THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY 833 V si- . . . ; 1 -V 1 ': W ‘ * > ‘ : Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/oldcuriosityshop02dick_0 MK- SWIVELLER AND THE MARCHIONESS. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP: AND REPRINTED PIECES. By CHARLES DICKENS. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. NEW YORK: THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO., ' 46 East Fourteenth St. CONTENTS fA3 D fS * 1* PAGE THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . REPRINTED PIECES: — • * * • 1-159 The Long Voyage .... * • . 163 The Begging- Letter Writer . . 174 A Child’s Dream of a Star . . . 183 Our English Watering-Place . 187 Our French Watering-Place . 197 Bill-Sticking . 211 “Births. Mrs. Meek, of a Son” . 225 Lying Awake . 230 The Poor Relation’s Story . . 238 The Child’s Story .... . 249 The Schoolboy’s Story . . 254 Nobody’s Story .... . 265 The Ghost of Art .... . 271 Out of Town . 279 Out of the Season .... . 287 A Poor Man’s Tale of a Patent . . 296 The Noble Savage .... . 303 A Flight . 310 The Detective Police . 321 Three “Detective” Anecdotes . . 342 IV CONTENTS . REPRINTED PIECES, continued — PAGE On Duty with Inspector Eield . 352 Down with the Tide 367 A Walk in a Workhouse 378 Prince Bull. A Fairy Tale 386 A Plated Article 392 Our Honorable Friend 402 Our School 409 Our Vestry 417 Our Bore 425 A Monument of French Folly 434 A Christmas Tree 447 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOL. II. By George Cattermole, H. K. Browne, and F. Walker. PAGE Mr. Swiyeller and the Marchioness .... Frontispiece Kit, Swiyeller, and Mr. Chuckster ...... 5 Mr. Swiveller’s Flute-practice 21 Daniel Quilp at the Window 37 Poor Kit in Trouble 46 The Dwarf keeping his Hand in 53 Mr. Swiyeller to the Rescue 64 The Marchioness in the Sick Room 69 “God bless me! what is this?” 81 Restoratives 88 Miss Brass at Bay 91 Washed Ashore 108 Whisker and Barbara 113 Setting out on the Search for the Fugitives . . • . 120 Her Bird 131 At Rest 149 Her Grandfather at the Grave 149 The Long Voyage 171 The Schoolboy’s Story 255 A Poor Man’s Tale of a Patent 297 Detective Story — “The Sofa” 350 v THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. CHAPTER I. A day or two after the Quilp tea-party at the Wilderness, Mr. Swiveller walked into Sampson Brass’s office at the usual hour, and being alone in that Temple of Probity, placed his hat upon the desk, and taking from his pocket a small parcel of black crape, applied himself to folding and pinning the same upon it, after the manner of a hatband. Having com- pleted the construction of this appendage, he surveyed his work with great complacency, and put his hat on again — very much over one eye to increase the mournfulness of the effect. These arrangements perfected to his entire satisfaction, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked up and down the office with measured steps. “ It has always been the same with me,” said Mr. Swiveller, “ always. ’Twas ever thus, from childhood’s hour I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay, I never loved a tree or flower but ’twas the first to fade away ; I never nursed a dear Gazelle, to glad me with its soft black eye, but when it came to know me well, and love me, it was sure to marry a market- gardener.” Overpowered by these reflections, Mr. Swiveller stopped short at the clients’ chair, and flung himself into its open arms. “ And this,” said Mr. Swiveller, with a kind of bantering composure, “ is life, I believe. Oh, certainly. Why not ! I’m quite satisfied. I shall wear,” added Richard, taking off his hat again and looking hard at it, as if he were only de- terred by pecuniary considerations from spurning it with his VOL. II — 1 2 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . foot ; “ I shall wear this emblem of woman’s perfidy in remem- brance of her with whom I shall never again thread the wind- ings of the mazy; whom I shall never more pledge in the rosy ; who; during the short remainder of my existence will murder the balmy. Ha, ha, ha ! ” It may be necessary to observe, lest there should appear any incongruity in the close of this soliloquy, that Mr. Swiveller did not wind up with a cheerful hilarious laugh, which would have been undoubtedly at variance with his solemn reflections, but that, being in a theatrical mood, he merely achieved that performance which is designated in melo-dramas “ laughing like a fiend,” — for it seems that your fiends always laugh in syllables, and always in three syllables, never more nor less, which is a remarkable property in such gentry, and one worthy of remembrance. The baleful sounds had hardly died away, and Mr. Swiveller was still sitting in a very grim state in the clients’ chair, when there came a ring — or, if we may adapt the sound to his then humor, a knell — at the office bell. Opening the door with all speed, he beheld the expressive countenance of Mr. Chuckster, between whom and himself a fraternal greet- ing ensued. “ You’re devilish early at this pestiferous old slaughter- house,” said that gentleman, poising himself on one leg, and shaking the other in an easy manner. “ Rather,” returned Dick. “ Rather ! ” retorted Mr. Chuckster, with that air of graceful trifling which so well became him. “ I should think so. Why, my good feller, do you know what o’clock it is — half-past nine a.m. in the morning ? ” “ Won’t you come in?” said Dick. “All alone. Swiveller solus. * ’Tis now the witching — ’ ” “ ‘ Hour of night ! ’ ” “ c When churchyards yawn,’ ” “ c And graves give up their dead.’ ” At the end of this quotation in dialogue, each gentleman struck an attitude, and immediately subsiding into prose, walked into the office. Such morsels of enthusiasm were common among the Glorious Apollos, and were indeed the THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 3 links that bound them together, and raised them above the cold dull earth. “Well, and how are you my buck?” said Mr. Chuckster, taking a stool. “I was forced to come into the city upon some little private matters of my own, and couldn’t pass the corner of the street without looking in, but upon my soul I didn’t expect to find you. It is so everlastingly early.” Mr. Swiveller expressed his acknowledgments ; and it ap- pearing on further conversation that he was in good health, and that Mr. Chuckster was in the like enviable condition, both gentlemen, in compliance with a solemn custom of the ancient Brotherhood to which they belonged, joined in a frag- ment of the popular duet of “All’s Well,” with a long shake at the end. “ And what’s the news ? ” said Bichard. “ The town’s as flat, my dear feller,” replied Mr. Chuckster, “ as the surface of a Dutch oven. There’s no news. By the by, that lodger of yours is a most extraordinary person. He quite eludes the most vigorous comprehension, you know. Never was such a feller ! ” “ What has he been doing now ? ” said Dick. “By Jove, sir,” returned Mr. Chuckster, taking out an oblong snuff-box, the lid whereof was ornamented with a fox’s head curiously carved in brass, “ that man is an unfathomable. Sir, that man has made friends with our articled clerk. There’s no harm in him, but he is so amazingly slow and soft. Now, if he wanted a friend, why couldn’t he have one that knew a thing or two, and could do him some good by his man- ners and conversation. I have my faults, sir,” said Mr. Chuck- ster — “No, no,” interposed Mr. Swiveller. “ Oh yes I have, I have my faults, no man knows his faults better than I know mine. But,” said Mr. Chuckster, “I’m not meek. My worst enemies — every man has his enemies, sir, and I have mine — never accused me of being meek. And I tell you what, sir, if I hadn’t more of these qualities that commonly endear man to man, that our articled clerk has, I’d steal a Cheshire cheese, tie it round my neck, and drown 4 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . myself. I’d die degraded, as I had lived. I would upon my honor.” Mr. Chuckster paused, rapped the fox’s head exactly on the nose with the knuckle of the fore-finger, took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily at Mr. Swiveller, as much as to say that if he thought he was going to sneeze, he would find himself mis- taken. “Not contented, sir,” said Mr. Chuckster, “with making friends with Abel, he has cultivated the acquaintance of his father and mother. Since he came home from that wild-goose chase, he has been there — actually been there. He patronizes young Snobby besides ; you’ll find, sir, that he’ll be constantly coming backwards and forwards to this place : yet I don’t suppose that beyond the common forms of civility, he has ever exchanged half-a-dozen words with me. Now, upon my soul, you know,” said Mr. Chuckster, shaking his head gravely, as men are wont to do when they consider things are going a little too far, “ this is altogether such a low-minded affair, that if I didn’t feel for the governor, and know that he could never get on without me, I should be obliged to cut the connection. I should have no alternative.” Mr. Swiveller, who sat on another stool opposite to his friend, stirred the fire in an excess of sympathy, but said nothing. “As to young Snob, sir,” pursued Mr. Chuckster, with a prophetic look, “you’ll find he’ll turn out bad. In our pro- fession we know something of human nature, and take my word for it, that the feller that came back to work out that shilling, will show himself one of these days in his true colors. He’s a low thief, sir. He must be.” Mr. Chuckster being roused, would probably have pursued this subject further, and in more emphatic language, but for a tap at the door, which seeming to announce the arrival of somebody on business, caused him to assume a greater appear- ance of meekness than was perhaps quite consistent with his late declaration. Mr. Swiveller, hearing the same sound, caused his stool to revolve rapfdly on one leg until it brought him to his desk, into which, having forgotten in the sudden KIT, S VV IV ELLER AND MR. CIIUCKSTER. THE OLE CURIOSITY SHOP. 5 flurry of his spirits to part with the poker, he thrust it as he cried “ Come in ! ” Who should present himself but that very Kit who had been the theme of Mr. Chuckster’s wrath ! Never did man pluck up his courage so quickly, or look so fierce, as Mr. Chuckster when he found it was he. Mr. Swiveller stared at him for a moment, and then leaping from his stool, and draw- ing out the poker from its place of concealment, performed the broad-sword exercise with all the cuts and guards com- plete, in a species of frenzy. “ Is the gentleman at home ? ” said Kit, rather astonished by this uncommon reception. Before Mr. Swiveller could make any reply, Mr. Chuckster took occasion to enter his indignant protest against this form of inquiry ; which he held to be of a disrespectful and snobbish tendency, inasmuch as the inquirer, seeing two gentlemen then and there present, should have spoken of the other gentleman ; or rather (for it was not impossible that the object of his search might be of inferior quality) should have mentioned his name, leaving it to his hearers to determine his degree as they thought proper. Mr. Chuckster likewise remarked, that he had some reason to believe this form of address was per- sonal to himself, and that he was not a man to be trifled with — as certain snobs (whom he did not more particularly men- tion or describe) might find to their cost. “I mean the gentleman up stairs/’ said Kit, turning to Bichard Swiveller. “ Is he at home ? ” “ Why ? ” rejoined Dick. “ Because if he is, I have a letter for him.” “ From whom ? ” said Dick. “From Mr. Garland.” “ Oh ! ” said Dick, with extreme politeness. “ Then you may hand it over, sir. And if you’re to wait for an answer, sir, you may wait in the passage, sir, which is an airy and well-ventilated apartment, sir.” “Thank you,” returned Kit. “But I am to give it to himself, if you please.” The excessive audacity of this retort so overpowered Mr. Chuckster, and so moved his tender regard for his friend’s 6 THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP . honor, that he declared, if he were not restrained by official considerations, he must certainly have annihilated Kit upon the spot ; a resentment of the affront which he did consider, under the extraordinary circumstances of aggravation attend- ing it, could not but have met with the proper- sanction and approval of a jury of Englishmen, who, he had no doubt, would have returned a verdict of J ustifiable Homicide, coupled with a high testimony to the morals and character of the Avenger. Mr. Swiveller, without being quite so hot upon the matter, was rather shamed by his friend’s excitement, and not a little puzzled how to act (Kit being quite cool and good humored), when the single gentleman was heard to call violently down the stairs. “ Didn’t I see somebody for me, come in ? ” cried the lodger. “Yes, sir,” replied Dick. “Certainly, sir.” “ Then where is he ? ” roared the single gentleman. “He’s here, sir,” rejoined Mr. Swiveller. “Kow young man, don’t you hear you’re to go up stairs ? Are you deaf ? ” Kit did not appear to think it worth his while to enter into any altercation, but hurried off and left the Glorious Apollos gazing at each other in silence. “ Didn’t I tell you so ? ” said Mr. Chuckster. “ What do you think of that ? ” Mr. Swiveller being in the main a good-natured fellow, and not perceiving in the conduct of Kit any villany of enormous magnitude, scarcely knew what answer to return. He was relieved from his perplexity, however, by the entrance of Mr. Sampson and his sister, Sally, at sight of whom Mr. Chuckster precipitately retired. Mr. Brass and his lovely companion appeared to have been holding a consultation over their temperate breakfast, upon some matter of great interest and importance. On the occa- sion of such conferences, they generally appeared in the office some half an hour after their usual time, and in a very smiling state, as though their late plots and designs had tranquilized their minds and shed a light upon their toilsome way. In the present instance, they seemed particularly gay ; Miss Sally’s aspect being of a most oily kind, and Mr. Brass rubbing his hands in an exceedingly jocose and light-hearted manner. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 7 “Well, Mr. Richard,” said Brass. “How are we this morning? Are we pretty fresh and cheerful, sir — eh, Mr. Richard ? ” “ Pretty well, sir,” replied Dick. “ That’s well,” said Brass. “ Ha ha ! We should be as gay as larks, Mr. Richard — why not ? It’s a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard; but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers. Ha ha! Any letters by the post this morning, Mr. Richard?” Mr. Swiveller answered in the negative. “Ha!” said Brass, “no matter. If there’s little business to-day, there’ll be more to-morrow. A contented spirit, Mr. Richard, is the sweetness of existence. Anybody been here, sir ? ” “ Only my friend ” — replied Dick. “ ‘ May we ne’er want a — ’” “ ‘ Friend,’ ” Brass chimed in quickly, “ ‘ or a bottle to give him.’ Ha ha ! That’s the way the song runs, isn’t it ? A very good song, Mr. Richard, very good. I like the sentiment of it. Ha ha ! Your friend’s the young man from Wither- den’s office I think — yes — c May we ne’er want a — ’ No- body else at all, been, Mr. Richard ? ” “ Only somebody to the lodger,” replied Mr. Swiveller. “ Oh indeed ! ” cried Brass. “ Somebody to the lodger, eh ? Ha ha ! ‘ May we ne’er want a friend, or a — ’ Somebody to the lodger, eh, Mr. Richard ? ” “Yes,” said Dick, a little disconcerted by the excessive buoyancy of spirits which his employer displayed. “With him now.” “ With him now ! ” cried Brass ; “ Ha ha ! There let ’em be, merry and free, toor rul lol le. Eh, Mr. Richard ? Ha ha ! ” “ Oh certainly,” replied Dick. “And who,” said Brass, shuffling among his papers, “ who is the lodger’s visitor — not a lady visitor I hope, eh Mr. Rich- ard ? The morals of the Marks you know, sir — ‘ when lovely woman stoops to folly ’ — and all that — eh, Mr. Richard ? ” “Another young man, who belongs to Witherden’s too, or half belongs there,” returned Richard. “ Kit, they call him.” 8 THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP . “Kit, eh!” said Brass. “ Strange name — name of a dancing- master’s fiddle, eh, Mr. Bichard? Ha ha! Kit’s there, is he? Oh!” Dick looked at Miss Sally, wondering that she didn’t check this uncommon exuberance on the part of Mr. Sampson ; but as she made no attempt to do so, and rather appeared to exhibit a tacit acquiescence in it, he concluded that they had just been cheating somebody, and receiving the bill. “ Will you have the goodness, Mr. Bichard,” said Brass, tak- ing a letter from his desk, “ just to step over to Peckham Bye with that ? There’s no answer, but its rather particular and should go by hand. Charge the office with your coach-hire back, you know ; don’t spare the office ; get as much out of it as you can — clerk’s motto — Eh, Mr. Bichard ? Ha ha ! ” Mr. Swiveller solemnly doffed his aquatic jacket, put on his coat, took down his hat from its peg, pocketed the letter, and departed. As soon as he was gone, up rose Miss Sally Brass, and smiling sweetly at her brother (who nodded and smote his nose in return) withdrew also. Sampson Brass was no sooner left alone, than he set the office-door wide open, and establishing himself at his desk directly opposite, so that he could not fail to see anybody who came down stairs and passed out at the street door, began to write with extreme cheerfulness and assiduity ; humming as he did so, in a voice that was anything but musical, certain vocal snatches which appeared to have reference to the union between Church and State, inasmuch as they were compounded of the Evening Hymn and God save the King. Thus, the attorney of Bevis Marks sat, and wrote, and hummed, for a long time, except when he stopped to listen with a very cunning face, and hearing nothing, went on hum- ming louder, and writing slower than ever. At length, in one of these pauses, he heard his lodger’s door opened and shut, and footsteps coming down the stairs. Then, Mr. Brass left off writing entirely, and, with his pen in his hand, hummed his very loudest ; shaking his head meanwhile from side to side, like a man whose whole soul was in the music, and smiling in a manner quite seraphic. It was towards this moving spectacle that the staircase and THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 9 the sweet sounds guided Kit : on whose arrival before his door, Mr. Brass stopped his singing, but not his smiling, and j. nodded affaby : at the same time beckoning to him with his | pen. “ Kit,” said Mr. Brass, in the pleasantest way imaginable, “ how do you do ? ” Kit, being rather shy of his friend, made a suitable reply, and had his hand upon the lock of the street door when Mr. Brass called him softly back. “You are not to go, if you please, Kit,” said the attorney, in a mysterious and yet business-like way. “ You are to step in here, if you please. Dear me, dear me ! When I look at you,”’ said the lawyer, quitting his stool, and standing before the fire with his back towards it, “I am reminded of the sweetest little face that ever my eyes beheld. I remember your coming there, twice or thrice, when we were in possession. Ah Kit, my dear fellow, gentlemen in my profession have such painful duties f to perform sometimes, that you needn’t envy us — you needn’t I indeed ! ” “I don’t, sir,” said Kit, “though it isn’t for the like of me to judge.” “ Our only consolation, Kit,” pursued the lawyer, looking at him in a sort of pensive abstraction, “ is, that although we cannot turn away the wind, we can soften it ; we can temper it, if I may say so, to the shorn lambs.” “ Shorn indeed ! ” thought Kit. “ Pretty close ! ” But he didn’t say so. “ On that occasion, Kit,” said Mr. Brass, “ on that occasion that I have just alluded to, I had a hard battle with Mr. Quilp (for Mr. Quilp is a very hard man) to obtain them the indul- gence they had. It might have cost me a client. But suffer- ing virtue inspired me, and I prevailed.” “ He’s not so bad after all,” thought honest Kit, as the attor- ney pursed up his lips and looked like a man who was strug- gling with his better feelings. “I respect you , Kit,” said Brass, with emotion. “I saw enough of your conduct, at that time, to respect you, though your station is humble, and your fortune lowly. It isn’t the waistcoat that I look at. It is the heart. The checks in the 10 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. waistcoat are but the wires of the cage. But the heart is the bird. Ah ! How many sich birds are perpetually moulting, and putting their beaks through the wires to peck at all man- kind ! ” This poetic figure, which Kit took to be in special allusion to his own checked waistcoat, quite overcame him; Mr. Brass’s voice and manner added not a little to its effect, for he dis- coursed with all the mild austerity of a hermit, and wanted but a cord round the waist of his rusty surtout, and a skull on the chimney-piece, to be completely set up in that line of business. “Well, well,” said Sampson, smiling as good men smile when they compassionate their own weakness or that of their fellow-creatures, “this is wide of the bull’s-eye. You’re to take that if you please.” As he spoke, he pointed to a couple of half-crowns on the desk. Kit looked at the coins, and then at Sampson, and hesitated. “ For yourself,” said Brass. “ From — ” “No matter about the person they came from,” replied the lawyer. “Say me, if you like. We have eccentric friends overhead, Kit, and we mustn’t ask questions or talk too much — you understand? You’re to take them, that’s all; and between you and me, I don’t think they’ll be the last you’ll have to take from the same place. I hope not. Good by, Kit. Good by ! ” With many thanks, and many more self-reproaches for hav- ing on such slight grounds suspected one who in their very first conversation turned out such a different man from what he had supposed, Kit took the money and made the best of his way home. Mr. Brass remained airing himself at the fire, and resumed his vocal exercise, and his seraphic smile simul- taneously. “ May I come in ? ” said Miss Sally, peeping. “Oh yes, you may come in,” returned her brother. “ Ahem ? ” coughed Miss Brass, interrogatively. “ Why, yes,” returned Sampson, “ I should say as good as done.” THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 11 CHAPTER II. Mr. Chuckster’s indignant apprehensions were not with- out foundation. Certainly the friendship between the single gentleman and Mr. Garland was not suffered to cool, but had a rapid growth and flourished exceedingly. They were soon in habits of constant intercourse and communication ; and the single gentleman laboring at this time under a slight attack of illness — the consequence most probably of his late excited feelings and subsequent disappointment — furnished a reason for their holding yet more frequent correspondence ; so, that some one of the inmates of Abel Cottage, Finchley, came back- wards and forwards between that place and Bevis Marks, almost every day. As the pony had now thrown off all disguise, and without any mincing of the matter or beating about the bush, sturdily refused to be driven by anybody but Kit, it generally hap- pened that whether old Mr. Garland came, or Mr. Abel, Kit was of the party. Of all messages and inquiries, Kit was, in right of his position, the bearer; thus it came about that, while the single gentleman remained indisposed, Kit turned into Bevis Marks every morning with nearly as much regular- ity as the General Postman. Mr. Sampson Brass, who no doubt had his reasons for look- ing sharply about him, soon learnt to distinguish the pony’s trot and the clatter of the little chaise at the corner of the street. Whenever this sound reached his ears, he would immediately lay down his pen and fall to rubbing his hands and exhibiting the greatest glee. “ Ha ha ! ” he would cry. “ Here’s the pony again ! Most remarkable pony, extremely docile, eh, Mr. Richard, eh, sir ? ” Dick would return some matter-of-course reply, and Mr. Brass, standing on the bottom rail of his stool, so as to get a 12 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. view of the street over the top of the window-blind, would take an observation of the visitors. “ The old gentleman again ! ” he would exclaim, “ a very prepossessing old gentleman, Mr. Richard — charming counte- nance, sir — extremely calm — benevolence in every feature, sir. He quite realizes my idea of King Lear, as he appeared when in possession of his kingdom, Mr. Richard — the same good-humor, the same -white hair and partial baldness, the same liability to be imposed upon. Ah ! A sweet subject for contemplation sir, very sweet ! ” Then, Mr. Garland having alighted and gone up stairs, Samp- son would nod and smile to Kit from the window, and pres- ently walk out into the street to greet him, when some such conversation as the following would ensue. “ Admirably groomed, Kit” — Mr. Brass is patting the pony — “ does you great credit — amazingly sleek and bright to be sure. He literally looks as if he had been varnished all over.” Kit touches his hat, smiles, pats the pony himself, and expresses his conviction, “that Mr. Brass will not find many like him.” “ A beautiful animal, indeed ! ” cries Brass. “ Sagacious too ? ” “Bless you ! ” replies Kit, “ he knows what you say to him as well as a Christian does.” “Does he indeed!” cries Brass, who has heard the same thing in the same place from the same person in the same words a dozen times, but is paralyzed with astonishment not- withstanding. “ Dear me ! ” . “ I little thought the first time I saw him, sir,” said Kit, pleased with the attorney’s strong interest in his favorite, “that I should come to be as intimate with him as I am now.” “Ah!” rejoins Mr. Brass, brim-full of moral percepts and love of virtue. “A charming subject of reflection for you, very charming. A subject of proper pride and congratulation, Christopher. Honesty is the best policy. — I always find it so myself. I lost forty-seven pound ten by being honest this morning. But it’s all gain, it’s gain ! ” Mr. Brass slily tickles his nose with his pen, and looks at Kit with the water standing in his eyes. Kit thinks that if THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. 13 ever there was a good man who belied his appearance, that man is Sampson Brass. “ A man,” says Sampson, “ who loses forty-seven pound ten in one morning by his honesty, is a man to be envied. If it had been eighty pound, the luxuriousness of feeling would have been increased. Every pound lost would have been a hundredweight of happiness gained. The still small voice, Christopher,” cries Brass, smiling, and tapping himself on the bosom, “ is a singing comic songs within me, and all is happi- ness and joy ! ” Kit is so improved by the conversation, and finds it go so completely home to his feelings, that he is considering what he shall say, when Mr. Garland appears. The old gentleman is helped into the chaise with great obsequiousness by Mr. Sampson Brass ; and the pony, after shaking his head several times, and standing for three or four minutes with all his four legs planted firmly on the ground, as if he had made up his mind never to stir from that spot, but there to live and die, suddenly darts off, without the smallest notice, at the rate of twelve English miles an hour. Then, Mr. Brass and his sister (who has joined him at the door) exchange an odd kind of smile — not at all a pleasant one in its expression — and return to the society of Mr. Bichard Swiveller, who, during their absence, has been regaling himself with various feats of pantomime, and is discovered at his desk, in a very flushed and heated condition, violently scratching out nothing with half a penknife. Whenever Kit came alone, and without the chaise, it always happened that Sampson Brass was reminded of some mission, calling Mr. Swiveller, if not to Peckham Rye again, at all events to some pretty distant place from which he could not be expected to return for two or three hours, or in all proba- bility a much longer period, as that gentleman was not, to say the truth, renowned for using great expedition on such occasions, but rather for protracting and spinning out the time to the very utmost limit of possibility. Mr. Swiveller out of sight, Miss Sally immediately withdrew. Mr. Brass would then set the office-door wide open, hum his old tune with great gaiety of heart, and smile seraphically as before. 14 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. Kit coming down stairs would be called in ; entertained with some moral and agreeable conversation ; perhaps entreated to mind the office for an instant while Mr. Brass stepped over the way; and afterwards presented with one or two half- crowns as the case might be. This occurred so often, that Kit, nothing doubting but that they came from the single gentleman who had already rewarded his mother with great liberality, could not enough admire his generosity ; and bought so many cheap presents for her, and for little Jacob, and for the baby, and for Barbara to boot, that one or other of them was having some new trifle every day of their lives. While these acts and deeds were in progress in and out of the office of Sampson Brass, Bichard Swiveller, being often left alone therein, began to find the time hang heavy on his hands. For the better preservation of his cheerfulness, there- fore, and to prevent his faculties from rusting, he provided himself with a cribbage-board and pack of cards, and accus- tomed himself to play at cribbage with a dummy, for twenty, thirty, or sometimes even fifty thousand pounds a side, besides many hazardous bets to a considerable amount. As these games were very silently conducted, notwithstand- ing the magnitude of the interests involved, Mr. Swiveller began to think that on those evenings when Mr. and Miss Brass were out (and they often went out now) he heard a kind of snorting or hard-breathing sound in the direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after some reflection, must proceed from the small servant, who always had a cold from damp living. Looking intently that way one night, he plainly distinguished an eye gleaming and glistening at the keyhole ; and having now no doubt that his suspicions were correct, he stole softly to the door, and pounced upon her before she was aware of his approach. “Oh! I didn’t mean any harm indeed, upon my word I didn’t,” cried the small servant, struggling like a much larger one. “It’s so very dull, down stairs. Please don’t you tell upon me, please don’t.” “ Tell upon you ! ” said Dick. “ Do you mean to say you were looking through the keyhole for company ? ” “Yes, upon my word I was,” replied the small servant. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 15 “ How long have you been cooling your eye there ? ” said Dick. “ Oh ever since you first began to play them cards, and long before.” Vague recollections of several fantastic exercises with which he had refreshed himself after the fatigues of business, and to all of which, no doubt, the small servant was a party, rather disconcerted Mr. Swiveller ; but he was not very sensitive on such points, and recovered himself speedily. “Well, — come in” — he said, after a little consideration. “Here — sit down, and Fll teach you how to play.” “Oh! I durstn’t do it,” rejoined the small servant; “Miss Sally ? ud kill me, if she know’d I come up here.” “ Have you got a fire down stairs ? ” said Dick. “ A very little one,” replied the small servant. “Miss Sally couldn’t kill me if she know’d I went down there, so I’ll come,” said Diehard, putting the cards into his pocket. “Why, how thin you are ! What do you mean by it?” “ It an’t my fault.” “ Could you eat any bread and meat ? ” said Dick, taking down his hat. “ Yes ? Ah ! I thought so. Did you ever taste beer ? ” “ I had a sip of it once,” said the small servant. “ Here’s a state of things ! ” cried Mr. Swiveller, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “ She never tasted it — it can’t be tasted in a sip ! Why, how old are you ? ” “ I don’t know.” Mr. Swiveller opened his eyes very wide, and appeared thoughtful for a moment ; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back, vanished straightway. Presently, he returned, followed by the boy from the public house, who bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef, and in the other a great pot, filled with some very fragrant com- pound, which sent forth a grateful steam, and was indeed choice purl, made after a particular recipe which Mr. Swiveller had imparted to the landlord, at a period when he was deep in his books and desirous to conciliate his friendship. Reliev- ing the boy of his burden at the door, and charging his little 16 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . companion to fasten it to prevent surprise, Mr. Swiveller followed her into the kitchen. “ There ! ” said Bichard, putting the plate before her. “ First of all, clear that off, and then you’ll see what’s next.” The small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon empty. “Next,” said Dick, handing the purl, “take a pull at that; but moderate your transports, you know, for you’re not used to it. Well, is it good ? ” “ Oh ! isn’t it ? ” said the small servant. Mr. Swiveller appeared gratified beyond all expression by this reply, and took a long draught himself : steadfastly re- garding his companion while he did so. These preliminaries disposed of, he applied himself to teaching her the game, which she soon learnt tolerably well, being both sharp-witted and cunning. “Now,” said Mr. Swiveller, putting two sixpences into a saucer, and trimming the wretched candle, when the cards had been cut and dealt, “ those are the stakes. If you win, you get ’em all. If I win, I get ’em. To make it seem more real and pleasant, I shall call you the Marchioness, do you hear ? ” The small servant nodded. “ Then, Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, “ fire away ! ” The Marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands, considered which to play, and Mr. Swiveller, assuming the gay and fashionable air which such society required, took another pull at the tankard, and waited for her lead. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 17 CHAPTER III. Mr. Swiveller and his partner played several rubbers with varying success, until the loss of three sixpences, the gradual sinking of the purl, and the striking of ten o’clock, combined to render that gentleman mindful of the flight of Time, and the expediency of withdrawing before Mr. Sampson and Miss Sally Brass returned. “ With which object in view, Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiv- eller, gravely, “ I shall ask your ladyship’s permission to put the board in my pocket, and to retire from the presence when I have finished this tankard; merely observing, Marchioness, that since life like a river is flowing, I care not how fast it rolls on, ma’am, on, while such purl on the bank still is grow- ing, and such eyes light the waves as they run. Marchioness, your health. You will excuse my wearing my hat, but the palace is damp, and the marble floor, is — if I may be allowed the expression — sloppy.” As a precaution against this latter inconvenience, Mr. Swiv- eller had been sitting for some time with his feet on the hob, in which attitude he now gave utterance to these apologetic observations, and slowly sipped the last choice drops of nectar. “The Baron Sampsono Brasso and his fair sister are (you tell me) at the Play ? ” said Mr. Swiveller, leaning his left arm heavily upon the table, and raising his voice and his right leg after the manner of a theatrical bandit. The Marchioness nodded. “Ha!” said Mr. Swiveller, with a portentous frown. “ ’Tis well. Marchioness ! — but no matter. Some wine there. Ho ! ” He illustrated these melo-dramatic morsels, by handing the tankard to himself with great humility, receiving it haughtily, drinking from it thirstily, and smacking his lips fiercely. The small servant who was not so well acquainted with VOL, II— 2 18 THE OLE CURIOSITY SHOP. theatrical conventionalities as Mr. Swiveller (having indeed never seen a play, or heard one spoken of, except by chance through chinks of doors and in other forbidden places) was rather alarmed by demonstrations so novel in their nature, and showed her concern so plainly in her looks, That Mr. Swiveller felt it necessary to discharge his brigand manner for one more suitable to private life, as he asked, “Do they often go where glory waits ’em and leave you here?” “ Oh, yes ; I believe you they do,” returned the small ser- vant. “Miss Sally’s such a one-er for that, she is.” “ Such a what ? ” said Dick. “ Such a one-er,” returned the Marchioness. After a moment’s reflection, Mr. Swiveller determined to forego his responsible duty of setting her right, and to suffer her to talk on ; as it was evident that her tongue was loosened by the purl, and her opportunities for conversation were not so frequent as to render a momentary check of little conse- quence. “ They sometimes go to see Mr. Quilp,” said the small ser- vant with a shrewd look ; “ they go to a many places, bless you ! ” “ Is Mr. Brass a wunner ? ” said Dick. “ Not half what Miss Sally is, he isn’t,” replied the small servant, shaking her head. “ Bless you, he’d never do any- thing without her.” “ Oh ! ' He wouldn’t, wouldn’t he ? ” said Dick. “Miss Sally keeps him in such order,” said the small servant ; “ he always asks her advice, he does ; and he catches it sometimes. Bless you, you wouldn’t believe how much he catches it.” “I suppose,” said Dick, “that they consult together, a good deal, and talk about a great many people — about me for instance, sometimes, eh, Marchioness?” The Marchioness nodded amazingly. “ Complimentary ? ” said Mr. Swiveller. The Marchioness changed the motion of her head, which had not yet left off nodding, and suddenly began to shake it THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 19 from side to side, with a vehemence which threatened to dislo- cate her neck. “Humph!” Dick muttered. “Would it be any breach of confidence, Marchioness, to relate what they say of the humble individual who has now the honor to — ? ” “ Miss Sally says you’re a funny chap,” replied his friend. “Well, Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, “that’s not uncomplimentary. Merriment, Marchioness, is not a bad or a degrading quality. Old King Cole was himself a merry old soul, if we may put any faith in the pages of history.” “But she says,” pursued his companion, “that you an’t to be trusted.” “Why, really Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, thought- fully ; “ several ladies and gentlemen — not exactly profes- sional persons, but tradespeople, ma’am, tradespeople — have made the same remark. The obscure citizen who keeps the hotel over the way, inclined strongly to that opinion to-night When I ordered him to prepare the banquet. It’s a popular prejudice, Marchioness ; and yet I am sure I don’t know why, for I have been trusted in my time to a considerable amount, and I can safely say that I never forsook my trust until it deserted me — never. Mr. Brass is of the same opinion, I suppose ! ” His friend nodded again, with a cunning look which seemed to hint that Mr. Brass held stronger opinions on the subject than his sister; and seeming to recollect herself, added imploringly, “But don’t you ever tell upon me, or I shall be beat to death.” “Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, rising, “the word of a gentleman is as good as his bond — sometimes better, as in the present case, where his bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security. I am your friend, and I hope we shall play many more rubbers together in this same saloon. But, Marchioness,” added Bichard, stopping in his way to the door, and wheeling slowly round upon the small servant, who was following with the candle ; “ it occurs to me that you must be in the constant habit of airing your eye at keyholes, to know all this.” “I only wanted,” replied the trembling Marchioness, “to know where the key of the safe was hid ; that was all ; and I 20 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. wouldn’t have taken much, if I had found it — only enough to squench my hunger.” “You didn’t find it, then ? ” said Dick. “But of course you didn’t, or you’d be plumper. Good night, Marchioness. Fare thee well, and if for ever, then for ever fare thee well — and put up the chain, Marchioness, in case of accidents.” With this parting injunction, Mr. Swiveller emerged from the house ; and feeling that he had by this time taken quite as much to drink as promised to be good for his constitution (purl being a rather strong and heady compound), wisely resolved to betake himself to his lodgings, and to bed at once. Homeward he went therefore ; and his apartments (for he still retained the plural fiction) being at no great distance from the office, he was soon seated in his own bed-chamber, where, having pulled off one boot and forgotten the other, he fell into deep cogitation. “This Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, folding his arms, “is a very extraordinary person — surrounded by mysteries, ignorant of the taste of beer, unacquainted with her own name (which is less remarkable), and taking a limited view of society through the keyholes of doors — can these things be her destiny, or has some unknown person started an opposi- tion to the decrees of fate ? It is a most inscrutable and unmitigated staggerer ! ” When his meditations had attained this satisfactory point, he became aware of his remaining boot, of which, with unim- paired solemnity, he proceeded to divest himself ; shaking his head with exceeding gravity all the time, and sighing deeply. “ These rubbers,” said Mr. Swiveller, putting on his night- cap in exactly the same style as he wore his hat, “ remind me of the matrimonial fireside. Cheggs’s wife plays cribbage ; all-fours likewise. She rings the changes on ’em now. From sport to sport they hurry her, to banish her regrets, and when they win a smile from her, they think that she forgets — but she don’t. By this time, I should say,” added Bichard, get- ting his left cheek into profile, and looking complacently at the reflection of a very little scrap of whisker in the looking- glass ; “by this time, I should say, the iron has entered into her soul. It serves her right ! ” MR. SWIVELLER’S FLUTE PRACTICE. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 21 Melting from this stern and obdurate, into the tender and pathetic mood, Mr. Swiveller groaned a little, walked wildly up and down, and even made a show of tearing his hair, which however he thought better of, and wrenched the tassel from his nightcap instead. At last, undressing himself with a gloomy resolution, he got into bed. Some men in his blighted position would have taken to drinking ; but as Mr. Swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on receiving the news that Sophy Wackles was lost to him for ever, to playing the flute; thinking after mature consideration that it was a good, sound, dismal occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but calculated to awaken a fellow-feeling in the bosoms of his neighbors. In pursuance of this resolution, he now drew a little table to his bedside, and arranging the light and a small oblong music-book to the best advantage, took his flute from its box, and began to play most mournfully. The air was, “ Away with melancholy ” — a composition, which, when it is played very slowly on the flute, in bed, with the further disadvantage of being performed by a gentleman but imperfectly acquainted with the instrument, who repeats one note a great many times, before he can find the next, has not a lively effect. Yet, for half the night, or more, Mr. Swiveller, lying sometimes on his back with his eyes upon the ceiling, and sometimes half out of bed to correct himself by the book, played this unhappy tune over and over again ; never leaving off, save for a minute or two at a time to take breath and soliloquize about the Marchioness, and then beginning again with renewed vigor. It was not until he had quite exhausted his several subjects of meditation, and had breathed into the flute the whole sentiment of the purl down to its very dregs, and had nearly maddened the people of the house, and at both the next doors, and over the way, — that he shut up the music-book, extinguished the candle, and finding himself greatly lightened and relieved in his mind, turned round and fell asleep. He awoke in the morning, much refreshed; and having- taken half an hour’s exercise at the flute, and graciously re- ceived a notice to quit from his landlady, who had been in 22 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . waiting on the stairs for that purpose since the dawn of day, repaired to Bevis Marks ; where the beautiful Sally was already at her post, bearing in her looks a radiance, mild as that which beameth from the virgin moon. Mr. Swiveller acknowledged her presence by a nod, and exchanged his coat for the aquatic jacket ; which usually took some time fitting on, for in consequence of a tightness in the sleeves, it was only to be got into by a series of struggles. This difficulty overcome, he took his seat at the desk. “I say” — quoth Miss Brass, abruptly breaking silence, “you. haven’t seen a silver pencil-case this morning, have you ? ” “I didn’t meet many in the street,” rejoined Mr. Swiveller. “I saw one — a stout pencil-case of respectable appearance — l but as he was in company with an elderly pen-knife and a young toothpick with whom he was in earnest conversation, I felt a delicacy in speaking to him.” “No, but have you?” returned Miss Brass. “Seriously, you know.” “ What a dull dog you must be to ask me such a question seriously,” said Mr. Swiveller. “Haven’t I this moment come ? ” “Well, all I know is,” replied Miss Sally, “that it’s not to be found, and that it disappeared one day this week, when I left it on the desk.” “Halloa!” thought Bichard, “I hope the Marchioness hasn’t been at work here.” “There was a knife too,” said Miss Sally, “of the same pattern. They were given to me by my father, years ago, and are both gone. You haven’t missed anything yourself, have you ? ” Mr. Swiveller involuntarily clapped his hands to the jacket to be quite sure that it ivas a jacket and not a skirted coat ; and having satisfied himself of the safety of this, his only movable in Bevis Marks, made answer in the negative. “It’s a very unpleasant thing, Dick,” said Miss Brass, pulling out the tin box and refreshing herself with a pinch of snuff ; “ but between you and me — between friends you know, for if Sammy knew it, I should never hear the last of it — some THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 23 of the office-money, too, that has been left about, has gone in the same way. In particular, I have missed three half-crowns at three different times.” “You don’t mean that?” cried Dick. “Be careful what you say, old boy, for this is a serious matter. Are you quite sure ? Is there no mistake ? ” “It is so, and there can’t be any mistake at all,” rejoined Miss Brass, emphatically. “Then by Jove,” thought Bichard, laying down his pen, “ I am afraid the Marchioness is done for ! ” The more he discussed the subject in his thoughts, the more probable it appeared to Dick that the miserable little servant was the culprit. When he considered on what a spare allow- ance of food she lived, how neglected and untaught she was, and how her natural cunning had been sharpened by necessity and privation, he scarcely doubted it. And yet he pitied her so much, and felt so unwilling to have a matter of such gravity disturbing the oddity of their acquaintance, that he thought, and thought truly, that rather than receive fifty pounds down, he would have the Marchioness proved innocent. While he was plunged in very profound and serious medi- tation upon this theme, Miss Sally sat shaking her head with an air of great mystery and doubt ; when the voice of her brother Sampson, carolling a cheerful strain, was heard in the passage, and that gentleman himself, beaming with virtuous smiles, appeared. “ Mr. Bichard, sir, good morning ! Here we are again, sir, entering upon another day, with our bodies strengthened by slumber and breakfast, and our spirits fresh and flowing. Here we are, Mr. Bichard, rising with the sun to run our little course — our course of duty, sir — and, like him, to get through our day’s work with credit to ourselves and advantage to our fellow creatures. A charming reflection, sir, very charm- ing ! ” While he addressed his clerk in these words, Mr. Brass was, somewhat ostentatiously, engaged in minutely examining and holding up against the light a five-pound bank-note, which he had brought in, in his hand. Mr. Bichard not receiving his remarks with anything like 24 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. enthusiasm, his employer turned his eyes to his face, and ob- served that it wore a troubled expression. “ You’re out of spirits, sir,” said Brass. “Mr. Richard, sir, we should fall to work cheerfully, and not in a despondent state. It becomes us, Mr. Richard, sir, to — ” Here the chaste Sarah heaved a loud sigh. “Dear me!” said Mr. Sampson, “you too ! Is anything the matter ? Mr. Richard, sir — ” Dick, glancing at Miss Sally, saw that she was making sig- nals to him, to acquaint her brother with the subject of their recent conversation. As his own position was not a very pleasant one until the matter was set at rest one way or other, he did so ; and Miss Brass, plying her snuff-box at a most wasteful rate, corroborated his account. The countenance of Sampson fell, and anxiety overspread his features. Instead of passionately bewailing the loss of his money, as Mi ss Sally had expected, he walked on tiptoe to the door, opened it, looked outside, shut it softly, returned on tip- toe, and said in a whisper, “ This is a most extraordinary and painful circumstance — Mr. Richard, sir, a most painful circumstance. The fact is, that I myself have missed several small sums from the desk, of late, and have refrained from mentioning it, hoping that accident would discover the offender ; but iff has not done sc — it has not done so. Sally — Mr. Richard, sir — this is a par- ticularly distressing affair ! ” As Sampson spoke, he laid the bank-note upon the desk among some papers, in an absent manner, and thrust his hands into his pockets. Richard Swiveller pointed to it, and admon- ished him to take it up. “Ho, Mr. Richard, sir,” rejoined Brass with emotion, “I will not take it up. I will let it lie there, sir. To take it up, Mr. Richard, sir,*would imply a doubt of you ; and in you/sir, I have unlimited confidence. We will let it lie there, sir, if you please, and we will not take it up by any means.” With that, Mr. Brass patted him twice or thrice on the shoulder, in a* most friendly manner, and entreated him to believe that he had as much faith in his honesty as he had in his own. Although at another time Mr. Swiveller might have looked THE OLD CUB10SITY SHOP. 25 upon this as a doubtful compliment, he felt it, under the then- existing circumstance^ a great relief to be assured that he was not wrongfully suspected. When lie had made a suitable reply, Mr. Brass wrung him by the hand, and fell into a brown study, as did Miss Sally likewise. Richard too remained in a thoughtful state ; fearing every moment to hear the Marchion- ess impeached, and unable to resist the conviction that she must be guilty. When they had severally remained in this condition for some minutes, Miss Sally all at once gave a loud rap upon the desk with her clenched fist, and cried, “ I’ve hit it ! ” — as in- deed she had, and chipped a piece out of it too ; but that was not her meaning. “ Well,” cried Brass, anxiously. “ Go on, will you? ” “ Why,” replied his sister, with an air of triumph, “ hasn’t there been somebody always coming in and out of this office for the last three or four weeks ; hasn’t that somebody been left alone in it sometimes — thanks to you ; and do you mean to tell me that that somebody isn’t the thief ! ” “ What somebody? ” blustered Brass. “ Why, what do you call him — Kit.” “ Mr. Garland’s young man ? ” “ To be sure.” “ Never ! ” cried Brass. “ Never. I’ll not hear of it. Don’t tell me — ” said Sampson, shaking his head, and working with both his hands as if he were clearing away ten thousand cobwebs. “ I’ll never believe it of him. Never ! ” “ I say,” repeated Miss Brass, taking another pinch of snuff, “ that he’s the thief.” “I say,” returned Sampson, violently, “that he is not. What do you mean ? How dare you ? Are characters to be whispered away like this ? Do you know that he’s the honestest and faithfullest fellow that ever lived, and that he has an irreproachable good name ? Come in, come in ! ” These last words were not addressed to Miss Sally, though they partook of the tone in which the indignant remonstrances that preceded them had been uttered. They were addressed to some person who had knocked at the office-door ; and they 26 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . had hardly passed the lips of Mr. Brass, when this very Kit himself looked in. “ Is the gentleman np stairs, sir, if you please ? ” “ Yes, Kit,” said Brass, still hred with an honest indigna- tion, and frowning with knotted brows upon his sister; “ Yes Kit, he is. I am glad to see you Kit, I am rejoiced to see you. Look in again, as you come down stairs, Kit. That lad a robber ! ” cried Brass when he had withdrawn, “ with that frank and open countenance ! I’d trust him with untold gold. Mr. Richard, sir, have the goodness to step directly to Wrasp and Co.’s in Broad Street, and inquire if they have had instruc- tions to appear in Carkem and Painter. That lad a robber,” sneered Sampson, flushed and heated with his wrath. “ Am I blind,, deaf, silly ; do I know nothing of human nature when I see it before me ? Kit a robber ! Bah ! ” Flinging this final interjection at Miss Sally with im- measurable scorn and contempt, Sampson Brass thrust his head into his desk, as if to shut the base world from his view, and breathed defiance from under its half-closed lid. THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. 27 CHAPTER IY. When Kit, having discharged his errand, came down stairs from the single gentleman’s apartment after the lapse of a quarter of an hour or so, Mr. Sampson Brass was alone in the office. He was not singing as usual, nor was he seated at his desk. The open door showed him standing before the fire with his back towards it, and looking so very strange that Kit supposed he must have been suddenly taken ill. “ Is anything the matter, sir ? ” said Kit. “ Matter ! ” cried Brass. “No. Why anything the matter ? ” “You are so very pale,” said Kit, “that I should hardly have known you.” “Pooh pooh! mere fancy,” cried Brass, stooping to throw up the cinders. “Never better Kit, never better in all my life. Merry too. Ha ha ! How’s our friend above stairs, eh ? ” “ A great deal better,” said Kit. “I’m glad to hear it,” rejoined Brass; “thankful, I may say. An excellent gentleman — worthy, liberal, generous, gives very little trouble — an admirable lodger. Ha ha ! Mr. Garland — he’s well I hope, Kit — and the pony — my^ friend, my particular friend you know. Ha ha ! ” Kit gave a satisfactory account of all the little household at Abel Cottage. Mr. Brass, who seemed remarkably inatten- tive and impatient, mounted on his stool, and beckoning him to come nearer, took him by the button-hole. “ I have been thinking, Kit,” said the lawyer, “ that I could throw some little emoluments into your mother’s way — You have a mother, I think ? If I recollect right, you told me — ” “ Oh yes, sir, yes certainly.” “A widow I think ? an industrious widow ? ” “ A harder-working woman or a better mother never lived, 28 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. “ Ah ! ” cried Brass. “ That’s affecting, truly affecting. A poor widow struggling to maintain her orphans in decency and comfort, is a delicious picture of human goodness. — Put down your hat, Kit.” “ Thank you, sir, I must be going directly.” “Put it down while you stay, at any rate,” said Brass, taking it from him and making some confusion among the papers, in finding a place for it on the desk. “ I was think- ing, Kit, that we have often houses to let for people we are concerned for, and matters of that sort. Now you know we’re obliged to put people into those houses to take care of ’em — very often undeserving people that we can’t depend upon. What’s to prevent our having a person that we can depend upon, and enjoying the delight of doing a good action ,at the same time ? I say, what’s to prevent our employing this worthy woman, your mother ? What with one job and another, there’s lodging — and good lodging too — pretty well all the year round, rent free, and a weekly allowance besides, Kit, that would provide her with a great many comforts she don’t at present enjoy. Now what do you think of that ? Do you see any objection ? My only desire is to serve you, Kit ; therefore if you do, say so freely.” As Brass spoke, he moved the hat twice or thrice, and shuffled among the papers again, as if in search of something. “How can I see any objection to such a kind offer, sir?” replied Kit with his whole heart. “I don’t know how to thank you, sir, I don’t indeed.” “Why then,” said Brass, suddenly turning upon him and thrusting his face close to Kit’s with such a repulsive smile that the latter, even in the very height of his gratitude, drew back, quite startled. “Why then, it’s done” Kit looked at him in some confusion. “Done, I say,” added Sampson, rubbing his hands, and veiling himself again in his usual oily manner. “ Ha ha ! and so you shall find Kit, so you shall find. But dear me,” said Brass, “what a time Mr. Bichard is gone ! A sad loiterer to be sure ! Will you mind the office one minute, while I run up stairs ? Only one minute. I’ll not detain you an instant longer, on any account, Kit.” a THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 29 Talking as he went, Mr. Brass bustled out of the office, and in a very short time returned. Mr. Swiveller came back, almost at the same instant ; and as Kit was leaving the room hastily, to make up for lost time, Miss Brass herself encoun- tered him in the doorway. “ Oh ? ” sneered Sally, looking after him as she entered. “ There goes your pet, Sammy, eh ? ” “Ah ! There he goes,” replied Brass. “My pet, if you please. An honest fellow, Mr. Richard, sir — a worthy fellow indeed ! ” “ Hem ! ” coughed Miss Brass. “I tell you, you aggravating vagabond,” said the angry Sampson, “that I’d stake my life upon his honesty. Am I never to hear the last of this ? Am I always to be baited, and beset, by your mean suspicions ? Have you no regard for true merit, you malignant fellow ? If you come to that, I’d sooner suspect your honesty than his.” Miss Sally pulled out the tin snuff-box, and took a long, slow pinch : regarding her brother with a steady gaze all the time. “ She drives me wild, Mr. Richard, sir,” said Brass, “ she exasperates me beyond all bearing. I am heated and excited, sir, I know I am. These are not business manners, sir, nor business looks, but she carries me out of myself.” “ Why don’t you leave him alone ? ” said Dick. “Because she can’t, sir,” retorted Brassy “because to chafe and vex me is a part of her nature, sir, and she will and must do it, or I don’t believe she’d have her health. But never mind,” said Brass, “never mind. I’ve carried my point. I’ve shown my confidence in the lad. He has minded the office again. Ha ha ! Ugh, you viper ! ” The beautiful virgin took another pinch, and put the snuff- box in her pocket ; still looking at her brother with perfect composure. “ He has minded the office again,” said Brass, triumphantly; “ he has had my confidence, and he shall continue to have it ; he — why, where’s the — ” “ What have you lost ? ” inquired Mr. Swiveller. “ Dear me ! ” said Brass, slapping all his pockets, one after 30 THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. another, and looking into his desk, and under it, and upon it, and wildly tossing the papers about, “ the note, Mr. Richard, sir, the five-pound note — what can have become of it ? I laid it down here — God bless me ! ” “ What ! ” cried Miss Sally, starting up, clapping her hands, and scattering the papers on the floor. “ Gone ! Now who’s right ? Now who’s, got it ? Never mind five pounds — what’s five pounds ? He’s honest you know, quite honest. It would be mean to suspect him. Don’t run after him. No, no, not for the world!” “ Is it really gone though ? ” said Dick, looking at Brass with a face as pale as his own. “Upon my word, Mr. Bichard, sir,” replied the lawyer, feel- ing in all his pockets with looks of the greatest agitation, “ I fear this is a black business. It’s certainly gone, sir. What’s to be done ? ” “ Don’t run after him,” said Miss Sally, taking more snuff. “Don’t run after him on any account. Give him time to get rid of it, you know. It would be cruel to find him out ! ” Mr. Swiveller and Sampson Brass looked from Miss Sally to each other, in a state of bewilderment, and then, as by one impulse, caught up their hats and rushed out into the street — darting along in the middle of the road, and dashing aside all obstructions, as though they were running for their lives. It happened that Kit had been running too, though not so fast, and having the start of them by some few minutes, was a good distance ahead. As they were pretty certain of the road he must have taken, however, and kept on at a great pace, they came up with him, at the very moment when he had taken breath, and was breaking into a run again. “ Stop ! ” cried Sampson, laying his hand on one shoulder, while Mr. Swiveller pounced upon the other. “Not so fast, sir. You’re in a hurry ? ” “Yes, I am,” said Kit, looking from one to the other in great surprise. “I — I — can hardly believe it,” panted Sampson, “ but something of value is missing from the office. I hope you don’t know what.” THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 31 “ Know what ! good Heaven, Mr. Brass ! ” cried Kit, tremb- ling from head to foot ; “ you don’t suppose — ” “No, no,” rejoined Brass, quickly, “I don’t suppose any- thing. Don’t say I said you did. You’ll come back quietly, I hope ? ” “ Of course I will,” returned Kit. “ Why not ? ” “ To be sure ! ” said Brass. “Why not ? I hope there may turn out to be no why not. If you knew the trouble I’ve been in, this morning, through taking your part, Christopher, you’d be sorry for it.” “ And I am sure you’ll be sorry for having suspected me, sir,” replied Kit. “ Come. Let us make haste back.” “Certainly!” cried Brass, “the quicker, the better. Mr. Bichard — have the goodness, sir, to take that arm. I’ll take this one. It’s not easy walking three abreast, but under these circumstances it must be done, sir 5 there’s no help for it.” Kit did turn from white to red, and from red to white again, when they secured him thus, and for a moment seemed dis- posed to resist. But, quickly recollecting himself, and re- membering that if he made any struggle, he would perhaps be dragged by the collar through the public streets, he only repeated, with great earnestness and with the tears standing in his eyes, that they would be sorry for this — and suffered them to lead him off. While they were on the way back, Mr. Swiveller, upon whom his present functions sat very irksomely, took an opportunity of whispering in his ear that if he would confess his guilt, even by so much as a nod, and promise not to do so any more, he would connive at his kicking Sampson Brass on the shins and escaping up a court ; but Kit indig- nantly rejecting this proposal, Mr. Bichard had nothing for it, but to hold him tight until they reached Bevis Marks, and ushered him into the presence of the charming Sarah, who immediately took the precaution of locking the door. “Kow, you know,” said Brass, “ if this is a case of innocence, it is a case of that description, Christopher, where the fullest disclosure is the best satisfaction for everybody. Therefore if you’ll consent to an examination,” he demonstrated what kind of examination he meant by turning back the cuffs of his coat, “ it will be a comfortable and pleasant thing for all parties.” 32 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . “ Search me/’ said Kit, proudly holding up his arms. “ But mind, sir — I know you’ll be sorry for this, to the last day of your life.” “ It is certainly a very painful occurrence,” said Brass with a sigh, as he dived into one of Kit’s pockets, and fished up a miscellaneous collection of small articles ; “ very painful. Nothing here, Mr. Bichard, sir, all perfectly satisfactory. Nor here, sir. Nor in the waistcoat, Mr. Bichard, nor in the coat tails. So far, I am rejoiced, I am sure.” Bichard Swiveller, holding Kit’s hat in his hand, was watching the proceedings with great interest, and bore upon his face the slightest possible indication of a smile, as Brass, shutting one of his eyes, looked with the other up the inside of one of the poor fellow’s sleeves as if it were a telescope — when Sampson turning hastily to him, bade him search the hat. “ Here’s a handkerchief,” said Dick. “No harm in that, sir,” rejoined Brass, applying his eye to the other sleeve, and speaking in the voice of one who was contemplating an immense extent of prospect. “No harm in a handkerchief, sir, whatever. The faculty don’t consider it a healthy custom, I believe, Mr. Bichard, to carry one’s hand- kerchief in one’s hat — I have heard that it keeps the head too warm — but in every other point of view, its being there is extremely satisfactory — ex-tremely so.” An exclamation, at once from Bichard Swiveller, Miss Sally, and Kit himself, cut the lawyer short. He turned his head, and saw Dick standing with the bank-note in his hand. “ In the hat ? ” cried Brass, in a sort of shriek. “ Under the handkerchief, and tucked beneath the lining,” said Dick, aghast at the discovery. Mr. Brass looked at him, at his sister, at the walls, at the ceiling, at the floor — everywhere but at Kit, who stood quite stupefied and motionless. “ And this,” cried Sampson, clasping his hands, “ is the world that turns upon its own axis, and has Lunar influences, and revolutions round Heavenly Bodies, and various games of that sort ! This is human natur, is it ! Oh natur, natur ! This is the miscreant that I was going to benefit with all my THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 33 little arts, and that, even now, I feel so much for, as to wish to let him go ! ” But, added Mr. Brass with greater fortitude, “ I am myself a lawyer, and bound to set an example in carry- ing the laws of my happy country into effect. Sally my dear, forgive me, and catch hold of him on the other side. Mr. Bichard, sir, have the goodness to run and fetch a constable. The weakness is past and over, sir, and moral strength returns. A constable, sir, if you please ! ” VOL. II — 3 34 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. CHAPTER V. Kit stood as one entranced, with his eyes opened wide and fixed upon the ground, regardless alike of the tremulous hold which Mr. Brass maintained on one side of his cravat, and of the firmer grasp of Miss Sally upon the other; although this, latter detention was in itself no small inconvenience, as that fascinating woman, besides screwing her knuckles incon- veniently into his throat from time to time, had fastened upon him in the first instance with so tight a grip that even in the disorder and distraction of his thoughts he could not divest himself of an uneasy sense of choking. Between the brother and sister he remained in this posture, quite unresisting and passive, until Mr. Swiveller returned, with a police constable at his heels. This functionary, being, of course, well used to such scenes ; looking upon all kinds of robbery, from petty larceny up to housebreaking or ventures on the highway, as matters in the regular course of business ; and regarding the perpetrators in the light of so many customers coming to be served at the wholesale and retail shop of criminal law where he stood behind the counter ; received Mr. Brass- s statement of facts with about as much interest and surprise, as an undertaker might evince if required to listen to a circumstantial account of the last illness of a person whom he was 6aljed in to wait upon professionally ; and took Kit into custody with a decent indif- ference. “We had Better,” said this subordinate minister of justice, “ get to the office while there’s a magistrate sitting. I shall want you to come along with us, Mr. Brass, and the — ” he looked at Miss Sally as if in some doubt whether she might not be a griffin or other fabulous monster. “The lady, eh ? ” said Sampson. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 35 “Ah !” replied the constable. “Yes — the lady. Likewise the young man that found the property.” “ Mr. Richard, sir,” said Brass in a mournful voice. “ A sad necessity. But the altar of our country, sir — ” “ You’ll have a hackney coach, I suppose ? ” interrupted the constable, holding Kit (whom his other captors had released) carelessly by the arm, a little above the elbow. “ Be so good as send for one, will you ? ” “ But, hear me speak a word,” cried Kit, raising his eyes and looking imploringly about him. “ Hear me speak a word. I am no more guilty than any one of you. Upon my soul I am not. I, a thief ! Oh, Mr. Brass, you know me better. I am sure you know me better. This is not right of you, indeed.” “ I give you my word, constable * — ” said Brass. But here the constable interposed with the constitutional principle “words be blowed;” observing that words were but spoon- meat for babes and sucklings, and that oaths were the food for strong men. “ Quite true, constable,” assented Brass, in the same mourn- ful tone. “ Strictly correct. I give you my oath, constable, that down to a few minutes ago, when this fatal discovery was made, I had such confidence in that lad, that Bd have trusted him with — a hackney coach, Mr. Richard, sir ; you’re very slow, sir.” “Who is there that knows me,” cried Kit, “that would not trust me — that does not ? Ask anybody whether they have ever doubted me; whether I have ever wronged them of a farthing. Was I ever once dishonest when I was poor and hungry, and is it likely I would begin now ? Oh, consider what you do. How can I meet the kindest friends that ever human creature had, with this dreadful charge upon me ! ” Mr. Brass rejoined that it would have been well for the prisoner if he had thought of that before, and was about to make some other gloomy observations, when the voice of the single gentleman was heard, demanding from above stairs what was the matter, and what was the cause of all that noise and hurry. Kit made an involuntary start towards the door in his anxiety to answer for himself, but being speedily detained by the constable, had the agony of seeing Sampson Brass run out alone to tell the story in his own way. 36 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . “ And he can hardly believe it, either,” said Sampson, when he returned, “nor nobody will. I wish I could doubt the evidence of my senses, but their depositions are unimpeach- able. It’s of no use cross-examining my eyes,” cried Sampson, winking and rubbing them, “^hey stick to their first account, and will. Now, Sarah, I hear the coach in the Marks ; get on your bonnet, and we’ll be off. A sad errand! a moral funeral, quite ! ” “ Mr. Brass,” said Kit, “ do me one favor. Take me to Mr. Witherden’s first.” Sampson shook his head irresolutely. “ Do,” said Kit. “ My master’s there. For Heaven’s sake, take me there, first.” “Well, I don’t know,” stammered Brass, who perhaps had his reasons for wishing to show as fair as possible in the eyes of the notary. “ How do we stand in point of time, constable, eh?” The constable, who had been chewing a straw all this while with great philosophy, replied that if they went away at once they would have time enough, but if they stood shilly-shally- ing there, any longer, > they must go straight to the Mansion House ; and finally expressed his opinion that that was where it was, and that was all about it. Mr. Bichard Swiveller having arrived inside the coach, and still remaining immovable in the most commodious corner with his face to the horses, Mr. Brass instructed the officer to remove his prisoner, and declared himself quite ready. Therefore, the constable, still holding Kit in the same manner, and pushing him on a little before him, so as to keep him at about three quarters of an arm’s length in advance (which is the professional mode), thrust him into the vehicle and fol- lowed himself. Miss Sally entered next; and there being now four inside, Sampson Brass got upon the box, and made the coachman drive on. Still completely stunned by the sudden and terrible change which had taken place in his affairs, Kit sat gazing out of the coach window, almost hoping to see some monstrous phenom- enon in the streets which might give him reason to believe he was in a dream. Alas! Everything was too real and THE OLD CUEIOSITY SHOP. 37 familiar: the same succession of turnings, the same houses, the same streams of people running side by side in different directions upon the pavement, the same bustle of carts and carriages in the road, the same well-remembered objects in the shop windows : a regularity in the very noise and hurry which no dream ever mirrored. Dream-like as the story was, it was true. He stood charged with robbery ; the note had been found upon him, though he was innocent in thought and deed ; and they were carrying him back a prisoner. Absorbed in these painful ruminations, thinking with a drooping heart of his mother and little Jacob, feeling as though even the consciousness of innocence would be insuffi- cient to support him in the presence of his friends if they believed him guilty, and sinking in hope and courage more and more as they drew nearer to the Notary’s, poor Kit was looking earnestly out of the window, observant of nothing, — when all at once, as though it had been conjured up by magic, he became aware of the face of Quilp. And what a leer there was upon the face ! It was from the open window of a tavern that it looked out ; and the dwarf had so spread himself over it, with his elbows on the window-sill and his head resting on both his hands, that what between this attitude and his being swollen with suppressed laughter he looked puffed and bloated into twice his usual breadth. Mr. Brass, on recognizing him, immediately stopped the coach. As it came to a halt directly opposite to where he stood, the dwarf pulled off his hat, and saluted the party with a hideous and grotesque politeness. “ Aha ! ” he cried. “ Where now, Brass ? where now ? Sally with you too ? Sweet Sally ! And Dick ? Pleasant Dick ! And Kit ? Honest Kit ! ” “ He’s extremely cheerful ! ” said Brass to the coachman. “ Very much so ! Ah sir — a sad business ! Never believe in honesty any more, sir.” “ Why not ? ” returned the dwarf. “ Why not, you rogue of a lawyer, why not ? ” “Bank note lost in our office, sir,” said Brass, shaking his head. “Found in his hat, sir — he previously left alone there 88 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . — no mistake at all, sir — chain of evidence complete — not a link wanting.” “ What ! ” cried the dwarf, leaning half his body out of window, u Kit a thief ! Kit a thief ! Ha ha ha ! Why, he’s an uglier-] ooking thief than can be seen anywhere for a penny. Eh Kit — eh ? Ha ha ha ! Have you taken Kit into custody before he had time and opportunity to beat me ! Eh Kit, eh ? ” And with that, he burst into a yell of laughter, manifestly to the great terror of the coachman, and pointed to a dyer’s pole hard by, where a dangling suit of clothes bore some resemblance to a man upon a gibbet. u Is it coming to that, Kit ! ” cried the dwarf, rubbing his hands violently. “ Ha ha ha ha ! What a disappointment for little Jacob, and for his darling mother ! Let him have the Bethel minister to comfort and console him, Brass. Eh Kit, eh ? Drive on coachey, drive on. Bye bye Kit ; all good go with you ; keep up your spirits ; my love to the Garlands — the dear old lady and gentleman. Say I inquired after ’em, will you ? Blessings on ’em, and on you, and on everybody, Kit. Blessings on all the world ! ” With such good wishes and farewells, poured out in a rapid torrent until they were out of hearing, Quilp suffered them to depart; and when he could see the coach no longer, drew in his head, and rolled upon the ground in the ecstasy of enjoy- ment. When they reached the Notary’s, which they were not long in doing, for they had encountered the dwarf in a by street at a very little distance from the house, Mr. Brass dismounted ; and opening the coach door with a melancholy visage, re- quested his sister to accompany him into the office, with the view of preparing the good people within for the mournful intelligence that awaited them. Miss Sally complying, he desired Mr. Swiveller to accompany them. So, into the office they went ; Mr. Sampson and his sister arm-in-arm ; and Mr. Swiveller following, alone. The Notary was standing before the fire in the outer office, talking to Mr. Abel and the elder Mr. Garland, while Mr. Chuckster sat writing at the desk, picking up such crumbs of their conversation as happened to fall in his way. This THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. 39 posture of affairs Mr. Brass observed through the glass-door as he was turning the handle, and seeing that the Notary rec- ognized him, he began to shake his head and sigh deeply while that partition yet divided them. “Sir,” said Sampson, taking off his hat, and kissing the two forefingers of his right hand beaver glove, “ my name is Brass — Brass of Bevis Marks, sir. I have had the honor and pleasure, sir, of being concerned against you in some little testamentary matters. How do you do, sir ? ” “ My clerk will attend to any business you may have come upon, Mr. Brass,” said the Notary, turning away. “ Thank you, sir,” said Brass, “ thank you, I am sure. Allow me, sir, to introduce my sister — quite one of us, sir, although of the weaker sex — of great use in my business, sir, I assure you. Mr. Richard, sir, have the goodness to come forward if you please — No really,” said Brass, stepping between the Notary and his private office (towards which he had begun to retreat), and speaking in the tone of an injured man, “ really, sir, I must, under favor, request a word or two with you, indeed.” “ Mr. Brass,” said the other, in a decided tone, “I am engaged. You see that I am occupied with these gentlemen. If you will communicate your business to Mr. Chuckster yonder, you will receive every attention.” “ Gentlemen,” said Brass, laying his right hand on his waist- coat, and looking towards the father and son with a smooth smile — “ Gentlemen, I appeal to you — really, gentlemen — consider, I beg of you. I am of the law. I am styled * gentle- man ’ by Act of Parliament. I maintain the title by the annual payment of twelve pounds sterling for a certificate. I am not one of your players of music, stage actors, writers of books, or painters of pictures, who assume a station that the laws of their country don’t recognize. I am none of your strollers or vagabonds. If any man brings his action against me, he must describe me as a gentleman, or his action is null and void. I appeal to you — is this quite respectful ? Really, gentlemen — ” “Well, will you have the goodness to state your business then, Mr. Brass ? ” said the Notary. 40 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. “Sir,” rejoined Brass, U I will. Ah, Mr. Witherden ! you little know the — but I will not be tempted to travel from the point, sir. I believe the name of one of these gentlemen is Garland.” “ Of both,” said the Notary. “Indeed!” rejoined Brass, cringing excessively. “But I might have known that, from the uncommon likeness. Ex- tremely happy, I am sure, to have the honor of an introduc- tion to two such gentlemen, although the occasion is a most painful one. One of you gentlemen has a servant called Kit ? ” “Both,” replied the Notary. “ Two Kits ? ” said Brass, smiling. “ Dear me ! ” “One Kit, sir,” returned Mr. Witherden, angrily, “who is employed by both gentlemen. What of him ? ” “ This of him sir,” rejoined Brass, dropping his voice impressively. “ That young man, sir, that I have felt unbounded and unlimited confidence in, and always behaved to as if he was my equal — that young man has this* morning committed a robbery in my office, and been taken almost in the fact.” “ This must be some falsehood ! ” cried the Notary. “ It is not possible,” said Mr. Abel. “ I’ll not believe one word of it,” exclaimed the old gentle- man. Mr. Brass looked mildly round upon them, and rejoined : “Mr. Witherden, sir, your words are actionable, and if I was a man of low and mean standing, who couldn’t afford to be slandered, I should proceed for damages. Hows’ever, sir, being what I am, I merely scorn such expressions. The honest warmth of the other gentleman I respect, and I’m truly sorry to be the messenger of such unpleasant news. I shouldn’t have put myself in this painful position, I assure you, but that the lad himself desired to be brought here in the first instance, and I yielded to his prayers. Mr. Chuckster, sir, will you have the goodness to tap at the window for the constable that’s waiting in the coach ? ” The three gentlemen looked at each other with blank faces when these words were uttered, and Mr. Chuckster, doing as he was desired, and leaping off his stool with something of THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. 41 the excitement of an inspired prophet whose foretellings had in the fulness of time been realized, held the door open for the entrance of the wretched captive. Such a scene as there was, when Kit came in, and bursting into the rude eloquence with which Truth at length inspired him, called Heaven to witness that he was innocent, and that how the property came to be found upon him he knew not ! Such a confusion of tongues, before the circumstances were related, and the proofs disclosed ! Such a dead silence when all was told, and his three friends exchanged looks of doubt and amazement ! “Is it not possible,” said Mr. Witherden, after a long pause, “ that this note may have found its way into the hat by some accident, — such as the removal of papers on the desk, for instance ? ” But, this was clearly shown to be quite impossible. Mr. Swiveller, though an unwilling witness, could not help proving to demonstration, from the position in which it was found, that it must have been designedly secreted. “ It’s very distressing,” said Brass, “ immensely distressing, I am sure. When he comes to be tried, I shall be very happy to recommend him to mercy on account of his previous good character. I did lose money before, certainly, but it doesn’t quite follow that he took it. The presumption’s against him — strongly against him — but we’re Christians, I hope ? ” “I suppose,” said the constable, looking round, “that no gentleman here, can give evidence as to whether he’s been flush of money of late. Do you happen to know, sir ? ” “ He has had money from time to time, certainly,” returned Mr. Garland, to whom the man had put the question. “ But that, as he always told me, was given him by Mr. Brass himself.” “Yes to be sure,” said Kit, eagerly. “You can bear me out in that, sir ? ” “ Eh ? ” cried Brass, looking from face to face with an expression of stupid amazement. “ The money you know, the half-crowns that you gave me — from the lodger,” said Kit. “ Oh dear me ! ” cried Brass, shaking his head and frowning 42 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . heavily. “This is a bad case, I find! a very bad case in- deed.” “ What ! Did you give him no money on account of any- body, sir ? ” asked Mr. Garland, with great anxiety. “ I give him money, sir ! ” returned Sampson. “ Oh, come you know, this is too barefaced. Constable, my good fellow, we had better be going.” “ What ! ” shrieked Kit. “ Does he deny that he did ? ask him, somebody, pray. Ask him to tell you whether he did or not ! ” “ Did you, sir ? ” asked the Notary. “ I tell you what, gentlemen,” replied Brass, in a very grave manner, “he’ll not serve his case this way, and really, if you feel any interest in him, you had better advise him to go upon some other tack. Did I, sir ? Of course I never did.” “ Gentlemen,” cried Kit, on whom a light broke suddenly, “Master, Mr. Abel, Mr. Witherden, every one of you — he did it ! What I have done to offend him, I don’t know, but this is a plot to ruin me. Mind, gentlemen, it’s a plot, and what- ever comes of it, I will say with my dying breath that he put that note in my hat himself ! Look at him, gentlemen ! See how he changes color. Which of us looks the guilty person — he or I ? ” “You hear him, gentlemen?” said Brass, smiling, “you hear him. Now, does this case strike you as assuming rather a black complexion, or does it not ? Is it at all a treacherous case, do you think, or is it one of mere ordinary guilt ? Per- haps, gentlemen, if he had not said this in your presence and I had reported it, you’d have held this to be impossible like- wise, eh ? ” With such pacific and bantering remarks did Mr. Brass refute the foul aspersion on his character; but the virtuous Sarah, moved by stronger feelings, and having at heart, per- haps, a more jealous regard for the honor of her family, flew from her brother’s side, without any previous intimation of her design, and darted at the prisoner with the utmost fury. It would undoubtedly have gone hard with Kit’s face, but that the wary constable, foreseeing her design, drew him aside at the critical moment, and thus placed Mr. Chuckster in circum- THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. 43 stances of some jeopardy ; for that gentleman happening to be next the object of Miss Brass’s wrath ; and rage being, like love and fortune, blind, was pounced upon by the fair enslaver, and had a false collar plucked up by the roots, and his hair very much dishevelled, before the exertions of the company could make her sensible of her mistake. The constable, taking warning by this desperate attack, and thinking perhaps that it would be more satisfactory to the ends of justice if the prisoner were taken before a magistrate, whole, rather than in small pieces, led him back to the hackney-coach without more ado, and moreover insisted on Miss Brass becoming an outside passenger ; to which proposal the charming creature, after a little angry discussion, yielded her consent ; and so took her brother Sampson’s place upon the box : Mr. Brass with some reluctance agreeing to occupy her seat inside. These arrangements perfected, they drove to the justice-room with all speed, followed by the Notary and his two friends in another coach. Mr. Chuckster alone was left behind — greatly to his indignation; for he held the evidence he could have given, relative to Kit’s returning to work out the shilling, to be so very material as bearing upon his hypocritical and designing character, that he considered its suppression little better than a compromise of felony. At the justice-room they found the single gentleman, who had gone straight there, and was expecting them with desper- ate impatience. But, not fifty single gentlemen rolled into one could have helped poor Kit, who in half an hour after- wards was committed for trial, and was assured by a friendly officer on his way to prison that there was no occasion to be cast down, for the sessions would soon be on, and he would, in all likelihood, get his little affair disposed of, and be com- fortably transported, in less than a fortnight. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 44 CHAPTER VI. Let moralists and philosophers say what they may, it is very questionable whether a guilty man would have felt half as much misery that night, as Kit did, being innocent. The world, being in the constant commission of vast quantities of injustice, is a little too apt to comfort itself with the idea that if the victim of its falsehood and malice have a clear con- science, he cannot fail to be sustained under his trials, and somehow or other to come right at last ; “ in which case,” say they who have hunted him down, “ — though we certainly don’t expect it — nobody will be better pleased than we.” Whereas, the world would do well to reflect, that injustice is in itself, to every generous and properly constituted mind, an injury, of all others the most insufferable, the most torturing, and the most hard to bear ; and that many clear consciences have gone to their account elsewhere, and many sound hearts have broken, because of this very reason ; the knowledge of their own deserts only aggravating their sufferings, and ren- dering them the less endurable. The world, however, was not in fault in Kit’s case. But, Kit was innocent ; and knowing this, and feeling that his best friends deemed him guilty — that Mr. and Mrs. Garland would look upon him as a monster of ingratitude — that Barbara would associate him with all that was bad and criminal — that the pony would consider himself forsaken — and that even his own mother might perhaps yield to the strong appearances against him, and believe him to be the wretch he seemed — knowing and feeling all this, he experienced, at first, an agony of mind which no words can describe, and walked up and down the little cell in which he was locked up for the night, almost beside himself with grief. Even when the violence of these emotions had in some THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 45 degree subsided, and he was beginning to grow more calm, there came into his mind a new thought, the anguish of which was scarcely less. The child — the bright star of the simple fellow’s life — she, who always came back upon him like a beautiful dream, — who had made the poorest part of his existence the happiest and best, — who had ever been so gentle, and considerate, and good — if she were ever to hear of this, what would she think ! As this idea occurred to him, the walls of the prison seemed to melt away, and the old place to reveal itself in their stead, as it was wont to be on winter nights — the fireside, the little supper-table, the old man’s hat, and coat, and stick — the half-opened door, leading to her little room — they were all there. And Nell herself was there, and he — both laughing heartily as they had often done — and when he had got as far as this, Kit could go no farther, but flung himself upon his poor bedstead and wept. It was a long night, which seemed as though it would have no end ; but he slept too, and dreamed — always of being at liberty, and roving about, now with one person and now with another, but ever with a vague dread of being recalled to prison; not that prison, but one which was in itself a dim idea — not of a place, but of a care and sorrow : of something oppressive and always present, and yet impossible to define. At last, the morning dawned, and there was the jail itself — cold, black, and dreary, and very real indeed. He was left to himself, however, and there was comfort in that. He had liberty to walk in a small paved yard at a cer- tain hour, and learnt from the turnkey, who came to unlock his cell and show him where to wash, that there was a regular time for visiting, every day, and that if any of his friends came to see him, he would be fetched down to the grate. When he had given him this information, and a tin porringer containing his breakfast, the man locked him up again ; and went clattering along the stone passage, opening and shutting a great many other doors, and raising numberless loud echoes which resounded through the building for a long time, as if they were in prison too, and unable to get out. This turnkey had given him to understand that he was lodged, like some few others in the jail, apart from the mass 46 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. of prisoners ; because he was not supposed to be utterly depraved and irreclaimable, and had never occupied apart- ments in that mansion before. Kit was thankful for this indulgence, and sat reading the church catechism very atten- tively (though he had known it by heart from a little child), until he heard the key in the lock, and the man entered again. “Now then,” he said, “come on ! ” “ Where to, sir ? ” asked Kit. The man contented himself by briefly replying “ Wisitors ; ” and taking him by the arm in exactly the same manner as the constable had done the day before, led him, through several winding ways and strong gates, into a passage, where he placed him at a grating and turned upon his heel. Beyond this grating, at the distance of about four or five feet, was another, exactly like it. In the space between, sat a turnkey reading a newspaper; and outside the further railing, Kit saw, with a palpitating heart, his mother with the baby in her arms ; Barbara’s mother with her never-failing umbrella ; and poor little Jacob, staring in with all his might, as though he were looking for the bird, or the wild beast, and thought the men were mere accidents with whom the bars could have no possible concern. But when little Jacob saw his brother, and, thrusting his arms between the rails to hug him, found that he came no nearer, but still stood afar off with his head resting on the arm by which he held to one of the bars, he began to cry most piteously ; whereupon, Kit’s mother and Barbara’s mother, who had restrained themselves as much as possible, burst out sobbing and weeping afresh. Poor Kit could not help joining them, and not one of them could speak a word. During this melancholy pause the turnkey read his news- paper with a waggish look (he had evidently got among the facetious paragraphs) until, happening to take his eyes off it for an instant, as if to get by dint of contemplation at the very marrow of some joke of a deeper sort than the rest, it appeared to occur to him, for the first time, that somebody was crying. “Now, ladies, ladies,” he said, looking round with surprise, THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 47 " I ? d advise you not to waste time like this. It’s allowanced here, you know. You mustn’t let that child make that noise either. It’s against all rules.” “I’m his poor mother, sir,” sobbed Mrs. Nubbles, courtesy- ing humbly, “and this is his brother, sir. Oh dear me, dear me ! ” “ Well ! ” replied the turnkey, folding his paper on his knee, so as to get with greater convenience at the top of the next column. “ It can’t be helped, you know. He an’t the onlv one in the same fix. You mustn’t make a noise about it!” With that he went on reading. The man was not naturally cruel or hard-hearted. He had come to look upon felony as a kind of disorder, like the scarlet fever or erysipelas : some people had it — some hadn’t — just as it might be. “ Oh ! my darling Kit,” said his mother, whom Barbara’s mother had charitably relieved of the baby, “that I should see my poor boy here ! ” “ You don’t believe I did what they accuse me of, mother dear ? ” cried Kit, in a choking voice. “/believe it ! ” exclaimed the poor woman, “/, that never knew you tell a lie, or do a bad action from your cradle — that have never had a moment’s sorrow on your account, except it was for the poor meals that you have taken with such good-humor and content that I forgot how little there was, when I thought how kind and thoughtful you were, though you were but a child ! — I believe it of the son that’s been a comfort to me from the hour of his birth to this time, and that I never laid down one night in anger with ! I believe it of you, Kit ! — ” “ Why then, thank God ! ” said Kit, clutching the bars with an earnestness that shook them, “ and I can bear it, mother ! Come what may, I shall always have one drop of happiness in my heart when I think that you said that.” At this, the poor woman fell a crying again, and Barbara’s mother too. And little Jacob, whose disjointed thoughts had by this time resolved themselves into a pretty distinct impres- sion that Kit couldn’t go out for a walk if he wanted, and that there were no birds, lions, tigers, or other natural curios- 48 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. ities behind those bars — nothing indeed, but a caged brother — added his tears to theirs with as little noise as possible. Kit’s mother, drying her eyes (and moistening them, poor soul, more than she dried them), now took from the ground a small basket, and submissively addressed herself to the turn- key, saying, would he please to listen to her for a minute ? The turnkey, being in the very crisis and passion of a joke, motioned to her with his hand to keep silent one minute longer, for her life. NT or did he remove his hand into its former posture, but kept it in the same warning attitude until he had finished the paragraph, when he paused for a few seconds, with a smile upon his face, as who should say, “this editor is a comical blade — a funny dog,” and then asked her what she wanted. “ I have brought him a little something to eat,” said the good woman. “ If you please, sir, might he have it ? ” “ Yes, — he may have it. There’s no rule against that. Give it to me when you go, and I’ll take care he has it.” “No, but if you please, sir — don’t be angry with me, sir — I am his mother, and you had a mother once — if I might only see him eat a little bit, I should go away, so much more satisfied that he was all comfortable.” And again the tears' of Kit’s mother burst forth, and of Barbara’s mother, and of little Jacob. As to the baby, it was crowing and laughing with all its might — under the idea, apparently, that the whole scene had been invented and got up for its particular satisfaction. The turnkey looked as if he thought the request a strange one and rather out of the common way, but nevertheless he laid down his paper, and coming round to where Kit’s mother stood, took the basket from her, and after inspecting its con- tents, handed it to Kit, and went back to his place. It may be easily conceived that the prisoner had no great appetite, but he sat down on the ground, and ate as hard as he could, while, at every morsel he put into his mouth, his mother sobbed and wept afresh, though with a softened grief that bespoke the satisfaction the sight afforded her. While he was thus engaged, Kit made some anxious inquiries about his employers, and whether they had expressed any THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 49 opinion concerning him ; but all he could learn was, that Mr. Abel had himself broken the intelligence to his mother, with great kindness and delicacy, late on the previous night, but had himself expressed no opinion of his innocence or guilt. Kit was on the point of mustering courage to ask Barbara’s mother about Barbara, when the turnkey who had conducted him reappeared, a second turnkey appeared behind his visit- ors, and the third turnkey with the newspaper cried “ Time’s up ! ” — adding in the same breath “ Now for the next party ! ” and then plunging deep into his newspaper again. Kit was taken off in an instant, with a blessing from his mother, and a scream from little Jacob, ringing in his ears. As he was cross- ing the next yard with the basket in his hand, under the guid- ance of his former conductor, another officer called to them to stop, and came up with a pint-pot of porter in his hand. “This is Christopher Nubbles, isn’t it, that come in last night for felony ? ” said the man. His comrade replied that this was the chicken in question. “ Then here’s your beer,” said the other man to Christopher. “ What are you looking at ? There an’t a discharge in it.” “ I beg your pardon,” said Kit. “ Who sent it me ? ” “Why, your friend,” replied the man. “ You’re to have it every day, he says. And so you will, if he pays for it.” “ My friend ! ” repeated Kit. “ You are all abroad, seemingly,” returned the other man. “ There’s his letter. Take hold ! ” Kit took it, and when he was locked up again, read as follows : “ Drink of this cup, you’ll find there’s a spell in its every drop ’gainst the ills of mortality. Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen ! Her cup was a fiction, but this is reality (Barclay and Co.’s). If they ever send it in a fiat state, complain to the Governor. Yours, B. S.” “B. S.!” said Kit, after some consideration. “It must be Mr. Bichard Swiveller. Well, it’s very kind of him, and I thank him heartily ! ” VOL. it — 4 50 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . CHAPTEE VII. A faint light, twinkling from the window of the counting- house on Quilp’s wharf, and looking inflamed and red through the night-fog, as though it suffered from it like an eye, fore- warned Mr. Sampson Brass, as he approached the wooden cabin with a cautious step, that the excellent proprietor, his esteemed client, was inside, and probably waiting with his accustomed patience and sweetness of temper the fulfilment of the appointment which now brought Mr. Brass within his fair domain. “A treacherous place to pick one’s steps in, of a dark night,” muttered Sampson, as he stumbled for the twentieth time over some stray lumber, and limped in pain. “ I believe that boy strews the ground differently every day, on purpose to bruise and maim one ; unless his master does it with his own hands, which is more than likely. I hate to come to this place without Sally. She’s more protection than a dozen men.” As he paid this compliment to the merit of the absent charmer, Mr. Brass came to a halt ; looking doubtfully towards the light, and over his shoulder. “ What’s he about, I wonder ? ” murmured the lawyer, standing on tiptoe and endeavoring to obtain a glimpse of what was passing inside, which at that distance was impos- sible — “ drinking, I suppose, — making himself more fiery and furious, and heating his malice and mischievousness till they boil. I’m always afraid to come here by myself, when his account’s a pretty large one. I don’t believe he’d mind throttling me, and dropping me softly into the river, when the tide was at its strongest, any more than he’d mind killing a rat — indeed I don’t know whether he wouldn’t consider it a pleasant joke. Hark ! Now he’s singing ! ” THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 51 Mr. Quilp was certainly entertaining himself with vocal exercise, but it was rather a kind of chant than a song ; being a monotonous repetition of one sentence in a very rapid man- ner, with a long stress upon the last word, which he swelled into a dismal roar. Nor did the burden of this performance bear any reference to love, or war, or wine, or loyalty, or any other, the standard topics of song, but to a subject not often set to music or generally known in ballads ; the words being these : — “ The worthy magistrate, after remarking that the prisoner would find some difficulty in persuading a jury to believe his tale, committed him to take his trial at the approaching ses- sions ; and directed the customary recognizances to be entered into for the pros-e-cution.” Every time he came to this concluding word, and had ex- hausted all possible stress upon it, Quilp burst into a shriek of laughter, and began again. “ He’s dreadfully imprudent,” muttered Brass, after he had listened to two or three repetitions of the chant. “ Horribly imprudent. I wish he was dumb. I wish he was deaf. I wish he was blind. Hang him,” cried Brass, as the chant began again. “ I wish he was dead ! ” Giving utterance to these friendly aspirations in behalf of his client, Mr. Sampson composed his face into its usual state of smoothness, and waiting until the shriek came again and was dying away, went up to the wooden house, and knocked at the door. “ Come in ! ” cried the dwarf. “ How do you do to-night, sir ? ” said Sampson, peeping in. “Ha ha ha! How do you do, sir? Oh dear me, how very whimsical ! Amazingly whimsical to be sure ! ” “ Come in, you fool ! ” returned the dwarf, “ and don’t stand there shaking your head and showing your teeth. Come in, you false witness, you perjurer, you suborner of evidence, come in ! ” “ He has the richest humor ! ” cried Brass, shutting the door behind him ; “ the most amazing vein of comicality ! But isn’t it rather injudicious, sir — ? ” “What ? ” demanded Quilp, “What, Judas ? ” “ J udas ! ” cried Brass. “ He has such extraordinary 52 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. spirits ! His humor is so extremely playful ! Judas ! Oh yes — dear me, how very good ! Ha ha ha ! ” All this time, Sampson was rubbing his hands, and staring, with ludicrous surprise and dismay, at a great, goggle-eyed, blunt-nosed figure-head of some old ship, which was reared up against the wall in a corner near the stove, looking like a goblin or hideous idol whom the dwarf worshipped. A mass of timber on its head, carved into the dim and distant sem- blance of a cocked hat, together with a representation of a star on the left breast and epaulettes on the shoulders, denoted that it was intended for the effigy of some famous admiral ; but, without those helps, any observer might have supposed it the authentic portrait of a distinguished merman, or great sea- monster. Being originally much too large for the apartment which it was now employed to decorate, it had been sawn short off at the waist. Even in this state it reached from floor to ceiling ; and thrusting itself forward, with that exces- sively wide-awake aspect, and air of somewhat obtrusive polite- ness, by which figure-heads are usually characterized, seemed to reduce everything else to mere pigmy proportions. “ Ho you know it ? ” said the dwarf, watching Sampson’s eyes. “ Ho you see the likeness ? ” “ Eh ? ” said Brass, holding his head on one side, and throwing it a little back, as connoisseurs do. “Now I look at it again, I fancy I see a — yes, there certainly is something in the smile that reminds me of — and yet upon my w^ord I — ” Now, the fact was, that Sampson, never having seen any- thing in the smallest degree resembling this substantial phan- tom, was much perplexed ; being uncertain whether Mr. Quilp considered it like himself, and had therefore bought it for a family portrait ; or whether he was pleased to consider it as the likeness of some enemy. He was not very long in doubt ; for, while he was surveying it with that knowing look which people assume when they are contemplating for the first time portraits which they ought to recognize but don’t, the dwarf threw down the newspaper from which he had been chanting the words already quoted, and seizing a rusty iron bar, which he used in lieu of poker, dealt the figure such a stroke on the nose that it rocked again. