, brought up the rear. So long as we got on quickly enough, the pirates showed no disposition to interfere with our order of march ; but, if there were any signs of lagging — and God knows it was hard enough work for a man to walk under that burning sun ! — the villains threatened the weakest of our com- pany with the points of their swords. The younger among the children gave out, as might have been expected, poor things, very early on the march. Short and I set the example of taking two of them up, pick-a-back, which w^as followed directly by the rest of the men. Two of Mrs. Macey's three children fell to our share ; the eldest, travelling behind us on his father's back. Short hoisted the next in age, a girl, on his broad shoulders. I see him now as if it was yesterday, with the perspiration pouring down his fat face and bushy whiskers, rolling along as if he was on the deck of a ship, and making a sling of his neck-handkerchief, with his clever sailor's fingers, to support the little girl on his back. " I expect you'll marry me, my darling, when you grow up," says he, in his oily, joking voice. And the poor child, in her innocence, laid her weary head down on his shoulder, and gravely and faithfully prom- ised that she would. A lighter weight fell to my share. I had the youngest of the children, the pretty little boy, already mentioned, who had been deaf and numb from his birth. His mother's voice trembled sadly, as she thanked me for taking him up, and tenderly put his little dress right while she walked behind me. "He is very little and light of his age," says the poor lady, trying hard to speak steady. " He won't give you much trouble, Davis — he has always been a very patient child from the first." The boy's little frail arms clasped themselves round my neck while she was speaking; and something or other seemed to stop in my throat the cheerful an- swer that I wanted to make. I walked on with what must have looked, I am afraid, like a gruff" silence ; the poor child humming softly on my back, in his unchanging, dumb way, till he hummed himself to sleep. Often and often, since that time, in dreams, I 158 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. have felt those small arms round my neck again, and have heard that dumb murmuring song in my ear, dying away fainter and fainter, till nothing was left but the light breath rising and falling regularly on my cheek, telling me that my little fellow-prisoner had forgotten his troubles in sleep. We marched, as well as I could guess, somewhere about seven miles that day — a short spell enough, judging by distance, but a terrible long one judging by heat. Our halting place was by the banks of a stream, across which, at a little distance, some wild pigs were swimming as we came up. Beyond us, was the same view of forests and mountains that I have already mentioned; and all round us, was a perfect wilderness of flowers. The shrubs, the bushes, the ground, all blazed again with magnificent colours, under the evening sun. When we were ordered to halt, wherever we set a child down, there that child had laps and laps full of flowers growing within reach of its hand. We sat on flowers, cat on flowers, slept at night on flowers — any chance handful of which would have been worth a golden guinea among the gentle- folks in England. It was a sight not easily described, to see niggers, savages, and pirates, hideous, filthy, and ferocious in the last degree to look at, squatting about grimly upon a natural car- pet of beauty, of the sort that is painted in pictures with pretty fairies dancing on it. The mules were unloaded, and left to roll among the flowers to their hearts' content. A neat tent was set up for the Pirate Captain, at the door of which, after eating a good meal, he laid himself down in a languishing attitude, with a nosegay in the bosom of his waistcoat, and his guitar on his knees, and jingled away at the strings, singing foreign songs, with a shrdl voice and with his nose conceitedly turned up in the air. I was obliged to caution Short and the sailors — or they would, to a dead certainty, have put all our lives in peril by openly laughing at him. We had but a poor supper that night. The pirates now kept the provisions they had brought from the Island, for their own use ; and we had to share the miserable starvation diet of the country, with the Indians and the Sambos. This consisted of black beans fried, and of things they call Tortillas, meaning, in plain English, flat cakes made of crushed Indian corn, and baked on a clay griddle. Not only was this food insipid, but the dirty manner in which the Indians prepared it, was disgusting. How- ever, complaint was useless : for we could see for ourselves that no other provision had been brought for the prisoners. I heard some grumbling among our men, and some little fretfulness among the children, which their mothers soon quieted. I myself was indiff'er- THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 159 ent enough to the quality of the food ; for I had noticed a circum- stance, just before it was brought to us, which occuj^ied my mind with more serious considerations. One of the mules was unloaded near us, and I observed among the baggage a large bundle of new axes, doubtless taken from some ship. After puzzling my brains for some time to know what they could be wanted for, I came to the conclusion that they were to be employed in cutting our way through, when we came to the forests. To think of the kind of travelling which these preparations promised — if the view I took of them was the right one — and then to look at the women and children, exhausted by the first day's march, was sufficient to make any man uneasy. It weighed heavily enough on my mind, I know, when I woke up among the flowers, from time to time, that night. Our sleeping arrangements, though we had not a single civilised comfort, were, thanks to the flowers, simple and easy enough. For the first time in their lives, the women and children laid down together, with the sky for a roof, and the kind earth for a bed. We men shook ourselves down, as well as we could, all round them; and the pirates, relieving guard regularly, ranged them- selves outside of all. In that tropical climate, and at that hot time, the night was only pleasantly cool. The bubbling of the stream, and, now and then, the course of the breeze through the flowers, was all we heard. During the hours of darkness, it occurred to me — and I have no doubt the same idea struck my comrades — that a body of determined men, making a dash for it, might now have stood a fair chance of escaping. We were still near enough to the sea-shore to be certain of not losing our way ; and the plain was almost as smooth, for a good long run, as a natural race-course. However, the mere act of dwelling on such a notion, was waste of time and thought, situated as we were with regard to the women and children. They were, so to speak, the hostages who insured our submission to captivity, or to any other hardship that might be inflicted on us ; a result which I have no doubt the Pirate Captain had foreseen, when he made us all pris- oners together on taking possession of the Island. We were roused up at four in the morning, to travel on before the heat set in ; our march under yesterday's broiling sun having been only undertaken for the purpose of getting us away from the sea-shore, and from possible help in that quarter, without loss of time. We forded the stream, wading through it waist-deep : except the children, who crossed on our shoulders. An hour be- fore noon, we halted under two immense wild cotton-trees, about half a mile from a little brook, which probably ran into the stream we had passed in the morning. Late in the afternoon we were on 160 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. foot again, and encamped for the night at three deserted huts, built of mud and poles. There were the remains of an enclosure here, intended, as I thought, for cattle ; and there was an old well, from which our supply of water was got. The greater part of the women were very tired and sorrowful that night ; but Miss Maryon did wonders in cheering them up. On the third morning, we began to skirt the edge of a mountain, carrying our store of water with us from the well. AVe men pris- oners had our full share of the burden. What with that, what with the way being all up hill, and what with the necessity of helping on the weaker members of our company, that day's march was the hardest I remember to have ever got through. Towards evening, after resting again in the middle of the day, we stopped for the night on the verge of the forest. A dim, lowering, awful sight it was, to look up at the mighty wall of trees, stretching in front, and on either side of us without a limit and without a break. Through the night, though there was no wind blowing over our encampment, we heard deep, moaning, rushing sounds rolling about, at intervals, in the great inner wilderness of leaves ; and, now and then, those among us who slept, were startled up by distant crashes in the depths of the forest — the death-knells of falling trees. We kept fires alight, in case of wild animals stealing out on us in the darkness ; and the flaring red light, and the thick, winding smoke, alternately showed and hid the forest-prospect in a strangely treacherous and ghostly way. The children shuddered with fear; even the Pirate Captain forgot, for the first time, to jingle his eternal guitar. When we were mustered in the morning for the march, I fully expected to see the axes unpacked. To my surprise, they were not disturbed. The Indians drew their long chopping-knives (called machetes in the language of that country) ; made for a place among the trees where I could see no signs of a path ; and began cutting at the bushes and shrubs, and at the wild vines and creepers, twdrling down together in all sorts of fantastic forms from the lofty branches. After clearing a few dozen yards in^^'ards they came out to us again, whooping and showing their wicked teeth, as they laid hold of the mules' halters to lead them on. The Pirate Captain, before we moved after, took out a pocket compass, set it, pondered over it for some time, shrugged his shoulders, and screeched out " March," as usual. We entered the forest, leading behind us the last chance of escape, and the last hope of ever get- ting back to the regions of humanity and civilisation. By this time, we had walked inland, as nearly as I could estimate, about thirty miles. THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 161 The order of our march was now, of necessity, somewhat changed. We all followed each other in a long line, shut in, however, as before, in front and in rear, by the Indians, the Sambos, and the pirates. Though none of us could see a vestige of any path, it was clear that our guides knew where they were going ; for, we were never stopped by any obstacles, except the shrubs and wild-vines which they could cut through with their chopping-knivefs. Some- times, we marched under great branches which met like arches higli over our heads. Sometimes, the boughs were so low that we had to stoop to pass under them. Sometimes, we wound in and out among mighty trunks of trees, with their gnarled roots twisting up far above the ground, and with creepers in full flower twining down in hundreds from their lofty branches. The size of the leaves and the countless multitude of the trees, shut out the sun, and made a solemn dimness which it was awful and without hope to walk through. Hours would pass without our hearing a sound but the dreary rustle of our own feet over the leafy ground. At other times, whole troops of parrots, with feathers of all the colours of the rainbow, chattered and shrieked at us ; and processions of monkeys, fifty or sixty at a time, followed our progress in the boughs overhead : passing through the thick leaves with a sound like the rush of a steady wind. Every now and then, the children were startled by lizard-like creatures, three feet long, running up the trunks of the trees as we passed by them ; more than once, swarms of locusts tormented us, startled out of their hiding-places by the monkeys in the boughs. For five days we marched inces- santly through this dismal forest-region, only catching a clear glimpse of the sky above us, on three occasions in all that time. The distance we walked each day seemed to be regulated by the positions of springs and streams in the forest, which the Indians knew of. Sometimes those springs and streams lay near together ; and our day's work was short. Sometimes they were far apart ; and the march was long and weary. On all occasions, two of the Indians, followed by two of the Sambos, disappeared as soon as we encamped for the night ; and returned, in a longer or shorter time, bringing water with them. Towards the latter part of the journey, weari- ness had so completely mastered the weakest among our company, that they ceased to take notice of anything. They walked with- out looking to the right or to the left, and they eat their wretched food and lay down to sleep with a silent despair that was shocking. Mr. Pordage left off maundering now, and Serjeant Drooce was so quiet and biddable, that Tom Packer had an easy time of it with him at last. Those among us who still talked, began to get a habit of dropping our voices to a whisper. Short's jokes languished M 162 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. and dwindled ; Miss Maryon's voice, still kind and tender as ever, began to lose its clearness ; and the poor children, when they got weary and cried, shed tears silently, like old people. It seemed as if the darkness and the hush of the endless forest had cast its shadow on our spirits, and had stolen drearily into our inmost hearts. On the sixth day, we saw the blessed sunshine on the ground before us, once more. Prisoners as we were, there was a feeling of freedom on stepping into the light again, and on looking up, without interruption, into the clear blue heaven, from which no human creature can keep any other human creature, when the time comes for rising to it. A turn in the path brought us out suddenly at an Indian village — a wretched place, made up of two rows of huts built with poles, the crevices between them stopped with mud, and the roofs thatched in the coarsest manner with palm-leaves. The savages squatted about, jumped to their feet in terror as we came in view ; but, seeing the Indians at the head of our party, took heart, and began chattering and screeching, just like the parrots we had left in the forest. Our guides answered in their gibberisli ; some lean, half-wild dogs yelped and howled incessantly ; and the pirates discharged their muskets and loaded them again, to make sure that their powder had not got damp on the march. No want of muskets among them now ! The noise and the light and the confusion, after the silence, darkness, and discipline that we had been used to for the last five days, so bewildered us all, that it was quite a relief to sit down on the ground and let the guard about us shut out our view on eveiy side. " Davis ! Are we at the end of the march ? " says Miss Mary on, touching my arm. The other women looked anxiously at me, as she put the ques- tion. I got on my feet, and saw the Pirate Captain communicating with the Indians of the village. His hands were making signs in the fussy foreign way, all the time he was speaking. Sometimes, they pointed away to where the forest began again beyond us ; and sometimes they went up both together to his mouth, as if he was wishful of getting a fresh supply of the necessaries of life. My eyes next turned towards the mules. Nobody was employed in unpacking the baggage ; nobody went near that bundle of axes which had weighed on my mind so much already, and the mystery of wdiich still tormented me in secret. I came to the conclusion that we were not yet at the end of our journey ; I communicated my opinion to Miss Maryon. She got up herself, with my help, and looked about her, and made the remark, very justly, that all the huts in the village would not suffice to hold us. At the same time, I pointed out to her that the mule which the Pirate Captain THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 163 had ridden had been relieved of his saddle, and was being led away, at that moment, to a patch of grass behind one of the huts. "That looks as if we were not going much farther on," says I. " Thank Heaven if it be so, for the sake of the poor children ! " says Miss Maryon. "Davis, suppose something happened which gave us a chance of escaping? Do you think we could ever find our way back to the sea ? " "Not a hope of getting back, miss. If the pirates were to let us go this very instant, those pathless forests would keep us in prison for ever." " Too true ! Too true ! " she said, and said no more. In another half-hour we were roused up, and marched away from the village (as I had thought we should be) into the forest again. This time, though there was by no means so much cutting through the underwood needed as in our previous experience, we were ac- companied by at least a dozen Indians, w^io seemed to me to be following us out of sheer idleness and curiosity. We had walked, as well as I could calculate, more than an hour, and I was trudging along with the little deaf-and-dumb boy on my back, as usual, thinking, not very hopefully, of our future prospects, when I was startled by a moan in my ear from the child. One of his arms was trembling round my neck, and the other pointed away towards my right hand. I looked in that direction — and there, as if it had started up out of the ground to dispute our passage through the forest, was a hideous monster carved in stone, twice my height at least. The thing loomed out of a ghostly white, against the dark curtain of trees all round it. Spots of rank moss stuck about over its great glaring stone-face ; its stumpy hands were tucked up into its breast ; its legs and feet were four times the size of any human limbs ; its body and the flat space of spare stone which rose above its head, were all covered with mysterious devices — little grinning men's faces, heads of crocodiles and apes, twisting knots and twirling knobs, strangely shaped leaves, winding lattice- work ; legs, arms, fingers, toes, skulls, bones, and such like. The monstrous statue leaned over on one side, and was only kept from falling to the ground by the roots of a great tree which had wound them- selves all round the lower half of it. Altogether, it was as horrible and ghastly an object to come upon suddenly, in the unknown depths of a great forest, as the mind (or, at all events, my mind) can conceive. When I say that the first meeting with the statue struck me speechless, nobody can wonder that the children actually screamed with terror at the sight of it. " It's only a great big doll, my darling," says Short, at his wit's end how to quiet the little girl on his back. " We'll get a nice 1G4 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. soft bit of wood soon, and show these nasty savages how to make a better one." While he was speaking, Miss Maryon was close behind me, soothing the deaf-and-dumb boy by signs which I could not under- stand. "I have heard of these things, Davis," she says. "They are idols, made by a lost race of people, who lived, no one can say how many hundred or how many thousand years ago. That hideous thing was carved and worshipped while the great tree that now supports it was yet a seed in the ground. We must get the children used to these stone monsters. I believe we are coming to many more of them. I believe we are close to the remains of one of those mysterious ruined cities which have long been supposed to exist in this part of the world." Before I could answer, the word of command from the rear drove us on again. In passing the idol, some of the pirates fired their muskets at it. The echoes from the reports rang back on us with a sharp rattling sound. We pushed on a few paces, when the Indians a-head suddenly stopped, flourished their chopping- knives, and all screamed out together " El Palacio ! " The Englishmen among the pirates took up the cry, and, running forward through the trees on either side of us, roared out, "The Palace ! " Other voices joined theirs in other tongues ; and, for a minute or two, there was a general confusion of everybody, — the first that had occurred since we were marched away, prisoners, from the sea-shore. I tightened my hold of the child on my back ; took Miss Maryon closer to me, to save her from being roughly jostled by the men about us ; and marched up as near to the front as the press and the trees would let me. Looking over the heads of the Indians, and between the trunks, I beheld a sight which I shall never forget : no, not to my dying day. A wilderness of ruins spread out before me, overrun by a forest of trees. In every direction, look where I would, a frightful confu- sion of idols, pillars, blocks of stone, heavy walls, and flights of steps, met my eye ; some, whole and upright ; others, broken and scattered on the ground ; and all, whatever their condition, over- grown and clasped about by roots, branches, and curling vines, that writhed round them like so many great snakes. Every here and there, strange buildings stood up, with walls on the tops of which three men might have marched abreast — buildings with their roofs burst off or tumbled in, and with the trees springing up from inside, and waving their restless shadows mournfully over the ruins. High in the midst of this desolation, towered a broad platform of rocky THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 165 earth, scraped away ou three sides, so as to make it unapproachable except by scaling ladders. On the fourth side, the flat of the plat- form was reached by a flight of stone steps, of such mighty size and strength that they might have been made for the use of a race of giants. They led to a huge building girded all round with a row of thick pillars, long enough and broad enough to cover the whole flat space of ground ; solid enough, as to the walls, to stand for ever ; but broken in, at most places, as to the roof; and overshadowed by the trees that sprang up from inside, like the smaller houses already mentioned, below it. This was the dismal ruin. which was called the Palace ; and this was the Prison in the Woods which was to be the place of our captivity. The screeching voice of the Pirate Captain restored order in our ranks, and sent the Indians forward with their chopping-knives to the steps of the Palace. We were directed to follow them across the ruins, and in and out among the trees. Out of every ugly crevice and crack in the great stairs, there sprouted up flowers, long grasses, and beautiful large-leafed plants and bushes. When we had toiled to the top of the flight, we could look back from the height over the dark waving top of the forest behind us. More than a glimpse of the magnificent sight, however, was not allowed : we were ordered still to follow the Indians, They had already disappeared in the inside of the Palace ; and we went in after them. We found ourselves, first, under a square portico, supported upon immense flat slabs of stone, which were carved all over, at top and bottom, with death's-heads set in the midst of circles of sculptured flowers, I guessed the length of the portico to be, at the very least, three hundred feet. In the inside wall of it, appeared four high gaping doorways ; three of them were entirely choked up by fallen stones : so jammed together, and so girt about by roots and climb- ing plants, that no force short of a blast of gunpowder, could pos- sibly have dislodged them. The fourth entrance had, at some former time, been kept just clear enough to allow of the passing of one man at once through the gap that had been made in the fallen stones. Through this, the only passage left into the Palace, or out of it, we followed the Indians into a great hall, nearly one-half of which was still covered by the remains of the roof. In the unsheltered half: surrounded by broken stones and with a carved human head, five times the size of life, leaning against it, rose the straight, naked trunk of a beautiful tree, that shot up high above the ruins, and dropped its enormous branches from the very top of it, bending down towards us, in curves like plumes of immense green feathers. In this hall, which was big enough to hold double our number, we were ordered to make a halt, while the Pirate Captain, accompanied by three of 166 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. his crew, followed the Indians through a doorway, leading oflF to the left liand, as we stood with our backs to the portico. In front of us, towards the right, was another doorway, through which we could see some of the Indians, cutting away with their knives, right and left, at the overspreading underwood. Even the noise of the hacking, and the hum and murmur of the people outside, who were unloading the mules, seemed to he sounds too faint and trifling to break the awful stillness of the ruins. To my ears, at least, the unearthly silence was deepened rather than broken by the few feeble sounds which tried to disturb it. The wailings of the poor children were stifled within them. The whispers of the women, and the heavy breathing of the overlaboured men, sank and sank gradually till they were heard no more. Looking back now, at tlie whole course of our troubles, I think I can safely say that nothing — not even the first discovery of the treachery on the Island — tried our courage and endurance like that interval of speechless waiting in the Palace, with the hush of the ruined city, and the dimness of the endless forest, all about us. AVhen we next saw the Pirate Captain, he appeared at the doorway to the right, just as the pirates began to crowd in from the portico, witli the baggage they had taken from the mules. "There is the way for the Buccaniers," squeaks the Pirate Cap- tain, addressing the American mate, and pointing to the doorway on the left. " Three big rooms, that will hold you all, and that have more of the roof left on them than any of the others. The prisoners," he continues, turning to us, and pointing to the door- way behind him, " will file in, that way, and will find two rooms for them, with the ceilings on the floor, and the trees in their places. I myself, because my soul is big, shall live alone in this grand hall. My bed shall be there in the sheltered corner ; and I shall eat, and drink, and smoke, and sing, and enjoy myself, with one eye always on my prisoners, and the other eye always on my guard outside." Having delivered this piece of eloquence, he pointed with his sword to the prisoners' doorway. We all passed through it quickly, glad to be out of the sight and hearing of him. The two rooms set apart for us, communicated with each other. The inner one of the two had a second doorway, leading, as I supposed, further into the building, but so choked up by rubbish, as to be impassable, except by climbing, and that must have been skilful climbing too. Seeing that this accident cut oflf all easy means of approach to the room from the pirates' side, we deter- mined, supposing nobody meddled with us, to establish the women THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 167 and children here; and to take the room nearest to the Pirate Captain and his guard for ourselves. The first thing to be done was to clear away the rubbish in the women's room. The ceiling was, indeed, as the Pirate Captain had told us, all on the floor; and the growth of trees, shrubs, weeds, and flowers, springing up everywhere among the fragments of stone, was so prodigious in this part of the Palace, that, but for the walls with their barbarous sculptures all round, we should certainly have believed ourselves to be encamped in the forest, without a building near us. All the lighter parts of the rubbish in the women's room we disposed of, cleverly, by piling it in the doorway on the pirates' side, so as to make any approach from that direction all but impossible, even by climbing. The heavy blocks of stone — and it took two men to lift some of them that were not the heaviest — we piled up in the middle of the floor. Having by this means cleared away plenty of spacs round the walls, we gathered up all the litter of young branches, bushes, and leaves which the Indians had chopped away ; added to them as much as was required of the underwood still standing ; and laid the whole smooth and even, to make beds. I noticed, while we were at this worky that the ship's boy — whose name was Robert — was particularly helpful and considerate with the children, when it be- came necessary to quiet them and to get them to lie down. He was a rough boy to look at, and not very sharp ; but he managed better, and was more naturally tender-hearted with the little ones than any of the rest of us. This may seem a small thing to men- tion ; but Robert's attentive ways with the children, attached them to him ; and that attachment, as will be hereafter shown, turned out to be of great benefit to us, at a very dangerous and very im- portant time. Our next piece of work was to clear our own room. It was close at the side of the Palace ; and a break in the outward wall looked down over the sheer precipice on which the building stood. We stopped this up, breast high, in case of accidents, with the rubbish on the floor ; we then made our beds, just as we had made the women's beds already. A little later, we heard the Pirate Captain in the hall, which he kept to himself for his big soul and his little body, giving orders to the American mate about the guard. On mustering the pirates, it turned out that two of them, who had been wounded in the fight on the Island, were unfit for duty. Twenty-eight, therefore, remained. These, the Pirate Captain divided into companies of seven, who were to mount guard, in turn, for a spell of six hours each company ; the relief coming round, as a matter of course, four 168 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. times in the twenty-four hours. Of the guard of seven, two were stationed under the portico ; one was phiced as a look-out, on the top landing of the great flight of steps ; and two were appointed to patrol the ground below, in front of the Palace. This left only two men to watch the three remaining sides of the building. So far as any risks of attack were concerned, the precipices at the back and sides of the Palace were a sufficient defence for it, if a good watch was kept on the weak side. But what the Pirate Captain dreaded was the chance of our escaping; and he would not trust the precipices to keep us, knowing we had sailors in our company, and suspecting that they might hit on some substitute for ropes, and lower themselves and their fellow-prisoners down from the back or the sides of the Palace, in the dark. Accord- ingly, the Pirate Captain settled it tliat two men out of each com- pany should do double duty, after nightfall : the choice of them to be decided by casting dice. This gave four men to patrol round the sides and the back of the building : a sufficient number to keep a bright look-out. The pirates nuirmured a little at the prospect of double duty; but, there was no remedy for it. The Indians, having a superstitious horror of remaining in the ruined city after dark, had bargained to be allowed to go back to their village, every afternoon. And, as for the Sambos, the Pirate Captain knew them better than the English liad known them at Silver-Store, and would have nothing to do with them in any matter of importance. The setting of the watch was completed without much delay. If any of us had felt the slightest hope of escaping, up to this time, the position of our prison and the number of sentinels appointed to guard it, would have been more than enough to extinguish that hope for ever. An hour before sunset, the Indians — whose only business at the Palace was to supply us with food from the village, and to prepare the food for eating — made their last batch of Tortillas, and then left the ruins in a body, at the usual trot of those savages when they are travelling in a hurry. When the sun had set, the darkness came down upon us, I might almost say, with a rush. Bats whizzed about, and the low warning hum of mosquitos sounded close to our ears. Flying beetles, with lights in their heads, each light as bright as tlie light of a dozen glowworms, sparkled through the darkness, in a wonderful manner, all night long. When one of them settled on the walls, he lighted up the hideous sculptures for a yard all round him, at the very least. Outside, in the forest, the dreadful still- ness seemed to be drawing its breath, from time to time, when THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 169 the night-wind swept lightly through the million-million leaves. Sometimes, the surge of monkeys travelling through the boughs, burst out with a sound like waves on a sandy shore ; sometimes, the noise of falling branches and trunks rang out suddenly with a crash, as if the great ruins about us were splitting into pieces ; sometimes, when the silence was at its deepest — when even the tread of the watch outside had ceased — the quick rustle of a lizard or a snake, sounded treacherously close at our ears. It was long before the children in the women's room were all quieted and hushed to sleep — longer still before we, their elders, could com- pose our spirits for the night. After all sounds died away among us, and when I thought that I was the only one still awake, I heard Miss Maryon's voice saying, softly, "God help and deliver us ! " A man in our room, moving on his bed of leaves, repeated the words after her ; and the ship's boy, Robert, half-asleep, half- awake, whispered to himself sleepily, "Amen!" After that, the silence returned upon us, and was broken no more. So the night passed — the first night in our Prison in the Woods. With the morning, came the discovery of a new project of the Pirate Captain's, for which none of us had been prepared. Soon after sunrise, the Pirate Captain looked into our room, and ordered all the men in it out into the large hall, where he lived with his big soul and his little body. After eyeing us nar- rowly, he directed three of the sailors, myself, and two of my comrades, to step apart from the rest. When we had obeyed, the bundle of axes which had troubled my mind so much, was brought into the hall ; and four men of the guard, then on duty, armed with muskets and pistols, were marched in afterwards. Six of the axes were chosen and put into our hands, the Pirate Captain pointing warningly, as we took them, to the men with fire-arms in the front of us. He and his mate, both armed to the teeth, then led the way out to the steps ; we followed ; the other four pirates came after us. We were formed, down the steps, in single file ; the Pirate Captain at the head ; I myself next to him ; a pirate next to me ; and so on to the end, in such order as to keep a man with a loaded musket between each one or two of us prisoners. I looked behind me as we started, and saw two of the Sambos — that Christian George King was one of them — following us. We marched round the back of the Palace, and over the ruins beyond it, till we came to a track through the forest, the first I had seen. After a quarter of an hour's walking, I saw the sunlight, bright beyond the trees in front of us. In another minute or two, we stood under the clear sky, and beheld at our feet a broad river, running with a swift silent current, and overshadowed 170 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. by the forest, rising as thick as ever on the bank that was opposite to us. On the bank where we stood, the trees were young ; some great tempest of past years having made havoc in this part of the forest, and torn away the old growth to make room for the new. The young trees grew up, mostly, straight and slender, — that is to say, slender for South America, the slightest of them being, certainly, as thick as my leg. After peeping and peering about at the tim- ber, with the look of a man who owned it all, the Pirate Captain sat himself down cross-legged on the grass, and did us the honour to address us. " Aha ! you English, what do you think I have kept you alive for?" says he. "Because I am fond of you? Bah ! Because I don't like to kill you ? Bah ! What for, then ? Because I want the use of your arms to work for me. See those trees ! " He waved his hand backwards and forwards, over the whole prospect. " Cut them all down — lop off the branches — smooth them into poles — shape them into beams — chop them into planks. Cama- rado ! " he went on, turning to the mate, " I mean to roof in the Palace again, and to lay new floors over the rubbish of stones. I will make the big house good and dry to live in, in the rainy weather — I will barricade the steps of it for defence against an army, — I will make it my strong castle of retreat for me and my men, and our treasure, and our prisoners, and all that we have, when the English cruisers of the devil get too many for us along the coast. To work, you six ! Look at those four men of mine, — their muskets are loaded. Look at these two Sambos who will stop here to fetch help if they want it. Remember the women and children you have left at the Palace — and at your peril and at their peril, turn those axes in your hands from their proper work ! You understand? You English fools?" With those words he jumped to his feet, and ordered the niggers to remain and place themselves at the orders of our guard. Having given these last directions, and having taken his mate's opinion as to whether three of the Buccaniers would not be enough to watch the Palace in the day, when the six stoutest men of the prisoners were away from it, the Pirate Captain offered his little weazen arm to the American, and strutted back to his castle, on better terms with himself than ever. As soon as he and the mate were gone. Christian George King tumbled himself down on the grass, and kicked up his ugly heels in convulsions of delight. "Oh, golly, golly, golly!" says he. "You dam English do THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 171 work, and Christian George King look on. Yup, So-Jeer ! whack at them tree ! " I paid no attention to the brute, being better occupied in noticing my next comrade. Short, I had remarked that all the while the Pirate Captain was speaking, he was looking hard at the river, as if the sight of a large sheet of water did his sailorly eyes good. When we began to use the axes, greatly to my astonishment, he buckled to at his work like a man who had his whole heart in it: chuckling to himself at ^every chop, and wagging his head as if he was in the forecastle again telling his best yarns. "You seem to be in spirits. Short ?" I says, setting to on a tree close by him. " The river's put a notion in my head," says he. " Chop away, Gill, as hard as you can, or they may hear us talking." "What notion has the river i^ut in your head?" I asked that man, following his directions. " You don't know where that river runs to, I suppose ? " says Short. " No more don't I. But, did it say anything particular to you. Gill, when you first set eyes on it? It said to me, as plain as words could speak, ' I'm the road out of this. Come and try me ! ' — Steady ! Don't stop to look at the water. Chop away, man, chop away." " The road out of this ? " says I. "A road without any coaches. Short. I don't see so much as the ruins of one old canoe lying about anywhere." Short chuckles again, and buries his axe in his tree. "What are we cutting down these here trees for?" says he. "Roofs and floors for the Pirate Captain's castle," says I. ^^ Rafts for ourselves/" says he, with another tremendous chop at the tree, which brought it to the ground — the first that had fallen. His words struck through me as if I had been shot. For the first time since our imprisonment I now saw, clear as daylight, a chance of escape. Only a chance, to be sure; but, still a chance. Although the guard stood several paces away from us, and could by no possibility hear a word that we said, through the noise of the axes, Short was too cautious to talk any more. "Wait till night," he said, lopping the branches off" the tree. "Pass the word on in a whisper to the nearest of our men to work with a will ; and say, with a wink of your eye, there's a good reason for it." After we had been allowed to knock oft' for that day, the Pirates had no cause to complain of the work we had done ; and they re- 172 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. ported us to the Pirate Captain as obedient and industrious, so far. When we lay down at night, I took the next place on the leaves to Short. We waited till the rest were asleep, and till we heard the Pirate Captain snoring in the great hall, before we began to talk again about the river and the rafts. This is the amount of what Short whispered in my ear on that occasion : He told me he had calculated that it would take two large rafts to bear all our company, and that timber enough to make such two rafts might be cut down by six men in ten days, or, at most, in a fortnight. As for the means of fastening the rafts — the lashings, he called them — tlie stout vines and creepers supplied them abundantly ; and the timbers of both rafts might be connected together, in this way, firmly enough for river navigation, in about five hours. That was the very shortest time the job would take, done by the willing hands of men who knew that they were work- ing for their lives, said Short. These were the means of escape. How to turn them to account was the next question. Short could not answer it ; and though I tried all that night, neither could I. The difficulty was one which, I think, might have puzzled wiser heads than ours. How were six-and-thirty living souls (being the number of us prisoners, including the children) to be got out of the Palace safely, in the face of the guard that watched it? And, even if that was accomplished, when could we count on gaining five hours all to ourselves for the business of making the rafts 1 The compassing of either of these two designs, absolutely necessary as they both were to our escape, seemed to be nothing more or less than a rank impossibility. Towards morning, I got a wild notion into my head about letting ourselves down from the back of the Palace, in the dark, and taking our chance of being able to seize the sentinels at that part of the building, unawares, and gag them before tliey could give the alarm to the pirates in front. But, Short, when I mentioned my plan to him, would not hear of it. He said that men by themselves — provided they had not got a madman, like Drooce, and a maundering old gentleman, like Mr. Pordage, among them — might, perhaps, run some such desperate risk as I proposed ; but, that letting women and children, to say nothing of Drooce and Pordage, down a precipice in the dark, with make-shift ropes which might give way at a moment's notice, was out of the question. It was impossible, on further reflection, not to see that Short's view of the matter was the right one. I ac- knowledged as much, and then I put it to Short whether our wisest course would not be to let one or two of the sharpest of our fellow-prisoners into our secret, and see what they said. THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 173 Short asked me which two I had in my mind when I made that proposal ? "Mr. Macey," says I, "because he is naturally quick, and has improved his gifts by learning, and Miss Maryon " "How can a woman help us?" says Short, breaking in on me. " A woman with a clear head and a high courage and a patient resolution — all of which Miss Maryon has got, above all the world — may do more to help us, in our present strait, than any man of our company," says I. " Well," says Short, " I dare say you're right. Speak to any- body you please. Gill ; but, whatever you do, jnan, stick to it at the trees. Let's get the timber down — that's the first thing to be done, anyhow." Before we were mustered for work, I took an opportunity of privately mentioning to Miss Maryon and Mr. Macey what had passed between Short and me. They were both thunderstruck at the notion of the rafts. Miss Maryon, as I had expected, made lighter of the terrible difficulties in the way of carrying out our scheme than Mr. Macey did. " We are left here to watch and think, all day," she whis- pered — and I could almost hear the quick beating of her heart. " While you are making the best of your time among the trees, we will make the best of ours in the Palace. I can say no more, now — I can hardly speak at all for thinking of what you have told me. Bless you, bless you, for making me hope once more ! Go now — we must not risk the consequences of being seen talking together. When you come back at night, look at me. If I close my eyes, it is a sign that nothing has been thought of yet. If I keep them open, take the first safe opportunity of speaking secretly to me or to Mr. Macey." She turned away ; and I went back to my comrades. Half an hour afterwards, we were off for our second day's work among the trees. When we came back, I looked at Miss Maryon. She closed her eyes. So, nothing had been thought of, yet. Six more days we worked at cutting down the trees, always mer- iting the same good character for industry from our pirate-guard. Six more evenings I looked at Miss Maryon ; and six times her closed eyes gave me the same disheartening answer. On the ninth day of our work. Short whispered to me, that if we plied our axes for three days longer, he considered we should have more than timber enough down, to make the rafts. He had thought of noth- ing, I had thought of nothing. Miss Maryon and Mr. Macey had thought of nothing. I was beginning to get low in spirits ; but. 174 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. Short was just as cool and easy as ever. "Chop away, Davis," was all he said. " The river won't run dry yet awhile. Chop away ! " We knocked off earlier than usual that day, the pirates having a feast in prospect, off a wild hog. It was still broad daylight (out of the forest) when we came back, and when I looked once more in Miss Maryon's face. I saw a flush in her cheeks ; and her eyes met mine brightly. My heart beat quicker at the glance of them ; for I saw that the time had come, and that the difficulty was conquered. We waited till the light was fading, and the pirates were in the midst of their feast. Then, she beckoned me into the inner room, and I sat down by her in the dimmest corner of it. " You have thought of something, at last, miss ? " " I have. But the merit of the thought is not all mine. Chance — no ! Providence — suggested the design ; and the instrument with which its merciful Wisdom has worked, is — a child." She stopped, and looked all round her anxiously, before she went on. "This afternoon," she says, "I was sitting against the trunk of that tree, thinking of what has been the subject of my thoughts ever since you spoke to me. My sister's little girl was whiling away the tedious time, by asking Mr. Kitten to tell her the names of the different plants which are still left growing about the room. You know he is a learned man in such matters ? " I knew that ; and have, I beheve, formerly given that out, for my Lady to take in writing. "I was too much occupied," she went on, "to pay attention to them, till they came close to the tree against which I was sitting. Under it and about it, there grew a plant with very elegantly- shaped leaves, and with a kind of berry on it. The child showed it to Mr. Kitten ; and saying, ' Those berries look good to eat,' stretched out her hand towards them. Mr. Kitten stopped her. 'You must never touch that,' he said. 'Why not?' the child asked. ' Because if you eat much of it, it would poison you,' 'And if I only eat a little?' said the child, laughing. 'If you only eat a little,' said Mr. Kitten, 'it would throw you into a deep sleep — a sleep that none of us could wake you from, when it was time for breakfast — a sleep that would make your mamma think you were dead.' Those words were hardly spoken, when the thought that I have now to tell you of, flashed across my mind. But, before I say anything more, answer me one question. Am I right in sup- posing that our attempt at escape must be made in the night ? " "At night, certainly," says I, "because we can be most sure, THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 175 then, that the pirates off guard are all in this building, and not likely to leave it." "I understand. Now, Davis, hear what I have observed of the habits of the men who keep us imprisoned in this place. The first change of guard at night, is at nine o'clock. At that time, seven men come in from watching, and nine men (the extra, night-guard) go out to replace them ; each party being on duty, as you know, for six hours. I have observed, at the nine o'clock change of guard, that the seven men who come off duty, and the nine who go on, have a supply of baked cakes of Indian corn, reserved ex- pressly for their use. They divide the food between them; the Pirate Captain (who is always astir at the chaage of guard) gener- ally taking a cake for himself, when the rest of the men take theirs. This makes altogether, seventeen men who partake of food espe- cially reserved for them, at nine o'clock. So far you understand me?" " Clearly, miss." " The next thing I have noticed, is the manner in which that food is prepared. About two hours before sunset, the Pirate Cap- tain walks out to smoke, after he has eaten the meal which he calls his dinner. In his absence from the hall, the Indians light their fire on the unsheltered side of it, and prepare the last batch of food before they leave us for the night. They knead up two sep- arate masses of dough. The largest is the first which is separated into cakes and baked. That is taken for the use of us prisoners and of the men who are off duty all the night. The second and smaller piece of dough is then prepared for the nine o'clock change of guard. On that food — come nearer, Davis, I must say it in a whisper — on that food all our chances of escape now turn. If we can drug it unobserved, the pirates who go off duty, the pirates who go on duty, and the Captain, who is more to be feared than all the rest, will be as absolutely insensible to our leaving the Palace, as if they were every one of them dead men." I was unable to speak — I was unable even to fetch my breath at those words. "I have taken Mr. Kitten, as a matter of necessity, into our confidence," she said. " I have learnt from him a simple way of obtaining the juice of that plant which he forbade the child to eat. I have also made myself acquainted with the quantity which it is necessary to use for our purpose ; and I have resolved that no hands but mine shall be charged with the work of kneading it into the dough." " Not you, miss, — not you. Let one of us — let me — run that risk." 176 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. "You have work enough and risk enough already," said Miss Maryon. " It is time that the women, for whom you have suffered and ventured so much, should take their share. Besides, the risk is not great, where the Indians only are concerned. They are idle and curious. I have seen, with my own eyes, that they are as easily tempted away from their occupation by any chance sight or chance noise as if they were children ; and I have already arranged with Mr. Macey that he is to excite their curiosity by suddenly pulling down one of the loose stones in that doorway, when the right time comes. The Indians are certain to run in here to find out what is the matter. Mr. Macey will tell them that he has seen a snake, — they \v\\\ hunt for the creature (as I have seen them hunt, over and over again, in this ruined place) — and while they are so engaged, the opportunity that I want, the two minutes to myself, which are all that I require, will be mine. Dread the Pirate Captain, Davis, for the slightest caprice of his may ruin all our hopes, — but never dread the Indians, and never doubt me." Nobody, who had looked in her face at that moment — or at any moment that ever I knew of — could have doubted her. " There is one thing more," she went on. " When is the attempt to be made?" "In three days' time," I answered; "there will be timber enough down to make the rafts." " In three days' time, then, let us decide the question of our freedom or our death." She spoke those words with a firmness that amazed me. " Rest now," she said. " Rest and hope." The third day was the hottest we had yet experienced ; we were kept longer at work than usual ; and when we had done, we left on the bank enough, and more than enough, of timber and poles, to make both the rafts. The Indians had gone when we got back to the Palace, and the Pirate Captain was still smoking on the flight of steps. As we crossed the hall, I looked on one side and saw the Tortillas set up in a pile, waiting for the men who came in and went out at nine o'clock. At the door which opened between our room and the women's room, Miss Maryon was waiting for us. " Is it done ? " I asked in a whisper. "It is done," she answered. It was, then, by Mr. Macey's watch (which he had kept hidden about him throughout our imprisonment), seven o'clock. We had two hours to wait : hours of suspense, but hours of rest also for the overworked men who had been cutting the wood. Before I THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 177 lay down, I looked into the inner room. The women were all sitting together ; and I saw by the looks they cast on me that Miss Maryon had told them of what was coming with the night. The children were much as usual, playing quiet games among themselves. In the men's room, I noticed that Mr. Macey had posted himself along with Tom Packer, close to Serjeant Drooce, and that Mr. Fisher seemed to be taking great pains to make himself agreeable to Mr. Pordage. I was glad to see that the two gen- tlemen of the company, who were quick-witted and experienced in most things, were already taking in hand the two unreasonable men. The evening brought no coolness with it. The heat was so op- pressive that we all panted under it. The stillness of the forest was awful. We could almost hear the falling of the leaves. Half-past seven, eight, half-past eight, a quarter to nine — Nine. The tramp of feet came up the steps on one side, and the tramp of feet came into the hall, on the other. There was a confusion of voices, — then, the voice of the Pirate Captain, speaking in his own language, — then, the voice of the American mate, ordering out the guard, — then silence. I crawled to the door of our room, and laid myself down behind it, where I could see a strip of the hall, being that part of it in which the way out was situated. Here, also, the Pirate Captain's tent had been set up, about twelve or fourteen feet from the door. Two torches were burning before it. By their light, I saw the guard on duty file out, each man munching his Tortilla, and each man grumbling over it. At the same time, in the part of the hall which I could not see, I heard the men off duty grumbhng also. The Pirate Captain, who had entered his tent the minute before, came out of it, and calling to the American mate, at the far end of the hall, asked sharply in English, what that murmuring meant. "The men complain of the Tortillas," the mate tells him. " They say, they are nastier than ever to-night." " Bring me one, and let me taste it," said the Captain. I had often before heard people talk of their hearts being in their mouths, but I never really knew what the sensation was, till I heard that order given. The Tortilla was brought to him. He nibbled a bit off it, spat the morsel out with disgust, and threw the rest of the cake away. "Those Indian beasts have burnt the Tortillas," he said, "and their dirty hides shall suffer for it to-morrow morning." With those words, he whisked round on his heel, and went back into his tent. N 178 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. Some of the men had crept up behind me, and, looking over my head, had seen what I saw. They passed the account of it in whispers to those who could not see ; and they, in their turn, repeated it to the women. In five minutes everybody in the two rooms knew that the scheme had failed with the very man whose sleep it was most important to secure. I heard no stifled crying among the women or stifled cursing among the men. The despair of that time was too deep for tears, and too deep for words. I myself could not take my eyes oft' the tent. In a little while he came out of it again, putting and panting with the heat. He lighted a cigar at one of the torches, and laid himself down on his cloak just inside the doorway leading into the portico, so that all the air from outside might blow over him. Little as he was, he was big enough to lie right across the narrow way out. He smoked and he smoked, slowly and more slowly^ for, what seemed to me to be, hours, but for what, by the watch, was little more than ten minutes after all. Then, tlie cigar dropped out of his mouth — his hand sought for it, and sank lazily by his side — his head turned over a little towards the door — and he fell off: not into the drugged sleep that there was safety in, but into his light, natural sleep, which a touch on his body might have disturbed. "Now's the time to gag him," says Short, creeping up close to me, and taking ofi" his jacket and shoes. " Steady," says I. " Don't let's try that till we can try nothing else. There are men asleep near us who have not eaten the drugged cakes — the Pirate Captain is Hght and active — and if the gag slips on his mouth, we are all done for. I'll go to his head, Short, with my jacket ready in my hands. When I'm there, do you lead the way with your mates, and step gently into the portico, over his body. Every minute of your time is precious on account of making the rafts. Leave the rest of the men to get the women and children over; and leave me to gag him if he stirs while we are getting out." "Shake hands on it, Davis," says Short, getting to his feet. "A team of horses wouldn't have dragged me out first, if you hadn't said that about the rafts." "Wait a bit," says I, "till I speak to Mr. Kitten." I crawled back into the room, taking care to keep out of the way of the stones in the middle of it, and asked Mr. Kitten how long it would be before the drugged cakes acted on the men out- side who had eaten them? He said we ought to wait another quarter of an hour, to make quite sure. At the same time, Mr. Macey whispered in my ear to let him pass over the Pirate Captain's body, alone with the dangerous man of our company — THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 179 Serjeant Drooce. "I know how to deal with mad people," says he. "I have persuaded the Serjeant that if he is quiet, and if he steps carefully, I can help him to escape from Tom Packer, whom he is beginning to look on as his keeper. He has been as stealthy and quiet as a cat ever since — and I will answer for him till we get to the river side." What a relief it was to hear that ! I was turning round to get back to Short, when a hand touched me lightly. "I have heard you talking," whispered Miss Maryon; "and I will prepare all in my room for the risk we must now run. Robert, tlie ship's boy, whom the children are so fond of, shall help us to persuade them, once more, that we are going -to play a game. If you can get one of the torches from the tent, and pass it in here, it may prevent some of us from stumbling. Don't be afraid of the women and children, Davis. They shall not endanger the brave men who are saving them." I left her at once to get the torch. The Pirate Captain was still fast asleep as I stole on tiptoe, into the hall, and took it from the tent. When I returned, and gave it to Miss Maryon, her sister's little deaf-and-dumb boy saw me, and, slipping between us, caught tight hold of one of my hands. Having been used to riding on my shoulders for so many days, he had taken a fancy to me; and, when I tried to put him away, he only clung the tighter, and began to murmur in his helpless dumb way. Slight as the noise was which the poor little fellow could make, we all dreaded it. His mother wrung her hands in despair when she heard him ; and Mr. Fisher whispered to me for Heaven's sake to quiet the child, and humour him at any cost. I immediately took him up in my arms, and went back to Short. "Sling him on my back," says I, "as you slung the little girl on your own the first day of the march. I want both my hands, and the child won't be quiet away from me." Short did as I asked him in two minutes. As soon as he had finished, Mr. Macey passed the word on to me, that the quarter of an hour was up ; that it was time to try the experiment with Drooce; and that it was necessary for us all to humour him by feigning sleep. We obeyed. Looking out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Macey take the mad Serjeant's arm, point round to us all, and then lead him out. Holding tight by Mr. Macey, Drooce stepped as lightly as a woman, with as bright and wicked a look of cunning as ever I saw in any human eyes. They crossed the hall — Mr. Macey pointed to the Pirate Captain, and whis- pered, " Hush ! " — the Serjeant imitated the action and repeated the word — then the two stepped over his body (Drooce cautiously 180 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. raising his feet the highest), and disappeared through the portico. We waited to hear if there was any noise or confusion. Not a sound. I got up, and Short handed me his jacket for the gag. The child, having been startled from his sleep by the light of the torch, when I brought it in, had fallen off again, already, on my shoulder. "Now for it," says I, and stole out into the hall. I stopped at the tent, went in, and took the first knife I could find there. With the weapon between my teeth, with the little innocent asleep on my shoulder, with the jacket held ready in both hands, I kneeled down on one knee at the Pirate Captain's head, and fixed my eyes steadily on his ugly sleeping face. The sailors came out first, with their shoes in their hands. No sound of footsteps from any one of them. No movement in the ugly face as they passed over it. The women and children were ready next. Robert, the ship's boy, lifted the children over : most of them holding their little hands over their mouths to keep from laughing — so well had Robert persuaded them that we were only playing a game. The women passed next, all as light as air ; after them, in obedience to a sign from me, my comrades of the Marines, holding their shoes in their hands, as the sailors had done before them. So far, not a word had been spoken, not a mistake had been made — so far, not a change of any sort had passed over the Pirate Captain's face. There were left now in the hall, besides myself and the child on my back, only Mr. Fisher and Mr. Pordage. Mr. Pordage ! Up to that moment, in the risk and excitement of the time, I had not once thought of him. I was forced to think of him now, though ; and with anything but a friendly feeling. At the sight of the Pirate Captain, asleep across the way out, the unfortunate, mischievous old simpleton tossed up his head, and folded his arms, and was on the point of breaking out loud into a spoken document of some kind, when Mr. Fisher wisely and quickly clapped a hand over his mouth. "Government despatches outside," whispers Mr. Fisher, in an agony. "Secret service. Forty-nine reports from headquarters, all waiting for you half a mile ofi". I'll show you the way, sir. Don't wake that man there, who is asleep : he must know nothing about it - — he represents the Public." Mr. Pordage suddenly looked very knowing and hugely satisfied with himself. He followed Mr. Fisher to within a foot of the Pirate Captain's body — then stopped short. THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 181 " How many reports ? " he asked, very anxiously. "Forty-nine," said Mr. Fisher. "Come along, sir, — and step clean over the Public, whatever you do." Mr. Pordage instantly stepped over, as jauntily as if he was going to dance. At the moment of his crossing, a hanging rag of his cursed, useless, unfortunate, limp Diplomatic coat touched the Pirate Captain's forehead, and woke him. I drew back softly, with the child still asleep on my shoulder, into the black shadow of the wall behind me. At the instant when the Pirate Captain awoke, I had been looking at Mr. Pordage, and had consequently lost the chance of applying the gag to his mouth suddenly, at the right time. On rousing up, he turned his face inwards, towards the prisoners' room. If he had turned it outwards, he must to a dead certainty have seen the tail of Mr. Pordage's coat, disappearing in the portico. Though he was awake enough to move, he was not awake enough to have the full possession of his sharp senses. The drowsiness of his sleep still hung about him. He yawned, stretched himself, spat wearily, sat up, spat again, got on his legs, and stood up, within three feet of the shadow in which I was hiding behind him. I forgot the knife in my teeth, — I declare solemnly, in the frightful suspense of that moment, I forgot it — and doubled my fist as if I was an unarmed man, with the purpose of stunning him by a blow on the head if he came any nearer. I suppose I waited, with my fist clenched, nearly a minute, while he waited, yawning and spitting. At the end of that time, he made for his tent, and I heard him (with what thankfulness no words can tell !) roll himself down, with another yawn, on his bed inside. I waited — in the interest of us all — to make quite sure, before I left, that he was asleep again. In what I reckoned as about five minutes' time, I heard him snoring, and felt free to take myself and my little sleeping comrade out of the prison, at last. The drugged guards in the portico were sitting together, dead asleep, with their backs against the wall. The third man was ly- ing flat, on the landing of the steps. Their arms and ammunition were gone : wisely taken by our men — to defend us, if we were meddled with before we escaped, and to kill food for us when we committed ourselves to the river. At the bottom of the steps I was startled by seeing two women standing together. They were Mrs. Macey and Miss Maryon : the first, waiting to see her child safe ; the second (God bless her for it !) waiting to see me safe. 182 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. In a quarter of an hour we were by the river-side, and saw the work bravely begun ; the sailors and the Marines under their orders, labouring at the rafts in the shallow water by the bank ; Mr. Macey and Mr. Fisher rolling down fresh timber as it was wanted ; / the women cutting the vines, creepers, and withies for the lashings. / We brought with us three more pair of hands to help ; and all worked with such a will, that, in four hours and twenty minutes, by Mr. Macey's watch, the rafts, though not finished as they ought to have been, were still strong enough to float us away. Short, another seaman, and the ship's boy, got aboard the first raft, carrying with them poles and spare timber. Miss Maryon, Mrs. Fisher and her husband, Mrs. Macey and her husband and \ three children, Mr, and Mrs. Pordage, Mr. Kitten, myself, and ' women and children besides, to make up eighteen, were the pas- sengers on the leading raft. The second raft, under the guidance of the two other sailors, held Serjeant Drooce (gagged, for he now threatened to be noisy again), Tom Packer, the two Marines, Mrs. Belltott, and the rest of the women and children. We all got on board silently and quickly, with a fine moonlight over our heads, and without accidents or delays of any kind. It was a good half-hour before the time would come for the change of guard at the prison, when the lashings which tied us to the bank were cast off", and we floated away, a company of free people, on the current of an unknown river. Chapter III. THE RAFTS ON THE RIVER. We contrived to keep afloat all night, and, the stream running strong with us, to glide a long way down the river. But, we found the night to be a dangerous time for such navigation, on account of the eddies and rapids, and it was therefore settled next day that in future we would bring-to at sunset and encamp on the shore. As we knew of no boats that the pirates possessed, up at the Prison in the Woods, we settled always to encamp on the opposite side of the stream, so as to have the breadth of the river between our sleep and them. Our opinion was, that if they were acquainted with any near way by land to the mouth of this river, they would come up it in force, and retake us or kill us, according as they could ; but, that if that was not the case, and if the river ran by none of their secret stations, we might escape. THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 183 When I say we settled this or that, I do not mean that we planned anytliing with any confidence as to what might happen an hour hence. So much had happened in one night, and such great changes had been violently and suddenly made in the fortunes of many among us, that we had got better used to uncertainty, in a little while, than I dare say most people do in the course of their lives. The difiiculties w^e soon got into, through the off-settings and point-currents of the stream, made the likelihood of our being drowned, alone — to say nothing of our being retaken — as broad and plain as the sun at noon-day to all of us. But, we all worked hard at managing the rafts, under the direction of the seamen (of our own skill, I think we never could have prevented them from oversetting), and we also worked hard at making good the defects in their first hasty construction — which the water soon found out. While we humbly resigned ourselves to going down, if it was the will of Our Father that was in Heaven, we humbly made up our minds, that we would all do the best that was in us. And so we held on, gliding with the stream. It drove us to this bank, and it drove us to that bank, and it turned us, and whirled us ; but yet it carried us on. Sometimes much too slowly, some- times much too fast, but yet it carried us on. My little deaf-and-dumb boy slumbered a good deal now, and that was the case with all the children. They caused very little trouble to any one. They seemed, in my eyes, to get more like one another, not only in quiet manner, but in the face, too. The motion of the raft was usually so much the same, the scene was usually so much the same, the sound of the soft wash and ripple of the water was usually so much the same, that they were made drowsy, as they might have been by the constant playing of one tune. Even on the grown people, who w^orked hard and felt anxiety, the same things produced something of the same eff'ect. Every day was so like the other, that I soon lost count of the days, myself, and had to ask Miss Maryon, for instance, whether this was the third or fourth 1 Miss Maryon had a pocket-book and pencil, and she kept the log ; that is to say, she entered up a clear little journal of the time, and of the distances our seamen thought we had made, each night. So, as I say, we kept afloat and glided on. All day long, and every day, the water, and the woods, and sky ; all day long, and every day, the constant watching of both sides of the river, and far ahead at every bold turn and sweep it made, for any signs of pirate-boats, or pirate-dwellings. So, as I say, we kept afloat and glided on. The days melting themselves together to that degree, 184 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. that I could hardly believe my ears when I asked " How many, now, miss?" and she answered, ''Seven." To be sure, poor Mr. Pordage had, by about now, got his Diplo- matic coat into such a state as never was seen. What with the mud of the river, what with the water of the river, what with the sun, and the dews, and the tearing boughs, and the thickets, it I hung about him in discoloured shreds like a mop. The sun had touched him a bit. He had taken to always polishing one partic- ular button, which just held on to his left wrist, and to always calling for stationery. I suppose that man called for pens, ink, and paper, tape, and sealing-wax, upwards of one thousand times in four-and-twenty hours. He had an idea that we should never get out of that river unless we were written out of it in a formal Memorandum ; and the more we laboured at navigating the rafts, the more he ordered us not to touch them at our peril, and the more he sat and roared for stationery. Mrs. Pordage, similarly, persisted in wearing her night-cap. I doubt if any one but ourselves who had seen the progress of that article of dress, could by this time have told wliat it was meant for. It had got so limp and ragged that she couldn't see out of her eyes for it. It was so dirty, that whether it was vegetable matter out of a swamp, or weeds out of the river, or an old porter's-knot from England, I don't think any new spectator could have said. Yet, this unfortunate old woman had a notion that it was not only vastly genteel, but that it was the correct thing as to propriety. And she really did carry herself over the other ladies who had no night-caps, and who were forced to tie up their hair how they could, in a superior manner that was perfectly amazing. I don't know what she looked like, sitting in that blessed night- cap, on a log of wood, outside the hut or cabin upon our raft. She would have rather resembled a fortune-teller in one of the picture-books that used to be in the shop windows in my boyhood, except for her stateliness. But, Lord bless my heart, the dignity with which she sat and moped, with her head in that bundle of tatters, was like nothing else in the world ! She was not on speaking terms with more than three of the ladies. Some of them had, what she called, "taken precedence" of her — in getting into, or out of, that miserable little shelter ! — and others had not called to pay their respects, or something of that kind. So, there she sat, in her own state and ceremony, wiiile her husband sat on the same log of wood, ordering us one and all to let the raft go to the bottom, and to bring him stationery. What with this noise on the part of Mr. Commissioner Pordage, THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 185 and what with the cries of Serjeant Drooce on the raft astern (which were sometimes more than Tom Packer could silence), we often made our slow way down the river, anything but quietly. Yet, that it was of great importance that no ears should be able to hear us from the woods on the banks, could not be doubted. We were looked for, to a certainty, and we might be retaken at any moment. It was an anxious time ; it was, indeed, indeed, an anxious time. On the seventh night of our voyage on the rafts, we made fast, as usual, on the opposite side of the river to that from which we had started, in as dark a place as we could pick out. Our little encampment was soon made, and supper was eaten, and the children fell asleep. The watch was set, and everything made orderly for the night. Such a starlight night, with such blue in the sky, and such black in the places of heavy shade on the banks of the great stream ! Those two ladies, Miss Maryon and Mrs. Fisher, had always kept near me since the night of the attack. Mr. Fisher, who was untiring in the work of our raft, had said to me : " My dear little childless wife has grown so attached to you, Davis, and you are such a gentle fellow, as well as such a de- termined one; " our party had adopted that last expression from the one-eyed English pirate, and I repeat what Mr. Fisher said, only because he said it ; " that it takes a load off my mind to leave her in your charge." I said to him : " Your lady is in far better charge than mine, sir, having Miss Maryon to take care of her ; but, you may rely upon it, that I will guard them both — faithful and true." Says he : "I do rely upon it, Davis, and I heartily wish all the silver on our old Island was yours." That seventh starlight night, as I have said, we made our camp, and got our supper, and set our watch, and the children fell asleep. It was solemn and beautiful in those wild and solitary parts, to see them, every night before they lay down, kneeling under the bright sky, saying their little prayers at women's laps. At that time we men all uncovered, and mostly kept at a distance. When the innocent creatures rose up, we murmured "Amen ! " all to- gether. For, though we had not heard what they said, we knew it must be good for us. At that time, too, as was only natural, those poor mothers in our company whose children had been killed, shed many tears. I thought the sight seemed to console them while it made them cry ; but, whether I was right or wrong in that, they wept very much. On this seventh night, Mrs. Fisher had cried for her lost darling until she cried herself asleep. She was lying on a little 186 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. couch of leaves and such-like (I made the best little couch I could, for them every night), and Miss Maryou had covered her, and sat by her, holding her hand. The stars looked down upon them. As for me, I guarded them. " Davis ! " says Miss Maryon. (I am not going to say what a voice she had. I couldn't if I tried.) " I am here, miss." "The river sounds as if it were swollen to-night." "We all think, miss, that we are coming near the sea." " Do you believe, now, we shall escape 1 " "I do now, miss, really believe it." I had always said I did; but, I had in my own mind been doubtful. " How glad you will be, my good Davis, to see England again ! " I have another confession to make that will appear singular. When she said these words, something rose in my throat ; and the stars I looked away at, seemed to break into sparkles that fell down on my face and burnt it. "England is not much to me, miss, except as a name." " Oh ! So true an Englishman should not say that ! — Are you not well to-night, Davis?" Very kindly, and with a quick change. " Quite well, miss." " Are you sure ? Your voice sounds altered in my hearing." "No, miss, I am a stronger man than ever. But England is nothing to me." Miss Maryon sat silent for so long a while, that I believed she had done speaking to me for one time. However, she had not ; for by-and-bye she said in a distinct, clear tone : " No, good friend ; you must not say, that England is nothing to you. It is to be much to you, yet — everything to you. You have to take back to England the good name you have earned here, and the gratitude and attachment and respect you have won here ; and you have to make some good English girl very happy and proud, by marrying her ; and I shall one day see her, I hope, and make her happier and prouder still, by telling her what noble services her husband's were in South America, and what a noble friend he was to me there." Though she spoke these kind words in a cheering manner, she spoke them compassionately. I said nothing. It will appear to be another strange confession, that I paced to and fro, within call, all that night, a most unhappy man reproaching myself all the night long. " You are as ignorant as any man alive ; you are as obscure as any man alive ; you are as poor as any man alive ; you THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 187 are no better than the mud under your foot." That was the way in which I went on against myself until the morning. With the day, came the day's labour. What I should have done without the labour, I don't know. We were afloat again at the usual hour, and were again making our way down the river. It was broader, and clearer of obstructions than it had been, and it seemed to flow faster. This was one of Drooce's quiet days ; Mr. Pordage, besides being sulky, had almost lost his voice ; and we made good way, and with little noise. There was always a seaman forward on the raft, keeping a bright look-out. Suddenly, in the full heat of the day, when the children were slumbering, and the very trees and reeds appeared to be slumbering, this man — it was Short — holds up his hand, and cries with great caution : " Avast ! Voices ahead ! " We held on against the stream as soon as we could bring her up, and the other raft followed suit. At first, Mr. Macey, Mr. Fisher, and myself, could hear nothing ; though both the seamen aboard of us agreed that they could hear voices and oars. After a little pause, however, we united in thinking that we coidd hear the sound of voices, and the dip of oars. But, you can hear a long way in those countries, and there was a bend of the river before us, and nothing was to be seen except such waters and such banks as we were now in the eighth day (and might, for the matter of our feelings have been in the eightieth), of having seen with anxious eyes. It was soon decided to put a man ashore who should creep through the wood, see what was coming, and warn the rafts. The rafts in the meantime to keep the middle of the stream. The man to be put ashore, and not to swim ashore, as the first thing could be more quickly done than the second. The raft conveying him, to get back into mid-stream, and to hold on along with the other, as well as it could, until signalled by the man. In case of danger, the man to shift for himself until it should be safe to take him aboard again. I volunteered to be the man. We knew that the voices and oars must come up slowly against the stream ; and our seamen knew, by the set of the stream, under which bank they would come. I was put ashore accordingly. The raft got off well, and I broke into the wood. Steaming hot it was, and a tearing place to get through. So much the better for me, since it was something to contend against and do. I cut off the bend in the river, at a great saving of space, came to the water's edge again, and hid myself, and waited. I could now hear the dip of the oars very distinctly ; the voices had ceased. 188 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. The sound came on in a regular tune, and as I lay liiddcn, I fjincied tlie tune so j)layed to be, " Chris'en — George — King ! Ohris'en — George — King ! Chris'en — George — King ! " over and over again, always the same, with the pauses always at the same places. I had likewise time to make up my mind that if these were the pirates, I could and would (barring my being shot), swim oft" to my raft, in spite of my wound, tiie moment I had given the alarm, and hold my old post by Miss Maryon. "Chris'en — George — King! Chris'en — George — King! Chris'en — George — King!" coming up, now, very near. I took a look at the branches about me, to see where a shower of bullets would be most likely to do me least hurt ; and I took a look back at the track I had made in forcing my way in ; and now I was wholly prepared and fully ready for them. "Chris'en — George — King! Chris'en — George — King ! Chris'en — George — King ! " Here they were ! Who were they? Tlie barbarous pirates, scum of all nations headcil by such men as tlie hideous little Portuguese monkey, and the one-eyed English convict with the gash across his face, that ought to have gashed his wicked head oft'? The worst men in the world picked out from the worst, to do the cruellest anil most atrocious deeds that ever stained it? The howling, nuu'dering, black-flag waving, mad, and drunken crowd of devils that had overcome us by numbers and by treachery ? No. These were English men in Eng- lish boots — good blue-jackets and red-coats — Marines that I knew myself, and sailors tiiat knew our seamen ! At the helm of the first boat, Cajitain Carton, eager and steady. At the helm of the second boat. Captain Maryon, brave and bold. At the helm of the third boat, an old seaman, with determination carved into his watchful face, like the figure-head of a ship. Every man doubly and trebly armed from head to foot. Every man lying-to at his work, with a will that had all his heart and soul in it. Every man looking out for any trace of friend or enemy, and burning to be the first to do good, or avenge evil. Every man with his face on fire when he saw me, his countryman who had been taken prisoner, and hailed me with a cheer, as Captain Carton's boat ran in and took me on board, I reported, "All escaped, sir! All well, all safe, all here!" God bless me — and God bless them — what a cheer ! It turned me weak, as I was passed on from hand to hand to the stern of the boat : every hand patting me or grasping me in some way or other, in the moment of my going by. "Hold up, my brave fellow," sa^'^s Captain Carton, clapping me on the shoulder like a friend, and giving me a flask. "Put THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 189 \.)ur lips to that, and they'll be red again. Now, boys, give way!" The banks flew by us, as if the mightiest stream that ever ran M :is with us ; and so it was, I am sure, meaning the stream of those TiuMi's^, ardour and spirit. The banks flew by us, and wc came in siuht of the rafts — the banks flew by us, and we came alongside of i\\c rafts — the banks stopped; and there was a tumult of laugliing untl crying and kissing and shaking of hands, and cati^hing up of children and setting of them down again, and a wild hurry of thank- fulness and joy that melted every one and softened all hearts. 1 had taken notice, in Captain (Jarton's boat, that there was a cuiious and quite new sort of fitting on board. It was a kind of a little bower made of flowers, and it was set up behind the ('ai)tain, and betwixt liim and the rudder. I'^ot only was this arbor, so to call it, neatly made of flowers, but it was ornamented in a singular way. Some of the men had taken the ribbons and Itiu'kles ofl" their hats, and hung them among the flowers ; otliers, liad made festoons and streamers of their handkerchiefs, and hung thcin there; otliers, had intermixed such trifles as bits of glass and shining fragments of lockets and tobacco-boxes, witii the llowcrs ; so that altogether it was a very bright and lively object ii! tlie sunshine. But, why there, or what for, I did not under- stand. Now, as soon as the first bewilderment was over. Captain ( 'arton gave the order to land for the present. But, this boat of Ills, with two hands left in her, immediately put off again when the men were out of her, and kept oft", some yards from the shore. As she floated there, with the two hands gently backing water to kicp her from going down the stream, this pretty little arbor attracted many eyes. None of the boat's crew, however, had anything to say about it, except that it was the Captain's fancy. The Captain, with the women and children clustering round liim, and the men of all ranks grouped outside them, and all listening, stood telling how the Expedition, deceived by its bad intelligence, had chased the light pirate boats all that fatal night, and had still followed in their wake next day, and had never suspected until many hours too late that the great pirate body had drawn off in the darkness when the chace began, and shot over to the Island. He stood telling how the Expedition, supposing the whole array of armed boats to be ahead of it, got tempted into shallows and went aground ; but, not without having its revenge upon the two decoy-boats, both of which it had come up with, overland, and sent to the bottom with all on board. He stood tell- ing how the Expedition, fearing then that the case stood as it did. 190 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. got afloat again, by great exertion, after the loss of four more tides, » and returned to the Island, where they found the sloop scuttled and the treasure gone. He stood telling how my officer. Lieu- tenant Linderwood, was left upon the Island, with as strong a force as could be got together hurriedly from the mainland, and how the three boats we saw before us were manned and armed and had come away, exploring the coast and inlets, in search of any tidings of us. He stood telling all this, with his face to the river ; and, as he stood telling it, the little arbor of flowers floated in the sunshine before all the faces there. Leaning on Captain Carton's shoulder, between him and Miss' Maryon, was Mrs. Fisher, her head drooping on her arm. She asked him, without raising it, when he had told so much, whether he had found her mother 1 "Be comforted! She lies," said the Captain, gently, "under the cocoa-nut trees on the beach." "And my child. Captain Carton, did you find my child, too? Does my darling rest with my mother 1 " "No. Your pretty child sleeps," said the Captain, "under a shade of flowers." His voice shook ; but, there was something in it that struck all the hearers. At that moment, there sprang from the arbor in his boat, a little creature, clapping her hands and stretching out her arms, and crying, " Dear papa ! Dear mamma ! I am not killed. I am saved. I am coming to kiss you. Take me to them, take me to them, good, kind sailors ! " Nobody who saw that scene has ever forgotten it, I am sure, or ever will forget it. The child had kept quite still, where her brave grandmamma had put her (first whispering in her ear, " Wliatever happens to me, do not stir, my dear ! "), and had remained quiet until the Fort was deserted ; she had then crept out of the trench, and gone into her mother's house ; and there, alone on the solitary Island, in her mother's room, and asleep on her mother's bed, the Captain had found her. Nothing could induce her to be parted from him after he took her up in his arms, and he had brought her away with him, and the men had made the bower for her. To see those men now, was a sight. The joy of the women was beautiful ; the joy of those women who had lost their own children, was quite sacred and divine ; but the ecstasies of Captain Carton's boat's crew, when their pet was restored to her parents, were wonderful for the tenderness they showed in the midst of roughness. As the Captain stood with the child in his arms, and the child's own little arms now clinging round his neck, now round her father's, now round her mother's, now round some one who pressed up to kiss her, the THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 191 boat's crew shook hands with one another, waved then- hats over their heads, laughed, sang, cried, danced — and all among them- selves, without wanting to interfere with anybody — in a manner never to be represented. At last, I saw the coxswain and another, two very hard-faced men with grizzled heads who had been the heartiest of the hearty all along, close with one another, get each of them the other's head under his arm, and pummel away at it with his fist as hard as he could, in his excess of joy. When we had well rested and refreshed ourselves — and very glad we were to have some of the heartening things to eat and drink that had come up in the boats — we recommenced our voyage down the river : rafts, and boats, and all. I said to myself, it was a very diflferent kind of voyage-now, from what it had been ; and I fell into my proper place and station among my fellow-soldiers. But, when we halted for the night, I found that Miss Maryon had spoken to Captain Carton concerning me. For, the Captain came straight up to me, and says he, " My brave fellow, you have been Miss Maryon's body-guard all along, and you shall remain so. Nobody shall supersede you in the distinction and pleasure of pro- tecting that young lady." I thanked his honour in the fittest words I could find, and that night I was placed on my old post of watching the place where she slept. More than once in the night, I saw Captain Carton come out into the air, and stroll about there, to see that all was well. I have now this other singular confession to make, that I saw him with a heavy heart. Yes ; I saw him with a heavy, heavy heart. In the day-time, I had the like post in Captain Carton's boat. I had a special station of my own, behind Miss Maryon, and no hands but hers ever touched my wound. (It has been healed these many long years ; but, no other hands have ever touched it.) Mr. Por- dage was kept tolerably quiet now, with pen and ink, and began to pick up his senses a little. Seated in the second boat, he made documents with Mr. Kitten, pretty well all day ; and he generally handed in a Protest about something whenever we stopped. The Captain, however, made so very light of these papers that it grew into a saying among the men, when one of them wanted a match for his pipe, "Hand us over a Protest, Jack!" As to Mrs. Pordage, she still wore the night-cap, and she now had cut all the ladies on account of her not having been formally and separately rescued by Captain Carton before anybody else. The end of Mr. Pordage, to bring to an end all I know about him, was, that he got great compliments at home for his conduct on these trying occasions, and that he died of yellow jaundice, a Governor and a K.C.B. 192 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. Serjeant Drooce had fallen from a high fever into a low one. Tom Packer — the only man who could have pulled the Serjeant through it — kept hospital aboard the old raft, and Mrs. Belltott, as brisk as ever again (but the spirit of that little woman, when things tried it, was not equal to appearances), was head-nurse under his directions. Before we got down to the Mosquito coast, the joke had been made by one of our men, that we should see her gazetted Mrs. Tom Packer, vice Belltott exchanged. When we reached the coast, we got native boats as substitutes for the rafts : and we rowed along under the land; and in that beautiful climate, and upon that beautiful water, the blooming days were like enchantment. Ah ! They were running away, faster than any sea or river, and there was no tide to bring them back. We were coming very near the settlement where the people of Silver-Store were to be left, and from which we Marines were under orders to return to Belize. Captain Carton had, in the boat by him, a curious long-bar- relled Spanish gun, and he had said to Miss Mary on one day that it was the best of guns, and had turned his head to me, and said: " Gill Davis, load her fresh with a couple of slugs, against a chance of showing how good she is." So, I had discharged the gun over the sea, and had loaded her, according to orders, and there it had lain at the Captain's feet, convenient to the Captain's hand. The last day but one of our journey was an uncommonly hot day. We started very early; but, there was no cool air on the sea as the day got on, and by noon the heat was really hard to bear, considering that there were women and children to bear it. Now, we happened to open, just at that time, a very pleasant little cove or bay, where there was a deep shade from a great growth of trees. Now, the Captain, therefore, made the signal to the other boats to follow him in and lie by a while. The men who were off duty went ashore, and lay down, but were ordered, for caution's sake, not to stray, and to keep within view. The others rested on their oars and dozed. Awnings had been made of one thing and another, in all the boats, and the passengers found it cooler to be under them in the shade, when there was room enough, than to be in the thick woods. So, the passengers were all afloat, and mostly sleeping. I kept my post behind Miss Maryon, and she was on Captain Carton's right in the boat, and Mrs. Fisher sat on her right again. The Captain had Mrs. Fisher's daughter on his knee. He and the two ladies were talking about the pirates, and were talking softly ; partly, because THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 193 people do talk softly under such indolent circumstances, and partly because the little girl had gone off asleep. I think I have before given it out for my Lady to write down, that Captain Carton had a fine bright eye of his own. All at once, he darted me a side look, as much as to say, "Steady don't take on — I see something ! " — and gave the child into her mother's arms. That eye of his was so easy to understand, that I obeyed it by not so much as looking either to the right or to the left out of a corner of my own, or changing my attitude the least trifle. The Captain went on talking in the same mild and easy way ; but began — with his arms resting across his knees, and his head a little hanging forward, as if tlie heat were rather too much for him — began to play with the Spanish gun. " They had laid their plans, you see," says the Captain, taking up the Spanish gun across his knees, and looking, lazily, at the in- laying on the stock, " with a great deal of art ; and the corrupt or blundering local authorities were so easily deceived ; " he ran his left hand idly along the barrel, but I saw, with my breath held, that i he covered the action of cocking the gun with his right — " so easily deceived, that they summoned us out to come into the trap. But my intention as to future operations " In a flash the Spanish gun was at his bright eye, and he fired. All started up ; innumerable echoes repeated the sound of the cUscharge ; a cloud of bright-coloured birds flew out of the woods j screaming ; a handful of leaves were scattered in the place where ' the shot had struck ; a crackling of branches was heard ; and some lithe but heavy creature sprang into the air, and fell forward, head down, over the muddy bank. " What is it ? " cries Captain Mary on from his boat. All silent then, but the echoes rolling away. "It is a Traitor and a Spy," said Captain Carton, handing me the gun to load again. " And I think the other name of the animal is Christian George King ! " Shot through the heart. Some of the people ran round to the spot, and drew him out, with the slime and wet trickling down his face ; but, his face itself would never stir any more to the end of time. " Leave him hanging to that tree," cried Captain Carton ; his boat's crew giving way, and he leaping ashore. " But first into this wood, every man in his place. And boats ! Out of gunshot !" It was a quick change, well meant and well made, though it ended in disappointment. No pirates were there ; no one but the Spy was found. It was supposed that the pirates, unable to retake us, and expecting a great attack upon them, to be the consequence 194 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. of our escape, had made from the ruins in the Forest, taken to their ship along with the Treasure, and left the Spy to pick up what in- telligence he could. In the evening we went away, and he was left hanging to the tree, all alone, with the red sun making a kind of a dead sunset on his black face. Next day, we gained the settlement on the Mosquito coast for which we were bound. Having stayed there to refresh, seven days, and having been much commended, and highly spoken of, and finely entertained, we Marines stood under orders to march from the Town- Gate (it was neither much of a town nor much of a gate), at five in the morning. My officer had joined us before then. When we turned out at the gate, all the people were there ; in the front of them all those who had been our fellow-prisoners, and all the seamen, "Davis," says Lieutenant Linderwood. "Stand out, my friend ! " I stood out from the ranks, and Miss Maryon and Captain Carton came up to mc. "Dear Davis," says Miss Maryon, while the tears fell fast down her face, "your grateful friends, in most unwillingly taking leave of you, ask the favour that, while you bear away with you their affectionate remembrance which nothing can ever impair, you will also take this purse of money — far more valuable to you, we all know, for the deep attachment and thankfulness with which it is off'ered, than for its own contents, though Ave hope those may prove useful to you, too, in after life." I got out, in answer, that I thankfully accepted the attachment and affection, but not the money. Captain Carton looked at me very attentively, and stepped back, and moved away. I made him my bow as he stepped back, to thank him for being so delicate. " No, miss," said I, " I think it would break my heart to accept the money. But, if you could condescend to give to a man so ignorant and common as myself, any little thing you have worn — such as a bit of ribbon " She took a ring from her finger, and put it in my hand. And she rested her hand in mine, while she said these words : " The brave gentlemen of old — but not one of them was braver, or had a nobler nature than you — took such gifts from ladies, and did all their good actions for the givers' sakes. If you will do yours for mine, I shall think with pride that I continue to have some share in the life of a gallant and generous man." For the second time in my life, she kissed my hand. I made so bold, for the first time, as to kiss hers; and I tied the ring at my breast, and I fell back to my place. Then, the horse-litter went out at the gate, with Serjeant Drooce THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 195 in it ; and the horse-litter went out at the gate with Mrs. Belltott in it; and Lieutenant Linderwood gave the word of command, " Quick march ! " and, cheered and cried for, we went out of the gate too, marching along the level plain towards the serene blue sky as if we were marching straight to Heaven. When I have added here that the pirate scheme was blown to shivers, by the pirate-ship which had the Treasure on board being so vigorously attacked by one of His Majesty's cruisers, among the West India Keys, and being so swiftly boarded and carried, that nobody suspected anything about the scheme until three-fourths of the pirates were killed, and the other fourth were in irons and the Treasure was recovered ; I come to the last singular confession I have got to make. It is this. I well knew what an immense and hopeless distance there was between me and Miss Maryon ; I well knew that I was no fitter company for her than I was for the angels ; I well knew that she was as high above my reach as the sky over my head ; and yet I loved her. What put it in my low heart to be so daring, or whether such a thing ever happened before or since, as that a man so uninstructed and obscure as myself got his unhappy thoughts lifted up to such a height, while knowing very well how presumptuous and impossible to be realised they were, I am unable to say ; still, the suifering to me was just as great as if I had been a gentleman. I sujffered agony — agony. I suffered hard, and I suffered long. I thought of her last words to me, however, and I never disgraced them. If it had not been for those dear words, I think I should have lost myself in despair and recklessness. The ring will be found lying on my heart, of course, and will be laid with me wherever I am laid. I am getting on in years now, though I am able and hearty. I was recommended for promotion, and everything was done to reward me that could be done ; but, my total want of all learning stood in my way, and I found myself so completely out of the road to it, that I could not conquer any learning, though I tried. I was long in the service, and I respected it, and was respected in it, and the service is dear to me at this present hour. At this present hour, when I give this out to my Lady to be written down, all my old pain has softened away, and I am as happy as a man can be, at this present fine old country-house of Admiral Sir George Carton, Baronet. It was my Lady Carton who herself sought me out, over a great many miles of the wide world, and found me in Hospital wounded, and brought me here. It is my Lady Carton who writes down my words. My Lady was Miss Maryon. And now, that I conclude what I had to tell, I see my 196 GOING INTO SOCIETY. Lady's honoured grey hair droop over her face, as she leans a little lower at her desk ; and I fervently thank her for being so tender as I see she is, towards the past pain and trouble of her poor, old, faithful, humble soldier. From "A House to Let," being the Extra Christinas Number of '^House- hold Words "for Christmas, 1858. GOING INTO SOCIETY. At one period of its reverses, the House fell into the occupation of a Showman. He was found registered as its occupier, on the parish books of the time when he rented the House, and there was therefore no need of any clue to his name. But, he himself was less easy to be found ; for, he had led a wandering life, and settled people had lost sight of him, and people who plumed themselves on being respectable were shy of admitting that they had ever known anything of him. At last, among the marsh lands near the river's level, that lie about Deptford and tlie neighbouring market-gardens, a Grizzled Personage in velveteen, with a face so cut up by varie- ties of weather that he looked as if he had been tattooed, was found smoking a pipe at the door of a wooden house on wheels. The wooden house was laid up in ordinary for the winter, near the mouth of a muddy creek ; and everything near it, the foggy river, the misty marshes, and the steaming market-gardens, smoked in com- pany with the grizzled man. In the midst of this smoking party, the funnel-chimney of the wooden house on wheels was not remiss, but took its pipe with the rest in a companionable manner. On being asked if it were he who had once rented the House to Let, Grizzled Velveteen looked surprised, and said yes. Then his name was Magsman 1 That was it, Toby Magsman — which law- fully christened Robert; but called in the line, from a infant, Toby. There was nothing agin Toby Magsman, he believed ? If there was suspicion of such — mention it ! There was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured. But, some inquiries were making about that House, and would he object to say why he left it ? Not at all ; why should he ? He left it, along of a Dwarf. Along of a Dwarf? Mr. Magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically, Along of a Dwarf. GOING INTO SOCIETY, 198 GOING INTO SOCIETY. Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman's inclination and con- venience to enter, as a favour, into a few particulars ? Mr. Magsman entered into the following particulars. It was a long time ago, to begin with ; — afore lotteries and a deal more was done away with. Mr. Magsman was looking about for a good pitch, and he see that house, and he says to himself, " I'll have you, if you're to be had. If money '11 get you, I'll have you." The neighbours cut up rough, and made complaints ; but Mr. Magsman don't know what they ivould have had. It was a lovely thing. First of all, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Giant, in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was himself half the heighth of the house, and was run up with a line and pulley to a pole on the roof, so that his Ed was coeval with the parapet. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Albina lady, showing her white air to the Army and Navy in correct uni- form. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Wild Indian a scalpin a member of some foreign nation. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of a child of a British Planter, seized by two Boa Constrictors — not that ive never had no child, nor no Constrictors neither. Similarly, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Wild Ass of the Prairies — not that we never had no wild asses, nor wouldn't have had 'em at a gift. Last, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Dwarf, and like him too (considerin), with George the Fourth in such a state of astonishment at him as His Majesty couldn't with his utmost politeness and stoutness express. The front of the House was so covered with canvasses, that there wasn't a spark of daylight ever visible on that side. " Magsman's Amusements," fifteen foot long by two foot high, ran over the front door and par- lour winders. The passage was a Arbour of green baize and gar- denstuff. A barrel-organ performed there unceasing. And as to respectability, — if threepence an't respectable, what is 1 But, the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth the money. He was wrote up as Major Tpschoffki, of THE Imperial Bulgraderian Brigade. Nobody couldn't pro- nounce the name, and it never was intended anybody should. The public always turned it, as a regular rule, into Chopski. In the line he was called Chops ; partly on that account, and partly because j his real name, if he ever had any real name (which was very dubi- ous), was Stakes. He was a un-common small man, he really was. Certainly noti so small as he was made out to be, but where is your Dwarf as is ? He was a most uncommon small man, with a most uncommon large Ed ; and what he had inside that Ed, nobody never knowed GOING INTO SOCIETY. 199 but himself: even supposiii himself to have ever took stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do. The kindest little man as never growed ! Spirited, but not proud. When he travelled with the Spotted Baby — though he knowed himself to be a nat'ral Dwarf, and knowed the Baby's spots to be put upon him artificial, he nursed that Baby like a mother. You never heerd him give a ill-name to a Giant. He did allow himself to break out into strong language respectin the Fat Lady from Norfolk ; but that was an affair of the 'art ; and when a man's 'art has been trifled with by a lady, and the prefer- ence giv to a Indian, he an't master of his actions. He was always in love, of course ; every human nat'ral phenom- enon is. And he was always in love with "a large woman ; / never knowed the Dwarf as could be got to love a small one. Which helps to keep 'em the Curiosities they are. One sing'ler idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have meant something, or it wouldn't have been there. It was always his opinion that he was entitled to property. He never would put his name to anything. He had been taught to write, by the young man without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a writ- ing master he was, and taught scores in the line), but Chops would have starved to death, afore he'd have gained a bit of bread by put- ting his hand to a paper. This is the more curious to bear in mind, because he had no property, nor hope of property, except his house and a sarser. When I say his house, I mean the box, painted and got up outside like a reg'lar six-roomer, that he used to creep into, with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the Public believed to be the Drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean a Chaney sarser in which he made a collection for himself at the end of every Entertainment. His cue for that, he took from me : " Ladies and gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." When he said anything important, in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of words, and they was generally the last thing he said to me at night afore he went to bed. He had what I consider a fine mind — a poetic mind. His ideas respectin his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run through him a little time, he would screech out, " Toby, I feel my property coming — grind aAvay ! I'm counting my guineas by thousands, Toby — grind away ! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun ! I feel the Mint a jingling in me, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the Bank of England ! " 200 GOING INTO SOCIETY. Such is the influence of music on a poetic mind. Not that he was partial to any other music but a barrel-organ ; on the con- trairy, hated it. He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public : which is a thing you may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out of it. What riled him most in the nater of his occupa- tion was, that it kep him out of Society. He was continiwally saying, " Toby, my ambition is, to go into Society. The curse of my position towards the Public is, that it keeps me hout of Society. This don't signify to a low beast of a Indian ; he an't formed for Society. This don't signify to a Spotted Baby; he an't formed for Society. — I am." Nobody never could make out what Chops done witli his money. He had a good salary, down on the dmm every Saturday as the day come round, besides having the run of his teeth — and he was a Woodpecker to eat — but all Dwarfs are. The sarser was a little income, bringing him in so many halfpence that he'd carry 'em for a week together, tied up in a pocket handkercher. And yet he never had money. And it couldn't be the Fat Lady from Norfolk, as was once supposed ; because it stands to reason that when you have a animosity towards a Indian, which makes you grind your teeth at him to his face, and which can hardly hold you from Goosing him audible when he's going through his War-Dance — it stands to reason you wouldn't under them circumstances deprive yourself, to support that Indian in the lap of luxuiy. Most unexpected, the mystery come out one day at Egham Races. The Public was shy of bein pulled in, and Chops was ringin his little bell out of his drawing-room winder, and was snarlin to me over his shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back- door — for he couldn't be shoved into his house without kneeling down, and the premises wouldn't accommodate his legs — was snarlin, " Here's a precious Public for you ; why the Devil don't they tumble up 1 " when a man in the crowd holds up a carrier- pigeon, and cries out, "If there's any person here as has got a ticket, the Lottery's just drawed, and the number as has come up for the great prize is three, seven, forty-two ! Three, seven, forty-two ! " I was givin the man to the Furies myself, for calling off the Public's attention — for the Public will turn away, at any time, to look at anything in preference to the thing showed 'em ; and if you doubt it, get 'em together for any indiwidual purpose on the face of the earth, and send only two people in late, and see if the whole company an't far more interested in takin particular notice of them two than of you — I say, I wasn't best pleased with the man for callin out, and wasn't blessin him in my own mind, GOING INTO SOCIETY. 201 when I see Chops's little bell fly out of winder at a old lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin the whole secret, and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me, " Carry me into the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over me or I'm a dead man, for I've come into my property ! " Twelve thousand odd hundred pound, was Chops's winnins. He had bought a half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and it had come up. The first use he made of his property, was, to off'er to fight the Wild Indian for five hundred pound a side, him with a poisoned darnin-needle and the Indian with a club; but the Indian being in want of backers to that amount, it went no further. Arter he had been mad for a week — in a state of mind, in short, in which, if I had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, I believe he would have bust — but we kep the organ from him — • Mr. Chops come round, and behaved liberal and beautiful to all. He then sent for a young man he knowed, as had a wery genteel appearance and was a Bonnet at a gaming-booth (most respectable brought up, father havin been imminent in the livery stable line but unfort'nate in a commercial crisis, through paintin a old grey, ginger-bay, and sellin him with a Pedigree), and Mr. Chops said to this Bonnet, who said his name was Normandy, which it wasn't : " Normandy, I'm a goin into Society. Will you go with me ? " Says Normandy : "Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hinti- mate that the 'ole of the expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?" "Correct," says Mr. Chops. "And you shall have a Princely allowance too." The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair, to shake hands with him, and replied in poetry, with his eyes seemingly full of tears : " My boat is on the shore, And my bark is on the sea, And I do not ask for more, But I'll Go : — along with thee." They went into Society, in a chay and four greys with silk jackets. They took lodgings in Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away. In consequence of a note that was brought to Bartlemy Fair in the autumn of next year by a servant, most wonderful got up in nnilk-white cords and tops, I cleaned myself and went to Pall Mall, one evening appinted. The gentlemen was at their wine arter dinner, and Mr. Chops's eyes was more fixed in that Ed of his than I thought good for him. There was three of 'em (in company, I mean), and I knowed the third well. When last met, he had on 202 GOING INTO SOCIETY. a white Roman shirt, and a bishop's mitre covered with leopard- skin, and played the clarionet all wrong, in a band at a Wild Beast Show. This -gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said : " Gen- tlemen, this is a old friend of former days : " and Normandy looked at me -through a eye-glass, and said, "Magsman, glad to see you ! " which I'll take my oath he wasn't. Mr. Chops, to git him con- venient to the table, had his chair on a throne (much of the form of George the Fourth's in the canvass), but he hardly appeared to me to be King there in any other pint of view, for his two gentle- men ordered about like Emperors. They was all dressed like May-Day — gorgeous ! — and as to Wine, they swam in all sorts. I made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say I had done it), and then mixed 'em all together (to say I had done it), and then tried two of 'em as half-and-half, and then t'other two. Altogether, I passed a pleasin evenin, but with a tendency to feel muddled, until I considered it good manners to get up and say, " Mr. Chops, the best of friends must part, I thank you for the wariety of foreign drains you have stood so 'ansome, I looks towards you in red wine, and I takes my leave." Mr. Chops replied, " If you'll just hitch me out of this over your right arm, Magsman, and carry me down- stairs, I'll see you out." I said I couldn't think of such a thing, but he would have it, so I lifted him oif his throne. He smelt strong of Maideary, and I couldn't help thinking as I carried him down that it was like carrying a large bottle full of wine, with a rather ugly stopper, a good deal out of proportion. When I set him on the door-mat in the hall, he kep me close to him by holding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers : "I an't 'appy, Magsman." " What's on your mind, Mr. Chops 1 " "They don't use me well. They an't grateful to me. They puts me on the mantel-piece when I won't have in more Cham- pagne-wine, and they locks me in the sideboard when I won't give up my property." " Get rid of 'em, Mr. Chops." "I can't. We're in Society together, and what would Society say ?" Come out of Society ! " says I. "I can't. You don't know what you're talking about. When you have once gone into Society, you mustn't come out of it." • "Then, if you'll excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops," were my re- mark, shaking my head grave, "I think it's a pity you ever went in." Mr. Chops shook that deep Ed of his, to a surprisin extent, and GOING INTO SOCIETY. 203 slapped it half a dozen times with his hand, and with more Wice than I thought were in him. Then, he says, " You're a good fellow but you don't understand. Good night, go along. Magsman the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan and re- tire behind the curtain." The last I see of him on that occasion was his tryin, on the extremest werge of insensibility, to climb up the stairs, one by one, with his hands and knees. They'd have been much too steep for him, if he had been sober; but he wouldn't be helped. It warn't long after that, that I read in the newspaper of Mr Chops's being presented at court. It was printed, " It will be recol- lected " — and I've noticed in my life, that it is sure to be printed that it ivill be recollected, whenever it won't— " that Mr. Chops is the individual of small stature, whose brilliant success in the last State^ Lottery attracted so much attention." Well, I says to my- self. Such is Life ! He has been and done it in earnest at last ! He has astonished George the Fourth ! (On account of which, I had that canvass new-painted, him with a bag of money in his hand, a presentin it to George the Fourth, and a lady in Ostrich Feathers falliu in love with him in a bag-wig, sword, and buckles correct.) I took the House as is the subject of present inquiries though not the honour of bein acquainted — and I run Magsman's Amuse- ments in it thirteen months — sometimes one thing, sometimes an- other, sometimes nothin particular, but always all the canvasses outside. One night, when we had played the last company out, which was a shy company, through its raining Heavens hard, I was takin a pipe in the one pair back along with the young man with the toes, which I had taken on for a month (though he never drawed — except on paper), and I heard a kickin at the street door. '' Halloa ! " I says to the young man, " what's up ! " He rubs his eyebrows with his toes, and he says, " I can't imagine, Mr. Mags- man" — which he never could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company. The noise not leavin oif, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a candle, and I went dowm and opened the door. I looked out into the street ; but nothin could I see, and nothin was I aware of, un- til I turned round quick, because some creetur run between my legs into the passage. There was Mr. Chops ! "Magsman," he says, "take me, on the old terms, and you've got me ; if it's done, say done ! " I was all of a maze, but I said, "Done, sir.'