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64https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/64'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 1, Seven Dials'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London </em>(27 September 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000355/18350927/001/0001" class="waffle-rich-text-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000355/18350927/001/0001</a>.<span></span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-09-27">1835-09-27</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-09-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No1_Seven_DialsDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 1, Seven Dials' (27 September 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-09-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No1_Seven_Dials">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-09-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No1_Seven_Dials</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-09-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No1_Seven_Dials.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 1, Seven Dials.' <em>Bell's Life in London </em>(27 September 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>SEVEN DIALS.—We have always been of opinion that if Tom King and the Frenchman had not immortalised Seven Dials, Seven Dials would have immortalised itself. Seven Dials! the region of song and poetry—first effusions, and last dying speeches: hallowed by the names of Catnac and of Pitts—names that will entwine themselves with costermongers, and barrel organs, when penny magazines shall have superseded penny yards of song, and capital punishment be unknown! Look at the construction of the place. The gordian knot was all very well in its way: so was the maze of Hampton Court: so is the maze at the Beulah Spa: so were the ties of stiff white neckcloths, when the difficulty of getting one on was only to be equalled by the apparent impossibility of ever getting it off again. But what involutions can compare with those of Seven Dials—where is there such another maze of streets, courts, lanes, and alleys—where such a pure mixture of Englishmen and Irishmen, as in this complicated part of London? We boldly aver that we doubt the veracity of the legend to which we have adverted. We can suppose a man rash enough to inquire at random—at a house with lodgers too—for a Mr. Thompson, with all but the certainty before his eyes, of finding at least two or three Thompsons in any house of moderate dimensions; but a Frenchman—a Frenchman—in Seven Dials! Pooh! He was an Irishman. Tom King&#039;s education had been neglected in his infancy, and as he couldn&#039;t understand half the man said, he took it for granted he was talking French. The stranger who finds himself in &quot;The Dials&quot; for the first time, and stands Belzoni-like, at the entrance of seven obscure passages, uncertain which to take, will see enough around him to keep his curiosity and attention awake for no inconsiderable time. From the irregular square into which he has emerged, streets and courts dart in all directions, until they are lost in the unwholesome vapour which hangs over the house-tops, and renders the dirty perspective uncertain and confined; and lounging at every corner, as if they came there to take a few gasps of such fresh air as has found its way so far, but is too much exhausted already to be enabled to force itself into the narrow alleys around, are groups of people, whose appearance and dwellings would fill any mind but a regular Londoner&#039;s with astonishment. On one side a little crowd has collected round a couple of ladies, who having imbibed the contents of various &quot;three-outs&quot; of gin and cloves in the course of the morning, have at length differed on some point of domestic arrangement, and are on the eve of settling the quarrel satisfactorily by an appeal to blows, greatly to the interest of other ladies who live in the same house, and tenements adjoining, and who are all partisans on one side or other. &quot;Vy don&#039;t you pitch into her Sarah?&quot; exclaims one half-dressed matron, by way of encouragement. &quot;S&#039;elp me God, if my &#039;usband had treated her vith a drain last night, unbeknown to me, I&#039;d tear her precious eyes out—a wixen!&quot; &quot;What&#039;s the matter, ma&#039;am?&quot; inquires another old woman, who has just bustled up to the spot. &quot;Matter!&quot; replies the first speaker, talking at the obnoxious combatant, &quot;matter! Here&#039;s poor dear Mrs. Sulliwin, as has five blessed children of her own, can&#039;t go out a charing for one arternoon, but what hussies must be a comin and ticing avay her oun &#039;usband, as she&#039;s been married to twelve year come next Easter Monday, for I see the certificate ven I was a drinkin a cup o&#039; tea vith her only the wery last blessed Ven&#039;sday as ever vos sent. I appen&#039;d to say promiscuously &#039;Mrs Sulliwin,&#039; says I—&quot; &quot;What do you mean by hussies?&quot; interrupts a champion of the other party, who has evinced a strong inclination throughout to get up a branch fight on her own account (&quot;Hoo-roar,&quot; ejaculates a pot-boy in a parenthesis, &#039;put the kye-bosh on her, Mary.&quot;) &quot;What do you mean by hussies?&quot; reiterates the champion. &quot;Niver mind,&quot; replies the opposition expressively, &quot;niver mind; you go home, and, ven you&#039;re quite sober, mend your stockings.&quot; This somewhat personal allusion, not only to the lady&#039;s habits of intemperance, but also to the state of her wardrobe, rouses her utmost ire, and she accordingly complies with the urgent request of the by-standers to &quot;pitch in,&quot; with considerable alacrity. The scuffle became general, and terminates, in minor play-bill phraseology, with &quot;arrival of the policemen—interior of the station-house, and impressive denouement.&quot; In addition to the numerous groups who are idling about the gin shops, and squabbling in the centre of the road, every post in the open space has its occupant, who leans against it for hours, with listless perseverance. It is odd enough that one class of men in London appear to have no enjoyment beyond leaning against posts. We never saw a regular bricklayer&#039;s labourer take any other recreation—fighting excepted. Pass through St. Giles&#039;s in the evening of a week day—there they are in their fustian dresses, spotted with brick-dust and whitewash—leaning against posts. Walk through Seven Dials on Sunday morning: there they are again—drab or light corduroy trousers, blucher boots, blue coats, and great yellow waistcoats—leaning against posts. The idea of a man dressing himself in his best clothes, to lean against a post all day! The peculiar character of these streets, and the close resemblance each one bears to its neighbour, by no means tends to decrease the bewilderment in which the unexperienced wayfarer through &quot;the Dials&quot; finds himself involved. He traverses streets of dirty, straggling houses, with here and there an unexpected court, composed of buildings as ill-proportioned and deformed as the half naked children that wallow in the kennels. Now and then, is a little dark chandler&#039;s shop, with a cracked bell hung up behind the door, to announce the entrance of a customer, or betray the presence of some young gentleman in whom a passion for shop tills has developed itself at an early age. Handsome, lofty buildings usurp the places of low dingy public-houses; long rows of broken and patched windows expose plants that may have flourished when &quot;the Dials&quot; were built, in vessels as dirty as &quot;the Dials&quot; themselves; and shops for the purchase of rags, bones, old iron, and kitchen stuff, vie in cleanliness with the bird-fanciers&#039; and rabbit-dealers&#039;, which one might fancy so many arks, but for the irresistible conviction that no bird in its proper senses, who was permitted to leave one of them, would ever come back again. Brokers&#039; shops, which would seem to have been established by humane individuals as refuges for destitute bugs, interspersed with announcements of day schools, penny theatres, petition-writers, mangles, and music for balls or routs, complete the &quot;still life&quot; of the subject; and dirty men, filthy women, squalid children, fluttering shuttlecocks, noisy battledores, reeking pipes, bad fruit, more than doubtful oysters, attenuated cats, depressed dogs, and anatomical fowls, are its cheerful accompaniments. If the external appearance of the houses, or a glance at their inhabitants, presents but few attractions, a closer acquaintance with either is little calculated to alter one&#039;s first impression. Every room has its separate tenant, and every tenant is—by the same mysterious dispensation which causes a country curate to &quot;increase and multiply&quot; most marvellously—generally the head of a numerous family. The man in the shop, perhaps, is in the baked &quot;jemmy&quot; line, or the fire-wood and hearth-stone line, or any other line which requires a floating capital of eighteen-pence or thereabouts; and he and his family live in the shop, and the small back parlour behind it. Then there is an Irish labourer and his family in the back kitchen; and a jobbing man—carpet-beater and so forth—with his family in the front one. In the front one-pair there&#039;s another man with another wife and family, and in the back one-pair, there&#039;s &quot;a young ooman as takes in tambour-work, and dresses quite genteel,&quot; who talks a good deal about &quot;my friend,&quot; and &quot;can&#039;t abear anything low.&quot; The second floor front, and the rest of the lodgers, are just a second edition of the people below, except a shabby-genteel man in the back attic, who has his half-pint of coffee every morning from the coffee-shop next door but one, which boasts a little front den called a coffee-room, with a fire-place, over which is an inscription, politely requesting that, &quot;to prevent mistakes,&quot; customers will &quot;please to pay on delivery.&quot; The shabby-genteel man is an object of some mystery, but as he leads a life of seclusion, and never was known to buy anything beyond an occasional pen, except half-pints of coffee, penny loaves, and ha&#039;porths of ink, his fellow-lodgers very naturally suppose him to be an author; and rumours are current in the Dials, that he writes poems—for Mr Warren. Now anybody who passed through the Dials on a hot summer&#039;s evening, and saw the different women in the house gossiping on the steps, would be apt to think that all was harmony among them, and that a more primitive set of people than the native Diallers could not be imagined. Alas! the man in the shop ill-treats his family; the carpet-beater extends his professional pursuits to his wife; the one-pair front has an undying feud with the two pair front, in consequence of the two-pair front persisting in dancing over his (the one-pair front&#039;s) head, when he and his family have retired for the night; the two-pair back will interfere with the front kitchen&#039;s children; the Irishman comes home drunk every other night, and attacks everybody; and the one-pair back screams at everything. Animosities spring up between floor and floor; the very cellar asserts his equality. Mrs A. smacks Mrs B.&#039;s child for &quot;making faces.&quot; Mrs B. forthwith throws cold water over Mrs A.&#039;s child for &quot;calling names.&quot; The husbands are embroiled—the quarrel becomes general—an assault is the consequence, and a police-office the result.18350927https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._1_Seven_Dials/1835-09-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No1__Seven_Dials.pdf
104https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/104'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 10, Christmas Festivities'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (27 December 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351227/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351227/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-12-27">1835-12-27</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-12-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No10_Christmas_FestivitiesDickens, Charles. '<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 10, Christmas Festivities' (27 December 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-12-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No10_Christmas_Festivities">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-12-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No10_Christmas_Festivities</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-12-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No10_Christmas_Festivities.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 10, Christmas Festivities.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (27 December 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused—in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened—by the recurrence of Christmas. There are people who will tell you that Christmas is not to them what it used to be—that each succeeding Christmas has found some cherished hope or happy prospect of the year before dimmed or passed away —and that the present only serves to remind them of reduced circumstances and straitened incomes—of the feasts they once bestowed on hollow friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in adversity and misfortune. Never heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few men who have lived long enough in the world who cannot call up such thoughts any day in the year. Then do not select the merriest of the three hundred and sixty-five for your doleful recollections, but draw your chair nearer the blazing fire—till the glass, aud send round the song—and, if your room be smaller than it was a dozen years ago, or if your glass is filled with reeking punch instead of sparkling wine, put a good face on the matter, and empty it off-hand, and fill another, and troll off the old ditty you used to sing, and thank God it&#039;s no worse. Look on the merry faces of your children as they sit round the fire. One little seat may be empty—one slight form that gladdened the father&#039;s heart and rouse the mother&#039;s pride to look upon may not be there. Dwell not upon the past—think not that, one short year ago, the fair child now fast resolving into dust sat before you, with the bloom of health upon its cheek, and the gay unconsciousness of infancy in its joyous eye. Reflect upon your present blessings—of which all man have some. Fill your glass again, with a merry face and a contented heart. Our life on it but your Christmas shall be merry, and your new year a happy one. Who can be insensible to the outpourings of good feeling, and the honest interchange of affectionate attachment, which abound at this season of the year? A Christmas family party! We know nothing in nature more delightful! There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas. Petty jealousies and discords are forgotten: social feelings are awakened in bosoms to which they have long been strangers; father and son, or brother and sister, who have met and passed with averted gaze, or a look of cold recognition for months before, proffer and return the cordial embrace, and bury their past animosities in their present happiness. Kindly hearts that have yearned towards each other but have been withheld by false notions of pride and self dignity, are again united, and all is kindness and benevolence! Would that Christmas lasted the whole year through, and that the prejudices and passions which deform our better nature were never called into action among those to whom, at least, they should ever be strangers! The Christmas Family Party that we mean is not a mere assemblage of relations, got up at a week or two&#039;s notice, originating this year, having no family precedent in the last, and not likely to be repeated in the next. It is an annual gathering of all the accessible members of the family, young or old, rich or poor, and all the children look forward to it for some two months beforehand in a fever of anticipation. Formerly it was always held at grandpapa&#039;s, but grandpapa getting old, and grandmamma getting old too, and rather infirm, they have given up housekeeping, and domesticated themselves with uncle George: so the party always takes place at uncle George&#039;s house, but grandmamma sends in most of the good things, and grandpapa always will toddle down all the way to Newgate-market to buy the turkey, which he engages a porter to bring home behind him in triumph, always insisting on the man&#039;s being rewarded with a glass of spirits, over and above his hire, to drink &quot;a merry Christmas and a happy new year&quot; to aunt George; as to grandma she is very secret and mysterious for two or three days beforehand, but not sufficiently so to prevent rumours getting afloat that she has purchased a beautiful new cap with pink ribbons for each of the servants, together with sundry books, and penknives, and pencil-cases for the young branches—to say nothing of divers secret additions to the order originally given by aunt George at the pastry-cook&#039;s, such as another dozen of mince pies for the dinner, and a large plum-cake for the children. On Christmas-eve, grandma is always in excellent spirits, and after employing all the children during the day in stoning the plumbs and all that, insists regularly every year on uncle George coming down into the kitchen, taking off his coat, and stirring the pudding for half an hour or so, which uncle George good humouredly does, to the vociferous delight of the children and servants; and the evening concludes with a glorious game of blind man&#039;s buff, in an early stage of which grandpa takes great care to be caught, in order that he may have an opportunity of displaying his dexterity. On the following morning the old couple, with as many of the children as the pew will hold, go to church in great state, leaving aunt George at home dusting decanters and filling castors, and uncle George carrying bottles into the dining parlour, and calling for corkscrews, and getting into everybody&#039;s way. When the church party return to lunch, grandpapa produces a small spring of mistletoe from his pocket, and temps the boys to kiss their little cousins under it —a proceeding which affords both the boys and the old gentleman unlimited satisfaction, but which rather outrages grandma&#039;s ideas of decorum, until grandpa says that when he was just thirteen years and three months old he kissed grandma under a mistletoe too, on which the children clap their hands and laugh very heartily, as do aunt George and uncle George; and grandma looks pleased, and says with a benevolent smile that grandpa always was an impudent dog, on which the children laugh very heartily again, and grandpa more heartily than any of them. But all these diversions are nothing to the subsequent excitement, when grandmamma in a high cap and slate-coloured silk gown, and grandpapa with a beautifully plaited shirt frill and white neckerchief, seat themselves on one side of the drawing-room fire with uncle George&#039;s children and little cousins innumerable, seated in the front, waiting the arrival of the anxiously-expected visitors. Suddenly a hackney coach is heard to stop, and uncle George, who has been looking out of the window, exclaims &quot;Here&#039;s Jane!&quot; on which the children rush to the door, and scamper helter-skelter down stairs; and uncle Robert and aunt Jane, and the dear little baby and the nurse, and the whole party, are ushered up stairs amidst tumultuous shouts of &quot;Oh, my!&quot; from the children, and frequently repeated warnings not to hurt baby from the nurse; and grandpapa takes the child, and grandmamma kisses her daughter, and the confusion of this first entry has scarcely subsided, when some other aunts and uncles with more cousins arrive, and the grown-up cousins flirt with each other, and so do the little cousins too for that matter, and nothing is to be heard but a confused din of talking, laughing, and merriment. A hesitating double knock at the street door, heard during a momentary pause in the conversation, excites a general inquiry of &quot;Who&#039;s that?&quot; and two or three children, who have been standing at the window, announce in a low voice, that it&#039;s &quot;poor aunt Margaret.&quot; Upon which aunt George leaves the room to welcome the new comer and grandmamma draws herself up rather stiff and stately, for Margaret married a poor man without her consent, and poverty not being a sufficiently weighty punishment for her offence has been discarded by her friends, and debarred the society of her dearest relatives. But Christmas has come round, and the unkind feelings that have struggled against better dispositions during the year, have melted away before its genial influence, like half-formed ice beneath the morning sun. It is not difficult in a moment of angry feeling for a parent to denounce a disobedient child; but to banish her at a period of general good-will and hilarity from the hearty, round which she has sat on so many anniversaries of the same day; expanding by slow degrees from infancy to girlhood, and then bursting, almost imperceptibly, into the high-spirited and beautiful woman, is widely different. The air of conscious rectitude and cold forgiveness, which the old lady has assumed, sits ill upon her; and when the poor girl is led in by her sister—pale in looks and broken in spirit—not from poverty, for that she could bear; but from the consciousness of undeserved neglect, and unmerited unkindness—it is easy to see how much of it is assumed. A momentary pause succeeds; the girl breaks suddenly from her sister, and throws herself, sobbing, on her mother&#039;s neck. The father steps hastily forward, and grasps her husband&#039;s hand. Friends crowd round to offer their hearty congratulations, and happiness and harmony again prevail. As to the dinner, its perfectly delightful—nothing goes wrong, and everybody is in the very best of spirits, and disposed to please and be pleased. Grandpapa relates a circumstantial account of the purchase of the turkey, with a slight digression relative to the purchase of previous turkeys on former Christmas Days, which grandmamma corroborates in the minutest particular: Uncle George tells stories, and carves poultry, and takes wine, and jokes with the children at the side-table, and winks at the cousins that are making love, or being made love to, and exhilarates everybody with his good humour and hospitality; and when at last a stout servant staggers in with a gigantic pudding, with a sprig of holly in the top, there is such a laughing, and shouting, and clapping of little chubby hands, and kicking up of fat dumpy legs, as can only be equalled by the applause with which the astonishing feat of pouring lighted brandy into mince pies is received by the younger visitors. Then the dessert!—and the wine!—and the fun! Such beautiful speeches, and such songs, from Aunt Margaret&#039;s husband, who turns out to be such a nice man, and so attentive to grandmamma! Even grandpapa not only sings his annual song with unprecedented vigour, but, on being honoured with an unanimous encore, according to annual custom; actually comes out with a new one, which nobody but grandmamma ever heard before, and a young scape-grace of a cousin, who has been in some disgrace with the old people, for certain heinous sins of omission and commission—neglecting to call, and persisting in drinking Burton ale—astonishes everybody into convulsions of laughter by volunteering the most extraordinary comic songs that were ever heard. And thus the evening passes in a strain of national good-will and cheerfulness, doing more to awaken the sympathies of every member of the party in behalf of his neighbour, and to perpetuate their good feeling during the ensuing year, than all the homilies that have ever been written, by all the Divines that have ever lived. There are a hundred associations connected with Christmas which we should very much like to recall to the minds of our readers; there are a hundred comicalities inseparable from the period, on which it would give us equal pleasure to dilate. We have attained our ordinary limits, however, and cannot better conclude than by wishing each and all of them, individually &amp; collectively, &quot;a merry Christmas happy new year.&quot;18351227https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._10_Christmas_Festivities/1835-12-27_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No10_Christmas_Festivities.pdf
105https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/105'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 11, The New Year'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (3 January 1836).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18360103/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18360103/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-01-03">1836-01-03</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1836-01-03_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No11_The_New_YearDickens, Charles. '<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No.11, The New Year' (3 January 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-01-03_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No11_The_New_Year">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-01-03_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No11_The_New_Year</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836-01-03_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No11_The_New_Year.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 11, The New Year.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (3 January 1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Next to Christmas-day, the most pleasant annual epoch in existence is the advent of the New Year. There are a lachrymose set of people who usher in the New Year with watching and fasting, as if they were bound to attend as chief mourners at the obsequies of the old one. Now, we cannot but think it a great deal more complimentary, both to the old year that has rolled away, and to the new year that is just beginning to dawn upon us, to see the old fellow out, and the new one in, with gaiety and glee. There must have been some few occurrences in the past year to which we can look back, with a smile of cheerful recollection, if not with a feeling of heartfelt thankfulness; and we are bound by every rule of justice and equity to give the new year credit for being a good one, until he proves himself unworthy the confidence we repose in him. This is our view of the matter; and entertaining it, notwithstanding our respect for the old year, one of the few remaining moments of whose existence passes away with every word we write, here we are, seated by our fireside on this last night of the old year, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five, penning this article, and drinking our grog with as jolly a face as if nothing extraordinary had happened, or was about to happen, to disturb our equanimity. Hackney coaches and carriages keep rattling up the street and down the street in rapid succession, conveying, doubtless, smartly-dressed coachfulls to crowded parties; loud and repeated double knocks at the house with green blinds opposite, announce to the whole neighbourhood that there&#039;s one large party in the street at all events; and we saw through the window—and through the fog too, till it grew so thick that we rung for candles, and drew our curtains—pastry-cooks&#039; men with green boxes on their heads, and rout furniture—warehouse carts, with cane seats and French lamps, hurrying to the numerous houses where an annual festival is held in honour of the occasion. We can fancy one of these parties, we think, as well as if we were duly dress-coated and pumped, and had just been announced at the drawing-room door. Take the house with the green blinds for instance. We know its a quadrille party, because we saw some men taking up the front drawing-room carpet while we sat at breakfast this morning; and if further evidence be required, and we must tell the truth, we just now saw one of the young ladies &quot;doing&quot; another of the young ladies&#039; hair, near one of the bedroom windows, in an unusual style of splendour, which nothing less than a quadrille party could possibly justify. The master of the house with the green blinds is in a public office—we know the fact by the cut of his coat, the tie of his neckcloth, and the self-satisfaction of his gait—the very green blinds themselves have a Somerset-house air about them. Hark!—a cab! That&#039;s a junior clerk in the same office—a tidy sort of young man, with a tendency to cold and corns, who comes with a pair of boots with black cloth fronts, and his shoes in his coat pocket, which shoes he is at this very moment putting on in the hall. Now he is announced by the man in the passage to another man in a blue coat—who is a disguised messenger from the office—on the first landing; and the man on the first landing precedes him to the drawing-room door. &quot;Mr. Winkles!&quot;shouts the messenger. &quot;How are you, Winkles?&quot; says the master of the house, advancing from the fire, before which he has been standing, talking politics and airing himself. &quot;My dear, this is Mr Winkles (a courteous salute from the lady of the house). &quot;Winkles, my eldest daughter Julia, my dear, Mr. Winkles; Mr. Winkles, my other daughters—my son, Sir;&quot; and Winkles rubs his hands very hard, and smiles as if it were all capital fun, and keeps constantly bowing and turning himself round, till the whole family have been introduced, when he glides into a chair at the corner of the sofa, and opens a miscellaneous conversation with the young ladies upon the weather and the theatres, and the old year and its lions—Captain Ross and the silent system—O&#039;Connell and Mr. Balfe—the voluntary principle and the comet—the Jewess and the Orange Lodges. More double knocks! What an extensive party! what an incessant hum of conversation and general sipping of coffee! We see Winkles now in our mind&#039;s eye, in the height of his glory. He has just handed that stout old lady&#039;s cup to the servant, and now, he dives among the crowd of young men by the door, to intercept the other servant, and secure the muffin-plate for the old lady&#039;s daughter, before he leaves the room; and now, as he passes the sofa on his way back, he bestows a glance of recognition and patronage upon the young ladies, as condescending and familiar as if he had known them from infancy. Charming person that Mr. Winkles —perfect ladies&#039; man. Such a delightful companion, too! Laugh!—nobody ever understood Pa&#039;s jokes half so well as Mr. Winkles, who laughs himself into convulsions at every fresh burst of facetiousness. Most delightful partner!—talks through the whole set; and although he does seem at first rather gay and frivolous, so romantic and with so much feeling!—quite a love. No great favourite with the young men, certainly, who sneer at, and affect to despise him; but everybody knows that&#039;s only envy, and they needn&#039;t give themselves the trouble of attempting to depreciate his merits at any rate; for Ma says he shall be asked to every future dinner-party, if it&#039;s only to talk to people between the courses, and distract their attention when there&#039;s any unexpected delay in the kitchen. At supper, Mr Winkles shows to still greater advantage than he has done throughout the evening, and when Pa requests every one to fill their glasses for the purpose of drinking happiness throughout the year, Mr. Winkles is so droll, insisting on all the young ladies having their glasses filled, notwithstanding their repeated assurances that they never can, by any possibility, think of emptying them and subsequently begging permission to say a few words on the sentiment which has just been uttered by Pa, when he makes one of the most brilliant and poetical speeches that can possibly be imagined, about the old year and the new one. After the toast has been drunk, and when the ladies have retired, Mr. Winkles requests that every gentleman will do him the favour of filling his glass, for he has a toast to propose; on which all the gentlemen cry &quot;hear! hear!&quot; and pass the decanters accordingly, and Mr. Winkles being informed by the master of the house that they are all charged, and waiting for his toast, rises, and begs to remind the gentlemen present how much they have been delighted by the dazzling array of elegance and beauty which the drawing-room has exhibited that night, and how their senses have been charmed, and their hearts captivated by the bewitching concentration of female loveliness which that very room has so recently displayed [loud cries of hear!]