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 53 “ Is it like Kit — is it liis picture, his image, his very self ?” cried the dwarf, aiming a shower of blows at the insensible countenance, and covering it with deep dimples. “ Is it the exact model and counterpart of the dog — is it — is it — is it?” And with every repetition of the question, he battered the great image, until the perspiration streamed down his face with the violence of the exercise. Although this might have been a very comical thing to look at from a secure gallery, as a bull-fight is found to be a com- fortable spectacle by those who are not in the arena, and a house on fire is better than a play to people who don’t live near it, there was something in the earnestness of Mr. Quilp’s manner which made his legal adviser feel that the counting- house was a little too small, and a deal too lonely, for the complete enjoyment of these humors. Therefore, he stood as far off as he could, while the dwarf was thus engaged; whimpering out but feeble applause ; and when Quilp left off and sat down again from pure exhaustion, approached with more obsequiousness than ever. “ Excellent indeed!” cried Brass. “He he! Oh, very good, sir. You know,” said Sampson, looking round as if in appeal to the bruised admiral, “ he’s quite a remarkable man — quite ! ” “ Sit down,” said the dwarf. “ I bought the dog yesterday. I’ve been screwing gimlets into him, and sticking forks in his eyes, and cutting my name on him. I mean to burn him at last.” “ Ha ha ! ” cried Brass. “ Extremely entertaining, indeed ! ” “ Come here ! ” said Quilp, beckoning him to draw near. “What’s injudicious, hey ? ” “Nothing, sir, — nothing. Scarcely worth mentioning, sir; but I thought that song' — -admirably humorous in itself you know — was perhaps rather — ” “Yes,” said Quilp, “ rather what ? ” “Just bordering, or as one may say remotely verging, upon the confines of injudiciousness perhaps, sir,” returned Brass, looking timidly at the dwarf’s cunning eyes, which were turned towards the fire and reflected its red light. “Why ?” inquired Quilp, without looking up. 54 THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. “ Why, yon know, sir,” returned Brass, venturing to be more familiar : “ — the fact is, sir, that any allusion to these little combinings together, of friends, for objects in themselves ex- tremely laudable, but which the law terms conspiracies, are — you take me, sir ? — best kept snug and among friends, you know.” “ Eh ! ” said Quilp, looking up with a perfectly vacant countenance. “ What do you mean ? ” “ Cautious, exceedingly cautious, very right and proper ! ” cried Brass, nodding his head. “ Mum, sir, even here — my meaning, sir, exactly.” “ Your meaning exactly, you brazen scarecrow, — what’s your meaning ? ” retorted Quilp. “ Why do you talk to me of combining together ? Do I combine ? Do I know any- thing about your combinings ? ” “No no, sir — certainly not; not by any means,” returned Brass. “If you so wink and nod at me,” said the dwarf, looking about him as if for his poker, “I’ll spoil the expression of your monkey’s face, I will.” “ Don’t put yourself out of the way I beg, sir,” rejoined Brass, checking himself with great alacrity. “You’re quite right, sir, quite right. I shouldn’t have mentioned the subject, sir. It’s much better not to. You’re quite right, sir. Let us change it, if you please. You were asking, sir, Sally told me, about our lodger. He has not returned, sir.” “No?” said Quilp, heating some rum in a little saucepan, and watching it to prevent its boiling over. “ Why not ? ” “Why, sir,” returned Brass, “he — dear me, Mr. Quilp, sir — ” “What’s the matter ? ” said the dwarf, stopping his hand in the act of carrying the saucepan to his mouth. “You have forgotten the water, sir,” said Brass. “And — excuse me, sir — but it’s burning hot.” Deigning no other than a practical answer to this remon- strance, Mr. Quilp raised the hot saucepan to his lips, and deliberately drank off all the spirit it contained, which might have been in quantity about half a pint, and had been but a moment before, when he took it off the fire, bubbling and THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 55 hissing fiercely. Having swallowed this gentle stimulant, and shaken his fist at the admiral, he bade Mr. Brass proceed. “ But first,” said Quilp, with his accustomed grin, “have a drop yourself — a nice drop — a good, warm, fiery drop.” “Why sir,” replied Brass, “if there was such a thing as a mouthful of water that could be got without trouble — ” “There’s no such thing to be had here,” cried the dwarf. “Water for lawyers ! Melted lead and brimstone, you mean, nice hot blistering pitch and tar — that’s the thing for them — eh Brass, eh ? ” “ Ha ha ha ! ” laughed Mr. Brass. “ Oh very biting ! and yet it’s like being tickled — there’s a pleasure in it too, sir! ” “ Drink that,” said the dwarf, who had by this time heated some more. “ Toss it off, don’t leave any heeltap, scorch your throat and be happy ! ” The wretched Sampson took a few short sips of the liquor, which immediately distilled itself into burning tears, and in that form came rolling down his cheeks into the pipkin again, turning the color of his face and eyelids to a deep red, and giv- ing rise to a violent fit of coughing, in the midst of which he was still heard to declare, with the constancy of a martyr, that it was “ beautiful indeed ! ” While he was yet in unspeakable agonies, the dwarf renewed their conversation. “ The lodger,” said Quilp, — “ what about him ? ” “ He is still, sir,” returned Brass, with intervals of coughing, “ stopping with the Garland family. He has only been home once, sir, since the day of the examination of that culprit. He informed Mr. Bichard, sir, that he couldn’t bear the house after wliat had taken place ; that he was wretched in it ; and that he looked upon himself as being in a certain kind of way the cause of the occurrence. — A very excellent lodger, sir. I hope we may not lose him.” “Yah ! ” cried the dwarf. “Never thinking of anybody but yourself — why don’t you retrench then — scrape up, hoard, economize, eh ? ” “Why, sir,” replied Brass, “upon my word I think Sarah’s as good an economizer as any going. I do indeed, Mr. Quilp.” “ Moisten your clay, wet the other eye, drink man ! ” cried the dwarf. “ You took a clerk to oblige me.” 56 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . x “ Delighted, sir, I am sure, at any time,” replied Sampson. "Yes, sir, I did.” “ Then, now yon may discharge him,” said Quilp. “ There’s a means of retrenchment for you at once/’ “ Discharge Mr. Richard, sir ? ” cried Brass. “ Have you more than one clerk, you parrot, that you ask the question? Yes.” “Upon my word, sir,” said Brass. “I wasn’t prepared for this — ” “ How could you be ? ” sneered the dwarf, “ when I wasn’t ? How often am I to tell you that I brought him to you that I might always have my eye on him and know where he was — and that I had a plot, a scheme, a little quiet piece of enjoy- ment afoot, of which the very cream and essence was, that this old man and grandchild (who have sunk underground I think) should be, while he and his precious friend believed them rich, in reality as poor as frozen rats ? ” “I quite understand that, sir,” rejoined Brass. “Thor- oughly.” “Well, sir,” retorted Quilp, “and do you understand now, that they’re not poor — that they can’t be, if they have such men as your lodger searching for them, and scouring the country far and wide.” “ Of course I do, sir,” said Sampson. “ Of course you do,” retorted the dwarf, viciously snapping at his words. “ Of course do you understand then, that it’s no matter what comes of this fellow ? of course do you under- stand that for any other purpose he’s no man for me, nor for you ? ” “I have frequently said to Sarah, sir,” returned Brass, “that he was of no use at all in the business. You can’t put any confidence in him, sir. If you’ll believe me I’ve found that fellow, in the commonest little matters of the office that have been trusted to him, blurting out the truth, though expressly cautioned. The aggravation of that chap, sir, has exceeded anything you can imagine, it has indeed. Nothing but the respect and obligation I owe to you, sir — ” As it was plain that Sampson was bent on a complimentary harangue, unless he received a timely interruption, Mr. Quilp THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 57 politely tapped him on the crown of his head with the little saucepan, and requested that he would be so obliging as to hold his peace. “ Practical, sir, practical,” said Brass, rubbing the place and smiling; “but still extremely pleasant — immensely so!” “ Hearken to me, will you ? ” returned Quilp, “ or I’ll be a little more pleasant, presently. There’s no chance of his com- rade and friend returning. The scamp has been obliged to fly, as I learn, for some knavery, and has found his way abroad. Let him rot there.” “ Certainly, sir. Quite proper. — Forcible ! ” cried Brass, glancing at the admiral again, as if he made a third in company. “ Extremely forcible ! ” “I hate him,” said Quilp between his teeth, “and have always hated him, for family reasons. Besides, he was an intractable ruffian ; otherwise he would have been of use. This fellow is pigeon-hearted, and light-headed. I don’t want him any longer. Let him hang or drown — starve — go to the devil.” “By all means, sir,” returned Brass. “When would you wish him, sir, to — ha, ha ! — to make that little excursion ? ” “ When this trial’s over,” said Quilp. “ As soon as that’s ended, send him about his business.” “ It shall be done, sir,” returned Brass. “ By all means. It will be rather a blow to Sarah, sir, but she has all her feelings under control. Ah, Mr. Quilp, I often think, sir, if it had only pleased Providence to bring you and Sarah together, in earlier life, what blessed results would have flowed from such a union! You never saw our dear father, sir? — a charming gentleman. Sarah was his pride and joy, sir. He would have closed his eyes in bliss, would Foxey, Mr. Quilp, if he could have found her such a partner. You esteem her, sir ? ” “ I love her,” croaked the dwarf. “ You’re very good, sir,” returned Brass, “ I am sure. Is there any other order, sir, that I can take a note of, besides this little matter of Mr. Bichard ? ” “ Hone,” replied the dwarf, seizing the saucepan. “ Let us drink the lovely Sarah.” “ If we could do it in something, sir, that wasn’t quite boil- 58 THE OLE CURIOSITY SHOP. in g” suggested Brass, humbly, “ perhaps it would be better. I think it will be more agreeable to Sarah’s feelings, when she comes to hear from me of the honor you have done her, if she learns it was in liquor rather cooler than the last, sir.” But to these remonstrances, Mr. Quilp turned a deaf ear. Sampson Brass, who was, by this time, anything but sober, being compelled to take further draughts of the same strong bowl, found that, instead of at all contributing to his recovery, they had the novel effect of making the counting-house spin round and round with extreme velocity, and causing the floor and ceiling to heave in a very distressing manner. After a brief stupor, he awoke to a consciousness of being partly under the table and partly under the grate. This position not being the most comfortable one he could have chosen for himself, he managed to stagger to his feet, and, holding on by the admiral, looked round for his host. Mr. Brass’s first impression was, that his host was gone and had left him there alone — perhaps locked him in for the night. A strong smell of tobacco, however, suggesting a new train of ideas, he looked upward, and saw that the dwarf was smoking in his hammock. “ Good by, sir,” cried Brass, faintly. “ Good by, sir.” “ Won’t you stop all night ? ” said the dwarf, peeping out. “ Do stop all night ! ” “I couldn’t indeed, sir,” replied Brass, who was almost dead from nausea and the closeness of the room. “ If you’d have the goodness to show me a light, so that I may see my way across the yard, sir — ” Quilp was out in an instant; not with his legs first, or his head first, or his arms first, but bodily — altogether. “ To be sure,” he said, taking up a lantern, which was now the only light in the place. “Be careful how you go, my dear friend. Be sure to pick your way among the timber, for all the rusty nails are upwards. There’s a dog in the lane. He bit a man last night, and a woman the night before, and last Tuesday he killed a child — but that was in play. Don’t go too near him.” “Which side of the road is he, sir ? ” asked Brass, in great dismay. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 59 “ He lives on the right hand/’ said Quilp, u but sometimes he hides on the left, ready for a spring. He’s uncertain in that respect. Mind you take care of yourself. I’ll never for- give you if you don’t. There’s the light out — never mind — you know the way — straight on ! ” Quilp had slily shaded the light by holding it against his breast, and now stood chuckling and shaking from head to foot in a rapture of delight, as he heard the lawyer stumbling up the yard, and now and then falling heavily down. At length, however, he got quit of the place, and was out of hearing. The dwarf shut himself up again, and sprang once more into his hammock. 60 THE OLE CUBIOSITY SHOP. CHAPTER VIII. The professional gentleman who had given Kit that con- solatory piece of information relative to the settlement of his trifle of business at the Old Bailey, and the probability of its being very soon disposed of, turned out to be quite correct in his prognostications. In eight days’ time, the sessions com- menced. In one day afterwards, the Grand Jury found a True Bill against Christopher Nubbles for felony ; and in two days from that finding, the aforesaid Christopher Nubbles was called upon to plead Guilty or Not Guilty to an Indictment for that he the said Christopher did feloniously abstract and steal from the dwelling-house and office of one Sampson Brass, gentle- man, one Bank Note for Eive Pounds issued by the Governor and Company of the Bank of England; in contravention of the Statutes in that case made and provided, and against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown, and dignity. To this indictment, Christopher Nubbles, in a low and trem- bling voice, pleaded Not Guilty : and here, let those who are in the habit of forming hasty judgments from appearances, and who would have had Christopher, if innocent, speak out very strong and loud, observe, that confinement and anxiety will subdue the stoutest hearts ; and that to one who has been close shut up, though it be only for ten or eleven days, seeing but stone walls and a very few stony faces, the sudden entrance into a great hall filled with life, is a rather disconcerting and startling circumstance. To this, it must be added, that life in a wig, is, to a large class of people, much more terrifying and impressive than life with its own head of hair ; and if, in addi- tion to these considerations, there be taken into account Kit’s natural emotion on seeing the two Mr. Garlands and the little Notary looking on with pale and anxious faces, it will perhaps seem matter of no very great wonder that he should have THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 61 been rather out of sorts, and unable to make himself quite at home. Although he had never seen either of the Mr. Garlands, or Mr. Wither den, since the time of his arrest, he had been given to understand that they had employed counsel for him. There- fore, when one of the gentlemen in wigs got up and said “ I am for the prisoner, my Lord/ 5 Kit made him a bow; and when another gentleman in a wig got up and said “ And Pm against him, my Lord/ 5 Kit trembled very much, and bowed to him too. And didn’t he hope in his own heart that his gen- tleman was a match for the other gentleman, and would make him ashamed of himself in no time ! The gentleman who was against him had to speak first, and being in dreadfully good spirits (for he had, in the last trial, very nearly procured the acquittal of a young gentleman who had had the misfortune to murder his father) he spoke up, you may be sure ; telling the Jury that if they acquitted this pris- oner they must expect to suffer no less pangs and agonies than he had told the other Jury they would certainly undergo if they convicted that prisoner. And when he had told them all about the case, and that he had never known a worse case, he stopped a little while, like a man who had something terri- ble to tell them, and then said that he understood an attempt would be made by his learned friend (and here he looked side- ways at Kit 5 s gentleman) to impeach the testimony of those immaculate witnesses whom he should call before them ; but he did hope and trust that his learned friend would have a greater respect and veneration for the character of the prose- cutor ; than whom, as he well knew, there did not exist, and never had existed, a more honorable member of that most hon- orable profession to which he was attached. And then he said, did the Jury know Bevis Marks ? And if they did know Be vis Marks (as he trusted, for their own characters, they did) did they know the historical and elevating associations connected with that most remarkable spot ? Did they believe that a man like Brass could reside in a place like Bevis Marks, and not be a virtuous and most upright character? And when he had said a great deal to them on this point, he remembered that it was an insult to their understandings to make any remarks on 62 THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. what they must have felt so strongly without him, and there- fore called Sampson Brass into the witness-box, straightway. Then up comes Mr. Brass, very brisk and fresh; and, having bowed to the judge, like a man who has had the pleasure of seeing him before, and who hopes he iias been pretty well since their last meeting, folds his arms, and looks at his gentleman as much as to say “Here I am — full of evi- dence — Tap me ! ” And the gentleman does tap him pres- ently, and with great discretion too ; drawing off the evidence by little and little, and making it run quite clear and bright in the eyes of all present. Then, Kit’s gentleman takes him in hand, but can make nothing of him ; and after a great many very long questions and very short answers, Mr. Samp- son Brass goes down in glory. To him succeeds Sarah, who in like manner is easy to be managed by Mr. Brass’s gentleman, but very obdurate to Kit’s. In short, Kit’s gentleman can get nothing out of her but a repetition of what she has said before (only a little stronger this time, as against his client), and therefore lets her go, in some confusion. Then, Mr. Brass’s gentleman calls Bichard Swiveller, and Bichard Swiveller appears accordingly. Now, Mr. Brass’s gentleman has it whispered in his ear that this witness is disposed to be friendly to the prisoner — which, to say the truth, he is rather glad to hear, as his strength is considered to lie in what is familiarly termed badgering. Wherefore, he begins by requesting the officer to be quite sure that this witness kisses the book, and then goes to work at him, tooth and nail. “ Mr. Swiveller,” says this gentleman to Dick, when he has told his tale with evident reluctance and a desire to make the best of it : “ Pray, sir, where did you dine yesterday ? ” — “ Where did I dine yesterday ? ” — “ Aye, sir, where did you dine yesterday — was it near here, sir ? ” — “ Oh to be sure — yes — just over the way” — “To be sure. Yes. Just over the way,” repeats Mr. Brass’s gentleman, with a glance at the court — “ Alone, sir ? ” — “I beg your pardon,” says Mr. Swiveller, who has not caught the question — “ Alone , sir ? ” repeats Mr. Brass’s gentleman in a voice of thunder, “ did you dine alone ? Did you treat anybody, sir ? Come ! ” — “ Oh THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 63 yes to be sure — yes, I did,” says Mr. Swiveller with a smile. “ Have the goodness to banish a levity, sir, which is very ill- suited to the place in which you stand (though perhaps you have reason to be thankful that it’s only that place),” says Mr. Brass’s gentleman, with a nod of the head, insinuating that the dock is Mr. Swiveller’s legitimate sphere of action ; “and attend to me. You were waiting about here, yesterday, in expectation that this trial was coming on. You dined over the way. You treated somebody. Now, was that somebody brother to the prisoner at the bar ? ” — Mr. Swiveller is pro- ceeding to explain — “Yes or No, sir,” cries Mr. Brass’s gen- tleman — “ But will you allow me — ” — “Yes or No, sir,” — “Yes it was, but — ” — “Yes it was,” cries the gentleman, taking him up short — “ And a very pretty witness you are ! ” Down sits Mr. Brass’s gentleman. Kit’s gentleman, not knowing how the matter really stands, is afraid to pursue the subject. Bichard Swiveller retires abashed. Judge, jury, and spectators, have visions of his lounging about, with an ill- looking, large-whiskered, dissolute young fellow of six feet high. The reality is, little Jacob, with the calves of his legs exposed to the open air, and himself tied up in a shawl. No- body knows the truth ; everybody believes a falsehood ; and all because of the ingenuity of Mr. Brass’s gentleman. Then, come the witnesses to character, and here Mr. Brass’s gentleman shines again. It turns out that Mr. Garland has had no character with Kit, no recommendation of him but from his own mother, and that he was suddenly dismissed by his former master for unknown reasons. Beally, Mr. Gar- land,” says Mr. Brass’s gentleman, “for a person who has arrived at your time of life, you are, to say the least of it, singularly indiscreet, I think.” The Jury think so too, and find Kit guilty. He is taken off, humbly protesting his inno- cence. The spectators settle themselves in their places with renewed attention, for there are several female witnesses to be examined in the next case, and it has been rumored that Mr. Brass’s gentleman w'ill make great fun in cross-examining them for the prisoner. Kit’s mother, poor woman, is waiting at the grate below stairs, accompanied by Barbara’s mother (who, honest soul ! 64 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. never does anything but cry and hold the baby), and a sad interview ensues. The newspaper-reading-turnkey has told them all. He don’t think it will be transportation for life, because there’s time to prove the good character yet, and that is sure to serve him. He wonders what he did it for. “ He never did it !” cries Kit’s mother. “ Well,” says the turnkey, cc I won’t contradict you. It’s all one now, whether he did it or not.” Kit’s mother can reach his hand through the bars, and she clasps it — God, and those to whom He has given such tender- ness, only know in how much agony. Kit bids her keep a good heart, and, under pretence of having the childen lifted up to kiss him, prays Barbara’s mother in a whisper to take her home. “ Some friend will rise up for us, mother,” cries Kit, “ I am sure. If not now, before long. My innocence will come out, mother, and I shall be brought back again ; I feel a confidence in that. You must teach little Jacob and the baby how all this was, for if they thought I had ever been dishonest, when they grew old enough to understand, it would break my heart to know it, if I was thousands of miles away. — Oh ! is there no good gentleman here, who will take care of her ! ” The hand slips out of his, for the poor creature sinks down upon the earth, insensible. Richard Swiveller comes hastily up, elbows the bystanders out of the way, takes her (after some trouble) in one arm after the manner of theatrical rav- ishers, and, nodding to Kit, and commanding Barbara’s mother to follow, for he has a coach. waiting, bears her swiftly off. Well ; Richard took her home. And what astonishing ab- surdities in the way of quotation from song and poem, he per- petrated on the road, no man knows. He took her home, and stayed till she was recovered ; and, having no money to pay the coach, went back in state to Bevis Marks, bidding the driver (for it was Saturday night) wait at the door while he went in for “ change.” “ Mr. Richard, sir,” said Brass, cheerfully, “ good evening ! ” Monstrous as Kit’s tale had appeared, at first, Mr. Richard did, that night, half-suspect his affable employer of some deep villiany. Perhaps it was but the misery he had just witnessed which gave his careless nature this impulse ; but, be that as MR. SWIVELLER TO THE RESCUE THE OLT) CURIOSITY SHOP. 65 it may, it was very strong upon him, and he said in as few words as possible, what he wanted. “ Money ? ” cried Brass, taking out his purse. “ Ha ha ! To be sure, Mr. Richard, to be sure, sir. All men must live. You haven’t change for a five-pound note, have you, sir ? ” “ Ho,” returned Dick, shortly. “Oh!” said Brass, “here’s the very sum. That saves trouble. You’re very welcome I’m sure — Mr. Richard, sir — ” Dick, who had by this time reached the door, turned round. “You needn’t,” said Brass, “trouble yourself to come back any more, sir.” « Eh ?” “You see, Mr. Richard,” said Brass, thrusting his hands in his pockets, and rocking himself to and fro on his stool, “the fact is, that a man of your abilities is lost, sir, quite lost, in our dry and mouldy line. It’s terrible drudgery — shocking. I should say, now, that the stage, or the — or the army, Mr. Richard — or something very superior in the licensed victual- ling way — was the kind of thing that would call out the genius of such a man as you. I hope you’ll look in to see us now and then. Sally, sir, will be delighted I’m sure. She’s extremely sorry to lose you, Mr. Richard, but a sense of her duty to society reconciles her. An amazing creature that, sir ! You’ll find the money quite correct, I think. There’s a cracked window, sir, but I’ve not made any deduction on that account. Whenever we part with friends, Mr. Richard, let us part liberally. A delightful sentiment, sir ! ” To all these rambling observations, Mr. Swiveller answered not one word, but, returning for the aquatic jacket, rolled it into a tight round ball : looking steadily at Brass meanwhile as if he had some intention of bowling him down with it. He only took it under his arm, however, and marched out of the office in profound silence. When he had closed the door, he re-opened it, stared in again for a few moments with the same portentous gravity, and nodding his head once, in a slow and ghost-like manner, vanished. He paid the coachman, and turned his back on Bevis Marks, big with great designs for the comforting of Kit’s mother and the aid of Kit himself. VOL. II — 5 66 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. But, the lives of gentlemen devoted to such pleasures as Richard Swiveller, are extremely precarious. The spiritual excitement of the last fortnight, working upon a system af- fected in no slight degree by the spirituous excitement of some years, proved a little too much for him. That very night, Mr. Richard was seized with an alarming illness, and in twenty- four hours was stricken with a raging fever. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 67 CHAPTER IX. Tossing to and fro upon his hot, uneasy bed; tormented by a fierce thirst which nothing could appease ; unable to find, in any change of posture, a moment’s peace or ease ; and ramb- ling, ever, through deserts of thought where there was no resting-place, no sight or sound suggestive of refreshment or repose, nothing but a dull eternal weariness, with no change but the restless shiftings of his miserable body, and the weary wanderings of his mind, constant still to one ever present anxiety — to a sense of something left undone, of some fearful obstacle, to be surmounted, of some carking care that would not be driven away, and which haunted the distempered brain, now in this form, now in that, always shadowy and dim, but recognizable for the same phantom in every shape it took : darkening every vision like an evil conscience, and making slumber horrible — in these slow tortures of his dread disease, the unfortunate Richard lay wasting and consuming inch by inch, until, at last, when he seemed to fight and struggle to rise up, and to be held down by devils, he sank into a deep sleep, and dreamed no more. He awoke. With a sensation of most blissful rest, better than sleep itself, he began gradually to remember something of these sufferings, had to think what a long night it had been, and whether he had not been delirious twice or thrice. Happening, in the midst of these cogitations, to raise his hand, he was astonished to find how heavy it seemed, and yet how thin and light it really was. Still, he felt indifferent and happy ; and having no curiosity to pursue the subject, re- mained in the same waking slumber until his attention was attracted by a cough. This made him doubt, whether he had locked his door last night, and feel a little surprised at having a companion in the room. Still he lacked energy to follow up 68 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. this train of thought ; and unconsciously fell, in a luxury of repose, to staring at some green stripes on the bed-furniture, and associating them strangely with patches of fresh turf, while the yellow ground between, made gravel-walks, and so helped out a long perspective of trim gardens. He was rambling in imagination on these terraces, and had quite lost himself among them indeed, when he heard the cough once more. The walks shrunk into stripes again at the sound, and raising himself a little in the bed, and holding the curtain open with one hand, he looked out. The same room certainly, and still by candle-light ; but with what unbounded astonishment did he see all those bottles, and basins, and articles of linen airing by the fire, and such- like furniture of a sick chamber — all very clean and neat, but all quite different from anything he had left there, when he went to bed ! The atmosphere, too, filled with a cool smell of herbs and vinegar ; the floor newly sprinkled ; the — the what ? The Marchioness ? Yes ; playing cribbage with herself at the table. There she sat, intent upon her game, coughing now and then in a subdued manner as if she feared to disturb him — shuffling the cards, cutting, dealing, playing, counting, pegging — going through all the mysteries of cribbage as if she had been in full practice from her cradle ! Mr. Swiveller contemplated these things for a short time, and suffering the curtain to fall into its former position, laid his head on the pillow again. “I’m dreaming,” thought Richard, “ that’s clear. When I went to bed, my hands were not made of egg-shells ; and now I can almost see through ’em. If this is not a dream, I have woke up, by mistake, in an Arabian Night, instead of a London one. But I have no doubt I’m asleep. Not the least.” Here the small servant had another cough. “Very remarkable!” thought Mr. Swiveller. “I never dreamt such a real cough as that, before. I don’t know, indeed, that I ever dreamt either a cough or a sneeze. Perhaps it’s part of the philosophy of dreams that one never does. There’s another — and another — Isay! — I’m dream- ing rather fast ! ” THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 69 For the purpose of testing his real condition, Mr. Swiveller, after some reflection, pinched himself in the arm. “ Queerer still ! ” he thought. “ I came to bed rather plump than otherwise, and now there’s nothing to lay hold of. I’ll take another survey.” The result of this additional inspection was, to convince Mr. Swiveller that the objects by which he was surrounded were real, and that he saw them, beyond all question, with his waking eyes. “ It’s an Abarian Night ; that’s what it is,” said Eiehard. “I’m in Damascus or Grand Cairo. The Marchioness is a Genie, and having had a wager with another Genie about who is the handsomest young man alive, and the worthiest to be the husband of the Princess of China, has brought me away, room and all, to compare us together. Perhaps,” said Mr. Swiveller, turning languidly round on his pillow, and looking on that side of his bed which was next the wall, “ the Prin- cess may be still — No, she’s gone.” Not feeling quite satisfied with this explanation, as, even taking it to be the correct one, it still involved a little mystery and doubt, Mr. Swiveller raised the curtain again, determined to take the first favorable opportunity of addressing his companion. An occasion soon presented itself. The Mar- chioness dealt, turned up a knave, and omitted to take the usual advantage ; upon which, Mr. Swiveller called out as loud as he could — “ Two for his heels ! ” The Marchioness jumped up quickly, and clapped her hands. “ Arabian Night, certainly,!’ thought Mr. Swiveller; “they always clap their hands instead of ringing the bell. Now for the two thousand black slaves, with jars of jewels on their heads ! ” It appeared, however, that she had only clapped her hands for joy ; as, directly afterwards she began to laugh, and then to cry ; declaring, not in choice Arabic but in familiar English, that she was “ so glad, she didn’t know what to do.” “ Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, thoughtfully, “ be pleased to draw nearer. First of all, will you have the good- ness to inform me where I shall find my voice ; and secondly, what has become of my flesh ? ” 70 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. The Marchioness only shook her head mournfully, and cried again; whereupon Mr. Swiveller (being very weak) felt his own eyes affected likewise. “I begin to infer, from your manner, and these appear- ances, Marchioness,” said Richard after a pause, and smiling with a trembling lip, “that I have been ill.” “ You just have ! ” replied the small servant, wiping her eyes. “ And haven’t you been a talking nonsense ! ” “ Oh ! ” said Dick. “ Very ill, Marchioness, have I been ? ” “ Dead, all but,” replied the small servant. “ I never thought you’d get better. Thank Heaven you have ! ” Mr. Swiveller was silent for a long while. By and by, he began to talk again : inquiring how long he had been there. “ Three weeks to-morrow,” replied the small servant. “ Three what ? ” said Dick. “Weeks,” returned the Marchioness, emphatically; “three long, slow weeks.” The bare thought of having been in such extremity caused Richard to fall into another silence, and to lie flat down again, at his full length. The Marchioness, having arranged the bedclothes more comfortably, and felt that his hands and fore- head were quite cool — a discovery that filled her with delight - — cried a little more, and then applied herself to getting tea ready, and making some thin dry toast. While she was thus engaged, Mr. Swiveller looked on with a grateful heart, very much astonished to see how thoroughly at home she made herself, and attributing this attention, in its origin, to Sally Brass, whom, in his own mind, he could not thank enough. When the Marchioness had finished her toast- ing, she spread a clean cloth on a tray, and brought him some crisp slices and a great basin of weak tea, with which (she said) the doctor had left word he might refresh himself when he awoke. She propped him up with pillows, if not as skil- fully as if she had been a professional nurse, all her life, at least as tenderly ; and looked on with unutterable satisfaction while the patient — stopping every now and then to shake her by the hand — took his poor meal with an appetite and relish, which the greatest dainties of the earth, under any other eir- THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 71 cumstances, would have failed to provoke. Having cleared away, and disposed everything comfortably about him again, she sat down at the table to take her own tea. “ Marchioness/’ said Mr. Swiveller, “ how’s Sally ? ” The small servant screwed her face into an expression of the very utmost entanglement of sliness, and shook her head. “ What, haven’t you seen her lately ? ” said Dick. “ Seen her ! ” cried the small servant. “ Bless you, I’ve run away ! ” Mr. Swiveller immediately laid himself down again quite flat, and so remained for about five minutes. By slow degrees he resumed his sitting posture after that lapse of time, and inquired : “ And where do you live, Marchioness ? ” “ Live ! ” cried the small servant. “ Here ! ” “ Oh ! ” said Mr. Swiveller. And with that he fell down flat again, as suddenly as if he had been shot. Thus he remained, motionless and bereft of speech, until she had finished her meal, put everything in its place, and swept the hearth ; when he motioned her to bring a chair to the bedside, and, being propped up again, opened a farther conversation. “ And so,” said Dick, “ you have run away ? ” “ Yes,” said the Marchioness, “ and they’ve been a tising of me.” “ Been — I beg your pardon,” said Dick — “ what have they been doing ? ” “ Been a tising of me — tising you know — in the news- papers,” rejoined the Marchioness. “ Aye, aye,” said Dick, u advertising ? ” The small servant nodded, and winked. Her eyes were so red with waking and crying, that the Tragic Muse might have winked with greater consistency. And so Dick felt. “ Tell me,” said he, “ how it was that you thought of coming here.” “ Why, you see,” returned the Marchioness, “ when you was gone, I hadn’t any friend at all, because the lodger he never come back, and I didn’t know where either him or you was to be found, you know. But one morning, when I was — ” 72 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . “Was near a keyhole ?” suggested Mr. Swiveller, observing that she faltered. “Well then/’ said the small servant, nodding; “when I was near the ifice keyhole — as you see me through, you know — I heard somebody saying that she lived here, and was the lady whose house you lodged at, and that you was took very bad, and wouldn’t nobody come and take care of you. Mr. Brass, he says, ‘ It’s no business of mine,’ he says ; and Miss Sally, she says, ‘ He’s a funny chap, but it’s no business of mine ; ’ and the lady went away, and slammed the door to, when she went out, I can tell you. So I ran away that night, and come here, and told ’em you was my brother, and they believed me, and I’ve been here ever since.” “ This poor little Marchioness has been wearing herself to death ! ” cried Dick. “Ho I haven’t,” she returned, “not a bit of it. Don’t you mind about me. I like sitting up, and I’ve often had a sleep, bless you, in one of them chairs. But if you could have seen how you tried to jump out o’ winder, and if you could have heard how you used to keep on singing and making speeches, you wouldn’t have believed it — I’m so glad you’re better, Mr. Liverer.” “ Liverer indeed ! ” said Dick, thoughtfully. “ It’s well I am a liverer. I strongly suspect I should have died, Mar- chioness, but for you.” At this point, Mr. Swiveller took the small servant’s hand in his, again, and being, as we have seen, but poorly, might in struggling to express his thanks have made his eyes as red as hers, but that she quickly changed the theme by making him lie down, and urging him to keep very quiet. “ The doctor,” she told him, “ said you was to be kept quite still, and there was to be no noise nor nothing. How, take a rest, and then we’ll talk again. I’ll sit by you, you know. If you shut your eyes, perhaps you’ll go to sleep. You’ll be all the better for it, if you do.” The Marchioness, in saying these words, brought a little table to the bedside, took her seat at it, and began to work away at the concoction of some cooling drink, with the address of a score of chemists. Bicliard Swiveller, being indeed THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 73 fatigued, fell into a slumber; and waking in about lialf an hour; inquired what time it was. “ Just gone half after six/’ replied his small friend; helping him to sit up again. “ Marchioness/’ said Richard; passing his hand over his forehead and turning suddenly round; as though the subject but that moment flashed upon him, “what has become of Kit ? ” He had been sentenced to transportation for a great many years, she said. “ Has he gone ? ” asked Dick — “ his mother — how is she — what has become of her ? ” His nurse shook her head; and answered that she knew nothing about them. “But; if I thought/’ said she, very slowly, “that you’d keep quiet; and not put yourself into another fever; I could tell you — but I won’t now.” “ Yes, do/’ said Dick. “It will amuse me.” “ Oh ! would it though ! ” rejoined the small servant; with a horrified look. “I know better than that. Wait till you’re better, and then I’ll tell you.” Dick looked very earnestly at his little friend : and his eyes, being large and hollow from illness, assisted the expression so much, that she was quite frightened, and besought him not to think any more about it. What had already fallen from her, however, had not only piqued his curiosity, but seriously alarmed him, wherefore he urged her to tell him the worst at once. “ Oh ! there’s no worst in it,” said the small servant. “ It hasn’t anything to do with you.” “ Has it anything to do with — is it anything you heard through chinks or keyholes — and that you were not intended to hear ? ” asked Dick, in a breathless state. “ Yes,” replied the small servant. u In — in Bevis Marks ? ” pursued Dick, hastily. “ Conver- sations between Brass and Sally ? ” “Yes,” cried the small servant again. Richard Swiveller thrust his lank arm out of bed, and, grip- ing her by the wrist and drawing her close to him, bade her out with it, and freely too, or he would not answer for the 74 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. consequences ; being wholly unable to endure that state of ex- citement and expectation. She, seeing that he was greatly agitated, and that the effects of postponing her revelation might be much more injurious than any that were likely to ensue from its being made at once, promised compliance, on condition that the patient kept himself perfectly quiet, and abstained from starting up or tossing about. “ But if you begin to do that,” said the small servant, “ I’ll leave off. And so I tell you.” “ You can’t leave off, till you have gone on,” said Dick. “And do go on, there’s a darling. Speak, sister, speak. Pretty Polly say. Oh tell me when, and tell me where, pray Marchioness, I beseech you ! ” Unable to resist these fervent adjurations, which Bichard Swiveller poured out as passionately as if they had been of the most solemn and tremendous nature, his companion spoke thus : “ Well ! Before I run away, I used to sleep in the kitchen — where we played cards, you know. Miss Sally used to keep the key of the kitchen door in her pocket, and she always come down at night to take away the candle and rake out the fire. When she had done that, she left me to go to bed in the dark, locked the door on the outside, put the key in her pocket again, and kept me locked up till she come down in the morn- ing — very early I can tell you — and let me out. I was ter- rible afraid of being kept like this, because if there was a fire, I thought they might forget me and only take care of them- selves you know. So, whenever I see an old rusty key any- where, I picked it up, and tried if it would fit the door, and at last I found in the dust cellar, a key that did fit it.” Here, Mr. Swiveller made a violent demonstration with his legs. But the small servant immediately pausing in her talk, he subsided again, and pleading a momentary forgetfulness of their compact, entreated her to proceed. “ They kept me very short,” said the small servant. “ Oh ! you can’t think how short they kept me ! So I used to come out at night after they’d gone to bed, and feel about in the dark for bits of biscuit, or sangwitches that you’d left in the office, or even pieces of orange peel to put into cold water and THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 75 make believe it was wine. Did you ever taste orange peel and water ? ” Mr. Swiveller replied that he had never tasted that ardent liquor ; and once more urged his friend to resume the thread of her narrative. “ If you make believe very much, it’s quite nice/’ said the small servant ; “ but if you don’t, you know, it seems as if it would bear a little more seasoning, certainly. Well, some- times I used to come out after they’d gone to bed, and sometimes before, you know; and one or two nights before there was all. that precious noise in the office — when the young man was took, I mean — I come up stairs while Mr. Brass and Miss Sally was a sittin’ at the office fire ; and I’ll tell you the truth, that I come to listen again, about the key of the safe.” Mr. Swiveller gathered up his knees so as to make a great cone of the bedclothes, and conveyed into his countenance an expression of the utmost concern. But, the small servant pausing, and holding up her finger, the cone gently disap- peared, though the look of concern did not. “ There was him and her,” said the small servant, “ a sittin’ by the fire, and talking softly together. Mr. Brass says to Miss Sally, ‘Upon my word,’ he says, ‘it’s a dangerous thing, and it might get us into a world of trouble, and I don’t half like it.’ She says — you know her way — she says, ‘ You’re the chickenest-hearted, feeblest, faintest man I ever see, and I think,’ she says, ‘that I ought to have been the brother, and you the sister. Isn’t Quilp,’ she says, ‘our principal support ? ’ ‘ He certainly is,’ says Mr. Brass. ‘And an’t we,’ she says, ‘constantly ruining somebody or other in the way of business?’ ‘We certainly are,’ says Mr. Brass. ‘ Then does it signify,’ she says, ‘ about ruining this Kit when Quilp desires it ? ’ ‘It certainly does not signify,’ says Mr. Brass. Then, they whispered and laughed for a long time about there being no danger if it was well done, and then Mr. Brass pulls out his pocket-book, and says, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘here it is — Quilp’s own five-pound note. We’ll agree that way, then,’ he says. ‘Kit’s coming to- morrow morning, I know. While he’s up stairs, you’ll get 76 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. out of the way, and I’ll clear off Mr. Richard. Having Kit alone, I’ll hold him in conversation, and put this property in his hat. ril manage so, besides/ he says, ‘ that Mr. Richard shall find it there, and be the evidence. And if that do At get Christopher out of Mr. Quilp’s way, and satisfy Mr. Quilp’s grudges/ he says, ‘the Devil’s in it.’ Miss Sally laughed, and said that was the plan, and as they seemed to be moving away, and I was afraid to stop any longer, I went down stairs again. — There ! ” The small servant had gradually worked herself into as much agitation as Mr. Swiveller, and therefore made no effort to restrain him when he sat up in bed and hastily demanded whether this story had been told to anybody. “ How could it be ? ” replied his nurse. “ I was almost afraid to think about it, and hoped the young man would be let off. When I heard ’em say they had found him guilty of what he didn’t do, you was gone, and so was the lodger — though I think I should have been frightened to tell him, even if he’d been there. Ever since I come here, you’ve been out of your senses, and what would have been the good of telling you then ? ” “Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, plucking off his night- cap and flinging it to the other end of the room ; “ if you’ll do me the favor to retire for a few minutes and see what sort of a night it is, I’ll get up.” “ You mustn’t think of such a thing,” cried his nurse. “I must indeed,” said the patient, looking round the room. “ Whereabouts are my clothes ? ” “ Oh I’m so glad — you haven’t got any,” replied the Marchioness. “ Ma’am ! ” said Mr. Swiveller, in great astonishment. “I’ve been obliged to sell them, every one, to get the things that was ordered for you. But don’t take on about that,” urged the Marchioness, as Dick fell back upon his pillow. “You’re too weak to stand, indeed.” “ I am afraid,” said Richard, dolefully, “ that you’re right. What ought I to do ! what is to be done ! ” It naturally occurred to him on very little reflection, that the first step to take would be to communicate with one of the THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 77 Mr. Garlands instantly. It was very possible that Mr. Abel had not yet left the office. In as little time as it takes to tell it, the small servant had the address in pencil on a piece of paper; a verbal description of father and son, which would enable her to recognize either without difficulty ; and a special caution to be shy of Mr. Chuckster, in consequence of that gentleman’s known antipathy to Kit. Armed with these slender powers, she hurried away, commissioned to bring either old Mr. Garland or Mr. Abel, bodily, to that apartment. “I suppose,” said Dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped into the room again, to make sure that he was com- fortable, “ I suppose there’s nothing left — not so much as a waistcoat even ? ” “No, nothing.” “ It’s embarrassing,” said Mr. Swiveller, “ in case of fire — even an umbrella would be something — but you did quite right, dear Marchioness. I should have died without you ! ” 78 THE OLE CURIOSITY SHOP . CHAPTER X. It was well for the small servant that she was of a sharp, quick nature, or the consequence of sending her out alone, from the very neighborhood in which it was most dangerous for her to appear, would probably have been the restoration of Miss Sally Brass to the supreme authority over her person. Hot unmindful of the risk she ran, however, the Marchioness no sooner left the house than she dived into the first dark by-way that presented itself, and, without any present reference to the point to which her journey tended, made it her first business to put two good miles of brick and mortar between herself and Bevis Marks. When she had accomplished this object, she began to shape her course for the Notary’s office, to which — shrewdly inquir- ing of apple-women and oyster-sellers at street corners, rather than in lighted shops or of well-dressed people, at the hazard of attracting notice — she easily procured a direction. As carrier-pigeons, on being first let loose in a strange place, beat the air at random for a short time, before darting off towards the spot for which they are designed, so did the Marchioness flutter round and round until she believed herself in safety, and then bear swiftly down upon the port for which she was bound. She had no bonnet — nothing on her head but a great cap which, in some old time, had been worn by Sally Brass, whose taste in head-dresses was, as we have seen, peculiar — and her speed was rather retarded than assisted by her shoes, which, being extremely large and slipshod, flew off every now and then, and were difficult to find again, among the crowd of passengers. Indeed, the poor little creature experienced so much trouble and delay from having to grope for these articles of dress in mud and kennel, and suffered in these researches THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP, . 79 sq-much jostling, pushing, squeezing, and bandying from hand to hand, that by the time she reached the street in which the Notary lived, she was fairly worn out and exhausted, and could not refrain from tears. But to have got there at last was a great comfort, especially as there were lights still burning in the office window, and therefore some hope that she was not too late. So, the Mar- , chioness dried her eyes with the backs of her hands, and, J stealing softly up the steps, peeped in through the glass door. Mr. Chuckster was standing behind the lid of his desk, making such preparations towards finishing off for the night, as pulling down his wristbands and pulling up his shirt-collar, setting his neck more gracefully in his stock, and secretly arranging his whiskers by the aid of a little triangular bit of looking-glass. Before the ashes of the fire, stood two gentle- men, one of whom she rightly judged to be the Notary, and the other (who was buttoning his great-coat, and was evidently about to depart immediately) Mr. Abel Garland. Having made these observations, the small spy took counsel with herself, and resolved to wait in the street until Mr. Abel came out, as there would be then no fear of having to speak before Mr. Chuckster, and less difficulty in delivering her message. With this purpose she slipped out again, and cross- ing the road, sat down upon a door-step just opposite. She had hardly taken this position, when there came danc- ing up the street, with his legs all wrong, and his head everywhere by turns, a pony. This pony had a little phaeton behind him, and a man in it ; but, neither man nor phaeton seemed to embarrass him in the least, as he reared up on his hind legs, or stopped, or went on, or stood still again, or backed, or went sideways, without the smallest reference to them, — just as the fancy seized him, and as if he were the freest animal in creation. When they came to the Notary’s door, the man called out in a very respectful manner, “ Woa then, ” — intimating that if he might venture to express a wish, it would be that they stopped there. The pony made a moment’s pause ; but, as if it occurred to him that to stop when he was required might be to establish an inconvenient 80 THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. and dangerous precedent, he immediately started off again, rattled at a fast trot to the street-corner, wheeled round, came back, and then stopped of his own accord. “ Oh ! you’re a precious creatur ! ” said the man — who didn’t venture by the by to come out in his true colors until he was safe on the pavement. “ I wish I had the rewarding of you, — I do.” “ What has he been doing ? ” said Mr. Abel, tying a shawl round his neck as he came down the steps. “ He’s enough to fret a man’s heart out,” replied the hostler. “He is the most wicious rascal — woa then, will you ? ” “ He’ll never stand still, if you call him names,” said Mr. Abel, getting in, and taking the reins. “He’s a very good fellow if you know how to manage him. This is the first time he has been out, this long while, for he has lost his old driver and wouldn’t stir for anybody else, till this morning. The lamps are right, are they ? That’s well. Be here to take him to-morrow, if you please. Good night ! ” And, after one or two strange plunges, quite of his own invention, the pony yielded to Mr. Abel’s mildness, and trotted gently off. All this time Mr. Chuckster had been standing at the door, and the small servant had been afraid to approach. She had nothing for it now, therefore, but to run after the chaise, and to call to Mr. Abel to stop. Being out of breath when she came up with it, she was unable to make him hear. The case was desperate ; for the pony was quickening his pace. The Marchioness hung on behind for a few moments, and, feeling that she could go no farther, and must soon yield, clambered by a vigorous effort into the hinder seat, and in so doing lost one of the shoes for ever. Mr. Abel being in a thoughtful frame of mind, and having quite enough to do to keep the pony going, went jogging on without looking round : little dreaming of the strange figure that was close behind him, until the Marchioness, having in some degree recovered her breath, and the loss of her shoe, and the novelty of her position, uttered close into his ear, the words — GOD BLESS ME! WHAT IS THIS?” THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 81 “I say, sir.” He turned his head quickly enough then, and stopping the pony, cried, with some trepidation, “ God bless me, what is this ! ” “ Don’t be frightened, sir,” replied the still panting messen- ger. “ Oh, I’ve run such a way after you ! ” “ What do you want with me ? ” said Mr. Abel. “ How did you come here ? ” “ I got in behind,” replied the Marchioness. “Oh please drive on, sir — don’t stop — and go towards the city, will you ? And oh do please make haste, because it’s of conse- quence. There’s somebody wants to see you there. He sent me to say would you come directly, and that he knowed all about Kit, and could save him yet, and prove his innocence.” “ What do you tell me, child ? ” “ The truth, upon my word and honor I do. But please to drive on — quick, please ! I’ve been such a time gone, he’ll think I’m lost.” Mr. Abel involuntarily urged the pony forward. The pony, impelled by some secret sympathy or some new caprice, burst into a great pace, and neither slackened it, nor indulged in any eccentric performances, until they arrived at the door of Mr. Swiveller’s lodging, where, marvellous to relate, he con- sented to stop when Mr. Abel checked him. “ See ! It’s that room up there,” said the Marchioness, pointing to one where there was a faint light. “ Come ! ” Mr. Abel, who was one of the simplest and most retiring creatures in existence, and naturally timid withal, hesitated ; for he had heard of people being decoyed into strange places to be robbed and murdered, under circumstances very like the present, and, for anything he knew to the contrary, by guides very like the Marchioness. His regard for Kit, however, overcame every other consideration. So, entrusting Whisker to the charge of a man who was lingering hard by in expecta- tion of the job, he suffered his companion to take his hand, and to lead him up the dark and narrow stairs. He was not a little surprised to find himself conducted into a dimly-lighted sick chamber, where a man was sleeping tranquilly in bed. VOL. II — 6 82 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . “ An’t it nice to see him lying there so quiet ? ” said his guide, in an earnest whisper. “ Oh ! you’d say it was, if you had only seen him two or three days ago.” Mr. Abel made no answer, and, to say the truth, kept a long way from the bed and very near the door. His guide, who appeared to understand his reluctance, trimmed the candle, and taking it in her hand, approached the bed. As she did so, the sleeper started up, and he recognized in the wasted face the features of Richard Swiveller. “ Why, how is this ? ” said Mr. Abel, kindly, as he hurried towards him. “ You have been ill ? ” “Very,” replied Dick. “Nearly dead. You might have chanced to hear of your Kichard on his bier, but for the friend I sent to fetch you. Another shake of the hand, Marchioness, if you please. Sit down, sir.” Mr. Abel seemed rather astonished to hear of the quality of his guide, and took a chair by the bedside. “I have sent for you, sir,” said Dick — “but she told you on what account ? ” “ She did. I am quite bewildered by all this. I really don’t know what to say or think,” replied Mr. Abel. “You’ll say that, presently,” retorted Dick. “ Marchioness, take a seat on the bed, will you ? Now, tell this gentleman all that you told me; and be particular. Don’t you speak another word, sir.” The story was repeated ; it was, in effect, exactly the same as before, without any deviation or omission. Kichard Swiv- eller kept his eyes fixed on his visitor during its narration, and directly it was concluded, took the word again. “ You have heard it all, and you’ll not forget it. I’m too giddy and too queer to suggest anything ; but you and your friends will know what to do. After this long delay, every minute is an age. If ever you went home fast in your life, go home fast to-night. Don’t stop to say one word to me, but go. She will be found here, whenever she’s wanted ; and as to me, you’re pretty sure to find me at home, for a week or two. There are more reasons than one for that. Marchioness, a light ! If you lose another minute in looking at me, sir, I’ll never forgive you ! ” THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 83 Mr. Abel needed no more remonstrance or persuasion. He was gone in an instant ; and the Marchioness, returning from lighting him down stairs, reported that the pony, without any preliminary objection whatever, had dashed away at full gallop. “ That’s right ! ” said Dick ; “ and hearty of him ; and I honor him from this time. But get some supper and a mug of beer, for I am sure you must be tired. Do have a mug of beer. It will do me as much good to see you take it as if I might drink it myself.” Nothing but this assurance could have prevailed upon the small nurse to indulge in such a luxury. Having eaten and drunk to Mr. Swiveller’s extreme contentment, given him his drink, and put everything in neat order, she wrapped herself in an old coverlet and lay down upon the rug before the fire. Mr. Swiveller was by that time murmuring in his sleep, “ Strew then, oh strew, a bed of rushes. Here will we stay, till morning blushes. Good night, Marchioness ! ” 84 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . CHAPTER XI. On awakening in the morning, Richard Swiveller became conscious, by slow degrees, of whispering voices in his room. Looking out between the curtains, he espied Mr. Garland, Mr. Abel, the Notary, and the single gentleman, gathered round the Marchioness, and talking to her with great earnestness but in very subdued tones — fearing, no doubt, to disturb him. He lost no time in letting them know that this precaution was unnecessary, and all four gentlemen directly approached his bedside. Old Mr. Garland was the first to stretch out his hand and inquire how he felt. Dick was about to answer that he felt much better, though still as weak as need be, when his little nurse, pushing the visitors aside and pressing up to his pillow as if in jealousy of their interference, set his breakfast before him, and insisted on his taking it before he underwent the fatigue of speaking or of being spoken to. Mr. Swiveller, who was perfectly ravenous, and had had, all night, amazingly distinct and consistent dreams of mutton chops, double stout, and similar delicacies, felt even the weak tea and dry toast such irresistible temptations, that he consented to eat and drink on one condition. “And that is,” said Dick, returning the pressure of Mr. Garland’s hand, “that you answer me this question truly, before I take a bit or drop. Is it too late ? ” “ Eor completing the work you began so well last night ? ” returned the old gentleman. “No. Set your mind at rest on that point. It is not, I assure you.” Comforted by this intelligence, the patient applied himself to his food with a keen appetite, though evidently not with a greater zest in the eating than his nurse appeared to have in seeing him eat. The manner of his meal was this : — Mr. Swiveller, holding the slice of toast or cup of tea in his left THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 85 hand, and taking a bite or drink, as the case might be, con- stantly kept, in his right, one palm of the Marchioness tight locked : and to shake or even to kiss this imprisoned hand, he would stop every now and then, in the very act of swallowing, with perfect seriousness of intention, and the utmost gravity. As often as he put anything into his mouth, whether for eat- ing or drinking, the face of the Marchioness lighted up beyond all description; but, whenever he gave her one or other of these tokens of recognition, her countenance became overshad- owed, and she began to sob. Now, whether she was in her laughing joy, or in her crying one, the Marchioness could not help turning to the visitors with an appealing look, which seemed to say, “You see this fellow — can I help this ? ” — and they, being thus made, as it were, parties to the scene, as regularly answered by another look, “No. Certainly not.” This dumb-show, taking place during the whole time of the invalid’s breakfast, and the invalid himself, pale and emaciated, performing no small part in the same, it may be fairly ques- tioned whether at any meal, where no word, good or bad, was spoken from beginning to end, so much was expressed by gestures in themselves so slight and unimportant. At length — and to say the truth before very long — Mr. Swiveller had despatched as much toast and tea as in that stage of his recovery it was discreet to let him have. But, the cares of the Marchioness did not stop here ; for, disappearing for an instant and presently returning with a basin of fair water, she laved his face and hands, brushed his hair, and in short made him as spruce and smart as anybody under such circumstances could be made ; and all this, in as brisk and business-like a manner, as if he were a very little boy, and she his grown-up nurse. To these various attentions, Mr. Swiv- eller submitted in a kind of grateful astonishment beyond the reach of language. When they were at last brought to an end, and the Marchioness had withdrawn into a distant corner to take her own poor breakfast (cold enough by that time), he turned his face away for some few moments, and shook hands heartily with the air. “ Gentlemen,” said Dick, rousing himself from this pause, and turning round again, “ you’ll excuse me. Men who have 86 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . been brought so low as I have been, are easily fatigued. I arn fresh again now, and fit for talking. We’re short of chairs here, among other trifles, but if you’ll do me the favor to sit upon the bed — ” “ What can we do for you ? ” said Mr. Garland, kindly. “ If you could make the Marchioness yonder, a Marchioness, in real, sober earnest,” returned Dick, “ I’d thank you to get it done off-hand. But as you can’t, and as the question is not what you will do for me, but what you will do for somebody else, who has a better claim upon you, pray, sir, let me know what you intend doing.” “It’s chiefly on that account that we have come just now,” said the single gentleman, “for you will have another visitor presently. We feared you would be anxious unless you knew from ourselves what steps we intended to take, and therefore came to you before we stirred in the matter.” “ Gentlemen,” returned Dick, “ I thank you. Anybody in the helpless state that you see me in, is naturally anxious. Don’t let me interrupt you, sir.” “ Then, you see, my good fellow,” said the single gentleman, “ that while we have no doubt whatever of the truth of this disclosure, which has so providentially come to light — ” “ — Meaning hers ? ” said Dick, pointing towards the Mar- chioness. “ Meaning hers, of course. While we have no doubt of that, or that a proper use of it would procure the poor lad’s imme- diate pardon and liberation, we have a great doubt whether it would, by itself, enable us to reach Quilp, the chief agent in this villany. I should tell you that this doubt has been confirmed into something very nearly approaching certainty by the best opinions we have been enabled, in this short space of time, to take upon the subject. You’ll agree with us, that to give him even the most distant chance of escape, if we could help it, would be monstrous. You say with us, no doubt, if somebody must escape, let it be any one but he.” “Yes,” returned Dick, “certainly. That is, if somebody must — but upon my word, I’m unwilling that anybody should. Since laws were made for every degree, to curb vice in others THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 87 as well as in me — and so forth you know — doesn’t it strike you in that light ? ” The single gentleman smiled as if the light in which Mr. Swiveller had put the question were not the clearest in the world, and proceeded to explain that they contemplated pro- ceeding by stratagem in the first instance ; and that their design was, to endeavor to extort a cofession from the gentle Sarah. “ When she finds how much we know, and how we know it,” he said, u and that she is clearly compromised already, we are not without strong hopes that we may be enabled through her means to punish the other two effectually. If we could do that, she might go scot-free for aught I cared.” Dick received this project in anything but a gracious man- ner, representing with as much warmth as he was then capable ‘ of showing, that they would find the old buck (meaning Sarah) more difficult to manage than Quilp himself — that, for any tampering, terrifying, or cajolery, she was a very unpromising and unyielding subject — that she was of a kind of brass not easily melted or moulded into shape - — in short, that they were no match for her, and would be signally defeated. But, it was in vain to urge them to adopt some other course. The single gentleman has been described as explaining their joint inten- tions, but it should have been written that they all spoke together ; that if any one of them by chance held his peace for a moment, he stood gasping and panting for an opportunity to strike in again ; in a word, that they had reached that pitch of impatience and anxiety where men can neither be persuaded nor reasoned with; and that it would have been as easy to turn the most impetuous wind that ever blew, as to prevail on them to reconsider their determination, so, after telling Mr. Swiveller how they had not lost sight of Kit’s mother and the children ; how they had never once even lost sight of Kit himself, but had been unremitting in their endeavors to procure a mitigation of his sentence ; how they had been per- fectly distracted between the strong proofs of his guilt, and their own fading hopes of his innocence ; and how he, Bichard Swiveller, might keep his mind at rest, for everything should be happily adjusted between that time and night ; — after tell- 88 THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. ing him all this, and adding a great many kind and cordial expressions, personal to himself, which it is unnecessary to recite, Mr. Garland, the Notary, and the single gentleman, took their leaves at a very critical time, or Richard Swiveller must assuredly have been driven into a another fever, whereof the results might have been fatal. Mr. Abel remained behind, very often looking at his watch and at the room door, until Mr. Swiveller was roused from a short nap, by the setting-down on the landing-place outside, as from the shoulders of a porter, of some giant load, which seemed to shake the house, and make the little physic bottles on the mantle-shelf ring again. Directly this sound reached his ears, Mr. Abel started up, and hobbled to the door, and opened it ; and behold ! there stood a strong man, with a mighty hamper, which, being hauled into the room and pres- ently unpacked, disgorged such treasures of tea, and coffee, and wine, and rusks, and oranges, and grapes, and fowls ready trussed for boiling, and calves’-foot jelly, and arrow-root, and sago, and other delicate restoratives, that the small servant who had never thought it possible that such things could be, except in shops, stood rooted to the spot in her one shoe, with her mouth and eyes watering in unison, and her power of speech quite gone. But, not so Mr. Abel ; or the strong man who emptied the hamper, big as it w x as, in a twinkling ; and not so the nice old lady, who appeared so suddenly that she might have come out of the hamper too (it was quite large enough), and who bustling about on tiptoe and without noise — now here, now there, now everywhere at once — began to fill out the jelly in teacups, and to make chicken broth in small saucepans, and to peel oranges for the sick man and to cut them up in little pieces, and to ply the small servant with glasses of wine and choice bits of everything until more sub- stantial meat could be prepared for her refreshment. The whole of which appearances were so unexpected and bewilder- ing, that Mr. Swiveller when he had taken two oranges and a little jelly, and had seen the strong man walk off with the empty basket, plainly leaving all that abundance for his use and benefit, was fain to lie down and fall asleep again, from sheer inability to entertain such wonders in his mind. THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP . '♦ 89 Meanwhile the single gentleman, the Notary, and Mr. Garland, repaired to a certain coffee house, and from that place indited and sent a letter to Miss Sally Brass, requesting her, in terms mysterious and brief, to favor an unknown friend who wished to consult her, with her company there, as speedily as possible. The communication performed its errand so well, that within ten minutes of the messenger’s return and report of its delivery, Miss Brass herself was announced. “ Bray, ma’am,” said the single gentleman, whom she found alone in the room, “ take a chair.” Miss Brass sat herself down in a very stiff and frigid state, and seemed — as indeed she was — not a little astonished to find that the lodger and her mysterious correspondent were one and the same person. “ You did not expect to see me ? ” said the single gentleman. “ I didn’t think much about it,” returned the beauty. “ I supposed it was business of some kind or other. If it’s about the apartments, of course you’ll give my brother regular notice, you know — or money. That’s very easily settled. You’re a responsible party, and in such a case lawful money and lawful notice are pretty much the same.” “ I am obliged to you for your good opinion,” retorted the single gentleman, “ and quite concur in those sentiments. But, that is not the subject on which I wish to speak with you.” “ Oh ! ” said Sally. “ Then just state the particulars, will you ? I suppose it’s professional business ? ” “Why it is connected with the law, certainly.” “Very well,” returned Miss Brass. “My brother and I are just the same. I can take any instructions or give you any advice.” “As there are other parties interested beside myself,” said the single gentleman, rising and opening the door of an inner room, “we had better confer together. Miss Brass is here, gentlemen ! ” Mr. Garland and the Notary walked in, looking very grave : and, drawing up two chairs, one on each side of the single gentleman, formed a kind of fence round the gentle Sarah, and penned her into a corner. Her brother Sampson under such 90 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. circumstances would certainly have evinced some confusion or anxiety, but she — all composure — pulled out the tin box and calmly took a pinch of snuff. “Miss Brass / 5 said the Notary, taking the word at this crisis, “we professional people understand each .other, and, when we choose, can say what we have to say, in very few words. You advertised a runaway servant, the other day ? 55 “Well / 5 returned Miss Sally, with a sudden flush over- spreading her features, “ what of that ? 55 “She is found, ma’am / 5 said the Notary, pulling out his pocket-handkerchief with a flourish. “ She is found . 55 “ Who found her ? 55 demanded Sarah, hastily. “We did ma’am — we three. Only last night, or you would have heard from us before . 55 “And now I have heard from you,” said Miss Brass, fold- ing her arms as though she were about to deny something to the death, “ what have you got to say ? Something you have got into your heads about her, of course. Prove it, will you — that’s all. Prove it. You have found her, you say. I can tell you (if you don’t know it) that you have found the most artful, lying, pilfering, devilish little minx that was ever born. — Have you got her here ? ” she added, looking sharply round. “No, she is not here at present,” returned the Notary. “ But she is quite safe.” “ Ha ! ” cried Sally, twitching a pinch of snuff out of her box, as spitefully as if she were in the very act of wrenching off the small servant’s nose ; “ she shall be safe enough from this time, I warrant you.” “I hope so,” replied the Notary. — “Did it occur to you for the first time, when you found she had run away, that there were two keys to your kitchen door ? ” Miss Sally took another pinch, and, putting her head on one side, looked at her questioner, with a curious kind of spasm about her mouth, but with a cunning aspect of immense expression. “Two keys,” repeated the Notary; “one of which gave her the opportunities of roaming through the house at nights when you supposed her fast locked up, and of overhearing THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 91 confidential consultations — among others, that particular con- ference, to be described to-day before a justice, which you will have an opportunity of hearing her relate ; that conference which you and Mr. Brass held together, on the night before that most unfortunate and innocent young man was accused of robbery, by a horrible device of which I will only say that it may be characterized by the epithets you have applied to this wretched little witness, and by a few stronger ones besides. 7 ’ Sally took another pinch. Although her face was wonder- fully composed, it was apparent that she was wholly taken by surprise, and that what she had expected to be taxed with, in connection with her small servant, was something very different from this. “Come, come, Miss Brass,” said the Notary, “you have great command of feature, but you feel, I see, that by a chance which never entered your imagination, this base design is revealed, and two of its plotters must be brought to justice. Now, you know the pains and penalties ^ou are liable to, and so I need not dilate upon them, but I have a proposal to make to you. You have the honor of being sister to one of the greatest scoundrels unhung; and, if I may venture to say so to a lady, you are in every respect quite worthy of him. But, connected with you two is a third party, a villain of the name of Quilp, the prime mover of the whole diabolical device, who I believe to be worse than either. For his sake, Miss Brass, do us the favor to reveal the whole history of this affair. Let me remind you that your doing so, at our instance, will place you in a safe and comfortable position — your present one is not desirable — and cannot injure your brother ; for against him and you we have quite sufficient evidence (as you hear) already. I will not say to you that we suggest this course in mercy (for, to tell you the truth, we do not entertain any regard for you), but it is a necessity to which we are reduced, and I recommend it to you as a matter of the very best policy. Time,” said Mr. Witherden, pulling out his watch, “ in a business like this, is exceedingly precious. Favor us with your decision as speedily as possible, ma’am.” With a smile upon her face, and looking at each of the 92 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. three by turns, Miss Brass took two or three more pinches of snuff, and having by this time very little left, travelled round and round the box with her forefinger and thumb, scraping up another. Having disposed of this likewise and put the box carefully in her pocket, she said, “I am to accept or reject at once, am I ?” “Yes,” said Mr. Witherden. The charming creature was opening her lips to speak in reply, when the door was hastily opened too, and the head of Sampson Brass was thrust into the room. “Excuse me,” said that gentleman, hastily. “Wait a bit ! ” So saying, and quite indifferent to the astonishment his presence occasioned, he crept in, shut the door, kissed his greasy glove as servilely as if it were the dust, and made a most abject bow. “ Sarah,” said Brass, “ hold your tongue if you please, and let me speak. Gentlemen, if I could express the pleasure it gives me to see three such men in a happy unity of feeling and concord of sentiment, I think you would hardly believe me. But though I am unfortunate — nay, gentlemen, criminal, if we are to use harsh expressions in a company like this, — still, I have my feelings like other men. I have heard of a poet, who remarked that feelings were the common lot of all. If he could have been a pig, gentlemen, and have uttered that sentiment, he would still have been immortal.” “If you’re not an idiot,” said Miss Bra.ss, harshly, “hold your peace.” “ Sarah, my dear,” returned her brother, “ thank you. But I know what I am about, my love, and will take the liberty of expressing myself accordingly. Mr. Witherden, sir, your handkerchief is hanging out of your pocket — would you allow me to — ” As Mr. Brass advanced to remedy this accident, the Notary shrunk from him with an air of disgust. Brass, who over and above his usual prepossessing qualities, had a scratched face, a green shade over one eye, and a hat grievously crushed, stopped short, and looked round with a pitiful smile. “He shuns me,” said Sampson, “even when I would, as I may say, heap coals of fire upon his head. Well ! Ah ! But MISS BRASS AT RAY. THE OLD CUBIOSJTY SHOP . 93 I am a falling house, and the rats (if I may be allowed the expression in reference to a gentleman I respect and love be- yond everything) fly from me ! Gentlemen — regarding your conversation just now, I happened to see my sister on her way here, and, wondering where she could be going to, and being — m ay I venture to say? — naturally of a suspicious turn, followed her. Since then, I have been listening .’ 7 “If you’re not mad,” interposed Miss Sally, “stop there, and say no more.” “Sarah, my dear,” rejoined Brass -with undiminished polite- ness, “I thank you kindly, but will still proceed. Mr. Wither- \ den, sir, as we have the honor to be members of the same pro- / fession — to say nothing of that other gentleman having been my lodger, and having partaken, as one may say, of the hospi- tality of my roof — I think you might have given me the refusal of this offer in the first instance. I do indeed. Now, my dear sir,” cried Brass, seeing that the Notary was about to interrupt him, “suffer me to speak, I beg.” Mr. Witherden was silent, and Brass went on. “ If you will do me the favor,” he said, holding up the green shade, and revealing an eye most horribly discolored, “ to look at this, you will naturally inquire, in your own minds, how did I get it. If you look from that, to my face, you will wonder what could have been the cause of all these scratches. And if from them to my hat, how it came into the state in which you see it. Gentlemen,” said Brass, striking the hat fiercely with his clenched hand, “to all these questions I answer — Quilp ! ” ‘ The three gentlemen looked at each other, but said nothing. “ I say,” pursued Brass, glacing aside at his sister, as though he were talking for her information, and speaking with a snarl- ing malignity, in violent contrast to his usual smoothness, “that I answer to all these questions, — Quilp — Quilp, who deludes me into his infernal den, and takes a delight in look- ing on and chuckling while I scorch, and burn, and bruise, and maim myself — Quilp, who never once, no never once, in all our communications together, has treated me otherwise than as a dog — Quilp, whom I have always hated with my whole heart, but never so much as lately. He gives me the cold 94 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. shoulder on this very matter as if he had had nothing to do with it, instead of being the first to propose it. I can’t trust him. In one of his howling, raving, blazing humors, I believe he’d let it out, if it was murder, and never think of himself so long as he could terrify me. Now,” said Brass, picking up his hat again, replacing the shade over his eye, and actually crouching down, in the excess of his servility, “ what does all this lead me to ? — what should you say it led me to, gentle- men ? — could you guess at all near the mark ? ” Nobody spoke. Brass stood smirking for a little while, as if he had propounded some choice conundrum ; and then said : “ To be short with you, then, it leads me to this. If the truth has come out, as it plainly lias in a manner that there’s no standing up against — and a very sublime and grand thing is Truth, gentlemen, in its way, though like other sublime and grand things, such as thunder-storms and that, we’re not always over and above glad to see it — I had better turn upon this man than let this man turn upon me. It’s clear to me that I am done for. Therefore, if anybody is to split, I had better be the person and have the advantage of it. Sarah, my dear, comparatively speaking, you’re safe. I relate these circumstances for my own profit.” With that, Mr. Brass, in a great hurry, revealed the whole story ; bearing as heavily as possible on his amiable employer, and making himself out to be rather a saint-like and holy character, though subject — he acknowledged — to human weaknesses. He concluded thus : “Now, gentlemen, I am not a man who does things by halves. Being in for a penny, I am ready, as the saying is, to be in for a pound. You must do with me what you please, and take me where you please. If you wish to have this in writ- ing, we’ll reduce it into manuscript immediately. You will be tender with me, I am sure. I am quite confident you will be tender with me. You are men of honor, and have feeling hearts. I yielded from necessity to Quilp, for though neces- sity has no law, she has her lawyers. I yield to you from necessity too ; from policy besides ; and because of feelings that have been a pretty long time working within me. Punish Quilp, gentlemen. Weigh heavily upon him. Grind him THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 95 down. Tread him under foot. He has done as much by me, for many and many a day.” Having now arrived at the conclusion of his discourse, Sampson checked the current of his wrath, kissed his glove again, and smiled as only parasites and cowards can. “And this,” said Miss Brass, raising her head, with which she had hitherto sat resting on her hands, and surveying him from head to foot with a bitter sneer, “ this is my brother, is it ! This is my brother, that I have worked and toiled for, and believed to have had something of the man in him ! ” “Sarah, my dear,” returned Sampson, rubbing his hands feebly ; “ you disturb our friends. Besides you — you’re dis- appointed, Sarah, and, not knowing what you say, expose yourself.” “Yes, you pitiful dastard,” retorted the lovely damsel, “I understand you. You feared that I should be beforehand with you. But do you think that I would have been enticed to say a word ! I’d have scorned it, if they had tried and tempted me for twenty years.” “ He, he ! ” simpered Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed to have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her any spark of manliness he might have possessed. “You think so, Sarah, you think so perhaps; but you would have acted quite different, my good fellow. You will not have forgotten that it was a maxim with Foxey — our revered father, gentlemen — ‘ Always suspect everybody.’ That’s the maxim to go through life with ! If you were not actually about to purchase your own safety when I showed myself, I suspect you’d have done it by this time. And there- fore I’ve done it myself, and spared you the trouble as well as the shame. The shame, gentlemen,” added Brass, allowing himself to be slightly overcome, “if there is any, is mine. It’s better that a female should be spared it.” With deference to the better opinion of Mr. Brass, and more particularly to the authority of his Great Ancestor, it may be doubted, with humility, whether the elevating principle laid down by the latter gentleman, and acted upon by his descend- ant, is always a prudent one, or attended in practice with the desired results. This is, beyond question, a bold and pre- ^ 96 THE OLD CURIOSITY SWOP. sumptuous doubt, inasmuch as many distinguished characters, called men of the world, long-headed customers, knowing dogs, shrewd fellows, capital hands at business, and the like, have made, and do daily make, this axiom their polar star and com- pass. Still, the doubt may be gently insinuated. And in illustration it may be observed that if Mr. Brass, not being over-suspicious, had, without prying and listening, left his sis- ter to manage the conference on their joint behalf, or, prying and listening, had not been in such a mighty hurry to antici- pate her (which he would not have been, but for his distrust and jealousy), he would probably have found himself much better off in the end. Thus, it will always happen that these men of the world, who go through it in armor, defend them- selves from quite as much good as evil ; to say nothing of the inconvenience and absurdity of mounting guard with a micro- scope at all times, and of wearing a coat of mail on the most innocent occasions. The three gentlemen spoke together apart, for a few mo- ments. At the end of their consultation, which was very brief, the Notary pointed to the writing materials on the table, and informed Mr. Brass that if he wished to make any statement in writing, he had the opportunity of doing so. At the same time he felt bound to tell him that they would require his attendance, presently, before a justice of the peace, and that in what he did or said, he was guided entirely by his own dis- cretion. “ Gentlemen,” said Brass, drawing . off his gloves, and crawling in spirit upon the ground before them, “I will justify the tenderness with which I know I shall be treated ; and as, without tenderness, I should, now that this discovery has been made, stand in the worst position of the three, you may depend upon it I will make a clean breast. Mr. Wither- den, sir, a kind of faintness is upon my spirits — if you would do me the favor to ring the bell and order up a glass of some- thing warm and spicy, I shall, notwithstanding what has passed, have a melancholy pleasure in drinking your good health. I had hoped,” said Brass, looking round with a mournful smile, “ to have seen you three gentlemen, one day or another, with your legs under the mahogany in my hum- THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 97 bie parlor in tlie Marks. But hopes are fleeting. Dear me ! ” Mr. Brass found himself so exceedingly affected, at this point, that he could say or do nothing more until some refreshment arrived. Having partaken of it, pretty freely for one in his agitated state, he sat down to write. The lovely Sarah, now with her arms folded, and now with her hands clasped behind her, paced the room with many strides, while her brother was thus employed, and sometimes stopped to pull out her snuff-box and bite the lid. She con- tinued to pace up and down until she was quite tired, and then fell asleep on a chair near the door. It has been since supposed, with some reason, that this slumber was a sham or feint, as she contrived to slip away unobserved in the dusk of the afternoon. Whether this was an intentional and waking departure, or a somnambulistic leave-taking and walking in her sleep, may remain a subject of contention; but, on one point (and indeed the main one), all parties are agreed. In whatever state she walked away, she certainly did not walk back again. Mention having been made of the dusk of the afternoon, it will be inferred that Mr. Brass’s task occupied some time in the completion. It was not finished until evening; but, being done at last, that worthy person and the three friends adjourned in a hackney-coach to the private office of a Justice, who, giving Mr. Brass a warm reception and detaining him in a secure place that he might insure to himself the pleasure of seeing him on the morrow, dismissed the others with the cheering assurance that a warrant could not fail to be granted next day for the apprehension of Mr. Quilp, and that a proper application and statement of all the circumstances to the secretary of state (who was fortunately in town), would no doubt procure Kit’s free pardon and liberation without delay. And now, indeed, it seemed that Quilp’s malignant career was drawing to a close, and that retribution, which often travels slowly — especially when heaviest — had tracked his footsteps with a sure and certain scent, and was gaining on him fast. Unmindful of her stealthy tread, her victim holds VOL. II — 7 98 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . his course in fancied triumph. Still at his heels she comes, and once afoot, is never turned aside ! Their business ended, the three gentlemen hastened back to the lodgings of Mr. Swiveller, whom they found progressing so favorably in his recovery as to have been able to sit up for half an hour, and to have conversed with cheerfulness. Mrs. Garland had gone home some time since, but Mr. Abel was still sitting with him. After telling him all they had done, the two Mr. Garlands and the single gentleman, as if by some previous understanding, took their leaves for the night, leav- ing the invalid alone with the Notary and the small servant. “ As you are so much better,” said Mr. Witherden, sitting down at the bedside, “ I may venture to communicate to you a piece of news which has come to me professionally.” The idea of any professional intelligence from a gentleman connected with legal matters, appeared to afford Eichard any- thing but a pleasing anticipation. Perhaps he connected it in his own mind with one or two outstanding accounts, in refer- ence to which he had already received divers threatening let- ters. His countenance fell as he replied, “ Certainly, sir. I hope it ? s not anything of a very dis- agreeable nature, though ? ” “ If I thought it so, I should choose some better time for communicating it,” replied the Notary. “Let me tell you, first, that my friends who have been here to-day know noth- ing of it, and that their kindness to you has been quite spon- taneous and with no hope of return. It may do a thoughtless, careless man, good, to know that.” Dick thanked him, and said he hoped it would. “I have been making some inquiries about you,” said Mr. Witherden, “ little thinking that I should find you under such circumstances as those which have brought us together. You are the nephew of Eebecca Swiveller, spinster, deceased, of Cheselbourne in Dorsetshire.” “ Deceased ! ” cried Dick. “ Deceased. If you had been another sort of nephew, you would have come into possession (so says the will, and I see no reason to* doubt it) of five-and-twenty thousand pounds. As it is, you have fallen into an annuity of one hundred and THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. 99 fifty pounds a year ; but I think I may congratulate you even upon that.” “Sir,” said Dick, sobbing and laughing together, “you may. For, please God, we’ll make a scholar of the poor Marchion- ess, yet ! And she shall walk in silk attire, and siller have to spare, or may I never rise from this bed again ! ” 100 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. CHAPTEB XII. Unconscious of the proceedings faithfully narrated in the last chapter, and little dreaming of the mine which had been sprung beneath him (for, to the end that he should have no warning of the business a-foot, the profoundest secrecy was observed in the whole transaction), Mr. Quilp remained shut up in his hermitage, undisturbed by any suspicion, and ex- tremely well satisfied with the result of his machinations. Being engaged in the adjustment of some accounts — an occu- pation to which the silence and solitude of his retreat were very favorable — he had not strayed from his den for two whole days. The third day of his devotion to this pursuit found him still hard at work, and little disposed to stir abroad. It was the day next after Mr. Brass’s confession, and con- sequently, that which threatened the restriction of Mr. Quilp’s liberty, and the abrupt communication to him of some very unpleasant and unwelcome facts. Having no intuitive per- ception of the cloud which lowered upon his house, the dwarf was in his ordinary state of cheerfulness ; and, when he found he was becoming too much engrossed by business with a due regard to his health and spirits, he varied its monotonous routine with a little screeching, or howling, or some other innocent relaxation of that nature. He was attended, as usual, by Tom Scott, who sat crouching over the fire after the manner of a toad, and, from time to time, when his master’s back was turned, imitated his grim- aces with a fearful exactness. The figure-head had not yet disappeared, but remained in its old place. The face, horribly seared by the frequent application of the red-hot poker, and further ornamented by the insertion, in the tip of the nose, of a tenpenny nail, yet smiled blandly in its less lacerated parts, and seemed, like a sturdy martyr, to provoke its tormentor to the commission of new outrages and insults. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 101 The day, in the highest and brightest quarters of the town, was damp, dark, cold, and gloomy. In that low and marshy spot, the fog filled every nook and corner with a thick, dense cloud. Every object was obscured at one or two yards’ dis- tance. The warning lights and fires upon the river were powerless beneath this pall, and, but for a raw and piercing chillness in the air, and now and then the cry of some bewil- dered boatman as he rested on his oars and tried to make out where he was, the river itself might have been miles away. The mist, though sluggish and slow to move, was of a keenly searching kind. No muffling up in furs and broadcloth kept it out. It seemed to penetrate into the very bones of the shrinking wayfarers, and to rack them with cold and pains. Everything was wet, and clammy to the touch. The warm blaze alone defied it, and leaped and sparkled merrily. It was a day to be at home, crowding about the fire, telling stories of travellers who had lost their way in such weather on heaths and moors ; and to love a warm hearth more than ever. The dwarf’s humor, as we know, was to have a fireside to himself ; and when he was disposed to be convivial, to enjoy himself alone. By no means insensible to the comfort of being within doors, he ordered Tom Scott to pile the little stove with coals, and, dismissing his work for that day, de- termined to be jovial. To this end, he lighted up fresh candles and heaped more fuel on the fire ; and having dined off a beefsteak, which he cooked himself in somewhat of a savage and cannibal-like manner, brewed a great bowl of hot punch, lighted his pipe, and sat down to spend the evening. At this moment, a low knocking at the cabin-door arrested his attention. When it had been twice or thrice repeated, he softly opened the little window, and thrusting his head out, demanded who was there. “ Only me, Quilp,” replied a woman’s voice. “Only you!” cried the dwarf, stretching his neck to obtain a better view of his visitor. “ And what brings you here, you jade? How dare you approach the ogre’s castle, eh ? ” “I have come with some news,” rejoined his spouse. “Don’t be angry with me.” 102 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 66 Is it good news, pleasant news, news to make a man skip and snap his fingers ? ” said the dwarf. “ Is the dear old lady dead ? ” “I don’t know what news it is, or whether it’s good or had,” rejoined his wife. “Then she’s alive,” said Quilp, “and there’s nothing the matter with her. Go home again, you bird of evil note, go home ! ” “ I have brought a letter,” cried the meek little woman. “Toss it in at the window here, and go your ways,” said Quilp, interrupting her, “or I’ll come out and scratch you.” “No, but please, Quilp — do hear me speak,” urged his sub- missive wife, in tears. “ Please do ! ” “ Speak then,” growled the dwarf, with a malicious grin. “ Be quick and short about it. Speak, will you ? ” “ It was left at our house this afternoon,” said Mrs. Quilp, trembling, “ by a boy who said he didn’t know from whom it came, but that it was given to him to leave, and that he was told to say it must be brought on to you directly, for it was of the very greatest consequence. — But please,” she added, as her husband stretched out his hand for it, “please let me in. You don’t know how wet and cold I am, or how many times I have lost my way in coming here through this thick fog. Let me dry myself at the fire for five minutes. I’ll go away directly you tell me to, Quilp. Upon my word I will.” Her amiable husband hesitated for a few moments ; but, bethinking himself that the letter might require some answer, of which she could be the bearer, closed the window, opened the door, and bade her enter. Mrs. Quilp obeyed right willingly, and, kneeling down before the fire to warm her hands, delivered into his, a little packet. “ I’m glad you’re wet,” said Quilp, snatching it, and squint- ing at her. “ I’m glad your cold. I’m glad you’ve lost your way. I’m glad your eyes are red with crying. It does my heart good to see your little nose so pinched and frosty.” “Oh Quilp ! ” sobbed his wife. “How cruel it is of you ! ” “Did she think I was dead !” said Quilp, wrinkling his face into a most extraordinary series of grimaces. “ Did she think THE OLD CUEIOSITV SHOP . 103 she was going to have all the money, and to marry somebody she liked ? Ha ha ha ! Did she ? ” These taunts elicited no reply from the poor little woman, who remained on her knees, warming her hands and sobbing, to Mr. Quilp’s great delight. But, just as he was contemplat- ing her, and chuckling excessively, he happened to observe that Tom Scott was delighted too ; wherefore, that he might have no presumptuous partner in his glee, the dwarf instantly collared him, dragged him to the door, and after a short scuffle, kicked him into the yard. In return for this mark of attention, Tom immediately walked upon his hands to the window, and — if the expression be allowable — looked in with his shoes : besides rattling his feet upon the glass like a Banshee upside down. As a matter of course, Mr. Quilp lost no time in resort- ing to the infallible poker, with which, after some dodging and lying in ambush, he paid his young friend one or two such unequivocal compliments that he vanished precipitately, and left him in quiet possession of the field. “So! That little job being disposed of,” said the dwarf, coolly, “ I’ll read my letter. Humph ! ” he muttered, looking at the direction. “ I ought to know this writing. Beautiful Sally ! ” Opening it, he read, in a fair, round, legal hand, as follows : “ Sammy has been practised upon, and has broken confidence. It has all come out. You had better not be in the way, for strangers are going to call upon you. They have been very quiet as yet, because they mean to surprise you. Don’t lose time. I didn’t. I am not to be found anywhere. If I was you, I wouldn’t be, either. S. B., late of B. M.” To describe the changes that passed over Quilp’s face, as he read this letter half a dozen times, would require some new language : such, for power of expression, as was never written, read, or spoken. For a long time he did not utter one word : but, after a considerable interval, during which Mrs. Quilp was almost paralyzed with the alarm his looks engendered, he con- trived to gasp out, “ — If I had him here. If I only had him here — ” “ Oh Quilp ! ” said his wife, “what’s the matter ? Who are you angry with ? ” 104 THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. “ I should drown him,” said the dwarf, not heeding her. “ Too easy a death, too short, too quick — but the river runs close at hand. Oh ! If I had him here ! Just to take him to the brink, coaxingly and pleasantly, — holding him by the button-hole — joking with him, — and, with a sudden push, to send him splashing down ! Drowning men come to the surface three times they say. Ah ! To see him those three times, and mock him as his face came bobbing up, — oh, what a rich treat that would be ! ” “ Quilp ! ” stammered his wife, venturing at the same time to touch him on the shoulder ; “ what has gone wrong ? ” She was so terrified by the relish with which he pictured this pleasure to himself, that she could scarcely make herself intelligible. “ Such a bloodless cur ! ” said Quilp, rubbing his hands very slowly, and pressing them tight together. “ I thought his cowardice and servility were the best guarantee for his keep- ing silence. Oh Brass, Brass — my dear, good, affectionate, faithful, complimentary, charming friend — if I only had you here ! ” His wife, who had retreated lest she should seem to listen to these mutterings, ventured to approach him again, and was about to speak, when he hurried to the door and called Tom Scott, who, remembering his late gentle admonition, deemed it prudent to appear immediately. “ There ! ” said the dwarf, pulling him in. “ Take her home. Don’t come here to-morrow, for this place will be shut up. Come back no more till you hear from me or see me. Do you mind ? ” Tom nodded sulkily, and beckoned Mrs. Quilp to lead the way. “As for you,” said the dwarf, addressing himself to her, “ ask no questions about me, make no search for me, say noth- ing concerning me. I shall not be dead, mistress, and that’ll comfort you. He’ll take care of you.” “ But, Quilp ? What is the matter ? Where are you going ? Do say something more.” “ I’ll say that,” said the dwarf, seizing her by the arm, “ and THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. 105 * do that too, which undone and unsaid would be best for you, unless you go directly.” “ Has anything happened ? ” cried his wife. “ Oh ! Do tell me that.” “Yes,” snarled the dwarf. “No. What matter which? I have told you what to do. Woe betide you if you fail to do it, or disobey me by a hair’s breadth. Will you go ! ” “ I am going, I’ll go directly ; but,” faltered his wife, “ answer me one question first. Has this letter any connection with dear little Nell ? I must ask you that — I must indeed, Quilp. You cannot think what days and nights of sorrow I have had through having once deceived that child. I don’t know what harm I may have brought about, but, great or little, I did it for you, Quilp. My conscience misgave me when I did it. Do answer me this question, if you please.” The exasperated dwarf returned no answer, but turned round and caught up his usual weapon with such vehemence, that Tom Scott dragged his charge away, by main force, and as swiftly as he could. It was well he did so, for Quilp, who was nearly mad with rage, pursued them to the neighboring lane, and might have prolonged the chase but for the dense mist which obscured them from his view, and appeared to thicken every moment. “It will be a good night for travelling anonymously,” he said, as he returned slowly, being pretty well breathed with his run. “Stay. We may look better here. This is too hospitable and free.” By a great exertion of strength he closed the two old gates, which were deeply sunken in the mud, and barred them with a heavy beam. That done, he shook his matted hair from about his eyes, and tried them. — Strong and fast. “The fence between this wharf and the next is easily climbed,” said the dwarf, when he had taken these precau- tions. “ There’s a back lane, too, from there. That shall be my way out. A man need know his road well, to find it in this lovely place to-night. I need fear no unwelcome visitors while this lasts, I think.” Almost reduced to the necessity of groping his way with his hands (it had grown so dark and the fog had so much • 106 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . increased), he returned to his lair; and, after musing for some time over the fire, busied himself in preparations for a speedy departure. While he was collecting a few necessaries and cramming them into his pockets, he never once ceased communing with himself in a low voice, or unclenched his teeth ; which he had ground together on finishing Miss Brass’s note. “ Oh Sampson ! ” he muttered, “ good, worthy creature — if I could but hug you ! If I could only fold you in my arms, and squeeze your ribs, as I could squeeze them if I once had you tight — what a meeting there would be between us ! If we ever do cross each other again, Sampson, we’ll have a greeting not easily to be forgotten, trust me. This time, Sampson, this moment when all had gone on so well, was so nicely chosen ! It was so thoughtful of yQU, so penitent, so good. Oh, if we were face to face in this room again, my white-livered man of law, how well contented one of us would be ! ” There he stopped ; and raising the bowl of punch to his lips, drank a long, deep draught, as if it were fair water and cooling to his parched mouth. Setting it down abruptly, and resum- ing his preparations, he went on with his soliloquy : “There’s Sally,” he said, with flashing eyes; “the woman has spirit, determination, purpose — was she asleep, or petri- fied ? She could have stabbed him — poisoned him safely. She might have seen this coming on. Why does she give me notice when it’s too late ? When he sat there, — yonder there, over there, — with his white face, and red head, and sickly smile, why didn’t I know what was passing in his heart ? It should have stopped beating, that night, if I had been in his secret, or there are no drugs to lull a man to sleep, and no fire to burn him ! ” Another draught from the bowl ; and, cowering over the fire with a ferocious aspect, he muttered to himself again. “ And this, like every other trouble and anxiety I have had of late times, springs from that old dotard and his darling child — two wretched, feeble wanderers ! I’ll be their evil genius yet. And you, sweet Kit, honest Kit, virtuous, inno- cent Kit, look to yourself. Where I hate, I bite. I hate you, THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 107 my darling fellow, with good cause, and proud as you are to-night, I’ll have my turn. — What’s that ! ” A knocking at the gate he had closed. A loud and violent knocking. Then, a pause; as if those who knocked, had stopped to listen. Then, the noise again, more clamorous and importunate than before. “ So soon ! ” said the dwarf. “ And so eager ! I am afraid I shall disappoint you. It’s well I’m quite prepared. Sally, I thank you ! ” As he spoke, he extinguished the candle. In his impetuous attempts to subdue the brightness of the fire, he overset the stove, which came tumbling forward, and fell with a crash upon the burning embers it had shot forth in its descent, leaving the room in pitchy darkness. The noise at the gate still continuing, he felt his way to the door, and stepped into the open air. At that moment the knocking ceased. It was about eight o’clock ; but the dead of the darkest night would have been as noon-day in comparison with tfie thick cloud which then rested upon the earth, and shrouded everything from view. He darted forward for a few paces, as if into the mouth of some dim, yawning cavern ; then, thinking he had gone wrong, changed the direction of his steps ; then, stood still, not know- ing where to turn. “If they would knock again,” said Quilp, trying to peer into the gloom by which he was surrounded, “the sound might guide me ! Come ! batter the gate once more ! ” He stood listening intently, but the noise was not renewed. Nothing was to be heard in that deserted place, but, at inter- vals, the distant barkings of dogs. The sound was far away — now in one quarter, now answered in another — nor was it any guide, for it often came from shipboard, as he knew. “ If I could find a wall or fence,” said the dwarf, stretching out his arms, and walking slowly on, “I should know which way to turn. A good, black, devil’ s # night this, to have my dear friend here ! If I had but that wish, it might, for any- thing I cared, never be day again.” As the word passed his lips, he staggered and fell — and next moment was fighting with the cold, dark water ! 108 THE OLE CURIOSITY SHOP . For all its bubbling up and rushing in his ears, he could hear the knocking at the gate again — could hear a shout that followed it — could recognize the voice. For all his struggling and plashing, he could understand that they had lost their way, and had wandered back to the point from which they started; that they were all but looking on, while he was drowned; that they were close at hand, but could not make an effort to save him ; that he himself had shut and barred them out. He answered the shout — with a yell, which seemed to make the hundred fires that danced before his eyes, tremble and flicker as if a gush of wind had stirred them. It was of no avail. The strong tide filled his throat, and bore him on, upon its rapid current. Another mortal struggle, and he was up again, beating die water with his hands, and looking out, with wild and glaring eyes that showed him some black object he was drifting close upon. The hull of a ship ! He could touch its smooth and slippery surface with his hand. One loud cry now — but the resistless water bore him down before he could give it utter- ance, and, driving him under, it carried away a corpse. It toyed and sported with its ghastly freight, now bruising it against the slimy piles, now hiding it in mud or long rank grass, now dragging it heavily over rough stones and gravel, now feigning to yield it to its own element, and in the same action luring it away, until, tired of hhe ugly plaything, it flung it on a swamp — a dismal place where pirates had swung in chains, through many a wintry night — and left it there to bleach. And there it lay, alone. The sky was red with flame, and the water that bore it theie had been tinged with the sullen light as it flowed along. The place, the deserted carcass had left so recently, a living man, was now a blazing ruin. There was something of the glare upon its face. The hair, stirred by the damp breeze, played in a kind of mockery of death — such a mockery as the dead man himself would have delighted in when alive — about its head, and its dress fluttered idly in the night wind. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 109 CHAPTER XIII. Lighted rooms, bright fires, cheerful faces, the music of glad voices, words of love and welcome, warm hearts, and tears of happiness — what a change is this ! But it is to such delights that Kit is hastening. They are awaiting him, he knows. He fears he will die of joy, before he gets among them. They have prepared him for this, all day. He is not to be carried off to-morrow with the rest, they tell him first. By degrees they let him know that doubts have arisen, that inquiries are to be made, and perhaps he may be pardoned after all. At last, the evening being come, they bring him to a room where some gentlemen are assembled. Foremost among them is his good old master, who comes and takes him by the hand. He hears that his innocence is established, and that he is pardoned. He cannot see the speaker, but he turns towards the voice, and in trying to answer, falls down in- sensible. They recover him again, and tell him he must be composed, and bear this like a man. Somebody says he must think of his poor mother. It is because he does think of her so much, that the happy news has overpowered him. They crowd about him, and tell him that the truth has gone abroad, and that all the town and country ring with sympathy for his misfortunes. He has no ears for this. His thoughts, as yet, have no wider range than home. Hoes she know it ? what did she say ? who told her ? He can speak of nothing else. They make him drink a little wine, and talk kindly to him for a while, until he is more collected, and can listen, and thank them. He is free to go. Mr. Garland thinks, if he feels better, it is time they went away. The gentlemen cluster round him, and shake hands with him. He feels very grate- 110 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . ful to them for the interest they have in him, and for the kind promises they make ; but the power of speech is gone again, and he has much ado to keep his feet, even though leaning on his master’s arm. As they come through the dismal passages, some officers of the jail who are in waiting there, congratulate him, in their rough way, on his release. The newsmonger is of the number, but his manner is not quite hearty — there is something of surliness in his compliments. He looks upon -Kit as an intruder, as one who has obtained admission to that place on false pretences, who has enjoyed a privilege without being duly qualified. He may be a very good sort of young man, he thinks, but he has no business there, and the sooner he is gone the better. The last door shuts behind them. They have passed the outer wall, and stand in the open air — in the street he has so often pictured to himself when hemmed in by the gloomy stones, and which has been in all his dreams. It seems wider and more busy than it used to be. The night is bad, and yet how cheerful and gay in his eyes ! One of the gentlemen, in taking leave of him, pressed some money into his hand. He has not counted it ; but when they have gone a few paces beyond the box for poor Prisoners, he hastily returns and drops it in. Mr. Garland has a coach waiting in a neighboring street, and, taking Kit inside with him, bids the man drive home. At first, they can only travel at a foot pace, and then with torches going on before, because of the heavy fog. But, as they get farther from the river, and leave the closer portions of the town behind, they are able to dispense with this pre- caution and to proceed at a brisker rate. On the road, hard galloping would be too slow for Kit ; but, when they are drawing near their journey’s end, he begs they may go more slowly, and, when the house appears in sight, that they may stop — only for a minute or two, to give him time to breathe. But there is no stopping then, for the old gentleman speaks stoutly to him, the horses mend their pace, and they are already at the garden-gate. Next minute, they are at the THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. Ill door. There is a noise of tongues, and tread of feet, inside. It opens. Kit rushes in, and finds his mother clinging round his neck. And there, too, is the ever faithful Barbara’s mother, still holding the baby as if she had never put it down since that sad day when they little hoped to have such joy as this — there she is, Heaven bless her, crying her eyes out, and sobbing as never woman sobbed before ; and there is little Barbara — poor little Barbara, so much thinner and so much paler, and yet so very pretty — trembling like a leaf and supporting her- self against the wall ; and there is Mrs. Garland, neater and nicer than ever, fainting away stone dead with nobody to help her; and there is Mr. Abel, violently blowing his nose, and wanting to embrace everybody ; and there is the single gentle- man hovering round them all, and constant to nothing for an instant; and there is that good, dear, thoughtful little Jacob, sitting all alone by himself on the bottom stair, with his hands on his knees like an old man, roaring fearfully without giving any trouble to anybody ; and each and all of them are for the time clean out of their wits, and do jointly and severally commit all manner of follies. And even when the rest have in some measure come to themselves again, and can find words and smiles, Barbara — that soft-hearted, gentle, foolish little Barbara — is suddenly missed, and found to be in a swoon by herself in the back parlor, from which swoon she falls into hysterics, and from which hysterics into a swoon again, and is, indeed, so bad, that despite a mortal quantity of vinegar and cold water she is hardly a bit better at last than she was at first. Then, Kit’s mother comes in and says, will he come and speak to her ; and Kit says “ Yes,” and goes ; and he says in a kind voice “ Barbara ! ” and Barbara’s mother tells her that “ it’s only Kit;” and Barbara says (with her eyes closed all the time) u Oh ! but is it him indeed ? ” and Barbara’s mother says “ To be sure it is, my dear ; there’s nothing the matter now.” And in further assurance that he’s safe and sound, Kit speaks to her again; and then Barbara goes off into another fit of laughter, and then into another fit of crying ; and then Barbara’s mother and Kit’s mother nod to each other 112 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. and pretend to scold her — but only to bring her to herself the faster, bless you! — and being experienced matrons, and acute at perceiving the first dawning symptoms of recovery, they comfort Kit with the assurance that “ she’ll do now,” and so dismiss him to the place from whence he came. Well ! In that place (which is the next room) there are decanters of wine, and all that sort of thing, set out as grand as if Kit and his friends were first rate company ; and there is little Jacob, walking, as the popular phrase is, into a home- made plum-cake, at a most surprising pace, and keeping his eye on the figs and oranges which are to follow, and making the best use of his time, you may believe. Kit no sooner comes in, than that single gentleman (never was such a busy gentleman) charges all the glasses — bumpers — and drinks his health, and tells him he shall never want a friend while he lives ; and so does Mr. Garland, and so does Mrs. Garland, and so does Mr. Abel. But, even this honor and distinction is not all, for the single gentleman forthwith pulls out of his pocket, a massive silver watch — going hard, and right to half a second — and upon the back of this watch is engraved Kit’s name, with flourishes all over ; and in short it is Kit’s watch, bought expressly for him, and presented to him on the spot. You may rest assured that Mr. and Mrs. Garland can’t help hinting about their present in store, and that Mr. Abel tells outright that he has his ; and that Kit is the happiest of the happy. There is one friend he has not seen yet, and as he cannot be conveniently introduced into the family circle, by reason of his being an iron-shod quadruped, Kit takes the first opportu- nity of slipping away and hurrying to the stable. The moment he lays his hand upon the latch, the pony neighs the loudest pony’s greeting ; before he has crossed the threshold, the pony is capering about his loose box (for he brooks not the indignity of a halter), mad to give him welcome ; and when Kit goes up to caress and pat him, the pony rubs his nose against his coat, and fondles him more lovingly than ever pony fondled man. It is the crowning circumstance of his earnest, heartfelt recep- tion ; and Kit fairly puts his arm round Whisker’s neck and hugs him. But how comes Barbara to trip in there ? and how smart WHISKER AND BARBARA. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 113 she is again ! she has been at her glass since she recovered. How comes Barbara in the stable, of all places in the world ? Why, since Kit has been away, the pony would take his food from nobody but her, and Barbara, you see, not dreaming Christopher was there, and just looking in, to see that every- thing was right, has come upon him unawares. Blushing little Barbara ! It may be that Kit has caressed the pony enough ; it may be that there are even better things to caress than ponies. He leaves him for Barbara at any rate, and hopes she is better. Yes. Barbara is a great deal better. She is afraid — and here Barbara looks down and blushes more — that he must have thought her very foolish. “Not at all,” says Kit. Barbara is glad of that, and coughs — Hem ! — just the slightest cough possible — not more than that. What a discreet pony, when he chooses ! He is as quiet now, as if he were of marble. He has a very knowing look, but that he always has. “We have hardly had time to shake hands, Barbara,” says Kit. Barbara gives him hers. Why, she is trembling now ! Foolish, fluttering Barbara ! Arm’s length ? The length of an arm is not much. Barbara’s was not a long arm, by any means, and besides, she didn’t hold it out straight, but bent a little. Kit was so near her when they shook hands, that he could see a small tiny tear, yet trembling on an eyelash. It was natural that he should look at it, unknown to Barbara. It was natural that Barbara should raise her eyes unconsciously, and find him out. Was it natural that at that instant, without any previous impulse or design, Kit should kiss Barbara? He did it, whether or no. Barbara said “ for shame,” but let him do it too — twice. He might have done it thrice, but the pony kicked up his heels and shook his head, as if he were suddenly taken with convulsions of delight, and Barbara being frightened, ran away — not straight to where her mother and Kit’s mother were, though, lest they should see how red her cheeks were, and should ask her why. Sly little Barbara ! When the first transports of the whole party had subsided, and Kit and his mother, and Barbara and her mother, with little Jacob and the baby to boot, had had their suppers VOL. II — 8 114 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . together — which there was no hurrying over, for they were going to stop there all night — Mr. Garland called Kit to him, and taking him into a room where they could be alone, told^ him that he had something yet to say, which would surprise him greatly. Kit looked so anxious and turned so pale on hearing this, that the old gentleman hastened to add, he would be agreeably surprised ; and asked him if he would be ready next morning for a journey. “ For a journey, sir ! ” cried Kit. “ In company with me and my friend in the next room. Can you guess its purpose ? ” Kit turned paler yet, and shook his head. “ Oh yes. I think you do already,” said his master. “ Try.” Kit murmured something rather rambling and unintelligible, but he plainly pronounced the words “ Miss Kell,” three or four times — shaking his head while he did so, as if he would add that there was no hope of that. But Mr. Garland, instead of saying “Try again,” as Kit had made sure he would, told him, very seriously, that he had guessed right. “ The place of their retreat is indeed discovered,” he said, “at last. And that is our journey’s end.” Kit faltered out such questions as, where was it, and how had it been found, and how long since, and was she well, and happy ? “ Happy she is, beyond all doubt,” said Mr. Garland. “ And well, I — I trust she will be soon. She has been weak and ailing, as I learn, but she was better when I heard this morning, and they were full of hope. Sit you down, and you shall hear the rest.” Scarcely venturing to draw his breath, Kit did as he was told. Mr. Garland then related to him, how he had a brother (of whom he would remember to have heard him speak, and whose picture, taken when he was a young man, hung in the best room), and how this brother lived a long way off, in a country-place, with an old clergyman who had been his early friend. How, although they loved each other as brothers should, they had not met for many years, but THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 115 had communicated by letter from time to time, always looking forward to some period when they would take each other by the hand once more, and still letting the Present time steal on, as it was the habit of men to do, and suffering the Future to melt into the Past. How this brother, whose temper was very mild and quiet and retiring — such as Mr. Abel’s — was greatly beloved by the simple people among whom he dwelt, who quite revered the Bachelor (for so they called him), and had every one experienced his charity and benevolence. How, even those slight circumstances had come to his knowledge, very slowly and in course of years, for the Bachelor was one of those whose goodness shuns the light, and who have more pleasure in discovering and extolling the good deeds of others, than in trumpeting their own, be they never so commendable. How, for that reason, he seldom told them of his village friends ; but how, for all that, his mind had become so full of two among them — a child and an old man, to whom he had been very kind — that, in a letter received a few days before, he had dwelt upon them from first to last, and had told such a tale of their wandering, and mutual love, that few could read it without being moved to tears. How he, the recipient of that letter, was directly led to the belief that these must be the very wanderers for whom so much search had been made, and whom Heaven had directed to his brother’s care. How he had written for such further information as would put the fact beyond all doubt ; how it had that morning arrived ; had confirmed his first impression into a certainty ; and was the immediate cause of that journey being planned, which they were to take to- morrow. “ In the meantime,” said the old gentleman, rising and lay- ing his hand on Kit’s shoulder, “ you have great need of rest ; for such a day as this, would wear out the strongest man. Good night and Heaven send our journey may have a pros- perous ending ! ” 116 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. CHAPTER XIY. Kit was no sluggard next morning, but, springing from his bed some time before day, began to prepare for his welcome expedition. The hurry of spirits consequent upon the events of yesterday, and the unexpected intelligence he had heard at night, had troubled his sleep through the long dark hours, and summoned such uneasy dreams about his pillow that it was rest to rise. But had it been the beginning of some great labor with the same end in view — had it been the commencement of a long journey, to be performed on foot in that inclement season of the year, to be pursued under every privation and difficulty, and to be achieved only with great distress, fatigue, and suffer- ing — had it been the dawn of some painful enterprise, certain to task his utmost powers of resolution and endurance, and to need his utmost fortitude, but only likely to end, if happily achieved, in good fortune and delight to Kell — Kit’s cheerful zeal would have been as highly roused : Kit’s ardor and im- patience would have been, at least, the same. Nor was he alone excited and eager. Before he had been up a quarter of an hour the whole house were astir and busy. Everybody hurried to do something towards facilitating the preparations. The single gentleman, it is true, could do nothing himself, but he overlooked everybody else and was more locomotive than anybody. The work of packing and making ready went briskly on, and by daybreak every prep- aration for the journey was completed. Then, Kit began to wish they had not been quite so nimble ; for the travelling- carriage which had been hired for the occasion was not to arrive until nine o’clock, and there was nothing but breakfast to fill up the intervening blank of one hour and a half. Yes there was, though. There was Barbara. Barbara was THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 117 busy, to be sure, but so much the better — Kit could help her, and that would pass away the time better than any means that could be devised. Barbara had no objection to this arrangement, and Kit, tracking out the idea which had come upon him so suddenly overnight, began to think that surely Barbara was fond of him, and surely he was fond of Barbara. Now, Barbara, if the truth must be told — as it must and ought to be — Barbara seemed, of all the little household, to take least pleasure in the bustle of the occasion ; and when Kit, in the openness of his heart, told her how glad and over- joyed it made him, Barbara became more downcast still, and seemed to have even less pleasure in it than before ! “ You have not been home so long, Christopher,” said Bar- bara — and it is impossible to tell how carelessly she said it — “ You have not been home so long, that you need be glad to go away again, I should think.” “But for such a purpose,” returned Kit. “To bring back Miss Kell ! To see her again ! Only think of that ! I am so pleased too, to think that you will see her, Barbara, at last.” Barbara did not absolutely say that she felt no great grati- fication on fhis point, but she expressed the sentiment so plainly by one little toss of her head, that Kit was quite dis- concerted, and wondered, in his simplicity, why she was so cool about it. “You’ll say she has the sweetest and beautifullest face you ever saw, I know,” said Kit, rubbing his hands. “ I’m sure you’ll say that ! ” Barbara tossed her head again. “ What’s the matter, Barbara ? ” said Kit. “Nothing,” cried Barbara. And Barbara pouted — not sulk- ily, or in an ugly manner, but just enough to make her look more cherry-lipped than ever. There is no sclfool in which a pupil gets on so fast, as that in which Kit became a scholar when he gave Barbara the kiss. He saw what Barbara meant now — he had his lesson by heart all at once — she was the book — there it was before him, as plain as print. “ Barbara,” said Kit, “ you’re not cross with me ? ” 118 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. Oh dear no ! Why should Barbara be cross ? And what right had she to be cross ? And what did it matter whether she was cross or no ? Who minded her ! “ Why, I do,” said Kit. “ Of course I do.” Barbara didn’t see why it was of course, at all, Kit was sure she must. W ould she think again ? Certainly, Barbara would think again. No, she didn’t see why it was of course. She didn’t understand what Christopher meant. And besides she was sure they wanted her up stairs by this time, and she must go, indeed — “No, but Barbara,” said Kit, detaining her gently, “let us part friends. I was always thinking of you, in my troubles. I should have been a great deal more miserable than I was, if it hadn’t been for you.” Goodness gracious, how pretty Barbara was when she colored — and when she trembled, like a little shrinking bird ! “ I am telling you the truth, Barbara, upon my word, but not half so strong as I could wish,” said Kit. “ When I want you to be pleased to see Miss Nell, it’s only because I should like you to be pleased with what pleases me — that’s all. As to her, Barbara, I think I could almost die to do her service, but you would think so too, if you knew her as I do. I am sure you would.” Barbara was touched, and sorry to have appeared indifferent. “ I have been used, you see,” said Kit, “ to talk and think of her, almost as if she was an angel. When I look forward to meeting her again, I think of her smiling as she used to do, and being glad to see me, and putting out her hand and saying, ‘It’s my own old Kit,’ or some such words as those — like what she used to say. I think of seeing her happy, and with friends about her, and brought up as she deserves, and as she ought to be. When I think of myself, it’s as her old servant, and one that loved her dearly, as his kind, good, gentle mistress ; and who would have gone — yes, and still would go — through any harm to serve her. Once, I couldn’t help being afraid that if she came back with friends about her she might forget, or be ashamed of having known, a humble lad like me, and so might speak coldly, which would have cut me, Barbara, deeper than I can tell. But when I THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 119 came to think again, I felt sure that I was doing her wrong in this ; and so I went on, as I did at first, hoping to see her once more, just as she used to be. Hoping this, and remem- bering what she was, has made me feel as if I would always try to please her, and always be what I should like to seem to her if I was still her servant. If I ? m the better for that — and I don’t think I’m the worse — I am grateful to her for it, and love and honor her the more. That’s the plain honest truth, dear Barbara, upon my word it is ! ” Little Barbara was not of a wayward or capricious nature, and, being full of remorse, melted into tears. To what more conversation this might have led, we need not stop to inquire ; for the wheels of the carriage were heard at that moment, and, being followed by a smart ring at the garden gate, caused the bustle in the house, which had lain dormant for a short time, to burst again into tenfold life and vigor. Simultaneously with the travelling equipage, arrived Mr. Chuckster in a hackney cab, with certain papers and supplies of money for the single gentleman, into whose hands he delivered them. This duty discharged, he subsided into the bosom of the family ; and, entertaining himself with a stroll- ing or peripatetic breakfast, watched with a genteel indiffer- ence, the process of loading the carriage. “ Snobby’s in this I see, sir ? ” he said to Mr. Abel Gar- land. “ I thought he wasn’t in the last trip because it was expected that his presence wouldn’t be acceptable to the ancient buffalo.” “ To whom, sir,” demanded Mr. Abel. “ To the old gentleman,” returned Mr. Chuckster, slightly abashed. “ Our client prefers to take him now,” said Mr. Abel, drily. “ There is no longer any need for that precaution, as my father’s relationship to a gentleman in whom the objects of his search have full confidence, will be a sufficient guarantee for the friendly nature of their errand.” “ Ah ! ” thought Mr. Chuckster, looking out of window, “ anybody but me ! Snobby before me, of course. He didn’t happen to take that particular five-pound note, but I have not the smallest doubt that he’s always up to something of 120 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. that sort. I always said it, long before this came out. Devilish pretty girl that ! Ton my soul, an amazing little creature ! ” Barbara was the subject of Mr. Chuckster’ s commendations ; and as she was lingering near the carriage (all being now ready for its departure), that gentleman was suddenly seized with a strong interest in the proceedings, which impelled him to swagger down the garden, and take up his position at a convenient ogling distance. Having had great experience of the sex, and being perfectly acquainted with all those little artifices which find the readiest road to their hearts, Mr. Chuckster, on taking his ground, planted one hand on his hip, and with the other adjusted his flowing hair. This is a favorite attitude in the polite circles, and, accompanied with a graceful whistling, has been known to do immense execution. Such, however, is the difference between town and country, that nobody took the smallest notice of this insinuating figure ; the wretches being wholly engaged in bidding the travellers farewell, in kissing hands to each other, waving handkerchiefs, and the like tame and vulgar practices. Bor, now, the single gentleman and Mr. Garland were in the carriage, and the post- boy was in the saddle, and Kit, well wrapped and muffled up, was in the rumble behind ; and Mrs. Garland was there, and Mr. Abel was there, and Kit’s mother was there, and little Jacob was there, and Barbara’s mother was visible in remote perspective, nursing the ever-wakeful baby ; and all were nodding, beckoning, courtesying, or crying out “ Good by ! ” with all the energy they could express. In another minute, the carriage was out of sight; and Mr. Chuckster remained alone on the spot where it had lately been, with a vision of Kit standing up in the rumble waving his hand to Barbara, and of Barbara in the full light and lustre of his eyes — his eyes — Chuckster’s — Chuckster the successful — on whom ladies of quality had looked with favor from phaetons in the parks on Sundays — waving hers to Kit ! How Mr. Chuckster, entranced by this monstrous fact, stood for some time rooted to the earth, protesting within himself that Kit was the Prince of felonious characters, and very Emperor or Great Mogul of Snobs, and how he clearly traced SETTING OUT ON THE SEARCH THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 121 this revolting circumstance back to that old villany of the shilling, are matters foreign to our purpose ; which is to track the rolling wheels, and bear the travellers company on their cold, bleak journey. It was a bitter day. A keen wind was blowing, and rushed against them fiercely : bleaching the hard ground, shaking the white frost from the trees and hedges, and whirling it away like dust. But, little cared Kit for weather. There was a freedom and freshness in the wind, as it came howling by, which, let it cut never so sharp, was welcome. As it swept on with its cloud of frost, bearing down the dry twigs and boughs and withered leaves, and carrying them away pell-mell, it seemed as though some general sympathy had got abroad, and everything was in a hurry, like themselves. The harder the gusts, the better progress they appeared, to make. It was a good thing to go struggling and lighting forward, vanquishing them one by one ; to watch them driving up, gathering strength and fury as they came along ; to bend for ' a moment, as they whistled past ; and then, to look back and see them speed away, their hoarse noise dying in the distance, and the stout trees cowering down before them. All day long, it blew without cessation. The night was clear and starlight, but the wind had not fallen, and the cold was piercing. Sometimes — towards the end of a long stage — Kit could not help wishing it were a little warmer : but when they stopped to change horses, and he had had a good run, and what w r ith that, and the bustle of paying the old postilion, and rousing the new one, and running to and fro again until the horses were put to, he was so warm that the blood tingled and smarted in his fingers’ ends — then, he felt as if to have it one degree less cold would be to lose half the delight and glory of the journey : and up he jumped again, right cheerily, singing to the merry music of the wheels as they rolled away, and, leaving the townspeople in their warm beds, pursued their course along the lonely road. Meantime the two gentlemen inside, who were little dis- posed to sleep, beguiled the time with conversation. As both were anxious and expectant, it naturally turned upon the subject of their expedition, on the manner in which it had 122 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. been brought about, and on the hopes and fears they enter- tained respecting it. Of the former they had many, of the latter few — none perhaps beyond that indefinable uneasi- ness which is inseparable from suddenly awakened hope, and protracted expectation. In one of the pauses of their discourse, and when half the night had worn away, the single gentleman, who had gradually become more and more silent and thoughtful, turned to his companion and said abruptly : “ Are you a good listener ? ” “Like most other men, I suppose,” returned Mr. Garland, smiling. “ I can be, if I am interested ; and if not interested, I should still try to appear so. Why do you ask ? ” “ I have a short narrative on my lips,” rejoined his friend, “ and will try you with it. It is very brief.” Pausing for no reply, he laid his hand on the old gentleman’s sleeve, and proceeded thus : “ There were once two brothers, who loved each other dearly. There was a disparity in their ages — some twelve years. I am not sure but they may insensibly have loved each other the better for that reason. Wide as the interval between them was, however, they became rivals too soon. The deepest and strongest affection of both their hearts settled upon one object. “ The youngest — there w'ere reasons for Jus being sensitive and watchful — was the first to find this out. I will not tell you what misery he underwent, what agony of soul he knew, how great his mental struggle was. He had been a sickly child. His brother, patient and considerate in the midst of his own high health and strength, had many and many a day denied himself the sports he loved, to sit beside his couch, telling him old stories till his pale face lighted up with an unwonted glow ; to carry him in his arms to some green spot, where he could tend the poor, pensive boy as he looked upon the bright summer day, and saw all nature healthy but him- self ; to be, in any way, his fond and faithful nurse. I may not dwell on all he did, to make the poor, weak creature love him, or my tale would have no end. But when the time of trial came, the younger brother’s heart was full of those old THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP . 123 days. Heaven strengthened it to repay the sacrifices of incon- siderate youth by one of thoughtful manhood. He left his brother to be happy. The truth never passed his lips, and he quitted the country, hoping to die abroad. “ The elder brother married her. She was in heaven before long, and left him with an infant daughter. “ If you have seen the picture-gallery of any one old family, you will remember how the same face and figure — often the fairest and slightest of them all — come upon you in different generations ; and how you trace the same sweet girl through a long line of portraits — never growing old or changing — the Good Angel of the race — abiding by them in all reverses — redeeming all their sins — “ In this daughter, the mother lived again. You may judge with what devotion he who lost that mother almost in the winning, clung to this girl, her breathing image. She grew to womanhood, and gave her heart to one who could not know its worth. Well ! Her fond father could not see her pine and droop. He might be more deserving than he thought him. He surely might become so, with a wife like her. He joined their hands, and they were married. “ Through all the misery that followed this union ; through all the cold neglect and undeserved reproach ; through all the poverty he brought upon her; through all the struggles of their daily life, too mean and pitiful to tell, but dreadful to endure ; she toiled on, in the deep devotion of her spirit, and in her better nature, as only women can. Her means and substance wasted; her father nearly beggared by her hus- band’s hand, and the hourly witness (for they lived now under one roof) of her ill-usage and unhappiness, — she never, but for him, bewailed her fate. Patient, and upheld by strong affection to the last, she died a widow of some three weeks’ date, leaving to her father’s care two orphans ; one a son of ten or twelve years old; the other a girl — such another infant child — the same in helplessness, in age, in form, in feature — as she had been herself when her young mother died. “ The elder brother, grandfather to these two children, was now a broken man ; crushed and borne down, less by the weight of years than by the heavy hand of sorrow. With 124 THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP . the wreck of his possessions, he began to trade — in pictures first, and then in curious ancient things. He had entertained a fondness for such matters from a boy, and the tastes he had cultivated were now to yield him an anxious and precarious subsistence. “ The boy grew like his father in mind and person ; the girl so like her mother, that when the old man had her on his knee, and looked into her mild blue eyes, he felt as if awakening from a wretched dream, and his daughter were a little child again. The wayward boy soon spurned the shelter of his roof, and sought associates more congenial to his taste. The old man and the child dwelt alone together. “ It was then, when the love of two dead people who had been nearest and dearest to his heart, was all transferred to this slight creature ; when her face, constantly before him, reminded him, from hour to hour, of the too early change he had seen in such another — of all the sufferings he had watched and known, and all his child had undergone ; when the young man’s profligate and hardened course drained him of money as his father’s had, and even sometimes occasioned them temporary privation and distress ; it was then that there began to beset him, and to be ever in his mind, a gloomy dread of poverty and want. He had no thought for himself in this. His fear was for the child. It was a spectre in his house, and haunted him night and day. “ The younger brother had been a traveller in many coun- tries, and had made his pilgrimage through life alone. His voluntary banishment had been misconstrued, and he had borne (not without pain) reproach and slight, for doing that which had wrung his heart, and cast a mournful shadow on his path. Apart from this, communication between him and the elder was difficult, and uncertain, and often failed; still, it was not so wholly broken off but that he learnt — with long blanks and gaps between each interval of information — all that I have told you now. “Then, dreams of their young, happy life — happy to him though laden with pain and early care — visited his pillow yet oftener than before ; and every night, a boy again, he was at his brother’s side. With the utmost speed he could exert, he THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 125 settled his affairs ; converted into money all the goods he had, and, with honorable wealth enough for both, with open heart and hand, with limbs that trembled as they bore him on, with emotion such as men can hardly bear and live, arrived one evening at his brother’s door ! ” The narrator, whose voice had faltered lately, stopped. “The rest,” said Mr. Garland, pressing his hand after a pause, “I know.” “Yes,” rejoined his friend, “we may spare ourselves the sequel. You know the poor result of all my search. Even when, by dint of such inquiries as the utmost vigilance and sagacity could set on foot, we found they had been seen with two poor travelling showmen — and in time discovered the men themselves — and in time, the actual place of their retreat ; even then, we were too late. Pray God we are not too late again ! ” “We cannot be,” said Mr. Garland. “This time we must succeed.” “ I have believed and hoped so,” returned the other. “ I try to believe and hope so still. But a heavy weight has fallen on my spirits, my good friend, and the sadness that gathers over me, will yield to neither hope nor reason.” “ That does not surprise me,” said Mr. Garland ; “ it is a natural consequence of the events you have recalled ; of this dreary time and place ; and above all, of this wild and dismal night. A dismal night, indeed ! Hark ! how the wind is howling ! ” 126 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. CHAPTER XV. Day broke, and found them still upon their way. Since leaving home, they had halted here and there for necessary refreshment, and had frequently been delayed, especially in the night time, by waiting for fresh horses. They had made no other stoppages, but the weather continued rough and the roads were often steep and heavy. It would be night again before they reached their place of destination. Kit, all bluff and hardened with the cold, went on man- fully ; and, having enough to do to keep his blood circulating, to picture to himself the happy end of this adventurous journey, and to look about him and be amazed at everything, had little spare time for thinking of discomforts. Though his impatience, and that of his fellow-travellers, rapidly increased as the day waned, the hours did not stand still. The short daylight of winter soon faded away, and it was dark again when they had yet many miles to travel. As it grew dusk the wind fell ; its distant moanings were more low and mournful ; and, as it came creeping up the road, and rattling covertly among the dry brambles on either hand, it seemed like some great phantom for whom the way was narrow, whose garments rustled as it stalked along. By degrees it lulled and died away, and then it came on to snow. The flakes fell fast and thick, soon covering the ground some inches deep, and spreading abroad a solemn stillness. The rolling wheels were noiseless, and the sharp ring and clatter of the horses’ hoofs, became a dull, muffled tramp. The life of their progress seemed to be slowly hushed, and something death-like to usurp its place. Shading his eyes from the falling snow, which froze upon their lashes, and obscured his sight, Kit often tried to catch the earliest glimpse of twinkling lights denoting their THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 127 approach to some not distant town. He could descry objects enough at such times, but none correctly. Now, a tall church spire appeared in view, which presently became a tree, a barn, a shadow on the ground, thrown on it by their own bright lamps. Now, there were horsemen, foot-passengers, carriages going on before, or meeting them in narrow ways ; which, when they were close upon them, turned to shadows too. A wall, a ruin, a sturdy gable end, would rise up in the road ; and, when they were plunging headlong at it, would be the road itself. Strange turnings too, bridges, and sheets of water, appeared to start up here and there, making the way doubtful and un- certain ; and yet they were on the same bare road, and these things, like the others, as they were passed, turned into dim illusions. He descended slowly from his seat — for his limbs were numbed — when they arrived at a lone posting-house, and in- quired how far they had to go to reach their journey’s end. It was a late hour in such by-places, and the people were abed; but a voice answered from an upper window, Ten miles. The ten minutes that ensued appeared an hour; but at the end of that time, a shivering figure led out the horses they required, and after another brief delay they were again in motion. It was a cross-country road, full, after the first three or four miles, of holes and cart-ruts, which, being covered by the snow, were so many pitfalls to the trembling horses, and obliged them to keep a footpace. As it was next to impossible for men so much agitated as they were by this time, to sit still and move so slowly, all three got out and plodded on behind the car- riage. The distance seemed interminable, and the walk was most laborious. As each was thinking within himself that the driver must have lost his way, a church bell, close at hand, struck the hour of midnight, and the carriage stopped. It had moved softly enough, but when it ceased to crunch the snow, the silence was as startling as if some great noise had been replaced by perfect stillness. “This is the place, gentlemen,” said the driver, dismount- ing from his horse, and knocking at the door of a little- inn. “Halloa ! Past twelve o’clock is the dead of night here.” The knocking was loud and long, but it failed to rouse the 128 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . drowsy inmates. All continued dark and silent as before. They fell back a little, and looked up at the windows, which were mere black patches in the whitened house front. No light appeared. The house might have been deserted, or the sleepers dead, for any air of life it had about it. They spoke together with a strange inconsistency, in whis- pers ; unwilling to disturb again the dreary echoes they had just now raised. “Let us go on,” said the younger brother, “and leave this good fellow to wake them, if he can. I cannot rest until I know that we are not too late. Let us go on, in the name of Heaven !” They did so, leaving the postilion to order such accommo- dation as the house afforded, and to renew his knocking. Kit accompanied them with a little bundle, which he had hung in the carriage when they left home, and had not forgotten since — the bird in his old cage — just as she had left him. She would be glad to see her bird, he knew. The road wound gently downward. As they proceeded, they lost sight of the church whose clock they had heard, and of the small village clustering round it. The knocking, which was now renewed, and which in that stillness they could plainly hear, troubled them. They wished the man would forbear, or that they had told him not to break the silence until they returned. The old church tower, clad in a ghostly garb of pure cold white again rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close beside it. A venerable building — gray, even in the midst of the hoary landscape. An ancient sun-dial on the belfry wall was nearly hidden by the snow-drift, and scarcely to be known for what it was. Time itself seemed to have grown dull and old, as if no day were ever to displace the melancholy night. A wicket gate was close at hand, but there was more than one path across the churchyard to which it led, and, uncertain which to take, they came to a stand again. The village street — if street that could be called which was an irregular cluster of poor cottages of many heights and ages, some with their fronts, some with their backs, and some with TEH OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 129 gable ends towards the road, with here and there a sign- post, or a shed encroaching on the path — was close at hand. There was a faint light in a chamber window not far off, and Kit ran towards that house to ask their way. His first shout was answered by an old man within, who presently appeared at the casement, wrapping some garment round his throat as a protection from the cold, and demanded who was abroad at that unseasonable hour wanting him. “’Tis hard weather this,” he grumbled, “and not a night to call me up in. My trade is not of that kind that I need be roused from bed. The business on which folks want me, will keep cold, especially at this season. What do you want ? ” “I would not have roused you, if I had known you were old and ill,” said Kit. “ Old ! ” repeated the other, peevishly. “ How do you know I am old ? Kot so old as you think, friend, perhaps. As to being ill, you will find many young people in worse case than I am. More’s the pity that it should be so — not that I should be strong and hearty for my years, I mean, but that they should be weak and tender. I ask your pardon though,” said the old man, “ if I spoke rather rough at first. My eyes are not good at night — that’s neither age nor illness; they never were — and I didn’t see you were a stranger.” “I am sorry to call you from your bed,” said Kit, “but those gentlemen you may see by the churchyard gate, are strangers too, who have just arrived from a long journey, and seek the parsonage-house. You can direct us ? ” “ I should be able to,” answered the old man, in a trembling voice, “for, come next summer, I have been sexton here, good fifty years. The right-hand path, friend, is the road. — - There is no ill news for our good gentleman, I hope ? ” Kit thanked him, and made him a hasty answer in the negative ; he was turning back, when his attention was caught by the voice of a child. Looking up he saw a very little creature at a neighboring window. “ What is that ? ” cried the child, earnestly. “ Has my dream come true ? Pray speak to me, whoever that is, awake and up.” VOL. II — 9 130 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. “ Poor boy ! 55 said the sexton, before Kit could answer, “ how goes it, darling ? 55 “ Has my dream come true ? 55 exclaimed the child again, in a voice so fervent that it might have thrilled to the heart of any listener. “ But no, that can never be ! How could it be — Oh ! how could it ! 55 “ I guess his meaning / 5 said the sexton. “ To bed again, poor boy ! 55 “Ay ! 55 cried the child, in a burst of despair. “I knew it could never be, I felt too sure of that, before I asked ! But, all to-night, and last night too, it was the same. I never fall asleep but that cruel dream comes back . 55 “Try to sleep again , 55 said the old man, soothingly. “It will go, in time . 55 “Ko no, I would rather that it stayed — cruel as it is, I would rather that it stayed , 55 rejoined the child. “I am not afraid to have it in my sleep, but I am so sad — so very, very sad . 55 The old man blessed him, the child in tears replied Good night, and Kit was again alone. He hurried back, moved by what he had heard, though more by the child’s manner than by anything he had said, as his meaning was hidden from him. They took the path indicated by the sexton, and soon arrived before the parsonage wall. Turning round to look about them when they had got thus far, they saw, among some ruined buildings at a distance, one single, solitary light. It shone from what appeared to be an old oriel window, and being surrounded by the deep shadows of overhanging walls, sparkled like a star. Bright and glimmering as the stars above their heads, lonely and motionless as they, it seemed to claim some kindred with the eternal lamps of Heaven, and to burn in fellowship with them. “ What light is that ! 55 said the younger brother. “ It is surely , 55 said Mr. Garland, “ in the ruin where they live. I see no other ruin hereabouts . 55 “They cannot , 55 returned the brother, hastily, “be waking at this late hour — 55 Kit interposed directly, and begged that, while they rang HER BIRD, THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 131 and waited at the gate, they would let him make his way to where this light was shining, and try to ascertain if any people were about. Obtaining the permission he desired, he darted off with breathless eagerness, and, still carrying the bird-cage in his hand, made straight towards the spot. It was not easy to hold that pace among the graves, and at another time he might have gone more slowly, or round by the path. Unmindful of all obstacles, however, he pressed forward without slackening his speed, and soon arrived within a few yards of the window. He approached as softly as he could, and advancing so near the wall as to brush the whitened ivy with his dress, listened. There was no sound inside. The church itself was not more quiet. Touching the glass with his cheek, he listened again. Ho. And yet there was such a silence all around that he felt sure he could have heard even the breathing of a sleeper, if . there had been one there. A strange circumstance, — a light in such a place at that time of night, with no one near it. A curtain was drawn across the lower portion of the window, and he could not see into the room. But there was no shadow thrown upon it from within. To have gained a footing on the wall and tried to look in from above, would have been attended with some danger — certainly with some noise, and the chance of terrifying the child, if that really were her habitation. Again and again he listened ; again and again the same wearisome blank. Leaving the spot with slow and cautious steps, and skirting the ruin for a few paces, he came at length to a door. He knocked. Ho answer. But there was a curious noise inside. It was difficult to determine what it was. It bore a resem- blance to the low moaning of one in pain, but it was not that, being far too regular and constant. How it seemed a kind of song, now a wail — seemed, that is, to his changing fancy, for the sound itself was never changed or checked. It was unlike anything he had ever heard ; and in its tone there was some- thing fearful, chilling, and unearthly. The listener’s blood ran colder now, than ever it had done in frost and snow, but he knocked again. There was no 132 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. answer, and the sound went on without any interruption. He laid his hand softly upon the latch, and put his knee against the door. It was secured on the inside, but yielded to the pressure, and turned upon its hinges. He saw the glimmering of a fire upon the old walls, and entered. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 133 CHAPTEK XVI. The dull, red glow of a wood fire — for no lamp or candle burnt within the room — showed him a figure, seated on the hearth with its back towards him, bending over the fitful light. The attitude was that of one who sought the heat. It was, and yet was not. The stooping posture and the cowering form were there, but no hands were stretched out to meet the grateful warmth, no shrug or shiver compared its luxury with the piercing cold outside. With limbs huddled together, head bowed down, arms crossed upon the breast, and fingers tightly clenched, it rocked to and fro upon its seat without a moment’s pause, accompanying the action with the mournful sound he had heard. The heavy door had closed behind him on his entrance, with a crash that made him start. The figure neither spoke, nor turned to look, nor gave in any other way the faintest sign of having heard the noise: The form was that of an old man, his white head akin in color to the mouldering embers upon which he gazed. He, and the failing light and dying fire, the time-worn room, the solitude, the wasted life, and gloom, were all in fellowship. Ashes, and dust, and ruin ! Kit tried to speak, and did pronounce some words, though what they were he scarcely knew. Still the same terrible low cry went on — still the same rocking in the chair — the same stricken figure was there, unchanged and heedless of his presence. He had his hand upon the latch, when something in the form — distinctly seen as one log broke and fell, and, as it fell, blazed up — arrested it. He returned to where he had stood before — advanced a pace — another — another still. Another, and he saw the face. Yes ! Changed as it was, he knew it well. 134 TIIP OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. “ Master ! ” he cried, stooping on one knee and catching at his hand. “ Dear master. Speak to me ! ” The old man turned slowly towards him ; and muttered in a hollow voice, “ This is another ! — How many of these spirits there have been to-night ! ” “No spirit, master. No one but your old servant. You know me now, I am sure ? Niss Nell — where is she — where is she ! ” “ They all say that ! ” cried the old man. “ They all ask the same question. A spirit ! ” “ Where is she ? ” demanded Kit. “ Oh tell me but that — but that, dear master ! ” “ She is asleep — yonder — in there.” “ Thank God!” “ Aye ! Thank God ! ” returned the old man. “ I have prayed to Him, many, and many, and many a livelong night, when she has been asleep, He knows. Hark! Did she call?” “ I heard no voice.” “You did. You hear her now. Do you tell me that you don’t hear that ?” He started up, and listened again. “Nor that ? ” he cried, with a triumphant smile. “ Can any body know that voice so well as I ! Hush ! hush ! ” Motioning to him to be silent, he stole away into another chamber. After a short absence (during which he could be heard to speak in a softened, soothing tone) he returned, bear- ing in his hand a lamp. “She is still asleep,” he whispered. “You were right. She did not call — unless she did so in her slumber. She has called to me in her sleep before now, sir ; as I have sat by, watching, I have seen her lips move, and have known, though no sound came from them, that she spoke of me. I feared the light might dazzle her eyes and wake her, so I brought it here.” He spoke rather to himself than to the visitor, but when he had put the lamp upon the table, he took it up, as if impelled by some momentary recollection or curiosity, and held it near THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 135 his face. Then, as if forgetting his motive in the very action, he turned away and put it down again. “She is sleeping soundly / 5 he said; “but no wonder. Angel hands have strewn the ground deep with snow, that the lightest footstep may be lighter yet ; and the very birds are dead, that they may not wake her. She used to feed them, sir. Though never so cold and hungry, the timid things would fly from us. They never flew from her ! 55 Again he stopped to listen, and scarcely drawing breath, listened for a long, long time. That fancy past, he opened an old chest, took out some clothes as fondly as if they had been living things, and began to smooth and brush them with his hand. “ Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Kell / 5 he murmured, “ when there are bright red berries out of doors waiting for thee to pluck them ! Why dost thou lie so idle there, when thy little friends come creeping to the door, crying ‘ where is Kell — sweet Kell ? 5 — and sob, and weep, because they do not see thee. She was always gentle with children. The wildest would do her bidding — she had a tender way with them, indeed she had ! 55 Kit had no power to speak. His eyes were filled with tears. “ Her little homely dress, — her favorite ! 55 cried the old man, pressing it to his breast, and patting it with his shriv- elled hand. “ She will miss it when she wakes. They have hid it here in sport, but she shall have it — she shall have it. I would not vex my darling, for the wide world’s riches. See here — these shoes — how worn they are — she kept them to remind her of our last long journey. You see where the little feet went bare upon the ground. They told me, afterwards, that the stones had cut and bruised them. She never told me that. Ko, no, God bless her ! and, I have remembered since, she walked behind me, sir, that I might not see how lame she was — but yet she had my hand in hers, and seemed to lead me still . 55 ' He pressed them to his lips, and having carefully put them back again, went on communing with himself — looking wist- 136 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . fully from time to time towards the chamber he had lately visited. “ She was not wont to be a lie-abed ; but she was well then. We must have patience. When she is well again, she will rise early, as she used to do, and ramble abroad in the healthy morning time. I often tried to track the way she. had gone, but her small footstep left no print upon the dewy ground, to guide me. Who is that ? Shut the door. Quick ! — Have we not enough to do to drive away that marble cold, and keep her warm ! ” The door was indeed opened, for the entrance of Mr. Gar- land and his friend, accompanied by two other persons. These were the schoolmaster, and the bachelor. The former held a light in his hand. He had, it seemed, but gone to his own cottage to replenish the exhausted lamp, at the moment when Kit came up and found the old man alone. He softened again at sight of these two friends, and, lay- ing aside the angry manner — if to anything so feeble and so sad the term can be applied — in which he had spoken when the door opened, resumed his former seat, and subsided, by little and little, into the old action, and the old, dull, wan- dering sound. Of the strangers, he took no heed whatever. He had seen them, but appeared quite incapable of interest or curiosity. The younger brother stood apart. The bachelor drew a chair towards the old man, and sat down close beside him. After a long silence, he ventured to speak. “ Another night, and not in bed ! ” he said, softly ; “ I hoped you would be more mindful of your promise to me. Why do you not take some rest ? ” “ Sleep has left me,” returned the old man. “ It is all with her ! ” “It would pain her very much to know that you were watching thus,” said the bachelor. “You would not give her pain ? ” “ I am not so sure of that, if it would only rouse her. She has slept so very long. And yet I am rash to say so. It is a good and happy sleep — eh ? ” THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 187 “ Indeed it is,” returned the bachelor. “ Indeed, indeed, it is ! ” “That’s well ! — and the waking” — faltered the old man. “Happy too. Happier than tongue can tell, or heart of man conceive.” They watched him as he rose and stole on tiptoe to the other chamber where the lamp had been replaced. They listened as he spoke again within its silent walls. They looked into the faces of each other, and no man’s cheek was free from tears. He came back, whispering that she was still asleep, but that he thought she had moved. It was her hand, he said — a little — a very, very little — but he was pretty sure she had moved it — perhaps in seeking his. He had known her to do that, before now, though in the deepest sleep the while. And when he had said this, he dropped into his chair again, and clasping his hands above his head, uttered a cry never to be forgotten. The poor schoolmaster motioned to the bachelor that he would come on the other side, and speak to him. They gently unlocked his fingers, which he had twisted in his gray hair, and pressed them in their own. “ He will hear me,” said the schoolmaster, “ I am sure. He will hear either me or you if we beseech him. She would, at all times.” “I will hear any voice she liked to hear,” cried the old man. “ I love all she loved ! ” “ I know you do,” returned the schoolmaster. “ I am cer- tain of it. Think of her ; think of all the sorrows and afflic- tions you have shared together ; of all the trials, and all the peaceful pleasures, you have jointly known.” “ I do. I do. I think of nothing else.” “I would have you think of nothing else to-night — of nothing but those things which will soften your heart, dear friend, and open it to old affections and old times. It is so that she would speak to you herself, and in her name it is that I speak now.” “You do well to speak softly,” said the old man. “We will not wake her. I should be glad to see her eyes again, and to see her smile. There is a smile upon her young face 138 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. now, but it is fixed and changeless. I would have it come and go. That shall be in Heaven’s good time. We will not wake her.” “ Let us not talk of her in her sleep, but as she used to be when you were journeying together, far away — as she was at home, in the old house from which you fled together — as she was, in the old cheerful time,” said the schoolmaster. “She was always cheerful — very cheerful,” cried the old man, looking steadfastly at him. “ There was ever something mild and quiet about her, I remember, from the first ; but she was of a happy nature.” “We have heard you say,” pursued the schoolmaster, “that in this, and in all goodness, she was like her mother. You can think of, and remember her ? ” He maintained his steadfast look, but gave no answer. “ Or even one before her,” said the bachelor. “ It is many years ago, and affliction makes the time longer, but you have not forgotten her whose death contributed to make this child so dear to you, even before you knew her worth or could read her heart ? Say, that you could carry back your thoughts to very distant days — to the time of your early life — when, un- like this fair flower, you did not pass your youth alone. Say, that you could remember, long ago, another child who loved you dearly, you being but a child yourself. Say, that you had a brother, long forgotten, long unseen, long separated from you, who now, at last, in your utmost need came back to com- fort and console you ” — “To be to you what you were once to him,” cried the younger, falling on his knee before him ; “ to repay your old affection, brother dear, by constant care, solicitude, and love ; to be, at your right hand, what he has never ceased to be when oceans rolled between us ; to call to witness his un- changing truth and mindfulness of by-gone days, whole years of desolation. Give me but one word of recognition, brother — and never — no never, in the brightest moment of our youngest days, when, poor silly boys, we thought to pass our lives together — have we been half as dear and precious to each other as we shall be from this time hence ! ” THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 139 The old man looked from face to face, and his lips moved ; but no sound came from them in reply. “If we were knit together then,” pursued the younger brother, “ what will be the bond between us now ! Our love and fellowship began in childhood, when life was all before us, and will be resumed when we have proved it, and are but children at the last. As many restless spirits, who have hunted fortune, fame, or pleasure through the world, retire in their decline to where they first drew breath, vainly seeking to be children once again before they die, so we, less fortunate than they in early life, but happier in its closing scenes, will set up our rest again among our boyish haunts, and going home with no hope realized, that had its growth in manhood — carrying back nothing that we brought away, but our old yearnings to each other — saving no fragment from the wreck of life, but that which first endeared it — may be, indeed, but children as at first. And even,” he added in an altered voice, “ even if what I dread to name has come to pass — even if that be so, or is to be (which Heaven forbid and spare us !) — still, dear brother, we are not apart, and have that comfort in our great affliction.” By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the inner chamber, while these words were spoken. He pointed there, as he replied, with trembling lips, “You plot among you to wean my heart from her. You never will do that — never while I have life. I have no rela- tive or friend but her — I never had — I never will have. She is all in all to me. It is too late to part us now.” Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he went, he stole into the room. They who were left behind, drew close together, and after a few whispered words — not unbroken by emotion, or easily uttered — followed him. They moved so gently, that their footsteps made no noise ; but there were sobs from among the group, and sounds of grief and mourning. ■ — ^ For she was dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest. The solemn stillness was no marvel now. She was dead. Ho sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature 140 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life ; not one who had lived and suffered death. Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. “ When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always. ” Those, were her words. She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell, was dead. Her little bird — a poor, slight thing the pressure of a finger would have .crushed — was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless for ever. Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues ? All gone. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness were born ; imaged in her tran- quil beauty and profound repose. And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. Yes. The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face ; it had passed, like a dream, through haunts of misery and care : at the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire upon the cold wet night, at the still bedside of the dying boy, there had been the same mild, lovely look. So shall we know the angels in their majesty, after death. The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand tight folded to his breast, for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched out to him with her last smile — the hand that had led him on, through all their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips ; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now ; and, as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those who stood around, as if implor- ing them to help her. She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient rooms she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning fast — the garden she had tended — the eyes she had gladdened — the noiseless haunts of many a thoughtful hour — the paths she had trodden as it were but yesterday — could know her never more. “ It is not,” said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss AT REST THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 141 her on the cheek, and gave his tears free vent, “ it is not on earth that Heaven’s justice ends. Think what earth is, com- pared with the world to which her young spirit has winged its early flight ; and say, if one deliberate wish expressed in solemn terms above this bed could call her back to life, which of us would utter it ! ” 142 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. ) CHAPTEK XVII. When morning came, and they could speak more calmly on the subject of their grief, they heard how her life had closed. She had been dead two days. They were all about her at the time, knowing that the end was drawing on. She died soon after daybreak. They had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the night, but as the hours crept on, she sunk to sleep. They could tell by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings with the old man ; they were of no painful scenes, but of people who had helped and used them kindly, for she often said “ God bless you ! ” with great fervor. Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and that was of beautiful music which she said was in the air. God knows. It may have been. Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man with a lovely smile upon her face — such, they said, as they had never seen, and never could forget — and clung with both her arms about his neck. They did not know thatjjhe was dead, at first. She had spoken very often of the two sisters, who, she said, were like dear friends to her. She wished they could be told how much she thought about them, and how she had watched them as they walked together, by the river side at night. She would like to see poor Kit, she had often said of late. She wished there was somebody to take her love to Kit. And, even then, she never thought or spoke about him, but with something of her old, clear, merry laugh. For the rest, she had never murmured or complained; but, with a quiet mind, and manner quite unaltered — save that she every day became more earnest and more grateful to them — faded like the light upon a summer’s evening. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 143 The child who had been her little friend came there, almost as soon as it was day, with an offering of dried flowers which he begged them to lay upon her breast. It was he who had come to the window overnight and spoken to the sexton, and they saw in the snow traces of small feet, where he had been lingering near the room in which she lay, before he went to bed. He had a fancy, it seemed, that they had left her there alone ; and could not bear the thought. He told them of his dream again, and that it was of her being restored to them, just as she used to be. He begged hard to see her, saying that he would be very quiet, and that they need not fear his being alarmed, for he had sat alone by his young brother all day long, when lie was dead, and had felt glad to be so near him. They let him have his wish ; and indeed he kept his word, and was, in his childish way, a lesson to them all. Up to that time, the old man had not spoken once — except to her — or stirred from the bedside. But when he saw her little favorite, he was moved as they had not seen him yet, and made as though he would have him come nearer. Then, pointing to the bed, he burst into tears for the first time, and they who stood by, knowing that the sight of this child had done him good, left them alone together. Soothing him with his artless talk of her, the child per- suaded him to take some rest, to walk abroad, to do almost as he desired him. And when the day came on, which must remove her in her earthly shape from earthly eyes forever, he led him away, that he might not know when she was taken from him. They were to gather fresh leaves and berries for her bed. It was Sunday — a bright, clear, wintry afternoon — and as they traversed the village street, those who were walking in their path drew back to make way for them, and gave them a softened greeting. Some shook the old man kindly by the hand, some stood uncovered while he tottered by, and many cried “ God help him ! ” as he passed along. “ Neighbor ! ” said the old man, stopping at the cottage where his young guide’s mother dwelt, “ how is it that the 144 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. folks are nearly all in black to-day ? I have seen a mourning ribbon or a piece of crape on almost every one.” She could not tell, the woman said. “ Why, you yourself — you wear the color too ! ” he said. “ Windows are closed that never used to be by day. What does this mean ? ” Again the woman said she could not tell. . “We must go back,” said the old man, hurriedly. “We must see what this is.” “ No, no,” cried the child, detaining him. “ Remember what you promised. Our way is to the old green lane, where she and I so often were, and where you found us, more than once, making those garlands for her garden. Do not turn back ! ” “ Where is she now ? ” said the old man. “ Tell me that.” “ Do you not know ? ” returned the child. “ Did we not leave her, but just now ? ” “ True. True. It was her we left — was it ! ” He pressed his hand upon his brow, looked vacantly round, and as if impelled by a sudden thought, crossed the road, and entered the sexton’s house. He and his deaf assistant were sitting before the fire. Both rose up, on seeing who it was. The child made a hasty sign to them with his hand. It was the action of an instant, but that, and the old man’s look, were quite enough. “ Do you — do you bury any one to-day ? ” he said, eagerly. “No, no! Who should we bury, sir?” returned the sexton. “ Aye, who indeed ! I say with you, who indeed ? ” “ It is a holiday with us, good sir,” returned the sexton, mildly. “We have no work to do to-day.” “ Why then, I’ll go where you will,” said the old man, turn- ing to the child. “ You’re sure of what you tell me ? You would not deceive me ? I am changed, even in the little time since you last saw me.” “Go thy ways with him, sir,” cried the sexton, “ and Heaven be with ye both ! ” “I am quite ready,” said the old man, meekly. “Come, boy, come — ” and so submitted to be led away. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 145 And now the bell — the bell she had so often heard, by night and day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice — rung its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless infancy, poured forth — on crutches, in the pride of strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life — to gather round her tomb. Old men were there, whose eyes were dim and senses failing — grandmothers, who might have died ten years ago, and still been old — the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that early grave. What was the death it would shut in, to that which still could crawl and creep above it ! Along the crowded path they bore her now; pure as the newly fallen snow that covered it ; whose day on earth had been as fleeting. Under the porch, where she had sat when Heaven in its mercy brought her to that peaceful spot, she passed again; and the old church received her in its quiet shade. They carried her to one old nook, where she had many and many a time sat' musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement. The light streamed on it through the colored win- dow — a window, where the boughs of trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the birds sang sweetly all day long. With every breath of air that stirred among those branches in the sunshine, some trembling, changing light would fall upon her grave. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust ! Many a young hand dropped in its little wreath, many a stifled sob was heard. Some — and they were not a few — knelt down. All were sin- cere and truthful in their sorrow. The service done, the mourners stood apart, and the villagers closed round to look into the grave before the pavement-stone should be replaced. One called to mind how he had seen her sitting on that very spot, and how her book had fallen on her lap, and she was gazing with a pensive face upon the sky. Another told how he had wondered much that one so delicate as she should be so bold ; how she had never feared to enter the church alone at night, but had loved to linger there when VOL. II — 10 146 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. all was qniet ; and even to climb the tower stair, with no more light than that of the moon rays stealing through the loopholes in the thick old wall. A whisper went about among the old- est; that she had seen and talked with angels ; and when they called to mind how she had looked, and spoken, and her early death, some thought it might be so, indeed. Thus, coming to the grave in little knots, and glancing down, and giving place to others, and falling off in whispering groups of three or four, the church was cleared in time, of all but the sexton and the mourning friends. They saw the vault covered, and the stone fixed down. Then, when the dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the sacred stillness of the place — when the bright moon poured in her light on tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of all (it seemed to them) upon her quiet grave — in that calm time, when outward things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust before them — then, with tranquil and submissive hearts they turned away, and left the child with God. Oh ! it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will teach, but let no man reject it, for it is one that all must learn, and is a mighty, universal Truth. When Death strikes down the innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world, and bless' it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature comes. In the Destroyer’s steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven. It was late when the old man came home. The boy had led him to his own dwelling, under some pretence, on their way back ; and, rendered drowsy by his long ramble and late want of rest, he had sunk into a deep sleep by the fireside. He was perfectly exhausted, and they were careful not to rouse him. The slumber held him a long time, and when he at length awoke the moon was shining. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 147 The younger brother, uneasy at his protracted absence, was watching the door for his coming, when he appeared in the pathway with his little guide. He advanced to meet them, and tenderly obliging the old man to lean upon his arm, con- ducted him with slow and trembling steps towards the house. He repaired to her chamber, straight. Not finding what he had left there, he returned with distracted looks to the room in which they were assembled. From that, he rushed into the schoolmaster’s cottage, calling her name. They followed close upon him, and when he had vainly searched it, brought him home. With such persuasive words as pity and affection could suggest, they prevailed upon him to sit among them and hear what they should tell him. Then, endeavoring by every little artifice to prepare his mind for what must come, and dwelling with many fervent words upon the happy lot to which she had been removed, they told him, at last, the truth. The moment it had passed their lips, he fell down among them like a murdered man. For many hours, they had little hope of his surviving; but grief is strong, and he recovered. If there be any who have never known the blank that fol- lows death — the weary void — the sense of desolation that will come upon the strongest minds, when something familiar and beloved is missed at every turn — the connection between inanimate and senseless things, and the object of recollection, when every household god becomes a monument, and every room a grave — if there be any who have not known this, and proved it by their own experience, they can never faintly guess, how, for many days, the old man pined and moped away the time, and wandered here and there as seeking some- thing, and had no comfort. Whatever power of thought or memory he retained, was all bound up in her. He never understood, or seemed to care to understand, about his brother. To every endearment and attention he continued listless. If they spoke to him on this, or any other theme — save one — he would hear them patiently for a while, then turn away, and go on seeking as before. On that one theme, which was in his and all their minds, 148 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . it was impossible to touch. Dead ! He could not hear or bear the word. The slightest hint of it would throw him into a paroxysm, like that he had had when it was first spoken. In what hope he lived, no man could tell ; but, that he had some hope of finding her again — some faint and shadowy hope, deferred from day to day, and making him from day to day more sick and sore at heart — was plain to all. They bethought them of a removal from the scene of this last sorrow ; of trying whether change of place would rouse or cheer him. His brother sought the advice of those who were accounted skilful in such matters, and they came and saw him. Some of the number stayed upon the spot, conversed with him when he would converse, and watched him as he wandered up and down, alone and silent. Move him where they might, they said, he would ever seek to get back there. His mind would run upon that spot. If they confined him closely, and kept a strict guard upon him, they might hold him prisoner, but if he could by any means escape, he would surely wander back to that place, or die upon the road. The boy to whom he had submitted at first, had no longer any influence with him. At times he would suffer the child to walk by his side, or would even take such notice of his presence as giving him his hand, or would stop to kiss his cheek, or pat him on the head. At other times, he would entreat him — not unkindly — to be gone, and would not brook him near. But, whether alone, or with this pliant friend, or with those who would have given him, at any cost or sacrifice, some consolation or some peace of mind, if happily the means could have been devised, he was at all times the same — with no love or care for anything in life — a broken-hearted man. At length, they found, one day, that he had risen early, and, with his knapsack on his back, his staff in hand, her own straw hat, and little basket full of such things as she had been used to carry, was gone. As they were making ready to pursue him far and wide, a frightened schoolboy came who had seen him, but a moment before, sitting in the church — upon her grave, he said. They hastened there, and going softly to the door, espied him in the attitude of one who waited patiently. They did HER GRANDFATHER AT THE GRAVE THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP . 149 not disturb him then, but kept a watch upon him all that day. When it grew quite dark, he rose and returned home, and went to bed, murmuring to himself, “ She will come to- morrow ! ” Upon the morrow he was there again from sunrise until night ; and still at night he laid him down to rest, and mur- mured, “ She will come to-morrow ! ” And thenceforth, every day, and all day long, he waited at her grave, for her. How many pictures of new journeys over pleasant country, of resting-places under the free broad sky, of rambles in the fields and woods, and paths not often trodden — how many tones of that one well-remembered voice — how many glimpses of the form, the fluttering dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the wind — how many visions of what had been, and what he hoped was yet to be — rose up before him, in the old, dull, silent church ! He never told them what he thought, or where he went. He would sit with them at night, pondering with a secret satisfaction, they could see, upon the flight that he and she would take before night came again ; and -still they would hear him whisper in his pray- ers, “ Lord ! Let her come to-morrow ! ” The last time was on a genial day in spring. He did not return at the usual hour, and they went to seek him. He was lying dead upon the stone. They laid him by the side of her whom he had loved so well; and, in the church where they had often prayed, and mused, and lingered hand in hand, the child and the old man slept together. 150 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. CHAPTEB THE LAST. The magic reel, which, rolling on before, has led the chron- icler thus far, now slackens in its pace, and stops. It lies before the goal ; the pursuit is at an end. It remains but to dismiss the leaders of the little crowd who have borne us company upon the road, and so to close the journey. Foremost among them, smooth Sampson Brass and Sally, arm in arm, claim our polite attention. Mr. Sampson, then, being detained, as already has been shown, by the justice upon whom he called, and being so strongly pressed to protract his stay that he could by no means refuse, remained under his protection for a considerable time, during which the great attention of his -entertainer kept him so extremely close, that he was quite lost to society, and never even went abroad for exercise saving into a small paved yard. So well, indeed, was his modest and retiring temper understood by those with whom he had to deal, and so jealous were they of his absence, that they required a kind of friendly bond to be entered into by two substantial housekeepers, in the sum of fifteen hundred pounds apiece, before they would suffer him to quit their hospitable roof — doubting it appeared, that he would return, if once let loose, on any other terms. Mr. Brass, struck with the humor of this jest, and carrying out its spirit to the utmost, sought from his wide connection a pair of friends whose joint possessions fell some halfpence short of fifteen pence, and proffered them as bail — for that was the merry word agreed upon on both sides. These gentlemen being rejected after twenty-four hours’ pleasantry, Mr. Brass con- sented to remain, and did remain, until a club of choice spirits called a Grand Jury (who were in the joke) summoned him to a trial before twelve other wags for perjury and fraud, who in THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . 151 their turn found him guilty with a most facetious joy, — nay, the very populace entered into the whim, and when Mr. Brass was moving in a hackney-coach towards the building where these wags assembled, saluted him with rotten eggs and car- casses of kittens, and feigned to wish to tear him into sheds, which greatly increased the comicality of the thing, and made him relish it the more, no doubt. To work this sportive vein still further, Mr. Brass, by his counsel, moved in arrest of judgment that he had been led to criminate himself, by assurances of safety and promises of pardon, and claimed the leniency which the law extends to such confiding natures as are thus deluded. After solemn argument, this point (with others of a technical nature, whose humorous extravagance it would be difficult to exaggerate) was referred to the judges for their decision, Sampson being meantime removed to his former quarters. Finally some of the points were given in Sampson’s favor, and some against him ; and the upshot was, that, instead of being desired to travel for a time in foreign parts, he was permitted to grace the mother country under certain insignificant restrictions. These were, that he should, for a term of years, reside in a spacious mansion where several other gentlemen were lodged and boarded at the public charge, who went clad in a sober uniform of gray turned up with yellow, had their hair cut extremely short, and chiefly lived on gruel and light soup. It was also required of him that he should partake of their exercise of constantly ascending an endless flight of stairs ; and, lest his legs, unused to such exertion, should be weakened by it, that he should wear upon one ankle an amulet or charm of iron. These conditions being arranged, he was removed one evening to his new abode, and enjoyed, in common with nine other gentlemen, and two ladies, the privilege of being taken to his place of retirement in one of Royalty’s own carriages. Over and above these trifling penalties, his name was erased and blotted out from the roll of attorneys ; which erasure has been always held in these latter times to be a great degradation and reproach, and to imply the commission of some amazing villany — as indeed would seem to be the 152 THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP. case, when so many worthless names remain among its better records, unmolested. Of Sally Brass, conflicting rumors went abroad. Some said with confidence that she had gone down to the docks in male attire, and had become a female sailor ; others darkly whis- pered that she had enlisted as a private in the second regiment of Foot Guards, and had been seen in uniform, and on duty, to wit, leaning on her musket and looking out of a sentry-box in St. James’s Park, one evening. There were many such whispers as these in circulation ; but the truth appears to be that, after a lapse of some five years (during which there is no direct evidence of her having been seen at all), two wretched people were more than once observed to crawl at dusk from the inmost recesses of St. Giles’s, and to take their way along the streets, with shuffling steps and cowering, shivering forms, looking into the roads and kennels as they went in search of refuse food or disregarded offal. These forms were never beheld but in those nights of cold and gloom, when the terrible spectres, who lie at all other times in the obscene hiding-places of London, in archways, dark vaults and cellars, venture to creep into the streets ; the em- bodied spirits of Disease, and Vice, and Famine. It was whispered by those who should have known, that these were Sampson and his sister Sally ; and to this day, it is said, they sometimes pass, on bad nights, in the same loathsome guise, close at the elbow of the shrinking passenger. The body of Quilp being found — though not until some days had elapsed — an inquest was held on it near the spot where it had been washed ashore. The general supposition was that he had committed suicide, and, this appearing to be favored by all the circumstances of his death, the verdict was to that effect. He was left to be buried with a stake through his heart in the centre of four lonely roads. It was rumored afterwards that this horrible and barbarous ceremony had been dispensed with, and that the remains had been secretly given up to Tom Scott. But even here, opinion was divided ; for some said Tom had dug them up at mid- night, and carried them to a place indicated to him by the widow. It is probable that both these stories may have had THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 153 their origin in the simple fact of Tom’s shedding tears upon the inquest — which he certainly did, extraordinary as it may appear. He manifested, besides, a strong desire to assault the jury; and being restrained and conducted out of court, darkened its only window by standing on his head upon the sill, until he was dexterously tilted upon his feet again by a cautious beadle. Being cast upon the world by his master’s death, he deter- mined to go through it upon his head and hands, and accord- ingly began to tumble for his bread. Finding, however, his English birth an insurmountable obstacle to his advancement in this pursuit (notwithstanding that his art was in high repute and favor), he assumed the name of an Italian image lad, with whom he had become acquainted ; and afterwards tumbled with extraordinary success, and to overflowing audiences. Little Mrs. Quilp never quite forgave herself the one de- ceit that lay so heavy on her conscience, and never spoke or thought of it but with bitter tears. Her husband had no relations, and she was rich. He had made no will, or she would probably have been poor. Having married the first time at her mother’s instigation, she consulted in her second choice nobody but herself. It fell upon a smart young fellow enough ; and as he made it a preliminary condition that Mrs. Jiniwin should be thenceforth an out-pensioner, they lived together after marriage with no more than the average amount of quarrelling, and led a merry life upon the dead dwarf’s money. Mr. and Mrs. Garland, and Mr. Abel, went out as usual (except that there was a change in their household, as will be seen presently), and in due time the latter went into partner- ship with his friend the Hotary, on which occasion there was a dinner, and a ball, and great extent of dissipation. Unto this ball there happened to be invited the most bashful young lady that was ever seen, with whom Mr. Abel happened to fall in love. Hoiv it happened, or how they found it out, or which of them first communicated the discovery to the other, nobody knows. But, certain it is that in course of time they were married ; and equally certain it is that they were the happiest of the happy ; and no less certain it is that they 154 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP . deserved to be so. And it is pleasant to write down that they reared a family ; because any propagation of goodness and benevolence is no small addition to the aristocracy of nature, and no small subject of rejoicing for mankind at large. The pony preserved his character for independence and principle down to the last moment of his life ; which was an unusually long one, and caused him to be looked upon, indeed, as the very Old Parr of ponies. He often went to and fro with the little phaeton between Mr. Garland’s and his son’s, and, as the old people and the young were frequently together, had a stable of his own at the new establishment, into which he would walk of himself with surprising dignity. He conde- scended to play with the children) as they grew old enough to cultivate his friendship, and would run up and down the little paddock with them like a dog ; but though he relaxed so far, and allowed them such small freedoms as caresses, or even to look at his shoes or hang on by his tail, he never permitted any one among them to mount his back or drive him ; thus showing that even their familiarity must have its limits, and that there were points between them far too serious for trifling. He was not unsusceptible of warm attachments in his later life, for when the good bachelor came to live with Mr. Garland upon the clergyman’s decease, he conceived a great friendship for him, and amiably submitted to be driven by his hands without the least resistance. He did no work for two or three years before he died, but lived in clover ; and his last act (like a choleric old gentleman) was to kick his doctor. Mr. Swiveller, recovering very slowly from his illness, and entering into the receipt of his annuity, bought for the Mar- chioness a handsome stock of clothes, and put her to school forthwith, in redemption of the vow he had made upon his fevered bed. After casting about for some time for a name which should be worthy of her, he decided in favor of Sophro- nia Sphynx, as being euphonious and genteel, and furthermore indicative of mystery. Under this title the Marchioness re- paired, in tears, to the school of his selection, from which, as she soon distanced all competitors, she was removed before the lapse of many quarters to one of a higher grade. It is but bare justice to Mr. Swiveller to say, that, although the DANIEL QUILP AT THE WINDOW THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 155 expenses of her education kept him in straitened circumstances for half a dozen years, he never slackened in his zeal, and always held himself sufficiently repaid by the accounts he heard (with great gravity) of her advancement, on his monthly visits to the governess, who looked upon him as a literary gentleman of eccentric habits, and of a most prodigious talent in quotation. In a word, Mr. Swiveller kept the Marchioness at this establishment until she was, at a moderate guess, full nine- teen years of age — good-looking, clever, and good-humored ; when he began to consider seriously what was to be done next. On one of his periodical visits, while he was revolving this question in his mind, the Marchioness came down to him, alone, looking more smiling and more fresh than ever. Then, it occurred to him, but not for the first time, that if she would marry him, how comfortable they might be ! So Richard asked her ; whatever she said, it wasn’t No ; and they were married in good earnest that day week, which gave Mr. Swiveller fre- quent occasion to remark at divers subsequent periods that there had been a young lady saving up for him after all. A little cottage at Hampstead being to let, which had in its garden a smoking-box, the envy of the civilized world, they agreed to become its tenants ; and, when the honeymoon was over, entered upon its occupation. To this retreat Mr. Chuck- ster repaired regularly every Sunday to spend the day — usually beginning with breakfast — and here he was the great purveyor of general news and fashionable intelligence. For some years he continued a deadly foe to Kit, protesting that he had a better opinion of him when he was supposed to have stolen the five-pound note, than when he was shown to be per- fectly free of the crime ; inasmuch as his guilt would have had in it something daring and bold, whereas his innocence was but another proof of a sneaking and crafty disposition. By slow degrees, however, he was reconciled to him in the end ; and even went so far as to honor him with his patronage, as one who had in some measure reformed, and was therefore to be forgiven. But he never forgot or pardoned that circum- stance of the shilling ; holding that if he had come back to get another he would have done well enough, but that his return- 156 THE OLID CURIOSITY SHOP . in g to work out the former gift was a stain upon his moral character which no penitence or contrition could ever wash away. Mr. Swiveller, having always been in some measure of a phil- osophic and reflective turn, grew immensely contemplative, at times, in the smoking-box, and was accustomed at such periods to debate in his own mind the mysterious question of Sophro- nia’ s parentage. Sophronia herelf supposed she was an orphan ; but Mr. Swiveller, putting various slight circumstances to- gether, often thought Miss Brass must know better than that ; and, having heard from his wife of her strange interview with Quilp, entertained sundry misgivings whether that person, in his lifetime, might not also have been able to solve the riddle, had he chosen. These speculations, however, gave him no uneasiness : for Sophronia was ever a most cheerful, affection- ate, and provident wife to him ; and Dick (excepting for an occasional outbreak with Mr. Chuckster, which she had the good sense rather to encourage than oppose) was to her an attached and domesticated husband. And they played many hundred thousand games of cribbage together. And let it be added, to Dick’s honor, that, though we have called her Sophro- nia, he called her the Marchioness from first to last ; and that upon every anniversary of the day on which he found her in his sick room, Mr. Chuckster came to dinner, and there was great glorification. The gamblers, Isaac List and Jowl, with their trusty con- federate Mr. James G-roves of unimpeachable memory, pursued their course with varying success, until the failure of a spirited enterprise in the way of their profession, dispersed them in different directions, and caused their career to receive a sudden check from the long and strong arm of the law. This defeat had its origin in the untoward detection of a new associate — young Frederick Trent — who thus became the unconscious instrument of their punishment and his own. For the young man himself, he rioted abroad for a brief term, living by his wits — which means by the abuses of every faculty that worthily employed raises man above the beasts, and so degraded, sinks him far below them. It was not long before his body was recognized by a stranger, who chanced to THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 157 visit that hospital in Paris where the drowned are laid out to be owned, despite the bruises and disfigurements which were said to have been occasioned by some previous scuffle. But the stranger kept his own counsel until he returned home, and it was never claimed or cared for. The young brother, or the single gentleman, for that desig- nation is more familiar, would have drawn the poor schoolmaster from his lone retreat, and made him his companion and friend. But the humble village teacher was timid of venturing into the noisy world, and had become fond of his dwelling in the old churchyard. Calmly happy in his school, and in the spot, and in the attachment of Her little mourner, he pursued his quiet course in peace ; and was, through the righteous gratitude of his friend — let this brief mention suffice for that — a poor schoolmaster no more. That friend — single gentleman, or younger brother, which you will — had at his heart a heavy sorrow ; but it bred in him no misanthropy or monastic gloom. He went forth into the world, a lover of his kind. Por a long, long time, it was his chief delight to travel in the steps of the old man and the child (so far as he could trace them from her last narrative), to halt where they had halted, sympathize where they had suffered, and rejoice where they had been made glad. Those who had been kind to them, did not escape his search. The sisters at the school — they who were her friends, because themselves so friendless — Mrs. Jarley of the wax-work, Codlin, Short — he found them all ; and trust me, the man who fed the furnace fire was not forgotten. Kit’s story having got abroad, raised him up a host of friends, and many offers of provision for his future life. He had no idea at first of ever quitting Mr. Garland’s service; but, after serious remonstrance and advice from that gentle- man, began to contemplate the possibility of such a change being brought about in time. A good post was procured for him, with a rapidity which took away his breath, by some of the gentlemen who had believed him guilty of the offence laid to his charge, and who had acted upon that belief. Through the same kind agency, his mother was secured from want, and made quite happy. Thus, as Kit often said, his great mis- 158 THE OLD CUBIOSITY SHOP . fortune turned out to be the source of all bis subsequent prosperity. Did Kit live a single man all bis days, or did be marry ? Of course he married, and who should be bis wife, but Barbara ? And the best of it was, be married so soon that little Jacob was an uncle, before the calves of his legs, already mentioned in this history, had ever been encased in broadcloth pantaloons, — though that was not quite the best either, for of necessity the baby was an uncle too. The delight of Kit’s mother and of Barbara’s mother upon the great occasion is past all telling ; finding they agreed so well on that, and on all other subjects, they took up their abode together, and were a most harmonious pair of friends from that time forth. And hadn’t Astley’s cause to bless itself for their all going together once a quarter — to the pit — and didn’t Kit’s mother always say, when they painted the outside, that Kit’s last treat had helped to that, and wonder what the manager would feel if he but knew it as they passed his house ! When Kit had children six and seven years old, there was a Barbara among them, and a pretty Barbara she was. Kor was there wanting an exact fac-simile and copy of little Jacob as he appeared in those remote times when they taught him what oysters meant. Of course there was an Abel, own god- son to the Mr. Garland of that name ; and there was a Dick, whom Mr. Swiveller did especially favor. The little group would often gather round him of a night and beg him to tell again that story of good Miss Kell who died. This, Kit would do ; and when’ they cried to hear it, wishing it longer too, he would teach them how she had gone to Heaven, as all good people did ; and how, if they were good like her, they might hope to be there too, one day, and to see and know her as he had done when he was quite a boy. Then, he would relate to them how needy he used to be, and how she had taught him what he was otherwise too poor to learn, and how the old man had been used to say “she always laughs at Kit ; ” at which they would brush away their tears, and laugh themselves to think that she had done so, and be again quite merry. He sometimes took them to the street where she had lived ; THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 159 but new improvements bad altered it so much, it was not like the same. The old house had been long ago pulled down, and a fine broad road was in its place. At first, he would draw with his stick a square upon the ground to show them where it used to stand. But, he soon became uncertain of the spot, and could only say it was thereabouts, he thought, and that these alterations were confusing. Such are the changes which a few years bring about, and so do things pass away, like a tale that is told ! REPRINTED PIECES. VOL. II — 11 Reprinted Pieces. THE LONG VOYAGE. When the wind is blowing and the sleet or rain is driving against the dark windows, I love to sit by the fire, thinking of what I have read in books of voyage and travel. Such books have had a strong fascination for my mind from my earliest childhood ; and I wonder it should have come to pass that I never have been round the world, never have been ship- wrecked, ice-environed, tomahawked, or eaten. Sitting on my ruddy hearth in the twilight of New Year’s Eve, I find incidents of travel rise around me from all the latitudes and longitudes of the globe. They observe no order or sequence, but appear and vanish as they will — “ come like shadows, so depart.” Columbus, alone upon the sea with his disaffected crew, looks over the waste of waters from his high station on the poop of his ship, and sees the first uncertain glimmer of the light, “ rising and falling with the waves, like a torch in the bark of some fisherman,” which is the shining star of a new world. Bruce is caged in Abyssinia, surrounded by the gory horrors which shall often startle him out of his sleep at home jvhen years have passed away. Franklin, come to the end of his unhappy overland journey — would that it had been his last! — lies perishing of hunger with his brave companions : each emaciated figure stretched upon its miser- able bed without the power to rise : all, dividing the weary days between their prayers, their remembrances of the dear ones at home, and conversation on the pleasures of eating ; the last-named topic being ever present to them, likewise, in their dreams. All the African travellers, way-worn, solitary, and sad, 163 164 THE LONG VOYAGE. submit themselves again to drunken, murderous, man-selling despots, of the lowest order of humanity ; and Mungo Park, fainting under a tree and succored by a woman, gratefully remembers how his Good Samaritan has always come to him in woman’s shape, the wide world over. A shadow on the wall in which my mind’s eye can discern some traces of a rocky sea-coast, recalls to me a fearful story of travel derived from that unpromising narrator of such stories, a parliamentary blue-book. A convict is its chief figure, and this man escapes with other prisoners from a penal settle- ment. It is an island, and they seize a boat, and get to the main land. Their way is by a rugged and precipitous sea- shore, and they have no earthly hope of ultimate escape, for the party of soldiers despatched by an easier course to cut them off, must inevitably arrive at their distant bourne long before them, and retake them if by any hazard they survive the horrors of the way. Famine, as they all must have fore- seen, besets them early in their course. Some of the party die and are eaten ; some are murdered by the rest and eaten. This one awful creature eats his fill, and sustains his strength, and lives on to be recaptured and taken back. The unrelatable experiences through which he has passed have been so tremen- dous, that he is not hanged as he might be, but goes back to his old chained gang-work. A little time, and he tempts one other prisoner away, seizes another boat, and flies once more — necessarily in the old hopeless direction, for he can take no other. He is soon cut off, and met by the pursuing party, face to face upon the beach. He is alone. In his former journey he acquired an inappeasable relish for his dreadful food. He urged the new man away, expressly to kill him and eat him. In the pockets on one side of his coarse convid^dress, are por- tions of the man’s body, on which he is regaling ; in the pockets on the other side is an untouched store of • salted pork (stolen before he left the island) for which he has no appetite. He is taken back, and he is hanged. But I shall never see that sea-beach on the wall or in the fire, without him, solitary monster, eating as he prowls along, while the sea rages and rises at him. Captain Bligh (a worse man to be entrusted with arbitrary THE LONG VOYAGE. 165 power there could scarcely be) is handed over the side of the Bounty, and turned adrift on the wide ocean in an open boat, by order of Fletcher Christian, one of his officers, at this very minute. Another flash of my Are, and “ Thursday October Christian,” five-and-twenty years of age, son of the dead and gone Fletcher by a savage mother, leaps aboard His Majesty’s ship Briton, hove to off: Pitcairn’s Island ; says his simple grace before eating, in good English ; and knows that a pretty little animal on board is called a dog, because in his childhood he had heard of such strange creatures from his father and the other mutineers, grown gray under the shade of the Bread-fruit trees, speaking of their lost country far away. See the Halsewell, East Indiaman outward bound, driving madly on a January night towards the rocks near Seacombe, on the island of Purbeck ! The captain’s two dear daughters are aboard, and five other ladies. The ship has been driving many hours, has seven feet water in her hold, and her main- mast has been cut away. The description of her loss, familiar to me from my early boyhood, seems to be read aloud as she rushes to her destiny. “ About two in the morning of Friday the sixth of January, the ship still driving, and approaching very fast to the shore, Mr. Henry Meriton, the second mate, went again into the cuddy, where the captain then was. Another conversation taking place, Captain Pierce expressed extreme anxiety for the preservation of his beloved daughters, and earnestly asked the officer if he could devise any method of saving them. On his answering with great concern, that he feared it would be impossible, but that their only chance would be to wait for morning, the captain lifted up his hands in silent and distressful ejaculation. “ At this dreadful moment, the ship struck, with such violence as to dash the heads of those standing in the cuddy against the deck above them, and the shock was accompanied by a shriek of horror that burst at one instant from every quarter of the ship. “ Many of the seamen, who had been remarkably inatten- tive and remiss in their duty during great part of the storm, 166 THE LONG VOYAGE. now poured upon deck, where no exertions of the officers could keep them, while their assistance might have been useful. They had actually skulked in their hammocks, leav- ing the working of the pumps and other necessary labors to the officers of the ship, and the soldiers, who had made uncommon exertions. Roused by a sense of their danger, the same seamen, at this moment, in frantic exclamations, demanded of heaven and their fellow-sufferers that succor which their own efforts timely made, might possibly have procured. “ The ship continued to beat on the rocks ; and soon bilg- ing, fell with her broadside towards the shore. When she struck, a number of the men climbed up the ensign-staff, under an apprehension of her immediately going to pieces. “ Mr. Meriton, at this crisis, offered to these unhappy beings the best advice which could be given ; he recommended that all should come to the side of the ship lying lowest on the rocks, and singly to take the opportunities which might then offer, of escaping to the shore. “ Having thus provided, to the utmost of his power, for the safety of the desponding crew, he returned to the round-house, where, by this time, all the passengers, and most of the officers had assembled. The latter were employed in offering consolation to the unfortunate ladies ; and, with unparalleled magnanimity, suffering their compassion for the fair and amiable companions of their misfortunes to prevail over the sense of their own danger. “In this charitable work of comfort, Mr. Meriton now joined, by assurances of his opinion, that the ship would hold together till the morning, when all would be safe. Captain Pierce, observing one of the young gentlemen loud in his exclamations of terror, and frequently cry that the ship was parting, cheerfully bid him be quiet, remarking that though the ship should go to pieces, he would not, but would be safe enough. “ It is difficult to convey a correct idea of the scene of this deplorable catastrophe, without describing the place where it happened. The Halsewell struck on the rocks at a part of the shore where the cliff is of vast height, and rises almost THE LONG VOYAGE . 167 perpendicular from its base. But at this particular spot, the foot of the cliff is excavated into a cavern of ten or twelve yards in depth, and of breadth equal to the length of a large ship. The sides of the cavern are so nearly upright, as to be of extremely difficult access ; and the bottom is strewed with sharp and uneven rocks, which seem, by some convulsion of the earth, to have been detached from its roof. “ The ship lay with her broadside opposite to the mouth of this cavern, with her whole length stretched almost from side to side of it. But when she struck, it was too dark for the unfortunate persons on board to discover the real magnitude of their danger, and the extreme horror of such a situation. “In addition to the company already in the round-house, they had admitted three black women and two soldiers’ wives ; who, with the husband of one of them, had been allowed to come in, though the seamen, who had tumultuously demanded entrance to get the lights, had been opposed and kept out by Mr. Rogers and Mr. Brimer, the third and fifth mates. The numbers there were, therefore, now increased to near fifty. Captain Pierce sat on a chair, a cot, or some other movable, with a daughter on each side, whom he alternately pressed to his affectionate breast. The rest of the melancholy assembly were seated on the deck, which was strewed with musical instruments, and the wreck of furniture and other articles. “ Here also Mr. Meriton, after having cut several wax- candles in pieces, and stuck them up in various parts of the round-house, and lighted up all the glass lanthorns he could find, took his seat, intending to await the approach of dawn ; and then assist the partners of his dangers to escape. But, observing that the poor ladies appeared parched and ex- hausted, he brought a basket of oranges and prevailed on some of them to refresh themselves by sucking a little of the juice. At this time they were all tolerably composed, except Miss Mansel, who was in hysteric fits on the floor of the deck of the round-house. “ But on Mr. Meriton’s return to the company, he perceived a considerable alteration in the appearance of the ship ; the sides were visibly giving way ; the deck seemed to be lifting, and he discovered other strong indications that she could not 168 THE LONG VOYAGE . hold much longer together. On this account, he attempted to go forward to look out, but immediately saw that the ship had separated in the middle, and that the forepart having changed its position, lay rather further out towards the sea. In such an emergency, when the next moment might plunge him into eternity, he determined to seize the present oppor- tunity, and follow the example of the crew and the soldiers, who were now quitting the ship in numbers, and making their way to the shore, though quite ignorant of its nature and description. “ Among other expedients, the ensign-staff had been un- shipped, and attempted to be laid between the ship’s side and some of the rocks, but without success, for it snapped asunder before it reached them. However, by the light of a lanthorn, which a seaman handed through the sky-light of the round- house to the deck, Mr. Meriton discovered a spar which ap- peared to be laid from the ship’s side to the rocks, and on this spar he resolved to attempt his escape. “ Accordingly, lying down upon it, he thrust himself forward ; however, he soon found that it had no communi- cation with the rock; he reached the end of it and then slipped off, receiving a very violent bruise in his fall, and before he could recover his legs, he was washed off by the surge. He now supported himself by swimming, until a returning wave dashed him against the back part of the cavern. Here he laid hold of a small projection in the rock, but was so much benumbed that he was on the point of quitting it, when a seaman, who had already gained a footing, extended his hand, and assisted him until he could secure himself a little on the rock ; from which he clambered on a shelf still higher, and out of the reach of the surf. “Mr. Rogers, the third mate, remained with the captain and the unfortunate ladies and their companions nearly twenty minutes after Mr. Meriton had quitted the ship. Soon after the latter left the round-house, the captain asked what was become of him, to which Mr. Rogers replied, that he was gone on deck to see what could be done. After this, a heavy sea breaking over the ship, the ladies exclaimed, *■ Oh poor Meriton ! he is drowned ! had he stayed with us THE LONG VOYAGE. 169 lie would have been safe ! ? and they all, particularly Miss Mary Pierce, expressed great concern at the apprehension of his loss. “ The sea was now breaking in at the fore-part of the ship, and reached as far as the mainmast. Captain Pierce gave Mr. Rogers a nod, and they took a lamp and went together into the stern-gallery, where, after viewing the rocks for some time, Captain Pierce asked Mr. Rogers if he thought there was any possibility of saving the girls; to which he replied, he feared there was none ; for they could only discover the black face of the perpendicular rock, and not the cavern which afforded shelter to those who escaped. They then returned to the round-house, where Mr. Rogers hung up the lamp, and Captain Pierce sat down between his two daughters. “The sea continuing to break in very fast, Mr. Macmanus, a midshipman, and Mr. Schutz, a passenger, asked Mr. Rogers what they could do to escape. ‘ Follow me/ he replied, and they all went into the stern-gallery, and from thence to the upper-quarter-gallery on the poop. While there, a very heavy sea fell on board, and the round-house gave way : Mr. Rogers heard the ladies shriek at intervals, as if the water reached them ; the noise of the sea at other times drowning their voices. “Mr. Brimer had followed him to the poop, where they remained together about five minutes, when on the breaking of this heavy sea, they jointly seized a hen-coop. The same wave which proved fatal to some of those below, carried him and his companion to the rock, on which they were violently dashed and miserably bruised. “Here on the rock were twenty-seven men; but it now being low water, and as they were convinced that on the flow- ing of the tide all must be washed off, many attempted to get to the back or the sides of the cavern, beyond the reach of the returning sea. Scarcely more than six, besides Mr. Rogers and Mr. Brimer, succeeded. “Mr. Rogers, on gaining this station, was so nearly ex- hausted, that had his exertions been protracted only a few minutes longer, he must have sunk under them. He was now prevented from joining Mr. Meriton, by at least twenty 170 THE LONG VOYAGE. men between them, none of whom could move, without fhe imminent peril of his life. “ They found that a very considerable number of the crew, seamen, and soldiers, and some petty officers, were in the same situation as themselves, though many who had reached the rocks below, perished in attempting to ascend. They could yet discern some part of the ship, and in their dreary station solaced themselves with the hopes of its remaining entire until day-break; for, in the midst of their own distress, the sufferings of the females on board affected them with the most poignant anguish; and every sea that broke inspired them with terror for their safety. “But, alas, their apprehensions were too soon realized! Within a very few minutes of the time that Mr. Bogers gained the rock, an universal shriek, which long vibrated in their ears, in which the voice of female distress was lamentably distinguished, announced the dreadful catastrophe. In a few moments all was hushed, except the roaring of the winds and the dashing of the waves ; the wreck was buried in the deep, and not an atom of it was ever afterwards seen.” The most beautiful and affecting incident I know, associated with a shipwreck, succeeds this dismal story for a winter night. The Grosvenor, East Indiaman homeward bound, goes ashore on the coast of Caffraria. It is resolved that the officers, pas- sengers, and crew, in number one hundred and thirty-five souls, shall endeavor to penetrate on foot, across trackless deserts, infested by wild beasts and cruel savages, to the Dutch settlements at the Cape of Good Hope. With this forlorn object before them, they finally separated into two parties — never more to meet on earth. There is a solitary child among the passengers — a little boy of seven years old who has no relation there ; and when the first party is moving away he cries after some member of it who has been kind to him. The crying of a child might be supposed to be a little thing to men in such great extremity ; but it touches them, and he is immediately taken into that detachment. From which time forth, this child is sublimely made a THE LONG VOYAGE. 