* "Done to your done, and double done!" says he. "Have you got a bit of supper in the house % " 204 GOING INTO SOCIETY. Bearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we'd guzzled away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold sas- sages and gin-and- water ; but he took 'em both and took 'em free ; bavin a chair for his table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like hold times. I, all of a maze all the while. It was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, and to the best of my calculations two pound and a quarter), that the wisdom as was in that little man began to come out of him like prespiration. "Magsman," he says, "look upon me! You see afore you, One as has both gone into Society and come out." "0! You are out of it, Mr. Chops? How did you get out, sir?" "Sold out! " says he. You never saw the like of the wisdom as his Ed expressed, when he made use of them two words. "My friend Magsman, I'll impart to you a discovery I've made. It's wallable; it's cost twelve thousand five hundred pound; it may do you good in life. — The secret of this matter is, that it an't so much that a person goes into Society, as that Society goes into a person." Not exactly keeping up with his meanin, I shook my head, put on a deep look, and said, " You're right there, Mr. Chops." "Magsman," he says, twitching me by the leg, "Society has gone into me, to the tune of every penny of my property." I felt that I went pale, and though nat'rally a bold speaker, I couldn't hardly say, "Where's Normandy?" "Bolted. With a plate," said Mr. Chops. "And t'other one ?" meaning him as formerly wore the bishop's mitre. " Bolted. With the jewels," said Mr. Chops. I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me. " Magsman," he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser as he got hoarser ; " Society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs. At the court of Saint James's, they was all a doing my old business — all a goin three times round the Cairawan, in the hold court-suits and properties. Elsewheres, they was most of 'em ringin their little bells out of make-believes. Everywheres, the sarser was a goin round. Magsman, the sarser is the uniwersal Institution ! " I perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfort- uns, and I felt for Mr. Chops. "As to Fat Ladies," says he, giving his head a tremendious one agin the wall, " there's lots of tketn in Society, and worse than the original. Hers was a outrage upon Taste — simply a outrage upon Taste — awakenin contempt — carryin its own punishment in the GOING INTO SOCIETY. 205 form of a Indian ! " Here he giv himself another tremendious one. " But theirs, Magsman, theirs is mercenary outrages. Lay in Cash- meer shawls, buy bracelets, strew 'em and a lot of 'andsome fans and things about your rooms, let it be known that you give away like water to all as come to admire, and the Fat Ladies that don't exhibit for so much down upon the drum, will come from all the pints of the compass to flock about you, whatever you are. They'll drill holes in your 'art, Magsman, like a Cullender. And when you've no more left to give, they'll laugh at you to your face, and leave you to have your bones picked dry by Wulturs, -like the dead Wild Ass of the Prairies that you deserve to be ! " Here he giv himself the most tremendious one of all, and dropped. I thought he was gone. His Ed was so heavy, and he knocked it so hard, and he fell so stoney, and the sassagerial disturbance in him must have been so immense, that I thought he was gone. But, he soon come round with care, and he sat up on the floor, and he said to me, with wisdom comin out of his eyes, if ever it come: " Magsman ! The most material difference between the two states of existence through which your unappy friend has passed ; " he reached out his poor little hand, and his tears dropped down on the moustachio which it was a credit to him to have done his best to grow, but it is not in mortals to command success, — " the dif- ference is this. When I was out of Society, I was paid light for being seen. When I went into Society, I paid heavy for being seen. I prefer the former, even if I wasn't forced upon it. Give me out through the trumpet, in the hold way, to-morrow." Arter that, he slid into the line again as easy as if he had been iled all over. But the organ was kep from him, and no allusions was ever made, when a company was in, to his property. He got wiser every day ; his views of Society and the Public was luminous, bewilderin, awful ; and his Ed got bigger and bigger as his Wisdom expanded it. He took well, and pulled 'em in most excellent for nine weeks. At the expiration of that period, when his Ed was a sight, he ex- pressed one evenin, the last Company bavin been turned out, and the door shut, a wish to have a little music. " Mr. Chops," I said (I never dropped the "Mr." with him; the world might do it, but not me); "Mr. Chops, are you sure as you are in a state of mind and body to sit upon the organ 1 " His answer was this : " Toby, when next met with on the tramp, I forgive her and the Indian. And I am." It was with fear and trembling that I began to turn the handle ; but he sat like a lamb. It will be my belief to my dying day, that 206 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. I see his Ed expand as he sat ; you may therefore judge how great his thoughts was. He sat out all the changes, and then he come off. "Toby," he says, with a quiet smile, "The little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." When we called him in the morning, we found him gone to a much better Society than mine or Pall Mall's. I giv Mr. Chops as comfortable a funeral as lay in my power, followed myself as Chief, and had the George the Fourth canvass carried first, in the form of a banner. But, the House was so dismal arterwards, that I giv it up, and took to the Wan again. THE HAUNTED HOUSE. IN THREE CHAPTERS. Chapter I. THE MORTALS IN THE HOUSE. Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and en- vironed by none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas piece. I saw it in the dayliglit, with the sun upon it. There was no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect. More than that : I had come to it direct from a railway station : it was not more than a mile distant from the railway station ; and, as I stood outside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I could see the goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the valley. I will not say that everything was utterly commonplace, because I doubt if anything can be that, except to utterly common- place people — and there my vanity steps in ; but, I will take it on myself to say that anybody might see the house as I saw it, any fine autumn morning. The manner of my lighting on it was this. I was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to stop by the way, to look at the house. My health required a temporary residence in the country; and a friend of mine who knew that, and who had happened to drive past the house, had written to me to suggest it as a likely place. I had got into the train at midnight, and had fallen asleep, and had woke up and had sat looking out of window at the brilliant Northern Lights in the sky, and had fallen asleep again, and had woke up again to I Jll. II \ I Nil li HOUSE. 208 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. find the night gone, with the usual discontented conviction on me that I hadn't been to sleep at all; — upon which question, in the first imbecility of that condition, I am ashamed to believe that I would have done wager by battle with the man who sat opposite me. That opposite man had had, through the night — as that opposite man always has — several legs too many, and all of them too long. In addition to this unreasonable conduct (which was only to be ex- pected of him), he had had a pencil and a pocket-book, and had been perpetually listening and taking notes. It had appeared to me that these aggravating notes related to the jolts and bumps of the carriage, and I should have resigned myself to his taking them, under a general supposition that he was in the civil-engineering way of life, if he had not sat staring straight over my head when- ever he listened. He was a goggle-eyed gentleman of a perplexed aspect, and his demeanour became unbearable. It was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and when I had out-watched the paling light of the fires of the iron- country, and the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between me and the stars and between me and the day, I turned to my fellow-traveller and said : "I heg your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything par- ticular in me 1 " For, really, he appeared to be taking down, either my travelling-cap or my hair, with a minuteness that was a liberty. The goggle-eyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me, as if the back of the carriage were a hundred miles off", and said, with a lofty look of compassion for my insignificance : "In you, sir? — B." " B, sir ? " said I, growing warm. " I have nothing to do with you, sir," returned the gentleman ; "pray let me listen — 0." He enunciated this vowel after a pause, and noted it down. At first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no com- munication with the guard, is a serious position. The thought came to my relief that the gentleman might be what is popularly called a Rapper : one of a sect for (some of) whom I have the high- est respect, but whom I don't believe in. I was going to ask him the question, when he took the bread out of my mouth. "You will excuse me," said the gentleman contemptuously, "if I am too much in advance of common humanity to trouble myself at all about it. I have passed the night — as indeed I pass the whole of my time now — in spiritual intercourse." " ! " said I, something snappishly. "The conferences of the night began," continued the gentleman, THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 209 turning several leaves of his note-book, " with this message : ' Evil communications corrupt good manners.' " " Sound," said I ; "but, absolutely new ?" "New from spirits," returned the gentleman. I could only repeat my rather snappish " ! " and ask if I might be favoured with the last communication. "'A bird in the hand,'" said the gentleman, reading his last entry with great solemnity, " 'is worth two in the Bosh.' " " Truly I am of the same opinion," said I; " but shouldn't it be Bush?" " It came to me. Bosh," returned the gentleman. The gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had delivered this special revelation in the course of the night. " My friend, I hope you are pretty well. There are two in this railway carriage. How do you do ? There are seventeen thousand four hundred and seventy-nine spirits here, but you cannot see them. Pythagoras is here. He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes you like travelling." Galileo likewise had dropped in, with this scientific intelligence. " I am glad to see you, amico. Come sta? Water will freeze when it is cold enough. Addiol " In the course of the night, also, the following phenomena had occurred. Bishop Butler had insisted on spelling his name, "Bubler," for which offence against orthography and good manners he had been dis- missed as out of temper. John Milton (suspected of wilful mys- tification) had repudiated the authorship of Paradise Lost, and had introduced, as joint authors of that poem, two Unknown gentle- men, respectively named Grungers and Scadgingtone. And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of England, had described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh circle, where he was learn- ing to paint on velvet, under the direction of Mrs. Trimmer and Mary Queen of Scots. If this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favoured me with these disclosures, I trust he will excuse my confessing that the sight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnifi- cent Order of the vast Universe, made me impatient of them. In a word, I was so impatient of them, that I was mightily glad to get out at the next station, and to exchange these clouds and va- pours for the free air of Heaven. By that time it was a beautiful morning. As I walked away among such leaves as had already fallen from the golden, brown, and russet trees ; and as I looked around me on the wonders of Creation, and thought of the steady, unchanging, and harmonious laws by which they are sustained ; the gentleman's spiritual inter- course seemed to me as poor a piece of journey-work as ever this 210 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. world saw. In which heathen state of mind, I came within view of the house, and stopjDed to examine it attentively. It was a solitary house, standing in a sadly neglected garden : a pretty even square of some two acres. It was a house of about the time of George the Second ; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in as bad taste, as could possibly be desired by the most loyal admirer of the whole quartett of Georges. It was uninhabited, but had, within a year or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable ; I say cheaply, because the work had been done in a surface manner, and was already decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the colours were fresh. A lop-sided board drooped over the garden wall, announcing that it was " to let on very reasonable terms, well furnished." It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by trees, and, in particular, there were six tall poplars before the front windows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of which had been extremely ill chosen. It was easy to see that it was an avoided house — a house that was shunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church spire some half a mile off — a house that nobody would take. And the natural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a haunted house. No period within the four-and-twenty hours of day and night is so solemn to me, as the early morning. In the summer-time, I often rise very early, and repair to my room to do a day's work before breakfast, and I am always on those occasions deeply im- pressed by the stillness and solitude around me. Besides that there is something awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces asleep — in the knowledge that those who are dearest to us and to whom we are dearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive state, auticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are all tending — the stopped life, the broken threads of yesterday, the deserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned occu- pation, all are images of Death. The tranquillity of the hour is the tranquillity of Death. The colour and the chill have the same association. Even a certain air that familiar household objects take upon them when they first emerge from the shadows of the night into the morning, of being newer, and as they used to be long ago, has its counterpart in the subsidence of the worn face of maturity or age, in death, into the old youthful look. Moreover, I once saw the apparition of my father, at this hour. He was alive and well, and nothing ever came of it, but I saw him in the daylight, sitting with his back towards me, on a seat that stood beside my bed. His head was resting on his hand, and whether he was slumbering or grieving, I could not discern. Amazed to see him there, I sat O } THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 211 up, moved my position, leaned out of bed, and watched him. As he did not move, I spoke to him more than once. As he did not move then, I became alarmed and laid my hand upon his shoulder, as I thought — and there was no such thing. For all these reasons, and for others less easily and briefly stata- ble, I find the early morning to be my most ghostly time. Any house would be more or less haunted, to me, in the early mornin_ and a haunted house could scarcely address me to greater advan tage than then. I walked on into the village, with the desertion of this house upon my mind, and I found the landlord of the little inn, sanding his door-step. I bespoke breakfast, and broached the subject of the house. " Is it haunted ? " I asked. The landlord looked at me, shook his head, and answered, "I say nothing." "Thenit ?"s haunted?" " Well ! " cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had the appearance of desperation — " I wouldn't sleep in it." "Why not?" "If I wanted to have all the bells in a house ring, with nobody to ring 'em ; and all the doors in a house bang, with nobody to bang 'em ; and all sorts of feet treading about, with no feet there ; why, then," said the landlord, "I'd sleep in that house." " Is anything seen there ? " The landlord looked at me again, and then, with his former ap- pearance of desperation, called down his stable-yard for " Ikey ! " The call produced a high-shouldered young fellow, with a round red face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth, a turned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, with mother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to be in "a fair way — if it were not pruned — of covering his head and overrunning his boots. "This gentleman wants to know," said the landlord, "if any- thing's seen at the Poplars." "'Ooded woman with a howl," said Ikey, in a state of great freshness. " Do you mean a cry 1 " " I mean a bird, sir." " A hooded woman with an owl. Dear me ! Did you ever sec her ? " " I seen the howl." " Never the woman?" " Not so plain as the howl, but they always keeps together." 212 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. " Has anybody ever seen the woman as plainly as the owl ? " " Lord bless you, sir ! Lots." "Who?" " Lord bless you, sir ! Lots." " The general-dealer opposite, for instance, who is opening his shop?" "Perkins? Bless you, Perkins wouldn't go a-nigh the place. No ! " observed the young man, with considerable feeling ; "he an't overwise, an't Perkins, but he an't such a fool as thaty (Here, the landlord murmured his confidence in Perkins's know- ing better.) "Who is — or who was — the hooded woman with the owl? Do you know ? " " Well ! " said Ikey, holding up his cap with one hand while he scratched his head with the other, " they say, in general, that she was murdered, and the howl he 'ooted the while." This very concise summary of the facts was all I could learn, except that a young man, as hearty and likely a young man as ever I see, had been took with fits and held down in 'em, after seeing the hooded woman. Also, that a personage, dimly described as "a hold chap, a sort of one-eyed tramp, answering to the name of Joby, unless you challenged him as Greenwood, and then he said, ' Why not ? and even if so, mind your own business,' " had encountered the hooded woman, a matter of five or six times. But, I was not materially assisted by these witnesses : inasmuch as the first was in California, and the last was, as Ikey said (and he was confirmed by the landlord), Anywheres. Now, although I regard with a hushed and solemn fear, the mysteries, between which and this state of existence is interposed the barrier of the great trial and change that fall on all the things that live ; and although I have not the audacity to pretend that I know anything of them ; I can no more reconcile the mere bang- ing of doors, ringing of bells, creaking of boards, and such-like insig- nificances, with the majestic beauty and pervading analogy of all the Divine rules that I am permitted to understand, than I had been able, a little while before, to yoke the spiritual intercourse of my fellow-traveller to the chariot of the rising sun. Moreover, I had lived in two haunted houses — both abroad. In one of these, an old Italian palace, which bore the reputation of being very badly haunted indeed, and which had recently been twice abandoned on that account, I lived eight months, most tranquilly and pleasantly : notwithstanding that the house had a score of mysterious bedrooms, which were never used, and possessed, in one large room in which I sat reading, times out of number at all hours, and next to which THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 213 I slept, a haunted chamber of the first pretensions. I gently hinted these considerations to the landlord. And as to this particular house having a bad name, I reasoned with him, Why, how many things had bad names undeservedly, and how easy it was to give bad names, and did he not think that if he and I were persistently to whisper in the village that any weird-looking old drunken tinker of the neighbourhood had sold himself to the Devil, he would come in time to be suspected of that commercial venture ! All this wise talk was perfectly ineffective with the landlord, I am bound to confess, and was as dead a failure as ever I made in my life. To cut this part of the story short, I w&,s piqued about the haunted house, and was already half resolved to take it. So, after breakfast, I got the keys from Perkins's brother-in-law (a whip and harness maker, who keeps the Post Office, and is under submission to a most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel persuasion), and went up to the house, attended by my landlord and by Ikey. Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal. The slowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, were doleful in the last degree ; the house was ill-placed, ill-built, ill-planned, and ill-fitted. It was damp, it was not free from dry rot, there was a flavour of rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim of that indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man's hands whenever it is not turned to man's account. The kitchens and offices were too large, and too remote from each other. Above stairs and below, waste tracts of passage intervened between patches of fertility represented by rooms ; and there was a mouldy old well with a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap, near the bottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells. One of these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white letters. Master B. This, they told me, was the bell that rang the most. "Who was Master B. ?" I asked. " Is it known what he did while the owl hooted ? " " Rang the bell," said Ikey. I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself. It was a loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound. The other bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms to which their wires were conducted : as " Picture Room," " Double Room," "Clock Room," and the like. Following Master B.'s bell to its source, I found that young gentleman to have had but in- different third-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cock-loft, with a corner fire-place which Master B. must have been exceedingly small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a 214 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. corner chimney-piece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb. The papering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost blocked up the door. It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always made a point of pulling the paper down. Neither the landlord nor Ikey could suggest why he made such a fool of himself. Except that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at top, I made no other discoveries. It was moderately well furnished, but sparely. Some of the furniture — say, a third — was as old as the house ; the rest was of various periods within the last half century. I was referred to a corn-chandler in the market-place of the county town to treat for the house. I went that day, and I took it for six months. It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden sister (I venture to call her eight-and-thirty, she is so very handsome, sensible, and engaging). We took with us a deaf stable- man, my bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young person called an Odd Girl. I have reason to record of the attend- ant last enumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence's Union Female Orphans, that she was a fatal mistake and a disastrous engagement. The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house was most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn of intellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and requested that her silver watch might be delivered over to her sister (2 Tuppintock's Gardens, Liggs's Walk, Clapham Rise), in the event of anything happening to her from the damp. Streaker, the housemaid, feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr. The Odd Girl, who had never been in the country, alone was pleased, and made arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside the scullery window, and rearing an oak. We went, before dark, through all the natural — as opposed to supernatural — miseries incidental to our state. Dispiriting reports ascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and de- scended from the upper rooms. There was no rolling-pin, there was no salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don't know what it is), there was nothing in the house, what there was, was broken, the last people must have lived like pigs, what could the meaning of the landlord be? Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was cheerful and exemplary. But within four hours after dark we had got into a supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen "Eyes," and was in hysterics. THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 215 My sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to our- selves, and my impression was, and still is, that I had not left Ikey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or any one of them, for one minute. Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd Girl had "seen Eyes" (no other explanation could ever be drawn from her), before nine, and by ten o'clock had had as much vinegar applied to her as would pickle a handsome salmon. I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under these untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o'clock Mas- ter B.'s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk howled until the house resounded with his lamentations ! I hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as the mental frame in which I lived for some weeks, respecting the memory of Master B. Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or bats, or wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by one cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I don't know ; but, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three, until I conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.'s neck — in other words, breaking his bell short off — and silencing that young gentleman, as to my experience and belief, for ever. But, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers of catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that very inconvenient disorder. She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes endowed with unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions. I would address the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that I had painted Master B.'s room and balked the paper, and taken Master B.'s bell away and balked the ringing, and if they could suppose that that confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe himself with no better behaviour than would most unquestionably have brought him and the sharpest particles of a birch-broom into close acquaintance in the present imperfect state of exist- ence, could they also suppose a mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible means of counteracting and limiting the powers of the disembodied spirits of the dead, or of any spirits 1 — I say I would become emphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd Girl's suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among us like a parochial petrifaction. Streaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most discom- fiting nature. I am unable to say whether she was of an unusu- ally lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with her, but this young woman became a mere Distillery for the production of the largest and most transparent tears I ever met with. Com- 216 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. bined with these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity of hold in those specimens, so that they didn't fall, but hung upon her face and nose. In this condition, and mildly and deplorably shaking her head, her silence would throw me more heavily than the Admi- rable Crichton could have done in a verbal disputation for a purse of money. Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion as with a garment, by neatly winding up the session with the protest that the Ouse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating her last wishes regarding her silver watch. As to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky. Hooded woman ? According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent of hooded women. Noises? With that contagion down-stairs, I myself have sat in the dismal parlour, listening, until I have heard so many and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my blood if I had not warmed it by dashing out to make discoveries. Try this in bed, in the dead of the night ; try this at your own comfortable fire-side, in the life of the night. You can fill any house with noises, if you will, until you have a noise for every nerve in your nervous system. I repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky. The women (their noses in a chronic state of excoriation from smelling-salts) were always primed and loaded for a swoon, and ready to go off with hair-triggers. The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expedi- tions that were considered doubly hazardous, and she always estab- lished the reputation of such adventures by coming back cataleptic. If Cook or Streaker w^ent overhead after dark, we knew we should presently hear a bump on the ceiling ; and this took place so con- stantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go about the house, administering a touch of his art which I believe is called The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met with. It was in vain to do anything. It was in vain to be frightened, for the moment, in one's own person, by a real owl, and then to show the owl. It was in vain to discover, by striking an acci- dental discord on the piano, that Turk always howled at particu- lar notes and combinations. It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus with the bells, and if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to have it down inexorably and silence it. It was in vain to fire up chimneys, let torches dowm the well, charge furiously into sus- pected rooms and recesses. We changed servants, and it was no better. The new set ran away, and a third set came, and it was no better. At last, our comfortable housekeeping got to be so disorganised and wretched, that I one night dejectedly said to my THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 217 sister : " Patty, I begin to despair of our getting people to go on with us here, and I think we must give this up." My sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied, "No, John, don't give it up. Don't be beaten, John. There is another way." "And what is that?" said I. "John," returned my sister, "if we are not to be driven out of this house, and that for no reason whatever that is apparent to you or me, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and solely into our own hands." " But, the servants," said I. " Have no servants," said my sister, boldly. Like most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the possibility of going on without those faithful obstructions. The notion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very doubtful. "We know they come here to be frightened and infect one another, and we know they are frightened and do infect one another," said my sister. "With the exception of Bottles," I observed, in a meditative tone. (The deaf stableman. I kept him in my service, and still keep him, as a phenomenon of moroseness not to be matched in England.) "To be sure, John," assented my sister; "except Bottles. And what does that go to prove? Bottles talks to nobody, and hears nobody unless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles ever given, or taken ! None." This was perfectly true ; the individual in question having retired, every night at ten o'clock, to his bed over the coach- house, with no other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water. That the pail of water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through me, if I had put myself without announce- ment in Bottles's way after that minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth remembering. Neither had Bottles ever taken the least notice of any of our many uproars. An imperturbable and speechless man, he had sat at his supper, with Streaker pres- ent in a swoon, and the Odd Girl marble, and had only put another potato in his cheek, or profited by the general misery to help him- self to beefsteak pie. "And so," continued my sister, "I exempt Bottles. And con- sidering, John, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, to be kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast about among our friends for a certain selected number 218 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. of the most reliable and willing — form a Society here for three months — wait upon ourselves and one another — live cheerfully and socially — and see what happens." I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the spot, and went into her plan with the greatest ardour. We were then in the third week of November ; but, we took our measures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the friends in whom we confided, that there was still a week of the month unexpired, when our party all came down together mer- rily, and mustered in the haunted house. I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while my sister and I were yet alone. It occurring to me as not improbable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because he wanted to get out of it, I stationed him in his kennel outside, but unchained ; and I seriously warned the village that any man who came in his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his own throat. I then casually asked Ikey if he were a judge of a gun? On his saying, "Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees her," I begged the favour of his stepping up to the house and looking at mine. ^^ She's a true one, sir," said Ikey, after inspecting a double-bar- relled rifle that I bought in New York a few years ago. " No mistake about her, sir." "Ikey," said I, "don't mention it; I have seen something in this house." "No, sir?" he whispered, greedily opening his eyes. "'Ooded lady, sir ? " " Don't be frightened," said I. "It was a figure rather like you." "Lord, sir?" " Ikey ! " said I, shaking hands with him warmly : I may say aff'ectionately ; " if there is any truth in these ghost-stories, the greatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure. And I prom- ise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do it with this gun if I see it again ! " The young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little precipitation, after declining a glass of liquor. I imparted my secret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his cap at the bell ; because I had, on another occasion, noticed something very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one night when it had burst out ringing ; and because I had remarked that we were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the evening to comfort the ser- vants. Let me do Ikey no injustice. He was afraid of the house, and believed in its being haunted; and yet he would play false on THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 219 the haunting side, so surely as he got an opportunity. The Odd Girl's case was exactly similar. She went about the house in a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and wilfully, and in- vented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the sounds we heard. I had had my eye on the two, and I know it. It is not necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state of mind ; I content myself with remarking that it is familiarly known to every intelligent man who has had fair medical, legal, or other watchful experience ; that it is as well established and as common a state of mind as any with which observers are acquainted ; and that it is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be suspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any ques- tion of this kind. To return to our party. The first thing we did when we were all assembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms. That done, and every bedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely examined by the whole body, we allotted the various household duties, as if we had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or a hunting party, or were shipwrecked. I then recounted the float- ing rumours concerning the hooded lady, the owl, and Master B. : with others, still more filmy, which had floated about during our occupation, relative to some ridiculous old ghost of the female gen- der who went^up and down, carrying the ghost of a round table ; and also to an impalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to catch. Some of these ideas I really believe our people below had communicated to one another in some diseased way, without con- veying them in words. We then gravely called one another to wit- ness, that we were not there to be deceived, or to deceive — which we considered pretty much the same thing — and that, with a serious sense of responsibility, we would be strictly true to one an- other, and would strictly follow out the truth. The understanding was established, that any one who heard unusual noises in the night, and who wished to trace them, should knock at my door ; lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last night of holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since that then present hour of our coming together in the haunted house, should be brought to light for the good of all ; and that we would hold our peace on the subject till then, unless on some remarkable provocation to break silence. We were, in number and in character, as follows : First — to get my sister and myself out of the way — there were we two. In the drawing of lots, my sister drew her own room, and I drew Master B.'s. Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel, so called after the great astronomer : than whom I suppose a better man at a telescope does not breathe. With him, was his wife: a 220 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. charming creature to whom he had been married in the previous spring. I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent to bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may do at such a time ; but I suppose he knew his own business best, and I must say that if she had been my wife, I never could have left her endearing and bright face behind. They drew the Clock Room. Alfred Starling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-and-twenty, for whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room; mine, usually, and designated by that name from having a dressing-room within it, with two large and cum- bersome windows, which no wedges / was ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any weather, wind or no wind. Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to be "fast " (another word for loose, as I understand the term), but who is much too good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would have distinguished himself before now, if his father had not unfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a year, on the strength of which his only occupation in life has been to spend six. I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may break, or that he may enter into some speculation guaranteed to pay twenty per cent.; for, I am convinced that if he could only be ruined, his fortune is made. Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a most intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture Room. She has a fine genius f» poetry, com- bined with real business earnestness, and "goes in" — to use an expression of Alfred's — for Woman's mission, Woman's rights, Woman's wrongs, and everything that is woman's with the capital W, or is not and ought to be, or is and ought not to be. " Most praiseworthy, my dear, and Heaven prosper you ! " I whispered to her on the first night of my taking leave of her at the Picture-Room door, "but don't overdo it. And in respect of the great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments being within the reach of Woman than our civilisation has as yet assigned to her, don't fly at the unfortunate men, even those men who are at first sight in your way, as if they were the natural oppressors of your sex; for, trust me, Belinda, they do sometimes spend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and grandmothers ; and the play is, really, not all Wolf and Red Riding-Hood, but has other parts in it." However, I digress. Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room. We had but three other chambers : the Corner Room, the Cupboard Room, and the Garden Room. My old friend, Jack Governor, " slung his hammock," as he called it, in the Corner Room. I have always regarded Jack as the finest-looking sailor that ever sailed. He is grey now, but as handsome as he was a quarter of a century THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 221 ago — nay, handsomer. A portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad- shouldered man, with a frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow. I remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for their silver setting. He has been wherever his Union namesake flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the Mediterranean and on the other side of the Atlan- tic, who have beamed and brightened at the casual mention of his name, and have cried, " You know Jack Governor ? Then you know a prince of men ! " That he is ! And so unmistakably a naval offi- cer, that if you were to meet him coming out of an Esquimau snow-hut in seal's skin, you would be vaguely persuaded he was in full naval uniform. Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it fell out that he married another lady and took her to South America, where she died. This was a dozen years ago or more. He brought down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for, he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling is mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a piece in his portmanteau. He had also volunteered to bring with him one " Nat Beaver," an old comrade of his, captain of a merchant- man. Mr. Beaver, with a thick-set wooden face and figure, and apparently as hard as a block all over, proved to be an intelligent man, with a world of watery experiences in him, and great practical knowledge. At times, there was a curious nervousness about him, apparently the lingering result of some old illness ; but, it seldom lasted many minutes. He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr. Undery, my friend and solicitor : who came down, in an amateur capacity, " to go through with it," as he said, and who plays whist better than the whole Law List, from the red cover at the beginning to the red cover at the end. I never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the univer- sal feeling among us. Jack Governor, always a man of wonderful resources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I ever ate, including unapproachable curries. My sister was pas- try-cook and confectioner. Starling and I were Cook's Mate, turn and turn about, and on special occasions the chief cook " pressed " Mr. Beaver. We had a great deal of out-door sport and exercise, but nothing was neglected within, and there was no ill-humour or misunderstanding among us, and our evenings were so delightful that we had at least one good reason for being reluc- tant to go to bed. We had a few night alarms in the beginning. On the first night, I was knocked up by Jack with a most wonderful ship's lantern in his hand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, 222 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. who informed me that he "was going aloft to the main truck," to have the weathercock down. It was a stormy night and I remonstrated ; but Jack called my attention to its making a sound like a cry of despair, and said somebody would be "hailing a ghost" presently, if it wasn't done. So, up to the top of the house, where I could hardly stand for the wind, we went, accom- panied by Mr. Beaver ; and there Jack, lantern and all, with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up to the top of a cupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood upon nothing particular, coolly knocking the weathercock off, until they both got into such good spirits with the wind and the height, that I thought they would never come down. Another night, they turned out again, and had a chimney-cowl off. Another night, they cut a sobbing and gulping water-pipe away. Another night, they found out something else. On several occasions, they both, in the coolest manner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective bedroom windows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to "overhaul" something mysterious in the garden. The engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody revealed anything. All we knew was, if any one's room were haunted, no one looked the worse for it. Chapter II. THE GHOST IN MASTER B.'s ROOM. When I established myself in the triangular garret which had gained so distinguished a reputation, my thoughts naturally turned to Master B. My speculations about him were uneasy and mani- fold. Whether his Christian name was Benjamin, Bissextile (from his having been born in Leap Year), Bartholomew, or Bill. Whether the initial letter belonged to his family name, and that was Baxter, Black, Brown, Barker, Buggius, Baker, or Bird. Whether he was a foundling, and had been baptized B. Whether he was a lion-hearted boy, and B. was short for Briton, or for Bull. Whether he could possibly have been kith and kin to an illustrious lady who brightened my own childhood, and had come of the blood of the brilliant Mother Bunch ? With these profitless meditations I tormented myself much. I also carried the mysterious letter into the appearance and pursuits of the deceased ; wondering whether he dressed in Blue, wore Boots (he couldn't have been Bald), was a boy of Brains, liked Books, was good at Bowling, had any skill as a Boxer, even in his Buoy- I THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 223 ant Boyhood Bathed from a Bathing-machine at Bognor, Bangor, Bournemouth, Brighton, or Broadstairs, like a Bounding Billiard Ball? So, from the first, I was haunted by the letter B. It was not long before I remarked that I never by any hazard had a dream of Master B., or of anything belonging to him. But, the instant I awoke from sleep, at whatever hour of the night, my thoughts took him up, and roamed away, trying to attach his initial letter to something that would fit it and keep it quiet. For six nights, I had been worried thus in Master B.'s room, when I began to perceive that tjiings were going wrong. The first appearance that presented itself was early in the morn- ing, when it was but just daylight and no more. I was standing shaving at my glass, when I suddenly discovered, to my consterna- tion and amazement, that I was shaving — not myself — I am fifty — but a boy. Apparently Master B. ! I trembled and looked over my shoulder; nothing there. I looked again in the glass, and distinctly saw the features and expression of a boy, who was shaving, not to get rid of a beard, but to get one. Extremely troubled in my mind, I took a few turns in the room, and went back to the looking-glass, resolved to steady my hand and complete the operation in which I had been disturbed. Opening my eyes, which I had shut while recovering my firmness, I now met in the glass, looking straight at me, the eyes of a young man of four or five and twenty. Terrified by this new ghost, I closed my eyes, and made a strong eftbrt to recover myself. Opening them again, I saw, shaving his cheek in the glass, my father, who has long been dead. Nay, I even saw my grandfather too, whom I never did see in my life. Although naturally much affected by these remarkable visita- tions, I determined to keep my secret, until the time agreed upon for the present general disclosure. Agitated by a multitude of curious thoughts, I retired to my room, that night, prepared to encounter some new experience of a spectral character. Nor was my preparation needless, for, waking from an uneasy sleep at exactly two o'clock in the morning, what were my feelings to find that I was sharing my bed with the skeleton of Master B. ! I sprang up, and the skeleton sprang up also. I then heard a plaintive voice saying, " Where am I ? What is become of me ? " and, looking hard in that direction, perceived the ghost of Master B. The young spectre was dressed in an obsolete fashion : or rather, was not so much dressed as put into a case of inferior pepper-and- salt cloth, made horrible by means of shining buttons. I observed 224 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. that these buttons went, in a double row, over each shoulder of the young ghost, and appeared to descend his back. He wore a frill round his neck. His right hand (which I distinctly noticed to be inky) was laid upon his stomach ; connecting this action with some feeble pimples on his countenance, and his general air of nausea, I concluded this ghost to be the ghost of a boy who had habitually taken a great deal too much medicine. " Where am I ? " said the little spectre, in a pathetic voice. "And why was I born in the Calomel days, and why did I have all that Calomel given me 1 I replied, with sincere earnestness, that upon my soul I couldn't tell him. "Where is my little sister," said the ghost, "and where my angelic little wife, and where is the boy I went to school with 1 " I entreated the phantom to be comforted, and above all things to take heart respecting the loss of the boy he went to school with. I represented to him that probably that boy never did, within human experience, come out well, when discovered. I urged that I myself had, in later life, turned up several boys whom I ,went to school with, and none of them had at all answered. I expressed my humble belief that that boy never did answer. I represented that he was a mythic character, a delusion, and a snare. I re- counted how, the last time I found him, I found him at a dinner party behind a wall of white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion on every jDossible subject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely Titanic. I related how, on the strength of our having been to- gether at "Old Doy lance's," he had asked himself to breakfast with me (a social offence of the largest magnitude) ; how, fanning my weak embers of belief in Doylance's boys, I had let him in ; and how, he had proved to be a fearful wanderer about the earth, pursuing the race of Adam with inexplicable notions concerning the currency, and with a proposition that the Bank of England should, on pain of being abolished, instantly strike off and circu- late, God knows how many thousand millions of ten-and-sixpenny notes. The ghost heard me in silence, and with a fixed stare. " Barber ! " it apostrophised me when I had finished. "Barber?" I repeated — for I am not of that profession. " Condemned," said the ghost, " to shave a constant change of customers — now, me — now, a young man — now, thyself -as thou art — now, thy father — now, thy grandfather; condemned, too, to lie down with a skeleton every night, and to rise with it every morning — " (I shuddered on hearing this dismal announcement.) THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 226 " Barber ! Pursue me ! " I had felt, even before the words were uttered, that I was under a spell to pursue the phantom. I immediately did so, and was in Master B.'s room no longer. Most people know what long and fatiguing night journeys had been forced upon the witches who used to confess, and who, no doubt, told the exact truth — particularly as they were always assisted with leading questions, and the Torture was always ready. I asseverate that, during my occupation of Master B.'s room, I was taken by the ghost that haunted it, on expeditions fully as long and wild as any of those. Assuredly, I was presented to no shabby old man with a goat's horns and tail (something between Pan and an old-clothesman), holding conventional receptions, as stupid as those of real life and less decent ; but, I came upon other things which appeared to me to have more meaning. Confident that I speak the truth and shall be believed, I declare without hesitation that I followed the ghost, in the first instance on a broom-stick, and afterwards on a rocking-horse. The very smell of the animal's paint — especially when I brought it out, by making him warm — I am ready to swear to. I followed the ghost, afterwards, in a hackney coach ; an institution with the peculiar smell of which the present generation is unacquainted, but to which I am again ready to swear as a combination of stable, dog with the mange, and very old bellows. (In this, I appeal to previous generations to confirm or refute me.) I pursued the phantom, on a headless donkey : at least, upon a donkey who was so interested in the state of his stomach that his head was always down there, investigating it ; on ponies, expressly born to kick up behind ; on roundabouts and swings, from fairs ; in the first cab — another forgotten institution where the fare regularly got into bed, and was tucked up with the driver. Not to trouble you with a detailed account of all my travels in pursuit of the ghost of Master B., which were longer and more wonderful than those of Sinbad the Sailor, I will confine myself to one experience from which you may judge of many. I was marvellously changed. I was myself, yet not myself. I was conscious of something within me, which has been the same all through my life, and which I have always recognised under all its phases and varieties as never altering, and yet I was not the I who had gone to bed in Master B.'s room. I had the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs, and I had taken another creature like myself, also with the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs, behind a door, and was confiding to him a proposition of the most astounding nature. 226 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. This proposition was, that we should have a Seraglii). The other creature assented warmly. He had no notion of respectability, neither had I. It was the custom of the East, it was the way of the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid (let me have the corrupted name again for once, it is so scented with sweet memories !), the usage was highly laudable, and most worthy of imitation. " 0, yes ! Let us," said the other creature with a jump, " have a Seraglio." It was not because we entertained the faintest doubts of the meritorious character of the Oriental establishment we proposed to import, that we perceived it must be kept a secret from Miss Griffin, It was because we knew Miss Griffin to be bereft of human sympathies, and incapable of appreciating the greatness of the great Haroun. Mystery impenetrably shrouded from Miss Griffin then, let us entrust it to Miss Bule. We were ten in Miss Griffin's establishment by Hampstead Ponds ; eight ladies and two gentlemen. Miss Bule, whom I judge to have attained the ripe age of eight or nine, took the lead in society. I opened the subject to her in the course of the day, and proposed that she should become the Favourite. Miss Bule, after struggling with the diffidence so natural to, and charming in, her adorable sex, expressed herself as flattered by the idea, but wished to know how it was proposed to provide for Miss Pipson ? Miss Bule — -who was understood to have vowed towards that young lady, a friendship, halves, and no secrets, until death, on the Church Service and Lessons complete in two volumes with case and lock — Miss Bule said she could not, as the friend of Pipson, disguise from herself, or me, that Pipson was not one of the common. Now, Miss Pipson, having curly light hair and blue eyes (which was my idea of anything mortal and feminine that was called Fair), I promptly replied that I regarded Miss Pipson in the light of a Fair Circassian. " And what then ? " Miss Bule pensively asked. I replied that she must be inveigled by a Merchant, brought to me veiled, and purchased as a slave. [The other creature had already fallen into the second male place in the State, and was set apart for Grand Yizier. He afterwards resisted this disposal of events, but had his hair pulled until he yielded.] " Shall I not be jealous 1 " Miss Bule inquired, casting down her " Zobeide, no," I replied ; " you will ever be the favourite Sultana ; the first place in my heart, and on my throne, will be ever yours." THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 227 Miss Bule, upon that assurance, consented to propound the idea to her seven beautiful companions. It occurring to me, in the course of the same day, that we knew we could trust a grinning and good-natured soul called Tabby, who was the serving drudge of the house, and had no more figure than one of the beds, and upon whose face there was always more or less black-lead, I slipped into Miss Bule's hand after supper, a little note to that effect : dwelling on the black-lead as being in a manner deposited by the finger of Providence, pointing Tabby out for Mesrour, the celebrated chief of the Blacks of the Hareem. There were difficulties in the formation of the.,desired institution, as there are in all combinations. The other creature showed him- self of a low character, and, when defeated in aspiring to the throne, pretended to have conscientious scruples about prostrating himself before the Caliph ; wouldn't call him Commander of the Faithful ; spoke of him slightingly and inconsistently as a mere " chap ; " said he, the other creature, " wouldn't play " — Play ! — and was other- wise coarse and offensive. This meanness of disposition was, how- ever, put down by the general indignation of an united Seraglio, and I became blessed in the smiles of eight of the fairest of the daughters of men. The smiles could only be bestow^ed when Miss Griffin was look- ing another way, and only then in a very wary manner, for there was a legend among the followers of the Prophet that she saw with a little round ornament in the middle of the pattern on the back of her shawl. But every day after dinner, for an hour, we were all together, and then the Favourite and the rest of the Royal Hareem competed who should most beguile the leisure of the Serene Haroun reposing from the cares of State — which were generally, as in most affairs of State, of an arithmetical character, the Commander of the Faithful being a fearful boggier at a sum. On these occasions, the devoted Mesrour, chief of the Blacks of the Hareem, was always in attendance (Miss Griffin usually ringing for that officer, at the same time, with great vehemence), but never acquitted himself in a manner worthy of his historical reputation. In the first place, his bringing a broom into the Divan of the Caliph, even when Haroun wore on his shoulders the red robe of anger (Miss Pipson's pelisse), though it might be got over for the moment, was never to be quite satisfectorily accounted for. In the second place, his breaking out into grinning exclamations of " Lork you pretties ! " was neither Eastern nor respectful. In the third place, when specially instructed to say " Bismillah ! " he always said " Hallelujah ! " This officer, unlike his class, was too good-humoured altogether, kept his mouth open far too wide, expressed approbation 228 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. to an incongruous extent, and even once — it was on the occasion of the purchase of the Fair Circassian for five hundred thousand purses of gold, and cheap, too — embraced the Slave, the Favourite, and the Caliph, all round. (Parenthetically let me say God bless Mesrour, and may there have been sons and daughters on that tender bosom, softening many a hard day since !) Miss Griffin was a model of propriety, and I am at a loss to imagine what the feelings of the virtuous woman would have been, if she had known, when she paraded us down the Hampstead-road two and two, that she was walking with a stately step at the head of Polygamy and Mahomedanism. I believe that a mysterious and terrible joy with which the contemplation of Miss Griffin, in this unconscious state, inspired us, and a grim sense prevalent among us that there was a dreadful power in our knowledge of what Miss Griffin (who knew all things that could be learnt out of book) didn't know, were the mainspring of the preservation of our secret. It was wonderfully kept, but was once upon the verge of self- betrayal. The danger and escape occurred upon a Sunday. We were all ten ranged in a conspicuous part of the gallery at church, with Miss Griffin at our head — as we were every Sunday — ad- vertising the establishment in an unsecular sort of way — when the description of Solomon in his domestic glory happened to be read. The moment that monarch was thus referred to, conscience whispered me, " Thou, too, Haroun ! " The officiating minister had a cast in his eye, and it assisted conscience by giving him the appearance of reading personally at me. A crimson blush, attended by a fearful perspiration, suffused my features. The Grand Vizier became more dead than alive, and the whole Seraglio reddened as if the sunset of Bagdad shone direct upon their lovely faces. At this portentous time the awful Griffin rose, and balefully surveyed the children of Islam. My own impression was, that Church and State had entered into a conspiracy with Miss Griffin to expose us, and that we should all be put into white sheets, and exhibited in the centre aisle. But, so Westerly — if I may be allowed the expres- sion as opposite to Eastern associations — was Miss Griffin's sense of rectitude, that she merely suspected Apples, and we were saved. I have called the Seraglio, united. Upon the question, solely, whether the Commander of the Faithful durst exercise a right of kissing in that sanctuary of the palace, were its peerless inmates divided. Zobeide asserted a counter-right in the Favourite to scratch, and the Fair Circassian put her face, for refuge, into a green baize bag, originally designed for books. On the other hand, a young antelope of transcendent beauty from the fruitful plains of Camden-town (whence she had been brought, by traders, in the THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 229 half-yearly caravan that crossed the intermediate desert after the holidays) held more liberal opinions, but stipulated for limiting the benefit of them to that dog, and son of a dog, the Grand Vizier — who had no rights, and was not in question. At length, the difl&culty was compromised by the installation of a very youthful slave as Deputy. She, raised upon a stool, officially received upon her cheeks the salutes intended by the gracious Haroun for other Sultanas, and was privately rewarded from the coffers of the Ladies of the Hareem. And now it was, at the full height of enjoyment of my bliss, that I became heavily troubled. I began to think of my mother, and what she would say to my taking home af Midsummer eight of the most beautiful of the daughters of men, but all unexpected. I thought of the number of beds we made up at our house, of my father's income, and of the baker, and my despondency redoubled. The Seraglio and malicious Vizier, divining the cause of their Lord's unhappiness, did their utmost to augment it. They professed un- bounded fidelity, and declared that they would live and die with him. Reduced to the utmost wretchedness by these protestations of attachment, I lay awake, for hours at a time, ruminating on my frightful lot. In my despair, I think I might have taken an early opportunity of falling on my knees before Miss Griffin, avowing my resemblance to Solomon, and praying to be dealt with according to the outraged laws of my country, if an unthought-of means of escape had not opened before me. One day, we were out walking, two and two — on which occasion the Vizier had his usual instructions to take note of the boy at the turnpike, and if he profanely gazed (which he always did) at the beauties of the Hareem, to have him bowstrung in the course of the night — and it happened that our hearts were veiled in gloom. An unaccountable action on the part of the antelope had plunged the State into disgrace. That charmer, on the representation that the previous day was her birthday, and that vast treasures had been sent in a hamper for its celebration (both baseless assertions), had secretly but most pressingly invited thirty-five neighbouring princes and princesses to a ball and supper : with a special stipula- tion that they were "not to be fetched till twelve." This wander- ing of the antelope's fancy, led to the surprising arrival at Miss Griffin's door, in divers equipages and under various escorts, of a great company in full dress, who were deposited on the top step in a flush of high expectancy, and who were dismissed in tears. At the beginning of the double knocks attendant on these cere- monies, the antelope had retired to a back attic, and bolted herself in ; and at every new arrival, Miss Griffin had gone so much more 230 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. and more distracted, that at last she had been seen to tear her front. Ultimate capitulation on the part of the offender, had been followed by solitude in the linen-closet, bread and water and a lecture to all, of vindictive length, in which Miss Griffin had used expressions: Firstly, "I believe you all of you knew of it;" Secondly, " Every one of you is as wicked as another ; " Thirdly, "A pack of little wretches." Under these circumstances, we were walking drearily along ; and I especially, with my Moosulmaun responsibilities heavy on me, was in a very low state of mind ; w^hen a strange man accosted Miss Griffin, and, after walking on at her side for a little while and talking with her, looked at me. Supposing him to be a minion of the law, and that my hour was come, I instantly ran away, with the general purpose of making for Egypt. The whole Seraglio cried out, when they saw me making off as fast as my legs would carry me (I had an impression that the first turning on the left, and round by the public-house, would be the shortest way to the Pyramids), Miss Griffin screamed after me, the faithless Vizier ran after me, and the boy at the turnpike dodged me into a corner, like a sheep, and cut me off. Nobody scolded me when I was taken and brought back ; Miss Griffin only said, with a stunning gentleness, This was very curious ! Why had I run away when the gentleman looked at me 1 If I had had any breath to answer with, I dare say I should have made no answer ; having no breath, I certainly made none. Miss Griffin and the strange man took me between them, and walked me back to the palace in a sort of state ; but not at all (as I couldn't help feeling, with astonishment) in culprit state. When we got there, we went into a room by ourselves, and Miss Griffin called in to her assistance, Mesrour, chief of the dusky guards of the Hareem. Mesrour, on being whispered to, began to shed tears. " Bless you, my precious ! " said that officer, turning to me ; "your Pa's took bitter bad ! " I asked, with a fluttered heart, " Is he very ill 1 " " Lord temper the wind to you, my lamb ! " said the good Mesrour, kneeling dowTi, that I might have a comforting shoulder for my head to rest on, "your Pa's dead ! " Haroun Alraschid took to flight at the words ; the Seraglio vanished ; from that moment, I never again saw one of the eight of the fairest of the daughters of men. I was taken home, and there was Debt at home as well as Death, and we had a sale there. My own little bed was so superciliously looked upon by a Power unknown to me, hazily called " The Trade," THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 231 that a brass coal-scuttle, a roasting-jack, and a birdcage, were obliged to be put into it to make a Lot of it, and then it went for a song. So I heard mentioned, and I wondered what song, and thought what a dismal song it must have been to sing ! Then, I was sent to a great, cold, bare school of big boys ; where everything to eat and wear was thick and clumpy, without being enough ; where everybody, large and small, was cruel ; where the boys knew all about the sale, before I got there, and asked me what I had fetched, and who had bought me, and hooted at me, " Going, going, gone ! " I never whispered in that wretched place that I had been Haroun, or had had a Seraglio : for, I knew that if I mentioned my reverses, I should be so worried, that I should have to drown myself in the muddy pond near the playground, which looked like the beer. Ah me, ah me ! No other ghost has haunted the boy's room, my friends, since I have occupied it, than the ghost of my own child- hood, the ghost of my own innocence, the ghost of my own airy belief. Many a time have I pursued the phantom : never with this man's stride of mine to come up with it, never with these man's hands of mine to touch it, never more to this man's heart of mine to hold it in its purity. And here you see me working out, as cheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of shaving in the glass a constant change of customers, and of lying down and rising up w;ith the skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion. Chapter III. THE GHOST IN THE CORNER ROOM. I HAD observed Mr. Governor growing fidgety as his turn — his "spell," he called it — approached, and he now surprised us all, by rising with a serious countenance, and requesting permission to " come aft " and have speech with me, before he spun his yarn. His great popularity led to a gracious concession of this indulgence, and we went out together into the hall. "Old shipmate," said Mr. Governor to me, "ever since I have been abroad of this old hulk, I have been haunted day and night." " By what. Jack ? " Mr. Governor, clapping his hand on my shoulder and keeping it there, said : " By something in the likeness of a Woman." " Ah ! Your old affliction. You'll never get over that, Jack, if you live to be a hundred." 232 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. " No, don't talk so, because I am very serious. All night long, I have been haunted by one figure. All day, the same figure has so bewildered me in the kitchen, that I wonder I haven't poisoned the whole ship's company. Now, there's no fancy here. Would you like to see the figure?" " I should like to see it very much." " Then here it is ! " said Jack. Thereupon, he presented my sister, who had stolen out quietly, after us. " Oh, indeed ? " said I. " Then, I suppose, Patty, my dear, I have no occasion to ask whether you have been haunted ? " "Constantly, Joe," she replied. The effect of our going back again, all three together, and of my presenting my sister as the Ghost from the Corner Room, and Jack as the Ghost from my Sister's Room, was triumphant — the crowning hit of the night. Mr. Beaver was so particularly delighted, that he by-and-bye declared " a very little would make him dance a hornpipe." Mr. Governor immediately supplied the very little, by offering to make it a double hornpipe ; and there en- sued such toe-and-heeling, and buckle-covering, and double-shuffling, and heel-sliding, and execution of all sorts of slippery manoeuvres with vibratory legs, as none of us ever before, or will ever see again. When we had all laughed and applauded till we were faint. Star- ling, not be outdone, favoured us with a more modern saltatory entertainment in the Lancashire clog manner — to the best of my belief, the longest dance ever performed, in which the sound of his feet became a Locomotive going through cuttings, tunnels, and open country, and became a vast number of other things we should never have suspected, unless he had kindly told us what they were. It was resolved before we separated that night, that our three months' period in the Haunted House should be wound up with the marriage of my sister and Mr. Governor. Belinda was nomi- nated bridesmaid, and Starling was engaged for bridegroom's man. In a word, we lived our term out, most happily, and were never for a moment haunted by anything more disagreeable than our own imaginations and remembrances. My cousin's wife, in her great love for her husband and in her gratitude to him for the change her love had wrought in her, had told us, through his lips, her own story ; and I am sure there was not one of us who did not like her the better for it, and respect her the more. So, at last, before the shortest month in the year was quite out, we all walked forth one morning to the church with the spire, as if nothing uncommon were going to happen ; and there Jack and my sister were married, as sensibly as could be. It occurs to me to mention that I observed Belinda and Alfred Starling to be A MESSAGE EROM THE SEA. 233 rather sentimental and low, on the occasion, and that they are since engaged to be married in the same church. I regard it as an excellent thing for both, and a kind of union very wholesome for the time in which we live. He wants a little poetry, and she wants a little prose, and the marriage of the two things is the happiest marriage I know for all mankind. Finally, I derived this Christmas Greeting from the Haunted House, which I affectionately address with all my heart to all my readers — Let us use the great virtue, Faith, but not abuse it ; and let us put it to its best use, by having faith in the great Christmas book of the New Testament, and in one another. A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. IN FIVE CHAPTERS. Chapter I. THE VILLAGE. " And a mighty sing'lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw in all the days of my life ! " said Captain Jorgan, looking up at it. Captain Jorgan had to look high to look at it, for the village was built sheer up the face of a steep and lofty cliff. There was no road in it, there was no wheeled vehicle in it, there was not a level yard in it. From the sea-beach to tlie cliff-top two irregular rows of white houses, placed opposite to one another, and twisting here and there, and there and here, rose, like the sides of a long succession of stages of crooked ladders, and you climbed up the village or climbed down the village by the staves between, some six feet wide or so, and made of sharp irregular stones. The old pack-saddle, long laid aside in most parts of England as one of the appendages of its infancy, flourished here intact. Strings of pack- horses and pack-donkeys toiled slowly up the staves of the ladders, bearing fish, and coal, and such other cargo as was unshipping at the pier from the dancing fleet of village boats, and from two or three little coasting traders. As the beasts of burden ascended laden, or descended light, they got so lost at intervals in the floating clouds of village smoke, that they seemed to dive down some of the village chimneys, and come to the surface again far off, high above others. No two houses in the village were alike, in chimney, size, shape, door, window, gable, roof-tree, anything. The sides of the ladders were musical with water, nmning clear 234 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. and bright. The staves were musical with the clattering feet of the pack-horses and pack-donkeys, and the voices of the fisher- men urging them up, mingled with the voices of the fishermen's wives and^their many children. The pier was musical with the wash of the sea, the creaking of capstans and windlasses, and the airy fluttering of little vanes and sails. The rough, sea-bleached boulders of which the pier was made, and the whiter boulders of the shore, were brown with drying nets. The red-brown cliffs, richly wooded to their extremest verge, had their softened and beautiful forms reflected in the bluest water, under the clear •North Devonshire sky of a November day without a cloud. The village itself was so steeped in autumnal foliage, from the houses lying on the pier to the topmost round of the topmost ladder, that one "might have fancied it was out a bird's-nesting, and was (as indeed it was) a wonderful climber. And mentioning birds, the place was not without some music from them too ; for the rook was very busy on the higher levels, and the gull with his flapping wings was fishing in the bay, and the lusty little robin was hop- ping among the great stone blocks and iron rings of the break- wat'er, fearfess in the faith of his ancestors, and the Children in the Wood. Thus it came to pass that Captain Jorgan, sittmg balancmg himself on the pier-wall, struck his leg with his open hand, as some men do when they are pleased — and as he always did when he was pleased — and said, — " A mighty sing'lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw m all the days of my life ! " Captain Jorgan had not been through the village, but had come down to the pier by a winding side-road, to have a preliminary look at it from the level of his own natural element. He had seen many things and places, and had stowed them all away in a shrewd intellect and a vigorous memory. He was an American born, was Captain Jorgan, — a New-Englander, — but he was a citizen of the world, and a combination of most of the best quali- ties of most of its best countries. For Captain Jorgan to sit anywhere in his long-skirted blue coat and blue trousers, without holding converse with everybody within speaking distance, was a sheer impossibility. So the captain fell to talking with the fishermen, and to asking them knowing ques- tions about the fishery, and the tides, and the currents, and the race of water off" that point yonder, and what you kept in your eye, and got into a line with what else when you ran into the lit- tle 'harbour; and other nautical profundities. Among the men who exchanged ideas with the captain was a young fellow, who A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 235 exactly hit his fancy, — a young fisherman of two or three and twenty, in the rough sea-dress of his craft, with a brown face, dark curling hair, and bright, modest eyes under his Sou'wester hat, and with a frank, but simple and retiring manner, which the captain found uncommonly taking. " I'd bet a thousand dollars," said the captain to himself, " that your father was an honest man ! " " Might you be married now ? " asked the captain, when he had had some talk with this new acquaintance. " Not yet." " Going to be ? " said the captain. "I hope so." The captain's keen glance followed the slightest possible turn of the dark eye, and the slightest possible tilt of the Sou'wester hat. The captain then slapped both his legs, and said to him- self, — " Never knew such a good thing in all my life ! There's his sweetheart looking over the wall ! " There was a very pretty girl looking over the wall, from a little platform of cottage, vine, and fuchsia ; and she certainly did not look as if the presence of this young fisherman in the landscape made it any the less sunny and hopeful for her. Captain Jorgan, having doubled himself up to laugh with that hearty good-nature which is quite exultant in the innocent happi- ness of other people, had undoubled himself, and was going to start a new subject, when there appeared coming down the lower ladders of stones, a man whom he hailed as " Tom Pettifer, Ho ! " Tom Pettifer, Ho, responded with alacrity, and in speedy course descended on the pier. "Afraid of a sun-stroke in England in November, Tom, that you wear your tropical hat, strongly paid outside and paper-lined inside, here ? " said the captain, eyeing it. "It's as well to be on the safe side, sir," replied Tom. "Safe side!" repeated the captain, laughing. "You'd guard against a sun-stroke, with that old hat, in an Ice Pack. Wa'al ! What have you made out at the Post-office ? " " It is the Post-office, sir." " What's the Post-office ? " said the captain. " The name, sir. The name keeps the Post-office." "A coincidence ! " said the captain. " A lucky hit ! Show me where it is. Good-bye, shipmates, for the present ! I shall come and have another look at you, afore I leave, this afternoon." This was addressed to all there, but especially the young fisher- man ; so all there acknowledged it, but especially the young fisher- man. "ZTe's a sailor !" said one to another, as they looked after 236 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. the captain moving away. That he was ; and so outspeaking was the sailor in him, that although his dress had nothing nautical about it, with the single exception of its colour, but was a suit of a shore-going shape and form, too long in the sleeves and too short in the legs, and too unaccommodating everywhere, terminating earthward in a pair of Wellington boots, and surmounted by a tall, stiff hat, which no mortal could have worn at sea in any wind under heaven ; nevertheless, a glimpse of his sagacious, weather- beaten face, or his strong, brown hand, would have established the captain's calling. Whereas Mr. Pettifer — a man of a certain plump neatness, with a curly whisker, and elaborately nautical in a jacket, and shoes, and all things correspondent — looked no more like a seaman, beside Captain Jorgan, than he looked like a sea- serpent. The two climbed high up the village, — which had the most arbitrary turns and twists in it, so that the cobbler's house came dead across the ladder, and to have held a reasonable course, you must have gone through his house, and through him too, as he sat at his work between two little windows, with one eye microscopi- cally on the geological formation of that part of Devonshire, and the other telescopically on the open sea, — the two climbed high up the village, and stopped before a quaint little house, on which was painted, "Mrs. Raybrock, Draper;" and also "Post- office." Before it, ran a rill of murmuring water, and access to it was gained by a little plank-bridge. "Here's the name," said Captain Jorgan, "sure enough. You can come in if you like, Tom." The captain opened the door, and passed into an odd little shop, about six feet high, with a great variety of beams and bumps in the ceiling, and, besides the principal window giving on the ladder of stones, a purblind little window of a single pane of glass, peep- ing out of an abutting corner at the sun-lighted ocean, and winking at its brightness. " How do you do, ma'am ? " said the captain. " I am very glad to see you. I have come a long way to see you." '■''Have you, sir? Then I am sure I am very glad to see you^ though I don't know you from Adam." Thus a comely elderly woman, short of stature, plump of form, sparkling and dark of eye, who, perfectly clean and neat herself, stood in the midst of her perfectly clean and neat arrangements, and surveyed Captain Jorgan with smiling curiosity. "Ah! but you are a sailor, sir," she added, almost immediately, and with a slight movement of her hands, that was not very unlike wringing them ; " then you are heartily welcome." A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 237 "Thank'ee, ma'am," said the captain, "I don't know what it is, I am sure, that brings out the salt in me, but everybody seems to see it on the crown of my hat and the collar of my coat. Yes, ma'am, I am in that way of life." " And the other gentleman, too," said Mrs. Raybrock. " Well now, ma'am," said the captain, glancing shrewdly at the other gentleman, "you are that nigh right, that he goes to sea, — if that makes him a sailor. This is my steward, ma'am, Tom Pet- tifer; he's been a'most all trades you could name, in the course of his life, — would have bought all your chairs and tables once, if you had wished to sell 'em, — but now he's, my steward. My name's Jorgan, and I'm a ship-owner, and I sail my own and my partners' ships, and have done so this five-and-twenty year. According to custom I am called Captain Jorgan, but I am no more a captain, bless your heart ! than you are." " Perhaps you'll come into my parlour, sir, and take a chair 1 " said Mrs. Raybrock. " Ex-actly what I was going to propose myself, ma'am. After you." Thus replying, and enjoining Tom to give an eye to the shop, Captain Jorgan followed Mrs. Raybrock into the little, low back- room, — decorated with divers plants in pots, tea-trays, old china teapots, and punch-bowls, — which was at once the private sitting- room of the Raybrock family and the inner cabinet of the Post- office of the village of Steepways. "Now, ma'am," said the captain, "it don't signify a cent to you where I was born, except — " But here the shadow of some one entering fell upon the captain's figure, and he broke off to double himself up, slap both his legs, and ejaculate, " Never knew such a thing in all my life ! Here he is again ! How are you 1 " These words referred to the young fellow who had so taken Cap- tain Jorgan's fancy down at the pier. To make it all quite com- plete he came in accompanied by the sweetheart whom the captain had detected looking over the wall. A prettier sweetheart the sun could not have shone upon that shining day. As she stood before the captain, with her rosy lips just parted in surprise, her brown eyes a little wider open than was usual from the same cause, and her breathing a little quickened by the ascent (and pos- sibly by some mysterious hurry and flurry at the parlour door, in which the captain had observed her face to be for a moment totally eclipsed by the Sou'wester hat), she looked so charming, that the captain felt himself under a moral obligation to slap both his legs again. She was very simply dressed, with no other orna- ment than an autumnal flower in her bosom. She wore neither 238 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. hat nor bonnet, but merely a scarf or kerchief, folded squarely back over the head, to keep the sun off, — according to a fashion that may be sometimes seen in the more genial parts of England as well as of Italy, and which is probably the fii'st fashion of head-dress that came into the world when grasses and leaves went out. " In my country," said the captain, rising to give her his chair, and dexterously sliding it close to another chair on which the young fisherman must necessarily establish himself, — "in my country we should call Devonshire beauty fii^st-rate." Whenever a frank manner is offensive, it is because it is strained or feigned ; for there may be quite as much intolerable affectation in plainness as in mincing nicety. All that the captain said and did was honestly according to his nature; and his nature was open nature and good nature ; therefore, when he paid this little compli- ment, and expressed with a sparkle or two of his kno^ving eye, " I see how it is, and nothing could be better," he had established a delicate confidence on that subject with the family. " I was saying to your worthy mother," said the captain to the young man, after again introducing himself by name and occupation, — "I was saying to your mother (and you're very like her) that it didn't signify where I was born, except that I was raised on ques- tion-asking ground, where the babies as soon as ever they come into the world, inquire of their mothers, ' Neow, how old may you be, and wa'at air you a goin' to name me?' — which is a fact." Here he slapped his leg. " Such being the case, I may be excused for asking you if your name's Alfred 1 " " Yes, sir, my name is Alfred," returned the young man, "I am not a conjurer," pursued the captain, "and don't think | me so, or I shall right soon undeceive you. Likewise don't think, if you please, though I do come from that country of the babies, that , I am asking questions for question-asking's sake, for I am not. Somebody belonging to you went to sea 1 " " My elder brother, Hugh," returned the young man. He saic it in an altered and lower voice, and glanced at his mother, wh( raised her hands hurriedly, and put them together across her blacl gown, and looked eagerly at the visitor. "No ! For God's sake, don't think that !" said the captain, in a solemn way ; " I bring no good tidings of him." There was a silence, and the mother turned her face to the fire and put her hand between it and her eyes. The young fisherman slightly motioned toward the window, and the captain, looking in that direction, saw a young widow, sitting at a neighbouring window across a . little garden, engaged in needlework, with a A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 239 young child sleeping on her bosom. The silence continued until the captain asked of Alfred, — " How long is it since it happened ? " " He shipped for his last voyage better than three years ago." "Ship struck upon some reef or rock, as I take it," said the captain, "and all hands lost?" "Yes." "Wa'al!" said the captain, after a shorter silence, "Here I sit who may come to the same end, like enough. He holds the seas in the hollow of His hand. We must all strike some- where and go down. Our comfort, then, for , ourselves and one another is to have done our duty. I'd wager your brother did his ! " "He did!" answered the young fisherman. "If ever man strove faithfully on all occasions to do his duty, my brother did. My brother was not a quick man (anything but that), but he was a faithful, true, and just man. We were the sons of only a small tradesman in this county, sir ; yet our father was as watchful of his good name as if he had been a king." "A precious sight more so, I hope, — bearing in mind the general run of that class of crittur," said the captain. "But I interrupt." " My brother considered that our father left the good name to us, to keep clear and true." "Your brother considered right," said the captain; "and you couldn't take care of a better legacy. But again I interrupt." " No ; for I have nothing more to say. We know that Hugh lived well for the good name, and we feel certain that he died well for the good name. And now it has come into my keeping. And that's all." "Well spoken ! " cried the captain. "Well spoken, young man ! Concerning the manner of your brother's death," — by this time the captain had released the hand he had shaken, and sat with his own broad, brown hands spread out on his knees, and spoke aside, — " concerning the manner of your brother's death, it may be that I have some information to give you ; though it may not be, for I am far from sure. Can we have a little talk alone ? " The young man rose; but not before the captain's quick eye had noticed that, on the pretty sweetheart's turning to the window to greet the young widow with a nod and a wave of the hand, the young widow had held up to her the needlework on which she was engaged, with a patient and pleasant smile. So the captain said, being on his legs, — " What might she be making now ? " 240 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. "What is Margaret making, Kitty?" asked the young fisher- man, — with one of his arms apparently mislaid somewhere. As Kitty only blushed in reply, the captain doubled himself up as far as he could, standing, and said, with a slap of his leg, — " In my country we should call it wedding-clothes. Fact ! We should, I do assure you." But it seemed to strike the captain in another light too ; for his laugh was not a long one, and he added, in quite a gentle tone, — " And it's very pretty, my dear, to see her — poor young thing, with her fatherless child upon her bosom — giving up her thoughts to your home and your happiness. It's very pretty, my dear, and it's very good. May your marriage be more prosperous than hers, and be a comfort to her too. May the blessed sun see you all happy together, in possession of the good name, long after I have done ploughing the great salt field that is never sown ! " Kitty answered very earnestly, " ! Thank you, sir, with all my heart ! " And, in her loving little way, kissed her hand to him, and possibly by implication to the young fisherman, too, as the lat- ter held the parlour-door open for the captain to pass out. Chapter II. THE MONEY. "The stairs are very narrow, sir," said Alfred Raybrock to Captain Jorgan. "Like my cabin-stairs," returned the captain, "on many a voyage." "And they are rather inconvenient for the head." " If my head can't take care of itself by this time, after all the knocking about the world it has had," replied the captain, as uncon- cernedly as if he had no connection with it, "it's not worth look- ing after." Thus they came into the young fisherman's bedroom, which was as perfectly neat and clean as the shop and parlour below ; though it was but a little place, with a sliding window, and a phrenologi- cal ceiling expressive of all the peculiarities of the house-roof. Here the captain sat down on the foot of the bed, and glancing at a dreadful libel on Kitty which ornamented the wall, — the produc- tion of some wandering limner, whom the captain secretly admired as having studied portraiture from the figure-heads of ships, — motioned to the young man to take the rush-chair on the other side of the small, round table. That done, the captain put his hand A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 241 in the deep breast-pocket of his long-skirted blue coat, and took out of it a strong square case -bottle, — not a large bottle, but such as may be seen in any ordinary ship's medicine-chest. Setting this bottle on the table without removing his hand from it, Captain Jorgan then spake as follows : " In my last voyage homeward-bound," said the captain, " and that's the voyage off of which I now come straight, I encountered such weather off the Horn as is not very often met with, even there. I have rounded that stormy Cape pretty often, and I believe I first beat about there in the identical storms that blew the Devil's horns and tail off, and led to the horns being worked'up into tooth-picks for the plantation overseers in my country, who may be seen (if you travel down South, or away West, fur enough) picking their teeth with 'em, while the whips, made of the tail, flog hard. In this last voyage, homeward-bound for Liverpool from South America, I say to you, my young friend, it blew. Whole measures ! No half measures, nor making believe to blow ; it blew ! Now I warn't blown clean out of the water into the sky, — though I expected to be even that, — but I was blown clean out of my course ; and when at last it fell calm, it fell dead calm, and a strong current set one way, day and night, night and day, and I drifted — drifted — drifted — out of all the ordinary tracks and courses of ships, and drifted yet, and yet drifted. It behooves a man who takes charge of fellow-critturs' lives, never to rest from making himself master of his calling. I never did rest, and consequently I knew pretty well ('specially looking over the side in the dead calm of that strong current) what dangers to expect, and what precautions to take against 'em. In short, we were driving head on to an island. There was no island in the chart, and, therefore, you may say it was ill-manners in the island to be there ; I don't dispute its bad breeding, but there it was. Thanks be to Heaven, I was as ready for the island as the island was ready for me. I made it out myself from the masthead, and I got enough way upon her in good time to keep her off. I ordered a boat to be lowered and manned, and went in that boat myself to explore the island. There was a reef outside it, and, floating in a corner of the smooth water within the reef, was a heap of sea-weed, and entangled in that sea-weed was this bottle." Here the captain took his hand from the bottle for a moment, that the young fisherman might direct a wondering glance at it ; and then replaced his hand and went on : "If ever you come — or even if ever you don't come -^ to a desert place, use you your eyes and your spy-glass well ; for the smallest thing you see may prove of use to you, and may have 242 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. some information or some warning in it. That's the principle on which I came to see this bottle. I picked up the bottle and ran the boat alongside the island, and made fast and went ashore armed, with a part of my boat's crew. We found that every scrap of vege- tation on the island (I give it you as my opinion, but scant and scrubby at the best of times) had been consumed by fire. As we were making our way, cautiously and toilsomely, over the pulver- ised embers, one of my people sank into the earth breast-high. He turned pale, and "Haul me out smart, shipmates," says he, "for my feet are among bones." We soon got him on his legs again, and then we dug up the spot, and we found that the man was right, and that his feet had been among bones. More than that, they were human bones ; though whether the remains of one man, or of two or three men, what with calcination and ashes, and what with a poor practical knowledge of anatomy, I can't undertake to say. We examined the whole island and made out nothing else, save and except that, from its opposite side, I sighted a considera- ble tract of land, which land I was able to identify, and according to the bearings of which (not to trouble you mth my log) I took a fresh departure. When I got aboard again I opened the bottle, which was oilskin-covered as you see, and glass-stoppered as you see. Inside of it," pursued the captain, suiting his action to his words, "I found this little crumpled, folded paper, just as you see. Outside of it was written, as you see, these words : ' Whoeve7^ finds this, is solemnly entreated hy the dead to convey it unread to Al- fred Rayhrock^ Steepways, North Devon, England.^ A sacred charge," said the captain, concluding his narrative, " and, Alfred Raybrock, there it is ! " " This is my poor brother's writing ! " "I suppose so," said Captain Jorgan. "I'll take a look out of this little window while you read it." " Pray ho, sir ! I should be hurt. My brother couldn't know it would fall into such hands as yours." The captain sat down again on the foot of the bed, and the young man opened the folded paper with a trembling hand, and spread it on the table. The ragged paper, evidently creased and torn both before and after being written on, was much blotted and stained, and the ink had faded and run, and many words were wanting. What the captain and the young fisherman made out together, after much re-reading and much humouring of the folds of the paper, is given on the next page. The young fisherman had become more and more agitated, as the writing had become clearer to him. He now left it lying before the captain, over whose shoulder he had been reading it, and dropping A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 243 into his former seat, leaned forward on the table and laid his face in his hands. "What, man," urged the captain, "don't give in ! Be up and doing like a man ! " "It is selfish, I know, — but doing what, doing what?" cried the young fisherman, in complete despair, and stamping his sea- boot on the ground. " Doing what ? " returned the captain. " Something ! I'd go down to the little breakwater below yonder, and take a wrench at one of the salt-rusted iron rings there, and either wrench it up by the roots or wrench my teeth out of my head, sooner than I'd do nothing Nothing ! " ejaculated the captain. "Any fool or faint- ing heart can do that, and nothing can come of nothing, — which was pretended to be found out, I believe, by one of them Latin crit- turs," said the captain with the deepest disdain ; " as if Adam hadn't found it out, afore ever he so much as named the beasts ! " Yet the captain saw, in spite of his bold words, that there was some greater reason than he yet understood for the young man's distress. And he eyed him with a sympathising curiosity. "Come, come!" continued the captain. "Speak out. What is it, boy ! " 244 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA "You have seen how beautiful she is, sir," said the young man, looking up for the moment, with a flushed face and rumpled hair. " Did any man ever say she warn't beautiful 1 " retorted the captain. "If so, go and lick him." The young man laughed fretfully in spite of himself, and said, "It's not that, it's not that." " Wa'al, then, what is it 1 " said the captain in a more soothmg tone. The young fisherman mournfully composed himself to tell the captain what it was, and began : " We were to have been married next Monday week — " " Were to have been ! " interrupted Captain Jorgan. " And are to be? Hey?" Young Raybrock shook his head, and traced out with his fore- finger the words, ^^poor father's Jive hundred pounds" in the written paper. " Go along," said the captain. " Five hundred pounds ? Yes ? " "That sum of money," pursued the young fisherman, entering with the greatest earnestness on his demonstration, while the captain eyed him with equal earnestness, " was all my late father possessed. When he died, he owed no man more than he left means to pay, but he had been able to lay by only five hundred pounds." " Five hundred pounds," repeated the captain. " Yes ? " " In his lifetime, years before, he had expressly laid the money aside to leave to my mother; — like to settle upon her, if I make myself understood." "Yes?" " He had risked it once — my father put down in writing at that time, respecting the money — and was resolved never to risk it again." " Not a spec'lator," said the captain. " My country wouldn't have suited him. Yes ? " " My mother has never touched the money till now. And now it was to have been laid out, this very next week, in buying me a handsome share in our neighbouring fishery here, to settle me in life with Kitty." The captain's face fell, and he passed and repassed his sun- browned right hand over his thin hair, in a discomfited manner. " Kitty's father has no more than enough to live on, even in the sparing way in which we live about here. He is a kind of bailiff or steward of manor rights here, and they are not much, and it is but a poor little ofiice. He was better off once, and Kitty must never marry to mere drudgery and hard living." A MESSAGE PROM THE SEA. 245 The captain still sat stroking his thin hair, and looking at the young fisherman. " I am as certain that my father had no knowledge that any one was wronged as to this money, or that any restitution ought to be made, as I am certain that the sun now shines. But, after this solemn warning from my brother's grave in the sea, that the money is Stolen Money," said Young Raybrock, forcing himself to the utterance of the words, " can I doubt it ? Can I touch it ? " "About not doubting, I ain't so sure," observed the captain; "but about not touching — no — I don't thin^ you can." "See then," said Young Raybrock, "why I am so grieved. Think of Kitty. Think what I have got to tell her ! " His heart quite failed him again when he had come round to that, and he once more beat his sea-boot softly on the floor. But not for long ; he soon began again, in a quietly resolute tone. " However ! Enough of that ! You spoke some brave words to me just now, Captain Jorgan, and they shall not be spoken in vain. I have got to do something. What I have got to do, before all other things, is to trace out the meaning of this paper, for the sake of the Good Name that has no one else to put it right. And still for the sake of the Good Name, and my father's memory, not a word of this writing must be breathed to my mother, or to Kitty, or to any human creature. You agree in this ? " " I don't know what they'll think of us below," said the captain, " but for certain I can't oppose it. Now, as to tracing. How will you do ? " They both, as by consent, bent over the paper again, and again carefully puzzled out the whole of the writing. " I make out that this would stand, if all the writing was here, ' Inquire among the old men living there, for ' — some one. Most like, you'll go to this village named here ? " said the captain, musing, with his finger on the name. " Yes ! And Mr. Tregarthen is a Cornishman, and — to be sure ! — comes from Lanrean." " Does he 1 " said the captain quietly. " As I ain't acquainted with him, who may he be ? " " Mr. Tregarthen is Kitty's father." " Ay, ay ! " cried the captain. " Now you speak ! Tregarthen knows this village of Lanrean, then?" " Beyond all doubt he does. I have often heard him mention it, as being his native place. He knows it well." "Stop half a moment," said the captain. "We want a name here. You could ask Tregarthen (or if you couldn't I could) what 246 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. names of old men he remembers in his time in those diggings? Hey?" " I can go straight to his cottage, and ask him now." " Take me with you," said the captain, rising in a solid way that had a most comfortable reliability in it, " and just a word more first. I have knocked about harder than you, and have got along further than you. I have had, all my sea-going life long, to keep my wits polished bright with acid and friction, like the brass cases of the ship's instruments. I'll keep you company on this expedition. Now you don't live by talking any more than I do. Clench that hand of yours in this hand of mine, and that's a speech on both sides." Captain Jorgan took command of the expedition with that hearty shake. He at once refolded the paper exactly as before, replaced it in the bottle, put the stopper in, put the oilskin over the stopper, confided the whole to Young Raybrock's keeping, and led the way down-stairs. But it was harder navigation below-stairs than above. The instant they set foot in the parlour the quick, womanly eye de- tected that there was something wrong. Kitty exclaimed, fright- ened, as she ran to her lover's side, " Alfred ! What's the matter?" Mrs. Raybrock cried out to the captain, "Gracious! what have you done to my son to change him like this all in a minute ? " And the young widow — who was there with her work upon her arm — was at first so agitated that she frightened the little girl she held in her hand, who hid her face in her mother's skirts and screamed. The captain, conscious of being held responsible for this domestic change, contemplated it with quite a guilty expression of counte- nance, and looked to the young fisherman to come to his rescue. "Kitty, darling," said Young Raybrock, "Kitty, dearest love, I must go away to Lanrean, and I don't know where else or how much further, this very day. Worse than that — our marriage, Kitty, must be put off, and I don't know for how long." Kitty stared at him, in doubt and wonder and in anger, and pushed him from her with her hand. " Put off ? " cried Mrs. Raybrock. " The marriage put off ? And you going to Lanrean ! Why, in the name of the dear Lord ? " " Mother dear, I can't say why; I must not say why. It would be dishonourable and undutiful to say why." " Dishonourable and undutiful ? " returned the dame. " And is there nothing dishonourable or undutiful in the boy's breaking the heart of his own plighted love, and his mother's heart too, for the sake of the dark secrets and counsels of a wicked stranger ? Why did you ever come here ? " she apostrophised the innocent captain. A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 247 " Who wanted you 1 Where did you come from ? Why couldn't you rest in your own bad place, wherever it is, instead of disturb- ing the peace of quiet unotfendiug folk like us ? " " And what," sobbed the poor little Kitty, "have I ever done to you, you hard and cruel captain, that you should come and serve me so?" And then they both began to weep most pitifully, while the cap- tain could only look from the one to the other, and lay hold of him- self by the coat collar. "Margaret," said the poor young fisherman, on his knees at Kitty's feet, while Kitty kept both her hands before her tearful face, to shut out the traitor from her view, — but kept her fingers wide asunder and looked at him all the time, — " Margaret, you have suffered so much, so uncomplainingly, and are always so careful and considerate ! Do take my part, for poor Hugh's sake ! " The quiet Margaret was not appealed to in vain. " I will, Alfred," she returned, " and I do. I wish this gentleman had never come near us ; " whereupon the captain laid hold of himself the tighter ; " but I take your part for all that. I am sure you have some strong reason and some sufficient reason for what you do, strange as it is, and even for not saying why you do it, strange as that is. And, Kitty darling, you are bound to think so more than any one, for true love believes everything, and bears everything, and trusts everything. And, mother dear, you are bound to think so too, for you know you have been blest with good sons, whose word was always as good as their oath, and who were brought up in as true a sense of honour as any gentleman in this land. And I am sure you have no more call, mother, to doubt your living sou than to doubt your dead son; and for the sake of the dear dead, I stand up for the dear living." " Wa'al now," the captain struck in, with enthusiasm, " this I say, That whether your opinions flatter me or not, you are a young woman of sense, and spirit, and feeling ; and I'd sooner have you by my side, in the hour of danger, than a good half of the men I've ever fallen in with — or fallen out with, ayther." Margaret did not return the captain's compliment, or appear fully to reciprocate his good opinion, but she applied herself to the conso- lation of Kitty, and of Kitty's mother-in-law that was to have been next Monday week, and soon restored the parlour to a quiet con- dition. " Kitty, my darling," said the young fisherman, " I must go to your father to entreat him still to trust me in spite of this wretched change and mystery, and to ask him for some directions concerning Lanrean. Will you come home ? Will you come with me, Kitty?" 