. Much as he (Winkles) would be disposed to deplore the absence of the ladies, on other grounds, he cannot but derive some consolation from the reflection that the very circumstance of their not being present enables him to propose a toast which he would have otherwise been prevented from giving—that toast he begs to say is—&quot;The Ladies!&#039;&quot;[great applause].—The ladies, among whom the fascinating daughters of their excellent host are alike conspicuous for their beauty, their accomplishments, and their elegance. He begs them to drain a bumper to &quot;The Ladies,&quot; and a happy new year to them [prolonged approbation, above which the noise of the ladies dancing the Spanish dance among themselves, over head, is distinctly audible]. The applause consequent on this toast has scarcely subsided when a young gentleman in a pink under waistcoat, towards the bottom of the table, is observed to grow very restless and fidgetty, and to evince strong indications of some latent desire to give vent to his feelings in a speech, which the wary Winkles at once perceiving determines to forestal by speaking himself. He, therefore, rises again, with an air of solemn importance, and trusts he may be permitted to propose another toast [unqualified approbation, and Mr. Winkles proceeds]. He is sure they must all be deeply impressed with the hospitality—he may say the splendour—with which they have been that night received by their worthy host and hostess [unbounded applause]. Although this is the first occasion on which he has had the pleasure and delight of sitting at that board, he has known his friend Dobble long and intimately; he has been connected with him in business—he wishes everybody present knew Dobble as well as he does [a cough from the host]. He (Winkles) can lay his hand upon his (Winkles) heart, and declare his confident belief that a better man, a better husband, a better father, a better brother, a better son, a better relation in any relation of life, than Dobble, never existed [loud cries of &quot;Hear!&quot;]. They have seen him to-night in the peaceful bosom of his family; they should see him in the morning, in the trying duties of his office. Calm in the perusal of the Morning Paper, uncompromising in the signature of his name, dignified in his replies to the inquiries of stranger applicants, deferential in his behaviour to his superiors—majestic in his deportment to the messengers [cheers]. When he bears this merited testimony to the excellent qualities of his friend Dobble, what can he say in approaching such a subject as Mrs Dobble? Is it requisite for him to expatiate on the qualities of that amiable woman? No; he will spare his friend Dobble&#039;s feelings; he will spare the feelings of his friend—if he will allow him to have the honour of calling him so—Mr Dobble, Junior. [Here Mr Dobble Junior, who has been previously distending his mouth to a considerable width, by thrusting a particularly fine orange into that feature, suspends operations, and assumes a proper appearance of intense melancholy]. He will simply say—and he is quite certain it is a sentiment in which all who hear him will readily concur—that his friend Dobble is as superior to any man he ever knew, as Mrs. Dobble is far beyond any woman he ever saw (except her daughters), and he will conclude by proposing their &quot;worthy host and hostess, and may they live to enjoy many more new years.&quot; The toast is drunk with acclamation—Dobble returns thanks—and the whole party rejoin the ladies in the drawing-room. Young men who were too bashful to dance before supper, find tongues and partners; the musicians exhibit unequivocal symptoms of having drunk the new year in, while the company were out; and dancing is kept up until far in the first morning of the new year. We have scarcely written the last word of the previous sentence, when the first stroke of twelve peals from the neighbouring churches; there is something awful in the sound. Strictly speaking, it may not be more impressive now than at any other time, for the hours steal as swiftly on at other periods, and their flight is little heeded. But, we measure man&#039;s life by years, and it is a solemn knell that warns us we have passed another of the boundaries which stand between us and the grave; disguise it as we may, the reflection will force itself on our minds that when next that bell announces the arrival of a new year, we may be insensible alike of the timely warning we have so often neglected, and of all the warm feelings that glow within us now. But twelve has struck, and the bells ring merrily out which welcome the new year. Away with all gloomy reflections. We were happy and merry in the last one, and will be, please God, in this. So as we are alone, and can neither dance it in, nor sing it in, here goes our glass to our lips, and a hearty welcome to the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six say we.18360103https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._11_The_New_Year/1836-01-03_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No.11_The_New_Year.pdf
106https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/106'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 12, The Streets at Night'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (17 January 1836).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18360117/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18360117/001/0001</a>. <em>Source is faded and illegible in places.</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-01-17">1836-01-17</a><em>The British Newspaper Archive.</em> Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1836-01-17_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No12_The_Streets_at_NightDickens, Charles. '<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 12, The Streets at Night' (17 January 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-01-17_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No12_The_Streets_at_Night">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-01-17_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No12_The_Streets_at_Night</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836-01-17_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No12_The_Streets_at_Night.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 12, The Streets at Night.' Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (17 January 1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>The streets of London, to be beheld in the very height of their glory, should be seen on a dark, dull, murky, winter’s night, when there is just enough damp gently stealing down to make the pavement greasy, without cleaning it of any of its impurities, and when the heavy lazy mist, which hangs over every object around makes the gas lamps look brighter, and the brilliantly lighted shops more splendid, from the contrast they present. Everybody who is in-doors on such a night as this, seem disposed to make themselves as snug and comfortable as possible. In the larger and better kind of streets dining parlour curtains are closely drawn, kitchen fires blaze brightly up, and savoury steams of hot dinners salute the nostrils of the hungry wayfarer, as he plods wearily by the area railings. In the suburbs, the muffin-boy rings his way down the little street much more slowly than he is wont to do, for Mrs. Macklin at number four has no sooner opened her little street-door and screamed out &quot;Muffins!&quot; with all her might, than Mrs. Walker at number five puts her head out of the parlour window, and screams &quot;Muffins!&quot; too, and Mrs. Walker has scarcely got the word out of her lips, than Mrs. Peplow over the way lets loose Master Peplow, who darts down the street with a velocity which nothing but buttered muffins in perspective could possibly inspire, and drags the boy back by main force, whereupon Mrs. Macklin and Mrs. Walker, just to save the boy trouble, and to say a few neighbourly words to Mrs. Peplow at the same time, run over the way and buy their muffins at Mrs. Peplow’s door, when it appears from the voluntary statement of Mrs. Walker, that her kittle’s just a-biling, and the cups and sarsers ready laid, and that, as it was such a wretched night out o’ doors, she’d made up her mind to have a nice hot comfortable cup o’ tea—a determination at which, by the most singular coincidence, the other two ladies had simultaneously arrived. After a little conversation about the wretchedness of the weather and the merits of tea, with a digression relative to the viciousness of boys as a rule, and the amiability of Master Peplow as an exception, Mrs. Walker sees her husband coming down the street, and as he must want his tea, poor man, after his dirty walk from the docks, she instantly runs across, muffins in hand, and Mrs. Macklin does the same, and after a few words to Mrs. Walker, they all pop into their little houses, and slam their little street-doors, which are not opened again for the remainder of the evening, except to the nine o’clock beer, who comes round with a lantern in front of his tray, and says, as he lends Mrs. Walker &quot;yesterday’s &#039;Tiser,&quot; that he’s blessed if he can hardly hold the pot, much less feel the paper, for it’s one of the bitterest nights he ever felt, ’cept the night when the man was frozen to death in the Brick-field. After a little prophetic conversation with the policeman at the street-corner, touching a probable change in the weather, and the setting-in of a hard frost, the nine o’clock beer returns to his master’s house, and employs himself for the remainder of the evening, in assiduously stirring the tap-room fire, and deferentially taking part in the conversation of the worthies assembled round it. The streets in the vicinity of the Marsh-gate and Victoria Theatre present an appearance of dirt and discomfort on such a night, which the groups who lounge about them in no degree tend to diminish. Even the little block-tin temple sacred to &quot;baked &#039;taturs,&quot; surmounted by a splendid design in variegated lamp, looks less gay than usual; and as to the kidney-pie stand, its glory has quite departed, for the candle in the transparent lamp, manufactured of oiled paper, embellished with &quot;characters,&quot; has been blown out fifty times, so the kidney-pie merchant, tired with running backwards and forwards to the next wine-vaults to get a light, has given up the idea of illumination in despair, and the only signs of his whereabout are the bright sparks, of which, a long irregular train is whirled down the street every time he opens his portable oven to hand a hot kidney-pie to a customer. Flat-fish, oyster, and fruit-vendors linger hopelessly in the kennel, in vain endeavouring to attract customers; and the ragged boys who usually disport themselves about the streets, stand crouched in little knots in some projecting door-way, or under the canvass window-blind of a cheesemonger’s, where great flaring gas lights, unshaded by any glass, display huge piles of bright red, and pale yellow cheeses, mingled with little fivepenny dabs of dingy bacon, various tubs of weekly Dorset, and cloudy rolls of &quot;best fresh.&quot; Here they amuse themselves with theatrical converse arising out of their last half-price visit to the Victoria gallery, admire the terrific combat which is nightly encored, and expatiate on the inimitable manner in which Bill Thompson can come the double monkey, or go through the mysterious involutions of a sailor’s hornpipe. It is nearly eleven o’clock, and the cold thin rain which has been drizzling so long, is beginning to pour down in good earnest; the baked-&#039;tatur man has departed—the kidney-pie man has just taken his warehouse on his arm with the same object—the cheesemonger has drawn in his blind—&amp;amp; the boys have dispersed. The constant clicking of pattens on the slippy and uneven pavement, &amp;amp; the rustling of umbrellas as the wind blows against the shop windows, bear testimony to the inclemency of the night; and the policeman, with his oil skin cape butoned closely round him, seems, as he holds his hat on his head, and turns round to avoid the gust of wind and rain which drives against him at the street corner, to be very far from congratulating himself on the prospect before him. The little chandler’s shop, with the cracked bell behind the door, whose melancholy tinkling has been regulated by the demand for quarterns of sugar, and half ounces of coffee, is shutting up; the crowds which have been passing to and fro during the whole day, are rapidly dwindling away; and the noise of shouting and quarrelling which issues from the public-houses, is almost the only sound that breaks the melancholy stillness. There was another, but it has ceased. That wretched woman with the infant in her arms, round whose meagre form the remnant of her own scanty shawl is carefully wrapped, has been attempting to sing some popular ballad, in the hope of wringing a few pence from the compassionate passer by—a brutal laugh at her weak voice is all she has gained. The tears fall thick and fast down her worn pale face; the child is cold and hungry, and its low half-stifled wailing adds to the misery of its wretched mother, as she moans aloud, and sinks despairingly down on a cold damp door-step. Singing! How few of those who pass such a miserable creature as this think of the anguish of heart, the sinking of soul and spirit, which the very effort of singing produces. What a bitter mockery! Disease, neglect, and starvation, faintly articulating the words of the joyous ditty that has enlivened your hours of feasting and merriment, God knows how often! It is no subject for jeering. The weak tremulous voice tells a fearful tale of want and famishing, and the feeble singer of this roaring song may turn away only to die of cold and hunger. One o’clock! Parties returning from the different theatres foot it through the muddy streets; cabs, hackney coaches, carriages, and theatre-omnibuses, roll swiftly by; watermen, with dim dirty lanterns in their hands, and large brass plates upon their breasts, who have been shouting and rushing about for the last two hours, retire to their watering-houses, to solace themselves with the creature comforts of pipes and purl; the half-price pit and box frequenters of the theatres throng to the different houses of refreshment; and chops, kidneys, rabbits, oysters, stout, cigars, and &quot;goes&quot; innumerable, are served up amidst a noise and confusion of smoking, running, knife-clattering, and waiter-chattering, perfectly indescribable. The more musical portion of the play-going community betake themselves to some harmonic meeting; and, as a matter of curiosity, we will follow them thither for a few moments. In a lofty room, of spacious dimensions, sit some eighty or a hundred guests, knocking little pewter measures on the tables, and hammering away with the handles of their knives, as if they were so many trunk makers. They are applauding a glee, which has just been executed by the three &quot;professional gentlemen&quot; at the top of the centre table, one of whom is in the chair—the little pompous man, with the bald head just emerging from the collar of his green coat. The others are seated on either side of him—the stout man with the small voice, and the thin-faced dark man in black. The little man in the chair is a most amusing personage—such condescending grandeur, and such a voice! &quot;Bass!&quot; as the young gentleman near us with the blue stock forcibly remarks to his companion, &quot;bass! I b’lieve you. He can go down lower than any man: so low sometimes that you can’t hear him.&quot; And so he does. To hear him growling away, gradually lower and lower down, till he can’t get back again, is the most delightful thing in the world, and it is quite impossible to witness unmoved the impressive solemnity with which he pours forth his soul in &quot;My ’Art’s in the Ilands,&quot;’ or &quot;The Brave Old Hoak.&quot; The stout man is also addicted to sentimentality, and warbles &quot;Fly fly from the World, my Bessy with me,&quot; or some such song, with lady-like sweetness, and in the most seductive tones imaginable. &quot;Pray give your orders gen’l’m’n—pray give your orders&quot;—says a pale-faced man with a red-head; and demands for &quot;goes&quot; of gin, and &quot;goes&quot; of brandy, and pints of stout, and cigars of peculiar mildness, are vociferously made from all parts of the room. The &quot;professional gentlemen&quot; are in the very height of their glory, and bestow condescending nods, or even a word or two of recognition on the better-known frequenters of the room, in the most bland and patronising manner possible. The little round-faced man with the small brown surtout, white stockings, and shoes, is in the comic line; the mixed air of self denial, and mental consciousness of his own powers with which he acknowledges the call of the chair, is particularly gratifying.—&quot;Gentlemen,&quot; says the little pompous man, accompanying the word with a knock of the president’s hammer on the table—&quot;‘Gentlemen, allow me to claim your attention—Our friend Mr. Smuggins will oblige.&quot;— &quot;Bravo!&quot; shout the company; and Smuggins, after a considerable quantity of coughing, by way of symphony, and a most facetious sniff or two, which afford general delight, sings a comic song with a fal-de-ral tol-de-ral chorus at the end of every verse, much longer than the verse itself. It is received with unbounded applause, and after some aspiring genius has volunteered a recitation, and failed dismally therein, the little pompous man gives another knock, and says &quot;Gentlemen, we will attempt a glee, if you please.&quot; This announcement calls forth tumultuous applause, and the more energetic spirits express the unqualified approbation it affords them by knocking one or two stout glasses off their legs—a humorous device, but one which frequently occasions some slight altercation when the form of paying the damage is proposed to be gone through by the waiter. Scenes like these are continued until three or four o’clock in the morning; and even when they close, fresh ones open to the inquisitive novice. But as a description of all of them, however slight, would require a volume, we make our bow and drop the curtain.18360117https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._12_The_Streets_at_Night/1836-01-17_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No12_The_Streets_at_Night.pdf
65https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/65'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 2, Miss Evans and "The Eagle"'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (4 October 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351004/009/0001?browse=true" class="waffle-rich-text-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351004/009/0001.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-10-04">1835-10-04</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-10-04_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No2_Miss_Evans_and_The_EagleDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 2, Miss Evans and The Eagle (04 October 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-04_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No2_Miss_Evans_and_The_Eagle">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-04_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No2_Miss_Evans_and_The_Eagle</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-10-04_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No2_Miss_Evans_and_The_Eagle.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Scenes and Characters, No. 2, Miss Evans and "The Eagle".' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (4 October 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Mr. Samuel Wilkins was a carpenter—a journeyman carpenter, of small dimensions; decidedly below the middle size—bordering perhaps upon the dwarfish. His face was round and shiny, &amp; his hair carefully twisted into the outer corner of each eye, till it formed a variety of that description of semi-curls, usually known as &quot;haggerawators.&quot; His earnings were all-sufficient for his wants—varying from eighteen shillings to one pound five, weekly; his manner undeniable—his sabbath waistcoats dazzling. No wonder that with these qualifications Samuel Wilkins found favour in the eyes of the other sex; many women have been captivated by far less substantial qualifications. But Samuel was proof against their blandishments, until at length his eyes rested on those of a being for whom from that time forth he felt fate had destined him. He came and conquered—proposed and was accepted —loved and was beloved. Mr. Wilkins &quot;kept company&quot; with Jemima Evans. Miss Evans (or Ivins, to adopt the pronunciation most in vogue with her circle of acquaintance) had adopted in early life the harmless pursuit of shoe-binding, to which she had afterwards superadded the occupation of a straw-bonnet maker. Herself, her maternal parent, and two sisters, formed an harmonious quartett in the most secluded portion of Camden-town; and here it was that Mr. Wilkins presented himself one Monday afternoon in his best attire, with his face more shiny and his waistcoat more bright than either had ever appeared before. The family were just going to tea, and were so glad to see him. It was quite a little feast; two ounces of seven and sixpenny green, and a quarter of a pound of the best fresh; and Mr. Wilkins had brought a pint of shrimps, neatly folded up in a clean belcher, to give a zest to the meal, and propitiate Mrs. Ivins. Jemima was &quot;cleaning herself&quot; up-stairs: so Mr. Samuel Wilkins sat down, and talked domestic economy with Mrs. Ivins, whilst the two youngest Miss Ivins&#039;s poked bits of lighted brown paper between the bars, under the kettle, to make the water boil for tea. &quot;I vos thinkin&#039;&quot; said Mr. Samuel Wilkins, during a pause in the conversation, &quot;I vos a thinkin&#039; of takin&#039; J’mima to the Eagle to-night.&quot; &quot;O my!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Ivins. &quot;Lor! how nice!&quot; said the youngest Miss Ivins. &quot;Well; I declare!&quot; added the youngest Miss Ivins but one. &quot;Tell J’mima to put on her white muslin, Tilly,&quot; screamed Mrs. Ivins, with motherly anxiety; and down came J’mima herself soon afterwards in a white muslin gown, carefully hook-and-eyed, and little red shawl plentifully pinned, and white straw bonnet trimmed with red ribbons, and a small necklace and large pair of bracelets, and Denmark satin shoes, and open-work stockings, white cotton gloves on her fingers, and a cambric pocket-handkerchief carefully folded up in her hand—all quite genteel and ladylike. And away went Miss Jemima Ivins, and Mr. Samuel Wilkins, and a dress cane, with a gilt knob at the top, to the admiration and envy of the street in general, and to the high gratification of Mrs. Ivins, and the two youngest Miss Ivinses in particular. They had no sooner turned into the Pancras-road, than who should Miss Jemima Ivins stumble upon by the most fortunate accident in the world, but a young lady as she knew, with her young man, and—it is so strange how things do turn out sometimes—they were actually going to the Eagle too. So Mr. Samuel Wilkins was introduced to Miss Jemima Ivins’s friend’s young man, and they all walked on together, talking, and laughing and joking away like anything; and when they got as far as Pentonville, Miss Ivins’s friend’s young man would have the ladies go into the Crown to taste some shrub, which, after a great blushing and giggling, and hiding of faces in elaborate pocket-handkerchiefs, they consented to do. Having tasted it once, they were easily prevailed upon to taste it again; and they sat out in the garden tasting shrub, and looking at the Busses alternately &#039;till it was just the proper time to go to the Eagle; and then they resumed their journey, and walked on very fast, for fear they should lose the beginning of the concert in the Rotunda.<br /> <br /> &quot;How ev’nly!&quot; said Miss J’mima Ivins and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend both at once, when they had passed the gate, and were fairly inside the gardens. There were the walks beautifully gravelled and planted; and the refreshment boxes painted and ornamented like so many snuff-boxes, and the variegated lamps shedding their rich light upon the company’s heads, and the place for dancing ready chalked for the company’s feet, and a Moorish band playing at one end of the gardens, and an opposition military band playing away at the other. Then the waiters were rushing to and fro with glasses of negus, and glasses of brandy and water, and bottles of ale and bottles of stout; and ginger-beer was going off in one place, and practical jokes were going on in another; and people were crowding to the door of the rotunda, and in short the whole scene was, as Miss J’mima Ivins, inspired by the novelty, or the shrub, or both, observed— &quot;one of dazzlin excitement.&quot; As to the concert room, never was anything half so splendid. There was an orchestra for the singers, all paint, gilding, and plate glass; and such an organ! Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man whispered it had cost &quot;four hundred pound,&quot; which Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was &quot;not dear neither&quot;—an opinion in which the ladies perfectly coincided. The audience were seated on elevated benches round the room, and crowded into every part of it, and every body was eating and drinking as comfortably as possible. Just before the concert commenced, Mr. Samuel Wilkins ordered two glasses of rum-and-water &quot;warm with,&quot; and two slices of lemon, for himself and the other young man, together with &quot;a pint o’ sherry wine for the ladies, and some sweet carraway-seed biscuits;&quot; and they would have been quite comfortable and happy, only one gentleman with large whiskers would stare at Miss J’mima Ivins, and another gentleman in a plaid waistcoat would wink at Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend; on which Miss Jemima Ivins’s friend’s young man exhibited symptoms of boiling over, and began to mutter about &quot;people’s imperence&quot; and &quot;swells out o’ luck,&quot; and to intimate in oblique terms a vague intention of knocking somebody’s head off, which he was only prevented from announcing more emphatically by both Miss J’mima Ivins and her friend, threatening to faint away on the spot if he said another word. The concert commenced—overture on the organ. &quot;How solemn!&quot; exclaimed Miss J’mima Ivins, glancing, perhaps unconsciously, at the gentleman with the whiskers. Mr. Samuel Wilkins, who had been muttering apart for some time past, as if he were holding a confidential conversation with the gilt knob of the dress-cane, breathed very hard;—breathing vengeance perhaps, but said nothing. &quot;The Soldier tired,&quot; Miss somebody, in white satin. &quot;Ancore!&quot; cried Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend. &quot;Ancore!&#039; shouted the gentleman in the plaid waistcoat immediately, hammering the table with a stout bottle. Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man eyed the man behind the waistcoat from head to foot, and cast a look of interrogative contempt towards Mr. Samuel Wilkins. Comic song, accompanied on the organ. Miss J’mima Ivins was convulsed with laughter—so was the man with the whiskers. Everything the ladies did, the plaid waistcoat and whiskers did, by way of expressing a unity of sentiment and congeniality of soul; and Miss J’mima Ivins, and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend grew lively and talkative, as Mr. George Wilkins and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man grew morose, and surly in inverse proportion.<br /> <br /> Now, if the matter had ended here, the little party might soon have recovered their former equanimity; but Mr. Samuel Wilkins and his friend began to throw looks of defiance upon the waistcoat and whiskers; and the waistcoat and whiskers, by way of intimating the slight degree in which they were affected by the looks aforesaid, bestowed glances of increased admiration on Miss J’mima Ivins and friend. The concert and vaudeville concluded—they promenaded the gardens. The waistcoat and whiskers did the same, and made divers remarks complimentary to the ancles of Miss J’mima Ivins and friend, in an audible tone. At length, not satisfied with these numerous atrocities, they actually came up, and asked Miss J’mima Ivins and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend to dance, without taking no more notice of Mr. Samuel Wilkins and Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man, than if they was nobody! &quot;What do you mean by that, scoundrel?&quot; exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins, grasping the gilt-knobbed dress cane firmly in his right hand. &quot;What’s the devil&#039;s the matter with you, you little humbug?&quot; replied the whiskers. &quot;How dare you insult me and my friend?&quot; inquired the friend’s young man. &quot;You and your friend be damned,&quot; responded the waistcoat. &quot;Take that!&quot; exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins. The ferrule of the gilt-knobbed dress cane was visible for an instant, and then the light of the variegated lamps shone brightly upon it, as it whirled into the air, cane and all. &quot;Give it him,&quot; said the waistcoat. &quot;Luller-li-e-te,&quot; shouted the whiskers. &quot;Horficer!&quot; screamed the ladies. It was too late. Miss J’mima Ivins’s beau and the friend’s young man, lay gasping on the gravel, and the waistcoat and whiskers were seen no more. Miss J’mima Ivins and friend, being conscious that the affray was in no slight degree attributable to themselves, of course went into hysterics forthwith; declared themselves the most injured of women; exclaimed, in incoherent ravings, that they had been suspected—wrongfully suspected—oh, that they should ever have lived to see the day, &amp;c.; suffered a relapse every time they opened their eyes, and saw their unfortunate little admirers; and were carried to their respective abodes in a hackney-coach in a state of insensibility, compounded of shrub, sherry, and excitement.18351004https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._2_Miss_Evans_and_The_Eagle/1835-10-04_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No2_Miss_Evans_and_The_Eagle.pdf