171 sacred charge. He is pushed, on a little raft, across broad rivers, by the swimming sailors ; they carry him by turns through the deep sand and long grass (he patiently walking at all other times); they share with him such putrid fish as they find to eat ; they lie down and wait for him when the rough carpenter, who becomes his especial friend, lags behind. Beset by lions and tigers, by savages, by thirst, by hunger, by death in a crowd of ghastly shapes, they never — 0 Bather of all mankind, thy name be blessed for it ! — forget this child. The captain stops exhausted, and his faithful coxswain goes back and is seen to sit down by his side, and neither of the two shall be any more beheld until the great last day ; but, as the rest go on for their lives, they take the child with them. The carpenter dies of poisonous berries eaten in starvation; and the steward, succeeding to the command of the party, succeeds to the sacred guardianship of the child. God knows all he does for the poor baby ; how he cheer- fully carries him in his arms when he himself is weak and ill ; how he feeds him when he himself is griped with want ; how he folds his ragged jacket round him, lays his little worn face with a woman’s tenderness upon his sunburnt breast, soothes him in his sufferings, sings to him as he limps along, unmind- ful of his own parched and bleeding feet. Divided for a few days from the rest, they dig a grave in the sand and bury their good friend the cooper — these two companions alone in the wilderness — and then the time comes when they both are ill and beg their wretched partners in despair, reduced and few in number now, to wait by them one day, They wait by them one day, they wait by them two days. On the morning of the third, they move very softly about, in mak- ing their preparations for the resumption of their journey ; for, the child is sleeping by the fire, and it is agreed with one consent that he shall not be disturbed until the last moment. The moment comes, the fire is dying — and the child is dead. His faithful friend, the steward, lingers but a little while behind him. His grief is great, he staggers on for a few days, lies down in the desert, and dies. But he shall be re-united 172 THE LONG VOYAGE. in his immortal spirit — who can doubt it ! — with the child, where he and the poor carpenter shall be raised up with the words, “ Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.” As I recall the dispersal and disappearance of nearly all the participators in this once famous shipwreck (a mere handful being recovered at last), and the legends that were long after- wards revived from time to time among the English officers at the Cape, of a white woman with an infant, said to have been seen weeping outside a savage hut far in the interior, who was whisperingly associated with the remembrance of the missing ladies saved from the wrecked vessel, and who was often sought but never found, thoughts of another kind of travel come into my mind. Thoughts of a voyager unexpectedly summoned from home, who travelled a vast distance, and could never return. Thoughts of this unhappy wayfarer in the depths of his sorrow, in the bitterness of his anguish, in the helplessness of his self-reproach, in the desperation of his desire to set right what he had left wrong, and do what he had left un- done. For, there were many, many things he had neglected. Little matters while he was at home and surrounded by them, but things of mighty moment when he was at an immeasurable distance. There were many, many blessings that he had inade- quately felt, there were many trivial injuries that he had not forgiven, there was love that he had but poorly returned, there was friendship that he had too lightly prized ; there were a million kind words that he might have spoken, a million kind looks that he might have given, uncountable slight easy deeds in which he might have been most truly great and good. 0 for a day (he would exclaim), for but one day to make amends ! But the sun never shone upon that happy day, and out of his remote captivity he never came. Why does this traveller’s fate obscure, on New Year’s Eve, the other histories of travellers with which my mind was filled but now, and cast a solemn shadow over me ! Must I one day make this journey ? Even so. Who shall say, that I THE LONG VOYAGE . 173 may not then be tortured by such late regrets : that I may not then look from my exile on my empty place and undone work ? I stand upon a sea shore, where the waves are years. They break and fall, and I may little heed them : but, with every wave the sea is rising, and I know that it will float me on this traveller’s voyage at last. THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER. The amount of money he annually diverts from wholesome and useful purposes in the United Kingdom, would be a set-off against the Window Tax. He is one of the most shameless frauds and impositions of this time. In his idleness, his men- dacity, and the immeasurable harm he does to the deserv- ing, — dirtying the stream of true benevolence, and muddling the brains of foolish justices, with inability to distinguish between the base coin of distress, and the true currency we have always among us, — he is more worthy of Norfolk Island than three-fourths of the worst characters who are sent there. Under any rational system, he would have been sent there long ago. I, the writer of this paper, have been, for some time, a chosen receiver of Begging Letters. For fourteen years, my house has been made as regular a Receiving House for such communications as any one of the great branch Post-Offices is for general correspondence. I ought to know something of the Begging-Letter Writer. He has besieged my door, at all hours of the day and night ; he has fought my servant ; he has lain in ambush for me, going out and coming in ; he has followed me out of town into the country ; he has appeared at provincial hotels, where I have been staying for only a few hours ; he has written to me from immense distances, when I have been out of England. He has fallen sick ; he has died, and been buried ; he has come to life again, and again departed from this transitory scene ; he has been his own son, his own mother, his own baby, his idiot brother, his uncle, his aunt, his aged grandfather. He has wanted a great coat, to go to India in; a pound to set him up in life for ever; a pair of boots, to take him to the coast of China; a hat, to get him into a permanent situation under Government. He has 174 THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER. 175 frequently been exactly seven-and-sixpence short of indepen- dence. He has had such openings at Liverpool — posts of great trust and confidence in merchants’ houses, which noth- ing but seven-and-sixpence was wanting to him to secure — that I wonder he is not Mayor of that flourishing town at the present moment. The natural phenomena of which he has been the victim, are of a most astounding nature. He has had two children, who have never grown up ; who have never had anything to cover them at night ; who have been continually driving him mad, by asking in vain for food ; who have never come out of fevers and measles (which, I suppose, has accounted for his fuming his letters with tobacco smoke, as a disinfectant) ; who have never changed in the least degree, through fourteen long revolving years. As to his wife, what that suffering woman has undergone, nobody knows. She has always been in an interesting situation through the same long period, and has never been confined yet. His devotion to her has been unceasing. He has never cared for himself ; lie could have perished — he would rather, in short — but was it not his Christian duty as a man, a husband, and a father, to write begging letters when he looked at her ? (He has usually remarked that he would call in the evening for an answer to this question.) He has been the sport of the strangest misfortunes. What his brother has done to him would have broken anybody else’s heart. His brother went into business with him, and ran away with the money ; his brother got him to be security for an immense sum, and left him to pay it ; his brother would have given him employment to the tune of hundreds a-year, if he would have consented to write letters on a Sunday ; his brother enunciated principles incompatible with his religious views, and he could not (in consequence) permit his brother to provide for him. His landlord has never shown a spark of human feeling. When he put in that execution I don’t know, but he has never taken it out. The broker’s man has grown gray in possession. They will have to bury him some day. He has been attached to every conceivable pursuit. He has 176 THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER. been in the army, in the navy, in the church, in the law ; connected with the press, the fine arts, public institutions, every description and grade of business. He has been brought up as a gentleman: he has been at every college in Oxford and Cambridge ; he can quote Latin in his letters (but generally misspells some minor English word) ; he can tell you what Shakespeare says about begging, better than you know it. It is to be observed, that in the midst of his afflictions he always reads the newspapers ; and rounds off his appeals with some allusion, that may be supposed to be in my way, to the popular subject of the hour. His life represents a series of inconsistencies. Sometimes he has never written such a letter before. He blushes with shame. That is the first time ; that shall be the last. Don’t answer it, and let it be understood that, then, he will kill himself quietly. Sometimes (and more frequently) he has written a few such letters. Then he encloses the answers, with an intimation that they are of inestimable value to him, and a request that they may be carefully returned. He is fond of enclosing something — verses, letters, pawnbrokers’ duplicates, anything to necessitate an answer. He is very severe upon “ the pampered minion of fortune,” who refused him the half-sovereign referred to in the enclosure number two — but he knows me better. He writes in a variety of styles ; sometimes in low spirits ; sometimes quite jocosely. When he is in low spirits, he writes down-hill, and repeats words — these little indications being expressive of the perturbation of his mind. When he is more vivacious, he is frank with me ; he is quite the agreeable rattle. I know what human nature is, — who better ? Well ! He had a little money once, and he ran through it — as many men have done before him. He finds his old friends turn away from him now — many men have done that before him, too ! Shall he tell me why he writes to me ? Because he has no kind of claim upon me. He puts it on that ground, plainly; and begs to ask for the loan (as I know human nature) of two sovereigns, to be repaid next Tuesday six weeks, before twelve at noon. Sometimes, when he is sure that I have found him out, THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER . 177 and that there is no chance of money, he writes to inform me that I have got rid of him at last. He has enlisted into the Company’s service, and is off directly — but he wants a cheese. He is informed by the sergeant that it is essential to his prospects in the regiment that he should take out a single- Gloucester cheese, weighing from twelve to fifteen pounds. Eight or nine shillings would buy it. He does not ask for money, after what has passed; but if he calls at nine to- morrow morning, may he hope to find a cheese ? And is there anything he can do to show his gratitude in Bengal ? Once, he wrote me rather a special letter proposing relief in kind. He had got into a little trouble by leaving parcels of mud done up in brown paper, at people’s houses, on pretence of being a Railway-Porter, in which character he received carriage money. This sportive fancy he expiated in the House of Correction. Hot long after his release, and on a Sunday morning, he called with a letter (having first dusted himself all over), in which he gave me to understand that, being resolved to earn an honest livelihood, he had been travelling about the country with a cart of crockery. That he had been doing pretty well, until the day before, when his horse had dropped down dead near Chatham, in Kent. That this had reduced him to the unpleasant necessity of getting into the shafts himself, and drawing the cart of crockery to London — a somewhat exhausting pull of thirty miles. That he did not venture to ask again for money ; but that if I would have the goodness to leave him out a donkey , he would call for the animal before breakfast ! At another time, my friend (I am describing actual ex- periences) introduced himself as a literary gentleman in the last extremity of distress. He had had a play accepted at a certain Theatre — which was really open ; its representation was delayed by the indisposition of a leading actor — who was really ill ; and he and his were in a state of absolute starva- tion. If he made his necessities known to the Manager of the Theatre, he put it to me to say what kind of treatment he might expect ? Well ! we got over that difficulty to our mutual satisfaction. A little while afterwards he was in some other strait — I think Mrs. Southcote, his wife, was in ex- VOL. II — 12 178 THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER. tremity — and we adjusted that point too. A little while after- wards, he had taken a new house, and was going headlong to ruin for want of a water-butt. I had my misgivings about the water-butt, and did not reply to that epistle. But, a little while afterwards, I had reason to feel penitent for my neglect. He wrote me a few broken-hearted lines, informing me that the dear partner of his sorrows died in his arms last night at nine o’clock ! I despatched a trusty messenger to comfort the bereaved mourner and his poor children : but the messenger went so soon, that the play was not ready to be played out ; my friend was not at home, and his wife was in a most delightful state of health. He was taken up by the Mendicity Society (in- formally it afterwards appeared), and I presented myself at a London Police-Office with my testimony against him. The Magistrate was wonderfully struck by his educational acquire- ments, deeply impressed by the excellence of his letters, exceedingly sorry to see a man of his attainments there, com- plimented him highly on his powers of composition, and was quite charmed to have the agreeable duty of discharging him. A collection was made for the “ poor fellow,” as he was called in the reports, and I left the court with a comfortable sense of being universally regarded as a sort of monster. Next day, comes to me a friend of mine, the governor of a large prison, “Why did you ever go to the Police-Office against that man,” says he, u without coming to me first ? I know all about him and his frauds. He lodged in the house of one of my warders, at the very time when he first wrote to you ; and then he was eating spring-lamb at eighteen-pence a pound, and early as- paragus at I don’t know how much a bundle ! ” On that very same day, and in that very same hour, my injured gentleman wrote a solemn address to me, demanding to know what com- pensation I proposed to make him for his having passed the night in a “ loathsome dungeon.” And next morning, an Irish gentleman, a member of the same fraternity, who had read the case, and was very well persuaded I should be chary of going to that Police-Office again, positively refused to leave my door for less than a sovereign, and, resolved to besiege me into compliance, literally “ sat down ” before it for ten mortal THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER . 179 hours. The garrison being well provisioned, I remained within the walls ; and he raised the siege at midnight, with a prodigious alarm on the bell. The Begging-Letter Writer often has an extensive circle of acquaintance. Whole pages of the Court Guide are ready to be references for him. Noblemen and gentlemen write to say there never was such a man for probity and virtue. They have known him, time out of mind, and there is nothing they wouldn’t do for him. Somehow, they don’t give him that one pound ten he stands in need of ; but perhaps it is not enough — they want to do more, and his modesty will not allow it. It is to be remarked of his trade that it is a very fascinating one. He never leaves it ; and those who are near to him become smitten with a love of it, too, and sooner or later set up for themselves. He employs a messenger — man, woman, or child. That messenger is certain ultimately to become an independent Begging-Letter Writer. His sons and daughters succeed to his calling, and write begging letters when he is no more. He throws off the infection of begging-letter writing, like the contagion of disease. What Sydney Smith so happily called “ the dangerous luxury of dishonesty ” is more tempting, and more catching, it would seem, in this instance than in any other. He always belongs to a Corresponding-Society of Begging- Letter Writers. Any one who will, may ascertain this fact. Give money to-day, in recognition of a begging letter, — no matter how unlike a common begging letter, — and for the next fortnight you will have a rush of such communications. Steadily refuse to give ; and the begging letters become Angels’ visits, until the Society is from some cause or other in a dull way of business, and may as well try you as anybody else. It is of little use inquiring into the Begging-Letter Writer’s cir- cumstances. He may be sometimes accidentally found out, as in the case already mentioned (though that was not the first inquiry made) ; but apparent misery is always a part of his trade, and real misery very often is, in the intervals of spring- lamb and early asparagus. It is naturally an incident of his dissipated and dishonest life. That the calling is a successful one, and that large sums of 180 THE BEGGING-LETTER WETTER. money are gained by it, must be evident to anybody who reads the Police Reports of such cases. But, prosecutions are of rare occurrence, relatively to the extent to which the trade is carried on. The cause of this, is to be fotmd (as no one knows better than the Begging-Letter Writer, for it is a part of his speculation) in the aversion people feel to exhibit them- selves as having been imposed upon, or as having weakly gratified their consciences with a lazy, flimsy substitute for the noblest of all virtues. There is a man at large, at the moment when this paper is preparing for the press (on the 29th of April, 1850), and never once taken up yet, who, within these twelvemonths, has been probably the most audacious and the most successful swindler that even this trade has ever known. There has been something singularly base in this fellow’s proceedings : it has been his business to write to all sorts and conditions of people, in the names of persons of high reputation and unblemished honor, professing to be in distress — the general admiration and respect for whom, has ensured a ready and generous reply. Now, in the hope that the results of the real experience of a real person may do something more to induce reflection on this subject than any abstract treatise — and with a personal knowledge of the extent to which the Begging-LetterTrade has been carried on for some time, and has been for some time constantly increasing — the writer of this paper entreats the attention of his readers to a few concluding words. His expe- rience is a type of the experience of many ; some on a smaller ; some on an infinitely larger scale. All may judge of the sound- ness or unsoundness of his conclusions from it. Long doubtful of the efficacy of such assistance in any case whatever, and able to recall but one, within his whole individ- ual knowledge, in which he had the least after-reason to sup- pose that any good was done by it, he was led, last autumn, into some serious considerations. The begging letters flying about by every post, made it perfectly manifest, That a set of lazy vagabonds were interposed between the general desire to do something to relieve the sickness and misery under which the poor were suffering, and the suffering poor themselves. That many who sought to do some little to repair the social THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER. 181 wrongs, inflicted in the way of preventive sickness and death upon the poor, were strengthening those wrongs, however innocently, by wasting money on pestilent knaves cumbering society. That imagination, — soberly following one of these knaves into his life of punishment in jail, and comparing it with the life of one of these poor in a cholera-stricken alley, or one of the children of one of these poor, soothed in its dying hour by the late lamented Mr. Drouet, — contemplated a grim farce, impossible to be presented very much longer before God or man. That the crowning miracle of all the miracles summed up in the New Testament, after the miracle of the blind seeing, and the lame walking, and the restora- tion of the dead to life, was the miracle that the poor had the Gospel preached to them. That while the poor were unnatu- rally and unnecessarily cut off by the thousand, in the prema- turity of their age, or in the rottenness of their youth — for of flower or blossom such youth has none — the Gospel was vot preached to them, saving in hollow and unmeaning voices. That of all wrongs, this was the first mighty wrong the Pesti- lence warned us to set right. And that no Post-Office Order to any amount, given to a Begging-Letter Writer for the quieting of an uneasy breast, would be presentable on the Last Great Day as anything towards it. The poor never write these letters. Nothing could be more unlike their habits. The writers are public robbers ; and we who support them are parties to their depredations. They trade upon every circumstance within their knowledge that affects us, public or private, joyful or sorrowful; they pervert the lessons of our lives ; they change what ought to be our strength and virtue, into weakness, and encouragement of vice. There is a plain remedy, and it is in our own hands. We must resolve, at any sacrifice of feeling, to be deaf to such appeals, and crush the trade. There are degrees in murder. Life must be held sacred among us in more ways than one — sacred, not merely from the murderous weapon, or the subtle poison, or the cruel blow, but sacred from preventible diseases, distortions, and pains. That is the first great end we have to set against this misera- ble imposition. Physical life respected, moral life comes next. 182 THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER. What will not content a Begging-Letter Writer for a week, would educate a score of children for a year. Let us give all we can ; let us give more than ever. Let us do all we can ; let us do more than ever. But let us give, and do, with a high purpose ; not to endow the scum of the earth, to its own greater corruption, with the offals of our duty. A CHILD’S DREAM OF A STAR. There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers ; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky ; they wondered at the depth of the bright water ; they won- dered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world. They used to say to one another, sometimes, Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky, be sorry ? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hill-sides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars ; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more. There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window. Whoever saw it first, cried out, “ I see the star ! ” And often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once again, to bid it good night ; and when they were turning round to sleep, they used to say, “ God bless the star ! ” But while she was still very young, oh very, very young, the sister drooped, and came to be so weak that she could no longer stand in the window at night ; and then the child looked sadly 183 184 A child's dream of a star . out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face on the bed, “ I see the star ! ” and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little weak voice used to say, “ God bless my brother and the star ! ” And so the time came all too soon ! when the child looked out alone, and when there was no face on the bed ; and when there was a little grave among the graves, not there before ; and when the star made long rays down towards h-im, as he saw it through his tears. Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a shining way from earth to Heaven, that when the child went to his solitary bed, he dreamed about the star ; and dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a train of people taken up that sparkling road by angels. And the star, open- ing, showed him a great world of light, where many more such angels waited to receive them. All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes upon the people who were carried up into the star ; and some came out from the long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people’s necks, and kissed them tenderly, and went away with them down avenues of light, and were so happy in their company, that lying in his bed he wept for joy. But, there were many angels who did not go with them, and among them one he knew. The patient face that once had lain upon the bed was glorified and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all the host. His sister’s angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to the leader among those who had brought the people thither : “ Is my brother come ? ” And he said “No.” She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his arms, and cried “ 0, sister, I am here ! Take me ! ” and then she turned her beaming eyes upon him, and it was night ; and the star was shining into the room, making long rays down towards him as he saw it through his tears. From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on the home he was to go to, when his time should come, and A child's dream of a star . 185 he thought that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, because of his sister’s angel gone before. There was a baby born to be a brother to the child ; and while he was so little that he never yet had spoken word, he stretched his tiny form out on his bed, and died. Again the child dreamed of the opened star, and of the com- pany of angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their beaming eyes all turned upon those people’s faces. Said his sister’s angel to the leader : “ Is my brother come ? ” And he said “Not that one, but another.” As the child beheld his brother’s angel in her arms, he cried, “ Oh, sister, I am here ! Take me ! ” And she turned and smiled upon him, and the star was shining. He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his books when an old servant came to him and said : “ Thy mother is no more. I bring her blessing on her dar- ling son ! ” Again at night he saw the star, and all that former com- pany. Said his sister’s angel to the leader : “ Is my brother come ? ” And he said, “ Thy mother ! ” A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the star, because the mother was re-united to her two children. And he stretched out his arms and cried, “0, mother, sister, and brother, I am here ! Take me ! ” And they answered him “ Not yet,” and the star was shining. He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning gray, and he was sitting in his chair by the fireside, heavy with grief, and with his face bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again. Said his sister’s angel to the leader, “ Is my brother come ? ” And he said, “Nay, but his maiden daughter.” And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly lost to him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said “ My daughter’s head is on my sister’s bosom, and her arm is round my mother’s neck, and at her feet there is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from her, God be praised ! ” 186 A child's dream of a star. And the star was shining. Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent. And one night as he lay upon his bed, his children standing round, he cried, as he had cried so long ago : “ I see the star ! ” They whispered one another, “ He is dying.” And he said, “ I am. My age is falling from 'me like a gar- ment, and I move towards the star as a child. And 0, my Father, now I thank thee that it has so often opened, to re- ceive those dear ones who await me ! ” And the star was shining ; and it shines upon his grave. OUR ENGLISH WATERING-PLACE. In the Autumn-time of the year, when the great metrop- olis is so much hotter, so much noisier, so much more dusty or so much more water-carted, so much more crowded, so much more disturbing and distracting in all respects, than it usually is, a quiet sea-beach becomes indeed a blessed spot. Half awake and half asleep, this idle morning in our sunny window on the edge of a chalk cliff in the old-fashioned watering-place to which we are a faithful resorter, we feel a lazy inclination to sketch its picture. The place seems to respond. Sky, sea, beach, and village, lie as still before us as if they were sitting for the picture. It is dead low-water. A ripple plays among the ripening corn upon the cliff, as if it were faintly trying from recol- lection to imitate the sea ; and the world of butterflies hovering over the crop of radish-seed are as restless in their little way as the gulls are in their larger manner when the wind blows. But the ocean lies winking in the sunlight like a drowsy lion — its glassy waters scarcely curve upon the shore — the fishing-boats in the tiny harbor are all stranded in the mud — our two colliers (our watering-place has a mari- time trade employing that amount of shipping) have not an inch of water within a quarter of a mile of them, and turn, exhausted, on their sides, like faint fish of an antediluvian species. Rusty cables and chains, ropes and rings, undermost parts of posts and piles and confused timber-defences against the waves, lie strewn about, in a brown litter of tangled sea- weed and fallen cliff which looks as if a family of giants had been making tea here for ages, and had observed an untidy custom of throwing their tea-leaves on the shore. In truth our watering-place itself has been left somewhat high and dry by the tide of years. Concerned as we are for 187 188 OUll ENGLISH WA TEE IN G—PL A CE. its honor, we must reluctantly admit that the time when this pretty little semi-circular sweep of houses tapering off at the end of the wooden pier into a point in the sea, was a gay place, and when the lighthouse overlooking it shone at day- break on company dispersing from public balls, is but dimly traditional now. There is a bleak chamber in our watering- place which is yet called the Assembly “ Rooms/’ and under- stood to be available on hire for balls or concerts ; and, some few seasons since, an ancient little gentleman came down and stayed at the hotel, who said he had danced there, in by-gone ages, with the Honorable Miss Peepy, well known to have been the Beauty of her day and the cruel occasion of innum- erable duels. - But he was so old and shrivelled, and so very rheumatic in the legs, that it demanded more imagination than our watering-place can usually muster, to believe him ; therefore, except the Master of the “ Rooms ” (who to this hour wears knee-breeches, and who confirmed the statement with tears in his eyes), nobody did believe in the little lame old gentleman, or even in the Honorable Miss Peepy, long deceased. As to subscription balls in the Assembly Rooms of our watering-place now red-hot cannon balls are less improbable. Sometimes, a misguided wanderer of a Ventriloquist, or an Infant Phenomenon, or a Juggler, or somebody with an Orrery that is several stars behind the time, takes the place for a night, and issues bills with the name of his last town lined out, and the name of ours ignominously written in, but you may be sure this never happens twice to the same unfor- tunate person. On such occasions the discolored old Billiard Table that is seldom played at, (unless the ghost of the Hon- orable Miss Peepy plays at pool with other ghosts) is pushed into a corner, and benches are solemnly constituted into front seats, back seats, and reserved seats — which are much the same after you have paid — and a few dull candles are lighted — wind permitting — and the performer and the scanty audi- ence play out a short match which shall make the other most low-spirited — which is usually a drawn game. After that, the performer instantly departs with maledictory expressions, and is never heard of more. OUB ENGLISH WATEBING-PLACE. 189 But the most wonderful feature of our Assembly Booms is, that an annual sale of “ Fancy and other China/’ is announced here with mysterious constancy and perseverance. Where the china comes from, where it goes to, why it is annually put up to auction when nobody ever thinks of bidding for it, how it comes to pass that it is always the same china, whether it would not have been cheaper, with the sea at hand, to have thrown it away, say in eighteen hundred and thirty, "are standing enigmas. Every year the bills come out, every year the Master of the Booms gets into a little pulpit on a table, and offers it for sale, every year nobody buys it, every year it is put away somewhere until next year when it appears again as if the whole thing were a new idea. We have a faint remembrance of an unearthly collection of clocks, purporting to be the work of Parisian and Genevese artists — chiefly bilious-faced clocks, supported on sickly white crutches, with their pendulums dangling like lame legs — to which a similar course of events occurred for several years, until they seemed to lapse away, of mere imbecility. Attached to our Assembly Booms is a library. There is a wheel of fortune in it, but it is rusty and dusty, and never turns. A large doll, with movable eyes, was put up to be raffled for, by five-and-twenty members at two shillings, seven years ago this autumn, and the list is not full yet. We are rather sanguine, now, that the raffle will come off next year. We think so, because we only want nine members, and should only want eight, but for number two having grown up since her name was entered, and withdrawn it when she was mar- ried. Down the street, there is a toy-shop of considerable burden, in the same condition. Two of the boys who were entered for that raffle have gone to India in real ships, since ; and one was shot, and died in the arms of his sister’s lover, by whom he sent his last words home. This is the library for the Minerva Press. If you want that kind of reading, come to our watering-place. The leaves of the romances, reduced to a condition very like curl-paper, are thickly studded with notes in pencil ; sometimes compli- mentary, sometimes jocose. Some of these commentators, like commentators in a more extensive way, quarrel with 190 OUR ENGLISH WATERING-PLACE . one another. One young gentleman who sarcastically writes “ 0 ! ! ! ” after every sentimental passage, is pursued through his literary career by another, who writes “ Insulting Beast ! ” Miss Julia Mills has read the whole collection of these books. She has left marginal notes on the pages, as “Is not this truly touching? J. M.” “How thrilling! J. M.” “En- tranced here by the Magician’s potent spell. J. M.” She has also italicized her favorite traits in the description of the hero, as “ his hair, which was dark and wavy , clustered in rich profusion around a marble brow , whose lofty paleness’ bespoke the intellect within.” It reminds her of another hero. She adds, “How like B. L. ! Can this be mere coincidence? J. M.” You would hardly guess which is the main street of our watering-place, but you may know it by its being always stopped up with donkey-chaises. Whenever you come here, and see harnessed donkeys eating clover out of barrows drawn completely across a narrow thoroughfare, you may be quite sure you are in our High Street. Our Police you may know by his uniform, likewise by his never on any account interfering with anybody — especially the tramps and vagabonds. In our fancy shops we have a capital collection of damaged goods, among which the flies of countless summers “have been roam- ing.” We are great in obsolete seals, and in faded pin-cushions, and in rickety camp-stools, and in exploded cutlery, and in miniature vessels, and in stunted little telescopes, and in objects made of shells that pretend not to be shells. Dimin- utive spades, barrows, and baskets, are our principal articles of commerce ; but even they don’t look quite new somehow. They always seem to have been offered and refused somewhere else, before they came down to our watering-place. Yet, it must not be supposed that our watering-place is an empty place, deserted by all visitors except a few staunch persons of approved fidelity. On the contrary, the chances are that if you came down here in August or September, you wouldn’t find a house to lay your head in. As to finding either house or lodging of which you could reduce the terms, you could scarcely engage in a more hopeless pursuit. For all this, you are to observe that every season is the worst season ever known, and that the householding population of OUR ENGLISH WATERING-PLACE. 191 our watering-place are ruined regularly every autumn. They are like the farmers, in regard that it is surprising how much ruin they will bear. We have an excellent hotel — capital baths, warm, cold, and shower — first-rate bathing-machines — and as good butchers, bakers, and grocers, as heart could desire. They all do business, it is to be presumed, from motives of philanthropy — but it is quite certain that they are all being ruined. Their interest in strangers, and their polite- ness under ruin, bespeak their amiable nature. You would say so, if you only saw the baker helping a new-comer to find suitable apartments. So far from being at a discount as to company, we are in fact what would be popularly called rather a nobby place. Some tip-top “ ISTobbs ” come down occasionally — even Dukes and Duchesses. We have known such carriages to blaze among the donkey-chaises, as made beholders wink. Attend- ant on these equipages come resplendent creatures in plush and powder, who are sure to be stricken disgusted with the indifferent accommodation of our watering-place, and who, of an evening (particularly when it rains), may be seen very much out of drawing, in rooms far too small for their fine figures, looking discontentedly out of little back windows into by-streets. The lords and ladies get on well enough and quite good-humoredly : but if you want to see the gorgeous phenomena who wait upon them, at a perfect non-plus, you should come and look at the resplendent creatures with little back parlors for servants’ halls, and turn-up bedsteads to sleep in, at our watering-place. You have no idea how they take it to heart. We have a pier — a queer old wooden pier, fortunately without the slightest pretensions to architecture, and very picturesque in consequence. Boats are hauled up upon it, ropes are coiled all over it; lobster-pots, nets, masts, oars, spars, sails, ballast, and rickety capstans, make a perfect labyrinth of it. For ever hovering about this pier, with their hands in their pockets, or leaning over the rough bulwark it opposes to the sea, gazing through telescopes which they carry about in the same profound receptacles, are the Boatmen of our watering-place. Looking at them, you would say that 192 OUR ENGLISH WATERING-PLACE. surely these must be the laziest boatmen in the world. They lounge about, in obstinate and inflexible pantaloons that are apparently made of wood, the whole season through. Whether talking together about the shipping in the Channel, or gruffly unbending over mugs of beer at the public-house, you would consider them the slowest of men. The chances are a thou- sand to one that you might stay here for ten seasons, and never see a boatman in a hurry. A certain expression about his loose hands, when they are not in his pockets, as if he were carrying a considerable lump of iron in each, without any inconvenience, suggests strength, but he never seems to use it. He has the appearance of perpetually strolling — running is too inappropriate a word to be thought of — to seed. The only subject on which be seems to feel any approach to enthusiasm, is pitch. He pitches everything he can lay hold of, — the pier, the palings, his boat, his house, — when there is nothing else left he turns to and even pitches his hat, or his rough-weather clothing. Ho not judge him by deceitful appearances. These are among the bravest and most skilful mariners that exist. Let a gale arise and swell into a storm, let a sea run that might appall the stoutest heart that ever beat, let the Light-boat on these dangerous sands throw up a rocket in the night, or let them hear through the angry roar the signal-guns of a ship in distress, and these men spring up into activity so dauntless, so valiant, and heroic, that the world cannot surpass it. Cavillers may object that they chiefly live upon the salvage of valuable car- goes. So they do, and God knows it is no great living that they get out of the deadly risks they run. But put that hope of gain aside. Let these rough fellows be asked, in any storm, who volunteers for the life-boat to save some perishing souls, as poor and empty-handed as themselves, whose lives the perfection of human reason does not rate at the value of a farthing each ; and that boat will be manned, as surely and as cheerfully, as if a thousand pounds were told down on the weather-beaten pier. For this, and for the recollection of their comrades whom we have known, whom the raging sea has engulfed before their children’s eyes in such brave efforts, whom the secret sand has buried, we hold the boatmen of our OUR ENGLISH WATERING-PLACE. 193 watering-place in our love and honor, and are tender of the fame they well deserve. So many children are brought down to our watering-place that, when they are not out of doors, as they usually are in fine weather, it is wonderful where they are put : the whole village seeming much too small to hold them under cover. In the afternoons, you see no end of salt and sandy little boots drying on upper window-sills. At bathing-time in the morn- ing, the little bay re-echoes with every shrill variety of shriek and splash — after which, if the weather be at all fresh, the sands teem with small blue mottled legs. The sands are the children’s great resort. They cluster there, like ants : so busy burying their particular friends, and making castles with infinite labor which the next tide overthrows, that it is curi- ous to consider how their play, to the music of the sea, fore- shadows the realities of their after lives. It is curious, too, to observe a natural ease of approach that there seems to be between the children and the boatmen. They mutually make acquaintance, and take individual lik- ings, without any help. You will come upon one of those slow heavy fellows sitting down patiently mending a little ship for a mite of a boy, whom he could crush to death by throwing his lightest pair of trousers on him. You will be sensible of the oddest contrast between the smooth little creat- ure, and the rough man who seems to be carved out of hard- grained wood — between the delicate hand expectantly held out, and the immense thumb and finger that can hardly feel the rigging of thread they mend — between the small voice and the gruff growl — and yet there is a natural propriety in the companionship : always to be noted in confidence between a child and a person who has any merit of reality and gen- uineness : which is admirably pleasant. We have a preventive station at our watering-place, and much the same thing may be observed — in a lesser degree, because of their official character — of the coast blockade ; a steady, trusty, well-conditioned, well-conducted set of men, with no misgiving about looking you full in the face, and with a quiet thorough-going way of passing along to their duty at night, carrying huge sou-wester clothing in reserve, that is VOL. II — 13 194 OUTl ENGLISH WA TERING-PLACE. fraught with all good prepossession. They are handy fellows — neat about their houses — industrious at gardening — would get on with their wives, one thinks, in a desert island — and people it, too, soon. As to the naval officer of the station, with his hearty fresh face, and his blue eye that has pierced all kinds of weather, it warms our hearts when he comes into church on a Sunday with that bright mixture of blue coat, buff waistcoat, black neckerchief, and gold epaulette, that is associated in the minds of all Englishmen with brave, unpretending, cordial, national service. We like to look at him in his Sunday state ; and if we were First Lord (really possessing the indispensable qualification for the office of knowing nothing whatever about the sea), we would give him a ship to-morrow. We have a church, by the by, of course — a hideous temple of flint, like a great petrified haystack. Our chief clerical dignitary, who, to his honor, has done much for education both in time and money, and has established excellent schools, is a sound, shrewd, healthy gentleman, who has got into little occasional difficulties with the neighboring farmers, but has had a pestilent trick of being right. Under a new regulation, he has yielded the church of our watering-place to another clergyman. Upon the whole we get on in church well. We are a little bilious sometimes, about these days of fraterniza- tion, and about nations arriving at a new and more unpreju- diced knowledge of each other (which our Christianity don’t quite approve), but it soon goes off, and then we get on very well. There are two dissenting chapels, besides, in our small watering-place ; being in about the proportion of a hundred and twenty guns to a yacht. But the dissension that has torn us lately, has not been a religious one. It has arisen on the novel question of Gas. Our watering-place has been con- vulsed by the agitation, Gas or Ho Gas. It has never reasoned why Ho Gas, but there was a great Ho Gas party. Broadsides were printed and stuck about — a startling circumstance in our watering-place. The Ho Gas party rested content with chalking “ Ho Gas ! ” and “Down with Gas ! ” and other such angry war-whoops, on the few back gates and scraps of wall OUli ENGLISH WA TEEING-PLACE. 195 which the limits of our watering-place afford ; but the Gas party printed and posted bills, wherein they took the high ground of proclaiming against the No Gas party, that it was said Let there be light and there was light ; and that not to have light (that is gas light) in our watering-place, was to contravene the great decree. Whether by these thunderbolts or not, the No Gas party were defeated ; and in this present season we have had our handful of shops illuminated for the first time. Such of the No Gas party, however, as have got shops, remain in opposition and burn tallow — exhibiting in their windows the very picture of the sulkiness that punishes itself, and a new illustration of the old adage about cutting off your nose to be revenged on your face, in cutting off their gas to be revenged on their business. Other population than we have indicated, our watering- place has none. There are a few old used-up boatmen who creep about in the sunlight with the help of sticks, and there is a poor imbecile shoemaker who wanders his lonely life away among the rocks, as if he were looking for his reason, — which he will never find. Sojourners in neighboring water- ing-places come occasionally in flys to stare at us, and drive away again as if they thought us very dull; Italian boys come, Punch comes, the Fantoccini come, the Tumblers come, the Ethiopians come ; Glee-singers come at night, and hum and vibrate (not always melodiously) under our windows. But they all go soon, and leave us to ourselves again. We once had a travelling Circus and Wombwell’s Menagerie at the same time. They both know better than ever to try it again ; and the Menagerie had nearly razed us from the face of the earth in getting the elephant away — his caravan was so large, and the watering-place so small. We have a fine sea, wholesome for all people ; profitable for the body, profit- able for the mind. The poet’s words are sometimes on its awful lips : And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill ; But 0 for the touch of a vanish’d hand, And the sound of a voice that is still ! 196 OUR ENGLISH WATERING-PLACE . Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, 0 sea ! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. Yet it is not always so, for the speech of the sea is various, and wants not abundant resource of cheerfulness, hope, and lusty encouragement. And since I have been idling at the window here, the tide has risen. The boats are dancing on the bubbling water ; the colliers are afloat again; the white- bordered waves rush in ; the children Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back ; the radiant sails are gliding past the shore, and shining on the far horizon ; all the sea is sparkling, heaving, swelling up with life and beauty, this bright morning. OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE. Haying earned, by many years of fidelity, the right to be sometimes inconstant to our English watering-place, we have dallied for two or three seasons with a French watering- place : once solely known to us as a town with a very long street, beginning with an abattoir and ending with a steam- boat, which it seemed our fate to behold only at daybreak on winter mornings, when (in the days before continental rail- roads), just sufficiently awake to know that we were most uncomfortably asleep, it was our destiny always to clatter through it, in the coupe of the diligence from Paris, with a sea of mud behind us, and a sea of tumbling waves before. In relation to which latter monster, our mind’s eye now recalls a worthy Frenchman in a seal-skin cap with a braided hood over it, once our travelling companion in the coupe afore- said, who waking up with a pale and crumpled visage, and looking ruefully out at the grim row of breakers enjoying themselves fanatically on an instrument of torture called “the Bar,” inquired of us whether we were ever sick at sea ? Both to prepare his mind for the abject creature we were presently to become, and also to afford him consolation, we replied, “ Sir, your servant is always sick when it is possible to be so.” He returned, altogether uncheered by the bright example, “Ah, Heaven, but I am always sick, even when it is impossible to be so.” The means of communication between the French capital and our French watering-place are wholly changed since those days ; but, the Channel remains unbridged as yet, and the old floundering and knocking about go on there. It must be confessed that saving in reasonable (and therefore rare) sea- weather, the act of arrival at our French watering-place from England is difficult to be achieved with dignity. Several little 197 198 OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE . circumstances combine to render the visitor an object of humiliation. In the first place/ the steamer no sooner touches the port ; than all the passengers fall into captivity: being bordered by an overpowering force of Custom-house officers; and marched into a gloomy dungeon. In the second place the road to this dungeon is fenced off with ropes breast-high, and outside those ropes all the English in the place who have lately been sea-sick and are now well; assemble in their best clothes to enjoy the degradation of their dilapidated fellow- creatures. “ Oh; my gracious ! how ill this one has been ! ” “ Here’s a damp one coming next ! ” “ Here’s a pale one ! ” “ Oh ! Ain’t he green in the face, this next one ! ” Even we ourself (not deficient in natural dignity) have a lively remem- brance of staggering up this detested lane one September day in a gale of wind; when we were received like an irresistible comic actor, with a burst of laughter and applause, occasioned by the extreme imbecility of our legs. We were coming to the third place. In the third place, the captives, being shut up in the gloomy dungeon, are strained, two or three at a time, into an inner cell, to be examined as to passports ; and across the doorway of communication, stands a military creature making a bar of his arm. Two ideas are generally present to the British mind during these ceremonies ; first, that it is necessary to make for the cell with violent struggles, as if it were a life-boat and the dungeon a ship going down ; secondly, that the military creature’s arm is a national affront, which the government at home ought instantly to “ take up.” The British mind and body becoming heated by these fantasies, delirious answers are made to inquiries, and extravagant actions performed. Thus, Johnson persists in giving Johnson as his baptismal name, and substituting for his ancestral designation the national “ Dam ! ” Neither can he by any means be brought to recognize the distinction be- tween a portmanteau-key and a passport, but will obstinately persevere in tendering the one when asked for the other. This brings him to the fourth place, in a state of mere idiocy ; and when he is, in the fourth place, cast out at a little door into a howling wilderness of touters, he becomes a lunatic with wild eyes and floating hair until rescued and soothed. OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE. 199 If friendless and unrescued, he is generally put into a railway omnibus and taken to Paris. But, our French watering-place, when it is once got into, is a very enjoyable place. It has a varied and beautiful country around it, and many characteristic and agreeable things within it. To be sure, it might have fewer bad smells and less decay- ing refuse, and it might be better drained, and much cleaner in many parts, and therefore infinitely more healthy. Still, it is a bright, airy, pleasant, cheerful town ; and if you were to walk down either of its three well-paved main streets, towards five o’clock in the afternoon, when delicate odors of cookery fill the air, and its hotel windows (it is full of hotels) give glimpses of long tables set out for dinner, and made to look sumptuous by the aid of napkins folded fan-wise, you would rightly judge it to be an uncommonly good town to eat and drink in. We have an old walled town, rich in cool public wells of water, on the top of a hill within and above the present business-town ; and if it were some hundreds of miles further from England, instead of being, on a clear day, within sight of the grass growing in the crevices of the chalk-cliffs of Dover, you would long ago have been bored to death about that town. It is more picturesque and quaint than half the innocent places which tourists, following their leader like sheep, have made impostors of. To say nothing of its houses with grave courtyards, its queer by-corners, and its many- windowed streets white and quiet in the sunlight, there is an ancient belfry in it that would have been in all the Annuals and Albums, going and gone, these hundred years, if it had but been more expensive to get at. Happily it has escaped so well, being only in our French watering-place, that you may like it of your own accord in a natural manner, without being required to go into convulsions about it. We regard it as one of the later blessings of our life, that Bilkins, the only authority on Taste, never took any notice that we can find out, of our French watering-place. Bilkins never wrote about it, never pointed at anything to be seen in it, never measured anything in it, always left it alone. For which relief, Heaven 200 OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE. bless the town and the memory of the immortal Bilkins like- wise ! There is a charming walk, arched and shaded by trees, on the old walls that form the four sides of this High Town, whence you get glimpses of the streets below, and changing views of the other town and of the river, and of the hills and of the sea. It is made more agreeable and peculiar by some of the solemn houses that are rooted in the deep streets below, bursting into a fresher existence a-top, and having doors and windows, and even gardens, on these ramparts. A child going in at the courtyard gate of one of these houses, climb- ing up the many stairs, and coming out at the fourth -floor window, might conceive himself another Jack, alighting on enchanted ground from another bean-stalk. It is a place wonderfully populous in children ; English children, with governesses reading novels as they walk down the shady lanes of trees, or nursemaids interchanging gossip on the seats ; French children with their smiling bonnes in snow-white caps, and themselves — if little boys — in straw head-gear like bee- hives, work-baskets, and church hassocks. Three years ago, there were three weazen old men, one bearing a frayed red ribbon in his threadbare button-hole, always to be found walk- ing together among these children, before dinner-time. If they walked for an appetite, they doubtless lived en pension — were contracted for — otherwise their poverty would have made it a rash action. They were stooping, blear-eyed, dull old men, slip-shod and shabby, in long-skirted, short-waisted coats and meagre trousers, and yet with a ghost of gentility hovering in their company. They spoke little to each other, and looked as if they might have been politically discontented if they had had vitality enough. Once, we overheard red- ribbon feebly complain to the other two that somebody, or something, was 66 a Bobber ” ; and then they all three set their mouths so that they would have ground their teeth if they had had any. The ensuing winter gathered red-ribbon unto the great company of faded ribbons, and next year the remain- ing two were there — getting themselves entangled with hoops and dolls — familiar mysteries to the children — probably in the eyes of most of them, harmless creatures who had never OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE. 201 been like children, and whom children could never be like. Another winter came, and another old man went, and so, this present year, the last of the triumvirate left off walking — it was no good, now — and sat by himself on a little solitary bench, with the hoops and the dolls as lively as ever all about him. In the Place d’Armes of this town, a little decayed market is held, which seems to slip through the old gateway, like water, and go rippling down the hill, to mingle with the mur- muring market in the lower town, and get lost in its movement and bustle. It is very agreeable on an idle summer morning to pursue this market-stream from the hill-top. It begins dozingly and dully, with a few sacks of corn; starts into a surprising collection of boots and shoes ; goes brawling down the hill in a diversified channel of old cordage, old iron, old crockery, old clothes civil and military, old rags, new cotton goods, flaming prints of saints, little looking-glasses, and incal- culable lengths of tape ; dives into a back way, keeping out of sight for a little while, as streams will, or only sparkling for a moment in the shape of a market drinking-shop ; and sud- denly re-appears behind the great church, shooting itself into a bright confusion of white-capped women and blue-bloused men, poultry, vegetables, fruits, flowers, pots, pans, praying- chairs, soldiers, country butter, umbrellas and other sunshades, girl-porters waiting to be hired with baskets at their backs, and one weazen little old man in a cocked hat, wearing a cuirass of drinking-glasses and carrying on his shoulder a crimson temple fluttering with flags, like a glorified pavior’s rammer without the handle, who rings a little bell in all parts of the scene, and cries his cooling drink Hola, Hola, Ho-o-o ! in a shrill cracked voice that somehow makes itself heard, above all the chaffering and vending hum. Early in the afternoon, the whole course of the stream is dry. The pray- ing-chairs are put back in the church, the umbrellas are folded up, the unsold goods are carried away, the stalls and stands disappear, the square is swept, the hackney-coaches lounge there to be hired, and on all the country roads (if you walk about, as much as we do) you will see the peasant women, always neatly and comfortably dressed, riding home, with the 202 OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE. pleasantest saddle-furniture of clean milk-pails, bright butter- kegs, and the like, on the j oiliest little donkeys in the world. We have another market in our French watering-place — that is to say, a few wooden hutches in the open street, down by the Port — devoted to fish. Our fishing-boats are famous everywhere ; and our fishing people, though they love lively colors and taste is neutral (see Bilkins), are among the most picturesque people we ever encountered. They have not only a Quarter of their own in the town itself, but they occupy whole villages of their own on the neighboring cliffs. Their churches and chapels are their own ; they consort with one another, they intermarry among themselves, their customs are their own, and their costume is their own and never changes. As soon as one of their boys can walk, he is pro- vided with a long bright red nightcap ; and one of their men would as soon think of going afloat without his head, as with- out that indispensable appendage to it. Then, they wear the noblest boots, with the hugest tops — flapping and bulging over anyhow ; above which, they encase themselves in such wonderful overalls and petticoat trousers, made to all appear- ance from tarry old sails, so additionally stiffened with pitch and salt, that the wearers have a walk of their own, and go straddling and swinging about, among the boats and barrels and nets and rigging, a sight to see. Then, their younger women, by dint of going down to the sea barefoot, to fling their baskets into the boats as they come in with the tide, and bespeak the first fruits of the haul with propitiatory promises to love and marry that dear fisherman who shall fill that basket like an Angel, have the finest legs ever carved by Nature in the brightest mahogany, and they walk like Juno. Their eyes, too, are so lustrous that their long gold ear-rings turn dull beside those brilliant neighbors ; and when they are dressed, what with these beauties, and their fine fresh faces, and their many petticoats — striped petticoats, red petticoats, blue pet- ticoats, always clean and smart, and never too long — and their home-made stockings, mulberry-colored, blue, brown, purple, lilac — which the older women, taking care of the Dutch-look- ing children, sit in all sorts of places knitting, knitting, knit- ting, from morning to night — and what with their little saucy OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE. 203 bright blue jackets, knitted too, and fitting close to their hand- some figures; and what with the natural grace with which they wear the commonest cap, or fold the commonest hand- kerchief round their luxuriant hair — we say, in a word and out of breath, that taking all these premises into our consid- eration, it has never been a matter of the least surprise to us that we have never once met, in the cornfields, on the dusty roads, by the breezy windmills, on the plots of short sweet grass overhanging the sea — anywhere — a young fisherman and fisherwoman of our French watering-place together, but the arm of that fisherman has invariably been, as a matter of course and without any absurd attempt to disguise so plain a necessity, round the neck or waist of that fisherwoman. And we have had no doubt whatever, standing looking at their up- hill streets, house rising above house, and terrace above ter- race, and bright garments here and there lying sunning on rough stone parapets, that the pleasant mist on all such objects, caused by their being seen through the brown nets hung across on poles to dry, is, in the eyes of every true young fisherman, a mist of love and beauty, setting off the goddess of his heart. Moreover it is to be observed that these are an industrious people, and a domestic people, and an honest people. And though we are aware that at the bidding of Bilkins it is our duty to fall down and worship the Neapolitans, we make bold very much to prefer the fishing people of our French water- ing place — especially since our last visit to Naples within these twelvemonths, when we found only four conditions of men remaining in the whole city : to wit, lazzaroni, priests, spies, and soldiers, and all of them beggars ; the paternal gov- ernment having banished all its subjects except the rascals. But we can never henceforth separate our French watering- place from our own landlord of two summers, M. Loyal Devas- seur, citizen and town-councillor. Permit us to have the pleasure of presenting M. Loyal Devasseur. His own family name is simply Loyal ; but, as he is mar- ried, and as in that part of France a husband always adds to his own name the family name of his wife, he writes himself Loyal Devasseur. He owns a compact little estate of some twenty or thirty acres on a lofty hill-side, and on it he has 204 OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE. built two country houses which he lets furnished. They are by many degrees the best houses that are so let near our French watering-place ; we have had the honor of living in both, and can testify. The entrance-hall of the first we in- habited, was ornamented with a plan of the estate, represent- ing it as about twice the size of Ireland ; insomuch that when we were yet new to the property (M. Loyal always speaks of it as “ la propriety ” ) we went three miles straight on end, in search of the bridge of Austerlitz — which we afterwards found to be immediately outside the window. The Chateau of the Old Guard in another part of the grounds, and, according to the plan, about two leagues from the little dining-room we sought in vain for a week, until, happening one evening to sit upon a bench in the forest (forest in the plan), a few yards from the house-door, we observed at our feet, in the ignominious circum- stances of being upside down and greenly rotten, the Old Guard himself : that is to say, the painted effigy of a member of that distinguished corps, seven feet high, and in the act of carrying arms, who had had the misfortune to be blown down in the previous winter. It will be perceived that M. Loyal is a staunch admirer of the great Napoleon. He is an old soldier himself — captain of the National Guard, with a handsome gold vase on his chimney-piece, presented to him by his com- pany — and his respect for the memory of the illustrious general is enthusiastic. Medallions of him, portraits of him, busts of him, pictures of him, are thickly sprinkled all over the property. During the first month of our occupation, it was our affliction to be constantly knocking down Napoleon : if we touched a shelf in a dark corner, he toppled over with a crash ; and every door we opened, shook him to the soul. Yet M. Loyal is not a man of mere castles in the air, or, as he would say, in Spain. He has a specially practical, contriving, clever, skilful eye and hand. His houses are delightful. He unites French elegance and English comfort, in a happy manner quite his own. He has an extraordinary genius for making tasteful little bedrooms in angles of his roofs, which an Englishman would as soon think of turning to any account, as he would think of cultivating the Desert. We have ourself reposed deliciously in an elegant chamber of M. Loyal’s con- OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE. 205 struction, with our head as nearly in the kitchen chimney-pot as we can conceive it likely for the head of any gentleman, not by profession a Sweep, to be. And, into whatsoever strange nook M. Loyal’s genius penetrates, it, in that nook, infallibly constructs a cupboard and a row of pegs. In either of our houses, we could have put away the knapsacks and hung up the hats of the whole regiment of Guides. Aforetime, M. Loyal was a tradesman in the town. You can transact business with no present tradesman in the town, and give your card u chez M. Loyal,” but a brighter face shines upon you directly. We doubt if there is, ever was, or ever will be, a man so universally pleasant in the minds of people as M. Loyal is in the minds of the citizens of our French watering-place. They rub their hands and laugh when they speak of him. Ah, but he is such a good child, such a brave boy, such a generous spirit, that Monsieur Loyal ! It is the honest truth. M. Loyal’s nature is the nature of a gentleman. He cultivates his ground with his own hands (assisted by one little laborer, who falls into a fit now and then) ; and he digs and delves from morn to eve in prodigious perspirations — “ works always,” as he says — but, cover him with dust, mud, weeds, water, any stains you will, you never can cover the gentleman in M. Loyal. A portly, upright, broad-shouldered, brown-faced man, whose soldierly bearing gives him the ap- pearance of being taller than he is, — look into the bright eye of M. Loyal, standing before you in his working blouse and cap, not particularly well shaved, and, it may be, very earthy, and you shall discern in M. Loyal a gentleman whose true politeness is in grain, and confirmation of whose word by his bond you would blush to think of. Hot without reason is M. Loyal when he tells that story, in his own vivacious way, of his travelling to Fulham, near London, to buy all these hun- dreds and hundreds of trees you now see upon the Property, then a bare, bleak hill ; and of his sojourning in Fulham three months; and of his jovial evenings with the market-gardeners ; and of the crowning banquet before his departure, when the market-gardeners rose as one man, clinked their glasses all together (as the custom at Fulham is), and cried, “Vive Loyal ! ” 206 OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE. M. Loyal has an agreeable wife, but no family; and he loves to drill the children of his tenants, or run races with them, or do anything with them, or for them, that is good- natured. He is of a highly convivial temperament, and his hospitality is unbounded. Billet a soldier on him, and he is delighted. Five-and-thirty soldiers had M. Loyal billeted on him this present summer, and they all got fat and red-faced in two days. It became a legend among the troops that whosoever got billeted on M. Loyal rolled in clover ; and so it fell out that the fortunate man who drew the billet “ M. Loyal Devasseur ” always leaped into the air, though in heavy march- ing order. M. Loyal cannot bear to admit anything that might seem by any implication to disparage the military profession. We hinted to him once, that we were conscious of a remote doubt arising in our mind, whether a sou a day for pocket- money, tobacco, stockings, drink, washing, and social pleasures in general, left a very large margin for a soldier’s enjoyment. Pardon ! said Monsieur Loyal, rather wincing. It was not a fortune, but — a la bonne heure — it was better than it used to be ! What, we asked him on another occasion, were all those neighboring peasants, each living with his family in one room, and each having a soldier (perhaps two) billeted on him every other night, required to provide for those soldiers ? “ Faith ! ” said M. Loyal, reluctantly ; “ a bed, monsieur, and fire to cook with, and a candle. And they share their supper with those soldiers. It is not possible that they could eat alone.” — “ And what allowance do they get for this ? ” said we. Monsieur Loyal drew himself up taller, took a step back, laid his hand upon his breast, and said, with majesty, as speaking for himself and all France, “ Monsieur, it is a contribution to the State ! ” It is never going to rain, according to M. Loyal. When it is impossible to deny that it is now raining in torrents, he says it will be fine — charming — magnificent — to-morrow. It is never hot on the Property, he contends. Likewise it is never cold. The flowers, he says, come out, delighting to grow there ; it is like Paradise this morning ; it is like the Garden of Eden. He is a little fanciful in his language ; smilingly observing of Madame Loyal, when she is absent at OUB FRENCH WATERING-PLACE. 207 vespers, that she is “gone to her salvation” — allee a son salut. He has a great enjoyment of tobacco, but nothing would induce him to continue smoking face to face with a lady. His short black pipe immediately goes into his breast pocket, scorches his blouse, and nearly sets him on fire. In the Town Council and on occasions of ceremony, he appears in a full suit of black, with a waistcoat of magnificent breadth across the chest, and a shirt-collar of fabulous proportions. Good M. Loyal. Under blouse or waistcoat, he carries one of the gentlest hearts that beat in a nation teeming with gentle people. He has had losses, and has been at his best under them. Hot only the loss of his way by night in the Fulham times — when a bad subject of an Englishman, under pretence of seeing him home, took him into all the night public-houses, drank “ arfanarf ” in every one at his expense, and finally fled, leaving him shipwrecked at Cleefeeway, which we appre- hend to be Ratcliffe Highway — but heavier losses than that. Long ago, a family of children and a mother were left in one of his houses, without money, a whole year. M. Loyal — anything but as rich as we wish he had been — had not the heart to say “ you must go ; ” so they stayed on and stayed on, and paying-tenants who would have come in couldn’t come in, and at last they managed to get helped home across the water, and M. Loyal kissed the whole group, and said “Adieu, my poor infants ! ” and sat down in their deserted salon and smoked his pipe of peace. — “'The rent, M. Loyal?” “Eh! well ! The rent ! ” M. Loyal shakes his head. “ Le bon Dieu,” says M. Loyal presently, “will recompense me,” and he laughs and smokes his pipe of peace. May he smoke it on the Property, and not be recompensed, these fifty years ! There are public amusements in our French watering-place, or it would not be French. They are very popular, and very cheap. The sea-bathing — which may rank as the most favored daylight entertainment, inasmuch as the French visi- tors bathe all day long, and seldom appear to think of remain- ing less than an hour at a time in the water — is astoundingly cheap. Omnibuses convey you, if you please, from a con- venient part of the town to the beach and back again ; you have a clean and comfortable bathing-machine, dress, linen, 208 OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE. and all appliances; and the charge for the whole is half- a-franc, or fivepence. On the pier, there is usually a guitar, which seems presumptuously enough to set its tinkling against the deep hoarseness of the sea, and there is always some boy or woman who sings, without any voice, little songs without any tune : the strain we have most frequently heard^ being an appeal to “the sportsman ” not to bag that choicest of* game, the swallow. For bathing purposes, we have also a subscrip- tion establishment with an esplanade, where people lounge about with telescopes, and seem to get a good deal of weari- ness for their money ; and we have also an association of indi- vidual machine-proprietors combined against this formidable rival. M. Feroce, our own particular friend in the bathing line, is one of these. How he ever came by his name, we can- not imagine. He is as gentle and polite a man as M. Loyal Devasseur himself ; immensely stout withal, and of a beaming aspect. M. Feroce has saved so many people from drowning, and has been decorated with so many medals in consequence, that his stoutness seems a special dispensation of Providence to enable him to wear them ; if his girth were the girth of an ordinary man, he could never hang them on, all at once. It is only on very great occasions that M. Feroce displays his shining honors. At other times they lie by, with rolls of manuscript testifying to the causes of their presentation, in a huge glass case in the red-sofa’ d salon of his private residence on the beach, where M. Feroce also keeps his family pictures, his portraits of himself as he appears both in bathing life and in private life, his little boats that rock by clockwork, and his other ornamental possessions. Then, we have a commodious and gay Theatre — or had, for it is burned down now — where the opera was always pre- ceded by a vaudeville, in which (as usual) everybody, down to the little old man with the large hat and the little cane and tassel, who always played either my Uncle or my Papa, suddenly broke out of the dialogue into the mildest vocal snatches, to the great perplexity of unaccustomed strangers from Great Britain, who never could make out when they were singing and when they were talking - — and indeed it was pretty much the same. But, the caterers in the way of en- OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE . 209 tertainment to whom we are most beholden, are the Society of Welldoing, who are active all the summer, and give the pro- ceeds of their good works to the poor. Some of the most agreeable fetes they contrive, are announced as “ Dedicated to the children ; ” and the taste with which they turn a small pub- lic enclosure into an elegant garden beautifully illuminated, and the thorough-going heartiness and energy with which they personally direct the childish pleasures, are supremely delightful. For fivepence a head, we have on these occa- sions donkey races with English “Jokeis,” and other rustic sports ; lotteries for toys ; roundabouts, dancing on the grass to the music of an admirable band, fire-balloons, and fireworks. Further, almost every week all through the summer — never mind, now, on what day of the week — there is a fete in some adjoining village (called in that part of the country a Du- casse), where the people — really the people — dance on the green turf in the open air, round a little orchestra, that seems itself to dance, there is such an airy motion of flags and streamers all about it. And we do not suppose that between the Torrid Zone and the North Pole there are to be found male dancers with such astonishingly loose legs, furnished with so many joints in wrong places, utterly unknown to Professor Owen, as those who here disport themselves. Some- times, the fete appertains to a particular trade ; you will see among the cheerful young women at the joint Ducasse of the milliners and tailors, a wholesome knowledge of the art of mak- ing common and cheap things uncommon and pretty, by good sense and good taste, that is a practical lesson to any rank of society in a whole island we could mention. The oddest feature of these agreeable scenes is the everlasting Eound- about (we preserve an English word wherever we can, as we are writing the English language), on the wooden horses of which machine grown-up people of all ages are wound round and round with the utmost solemnity, while the proprietor’s wife grinds an organ, capable of only one tune, in the centre. As to the boarding-houses of our French watering-place, they are Legion, and would require a distinct treatise. It is not without a sentiment of national pride that we believe them to contain more bores from the shores of Albion than all the VOL. II — 14 210 OUR FRENCH WATERING-PLACE . clubs in London. As you walk timidly in their neighborhood, the very neckcloths and hats of your elderly compatriots cry to you from the stones of the streets, a We are Bores — avoid us l" We have never overheard at street corners such lunatic scraps of political and social discussion as among these dear countrymen of ours. They believe everything that is im- possible and nothing that is true. They carry rumors, and ask questions, and make corrections and improvements on one another, staggering to the human intellect. And they are for ever rushing into the English library, propounding such incomprehensible paradoxes to the fair mistress of that estab- lishment, that we beg to recommend her to her Majesty’s gracious consideration as a fit object for a pension. The English form a considerable part of the population of our French watering-place, and are deservedly addressed and respected in many ways. Some of the surface-addresses to them are odd enough, as when a laundress puts a placard outside her house announcing her possession of that curious British instrument, a “ Mingle ; ” or when a tavern-keeper provides accommodation for the celebrated English game of “Nokemdon.” But, to us, it is not the least pleasant feature of our French watering-place that a long and constant fusion of the two great nations there, has taught each to like the other, and to learn from the other, and to rise superior to the absurd prejudices that have lingered among the weak and ignorant in both countries equally. Drumming and trumpeting of course go on for ever in our French watering-place. Flag-flying is at a premium, too ; but, we cheerfully avow that we consider a flag a very pretty object, and that we take such outward signs of innocent liveliness to our heart of hearts. The people, in the town and in the country, are a busy people who work hard ; they are sober, temperate, good-humored, light-hearted, and generally remarkable for their engaging manners. Few just men, not immoderately bilious, could see them in their recreations with- out very much respecting the character that is so easily, so harmlessly, and so simply, pleased. BILL-STICKING. If I had an enemy whom I hated — which Heaven forbid ! — - and if I knew of something that sat heavy on his conscience, I think I would introduce that something into a Posting-Bill, and place a large impression in the hands of an active sticker. I can scarcely imagine a more terrible revenge. I should haunt him, by this means, night and day. I do not mean to say that I would publish his secret, in red letters two feet high, for all the town to read : I would darkly refer to it. It should be between him, and me, and the Posting-Bill. Say, for example, that, at a certain period of his life, my enemy had surreptitiously possessed himself of a key. I would then embark my capital in the lock business, and conduct that business on the advertising principle. In all my placards and advertisements, I would throw up the line Secret Keys. Thus, if my enemy passed an uninhabited house, he would see his conscience glaring down on him from the parapets, and peeping up at him from the cellars. If he took a dead wall in his walk, it would be alive with reproaches. If he sought refuge in an omnibus, the panels thereof would become Belshazzar’s palace to him. If he took boat, in a wild endeavor to escape, he would see the fatal words lurking under the arches of the bridges over the Thames. If he walked the streets with down- cast eyes, he would recoil from the very stones of the pave- ment, made eloquent by lamp-black lithograph. If he drove or rode, his way would be blocked up, by enormous vans, each proclaiming the same words over and over again from its whole extent of surface. Until, having gradually grown thinner and paler, and having at last totally rejected food, he would miserably perish, and I should be revenged. This con- clusion I should, no doubt, celebrate by laughing a hoarse laugh in three syllable, and folding my arms tight upon my chest 211 212 BILL-STICKING. agreeably to most of the examples of glutted animosity that I have had an opportunity of observing in connection with the Drama — which, by the by, as involving a good deal of noise, appears to me to be occasionally confounded with the Drummer. The foregoing reflections presented themselves to my mind, the other day, as I contemplated (being newly come to London from the East Riding of Yorkshire, on a house-hunt- ing expedition for next May), an old warehouse which rotting paste and rotting paper had brought down to the condition of an old cheese. It would have been impossible to say, on the most conscientious survey, how much of its front was brick and mortar, and how much decaying and decayed plaster. It was so thickly encrusted with fragments of bills, that no ship’s keel after a long voyage could be half so foul. All traces of the broken windows were billed out, the doors were billed across, the water-spout was billed over. The building was shored up to prevent its tumbling into the street; and the very beams erected against it, were less wood than paste and paper, they had been so continually posted and reposted. The forlorn dregs of old posters so encumbered this wreck, that there was no hold for new posters, and the stickers had abandoned the place in despair, except one enterprising man who had hoisted the last masquerade to a clear spot near the level of the stack of chimneys where it waived and drooped like a shattered flag. Below the rusty cellar-grating, crumbled remnants of old bills torn down, rotted away in wasting heaps of fallen leaves. Here and there, some of the thick rind of the house had peeled off in strips, and fluttered heavily down, littering the street ; but, still, below these rents and gashes, layers of decomposing posters showed themselves, as if they were interminable. I thought the building could never even be pulled down, but in one adhesive heap of rottenness and poster. As to getting in — I don’t believe that if the Sleeping Beauty and her Court had been so billed up, the young Prince could have done it. Knowing all the posters that were yet legible, intimately, and pondering on their ubiquitous nature, I was led into the reflections with which I began this paper, by considering BILL- STIC KING. 213 what an awful thing it would be, ever to have wronged — say M. Jullien for exanple — and to have his avenging name in characters of fire incessantly before my eyes. Or to have injured Madame Tussaud, and undergo a similar retribution. Has any man a self-reproacliful thought associated with pills, or ointment ? What an avenging spirit to that man is Pro- fessor Holloway ! Have I sinned in oil ? Cabburx pur- sues me. Have I a dark remembrance associated with any gentlemanly garments, bespoke or ready made ? Moses and So?* are on my track. Did I ever aim a blow at a defence- less fellow-creature’s head ? That head eternally being meas- ured for a wig, or that worse head which was bald before it used the balsam, and hirsute afterwards — enforcing the benevolent moral, “ Better to be bald as a Dutch-cheese than come to this,” — 'Undoes me. Have I no sore places in my mind which Mechi touches — which jSTicoll probes — which no registered article whatever lacerates ? Does no discordant note within me thrill responsive to mysterious watchwords, as “Bevalenta Arabica,” or “Number One St. Paul’s Church- yard” ? Then may I enjoy life, and be happy. Lifting up my eyes, as I was musing to this effect, I beheld advancing towards me (I was then on Cornhill near to the Boyal Exchange), a solemn procession of three advertising vans, of first-class dimensions, each drawn by a very little horse. As the cavalcade approached, I was at a loss to reconcile the careless deportment of the drivers of these vehicles, with the terrific announcements they conducted through the city, which, being a summary of the contents of a Sunday newspaper, were of the most thrilling kind. Bob- bery, fire, murder, and the ruin of the united kingdom — each discharged in a line by itself, like a separate broadside of red-hot shot — were among the least of the warnings addressed to an unthinking people. Yet, the Ministers of Fate who drove the awful cars, leaned forward with their arms upon their knees in a state of extreme lassitude, for want of any subject of interest. The first man, whose hair I might naturally have expected to see standing on end, scratched his head — one of the smoothest I ever beheld 214 BILL-STICKING . — with profound indifference. The second whistled. The third yawned. Pausing to dwell upon this apathy, it appeared to me, as the fatal cars came by me, that I descried in the second car, through the portal in which the charioteer was seated, a figure stretched upon the floor. At the same time, I thought I smelt tobacco. The latter impression passed quickly from me ; the former remained. Curious to know whether this prostrate figure was the one impressible man of the whole capital who had been stricken insensible by the terrors revealed to him, and whose form had been placed in the car by the charioteer, from motives of humanity, I followed the procession. It turned into Leadenhall-market, and halted at a public-house. Each driver dismounted. I then distinctly heard, proceeding from the second car, where I had dimly seen the prostrate form, the words : “ And a pipe ! ” The driver entering the public-house with his fellows, appar- ently for purposes of refreshment, I could not refrain from mounting on the shaft of the second vehicle, and looking in at the portal. I then beheld, reclining on his back upon the floor, on a kind of mattress or divan, a little man in a shooting-coat. The exclamation “ Dear me ! ” which irresistibly escaped my lips, caused him to sit upright, and survey me. I found him to be a good-looking little man of about fifty, with a shining face, a tight head, a bright eye, a moist wink, a quick speech, and a ready air. He had something of a sporting way with him. He looked at me, and I looked at him, until the driver dis- placed me by handing in a pint of beer, a pipe, and what I understand is called “a screw” of tobacco — an object which has the appearance of a curl-paper taken off the barmaid’s head, with the curl in it. “ I beg your pardon,” said I, when the removed person of the driver again admitted of my presenting my face at the portal. “ But — excuse my curiosity, which I inherit from my mother — do you live here ? ” “ That’s good, too ! ” returned the little man, composedly BILL-S TICKIJS T G . 215 laying aside a pipe he had smoked out, and filling the pipe just brought to him. “ Oli, you don’t live here then ? ” said I. He shook his head, as he calmly lighted his pipe by means of a German tinder-box, and replied, “ This is my carriage. When things are flat, I take a ride sometimes, and enjoy my- self. I am the inventor of these wans.” His pipe was now alight. He drank his beer all at once, and he smoked and he smiled at me. “ It was a great idea ! ” said I. “ Hot so bad,” returned the little man, with the modesty of merit. “ Might I be permitted to inscribe your name upon the tab- lets of my memory ? ” I asked. “ There’s not much odds in the name,” returned the little man, “ — no name particular — I am the King of the Bill- Stickers.” “ Good gracious ! ” said I. The monarch informed me, with a smile, that he had never been crowned or installed with any public ceremonies, but, that he was peaceably acknowledged as King of the Bill-Stickers in right of being the oldest and most respected member of “ the old school of bill-sticking.” He likewise gave me to understand that there was a Lord Mayor of the Bill-Stickers, whose genius was chiefly exercised within the limits of the city. He made some allusion, also, to an inferior potentate, called “ Turkey-legs ; ” but, I did not understand that this gen- tleman was invested with much power. I rather inferred that he derived his title from some peculiarity of gait, and that it was of an honorary character. “ My father,” pursued the King of the Bill-Stickers, “ was Engineer, Beadle, and Bill-Sticker to the parish of St. An- drew’s, Holborn, in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. My father stuck bills at the time of the riots of London.” “You must be acquainted with the whole subject of bill- sticking, from that time to the present ! ” said I. “ Pretty well so,” was the answer. “ Excuse me,” said I ; “ but I am a sort of collector — ” 216 BILL-STICKING. “ Not Income-tax ? ” cried His Majesty, hastily removing his pipe from his lips. “ No, no,” said I. “ Water-rate ? ” said His Majesty. “No, no,” I returned. “ Gas ? Assessed ? Sewers ? ” said His Majesty. “ You misunderstand me,” I replied, soothingly. ?< Not that sort of collector at all : a collector of facts.” “ Oh ! if it’s only facts,” cried the King of the Bill-Stickers, recovering his good-humor, and banishing the great mistrust that had suddenly fallen upon him, “ come in and welcome ! If it had been income, or winders, I think I should have pitched you out of the wan, upon my soul ! 99 Beadily complying with the invitation, I squeezed myself in at the small aperture. His Majesty, graciously handing me a little three-legged stool on which I took my seat in a corner, inquired if I smoked. “ I do ; — that is, I can,” I answered. “Pipe and a screw!” said His Majesty to the attendant charioteer. “ Do you prefer a dry smoke, or do you moisten it?” As unmitigated tobacco produces most disturbing effects upon my system (indeed, if I had perfect moral courage, I doubt if I should smoke at all, under any circumstances), I advocated moisture, and begged the Sovereign of the Bill- Stickers to name his usual liquor, and to concede to me the privilege of paying for it. After some delicate reluctance on his part, we were provided, through the instrumentality of the attendant charioteer, with a can of cold rum-and-water, flavored with sugar and lemon. We were also furnished with a tumbler, and I was provided with a pipe. His Majesty, then, observing that we might combine business with conversation, gave the word for the car to proceed; and, to my great delight, we jogged away at a foot pace. I say to my great delight, because I am very fond of novelty, and it was a new sensation to be jolting through the tumult of the city in that secluded Temple, partly open to the sky, surrounded by the roar without, and seeing nothing but the clouds. Occasionally, blows from whips fell heavily on the BILL-STICKING. 217 Temple’s walls, when by stopping up the road longer than usual, we irritated carters and coachmen to madness ; but, they fell harmless upon us within and disturbed not the serenity of our peaceful retreat. As I looked upward, I felt, I should imagine, like the Astronomer Royal. I was enchanted by the contrast between the freezing nature of our external mission on the blood of the populace, and the perfect composure reign- ing within those sacred precincts : where His Majesty, reclining easily on his left arm, smoked his pipe and drank his rum- and-water from his own side of the tumbler,, which stood impartially between us. As I looked down from the clouds and caught his royal eye, he understood my reflections. “ I have an idea,” he observed, with an upward glance, “ of train- ing scarlet runners across in the season, — making an arbor of it, — and sometimes taking tea in the same, according to the song.” I nodded approval. “ And here you repose and think ? ” said I. “ And think,” said he, “ of posters — walls — and hoard- ings.” We were both silent, contemplating the vastness of the sub- ject. I remembered a surprising fancy of dear Thomas Hood’s, and wondered whether this monarch ever sighed to repair to the great wall of China, and stick bills all over it. “And so,” said he, rousing himself, “it’s facts as you collect ? ” “ Facts,” said I. “The facts of bill-sticking,” pursued His Majesty, in a benignant manner, “as known to myself, air as following. When my father was Engineer, Beadle, and Bill-Sticker to the parish of St. Andrews, Holborn, he employed women to post bills for him. He employed women to post bills at the time of the riots of London. He died at the age of seventy-five year, and was buried by the murdered Eliza G-rimwood, over in the Waterloo-road.” As this was somewhat in the nature of a royal speech, I listened with deference and silently. His Majesty, taking a scroll from his pocket, proceeded, with great distinctness, to pour out the following flood of information : 218 BILL-STICKING . “ 6 The bills being at that period mostly proclamations and declarations, and which were only a demy size, the manner of posting the bills (as they did not use brushes) was by means of a piece of wood which they called a “ dabber.” Thus things continued till such time as the State Lottery was passed, and then the printers began to print larger bills, and men were employed instead of women, as the State Lottery Commis- sioners then began to send men all over England to post bills, and would keep them out for six or eight months at a time, and they were called by the London bill-stickers “ trampers ,” their wages at the time being ten shillings per day, besides expenses. They used sometimes to be stationed in large towns for five or six months together, distributing the schemes to all the houses in the town. And then there were more caricature wood-block engravings for posting-bills than there are at the present time, the principal printers, at that time, of posting-bills being Messrs. Evans and Ruffy, of Budge-row; Thoroughgood and Whiting, of the present day ; and Messrs. Gye and Balne, Gracechurch Street, City. The largest bills printed at that period were a two-sheet double crown ; and when they commenced printing four-sheet bills, two bill- stickers would work together. They had no settled wages per week, but had a fixed price for their work, and the London bill-stickers, during a lottery week, have been known to earn, each eight or nine pounds per week, till the day of drawing ; likewise the men who carried boards in the street used to have one pound per week, and the bill-stickers at that time would not allow any one to wilfully cover or destroy their bills, as they had a society amongst themselves, and very frequently dined together at some public-house where they used to go of an evening to have their work delivered out untoe ’em.’ ” All this His Majesty delivered in a gallant manner; posting it, as it were, before me, in a great proclamation. I took advantage of the pause he now made, to inquire what a “ two- sheet double crown ” might express ? “ A two-sheet double crown,” replied the King, “ is a bill thirty-nine inches wide by thirty inches high.” “ Is it possible,” said I, my mind reverting to the gigantic BILL- STICKING. 219 admonitions we were then displaying to the multitude — which were as infants to some of the posting-bills on the rotten old warehouse — “ that some few years ago the largest bill was no larger than that ? ” “ The fact/’ returned the King, “ is undoubtedly so.” Here he instantly rushed again into the scroll. “ ‘ Since the abolishing of the State Lottery all that good feeling has gone, and nothing but jealousy exists, through the rivalry of each other. Several bill-sticking companies have started, but have failed. The first party that started a com- pany was twelve years ago ; but what was left of the old school and their dependants joined together and opposed them. And for some time we were quiet again, till a printer of Hatton Garden formed a company by hiring the sides of houses ; but he was not supported by the public, and he left his wooden frames fixed up for rent. The last company that started, took advantage of the New Police Act, and hired of Messrs. Grisell and Peto the hoarding of Trafalgar Square, and established a bill-sticking office in Cursitor-street, Chan- cery-lane, and engaged some of the new bill-stickers to do their work, and for a time got the half of all our work, and with such spirit did they carry on their opposition towards us, that they used to give us in charge before the magistrate, and get us fined ; but they found it so expensive, that they could not keep it up, for they were always employing a lot of ruffians from the Seven Dials to come and fight us ; and on one occasion the old bill-stickers went to Trafalgar Square to attempt to post bills, when they were given in custody by the watchman in their employ, and fined at Queen Square five pounds, as they would not allow any of us to speak in the office ; but when they were gone, we had an interview with the magistrate, who mitigated the fine to fifteen shillings. During the time the men were waiting for the fine, this company started off to a public-house that we were in the habit of using, and waited for us coming back, where a fight- ing scene took place that beggars description. Shortly after this, the principal one day came and shook hands with us, and acknowledged that he had broken up the company, and that he himself had lost five hundred pound in trying to over- 220 BILL-STICKING . throw us. We then took possession of the hoarding in Trafalgar Square ; but Messrs. Grisell and Peto would not allow us to post our bills on the said hoarding without paying them — and from first to last we paid upwards of two hundred pounds for that hoarding, and likewise the hoarding of the Reform Club-house, Pall Mall.’ ” His Majesty, being now completely out of breath, laid down his scroll (which he appeared to have finished), puffed at his pipe, and took some rum-and-water. I embraced the oppor- tunity of asking how many divisions the art and mystery of bill-sticking comprised ? He replied, three — auctioneers’ bill- sticking, theatrical bill-sticking, general bill-sticking. “The auctioneers’ porters,” said the King, “who do their bill-sticking, are mostly respectable and intelligent, and gene- rally well paid for their work, whether in town or country. The price paid by the principal auctioneers for country work is nine shillings per day ; that is, seven shillings for day’s work, one shilling for lodging, and one for paste. Town work is five shillings a day, including paste.” “Town work must be rather hot work,” said I, “if there be many of those fighting scenes that beggar description, among the bill-stickers ? “Well,” replied the King, “I an’t a stranger, I assure you, to black eyes ; a bill-sticker ought to know how to handle his fists a bit. As to that row I have mentioned, that grew out of competition, conducted in an uncompromising spirit. Besides a man in a horse-and-shay continually follow- ing us about, the company had a watchman on duty, night and day, to prevent us sticking bills upon the hoarding in Trafalgar Square. We went there, early one morning, to stick bills and to black-wash their bills if we were interfered with. W T e were interfered with, and I gave the word for lay- ing on the wash. It ivas laid on — pretty brisk — and we were all taken to Queen Square : but they couldn’t fine me. I knew that,” — with a bright smile — “I’d only given direc- tions — I was only the General.” Charmed with this monarch’s affability, I inquired if he had ever hired a hoarding himself. “ Hired a large one,” he replied, “ opposite the Lyceum BILL-STICKING . 221 Theatre, when the buildings was there. Paid thirty pound for it ; let out places on it, and called it ‘ The External Paper- Hanging Station/ But it didn’t answer. Ah ! ” said His Majesty, thoughtfully, as he filled the glass, “ Bill-stickers have a deal to contend with. The bill-sticking clause was got into the Police Act by a member of parliament that employed me at his election. The clause is pretty stiff respecting where bills go ; but lie didn’t mind where his bills went. It was all right enough, so long as they was his bills ! ” Fearful that I observed a shadow of misanthropy on the King’s cheerful face, I asked whose ingenious invention that was, which I greatly admired, of sticking bills under the arches of the bridges. “Mine!” said His Majesty, “I was the first that ever stuck a bill under a bridge ! Imitators soon rose up, of course. — When don’t they ? But they stuck ’em at low-water, and the tide came and swept the bills clean away. I knew that ! ” The King laughed. “What may be the name of that instrument, like an im- mense fishing-rod,” I inquired, “with which bills are posted on high places ? ” “The joints,” returned His Majesty. “Now, we use the joints where formerly we used ladders — as they do still in country places. Once, when Wadame” (Vestris, understood) “was playing in Liverpool, another bill-sticker and me were at it together on the wall outside the Clarence Hock — me with the joints — him on a ladder. Lord ! I had my bill up, right over his head, yards above him, ladder and all, while he was crawling to his work. The people going in and out of the docks, stood and laughed ! — It’s about thirty years since the joints come in.” “ Are there any bill-stickers who can’t read ? ” I took the liberty of inquiring. “Some,” said the King. “But they know which is the right side up’ards of their work. They keep it as it’s given out to ’em. I have seen a bill or so stuck wrong side up’ards. But it’s very rare.” Our discourse sustained some interruption at this point, by the procession of cars occasioning a stoppage of about three 222 BILL-STICKING. quarters of a mile in length, as nearly as I could judge. His Majesty, however, entreating me not to be discomposed by the contingent uproar, smoked with great placidity, and sur- veyed the firmament. When we were again in motion, I begged to be informed what was the largest poster His Majesty had ever seen. The King replied, “ A thirty-six sheet poster.” I gathered, also, that there were about a hundred and fifty bill-stickers in London, and that His Majesty considered an average hand equal to the posting of one hundred bills (single sheets) in a day. The King was of opinion, that, although posters had much increased in size, they had not increased in number ; as the abolition of the State Lotteries had occasioned a great falling off, especially in the country. Over and above which change, I bethought myself that the custom of advertising in news- papers had greatly increased. The completion of many London improvements, as Trafalgar Square (I particularly observed the singularity of His Majesty’s calling that an improvement), the Royal Exchange, &c., had of late years reduced the number of advantageous posting-places. Bill- stickers at present rather confine themselves to districts, than to particular descriptions of work. One man would strike over Whitechapel, another would take round Houndsditch, Shoreditch, and the City Road ; one (the King said) would stick to the Surrey side ; another would make a beat of the West-end. His Majesty remarked, with some approach to severity, on the neglect of delicacy and taste, gradually introduced into the trade by the new school : a profligate and inferior race of impostors who took jobs at almost any price, to the detriment of the old school, and the confusion of their own misguided employers. He considered that the trade was overdone with competition, and observed, speaking of his subjects, “ There are too many of ’em.” He believed, still, that things were a little better than they had been ; adducing, as a proof, the fact that particular posting places were now reserved, by common consent, for particular posters ; those places, however, must be regularly occupied by those posters, or, they lapsed and fell into other hands. It was of no use giving a man a BILL-STICKING. 223 Drury Lane bill this week and not next. Where was it to go ? He was of opinion that going to the expense of putting up your own board on which your sticker could display your own bills, was the only complete way of posting yourself at the present time ; but, even to effect this, on payment of a shilling a week to the keepers of steamboat piers and other such places, you must be able, besides, to give orders for theatres and public exhibitions, or you would be sure to be cut out by somebody. His Majesty regarded the passion for orders, as one of the most inappeasable appetites of human nature. If there were a building, or if there were repairs, going on, anywhere, you could generally stand something and make it right with the foreman of the works ; but, orders would be expected from you, and the man who could give the most orders was the man who would come off best. There was this other objectional point, in orders, that workmen sold them for drink, and often sold them to persons who were likewise troubled with the weakness of thirst : which led (His Majesty said) to the presentation of your orders at Theatre doors, by individuals who were ee too shakery ” to derive in- tellectual profit from the entertainments, and who brought a scandal on you. Finally, His Majesty said that you could hardly put too little in a poster ; what you wanted, was, two or three good catch-lines for the eye to rest on — then, leave it alone — and there you were ! These are the minutes of my conversation with His Majest}^, as I noted them down shortly afterwards. I am not aware that I have been betrayed into any alteration or suppression. The manner of the King was frank in the extreme ; and he seemed to me to avoid, at once that slight tendency to repetition which may have been observed in the conversation of His Majesty King George the Third, and that slight under- current of egotism which the curious observer may perhaps detect in the conversation of Napoleon Bonaparte. I must do the King the justice to say that it was I, and not he, who closed the dialogue. At this juncture, I became the subject of a remarkable optical delusion; the legs of my stool appeared to me to double up; the car to spin round and round with great violence; and a mist to arise between myself 224 BILL-STICKING. and His Majesty. In addition to these sensations, I felt extremely unwell. I refer these unpleasant effects, either to the paste with which the posters were affixed to the van: which may have contained some small portion of arsenic; or, to the printer’s ink, which may have contained some equally deleterious ingredient. Of this, I cannot be sure. I am only sure that I was not affected, either by the smoke, or the rum- and-water. I was assisted out of the vehicle, in a state of mind which I have only experienced in two other places — I allude to the Pier at Dover, and to the corresponding portion of the town of Calais — and sat upon a door-step until I recovered. The procession had then disappeared. I have since looked anxiously for the King in several other cars, but I have not yet had the happiness of seeing His Majesty. “ BIRTHS. MRS. MEEK, OF A SON” My name is Meek. I am, in fact, Mr. Meek. That son is mine and Mrs. Meek’s. When I saw the announcement in the Times, I dropped the paper. I had put it in, myself, and paid for it, but it looked so noble that it overpowered me. As soon as I could compose my feelings, I took the paper up to Mrs. Meek’s bedside. “ Maria Jane,” said I (I allude to Mrs. Meek), “you are now a public character.” We read the review of our child, several times, with feelings of the strong- est emotion; and I sent the boy who cleans the boots and shoes, to the office for fifteen copies. No reduction was made on taking that quantity. It is scarcely necessary for me to say, that our child had been expected. In fact, it had been expected, with comparative confidence, for some months. Mrs. Meek’s mother, who resides with us — of the name of Bigby — had made every preparation for its admission to our circle. I hope and believe I am a quiet man. I will go farther. I know I am a quiet man. My constitution is tremulous, my voice was never loud, and, in point of stature, I have been from infancy, small. I have the greatest respect for Maria Jane’s Mamma. She is a most remarkable woman. I honor Maria Jane’s Mamma. In my opinion she would storm a town, single-handed, with a hearth-broom, and carry it. I have never known her to yield any point whatever, to mortal man. She is calculated to terrify the stoutest heart. Still — but I will not anticipate. The first intimation I had, of any preparations being in progress, on the part of Maria Jane’s Mamma, was one after- noon, several months ago. I came home earlier than usual from the office, and, proceeding into the dining-room, found an obstruction behind the door, which prevented it from open- vol. n — 15 225 226 “ BIBTHS . MBS. MEEK , OF J £OiV.” ing freely. It was an obstruction of a soft nature. On looking in, I found it to be a female. The female in question stood in the corner behind the door, consuming Sherry Wine. From the nutty smell of that beverage pervading the apartment, I have no doubt she was consuming a second glassful. She wore a black bonnet of large dimensions, and was copious in figure. The expression of her countenance was severe and discontented. The words to which she gave utterance on seeing me, were these, “Oh git along with you, Sir, if you please; me and Mrs. Bigby don’t want no male parties here ! ” That female was Mrs. Prodgit. I immediately withdrew, of course. I was rather hurt, but I made no remark. Whether it was that I showed a lowness of spirits after dinner, in consequence of feeling that I seemed to intrude, I cannot say. But, Maria Jane’s Mamma said to me on her retiring for the night, in a low distinct voice, and with a look of reproach that completely subdued me : “ George Meek, Mrs. Prodgit is your wife’s nurse !” I bear no ill-will towards Mrs. Prodgit. Is it likely that I, writing this with tears in my eyes, should be capable of deliberate animosity towards a female, so essential to the wel- fare of Maria Jane ? I am willing to admit that Fate may have been to blame, and not Mrs. Prodgit ; but, it is unde- niably true, that the latter female brought desolation and devastation into my lowly dwelling. We were happy after her first appearance : we were some- times exceedingly so. But, whenever the parlor door was opened, and “ Mrs. Prodgit ! ” announced (and she was very often announced), misery ensued. I could not bear Mrs. Prodgit’s look. I felt that I was far from wanted, and had no business to exist in Mrs. Prodgit’s presence. Between Maria Jane’s Mamma and Mrs. Prodgit there was a dreadful, secret, understanding — a dark mystery and conspiracy, point- ing me out as a being to be shunned. I appeared to have done something that was evil. Whenever Mrs. Prodgit called, after dinner, I retired to my dressing-room — where the tem- perature is very low, indeed, in the wintry time of the year — and sat looking at my frosty breath as it rose before me, and “ BIRTHS . MBS. MEEK, OF A SON” 227 at my rack of boots : a serviceable article of furniture, but never, in my opinion, an exhilarating object. The length of the councils that were held with Mrs. Prodgit, under these circumstances, I will not attempt to describe. 