248 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. Kitty answered not a word, but rose sobbing, with the end of her simple head-dress at her eyes. Captain Jorgan followed the lovers out, quite sheepishly, pausing in the shojD to give an instruc- tion to Mr. Pettifer. " Here, Tom ! " said the captain, in a low voice. " Here's some- thing in your line. Here's an old lady poorly and low in her spirits. Cheer her up a bit, Tom. Cheer 'em all up." Mr. Pettifer, with a brisk nod of intelligence, immediately as- sumed his steward face, and went with his quiet, helpful, steward step into the parlour, where the captain had the great satisfaction of seeing him, through the glass door, take the child in his arms (who offered no objection), and bend over Mrs. Ray brock, adminis- tering soft words of consolation. " Though what he finds to say, unless he's telling her that 't'll soon be over, or that most people is so at first, or that it'll do her good afterward, I cannot imaginate ! " was the captain's reflection as he followed the lovers. He had not far to follow them, since it was but a short descent down the stony ways to the cottage of Kitty's father. But short as the distance was, it was long enough to enable the captain to ob- serve that he w^as fast becoming the village Ogre ; for there was not a woman standing working at her door, or a fisherman coming up or going down, who saw Young Raybrock unhappy and little Kitty in tears, but he or she instantly darted a suspicious and indignant glance at the captain, as the foreigner who must somehow be re- sponsible for this unusual spectacle. Consequently, when they came into Tregarthen's little garden, — which formed the platform from which the captain had seen Kitty peeping over the wall, — the captain brought to, and stood off and on at the gate, while Kitty hurried to hide her tears in her own room, and Alfred spoke with her father, who was working in the garden. He was a rather in- firm man, but could scarcely be called old yet, with an agreeable face and a promising air of making the best of things. The con- versation began on his side wdth great cheerfulness and good humour, but soon became distrustful, and soon angry. That w^as the captain's cue for striking both into the conversation and the garden. " Morning, sir ! " said Captain Jorgan. " How do you do 1 " " The gentleman I am going away with," said the young fisher- man to Tregarthen. " ! " returned Kitty's father, surveying the unfortunate captain with a look of extreme disfavour. " I confess that I can't say I am glad to see you." "No," said the captain, "and, to admit the truth, that seems to A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 249 be the general opinion in these parts. But don't be hasty ; you may think better of me by-and-bye." " I hope so," observed Tregarthen. "Wa'al, / hope so," observed the captain, quite at his ease; "more than that, I believe so, — though you don't. Now, Mr. Tregarthen, you don't want to exchange words of mistrust with me ; and if you did, you couldn't, because I wouldn't. You and I are old enough to know better than to judge against experience from surfaces and appearances ; and if you haven't lived to find out the evil and injustice of such judgments, you are a lucky man." The other seemed to shrink under this remark, and replied, " Sir, I have lived to feel it deeply." " Wa'al," said the captain, mollified, " then I've made a good cast without knowing it. Now, Tregarthen, there stands the lover of your only child, and here stand I who know his secret. I war- rant it a righteous secret, and none of his making, though bound to be of his keeping. I want to help him out with it, and tewwards that end we ask you to favour us with the names of two or three old residents in the village of Lanrean. As I am taking out my pocket-book and pencil to put the names down, I may as well ob- serve to you that this, wrote atop of the first page here, is my name and address : ' Silas Jonas Jorgan, Salem, Massachusetts, United States.' If ever you take it in your head to run over any morning, I shall be glad to welcome you. Now, what may be the spelling of these said names 1 " "There was an elderly man," said Tregarthen, "named David Polreath. He may be dead." "Wa'al," said the captain, cheerfully, "if Polreath's dead and buried, and can be made of any service to us, Polreath won't object to our digging of him up. Polreath's down, anyhow." " There was another named Penrewen. I don't know his Chris- tian name." " Never mind bis Chris'en name," said the captain. " Penrewen, for short." " There was another named John Tredgear." "And a pleasant-sounding name, too," said the captain; "John Tredgear's booked." " I can recall no other except old Parvis." "One of old Parvis's fam'ly I reckon," said the captain, "kept a dry-goods store in New York city, and realised a handsome compe- tency by burning his house to ashes. Same name, anyhow. David Pol- reath, IFnchris'en Penrewen, John Tredgear, and old Arson Parvis." " I cannot recall any others at the moment." "Thank'ee," said the captain. "And so, Tregarthen, hoping 250 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. for your good opinion yet, and likewise for the fair Devonshire Flower's, your daughter's, I give you my hand, sir, and wish you good day." Young Raybrock accompanied him disconsolately ; for there was no Kitty at the window when he looked up, no Kitty in the garden when he shut the gate, no Kitty gazing after them along the stony ways when they began to climb back. "Now I tell you what," said the captain. "Xot being at pres- ent calc'lated to promote harmony in your family, I won't come in. You go and get your dinner at home, and I'll get mine at the little hotel. Let our hour of meeting be two o'clock, and you'll find me smoking a cigar in the sun afore the hotel door. TeU Tom Pettifer, my steward, to consider himself on duty, and to look after your people till we come back ; you'll find he'll have made himself use- ful to 'em already, and will be quite acceptable." All was done as Captain Jorgan directed. Punctually at two o'clock the young fisherman appeared with his knapsack at his back ; and punctually at two o'clock the captain jerked away the last feather-end of his cigar. " Let me carry your baggage. Captain Jorgan ; I can easily take it with mine." " Thank'ee," said the captain. " I'll carry it myself. It's only a comb." They climbed out of the village, and paused among the trees and fern on the summit of the hill above, to take breath, and to look down at the beautiful sea. Suddenly the captain gave his leg a resounding slap, and cried, " Never knew such a right thing in all my life ! " — and ran away. The cause of this abrupt retirement on the part of the captain was little Kitty among the trees. The captain went out of sight and waited, and kept out of sight and waited, until it occurred to him to beguile the time with another cigar. He lighted it, and smoked it out, and still he was out of sight and waiting. He stole within sight at last, and saw the lovers, with their arms entwined and their bent heads touching, moving slowly among the trees. It was the golden time of the afternoon then, and the captain said to himself, "Golden sun, golden sea, golden sails, golden leaves, golden love, golden youth, — a golden state of things altogether ! " Nevertheless the captain found it necessary to hail his young companion before going out of sight again. In a few moments more he came up and they began their journey. "That still young woman with the fatherless child," said Cap- tain Jorgan, as they fell into step, " didn't throw her words away ; but good honest words are never thrown away. And now that I A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 251 am conveying you off from that tender little thing that loves, and relies, and hopes, I feel just as if I was the snarling crittur in the picters, with the tight legs, the long nose, and the feather in his cap, the tips of whose moustaches get up nearer to his eyes the wickeder he gets." The young fisherman knew nothing of Mephistopheles ; but he smiled when the captain stopped to double himself up and slap his leg, and they went along in right goodfellowship. Chapter III. THE CLUB-NIGHT. A CoENiSH Moor, when the east wind drives over it, is as cold and rugged a scene as a traveller is likely to find in a year's travel. A Cornish Moor in the dark is as black a solitude as the traveller is likely to wish himself well out of, in the course of a life's wander- ings. A Cornish Moor in a night fog, is a wilderness where the traveller needs to know his way well, or the chances are very strong that his life and his wanderings will soon perplex him no more. Captain Jorgan and the young fisherman had faced the east and the south-east winds, from the first rising of the sun after their departure from the village of Steepways. Thrice had the sun risen, and still all day long had the sharp wind blown at them like some malevolent spirit bent on forcing them back. But, Captain Jorgan was too familiar with all the winds that blow, and too much accustomed to circumvent their slightest weaknesses and get the better of them in the long run, to be beaten by any member of the airy family. Taking the year round, it was his opinion that it mattered little what wind blew, or how hard it blew; so, he was as indifferent to the wind on this occasion as a man could be who frequently observed "that it freshened him up," and who re- garded it in the light of an old acquaintance. One might have supposed from his way, that there was even a kind of fraternal understanding between Captain Jorgan and the wind, as between two professed fighters often opposed to one another. The young fisherman, for his part, was accustomed within his narrower limits to hold hard weather cheap, and had his anxious object before him ; so, the wind went by him too, little heeded, and went upon its way to kiss Kitty. Their varied course had lain by the side of the sea where the brown rocks cleft it into fountains of spray, and inland where once 252 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. barren moors were reclaimed and cultivated, and by lonely villages of poor-enough cabins with mud walls, and by a town or two with an old church and a market-place. But, always travelling through a sparely inhabited country and over a broad expanse, they had come at last upon the true Cornish Moor within reach of Lanrean. None but gaunt spectres of miners passed them here, with metallic masks of faces, ghastly with dust of copper and tin ; anon, solitary works on remote hill-tops, and bare machinery of torturing wheels and cogs and chains, writhing up hill-sides were the few scattered hints of human presence in the landscape ; during long intervals, the bitter wind, howling and tearing at them like a fierce wild, monster, had them all to itself. "A sing'lar thing it is," said the captain, looking round at th^ brown desert of rank grass and poor moss, " how like this airtl is, to the men that live upon it ! Here's a spot of country ricl with hidden metals, and it puts on the worst rags of clothes possi- ble, and crouches and shivers and makes believe to be so poor, that it can't so much as afford a feed for a beast. Just like a human miser, ain't it 1 " "But they find the miser out," returned the young fisherman, pointing to where the earth by the watercourses and along the valleys was turned up, for miles, in trying for metal. "Ay, they find him out," said the captain; "but he makes a struggle of it even then, and holds back all he can. He's a 'cute 'un." The gloom of evening was already gathering on the dreary scene, and they were, at the shortest and best, a dozen miles from their destination. But, the captain, in his long-skirted blue coat and his boots and his hat and his square shirt-collar, and without any extra defence against the weather, walked coolly along with his hands in his pockets : as if he lived underground somewhere hard by, and had just come up to show his friend the road. " I'd have liked to have had a look at this place too," said the captain. " When there was a monstrous sweep of water rolling over it, dragging the powerful great stones along and piling 'em atop of one another, and depositing the foundations for all manner of superstitions. Bless you ! the old priests, smart mechanical critturs as they were, never piled up many of these stones. Water's the lever that moved 'em. When you see 'em thick and blunt tewwards one point of the compass, and fined away thin tewwards the opposite point, you may be as good as moral sure that the name of the ancient Druid that fixed 'em was Water." The captain referred to some great blocks of stone presenting this characteristic, which were wonderfully balanced and heaped A MESSAGE PEOM THE SEA. 253 on one another, on a desolate hill. Looking back at these, as they stood out against the lurid glare of the west, just then expiring, they were not unlike enormous antediluvian birds, that had perched there on crags and peaks, and had been petrified there. " But it's an interesting country," said the captain, — "fact ! It's old in the annals of that said old Arch Druid, Water, and it's old in the annals of the said old parson-critturs too. It's a mighty interesting thing to set your boot (as I did this day) on a rough honey-combed old stone, with just nothing you can name but weather visible upon it : which the scholars that go about with hammers, chipping pieces off" the universal airth, find to be an in- scription, entreating prayers for the soul of some for-ages-bust-up crittur of a governor that over-taxed a people never heard of." Here the captain stopped to slap his leg. " It's a mighty inter- esting thing to come upon a score or two of stones set up on end in a desert, some short, some tall, some leaning here, some lean- ing there, and to know that they were pop'larly supposed — and may be still — to be a group of Cornishmen that got changed into that geological formation for playing a game upon a Sunday. They wouldn't have it in my country, I reckon, even if they could get it — but it's very interesting." In this, the captain, though it amused him, was quite sincere. Quite as sincere as when he added, after looking well about him : " That fog-bank coming up as the sun goes down, will spread, and we shall have to feel our way into Lanrean full as much as see it." All the way along, the young fisherman had spoken at times to the captain, of his interrupted hopes, and of the family good name, and of the restitution that must be made, and of the cherished plans of his heart so near attainment, which must be set aside for it. In his simple faith and honour, he seemed incapable of enter- taining the idea that it was within the bounds of possibility to evade the doing of what their inquiries should establish to be right. This was very agreeable to Captain Jorgan, and won his genuine admiration. Wherefore, he now turned the discourse back into that channel, and encouraged his companion to talk of Kitty, and to calculate how many years it would take, without a share in the fishery, to establish a home for her, and to relieve his honest heart by dwelling on its anxieties. Meanwhile, it fell very dark, and the fog became dense, though the wind howled at them and bit them as savagely as ever. The captain had carefully taken the bearings of Lanrean from the map, and carried his pocket compass with him ; the young fisherman, too, possessed that kind of cultivated instinct for shaping a course, which is often found among men of such pursuits. But, although 254 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. they held a true course in the main, and corrected it when they lost the road by the aid of the compass and a light obtained with great difficulty in the roomy depths of the captain's hat, they could not help losing the road often. On such occasions they would be- come involved in the diflficult ground of the spongy moor, and, after making a laborious loop, would emerge upon the road, at some point they had passed before they left it, and thus would have a good deal of work to do twice over. But the young fisherman was not easily lost, and the captain (and his comb) would probably have turned up, with perfect coolness and self-possession, at any ap- pointed spot on the surface of this globe. Consequently, they were no more than retarded in their progress to Lanrean, and arrived in that small place at nine o'clock. By that time, the captain's hat had fallen back over his ears and rested on the nape of his neck ; but he still had his hands in his pockets, and showed no other sign of dilapidation. They had almost run against a low stone house with red-curtained windows, before they knew they had hit upon the little hotel, the King Arthur's Arms. They could just descry through the mist, on the opposite side of the narrow road, other low stone buildings which were its outhouses and stables ; and somewhere overhead, its invisible sign was being wrathful] y swung by the wind. " Now, wait a bit," said the captain. " They might be full here, or they might ofi'er us cold quarters. Consequently, the policy is to take an observation, and, when we've found the warmest room, walk right slap into it." The warmest room was evidently that from which fire and can- dle streamed reddest and brightest, and from which the sound of voices engaged in some discussion came out into the night. Cap- tain Jorgan having established the bearings of this room, merely said to his young friend, " Follow me ! " and was in it before King Arthur's Arms had any notion that they enfolded a stranger. " Order, order, order ! " cried several voices, as the captain, with his hat under his arm, stood within the door he had opened. " Gentlemen," said the captain, advancing, " I am much beholden to you for the opportunity you give me of addressing you ; but will not detain you with any lengthened observations. I have the hon- our to be a cousin of yours on the Uncle Sam side; this young friend of mine is a nearer relation of yours on the Devonshire side ; we are both pretty nigh used up, and much in want of supper. I thank you for your welcome, and I am proud to take you by the hand, sir, and I hope I see you well." The last words were addressed to a jolly-looking chairman with a wooden hammer near him; which, but for the captain's A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 265 friendly grasp, he would have taken up, and hammered the table with. " How do you o?o, sir ? " said the captain, shaking this chairman's hand with the greatest heartiness, while his new friend ineffectually eyed his hammer of office ; " when you come to my country, I shall be proud to return your welcome, sir, and that of this good company." The captain now took his seat near the fire, and invited his companion to do the like — whom he congratulated aloud, on their having — "fallen on their feet." The company, who might be about a dozen in number, were at a loss what to make of, or do with, the captaili. But, one little old man in long flapping shirt collars, who, with only his face and them visible through a cloud of tobacco smoke, looked like a super- annuated Cherubim, said sharply : " This is a Club." "This is a Club," the captain repeated to his young friend. " Wa'al now, that's curious ! Didn't I say, coming along, if we could only light upon a Club? " The captain's doubling himself up, and slapping his leg, finished the chairman. He had been softening towards the captain from the first, and he melted. "Gentlemen King Arthurs," said he, rising, "though it is not the custom to admit strangers, still, as we have broken the rule once to-night, I will exert my authority and break it again. And while the supper of these travellers is cooking ; " here his eye fell on the landlord, who discreetly took the hint and withdrew to see about it ; "I will recall you to the subject of the seafaring man." " D'ye hear !" said the captain, aside to the young fisherman; " that's in our way. Who's the seafaring man, I wonder?" " I see several old men here," returned the young fisherman, eagerly, for his thoughts were always on his object. " Perhaps one or more of the old men whose names you wrote down in your book, may be here." " Perhaps," said the captain ; " I've got my eye on 'em. But don't force it. Try if it won't come nat'ral." Thus the two, behind their hands, while they sat warming them at the fire. Simultaneously, the Club beginning to be at its ease again, and resuming the discussion of the seafaring man, the cap- tain winked to his fellow-traveller to let him attend to it. As it was a kind of conversation not altogether unprecedented in such assemblages, where most of those who spoke at all, spoke all at once, and where half of those could put no beginning to what they had to say, and the other half could put no end, the tendency of the debate was discursive, and not very intelligible. All the cap- 256 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. tain had made out, down to the time when the separate little table laid for two was covered with a smoking broiled fowl and rashers of bacon reduced itself to these heads. That, a seafaring man had arrived at the King Arthur's Arms, benighted, an hour or so earlier in the evening. That, the Gentlemen King Arthurs had admitted him, though all unknown, into the sanctuary of their Club. That, they had invited him to make his footing good by telling a story. That, he had, after some pressing, begun a story of adventure and shipwreck ; at an interesting point of which he suddenly broke off, and positively refused to finish. That, he had thereupon taken up a candlestick, and gone to bed, and was now the sole occupant of a double-bedded room up-stairs. The question raised on these prem- ises, appeared to be, whether the seafaring man was not in a state of contumacy and contempt, and ought not to be formally voted and declared in that condition. This deliberation involved the difficulty (suggested by the more jocose and irreverent of the Gentlemen King Arthurs) that it might make no sort of dift'erence to the sea- faring man whether he was so voted and declared, or not. Captain Jorgan and the young fisherman ate their supper and drank their beer, and their knives and forks had ceased to rattle and their glasses had ceased to clink, and still the discussion showed no symptoms of coming to any conclusion. But, when they had left their little supper-table and had returned to their seats by the fire, the chairman hammered himself into attention, and thus outspake. " Gentlemen King Arthurs ; when the night is so bad without, harmony should prevail within. When the moor is so windy, cold, and bleak, this room should be cheerful, convivial, and entertaining. Gentlemen, at present it is neither the one, nor yet the other, nor yet the other. Gentlemen King Arthurs, I recall you to yourselves. Gentlemen King Arthurs, what are you 1 You are inhabitants — old inhabitants — of the noble village of Lanrean. You are in council assembled. You are a monthly Club through all the winter months, and they are many. It is your perroud perrivilege, on a new member's entrance, or on a member's birthday, to call upon that member to make good his footing by relating to you some transac- tion or adventure in his life, or in the life of a relation, or in the life of a friend, and then to depute me as your representative to spin a teetotum to pass it round. Gentlemen King Arthurs, your perroud perrivileges shall not suff'er in my keeping. N-no ! Therefore, as the member whose birthday the present occasion has the honour to be, has gratified you ; and as the seafaring man overhead has not gratified you ; I start you fresh, by spinning the teetotum attached to my office, and calling on the gentleman it fidls to, to speak up when his name is declared." A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 257 The captain and his young friend looked hard at the teetotum as it whirled rapidly, and harder still when it gradually became intoxi- cated and began to stagger about the table in an ill-conducted and disorderly manner. Finally, it came into collision with a candle- stick and leaped against the pipe of the old gentleman with the flap- ping shirt collars. Thereupon, the chairman struck the table once with his hammer and said : " Mr. Parvis ! " "D'ye hear that?" whispered the captain, greatly excited, to the young fisherman. "I'd have laid you a thousand dollars a good half hour ago, that that old cherubim in the, clouds was Arson Parvis ! " The respectable personage in question, after turning up one eye to assist his memory — at which time, he bore a very striking resem- blance indeed to the conventional representations of his race as exe- cuted in oil by various ancient masters — commenced a narrative, of which the interest centred in a waistcoat. It appeared that the waistcoat was a yellow waistcoat with a green stripe, white sleeves, and a plain brass button. It also appeared that the waistcoat was made to order by Nicholas Pendold of Penzance, who was thrown off the top of a four-horse coach coming down the hill on the Ply- mouth road, and pitching on his head where he was not sensitive, lived two-and-thirty years afterwards, and considered himself the better for the accident — roused up, as it might be. It further ap- peared that the waistcoat belonged to Mr. Parvis's father, and had once attended him, in company with a pair of gaiters, to the annual feast of miners at Saint Just; where the extraordinary circumstance which ever afterwards rendered it a waistcoat famous in story had occurred. But, the celebrity of the waistcoat was not thoroughly accounted for by Mr. Parvis, and had to be to some extent taken on trust by the company, in consequence of that gentleman's entirely forgetting all about the extraordinary circumstance that had handed it down to fame. Indeed, he was even unable, on a gentle cross- examination instituted for the assistance of his memory, to inform the Gentlemen King Arthurs whether it was a circumstance of a natural or supernatural character. Having thus responded to the teetotum, Mr. Parvis, after looking out from his clouds as if he would like to see the man who would beat that, subsided into him- self The fraternity were plunged into a blank condition by Mr. Parvis's success, and the chairman was about to try another spin, when young Raybrock — whom Captain Jorgan had with difficulty restrained — rose, and said might he ask Mr. Parvis a question. The Gentlemen King Arthurs holding, with loud cries "Order!" 258 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. that he might not, he asked the question as soon as he could pos- sibly make himself heard. Did the forgotten circumstance relate in any way to money? To a sum of money, such as five hundred pounds? To money supposed by its possessor to be honestly come by, but in reality ill-gotten and stolen ? A general surprise seized upon the Club when this remarkable inquiry was preferred ; which would have become resentment but for the captain's interposition. "Strange as it sounds," said he, "and suspicious as it sounds, I pledge myself, gentlemen, that my young friend here has a manly stand-up Cornish reason for his words. Also, I pledge my- self that they are inoffensive words. He and I are searching for information on a subject which those words generally describe. Such information we may get from the honestest and best of men — may get, or not get, here or anywhere about here. I hope the Honourable Mr. Arson — I ask his pardon — Parvis — will not object to quiet my young friend's mind by saying Yes or No." After some time, the obtuse Mr. Parvis was with great trouble and diflSculty induced to roar out " No ! " For which concession the captain rose and thanked him. "Now, listen to the next," whispered the captain to the young fisherman. " There may be more in him than in the other crittur. Don't interrupt him. Hear him out." The chairman with all due formality spun the teetotum, and it reeled into the brandy-and-water of a strong brown man of sixty or so : John Tredgear : the manager of a neighbouring mine. He immediately began as follows, with a plain business-like air that gradually warmed as he proceeded. The chairman now announced that the clock declared the teeto- tum spun out, and that the meeting was dissolved. Yet even then, the young fisherman could not refrain from once more asking his question. This occasioned the Gentlemen King Arthurs, as they got on their hats and great-coats, evidently to regard him as a young fisherman who was touched in his head, and some of them even cherished the idea that the captain was his keeper. As no man dared to awake the mighty Parvis, it was resolved that a heavy member of the society should fall against him as it were by accident, and immediately withdraw to a safe distance. The experiment was so happily accomplished, that Mr. Parvis started to his feet on the best terms with himself, as a light sleeper whose wits never left him, and who could always be broad awake A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 259 on occasion. Quite an airy jocundity sat upon this respectable man in consequence. And he rallied the briskest member of the fraternity on being "a sleepy-head," with an amount of humour previously supposed to be quite incompatible with his responsible circumstances in life. Gradually, the society departed into the cold night, and the cap- tain and his young companion were left alone. The captain had so refreshed himself by shaking hands with everybody, to an amaz- ing extent, that he was in no hurry to go to bed. "To-morrow morning," said the captain, "we must find out the lawyer and the clergyman here ; they are the people to consult on our business. And I'll be up and out early, aad asking questions of everybody I see ; thereby propagating at least one of the Insti- tutions of my native country." As the captain was slapping his leg, the landlord appeared with two small candlesticks. "Your room," said he, "is at the top of the house. An excel- lent bed, but you'll hear the wind." " I've heerd it afore," replied the captain. " Come and make a passage with me, and you shall hear it." "It's considered to blow, here," said the landlord. " Weather gets its young strength here," replied the captain ; " goes into training for the Atlantic Ocean. Yours are little winds just beginning to feel their way and crawl. Make a voyage with me, and I'll show you a grown-up one out on business. But you haven't told my friend where he lies." " It's the room at the head of the stairs, before you take the second staircase through the wall," returned the landlord. "You can't mistake it. It's a double-bedded room, because there's no other." "The room where the seafaring man is," said the captain. "The room where the seafaring man is." " I hope he mayn't finish telling his story in his sleep," remarked the captain. "Shall / turn into the room where the seafaring man is, Alfred ? " " No, Captain Jorgan, why should you ? There would be little fear of his waking me, even if he told his whole story out." " He's in the bed nearest the door," said the landlord. " I've been in to look at him, once, and he's sound enough. Good night, gentlemen." The captain immediately shook hands with the landlord in quite an enthusiastic manner, and having performed that national cere- mony, as if he had had no opportunity of performing it for a long time, accompanied his young friend up-stairs. 260 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. " Something tells me," said the captain as they went, " that Miss Kitty Tregarthen's marriage ain't put off for long, and that we shall light on what we want." "I hope so. When, do you think?" " Wa'al, I couldn't just say when, but soon. Here's your room," said the captain, softly opening the door and looking in ; " and here's the berth of the seafaring man. I wonder what like he is. He breathes deep : don't he ? " " Sleeping like a child, to judge from the sound," said the young fisherman. " Dreaming of home, maybe," returned the captain. " Can't see him. Sleeps a deal more wholesomely than Arson Parvis, but a'most as sound; don't he? Good night, fellow-traveller." " Good-night, Captain Jorgan, and many, many thanks." "I'll wait till I 'arn 'em, boy, afore I take 'em," returned the captain, clapping him cheerfully on the back. " Pleasant dreams of — you know who ? " When the young fisherman had closed the door, the captain waited a moment or two, listening for any stir on the part of the unknown seafaring man. But, none being audible, the captain pursued the way to his own chamber. Chapter IV. THE SEAFAEING MAN. Who was the seafaring man ? And what might he have to say for himself ? He answers those questions in his own words : I begin by mentioning what happened on my journey, north- wards, from Falmouth in Cornwall, to Steepways in Devonshire. I have no occasion to say (being here) that it brought me last night to Lanrean. I had business in hand which was part very serious, and part (as I hoped) very joyful — and this business, you will please to remember, was the cause of my journey. After landing at Falmouth, I travelled on foot ; because of the expense of riding, and because I had anxieties heavy on my mind, and walking was the best way I knew of to lighten them. The first two days of my journey the weather was fine and soft, the wind being mostly light airs from south, and south and by west. On the third day, I took a wrong turning, and had to fetch a long circuit to get right again. Towards evening, while I was still on the road, the wind shifted ; and a sea-fog came rolling in on the land. I went on through what I ask leave to call, the white dark- A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 261 ness ; keeping the sound of the sea on my left hand for a guide, and feeling those anxieties of mine before mentioned, pulling heavier and heavier at my mind, as the fog thickened and the wet trickled down my face. It was still early in the evening, when I heard a dog bark, away in the distance, on the right-hand side of me. Following the sound as well as I could, and shouting to the dog, from time to time, to set him barking again, I stumbled up at last against the back of a house ; and, hearing voices inside, groped my way round to the door, and knocked on it smartly with the flat of my hand. The door was opened by a slip-slop young hussy in a torn gown ; and the first inquiries I made of her discovered to me that the house was an inn. Before I could ask more questions, the landlord opened the par- lour door of the inn and came out. A clamour of voices, and a fine comforting smell of fire and grog and tobacco, came out, also, along with him. "The taproom fire's out," says the landlord. "You don't think you would dry more comfortable like, if you went to bed ? " says he, looking hard at me. "No," says I, looking hard at him; "I don't." Before more words were spoken, a jolly voice hailed us from inside the parlour. "What's the matter, landlord? " says the jolly voice. "Who is it?" " A seafaring man, by the looks of him," says the landlord, turn- ing round from me, and speaking into the parlour. " Let's have the seafaring man in," says the voice. " Let's vote him free of the Club, for this night only." A lot of other voices thereupon said, " Hear ! hear ! " in a solemn manner, as if it was church service. After which there was a hammering, as if it was a trunk-maker's shop. After which the landlord took me by the arm ; gave me a push into the parlour ; and there I was, free of the Club. The change from the fog outside to the warm room and the shining candles so completely dazed me, that I stood blinking at the company more like an owl than a man. Upon which the company again said, " Hear ! hear ! " Upon which I returned for answer, " Hear ! hear ! " — considering those words to mean, in the Club's language, something similar to " How-d'ye-do." The landlord then took me to a round table by the fire, where I got my supper, together with the information that my bedroom, when I wanted it, was number four, up-stairs. I noticed before I fell to with my knife and fork that the room was full, and that the chairman at the top of the table was the 262 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. man with the jolly voice, and was seemingly amusing the company by telling them a story. I paid more attention to my supper than to what he was saying ; and all I can now report of it is, that his story-telling and my eating and drinking both came to an end together. " Now," says the chairman, " I have told my story to start you all. Who comes next 1 " He took up a teetotum, and gave it a spin on the table. When it toppled over, it fell opposite me ; upon which the chairman said, " It's your turn next. Order ! order ! I call on the seafaring man to tell the second story ! " He finished the words off with a knock of his hammer ; and the Club (having nothing else to say, as I suppose) tried back, and once again sang out all together, "Hear! hear!" "I hope you will please to let me off," I said to the chairman, "for the reason that I have got no story to tell." " No story to tell ! " says he. "A sailor without a story ! Who ever heard of such a thing 1 Nobody ! " "Nobody," says the Club, bursting out all together at last with a new word, by way of a change. I can't say I quite relished the chairman's talking of me as if I was before the mast, A man likes his true quality to be known, when he is publicly spoken to among a party of strangers. I made my true quality known to the chairman and company, in these words. "All men who follow the sea, gentlemen, are sailors," I said. " But there's degrees aboard ship as well as ashore. My rating, if you please, is the rating of a second mate." "Ay, ay, surely?" says the chairman. "Where did you leave your ship 1 " "At the bottom of the sea," I made answer — which was, I am sorry to say, only too true. "What! you've been wrecked?" says he. "Tell us all about it. A shipwreck-story is just the sort of story we like. Silence there all down the table ! — silence for the second mate ! " The Club, upon this, instead of keeping silence, broke out vehe- mently with another new word, and said " Chair ! " After which every man suddenly held his peace, and looked at me. I did a very foolish thing. Without stopping to take counsel with myself, I started off at score, and did just what the chairman had bidden me. If they had waited the whole night long for it, I should never have told them the story they wanted from me at first, having all my life been a wretched bad hand at such matters — for the reason, as I take it, that a story is bound to be some- A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 263 thing which is not true. But when I found the company willing, on a sudden, to put up with nothing better than the account of my ship^\Teck (which is not a story at all), the unexpected luck of being let off with only telling the truth about myself, was too much of a temptation for me — so I up and told it. I got on well enough with the storm, and the striking of the vessel, and the strange chance, afterwards, which proved to be the saving of my life — the assembly all listening (to my great sur- prise) as if they had never heard anything of the sort before. But, when the necessity came next for going further than this, and for telling them what had happened to me after the saving of my life — or, to put it plainer, for telling them what' place I was cast away on, and what company I was cast away in — the words died straight off on my lips. For this reason — namely — that those particulars of my statement made up just that part of it which I couldn't, and durstn't, let out to strangers — no, not if every man among them had offered me a hundred pounds apiece, on the spot, to do it ! " Go on ! " says the chairman. "What happened next ! How did you get on shore 1 " Feeling what a fool I had been to run myself headlong into a scrape, for want of thinking before I spoke, I now cast about dis- creetly in my mind for the best means of finishing off-hand with- out letting out a word to the company concerning those particulars before mentioned. I was some little time before seeing my way to this ; keeping the chairman and company, all the while, waiting for an answer. The Club, losing patience in consequence, got from staring hard at me to drumming with their feet, and then to call- ing out lustily, "Go on! go on ! Chair! Order!" . . . and such like. In the midst of this childish hubbub, I saw my way to what I considered to be rather a neat finish — and got on my legs to ease them all off with it handsomely. " Hear ! hear ! " says the Club. " He's going on again at last." "Gentlemen!" I made answer; "with your permission I will now conclude by wishing you all good night." Saying which words, I gave them a friendly nod, to make things pleasant — and walked straight to the door. It's hardly to be believed — though nevertheless quite true — that these curious men all howled and groaned at me directly, as if I had done them some grievous in- jury. Thinking I would try to pacify them with their own fa- vourite catch-word, I said, " Hear ! hear ! " as civilly as might be, whereupon, they all returned for answer, " Oh ! oh ! " I never belonged to a Club of any kind, myself; and, after what I saw of that Club, I don't care if I never do. 264 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. My bedroom, when I found my way up to it, was large and airy enough, but not over-clean. There were two beds in it, not over- clean either. Both being empty, I had my choice. One was near the window, and one near the door. I thought the bed near the door looked a trifle the sweetest of the two ; and took it. After faUing asleep, it was the grey of the morning before I woke. When I had fairly opened my eyes and shook up my mem- ory into telling me where I was, I made two discoveries. First, that the room was a deal colder in the new morning, than it had been over night. Second, that the other bed near the window had got some one sleeping in it. Not that I could see the man from where I lay ; but I heard his breathing plain enough. He must have come up into the room, of course, after I had fallen asleep — and he had tumbled himself quietly into bed without disturbing me. There was nothing wonderful in that ; and nothing wonder- ful in the landlord letting the empty bed if he could find a customer for it. I turned, and tried to go to sleep again ; but I was out of sorts — out of sorts so badly, that even the breathing of the man in the other bed fretted and worried me. After tumbling and tossing for a quarter of an hour or more, I got up for a change ; and walked softly in my stockings, to the window, to look at the morning. The heavens were brightening into daylight, and the mists were blowing off, past the window, like puffs of smoke. When I got even with the second bed, I stopped to look at the man in it. He lay, sound asleep, turned towards the window; and the end of the counterpane was drawn up over the lower half of his face. Some- thing strack me, on a sudden, in his hair, and his forehead ; and, though not an inquisitive man by nature, I stretched out my hand to the end of the counterpane, in spite of myself. I uncovered his face softly ; and there, in the morning light, I saw my brother, Alfred Raybrock. What I ought to have done, or what other men might have done in my place, I don't know. What I really did, was to drop back a step — to steady myself, with my hand, on the sill of the window — and to stand so, looking at him. Three years ago, I had said good- bye to my wife, to my little child, to my old mother, and to brother Alfred here, asleep under my eyes. For all those three years, no news from me had reached them — and the underwriters, as I knew, must have long since reported that the ship I sailed in was lost, and that all hands on board had perished. My heart was heavy when I thought of my kindred at home, and of the weary time they must have waited and sorrowed before they gave me up for dead. Twice I reached out my hand to wake Alfred, and to ask him about A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 265 my wife and child ; and twice I drew it back again, in fear of what might happen if he saw me, standing by his bed-head in the grey morning like Hugh Raybrock risen up from the grave. I drew my hand back the second time, and waited a minute. In that minute he woke. I had not moved, or spoken a word, or touched him — I had only looked at him longingly. If such things could be, I should say it was my looking that woke him. His eyes, when they opened under mine, passed on a sudden from fast asleep to broad awake. They first settled on my face with a startled look — which passed directly. He lifted himself on his elbow, and opened his lips to speak, but never said a word. His' eyes strained and strained into mine ; and his face turned all over of a ghastly white. "Alfred ! " I said, "don't you know me ?" There seemed to be a deadly terror pent up in him, and I thought my voice might set it free. I took fast hold of him by the hands, and spoke again. "Alfred!" I said . . . Oh, sirs ! where can a man like me find words to tell all that was said and all that was thought between us two brothers 1 Please to pardon my not saying more of it than I say here. We sat down together side by side. The poor lad burst out crying — and got vent that way. I kept my hold of his hands, and waited a bit be- fore I spoke to him again. I think I was worst off", now, of the two — no tears came to help 7ne — I haven't got my brother's quickness, any way ; and my troubles have roughened and hard- ened me outside. But, God knows, I felt it keenly ; all the more keenly, maybe, because I was slow to show it. After a little, I put the questions to him which I had been long- ing to ask, from the time when I first saw his face on the pillow. Had they all given me up at home, for dead (I asked 1) Yes ; after long, long hoping, one by one they had given me up — my wife (God bless her !) last of all. I meant to ask next if my wife was alive and well ; but, try as I might, I could only say " Margaret ? " — and look hard in my brother's face. He knew what I meant. Yes (he said), she was living ; she was at home ; she was in her widow's weeds — poor soul ! her widow's weeds ! I got on better with my next question about the child. Was it born alive ? Yes. Boy or girl ! Girl. And living now; and much grown? Living surely, and grown — poor little thing, what a question to ask ! — grown of course, in three years. And mother ? Well, mother was a trifle fallen away, and more silent within herself than she used to be — fretting at times ; fretting (like my wife) on nights when the sea rose and the windows shook and shivered in the wind. Tlicrc- upon, my brother and I waited a bit again — I witli my questions, and he with his answers — and while we waited, I thanked God, in- 266 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. wardly, with all my heart and soul, for bringing me back, living, to wife and kindred, while wife and kindred were living too. My brother dried the tears off his face ; and looked at me a little. Then he turned aside suddenly, as if he remembered something; and stole his hand in a hurry, under the pillow of his bed. Noth- ing came out from below the pillow but his black neck-handkerchief, which he now unfolded slowly, looking at me, all the while, with something strange in his face that I couldn't make out. " What are you doing 1 " I asked him. " What are you looking at me like that for 1 " Instead of making answer, he took a crumpled morsel of paper out of his neck-handkerchief, opened it carefully, and held it to the light to let me see what it was. Lord in Heaven! — my own writing — the morsel of paper I had committed long, long since, to the mercy of the deep. Thousands and thousands of miles away, I had trusted that Message to the waters — and here it was now, in my brother's hands ! A chilly fear came over me at the seeing it again. Scrap of paper as it was, it looked to my eyes like the ghost of my own past self, gone home before me invisibly over the great wastes of the sea. My brother pointed down solemnly to the writing. " Hugh," he said, " were you in your right mind when you wrote those words ? " "Tell me, first," I made answer, "how and when the Message came to you. I can't quiet myself fit to talk till I know that." He told me how the paper had come to hand — also, how his good friend, the captain, having promised to help him, was then under the same roof with our two selves. But there he stopped. It was not till later in the day that I heard of what had happened (through this dreadful doubt about the money) in the matter of his sweetheart and his marriage. The knowledge that the Message had reached him by mortal means — on the word of a seaman, I half doubted it when I first set eyes on the paper ! — eased me in my mind ; and I now did my best to quiet Alfred in my turn. I told him that I was in my right senses, though sorely troubled, when my hand had written those words. Also, that where the writing was rubbed out, I could tell him for his necessary gl^idance and mine, what once stood in the empty places. Also, that I knew no more what the real truth might be than he did, till inquiry was made, and the slander on father's good name was dragged boldly into daylight to show itself for what it was worth. Lastly, that all the voyage home, there was one hope and one determination uppermost in my mind — the hope, that I might get safe to England, and find my wife and kin- A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 2G7 dred alive to take me back among them again — the determination that I would put the doubt about father's five hundred pounds to the proof, if ever my feet touched English land once more. " Come out with me now, Alfred," I said, after winding up as above ; " and let me tell you in the quiet of the morning how that Message came to be written and committed to the sea." We went down-stairs softly, and let ourselves out without dis- turbing any one. The sun was just rising when we left the village and took our way slowly over the clifts. As soon as the sea began to open on us, I returned to that tme story of mine which I had left but half told, the night before — and, this time, I went through with it to the end. I shipped, as you may remember (were my first words to Alfred), in a second mate's berth, on board the Peruvian, nine hundred tons' burden. We carried an assorted cargo, and we were bound round the Horn, to Truxillo and Guayaquil, on the western coast of South America. From this last port — namely, Guayaquil — we were to go back to Truxillo, and there to take in another cargo for the return voyage. Those were all the instructions communicated to me when I signed articles with the owners, in London city, three years ago. After we had been, I think, a week at sea, I heard from the first mate — who had himself heard it from the captain — that the supercargo we were taking with us, on the outward voyage, was to be left at Truxillo, and that another supercargo (also connected with our firm, and latterly employed by them as their foreign agent) was to ship with us at that port, for the voyage home. His name on the captain's instructions was, Mr. Lawrence Clissold. None of us had ever set eyes on him to our knowledge, and none of us knew more about him than what I have told you here. We had a wonderful voyage out — especially round the Horn. I never before saw such fair weather in that infernal latitude, and I never expect to see the like again. We followed our instructions to the letter ; discharging our cargo in fine condition, and returning to Truxillo to load again as directed. At this place, I was so un- fortunate as to be seized with the fever of the country, which laid me on my back, while we were in harbour ; and which only let me return to my duty after we had been ten days at sea, on the voyage home again. For this reason, the first morning when I was able to get on deck, was also the first time of my setting eyes on our new supercargo, Mr. Lawrence Clissold. I found him to be a long, lean, wiry man, with some complaint in his eyes which forced him to wear spectacles of blue glass. His age appeared to be fifty-six, or thereabouts; but he might well 268 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. have been more. There was not above a handful of grey hair, altogether, on his bald head — and, as for the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the sides of his mouth, if he could have had a pound apiece in his pocket for every one of them, he might have retired from business from that time forth. Judging by certain signs in his face, and by a suspicious morning-tremble in his hands, I set him down, in my own mind (rightly enough, as it afterwards turned out), for a drinker. In one word, I didn't like the looks of the new supercargo — and, on the first day when I got on deck, I found that he had reasons of his own for paying me back in my own coin, and not liking my looks, either. "I've been asking the captain about you," were his first words to me in return for my civilly wishing him good morning. "Your name's Raybrock, I hear. Are you any relation to the late Hugh Ray brock, of Barnstaple, Devonshire?" " Rather a near relation," I made answer. " I am the late Hugh Raybrock's eldest son." There was no telling how his eyes looked, because they were hidden by his blue spectacles — but I saw him wince at the mouth, when I gave him that reply. "Your father ended by failing in business, didn't he?" was the next question the supercargo put to me. " Who told you he failed ? " I asked, sharply enough. "Oh! I heard it," says Mr. Lawrence Chssold, both looking and speaking as if he was glad to have heard it, and he hoped it was true. "Whoever told you my father failed in business, told you a lie," I said. " His business fell off towards the last years of his life — I don't deny it. But every creditor he had was honestly paid at his death, without so much as touching the provision left for his widow and children. Please to mention that, next time you hear it reported that my father failed in business." Mr. Clissold grinned to himself — and I lost my temper. "I'll tell you what," I said to him, " I don't like your laughing to yourself, when I ask you to do justice to my father's memory — and, what is more, I didn't like the way you mentioned that report of his failing in business, just now. You looked as if you hoped it was true." " Perhaps I did," says Mr. CHssold, coolly. " Shall I tell you why ? When I was a young man, I was unlucky enough to owe your father some money. He was a merciless creditor, and he threatened me with a prison if the debt remained unpaid on the day when it was due. I have never forgotten that circumstance ; and I should certainly not have been sorry if your father's creditors A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 269 had giveu him a lesson in forbearance, by treating him as harshly as he once treated me." "My father had a right to ask for his own," I broke out. " If you owed him the money and didn't pay it " " I never told you I didn't pay it," says Mr. Clissold, as coolly as ever. "Well, if you did pay it," I put in, "then, you didn't go to prison — and you have no cause of complaint now. My father wronged nobody ; and I won't believe he ever wronged you. He was a just man in all his dealings ; and whoe^r tells me to the contrary — " '' That will do," says Mr. Clissold, backing away to the cabin stairs. "You seem to have not quite got over your fever yet. I'll leave you to air yourself in the sea-breezes, Mr. Second Mate ; and I'll receive your excuses when you are cool enough to make them." "It is a son's business to defend his father's character," I answered ; " and cool or hot, I'll leave the ship sooner than ask your pardon for doing my duty." "You will leave the ship," says the supercargo, quietly going down into the cabin. " You will leave at the next port, if I have any interest with the captain." That was how Mr. Clissold and I scraped acquaintance on the first day when we met together. And as we began, so we went on to the end. But, though he persecuted me in almost every other way, he did not anger me again about my father's affairs : he seemed to have dropped talking of them at once and for ever. On my side, I nevertheless bore in mind what he had said to me, and determined, if I got home safe, to go to the lawyer at Barnstaple who keeps father's old books and letters for us, and see what information they might give on the subject of Mr. Lawrence Clissold. I, myself, had never heard his name mentioned at home — father (as you know, Alfred) being always close about business-matters, and mother never troubling him with idle questions about his affairs. But it was likely enough that he and Mr. Clissold might have been concerned in money-matters, in past years, and that Mr. Clissold might have tried to cheat him, and failed. I rather hoped it might prove to be so -*— for the truth is, the supercargo provoked me past all endurance ; and I hated him as heartily as he hated me. All this while the ship was making such a speedy voyage down the coast, that we began to think we were carrying back with us the fine weather we had brought out. But, on nearing Cape Horn, the signs and tokens appeared which told us that our run of luck was at an end. Down went the barometer, lower and lower ; and up got the wind, in the northerly quarter, higher and higher. This 270 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. happened towards nightfall — and at daybreak next day, we found ourselves forced to lay-to. It blew all that day and all that night ; towards noon the next day, it lulled a little, and we made sail again. But at sunset, the heavens grew blacker than ever ; and the wind returned upon us with double and treble fury. The Peruvian was a fine, stout, roomy ship, but the unliandiest vessel at laying-to I ever sailed in. After taking tons of water on board and losing our best boat, we had nothing left for it but to turn tail, and scud for our lives. For the next three days and nights we ran before the wind. The gale moderated more than once in that time ; but there was such a sea on, that we durstn't heave the ship to. From the beginning of the gale none of us officers had a chance of taking any observations. We only knew that the wind was driving us as hard as we could go in a southerly direction, and that we were by this time hundreds of miles out of the ordinary course of ships in doub- ling the Cape. On the third night — or rather, I should say, early on the fourth morning — I went below, dead beat, to get a little rest, leaving the vessel in charge of the captain and the first mate. The night was then pitch-black — it was raining, hailing, and sleeting all at once ' — and the Peruvian was wallowing in the frightful seas, as if she meant to roll the masts out of her. I tumbled into bed the instant my wet oilskins were off" my back, and slept as only a man can who lays himself down dead beat. I was woke — how long afterwards I don't know, by being pitched clean out of my berth on to the cabin floor ; and, at the same moment, I heard the crash of the ship's timbers, forward, which told me it was all over with us. Though bruised and shaken by my fall, I was on deck directly. Before I had taken two steps forward, the Peruvian forged ahead on the send of the sea, swung round a little, and stmck heavily at the bows for the second time. The shrouds of the foremast cracked one after another, hke pistol-shots ; and the mast went overboard. I next felt our people go tearing past me, in the black darkness, to the lee-side of the vessel ; and I knew that, in their last extremity, they were taking to the boats. I say I felt them go past me, because the roaring of the sea and the howling of tl^e wind deafened me on deck, as completely as the darkness blinded me. I myself no more believed the boats would live in the sea, than I believed , the ship would hold together on the reef — but, as the rest were- running the risk, I made up my mind to run it with them. But before I followed the crew to leeward, I Avent below again for a minute — not to save money or clothes, for, with death star- ing me in the face, neither were of any account, now — but to get A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 271 my little writing case which mother had given me at parting. A curl of Margaret's hair was in the pocket inside it, with all the letters she had sent me when I had been away on other voyages. If I saved anything I was resolved to save this — and if I died, I would die with it about me. My locker was jammed with the wrenching of the ship, and had to be broken open. I was, maybe, longer over this job than I myself supposed. At any rate, when I got on deck again with my case in my breast, it was useless calling, and useless groping about. The largest of the two boats, when I felt for it, was gone ; and every soul on board was beyond a doubt gone with her. Before I had time to think, I was thrown off my feet, by another sea coming on board, and a great heave of the vessel, which drove her farther over the reef, and canted the after-part of her up like the roof of a house. In that position the stern stuck, wedged fast into the rocks beneath, while the fore-part of the ship was all to pieces and down under water. If the after-part kept the place it was now jammed in, till daylight, there might be a chance — but if the sea wrenched it out from between the rocks, there was an end of me. After straining my eyes to discover if there was land beyond the reef, and seeing nothing but the flash of the breakers, . like white fire in the darkness, I crawled below again to the shelter of the cabin stairs, and waited for death or daylight. As the morning hours wore on, the weather moderated again ; and the after-part of the vessel, though shaken often, was not shaken out of its place. A little before dawn, the winds and the waves, though fierce enough still, allowed me, at last, to hear something besides themselves. What I did hear, crouched up in my dark corner, was a heavy thumping and grinding, every now and then, against the side of the ship to windward. Day broke soon afterwards ; and, when I climbed to the deck, I clawed my way up to windward first, to see what the noise was caused by. My first look over the bulwark showed me that it was caused by the boat which my unfortunate brother-officers and the crew had launched and gone away in when the ship struck. The boat was bottom upwards, thumping against the ship's side on the lift of the sea. I wanted no second look at it to tell me that every mother's son of them was drowned. The main and mizen masts still stood. I got into the mizen rigging, to look out next to leeward — and there, in the blessed rlaylight, I saw a low, green, rocky little island, lying away beyond the reef, barely a mile distant from the ship. My life began to look of small value to me again, when I saw land. I got higher ap in the rigging to note how the current set, and where there 272 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. might be a passage through the reef. The ship had driven over the rocks through the worst of the surf, and the sea between myself and the island, though angry and broken in places, was not too high for a lost man like me to venture on — provided I could launch the last, and smallest boat still left in the vessel. I noted carefully the likeliest-looking channel for trying the experiment, and then got down on deck again to see what I could do, first of all, with the boat. At the moment when my feet touched the deck, I heard a dull knocking and banging just under them, in the region of the cabin. When the sound first reached my ears, I got such a shock of sur- prise that I could neither move nor speak. It had never yet crossed my mind that a single soul was left in the vessel besides myself — but now, there was something in the knocking noise which started the hope in me that I was not alone. I shook myself up, and got down below directly. The noise came from inside one of the sleeping berths, on the far side of the main cabin; the door of which was jammed, no doubt just as my locker had been jammed, by the wrenching of the ship. "Who's there?" I called out. A faint, mufiled kind of voice an- swered something through the air-grating in the upper part of the door. I got up on the overthrown cabin furniture, and looking in through the trellis-work of the grating, found myself face to face with the blue spectacles of Mr. Lawrence Clissold, looking out. God forgive me for thinking it — but there was not a man in the vessel I wouldn't sooner have found alive in her than Mr. Clissold. Of all that ship's company, we two, who were least friendly together, were the only two saved. I had a better chance of breaking out the jammed door from the main cabin than he had from the berth inside ; and in less than five minutes he was set free. I had smelt spirits already through the air-grating — and now, when he and I stood face to face, I saw what the smell meant. There was an open case of spirits by the bedside — two of the bottles out of it were lying broken on the floor — and Mr. Clissold was drunk. "What's the matter with the ship?" says he, looking fierce and speaking thick. "You shall see for yourself," says I. With which words I took hold of him, and pulled him after me up the cabin stairs. I reck- oned on the sight that would meet him, when he first looked over the deck, to sober his drunken brains — and I reckoned right : he fell on his knees, stock-still and speechless as if he was turned to stone. I lashed him up safe to the cabin rail, and left it to the air to A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 273 bring him round. He had, hkely enough, been drinking in the sleeping berths for days together — for none of us, as I now re- membered, had seen him since the gale set in — and even if he had had sense enough to try to get out, or to call for help, when the ship struck, he would not have made himself heard in the noise and confusion of that awful time. But for the lull in the weather, I should not have heard him myself, when he attempted to get free in the morning. Enemy of mine as he was, he had a pair of arms — and he was worth untold gold, in my situation, for that reason. With the help I could make him give me, there was no doubt now about launching the boat. In half an hour I had the means ready for trying the experiment ; and Mr. Clissold was sober enough to see that his life depended on his doing what I told him. The sky looked angry still — there was no opening anywhere — and the clouds were slowly banking up again to windward. The supercargo knew what I meant when I pointed that way, and worked with a will when I gave him the word. I had previously stowed away in the boat such stores of meat, biscuit, and fresh water as I could readily lay hands on ; together with a compass, a lantern, a few candles, and some boxes of matches in my pocket, to kindle light and fire with. At the last moment, I thought of a gun and some powder and shot. The powder and shot I found, and an old flint pocket pistol in the captain's cabin — with which, for fear of wasting precious time, I was forced to be content. The pistol lay on the top of the medicine chest — and I took that also, finding it handy, and not knowing but what it might be of use. Having made these preparations, we launched the boat, down the steep of the deck, into the water over the forward part of the ship which was sunk. I took the oars, ordering Mr. Clissold to sit still in the stern-sheets — and pulled for the island. It was neck or nothing with us more than once, before we were two hundred yards from the ship. Luckily, the supercargo was used to boats ; and muddled as he still was, he had sense enough to sit quiet. We found our way into the smooth channel which I had noted from the mizen rigging — after which, it was easy enough to get ashore. We landed on a little sandy creek. From the time of our leav- ing the ship, the supercargo had not spoken a word to me, nor I to him. I now told him to lend a hand in getting the stores out of the boat, and in helping me to carry them to the first sheltered place we could find in shore on the island. He shook himself up with a sulky look at me, and did as I had bidden him. We found a little dip or dell in the ground, after getting up the low sides of the island, which was sheltered to windward — and here I left him 274 A MKSSAdK VUOy\ VUK SFA. ti> stow away tlio sUutvs wliilo I walUoil larlhtM on, to suiV(\v tlio phuv. AivonliMj^- to tho hasty jvuls;iuont I t\Muu'(l at {\\c tiim\ \\\c islaml was iu>t. a mili^ arn>ss, ami not nuu'li moro than tlutv inihvs rouiul. I notoil nothing' in ti»o way ot' I'ooil but a tow wiKl roots anil vt\iiotaMos, jjn^win^ in raiigotl pati'lios amiilst tlio thiok sonih whioh oovon^d thi^ phuv. Thoro was iu>t a tivo on it anywhoiv ; nor atiy livini<- oroat uixvs ; nov any si^ij:ns of t'lvsli watvr that I ooiiKl soo. Stanilin^- on thi> hij?l\ost ,y;ronn»l, I lookoil ulkuit anxioUvsly for otl\or islanvls that niiiiht ho inliahittul ; tlioiv won> nono visiMo at loast nono in tlio ha.y stnto odW ln\'\Yons that inornin^f. Wlion I tairly ilisoovoml wliat a iltvsort tho plai'iMvas : whon I ronuMnhorotl l\ow tar it lay ont ot" tho traok o\' ships; anil whon I thoniiht of tho sniall stoiv o( pro visions whiol\ wo havl bron>iht with ns. tho doiibt lost wo nuirht only havo ohani^Oil tho ohanoo o( iloath by ilrowninii' for tho ohauii" o( ihwth by starvativui was si> stnu\u' wx n\o. that I ilotornuni^l to «>> hiok to tho boat, witli tho ilosporato notion o( n\akii\ir anotiuM- trip to tho V(^ssi>l tor wator an oUmuIs to winilwanl wtnv hmkinii" up blaokiM" an»l hi^iihor ovory niinuto, tho winil was froshonini;" alroaily. anil thoro was ovory siun of tho storni ooniinu" oi\ aj;uin wiUlor aiul tioivor than ovim-. Mr. (Missohl, whoji I i>assoil him on n\y way Iviok to tho boaoh. hail jii\>t tho stoivs pivtty tiily, oovoivil with tho tarpanlit\ whioh I hail thn>wn ovor thoni '\\\ tho bottom of tho boat, .lust as 1 lookoil ilown at him in tho hollow, I .saw him tako a bottlo o( spirits owl of tho pivkot o( his pilot oivit. Uk' n\nst havo stowinl tho bottlo away tl»oiv, as I suppovso, whilo I was broakinij opon tho iloor o( his borth. " You'll Iv ib\>wnoil. anil 1 shall havo lUniblo allow anoo to livo upon hoiv," was all ho saiil to mo, whon ho hoanl 1 was iio in.ii' K'»ok to tho ship. " Yos ! ami ilii\ in your turn, whoti you'vo i;\>t thnmii'h it^" says I, jjXMUg away to tho Kvit. It's shookinsi' to think of now but wo ooulilt\'t Iv oivil to oaoh othor. ovon on tho t'u-st ilay whon wo woiv wnvkoil toicvthor. llavinji' provio\»sly strippoil to my tnuusoi-s, in oaso of aiviiloiJt, I now pulloil out. On jivttinj;' tnuu tho ohannol into tho bi\>kon wator au'ain. I lookoil ovor n\y shoulilor to wiuilwanl, ami saw that I w.is too lato. It. was oinnin^i? ! — tho ship was hiihlou ahvaily in tho horriblo ba/.o of it. I ^ii"v^t tho Kvjit's hoail ixnimi to pull Iviok ami I iliil pull lv;\ok, just insiilo tho oponiuji' in tho ivof whioh maiio tho n\outh o( tho ohantiol whon tho storn\ oamo ilown on mo liko iloath anil juil>i-n\ont. Tho Uvit filloil in an insta»\t ; anil I was tossiHl hoail ovor hools ii\to tho wator. Tho soa, whioh bu\^t i»\to nviiitiji" siuf npo»\ tho rvvks oti oithorsiilo. rushoil itv ono >i"ivat n^llor up tho iloop ohamiol Ix^tAvoon thorn, aiul ti>ok mo with it. If tho A MKSSAi;r. FKOM vnv. vSKA. 876 mulortow, aftovw'jvnb, hud lastotl (ov \\i\\( a u\inuto. I vsliouM havo Kvn rarritHl into tho wltito \v;\ttM\ aiui Kvst. r>u( a v^ooimhI u^llor tollowoil tho th-st, almost on tl\o inv^t,*\nt, ami swopt mo niiht up v>n tho Ivaoh. I hail just stivniith onouijh to di^ii" n\y anns ami l(\i>'s woll into tho wot s^mvl : anil tliouiih I was takon Kiok with tho lv{\ok\vaixl shitY of it, 1 was not takon inti> tUv}> wator aii^ain. IVtoiv tho thin! i\>llor oan\o, I was out o( its ivaoh, ami was th>wj\ in a sort ot' swoon, on tho ilry sjuiil. Wlion 1 si\H Kiok to tho hollow in shoro, whoro 1 ha»l K^t"( my olothos luulor sholtor with tho storos, I t'oiunl Mr. riissoKl snuiily oivnolnnl \i\\ in tho ilviost plaoo, witli tho tarpaulin to oovor hitn. "Oh!" s,a)*s ho, in a stato ol' ijivat siu'priso, "you'iv not ilnnviuHir* "Nv\"says I ; "vini won't ^livt your (UmiMo allow- anoo, attor all." "How nuu'h shall I jivtr' says ho, ivnsing up auil lookinii" anxious. " Wnir tair half vsluuv of what is hoiv," 1 answoivtl him. " .Vnd hvnv lonj? will that last mo'/" vsays l»o. "Tho fooil. it' you havo sonso onvuiiih to t^ko it out with what you may tind in this n\isonil>lo plaoo, huvly throo wooks," s,ays I ; "antl tho wator {\( you ovor ilrink any") al>o\it a tvn-tniiiht." M hoarinjj: that, ho toi^k tho K>ttlo out of his ptn-kot aiiiiin, anil put it to his lil>s. " lin ov^Ul to tho bonos," s,ays I. trowninii* at him t\n' a ilrop. " Auvl I'm warm \o tho man\>w." sjiys ho, ohuokliuii", :uul ham! insj mo tho bottlo on\pty. 1 pitohotl it away at luioo or tho tomptation to luvak it ovor his hoad mijiht havo Ivon too nuioh t'or n»o 1 pitohoil it away, and lookod into tho ntodioino ohost, to soo if thoi'i^ wjis a drop of poi>ponnint^ or anything" otnnfortiuij: of that sort, insido. Oi\ly thnv physio hotth^s woiv lotY in it^ all tluvo Iving noatly tiotl ov»m' with oilskin. (>no o( thon\ hold a stnmg whito liquor, snioUing liko hartshorn. Tho oihcv two wow lilloil with stutV in powdor, having tho namos ii\ printoil gil> Wrish. }>as(otl outsido. On looking a littlo i-losor, I foiuid. \\\u\cv somo bn>kon divisivMis of tho ohost, a sniall llask oovorotl with wii'kor work. "t«ingor Hrauvly " was writtoii with ptMi aiid ink on tho wirkor work, and tho tlask was tull ! 1 think that Mossod ilis- I'ovory savoiooos. Aftor a pull at tho tlask whioh matlo a now n\an o( mo, I put it away in my insido Inoast porkot ; Mr. (^lissohl watohing mo with givody oyos, but saying nothing. All this whilo, tho rain was rushing, tho wind n>aring. aiid tho soa t'rasliing, as if Noah's FKuul had oomo again. 1 sat oUvso ag^jiinst tho supoivarg\>. Uvauso \\c was in tho ilriost plai'(^ ; and puUod n»y fair sharo o( tho tarpaidin away fnun him, wln^thor ho likrd it or not. Ib^ by no n\oans likod it ; boing in that sort o( lialf-drunkon, halfsoWr stato {nWcv tinishing his bottlo), in whioh 276 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. a man's temper is most easily upset by trifles. The upset of his temper showed itself in the way of small aggravations — of which I took no notice, till he suddenly bethought himself of angering me by going back again to that dispute about father, which had bred ill-blood between us on the day when we fii'st saw each other. If he had been a younger man, I am afraid I should have stopped him by a punch on the head. As it was, considering his age and the shame of this quarrelling betwixt us when we were both cast away together, I only warned him that I might punch his head, if he went on. It did just as well — and I'm glad now to think that it did. We were huddled so close together, that when he coiled himself up to sleep (with a growl), and when he did go to sleep (with a grunt), he growled and grunted into my ear. His rest, like the rest of all the regular drunkards I have ever met with, was broken. He ground his teeth, and talked in his sleep. Among the words he nnunbled to himself, I heard as plain as could be father's name. This vexed, but did not surprise me, seeing that he had been talk- ing of flxther before he dropped oft\ But when I made out next, among his mutterings and mumblings, the words "five hundred pound," spoken over and over again, with father's name, now be- fore, now after, now mixed in along with them, I got curious, and listened for more. My listening (and serve me right, you will say) came to nothing : he certainly talked on, but I couldn't make out a word more that he said. When he woke up, I told him plainly he had been talking in his sleep — and mightily taken aback he looked when he fii'st heard it. "What about?" says he. I made answer, "My father, and five hundred pounds ; and how do you come to couple them to- gether, I should like to know?" "I couldn't have coupled them," says he, in a great hurry — " what do I know about it ? I don't believe a man like your fiither ever had such a sum of money as that in all his life." " Don't you ? " says I, feeling the aggi-avation of him, in spite of myself; " I can just tell you my fother had such a sum when he was no older a man than I am — and saved it — and left it for a provision, in his will, to my mother, who has got it now — and, I say again, how came a stranger like you to be talking of it in your sleep ? " At hearing this, he went about on the other tack directly. " W^as that all your father left, after his debts were paid?" says he. "Are you very curious to know?' says I. He took no notice — he only persisted with his question. " Was it just five hundred pound, no more and no less ? " says he. "Suppose it was," saj's I; "what then?" "Oh nothing," says he, and turns sharp round from me and chuckles to himself. A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 277 "Yoirre drunk." says I. ''Yes,'' says he; "that's it — stick to that — I'm druuk," — and he chuckles again. Try as I might, and threaten as I might, not another word on the matter of the five lumdred pound could I get from him. I bore it well in mind, though, for all that — it being one of my slow ways, not easily to forget anything that has once surprised me, and not to give up returning to it over and over again, as time and occasion may serve for the purpose. The hours wore on, and the storm raged on. We had our half rations of food, when hunger took us (I being much the hungrier of the two) : and slept, and gi'umbled, and ijuarrelled the weary time out somehow. Towards dusk the wind lessened ; and, when I got up out of the hollow to look out, there was a faint watery break in the western heavens. At times, through the watches of the long night, the stai's showed in patches for a little while, through the rents tliat opened and closed by fits in the black sky. "When I fell asleep towards the dawning, the wind had tallen to a moan, though the sea, slower to go down, sounded as loud as ever. From what I could make of the weather, the storm had, by that time, as good as blown itself out. I had been wise enough (knowing who was near me) to lay myself down, whenever I slept, on the side of me which was next to the fl:isk of ginger-brandy, stowed away in my breast-pocket. "VNTien I woke at sunrise, it was the supercargo's hand that roused me up, trying to ste;\l my fli\sk while I was asleep. I rolled him over he^idlong among the stores — out of which I had the humanity to pull him again, with my own hands. "I'll tell you what," says I, "if us two keep company any longer, we shan't get on smoothly together. YouVe the oldest man — and you stop here, where we know there is shelter. "\Ve will dinde the stores fiiirly, and I'll go and shift for myself at the other end of the island. Do you agree to that ? " " Yes," says he, "and the sooner the better." I left him for a minute, and went away to look out on the reef that had wrecked us. The spKnters of the Peruvian, scattered broadcast over the beach, or tossing up and down darkly, far out in the white surf, were all that remained to tell of the ship. I don't deny that my heart sank, when I looked at the place where she stnick, and saw nothing before me but sea and sky. But what was the use of standing and looking ? It was a deal better to rouse myself by doing something. I returned to Mr. Clissold — and then and there divided the stores into two equal parts, including everything down to the matches in my pocket. Of these parts I gave him first choice. I also left him the whole 278 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. of the tarpaulin to himself — keeping in my own possession the medicine-chest, and the pistol ; which last I loaded with powder and shot, in case any sea-birds might fly within reach. When the division was made, and when I had moved my part out of his way, and out of his sight, I thought it uncivil to bear malice any longer, now that we had agreed to separate. We were cast away on a desert island, and we had death, as well as I could see, within about three weeks' hail of us — but that was no reason for not making things reasonably pleasant as long as we could. I was some time (in consequence of my natural slowness where mat- ters of seafaring duty don't happen to be concerned) before I came to this conclusion. When I did come to it, I acted on it. "Shake hands, before parting," I said, suiting the action to the word. " No," says he ; "I don't like you." " Please yourself," says I — and so we parted. Turning my back on the west, which was his territory accord- ing to agreement, I walked away towards the south-east, where the sides of the island rose highest. Here I found a sort of half rift, half cavern, in the rocky banks, which looked as likely a place as any other — and to this refuge I moved my share of the stores. I thatched it over as w^ell as I could with scrub, and heaped some loose stones at the mouth of it. At home, in England, I should have been ashamed to put my dog in such a place — but when a man believes his days to be numbered, he is not over-particular about his lodgings, and I was not over-particular about mine. When my work was done, the heavens were fair. I went up again to the high ground, to see what I could make out in the new clearness of the air. North, east, and west there was nothing but sea and sky — but, south I now saw land. It was high, and looked to be a matter of seven or eight miles off. Island or not, it must have been a good size for me to see it as I did. Known or not known to mariners, it was certainly big enough to have living creatures on it — animals or men, or both. If I had not lost the boat on my second attempt to reach the vessel, we might have easily got to it. But situated as we were now, with no wood to make a boat of but the scattered splinters from the ship, and with no tools to use even that much, there might just as well have been no land in sight at all, so far as we were concerned. The poor hope of a ship coming our road, was still the only hope left. To give us all the little chance we might get that way, I now looked about on the beach for the longest morsel of a wrecked spar that I could find ; planted it on the high ground ; and rigged up to it the one shirt I had on my back for a signal. While coming and going ot\ A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 279 this job, I noted with great joy that rain water enough lay in the hollows of the rocks above the sea line, to save our small store of fresh water for a week at least. Thinking it only fair to the super- cargo to let him know what I had found out, I went to his terri- tories, after setting up the morsel of a spar, and discreetly shouted my news down to him without showing myself. " Keep to your own side ! " was all the thanks I got for this piece of civility. I went back to my own side immediately, and crawled into my little cavern, quite content to be alone. On that first night, strange as it seems now, I once or twice nearly caught myself feeling happy at the thought of being rid of Mr. Lawrence OMssold. According to my calculations — which were made by tying a fresh knot eveiy morning in a piece of marline — we two men were just a week, each on his own side of the island, without seeing or communicating, anyhow, with one another. The first half of the week, I had enough to do with cudgelling my brains for a means of helping ourselves, to keep my mind steady. I thought first of picking up all the longest bits of spars that had been cast ashore, lashing them together with ropes twisted out of the long grass of the island, and trusting to raft-navigation to get to that high land away in the south. But when I looked among the spars, there were not half a dozen of them left whole enough for the purpose. And even if there had been more, the short allowance of food would not have given me time sufiicient, or strength sufiicient, to gather the grass, to twist it into ropes, and to lash a raft together big enough and strong enough for us two men. There was nothing to be done, but to give up this notion— and I gave it up. The next chance I thought of was to keep a fire burning on the shore every night with the wood of the wreck, in case vessels at sea might notice it, on one side — or the people of the high land in the south (if the distance was not too great) might notice it, on the other. There was sense in this notion, and it could be turned to account the moment the wood was dry enough to burn. The wood got dry enough before the week was out. Whether it was the end of the stormy season in those latitudes, or whether it was only the shifting of the wind to the west, I don't know — but now, day after day, the heavens were clear and the sun shone scorching hot. The scrub " on the island (which was of no great account) dried up — but the fresh water in the hollows of the rocks (which was, on the other hand, a serious business) dried up too. Troubles seldom come alone ; and on the day when I made this discovery, I also found out that I had calcu- lated wrong about the food. Eke it out as I might, with scurvy grass and roots, there would not be above eight days more of it 280 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. left when the first week was past — and, as for the fresh water, half a pint a day, unless more rain fell, would leave me at the end of my store, as nearly as I could guess, about the same time. This was a bad look-out — but I don't think the prospect of it upset me in my mind, so much as the having nothing to do. Except for the gathering of the wood, and the lighting of the sig- nal-fire, every night, I had no work at all, towards the end of the week, to keep me steady. I checked myself in thinking much about home, for fear of losing heart, and not holding out to the last, as became a man. For the same reasons I likewise kept my mind from raising hopes of help in me which were not likely to come true. What else was there to think about 1 Nothing but the man on the other side of the island — and be hanged to him ! I thought about those words I heard him say in his sleep ; I thought about how he was getting on by himself; how he liked nothing but water to drink, and little enough of that; how he was eking out his food ; whether he slept much or not ; whether he saw the smoke of my fire at night, or not ; whether he held up better or worse than I did ; whether he would be glad to see me, if I went to him to make it up ; whether he or I would die first ; whether if it was me, he would do for me, what I would have done for him — namely, bury him, with the last strength I had left. All these things, and lots more, kept coming and going in my mind, till I could stand it no longer. On the morning of the eighth day, I roused up to go to his territories, feeling it would do me good to see him and hear him, even if we quarrelled again the instant we set eyes on each other. I climbed up to the grassy mound — and, when I got there, what should I see but the supercargo himself, coming to my territories, and wandering up and down in the scrub through not knowing where to find them ! It almost knocked me over, when we met, the man was changed so. He looked eighty years old ; the little flesh he had on his miserable face hung baggy ; his blue spectacles had dropped down on his nose, and his eyes showed over them wild and red-rimmed ; his lips were black, his legs staggered under him. He came up to me with his eyes all of a glare, and put both his hands on my breast, just over the pocket in which I kept that flask of ginger- brandy which he had tried to steal from me. " Have you got any of it left ?" says he in a whisper. " About two mouthfuls," says I. "Give us one of them, for God's sake," says he. Giving him one of those mouthfuls was just about equal to giving liim a day of my life. In the case of a man I liked, I would not A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 281 have thought twice about giving it. In the case of Mr. CHssold I did think twice. I would have been a better Christian, if I could — but just then, I couldn't. He thought I was going to say, No. His eyes got cunning directly. He reached his hands to my shoulders, and whispered these words in my ear. "I'll tell you what I know about the five hundred pounds, if you'll give me a drop." I determined to give it to him, and pulled out the flask. I took his hand, and poured the drop into the hollow of it, and held it for a moment. " Tell me first," I said, "and drink afterwards." He looked all round him, as if he thought there were people on the island to hear us. " Hush ! " he said, " let's whisper about it." The next question and answer that passed between us, was louder than before on my side, and softer than ever on his. This was the question : " What do you know about the five hundred pound ?" And this was the answer : ''li'% Stolen Money!" My hand dropped away from his, as if he had shot me. He instantly fastened on the drop of liquor in the hollow of his hand, like a hungry wild beast on a bone, and then looked up for more. Something in my face (God knows what) seemed suddenly to frighten him out of his life. Before I could stir a step, or get a word out, down he dropped on his knees, whining and whimpering in the high grass at my feet. " Don't kill me ! " says he ; " I'm dying — I'll think of my poor soul. I'll repent while there's time — " Beginning in that way, he maundered awfully, grovelling down in the grass ; asking me every other minute for " a drop more, and a drop more," and talking as if he thought we were both in England. Out of his wanderings, his beseechings for another drop, and his miserable beggar's-petitions for his "poor soul," I gathered together these words — the same which I wrote down on the morsel of paper, and of which nine parts out of ten are now rubbed off" ! The first I made out — though not the first he said — was that some one, whom he spoke of as " the old man," was alive ; and " Lanrean " was the place he lived in. I was to go there, and ask, among the old men, for " Tregarthen " — (At the mention by me of the name of Tregarthen, my brother to my great surprise stopped me with a start ; made me say the name over more than once ; and then, for the first time, told me of the trouble about his sweetheart and his marriage. We waited 282 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. a little to talk that matter over ; after which, I went on again with my story, in these words.) Well, as I made out from Clissold's wanderings, I was to go to Lanrean, to ask among the old men for Tregarthen, and to say to Tregarthen, "Clissold was the man. Clissold bore no malice: Clissold repented like a Christian, for the sake of his poor soul." No ! I was to say something else to Tregarthen. I was to say, " Look among the books ; look at the leaf you know of, and see for yourself it's not the right leaf to be there." No ! I was to say something else to Tregarthen. I was to say, " The right leaf is hidden, not burnt. Clissold had time for everything else, but no time to burn that leaf. Tregarthen came in when he had got the candle lit to burn it. There was just time to let it drop from under his hand into the great crack in the desk, and then he was ordered abroad by the House, and there was no chance of doing more." No ! I was to say none of these things to Tregarthen. Only this instead : — " Look in Clissold's desk — and, if you blame anybody, blame miser Ray brock for driving him to it." And, oh, another drop — for the Lord's sake, give him another drop ! So he went on, over and over again, till I found voice enough to speak and stop him. " Get up, and go ! " I said to the miserable wretch. " Get back to your own side of the island, or I may do you a mischief, in spite of my own self." " Give me the other drop, and I will " — was all the answer I could get from him. I threw him the flask. He pounced upon it with a howl. I turned my back — for I could look at him no longer — and climbed down again to my cavern on the beach. I sat down alone on the sand, and tried to quiet myself fit to think about what I had heard. That father could ever have wil- fully done anything unbecoming his character as an honest man, was what I wouldn't believe, in the first place. And that the wretched brute I had just parted from was in his right senses, was what I wouldn't believe, in the second place. What I had myself seen of drinkers, at sea and ashore, helped me to understand the condition into which he had fallen. I knew that when a man who has been a drunkard for years, is suddenly cut off" his drink, he drops to pieces like, body and mind, for the want of it. I had also heard ship-doctors talk, by some name of their own, of a drink-madness, which we ignorant men call the Horrors. And I made it out, easy enough, that I had seen the supercargo in the first of these condi- tions ; and that if we both lived long enough without help coming to us, I might soon see him in the second. But when I tried to A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 283 get farther, and settle how much of what I had heard was wander- ings and how much truth, and what it meant if any of it was truth, my slowness got in my way again ; and where a quicker man might liave made up his mind in an hour or two, I was all day, in sore distress, making up mine. The upshot of what I settled with my- self, was, in two words, this : — Having mother's writing-case handy about me, I determined first to set down for my own self's reminder, all that I had heard. Second, to clear the matter up if I ever got back to England alive ; and, if wrong had been done to that old man, or anybody else, in father's name (without father's knowledge), to make restoration for his sake. All that day I neither saw nor heard more of the supercargo. I passed a miserable night of it, after writing my memorandum, fighting with my loneliness and my own thoughts. The remem- brance of those words in father's will, saying that the five hundred pound was money which he had once run a risk with, kept putting into my mind suspicions I was ashamed of When daylight came, I almost felt as if I was going to have the Horrors too, and got up to walk them off, if possible, in the morning air. I kept on the northern side of the island, walking backwards and forwards for an hour or more. Then I returned to my cavern ; and the first thing I saw, on getting near it, was other footsteps than mine marked on the sand. I suspected at once that the supercargo had been lurking about watching me, instead of going back to his own side; and that, in my absence, he had been at his thieving tricks again. The stores were what I looked at first. The food he had not touched; but the water he had either drunk or wasted — there was not half a pint of it left. The medicine-chest was open, and the bottle with the hartshorn was gone. When I looked next for the pistol, which I had loaded with powder and shot for the chance of bird-shooting that never came, the pistol was gone too. After making this last discovery, there was but one thing to be done — namely — to find out where he was, and to take the pistol away from him. I set off to search first on the western side. It was a beautiful, clear, calm, sunshiny morning ; and as I crossed the island, looking out on my left hand and my right, I stopped on a sudden, with my heart in my mouth, as the saying is. Something caught my eye, far out at sea, in the north-west. I looked again — and there, as true as the heavens above me, I saw a ship, with the sunlight on her topsails, hull down, on the water-line in the offing ! All thought of the errand I was bent on, went out of my mind in an instant. I ran as fast as my weak legs would carry me to 284 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. the northern beach ; gathered up the broken wood which was still lying there plentifully, and, with the help of the dry scrub, lit the largest fire I had made yet. This was the only signal it was in my power to make that there were men on the island. The fire, in the bright daylight, would never be visible to the ship ; but the smoke curling up from it, in the clear sky, might be seen, if they had a look-out at the mast-head. While I was still feeding the fire, and so wrapped up in doing it, that I had neither eyes nor ears for anything else, I heard the supercargo's voice on a sudden at my back, he had stolen on me along the sand. When I faced him, he was swinging his arms about in the air, and saying to himself over and over again, "I see the ship. I see the ship ! " After a little, he came close up to me. By the look of him, he had been drinking the hartshorn, and it had strung him up a bit, body and mind for the time. He kept his right hand behind him, as if he were hiding something. I suspected that "something" to be the pistol I was in search of. " Will the ship come here 1 " says he. "Yes, if they see the smoke," says I, keeping my eye on him. He waited a bit, frowning suspiciously, and looking hard at me all the time. "What did I say to you yesterday?" he asked. "What I have got written down here," I made answer, smack- ing my hand over the writing-case in my breast-pocket; "and what I mean to put to the proof, if the ship sees us and we get back to England." He whipped his right hand round from behind him, like light- ning; and snapped the pistol at me. It missed fire. I wrenched it from him in a moment, and was just within one hair's breadth of knocking him on the head with the butt-end afterwards. I lifted my hand — then thought better, and dropped it again. " No," says I, fixing my eyes on him steadily; "I'll wait till the ship finds us." He slunk away from me ; and, as he slunk, looked hard into the fire. He stopped a minute so, thinking to himself — then he looked back at me again, A\ath some mad mischief in him, that twinkled through his blue spectacles, and grinned on his dry black lips. "The ship shall never find ^ou,'' he said. With which words, he turned himself about towards his own side of the island, and left me. He only meant that saying to be a threat — but, bird of ill-omen that he was, it turned out as good as a prophecy ! All my hard work with the fire proved work in vain ; all hope was quenched in me, A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 285 long before the embers I had set light to were burnt out. Whether the smoke was seen or not from the vessel, is more than I can tell. I only know that she had filled away on the other tack, not ten minutes after the supercargo left ma In less than an hour's time the last glimpse of the bright topsails had vanished out of view. I went back to my cavern — which was now likelier than ever to be my grave as well. In that hot climate, with all the moist- ure on the island dried up, with not quite so much as a tumbler- ful of fresh water left, with my strength wasted by living on half-rations of food — two days more at most would see me out. It was hard enough for a man at my age, with-all that I had left at home to make life precious, to die such a death as was now be- fore me. It was harder still to have the sting of death sharpened — as I felt it, then — by what had just happened between the supercargo and myself. There was no hope, now, that his wander- ings, the day before, had more falsehood than truth in them. The secret he had let out was plainly true enough and serious enough to have scared him into attempting my life, rather than let me keep possession of it, when there was a chance of the ship rescuing us. That secret had father's good name mixed up with it — and here was I, instead of clearing the villanous darkness from oft' of it, carrying it with me, black as ever, into my grave. It was out of the horror I felt at doing that, and out of the yearning of my heart towards you, Alfred, when I thought of it, that the notion came to comfort me of writing the Message at the top of the paper, and of committing it in the bottle to the sea. Drowning men, they say, catch at straws — and the straw of com- fort I caught at was the one chance in ten thousand, but the Mes- sage might float till it was picked up, and that it might reach you. My mind might, or might not, have been failing me, by this time — but it is true, either way, that I did feel comforted when I had emptied one of the two bottles left in the medicine-chest, and had put the paper inside, had tied the stopper carefully over with oil- skin, and had laid the whole down, in my pocket, ready, when I felt my time coming, to drop into the sea. I was rid of the secret, I thought to myself ; and if it pleased God, I was rid of it, Alfred, to you. The day waned, and the sun set, all cloudless and golden, in a dead calm. There was not a ripple anywhere on the long oily heaving of the sea. Before night came I strengthened myself with a better meal than usual, as to food — where was the use of keep- ing meat and biscuit when I had not water enough to last along with them % When the stars came out and the moon rose, I gath- ered the wood together and lit the signal fire, according to custom, 286 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. on the beach outside my cavern. I had no hope from it — but the fire was company to me : the looking into it quieted my thoughts, and the crackling of it was a relief in the silence. I don't know why it was, but the breathless stillness of the night had something awful in it, and went near to frighten me. The moon got high in the heavens, and the light of her lay all in a flood on the sands before me, on the rocks that jutted out from it, and on the calm sea beyond. I was thinking of Margaret — wondering if the moon was shining on our little bay at Steep- ways, and if she was looking at it too — when I saw a mans shadow steal over the white of the sand. He was lurking near me again ! In a minute he came into view. The moonshine glinted on his blue spectacles, and glimmered on his bald head. He stooped as he passed by the rocks and looked about for a loose stone ; he found a large one, and came straight with it, on tip-toe, up to the fire. I showed myself to him on a sudden, in the red of the flames, with the pistol in my hand. He dropped the stone, and shrank back, at the sight of it. When he was close to the sea, he stopped, and screamed out at me, " The ship's coming ! The ship's coming ! The ship shall never find you^ That notimi of the ship, and that other notion of killing me before help came, seemed never to have left him. When he turned, and went back by the way he had come, he was still shouting out those same words. For quarter of an hour or more, I heard him, till the silence swallowed up his ravings, and led me back again to those thoughts of home. Those thoughts kept with me, till the moon was on the wane. It was darker now, and stiller than ever. I had not fed the signal fire for half an hour or more, and had roused myself up, at the mouth of the cavern, to do it, when I saw the dying gleams of moonshine, over the sea on either side of me change colour, and turn red. Black shadows, as from low-flying clouds, swept after each other over the deepened redness. The air grew hot — a sound came nearer and nearer, till above me and behind me, like the rush of wind and the roar of water, both together, and both far off". I ran out on to the sand, and looked back. The island was on fire. On fire at the point opposite to me — on fire in one great sheet of flame that stretched right across the island, and bore down on me steadily before the light westerly wind which was blowing at the time. Only one hand could have kindled that terrible flame, the hand of the lost wretch who had left me, with the mad threat on his lips and the murderous notion of burning me out of my refuge, working in his crazy brain. On his side of the island, (where the fire had begun), the dry grass and scrub grew all round A MESSAGE EROM THE SEA. 287 the little hollow in the earth which I had left for him for his place of refuge. If he had had a thousand lives to lose, he would have lost that thousand already. Having nothing to feed on but the dry scrub, the flames swept forward with such a frightful swiftness, that I had barely time, after mastering my own scattered senses, to turn back into the cavern to get my last drink of water, and my last mouthful of food before I heard the fiery scorch crackling over the thatched roof which my own hands had raised. I ran across to the spur of rock which jutted out into the sea, and there crouched down on the farthest edge I could reach to. There was nothing for the fire to lay hold of between me and the top of the island bank. I was far enough away to be out of the lick of the flames, and low enough down to get air under the sweep of the smoke. You may well wonder why, with death by starvation threatening me close at hand, I should have schemed and struggled as I did, to save myself from a quicker death by suffocation in the smoke. I can only answer to that, that I wonder too — but so it was. The flames eat their way to the edge of the bank, and lapped over it as if they longed to lick me up. The heat scorched nearer than I had thought, and the smoke poured nearer and thicker. I lay down sick and weak on the rock, with my face close over the calm cool water. When I ventured to lift myself up again, the top of the island was of a ruby red, the smoke rose slowly in little streams, and the air about was quivering with the heat. While I looked at it, I felt a kind of singing and surgeing in my head, and a deadly faintness and coldness crept over me, I took the bottle that held the message from my pocket, and dropped it into the sea — then crawled a little way back over the rocks, and fell forward on them before I could get as far as the sand. The last I remem- ber was trying to say my prayers, — losing the words — losing my sight — losing the sense of where I was — losing everything. The day was breaking again, when I was roused up by feeling rough hands on me. Naked savages — some on the rocks, some in the water, some in two long canoes, were clamouring and crowding about on all sides. They bound me, and took me off at once to one of the canoes. The other kept company, and both were paddled back to that high land which I had seen in the south. Death had passed me by once more — and captivity had come in its place. The story of my life among the savages, having no concern with the matter now in hand, may be passed by here in a few words. They had seen the fire on the island ; and paddling over to recon- noitre, had found me. Not one of them had ever set eyes on a 288 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. white man before. I was taken away to be shown about among them for a curiosity. When they were tired of showing me, they spared my life, finding my knowledge and general handiness as a civilised man useful to them in various ways. I lost all count of time in my captivity — and can only guess now, that it lasted more than one year and less than two. I made two attempts to escape, each time in a canoe, and was baulked in both. Nobody at home in England would ever, as I believe, have seen me again, if an out- ward bound vessel had not touched at the little desert island for fresh water. Finding none there, she came on to the territory of the savages (which was an island too). When they took me on board, I looked little better than a savage myself, and could hardly talk my own language. By the help of the kindness shown to me, I was right again by the time we spoke the first ship homeward bound. To that vessel I was transferred ; and, in her, I worked my passage back to Falmouth. Chapter V. the restitution. Captain Jorgan, up and out betimes, had put the whole village of Lanrean under an amicable cross-examination, and was returning to the King Arthur's Arms to breakfast, none the wiser for his trouble, when he beheld the young fisherman advancing to meet him, accompanied by a stranger. A glance at this stranger assured the captain that he could be no other than the seafaring man ; and the captain was about to hail him as a fellow-craftsman, when the two stood still and silent before the captain, and the captain stood still, silent and wondering before them. "Why, what's this?" cried the captain, when at last he broke the silence. " You two are alike. You two are much alike ! What's this?" Not a word was answered on the other side, until after the sea- faring brother had got hold of the captain's right hand, and the fisherman brother had got hold of the captain's left hand ; and if ever the captain had had his fill of haud-sliaking, from his birth to that hour, he had it then. And presently up and spoke the two brothers, one at a time, two at a time, two dozen at a time for the bewilderment into which they plunged the captain, until he gradually had Hugh Raybrock's deliverance made clear to him, and also un- ravelled the fact that the person referred to in the half-obliterated paper was Tregarthen himself. "Formerly, dear Captain Jorgan," said Alfred, "of Lanrean, A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 289 you recollect ? Kitty and her father came to live at Steepways after Hugh shipped on his last voyage." "Ay, ay!" cried the captain, fetching a breath. ^^ Noiv you have me in tow. Then your brother here don't know his sister-in- law that is to be so much as by name ? " " Never saw her ; never heard of her ! " " Ay, ay, ay ! " cried the captain. " Why then we every one go back together — paper, writer, and all — and take Tregarthen into the secret we kept from him 1 " "Surely," said Alfred, "we can't help it now. We must go through with our duty." " Not a doubt," returned the captain. " Give me an arm apiece, and let us set this ship-shape." So walking up and down in the shrill wind on the wild moor, while the neglected breakfast cooled within, the captain and the brothers settled their course of action. It was that they should all proceed by the quickest means they could secure to Barnstaple, and there look over the father's books and papers in the lawyer's keeping ; as Hugh had proposed to him- self to do if ever he reached home. That, enlightened or un- enlightened, they should then return to Steepways and go straight to Mr. Tregarthen, and tell him all they knew, and see what came of it, and act accordingly. Lastly, that when they got there they should enter the village with all precautions against Hugh's being recognised by any chance ; and that to the captain should be con- signed the task of preparing his wife and mother for his restoration to this life. "For you see," quoth Captain Jorgan, touching the last head, "it requires caution anyway, great joys being as dangerous as great griefs, if not more dangerous, as being more uncommon (and therefore less provided against) in this round world of ours. And besides, I should like to free my name with the ladies, and take you home again at your brightest and luckiest ; so don't let's throw away a chance of success." The captain was highly lauded by the brothers for his kind inter- est and foresight. " And now stop ! " said the captain, coming to a standstill, and looking from one brother to the other, with quite a new rigging of wrinkles about each eye; "you are of opinion," to the elder, "that you are ra'ather slow ? " " I assure you I am very slow," said the honest Hugh. " Wa'al," replied the captain, "I assure you that to the best of my belief I am ra'ather smart. Now a slow man ain't good at quick business, is he 1 " 290 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. That was clear to both. " You," said the captain, turning to the younger brother, "are a little in love ; ain't you ? " " Not a little, Captain Jorgan." " Much or little, you're sort preoccupied ; ain't you ? " It was impossible to be denied. "And a sort preoccupied man ain't good at quick business, is he 1 " said the captain. Equally clear on all sides. "Now," said the captain, " I ain't in love niyself, and I've made many a smart run across the ocean, and I should like to carry on and go ahead with this affair of yours and make a run slick through it. Shall I try ? Will you hand it over to me 1 " Jhey were both delighted to do so, and thanked him heartily. "Good," said the captain, taking out his watch. " This is half- past eight A.M., Friday morning. I'll jot that down, and we'll compute how many hours we've been out when we run into your mother's Post-office. There ! The entry's made, and now we go ahead." They went ahead so well that before the Barnstaple lawyer's office was open next morning, the captain was sitting whistling on the step of the door, waiting for the clerk to come down the street with his key and open it. But instead of the clerk there came the master, with whom the captain fraternised on the spot to an extent that utterly confounded him. As he personally knew both Hugh and Alfred, there was no dif- ficulty in obtaining immediate access to* such of the father's papers as were in his keeping. These were chiefly old letters and cash ac- counts ; from which the captain, with a shrewdness and despatch that left the lawyer far behind, established with perfect clearness, by noon, the following particulars : That one Lawrence Clissold had borrowed of the deceased, at a time when he was a thriving young tradesman in the town of Barn- staple, the sum of five hundred pounds. That he had borrowed it on the written statement that it was to be laid out in furtherance of a speculation which he expected would raise him to independence ; he being, at the time of writing that letter, no more than a clerk in the house of Dringworth Brothers, America-square, London. That the money was borrowed for a stipulated period ; but that, when the term was out, the aforesaid speculation failed, and Clissold was without means of repayment. That, hereupon, he had written to his creditor, in no very persuasive terms, vaguely requesting further time. That the creditor had refused this concession, declaring that he could not afford delay. That Clissold then paid the debt, accom- A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 291 panying the remittance of the money with an angry letter describing it as having been advanced by a relative to save him from ruin. That, in acknowledging the receipt, Raybrock had cautioned Clissold to seek to borrow money of him no more, as he would never so risk money again. Before the lawyer, the captain said never a word in reference to these discoveries. But when the papers had been put back in their box, and he and his two companions were well out of the oflQce, his right leg suffered for it, and he said, " So far this run's begun with a fair wind and a prosperous; for don't you see that all this agrees with that dutiful trust in his father maintained by the slow member of the Raybrock family ? " Whether the brothers had seen it before or no, they saw it now. Not that the captain gave them much time to contemplate the state of things at their ease, for he instantly whipped them into a chaise again, and bore them off to Steepways. Although the afternoon was but just beginning to decline when they reached it, and it was broad daylight, still they had no difficulty, by dint of muffling the returned sailor up, and ascending the village rather than descending it, in reaching Tregarthen's cottage unobserved. Kitty was not' visible, and they surprised Tregarthen sitting writing in the small bay-win- dow of his little room. " Sir," said the captain, instantly shaking hands with him, pen and all, " I'm glad to see you, sir. How do you do, sir ? I told you you'd think better of me by-and-bye, and I congratulate you on going to do it." Here the captain's eye fell on Tom Pettifer, Ho, engaged in pre- paring some cookery at the fire. " That crittur," said the captain, smiting his leg, " is a born stew- ard, and never ought to have been in any other way of life. Stop where you are, Tom, and make yourself useful. Now, Tregarthen, I'm going to try a chair." Accordingly the captain drew one close to him, and went on : " This loving member of the Raybrock family you know, sir. This slow member of the same family you don't know, sir. Wa'al, these two are brothers, — fact ! Hugh's come to life again, and here he stands. Now see here, my friend ! You don't want to be told that he was cast away, but you do want to be told (for there's a purpose in it) that he was cast away with another man. That man by name was Lawrence Clissold." At the mention of this name Tregarthen started and changed colour. "What's the matter? " said the captain. " He was a fellow-clerk of mine thirty — five and thirty — years 292 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. "True," said the captain, immediately catching at the clew: " Dringworth Brothers, America-square, London city." The other started again, nodded, and said, " That was the house." " Now," pursued the captain, " between those two men cast away there arose a mystery concerning the round sum of five hundred pound." Again Tregarthen started, changing colour. Again the captain said, "What's the matter?" As Tregarthen only answered, "Please to go on," the captain re- counted, very tersely and plainly, the nature of Clissold's wander- ings on the barren island, as he had condensed them in his mind from the seafaring man. Tregarthen became greatly agitated during this recital, and at length exclaimed, — " Clissold was the man who ruined me ! I have suspected it for many a long year, and now I know it." " And how," said the captain, drawing his chair still closer to Tregarthen, and clapping his hand upon his shoulder, — " how may you know it ? " " When we were fellow-clerks," replied Tregarthen, "in that Lon- don house, it was one of my duties to enter daily in a certain book an account of the sums received that day by the firm, and afterward paid into the bankers'. One memorable day, — a Wednesday, the black day of my life, — among the sums I so entered was one of five hundred pounds." "I begin to make it out," said the captain. "Yes?" " It was one of Clissold's duties to copy from this entry a mem- orandum of the sums which the clerk employed to go to the bankers' paid in there. It was my duty to hand the money to Clissold ; it was Clissold's to hand it to the clerk, with that mem- orandum of his writing. On that Wednesday I entered a sum of five hundred pounds received. I handed that sum, as I handed the other sums in the day's entry, to Clissold. I was absolutely certain of it at the time ; I have been absolutely certain of it ever since. A sum of five hundred pounds was afterward found by the house to have been that day wanting from the bag, from Clissold's memorandum, and from the entries in my book. Clissold, being questioned, stood upon his perfect clearness in the matter, and emphatically declared that he asked no better than to be tested by ' Tregarthen's book.' My book was examined, and the entry of five hundred pounds was not there." "How not there," said the captain, "when you made it your- self?" Tregarthen continued : " I was then questioned. Had I made the entry ? Certainly A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 293 I had. The house produced my book, and it was not there. I could not deny my book ; I could not deny my writing. I knew there must be forgery by some one ; but the writing was wonder- fully Hke mine, and I could impeach no one if the house could not. I was required to pay the money back. I did so ; and I left the house, almost broken-hearted, rather than remain there, — even if I could have done so, — with a dark shadow of suspicion always on me. I returned to my native place, Lanrean, and remained there, clerk to a mine, until I was appointed to my little post here." "I well remember," said the captain, "that I told you that if you had no experience of ill judgments on deceiving appearances, you were a lucky man. You went hurt at that, and I see why. I'm sorry." " Thus it is," said Tregarthen. " Of my own innocence I have of course been sure ; it has been at once my comfort and my trial. Of Clissold I have always had suspicions almost amounting to certainty ; but they have never been confirmed until now. For my daughter's sake and for my own I have carried this subject in my own heart, as the only secret of my life, and have long believed that it would die with me." "Wa'al, my good sir," said the captain cordially, "the present question is, and will be long, I hope, concerning living, and not dying. Now, here are our two honest friends, the loving Raybrock and the slow. Here they stand, agreed on one point, on which I'd back 'em round the world, and right across it from north to south, and then again from east to west, and through it, from your deepest Cornish mine to China. It is, that they will never use this same so-often-mentioned sum of money, and that restitution of it must be made to you. These two, the loving member and the slow, for the sake of the right and of their father's memory, will have it ready for you to-morrow. Take it, and ease their minds and mine, and end a most unfort'nate transaction." Tregarthen took the captain by the hand, and gave his hand to each of the young men, but positively and finally answered No. He said, they trusted to his word, and he was glad of it, and at rest in his mind ; but there was no proof, and the money must remain as it was. All were very earnest over this ; and earnest- ness in men, when they are right and true, is so impressive, that Mr. Pettifer deserted his cookery and looked on quite moved. "And so," said the captain, "so we come — as that la^vyer- crittur over yonder where we were this morning might — to mere proof ; do we 1 We must have it ; must we 1 How 1 From this Clissold's wanderings, and from what you say, it ain't hard to 294 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. make out that there was a neat forgery of your writing committed by the too smart rowdy that was grease and ashes when I made his acquaintance, and a substitution of a forged leaf, in your book for a real and true leaf torn out. Now was that real and true leaf then and there destroyed ? No, — for says he, in his drunken way, he slipped it into a crack in his own desk, because you came into the office before there was time to burn it, and could never get back to it arterwards. Wait a bit. Where is that desk now? Do you consider it likely to be in America-square, London city ? " Tregarthen shook his head. " The house has not, for years, transacted business in that place. I have heard of it, and read of it, as removed, enlarged, every way altered. Things alter so fast in these times." "You think so," returned the captain, with compassion; "but you should come over and see me afore you talk about that. Wa'al, now. This desk, this paper, — this paper, this desk," said the captain, ruminating and Avalking about, and looking, in his uneasy abstraction, into Mr. Pettifer's hat on a table, among other things. " This desk, this paper, — this paper, this desk," the captain continued, nuising and roaming about the room, " I'd give — " However, he gave nothing, but took up his steward's hat instead, and stood looking into it, as if he had just come into church. After that he roamed again, and again said, " This desk, belonging to this house of Dringworth Brothers, America-square, London city — " Mr. Pettifer, still strangely moved, and now more moved than before, cut the captain otf as he backed across the room, and bespake him thus : " Captain Jorgan, I have been wishful to engage your attention, but I couldn't do it. I am unwilling to interrupt Captain Jorgan, but I must do it. / know something about that house." The captain stood stock-still and looked at him, — with his (Mr. Pettifer's) hat under his arm. "You're aware," pursued his steward, "that I was once in the broking business. Captain Jorgan 1 " "I was aware," said the captain, "that you had failed in that calling, and in half the businesses going, Tom." " Not quite so. Captain Jorgan ; but I failed in the broking business. I was partners with my brother, sir. There was a sale of old office furniture at Dringworth Brothers' when the house was moved from America-square, and me and my brother made what we call in the trade a Deal there, sir. And 111 make bold to say, sir, that the only thing I ever had from my brother, or from any A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 295 relation, — for my relations have mostly taken property from me instead of giving me any, — Avas an old desk we bought at that same sale, with a crack in it. My brother wouldn't have given me even that, when we broke partnership, if it had been worth anything." " Where is that desk now ? " said the captain. "Well, Captain Jorgan," replied the steward, "I couldn't say for certain where it is now ; but when I saw it last, — which was last time we were outward bound, — it was at a very nice lady's at Wapping, along with a little chest of mine which was detained for a small matter of a bill owing." The captain, instead of paying that rapt attention to his steward which was rendered by the other three persons present, went to church again, in respect of the steward's hat. And a most es- pecially agitated and memorable face the captain produced from it, after a short pause. " Now, Tom," said the captain, " I spoke to you, when we first came here, respecting your constitutional weakness on the subject of sunstroke." "You did, sir." "Will my slow friend," said the captain, "lend me his arm, or I shall sink right back'ards into this blessed steward's cookery. Now, Tom," pursued the captain, when the required assistance was given, "on your oath as a steward, didn't you take that desk to pieces to make a better one of it, and put it together fresh, — or something of the kind 1 " "On my oath I did, sir," replied the steward. " And by the blessing of Heaven, my friends, one and all," cried the captain, radiant with joy, — "of the Heaven that put it into this Tom Pettifer's head to take so much care of his head against the bright sun, — he lined his hat with the original leaf in Tre- garthen's writing, — and here it is ! " With that the captain, to the utter destruction of Mr. Pettifer's favourite hat, produced the book-leaf, very much worn, but still legible, and gave both his legs such tremendous slaps that they were heard far off in the bay, and never accounted for. "A quarter past five p.m.," said the captain, pulling out his watch, " and that's thirty-three hours and a quarter in all, and a pretty run ! " How they were all overpowered with delight and triumph ; how the money was restored, then and there, to Tregarthen ; how Tre- garthen, then and there, gave it all to his daughter; how the captain undertook to go to Dringworth Brothers and re-establish the reputation of their forgotten old clerk; how Kitty came in. 296 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. and was nearly torn to pieces, and the marriage was reappointed, needs not to be told. Nor how she and the young fisherman went home to the Post-office to prepare the way for the captain's coming, by declaring him to be the mightiest of men, who had made all their fortunes, — and then dutifully withdrew together, in order that he might have the domestic coast entirely to himself. How he availed himself of it is all that remains to tell. Deeply delighted with his trust, and putting his heart into it, he raised the latch of the Post-office parlour where Mrs. Raybrock and the young widow sat, and said, — "May I come in?" " Sure you may. Captain Jorgan ! " replied the old lady. "And good reason you have to be free of the house, though you have not been too well used in it by some who ought to have known better. I ask your pardon." "No you don't, ma'am," said the captain, " for I won't let you. Wa'al, to be sure ! " By this time he had taken a chair on the hearth between them. " Never felt such an evil spirit in the whole course of my life ! . There ! I tell you ! I could a'most have cut my own connection. Like the dealer in my country, away West, who, when he had let himself be outdone in a bargain, said to himself, ' Now I tell you what ! I'll never speak to you again.' And he never did, but joined a settlement of oysters, and translated the multiplication table into their language, — which is a fact that can be proved. If you doubt it, mention it to any oyster you come across, and see if he'll have the face to contradict it." He took the child from her mother's lap and set it on his knee. " Not a bit afraid of me now, you see. Knows I am fond of small people. I have a child, and she's a girl, and I sing to her sometimes." "What do you sing? " asked Margaret. "Not a long song, my dear. Silas Jorgan Played the organ. That's about all. And sometimes I tell her stories, — stories of sailors supposed to be lost, and recovered after all hope was aban- doned." Here the captain musingly went back to his song, — Silas Jorgan Played the organ ; repeating it with his eyes on the fire, as he softly danced the child on his knee. For he felt that Margaret had stopped working. A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 297 "Yes," said the captain, still looking at the fire, "I make up stories and tell 'em to that child. Stories of shipwreck on desert islands, and long delay in getting back to civilised lands. It is to stories the like of that, mostly, that Silas Jorgan Plays the organ." There was no light in the room but the light of the fire ; for the shades of night were on the village, and the stars had begun to peep out of the sky one by one, as the houses of the village peeped out from among the foliage when the night departed. The captain felt that Margaret's eyes were upon him, and thought it discreetest to keep his own eyes on the fire. "Yes; I make 'em up," said the captain. "I make up stories of brothers brought together by the good providence of God, — of sons brought back to mothers, husbands brought back to wives, fathers raised from the deep, for little children like herself." Margaret's touch was on his arm, and he could not choose but look round now. Next moment her hand moved imploringly to his breast, and she was on her knees before him, — supporting the mother, who was also kneeling. "What's the matter?" said the captain. "What's the matter? Silas Jorgan Played the — " - Their looks and tears were too much for him, and he could not finish the song, short as it was. "Mistress Margaret, you have borne ill fortune well. Could you bear good fortune equally well, if it was to come ? " " I hope so. I thankfully and humbly and earnestly hope so ! " "Wa'al, my dear," said the captain, "p'r'haps it has come. He's — don't be frightened — shall I say the word — " "Alive?" " Yes ! " The thanks they fervently addressed to Heaven were again too much for the captain, who openly took out his handkerchief and dried his eyes. " He's no further off," resumed the captain, " than my country. Indeed, he's no further off than his own native country. To tell you the truth, he's no further off than Falmouth. Indeed, I doubt if he's quite so fur. Indeed, if you was sure you could bear it nicely, and I was to do no more than whistle for him — " The captain's trust was discharged. A rush came, and they were all together again. 