66https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/66'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 3, The Dancing Academy'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (11 October 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351011/001/0001" class="waffle-rich-text-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351011/001/0001</a>.<span></span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-10-11">1835-10-11</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-10-11_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No3_The_Dancing_AcademyDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 3, The Dancing Academy' (11 October 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-04_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No2_Miss_Evans_and_The_Eagle">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-11_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No3_The_Dancing_Academy</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-10-11_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No3_The_Dancing_Academy.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Scenes and Characters, No. 3, The Dancing Academy.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (11 October 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Of all the dancing academies that ever were established, there never was one more popular in its immediate vicinity than Signor Billsmethi’s, of the &quot;King’s Theatre.&quot; It wasn&#039;t in Spring Gardens, or Newman-street, or Berner&#039;s-street, or Gower-street, or Charlotte-street, or Percy street, or any other of the numerous streets which have been devoted time out of mind to professional people, dispensaries, and boarding-houses; it was not in the West-end at all, it rather approximated to the eastern portion of London, being situated in the populous and improving neighbourhood of Gray’s-inn-lane. &quot;It wasn&#039;t a dear dancing academy—four and sixpence a quarter is decidedly cheap upon the whole. It was very select, the number of pupils being strictly limited to seventy-five; and a quarter’s payment in advance being rigidly exacted. There was public tuition and private tuition—an assembly-room and a parlour. Signor Billsmethi’s family were always thrown in with the parlour, and included in parlour price; that is to say, a private pupil had Signor Billsmethi’s parlour to dance in, and Signor Billsmethi’s family to dance with; and when he had been sufficiently broken in, in the parlour, he began to run in couples in the Assembly-room. Such was the dancing academy of Signor Billsmethi when Mr. Augustus Cooper of Fetter-lane, first saw an unstamped advertisement, walking leisurely down Holborn-hill, announcing to the world that Signor Billsmethi of the King’s Theatre intended opening for the season with a Grand Ball. Now, Mr. Augustus Cooper was in the oil and colour line—just of age, with a little money, a little business, and a little mother, who having managed her husband and his business in his lifetime, took to managing her son and his business after his decease; and so somehow or other he had been cooped up in the little back parlour behind the shop on week days, and in a little deal box without a lid (called by courtesy a pew) at Bethel Chapel on Sundays; and had seen no more of the world than if he had been an infant all his days, whereas Young White, at the Gas Fitter’s over the way, three years younger than him, had been flaring away like winkin’—going to the theatre—supping at harmonic meetings—eating oysters by the barrel, drinking stout by the gallon—even stopping out all night, and coming home as cool in the morning as if nothing had happened. So Mr. Augustus Cooper made up his mind that he would not stand it any longer, and had that very morning expressed to his mother a firm determination to be blowed, in the event of his not being instantly provided with a street door key. And he was walking down Holborn-hill thinking about all these things, and wondering how he could manage to get introduced into genteel society for the first time, when his eyes rested on Signor Billsmethi’s announcement, which it immediately struck him was just the very thing he wanted; for he should not only be able to select a genteel circle of acquaintance at once, out of the five and seventy pupils, at four and sixpence a quarter, but should qualify himself at the same time to go through a hornpipe in private society, with perfect ease to himself, and great delight to his friends. So he stopped the unstamped advertisement—an animated sandwich, composed of a boy between two boards—and having procured a very small card, with the Signor’s address indented thereon, walked straight at once to the Signor’s house—and very fast he walked too, for fear the list should be filled up, and the five and seventy completed, before he got there. The Signor was at home, and what was still more gratifying, he was an Englishman! Such a nice man—so polite; really so much more than one has any right to expect from a perfect stranger! The list wasn&#039;t full, but it was a most extraordinary circumstance that there was only just one vacancy, and even that one would have been filled up that very morning, only Signor Billsmethi was dissatisfied with the reference, and being very much afraid that the lady wasn’t select, wouldn’t take her. &quot;And very much delighted I am, Mr. Cooper,&quot; said Signor Billsmethi, &quot;that I did not take her. I assure you, Mr. Cooper,—I don’t say it to flatter you, for I know you’re above it;—that I consider myself extremely fortunate in having a gentleman of your manners and appearance, Sir.&quot; &quot;I am very glad of it too, Sir,&quot; said Augustus Cooper. &quot;And I hope we shall be better acquainted, Sir,&quot; said Signor Billsmethi. &quot;And I’m sure I hope we shall too, Sir,&quot; responded Augustus Cooper; and just then the door opened, and in came a young lady with her hair curled in a crop all over her head, and her shoes tied in sandals all over her legs. &quot;Don’t run away my dear,&quot; said Signor Billsmethi;&quot; for the young lady didn’t know Mr. Cooper was there when she ran in, and was going to run out again in her modesty, all in confusion-like. &quot;Don’t run away, my dear,&quot; said Signor Billsmethi, &quot;this is Mr. Cooper. Mr. Cooper, of Fetter-lane. Mr. Cooper, my daughter, Sir, Miss Billsmethi, Sir, who, I hope, will have the pleasure of dancing many a quadrille, reel, minuet, gavotte, country dance, fandango, double hornpipe, and farinagholkajingo with you, Sir. She dances them all, Sir; and so shall you, Sir, before you’re a quarter older,&quot; Sir &amp;amp; Signor Bellsmethi slapped Mr. Augustus Cooper on the back, as if he had known him a dozen years, so friendly; and Mr. Cooper bowed to the young lady, and the young lady curtseyed to him; and Signor Billsmethi said they were as handsome a pair as ever he’d wish to see, upon which the young lady exclaimed, &quot;Lor, Pa!&quot; and blushed as red as Mr. Cooper himself—you might have thought they were both standing under a red lamp at a chemist’s shop; and before Mr. Cooper went away it was settled that he should join the family circle that very night—taking &#039;em just as they were: no ceremony, nor nonsense of that kind—and learn his positions, in order that he might lose no time, and be able to come out at the forthcoming ball. Well, Mr. Augustus Cooper went away to one of the cheap shoemakers’ shops in Holborn, where gentlemen’s dress-pumps are seven and sixpence, and men’s strong walking just nothing at all, and bought a pair of the regular seven-and-sixpenny, long-quartered, town-mades, in which he astonished himself quite as much as his mother, and sallied forth to Signor Billsmethi’s. There were four other private pupils in the parlour, two ladies and two gentlemen. Such nice people! Not a bit of pride about &#039;em. One of: he ladies in particular, who was in training for a Columbine, was remarkably affable, and she and Miss Billsmethi took such an interest in Mr. Augustus Cooper, and joked, and smiled, and looked so bewitching, that he got quite at home, and learnt his steps in no time. After the practising was over Signor Billsmethi and Miss Billsmethi, and Master Billsmethi, and a young lady, and the two ladies and the two gentlemen, danced a quadrille—none of your slipping and sliding about, but regular warm work; flying into corners, and diving among chairs, and shooting out at the door, something like dancing. Signor Billsmethi in particular, notwithstanding his having a little fiddle to play all the time, was out on the landing every figure; and Master Billsmethi, when everybody else was breathless, danced a hornpipe with a cane in his hand, and a cheese-plate on his head, to the unqualified admiration of the whole company. Then Signor Billsmethi insisted, as they were so happy, that they should all stay to supper; and proposed sending Master Billsmethi for the beer and spirits, whereupon the two gentlemen swore, &quot;strike ’em wulgar if they’d stand that;&quot; and they were just going to quarrel who should pay for it, when Mr. Augustus Cooper said he would, if they’d have the kindness to allow him—and they had the kindness to allow him; and Master Billsmethi brought the beer in a can, and the rum in a quart pot; they had a regular night of it; and Miss Billsmethi squeezed Mr. Augustus Cooper’s hand under the table; and Mr. Augustus Cooper returned the squeeze, and returned home too, at something to six o’clock in the morning, when he was put to bed by main force by the apprentice, after repeatedly expressing an uncontroullable desire to pitch his revered parent out of the second-floor window, and to throttle the apprentice with his own neck-handkerchief. Weeks had worn on, and the seven-and-sixpenny town-mades had nearly worn out, when the night arrived for the grand dress-ball, at which the whole of the five-and-seventy pupils were to meet together for the first time that season, and to take out some portion of their respective four-and-sixpences in lamp-oil and fiddlers. Mr. Augustus Cooper had ordered a new coat for the occasion—a two-pound-tenner from Turnstile. It was his first appearance in public; and after a grand Sicilian shawl-dance by fourteen young ladies in character, he was to open the quadrille department with Miss Billsmethi herself, with whom he had become quite intimate since his first introduction. It was a night! Everything was admirably arranged. The Sandwich boy took the hats and bonnets at the street-door; there was a turn-up bedstead in the back parlour, on which Miss Billsmethi made tea and coffee for such of the gentlemen as chose to pay for it, and such of the ladies as the gentlemen treated; red port wine negus and lemonade were handed round at eighteen-pence a head; and in pursuance of a previous engagement with the public-house at the corner of the street, an extra pot-boy was laid on for the occasion. In short nothing could exceed the arrangements, except the company. Such ladies! Such pink silk stockings! Such artificial flowers! Such a number of cabs! No sooner had one cab set down a couple of ladies, than another cab drove up, and set down another couple of ladies, and they all knew, not only one another but the majority of the gentlemen into the bargain, which made it all as pleasant and lively as could be. Signor Billsmethi in black tights, with a large blue bow in his button-hole, introduced the ladies to such of the gentlemen as were strangers; and the ladies talked away - and laughed they did—it was delightful to see &#039;em. As to the shawl-dance, it was the most exciting thing that ever was beheld. Such a whisking, and rustling, and fanning, and getting ladies into a tangle with artificial flowers, &amp;amp; then disentangling &#039;em again; and as to Mr. Augustus Cooper’s share in the quadrille, he got through it admirably; he was missing from his partner now and then certainly, and discovered on such occasions to be either dancing with laudable perseverance in another set, or sliding about in perspective, apparently without any definite object; but, generally speaking, they managed to shove him through the figure, till he turned up in the right place. Be this as it may, when he had finished, a great many ladies and gentlemen came up and complimented him very much, and said they had never seen a beginner do anything like it before; and Mr. Augustus Cooper was perfectly satisfied with himself, and everybody else into the bargain, and &quot;stood&quot; considerable quantities of spirits and water, negus, and compounds, for the use and behoof of two or three dozen very particular friends, selected from the select circle of five-and-seventy pupils. Now, whether it was the strength of the compounds, or the beauty of the ladies, or what not, it did so happen that Mr. Augustus Cooper encouraged rather than repelled the very flattering attentions of a young lady in brown gauze over white calico, who had appeared particularly struck with him from the first; and when the encouragements had been prolonged for some time, Miss Billsmethi betrayed her spite and jealousy thereat, by calling the young lady in brown gauze a &quot;creeter,&quot; which induced the young lady in brown gauze to retort, in certain sentences containing a taunt founded on the payment of four-and-sixpence a quarter, and some indistinct reference to a &quot;fancy man,&quot; which reference Mr. Augustus Cooper, being then and there in a state of considerable bewilderment, expressed his entire concurrence in. Miss Billsmethi, thus renounced, forthwith began screaming in the loudest key of her voice, at the rate of fourteen screams a minute; and being unsuccessful, in an onslaught on the eyes and face, first of the lady in gauze, and then of Mr. Augustus Cooper, called distractedly on the other three-and-seventy pupils to furnish her with oxalic acid for her own private drinking, and, the call not being honoured, made another rush at Mr. Cooper, and then had her stay-lace cut, and was carried off to bed. Mr. Augustus Cooper, not being remarkable for quickness of apprehension, was at a loss to understand what all this meant, till Signor Billsmethi explained it in a most satisfactory manner, by stating to the pupils that Mr. Augustus Cooper had made and confirmed divers promises of marriage to his daughter on divers occasions, and had now basely deserted her, on which, the indignation of the pupils became universal; and as several chivalrous gentlemen inquired rather pressingly of Mr. Augustus Cooper, whether he required anything for his own use, or, in other words, whether he &quot;wanted anything for himself,&quot; he deemed it prudent to make a precipitate retreat. And the upshot of the matter was, that a lawyer’s letter came next day, and an action was commenced next week; and that Mr. Augustus Cooper, after walking twice to the Serpentine for the purpose of drowning himself, and coming twice back without doing it, made a confidante of his mother, who compromised the matter with twenty pounds from the till, which made twenty pounds four shillings and sixpence paid to Signor Billsmethi, exclusive of treats and pumps: and Mr. Augustus Cooper went back and lived with his mother, and there he lives to this day; and as he has lost his ambition for society, and never goes into the world, he will never see this account of himself, and will never be any the wiser.18351011https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._3_The_Dancing_Academy/1835-10-11_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No3_The_Dancing_Academy.pdf
67https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/67'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 4, Making a Night of It'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (18 October 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,<br /></em><a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351018/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351018/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-10-18">1835-10-18</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-10-18_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No4_Making_a_Night_of_ItDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 4, Making a Night of It' (18 October 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-18_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No4_Making_a_Night_of_It">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-18_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No4_Making_a_Night_of_It</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-10-18_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No4_Making_a_Night_of_It.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 4, Making a Night of It.' Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (18 October 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Damon and Pythias were undoubtedly very good fellows in their way: the former for his extreme readiness to put in special bail for a friend, and the latter for a certain trump-like punctuality in turning up just in the very nick of time, scarcely less remarkable. Many points in their character have now obsolete. Damons are rather hard to find, in these days of imprisonment for debt (except for sham ones, and they cost half a crown); and, as to the Pythiases, the few that have existed in these degenerate times have had an unfortunate knack of making themselves scarce, at the very moment when their appearance would have been strictly classical. If the actions of these heroes, however, can find no parallel in modern times, their friendship can. We have Damon and Pythias on the one hand—Potter and Smithers on the other; and lest the two last-mentioned names should never have reached the ears of our unenlightened readers, we can do no better than make them acquainted with the owners thereof. Mr. Thomas Potter, then, was a clerk in the city, and Mr. Robert Smithers was a ditto in the same; their incomes were limited, but their friendship was unbounded. They lived in the same street, walked into town every morning at the same hour, dined at the same slap-bang every day, and revelled in each other’s company very night. They were knit together by the closest ties of intimacy and friendship; or, as Mr. Thomas Potter touchingly observed, they were &quot;thick-and-thin pals, and nothing but it.&quot; There was a spice of romance in Mr. Smithers’s disposition—a ray of poetry—a gleam of misery;—a sort of consciousness of he didn’t exactly know what coming across him, he didn’t precisely know why—which stood out in fine relief against the off hand, dashing, &quot;come up to the scratch&quot; kind of manner, which distinguished Mr. Potter in an eminent degree. The peculiarity of their respective dispositions, extended itself to their individual costume. Mr. Smithers generally appeared in public in a surtout and shoes, with a narrow black neckerchief, and a brown hat, very much turned up at the sides—peculiarities which Mr. Potter wholly eschewed: for it was his ambition to do something in the celebrated &quot;kiddy&quot; or stage-coach way, and he had even gone so far as to invest capital in the purchase of a rough blue coat with wooden buttons, made upon the fireman’s principle, in which, with the addition of a low-crowned, flower-pot, saucer-shaped hat, he had created no inconsiderable sensation at the Albion, and divers other places of public resort. Mr. Potter and Mr. Smithers had mutually agreed that, on the receipt of their quarter’s salary, they would jointly and in company &quot;spend the evening&quot;—an evident misnomer—the spending applying, as everybody knows, not to the evening itself, but to all the money the individual may chance to be possessed of on the occasion to which reference is made; and they had likewise agreed that, on the evening aforesaid, they would &quot;make a night of it&quot;—an expressive term, implying the borrowing of several hours from to-morrow morning, adding them to the night before, and manufacturing a compound night of the whole. The quarter-day arrived at last—we say at last, because quarter-days are as eccentric as comets, moving wonderfully quick when you&#039;ve a good deal to pay, and marvellously slow when you have a little to receive: and Mr. Thomas Potter and Mr. Robert Smithers met by appointment to begin the evening with a dinner, and a nice, snug, comfortable dinner they had, consisting of a little procession of four chops and four kidneys, following each other, supported on either side by a pot of the real draught stout, and attended by divers cushions of bread, and wedges of cheese. When the cloth was removed, Mr. Thomas Potter ordered the waiter to bring in two goes of his best Scotch whiskey, with warm water and sugar, and a couple of his very mildest Havannahs, which the waiter did. Mr. Thomas Potter mixed his grog, and lit his cigar; Mr. Robert Smithers did the same; and then Mr. Thomas Potter jocularly proposed as the first toast, &quot;the abolition of all offices whatsomever&quot; (not sinecures, but counting-houses), which was immediately drank by Mr. Robert Smithers, with enthusiastic applause; and then they went on talking politics, puffing cigars, and sipping whiskey and water, until the &quot;goes&quot;—most appropriately so called—were both gone, which Mr. Robert Smithers forthwith perceiving, immediately ordered in two more goes of the best Scotch whiskey, and two more of the very mildest Havannahs; and the goes kept coming in, and the mild Havannahs kept going out, until what with the drinking, and lighting, and puffing, and the stale ashes on the table, and the tallow-grease on the cigars, Mr. Robert Smithers began to doubt the mildness of the Havannahs, and to feel very much as if he had been sitting in a hackney-coach, with his back to the horses. As to Mr. Thomas Potter, he would keep laughing out loud, and volunteering inarticulate declarations that he was &quot;all right,&quot; in proof of which he feebly bespoke the evening paper after the next gentleman, but finding it a matter of some difficulty to discover any news in its columns, or to ascertain distinctly whether it had any columns at all, he walked slowly out to look for the comet, and after coming back quite pale with looking up at the sky so long, and attempting to express mirth at Mr. Robert Smithers having fallen asleep, by various galvanic chuckles, he laid his head on his arm, and went to sleep also; and when he awoke again, Mr. Robert Smithers woke too, and they both very gravely agreed that it was extremely unwise to eat so many pickled walnuts with the chops, as it was a notorious fact that they always made people queer and sleepy; indeed, if it hadn&#039;t been for the whiskey and cigars, there was no knowing what harm they mightn’t have done ’em. So they took some coffee, and after paying the bill, twelve and two-pence the dinner, and the odd ten-pence for the waiter, thirteen shillings, started out on their expedition to manufacture a night. It was just half-past eight, so they thought they couldn’t do better than go half-price to the slips at the City Theatre, which they did, accordingly. Mr. Robert Smithers, who had become extremely poetical after the settlement of the bill, enlivening the walk by informing Mr. Thomas Potter, in confidence, that he felt an inward presentiment of approaching dissolution, and subsequently embellishing the theatre by falling asleep with his head and both arms gracefully drooping over the front of the boxes. Such was the quiet demeanour of the unassuming Smithers, and such were the happy effects of Scotch whiskey and Havannahs on that interesting person; but Mr. Thomas Potter, whose great aim it was to be considered as a &quot;knowing card,&quot; a &quot;fast-goer,&quot; and so forth, conducted himself in a very different manner, and commenced going very fast indeed—rather too fast at last for the patience of the audience to keep pace with. On his first entry he contented himself by earnestly calling upon the gentlemen in the gallery to &quot;flare up,&quot; accompanying the demand with another request expressive of his wish that they would instantaneously &quot;form a union,&quot; both which requisitions were responded to in the manner most in vogue on such occasions. &quot;Give that dog a bone,&quot; cried one gentleman in his shirt sleeves. &quot;Vere have you been having half a pint of intermediate?&quot; cried a second. &quot;Tailor!&quot; screamed a third. &quot;Barber’s clerk!&quot; shouted a fourth. &quot;Throw him o-ver,&quot; roared a fifth, while numerous voices concurred in desiring Mr. Thomas Potter to return to the arms of his maternal parent, or in common parlance to &quot;go home to his mother.&quot; All these taunts Mr. Thomas Potter received with supreme contempt, cocking the low-crowned hat a little more on one side, whenever any reference was made to his personal appearance; and standing up with his arms a-kimbo, expressing defiance most melodramatically. The overture—to which these various sounds had been an ad libitum accompaniment—concluded: the second piece began, and Mr. Thomas Potter emboldened by impunity, proceeded to behave in a most unprecedented and outrageous manner. First of all he imitated the shake of the principal female singer; then, groaned at the blue fire, then affected to be frightened into convulsions of terror at the appearance of the ghost; and lastly, not only made a running commentary in an audible voice upon the dialogue on the stage, but actually woke Mr. Robert Smithers, who hearing his companion making a noise, and having a very indistinct notion of where he was, or what was required of him, immediately by way of imitating a good example, set up the most unearthly, unremitting, and appalling howling that ever audience heard. It was too much. &quot;Turn &#039;em out,&quot; was the general cry. A noise as if shuffling of feet, and men being knocked up with violence against wainscoting, was heard: a hurried dialogue of &quot;come out&quot;—&quot;I won’t&quot;—&quot;You shall&quot;—&quot;I shan’t&quot;—&quot;Give me your card Sir&quot;—&quot;Punch his head,&quot; and so forth succeeded; a round of applause betokened the approbation of the audience; and Mr. Robert Smithers and Mr. Thomas Potter found themselves shot with astonishing swiftness into the road without having had the trouble of once putting foot to ground during the whole progress of their rapid descent. Mr. Robert Smithers being constitutionally one of the slow-goers, and having had quite enough of fast going, in the course of his recent expulsion, to last &#039;til the quarter-day then next ensuing at the very least, had no sooner emerged with his companion from the precincts of Milton-street, than he proceeded to indulge in circuitous references to the beauties of sleep, mingled with distant allusions to the propriety of returning to Islington, and testing the influence of their patent Bramahs over the street door locks to which they respectively belonged. Mr. Thomas Potter, however, was valorous and peremptory. They had come out to make a night of it; and a night must be made. So Mr. Robert Smithers, who was three parts dull and the other dismal, despairingly assented: and they went into a wine-vaults to get materials for assisting them in making a night, where they found a good many young ladies, and various old gentlemen, &amp;amp; a plentiful sprinkling of hackney-coachmen &amp;amp; cab-drivers, all drinking &amp;amp; talking together; &amp;amp; Mr. Thomas Potter and Mr. Robert Smithers drank small glasses of brandy, and large glasses of soda, till they began to have a very confused idea either of things in general or anything in particular, and when they had done treating themselves they began to treat everybody else; and the rest of the entertainment was a confused mixture of heads and heels, black eyes and blue uniforms, mud and gas-lights, thick doors, and stone paving. Then, as standard novelists expressively inform us—&quot;all was a blank,&quot; and in the morning the blank was filled up with the words &quot;Station-house,&quot; and the station-house was filled up with Mr. Thomas Potter, Mr. Robert Smithers, and the major part of their wine-vault companions of the preceding night, with a comparatively small portion of clothing of any kind. And it was disclosed at the Police-office, to the indignation of the Bench, and the astonishment of the spectators, how one Robert Smithers, aided and abetted by one Thomas Potter, had knocked down and beaten, in divers streets at different times, five men, four boys, &amp;amp; three women; how the said Thomas Potter had feloniously obtained possession of five door-knockers, two bell-handles, and a bonnet; how Robert Smithers, his friend, had sworn, at least forty pounds’ worth of oaths at the rate of five shillings apiece, terrified whole streets-full of his Majesty’s liege subjects with awful shrieks, and alarms of fire, destroyed the uniforms of five policemen, and committed various other atrocities too numerous to recapitulate; and the Magistrates after an appropriate reprimand of considerable length, fined Mr. Thomas Potter and Mr. Thomas Smithers five shillings each for being, what the law vulgarly terms &quot;drunk,&quot; with the trifling addition of thirty-four pounds for seventeen assaults, at forty shillings a-head, with leave to speak to the prosecutors. The prosecutors were spoken to; and Messrs. Potter and Smithers lived on credit for a quarter as best they could; and although the prosecutors expressed their readiness to be assaulted twice a week on the same terms, they have never since been detected &quot;making a night of it.&quot;18351018https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._4_Making_a_Night_of_It/1835-10-18_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No4_Making_a_Night_of_It.pdf
68https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/68'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 5, Love and Oysters'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (25 October 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351025/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351025/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-10-25">1835-10-25</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-10-25_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No5_Love_and_OystersDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 5, Love and Oysters' (25 October 1835). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-25_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No5_Love_and_Oysters">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-10-25_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No5_Love_and_Oysters</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-10-25_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No5_Love_and_Oysters.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 5, Love and Oysters.