1 will merely remark, that Mrs. Prodgit always consumed Sherry Wine while the deliberations were in progress ; that they always ended in Maria Jane’s being in wretched spirits on the sofa; and that Maria Jane’s Mamma always received me, when I was recalled, with a look of desolate triumph that too plainly said, “ Now , George Meek ! You see my child, Maria Jane, a ruin, and I hope you are satisfied ! ” I pass, generally, over the period that intervened between the day when Mrs. Prodgit entered her protest against male parties, and the ever-memorable midnight when I brought her to my unobtrusive home in a cab, with an extremely large box on the roof, and a bundle, a bandbox, and a basket, between the driver’s legs. I have no objection to Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby, who I never can forget is the parent of Maria Jane) taking entire possession of my unas- suming establishment. In the recesses of my own breast, the thought may linger that a man in possession cannot be so dreadful as a woman, and that woman Mrs. Prodgit ; but, I ought to bear a good deal, and I hope I can, and do. Huffing and snubbing, prey upon my feelings ; but, I can bear them without complaint. They may tell in the long run ; I may be hustled about, from post to pillar, beyond my strength ; never- theless, I wish to avoid giving rise to words in the family. The voice of Nature, however, cries aloud in behalf of Au- gustus George, my infant son. It is for him that I wish to utter a few plaintive household words. I am not at all angry ; I am mild — but miserable. I wish to know why, when my child, Augustus George, was expected in our circle, a provision of pins was made, as if the little stranger were a criminal who was to be put to the tor- ture immediately on his arrival, instead of a holy babe ? I wish to know why haste was made to stick those pins all over his innocent form, in every direction ? I wish to be informed why light and air are excluded from Augustus George, like poisons ? Why, I ask, is my unoffending infant so hedged 228 “BIRTHS. MRS . MEEK, OF A SON” into a basket-bedstead, with dimity and calico, with miniature sheets and blankets, that I can only hear him snuffle (and no wonder !) deep down under the pink hood of a little bathing- machine, and can never peruse even so much of his lineaments as his nose. Was I expected to be the father of a French Boll, that the brushes of All Nations were laid in, to rasp Augustus George ? Am I to be told that his sensitive skin was ever intended by Nature to have rashes brought out upon it, by the premature and incessant use of those formidable little instruments ? Is my son a Nutmeg, that he is to be grated on the stiff edges of sharp frills ? Am I the parent of a Muslin boy, that his yielding surface is to be crimped and small-plaited ? Or is my child composed of Paper or of Linen, that impressions of the finer getting-up art, practised by the laundress, are to be printed off, all over his soft arms and legs, as I constantly observe them ? The starch enters his soul • who can wonder that he cries ? Was Augustus George intended to have limbs, or to be born a Torso ? I presume that limbs were the intention, as they are the usual practice ? Then, why are my poor child’s limbs fettered and tied up ? Am I to be told that there is any analogy between Augustus George Meek and Jack Sheppard ? Analyze Castor Oil at any Institution of Chemistry that may be agreed upon, and inform me what resemblance, in taste, it bears to that natural provision which it is at once the pride and duty of Maria Jane to administer to Augustus George ! Yet, I charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with systematically forcing Castor Oil on my innocent son, from the first hour of his birth. When that medicine, in its efficient action, causes internal disturbance to Augustus George, I charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with insanely and inconsistently administering opium to allay the storm she has raised ! What is the mean- ing of this ? If the days of Egyptian Mummies are past, how dare Mrs. Prodgit require, for the use of my son, an amount of flannel and linen that would carpet my humble roof ? Do I wonder that she requires it ? No ! This morning, within an hour, I “ BIRTHS. MRS. MEEK , OF A SON” 229 beheld this agonizing sight. I beheld my son — Augustus George — in Mrs. Prodgit’ s hands, and on Mrs. Prodgit’s knee, being dressed. He was at the moment, comparatively speak- ing, in a state of nature ; having nothing on, but an extremely short shirt, remarkably disproportionate to the length of his usual outer garments. Trailing from Mrs. Prodgit’s lap, on the floor, was a long narrow roller or bandage — I should say of several yards in extent. In this, I saw Mrs. Prodgit tightly roll the body of my unoffending infant, turning him over and over, now presenting his unconscious face upwards, now the back of his bald head, until the unnatural feat was accomplished, and the bandage secured by a pin, which I have every reason to believe entered the body of my only child. In this tourniquet, he passes the present phase of his exist- ence. Can I know it, and smile ! I fear I have been betrayed into expressing myself warmly, but I feel deeply. Hot for myself ; for Augustus George. I dare not interfere. Will any one ? Will any publication ? Any doctor ? Any parent ? Any body ? I do not complain that Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) entirely alienates Maria Jane’s affections from me, and interposes an impassable barrier between us. I do not complain of being made of no account. I do not want to be of any account. But, Augustus George is a production of Nature (I cannot think otherwise), and I claim that he should be treated with some remote reference to Nature. In my opinion, Mrs. Prodgit is, from first to last, a convention and a superstition. Are all the faculty afraid of Mrs. Prodgit ? If not, why don’t they take her in hand and improve her ? P. S. Maria Jane’s Mamma boasts of her own knowledge of the subject, and says she brought up seven children besides Maria Jane. But how do I know that she might not have brought them up much better ? Maria Jane herself is far from strong, and is subject to headaches, and nervous indiges- tion. Besides which, I learn from the statistical tables that one child in five dies within the first year of its life ; and one child in three, within the fifth. That don’t look as if we could never improve in these particulars, I think ! P.P.S. Augustus George is in convulsions. LYING AWAKE, “ My uncle lay with his eyes half-closed, and his nightcap drawn almost down to his nose. His fancy was already wan- dering, and began to mingle up the present scene with the crater of Vesuvius, the French Opera, the Coliseum at home, Dolly’s Chop-house in London, and all the farrago of noted places with which the brain of a traveller is crammed ; in a word, he was just falling asleep.” Thus, tha/t delightful writer, Washington Irving, in his “ Tales of a Traveller.” But, it happened to me the other night to be lying : not with my eyes half closed, but with my eyes wide open ; not with my nightcap drawn almost down to my nose, for on sanitary principles I never wear a nightcap : but with my hair pitchforked and tozzled all over the pillow ; not just falling asleep by any means, but glaringly, persistently, and obstinately, broad awake. Perhaps, with no scientific in- tention or invention, I was illustrating the theory of the Duality of the Brain ; perhaps one part of my brain, being wakeful, sat up to watch the other part which was sleepy. Be that as it may, something in me was as desirous to go to sleep as it possibly could be, but something else in me would not go to sleep, and was as obstinate as George the Third. Thinking of George the Third — for I devote this paper to my train of thoughts as I lay awake : most people lying awake sometimes, and having some interest in the subject — put me in mind of Benjamin Franklin, and so Benjamin Franklin’s paper on the art of procuring pleasant dreams, which would seem necessarily to include the art of going to sleep, came into my head. Now, as I often used to read that paper when I was a very small boy, and as I recollect everything I read then, as perfectly as I forget everything I read now, I quoted “ Get out of bed, beat up and turn your pillow, shake the bed- 230 LYING AWAKE. 231 clothes well with at least twenty shakes, then throw the bed open and leave it to cool; in the meanwhile, continuing undressed, walk about your chamber. When you begin to feel the cold air unpleasant, then return to your bed, and you will soon fall asleep, and your sleep will be sweet and pleasant.” Not a bit of it ! I performed the whole ceremony, and if it were possible for me to be more saucer-eyed than I was be- fore, that was the only result that came of it. Except Niagara. The two quotations from Washington Irving and Benjamin Franklin may have put it in my head by an American association of ideas; but there I was, and the Horse-shoe Fall was thundering and tumbling in my eyes and ears, and the very rainbows that I left upon the spray when I really did last look upon it, were beautiful to see. The night- light being quite as plain, however, and sleep seeming to be many thousand miles further off than Niagara, I made up my mind to think a little about Sleep ; which I no sooner did than I whirled off in spite of myself to Drury Lane Theatre, and there saw a great actor and dear friend of mine (whom I had been thinking of in the day) playing Macbeth, and heard him apostrophizing “ the death of each day’s life,” as I have heard him many a time, in the days that are gone. But, Sleep. I will think about Sleep. I am determined to think (this is the way I went on) about Sleep. I must hold the word Sleep, tight and fast, or I shall be off at a tangent in half a second. I feel myself unaccountably straying, already, into Clare Market. Sleep. It would be curious, as illustrat- ing the equality of sleep, to inquire how many of its phenom- ena are common to all classes, to all degrees of wealth and poverty, to every grade of education and ignorance. Here, for example, is her Majesty Queen Victoria in her palace, this present blessed night, and here is Winking Charley, a sturdy vagrant, in one of her Majesty’s jails. Her Majesty has fallen, many thousands of times, from that same Tower, which I claim a right to tumble off now and then. So has Winking Charley. Her Majesty in her sleep has opened or prorogued Parliament, or has held a Drawing Boom, attired in some very scanty dress, the deficiencies and improprieties of which have caused her great uneasiness. I, in my degree, have 232 LYING AWAKE. suffered unspeakable agitation of mind from taking the chair at a public dinner at the London Tavern in my night-clothes, which not all the courtesy of my kind friend and host Mr. Bathe could persuade me were quite adapted to the occasion. Winking Charley has been repeatedly tried in a worse condi- tion. Her Majesty is no stranger to a vault or firmament, of a sort of floorcloth, with an indistinct pattern distantly resem- bling eyes, which occasionally obtrudes itself on her repose. Neither am I. Neither is Winking Charley. It is quite common to all three of us to skim along with airy strides a little above the ground ; also to hold, with the deepest inter- est, dialogues with various people, all represented by our- selves ; and to be at our wits’ end to know what they are going to tell us ; and to be indescribably astonished by the secrets they disclose. It is probable that we have all three committed murders and hidden bodies. It is pretty certain that we have all desperately wanted to cry out, and have had no voice ; that we have all gone to the play and not been able to get in ; that we have all dreamed much more of our youth than of our later lives ; that — I have lost it ! The thread’s broken. And up I go. I, lying here with the night-light before me, up I go, for no reason on earth that I can find out, and drawn by no links that are visible to^me, up the Great Saint Bernard ! I have lived in Switzerland, and rambled among the moun- tains ; but, why I should go there now, and why up the Great Saint Bernard in preference to any other mountain, I have no idea. As I lie here broad awake, and with every sense so sharpened that I can distinctly hear distant noises inaudi- ble to me at another time, I make that journey, as I really did, on the same summer day, with the same happy party — ah ! two since dead, I grieve to think — and there is the same track, with the same black wooden arms to point the way, and there are the same storm-refuges here and there; and there is the same snow falling at the top, and there are the same frosty mists, and there is the same intensely cold con- vent with its menagerie smell, and the same breed of dogs fast dying out, and the same breed of jolly young monks whom I mourn to know as humbugs, and the same convent parlor with its piano and the sitting round the fire, and the same LYING AWAKE. 233 supper, and the same lone night in a cell, and the same bright fresh morning when going out into the highly rarefied air was like a plunge into an icy bath. Now, see here what comes along ; and why does this thing stalk into my mind on the top of a Swiss mountain ! It is a figure that I once saw, just after dark, chalked upon a door in a little back lane near a country church — my first church. How young a child I may have been at the time I don’t know, but it horrified me so intensely — in connection with the churchyard, I suppose, for it smokes a pipe, and has a big hat with each of its ears sticking out in a horizontal line under the brim, and is not in itself more oppressive than a mouth from ear to ear, a pair of goggle eyes, and hands like two bunches of carrots, five in each, can make it — that it is still vaguely alarming to me to recall (as I have often done before, lying awake) the running home, the looking behind, the horror of its following me ; though whether disconnected from the* door, or door and all, I can’t say, and perhaps never could. It lays a disagreeable train. I must resolve to think of something on the voluntary principle. The balloon ascents of this last season. They will do to think about, while I lie awake, as well as anything else. I must hold them tight though, for I feel them sliding away, and in their stead are the Mannings, husband and wife, hang- ing on the top of Horsemonger Lane Jail. In connection with which dismal spectacle, I recall this curious fantasy of the mind. That, having beheld that execution, and having left those two forms dangling on the top of the entrance gateway — the man’s, a limp, loose suit of clothes as if the man had gone out of them ; the woman’s, a fine shape, so elaborately corseted and artfully dressed, that it was quite unchanged in its trim appearance as it slowly swung from side to side — I never could, by my utmost efforts, for some weeks, present the outside of that prison to myself (which the terrible impression I had received continually obliged me to do) without present- ing it with the two figures still hanging in the morning air. Until, strolling past the gloomy place one night, when the street was deserted and quiet, and actually seeing that the bodies were not there, my fancy was persuaded, as it were* to 234 LYING AWAKE. take them down and bury them within the precincts of the jail, where they have lain ever since. The balloon ascents of last season. Let me reckon them up. There were the horse, the bull, the parachute, and the tumbler hanging on — chiefly by his toes, I believe — below the car. Very wrong, indeed, and decidedly to be stopped. But, in con- nection with these and similar dangerous exhibitions, it strikes me that that portion of the public whom they entertain, is justly reproached. Their pleasure is in the difficulty over- come. They are a public of great faith, and are quite confi- dent that the gentleman will not fall off the horse, or the lady off the bull or out of the parachute, and that the tumbler has a firm hold with his toes. They do not go to see the adven- turer vanquished, but triumphant. There is no parallel in public combats between men and beasts, because nobody can answer for the particular beast — unless it were always the same beast, in which case it would be a mere stage-show, which the same public would go in the same state of mind to see, entirely believing in the brute being beforehand safely subdued by the man. That they are not accustomed to calcu- late hazards and dangers with any nicety, we may know from their rash exposure of themselves in overcrowded steamboats, and unsafe conveyances and places of all kinds. And I cannot help thinking that instead of railing, and attributing savage motives to a people naturally well disposed and humane, it is better to teach them, and lead them argumentatively and rea- sonably — for they are very reasonable, if you will discuss a matter with them — to more considerate and wise conclusions. This is a disagreeable intrusion ! Here is a man with his throat cut, dashing towards me as I lie awake ! A recollection of an old story of ^ kinsman of mine, who, going home one foggy winter night to Hampstead, when London was much smaller and the road lonesome, suddenly encountered such a figure rushing past him, and presently two keepers from a madhouse in pursuit. A very unpleasant creature indeed, to come into my mind unbidden, as I lie awake. — The balloon ascents of last season. I must return to the balloons. Why did the bleeding man start out of them ? * Never mind ; if I inquire, he will be back again. The balloons. LYING AWAKE . 235 This particular public have inherently a great pleasure in the contemplation of physical difficulties overcome ; mainly, as I take it, because the lives of a large majority of them are exceedingly monotonous and real, and further, are a struggle against continual difficulties, and further still, because any- thing in the form of accidental injury, or any kind of illness or disability, is so very serious in their own sphere. I will explain this seeming paradox of mine. Take the case of a Christmas Pantomime. Surely nobody supposes that the young mother in the pit who falls into fits of laughter when the baby is boiled or sat upon, would be at all diverted by such an occurrence off the stage. Nor is the decent workman in the gallery, who is transported beyond the ignorant present by the delight with which he sees a stout gentleman pushed out of a two pair of stairs window, to be slandered by the sus- picion that he would be in the least entertained by such a spectacle in any street in London, Paris, or New York. It always appears to me that the secret of this enjoyment lies in the temporary superiority to the common hazards and mis- chances of life ; in seeing casualties, attended when they really occur with bodily and mental suffering, tears, and poverty, happen through a very rough sort of poetry without the least harm being done to any one — the pretence of distress in a pantomime being so broadly humorous as to be no pretence at all. Much as in the comic fiction I can understand the mother with a very vulnerable baby at home, greatly relishing the invulnerable baby on the stage, so in the Cremorne reality I can understand the mason who is always liable to fall off a scaffold in his working jacket and to be carried to the hospital, having an infinite admiration of the radiant personage in spangles who goes into the clouds upon a bull, or upside down, and who, he takes it for granted — not reflecting upon the thing — has, by uncommon skill and dexterity, conquered such mischances as those to which he and his acquaintance are continually exposed.* I wish the Morgue in Paris would not come here as I lie awake, with its ghastly beds, and the swollen saturated clothes hanging up, and the water dripping, dripping all day long, upon that other swollen saturated something in the 236 LYING AWAKE. corner, like a heap of crushed over-ripe figs that I have seen in Italy ! And this detestable Morgue conies back again at the head of a procession of forgotten ghost stories. This will never do. I must think of something else as I lie awake ; or, like that sagacious animal in the United States who recognized the colonel who was such a dead shot, I am a gone ’Coon. What shall I think of ? The late brutal assaults. Very good subject. The late brutal assaults. (Though whether, supposing I should see, here before me as I lie awake, the awful phantom described in one of those ghost stories, who, with a head-dress of shroud, was always seen looking in through a certain glass door at a certain dead hour — whether, in such a case it would be the least consola- tion to me to know on philosophical grounds that it was merely my imagination, is a question I can’t help asking my- self by the way.) The late brutal assaults. I strongly question the expediency of advocating the revival of whipping for those crimes. It is a natural and generous impulse to be indignant at the perpe- tration of inconceivable brutality, but I doubt the whipping panacea gravely. Not in the least regard or pity for the criminal, whom I hold in far lower estimation than a mad wolf, but in consideration for the general tone and feeling, which is very much improved since the whipping times. It is bad for a people to be familiarized with such punishments. When the whip went out of Bridewell, and ceased to be flourished at the cart’s tail and at the wliipping-post, it began to fade out of madhouses, and workhouses, and schools, and families, and to give place to a better system everywhere than cruel driving. It would be hasty, because a few brutes may be inadequately punished, to revive, in any aspect, what, in so many aspects, society is hardly yet happily rid of. The whip is a very con- tagious kind of thing, and difficult to confine within one set of bounds. Utterly abolish punishment by fine — a barbarous device, quite as much out of date as wager by battle, but par- ticularly connected in the vulgar mind with this class of offence — at least quadruple the term of imprisonment for aggravated assaults — and above all let us, in such cases, have no Pet Prisoning, vain-glorifying, strong soup, and roasted LYING AWAKE. 237 meats, but hard work, and one unchanging and uncompromis- ing dietary of bread and water, well or ill ; and we shall do much better than by going down into the dark to grope for the whip among the rusty fragments of the rack, and the branding iron, and the chains and gibbet from the public roads, and the weights that pressed men to death in the cells of Newgate. I had proceeded thus far, when I found I had been lying awake so long that the very dead began to wake too, and to crowd into my thoughts most sorrowfully. Therefore I re- solved to lie awake no more, but to get up and go out for a night walk — which resolution was an acceptable relief to me, as I dare say it may prove now to a great many more. 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 “ J ohn our esteemed host 99 (whose health he begged to drink) would have the kindness to begin. Tor 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 esteemed host to whom we are so much indebted for the great hospitality with which he has this day entertained us, by the confession I am going to make. But, if you do me the honor 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 supposed 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 contra- diction) ; that I am nobody’s enemy but my own. That I never met with any particular success in anything. That I failed in business because I was unbusiness-like and credulous — in not being prepared for the interested designs of my partner. That I failed in love, because I was ridiculously 238 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 239 trustful — in thinking it impossible that Christiana could deceive me. That I failed in my 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 bachelor 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 nin^ o’clock, on pretence of going to business. I take my breakfast — my roll and butter, and my half-pint of coffee — 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 offices 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 generally 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 240 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. mixture, which has the appearance of black and wears much better) ; but I have got into a habit of speaking low, and being rather silent, and my spirits are not high, and I am sensible that I am not an attractive companion. The only exception to this general rule is the child of my first cousin, Little Frank. I have a particular affection for that child, and he takes very kindly to me. Fie is a diffident boy by nature ; and in 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 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, 1 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 could have made him a great many presents if I had been in circumstances to do it. Little Frank and I go and look at the outside of the Monu- ment — 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 a-la-mode beef, and gone at half-price to the 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 passed 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 foolish 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 holiday. 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 THE POOB BELATIOH'S STOBY. 241 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 separated. 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 worth nothing to sell, and which a 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 confess that I knew no reason why I should remain here. I have given him some short advice, the best in my power, to take warning of the consequences of being nobody’s enemy but his own ; and I have endeavored to comfort him for what I fear he will consider a bereavement, by pointing out to him, that I was only a superfluous 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 begin- ning 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, that this is all wrong. This is not my life, and these are not my habits. I do not even live in the Clapham Road. Comparatively speaking, I am very seldom there. I reside, mostly, in a — I am almost ashamed to say the word, it sounds so full of pretension — in a Castle. I do not mean that it is an old baronial habitation, but still it is a r building always known to every one by the name of a Castle. In it, I preserve the particulars of my history ; they run thus : It was when I first took J ohn 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 Christiana. I had loved Christiana, a long time. She was very beautiful, and very winning in all VOL. II — 16 242 THE POOR RELATION' S STORY. respects. I rather mistrusted her widowed mother, who I feared was of a plotting and mercenary turn of mind ; 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 0 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 Chill’s was of a spare dull kind, and my garret chamber was as dull, and bare, and cold, as an upper prison room in some stern northern fortress. But, having Christiana’s love, I wanted nothing upon earth. I 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 miserably. As Christiana had no fortune, I was for some time a little fearful 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 December 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 enlivened 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 with 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 a raw yard, with a cracked stone pavement, and some rusted iron railings half uprooted, 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 breakfasted by candle-light. When I went into the room, my uncle was so contracted by the cold, and so huddled together in his chair behind 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 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 243 (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 contempt- ible 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-favored, yellow old woman — our only domestic — always employed, at this time of the morning, 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 Boom, 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 ! ” You may suppose that I had not much appetite for the breakfast to which I was bidden in these terms ; but, I took my accustomed seat. I saw that I was repudiated henceforth 244 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY . 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 snuffed out the candle; and the cold, slate-colored, miserable day looked in upon us. “low, 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 their 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 suppose that my dear Christiana, over-persuaded and influenced by her mother, married a rich man, the dirt from whose car- riage 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 earnestness, 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 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 245 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 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: without considering that what you have lost, you have lost for me, and on the assurance of my faith : sets her heart on riches, and 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 labor 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 honor. Matters between us, took this turn : — On the day of my 246 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. separation from my uncle, and even before the arrival at onr 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, overlooking 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 senti- ment were moonshine and fiction. He addressed me thus : “Michael,” said John. “We were at school together, and I generally 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 ; 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 certainly true.” “ When you were 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 circumstances you have recalled, J ohn 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 outside 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 between us. You are too easy, Michael. THE POOR RELATION'S STORY . 247 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 were further to abuse that trust by keeping this piece of our common 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 for- tune, and you left behind 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 be- tween us. Nothing must be concealed, and we must have but one interest.” “ My dear J ohn Spatter,” I assured him, “ that is precisely what I mean.” “ And when you are too easy,” pursued John, his face glow- ing 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 humor it — ” “My dear John Spatter,” I interrupted, “I don’t expect you to humor it. I want to correct it.” “ And I, too ! ” said John. “Exactly so!” cried I. “We both have the same end in view ; and, honorably seeking it, and fully trusting one an- other, 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 acknowl- edged any little rise in life to which I had helped him. I am not (said the poor relation, looking at the lire as he 248 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY . 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 Spatter’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 hap- pens — 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 delightful ! — to me to hear. My dearest and most devoted wife, ever faithful, ever loving, ever helpful and sustaining and consoling, is the priceless 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 my Castle, and such are the real particulars of my life therein preserved. I often take Little Frank home there. He is very welcome to my grandchildren, and they play to- gether. At this time of the year — the Christmas and New Year time — I am seldom out of my Castle. For, the associa- tions 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 es- teemed host suggests its situation accurately. My Castle is in the Air ! I have done. Will you be so good as to pass the story.” THE CHILD’S STORY. Once upon a time, a good many years ago, there was a trav- eller, and he set out upon a journey. It was a magic journey, and was to seem very long when he began it, and very short when he got half way through. He travelled along a rather dark path for some little time, without 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 flow- ers 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 fall- ing drops, and to smell the fresh scents. When it blew, it was delightful to listen to the wind, and fancy what it said, as it came rushing from its home — where was that, they won- dered ! — whistling and howling, driving the clouds before it, bending the trees, rumbling in the chimneys, shaking the house, and making the sea roar in fury. 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. They had plenty of the finest toys in the world, and the most astonishing picture-books : all about scimitars and slip- pers and turbans, and dwarfs and giants and genii and fairies, and blue-beards and bean-stalks and riches and caverns and forests and Valentines and Orsons : and all new and all true. 249 250 THE CHILD'S STOEY. 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 ? ” And the boy said, “ 1 am always learning. 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 for- got 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 summer, and skated on the ice in winter - ; they were active afoot, and active on horseback; at cricket, and all games at ball; at prisoners’ 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 call- ing to him in vain, went on upon his journey. So he went on for a little while without 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 colored 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 sometimes — just as THE CHILE'S STOBY. 251 Somebody used to be by Fanny ; and they quarrelled some- times — 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 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 gentle- man, “ What are you doing here ? ” 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 together through the wood, cutting down the trees, and making a path through the branches and the fallen leaves, and carrying burdens, and working hard. Sometimes, they came to a long green avenue that opened into deeper woods. Then they would hear a very little dis- tant voice crying, “ 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 wel- comed 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 252 THE CHILD'S STOBY. 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 gray. 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 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 CHILD'S STOBY. 253 the old man, “ What do you do here ? ” 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 hand- some 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 honored and loved him. And I think the traveller must be yourself, dear Grandfather, because this is what you do to us, and what we do to you. 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 any- body 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. So is beer. It was Old Cheeseman I meant to tell about ; not the manner in which our fellows get their constitutions de- stroyed 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 night- mares, 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 parlor, where they naturally thought from his appearance he was a Ghost. Why, he never would have done that, if his meals had been wholesome. 254 THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 255 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 fellow himself. He was first brought there, very small, in a post-chaise, by a woman who was always taking snuff 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 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 tliat’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 mutton ; ” and when they said “ An’t it solitary, Old Cheeseman ? ” he said “ It is a little dull, sometimes;” and then they said “Well, good by, 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 system. 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 favorite 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 cheeses — Double Glo’sterman, Family Cheshire- man, Dutchman, North Wiltshireman, and all that. But he 256 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 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 u Mr. Cheeseman.” Then our fellows all agreed that Old Cheese- man was a spy, and a deserter, who had gone over to the enemy’s camp, and sold himself 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 favor by giving up everything 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 fellows, and he wrote a parody, beginning, “ Who made believe to be so meek That we could hardly hear him speak, Y et turned out an Informing Sneak ? Old Cheeseman — and on in that way through more than a dozen 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 : — Nominativus pronominum — Old Cheeseman, raro ex- primitur — was never suspected, nisi distinction is — of being an informer, aut emphasis gratid — until he proved one. Ut THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 257 — for instance, Vos damnastis — when he sold the boys. Quasi — as though, dicat — he should say, Pretcerea 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 Cheeseman’s conscience. So Old Cheeseman went on, and didn’t he lead a miserable life ! Of course the Beverend 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 I 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, honest, bright face, and all our fellows were fond of her. She was uncom- monly 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-humored 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 playground, 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 VOL. II — 17 258 THE SCHOOLBOY 1 S STORY. 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 onr 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 neces- sity 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 comfortable 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 President 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. Con- sequently it was entered in the Society’s book (kept in astro- nomical cipher for fear of detection), 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 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 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STOBY. 259 whether the President was liable to hanging or only trans- portation for life, and the President’s face showed a great anxiety to know which. However, 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 informers, 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 believed 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 — 0 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 had died of sorrow 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 quota- tions 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 260 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STOBY. 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 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 parlor into which Parents were shown, where the two great globes were which were never used — and would there re- proach him with the various frauds and oppressions he had endured 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 estab- lishment in fiendish triumph. The President explained that against the parlor 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 Cheese- man. The bold advice put the Society in better spirits, and was unanimously taken. A post about Old Cheeseman’s size w r as 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 disputing as to how Old Cheeseman would come ; but it was the general opinion that he would appear in a sort of triumphal THE SCHOOLBOY'S STOBY. 261 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 knowledge, 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, 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 com- panions 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 ten- derness 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 Cheese- man began with him as first boy, laid his left hand affection- ately on his shoulder and gave him his right ; and when the President said “ Indeed I don’t deserve it, sir ; upon my honor I don’t ; ” there was sobbing 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 cheer- fully round to every boy, and wound up with every master — finishing off the Reverend last. 262 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY . Then a snivelling little chap in a corner, who was always under some punishment or other, set up a shrill cry of “ Suc- cess to Old Cheeseman ! Hoorray ! ” The Reverend glared upon him, and said, “ Mr. Cheeseman, Sir.” But, Old Cheese- man 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, confectioneries, 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 holi- day, 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 Cheese- man’s birthday — Reverend bound down before the fellows to allow it, so that he could never back out — all at Old Cheese- man’s expense. And didn’t our fellows go down in a body and cheer outside the Seven Bells ? 0 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 forever ? ” 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 ? The Reverend (he has got a daughter at home — turn-up nose, and red) re- plied 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 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STOBY . 263 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 Elevens 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 carriage at the low part of the wall where it joins the high part, and a lady and gen- tleman standing up in it, looking over. The gentleman was always Old Cheeseman, 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 carriage. 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 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. 264 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STOBY. “ Only a fortnight now,” said Old Cheeseman, “ to the holi- days. 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 them- selves 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 favorite 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 ? 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 hard work, but he was quite content, God knows, to labor with a cheerful will. He was one of an immense family, all of whose sons and daughters gained their daily bread by daily work, prolonged 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 neighborhood where he dwelt ; but he had noth- ing 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-hu- mored way he had, and kept at his hard work. The Bigwig family (composed of all the stateliest people thereabouts, and all the noisiest) had undertaken to save him 265 266 NOBODY'S STORY. 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 drum- ming, trumpeting, and speechmaking, 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 some- thing of what he said, “ honor 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 coun- tryman 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 terrific and disfiguring disease, whose bold- ness had raised his forefathers from the condition of serfs, whose wise fancy had opened a new and high existence to the humblest, whose skill had filled the working man’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. Now, his fire-side was a bare one, all hemmed in by black- ened 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 sometimes misled,” said he, “ for want of knowledge, at least let them know better, and avoid my mistakes. If it NOBODY'S STORY. 267 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 quar- rels 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 insisted 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 ; im- pounded one another in courts Lay and courts Ecclesiastical; threw dirt, exchanged pummelings, and fell together by the ears in unintelligible animosity. Meanwhile, this man, in his short evening snatches at his fire-side, saw the demon Igno- rance 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. Hay, by the clouded Heaven above me, I protest 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 laboring people, and I have a glimmer- ing suspicion in me that laboring people of whatever condi- tion 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 abso- lutely deafening. When some few voices were faintly heard, proposing to show him the wonders of the world, the greatness of creation, the mighty changes of time, the workings of nature 268 NOBODY'S STORY . 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 memorial- izing, 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 question, when the news began to spread that a pestilence had appeared among the laborers, and was slaying them by thou- sands. 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. Hew 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 : “0 what avails it, missionary, to come to me, a man con- demned to residence in this foetid 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, NOBODY'S STORY . 269 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 suffered 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, “ 0 you laboring men ! The calamity began among you. If you had but lived more healthily and decently, I should not be the widowed and bereft mourner that I am this day.” 66 Master,” returned the other, shaking his head, 66 1 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 rationally 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 humanizing enjoy- ments, 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 laboring 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 270 NOBODY'S STOIiY. 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 them- selves, 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. Had he no name, you ask? Perhaps it was Legion. It matters little what his name was. Let us call him Legion. If you were ever in the Belgian villages, near the field of Waterloo, 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, Lieu- tenants E and Gr, 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 story 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 in the mass. The march of the proudest of us leads to the dusty way by which they go. 0 ! Let us think of them this year at the Christmas fire, and not forget them when it is burnt out. the marchioness in the sick room. THE GHOST OF ART. I am a bachelor, residing in rather a dreary set of chambers in the Temple. They are situated in a square court of high houses, which would be a complete well, but for the want of water and the absence of a bucket. I live at the top of the house, among the tiles and sparrows. Like the little man in the nursery-story, I live by myself, and all the bread and cheese I get — which is not much — I put upon a shelf. I need scarcely add, perhaps, that I am in love, and that the father of my charming Julia objects to our union. I mention these little particulars as I might deliver a letter of introduction. The reader is now acquainted with me, and perhaps will condescend to listen to my narrative. I am naturally of a dreamy turn of mind ; and my abundant leisure — for I am called to the bar — coupled with much lonely listening to the twittering of sparrows, and the patter- ing of rain, has encouraged that disposition. In my “ top set,” I hear- the wind howl, on a winter night, when the man on the ground floor believes it is perfectly still weather. The dim lamps with which our Honorable Society (sup- posed to be as yet unconscious of the new discovery called Gas) make the horrors of the staircase visible, deepen the gloom which generally settles on my soul when I go home at night. I am in the Law, but not of it. I can’t exactly make out what it means. I sit in Westminster Hall some- times (in character) from ten to four ; and then I go out of Court, I don’t know whether I am standing on my wig or my boots. It appears to me (I mention this in confidence) as if there were too much talk and too much law — as if some grains of truth were started overboard into a tempestuous sea of chaff. 271 272 THE GHOST OF ABT. All this may make me mystical. Still, I am confident that what I am going to describe myself as having seen and heard, I actually did see and hear. It is necessary that I should observe that I have a great delight in pictures. I am no painter myself, but I have studied pictures and written about them. I have seen all the most famous pictures in the world ; my education and reading have been sufficiently general to possess me beforehand with a knowledge of most of the subjects to which a Painter is likely to have recourse ; and, although I might be in some doubt as to the rightful fashion of the scabbard of King Lear’s sword, for instance, I think I should know King Lear tolerably well, if I happened to meet with him. I go to all the Modern Exhibitions every season, and of course I revere the Royal Academy. I stand by . its forty Academical articles almost as firmly as I stand by the thirty- nine Articles of the Church of England. I am convinced that in neither case could there be, by any rightful possibil- ity, one article more or less. It is now exactly three years — three years ago, this very month — since I went from Westminster to the Temple, one Thursday afternoon, in a cheap steamboat. The sky was black, when I imprudently walked on board. It began to thunder and lighten immediately afterwards, and the rain poured down in torrents. The deck seeeming to smoke with the wet, I went below ; but so many passengers were there, smoking too, that I came up again, and buttoning my peacoat, and standing in the shadow of the paddle-box, stood as upright as I could, and made the best of it. It was at this moment that I first beheld the terrible Being, who is the subject of my present recollections. Standing against the funnel, apparently with the intention of drying himself by the heat as fast as he got wet, was a shabby man in threadbare black, and with his hands in his pockets, who fascinated me from the memorable instant when I caught his eye. Where had I caught that eye before ? Who was he ? Why did I connect him, all at once, with the Vicar of Wake- field, Alfred the Great, Gil Bias, Charles the Second, Joseph THE GHOST OF ART. 273 and his Brethren, the Fairy Queen, Tom Jones, the Decame- ron of Boccaccio, Tam O’Shanter, the Marriage of the Doge of Venice with the Adriatic, and the Great Plague of Lon- don ? Why, when he bent one leg, and placed one hand upon the back of the seat near him, did my mind associate him wildly with the words, “ Number one hundred and forty- two, Portrait of a gentleman ? ” Could it be that I was going mad ? I looked at him again, and now I could have taken my affi- davit that he belonged to the Vicar of Wakefield’s family. Whether he was the Vicar, or Moses, or Mr. Burchill, or the Squire, or a conglomeration of all four, I knew not ; but I was impelled to seize him by the throat, and charge him with being, in some fell way, connected with the Primrose blood. He looked up at the rain, and then — oh Heaven ! — he became Saint John. He folded his arms, resigning himself to the weather, and I was frantically inclined to address him as the Spectator, and firmly demand to know what he had done with Sir Koger de Coverley. The frightful suspicion that I was becoming deranged, returned upon me with redoubled force. Meantime, this awful stranger, inexplicably linked to my distress, stood dry- ing himself at the funnel ; and ever, as the steam rose from his clothes, diffusing a mist around him, I saw through the ghostly medium all the people I have mentioned, and a score more, sacred and profane. I am conscious of a dreadful inclination that stole upon me, as it thundered and lightened, to grapple with this man, or demon, and plunge him over the side. But, I constrained myself — I know not how — to speak to him, and in a pause of the storm, I crossed the deck, and said : “ What are you ? ” He replied, hoarsely, “ A Model.” “ A what ? ” said I. “ A Model,” he replied. “ I sets to the profession for a bob a-hour.” (All through this narrative I give his own words, which are indelibly imprinted on my memory.) The relief which this disclosure gave me, the exquisite delight of the restoration of my confidence in my own sanity, VOL. II — 18 274 THE GHOST OF ABT. I cannot describe. I should have fallen on his neck, but for the consciousness of being observed by the man at the wheel. “ You then,” said I, shaking him so warmly by the hand, that I wrung the rain out of his coat-cuff, “ are the gentleman whom I have so frequently contemplated, in connection with a high-backed chair with a red cushion, and a table with twisted legs.” “I am that Model,” he rejoined moodily, “and I wish I was anything else.” “ Say not so,” I returned. “ I have seen you in the society of many beautiful young women ; ” as in truth I had, and always (I now remember) in the act of making the most of his legs. “No doubt,” said he. “And you’ve seen me along with warses of flowers, and any number of table-kivers, and antique cabinets, and warious gammon.” “Sir?” said I. “And warious gammon,” he repeated, in a louder voice. “You might have seen me in armor, too, if you had looked sharp. Blessed if I ha’n’t stood in half the suits of armor as ever came out of Pratt’s shop : and sat, for weeks together, a eating nothing, out of half the gold and silver dishes as has ever been lent for the purpose out of Storrses, and Morti- merses, or G-arrardses, and Davenportseseses.” Excited, as it appeared, by a sense of injury, I thought he never would have found an end for the last word. But, at length it rolled sullenly away with the thunder. “Pardon me,” said I, “you are a well-favored, well-made man, and yet — forgive me — I find, on examining my mind, that I associate you with — that my recollection indistinctly makes you, in short — excuse me — a kind of powerful mon- ster.” “It would be a wonder if it didn’t,” he said. “Do you know what my points are ? ” “No,” said I. “ My throat and my legs,” said he. “ When I don’t set for a head, I mostly sets for a throat and a pair of legs. Now, granted you was a painter, and was to work at my throat for a week together, I suppose you’d see a lot of lumps and bumps THE GHOST OF ART. 275 there, that would never be there at all, if you looked at me, complete, instead of only my throat. Wouldn’t you? ” “ Probably,” said I, surveying him. “Why, it stands to reason,” said the Model. “Work another week at my legs, and it’ll be the same thing. You’ll make ’em out as knotty and as knobby, at last, as if they was the trunks of two old trees. Then, take and stick my legs and throat on to another man’s body, and you’ll make a reg’lar monster. And that’s the way the public gets their reg’lar monsters, every first Monday in May, when the Royal Academy Exhibition opens.” “You are a critic,” said I, with an air of deference. “Pm in an uncommon ill humor, if that’s it,” rejoined the Model, with great indignation. “As if it warn’t bad enough for a bob a-hour, for a man to be mixing himself up with that there jolly old furniter that one ’ud think the public know’d the wery nails in by this time — or to be putting on greasy old ats and cloaks, and playing tambourines in the Bay o’ Naples, with Wesuvius a smokin’ according to pattern in the background, and the wines a bearing wonderful in the middle distance — or to be unpolitely kicking up his legs among a lot o’ gals, with no reason whatever in his mind, but to show ’em — as if this warn’t bad enough, I’m to go and be thrown out of employment too ! ” “ Surely no ! ” said I. “ Surely yes,” said the indignant Model. “ But I’ll grow ONE.” The gloomy and threatening manner in which he muttered the last words, can never be effaced from my remembrance. My blood ran cold. I asked of myself, what was it that this desperate Being was resolved to grow ? My breast made no response. I ventured to implore him to explain his meaning. With a scornful laugh, he uttered this dark prophecy : “ I’ll grow one. And, mark my words, it shall HAUNT YOU ! ” We parted in the storm, after I had forced half-a-crown on his acceptance, with a trembling hand. I conclude that some- thing supernatural happened to the steamboat, as it bore 276 THE GHOST OF ART. his reeking figure down the river ; but it never got into the papers. Two years elapsed, during which I followed my profession without any vicissitudes ; never holding so much as a motion, of course. At the expiration of that period, I found myself making my way home to the Temple, one night, in precisely such another storm of thunder and lightning as that by which I had been overtaken on board the steamboat — except that this storm, bursting over the town at midnight, was rendered much more awful by the darkness and the hour. As I turned into my court, I really thought a thunderbolt would fall, and plough the pavement up. Every brick and stone in the place seemed to have an echo of its own for the thunder. The water-spouts were overcharged, and the rain came tearing down from the house-tops as if they had been mountain-tops. Mrs. Parkins, my laundress — wife of Parkins the porter, then newly dead of a dropsy — had particular instructions to place a bedroom candle and a match under the staircase lamp on my landing, in order that I might light my candle there, whenever I came home. Mrs. Parkins invariably disregarding all instructions, they were never there. Thus it happened that on this occasion I groped my way into my sitting-room to find the candle, and came out to light it. What were my emotions when, underneath the staircase lamp, shining with wet as if he had never been dry since our last meeting, stood the mysterious Being whom I had encoun- tered on the steamboat in a thunder-storm, two years before ! His prediction rushed upon my mind, and I turned faint. “ I said Pd do it,” he observed, in a hollow voice, “ and I have done it. May I come in ? ” “ Misguided creature, what have you done ? ” I returned. “ I’ll let you know,” was his reply, “ if you’ll let me in.” Could it be murder that he had done ? And had he been so successful that he wanted to do it again, at my expense ? I hesitated. “ May I come in ? ” said he. I inclined my head, with as much presence of mind as I could command, and he followed me into my chambers. There, I saw that the lower part of his face was tied up, in what is THE GHOST OF ART. 277 commonly called a Belcher handkerchief. He slowly removed this bandage, and exposed to view a long dark beard, curling over his upper lip, twisting about the corners of his mouth, and hanging down upon his breast. “ What is this ? ” I exclaimed, involuntarily, “ and what have you become ? ” “ I am the Ghost of Art ! ” said he. The effect of these words, slowly uttered in the thunder- storm at midnight, was appalling in the last degree. More dead than alive, I surveyed him in silence. “ The German taste came up,” said he, “ and threw me out of bread. I am ready for the taste now.” He made his beard a little jagged with his hands, folded his arms, and said, “ Severity ! ” I shuddered. It was so severe. He made his beard flowing on his breast, and, leaning both hands on the staff of a carpet-broom, which Mrs. Parkins had left among my books, said : “ Benevolence.” I stood transfixed. The change of sentiment was entirely in the beard. The man might have left his face alone, or had no face. The beard did everything. He lay down, on his back, on my table, and with that action of his head threw up his beard at the chin. “ That’s death ! ” said he. He got off my table and, looking up at the ceiling, cocked his beard a little awry ; at the same time making it stick out before him. “ Adoration, or a vow of vengeance,” he observed. He turned his profile to me, making his upper lip very bulgy with the upper part of his beard. “ Romantic character,” said he. He looked sideways out of his beard, as if it were an ivy- bush. “ Jealousy,” said he. He gave it an ingenious twist in the air, and informed me that he was carousing. He made it shaggy with his fingers — and it was Despair; lank — and it was avarice ; tossed it all kinds of ways — and it w r as rage. The beard did everything. 278 THE GHOST OF ART. “ I am the Ghost of Art/’ said he. u Two bob a-day now, and more when it’s longer ! Hair’s the true expression. There is no other. I said I’d grow it, and I’ye grown it, and it SHALL HAUNT YOU ! ” He may have tumbled down stairs in the dark, but he never walked down or ran down. I looked over the banisters, and I was alone with the thunder. Need I add more of my terrific fate ? It has haunted me ever since. It glares upon me from the walls of the Royal Academy, (except when Maclise subdues it to his genius,) it fills my soul with terror at the British Institution, it lures young artists on to their destruction. Go where I will, the Ghost of Art, eternally working the passions in hair, and ex- pressing everything by beard, pursues me. The prediction is accomplished, and the victim has no rest. OUT OF TOWN. Sitting, on a bright September morning, among my books and papers at my open window on the cliff overhanging the sea-beach, I have the sky and ocean framed before me like a beautiful picture. A beautiful picture, but with such move- ment in it, such changes of light upon the sails of ships and wake of steamboats, such dazzling gleams of silver far out at sea, such fresh touches on the crisp wave-tops as they break and roll towards me — a picture with such music in the billowy rush upon the shingle, the blowing of the morning wind through the corn-sheaves where the farmer’s wagons are busy, the sing- ing of the larks, and the distant voices of children at play — such charms of sight and sound as all the Galleries on earth can but poorly suggest. So dreamy is the murmur of the sea below my window, that I may have been here, for anything I know, one hundred years. Not that I have grown old, for, daily on the neighbor- ing downs and grassy hill-sides, I find that I can still in reason walk any distance, jump over any thing, and climb up any- where ; but, that the sound of the ocean seems to have become so customary to my musings, and other realities seem so to have gone aboard ship and floated away over the horizon, that, for aught I will undertake to the contrary, I am the enchanted son of the King my father, shut up in a tower on the sea-shore, for protection against an old she-goblin who insisted on being my godmother, and who foresaw at the font — wonderful creature ! — that I should get into a scrape before I was twenty-one. I remember to have been in a City (my Royal parent’s dominions, I suppose) and apparently not long ago either, that was in the dreariest condition. The principal inhabitants had all been changed into old newspapers, and in that form were preserving their window-blinds from dust, and 279 280 OUT OF TOWN. wrajjping all their smaller household gods in curl-papers. I walked through gloomy streets where every house was shut up and newspapered, and where my solitary footsteps echoed on the deserted pavements. In the public rides there were no carriages, no horses, no animated existence, but a few sleepy policemen, and a few adventurous boys taking advantage of the devastation to swarm up the lamp-posts. In the West- ward streets there was no traffic ; in the Westward shops, no business. The water-patterns which the ’Prentices had trickled out on the pavements early in the morning, remained uneffaced by human feet. At the corners of mews, Cochin-China fowls stalked gaunt and savage ; nobody being left in the deserted city (as it appeared to me), to feed them. Public Houses, where splendid footmen swinging their legs over gorgeous hammer-cloths beside wigged coachmen were wont to regale, were silent, and the unused pewter pots shone, too bright for business, on the shelves. I beheld a Punch’s Show leaning against a wall near Park Lane, as if it had fainted. It was deserted, and there was none to heed its desolation. In Belgrave Square I met the last man — an ostler — sitting on a post in a ragged red waistcoat, eating straw, and mildewing away. If I recollect the name of the little town, on whose shore this sea is murmuring — but I am not just now, as I have premised, to be relied upon for anything — it is Pavilionstone. Within a quarter of a century, it was a little fishing town, and they do say, that the time was, when it was a little smuggling town. I have heard that it was rather famous in the hollands and brandy way, and that coevally with that reputation the lamplighter’s was considered a bad life at the Assurance offices. It was observed that if he were not particular about lighting up, he lived in peace ; but, that if he made the best of the oil-lamps in the steep and narrow streets, he usually fell over the cliff at an early age. How, gas and electricity run to the very water’s edge, and the South Eastern Bailway Company screech at us in the dead of night. But, the old little fishing and smuggling town remains, and is so tempting a place for the latter purpose, that I think of going out some night next week, in a fur cap and a pair of OUT OF TOWN. 281 petticoat trousers, and running an empty tub, as a kind of archaeological pursuit. Let nobody with corns come to Pavil- ion stone, for there are break-neck flights of ragged steps connecting the principal streets by back-ways, which will cripple that visitor in half an hour. These are the ways by which, when I run that tub, I shall escape. I shall make a Thermopylae of the corner of one of them, defend it with my cutlass against the coast-guard until my brave companions have sheered off, then dive into the darkness, and regain my Susan’s arms. In connection with these break-neck steps I observe some wooden cottages, with tumble-down out-houses, and back-yards three feet square, adorned with garlands of dried fish, in which (though the General Board of Health might object), my Susan dwells. The South Eastern Company have brought Pavilionstone into such vogue, with their tidal trains and splendid steam- packets, that a new Pavilionstone is rising up. I am, myself, of New Pavilionstone. We are a little mortary and limey at present, but we are getting on capitally. Indeed, we were getting on so fast, at one time, that we rather overdid it, and built a street of shops, the business of which may be expected to arrive in about ten years. We are sensibly laid out in general; and with a little care and pains (by no means wanting, so far), shall become a very pretty place. We ought to be, for our situation is delightful, our air is delicious, and our breezy hills and downs, carpeted with wild thyme, and decorated with millions of wild flowers, are, on the faith of a pedestrian, perfect. In New Pavilionstone we are a little too much addicted to small windows with more bricks in them than glass, and we are not over-fanciful in the way of dec- orative architecture, and we get unexpected sea- views through cracks in the street-doors ; on the whole, however, we are very snug and comfortable, and well accommodated. But the Home Secretary (if there be such an officer) cannot too soon shut up the burial-ground of the old parish church. It is in the midst of us, and Pavilionstone will get no good of it, if it be too long left alone. The lion of Pavilionstone is its Great Hotel. A dozen years ago, going over to Paris by South Eastern Tidal Steamer, you 282 OUT OF TOWN . used to be dropped upon the platform of the main line Pavilionstone Station (not a junction then), at eleven o’clock on a dark winter’s night, in a roaring wind; and in the howling wilderness outside the station, was a short omnibus which brought you up by the forehead the instant you got in at the door ; and nobody cared about you, and you were alone in the world. You bumped over infinite chalk, until you were turned out at a strange building which had just left off being a barn without having quite begun to be a house, where nobody expected your coming, or knew what to do with you when you were come, and where you were usually blown about, until you happened to be blown against the cold beef, and finally into bed. At five in the morning you were blown out of bed, and after a dreary breakfast, with crumpled com- pany, in the midst of confusion, were hustled on board a steamboat and lay w r retched on deck until you saw France lunging and surging at you with great vehemence over the bowsprit. Now, you come down to Pavilionstone in a free and easy manner, an irresponsible agent, made over in trust to the South Eastern Company, until you get out of the railway- carriage at high-water mark. If you are crossing by the boat at once, you have nothing to do but walk on board and be happy there if you can — I can’t. If you are going to our Great Pavilionstone Hotel, the sprightliest porters under the sun, whose cheerful looks are a pleasant welcome, shoulder your luggage, drive it off in vans, bowl it away in trucks, and enjoy themselves in playing athletic games with it. If you are for public life at our great Pavilionstone Hotel, you walk into that establishment as if it were your club ; and find ready for you, your news-room, dining-room, smoking-room, billiard- room, music-room, public breakfast, public dinner twice a day (one plain, one gorgeous), hot baths and cold baths. If you want to be bored, there are plenty of bores always ready for you, and from Saturday to Monday in particular, you can be bored (if you like it) through and through. Should you want to be private at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel, say but the word, look at the list of charges, choose your floor, name your figure — there you are, established in your castle, by the day, OUT OF TOWN . 283 week, month, or year, innocent of all comers or goers, unless you have my fancy for walking early in the morning down the groves of boots and shoes, which so regularly flourish at all the chamber-doors before breakfast, that it seems to me as if nobody ever got up or took them in. Are you going across the Alps, and would you like to air your Italian at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel ? Talk to the Manager — always conver- sational, accomplished, and polite. Do you want to be aided, abetted, comforted, or advised, at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel ? Send for the good landlord, and he is your friend. Should you, or any one belonging to you ever be taken ill at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel you will not soon forget him or his kind wife. And when you pay your bill at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel, you will not be put out of humor by any- thing you find in it. A thoroughly good inn, in the days of coaching and posting, was a noble place. But, no such inn would have been equal to the reception of four or five hundred people, all of them wet through, and half of them dead sick, every day in the year. This is where we shine, in our Pavilionstone Hotel. Again — who, coming and going, pitching and tossing, boating and training, hurrying in, and flying out, could ever have cal- culated the fees to be paid at an old-fashioned house ? In our Pavilionstone Hotel vocabulary, there is no such word as fee. Everything is done for you ; every service is provided at a fixed and reasonable charge ; all the prices are hung up in all the rooms ; and you can make out your own bill before- hand, as well as the bookkeeper. In the case of your being a pictorial artist, desirous of studying at small expense the physiognomies and beards of different nations, come, on receipt of this, to Pavilionstone. You shall find all the nations of the earth, and all the styles of shaving and not shaving, hair-cutting and hair letting alone, for ever flowing through our hotel. Couriers you shall see by hundreds; fat leathern bags for five-franc pieces, closing with violent snaps, like discharges of fire-arms, by thousands ; more luggage in a morning than, fifty years ago, all Europe saw in a week. Looking at trains, steamboats, sick travellers, and luggage, is our great Pavilionstone recrea- 284 OUT OF TOWN. tion. We are not strong in other public amusements. We have a Literary and Scientific Institution, and we have a Working Men’s Institution — may it hold many gipsy holi- days in summer fields, with the kettle boiling, the band of music playing, and the people dancing ; and may I be on the hill-side, looking on with pleasure at a wholesome sight too rare in England ! — and we have two or three churches, and more chapels than I have yet added up. But public amuse- ments are scarce with us. If a poor theatrical manager comes with his company to give us, in a loft, Mary Bax, or the Murder on the Sand Hills, we don’t care much for him — starve him out, in fact. We take more kindly to wax- work, especially if it moves ; in which case it keeps much clearer of the second commandment than when it is still. Cooke’s Circus (Mr. Cooke is my friend, and always leaves a good name behind him), gives us only a night in passing through. Nor does the travelling menagerie think us worth a longer visit. It gave us a look-in the other day, bringing with it the residentiary van with the stained glass windows, which Her Majesty kept ready-made at Windsor Castle, until she found a suitable opportunity of submitting it for the proprietor’s acceptance. I brought away five wonderments from this exhibition. I have wondered, ever since, Whether the beasts ever do get used to those small places of confine- ment ; Whether the monkeys have that very horrible flavor in their free state ; Whether wild animals have a natural ear for time and tune, and therefore every four-footed creature began to howl in despair when the band began to play ; What the giraffe does with his neck when his cart is shut up ; and, Whether the elephant feels ashamed of himself when he is brought out of his den to stand on. his head in the presence of the whole Collection. We are a tidal harbor at Pavilionstone, as indeed I have implied already in my mention of tidal trains. At low-water, we are a heap of mud, with an empty channel in it where a couple of men in big boots always shovel and scoop : with what exact object, I am unable to say. At that time, all the stranded fishing-boats turn over on their sides, as if they were dead marine monsters ; the colliers and other shipping stick OUT OF TOWN . 285 disconsolate in the mud ; the steamers look as if their white chimneys would never smoke more, and their red paddles never turn again; the green sea-slime and weed upon the rough stones at the entrance, seem records of obsolete high tides never more to flow ; the flagstaff -halyards droop ; the very little wooden lighthouse shrinks in the idle glare of the sun. And here I may observe of the very little wooden light- house, that when it is lighted at night, — red and green, — it looks so like a medical man’s, that several distracted husbands have at various times been found, on occasions of premature domestic anxiety, going round and round it, trying to find the Nightbell. But, the moment the tide begins to make, the Pavilionstone Harbor begins to revive. It feels the breeze of the rising water before the water comes, and begins to flutter and stir. When the little shallow waves creep in, barely overlapping one another, the vanes at the mastheads wake, and become agitated. As the tide rises, the fishing-boats get into good spirits and dance, the flagstaff hoists a bright red flag, the steamboat smokes, cranes creak, horses and carriages dangle in the air, stray passengers and luggage appear. Now, the shipping is afloat, and comes up buoyantly, to look at the wharf. Now, the carts that have come down for coals, load away as hard as they can load. Now, the steamer smokes immensely, and occasionally blows at the paddle-boxes like a vaporous whale — greatly disturbing nervous loungers. Now, both the tide and the breeze have risen, and you are holding your hat on (if you want to see how the ladies hold their hats on, with a stay, passing over the broad brim and down the nose, come to Pavilionstone). Now, everything in the harbor splashes, dashes, and bobs. Now, the Down Tidal Train is telegraphed, and you know (without knowing how you know), that two hundred and eighty-seven people are coming. Now, the fishing-boats that have been out, sail in at the top of the tide. Now, the bell goes, and the locomotive hisses and shrieks, and the train comes gliding in, and the two hundred and eighty-seven come scuffling out. Now, there is not only a tide of water, but a tide of people, and a tide of luggage — all tumbling and flowing and bouncing about together. Now, 286 OUT OF TOWN. after infinite bustle, the steamer steams out, and we (on the Pier) are all delighted when she rolls as if she would roll her funnel out, and are all disappointed when she don’t. Now, the other steamer is coming in, and the Custom-House pre- pares, and the wharf-laborers assemble, and the hawsers are made ready, and the Hotel Porters come rattling, down with van and truck, eager to begin more Olympic games with more luggage. And this is the way in which we go on, down at Pavilionstone, every tide. And, if you want to live a life of luggage, or to see it lived, or to breathe sweet air which will send you to sleep at a moment’s notice at any period of the day or night, or to disport yourself upon or in the sea, or to scamper about Kent, or to come out of town for the enjoyment of all or any of these pleasures, come to Pavilionstone. OUT OF THE SEASON. It fell to my lot, this last bleak Spring, to find myself in a watering-place out of the Season. A vicious north-east squall blew me into it from foreign parts, and I tarried in it alone for three days, resolved to be exceedingly busy. On the first day, I began business by looking for two hours at the sea, and staring the Foreign Militia out of countenance. Having disposed of these important engage- ments, I sat down at one of the two windows of my room, intent on doing something desperate in the way of literary composition, and writing a chapter of unheard-of excellence — with which the present essay has no connection. It is a remarkable quality in a watering-place out of the season, that everything in it, will and must be looked at. I had no previous suspicion of this fatal truth ; but, the moment I sat down to write, I began to perceive it. I had scarcely fallen into my most promising attitude, and dipped my pen in the ink, when I found the clock upon the pier — a red-faced clock with a white rim — importuning me in a highly vexatious manner to consult my watch, and see how I was off for Greenwich time. Having no intention of making a voyage or taking an observation, I had not the least need of Greenwich time, and could have put up with watering-place time as a sufficiently accurate article. The pier-clock, how- ever, persisting, I felt it necessary to lay down my pen, com- pare my watch with him, and fall into a grave solicitude about half-seconds. I had taken up my pen again, and was about to commence that valuable chapter, when a Custom- house cutter under the window requested that I would hold a naval review of her, immediately. It was impossible, under the circumstances, for any mental resolution, merely human, to dismiss the Custom-house cutter, 287 288 OUT OF THE SEASON . because the shadow of her topmast fell upon my paper, and the vane played on the masterly blank chapter. I was there- fore under the necessity of going to the other window ; sit- ting astride of the chair there, like Napoleon bivouacking in the print ; and inspecting the cutter as she lay, all that day, in the way of my chapter, 0 ! She was rigged to carry a quantity of canvas, but her hull was so very small that four giants aboard of her (three men and a boy) who were vigilantly scraping at her, all together, inspired me with a terror lest they should scrape her away. A fifth giant, who appeared to consider himself “ below ” — as indeed he was, from the waist downwards — meditated, in such close proxim- ity with the little gusty chimney-pipe, that he seemed to be smoking it. Several boys looked on from the wharf, and, when the gigantic attention appeared to be fully occupied, one or other of these would furtively swing himself in mid- air over the Custom-house cutter, by means of a line pendent* from her rigging, like a young spirit of the storm. Presently, a sixth hand brought down two little water-casks ; presently afterwards, a truck came, and delivered a hamper. I was now under an obligation to consider that the cutter was going on a cruise, and to wonder where she was going, and when she was going, and why she was going, and at what date she might be expected back, and who commanded her ? With these pressing questions I was fully occupied when the Packet, making ready to go across, and blowing off her spare steam, roared, “ Look at me ! ” It became a positive duty to look at the Packet preparing to go across ; aboard of which, the people newly come down by the railroad were hurrying in a great fluster. The crew had got their tarry overalls on — and one knew what that meant — not to mention the white basins, ranged in neat lit- tle piles of a dozen each, behind the door of the after-cabin. One lady, as I looked, one resigning and far-seeing woman, took her basin from the store of crockery, as she might have taken a refreshment-ticket, laid herself down on deck with that utensil at her ear, muffled her feet in one shawl, solemnly covered her countenance after the antique manner with au other, and on the completion of these preparations OUT OF THE SEASON. 289 appeared by the strength of her volition to become insensible* The mail-bags (0 that I myself had the sea-legs of a mail- bag !) were tumbled aboard ; the Packet left off roaring, warped out, and made at the white line upon the bar. One dip, one roll, one break of the sea over her bows, and Moore’s Almanack or the sage Raphael could not have told me more of the state of things aboard, than I knew. The famous chapter was all but begun now, and would have been quite begun, but for the wind. It was blowing stiffly from the east, and it rumbled in the chimney and shook the house. That was not much ; but, looking out into the wind’s gray eye for inspiration, I laid down my pen again to make the remark to myself, how emphatically everything by the sea declares that it has a great concern in the state of the wind. The trees blown all one way; the defences of the harbor reared highest and strongest against the raging point ; * the shingle flung up on the beach from the same direction ; the number of arrows pointed at the common enemy ; the sea tumbling in and rushing towards them as if it were inflamed by the sight. This put it in my head that I really ought to go out and take a walk in the wind ; so, I gave up the magnifi- cent chapter for that day, entirely persuading myself that I was under a moral obligation to have a blow. I had a good one, and that on the high road — the very high road — on the top of the cliffs, where I met the stage- coach with all the outsides holding their hats on and them- selves too, and overtook a flock of sheep with the wool about their necks blown into such great ruffs that they looked like fleecy owls. The wind played upon the lighthouse as if it were a great whistle, the spray was driven over the sea in a cloud of haze, the ships rolled and pitched heavily, and at intervals long slants and flaws of light made mountain-steeps of communication between the ocean and the sky. A walk of ten miles brought me to a seaside town without a cliff, which, like the town I had come from, was out of the season too. Half of the houses were shut up ; half of the other half were to let ; the town might have done as much business as it was doing then, if it had been at the bottom of the sea. Nobody seemed to flourish save the attorney ; his clerk’s pen VOL. II — 19 290 OUT OF THE SEASON. was going in the bow-window of his wooden house; his brass door-plate alone was free from salt, and had been polished up that morning. On the beach, among the rough luggers and capstans, groups of storm-beaten boatmen, like a sort of marine monsters, watched under the lee of those objects, or stood leaning forward against the Avind, looking out through battered spy-glasses. The parlor bell in the Admiral Benbow had grown so flat with being out of the season, that neither could I hear it ring when I pulled the handle for lunch, nor could the young woman in black stockings and strong shoes, who acted as waiter out of the season, until it had been tinkled three times. Admiral Benbow’s cheese was out of the season, but his home-made bread was good, and his beer was perfect. Deluded by some earlier spring day which had been warm and sunny, the Admiral had cleared the firing out of his parlor stove, and had put some flower-pots in — which was amiable and hopeful in the Admiral, but not judicious : the room being, at that present visiting, transcendently cold. I therefore took the liberty of peeping out across a little stone passage into the Admiral’s kitchen, and, seeing a high settle with its back towards me drawn out in front of the Admiral’s kitchen fire, I strolled in, bread and cheese in hand, munching and looking about. One landsman and two boatmen were seated on the settle, smoking pipes and drinking beer out of thick pint crockery mugs — mugs peculiar to such places, with parti- colored rings round them, and ornaments between the rings like frayed-out roots. The landsman was relating his expe- rience, as yet only three nights’ old, of a fearful running-down case in the Channel, and therein presented to my imagination a sound of music that it will not soon forget. “ At that identical moment of time,” said he (he was a prosy man by nature, who rose with his • subject), “the night being light and calm, but with a gray mist upon the water that didn-t seem to spread for more than two or three mile, I was walking up and down the wooden cause Avay next the pier, off where it happened, along with a friend of mine, which his name is Mr. Clocker. Mr. Clocker is a grocer over yon- der.” (From the direction in which he pointed the bowl OUT OF THE SEASON. 291 of his pipe, I might have judged Mr. Clocker to be a Mer- man, established in the grocery trade in five-and-twenty fathoms of water.) “ We were smoking our pipes, and walk- ing up and down the causeway, talking of one thing and talking of another. We were quite alone there, except that a few hovellers ” (the Kentish name for ? long-shore boatmen like his companions) “were hanging about their lugs, waiting while the tide made, as hovellers will.” (One of the two boatmen, thoughtfully regarding me, shut up one eye ; this I understood to mean : first, that he took me into the conver- sation : secondly, that he confirmed the proposition : thirdly, that he announced himself as a hoveller.) “All of a sudden Mr. Clocker and me stood rooted to the spot, by hearing a sound come through the stillness, right over the sea, like a great sorrowf ul flute or AEolian harp. We didn’t in the least know what it was, and judge of our surprise when we saw the hovellers, to a man, leap into the boats and tear about to hoist sail and get off, as if they had every one of ’em gone, in a moment, raving mad ! But they knew it was the cry of dis- tress from the sinking emigrant ship.” When I got back to my watering-place out of the season, and had done my twenty miles in good style, I found that the celebrated Black Mesmerist intended favoring the public that evening in the Hall of the Muses, which he had engaged for the purpose. After a good dinner, seated by the fire in an easy chair, I began to waver in a design I had formed of wait- ing on the Black Mesmerist, and to incline towards the expediency of remaining where I was. Indeed a point of gal- lantry was involved in my doing so, inasmuch as I had not left France alone, but had come from the prisons of St. Pelagie with my distinguished and unfortunate friend Madame Boland (in two volumes which I bought for two francs each, at the book-stall in the Place de la Concorde, Paris, at the corner of the Bue Boyale). Deciding to pass the evening tete-Atete with Madame Boland, I derived, as I always do, great pleasure from that spiritual woman’s society, and the charms of her brave soul and engaging conversation. I must confess that if she had only some more faults, only a few more passionate failings of any kind, I might love her better ; but I am con- 292 OUT OF THE SEASON. tent to believe that the deficiency is in me, and not in her. We spent some sadly interesting hours together on this occa- sion, and she told me again of her cruel discharge from the Abbaye, and of her being re-arrested before her free feet had sprung lightly up half-a-dozen steps of her own staircase, and carried off to the prison which she only left for the guillotine. Madame Roland and I took leave of one another before mid- night, and I went to bed full of vast intentions for next day, in connection with the unparalleled chapter. To hear the for- eign mail-steamers coming in at dawn of day, and to know that I was not aboard or obliged to get up, was very comfortable ; so, I rose for the chapter in great force. I had advanced so far as to sit down at my window again on my second morning, and to write the first half-line of the chapter and strike it out, not liking it, when my conscience reproached me with not having surveyed the watering-place out of the season, after all, yesterday, but with having gone straight out of it at the rate of four miles and a half an hour. Obviously the best amends that I could make for this remiss- ness was to go and look at it without another moment’s delay. So — altogether as a matter of duty — I gave up the magnifi- cent chapter for another day, and sauntered out with my hands in my pockets. All the houses and lodgings ever let to visitors, were to let that morning. It seemed to have snowed bills with To Let upon them. This put me upon thinking what the owners of all those apartments did, out of the season ; how they em- ployed their time, and occupied their minds. They could not be always going to the Methodist chapels, of which I passed one every other minute. They must have some other recrea- tion. Whether they pretended to take one another’s lodgings, and opened one another’s tea-caddies in fun ? Whether they cut slices off their own beef and mutton, and made believe that it belonged to somebody else ? Whether they played little dramas of life, as children do, and said, “ I ought to come and look at your apartments, and you ought to ask two guineas a-week too much, and then I ought to say I must have the rest of the day to think of it, and then you ought to say that another lady and gentleman with no children in OUT OF THE SEASON . 293 family liad made an offer very close to your own terms, and you had passed your word to give them a positive answer in half-an-hour, and indeed were just going to take the bill down when you heard the knock, and then I ought to take them you know ? ” Twenty such speculations engaged my thoughts. Then, after passing, still clinging to the walls, defaced rags of the bills of last year’s Circus, I came to a back field near a timber-yard where the Circus itself had been, and where there was yet a sort of monkish tonsure on the grass, indicating the spot where the young lady had gone round upon her pet steed Firefly in her daring flight. Turning into the town again, I came among the shops, and they were em- phatically out of the season. The chemist had no boxes of ginger-beer powders, no beautifying sea-side soaps and washes, no attractive scents ; nothing but his great goggle-eyed red bottles, looking as if the winds of winter and the drift of the salt-sea had inflamed them. The grocers’ hot pickles, Har- vey’s Sauce, Doctor Kitchener’s Zest, Anchovy Paste, Dundee Marmalade, and the whole stock of luxurious helps to appe- tite, were hibernating somewhere under-ground. The china- shop had no trifles from anywhere. The Bazaar had given in altogether, and presented a notice on the shutters that this establishment would re-open at Whitsuntide, and that the proprietor in the meantime might be heard of at Wild Lodge, East Cliff. At the Sea-bathing Establishment, a row of neat little wooden houses, seven or eight feet high, I satv the pro- prietor in bed in the shower-bath. As to the bathing-machines, they were (how they got there, is not for me to say) at the top of a hill at least a mile and a half off. The library, which I had never seen otherwise than wide open, was tight shut ; and two peevish bald old gentlemen seemed to be hermetically sealed up inside, eternally reading the paper. That wonder- ful mystery, the music-shop, carried it off as usual (except that it had more cabinet pianos in stock), as if season or no season were all one to it. It made the same prodigious display of bright brazen wind-instruments, horribly twisted, worth, as I should conceive, some thousands of pounds, and which it is utterly impossible that anybody in any season can ever play or want to play. It had five triangles in the window, six 294 OUT OF THE SEASON. pairs of castanets, and three harps ; likewise every polka with a colored frontispiece that ever was published ; from the original one where a smooth male and female Pole of high rank are coming at the observer with their arms a-kimbo, to the Ratcatcher’s Daughter. Astonishing establishment, amaz- ing enigma! Three other shops were pretty muoh out of the season, what they were used to be in it. First, the shop where they sell the sailors’ watches, which had still the old collection of enormous timekeepers, apparently designed to break a fall from the masthead : with places to wind them up, like fire-plugs. Secondly, the shop where they sell the sailors’ clothing, which displayed the old sou’-westers, and the old oily suits, and the*old pea-jackets, and the old one sea-chest, with its handles like a pair of rope earrings. Thirdly, the unchange- able shop for the sale of literature that has been left behind. Here, Dr. Faustus was still going down to very red and yellow perdition, under the superintendence of three green personages of a scaly humor, with excrescential serpents growing out of their blade-bones. Here, the Golden Dreamer and the Nor- wood Fortune Teller were still on sale at sixpence each, with instructions for making the dumb cake, and reading destinies in tea-cups, and with a picture of a young woman with a high waist lying on a sofa in an attitude so uncomfortable as almost to account for her dreaming at one and the same time of a conflagration, a shipwreck, an earthquake, a skeleton, a church-porch, lightning, funerals performed, and a young man in a bright blue coat and canary pantaloons. Here, were Little Warblers and Fairburn’s Comic Songsters. Here, too, were ballads on the old ballad paper and in the old confusion of types ; with an old man in a cocked hat, and an arm-chair, for the illustration to Will Watch the bold Smuggler; and the Friar of Orders Gray, represented by a little girl in a hoop, with a ship in the distance. All these as of yore, when they were infinite delights to me ! It took me so long fully to relish these many enjoyments, that I had not more than an hour before bedtime to devote to Madame Roland. We got on admirably together on the sub- ject of her convent education, and I rose next morning with OUT OF THE SEASON. 295 the full conviction that the day for the great chapter was at last arrived. It had fallen calm, however, in the night, and as I sat at breakfast I blushed to remember that I had not yet been on the Downs. I a walker, and not yet on the Downs ! Really, on so quiet and bright a morning this must be set right. As an essential part of the Whole Duty of Man, therefore, I left the chapter to itself — for the present — and went on the Downs. They were wonderfully green and beautiful, and gave me a good deal to do. When I had done with the free air and the view, I had to go down into the valley and look after the hops (which I know nothing about), and to be equally solici- tous as to the cherry orchards. Then I took it on myself to cross-examine a tramping family in black (mother alleged, I have no doubt by herself in person, to have died last week), and to accompany eighteenpence which produced a great effect, with moral admonitions which produced none at all. Finally, it was late in the afternoon before I got back to the unprece- dented chapter, and then I determined that it was out of the season, as the place was, and put it away. I went at night to the benefit of Mrs. B. Wedgington at the Theatre, who had placarded the town with the admonition, “ Don’t forget it ! ” I made the house, according to my calculation, four and ninepence to begin with, and it may have warmed up, in the course of the evening, to half a sovereign. There was nothing to offend any one, — the good Mr. Baines of Leeds excepted. Mrs. B. Wedgington sang to a grand piano. Mr. B. Wedgington did the like, and also took off his coat, tucked up his trousers, and danced in clogs. Master B. Wedgington, aged ten months, was nursed by a shivering young person in the boxes, and the eye of Mrs. B. Wedgington wandered that way more than once. Peace be with all the Wedgingtons from A. to Z. May they find themselves in the Season somewhere ! A POOR MAN’S TALE OF A PATENT I am not used to writing for print. What working-man that never labors less (some Mondays, and Christmas Time and Easter Time excepted) than twelve or fourteen hour a day, is ? But I have been asked to put down, plain, what I have got to say; and so I take pen-and-ink, and do it to the best of my power, hoping defects will find excuse. I was born nigh London, but have worked in a shop at Birmingham (what you would call Manufactories, we call Shops), almost ever since I was out of my time. I served my apprenticeship at Deptford, nigh where I was born, and I am a smith by trade. My name is John. I have been called “Old John” ever since I was nineteen year of age, on account of not having much hair. I am fifty-six year of age at the present time, and I don’t find myself with more hair, nor yet with less, to signify, than at nineteen year of age aforesaid. I have been married five-and-thirty year, come next April. I was married on All Fools’ Day. Let them laugh that win. I won a good wife that day, and it was as sensible a day to me, as ever I had. We have had a matter of ten children, six whereof are living. My eldest son is engineer in the Italian steam-packet “Mezzo Griorno, plying between Marseilles and Naples, and calling at Genoa, Leghorn, and Civita Vecchia.” He was a good workman. He invented a many useful little things that brought him in — nothing. I have two sons doing well at Sydney, New South Wales — single, when last heard from. One of my sons (James) went wild and for a soldier, where he was shot in India, living six weeks in hospital with a musket-ball lodged in his shoulder-blade, which he wrote with his own hand. He was the best looking. One of my two daughters (Mary) is comfortable in her circumstances, 296 A POOR MAN S TALE OF A PATENT. A POOP MAN'S TALE OF A PATENT. 297 but water on the chest. The other (Charlotte) , her husband run away from her in the basest manner, and she and her three children live with us. The youngest, six year old, has a turn for mechanics. I am not a Chartist, and I never was. I don’t mean to say but what I see a good many public points to complain of, still I don’t think that’s the way to set them right. If I did think so, I should be a Chartist. But I don’t think so, and I am not a Chartist. I read the paper, and hear discussion, at what we call “a parlor” in Birmingham, and I know many good men and workmen who are Chartists. Note. Hot Physical force. It won’t be took as boastful in me, if I make the remark (for I can’t put down what I have got to say, without putting that down before going any further), that I have always been of an ingenious turn. I once got twenty pound by a screw, and it’s in use now. I have been twenty year, off and on, com- pleting an Invention and perfecting it. I perfected of it, last Christmas Eve at ten o’clock at night. Me and my wife stood and let some tears fall over the Model, when it was done and I brought her in to take a look at it. A friend of mine, by the name of William Butcher, is a Chartist. Moderate. He is a good speaker. He is very ani- mated. I have often heard him deliver that what is, at every turn, in the way of us working-men, is, that too many places have been made, in the course of time, to provide for people that never ought to have been provided for ; and that we have to obey forms and to pay fees to support those places when we shouldn’t ought. "True,” (delivers William Butcher), "all the public has to do this, but it falls heaviest on the working-man, because he has least to spare; and likewise because impediments shouldn’t be put in his way, when he wants redress of wrong, or furtherance of right.” Hote. I have wrote down those words from William Butcher’s own mouth. W. B. delivering them fresh for the aforesaid pur- pose. How, to my Model again. There it was, perfected of, on Christmas Eve, gone nigh a year, at ten o’clock at night. All the money I could spare I had laid out upon the Model ; and 298 A POOR MAN'S TALE OF A PATENT. when times was bad, or my daughter Charlotte’s children sickly, or both, it had stood still, months at a spell. I had pulled it to pieces, and made it over again with improvements, don’t know how often. There it stood, at last, a perfected Model as aforesaid. William Butcher and me had a long talk, Christmas Bay, respecting of the Model. William is very sensible. But sometimes cranky. William said, “What will you do with it, John ? ” I said, “Patent it.” William said, “How Patent it, John?” I said, “By taking out a Patent.” William then delivered that the law of Patent was a cruel wrong. William said, “John, if you make your invention public, before you get a Patent, anyone may rob you of the fruits of your hard work. You are put in a cleft stick, John. Either you must drive a bargain very much against yourself, by getting a party to come forward beforehand with the great expenses of the Patent ; or, you must be put about, from post to pillar, among so many parties, trying to make a better bargain for yourself, and showing your invention, that your invention will be took from you over your head.” I said, “ William Butcher, are you cranky ? You are sometimes cranky.” William said, “Ho, John, I tell you the truth;” which he then delivered more at length. I said to W. B. I would Patent the invention myself. My wife’s brother, George Bury of West Bromwich (his wife unfortunately took to drinking, made away with every- thing, and seventeen times committed to Birmingham Jail before happy release in every point of view), left my wife, his- sister, when he died, legacy of one hundred and twenty- eight pound ten, Bank of England Stocks. Me and my wife had never broke into that money yet. VHote. We might come to be old, and past our work. We now agreed to Patent the invention. We said we would make a hole in it — I mean in the aforesaid money — and Patent the invention. William Butcher wrote me a letter to Thomas Joy, in London. T. J. is a carpenter, six foot four in height, and plays quoits well. He lives in Chelsea, London, by the church. I got leave from the shop, to be took on again when I come back. I am a good workman. Hot a Teetotaller; but never drunk. When the A POOR MAN'S TALE OF A PATENT. 299 Christmas holidays were over, I went up to London by the Parliamentary Train, and hired a lodging for a week with Thomas Joy. He is married. He has one son gone to sea. Thomas Joy delivered (from a book he had) that the first step to be took, in Patenting the invention, was to prepare a petition unto Queen Victoria. William Butcher had delivered similar, and drawn it up. Note. William is a ready writer. A declaration before a Master in Chancery was to be added to it. That, we likewise drew up. After a deal of trouble I found out a Master, in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, nigh Temple Bar, where I made the declaration, and paid eighteenpence. I was told to take the declaration and petition to the Home Office, in Whitehall, where I left it to be signed by the Home Secretary (after I had found the office out) and where I paid two pound, two, and sixpence. In six days he signed it, and I was told to take it to the Attorney-General’ s chambers, and leave it there for a report. I did so, and paid four pound, four. Note. Nobody all through, ever thankful for their money, but all uncivil. My lodging at Thomas Joy’s was now hired for another week, whereof five days were gone. The Attorney-General made what they called a Beport-of-course (my invention being, as William Butcher had delivered before starting, unopposed), and I was sent back with it to the Home Office. They made a Copy of it, which was called a Warrant. For this warrant, I paid seven pound, thirteen, and six. It was sent to the Queen, to sign. The Queen sent it back, signed. The Home Secretary signed it again. The gentleman throwed it at me when I called, and said, “Now take it to the Patent Office in Lincoln’s Inn.” I was then in my third week at Thomas Joy’s, living very sparing, on account of fees. I found myself losing heart. At the Patent Office in Lincoln’s Inn, they made “ a draft of the Queen’s bill,” of my invention, and a “ docket of the bill.” I paid five pound, ten, and six, for this. They “en- grossed two copies of the bill ; one for the Signet Office, and one for the Privy-Seal Office.” I paid one pound, seven, and six, for this. Stamp duty over and above, three pound. The Engrossing Clerk of the same office engrossed the Queen’s bill 300 A POOR MAN'S TALE OF A PATENT. for signature. I paid him one pound, one. Stamp duty, again, one pound, ten. I was next to take the Queen’s bill to the Attorney-General again, and get it signed again. I took it, and paid five pound more. I fetched it away, and took it to the Home Secretary again. He sent it to the Queen again. She signed it again. I paid seven pound, thirteen, and six, more, for this. I had been over a month at Thomas Joy’s. I was quite, wore out, patience and pocket. Thomas Joy delivered all this, as it went on, to William Butcher. William Butcher delivered it again to three Bir- mingham Parlors, from which it got to all the other Parlors, and was took, as I have been told since, right through all the shops in the North of England. Note. William Butcher delivered, at his Parlor, in a speech, that it was a Patent way of making Chartists. But I hadn’t nigh done yet. The Queen’s bill was to be took to the Signet Office in Somerset House, Strand — where the stamp shop is. The Clerk of the Signet made “ a Signet bill for the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal.” I paid him four pound, seven. The Clerk of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal made “a Privy-Seal bill for the Lord Chancellor.” I paid him, four pound, two. The Privy-Seal bill was handed over to the Clerk of the Patents, who engrossed the aforesaid. I paid him five pound, seventeen, and eight ; at the same time, I paid Stamp-duty for the Patent, in one lump, thirty pound. I next paid for “ boxes for the Patent,” nine and sixpence. Note. Thomas Joy would have made the same at a profit for eighteenpence. I next paid “ fees to the Deputy, the Lord Chancellor’s Purse-bearer,” two pound, two. I next paid “ fees to the Clerk of the Hanaper,” seven pound, thirteen. I next paid u fees to the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper,” ten shillings. I next paid, to the Lord Chancellor again, one pound, eleven, and six. Last of all, I paid “ fees to the Deputy Sealer, and Deputy Chaff-wax,” ten shillings and sixpence. I had lodged at Thomas Joy’s over six weeks, and the unopposed Patent for my invention, for England only, had cost me ninety-six pound, seven, and eightpence. If I had taken it out for the United Kingdom, it would have cost me more than three hun- dred pound. A POOR MAN'S TALE OF A PATENT . 301 How, teaching had not come up but very limited when I was young. So much the worse for me you 7 ll say. I say the same. William Butcher is twenty year younger than me. He knows a hundred year more. If William Butcher had wanted to Patent an invention, he might have been sharper than myself when hustled backwards and forwards among all those offices, though I doubt if so patient. Note. William being sometimes cranky, and consider porters, messengers, and clerks. Thereby I say nothing of my being tired of my life, while I was Patenting my invention. But I put this : Is it reason- able to make a man feel as if, in inventing an ingenious improvement meant to do good, he had done something wrong ? How else can a man feel, when he is met by such difficulties at every turn ? All inventors taking out a Patent must feel so. And look at the expense. How hard on me, and how hard on the country if there’s any merit in me (and my invention is took up now, I am thankful to say, and doing well), to put me to all that expense before I can move a finger ! Make the addition yourself, and it’ll come to ninety- six pound, seven, and eightpence. Ho more, and no less. What can I say against William Butcher, about places ? Look at the Home Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Patent Office, the Engrossing Clerk, the Lord Chancellor, the Privy Seal, the Clerk of the Patents, the Lord Chancellor’s Purse- bearer, the Clerk of the Hanaper, the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper, the Deputy Sealer, and the Deputy Chaff -wax. Ho man in England could get a Patent for an India-rubber band, or an iron hoop, without feeing all of them. Some of them, over and over again. I went through thirty-five stages. I began with the Queen upon the Throne. I ended with the Deputy Chaff-wax. Hote. I should like to see the Deputy Chaff-wax. Is it a man, or what is it ? What I had to tell, I have told. I have wrote it down. I hope it’s plain. Hot so much in the handwriting (though nothing to boast of there), as in the sense of it. I will now conclude with Thomas Joy. Thomas said to me, when we parted, “John, if the laws of this country were as honest as they ought to be, you would have come to London — registered 302 A POOR MAN'S TALE OF A PATENT. an exact description and drawing of your invention — paid half-a-crown or so for doing of it — and therein and thereby have got your Patent.” My opinion is the same as Thomas Joy. Further. In William Butcher’s delivering “that the whole gang of Han- apers and Chaff-waxes must be done away with, and that England has been chaffed and waxed sufficient,” I agree. THE NOBLE SAVAGE. To come to the point at once, I beg to say that I have not the least belief in the Noble Savage. I consider him a prodig- ious nuisance, and an enormous superstition. His calling rum fire-water, and me a pale face, wholly fail to reconcile me to him. I don’t care what he calls me. I call him a savage, and I call a savage a something highly desirable to be civilized off the face of the earth. I think a mere gent (which I take to be the lowest form of civilization) better than a howling, whis- tling, clucking, stamping, jumping, tearing savage. It is all one to me, whether he sticks a fish-bone through his visage, or bits of trees through the lobes of his ears, or birds’ feathers in his head ; whether he flattens his hair between two boards, or spreads his nose over the breadth of his face, or drags his lower lip down by great weights, or blackens his teeth, or knocks them out, or paints one cheek red and the other blue, or tattoos himself, or oils himself, or rubs his body with fat, or crimps it with knives. Yielding to whichsoever of these agreeable eccentricities, he is a savage — cruel, false, thievish, murderous ; addicted more or less to grease, entrails, and beastly customs; a wild animal with the questionable gift of boasting; a conceited, tiresome, bloodthirsty, monotonous humbug. Yet it is extraordinary to observe how some people will talk about him, as they talk about the good old times ; how they will regret his disappearance, in the course of this world’s development, from such and such lands where his absence is a blessed relief and an indispensable preparation for the sowing of the very first seeds of any influence that can exalt humanity; how, even with the evidence of himself before them, they will either be determined to believe, or will suffer themselves to be 303 304 THE NOBLE SAVAGE . persuaded into believing, that he is something which their five senses tell them he is not. There was Mr. Catlin, some few years ago, with his Ojibbe- way Indians. Mr. Catlin was an energetic earnest man, who had lived among more tribes of Indians than I need reckon up here, and who had written a picturesque and glowing book about them. With his party of Indians squatting and spitting on the table before him, or dancing their miserable jigs after their own dreary manner, he called, in all good faith, upon his civilized audience to take notice of their symmetry and grace, their perfect limbs, and the exquisite expression of their pan- tomime ; and his civilized audience, in all good faith, complied and admired. Whereas, as mere animals, they were wretched creatures, very low in the scale and very poorly formed ; and as men and women possessing any power of truthful dramatic expression by means of action, they were no better than the chorus at an Italian Opera in England — and would have been worse if such a thing were possible. Mine are no new views of the noble savage. The greatest writers on natural history found him out long ago. Buffon knew what he was, and showed why he is the sulky tyrant that he is to his women, and how it happens (Heaven be praised ! ) that his race is spare in numbers. Eor evidence of the quality of his moral nature, pass himself for a moment and refer to his “ faithful dog.” Has he ever improved a dog, or attached a dog, since his nobility first ran wild in woods, and was brought down (at a very long shot) by Pope ? Or does the animal that is the friend of man, always degenerate in his low society ? It is not the miserable nature of the noble savage that is the new thing ; it is the whimpering over him with maudlin ad- miration, and the affecting to regret him, and the drawing of any comparison of advantage between the blemishes of civilization and the tenor of his swinish life. There may have been a change now and then in those diseased absurdities, but there is none in him. Think of the Bushmen. Think of the two men and the two women who have been exhibited about England for some years. Are the majority of persons — who remember the THE NOBLE SAVAGE . 