298 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. This was a fine opportunity for Tom Pettifer to appear with a tumbler of cold water, and he presently appeared with it, and administered it to the ladies ; at the same time soothing them, and composing their dresses, exactly as if they had been passengers crossing the Channel. The extent to which the captain slapped his legs, when Mr. Pettifer acquitted himself of this act of steward- ship, could have been thoroughly appreciated by no one but him- self; inasmuch as he must have slapped them black and blue, and they must have smarted tremendously. He couldn't stay for the wedding, having a few appointments to keep at the irreconcilable distance of about four thousand miles. So next morning all the village cheered him up to the level ground above, and there he shook hands with a complete Census of its population, and invited the whole, without exception, to come and stay several months with him at Salem, Massachusetts, United States. And there as he stood on the spot where he had seen that little golden picture of love and parting, and from which he could that morning contemplate another golden picture with a vista of golden years in it, little Kitty put her arms around his neck, and kissed him on both his bronzed cheeks, and laid her pretty face upon his storm-beaten breast, in sight of all, — ashamed to have called such a noble captain names. And there the captain waved his hat over his head three final times ; and there he was last seen, going away accompanied by Tom Pettifer, Ho, and carrying his hands in his pockets. And there, before that ground was softened with the fiiUen leaves of three more summers, a rosy little boy took his first unsteady run to a fair young mother's breast, and the name of that infant fisherman was Jorgan Raybrock. TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. IN THREE CHAPTERS. Chapter I. PICKING UP SOOT AND CINDERS. " And why Tom Tiddler's ground ? " asked the Traveller. "Because he scatters halfpence to Tramps and such-like," re- turned the Landlord, " and of course they pick 'em up. And this being done on his own land (which it is his own land, you observe, and were his family's before him), why it is but regarding the half- pence as gold and silver, and turning the ownership of the property TOM tiddler's ground. 300 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. a bit round your finger, and there you have the name of the chil- dren's game complete. And it's appropriate too," said the Land- lord, with his favourite action of stooping a little, to look across the table out of window at vacancy, under the window-blind which was half drawn down. " Leastwise it has been so considered by many gentlemen which have partook of chops and tea in the pres- ent humble parlour." The Traveller was partaking of chops and tea in the present humble parlour, and the Landlord's shot was fired obHquely at him. " And you call him a Hermit ? " said the Traveller. "They call him such," returned the Landlord, evading personal responsibility ; " he is in general so considered." " What is a Hermit 1 " asked the Traveller. " What is it ? " repeated the Landlord, drawing his hand across his chin. " Yes, what is it ? " The Landlord stooped again, to get a more comprehensive view of vacancy under the window-blind, and — with an asphyxiated appearance on him as one unaccustomed to definition — made no answer. " I'll tell you what I suppose it to be," said the Traveller. " An abominably dirty thing." "Mr. Mopes is dirty, it cannot be denied," said the Landlord. " Intolerably conceited." "Mr. Mopes is vain of the life he leads, some do say," replied the Landlord, as another concession. "A slothful, unsavoury, nasty reversal of the laws of human nature," said the Traveller ; " and for the sake of God's working world and its wholesomeness, both moral and physical, I would put the thing on the treadmill (if I had my way) wherever I found it ; whether on a pillar, or in a hole ; whether on Tom Tiddler's ground, or the Pope of Rome's ground, or a Hindoo fakeer's ground, or any other ground." " I don't know about putting Mr. Mopes on the treadmill," said the Landlord, shaking his head very seriously. "There an't a doubt but what he has got landed property." " How far may it be to this said Tom Tiddler's ground ? " asked the Traveller. " Put it at five mile," returned the Landlord. " Well ! When I have done my breakfast," said the Traveller, " I'll go there. I came over here this morning, to find it out and see it." "Many does," observed the Landlord. J TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 301 The conversation passed, in the Midsummer weather of no remote year of grace, down among the pleasant dales and trout-streams of a green English county. No matter what county. Enough that you may hunt there, shoot there, fish there, traverse long grass- grown Roman roads there, open ancient barrows there, see many a square mile of richly cultivated land there, and hold Arcadian talk with a bold peasantry, their country's pride, who will tell you (if you want to know) how pastoral housekeeping is done on nine shil- lings a week. Mr. Traveller sat at his breakfast in the little sanded parlour of the Peal of Bells village alehouse, with the dew and dust of an early walk upon his shoes — an early walk by road and meadow and coppice, that had sprinkled him bountifully with little blades of grass, and scraps of new hay, and with leaves both young and old, and with other such fragrant tokens of the freshness and wealth of summer. The window through which the Landlord had concen- trated his gaze upon vacancy was shaded, because the morning sun was hot and bright on the village street. The village street was like most other village streets : Avide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little dwell- ings with the largest of window-shutters (to shut up Nothing as carefully as if it were the Mint, or the Bank of England) had called in the Doctor's house so suddenly, that his brass door-plate and three stories stood among them as conspicuous and different as the Doctor himself in his broadcloth, among the smock-frocks of his patients. The village residences seemed to have gone to law with a similar absence of consideration, for a score of weak little lath- and-plaster cabins clung in confusion about the Attorney's red-brick house, which, with glaring door-steps and a most terrific scraper, seemed to serve all manner of ejectments upon them. They were as various as labourers — high -shouldered, wry-necked, one-eyed, goggle-eyed, squinting, bow-legged, knock-knee'd, rheumatic, crazy. Some of the small tradesmen's houses, such as the crockery-shop and the harness-maker's, had a Cyclops window in the middle of the gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that some for- lorn rural Prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment hori- zontally, when he retired to rest, after the manner of the worm. So bountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country, and so lean and scant the village, that one might have thought the village had sown and planted everything it once possessed, to convert the same into crops. This would account for the bareness of the little shops, the bareness of the few boards and trestles designed for market purposes in a corner of the street, the bareness of the obso- lete Inn and Inn Yard, with the ominous inscription "Excise Oflice" 302 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. not yet faded out from the gateway, as indicating the very last thing that poverty could get rid of. This would also account for the determined abandonment of the village by one stray dog, fast lessening in the perspective where the white posts and the pond were, and would explain his conduct on the hypothesis that he was going (through the act of suicide) to convert himself into manure, and become a part proprietor in turnips or mangold-wurzel. Mr. Traveller having finished his breakfast and paid his moderate score, walked out to the threshold of the Peal of Bells, and, thence directed by the pointing finger of his host, betook himself towards the ruined hermitage of Mr. Mopes the Hermit. For, Mr. Mopes, by suff"ering everything about him to go to ruin, and by dressing himself in a blanket and skewer, and by steeping himself in soot and grease and other nastiness, had acquired great renown in all that country-side — far greater renown than he could ever have won for himself if his career had been that of any ordi- nary Christian, or decent Hottentot. He had even blanketed and skewered and sooted and greased himself, into the London papers. And it was curious to find, as Mr. Traveller found by stopping for a new direction at this farm-house or at that cottage as he went along, with how much accuracy the morbid Mopes had counted on the weakness of his neighbours to embellish him. A mist of home- brewed marvel and romance surrounded Mopes, in which (as in all fogs) the real proportions of the real object were extravagantly heightened. He had murdered his beautiful beloved in a fit of jeal- ousy and was doing penance ; he had made a vow under the influence of grief; he had made a vow under the influence of a fatal accident ; he had made a vow under the influence of religion ; he had made a vow under the influence of drink ; he had made a vow under the in- fluence of disappointment ; he had never made any vow, but " had got led into it " by the possession of a mighty and most awful secret ; he was enormously rich, he was stupendously charitable, he was pro- foundly learned, he saw spectres, he knew and could do all kinds of wonders. Some said he went out every night, and was met by terri- fied wayfarers stalking along dark roads, others said he never went out, some knew his penance to be nearly expired, others had posi- tive information that his seclusion was not a penance at all, and would never expire but with himself. Even, as to the easy facts of how old he was, or how long he had held verminous occupation of his blanket and skewer, no consistent information was to be got, from those who must know if they would. He was represented as being all the ages between five-and-twenty and sixty, and as having been a Hermit seven years, twelve, twenty, thirty, — though twenty, on the whole, appeared the favourite term. TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 303 " Well, well ! " said Mr. Traveller. " At any rate, let us see what a real live Hermit looks like." So, Mr. Traveller went on, and on, and on, until he came to Tom Tiddler's ground. It was a nook in a rustic by-road, which the genius of Mopes had laid waste as completely as if he had been born an Emperor and a Conqueror. Its centre object was a dwelling-house, sufficiently substantial, all the window-glass of which had been long ago abol- ished by the surprising genius of Mopes, and all the windows of which were barred across with rough-split logs of trees nailed over them on the outside. A rickyard, hip-high in vegetable rankness and ruin, contained out-buildings, from which the thatch had lightly fluttered away, on all the winds of all the seasons of the year, and from which the planks and beams had heavily dropped and rotted. The frosts and damps of winter, and the heats of summer, had warped what wreck remained, so that not a post or a board retained the position it was meant to hold, but everything was twisted from its purpose, like its owner, and degraded and debased. In this homestead of the sluggard, behind the ruined hedge, and sinking away among the ruined grass and the nettles, were the last perish- ing fragments of certain ricks : which had gradually mildewed and collapsed, until they looked like mounds of rotten honeycomb, or dirty sponge. Tom Tiddler's ground could even show its ruined water; for, there was a slimy pond into which a tree or two had fallen — one soppy trunk and branches lay across it then — which in its accumulation of stagnant weed, and in its black decomposi- tion, and in all its foulness and filth, was almost comforting, re- garded as the only water that could have reflected the shameful place without seeming polluted by that low office. Mr. Traveller looked all around him on Tom Tiddler's ground, and his glance at last encountered a dusky Tinker lying among the weeds and rank grass, in the shade of the dwelling-house. A rough walking-staff lay on the ground by his side, and his head rested on a small wallet. He met Mr. Traveller's eye without lifting up his head, merely depressing his chin a little (for he was lying on his back) to get a better view of him. " Good day ! " said Mr. Traveller. "Same to you, if you like it," returned the Tinker. " Don't ycm like it? It's a very fine day." " I an't partickler in weather," returned the Tinker, with a yawn. Mr. Traveller had walked up to where he lay, and was looking down at him. " This is a curious place," said Mr. Traveller. " Ay, I suppose so ! " returned the Tinker. " Tom Tiddler's ground, they call this." 304 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. " Arc you well acquainted with it?" " Never saw it afore to-day," said the Tinker, with another yawn, " and don't care if I never see it again. There was a man here just now, told me what it was called. If you want to see Tom himself, you must go in at that gate." He faintly indicated with his chin a little mean ruin of a wooden gate at the side of the house. " Have you seen Tom ? " " No, and I an't partickler to see him. I can see a dirty man anywhere." "He does not live in the house, then?" said Mr. Traveller, cast- ing his eyes upon the house anew. "The man said," returned the Tinker, rather irritably, — "him as was here just now, — ' this what you're a lying on, mate, is Tom Tiddler's ground. And if you want to see Tom,' he says, * you must go in at that gate.' The man come out at that gate himself, and he ought to know." " Certainly," said Mr. Traveller. " Though, perhaps," exclaimed the Tinker, so stmck by the brightness of his own idea, that it had the electric effect upon him of causing him to lift up his head an inch or so, " perhaps he was a liar ! He told some rum 'uns — him as was here just now, did about this place of Tom's. He says — him as was here just now — ' When Tom shut up the house, mate, to go to rack, the beds was left, all made, like as if somebody was a going to sleep in every bed. And if you was to walk through the bedrooms now, you'd see the ragged mouldy bedclothes a heaving and a heaving like seas. And a heaving and a heaving with what ? ' he says. ' Why, with the rats under 'em.' " " I wish I had seen that man," Mr. Traveller remarked. "You'd have been welcome to see him instead of me seeing him," growled the Tinker; "for he was a long-winded one." Not without a sense of injury in the remembrance, the Tinker gloomily closed his eyes. Mr. Traveller, deeming the Tinker a short- winded one, from whom no further breath of information was to be derived, betook himself to the gate. Sw^mg upon its rusty hinges, it admitted him into a yard in which there was nothing to be seen but an outhouse attached to the ruined building, with a barred window in it. As there were traces of many recent footsteps under this window, and as it was a low window, and unglazed, Mr. Traveller made bold to peep within the bars. And there to be sure he had a real live Hermit before him, and could judge how the real dead Hermits used to look. He was lying on a bank of soot and cinders, on the floor, in front of a rusty fire-place. There was nothing else in the dark little TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 305 kitchen, or scullery, or whatever his den had been originally used as, but a table with a litter of old bottles on it. A rat made a clatter among these bottles, jumped down, and ran over the real live Hermit on his way to his hole, or the man in his hole would not have been so easily discernible. Tickled in the face by the rat's tail, the owner of Tom Tiddler's ground opened his eyes, saw Mr. Traveller, started up, and sprang to the window. " Humph ! " thought Mr. Traveller, retiring a pace or two from the bars. " A compound of Newgate, Bedlam, a Debtors' Prison in the worst time, a chimney-sweep, a mudlark, and the Noble Savage ! A nice old family, the Hermit family. Hah ! " Mr. Traveller thought this, as he silently confronted the sooty object in the blanket and skewer (in sober truth it wore nothing else), with the matted hair and the staring eyes. Further, Mr. Traveller thought, as the eye surveyed him with a very obvious curiosity in ascertaining the effect they produced, " Vanity, vanity, vanity ! Verily, all is vanity ! " " What is your name, sir, and where do you come from 1 " asked Mr. Mopes the Hermit — with an air of authority, but in the ordi- nary human speech of one who has been to school. Mr. Traveller answered the inquiries. " Did you come here, sir, to see me ? " " I did. I heard of you, and I came to see you. — I know you like to be seen." Mr. Traveller coolly threw the last words in, as a matter of course, to forestall an affectation of resentment or objec- tion that he saw rising beneath the grease and grime of the face. They had their effect. " So," said the Hermit, after a momentary silence, unclasping the bars by which he had previously held, and seating himself be- hind them on the ledge of the window, with his bare legs and feet crouched up, '' you know I like to be seen 1 " Mr. Traveller looked about him for something to sit on, and, ob- serving a billet of wood in a corner, brought it near the window. Deliberately seating himself upon it, he answered, "Just so." Each looked at the other, and each appeared to take some pains to get the measure of the other. " Then you have come to ask me why I lead this life," said the Hermit, frowning in a stormy manner. " I never tell that to any human being. I will not be asked that." " Certainly you will not be asked that by me," said Mr. Traveller, "for I have not the slightest desire to know." "You are an uncouth man," said Mr. Mopes the Hermit. "You are another," said Mr. Traveller. The Hermit, who was plainly in the habit of overawing his vis- 306 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. itors with the novelty of his filth and his blanket and skewer, glared at his present visitor in some discomfiture and surprise : as if he had taken aim at him with a sure gun, and his piece had missed fire. " Why do you come here at all ? " he asked, after a pause. "Upon my life," said Mr. Traveller, " I was made to ask myself that very question only a few minutes ago — by a Tinker too." As he glanced towards the gate in saying it, the Hermit glanced in that direction likewise. "Yes. He is lying on his back in the sunlight outside," said Mr. Traveller, as if he had been asked concerning the man, " and he won't come in ; for he says — and really very reasonably — ' What should I come in for? I can see a dirty man anywhere.' " "You are an insolent person. Go away from my premises. Go ! " said the Hermit, in an imperious and angry tone. " Come, come ! " returned Mr. Traveller, quite undisturbed. "This is a little too much. You are not going to call yourself clean ? Look at your legs. And as to these being your premises : — they are in far too disgraceful a condition to claim any privilege of ownership, or anything else." The Hermit bounced down from his window-ledge, and cast him- self on his bed of soot and cinders. " I am not going," said Mr. Traveller, glancing in after him ; "you won't get rid of me in that way. You had better come and talk." " I won't talk," said the Hermit, flouncing round to get his back towards the window. "Then I will," said Mr. Traveller. "Why should you take it ill that I have no curiosity to know why you live this highly absurd and highly indecent life 1 When I contemplate a man in a state of disease, surely there is no moral obligation on me to be anxious to know how he took it." After a short silence, the Hermit bounced up again, and came back to the barred window. " What ? You are not gone ? " he said, afiecting to have sup- posed that he was. " Nor going," Mr. Traveller replied : "I design to pass this summer day here." " How dare you come, sir, upon my premises " the Hermit was returning, when his visitor interrupted him. " Really, you know, you must 7iot talk about your premises. I cannot allow such a place as this to be dignified with the name of premises." "How dare you," said the Hermit, shaking his bars, "come in at my gate, to taunt me with being in a diseased state 1 " TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 307 " Why, Lord bless my soul," returned the other, very composedly, "you have not the face to say that you are in a wholesome state? Do allow me again to call your attention to your legs. Scrape yourself any where — with anything — and then tell me you are in a wholesome state. The fact is, Mr. Mopes, that you are not only a Nuisance " " A Nuisance ? " repeated the Hermit, fiercely. " What is a place in this obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance 1 What is a man in your obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance ? Then, as you very well know, you cannot do with- out an audience, and your audience is a Nuisance. You attract all the disreputable vagabonds and prowlers within ten miles around, by exhibiting yourself to them in that objectionable blanket, and by throwing copper money among them, and giving them drink out of those very dirty jars and bottles that I see in there (their stom- achs need be strong !) ; and in short," said Mr. Traveller, summing up in a quietly and comfortably settled manner, "you are a Nui- sance, and this kennel is a Nuisance, and the audience that you can- not possibly dispense with is a Nuisance, and the Nuisance is not merely a local Nuisance, because it is a general Nuisance to know that there can be such a Nuisance left in civilisation so very long after its time." " Will you go away ? I have a gun in here," said the Hermit. "PoohV' ''Ihave/" " Now, I put it to you. Did I say you had not ? And as to going away, didn't I say I am not going away 1 You have made me forget where I was. I now remember that I was remarking on your conduct being a Nuisance. Moreover, it is in the last and lowest degree inconsequent foolishness and weakness." " Weakness ? " echoed the Hermit. "Weakness," said Mr. Traveller, with his former comfortably settled final air. " I weak, you fool ? " cried the Hermit, " I, who have held to my purpose, and my diet, and my only bed there, all these years 1 " "The more the years, the weaker you," returned Mr. Traveller. " Though the years are not so many as folks say, and as you will- ingly take credit for. The crust upon your face is thick and dark, Mr. Mopes, but I can see enough of you through it, to see that you are still a young man." "Inconsequent foolishness is lunacy, I suppose?" said the Hermit. "I suppose it is very like it," answered Mr. Traveller. "Do I converse like a lunatic?" " One of us two must have a strong presumption against him of 308 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. being one, whether or no. Either the clean and decorously clad man, or the dirty and indecorously clad man. I don't say which." "Why, you self-sufficient bear," said the Hermit, "not a day passes but I am justified in my purpose by the conversations I hold here ; not a day passes but I am shown, by everything I hear and see here, how right and strong I am in holding my purpose." Mr. Traveller, lounging easily on his billet of wood, took out a pocket pipe and began to fill it. " Now, that a man," he said, ap- pealing to the summer sky as he did so, "that a man — even be- hind bars, in a blanket and skewer — should tell me that he can see, from day to day, any orders or conditions of men, women, or children, who can by any possibility teach him that it is anything but the miserablest drivelHng for a human creature to quarrel with his social nature — not to go so far as to say, to renounce his com- mon human decency, for that is an extreme case ; or who can teach him that he can in any wise separate himself from his kind and the habits of his kind, without becoming a deteriorated spectacle calculated to give the Devil (and perhaps the monkeys) pleasure, — is something wonderful! I repeat," said Mr. Traveller, begin- ning to smoke, " the unreasoning hardihood of it is something won- derful — even in a man with the dirt upon him an inch or two thick — behind bars — in a blanket and skewer ! " The Hermit looked at him irresolutely, and retired to his soot and cinders and lay down, and got up again and came to the bars, and again looked at him irresolutely, and finally said with sharp- ness : " I don't like tobacco." "I don't like dirt," rejoined Mr. Traveller; "tobacco is an ex- cellent disinfectant. We shall both be the better for my pipe. It is my intention to sit here through this summer day, until that blessed summer sun sinks low in the west, and to show you what a poor creature you are, through the lips of every chance wayfarer who may come in at your gate." " What do you mean 1 " inquired the Hermit, with a furious air. " I mean that yonder is your gate, and there are you, and here am I ; I mean that I know it to be a moral impossibility that any person can stray in at that gate from any point of the compass, with any sort of experience, gained at first hand, or derived from another, that can confute me and justify you." "You are an arrogant and boastful hero," said the Hermit. "You think yourself profoundly wise." " Bah ! " returned Mr. Traveller, quietly smoking. " There is little wisdom in knowing that every man must be up and doing, and that all mankind are made dependent on one another." " You have companions outside," said the Hermit. " I am not 1 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 309 to be imposed upon by your assumed confidence in the people who may enter." "A depraved distrust," returned the visitor, compassionately raising his eyebrows, "of course belongs to your state. I can't help that." " Do you mean to tell me you have no confederates ? " "I mean to tell you nothing but what I have told you. What I have told you is, that it is a moral impossibility that any son or daughter of Adam can stand on this ground that I put my foot on, or on any ground that mortal treads, and gainsay the healthy ten- ure on which we hold our existence." "Which is," sneered the Hermit, "according to you — " "Which is," returned the other, "according to Eternal Provi- dence, that we must arise and wash our faces and do our gregari- ous work and act and react on one another, leaving only the idiot and the palsied to sit blinking in the corner. Come ! " apostro- phising the gate. " Open Sesame ! Show his eyes and grieve his heart ! I don't care who comes, for I know what must come of it ! " With that, he faced round a little on his billet of wood towards the gate ; and Mr. Mopes, the Hermit, after two or three ridiculous bounces of indecision at his bed and back again, submitted to what he could not help himself against, and coiled himself on his window- ledge, holding to his bars and looking out rather anxiously. Chapter II. PICKING UP MISS KIMMEENS. The day was by this time waning, when the gate again opened, and, with the brilliant golden light that streamed from the declin- ing sun and touched the very bars of the sooty creature's den, there passed in a little child ; a little girl with beautiful bright hair. She wore a plain straw hat, had a door-key in her hand, and tripped towards Mr. Traveller as if she were pleased to see him and were going to repose some childish confidence in him, when she caught sight of the figure behind the bars, and started back in terror. " Don't be alarmed, darling ! " said Mr. Traveller, taking her by the hand. " Oh, but I don't like it ! " urged the shrinking child ; " it's dreadful." "Well ! I don't like it either," said Mr. Traveller. " Who has put it there ? " asked the little girl. " Does it bite 1 " 310 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. "No, — only barks. But can't you make up your mind to see it, my dear ? " For she was covering her eyes. " no no no ! " returned the child. " I cannot bear to look at it ! " Mr. Traveller turned his head towards his friend in there, as much as to ask him how he liked that instance of his success, and then took the child out at the still open gate, and stood talking to her for some half an hour in the mellow sunlight. At length he re- turned, encouraging her as she held his arm with both her hands ; and laying his protecting hand upon her head and smoothing her pretty hair, he addressed his friend behind the bars as follows : Miss Pupford's establishment for six young ladies of tender years is an establishment of a compact nature, an establishment in miniature, quite a pocket establishment. Miss Pupford, Miss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent. Miss Pupford's cook, and Miss Pupford's housemaid, complete what Miss Pupford calls the educational and domestic staff of her Lilliputian College. Miss Pupford is one of the most amiable of her sex ; it neces- sarily follows that she possesses a sweet temper, and would own to the possession of a great deal of sentiment if she considered it quite reconcilable with her duty to parents. Deeming it not in the bond, Miss Pupford keeps it as far out of sight as she can — which (God bless her !) is not very far. Miss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent, may be re- garded as in some sort an inspired lady, for she never conversed with a Parisian, and was never out of England — except once in the pleasure-boat Lively, in the foreign waters that ebb and flow two miles off Margate at high water. Even under those geographi- cally favourable circumstances for the acquisition of the French language in its utmost politeness and purity, Miss Pupford's assist- ant did not fully profit by the opportunity ; for the pleasure-boat. Lively, so strongly asserted its title to its name on that occasion, that she was reduced to the condition of lying in the bottom of the boat pickling in brine — as if she were being salted down for the use of the Navy — undergoing at the same time great mental alarm, corporeal distress, and clear-starching derangement. When Miss Pupford and her assistant first foregathered, is not known to men, or pupils. But, it was long ago. A belief would have established itself among pupils that the two once went to school together, were it not for the difficulty and audacity of imagin- ing Miss Pupford born without mittens, and without a front, and without a bit of gold wire among her front teeth, and without little dabs of powder on her neat little face and nose. Indeed, whenever Miss Pupford gives a little lecture on the mythology of TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 311 the misguided heathens (always carefully excluding Cupid from recognition), and tells how Minerva sprang, perfectly equipped, from the brain of Jupiter, she is half supposed to hint, " So I myself came into the world, completely up in Pinnock, Mangnall, Tables, and the use of the Globes." Howbeit, Miss Pupford and Miss Pupford's assistant are old old friends. And it is thought by pupils that, after pupils are gone to bed, they even call one another by their Christian names in the quiet little parlour. For, once upon a time on a thunderous afternoon, when Miss Pupford fainted away without notice, Miss Pupford's assistant (never heard, before or since, to address her otherwise than as Miss Pupford) ran to her, crying out "My dearest Euphemia ! " And Euphemia is Miss Pupford's Christian name on the sampler (date picked out) hanging up in the College- hall, where the two peacocks, terrified to death by some German text that is waddling down hill after them out of a cottage, are scuttling away to hide their profiles in two immense bean-stalks growing out of flower-pots. Also, there is a notion latent among pupils, that Miss Pupford was once in love, and that the beloved object still moves upon this ball. Also, that he is a public character, and a personage of vast consequence. Also, that Miss Pupford's assistant knows all about it. For, sometimes of an afternoon when Miss Pupford has been reading the paper through her little gold eye-glass (it is necessary to read it on the spot, as the boy calls for it, with ill-conditioned punctuality, in an hour), she has become agitated, and has said to her assistant, " G ! " Then Miss Pupford's assistant has gone to Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford has pointed out, with her eye- glass, G in the paper, and then Miss Pupford's assistant has read about G, and has shown sympathy. So stimulated has the pupil- mind been in its time to curiosity on the subject of G, that once, under temporary circumstances favourable to the bold sally, one fearless pupil did actually obtain possession of the paper, and range all over it in search of G, who had been discovered therein by Miss Pupford not ten minutes before. But no G could be identified, except one capital offender who had been executed in a state of great hardihood, and it was not to be supposed that Miss Pupitrd could ever have loved him. Besides, he couldn't be always being exe- cuted. Besides, he got into the paper again, alive, within a month. On the whole, it is suspected by the pupil-mind that G is a short chubby old gentleman, with little black sealing-wax boots up to his knees, whom a sharply observant pupil. Miss Linx, when she once went to Tunbridge Wells with Miss Pupford for the holidays, 312 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. reported on her return (privately and confidentially) to have seen come capering up to Miss Pupford on the Promenade, and to have detected in the act of squeezing Miss Pupford's hand, and to have heard pronounce the words, "Cruel Euphemia, ever thine ! " — or something like that. Miss Linx hazarded a guess that he might be House of Commons, or Money Market, or Court Circular, or Fashionable Movements ; which would account for his getting into the paper so often. But, it was fatally objected by the pupil-mind, that none of those notabilities could possibly be spelt with a G. There are other occasions, closely watched and perfectly com- prehended by the pupil-mind, when Miss Pupford imparts with mystery to her assistant that there is special excitement in the morning paper. These occasions are, when Miss Pupford finds an old pupil coming out under the head of Births, or Marriages. Aff*ectionate tears are invariably seen in Miss Pupford's meek little eyes when this is the case ; and the pupil-mind, perceiving that its order has distinguished itself — though the fact is never mentioned by Miss Pupford — becomes elevated, and feels that it likewise is reserved for greatness. Miss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent has a little more bone than Miss Pupford, but is of the same trim orderly diminutive cast, and, from long contemplation, admiration, and imitation of Miss Pupford, has grown like her. Being entirely devoted to Miss Pupford, and having a pretty talent for pencil- drawing, she once made a portrait of that lady : which was so instantly identified and hailed by the pupils, that it was done on stone at five shillings. Surely the softest and milkiest stone that ever was quarried, received that likeness of Miss Pupford ! The lines of her placid little nose are so undecided in it that strangers to the work of art are observed to be exceedingly perplexed as to where the nose goes to, and involuntarily feel their own noses in a disconcerted manner. Miss Pupford being represented in a state of dejection at an open window, ruminating over a bowl of gold-fish, the pupil-mind has settled that the bowl was presented by G, and that he wreathed the bowl with flowers of soul, and that Miss Pupford is depicted as waiting for him on a memorable occasion when hervvas behind his time. The approach of the last Midsummer holidays had a particular interest for the pupil-mind, by reason of its knowing that Miss Pupford was bidden, on the second day of those holidays, to the nuptials of a former pupil. As it was impossible to conceal the fact — so extensive were the dress-making preparations — Miss Pup- ford openly announced it. But, she held it due to parents to make the announcement with an air of gentle melancholy, as if marriage TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 313 were (as indeed it exceptionally has been) rather a calamity. With an air of softened resignation and pity, therefore, Miss Pupford went on with her preparations : and meanwhile no pupil ever went up-stairs, or came down, without peeping in at the door of Miss Pupford's bedroom (when Miss Pupford wasn't there), and bring- ing back some surprising intelligence concerning the bonnet. The extensive preparations being completed on the day before the holidays, an unanimous entreaty was preferred to Miss Pupford by the pupil-mind — finding expression through Miss Pupford's assistant — that she would deign to appear in all her splendour. Miss Pupford consenting, presented a lovely 'spectacle. And al- though the oldest pupil was barely thirteen, every one of the six became in two minutes perfect in the shape, cut, colour, price, and quality, of every article Miss Pupford wore. Thus delightfully ushered in, the holidays began. Five of the six pupils kissed little Kitty Kimmeens twenty times over (round total, one hundred times, for she was very popular), and so went home. Miss Kitty Kimmeens remained behind, for her relations and friends were all in India, far away. A self-helpful, steady little child is Miss Kitty Kimmeens : a dimpled child too, and a loving. So, the great marriage-day came, and Miss Pupford, quite as much fluttered as any bride could be (G ! thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens), went away, splendid to behold, in the carriage that was sent for her. But not Miss Pupford only went away; for Miss Pupford's assistant went away with her, on a dutiful visit to an aged uncle — though surely the venerable gentleman couldn't live in the gallery of the church where the marriage was to be, thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens — and yet Miss Pupford's assistant had let out that she was going there. Where the cook was going, didn't appear, but . he generally conveyed to Miss Kimmeens that she was bound, rather against her will, on a pilgrimage to perform some pious office that rendered new ribbons necessary to her best bonnet, and also sandals to her shoes. " So you see," said the housemaid, when they were all gone, " there's nobody left in the house but you and me. Miss Kim- meens." " Nobody else," said Miss Kitty Kimmeens, shaking her curls a little sadly. "Nobody!" "And you wouldn't like your Bella to go too ; would you, Miss Kimmeens?" said the housemaid. (She being Bella.) " N — no," answered little Miss Kimmeens. "Your poor Bella is forced to stay with you, whether she likes it or not ; an't she, Miss Kimmeens ? " 314 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. " DonH you like it ? " inquired Kitty. " Why, you're such a darling, Miss, that it would be unkind of your Bella to make objections. Yet my brother-in-law has been took unexpected bad by this morning's post. And your poor Bella is much attached to him, letting alone her favourite sister, Miss Kimmeens." " Is he very ill ? " asked little Kitty. " Your poor Bella has her fears so, Miss Kimmeens," returned the housemaid, with her apron at her eyes. " It was but his in- side, it is true, but it might mount, and the doctor said that if it mounted he wouldn't answer." Here the housemaid was so over- come that Kitty administered the only comfort she had ready : which was a kiss. "If it hadn't been for disappointing Cook, dear Miss Kimmeens," said the housemaid, " your Bella would have asked her to stay with you. For Cook is sweet company, Miss Kimmeens, much more so than your own poor Bella." " But you are very nice, Bella." "Your Bella could wish to be so. Miss Kimmeens," returned the housemaid, "but she knows full well that it do not lay in her power this day." With which despondent conviction, the housemaid drew a heavy sigh, and shook her head, and dropped it on one side. " If it had been anyways right to disappoint Cook," she pursued, in a contemplative and abstracted manner, "it might have been so easy done ! I could have got to my brother-in-law's, and had the best part of the day there, and got back, long before our ladies come home at night, and neither the one nor the other of them need never have known it. Not that Miss Pupford would at all object, but that it might put her out, being tender-hearted. Hows'ever, your own poor Bella, Miss Kimmeens," said the house- maid, rousing herself, " is forced to stay with you, and you're a precious love, if not a liberty." " Bella," said little Kitty, after a short silence. "Call your own poor Bella, your Bella, dear," the housemaid besought her. "My Bella, then." " Bless your considerate heart ! " said the housemaid. " If you would not mind leaving me, I should not mind being left. I am not afraid to stay in the house alone. And you need not be uneasy on my account, for I would be very careful to do no harm." " ! As to harm, you more than sweetest, if not a liberty," exclaimed the housemaid, in a rapture, " your Bella could trust you TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 315 anywhere, being so steady, and so answerable. The oldest head in this house (me and Cook says), but for its bright hair, is Miss Kimmeens. But no, I will not leave you; for you would think your Bella unkind." "But if you are my Bella, you must go," returned the child. " Must I ? " said the housemaid, rising, on the whole with alac- rity. " What must be, must be. Miss Kimmeens. Your own poor Bella acts according, though unwilling. But go or stay, your own poor Bella loves you. Miss Kimmeens." It was certainly go, and not stay, for within five minutes? Miss Kimmeens's own poor Bella — so much improved' in point of spirits as to have grown almost sanguine on the subject of her brother-in- law — went her way, in apparel that seemed to have been expressly prepared for some festive occasion. Such are the changes of this fleeting world, and so short-sighted are we poor mortals ! When the house door closed with a bang and a shake, it seemed to Miss Kimmeens to be a very heavy house door, shutting her up in a wilderness of a house. But, Miss Kimmeens being, as before stated, of a self-reliant and methodical character, presently began to parcel out the long summer-day before her. And first she thought she would go all over the house, to make quite sure that nobody with a great-coat on and a carving-knife in it, had got under one of the beds or into one of the cupboards. Not that she had ever before been troubled by the image of any- body armed with a great-coat and a carving-knife, but that it seemed to have been shaken into existence by the shake and the bang of the great street door, reverberating through the solitary house. So, little Miss Kimmeens looked under the five empty beds of the five departed pupils, and looked under her own bed, and looked under Miss Pupford's bed, and looked under Miss Pupford's assistant's bed. And when she had done this, and was making the tour of the cupboards, the disagreeable thought came into her young head. What a very alarming thing it would be to find somebody with a mask on, like Guy Fawkes, hiding bolt upright in a corner and pretending not to be alive ! However, Miss Kimmeens having finished her inspection without making any such uncomfortable discovery, sat down in her tidy little manner to needlework, and began stitching away at a great rate. The silence all about her soon grew very oppressive, and the more so because of the odd inconsistency that the more silent it was, the more noises there were. The noise of her own needle and thread as she stitched, was infinitely louder in her ears than the stitching of all the six pupils, and of Miss Pupford, and of Miss Pupford's assistant, all stitching away at once on a highly emula- 316 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. tive afternoon. Then, the schoolroom clock conducted itself in a way in which it had never conducted itself before — fell lame, somehow, and yet persisted in running on as hard and as loud as it could : the consequence of which behaviour was, that it stag- gered among the minutes in a state of the greatest confusion, and knocked them about in all directions without appearing to get on with its regular work. Perhaps this alarmed the stairs : but be that as it might, they began to creak in a most unusual manner, and then the furniture began to crack, and then poor little Miss Kimmeens, not liking the furtive aspect of things in general, began to sing as she stitched. But, it was not her own voice that she heard — it was somebody else making believe to be Kitty, and singing excessively flat, without any heart — so as that would never mend matters, she left ofi" again. By-and-bye, the stitching became so palpable a failure that Miss Kitty Kimmeens folded her work neatly, and put it away in its box, and gave it up. Then the question arose about reading. But no ; the book that was so delightful when there was somebody she loved for her eyes to fall on when they rose from the page, had not more heart in it than her own singing now. The book went to its shelf as the needlework had gone to its box, and, since something must be done — thought the child, " I'll go put my room to rights." She shared her room with her dearest little friend among the other five pupils, and why then should she now conceive a lurking dread of the little friend's bedstead ? But she did. There was a stealthy air about its innocent white curtains, and there were even dark hints of a dead girl lying under the coverlet. The great want of human company, the great need of a human face, began now to express itself in the facility with which the furniture put on strange exaggerated resemblances to human looks. A chair with a menac- ing frown was horribly out of temper in a corner ; a most vicious chest of drawers snarled at her from between the windows. It was no relief to escape from those monsters to the looking-glass, for the reflection said, "What 1 Is that you all alone there 1 How you stare ! " And the background was all a great void stare as well. The day dragged on, dragging Kitty with it very slowly by the hair of her head, until it was time to eat. There were good pro- visions in the pantry, but their right flavour and relish had evapo- rated with the five pupils, and Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford's assistant, and the cook and housemaid. Where was the use of laying the cloth symmetrically for one small guest, who had gone on ever since the morning growing smaller and smaller, while the empty house had gone on swelling larger and larger? The very TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 317 Grace came out wrong, for who were "we" who were going to receive and be thankful ? So, Miss Kimmeens was not thankful, and found herself taking her dinner in very slovenly style — gob- bling it up, in short, rather after the manner of the lower animals, not to particularise the pigs. But, this was by no means the worst of the change wrought out in the naturally loving and cheery little creature as the solitary day wore on. She began to brood and be suspicious. She discovered that she was full of wrongs and injuries. All the people she knew, got tainted by her lonely thoughts and turned bad. It was all very well for Papa, a widower in India, to send her home to be educated, and to pay a handsome round sum every year for her to Miss Pupford, and to write charming letters to his darling little daughter ; but what did he care for her being left by herself, when he was (as no doubt he always was) enjoying himself in company from morning till night? Perhaps he only sent her here, after all, to get her out of the way. It looked like it — looked like it to-day, that is, for she had never dreamed of such a thing before. And this old pupil who was being married. It was insupport- ably conceited and selfish in the old pupil to be married. She was very vain, and very glad to show off; but it was highly probable that she wasn't pretty; and even if she were pretty (which Miss Kimmeens now totally denied), she had no business to be married ; and, even if marriage were conceded, she had no business to ask Miss Pupford to her wedding. As to Miss Pupford, she was too old to go to any wedding. She ought to know that. She had much better attend to her business. She had thought she looked nice in the morning, but she didn't look nice. She was a stupid old thing. G was another stupid old thing. Miss Pupford's assistant was another. They were all stupid old things together. More than that : it began to be obvious that this was a plot. They had said to one another, " Never mind Kitty ; you get off, and I'll get off; and we'll leave Kitty to look after herself. Who cares for her ? " To be sure they were right in that question ; for who did care for her, a poor little lonely thing against whom they all planned and plotted? Nobody, nobody! Here Kitty sobbed. At all other times she was the pet of the whole house, and loved her five companions in return with a child's tenderest and most ingenuous attachment; but now, the five companions put on ugly colours, and appeared for the first time under a sullen cloud. There they were, all at their homes that day, being made much of, being taken out, being spoilt and made disagreeable, and caring nothing for her. It was like their artful selfishness always to tell her when 318 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. they came back, under pretence of confidence and friendship, all those details about where they had been, and what they had done and seen, and how often they had said, "0! If we had only darling little Kitty here ! " Here indeed ! I dare say ! When they came back after the holidays, they were used to being received by Kitty, and to saying that coming to Kitty was like coming to another home. Very well then, why did they go away ? If they meant it, why did they go away 1 Let them answer that. But they didn't mean it, and couldn't answer that, and they didn't tell the truth, and people who didn't tell the truth were hateful. When they came back next time, they should be received in a new manner; they should be avoided and shunned. And there, the while she sat all alone revolving how ill she was used, and how much better she was than the people who were not alone, the wedding breakfast was going on : no question of it ! With a nasty great bride-cake, and with those ridiculous orange- flowers, and with that conceited bride, and that hideous bridegroom, and those heartless bridesmaids, and Miss Pupford stuck up at the table ! They thought they were enjoying themselves, but it would come home to them one day to have thought so. They would all be dead in a few years, let them enjoy themselves ever so much. It was a religious comfort to know that. It was such a comfort to know it, that little Miss Kitty Kim- meens suddenly sprang from the chair in which she had been musing in a corner, and cried out, " those envious thoughts are not mine, this wicked creature isn't me ! Help me, somebody ! I go wrong, alone by my weak self ! Help me, anybody ! " " — Miss Kimmeens is not a professed philosopher, sir," said Mr. Traveller, presenting her at the barred window, and smoothing her shining hair, " but I apprehend' there was some tincture of philosophy in her words, and in the prompt action with which she followed them. That action was, to emerge from her unnatu- ral solitude, and look abroad for wholesome sympathy, to bestow and to receive. Her footsteps strayed to this gate, bringing her here by chance, as an apposite contrast to you. The child came out, sir. If you have the wisdom to learn from a child (but I doubt it, for that requires more wisdom than one in your condition would seem to possess), you cannot do better than imitate the child, and come out too — from that very demoralising hutch of yours." TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 319 Chapter III. PICKING UP THE TINKER. It was now sunset. The Hermit had betaken himself to his bed of cinders half an hour ago, and lying on it in his blanket and skewer with his back to the window, took not the smallest heed of the appeal addressed to him. All that had been said for the last two hours, had been said to a tinkling accompaniment performed by the Tinker, who had got to work upon some villager's pot or kettle, and wais working briskly outside. This music still continuing, seemed to. put it into Mr. Traveller's mind to have another word or two with the Tinker. So, holding Miss Kimmeens (with whom he was now on the most friendly terms) by the hand, he went out at the gate to where the Tinker was seated at his work on the patch of grass on the opposite side of the road, with his wallet of tools open before him, and his little fire smoking. " I am glad to see you employed," said Mr. Traveller. "I am glad to he employed," returned the Tinker, looking up as he put the finishing touches to his job. " But why are you glad ? " " I thought you were a lazy fellow when I saw you this morning." " I was only disgusted," said the Tinker. " Do you mean with the fine weather ? " " With the fine weather 1 " repeated the Tinker, staring. "You told me you were not particular as to weather, and I thought — " " Ha, ha ! How should such as me get on, if we was particular as to weather 1 We must take it as it comes, and make the best of it. There's something good in all weathers. If it don't happen to be good for my work to-day, jt's good for some other man's to-day, and will come round to me to-morrow. We must all live." " Pray shake hands," said Mr. Traveller. " Take care, sir," was the Tinker's caution, as he reached up his hand in surprise ; "the black comes off"." "I am glad of it," said Mr. Traveller. " I have been for several liours among other black that does not come off." " You are speaking of Tom in there ?" "Yes." " Well now," said the Tinker, blowing the dust off his job : which was finished. " An't it enough to disgust a pig, if he could give his mind to it 1 " "If he could give his mind to it," returned the other, smiling, " the probability is that he wouldn't be a pig." 320 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. " There you clench the nail," returned the Tinker. " Then what's to be said for Tom ? " " Truly, veiy little." " Truly nothing you mean, sir," said the Tinker, as he put away his tools. " A better answer, and (I freely acknowledge) my meaning. I infer that he was the cause of your disgust ? " " Why, look'ee here, sir," said the Tinker, rising to his feet, and wiping his face on the corner of his black apron energetically ; "I leave you to judge ! — I ask you ! — Last night I has a job that needs to be done in the night, and I works all night. Well, there's nothing in that. But this morning I comes along this road here, looking for a sunny and soft spot to sleep in, and I sees this deso- lation and ruination. I've lived myself in desolation and ruination ; I knows many a fellow-creetur that's forced to live life long in desola- tion and ruination ; and I sits me down and takes pity on it, as I casts my eyes about. Then comes up the long-winded one as I told you of, from that gate, and spins himself out like a silkworm con- cerning the Donkey (if my Donkey at home will excuse me) as has made it all — made it of his own choice ! And tells me, if you please, of his likewise choosing to go ragged and naked, and grimy — maskerading, mountebanking, in what is the real hard lot of thousands and thousands ! Why, then I say it's a unbearable and nonsensical piece of inconsistency, and I'm disgusted. I'm ashamed and disgusted ! " " I wish you would come and look at him," said Mr. Traveller, clapping the Tinker on the shoulder. " Not I, sir," he rejoined. " / an't a going to flatter him up by looking at him ! " " But he is asleep." " Are you sure he is asleep ? " asked the Tinker, with an unwill- ing air, as he shouldered his wallet. " Sure." " Then I'll look at him for a quarter of a minute," said the Tinker, "since you so much wish it ; but not a moment longer." They all three went back across the road ; and, through the barred window, by the dying glow of the sunset coming in at the gate — which the child held open for its admission — he could be pretty clearly discerned lying on his bed. " You see him 1 " asked Mr. Traveller. "Yes," returned the Tinker, "and he's worse than I thought him." Mr. Traveller then whispered in few words what he had done since morning ; and asked the Tinker what he thought of that 1 " I think," returned the Tinker, as he turned from the window, " that you've wasted a day on him." SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 321 "I think so too; though not, I hope, upon myself. 'Do you happen to be going anywhere near the Peal of Bells 1 " " That's my direct way, sir," said the Tinker. " I invite you to supper there. And as I learn from this young lady that she goes some three-quarters of a mile in the same direc- tion, we will drop her on the road, and we will spare time to keep her company at her garden gate until her own Bella comes home." So, Mr. Traveller, and the child, and the Tinker, went along very amicably in the sweet-scented evening ; and the moral with which the Tinker dismissed the subject was, that he said in his trade that metal that rotted for want of use, had better be left to rot, and couldn't rot too soon, considering how much true metal rotted from over-use and hard service. SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. IN FOUR CHAPTERS. Chapter I. HIS LEAVING IT TILL CALLED FOR. The writer of these humble lines being a Waiter, and having come of a family of Waiters, and owning at the present time five brothers who are all Waiters, and likewise an only sister who is a Waitress, would wish to offer a few words respecting his calling; first having the pleasure of hereby in a friendly manner offering the Dedication of the same unto Joseph, much respected Head Waiter at the Slamjam Coffee-house, London, E.C., than which a individual more eminently deserving of the name of man, or a more amenable honour to his own head and heart, whether considered in the light of a Waiter or regarded as a human being, do not exist. In case confusion should arise in the public mind (which it is open to confusion on many subjects) respecting what is meant or im- plied by the term Waiter, the present humble lines would wish to offer an explanation. It may not be generally known that the per- son as goes out to wait is not a Waiter. It may not be generally known that the hand as is called in extra, at the Freemasons' Tavern, or the London, or the Albion, or otherwise, is not a Waiter. Such hands may be took on for Public Dinners by the bushel (and you may know them by their breathing with difficulty when in attendance, and taking away the bottle ere yet it is half out) ; but such are not Waiters. For you cannot lay down the 322 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. tailoring, or the shoemaking, or the brokering, or the green- grocering, or the pictorial-periodicaUing, or the second-hand ward- robe, or the small fancy businesses, — you cannot lay down those lines of life at your will and pleasure by the half-day or evening, and take up Waitering. You may suppose you can, but you can- not ; or you may go so far as to say you do, but you do not. Xor yet can you lay down the gentleman's-service when stimulated by pro- longed incompatibility on the part of Cooks (and here it may be remarked that Cooking and Incompatibility will be mostly found united), and take up waitering. It has been ascertained that what a gentleman will sit meek under, at home, he will not bear out of doors, at the Slamjam or any similar establishment. Then, what is the inference to be drawn respecting true Waitering ? You must be bred to it. You must be born to it. Would you know how born to it. Fair Reader, — if of the adorable female sex ? Then learn from the biographical experience of one that is a Waiter in the sixty-first year of his age. You were conveyed, — ere yet your dawning powers were other- wise developed than to harbour vacancy in your inside, — you were conveyed, by surreptitious means, into a pantry adjoining the Admiral Nelson, Civic and General Dining-Rooms, there to receive by stealth that healthful sustenance which is the pride and boast of the British female constitution. Your mother was married to your father (himself a distant Waiter) in the profoundest secrecy ; for a Waitress known to be married would ruin the best of businesses, — it is the same as on the stage. Hence your being smuggled into the pantry, and that — to add to the infliction — by an un- willing grandmother. Under the combined influence of the smells of roast and boiled, and soup, and gas, and malt liquors, you par- took of your earliest nourishment ; your unwilling grandmother sitting prepared to catch you when your mother was called and dropped you ; your grandmother's shawl ever ready to stifle your natural complainings ; your innocent mind surrounded by uncongenial cruets, dirty plates, dish-covers, and cold gravy ; your mother calling down the pipe for veals and porks, instead of soothing you with nursery rhymes. Under these untoward circumstances you were early weaned. Your unwilling grandmother, ever growing more unwilling as your food assimilated less, then contracted habits of shaking you till your system curdled, and your food would not assimilate at all. At length she was no longer spared, and could have been thankfully spared much sooner. When your brothers began to appear in succession, your mother retired, left off" her smart dressing (she had previously been a smart dresser), and her dark ringlets (which had previously been flowing), and haunted somebody's luggage. 324 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. your father late of nights, lying in wait for him, through all weathers, up the shabby court which led to the back door of the Royal Old Dust-Bin (said to have been so named by George the Fourth), where your father was Head. But the Dust-Bin was going down then, and your father took but little, — excepting from a liquid point of view. Your mother's object in those visits was of a housekeeping character, and you were set on to whistle your father out. Sometimes he came out, but generally not. Come or not, however, all that part of his existence which was unconnected with open Waitering was kept a close secret, and was acknowledged by your mother to be a close secret, and you and your mother flitted about the court, close secrets both of you, and would scarcely have confessed under torture that you knew your fiither, or that your father had any name than Dick (which wasn't his name, though he was never known by any other), or that he had kith or kin or chick or child. Perhaps the attraction of this mystery, combined with your father's having a damp compartment to himself, behind a leaky cistern, at the Dust-Bin, — a sort of a cellar compartment, with a sink in it, and a smell, and a plate-rack, and a bottle-rack, and three windows that didn't match each other or anything else, and no daylight, — caused your young mind to feel convinced that you must grow up to be a Waiter too ; but you did feel convinced of it, and so did all your brothers, down to your sister. Every one of you felt convinced that you was born to the Waitering. At this stage of your career, what was your feelings one day when your father came home to your mother in open broad daylight, — of itself an act of Madness on the part of a Waiter, — and took to his bed (leastwise, your mother and family's bed), with the state- ment that his eyes were devilled kidneys. Physicians being in vain, your father expired, after repeating at intervals for a day and a night, when gleams of reason and old business fitfully illuminated his being, " Two and two is five. And three is sixpence." Interred in the parochial department of the neighbouring churchyard, and accompanied to the grave by as many Waiters of long standing as could spare the morning time from their soiled glasses (namely, one), your bereaved form was attired in a white neckankecher, and you was took on from motives of benevolence at The George and Gridiron, theatrical and supper. Here, supporting nature on what you found in the plates (which was as it happened, and but too often thoughtlessly, immersed in mustard), and on what you found in the glasses (which rarely went beyond driblets and lemon), by night you dropped asleep standing, till you was cufi'ed awake, and by day was set to polishing every individual article in the coftee- room. Your couch being sawdust ; your counterpane being ashes SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 325 of cigars. Here, frequently hiding a heavy heart under the smart tie of your white neckankecher (or correctly speaking lower down and more to the left), you picked up the rudiments of knowledge from an extra, by the name of Bishops, and by calling plate-washer, and gradually elevating your mind with chalk on the back of the corner-box partition, until such time as you used the inkstand when it was out of hand, attained to manhood, and to be the Waiter that you find yourself. I could wish here to offer a few respectful words on behalf of the calling so long the calling of myself and family, and the public interest in which is but too often very limited. ,We are not gener- ally understood. No, we are not. Allowance enough is not made for us. For, say that we ever show a little drooping listlessness of spirits, or what might be termed indifierence or apathy. Put it to yourself what would your own state of mind be, if you was one of an enormous family, every member of which except you was al- ways greedy, and in a hurry. Put it to yourself that you was reg- ularly replete with animal food at the slack hours of one in the day and again at nine p.m., and that the repleter you was, the more voracious all your fellow-creatures came in. Put it to yourself that it was your business, when your digestion was well on, to take a personal interest and sympathy in a hundred gentlemen fresh and fresh (say, for the sake of argument, only a hundred), whose imagi- nations was given up to grease and fat and gravy and melted butter, and abandoned to questioning you about cuts of this, and dishes of that, — each of 'em going on as if him and you and the bill of fare was alone in the world. Then look what you are ex- pected to know. You are never out, but they seem to think you regularly attend everywhere. " What's this, Christopher, that I hear about the smashed Excursion Train ? " — " How are they doing at the Italian Opera, Christopher ? " — " Christopher, what are the real particulars of this business at the Yorkshire Bank 1 " Simi- larly a ministry gives me more trouble than it gives the Queen. As to Lord Palmerston, the constant and wearing connection into which I have been brought with his lordship during the last few years is deserving of a pension. Then look at the Hypocrites we are made, and the lies (white, I hope) that are forced upon us ! Why must a sedentary-pursuited Waiter be considered to be a judge of horseflesh, and to have a most tremenjous interest in horse- training and racing ? Yet it would be half our little incomes out of our pockets if we didn't take on to have those sporting tastes. It is the same (inconceivable why ! ) with Farming. Shooting, equally so. I am sure that so regular as the months of August, September, and October come round, I am ashamed of myself in 326 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. my own private bosom for the way in which I make believe to care whether or not the grouse is strong on the wing (much their wings, or drumsticks either, signifies to me, uncooked ! ), and whether the partridges is plentiful among the turnips, and whether the pheas- ants is shy or bold, or anything else you please to mention. Yet you may see me, or any other Waiter of my standing, holding on by the back of the box, and leaning over a gentleman with his purse out and his bill before him, discussing these points in a confidential tone of voice^as if my happiness in life entirely depended on 'em. I have mentioned our little incomes. Look at the most unreason- able point of all, and the point on which the greatest injustice is done us ! Whether it is owing to our always carrying so much change in our right-hand trousers-pocket, and so many halfpence in our coat-tails, or whether it is human nature (which I were loth to believe), what is meant by the everlasting fable that Head Waiters is rich ? How did that fable get into circulation ? Who first put it about, and what are the facts to establish the unblushing state- ment? Come forth, thou slanderer, and refer the public to the Waiter's will in Doctors' Commons supporting thy malignant hiss ! Yet this is so commonly dwelt upon — especially by the screws who give Waiters the least — that denial is vain ; and we are obliged, for our credit's sake, to carry our heads as if we were going into a business, when of the two we are much more likely to go into a union. There was formerly a screw as frequented the Slam- jam ere yet the present writer had quitted that establishment on a question of tea-ing his assistant staft' out of his own pocket, which screw carried the taunt to its bitterest height. Never soaring above threepence, and as often as not grovelling on the earth a penny lower, he yet represented the present writer as a large holder of Consols, a lender of money on mortgage, a Capitalist. He has been overheard to dilate to other customers on the allegation that the present writer put out thousands of pounds at interest in Distilleries and Breweries. "Well, Christopher," he would say (having grovelled his lowest on the earth, half a moment before), " looking out for a House to open, eh ? Can't find a business to be disposed of on a scale as is up to your resources, humph ? " To such a dizzy precipice of falsehood has this misrepresentation taken wing, that the well-known and highly-respected Old Charles, long eminent at the West Country Hotel, and by some considered the Father of the Waitering, found himself under the obligation to fall into it through so many years that his own wife (for he had an unbeknown old lady in that capacity towards himself) believed it ! And what was the consequence ? When he was borne to his grave on the shoulders of six picked Waiters, with six more for change, SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 327 six more acting as pall-bearers, all keeping step in a pouring shower without a dry eye visible, and a concourse only inferior to Royalty, his pantry and lodgings was equally ransacked high and low for property, and none was found ! How could it be found, when, beyond his last monthly collection of walking-sticks, umbrellas, and pocket-handkerchiefs (which happened to have been not yet disposed of, though he had ever been through life punctual in clearing off his collections by the month), there was no property existing ? Such, however, is the force of this universal libel, that the widow of Old Charles, at the present hour an inmate of the Almshouses of the Cork-Cutters' Company, in Blue Anchor-road (identified sitting at the door of one of 'em, in a clean cap and a Windsor arm-chair, only last Monday), expects John's hoarded wealth to be found hourly ! Nay, ere yet he had succumbed to the grisly dart, and when his portrait was painted in oils life-size, by subscription of the frequenters of the West Country, to hang over the coffee-room chimney-piece, there were not wanting those who contended that what is termed the accessories of such a portrait ought to be the Bank of England out of window, and a strong-box on the table. And but for better-regulated minds contending for a bottle and screw and the attitude of drawing, — and carrying their point, — it would have been so handed down to posterity. I am now brought to the title of the present remarks. Having, I hope without offence to any quarter, offered such observations as I felt it my duty to offer, in a free country which has ever dominated the seas, on the general subject, I will now proceed to wait on the particular question. At a momentous period of my life, when I was off, so far as concerned notice given, with a House that shall be nameless, — for the question on which I took my departing stand was a fixed charge for waiters, and no House as commits itself to that eminently Un- English act of more than foolishness and baseness shall be adver- tised by me, — I repeat, at a momentous crisis, when I was off with a House too mean for mention, and not yet on with that to which I have ever since had the honour of being attached in the capacity of Head,^ I was casting about what to do next. Then it were that proposals were made to me on behalf of my present es- tablishment. Stipulations were necessary on my part, emendations were necessary on my part : in the end, ratifications ensued on both sides, and I entered on a new career. We are a bed business, and a coffee-room business. We are not a general dining business, nor do we wish it. In consequence, 1 Its name and address at length, with other full particulars, all editori- ally struck out. 328 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. when diners drop in, we know what to give 'em as will keep 'em away another time. We are a Private Room or Family business also ; but Coffee-room principal. Me and the Directory and the Writing Materials and cetrer occupy a place to ourselves — a place fended off up a step or two at the end of the Coffee-room, in what I call the good old-fashioned style. The good old-fashioned style is, that whatever you want, down to a wafer, you must be olely and solely dependent on the Head Waiter for. You must put yourself a new-born Child into his hands. There is no other way in which a business untinged with Continental Vice can be con- ducted. (It were bootless to add, that if languages is required to be jabbered and English is not good enough, both families and gentlemen had better go somewhere else.) When I began to settle down in this right-principled and well- conducted House, I noticed, under the bed in No. 24 B (which it is up a angle off the staircase, and usually put off upon the lowly- minded), a heap of things in a corner. I asked our Head Chamber- maid in the course of the day, " What are them things in 24 B ? " To which she answered with a careless air, " Somebody's Luggage." Regarding her with a eye not free from severity, I says, " Whose Luggage 1 " Evading my eye, she replied, " Lor ! How should / know ! " — Being, it may be right to mention, a female of some pertness, though acquainted with her business. A Head Waiter must be either Head or Tail. He must be at one extremity or the other of the social scale. He cannot be at the waist of it, or anywhere else but the extremities. It is for him to decide which of the extremities. On the eventful occasion under consideration, I give Mrs. Prat- chett so distinctly to understand my decision, that I broke her spirit as towards myself, then and there, and for good. Let not inconsistency be suspected on account of my mentioning Mrs. Prat- chett as "Mrs.," and having formerly remarked that a waitress must not be married. Readers are respectfully requested to notice that Mrs. Pratchett was not a waitress, but a chambermaid. Now a chambermaid may be married ; if Head, generally is married, — or says so. It comes to the same thing as expressing what is cus- tomary. (N.B. Mr. Pratchett is in Australia, and his address there is "the Bush.") Having took Mrs. Pratchett down as many pegs as was essential to the future happiness of all parties, I requested her to explain herself. SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 329 "For instance," I says, to give her a little encouragement, "who is Somebody 1 " "I give you my sacred honour, Mr. Christopher," answers Prat- chett, "that I haven't the faintest notion." Bn^- ^-"v the manner in which she settled her cap-strings, I should iiave doubted this ; but in respect of positiveness it was hardly to be discriminated from an affidavit. " Then you never saw him 1 " I followed her up with. " Nor yet," said Mrs. Pratchett, shutting her eyes and making as if she had just took a pill of unusual circumference, — which gave a remarkable force to her denial, — "nor, yet any servant in this house. All have been changed, Mr. Christopher, within five year, and Somebody left his Luggage here before then." Inquiry of Miss Martin yielded (in the language of the Bard of A 1) "confirmation strong." So it had really and truly happened. Miss Martin is the young lady at the bar as makes out our bills ; and though higher than I could wish considering her station, is perfectly well-behaved. Farther investigations led to the disclosure that there was a bill against this Luggage to the amount of two sixteen six. The Lug- gage had been lying under the bedstead of 24 B over six year. The bedstead is a four-poster, with a deal old hanging and valance, and is, as I once said, probably connected with more than 24 Bs, — which I remember my hearers was pleased to laugh at, at the time. I don't know why, — when do we know why ? — but this Lug- gage laid heavy on my mind. I fell a wondering about Some- body, and what he had got and been up to. I couldn't satisfy my thoughts why he should leave so much Luggage against so small a bill. For I had the Luggage out within a day or two and turned it over, and the following were the items : — A black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat- box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick. It was all very dusty and fiuey. I had our porter up to get under the bed and fetch it out ; and though he habitually wallows in dust, — swims in it from morning to night, and wears a close-fitting waist- coat with black caHmanco sleeves for the purpose, — it made him sneeze again, and his throat was that hot with it that it was obliged to be cooled with a drink of Allsopp's draft. The Luggage so got the better of me, that instead of having it put back when it was well dusted and washed with a wet cloth, — previous to which it was so covered with feathers that you might have thought it was turning into poultry, and would by-and-bye begin to Lay, — I say, instead of having it put back, I had it car- 330 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. ried into one of my places down-stairs. There from time to time I stared at it and stared at it, till it seemed to grow big and grow little, and come forward at me and retreat again, and go through all manner of performances resembling intoxication. When this had lasted weeks, — I may say months, and not be far out, — I one day thought of asking Miss Martin for the particulars of the Two sixteen six total. She was so obliging as to extract it from the books, —it dating before her time, — and here follows a true copy : Coffee-Room, 1856. No. 4. £ s. d. Feb. 2d, Pen and Paper . . . • . 6 Port Negus 2 Ditto . 2 Pen and paper 6 Tumbler broken . 2 6 Brandy 2 Pen and paper . 6 Anchovy toast 2 6 Pen and paper 6 Bed . 3 Feb. 3d, Pen and paper . 6 Breakfast . 2 6 " Broiled ham 2 Eggs 1 " Watercresses 1 " Shrimps 1 Pen and paper 6 Blotting-paper 6 Messenger to Paternoster-row and back . 1 6 Again, when No Answer 1 6 Brandy 2s., Devilled Pork chop 2s. 4 Pens and paper 1 Messenger to Albemarle-street and back 1 Again (detained), when No Answer 1 6 Salt-cellar broken 3 6 Large Liqueur-glass Orange Brandy 1 6 Dinner, Soup, Fish, Joint, and bird 7 6 Bottle old East India Brown . 8 Pen and paper .... . 6 £2 16 6 Mem. : January 1st, 1857. He went out after dinner, directing Luggage to be ready when he called for it. Never called. SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 331 So far from throwing a light upon the subject, this bill appeared to me, if I may so express my doubts, to involve it in a yet more lurid halo. Speculating it over with the Mistress, she informed me that the luggage had been advertised in the Master's time as being to be sold after such and such a day to pay expenses, but no farther steps had been taken. (I may here remark, that the Mistress is a widow in her fourth year. The Master was possessed of one of those unfortunate constitutions in which Spirits turns to Water, and rises in the ill-starred Victim.) My speculating it over, not then only, but repeatedly, sometimes with the Mistress, sometimes with one, sometimes with another, led up to the Mistress's saying to me, — whether at first in joke or in earnest, or half joke and half earnest, it matters not : " Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer." (If this should meet her eye, — a lovely blue, — may she not take it ill ray mentioning that if I had been eight or ten year younger, I would have done as much by her ! That is, I would have made her a offer. It is for others than me to denominate it a handsome one.) "Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer." " Put a name to it, ma'am." " Look here, Christopher. Run over the articles of Somebody's Luggage. You've got it all by heart, I know." " A black portmanteau, ma'am, a black bag, a desk, a dressing- case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick." " All just as they were left. Nothing opened, nothing tampered with." " You are right, ma'am. All locked but the brown-paper par- cel, and that sealed." The Mistress was leaning on Miss Martin's desk at the bar- window, and she taps the open book that lays upon the desk, — she has a pretty-made hand to be sure, — and bobs her head over it and laughs. " Come," says she, " Christopher. Pay me Somebody's bill, and you shall have Somebody's Luggage." I rather took to the idea from the first moment; but, " It mayn't be worth the money," I objected, seeming to hold back. " That's a Lottery," says, the Mistress, folding her arms upon the book, — it an't her hands alone that's pretty made, the observa- tion extends right up her arms. " Won't you venture two pound sixteen shillings and sixpence in the Lottery 1 Why, there's no blanks ! " says the Mistress, laughing and bobbing her head again, 332 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. "you must win. If you lose, you must win! All prizes in this Lottery ! Draw a blank, and remember, Gentlemen-Sportsmen, you'll still be entitled to a black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a sheet of brown paper, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick ! " To make short of it, Miss Martin come round me, and Mrs. Pratchett come round me, and the Mistress she was completely round me already, and all the women in the house come round me, and if it had been Sixteen two instead of Two sixteen, I should have thought myself well out of it. For what can you do when they do come round you 1 So I paid the money — down — and such a laughing as there was among 'em ! But I turned the tables on 'em regularly, when I said : "My family-name is Blue-Beard. I'm going to open Some- body's Luggage all alone in the Secret Chamber, and not a female eye catches sight of the contents ! " Whether I thought proper to have the firmness to keep to this, don't signify, or whether any female eye, and if any, how many, was really present when the opening of the Luggage came off. Somebody's Luggage is the question at present : Nobody's eyes, nor yet noses. What I still look at most, in connection with that Luggage, is the extraordinary quantity of writing-paper, and all written on ! And not our paper neither, — not the paper charged in the bill, for we know our paper, — so he must have been always at it. And he had crumpled up this writing of his, everywhere, in every part and parcel of his luggage. There was writing in his dressing- case, writing in his boots, writing among his shaving-tackle, writing in his hat-box, writing folded away down among the very whale- bones of his umbrella. His clothes wasn't bad, what there was of 'em. His dressing- case was poor, — not a particle of silver stopper, — bottle aper- tures with nothing in 'em, like empty little dog-kennels, — and a most searching description of tooth-powder diffusing itself around, as under a deluded mistake that all the chinks in the fittings ^vas divisions in teeth. His clothes I parted with, well enough, to a secondhand dealer not far from Saint Clement's Danes, in the Strand, — him as the officers in the Army mostly dispose of their uniforms to, when hard pressed with debts of honour, if I may judge from their coats and epaulets diversifying the window with their backs towards the public. The same party bought in one lot the port- manteau, the bag, the desk, the dressing-case, the hat-box, the umbrella, strap, and walking-stick. On my remarking that I SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 333 should have thought those articles not quite in his line, he said : "No more ith a man'th grandmother, Mithter Chrithtopher ; but if any man will bring hith grandmother here, and offer her at a fair trifle below what the'll feth with good luck when the'th thcoured and turned — I'll buy her ! " These transactions brought me home, and, indeed, more than home, for they left a goodish profit on the original investment. And now there remained tlie writings ; and the writings I particu- lar wish to bring under the candid attention of the reader. I wish to do so without postponement, for this reason. That is to say, namely, viz. i.e., as follows, thus : — Before I proceed to recount the mental sufferings of which I became the prey in con- sequence of the writings, and before following up that harrowing tale with a statement of the wonderful and impressive catastrophe^ as thrilling in its nature as unlooked for in any other capacity' which crowned the ole and filled the cup of unexpectedness to over- flowing, the writings themselves ought to stand forth to view. Therefore it is that they now come next. One word to introduce them, and I lay down my pen (I hope, my unassuming pen) until I take it up to trace the gloomy sequel of a mind with something on it. He was a smeary writer, and wrote a dreadful bad hand. Utterly regardless of ink, he lavished it on every undeserving object, — on his clothes, his desk, his hat, the handle of his tooth-brush, his um- brella. Ink was found freely on the coffee-room carpet by No. 4 table, and two blots was on his restless couch. A reference to the document I have given entire will show that on the morning of the third of February, eighteen fifty-six, he procured his no less than fifth pen and paper. To whatever deplorable act of ungovernable composition he immolated those materials obtained from the bar, there is no doubt that the fatal deed was committed in bed, and that it left its evidences but too plainly, long afterwards, upon the pillow-case. He had put no Heading to any of his ^v^itings. Alas ! Was he likely to have a Heading without a Head, and where was his Head when he took such things into it? In some cases, such as his Boots, he would appear to have hid the writings ; thereby involv- ing his style in greater obscurity. But his Boots was at least pairs, — and no two of his writings can put in any claim to be so regarded. Here follows (not to give more specimens) what was found in 334 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. Chapter II. HIS BOOTS. "Eh! well then, Monsieur Mutuel! What do I know, what can I say ? I assure you that he calls himself Monsieur The Eng- lishman." " Pardon. But I think it is impossible," said Monsieur Mutuel, — a spectacled, snuffy, stooping old gentleman in carpet shoes and a cloth cap with a peaked shade, a loose blue frock-coat reaching to his heels, a large limp white shirt-frill, and cravat to correspond, — that is to say, white was the natural colour of his linen on Sundays, but it toned down with the week. " It is," repeated Monsieur Mutuel, his amiable old walnut-shell countenance very walnut-shelly indeed as he smiled and blinked in the bright morning sunlight, — "it is, my cherished Madame Bou- clet, I think, impossible ! " " Hey ! " (with a little vexed cry and a great many tosses of her head.) "But it is not impossible that you are a Pig!" retorted Madame Bouclet, a compact Uttle woman of thirty-five or so. " See then, — look there, — read ! ' On the second floor Monsieur L' An- glais.' Is it not so?" " It is so," said Monsieur Mutuel. " Good. Continue your morning walk. Get out ! " Madame Bouclet dismissed him with a lively snap of her fingers. The morning walk of Monsieur Mutuel was in the brightest patch that the sun made in the Grande Place of a dull old fortified French to^\^l. The manner of his morning walk was with his hands crossed behind him; an umbrella, in figure the express image of himself, always in one hand ; a snuff-box in the other. Thus, with the shuffling gate of the Elephant (who really does deal with the very worst trousers-maker employed by the Zoological world, and who appeared to have recommended him to Monsieur Mutuel), the old gentleman sunned himself daily when sun was to be had — of course, at the same time sunning a red ribbon at his button-hole ; for was he not an ancient Frenchman ? Being told by one of the angelic sex to continue his morning walk and get out, Monsieur Mutuel laughed a walnut-shell laugh, pulled off his cap at arm's length with the hand that contained his snuff- box, kept it off for a considerable period after he had parted from Madame Bouclet, and continued his morning walk and got out, like a man of gallantry as he was. The documentary evidence to which Madame Bouclet had referred Monsieur Mutuel was the list of her lodgers, sweetly written forth SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 335 by her own Nephew and Bookkeeper, who held the pen of an Angel, and posted up at the side of her gateway, for the information of the Police: "Au second, M. L'Anglais, Propridtaire." On the second floor, Mr. The Englishman, man of property. So it stood ; nothing could be plainer. Madame Bouclet now traced the line with her forefinger, as it were to confirm and settle herself in her parting snap at Monsieur Mutuel, and so placing her right hand on her hip with a defiant air, as if nothing should ever tempt her to unsnap that snap, strolled out into the Place to glance up at the windows of Mr. The English- man. That worthy happening to be looking out of window at the moment, Madame Bouclet gave him a graceful salutation with her head, looked to the right and looked to the left to account to him for her being there, considered for a moment, like one who accounted to herself for somebody she had expected not being there, and re-en- tered her own gateway. Madame Bouclet let all her house giving on the Place in furnished flats or floors, and lived up the yard be- hind in company with Monsieur Bouclet her husband (great at bill- iards), an inherited brewing business, several fowls, two carts, a nephew, a little dog in a big kennel, a grape-vine, a counting-house, four horses, a married sister (with a share in the brewing business), the husband and two children of the married sister, a parrot, a drum (performed on by the little boy of the married sister), two billeted soldiers, a quantity of pigeons, a fife (played by the nephew in a ravishing manner), several domestics and supernumeraries, a perpetual flavour of coffee and soup, a terrific range of artificial rocks and wooden precipices at least four feet high, a small foun- tain, and half a dozen large sunflowers. Now the Englishman, in taking his Appartement, — or, as one might say on our side of the Channel, his set of chambers, — had given his name, correct to the letter, Langley. But as he had a British way of not opening his mouth very wide on foreign soil, ex- cept at meals, the Brewery had been able to make nothing of it but L'Anglais. So Mr. The Englishman he had become and he remained. " Never saw such a people ! " muttered Mr. The Englishman, as he now looked out of window. " Never did, in my life ! " This was true enough, for he had never before been out of his own country, — a right little island, a tight little island, a bright little island, a show-fight little island, and full of merit of all sorts ; but not the whole round world. " These chaps," said Mr. The Englishman to himself, as his eye rolled over the Place, sprinkled with military here and there, "are no more like soldiers — " Nothing being sufficiently strong for the end of his sentence, he left it unended. 336 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. This again (from the point of view of his experience) was strictly- correct ; for though there was a great agglomeration of soldiers in the town and neighbouring country, you might have held a grand Review and Field-day of them every one, and looked in vain among them all for a soldier choking behind his foolish stock, or a soldier lamed by his ill-fitting shoes, or a soldier deprived of the use of his limbs by straps and buttons, or a soldier elaborately forced to be self-helpless in all the small affairs of life. A swarm of brisk, bright, active, bustling, handy, odd, skirmishing fellows, able to turn cleverly at anything, from a siege to soup, from great guns to needles and thread, from the broadsword exercise to slicing an onion, from mak- ing war to making omelets, was all you would have found. What a swarm ! From the Great Place under the eye of Mr. The Englishman, where a few awkward squads from the last con- scription were doing the goose-step — some members of those squads still as to their bodies, in the chrysalis peasant-state of Blouse, and only military butterflies as to their regimentally-clothed legs — from the Great Place, away outside the fortifications, and away for miles along the dusty roads, soldiers swarmed. All day long, upon the grass-grown ramparts of the town, practising soldiers trumpeted and bugled ; all day long, down in angles of dry trenches, practising sol- diers drummed and drummed. Every forenoon, soldiers burst out of the great barracks into the sandy gymnasium-ground hard by, and flew over the wooden horse, and hung on to flying ropes, and dangled upside-down between parallel bars, and shot themselves off wooden platforms, — splashes, sparks, coruscations, showers of sol- diers. At every corner of the town-wall, every guard-house, every gateway, every sentry-box, every drawbridge, every reedy ditch, and rushy dike, soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. And the town being pretty well all wall, guard-house, gateway, sentry-box, drawbridge, reedy ditch, and rushy dike, the town was pretty well all soldiers. What would the sleepy old town have been without the soldiers, seeing that even with them it had so overslept itself as to have slept its echoes hoarse, its defensive bars and locks and bolts and chains all rusty, and its ditches stagnant ! From the days when Vauban engineered it to that perplexing extent that to look at it was like being knocked on the head with it, the stranger becoming stunned and ster- torous under the shock of its incomprehensibility, — from the days when Vauban made it the express incorporation of every sub- stantive and adjective in the art of military engineering, and not only twisted you into it and twisted you out of it, to the right, to the left, opposite, under here, over there, in the dark, in the dirt, by the gateway, archway, covered way, dry way, wet way, fosse, port- cullis, drawbridge, sluice, squat tower, pierced wall, and heavy SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 337 battery, but likewise took a fortifying dive under the neighbouring country, and came to the surface three or four miles off, blowing out incomprehensible mounds and batteries among the quiet crops of chicory and beet-root, — from those days to these the town had been asleep, and dust and rust and must had settled on its drowsy Arsenals and Magazines, and grass had grown up in its silent streets. On market-days alone, its Great Place suddenly leaped out of bed. On market-days, some friendly enchanter struck his staff upon the stones of the Great Place, and instantly arose the liveli- est booths and stalls, and sittings and standings, and a pleasant hum of chaffering and huckstering from many hundreds of tongues, and a pleasant, though peculiar, blending of colours, — white caps, blue blouses, and green vegetables, — and at last the Knight destined for the adventure seemed to have come in earnest, and all the Vaubanois sprang up awake. And now, by long, low-lying avenues of trees, jolting in white-hooded donkey-cart, and on donkey- back, and in tumbril and waggon, and cart and cabriolet, and afoot with barrow and burden, — and along the dikes and ditches and canals, in little peak-prowed country boats, — came peasant-men and women in flocks and crowds, bringing articles for sale. And here you had boots and shoes, and sweetmeats and stuffs to wear, and here (in the cool shade of the Town-hall) you had milk and cream and but- ter and cheese, and here you had fruits and onions and carrots, and all things needful for your soup, and here you had poultry and flowers and protesting pigs, and here new shovels, axes, spades, and bill-hooks for your farming work, and here huge mounds of bread, and here your unground grain in sacks, and here your chil- dren's dolls, and here the cake-seller, announcing his wares by beat and roll of drum. And hark ! fanfaronade of trumpets, and here into the Great Place, resplendent in an open carriage, with four gorgeously-attired servitors up behind, playing horns, drums, and cymbals, rolled " the Daughter of a Physician " in massive golden chains and ear-rings, and blue-feathered hat, shaded from the ad- miring sun by two immense umbrellas of artificial roses, to dispense (from motives of philanthropy) that small and pleasant dose which had cured so many thousands ! Toothache, earache, headache, heart- ache, stomachache, debility, nervousness, fits, fainting, fever, ague, all equally cured by the small and pleasant dose of the great Physi- cian's great daughter ! The process was this, — she, the Daughter of a Physician, proprietress of the superb equipage you now ad- mired with its confirmatory blasts of trumpet, drum, and cymbal, told you so : On the first day after taking the small and pleasant dose, you would feel no particular influence beyond a most harmo- 338 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. iiious sensation of indescribable and irresistible joy ; on the second day you would be so astonishingly better that you would think yourself changed into somebody else ; on the third day you would be entirely free from your disorder, whatever its nature and how- ever long you had had it, and would seek out the Physician's Daughter to throw yourself at her feet, kiss the hem of her gar- ment, and buy as many more of the small and pleasant doses as by the sale of all your few eftects you could obtain ; but she would be inaccessible, — gone for herbs to the Pyramids of Egypt, — and you would be (though cured) reduced to despair ! Thus would the Physician's Daughter drive her trade (and briskly too), and thus would the buying and selling and mingling of tongues and colours continue, until the changing sunlight, leaving the Physician's Daughter in the shadow of liigh roofs, admonished her to jolt out westward, with a departing effect of gleam and glitter on the splen- did equipage and brazen blast. And now the enchanter struck his staff upon the stones of the Great Place once more, and down went the booths, the sittings and standings, and vanished the merchan- dise, and with it the barrows, donkeys, donkey-carts, and tumbrils, and all other things on wheels and feet, except the slow scavengers with unwieldy carts and meagre horses clearing up the rubbish, assisted by the sleek town pigeons, better plumped out than on non-market- days. While there was yet an hour or two to wane before the autumn sunset, the loiterer outside town-gate and drawbridge, and postern and double-ditch, would see the last white-hooded cart lessening in the avenue of lengthening shadows of trees, or the last country boat, paddled by the last market-woman on her way home, showing black upon the reddening, long, low, narrow dike between him and the mill; and as the paddle-parted scum and weed closed over the boat's track, he might be comfortably sure that its sluggish rest would be troubled no more until next market-day. As it was not one of the Great Place's days for getting out of bed, when Mr. The Englishman looked down at the young soldiers practising the goose-step there, his mind was left at liberty to take a military turn. " These fellows are billeted everywhere about," said he; "and to see them lighting the people's fires, boiling the people's pots, minding the people's babies, rocking the people's cradles, washing the people's greens, and making themselves generally useful, in every sort of unmilitary way, is most ridiculous ! Never saw such a set of fellows, — never did in my life ! " All perfectly true again. Was there not Private Valentine in that very house, acting as sole housemaid, valet, cook, steward, and nurse, in the family of his captain. Monsieur le Capita ine de la SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 339 Cour, — cleaning the floors, making the beds, doing the marketing, dressing the captain, dressing the dinners, dressing the salads, and dressing the baby, all with equal readiness ? Or, to put him aside, he being in loyal attendance on his Chief, was there not Private Hyppohte, billeted at the Perfumer's two hundred yards off", who, when not on duty, volunteered to keep shop while the fair Perfum- eress stepped out to speak to a neighbour or so, and laughingly sold soap with his war-sword girded on him ? Was there not Emile, billeted at the Clock-maker's, perpetually turning to of an evening, with his coat off, winding up the stock ? Was there not Eugene, billeted at the Tinman's, cultivating, pipe in mouth, a garden four feet square, for the Tinman, in the little court, behind the shop, and extorting the fruits of the earth from the same, on his knees, with the sweat of his brow ? Not to multiply examples, was there not Baptiste, billeted on the poor Water-carrier, at that very instant sitting on the pavement in the sunlight, with his martial legs asunder, and one of the Water-carrier's spare pails between them, which (to the delight and glory of the heart of the Water-carrier coming across the Place from the fountain, yoked and burdened) he was painting bright-green outside and bright-red within ? Or, to go no farther than the Barber's at the very next door, was there not Corporal Thdophile — "No," said Mr. The Englishman, glancing down at the Barber's, "he is not there at present. There's the child, though." A mere mite of a girl stood on the steps of the Barber's shop, looking across the Place. A mere baby, one might call her, dressed in the close white linen cap which small French country children wear (like the children in Dutch pictures), and in a frock of home- spun blue, that had no shape except where it was tied round her little fat throat. So that, being naturally short and round all over, she looked, behind, as if she had been cut off at her natural waist, and had had her head neatly fitted on it. "There's the child, though." To judge from the way in which the dimpled hand was rubbing the eyes, the eyes had been closed in a nap, and were newly opened. But they seemed to be looking so intently across the Place, that the Englishman looked in the same direction. " ! " said he presently. "I thought as much. The Corporal's there." The Corporal, a smart figure of a man of thirty, perhaps a thought under the middle size, but very neatly made, — a sun- burnt Corporal with a brown peaked beard, — faced about at the moment, addressing voluble words of instruction to the squad in hand. Nothing was amiss or awry about the Corporal. A lithe 340 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. and nimble Corporal, quite complete, from the sparkling dark eyes under his knowing uniform cap to his sparkling white gaiters. The very image and presentment of a Corj^oral of his country's army, in the line of his shoulders, the line of his waist, the broadest line of his Bloomer trousers, and their narrowest line at the calf of his leg. Mr. The Englishman looked on, and the child looked on, and the Corporal looked on (but the last-named at his men), until the drill ended a few minutes afterwards, and the military sprinkling dried up directly, and was gone. Then said Mr. The Englishman to himself, " Look here ! By George ! " And the Corporal, danc- ing towards the Barber's with his arms wide open, caught up the child, held her over his head in a flying attitude, caught her down again, kissed her, and made off with her into the Barber's house. Now Mr. The Englishman had had a quarrel with his erring and disobedient and disowned daughter, and there was a child in that case too. Had not his daughter been a child, and had she not taken angel-flights above his head as this child had flown above the Corporal's? "He's a" — National Participled —" fool !" said the English- man, and shut his window. But the windows of the house of Memory, and the windows of the house of Mercy, are not so easily closed as windows of glass and wood. They fly open unexpectedly ; they rattle in the night ; they must be nailed up. Mr. The Englishman had tried nailing them, but had not driven the nails quite home. So he passed but a disturbed evening and a worse night. By nature a good-tempered man ? No ; very little gentleness, confounding the quality with weakness. Fierce and wrathful when crossed? Very, and stupendously unreasonable. Moody? Ex- ceedingly so. Vindictive ? Well ; he had had scowling thoughts that he would formally curse his daughter, as he had seen it done on the stage. But remembering that the real Heaven is some paces removed from the mock one in the great chandelier of the Theatre, he had given that up. And he had come abroad to be rid of his repudiated daughter for the rest of his life. And here he was. At bottom, it was for this reason, more than for any other, that Mr. The Englishman took it extremely ill that Coi-poral Thdophile should be so devoted to little Bebelle, the child at the Barber's shop. In an unlucky moment he had chanced to say to himself, " Why, confound the fellow, he is not her father ! " There was a sharp sting in the speech which ran into him suddenly, and put him in a worse mood. So he had National Participled the uncon- SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 341 scions Corporal with most hearty emphasis, and had made up his mind to think no more about such a mountebank. But it came to pass that the Corporal was not to be dismissed. If he had known the most delicate fibres of the EngHshman's mind, instead of knowing nothing on earth about him, and if he had been tlie most obstinate Corporal in the Grand Army of France, instead of being the most obliging, he could not have planted himself with more determined immovability plump in the midst of all the Englishman's thoughts. Not only so, but he seemed to be always in his view. Mr. The Englishman had but to look out of window, to look upon the Corporal wdth little Bebelle. He had but to go for a walk, and there was the Corporal walking with Bebelle. He had but to come home again, disgusted, and the Corporal and Bebelle w^ere at home before him. If he looked out at his back windows early in the morning, the Corporal was in the Barber's backyard, washing and dressing and brushing Bebelle. If he took refuge at his front windows, the Corporal brought his breakfast out into the Place, and shared it there with Bebelle. Always Corporal and always Bebelle. Never Corporal without Bebelle. Never Bebelle without Corporal. Mr. The Englishman was not particularly strong in the French lan- guage as a means of oral communication, though he read it very well. It is with languages as with people, — when you only know them by sight, you are apt to mistake them ; you must be on speaking terms before you can be said to have established an acquaintance. For this reason, Mr. The Englishman had to gird up his loins considerably before he could bring himself to the point of exchang- ing ideas with Madame Bouclet on the subject of this Corporal and this Bebelle. But Madame Bouclet looking in apologetically one morning to remark, that, Heaven ! she was in a state of desolation because the lamp-maker had not sent home that lamp confided to him to repair, but that truly he was a lamp-maker against whom the whole world shrieked out, Mr. The Englishman, seized the occasion. ' " Madame, that baby — " " Pardon, monsieur. That lamp." " No, no, that little girl." " But, pardon ! " said Madame Bouclet, angling for a clew, " one cannot light a little girl, or send her to be repaired 1 " "The little girl — at the house of the Barber." " Ah-h-h ! " cried Madame Bouclet, suddenly catching the idea with her delicate little line and rod. "Little Bebelle'? Yes, yes, yes! And her friend the Corporal? Yes, yes, yes, yes! So genteel of him, — is it not ? " 342 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. "He is not — ?" " Not at all; not at all ! He is not one of her relations. Not at all ! " "Why, then, he — " " Perfectly ! " cried Madame Bouclet, " you are right, monsieur. It is so genteel of him. The less relation, the more genteel. As you say." "Is she — ?" "The child of the Barber? " Madame Bouclet whisked up her skilful little line and rod again. " Not at all, not at all ! She is the child of — in a word, of no one." " The wife of the Barber, then — ? " " Indubitably. As you say. The wife of the Barber receives a small stipend to take care of her. So much by the month. Eh, then ! It is without doubt very little, for we are all poor here." " You are not poor, madame." " As to my lodgers," replied Madame Bouclet, with a smiling and a gracious bend of her head, "no. As to all things else, so-so." "You flatter me, madame." " Monsieur, it is you who flatter me in living here." Certain fishy gasps on Mr. The Englishman's part, denoting that he was about to resume his subject under difficulties, Madame Bouclet observed him closely, and whisked up her delicate line and rod again with triumphant success. "0 no, monsieur, certainly not. The wife of the Barber is not cruel to the poor child, but she is careless. Her health is delicate, and she sits all day, looking out at window. Consequently, when the Corporal first came, the poor little Bebelle was much neglected." "It is a curious — " began Mr. The Englishman. "Name? That Bebelle? Again you are right, monsieur. But it is a playful name for Gabrielle." " And so the child is a mere fancy of the Corporal's ? " said Mr. The Englishman, in a grufily disparaging tone of voice. " Eh, well ! " returned Madame Bouclet, with a pleading shrug : "one must love something. Human nature is weak." ("Devilish weak," muttered the Englishman, in his own lan- guage.) "And the Corporal," pursued Madame Bouclet, "being billeted at the Barber's, — where he will probably remain a long time, for he is attached to the General, — and finding the poor unowned child in need of being loved, and finding himself in need of loving, — ■ why, there you have it all, you see ! " Mr. The Englishman accepted this interpretation of the matter with an indijfferent grace, and observed to himself, in an injured SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 343 manner, when he was again alone : "I shouldn't mind it so much, if these people were not such a " — National Participled — " senti- mental people ! " There was a Cemetery outside the town, and it happened ill for the reputation of the Vaubanois, in this sentimental connection, that he took a walk there that same afternoon. To be sure there were some wonderful things in it (from the Englishman's point of view), and of a certainty in all Britain you would have found noth- ing like it. Not to mention the fanciful flourishes of hearts and crosses in wood and iron, that were planted all over the place, mak- ing it look very like a Firework-ground, where a most splendid pyrotechnic display might be expected after dark, there were so many wreaths upon the graves, embroidered, as it might be, " To my mother," " To my daughter," " To my father," " To my brother," " To my sister," " To my friend," and those many wreaths were in so many stages of elaboration and decay, from the wreath of yester- day, all fresh colour and bright beads, to the wreath of last year, a poor mouldering wisp of straw ! There were so many little gardens and grottos made upon graves, in so many tastes, with plants and shells and plaster figures and porcelain pitchers, and so many odds and ends ! There were so many tributes of remembrance hanging up, not to be discriminated by the closest inspection from little round waiters, whereon were depicted in glowing hues either a lady or a gentleman with a white pocket-handkerchief out of all propor- tion, leaning, in a state of the most faultless mourning and most profound affliction, on the most architectural and gorgeous urn ! There were so many surviving wives who had put their names on the tombs of their deceased husbands, with a blank for the date of their own departure from this weary world ; and there were so many sur- viving husbands who had rendered the same homage to their de- ceased wives ; and out of the number there must have been so many who had long ago married again ! In fine, there was so much in the place that would have seemed mere frippery to a stranger, save for the consideration that the lightest paper flower that lay upon the poorest heap of earth was never touched by a rude hand, but per- ished there, a sacred thing ! " Nothing of the solemnity of Death here," Mr. The Englishman had been going to say, when this last consideration touched him with a mild appeal, and on the whole he walked out without saying it. "But these people are," he insisted, by way of compensation, when he was well outside the gate, " they are so " — Participled — " sentimental ! " His way back lay by the military gymnasium-ground. And there he passed the Corporal glibly instructing young soldiers how 344 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. to swing themselves over rapid and deep watercourses on their way to Glory, by means of a rope, and himself deftly plunging off a platform, and flying a hundred feet or two, as an encouragement to them to begin. And there he also passed, perched on a crowning eminence (probably by the Corporal's careful hands), the small Bebelle, with her round eyes wide open, surveying the proceeding like a wondering sort of blue and white bird. "If that child was to die," this was his reflection as he turned his back and went his way, — "and it would almost serve the fellow right for making such a fool of himself, — I suppose we should have him sticking up a wreath and a waiter in that fantastic burying-ground." Nevertheless, after another early morning or two of looking out of window, he strolled down into the Place, when the Corporal and Bebelle were walking there, and touching his hat to the Corporal (an immense achievement), wished him Good day. "Good day, monsieur." "This is a rather pretty child you have here," said Mr. The Englishman, taking her chin in his hand, and looking down into her astonished blue eyes. "Monsieur, she is a very pretty child," returned the Corporal, with a stress on his polite correction of the phrase. " And good 1 " said the Englishman. " And very good. Poor little thing ! " " Hah ! " The Englishman stooped down and patted her cheek, not without awkwardness, as if he w'ere going too far in his con- ciliation. " And what is this medal round your neck, my little one 1 " Bebelle having no other reply on her lips than her chubby right fist, the Corporal offered his services as interpreter. " Monsieur demands, what is this, Bebelle 1 " " It is the Holy Virgin," said Bebelle. "And who gave it you?" asked the Englishman. " Thdophile." "And whoisTheophile?" Bebelle broke into a laugh, laughed merrily and heartily, clapped her chubby hands, and beat her little feet on the stone pavement of the Place. " He doesn't know Thdophile ! Why, he doesn't know any one ! He doesn't know anything ! " Then, sensible of a small solecism in her manners, Bebelle twisted her right hand in a leg of the Cor- poral's Bloomer trousers, and, laying her cheek against the place, Idssed it. " Monsieur Thdophile, I believe ? " said the Englishman to the Corporal. SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 345 " It is I, monsieur." "Permit me." Mr. The Englishman shook him heartily by the hand and turned away. But he took it mighty ill that old Mon- sieur Mutuel in his jDatch of sunlight, upon whom he came as he turned, should pull oif his cap to him with a Ic^k of pleased ap- proval. And he muttered, in his own tongue, as he returned the salutation, "Well, walnut-shell ! And what business is it of yours, ? " Mr. The Englishman went on for many weeks passing but dis- turbed evenings and worse nights, and constantly experiencing that those aforesaid windows in the houses of Memory and Mercy rattled after dark, and that he had very imperfectly nailed them up. Like- wise, he went on for many weeks daily improving the acquaintance of the Corporal and Bebelle. That is to say, he took Bebelle by the chin, and the Corporal by the hand, and offered Bebelle sous and the Corporal cigars, and even got the length of changing pipes with the Corporal and kissing Bebelle. But he did it all in a shamefaced way, and always took it extremely ill that Monsieur Mutuel in his patch of sunlight should note what he did. When- ever that seemed to be the case, he always growled in his own tongue, " There you are again, walnut-shell ! What business is it of yours ? " In a word, it had become the occupation of Mr. The English- man's life to look after the Corporal and little Bebelle, and to resent old Monsieur Mutuel's looking after hi7?i. An occupation only varied by a fire in the town one windy night, and much passing of water-buckets from hand to hand (in which the Englishman rendered good service), and much beating of drums, — when all of a sudden the Corporal disappeared. Next, all of a sudden, Bebelle disappeared. She had been visible a few days later than the Corporal, — sadly deteriorated as to washing and brushing, — but she had not spoken when addressed by Mr. The Englishman, and had looked scared and had run away. And now it would seem that she had run away for good. And there lay the Great Place under the windows, bare and barren. In liis shamefaced and constrained way, Mr. The Englishman asked no question of any one, but watched from his front windows and watched from his back windows, and lingered about the Place, and peeped in at the Barber's shop, and did all this and much more with a whistling and tune-humming pretence of not missing anything, until one afternoon when Monsieur Mutuel's patch of sunlight was in shadow, and when, according to all rule and precedent, he had no right whatever to bring his red ribbon out of doors, behold here he was, advancing with his cap already in his hand twelve paces off ! 