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (25 October 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>If we had to make a classification of society, there are a particular kind of men whom we should immediately set down under the head of &quot;Old Boys;&quot; and a column of most extensive dimensions the old boys would require. To what precise causes the rapid advance of old boy population is to be traced, we are unable to determine; it would be an interesting and curious speculation, but, as we have not sufficient space to devote to it here, we simply state the fact that the numbers of the old boys have been gradually augmenting within the last few years, and are at this moment alarmingly on the increase. Upon a general review of the subject, and without considering it minutely in detail, we should be disposed to subdivide the old boys into two distinct classes—the gay old boys, and the steady old boys; the gay old boys, are punchy old men in the disguise of young ones, who frequent the Quadrant and Regent-street in the day-time, and the theatres (especially theatres under lady management) at night, assuming all the foppishness and levity of boys, without the excuse of youth or inexperience: the steady old boys are certain stout old gentlemen of clean appearance, who are always to be seen in the same taverns, at the same hours every evening, smoking and drinking in the same company. There was once a fine collection of old boys to be seen round the circular table at Offley’s every night, between the hours of half-past eight and half-past eleven. We have lost sight of them for some time, but there are still two splendid specimens in full blossom at the Rainbow, who always sit in the box nearest the fire-place, and smoke immense long cherry-stick pipes, which go under the table, with the bowls resting upon the floor. Grand old boys these are—fat, red-faced, white-headed old fellows, always there—one on one side the table, and the other opposite—puffing and drinking away like regular good ones, and never a bit the worse for it— everybody knows &#039;em, and it is supposed by some people that they&#039;re both immortal. Mr. John Dounce was an old boy of the latter class (we don’t mean immortal, but steady)—a retired glove and brace-maker, a widower, resident with three daughters—all grown up, and all unmarried—in Cursitor-street, Chancery-lane. He was a short, round, large-faced, tubbish sort of a man with a broad-brimmed hat, and a square coat; and had that grave, but confident, kind of roll peculiar to old boys in general. Regular as clock-work—breakfast at nine—dress &amp;amp; tittivate a little—down to the Sir Somebody’s Head—glass of ale and the paper—come back again and take the daughters out for a walk—dinner at three—glass of grog and a pipe—nap—tea—little walk—Sir Somebody’s Head again—capital house;—delightful evenings! There were Mr. Harris, the law-stationer, and Mr. Jennings, the robe-maker (two jolly young fellows like himself), and Jones, the barrister’s clerk—a rum fellow that Jones—capital company—full of anecdote; and there they sat every night till just ten minutes before twelve, drinking their brandy and water, and smoking their pipes, and telling stories, and enjoying themselves with a kind of solemn joviality, particularly edifying. Sometimes Jones would propose a half-price visit to Drury Lane or Covent Garden, to see two acts of a five-act play, &amp;amp; a new farce, perhaps, or a ballet, on which occasions the whole four of them went together: none of your hurrying and nonsense, but having their brandy and water first, comfortably, and ordering a steak and some oysters for their supper against they came back, and then walking coolly into the pit, when the &quot;rush&quot; had gone in, as all sensible people do, and did when Mr. Dounce was a young man, except when the celebrated Master Betty was at the height of his popularity, and then, Sir,—then, Mr. Dounce perfectly well remembered getting a holiday from business, and going to the pit doors at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, and waiting there till six in the afternoon, with some sandwiches in a pocket-handkerchief, and some wine in a phial, and fainting after all with the heat and fatigue before the play began, in which situation he was lifted out of the pit into one of the dress boxes, Sir, by five of the finest women of that day, Sir, who compassionated his situation and administered restoratives, and sent a black servant, six foot high, in blue and silver livery, next morning with their compliments, and to know how he found himself, Sir—by God! Between the acts Mr. Dounce, and Mr. Harris, and Mr. Jennings used to stand up, and look round the house, and Jones—knowing fellow that Jones—knew every body—pointed ou the fashionable and celebrated Lady So-and-So in the boxes, at the mention of whose name Mr. Dounce, after brushing up his hair, and adjusting his neck-handkerchief, would inspect the aforesaid Lady So-and-So through an immense glass, and remark, either, that she was a &quot;fine woman—very fine woman, indeed,&quot; or that &quot;there might be a little more of her —Eh, Jones? just as the case might happen to be. When the dancing began, John Dounce, and the other old boys, were particularly anxious to see what was going forward on the stage, and Jones—wicked dog that Jones—whispered little critical remarks into the ears of John Dounce, which John Dounce retailed to Mr. Harris and Mr. Harris to Mr. Jennings; and then they all three laughed, &#039;till the tears ran out of their eyes. When the curtain fell they walked back together, two and two, to the steaks and oysters, and when they came to the second glass of brandy and water, Jones— hoaxing scamp, that Jones—used to recount how he had observed a lady in white feathers in one of the pit boxes, gazing intently on Mr. Dounce all the evening, and how he had caught Mr. Dounce, whenever he thought no one was looking at him, bestowing ardent looks of intense devotion on the lady in return; on which Mr. Harris and Mr. Jennings used to laugh very heartily, and John Dounce more heartily than either of &#039;em, acknowledging, however, that the time had been when he might have done such things; upon which Mr. Jones used to poke him in the ribs, and tell him he had been a sad dog in his time, which John Dounce, with chuckles, confessed. And after Mr. Harris and Mr. Jennings had preferred their claims to the character of having been sad dogs too, they separated harmoniously, &amp;amp; trotted home. The decrees of Fate, and the means by which they are brought about, are mysterious and inscrutable. John Dounce had led this life for twenty years and upwards, without wish for change, or care for variety, when his whole social system was suddenly upset and turned completely topsy-turvy—not by an earthquake, or some other dreadful convulsion of nature, as the reader would be inclined to suppose, but by the simple agency of an oyster, and thus it happened. Mr. John Dounce was returning one night from the Sir Somebody’s Head, to his residence in Cursitor-street—not tipsy, but rather excited, for it was Mr. Jennings’s birth-day, and they had had a brace of partridges for supper, and a brace of extra glasses afterwards, and Jones had been more than ordinarily amusing—when his eyes rested on a newly-opened oyster shop on a magnificent scale, with natives laid one deep in circular marble basins in the windows, together with little round barrels of oysters directed to Lords and Baronets, and Colonels and Captains, in every part of the habitable globe. Behind the natives were the barrels, and behind the barrels was a young lady of about five-and-twenty, all in blue, and all alone—splendid creature, charming face, and lovely figure. It is difficult to say whether Mr. John Dounce’s red countenance, illuminated as it was by the flickering gas-light in the window before which he paused, excited the lady’s risibility, or whether a natural exuberance of animal spirits proved too much for that staidness of demeanour which the forms of society rather dictatorially prescribe; certain it is, that the lady smiled, then put her finger upon her lip, with a striking recollection of what was due to herself; and finally retired, in oyster-like bashfulness to the very back of the counter. The sad-dog sort of feeling came strongly upon John Dounce: he lingered —the lady in blue made no sign. He coughed—still she came not. He entered the shop—&quot;Can you open me an oyster, my dear?&quot; said Mr. John Dounce. &quot;Dare say I can, Sir,&quot; replied the lady in blue, with enchanting playfulness. And Mr. John Dounce eat one oyster, and then looked at the young lady, and then eat another, and then squeezed the young lady’s hand as she was opening the third, and so forth, until he had devoured a dozen of those at eight-pence in less than no time. &quot;Can you open me half a dozen more, my dear?&quot; inquired Mr. John Dounce. &quot;I’ll see what I can do for you, Sir,&quot; replied the young lady in blue, even more bewitchingly than before; and Mr. John Dounce eat half-a-dozen more of those at eight-pence and felt his gallantry increasing every minute. &quot;You couldn’t manage to get me a glass of brandy and water, my dear, I suppose?&quot; said Mr. John Dounce, when he had finished the oysters, in a tone which clearly implied his supposition that she could. &quot;I’ll see, Sir,&quot; said the young lady; and away she ran out of the shop, and down the street, her long auburn ringlets shaking in the wind in the most enchanting manner; and back she came again, tripping over the coal-places like a whipping top, with a tumbler of brandy and water, which Mr. John Dounce insisted on her taking a share of, as it was regular ladies’ grog—hot, strong, sweet, and plenty of it. So the young lady sat down with Mr. John Dounce, in a little red box with a green curtain, and took a small sip of the brandy and water, and a small look at Mr. John Dounce, and then turned her head away, and went through various other serio-pantomimic fascinations, which forcibly reminded Mr. John Dounce of the first time he courted his first wife, and which, taken conjointly with the hot brandy and water and the oysters, made him feel more affectionate than ever; in pursuance of which affection, and actuated by which feeling, Mr. John Dounce sounded the young lady on her matrimonial engagements, when the young lady denied having formed any such engagements at all—she couldn’t abear the men, they were such deceivers; thereupon Mr. John Dounce inquired whether this sweeping condemnation was meant to include other than very young men; on which the young lady blushed deeply—at least she turned away her head, and said Mr. John Dounce had made her blush, so of course she did blush—and Mr. John Dounce was a long time drinking the brandy and water; and the young lady said &quot;Ha&#039; done, Sir,&quot; very often; and at last John Dounce went home to bed, and dreamt of his first wife, and his second wife, and the young lady, and partridges, and oysters, and brandy and water, and disinterested attachments. The next morning John Dounce was rather feverish with the extra brandy and water of the previous night; and, partly in the hope of cooling himself with an oyster, and partly with the view of ascertaining whether he owed the young lady anything, or not, went back to the oyster-shop. If the young lady had appeared beautiful by night, she was perfectly irresistible by day; and, from this time forward a change came over the spirit of John Dounce’s dream. He bought shirt-pins; wore a ring on his third finger; read poetry; bribed a cheap miniature-painter to perpetrate a faint resemblance to a youthful face, with a curtain over his head, six large books in the background, and an open country in the distance (this he called his portrait); &quot;went on&quot; altogether in such an uproarious manner, that the three Miss Dounces went off on small pensions, he having made the tenement in Cursitor-street too warm to contain them; and in short, comported and demeaned himself in every respect like an unmitigated old Saracen, as he was. As to his ancient friends, the other old boys, at the Sir Somebody’s Head, he dropped off from them by gradual degrees; for, even when he did go there, Jones—vulgar fellow that Jones—persisted in asking &quot;when it was to be?&quot; and &quot;whether he was to have any gloves?&quot; together with other inquiries of an equally offensive nature, at which not only Harris laughed, but Jennings too; so he cut the two altogether, and attached himself solely to the blue young lady at the smart oyster-shop. Now comes the moral of the story—for it has a moral after all. The last mentioned young lady, having derived sufficient profit and emolument from John Dounce’s attachment, not only refused, when matters came to a crisis, to take him for better for worse, but expressly declared, to use her own forcible words, that she wouldn’t have him at no price; and John Dounce, having lost his old friends, alienated his relations, and rendered himself ridiculous to every body, made offers successively to a schoolmistress, a landlady, a feminine tobacconist, and a housekeeper; and, being directly rejected by each and every of them, was accepted by his cook, with whom he lives now, a hen-pecked husband, a melancholy monument of antiquated misery, and a living warning to all uxorious old boys.18351025https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._5_Love_and_Oysters/1835-10-25_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No5_Love_and_Oysters.pdf
87https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/87'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 6, Some Account of an Omnibus Cad'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (1 November 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351101/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351101/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-11-01">1835-11-01</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-11-01_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No6_Some_Account_of_an_Omnibus_CadDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 6, Some Account of an Omnibus Cad' (1 November 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-11-01_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No6_Some_Account_of_an_Omnibus_Cad">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-11-01_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No6_Some_Account_of_an_Omnibus_Cad</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-11-01_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No6_Some_Account_of_an_Omnibus_Cad.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 6, Some Account of an Omnibus Cad.'&nbsp;<em>Bell's Life in London</em> (1 November 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Mr. William Barker was born;—but why need we recount where Mr. William Barker was born, or when? Why scrutinize the entries in personal ledgers, why penetrate into the Luxinian mysteries of lying-in in hospitals? Mr. William Barker was born, or he had never been. There was a father— there is a son. There was a cause—there is an effect. Surely this is sufficient information for the most Fatima-like curiosity; and, if it be not, we regret our inability to supply any further evidence on the point. Can there be a more satisfactory, or more strictly parliamentary course? Impossible. We at once avoid a similar inability to record at what precise period, or by what particular process, this gentleman&#039;s patronymic, of William Barker, became corrupted into &quot;Bill Boorker.&quot; Mr. Barker has required a high standing, and no inconsiderable reputation among the members of that profession to which he has more peculiarly devoted his energies; and to them he is generally known, either by the familiar appellation of &quot;Bill Boorker,&quot; or the flattering designation of &quot;Aggerawatin Bill&quot;—the latter being a playful and expressive sobriquet, illustrative of Mr. Barker&#039;s great talent in &quot;aggerawatin&quot; and rendering wild such subjects of her Majesty as are conveyed from place to place, through the instrumentality of omnibuses. Of the early life of Mr. Barker little is known, and even that little is involved in considerable doubt and obscurity. A want of application, a restlessness of purpose, a thirsting after porter, a love of all that is roving and cadger-like in nature, shared in common with many other great geniuses, appear to have been his leading characteristics. The busy hum of a parochial free-school, and the shady repose of a county gaol, were alike inefficacious in producing the slightest alteration in Mr. Barker&#039;s disposition - his feverish attachment to change and variety nothing could repress; his native daring no punishment could subdue. If Mr. Barker can be fairly said to have had any weakness in his earlier years, it was an amiable one—Love; Love in its most comprehensive form—a love of ladies, liquids, and pocket-handkerchiefs. It was no selfish feeling; it was not confined to his own possessions, which but too many men regard with exclusive complacency. No: it was a nobler love—a general principle; it extended itself with equal force to the property of other people. There is something very affecting in this: it is still more affecting to know, that such philanthropy is but imperfectly rewarded. Bow street, Newgate, and Millbank, are a poor return for general benevolence, evincing itself in an irrepressible love of all created objects. Mr. Barker felt it so—after a lengthened interview with the highest legal authorities, he quitted his ungrateful country with the consent, and at the expense, of its Government, proceeded to a distant shore, and there employed himself like another Cincinnatus in clearing and cultivating the soil—a peaceful pursuit, in which a term of seven years glided almost imperceptibly away. Whether, at the expiration of the period we have just mentioned, the British Government required Mr. Barker&#039;s presence here, or did not require his residence abroad, we have no distinct means of ascertaining. We should be inclined, however, to favour the latter position, inasmuch as we do not find that he was advanced to any other public post on his return, than the post at the corner of the Haymarket, where he officiated as assistant-waterman to the hackney-coach stand. Seated, in this capacity, on a couple of tubs near the kerb-stone, with a brass plate and number suspended round his neck by a massive chain, and his ancles curiously enveloped in haybands, he is supposed to have made those observations on human nature which exercised so material an influence over all his proceedings in later life, and the results of which we shall proceed very briefly to lay before our readers. Mr. Barker had not officiated for many months in this capacity, when the appearance of the first omnibus caused the public mind to go in a new direction, and prevented a great many hackney coaches from going in any direction at all. The genius of Mr. Barker at once perceived the whole extent of the injury that would be eventually inflicted on cab and coach stands, and, by consequence, on watermen also, by the progress of the system of which the first omnibus was a part. He saw, too, the necessity of adopting the persuits of some more profitable profession, and his active mind at once perceived how much might be done in the way of enticing the youthful and unwary, and shoving the old and helpless, into the wrong buss, and carrying them off, until, reduced to despair, they ransomed themselves by the payment of six-pence a head, or, to adopt his own figurative expression in all its native beauty, &quot;till they was rig&#039;larly done over, and forked out the stumpy.&quot; An opportunity for realising his fondest anticipations soon presented itself. Rumours were rife on the hackney-coach stands, that a buss was building to run from Lisson-grove to the Bank, down Oxford-street and Holborn, and the rapid increase of busses on the Paddington-road encouraged the idea. Mr. Barker secretly and cautiously inquired in the proper quarters. The report was correct—the &quot;Royal William&quot; was to make his first journey on the following Monday. It was a crack affair altogether. An enterprising young cabman, of established reputation as a dashing whip—for he had compromised with the parents of three scrunched children, and just &quot;worked out&quot; his fine for knocking down an old lady—was the driver; and the spirited proprietor, knowing Mr. Barker&#039;s qualifications, appointed him to the vacant office of cad on the very first application. The buss began to run, and Mr. Barker entered into a new suit of clothes, and on a new sphere of action. To recapitulate all the improvements introduced by this extraordinary man into the omnibus system - gradually, indeed, but surely—would occupy a far greater space than we are enabled to devote to this imperfect memoir. To him is universally assigned the original suggestion of the practice which afterwards became so general—of the driver of a second buss keeping constantly behind the first one, and driving the pole of his vehicle either into the door of the other, every time it was opened, or through the body of any lady or gentleman who might make an attempt to get into it—a humorous and pleasant invention, exhibiting all that originality of idea, and fine bold flow of spirits, so conspicuous in every action of this great man. He has opponents of course; for what man in public life has not? but even his worst enemies cannot deny that he has taken more old ladies and gentlemen to Paddington who wanted to go to the Bank, and more old ladies and gentlemen to the Bank who wanted to go to Paddington, than any three men on the road: and however much malevolent spirits may pretend to doubt the accuracy of the statement, they well know it to be an established fact, that he has forcibly conveyed a variety of ancient persons of either sex, to both places, who had not the slightest or most distant intention of going anywhere at all. Mr. Barker was the identical cad who nobly distinguished himself, sometime since by keeping a tradesman on the step—the omnibus going at full speed all the time—till he had thrashed him to his entire satisfaction, and finally throwing him away when he had quite done with him. Mr. Barker it ought to have been who honestly indignant at being ignominiously ejected from a house of public entertainment, kicked the landlord in the knee, and thereby caused his death. We say it ought to have been Mr. Barker, because the action was not a common one, and could have emanated from no ordinary mind. We regret being compelled to state that it was not he—would, for the family credit, that we could add it was his brother! It is in the exercise of the nicer details of his profession, that Mr. Barker&#039;s knowledge of human nature is beautifully displayed. He can tell at a glance where a passenger wants to go to, and shouts the name of the place accordingly, without the slightest reference to the real destination of the buss; he knows exactly the sort of old lady that will be too much flurried by the process of pushing in, and pulling out of the caravan, to discover where she has been set down until too late; has an intuitive perception of what is passing in a passenger&#039;s mind when he inwardly resolves to &quot;pull that cad up to-morrow morning;&quot; &amp;amp; never fails to make himself agreeable to female servants whom, if he can place next the door, he talks to all the way. Human judgment is never infallible, and it has occasionally happened that Mr. Barker has experimentalised with the timidity or forbearance of the wrong sort of person, in which case a summons to a Police-office, has been the consequence, and a committal the finish. It is not for trifles such as these, however, to subdue a spirit like that which swells beneath the waistcoat of this heroic man. You may confine the body between four stone walls, or between four brick walls and a stone coping, which is much the same in effect—he cares not—you may cramp his body by confinement, or to prevent his body&#039;s getting the cramp, you may exercise his legs upon the mill—he defies your tyranny: he appeals from your oppressive enactments to the Paddington committee: and flies back to his profession with an ardour which persecution and involuntary abstinence have in no wise diminished. Like many other great men, Mr. Barker is a rigid predestinarian, or to advert once again to his own pointed and eloquent form of speech, he resons thus:—&quot;If I am to get into trouble for this here consarn, I may as vell get into trouble for somethink as for nothink.&quot;—and acting upon this logical mode of reasoning, he sacrifices at the altar of philosophy any little scruples he might otherwise entertain, and gets into trouble with great ease and coolness getting out of it as well as he can; and losing no opportunity of getting into it again. Such are a few traits in the character—such are a few incidents in the chequered life—of this remarkable man. Would that we could have conscientientiously entitled this hasty sketch a full account of his amiable existence up to the moment at which we are writing. We cannot do so. With &quot;Some Account of an Omnibus Cad&quot; we must be contented, and we hope our readers may be so too.18351101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._6_Some_Account_of_an_Omnibus_Cad/1835-11-01_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No6_Some_Account_of_an_Omnibus_Cad.pdf
101https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/101'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 7, The Vocal Dressmaker'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (22 November 1835).<span><br /></span>Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351122/001/0001" class="waffle-rich-text-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351122/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-11-22">1835-11-22</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-11-22_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No7_The_Vocal_DressmakerDickens, Charles. 'Scenes and Characters, No. 7, The Vocal Dressmaker' (22 November 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-11-22_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No.7_The_Vocal_Dressmaker">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-11-22_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No7_The_Vocal_Dressmaker.</a><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-11-22_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No7_The_Vocal_Dressmaker.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 7, The Vocal Dressmaker.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (22 November 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>Miss Amelia Martin was pale, tallish, thin, and two-and-thirty—what ill-natured people would call plain, and police reports interesting. She was a milliner and dressmaker, living on her business, and not above it. If you had been a young lady in service, and wanted Miss Martin, as a great many young ladies in service did, you&#039;d just have stepped up in the evening to number forty-seven, Drummond-street, George-street, Euston-square, and after casting your eye on a brass door-plate, one foot ten, by one and a half, ornamented with a great brass knob at each of the four corners, and bearing the inscription &quot;Miss Martin; millinery and dressmaking in all its branches;&quot; you’d just have knocked two loud knocks at the street door, and down would have come Miss Martin herself, in a merino gown of the newest fashion, black velvet bracelets on the genteelest principle, and other little elegancies, of the most approved description. If Miss Martin know&#039;d the young lady as called, or if the young lady as called had been recommended by any other young lady as Miss Martin knew, Miss Martin would forthwith show her up-stairs into the two-pair front, and chat she would—so kind, and so comfortable—it really wasn’t like a matter of business, she was so friendly; and, then Miss Martin, after contemplating the figure and general appearance of the young lady in service with great apparent admiration, would say how well she would look, to-be-sure, in a low dress with short sleeve, made very full in the skirts, with four tucks in the bottom, to which the young lady in service would reply in terms expressive of her entire concurrence in the notion, and the virtuous indignation with which she reflected on the tyranny of &quot;Missis,&quot; who wouldn’t allow a young girl to wear a short sleeve of an ar&#039;ternoon—no, nor nothing smart, not even a pair of ear-rings, let alone hiding people’s heads of hair under them frightful caps; at the termination of which complaint, Miss Amelia Martin would distantly suggest certain dark suspicions that some people were jealous on account of their own daughters, and was obliged to keep their servants’ charms under, for fear they should get married first, which was no uncommon circumstance—leastways she had known two or three young ladies in service as had married a great deal better than their missises, and they was not very good-looking either; and then the young lady would inform Miss Martin, in confidence, that how one of their young ladies was engaged to a young man, and was a-going to be married, and Missis was so proud about it there was no bearing her; but she needn’t hold her head quite so high neither, for, after all, he was only a clerk; and, after expressing a due contempt for clerks in general, and the engaged clerk in particular, and the highest opinion possible of themselves and each other, Miss Martin and the young lady in service would bid each other good night, in a friendly but perfectly genteel manner, and the one went back to her &quot;place,&quot; and the other to her room on the second floor front. There is no saying how long Miss Amelia Martin might have continued this course of life; how extensive a connection she might have established among young ladies in service, or what amount her demands upon their quarterly receipts might have ultimately attained, had not an unforeseen train of circumstances directed her thoughts to a sphere of action very different from dress-making or millinery. A friend of Miss Martin’s who had long been keeping company with an ornamental painter and decorator’s journeyman, at last consented (on being at last asked to do so) to name the day which would make the aforesaid journeyman a happy husband. It was a Monday that was appointed for the celebration of the nuptials, and Miss Amelia Martin was invited, among others, to honour the wedding dinner with her presence. It was a charming party; Somers-town the locality, and a front parlour the apartment. The ornamental painter and decorator’s journeyman had taken a house—no lodgings or vulgarity of that kind, but a house—four beautiful rooms and a delightful little wash-house at the end of the passage— most convenient thing in the world; for the bridesmaids could sit in the front parlour and receive the company, and then run into the little wash-house and see how the pudding and boiled pork were getting on in the copper, &amp;amp; then pop back into the parlour again as snug and comfortable as possible. And such a parlour as it was too! beautiful Kidderminster carpet–six bran new caned bottomed stained chairs—a pink shell, and three wine glasses on each sideboard—a farmer’s girl and a farmer’s boy on the mantel-piece: one tumbling over a stile and the other spitting himself on the handle of a pitch-fork—long white dimity curtains in the window—and, in short, every thing on the most genteel scale imaginable. Then, the dinner—baked leg of mutton at the top—boiled leg of mutton at the bottom—pair of fowls and leg of pork in the middle—porter pots at the corners—pepper, mustard, and vinegar in the centre—vegetables on the floor—and plum-pudding and apple-pie, and tartlets without number, to say nothing of cheese and celery and water-cresses, and all that sort of thing. As to the company! Miss Amelia Martin herself declared on a subsequent occasion, that much as she had heard of the ornamental painters&#039; journeyman’s connexion, she never could have supposed it was half so genteel. There was his father, such a funny old gentleman—and his mother, such a dear old lady—and his sister, such a charming girl—and his brother, such a manly-looking young man—with such a eye! But even all these were as nothing when compared with his musical friends, Mr. &amp;amp; Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, from White Conduit, with whom the ornamental painter’s journeyman had been fortunate enough to contract an intimacy, while engaged in decorating the concert-room of that noble institution. To hear them sing separately was divine, but when they went through the tragic duet of &quot;Red Ruffian, retire!&quot; it was, as Miss Martin afterwards remarked, &quot;thrilling;&quot; and why (as Mr. Jennings Rodolph observed) - why were they not engaged at one of the patent theatres? If he was to be told that their voices were not powerful enough to fill the house, his only reply was, that he&#039;d back himself for any amount to fill Russell-square—a statement in which the company, after hearing the duet, expressed their full belief; so they all said it was shameful treatment; and both Mr. and Mrs. Jennings Rodolph said it was shameful too, and Mr. Jennings Rodolph looked very serious, and said he knew who his malignant opponents were, but they had better take care how far they went, for if they irritated him too much, he had not quite made up his mind whether he wouldn’t bring the subject before Parliament; and they all agreed that it ”ud serve ’em quite right, and it was very proper that such people should be made an example of;&quot; and Mr. Jennings Rodolph said he’d think of it. When the conversation resumed its former tone, Mr. Jennings Rodolph claimed his right to call upon a lady, and the right being conceded, trusted Miss Martin would favour the company—a proposal which met with unanimous approbation, whereupon Miss Martin, after sundry hesitatings and coughings, with a preparatory choke or two, and an introductory declaration that she was frightened to death to attempt it before such great judges of the art, commenced a species of treble chirruping containing constant allusions to some young gentleman of the name of Hen-e-ry, with an occasional reference to madness, and broken hearts. Mr. Jennings Rodolph frequently interrupted the progress of the song, by ejaculating &quot;beautiful;&quot;—&quot;charming!&quot;— &quot;brilliant!&quot;—&quot;oh! splendid,&quot; &amp;amp;c. and at its close the admiration of himself and his lady knew no bounds. &quot;Did you ever hear so sweet a voice, my dear?&quot; inquired Mr. Jennings Rodolph of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph. &quot;Never; indeed I never did, love;&quot; replied Mrs. Jennings Rodolph. &quot;Don’t you think Miss Martin with a little cultivation would be very like Signora Marra Boni, my dear?&quot; asked Mr. Jennings Rodolph. &quot;Just exactly the very thing that struck me, my love,&quot; answered Mrs. Jennings Rodolph; and thus the time passed away; first one sang, and then another; Mr. Jennings Rodolph played tunes on a walking stick, and then went behind the parlour-door and gave his celebrated imitations of actors, edge-tools, and animals; Miss Martin sang several other songs with increased admiration every time, and even the funny old gentleman began singing; his song had properly seven verses, but as he couldn’t recollect more than the first one, he sang that over seven times, apparently very much to his own personal gratification. And then all the company sang the national anthem with national independence—each for himself, without reference to the other—and finally separated, all declaring that they never had spent so pleasant an evening; and Miss Martin inwardly resolving to adopt the advice of Mr. Jennings Rodolph, and to &quot;come out&quot; without delay. Now, &quot;coming out,&quot; either in acting, or singing, or society, or facetiousness, or anything else, is all very well, and remarkably pleasant to the individual principally concerned, if he or she can but manage to come out with a burst, and being out to keep out, and not go in again; but it does unfortunately happen that both consummations are extremely difficult to accomplish, and that the difficulties of getting out at all in the first instance, and if you surmount them of keeping out in the second, are pretty much on a par, and no slight ones either. And so Miss Amelia Martin shortly discovered. It is a singular fact (there being ladies in the case) that Miss Amelia Martin’s principal foible was vanity, and the leading characteristic of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph an attachment to dress. Dismal wailings were heard to issue from the second-floor front of number forty-seven, Drummond-street, George-street, Euston-square; it was Miss Martin practising. Half suppressed murmurs disturbed the calm dignity of the White Conduit orchestra at the commencement of the season. It was the appearance of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph in full dress that occasioned them. Miss Martin studied incessantly—the practising was the consequence. Mrs. Jennings Rodolph taught gratuitously now and then—the dresses were the result. Weeks passed away; the White Conduit season had begun, had progressed, and was more than half over. The dress-making business had fallen off from neglect, and its profits had dwindled away almost imperceptibly. A benefit-night approached; Mr. Jennings Rodolph yielded to the earnest solicitations of Miss Amelia Martin, and introduced her personally to the &quot;comic gentleman&quot; whose benefit it was. The comic gentleman was all smiles and blandness—he had composed a duet, expressly for the occasion, and Miss Martin should sing it with him. The night arrived; there was an immense room—ninety-seven goes of gin, thirty-two small glasses of brandy and water, five-and-twenty bottled ales, and forty-one neguses; and the ornamental painters&#039; journeyman with his wife, and a select circle of acquaintance were seated at one of the side-tables near the orchestra. The concert began. Song-sentimental–by a light-haired young gentleman in a blue coat, and bright basket buttons [applause]. Another song, doubtful, by another gentleman in another blue coat, and more bright basket buttons - increased applause. Duet, Mr. Jennings Rodolph and Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, &quot;Red Ruffian, retire!&quot;— [great applause.] Solo Miss Julia Montague (positively on this occasion only)—&quot;I am a Friar&quot;—[enthusiasm.] Original duet, comic—Mr. H. Taplin (the comic gentleman) and Miss Martin— &quot;The Time of Day&quot;—&quot;Brayvo!—Brayvo!&quot; cried the ornamental painter’s journeyman’s party, as Miss Martin was gracefully led in by the comic gentleman. &quot;Go to work Harry,&quot; cried the comic gentleman’s personal friends. &quot;Tap-tap-tap,&quot; went the leader’s bow on the music-desk. The symphony began, and was soon afterwards followed by a faint kind of ventriloquial chirping, proceeding apparently from the deepest recesses of the interior of Miss Amelia Martin—&quot;‘Sing out&quot;—shouted one gentleman in a white great coat. &quot;Don’t be afraid to put the steam on, old gal,&quot; exclaimed another. &quot;S-s-s-s-s-s&quot;—went the five-and-twenty bottled ales. &quot;Shame, shame!&quot; remonstrated the ornamental painter’s journeyman’s party— &quot;S-s-s&quot; went the bottled ales again, accompanied by all the gins and a majority of the brandies.—&quot;Turn them geese out,&quot; cried the ornamental painters’ journeyman’s party, with great indignation. &quot;Sing out,&quot; whispered Mr. Jennings Rodolph.—&quot;So I do,&quot; responded Miss Amelia Martin. &quot;Sing louder,&quot; said Mrs. Jennings Rodolph. &quot;I can’t,&quot; replied Miss Amelia Martin—&quot;Off, off, off,&quot; cried the rest of the audience. &quot;Bray-vo!&quot; shouted the painter’s party. It wouldn’t do—Miss Amelia Martin left the orchestra, with much less ceremony than she had entered it, and as she couldn’t sing out, never came out. The general good humour was not restored until Mr. Jennings Rodolph had become purple in the face, by imitating divers quadrupeds for half an hour without being able to render himself audible; and, to this day, neither has Miss Amelia Martin’s good humour been restored, nor the dresses made for and presented to, Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, nor the vocal abilities which Mr. Jennings Rodolph once staked his professional reputation she possessed.18351122https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._7_The_Vocal_Dressmaker/1835-11-22_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No.7_The_Vocal_Dressmaker.pdf