305 horrid little leader of that party in his festering bundle of hides, with his filth and his antipathy to water, and his straddled legs, and his odious eyes shaded by his brutal hand, and his cry of “ Qu-u-u-u-aaa ! ” (Bosjesman for something desperately insulting I have no doubt) — conscious of an affec- tionate yearning towards that noble savage, or is it idiosyncratic in me to abhor, detest, abominate, and abjure him ? I have no reserve on this subject, and will frankly state that, setting aside that stage of the entertainment when he counterfeited the death of some creature he had shot, by laying his head on his hand and shaking his left leg — at which time I think it would have been justifiable homicide to slay him — I have never seen that group sleeping, smoking, and expectorating round their brazier, but I have sincerely desired that some- thing might happen to the charcoal smouldering therein, which would cause the immediate suffocation of the whole of the noble strangers. There is at present a party of Zulu Kaffirs exhibiting at the St. George’s Gallery, Hyde Park Corner, London. These noble savages are represented in a most agreeable manner ; they are seen in an elegant theatre, fitted with appropriate scenery of great beauty, and they are described in a very sensible and unpretending lecture, delivered with a modesty which is quite a pattern to all similar exponents. Though extremely ugly, they are much better shaped than such of their predecessors as I have referred to ; and they are rather picturesque to the eye, though far from odoriferous to the nose. What a visitor left to his own interpretings and imaginings might suppose these noblemen to be about, when they give vent to that pantomimic expression which is quite settled to be the natural gift of the noble savage, I cannot possibly conceive; for it is so much too luminous for my personal civilization that it conveys no idea to my mind beyond a gen- eral stamping, ramping, and raving, remarkable (as everything in savage life is) for its dire uniformity. But let us — with the interpreter’s assistance, of which I for one stand so much in need — see what the noble savage does in Zulu Kaffirland. The noble savage sets a king to reign over him, to whom he submits his life and limbs without a murmur or question, and vol. ii — 20 306 THE NOBLE SAVAGE . whose whole life is passed chin deep in a lake of blood ; but who, after killing incessantly, is in his turn killed by his relations and friends, the moment a gray hair appears on his head. All the noble savage’s wars with his fellow-savages (and he takes no pleasure in anything else) are wars of exter- mination — which is the best thing I know of him, and the most comfortable to my mind when I look at him. He has no moral feelings of any kind, sort, or description ; and his “ mission ” may be summed up as simply diabolical. The ceremonies with which he faintly diversifies his life are, of course, of a kindred nature. If he wants a wife he appears before the kennel of the gentleman whom he has selected for his father-in-law, attended by a party of male friends of a very strong flavor, who screech and whistle and stamp an offer of so many cows for the young lady’s hand. The chosen father-in-law — also supported by a high-flavored party of male friends — screeches, whistles, and yells (being seated on the ground, he can’t stamp) that there never was such a daughter in the market as his daughter, and that he must have six more cows. The son-in-law and his select circle of backers, screech, whistle, stamp, and yell in reply, that they will give three more cows. The father-in-law (an old deluder, overpaid at the beginning) accepts four, and rises to bind the bargain. The whole party, the young lady included, then falling into epileptic convulsions, and screeching, whistling, stamping, and yelling together — and nobody taking any notice of the young lady (whose charms are not to be thought of without a shudder) — the noble savage is considered married, and his friends make demoniacal leaps at him by way of con- gratulation. When the noble savage finds himself a little unwell, and mentions the circumstance to his friends, it is immediately perceived that he is under the influence of witchcraft. A learned personage, called an Imyanger or Witch Doctor, is immediately sent for to Hooker the Umtargartie, or smell out the witch. The male inhabitants of the kraal being seated on the ground, the learned doctor, got up like a grizzly bear, appears, and administers a dance of a most terrific nature, during the exhibition of which remedy he incessantly gnashes THE NOBLE SAVAGE. 307 his teeth, and howls : — “I am the original physician to looker the Umtargartie. Yow yow yow ! No connection with any other establishment. Till till till ! All other Umtargarties are feigned Umtargarties, Boroo Boroo! but I perceive here a genuine and real Umtargartie, Hoosh Hoosh Hoosh ! in whose blood I, the original Imy anger and Nook- erer, Blizzerum Boo ! will wash these bear’s claws of mine. 0 yow yow yow ! ” All this time the learned physician is looking out among the attentive faces for some unfortunate man who owes him a cow, or who has given him any small offence, or against whom, without offence, he has conceived a spite. Him he never fails to Nooker as the Umtargartie, and he is instantly killed. In the absence of such an individual, the usual practice is to Nooker the quietest and most gentle- manly person in company. But the nookering is invariably followed on the spot by the butchering. Some of the noble savages in whom Mr. Catlin was so strongly interested, and the diminution of whose numbers, by rum and small-pox, greatly affected him, had a custom not unlike this, though much more appalling and disgusting in its odious details. The women being at work in the fields, hoeing the Indian corn, and the noble savage being asleep in the shade, the chief has sometimes the condescension to come forth, and lighten the labor by looking at it. On these occasions, he seats him- self in his own savage chair, and is attended by his shield- bearer : who holds over his head a shield of cowhide — in shape like an immense mussel shell — fearfully and wonder- fully, after the manner of a theatrical supernumerary. But lest the great man should forget his greatness in the contem- plation of the humble works of agriculture, there suddenly rushes in a poet, retained for the purpose, called a Praiser. This literary gentleman wears a leopard’s head over his own, and a dress of tigers’ tails ; he has the appearance of having come express on his hind legs from the Zoological Gardens ; and he incontinently strikes up the chief’s praises, plunging and tearing all the while. There is a frantic wickedness in this brute’s manner of worrying the air, and gnashing out, “ Oh what a delightful chief he is ! 0 what a delicious quantity 308 THE NOBLE SAVAGE . of blood he sheds ! 0 how majestically he laps it up ! 0 how charmingly cruel he is ! 0 how he tears the flesh of his enemies and crunches the bones ! 0 how like the tiger and the leopard and the wolf and the bear he is ! 0, row row row row, how fond I am of him ! ” — which might tempt the Society of Friends to charge at a hand-gallop into the Swartz- Kop location and exterminate the whole kraal. When war is afoot among the noble savages — which is always — the chief holds a council to ascertain whether it is the opinion of his brothers and friends in general that the enemy shall be exterminated. On this occasion, after the performance of an Umsebeuza, or war song, — which is exactly like all the other songs, — the chief makes a speech to his brothers and friends, arranged in single file. No particular order is observed during the delivery of this address, but every gentleman who finds himself excited by the subject, instead of crying “ Hear, hear ! ” as is the custom with us, darts from the rank and tramples out the life, or crushes the skull, or mashes the face, or scoops out the eyes, or breaks the limbs, or performs a whirlwind of atrocities on the body, of an imaginary enemy. Several gentlemen becoming thus excited at once, and pounding away without the least regard to the orator, that illustrious person is rather in the position of an orator in an Irish House of Commons. But, several of these scenes of savage life bear a strong generic resemblance to an Irish election, and I think would be extremely well received and understood at Cork. In all these ceremonies the noble savage holds forth to the utmost possible extent about himself; from which (to turn him to some civilized account) we may learn, I think, that as egotism is one of the most offensive and contemptible little- nesses a civilized man can exhibit, so it is really incompatible with the interchange of ideas ; inasmuch as if we all talked about ourselves we should soon have no listeners, and must be all yelling and screeching at once on our own separate accounts : making society hideous. It is my opinion that if we retained in us anything of the noble savage, we could not get rid of it too soon. But the fact is clearly otherwise. Upon the wife and dowry question, substituting coin for cows, THE NOBLE SAVAGE . 309 we have assuredly nothing of the Zulu Kaffir left. The en- durance of despotism is one great distinguishing mark of a savage always. The improving world has quite got the better of that too. In like manner, Paris is a civilized city, and the Theatre Frangais a highly civilized theatre ; and we shall never hear, and never have heard in these later days (of course) of the Praiser there. No, no, civilized poets have better work to do. As to Nookering Umtargarties, there are no pretended Umtargarties in Europe, and no European powers to Nooker them ; that would be mere spydom, sub- ornation, small malice, superstition, and false pretence. And as to private Umtargarties, are we not in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-three, with spirits rapping at our doors ? To conclude as I began. My position is, that if we have anything to learn from the Noble Savage, it is what to avoid. His virtues are a fable ; his happiness is a delusion ; his nobility, nonsense. We have no greater justification for being cruel to the miserable object, than for being cruel to a William Shakspeare or an Isaac Newton ; but he passes away before an immeasurably better and higher power than ever ran wild in any earthly woods, and the world will be all the better when his place knows him no more. A FLIGHT. x>* When Don Diego de — I forget his name — the inventor of the last new Flying Machines, price so many francs for ladies, so many more for gentlemen — when Don Diego, by permission of Deputy Chaff-wax and his noble band, shall have taken out a Patent for the Queen’s dominions, and shall have opened a commodious Warehouse in an airy situation; and when all persons of any gentility will keep at least a pair of wings, and be seen skimming about in every direction; I shall take a flight to Paris (as I soar round the world) in a cheap and independent manner. At present, my reliance is on the South Eastern Kailway Company, in whose Express Train here I sit, at eight of the clock on a very hot morning, under the very hot roof of the Terminus at London Bridge, in danger of being “ forced 99 like a cucumber, or a melon, or a pine-apple — And talking of pine-apples, I suppose there never were so many pine-apples in a Train as there appear to be in this Train. Whew ! The hot-house air is faint with pine-apples. Every French citizen or citizeness is carrying pine-apples home. The compact little Enchantress in the corner of my carriage (French actress, to whom I yielded up my heart under the auspices of that brave child, “ Meat-chell,” at the St. James’s Theatre the night before last) has a pine-apple in her lap. Compact Enchantress’s friend, confidante, mother, mystery, Heaven knows what, has two pine-apples in her lap, and a bundle of them under the seat. Tobacco-smoky Frenchman in Algerine wrapper, with peaked hood behind, who might be Abd-el-Kader dyed rifle-green, and who seems to be dressed entirely in dirt and braid, carries pine-apples in a covered basket. Tall, grave, melancholy Frenchman, with black Vandyke beard, and hair close-cropped, with expansive chest to waistcoat, and compres- sive waist to coat : saturnine as to his pantaloons, calm as to 310 A FLIGHT . 311 his feminine boots, precious as to his jewelry, smooth and white as to his linen : dark-eyed, high-foreheaded, hawk-nosed — got up, one thinks, like Lucifer or Mephistopheles, or Zamiel, transformed into a highly genteel Parisian — has the green end of a pine-apple sticking out of his neat valise. Whew ! If I were to be kept here long, under this forcing- frame, I wonder what would become of me — whether I should be forced into a giant, or should sprout or blow into some other phenomenon! Compact Enchantress is not ruffled by the heat — she is always composed, always compact. 0 look at her little ribbons, frills, and edges, at her shawl, at her gloves, at her hair, at her bracelets, at her bonnet, at every- thing about her ! How is it accomplished ? What does she do to be so neat ? How is it that every trifle she wears be- longs to her, and cannot choose but be a part of her ? And even Mystery, look at her ! A model. Mystery is not young, not pretty, though still of an average candle-light passability ; but she does such miracles in her own behalf, that, one of these days, when she dies, they’ll be amazed to find an old woman in her bed, distantly like her. She was an actress once, I shouldn’t wonder, and had a Mystery attendant on herself. Perhaps, Compact Enchantress will live to be a Mystery, and to wait with a shawl at the side-scenes, and to sit opposite to Mademoiselle in railway carriages, and smile and talk subserviently, as Mystery does now. That’s hard to believe ! Two Englishmen, and now our carriage is full. First Eng- lishman, in the monied interest — flushed, highly respectable — Stock Exchange, perhaps — City, certainly. Faculties of second Englishman entirely absorbed in hurry. Plunges into the carriage, blind. Calls out of window concerning his lug- gage, deaf. Suffocates himself under pillows of great coats, for no reason, and in a demented manner. Will receive no assurance from any porter whatsoever. Is stout and hot, and wipes his head, and makes himself hotter by breathing so hard. Is totally incredulous respecting assurance of Collected Guard that “ there’s no hurry.” Ho hurry ! And a flight to Paris in eleven hours ! It is all one to me in this drowsy corner, hurry or no 312 A FLIGHT. hurry. Until Don Diego shall send home my wings, my flight is with the South Eastern Company. I can fly with the South Eastern, more lazily, at all events, than in the upper air. I have but to sit here thinking as idly as I please, and be whisked away. I am not accountable to anybody for the idleness of my thoughts in such an idle summer flight ; my flight is provided for by the South Eastern and is no business of mine. The bell ! With all my heart. It does not require me to do so much as even to flap my wings. Something snorts for me, something shrieks for me, something proclaims to every- thing else that it had better keep out of my way, — and away I go. Ah ! The fresh air is pleasant after the forcing-frame, though it does blow over these interminable streets, and scatter the smoke of this vast wilderness of chimneys. Here we are — no, I mean there we were, for it has darted far into the rear — in Bermondsey where the tanners live. Elash ! The distant shipping in the Thames is gone. Whirr ! The little streets of new brick and red tile, with here and there a flagstaff growing like a tall weed out of the scarlet beans, and, everywhere, plenty of open sewer and ditch for the promotion of the public health, have been fired off in a volley. Whizz ! Dustheaps, market-gardens, and waste grounds. Battle ! New Cross Station. Shock ! There we were at Croydon. Bur-r-r-r ! The tunnel. I wonder why it is that when I shut my eyes in a tunnel I begin to feel as if I were going at an Express pace the other way. I am clearly going back to London now. Compact Enchantress must have forgotten something, and reversed the engine. No ! After long darkness, pale fitful streaks of light appear. I am still flying on for Folkestone. The streaks grow stronger — become continuous — become the ghost of day — become the living day — became I mean — the tunnel is miles and miles away, and here I fly through sunlight, all among the harvest and the Kentish hops. There is a dreamy pleasure in this flying. I wonder where it was, and when it was, that we exploded, blew into space somehow, a Parliamentary Train, with a crowd of heads and A FLIGHT . 313 faces looking at us out of cages, and some hats waving. Monied Interest says it was at Reigate Station. Expounds to Mystery liow Reigate Station is so many miles from London, which Mystery again develops to Compact Enchant- ress. There might be neither a Reigate nor a London for me, as I fly away among the Kentish hops and harvest. What do I care ! Bang ! We have let another Station off, and fly away regardless. Everything is flying. The hop-gardens turn gracefully towards me, presenting regular avenues of hops in rapid flight, then whirl away. So do the pools and rushes, haystacks, sheep, clover in full bloom delicious to the sight and smell, corn-sheaves, cherry-orchards, apple-orchards, reap- ers, gleaners, hedges, gates, fields that taper off into little angular corners, cottages, gardens, now and then a church. Bang, bang ! A double-barrelled Station ! Now a wood, now a bridge, now a landscape, now a cutting, now a — Bang ! a single-barrelled Station — there was a cricket match some- where with two white tents, and then four flying cows, then turnips — now the wires of the electric telegraph are all alive, and spin, and blurr their edges, and go up and down, and make the intervals between each other most irregular : con- tracting and expanding in the strangest manner. Now we slacken. With a screwing, and a grinding, and a smell of water thrown on ashes, now we stop ! Demented traveller, who has been for two or three minutes watchful, clutches his great coats, plunges at the door, rattles it, cries “ Hi ! ” eager to embark on board of impossible packets, far inland. Collected Guard appears. “ Are you for Tunbridge, sir?” “ Tunbridge? No. Paris.” “ Plenty of time, sir. No hurry. Five minutes here, sir, for refresh- ment.” I am so blest (anticipating Zamiel, by half a second) as to procure a glass of water for Compact Enchantress. Who would suppose we had been flying at such a rate, and shall take wing again directly ? Refreshment-room full, plat- form full, porter with watering-pot deliberately cooling a hot wheel, another porter with equal deliberation helping the rest of the wheels bountifully to ice cream. Monied Interest and I re-entering the carriage first, and being there alone, he inti- 814 A FLIGHT. mates to me that the French are “no go ” as a Nation. I ask why ? He says, that Reign of Terror of theirs was quite enough. I ventured to inquire whether he remembers any- thing that preceded said Reign of Terror? He says not particularly. “Because,” I remark, “the harvest that is reaped, has sometimes been sown.” Monied Interest repeats, as quite enough for him, that the French are revolutionary, “ — and always at it.” Bell. Compact Enchantress, helped in by Zamiel, (whom the stars confound !) gives us her charming little side-box look, and smites me to the core. Mystery eating sponge-cake. Pine- apple atmosphere faintly tinged with suspicions of sherry. Demented Traveller flits past the carriage, looking for it. Is blind with agitation, and can’t see it. Seems singled out by Destiny to be the only unhappy creature in the flight, who has any cause to hurry himself. Is nearly left behind. Is seized by Collected Guard after the Train is in motion, and bundled in. Still, has lingering suspicions that there must be a boat in the neighborhood, and will look wildly out of window for it. Flight resumed. Corn-sheaves, hop-gardens, reapers, gleam ers, apple-orchards, cherry-orchards, Stations single and double- barrelled, Ashford. Compact Enchantress (constantly talking to Mystery, in an exquisite manner) gives a little scream; a sound that seems to come from high up in her precious little head ; from behind her bright little eyebrows. “ Great Heaven, my pine-apple ! My Angel ! It is lost ! ” Mystery is desolated. A search made. It is not lost. Zamiel finds it. I curse him (flying) in the Persian manner. May his face be turned upside down, and jackasses sit upon his uncle’s grave ! Now fresher air, now glimpses of unenclosed Down-land with flapping crows flying over it whom we soon outfly, now the Sea, now Folkestone at a quarter after ten. “ Tickets ready, gentlemen!” Demented dashes at the door. “For Paris, Sir ? No hurry.” Not the least. We are dropped slowly down to the Port, and sidle to and fro (the whole Train) before the insensible Royal George Hotel, for some ten minutes. The Royal George takes no more heed of us than its namesake under water at A FLIGHT . 315 Spithead, or under earth at Windsor, does. The Royal George’s dog lies winking and blinking at us, without taking the trouble to sit up ; and the Royal George’s “ wedding party” at the open window (who seem, I must say, rather tired of bliss) don’t bestow a solitary glance upon us, flying thus to Paris in eleven hours. The first gentleman in Folke- stone is evidently used up, on this subject. Meanwhile, Demented chafes. Conceives that every man’s hand is against him, and exerting itself to prevent his getting to Paris. Refuses consolation. Rattles door. Sees smoke on the horizon, and “ knows ” it’s the boat gone without him. Monied Interest resentfully explains that he is going to Paris too. Demented signifies that if Monied Interest chooses to be left behind, he don’t. “ Refreshments in the Waiting-Room, ladies and gentlemen. No hurry, ladies and gentlemen, for Paris. No hurry what- ever ! ” Twenty minutes’ pause, by Folkestone clock, for looking at Enchantress while she eats a sandwich, and at Mystery while she eats of everything there that is eatable, from pork-pie, sausage, jam, and gooseberries, to lumps of sugar. All this time, there is a very waterfall of luggage, with a spray of dust, tumbling slantwise from the pier into the steamboat. All this time, Demented (who has no business with it) watches it with starting eyes, fiercely requiring to be shown his lug- gage. When it at last concludes the cataract, he rushes hotly to refresh — is shouted after, pursued, jostled, brought back, pitched into the departing steamer upside down, and caught by mariners disgracefully. A lovely harvest day, a cloudless sky, a tranquil sea. The piston-rods of the engines so regularly coming up from below, to look (as well they may) at the bright weather, and so regularly almost knocking their iron heads against the cross beam of the skylight, and never doing it ! Another Parisian actress is on board, attended by another Mystery. Compact Enchantress greets her sister artist — Oh, the Compact One’s pretty teeth ! — and Mystery greets Mystery. My Mystery soon ceases to be conversational — is taken poorly, in a word, having lunched too miscellaneously — and goes below. The re- 316 A FLIGHT . maining Mystery then smiles upon the sister artists (who, I am afraid, wouldn’t greatly mind stabbing each other), and is upon the whole ravished. And now I find that all the French, people on board begin to grow, and all the English people to shrink. The French are nearing home, and shaking off a disadvantage, whereas we are shaking it on. Zamiel is the same man, and Abd-el- Kader is the same man, but each seems to come into possession of an indescribable confidence that departs from us — from Monied Interest, for instance, and from me. Just what they gain, we lose. Certain British “ Gents ” about the steersman, intellectually nurtured at home on parody of everything and truth of nothing, become subdued and in a manner forlorn ; and when the steersman tells them (not unexultingly) how he has “ been upon this station now eight year, and never see the old town of Bullum yet,” one of them, with an imbecile reliance on a reed, asks him what he considers to be the best hotel in Paris ? Now, I tread upon French ground, and am greeted by the three charming words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, painted up (in letters a little too thin for their height) on the Custom- House wall — also by the sight of large cocked hats, without which demonstrative head-gear nothing of a public nature can be done upon this soil. All the rabid Hotel population of Boulogne howl and shriek outside a distant barrier, frantic to get at us. Demented, by some unlucky means peculiar to himself, is delivered over to their fury, and is presently seen struggling in a whirpool of Touters — is somehow understood to be going to Paris — is, with infinite noise, rescued by two cocked hats, and brought into Custom-House bondage with the rest of us. Here, I resign the active duties of life to an eager being, of preternatural sharpness, with a shelving forehead and a shabby snuff-colored coat, who (from the wharf) brought me down with his eye before the boat came into port. He darts upon my luggage, on the floor where all the luggage is strewn like a wreck at the bottom of the great deep ; gets it pro- claimed and weighed as the property of “ Monsieur a traveller unknown ; ” pays certain francs for it, to a certain functionary A FLIGHT . 317 behind a Pigeon Hole, like a pay-box at a Theatre (the arrangements in general are on a wholesale scale, half mili- tary and half theatrical) ; and I suppose I shall find it when I come to Paris — he says I shall. I know nothing about it, except that I pay him his small fee, and pocket the ticket he gives ine, and sit upon a counter, involved in the general distraction. Railway station. “ Lunch or dinner, ladies and gentlemen. Plenty of time for Paris. Plenty of time!” Large Hall, long counter, long strips of dining-table, bottles of wine, plates of meat, roast chickens, little loaves of bread, basins of soup, little caraffes of brandy, cakes, and fruit. Comfortably re- stored from these resources, I begin to fly again. I saw Zamiel (before I took wing) presented to Compact Enchantress and Sister Artist, by an officer in uniform, with a waist like a wasp’s, and pantaloons like two balloons. They all got into the next carriage together, accompanied by the two Mysteries. They laughed. I am alone in the carriage (for I don’t consider Demented anybody) and alone in the world. Fields, windmills, low grounds, pollard-trees, windmills, fields, fortifications, Abbeville, soldiering and drumming. I wonder where England is, and when I was there last — about two years ago, I should say. Flying in and out among these trenches and batteries, skimming the clattering drawbridges, looking down into the stagnant ditches, I became a prisoner of state, escaping. I am confined with a comrade in a fortress. Our room is in an upper story. We have tried to get up the chimney, but there’s an iron grating across it, imbedded in the masonry. After months of labor, we have worked the grating loose with the poker, and can lift it up. We have also made a hook, and twisted our rugs and blankets into ropes. Our plan is, to go up the chimney, hook our ropes to the top, descend hand over hand upon the roof of the guard- house far below, shake the hook loose, watch the opportunity of the sentinel’s pacing away, hook again, drop into the ditch, swim across it, creep into the shelter of the wood. The time is come — a wild and stormy night. We are up the chimney, we are on the guard-house roof, we are swimming in the 318 A FLIGHT . murky ditch, when lo ! “ Qui v’la ? ” a bugle, the alarm, a crash! What is it? Death? No, Amiens. More fortifications, more soldiering and drumming, more basins of soup, more little loaves of bread, more bottles of wine, more caraffes of brandy, more time for refreshment. Everything good, and everything ready. Bright,, unsubstan- tial-looking, scenic sort of station. People waiting. Houses, uniforms, beards, moustaches, some sabots, plenty of neat women, and a few old-visaged children. Unless it be a delu- sion born of my giddy flight, the grown-up people and the children seem to change places in France. In general, the boys and girls are little old men and women, and the men and women lively boys and girls. Bugle, shriek, flight resumed. Monied Interest has come into my carriage. Says the manner of refreshing is “not bad,” but considers it French. Admits great dexterity and politeness in the attendants. Thinks a decimal currency may have something to do with their despatch in settling accounts, and don’t know but what it’s sensible and convenient. Adds, however, as a general protest, that they’re a revolutionary people — and always at it. Ramparts, canals, cathedral, river, soldiering and drumming, open country, river, earthenware manufactures, Creil. Again ten minutes. Not even Demented in a hurry. Station, a draw- ing-room with a verandah : like a planter’s house. Monied Interest considers it a band-box, and not made to last. Little round tables in it, at one of which the Sister Artists and at- tendant Mysteries are established with Wasp and Zamiel, as if they were going to stay a week. Anon, with no more trouble than before, I am flying again, and lazily wondering as I fly. What has the South Eastern done with all the horrible little villages we used to pass through, in the Diligence ? What have they done with all the summer dust, with all the winter mud, with all the dreary avenues of little trees, with all the ramshackle postyards, with all the beggars (who used to turn out at night with bits of lighted candle, to look in at the coach windows), with all the long-tailed horses who were always biting one another, with all the big postilions in jack-boots — with all the mouldy A FLIGHT. 319 cafes that we used to stop at, where a long mildewed table- cloth, set forth with jovial bottles of vinegar and oil, and with a Siamese arrangement of pepper and salt, was never wanting ? Where are the grass-grown little towns, the won- derful little market-places all unconscious of markets, the shops that nobody kept, the streets that nobody trod, the churches that nobody went to, the bells that nobody rang, the tumble-down old buildings plastered with many-colored bills that nobody read ? Where are the two-and-twenty weary hours of long long day and night journey, sure to be either insupportably hot or insupportably cold ? Where are the pains in my bones, where are the fidgets in my legs, where is the Frenchman with the nightcap who never would have the little coupAwindow down, and who always fell upon me when he went to sleep, and always slept all night snoring onions ? A voice breaks in with u Paris ! Here we are ! ” I have overflown myself, perhaps, but I can’t believe it. I feel as if I were enchanted or bewitched. It is barely eight o’clock yet — it is nothing like half-past — when I have had my luggage examined at that briskest of Custom-Houses at- tached to the station, and am rattling over the pavement in a Hackney cabriolet. Surely, not the pavement of Paris ? Yes, I think it is, too. I don’t know any other place where there are all these high houses, all these haggard-looking wine shops, all these billiard tables, all these stocking-makers with flat red or yellow legs of wood for signboard, all these fuel shops with stacks of billets painted outside, and real billets sawing in the gutter, all these dirty corners of streets, all these cabinet pictures over dark doorways representing discreet matrons nursing babies. And yet this morning — I’ll think of it in a warm- bath. Very like a small room that I remember in the Chinese Baths upon the Boulevard, certainly; and, though I see it through the steam, I think that I might swear to that pecu- liar hot-linen basket, like a large wicker hour-glass. When can it have been that I left home ? When was it that I paid “ through to Paris” at London Bridge, and discharged myself of all responsibility, except the preservation of a voucher 320 A FLIGHT . ruled into three divisions, of which the first was snipped off at Folkestone, the second aboard the boat, and the third taken at my journey’s end ? It seems to have been ages ago. Cal- culation is useless. I will go out for a walk. The crowds in the streets, the lights in the shops and bal- conies, the elegance, variety, and beauty of their decorations, the number of the theatres, the brilliant cafes with their windows thrown up high and their vivacious groups at little tables on the pavement, the light and glitter of the houses turned as it were inside out, soon convince me that it is no dream; that I am in Paris, howsoever I got here. I stroll down to the sparkling Palais Royal, up the Rue de Rivoli, to the Place Yenddme. As I glance into a print-shop window, Monied Interest, my late travelling companion, comes upon me, laughing with the highest relish of disdain. “ Here’s a people ! ” he says, pointing to Napoleon in the window and Napoleon on the column. “ Only one idea all over Paris ! A monomania ! ” Humph ! I think I have seen Napoleon’s match ? There was a statue, when I came away, at Hyde Park Corner, and another in the Citj^, and a print or two in the shops. I walk up to the Barri&re de l’Etoile, sufficiently dazed by my flight to have a pleasant doubt of the reality of everything about me; of the lively crowd, the overhanging trees, the performing dogs, the hobby-horses, the beautiful perspectives of shining lamps : the hundred and one inclosures, where the singing is, in gleaming orchestras of azure and gold, and where a star-eyed Houri comes round with a box for voluntary offerings. So, I pass to my hotel, enchanted ; sup, enchanted ; go to bed, enchanted ; pushing back this morning (if it really were this morning) into the remoteness of time, blessing the South Eastern Company for realizing the Arabian Nights in these prose days, murmuring, as I wing my idle flight into the land of dreams, “ No hurry, ladies and gentlemen, going to Paris in eleven hours. It is so well done, that there really is no hurry ! ” THE DETECTIVE POLICE. We are not by any means devout believers in the Old Bow Street Police. To say the truth, we think there was a vast amount of humbug about those worthies. Apart from many of them being men of very indifferent character, and far too much in the habit of consorting with thieves and the like, they never lost a public occasion of jobbing and trading in mystery and making the most of themselves. Continually puffed besides by incompetent magistrates anxious to conceal their own deficiencies, and hand-in-glove with the penny-a-liners of that time, they became a sort of superstition. Although as a Preventive Police they were utterly ineffective, and as a Detec- tive Police were very loose and uncertain in their operations, they remain with some people a superstition to the present day. On the other hand, the Detective Force organized since the establishment of the existing Police, is so well chosen and trained, proceeds so systematically and quietly, does its busi- ness in such a workman-like manner, and is always so calmly and steadily engaged in the service of the public, that the pub- lic really do not know enough of it, to know a tithe of its use- fulness. Impressed with this conviction, and interested in the men themselves, we represented to the authorities at Scotland Yard, that we should be glad, if there were no official objection, to have some talk with the Detectives. A most obliging and ready permission being given, a certain evening was appointed with a certain Inspector for a social conference between our- selves and the Detectives, at The Household Words Office in Wellington Street, Strand, London. In consequence of which appointment the party “came off,” which we are about to describe. And we beg to repeat that, avoiding such topics as it might for obvious reasons be injurious to the public, or dis- vol. n — 21 321 322 THE DETECTIVE POLICE. agreeable to respectable individuals; to touch upon in print, our description is as exact as we can make it. The reader will have the goodness to imagine the Sanctum Sanctorum of Household Words. Anything that best suits the reader’s fancy, will best represent that magnificent cham- ber. We merely stipulate for a round table in the middle, with some glasses and cigars arranged upon it ; and the edi- torial sofa elegantly hemmed in between that stately piece of furniture and the wall. It is a sultry evening at dusk. The stones of Wellington Street are hot and gritty, and the watermen and hackney- coachmen at the Theatre opposite, are much flushed and aggravated. Carriages are constantly setting down the people who have come to Fairy-Land ; and there is a mighty shouting and bellowing every now and then, deafening us for the moment, through the open windows. Just at dusk, InsjDectors Wield and Stalker are announced; but we do not undertake to warrant the orthography of any of the names here mentioned. Inspector Wield presents Inspector Stalker. Inspector Wield is a middle-aged man of a portly presence, with a large, moist, knowing eye, a husky voice, and a habit of emphasizing his conversation by the aid of a corpu- lent forefinger, which is constantly in juxta-position with his eyes or nose. Inspector Stalker is a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman — in appearance not at all unlike a very acute, thoroughly-trained schoolmaster, from the Normal Establish- ment at Glasgow. Inspector Wield one might have known, perhaps, for what he is — Inspector Stalker, never. The ceremonies of reception over, Inspectors Wield and Stalker observe that they have brought some sergeants with them. The sergeants are presented — five in number, Sergeant Dornton, Sergeant Witchem, Sergeant Mith, Sergeant Fendall, and Sergeant Straw. We have the whole Detective Force from Scotland Yard, with one exception. They sit down in a semi-circle (the two Inspectors at the two ends) at a little distance from the round table, facing the editorial sofa. Every man of them, in a glance, immediately takes an inventory of the furniture and an accurate sketch of the editorial presence. The Editor feels that any gentleman in company could take THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 323 him up, if need should be, without the smallest hesitation, twenty years hence. The whole party are in plain clothes. Sergeant Dornton, about fifty years of age, with a ruddy face and a high sun- burnt forehead, has the air of one who has been a Sergeant in the army — he might have sat to Wilkie for the Soldier in the Beading of the Will. He is famous for steadily pursuing the inductive process, and, from small beginnings, working on from clue to clue until he bags his man. Sergeant Witchem, shorter and thicker-set, and marked with the small pox, has something of a reserved and thoughtful air, as if he were engaged in deep arithmetical calculations. He is renowned for his acquaint- ance with the swell mob. Sergeant Mith, a smooth-faced man with a fresh bright complexion, and a strange air of simplicity, is a dab at housebreakers. Sergeant Fendall, a light-haired, well-spoken, polite person, is a prodigious hand at pursuing private inquiries of a delicate nature. Straw, a little wiry Sergeant of meek demeanor and strong sense, would knock at a door and ask a series of questions in any mild character you choose to prescribe to him, from a charity-boy upwards, and seem as innocent as an infant. They are, one and all, respect- able-looking men ; of perfectly good deportment and unusual intelligence ; with nothing lounging or slinking in their man- ners ; with an air of keen observation and quick perception when addressed ; and generally presenting in their faces, traces more or less marked of habitually leading lives of strong men- tal excitement. They have all good eyes ; and they all can, and they all do, look full at whomsoever they speak to. We light the cigars, and hand round the glasses (which are very temperately used indeed), and the conversation begins by a modest amateur reference on the Editorial part to the swell mob. Inspector Wield immediately removes his cigar from his lips, waves his right hand, and says, “ Begarding the swell mob, sir, I can’t do better than call upon Sergeant Witchem. Because the reason why ? I’ll tell you. Sergeant Witchem is better acquainted with the swell mob than any officer in London.” Our heart leaping up when we beheld this rainbow in the sky, we turn to Sergeant Witchem, who very concisely, and 324 THE DETECTIVE POLICE. in well-chosen language, goes into the subject forthwith. Meantime, the whole of his brother officers are closely interested in attending to what he says, and observing its effect. Presently they begin to strike in, one or two together, when an opportunity offers, and the conversation becomes general. But these brother officers only come in to the assist- ance of each other — not to the contradiction — and a more amicable brotherhood there could not be. From the swell mob, we diverge to the kindred topics of cracksmen, fences, public-house dances, area-sneaks, designing young people who go out “ gonophing,’’ and other “ schools.” It is observable throughout these revelations, that Inspector Stalker, the Scotchman, is always exact and statistical, and that when any question of figures arises, everybody as by one consent pauses, and looks to him. When we have exhausted the various schools of Art — dur- ing which discussion the whole body have remained profoundly attentive, except when some unusual noise at the Theatre over the way has induced some gentleman to glance inquiringly towards the window in that direction, behind his next neigh- bor’s back — we burrow for information on such points as the following. Whether there really are any highway robberies in London, or whether some circumstances not convenient to be mentioned by the aggrieved party, usually precede the robberies complained of, under that head, which quite change their character ? Certainly the latter, almost always. Whether in the case of robberies in houses, where servants are necessarily exposed to doubt, innocence under suspicion ever becomes so like guilt in appearance, that a good officer need be cautious how he judges it? Undoubtedly. Nothing is so common or deceptive as such appearances at first. Whether in a place of public amusement, a thief knows an officer, and an officer knows a thief — supposing them, before- hand, strangers to each other — because each recognizes in the other, under all disguise, an inattention to what is going on, and a purpose that is not the purpose of being entertained? Yes. That’s the way exactly. Whether it is reasonable or ridiculous to trust to the alleged experiences of thieves as narrated by themselves, in prisons, or penitentiaries, or any- THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 325 where ? In general, nothing more absurd. Lying is their habit and their trade ; and they would rather lie — even if they hadn’t an interest in it, and didn’t want to make them- selves agreeable — than tell the truth. From these topics, we glide into a review of the most cele-^ brated and horrible of the great crimes that have been com- mitted within the last fifteen or twenty years. The men engaged in the discovery of almost all of them, and in the pursuit or apprehension of the murderers, are here, down to the very last instance. One of our guests gave chase to and boarded the emigrant ship, in which the murderess last hanged in London was supposed to have embarked. We learn from him that his errand was not announced to the passengers, who may have no idea of it to this hour. That he went below, with the captain, lamp in hand — it being dark, and the whole steerage abed and sea-sick — and engaged the Mrs. Manning who was on board, in a conversation about her luggage, until she was, with no small pains, induced to raise her head, and turn her face towards the light. Satisfied that she was not the object of his search, he quietly re-embarked in the Gov- ernment steamer alongside, and steamed home again with the intelligence. When we have exhausted these subjects, too, which occupy a considerable time in the discussion, two or three leave their chairs, whisper Sergeant Witchem, and resume their seats. Sergeant Witchem leaning forward a little, and placing a hand on each of his legs, then modestly speaks as follows : “My brother-officers wish me to relate a little account of my taking Tally-ho Thompson. A man oughtn’t to tell what he has done himself ; but still, as nobody was with me, and, consequently, as nobody but myself can tell it, I’ll do it in the best way I can, if it should meet your approval.” We assure Sergeant Witchem that he will oblige us very much, and we all compose ourselves to listen with great inter- est and attention. “ Tally-ho Thompson,” says Sergeant Witchem, after merely wetting his lips with his brandy-and- water, “ Tally-ho Thompson was a famous horse-stealer, couper, and magsman. Thompson, in conjunction with a pal that occasionally worked 326 THE DETECTIVE POLICE . with him, gammoned a countryman out of a good round sum of money, under pretence of getting him a situation — the regular old dodge — and was afterwards in the ‘ Hue and Cry ’ for a horse — a horse that he stole, down in Hertfordshire. I had to look after Thompson, and I applied myself, of course, in the first instance, to discovering where he was. Now, Thompson’s wife lived, along with a little daughter, at Chelsea. Knowing that Thompson was somewhere in the country, I watched the house — especially at post-time in the morning — thinking Thompson was pretty likely to write to her. Sure enough, one morning the postman comes up, and delivers a letter at Mrs. Thompson’s door. Little girl opens the door, and takes it in. We’re not always sure of postmen, though the people at the post-offices are always very obliging. A postman may help us, or he may not, — just as it happens. However, I go across the road, and I say to the postman, after he has left the letter, ‘ Good morning ! how are you ? ’ ‘How are youV says he. ‘You’ve just delivered a letter for Mrs. Thompson.’ ‘Yes, I have.’ ‘You didn’t happen to remark what the post-mark was, perhaps ? ’ ‘No,’ says he, ‘I didn’t.’ ‘Come,’ says I, ‘I’ll be plain with you. I’m in a small way of business, and I have given Thompson credit, and I can’t afford to lose what he owes me. I know he’s got money, and I know he’s in the country, and if you could tell me what the post-mark was, I should be very much obliged to you, and you’d do a service to a tradesman in a small way of business that can’t afford a loss.’ ‘ Well,’ he said, ‘ I do assure you that I did not observe what the post-mark was ; all I know is, that there was money in the letter — I should say a sovereign.’ This was enough for me, because of course I knew that Thompson having sent his wife money, it was probable she’d write to Thompson, by return of post, to acknowledge the receipt. So I said ‘ Thankee ’ to the postman, and I kept on the watch. In the afternoon I saw the little girl come out. Of course I followed her. She went into a stationer’s shop, and I needn’t say to you that I looked in at the window. She bought some writing-paper and envelopes, and a pen. I think to myself, ‘ That’ll do ! ’ — watch her home again — and don’t go away, you may be THE DETECTIVE POLICE . 327 sure, knowing that Mrs. Thompson was writing her letter to Tally-ho, and that the letter would be posted presently. In about an hour or so, out came the little girl again, with the letter in her hand. I went up, and said something to the child, whatever it might have been ; but I couldn’t see the direction of the letter, because she held it with the seal upwards. However, I observed that on the back of the letter there was what we call a kiss — a drop of wax by the side of the seal — and again, you understand, that was enough for me. I saw her post the letter, waited till she was gone, then went into the shop, and asked to see the Master. When he came out, I told him, ‘Now, I’m an Officer in the Detective Force; there’s a letter with a kiss been posted here just now, for a man that I’m in search of ; and what I have to ask of you, is, that you will let me look at the direction of that letter.’ He was very civil — took a lot of letters from the box in the window — shook ’em out on the counter with the faces down- wards — and there among ’em was the identical letter with the kiss. It was directed, Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post Office, B , to be left ’till called for. Down I went to B (a hundred and twenty miles or so) that night. Early next morning I went to the Post Office ; saw the gentleman in charge of that department ; told him who I was ; and that my object was to see, and track, the party that should come for the letter for Mr. Thomas Pigeon. He was very polite, and said, ‘ You shall have every assistance we can give you ; you can wait inside the office ; and we’ll take care to let you know when anybody comes for the letter.’ Well, I waited there three days, and began to think that nobody ever would come. At last the clerk whispered to me, ‘ Here ! Detective ! Some- body’s come for the letter ! ’ ‘ Keep him a minute,’ said I, and I ran round to the outside of the office. There I saw a young chap with the appearance of an Ostler, holding a horse by the bridle — stretching the bridle across the pavement, while he waited at the Post Office Window for the letter. I began to pat the horse, and that ; and I said to the boy, ‘ Why, this is Mr. Jones’s Mare!’ ‘No. It an’t.’ ‘No?’ said I. ‘She’s very like Mr. Jones’s Mare!’ ‘She an’t Mr. Jones’s Mare, anyhow,’ says he. ‘It’s Mr. So and So’s, of the Warwick 328 THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 'Arms.’ And np lie jumped, and off lie went — letter and all. I got a cab, followed on the box, and was so quick after him that I came into the stable-yard of the Warwick Arms, by one gate, just as he came in by another. I went into the bar, where there was a young woman serving, and called for a glass of brandy-and-water. He came in directly, and handed her the letter. She casually looked at it, without saying any- thing, and stuck it up behind the glass over the chimney- piece. What was to be done next ? “ I turned it over in my mind while I drank my brandy- and-water (looking pretty sharp at the letter the while) but I couldn’t see my way out of it at all. I tried to get lodgings in the house, but there had been a horse-fair, or something of that sort, and it was full. I was obliged to put up some- where else, but I came backwards and forwards to the bar for a couple of days, and there was the letter always behind the glass. At last I thought I’d write a letter to Mr. Pigeon my- self, and see what that would do. So I wrote one, and posted it, but I purposely addressed it, Mr. John Pigeon, instead of Mr. Thomas Pigeon, to see what that would do. In the morn- ing (a very wet morning it was) I watched the postman down the street, and cut into the bar, just before he reached the Warwick Arms. In he came presently with my letter. ‘Is there a Mr. John Pigeon staying here?’ ‘No! — stop a bit though,’ says the barmaid; and she took down the letter behind the glass. ‘No,’ says she, ‘it’s Thomas, and he is not staying here. Would you do me a favor and post this for me, as it is so wet ? ’ The postman said Yes ; she folded it in another envelope, directed it, and gave it him. He put it in his hat, and away he went. “ I had no difficulty in finding out the direction of that letter. It was addressed Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post Office, R , Northamptonshire, to be left till called for. Off I started directly for R ; I said the same at the Post Office there, as I had said at B ; and again I waited three days before anybody came. At last another chap on horseback came. ‘Any letters for Mr. Thomas Pigeon?’ ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘New Inn, near R .’ He got the letter, and away he went at a canter. THE DETECTIVE POLICE . 329 “I made my inquiries about the New Inn, near E , and hearing it was a solitary sort of house, a little in the horse line, about a couple of miles from the station, I thought I ? d go and have a look at it. I found it what it had been de- scribed, and sauntered in, to look about me. The landlady was in the bar, and I was trying to get into conversation with her; asked her how business was, and spoke about the wet weather, and so on ; when I saw, through an open door, three men sitting by the fire in a sort of parlor, or kitchen ; and one of those men, according to the description I had of him, was Tally-ho Thompson ! “I went and sat down among ’em, and tried to make things agreea'ble; but they were very shy — wouldn’t talk at all — looked at me, and at one another, in a way quite the reverse of sociable. I reckoned ’em up, and finding that they were all three bigger men than me, and considering that their looks were ugly — that it was a lonely place — railroad station two miles off — and night coming on — thought I couldn’t do bet- ter than have a drop of brandy-and-water to keep my courage up. So I called for my brandy-and-water ; and as I was sit- ting drinking it by the fire, Thompson got up and went out. “Now the difficulty of it was, that I wasn’t sure it was Thompson, because I had never set eyes on him before ; and what I had wanted was to be quite certain of him. 'However, there was nothing for it now, but to follow, and put a bold face upon it. I found him talking, outside in the yard, with the landlady. It turned out afterwards that he was wanted by a Northampton officer for something else, and that, know- ing that officer to be pock-marked (as I am myself), he mis- took me for him. As I have observed, I found him talking to the landlady, outside. I put my hand upon his shoulder — this way — and said, ‘ Tally-ho Thompson, it’s no use. I know you. I’m an officer from London, and I take you into custody for felony ! ’ ‘ That be d — d ! ’ says Tally-ho Thompson. “We went back into the house, and the two friends began to cut up rough, and their looks didn’t please me at all, I assure you. ‘Let the man go. What are you going to do with him ? ’ e I’ll tell you what I’m going to do with him. I’m going to take him to London to-night, as sure as I’m alive. I’m not 330 TIIE DETECTIVE POLICE . alone here, whatever you may think. You mind your own business, and keep yourselves to yourselves. It ? ll be better for you, for I know you both very well.’ /’d never seen or heard of ’em in all my life, but my bouncing cowed ’em a bit, and they kept off, while Thompson was making ready to go. I thought to myself, however, that they might be com- ing after me on the dark road, to rescue Thompson; so I said to the landlady, ‘What men have you got in the house, Missis?’ ‘We haven’t got no men here,’ she says, sulkily. ‘You have got an ostler, I suppose?’ ‘Yes, we’ve got an ostler.’ ‘ Let me see him.’ Presently he came, and a shaggy- headed young fellow he was. ‘How attend to me, young man,’ says I ; ‘ I’m a Detective Officer from London. This man’s name is Thompson. I have taken him into custody for felony. I’m going to take him to the railroad station. I call upon you in the Queen’s name to assist me ; and mind you, my friend, you’ll get yourself into more trouble than you know of, if you don’t ! ’ You never saw a person open his eyes so wide. ‘How, Thompson, come along!’ says I. But when I took out the handcuffs, Thompson cries, ‘ Ho ! Hone of that ! I won’t stand them ! I’ll go along with you quiet, but I won’t bear none of that.’ ‘Tally-ho Thompson,’ I said, ‘ I’m willing to behave as a man to you, if you are willing to behave as a man to me. Give me your word that you’ll come peaceably along, and I don’t want to handcuff you.’ ‘ I will,’ says Thompson, ‘ but I’ll have a glass of brandy first.’ ‘I don’t care if I’ve another,’ said I. ‘We’ll have two more, Missis,’ said the friends, ‘ and con-found you, Constable, you’ll give your man a drop, won’t you ? ’ I was agreeable to that, so we had it all round, and then my man and I took Tally-ho Thompson safe to the railroad, and I carried him to London that night. He was afterwards acquit- ted, on account of a defect in the evidence ; and I understand he always praises me up to the skies, and says I’m one of the best of men.” This story coming to a termination amidst general applause, Inspecter Wield, after a little grave smoking, fixes his eye on his host, and thus delivers himself : “ It wasn’t a bad plant that of mine, on Fikey, the man THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 331 accused of forging the Sou/ Western Kailway debentures — it was only t’other day — because the reason why ? I’ll tell you. “I had information that Fikey and his brother kept a factory over yonder there,” — indicating any region on the Surrey side of the river — “ where he bought second-hand carriages ; so after I’d tried in vain to get hold of him by other means, I wrote him a letter in an assumed name, saying that I’d got a horse and shay to dispose of, and would drive down next day that he might view the lot, and make an offer — very reasonable it was, I said — a reg’lar bargain. Straw and me then went off to a friend of mine that’s in the livery and job business, and hired a turn-out for the day, a precious smart turn-out it was — quite a slap-up thing! Down we drove, accordingly, with a friend (who’s not in the Force himself); and leaving my friend in the shay near a public- house, to take care of the horse, we went to the factory, which was some little way off. In the factory, there was a number of strong fellows at work, and after reckoning ’em up, it was clear to me that it wouldn’t do to try it on there. They were too many for us. We must get our man out of doors. ‘Mr. Fikey at home?’ ‘No, he ain’t.’ ‘Expected home soon?’ ‘Why, no, not soon.’ ‘Ah! is his brother here?’ ‘ I’m his brother.’ ‘ Oh ! well, this is an ill-conwenience, this is. J wrote him a letter yesterday, saying I’d got a little turn-out to dispose of, and I’ve took the trouble to bring the turn-out down, a’ purpose, and now he ain’t in the way.’ ‘ No, he ain’t in the way. You couldn’t make it convenient to call again, could you ? ’ ‘ Why, no, I couldn’t. I want to sell ; that’s the fact ; and I can’t put it off. Could you find him anywheres ? ’ At first he said No he couldn’t, and then he wasn’t sure about it, and then he’d go and try. So, at last he went up stairs, where there was a sort of loft, and presently down comes my man himself, in his shirt-sleeves. “‘Well,’ he says, ‘this seems to be rayther a pressing matter of yours.’ ‘Yes,’ I says, ‘it is rayther a pressing matter, and you’ll find it a bargain — dirt-cheap.’ ‘I ain’t in partickler want of a bargain just now,’ he says, ‘but where is it ? ’ ‘ Why,’ I says, ‘ the turn-out’s just outside. Come and 332 THE DETECTIVE POLICE . look at it.’ He hasn’t any suspicions, and away we go. And the first thing that happens is, that the horse runs away with my friend (who knows no more of driving than a child) when he takes a little trot along the road to show his paces. You never saw such a game in your life ! “When the bolt is over, and the turn-out has. come to a stand-still again, Fikey walks round and round it as grave as a judge — me too. ‘ There, sir!’ I says. ‘ There’s a neat thing ! ’ ‘It ain’t a bad style of thing,’ he says. ‘ I believe you,’ says I. ‘ And there’s a horse ! ’ — for I saw him looking at it. ‘ Bising eight ! ’ I says, rubbing his fore-legs. (Bless you, there ain’t a man in the world knows less of horses than I do, but I’d heard my friend at the Livery Stables say he was eight year old, so I says, as knowing as possible ‘ Bising Eight.’) ‘Bising eight, is he?’ says he. ‘Bising eight’ says I. ‘ Well,’ he says, ‘ what do you want for it ? ’ ‘ Why, the first and last figure for the whole concern is five-and- twenty pound ! ’ ‘ That’s very cheap ! ’ he says, looking at me. ‘Ain’t it?’ I says. ‘I told you it was a bargain! Now, without any higgling and haggling about it, wh.at I want is to sell, and that’s my price. Further, I’ll make it easy to you, and take half the money down, and you can do a bit of stiff 1 for the balance.’ ‘Well,’ he says again, ‘that’s very cheap.’ ‘ I believe you,’ says I ; ‘ get in and try it, and you’ll buy it. Come ! take a trial ! ’ “ Ecod, he gets in, and we get in, and we drive along the road, to show him to one of the railway clerks that was hid in the public-house window to identify him. But the clerk was bothered, and didn’t know whether it was him, or wasn’t — because the reason why ? I’ll tell you, — on account of his having shaved his whiskers. ‘ It’s a clever little horse,’ he says, ‘and trots well; and the shay runs light.’ ‘Not a doubt about it,’ I says. ‘ And now, Mr. Fikey, I may as well make it all right, without wasting any more of your time. The fact is, I’m Inspector Wield, and you’re my prisoner.’ ‘You don’t mean that?’ he says. ‘I do, indeed.’ ‘Then burn my body,’ says Fikey, ‘ if this ain’t too bad ! ’ 1 Give a bill. THE LONG VOYAGE THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 333 “ Perhaps you never saw a man so knocked over with sur- prise. ‘ I hope you’ll let me have my coat ? ’ he says. ‘ By all means.’ 6 Well, then, let’s drive to the factory.’ c Why, not exactly that, I think,’ said I; ‘I’ve been there, once before, to-day. Suppose we send for it.’ He saw it was no go, so he sent for it, and put it on, and we drove him up to London, comfortable.” This reminiscence is in the height of its success, when a general proposal is made to the fresh-complexioned, smooth- faced officer, with the strange air of simplicity, to tell the “Butcher’s story.” The fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer, with the strange air of simplicity, began, with a rustic smile, and in a soft, wheedling tone of voice, to relate the Butcher’s Story, thus : “ It’s just about six years ago, now, since information was given at Scotland Yard of there being extensive robberies of lawns and silks going on, at some wholesale houses in the City. Directions were given for the business being looked into ; and Straw, and Fendall, and me, we were all in it.” “ When you received your instructions,” said we, “ you went away, and held a sort of Cabinet Council together ! ” The smooth-faced officer coaxingly replied, “ Ye-es. Just so. We turned it over among ourselves a good deal. It appeared, when we went into it, that the goods were sold by the re- ceivers extraordinarily cheap — much cheaper than they could have been if they had been honestly come by. The receivers were in the trade, and kept capital shops — establishments of the first respectability — one of ’em at the West End, one down in Westminster. After a lot of watching and inquiry, and this and that among ourselves, we found that the job was managed, and the purchases of the stolen goods made, at a little public- house near Smithfield, down by Saint Bartholomew’s ; where the Warehouse Porters, who were the thieves, took ’em for that purpose, don’t you see ? and made appointments to meet the people that went between themselves and the receivers. This public-house was principally used by journeymen butchers from the country, out of place, and in want of situations ; so, what did we do, but — ha, ha, ha! — we agreed that I 334 THE DETECTIVE POLICE . should be dressed up like a butcher myself, and go and live there ! ” Never, surely, was a faculty of observation better brought to bear upon a purpose, than that which picked out this officer for the part. Nothing in all creation, could have suited him better. Even while he spoke, he became a greasy, sleepy, shy, good-natured, chuckle-headed, unsuspicious, and confiding young butcher. His very hair seemed to have suet in it, as he made it smooth upon his head, and his fresh complexion to be lubricated by large quantities of animal food. — “ So I — ha, ha, ha ! ” (always with the confiding snigger of the foolish young butcher) “so I dressed myself in the regular way, made up a little bundle of clothes, and went to the public-house, and asked if I could have a lodging there ? They says, ‘yes, you can have a lodging here/ and I got a bed-room, and settled myself down in the tap. There was a number of people about the place, and coming back- wards and forwards to the house ; and first one says, and then another says, 6 Are you from the country, young man ? ’ c Yes/ I says, 6 1 am. I’m come out of Northamptonshire, and I’m quite lonely here, for I don’t know London at all, and it’s such a mighty big town ? ’ ‘It is a big town/ they says. ‘ Oh, it’s a very big town ! ’ I says. ‘ Beally and truly I never was in such a town. It quite confuses of me!’ — and all that, you know. “When some of the Journeymen Butchers that used the house, found that I wanted a place, they says, ‘ Oh, we’ll get you a place ! ’ And they actually took me to a sight of places, in Newgate Market, Newport Market, Clare, Carnaby — I don’t know where all. But the wages was — ha, ha, ha ! was not sufficient, and I never could suit myself, don’t you see ? Some of the queer frequenters of the house, were a little sus- picious of me at first, and I was obliged to be very cautious indeed, how I communicated with Straw or Fendall. Some- times, when I went out, pretending to stop and look into the shop-windows, and just casting my eye round, I used to see some of ’em following me 5 but, being perhaps better accus- tomed than they thought for, to that sort of thing, I used to THE DETECTIVE POLICE . 335 lead ’em on as far as I thought necessary or convenient — sometimes a long way — and then turn sharp round, and meet ’em, and say, ‘ Oh, dear, how glad I am to come upon you so fortunate ! This London’s such a place, I’m blowed if I an’t lost again ! ’ And then we’d go back all together, to the public-house, and — ha, ha, ha ! and smoke our pipes, don’t you see ? “ They were very attentive to me, I am sure. It was a common thing, while I was living there, for some of ’em to take me out and show me London. They showed me the Prisons — showed me Newgate — and when they showed me Newgate, I stops at the place where the Porters pitch their loads, and says, ‘ Oh dear, is this where they hang the men ! Oh Lor!’ ‘That!’ they says, ‘what a simple cove he is! That an’t it ! ’ And then, they pointed out which was it, and I says ‘ Lor ? ’ and they says, ‘Now you’ll know it agen, won’t you ? ’ And I said I thought I should if I tried hard — and I assure you I kept a sharp look out for the City Police when we were out in this way, for if any of ’em had happened to know me, and had spoke to me, it would have been all up in a minute. However, by good luck such a thing never happened, and all went on quiet : though the difficulties I had in communicating with my brother officers were quite extra- ordinary. “The stolen goods that were brought to the public-house by the Warehouse Porters, were always disposed of in a back parlor. For a long time, I never could get into this parlor, or see what was done there. As I sat smoking my pipe, like an innocent young chap, by the tap-room fire, I’d hear some of the parties to the robbery, as they came in and out, say softly to the landlord, ‘ Who’s that ? What does he do here ? ’ ‘ Bless your soul,’ says the landlord, ‘ He’s only a ’ — ha, ha, ha ! — ‘ he’s only a green young fellow from the country, as is looking for a butcher’s sitiwation. Don’t mind him!’ So, in course of time, they were so convinced of my being green and got to be so accustomed to me, that I was as free of the parlor as any of ’em, and I have seen as much as Seventy Pounds worth of fine lawn sold there, in one night, that was stolen from a warehouse in Friday Street. After the sale the 336 THE DETECTIVE POLICE. buyers always stood treat — hot supper, or dinner, or what not — and they’d say on those occassions ‘ Come on, Butcher ! Put your best leg foremost, young ’un, and walk into it ! ’ Which I used to do — and hear, at table, all manner of partic- ulars that it was very important for us Detectives to know. “ This went on for ten weeks. I lived in the public-house all the time, and never was out of the Butcher’s dress — except in bed. At last, when I had followed seven of the thieves, and set ’em to rights — that’s an expression of ours, don’t you see, by which I mean to say that I traced ’em, and found out where the robberies were done, and all about ’em — • Straw, and Pendall, and I, gave one another the office, and at a time agreed upon, a descent was made upon the public-house, and the apprehensions effected. One of the first things the officers did, was to collar me — for the parties to the robbery weren’t to suppose yet, that I was anything but a Butcher — on which the landlord cries out, ‘ Don’t take him ,’ he says, ‘ whatever you do ! He’s only a poor young chap from the country, and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth ! ’ However, they — ha, ha, ha ! — they took me, and pretended to search my bedroom, where nothing was found but an old fiddle belong- ing to the landlord, that had got there somehow or another. But, it entirely changed the landlord’s opinion, for when it was produced, he says 6 My fiddle ! The Butcher’s a pur- loiner ! I give him into custody for the robbery of a musical instrument ! ’ “ The man that had stolen the goods in Friday Street was not taken yet. He had told me, in confidence, that he had his suspicions there was something wrong (on account of the City Police having captured one of the party), and that he was going to make himself scarce. I asked him, ‘ Where do you mean to go, Mr. Shepherdson ? ’ ‘ Why, Butcher,’ says he, ‘the Setting Moon, in the Commercial Boad, is a snug house, and I shall hang out there for a time. I shall call myself Simpson, which appears to me to be a modest sort of a name. Perhaps you’ll give us a look in, Butcher ?’ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘I think I will give you a call’ — which I fully in- tended, don’t you see, because, of course, he was to be taken. I went over to the Setting Moon next day, with a brother THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 337 officer, and asked at the bar for Simpson. They pointed out his room, up stairs. As we were going up, he looks down over the banisters, and calls out, ‘ Holloa, Butcher ! is that you ? ’ ‘Yes, it’s me. How do you find yourself ? ’ ‘Bobbish/ he says ; ‘ but who’s that with you ? ’ ‘ It’s only a young man, that’s a friend of mine,’ I says. ‘Come along, then,’ says he; ‘ any friend of the Butcher’s is as welcome as the Butcher ! ’ So, I made my friend acquainted with him, and we took him into custody. “You have no idea, sir, what a sight it was, in Court, when they first knew that I wasn’t a Butcher, after all ! I wasn’t produced at the first examination, when there was a remand ; but I was at the second. And when I stepped into the box, in full police uniform, and the whole party saw how they had been done, actually a groan of horror and dismay proceeded from ’em in the dock ! “ At the Old Bailey, when their trials came on, Mr. Clarkson was engaged for the defence, and he couldn't make out how it was, about the Butcher. He thought, all along, it was a real Butcher. When the counsel for the prosecution said, ‘ I will now call before you, gentlemen, the Police-officer,’ meaning myself, Mr. Clarkson says ‘ Why Police-officer ? Why more Police-officers ? I don’t want Police. We have had a great deal too much of the Police. I want the Butcher ! ’ How- ever, sir, he had the Butcher and the Police-officer, both in one. Out of seven prisoners committed for trial, five were found guilty, and some of ’em were transported. The respec- able firm at the West End got a term of imprisonment; and that’s the Butcher’s Story ! ” The story done, the chuckle-headed Butcher again resolved himself into the smooth-faced Detective. But, he was so extremely tickled by their having taken him about, when he was that Dragon in disguise, to show him London, that he could not help reverting to that point in his narrative ; and gently repeating with the Butcher snigger, “ ‘ Oh, dear,’ I says, ‘ is that where they hang the men ? Oh, Lor ! ’ ‘ That ! 9 says they. ‘ What a simple cove he is ! ’ ” It now being late, and the party very modest in their fear of being too diffuse, there were some tokens of separation ; vol. n — 22 338 THE DETECTIVE POLICE. when Sergeant Dornton, the soldierly-looking man, said, look- ing ronnd him with a smile : “Before we break up, Sir, perhaps you might have some amusement in hearing of the Adventures of a Carpet Bag. They are very short ; and, I think, curious.” We welcomed the Carpet Bag, as cordially as Mr. Shep- herdson welcomed the false Butcher at the Setting Moon. Sergeant Dornton proceeded. “In 1847, I was despatched to Chatham, in search of one Mesheck, a Jew. He had been carrying on, pretty heavily, in the bill-stealing way, getting acceptances from young men of good connections (in the army chiefly), on pretence of dis- count, and bolting with the same. “Mesheck was off, before I got to Chatham. All I could learn about him was, that he had gone, probably to London, and had with him — a Carpet Bag. “I came back to town, by the last train from Blackwall, and made inquiries concerning a J ew passenger with — a Carpet Bag. “The office was shut up, it being the last train. There were only two or three porters left. Looking after a Jew with a Carpet Bag, on the Blackwall Bailway, which was then the high road to a great Military Depot, was worse than looking after a needle in a hayrick. But it happened that one of these porters had carried, for a certain J ew, to a certain public-house, a certain — Carpet Bag. “I went to the public-house, but the Jew had only left his luggage there for a few hours, and had called for it in a cab, and taken it away. I put such questions there, and to the porter, as I thought prudent, and got at this description of — the Carpet Bag. “ It was a bag which had, on one side of it, worked in worsted, a green parrot on a stand. A green parrot on a stand was the means by which to identify that — Carpet Bag. “ I traced Mesheck, by means of this green parrot on a stand, to Cheltenham, to Birmingham, to Liverpool, to the Atlantic Ocean. At Liverpool he was too many for me. He had gone to the United States, and I gave up all thoughts of Mesheck, and likewise his — Carpet Bag. THE DETECTIVE POLICE . 339 “ Many months afterwards — near a year afterwards — there was a bank in Ireland robbed of seven thousand pounds, by a person of the name of Doctor Dundey, who escaped to America ; from which country some of the stolen notes came home. He was supposed to have bought a farm in New Jersey. Under proper management, that estate could be seized and sold, for the benefit of the parties he had defrauded. I was sent off to America for this purpose. “ I landed at Boston. I went on to New York. I found that he had lately changed New York paper-money for New Jersey paper-money, and had banked cash in New Brunswick. To take this Doctor Dundey, it was necessary to entrap him into the State of New York, which required a deal of artifice and trouble. At one time, he couldn’t be drawn into an appointment. At another time, he appointed to come to meet me, and a New York officer, on a pretext I made ; and then his children had the measles. At last he came, per steamboat, and I took him, and lodged him in a New York prison called the Tombs ; which I dare say you know, sir ? ” Editorial acknowledgment to that effect. “ I went to the Tombs, on the morning after his capture, to attend the examination before the magistrate. I was passing through the magistrate’s private room, when, happening to look round me to take notice of the place, as we generally have a habit of doing, I clapped my eyes, in one corner, on a — Carpet Bag. “ What did I see upon that Carpet Bag, if you’ll believe me, but a green parrot on a stand, as large as life ? “‘That Carpet Bag, with the representation of a green parrot on a stand,’ said I, ‘belongs to an English Jew, named Aaron Mesheck, and to no other man, alive or dead ! ’ “I give you my word the New York Police officers were doubled up with surprise. “ ‘ How do you ever come to know that ? ’ said they. “ ‘ I think I ought to know that green parrot by this time,’ said I ; ‘ for I have had as pretty a dance after that bird, at home, as ever I had, in all my life ! ’” “ And was it Mesheck’s ? ” we submissively inquired. 340 THE DETECTIVE POLICE . “Was it. sir? Of course it was! He was in custody for another offence, in that very identical Tombs, at that very identical time. And, more than that ! Some memoranda, relating to the fraud for which I had vainly endeavored to take him, were found to be, at that moment, lying in that very same individual — Carpet Bag ! ” Such are the curious coincidences and such is the peculiar ability, always sharpening and being improved by practice, and always adapting itself to every variety of circumstances, and opposing itself to every new device that perverted inge- nuity can invent, for which this important social branch of the public service is remarkable ! For ever on the watch, with their wits stretched to the utmost, these officers have, from day to day and year to year, to set themselves against every novelty of trickery and dexterity that the combined imagina- tions of all the lawless rascals in England can devise, and to keep pace with every such invention that comes out. In the Courts of Justice, the materials of thousands of such stories as we have narrated — often elevated into the marvellous and romantic, by the circumstances of the case — are dryly com- pressed into the set phrase, “ in consequence of information I received, I did so and so.” Suspicion was to be directed, by careful inference and deduction, upon the right person ; the right person was to be taken, wherever he had gone, or whatever he was doing, to avoid detection : he is taken ; there he is at the bar; that is enough. From information I, the officer, received, I did it; and, according to the custom in these cases, I say no more. These games of chess, played with live pieces, are played before small audiences, and are chronicled nowhere. The interest of the game supports the player. Its results are enough for Justice. To compare great things with small, suppose Leverrier or Adams informing the public that from information he had received he had discovered a new planet ; or Columbus informing the public of his day that from information he had received he had discovered a new conti- nent ; so the Detectives inform it that they have discovered a new fraud or an old offender, and the process is unknown. THE DETECTIVE POLICE . 341 Thus, at midnight, closed the proceedings of our curious and interesting party. But one other circumstance finally wound up the evening, after our Detective guests had left us. One of the sharpest among them, and the officer best acquainted with the Swell Mob, had his pocket picked, going home ! THREE “ DETECTIVE ” ANECDOTES. I.— THE PAIR OE GLOVES. “It’s a singler story, Sir/’ said Inspector Wield, of the Detective Police, who, in company with Sergeants Dornton and Mith, paid ns another twilight visit, one July evening; “and I’ve been thinking you might like to know it. “It’s concerning the murder of the young woman, Eliza Grimwood, some years ago, over in the Waterloo Road. She was commonly called The Countess, because of her handsome appearance and her proud way of carrying of herself; and when I saw the poor Countess (I had known her well to speak to), lying dead, with her throat cut, on the floor of her bed- room, you’ll believe me that a variety of reflections calculated to make a man rather low in his spirits, came into my head. “That’s neither here nor there. I went to the house the morning after the murder, and examined the body, and made a general observation of the bedroom where it was. Turning down the pillow of the bed with my hand, I found, under- neath it, a pair of gloves. A pair of gentleman’s dress gloves, very dirty ; and inside the lining, the letters Tn, and a cross. “ Well, Sir, I took them gloves away, and I showed ’em to the magistrate, over at Union Hall, before whom the case was. He says, ‘ Wield,’ he says, f there’s no doubt this is a discovery that may lead to something very important ; and what you have got to do, Wield, is, to find out the owner of these gloves.’ “ I was of the same opinion, of course, and I went at it im- mediately. I looked at the gloves pretty narrowly, and it was my opinion that they had been cleaned. There was a smell of sulphur and rosin about ’em, you know, which cleaned gloves usually have, more or less. I took ’em over to a friend of mine at Kennington, who was in that line, and I put it to him. 342 THREE “ DETECTIVE ” ANECDOTES. 343 ‘ Wliat do you say now ? Have these gloves been cleaned ? * ‘ These gloves have been cleaned/ says he. ‘ Have you any idea who cleaned them ? ’ says I. ‘ Not at all/ says he ; ‘ I’ve a very distinct idea who didn’t clean ’em, and that’s myself. But I’ll tell you what, Wield, there ain’t above eight or nine reg’lar glove cleaners in London/ — there were not, at that time, it seems — ‘ and I think I can give you their addresses, and you may find out, by that means, who did clean ’em.’ Accordingly, he. gave me the directions, and I went here, and went I there, and I looked up this man, and I looked up that man ; but, though they all agreed that the gloves had been cleaned, I couldn’t find the man, woman, or child, that had cleaned that aforesaid pair of gloves. “ What with this person not being at home, and that person being expected home in the afternoon, and so forth, the inquiry took me three days. On the evening of the third day, coming over Waterloo Bridge from the Surrey side of the river, quite beat, and very much vexed and disappointed, I thought I’d have a shilling’s worth of entertainment at the Lyceum Theatre to freshen myself up. So I went into the Pit, at half-price, and I sat myself down next to a very quiet, modest sort of young man. Seeing I was a stranger (which I thought it just as well to appear to be) he told me the names of the actors on the stage, and we got into conversation. When the play was over, we came out together, and I said, ‘ We’ve been very com- panionable and agreeable, and perhaps you wouldn’t object to a drain?’ ‘Well, you’re very good/ says he; ‘I shouldn’t object to a drain.’ Accordingly, we went to a public house, near the Theatre, sat ourselves down in a quiet room up stairs on the first floor, and called for a pint of half-and-half, a-piece, and a pipe. “Well, Sir, we put our pipes aboard, and we drank our half- and-half, and sat a talking, very sociably, when the young man says, ‘ You must excuse me stopping very long/ he says, ‘because I’m forced to go home in good time. I must be at work all night.’ ‘ At work all night ? ’ says I. ‘ You ain’t a Baker ? ’ ‘ No/ he says, laughing, ‘ I ain’t a baker.’ ‘ I thought not/ says I, ‘you haven’t the looks of a baker.’ ‘ No/ says he, ‘I’m a glove-cleaner/ 344 THREE “ DETECTIVE ” ANECDOTES. “ I never was more astonished in my life, than when I heard them words come out of his lips. ‘You’re a glove- cleaner, are you ? ’ says I. ‘ Yes/ he says, ‘ I am.’ 4 Then, perhaps,’ says I, taking the gloves out of my pocket, ‘you can tell me who cleaned this pair of gloves ? It’s a rum story,’ I says. ‘ I was dining over at Lambeth, the other day, at a free-and-easy — quite promiscuous — with a public company — when some gentleman, he left these gloves behind him ! Another gentleman and me, you see, we laid a wager of a sovereign, that I wouldn’t find out who they belonged to. I’ve spent as much as seven shillings already, in trying to discover; but, if you could help me, I’d stand another seven and welcome. You see there’s Tr and a cross, inside.’ ‘ I see,’ he says. ‘ Bless you, I know these gloves very well ! I’ve seen dozens of pairs belonging to the same party.’ ‘No?’ says I. ‘Yes/ says he. ‘Then you know who cleaned ’em ?’ says I. ‘ Bather so/ says he. ‘ My father cleaned ’em.’ “ ‘Where does your father live ? ’ says I. ‘Just round the corner/ says the young man, ‘ near Exeter Street, here. He’ll tell you who they belong to, directly.’ ‘ Would you come round with me now ? ’ says I. ‘ Certainly/ says he, ‘ but you needn’t tell my father that you found me at the play, you know, because he mightn’t like it.’ ‘All right!’ We went round to the place, and there we found an old man in a white apron, with two or three daughters, all rubbing and cleaning away at lots of gloves, in a front parlor. ‘Oh, Father!’ says the young man, ‘ here’s a person been and made a bet about the ownership of a pair of gloves, and I’ve told him you can settle it.’ ‘ Good evening, Sir/ says I to the old gentleman. ‘Here’s the gloves your son speaks of. Letters Tr, you see, and a cross.’ ‘ Oh yes/ he says, ‘ I know these gloves very well ; I’ve cleaned dozens of pairs of ’em. They belong to Mr. Trinkle, the great upholsterer in Cheapside.’ ‘Hid you get ’em from Mr. Trinkle, direct/ says I, ‘ if you’ll excuse my asking the question?’ ‘Ho/ says he; ‘Mr. Trinkle always sends ’em to Mr. Phibbs’s, the haberdasher’s, opposite his shop, and the haberdasher sends ’em to me.’ ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t object to a drain ?’ says I. ‘Hot in the least!’ says he. So I took the old gentleman out, and had a little more talk THREE “DETECTIVE” ANECDOTES. 345 with him and his son, over a glass, and we parted ex-cellent friends. “ This was late on a Saturday night. First thing on the Monday morning, I went to the haberdasher’s shop, opposite Mr. Trinkle’s, the great upholsterer’s in Cheapside. ‘ Mr. Phibbs in the way ? ’ ‘ My name is Phibbs.’ ‘ Oh ! I believe you sent this pair of gloves to be cleaned ? ’ ‘ Yes, I did, for young Mr. Trinkle over the way. There he is, in the shop ! ’ ‘ Oh ! that’s him in the shop, is it ? Him in the green coat ? ’ ‘ The same individual.’ ‘Well, Mr. Phibbs, this is an un- pleasant affair ; but the fact is, I am Inspector Wield of the Detective Police, and I found these gloves under the pillow of the young woman that was murdered the other day, over in the Waterloo Eoad ? ’ ‘Good Heaven!’ says he. ‘He’s a most respectable young man, and if his father was to hear of it, it would be the ruin of him ! ’ ‘ I’m very sorry for it,’ says I, ‘ but I must take him into custody.’ ‘ Good Heaven ! ’ says Mr. Phibbs, again; ‘can nothing be done?’ ‘Nothing,’ says I. ‘ Will you allow me to call him over here,’ says he, ‘that his father may not see it done?’ ‘I don’t object to that,’ says I ; ‘ but unfortunately, Mr. Phibbs, I can’t allow of any communication between you. If any was attempted, I should have to interfere directly. Perhaps you’ll beckon him over here ? ’ Mr. Phibbs went to the door and beckoned, and the young fellow came across the street directly ; a smart, brisk young fellow. “‘Good morning, Sir,’ says I. ‘Good morning, Sir,’ says he. ‘Would you allow me to inquire, Sir,’ says I, ‘if you ever had any acquaintance with a party of the name of Grimwood ? ’ ‘ Grim wood ! Grim wood ! ’ says he, ‘ No ! ’ ‘You know the Waterloo Eoad?’ ‘Oh! of course I know the Waterloo Eoad!’ ‘Happen to have heard of a young woman being murdered there ? ’ ‘ Yes, I read it in the paper, and very sorry I was to read it.’ ‘Here’s a pair of gloves belonging to you, that I found under her pillow the morning afterwards ! ’ “ He was in a dreadful state, Sir ; a dreadful state ! ‘ Mr. Wield,’ he says, ‘upon my solemn oath I never was there. I never so much as saw her, to my knowledge, in my life ! ’ 346 THREE “ DETECTIVE ” ANECDOTES. ‘ I am very sorry/ says I, ‘ to tell you the truth ; I don’t think you are the murderer, but I must take you to Union Hall in a cab. However, I think it’s a case of that sort, that, at present, at all events, the magistrate will hear it in private.’ “ A private examination took place, and then it came out that this young man was acquainted with a cousin of the unfortunate Eliza Grimwood’s, and that, calling to see this cousin a day or two before the murder, he left these gloves upon the table. Who should come in, shortly afterwards, but Eliza Grimwood ! c Whose gloves are these ? ’ she says, tak- ing ’em up. ‘ Those are Mr. Trinkle’s gloves,’ says her cousin. ‘ Oh ! ’ says she, ‘ they are very dirty, and of no use to him, I am sure. I shall take ’em away for my girl to clean the stoves with.’ And she put ’em in her pocket. The girl had used ’em to clean the stoves, and, I have no doubt, had left ’em lying on the bed-room mantel-piece, or on the drawers, or somewhere ; and her mistress, looking round to see that the room was tidy, had caught ’em up and put ’em under the pil- low where I found ’em. u That’s the story, Sir.” II. — THE ARTFUL TOUCH. “ One of the most beautiful things that ever was done, per- haps,” said Inspector Wield, emphasizing the adjective, as preparing us to expect dexterity or ingenuity rather than strong interest, “ was a move of Sergeant Witchem’s. It was a lovely idea ! “ Witchem and me were down at Epsom one Derby Day, wait- ing at the station for the Swell Mob. As I mentioned, when we were talking about these things before, we are ready at the station when there’s races, or an Agricultural Show, or a Chancellor sworn in for an university, or Jenny Lind, or any thing of that sort ; and as the Swell Mob come down, we send ’em back again by the next train. But some of the Swell Mob, on the occasion of this Derby that I refer to, so far kiddied us as to hire a horse and shay ; start away from London by Whitechapel, and miles round ; come into Epsom THREE “ DETECTIVE ” ANECDOTES. 347 from the opposite direction ; and go to work, right and left, on the course, while we were waiting for ’em at the Eail. That, however, ain’t the point of what I’m going to tell you. “ While Witchem and me were waiting at the station, there comes up one Mr. Tatt ; a gentleman formerly in the public line, quite an amateur Detective in his way, and very much respected. ‘ Halloa, Charley Wield,’ he says. ‘What are you doing here ? On the look out for some of your old friends?’ ‘Yes, the old move, Mr. Tatt.’ ‘Come along,’ he says, ‘you and Witchem, and have a glass of sherry.’ ‘We can’t stir from the place,’ says I, ‘ till the next train comes in ; but after that, we will with pleasure.’ Mr. Tatt waits, and the train comes in, and then Witchem and me go off with him to the Hotel. Mr. Tatt he’s got up quite regardless of expense, for the occasion; and in his shirt-front there’s a beautiful diamond prop, cost him fifteen or twenty pound — a very handsome pin indeed. We drink our sherry at the bar, and have had our three or four glasses, when Witchem cries suddenly, ‘ Look out, Mr. Wield ! stand fast ! ’ and a dash is made into the place by the swell mob — four of ’em — that have come down as I tell you, and in a moment Mr. Tatt’s prop is gone ! Witchem, he cuts ’em off at the door, I lay about me as hard as I can, Mr, Tatt shows fight like a good ’un, and there we are, all down together, heads and heels, knocking about on the floor of the bar — perhaps you never see such a scene of confusion ! However, we stick to our men (Mr. Tatt being as good as any officer), and we take ’em all, and carry ’em off to the station. The station’s full of people, who have been took on the course ; and it’s a precious piece of work to get ’em secured. However, we do it at last, and we search ’em ; but nothing’s found upon ’em, and they’re locked up ; and a pretty state of heat we are in by that time, I assure you! “ I was very blank over it, myself, to think that the prop had been passed away ; and I said to Witchem, when we had set ’em to rights, and were cooling ourselves along with Mr. Tatt, ‘ we don’t take much by this move, anyway, for nothing’s found upon ’em, and it’s only the braggadocia 1 after all.’ 1 Three months' imprisonment as reputed thieves. 348 THU EE “ DETECTIVE ” AiVF/C^OrjE'S. ‘ What do you mean, Mr. Wield/ says Witchein. ‘ Here’s the diamond pin ! ’ and in the palm of his hand there it was, safe and sound ! ‘ Why, in the name of wonder.’ says me and Mr. Tatt, in astonishment, ‘ how did you come by that ? ’ 6 I’ll tell you how I come by it,’ says he. ‘ I saw which of ’em took it ; and when we were all down on the floor together, knocking about, I just gave him a little touch on the back of his hand, as I knew his pal would ; and he thought it was his pal ; and gave it me ! ’ It was beautiful, beau-ti-ful ! “ Even that was hardly the best of the case, for that chap was tried at the Quarter Sessions at Guildford. You know what Quarter Sessions are, sir. Well, if you’ll believe me, while them slow justices were looking over the Acts of Par- liament, to see what they could do to him, I’m blowed if he didn’t cut out of the dock before their faces ! He cut out of the dock, sir, then and there ; swam across a river ; and got up into a tree to dry himself. In the tree he was took — an old woman having seen him climb up — and Witchem’s artful touch transported him ! ” III. — THE SOFA. “What young men will do, sometimes, to ruin themselves and break their friends’ hearts,” said Sergeant Dornton, “ it’s surprising ! I had a case at Saint Blank’s Hospital which was of this sort. A bad case, indeed, with a bad end ! “The Secretary, and the House-Surgeon, and the Treasurer, of Saint Blank’s Hospital, came to Scotland Yard to give information of numerous robberies having been committed on the students. The students could leave nothing in the pockets of their great-coats, while the great-coats were hanging at the hospital, but it was almost certain to be stolen. Property of various descriptions was constantly being lost ; and the gen- tlemen were naturally uneasy about it, and anxious, for the credit of the institution, that the thief or thieves should be discovered. The case was entrusted to me, and I went to the hospital. “‘Now, gentlemen,’ said I, after we had talked it over; ‘I understand this property is usually lost from one room,’ ANECDOTES. THREE “ DETECTIVE ” 349 “ 4 Yes/ they said. ‘ It was.’ “‘I should wish, if you please/ said I, ‘ to see the room.’ “It was a good-sized bare room down stairs, with a few tables and forms in it, and a row of pegs, all round, for hats and coats. “ ‘Next, gentlemen/ said I, ‘do you suspect anybody ? * “ ‘ Yes/ they said. They did suspect somebody. They were sorry to say, they suspected one of the porters. “ ‘ I should like/ said I, ‘ to have that man pointed out to me, and to have a little time to look after him.’ “He was pointed out, and I looked after him, and then I went back to the hospital, and said, ‘Now, gentlemen, it’s not the porter. He’s, unfortunately for himself, a little too fond of drink, but he’s nothing worse. My suspicion is, that these robberies are committed by one of the students ; and if you’ll put me a sofa into that room where the pegs are — as there’s no closet — I think I shall be able to detect the thief. I wish the sofa, if you please, to be covered with chintz, or something of that sort, so that I may lie on my chest, under- neath it, without being seen.’ “The sofa was provided, and next day at eleven o’clock, before any of the students came, I went there, with those gen- tlemen, to get underneath it. It turned out to be one of those old-fashioned sofas with a great cross-beam at the bottom, that would have broken my back in no time if I could ever have got below it. We had quite a job to break all this away in the time ; however, I fell to work, and they fell to work, and we broke it out, and made a clear place for me. I got under the sofa, lay down on my chest, took out my knife, and made a convenient hole in the chintz to look through. It was then settled between me and the gentlemen that when the students were all up in the wards, one of the gentlemen should come in, and hang up a great-coat on one of the pegs. And that that great-coat should have, in one of the pockets, a pocket-book containing marked money. “ After I had been there some time, the students began to drop into the room, by ones, and twos, and threes, and to talk about all sorts of things, little thinking there was anybody under the sofa — and then to go up stairs. At last there came 350 THREE “ DETECTIVE ” ANECDOTES. in one who remained until lie was alone in the room by him- self. A tallish, good-looking young man of one or two and twenty, with a light whisker. He went to a particular hat- peg, took off a good hat that was hanging there, tried it on, hung his own hat in its place, and hung that hat on another peg, nearly opposite to me. I then felt quite certain that he was the thief, and would come back by and by. “When they were all up stairs, the gentlemen came in with the great-coat. I showed him where to hang it, so that I might have a good view of it ; and he went away ; and I lay under the sofa on my chest, for a couple of hours or so, waiting. “At last, the same young man came down. He walked across the room, whistling — stopped and listened — took another walk and whistled — stopped again, and listened — then began to go regularly round the pegs, feeling in the pock- ets of all the coats. When he came to the great-coat, and felt the pocket-book, he was so eager and so hurried that he broke the strap in tearing it open. As he began to put the money in his pocket, I crawled out from under the sofa, and his eyes met mine. “ My face, as you may perceive, is brown now, but it was pale at that time, my health not being good ; and looked as long as a horse’s. Besides which, there was a great draught of air from the door, underneath the sofa, and I had tied a handkerchief round my head ; so what I looked like, altogether, I don’t know. He turned blue — literally blue — when he saw me crawling out, and I couldn’t feel surprised at it. “ ‘ I am an officer of the Detective Police,’ said I, ( and have been lying here, since you first came in this morning. I regret, for the sake of yourself and your friends, that you should have done what you have; but this case is complete. You have the pocket-book in your hand and the money upon you ; and I must take you into custody ! ’ “ It was impossible to make out any case in his behalf, and on his trial he pleaded guilty. How or when he got the means I don’t know ; but while he was awaiting his sentence, he poi- soned himself in Newgate.” “detective” story — “the sofa.” THREE “ DETECTIVE ” ^JV#CZ>OmS. 351 We inquired of this officer, on the conclusion of the fore- going anecdote, whether the time appeared long, or short, when he lay in that constrained position under the sofa ? “ Why, you see, sir,” he replied, “ if he hadn’t come in, the first time, and I had not been quite sure he was the thief, and would return, the time would have seemed long. But, as it was, I being dead-certain of my man, the time seemed pretty short.” ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. How goes the night ? Saint Giles’s clock is striking nine. The weather is dnll and wet, and the long lines of street lamps are blurred, as if we saw them through tears. A damp wind blows and rakes the pieman’s fire out, when he opens the door of his little furnace, carrying away an eddy of sparks. Saint Giles’s clock strikes nine. We are punctual. Where is Inspector Field ? Assistant Commissioner of Police is al- ready here, enwrapped in oil-skin cloak, and standing in the shadow of Saint Giles’s steeple. Detective Sergeant* weary of speaking French all day to foreigners unpacking at the Great Exhibition, is already here. Where is Inspector Field ? Inspector Field is, to-night, the guardian genius of the Brit- ish Museum. He is bringing his shrewd eye to bear on every corner of its solitary galleries, before he reports “ all right.” Suspicious of the Elgin marbles, and not to be done by cat- faced Egyptian giants with their hands upon their knees, Inspector Field, sagacious, vigilant, lamp in hand, throwing monstrous shadows on the walls and ceilings, passes through the spacious rooms. If a mummy trembled in an atom of its dusty covering, Inspector Field would say, “ Come out of that, Tom Green. I know you ! ” If the smallest “ Gonoph ” about town were crouching at the bottom of a classic bath, Inspector Field would nose him with a finer scent than the ogre’s, when adventurous Jack lay trembling in his kitchen copper. But all is quiet, and Inspector Field goes warily on, making little outward show of attending to anything in partic- ular, just recognizing the Ichthyosaurus as a familiar acquaint- ance, and wondering, perhaps, how the detectives did it in the days before the Flood. Will Inspector Field be long about this work ? He may be half-an-hour longer. He sends his compliments by Police 352 ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 353 Constable, and proposes that we meet at Saint Giles’s Station House, across the road. Good. It were as well to stand by the fire, there, as in the shadow of Saint Giles’s steeple. Anything doing here to-night ? Hot much. We are very quiet. A lost boy, extremely calm and small, sitting by the fire, whom we now confide to a constable to take home, for the child says that if you show him Hewgate Street, he can show you where he lives — a raving drunken woman in the cells, who has screeched her voice away, and has hardly power enough left to declare, even with the passionate help of her feet and arms, that she is the daughter of a British officer, and, strike her blind and dead, but she’ll write a letter to the Queen ! but who is soothed with a drink of water — in another cell, a quiet woman with a child at her breast, for begging — in another, her husband in a smock-frock, with a basket of watercresses — in another a pickpocket — in another, a meek tremulous old pauper man who has been out for a holiday “ and has took but a little drop, but it has overcome him arter so many months in the house ” — and that’s all as yet. Pres- ently, a sensation at the Station House door. Mr. Field, gentlemen ! Inspector Field comes in, wiping his forehead, for he is of a burly figure, and has come fast from the ores and metals of the deep mines of the earth, and from the Parrot Gods of the South Sea Islands, and from the birds and beetles of the trop- ics, and from the Arts of Greece and Eome, and from the Sculptures of Hineveh, and from the traces of an elder world, when these were not. Is Eogers ready? Eogers is ready, strapped and great-coated, with a flaming eye in the middle of his waist, like a deformed Cyclops. Lead on, Eogers, to Eats’ Castle ! How many people may there be in London, who, if we had brought them deviously and blindfold, to this street, fifty paces from the Station House, and within call of Saint Giles’s church, would know it for a not remote part of the city in which their lives are passed ? How many, who amidst this compound of sickening smells, these heaps of filth, these tumbling houses, with all their vile contents, animate, and inanimate, slimily overflowing into the black road, would be- vol. n — 23 354 ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. lieve that they breathe this air ? How much Red Tape may there be, that could look round on the faces which now hem us in — for our appearance here has caused a rush from all points to a common centre — the lowering foreheads, the sal- low cheeks, the brutal eyes, the matted hair, the infected, ver- min-haunted heaps of rags — and say “ I have thought of this. I have not dismissed the thing. I have neither blustered it away, nor frozen it away, nor tied it up and put it away, nor smoothly said pooh, pooh ! to it, when it has been shown to me ” ? This is not what Rogers wants to know, however. What Rogers wants to know, is, whether you will clear the way here, some of you, or whether you won’t ; because if you don’t do it right on end, he’ll lock you up ! What ! You are there, are you, Bob Miles ? You haven’t had enough of it yet, haven’t you? You want three months more, do you? Come away from that gentleman ! What are you creeping round there for ? “ What am I a doing, thinn, Mr. Rogers ? ” says Bob Miles, appearing, villanous, at the end of a lane of light, made by the lantern. “ I’ll let you know pretty quick, if you don’t hook it. Will you hook it ? ” A sycophantic murmur rises from the crowd. “Hook it, Bob, when Mr. Rogers and Mr. Field tells you ! 'Why don’t you hook it, when you are told to ? ” The most importunate of the voices strikes familiarly on Mr. Rogers’s ear. He suddenly turns his lantern on the owner. “ What ! You are there, are you, Mister Click ? You hook it too — come ? ” “ What for ? ” says Mr. Click, discomfited. “You hook it, will you ! ” says Mr. Rogers with stern emphasis. Both Click and Miles do “ hook it,” without another word, or, in plainer English, sneak away. “ Close up there, my men ! ” says Inspector Field to two constables on duty who have followed. “ Keep together, gen- tlemen ; we are going down here. Heads ! ” Saint Giles’s church strikes half-past ten. We stoop low, and creep down a precipitious flight of steps into a dark close cellar. There is a fire. There is a long deal table. There ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 855 are benches. The cellar is full of company, chiefly very young men in various conditions of dirt and raggedness. Some are eating supper. There are no girls or women present. Wel- come to Eats’ Castle, gentlemen, and to this company of noted thieves ! “ Well, my lads ! How are you, my lads ? What have you been doing to-day ? Here’s some company come to see you, my lads ! There’s a plate of beefsteak, Sir, for the supper of a fine young man ! And there’s a mouth for a steak, Sir ! Why, I should be too proud of such a mouth as that, if I had it myself ! Stand up and show it, Sir ! Take off your cap. There’s a fine young man for a nice little party, Sir ! An’t he?” Inspector Field is the bustling speaker. Inspector Field’s eye is the roving eye that searches every corner of the cellar as he talks. Inspector Field’s hand is the well-known hand that has collared half the people here, and motioned their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, male and female friends, inexorably to Hew South Wales. Yet Inspector Field stands in this den, the Sultan of the place. Every thief here cowers before him, like a schoolboy before his schoolmaster. All watch him, all answer when addressed, all laugh at his jokes, all seek to propitiate him. This cellar-company alone — to say nothing of the crowd surrounding the entrance from the street above, and making the steps shine with eyes — is strong enough to murder us all, and willing enough to do it ; but, let Inspector Field have a mind to pick out one thief here, and take him ; let him produce that ghostly truncheon from his pocket, and say, with his business air, “ My lad, I want you ! ” and all Eats’ Castle shall be stricken with paralysis, and not a finger move against him, as he fits the handcuffs on ! Where’s the Earl of Warwick ? — Here he is, Mr. Field ! Here’s the Earl of Warwick, Mr. Field ! — 0 there you are, my Lord. Come for’ard. There’s a chest, Sir, not to have a clean shirt on. An’t it. Take your hat off, my Lord. Why, I should be ashamed if I was you — and an Earl, too — to show myself to a gentleman with my hat on ! — The Earl of Warwick laughs and uncovers. All the company laugh. One pick-pocket, especially, laughs with great enthusiasm. 