346 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. Mr. The Englishman had got as far into his usual objurgation as, " What bu — si — " when he checked himself. "Ah, it is sad, it is sad! Hdlas, it is unhappy, it is sad!" Thus old Monsieur Mutuel, shaking his grey head. " What busin-y-at least, I would say, what do you mean, Mon- sieur Mutuel ? " " Our Corporal. Helas, our dear Corporal ! " " What has happened to him ? " " You have not heard ? " "No." " At the fire. But he was so brave, so ready. Ah, too brave, too ready ! " " May the Devil carry you away ! " the Englishman broke in impatiently; "I beg your pardon, — I mean me, — I am not ac- customed to speak French, — go on, will you ? " " And a falling beam — " " Good God ! " exclaimed the Englishman. " It was a private soldier who was killed ? " " No. A Corporal, the same Corporal, our dear Corporal. Be- loved by all his comrades. The funeral ceremony was touching, — penetrating. Monsieur The Englishman, your eyes fill with tears." " What bu— si— " " Monsieur The Englishman, I honour those emotions. I salute you with profound respect. I will not obtrude myself upon your noble heart." Monsieur Mutuel, — a gentleman in every thread of his cloudy linen, under whose wrinkled hand every grain in the quarter of an ounce of poor snuff in his poor little tin box became a gentle- man's property, — Monsieur Mutuel passed on, with his cap in his hand. "I little thought," said the Englishman, after walking for several minutes, and more than once blowing his nose, " when I was looking round that cemetery — I'll go there ! " Straight he went there, and when he came within the gate he paused, considering whether he should ask at the lodge for some direction to the grave. But he was less than ever in a mood for asking questions, and he thought, "I shall see something on it to know it by." In search of the Corporal's grave he went softly on, up this walk and down that, peering in, among the crosses and hearts and columns and obelisks and tombstones, for a recently disturbed spot. It troubled him now to think how many dead there were in the ceme- tery, — he had not thought them a tenth part so numerous before, — and after he had walked and sought for some time, he said to 1 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 347 himself, as he struck down a new vista of tombs, " I might suppose that every one was dead but I." Not every one. A live child was lying on the ground asleep. Truly he had found something on the Corporal's grave to know it by, and the something was Bebelle. "With sucli a loving will had the dead soldier's comrades worked at his resting-place, that it was already a neat garden. On the green turf of the garden Bebelle lay sleeping, with her cheek touch- ing it. A plain, unpainted little wooden Cross was planted in the turf, and her short arm embraced this little Cross, as it had many a time embraced the Corporal's neck. They ha'd put a tiny flag (the flag of France) at his head, and a laurel garland. Mr. The Englishman took off his hat, and stood for a while silent. Then, covering his head again, he bent down on one knee, and softly roused the child. " Bebelle ! My little one ! " Opening her eyes, on which the tears were still wet, Bebelle was at first frightened ; but seeing who it was, she suffered him to take her in his arms, looking steadfastly at him. " You must not lie here, my little one. You must come with me." "No, no. I can't leave Th^ophile. I want the good dear Thdophile." " We will go and seek him, Bebelle. We will go and look for him in England. We will go and look for him at my daughter's, Bebelle." " Shall we find him there?" "We shall find the best part of him there. Come with me, poor forlorn little one. Heaven is my witness," said the English- man, in a low voice, as, before he rose, he touched the turf above the gentle Corporal's breast, "that I thankfully accept this trust! " It was a long way for the child to have come unaided. She was soon asleep again, with her embrace transferred to the Englishman's neck. He looked at her worn shoes, and her galled feet, and her tired face, and believed that she had come there eveiy day. He was leaving the grave with the slumbering Bebelle in his arms, when he stopped, looked wistfully down at it, and looked wistfully at the other graves around. " It is the innocent custom of the people," said Mr. The Englishman, with hesitation. " I think I should like to do it. No one sees." Careful not to wake Bebelle as he went, he repaired to the lodge where such little tokens of remembrance were sold, and bought two wreaths. One, blue and white and glistening silver, "To my friend;" one of a soberer red and black and yellow, "To my friend." With these he went back to the grave, and so down on 348 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. one knee again. Touching the child's lips with the brighter wreath, he guided her hand to hang it on the Cross ; then hung his own wreath there. After all, the wreaths were not far out of keeping with the little garden. To my friend. To my friend. Mr. The Englishman took it very ill when he looked round a street corner into the Great Place, carrying Bebelle in his arms, that old Mutuel should be there airing his red ribbon. He took a world of pains to dodge the worthy Mutuel, and devoted a surpris- ing amount of time and trouble to skulking into his own lodging like a man pursued by Justice. Safely arrived there at last, he made Bebelle's toilet with as accurate a remembrance as he could bring to bear upon that work of the way in which he had often seen the poor Corporal make it, and liaving given her to eat and drink, laid her down on his own bed. Then he slipped out into the Barber's shop, and after a brief interview mth the Barber's wife, and a brief recourse to his purse and card-case, came back again with the whole of Bebelle's personal property in such a very little bundle that it was quite lost under his arm. As it was irreconcilable with his whole course and character that he should carry Bebelle off in state, or receive any compliments or congratulations on that feat, he devoted the next day to getting his two portmanteaus out of the house by artfulness and stealth, and to comporting himself in every particular as if he were going to run away, — except, indeed, that he paid his few debts in the town, and prepared a letter to leave for Madame Bouclet, enclosing a suflScient sum of money in lieu of notice. A railway train would come through at midnight, and by that train he would take away Bebelle to look for Thdophile in England and at his forgiven daughter's. At midnight, on a moonlight night, Mr. The Englishman came creeping forth like a harmless assassin, with Bebelle on his breast instead of a dagger. Quiet the Great Place, and quiet the never- stirring streets ; closed the cafds ; huddled together motionless their billiard-balls ; drowsy the guard or sentinel on duty here and there ; lulled for the time, by sleep, even the insatiate appetite of the Office of Town-dues. Mr. The Englishman left the Place behind, and left the streets behind, and left the civilian-inhabited town behind, and descended down among the military works of Vauban, hemming all in. As the shadow of the first heavy arch and postern fell upon him and was left behind, as the shadow of the second heavy arch and pos- tern fell upon him and was left behind, as his hollow tramp over the first drawbridge was succeeded by a gentler sound, as his hollow tramp over the second drawbridge was succeeded by a gentler SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 349 sound, as he overcame the stagnant ditches one by one, and passed out where the flowing waters were and where the moonlight, so the dark shades and the hollow sounds and the unwholesomely locked currents of his soul were vanquished and set free. See to it, Vau- bans of your own hearts, who gird them in with triple walls and ditches, and with bolt and chain and bar and lifted bridge, — raze those fortifications, and lay them level with the all-absorbing dust, before the night cometh when no hand can work ! All went prosperously, and he got into an empty carriage in the train, where he could lay Bebelle on the seat over against him, as on a couch, and cover her from head to foot witfer his mantle. He had just drawn himself up from perfecting this arrangement, and had just leaned back in his own seat contemplating it with great satisfaction, when he became aware of a curious appearance at the open carriage window, — a ghostly little tin box floating up in the moonlight, and hovering there. He leaned forward, and put out his head. Down among the rails and wheels and ashes, Monsieur Mutuel, red ribbon and all ! "Excuse me. Monsieur The Englishman," said Monsieur Mutuel, holding up his box at arm's length, the carriage being so high and he so low; "but I shall reverence the little box for ever, if your so generous hand will take a pinch from it at parting." Mr. The Englishman reached out of the window before comply- ing, and — without asking the old fellow what business it was of his — shook hands and said, " Adieu ! God bless you ! " "And, Mr. The Englishman, God bless you!'' cried Madame Bouclet, who was also there among the rails and wheels and ashes. " And God will bless you in the happiness of the protected child now with you. And God will bless you in your own child at home. And God will bless you in your own remembrances. And this from me ! " He had barely time to catch a bouquet from her hand, when the train was flying through the night. Round the paper that enfolded it was bravely written (doubtless by the nephew who held the pen of an Angel), " Homage to the friend of the friendless." " Not bad people, Bebelle ! " said Mr. The Englishman, softly drawing the mantle a little from her sleeping face, that he might kiss it, "though they are so — " Too " sentimental " himself at the moment to be able to get out that word, he added nothing but a sob, and travelled for some miles, through the moonlight, with his hand before his eyes. 360 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. Chapter III. HIS BROWN-PAPEE PARCEL. My works are well known. I am a young man in the Art line. You have seen my works many a time, though it's fifty thousand to one if you have seen me. You say you don't want to see me ? You say your interest is in my works, and not in me 1 Don't be too sure about that. Stop a bit. Let us have it down in black and white at the first go off", so that there may be no unpleasantness or wrangling afterwards. And this is looked over by a friend of mine, a ticket writer, that is up to literature. I am a young man in the Art line — in the Fine- Art line. You have seen my works over and over again, and you have been curious about me, and you think you have seen me. Now, as a safe rule, you never have seen me, and you never do see me, and you never will see me. I think that's plainly put — and it's what knocks me over. If there's a blighted public character going, I am the party. It has been remarked by a certain (or an uncertain) philosopher, that the world knows nothing of its greatest men. He might have put it plainer if he had thrown his eye in my direction. He might have put it, that while the world knows something of them that apparently go in and win, it knows nothing of them that really go in and don't win. There it is again in another form — and that's what knocks me over. Not that it's only myself that suffers from injustice, but that I am more alive to my own injuries than to any other man's. Being, as I have mentioned, in the Fine- Art line, and not the Philanthropic line, I openly admit it. As to company in injury, I have company enough. Who are you passing every day at your Competitive Excruciations 1 The fortunate candidates whose heads and livers you have turned upside down for life 1 Not you. You are really passing the Crammers and Coaches. If your principle is right, why don't you turn out to-morrow morning with the keys of your cities on velvet cushions, your musicians playing, and your flags flying, and read addresses to the Crammers and Coaches on your bended knees, beseeching them to come out and govern you? Then, again, as to your public business of all sorts, your Financial statements and your Budgets ; the Public knows much, truly, about the real doers of all that ! Your Nobles and Right Honourables are first-rate men ? Yes, and so is a goose a first-rate bird. But I'll tell you this about the goose ; — you'll find his natural flavour disappointing, without stufiing. SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 351 Perhaps I am soured by not being popular ? But suppose I am popular. Suppose my works never fail to attract. Suppose that, whether they are exhibited by natural light or by artificial, they invariably draw the public. Then no doubt they are preserved in some Collection ? No, they are not ; they are not preserved in any Collection. Copyright? No, nor yet copyright. Anyhow they nmst be somewhere ? Wrong again, for they are often nowhere. Says you, " At all events, you are in a moody state of mind, my friend." My answer is, I have described myself as a public char- acter with a blight upon him — which fully accounts for the cur- dling of the milk in that cocoa-nut. Those that are acquainted with London are aware of a locality on tlie Surrey side of the river Thames, called the Obelisk, or, more generally, the Obstacle. Those that are not acquainted with London will also be aware of it, now that I have named it. My lodging is not far from that locality. I am a young man of that easy disposition, that I lie abed till it's absolutely necessary to get up and earn something, and then I lie abed again till I have spent it. It was on an occasion when I had had to turn to with a view to victuals, that I found myself walking along the Waterloo Road, one evening after dark, accompanied by an acquaintance and fellow- lodger in the gas-fitting way of life. He is very good company, having worked at the theatres, and, indeed, he has a theatrical turn himself, and wishes to be brought out in the character of Othello ; but whether on account of his regular work always black- ing his face and hands more or less, I cannot say. " Tom," he says, " what a mystery hangs over you ! " "Yes, Mr. Click" — the rest of the house generally give him his name, as being first, front, carpeted all over, his own furniture, and if not mahogany, an out-and-out imitation — "yes, Mr. Click, a mystery does hang over me." "Makes you low, you see, don't it?" says he, eyeing me side- ways. "Why, yes, Mr. Click, there are circumstances connected with it that have," I yielded to a sigh, " a lowering effect." " Gives you a touch of the misanthrope too, don't it 1 " says he. "Well, I'll tell you what. If I was you, I'd shake it off"." "If I was you, I would, Mr. Click; but, if you was me, you wouldn't." " Ah ! " says he, " there's something in that." When we had walked a little further, he took it up again by touching me on the chest. " You see, Tom, it seems to me as if, in the words of the poet 352 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. who wrote the domestic drama of The Stranger, you had a silent sorrow there," "I have, Mr. Click." " I hope, Tom," lowering his voice in a friendly way, " it isn't coining, or smashing 1 " " No, Mr. Click. Don't be uneasy." " Nor yet forg " Mr. Click checked himself, and added, " counterfeiting anything, for instance?" " No, Mr. Click. I am lawfully in the Art line — Fine- Art line — but I can say no more." " Ah ! Under a species of star? A kind of malignant spell? A sort of a gloomy destiny ? A cankerworm pegging away at your vitals in secret, as well as I make it out ? " said Mr. Click, eyeing me with some admiration. I told Mr. Click that was about it, if we came to particulars ; and I thought he appeared rather proud of me. Our conversation had brought us to a crowd of people, the greater part struggling for a front place from which to see some- thing on the pavement, which proved to be various designs exe- cuted in coloured chalks on the pavement stones, lighted by two candles stuck in mud sconces. The subjects consisted of a fine fresh salmon's head and shoulders, supposed to have been recently sent home from the fishmonger's ; a moonlight night at sea (in a circle) ; dead game ; scroll-work ; the head of a hoary hermit en- gaged in devout contemplation ; the head of a pointer smoking a pipe ; and a cherubim, his flesh creased as in infancy, going on a horizontal errand against the wind. All these subjects appeared to me to be exquisitely done. On his knees on one side of this gallery, a shabby person of modest appearance who shivered dreadfully (though it wasn't at all cold), was engaged in blowing the chalk-dust off the moon, ton- ing the outline of the back of the hermit's head with a bit of leather, and fattening the down-stroke of a letter or two in the writing. I have forgotten to mention that writing formed a part of the composition, and that it also — as it appeared to me — was exquisitely done. It ran as follows, in fine round characters: "An honest man is the noblest work of God. 12 3 456789 0. <£ s. d. Employment in an office is humbly requested. Hon- our the Queen. Hunger isa0987654321 sharp thorn. Chip chop, cherry cliop, fol de rol de ri do. Astronomy and mathematics. I do this to support my family." Murmurs of admiration at the exceeding beauty of this perform- ance went about among the crowd. The artist, having finished his touching (and having spoilt those places), took his seat on the SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 353 pavement, with his knees crouched up very nigh his chin ; and halfpence began to rattle in. " A pity to see a man of that talent brought so low ; an't it ? " said one of the crowd to me. " What he might have done in the coach-painting, or house-dec- orating ! " said another man, who took up the first speaker because I did not. " Why, he writes — alone — like the Lord Chancellor ! " said another man. "Better," said another. "I know his writing. He couldn't support his family this way." Then, a woman noticed the natural fluffiness of the hermit's hair, and another woman, her friend, mentioned of the salmon's gills that you could almost see him gasp. Then, an elderly coun- try gentleman stepped forward and asked tlie modest man 'how he executed his work? And the modest man took some scraps of brown paper with colours in 'em out of his pockets, and showed them. Then a fair-complexioned donkey, with sandy hair and spectacles, asked if the hermit was a portrait? To which the modest man, casting a sorrowful glance upon it, replied that it was, to a certain extent, a recollection of his father. This caused a boy to yelp out, " Is the Pinter a smoking the pipe your mother ? " who was immediately shoved out of view by a sympathetic carpenter \vith his basket of tools at his back. At every fresh question or remark the crowd leaned forward more eagerly, and dropped the halfpence more freely, and the modest man gathered them up more meekly. At last, another elderly gentleman came to the front, and gave the artist his card, to come to his office to-morrow, and get some copying to do. The card was accompanied by sixpence, and the artist was profoundly grateful, and, before he put the card in his hat, read it several times by the light of his candles to fix the address well in his mind, in case he should lose it. The crowd was deeply interested by this last incident, and a man in the second row with a gruff voice growled to the artist, "You've got a chance in life now, an't you ? " The artist answered (snifiing in a veiy low-spirited way, however), "I'm thankful to hope so." Upon which there was a general chorus of "Fow are all right," and the halfpence slackened very decidedly. I felt myself pulled away by the arm, and Mr. Click and I stood alone at the corner of the next crossing. "Why, Tom," said Mr. Click, "what a horrid expression of face you've got ! " "Have I?" says I. 2a 354 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. "Have you?" says Mr. Click. "Why, you looked as if you would have his blood." "Whose blood?" " The artist's." " The artist's ? " I repeated. And I laughed, frantically, wildly, gloomily, incoherently, disagreeably. I am sensible that I did. I know I did. Mr. Click stared at me in a scared sort of a way, but said noth- ing until we had walked a street's length. He then stopped short, and said, with excitement on the part of his forefinger : " Thomas, I find it necessary to be plain with you. I don't like the envious man. I have identified the cankerworm that's pegging away at your vitals, and it's envy, Thomas." " Is it ? " says I. "Yes, it is," says he. "Thomas, beware of envy. It is the green-eyed monster which never did and never will improve each shining hour, but quite the reverse. I dread the envious man, Thomas. I confess that I am afraid of the envious man, when he is so envious as you are. Whilst you contemplated the works of a gifted rival, and whilst you heard that rival's praises, and especially whilst you met his humble glance as he put that card away, your countenance was so malevolent as to be terrific. Thomas, I have heard of the envy of them that follows the Fine- Art line, but I never believed it could be what yours is. I wish you well, but I take my leave of you. And if you should ever get into trouble through knifing — or say, garroting — a brother artist, as I be- lieve you will, don't call me to character, Thomas, or I shall be forced to injure your case." Mr. Click parted from me with those words, and we broke oflF our acquaintance. I became enamoured. Her name was Henrietta. Contending with my easy disposition, I frequently got up to go after her. She also dwelt in the neighbourhood of the Obstacle, and I did fondly hope that no other would interpose in the way of our union. To say that Henrietta was volatile is but to say that she was woman. To say that she was in the bonnet-trimming is feebly to express the taste which reigned predominant in her own. She consented to walk with me. Let me do her the justice to say that she did so upon trial. "I am not," said Henrietta, "as yet prepared to regard you, Thomas, in any other light than as a friend ; but as a friend I am willing to walk with you, on the understanding that softer sentiments may flow." We walked. Under the influence of Henrietta's beguilements, I now got out SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 355 of bed daily. I pursued my calling with an industry before un- known, and it cannot fail to have been observed at that period, by those most familiar with the streets of London, that there was a larger supply. But hold ! The time is not yet come ! One evening in October I was walking with Henrietta, enjoying the cool breezes wafted over Vauxhall Bridge. After several slow turns, Henrietta gaped frequently (so inseparable from woman is the love of excitement), and said, "Let's go home by Grosvenor Place, Piccadilly, and Waterloo " — localities, I may state for the information of the stranger and the foreigner, well known in London, and the last a Bridge. "No. Not by Piccadilly, Henrietta," said I. "And why not Piccadilly, for goodness' sake?';? said Henrietta. Could I tell her ? Could I confess to the gloomy presentiment that overshadowed me? Could I make myself intelligible to her? No. " I don't like Piccadilly, Henrietta." " But I do," said she. " It's dark now, and the long rows of lamps in Piccadilly after dark are beautiful. I will go to Piccadilly ! " Of course we went. It was a pleasant night, and there were numbers of people in the streets. It was a brisk night, but not too cold, and not damp. Let me darkly observe, it was the best of all nights — for the purpose. As we passed the garden wall of the Royal Palace, going up Grosvenor Place, Henrietta murmured : " I wish I was a Queen ! " "Why so, Henrietta?" " I would make you Something," said she, and crossed her two hands on my arm, and turned away her head. Judging from this that the softer sentiments alluded to above had begun to flow, I adapted my conduct to that belief. Thus happily we passed on into the detested thoroughfare of Piccadilly. On the right of that thoroughfare is a row of trees, the railing of the Green Park, and a fine broad eligible piece of pavement. " Oh my ! " cried Henrietta presently. " There's been an acci- dent ! " I looked to the left, and said, " Where, Henrietta ? " "Not there, stupid!" said she. "Over by the Park railings. Where the crowd is. Oh no, it's not an accident, it's something else to look at ! What's them lights ? " She referred to two lights twinkling low amongst the legs of the assemblage : two candles on the pavement. " Oh, do come along ! " cried Henrietta, skipping across the road with me. I hung back, but in vain. " Do let's look ! " 356 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. Again, designs upon the pavement. Centre compartment, Mount Vesuvius going it (in a circle), supported by four oval compart- ments, severally representing a ship in heavy weather, a shoulder of mutton attended by two cucumbers, a golden harvest with dis- tant cottage of proprietor, and a knife and fork after nature ; above the centre compartment a bunch of grapes, and over the whole a rainbow. The whole, as it appeared to me, exquisitely done. The person in attendance on these works of art was in all respects, shabbiness excepted, unlike the former personage. His whole ap- pearance and manner denoted briskness. Though threadbare, he expressed to the crowd that poverty had not subdued his spirit, or tinged with any sense of shame this honest effort to turn his talents to some account. The writing which formed a part of his composi- tion was conceived in a similarly cheerful tone. It breathed the fol- lowing sentiments : " The writer is poor, but not despondent. To a British 1234567890 Public he £ s. d. appeals. Honour to our brave Army ! And also 0987654321 to our gallant Navy. Britons Strike the A B C D E F G writer in common chalks ' would be grateful for any suitable employment Home ! Hurrah ! " The whole of this writing appeared to me to be exquisitely done. But this man, in one respect like the last, though seemingly hard at it with a great show of brown paper and rubbers, was only really fattening the down-stroke of a letter here and there, or blow- ing the loose chalk off the rainbow, or toning the outside edge of the shoulder of mutton. Though he did this with the greatest confidence, he did it (as it struck me) in so ignorant a manner, and so spoilt everything he touched, that when he began upon the purple smoke from the chimney of the distant cottage of the pro- prietor of the golden harvest (which smoke was beautifully soft), I found myself sajdng aloud, without considering of it : " Let that alone, will you ? " " Halloa ! " said the man next me in the crowd, jerking me roughly from him with his elbow, " why didn't you send a telegram 1 If we had known you was coming, we'd have provided something- better for you. You understand the man's work better than he does himself, don't you 1 Have you made your will ? You're too clever to live long." "Don't be hard upon the gentlemen, sir," said the person in attendance on the works of art, with a twinkle in his eye as he looked at me ; "he may chance to be an artist himself. If so, sir, he will have a feUow-feeling with me, sir, when I " — he adapted his action to his words as he went on, and gave a smart slap of his hands between each touch, working himself all the time about and about the composition — "when I lighten the bloom of my grapes SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 357 — shade off the orange in my rainbow — dot the i of my Britons — throw a yellow light into my cow-cum-6er — insinuate another morsel of fat into my shoulder of mutton — dart another zigzag flash of lightning at my ship in distress ! " He seemed to do this so neatly, and was so nimble about it, that the halfpence came flying in. "Thanks, generous public, thanks ! " said the professor. "You will stimulate me to further exertions. My name will be found in the list of British Painters yet. I shall do better than this, with encouragement. I shall indeed." " You never can do better than that bunch of grapes," said Henrietta. " Oh, Thomas, them grapes ! " " Not better than that, lady ? I hope for the time when I shall paint anything but your own bright eyes and lips equal to life." " (Thomas, did you ever 1) But it must take a long time, sir," said Henrietta, blushing, "to paint equal to that." " I was prenticed to it, miss," said the young man, smartly touch- ing up the composition — " prenticed to it in the caves of Spain and Portingale, ever so long and two year over." There was a laugh from the crowd ; and a new man who had worked himself in next me, said, " He's a smart chap, too; an't he 1 " " And what a eye ! " exclaimed Henrietta softly. " Ah ! He need have a eye," said the man. " Ah ! He just need," was murmured among the crowd. "He couldn't come that 'ere burning mountain without a eye," said the man. He had got himself accepted as an authority, somehow, and everybody looked at his finger as it pointed out Vesuvius. " To come that effect in a general illumination would require a eye : but to come it with two dips — why, it's enough to blind him ! " That impostor, pretending not to have heard what was said, now winked to any extent with both eyes at once, as if the strain upon his sight was too much, and threw back his long hair — it was very long — as if to cool his fevered brow. I was watching him doing it, when Henrietta suddenly whispered, " Oh, Thomas, how horrid you look ! " and pulled me out by the arm. Remembering Mr. Click's words, I was confused when I retorted, " What do you mean by horrid ? " "Oh gracious ! Why, you looked," said Henrietta, " as if you would have his blood." I was going to answer, " So I would, for twopence from his nose," when I checked myself and remained silent. We returned home in silence. Every step of the way, the softer sentiments that had flowed, ebbed twenty mile an hour. Adapting 358 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. my conduct to the ebbing, as I had done to the flowing, I let my arm drop limp, so as she could scarcely keep hold of it, and I wished her such a cold good night at parting, that I keep within the bounds of truth when I characterise it as a Rasper. In the course of the next day I received the following document : " Henrietta informs Thomas that my eyes are open to you. I must ever wish you well, but walking and us is separated by an unfarmable abyss. One so malignant to superiority — Oh that look at him ! — can never never conduct " Henrietta "P.S. — Tothe altar." Yielding to the easiness of my disposition, I went to bed for a week, after receiving this letter. During the whole of such time, London was bereft of the usual fruits of my labour. When I re- sumed it, I found that Henrietta was married to the artist of Piccadilly. Did I say to the artist 1 What fell words were those, expressive of w^hat a galling hoUowness, of what a bitter mockery ! I — I — I — am the artist. I was the real artist of Piccadilly, I was the real artist of the Waterloo Road, I am the only artist of all those pavement-subjects which daily and nightly arouse your admi- ration. I do 'em, and I let 'em out. The man you behold with the papers of chalks and the rubbers, touching up the down-strokes of the writing and shading off the salmon, the man you give the credit to, the man you give the money to, hires — yes ! and I live to tell it ! — hires those works of art of me, and brings noth- ing to 'em but the candles. Such is genius in a commercial country. I am not up to the shivering, I am not up to the liveliness, I am not up to the want- ing-employment-in-an-office move ; I am only up to originating and executing the work. In consequence of which you never see me ; you think you see me when you see somebody else, and that some- else is a mere Commercial character. The one seen by self and Mr. Click in the Waterloo Road can only write a single word, and that I taught him, and it's Multiplication — which you may see him execute upside down, because he can't do it the natural way. The one seen by self and Henrietta by the Green Park railings can just smear into existence the two ends of a rainbow, with his cuff and a rubber — if very hard put upon making a show — but he could no more come the arch of the rainbow, to save his life, than he could come the moonlight, fish, volcano, shipwi'eck, mutton, hermit, or any of my most celebrated effects. J SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 359 To conclude as I began : if there's a blighted public character going, I am the party. And often as you have seen, do see, and will see, my Works, it's fifty thousand to one if you'll ever see me, unless, when the candles are burnt down and the Commercial char- acter is gone, you should happen to notice a neglected young man perseveringly rubbing out the last traces of the pictures, so that no- body can renew the same. That's me. Chapter IV. HIS WONDERFUL END. " It will have been, ere now, perceived that I sold the foregoing writings. From the fact of their being printed in these pages, the inference will, ere now, have been drawn by the reader (may I add, the gentle reader ?) that I sold them to One who never yet — ^ Having parted with the writings on most satisfactory terms, — for, in opening negotiations with the present Journal, was I not placing myself in the hands of One of whom it may be said, in the words of Another,^ — I resumed my usual functions. But I too soon discovered that peace of mind had fled from a brow which, up to that time, Time had merely took the hair off", leaving an unrufiied expanse within. It were superfluous to veil it, — the brow to which I allude is my own. Yes, over that brow uneasiness gathered like the sable wing of the fabled bird, as — as no doubt will be easily identified by all right- minded individuals. If not, I am unable, on the spur of the moment, to enter into particulars of him. The reflection that the writings must now inevitably get into print, and that He might yet live and meet with them, sat like the Hag of Night upon my jaded form. The elasticity of my spirits departed. Fruitless was the Bottle, whether Wine or Medicine. I had recourse to both, and the eflfect of both upon my system was witheringly lowering. In this state of depression, into which I subsided when I first began to revolve what could I ever say if He — the unknown — was to appear in the Coffee-room and demand reparation, I one forenoon in this last November received a turn that appeared to be given me by the finger of Fate and Conscience, hand in hand. I was alone in the Coff'ee-room, and had just poked the fire into a blaze, and was standing with my back to it, trying whether heat would penetrate with soothing influence to the Voice within, when 1 The remainder of this complimentaiy sentence editorially struck out. 360 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. a young man in a cap, of an intelligent countenance, though requir- ing his hair cut, stood before me. "Mr. Christopher, the Head Waiter?" i "The same." \ The young man shook his hair out of his vision, — which it impeded, — took a packet from his breast, and handing it over to me, said, with his eye (or did I dream?) fixed with a lambent meaning on me, "The Proofs." Although I smelt my coat-tails singeing at the fire, I had not the power to withdraw them. The young man put the packet in my faltering grasp, and repeated, — let me do him the justice to add, with civility : " The Proofs. A. Y. R." With those words he departed. A. Y. R. ? And You Remember. Was that his meaning ? At Your Risk. Were the letters short for that reminder 1 Anticipate Your Retribution. Did they stand for that warning ? Out-dacious Youth Repent ? But no ; for that, a was happily wanting, and the vowel here was a A. I opened the packet, and found that its contents were the fore- going writings printed just as the reader (may I add the discerning reader ?) peruses them. In vain was the reassuring whisper, — A. Y. R., All the Year Round, — it could not cancel the Proofs. Too appropriate name. The Proofs of my having sold the Writings. My wretchedness daily increased. I had not thought of the risk I ran, and the defying publicity I put my head into, until all was done, and all was in print. Give up the money to be ofi" the bar- gain and prevent the publication, I could not. My family was down in the world, Christmas was coming on, a brother in the hos- pital and a sister in the rheumatics could not be entirely neglected. And it was not only ins in the family that had told on the resources of one unaided Waitering; outs were not wanting. A brother out of a situation, and another brother out of money to meet an accept- ance, and another brother out of his mind, and another brother out at New York (not the same, though it might appear so), had really and truly brought me to a stand till I could turn myself round. I got worse and worse in my meditations, constantly reflecting " The Proofs," and reflecting that when Christmas drew nearer, and the Proofs were published, there could be no safety from hour to hour but that He might confront me in the Cofi'ee-room, and in the face of day and his country demand his rights. The impressive and unlooked-for catastrophe towards which I dimly pointed the reader (shall I add, the highly intellectual reader?) in my first remarks now rapidly approaches. SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 361 It was November still, but the last echoes of the Guy Foxes had long ceased to reverberate. We was slack, — several joints under our average mark, and wine, of course, proportionate. So slack had we become at last, that Beds Nos. 26, 27, 28, and 31, having took their six o'clock dinners, and dozed over their respec- tive pints, had drove away in their respective Hansoms for their respective Night Mail-trains and left us empty. I had took the evening paper to No. 6 table, — which is warm and most to be preferred, — and, lost in the all-absorbing topics of the day, had dropped into a slumber. I was recalled to conscious- ness by the well-known intimation, "Waiter ! " a«d replying, "Sir ! " found a gentleman standing at No. 4 table. The reader (shall I add, the observant reader 1) will please to notice the locality of the gentleman, — at No. Jf. table. He had one of the new-fangled uncollapsible bags in his hand (which I am against, for I don't see why you shouldn't collapse, while you are about it, as your fathers collapsed before you), and he said : "I want to dine, waiter. I shall sleep here to-night." " Very good, sir. What will you take for dinner, sir ? " " Soup, bit of codfish, oyster sauce, and the joint." " Thank you, sir." I rang the chambermaid's bell ; and Mrs. Pratchett marched in, according to custom, demurely carrying a lighted flat candle before her, as if she was one of a long public procession, all the other members of which was invisible. In the meanwhile the gentleman had gone up to the mantel- piece, right in front of the fire, and had laid his forehead against the mantel-piece (which it is a low one, and brought him into the attitude of leap-frog), and had heaved a tremenjous sigh. His hair was long and lightish ; and when he laid his forehead against the mantel-piece, his hair all fell in- a dusty fluff together over his eyes ; and when he now turned round and lifted up his head again, it all fell in a dusty fluff together over his ears. This gave him a wild appearance, similar to a blasted heath. "0! The chambermaid. Ah!" He was turning something in his mind. "To be sure. Yes. I won't go up-stairs now, if you will take my bag. It will be enough for the present to know my number. — Can you give me 24 B ? " (0 Conscience, what a Adder art thou !) Mrs. Pratchett allotted him the room, and took his bag to it. He then went back before the fire, and fell a biting his nails. " Waiter ! " biting between the words, " give me," bite, " pen and paper; and in five minutes," bite, "let me have, if you please," bite, "a," bite, "Messenger." 362 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. Unmindful of his waning soup, he wrote and sent off six notes before he touched his dinner. Three were City ; three West-End. ' The City letters were to Cornhill, Ludgate-hill, and Farringdon- street. The West-End letters were to Great Marlborough-street, New Burlington-street, and Piccadilly. Everybody was systemati- cally denied at every one of the six places, and there was not a ves- tige of any answer. Our light porter whispered to me, when he came back with that report, "All Booksellers." But before then he had cleared off his dinner, and his bottle of wine. He now — mark the concurrence with the document formerly given in full ! — knocked a plate of biscuits off the table with his agitated elber (but without breakage), and demanded boiling brandy- and-water. Now fully convinced that it was Himself, I perspired with the ut- most freedom. When he became flushed with the heated stimulant referred to, he again demanded pen and paper, and passed the suc- ceeding two hours in producing a manuscript which he put in the fire when completed. He then went up to bed, attended by Mrs. Pratchett. Mrs. Pratchett (who was aware of my emotions) told me, on coming down, that she had noticed his eye rolling into every corner of the passages and staircase, as if in search of his Lug- gage, and that, looking back as she shut the door of 24 B, she per- ceived him with his coat already thrown off immersing himself bodily under the bedstead, like a chimley-sweep before the appHcation of machinery. The next day— I forbear the horrors of that night — was a very foggy day in our part of London, insomuch that it was necessary to light the Coffee-room gas. We was still alone, and no feverish words of mine can do justice to the fitfulness of his appearance as he sat at No. 4 table, increased by there being something wrong with the meter. Having again ordered his dinner, he went out, and was out lor the best part' of two hours. Inquiring on his return whether any of the answers had arrived, and receiving an unqualified negative, his instant call was for mulligatawny, the cayenne pepper, and orange Feeling that the mortal struggle was now at hand, I also felt that I must be equal to him, and with that view resolved that whatever he took I would take. Behind my partition, but keeping my eye on him over the curtain, I therefore operated on Mulligatawny, Cay- enne Pepper, and Orange Brandy. And at a later period of the day, when he again said, " Orange Brandy," I said so too, in a lower tone, to George, my Second Lieutenant (my First was absent on leave), who acts between me and the bar. SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 363 Throughout that awful day he walked about the Coffee-room con- tinually. Often he came close up to my partition, and then his eye rolled within, too evidently in search of any signs of his Lug- gage. Half-past six came, and I laid his cloth. He ordered a bottle of old Brown. I likewise ordered a bottle of old Brown. He drank his. I drank mine (as nearly as my duties would permit) glass for glass against his. He topped with coffee and a small glass. I topped with coffee and a small glass. He dozed. I dozed. At last, " Waiter ! " — and he ordered his bill. The moment was now at hand when we two must be locked in the deadly grapple. Swift as the arrow from the bow, I had formed my resolution ; in other words, I had hammered it out between nine and nine. It was, that I would be the first to open up the subject with a full acknowledgment, and would offer any gradual settlement within my power. He paid his bill (doing what was right by attendance) with his eye rolling about him to the last for any tokens of his Lug- gage. One only time our gaze then met, with the lustrous fixed- ness (I believe I am correct in imputing that character to it ?) of the well-known Basilisk. The decisive moment had arrived. With a tolerable steady hand, though with humility, I laid The Proofs before him. " Gracious Heavens ! " he cries out, leaping up, and catching hold of his hair. " What's this ? Print ! " "Sir," I replied, in a calming voice, and bending forward, "I humbly acknowledge to being the unfortunate cause of it. But I hope, sir, that when you have heard the circumstances explained, and the innocence of my intentions — " To my amazement, I was stopped short by his catching me in both his arms, and pressing me to his breast-bone; where I must confess to my face (and particular, nose) having undergone some temporary vexation from his wearing his coat buttoned high up, and his buttons being uncommon hard. " Ha, ha, ha ! " he cries, releasing me with a wild laugh, and grasp- ing my hand. " What is your name, my Benefactor ? " " My name, sir " (I was crumpled, and puzzled to make him out), " is Christopher ; and I hope, sir, that, as such, when you've heard my ex — " " In print ! " he exclaims again, dashing The Proofs over and over as if he was bathing in them. " In print ! ! Christopher ! Philan- thropist ! Nothing can recompense you, — but what sum of money would be acceptable to you 1 " I had drawn a step back from him, or I should have suffered from his buttons again. " Sir, I assure you, I have been already well paid, and — " 364 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. " No, no, Christopher ! Don't talk like that ! What sum of money would be acceptable to you, Christopher ? Would you find twenty pounds acceptable, Christopher ? " However great my surprise, I naturally found words to say, " Sir, I am not aware that the man was ever yet born without more than the average amount of water on the brain as would not find twenty pounds acceptable. But — extremely obliged to you, sir, I'm sure ;" for he had tumbled it out of his purse and crammed it in my hand in two bank-notes ; " but I could wish to know, sir, if not intruding, how I have merited this liberality 1 " "Know then, my Christopher," he says, "that from boyhood's hour I have unremittingly and unavailingly endeavoured to get into print. Know, Christopher, that all the Booksellers alive — and several dead — have refused to put me into print. Know, Christo- pher, that I have written unprinted Reams. But they shall be read to you, my friend and brother. You sometimes have a holiday ? " Seeing the great danger I was in, I had the presence of mind to answer, " Never ! " To make it more final, I added, " Never ! Not from the cradle to the grave." "Well," says he, thinking no more about that, and chuckling at his proofs again. " But I am in print ! The first flight of ambition emanating from my father's lowly cot is realised at length ! The golden bowl," — he was getting on, — " struck by the magic hand, has emitted a complete and perfect sound ! When did this hap- pen, my Christopher ? " "Which happen, sir?" "This," he held it out at arm's length to admire it, — "this Per-rint." When I had given him my detailed account of it, he grasped me by the hand again, and said : " Dear Christopher, it should be gratifying to you to know that you are an instrument in the hands of Destiny. Because you are.'^ A passing Something of a melancholy cast put it into my head to shake it, and to say, " Perhaps we all are." "I don't mean that," he answered; "I don't take that wide range ; I confine myself to the special case. Observe me well, my Christopher ! Hopeless of getting rid, through any eff'ort of my own, of any of the manuscripts among my Luggage, — all of which, send them where I would, were always coming back to me, — it is now some seven years since I left that Luggage here, on the desper- ate chance, either that the too, too faithful manuscripts would come back to me no more, or that some one less accursed than I might give them to the world. You follow me, my Christopher 1 " "Pretty well, sir." I followed him so far as to judge that he MBS. LIREIPER'S LODGINGS. 365 had a weak head, and that the Orange, the Boiling, and Old Brown combined was beginning to tell. (The Old B^iwn bein^ heady, is best adapted to seasoned eases ) ' ^ ''Years elapsed, and those compositions slumbered in dust At length, Destiny, choosing her agent from aU mankind, sent You G^nt waT& ^"' '' '■ ''' "^^'^<=* -- •>-' --<>-. -1 *e a-tStoe"^'*' ^^^ °^ ^'" '''''' ^^'"' ^^ "^^ ^^''' ^°d he stood .•t'ln"V' '?«,^«>"''^ded liimself in a state of excitement, "we must sit up aU night my Christopher. I must correct thes Proofs fo the press. Fill all the inkstands, and bring me several new He smeared himself and he smeared The Proofs, the night through, to that degree that when Sol gave him warning to depart (ma four-wheeler) few could have said which was them, and which was him, and which was blots. His last instructions was, that I should instantly run and take his corrections to the office ot the present Journal. I did so. They most likely will not appear m pnnt, for I noticed a message being brought round from Beauford Printing House, while I was a throwing this concluding statement on paper, that the ole resources of that establishment was unable to make out what they meant. Upon which a certain gentleman m company, as I will not more particularly name — but of whom It will be sufficient to remark, standing on the broad basis of a wave-girt isle, that whether we regard him in the light ot, — laughed, and put the corrections in the fire. MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. IN TWO CHAPTERS. Chapter I. HOW MRS. LIRRIPER CARRIED ON THE BUSINESS. Whoever would begin to be worried with letting Lodgings that wasn t a lone woman with a living to get is a thing inconceivable to me, my dear ; excuse the familiarity, but it comes natural to me in my own httle room, when wishing to open my mind to those that I can trust, and I should be truly thankful if they were all 1 The remainder of this complimentary parenthesis editorially struck out. 366 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. mankind, but such is not so, for have but a Furnished bi 1 m the window and your watch on the mantel-piece, and farewell to it if you turn your back for but a second, however gentlemanly the manners ; nor is being of your own sex any safeguard, as I have reason, in the form of sugar-tongs to know, for that lady (and a fine woman she was) got me to run for a glass of water, on the plea of going to be confined, which certainly turned out true, but it was in the Station-house. . Number Eighty-one Norfolk-street, Strand — situated midway between the City and Saint James's, and within five minutes' walk of the principal places of pubHc amusement— is my address. I have rented this house many years, as the parish rate-books will testify • and I could wish my landlord was as alive to the fact as I am myself; but no, bless you, not a half a pound of pamt to save his life, nor so much, my dear, as a tile upon the roof, though on your bended knees. ^t x> ^^ My dear, you never have found Number Eighty-one Norfolk- street Strand advertised in Bradshaw's Railway Guide, and with the blessing of Heaven you never will or shall so find it Some there are who do not think it lowering themselves to make their names that cheap, and even going the lengths of a portrait of the house not like it with a blot in every window and a coach and four at the door, but what will suit Wozenham's lower down on the other side of the way will not suit me. Miss Wozenham having her opinions and me having mine, though when it comes to system- atic underbidding capable of being proved on oath m a court ot justice and taking the form of " If Mrs. Lirriper names eighteen shiUino-s a week, I name fifteen and six," it then comes to a sett e- ment between yourself and your conscience, supposing for the sake of argument your name to be Wozenham, which I am well aware it is not or my opinion of you would be greatly lowered, and as to airy bedrooms and a night-porter in constant attendance the less said the better, the bedrooms being stuffy and the porter stuff. , It is forty years ago since me and my poor Lirriper got married ; at Saint Clement's Danes, where I now have a sitting m a very ■ pleasant pew with genteel company and my own hassock, and i being partial to evening service not too crowded. My poor Lir- riper was a handsome figure of a man, with a beaming eye and a , voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey and steel, but , he had ever been a free liver being in the commercial travelling line ^ and travelling what he called a limekiln road — " a dry road, Emma my dear," my poor Lirriper says to me, " where I have to lay the dust with one drink or another all day long and half the night, and it wears me Emma" —and this led to his running through a gopa MRS. LIRRIPER S LODGINGS. 368 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. deal and might have run through the turnpike too when that dreadful horse that never would stand still for a single instant set off, but for its being night and the gate shut, and consequently took his wheel, my poor Lirriper and the gig smashed to atoms and never spoke afterwards. He was a handsome figure of a man, and a man with a jovial heart and a sweet temper ; but if they had come up then they never could have given you the mellowness of his voice, and indeed I consider photographs wanting in mellow- ness as a general rule and making you look like a new-ploughed field. My poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world and being buried at Hatfield church in Hertfordshire, not that it was his native place but that he had a liking for the Salisbury Arms where we went upon our wedding-day and passed as happy a fort- night as ever happy was, I went round to the creditors and I says " Gentlemen I am acquainted with the fact that I am not answer- able for my late husband's debts but I wish to pay them for I am his lawful wife and his good name is dear to me. I am going into the Lodgings gentlemen as a business and if I prosper every farthing that my late husband owed shall be paid for the sake of the love I bore him, by this right hand." It took a long time to do but it was done, and the silver cream-jug which is between our- selves and the bed and the mattress in my room up-stairs (or it would have found legs so sure as ever the Furnished bill was up) being presented by the gentlemen engraved " To Mrs. Lirriper a mark of grateful respect for her honourable conduct " gave me a turn which was too much for my feelings, till Mr. Betley which at that time had the parlours and loved his joke says " Cheer up Mrs. Lirriper, you should feel as if it was only your christening and they were your godfathers and godmothers which did promise for you." And it brought me round, and I don't mind confessing to you my dear that I then put a sandwich and a drop of sherry in a little basket and went down to Hatfield churchyard outside the coach and kissed my hand and laid it with a kind of proud and swelling love on my husband's grave, though bless you it had taken me so long to clear his name that my wedding-ring was worn quite fine and smooth when I laid it on the green green waving grass. I am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but that's me my dear over the plate-warmer and considered like in the times when you used to pay two guineas on ivory and took your chance pretty much how you came out, which made you very careful how you left it about afterwards because people were turned so red and uncomfortable by mostly guessing it was somebody else quite dif- ferent, and there was once a certain person that had put his money MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 369 in a hop business that came in one morning to pay his rent and his respects being the second floor that would have taken it down from its hook and put it in his breast-pocket — you understand my dear — for the L, he says of the original — only there was no mellowness in his voice and I wouldn't let him, but his opinion of it you may gather from his saying to it " Speak to me Emma ! " which was far from a rational observation no doubt but still a tribute to its being a likeness, and I think myself it was like me when I was young and wore that sort of stays. But it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to hold forth and certainly I ought to know something of the business having been in it so long, for it was early in the second year of my married life that I lost my poor Lirriper and I set up at Islington directly afterwards and afterwards came here, being two houses and eight-and-thirty years and some losses and a deal of experience. Girls are your first trial after fixtures and they try you even worse than what I call the Wandering Christians, though why they should roam the earth looking for bills and then coming in and viewing the apartments and stickling about terms and never at all wanting them or dreaming of taking them being already pro- vided, is a mystery I should be thankful to have explained if by any miracle it could be. It's wonderful they live so long and i thrive so on it but I suppose the exercise makes it healthy, knock- ing so much and going from house to house and up and down-stairs ''' all day, and then their pretending to be so particular and punctual < is a most astonishing thing, looking at their watches and saying " Could you give me the refusal of the rooms till twenty minutes I past eleven the day after to-morrow in the forenoon, and supposing \ it to be considered essential by my friend from the country could there be a small iron bedstead put in the little room upon the stairs ? " Why when I was new to it my dear I used to consider before I promised and to make my mind anxious with calculations and to get quite wearied out with disappointments, but now I says " Certainly by all means " well knowing it's a Wandering Chris- tian and I shall hear no more about it, indeed by this time I know most of the Wandering Christians by sight as well as they know me, it being the habit of each individual revolving round London in that capacity to come back about twice a year, and it's very remarkable that it runs in families and the children grow up to it, but even were it otherwise I should no sooner hear of the friend from the country which is a certain sign than I should nod and say to myself You're a Wandering Christian, though whether they are (as I have heard) persons of small property with a taste for regu- 370 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. lar employment and frequent change of scene I cannot undertake to tell you. Girls as I was beginning to remark are one of your first and your lasting troubles, being like your teeth which begin with convul- sions and never cease tormenting you from the time you cut them till they cut you, and then you don't want to part with them which seems hard but we must all succumb or buy artificial, and even where you get a will nine times out of ten you'll get a dirty face with it and naturally lodgers do not like good society to be shown in with a smear of black across the nose or a smudgy eyebrow. AVhere they pick the black up is a mystery I cannot solve, as in the case of the willingest girl that ever came into a house half- starved poor thing, a girl so willing that I called her Willing Sophy down upon her knees scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful but always smiling with a black face. And I says to Sophy, " Now Sophy my good girl have a regular day for your stoves and keep the width of the Airy between yourself and the blacking and do not brush your hair with the bottoms of the sauce-pans and do not meddle with the snuffs-of the candles and it stands to reason that it can no longer be" yet there it was and always on her nose, which turning up and being broad at the end seemed to boast of it and caused warning from a steady gentleman and excellent lodger with breakfast by the week but a little irritable and use of a sitting-room when required, his words being "Mrs. Lirriper I have arrived at the point of admitting that the Black is a man and a brother, but only in a natural form and when it can't be got off." Well consequently I put poor Sophy on to other work and forbid her answering the door or answering a bell on any account but she was so unfortunately willing that nothing would stop her flying up the kitchen-stairs whenever a bell was heard to tingle. I put it to her " Sophy Sophy for goodness' goodness' sake where does it come from ? " To which that poor unlucky willing mortal burst- ing out crying to see me so vexed replied " I took a deal of black into me ma'am when I was a small child being much neglected and I think it must be, that it works out," so it continuing to work out of that poor thing and not having another fault to find with her I says " Sophy what do you seriously think of my help- ing you away to New South Wales where it might not be noticed?" Nor did I ever repent the money which was well spent, for she married the ship's cook on the voyage (himself a Mulotter) and did well and lived happy, and so far as ever I heard it was not noticed in a new state of society to her dying day. In what way Miss Wozenham lower down on the other side of the way reconciled it to her feelings as a lady (which she is not) MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 371 to entice Mary Anne Perkinsop from my service is best known to herself, I do not know and I do not wish to know how opinions are formed at Wozenham's on any point. But Mary Anne Perkin- sop although I behaved handsomely to her and she behaved un- handsomely to me was worth her weight in gold as overawing lodgers without driving them away, for lodgers would be far more sparing of their bells with Mary Anne than I ever knew them to be with Maid or Mistress, which is a great triumph especially when accompanied with a cast in the eye and a bag of bones, but it was the steadiness of her way with them through her father's having failed in Pork. It was Mary Anne's looking so' respectable in her person and being so strict in her spirits that conquered the tea- and-sugarest gentleman (for he weighed them both in a pair of scales every morning) that I have ever had to deal with and no lamb grew meeker, still it afterwards came round to me that Miss Wozenham happening to pass and seeing Mary Anne take in the milk of a milkman that made free in a rosy-faced way (I think no worse of him) with every girl in the street but was quite frozen up like the statue at Charing-cross by her, saw Mary Anne's value in the lodging business and went as high as one pound per quarter more, consequently Mary Anne with not a word betwixt us says " If you will provide yourself Mrs. Lirriper in a month from this day / have already done the same," which hurt me and I said so, and she then hurt me more by insinuating that her father having failed in Pork had laid her open to it. My dear I do assure you it's a harassing thing to know what kind of girls to give the preference to, for if they are lively they get bell'd off their legs and if they are sluggish you suffer from it yourself in complaints and if they are sparkling-eyed they get made love to, and if they are smart in their persons they try on your Lodgers' bonnets and if they are musical I defy you to keep them away from bands and organs, and allowing for any difference you like in their heads their heads will be always out of window just the same. And then what the gentlemen like in girls the ladies don't, which is fruitful hot water for all parties, and then there's temper though such a temper as Caroline Maxey's I hope not often. A good-looking black-eyed girl was Caroline and a comely-made girl to your cost when she did break out and laid about her, as took place first and last through a new-married couple come to see London in the first floor and the lady very high and it xoa^ supposed not liking the good looks of Caroline having none of her own to spare, but anyhow she did try Caroline though that was no excuse. So one afternoon Caroline comes down into the kitchen flushed and flashing, and she says to me " Mrs. Lirri- 372 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. per that woman in the first has aggravated me past bearing," I says " Caroline keep your temper," Caroline says with a curdling laugh " Keep my temper ? You're right Mrs. Lirriper, so I will. Capital D her ! " bursts out Caroline (you might have struck me into the centre of the earth with a feather when she said it) " I'll give her a touch of the temper that / keep ! " Caroline downs with her hair my dear, screeches and rushes up-stairs, I following as fast as my trembling legs could bear me, but before I got into the room the dinner-cloth and pink-and-white seiTice all dragged off upon the floor with a crash and the new-married couple on their backs in the firegrate, him with the shovel and tongs and a dish of cucumber across him and a mercy it was summer-time. " Caro- line " I says "be calm," but she catches off my cap and tears it in her teeth as she passes me, then pounces on the new-married lady makes her a bundle of ribbons takes her by the two ears and knocks the back of her head upon the carpet Murder screaming all the time Policemen running down the street and Wozenham's win- dows (judge of my feelings when I came to know it) thrown up and Miss Wozenham calling out from the balcony with crocodile's tears "It's Mrs. Lirriper been overcharging somebody to madness — she'll be murdered — I always thought so — Pleeseman save her ! " My dear four of them and Caroline behind the chiff"oniere attacking with the poker and when disarmed prize-fighting with her double fists, and down and up and up and down and dreadful ! But I couldn't bear to see the poor young creature roughly handled and her hair torn when they got the better of her, and I says " Gentlemen Policemen pray remember that her sex is the sex of your mothers and sisters and your sweethearts, and God bless them and you ! " And there she was sitting down on the ground hand- cuffed, taking breath against the skirting-board and them cool with their coats in strips, and all she says was " Mrs. Lirriper I'm sorry as ever I touched you, for you're a kind motherly old thing," and it made me think that I had often wished I had been a mother indeed and how would my heart have felt if I had been the mother of that girl ! Well you know it turned out at the Police-oflBce that she had done it before, and she had her clothes away and was sent to prison, and when she was to come out I trotted off" to the gate in the evening with just a morsel of jelly in that little basket of mine to give her a mite of strength to face the world again, and there I met with a very decent mother waiting for her son through bad company and a stubborn one he was with his half-boots not laced. So out came Caroline and I says " Caroline come along with me and sit down under the wall where it's retired and eat a little trifle that I have brought with me to do you good," and she throws her MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 373 arras round my neck and says sobbing " why were you never a mother when there are such mothers as there are ! " she says, and in half a minute more she begins to laugh and says "Did I really tear your cap to shreds?" and when I told her "You certainly did so Caroline " she laughed again and said while she patted my face "Then why do you wear such queer old caps you dear old thing? If you hadn't worn such queer old caps I don't think I should have done it even then." Fancy the girl ! Nothing could get out of her what she was going to do except she would do well enough, and we parted she being very thankful and kissing my hands, and I nevermore saw or heard of that girl, except that I shall always believe that a very genteel cap which was brought anonymous to me one Saturday night in an oilskin basket by a most impertinent young sparrow of a monkey whistling with dirty shoes on the clean steps and playing the harp on the Airy railings with a hoop-stick came from Caroline. What you lay yourself open to my dear in the way of being the object of uncharitable suspicions when you go into the Lodging business I have not the words to tell you, but never was I so dis- honourable as to have two keys nor would I willingly think it even of Miss Wozenham lower down on the other side of the way sincerely hoping that it may not be, though doubtless at the same time money cannot come from nowhere and it is not reason to suppose that Bradshaws put it in for love be it blotty as it may. It is a hardship hurting to the feelings that Lodgers open their minds so wide to the idea that you are trying to get the better of them and shut their minds so close to the idea that they are trying to get the better of you, but as Major Jackman says to me "I know the ways of this circular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that's one of 'em all round it " and many is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major has smoothed, for he is a clever man who has seen much. Dear dear, thirteen years have passed though it seems but yesterday since I was sitting with my glasses on at the open front parlour window one evening in August (the parlours being then vacant) reading yesterday's paper my eyes for print being poor though still I am thankful to say a long sight at a distance, when I hear a gentleman come posting across the road and up the street in a dreadful rage talking to himself in a fury and d'ing and c'ing somebody. " By George ! " says he out loud and clutching his walking-stick, " I'll go to Mrs. Lirriper's. Which is Mrs. Lirriper's?" Then looking round and seeing me he flourishes his hat right off" his head as if I had been the queen and he says, " Excuse the intrusion Madam, but pray Madam can you tell me at what number in this street there resides a well-known and much-respected lady by the name of 374 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. Lirriper ? " A little flustered though I must say gratified I took ofi" my glasses and courtesied and said " Sir, Mrs. Lirriper is your humble servant." " Astonishing ! " says he. "A million pardons ! Madam, may I ask you to have the kindness to direct one of your domestics to open the door to a gentleman in search of apartments, by the name of Jackman ? " I had never heard the name but a politer gentleman I never hope to see, for says he " Madam I am shocked at your opening the door yourself to no worthier a fellow than Jemmy Jackman. After you Madam. I never precede a lady." Then he comes into the parlours and he sniff's, and he says " Hah ! These are parlours ! Not musty cupboards " he says " but parlours, and no smell of coal-sacks." Now my dear it having been remarked by some inimical to the whole neighbourhood that it always smells of coal-sacks which might prove a drawback to Lodgers if encouraged, I says to the Major gently though firmly that I think he is referring to Arundel or Surrey or Howard but not Norfolk. "Madam" says he "I refer to Wozenham's lower down over the way — Madam you can form no notion what Wozen- ham's is — Madam it is a vast coal-sack, and Miss Wozenham has the principles and manners of a female heaver — Madam from the manner in which I have heard her mention you I know she has no appreciation of a lady, and from the manner in which she has con- ducted herself towards me I know she has no appreciation of a gentleman — Madam my name is Jackman — should you require any other reference than what I have already said, I name the Bank of England — perhaps you know it ! " Such was the be- ginning of the Major's occupying the parlours and from that hour to this the same and a most obliging Lodger and punctual in all re- spects except one irregular which I need not particularly specify, but made up for by his being a protection and at all times ready to fill in the papers of the Assessed Taxes and Juries and that, and once collared a young man with the drawing-room clock under his coat, and once on the parapets with his own hands and blankets put out the kitchen chimney and afterwards attending the summons made a most eloquent speech against the Parish before the magis- trates and saved the engine, and ever quite the gentleman though passionate. And certainly Miss Wozenham's detaining the trunks and umbrella was not in a liberal spirit though it may have been according to her rights in law or an act / would myself have stooped to, the Major being so much the gentleman that though he is far from tall he seems almost so when he has his shirt-frill out and his frock-coat on and his hat with the curly brims, and in what service he was I cannot truly tell you my dear whether Militia or Foreign, for I never heard him even name himself as Major but always MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 375 simple " Jemmy Jackman " and once soon after he came when I felt it my duty to let him know that Miss Wozenham had put it about that he was no Major and I took the liberty of adding "which you are sir " his words were " Madam at any rate I am not a Minor, and sufficient for the day is the evil thereof" which cannot be denied to be the sacred truth, nor yet his military ways of hav- ing his boots with only the dirt brushed off taken to him in the front parlour every morning on a clean plate and varnishing them himself with a little sponge and a saucer and a whistle in a whisper so sure as ever his breakfast is ended, and so neat his ways that it never soils his linen which is scrupulous though more in quality than quantity, neither that nor his mustachios whicK to the best of my belief are done at the same time and which are as black and shin- ing as his boots, his head of hair being a lovely white. It was the third year nearly up of the Major's being in the par- lours that early one morning in the month of February when Par- liament was coming on and you may therefore suppose a number of impostors were about ready to take hold of anything they could get, a gentleman and a lady from the country came in to view the Second, and I well remember that I had been looking out of window and had watched them and the heavy sleet driving down the street together looking for bills. I did not quite take to tlie face of the gentleman though he was good-looking too but the lady was a very pretty young thing and delicate, and it seemed too rough for her to be out at all though she had only come from the Adelphi Hotel which would not have been much above a quarter of a mile if the weather had been less severe. Now it did so happen ray dear that I had been forced to put five shillings weekly additional on the second in consequence of a loss from running away full dressed as if going out to a dinner-party, which was very artful and had made me rather suspicious taking it along with Parliament, so when the gentleman proposed three months certain and the money in advance and leave them reserved to renew on the same terms for six months more, I says I was not quite certain but that I might have engaged myself to another party but would step down-stairs and look into it if they would take a seat. They took a seat and I went down to the handle of the Major's door that I had already began to consult finding it a great blessing, and I knew by his whistling in a whisper that he was varnishing his boots which was generally considered private, however he kindly calls out " If it's you. Madam, come in," and I went in and told him. " Well, Madam," says the Major rubbing his nose — as I did fear at the moment with the black sponge but it was only his knuckle, he being always neat and dexterous with his fingers — "well, Madam, I suppose you would be glad of the money?" 376 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. I was delicate of saying "Yes" too out, for a little extra colour rose into the Major's cheeks and there was irregularity which I will not particularly specify in a quarter which I will not name. "I am of opinion, Madam," says the Major, " that when money is ready for you — when it is ready for you, Mrs. Lirriper — you ought to take it. What is there ^against it. Madam, in this case up-stairs ? " " I really cannot say there is anything against it sir, still I thought I would consult you." " You said a newly-married couple, I think, Madam ? " says the Major. I says " Ye-es. Evidently. And indeed the young lady men- tioned to me in a casual way that she had not been married many months." The Major rubbed his nose again and stirred the varnish round and round in its little saucer with his piece of sponge and took to his whistling in a whisper for a few moments. Then he says " You would call it a G-ood Let, Madam 1 " " certainly a Good Let sir." " Say they renew for the additional six months. Would it put you about very much Madam if — if the worst was to come to the worst ? " said the Major. " Well I hardly know," I says to the Major. " It depends upon circumstances. Would you object sir for instance ? " " I ? " says the Major. " Object ? Jemmy Jackraan ? Mrs. Lirri- per close with the proposal." So I went up-stairs and accepted, and they came in next day which was Saturday and the Major was so good as to draw up a Memorandum of an agreement in a beautiful round hand and expres- sions that sounded to me equally legal and military, and Mr. Edson signed it on the Monday morning and the Major called upon Mr. Edson on the Tuesday and Mr. Edson called upon the Major on the Wednesday and the Second and the parlours were as friendly as could be wished. The three months paid for had run out and we had got without any fresh overtures as to payment into May my dear, when there came an obligation upon Mr. Edson to go a business expedition right across the Isle of Man, which fell quite unexpected upon that pretty little thing and is not a place that according to my views is particu- larly in the way to anywhere at any time but that may be a matter of opinion. So short a notice was it that he was to go next day, and dreadfully she cried poor pretty, and I am sure I cried too when I saw her on the cold pavement in the sharp east wind — it being a very backward spring that year — taking a last leave of him with MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 377 her pretty bright hair blowing this way and that and her arms cling- ing round his neck and him saying " There there there. Now let me go Peggy." And by that time it was plain that what the Major had been so accommodating as to say he would not object to happen- ing in the house, would happen in it, and I told her as much when he was gone while I comforted her with my arm up the staircase, for I says " You will soon have others to keep up for my pretty and you must think of that." His letter never came when it ought to have come and what she went through morning after morning when the postman brought none for her the very postman himself compassionated when she ran down to the door, and yet we cannot wonder at its being calculated to blunt the feelings to have all the trouble of other people's letters and none of the pleasure and doing it oftener in the mud and mizzle than not and at a rate of wages more resembling Little Britain than Great. But at last one morning when she was too poorly to come running down-stairs he says to me with a pleased look in his face that made me next to love the man in his uniform coat though he was dripping wet "I have taken you first in the street this morning Mrs. Lirriper, for here's the one for Mrs. Edson." I went up to her bedroom with it as fast as ever I could go, and she sat up in bed when she saw it and kissed it and tore it open and then a blank stare came upon her. " It's very short ! " she says lifting her large eyes to my face. " Mrs. Lirriper it's very short !" I says " My dear Mrs. Edson no doubt that's because your husband hadn't time to write more just at that time." " No doubt, no doubt," says she, and puts her two hands on her face and turns round in her bed. I shut her softly in and I crept down-stairs and I tapped at the Major's door, and when the Major having his thin slices of bacon in his own Dutch oven saw me he came out of his chair and put me down on the sofa. " Hush ! " says he, " I see something's the matter. Don't speak — take time." I says "0 Major I'm afraid there's cruel work up-stairs." "Yes yes" says he "I had begun to be afraid of it — take time." And then in opposition to his own words he rages out frightfully, and says " I shall never forgive myself Madam, that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn't see it all that morning — didn't go straight up-stairs when my boot-sponge was in my hand — didn't force it down his throat — and choke him dead with it on the spot ! " The Major and me agreed when we came to ourselves that just at present we could do no more than take on to suspect nothing and use our best endeavours to keep that poor young creature quiet, and what I ever should have done without the Major when it got about among the organ-men that quiet was our object is unknown, 378 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. for he made lion and tiger war upon them to that degree that with- out seeing it I could not have believed it was in any gentleman to have such a power of bursting out with fire-irons walking-sticks water-jugs coals potatoes off his table the very hat off his head, and at the same time so furious in foreign languages that they would stand with their handles half- turned fixed like the Sleeping Ugly — for I cannot say Beauty. Ever to see the postman come near the house now gave me such a fear that it was a reprieve when he went by, but in about another ten days or a fortnight he says again, "Here's one for Mrs. Edson. — Is she pretty well?" "She is pretty well postman, but not well enough to rise so early as she used " which was so far gospel- truth. I carried the letter in to the Major at his breakfast and I says tottering " Major I have not the courage to take it up to her." "It's an ill-looking villain of a letter," says the Major. "I have not the courage Major" I says again in a tremble "to take it up to her." After seeming lost in consideration for some moments the Major says, raising his head as if something new and useful had occurred to his mind "Mrs. Lirriper, I shall never forgive myself that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn't go straight up-stairs that morning when my boot-sponge was in my hand — and force it down his throat — and choke him dead with it." "Major" I says a little hasty "you didn't do it which is a blessing, for it would have done no good and I think your sponge was better employed on your own honourable boots." So we got to be rational, and planned that I should tap at her bedroom door and lay the letter on the mat outside and wait on the upper landing for what might happen, and never was gunpowder cannon-balls or shells or rockets more dreaded than that dreadful letter was by me as I took it to the second floor. A terrible loud scream sounded through the house the minute after she had opened it, and I found her on the floor lying as if her life was gone. My dear I never looked at the face of the letter which was lying open by her, for there was no occasion. Everything I needed to bring her round the Major brought up with his own hands, besides running out to the chemist's for what was not in the house and likewise having the fiercest of all his many skirmishes with a musical instrument representing a ball- room I do not know in what particular country and company waltzing in and out at folding-doors with rolling eyes. When after a long time I saw her coming to, I slipped on the landing till I heard her cry, and then I went in and says cheerily " Mrs. Edson MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 379 you're not well my dear and it's not to be wondered at," as if I had not been in before. Whether she believed or disbelieved I can- not say and it would signify nothing if I could, but I stayed by her for hours and then she God ever blesses me ! and says she will try to rest for her head is bad. "Major," I whispers, looking in at the parlours, "I beg and pray of you don't go out." The Major whispers, " Madam, trust me I will do no such a thing. How is she ? " I says " Major the good Lord above us only knows what burns and rages in her poor mind. I left her sitting at her window. I am going to sit at mine." It came on afternoon and it came on evening. Norfolk is a delightful street to lodge in — provided you don't go lower down — but of a summer evening when the dust and waste paper lie in it and stray children play in it and a kind of a gritty calm and bake settles on it and a peal of church-bells is practising in the neighbour- hood it is a trifle dull, and never have I seen it since at such a time and never shall I see it evermore at such a time without seeing the dull June evening when that forlorn young creature sat at her open corner window on the second and me at my open corner window (the other comer) on the third. Something merciful, something wiser and better far than my own self, had moved me while it was yet light to sit in my bonnet and shawl, and as the shadows fell and the tide rose I could sometimes — when I put out my head and looked at her window below — see that she leaned out a little looking down the street. It was just settling dark when I saw her in the street. So fearful of losing sight of her that it almost stops my breath while I tell it, I went down-stairs faster than I ever moved in all my life and only tapped with my hand at the Major's door in passing it and slipping out. She was gone already. I made the same speed down the street and when I came to the corner of Howard-street I saw that she had turned it and was there plain before me going towards the west. with what a thankful heart I saw her going along ! She was quite unacquainted with London and had very seldom been out for more than an airing in our own street where she knew two or three little children belonging to neighbours and had some- times stood among them at the street looking at the water. She must be going at hazard I knew, still she kept the bye-streets quite correctly as long as they would serve her, and then turned up into the Strand. But at every corner I could see her head turned one way, and that way was always the river way. 380 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. It may have been only the darkness and quiet of the Adelphi that caused her to strike into it but she struck into it much as readily as if she had set out to go there, Avhich perhaps was the case. She went straight down to the Terrace and along it and looked over the iron rail, and I often woke afterwards in my own bed with the horror of seeing her do it. The desertion of the wharf below and the flowing of the high water there seemed to settle her purpose. She looked about as if to make out the way down, and she struck out the right way or the wrong way — I don't know which, for I don't know the place before or since — and I followed her the way she went. It was noticeable that all this time she never once looked back. But there was now a great change in the manner of her going, and instead of going at a steady quick walk with her arms folded before her, — among the dark dismal arches she went in a wild way with her arms opened wide, as if they were wings and she was flying to her death. We were on the wharf and she stopped. I stopped. I saw her hands at her bonnet-strings, and I rushed between her and the brink and took her round the waist with both my arms. She might have drowned me, I felt then, but she could never have got quit of me. Down to that moment my mind had been all in a maze and not half an idea had I had in it what I should say to her, but the instant I touched her it came to me like magic and I had my natural voice and my senses and even almost my breath. "Mrs. Edson ! " I says " My dear ! Take care. How ever did you lose your way and stumble on a dangerous place like this ? Why you must have come here by the most perplexing streets in all London. No wonder you are lost, I'm sure. And this place too ! Why I thought nobody ever got here, except me to order my coals and the Major in the parlours to smoke his cigar ! " — for I saw that blessed man close by, pretending to it. " Hah — Hah — Hum ! " coughs the Major. " And good gracious me " I says, " why here he is ! " " Halloa ! who goes there ? " says the Major in a military manner. "Well!" I says, "if this don't beat everything! Don't you know us Major Jackman ? " " Halloa ! " says the Major. " Who calls on Jemmy Jackman ? " (and more out of breath he was, and did it less like life than I should have expected.) " Why here's Mrs. Edson Major " I says, " strolling out to cool her poor head which has been very bad, has missed her way and got lost, and Goodness knows where she might have got to but for me coming here to drop an order into my coal merchant's let- MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 381 ter-box and you coming here to smoke your cigar ! — And you really are not well enough my dear " I says to her " to be half so far from home \vithout me. — And your arm will be very acceptable I am sure Major " I says to him " and I know she may lean upon it as heavy as she likes." And now we had both got her — thanks be Above ! — one on each side. She was all in a cold shiver and she so continued till I laid her on her own bed, and up to the early morning she held me by the hand and moaned and moaned " wicked, wicked, wicked ! " But when at last I made believe to droop my head and be overpowered with a dead sleep, I heard that poor young creature give such touch- ing and such humble thanks for being preserved from taking her own life in her madness that I thought I should have cried my eyes out on the counterpane and I knew she was safe. Being well enough to do and able to afford it, me and the Major laid our little plans next day while she was asleep worn out, and so I says to her as soon as I could do it nicely : " Mrs. Edson my dear, when Mr. Edson paid me the rent for these farther six months — " She gave a start and I felt her large eyes look at me, but I went on with it and with my needlework. " — I can't say that I am quite sure I dated the receipt right. Could you let me look at it ? " She laid her frozen cold hand upon mine and she looked through me when I was forced to look up from my needlework, but I had taken the precaution of having on my spectacles. " I have no receipt " says she. " Ah ! Then he has got it " I says in a careless way. " It's of no great consequence. A receipt's a receipt." From that time she always had hold of my hand when I could spare it which was generally only when I read to her, for of course she and me had our bits of needlework to plod at and neither of us was very handy at those little things, though I am still rather proud of my share in them too considering. And though she took to all I read to her, I used to fancy that next to what was taught upon the Mount she took most of all to His gentle compassion for us poor women and to His young life and to how His mother was proud of Him and treasured His sayings in her heart. She had a grateful look in her eyes that never never never will be out of mine until they are closed in my last sleep, and when I chanced to look at her without thinking of it I would always meet that look, and she would often offer me her trembling lip to kiss, much more like a little affectionate half broken-hearted child than ever I can imag- ine any grown person. 382 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. One time the trembling of this poor lip was so strong and her tears ran down so fast that I thought she was going to tell me all her woe, so I takes her two hands in mine and I says : " No my dear not now, you had best not try to do it now. Wait for better times when you have got over this and are strong, and then you shall tell me whatever you will. Shall it be agreed 1 " With our hands still joined she nodded her head many times, and she lifted my hands and put them to her lips and to her bosom. " Only one word now my dear " I says. " Is there any one ? " She looked inquiringly " Any one ? " "That I can go to?" She shook her head. " No one that I can bring ? " She shook her head. " No one is wanted by me my dear. Now that may be con- sidered past and gone." Not much more than a week afterwards — for this was far on in the time of our being so together — I was bending over at her bedside with my ear down to her lips, by turns listening for her breath and looking for a sign of life in her face. At last it came in a solemn way — not in a flash but like a kind of pale faint light brought very slow to the face. She said something to me that had no sound in it, but I saw she asked me : "Is this death?" And I says : " Poor dear poor dear, I think it is." Knowing somehow that she wanted me to move her weak right hand, I took it and laid it on her breast and then folded her other hand upon it, and she prayed a good good prayer and I joined in it poor me though there were no words spoke. Then I brought the baby in its wrappers from where it lay, and I says : " My dear this is sent to a childless old woman. This is for me to take care of" The trembling lip was put up towards my face for the last time, and I dearly kissed it. " Yes my dear," I says. " Please God ! Me and the Major." I don't know how to tell it right, but I saw her soul brighten and leap up, and get free and fly away in the grateful look. So this is the why and wherefore of its coming to pass my dear that we called him Jemmy, being after the Major his own godfather with Lirriper for a surname being after myself, and never was a MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 383 dear child such a brightening thing in a Lodgings or such a play- mate to his grandmother as Jemmy to this house and me, and always good and minding what he was told (upon the whole) and soothing for the temper and making everything pleasanter except when he grew old enough to drop his cap down Wozenham's Airy and they wouldn't hand it up to him, and being worked into a state I put on my best bonnet and gloves and parasol with the child in my hand and I says " Miss Wozenham I little thought ever to have entered your house but unless my grandson's cap is instantly re- stored, the laws of this country regulating the property of the Sub- ject shall at length decide betwixt yourself and me, cost what it may." With a sneer upon her face which did strike me I must say as being expressive of two keys but it may have been a mistake and if there is any doubt let Miss Wozenham Imve the full benefit of it as is but right, she rang the bell and she says "Jane, is there a street-child's old caj) down our Airy ? " I says " Miss Wozenham before your housemaid answers that question you must allow me to inform you to your face that my grandson is iiot a street-child and is not in the habit of wearing old caps. In fact " I says " Miss Wozenham I am far from sure that my grandson's cap may not be newer than your own " which was perfectly savage in me, her lace being the commonest machine-make washed and torn besides, but I had been put into a state to begin with fomented by impertinence. Miss Wozenham says red in the face " Jane you heard my question, is there any child's cap down our Airy ? " " Yes Ma'am " says Jane " I think I did see some such rubbish a lying there." " Then " says Miss Wozenham "let these visitors out, and then throw up that worthless article out of my premises." But here the child who had been staring at Miss Wozenham with all his eyes and more, frowns down his little eyebrows purses up his little mouth puts his chubby legs far apart turns his little dimpled fists round and round slowly over one another like a little coff'ee- mill, and says to her " Oo impdent to mi Gran, me tut oor hi ! " " ! " says Miss Wozenham looking down scornfully at the Mite " this is not a street-child is it not ! Really ! " I bursts out laugh- ing and I says "Miss Wozenham if this an't a pretty sight to you I don't envy your feelings and I wish you good flay. Jemmy come along with Gran." And I was still in the best of humours though his cap came flying up into the street as if it had been just turned on out of the w\ater-plug, and I went home laughing aU the way, all owing to that dear boy. The miles and miles that me and the Major have travelled with Jemmy in the dusk between the lights are not to be calculated, Jemmy driving on the coach-box which is the Major's brass-bound 384 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. writing-desk on the table, me inside in the easy-chair and the Major Guard up behind with a brown-paper horn doing it really wonderful. I do assure you my dear that sometimes when I have taken a few winks in my place inside the coach and have come half awake by the flashing light of the fire and have heard that precious pet driv- ing and the Major blowing up behind to have the change of horses ready when we got to the Inn, I have half believed we were on the old North Road that my poor Lirriper knew so well. Then to see that child and the Major both wrapped up getting down to warm their feet and going stamping about and having glasses of ale out of the paper match-boxes, on the chimney-piece is to see the Major enjoying it fully as much as the child I am very sure, and it's equal to any play when Coachee opens the coach-door to look in at me inside and say " Wery 'past that 'tage. — 'Frightened old lady 1 " But what my inexpressible feelings were when we lost that child can only be compared to the Major's which were not a shade better, through his straying out at five years old and eleven o'clock in the forenoon and never heard of by word or sign or deed till half-past nine at night, when the Major had gone to the Editor of the Times newspaper to put in an advertisement, which came out next day four-and-twenty hours after he was found, and which I mean always carefully to keep in my lavender drawer as the first printed account of him. The more the day got on, the more I got distracted and the Major too and both of us made worse by the composed ways of the police though very civil and obliging and what I must call their obstinacy in not entertaining the idea that he was stolen. " We mostly find Mum " says the serjeant who came round to comfort me, which he didn't at all and he had been one of the private con- stables in Caroline's time to which he referred in his opening words when he said " Don't give way to uneasiness in your mind Mum, it'll all come as right as my nose did when I got the same barked by that young woman in your second floor" — says this serjeant " we mostly find Mum as people an't over-anxious to have what I may call second-hand children. You^ll get him back Mum." " but my dear good sir " I says clasping my hands and wringing them and clasping them again "he is such an uncommon child ! " "Yes Mum " says the serjeant, " we mostly find that too Mum. The question is what his clothes were worth." "His clothes"! says " were not worth much sir for he had only got his playing-dress on, but the dear child! — " "All right Mum" says the serjeant. ''You'll get him back Mum. And even if he'd had his best clothes on, it wouldn't come to worse than his being found wrapped up in a cabbage-leaf, a shivering in a lane." His words pierced my heart like daggers and daggers, and me and the Major ran in and MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 385 out like wild things all day long till the Major returning from his interview with the Editor of the Times at night rushes into my lit- tle room hysterical and squeezes my hand and wipes his eyes and says "Joy joy — ofl&cer in plain clothes came up on the steps as I was letting myself in — compose your feelings — Jemmy's found." Consequently I fainted away and when I came to, embraced the legs of the officer in plain clothes who seemed to be taking a kind of a quiet inventory in his mind of the property in my little room with brown whiskers, and I says " Blessings on you sir where is the Dar- ling ! " and he says "In Kennington Station House." I was drop- ping at his feet Stone at the image of that Innocence in cells with murderers when he adds "He followed the Monkey." I says deem- ing it slang language "0 sir explain for a loving grandmother what Monkey ! " He says " Him in the spangled cap with the strap under the chin, as won't keep on — him as sweeps the crossings on a round table and don't want to draw his sabre more than he can help." Then I understood it all and most thankfully thanked him, and me and the Major and him drove over to Kennington and there we found our boy lying quite comfortable before a blazing fire having sweetly played himself to sleep upon a small accordion nothing like so big as a flat-iron which they had been so kind as to lend him for the purpose and which it appeared had been stopped upon a very young person. My dear the system upon which the Major commenced and as I may say perfected Jemmy's learning when he was so small that if the dear w^as on the other side of the table you had to look under it instead of over it to see him with his mother's own bright hair in beautiful curls, is a thing that ought to be known to the Throne and Lords and Commons and then might obtain some promotion for the Major which he well deserves and would be none the worse for (speaking between friends) L. S. D.-ically. When the Major first undertook his learning he says to me : "I'm going Madam," he says "to make our child a Calculating Boy." " Major," I says, " you terrify me and may do the pet a perma- nent injury you would never forgive yourself." " Madam," said the Major, "next to my regret that when I had my boot-sponge in my hand, I didn't choke that scoundrel with it — on the spot — " "There ! For Gracious' sake," I interrupts, "let his conscience find him without sponges." " — I say next to that regret, Madam," says the Major " would be the regret with which my breast," which he tapped, " would be surcharged if this fine mind was not early cultivated. But mark 2c 386 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. me Madam," says the Major holding up his forefinger "cultivated on a principle that will make it a delight." " Major " I says " I will be candid with you and tell you openly that if ever I find the dear child fall off in his appetite I shall know it is his calculations and shall put a stop to them at two minutes' notice. Or if I find them mounting to his head " I says, " or strik- ing anyways cold to his stomach or leading to anything approaching flabbiness in his legs, the result will be the same, but Major you are a clever man and have seen much and you love the child and are his own godfather, and if you feel a confidence in trying try." " Spoken Madam " says the Major "like Emma Lirriper. All I have to ask, Madam, is that you will leave my godson and myself to make a week or two's preparations for surprising you, and that you will give me leave to have up and down any small articles not actually in use that I may require from the kitchen." " From the kitchen Major ? " I says half feeling as if he had a mind to cook the child. " From the kitchen " says the Major, and smiles and swells, and at the same time looks taller. So I passed my word and the Major and the dear boy were shut up together for half an hour at a time through a certain while, and never could I hear anything going on betwixt them but talking and laughing and Jemmy clapping his hands and screaming out numbers, so I says to myself " It has not harmed him yet " nor could I on examining the dear find any signs of it anywhere about him which was likewise a great relief. At last one day Jemmy brings me a card in joke in the Major's neat writing "The Messrs. Jemmy Jackman" for we had given him the Major's other name too "re- quest the honour of Mrs. Lirriper's company at the Jackman Insti- tution in the front parlour this evening at five, military time, to witness a few slight feats of elementary arithmetic." And if you'll believe me there in the front parlour at five punctual to the moment was the Major behind the Pembroke table with both leaves up and a lot of things from the kitchen tidily set out on old newspapers spread atop of it, and there was the Mite stood up on a chair with his rosy cheeks flushing and his eyes sparkling clusters of diamonds. "Now Gran" says he, "oo tit down and don't oo touch ler people " — for he saw with every one of those diamonds of his that I was going to give him a squeeze. " Very well sir " I says " I am obedient in this good company I am sure." And I sits down in the easy-chair that was put for me, shaking my sides. But picture my admiration when the Major going on almost as quick as if he was conjuring sets out all the articles he names. MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 387 and says " Three saucepans, an Italian iron, a hand-bell, a toasting- fork, a nutmeg-grater, four potlids, a spice-box, two egg-cups, and a chopping-board — how many?" and when that Mite instantly cries " Tifteen, tut down tive and carry ler 'toppin-board " and then claps his hands draws up his legs and dances on his chair. My dear with the same astonishing ease and correctness him and the Major added up the tables chairs and sofy, the picters fenders and fire-irons their ownselves me and the cat and the eyes in Miss Wozenham's head, and whenever the sum was done Young Roses and Diamonds claps his hands and draws up his legs and dances on his chair. The pride of the Major! {^^ Here's a mind Ma'am!" he says to me behind his hand.) Then he says aloud, " We now come to the the next elementary rule, — which is called — " " Umtraction ! " cries Jemmy. "Right," says the Major. "We have here a toasting-fork, a potato in its natural state, two potlids, one egg-cup, a wooden spoon, and two skewers, from which it is necessary for commercial pur- poses to subtract a sprat-gridiron, a small pickle-jar, two lemons, one pepper-castor, a blackbeetle-trap, and a knob of the dresser- drawer — what remains 1 " " Toatin-fork ! " cries Jemmy. " In numbers how many ? " says the Major. " One ! " cries Jemmy. {^^ Here's a boy, Ma'am!" says the Major to me behind his hand.) Then the Major goes on : "We now approach the next elementary rule, — which is entitled — " " Tickleication " cries Jemmy. " Correct " says the Major. But my dear to relate to you in detail the way in which they multiplied fourteen sticks of firewood by two bits of ginger and a larding-needle, or divided pretty well everything else there was on the table by the heater of the Italian iron and a chamber candle- stick, and got a lemon over, would make my head spin round and round and round as it did at the time. So I says " if you'll excuse my addressing the chair Professor Jackman I think the period of the lecture has now arrived when it becomes necessary that I should take a good hug of this young scholar," Upon which Jemmy calls out from his station on the chair, " Gran oo open oor arms and me'll make a 'pring into 'em." So I opened my arms to him as I had opened my sorrowful heart when his poor young mother 388 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. lay a dying, and he had his jump and we had a good long hug to- gether and the Major prouder than any peacock says to me behind his hand, " You need not let him know it Madam " (which I cer- tainly need not for the Major was quite audible) " but he is a boy ! " In this way Jemmy grew and grew and went to day-school and continued under the Major too, and in summer we were as hapjjy as the days were long, and in winter we were as happy as the days were short and there seemed to rest a Blessing on the Lodgings for they as good as Let themselves and would have done it if there had been twice the accommodation, when sore and hard against my will I one day says to the Major : " Major you know what I am going to break to you. Our boy must go to boarding-school." It was a sad sight to see the Major's countenance drop, and I pitied the good soul with all my heart. " Yes Major " I says, " though he is as popular with the Lodg- ers as you are yourself and though he is to you and me what only you and me know, still it is in the course of things and Life is made of partings and we must part with our Pet." Bold as I spoke, I saw two Majors and half-a-dozen fire-places, and when the poor Major put one of his neat bright-varnished boots upon the fender and his elbow on his knee and his head upon his hand and rocked himself a little to and fro, I was dreadfully cut up. "But" says I clearing my throat "you have so well prepared him Major — he has had such a Tutor in you — that he will have none of the first drudgery to go through. And he is so clever besides that he'll soon make his way to the front rank." "He is a boy" says the Major — having snified — "that has not his like on the face of the earth." " True as you say Major, and it is not for us merely for our own sakes to do anything to keep him back from being a credit and an ornament wherever he goes and perhaps even rising to be a great man, is it Major ? He will have all my little savings when my work is done (being all the world to me) and we must try to make him a wise man and a good man, mustn't we Major?" " Madam " says the Major rising " Jemmy Jackman is becoming an older file than I was aware of, and you put him to shame. You are thoroughly right Madam. You are simply and undeniably right. — And if you'll excuse me, I'll take a walk." So the Major being gone out and Jemmy being at home, I got the child into my little room here and I stood him by my chair and I took his mother's own curls in my hand and I spoke to him loving and serious. And when I had reminded the darling how that he was now in his tenth year and when I had said to him MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 389 about his getting on in life pretty much what I had said to the Major I broke to him how that we must have this same parting, lUid there I was forced to stop for there I saw of a sudden the well-remembered lip with its tremble, and it so brought back that time ! But with the spirit that was in him he controlled it soon and he says gravely nodding through his tears, " I understand Gran — I know it must be. Gran — go on Gran, don't be afraid of me.'' And when I had said all that ever I could think of, he turned his bright steady face to mine and he says just a little broken here and there " You shall see Gran that I can be a man and that I can do anything that is grateful and loving to you — and if I don't grow up to be what you would like to have me — I hope it will be — because I shall die." And with that he sat down by me and I went on to tell him of the school of which I had excellent recommendations and where it was and how many scholars and what games they played as I had heard and what length of holidays, to all of which he listened bright and clear. And so it came that at last he says " And now dear Gran let me kneel down here where I have been used to say my prayers and let me fold my face for just a minute in your gown and let me cry, for you have been more than father — more than mother — more than brothers sisters friends — to me ! " And so he did cry and I too and we were both much the better for it. From that time forth he was true to his word and ever blithe and ready, and even when me and the Major took him down into Lincolnshire he was far the gayest of the party though for sure and certain he might easily have been that, but he really was and put life into us only when it came to the last Good bye, he says with a wistful look, "You wouldn't have me not really sorry would you Gran ? " and when I says " no dear. Lord forbid ! " he says " I am glad of that ! " and ran in out of sight. But now that the child was gone out of the Lodgings the Major fell into a regularly moping state. It was taken notice of by all the Lodgers that the Major moped. He hadn't even the same air of being rather tall that he used to have, and if he varnished his boots with a single gleam of interest it was as much as he did. One evening the Major came into my little room to take a cup of tea and a morsel of buttered toast and to read Jemmy's newest letter which had arrived that afternoon (by the very same postman more than middle-aged upon the Beat now), and the letter raising him up a little I says to the Major : " Major you mustn't get into a moping way." The Major shook his head. "Jemmy Jackman Madam," he says with a deep sigh, "is an older file than I thought him." 390 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. " Moping is not the way to grow younger Major." "My dear Madam," says the Major, "is there any way of grow- ing younger ? " Feeling that the Major was getting rather the best of that point I made a diversion to another. " Thirteen years ! Thir-teen years ! Many Lodgers have come and gone, in the thirteen years that you have lived in the parlours Major." " Hah ! " says the Major warming. " Many Madam, many." "And I should say you have been familiar with them all?" " As a rule (with its exceptions like all rules) my dear Madam " says the Major, " they have honoured me with their acquaintance, and not unfrequently with their confidence." Watching the Major as he drooped his white head and stroked his black mustachios and moped again, a thought which I think must have been going about looking for an owner somewhere dropped into my old noddle if you will excuse the expression. "The walls of my Lodgings" I says in a casual way — for my dear it is of no use going straight at a man who mopes — " might have something to tell if they could tell it." The Major neither moved nor said anything but I saw he was attending with his shoulders my dear — attending with his shoulders to what I said. In fact I saw that his shoulders were struck by it. " The dear boy was always fond of story-books " I went on, like as if I was talking to myself " I am sure this house — his own home — might write a story or two for his reading one day or another." The Major's shoulders gave a dip and a curve and his head came up in his shirt-collar. The Major's head came up in his shirt- collar as I hadn't seen it come up since Jemmy went to school. " It is unquestionable that in intervals of cribbage and a friendly rubber, my dear Madam," says the Major, "and also over what used to be called in my young times — in the salad days of Jemmy Jackman — the social glass, I have exchanged many a reminiscence with your Lodgers." My remark was — I confess I made it with the deepest and artfullest of intentions — " I wish our dear boy had heard them ! " "Are you serious Madam?" asks the Major starting and turning full round. "Why not Major?" " Madam " says the Major, turning up one of his cuflfs, " they shall be written for him." " Ah ! Now you speak " I says giving my hands a pleased clap. " Now you are in a way out of moping Major ! " MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 391 " Between this and ray holidays — I mean the dear boy's " says the Major turning up his other cuff, " a good deal may be done towards it." "Major you are a clever man and you have seen much and not a doubt of it." " I'll begin," says the Major looking as tall as ever he did, " to- morrow." My dear the Major was another man in three days and he was himself again in a week and he wrote and wrote and wrote with his pen scratching like rats behind the wainscot, and whether he had many grounds to go upon or whether he did at all romance I cannot tell you, but what he has written is in the left-hand glass closet of the little bookcase close behind you. Chapter II. HOW THE PARLOURS ADDED A FEW WORDS. I HAVE the honour of presenting myself by the name of Jackman. I esteem it a proud privilege to go down to posterity through the instrumentality of the most remarkable boy that ever lived, — by the name of Jemmy Jackman Lirriper, — and of my most worthy and most highly respected friend, Mrs. Emma Lirriper, of Eighty- one, Norfolk-street, Strand, in the County of Middlesex, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is not for me to express the rapture with which we received that dear and eminently remarkable boy, on the occurrence of his first Christmas holidays. Suffice it to observe that when he came flying into the house with two splendid prizes (Arithmetic, and Exemplary Conduct), Mrs. Lirriper and myself embraced with emotion, and instantly took him to the Play, where we were all three admirably entertained. Nor is it to render homage to the virtues of the best of her good and honoured sex — whom, in deference to her unassuming worth, I will only here designate by the initials E. L. — that I add this record to the bundle of papers with which our, in a most dis- tinguished degree, remarkable boy has expressed himself delighted, before reconsigning the same to the left-hand glass closet of Mrs. Lirriper's little bookcase. Neither is it to obtrude the name of the old original superannuated obscure Jemmy Jackman, once (to his degradation) of Wozenham's, long (to his elevation) of Lirriper's. If I could be consciously guilty of that piece of bad taste, it would indeed be a work of 392 MRS. LIRRIPER'S. LODGINGS. supererogation, now that the name is borne by Jemmy Jackiman I LiRRIPER. No, I take up my humble pen to register a little record of our strikingly remarkable boy, which my poor capacity regards as pre- senting a pleasant little picture of the dear boy's mind. The picture may be interesting to himself when he is a man. Our first reunited Christmas-day was the most delightful one we have ever passed together. Jemmy was never silent for five min- utes, except in church-time. He talked as we sat by the fire, he talked when we were out walking, he talked as we sat by the fire again, he talked incessantly at dinner, though he made a dinner almost as remarkable as himself. It was the spring of happiness in his fresh young heart flowing and flowing, and it fertilised (if I may be allowed so bold a figure) my much-esteemed friend, and J. J. the present writer. There were only we three. We dined in my esteemed friend's little room, and our entertainment was perfect. But everything in the establishment is, in neatness, order, and comfort, always per- fect. After dinner our boy slipped away to his old stool at my es- teemed friend's knee, and there, with his hot chestnuts and his glass of brown sherry (really, a most excellent wine !) on a chair for a table, his face outshone the apples in the dish. We talked of these jottings of mine, which Jemmy had read through and through by that time ; and so it came about that my esteemed friend remarked, as she sat smoothing Jemmy's curls : "And as you belong to the house too, Jemmy, — and so much more than the Lodgers, having been born in it, — why, your story ought to be added to the rest, I think, one of these days." Jemmy's eyes sparkled at this, and he said, " So / think. Gran." Then he sat looking at the fire, and then he began to laugh in a sort of confidence with the fire, and then he said, folding his arms across my esteemed friend's lap, and raising his bright face to hers : " Would you like to hear a boy's story, Gran ? " " Of all things," rephed my esteemed friend. J " Would you, godfather ? " 1 " Of all things," I too replied. "Well, then," said Jemmy, "I'll tell you one." Here our indisputably remarkable boy gave himself a hug, and laughed again, musically, at the idea of his coming out in that new line. Then he once more took the fire into the same sort of confi- dence as before, and began : " Once upon a time. When pigs drank wine. And monkeys chewed tobaccer, 'Twas neither in your time nor mine. But that's no macker — " MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 393 "Bless the child!" cried my esteemed friend, "what's amiss with his brain ? " " It's poetry, Gran," returned Jemmy, shouting with laughter. " We always begin stories that way at school." " Gave me quite a turn. Major," said my esteemed friend, fan- ning herself with a plate. " Thought he was light-headed ! " " In those remarkable times, Gran and godfather, there was once a boy, — not me, you know." " No, no," says my respected friend, " not you. Not him, Major, you understand 1 " " No, no," says I. "And he went to school in Rutlandshire — " " Why not Lincolnshire ? " says my respected friend. " Why not, you dear old Gran ? Because / go to school in Lin- colnshire, don't I ? " "Ah, to be sure!" says my respected friend. "And it's not Jemmy, you understand, Major?" " No, no," says I. " Well ! " our boy proceeded, hugging himself comfortably, and laughing merrily (again in confidence with the fire) , before he again looked up in Mrs. Lirriper's face, " and so he was tremendously in love with his schoolmaster's daughter, and she was the most beau- tiful creature that ever was seen, and she had brown eyes, and she had brown hair all curling beautifully, and she had a delicious voice, and she was delicious altogether, and her name was Sera- phina." "What's the name of i/our schoolmaster's daughter, Jemmy?" asks my respected friend. " Polly ! " replied Jemmy, pointing his forefinger at her. " There now ! Caught you ! Ha, ha, ha ! " When he and my respected friend had had a laugh and a hug together, our admittedly remarkable boy resumed with a great relish : " Well ! And so he loved her. And so he thought about her, and dreamed about her, and made her presents of oranges and nuts, and would have made her presents of pearls and diamonds if he could have afforded it out of his pocket-money, but he couldn't. And so her father — 0, he was a Tartar ! Keeping the boys up to the mark, holding examinations once a month, lecturing upon all sorts of subjects at all sorts of times, and knowing everything in the world out of book. And so this boy — " " Had he any name ? " asks my respected friend. " No, he hadn't. Gran. Ha, ha ! There now ! Caught you again ! " 394 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. After this, they had another laugh and another hug, and then our boy went on. " Well ! And so this boy, he had a friend about as old as him- self at the same school, and his name (for He had a name, as it happened) was — let me remember — was Bobbo." " Not Bob," says my respected friend. " Of course not," says Jemmy. " What made you think it was. Gran ? Well ! And so this friend was the cleverest and bravest and best-looking and most generous of all the friends that ever were, and so he was in love with Seraphina's sister, and so Sera- phina's sister was in love with him, and so they all grew up." " Bless us ! " says my respected friend. " They were very sud- den about it." "So they all grew up," our boy repeated, laughing heartily, " and Bobbo and this boy went away together on horseback to seek their fortunes, and they partly got their horses by favour, and partly in a bargain ; that is to say, they had saved up between them seven and fourpence, and the two horses, being Arabs, were worth more, only the man said he would take that, to favour them. Well ! And so they made their fortunes and came prancing back to the school, with their pockets full of gold, enough to last for ever. And so they rang at the parents' and visitors' bell (not the back gate), and when the bell was answered they proclaimed ' The same as if it was scarlet fever ! Every boy goes home for an indefinite period ! ' And then there was great hurrahing, and then they kissed Sera- phina and her sister, — each his own love, and not the other's on any account, — and then they ordered the Tartar into instant con- finement." " Poor man ! " said my respected friend. " Into instant confinement. Gran," repeated Jemmy, trying to look severe and roaring with laughter ; " and he was to have noth- ing to eat but the boys' dinners, and was to drink half a cask of their beer every day. And so then the preparations were made for the two weddings, and there were hampers, and potted things, and sweet things, and nuts, and postage-stamps, and all manner of things. And so they were so jolly, that they let the Tartar out, and he was jolly too." "I am glad they let him out," says my respected friend, "be- cause he had only done his duty." " 0, but hadn't he overdone it, though ! " cried Jemmy. "Well ! And so then this boy mounted his horse, with his bride in his arms, and cantered away, and cantered on and on till he came to a certain place where he had a certain Gran and a certain godfather, — not you two, you know." MRS. LIRRlPEll'S LODGINGS. 