102https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/102'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 8, The Prisoners' Van'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (29 November 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351129/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351129/001/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-11-29">1835-11-29</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-11-29_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No8_The_Prisoners_VanDickens, Charles. '<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 8, The Prisoners' Van (29 November 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-11-29_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No8_The_Prisoners_Van">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-11-29_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No8_The_Prisoners_Van</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-11-29_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No8_The_Prisoners_Van.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 8, The Prisoners' Van.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (29 November 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>We have a most extraordinary partiality for lounging about the streets. Whenever we have an hour or two to spare, there is nothing we enjoy more than a little amateur vagrancy—walking up one street and down another, and staring into shop windows, and gazing about us as if, instead of being on intimate terms with every shop and house in Holburn, the Strand, Fleet-street, and Cheapside, the whole were an unknown region to our wondering mind. We revel in a crowd of any kind—a street &quot;row&quot; is our delight—even a woman in a fit is by no means to be despised, especially in a fourth-rate street, where all the female inhabitants run out of their houses, and discharge large jugs of cold water over the patient, as if she were dying of spontaneous combustion, and wanted putting out. Then a drunken man—what can be more charming than a regular drunken man, who sits in a door-way for half an hour, holding a dialogue with the crowd, of which his portion is generally limited to repeated inquiries of &quot;I say—I&#039;m all right, an&#039;t I?&quot; and then suddenly gets up, without any ostensible cause or inducement, and runs down the street with tremendous swiftness for a hundred yards or so, when he falls into another door-way, where the first feeble words he imperfectly articulates to the policeman who lifts him up are &quot;Let&#039;s av—drop—somethin&#039; to drink?&quot;—we say again, can anything be more charming than this sort of thing? And what, we ask, can be expected but popular discontent, when Temperance Societies interfere with the amusements of the people? There is one kind of street quarrel which is of very common occurrence, but infinitely amusing—we mean where a little crowd has collected round three or four angry disputants, and no one single person, not even among the parties principally concerned, appears to have a very distinct notion of what it&#039;s all about. The place is—Long-Acre, say, or Saint Martin&#039;s-lane—time, half-past eleven at night. Some twenty people have collected round a bow-legged, under-sized young gentleman, in a brown coat and bright buttons, who has upon his arm a small young woman in a straw bonnet, with one shawl on, and another folded up over her arm. Opposed to the under-sized pair is a tall young fellow, in a brownish white hat, and flash attire; and you arrive in time to hear some such dialogue as the following:—&quot;Who said anythin&#039; to you?&quot; (in a tone of great contempt, from the long gentleman, turning round with his hands in his pockets). &quot;Vy you did, Sir&quot; (from the small individual, in a towering passion). &quot;Oh! do come away, George&quot; (from the young lady, accompanied with a tug at the coat-tail, and a whimper). &quot;Never mind him, he an&#039;t worth your notice.&quot; &quot;Ah! take him home&quot;—sneers the tall gentleman as they turn away—&quot;and tell his mother to take care on him, and not let him out arter dark, fear he should catch a cold in his ed. Go on.&quot; Here the small young man breaks from the small young woman, and stepping up close to the adverse party, valourously ejaculates in an under-tone, &quot;Now, what have you got to say.&quot; &quot;Niver mind,&quot; replies the long gentleman with considerable brevity. &quot;What do you mean by insulting this &#039;ere young &#039;ooman, Sir?&quot; enquires the short man. &quot;Who insulted the young &#039;ooman,&quot; replies the long one. &quot;Vy you did, Sir,&quot; responds the short one, waxing specially wroth—&quot;You shoved again her, Sir.&quot; &quot;You&#039;re a liar,&quot; growls the long gentleman fiercely; and hereupon the short gentleman dashes his hat on the ground with a reckless disregard of expense, jerks off his coat, doubles his fists, works his arms about like a labourer warming himself; darts backwards and forwards on the pavement with the motion of an automaton, and exclaims between his set teeth—&quot;Come on, I an&#039;t afeard on you—come on,&quot;—and the long gentleman might come on, and the fight might come off, only the young lady rushed upon the small man, forces his hat over his eyes, and the tails of his coat round his neck, and screams like a peacock, till a policeman arrives. After great squabbling, considerably persuasion, and some threatening, the short man consents to go one way, and the long man another; and the answer of all the bystanders who had seen the whole, to the urgent inquiry from a new comer up, &quot;Do you know what&#039;s the matter, Sir?&quot; invariably is—&quot;No, Sir, I really can&#039;t make out.&quot; We were passing the corner of Bow-street, on our return from a lounging excursion the other afternoon, when a crowd, assembled round the door of the Police Office, attracted our attention, and we turned up the street accordingly. There were thirty or forty people standing on the pavement and half across the road, and a few stragglers were patiently stationed on the opposite side of the way—all evidently waiting in expectation of some arrival. We waited too a few minutes, but nothing occurred: so we turned round to an unshaved sallow-looking cobbler who was standing next us, with his hands under the bib of his apron, and put the usual question of &quot;What’s the matter?&quot; The cobbler eyed us from head to foot, with superlative contempt, and laconically replied &quot;Nuffin.&quot; Now we were perfectly aware that if two men stop in the street to look at any given object, or even to gaze in the air, two hundred men will be assembled in no time; but as we knew very well that no crowd of people could by possibility remain in a street for five minutes without getting up a little amusement among themselves, unless they had some absorbing object in view, the natural inquiry next in order was, &quot;What are all these people waiting here for?&quot;— &quot;His Majesty’s carriage,&quot; replied the cobbler. This was still more extraordinary. We couldn&#039;t imagine what earthly business his Majesty’s carriage could have at the Public Office, Bow-street, and we were beginning to ruminate on the possibility of the Duke of Cumberland being brought up on a warrant for assaulting the Princess Victoria, when a general exclamation from all the boys in the crowd of &quot;Here’s the wan!&quot; caused us to raise our head and look up the street. The covered vehicle, in which prisoners are conveyed from the police offices to the different prisons, was coming along at full speed, and it then occurred to us for the first time that his Majesty’s carriage was merely another name for the prisoners’ van, conferred upon it not only by reason of the superior gentility of the term, but because the aforesaid van is maintained at his Majesty’s expence, having been originally started for the exclusive accommodation of ladies and gentlemen under the necessity of visiting the various houses of call known by the general denomination of &quot;his Majesty’s Gaols.&quot; The van drew up at the office door: the people thronged round the steps, just leaving a little alley for the prisoners to pass through. Our friend the cobbler and the other stragglers crossed over, and we followed their example. The driver, and another man who had been seated by his side in front of the vehicle, dismounted, and were admitted into the office. The office door was closed after them, and the crowd were on the tip-toe of expectation. After a few minutes delay, the door again opened, and the two first prisoners appeared. They were a couple of girls, of whom the elder could not be more than sixteen, and the younger of whom had certainly not attained her fourteenth year. That they were sisters was evident from the resemblance which still subsisted between them, though two additional years of depravity had fixed their brand upon the elder girl’s features as legibly as if a red-hot iron had seared them. They were both gaudily dressed, the younger one especially, and although there was a strong similarity between them in both respects, which was rendered the more obvious by their being handcuffed together, it is impossible to conceive a greater contrast than the demeanour of the two presented. The younger girl was weeping bitterly—not for display or in the hope of producing effect, but for very shame; her face was buried in her handkerchief, and her whole manner was but too expressive of bitter and unavailing sorrow. &quot;How long are you for, Emily?&quot; screamed a red-faced woman in the crowd. &quot;Six weeks, and labour,&quot; replied the elder girl, with a flaunting laugh; &quot;and that’s better than the Stone Jug any how; the mill’s a d—d sight better than the Sessions; and here’s Bella a-going too for the first time. Hold up your head, you chicken,&quot; she continued, boisterously tearing the other girl’s handkerchief away; &quot;Hold up your head, and show ’em your face. I an’t jealous, but I’m blessed if I an’t game!&quot;— &quot;That’s right, old gal,&quot; exclaimed a man in a paper cap, who, in common with the greater part of the crowd, had been inexpressibly delighted with this little incident.—&quot;Right!&quot; replied the girl; &quot;ah, to be sure; what’s the odds, so long as you&#039;re happy.&quot;—&quot;Come, in with you,&quot; interrupted the driver.— &quot;Don’t you be in a hurry, Coachman,&quot; replied the girl; &quot;and recollect I want to be set down in Cold-Bath Fields—large house with a high garden wall in front; you can’t mistake it. Hallo, Belle, where are you going to—you’ll pull my precious arm off?&quot; This was addressed to the younger girl, who, in her anxiety to hide herself in the caravan, had ascended the steps first, and forgotten the strain upon the handcuff. &quot;Come down, and let’s show you the way.&quot; And after jerking the miserable girl down with a force which made her stagger on the pavement, she got into the vehicle, and was followed by her wretched companion. These two girls had been thrown upon London streets, their vices and debauchery, by a sordid and rapacious mother. What the younger girl was then the elder had been once; and what the elder then was, she must soon become. A melancholy prospect, but how surely to be realised; a tragic drama, but how often acted! Turn to the prisons and police-offices of London—nay, look into the very streets themselves. These things pass before our eyes, day after day, and hour after hour—they have become such matters of course, that they are utterly disregarded. The progress of these girls in crime will be as rapid as the flight of a pestilence, resembling it too in its baneful influence and wide-spreading infection. Step by step how many wretched females, within the sphere of every man’s observation, have become involved in a career of vice frightful to contemplate: hopeless at its commencement, loathsome and repulsive in its course, friendless, forlorn, and unpitied, at its miserable conclusion! There were other prisoners—boys of ten, as hardened in vice as men of fifty—a houseless vagrant going joyfully to prison as a place of food and shelter handcuffed to a man whose prospects were ruined, character lost, and family rendered destitute by his first offence.—Our curiosity, however, was satisfied. The first group had left an impression on our mind we would gladly have avoided, and would willingly have effaced. The crowd dispersed—the vehicle rolled away with its load of guilt and misfortune, and we saw no more of the Prisoner&#039;s Van.18351129https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._8_The_Prisoners_Van/1835-11-29_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No8_The_Prisoners_Van.pdf
103https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/103'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 9, The Parlour'Published in <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (13 December 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive</em>, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351213/001/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000355/18351213/001/0001</a>. <em>Source is faded and illegible in places.</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-12-13">1835-12-13</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-12-13_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No9_The_ParlourDickens, Charles. '<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 9, The Parlour' (13 December 1835). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-12-13_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No9_The_Parlour">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-12-13_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No9_The_Parlour</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-12-13_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No9_The_Parlour.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Scenes and Characters, No. 9, The Parlour.' <em>Bell's Life in London</em> (13 December 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBell%27s+Life+in+London%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bell's Life in London</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=TIBBS">TIBBS</a>A snug parlour in winter, with a sofa on one side the blazing fire, an easy chair on the other, and a table in the centre, bearing a liquor-stand, glasses, and cigars, the whole seen to the greatest advantage by the soft light of a French lamp, which falls delicately on the curtains you have carefully drown to exclude the wind, and enable you to eye your damask with great complacency—a snug parlour under such circumstances is a temporary Elysium, and well deserves to be lauded by an abler pen than ours. A pair of parlours &quot;genteelly furnished&quot; for a single gentleman, with a French bedstead for one in the back parlour, and cane-bottomed chairs for six in the front—all for twelve shilllings a week and attendance included, have their charms also. A breakfast parlour&#039;s no bad thing, when you&#039;re spending a week with a pleasant family in the country; and an hour or two may be passed very agreeably in a dining parlour in town. But though each and every of the parlours we have just enumerated has its own peculiar merits and attractions, to no one among them are we about to make any further allusion. The question then very naturally arises, what kind of parlour do we mean?—and that question we will resolve at once. We had been lounging, the other evening, down Oxford-strewet, Holburn, Cheapside, Coleman-street, Finsbury-square, and so on, with the intention of returning by Petonville and the New-road, when we began to feel rather thirsty, and disposed to rest for five or ten minutes; so we turned back to a quiet decent public house, which we remembered to have passed but a moment before (near the City-road), for the purpose of solacing ourselves with a glass of ale. The house was none of your stuccoed, French-polished, illuminated palaces, but a modest public-house of the old school, with a little old bar, and a little old landlord, who, with a wife and daughter of the same pattern, was comfortably seated in the bar aforesaid—a snug little room, with a cheerful fire, protected by a large screen, from behind which the young lady emerged, on our representing our inclincation for a glass of ale. &quot;Won&#039;t you walk into the parlour, Sir?&quot; said the young lady in seductie tones. &quot;You&#039;d better walk into the parlour, Sir,&quot; said the little old landlord, throwing his chair back, and looking round one side of the screen, to survey our appearance. &quot;You&#039;d much better step into the parlour, Sir,&quot; said the little old lady, popping her head out at the other side of the screen. And on our looking slightly round, as if in ignorance of the locality so much recommended, the little old landlord bustled out at the small door of the small bar, and forthwith ushured us into the parlour itself. It was an ancient dark-looking room, with a sanded floor and high mantel-piece, over which was an old coloured print of some naval engagement, representing two men-of-war banding away at each other most vigorously, with another vessel or two oblowing up in the distance, and an interesting foreground of broken masts and blue legs sticking out of the water. Depending from the ceiling, in the centre of the room, were a gas-light and bell-pull, and on each side were three or four long narrow tables, behind which was a thickly planted row of those slippy shiny looking wooden chairs peculiar to places of this description. The monstrous appearance of the sanded boards was relieved by an occasional spittoon, and a triangular pile of these useful articles adored the two upper corners of the apartment. At the further table, nearest the fire, with his face towards the door at the bottom of the room, sat a stoutish man of about forty, whose short stiff black hair, curled closely round a broad high forehead and face to which something besides water and exercise had communicated a rather inflamed appearance. He was smoking a cigar, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and had that confident, orucular air, which marked him as the leading politician, general authority, and universal anecdote relator of the place. He had evidently just delivered himself of something veay weighty, for the remainder of the company were puffing away at their respective pipes and cigars, in a kind of solemn abstraction, as if quite overwhelmed with the magnitude of the subject recently under discussion. On his right sat an elderly man, with a white head and broad-brimmed brown hat, and on his left a sharp-nosed light-haired man, in a brown surtout reaching nearly to his heels, who took a whiff at his pipe and an admiring glance at the red-faced man alternately.—&quot;Very extraordinary!&quot; said the light haired man, after a pause of five minutes; a murmur of assent ran through the company. &quot;Not at all extraordinary—not at all,&quot; said the red faced man, awakening suddenly from his reverie; and turning upon the light-haired man, the moment he had spoken. &quot;Why should it be extraordinary?—why is it extraordinary?—Prove it to be extraordinary.&quot; &quot;Oh, if you come to that—&quot; said the light-haired man. &quot;Come to that!&quot; ejaculated the man with the red face; &quot;but we must come to that. We stand in these times upon a calm elevation of intellectual attainment, and not in the dark recess of mental deprivation. Proof is what I require—proof, and not assertions in these stirring times. Every gen’lem’n that knows me knows what was the nature and effect of my observations, when it was in the contemplation of the Old-street Suburban Representative Discovery Society to recommend a candidate for that place in Cornwall there—I forget the name of it.&quot; “Mr. Snobee, (said Mr. Wilson) is a fit and proper person to represent the borough in Parliament.” “Prove it,” says I. “He is a friend to Reform,” says Mr. Wilson. “Prove it,” says I. “The abolitionist of the national debt, the unflinching opponent of pensions, the uncompromising advocate of the negro, the reducer of sinecures and the duration of Parliaments, the extender of nothing but the suffrages of the people,” says Mr. Wilson. “Prove it,” says I. “His acts prove it,” says he. “Prove them,” says I. &quot;And he could not prove them (said the red-faced man, looking round triumphantly) &quot;and the borough didn’t have him; and if you carried this principle to the full extent, you’d have no debt, no pensions, no sinecures, no negroes, no nothing; and then, standing upon an elevation of intellectual attainment, and having reached the summit of popular prosperity, you might bid defiance to the nations of the earth, and erect yourselves in the proud confidence of wisdom and superiority. This is my argument—this always has been my argument—and if I was a Member of the House of Commons to-morrow, I’d make ’em shake in their shoes with it &quot;—and the red-faced man hit the table very hard with his clenched fist, by way of adding weight to the declaration, and then smoked away like a brewery. &quot;Well!&quot; said the sharp-nosed man, in a very slow and soft voice, addressing the company in general, &quot;I always do say that, of all the gentlemen I have the pleasure of meeting in this room, there is not one whose conversation I like to hear so much as Mr. Rogers’s, or who is such improving company.&quot; &quot;Improving company! (said Mr. Rogers, for that was the name of the red-faced man). Damme, you may say I&#039;m improving company, for I’ve improved you all to some purpose; though as to my conversation being as my friend Mr. Ellis here describes it, that&#039;s not for me to say anything about; you, gentlemen, are the best judges on that point; but this I will say, when I came into this parish, and first used this room, ten years ago, I don’t believe there was one man in it who knew he was a slave, and now you all know it, and writhe under it. Inscribe that upon my tomb, and I&#039;m satisfied.&quot; &quot;Why, as to inscribing it on your tea-chest,&quot; said a little dirty green-grocer, with a rather dirty face, &quot;of course you can have anything chalked up as you likes to pay for, so far as it relates to yourself and your affairs; but when you come to talk about slaves and that there gammon, you’d better keep it in the family, ’cos I, for one, don’t like to be called them names night after night.&quot; &quot;You are a slave,&quot; said the red-faced man, &quot;and the most pitiable of all slaves.&quot;Wery hard if I am,&quot; interrupted the green-grocer, &quot;for I got no good out of the twenty millions, anyhow.&quot; &quot;A willing slave,&quot; ejaculated the red-faced man, getting more red with eloquence, and contradiction, &quot;resigning the dearest birth-right of your children, neglecting the sacred call of Liberty, who standing imploringly before you, appeals to the warmest feelings of your heart, and points to your helpless infants but in vain.&quot; &quot;Prove it,&quot; said the green-grocer. &quot;Prove it,&quot; ejaculated the man with the red face. &quot;Bending beneath the yoke of an insolent and factious oligarchy: bowed down before the domination of cruel laws, groaning beneath tyranny and oppression on every hand, at every side, and in every corner. Prove it!&quot; And the red-faced man sneered melo-dramatically, and buried his indignation in a quart pot. &quot;Very true, Mr. Rogers, very true,&quot; said a stout broker in a large waistcoat. &quot;That&#039;s the pint, Sir.&quot; &quot;Ah to be sure,&quot; acquiesced divers other members of the company. &quot;You&#039;d better let him alone, Tommy,&quot; said the broker, by way of advice to the little green-grocer. &quot;He can tell wot’s o’clock by an eight-day, without looking at the minute-hand, he can. Try it on, on some other suit, you won&#039;t score nothing here, old feller.&quot; &quot;What is a man,&quot; said the red-faced specimen of the species, jerking his hat from its peg on the wall—&quot;what is an Englishman? Is he to be trampled upon by every oppressor? is he to be knocked down at any body’s bidding?&quot; (&quot;Decidedly not,&quot; from the broker). &quot;What is freedom?—Not a standing army.—What is a standing army? Not freedom.—What is general happiness? Not universal misery. Liberty is not the window tax, nor the Lords the people.&quot; And the red-faced man gradually bursting into a radiating sentence, in which the words &quot;oppression,&quot; tyranny,&quot; &quot;violence,&quot; &quot;misrule,&quot; &quot;dastardly Whigs,&quot; &quot;sanguinary Tories,&quot; &quot;Mr. Roebuck,&quot; &quot;depreciation of the currency,&quot; and &quot;voluntary principle,&quot; were most conspicuous, and finally left the room with an indignant bounce. &quot;Wonderful man!&quot; said he of the sharp nose. &quot;Splendid speaker!&quot; added the broker. &quot;Great power!&quot; said everybody but the green-grocer. &quot;Great ass,&quot; thought we—&quot;a very common character, and in no degree exaggerated. Empty-headed bullies, who by their ignorance and presumption bring into contempt whatever cause they are connected with: equally mischievous in any assembly from the highest to the lowest, and disgusting in all. There is a red-faced man in every &#039;parlour.&#039;&quot;18351213https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Scenes_and_Characters_No._9_The_Parlour/1835-12-13_Bells_Life_in_London_Scenes_and_Characters_No9_The_Parlour.pdf