0 356 ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. what a jolly game it is, when Mr. Field comes down — and don’t want nobody ! So, you are here, too, are yon, you tall, gray, soldierly- looking, grave man, standing by the fire ? — Yes, Sir. Good evening, Mr. Field ! — Let us see. You lived servant to a nobleman once? — Yes, Mr. Field. — And what is it you do now; I forget? — Well, Mr. Field, I job about as well as 1 can. I left my employment on account of delicate health. The family is still kind to me. Mr. Wix of Piccadilly is also very kind to me when I am hard up. Likewise Mr. Nix of Oxford Street. I get a trifle from them occasionally, and rub on as well as I can, Mr. Field. Mr. Field’s eye rolls enjoy- ingly, for this man is a notorious begging-letter writer. — Good night, my lads ! — Good night, Mr. Field, and thank’ee, Sir ! Clear the street here, half a thousand of you ! Cut it, ’Mrs. Stalker — none of that — we don’t want you ! Bogers of the flaming eye, lead on to the tramps’ lodging-house ! A dream of baleful faces attends to the door. Now, stand back all of you ! In the rear Detective Sergeant plants him- self, composedly whistling, with his strong right arm across the narrow passage. Mrs. Stalker, I am something’d that need not be written here, if you won’t get yourself into trouble, in about half a minute, if I see that face of yours again ! Saint Giles’s church clock, striking eleven, hums through our hand from the dilapidated door of a dark outhouse as we open it, and are stricken back by the pestilent breath that issues from within. Bogers to the front with the light, and let us look ! Ten, twenty, thirty — who can count them ! Men, women, children, for the most part naked, heaped upon the floor like maggots in a cheese ! Ho ! In that dark corner yonder ! Does any body lie there ? Me Sir, Irish me, a widder, with six children. And yonder ? Me Sir, Irish me, with me wife and eight poor babes. And to the left there ? Me Sir, Irish me, along with two more Irish boys as is me friends. And to the right there ? Me Sir and the Murphy fam’ly, numbering five blessed souls. And what’s this, coiling, now, about my ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 85 f foot ? Another Irish me, pitifully in want of shaving, whom I have awakened from sleep — and across my other foot lies his wife — and by the shoes of Inspector Field lie their three eldest — and their three youngest are at present squeezed between the open door and the wall. And why is there no one on that little mat before the sullen fire ? Because O’Donovan, with his wife and daughter, is not come in from selling Lucifers ! Nor on the bit of sacking in the nearest corner ? Bad luck ! Because that Irish family is late to- night, a-cadging in the streets ! They are all awake now, the children excepted, and most of them sit up, to stare. Wheresoever Mr. Bogers turns the flam- ing eye, there is a spectral figure rising, unshrouded, from a grave of rags. Who is the landlord here ? — I am, Mr. Field ! says a bundle of ribs and parchment against the wall, scratch- ing itself. — Will you spend this money fairly, in the morn- ing, to buy coffee for ’em all ? — Yes, Sir, I will ! — 0 he’ll do it Sir, he’ll do it fair. He’s honest ! cry the spectres. And with thanks and Good Night sink into their graves again. Thus, we make our New Oxford Streets, and our other new streets, never heeding, never asking, where the wretches whom we clear out, crowd. With such scenes at our doors, with all the plagues of Egypt tied up with bits of cobweb in kennels so near our homes, we timorously make our Nuisance Bills and Boards of Health, nonentities, and think to keep away the Wolves of Crime and Filth, by our electioneering ducking to little vestrymen and our gentlemanly handling of Bed Tape ! Intelligence of the coffee money has got abroad. The yard is full, and Bogers of the flaming eye is beleaguered with entreaties to show other Lodging Houses. Mine next ! Mine ! Mine ! Bogers, military, obdurate, stiff-necked, immovable, replies not, but leads away ; all falling back before him. In- spector Field follows. Detective Sergeant, with his barrier of arm across the little passage, deliberately waits to close the procession. He sees behind him, without any effort, and exceedingly disturbs one individual far in the rear by coolly calling out, “It won’t do, Mr. Michael ! Don’t try it ! ” After council holden in the street, we enter other lodging 358 ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. houses, public-houses, many lairs and holes ; all noisome and offensive ; none so filthy and so crowded as where Irish are. In one, The Ethiopian party are expected home presently — were in Oxford Street when last heard of — shall be fetched, for our delight, within ten minutes. In another, one of the two or three Professors who draw Napoleon Buonaparte and a couple of mackerel, on the pavement, and then let the work of art out to a speculator, is refreshing after his labors. In another, the vested interest of the profitable nuisance has been in one family for a hundred years, and the landlord drives in comfortably from the country to his snug little stew in town. In all, Inspector Field is received with warmth. Coiners and smashers droop before him ; pickpockets defer to him ; the gentle sex (not very gentle here) smile upon him. Half-drunken hags check themselves in the midst of pots of beer, or pints of gin, to drink to Mr. Field, and pressingly to ask the honor of his finishing the draught. One beldame in rusty black has such admiration for him, that she runs a whole street’s length to shake him by the hand; tumbling into a heap of mud by the way, and still pressing her atten- tions when her very form has ceased to be distinguishable through it. Before the power of the law, the power of supe- rior sense — for common thieves are fools beside these men — • and the power of a perfect mastery of their character, the garrison of Bats’ Castle and the adjacent Fortresses make but a skulking show indeed when reviewed by Inspector Field. Saint Giles’s clock says it will be midnight in half-an-hour, and Inspector Field says we must hurry to the Old Mint in the Borough. The cab-driver is low-spirited, and has a sol- emn sense of his responsibility. Now, what’s your fare, my lad ? — 0 you know, Inspector Field, what’s the good of asking me l Say, Parker, strapped and great-coated, and waiting in dim Borough doorway by appointment, to replace the trusty Bogers whom we left deep in Saint Giles’s, are you ready ? Beady, Inspector Field, and at a motion of my wrist behold my flam- ing eye. This narrow street, sir, is the chief part of the Old Mint, full of low lodging-houses, as you see by the transparent can- ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 359 vas-lamps and blinds, announcing beds for travellers ! But it is greatly changed, friend Field, from my former knowledge of it ; it is infinitely quieter and more subdued than when I was here last, some seven years ago ? 0 yes ! Inspector. Haynes, a first-rate man, is on this station now and plays the Devil with them ! Well, my lads ! How are you to-night, my lads ! Playing cards here, eh ? Who wins ? — Why, Mr. Field, I, the sulky gentleman with the damp flat side-curls, rubbing my bleared eye with the end of my neck-kerchief which is like a dirty eel- skin, am losing just at present, but I suppose I must take my pipe out of my mouth, and be submissive to you — I hope I see you well, Mr. Field ? — Aye, all right, my lad. Deputy, who have you got up stairs ? Be pleased to show the rooms ! Why Deputy, Inspector Field can’t say. He only knows that the man who takes care of the beds and lodgers is always called so. Steady, 0 Deputy, with the flaring candle in the blacking-bottle, for this is a slushy back-yard, and the wooden staircase outside the house creaks and has holes in it. Again, in these confined intolerable rooms, burrowed out like the holes of rats or the nests of insect-vermin, but fuller of intolerable smells, are crowds of sleepers, each on his foul truckle-bed coiled up beneath a rug. Halloa here ! Come ! Let us see you ! Show your face ! Pilot Parker goes from bed to bed and turns their slumbering heads towards us, as a salesman might turn sheep. Some wake up with an execration and a threat. — What ! who spoke ? 0 ! If it’s the accursed glaring eye that fixes me, go where I will, I am helpless. Here ! I sit up to be looked at. Is it me you want ? — Hot you, lie down again ! — and I lie down, with a woeful growl. Wherever the turning lane of light becomes stationary for a moment, some sleeper appears at the end of it, submits him- self to be scrutinized, and fades away into the darkness. There should be strange dreams here, Deputy. They sleep sound enough, says Deputy, taking the candle out of the blacking-bottle, snuffing it with his fingers, throwing the snuff into the bottle, and corking it up with the candle ; that’s all I know. What is the inscription, Deputy, on all the discolored sheets ? A precaution against loss of linen. 360 ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD . Deputy turns down the rug of an unoccupied bed and discloses it. Stop Thief ! To lie at night, wrapped in the legend of my slinking life ; to take the cry that pursues me, waking, to my breast in sleep ; to have it staring at me, and clamoring for me, as soon as consciousness returns ; to have it for my first-foot on New-Year’s day, my Valentine, my Birthday salute, my Christ- mas greeting, my parting with the old year. Stop Thief ! And to know that I must be stopped, come what will. To know that I am no match for this individual energy and keenness, or this organized and steady system ! Come across the street, here, and, entering by a little shop, and yard, examine these intricate passages and doors, contrived for escape, flapping and counter-flapping, like the lids of the conjurer’s boxes. But what avail they ? Who gets in by a nod, and shows their secret working to us ? Inspector Field. Don’t forget the old Farm House, Parker ! Parker is not the man to forget it. We are going there, now. It is the old Manor-House of these parts, and stood in the country once. Then, perhaps, there was something, which was not the beastly street, to see from the shattered low fronts of the overhanging wooden houses we are passing under — shut up now, pasted over with bills about the literature and drama of the Mint, and mouldering away. This long paved yard w r as a paddock or a garden once, or a court in front of the Farm House. Perchance, with a dovecot in the centre, and fowls pecking about — with fair elm trees, then, where discolored chimney-stacks and gables are now — noisy, then, with rooks which have yielded to a different sort of rookery. It’s likelier than not, Inspector Field thinks, as we turn into the common kitchen, which is in the yard, and many paces from the house. Well my lads and lasses, how are you all ! Where’s Blackey, who has stood near London Bridge these five-and- twenty years, with a painted skin to represent disease ? — Here he is, Mr. Field ! — How are you, Blackey ? — Jolly, sa ! — Not playing the fiddle to-night, Blackey? — Not a night, sa ! — A sharp, smiling youth, the wit of the kitchen, interposes. He an’t musical to-night, sir. I’ve been giving him a moral ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 361 lecture ; Fve been a talking to him about his latter end, you see. A good many of these are my pupils, sir. This here young man (smoothing down the hair of one near him, reading a Sunday paper) is a pupil of mine. I’m a teaching of him to read, sir. He’s a promising cove, sir. He’s a smith, he is, and gets his living by the sweat of the brow, sir. So do I, myself, sir. This young woman is my sister, Mr. Field. She’s getting on very well too. I’ve a deal of trouble with ’em, sir, but I’m richly rewarded, now I see, ’em all a doing so well, and growing up so creditable. That’s a great comfort, that is, an’t it, sir ? — In the midst of the kitchen (the whole kitchen is in ecstacies with this impromtu “ chaff”) sits a young, modest, gentle-looking creature, with a beautiful child in her lap. She seems to belong to the company, but is so strangely unlike it. She has such a pretty, quiet face and voice, and is so proud to hear the child admired — thinks you would hardly believe that he is only nine months old ! Is she as bad as the rest, I wonder ? Inspectorial experience does not engender a belief contrariwise, but prompts the answer, Hot a ha’porth of difference ! There is a piano going in the old Farm House as we approach. It stops. Landlady appears. Has no objections, Mr. Field, to gentlemen being brought, but wishes it were at earlier hours, the lodgers complaining of ill-conwenience. Inspector Field is polite and soothing — knows his woman and the sex. Deputy (a girl in this case) shows the way up a heavy broad old staircase, kept very clean, into clean rooms where many sleepers are, and where painted panels of an older time look strangely on the truckle beds. The sight of white- wash and the smell of soap — two things we seem by this time to have parted from in infancy — make the old Farm House a phenomenon, and connect themselves with the so curiously misplaced picture of the pretty mother and child long after we have left it, — long after we have left, besides, the neigh- boring nook with something of a rustic flavor in it yet, where once, beneath a low wooden colonnade still standing as of yore, the eminent Jack Sheppard condescended to regale himself, and where, now, two old bachelor brothers in broad hats (who are whispered in the Mint to have made a compact 362 ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. long ago that if either should ever marry, he must forfeit his share of the joint property) still keep a sequestered tavern, and sit o’ nights smoking pipes in the bar, among ancient bottles and glasses, as our eyes behold them. How goes the night now? Saint George of Southwark answers with twelve blows upon his bell. Parker, good night, for Williams is already waiting over in the region of Ratclyffe Highway, to show the houses where the sailors dance. I should like to know where Inspector Field was born. In Ratcliffe Highway, I would have answered with confidence, but for his being equally at home wherever we go. He does not trouble his head as I do, about the river at night. He does not care for its creeping, black and silent, on our right there, rushing through sluice gates, lapping at piles and posts and iron rings, hiding strange things in its mud, running away with suicides and accidentally drowned bodies faster than mid- night funeral should, and acquiring such various experience between its cradle and its grave. It has no mystery for him. Is there not the Thames Police ! Accordingly, Williams lead the way. We are a little late, for some of the houses are already closing. Ho matter. You show us plenty. All the landlords know Inspector Field. All pass him, freely and good-humoredly, wheresoever he wants to go. So thoroughly are all these houses open to him and our local guide, that, granting that sailors must be enter- tained in their own way — as I suppose they must, and have a right to be — I hardly know how such places could be better regulated. Hot that I call the company very select, or the dancing very graceful — even so graceful as that of the Ger- man Sugar Bakers, whose assembly, by the Minories, we stopped to visit — but there is watchful maintenance of order in every house, and swift expulsion where need is. Even in the midst of drunkenness, both of the lethargic kind and the lively, there is sharp landlord supervision, and pockets are in less peril than out of doors. These houses show, singularly, how much of the picturesque and romantic there truly is in the sailor, requiring to be especially addressed. All the songs (sung in a hailstorm of halfpence, which are pitched at the ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD . 363 singer without the least tenderness for the time or tune — mostly from great rolls of copper carried for the purpose — and which he occasionally dodges like shot as they fly near his head) are of the sentimental sea sort. All the rooms are decorated with nautical subjects. Wrecks, engagements, ships on fire, ships passing lighthouses on iron-bound coasts, ships blowing up, ships going down, ships running ashore, men lying out upon the main yard in a gale of wind, sailors and ships in every variety of peril, constitute the illustrations of fact. Nothing can be done in the fanciful way, without a thumping boy upon a scaly dolphin. How goes the night now ? Past one. Black and Green are waiting in Whitechapel to unveil the mysteries of Went- worth Street. Williams, the best of friends, must part. Adieu ! Are not Black and Green ready at the appointed place ? O yes ! They glide out of shadow as we stop. Imperturbable Black opens the cab-door ; Imperturbable Green takes a mental note of the driver. Both Green and Black then open, each his flaming eye, and marshal us the way that we are going. The lodging-house we want, is hidden in a maze of streets and courts. It is fast shut. We knock at the door, and stand hushed looking up for a light at one or other of the begrimed old lattice windows in its ugly front, when another constable comes up — supposes that we want “ to see the school. 55 Detective Sergeant meantime has got over a rail, opened a gate, dropped down an area, overcome some other little obstacles, and tapped at a window. Now returns. The landlord will send a deputy immediately. Deputy is heard to stumble out of bed. Deputy lights a candle, draws back a bolt or two, and appears at the door. Deputy is a shivering shirt and trousers by no means clean, a yawning face, a shock head much confused externally and internally. We want to look for some one. You may go up with the light, and take 5 em all, if you like, says Deputy, resigning it, and sitting down upon a bench in the kitchen with his ten fingers sleepily twisting in his hair. Halloa here ! Now then ! Show yourselves. That 5 !! do. 364 ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD . It’s not you. Don’t disturb yourself any more ! So on, through a labyrinth of airless rooms, each man responding, like a wild beast, to the keeper who has tamed him, and who goes into his cage. What, you haven’t found him, then ? says Deputy, when we came down. A woman mysteriously sitting up all night in the dark by the smouldering ashes of the kitchen fire, says it’s only tramps and cadgers here : it’s gonophs over the way. A man, mysteriously walking about the kitchen all night in the dark, bids her hold her tongue. We come out. Deputy fastens the door and goes to bed again. Black and Green, you know Bark, lodging-house keeper and receiver of stolen goods ? — 0 yes, Inspector Field. — Go to Bark’s next. Bark sleeps in an inner wooden hutch, near his street-door. As we parley on the step with Bark’s Deputy, Bark growls in his bed. We enter, and Bark flies out of bed. Bark is a red villain and a wrathful, with a sanguine throat that looks very much as if it were expressly made for hanging, as he stretches it out, in pale defiance, over the half-door of his hutch. Bark’s parts of speech are of an awful sort — principally adjectives. I won’t, says Bark, have no adjective police and adjective strangers in my adjective premises ! I won’t, by adjective and substantive ! Give me my trousers, and I’ll send the whole adjective police to adjective and substantive ! Give me, says Bark, my adjective trousers. I’ll put an adjective knife in the whole bileing of ’em. I’ll punch their adjective heads. I’ll rip up their adjective substantives. Give me my adjective trousers ! says Bark, and I’ll spile the bileing of ’em ! How, Bark, what’s the use of this ? Here’s Black and Green, Detective Sergeant, and Inspector Field. You know we will come in. — I know you won’t ! says Bark. Somebody give me my adjective trousers ! Bark’s trousers seem difficult to find. He calls for them, as Hercules might for his club. Give me my adjective trousers ! says Bark, and I’ll spile the bileing of ’em ! Inspector Field holds that it’s all one whether Bark likes the visit or don’t like it. He, Inspector Field, is an Inspector of the Detective Police, Detective Sergeant is Detective Ser- geant, Black and Green are constables in uniform. Don’t you ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 365 be a .fool. Bark, or you know it will be the worst for you. — I don’t care, says Bark. Give me my adjective trousers ! At two o’clock in the- morning, we descend into Bark’s low kitchen, leaving Bark to foam at the mouth above, and Im- perturbable Black and Green to look at him. Bark’s kitchen is crammed full of thieves, holding a conversazione there by lamp-light. It is by far the most dangerous assembly we have seen yet. Stimulated by the ravings of Bark, above, their looks are sullen, but not a man speaks. We ascend again. Bark has got his trousers, and is in a state of madness in the passage with his back against a door that shuts off the upper staircase. We observe, in other respects, a ferocious individu- ality in Bark. Instead of “ Stop Thief ! ” on his linen, he prints “ Stolen from Bark’s ! ” Now Bark, we are going up stairs ! — No, you ain’t ! — You refuse admission to the Police, do you, Bark ? — Yes, I do ! I refuse it to all the adjective police and to all the adjective substantives. If the adjective coves in the kitchen was men, they’d come up now, and do for you ! Shut me that there door ! says Bark, and suddenly we are enclosed in the passage. They’d come up and do for you ! cries Bark, and waits. Not a sound in the kitchen ! They’d come up and do for you ! cries Bark again, and waits. Not a sound in the kitchen ! We are shut up, half-a-dozen of us, in Bark’s house in the innermost recesses of the worst part of London, in the dead of the night — the house is crammed with notorious robbers and ruffians — and not a man stirs. No, Bark. They know the weight of the law, and they know Inspector Field and Co. too well. We leave bully Bark to subside at leisure out of his passion and his trousers, and, I dare say, to be inconveniently re- minded of this little brush before long. Black and Green do ordinary duty here, and look serious. As to White, who waits on Holborn Hill to show the courts that are eaten out of Rotten Gray’s Inn Lane, where other lodging-houses are, and where (in one blind alley) the Thieves’ Kitchen and Seminary for the teaching of the art to children, is, the night has so worn away, being now almost at odds with morning, which is which, 366 ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD . that they are quiet, and no light shines through the chinks in the shutters. As undistinctive Death will come here, one day, sleep comes now. The wicked cease from troubling sometimes, even in this life. DOWN WITH THE TIDE. A very dark night it was, and bitter cold ; the east wind blowing bleak, and bringing with it stinging particles from marsh, and moor, and fen — from the Great Desert and Old Egypt, may be. Some of the component parts of the sharp- edged vapor that came flying up the Thames at London might be mummy-dust, dry atoms from the Temple at J eru- salem, camels’ foot-prints, crocodiles’ hatching-places, loosened grains of expression from the visages of blunt-nosed sphynxes, waifs and strays from caravans of turbaned merchants, vegeta- tion from jungles, frozen snow from the Himalayas. 0 ! It was very very dark upon the Thames, and it was bitter bitter cold. “And yet,” said the voice within the great pea-coat at my side, “ you’ll have seen a good many rivers too, I dare say ? ” “ Truly,” said I, “ when I come to think of it, not a few. From the Niagara, downward to the mountain rivers of Italy, which are like the national spirit — very tame, or chaf- ing suddenly and bursting bounds, only to dwindle away again. The Moselle, and the Rhine, and the Rhone ; and the Seine, and the Saone ; and the St. Lawrence, Mississippi, and Ohio ; and the Tiber, the Po, and the Arno ; and the — ” Peacoat coughing, as if he had had enough of that, I said no more. I could have carried the catalogue on to a teasing length, though, if I had been in the cruel mind. “ And after all,” said he, “ this looks so dismal ? ” “ So awful,” I returned, “ at night. The Seine at Paris is very gloomy too, at such a time, and is probably the scene of far more crime and greater wickedness ; but this river looks so broad and vast, so murky and silent, seems such an image of death in the midst of the great city’s life, that — ” 367 368 DOWN WITH THE TIDE. That Peacoat coughed again. He could not stand my hold- ing forth. We were in a four-oared Thames Police Galley, lying on our oars in the deep shadow of Southwark Bridge — under the corner arch on the Surrey side — having come down with the tide from Yauxhall. We were fain to hold on pretty tight though close in shore, for the river was swollen and the tide running down very strong. We were watching certain water- rats of human growth, and lay in the deep shade as quiet as mice ; our light hidden and our scraps of conversation carried on in whispers. Above us, the massive iron girders of the arch were faintly visible, and below us its ponderous shadow seemed to sink down to the bottom of the stream. We had been lying here some half an hour. With our backs to the wind, it is true ; but the wind being in a determined temper blew straight through us, and would not take the trouble to go round. I would have boarded a fireship to get into action, and mildly suggested as much to my friend Pea. “ Ho doubt,” says he, as patiently as possible • “ but shore- going tactics wouldn’t do with us. Piver thieves can always get rid of stolen property in a moment by dropping it over- board. W r e want to take them with the property, so we lurk about and come out upon ’em sharp. If they see us or hear us, over it goes.” Pea’s wisdom being indisputable, there was nothing for it but to sit there and be blown through, for another half hour. The water-rats thinking it wise to abscond at the end of that time without commission of felony, we shot out, disappointed, with the tide. “ Grim they look, don’t they ? ” said Pea, seeing me glance over my shoulder at the lights upon the bridge, and downward at their long crooked reflections in the river. “Very,” said I, “and make one think with a shudder of Suicides. What a night for a dreadful leap from that parapet ! ” “ Aye, but Waterloo’s the favorite bridge for making holes in the water from,” returned Pea. “ By the by — avast pull- ing, lads ! — would you like to speak to Waterloo on the subject ? ” DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 369 My face confessing a surprised desire to have some friendly conversation with. Waterloo Bridge, and my friend Pea being the most obliging of men, we put about, pulled out of the force of the stream, and in place of going at great speed with the tide, began to strive against it, close in shore again. Every color but black seemed to have departed from the world. The air was black, the water was black, the barges and hulks were black, the piles were black, the buildings were black, the shad- ows were only a deeper shade of black upon a black ground. Here and there, a coal fire in an iron cresset blazed upon a wharf ; but, one knew that it too had been black a little while ago, and would be black again soon. Uncomfortable rushes of water suggestive of gurgling and drowning, ghostly rattlings of iron chains, dismal clankings of discordant engines, formed the music that accompanied the dip of our oars and their rat- tling in the rullocks. Even the noises had a black sound to me — as the trumpet sounded red to the blind man. Our dexterous boat’s crew made nothing of the tide, and pulled us gallantly up to Waterloo Bridge. Here Pea and I disembarked, passed under the black stone archway, and climbed the steep stone steps. Within a few feet of their summit, Pea presented me to Waterloo (or an eminent toll- taker representing that structure), muffled up to the eyes in a thick shawl, and amply great-coated and fur-capped. Waterloo received us with cordiality, and observed of the night that it was “a Searcher.” He had been originally called the Strand Bridge, he informed us, but had received his present name at the suggestion of the proprietors, when Parliament had resolved to vote three hundred thousand pound for the erection of a monument in honor of the victory. Parliament took the hint (said Waterloo, with the least flavor of misan- throphy) and saved the money. Of course the late Duke of Wellington was the first passenger, and of course he paid his penny, and of course a noble lord preserved it evermore. The treadle and index at the toll-house (a most ingenious contriv- ance for rendering fraud impossible), were invented by Mr. Lethbridge, then property-man at Drury Lane Theatre. Was it suicide, we wanted to know about ? said Waterloo. Ha ! Well, he had seen a good deal of that work, he did vol. n — 24 370 DOWN WITH THE TIDE . assure us. He had prevented some. Why, one day a woman, poorish looking, came in between the hatch, slapped down a penny, and wanted to go on without the change ! Waterloo suspected this, and says to his mate, “ give an eye to the gate,” and bolted after her. She had got to the third seat be- tween the piers, and was on the parapet just a going over, when he caught her and gave her in charge. At the police office next morning, she said it was along of trouble and a bad husband. “ Likely enough,” observed Waterloo to Pea and myself, as he adjusted his chin in his shawl. “ There’s a deal of trouble about, you see — and bad husbands too ! ” Another time, a young woman at twelve o’clock in the open day, got through, darted along; and, before Waterloo could come near her, jumped upon the parapet, and shot herself over sideways. Alarm given, watermen put off, lucky escape. — Clothes buoyed her up. “This is where it is,” said Waterloo. “If people jump off straight forwards from the middle of the parapet of the bays of the bridge, they are seldom killed by drowning, but are smashed, poor things ; that’s what they are ; they dash them- selves upon the buttress of the bridge. But, you jump off,” said Waterloo to me, putting his forefinger in a button hole of my great coat ; “you jump off from the side of the bay, and you’ll tumble, true, into the stream under the arch. What you have got to do, is to mind how you jump in ! There was poor Tom Steele from Dublin. Didn’t dive ! Bless you, didn’t dive at all ! Pell down so flat into the water, that he broke his breast-bone, and lived two days ! ” I asked Waterloo if there were a favorite side of his bridge for this dreadful purpose ? He reflected, and thought yes, there was. He should say the Surrey side. Three decent looking men went through one day, soberly and quietly, and went on abreast for about a dozen yards : when the middle one, he sung out, all of a sudden, “ Here goes, Jack ! ” and was over in a minute. Body found? Well. Waterloo didn’t rightly recollect about that. They were compositors, they were. He considered it astonishing how quick people were ! Why, DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 371 there was a cab came up one Boxing-night, with a young woman in it, who looked, according to Waterloo’s opinion of her, a little the worse for liquor ; very handsome she was too — very handsome. She stopped the cab at the gate, and said she’d pay the cabman then : which she did, though there was a little hankering about the fare, because at first she didn’t seem quite to know where she wanted to be drove to. How- ever she paid the man, and the toll too, and looking Waterloo in the face (he thought she knew him, don’t you see ! ) said, “I’ll finish it somehow!” Well, the cab went off, leaving Waterloo a little doubtful in his mind, and while it was going on at full speed the young woman jumped out, never fell, hardly staggered, ran along the bridge pavement a little way, passing several people, and jumped over from the second open- ing. At the inquest it was giv’ in evidence that she had been quarrelling at the Hero of Waterloo, and it was brought in jealousy. (One of the results of Waterloo’s experience was, that there was a deal of jealousy about.) “Do we ever get madmen ? ” said Waterloo, in answer to an inquiry of mine. “Well, we do get madmen. Yes, we have had one or two; escaped from ’Sylums, I suppose. One hadn’t a halfpenny ; and because I wouldn’t let him through, he went back a little way, stooped down, took a run, and butted at the hatch like a ram. He smashed his hat rarely, but his head didn’t seem no worse — in my opinion on account of his being wrong in it afore. Sometimes people haven’t got a halfpenny. If they are really tired and poor we give ’em one and let ’em through. Other people will leave things — pocket-handker- chiefs mostly. I have taken cravats and gloves, pocket-knives, tooth-picks, studs, shirt pins, rings (generally from young gents, early in the morning), but handkerchiefs is the general thing.” “Regular customers?” said Waterloo. “Lord, yes! We have regular customers. One, such a worn-out used-up old file as you can scarcely picter, comes from the Surrey side as regu- lar as ten o’clock at night comes ; and goes over, I think, to some flash house on the Middlesex side. He comes back, he does, as reg’lar as the clock strikes three in the morning, and then can hardly drag one of his old legs after the other. He 372 DOWN WITH THE TIDE. always turns down the water-stairs, comes up again, and then goes on down the Waterloo Road. He always does the same thing, and never varies a minute. Does it every night — even Sundays.” I asked Waterloo if he had given his mind to the possibility of this particular customer going down the water-stairs at three o’clock some morning, and never coming up again ? He didn’t think that of him, he replied. In fact, it was Waterloo’s opinion, founded on his observation of that file, that he know’d a trick worth two of it. “ There’s another queer old customer,” said Waterloo, “ comes over, as punctual as the almanack, at eleven o’clock on the sixth of January, at eleven o’clock on the fifth of April, at eleven o’clock on the sixth of July, at eleven o’clock on the tenth of October. Drives a shaggy little, rough pony, in a sort of a rattle-trap arm-chair sort of a thing. White hair he has, and white whiskers, and muffles himself up with all manner of shawls. He comes back again the same afternoon, and we never see more of him for three months. He is a cap- tain in the navy — retired — wery old — wery odd — and served with Lord Nelson. He is particular about drawing his pension at Somerset House afore the clock strikes twelve every quarter. I have heerd say that he thinks it wouldn’t be according to the Act of Parliament, if he didn’t draw it afore twelve.” Having related these anecdotes in a natural manner, which was the best warranty in the world for their genuine nature, our friend Waterloo was sinking deep into his shawl again, as having exhausted his communicative powers and taken in enough east wind, when my other friend Pea in a moment brought him to the surface by asking whether he had not been occasionally the subject of assault and battery in the execu- tion of his duty ? Waterloo recovering his spirits, instantly dashed into a new branch of his subject. We learnt how “ both these teeth ” — here he pointed to the places where two front teeth were not — were knocked out by an ugly customer who one night made a dash at him (Waterloo) while his (the ugly customer’s) pal and coadjutor made a dash at the toll- taking apron where the money-pockets were ; how Waterloo, letting the teeth go (to Blazes, he observed indefinitely) DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 373 grappled with the apron-seizer, permitting the ugly one to run away ; and how he saved the bank, and captured his man, and consigned him to fine and imprisonment. Also how, on another night, “a Cove ” laid hold of Waterloo, then presid- ing at the horse gate of his bridge, and threw him uncere- moniously over his knee, having first cut his head open with his whip. How Waterloo “got right,” and started after the Cove all down the Waterloo Road, through Stamford Street, and round to the foot of Blackfriars Bridge, where the Cove “ cut into ” a public house. How Waterloo cut in too ; but how an aider and abettor of the Cove’s, who happened to be taking a promiscuous drain at the bar, stopped Waterloo ; and the Cove cut out again, ran across the road down Holland Street, and where not, and into a beer-shop. How Waterloo breaking away from his detainer was close upon the Cove’s heels, attended by no end of people who, seeing him running with the blood streaming down his face, thought something worse was “ up,” and roared Eire ! and Murder ! on the hope- ful chance of the matter in hand being one or both. How the Cove was ignominiously taken, in a shed where he had run to hide, and how. at the Police Court they at first wanted to make a sessions job of it; but eventually Waterloo was allowed to be “spoke to,” and the Cove made it square with Waterloo by paying his doctor’s bill (W. was laid up for a week) and giving him “ Three, ten.” Likewise we learnt what we had faintly suspected before, that your sporting amateur on the Derby day, albeit a captain, can be — “ if he be,” as Captain Bobadil observes, “ so generously minded ” — anything but a man of honor and a gentleman ; not sufficiently gratifying his nice sense of humor by the witty scattering of flour and rotten eggs on obtuse civilians, but requiring the further excitement of “bilking the toll,” and “pitching into” Waterloo, and “ cutting him about the head with his whip ; ” finally being, when called upon to answer for the assault, what Waterloo described as “ Minus,” or, as I humbly conceived it, not to be found. Likewise did Waterloo inform us, in reply to my inquiries, admiringly and deferentially preferred through my friend Hea, that the takings at the Bridge had more than doubled in amount, since the reduction of the toll one half. 374 DOWN WITH THE TIDE. And being asked if the aforesaid takings included much bad money, Waterloo responded, with a look far deeper than the deepest part of the river, he should think not ! — and so retired into his shawl for the rest of the night. Then did Pea and I once more embark in our four-oared galley, and glide swiftly down the river with the tide. And while the shrewd East rasped and notched us, as with jagged razors, did my friend Pea impart to me confidences of interest relating to the Thames Police ; we betweenwhiles finding “duty boats ” hanging in dark corners under banks, like weeds — our own was a “ supervision boat ” — and thsy, as they reported “ all right ! ” flashing their hidden light on us, and we flashing ours on them. These duty boats had one sitter in each : an Inspector : and were rowed “ Ran-dan,” which — for the information of those who never graduated, as I was once proud to do, under a fireman-waterman, and winner of Kean ? s Prize Wherry : who, in the course of his tuition, took hundreds of gallons of rum and egg (at my expense) at the various houses of note above and below bridge ; not by any means because he liked it, but to cure a weakness in his liver, for which the faculty had particularly recommended it — may be explained as rowed by three men, two pulling an oar each, and one a pair of sculls. Thus, floating down our black highway, sullenly frowned upon by the knitted brows of Blackfriars, Southwark, and London, each in his lowering turn, I was shown by my friend Pea that there are, in the Thames Police Force, whose district extends from Battersea to Barking Creek, ninety-eight men, eight duty boats, and two supervision boats ; and that these go about so silently, and lie in wait in such dark places, and so seem to be nowhere, and so may be anywhere, that they have gradually become a polfce of prevention, keeping the river almost clear of any great crimes, even while the in- creased vigilance on shore has made it much harder than of yore to live by “ thieving ” in the streets. And as to the various kinds of water thieves, said my friend Pea, there were the Tier-rangers, who silently dropped alongside the tiers of shipping in the Pool, by night, and who, going to the companion-head, listened for two snores — snore number DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 375 one, the skipper’s ; snore number two, the mate’s — mates and skippers always snoring great guns, and being dead sure to be hard at it if they had turned in and were asleep. Hearing the double fire, down went the Rangers into the skippers’ cabins ; groped for the skippers’ inexpressibles, which it was the custom of those gentlemen to shake off, watch, money, braces, boots, and all together, on the floor ; and therewith made off as silently as might be. Then there were the Lumpers, or laborers employed to unload vessels. They wore loose canvas jackets with a broad hem in the bottom, turned inside, so as to form a large circular pocket in which they could conceal, like clowns in pantomimes, packages of surpris- ing sizes. A great deal of property was stolen in this manner (Pea confided to me) from steamers ; first, because steamers carry a larger number of small packages than other ships ; next, because of the extreme rapidity with which they are obliged to be unladen for their return voyages. The Lumpers dispose of their booty easily to marine store dealers, and the only remedy to be suggested is that marine store shops should be licensed, and thus brought under the eye of the police as rigidly as public-houses. Lumpers also smuggle goods ashore for the crews of vessels. The smuggling of tobacco is so considerable, that it is well worth the while of the sellers of smuggled tobacco to use hydraulic presses, to squeeze a single pound into a package small enough to be contained in an ordinary pocket. Next, said my friend Pea, there were the Truckers — less thieves than smugglers, whose business it was to land more considerable parcels of goods than the Lumpers could manage. They sometimes sold articles of grocery, and so forth, to the crews, in order to cloak their real calling, and get aboard without suspicion. Many of them had boats of their own, and made money. Besides these, there were the Dredgermen, who, under jpretence of dredging up coals and such like from the bottom of the river, hung about barges and other undecked craft, and when they saw an opportunity, threw any property they could lay their hands on overboard : in order slyly to dredge it up when the vessel was gone. Sometimes, they dexterously used their dredges to whip away anything that might lie within reach. Some of them were 376 DOWN WITH THE TIDE . mighty neat at this, and the accomplishment was called dry dredging. Then, there was a vast deal of property, such as copper nails, sheathing, hardwood, etc., habitually brought away by shipwrights and other workmen from their employers’ yards, and disposed of to marine store dealers, many of whom escaped detection through hard swearing, and their extraor- dinary artful ways of accounting for the possession of stolen property. Likewise, there were special-pleading practitioners, for whom barges “ drifted away of their own selves ” — they having no hand in it, except first cutting them loose, and afterwards plundering them — innocents, meaning no harm, who had the misfortune to observe those foundlings wander- ing about the Thames. We were now going in and out, with little noise and great nicety, among the tiers of shipping, whose many hulls, lying close together, rose out of the water like black streets. Here and there, a Scotch, an Irish, or a foreign steamer, getting up her steam as the tide made, looked, with her great chimney and high sides, like a quiet factory among the common build- ings. How, the streets opened into clearer spaces, now con- tracted into alleys ; but the tiers were so like houses, in the dark, that I could almost have believed myself in the narrower by-ways of Venice. Everything was wonderfully still ; for, it wanted full three hours of flood, and nothing seemed awake but a dog here and there. So we took no Tier-rangers captive, nor any Lumpers, nor Truckers, nor Dredgermen, nor other evil-disposed person or persons ; but went ashore at Wapping, where the old Thames Police office is now a station-house, and where the old Court, with its cabin windows looking on the river, is a quaint charge room : with nothing worse in it usually than a stuffed cat in a glass case, and a portrait, pleasant to behold, of a rare old Thames Police officer, Mr. Superintendent Evans, now succeeded by his son. We looked over the charge books, admirably kept, and found the prevention so good, that there were not five hundred entries (including drunken and disor- derly) in a whole year. Then, we look into the store-room ; where there was an oakum smell, and a nautical seasoning of dreadnought clothing, rope yarn, boat-hooks, sculls and oars, DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 377 spare stretchers, rudders, pistols, cutlasses, and the like. Then, into the cell, aired high up in the wooden wall through an opening like a kitchen plate-rack : wherein there was a drunken man, not at all warm, and very wishful to know if it were morning yet. Then, into a better sort of watch and ward room, where there was a squadron of stone bottles drawn up, ready to be filled with hot water and applied to any unfortu- nate creature who might be brought in apparently drowned. Finally, we shook hands with our worthy friend Pea, and ran all the way to Tower Hill, under strong Police suspicion occa- sionally, before we got warm. A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE. On a certain Sunday, I formed one of the congregation assembled in the chapel of a large metropolitan Workhouse. With the exception of the clergyman and clerk, and a very few officials, there were none but paupers present. The children sat in the galleries ; the women in the body of the chapel, and in one of the side aisles ; the men in the remaining aisle. The service was decorously performed, though the sermon might have been much better adapted to the comprehension and to the circumstances of the hearers. The usual supplica- tions were offered, with more than the usual significancy in such a place, for the fatherless children and widows, for all sick persons and young children, for all that were desolate and oppressed, for the comforting and helping of the weak-hearted, for the raising-up of them, that had fallen ; for all that were in danger, necessity, and tribulation. The prayers of the con- gregation were desired “for several persons in the various wards dangerously ill ; ” and others who were recovering re- turned their thanks to Heaven. Among this congregation, were some evil-looking young women, and beetle-browed young men; but not many — per- haps that kind of characters kept away. Generally, the faces (those of the children excepted) were depressed and subdued, and wanted color. Aged people were there, in every variety. Mumbling, blear-eyed, spectacled, stupid, deaf, lame ; vacantly winking in the gleams of sun that now and then crept in through the open doors, from the paved yard ; shading their listening ears, or blinking eyes, with their withered hands ; poring over their books, leering at nothing, going to sleep, crouching and drooping in corners. There were weird old women, all skeleton within, all bonnet and cloak without, con- tinually wiping their eyes with dirty dusters of pocket hand- 378 A WALK IN A WORK HO U SE. 379 kerchiefs ; and there were ugly old crones, both male and female, with a ghastly kind of contentment upon them which was not at all comforting to see. Upon the whole, it was the dragon, Pauperism, in a very weak and impotent condition ; toothless, fangless, drawing his breath heavily enough, and hardly worth chaining up. When the service was over, I walked with the humane and conscientious gentleman whose duty it was to take that walk, that Sunday morning, through the little world of poverty enclosed within the workhouse walls. It was inhabited by a population of some fifteen hundred or two thousand paupers, ranging from the infant newly born or not yet come into the pauper world, to the old man dying on his bed. In a room opening from a squalid yard, where a number of listless women were lounging to and fro, trying to get warm in the ineffectual sunshine of the tardy May morning — in the “ Itch Ward/’ not to compromise the truth — a woman such as Hogarth has often drawn, was hurriedly getting on her gown before a dusty fire. She was the nurse, or wardswoman, of that insalubrious department — herself a pauper — flabby, raw-boned, untidy — unpromising and coarse of aspect as need be. But, on being spoken to about the patients whom she had in charge, she turned round, with her shabby gown half on, half off, and fell a crying with all her might. Not for show, not querulously, not in any mawkish sentiment, but in the deep grief and affliction of her heart ; turning away her dishevelled head : sobbing most bitterly, wringing her hands, and letting fall abundance of great tears, that choked her utterance. What was the matter with the nurse of the itch- ward ? Oh, “ the dropped child ” was dead ! Oh, the child that was found in the street, and she had brought up ever since, had died an hour ago, and see where the little creature lay, beneath this cloth ! The dear, the pretty dear ! The dropped child seemed too small and poor a thing for Death to be in earnest with, but Death had taken it; and already its diminutive form was neatly washed, composed, and stretched as if in sleep upon a box. I thought I heard a voice from Heaven saying, It shall be well for thee, 0 nurse of the itch-ward, when some less gentle pauper does those offices to 380 A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE. thy cold form, that such as the dropped child are the angels who behold my Father’s face ! In another room, were several ugly old women crouching, witch-like, round a hearth, and chattering and nodding, after the manner of the monkeys. “ All well here ? And enough to eat ? ” A general chattering and chuckling ; at last an answer from a volunteer. “ Oh yes, gentleman ! Bless you gentleman ! Lord bless the parish of St. So-and-So ! It feed the hungry, Sir, and give drink to the thusty, and it warm them which is cold, so it do, and good luck to the parish of St. So-and-So, and thankee gentleman ! ” Elsewhere, a party of pauper nurses were at dinner. “How do you get on?” “Oh pretty well, Sir! We works hard, and we lives hard — like the sodgers ! ” In another room, a kind of purgatory or place of transition, six or eight noisy madwomen were gathered together, under the superintendence of one sane attendant. Among them was a girl of two or three and twenty, very prettily dressed, of most respectable appearance, and good manners, who had been brought in from the house where she had lived as domestic servant (having, I suppose, no friends), on account of being subject to epileptic fits, and requiring to be removed under the influence of a very bad one. She was by no means of the same stuff, or the same breeding, or the same experience, or in the same state of mind, as those by whom she was sur- rounded ; and she pathetically complained that the daily association and the nightly noise made her worse, and was driving her mad — which was perfectly evident. The case was noted for inquiry and redress, but she said she had already been there for some weeks. If this girl had stolen her mistress’s watch, I do not hesitate to say she would have been infinitely better off. We have come to this absurd, this dangerous, this monstrous pass, that the dishonest felon is, in respect of cleanliness, order, diet, and accommodation, better provided for, and taken care of, than the honest pauper. And this conveys no special imputation on the workhouse of the parish of St. So-and-So, where, on the contrary, I saw many things to commend. It was very agreeable, recollecting A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE. 381 that most infamous and atrocious enormity committed at Toot- ing — an enormity which, a hundred years hence, will still be vividly remembered in the by-ways of English life, and which has done more to engender a gloomy discontent and suspicion among many thousands of the people than all the Chartist leaders could have done in all their lives — to find the pauper children in this workhouse looking robust and well, and apparently the objects of very great care. In the Infant School — a large, light, airy room at the top of the building — the little creatures, being at dinner, and eating their potatoes heartily, were not cowed by the presence of strange visitors, but stretched out their small hands to be shaken, with a very pleasant confidence. And it was comfortable to see two mangey pauper rocking-horses rampant in a corner. In the girls* school, where the dinner was also in progress, everything bore a cheerful and healthy aspect. The meal was over, in the boys* school, by the time of our arrival there, and the room was not yet quite re-arranged ; but the boys were roaming unrestrained about a large and airy yard, as any other schoolboys might have done. Some of them had been drawing large ships upon the schoolroom wall; and if they had a mast with shrouds and stays set up for practice (as they have in the Middlesex House of Correction), it would be so much the better. At present, if a boy should feel a strong impulse upon him to learn the art of going aloft, he could only gratify it, I presume, as the men and women paupers gratify their aspirations after better board and lodging, by smashing as many workhouse windows as possible, and being promoted to prison. In one place, the Newgate of the Workhouse, a company of boys and youths were locked up in a yard alone ; their day- room being a kind of kennel where the casual poor used formerly to be littered down at night. Divers of them had been there some long time. “ Are they never going away ? ** was the natural inquiry. “Most of them are crippled, in some form or other,** said the Wardsman, “and not fit for anything.** They slunk about, like dispirited wolves or hyaenas ; and made a pounce at their food when it was served out, much as those animals do. The big-headed idiot shuffling 382 A WALK IK A WORKHOUSE. his feet along the pavement, in the sunlight outside, was a more agreeable object everyway. Groves of babies in arms ; groves of mothers and other sick women in bed; groves of lunatics; jungles of men in stone-paved down-stairs day-rooms, waiting for their dinners ; longer and longer groves of old people, in up-stairs Infirmary wards, wearing out life, God knows how — this was the scenery through which the walk lay, for two hours. In some of these latter chambers, there were pictures stuck against the wall, and a neat display of crockery and pewter on a kind of side- board ; now and then it was a treat to see a plant or two ; in almost every ward there was a cat. In all of these Long Walks of aged and infirm, some old people were bed-ridden, and had been for a long time ; some were sitting on their beds half-naked; some dying in their beds ; some out of bed, and sitting at a table near the fire. A sullen or lethargic indifference to what was asked, a blunted sensibility to everything but warmth and food, a moody absence of complaint as being of no use, a dogged silence and resentful desire to be left alone again, I thought were generally apparent. On our walking into the midst of one of these dreary perspectives of old men, nearly the following little dialogue took place, the nurse not being immediately at hand : “ All well here ? ” No answer. An old man in a Scotch cap sitting among others on a form at the table, eating out of a tin porringer, pushes back his cap a little to look at us, claps it down on his forehead again with the palm of his hand, and goes on eating. “All well here ? ” (repeated.) No answer. Another old man sitting on his bed, paralyti- cally peeling a boiled potato, lifts his head, and stares. “ Enough to eat ? ” No answer. Another old man, in bed, turns himself and coughs. “ How are you to-day ? ” To the last old man. That old man says nothing ; but another old man, a tall old man of very good address, speaking with perfect correct- A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE. 383 ness, comes forward from somewhere, and volunteers an answer. The reply almost always proceeds from a volunteer and not from the person looked at or spoken to. “We are very old, Sir,” in a mild, distinct voice. “We can’t expect to be well, most of us.” “ Are you comfortable ? ” “ I have no complaint to make, Sir.” With a half shake of his head, a half shrug of his shoulders, and a kind of apologetic smile. “ Enough to eat ? ” “Why, Sir, I have but a poor appetite,” with the same air as before; “and yet I get through my allowance very easily.” “But,” showing a porringer with a Sunday dinner in it, “ here is a portion of mutton, and three potatoes. You can’t starve on that ? ” “Oh dear no, Sir,” with the same apologetic air. “Not starve.” “ What do you want ? ” “ We have very little bread, Sir. It’s an exceedingly small quantity of bread.” The nurse, who is now rubbing her hands at the ques- tioner’s elbow, interferes with, “ It ain’t much raly, Sir. You see they’ve only six ounces a day, and when they’ve took their breakfast, there can only be a little left for night, Sir.” Another old man, hitherto invisible, rises out of his bed- clothes, as out of a grave, and looks on. “You have tea at night ? ” The questioner is still address- ing the well-spoken old man. “ Yes, Sir, we have tea at night.” “ And you save what bread you can from the morning, to eat with it ? ” “ Yes, Sir — if we can save any.” “ And you want more to eat with it ? ” “ Yes, Sir.” With a very anxious face. The questioner, in the kindness of his heart, appears a little discomposed, and changes the subject. I 384 A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE. “ What has become of the old man who used to lie in that bed in the corner ? ” The nurse don’t remember what old man is referred to. There has been such a many old men. The well-spoken old man is doubtful. The spectral old man who has come to life in bed, says, “ Billy Stevens.” Another old man who has previously had his head in the fire-place, pipes out : “ Charley Walters.” Something like a feeble interest is awakened. I suppose Charley Walters had conversation in him. “ He’s dead,” says the piping old man. Another old man, with one eye screwed up, hastily dis- places the piping old man, and says : “Yes ! Charley Walters died in that bed, and — and — ” “ Billy Stevens,” persists the spectral old man. “No, no ! and Johnny Rogers died in that bed, and — and — they’re both on ’em dead — and Sam’l Bowyer;” this seems very extraordinary to him ; “ he went out ! ” With this he subsides, and all the old men (having had quite enough of it) subside, and the spectral old man goes into his grave again, and takes the shade of Billy Stevens with him. As we turn to go out at the door, another previously in- visible old man, a hoarse old man in a flannel gown, is stand- ing there, as if he had just come up through the floor. “ I beg your pardon, Sir, could I take the liberty of saying a word ? ” “Yes ; what is it ? ” “ I am greatly better in my health, Sir ; but what I want, to get me quite round,” with his hand on his throat, “is a little fresh air, Sir. It has always done my complaint so much good, Sir. The regular leave for going out, comes round so seldom, that if the gentlemen, next Friday, would give me leave to go out walking, now and then — for only an hour or so, Sir ! — ” Who could wonder, looking through those weary vistas of bed and infirmity, that it should do him good to meet with some other scenes, and assure himself that there was some- thing else on earth ? Who could help wondering why the A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE. 385 old men lived on as they did ; what grasp they had on life ; what crumbs of interest or occupation they could pick up from its bare board ; whether Charley Walters had ever de- scribed to them the days when he kept company with some old pauper woman in the bud, or Billy Stevens ever told them of the time when he was a dweller in the far-off foreign land called Home ! The morsel of burnt child, lying in another room, so patiently, in bed, wrapped in lint, and looking steadfastly at us with his bright quiet eyes when we spoke to him kindly, looked as if the knowledge of these things, and of all the tender things there are to think about, might have been in his mind — as if he thought, with us, that there was a fellow-feel- ing in the pauper nurses which appeared to make them more kind to their charges than the race of common nurses in the hospitals — as if he mused upon the Future of some older children lying around him in the same place, and thought it best, perhaps, all things considered, that he should die — as if he knew, without fear, of those many coffins, made and un- made, piled up in the store below — and of his unknown friend, “the dropped child,” calm upon the box-lid covered with a cloth. But there was something wistful and appealing, too, in his tiny face, as if, in the midst of all the hard neces- sities and incongruities he pondered on, he pleaded, in behalf of the helpless and the aged poor, for a little more liberty — and a little more bread. vol. ii — 25 PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE. Once upon a time, and of course it was in the Golden Age, and I hope you may know when that was, for I am sure I don’t, though I have tried hard to find out, there lived in a rich and fertile country, a powerful Prince whose name was Bull. He had gone through a great deal of fighting, in his time, about all sorts of things, including nothing; but, had gradually settled down to be a steady, peaceable, good-natured, corpulent, rather sleepy Prince. This Puissant Prince was married to a lovely Princess whose name was Fair Freedom. She had brought him a large fortune, and had borne him an immense number of children, and had set them to spinning, and farming, and engineering, and soldiering, and sailoring, and doctoring, and lawyering, and preaching, and all kinds of trades. The coffers of Prince Bull were full of treasure, his cellars were crammed with delicious wines from all parts of the world, the richest gold and silver plafe that ever was seen adorned his side- boards, his sons were strong, his daughters were handsome, and in short you might have supposed that if there ever lived upon earth a fortunate and happy Prince, the name of that Prince, take him for all in all, was assuredly Prince Bull. But appearances, as we all know, are not always to be trusted — far from it ; and if they had led you to this conclu- sion respecting Prince Bull, they would have led you wrong as they often have led me. For, this good Prince had two sharp thorns in his pillow, two hard knobs in his crown, two heavy loads on his mind, two unbridled nightmares in his sleep, two rocks ahead in his course. He could not by any means get servants to suit him, and he had a tyrannical old godmother whose name was Tape. She was a Fairy, this Tape, and was a bright red all over. 386 PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE. 387 She was disgustingly prim and formal, and could never bend herself a hair’s breadth this way or that way, out of her nat- urally crooked shape. But, she was very potent in her wicked art. She could stop the fastest thing in the world, change the strongest thing into the weakest, and the most useful into the most useless. To do this she had only to put her cold hand upon it, and repeat her own name, Tape. Then it withered away. At the Court of Prince Bull — at least I don’t mean literally at his court, because he was a very genteel Prince, and readily yielded to his godmother when she always reserved that for his hereditary Lords and Ladies — in the dominions of Prince Bull, among the great mass of the community who were called in the language of that polite country the Mobs and the Snobs, were a number of very ingenious men, who were always busy with some invention or other, for promoting the prosperity of the Prince’s subjects, and augmenting the Prince’s power. But, whenever they submitted their models for the Prince’s approval, his godmother stepped forward, laid her hand upon them, and said “ Tape.” Hence it came to pass, that when any particularly good discovery was made, the discoverer usu- ally carried it off to some other Prince, in foreign parts, who had no old godmother who said Tape. This was not on the whole an advantageous state of things for Prince Bull, to the best of my understanding. The worst of it, was, that Prince Bull had in course of years lapsed into such a state of subjection to this unlucky god- mother, that he never made any serious effort to rid himself of her tyranny. I have said this was the worst of it, but there I was wrong, because there is a worse consequence still, be- hind. The Prince’s numerous family became so downright sick and tired of Tape, that when they should have helped the Prince out of the difficulties into which fh-ak evil creature led him, they fell into a dangerous habit of moodily keeping away from him in an impassive and indifferent manner, as though they had quite forgotten that no harm could happen to the Prince their father, without its inevitably affecting themselves. Such was the aspect of affairs at the court of Prince Bull, 388 PRINCE BULL . A FAIRY TALE . when this great Prince found it necessary to go to war with Prince Bear. He had been for some time very doubtful of his servants, who, besides being indolent and addicted to enriching their families at his expense, domineered over him dreadfully ; threatening to discharge themselves if they were found the least fault with, pretending that they had done a wonderful amount of work when they had done nothing, making the most unmeaning speeches that ever were heard in the Prince’s name, and uniformly showing themselves to be very inefficient in- deed. Though, that some of them had excellent characters from previous situations is not to be denied. Well; Prince Bull called his servants together, and said to them one and all, “ Send out my army against Prince Bear. Clothe it, arm it, feed it, provide it with all necessaries and contingencies, and I will pay the piper ! Do your duty by my brave troops,” said the Prince, “ and do it well, and I will pour my treasure out like water, to defray the cost. Who ever heard me complain of money well laid out ! ” Which indeed he had reason for saying, inasmuch as he was well known to be a truly generous and munificent Prince. When the servants heard, those words, they sent out the army against Prince Bear, and they set the army tailors to work, and the army provision merchants, and the makers of guns both great and small, and the gunpowder makers, and the makers of ball, shell, and shot; and they bought; up all manner of stores and ships, without troubling their heads about the price, and appeared to be so busy that the good Prince rubbed his hands, and (using a favorite expression of his), said, “It’s all right!” But, while they were thus em- ployed, the Prince’s godmother, who was a great favorite with those servants, looked in upon them continually all day long, and whenever she popped in her head at the door, said, “How do you do, my children ? What are you doing here ? ” “ Offi- cial business, godmother.” “ Oho ! ” says this wicked Fairy. “ — Tape ! ” And then the business all went wrong, whatever it was, and the servants’ heads became so addled and muddled that they thought they were doing wonders. How, this was very bad conduct on the part of the vicious old nuisance, and she ought to have been strangled, even if PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE. 389 she had stopped here ; but, she didn’t stop here, as you shall learn. For, a number of the Prince’s subjects, being very fond of the Prince’s army, who were the bravest of men, as- sembled together and provided all manner of eatables and drinkables, and books to read, and clothes to wear, and tobacco to smoke, and candles to burn, and nailed them up in great packing-cases, and put them aboard a great many ships, to be carried out to that brave army in the cold and inclement coun- try where they were fighting Prince Bear. Then, up comes this wicked Fairy as the ships were weighing anchor, and says, “ How do you do, my children ? What are you doing here ? ” — “We are going with all these comforts to the army, godmother.” — “ Oho ! ” says she. “ A pleasant voyage, my darlings. — Tape ! ” And from that time forth, those en- chanted ships went sailing, against wind and tide and rhyme and reason, round and round the world, and whenever they touched at any port were ordered off immediately, and could never deliver their cargoes anywhere. This, again, was very bad conduct on the part of the vicious old nuisance, and she ought to have been strangled for it if she had done nothing worse ; but, she did something worse still, as you shall learn. For, she got astride of an official broomstick, and muttered as a spell these two sentences u On Her Majesty’s service,” and “I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient servant,” and presently alighted in the cold and inclement country where the army of Prince Bull were en- camped to fight the army of Prince Bear. On the seashore of that conntry, she found piled together, a number of houses for the army to live in, and a quantity of provisions for the army to live upon, and a quantity of clothes for the army to wear : while, sitting in the mud gazing at them, were a group of offi- cers as red to look at as the wicked old woman herself. So, she said to one of them, “ Who are you, my darling, and how do you do?” — “I am the Quartermaster General’s Depart- ment, godmother, and I am pretty well.” — Then she said to another, “Who are you , my darling, and how do you do ? ” — “I am the Commissariat Department, godmother, and I am pretty well.” Then she said to another, “ Who are you , my darling, and how do you do ? ” — “I am the head of the Medfi 390 PRINCE BULL . A FAIRY TALE. cal Department, godmother, and I am pretty well.” Then, she said to some gentlemen scented with lavender, who kept them- selves at a great distance from the rest, . “ And who are you , my pretty pets, and how do you do ? ” And they answered, “ We-aw-are-the-aw-Staff-aw-Department, godmother, and we are very well indeed.” — “I am delighted to see you all, my beauties,” says this wicked old Fairy, “ — Tape ! ” Upon that, the houses, clothes, and provisions, all mouldered away; and the soldiers who were sound, fell sick ; and the soldiers who were sick, died miserably ; and the noble army of Prince Bull perished. When the dismal news of his great loss was carried to the Prince, he suspected his godmother very much indeed ; but, he knew that his servants must have kept company with the ma- licious beldame, and must have given way to her, and there- fore he resolved to turn those servants out of their places. So, he called to him a Boebuck who had the gift of speech, and he said, “ Good Boebuck, tell them they must go.” So, the good Boebuck delivered his message, so like a man that you might have supposed him to be nothing but a man, and they were turned out — but, not without warning, for that they had had a long time. And now comes the most extraordinary part of the history of this Prince. When he had turned out those servants, of course he wanted others. What was his astonishment to find that in all his dominions, which contained no less than twenty- seven millions of people, there were not above five-and-twenty servants altogether! They were so lofty about it, too, that instead of discussing whether they should hire themselves as servants to Prince Bull, they turned things topsy-turvy, and considered whether as a favor they should hire Prince Bull to be their master ! While they were arguing this point among themselves quite at their leisure, the wicked old red Fairy was incessantly going up and down, knocking at the doors of twelve of the oldest of the five-and-twenty, who were the old- est inhabitants in all that country, and whose united ages amounted to one thousand, saying, “ Will you hire Prince Bull for your master ? — Will you hire Prince Bull for your mas- ter ?” To which one answered, “I will if next door will;” PRINCE BULL . A FAIRY TALE . 391 and another, “ I won’t if over the way does ; ” and another, “ I can’t if he, she, or they, might, could, would, or should.” And all this time Prince Bull’s affairs were going to rack and ruin. At last, Prince Bull in the height of his perplexity assumed a thoughtful face, as if he were struck by an entirely new idea. The wicked old Fairy, seeing this, was at his elbow directly, and said, “ How do you do, my Prince, and what are you thinking of?” — “I am thinking, godmother,” says he, “ that among all the seven-and-twenty millions of my subjects who have never been in service, there are men of intellect and business who have made me very famous both among my friends and enemies.” — “ Aye, truly ? ” says the Fairy. — “Aye, truly,” says the Prince. — -“And what then?” says the Fairy. — “ Why, then,” says he, “ since the regular old class of servants do so ill, are so hard to get, and carry it with so high a hand, perhaps I might try to make good servants of some of these.” The words had no sooner passed his lips than she returned, chuckling, “ You think so, do you ? Indeed, my Prince ? — Tape ! ” Thereupon he directly forgot what he was thinking of, and cried out lamentably to the old ser- vants, “ 0, do come and hire your poor old master ! Pray do ! On any terms ! ” And this, for the present, finishes the story of Prince Bull. I wish I could wind it up by saying that he lived happy ever afterwards, but I cannot in my conscience do so ; for, with Tape at his elbow, and his estranged children fatally repelled by her from coming near him, I do not, to tell you the plain truth, believe in the possibility of such an end to it. A PLATED ARTICLE. Putting up for the night in one of the chiefest towns of Staffordshire, I find it to be by no means a lively town. In fact it is as dull and dead a town as any one could desire not to see. It seems as if its whole population might be im- prisoned in its Railway Station. The Refreshment-Room at that Station is a vortex of dissipation compared with the extinct town-inn, the Dodo, in the dull High Street. Why High Street ? Why not rather Low Street, Elat Street, Low-Spirited Street, Used-up Street ? Where are the people who belong to the High Street ? Can they all be dis- persed over the face of the country, seeking the unfortunate Strolling Manager who decamped from the mouldy little Theatre last week, in the beginning of his season (as his play- bills testify), repentantly resolved to bring him back, and feed him, and be entertained? Or, can they all be gathered to their fathers in the two old churchyards near to the High Street — retirement into which churchyards appears to be a mere ceremony, there is so very little life outside their con- fines, and such small discernible difference between being buried alive in the town, and buried dead in the town tombs ? Over the way, opposite to the staring blank bow windows of the Dodo, are a little ironmonger’s shop, a little tailor’s shop (with a picture of the Fashions in the small window and a bandy-legged baby on the pavement staring at it) — a watch- maker’s shop, where all the clocks and watches must be stopped, I am sure, for they could never have the courage to go, with the town in general, and the Dodo in particular, looking at them. Shade of Miss Linwood, erst of Leicester Square, London, thou art welcome here, and thy retreat is fitly chosen ! I myself was one of the last visitors to that awful storehouse of thy life’s work, where an anchorite old 392 A PLATED ARTICLE. 393 man and woman took my shilling with a solemn wonder, and conducting me to a gloomy sepulchre of needlework dropping to pieces with dust and age and shrouded in twilight at high noon, left me there, chilled, frightened, and alone. And now, in ghostly letters on all the dead walls of this dead town, I read thy honored name, and find that thy Last Supper, worked in Berlin Wool, invites inspection as a powerful excitement ! Where are the people who are bidden with so much cry to this feast of little wool ? Where are they ? Who are they ? They are not the bandy-legged baby studying the fashions in the tailor’s window. They are not the two earthly plough- men lounging outside the saddler’s shop, in the stiff square where the Town Hall stands, like a brick and mortar private on parade. They are not the landlady of the Dodo in the empty bar, whose eye had trouble in it and no welcome, when I asked for dinner. They are not the turnkeys of the Town Jail, looking out of the gateway in their uniforms, as if they had locked up all the balance (as my American friends would say) of the inhabitants, and could now rest a little. They are not the two dusty millers in the white mill down by the river, where the great water-wheel goes heavily round and round, like the monotonous days and nights in this forgotten place. Then who are they, for there is no one else ? Ho ; this depo- nent maketh oath and saith that there is no one else, save and except the waiter at the Dodo, now laying the cloth. I have paced the streets, and stared at the houses, and am come back to the blank bow window of the Dodo ; and the town clocks strike seven, and the reluctant echoes seem to cry, “ Don’t wake us ! ” and the bandy-legged baby has gone home to bed. If the Dodo were only a gregarious bird — if it had only some confused idea of making a comfortable nest — I could hope to get through the hours between this and bed-time, without being consumed by devouring melancholy. But, the Dodo’s habits are all wrong. It provides me with, a trackless desert of sitting-room, with a chair for every day in the year, a table for every month, and a waste of sideboard where a lonely China vase pines in a corner for its mate long departed, and will never make a match with the candlestick in the oppo- site corner if it live till Doomsday. The Dodo has nothing in 394 A PLATED ARTICLE. the larder. Even now, I behold the boots returning with my sole in a piece of paper ; and with that portion of my dinner, the Boots, perceiving me at the blank bow window, slaps his leg as he comes across the road, pretending it is something else. The Dodo excludes the outer air. When I mount up to my bed-room, a smell of closeness and flue gets lazily up my nose like sleepy snuff. The loose little bits of carpet writhe under my tread, and take wormy shapes. I don’t know the ridiculous man in the looking-glass, beyond having met him once or twice in a dish-cover — and I can never shave him to- morrow morning ! The Dodo is narrow-minded as to towels ; expects me to wash on a freemason’s apron without the trim- ming: when I ask for soap, gives me a stony-hearted some- thing white, with no more lather in it than the Elgin marbles. The Dodo has seen better days, and possesses interminable stables at the back — silent, grass-grown, broken-windowed, horseless. This mournful bird can fry a sole, however, which is much. Can cook a steak, too, which is more. I wonder where it gets its sherry I If I were to send my pint of wine to some famous chemist to be analyzed, what would it turn out to be made of ? It tastes of pepper, sugar, bitter almonds, vinegar, warm knives, any flat drink, and a little brandy. Would it unman a Spanish exile by reminding him of his native land at all ? I think not. If there really be any townspeople out of the churchyards, and if a caravan of them ever do dine, with a bottle of wine per man, in this desert of the Dodo, it must make good for the doctor next day ! Where was the waiter born ? How did he come here ? Has he any hope of getting away from here ? Does he ever receive a letter, or take a ride upon the railway, or see any- thing but the Dodo ? Perhaps he has seen the Berlin Wool. He appears to have a silent sorrow on him, and it may be that. He clears the table ; draws the dingy curtains of the great bow window, which so unwillingly consent to meet, that they must be pinned together ; leaves me by the fire with my pint decanter, and a little thin funnel-shaped wine-glass, and a plate of pale biscuits — in themselves engendering desperation. Ho book, no newspaper! I left the Arabian Hights in the A PLATED ARTICLE . 395 railway carriage, and have nothing to read but Bradshaw, and “ that way madness lies/’ Remembering what prisoners and shipwrecked mariners have done to exercise their minds in solitude, I repeat the multiplication table, the pence table, and the shilling table : which are all the tables I happen to know. What if I write something ? The Dodo keeps no pens but steel pens ; and those I always stick through the paper, and can turn to no other account. What am I to do ? Even if I could have the bandy-legged baby knocked up and brought here, I could offer him nothing but sherry, and that would be the death of him. He would never hold up his head again if he touched it. I can’t go to bed, because I have conceived a mortal hatred for my bed- room ; and I can’t go away, because there is no train for my place of destination until morning. To burn the biscuits will be but a fleeting joy ; still it is a temporary relief, and here they go on the fire ! Shall I break the plate ? First let me look at the back, and see who made it. Copeland. Copeland! Stop a moment. Was it yesterday I visited Copeland’s works, and saw them making plates ? In the con- fusion of travelling about, it might be yesterday or it might be yesterday month ; but I think it was yesterday. I appeal to the plate. The plate says, decidedly, yesterday. I find the plate, as I look at it, growing into a companion. Don’t you remember (says the plate) how you steamed away, yesterday morning, in the bright sun and the east wind, along the valley of the sparkling Trent ? Don’t you recollect how many kilns you flew past, looking like the bowls of gigantic tobacco pipes, cut short off from the stem and turned upside down ? And the fires — and the smoke — and the roads made with bits of crockery, as if all the plates and dishes in the civilized world had been Macadamized, expressly for the laming of all the horses ? Of course I do ! And don’t you remember (says the plate) how you alighted at Stoke — a picturesque heap of houses, kilns, smoke, wharves, canals, and river, lying (as was most appropriate) in a basin — and how, after climbing up the sides of the basin to look at the prospect, you trundled down again at a walking-match pace, and straight proceeded to my father’s, Copeland’s, where 396 A PLATED ABTICLE. the whole of my family, high and low, rich and poor, are turned out upon the world from our nursery and seminary, covering some fourteen acres of ground? And don’t you remember what we spring from : — heaps of lumps of clay, partially prepared and cleaned in Devonshire and Dorsetshire, whence said clay principally comes — and hills of flint, with- out which we should want our ringing sound, and should never be musical ? And as to the flint, don’t you recollect that it is first burnt in kilns, and is then laid under the four iron feet of a demon slave, subject to violent stamping fits, who, when they come on, stamps away insanely with his four iron legs, and would crush all the flint in the Isle of Thanet to powder, without leaving off ? And as to the clay, don’t you recollect how it is put into mills or teazers, and is sliced, and dug, and cut at, by endless knives, clogged and sticky, but persistent — and is pressed out of that machine through a square trough, whose form it takes — and is cut off in square lumps and thrown into a vat, and there mixed with water, and beaten to a pulp by paddle-wheels — and is then run into a rough house, all rugged beams and ladders splashed with white, — superin- tended by Grindoff the Miller in his working clothes, all splashed with white, — where it passes through no end of machinery-moved sieves all splashed with white, arranged in an ascending scale of fineness (some so fine, that three hun- dred silk threads cross each other in a single square inch of their ' surface), and all in a violent state of ague with their teeth forever chattering, and their bodies forever shivering? And as to the flint again, isn’t it mashed and mollified and troubled and soothed, exactly as rags are in a paper-mill, until it is reduced to a pap so fine that it contains no atom of “ grit ” perceptible to the nicest taste ? And as to the flint and the clay together, are they not, after all this, mixed in the proportion of five of clay to one of flint, and isn’t the compound — known as “slip” — run into oblong troughs, where its superfluous moisture may evaporate ; and finally, isn’t it slapped and banged and beaten and patted and kneaded and wedged and knocked about like butter, until it becomes a beautiful gray dough, ready for the potter’s use ? In regard of the potter, popularly so called (says the plate), A PLATED ABTICLE. 397 yon don’t mean to say you have forgotten that a workman called a Thrower is the man under whose hand this gray dough takes the shapes of the simpler household vessels as quickly as the eye can follow ? You don’t mean to say you cannot call him up before you, sitting, with his attendant woman, at his potter’s wheel — a disc about the size of a dinner plate, revolving on two drums slowly or quickly as he wills — who made you a complete breakfast set for a bachelor, as a good-humored little off-hand joke ? You remember how he took up as much dough as he wanted, and, throwing it on his wheel, in a moment fashioned it into a teacup — caught up more clay and made a saucer — a larger dab and whirled it into a teapot — winked at a smaller dab and con- verted it into the lid of the teapot, accurately fitting by the measurement of his eye alone — coaxed a middle-sized dab for two seconds, broke it, turned it over at the rim, and made a milkpot — laughed, and turned out a slop-basin — coughed, and provided for the sugar ? Neither, I think, are you obliv- ious of the newer mode of making various articles, but espe- cially basins, according to which improvement a mould revolves instead of a disc ? For you must remember (says the plate) how you saw the mould of a little basin spinning round and round, and how the workman smoothed and pressed a handful of dough upon it, and how with an instrument called a profile (a piece of wood, representing the profile of a basin’s foot) he cleverly scraped and carved the ring which makes the base of any such basin, and then took the basin off the lathe like a doughey skull-cap to be dried, and afterwards (in what is called a green state) to be put into a second lathe, there to be fin- ished and burnished with a steel burnisher ? And as to mould- ing in general (says the plate), it can’t be necessary for me to remind you that all ornamental articles, and indeed all arti- cles not quite circular, are made in moulds. For you must remember how you saw the vegetable dishes, for example, being made in moulds ; and how the handles of teacups, and the spouts of teapots, and the feet of tureens, and so forth, are all made in little separate moulds, and are each stuck on to the body corporate, of which it is destined to form a part, with a stuff called “ slag,” as quickly as you can recollect it. 398 A PLATED ARTICLE . Further, you learnt — you know you did — in the same visit, how the beautiful sculptures in the delicate new material called Parian, are all constructed in moulds ; how, into that material, animal bones are ground up, because the phosphate of lime contained in bones makes it translucent ; how every- thing is moulded, before going into the fire, one-fourth larger than it is intended to come out of the fire, because it shrinks in that proportion in the intense heat ; ho w, when a figure shrinks unequally, it is spoiled — emerging from the furnace a mis-shapen birth ; a big head and a little body, or a little head and a big body, or a Quasimodo with long arms and short legs, or a Miss Biffin with neither legs nor arms worth men- tioning. And as to the Kilns, in which the firing takes place, and in which some of the more precious articles are burnt repeatedly, in various stages of their process towards completion, — as to the Kilns (says the plate, warming with the recollection), if you don’t remember them with a horrible interest, what did you ever go to Copeland’s for ? When you stood inside of one of those inverted bowls of a Pre-Adamite tobacco-pipe, looking up at the blue sky through the open top far off, as you might have looked up from a well, sunk under the centre of the pavement of the Pantheon at Pome, had you the least idea where you were ? And when you found yourself sur- rounded, in that dome-shaped cavern, by innumerable columns of an unearthly order of architecture, supporting nothing, and squeezed close together as if a Pre-Adamite Sampson had taken a vast Hall in his arms and crushed it into the smallest possible space, had you the least idea what they were ? Ho (says the plate), of course not ! And when you found that each of those pillars was a pile of ingeniously made vessels of coarse clay — called Saggers — looking, when separate, like raised-pies for the table of the mighty giant Blunderbore, and now all full of various articles of pottery ranged in them in baking order, the bottom of each vessel serving for the cover of the one below, and the whole Kiln rapidly filling with these, tier upon tier, until the last workman should have barely room to crawl out, before the closing of the jagged aperture in the wall and the kindling of the gradual fire ; did you not stand A PLATED ARTICLE. 399 amazed to think that all the year round these dread chambers are heating, white hot — and cooling — and filling — and emp- tying — and being bricked up — and broken open — humanely speaking, forever and ever ? To be sure you did ! And stand- ing in one of those Kilns nearly full, and seeing a free crow shoot across the aperture a-top, and learning how the fire would wax hotter and hotter by slow degrees, and would cool similarly through a space of some forty to sixty hours, did no remembrance of the days when human clay was burnt oppress you ? Yes, I think so ! I suspect that some fancy of a fiery haze and a shortening breath, and a growing heat, and a gasp- ing prayer ; and a figure in black interposing between you and the sky (as figures in black are very apt to do), and looking down, before it grew too hot to look and live, upon the Heretic in his edifying agony — I say I suspect (says the plate) that some such fancy was pretty strong upon you when you went out into the air, and blessed God for the bright spring day and the degenerate times ! After that, I needn’t remind you what a relief it was to see the simplest process of ornamenting this “ biscuit ” (as it is called when baked) with brown circles and blue trees — con- verting it into the common crockery-ware that is exported, to Africa, and used in cottages at home. For (says the plate) I am well persuaded that you bear in mind how those par- ticular jugs and mugs were once more set upon a lathe and put in motion ; and how a man blew the brown color (having a strong natural affinity with the material in that condition) on them from a blowpipe as they twirled ; and how his daugh- ter, with a common brush, dropped blotches of blue upon them in the right places ; and how, tilting the blotches upside down, she made them run into rude images of trees, and there an end. And didn’t you see (says the plate) planted upon my own brother that astounding blue willow, with knobbed and gnarled trunk, and foliage of blue ostrich feathers, which gives our family the title of “ willow pattern ? ” And didn’t you observe, transferred upon him at the same time, that blue bridge which spans nothing, growing out from the roots of the willow ; and the three blue Chinese going over it into a blue temple, which 400 A PLATED ARTICLE. has a fine crop of blue bushes sprouting out of the roof ; and a blue boat sailing above them, the mast of which is burglar- iously sticking itself into the foundations of a blue villa, sus- pended sky-high, surmounted by a lump of blue rock, sky-higher, and a couple of billing blue birds, sky -highest — together with the rest of that amusing blue landscape, which has, in defer- ence to our revered ancestors of the Cerulean Empire, and in defiance of every known law of perspective, adorned millions of our family ever since the days of platters ? Didn’t you inspect the copper-plate on which my pattern was deeply en- graved ? Didn’t you perceive an impression of it taken in cobalt color at a cylindrical press, upon a leaf of thin paper, streaming from a plunge-bath of soap and water ? Wasn’t the paper impression daintily spread, by a light-fingered dam- sel (you know you admired her !), over the surface of the plate, and the back of the paper rubbed prodigiously hard — with a long tight roll of flannel, tied up like a round of hung beef — without so much as ruffling the paper, wet as it was ? Then (says the plate), was not the paper washed away with a sponge, and didn’t there appear, set off upon the plate, this identical piece of Pre Eaphaelite blue distemper which you now behold? Not to be denied! I had seen all this — and more. I had been shown, at Copeland’s, patterns of beautiful design, in faultless perspective, which are causing the ugly old willow to wither out of public favor ; and which, being quite as cheap, insinuate good wholesome natural art into the hum- blest households. When Mr. and Mrs. Sprat have satisfied their material tastes by that equal division of fat and lean which has made their menage immortal ; and have, after the elegant tradition, “ licked the platter clean,” they can — thanks to modern artists in clay — feast their intellectual tastes upon excellent delineations of natural objects. This reflection prompts me to transfer my attention from the blue plate to the forlorn but cheerfully painted vase on the sideboard. And surely (says the plate) you have not for- gotten how the outlines of such groups of flowers as you see there, are printed, just as I was printed, and are afterwards shaded and filled in with metallic colors by women and girls ? As to the aristocracy of our order, made of the finer clay — por- A PLATED ARTICLE, 401 celain peers and peeresses ; — the slabs, and panels, and table tops, and tazze; the endless nobility and gentry of dessert, breakfast, and tea services ; the gemmed perfume bottles, and scarlet and gold salvers ; you saw that they were painted by artists, with metallic colors laid on with camel-hair pencils, and afterwards burnt in. And talking of burning in (says the plate), didn’t you find that every subject, from the willow-pattern to the landscape after Turner — having been framed upon clay or porcelain bis- cuit — has to be glazed? Of course, you saw the glaze — composed of various vitreous materials — laid over every ar- ticle ; and of course you witnessed the close imprisonment of each piece in saggers upon the separate system rigidly enforced by means of fine-pointed earthenware stilts placed between the articles to prevent the slightest communication or contact. We had in my time — and I suppose it is the same now — fourteen hours firing to fix the glaze and to make it “ run ” all over us equally, so as to put a good shiny and unscratcliable surface upon us. Doubtless, you observed that one sort of glaze — called printing-body — is burnt into the better sort of ware before it is printed. Upon this you saw some of the fin- est steel engravings transferred, to be fixed by an after glazing — didn’t you ? Why, of course you did ! Of course I did. I had seen and enjoyed everything that the plate recalled to me, and had beheld with admiration how the rotatory motion which keeps this ball of ours in its place in the great scheme, with all its busy mites upon it, was nec- essary throughout the process, and could only be dispensed with in the fire. So, listening to the plate’s reminders, and musing upon them, I got through the evening after all, and went to bed. I made but one sleep of it — for which I have no doubt I am also indebted to the plate — and left the lonely Dodo in the morning, quite at peace with it, before the bandy- legged baby was up. vol. ii — 26 OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. We are delighted to find that he has got in ! Our honora- ble friend is triumphantly returned to serve in the next Par- liament. He is the honorable member for Verbosity — the best represented place in England. Our honorable friend has issued an address of congratula- tion to the Electors, which is worthy of that noble constituency, and is a very pretty piece of composition. In electing him, he says, they have covered themselves with glory, and Eng- land has been true to herself. (In his preliminary address he had remarked, in a poetical quotation of great rarity, that nought could make us rue, if England to herself did prove but true.) Our honorable friend delivers a prediction, in the same document, that the feeble minions of a faction will never hold up their heads any more ; and that the finger of scorn will point at them in their dejected state, through countless ages of time. Further, that the hireling tools that would destroy the sacred bulwarks of our nationality are unworthy of the name of Englishmen ; and that so long as the sea shall roll around our ocean-girded isle, so long his motto shall be, No Surrender. Certain dogged persons of low principles and no intellect, have disputed whether any body knows who the minions are, or what the faction is, or which are the hireling tools and which the sacred bulwarks, or what it is that is never to be surren- dered, and if not, why not ? But, our honorable friend the member for Verbosity knows all about it. Our honorable friend has sat in several parliaments, and given bushels of votes. He is a man of that profundity in the matter of vote-giving, that you never know what he means. When he seems to be voting pure white, he may be in reality voting jet black. When he says Yes, it is just as 402 OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. 403 likely as not — or rather more so — that he means No. This is the statesmanship of our honorable friend. It is in this, that he differs from mere unparliamentary men. You may not know what he meant then, or what he means now ; but, our honorable friend knows, and did from the first know, both what he meant then, and what he means now ; and when he said he didn’t mean it then, he did in fact say, that he means it now. And if you mean to say that you did not then, and do not now, know what he did mean then, or does mean now, our honorable friend will be glad to receive an explicit declara- tion from you whether you are prepared to destroy the sacred bulwarks of our nationality. Our honorable friend, the member for Verbosity, has this great attribute, that he always means something, and always means the same thing. When he came down to that House and mournfully boasted in his place, as an individual member of the assembled Commons of this great and happy country, that he could lay his hand upon his heart, and solemnly de- clare that no consideration on earth should induce him, at any time or under any circumstances, to go as far north as Ber- wick-upon-Tweed ; and when he nevertheless, next year, did go to Berwick-upon-Tweed, and even beyond it, to Edinburgh ; he had one single meaning, one and indivisible. And God forbid (our honorable friend says) that he should waste an- other argument upon the man who professes that he cannot understand it ! “I do not, gentlemen,” said our honorable friend, with indignant emphasis and amid great cheering, on one such public occasion. “ I do not, gentlemen, I am free to confess, envy the feelings of that man whose mind is so con- stituted as that he can hold such language to me, and yet lay his head upon his pillow, claiming to be a native of that land, Whose march is o’er the mountain- wave, Whose home is on the deep ! (Vehement cheering, and man expelled.) When our honorable friend issued his preliminary address to the constituent body of Verbosity on the occasion of one particular glorious triumph, it was supposed by some of his enemies, that even he would be placed in a situation of difli- 404 OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. culty by the following comparatively trifling conjunction of circumstances. The dozen noblemen and gentlemen whom our honorable friend supported, had “come in,” express^ to do a certain thing. Now, four of the dozen said, at a certain place, that they didn’t mean to do that thing, and had never meant to do it ; another four of the dozen said, at another certain place, that they did mean to do that thing, and had always meant to do it ; two of the remaining four said, at two other certain places, that they meant to do half of that thing (but differed about which half), and to do a variety of nameless wonders instead of the other half ; and one of the remaining two declared that the thing itself was dead and buried, while the other as strenuously protested that it was alive and kick- ing. It was admitted that the parliamentary genius of our honorable friend would be quite able to reconcile such small discrepancies as these ; but, there remained the "additional difficulty, that each of the twelve made entirely different state- ments at different places, and that all the twelve called every- thing visible and invisible, sacred and profane, to witness, that they were a perfectly impregnable phalanx of unanimity. This, it was apprehended, would be a stumbling-block to our honorable friend. The difficulty came before our honorable friend, in this way. He went down to Verbosity to meet his free and independent constituents, and to render an account (as he informed them in the local papers) of the trust they had confided to his hands — that trust which it was one of the proudest privileges of an Englishman to possess — that trust which it was the proudest privilege or an Englishman to hold. It may be mentioned as a proof of the great general interest attaching to the contest., that a Lunatic whom nobody employed or knew, went down to Verbosity with several thousand pounds in gold, deter- mined to give the whole away — which he actually did ; and that all the publicans opened their houses for nothing. Like- wise, several fighting men, and a patriotic group of burglars sportively armed with life-preservers, proceeded (in barouches and very drunk) to the scene of action at their own expense ; these children of nature having conceived a warm attachment to our honorable friend, and intending, in their artless OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. 405 manner, to testify it by knocking the voters in the opposite interest on the head. Our honorable friend being come into the presence of his constituents, and having professed with great suavity that he was delighted to see his good friend Tipkisson there, in his working dress — his good friend Tipkisson being an inveterate saddler, who always opposes him, and for whom he has a mor- tal hatred — made them a brisk, ginger-beery sort of speech, in which he showed them how the dozen noblemen and gentle- men had (in exactly ten days from their coming in) exercised a surprisingly beneficial effect on the whole financial condition of Europe, had altered the state of the exports and imports for the current half-year, had prevented the drain of gold, had made all that matter right about the glut of the raw material, and had restored all sorts of balances with which the super- seded noblemen and gentlemen had played the deuce — and all this, with wheat at so much a quarter, gold at so much an ounce, and the Bank of England discounting good bills at so much per cent ! He might be asked, he observed in a perora- tion of great power, what were his principles ? His principles were what they always had been. His principles were written in the countenances of the lion and unicorn; were stamped indelibly upon the royal shield which those grand animals supported, and upon the free words of fire which that shield bore. His principles were, Britannia and her sea-king trident ! His principles were, commercial prosperity co-existently with perfect and profound agricultural contentment ; but short of this he would never stop. His principles were these, — with the addition of his colors nailed to the mast, every man’s heart in the right place, every man’s eye open, every man’s hand ready, every man’s mind on the alert. His principles were these, concurrently with a general revision of something — speaking generally — and a possible re-adjustment of some- thing else, not to be mentioned more particularly. His prin- ciples, to sum up all in a word, were, Hearths and Altars, Labor and Capital, Crown and Sceptre, Elephant and Castle. And now, if his good friend Tipkisson required any further explanation from him, he (our honorable friend) was there, willing and ready to give it. 406 OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. Tipkisson, who all this time had stood conspicuous in the crowd, with his arms folded and his eyes intently fastened on our honorable friend : Tipkisson, who throughout our honorable friend’s address had not relaxed a muscle of his visage, but had stood there, wholly unaffected by the torrent of eloquence : an object of contempt and scorn to mankind (by which we mean, of course, to the supporters of our honorable friend); Tipkisson now said that he was a plain man (Cries of “ You are indeed!”), and that what he wanted to know was, what our honorable friend and the dozen noblemen and gentlemen were driving at ? Our honorable friend immediately replied, “ At the illimit- able perspective.” It was considered by the whole assembly that this happy statement of our honorable friend’s political views ought, immediately, to have settled Tipkisson’s business and covered him with confusion; but, that implacable person, regardless of the execrations that were heaped upon him from all sides (by which we mean, of course, from our honorable friend’s side), persisted in retaining an unmoved countenance, and obstinately retorted that if our honorable friend meant that, he wished to- know what that meant ? It was in repelling this most objectionable and indecent opposition, that our honorable friend displayed his highest qualifications for the representation of Verbosity. His warm- est supporters present, and those who were best acquainted with his generalship, supposed that the moment was come when he would fall back upon the sacred bulwarks of our nationality. No such thing. He replied thus : “ My good friend Tipkisson, gentlemen, wishes to know what I mean when he asks me what we are driving at, and when I candidly tell him, at the illimitable perspective. He wishes (if I under- stand him) to know what I mean ? ” “ I do ! ” says Tipkisson, amid cries of “ Shame” and “Down with him.” “Gentle- men,” says our honorable friend, “I will indulge my good friend Tipkisson, by telling him, both what I mean and what I don’t mean. (Cheers and cries of “ Give it him ! ”) Be it known to him then, and to all whom it may concern, that I do mean altars, hearths, and homes, and that I don’t mean OUR HONORABLE FRIEND . 407 mosques and Mahommedanism ! ” The effect of this home- thrust was terrific. Tipkisson (who is a Baptist) was hooted down and hustled out, and has ever since been regarded as a Turkish Renegade who contemplates an early pilgrimage to Mecca. Nor was he the only discomfited man. The charge, while it struck to him, was magically transferred to our honor- able friend’s opponent, who was represented in an immense variety of placards as a firm believer in Mahomet; and the men of Verbosity were asked to choose between our honorable friend and the Bible, and our honorable friend’s opponent and the Koran. They decided for our honorable friend, and ral- lied round the illimitable perspective. It has been claimed for our honorable friend, with much appearance of reason, that he was the first to bend sacred mat- ters to electioneering tactics. However this may be, the fine precedent was undoubtedly set in a Verbosity election : and it is certain that our honorable friend (who was a disciple of Brahma in his youth, and was a Buddhist when he had the honor of travelling with him a few years ago,) always pro- fesses in public more anxiety than the whole Bench of Bishops, regarding the theological and doxological opinions of every man, woman, and child, in the United Kingdom. As we began by saying that our honorable friend has got in again at this last election, and that we are delighted to find that he has got in, so we will conclude. Our honorable friend cannot come in for Verbosity too often. It is a good sign; it is a great example. It is to men like our honorable friend, and to contests like those from which he comes triumphant, that we are mainly indebted for that ready interest in politics, that fresh enthusiasm in the discharge of the duties of citizen- ship, that ardent desire to rush to the poll, at present so man- ifest throughout England. When the contest lies (as it some- times does) between two such men as our honorable friend, it stimulates the finest emotions of our nature, and awakens the highest admiration of which our heads and hearts are capable. It is not too much to predict that our honorable friend will be always at his post in the ensuing session. Whatever the question be, or whatever the form of its discussion ; address to the crown, election-petition, expenditure of the public 408 OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. money, extension of the public suffrage, education, crime; in the whole house, in committee of the whole house, in select committee ; in every parliamentary discussion of every subject, everywhere : the Honorable Member for Verbosity will most certainly be found. OUR SCHOOL. We went to look at it, only this last Midsummer, and found that the Railway had cut it up root and branch. A great trunk-line had swallowed the play-ground, sliced away the schoolroom, and pared off the corner of the house : which, thus curtailed of its proportions, presented itself, in a green stage of stucco, profilewise towards the road, like a forlorn flat-iron without a handle, standing on end. It seems as if our schools were doomed to be the sport of change. We have faint recollections of a Preparatory Day- School, which we have sought in vain, and which must have been pulled down to make a new street, ages ago. We have dim impressions, scarcely amounting to a belief, that it was over a dyer’s shop. We know that you went up steps to it; that you frequently grazed your knees in doing so ; that you generally got your leg over the scraper, in trying to scrape the mud off a very unsteady little shoe. The mistress of the Establishment holds no place in our memory ; but, rampant on one eternal door-mat, in an eternal entry long and narrow, is a puffy pug-dog, with a personal animosity towards us, who triumphs over Time. The bark of that baleful Pug, a certain radiating way he had of snapping at our undefended legs, the ghastly grinning of his moist black muzzle and white teeth, and the insolence of his crisp tail curled like a pastoral crook, all live and flourish. Prom an otherwise unaccountable associ- ation of him with a fiddle, we conclude that he was of French extraction, and his name Fiddle. He belonged to some female, chiefly inhabiting a back-parlor, whose life appears to us to have been consumed in sniffing, and in wearing a brown beaver bonnet. For her, he would sit up and balance cake upon his nose, and not eat it until twenty had been counted. To the best of our belief we were once called in to witness this per- 409 410 OUR SCHOOL. formance ; when, unable, even in his milder moments, to endure our presence, he instantly made at us, cake and all. Why a something in mourning, called “ Miss Frost,” should still connect itself with our preparatory school, we are unable to say. We retain no impression of the beauty of Miss Frost — if she were beautiful ; or of the mental fascinations of Miss Frost — if she were accomplished ; yet her name and her black dress hold an enduring place in our remembrance. An equally impersonal boy, whose name has long since shaped itself un- alterably into “ Master Mawls,” is not to be dislodged from our brain. Betaining no vindictive feeling towards Mawls — no feeling whatever, indeed — we infer that neither he nor we can have loved Miss Frost. Our first impression of Death and Burial is associated with this formless pair. We all three nestled awfully in a corner one wintry day, when the wind was blowing shrill, with Miss Frost’s pinafore over our heads ; and Miss Frost told us in a whisper about somebody being “screwed down.” It is the only distinct recollection we pre- serve of these impalpable creatures, except a suspicion that the manners of Master Mawls were susceptible of much im- provement. Generally speaking, we may observe that when- ever we see a child intently occupied with its nose, to the exclusion of all other subjects of interest, our mind reverts, in a flash, to Master Mawls. But, the School that was Our School before the Bailroad came and overthrew it, was quite another sort of place. We were old enough to be put into Virgil when we went there, and to get Prizes for a variety of polishing on which the rust has long accumulated. It was a School of some celebrity in its neighborhood — nobody could have said why — and we had the honor to attain and hold the eminent position of first boy. The master was supposed among us to know nothing, and one of the ushers was supposed to know everything. We are still inclined to think the first-named supposition perfectly correct. We have a general idea that its subject had been in the leather trade, and had bought us — meaning Our School — of another proprietor, who was immensely learned. Whether this belief had any real foundation, we are not likely ever to know now. The only branches of education with which he OUB SCHOOL. 411 showed, the least acquaintance, were, ruling and corporally punishing. He was always ruling ciphering-books with a bloated mahogany ruler, or smiting the palms of offenders with the same diabolical instrument, or viciously drawing a pair of pantaloons tight with one of his large hands, and caning the wearer with the other. We have no doubt what- ever that this occupation was the principal solace of his ex- istence. A profound respect for money pervaded Our School, which was of course derived from its Chief. We remember an idi- otic goggled-eyed boy, with a big head and half-crowns with- out end, who suddenly appeared as a parlor-boarder, and was rumored to have come by sea from some mysterious part of the earth where his parents rolled in gold. He was usually called “ Mr.” by the Chief, and was said to feed in the parlor on steaks and gravy; likewise to drink currant wine. And he openly stated that if rolls and coffee were ever denied him at breakfast, he would write home to that unknown part of the globe from which he had come, and cause himself to be recalled to the regions of gold. He was put into no form or class, but learnt alone, as little as he liked — and he liked very little — and there was a belief among us that this was because he was too wealthy to be “ taken down.” His special treat- ment, and our vague association of him with the sea, and with storms, and sharks, and Coral Reefs, occasioned the wildest legends to be circulated as his history. A tragedy in blank verse was written on the subject — if our memory does not deceive us, by the hand that now chronicles these recollections — in which his father figured as a Pirate, and was shot for a voluminous catalogue of atrocities : first imparting to his wife the secret of the cave in which his wealth was stored, and from which his only son’s half-crowns now issued. Dumbledon (the boy’s name) was represented as “yet unborn” when his brave father met his fate ; and the despair and grief of Mrs. Dumble- don at that calamity was movingly shadowed forth as having weakened the parlor-boarder’s mind. This production was re- ceived with great favor, and was twice performed with closed doors in the dining-room. But, it got wind, and was seized as libellous, and brought the unlucky poet into severe affliction. 