395 "No, no," we both said. "And there he was received with great rejoicings, and he fiUed the cupboard and the bookcase with gold, and he showered it out on his Gran and his godfather because they were the two kindest and dearest people that ever lived in this world. And so while they were sitting up to their knees in gold, a knocking was heard at the street door, and who should it be but Bobbo, also on horse- back with his bride m his arms, and what had he come to say but that he would take (at double rent) all the Lodgings for ever that were not wanted by this boy and this Gran and this godfather and that they would all live together, and all be happy ! And so thev were, and so it never ended ! " "And was there no quarrelling?" asked my respected friend as Jemmy sat upon her lap and hugged her. " No ! Nobody ever quarrelled." " And did the money never melt away ? " " No ! Nobody could ever spend it all." " And did none of them ever grow older ? " " No ! Nobody ever grew older after that." " And did none of them ever die ? " " 0, no, no, no. Gran ! " exclaimed our dear boy, laying his cheek upon her breast, and drawing her closer to him. " Nobody ever died." "Ah, Major, Major ! " says my respected friend, smiling benignly upon me, "this beats our stories. Let us end with the Boy's story. Major, for the Boy's story is the best that is ever told ! " In submission to which request on the part of the best of women, I have here noted it down as faithfully as my best abilities, coupled with my best intentions, would admit, subscribing it with my name, J. JACKMAN. The Parloues. Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings. 396 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. IN TWO CHAPTERS. Chapter I. MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW SHE WENT ON, AND WENT OVER. Ah ! It's pleasant to drop into my own easy-chair my dear though a little palpitating what with trotting up-stairs and what with trotting down, and why kitchen stairs should all be corner stairs is for the builders to justify though I do not think they fully understand their trade and never did, else why the sameness and why not more conveniences and fewer draughts and likewise mak- ing a practice of laying the plaster on too thick I am well con- vinced which holds the damp, and as to chimney-pots putting them on by guess-work like hats at a party and no more knowing what their effect will be upon the smoke bless you than I do if so much, except that it will mostly be either to send it down your throat in a straight form or give it a twist before it goes there. And what I says speaking as I find of those new metal chimneys all manner of shapes (there's a row of 'em at Miss Wozenham's lodging-house lower down on the other side of the way) is that they only work your smoke into artificial patterns for you before you swallow it and that I'd quite as soon swallow mine plain, the flavour being the same, not to mention the conceit of putting up signs on the top of your house to show the forms in which you take your smoke into your inside. Being here before your eyes my dear in my own easy-chair in my own quiet room in my own Lodging-House Number Eighty-one Norfolk-street Strand London situated midway between the city and Saint James's — if anything is where it used to be with these hotels calling themselves Limited but called unlimited by Major Jackman rising up eveiywhere and rising up into flagstaff's where they can't go any higher, but my mind of those monsters is give me a landlord's or landlady's wholesome face when I come off" a journey and not a brass plate with an electrified number clicking out of it which it's not in nature can be glad to see me and to which I don't want to be hoisted like molasses at the Docks and left there telegraphing for help with the most ingenious instruments but quite in vain — being here my dear I have no call to mention that I am still in the Lodgings as a business hoping to die in the same and if agreeable to the clergy partly read over at Saint Clement's Danes 398 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. and concluded in Hatfield churchyard when lying once again by my poor Lirriper ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Neither should I tell you any news my dear in telling you that the Major is still a fixture in the Parlours quite as much so as the roof of the house, and that Jemmy is of boys the best and brightest and has ever had kept from him the cruel story of his poor pretty young mother Mrs. Edson being deserted in the second floor and dying in my arms, fully belie\ing that I am his born Gran and him an orphan, though what with engineering since he took a taste for it and him and the Major making Locomotives out of parasols broken iron pots and cotton-reels and them absolutely a getting ofi" the line and falling over the table and injuring the passengers almost equal to the originals it really is quite wonderful. And when I says to the Major, " Major can't you by any means give us a communication with the guard % " the Major says quite huffy, " No madam it's not to be done," and when I says " Why not ? " the Major says, " That is be- tween us who are in the Railway Interest madam and our friend the Right Honourable Vice-President of the Board of Trade " and if you'll believe me my dear the Major wrote to Jemmy at school to consult him on the answer I should have before I could get even that amount of unsatisfactoriness out of the man, the reason being that when we first began with the little model and the working sig- nals beautiful and perfect (being in general as wrong as the real) and when I says laughing " What appointment am I to hold in this undertaking gentlemen % " Jemmy hugs me round the neck and tells me dancing, " You shall be the Public Gran " and consequently they put upon me just as much as ever they like and I sit a growl- ing in my easy-chair. My dear whether it is that a grown man as clever as the Major cannot give half his heart and mind to anything — even a plaything — but must get into right down earnest with it, whether it is so or whether it is not so I do not undertake to say, but Jemmy is far outdone by the serious and believing ways of the Major in the management of the United Grand Junction Lirriper and Jackman Great Norfolk Parlour Line, "For" says my Jemmy with the sparkling eyes when it was christened, " we must have a whole mouthful of name Gran or our dear old Public " and there the young rogue kissed me, "won't stump up." So the Pubhc took the shares — ten at ninepence, and immediately when that was spent twelve Preference at one and sixpence — and they were all signed by Jemmy and countersigned by the Major, and between ourselves much better worth the money than some shares I have paid for in my time. In the same holidays the line was made and worked and opened and ran excursions and had collisions and burst MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 399 its boilers and all sorts of accidents and offences all most regular correct and pretty. The sense of responsibility entertained by the Major as a military style of station-master my dear starting the down train behind time and ringing one of those little bells that you buy with the little coal-scuttles off the tray round the man's neck in the street did him honour, but noticing the Major of a night when he is writ- ing out his monthly report to Jemmy at school of the state of the Rolling Stock and the Permanent Way and all the rest of it (the whole kept upon the Major's sideboard and dusted with his own hands every morning before varnishing his bocJts) I notice him as full of thought and care as full can be and frowning in a fearful manner, but indeed the Major does nothing by halves as witness his great delight in going out surveying with Jemmy when he has Jemmy to go with, canying a chain and a measuring-tape and driving I don't know what improvements right through Westminster Abbey and fully believed in the streets to be knocking everything upside down by Act of Parliament. As please Heaven will come to pass when Jemmy takes to that as a profession ! Mentioning my poor Lirriper brings into my head his own young- est brother the Doctor though Doctor of what I am sure it would be hard to say unless Liquor, for neither Physic nor Music nor yet Law does Joshua Lirriper know a morsel of except continually being summoned to the County Court and having orders made upon him which he runs away from, and once was taken in the passage of this very house with an umbrella up and the Major's hat on, giving his name with the door-mat round him as Sir Johnson Jones, K.C.B. in spectacles residing at the Horse Guards. On which occasion he had got into the house not a minute before, through the girl letting him on the mat when he sent in a piece of paper twisted more like one of those spills for lighting candles than a note, offering me the choice between thirty shillings in hand and his brains on the premises marked immediate and waiting for an answer. My dear it gave me such a dreadful turn to think of the brains of my poor dear Lirriper's own flesh and blood flying about the new oilcloth however unworthy to be so assisted, that I w^ent out of my room here to ask him what he would take once for all not to do it for life when I found him in the custody of two gentle- men that I should have judged to be in the feather-bed trade if they had not announced the law, so fluffy were their personal appearance. " Bring your chains, sir," says Joshua to the littlest of the two in the biggest hat, "rivet on my fetters!" Imagine my feelings when I pictered him clanking up Norfolk-street in irons and Miss Wozenham looking out of window ! " Gentlemen," I says all of a tremble and ready to drop " please to bring him 400 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. into Major Jackman's apartments." So they brought him into the Parlours, and when the Major spies his own curly-brimmed hat on him which Joshua Lirriper had whipped off its peg in the pas- sage for a military disguise he goes into such a tearing passion that he tips it off his head with his hand and kicks it up to the ceiling with his foot where it grazed long afterwards. " Major " I says "be cool and advise me what to do with Joshua my dead and gone Lirriper's own youngest brother." " Madam " says the Major " my advice is that you board and lodge him in a Powder Mill, with a handsome gratuity to the proprietor when exploded." "Major" I says " as a Christian you cannot mean your words." " Madam " says the Major " by the Lord I do ! " and indeed the Major besides being with all his merits a very passionate man for his size had a bad opinion of Joshua on account of former troubles even unat- tended by liberties taken with his apparel. When Joshua Lirri- per hears this conversation betwixt us he turns upon the littlest one with the biggest hat and says " Come sir ! Remove me to my vile dungeon. Where is my mouldy straw?" My dear at the picter of him rising in my mind dressed almost entirely in padlocks like Baron Trenck in Jemmy's book I was so overcome that I burst into tears and I says to the Major, " Major take my keys and settle with these gentlemen or I shall never know a happy minute more," which was done several times both before and since, but still I must remember that Joshua Lirriper has his good feelings and shows them in being always so troubled in his mind when he cannot wear mourning for his brother. Many a long year have I left off my widow's mourning not being wishful to intrude, but the tender point in Joshua that I cannot help a little yielding to is when he writes " One single sovereign would enable me to wear a decent suit of mourning for my much-loved brother. I vowed at the time of his lamented death that I would ever wear sables in memory of him but Alas how short-sighted is man. How keep that vow when penniless ! " It says a good deal for the strength of his feelings that he couldn't have been seven year old when my poor Lirriper died and to have kept to it ever since is highly creditable. But we know there's good in all of us, — if we only knew where it was in some of us, — and though it was far from delicate in Joshua to work upon the dear child's feelings when first sent to school and write down into Lincolnshire for his pocket-money by return of post and got it, still he is my poor Lirriper's own youngest brother and mightn't have meant not paying his bill at the Salisbury Arms when his affection took him down to stay a fortnight at Hatfield churchyard and might have meant to keep sober but for bad com- pany. Consequently if the Major had played on him with the MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 401 garden-engine which he got privately into his room without my knowing of it, I think that much as I should have regretted it there would have been words betwixt the Major and me. There- fore my dear though he played on Mr. Buffle by mistake being hot in his head, and though it might have been misrepresented down at Wozenham's into not being ready for Mr. Buffle in other respects he being the Assessed Taxes, still I do not so much regret it as perhaps I ought. And whether Joshua Lirriper will yet do well in life I cannot say. But I did hear of his coming out at a Private Theatre in the character of a Bandit without receiving any offers afterwards from the regular managers. Mentioning Mr. Buffle gives an instance of there being good in persons where good is not expected, for it cannot be denied that Mr. Buffle's manners when engaged in his business were not agree- able. To collect is one thing, and to look about as if suspicious of the goods being gradually removing in the dead of the night by a back door is another, over taxing you have no control but suspect- ing is voluntary. Allowances too must ever be made for a gentle- man of the Major's warmth not relishing being spoke to with a pen in the mouth, and while I do not know that it is more irritable to my own feelings to have a low-crowned hat with a broad brim kept on in doors than any other hat still I can appreciate the Major's, besides which without bearing malice or vengeance the Major is a man that scores up arrears as his habit always was with Joshua Lirriper. So at last my dear the Major lay in wait for Mr. Buffle and it worrited me a good deal. Mr. Buffle gives his rap of two sharp knocks one day and the Major bounces to the door, "Collector has called for two quarters' Assessed Taxes" says Mr. Buffle. " They are ready for him " says the Major and brings him in here. But on the way Mr. Buffle looks about him in his usual suspicious manner and the Major fires and asks him " Do you see a Ghost sir ? " " No sir " says Mr. Buffle. " Because I have before noticed you " says the Major "apparently looking for a spectre very hard beneath the roof of my respected friend. When you find that supernatural agent, be so good as point him out sir." Mr. Buffle stares at the Major and then nods at me. " Mrs. Lirriper sir " says the Major going off into a perfect steam and introducing me with his hand. " Pleasure of knowing her " says Mr. Buffle. "A — hum! — Jemmy Jackman sir!" says the Major introducing himself. " Honour of knowing you by sight " says Mr. Buffle. "Jemmy Jackman sir" says the Major wagging his head sideways in a sort of obstinate fury " presents to you his esteemed friend that lady Mrs. Emma Lirriper of Eighty-one Nor- folk-street Strand London in the County of Middlesex in the United 2i> 402 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Upon which occasion sir," says the Major, " Jemmy Jackman takes your hat off." Mr. Buffle looks at his hat where the Major drops it on the floor, and he picks it up and puts it on again. " Sir " says the Major veiy red and looking him full in the face " there are two quarters of the Gallan- try Taxes due and the Collector has called." Upon which if you can believe my words my dear the Major drops Mr. Buffle's hat off again. " This — " Mr. Buffle begins very angiy with his pen in his mouth, when the Major steaming more and more says "Take your bit out sir ! Or by the whole infernal system of Taxation of this country and every individual figure in the National Debt, I'll get upon your back and ride you like a horse ! " which it's my be- lief he would have done and even actually jerking his neat little legs ready for a spring as it was. " This," says Mr. Buffle with- out his pen "is an assault and I'll have the law of you." "Sir" replies the Major "if you are a man of honour, your Collector of whatever may be due on the Honourable Assessment by applying to Major Jackman at the Parlours Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings, may obtain what he wants in full at any moment." When the Major glared at Mr. Buffle vnth those meaning words my dear I literally gasped for a teaspoonful of salvolatile in a wineglass of water, and I says " Pray let it go no farther gentlemen I beg and beseech of you ! " But the Major could be got to do nothing else but snort long after Mr. Buffle was gone, and the effect it had upon my whole mass of blood when on the next day of Mr. Buffle's rounds the Major spruced himself up and went humming a tune up and down the street with one eye almost oblit- erated by his hat there are not expressions in Johnson's Diction- ary to state. But I safely put the street door on the jar and got behind the Major's blinds with my shawl on and my mind made up the moment I saw danger to rush out screeching till my voice failed me and catch the Major round the neck till my strength went and have all parties bound. I had not been behind the blinds a quarter of an hour when I saw Mr. Buffle approaching with his Collecting-books in his hand. The Major likewise saw him approaching and hummed louder and himself approached. They met before the Airy railings. The Major takes off his hat at arm's length and says "Mr. Buffle I believe?" Mr. Buffle takes off his hat at arm's length and says " That is my name sir." Says the Major "Have you any commands for me, Mr. Buffle?" Says Mr. Buffle " Not any sir." Then my dear both of 'em bowed very low and haughty and parted, and whenever Mr. Buffle made his rounds in future him and the Major always met and bowed before the Airy railings, putting me much in mind of Hamlet and MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 403 the other gentleman in mourning before killing one another, though I could have wislied the other gentleman had done it fairer and even if less polite no poison. Mr. Buffle's family were not liked in this neighbourhood, for when you are a householder my dear you'll find it does not come by nature to like the Assessed, and it was considered besides that a one-horse pheayton ought not to have elevated Mrs. Buffle to that height especially when purloined from the Taxes which I myself did consider uncharitable. But they Avere not liked and there was that domestic unhappiness in the family in consequence of their both being very hard with Miss Buffle and one another on account of Miss Buffle's favouring Mr. Buffle's articled young gentleman, that it ivas whispered that Miss Buffle would go either into a con- sumption or a convent she being so very thin and oft' her appetite and two close-shaved gentlemen with white bands round their necks peeping round the corner whenever she went out in waistcoats re- sembling black pinafores. So things stood towards Mr. Buffle when one night I was w^oke by a frightful noise and a smell of burning, and going to my bedroom window saw the whole street in a glow. Fortunately we had two sets empty just then and before I could hurry on some clothes I heard the Major hammering at the attics' doors and calling out " Dress yourselves ! — Fire ! Don't be fright- ened ! — Fire ! Collect your presence of mind ! — Fire ! All right — Fire ! " most tremenjously. As I opened my bedroom door the Major came tumbling in over himself and me, and caught me in his arms. "Major" I says breathless "where is it?" "I don't know dearest madam " says the Major — " Fire ! Jemmy Jackman will defend you to the last drop of his blood — Fire ! If the dear boy was at home what a treat this would be for him — Fire ! " and al- together very collected and bold except that he couldn't say a single sentence without shaking me to the very centre with roaring Fire. We ran down to the drawing-room and put our heads out of win- dow, and the Major calls to an unfeeling young monkey, scamper- ing by be joyful and ready to split " Where is it ? — Fire ! " The monkey answers without stopping " here's a lark ! Old Buffle's been setting his house alight to prevent its being found out that he boned the Taxes. Hurrah ! Fire ! " And then the sparks came flying up and the smoke came pouring down and the crackling of flames and spatting of water and banging of engines and hacking of axes and breaking of glass and knocking at doors and the shout- ing and crying and hurrying and the heat and altogether gave me a dreadful palpitation. " Don't be frightened dearest madam," says the Major, " — Fire! There's nothing to be alarmed at — Fire ! Don't open the street door till I come back — Fire ! I'll 404 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. go and see if I can be of any service — Fire ! You're quite com- posed and comfortable an't you 1 — Fire, Fire, Fire ! " It was in vain for me to hold the man and tell him he'd be galloped to death by the engines — pumped to death by his over-exertions — wet- feeted to death by the slop and mess — flattened to death when the roofs fell in — his spirit was up and he went scampering off after the young monkey with all the breath he had and none to spare, and me and the girls huddled together at the parlour windows looking at the dreadful flames above the houses over the way, Mr. Buffle's being round the corner. Presently what should we see but some people running down the street straight to our door, and then the Major directing operations in the busiest way, and then some more people and then — carried in a chair similar to Guy Fawkes — Mr. Buffle in a blanket ! My dear the Major has Mr. Buffle brought up our steps and whisked into the parlour and carted out on the sofy, and then he and all the rest of them without so much as a word burst away again full speed, leaving the impression of a vision except for Mr. Buffle awful in his blanket with his eyes a rolling. In a twinkling they all burst back again with Mrs. Buffle in another blanket, which whisked in and carted out on the sofy they all burst off again and all burst back again with Miss Buffle in another blanket, which again whisked in and carted out they all burst off again and all burst back again with Mr. Buffle's articled young gentleman in another blanket — him a holding round the necks of two men carrying him by the legs, similar to the picter of the disgraceful creetur who has lost the fight (but where the chair I do not know) and his hair having the appearance of newly played upon. When all four of a row, the Major rubs his hands and whispers me with what little hoarseness he can get together, " If our dear remarkable boy was only at home what a delightful treat this would be for him ! " My dear we made them some hot tea and toast and some hot brandy-and-water with a little comfortable nutmeg in it, and at first they were scared and low in their spirits but being fully in- sured got sociable. And the first use Mr. Buffle made of his tongue was to call the Major his Preserver and his best of friends and to say " My for ever dearest sir let me make you known to Mrs. Buffle " which also addressed him as her Preserver and her best of friends and was fully as cordial as the blanket would admit of. Also Miss Buffle. The articled young gentleman's head was a little light and he sat a moaning "Robina is reduced to cinders, Robina is reduced to cinders ! " Which went more to the heart on account of his having got wrapped in his blanket as if he was look- ing out of a violinceller case, until Mr. Buffle says "Robina speak MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 405 to him ! " Miss Buffle says " Dear George ! " and but for the Major's pouring down brandy-and-water on the instant which caused a catching in his throat owing to the nutmeg and a violent fit of coughing it might have proved too much for his strength. When the articled young gentleman got the better of it Mr. Buffle leaned up against Mrs. Buffle being two bundles, a little while in confi- dence, and then says with tears in his eyes which the Major notic- ing wiped, "We have not been an united family, let us after this danger become so, take her George." The young gentleman could not put his arm out far to do it, but his spoken expressions were very beautiful though of a wandering class. And I do not know that I ever had a much pleasanter meal than the breakfast we took together after we had all dozed, when Miss Buffle made tea very sweetly in quite the Roman style as depicted formerly at Covent Garden Theatre and when the whole family was most agreeable, as they have ever proved since that night when the Major stood at the foot of the Fire-Escape and claimed them as they came down — the young gentleman head-foremost, which accounts. And though I do not say that we should be less liable to think ill of one another if strictly limited to blankets, still I do say that we might most of us come to a better understanding if we kept one another less at a distance. Why there's Wozenham's lower down on the other side of the street. I had a feeling of much soreness several years respecting what I must still ever call Miss Wozenham's systematic under- bidding and the likeness of the house in Bradshaw having far too many windows and a most umbrageous and outrageous Oak which never yet was seen in Norfolk-street nor yet a carriage and four at Wozenham's door; which it would have been far more to Brad- shaw's credit to have drawn a cab. This frame of mind continued bitter down to the very afternoon in January last when one of my girls, Sally Rairyganoo which I still suspect of Irish extraction though family represented Cambridge, else why abscond with a bricklayer of the Limerick persuasion and be married in pattens not waiting till his black eye was decently got round with all the company fourteen in number and one horse fighting outside on the roof of the vehicle, — I repeat my dear my ill-regulated state of mind towards Miss Wozenham continued down to the very after- noon of January last past when Sally Rairyganoo came banging (I can use no milder expression) into my room with a jump which may be Cambridge and may not, and said " Hurroo Missis ! Miss Wozenham's sold up ! " My dear when I had it thrown in my face and conscience that the girl Sally had reason to think I could be glad of the ruin of a fellow-creetur, I burst into 406 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. tears and dropped back in my chair and I says "I am ashamed of myself!" Well ! I tried to settle to my tea but I could not do it what with thinking of Miss Wozenham and her distresses. It was a wretched night and I went up to a front window and looked over at Wozenham's and as well as I could make it out down the street in the fog it was the dismallest of the dismal and not a light to be seen. So at last I says to myself " This will not do," and I puts on my oldest bonnet and shawl not wishing Miss Wozenham to be reminded of my best at such a time, and lo and behold you I goes over to Wozenham's and knocks. "Miss Wozenham at home?" I says turning my head when I heard the door go. And then I saw it was Miss Wozenham herself who had opened it and sadly worn she was poor thing and her eyes all swelled and swelled with crying. " Miss Wozenham " I says "it is several years since there was a little unpleasantness betwixt us on the subject of my grandson's cap being down your Airy. I have overlooked it and I hope you have done the same." "Yes Mrs. Lirriper " she says in a surprise "I have," "Then my dear" I says "I should be glad to come in and speak a word to you." Upon my calling her my dear Miss Wozenham breaks out a crying most pitiful, and a not unfeeling elderly person that might have been better shaved in a nightcap with a hat over it offering a polite apology for the mumps having worked themselves into his constitution, and also for sending home to his wife on the bellows which was in his hand as a writing-desk, looks out of the back parlour and says " The lady wants a word of comfort " and goes in again. So I was able to say quite natural " Wants a word of comfort does she sir ? Then please the pigs she shall have it ! " And Miss Wozenham and me we go into the front room with a wretched light that seemed to have been crying too and was spluttering out, and I says "Now my dear, tell me all," and she wrings her hands and says "0 Mrs. Lirriper that man is in possession here, and I have not a friend in the world who is able to help me with a shilling." It doesn't signify a bit what a talkative old body like me said to Miss Wozenham when she said that, and so I'll tell you instead my dear that I'd have given thirty shillings to have taken her over to tea, only I durstn't on account of the Major. Not you see but what I knew I could draw the Major out like thread and wind him round my finger on most subjects and perhaps even on that if I was to set myself to it, but him and me had so often belied Miss Wozenham to one another that I was shamefaced, and I knew she had offended his pride and never mine, and likewise I felt timid that that Rairyganoo girl might make things awkward. So I MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 407 says "My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs." And we had the tea and the affairs too and after all it was but forty pound, and — There ! she's as industrious and straight a creetur as ever lived and has paid back half of it already, and where's the use of saying more, particularly when it an't the point ? For the point is tliat when slie was a kissing my hands and holding them in hers and kissing them again and blessing blessing blessing, I cheered up at last and I says " Why what a waddling old goose I have been my dear to take you for something ^o very different ! " "Ah but I too" says she "how have / mistaken you I'' "Come for goodness' sake tell me" I says "what you thought of me?" " " says she "I thought you had no feeling for such a hard hand-to-mouth life as mine, and were rolling in affluence." I says shaking my sides (and very glad to do it for I had been a choking quite long enough) " Only look at my figure my dear and give me your opinion whether if I was in affluence I should be likely to roll in it ? " That did it ! We got as merry as grigs (whatever they are, if you happen to know my dear — / don't) and I went home to my blessed home as happy and as thankful as could be. But before I make an end of it, think even of my having misun- derstood the Major ! Yes ! For next forenoon the Major came into my little room with his brushed hat in his hand and he begins " My dearest madam — " and then put his face in his hat as if he had just come into church. As I sat all in a maze he came out of his hat and began again. " My esteemed and beloved friend — " and then went into his hat again. "Major," I cries out fright- ened " has anything happened to our darling boy % " " No, no, no" says the Major "but Miss Wozenham has been here this morning to make her excuses to me, and by the Lord I can't get over what she told me." " Hoity toity. Major," I says " you don't know yet that I was afraid of you last night and didn't think half as well of you as I ought ! So come out of church Major and forgive me like a dear old friend and I'll never do so any more." And I leave you to judge my dear whetlier I ever did or will. And how aff'ecting to think of Miss Wozenham out of her small income and her losses doing so much for her poor old father, and keeping a brother that had had the misfortune to soften his brain against the hard mathematics as neat as a new pin in the three back represented to lodgers as a lumber-room and consuming a whole shoulder of mutton whenever provided ! And now my dear I really am a going to tell you about my Legacy if you're inclined to favour me with your attention, and I did fully intend to have come straight to it only one thing does so 408 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. bring up another. It was the month of June and the day before Midsummer Day when my girl Winifred Madgers — she was what is termed a Plymouth Sister, and the Plymouth Brother that made away with her was quite right, for a tidier young woman for a wife never came into a house and afterwards called with the beauti- fullest Plymouth Twins — it was the day before Midsummer Day when Winifred Madgers comes and says to me "A gentleman from the Consul's wishes particular to speak to Mrs. Lirriper." If you'll believe me my dear the Consols at the bank where I have a little matter for Jemmy got into my head, and I says " Good gracious I hope he an't had any dreadful fall!" Says AVinifred "He don't look as if he had ma'am." And I says " Show him in." The gentleman came in dark and with his hair cropped what I should consider too close, and he says very polite "Madame Lirrwiper!" I says "Yes sir. Take a chair." "I come," says he "frrwom the Frrwench Consul's." So I saw at once that it wasn't the Bank of England. "We have rrweceived," says the gentleman turning his r's very curious and skilful, "frrwom the Mairrwie at Sens, a communication which I will have the honour to rrwead. Madame Lirrwiper understands Frrwench?" "0 dear no sir!" says I. "Madame Lirriper don't understand any- thing of the sort." " It matters not," says the gentleman, " I will trrwanslate." With that my dear the gentleman after reading something about a Department and a Marie (which Lord forgive me I supposed till the Major came home was Maiy, and never was I more puzzled than to think how that young woman came to have so much to do with it) translated a lot with the most obliging pains, and it came to this : — That in the town of Sens in France an unknown Eng- lishman lay a dying. That he was speechless and without motion. That in his lodging there was a gold watch and a purse containing such and such money and a trunk containing such and such clothes, but no passport and no papers, except that on his table was a pack of cards and that he had written in pencil on the back of the ace of hearts : " To the authorities. When I am dead, pray send what is left, as a last Legacy, to Mrs. Lirriper Eighty-one Norfolk-street Strand London." AVhen the gentleman had explained all this, which seemed to be drawn up much more methodical than I should have given the French credit for, not at that time knowing the nation, he put the document into my hand. And much the wiser I was for that you may be sure, except that it had the look of being made out upon grocery paper and was stamped all over with eagles. "Does Madame Lirrwiper" says the gentleman "believe she rrwecognises her unfortunate compatrrwiot ? " MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 409 You may imagine the flurry it put me into my dear to be talked to about my compatriots. I says " Excuse me. Would you have the kindness sir to make your language as simple as you can ? " " This Englishman unhappy, at the point of death. This com- patrrwiot affhcted," says the gentleman. "Thank you sir" I says "I understand you now. No sir I have not the least idea who this can be." "Has Madame Lirr wiper no son, no nephew, no godson, no frrwiend, no acquaintance of any kind in Frrwance ? " "To my certain knowledge" says I "no relation or friend, and to the best of my belief no acquaintance." " Pardon me. You take Locataires ? " says the gentleman. My dear fully believing he was offering me something with his obliging foreign manners, — snuff for anything I knew, — I gave a little bend of my head and I says if you'll credit it, " No I thank you. I have not contracted the habit." The gentleman looks perplexed and says " Lodgers ! " " Oh ! " says I laughing. " Bless the man ! Why yes to be sure ! " "May it not be a former lodger?" says the gentleman. "Some lodger that you pardoned some rrwent ? You have pardoned lodg- ers some rrwent 1 " " Hem ! It has happened sir " says I, " but I assure you I can call to mind no gentleman of that description that this is at all likely to be." In short my dear, we could make nothing of it, and the gentle- man noted down what I said and went away. But he left me the paper of which he had two with him, and when the Major came in I says to the Major as I put it in his hand " Major here's Old Moore's Almanac with the hieroglyphic complete, for your opinion." It took the Major a little longer to read than I should have thought, judging from the copious flow with which he seemed to be gifted when attacking the organ-men, but at last he got through it, and stood a gazing at me in amazement. " Major " I says " You're paralysed." "Madam "says the Major, " Jemmy Jackman is doubled up." Now it did so happen that the Major had been out to get a little information about railroads and steamboats, as our boy was coming home for his Midsummer holidays next day and we were going to take him somewhere for a treat and a change. So while the Major stood a gazing it came into my head to say to him " Major I wish you'd go and look at some of your books and maps, and see whereabouts this same town of Sens is in France." 410 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. The Major he roused himself and he went into the Parlours and he poked about a little, and he came back to me and he says, " Sens my dearest madam is seventy-odd miles south of Paris." With what I may truly call a desperate effort " Major," I says " we'll go there with our blessed boy." If ever the Major was beside himself it was at the thoughts of that journey. All day long he was like the wild man of the woods after meeting with an advertisement in the papers telling him some- thing to his advantage, and early next morning hours before Jemmy could possibly come home he was outside in the street ready to call out to him that we was all a going to France. Young Rosy-cheeks you may believe was as wild as the Major, and they did carry on to that degree that I says "If you two children an't more orderly I'll pack you both off to bed." And then they fell to cleaning up the Major's telescope to see France with, and went out and bought a leather bag with a snap to hang round Jemmy, and him to carry the money like a little Fortunatus with his purse. If I hadn't passed my word and raised their hopes, I doubt if I could have gone through with the undertaking but it was too late to go back now. So on the second day after Midsummer Day we went off by the morning mail. And when we came to the sea which I had never seen but once in my life and that when my poor Lirri- per was courting me, the freshness of it and the deepness and the airiness and to think that it had been rolling ever since and that it was always a rolling and so few of us minding, made me feel quite serious. But I felt happy too and so did Jemmy and the Major and not much motion on the whole, though me with a swimming in the head and a sinking but able to take notice that the foreign in- sides appear to be constructed hoUower than the English, leading to much more tremeujous noises when bad sailors. But my dear the blueness and the lightness and the coloured look of everything and the very sentry-boxes striped and the shining rat- tling drums and the little soldiers with their waists and tidy gaiters, when we got across to the Continent — it made me feel as if I don't know what — as if the atmosphere had been lifted off me. And as to lunch why bless you if I kept a man-cook and two kitchen-maids I couldn't get it done for twice the money, and no injured young woman a glaring at you and grudging you and acknowledging your patronage by wishing that your food might choke you, but so civil and so hot and attentive and every way comfortable except Jemmy pouring wine down his throat by tumblers-full and me expecting to see him drop under the table. And the way in which Jemmy spoke his French was a real charm. It was often wanted of him, for whenever anybody spoke a syllable MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 411 to me I says " Noncomprenny, you're very kind, but it's no use — Now Jemmy ! " and then Jemmy he fires away at 'em lovely, the only thing wanting in Jemmy's French being as it appeared to me that he hardly ever understood a word of what they said to him which made it scarcely of the use it might have been though in other respects a perfect Native, and regarding the Major's fluency I should have been of the opinion judging French by English that there might have been a greater choice of words in the language though still I must admit that if I hadn't known him when he asked a mihtary gentleman in a grey cloak what o'clock it was I should have took him for a Frenchman born. Before going on to look after my Legacy we were to make one regular day in Paris, and I leave you to judge my dear what a day that was with Jemmy and the Major and the telescope and me and the prowling young man at the inn door (but very civil too) that went along with us to show the sights. All along the railway to Paris Jemmy and the Major had been frightening me to death by stooping down on the platforms at stations to inspect the engines underneath their mechanical stomachs, and by creeping in and out I don't know where all, to find improvements for the United Grand Junction Parlour, but when we got out into the brilliant streets on a bright morning they gave up all their London improvements as a bad job and gave their minds to Paris. Says the prowling young man to me " Will I speak Inglis No ? " So I says " If you can young man I shall take it as a favour," but after half an hour of it when I fully believed the man had gone mad and me too I says "Be so good as fall back on your French sir," knowing that then I shouldn't have the agonies of trying to understand him, which was a happy release. Not that I lost much more than the rest either, for I generally noticed that when he had described something very long indeed and I says to Jemmy "What does he say Jemmy ? " Jemmy says looking with vengeance in his eye " He is so jolly indistinct ! " and that when he had described it longer all over again and I says to Jemmy " Well Jemmy what's it all about?" Jemmy says "He says the building was repaired in seven- teen hundred and four, Gran." Wherever that prowling young man formed his prowling habits I cannot be expected to know, but the way in which he went round the corner while we had our breakfasts and was there again when we swallowed the last crumb was most marvellous, and just the same at dinner and at night, prowling equally at the theatre and the inn gateway and the shop doors when we bought a trifle or two and everywhere else but troubled with a tendency to spit. And of Paris I can tell you no more my dear than that it's town 412 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. and country both in one, and carved stone and long streets of high houses and gardens and fountains and statues and trees and gold, and immensely big soldiers and immensely little soldiers and the pleasantest nurses with the whitest caps a playing at skipping-rope with the bunchiest babies in the flattest caps, and clean table-cloths spread everywhere for dinner and people sitting out of doors smok- ing and sipping all day long and little plays being acted in the open air for little people and every shop a complete and elegant room, and everybody seeming to play at everything in this world. And as to the sparkling lights my dear after dark, glittering high up and low down and on before and on behind and all round, and the crowd of theatres and the crowd of people and the crowd of all sorts, it's pure enchantment. And pretty well the only thing that grated on me was that whether you pay your fare at the railway or whether you change your money at a money -dealer's or whether you take your ticket at the theatre, the lady or gentleman is caged up (I suppose by government) behind the strongest iron bars having more of a Zoological appearance than a free country. Well to be sure when I did after all get my precious bones to bed that night, and my Young Rogue came in to kiss me and asks "What do you think of this lovely lovely Paris, Gran?" I says " Jemmy I feel as if it was beautiful fireworks being let oS in my head." And very cool and refreshing the pleasant country was next day when we went on to look after my Legacy, and rested me much and did me a deal of good. So at length and at last my dear we come to Sens, a pretty little town with a great two-towered cathedral and the rooks flying in and out of the loopholes and another tower atop of one of the towers like a sort of a stone pulpit. In which pulpit with the birds skim- ming below him if you'll believe me, I saw a speck while I was resting at the inn before dinner which they made signs to me was Jemmy and which really was. I had been a fancying as I sat in the balcony of the hotel that an Angel might light there and call down to the people to be good, but I little thought what Jemmy all unknown to himself was a calling down from that high place to some one in the town. The pleasantest-situated inn my dear ! Right under the two towers, with their shadows a changing upon it all day like a kind of a sundial, and country people driving in and out of the courtyard in carts and hooded cabriolets and such like, and a market outside in front of the cathedral, and all so quaint and like a picter. The Major and me agreed that whatever came of my Legacy this was the place to stay in for our holiday, and we also agreed that our dear boy had best not be checked in his joy that night by the sight MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 413 of the Englishman if he was still alive, but that we would go to- gether and alone. For you are to understand that the Major not feeling himself quite equal in his wind to the height to which Jemmy- had climbed, had come back to me and left him with the Guide. So after dinner when Jemmy had set off to see the river, the Major went down to the Mairie, and presently came back with a military character in a sword and spurs and a cocked hat and a yellow shoulder-belt and long tags about him that he must have found inconvenient. And the Major says " The Englishman still lies in the same state dearest madam. This gentleman will con- duct us to his lodging." Upon which the military character pulled off his cocked hat to me, and I took notice that he had shaved his forehead in imitation of Napoleon Bonaparte but not like. We went out at the courtyard gate and past the great doors of the cathedral and down a narrow High-street where the people were sitting chatting at their shop doors and the children were at play. The military character went in front and he stopped at a pork-shop with a little statue of a pig sitting up, in the window, and a private door that a donkey was looking out of. When the donkey saw the military character he came shpping out on the pavement to turn round and then clattered along the passage into a backyard. So the coast being clear, the Major and me were conducted up the common stair and into the front room on the second, a bare room with a red tiled floor and the outside lattice blinds pulled close to darken it. As the military character opened the blinds I saw the tower where I had seen Jemmy, dark- ening as the sun got low, and I turned to the bed by the wall and saw the Englishman. It was some kind of brain fever he had had, and his hair was all gone, and some wetted folded linen lay upon his head. I looked at him very attentive as he lay there all wasted away with his eyes closed, and I says to the Major "I never saw this face before." The Major looked at him very attentive too, and he says "/ never saw this face before." When the Major explained our words to the military character, that gentleman shrugged his shoulders and showed the Major the card on which it was written about the Legacy for me. It had been written with a weak and trembling hand in bed, and I knew no more of the writing than of the face. Neither did the Major. Though lying there alone, the poor creetur was as well taken care of as could be hoped, and would have been quite unconscious of any one's sitting by him then. I got the Major to say that we were not going away at present and that I would come back to-morrow 414 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. and watch a bit by the bedside. But I got him to add — and I shook my head hard to make it stronger — "We agree that we never saw this face before." Our boy was greatly surprised when we told him sitting out in the balcony in the starlight, and he ran over some of those stories of former Lodgers, of the Major's putting down, and asked wasn't it possible that it might be this lodger or that lodger. It was not possible, and we went to bed. In the morning just at breakfast-time the military character came jingling round, and said that the doctor thought from the signs he saw there might be some rally before the end. So I says to the Major and Jemmy, "You two boys go and enjoy your- selves, and I'll take my Prayer Book and go sit by the bed." So I went, and I sat there some hours, reading a prayer for him poor soul now and then, and it was quite on in the day when he moved his hand. He had been so still, that the moment he moved I knew of it, and I pulled off my spectacles and laid down my book and rose and looked at him. From moving one hand he began to move both, and then his action was the action of a person groping in the dark. Long after his eyes had opened, there was a film over them and he still felt for his way out into light. But by slow degrees his sight cleared and his hands stopped. He saw the ceiling, he saw the wall, he saw me. As his sight cleared, mine cleared too, and when at last we looked in one another's faces, I started back and I cries passionately : " you wicked wicked man ! Your sin has found you out ! " For I knew him, the moment life looked out of his eyes, to be Mr. Edson, Jemmy's father who had so cruelly deserted Jemmy's young unmarried mother who had died in my arms, poor tender creetur, and left Jemmy to me. "You cruel wicked man ! You bad black traitor ! " With the little strength he had, he made an attempt to turn over on his wretched face to hide it. His arm dropped out of the bed and his head with it, and there he lay before me crushed in body and in mind. Surely the miserablest sight under the summer sun ! "0 blessed Heaven," I says a crying, "teach me what to say to this broken mortal ! I am a poor sinful creetur, and the Judgment is not mine." As I lifted my eyes up to the clear bright sky, I saw the high tower where Jemmy had stood above the birds, seeing that very window ; and the last look of that poor pretty young mother when her soul brightened and got free, seemed to shine down from it. " man, man, man ! " I says, and I went on my knees beside the MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 415 bed ; " if your heart is rent asunder and you are truly penitent for what you did, Our Saviour will have mercy on you yet ! " As I leaned my face against the bed, his feeble hand could just move itself enough to touch me. I hope the touch was penitent, [t tried to hold my dress and keep hold, but the fingers were too vs^eak to close. I lifted him back upon the pillows and I says to him : " Can you hear me ? " He looked yes. "Do you know me ? " He looked yes, even yet more plainly. " I am not here alone. The Major is with me. You recollect the Major?" Yes. That is to say he made out yes, in the same way as before. "And even the Major and I are not alone. My grandson — his godson — is with us. Do you hear ? My grandson." The fingers made another trial to catch at my sleeve, but could only creep near it and fall. " Do you know who my grandson is 1 " Yes. " I pitied and loved his lonely mother. When his mother lay a dying I said to her, ' My dear, this baby is sent to a childless old woman.' He has been my pride and joy ever since. I love him as dearly as if he had drunk from my breast. Do you ask to see my grandson before you die 1 " Yes. " Show me, when I leave off speaking, if you correctly under- stand what I say. He has been kept unacquainted with the story of his birth. He has no knowledge of it. No suspicion of it. If I bring him here to the side of this bed, he will suppose you to be a perfect stranger. It is more than I can do to keep from him the knowledge that there is such wrong and misery in the world ; but that it was ever so near him in his innocent cradle I have kept from him, and I do keep from him, and I ever will keep from him, for his mother's sake, and for his own." He showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears fell from his eyes. " Now rest, and you shall see him." So I got him a little wine and some brandy, and I put things straight about his bed. But I began to be troubled in my mind lest Jemmy and the Major might be too long of coming back. What with this occupation for my thoughts and hands, I didn't hear a foot upon the stairs, and ^vas startled when I saw the Major stopped short in the middle of the room by the eyes of the man 416 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. upon the bed, and knowing him then, as I had known him a little while ago. There was anger in the Major's face, and there was horror and repugnance and I don't know what. So I went up to him and I led him to the bedside, and when I clasped my hands and lifted of them up, the Major did the like. " Lord " I says " Thou knowest what we two saw together of the sufferings and sorrows of that young creetur now with Thee. If this dying man is truly penitent, we two together humbly pray Thee to have mercy on him ! " The Major says " Amen ! " and then after a little stop I whispers him, " Dear old friend fetch our beloved boy." And the Major, so clever as to have got to understand it all without being told a word, went away and brought him. Never never never shall I forget the fair bright face of our boy when he stood at the foot of the bed, looking at his unknown father. And so Uke his dear young mother then ! " Jemmy " I says, " I have found out all about this poor gentle- man who is so ill, and he did lodge in the old house once. And as he wants to see all belonging to it, now that he is passing away, I sent for you." " Ah poor man ! " says Jemmy stepping forward and touching one of his hands with great gentleness. " My heart melts for him. Poor, poor man ! " The eyes that were so soon to close for ever turned to me, and I was not that strong in the pride of my strength that I could resist them. " My darling boy, there is a reason in the secret history of this fellow-creetur, lying as the best and worst of us must all lie one day, which I think would ease his spirit in his last hour if you would lay your cheek against his forehead and say, ' May God for- give you ! ' " " Gran," says Jemmy with a full heart "I am not worthy ! " But he leaned down and did it. Then the faltering fingers made out to catch hold of my sleeve at last, and I believe he was a-trying to kiss me when he died. =H= # * # # # * There my dear ! There you have the story of my Legacy in full, and it's worth ten times the trouble I have spent upon it if you are pleased to like it. You might suppose that it set us against the little French town of Sens, but no we didn't find that. I found myself that I never looked up at the high tower atop of the other tower, but the days came back again when that fair young creetur with her pretty MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 417 bright hair trusted in me like a mother, and the recollection made the place so peaceful to me as I can't express. And every soul about the hotel down to the pigeons in the courtyard made friends with Jemmy and the Major, and went lumbering away with them on all sorts of expeditions in all sorts of vehicles drawn by rampagious cart-horses, — with heads and without, — mud for paint and ropes for harness, — and every new friend dressed in blue like a butcher, and every new horse standing on his hind legs wanting to devour and consume every other horse, and every man that had a whip to crack crack-crack-crack-crack-cracking it as if it was a schoolboy with his first. As to the Major my dear that man lived the greater part of his time with a little tumbler in one hand and a bottle of small wine in the other, and whenever he saw anybody else with a little tumbler, no matter who it was, — the military character with the tags, or the inn-servants at their supper in the courtyard, or townspeople a chatting on a bench, or country people a starting home after market, — down rushes the Major to clink his glass against their glasses and cry, — Hola ! Yive Somebody ! or Vive Something ! as if he was beside himself And though I could not quite approve of the Major's doing it, still the ways of the world are the ways of the world varying according to the different parts of it, and dancing at all in the open Square with a lady that kept a barber's shop my opinion is that the Major was right to dance his best and to lead ofi" with a power that I did not think was in him, though I was a little uneasy at the Barricading sound of the cries that were set up by the other dancers and the rest of the company, until when I says " What are they ever calling out Jemmy 1 " Jemmy says, " They're calling out Gran, Bravo the Military Eng- lish ! Bravo the Military English ! " which was very gratifying to my feelings as a Briton and became the name the Major was known by. But every evening at a regular time we all three sat out in the balcony of the hotel at the end of the courtyard, looking up at the golden and rosy light as it changed on the great towers, and look- ing at the shadows of the towers as they changed on all about us ourselves included, and what do you think we did there? My dear, if Jemmy hadn't brought some other of those stories of the Major's taking down from the telling of former lodgers at Eighty-one Nor- folk-street, and if he didn't bring 'em out with this speech : " Here you are Gran ! Here you are godfather ! More of 'em ! /'ll read. And though you wrote 'em for me, godfather, I know you won't disapprove of my making 'em over to Gran ; will you 1 " "No, my dear boy," says the Major. "Everything we have is hers, and we are hers." 2 £ 418 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. "Hers ever affectionately and devotedly J. Jackman, and J. Jack- 1 man Lirriper," cries the Young Rogue giving me a close hug. , " Very well then godfather. Look here. As Gran is in the Legacy \ way just now, I shall make these stories a part of Gran's Legacy. ; I'll leave 'em to her. What do you say godfather ? " " Hip hip Hurrah ! " says the Major. " Very well then," cries Jemmy all in a bustle. " Vive the Mili- tary English ! Vive the Lady Lirriper ! Vive the Jemmy Jack- man Ditto ! Vive the Legacy ! Now, you look out, Gran. And you look out, godfather, /'ll read ! And I'll tell you what I'll do besides. On the last night of our holiday here when we are all packed and going away, I'll top up with something of my own." " Mind you do sir " says I. Chapter II. MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW JEMMY TOPPED UP. Well my dear and so the evenuig readings of those jottings of the Major's brought us round at last to the evening when we were all packed and going away next day, and I do assure you that by that time though it was deliciously comfortable to look forward to the dear old house in Norfolk-street again, I had formed quite a high opinion of the French nation and had noticed them to be much more homely and domestic in their families and far more simple and amiable in their lives than I had ever been led to expect, and it did strike me between ourselves that in one particular they might be imitated to advantage by another nation which I will not men- tion, and that is in the courage with which they take their little enjoyments on little means and with little things and don't let solemn big-wigs stare them out of countenance or speechify them dull, of which said solemn big- wigs I have ever had the one opinion that I wish they were all made comfortable separately in coppers with the lids on and never let out any more. "Now young man," I says to Jemmy when we brought our chairs into the balcony that last evening, "you please to remember who was to ' top up.' " " All right Gran " says Jemmy. " I am the illustrious person- age." But he looked so serious after he had made me that light answer, that the Major raised his eyebrows at me and I raised mine at the Major. "Gran and godfather," says Jemmy, "you can hardly think how much my mind has run on Mr. Edson's death." MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 419 It gave me a little check. " Ah ! it was a sad scene my love " I says, "and sad remembrances come back stronger than merry. But this" I says after a little silence, to rouse myself and the Major and Jemmy all together, "is not topping up. Tell us your story my dear." " I will " says Jemmy. " What is the date sir ? " says I. " Once upon a time when pigs drank wine ? " " No Gran," says Jemmy, still serious ; " once upon a time when the French drank wine." Again I glanced at the Major, and the Major glanced at me. "In short, Gran and godfather," says Jemmy^ looking up, " the date is this time, and I'm going to tell you Mr. Edson's story." The flutter that it threw me into. The change of colour on the part of the Major ! "That is to say, you understand," our bright-eyed boy says, " I am going to give you my version of it, I shall not ask whether it's right or not, firstly because you said you knew very little about it, Gran, and secondly because what little you did know was a secret." I folded my hands in my lap and I never took my eyes off Jemmy as he went running on. " The unfortunate gentleman " Jemmy commences, " who is the subject of our present narrative was the son of Somebody, and was born Somewhere, and chose a profession Somehow. It is not with those parts of his career that we have to deal ; but with his early attachment to a young and beautiful lady." I thought I should have dropped. I durstn't look at the Major ; but I knew what his state was, without looking at him. " The father of our ill-starred hero " says Jemmy, copying as it seemed to me the style of some of his story-books, " was a worldly man who entertained ambitious views for his only son and who firmly set his face against the contemplated alliance with a virtuous but penniless orphan. Indeed he went so far as roundly to assure our hero that unless he weaned his thoughts from the object of his devoted aff'ection, he would disinherit him. At the same time, he proposed as a suitable match the daughter of a neighbouring gentle- man of a good estate, who was neither ill-favoured nor unamiable, and whose eligibility in a pecuniary point of view could not be dis- puted. But young Mr. Edson, true to the first and only love that had inflamed his breast, rejected all considerations of self-advance- ment, and, deprecating his father's anger in a respectful letter, ran away with her." My dear I had begun to take a turn for the better, but when it come to running away I began to take another turn for the worse. 420 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. "The lovers" says Jemmy "fled to London and were united at the altar of Saint Clement's Danes. And it is at this period of their simple but touching story that we find them inmates of the dwell- ing of a highly-respected and beloved lady of the name of Gran, re- siding within a hundred miles of Norfolk-street." I felt that we were almost safe now, I felt that the dear boy had no suspicion of the bitter truth, and I looked at the Major for the first time and drew a long breath. The Major gave me a nod. " Our hero's father " Jemmy goes on " proving implacable and carrying his threat into unrelenting execution, the struggles of the young couple in London were severe, and would have been far more so, but for their good angel's having conducted them to the abode of Mrs. Gran ; who, divining their poverty (in spite of their endeav- ours to conceal it from her), by a thousand delicate arts smoothed their rough way, and alleviated the sharpness of their first distress." Here Jemmy took one of my hands in one of his, and began a marking the turns of his story by making me give a beat from time to time upon his other hand. " After a while, they left the house of Mrs. Gran, and pursued their fortunes through a variety of successes and failures elsewhere. But in all reverses, whether for good or evil, the words of Mr. Ed- son to the fair young partner of his life were, ' Unchanging Love and Truth will carry us through all I ' " My hand trembled in the dear boy's those words were so wofuUy unlike the fact. " Unchanging Love and Truth " says Jemmy over again, as if he had a proud kind of a noble pleasure in it, "will carry us through all ! Those were his words. And so they fought their way, poor but gallant and happy, until Mrs. Edson gave birth to a child." " A daughter," I says. " No," says Jemmy, "a son. And the father was so proud of it that he could hardly bear it out of his sight. But a dark cloud overspread the scene. Mrs. Edson sickened, drooped, and died." " Ah ! Sickened, drooped, and died ! " I says. " And so Mr. Edson's only comfort, only hope on earth, and only stimulus to action, was his darling boy. As the child grew older, he grew so like his mother that he was her living picture. It used to make him wonder why his father cried when he kissed him. But unhappily he was like his mother in constitution as well as in face, and he died too before he had grown out of childhood. Then Mr. Edson, who had good abilities, in his forlornness and despair, threw them all to the winds. He became apathetic, reckless, lost. Little by little he sank down, down, down, down, until at last he almost DOCTOK MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 421 lived (I think) by gaming. And so sickness overtook him in the town of Sens in France, and he lay down to die. But now that he laid him down when all was done, and looked back upon the green Past beyond the time when he had covered it with ashes, he thought gratefully of the good Mrs. Gran long lost sight of, who had been so kind to liim and his young wife in the early days of their mar- riage, and he left the little that he had as a last Legacy to her. And she, being brought to see him, at first no more knew him than she would know from seeing the ruin of a Greek or Roman Temple, what it used to be before it fell ; but at jength she remem- bered him. And then he told her, with tears, of his regret for the misspent part of his life, and besought her to think as mildly of it as she could, because it was the poor fallen Angel of his unchang- ing Love and Constancy after all. And because she had her grandson with her, and he fancied that his own boy, if he had lived, might have grown to be something like him, he asked her to let him touch his forehead with his cheek and say certain parting words." Jemmy's voice sank low when it got to that, and tears filled my eyes, and filled the Major's. " You little Conjurer " I says, " how did you ever make it all out ? Go in and write it every word down, for it's a wonder." Which Jemmy did, and I have repeated it to you my dear from his writing. Then the Major took my hand and kissed it, and said, " Dearest madam all has prospered with us." " Ah Major " I says drying my eyes, " we needn't have been afraid. We might have known it. Treachery don't come natural to beaming youth ; but trust and pity, love and constancy, — they do, thank God ! " DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. IN THREE CHAPTERS. Chapter I. TO BE TAKEN IMMEDIATELY. I AM a Cheap Jack, and my own father's name was Willum Marigold. It was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but my own father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which point I content myself with looking at the argument this way : If a man is not allowed to know his own 422 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery ? As to looking at the argument through the medium of the Register, Willum Marigold come into the world before Reg- isters come up much, — and went out of it too. They Avouldn't have been greatly in his line neither, if they had chanced to come up before him. I was born on the Queen's highway, but it was the King's at that time. A doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when it took place on a common ; and in consequence of his being a very kind gentleman, and accepting no fee but a tea- tray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to him. There you have me. Doctor Marigold. I am at present a middle-aged man of a broadish build, in cords, leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings of which is always gone behind. Repair them how you will, they go like fiddle- strings. You have been to the theatre, and you have seen one of the wiolin-players screw up his wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been whispering the secret to him that it feared it was out of order, and then you have heard it snap. That's as exactly similar to my waistcoat as a waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one another. I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck wore loose and easy. Sitting down is my favourite posture. If I have a taste in point of personal jewelry, it is mother-of-pearl but- tons. There you have me again, as large as life. The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you'll guess that my father was a Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He was. It was a pretty tray. It represented a large lady going along a serpentine up-hill gravel-walk, to attend a little church. Two swans had likewise come astray with the same intentions. AVhen I call her a large lady, I don't mean in point of breadth, for there she fell below my views, but she more than made it up in height ; her height and slimness was — in short the height of both. I often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause (or more likely screeching one) of the doctor's standing it up on a table against the wall in his consulting-room. Whenever my own father and mother were in that part of the country, I used to put my head (I have heard my own mother say it was flaxen curls at that time, though you wouldn't know an old hearth-broom from it now till you come to the handle, and found it wasn't me) in at the doctor's door, and the doctor was always glad to see me, and said, "Aha, my brother practitioner! Come in, little M.D. How are your inclinations as to sixpence?" You can't go on for ever, you'll find, nor yet could my father nor DOCTOR MARIGOLD, 424 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. yet my mother. If you don't go off as a whole when you are about due, you're liable to go off in part, and two to one your head's the part. Gradually my father went off his, and my mother went off hers. It. was in a harmless way, but it put out the family where I boarded them. The old couple, though retired, got to be wholly and solely devoted to the Cheap Jack business, and were always selling the family off. Whenever the cloth was laid for dinner, my father began rattling the plates and dishes, as we do in our line when we put up crockery for a bid, only he had lost the trick of it, and mostly let 'em drop and broke 'em. As the old lady had been used to sit in the cart, and hand the articles out one by one to the old gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same way she handed him every item of the family's property, and they dis- posed of it in their own imaginations from morning to night. At last the old gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries out in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for two days and nights : "Now here, my jolly companions every- one, — which the Nightingale club in a village was held, At the sign of the Cabbage and Shears, Where the singers no doubt would have greatly excelled. But for want of taste, voices, and ears, — now, here, my jolly companions, every one, is a working model of a used-up old Cheap Jack, without a tooth in his head, and with a pain in every bone : so like life that it would be just as good if it wasn't better, just as bad if it wasn't worse, and just as new if it wasn't worn out. Bid for the working model of the old Cheap Jack, who has drunk more gunpowder-tea with the ladies in his time than would blow the lid off a washerwoman's copper, and carrj'- it as many thousands of miles higher than the moon as naught nix naught, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over. Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot ? Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence ? The gentleman in the scarecrow's hat ? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat. I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come ! I'll throw you in a working model of a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack so long ago that upon my word and honour it took place in Noah's Ark, before the Unicorn could get in to forbid the banns by blow- ing a tune upon his horn. There now ! Come ! What do you say for both? I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I don't bear you malice for being so backward. Here ! If you make me a bid that'll only reflect a little credit on your town, I'll throw you in a warming-pan for nothing, and lend you a toasting-fork for life. DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 425 Now come ; what do you say after that splendid offer ? Say two pound, say thirty shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say two and six. You don't say even two and six 1 You say two and three ? No. You shan't have the lot for two and three. I'd sooner give it to you, if you was good-looking enough. Here ! Missis ! Chuck the old man and woman into the cart, put the horse to, and drive 'em away and bury 'em ! " Such were the last words of Willum Marigold, my own father, and they were carried out, by him and by his wife, my own mother, on one and the same day, as I ought to know, having followed as motirner. My father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work, as his dying observations went to prove. But I top him. I don't say it because it's myself, but because it has been univer- sally acknowledged by all that has had the means of comparison. I have worked at it. I have measured myself against other public speakers, — Members of Parliament, Platforms, Pulpits, Counsel learned in the law, — and where I have found 'em good, I have took a bit of imagination from 'em, and where I have found 'era bad, I have let 'em alone. Now I'll tell you what. I mean to go down into my grave declaring that of all the callings ill used in Great Britain, the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used. Why ain't we a profession? Why ain't we endowed with privileges'? Why are we forced to take out a hawker's license, when no such thing is expected of the political hawkers ? Where's the diff'erence betwixt us ? Except that we are Cheap Jacks and they are Dear Jacks, / don't see any difference but what's in our favour. For look here ! Say it's election time. I am on the footboard of my cart in the market-place, on a Saturday night. I put up a general miscellaneous lot. I say : " Now here, my free and inde- pendent woters, I'm a going to give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days, nor yet the days preceding. Now I'll show you what I am a going to do with you. Here's a pair of razors that'll shave you closer than the Board of Guardians ; here's a flat-iron worth its weight in gold ; here's a frying-pan artificially flavoured with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you've only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and there you are replete with animal food ; here's a genuine chronom- eter watch in such a solid silver case that you may knock at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and rouse your wife and family, and save up your knocker for the post- man ; and here's half-a-dozen dinner plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm the baby when it's fractious. Stop ! I'll throw you in another article, and I'll give you that, and it's a roll- ing-pin ; and if the baby can only get it well into its mouth when 426 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. its teeth is coming and rub the gums once with it, they'll come through double, in a fit of laughter equal to being tickled. Stop again ! I'll throw you in another article, because I don't like the looks of you, for you haven't the appearance of buyers unless I lose by you, and because I'd rather lose than not take money to-night, and that's a looking-glass in which you may see how ugly you look when you don't bid. What do you say now ? Come ! Do you say a pound ? Not you, for you haven't got it. Do you say ten shillings ? Not you, for you owe more to the tallyman. Well then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll heap 'em all on the foot- board of the cart, — there they are ! razors, flat-iron, frying-pan, chronometer watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass, take 'em all away for four shillings, and I'll give you sixpence for your trouble ! " This is me, the Cheap Jack. But on the Monday morning, in the same market-place, comes the Dear Jack on the hustings — his cart — and what does he say 1 " Now my free and independent woters, I am a going to give you such a chance " (he begins just like me) " as you never had in all j^our born days, and that's the chance of sending Myself to Parliament. Now I'll tell you what I am a going to do for you. Here's the interests of this magnificent town promoted above all the rest of the civilised and uncivilised earth. Here's your railways carried, and your neigh- bours' railways jockeyed. Here's all your sons in the Post-office. Here's Britannia smiling on you. Here's the eyes of Europe on you. Here's uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of animal food, golden cornfields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of applause from your own hearts, all in one lot, and that's myself. Will you take me as I stand ? You won't ? Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come now ! I'll throw you in anything you ask for. There ! Church- rates, abolition of church-rates, more malt tax, no malt tax, uniwer- sal education to the highest mark, or uniwersal ignorance to the j lowest, total abolition of flogging in the army or a dozen for every j private once a month all round. Wrongs of Men or Rights of Women I — only say which it shall be, take 'em or leave 'em, and I'm of your opinion altogether, and the lot's your own on your own terms. There ! You won't take it yet ! Well, then, I'll tell you what j I'll do with you. Come ! You are such free and independent i woters, and I a77i so proud of you, — you are such a noble and en- lightened constituency, and I a7?i so ambitious of the honour and dignity of being your member, which is by far the highest level to which the wings of the human mind can soar, — that I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll throw you in all the public-houses in your magnificent town for nothing. Will that content you ? It won't 1 You won't take the lot yet ? Well, then, before I put the DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 427 horse in aud drive away, and make the offer to the next most mag- nificent town that can be discovered, I'll tell you what I'll do. Take the lot, and I'll drop two thousand pound in the streets of your mag- nificent town for them to pick up that can. Not enough ? Now look here. This is the very furthest that I'm a going to. I'll make it two thousand five hundred. And still you won't ? Here, missis ! Put the horse — no, stop half a moment, I shouldn't like to turn my back upon you neither for a trifle, I'll make it two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound. There ! Take the lot on your own terms, and I'll count out two thousand .^even hundred and fifty pound on the footboard of the cart, to be dropped in the streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can. What do you say ? Come now ! You won't do better, and you may do worse. You take it 1 Hooray ! Sold again, and got the seat ! " These Dear Jacks soap the people shameful, but we Cheap Jacks don't. We tell 'em the truth about themselves to their faces, and scorn to court 'em. As to wenturesomeness in the way of pufting up the lots, the Dear Jacks beat us hollow. It is considered in the Cheap Jack calling, that better patter can be made out of a gun than any article we put up from the cart, except a pair of spectacles. I often hold forth about a gun for a quarter of an hour, and feel as if I need never leave oft'. But when I tell 'em what the gun can do, and what the gun has brought down, I never go half so far as the Dear Jacks do when they make speeches in praise of theh- guns — their great guns that set 'em on to do it. Besides, I'm in busi- ness for myself : I ain't sent down into the market-place to order, as they are. Besides, again, my guns don't know what I say in their laudation, and their gims do, and the whole concern of 'em have rea- son to be sick and ashamed all round. These are some of my argu- ments for declaring that the Cheap Jack calling is treated ill in Great Britain, and for turning warm when I think of the other Jacks in question setting themselves up to pretend to look down upon it. I courted my wife from the footboard of the cart. I did indeed. She was a Suffolk young woman, and it was in Ipswich market- place right opposite the corn-chandler's shop. I had noticed her up at a window last Saturday that was, appreciating highly. I had took to her, and I had said to myself, " If not already disposed of, I'll have that lot." Next Saturday that come, I pitched the cart on the same pitch, and I was in very high feather indeed, keeping 'em laughing the whole of the time, and getting off the goods briskly. At last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket a small lot wrapped in soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the window where she was). " Now here, my blooming English maidens, is an article, the last article of the present evening's sale, which I offer to only 428 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. " you, the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and I won't take a bid of a thousand pounds for from any man alive. Now what is it 1 Why, I'll tell you what it is. It's made of fine gold, and it's not broke, though there's a hole in the middle of it, and it's stronger than any fetter that ever was forged, though its smaller than any finger in my set of ten. Why ten ? Because, when my parents made over my property to me, I tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve table-cloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and twelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen, and could never since be matched. Now what else is it ? Come, I'll tell you. It's a hoop of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that I myself took oflF the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle- street, London city ; I wouldn't tell you so if I hadn't the paper to show, or you mightn't believe it even of me. Now what else is it ? It's a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all in gold and all in one. Now what else is it ? It's a wedding-ring. Now I'll tell you what I'm a going to do with it. I'm not a going to offer this lot for money ; but I mean to give it to the next of you beauties that laughs, and I'll pay her a visit to-morrow morn- ing at exactly half after nine o'clock as the chimes go, and I'll take her out for a walk to put up the banns." She laughed, and got the ring handed up to her. When I called in the morning, she says, " dear ! It's never you, and you never mean it ? " " It's ever me," says I, "and I am ever yours, and I ever mean it." So we got married, after being put up three times — which, by the bye, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the , Cheap Jack customs pervade society. She wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could have | parted with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn't have swopped ' her away in exchange for any other woman in England. Not that I ever did swop her away, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year. Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, I'll let you into a secret, though you won't believe it. Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would try the worst of you, but tliirteen • year of temper in a Cart would try the best of you. You are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see. There's thousands of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to the Divorce Court in a cart. Whether the jolting makes it worse, I don't undertake to decide ; but in a cart it does come home to you, and stick to you. | Wiolence in a cart is so wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is so | aggrawating. We might have had such a pleasant life ! A roomy cart, with the DOCTOK MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 429 large goods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fire-iDlace for the cold weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog and a horse. What more do you want 1 You draw off upon a bit of turf in a green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light your fire upon the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn't call the Emperor of France your father. But have a temper in the cart, flinging lan- guage and the hardest goods in stock at you, and where are you then ? Put a name to your feelings. My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before she broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it, was a mystery to me ; but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him out of his soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and bolt. At such times I wished I was him. The worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and I love children with all my heart. When she was in her furies she beat the child. This got to be so shocking, as the child got to be four or five year old, that I have many a time gone on with my whip over my shoulder, at the old horse's head, sobbing and crying worse than ever little Sophy did. For how could I prevent it ? Such a thing is not to be tried with such a temper — in a cart — without coming to a fight. It's in the natural size and formation of a cart to bring it to a fight. And then the poor child got worse terrified than before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her mother made complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word went round, " Here's a wretch of a Cheap Jack been a beating his wife." Little Sophy was such a brave child ! She grew to be quite de- voted to her poor father, though he could do so little to help her. She had a wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural about her. It is quite astonishing to me now, that I didn't go tearing mad when I used to see her run from her mother before the cart, and her mother catch her by this hair, and pull her down by it, and beat her. Such a brave child I said she was ! Ah ! with reason. "Don't you mind next time, father dear," she would whisper to me, with her little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet ; " if I don't cry out, you may know I am not much hurt. And even if I do cry out, it will only be to get mother to let go and leave off"." What I have seen the little spirit bear — forme — without crying out ! Yet in other respects her mother took great care of her. Her clothes were always clean and neat, and her mother was never tired of working at 'em. Such is the inconsistency in things. Our being 430 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. clown in the marsh country in unhealthy weather, I consider the cause of Sophy's taking bad low fever ; but however she took it, once she got it she turned away from her mother for evermore, and nothing would persuade her to be touched by her mother's hand. She would shiver and say, "No, no, no," when it was offered at, and would hide her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter round the neck. The Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had known it, what with one thing and what with another (and not least with railroads, which will cut it all to pieces, I expect, at last), and I was run dry of money. For which reason, one night at that period of little Sophy's being so bad, either we must have come to a dead- lock for victuals and drink, or I must have pitched the cart as I did. I couldn't get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and indeed I hadn't the heart to try, so I stepj^ed out on the footboard with her holding round my neck. They all set up a laugh when they see us, and one chuckle-headed Joskin (that I hated for it) made the bidding, " Tuppence for her ! " "Now, you country boobies," says I, feeling as if my heart was a heavy weight at the end of a broken sashline, " I give you notice that I am a going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to give you so much more than your money's worth that you'll only persuade yourselves to draw your Saturday night's wages ever again arterwards by the hopes of meeting me to lay 'em out with, which you never will, and why not ? Because I've made my fortune by selling my goods on a large scale for seventy-five per cent, less than I give for 'em, and I am consequently to be elevated to the House of Peers next week, by the title of the Duke of Cheap and Markis Jackaloorul. Now let's know what you want to-night, and you shall have it. But first of all, shall I tell you why I have got this little girl round my neck ? You don't want to know 1 Then you shall. She belongs to the Fairies. She's a fortune-teller. She can tell me all about you in a whisper, and can put me up to whether you're going to buy a lot or leave it. Now do you want a saw 1 No, she says you don't, because you're too clumsy to use one. Else here's a saw which would be a lifelong blessing to a handy man, at four shillings, at three and six, at three, at two and six, at two, at eighteen-pence. But none of you shall have it at any price, on account of your well-known awkwardness, which would make it manslaughter. The same objection applies to this set of three planes which I won't let you have neither, so don't bid for 'em. Now I am a going to ask her what you do want." (Then I whispered, "Your head burns so, that I am afraid it hurts you bad, my pet," and she answered, without opening her heavy eyes, "Just DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 431 a little, father.") "0 ! This little fortune-teller says it's a memo- randum-book you want. Then why didn't you mention it ? Here it is. Look at it. Two hundred superfine hot-pressed wire-wove pages — if you don't believe me, count 'em — ready ruled for your expenses, an everlastingly pointed pencil to put 'em down with, a double-bladed penknife to scratch 'em out with, a book of printed tables to calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to sit down upon while you give your mind to it ! Stop ! And an umbrella to keep the moon off when you give your mind to it on a pitch dark night. Now I won't ask you how much for the ipt, but how little ? How little are you thinking of? Don't be ashamed to mention it, be- cause my fortune-teller knows already." (Then making believe to whisper, I kissed her, and she kissed me.) "Why, she says you are thinking of as little as three and threepence ! I couldn't have be- lieved it, even of j^ou, unless she told me. Three and threepence ! And a set of printed tables in the lot that'll calculate your income up to forty thousand a year ! With an income of forty thousand a year, you grudge three and sixpence. Well then, I'll tell you my opinion. I so despise the threepence, that I'd sooner take three shillings. There. For three shillings, three shillings, three shillings ! Gone. Hand 'em over to the lucky man." As there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and grinned at everybody, while I touched little Sophy's face and asked her if she felt faint, or giddy. " Not very, father. It will soon be over." Then turning from the pretty patient eyes, which' were opened now, and seeing nothing but grins across my lighted grease- pot, I went on again in my Cheap Jack style. "Where's the butcher 1 " (My sorrowful eye had just caught sight of a fat young butcher on the outside of the crowd.) " She says the good luck is the butcher's. Where is he 1 " Everybody handed on the blush- ing butcher to the front, and there was a roar, and the butcher felt himself obliged to put his hand in his pocket, and take the lot. The party so picked out, in general, does feel obliged to take the lot — good four times out of six. Then we had another lot, the counterpart of that one, and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is always wery much enjoyed. Then we had the spectacles. It ain't a special profitable lot, but I put 'em on, and I see what the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer is going to take off the taxes, and I see what the sweetheart of the young woman in the shawl is doing at home, and I see what the Bishops has got for dinner, and a deal more that seldom fails to fetch 'em up in their spirits ; and the better their spirits, the better their bids. Then we had the ladies' lot — the teapot, tea-caddy, glass sugar-basin, half-a-dozen spoons, and caudle- cup — and all the time I was making similar excuses to give a look 432 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. or two and say a word or two to my poor child. It was w^hile the second ladies' lot was holding 'em enchained that I felt her lift her- self a little on my shoulder, to look across the dark street. " What troubles you, darling ? " " Nothing troubles me, father. I am not at all troubled. But don't I see a pretty churchyard over there ? " " Yes, my dear." " Kiss me twice, dear father, and lay me down to rest upon that churchyard grass so soft and green." I staggered back into the cart with her head dropped on my shoulder, and I says to her mother, " Quick. Shut the door ! Don't let those laughing peo- ple see ! " "What's the matter? " she cries. " woman, woman," I tells her, " you'll never catch my little Sophy by her hair again, for she has flown away from you ! " Maybe those were harder words than I meant 'em ; but from that time forth my wife took to brooding, and would sit in the cart or walk beside it, hours at a stretch, with her arms crossed, and her eyes looking on the ground. When her furies took her (which was rather seldomer than before) they took her in a new way, and she banged herself about to that extent that I w^as forced to hold her. She got none the better for a little drink now and then, and through some years I used to wonder, as I plodded along at the old horse's head, whether there was many carts upon the road that held so much dreariness as mine, for all my being looked up to as the King of the Cheap Jacks. So sad our lives went on till one sum- mer evening, when, as we were coming into Exeter, out of the farther West of England, we saw a woman beating a child in a cruel man- ner, who screamed, "'Don't beat me ! mother, mother, mother ! " Then my wife stopped her ears, and ran away like a wild thing, and next day she was found in the river. Me and my dog were all the company left in the cart now ; and the dog learned to give a short bark when they wouldn't bid, and to give another and a nod of his head when I asked him, " Who said half a'crown ? Are you the gentleman, sir, that off'ered half a crown ? " He attained to an immense height of popularity, and I shall always believe taught himself entirely out of his own head to growl at any person in the crowd that bid as low as sixpence. But he got to be well on in years, and one night when I was conwulsing York with the spectacles, he took a conwulsion on his owti account upon the very footboard by me, and it finished him. Being naturally of a tender turn, I had dreadful lonely feehngs on me arter this. I conquered 'em at selling times, having a repu- tation to keep (not to mention keeping myself), but they got me down in private, and rolled upon me. That's often the way with us public characters. See us on the footboard, and you'd give pretty well anything you possess to be us. See us off the footboard, and DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 433 you'd add a trifle to be off your bargain. It was under those cir- cumstances that I come acquainted with a giant. I might have been too high to fall into conversation with him, had it not been for my lonely feelings. For the general rule is, going round the coun- try, to draw the line at dressing up. When a man can't trust his getting a living to his undisguised abilities, you consider him below your sort. And this giant when on view figured as a Roman. He was a languid young man, which I attribute to the distance betwixt his extremities. He had a little head and less in it, he had weak eyes and weak knees, and altogether you couldn't look at him without feeling that there was greatly too much of him both for his joints and his mind. But he was an amiable though timid young man (his mother let him out, and spent the money), and we come acquainted when he was walking to ease the horse betwixt two fairs. He was called Rinaldo di Velasco, his name being Pickleson. This giant, otherwise Pickleson, mentioned to me under the seal of confidence that, beyond his being a burden to himself, his life was made a burden to him by the cruelty of his master towards a step- daughter who was deaf and dumb. Her mother was dead, and she had no living soul to take her part, and was used most hard. She travelled with his master's caravan only because there was nowhere to leave her, and this giant, otherwise Pickleson, did go so far as to believe that his master often tried to lose her. He was such a very languid young man, that I don't know how long it didn't take him to get this story out, but it passed through his defective circulation to his top extremity in course of time. When I heard this account from the giant, otherwise Pickleson, and likewise that the poor girl had beautiful long dark hair, and was often pulled down by it and beaten, I couldn't see the giant through what stood in my eyes. Having wiped 'em, I give him sixpence (for he was kept as short as he was long), and he laid it out in two threepenn'orths of gin-and-water, which so brisked him up, that he sang the Favourite Comic of Shivery Shakey, ain't it cold ? — a popular effect which his master had tried every other means to get out of him as a Roman wholly in vain. His master's name was Mim, a wery hoarse man, and I knew him to speak to. I went to that Fair as a mere civilian, leaving the cart outside the town, and I looked about the back of the Vans while the performing was going on, and at last, sitting dozing against a muddy cart-wheel, I come upon the poor girl who was deaf and dumb. At the first look I might almost have judged that she had escaped from the Wild Beast Show ; but at the second I thought better of her, and thought that if she was more cared for and more kindly used she would be like my child. She was just the same 2f 434 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. i age that my own daughter would have been, if her pretty head had not fell down upon my shoulder that unfortunate night. To cut it short, I spoke confidential to Mini while he was beat- ing the gong outside betwixt two lots of Pickleson's publics, and I put it to him, "She lies heavy on your own hands ; what'll you take for her ? " Mim was a most ferocious swearer. Suppressing that part of his reply which was much the longest part, his reply was, " A pair of braces." "Now I'll tell you," says I, "what I'm a going to do with you. I'm a going to fetch you half-a-dozen pair of the primest braces in the cart, and then to take her away with me." Says Mim (again ferocious), " I'll believe it when I've got the goods, and no sooner." I made all the haste I could, lest he should think twice of it, and the bargain was completed, which Pickleson he was thereby so relieved in his mind that he come out at his little back door, longways like a serpent, and give us Shivery Shakey in a whisper among the wheels at parting. It was happy days for both of us when Sophy and me began to travel in the cart. I at once give her the name of Sophy, to put her ever towards me in the attitude of my own daughter. We soon made out to begin to understand one another, through the goodness of the Heavens, when she knowed that I meant true and kind by her. In a very little time she was wonderful fond of me. You have no idea what it is to have anybody wonderful fond of you, unless you have been got down and rolled upon by the lonely feelings that I have mentioned as having once got the better of me. You'd have laughed — or the rewerse — it's according to your disposition — if you could have seen me trying to teach Sophy. At first I was helped — you'd never guess by what — milestones. I got some large alphabets in a box, all the letters separate on bits of bone, and saying we was going to Windsor, I give her those letters in that order, and then at every milestone I showed her those same letters in that same order again, and pointed towards the abode of royalty. Another time I give her CART, and then chalked the same upon the cart. Another time I give her DOC- TOR MARIGOLD, and hung a corresponding inscription outside my waistcoat. People that met us might stare a bit and laugh, but what did / care, if she caught the idea ? She caught it after long patience and trouble, and then we did begin to get on swim- mingly, I believe you ! At first she was a little given to consider me the cart, and the cart the abode of royalty, but that soon wore oJQT. We had our signs, too, and they was hundreds in number. Sometimes she would sit looking at me and considering hard how to communicate with me about somethins: fresh, — how to ask me DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 435 what she wanted explained, — and then she was (or I thought she was; what does it signify?) so like my child with those years added to her, that I half-believed it was herself, trying to tell me where she had been to up in the skies, and what she had seen since that unhappy night when she flied away. She had a pretty face, and now that there was no one to drag at her bright dark hair, and it was all in order, there was a something touching in her looks that made the cart most peaceful and most quiet, though not at all melancholy. [N.B. In the Cheap Jack patter, we generally sound it lemonjoUy, and it gets a laugh.] The way she learnt to understand any look of mine was truly surprising. When I sold of a night, she would sit in the cart unseen by them outside, and would give a eager look into my eyes when I looked in, and would hand me straight the precise article or articles I wanted. And then she would clap her hands, and laugh for joy. And as for me, seeing her so bright, and remember- ing what she was when I first lighted on her, starved and beaten and ragged, leaning asleep against the muddy cart-wheel, it give me such heart that I gained a greater heighth of reputation than ever, and I put Pickleson down (by the name of Mim's Travelling Griant otherwise Pickleson) for a fypunnote in my will. This happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen year old. By which time I began to feel not satisfied that I had done my whole duty by her, and to consider that she ought to have better teaching than I could give her. It drew a many tears on both sides when I commenced explaining my views to her ; but what's right is right, and you can't neither by tears nor laughter do away with its character. So I took her hand in mine, and I went with her one day to the Deaf and Dumb Establishment in London, and when the gentle- man come to speak to us, I says to him : "Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you, sir. I am nothing but a Cheap Jack, but of late years I have laid by for a rainy day notwithstanding. This is my only daughter (adopted), and you can't produce a deafer nor a dumber. Teach her the most that can be taught her in the short- est separation that can be named, — state the figure for it, — and I am game to put the money down. I won't bate you a single farthing, sir, but I'll put down the money here and now, and I'll thankfully throw you in a pound to take it. There ! " The gentle- man smiled, and then, "Well, well," says he, "I must first know what she has learned already. How do you communicate with her?" Then I showed him, and she wrote in printed writing many names of things and so forth ; and we held some sprightly conversation, Sophy and me, about a little story in a book which 436 DOCTOK MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. the gentleman showed her, and which she was able to read. " This is most extraordinary," says the gentleman; "is it possible that you have been her only teacher ?" " I have been her only teacher, sir," I says, " besides herself." " Then," says the gentleman, and more acceptable words was never spoke to me, "you're a clever fellow, and a good fellow." This he makes known to Sophy, who kisses his hands, claps her own, and laughs and cries upon it. AVe saw the gentleman four times in all, and when he took down my name and asked how in tlie world it ever chanced to be Doctor, it come out that he was own nephew by the sister's side, if you'll believe me, to the very Doctor that I was called after. This made our footing still easier, and he says to me : " Now, Marigold, tell me what more do you want your adopted daughter to know 1 " " I want her, sir, to be cut off from the world as little as can be, considering her deprivations, and therefore to be able to read what- ever is wrote with perfect ease and pleasure." " My good fellow," urges the gentleman, opening his eyes wide, " why / can't do that myself ! " I took his joke, and gave him a laugh (knowing by experience how flat you fall without it), and I mended my words accordingly. " What do you mean to do with her afterwards ? " asks the gentle- man, with a sort of a doubtful eye. ' ' To take her about the country ? " "In the cart, sir, but only in the cart. She will live a private life, you understand, in the cart. I should never think of bring- ing her infirmities before the public. I wouldn't make a show of her for any money." The gentleman nodded, and seemed to approve. "Well," says he, "can you part with her for two years'?" " To do her that good, — yes, sir." "There's another question," says the gentleman, looking towards her, — " can she part with you for two years 1 " I don't know that it was a harder matter of itself (for the other was hard enough to me), but it was harder to get over. However, she was pacified to it at last, and the separation betwixt us was settled. How it cut up both of us when it took place, and when I left her at the door in the dark of an evening, I don't tell. But I know this; remembering that night, I shall never pass that same establishment without a heartache and a swelling in the throat ; and I couldn't put you up the best of lots in sight of it with my usual spirit, — no, not even the gun, nor the pair of spec- tacles, — for five hundred pound reward from the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and throw in the honour of put- ting my legs under his mahogany arterwards. DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 437 Still, the loneliness that followed in the cart was not the old loneliness, because there was a term put to it, however long to look forward to ; and because I could think, when I was anyways down, that she belonged to me and I belonged to her. Always planning for her coming back, I bought in a few months' time another cart, and what do you think I planned to do with it ? I'll tell you. I planned to fit it up with shelves and books for her reading, and to have a seat in it where I could sit and see her read, and think that I had been her first teacher. Not hurrying over the job, I had the fittings knocked together in contriving ways under ray own inspection, and here was her bed in a berth with curtains, and there was her reading-table, and here was her writing-desk, and elsewhere was her books in rows upon rows, picters and no pict- ers, bindings and no bindings, gilt-edged and plain, just as I could pick 'em up for her in lots up and down the country. North and South and West and East, Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone astray, Over the hills and far away. And when I had got together pretty well as many books as the cart would neatly hold, a new scheme come into my head, which, as it turned out, kept my time and attention a good deal employed, and helped me over the two years' stile. Without being of an awaricious temper, I like to be the owner of things. I shouldn't wish, for instance, to go partners with yourself in the Cheap Jack cart. It's not that I mistrust you, but that I'd rather know it was mine. Similarly, very likely you'd rather know it was yours. Well ! A kind of a jealousy began to creep into my mind when I reflected that all those books would have been read by other people long before they was read by her. It seemed to take away from her being the owner of 'em like. In this way, the question got into my head : Couldn't I have a book new-made express for her, which she should be the first to read ? It pleased m.e, that thought did ; and as I never was a man to let a thought sleep (you must wake up all the whole family of thoughts you've got and burn their nightcaps, or you won't do in the Cheap Jack line), I set to work at it. Considering that I was in the habit of changing so much about the country, and that I should have to find out a literary character here to make a deal with, and another literary character there to make a deal with, as opportunities presented, I hit on the plan that this same book should be a general miscellaneous lot, — like the razors, flat-iron, chronometer watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass, — and shouldn't be offered as a single indiwidual article, like the spectacles or the gun. When I had come to that conclusion, I come to another, which shall likewise be yours. 438 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. Often had I regretted that she never had heard me on the foot- board, and that she never could hear me. It ain't that / am vain, but that you don't Uke to put your own light under a bushel. What's the worth of your reputation, if you can't convey the reason for it to the person you most wish to value it 1 Now I'll put it to you. Is it worth sixpence, fippence, fourpence, threepence, two- pence, a penny, a halfpenny, a farthing'? No, it ain't. Not worth a farthing. Very well, then. My conclusion was that I would begin her book with some account of myself. So that, through reading a specimen or two of me on the footboard, she might form an idea of my merits there. I was aware that I couldn't do myself justice. A man can't write his eye (at least / don't know how to), nor yet can a man write his voice, nor the rate of his talk, nor the quickness of his action, nor his general spicy way. But he can write his turns of speech, when he is a public speaker, — and indeed I have heard that he very often does, before he speaks 'em. Well ! Having formed that resolution, then come the question of a name. How did I hammer that hot iron into shape 1 This way. The most difficult explanation I had ever had with her was, how I come to be called Doctor, and yet was no Doctor. After all, I felt that I had failed of getting it correctly into her mind, with my utmost pains. But trusting to her improvement in the two years, I thought that I might trust to her understanding it when she should come to read it as put down by my own hand. Then I thought I would try a joke with her and watch how it took, by which of itself I might fully judge of her understanding it. We had first discovered the mistake we had dropped into, through her having asked me to prescribe for her when she had supposed me to be a Doctor in a medical point of view ; so thinks I, " Now, if I give this book the name of my Prescriptions, and if she catches the idea that my only Prescriptions are for her amusement and interest, — to make her laugh in a pleasant way, or to make her cry in a pleasant way, — it will be a delightful proof to both of us that we have got over our difficulty." It fell out to absolute perfection. For when she saw the book, as I had it got up, — the printed and pressed book, — lying on her desk in her cart, and saw the title. Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions, she looked at me for a moment with astonishment, then fluttered the leaves, then broke out a laughing in the charmingest way, then felt her pulse and shook her head, then turned the pages pretending to read them most attentive, then kissed the book to me, and put it to her bosom with both her hands. I never was better pleased in all my life ! DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 439 But let me not anticipate. (I take that expression out of a lot of romances I bought for her. I never opened a single one of 'em — and I have opened many — but I found the romancer say- ing "let me not anticipate." Which being so, I wonder why he did anticipate, or who asked him to do it.) Let me not, I say, anticipate. This same book took up all my spare time. It was no play to get the other articles together in the general miscellane- ous lot, but when it come to my own article ! There ! I couldn't have believed the blotting, nor yet the buckling to at it, nor the patience over it. Which again is like the footboard. The public have no idea. At last it was done, and the tw^o years' time was gone after all the other time before it, and where it's all gone to, who knows 1 The new cart was finished, — yellow outside, relieved with wermilion and brass fittings, — the old horse was put in it, a new 'un and a boy being laid on for the Cheap Jack cart, — and I cleaned myself up to go and fetch her. Bright cold weather it was, cart-chimneys smoking, carts pitched private on a piece of waste ground over at Wandsworth, where you may see 'em from the Soii'western Railway when not upon the road. (Look out of the right-hand window going dowm.) "Marigold," says the gentleman, giving his hand hearty, "I am very glad to see you," " Yet I have my doubts, sir," says I, "if you can be half as glad to see me as I am to see you." " The time has appeared so long, — has it, Marigold?" " I won't say that, sir, considering its real length ; but — " " What a start, my good fellow ! " Ah ! I should think it was ! Grown such a woman, so pretty, so intelligent, so expressive ! I knew then that she must be really like my child, or I could never have known her, standing quiet by the door. "You are affected," says the gentleman in a kindly manner. " I feel, sir," says I, " that I am but a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat." "I feel," says the gentleman, "that it was you who raised her from misery and degradation, and brought her into communication with her kind. But why do we converse alone together, when we can converse so well with her? Address her in your own way." "I am such a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat, sir," says I, "and she is such a graceful woman, and she stands so quiet at the door ! " " Try if she moves at the old sign," says the gentleman. They had got it up together o' purpose to please me ! For when 440 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. I give her the old sign, she rushed to my feet, and dropped upon her knees, holding up her hands to me with pouring tears of love and joy ; and when I took her hands and lifted her, she clasped me round the neck, and lay there ; and I don't know what a fool I didn't make of myself, until we all three settled down into talking without sound, as if there was a something soft and pleasant spread over the whole world for us. [A portion is here omitted from the text, having reference to the sketches contributed by other writers; but the reader will be pleased to have what follows retained in a note : " Now I'll tell you what I am a going to do with you. I am a going to offer you the general miscellaneous lot, her own book, never read by anybody else but me, added to and completed by me after her first reading of it, eight-and-forty printed pages, six- and-ninety columns. Whiting's own work, Beaufort House to wit, thrown off by the steam-ingine, best of paper, beautiful green wrapper, folded like clean linen come home from the clear-starcher's, and so exquisitely stitched that, regarded as a piece of needlework alone, it's better than the sampler of a seamstress undergoing a Competitive examination for Starvation before the Civil Service Commissioners — and I offer the lot for what ? For eight pound ? Not so much. For six pound ? Less. For four pound. Why, I hardly expect you to believe me, but that's the sum. Four pound ! The stitching alone cost half as much again. Here's forty-eight original pages, ninety-six original columns, for four pound. You want more for the money 1 Take it. Three whole pages of advertisements of thrilling interest thrown in for nothing. Read 'em and believe 'em. More ? My best of wishes for your merry Christmases and your happy New Years, your long lives and your true prosperities. Worth twenty pound good if they are delivered as I send them. Remember ! Here's a final prescrip- tion added, "To be taken for life," which will tell you how the cart broke down, and where the journey ended. You think Four Pound too much ? And still you think so 1 Come ! I'll tell you what then. Say Four Pence, and keep the secret."] DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 441 Chapter II. TO BE TAKEN FOE LIFE. So every item of my plan was crowned with success. Our re- united life was more than all that we had looked forward to. Content and joy went with us as the wheels of the two carts went round, and the same stopi^ed with us when the two carts stopped. I was as pleased and as proud as a Pug-Dog with his muzzle black-leaded for a evening party, and his tiiil extra curled by machinery. But I had left something out of my calculations. Now, what had I left out 1 To help you to guess I'll say, a figure. Come. Make a guess and guess right. Nought? No. Nine? No. Eight? No. Seven? No. Six? No. Five? No. Four? No. Three ? No. Two ? No. One ? No. Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll say it's another sort of figure alto- gether. There. Why then, says you, it's a mortal figure. No, nor yet a mortal figure. By such means you get yourself penned into a corner, and you can't help guessing a immoi'tdl figure. That's about it. Why didn't you say so sooner ? Yes. It was a immortal figure that I had altogether left out of my calculations. Neither man's, nor woman's, but a child's. Girl's or boy's ? Boy's. " I, says the sparrow, with my bow and arrow." Now you have got it. We were down at Lancaster, and I had done two nights more than fair average business (though I cannot in honour recommend them as a quick audience) in the open square tliere, near the end of the street where Mr. Sly's King's Arms and Royal Hotel stands. Mini's travelling giant, otherwise Pickleson, happened at the self- same time to be trying it on in the town. The genteel lay was adopted with him. No hint of a van. Green baize alcove leading up to Pickleson in a Auction Room. Printed poster, " Free list suspended, with the exception of that proud boast of an enlight- ened country, a free press. Schools admitted by private arrange- ment. Nothing to raise a blush in the cheek of youth or shock the most fastidious." Mim swearing most horrible and terrific, in a pink calico pay-place, at the slackness of the public. Serious handbill in the shops, importing that it was all but impossible to come to a right understanding of the history of David without seeing Pickleson. I went to the Auction Room in question, and I found it entirely empty of everything but echoes and mouldiness, with the single exception of Pickleson on a piece of red drugget. This suited my 442 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. purpose, as I wanted a private and confidential word with him, which was : " Picklesou. Owing much happiness to you, I put you in my will for a fypunnote ; but, to save trouble, here's four- punten down, which may equally suit your views, and let us so conclude the transaction." Pickleson, who up to that remark had had the dejected appearance of a long Roman rushlight that couldn't anyhow get lighted, brightened up at his top extremity, and made his acknowledgments in a way which (for him) was parliamentary eloquence. He likewise did add, that, having ceased to draw as a Roman, Mim had made proposals for his going in as a conwerted Indian Giant worked upon by The Dairyman's Daughter. This, Pickleson, having no acquaintance with the tract named after that young woman, and not being willing to couple gag with his serious views, had declined to do, thereby leading to words and the total stoppage of the unfortunate young man's beer. All of which, during the whole of the interview, was confirmed by the ferocious growling of Mim down below in the pay-place, which shook the giant like a leaf But what was to the present point in the remarks of the travel- ling giant, otherwise Pickleson, was this: "Doctor Marigold," — I give his words without a hope of conweying their feebleness, — " who is the strange young man that hangs about your carts ? " — " The strange young man ? " I gives him back, thinking that he meant her, and his languid circulation had dropped a syllable. "Doctor," he returns, with a pathos calculated to draw a tear from even a manly eye, " I am weak, but not so weak yet as that I don't know my words. I repeat them, Doctor. The strange young man." It then appeared that Pickleson, being forced to stretch his legs (not that they wanted it) only at times when he couldn't be seen for nothing, to wit in the dead of the night and towards daybreak, had twice seen hanging about my carts, in that same town of Lancaster where I had been only two nights, this same unknown young man. It put me rather out of sorts. What it meant as to particulars I no more foreboded then than you forebode now, but it put me rather out of sorts. Howsoever, I made light of it to Pickleson, and I took leave of Pickleson, advising him to spend his legacy in getting up his stamina, and to continue to stand by his religion. Towards morning I kept a look out for the strange young man, and — what was more — I saw the strange young man. He was well dressed and well looking. He loitered very nigh my carts, watching them like as if he was taking care of them, and soon after daybreak turned and went away. I sent a hail after him, but he never started or looked round, or took the smallest notice. DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 443 We left Lancaster within an hour or two, on our way towards CarUsle. Next morning, at daybreak, I looked out again for the strange young man. I did not see him. But next morning I looked out again, and there he was once more. I sent another hail after him, but as before he gave not the slightest sign of being anyways disturbed. This put a thought into my head. Acting on it I watched him in different manners and at different times not necessary to enter into, till I found that this strange young man was deaf and dumb. The discovery turned me over, because I knew that a part of that establishment where she had been was allotted to young men (some of them well off), and I thought to myself, " If she favours him, where am I ? and where is all that I have worked and planned for 1 " Hoiking — I must confess to the selfishness — that she might Jiot favour him, I set myself to find out. At last I was by accident present at a meeting between them in the open air, look- ing on leaning behind a fir-tree without their knowing of it. It was a moving meeting for all the three jDarties concerned. I knew every syllable that passed between them as well as they did. I listened with my eyes, which had come to be as quick and true with deaf and dumb conversation as my ears with the talk of people that can speak. He was a going out to China as clerk in a merchant's house, which his father had been before him. He was in circum- stances to keep a wife, and he wanted her to marry him and go along with him. She persisted, no. He asked if she didn't love him. Yes, she loved him dearly, dearly ; but she could never dis- appoint her beloved, good, noble, generous, and I-don't-know-what- all father (meaning me, the Cheap Jack in the sleeved waistcoat) and she would stay with him, Heaven bless him ! though it was to break her heart. Then she cried most bitterly, and that made up my mind. While my mind had been in an unsettled state about her favour- ing this young man, I had felt that unreasonable towards Pickleson, that it was well for him he had got his legacy down. For I often thought, "If it hadn't been for this same weak-minded giant, I might never have come to trouble my head and wex my soul about the young man." But, once that I knew she loved him, — once that I had seen her weep for him, — it was a different thing. I made it right in my mind with Pickleson on the spot, and I shook myself together to do what was right by all. She had left the young man by that time (for it took a few min- utes to get me thoroughly well shook together), and the young man was leaning against another of the fir-trees, — of which there was a cluster, — with his face upon his arm. I touched him on the back. 444 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. Looking up and seeing me, he says, in our deaf-and-dumb talk, "Do not be angry." " I am not angry, good boy. I am your friend. Come with me." I left him at the foot of the steps of the Library Cart, and I went up alone. She was drying her eyes. "You have been crying, my dear." "Yes, father." "Why?" "A headache." "Not a heartache?" "I said a headache, father." " Doctor Marigold must prescribe for that headache." She took up the book of my Prescriptions, and held it up with a forced smile ; but seeing me keep still and look earnest, she softly la-id it down again, and her eyes were veiy attentive. "The Prescription is not there, Sophy." "Where is it?" " Here, my dear." I brought her young husband in, and I put her hand in his, and my only farther words to both of them were these : " Doctor Mari- gold's last Prescription. To be taken for life." After which I bolted. When the wedding come off, I mounted a coat (blue, and bright buttons), for the first and last time in all my days, and I give Sophy away with my own hand. There were only us three and the gentleman who had had charge of her for those two years. I give the wedding dinner of four in the Library Cart. Pigeon-pie, a leg of pickled pork, a pair of fowls, and suitable garden stuff. The best of drinks. I give them a speech, and the gentleman give us a speech, and all our jokes told, and the whole went off like a sky-rocket. In the course of the entertainment I explained to Sophy that I should keep the Library Cart as my living-cart when not upon the road, and that I should keep all her books for her just as they stood, till she come back to claim them. So she went to China with her young husband, and it was a parting sorrowful and heavy, and I got the boy I had another service ; and so as of old, when my child and wife were gone, I went plodding along alone, with my whip over my shoulder, at the old horse's head. Sophy wrote me many letters, and I wrote her many letters. About the end of the first year she sent me one in an unsteady hand: "Dearest father, not a week ago I had a darling little daughter, but I am so well that they let me write these words to you. Dearest and best father, I hope my child may not be deaf DOCTOE MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 445 and dumb, but I do not yet know." When I wrote back, I hinted the question ; but as Sophy never answered that question, I felt it to be a sad one, and I never repeated it. For a long time our let- ters were regular, but then they got irregular, through Sophy's husband being moved to another station, and through my being always on the move. But Ave were in one another's thoughts, I was equally sure, letters or no letters. Five years, odd months, had gone since Sophy went away. I was still the King of the Cheap Jacks, and at a greater height of popularity than ever. I had had a first-rate a«tumn of it, and on the twenty-third of December, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, I found myself at Uxbridge, Middlesex, clean sold out. So I jogged up to London with the old horse, light and easy, to have my Christmas-eve and Christmas-day alone by the fire in the Library Cart, and then to buy a regular new stock of goods all round, to sell 'em again and get the money. I am a neat hand at cookery, and I'll tell you what I knocked up for my Christmas-eve dinner in the Library Cart. I knocked up a beefsteak-pudding for one, with two kidneys, a dozen oysters, and a couple of mushrooms thrown in. It's a pudding to put a man in good humour with everything, except the two bottom but- tons of his waistcoat. Having relished that pudding and cleared away, I turned the lamp low, and sat down by the light of the fire, watching it as it shone upon the backs of Soj^hy's books. Sophy's books so brought up Sophy's self, that I saw her touch- ing face quite plainly, before I dropped off dozing by the fire. This may be a reason why Sophy, with her deaf-and-dumb child in her arms, seemed to stand silent by me all through my nap. I was on the road, off the road, in all sorts of places. North and South and West and East, Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone astray. Over the hills and far away, and still she stood silent by me, with her silent child in her arms. Even when I woke with a start, she seemed to vanish, as if she had stood by me in that very place only a single instant before. I had started at a real sound, and the sound was on the steps of the cart. It was the light hurried tread of a child, coming clamber- ing up. That tread of a child had once been so familiar to me, that for half a moment I believed I was a going to see a little ghost. But the touch of a real child was laid upon the outer handle of the door, and the handle turned, and the door opened a little way, and a real child peeped in. A bright little comely girl with large dark eyes. Looking full at me, the tiny creature took off her mite of a 446 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. straw hat, and a quantity of dark curls fell all about her face. Then she opened her lips, and said in a pretty voice, " Grandfather ! " " Ah, my God ! " I cries out. " She can speak ! " "Yes, dear grandfather. And I am to ask you whether there was ever any one that I remind you of?" In a moment Sophy was round my neck, as well as the child, and her husband was a wringing my hand with his face hid, and we all had to shake ourselves together before we could get over it. And when we did begin to get over it, and I saw the pretty child a talking, pleased and quick and eager and busy, to her mother, in the signs that I had first taught her mother, the happy and yet pitying tears fell rolling down my face. Chapter III. TO BE TAKEN WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. I HAVE always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller, who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it ; but the same traveller, having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of thought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental impres- sion, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it. To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our experiences of these subjective things as we do our experiences of objective creation. The consequence is, that the general stock of experience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect of being miserably imperfect. In what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting up, opposing, or supporting, any theory whatever. I know the history of the Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of a late Astronomer Royal as related by Sir David Brewster, and I have followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of Spectral Illusion occurring within my private circle of friends. It may be necessary to state as to this last, that the sufi'erer (a lady) was in no degree, however distant, related to me. A mistaken assumption on that head might suggest an explanation of a part of DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 447 my own case, — but only a part, — which would be wholly without foundation. It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any devel- oped peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar experience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since. It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain murder was committed in England, which attracted great attention. We hear more than enough of murderers as they rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this particular brute, if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate Jail. I purposely abstain from giving any- direct clue to the criminal's individuality. When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell — or I ought rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell — on the man who was afterwards brought to trial. As no reference was at that time made to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any description of him can at that time have been given in the news- papers. It is essential that this fact be remembered. Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the account of that first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times. The discovery had been made in a bedroom, and, when I laid down the paper, I was aware of a flash — rush — flow — I do not know what to call it, — no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive, — in which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear ; so clear that I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of the dead body from the bed. It was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation, but in chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner of Saint James's- street. It was entirely new to me. I was in my easy-chair at the moment, and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver which started the chair from its position. (But it is to be noted that the chair ran easily on castors.) I went to one of the windows (there are two in the room, and the room is on the second floor) to refresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly. It was a bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and cheerful. The wind was high. As I looked out, it brought down from the Park a quantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took, and whirled into a spiral pillar. As the pillar fell and the leaves dis- persed, I saw two men on the opposite side of the way, going from West to East. They were one behind the other. The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The second man followed 448 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. him, at a distance of some thirty paces, with his right hand menac- ingly raised. First, the singularity and steadiness of this threaten- ing gesture in so public a thoroughfare attracted my attention ; and next, the more remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it. Both men threaded their way among the other passengers with a smoothness hardly consistent even with the action of walking on a pavement; and no single creature, that I could see, gave them place, touched them, or looked after them. In passing before my windows, they both stared up at me. I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that I could recognise them anywhere. Not that I had consciously noticed anything very remarkable in either face, except that the man who went first had an unusually lowering appearance, and that the face of the man who followed him was of the colour of impure wax. I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment. My occupation is in a certain Branch Bank, and I wish that my duties as head of a Department were as light as they are popularly supposed to be. They kept me in town that autumn, when I stood in need of change. I was not ill, but I was not well. My reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my feeling jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous life, and being " slightly dyspeptic." I am assured by my renowned doctor that my real state of health at that time justifies no stronger description, and I quote his own from his written answer to my request for it. As the circumstances of the murder, gradually unravelling, took stronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I kept them away from mine by knowing as little about them as was possible in the midst of the universal excitement. But I knew that a verdict of Wilful Murder had been found against the suspected murderer, and that he had been committed to Newgate for trial. I also knew that his trial had been postponed over one Sessions of the Central Criminal Court, on the ground of general prejudice and want of time for the preparation of the defence. I may further have known, but I believe I did not, when, or about when, the Sessions to which his trial stood postponed would come on. My sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room, are all on one floor. With the last there is no communication but through the bedroom. True, there is a door in it, once communicating with the staircase ; but a part of the fitting of my bath has been — and had then been for some years — fixed across it. At the same period, and as a part of the same arrangement, the door had been nailed up and canvassed over. I was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some direc- DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 449 tions to my servant before he went to bed. My face was towards the only available door of communication with the dressing-room, and it was closed. My servant's back was towards that door. While I was speaking to him, I saw it open, and a man look in, who very earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the man who had gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face was of the colour of impure wax. The figure, having beckoned, drew back, and closed the door. With no longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom, I opened the dressing-room door, and looked in. I had a lighted candle already in my hand. I felt no inward expectation of seeing the figure in the dressing-room, and I did not see it there. Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to him, and said: "Derrick, could you believe that in my cool senses I fancied I saw a — " As I there laid my hand upon his breast, with a sudden start he trembled violently, and said, " Lord, yes, sir ! A dead man beckoning ! " Now I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached servant for more than twenty years, had any impression whatever of having seen any such figure, until I touched him. The change in him was so startling, when I touched him, that I fully believe he derived his impression in some occult manner from me at that instant. I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a dram, and was glad to take one myself. Of what had preceded that night's phenomenon, I told him not a single word. Reflect- ing on it, I was absolutely certain that I had never seen that face before, except on the one occasion in Piccadilly. Comparing its expression when beckoning at the door with its expression when it had stared up at me as I stood at my window, I came to the con- clusion that on the first occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and that on the second occasion it had made sure of being immediately remembered. I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty, difficult to explain, that the figure would not return. At daylight I fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John Derrick's coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand. This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation at the door between its bearer and my servant. It was a sum- mons to me to serve upon a Jury at the forthcoming Sessions of the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey. I had never before been summoned on such a Jury, as John Derrick well knew. He believed — I am not certain at this hour whether with reason or otherwise — that that class of Jurors were customarily chosen on a 2g 450 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. lower qualification than mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons. The man who served it had taken the matter very coolly. He had said that my attendance or non-attendance was nothing to him ; there the summons was ; and I should deal with it at my own peril, and not at his. For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call, or take no notice of it. I was not conscious of the slightest mysterious bias, influence, or attraction, one way or other. Of that I am as strictly sure as of every other statement that I make here. Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life, that I would go. The appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of November. There was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly, and it became positively black and in the last degree oppressive East of Temple Bar. I found the passages and staircases of the Court- House flaringly lighted with gas, and the Court itself similarly illuminated. I think that, until I was conducted by officers into the Old Court and saw its crowded state, I did not know that the Murderer was to be tried that day. I thinl: that, until I was so helped into the Old Court with considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the two Courts sitting my summons would take me. But this must not be received as a positive assertion, for I am not completely satisfied in my mind on either point. I took my seat in the place appropriated to Jurors in waiting, and I looked about the Court as well as I could through the cloud of fog and breath that was heavj' in it. I noticed the black vapour hanging like a murky curtain outside the great windows, and I noticed the stifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that was littered in the street; also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill whistle, or a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally pierced. Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, entered, and took their seats. The buzz in the Court was awfully hushed. The direction was given to put the Murderer to the bar. He appeared there. And in that same instant I recognised in him the first of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly. If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have answered to it audibly. But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel, and I was by that time able to say, " Here ! " Now, observe. As I stepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been looking on attentively, but with no sign of concern, became violently agitated, and beckoned to his attorney. The prisoner's wish to challenge me was so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client, and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 451 gentleman, that the prisoner's first affrighted ^yords to him were, ^^ At all hazards, challenge that man!^^ But that, as he would give no reason for it, and admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it called and I appeared, it was not done. Both on the ground already explained, that I wish to avoid reviving the unwholesome memory of that Murderer, and also be- cause a detailed account of his long trial is by no means indispen- sable to my narrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the ten days and nights during which we, the Jury, were kept together, as directly bear on my own curious personal experience. It is in that, and not in the Murderer, that I seek to interest my reader. It is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I beg attention. I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morning of the trial, after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the church clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother jurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I counted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In short, I made them one too many. I touched the brother juryman whose place was next me, and I whispered to him, " Oblige me by counting us." He looked sur- prised by the request, but turned his head and counted. "Why," says he, suddenly, " we are Thirt — ; but no, it's not possible. No. We are twelve." According to my counting that day, we were always right in detail, but in the gross we were always one too many. There was no appearance — no figure — to account for it; but I had now an inward foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming. The Jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in one large room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the charge and under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safe- keeping. I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and (I was glad to hear) much respected in the City. He had an agreeable presence, good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a fine sonorous voice. His name was Mr. Harker. When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Harker's bed was drawn across the door. On the night of the second day, not being disposed to lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker sitting on his bed, I went and sat beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff. As Mr. Harker's hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a peculiar shiver crossed him, and he said, " Who is this % " Following Mr. Harker's eyes, and looking along the room, I saw again the figure I expected, — the second of the two men who 452 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. had gone down Piccadilly. I rose, and advanced a few steps ; then stopped, and looked round at Mr. Harker. He was quite uncon- cerned, laughed, and said in a pleasant way, " I thought for a mo- ment we had a thirteenth juryman, without a bed. But I see it is the moonlight." Making no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to take a walk with me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure did. It stood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven brother jurymen, close to the pillow. It always went to the right-hand side of the bed, and always passed out crossing the foot of the next bed. It seemed, from the action of the head, merely to look down pensively at each recumbent figure. It took no notice of me, or of my bed, which was that nearest to Mr, Harker's. It seemed to go out where the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an aerial flight of stairs. Next morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had dreamed of the murdered man last night, except myself and Mr. Harker. I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down Piccadilly was the murdered man (so to speak), as if it had been borne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony. But even this took place, and in a manner for which I was not at all prepared. On the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution was drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing from his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in a hiding-place where the Murderer had been seen digging, was put in evidence. Having been identified by the witness under examination, it was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be inspected by the Jury. As an ofiicer in a black gown was making his way with it across to me, the figure of the second man who had gone down Piccadilly impetuously started from the crowd, caught the miniature from the ofiicer, and gave it to me with his own hands, at the same time saying, in a low and hollow tone, — before I saw the miniature, which was in a locket, — " / was younger then, and my face was not then drained of hlood.^' It also came between me and the brother juiyman to whom I would have given the miniature, and between him and the brother juryman to whom he would have given it, and so passed it on through the whole of our number, and back into my possession. Not one of them, however, detected this. At table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr. Harker's custody, we had from the first naturally discussed the day's proceedings a good deal. On that fifth day, the case for the DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 453 prosecution being closed, and we having that side of the question in a completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated and serious. Among our number was a vestryman, — the densest idiot I have ever seen at large, — who met the plainest evidence with the most preposterous objections, and who was sided with by two flabby parochial parasites; all the three impanelled from a dis- trict so delivered over to Fever that they ought to have been upon their own trial for five hundred Murders. When these mischievous blockheads were at their loudest, which was towards midnight, while some of us were already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered man. He stood grimly behind them, beckoning to me. On my going towards them, and striking into the conversation, he immediately retired. This was the beginning of a separate series of appearances, confined to that long room in which ive were con- fined. Whenever a knot of my brother jurymen laid their heads together, I saw the head of the murdered man among theirs. When- ever their comparison of notes was going against him, he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me. It w^ould be borne in mind that down to the production of the miniature, on the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the Ap- pearance in Court. Three changes occurred now that we entered on the case for the defence. Two of them I will mention together, first. The figure was now in Court continually, and it never there addressed itself to me, but always to the person who was speaking at the time. For instance : the throat of the murdered man had been cut straight across. In the opening speech for the defence, it was suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat. At that very moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful condition referred to (this it had concealed before), stood at the speaker's elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with the right hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker himself the impossibility of such a wound having been self- inflicted by either hand. For another instance : a witness to char- acter, a woman, deposed to the prisoner's being the most amiable of mankind. The figure at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking her full in the face, and pointing out the prisoner's evil countenance with an extended arm and an outstretched finger. The third change now to be added impressed me strongly as the most marked and striking of all. I do not theorise upon it ; I accurately state it, and there leave it. Although the Appearance was not itself perceived by those whom it addressed, its coming close to such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or dis- turbance on their part. It seemed to me as if it were prevented, by laws to which I was not amenable, from fully revealing itself to 454 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. others, and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly, and darkly over- shadow their minds. When the leading counsel for the defence suggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at the learned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat, it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his fore- head with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale. When the witness to character was confronted by the Appearance, her eyes most certainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest in great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner's face. Two ad- ditional illustrations will sufl&ce. On the eighth day of the trial, after the pause which was every day made early in the afternoon for a few minutes' rest and refreshment, I came back into Court with the rest of the Jury some little time before the return of the Judges. Standing up in the box and looking about me, I thought the figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my eyes to the gallery, I saw it bending forward, and leaning over a very decent woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had resumed their seats or not. Immediately afterwards that woman screamed, fainted, and was carried out. So with the venerable, sagacious, and patient Judge who conducted the trial. When the case was over, and he settled himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered man, en- tering by the Judges' door, advanced to his Lordship's desk, and looked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which he was turning. A change came over his Lordship's face ; his hand stopped ; the peculiar shiver, that I knew so well, passed over him ; he faltered, "Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few moments. I am somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air;" and did not recover until he had drunk a glass of water. Through all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days, — the same Judges and others on the bench, the same Murderer in the dock, the same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question and answer rising to the roof of the court, the same scratching of the Judge's pen, the same ushers going in and out, the same lights kindled at the same hour when there had been any natural light of day, the same foggy curtain outside the great windows when it was foggy, the same rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy, the same footmarks of turnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust, the same keys locking and unlocking the same heavy doors, — through all the wearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been Foreman of the Jury for a vast period of time, and Piccadilly had flourished coevally with Babylon, the murdered man never lost one trace of his distinctness in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less distinct than anybody else. I must not omit, as DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 455 a matter of fact, that I never once saw the Appearance which I call by the name of the murdered man look at the Murderer. Again and again I wondered, " Why does he not ? " But he never did. Nor did he look at me, after the production of the miniature, until the last closing minutes of the trial arrived. We retired to consider, at seven minutes before ten at night. The idiotic vestry- man and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble that we twice returned into Court to beg to have certain extracts from the Judge's notes re-read. Nine of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages, neither, I believe, had any" one in the Court; the dunder-headed triumvirate, however, having no idea but obstruc- tion, disputed them for that very reason. At length we prevailed, and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes past twelve. The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the Jury- box, on the other side of the Court. As I took my place, his eyes rested on me with great attention ; he seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a great grey veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time, over his head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict, " Guilty," the veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty. The Murderer, being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before .sentence of Death should be passed upon him, indistinctly nuittered something which was described in the leading newspapers of the following day as "a few rambling, incoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was understood to complain that he had not had a fair trial, because the Foreman of the Jury was prepossessed against him." The re- markable declaration that he really made was this : " J/y Lord^ I knew I ivas a doomed man, when the Foreman of my Jury came into the box. My Lord, I kneiv he would never let me off, because, before I ivas taken, he somehow got to my bedside in the night, woke me, and put a rope round my neck" 456 MUGBY JUNCTION. MUGBY JUNCTION. IN FOUE CHAPTERS. Chapter I. BARBOX BROTHERS. I. " Guard ! What place is this ? " "Mugby Junction, sir." " A windy place ! " "Yes, it mostly is, sir." " And looks comfortless indeed ! " " Yes, it generally does, sir." " Is it a rainy night still 1 " " Pours, sir." " Open the door. I'll get out." "You'll have, sir," said the guard, glistening with drops of wet, and looking at the tearful face of his watch by the light of his lan- tern as the traveller descended, " three minutes here." "More, I think. — For I am not going on." " Thought you had a through ticket, sir 1 " " So I have, but I shall sacrifice the rest of it. I want my lug- gage." " Please to come to the van and point it out, sir. Be good enough to look very sharp, sir. Not a moment to spare." The guard hurried to the luggage van, and the traveller hurried after him. The guard got into it, and the traveller looked into it. " Those two large black portmanteaus in the corner where your light shines. Those are mine." " Name upon 'em, sir ? " " Barbox Brothers." " Stand clear, sir, if you please. One. Two. Eight ! " Lamp waved. Signal lights ahead already changing. Shriek from engine. Train gone. " Mugby Junction ! " said the traveller, pulling up the woollen muffler round his throat with both hands. " At past three o'clock of a tempestuous morning ! So ! " He spoke to himself. There was no one else to speak to. Per- haps, though there had been any one else to speak to, he would have preferred to speak to himself. Speaking to himself he spoke to a MUGBY JUNCTION. 458 MUGBY JUNCTION. man within five years of fifty either way, who had turned grey too soon, Hke a neglected fire ; a man of pondering habit, brooding car- riage of the head, and suppressed internal voice ; a man with many indications on him of having been much alone. He stood unnoticed on the dreary platform, except by the rain and by the wind. Those two vigilant assailants made a rush at him. " Very well," said he, yielding. " It signifies nothing to me to what quarter I turn my face." Thus, at Mugby Junction, at past three o'clock of a tempestuous morning, the traveller went where the weather drove him. Not but what he could make a stand when he was so minded, for, coming to the end of the roofed shelter (it is of considerable ex- tent at Mugby Junction), and looking out upon the dark night, with a yet darker spirit-wing of storm beating its wild way through it, he faced about, and held his own as ruggedly in the difficult direc- tion as he had held it in the easier one. Thus, with a steady step, the traveller went up and down, up and down, up and down, seek- ing nothing and finding it. A place replete with shadowy shapes, this Mugby Junction in the black hours of the four-and-twenty. Mysterious goods trains, cov- ered with palls and gliding on like vast weird funerals, conveying themselves guiltily away from the presence of the few lighted lamps, as if their freight had come to a secret and unlawful end. Half- miles of coal pursuing in a Detective manner, following when they lead, stopping when they stop, backing when they back. Red-hot embers showering out upon the gi'ound, down this dark avenue, and down the other, as if torturing fires were being raked clear ; con- currently, shrieks and groans and grinds invading the ear, as if the tortured were at the height of their suff'ering. Iron -barred cages full of cattle jangling by midway, the drooping beasts with horns entangled, eyes frozen with terror, and mouths too : at least they have long icicles (or what seem so) hanging from their lips. Un- known languages in the air, conspiring in red, green, and white char- acters. An earthquake, accompanied with thunder and lightning, going up express to London. Now, all quiet, all rusty, wind and rain in possession, lamps extinguished, Mugby Junction dead and indistinct, with its robe drawn over its head, like Caesar. Now, too, as the belated traveller plodded up and down, a shad- owy train went by him in the gloom which was no other than the train of a life. From whatsoever intangible deep cutting or dark tunnel it emerged, here it came, unsummoned and unannounced, stealing upon him, and passing away into obscurity. Here mourn- fully went by a child who had never had a childhood or known a parent, inseparable from a youth with a bitter sense of his nameless- MUGBY JUNCTION. 459 ness, coupled to a man the enforced business of whose best years had been distasteful and oppressive, linked to an ungrateful friend, dragging after him a woman once beloved. Attendant, with many a clank and wrench, were lumbering cares, dark meditations, huge dim disappointments, monotonous years, a long jarring line of the discords of a solitary and unhappy existence. " _ Yours, sir 1 " The traveller recalled his eyes from the waste into which they had been staring, and fell back a step or so under the abruptness, and perhaps the chance appropriateness, of the question. " Oh ! My thoughts were not here for the mopaent. Yes. Yes. Those two portmanteaus are mine. Are you a Porter ? " "On Porter's wages, sir. But I am Lamps.'* The traveller looked a little confused. " Who did you say you are ? " "Lamps, sir," showing an oily cloth in his hand, as further ex- planation. " Surely, surely. Is there any hotel or tavern here 1 " "Not exactly here, sir. There is a Refreshment Room here, but " Lamps, with a mighty serious look, gave his head a warning roll that plainly added — " but it's a blessed circumstance for you that it's not open." " You couldn't recommend it, I see, if it was available ? " " Ask your pardon, sir. If it was 1 " " Open ? " " It ain't my place, as a paid servant of the company, to give my opinion on any of the company's toepics," — he pronounced it more like toothpicks, — "beyond lamp-ile and cottons," returned Lamps in a confidential tone ; " but, speaking as a man, I wouldn't recommend my father (if he was to come to life again) to go and try how he'd be treated at the Refreshment Room. Not speaking as a man, no, I would not." The traveller nodded conviction. " I suppose I can put up in the town ? There is a town here ? " For the traveller (though a stay-at-home compared with most travellers) had been, like many others, carried on the steam winds and the iron tides through that Junction before, without having ever, as one might say, gone ashore there. " Oh yes, there's a town, sir ! Anyways, there's town enough to put up in. But," following the glance of the other at his lug- gage, " this is a very dead time of the night with us, sir. The deadest time. I might a'most call it our deadest and buriedest time." " No porters about ? " 460 MUGBY JUNCTION. "Well, sir, you see," returned Lamps, confidential again, " they in general goes off" with the gas. That's how it is. And they seem to have overlooked you, through your walking to the furder end of the platform. But, in about twelve minutes or so, she may be up." " Who may be up ? " " The three forty-two, sir. She goes off" in a sidin' till the Up X passes, and then she " — here an air of hopeful vagueness per- vaded Lamps — " does all as lays in her power." "I doubt if I comprehend the arrangement." " I doubt if anybody do, sir. She's a Parliamentary, sir. And, you see, a Parliamentary, or a Skirmishun " " Do you mean an Excursion 1 " " That's it, sir. — A Parliamentary or a Skirmishun, she mostly doos go off" into a sidin'. But, when she can get a chance, she's whistled out of it, and she's whistled up into doin' all as," — Lamps again wore the air of a higlily sanguine man who hoped for the best, — "all as lays in her power." He then explained that porters on duty, being required to be in attendance on the Parliamentary matron in question, would doubt- less turn up with the gas. In the meantime, if the gentleman would not very much object to the smell of lamp-oil, and would accept the warmth of his little room The gentleman, being by this time very cold, instantly closed with the proposal. A greasy little cabin it was, suggestive, to the sense of smell, of a cabin in a Whaler. But there was a bright fire burning in its rusty grate, and on the floor there stood a v.ooden stand of newly trimmed and lighted lamps, ready for carriage service. They made a bright show, and their light, and the warmth, accounted for the popularity of the room, as borne witness to by many impressions of velveteen trousers on a form by the fire, and many rounded smears and smudges of stooping velveteen shoulders on the adja- cent wall. Various untidy shelves accommodated a quantity of lamps and oil-cans, and also a fragrant collection of what looked like the pocket-handkerchiefs of the whole lamp family. As Barbox Brothers (so to call the traveller on the warranty of his luggage) took his seat upon the form, and warmed his now ungloved hands at the fire, he glanced aside at a little deal desk, much blotched with ink, which his elbow touched. Upon it were some scraps of coarse paper, and a superannuated steel pen in very reduced and gritty circumstances. From glancing at the scraps of paper, he turned involuntarily to his host, and said, with some roughness : " Why, you are never a poet, man 1 " MUGBY JUNCTION. 461 Lamps had certainly not the conventional appearance of one, as he stood modestly rubbing his squab nose with a handkerchief so exceedingly oily, that he might have been in the act of mistaking himself for one of his charges. He was a spare man of about the Barbox Brothers time of life, with his features whimsically drawn upward as if they were attracted by the roots of his hair. He had a peculiarly shining transparent complexion, probably occasioned by constant oleaginous application ; and his attractive hair, being cut short, and being grizzled, and standing straight up on* end as if it in its turn were attracted by some invisible magnet above it, the top of his head was not very unlike a lamprwick. "But, to be sure, it's no business of mine," said Barbox Brothers. "That was an impertinent observation on my part. Be what you like." "Some people, sir," remarked Lamps in a tone of apology, "are sometimes what they don't like." "Nobody knows that better than I do," sighed the other. "I have been what I don't like, all my life." "When I first took, sir," resumed Lamps, "to composing little Comic-Songs-like " Barbox Brothers eyed him with great disfavour. " — To composing little Comic-Songs-like — and what was more hard — to singing 'em afterwards," said Lamps, " it went against the grain at that time, it did indeed." Something that was not all oil here shining in Lamps's eye, Barbox Brothers withdrew his own a little disconcerted, looked at the fire, and put a foot on the top bar. "Why did you do it, then 1 " he asked after a short pause ; abruptly enough, but in a softer tone. " If you didn't want to do it, why did you do it 1 Where did you sing them 1 Public-house 1 " To which Mr. Lamps returned the curious reply : "Bedside." At this moment, while the traveller looked at him for elucida- tion, Mugby Junction started suddenly, trembled violently, and opened its gas eyes. " She's got up ! " Lamps announced, excited. "What lays in her power is sometimes more, and sometimes less; but it's laid in her power to get up to-night, by George ! " The legend "Barbox Brothers," hi large white letters on two black surfaces, was very soon afterwards trundling on a truck through a silent street, and, when the owner of the legend had shivered on the pavement half an hour, what time the porter's knocks at the Inn Door knocked up the whole town first, and the Inn last, he groped his way into the close air of a shut-up house, and so groped between the sheets of a shut-up bed that seemed to have been expressly refrigerated for him when last made. 462 MUGBY JUNCTION. II. "You remember me, Young Jackson?" "What do I remember if not you? You are my first remem- brance. It was you who told me that was my name. It was you who told me that on eveiy twentieth of December my life had a penitential anniversary in it called a birthday. I suppose the last communication was truer than the first ! " "What am I like, Young Jackson?" "You are like a blight all through the year to me. You hard- lined, thin-lipped, repressive, changeless woman with a wax mask on. You are like the Devil to me ; most of all when you teach me religious things, for you make me abhor them." " You remember me, Mr. Young Jackson ? " In another voice from another quarter. " Most gratefully, sir. You were the ray of hope and prosper- ing ambition in my life. When I attended your course, I believed that I should come to be a great healer, and I felt almost happy — even though I was still the one boarder in the house with that horrible mask, and ate and drank in silence and constraint with the mask before me, every day. As I had done every, every, every day, through my school-time and from my earliest recollection." "What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?" "You are like a Superior Being to me. You are like Nature beginning to reveal herself to me. I hear you again, as one of the hushed crowd of young men kindling under the power of your pres- ence and knowledge, and you bring into my eyes the only exultant tears that ever stood in them." " You remember Me, Mr. Young Jackson ? " In a grating voice from quite another quarter. " Too well. You made your ghostly appearance in my life one day, and announced that its course was to be suddenly and wholly changed. You showed me which was my wearisome seat in the Galley of Barbox Brothers. (When they were, if they ever were, is unknown to me ; there was nothing of them but the name when I bent to the oar.) You told me what I was to do, and what to be paid; you told me afterwards, at intervals of years, when I was to sign for the Firm, when I became a partner, when I became the Firm. I know no more of it, or of myself." " What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson ? " "You are like my father, I sometimes think. You are hard enough and cold enough so to have brought up an acknowledged son. I see your scanty figure, your close brown suit, and your MUGBY JUNCTION. 463 tight brown wig ; but you, too, wear a wax mask to your death. You never by a chance remove it — it never by a chance falls off — and I know no more of you." Throughout this dialogue, the traveller spoke to himself at his window in the morning, as he had spoken to himself at the Junc- tion overnight. And as he had then looked in the darkness, a man who had turned grey too soon, like a neglected fire : so he now looked in the sunlight, an ashier grey, like a fire which the bright- ness of the sun put out. The firm of Barbox Brothers had been some offshoot or irregular branch of the Public Notary and bill-broking tree. It had gained for itself a griping reputation before the days of Young Jackson, and the reputation had stuck to it and to him. As he had imperceptibly come into possession of the dim den up in the corner of a court off Lombard Street, on whose grimy windows the inscription Barbox Brothers had for many long years daily interposed itself between him and the sky, so he had insensibly found himself a personage held in chronic distrust, whom it was essential to screw tight to every transaction in which he engaged, whose word was never to be taken without his attested bond, whom all dealers with openly set up guards and wards against. This character had come upon him through no act of his own. It was as if the original Barbox had stretched himself down upon the office floor, and had thither caused to be conveyed Young Jackson in his sleep, and had there effected a metempsychosis and exchange of persons with him. The discovery — aided in its turn by the deceit of the only woman he had ever loved, and the deceit of the only friend he had ever made : who eloped from him to be married together — the discovery, so followed up, completed what his earliest rearing had begun. He shrank, abashed, within the form of Barbox, and lifted up his head and heart no more. But he did at last effect one great release in his condition. He broke the oar he plied so long, and he scuttled and sank the galley. He prevented the gradual retirement of an old conventional busi- ness from him, by taking the initiative and retiring from it. With enough to live on (though, after all, with not too much), he oblit- erated the firm of Barbox Brothers from the pages of the Post- Office Directory and the face of the earth, leaving nothing of it but its name on two portmanteaus. " For one must have some name in going about, for people to pick up," he explained to Mugby High Street, through the Inn window, " and that name at least was real once. Whereas, Young Jackson ! — Not to mention its being a sadly satirical misnomer for Old Jackson." 464 MUGBY JUNCTION. He took up his hat and walked out, just in time to see, passing along on the opposite side of the way, a velveteen man, carrying his day's dinner in a small bundle that might have been larger without suspicion of gluttony, and pelting away towards the Junc- tion at a great pace. " There's Lamps ! " said Barbox Brothers. " And by the bye Ridiculous, surely, that a man so serious, so self-contained, and not yet three days emancipated from a routine of drudgery, should stand rubbing his chin in the street, in a brown study about Comic Songs. " Bedside ? " said Barbox Brothers testily. " Sings them at the bedside? Why at the bedside, unless he goes to bed drunk? Does, I shouldn't wonder. But it's no business of mine. Let me see. Mugby Junction, Mugby Junction. Where shall I go next ? As it came into my head last night when I woke from an uneasy sleep in the carriage and found myself here, I can go anywhere from here. Where shall I go? I'll go and look at the Junction by daylight. There's no hurry, and I may like the look of one Line better than another." But there were so many Lines. Gazing down upon them from a bridge at the Junction, it was as if the concentrating Companies formed a great Industrial Exhibition of the works of extraordinary ground spiders that spun iron. And then so many of the Lines went such wonderful ways, so crossing and curving among one another, that the eye lost them. And then some of them appeared to start with the fixed intention of going five hundred miles, and all of a sudden gave it up at an insignificant barrier, or turned off into a workshop. And then others, like intoxicated men, went a little way very straight, and surprisingly slued round and came back again. And then others were so chock-full of trucks of coal, others were so blocked with trucks of casks, others were so gorged with trucks of ballast, others were so set apart for wheeled objects like immense iron cotton-reels : while others were so bright and clear, and others were so delivered over to rust and ashes and idle wheelbarrows out of work, with their legs in the air (looking much like their masters on strike), that there was no beginning, middle, or end to the bewilderment. Barbox Brothers stood puzzled on the bridge, passing his right hand across the lines on his forehead, which multiplied while he looked down, as if the railway Lines were getting themselves photo- graphed on that sensitive plate. Then was heard a distant ringing of bells and blowing of whistles. Then, puppet-looking heads of men popped out of boxes in perspective, and popped in again. MUGBY JUNCTION. 465 Then, prodigious wooden razors, set up on end, began shaving the atmosphere. Then, several locomotive engines in several directions began to scream and be agitated. Then, along one avenue a train came in. Then, along another two trains appeared that didn't come in, but stopped without. Then, bits of trains broke off. Then, a struggling horse became involved with them. Then, the locomotives shared the bits of trains, and ran away with the whole. " I have not made my next move much clearer by this. No hurry. No need to make up my mind to-day, or to-morrow, nor yet the day after. I'll take a walk." It fell out somehow (perhaps he meant it should) that the walk tended to the platform at which he had alighted, and to Lamps's room. But Lamps was not in his room. A pair of velveteen shoulders were adapting themselves to one of the impressions on the wall by Lamps's fire-place, but otherwise the room was void. In passing back to get out of the station again, he learnt the cause of this vacancy, by catching sight of Lamps on the opposite line of railway, skipping along the top of a train, from carriage to carriage, and catching lighted namesakes thrown up to him by a coadjutor. "He is busy. He has not much time for composing or singing Comic Songs this morning, I take it." The direction he pursued now was into the country, keeping very near to the side of one great Line of railway, and within easy view of others. " I have half a mind," he said, glancing around, " to settle the question from this point, by saying, ' I'll take this set of rails, or that, or t'other, and stick to it.' They separate them- selves from the confusion, out here, and go their ways." Ascending a gentle hill of some extent, he came to a few cot- tages. There, looking about him as a very reserved man might who had never looked about him in his life before, he saw some six or eight young children come merrily trooping and whooping from one of the cottages, and disperse. But not until they had all turned at the little garden-gate, and kissed their hands to a face at the upper window : a low window enough, although the upper, for the cottage had but a story of one room above the ground. Now, that the children should do this was nothing; but that they should do this to a face lying on the sill of the open window, turned towards them in a horizontal position, and apparently only a face, was something noticeable. He looked up at the window again. Could only see a very fragile, though a very bright face, lying on one cheek on the window-sill. The delicate smiling face of a girl or woman. Framed in long bright brown hair, round which was tied a light blue band or fillet, passing under the chin. 2h 466 MUGBY JUNCTION. He walked on, turned back, passed the window again, shyly- glanced up again. No change. He struck off by a winding branch- road at the top of the hill — which he must otherwise have de- scended — kept the cottages in view, worked his way round at a distance so as to come out once more into the main road, and be obliged to pass the cottages again. The face still lay on the win- dow-sill, but not so much inclined towards him. And now there were a pair of delicate hands too. They had the action of perform- ing on some musical instrument, and yet it jjroduced no sound that reached his ears. "Mugby Junction must be the maddest place in England," said Barbox Brothers, pursuing his way down the hill. " The first thing I find here is a Railway Porter who composes comic songs to sing at his bedside. The second thing I find here is a face, and a pair of hands playing a musical instrument that do7iH play ! " The day was a fine bright day in the early beginning of Novem- ber, the air was clear and inspiriting, and the landscape was rich in beautiful colours. The prevailing colours in the court off" Lom- bard Street, London city, had been few and sombre. Sometimes, when the weather elsewhere was very bright indeed, the dwellers in those tents enjoyed a pepper and-salt-coloured day or two, but their atmosphere's usual wear was slate or snuff" coloured. He relished his walk so well that he repeated it next day. He was a little earlier at the cottage than on the day before, and he could hear the children up-stairs singing to a regular measure, and clapping out the time with their hands. " Still, there is no sound of any musical instrument," he said, listening at the corner, " and yet I saw the performing hands again as I came by. What are the children singing ? Why, good Lord, they can never be singing the multiplication table 1 " They were, though, and with infinite enjoyment. The mysteri- ous face had a voice attached to it, which occasionally led or set the children right. Its musical cheerfulness was delightful. The measure at length stopped, and was succeeded by a murmuring of young voices, and then by a short song which he made out to be about the current month of the year, and about what work it yielded to the labourers in the fields and farmyards. Then there was a stir of little feet, and the children came trooping and whoop- ing out, as on the previous day. And again, as on the previous day, they all turned at the garden-gate, and kissed their hands — evidently to the face on the window-sill, though Barbox Brothers from his retired post of disadvantage at the corner could not see it. But, as the children dispersed, he cut off one small straggler — a brown-faced boy with flaxen hair — and said to him : MUGBY JUNCTION. 467 " Come here, little one. Tell me, whose house is that ? " The child, with one swarthy arm held up across his eyes, half in shyness, and half ready for defence, said from behind the inside of his elbow : "Phoebe's." "And who," said Barbox Brothers, quite as much embarrassed by his part in the dialogue as the child could possibly be by his, "is Phoebe?" To which the child made answer : " Why, Phoebe, of course." The small but sharp observer had eyed his questioner closely, and had taken his moral measure. He lowered his guard, and rather assumed a tone with him : as having discovered him to be an unaccustomed person in the art of polite conversation. " Phoebe," said the child, " can't be anybobby else but Phoebe. Can she?" " No, I suppose not." " Well," returned the child, " then why did you ask me ? " Deeming it prudent to shift his ground, Barbox Brothers took up a new position. "What do you do there? Up there in that room where the open window is. What do you do there?" "Cool," said the child. "Eh?" " Co-o-ol," the child repeated in a louder voice, lengthening out the word with a fixed look and great emphasis, as much as to say : " What's the use of your having grown up, if you're such a donkey as not to understand me ? " " Ah ! School, school," said Barbox Brothers. " Yes, yes, yes. And Phoebe teaches you ? " The child nodded. " Good boy." " Tound it out, have you ? " said the child. " Yes, I have found it out. What would you do with twopence, if I gave it you ? " "Pendit." The knock-down promptitude of this reply leaving him not a a leg to stand upon, Barbox Brothers produced the twopence with great lameness, and withdrew in a state of humiliation. But, seeing the face on the window-sill as he passed the cottage, he acknowledged its presence there with a gesture, which was not a nod, not a bow, not a removal of his hat from his head, but was a diffident compromise between or struggle with all three. The eyes in the face seemed amused, or cheered, or both, and the lips modestly said: "Good day to you, sir." 468 MUGBY JUNCTION. " I find I must stick for a time to Mugby Junction," said Barbox Brothers with mucli gravity, after once more stopping on his return road to look at the Lines where they went their several ways so quietly. " I can't make up my mind yet which iron road to take. In fact, I must get a little accustomed to the Junction before I can decide." So, he announced at the Inn that he was "going to stay on for the present," and improved his acquaintance with the Junction that night, and again next morning, and again next night and morning : going down to the station, mingling with the people there, looking about him down all the avenues of railway, and beginning to take an interest in the incomings and outgoings of the trains. At first, he often put his head into Lamps's little room, but he never found Lamps there. A pair or two of velveteen shoulders he usually found there, stooping over the fire, sometimes in connection with a clasp-knife and a piece of bread and meat; but the answer to his inquiry, "Where's Lamps?" was, either that he was "t'other side the line," or, that it was his off-time, or (in the latter case) his own personal introduction to another Lamps who was not his lamps. However, he was not so desperately set upon seeing Lamps now, but he bore the disappointment. Nor did he so wholly devote himself to his severe application to the study of Mugby Junction as to neglect exercise. On the contrary, he took a walk every day, and always the same walk. But the weather turned cold and wet again, and the window was never open. III. At length, after a lapse of some days, there came another streak of fine bright hardy autumn weather. It was a Saturday. The window was open, and the children were gone. Not surprising, this, for he had patiently watched and waited at the corner until they ivere gone. " Good day," he said to the face ; absolutely getting his hat clear off his head this time. " Good day to you, sir." " I am glad you have a fine sky again to look at." " Thank you, sir. It is kind of you." " You are an invalid, I fear 1 " " No, sir. I have very good health." " But are you not always lying down 1 " " Oh yes, I am always lying down, because I cannot sit up ! But I am not an invalid." The laughing eyes seemed highly to enjoy his great mistake. MUGBY JUNCTION. 469 "Would you mind taking the trouble to come in, sir? There is a beautiful view from this window. And you would see that I am not at all ill^ — -being so good as to care." It was said to help him, as he stood irresolute, but evidently desiring to enter, with his diffident hand on the latch of the garden- gate. It did help him, and he went in. The room up-stairs was a very clean white room with a low roof. Its only inmate lay on a couch that brought her face to a level with the window. The couch was white too ; and her simple dress or wrapper being light blue, like the band around her hair, she had an ethereal look, and a fanciful appearance of 'lying among clouds. He felt that she instinctively perceived him to be by habit a down- cast, taciturn man ; it was another help to him to have established that understanding so easily, and got it over. There was an awkward constraint upon him, nevertheless, as he touched her hand, and took a chair at the side of her couch. "I see now," he began, not at all fluently, "how you occupy your hand. Only seeing you from the path outside, I thought you were playing upon something." She was engaged in very nimbly and dexterously making lace. A lace-pillow lay upon her breast ; and the quick movements and changes of her hands upon it, as she worked, had given them the action he had misinterpreted. "That is curious," she answered with a bright smile. "For I often fancy, myself, that I play tunes while I am at work." " Have you any musical knowledge 1 " She shook her head. " I think I could pick out tunes, if I had any instrument, which could be made as handy to me as my lace-pillow. But I dare say I deceive myself. At all events, I shall never know." "You have a musical voice. Excuse me; I have heard you sing." "With the children ?" she answered, slightly colouring. "Oh yes. I sing with the dear children, if it can be called singing." Barbox Brothers glanced at the two small forms in the room, and hazarded the speculation that she was fond of children, and that she was learned in new systems of teaching them ? "Very fond of them," she said, shaking her head again; "but I know nothing of teaching, beyond the interest I have in it, and the pleasure it gives me when they learn. Perhaps your overhear- ing my little scholars sing some of their lessons has led you so far astray as to think me a grand teacher 1 Ah ! I thought so ! No, I have only read and been told about that system. It seemed so pretty and pleasant, and to treat them so like the merry Robins 470 MUGBY JUNCTION. they are, that I took up with it in my little way. You don't need to be told what a very little way mine is, sir," she added with a glance at the small forms and round the room. All this time her hands were busy at her lace-pillow. As they still continued so, and as there was a kind of substitute for conver- sation in the click and play of its pegs, Barbox Brothers took the opportunity of observing her. He guessed her to be thirty. The charm of her transparent face and large bright brown eyes was, not that they were passively resigned, but that they were actively and thoroughly cheerful. Even her busy hands, which of their own thinness alone might have besought compassion, plied their task with a gay courage that made mere compassion an unjustifiable assumption of superiority, and an impertinence. He saw her eyes in the act of rising towards his, and he directed his towards the prospect, saying : "Beautiful, indeed ! " "Most beautiful, sir. I have sometimes had a fancy that I would like to sit up, for once, only to try how it looks to an erect head. But what a foolish fancy that would be to encourage ! It cannot look more lovely to any one than it does to me." Her eyes were turned to it, as she spoke, with most delighted admiration and enjoyment. There was not a trace in it of any sense of deprivation. " And those threads of railway, with their puffs of smoke and steam changing places so fast, make it so lively for me," she went on. " I think of the number of people who can go where they wish, on their business, or their pleasure; I remember that the puffs make signs to me that they are actually going while I look ; and that enlivens the prospect with abundance of company, if I want company. There is the great Junction, too. I don't see it under the foot of the hill, but I can very often hear it, and I always know it is there. It seems to join me, in a way, to I don't know how many places and things that / shall never see." With an abashed kind of idea that it might have already joined himself to something he had never seen, he said constrainedly : "Just so." "And so you see, sir," pursued Phoebe, "I am not the invalid you thought me, and I am very well off indeed," " You have a happy disposition," said Barbox Brothers : perhaps with a slight excusatory touch for his own disposition. " Ah ! But you should know my father," she replied. " His is the happy disposition ! — Don't mind, sir ! " For his reserve took the alarm at a step upon the stairs, and he distrusted that he would be set down for a troublesome intruder. " This is my father coming." J MUGBY JUNCTION. 471 The door opened, and the father paused there. " Why, Lamps ! " exclaimed Barbox Brothers, starting from his chair. " How do you do. Lamps 1 " To which Lamps responded : " The gentleman for Nowhere ! How do you do, sir ? " And they shook hands, to the greatest admiration and surprise of Lamps's daughter. " I have looked you up half-a-dozen times since that night," said Barbox Brothers, " but have never found you." " So I've heerd on, sir, so I've heerd on," returned Lamps. " It's your being noticed so often down at the Junction, without taking any train, that has begun to get you the name among us of the gentleman for Nowhere. No offence in my having called you by it when took by surprise, I hope, sir ? " " None at all. It's as good a name for me as any other you could call me by. But may I ask you a question in the corner here ? " Lamps suffered himself to be led aside from his daughter's couch by one of the buttons of his velveteen jacket. " Is this the bedside where you sing your songs ? " Lamps nodded. The gentleman for Nowhere clapped him on the shoulder, and they faced about again. "Upon my word, my dear," said Lamps then to his daughter, looking from her to her visitor, "it is such an amaze to me, to find you brought acquainted with this gentleman, that I must (if this gentleman will excuse me) take a rounder." Mr. Lamps demonstrated in action what this meant, by pulling out his oily handkerchief rolled up in the form of a ball, and giving himself an elaborate smear, from behind the right ear, up the cheek, across the forehead, and down the other cheek to behind his left ear. After this operation he shone exceedingly. " It's according to my custom when particular warmed up by any agitation, sir," he offered by way of apology. "And really, I am throwed into that state of amaze by finding you brought ac- quainted with Phoebe, that I — that I think I will, if you'll excuse me, take another rounder." Which he did, seeming to be greatly restored by it. They were now both standing by the side of her couch, and she was working at her lace-pillow. "Your daughter tells me," said Barbox Brothers, still in a half-reluctant, shamefaced way, "that she never sits up." " No, sir, nor never has done. You see, her mother (who died when she was a year and two months old) was subject to very bad fits, and as she had never mentioned to me that she was subject to 472 MUGBY JUNCTION. fits, they couldn't be guarded against. Consequently, she dropped the baby when took, and this happened." "It was very wrong of her," said Barbox Brothers with a knitted brow, "to marry you, making a secret of her infirmity." " Well, sir ! " pleaded Lamps in behalf of the long-deceased. " You see, Phoebe and me, we have talked that over too. And Lord bless us ! Such a number on us has our infirmities, what with fits, and what with misfits, of one sort and another, that if we confessed to 'em all before we got married, most of us might never get married." " Might not that be for the better ? " "Not in this case, sir," said Phoebe, giving her hand to her father. "No, not in this case, sir," said her father, patting it between his own. "You correct me," returned Barbox Brothers with a blush; "and I must look so like a Brute, that at all events it would be superflu- ous in me to confess to that infirmity. I wish you w^ould tell me a little more about yourselves. I hardly know how to ask it of you, for I am conscious that I have a bad stiff' manner, a dull discourag- ing way with me, but I wish you would." " With all our hearts, sir," returned Lamps gaily for both. " And first of all, that you may know my name " "Stay!" interposed the visitor with a slight flush. "What signifies your name? Lamps is name enough for me. I like it. It is bright and expressive. W^hat do I want more 1 " "Why, to be sure, sir," returned Lamps. "I have in general no other name down at the Junction ; but I thought, on account of your being here as a first-class single, in a private character, that you might " The visitor waved the thought away with his hand, and Lamps acknowledged the mark of confidence by taking another rounder. " You are hard- worked, I take for granted ? " said Barbox Broth- ers, when the subject of the rounder came out of it much dirtier then he went into it. Lamps was beginning, "Not particular so " — when his daugh- ter took him up. " Oh yes, sir, he is very hard- worked. Fourteen, fifteen, eighteen hours a day. Sometimes twenty-four hours at a time." "And you," said Barbox Brothers, "what with your school, Phoebe, and what with your lace-making " "But my school is a pleasure to me," she interrupted, opening her brown eyes wider, as if surprised to find him so obtuse. "I began it when I was but a child, because it brought me and other MUGBY JUNCTION. 473 children into company, don't you see? That was not work. I carry it on still, because it keeps children about me. That is not work. I do it as love, not as work. Then my lace-pillow ; " her busy hands had stopped, as if her argument required all her cheer- ful earnestness, but now went on again at the name ; "it goes with my thoughts when I think, and it goes with my tunes when I hum any, and thaf^ not work. Why, you yourself thought it was mu- sic, you know, sir. And so it is to me." " Everything is ! " cried Lamps radiantly. " Everything is music to her, sir." " My father is, at any rate," said Phoebe, exultingly pointing her thin fore-finger at him. " There is more music in my father than there is in a brass band." " I say ! My dear ! It's very fillyillially done, you know ; but you are flattering your father," he protested, sparkling. " No, I am not, sir, I assure you. No, I am not. If you could hear my father sing, you would know I am not. But you never will hear him sing, because he never sings to any one but me. However tired he is, he always sings to me when he comes home. When I lay here long ago, quite a poor little broken doll, he used to sing to me. More than that, he used to make songs, bringing in whatever little jokes we had between us. More than tliat, he often does so to this day. Oh ! I'll tell of you, father, as the gentleman has asked about you. He is a poet, sir." "I shouldn't wish the gentleman, my dear," observed Lamps, for the moment turning grave, " to carry away that opinion of your father, because it might look as if I was given to asking the stars in a moUoncolly manner what they was up to. Which I wouldn't at once waste the time, and take the liberty, my dear." "My father," resumed Phoebe, amending her text, "is always on the bright side, and the good side. You told me, just now, I had a happy disposition. How can I help it 1 " " Well ; but, my dear," returned Lamps argumentatively, " how can I help it ? Put it to yourself sir. Look at her. Always as you see her now. Always working — - and after all, sir, for but a very few shillings a week — always contented, always lively, al- ways interested in others, of all sorts. I said, this moment, she was always as you see her now. So she is, with a difference that comes to much the same. For, when it is my Sunday off* and the morning bells have done ringing, I hear the prayers and thanks read in the touchingest way, and I have the hymns sung to me — so soft, sir, that you couldn't hear 'em out of this room — in notes that seem to me, I am sure, to come from Heaven and go back to it." 474 MUGBY JUNCTION. It might have been merely through the association of these words with their sacredly quiet time, or it might have been through the larger association of the words with the Redeemer's presence beside the bedridden ; but here her dexterous fingers came to a stop on the lace-pillow, and clasped themselves around his neck as he bent down. There was great natural sensibility in both father and daughter, the visitor could easily see ; but each made it, for the other's sake, retiring, not demonstrative ; and perfect cheerfulness, intuitive or acquired, was either the first or second nature of both. In a very few moments Lamps was taking another rounder with his comical features beaming, while Phoebe's laughing eyes (just a glistening speck or so upon their lashes) were again directed by turns to him, and to her work, and to Barbox Brothers. "When my father, sir," she said brightly, " tells you about my being interested in other people, even though they know nothing about me — which, by the bye, I told you myself — you ought to know how that comes about. That's my father's doing." " No, it isn't ! " he protested. " Don't you believe him, sir ; yes, it is. He tells me of every- thing he sees down at his work. You avouM be surprised what a quantity he gets together for me every day. He looks into the carriages, and tells me how the ladies are dressed — so that I know all the fashions ! He looks into the carriages, and tells me what pairs of lovers he sees, and what new-married couples on their wed- ding-trip — so that I know all about that ! He collects chance newspapers and books — so that I have plenty to read ! He tells me about the sick people who are travelling to try to get better — so that I know all about them ! In short, as I began by saying, he tells me everything he sees and makes out down at his work, and you can't think what a quantity he does see and make out." "As to collecting newspapers and books, my dear," said Lamps, " it's clear I can have no merit in that, because they're not my perquisites. You see, sir, it's this way : A Guard, he'll say to me, ' Hallo, here you are. Lamps. I've saved this paper for your daughter. How is she a going on ? ' A Head-Porter, he'll say to me, ' Here ! Catch hold. Lamps. Here's a couple of wollumes for your daughter. Is she pretty much where she were 1 ' And that's what makes it double welcome, you see. If she had a thou- sand pound in a box, they wouldn't trouble themselves about her ; but being what she is — that is, you understand," Lamps added, somewhat hurriedly, "not having a thousand pound in a box — they take thought for her. And as concerning the young pairs, married and unmarried, it's only natural I should bring home what little I can about the?}i, seeing that there's not a Couple of either MUGBY JUNCTION. 475 sort in the neighbourhood that don't come of their own accord to confide in Phoebe." She raised her eyes triumphantly to Barbox Brothers as she said : " Indeed, sir, that is true. If I could have got up and gone to church, I don't know how often I should have been a bridesmaid. But, if I could have done that, some girls in love might have been jealous of me, and, as it is, no girl is jealous of me. And my pillow would not have been half as ready to put the piece of cake under, as I always find it," she added, turning her face on it with a light sigh, and a smile at her father. The arrival of the little girl, the biggest of the scholars, now led to an understanding on the part of Barbox Brothers, that she was the domestic of the cottage, and had come to take active measures in it, attended by a pail that might have extinguished her, and a broom three times her height. He therefore rose to take his leave, and took it ; saying that, if Phoebe had no objection, he would come again. He had muttered that he would come " in the course of his walks." The course of his walks must have been highly favour- able to his return, for he returned after an interval of a single day. " You thought you would never see me any more, I suppose ? " he said to Phoebe as he touched her hand, and sat down by her couch. " Why should I think so ? " was her surprised rejoinder. " I took it for granted you would mistrust me." " For granted, sir ? Have you been so much mistrusted 1 " " I think I am justified in answering yes. But I may have mis- trusted, too, on my part. JSTo matter just now. We were speak- ing of the Junction last time. I have passed hours there since the day before yesterday." " Are you now the gentleman for Somewhere ? " she asked with a smile. " Certainly for Somewhere ; but I don't yet know Where. You would never guess what I am travelling from. Shall I tell you ? I am travelling from my birthday." Her hands stopped in her work, and she looked at him with incredulous astonishment. "Yes," said Barbox Brothers, not quite easy in his chair, "from my birthday. I am, to myself, an unintelligible book with the earlier chapters all torn out, and thrown away. My childhood had no grace of childhood, my youth had no charm of youth, and what can be expected from such a lost beginning?" His eyes 476 MUGBY JUNCTION. ^ meeting hers as they were addressed intently to him, something seemed to stir within his breast, whispering : " Was this bed a a place for the graces of childhood and the charms of youth to take to kindly ? Oh, shame, shame ! " "It is a disease with me," said Barbox Brothers, checking him- self, and making as though he had a difficulty in swallowing some- thing, "to go wrong about that. I don't know how I came to speak of that. I hope it is because of an old misplaced confidence in one of your sex involving an old bitter treachery. I don't know. I am all wrong together." Her hands quietly and slowly resumed their work. Glancing at her, he saw that her eyes were thoughtfully following them. "I am travelling from my birthday," he resumed, "because it has always been a dreary day to me. My first free birthday com- ing round some five or six weeks hence, I am travelling to put its predecessors far behind me, and to tiy to crush the day — or, at all events, put it out of my sight — by heaping new objects on it." As he paused, she looked at him ; but only shook her head as being quite at a loss. " This is unintelligible to your happy disposition," he pursued, abiding by his former phrase as if there were some lingering virtue of self-defence in it. "I knew it would be, and am glad it is. How- ever, on this travel of mine (in which I mean to pass the rest of my days, having abandoned all thought of a fixed home), I stopped, as you have heard from your father, at the Junction here. The extent of its ramifications quite confused me as to whither I should go, from here. I have not yet settled, being still perplexed among so many roads. What do you think I mean to do ? How many of the branching roads can you see from your window ? " Looking out, full of interest, she answered, " Seven." " Seven," said Barbox Brothers, watching her with a grave smile. " Well ! I propose to myself at once to reduce the gross number to those very seven, and gradually to fine them down to one — the most promising for me — and to take that." " But how will you know, sir, which is the most promising 1 " she asked, with her brightened eyes roving over the view. " Ah ! " said Barbox Brothers with another grave smile, and con- siderably improving in his ease of speech. "To be sure. In this way. Where your father can pick up so much every day for a good purpose, I may once and again pick up a little for an indifierent purpose. The gentleman for Nowhere must become still better known at the Junction. He shall continue to explore it, until he attaches something that he has seen, heard, or found out, at the head of each of the seven roads, to the road itself. And so his MUGBY JUNCTION. 477 choice of a road shall be determined by his choice among his discov- eries." Her hands still busy, she again glanced at the prospect, as if it comprehended something that had not been in it before, and laughed as if it yielded her new pleasure. " But I must not forget," said Barbox Brothers, " (having got so far) to ask a favour. I want your help in this expedient of mine. I want to bring you what I pick up at the beads of the seven roads that you lie here looking out at, and to compare notes with you about it. May I ? They say two heads are better than one. I should say myself that probably depends upon the heads concerned. But I am quite sure, though we are so newly acquainted, that your head and your father's have found out better things, Phoebe, than ever mine of itself discovered." She gave him her sympathetic right hand, in perfect rapture with his proposal, and eagerly and gratefully thanked him. " That's well ! " said Barbox Brothers. " Again I must not for- get (having got so far) to ask a favour. Will you shut your eyes ? " Laughing playfully at the strange nature of the request, she did so. " Keep then) shut," said Barbox Brothers, going softly to the door, and coming back. "You are on your honour, mind, not to open your eyes until I tell you that you may ? " "Yes ! On my honour." " Good. May I take your lace-pillow from you for a minute ? " Still laughing and wondering, she removed her hands from it, and he put it aside. " Tell me. Did you see the puffs of smoke and steam made by the morning fast-train yesterday on road number seven from here ? " " Behind the elm-trees and the spire ? " " That's the road," said Barbox Brothers, directing his eyes towards it. "Yes. I watched them melt away." "Anything unusual in what they expressed?" " No ! " she answered merrily. "Not complimentary to me, for I was in that train, I went — don't open your eyes — to fetch you this, from the great ingenious town. It is not half so large as your lace-pillow, and lies easily and lightly in its place. These little keys are like the keys of a minia- ture piano, and you supply the air required with your left hand. May you pick out delightful music from it, my dear ! For the pres- ent — you can open your eyes now — good-bye ! " In his embarrassed way, he closed the door upon himself, and only saw, in doing so, that she ecstatically took the present to her 478 MUGBY JUNCTION. bosom and caressed it. The glimpse gladdened his heart, and yet saddened it ; for so might she, if her youth had flourished in its natural course, have taken to her breast that day the slumbering music of her own child's voice. Chapter II. BARBOX BROTHERS AND CO. With good-will and earnest purpose, the gentleman for Nowhere began, on the very next day, his researches at the heads of the seven roads. The results of his researches, as he and Pho3be afterwards set them down in fair writing, hold their due places in this veracious chronicle. But they occupied a much longer time in the getting together than they ever will in the perusal. And this is probably the case with most reading matter, except when it is of that highly beneficial kind (for Posterity) which is " thrown off" in a few moments of leisure " by the superior poetic geniuses who scorn to take prose pains. It must be admitted, however, that Barbox by no means hurried himself. His heart being in his work of good-nature, he revelled in it. There was the joy, too (it was a true joy to him), of some- times sitting by, listening to Phoebe as she picked out more and more discourse from her musical instrument, and as her natural taste and ear refined daily upon her first discoveries. Besides being a pleasure, this was an occupation, and in the course of weeks it consumed hours. It resulted that his dreaded birthday was close upon him before he had troubled himself any more about it. The matter was made more pressing by the unforeseen circumstance that the councils held (at which Mr. Lamps, beaming most brilliantly, on a few rare occasions assisted) respecting the road to be selected were, after all, in nowise assisted by his investigations. For, he had connected this interest with this road, or that interest with the other, but could deduce no reason from it for giving any road the preference. Consequently, when the last council was holden, that part of the business stood, in the end, exactly where it had stood in the beginning. " But, sir," remarked Phoebe, " we have only six roads after all. Is the seventh road dumb ? " " The seventh road? Oh !" said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his chin. " That is the road I took, you know, when I went to get your little present. That is its story, Phoebe." "Would you mind taking that road again, sir ?" she asked with hesitation. MUGBY JUNCTION. 479 " Not in the least ; it is a great higti-roacl after all." " I should like you to take it," returned Phoebe with a persuasive smile, " for the love of that little present which must ever be so dear to me. I should like you to take it, because that road can never be again like any other road to me. I should like you to take it, in remembrance of your having done me so much good : of your having made me so much happier ! If you leave me by the road you travelled when you went to do me this great kindness," sound- ing a faint chord as she spoke, " I shall feel, lying here watching at my window, as if it must conduct you to a jw'osperous end, and bring you back some day." " It shall be done, my dear ; it shall be done." So at last the gentleman for Nowhere took a ticket for Some- where, and his destination was the great ingenious town. He had loitered so long about the Junction that it was the eighteenth of December when he left it. "High time," he re- flected, as he seated himself in the train, "that I started in earnest ! Only one clear day remains between me and the day I am running away from. I'll push onward for the hill-country to- morrow. I'll go to Wales." It was with some pains that he placed before himself the undeni- able advantages to be gained in the way of novel occupation for his senses from misty mountains, swollen streams, rain, cold, a wild seashore, and rugged roads. And yet he scarcely made them out as distinctly as he could have wished. Whether the poor girl, in spite of her new resource, her music, would have any feeling of loneliness upon her now — just at first — that she had not had before ; whether she saw those very puffs of steam and smoke that he saw, as he sat in the train thinking of her; whether her face would have any pensive shadow on it as they died out of the distant view from her window ; whether, in telling him he had done her so much good, she had not unconsciously corrected his old moody bemoaning of his station in life, by setting him thinking that a man might be a great healer, if he would, and yet not be a great doctor ; these and other similar meditations got between him and his Welsh picture. There was within him, too, that dull sense of vacuity which follows separation from an object of interest, and cessation of a pleasant pursuit ; and this sense, being quite new to him, made him restless. Further, in losing Mugby Junction, he had found himself again ; and he was not the more enamoured of himself for having lately passed his time in better company. But surely here, not far ahead, must be the great ingenious town. This crashing and clashing that the train was undergoing, and this coupling on to it of a multitude of new echoes, could mean nothing 480 MUGBY JUNCTION. less than approach to the great station. It did mean nothing less. After some stormy flashes of town lightning, in the way of swift revelations of red brick blocks of houses, high red brick chimney- shafts, vistas of red brick railway arches, tongues of fire, blocks of smoke, valleys of canal, and hiUs of coal, there came the thundering in at the journey's end. Having seen his portmanteaus safely housed in the hotel he chose, and having appointed his dinner hour, Barbox Brothers went out for a walk in the busy streets. And now it began to be suspected by him that Mugby Junction was a Junction of many branches, invisible as well as visible, and had joined him to an endless number of byeways. For, whereas he would, but a little while ago, have walked these streets blindly brooding, he now had eyes and thoughts for a new external world. How the many toil- ing people lived, and loved, and died ; how wonderful it was to consider the various trainings of eye and hand, the nice distinctions of sight and touch, that separated them into classes of workers, and even into classes of workers at subdivisions of one complete whole which combined their many intelligences and forces, though of itself but some cheap object of use or ornament in common life; how good it was to know that such assembling in a multitude on their part, and such contribution of their several dexterities towards a civilising end, did not deteriorate them as it was the fashion of the supercilious Mayflies of humanity to pretend, but engendered among them a self-respect, and yet a modest desire to be much wiser than they were (the first evinced in their well-balanced bear- ing and manner of speech when he stopped to ask a question ; the second, in the announcements of their popular studies and amuse- ments on the public walls) ; these considerations, and a host of such, made his walk a memorable one. " I too am but a little part of a great whole," he began to think; "and to be serviceable to myself and others, or to be happy, I must cast my interest into, and draw it out of, the common stock." Although he had arrived at his journey's end for the day by noon, he had since insensibly walked about the town so far and so long that the lamp-lighters were now at their work in the streets, and the shops were sparkling up brilliantly. Thus re- minded to turn towards his quarters, he was in the act of doing so, when a very little hand crept into his, and a very little voice said : " Oh ! if you please, I am lost ! " He looked down, and saw a very little fiiir-haired girl. "Yes," she said, confirming her words with a serious nod. "I am indeed. I am lost ! " MUGBY JUNCTION 481 Grreatly perplexed, he stopped, looked about him for help, descried none, and said, bending low : " Where do you live, my child ? " " I don't know where I live," she returned. " I am lost." " What is your name ? " "Polly." " What is your other name ? " The reply was prompt, but unintelligible. Imitating the sound as he caught it, he hazarded the guess, " Trivits." " Oh no ! " said the child, shaking her head. '*^othing like that." " Say it again, little one." An unpromising business. For this time it had quite a. different sound. He made the venture, " Paddens ? " " Oh no ! " said the child. " Nothing like that." "Once more. Let us try it again, dear." A most hopeless business. This time it swelled into four syl- lables. " It can't be Tappitarver ? " said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his head with his hat in discomfiture. "No ! It ain't," the child quietly assented. On her trying this unfortunate name once more, with extraordinary efforts at distinctness, it swelled into eight syllables at least. " Ah ! I think," said Barbox Brothers, with a desperate air of resignation, "that we had better give it up." "But I am lost," said the child, nestling her little hand more closely in his, " and you'll take care of me, won't you ? " If ever a man were disconcerted by division between compassion on the one hand, and the very imbecility of irresolution on the other, here the man was. "Lost ! " he repeated, looking down at the child. " I am sure I am. What is to be done 1 " "Where do you live?" asked the child, looking up at him wist- fully. " Over there," he answered, pointing vaguely in the direction of his hotel. "Hadn't we better go there?" said the child. "Really," he replied, "I don't know but what we had." So they set off, hand-in-hand. He, through comparison of him- self against his little companion, with a clumsy feeling on him as if he had just developed into a foolish giant. She, clearly elevated in her own tiny opinion by having got him so neatly out of his em- barrassment. " We are going to have dinner when we get there, I suppose ? " said Polly. 2i 482 MUGBY JUNCTION. "Well," he rejoined, "I Yes, I suppose we are." "Do you like your dinner?" asked the child. "Why, on the whole," said Barbox Brothers, "yes, I think I do." " I do mine," said Polly. " Have you any brothers and sisters 1 " "No. Have you?" "Mine are dead." " Oh ! " said Barbox Brothers. With that absurd sense of un- wieldiness of mind and body weighing him down, he would have not known how to pursue the conversation beyond this curt re- joinder, but that the child was always ready for him. "What," she asked, turning her soft hand coaxingly in his, "are you going to do to amuse me after dinner?" " Upon my soul, Polly," exclaimed Barbox Brothers, very much at a loss, " I have not the slightest idea ! " "Then I tell you what," said Polly. " Have you got any cards at your house ? " " Plenty," said Barbox Brothers in a boastful vein. " Very well. Then I'll build houses, and you shall look at me. You mustn't blow, you know." "Oh no," said Barbox Brothers. "No, no, no. No blowing. Blowing's not fair." He flattered himself that he had said this pretty well for an idiotic monster ; but the child, instantly perceiving the awkward- ness of his attempt to adapt himself to her level, utterly destroyed his hopeful opinion of himself by saying compassionately : " What a funny man you are ! " Feeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he every minute grew bigger and heavier in person, and weaker in rnind, Barbox gave himself up for a bad job. No giant ever submitted more meekly to be led in triumph by all-conquering Jack than he to be bound in slavery to Polly. " Do you know any stories ? " she asked him. He was reduced to the humiliating confession : " No." " What a dunce you must be, mustn't you ? " said Polly. He was reduced to the humiliating confession : "Yes." "Would you like me to teach you a story? But you must re- member it, you know, and be able to tell it right to somebody else afterwards." He professed that it would afford him the highest mental grati- fication to be taught a story, and that he would humbly endeavour to retain it in his mind. Whereupon Polly, giving her hand a new little turn in his, expressive of settling down for enjoyment, com- menced a long romance, of which every relishing clause began with MUGBY JUNCTION. 483 the words : " So this," or, " And so this." As, " So this boy; " or, "So this fairy; " or, "And so this pie was four yards round, and two yards and a quarter deep." The interest of the romance was [ derived from the intervention of this fairy to punish this boy for having a greedy appetite. To achieve which purpose, this fairy made this pie, and this boy ate and ate and ate, and his cheeks swelled and swelled and swelled. There were many tributary cir- cumstances, but the forcible interest culminated in the total con- sumption of this pie, and the bursting of this boy. Truly he was a fine sight, Barbox Brothers, with serious attentive face, and ear bent down, much jostled on the pavements of the busy town, but afraid of losing a single incident of the epic, lest he should be ex- amined in it by and bye, and found deficient. Thus they arrived at the hotel. And there he had to say at the bar, and said awkwardly enough : " I have found a little girl ! " The whole establishment turned out to look at the little girl. Nobody knew her ; nobody could make out her name, as she set it forth — except one chamber-maid, who said it was Constantinople — which it wasn't. " I will dine with my young friend in a private room," said Bar- box Brothers to the hotel authorities, "and perhaps you will be so good as to let the police know that the pretty baby is here. I suppose she is sure to be inquired for soon, if she has not been already. Come along, Polly." Perfectly at ease and peace, Polly came along, but, finding the stairs rather stiff work, was carried up by Barbox Brothers. The dinner was a most transcendant success, and the Barbox sheepish- ness, under Polly's directions how to mince her meat for her, and how to diffuse gravy over the plate with a liberal and equal hand, was another fine sight. "And now," said Polly, "while we are at dinner, you be good, and tell me that story I taught you." With the tremors of a Civil Service examination upon him, and very uncertain indeed, not only as to the epoch at which the pie appeared in history, but also as to the measurements of that indis- pensable fact, Barbox Brothers made a shaky beginning, but under encouragement did very fairly. There was a want of breadth ob- servable in his rendering of the cheeks, as well as the appetite, of the boy ; and there was a certain tameness in his fairy, referable to an under-current of desire to account for her. Still, as the first lumbering performance of a good-humoured monster, it passed muster. "I told you to be^ood," said Polly, "and you are good, ain't you?" 484 MUGBY JUNCTION. "I hope so," replied Barbox Brothers. Such was his deference that Polly, elevated on a platform of sofa cushions in a chair at his right hand, encouraged him with a pat or two on the face from the greasy bowl of her spoon, and even with a gracious kiss. In getting on her feet upon her chair, how- ever, to give him this last reward, she toppled forward among the ' dishes, and caused him to exclaim, as he effected her rescue: " Gracious Angels ! Whew ! I thought we were in the fire, Polly!" " What a coward you are, ain't you ? " said Polly when replaced. " Yes, I am rather nervous," he replied. " Whew ! Don't, Polly ! Don't flourish your spoon, or you'll go over sideways. Don't tilt up your legs when you laugh, Polly, or you'll go over backwards. Whew ! Polly, Polly, Polly," said Barbox Brothers, nearly succumbing to despair, " we are environed with dangers ! " Indeed, he could descry no security from the pitfalls that were yawning for Polly, but in proposing to her, after dinner, to sit upon a low stool. " I will, if you will," said Polly. So, as peace of mind should go before all, he begged the waiter to wheel aside the table, bring a pack of cards, a couple of footstools, and a screen, and close in Polly and himself before the fire, as it were in a snug room within the room. Then, finest sight of all, was Barbox Brothers on his footstool, with a pint decanter on the rug, contemplating Polly as she built successfully, and growing blue in the face with holding his breath, lest he should blow the house down. " How you stare, don't you ? " said Polly in a houseless pause. Detected in the ignoble fact, he felt obliged to admit, apologeti- cally : " I am afraid I was looking rather hard at you, Polly." J " Why do you stare ? " asked Polly. ^ "I cannot," he murmured to himself, "recall why. — I don't know, Polly." " You must be a simpleton to do things and not know why, mustn't you ? " said Polly. In spite of which reproof, he looked at the child again intently, as she bent her head over her card structure, her rich curls shading her face. " It is impossible," he thought, " that I can ever have seen this pretty baby before. Can I have dreamed of her ? In some sorrowful dream ? " He could make nothing of it. So he went into the building trade as a journeyman under Polly, and they built three stories high, four stories high ; even five. " I say ! Who do you think is coming ? " asked Polly, rubbing her eyes after tea. He guessed : "The waiter?" J MUGBY JUNCTION. 485 " No," said Polly, " the dustman. I am getting sleepy. " A new embarrassment for Barbox Brothers ! "I don't think I am going to be fetched to-night," said Polly. " What do you think ? " He thought not, either. After another quarter of an hour, the dustman not merely impending, but actually arriving, recourse was had to the Constantiuopolitan chamber-maid : who cheerily under- took that the child should sleep in a comfortable and wholesome room, which she herself would share. "And I know you will be careful, won't^you," said Barbox Brothers, as a new fear dawned upon him, " that she don't fall out of bed?" Polly found this so highly entertaining that she was under the necessity of clutching him round the neck with both arms as he sat on his footstool picking up the cards, and rocking him to and fro, with her dimpled chin on his shoulder. "Oh, what a coward you are, ain't you?" said Polly. "Do you fall out of bed ? " "N — not generally, Polly." " No more do I." With that, Polly gave him a reassuring hug or two to keep him going, and then giving that confiding mite of a hand of hers to be swallowed up in the hand of the Constantiuopolitan chamber- maid, trotted off, chattering, without a vestige of anxiety. He looked after her, had the screen removed and the table and chairs replaced, and still looked after her. He paced the room for half an hour. " A most engaging little creature, but it's not that. A most winning little voice, but it's not that. That has much to do with it, but there is something more. How can it be that I seem to know this child ? What was it she imperfectly recalled to me when I felt her touch in the street, and, looking down at her, saw her looking up at me ? " " Mr. Jackson ! " With a start he turned towards the sound of the subdued voice, and saw his answer standing at the door. " Oh, Mr. Jackson, do not be severe with me ! Speak a word of encouragement to me, I beseech you." "You are Polly's mother." "Yes." Yes. Polly herself might come to this, one day. As you see what the rose was in its faded leaves ; as you see what the sum- mer growth of the woods was in their wintry branches ; so Polly might be traced, one day, in a careworn woman like this, with her hair turned grey. Before him were the ashes of a dead fire that 486 MUGBY JUNCTION. had once burned bright. This was the woman he had loved. This was the woman he had lost. Such had been the constancy of his imagination to her, so had Time spared her under its with- holding, that now, seeing how roughly the inexorable hand had struck her, his soul was filled with pity and amazement. He led her to a chair, and stood leaning on a corner of the chim- ney-piece, with his head resting on his hand, and his face half averted. " Did you see me in the street, and show me to your child ? " he asked. " Yes." " Is the little creature, then, a party to deceit ? " " I hope there is no deceit. I said to her, ' We have lost our way, and I must try to find mine by myself. Go to that gentle- man, and tell him you are lost. You shall be fetched by and bye.' Perhaps you have not thought how very young she is ? " " She is very self-reliant." "Perhaps because she is so young." He asked, after a short pause, "Why did you do this?" " Oh, Mr. Jackson, do you ask me 1 In the hope that you might see something in my innocent child to soften your heart towards me. Not only towards me, but towards my husband." He suddenly turned about, and walked to the opposite end of the room. He came back again with a slower step, and resumed his former attitude, saying : " I thought you had emigrated to America 1 " "We did. But life went ill with us there, and we came back." " Do you live in this town 1 " "Yes. I am a daily teacher of music here. My husband is a book-keeper." " Are you — forgive my asking — poor ? " " We earn enough for our wants. That is not our distress. My husband is very, very ill of a lingering disorder. He will never recover " "You check yourself. If it is for want of the encouraging word you spoke of, take it from me. I cannot forget the old time, Beatrice." " God bless you ! " she repHed with a burst of tears, and gave him her trembling hand. " Compose yourself. I cannot be composed if you are not, for to see you weep distresses me beyond expression. Speak freely to me. Trust me." She shaded her face with her veil, and after a little while spoke calmly. Her voice had the ring of Polly's. MUGBY JUNCTION. 487 " It is not that my husband's mind is at all impaired by his bodily suffering, for I assure you that is not the case. But in his weakness, and in his knowledge that he is incurably ill, he cannot overcome the ascendancy of one idea. It preys upon him, embit- ters every moment of his painful life, and will shorten it." She stopping, he said again : " Speak freely to me. Trust me." " We have had five children before this darling, and they all lie in their little graves. He believes that they have withered away under a curse, and that it will blight this child like the rest." " Under what curse ? " " Both I and he have it on our conscience that we tried you very heavily, and I do not know but that, if I were as ill as he, I might suffer in my mind as he does. This is the constant bur- den : — 'I believe, Beatrice, I was the only friend that Mr. Jackson ever cared to make, though I was so much his junior. The more influence he acquired in the business, the higher he advanced me, and I was alone in his private confidence. I came between him and you, and I took you from him. We were both secret, and the blow fell when he was wholly unprepared. The anguish it caused a man so compressed must have been terrible ; the wrath it awak- ened inappeasable. So, a curse came to be invoked on our poor pretty little flowers, and they fall.'" "And you, Beatrice," he asked, when she had ceased to speak, and there had been a silence afterwards, " how say you ? " "Until within these few weeks I was afraid of you, and I believed that you would never, never forgive." " Until within these few weeks," he repeated. " Have you changed your opinion of me within these few weeks ? " "Yes." " For what reason ? " " I was getting some pieces of music in a shop in this town, when, to my terror, you came in. As I veiled my face and stood in the dark end of the shop, I heard you explain that you wanted a musical instrument for a bedridden girl. Your voice and manner were so softened, you showed such interest it its selection, you took it away yourself with so much tenderness of care and pleasure, that I knew you were a man with a most gentle heart. Oh, Mr. Jack- son, Mr. Jackson, if you could have felt the refreshing rain of tears that followed for me ! " Was Phoebe playing at that moment on her distant couch 1 He seemed to hear her. " I inquired in the shop where you lived, but could get no in- formation. As I had heard you say that you were going back by the next train (but you did not say where), I resolved to visit the 488 MUGBY JUNCTION. station at about that time of day, as often as I could, between my lessons, on the chance of seeing you again. I have been there very often, but saw you no more until to-day. You were meditating as you walked the street, but the calm expression of your face emboldened me to send my child to you. And when I saw you bend your head to speak tenderly to her, I prayed to God to for- give me for having ever brought a sorrow on it. I now pray to you to forgive me, and to forgive my husband. I was very young, he was young too, and, in the ignorant hardihood of such a time of life, we don't know what we do to those who have undergone more discipline. You generous man ! You good man ! So to raise me up and make nothing of my crime against you ! " — for he would not see her on her knees, and soothed her as a kind father might have soothed an erring daughter — "thank you, bless you, thank you ! " When he next spoke, it was after having drawn aside the window curtain and looked out awhile. Then he only said : " Is Polly asleep ? " " Yes. As I came in, I met her going away up-stairs, and put her to bed myself" " Leave her with me for to-morrow, Beatrice, and write me your address on this leaf of my pocket-book. In the evening I will bring her home to you — and to her father." " Hallo ! " cried Polly, putting her saucy sunny face in at the door next morning when breakfast was ready : " I thouglit I was fetched last night ? " " So you were, Polly, but I asked leave to keep you here for the day, and to take you home in the evening." " Upon my word ! " said Polly. " You are very cool, ain't you ? " However, Polly seemed to think it a good idea, and added : "I suppose I must give you a kiss, though you are cool." The kiss given and taken, they sat down to breakfast in a highly conversational tone. " Of course, you are going to amuse me ? " said Polly. " Oh, of course ! " said Barbox Brothers. In the pleasurable height of her anticipations, Polly found it indispensable to put down her piece of toast, cross one of her little fat knees over the other, and bring her little fat right hand down into her left hand with a business-like slap. After this gathering of herself together, Polly, by that time a mere heap of dimples, asked in a wheedling manner : " What are we going to do, you dear old thing 1 " MUGBY JUNCTION. 489 " Why, I was thinking," said Barbox Brothers, " — but are you fond of horses, Polly ? " " Ponies, I am," said Polly, " especially when their tails are long. But horses — n — no — too big, you know." " Well," pursued Barbox Brothers, in a spirit of grave mysteri- ous confidence adapted to the importance of the consultation, " I did see yesterday, Polly, on the walls, pictures of two long-tailed ponies, speckled all over " " No, no, NO ! " cried Polly, in an ecstatic desire to linger on the charming details. " Not speckled all over ! " _, " Speckled all over. Which ponies jump through hoops " " No, no, NO ! " cried Polly as before. " They never jump through hoops ! " " Yes, they do. Oh, I assure you they do ! And eat pie in pinafores " " Ponies eating pie in pinafores ! " said Polly. " What a story- teller you are, ain't you ? " " Upon my honour. — And fire off guns." (Polly hardly seemed to see the force of the ponies resorting to fire-arms.) "And I was thinking," pursued the exemplary Barbox, "that if you and I were to go to the Circus where these ponies are, it would do our constitutions good." " Does that mean amuse us ? " inquired Polly. " What long words you do use, don't you 1 " Apologetic for having wandered out of his depth, he replied : " That means amuse us. That is exactly what it means. There are many other wonders besides the ponies, and we shall see them all. Ladies and gentlemen in spangled dresses, and elephants and lions and tigers." Polly became observant of the teapot, with a curled-up nose indicating some uneasiness of mind. "They never get out, of course," she remarked as a mere truism. " The elephants and lions and tigers ? Oh, dear no ! " "Oh, dear no !" said Polly. "And of course nobody's afraid of the ponies shooting anybody." " Not the least in the world." " No, no, not the least in the world," said Polly. "I was also thinking," proceeded Barbox, "that if we were to look in at the toy-shop, to choose a doll " " Not dressed ! " cried Polly with a clap of her hands. " No, no, NO, not dressed ! " "Full-dressed. Together with a house, and all things necessary for housekeeping " 490 MUGBY JUNCTION. Polly gave a little scream, and seemed in danger of falling into a swoon of bliss. " What a darling you are ! " she languidly exclaimed, leaning back in her chair. " Come and be hugged, or I must come and hug you." This resplendent programme was carried into execution with the utmost rigour of the law. It being essential to make the purchase of the doll its first feature — or that lady would have lost the ponies — the toy-shop expedition took precedence. Polly in the magic warehouse, with a doll as large as herself under each arm, and a neat assortment of some twenty more on view upon the counter, did indeed present a spectacle of indecision not quite com- patible with unalloyed happiness, but the light cloud passed. The lovely specimen oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected, and finally abided by, was of Circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty as was reconcilable with extreme feebleness of mouth, and combin- ing a sky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a black velvet hat : which this fair stranger to our northern shores would seem to have founded on the portraits of the late Duchess of Kent. The name this distinguished foreigner brought with her from beneath the glowing skies of a sunny clime was (on Polly's authority) Miss Melluka, and the costly nature of her outfit as a housekeeper, from the Barbox coff"ers, may be inferred from the two facts that her silver tea-spoons were as large as her kitchen poker, and that the proportions of her watch exceeded those of her frying-pan. Miss Melluka was graciously pleased to express her entire approbation of the Circus, and so was Polly; for the ponies ivere speckled, and brought down nobody when they fired, and the savagery of the wild beasts appeared to be mere smoke — w^hich article, in fact, they did produce in large quantities from their insides. The Barbox absorption in the general subject throughout the realisation of these delights was again a sight to see, nor was it less worthy to behold at dinner, when he drank to Miss Melluka, tied stiff" in a chair opposite to Polly (the fair Circassian possessing an unbendable spine), and even induced the waiter to assist in carrying out with due decorum the prevailing glorious idea. To wind up, there came the agreeable fever of get- ting Miss Melluka and all her wardrobe and rich possessions into a fly with Polly, to be taken home. But, by that time, Polly had become unable to look upon such accumulated joys with waking eyes, and had withdrawn her consciousness into the wonderful Paradise of a child's sleep. "Sleep, Polly, sleep," said Barbox Brothers, as her head dropped on his shoulder; "you shall not fall out of this bed easily, at any rate ! " MUGBY JUNCTION. 491 What rustling piece of paper he took from his pocket, and care- fully folded into the bosom of Polly's frock, shall not be mentioned. He said nothing about it, and nothing shall be said about it. They drove to a modest suburb of the great ingenious town, and stopped at the fore-court of a small house. "Do not wake the child," said Barbox Brothers softly to the driver; "I will carry her in as she is." Greeting the light at the opened door which was held by Polly's mother, Polly's bearer passed on with mother and child into a ground-floor room. There, stretched on a sofa, lay a sick man, sorely wasted, who covered his eyes with his emaciated hands. "Tresham," said Barbox in a kindly voice, "I have brought you back your Polly, fast asleep. Give me your hand, and tell me you are better." The sick man reached forth his right hand, and bowed his head over the hand into which it was taken, and kissed it. "Thank you, thank you ! I may say that I am well and happy." "That's brave," said Barbox. " Tresham, I have a fancy Can you make room for me beside you here ? " He sat down on the sofa as he said the words, cherishing the plump peachey cheek that lay uppermost on his shoulder. " I have a fancy, Tresham (I am getting quite an old fellow now, you know, and old fellows may take fancies into their heads some- times), to give up Polly, having found her, to no one but you. Will you take her from me 1 " As the father held out his arms for the child, each of the two men looked steadily at the other. " She is very dear to you, Tresham ? " "Unutterably dear." " God bless her ! It is not much, Polly," he continued, turning his eyes upon her peaceful face as he apostrophised her, "it is not much, Polly, for a blind and sinful man to invoke a blessing on something so far better than himself as a little child is ; but it would be much — much upon his cruel head, and much upon his guilty soul — if he could be so wicked as to invoke a curse. He had better have a millstone round his neck, and be cast into the deepest sea. Live and thrive, my pretty baby ! " Here he kissed her. " Live and prosper, and become in time the mother of other little children, like the Angels who behold The Father's face ! " He kissed her again, gave her up gently to both her parents, and went out. But he went not to Wales. No, he never went to Wales. He went straightway for another stroll about the town, and he looked in upon the people at their work, and at their play, here, there, 492 MUGBY JUNCTION. everywhere, and where not. For he was Barbox Brothers and Co. now, and had taken thousands of partners into the solitary firm. He had at length got back to his hotel room, and w^as standing before his fire refreshing himself with a glass of hot drink which he had stood upon the chimney-piece, when he heard the town clocks striking, and, referring to his watch, found the evening to have so slipped away, that they were striking twelve. As he put up his w^atch again, his eyes met those of his reflection in the chimney- glass. " Why, it's your birthday already," he said, smiling. " You are looking very w^ell. I wish you many happy returns of the day." He had never before bestowed that wish upon himself. " By Jupiter ! " he discovered, " it alters the whole case of running away from one's birthday ! It's a thing to explain to Phoebe. Besides, here is quite a long story to tell her, that has sprung out of the road with no story. I'll go back, instead of going on. I'll go back by my friend Lamps's Up X presently." He went back to Mugby Junction, and, in point of fact, he es- tablished himself at Mugby Junction. It was the convenient place to live in, for brightening Phoebe's life. It was the convenient place to live in, for having her taught music by Beatrice. It was the convenient place to live in, for occasionally borrowing Polly. It w^as the convenient place to live in, for being joined at will to all sorts of agreeable places and persons. So, he became settled there, and, his house standing in an elevated situation, it is note- worthy of him in conclusion, as Polly herself might (not irrever- ently) have put it : " There was an Old Barbox who lived on a hill, And if he ain't gone, he lives there still." Here follows the substance of w^hat avas seen, heard, OR otherwise picked up, by the Gentleman for Nowhere, IN HIS careful study OF THE JUNCTION. Chapter III. MAIN LINE. THE BOY AT MUGBY. I AM the boy at Mugby. That's about what / am. You don't know what I mean ? What a pity ! But I think you do. I think you must. Look here. I am the boy at what is called The Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, and what's proudest boast is, that it never yet refreshed a mortal being. Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby June- MUGBY JUNCTION. 493 tion, in the height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often counted 'em while they brush the First-class hair twenty-seven ways), behind the bottles, among the glasses, bounded on the nor'west by the beer, stood pretty far to the right of a metallic object that's at times the tea-urn and at times the soup- tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its contents which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveller by a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly exposed side- ways to the glare of Our Missis's eye — you ask a Boy so sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything to drink ; you take particular notice that he'll try to seem not to hear you, that he'll appear in a absent manner to survey the Line through a transparent medium composed of your head and body, and that he won't serve you as long as you can possibly bear it. That's me. What a lark it is ! We are the Model Establishment, we are, at Mugby. Other Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young ladies up to be finished off by our Missis. For some of the young ladies, when they're new to the business, come into it mild ! Ah ! Our Missis, she soon takes that out of 'em. Why, I originally come into the business meek myself. But Our Missis, she soon took that out of me. What a delightful lark it is ! I look upon us Refreshmenters as ockipying the only proudly independent footing on the Line. There's Papers, for instance, — my honourable friend, if he will allow me to call him so, — him as belongs to Smith's bookstall. Why, he no more dares to be up to our Refreshmenting games than he dares to jump atop of a locomotive with her steam at full pressure, and cut away upon her alone, driving himself, at limited-mail speed. Papers, he'd get his head punched at every compartment, first, second, and third, the whole length of a train, if he was to ventur to imitate my demeanour. It's the same with the porters, the same with the guards, the same with the ticket clerks, the same the whole way up to the secretary, trafl&c-manager, or very chairman. There ain't a one among 'em on the nobly independent footing we are. Did you ever catch one of them, when you wanted anything of him, making a system of surveying the Line through a transparent medium com- posed of your head and body 1 I should hope not. You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction. It's led to by the door behind the counter, which you'll notice usually stands ajar, and it's the room where Our Missis and our young ladies Bandolines their hair. You should see 'em at it, betwixt trains, Bandolining away, as if they was anointing themselves for the com- bat. When you're telegraphed, you should see their noses all a going up with scorn, as if it was a part of the working of the same 494 MUGBY JUNCTION. Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery. You should hear Our Missis give the word, " Here comes the Beast to be Fed ! " and then you should see 'em indignantly skipping across the Line, from the Up to the Down, or Wicer Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale pastry into the plates, and chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers, and get out the — ha, ha, ha ! — the sherry, — my eye, my eye ! — for your Refreshment. It's only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which, of course, I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting is so effec- tive, so 'olesome, so constitutional a check upon the public. There was a Foreigner, which having politely, with his hat off, beseeched our young ladies and Our Missis for "a leetel gloss hoff prarndee," and having had the Line surveyed through him by all and no other acknowledgment, was a proceeding at last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his own country, when Our Missis, with her hair almost a coming un-Bandolined with rage, and her eyes omit- ting sparks, flew at him, cotched the decanter out of his hand, and said, " Put it down ! I won't allow that ! " The foreigner turned pale, stepped back with his arms stretched out in front of him, his hands clasped, and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed : " Ah ! Is it possible, this ! That these disdaineous females and this ferocious old woman are placed here by the administration, not only to em- poison the voyagers, but to affront them ! Great Heaven ! How arrives it ? The English people. Or is he then a slave 1 Or idiot 1 " Another time, a merry, wideawake American gent had tried the saw- dust and spit it out, and had tried the Sherry and spit that out, and had tried in vain to sustain exhausted natur upon Butter-Scotch, and had been rather extra Bandolined and Line-surveyed through, when, as the bell was ringing and he paid Our Missis, he says, very loud and good-tempered : "I tell Yew what 'tis, ma'arm. I la'af. Theer ! I la'af. I Dew. I oughter ha' seen most things, for I hail from the Onlimited side of the Atlantic Ocean, and I halve travelled right slick over the Limited, head on through Jeerusalemm and the East, and likewise France and Italy, Europe Old World, and am now upon the track to the Chief Europian Village ; but such an Institution as Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, afore the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet ! And if I hain't found the eighth wonder of monarchial Creation, in finding Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the innermostest grit ! Wheerfur — Theer ! — I la'af ! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af ! " And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all the way to his own compartment. MUGBY JUNCTION. 495 I think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner as giv' Our Missis the idea of going over to France, and droring a comparison betwixt Refreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters, and Refreshmenting as triumphant in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which, of course, I mean to say agin, Britannia). Our young ladies. Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her going ; for, as they says to Our Missis one and all, it is well beknown to the hends of the berth as no other nation ex- cept Britain has a idea of any think, but above all of business. Why then should you tire yourself to prove what is already proved ? Our Missis, however (being a teazer at all pints) stood out grim obsti- nate, and got a return pass by Southeastern Tidal, to go right through, if such should be her dispositions, to Marseilles. Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove. He looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is sometimes, when we are very hard put to it, let behind the counter with a corkscrew ; but never when it can be helped, his demeanour towards the public being disgusting servile. How Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to lower herself as to marry him, I don't know ; but I suppose he does, and I should think he wished he didn't, for he leads a awful life. Mrs. Sniff couldn't be much harder with him if he was public. Similarly, Miss Whiff and Miss Piff, taking the tone of Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he is, let in with a corkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in his servility he is a going to let the public have 'em, and they snap him up when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he is a going to answer a public ques- tion, and they drore more tears into his eyes than ever the mustard does which he all day long lays on to the sawdust. (But it ain't strong.) Once, when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to get the milk-pot to hand over for a baby, I see Our Missis in her rage catch him by both his shoulders, and spin him out into the Bandolining Room. But Mrs. Sniff, — how different ! She's the one ! She's the one as you'll notice to be always looking another way from you, when you look at her. She's the one with the small waist buckled in tight in front, and with the lace cuffs at her wrists, which she puts on the edge of the counter before her, and stands a smoothing while the public foams. This smoothing the cuffs and looking another way while the public foams is the last accomplishment taught to the young ladies as come to Mugby to be finished by Our Missis ; and it's always taught by Mrs. Sniff. When Our Missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff was left in charge. She did hold the public in check most beautiful ! In all my time, I never see half so many cups of tea given without 496 MUGBY JUNCTION. milk to people as wanted it with, nor half so many cups of tea with milk given to people as wanted it without. When foaming ensued, Mrs. Sniff would say: "Then you'd better settle it among your- selves, and change with one another." It was a most highly deli- cious lark. I enjoyed the Refreshmenting business more than ever, and was so glad I had took to it when young. Our Missis returned. It got circulated among the young ladies, and it as it might be penetrated to me through the crevices of the Bandolining Room, that she had Orrors to reveal, if revelations so contemptible could be dignified with the name. Agitation become awakened. Excitement was up in the stirrups. Expectation stood a-tiptoe. At length it was put forth that on our slacked evening in the week, and at our slackest time of that evening betwixt trains, Our Missis would give her views of foreign Refreshmenting, in the Bandolining Room. It was arranged tasteful for the purpose. The Bandolining table and glass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated on a pack- ing-case for Our Missis's ockypation, a table and a tumbler of water (no sherry in it, thankee) was placed beside it. Two of the pupils, the season being autumn, and hollyhocks and dahlias being in, orna- mented the wall with three devices in those flowers. On one might be read, "May Albion never Leaen;" on another "Keep the Public Down;" on another, "Our Refreshmenting Charter." The whole had a beautiful appearance, with which the beauty of the sentiments corresponded. On Our Missis's brow was wrote Severity, as she ascended the fatal platform. (Not that that was anythink new.) Miss Whiff and Miss Piff sat at her feet. Three chairs from the Waiting Room might have been perceived by a average eye, in front of her, on which the pupils was accommodated. Behind them a very close observer might have discerned a Boy. Myself. " Where," said Our Missis, glancing gloomily around, " is Sniff? " "I thought it better," answered Mrs. Sniff, "that he should not be let to come in. He is such an Ass." "No doubt," assented Our Missis. "But for that reason is it not desirable to improve his mind ? " " Oh, nothing will ever improve A?'m," said Mrs. Sniff. "However," pursued Our Missis, "call him in, Ezekiel." I called him in. The appearance of the low-minded cove was hailed with disapprobation from all sides, on account of his having brought his corkscrew with him. He pleaded " the force of habit." " The force ! " said Mrs. Sniff. " Don't let us have you talking about force, for Gracious' sake. There ! Do stand still where you are, with your back against the wall." MUGBY JUNCTION. 497 He is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean way in which he will even smile at the public if he gets a chance (lan- guage can say no meaner of him), and he stood upright near the door with the back of his head agin the wall, as if he was a waiting for somebody to come and measure his heighth for the Army, "I should not enter, ladies," says Our Missis, "on the revolting disclosures I am about to make, if it was not in the hope that they will cause you to be yet more implacable in the exercise of the power you wield in a constitutional country, and yet more devoted to the constitutional motto which I see before m»," — it was behind her, but the words sounded better so, — " ' May Albion never learn ! ' " Here the pupils as had made the motto admired it, and cried, " Hear ! Hear ! Hear ! " Sniff, showing an inclination to join in chorus, got himself frowned down by every brow. " The baseness of the French," pursued Our Missis, " as dis- played in the fawning nature of their Refreshmenting, equals, if not surpasses, anythink as was ever heard of the baseness of the celebrated Bonaparte." Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and me, we drored a heavy breath, equal to saying, " We thought as much ! " Miss Whiff and Miss Piff seeming to object to my droring mine along with theirs, I drored another to aggravate 'em. "Shall I be believed," says Our Missis, with flashing eyes, " when I tell you that no sooner had I set my foot upon that treacherous shore " Here Sniff, either bursting out mad, or thinking aloud, says, in a low voice : " Feet. Plural, you know." The cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by all eyes, added to his being beneath contempt, was sufficient punish- ment for a cove so grovelling. In the midst of a silence rendered more impressive by the turned-up female noses with which it was pervaded. Our Missis went on : "Shall I be believed when I tell you, that no sooner had I landed," this word with a killing look at Sniff, "on that treacher- ous shore, than I was ushered into a Refreshment Room where there were — I do not exaggerate — actually eatable things to eat?" A groan burst from the ladies. I not only did myself the hon- our of jining, but also of lengthening it out. " Where there were," Our Missis added, " not only eatable things to eat, but also drinkable things to drink ? " A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz. Miss Piff, trembling with indignation, called out, " Name 1 " 2 k 498 MUGBY JUNCTION. "I will name," said Our Missis. "There was roast fowls, hot and cold ; there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned potatoes ; there was hot soup with (again I ask shall I be cred- ited 1) nothing bitter in it, and no flour to choke off the consumer ; there was a variety of cold dishes set off with jelly ; there was salad ; there was — mark me ! fresh pastry, and that of a light construction ; there was a luscious show of fruit ; there was bottles and decanters of sound small wine, of every size, and adapted tu every pocket ; the same odious statement will apply to brandy ; and these were set out upon the counter so that all could help themselves." Our Missis's lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely less convulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them. "This," proceeds Our Missis, "was my first unconstitutional experience. Well would it have been if it had been my last and worst. But no. As I proceeded farther into that enslaved and ignorant land, its aspect became more hideous. I need not explain to this assembly the ingredients and formation of the British Refreshment sangwich ? " Universal laughter, — except from Sniff, who, as sangwich-cutter, shook his head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood with it agin the wall. " Well ! " said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils. " Take a fresh, crisp, long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour. Cut it longwise through the middle. Insert a fair and nicely fit- ting slice of ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind it together. Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which to hold it. And the universal French Refreshment sangwich busts on your disgusted vision." A cry of "Shame!" from all — except Sniff, which rubbed his stomach with a soothing hand. "I need not," said Our Missis, "explain to this assembly the usual formation and fitting of the British Refreshment Room 1 " No, no, and laughter. Sniff again shaking his head in low spirits agin the wall. "Well," said Our Missis, "what would you say to a general decoration of everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvet furniture, to abundance of little tables, to abundance of little seats, to brisk bright waiters, to great convenience, to a pervading cleanliness and tastefulness positively addressing the public, and making the Beast thinking itself worth the pains 1 " Contemptuous fury on the part of all the ladies. Mrs. Suift* looking as if she wanted somebody to hold her, and everybody else looking as if they'd rayther not. MUGBY JUNCTION. 499 " Three times," said Our Missis, working herself into a truly terrimenjious state, — " three times did I see these shameful things, only between the coast and Paris, and not counting either : at Hazebroucke, at Arras, at Amiens. But worse remains. Tell me, what would you call a person who should propose in England that there should be kept, say at our own model Mugby Junction, pretty baskets, each holding an assorted cold lunch and dessert for one, each at a certain fixed price, and each within a passenger's power to take away, to empty in the carriage at perfect leisure, and to return at another station fifty or a hundred miles farther on 1 " There was disagreement what such a person should be called. Whether revolutionist, atheist. Bright (/ said him), or Un-English. Miss Piff" screeched her shrill opinion last, in the words : "A malig- nant maniac ! " "I adopt," says Our Missis, "the brand set upon such a person by the righteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff". A malignant maniac. Know, then, that that malignant maniac has sprung from the congenial soil of France, and that his malignant madness was in unchecked action on this same part of my journey." I noticed that Sniff' was a-rubbing his hands, and that Mrs. Sniff had got her eye upon him. But I did not take more particu- lar notice, owing to the excited state in which the young ladies was, and to feeling myself called upon to keep it up with a howl. " On my experience south of Paris," said Our Missis, in a deep tone, " I will not expatiate. Too loathsome were the task ! But fancy this. Fancy a guard coming round, with the train at full speed, to inquire how many for dinner. Fancy his telegraphing forward the number of dinners. Fancy every one expected, and the table elegantly laid for the complete party. Fancy a charming dinner, in a charming room, and the head-cook, concerned for the honour of every dish, superintending in his clean white jacket and cap. Fancy the Beast travelling six hundred miles on end, very fast, and with great punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this to be done for it ! " A spirited chorus of " The Beast ! " I noticed that Sniff was agin a-rubbing his stomach with a soothing hand, and that he had drored up one leg. But agin I didn't take particular notice, looking on myself as called upon to stimulate public feeling. It being a lark besides. " Putting everything together," said Our Missis, " French Re- freshmenting comes to this, and oh, it comes to a nice total ! First : eatable things to eat, and drinkable things to drink." A groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me. "Second : convenience, and even elegance." 500 MUGBY JUNCTION. Another groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me. " Third : moderate charges." This time a groan from me, kep' up by the young ladies. "Fourth: — and here," says Our Missis, "I claim your angri- est sympathy, — attention, common civility, nay, even politeness ! " Me and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together. " And I cannot in conclusion," says Our Missis, with her spite- fullest sneer, "give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (after what I have related), than assuring you that they wouldn't bear our constitutional ways and noble independence at Mugby Junction, for a single month, and that they would turn us to the right-about and put another system in our places, as soon as look at us ; perhaps sooner, for I do not believe they have the good taste to care to look at us twice." The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore away by his servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and a higher relish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrew over his head. It was at this moment that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep' her eye upon him like the fabled obelisk, descended on her victim. Our Missis followed them both out, and cries was heard in the sawdust department. You come into the Down Refreshment Room, at the Junction, making believe you don't know me, and I'll pint you out with my right thumb over my shoulder which is Our Missis, and which is Miss Whiff, and which is Miss Piff, and which is Mrs. Sniff. But you won't get a chance to see Sniff, because he disappeared that night. Whether he perished, tore to pieces, I cannot say ; but his corkscrew alone remains, to bear witness to the servility of his disposition. Chapter IV. NO. 1 BRANCH LINE. — THE SIGNAL-MAN. " Halloa ! Below there ! " When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came ; but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my life what. But I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in THE SIGNAL-MAN. 502 MUGBY JUNCTION. the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all. " Halloa ! Below ! " From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him. " Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?" He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question. Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an on- coming rush that caused me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down. When such vapour as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me, and was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again, and saw him refurling the flag he had shown while the train went by. I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down to him, " All right ! " and made for that point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed. The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out the path. When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast. His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I stopped a moment, wondering at it. I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky ; the perspective one way only a crooked prolonga- tion of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there MUGBY JUNCTION. 503 was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell ; and so mucli cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world. Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step, and lifted his hand. This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a rarity, I should suppose ; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped ? In me, he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly- awakened interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke to him ; but I am far from sure of the terms I used ; for, besides that I am not happy in opening any conversation, there was some- thing in the man that daunted me. He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel's mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were miss- ing from it, and then looked at me. That light was part of his charge ? Was it not ? He ansv/ered in a low voice, — "Don't you know it is?" The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. I have speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind. In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I de- tected in his eyes some latent fear of me. This put the monstrous thought to flight. "You look at me," I said, forcing a smile, "as if you had a dread of me." " I was doubtful," he returned, " whether I had seen you before." "Where?" He pointed to the red light he had looked at. "There?" I said. Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), "Yes." "My good fellow, what should I do there ? However, be that as it may, I never was there, you may swear." "I think I may," he rejoined. "Yes ; I am sure I may." His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my remarks with readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he much to do there? Yes; that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness and watchfulness were what was recjuired of him, and of actual work- — ^ manual labour — he had next to none. To change that signal, to trim those lights, and to turn 504 MUGBY JUNCTION. this iron handle now and then, was all he had to do under that head. Regarding those many long and lonely hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only say that the routine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had grown used to it. He had taught himself a language down here, — if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its jDronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also worked at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra ; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it necessary for him when on duty always to remain in that channel of damp air, and could he never rise into the sunshine from between those high stone walls ? Why, that depended upon times and circum- stances. Under some conditions there would be less upon the Line than under others, and the same held good as to certain hours of the day and night. In bright weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little above these lower shadows ; but, being at all times liable to be called by his electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled anxiety, the relief was less than I would suppose. He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an official book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic instrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of which he had spoken. On my trusting that he would excuse the remark that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say without offence), perhaps educated above that station, he observed that instances of slight incongruity in such wise would rarely be found wanting among large bodies of men ; that he had heard it was so in workhouses, in the police force, even in that last des- perate resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I could believe it, sitting in that hut, — he scarcely could), a student of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures ; but he had run wild, misused his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again. He had no complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, and he lay upon it. It was far too late to make another. All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his grave dark regards divided between me and the fire. He threw in the word, " Sir," from time to time, and especially when he re- ferred to his youth, — as though to request me to understand that he claimed to be nothing but what I found him. He was several times interrupted by the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies. Once he had to stand without the door, and display a flag as a train passed, and make some verbal communica- tion to the driver. In the discharge of his duties, I observed him MUGBY JUNCTION. 505 to be remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining silent until what he had to do was done. In a word, 1 should have set this man down as one of the safest of men to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen colour, turned his face towards the little bell when it did not ring, opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy damp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel. On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being able to define, when we were so far asunder. Said I, when I rose to leave him, "You almost make me think that I have met with a contented man." (I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.) "I believe I used to be so," he rejoined, in the low voice in which he had first spoken; "but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled." He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said them, however, and I took them up quickly. " With what 1 What is your trouble ? " " It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult to speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell you." " But I expressly intend to make you another visit. Say, when shall it be?" "I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten to-morrow night, sir." "I will come at eleven." He thanked me, and went out at the aoor with me. " I'll show my white light, sir," he said, in his peculiar low voice, "till you have found the way up. When you have found it, don't call out ! And when you are at the top, don't call out ! " His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said no more than, " Very well." "And when you come down to-morrow night, don't call out! Let me ask you a parting question. What made you cry, ' Halloa ! Below there ! ' to-night ? " " Heaven knows," said I. "I cried something to that effect " " Not to that effect, sir. Those were the very words. I know them well." "Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt, because I saw you below." " For no other reason ? " " What other reason could I possibly have ? " 506 MUGBY JUNCTION. "You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any supernatural way ? " "No." He wished me good night, and held up his light. I walked by the side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensa- tion of a train coming behind me) until I found the path. It was easier to mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any adventure. Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of the zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven. He was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on. "I have not called out," I said, when we came close together; "may I speak now?" "By all means, sir." "Good night, then, and here's my hand." " Good night, sir, and here's mine." With that we walked side by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down by the fire. "I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending forward as soon as we were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper, "that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I took you for some one else yesterday evening. That troubles me." "That mistake?" "No. That some one else." "Who is it?" "I don't know." "Like me?" " I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the face, and the right arm is waved, — violently waved. This way." I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm gesticulating, with the utmost passion and vehemence, " For God's sake, clear the way ! " " One moonlight night," said the man, " I was sitting here, when I heard a voice cry, ' Halloa ! Below there ! ' I started up, looked from that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you. The voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, ' Look out ! Look out ! ' And then again, ' Halloa ! Below there ! Look out ! ' I caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, 'What's wrong? What has happened? Where?' It stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close upon it that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when it was gone." ( MUGBY JUNCTION. 607 " Into the tunnel ? " said I, " No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I stopped, and held my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the measured distance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and trickling through the arch. I ran out again faster than I had run in (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again, and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm has been given. Is anything wrong?' The swiswer came back, both ways, 'All well.'" Kesisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of sight ; and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experi- ments upon themselves. " As to an imaginary cry," said I, "do but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires." That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for a while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the wires, — he who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and watching. But he would beg to remark that he had not fin- ished. I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my arm, — " Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on this Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had stood," A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it. It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind. But it was unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur, and they nmst be taken into account in dealing with such a subject. Though to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I sav\r that he was going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of common sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary calculations of life. He again begged to remark that he had not finished. I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions. "This," he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glanc- ing over his shoulder with hollow eyes, "was just a year ago. 508 MUGBY JUNCTION. Six or seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and shock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, stand- ing at the door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre again." He stopped, with a fixed look at me. "Did it cry out?" " No. It was silent." " Did it wave its arm 1 " " No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands before the face. Like this." Once more I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action of mourning. I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs. "Did you go up to it?" "I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly because it had turned me faint. When I went to the door again, daylight was above me, and the ghost was gone." " But nothing followed ? Nothing came of this ?" He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice, giving a ghastly nod each time : " That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a carriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of hands and heads, and something waved. I saw it just in time to signal the driver, Stop ! He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after it, and, as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the com- partments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor between us." Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards at which he pointed to himself "True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you." I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long lamenting wail. He resumed. " Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is troubled. The spectre came back a week ago. Ever since, it has been there, now and again, by fits and starts." "AttheUght?" "At the Danger-light." " What does it seem to do ? " He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that former gesticulation of, " For God's sake, clear the way ! " Then he went on. "I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me, for many minutes together, in an agonised manner, 'Below /I MUGBY JUNCTION. 509 there ! Look out ! Look out ! ' It stands waving to me. It rings my little bell — " I caught at that. "Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I was here, and you went to the door ? " " Twice." "Why, see," said I, " how your imagination misleads you. My eyes were on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and if I am a living man, it did not ring at those times. No, nor at any other time, except when it was rung in the natural course of physi- cal things by the station communicating with you." He shook his head. " I have never made a. mistake as to that yet, sir. I have never confused the spectre's ring with the man's. The ghost's ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from nothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the eye. I don't wonder that you failed to hear it. But / heard it." " And did the spectre seem to be there, when you looked out ? " " It WAS there." " Both times ? " He repeated firmly : " Both times." " Will you come to the door with me, and look for it now ? " He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but arose. I opened the door, and stood on the step, while he stood in the doorway. There was the Danger-light. There was the dismal mouth of the tunnel. There were the high, wet stone walls of the cutting. There were the stars above them. " Do you see it ? " I asked him, taking particular note of his face. His eyes were prominent and strained, but not very much more so, perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly towards the same spot. " No," he answered. " It is not there." "Agreed," said I. We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats. I was thinking how best to improve this advantage, if it might be called one, when he took up the conversation in such a matter-of-course way, so assuming that there could be no serious question of fact between us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions. "By this time you will fully understand, sir," he said, "that what troubles me so dreadfully is the question, What does the spectre mean 1 " I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand. "What is its warning against?" he said, ruminating, with his eyes on the fire, and only by times turning them on me. " What is the danger 1 Where is the danger 1 There is danger over- 510 MUGBY JUNCTION. hanging somewhere on the Line. Some dreadful calamity will happen. It is not to be doubted this third time, after what has gone before. But surely this is a cruel haunting of me. What can /do?" He pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the drops from his heated forehead. " If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can give no reason for it," he went on, wiping the palms of his hands. " I should get into trouble, and do no good. They would think I was mad. This is the way it would work, — Message : ' Dan- ger ! Take care ! ' Answer : ' What Danger 1 Where ? ' Mes- sage : ' Don't know. But, for God's sake, take care ! ' They would displace me. What else could they do ? " His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life. "When it first stood under the Danger-light," he went on, put- ting his dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands out- ward across and across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress, "why not tell me where that accident was to happen, — if it must happen 1 Why not tell me how it could be averted, — if it could have been averted 1 When on its second coming it hid its face, why not tell me, instead, ' She is going to die. Let them keep her at home'? If it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its w^arnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not warn me plainly now ? And I, Lord help me ! A mere poor signal-man on this solitary station ! Why not go to somebody with credit to be believed, and power to act?" When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man's sake, as well as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was to compose his mind. Therefore, setting aside all question of reality or unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it was his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not understand these confounding Appearances. In this eff'ort I suc- ceeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his con- viction. He became calm ; the occupations incidental to his post as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his atten- tion : and I left him at two in the morning. I had offered to stay through the night, but he would not hear of it. That I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended the pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see MUGBY JUNCTION. 611 no reason to conceal. Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and the dead girl. I see no reason to conceal that either. But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure 1 I had proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact ; but how long might he remain so, in his state of mind 1 Though in a subordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of his continuing to execute it with precision 1 Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something treacherous in my communicating what he had told me to his supe- riors in the Company, without first being plain with himself and proposing a middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to oflfer to accompany him (otherwise keeping his secret for the present) to the wisest medical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take his opinion. A change in his time of duty would come round next night, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after sunrise, and on again soon after sunset. I had appointed to return accordingly. Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy it. The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field-path near the top of the deep cutting. I would extend my walk for an hour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and it would then be time to go to my signal-man's box. Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and mechani- cally looked down, from the point from which I had first seen him. I cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the mouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man, with his left sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm. The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for in a moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man in- deed, and that there was a little group of other men, standing at a short distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made. The Danger-light was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger than a bed. With an irresistible sense that something was wrong, — with a flashing self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my leaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to over- look or correct what he did, — I descended the notched path with all the speed I could make. " What is the matter?" I asked the men. " Signal-man killed this morning, sir." 512 MUGBY JUNCTION. " Not the man belonging to that box ? " "Yes, sir." " Not the man I know ? " "You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him," said the man who spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his own head, and raising an end of the tarpaulin, "for his face is quite composed." " 0, how did this happen, how did this happen ? " I asked, turn- ing from one to another as the hut closed in again. " He was cut down by an engine, sir. No man in England knew his work better. But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail. It was just at broad day. He had struck the light, and had the lamp in his hand. As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was towards her, and she cut him down. That man drove her, and was showing how it happened. Show the gentleman, Tom." The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his for- mer place at the mouth of the tunnel. " Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir," he said, " I saw him at the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-glass. There was no time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful. As he didn't seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were running down upon him, and called to him as loud as I could call." " What did you say ? " " I said, ' Below there ! Look out ! Look out ! For God's sake, clear the way ! ' " I started. " Ah ! it was a dreadful time, sir. I never left ofiF calling to him. I put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I waved this arm to the last ; but it was no use." Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its curious circumstances more than on any other, I may, in closing it, point out the coincidence that the warning of the engine-driver included, not only the words whicli the unfortunate signal-man had repeated to me as haunting him, but also the words which I myself — not he — had attached, and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he had imitated. NO THOROUGHFARE. 513 NO THOROUGHFARE. THE OVERTURE. Day of the month and year, November the thirtieth, one thou- sand eight hundred and thirty-five. London Time by the great clock of Saint Paul's, ten at night. All the legser London churches strain their metallic throats. Some, flippantly begin before the heavy bell of the great cathedral ; some, tardily begin three, four, half a dozen, strokes behind it ; all are insufficiently near accord, to leave a resonance in the air, as if the winged father who devours his children, had made a sounding sweep with his gigantic scythe in flying over the city. What is this clock lower than most of the rest, and nearer to the ear, that lags so far behind to-night as to strike into the vibra- tion alone 1 This is the clock of the Hospital for Foundling Chil- dren. Time was, when the Foundlings were received without question in a cradle at the gate. Time is, when inquiries are made respecting them, and they are taken as by favour from the mothers who relinquish all natural knowledge of them and claim to them for evermore. The moon is at the full, and the night is fair with light clouds. The day has been otherwise than fair, for slush and mud, thickened with the droppings of heavy fog, lie black in the streets. The veiled lady who flutters up and down near the postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children has need to be well shod to- night. She flutters to and fro, avoiding the stand of hackney-coaches, and often pausing in the shadow of the western end of the great quadrangle wall, with her face turned towards the gate. As above her there is the purity of the moonlit sky, and below her there are the defilements of the pavement, so may she, haply, be divided in her mind between two vistas of reflection or experience 1 As her footprints crossing and recrossing one another have made a laby- rinth in the mire, so may her track in life have involved itself in an intricate and unravellable tangle ? The postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children opens, and a young woman comes out. The lady stands aside, observes closely, sees that the gate is quietly closed again from within, and follows the young woman. Two or three streets have been traversed in silence before she, 2 1. Hiiii///f^MiUi,iiiHii,.„t i'i .■iS^...^^\" ^ _^ KO TliUKOUOHFARE, NO THOROUGHFARE. 515 following close behind tlie object of her attention, stretches out her hand and touches her. Then the young woman stops and looks round, startled. "You touched me last night, and, when I turned my head, you would not speak. Why do you follow me like a silent ghost ? " "It was not," returned the lady, in a low voice, " that I would not speak, but that I could not when I tried." " What do you want of me ? I have never done you any harm ? " " Never." " Do I know you ? " ^ " No." " Then what can you w^ant of me ? " " Here are two guineas in this paper. Take my poor little pres- ent, and I will tell you." Into the young woman's face, which is honest and comely, conies a flush as she replies : " There is neither grown person nor child in all the large establishment that I belong to, who hasn't a good word for Sally. I am Sally. Could I be so well thought of, if I was to be bought 1 " " I do not mean to buy you ; I mean only to reward you very slightly." Sally firmly, but not urgently, closes and puts back the ofifering hand. " If there is anything that I can do for you, ma'am, that I will not do for its own sake, you are much mistaken in me if you think that I will do it for money. What is it you want 1 " " You are one of the nurses or attendants at the Hospital ; I saw you leave to-night and last night." "Yes, lam. I am Sally." "There is a pleasant patience in your face which makes me beheve that very young children would take readily to you." " God bless 'em ! So they do." The lady lifts her veil, and shows a face no older than the nurse's. A face far more refined and capable than hers, but wild and worn with sorrow. " I am the miserable mother of a baby lately received under your care. I have a prayer to make to you." Instinctively respecting the confidence which has drawn aside the veil, Sally — whose ways are all ways of simplicity and spon- taneity — replaces it, and begins to cry. "You will listen to my prayer?" the lady urges. "You will not be deaf to the agonised entreaty of such a broken suppliant as I am 1 " " Oh, dear, dear, dear ! " cries Sally. " What shall I say, or can I say ! Don't talk of prayers. Prayers are to be put up to the 516 NO THOROUGHFARE. Good Father of All, and not to nurses and such. And there ! I am only to hold my place for half a year longer, till another young woman can be trained up to it. I am going to be married. I shouldn't have been out last night, and I shouldn't have been out to-night, but that my Dick (he is the young man I am going to be married to) lies ill, and I help his mother and sister to watch him. Don't take on so, don't take on so ! " "0 good Sally, dear Sally," moans the lady, catching at her dress entreatingly. "As you are hopeful and I am hopeless; as a fair way in life is before you, which can never, never, be before me ; as you can aspire to become a respected wife, and as you can aspire to become a proud mother ; as you are a living loving woman, and must die ; for God's sake hear my distracted petition ! " " Deary, deary, deary me ! " cries Sally, her desperation culminat- ing in the pronoun, " what am I ever to do ? And there ! See how you turn my own w^ords back upon me. I tell you I am going to be married, on purpose to make it clearer to you that I am going to leave, and therefore couldn't help you if I would. Poor Thing, and you make it seem to my own self as if I was cruel in going to be married and not helping you. It ain't kind. Now, is it kind, Poor Thing ? " " Sally ! Hear me, my dear. My entreaty is for no help in the future. It applies to what is past. It is only to be told in two words." "There! This is w^orse and worse," cries Sally, "supposing that I understand what two words you mean." "You do understand. What are the names they have given my poor baby 1 I ask no more than that. I have read of the customs of the place. He has been christened in the chapel, and registered by some surname in the book. He was received last Monday evening. What have they called him ? " Down upon her knees in the foul mud of the bye-way into which they have strayed — an empty street without a thoroughfare, giv- ing on the dark gardens of the Hospital — the lady would drop in her passionate entreaty, but that SaUy prevents her. " Don't ! Don't ! You make me feel as if I was setting myself up to be good. Let me look in your pretty face again. Put your two hands in mine. Now, promise. You will never ask me any- thing more than the two words ? " " Never ! Never ! " " You wiU never put them to a bad use, if I say them ? " " Never ! Never ! " "Walter Wilding." The lady lays her face upon the nurse's breast, draws her close in NO THOROUGHFARE. 517 her embrace with both arms, murmurs a blessing and the words, " Kiss him for me ! " and is gone. Day of the month and year, the first Sunday in October, one thou- sand eight hundred and forty-seven. London Time by the great clock of Saint Paul's, half-past one in the afternoon. The clock of the Hospital for Foundling Children is well up with the Cathedral to-day. Service in the chapel is over, and the Foundling Children are at dinner. There are numerous lookers-on at the dinner, as the custom is. There are two or three governors, whole families from the congre- gation, smaller groups of both sexes, individual stragglers of various degrees. The bright autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards ; and the heavy-framed windows through which it shines, and the panelled walls on which it strikes, are such windows and such walls as pervade Hogarth's pictures. The girls' refectory (including that of the younger children) is the principal attraction. Neat attend- ants silently glide about the orderly and silent tables ; the lookers- on move or stop as the fancy takes them ; comments in whispers on face such a number from such a window are not unfrequent ; many of the faces are of a character to fix attention. Some of the vis- itors from the outside public are accustomed visitors. They have established a speaking acquaintance with the occupants of partic- ular seats at the tables, and halt at those points to bend down and say a word or two. It is no disparagement to their kindness that those points are generally points where personal attractions are. The monotony of long spacious rooms and the double lines of faces is agreeably relieved by these incidents, although so slight. A veiled lady, who has no companion, goes among the company. It would seem that curiosity and opportunity have never brought her there before. She has the air of being a little troubled by the sight, and, as she goes the length of the tables, it is with a hesitat- ing step and an uneasy manner. At length she comes to the re- fectory of the boys. They are so much less popular than the girls that it is bare of visitors when she looks in at the doorway. But just within the doorway, chances to stand, inspecting, an elderly female attendant : some order of matron or housekeeper. To whom the lady addresses natural questions : As, how many boys 1 At what age are they usually put out in life ? Do they often take a fancy to the sea? So, lower and lower in tone until the lady puts the question : " Which is Walter Wilding ? " Attendant's head shaken. Against the rules. " You know which is Walter Wilding 1 " 518 NO THOROUGHFARE. So keenly does the attendant feel the closeness with which the lady's eyes examine her face, that she keeps her own eyes fast upon the floor, lest by wandering in the right direction they should be- tray her. " I know which is Walter Wilding, but it is not my place, ma'am, to tell names to visitors." " But you can show me without telling me." The lady's hand moves quietly to the attendant's hand. Pause and silence. " I am going to pass round the tables," says the lady's interlocu- tor, without seeming to address her. " Follow me with your eyes. The boy that I stop and speak to, will not matter to you. But the boy that I touch, will be Walter Wilding. Say nothing more to me, and move a little away." Quickly acting on the hint, the lady passes on into the room, and looks about her. After a few moments, the attendant, in a staid official way, walks down outside the line of tables commencing on her left hand. She goes the wiiole length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside. Very slightly glancing in the lady's di- rection, she stoops, bends forward, and speaks. The boy whom she addresses, lifts his head and replies. Good humouredly and easily, as she listens to what he says, she lays her hand upon the shoulder of the next boy on his right. That the action may be well noted, she keeps her hand on the shoulder while speaking in return, and pats it twice or thrice before moving away. She completes her tour of the tables, touching no one else, and passes out by a door at the opposite end of the long room. Dinner is done, and the lady, too, walks down outside the line of tables commencing on her left hand, goes the whole length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside. Other people have strolled in, fortunately for her, and stand sprinkled about. She lifts her veil, and, stopping at the touched boy, asks how old he is ? "I am twelve, ma'am," he answers, with his bright eyes fixed on hers. " Are you well and happy 1 " "Yes, ma'am." " May you take these sweetmeats from my hand ? " " If you please to give them to me." In stooping low for the purpose, the lady touches the boy's face with her forehead and with her hair. Then, lowering her veil again, she passes on, and passes out without looking back. NO THOROUGHFARE. 519 Act I. THE CURTAIN RISES. In a courtyard in the City of London, which was No Thorough- fare either for vehicles or foot-passengers ; a courtyard diverging from a steep, a sHppery, and a winding street connecting Tower- street with the Middlesex shore of the Thames ; stood the place of business of Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants. Probably, as a jo- cose acknowledgment of the obstructive character of this main ap- proach, the point nearest to its base at which one could take the river (if .so inodorously minded) bore the appellation Break-Neck- Stairs. The courtyard itself had likewise been descriptively enti- tled in old time, Cripple Corner. Years before the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, people had left off taking boat at Break-Neck-Stairs, and watermen had ceased to ply there. The slimy little causeway had dropped into the river by a slow process of suicide, and two or three stumps of piles and a rusty iron mooring-ring were all that remained of the departed Break-Neck glories. Sometimes, indeed, a laden coal barge would bump itself into the place, and certain laborious heavers, seemingly mud-engendered, would arise, deliver the cargo in the neighbourhood, shove off, and vanish ; but at most times the only commerce of Break-Neck-Stairs arose out of the conveyance of casks and bottles, both full and empty, both to and from the cellars of Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants. Even that commerce was but occasional, and through three-fourths of its rising tides the dirty indecorous drab of a river would come solitarily oozing and lapping at the rusty ring, as if it had heard of the Doge and the Adriatic, and wanted to be married to the great conserver of its filthiness, the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor. Some two hundred and fifty yards on the right, up the opposite hill (approaching it from the "low ground of Break-Neck-Stairs) was Cripple Corner. There was a pump in Cripple Corner, there was a tree in Cripple Corner. All Cripple Corner belonged to Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants. Their cellars burrowed under it, their mansion towered over it. It really had been a mansion in the days when merchants inhabited the City, and had a ceremonious shelter to the doorway without visible support, like the sounding-board over an old pulpit. It had also a number of long narrow strips of window, so disposed in its grave brick front as to render it sym- metrically ugly. It had also, on its roof, a cupola with a bell in it. " When a man at five-and-twenty can put his hat on, and can say 'this hat covers the owner of this property and of the business 520 NO THOROUGHFARE. which is transacted on this property,' I consider, Mr. Bin trey, that, without being boastful, he may be allowed to be deeply thankful. I don't know how it may appear to you, but so it appears to me," Thus Mr. Walter Wilding to his man of law, in his own count- ing-house ; taking his hat down from its peg to suit the action to the word, and hanging it up again when he had done so, not to overstep the modesty of nature. An innocent, open-speaking, unused-looking man, Mr. Walter Wilding, with a remarkably pink and white complexion, and a figure much too bulky for so young a man, though of a good stature. With crispy curling brown hair, and amiable bright blue eyes. An extremely communicative man : a man with whom loquac- ity was the irrestrainable outpouring of contentment and grati- tude. Mr. Bintrey, on the other hand, a cautious man with twin- kling beads of eyes in a large overhanging bald head, who inwardly but intensely enjoyed the comicality of openness of speech, or hand, or heart. " Yes," said Mr. Bintrey. " Yes. Ha, ha ! " A decanter, two wine-glasses, and a plate of biscuits, stood on the desk. "You like this forty-five year old port wine?" said Mr. Wilding. " Like it ? " repeated Mr. Bintrey. " Rather, sir ! " " It's from the best corner of our best forty-five year old bin," said Mr. Wilding. " Thank you, sir," said Mr. Bintrey. " It's most excellent." He laughed again, as he held up his glass and ogled it, at the highly ludicrous idea of giving away such wine. "And now," said Wilding, with a childish enjoyment in the discussion of afikirs, " I think we have got everything straight, Mr. Bintrey." " Everything straight," said Bintrey. " A partner secured " " Partner secured," said Bintrey. " A housekeeper advertised for " Housekeeper advertised for," said Bintrey, " 'apply personally at Cripple Corner, Great Tower-street, from ten to twelve ' — to- morrow, by the bye." " My late dear mother's affairs wound up " " Wound up," said Bintrey. " And all charges paid." "And all charges paid," said Bintrey, with a chuckle : probably occasioned by the droll circumstance that they had been paid with- out a haggle. I NO THOROUGHFARE. 521 "The mention of my late clear mother," Mr. Wilding continued, his eyes filling with tears and his pocket-handkerchief drying them, " unmans me still, Mr. Bintrey. You know how I loved her ; you (her lawyer) know how she loved me. The utmost love of mother and child was cherished between us, and we never experienced one moment's division or unhappiness from the time when she took me under her care. Thirteen years in all ! Thirteen years under my late dear mother's care, Mr. Bintrey, and eight of them her confi- dentially acknowledged son ! You know the story, Mr. Bintrey, who but you, sir ! " Mr. Wilding sobbed and dried his eyes, with- out attempt at concealment, during these remarks. Mr. Bintrey enjoyed his comical port, and said, after rolling it in his mouth : " I know the story." " My late dear mother, Mr. Bintrey," pursued the wine-merchant, '• had been deeply deceived, and had cruelly suffered. But on that subject my late dear mother's lips were for ever sealed. By whom deceived, or under what circumstances. Heaven only knows. My late dear mother never betrayed her betrayer." "She had made up her mind," said Mr. Bintrey, again turning his wine on his palate, " and she could hold her peace." An amused twinkle in his eyes pretty plainly added — "A devilish deal better than you ever will ! " "'Honour,'" said Mr. Wilding, sobbing as he quoted from the Commandments, " ' thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land.' When I was in the Foundling, Mr. Bintrey, I was at such a loss how to do it, that I apprehended my days would be short in the land. But I afterwards came to honour my mother deeply, profoundly. And I honour and revere her memory. For seven happy years, Mr. Bintrey," pursued Wilding, still with the same innocent catching in his breath, and the same unabashed tears, " did my excellent mother article me to my predecessors in this busi- ness, Pebbleson Nephew. Her aff'ectionate forethought likewise apprenticed me to the Vintners' Company, and made me in time a Free Vintner, and — and — everything else that the best of mothers could desire. When I came of age, she bestowed her inherited share in this business upon me ; it was her money that afterwards bought out Pebbleson Nephew, and painted in Wilding and Co. ; it was she who left me everything she possessed, but the mourn- ing ring you wear. And yet, Mr. Bintrey," with a fresh burst of honest affection, " she is no more. It is a little over half a year since she came into the Corner to read on that door-post with her own eyes, AVilding and Co. Wine Merchants. And yet she is no more ! " "Sad. But the common lot, Mr. Wilding," observed Bintrey. 522 NO THOROUGHFARE. "At some time or other we must all be no more." He placed the forty-five year old port wine in the universal condition, with a relish- ing sigh. " So now, Mr. Bintrey," pursued Wilding, putting away his pocket-handkerchief, and smoothing his eyelids with his fingers, "now that I can no longer show my love and honour for the dear parent to whom my heart was mysteriously turned by Nature when she first spoke to me, a strange lady, I sitting at our Sunday dinner- table in the Foundling, I can at least show that I am not ashamed of having been a Foundling, and that I, who never knew a father of my own, wish to be a father to all in my employment. There- fore," continued AVilding, becoming enthusiastic in his loquacity, " therefore, I want a thoroughly good housekeeper to undertake this dwelling-house of Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants, Cripple Corner, so that I may restore in it some of the old relations betwixt employer and employed ! So that I may live in it on the spot where my money is made ! So that I may daily sit at the head of the table at which the people in my employment eat togetlier, and may eat of the same roast and boiled, and drink of the same beer ! So that the people in my employment may lodge under the same roof with me ! So that we may one and all 1 beg your par- don, Mr. Bintrey, but that old singing in my head has suddenly come on, and I shall feel obliged if you will lead me to the pump." Alarmed by the excessive pinkness of his client, Mr. Bintrey lost not a moment in leading him forth into the courtyard. It was easily done, for the counting-house in which they talked together opened on to it, at one side of the dwelHng-house. There, the at- torney pumped with a will, obedient to a sign from the client, and the client laved his head and face with both hands, and took a hearty drink. After these remedies, he declared himself much better. "Don't let your good feelings excite you," said Bintrey, as they returned to the counting-house, and Mr. Wilding dried himself on a jack-towel behind an inner door. "No, no. I won't," he returned, looking out of the towel. "I won't. I have not been confused, have I ? " "Not at all. Perfectly clear." " Where did I leave off, Mr. Bintrey?" "Well, you left off — but I wouldn't excite myself, if I was you, by taking it up again just yet." " I'll take care. I'll take care. The singing in my head came on at where, Mr. Bintrey 1 " " At roast, and boiled, and beer," answered the lawyer, prompt- ing — "lodging under the same roof — and one and all " "Ah ! And one and all singing in the head together " NO THOROUGHFARE. 523 " Do you know I really would not let my good feelings excite me, if I was you," hinted the lawyer again, anxiously. " Try some more pump." "No occasion, no occasion. All right, Mr. Bintrey. And one and all forming a kind of family ! You see, Mr. Bintrey, I was not used in my childhood to that sort of individual existence which most individuals have led, more or less, in their childhood. After that time I became absorbed in my late dear mother. Having lost her, I find that I am more fit for being one of a body than one by my- self one. To be that, and at the same time to do my duty to those dependent on me, and attach them to me, has . a patriarchal and pleasant air about it. I don't know how it may appear to you, Mr. Bintrey, but so it appears to me." " It is not I who am all-important in the case, but you," returned Bintrey. " Consequently, how it may appear to me, is of very small importance." " It appears to me," said Mr. Wilding, in a glow, "hopeful, use- ful, de-lightful ! " "Do you know," hinted the lawyer again, "I really would not ex " " I am not going to. Then there's Handel." " There's who ? " asked Bintrey. " Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, Mendelssohn. I know the choruses to those anthems by heart. Foundling Chapel Collection. Why shouldn't we learn them to- gether ! " " Who learn them together ? " asked the lawyer, rather shortly. "Employer and employed." " Ay, ay ! " returned Bintrey, mollified ; as if he had half expected the answer to be. Lawyer and client. " That's another thing." " Not another thing, Mr. Bintrey ! The same thing. A part of the bond among us. We will form a Choir in some quiet church near the Corner here, and, having sung together of a Sunday with a relish, we will come home and take an early dinner together with a relish. The object that I have at heart now, is to get this system well in action without delay, so that my new partner may find it founded when he enters on his partnership." "All good be with it!" exclaimed Bintrey, rising. "May it prosper ! Is Joey Ladle to take a share in Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, and Mendelssohn 1 " " I hope so." " I wish them all well out of it," returned Bintrey, with much heartiness. " Good-bye, sir." They shook hands and parted. Then (first knocking with his 524 NO THOROUGHFARE. knuckles for leave) entered to Mr. Wilding, from a door of commu- nication between his private counting-house and that in which his clerks sat, the Head Cellarman of the cellars of Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants, and erst Head Cellarman of the cellars of Pebble- son Nephew. The Joey Ladle in question. A slow and ponder- ous man, of the drayman order of human architecture, dressed in a corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a composite of door- mat and rhinoceros-hide. " Respecting this same boarding and lodging, Young Master Wilding," said he. "Yes, Joey?" "Speaking for myself, Young Master Wilding — and I never did speak and I never do speak for no one else — / don't want no boarding nor yet no lodging. But if you wish to board me and to lodge me, take me. I can peck as well as most men. Where I peck, ain't so high a object with me as What I peck. Nor even so high a object with me as How Much I peck. Is all to live in the house. Young Master Wilding ? The two other cellarmen, the three porters, the two 'prentices, and the odd men ? " " Yes. I hope we shall all be an united family, Joey." "Ah ! " said Joey. " I hope they may be." " They ? Eather say we, Joey." Joey Ladle shook his head. "Don't look to me to make we on it, Young Master Wilding, not at my time of life and under the circumstances which has formed my disposition. I have said to Pebbleson Nephew many a time, when they have said to me, ' Put a livelier face upon it, Joey ' — I have said to them, ' Gentlemen, it is all wery well for you that has been accustomed to take your wine into your systems by the conwivial channel of your throttles, to put a lively face upon it ; but,' I says, ' I have been accustomed to take my wine in at the pores of the skin, and, took that away, it acts different. It acts depressing. It's one thing, gentlemen,' I says to Pebbleson Nephew, ' to charge your glasses in a dining-room with a Hip Hurrah and a Jolly Companions Every One, and it's another thing to be charged yourself, through the pores, in a low dark cel- lar and a mouldy atmosphere. It makes all the difference betwixt bubbles and wapours,' I tells Pebbleson Nephew. And so it do. I've been a cellarman my life through, with my mind fully given to the business. What's the consequence % I'm as muddled a man as lives — you w^on't find a muddleder man than me — nor yet you won't find my equal in molloncolly. Sing of Filling the bumper fair, Every drop you sprinkle, O'er tlie brow of care. Smooths away a wrinkle % Yes. P'raps so. But try filling yourself through the pores, underground, when you don't want to it ! " NO THOROUGHFARE. 625 " I am sorry to hear this, Joey. I had even thought that you might join a singing-class in the house." "Me, sir? No, no. Young Master Wilding, you won't catch Joey Ladle muddling the Armony. A pecking-machine, sir, is all that I am capable of proving myself, out of my cellars ; but that you're welcome to, if you think it's worth your while to keep such a thing on your premises." "I do, Joey." " Say no more, sir. The Business's word is my law. And you're a going to take Young Master George Vendale^artner into the old Business ? " " I am, Joey." " More changes, you see ! But don't change the name of the Firm again. Don't do it. Young Master Wilding. It was bad luck enough to make it Yourself and Co. Better by far have left it Pebbleson Nephew that good luck always stuck to. You should never change luck when it's good, sir." " At all events, I have no intention of changing the name of the House again, Joey." " Glad to hear it, and wish you good day. Young Master Wild- ing. But you had better by half," muttered Joey Ladle, inaudi- bly, as he closed the door and shook his head, "have let the name alone from the first. You had better by half have followed the luck instead of crossing it." ENTER THE HOUSEKEEPER. The wine-merchant sat in his dining-room next morning, to re- ceive the personal applicants for the vacant post in his establish- ment. It was an old-fashioned wainscoted room; the panels ornamented with festoons of flowers carved in wood; with an oaken floor, a well-worn Turkey carpet, and dark mahogany furni- ture, all of which had seen service and polish under Pebbleson Nephew. The great sideboard had assisted at many business-din- ners given by Pebbleson Nephew to their connection, on the princi- ple of throwing sprats overboard to catch whales ; and Pebbleson Nephew's comprehensive three-sided plate-warmer, made to fit the whole front of the large fire-place, kept watch beneath it over a sarcophagus-shaped cellaret that had in its time held many a dozen of Pebbleson Nephew's wine. But the little rubicund old bachelor with a pigtail, whose portrait was over the sideboard (and who could easily be identified as decidedly Pebbleson and decidedly not Nephew), had retired into another sarcophagus, and the plate- warmer had grown as cold as he. So, the golden and black griffins 526 NO THOROUGHFARE. that supported the candelabra, with black balls in their mouths at the end of gilded chains, looked as if in their old age they had lost all heart for playing at ball, and were dolefully exhibiting their chains in the missionary line of inquiry, whether they had not earned emancipation by this time, and were not griffins and brothers ? Such a Columbus of a morning was the summer morning, that it discovered Cripple Corner. The light and warmth pierced in at the open windows, and irradiated the picture of a lady hanging over the chimney-piece, the only other decoration of the walls. "My mother at five-and- twenty," said Mr. Wilding to himself, as his eyes enthusiastically followed the light to the portrait's face, " I hang up here, in order that visitors may admire my mother in the bloom of her youth and beauty. My mother at fifty I hang in the seclusion of my own chamber, as a remembrance sacred to me. Oh ! It's you, Jarvis ! " These latter words he addressed to a clerk who had tapped at the door, and now looked in. " Yes, sir. I merely wish to mention that it's gone ten, sir, and that there are several females in the Counting-House." "Dear me !" said the wine-merchant, deepening in the pink of his complexion and whitening in the white, "are there several? So many as several 1 I had better begin before there are more. I'll see them one by one, Jarvis, in the order of their arrival." Hastily entrenching himself in his easy-chair at the table behind a great inkstand, having first placed a chair on the other side of the -table opposite his own seat, Mr. Wilding entered on his task with considerable trepidation. He ran the gauntlet that must be run on any such occasion. There were the usual species of profoundly unsympathetic women, and the usual species of much too sympathetic women. There were the buccaneering widows who came to seize him, and who griped um- brellas under their arms, as if each umbrella were he, and each griper had got him. There were towering maiden ladies who had seen better days, and M'ho came armed with clerical testimonials to their theology, as if he were Saint Peter with his keys. There were gentle maiden ladies who came to marry him. There were professional housekeepers, like non-commissioned officers, who put him through his domestic exercise, instead of submitting themselves to catechism. There were languid invalids to whom salary was not so much an object as the comforts of a private hospital. There were sensitive creatures who burst into tears on being addressed, and had to be restored with glasses of cold water. There were some respondents who came two together, a highly promising one and a wholly unpromising one : of whom the promising one answered all NO THOROUGHFARE. 527 questions charmingly, until it would at last appear that she was not a candidate at all, but only the friend of the unpromising one, who had glowered in absolute silence and apparent injury. At last, when the good wine-merchant's simple heart was failing him, there entered an applicant quite different from all the rest. A woman, perhaps fifty, but looking younger, with a face remark- able for placid cheerfulness, and a manner no less remarkable for its quiet expression of equability of temper. Nothing in her dress could have been changed to her advantage. Nothing in the noise- less self-possession of her manner could have been changed to her advantage. Nothing could have been in better unison with both, than her voice when she answered the question : " What name shall I have the pleasure of noting down ? " with the words, " My name is Sarah Goldstraw. Mrs. Goldstraw. My husband has been dead many years, and we had no family." Half a dozen questions had scarcely extracted as much to the purpose from any one else. The voice dwelt so agreeably on Mr. Wilding's ear as he made his note, that he was rather long about it. When he looked up again, Mrs. Goldstraw's glance had natu- rally gone round the room, and now returned to him from the chimney-piece. Its expression was one of frank readiness to be questioned, and to answer straight. "You will excuse my asking you a few questions'?" said the modest wine-merchant. " Oh, surely, sir. Or I should have no business here." " Have you filled the station of housekeeper before 1 " " Only once. I have lived with the same widow lady for twelve years. Ever since I lost my husband. She was an invalid, and is lately dead : which is the occasion of my now wearing black." "I do not doubt that she has left you the best credentials?" said Mr. Wilding. "I hope I may say, the very best. I thought it would save trouble, sir, if I wrote down the name and address of her represent- atives, and brought it with me." Laying a card on the table. "You singularly remind me, Mrs. Goldstraw," said Wilding, taking the card beside him, "of a manner and tone of voice that I was once acquainted with. Not of an individual — I feel sure of that, though I cannot recall what it is I have in my mind ■ — but of a general bearing. I ought to add, it was a kind and pleasant one." She smiled, as she rejoined : "At least, I am very glad of that, sir." "Yes," said the wine-merchant, thoughtfully repeating his last phrase, with a momentary glance at his future housekeeper, "it 528 NO THOROUGHFARE. was a kind and pleasant one. But that is the most I can make of it. Memory is sometimes like a half-forgotten dream. I don't know how it may appear to you, Mrs. Goldstraw, but so it appears to me." Probably it appeared to Mrs. Goldstraw in a similar light, for she quietly assented to the proposition. Mr. AVilding then offered to put himself at once in communication with the gentlemen named upon the card : a firm of proctors in Doctors' Commons. To this, Mrs. Goldstraw thankfully assented. Doctors' Commons not being far off, Mr. AVilding suggested the feasibility of Mrs. Goldstraw's looking in again, say in three hours' time. Mrs. Goldstraw readily undertook to do so. In fine, the result of Mr. Wilding's inquiries being eminently satisfactoiy, Mrs. Goldstraw was that afternoon engaged (on her own perfectly fair terms) to come to-morrow and set up her rest as housekeeper in Cripple Comer. THE HOUSEKEEPER SPEAKS. On the next day Mrs. Goldstraw arrived, to enter on her domestic duties. Having settled herself in her own room, without troubling the servants, and without wasting time, the new housekeeper announced herself as waiting to be favoured with any instructions which her master might wish to give her. The wine-merchant received Mrs. Goldstraw in the dining-room, in which he liad seen her on the previous day ; and, the usual preliminary civilities having passed on either side, the two sat down to take counsel together on the affairs of the house. "About the meals, sir?" said Mrs. Goldstraw. "Have I a large, or a small, number to provide for ? " " If I can carry out a certain old-fashioned plan of mine," replied Mr. Wilding, "you will have a large number to provide for. I am a lonely single man, Mrs. Goldstraw ; and I hope to live with all the persons in my employment as if they were members of my family. Until that time comes, you ^vill only have me, and the new partner whom I expect immediately, to provide for. What my partner's habits may be, I cannot yet say. But I may describe myself as a man of regular hours, with an invariable appetite that you may depend upon to an ounce." " About breakfast, sir ? " asked Mrs. Goldstraw. " Is there any- thing particular ?" She hesitated, and left the sentence unfinished. Her eyes turned slowly away from her master, and looked towards the chimney- piece. If she had been a less excellent and experienced house- NO THOROUGHFARE. 529 keeper, Mr. Wilding might have fancied that her attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview. " Eight o'clock is my breakfast-hour," he resumed. "It is one of my virtues to be never tired of broiled bacon, and it is one of my vices to be habitually suspicious of the freshness of eggs." Mrs. Goldstraw looked back at him, still a little divided between her master's chimney-piece and her master. "I take tea," Mr. Wilding went on; "and I am perhaps rather nervous and fidgety about drinking it, within a certain time after it is made. If my tea stands too long " He hesitated, on his side, and left the sentence unfinished. If he had not been engaged in discussing a subject of such paramount interest to himself as his breakfast, Mrs. Goldstraw might have fancied that his attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview. " If your tea stands too long, sir ? " said the housekeeper, politely taking up her master's lost thread. "If my tea stands too long," repeated the wine-merchant, mechanically, his mind getting further and further away from his breakfast, and his eyes fixing themselves more and more inquiringly on his housekeeper's face. " If my tea Dear, dear me, Mrs. Goldstraw ! what is the manner and tone of voice that you remind me of ? It strikes me even more strongly to-day, than it did when I saw you yesterday. What can it be ? " "What can it be ? " repeated Mrs. Goldstraw. She said the words, evidently thinking while she spoke them of something else. The wine-merchant, still looking at her in- quiringly, observed that her eyes wandered towards the chimney- piece once more. They fixed on the portrait of his mother, which hung there, and looked at it with that slight contraction of the brow which accompanies a scarcely conscious effort of memory. Mr. Wilding remarked : "My late dear mother, when she was five-and-twenty." Mrs. Goldstraw thanked him with a movement of the head for being at the pains to explain the picture, and said, with a cleared brow, that it was the portrait of a very beautiful lady. Mr. Wilding, falling back into his former perplexity, tried once more to recover that lost recollection, associated so closely, and yet so undiscoverably, with his new housekeeper's voice and manner. " Excuse my asking you a question which has nothing to do with me or my breakfast," he said. "May I inquire if you have ever occupied any other situation than the situation of housekeeper ? " " Oh yes, sir. I began life as one of the nurses at the Foundling." 2m 530 NO THOROUGHFARE. " Why, that's it ! " cried the wine-merchant, pushing back his chair. " By Heaven ! Their manner is the manner you remind me of!" In an astonished look at him, Mrs. Goldstraw changed colour, checked herself, turned her eyes upon the ground, and sat still and silent. "What is the matter?" asked Mr. Wilding. " Do I understand that you were in the Foundling, sir ? " " Certainly. I am not ashamed to own it." " Under the name you now bear ? " "Under the name of Walter Wilding." "And the lady ?" Mrs. Goldstraw stopped short, with a look at the portrait which was now unmistakably a look of alarm. " You mean my mother," interrupted Mr. Wilding. "Your — mother," repeated the housekeeper, a little constrain- edly, "removed you from the Foundling? At what age, sir? " " At between eleven and twelve years old. It's quite a roman- tic adventure, Mrs. Goldstraw." He told the story of the lady having spoken to him, while he sat at dinner with the other boys in the Foundling, and of all that had followed, in his innocently communicative way. " My poor mother could never have discovered me," he added, "if she had not met with one of the matrons who pitied her. The matron consented to touch the boy whose name was 'Walter Wilding' as she went round the dinner-tables — and so my mother discovered me again, after having parted from me as an infant at the Found- ling doors." At those words Mrs. Goldstraw 's hand, resting on the table, dropped helplessly into her lap. She sat, looking at her new master, with a face that had turned deadly pale, and with eyes that expressed an unutterable, dismay. "What does this mean?" asked the wine-merchant. "Stop!" he cried. " Is their something else in the past time which I ought to associate with you ? I remember, my mother telling me of another person at the Foundling, to whose kindness she owed a debt of gratitude. When she first parted with me, as an infant, one of the nurses informed her of the name that had been given to me in the institution. You were that nurse ? " " God forgive me, sir — I was that nurse ! " " God forgive you ? " " We had better get back, sir (if I may make so bold as to say so), to my duties in the house," said Mrs. Goldstraw. "Your breakfast-hour is eight. Do you lunch, or dine, in the middle of the day?" NO THOROUGHFAKE. 531 The excessive pinkness which Mr. Bintrey had noticed in his client's face began to appear there once more. Mr. Wilding put liis hand to his head, and mastered some momentary confusion in that quarter, before he spoke again. "Mrs. Goldstraw," he said, "you are concealing something from me!" The housekeeper obstinately repeated, "Please to favour me, sir, by saying whether you lunch, or dine, in the middle of the day?" " I don't know what I do in the middle of the day. I can't enter into my household affairs, Mrs. Goldstraw, till I know why you regret an act of kindness to my mother, which she always spoke of gratefully to the end of her life. You are not doing me a service by your silence. You are agitating me, you are alarm- ing me, you are bringing on the singing in my head." His hand went up to his head again, and the pink in his face deepened by a shade or two. "It's hard, sir, on just entering your service," said the house- keeper, "to say what may cost me the loss of your good will. Please to remember, end how it may, that I only speak because you have insisted on my speaking, and because I see that I am alarming you by my silence. When I told the poor lady, whose portrait you have got there, the name by which her infant was christened in the Foundling, I allowed myself to forget my duty, and dreadful consequences, I am afraid, have followed from it. I'll tell you the truth, as plainly as I can. A few months from the time when I had informed the lady of her baby's name, there came to our institution in the country another lady (a stranger), whose object was to adopt one of our children. She brought the needful permission with her, and after looking at a great many of the chil- dren, without being able to make up her mind, she took a sudden fancy to one of the babies — a boy — under my care. Try, pray try, to compose yourself, sir ! It's no use disguising it any longer. The child the stranger took away was the child of that lady whose portrait hangs there ! " Mr. Wilding started to his feet. " Impossible ! " he cried out, vehemently. "What are you talking about? What absurd story are you telling me now ? There's her portrait ! Haven't I told you so already ? The portrait of my mother ! " "When that unhappy lady removed you from the Foundling, in after years," said Mrs. Goldstraw, gently, "she was the victim, and you were the victim, sir, of a dreadful mistake." He dropped back into his chair. " The room goes round with me," he said. "My head! my head !" The housekeeper rose in 532 NO THOROUGHFARE. alarm, and opened the windows. Before she could get to the door to call for help, a sudden burst of tears relieved the oppression which had at first almost appeared to threaten his life. He signed entreatingly to Mrs. Goldstraw not to leave him. She waited until the paroxysm of weeping had worn itself out. He raised his liead as he recovered himself, and looked at her with the angry unreasoning suspicion of a weak man. "Mistake?" he said, wildly repeating her last word. "How do I know you are not mistaken yourself?" " There is no hope that I am mistaken, sir. I will tell you why, when you are better fit to hear it." " Now ! now ! " The tone in which he spoke warned Mrs. Goldstraw that it would be cruel kindness to let him comfort himself a moment longer with the vain hope that she might be wrong. A few words more would end it — and those few words she determined to "I have told you," she said, " that the child of the lady whose portrait hangs there, was adopted in its infancy, and taken away by a stranger. I am as certain of what I say as that I am now sitting here, obliged to distress you, sir, sorely against my will. Please to carry your mind on, now, to about three months after that time. I was then at the Foundling, in London, waiting to take some children to our institution in the country. There was a question that day about naming an infant — a boy — who had just been received. We generally named them out of the Direc- tory. On this occasion, one of the gentlemen who managed the Hospital happened to be looking over the Register. He noticed that the name of the baby who had been adopted (' Walter Wild- ing ') was scratched out — for the reason, of course, that the child had been removed for good from our care. 'Here's a name to let,' he said. 'Give it to the new foundling who has been re- ceived to-day.' The name was given, and the child was christened. You, sir, were that child." The wine-merchant's head dropped on his breast. " I was that child ! " he said to himself, trying helplessly to fix the idea in his mind. " I was that child ! " " Not very long after you had been received into the Institution, sir," pursued Mrs. Goldstraw, "I left my situation there, to be mar- ried. If you will remember that, and iif you can give your mind to it, you will see for yourself how the mistake happened. Between eleven and twelve years passed before the lady, whom you have be- lieved to be your mother, returned to the Foundling, to find her son, and to remove him to her own home. The lady only knew that her NO THOROUGHFARE. • 533 infant had been called ' Walter Wilding.' The matron who took pity on her, could but point out the only ' Walter Wilding ' known in the Institution. I, who might have set the matter right, was far away from the Foundling and all that belonged to it. There was nothing — there was really nothing that could prevent this terrible mistake from taking place. I feel for you — I do indeed, sir ! You must think — and with reason — that it was in an evil hour that I came here (innocently enough, I'm sure), to apply for your housekeeper's place. I feel as if I was to blame — I feel as if I ought to have had more self-command. If J had only been able to keep my face from showing yon, what that portrait and what your own words put into my mind — you need never, to your dying day, have known what you know now." Mr. Wilding looked up suddenly. The inbred honesty of the man rose in protest against the housekeeper's last words. His mind seemed to steady itself, for the moment, under the shock that had fallen on it. " Do you mean to say that you would have concealed this from me if you could 1 " he exclaimed. " I hope I should always tell the truth, sir, if I was asked," said Mrs. Goldstraw. " And I know it is better for me that I should not have a secret of this sort weighing on my mind. But is it better for ^ou ? What use can it serve now ? " What use ? Why, good Lord ! if your story is true "Should I have told it, sir, as I am now situated, if it had not been true ? " " I beg your pardon," said the wine-merchant. " You must make allowance for me. This dreadful discovery is something I can't realise even yet. We loved each other so dearly — I felt so fondly that I was her son. She died, Mrs. Goldstraw, in my arms — she died blessing me as only a mother could have blessed me. And now, after all these years, to be told she was not my mother ! me, me ! I don't know what I am saying ! " he cried, as the impulse of self-control under which he had spoken a moment since, flickered, and died out. " It was not this dreadful grief — it was something else that I had it in my mind to speak of. Yes, yes. You sur- prised me — you wounded me just now. You talked as if you would have hidden this from me, if you could. Don't talk in that way again. It would have been a crime to have hidden it. You mean well, I know. I don't want to distress you — you are a kind-hearted woman. But you don't remember what my position is. She left me all that I possess, in the firm persuasion that I was her son. I am not her son. I have taken the place, I have innocently got the inheritance of another man. He must be found ! How do I know 634 ' NO THOROUGHFARE. he is not at this moment in misery, without bread to eat ? He must be found ! My only hope of bearing up against the shock that has fallen on me, is the hope of doing something which she would have approved. You must know more, Mrs. Goldstraw, than you have told me yet. Who was the stranger who adopted the child ? You must have heard the lady's name ? " "I never heard it, sir. I have never seen her, or heard of her, since." "Did she say nothing when she took the child away? Search your memory. She must have said something." "Only one thing, sir, that I can remember. It was a miserably bad season, that year ; and many of the children were suffering from it. When she took the baby away, the lady said to me, laugh- ing, 'Don't be alarmed about his health. He will be brought up in a better climate than this — I am going to take him to Switzerland.' " " To Switzerland ? What part of Switzeidand ? " " She didn't say, sir." " Only that faint clue ! " said Mr. Wilding. " And a quarter of a century has passed since the child was taken away ! What am I to do?" "I hope you won't take offence at my freedom, sir," said Mrs. Goldstraw ; " but why should you distress yourself about what is to be done 1 He may not be alive now, for anything you know. And, if he is alive, it's not likely he can be in any distress. The lady who adopted him was a bred and born lady — it was easy to see that. And she must have satisfied them at the Foundling that she could provide for the child, or they would never have let her take him away. If I was in your place, sir — please to excuse my saying so — I should comfort myself with remembering that I had loved that poor lady whose portrait you have got there — truly loved her as my mother, and that she had truly loved me as her son. All she gave to you, she gave for the sake of that love. It never altered while she lived ; and it won't alter, I'm sure, as long as you live. How can you have a better right, sir, to keep what you have got than that 1 " Mr. Wilding's immovable honesty saw the fallacy in his house- keeper's point of view at a glance. "You don't understand me," he said. "It's because I loved her that I feel it a duty — a sacred duty — to do justice to her son. If he is a living man, I must find him : for my own sake, as well as for his. I shall break down under this dreadful trial, unless I employ myself — actively, instantly employ myself — in doing what my conscience tells me ought to be done. I must speak to my NO THOROUGHFARE. 535 lawyer; I must set my lawyer at work before I sleep to-night." He approached a tube in the wall of the room, and called down through it to the office below. " Leave me for a little, Mrs. Gold- straw," he resumed; "I shall be more composed, I shall be better able to speak to you later in the day. We shall get on well — I hope we shall get on well together — in spite of what has happened. It isn't your fault ; I know it isn't your fault. There ! there ! shake hands ; and — and do the best you can in the house — I can't talk about it now." The door opened as Mrs. Goldstraw advanced towards it ; and Mr. Jarvis appeared. " Send for Mr. Bintrey," said the wine-merchant. " Say I want to see him directly." The clerk unconsciously suspended the execution of the order, by announcing "Mr. Vendale," and showing in the new partner in the firm of Wilding and Co. "Pray excuse me for one moment, George Vendale," said Wild- ing. "I have a word to say to Jarvis. Send for Mr. Bintrey," he repeated — " send at once." Mr. Jarvis laid a letter on the table before he left the room. "From our correspondents at Neuchatel, I think, sir. The letter has got the Swiss postmark." NEW CHARACTERS ON THE SCENE. The words, "The Swiss Postmark," following so soon upon the housekeeper's reference to Switzerland, wrought Mr. Wilding's agi- tation to such a remarkable height, that his new partner could not decently make a pretence of letting it pass unnoticed. " Wilding," he asked hurriedly, and yet stopping short and glancing around as if for some visible cause of his state of mind : " what is the matter ? " "My good George Vendale," returned the wine-merchant, giving his hand with an appealing look, rather as if he wanted help to get over some obstacle, than as if he gave it in welcome or salutation : " my good George Vendale, so much is the matter, that I shall never be myself again. It is impossible that I can ever be myself again. For, in fact, I am not myself." The new partner, a brown-cheeked handsome fellow, of about his own age, with a quick determined eye and an impulsive man- ner, retorted with natural astonishment: "Not yourself?" "Not what I supposed myself to be," said Wilding. " What, in the name of wonder, did you suppose yourself to be that you are not?" was the rejoinder, delivered with a cheerful 536 NO THOROUGHTARE. frankness, inviting confidence from a more reticent man. " I may ask without impertinence, now that w^e are partners." " There again ! " cried Wilding, leaning back in his chair, \\it\i a lost look at the other. " Partners ! I had no right to come into this business. It was never meant for me. My mother never meant it should be mine. I mean, his mother meant it should be his — if I mean anything — or if I am anybody." "Come, come," urged his partner, after a moment's pause, and taking possession of him with that calm confidence which inspires a strong nature when it honestly desires to aid a weak one. "Whatever has gone wrong, has gone wrong through no fault of yours, I am very sure. I was not in this counting-house with you under the old regime, for three years, to doubt you. Wilding. We were not younger men than we are, together, for that. Let me begin our partnership by being a serviceable partner, and setting right whatever is wrong. Has that letter anything to do with it ? " "Hah!" said Wilding, with his hand to his temple. "There again ! My head ! I was forgetting the coincidence. The Swiss postmark." " At a second glance I see that the letter is unopened, so it is not very likely to have much to do with the matter," said Yendale, with comforting composure. "Is it for you, or for us 1 " "For us," said Wilding. " Suppose I open it and read it aloud, to get it out of our way ? " " Thank you, thank you." " The letter is only from our champagne-making friends, the House at Neuchatel. ' Dear Sir. We are in receipt of yours of the 28th ult., informing us that you have taken your Mr. Yendale into partnership, whereon we beg you to receive the assurance of our felicitations. Permit us to embrace the occasion of specially commending to you, M. Jules Obenreizer.' Impossible ! " Wilding lookiug up in quick apprehension, and cried, "Eh?" "Impossible sort of name," returned his partner, slightly — "Obenreizer. ' — Of specially commending to you M. Jules Obenreizer, of Soho-square, Loudon (north side), henceforth fully accredited as our agent, and who has already had the honour of making the acquaintance of your Mr. Vendale, in his (said M. Obenreizer's) native country, Switzerland.' To be sure : pooh pooh, what have I been thinking of ! I remember now ; ' when travel- ling with his niece.' " "With his ?" Vendale had so slurred the last word, that Wilding had not heard it. "When travelling with his Niece. Obenreizer's Niece," said Vendale. in a somewhat superfluously lucid manner. " Niece of NO THOROUGHFARE. 537 Obenreizer. (I met them in my first Swiss tour, travelled a little with them, and lost them for two years ; met them again, my Swiss tour before last, and have lost them ever since.) Obenreizer. Niece of Obenreizer. To be sure ! Possible sort of name, after all ! ' M. Obenreizer is in possession of our absolute confidence, and we do not doubt you will esteem his merits.' Duly signed by the House, ' Defresnier et C^^' Very well. I undertake to see M. Obenreizer presently, and clear him out of the way. That clears the Swiss postmark out of the way. So now, my dear Wild- ing, tell me what I can clear out of your way,' and I'll find a way to clear it." More than ready and grateful to be thus taken charge of, the honest wine-merchant wrung his partner's hand, and, beginning his tale by pathetically declaring himself an Impostor, told it. "It was on this matter, no doubt, that you were sending for Bintrey, when I came in % " said his partner, after reflecting. " It was." "He has experience and a shrewd head; I shall be anxious to know his opinion. It is bold and hazardous in me to give you mine before I know his, but I am not good at holding back. Plainly, then, I do not see these circumstances as you see them. I do not see your position as you see it. As to your being an Im- postor, my dear Wilding, that is simply absurd, because no man can be that without being a consenting party to an imposition. Clearly you never were so. As to your enrichment by the lady who believed you to be her son, and whom you were forced to believe, on her own showing, to be your mother, consider whether that did not arise out of the personal relations between you. You gradually became much attached to her ; she gradually became much attached to you. It was on you, personally you, as I see the case, that she conferred these worldly advantages ; it was from her, personally her, that you took them." "She supposed me," objected Wilding, shaking his head, "to have a natural claim upon her, which I had not." "I must admit that," replied his partner, "to be true. But if she had made the discovery that you have made, six months before she died, do you think it would have cancelled the years you were together, and the tenderness that each of you had conceived for the other, each on increasing knowledge of the other ? " "What I think," said Wilding, simply but stoutly holding to the bare fact, " can no more change the truth than it can bring down the sky. The truth is that I stand possessed of what was meant for another man." " He may be dead," said Vendale. 538 NO THOROUGHFARE. "He may be alive," said Wilding. "And if lie is alive, have I not — innocently, I grant you innocently — robbed him of enough ? Have I not robbed him of all the happy time that I enjoyed in his stead 1 Have I not robbed him of the exquisite delight that filled my soul when that dear lady," stretching his hand towards the picture, "told me she was my mother? Have I not robbed him of all the care she lavished on me? Have I not even robbed him of all the devotion and duty that I so proudly gave to her ? There- fore it is that I ask myself, George Vendale, and I ask you, where is he ? What has become of him ? " "WhocanteU!" " I must try to find out who can tell. I must institute inquiries. I must never desist from prosecuting inquiries. I will live upon the interest of my share — I ought to say liis share — in this busi- ness, and will lay up the rest for him. When I find him, I may perhaps throw myself upon his generosity ; but I will yield up all to him. I will, I swear. As I loved and honoured her," said Wilding, reverently kissing his hand towards the picture, and then covering his eyes with it. " As I loved and honoured her, and have a world of reasons to be grateful to her ! " And so broke down agciin. His partner rose from the chair he had occupied, and stood beside him with a hand softly laid upon his shoulder. " Walter, I knew you before to-day to be an upright man, with a pure con- science and a fine heart. It is very fortunate for me that I have the privilege to travel on in life so near to so trustworthy a man. I am thankful for it. Use me as your right hand, and rely upon me to the death. Don't think the worse of me if I protest to you that my uppermost feeling at present is a confused, you may call it an unreasonable, one. I feel far more pity for the lady and for you, because you did not stand in your supposed relations, than I can feel for the unknown man (if he ever became a man), because he was unconsciously displaced. You have done well in sending for Mr. Bintrey. What I think will be a part of his advice, I know is the whole of mine. Do not move a step in this serious matter precipitately. The secret must be kept among us with great strictness, for to part with it lightly would be to invite fraudulent claims, to encourage a host of knaves, to let loose a flood of perjury and plotting. I have no more to say now, Walter, than to remind you that you sold me a share in your busi- ness, expressly to save yourself from more work than your present health is fit for, and that I bought it expressly to do work, and mean to do it." With these words, and a parting grip of his partner's shoulder NO THOROUGHFAliE. 539 that gave them the best emphasis they could have had, George Vendale betook himself presently to the counting-house, and pres- ently afterwards to the address of M. Jules Obenreizer. As he turned into Soho-square, and directed his steps towards its north side, a deepened colour shot across his sun-bro\vned face, which Wilding, if he had been a better observer, or had been less occupied with his own trouble, might have noticed when his part- ner read aloud a certain passage in their Swiss correspondent's letter, which he had not read so distinctly as the rest. A curious colony of mountaineers has long been enclosed within that small flat London district of Soho. Swiss watch-makers, Swiss silver-chasers, Swiss jewellers, Swiss importers of Swiss musical boxes and Swiss toys of various kinds, draw close together there. Swiss professors of music, painting, and languages ; Swiss artificers in steady work ; Swiss couriers, and other Swiss servants chronically out of place; industrious Swiss laundresses and clear- starchers ; mysteriously existing Swiss of both sexes ; Swiss, credit- able and Swiss discreditable ; Swiss to be trusted by all means, and Swiss to be trusted by no means ; these diverse Swiss particles are attracted to a centre in the district of Soho. Shabby Swiss eating- houses, coffee-houses, and lodging-houses, Swiss drinks and dishes, Swiss service for Sundays, and Swiss schools for week-days, are all to be found there. Even the native-born English taverns drive a sort of broken-English trade ; announcing in their windows Swiss whets and drams, and sheltering in tlieir bars Swiss skirmishes of love and animosity on most nights in the year. When the new partner in Wilding and Co, rang the bell of a door bearing the blunt inscription Obenreizer on a brass plate — the inner door of a substantial house, whose ground story was devoted to the sale of Swiss clocks — he passed at once into domes- tic Switzerland. A white-tiled stove for winter-time filled the fire- place of the room into which he was shown, the room's bare floor was laid together in a neat pattern of several ordinary woods, the room had a prevalent air of surface bareness and much scrubbing ; and the little square of flowery carpet by the sofa, and the velvet chimney-board with its capacious clock and vases of artificial flowers, contended with that tone, as if, in bringing out the whole effect, a Parisian had adapted a dairy to domestic purposes. Mimic water was dropping off a mill-wheel under the clock. The visitor had not stood before it, following it with his eyes, a minute, when M. Obenreizer, at his elbow, startled him by saying, in very good English, very slightly clipped : " How do you do 1 So glad ! " " I beg your pardon. I didn't hear you come in." 640 NO THOROUGHFARE. "Not at all! Sit, please." Releasing his visitor's two arms, which he had lightly pinioned at the elbows by way of embrace, M. Obenreizer also sat, remarking, with a smile : " You are well 1 So glad ! " and touching his elbows again. "I don't know," said Vendale, after exchange of salutations, "whether you may yet have heard of me from your house at Neuchatel?" "Ah, yes!" " In connection with Wilding and Co. ? "Ah, surely!" " Is it not odd that I should come to you, in London here, as one of the Firm of AVilding and Co., to pay the Firm's respects ? " " Not at all ! What did I always observe when we were on the mountains ? We call them vast : but the world is so little. So little is the world, that one cannot keep away from persons. There are so few persons in the world, that they continually cross and re- cross. So very little is the w^orld, that one cannot get rid of a person. Not," touching his elbows again, with an ingratiatory smile, " that one would desire to get rid of you." " I hope not, M. Obenreizer." "Please call me, in your country, Mr. I call myself so, for I love your countiy. If I could be English ! But I am born. And you 1 Though descended from so fine a family, you have had the condescension to come into trade 1 Stop though. Wines ? Is it trade in England or profession ? Not fine art 1 " "Mr. Obenreizer," returned Vendale, somewhat out of counte- nance, " I was but a silly young fellow, just of age, when I first had the pleasure of travelling with you, and when you and I and Mademoiselle your niece — who is well ? " "Thank you. Who is well." " — Shared some slight glacier dangers together. If, with a boy's vanity, I rather vaunted my family, I hope I did so as a kind of introduction of myself. It was very weak, and in very bad taste ; but perhaps you know our English proverb, ' Live and learn.' " "You make too much of it," returned the Swiss. "And what the devil ! After all, yours was a fine family." George Yendale's laugh betrayed a little vexation as he rejoined : " Well ! I was strongly attached to my parents, and when we first travelled together, Mr. Obenreizer, I was in the first flush of com- ing into what my father and mother left me. So I hope it may have been, after all, more youthful openness of speech and heart than boastfulness." " All openness of speech and heart ! No boastfulness ! " cried NO THOROUGHFARE. 541 Obenreizer. "You tax yourself too heavily. You tax yourself, my faith ! as if you was your Government taxing you ! Besides, it commenced with me. I remember, that evening in the boat upon the lake, floating among the reflections of the mountains and valleys, the crags and pine woods, which were my earliest remembrance, I drew a word-picture of my sordid childhood. Of our poor hut, by the waterfall which my mother showed to travellers ; of the cow- shed where I slept with the cow ; of my idiot half-brother always sitting at the door, or limping down the Pass to beg ; of my half- sister always spinning, and resting her enormotrs goitre on a great stone ; of my being a famished naked little wretch of two or three years, when they were men and women with hard hands to beat me, I, the only child of my father's second marriage — if it even was a marriage. What more natural than for you to compare notes with me, and say, ' We are as one by age ; at that same time I sat upon my mother's lap in my father's carriage, rolling through the rich English streets, all luxury surrounding me, all squalid poverty kept far from me. Such is my earliest remembrance as opposed to yours ! ' " Mr. Obenreizer was a black-haired young man of a dark com- plexion, through whose swarthy skin no red glow ever shone. When colour would have come into another cheek, a hardly discernible beat would come into his, as if the machinery for bringing up the ardent blood were there, but the machinery were dry. He was robustly made, well proportioned, and had handsome features. Many would have perceived that some surface change in him would have set them more at their ease with him, without being able to define what change. If his lips could have been made much thicker, and his neck much thinner, they would have found their want supplied. But the great Obenreizer peculiarity was, that a certain nameless film would come over his eyes — apparently by the action of his own will — which would impenetrably veil, not only from those tellers of tales, but from his face at large, every expression save one of at- tention. It by no means followed that his attention should be wholly given to the person with whom he spoke, or even wholly be- stowed on present sounds and objects. Rather, it was a compre- hensive watchfulness of everything he had in his own mind, and everything that he knew to be, or suspected to be, in the minds of other men. At this stage of the conversation, Mr. Obenreizer's film came over him. " The object of my present visit," said Vendale, " is, I need hardly say, to assure you of the friendliness of Wilding and Co., and of the goodness of your credit with us, and of our desire to be of service to 542 NO THOROUGHFARE. you. We hope shortly to offer you our hospitality. Things are not quite in train with us yet, for my partner, Mr. Wilding, is reor- ganising the domestic part of our establishment, and is interrupted by some private affairs. You don't know Mr. Wilding, I believe ? " Mr. Obenreizer did not. "You must come together soon. He will be glad to have made your acquaintance, and I think I may predict that you will be glad to have made his. You have not been long established in London, I suppose, Mr. Obenreizer?" "It is only now that I have undertaken this agency." " Mademoiselle your niece — is — not married *? " "Not married." George Vendale glanced about him, as if for any tokens of her. " She has been in London ? " " She is in London." " When, and where, might I have the honour of recalling myself to her remembrance ? " Mr. Obenreizer, discarding his film and touching his visitor's elbows as before, said lightly : "Come up-stairs." Fluttered enough by the suddenness with which the interview he had sought was coming upon him after all, George Vendale followed up-stairs. In a room over the chamber he had just quitted — a room also Swiss-appointed — a young lady sat near one of three windows, working at an embroidery-frame ; and an older lady sat with her face turned close to another white-tiled stove (though it was summer, and the stove was not lighted), cleaning gloves. The young lady wore an unusual quantity of fair bright hair, very pret- tily braided about a rather rounder white forehead than the aver- age English type, and so her face might have been a shade — or say a light — rounder than the average English face, and her figure slightly rounder than the figure of the average English girl at nine- teen. A remarkable indication of freedom and grace of limb, in her quiet attitude, and a wonderful purity and freshness of colour in her dimpled face and bright grey eyes, seemed fraught with mountain air. Switzerland, too, though the general fashion of her dress was English, peeped out of the fanciful bodice she wore, and lurked in the curious clocked red stocking, and in its little silver-buckled shoe. As to the elder lady, sitting with her feet apart upon the lower brass ledge of the stove, supporting a lapful of gloves while she cleaned one stretched on her left hand, she was a true Swiss im- personation of another kind ; from the breadth of her cushion-like back, and the ponderosity of her respectable legs (if the word be admissible), to the black velvet band tied tightly round her throat for the repression of a rising tendency to goitre ; or, higher still, to NO THOROUGHFARE. 543 her great copper-coloured gold earrings; or, higher still, to her head-dress of black gauze stretched on wire. " Miss Marguerite," said Obenreizer to the young lady, " do you recollect this gentleman 1 " "I think," she answered, rising from her seat, surprised and a little confused : "it is Mr. Vendale?" "I think it is," said Obenreizer, dryly. "Permit me, Mr. Vendale. Madame Dor." The elder lady by the stove, with the glove stretched on her left hand, like a glover's sign, half got up, half looked over her broad shoulder, and wholly plumped down again and rubbed away. "Madame Dor," said Obenreizer, smiling, "is so kind as to keep me free from stain or tear. Madame Dor humours my weakness for being always neat, and devotes her time to removing every one of my specks and spots." Madame Dor, with the stretched glove in the air, and her eyes closely scrutinising its palm, discovered a tough spot in Mr. Oben- reizer at that moment, and rubbed hard at him. George Vendale took his seat by the embroidery-frame (having first taken the fair right hand that his entrance had checked), and glanced at the gold cross that dipped into the bodice, with something of the devotion of a pilgrim who had reached his shrine at last. Obenreizer stood in the middle of the room with his thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, and became filmy. " He was saying down-stairs. Miss Obenreizer," observed Vendale, " that the world is so small a place, that people cannot escape one another. I have found it much too large for me since I saw you last." "Have you travelled so far, then?" she inquired. " Not so far, for I have only gone back to Switzerland each year; but I could have wished — and indeed I have wished very often — that the little world did not afibrd such opportunities for long escapes as it does. If it had been less, I might have found my fellow-travellers sooner, you know." The pretty Marguerite coloured, and very slightly glanced in the direction of Madame Dor. "You find us at length, Mr. Vendale. Perhaps you may lose us again." " I trust not. The curious coincidence that has enabled me to find you, encourages me to hope not." " What is that coincidence, sir, if you please 1 " A dainty little native touch in this turn of speech, and in its tone, made it perfectly captivating, thought George Vendale, when again he noticed an instantaneous glance towards Madame Dor. A caution seemed to 544 NO THOROUGHFARE. be conveyed in it, rapid flash though it was ; so he quietly took heed of Madame Dor from that time forth. "It is that I happen to have become a partner in a house of business in London, to which Mr. Obenreizer happens this very day to be expressly recommended : and that, too, by another house of business in Switzerland, in which (as it turns out) we both have a commercial interest. He has not told you ? " " Ah ! " cried Obenreizer, striking in, filmless. " No. I had not told Miss Marguerite. The world is so small and so monot- onous that a surprise is worth having in such a little jog-trot place. It is as he tells you. Miss Marguerite. He, of so fine a family, and so proudly bred, has condescended to trade. To trade ! Like us poor peasants who have risen from ditches ! " ■ A cloud crept over the fair brow, and she cast down her eyes. « " Why, it is good for trade ! " pursued Obenreizer, enthusiastically. " It ennobles trade ! It is the misfortune of trade, it is its vulgarity, that any low people — for example, we poor peasants — may take to '