44https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/44'<em>Sketches of London,</em> No. V, The House'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 March 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350307/019/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350307/019/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-03-07">1835-03-07</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-03-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoV_The_HouseDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. V, The House' (7 March 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-03-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoV_The_House">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-03-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoV_The_House</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-03-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoV_The_House.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. V, The House.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 March 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>We hope our readers will not be alarmed at the rather ominous title we have chosen for our fifth sketch. We assure them that we are not about to become political, neither have we the slightest intention of being more prosy than usual—if we can help it. It has occurred to us that a slight sketch of the general aspect of &quot;the House&quot; and the crowds that resort to it on the night of an important debate would be productive of some amusement; and as we have made some few calls at the aforesaid house in our time—have attended it quite often enough for our purpose, and a great deal too often for our own personal peace and comfort—we have determined to accept the description. Dismissing from our minds, therefore, all that feeling of awe which vague ideas of breaches of privilege, Sergeants at Arms, heavy denunciations, and still heavier feeds, are calculated to awaken, we enter at once, into the building, and upon our subject. Half-past four o&#039;clock, and at five the mover of the Address will be &quot;on his legs,&quot; as the newspaper announce sometimes by way of novelty, as if speakers were occasionally in the habit of standing on their heads. What a scene of bustle and excitement! The members are pouring in one after the other in shoals. The few spectators who can obtain standing-room in the passages scrutinize them as they pass with the utmost interest, and the man who can identify a member occasionally becomes a person of great importance. Every now and then you hear earnest whispers of &quot;That&#039;s Sir John Thompson.&quot; &quot;Which? him with the gilt order round his neck?&quot; &quot;No, no; that&#039;s one of the messengers—that other with the yellow gloves, is Sir John Thomson.&quot; &quot;Here&#039;s Mr. Smith.&quot; &quot;Lor! Yes, how dy&#039;e do, sir?—(He is our new member)—How do you do, sir?&quot; Mr. Smith stops; turns round with an air of enchanting urbanity (for the rumour of an intended dissolution has been very extensively circulated this morning), seizes both the hands of his gratified constituent, and after greeting him with the most enthusiastic warmth, rushes into the lobby with an extraordinary display of ardour in the public cause, leaving an immense impression in his favour on the mind of his &quot;fellow townsman.&quot; The arrivals increase in number, and the heat and noise increase in very unpleasant proportion. The livery servants form a complete lane on either side of the passage, and you reduce yourself into the smallest possible space to avoid being turned out. You see that stout man with the hoarse voice, in the blue coat, queer crowned, broad brimmed hat, white corderoy breeches and great boots, who has been talking incessantly for half an hour past, and whose importance has occasioned no small quantity of mirth among the strangers. That&#039;s the great conservator of the peace of Westminster. You cannot fail to have remarked the grace with which he saluted the noble Lord who passed just now, or the excessive dignity of his air, as he expostulates with the crowd. He is rather out of temper now, in consequence of the very irreverent behaviour of those two young fellows behind him, who have done nothing but laugh all the time they&#039;ve been here. &quot;Will they divide to-night, do you think, Mr.—?&quot; timidly inquires a little thin man in the crowd, hoping to conciliate the man of office. &quot;How can you ask such questions, sir?&quot; replies the functionary, in an incredibly loud key, and pettishly grasping the thick stick he carries in his right hand. &quot;Pray do not, sir, I beg of you; pray do not, sir.&quot; Here the little man looks remarkably out of his element, and the uninitiated part of the throng are in positive convulsions of laughter. Just as this moment, some unfortunate individual appears, with a very smirking air, at the bottom of the long passage. He has managed to elude the vigilance of the special constable down stairs, and is evidently congratulating himself on having made his way so far. &quot;Go back sir—you must not come here!&quot; shouts the hoarse one, with tremendous emphasis of voice and gesture, the moment the offender catches his eye. The stranger pauses. &quot;Do you hear, sir—will you go back?&quot; continues the official dignitary, gently pushing the intruder some dozen yards. &quot;Come, don&#039;t push me,&quot; replies the stranger, turning angrily round. &quot;I will, sir;&quot; &quot;You won&#039;t, sir;&quot; &quot;Go out, sir:&quot; &quot;Take your hands off me, sir;&quot; &quot;Go out of the passage, sir.&quot; &quot;You&#039;re a Jack-in-office, sir.&quot; &quot;A what?&quot; ejaculates he of the boots. &quot;A Jack-in-office, sir, and a very insolent fellow,&quot; reiterates the stranger, now completely in a passion. &quot;Pray do not force me to put you out, sir,&quot; retorts the other— &quot;pray do not—my instructions are to keep this passage clear—it&#039;s the Speaker&#039;s orders, sir.&quot; &quot;D—n the Speaker, sir,&quot; shouts the intruder. &quot;Here, Wilson!—Collins!&quot; gasps the officer, actually paralysed at this insulting expression, which in his mind is all but high treason; &quot;take this man out— take him out, I say! How dare you, sir?&quot; &amp;amp;c., and down goes the unfortunate man five stairs at a time, turning round at every stoppage, to come back again, and denouncing bitter vengeance against the Commander-in-Chief and his supernumeraries. &quot;Make way, gentlemen, —pray make way for the Members, I beg of you;&quot; shouts the zealous officer, turning back, and preceding a whole string of the liberal and independent. You see this ferocious-looking personage, with a complexion almost as sallow as his linen, and whose large black mustaches would give him the appearance of a figure in a hair-dresser&#039;s window, if his countenance possessed one ray of the intelligence communicated to those waxen caricatures of the human face divine. He is a militia-man, with a brain slightly damaged, and (quite unintentionally) the most amusing person in the House. Can anything be more exquisitely absurd than the burlesque grandeur of his air, as he strides up to the lobby, his eyes rolling like those of a Turk&#039;s head in a cheap Dutch clock? He never appears without that bundle of dirty papers which he carries under his left arm—they are generally supposed to be the miscellaneous estimates for 1804, or some equally important documents. You must often have seen him in the box-lobbies of the theatres during the vacation. He is very punctual in his attendance at the house, and his self-satisfied &quot;He-ar-He-ar,&quot; is not unfrequently the signal for a general titter. This is the man who once actually sent a messenger up to the Strangers&#039; Gallery in the old House of Commons to inquire the name of a gentleman who was using an eye-glass, in order that he (the Militia-man) might complain to the Speaker that the individual in question was quizzing him! On another occasion he repaired to Bellamy&#039;s kitchen—a refreshment room where persons who are not members are admitted on sufferance, as it were—and perceiving two or three gentlemen at supper who he was aware were not Members, and could not in that place very well resent his insolence, he indulged in the exquisite pleasantry and gentlemanly facetiousness of sitting with his booted leg on the table at which they were supping! Poor creature! he is generally harmless, and his absurdities are amusing enough. By dint of patience, and some little interest with our friend the constable, we have contrived to make our way to the Lobby, and you can just manage to catch an occasional glimpse of the house, as the door is opened for the admission of Members. It is tolerably full already, and little groups of Members are congregated together here, discussing the interesting topic of the day. That smart looking fellow in the black coat with velvet facing and cuffs, who wears his D&#039;Orsay hat so rakishly, is &quot;Honest Tom,&quot; a metropolitan representative; and the large man in the cloak with the white lining—not the man by the pillar; the other with the light hair hanging over his coat collar behind—is his colleague. That quiet gentlemanly-looking man in the blue surtout, grey trousers, white neckerchief and gloves, whose closely buttoned coat displays his manly figure and broad chest to great advantage, is a very well known character. He has fought a great many battles in his time, and conquered like the heroes of old, with no other arms than those the gods gave him. The elderly man with the bald head and thin face, who is leaning against the wall perusing the leading articles of the soi-disant &quot;Leading Journal,&quot; is the identical &quot;old country gentleman&quot; who has lived for two-thirds of his whole existence exactly one minute and a quarter&#039;s walk from Black-friars&#039;-bridge. The old hard-featured man who is standing near him, is really a good specimen of that class of men—now nearly extinct. He is also a county member, and has been from time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary. Look at his loose wide brown coat, with capacious pockets on each side; the knee breeches and boots, the immensely long waistcoat, and silver-watch-chain dangling below it, the wide-brimmed brown hat, and white handkerchief tied in a great bow with straggling ends sticking out beyond his shirt frill. It is a costume one seldom sees now-a-days, and when the few who wear it have died off, it will be extinct too. He can tell you long stories of Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, and Canning, and how much better the House was managed in those times, when they used to get up at eight or nine o-clock except on regular field days, of which everybody was apprized before-hand. He has a great contempt for all young members of Parliament, and thinks it quite impossible that a man can say anything worth hearing, unless he has sat in the house for fifteen years at least, without saying anything at all. He is of opinion that &quot;That young Macaulay&quot; was a regular imposter; he allows that Lord Stanley may do something one of these days, but he&#039;s too young Sir—too young. He is an excellent authority on points of precedent, and when he grows talkative, after his wine, will tell you how Sir Somebody Something, when he was whipper-in for the Government, brought four men out of their beds to vote in the majority, three of whom died on their way home again; how the house once divided on the question, that fresh candles be new brought in; how the Speakers was once upon a time left in the chair by accident, at the conclusion of business, and was obliged to sit in the House by himself for three hours, till some member could be knocked up, and brought back again to move the adjournment—and a great many other anecdotes of a similar description. There he stands, leaning on his stick; looking at the throng of Exquisites around him with most profound contempt, and conjuring up before his mind&#039;s eye, the scenes he beheld in the old house in days gone by, when his own feelings were fresher and brighter, and when, as he imagines, wit, talent, and patriotism, flourished more brightly too. You are curious to know who that young man in the rough great coat is, who has accosted every member who has entered the House since we have been standing here. He is not a member; he is only an &quot;hereditary bondsman,&quot; or, in other words, an Irish correspondent of an Irish newspaper, who had just procured his forty-second frank from a member whom he never saw in his life before. There he goes again—another! Bless the man, he has got his hat and pockets full already. We&#039;ll try our fortune at the Strangers&#039; Gallery, though the nature of the debate encourages very little hope of success. What on earth are you about? Holding up your order as if it were a talisman at whose command the wicket would fly open? Nonsense. Just preserve the order for an autograph, if its worth keeping at all, and make your appearance at the door with your thumb and fore-finger expressively inserted in your waistcoat-pocket. This tall stout man in black is the door-keeper. &quot;Any room?&quot; &quot;Not an inch—two or three dozen gentlemen waiting downstairs on the chance of somebody&#039;s going out.&quot; Pull out your purse—&quot;Are you quite sure there&#039;s no room?&quot;—I&#039;ll go and look,&quot; replies the door-keeper, with a wishful glance at your purse, &quot;but I&#039;m afraid there&#039;s not.&quot; He returns, and with real feeling, assures you that it&#039;s morally impossible to get near the gallery. It&#039;s no use waiting. When you are refused admission into the Stranger&#039;s Gallery at the House of Commons, under such circumstances, you may return home thoroughly satisfied that the place must be re-markably full indeed. Retracing our steps through the long passage, descending the stairs, and crossing Palace-yard, we halt at a small temporary door-way adjoining the King&#039;s entrance to the House of Lords. We will endeavour to smuggle you into the Reporters&#039; gallery, from whence you may peep into the House for one instant, but not longer, for its against orders our being there at all. Take care of the stairs, they are none of the best: through this little wicket—there. As soon as your eyes become a little used to the mist of the place, and the glare of the chandeliers below you, you will see that some unimportant personage on the Ministerial side of the House (to your right hand) is speaking, amidst a hum of voices and confusion which would rival Babel but for the circumstance of its being all in one language. You heard the &quot;hear, hear,&quot; which occasioned that laugh; it proceaded from our warlike friend in the mustachios; he is sitting on the back seat against the wall, behind the Member who is speaking, looking as ferocious and intellectual as usual. Take one look round you, and retire; the body of the House and the side galleries are full of Members, some with their legs on the back of the opposite seat; some with theirs stretched out to their utmost length on the floor; some going out, others coming in; all of them talking, laughing, lounging, coughin, o-ing, questioning, or groaning; presenting a conglomeration of noise and confusion to be met with in no other place in existence. There are a few more portraits—some in the body of the house—others in one of the galleries—which we should like to lay before our readers. We have exhausted our space, and most therefore reserve them for our next sketch, which will be entitled &quot;Bellamy&#039;s.&quot;18350307https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._V_The_House/1835-03-07_Sketches_of_London_No.V_The_House.pdf
55https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/55'<em>Sketches of London,</em> No. XVI, Our Parish' (III) Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (14 July 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350714/012/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350714/012/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-07-14">1835-07-14</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-07-14_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishIIIDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XVI, Our Parish' (III) (14 July 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-14_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishIII">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-14_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishIII</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-07-14_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishIII.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Sketches of London No. XVI, Our Parish' (III). <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (14 July 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>An event has recently occurred in our parish which for the moment completely absorbs every other consideration, and throws even the Miss Willises entirely into the shade. We have had an election—an election for beadle: a contest of paramount interest has just terminated; a parochial convulsion has taken place. It has been succeeded by a glorious triumph, which the country—or at least the parish—its no great matter which—will long remember. The supporters of the old beadle system have been defeated in their strong-hold, and the advocates of the great new beadle principles have achieved a proud victory. Our parish—which, like all other parishes, is a little world of its own—has long been divided into two parties, whose contentions slumbering for a while, have never failed to burst forth with unabated vigour on any occasion on which they could by possibility be renewed. Watching rates, lighting rates, paving rates, sewer&#039;s rates, church rates, poor&#039;s rates—all sorts of rates, have been in their turn the subjects of a grand struggle; and as to questions of patronage, the asperity and determination with which they have been contested is scarcely credible. The leader of the official party - the steady advocate of the churchwardens and the unflinching supporter of the overseers—is an old gentleman who lives in our row. He owns some half-dozen houses in it, and always walks on the opposite side of the way so that he may be able to take in a view of the whole of his property at once. He is a tall, thin, bony man, with an interrogative nose, and little restless perking eyes, which appear to have been given him for the sole purpose of peeping into other people&#039;s affairs with. He is deeply impressed with the importance of our parish business, and prides himself not a little on his style of addressing the parishioners in vestry assembled. His views are rather confined than extensive; his principles more narrow than liberal. He has been heard to declaim very loudly in favour of the liberty of the press, and advocates the repeal of the stamp duty on newspapers, because the daily journals, who now have a monopoly of the public, never give verbatim reports of vestry meetings. He wouldn&#039;t appear egotistical for the world; but at the same time he must say, that there are speeches—that celebrated speech of his own on the emoluments of the Sexton, and the duties of the office, for instance—which might be communicated to the public, greatly to their improvement and advantage. His great opponent in public life is Captain Purday, the old naval officer of half-pay, to whom we introduced our readers a sketch or two back. The Captain being a determined opponent of the constituted authorities, whoever they may chance to be—and our other friend being their steady supporter, with an equal disregard of their individual merits—it will readily be supposed that occasions for their coming into direct collision are neither few nor far between. They divided the vestry fourteen times on a motion for heating the Church with warm water instead of coals, and made speeches about liberty and expenditure, and prodigality and hot water, which threw the whole parish into a state of excitement. Then the Captain, when he was on the visiting committee, and his opponent overseer brought forward certain distinct and specific charges relative to the management of the workhouse, boldly expressed his total want of confidence in the existing authorities, and moved for &quot;a copy of the recipe by which the paupers&#039; soup was prepared, together with any documents relating thereto.&quot; This the overseer steadily resisted; he fortified himself by precedent, appealed to the established usage, and declined to produce the papers, on the ground of the injury that would be done to the public service, if documents of a strictly private nature, passing between the master of the workhouse and the cook, were to be thus dragged to light on the motion of any individual member of the vestry. The motion was lost by a majority of two; and then the Captain, who never allows himself to be defeated, moved for a committee of inquiry into the whole subject. The affair grew serious; the question was discussed at meeting after meeting, and vestry after vestry; speeches were made, attacks repudiated, personal defiances exchanged, explanations received, and the greatest excitement prevailed, until at last, just as the question was going to be finally decided, the vestry found that somehow or other they had become entangled in a point of form from which it was impossible to escape with propriety. So the motion was dropped, and everybody looked extremely important, and seemed quite satisfied with the meritorious nature of the whole proceeding. This was the state of affairs in our parish a week or two since, when Simmons, the beadle, suddenly died. The lamented deceased had over-exerted himself a day or two previously, in conveying an aged female, highly intoxicated, to the strong room of the work house. The excitement thus occasioned, added to a severe cold, which this indefatigable officer had caught in his capacity of director of the parish-engine, by inadvertently playing over himself instead of a fire, proved too much for a constitution already enfeebled by age; and the intelligence was conveyed to the Board one evening that Simmons had died, and left his respects. The breath was scarcely out of the body of the deceased functionary when the field was filled with competitors for the vacant office, each of whom rested his claims to public support entirely on the number and extent of his family, as if the office of beadle were originally instituted as an encouragement for the propagation of the human species. &quot;Bung for Beadle. Five small children!&quot; &quot;Hopkins for Beadle. Seven small children!!&quot; &quot;Timkins for Beadle. Nine small children!!!&quot; Such were the placards in large black letters on a white ground, which were plentifully pasted on the walls and posted in the windows of the principal shops. Timkins’s success was considered certain: several mothers of families half promised their votes, and the nine small children would have run over the course but for the production of another placard announcing the appearance of a still more meritorious candidate. &quot;Spruggins for Beadle. Ten small children (two of them twins) and a wife!!!&quot; There was no resisting this; ten small children would have been almost irresistible in themselves, without the twins; but the touching parenthesis about that interesting production of nature, and the still more touching allusion to Mrs. Spruggins must ensure success. Spruggins was the favourite at once; and the appearance of his lady, as she went about to solicit votes (which encouraged confident hopes of a still further addition to the house of Spruggins at no remote period), increased the general prepossession in his favour. The other candidates, Bung alone excepted, resigned in despair; the day of election was fixed; and the canvas proceeded with briskness and perseverance on both sides. The members of the vestry could not be supposed to escape the contagious excitement inseparable from the occasion. The majority of the lady inhabitants of the parish declared at once for Spruggins, and the quondam overseer took the same side, on the ground that men with large families always had been elected to the office, and that, although he must admit, that, in other respects, Spruggins was the least qualified candidate of the whole; still it was an old practice, and he saw no reason why an old practice should be departed from. This was enough for the Captain. He immediately sided with Bung; canvassed for him personally in all directions, wrote squibs on Spruggins, and got his butcher to skewer them up on conspicuous joints in his shop-front; frightened his neighbour, the old lady, into a palpitation of the heart by his awful denunciations of Spruggins’s party; and bounced in and out, and up and down, and backwards and forwards, until all the sober inhabitants of the parish thought it inevitable that he must die of a brain fever long before the election began. The day of election arrived; it was no longer an individual struggle but a party contest between the ins and outs; the question was, whether the withering influence of the overseers, the domination of the churchwardens, and the blighting despotism of the vestry clerk should be allowed to render the election of beadle a form—a nullity; whether they should impose a vestry elected beadle on the parish, to do their bidding and forward their views, or whether the parishioners, fearlessly asserting their undoubted rights, should elect an independent beadle of their own. The nomination was fixed to take place in the vestry, but so great was the throng of anxious spectators, that it was found necessary to adjourn to the church, where the ceremony commenced with due solemnity. The appearance of the churchwardens and overseers, and the ex-churchwardens and ex-overseers, with Spruggins in the rear, excited general attention. Spruggins was a little thin man in rusty black with a long pale face, and a countenance expressive of care and fatigue, which might either be attributed to the extent of his family or the anxiety of his feelings. His opponent appeared in a cast-off coat of the Captain’s - a blue coat with bright buttons, white trousers, and that description of shoes familiarly known by the appellation of &quot;high-lows.&quot; There was a serenity in the open countenance of Bung—a kind of moral dignity in his confident air—an &quot;I wish you may get it&quot; sort of expression in his eye—which infused animation into his supporters, and evidently dispirited his opponents. The ex-churchwarden rose to propose Thomas Spruggins for beadle. He had known him long; he had had his eye upon him closely for years; he had watched him with twofold vigilance for months. [A parishioner here suggested that this might be termed &quot;taking a double sight;&quot; but the observation was drowned in loud cries of &quot;order!&quot;]. He would repeat that he had had his eye upon him for years, and this he would say, that a more well-conducted, a more well-behaved, a more sober, a more quiet man, with a more well regulated mind, he had never met with. A man with a larger family he had never known [cheers]. The parish required a man who could be depended on [hear! from the Spruggins side, answered by ironical cheers from the Bung party]. Such a man he now proposed [&quot;No,&quot; &quot;yes&quot;]. He would not allude to individuals [the ex-churchwarden continued in the celebrated negative style adopted by great speakers]. He would not advert to a gentleman who had once held a high rank in the service of his Majesty; he would not say that that gentleman was no gentleman; he would not assert that that man was no man; he would not say, that he was a turbulent parishioner; he would not say that he had grossly misbehaved himself, not only on this, but on all former occasions; he would not say that he was one of those discontented and treasonable spirits, who carried confusion and disorder wherever they went; he would not say that he harboured in his heart envy, and hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. No! He wished to have everything comfortable and pleasant; and therefore, he would say—nothing about him [cheers]. The Captain replied in a similar parliamentary style. He would not say he was astonished at the speech they had just heard; he would not say he was disgusted [cheers]; he would not retort the epithets which had been hurled against him [renewed cheering]; he would not allude to men once in office, but now happily out of it, who had mismanaged the work-house, ground the paupers, diluted the beer, slack-baked the bread, boned the meat, heightened the work, and lowered the soup [tremendous cheers]. He would not ask what such men deserved [a voice, &quot;Nothing a day, and find themselves!&quot;]. He would not say that one burst of general indignation should drive them from the parish they polluted with their presence [&quot;Give it him!&quot;]. He would not allude to the unfortunate man who had been proposed—he would not say, as the Vestry’s tool, but as Beadle. He would not advert to that individual’s family; he would not say that nine children, twins, and a wife, were very bad examples for pauper imitation [loud cheers]. He would not advert in detail to the qualifications of Bung. The man stood before him, and he would not say in his presence what he might be disposed to say of him, if he were absent. [Here Mr. Bung telegraphed to a friend near him under cover of his hat, by contracting his left eye, and applying his right thumb to the tip of his nose]. It had been objected to Bung that he had only five children [&quot;Hear, hear!&quot; from the opposition]. Well, he had yet to learn that the Legislature had affixed any precise amount of infantine qualification to the office of beadle; but taking it for granted that an extensive family were a great requisite, he entreated them to look to facts and compare data, about which there could be no mistake. Bung was 35 years of age. Spruggins—of whom he wished to speak with all possible respect—was 50. Was it not more than possible—was it not very probable—that by the time Bung attained the latter age, he might see around him a family, even exceeding in number and extent, that to which Spruggins at present laid claim [deafening cheers and waving of handkerchiefs]? The Captain concluded amidst loud applause by calling upon the parishioners to sound the tocsin, rush to the poll, free themselves from dictation, or be slaves for ever. On the following day the polling began, and we never have had such a bustle in our parish since we got up our famous anti-slavery petition, which was such an important one that the House of Commons ordered it to be printed, on the motion of the Member for the district. The Captain engaged two hackney coaches and a cab for Bung’s people—the cab for the drunken voters, and the two coaches for the old ladies, the greater portion of whom, owing to the Captain’s impetuosity, were driven up to the poll and home again, before they recovered from their flurry sufficiently to know with any degree of clearness what they had been doing; the opposite party wholly neglected these precautions, and the consequence was, that a great many ladies who were walking leisurely up to the church—for it was a very hot day—to vote for Spruggins, were artfully decoyed into the coaches, and voted for Bung. The Captain’s arguments, too, had produced considerable effect: the attempted influence of the vestry produced a greater. A threat of exclusive dealing was clearly established against the vestry-clerk—a case of heartless and profligate atrocity. It appeared that the delinquent had been in the habit of purchasing six penn’orth of muffins weekly from an old woman who rents a small house in our parish, and resides among the original settlers; on her last weekly visit a message was conveyed to her through the medium of the cook, couched in mysterious terms, but indicating with sufficient clearness, that the vestry-clerk’s appetite for muffins in future depended entirely on her vote on the beadleship. This was sufficient; the stream had been turning previously, and the impulse thus administered directed its final course. The Bung party ordered one shillingsworth of muffins weekly for the remainder of the old woman’s natural life; the parishioners were loud in their exclamations; and the fate of Spruggins was sealed. It was in vain that the twins were exhibited in dresses of the same pattern, and night-caps to match at the church door; the boy in Mrs. Spruggins’s right arm and the girl in her left—even Mrs. Spruggins herself failed to be an object of sympathy any longer. The majority attained by Bung on the gross poll was four hundred and twenty-eight, and the cause of the parishioners triumphed. (To be continued.)18350714https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XVI_Our_Parish_[III]/1835-07-14_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XVI_Our_Parish_III.pdf