412 OUB SCHOOL. Some two years afterwards, all of a sudden one day, Durnble- don vanished. It was whispered that the Chief himself had taken him down to the Docks, and re-shipped him for the Spanish Main ; but nothing certain was ever known about his disappearance. At this hour, we cannot thoroughly disconnect him from California. Our School was rather famous for mysterious pupils. There was another — a heavy young man, with a large double- cased silver watch, and a fat knife the handle of which was a perfect tool-box — who unaccountably appeared one day at a special desk of his own, erected close to that of the Chief, with whom he held familiar converse. He lived in the parlor, and went out for walks, and never took the least notice of us — even of us, the first boy — unless to give us a depreciatory kick, or grimly to take our hat off and throw it away, when he encountered us out of doors, which unpleasant ceremony he always performed as he passed — not even condescending to stop for the purpose. Some of us believed that the classical attainments of this phenomenon were terrific, but that his penmanship and arithmetic were defective, and he had come there to mend them ; others, that he was going to set up a school, and had paid the Chief “ twenty-five pound down / 5 for leave to see Our School at work The gloomier spirits even said that he was going to buy us ; against which con- tingency, conspiracies were set on foot for a general defection and running away. However, he never did that. After staying for a quarter, during which period, though closely observed, he was never seen to do anything but make pens out of quills, write small-hand in a secret portfolio, and punch the point of the sharpest blade in his knife into his desk all over it, he too disappeared, and his place knew him no more. There was another boy, a fair, meek boy, with a delicate complexion and rich curling hair, who, we found out, or thought we found out (we have no idea now, and probably had none then, on what grounds, but it was confidentially revealed from mouth to mouth), was the son of a Yiscount who had deserted his lovely mother. It was understood that if he had his rights, he would be worth twenty thousand a year. And that if his mother ever met his father, she would, OUR SCHOOL. 413 shoot him with a silver pistol, which she carried, always loaded to the muzzle, for that purpose. He was a very suggestive topic. So was a young Mulatto, who was always believed (though very amiable) to have a dagger about him somewhere. But, we think they were both outshone, upon the whole, by another boy who claimed to have been born on the twenty-ninth of February, and to have only one birthday in five years. We suspect this to have been a fiction — but he lived upon it all the time he was at Our School. The principal currency of Our School was slate-pencil. It had some inexplicable value, that was never ascertained, never reduced to a standard. To have a great hoard of it, was somehow to be rich. We used to bestow it in charity, and confer it as a precious boon upon our chosen friends. When the holidays were coming, contributions were solicited for certain boys whose relatives were in India, and who were appealed for under the generic name of “ Holiday-stoppers/’ — appropriate marks of remembrance that should enliven and cheer them in their homeless state. Personally, we always contributed these tokens of sympathy in the form of slate- pencil, and always felt that it would be a comfort and a treasure to them. Our School was remarkable for white mice. Bed-polls, linnets, and even canaries, were kept in desks, drawers, hat- boxes, and other strange refuges for birds ; but white mice were the favorite stock. The boys trained the mice, much better than the masters trained the boys. We recall one white mouse, who lived in the cover of a Latin dictionary, who ran up ladders, drew Eoman chariots, shouldered muskets, turned wheels, and even made a very creditable appearance on the stage as the Hog of Montargis. He might have achieved greater things, but for having the misfortune to mistake his way in a triumphal procession to the Capitol, when he fell into a deep inkstand, and was dyed black and drowned The mice were the occasion of some most ingenious engineering, in the construction of their houses and instru- ments of performance. The famous one belonged to a Com- pany of proprietors, some of whom have since made Bailroads, 414 OUR SCHOOL. Engines, and Telegraphs ; the chairman has erected mills and bridges in New Zealand. The usher at Our School, who was considered to know every- thing as opposed to the Chief, who was considered to know nothing, was a bony, gentle-faced, clerical-looking young man in rusty black. It was whispered that he was sweet upon one of Maxby ’s sisters (Maxby lived close by, and was a day pupil), and further that he “ favored Maxby.” As we remember, he taught Italian to Maxby’s sisters on half- holidays. He once went to the play with them, and wore a white waistcoat and a rose : which was considered among us equivalent to a declaration. We were of opinion on that occasion, that to the last moment he expected Maxby’s father to ask him to dinner at five o’clock, and therefore neglected his own dinner at half-past one, and finally got none. We exaggerated in our imaginations the extent to which he pun- ished Maxby’s father’s cold meat at supper ; and we agreed to believe that he was elevated with wine and water when he came home. But, we all liked him ; for he had a good knowl- edge of boys, and would have made it a much better school if he had had more power. He was writing-master, mathemati- cal master, English master, made out the bills, mended the pens, and did all sorts of things. He divided the little boys with the Latin master (they were smuggled through their rudi- mentary books, at odd times when there was nothing else to do), and he always called at parents’ houses to inquire after sick boys, because he had gentlemanly manners. He was rather musical, and on some remote quarter-day had bought an old trombone ; but a bit of it was lost, and it made the most extraordinary sounds when he sometimes tried to play it of an evening. His holidays never began (on. account of the bills) until long after ours ; but, in the summer vacations he used to take pedestrian excursions with a knapsack ; and at Christmas-time, he went to see his father at Chipping Norton, who we all said (on no authority) was a dairy-fed-pork-butcher. Poor fellow ! He was very low all day on Maxby’s sister’s wedding-day, and afterwards was thought to favor Maxby more than ever, though he had been expected to spite him. He has been dead these twenty years. Poor fellow ! OUR SCHOOL. 415 Our remembrance of Our School, presents the Latin master as a colorless doubled-up near-sighted man with a crutch, who was always cold, and always putting onions into his ears for deafness, and always disclosing ends of flannel under all his garments, and almost always applying a ball of pocket-hand- kerchief to some part of his face with a screwing action round and round. He was a very good scholar, and took great pains where he saw intelligence and a desire to learn: otherwise, perhaps not. Our memory presents him (unless teased into a passion) with as little energy as color — as having been worried and tormented into monotonous feebleness — as having had the best part of his life ground out of him in a Mill of boys. We remember with terror how he fell asleep one sultry afternoon with the little smuggled class before him, and woke not when the footstep of the Chief fell heavy on the floor ; how the Chief aroused him, in the midst of a dread silence, and said, “ Mr. Blinkins, are you ill, sir ? ” how he blushingly replied, “ Sir, rather so ” ; how the Chief retorted with sever- ity, “ Mr. Blinkins, this is no place to be ill in ” (which was very, very true), and walked back, solemn as the ghost in Hamlet, until, catching a wandering eye, he caned that boy for inattention, and happily expressed his feelings towards the Latin master through the medium of a substitute. There was a fat little dancing-master who used to come in a gig, and taught the more advanced among us hornpipes (as an accomplishment in great social demand in after-life) ; and there was a brisk little French master who used to come in the sunniest weather, with a handleless umbrella, and to whom the Chief was always polite, because (as we believed), if the Chief offended him, he would instantly address the Chief in French, and for ever confound him before the boys with his inability to understand or reply. There was besides, a serving man, whose name was Phil. Our retrospective glance presents Phil as a shipwrecked car- penter, cast away upon the desert island of a school, and carry- ing into practice an ingenious inkling of many trades. He mended whatever was broken, and made whatever was wanted. He was general glazier, among other things, and mended all the broken windows — at the prime cost (as was darkly ru- 416 OUR SCHOOL. mored among us) of ninepence, for every square charged three- and-six to parents. We had a high opinion of his mechanical genius, and generally held that the Chief “knew something bad of him,” and on pain of divulgence enforced Phil to be his bondsman. We particularly remember that Phil had a sover- eign contempt for learning : which engenders in us a respect for his sagacity, as it implies his accurate observation of the relative positions of the Chief and the ushers. He was an impenetrable man, who waited at the table between whiles, and throughout “the half” kept the boxes in severe custody. He was morose, even to the Chief, and never smiled, except at breaking-up, when, in acknowledgment of the toast, “ Success to Phil ! Hooray ! ” he would slowly carve a grin out of his wooden face, where it would remain until we w^ere all gone. Nevertheless, one time when we had the scarlet fever in the school, Phil nursed all the sick boys of his own accord, and was like a mother to them. There was another school not far off, and of course our school could have nothing to say to that school. It is mostly the way with schools, whether of boys or men. Well ! the railway has swallowed up ours, and the locomotives now run smoothly over its ashes. So fades and languishes, grows dim and dies, All that this world is proud of, — and is not proud of, too. It had little reason to be proud of Our School, and has done much better since in that way, and will do far better yet. OUR VESTRY. We have the glorious privilege of being always in hot water if we like. We are a shareholder in a Great Parochial British Joint Stock Bank of Balderdash. We have a Vestry in our borough, and can vote for a vestryman — might even be a vestryman, mayhap, if we were inspired by a lofty and noble ambition. Which we are not. Our Vestry is a deliberative assembly of the utmost dignity and importance. Like the Senate of ancient Rome, its awful gravity overpowers (or ought to overpower) barbarian visitors. It sits in the Capitol (we mean in the capital building erected for it), chiefly on Saturdays, and shakes the earth to its centre with the echoes of its thundering eloquence, in a Sun- day paper. To get into this Vestry in the eminent capacity of Vestry- man, gigantic efforts are made, and Herculean exertions used. It is made manifest to the dullest capacity at every election, that if we reject Snozzle we are done for, and that if we fail to bring in Blunderbooze at the top of the poll, we are un- worthy of the dearest rights of Britons. Flaming placards are rife on all the dead walls in the borough, public-houses hang out banners, hackney-cabs burst into full-grown flowers of type, and everybody is, or should be, in a paroxysm of anxiety. At these momentous crises of the national fate, we are much assisted in our deliberations by two eminent volunteers ; one of whom subscribes himself A Fellow Parishoner, the other, A Rate-Payer. Who they are, or what they are, or where they are, nobody knows ; but, whatever one asserts, the other contradicts. They are both voluminous writers, inditing more epistles than Lord Chesterfield in a single week; and the greater part of their feelings are too big for utterance in any- vol. n — 27 417 418 OUR VESTRY. thing less than capital letters. They require the additional aid of whole rows of notes of admiration, like balloons, to point their generous indignation ; and they sometimes com- municate a crushing severity to stars. As thus ; MEN OF MOONEYMOUNT. Is it, or is it not, a # * to saddle the parish with a debt of £2,745 6s. 9 d., yet claim to be a rigid economist ? Is it, or is it not, a # * * to state as a fact what is proved to be both a moral and a physical impossibility ? Is it, or is it not, a * * * to call £2,745 6s. 9 d. nothing; and nothing, something ? Do you, or do you not , want a * # * * to represent you in the Vestry ? Your consideration of these questions is recommended to you by A Fello.w Parishioner. It was to this important public document that one of our first orators, Mr. Magg (of Little Winkling Street), adverted, when he opened the great debate of the fourteenth of Novem- ber by saying, “ Sir, I hold in my hand an anonymous slander ” — and when the interruption, with which he was at that point assailed by the opposite faction, gave rise to that memorable discussion on a point of order which will ever be remembered with interest by constitutional assemblies. In the animated debate to which we refer, no fewer than thirty-seven gentle- men, many of them of great eminence, including Mr. Wigsby (of Chumbledon Square), were seen upon their legs at one time ; and it was on the same great occasion that Dogginson — regarded in our Vestry as “a regular John Bull:” we believe, in consequence of his having always made up his mind on every subject without knowing anything about it — in- formed another gentleman of similar principles on the opposite side, that if he “ cheek’d him,” he would resort to the extreme measure of knocking his blessed head off. This was a great occasion. But, our Vestry shines habitu- ally. In asserting its own pre-eminence, for instance, it is OUB VESTBY. 419 very strong. On the least provocation, or on none, it will be clamorous to know whether it is to be “ dictated to,” or “ tram- pled on,” or “ ridden over rough-shod.” Its great watchword is- Self-government. That is to say, supposing our Vestry to favor any little harmless disorder like Typhus Fever, and supposing the Government of the country to be, by any acci- dent, in such ridiculous hands, as that any of its authorities should consider it a duty to object to Typhus Fever — obviously an unconstitutional objection — then, our Vestry cuts in with a terrible manifesto about Self-government, and claims its independent right to have as much Typhus Fever as pleases itself. Some absurd and dangerous persons have represented, on the other hand, that though our Vestry may be able to “ beat the bounds ” of its own parish, it may not be able to beat the bounds of its own diseases ; which (say they) spread over the whole land, in an ever-expanding circle of waste, and misery, and death, and widowhood, and orphanage, and desolation. But, our Vestry makes short work of any such fellows as these. It was our Vestry — pink of Vestries as it is — that in support of its favorite principle took the celebrated ground of denying the existence of the last pestilence that raged in England, when the pestilence was raging at the Vestry doors. Dogginson said it was plums ; Mr. Wigsby (of Chumbledon Square) said it was oysters ; Mr. Magg (of Little Winkling Street) said, amid great cheering, it was the newspapers. The noble indignation of our Vestry with that un-English institution the Board of Health, under those circumstances, yields one of the finest passages in its history. It wouldn’t hear of rescue. Like Mr. Joseph Miller’s Frenchman, it would be drowned and nobody should save it. Transported beyond grammar by its kindled ire, it spoke in unknown tongues, and vented unintelligible bellowings, more like an ancient oracle than the modern oracle it is admitted on all hands to be. Bare exigen- cies produce rare things ; and even our Vestry, .new hatched to the woeful time, came forth a greater goose than ever. But this, again, was a special occasion. Our Vestry, at more ordinary periods, demands its meed of praise. Our Vestry is eminently parliamentary. Playing at Parlia- 420 OUR VESTRY. ment is its favorite game. It is even regarded by some of its members as a chapel of ease to the House of Commons : a Little Go to be passed first. It has its strangers’ gallery, and its reported debates (see the Sunday paper before mentioned), and our Vestrymen are in and out of order, and on and off their legs, and above all are transcendently quarrelsome, after the pattern of the real original. Our Vestry being assembled, Mr. Magg never begs to trouble Mr. Wigsby with a simple inquiry. He knows better than that. Seeing the honorable gentleman, associated in their minds with Chumbledon Square, in his place, he wishes to ask that honorable gentleman what the intentions of him- self, and those with whom he acts, may be, on the subject of the paving of the district known as Piggleum Buildings ? Mr. Wigsby replies (with his eye on next Sunday’s paper), that in reference to the question which has been put to him by the honorable gentleman opposite, he must take leave to say, that if that honorable gentleman had had the courtesy to give him notice of that question, he (Mr. Wigsby) would have consulted with his colleagues in reference to the advis- ability, in the present state of the discussions on th$ new paving-rate, of answering that question. But, as the honor- able gentleman has not had the courtesy to give him notice of that question (great cheering from the Wigsby interest), he must decline to give the honorable gentleman the satisfaction he requires. Mr. Magg, instantly rising to retort, is received with loud cries of “ Spoke ! ” from the Wigsby interest, and with cheers from the Magg side of the house. Moreover, five gentlemen rise to order, and one of them, in revenge for being taken no notice of, petrifies the assembly by moving that this Vestry do now adjourn ; but, is persuaded to withdraw that awful proposal, in consideration of its tremendous consequences if persevered in. Mr. Magg, for the purpose of being heard, then begs to move, that you, Sir, do now pass to the order of the day ; and takes that opportunity of saying, that if an honorable gentleman whom he has in his eye, and will not demean himself by more particularly naming (oh, oh, and cheers), supposes that he is to be put down by clamor, that honorable gentleman — however supported he may be, through OUR VESTRY. 421 thick and thin, by a Fellow Parishioner, with whom he is well acquainted (cheers and counter-cheers, Mr. Magg being invariably backed by the Rate-Payer) — will find himself mistaken. Upon this, twenty members of our Vestry speak in succession concerning what the two great men have meant, until it appears, after an hour and twenty minutes, that neither of them meant anything. Then our Vestry begins business. We have said that, after the pattern of the real original, our Vestry in playing at Parliament is transcendently quarrel- some. It enjoys a personal altercation above all things. Perhaps the most redoubtable case of this kind we have ever had — though we have had so many that it is difficult to decide — was that on which the last extreme solemnities passed between Mr. Tiddypot (of Gumtion House) and Captain Banger (of Wilderness Walk). In an adjourned debate on the question whether water could be regarded in the light of a necessary of life ; respecting which there were great differences of opinion, and many shades of sentiment ; Mr. Tiddypot, in a powerful burst of eloquence against that hypothesis, frequently made use of the expression that such and such a rumor had “ reached his ears.” Captain Banger, following him, and holding that, for purposes of ablution and refreshment, a pint of water per diem was necessary for every adult of the lower classes, and half a pint for every child, cast ridicule upon his address in a sparkling speech, and concluded by saying that instead of those rumors having reached the ears of the honorable gentle- man, he rather thought the honorable gentleman’s ears must have reached the rumors, in consequence of their well-known length. Mr. Tiddypot immediately rose, looked the honor- able and gallant gentleman full in the face, and left the Vestry. The excitement, at this moment painfully intense, was heightened to an acute degree when Captain Banger rose, and also left the Vestry. After a few moments of profound silence — one of these breathless pauses never to be forgotten — Mr. Chib (of Tucket’s Terrace, and the father of the Vestry) rose. He said that words and looks had passed in that assembly, 422 OUR VESTRY. replete with consequences which every feeling mind must deplore. Time pressed. The sword was drawn, and while he spoke the scabbard might be thrown away. He moved that those honorable gentlemen who had left the Vestry be recalled, and required to pledge themselves upon their honor that this affair should go no farther. The motion being by a general union of parties unanimously agreed to (for everybody wanted to have the belligerents there, instead of out of sight : which was no fun at all), Mr. Magg was deputed to recover Captain Banger, and Mr. Chib himself to go in search of Mr. Tiddypot. The captain was found in a conspicuous position, surveying the passing omnibuses from the top step of the front-door immediately adjoining the beadle’s box; Mr. Tiddypot made a desperate attempt at resistance, but was overpowered by Mr. Chib (a remarkably hale old gentleman of eighty-two), and brought back in safety. Mr. Tiddypot and the Captain being restored to their places, and glaring on each other, were called upon by the chair to abandon all homicidal intentions, and give the Vestry an assurance that they did so. Mr. Tiddypot remained pro- foundly silent. The Captain likewise remained profoundly silent, saving that he was observed by those around him to fold his arms like Napoleon Buonaparte, and to snort in his breathing — actions but too expressive of gunpowder. The most intense emotion now prevailed. Several members clustered in remonstrance round the Captain, and several round Mr. Tiddypot ; but, both were obdurate. Mr. Chib then presented himself amid tremendous cheering, and said, that not to shrink from the discharge of his painful duty, he must now move that both honorable gentlemen be taken into custody by the beadte, and conveyed to the nearest police- office, there to be held to bail. The union of parties still continuing, the motion was seconded by Mr. Wigsby — on all usual occasions Mr. Chib’s opponent — and rapturously car- ried with only one dissentient voice. This was Dogginson’s, who said from his place “ Let ’em fight it out with fistes ; ” but whose coarse remark was received as it merited. The beadle now advanced along the floor of the Vestry, and beckoned with his cocked hat to both members. Every OUR VESTRY. 423 breath was suspended. To say that a pin might have been heard to fall, would be feebly to express the all-absorbing interest and silence. Suddenly, enthusiastic cheering broke out from every side of the Vestry. Captain Banger had risen — being, in fact, pulled up by a friend on either side, and poked up by a friend behind. The Captain said, in a deep, determined voice, that he had every respect for that Vestry and every respect for that chair ; that he also respected the honorable gentleman of Gumtion House ; but, that he respected his honor more. Hereupon the Captain sat down, leaving the whole Vestry much affected. Mr. Tiddypot instantly rose, and was received with the same encouragement. He likewise said — and the exquisite art of this orator communicated to the observation an air of fresh- ness and novelty — that he too had every respect for that Ves- try ; that he too had every respect for that chair. That he too respected that honorable and gallant gentleman of Wil- derness Walk; but, that he too respected his honor more. “Howsoever,” added the distinguished Vestryman, “if the honorable or gallant gentleman’s honor is never more doubted and damaged than it is by me, he’s all right.” Captain Banger immediately started up again, and said that after those observations, involving as they did ample concession to his honor without compromising the honor of the honorable gentleman, he would be wanting in honor as well as in gener- osity, if he did not at once repudiate all intention of wound- ing the honor of the honorable gentleman, or saying anything dishonorable to his honorable feelings. These observations were repeatedly interrupted by bursts of cheers. Mr. Tiddy- pot retorted that he well knew the spirit of honor by which the honorable and gallant gentleman was so honorably ani- mated, and that he accepted an honorable explanation, offered in a way that did him honor; but, he trusted that the Vestry would consider that his (Mr. Tiddypot’s) honor had impera- tively demanded of him that painful course which he had felt it due to his honor to adopt. The Captain and Mr. Tiddypot then touched their hats to one another across the Vestry, a great many times, and it is thought that these proceedings 424 OUR VESTRY . (reported to the extent of several columns in next Sunday’s paper) will bring them in as church wardens next year. All this was strictly after the pattern of the real original, and so are the whole of our Vestry’s proceedings. In all their debates, they are laudably imitative of the windy and wordy slang of the real original, and of nothing that is better in it. They have headstrong party animosities, without any reference to the merits of questions ; they tack a surprising amount of debate to a very little business ; they set more store by forms than they do by substances: — all very like the real original ! It has been doubted in our borough, whether our Vestry is of any utility; but our own conclusion is, that it is of the use to the Borough that a diminishing mir- ror is to a Painter, as enabling it to perceive in a small focus of absurdity all the surface defects of the real original. OUR BORE. It is unnecessary to say that we keep a bore. Everybody does. But, the bore whom we have the pleasure and honor of enumerating among our particular friends, is such a generic bore, and has so many traits (as it appears to us) in common with the great bore family, that we are tempted to make him the subject of the present notes. May he be generally accepted ! Our bore is admitted on all hands to be a good-hearted man. He may put fifty people out of temper, but he keeps his own. He preserves a sickly solid smile upon his face, when other faces are ruffled by the perfection he has attained in his art, and has an equable voice which never travels out of one key or rises above one pitch. His manner is a manner of tranquil interest. Hone of his opinions are startling. Among his deepest-rooted convictions, it may be mentioned that he con- siders the air of England damp, and holds that our lively neighbors — he always calls the French our lively neighbors — have the advantage of us in that particular, nevertheless, he is unable to forget that John Bull is John Bull all the world over, and that England with all her faults is England still. Our bore has travelled. He could not possibly be a com- plete bore without having travelled. He rarely speaks of his travels without introducing, sometimes on his own plan of construction, morsels of the language of the country : — which he always translates. You cannot name to him any little remote town in France, Italy, Germany, or Switzerland but he knows it well ; stayed there a fortnight under peculiar circum- stances. And talking of that little place, perhaps you know a statue over an old fountain, up a little court, which is the sec- ond — no, the third — stay — yes, the third turning on the 425 426 OUR BORE. right, after you come out of the Post house, going up the hill towards the market ? You don’t know that statue ? Nor that fountain ? You surprise him ! They are not usually seen by travellers (most extraordinary, he has never yet met with a single traveller who knew them, except one German, the most intelligent man he ever met in his life ?) but he thought that you would have been the man to find them out. And then he describes them, in a circumstantial lecture half an hour long, generally delivered behind a door which is constantly being opened from the other side; and implores you, if you ever revisit that place, now do go and look at that statue and fountain ! Our bore, in a similar manner, being in Italy, made a dis- covery of a dreadful picture, which has been the terror of a large portion of the civilized world ever since. We have seen the liveliest men paralyzed by it, across a broad dining-table. He was lounging among the mountains, sir, basking in the mellow influences of the climate, when he came to una piccola chiesa — a little church — or perhaps it would be more correct to say una piccolissima cappella — the smallest chapel you can possibly imagine — and walked in. There was nobody inside but a cieco — a blind man — saying his prayers, and a vecchio padre — old friar — rattling a money-box. But, above the head of that friar, and immediately to the right of the altar as you enter — to the right of the altar ? No. To the left of the altar as you enter — or say near the centre — there hung a painting (subject, Virgin and Child) so divine in its expression, so pure and yet so warm and rich in its tone, so fresh in its touch, at once so glowing in its color and so statuesque in its repose, that our bore cried out in an ecstasy, “ That’s the finest picture in Italy ! ” And $o it is, sir. There is no doubt of it. It is astonishing that that picture is so little known. Even the painter is uncertain. He afterwards took Blumb, of the Royal Academy (it is to be observed that our bore takes none but eminent people to see sights, and that none but eminent people take our bore), and you never saw a man so affected in your life as Blumb was. He cried like a child ! And then our bore begins his description in detail — for all this is intro- OUR BORE. 427 ductory — and strangles his hearers with the folds of the pur- ple drapery. By an equally fortunate conjunction of accidental circum- stances, it happened that when our bore was in Switzerland, he discovered a Valley, of that superb character, that Chamouni is not to be mentioned in the same breath with it. This is how it was, sir. He was travelling on a mule — had been in the saddle some days — when, as he and the guide, Pierre Blanquo : whom you may know, perhaps ? — our bore is sorry you don’t, because he is the only guide deserving of the name — as he and Pierre were descending, towards even- ing, among those everlasting snows, to the little village of La Croix, our bore observed a mountain track turning off sharply to the right. At first he was uncertain whether it was a track at all, and in fact, he said to Pierre, “ Qu’est que c’est done , mon ami ? — What is that, my friend?” “ Oil, monsieur? ” said Pierre — “ Where, sir ? ” “ Ld ! — there ! ” said our bore. “ Monsieur , ce n’est rien de tout — sir, it’s nothing at all,” said Pierre. “ Allons l — Make haste. 11 va neiger — it’s going to snow ! ” But, our bore was not to be done in that way, and he firmly replied, “ I wish to go in that direction — je veux y alter. I am bent upon it — je suis determine. En avant ! — go ahead ! ” In consequence of which firmness on our bore’s part, they proceeded, sir, during two hours of evening, and three of moonlight (they waited in a cavern till the moon was up), along the slenderest track, overhanging perpendicularly the most awful gulfs, until they arrived, by a winding descent, in a valley that possibly, and he may say probably, was never visited by any stranger before. What a valley ! Mountains piled on mountains, avalanches stemmed by pine forests ; waterfalls, chalets, mountain-torrents, wooden bridges, every conceivable picture of Swiss scenery ! The whole village turned out to receive our bore. The peasant girls kissed him, the men shook hands with him, one old lady of benevolent appearance wept upon his breast. He was conducted, in a primitive triumph, to the little inn : where he was taken ill next morning, and lay for six weeks, attended by the amiable hostess (the same benevolent old lady who had wept over night) and her charming daughter, Fanchette. It is nothing to 428 OUR BORE. say that they were attentive to- him ; they doted on him. They called him in their simple way, VAnge Anglais — the English Angel. When our bore left the valley, there was not a dry eye in the place ; some of the people attended him for miles. He begs and entreats of you as a personal favor, that if you ever go to Switzerland again (you have mentioned that your last visit was your twenty -third), you will go to that valley, and see Swiss scenery for the first time. And if you want really to know the pastoral people of Switzerland, and to un- derstand them, mention, in that valley, our bore’s name ! Our bore has a crushing brother in the East, who, somehow or other, was admitted to smoke pipes with Mehemet Ali, and instantly became an authority on the whole range of Eastern matters, from Haroun Alraschid to the present Sultan. He is in the habit of expressing mysterious opinions on this wide range of subjects, but on questions of foreign policy more par- ticularly, to our bore, in letters ; and our bore is continually sending bits of these letters to the newspapers (which they never insert), and carrying other bits about in his pocket-book. It is even whispered that he has been seen at the Foreign Of- fice, receiving great consideration from the messengers, and having his card promptly borne into the sanctuary of the tem- ple. The havoc committed in society by this Eastern brother is beyond belief. Our bore is always ready with him. We have known our bore to fall upon an intelligent young sojourner in the wilderness, in the first sentence of a narrative, and beat all confidence out of him with one blow of his brother. He became omniscient, as to foreign policy, in the smoking of those pipes with Mehemet Ali. The balance of power in Eu- rope, the machinations of the Jesuits, the gentle and humaniz- ing influence of Austria, the position and prospects of that hero of the noble soul who is worshipped by happy France, are all easy reading to our bore’s brother. And our bore is so pro- vokingly self-denying about him ! “ I don’t pretend to more than a very general knowledge of these subjects myself,” says he, after enervating the intellects of several strong men, “ but these are my brother’s opinions, and I believe he is known to be well-informed.” The commonest incidents and places would appear to have OUR BORE. 429 been made special, expressly for our bore. Ask him whether he ever chanced to walk, between seven and eight in the morning, down St. James’s Street, London, and he will tell you, never in his life but once. But, it’s curious that that once was in eighteen thirty ; and that as our bore was walking down the street you have just mentioned, at the hour you have just mentioned — half-past seven — or twenty minutes to eight. No ! Let him be correct ! — exactly a quarter before eight by the Palace clock — he met a fresh-colored, gray-haired, good- humored looking gentleman, with a brown umbrella, who, as he passed him, touched his hat and said, “ Pine morning, sir, fine morning ! ” — William the Fourth ! Ask our bore whether he has seen Mr. Barry’s new Houses of Parliament, and he will reply that he has not yet inspected them minutely, but, that you remind him that it was his singular fortune to be the last man to see the old Houses of Parliament before the fire broke out. It happened in this way. Poor John Spine, the celebrated novelist, had taken him over to South Lambeth to read to him the last few chapters of what was certainly his best book — as our bore told him at the time, adding, “Now, my dear John, touch it, and you’ll spoil it ! ” — and our bore was going back to the club by way of Millbank and Parliament Street, when he stopped to think of Canning, and look at the Houses of Par- liament. Now, you know far more of the philosophy of Mind than our bore does, and are much better able to explain to him than he is to explain to you why or wherefore, at that particular time, the thought of fire should come into his head. But, it did. It did. He thought, What a national calamity if an edifice connected with so many associations should be consumed by fire ! At that time there was not a single soul in the street but himself. All was quiet, dark, and solitary. After contemplating the building for a minute — or, say a minute and a half, not more — our bore proceeded on his way, mechanically repeating, What a national calamity if such an edifice, connected with such associations, should be destroyed by — A man coming towards him in a violent state of agi- tation completed the sentence, with the exclamation, Fire ! Our bore looked round, and the whole structure was in a blaze. 430 OUR BORE . In harmony and union with these experiences, our bore never went anywhere in a steamboat but he made either the best or the worst voyage ever known on that station. Either he overheard the captain say to himself, with his hands clasped, “We are all lost!” or the captain openly declared to him that he had never made such a run before, and never should be able to do it again. Our bore was in that express train on that railway, when they made (unknown to the pas- sengers) the experiment of going at the rate of a hundred miles an hour. Our bore remarked on that occasion to the other people in the carriage, “ This is too fast, but sit still ! ” He was at the Norwich musical festival when the extraordinary echo for which science has been wholly unable to account, was heard for the first and last time. He and the bishop heard it at the same moment, and caught each other’s eye. He was present at that illumination of St. Peter’s, of which the Pope is known to have remarked, as he looked at it out of his window in the Vatican, “ 0 Cielo! Questa cosa non sara fatta , max ancora , come questa — 0 Heaven! this thing will never be done again, like this ! ” He has seen every lion he ever saw, under some remarkably propitious circumstances. He knows there is no fancy in it, because in every case the showman mentioned the fact at the time, and congratulated him upon it. At one period of his life, our bore had an illness. It was an illness of a dangerous character for society at large. Inno- cently remark that you are very well, or that somebody else is very well ; and our bore, with a preface that one never knows what a blessing health is until one has lost it, is reminded of that illness, and drags you through the whole of its symptoms, progress, and treatment. Innocently remark that you are not well, or that somebody else is not well, and the same in- evitable result ensues. You will learn how our bore felt a tightness about here, sir, for which he couldn’t account, accompanied with a constant sensation as if he were bekig" stabbed — or, rather, jobbed — that expresses it more correctly — jobbed — with a blunt knife. Well, sir! This went on, until sparks begin to flit before his eyes, water-wheels to turn round in his head, and hammers to beat incessantly thump, OUE BOBE. 481 thump, thump, all down his back — along the whole of the spinal vertebrae. Our bore, when his sensations had come to this, thought it a duty he owed to himself to take advice, and he said, Now, whom shall I consult ? He naturally thought of Callow, at that time one of the most eminent physicians in London, and he went to Callow. Callow said, "Liver!” and prescribed rhubarb and calomel, low diet, and moderate exercise. Our bore went on with this treatment, getting worse every day, until he lost confidence in Callow, and went to Moon, whom half the town was then mad about. Moon was interested in the case; to do him justice he was very much interested in the case ; and he said, " Kidneys ! ” He altered the whole treatment, sir — gave strong acids, cupped, and blistered. This went on, our bore still getting worse every day, until he openly told Moon it would be a satis- faction to him if he would have a consultation with Clatter. The moment Clatter saw our bore, he said, "Accumulation of fat about the heart ! ” Snugglewood, who was called in with him, differed, and said, “ Brain !” But, what they all agreed upon was, to lay our bore upon his back, to shave his head, to leech him, to administer enormous quantities of medicine, and to keep him low ; so that he was reduced to a mere shadow, you wouldn’t have known him, and nobody considered it possible that he could ever recover. This was his condition, sir, when he heard of Jilkins — at that period in a very small # practice, and living in the upper part of a house in Great Portland Street ; but still, you understand, with a rising repu- * tation among the ie^g people to whom he was known. Being in that condition in which a drowning man catches at a straw, our bore sent for Jilkins. Jilkins came. Our bore liked his eye, and said, “ Mr. Jilkins, I have a presentiment that you will do me good.” Jilkins’s reply was characteristic of the man. It was, "Sir, I mean to do you good.” This confirmed our bore’s opinion of his eye, and they went into the case together — went completely into it. Jilkins then got up, walked across the room, came back, and sat down. His words were these. “ You have been humbugged. This is a case of indigestion, occasioned by deficiency of power in the Stomach. Take a mutton chop in half-an-hour, with a glass of the finest old 432 OUB BOBK sherry that can be got for money. Take two mutton chops to-morrow, and two glasses of the finest old sherry. Next day, I’ll come again.” In a week our bore was on his legs, and Jilkins’s success dates from that period ! Our bore is great in secret information. He happens to know many things that nobody else knows. He can generally tell you where the split is in the Ministry ; he knows a deal about the Queen ; and has little anecdotes to relate of the royal nursery. He gives you the judge’s private opinion of Sludge the murderer, and his thoughts when he tried him. He happens to know what such a man got by such a transac- tion, and it was fifteen thousand five hundred pounds, and his income is twelve thousand a year. Our bore is also great in mystery. He believes, with an exasperating appearance of profound meaning, that you saw Parkins last Sunday ? — Yes, you did. — Did he say anything particular? — No, nothing particular. — Our bore is surprised at that. — Why ? — Nothing. Only he understood that Parkins had come to tell you some- thing. — What about? — Well! our bore is not at liberty to mention what about. But, he believes you will hear that from Parkins himself, soon, and he hopes it may not surprise you as it did him. Perhaps, however, you never heard about Parkins’s wife’s sister? — No. — Ah! says our bore, that ex- plains it ! Our bore is also great in argument. He infinitely enjoys a long humdrum, drowsy interchange of words of dispute abo*t nothing. He considers that it strengthens the mind, cons^ quently, he “ don’t see that,” very often. Or, he would be glad to know what you mean by that. Or, he doubts that? Or, he has always understood exactly the reverse of that. Or, he can’t admit that. Or, he begs to deny that. Or, surely you don’t mean that. And so on. He once advised us ; offer^ 8 us a piece of advice, after the fact, totally impracticable %nd wholly impossible of acceptance, because it supposed the fact, * then eternally disposed of, to be f e t in abeyance. It was a dozen years ago, and to this hour our bore benevolently wishes, in a mild voice, on certain regular occasions, that we had thought better of his opinion. The instinct with which our bore finds out another bore, and OUR BORE. 433 closes with him is amazing. We have seen him pick his man out of fifty men, in a couple of minutes. They love to go (which they do naturally) into a slow argument on a pre- viously exhausted subject, and to contradict each other, and to wear the hearers out, without impairing their own perennial freshness as bores. It improves the good understanding between them, and they get together afterwards, and bore each other amicably. Whenever we see our bore behind a door wdth another bore, we know that when he comes forth, he will praise the other bore as one of the most intelligent men he ever met. And this bringing us to the close of what we had to say about our bore, we are anxious to have it under- stood that he never bestowed this praise on us. vol. n — 28 # * A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. It was profoundly observed by a witty member of the Court of Common Council, in Council assembled in the City of London, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hun- dred and fifty, that the French are a frog-eating people, who wear wooden shoes. We are credibly informed, in reference to the nation whom this choice spirit so happily disposed of, that the caricatures and stage representations which were current in England some half a century ago, exactly depict their present condition. For example, we understand that every Frenchman, without exception, wears a pigtail and curl-papers. That he is ex- tremely sallow, thin, long-faced, and lantern- jawed. That the calves of his legs are invariably undeveloped ; that his legs fail at the knees, and that his shoulders are always higher than his ears. We are likewise assured that he rarely Pastes any food but soup maigre, and an onion ; that he always says, “By Gar! Aha! Yat you tell me, Sare?” at the end of every sentence he utters ; and that the true generic name of his race is the Mounseers, or the Parly-voos. If he be not a dancing-master, or a barber, he must be a cook; since no other trades but those three are congenial to the tastes of the people, or permitted by the Institutions of the country. He is a slave, of course. The ladies of France (who are also slaves) invariably have their heads tied up in Belcher handkerchiefs, wear long ear-rings, carry tambourines, and beguile the weari- ness of their yoke by singing in head voices through their noses — principally to barrel-organs. It may be generally summed up, of this inferior people, that they have no idea of anything. Of a great Institution like Smithfield, they are unable to form the least conception. A Beast Market in the heart of 434 A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 435 Paris would be regarded an impossible nuisance. Nor have they any notion of slaughter-houses in the midst of a city. One of these benighted frog-eaters would scarcely understand your meaning, if you told him (S*Ehe existence of such a Brit- ish bulwark. It is agreeable, and perhaps pardonable, to indulge in a little self-complacency when our right to it is thoroughly established. At the present time, to be rendered memorable by a final at- tack on that good old market which is the (rotten) apple of the Corporation’s eye, let us compare ourselves, to our national delight and pride as to these two subjects of slaughter-house and beast-market, with the outlandish foreigner. The blessings of Smithfield are too well understood to need recapitulation ; all who run (away from mad bulls and pur- suing oxen) may read. Any market-day they may be beheld in glorious action. Possibly the merits of our slaughter-houses are not yet quite so generally appreciated. Slaughter-houses, in the large towns of England, are al- ways (with the exception of one of two enterprising towns) most numerous in the most densely crowded places, where there is the least circulation of air. They are often under- ground, in cellars ; they are sometimes in close back yards ; sometimes (as in Spitalfields) in the very shops where the meat is sold. Occasionally, under good private management, they are ventilated and clean. For the most part, they are unventilated and dirty ; and, to the reeking walls, putrid fat and other offensive animal matter clings with a tenacious hold. The busiest slaughter-houses in London are in the neighbor- hood of Smithfield, in Newgate Market, in Whitechapel, in Newport Market, in Leadenhall Market, in Clare-Market. All these places are surrounded by houses of a poor description, 1 swarming with inhabitants. Some of them are close to the worst burial-grounds in London. When the slaughter-house is below the ground, it is a common practice to throw the sheep down areas, neck and crop — which is exciting, but not at all cruel. When it is on the level surface, it is often extremely difficult of approach. Then, the beasts have to be worried, and goaded, and pronged, and tail-twisted, for a long time before they can be got in — which is entirely owing to their 486 A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY . natural obstinacy. When it is not difficult of approach, but is in a foul condition, what they see and scent makes them still more reluctant to enter — which is their natural obstinacy again. When they do get in at last, after no trouble and suffering to speak of (for, there is nothing in the pre- vious journey into the heart of London, the night’s endurance in Smithfield, the struggle out again, among the crowded mul- titude, the coaches, carts, wagons, omnibuses, gigs, chaises, phaetons, cabs, trucks, dogs, boys, whoopings, roarings, and ten thousand other distractions), they are represented to be in a most unfit state to be killed, according to microscopic exam- inations made of their fevered blood by one of the most distin- guished physiologists in the world, Professor Owen — but that’s humbug. When they are killed, at last, their reeking carcasses are hung in impure air, to become, as the same Pro- fessor will explain to you, less nutritious and more unwhole- some — but he is only an uncommon counsellor, so don’t mind Mm. In half a quarter of a mile’s length of Whitechapel, at one time, there shall be six hundred newly slaughtered oxen hanging up, and seven hundred sheep — but, the more the merrier — proof of prosperity. Hard by Snow Hill and War- wick Lane, you shall see the little children, inured to sights of brutality from their birth, trotting along the alleys, mingled with troops of horribly busy pigs, up to their ankles in blood — but it makes the young rascals hardy. Into the imperfect sewers of this overgrown city, you shall have the immense mass of corruption, engendered by these practices, lazily thrown out of sight, to rise, in poisonous gases, into your house at night, when your sleeping children will most readily absorb them, and to find its languid wa y, at last, into the river that you drink — but, the Prench, are a f rog-eating people who wear wooden shoes, and it’s 0 the roast beef of England, my boy, the jolly old English roast beef. It is quite a mistake — a new-fangled notion altogether — to suppose that there is any natural antagonism between putre- faction and health. They know better than that, in the Com- mon Council. You may talk about Nature, in her wisdom, always warning man through his sense of smell, when he draws near to something dangerous ; but, that won’t go down A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 437 in the city. Nature very often don’t mean anything. Mrs. Quickly says that prunes are ill for a green wound ; but who- soever says that putrid animal substances are ill for a green wound, or for robust vigor, or for any thing or for any body, is a humanity-monger and a humbug. Britons never, never, never, etc., therefore. And prosperity to cattle-driving, cat- tle-slaughtering, bone-crushing, blood-boiling, trotter-scraping, tripe-dressing, paunch-cleaning, gut-spinning, hide-preparing, tallow-melting, and other salubrious proceedings, in the midst of hospitals, churchyards, workhouses, schools, infirmaries, refuges, dwellings, provision-shops, nurseries, sick-beds, every stage and baiting-place in the journey from birth to death ! These uncommon counsellors, your Professor Owens and fel- lows, will contend that to tolerate these things in a civilized city, is to reduce it to a worse condition than Bruce found to prevail in Abyssinia. For, there (say they) the jackals and wild dogs came at night to devour the offal ; whereas here there are no such natural scavengers, and quite as savage cus- toms. Further, they will demonstrate that nothing in Nature is intended to be wasted, and that besides the waste which such abuses occasion in the articles of health and life — main sources of the riches of any community — they lead to a pro- digious waste of changing matters, which might, with proper preparation, and under scientific direction, be safely applied to the increase of the fertility of the land. Thus (they argue) does Nature ever avenge infractions of her beneficent laws, and so surely as Man is determined to warp any of her bless- ings into curses, shall they become curses, and shall he suffer heavily. But, this is cant. Just as it is cant of the worst ^ description to say to the London Corporation, u How can you exhibit to the people so plain a spectacle of dishonest equivo- cation, as to claim the right of holding a market in the midst of the great city, for one of your vested privileges, when you know that when your last market-holding charter was granted to you by King Charles the First, Smithfield stood in the Suburbs of London, and is in that very charter so described in those five words ? ” — which is certainly true, but has noth- ing to do with the question. Now to the comparison, in these particulars of civilization, 438 A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY . between the capital of England, and the capital of that frog- eating and wooden-shoe wearing country, which the illustrious Common Councilman so sarcastically settled. In Paris, there is no Cattle Market. Cows and calves are sold within the city, but, the Cattle Markets are at Poissy, about thirteen miles off, on a line of railway; and at Sceaux, about five miles off. The Poissy market is held every Thurs- day ; the Sceaux market, every Monday. In Paris, there are no slaughter-houses, in our acceptation of the term. There are five public Abattoirs — within the walls, though in the suburbs — and in these all the slaughtering for the city must be performed. They are managed by a Syndicat or Guild of Butchers, who confer with the Minister of the Interior on all matters affecting the trade, and who are consulted when any new regulations are contemplated for its government. They are, likewise, under the vigilant superintendence of the police. Every butcher must be licensed : which proves him at once to be a slave, for we don't license butchers in England — we only license apothecaries, attorneys, postmasters, publicans, hawk- ers, retailers of tobacco, snuff, pepper, and vinegar — and one or two other little trades not worth mentioning. Every ar- rangement in connection with the slaughtering and sale of meat, is matter of strict police regulation. (Slavery again, though we certainly have a general sort of a Police Act here.) But, in order that the reader may understand what a mon- ument of folly these frog-eaters have raised in their abattoirs and cattle-markets, and may compare it with what common counselling has done for us all these years, and would still do but for the innovating spirit of the times, here follows a short account of a recent visit to these places : It was as sharp a February morning as you would desire to feel at your fingers' ends when I turned out — tumbling over a chiffonier with his little basket and rake, who was picking up the bits of colored paper that had been swept out, over-night, from a Bon-Bon shop — to take the Butchers' Train to Poissy. A cold dim light just touched the high roofs of the Tuileries which have seen such changes, such distracted crowds, such riot and bloodshed ; and they looked as calm, and as old, all A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 439 covered with, white frost, as the very Pyramids. There was not light enough, yet, to strike upon the towers of Notre Dame across the water ; but I thought of the dark pavement of the old Cathedral as just beginning to be streaked with gray ; and of the lamps in the “ House of God,” the Hospital close to it, burning low and being quenched; and of the keeper of the Morgue going about with a fading lantern, busy in the ar- rangement of his terrible wax-work for another sunny day. The sun was up, and shining merrily when the butchers and I announcing our departure with an engine-shriek to sleepy Paris, rattled away for the Cattle Market. Across the country, over the Seine, among a forest of scrubby trees — the hoar frost lying cold in shady places, and glittering in the light — and here we are at Poissy ! Out leap the butchers who have been chattering all the way like madmen, and off they straggle for the Cattle Market (still chattering, of course, incessantly), in hats and caps of all shapes, in coats and blouses, in calf-skins, cow-skins, horse-skins, furs, shaggy mantles, hairy coats, sacking, baize, oil-skin, anything you please that will keep a man and a butcher warm, upon a frosty morning. Many a Prench town have I seen, between this spot of ground and Strasburgb or Marseilles, that might sit for your picture, little Poissy ! Barring the details of your old church, I know you well, albeit we make acquaintance, now, for the first time. I know your narrow, straggling, winding streets, with a kennel in the midst, and lamps slung across. I know your picturesque street-corners, winding up-hill Heaven knows why or where ! I know your tradesmen’s inscriptions, in let- ters not quite fat enough ; your barber’s brazen basins dangling over little shops ; your Cafes and Estaminets, with cloudy bottles of stale syrup in the windows, and pictures of crossed billiard-cues outside. I know this identical gray horse with his tail rolled up in a knot like the “ back hair ” of an untidy woman, who won’t be shod, and who makes himself heraldic by clattering across the street on his hind legs, while twenty voices shriek and growl at him as a Brigand, an accursed Bobber, and an everlastingly-doomed Pig. I know your sparkling town-fountain too, my Poissy, and am glad to see it 440 A MONUMENT OF FLENCH FOLLY . near a cattle-market, gushing so freshly, under the auspices of a gallant little sublimated Frenchman wrought in metal, perched upon the top. Through all the land of France I know this unswept room at the Glory, with its peculiar smell of beans and coffee, where the butchers crowd about the stove, drinking the thinnest of wine from the smallest of tumblers ; where the thickest of coffee-cups mingle with the longest of loaves, and the weakest of lump sugar ; where Madame at the counter easily acknowledges the homage of all entering and departing butchers ; where the billiard-table is covered up in the midst like a great bird-cage — but the bird may sing by and by ! A bell ! The Calf Market ! Polite departure of butchers. Hasty payment and departure on the part of amateur Visitor. Madame reproaches Ma’amselle for too fine a susceptibility in reference to the devotion of a Butcher in a bear-skin. Monsieur, the landlord of The Glory, counts a double handful of sous, without an unobliterated inscription, or an undamaged crowned head, among them. There is little noise without, abundant space, and no confu- sion. The open area devoted to the market, is divided into three portions : the Calf Market, the Cattle Market, the Sheep Market. Calves at eight, cattle at ten, sheep at mid-day. All is very clean. The Calf Market is a raised platform of stone, some three or four feet high, open on all sides, with a lofty over-spreading roof, supported on stone columns, which give it the appearance of a sort of vineyard from Northern Italy. Here, on the raised pavement, lie innumerable calves, all bound hind-legs and fore-legs together, and all trembling violently — perhaps with cold, perhaps with fear, perhaps with pain ; for, this mode of tying, which seems to be an absolute superstition with the peasantry, can hardly fail to cause great suffering. Here they lie, patiently in rows, among the straw, with their stolid faces and inexpressive eyes, superintended by men and women, boys and girls ; here they are inspected by our friends, the butchers, bargained for, and bought. Plenty of time ; plenty of room; plenty of good humor. “ Monsieur Frangois in the bear-skin, how do you do, my friend ? You come from Paris by A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY . 441 the train ? The fresh air does you good. If you are iu want of three or four line calves this market-morning, my angel, I, Madame Doche, shall be happy to deal with you. Behold these calves, Monsieur Brandis ! Great Heaven, you are doubtful ! Well, sir, walk round and look about you. If you find better for the money, buy them. If not, come to me ! ” Monsieur Fran 90 is goes his way leisurely, and keeps a wary eye upon the stock. Ho other butcher jostles Monsieur Fran9ois ; Monsieur Fran9ois jostles no other butcher. Hobody is flus- tered and aggravated. Hobody is savage. In the midst of the country blue frocks and red handkerchiefs, and the butchers’ coats, shaggy, furry, and hairy : of calf-skin, cow- skin, horse-skin, and bear-skin : towers a cocked hat and a blue coat. Slavery ! For our Police wear great coats and glazed hats. But now the bartering is over, and the calves are sold. “Ho! Gregorie, Antoine, Jean, Louis! Bring up the carts, my children ! Quick, brave infants ! Hola ! Hi ! ” The carts, well littered with straw, are backed up to the edge of the raised pavement, and various hot infants carry calves upon their heads, and dexterously pitch them in, while other hot infants, standing in the carts, arrange the calves, and pack them carefully in straw. Here is a promising young calf, not sold, whom Madame Doche unbinds. Pardon me, Madame Doche, but I fear this mode of tying the fore legs of a quadruped together, though strictly a la mode, is not quite right. You observe, Madame Doche, that the cord leaves deep indentations in the skin, and that the animal is so cramped at first as not to know, or even remotely suspect, that he is un- bound, until you are so obliging as to kick him, in your deli- cate little way, and pull his tail like a bell-rope. Then, he staggers to his knees, not being able to stand, and stumbles about like a drunken calf, or the horse at Franconi’s, whom you may have seen, Madame Doche, who is supposed to have been mortally wounded in battle. But, what is this rubbing against me, as I apostrophize Madame Doche ? It is another heated infant with a calf upon his head. “ Pardon, Monsieur, but will you have the politeness to allow me to pass ? ” “ Ah, Sir, willingly. I am vexed to obstruct the way.” On he stag- 442 A MONUMENT OF FBENCH FOLLY . gers, calf and all, and makes no allusion whatever either to my eyes or limbs. Now, the carts are all full. More straw, my Antoine, to shake over these top rows ; then, off we will clatter, rumble, jolt, and rattle, a long row of us, out of the first town-gate, and out at the second town-gate, and past the empty sentry- box, and the little thin square bandbox of a guardhouse, where nobody seems to live ; and away for Paris, by the paved road, lying, a straight straight line, in the long long avenue of trees. We can neither choose our road, nor our pace, for that is all prescribed to us. The public convenience demands that our carts should get to Paris by such a route, and no other (Napoleon had leisure to find that out, while he had a little war with the world upon his hands), and woe betide us if we infringe orders. Droves of oxen stand in the Cattle Market, tied to iron bars fixed into posts of granite. Other droves advance slowly down the long avenue, past the second town-gate, and the first town-gate, and the sentry-box, and the bandbox, thawing the morning with their smoky breath as they come along. Plenty of room; plenty of time. Neither man nor beast is driven out of his wits by coaches, carts, wagons, omnibuses, gigs, chaises, phaetons, cabs, trucks, boys, whoopings, roar- ings, and multitudes. No tail-twisting is necessary — no iron pronging is necessary. There are no iron prongs here. The market for cattle is held as quietly as the market for calves. In due time, off the cattle go to Paris ; the drovers can no more choose their road, nor their time, nor the numbers they shall drive, than they can choose their hour for dying in the course of nature. Sheep next. The Sheep-pens are up here, past the Branch Bank of Paris established for the convenience of the butchers, and behind the two pretty fountains they are making in the Market. My name is Bull : yet I think I should like to see as good twin fountains — not to say in Smithfield, but in England anywhere. Plenty of room; plenty of time. And here are sheep-dogs, sensible as ever, but with a certain Erench air about them — not without a suspicion of dominoes — with a kind of flavor of moustache and beard — demonstrative dogs, A MONUMENT OF FLENCH FOLLY. 443 shaggy and loose where an English dog would be tight and close — not so troubled w r ith business calculations as our Eng- lish drovers* dogs, who have always got their sheep upon their minds, and think about their work, even resting, as you may see by their faces ; but, dashing, showy, rather unreliable dogs : who might worry me instead of their legitimate charges if they saw occasion — and might see it somewhat suddenly. The market for sheep passes off like the other two ; and away they go, by their allotted road to Paris. My way being the Kailway, I make the best of it at twenty miles an hour; whirling through the now high-lighted landscape; thinking that the inexperienced green buds will be wishing before long, they had not been tempted to come out so soon ; and wonder- ing who lives in this or that chateau, all window and lattice, and what the family may have for breakfast this sharp morning. After the Market comes the Abattoir. What abattoir shall I visit first ? Montmartre is the largest. So, I will go there. The abattoirs are all within the walls of Paris, with an eye to the receipt of the octroi duty; but, they stand in open places in the suburbs, removed from the press and bustle of the city. They are managed by the Syndicat or Guild of Butchers, under the inspection of the Police. Certain smaller items of the revenue derived from them are in part retained by the Guild for the payment of their expenses, and in part devoted by it to charitable purposes in connection with the trade. They cost six hundred and eighty thousand pounds ; and they return to the city of Paris an interest on that outlay, amounting to nearly six and a half per cent. Here, in a sufficiently dismantled space, is the Abattoir of Montmartre, covering nearly nine acres of ground, surrounded by a high wall, and looking from the outside like a cavalry barrack. At the iron gates is a small functionary in a large cocked hat. “ Monsieur desires to see the abattoir ? Most certainly.** State being inconvenient in private transactions, and Monsieur being already aware of the cocked hat, the functionary puts it into a little official bureau which it almost fills, and accompanies me in the modest attire — as to his head — of ordinary life. 444 A MONUMENT OF FBENCH FOLLY . Many of the animals from Poissy have come here. On the arrival of each drove, it was turned into yonder ample space, where each butcher who had bought, selected his own pur- chases. Some, we see now, in these long perspectives of stalls with a high overhanging roof of wood and open tiles rising above the walls. Vfhile they rest here, before being slaugh- tered, they are required to be fed and watered, and the stalls must be kept clean. A stated amount of fodder must always be ready in the loft above ; and the supervision is of the strictest kind. The same regulations apply to sheep and calves ; for which, portions of these perspectives are strongly railed off. All the buildings are of the strongest and most solid description. After traversing these lairs, through which, besides the upper provision for ventilation just mentioned, there may be a thorough current of air from opposite windows in the side walls, and from doors at either end, we traverse the broad, paved, court-yard until we come to the slaughter-houses. They are all exactly alike, and adjoin each other, to the num- ber of eight or nine together, in blocks of solid building. Let us walk into the first. It is firmly built and paved with stone. It is well lighted, thoroughly aired, and lavishly provided with fresh water. It has two doors opposite each other ; the first, the door by which I entered from the main yard ; the second, which is opposite, opening on another smaller yard, where the sheep and calves are killed on benches. The pavement of that yard, I see, slopes downward to a gutter, for its being more easily cleansed. The slaughter-house is fifteen feet high, sixteen feet and a half wide, and thirty-three feet long. It is fitted with a powerful wind- lass, by which one man at the handle can bring the head of an ox down to the ground to receive the blow from the pole-axe that is to fell him — with the means of raising the carcass and keeping it suspended during the after-operation of dressing — and with hooks on which carcasses can hang, when completely prepared, without touching the walls. Upon the pavement of this first stone chamber, lies an ox scarcely dead. If I except the blood draining from him, into a little stone well in a cor- ner of the pavement, the place is free from offence as the Place A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 445 de la Concorde. It is infinitely purer and cleaner, I know, my friend the functionary, than the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Ha, ha ! Monsieur is pleasant, but, truly, there is reason, too, in what he says. I look into another of these slaughter-houses. “Pray enter,” says a gentleman in bloody boots. “ This is a calf I have killed this morning. Having a little time upon my hands, I have cut and punctured this lace pattern in the coats of his stomach. It is pretty enough. I did it to divert myself.” — “It is beau- tiful, Monsieur, the slaughterer ! ” He tells me I have the gentility to say so. I look into rows of slaughter-houses. In many, retail deal- ers, who have come here for the purpose, are making bargains for meat. There is killing enough, certainly, to satiate an unused eye ; and there are steaming carcasses enough, to sug- gest the expediency of a fowl and salad for dinner ; but, every- where, there is an orderly, clean, well-systematized routine of work in progress — horrible work at the best, if you please ; but, so much the greater reason why it should be made the best of. I don’t know (I think I have observed, my name is Bull) that a Parisian of the lowest order is particularly delicate, or that his nature is remarkable for an infinitesimal infusion of ferocity ; but, I do know, my potent, grave, and common coun- selling Signors, that he is forced, when at this work, to submit himself to a thoroughly good system, and to make an English- man very heartily ashamed of you. Here, within the walls of the same abattoir, in other roomy > and commodious buildings, are a place for converting the fat into tallow and packing it for market — a place for cleansing and scalding calves’ heads and sheep’s feet — a place for pre- paring tripe — stables and coach-houses for the butchers — innumerable conveniences, aiding in the diminution of offen- siveness to its lowest possible point, and the raising of cleanli- ness and supervision to their highest. Hence, all the meat that goes out of the gate is sent away in clean covered carts. And if every trade connected with the slaughtering of animals were obliged by law to be carried on in the same place, I doubt, my friend, now reinstated in the cocked hat (whose civility these two francs imperfectly acknowledge, but appear munifi- 446 A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. cently to repay), whether there could be better regulations than those which are carried out at the Abattoir of Montmartre. Adieu, my friend, for I am away to the other side of Paris, to the Abattoir of Grenelle ! And therg*, I find exactly the same thing on a smaller scale, with the addition of a magnificent Artesian well, and a different sort of conductor, in the person of a neat little woman with neat little eyes, and a neat little voice, who picks her neat little way among the bullocks in a very neat little pair of shoes and stockings. Such is the Monument of French Folly which a foreigneering people have erected, in a national hatred and antipathy for common counselling wisdom. That wisdom, assembled in the City of London, having distinctly refused, after a debate three days long, and by a majority of nearly seven to one, to associate itself with any Metropolitan Cattle-Market unless it be held in the midst of the City, it follows that we shall lose the ines- timable advantages of common counselling protection, and be thrown, for a market, on our own wretched resources. In all human probability we shall thus come, at last, to erect a monu- ment of folly very like this French monument. If that be done, the consequences are obvious. The leather trade will be ruined, by the introduction of American timber, to be manu- factured into shoes for the fallen English 3 the Lord Mayor will be required, by the popular voice, to live entirely on frogs; and both these changes will (how, is not at present quite clear, but certainly somehow or other) fall on that un- happy landed interest which is always being killed, yet is always found to be alive — and kicking. A CHRISTMAS TREE. I have been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas Tree. The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers ; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects. There were rosy-cheeked dolls, hiding behind the green leaves ; there were real watches (with movable hands, at least, and an end- less capacity of being wound up) dangling from innumerable twigs ; there were French-polished tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, eight-day clocks, and various other articles of domestic furniture (wonderfully made, in tin, at Wolver- hampton), perched among the boughs, as if in preparation for some fairy housekeeping ; there were jolly, broad-faced little men, much more agreeable in appearance than many real men — and no wonder, for their heads took off, and showed them to be full of sugar-plums ; there were fiddles and drums ; there were tambourines, books, work-boxes, paint-boxes, sweetmeat-boxes, peep-show boxes, all kinds of boxes ; there were trinkets for the elder girls, far brighter than any grown-up gold and jewels ; there were baskets and pincushions in all devices ; there were guns, swords, and banners ; there were witches standing in enchanted rings of pasteboard, to tell fortunes ; there were teetotums, humming-tops, needle-cases, pen-wipers, smelling-bottles, conversation-cards, bouquet- holders ; real fruit, made artificially dazzling with gold leaf ; imitation apples, pears, and walnuts, crammed with surprises ; in short as a pretty child, before me, delightedly whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend, “There was every- thing, and more.” This motley collection of odd objects clustering on the tree like magic fruit, and flashing back 447 448 A CHRISTMAS TREE. the bright looks directed towards it from every side — some of the diamond-eyes admiring it were hardly on a level with the table, and a few were languishing in timid wonder on the bosoms of pretty mothers, aunts, and nurses — made a lively realization of the fancies of childhood; and set me thinking how all the trees that grow and all the things that come into existence on the earth, have their wild adornments at that well-remembered time. Being now at home again, and alone, the only person in the house awake, my thoughts are drawn back, by a fascination which I do not care to resist, to my own childhood. I begin to consider, what do we all remember best upon the branches of the Christmas Tree of our own young Christmas days, by which we climbed to real life. Straight, in the middle of the room, cramped in the freedom of its growth by no encircling walls or soon-reached ceiling, a shadowy tree arises ; and, looking up into the dreamy bright- ness of its top — for I observe, in this tree the singular prop- erty that it appears to grow downward towards the earth — I look into my youngest Christmas recollections ! All toys at first, I find. Up yonder, among the green holly and red berries, is the Tumbler with his hands in his pockets, who wouldn’t lie down, but whenever he was put upon the floor, persisted in rolling his fat body about, until he rolled himself still, and brought those lobster eyes of his to bear upon me — when I affected to laugh very much, but in my heart of hearts was extremely doubtful of him. Close beside him is that infernal snuff-box, out of which there sprang a demoniacal Counsellor in a black gown, with an obnoxious head of hair, and a red cloth mouth, wide open, who was not to be endured on any terms, but could not be put away either ; for he used suddenly, in a highly magnified state, to fly out of Mammoth Snuff-boxes in dreams, when least expected. Nor is the frog with cobbler’s wax on his tail, far off ; for there was no knowing where he wouldn’t jump ; and when he flew over the candle, and came upon one’s hand with that spotted back — red on a green ground — he was horrible. The card- board lady in a blue-silk skirt, who was stood up against the candlestick to dance, and whom I see on the same branch, was A CHRISTMAS TREE . 449 milder, and was beautiful; but I can’t say as much for the larger card-board man, who used to be hung against the wall and pulled by a string ; there was a sinister expression in that nose of his; and when he got his legs round his neck (which he very often did), he was ghastly, and not a creature to be alone with. When did that dreadful Mask first look at me ? Who put it on, and why was I so frightened that the sight of it is an era in my life ? It is not a hideous visage in itself ; it is even meant to be droll ; why then were its stolid features so intol- erable ? Surely not because it hid the wearer’s face. An apron would have done as much ; and though I should have preferred even the apron away, it would not have been abso- lutely insupportable, like the mask ? Was it the immovability of the mask ? The doll’s face was immovable, but I was not afraid of her. Perhaps that fixed and set change coming over a real face, infused into my quickened heart some remote suggestion and dread of the universal change that is to come on every face, and make it still ? Nothing reconciled me to it. No drummers, from whom proceeded a melancholy chirping on the turning of a handle; no regiment of soldiers, with a mute band, taken out of a box, and fitted, one by one, upon a stiff and lazy little set of lazy-tongs ; no old woman, made of wires and a brown-paper composition, cutting up a pie for two small children ; could give me a permanent comfort, for a long time. Nor was it any satisfaction to be shown the Mask, and see that it was made of paper, or to have it locked up and be assured that no one wore it. The mere recollection of that fixed face, the mere knowledge of its existence anywhere, was sufficient to awaken me in the night all perspiration and hor- ror, with, “ 0 I know it’s coming ! 0 the mask ! ” I never wondered what the dear old donkey with the pan- niers — there he is ! — was made of, then ! His hide was real to the touch, I recollect. And the great black horse with round red spots all over him — the horse that I could even get upon — I never wondered what had brought him to that strange condition, or thought that such a horse was not com- monly seen at Newmarket. The four horses of no color, next to him, that went into the wagon of cheeses, and could be vol. ii — 29 450 A CHRISTMAS TREE . taken out and stabled under the piano/ appear to have bits of fur-tippet for their tails, and other bits for their manes, and to stand on pegs instead of legs, but it was not so when they were brought home for a Christmas present. They were all right, then ; neither was their harness unceremoniously nailed into their chests, as appears to be the case now. The tink- ling works of the music-cart, I did find out, to be made of quill tooth-picks and wire ; and I always thought that little tumbler in his shirt sleeves, perpetually swarming up one side of a wooden frame, and coming down, headforemost, on the other, rather a weak-minded person — though good-natured; but the Jacob’s Ladder, next him, made of little squares of red wood, that went flapping and clattering over one another, each developing a different picture, and the whole enlivened by small bells, was a mighty marvel and a great delight. Ah ! The Doll’s house ! — of which I was not proprietor, but where I visited. I don’t admire the Houses of Parliament half so much as that stone-fronted mansion with real glass windows, and door-steps and a real balcony — greener than I ever see now, except at watering-places ; and even they afford but a poor imitation. And though it did open all at once, the entire house-front (which was a blow, I admit, as cancelling the fiction of a staircase), it was but to shut it up again, and I could believe. Even open, there were three distinct rooms in it : a sitting-room and bedroom, elegantly furnished, and, best of all, a kitchen, with uncommonly soft fire-irons, a plen- tiful assortment of diminutive utensils — oh, the warming-pan • — and a tin man-cook in profile, who was always going to fry two fish. What Barmecide justice have I done to the noble feasts wherein the set of wooden platters figured, each with its own peculiar delicacy, as a ham or turkey, glued tight on to it, and garnished with something green, which I recollect as moss ! Could all the Temperance Societies of these later days, united, give me such a tea-drinking as I have had through the means of yonder little set of blue crockery, which really would hold liquid (it ran out of the small wooden cask, I recollect, and tasted of matches), and which made tea, nectar ? And if the two legs of the ineffectual little sugar-tongs did tumble over one another, and want purpose, like Punch’s hands, what does A CTIBISTMA S TREE. 451 it matter ? And if I did once shriek out, as a poisoned child, and strike the fashionable company with consternation, by reason of having drunk a little teaspoon, inadvertently dis- solved in too hot tea, I was never the worse for it, except by a powder ! Upon the next branches of the tree, lower down, hard by the green roller and miniature gardening-tools, how thick the books begin to hang. Thin books, in themselves, at first, but many of them, and with deliciously smooth covers of bright red or green. What fat black letters to begin with ! “ A was an archer, and shot at a frog.” Of course he was. He was an apple-pie also, and there he' is ! He was a good many things in his time, was A, and so were most of his friends, except X, who had so little versatility, that I never knew him to get beyond Xerxes or Xantippe — like Y, who was always confined to a Yacht or a Yew Tree ; and Z condemned forever to be a Zebra or a Zany. But, now, the very tree itself changes, and becomes a bean-stalk — the marvellous bean-stalk up which Jack climbed to the Giant’s house ! And now, those dreadfully interesting, double-headed giants, with their clubs over their shoulders, begin to stride along the boughs in a per- fect throng, dragging knights and ladies home for dinner by the hair of their heads. And Jack — how noble, with his sword of sharpness, and his shoes of swiftness ! Again those old meditations come upon me as I gaze up at him ; and I de- bate within myself whether there was more than one Jack (which I am loth to believe possible), or only one genuine original admirable Jack, who achieved all the recorded exploits. Good for Christmas time is the ruddy color of the cloak, in which — the tree making a forest of itself for her to trip through, with her basket — little Bed Biding-Hood comes to me one Christmas Eve to give me information of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling wolf who ate her grand' mother, without making any impression on his appetite, and then ate her, after making that ferocious joke about his teeth. She was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Bed Biding-Hood, I should have known perfect bliss. But, it was not to be ; and there was nothing for it but to look out the Wolf in the Xoah’s Ark there, and put him late in the. 452 A CHRISTMAS TREE . procession on the table, as a monster who was to be degraded. 0 the wonderful Noah’s Ark ! It was not found seaworthy when put in a washiilg-tub, and the animals were crammed in at the roof, and needed to have their legs well shaken down before they could be got in, even there — and then, ten to one but they began to tumble out at the door, which was but imperfectly fastened with a wire latch — but what was that against it ! Consider the noble fly, a size or two smaller than the elephant : the lady-bird, the butterfly — all triumphs of art ! Consider the goose, whose feet were so small, and whose balance was so indifferent, that he usually tumbled forward, and knocked down all the animal creation. Consider Noah and his family, like idiotic tobacco-stoppers; and how the leopard stuck to warm little fingers ; and how the tails of the larger animals used gradually to resolve themselves into frayed bits of string ! Hush ! Again a forest, and somebody up in a tree — not Robin Hood, not Valentine, not the Yellow Dwarf (I have passed him and all Mother Bunch’s wonders, without men- tion), but an Eastern King with a glittering scimitar and tur- ban. By Allah ! two Eastern Kings, for I see another, looking over his shoulder! Down upon the grass, at the tree’s foot, lies the full length of a coal-black Giant, stretched asleep, with his head in a lady’s lap ; and near them is a glass box, fastened with four locks of shining steel, in which he keeps the lady prisoner when he is awake. I see the four keys at his girdle now. The lady makes signs to the two kings in the tree, who softly descend. It is the setting-in of the bright Arabian Nights. Oh, now all common things become uncommon and en- chanted to me ! All lamps are wonderful ; all rings are talis- mans. Common flower-pots are full of treasure, with a little earth scattered on the top ; trees are for Ali Baba to hide in ; beef-steaks are to throw down into the Valley of Diamonds, that the precious stones may stick to them, and be carried by the eagles to their nests, whence the traders, with loud cries, will scare them. Tarts are made, according to the recipe of the Vizier’s son of Bussorah, who turned pastrycook after he was set down in his drawers at the gate of Damascus ; cob- A CHRISTMAS TREE. 453 biers are all Mustaphas, and in the habit of sewing up people cut into four pieces, to whom they are taken blindfold. Any iron ring let into stone is the entrance to a cave which only waits for the magician, and the little fire, and the necro- mancy, that will make the earth shake. All the dates im- ported come from the same tree as that unlucky date, with whose shell the merchant knocked out the eye of the genie’s invisible son. All olives are of the stock of that fresh fruit, concerning which the Commander of the Faithful overheard the boy conduct the fictitious trial of the fraudulent olive merchant ; all apples are akin to the apple purchased (with two others) from the Sultan’s gardener for three sequins, and which the tall black slave stole from the child. All dogs are associated with the dog, really a transformed man, who jumped upon the baker’s counter, and put his paw on the piece of bad money. All rice recalls the rice which the awful lady, who was a ghoul, could only peck by grains, because of her nightly feasts in the burial-place. My very rocking-horse — there he is, with his nostrils turned completely inside-out, indicative of Blood ! — should have a peg in his neck, by vir- tue thereof to fly away with me, as the wooden horse did with the Prince of Persia, in the sight of all his father’s Court. Yes, on every object that I recognize among those upper branches of my Christmas Tree, I see this fairy light ! When I wake in bed, at daybreak, on the cold dark winter mornings, the white snow dimly beheld, outside, through the frost on the window-pane, I hear Dinarzade. “ Sister, sister, if you are yet awake, I pray you finish the history of the Young King of the Black Islands.” Scheherazade replies, u If my lord the Sultan will suffer me to live another day, sister, I will not only finish that, but tell you a more wonderful story yet.” Then, the gracious Sultan goes out, giving no orders for the execution, and we all three breathe again. At this height of my tree I begin to see, cowering among the leaves — it may be born of turkey, or of pudding, or mince pie, or of these many fancies, jumbled with Bobinson Crusoe on his desert island, Philip Quarll among the monkeys, Sand- ford and Merton with Mr. Barlow, Mother Bunch, and the Mask — or it may be the result of indigestion, assisted by 454 A CHRISTMAS TREE . imagination and over-doctoring — a prodigious nightmare. It is so exceedingly indistinct, that I don’t know why it’s fright- ful — but I know it is. I can only make out that it is an im- mense array of shapeless things, which appear to be planted on a vast exaggeration of the lazy tongs that used to bear the toy soldiers, and to be slowly coming close to my eyes, and receding to an immeasurable distance. When it comes closest, it is worst. In connection with it I descry remembrances of winter nights incredibly long ; of being sent early to bed, as a punishment for some small offence, and waking in two hours, with a sensation of having been asleep two nights ; of the laden hopelessness of morning ever dawning ; and the oppression of a weight of remorse. And now, I see a wonderful row of little lights rise smoothly out of the ground, before a vast green curtain. Now, a bell rings — a magic bell, which still sounds in my ears unlike all other bells — and music plays, amidst a buzz of voices, and a fragrant smell of orange-peel and oil. Anon, the magic bell commands the music to cease, and the great green curtain rolls itself up majestically, and The Play begins ! The devoted dog of Montargis avenges the death of his master, foully murdered in the Porest of Bondy ; and a humorous Peasant with a red nose and a very little hat, whom I take from this hour forth to my bosom as a friend (I think he was a Waiter or an Hostler at a village Inn, but many years have passed since he and I have met), remarks that the sassigassity of that dog is indeed surprising; and evermore this jocular conceit will live in my remembrance fresh and unfading, overtopping all possible jokes, unto the end of time. Or now, I learn with bitter tears how poor Jane Shore, dressed all in white, and with her brown hair hanging down, went starving through the streets ; or how George Barnwell killed the worthiest uncle that ever man had, and was afterwards so sorry for it that he ought to have been let off. Comes swift to comfort me, the Pantomime — stupendous Phenomenon ! — when Clowns, are shot from loaded mortars into the great chandelier, bright constellation that it is ; when Harlequins, covered all over with scales of pure gold, twist and sparkle, like amazing fish ; when Pantaloon (whom I deem it no A CHRISTMAS TREE. 455 irreverence to compare in my own mind to my grandfather) puts red-hot pokers in his pocket, and cries “ Here’s some- body coming ! ” or taxes the Clown with petty larceny, by saying “Now, I sawed you do it ! ” when Everything is capable, with the greatest ease, of being changed into Any- thing ; and “Nothing is, but thinking makes it so.” Now, too, I perceive my first experience of the dreary sensation — often to return in after-life — of being unable, next day, to get back to the dull, settled world ; of wanting to live for ever in the bright atmosphere I have quitted ; of doting on the little Fairy, with the wand like a celestial Barber’s Pole, and pining for a Fairy immortality along with her. Ah, she comes back, in many shapes, as my eye wanders down the branches of my Christmas Tree, and goes as often, and has never yet stayed by me ! Out of this delight springs the toy-theatre, — there it is, with its familiar proscenium, and ladies in feathers, in the boxes ! — and all its attendant occupation with paste and glue, and gum, and water colors, in the getting-up of The Miller and his Men, and Elizabeth, or the Exile of Siberia. In spite of a few besetting accidents and failures (particularly an unreasonable disposition in the respectable Kelmar, and some others, to become faint in the legs, and double up, at exciting points of the drama), a teeming world of fancies so suggestive and all-embracing, that, far below it on my Christmas Tree, I see dark, dirty, real Theatres in the day-time, adorned with these associations as with the freshest garlands of the rarest flowers, and charming me yet. But hark ! The Waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep! What images do I associate with the Christ- mas music as I see them set forth on the Christmas Tree ? Known before all the others, keeping far apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed. An angel, speaking to a group of shepherds in a field ; some travellers, with eyes uplifted, following a star ; a baby in a manger ; a child in a spacious temple, talking with grave men ; a solemn figure, with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his bier, to life ; a crowd of people looking through 456 A CHRISTMAS TREE . the open roof of a chamber where he sits, and letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes ; the same, in a tempest, walking on the water to a ship ; again, on a sea-shore, teach- ing a great multitude ; again, with a child upon his knee, and other children round ; again, restoring the sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the ignorant ; again, dying upon a Cross, watched by armed soldiers, a thick darkness coming on, the earth beginning to shake, and only one voice heard. “ Forgive them, for they know not what they do ! ” Still, on the lower and maturer branches of the Tree, Christmas associations cluster thick. School-books shut up ; Ovid and Virgil silenced ; the Eule of Three, with its cool impertinent inquiries, long disposed of ; Terence and Plautus acted no more, in an arena of huddled desks and forms, all chipped, and notched, and inked; cricket-bats, stumps, and balls, left higher up, with the smell of trodden grass and the softened noise of shouts in the evening air ; the Tree is still fresh, still gay. If I no more come home at Christmas time, there will be girls and boys (thank Heaven !) while the World lasts; and they do! Yonder they dance and play upon the branches of my Tree, God bless them, merrily, and my heart dances and plays too ! And I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday — the longer, the better — from the great board- ing-school, where we are for ever working at our arithmetical slates, to take, and give a rest. As to going a visiting, where can we not go, if we will ; where have we not been, when we would ; starting our fancy from our Christmas Tree ! Away into the winter prospect. There are many such upon the tree ! On, by low-lying misty grounds, through fens and fogs, up long hills, winding dark as caverns between thick plantations, almost shutting out the sparkling stars; so, out on broad heights, until we stop at last, with sudden silence, at an avenue. The gate-bell has a deep, half-awful sound in the frosty air ; the gate swings open on its hinges ; and, as we drive up to a great house, the glancing lights grow larger in the windows, and the opposing rows of trees seem to fall sol- A CTIB I STM AS TREE. 457 emnly back on either side, to give us place. At intervals, all day, a frightened hare has shot across this whitened turf ; or the distant clatter of a herd of deer trampling the hard frost, has, for the minute, crushed the silence too. Their watchful eyes beneath the fern may be shining now, if we could see them, like the icy dewdrops on the leaves ; but they are still, and all is still. And so, the lights growing larger, and the trees falling back before us, and closing up again behind us, as if to forbid retreat, we come to the house. There is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Win- ter Stories — Ghost Stories, or more shame for us — round the Christmas fire ; and we have never stirred, except to draw a little nearer to it. But, no matter for that. We came to the house, and it is an old house, full of great chimneys where wood is burnt on ancient dogs upon the hearth, and grim portraits (some of them with grim legends, too) lower dis- trustfully from the oaken panels of the walls. We are a middle-aged nobleman, and we make a generous supper with our host and hostess and their guests — it being Christmas- time, and the old house full of company — and then we go to bed. Our room is a very old room. It is hung with tapestr}^. We don’t like the portrait of a cavalier in green, over the fire- place. There are great black beams in the ceiling, and there is a great black bedstead, supported at the foot by two great black figures, who seem to have come off a couple of tombs in the old baronial church in the park, for our particular accom- modation. But, we are not a superstitious nobleman, and we don’t mind. Well! we dismiss our servant, lock the door, and sit before the fire in our dressing-gown, musing about a great many things. At length we go to bed. Well ! we can’t sleep. We toss and tumble, and can’t sleep. The embers on the hearth burn fitfully and make the room look ghostly. We can’t help peeping out over the counterpane, at the two black figures and the cavalier — that wicked-looking cavalier — in green. In the flickering light, they seem to advance and retire : which, though we are not by any means a superstitious nobleman, is not agreeable. Well! we get nervous — more and more nervous. We say “ This is very foolish, but we can’t 458 A CHRISTMAS TREE. stand this; we’ll pretend to be ill, and knock up somebody.” Well! we are just going to do it, when the locked door opens, and there comes in a young woman, deadly pale, and with long fair hair, who glides to the fire, and sits down in the chair we have left there, wringing her hands. Then, we notice that her clothes are wet. Our tongue cleaves to the roof of our mouth, and we can’t speak; but, we observe her accurately. Her clothes are wet ; her long hair is dabbled with moist mud ; she is dressed in the fashion of two hundred years ago ; and she has at her girdle a bunch of rusty keys. Well ! there she sits, and we can’t even faint, we are in such a state about it. Pres- ently she gets up, and tries all the locks in the room with the rusty keys, which won’t fit one of them ; then, she fixes her eyes on the portrait of the cavalier in green, and says, in a low, terrible voice, “ The stags know it ! ” After that, she wrings her hands again, passes the bedside, and goes out at the door. We hurry on our dressing-gown, seize our pistols (we always travel with pistols), and are following, when we find the door locked. We turn the key, look out into the dark gallery ; no one there. We wander away, and try to find our servant. Can’t be done. We pace the gallery till daybreak; then re- turn to our deserted room, fall asleep, and are awakened by our servant (nothing ever haunts him) and the shining sun. Well! we make a wretched breakfast, and all the company say we look queer. After breakfast, we go over the house with our host, and then we take him to the portrait of the cava- lier in green, and then it all comes out. He was false to a young housekeeper once attached to that family, and famous for her beauty, who drowned herself in a pond, and whose body was discovered, after a long time, because the stags refused to drink of the water. Since which, it has been whis- ered that she traverses the house at midnight (but goes especially to that room where the cavalier in green was wont to sleep), trying the old locks with the rusty keys. Well! we tell our host of what we have seen, and a shade comes over his features, and he begs it may be hushed up ; and so it is. But, it’s all true ; and we said so, before we died (we are dead now) to many responsible people. There is no end to the old houses, with resounding galleries, A CHRISTMAS TREE. 459 and dismal state-bed-chambers, and haunted wings shut up for many years, through which we may ramble, with an agreeable creeping up our back, and encounter any number of ghosts, but (it is worthy of remark perhaps) reducible to a very few general types and classes ; for, ghosts have little originality, and “ walk ” in a beaten track. Thus, it comes to pass, that a certain room in a certain old hall, where a certain bad lord, baronet, knight, or gentleman, shot himself, has certain planks in the floor from which the blood will not be taken out. You may scrape and scrape, as the present owner has done, or plane and plane, as his father did, or scrub and scrub, as his grandfather did, or burn and burn with strong acids, as his great-grandfather did, but, there the blood will still be — no redder and no paler — no more and no less — always just the same. Thus, in such • another house there is a haunted door, that never will keep open ; or another door that never will keep shut ; or a haunted sound of a spinning-wheel, or a hammer, or a footstep, or a cry, or a sigh, or a horse’s tramp, or the rattling of a chain. Or else, there is a turret-clock, which, at the midnight hour, strikes thirteen when the head of the family is going to die ; or a shadowy, immovable black carriage which at such a time is always seen by somebody, waiting near the great gates in the stable-yard. Or thus, it came to pass how Lady Mary went to pay a visit at a large wild house in the Scottish Highlands, and, being fatigued with her long journey, retired to bed early, and innocently said, next morning, at the breakfast-table, “How odd, to have so late a party last night, in this remote place, and not to tell me of it, before I went to bed ! ” Then, every one asked Lady Mary what she meant ? Then, Lady Mary replied, “ Why, all night long, the carriages were driving round and round the terrace, underneath my window ! 99 Then, the owner of the house turned pale, and so did his Lady, and Charles Macdoodle of Macdoodle signed to Lady Mary to say no more, and every one was silent. After breakfast, Charles Macdoodle told Lady Mary that it was a tradition in the family that those rumbling carriages on the terrace betokened death. And so it proved, for, two months afterwards, the Lady of the mansion died. And Lady Mary, who was a Maid of Honor at 460 A CHRISTMAS TREE . Court, often told this story to the old Queen Charlotte ; by this token that the old King always said, “ Eh, eh ? What, what ? Ghosts, ghosts ? No such thing, no such thing ! ” And never left off saying so, until he went to bed. Or, a friend of somebody’s, whom most of us know, when he was a young man at college, had a particular friend, with whom he made the compact that, if it were possible for the Spirit to return to this earth after its separation from the body, he of the twain who first died, should reappear to the other. In course of time, this compact was forgotten by our friend; the two young men having progressed in life, and taken diverging paths that were wide assunder. But, one night, many years afterwards, our friend being in the North of England, and staying for the night in an inn, on the York- shire Moors, happened to look out of bed ; and there, in the moonlight, leaning on a bureau near the window, steadfastly regarding him, saw his old college friend ! The appearance being solemnly addressed, replied, in a kind of whisper, but very audibly, “Do not come near me. I am dead. I am here to redeem my promise. I come from another world, but may not disclose its secrets ! ” Then, the whole form becom- ing paler, melted, as it were, into the moonlight, and faded away. Or, there was the daughter of the first occupier of the picturesque Elizabethan house, so famous in our neighborhood. You have heard about her ? No ! Why, She went out one summer evening, at twilight, when she was a beautiful girl, just seventeen years of age, to gather flowers in the garden ; and presently came running, terrified, into the hall to her father, saying, “ Oh, dear father, I have met myself ! 99 He took her in his arms, and told her it was fancy, but she said, “ Oh no ! I met myself in the broad walk, and I was pale and gathering withered flowers, and I turned my head, and held them up ! 99 And, that night, she died, and a picture of her story was begun, though never finished, and they say it is somewhere in the house to this day, with its face to the wall. Or, the uncle of my brother’s wife was riding home on horse- back, one mellow evening at sunset, when, in a green lane close to his own house, he saw a man standing before him, in the A CHRISTMAS TREK 461 very centre of the narrow way. “ Why does that man in the cloak stand there ? ” he thought. “ Does he want me to ride over him ? ” But the figure never moved. He felt a strange sensation at seeing it so still, but slackened his trot and rode forward. When he was so close to it, as almost to touch it with his stirrup, his horse shied, and the figure glided up the bank, in a curious, unearthly manner — backward, and without seeming to use its feet — and was gone. The uncle of my brother’s wife, exclaiming, “ Good Heaven ! It’s my cousin Harry, from Bombay ! ” put spurs to his horse, which was suddenly in a profuse sweat, and, wondering at such strange behavior, dashed round to the front of his house. There, he saw the same figure, just passing in at the long French window of the drawing-room, opening on the ground. He threw his bridle to a servant, and hastened in after it. His sister was sitting there, alone. “Alice, where’s my cousin Harry?” “ Your cousin Harry, John ? ” “Yes. From Bombay. I met him in the lane just now, and saw him enter here, this instant.” Hot a creature had been seen by any one ; and in that hour and minute, as it afterwards appeared, this cousin died in India. Or, it was a certain sensible old maiden lady, who died at ninety-nine, and retained her faculties to the last, who really did see the Orphan Boy ; a story which has often been incor- rectly told, but of which the real truth is this — because it is, in fact, a story belonging to our family — and she was a con- nection of our family. When she was about forty years of age, and still an uncommonly fine woman (her lover died young, which was the reason why she never married, though she had many offers), she went to stay at a place in Kent, which her brother, an Indian-Merchant, had newly bought. There was a story that this place had once been held in trust, by the guar- dian of a young boy ; who was himself the next heir, and who killed the young boy by harsh and cruel treatment. She knew nothing of that. It has been said that there was a Cage in her bed-room in which the guardian used to put the boy. There was no such thing. There was only a closet. She went to bed, made no alarm whatever in the night, and. in the morning said composedly to her maid when she came in, 462 A CHRISTMAS TREE. “ Who is the pretty, forlorn-looking child who has been peep- ing out of that closet all night ? ” The maid replied by giv- ing a loud scream, and instantly decamping. She was sur- prised ; but, she was a woman of remarkable strength of mind, and she dressed herself and went down stairs, and closeted her- self with her brother. “ Now, Walter,” she said, “I have been disturbed all night by a pretty, forlorn-looking boy, who has been constantly peeping out of that closet in my room, which I can’t open. This is some trick.” “ I am afraid not, Char- lotte,” said he, “ for it is the legend of the house. It is the Orphan Boy. What did he do ? ” “ He opened the door softly,” said she, and peeped out. Sometimes, he came a step or two into the room. Then, I called to him, to encourage him, and he shrunk, and shuddered, and crept in again, and shut the door.” “The closet has no communication, Char- lotte,” said her brother, “ with any other part of the house, and it’s nailed up.” This was undeniably true, and it took two carpenters a whole forenoon to get it open, for examination. Then, she was satisfied that she had seen the Orphan Boy. But, the wild and terrible part of the story is, that he was also seen by three of her brother’s sons, in succession, who all died young. On the occasion of each child being taken ill, he came home in a heat, twelve hours before, and said, Oh, Mamma, he had been playing under a particular oak tree, in a certain meadow, with a strange boy — a pretty, forlorn-look- ing boy, who was very timid, and made signs ! From fatal experience, the parents came to know that this was the Orphan Boy, and that the course of that child whom he chose for his playmate was surely run. Legion is the name of the German castles, where we sit up alone to wait for the Spectre — where we are shown into a room, made comparatively cheerful for our reception — where we glance round at the shadows, thrown on the blank walls by the crackling fire — where we feel very lonely when the village innkeeper and his pretty daughter have retired, after laying down a fresh store of wood upon the hearth, and set- ting forth on the small table such supper-cheer as a cold roast capon, bread, grapes, and a flask of old Rhine wine — where the reverberating doors close on their retreat, one after another, A CHRISTMAS TREE . 468 like so many peals of sullen thunder — and where, about the small hours of the night, we come into the knowledge of divers supernatural mysteries. Legion is the name of the haunted German students, in whose society we draw yet nearer to the fire, while the schoolboy in the corner opens his eyes wide and round, and flies off the footstool he has chosen for his seat, when the door accidentally blows open. Yast is the crop of such fruit, shining on our Christmas Tree ; in blossom, almost at the very top ; ripening all down the boughs ! Among the later toys and fancies hanging there — as idle often and less pure — be the images once associated with the sweet old Waits, the softened music in the night, ever un- alterable ! Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas time, still let the benignant figure of my childhood stand un- changed ! In every cheerful image and suggestion that the season brings, may the bright star that rested above the poor roof, be the star of all the Christian world ! A moment’s pause, 0 vanishing tree, of which the lower boughs are dark to me as yet, and let me look once more ! I know there are blank spaces on thy branches, where eyes that I have loved, have shone and smiled ; from which they are departed. But, far above, I see the raiser of the dead girl, and the Widow’s Son ; and God is good ! If Age be hiding for me in the un- seen portion of thy downward growth, 0 may I, with a gray head, turn a child’s heart to that figure yet, and a child’s trustfulness and confidence ! Now, the tree is decorated with bright merriment, and song, and dance, and cheerfulness. And they are welcome. Inno- cent and welcome be they ever held, beneath the branches of the Christmas Tree, which cast no gloomy shadow ! But, as it sinks into the ground, I hear a whisper going through the leaves. “This, in commemoration of the law of love and kindness, mercy and compassion. This, in remembrance of Me!” THE END.