40https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/40'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. I, Hackney-Coach Stands'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle </em>(31 January 1835).Dickens, Charles <em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350131/036/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350131/036/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-01-31">1835-01-31</a><em>British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-01-31_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoI_Hackney_Coach_StandsDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. I, Hackney-Coach Stands' (31 January 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-01-31_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoI_Hackney_Coach_Stands">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-01-31_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoI_Hackney_Coach_Stands</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-01-31_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoI_Hackney_Coach_Stands.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. I, Hackney-Coach Stands.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (31 January 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>We commence our &quot;London Sketches&quot; with this subject, because we maintain that hackney-coach stands—properly so called—belong solely to the metropolis. We may be told that there are hackney-coach stands in Edinburgh; and not to go quite so far for a contradiction to our position, we may be reminded that Liverpool, Manchester, &quot;and other large towns&quot; (as the Parliamentary phrase goes), have their hackney-coach stands. We readily concede to these places the possession of certain vehicles which may look almost as dirty, and even go almost as slowly, as London hackney-coaches; but that they have the slightest claim to compete with the metropolis, either in point of stands, drivers, or cattle, we indignantly deny. Take a regular, ponderous, ricketty, London hackney-coach of the old school, and let any man have the boldness to assert, if he can, that he ever beheld any object on the face of the earth which at all resembled it—unless, indeed, it were another hackney-coach of the same date. We have recently observed on certain stands—and we say it with deep regret—rather dapper green chariots, and coaches of polished yellow, with four wheels of the same colour as the coach; whereas it is perfectly notorious to every one who has studied the subject, that every wheel ought to be of a different colour, and a different size. These are innovations, and, like other mis-called improvements, awful signs of the restlessness of the public mind, and the little respect paid to our time-honoured institutions. Why should hackney-coaches be clean?—our ancestors found them dirty, and left them so. Why should we, with a feverish wish to &quot;keep moving,&quot; desire to roll along at the rate of six miles an hour, while they were content to rumble over the stones at four? These are solemn considerations. Hackney-coaches are part and parcel of the law of the land—they were settled by the Legislature—plated and numbered by the wisdom of Parliament. Then why have they been swamped by cabs and omnibuses? —or why should people be allowed to ride quickly for eight-pence a mile, after Parliament had come to the solemn decision that they should pay a shilling a mile for riding slowly? We pause for a reply;—and, having no chance of getting one, begin a fresh paragraph. Our acquaintance with hackney-coach stands is of long standing. We are a walking book of fares, feeling ourselves half bound, as it were, to be always in the right on contested points. We know all the regular watermen within three miles of Covent-garden by sight, and should be almost tempted to believe that all the hackney-coach horses in that district knew us by sight too, if one-half of them were not blind. We take great interest in hackney-coaches; but we seldom drive, having a knack of turning ourselves over when we attempt to do so. We are as great friends to horses— hackney-coach and otherwise—as the renowned Mr. Martin, of costermonger notoriety, and yet we never ride. We keep no horse, but a clothes-horse—enjoy no saddle so much as a saddle of mutton— and, following our own inclinations, have never followed the hounds. Leaving these fleeter means of getting over the ground, or of depositing one&#039;s-self upon it, to those who like them, by hackney-coach stands we take our stand. There is a hackney-coach stand under the very window at which we are writing; there is only one coach on it now, but it is a fair specimen of the class of vehicles to which we have alluded—a great, lumbering, square concern of a dingy-yellow colour (like a bilious brunette), with very small glasses, but very large frames; the panels are ornamented with a faded coat of arms, in shape something like a dissected bat; the axle-tree is red, and the majority of the wheels are green. The box is partially covered by an old great-coat, with a multiplicity of capes, and some extraordinary-looking cloths; and the straw, with which the canvas cushion is stuffed, is sticking up in several places, as if in rivalry of the hay which is peeping through the chinks in the boot. The horses, with drooping heads, and each with a mane and tail as scanty and straggling as those of a worn-out rocking-horse, are standing patiently on some damp straw, occasionally wincing, and rattling the harness; and, now and then, one of them lifts his mouth to the ear of his companion, as if he were saying, in a whisper, that he should like to assassinate the coachman. The coachman himself is in the watering-house; and the waterman, with his hands forced into his pockets as far as they can possibly go, is dancing the &quot;double shuffle&quot; in front of the pump, to keep his feet warm. The smart servant-girl, with the pink ribbons, at No. 5, opposite, suddenly opens the street-door, and four small children forthwith rush out, and scream &quot;coach!&quot; with all their might and main. The waterman darts from the pump, seizes the horses by their respective bridles, and drags them, and the coach too, round to the house, shouting all the time for the coachman at the very top, or rather bottom of his voice—for its a deep bass growl. A response is heard from the tap-room—the coachman, in his wooden-soled shoes, makes the street echo again as he runs across it—and then there is such a struggling, and backing, and grating of the kennel, to get the coach-door opposite the house-door, that the children are in perfect extasies of delight. What a commotion! The old lady, who has been stopping there for the last month, is going back to the country. Out comes box after box, and one side of the vehicle is filled with luggage in no time; the children get into everybody’s way, and the youngest, who has upset himself in his attempts to carry an umbrella, is borne off wounded, and kicking. The youngsters disappear, and a short pause ensues, during which the old lady is no doubt kissing them all round in the back-parlour. She appears at last, followed by her married daughter, all the children, and both the servants, who, with the joint assistance of the coachman and waterman, manage to get her safely into the coach. A cloak is handed in, and a little basket, which we could almost swear contains a small black bottle and a paper of sandwiches. Up go the steps—bang goes the door—&quot;Golden-cross, Charing-cross, Tom,&quot; says the waterman—&quot;Good bye, Grandma,&quot; cry the children—off jingles the coach at the rate of three miles an hour—and the mamma and children retire into the house, with the exception of one little villain, who runs up the street at the top of his speed, pursued by the smart servant, not ill-pleased to have such an opportunity of displaying her attractions. She brings him back, and, after casting two or three gracious glances across the way, which are either intended for us or the pot-boy (we are not quite certain which), shuts the door—and the hackney-coach stand is again at a stand still. We have been frequently amused with the intense delight with which &quot;a servant of all work,&quot; who is sent for a coach, deposits herself inside; and the unspeakable gratification which boys, who have been despatched on a similar errand, appear to derive from mounting the box. But we never recollect to have been more amused with a hackney-coach party than one we saw early the other morning in Tottenham-court-road. It was a wedding-party, and emerged from one of the inferior streets near Fitzroy-square. There were the bride, with a thin white dress, and a great red face; and the bridesmaid, a little, dumpy, good-humoured young woman, dressed of course in the same appropriate costume; and the bridegroom and his chosen friend, in blue coats, yellow waistcoats, white trousers, and Berlin gloves to match. They stopped at the corner of the street, and called a coach with an air of indescribable dignity. The moment they were in, the bridesmaid threw a red shawl, which she had no doubt brought on purpose, negligently over the number on the door, evidently to delude pedestrians into the belief that the hackney-coach was a private carriage; and away they went, perfectly satisfied that the imposition was successful, and quite unconscious that there was a great staring number stuck up behind, on a plate as large as a schoolboy’s slate. A shilling a mile!—the ride was worth five, at least, to them. What an interesting book a hackney-coach might produce, if it could carry as much in its head as it does in its body. The auto-biography of a broken-down hackney-coach would surely be as amusing as the autobiography of a broken-down hacknied dramatist; and it might tell as much of its travels with the pole, as others have of their expeditions to it. How many stories might be related of the different people it had conveyed on matters of business or profit—pleasure or pain! And how many melancholy tales of the same people at different periods! The country-girl—the showy, over-dressed woman—the drunken prostitute! The raw apprentice—the dissipated spendthrift—the thief! Talk of cabs! Cabs are all very well in cases of expedition; when it’s a matter of neck or nothing— life or death—your temporary home or your long one. But, besides a cab’s lacking that gravity of deportment which so peculiarly distinguishes a hackney-coach, let it never be forgotten that a cab is a thing of yesterday, and that he never was anything better. A hackney-cab has always been a hackney-cab from his first entry into public life, whereas a hackney-coach is a remnant of past gentility—a victim to fashion—a hanger-on of an old English family, wearing their arms, and, in days of yore, escorted by men wearing their livery—stripped of his finery, and thrown upon the world, like a once-smart footman when he is no longer sufficiently juvenile for his office—progressing lower and lower in the scale of four-wheeled degradation, until at last it comes to—a stand!18350131https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._I_Hackney-Coach_Stands/1835-01-31_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No.1__Hackney_Coach_Stands.pdf
41https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/41'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. II, Gin Shops'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 February 1835).Dickens, Charles <em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350207/028/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350207/028/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-02-07">1835-02-07</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-02-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoII_Gin_ShopsDickens, Charles. "Sketches of London, No. II." <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 February 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-02-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoII_Gin_Shops">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-02-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoII_Gin_Shops</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-02-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoII_Gin_Shops.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. II, Gin Shops.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 February 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>It is a very remarkable circumstance that different trades appear to partake of the disease to which elephants and dogs are especially liable: and to run stark, staring, raving mad, periodically. The great distinction between the animals and the the trades is, that the former run mad with a certain degree of propriety - they are very regular in their irregularities. You know the period at which the emergency will arise, and provide against it accordingly. If an elephant run mad you are all ready for him - kill or cure - pills or bullets - calomel in conserve of roses, or lead in a musket barrel. If a dog happen to look unpleasantly warm in the summer months, and to trot about the shady side of the streets with a quarter of a yard of tongue out of his mouth, a thick leather muzzle, which has been previously prepared in compliance with the thoughtful injunctions of the Legislature, is instantly clapped over his head, by way of making him cooler, and he either looks remarkably unhappy for the next six weeks, or becomes legally insane, and goes mad, as it were, by act of Parliament. But these trades are as eccentric as comets; nay, worse; for no one can calculate on the recurrence of the strange appearances which betoken the disease; moreover, the contagion is general, and the quickness with which it diffuses itself almost incredible. We will cite two or three cases in illustration of our meaning. Six or eight years ago, the epidemic began to display itself among the linen-drapers and haberdashers. The primary symptoms were, an inordinate love of plate glass, and a passion for gas-lights and gilding. The disease gradually progressed, and at last attained a fearful height. Quiet, dusty old shops, in different parts of town, were pilled down; spacious premises, with stuccoed fronts, and gold letters, were erected instead; floors were covered with Turkey carpets, roofs supported by massive pillars, doors knocked into windows, a dozen squares of glass into one, one shopman into a dozen - and there is no knowing what would have been done, if it had not been fortunately discovered, just in time, that the Commissioners of Bankrupt were as competent to decide such cases as the Commissioners of Lunacy, and that a little confinement, and gentle examination did wonders. The disease abated; it died away; and a year or two of comparative tranquility ensued. Suddenly it burst out again among the chemists; the symptoms were the same with the addition of a strong desire to stick the royal arms over the shop-door, and a great rage for mahogany varnish, and expensive floor-cloth; then the hoslers were infected and began to pill down their shop-fronts with frantic recklessness. The mania again died away, and the public began to congratulate themselves upon its entire disappearance when it burst forth with tenfold violence among the publicans and keepers of &quot;wine vaults;&quot; from that moment it has spread among them with unprecedented rapidity, exhibiting a concatenation of all the previous symptoms; and onward it has rushed to every part of town, knocking down all the old public houses, and depositing splendid mansions, stone balustrades, rose-wood fittings, immense lamps, and illuminated clocks at the corner of every street. The extensive scale on which these places are established, and the ostentatious manner in which the business of even the smallest among them is divided into branches, is most amusing. A handsome plate of ground glass in one door directs you &quot;To the Counting-House,&quot; another to the &quot;Bottle Department,&quot; a third to the &quot;Wholesale Department,&quot; a fourth to &quot;The Wine Promenade,&quot; and so fourth, until we are in daily expectation of meeting with a &quot;Brandy Bell,&quot; or a &quot;Whiskey Entrance.&quot; Then ingenuity is exhausted in devising attractive titles for the different descriptions of gin; and the dram-drinking portion of the community, as they gaze upon the gigantic black and white announcements, which are only to be equalled in size by the figures beneath them, are left in a state of pleasing hesitation between &quot;The cream of the valley,&quot; &quot;The out and out,&quot; &quot;The no mistake,&quot; &quot;The good for mixing,&quot; &quot;The real knock-me-down,&quot; &quot;The celebrated butter gin,&quot; &quot;The regular flare up,&quot; and a dozen other equally inviting and wholesome liqueurs. Although places of this description are to be met with in every second street, they are invariably numerous and splendid in precise proportion to the dirt and poverty of the surrounding neighbourhood. The gin shops in and near Drury-lane, Holborn, St. Giles&#039;, Covent-garden, and Clare-market, are the handsomest in London - there is more of filth and squalid misery near those great thoroughfares than in any part of this mighty city. We will endeavour to sketch the bar of a large gin-shop, and its ordinary customers, for the edification of such of our readers as may not have had opportunities of observing such scenes; and on the chance of finding one well suited to our purpose, we will make for Drury-lane through the narrow streets and dirty courts which divide it from Oxford-street, and that classical spot adjoining the brewery at the bottom of Tottenham-court-road, best known to the initiated as the &quot;Rookery.&quot; The filthy and miserable appearance of this part of London can hardly be imagined by those (and there are many such) who have not witnessed it. Wretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper, every room let out to a different family, and in many instances to two, or even three; fruit and &quot;sweet-stuff&quot; manufacturers in the cellars, barbers and red-herring vendors in the front parlors, cobblers in the back; a bird-fancier in the first floor, three families on the second, starvation in the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a &quot;musician&quot; in the front kitchen, and a charwoman and five hungry children in the back one - filth everywhere - a gutter before the houses and a drain behind them - clothes drying at the windows, slops emptying from the ditto; girls of 14 or 15, with matted hair, walking about bare-footed, and in old white great-coats, almost their only covering; boys of all ages, in coats of all sizes, and no coats at all; men and women, in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel, lounging about, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting, and swearing. You turn the corner. What a change! All is light and brilliancy. The hum of many voices issues from that splendid gin-shop which forms the commencement of the two streets opposite; and the gay building with the fantastically ornamented parapet, the illuminated clock, the plate-glass windows surrounded by stucco rosettes, and its profusion of gas-lights in richly-gilt burners, is perfectly dazzling when contrasted with the darkness and dirt we have just left. The interior is even gayer than the exterior. A bar of French-polished mahogany, elegantly carved, extends the whole width of the place; and there are two side-aisles of great casks, painted green and gold, enclosed within a light brass rail, and bearing such inscriptions, as &quot;Old Tom, 549;&quot; &quot;Young Tom, 360;&quot; &quot;Samson, 1421.&quot; Behind the bar is a lofty and spacious saloon, full of the same enticing vessels, with a gallery running round it, equally well furnished. On the counter, in addition to the usual spirit apparatus, are two or three little baskets of cakes and biscuits, which are carefully secured at top with wicker-work, to prevent their contents being unlawfully abstracted. Behind it, are two showily-dressed damsels with large necklaces, dispensing the spirits and &quot;compounds.&quot; They are assisted by the ostensible proprietor of the concern, a stout, coarse fellow in a fur cap, put on very much on one side to give him a knowing air, and display his sandy whiskers to the best advantage. Look at the groups of customers and observe the different air with which they call for what they want, as they are more or less struck by the grandeur of the establishment. The two old washerwomen, who are seated on the little bench to the left of the bar, are rather overcome by the head-dresses and haughty demeanour of the young ladies who officiate; and receive their half-quarters of gin and peppermint with considerable deference, prefacing a request for &quot;one of them soft biscuits,&quot; with a &quot;Just be good enough, ma&#039;am,&quot; &amp;c. They are quite astonished at the impudent air of the young fellow in the brown-coat and bright buttons, who ushering in his two companions, and walking up to the bar in as careless a manner as if he had been used to green and gold ornaments all his life, winks at one of the young ladies with singular coolness, and calls for a &quot;kervorten and a three-out glass,&quot; just as if the place were his own. &quot;Gin for you, sir?&quot; says the young lady when she has drawn it, carefully looking every way but the right one to show that the wink had no effect upon her. &quot;For me, Mary, my dear,&quot; replies the gentleman in brown. &quot;My name an&#039;t Mary as it happens,&quot; says the young girl in a most insinuating manner as she delivers the change. &quot;Vell, if it an&#039;t, it ought to be,&quot; responds the irresistible one; &quot;all the Marys as ever I see was handsome gals.&quot; Here the young lady, not precisely remembering how blushes are managed in such cases, abruptly ends the flirtation by addressing the female in the faded feathers who has just entered, and who, after stating explicitly, to prevent any subsequent misunderstanding that &quot;this gentleman pays,&quot; calls for &quot;a glass of port wine and a bit of sugar,&quot; the drinking which, and sipping another, accompanied by sundry whisperings to her companion, and no small quantity of giggling, occupies a considering time. Observe the group on the other side: those two old men who came in &quot;just to have a drain,&quot; finished their third quartern a few seconds ago; they have made themselves crying drunk, and the fat, comfortable-looking elderly women, who had &quot;a glass of rum-srub&quot; each, having chimed in with their complaints on the hardness of the times, one of the women has agreed to stand a glass round, jocularly observing that &quot;grief never mended no broken bones, and as good people&#039;s wery scarce, what I says is, make the most on&#039;em, and that&#039;s all about it;&quot; a sentiment which appears to afford unlimited satisfaction to those who have nothing to pay. It is growing late, and the throng of men, women, and children, who have been constantly going in and out, dwindles down to two or three occasional stragglers - cold wretched-looking creatures, in the last stage of emaciation and disease. The knot of Irish labourers at the lower end of the place, who have been alternately shaking hands with, and threatening the life of, each other for the last hour, become furious in their disputes; and finding it impossible to silence one man, who is particularly anxious to adjust the difference, they resort to the infallible expedient of knocking him down and jumping on him afterwards. Out rush the man in the fur cap, and the potboy; a scene of riot and confusion ensues; half the Irishmen get shut out, and the other half get shut in; the potboy is knocked among the tubs in no time; the landlord hits everybody, and everybody hits the landlord; the barmaids scream; in come the police; and the rest is a confused mixture of arms, legs, staves, torn coats, shouting, and struggling. Some of the party are borne off to the station-house, and the remainder slink home to beat their wives for complaining, and kick the children for daring to be hungry. We have sketched this subject very slightly, not only because our limits compel us to do so, but because if it were pursued farther it would be painful and repulsive. Well-disposed gentlemen and charitable ladies would alike turn with coldness and disgust from a description of the drunken, besotted men, and wretched, broken-down, miserable women, who form no inconsiderable portion of the frequenters of these haunts; - forgetting, in the pleasant consciousness of their own rectitude, the poverty of the one, and the temptation of the other. Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but poverty is a greater; and until you can cure it, or persuade a half-famished wretch, not to seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own misery, with the pittance which, divided among his family, would just furnish a morsel of bread for each, gin-shops will increase in number and splendour. If Temperance Societies could suggest an antidote against hunger and distress, or establish dispensaries for the gratuitous distribution of bottles of Lethe water, gin-palaces would be numbered among the things that were. Until then, we almost despair of their decrease.18350207https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._II_Gin_Shops/1835-02-07_Sketches_of_London_No.2_Gin_Shops.pdf
42https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/42'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. III, Early Coaches'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle </em>(19 February 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive, </em><a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350219/008/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350219/008/0001</a><em>.&nbsp;</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-02-19">1835-02-19</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-02-19_Sketches_of_London_NoIII_Early_CoachesDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. III, Early Coaches' (19 February 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-02-19_Sketches_of_London_NoIII_Early_Coaches">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-02-19_Sketches_of_London_NoIII_Early_Coaches</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-02-19_Sketches_of_London_NoIII_Early_Coaches.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. III, Early Coaches.' <em>The Evening Chronicle </em>(19 February 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>We have often wondered how many months&#039; incessant travelling in a post-chaise it would take to kill a man; and wondering by analogy, we should very much like to know how many months of constant travelling in a succession of early coaches an unfortunate mortal could endure. Breaking a man alive upon the wheel would be nothing to breaking his rest, his peace, his heart—everything but his fast—between four and five; and the punishment of Ixion (the only practical person, by the bye, who has discovered the secret of the perpetual motion) would sink into utter insignificance before the one we have suggested. If we had been a powerful Churchman in those good times when blood was shed as freely as water, and men were mowed down like grass, in the sacred cause of religion, we would have lain by very quietly till we got hold of some especially obstinate miscreant, who positively refused to be converted to our faith, and then we would have booked him for an inside place in a small coach, which travelled day and night; and securing the remainder of the places for stout men with a slight tendency to coughing and spitting, we would have started him forth on his last travels, leaving him mercilessly to all the tortures which the waiters, landlords, coachmen, guards, boots, chambermaids, and other familiars on his line of road, might think proper to inflict. Who has not experienced the miseries inevitably consequent upon a summons to undertake a hasty journey? You receive an intimation from your place of business—wherever that may be, or whatever you may be—that it will be necessary to leave town without delay. You and your family are forthwith thrown into a state of tremendous excitement; an express is immediately dispatched to the washer-woman’s; everybody is in a bustle; and you, yourself, with a feeling of dignity which you cannot altogether conceal, sally forth to the booking office to secure your place. Here a painful consciousness of your own unimportance first rushes on your mind—the people are as cool and collected as if nobody were going out of town, or as if a journey of a hundred odd miles were a mere nothing. You enter a mouldy-looking room, ornamented with large posting-bills, the greater part of the place enclosed behind a huge lumbering rough counter, and fitted up with recesses that look like the dens of the smaller animals in a travelling menagerie, without the bars. Some half-dozen people are &quot;booking&quot; brown paper parcels, which one of the clerks flings into the aforesaid recesses with an air of recklessness, which you, remembering the new carpet-bag you bought in the morning, feel considerably annoyed at; porters, looking like so many Atlas&#039;s, keep rushing in and out with large packages on their shoulders; and while you are waiting to make the necessary inquiries, you wonder what on earth the booking office clerks can have been before they were booking office clerks; one of them with his pen behind his ear, and his hands behind him, is standing in front of the fire, like a full-length portrait of Napoleon; the other with his hat half off his head, enters the passengers’ names in the books with a coolness which is inexpressibly provoking; and the villain whistles—actually whistles—while a man asks him what the fare is outside, all the way to Holyhead!— In frosty weather, too! They are clearly an isolated race, evidently possessing no sympathies or feelings in common with the rest of mankind. Your turn comes at last, and having paid the fare, you tremblingly inquire—&quot;What time will it be necessary for me to be here in the morning?&quot;—&quot;Six o’clock,&quot; replies the whistler, carelessly pitching the sovereign you have just parted with, into a wooden bowl on the desk. &quot;Rather before than arter,&quot; adds the man with the semi-roasted unmentionables, with just as much ease and complacency as if the whole world got out of bed at five. You turn into the street, ruminating, as you bend your steps homewards, on the extent to which men become hardened in cruelty by custom. If there be one thing in existence more miserable than another, it most unquestionably is the being compelled to rise by candle-light. If you ever doubted the fact, you are painfully convinced of your error, on the morning of your departure. You left strict orders, over night, to be called at half-past four, and you have done nothing all night but doze for five minutes at a time, and start up suddenly from a terrific dream of a large church-clock with the small-hand running round, with astonishing rapidity, to every figure on the dial-plate. At last, completely exhausted, you fall gradually into a refreshing sleep—your thoughts grow confused—the stage-coaches, which have been &quot;going off&quot; before your eyes all night, become less and less distinct, until they go off altogether&quot; one moment you are driving with all the skill and smartness of an experienced whip—the next you are exhibiting à la Ducrow, on the off-leader: anon you are closely muffled up, inside, and have just recognised in the person of the guard, an old school-fellow, whose funeral, even in your dream, you remember to have attended eighteen years ago. At last you fall into a state of complete oblivion, from which you are aroused, as if into a new state of existence by a singular illusion. You are apprenticed to a trunk-maker; how, or why, or when, or wherefore, you don’t take the trouble to inquire; but there you are, pasting the lining in the lid of a portmanteau. Confound that other apprentice in the back shop, how he is hammering! —rap, rap, rap—what an industrious fellow he must be; you have heard him at work for half an hour past, and he has been hammering incessantly the whole time. Rap, rap, rap, again—he’s talking now—what’s that he said? Five o’clock! You make a violent exertion, and start up in bed as if you were rehearsing the tent scene in Richard. The vision is at once dispelled; the trunk-maker’s shop is your own bedroom, and the other apprentice your shivering servant, who has been vainly endeavouring to wake you for the last quarter of an hour, at the imminent risk of breaking either his own knuckles, or the pannels of the door. You proceed to dress yourself with all possible dispatch. The flaring flat candle with the long snuff, gives light enough to show that the things you want are not where they ought to be, and you undergo a trifling delay in consequence of having carefully packed up one of your boots in your over-anxiety of the preceding night. You soon complete your toilette, however, for you are not particular on such an occasion, and you shaved yesterday evening; so mounting your Petersham great coat, and green travelling shawl, and grasping your carpet bag in your right hand, you walk lightly down stairs lest you should awake any of the family; and after pausing in the sitting-room for one moment just to have a cup of coffee (the said common sitting-room looking remarkably comfortable, with everything out of its place, and strewed with the crumbs of last night’s supper), you undo the chain and bolts of the street door, and find yourself fairly in the street. A thaw, by all that&#039;s miserable! The frost is completely broken up. You look down the long perspective of Oxford-street, the gas-lights mournfully reflected on the wet pavement, and can discern no speck in the road to encourage the belief that there is a cab or a coach to be had—the very coachmen have gone home in despair. The cold sleet is drizzling down with that gentle regularity which betokens a duration of four-and-twenty hours at least; the damp hangs upon the house-tops and lamp-posts, and clings to you like an invisible cloak. The water is &quot;coming in&quot; in every area—the pipes have burst—the water butts are running over—the kennels seem to be doing matches against time—pump-handles descend of their own accord—horses in market-carts fall down, and there’s no one to help them up again— policemen look as if they had been carefully sprinkled with powdered glass—here and there a milk woman trudges slowly along, with a bit of list round each foot to keep her from slipping—boys who &quot;don’t sleep in the house,&quot; and an&#039;t allowed much sleep out of it, can’t wake their masters by thundering at the shop-door, and cry with the cold—the compound of ice, snow, and water on the pavement, is a couple of inches thick—nobody ventures to walk fast to keep himself warm, and nobody could succeed in keeping himself warm if he did. It strikes a quarter-past five as you trudge down Waterloo-place on your way to the Golden-cross, and you discover for the first time that you were called about an hour too early. You have not time to go back; there is no place open to go into, and you have therefore no resource but to go forward, which you do, feeling remarkably satisfied with yourself, and everything about you. You arrive at the office, and look wistfully up the yard for the Birmingham High-flyer, which, for aught you can see, may have flown away altogether; for no preparations appear to be on foot for the departure of any vehicle in the shape of a coach. You wander into the booking-office, which, with the gas-lights and blazing fire, looks quite comfortable by contrast—that is to say, if any place can look comfortable at half-past five on a winter’s morning. There stands the identical book-keeper in the same position as if he had not moved since you saw him yesterday. As he informs you, that the coach is up the yard, and will be brought round in about a quarter of an hour, you leave your bag, and repair to &quot;The Tap&quot;—not with any absurd idea of warming yourself, because you feel such a result to be utterly hopeless, but for the purpose of procuring some hot brandy-and-water, which you do,—when the kettle boils; an event which occurs exactly two minutes and a half before the time fixed for the starting of the coach. The first stroke of six peals from St. Martin’s church steeple just as you take the first sip of the boiling liquid. You find yourself at the booking-office in two seconds, and the tap-waiter finds himself much comforted by your brandy and water in about the same period. The coach is out; the horses are in, and the guard and two or three porters are stowing the luggage away, and running up the steps of the booking-office, and down the steps of the booking-office with breathless rapidity. The place which a few minutes ago was so still and quiet, is now all bustle; the early vendors of the morning papers have arrived, and you are assailed on all sides with shouts of &quot;Times, gen’lm’n, Times,&quot; &quot;Here’s Chron—Chron—Chron,&quot; &quot;Herald, ma’am,&quot; &quot;Highly interesting murder, gen’lm’n,&quot; &quot;Curious case o’ breach o’ promise, ladies,&quot; &amp;amp;.c &amp;amp;c. The inside passengers are already in their dens, and the outsides, with the exception of yourself, are pacing up and down the pavement to keep themselves warm; they consist of two young men with very long hair, to which the sleet has communicated the appearance of chrystallized rats tails, one thin young woman cold and peevish, one old gentleman ditto ditto, and something in a cloak and cap, intended to represent a military officer; every member of the party with a large stiff shawl over his chin, looking exactly as if he were playing a set of Pan’s pipes. &quot;Take off the cloths, Bob,&quot; says the coachman, who now appears for the first time, in a rough blue great coat, of which the buttons behind are so far apart that you can’t see them both at the same time. &quot;Now, gen’lm’n,&quot; cries the guard, with the way-bill in his hand. &quot;Five minutes behind time already!&quot; Up jump the passengers—the two young men smoking like lime-kilns, and the old gentleman grumbling audibly. The thin young woman is got upon the roof by dint of a great deal of pulling, and pushing, and helping, and trouble, which she repays by expressing her solemn conviction that she&#039;ll never be able to get down again. &quot;All right,&quot; sings out the guard at last, jumping up as the coach starts, and blowing his horn directly afterwards in proof of the soundness of his wind. &quot;Let ’em go, Harry, give &#039;em their heads,&quot; cries the coachman—and off we start as briskly as if the morning were &quot;all right,&quot; as well as the coach, and looking forward as anxiously to the termination of our journey, as we fear our readers will have done long since, to the conclusion of our article.18350219https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._III_Early_Coaches/1835-02-19_Sketches_of_London_No.III_Early_Coaches.pdf
43https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/43'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. IV, The Parish'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (28 February 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350228/029/0004" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350228/029/0004</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-02-28">1835-02-28</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-02-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIV_The_ParishDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. IV, The Parish' (28 February 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-02-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIV_The_Parish">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-02-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIV_The_Parish</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-02-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIV_The_Parish.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. IV, The Parish.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (28 February 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>How much is conveyed is those two short words—the parish; and with how many tales of distress and misery; of broken fortune and ruined hopes—too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery—are they associated! A poor man, with small earnings and a large family, just manages to live on from hand to mouth, and to procure food from day to day: he has barely enough for the present, and can take no heed of the future; his taxes are in arrear; quarter-day passes by; another quarter-day arrives—he can procure no more quarter for himself, and is summoned by—the parish. His goods are distrained; his very bed is taken from under him; his children are crying with cold and hunger, and his wife is both figurative and literally speaking in the straw. What can he do? To whom is he to apply for relief? To private charity? To benevolent individuals? Certainly not; hasn&#039;t he —the parish?  There&#039;s the parish vestry, the parish infirmary, the parish surgeon, the parish officers, the parish beadle. Excellent institutions, and gentle, kind-hearted men. The woman dies—she is buried by the parish. The children have no protector—they are taken care of by the parish. The man first neglects, and afterwards cannot obtain, work—he is relieved by the parish; and when distress and drunkenness have done their work upon him, he is maintained, a harmless babbling idiot, in the parish asylum.<br /> <br /> The parish beadle is one of the most, perhaps the most, important member of the local administration. He is not so well off as the churchwardens, certainly, nor is he as learned as the vestry clerk, nor does he order things quite so much his own way as either of them. But his power is very great, notwithstanding; and the dignity of his office is never impaired by the absence of efforts on his part to maintain it. The beadle of our parish is a splendid fellow. Its quite delightful to hear him, as he explains the state of the existing poor laws to the deaf old women in the board-room passage on business nights; and to hear what he said to the senior churchwarden, and what the senior churchwarden said to him; and what &quot;we&quot; (the beadle and the other gentlemen) came to the determination of doing. A miserable looking woman is called into the board-room, and represents a case of extreme destitution, affecting herself—a widow, with six small children. &quot;Where do you live?&quot; inquires one of the overseers. &quot;I rents a two-pair back, gentlemen, at Mrs. Brown&#039;s, Number 3, Little King William’s-alley, which has lived there this fifteen year, and knows me to be very hard-working and industrious, and when my poor husband was alive, gentlemen, as died in the hospital&quot;—&quot;Well, well,&quot; interrupts the overseer, taking a note of the address, &quot;I’ll send Simmons, the beadle, to-morrow morning to ascertain whether your story is correct; and if so, I suppose you must have an order into the house—Simmons, go to this woman’s the first thing to-morrow morning, will you?&quot; Simmons bows assent, and ushers the woman out. Her previous admiration of &quot;the board&quot; (who all sit behind great books, and with their hats on) fades into nothing before her respect for her lace-trimmed conductor; and her account of what has passed inside, increases—if that be possible—the marks of respect shown by the assembled crowd to that solemn functionary. As to taking out a summons, its quite a hopeless case if Simmons attends it on behalf of the parish. He knows all the titles of the Lord Mayor by heart; states the case without a single stammer, and it is even reported that on one occasion he ventured to make a joke, which the Lord Mayor’s head footman (who happened to be present) afterwards told an intimate friend confidentially was almost equal to one of Mr. Hobler’s! See him again on Sunday in his state-coat, and cocked-hat, with a large-headed staff for show in his left-hand, and a small cane for use in his right. How pompously he marshals the children into their places, and how demurely the little urchins look at him askance as he surveys them when they are all seated, with a glare of the eye peculiar to beadles. The churchwardens and overseers being duly installed in their curtain&#039;d pews, he seats himself on a mahogany bracket, erected expressly for him at the top of the aisle, and divides his attention between his prayer-book and the boys.  Suddenly, just at the commencement of the Communion Service, when the whole congregation is hushed into a profound silence, broken only by the voice of the officiating clergyman, a penny is heard to ring on the stone floor of the aisle with astounding clearness. Observe the generalship of the beadle.  His involuntary look of horror is instantly changed into one of perfect indifference, as if he were the only person present who had not heard the noise.  The artifice succeeds. After putting forth his right leg now and then, as a feeler, the victim who dropped the money ventures to make one or two distinct dives after it; and the beadle, gliding softly round, salutes his little round head, when it again appears above the seat, with divers double knocks, administered with the cane before noticed, to the intense delight of three young men in an adjacent pew, who cough violently at intervals until the conclusion of the sermon.<br /> <br /> Such are a few traits of the importance and gravity of a parish beadle—a gravity which has never been disturbed in any case that has come under our observation, except indeed where the services of that particularly useful machine, a parish fire-engine, are required: then indeed all is bustle.  Two little boys run to the beadle as fast as their legs will carry them, and report from their own personal observation that some neighbouring chimney is on fire; the engine is hastily got out, and a plentiful supply of boys being obtained, and harnessed to it with ropes, away they rattle over the pavement, the beadle, running—we do not exaggerate—running at the side, until they arrive at some house smelling strongly of soot, at the door of which the beadle knocks with considerable gravity for half an hour. No attention being paid to these manual applications, and the turncock having turned on the water, the engine turns off amidst the shouts of the boys; it pulls up once more at the work-house, and the beadle &quot;pulls up&quot; the unfortunate householder next day, for the amount of his legal reward. We never saw a parish engine at a regular fire but once.  It came up in gallant style—three miles and a half an hour, at least; there was a capital supply of water, and it was first on the spot. Bang went the pumps—the people cheered—the beadle perspired profusely; but it was unfortunately discovered, just as they were going to put the fire out, that nobody understood the process by which the engine was filled with water; and that eighteen boys and a man had exhausted themselves in pumping for twenty minutes, without producing the slightest effect.<br /> <br /> The personages next in importance to the beadle, are the master of the workhouse and the parish schoolmaster. The vestry-clerk, as everybody knows, is a short, pudgy little man in black, with a thick gold watch-chain, of considerable length, terminating in two large seals and a key. He is an attorney, and generally in a bustle; at no time more so than when he is hurrying to some parochial meeting, with his gloves crumpled up in one hand, and a large red book under the other arm. As to the churchwardens and overseers we exclude them altogether, because all we know of them is that they are usually respectable tradesmen who wear hats with brims inclined to flatness, and who occasionally testify in gilt letters on a blue ground in some conspicuous part of the church, to the important fact of a gallery having being enlarged and beautified, or an organ rebuilt.<br /> <br /> The master of the workhouse is not, in our parish-nor is he usually in any other - one of that class of men the better part of whose existence has passed away, and who drag out the remainder in some inferior situation, with just enough thought of the past, to feel degraded by, and discontented with, the present. We are unable to guess precisely to our own satisfaction what station the man can have occupied before; we should think he had been an inferior sort of attorney’s clerk, or else the master of a national school—whatever he was, it is clear his present position is a change for the better. His income is small certainly, as the rusty black coat and threadbare velvet collar demonstrate; but then he lives free of house-rent, has a limited allowance of coals and candles, and an almost unlimited allowance of authority in his petty kingdom. He is a tall, thin, bony man; always wears shoes and black cotton stockings with his surtout; and eyes you, as you pass his parlour-window, as if he wished you were a pauper, just to give you a specimen of his power.  He is a sort of Emperor Nicholas on a small scale, with this difference—that he never seeks to extend his power beyond the limits of his own workhouse. He is an admirable specimen of a small tyrant; morose, brutish, and ill-tempered; bullying to his inferiors, cringing to his superiors, and jealous of the influence and authority of the beadle. Our schoolmaster is just the very reverse of this amiable official. He has been one of those men one occasionally hears of, on whom misfortune seems to have set her mark; nothing he ever did, or was concerned in, appears to have prospered. A rich old relation who had brought him up, and openly announced his intention of providing for him, left him 10,000l. in his will—and reversed it in his codicil. Thus unexpectedly reduced to the necessity of providing for himself he procured a situation in a public office. The young clerks below him, died off as if there were a plague among them; but the old fellows over his head, for the reversion of whose places he was anxiously waiting, lived on and on as if they were immortal. He speculated and lost. He speculated again and won—but never got his money. His talents were great; his disposition, easy, generous and liberal. His friends profited by the one, and abused the other. Loss succeeded loss; misfortune crowded on misfortune; each successive day brought him nearer the verge of hopeless penury, and the quondam friends who had been warmest in their professions, grew strangely cold and indifferent. He had children whom he loved, and a wife on whom he doted; The former turned their backs on him; the latter died broken-hearted. He went with the stream—it had ever been his failing, and he had not courage sufficient to bear up against so many shocks—he had never cared for himself, and the only being who had cared for him, in his poverty and distress, was spared to him no longer. It was at this period that he applied for parochial relief. Some kind-hearted man who had known him in happier times, chanced to be churchwarden that year, and through his interest he was appointed to his present situation. He is an old man now. Of the many who once crowded round him in all the hollow friendship of boon-companionship, some have died, some have fallen like himself, some have prospered—all have forgotten him. Time and misfortune have mercifully been permitted to impair his memory, and use has habituated him to his present condition. Meek, uncomplaining, and zealous in the discharge of his duties, he has been allowed to hold his situation long beyond the usual period; and he will no doubt continue to hold it, until infirmity renders him incapable, or death releases him. As the grey-headed old man feebly paces up and down the sunny side of the little court-yard between school hours, it would be difficult, indeed, for the most intimate of his former friends to recognise their once gay and happy associate, in the person of the Pauper Schoolmaster.<br /> <br /> It was our original intention to have sketched, in a few words more, such fragments of the little history of some other of our parishioners as have happened to come under our observation. Our space, however, is limited; and, as an editor&#039;s mandate is a wholesome check upon an author&#039;s garrulity, we have no wish to occupy more than the space usually assigned to us. It is generally allowed that parochial affairs possess little beyond local interest. But, should we be induced to imagine that the favour of our readers disposes them to make an exception of the present case, we shall vary our future numbers, by seeking materials for another sketch in &quot;our parish.&quot;18350228https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._IV_The_Parish/1835-02-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No.4_The_Parish.pdf
48https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/48'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. IX, Greenwich Fair'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (16 April 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350416/020/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350416/020/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-04-16">1835-04-16</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-04-16_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIX_Greenwich_FairDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. IX, Greenwich Fair' (16 April 1835).<em> Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-16_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIX_Greenwich_Fair">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-16_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIX_Greenwich_Fair</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-04-16_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoIX_Greenwich_Fair.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. IX, Greenwich Fair.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (16 April 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a>If the Parks be &quot;the lungs of London,&quot; we wonder what Greenwich fair is—a periodical breaking out, we suppose:—a sort of spring-rash—a three days&#039; fever, which cools the blood for six months afterwards; and, at the expiration of which, London is restored to its old habits of plodding industry, as suddenly and completely as if nothing had ever happened to disturb them. In our earlier days, we were a constant frequenter of Greenwich fair for years. We have proceeded to, and returned from it, in almost every description of vehicle. We cannot conscientiously deny the charge of having once made the passage in a spring van, accompanied by thirteen gentlemen, fourteen ladies, an unlimited number of children, and a barrel of beer; and we have a vague recollection of having in later days found ourself the eighth outside no the top of a hackney-coach at something past four o-clock in the morning, with a rather confused idea of our own name, or place of residence. We have grown older since then, and quiet and steady: liking nothing better than to spend our Easter, and all our other holidays in some quiet nook, with people of whom we shall never tire; but we think we remember enough of Greenwich Fair, and those who resort to it, to make a sketch of at this seasonable period. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> The road to Greenwich during the whole of Easter Monday presents a scene of animated bustle, which cannot fail to amuse the most indifferent observer. <br /> Cabs, hackney-coaches, &quot;shay&quot; carts, coal-waggons, stages, omnibuses, sociables, gigs, donkey-chaises—all crammed with people (for the question never is what the horse can draw, but what the vehicle will hold), roll along at their utmost speed—the dust flies in clouds—ginger-beer corks go off in vollies—the balcony of every public-house is crowded with people, smoking and drinking—half the private-houses are turned into tea-shops—fiddles are in great request—every little fruit-shop displays its stall of gilt gingerbread and penny toys—turnpike-men are in despair—horses won’t go on, and wheels will come off—ladies in &quot;carawans&quot; scream with fright at every fresh concussion, and their admirers find it necessary to sit remarkably close to them, by way of encouragement—servants of all work who are not allowed to have followers, and have got a holiday for the day, make the most of their time with the faithful admirer who waits for a stolen interview at the corner of the street every night, when they go to fetch the beer—apprentices grow sentimental, and straw-bonnet makers kind; everybody is anxious to get on, and actuated by the common wish to be at the fair or in the park as soon as possible. Pedestrians linger in groups at the road-side, unable to resist the allurements of the stout proprietress of the &quot;Jack-in-the-box—three shys a penny,&quot; or the more splendid offers of the man with three thimbles and a pea on a little round board, who astonishes the bewildered crowd with some such address as, &quot;Here’s the sort o’ game to make you laugh seven years arter you’re dead, and turn ev’ry air on your ed grey vith delight! Three thimbles and vun little pea—with a vun, two, three, and a two, three, vun: catch him who can, look on, keep your eyes open, and niver say die; niver mind the change, and damn the expense: all fair and above board: them as don’t play can’t vin, and luck attend the ryal sportsman. Bet any gen’lm’n any sum of money, from arf-a-crown up to a suverin, as he doesn’t name the thimble as kivers the pea.’ Here some greenhorn whispers his friend that he distinctly saw the pea roll under the middle thimble —an impression which is immediately confirmed by a gentleman in top boots who is standing by, and who in a low tone regrets his own inability to bet in consequence of having unfortunately left his purse at home, but strongly urges the stranger not to neglect such a golden opportunity. The &quot;plant&quot; is successful; the bet is made; the stranger of course loses, and the gentleman with the thimbles consoles him as he pockets the money, with an assurance that it’s all &quot;the fortin of war: this time I vin, next time you vin: niver mind the loss of two bob and a bender! do it up in a small parcel and break out in a fresh place. Here’s the sort o’ game,’ &amp;c.—and the eloquent harangue with such variations as the speaker’s exuberant fancy suggests, is again repeated to the gaping crowd, reinforced by the accession of several new comers.<br /> <br /> The chief place of resort in the day-time, after the public-houses, is the park, in which the principal amusement is to drag young ladies up the steep hill which leads to the observatory, and then drag them down again at the very top of their speed, greatly to the derangement of their curls and bonnet-caps, and much to the edification of lookers on from below. &quot;Kiss in the ring,&quot; and &quot;Threading my Grandmother’s Needle,&quot; too, are sports which receive their full share of patronage. Love-sick swains, under the influence of gin and water, and the tender passion, become violently affectionate: and the fair objects of their regard enhance the value of stolen kisses, by a vast deal of struggling, and holding down of heads, and cries of &quot;Oh! Ha’ done, then, George—Oh, do tickle him for me, Mary —Well, I never!&quot; and similar Lucretian ejaculations. Little old men and women, with a small basket under one arm, and a wine-glass without a foot, in the other hand, tender &quot;a drop o’ the right sort&quot; to the different groups; and young ladies, who are persuaded to indulge in a drop of the aforesaid right sort, display a pleasing degree of reluctance to taste it, and cough afterwards with great propriety.<br /> <br /> The old pensioners, who for the moderate charge of a penny, exhibit the mast-house, the Thames, and shipping, the place where the men used to hang in chains, and other interesting sights through a telescope, are asked questions about objects within the range of the glass which it would puzzle a Solomon to answer; and requested to find out particular houses in particular streets, which it would have been a task of some difficulty for Mr. Horner (not the young gentleman who eat mince pies with his thumb, but the man of Colosseum notoriety) to discover. Here and there, where some three or four couple are sitting on the grass together, you will see a sun-burnt woman in a red cloak &quot;telling fortunes&quot; and prophesying husbands which it requires no extraordinary observation to describe, for the originals are before her. Thereupon, the lady concerned laughs and blushes, and ultimately buries her face in an imitation-cambric handkerchief, and the gentleman described looks extremely foolish, and squeezes her hand, and fees the gipsey liberally; and the gipsey goes away perfectly satisfied herself, and leaving those behind her perfectly satisfied also, and the prophecy, like many other prophecies of greater importance, fulfils itself in time. But it grows dark: the crowd has gradually dispersed, and only a few stragglers are left behind. The light in the direction of the church shows that the fair is illuminated; and the distant noise proves it to be filling fast. The spot, which half an hour ago was ringing with the shouts of boisterous mirth is as calm and quiet as if nothing could ever disturb its serenity: the fine old trees, the majestic building at their feet, with the noble river beyond, glistening in the moon light, appear in all their beauty, and under their most favourable aspect; the voices of the boys, singing their evening hymn, are borne gently on the air; and the humblest mechanic who has been lingering on the grass so pleasant to the feet that beat the same dull round from week to week in the paved streets of London, feels proud to think as he surveys the scene before him, that he belongs to the country which has selected such a spot as a retreat for its oldest and best defenders in the decline of their lives.<br /> <br /> Five minutes’ walking brings you to the fair; a scene calculated to awaken very different feelings from those inspired by the place you have just left. The entrance is occupied on either side by the venders of gingerbread and toys: the stalls are gaily lighted up, the most attractive goods profusely disposed, and unbonneted young ladies, in their zeal for the interest of their employers, seize you by the coat, and use all the blandishments of &quot;Do, dear&quot;—&quot;There’s a love&quot;— &quot;Don’t be cross, now,&quot; &amp;c., to induce you to purchase half a pound of the real spice nuts, of which the majority of the regular fair-goers carry a pound or two as a present supply, tied up in a cotton pocket handkerchief. Occasionally, you pass a deal table, on which are exposed pen’orths of pickled salmon (fennel included), in little white saucers: oysters, with shells as large as cheese-plates, and divers specimens of a species of snail (wilks, we think they are called), floating in a somewhat bilious looking green liquid. Cigars, too, are in great demand; gentlemen must smoke, of course, and here they are, two a penny, in a regular authentic cigar box, with a lighted tallow candle in the centre. Imagine yourself in an extremely dense crowd, which swings you to and fro and in and out, and every way but the right one; add to this the screams of women, the shouts of boys, the clanging of gongs, the firing of pistols, the ringing of bells, the bellowings of speaking trumpets, the squeaking of penny dittos, the noise of a dozen bands, with three drums in each, all playing different tunes at the same time, the hallooing of showmen, and an occasional roar from the wild-beast shows, and you are in the very centre and heart of the fair. This immense booth, with the large stage in front, so brightly illuminated with variegated lamps, and pots of burning fat, is &quot;Richardson’s,&quot; where you have a melo-drama (with three murders and a ghost), a pantomime, a comic song, an overture, and some incidental music, all done in five and twenty minutes. The company are now promenading outside in all the dignity of wigs, spangles, red-ochre, and whitning. See with what a ferocious air the gentleman who personates the Mexican Chief paces up and down, and with what an eye of calm dignity the principal tragedian gazes on the crowd below, or converses confidentially with the harlequin! The four clowns, who are engaged in a mock broadsword combat may be all very well for the low-minded holiday-makers; but these are the people for the reflective portion of the community. They look so noble in those Roman dresses, with their yellow legs and arms, long black curly heads, bushy eyebrows, and scowl expressive of assassination and vengeance, and everything else that&#039;s grand and solemn. Then, the ladies—were there ever such innocent and awful-looking beings as they walk up and down the platform in twos and threes, with their arms round each other’s waists, or leaning for support on one of those majestic men! Their spangled muslin dresses and blue satin shoes and sandals (a leetle the worse for wear) are the admiration of all beholders; and the playful manner in which they check the advances of the clown is perfectly enchanting.<br /> <br /> &quot;Just a-going to begin! Pray come for’erd, come for’erd,&quot; exclaims the man in the countryman’s dress, for the seventieth time, and people force their way up the steps in crowds. The band suddenly strikes up; the harlequin and columbine set the example; reels are formed in less than no time; the Roman heroes place their arms a-kimbo and dance with considerable agility: and the leading tragic actress, and the gentleman who enacts the &quot;swell&quot; in the pantomime, foot it to perfection. &quot;All in to begin&quot; shouts the manager, when no more people can be induced to &quot;come for’erd,&quot; and away rush the leading members of the company to do the dreadful in the first piece. A change of performance takes place every day during the fair, but the story of the tragedy is always pretty much the same. There is a rightful heir, who loves a young lady, and is beloved by her; and a wrongful heir, who loves her too, and isn’t beloved by her; and the wrongful heir gets hold of the rightful heir, and throws him into a dungeon, just to kill him off when convenient, for which purpose he hires a couple of assassins—a good one and a bad one—who, the moment they are left alone, get up a little murder on their own account, the good one killing the bad one, and the bad one wounding the good one. Then the rightful heir is discovered in prison, carefully holding a long chain in his hands, and seated despondingly in a large arm-chair; and the young lady comes in to two bars of soft music, and embraces the rightful heir; and then the wrongful heir comes in to two bars of quick music, and goes on in the most shocking manner, throwing the young lady about as if she was nobody, and calling the rightful heir &quot;Ar-recreant—ar-wretch!&quot; in a very loud voice, which answers the double purpose of displaying his passion, and preventing the sound being deadened by the saw-dust. The interest becomes intense; the wrongful heir draws his sword, and rushes on the rightful heir; a blue smoke is seen, a gong is heard, and a tall white figure (who has been all this time, behind the arm-chair, covered over with a table cloth), slowly rises to the tune of, &quot;Oft in the stilly night.&quot; This is no other than the ghost of the rightful heir’s father, who was killed by the wrongful heir’s father; at sight of which the wrongful heir becomes apoplectic, and is literally &quot;struck all of a heap,&quot; the stage not being large enough to admit of his falling down at full length. Then the good assassin staggers in, and says he was hired, in conjunction with the bad assassin, by the wrongful heir, to kill the rightful heir; and he’s killed a good many people in his time, but he’s very sorry for it, and won’t do so any more—a promise which he immediately redeems by dying off hand without any nonsense about it. Then the rightful heir throws down his chain; and then two men, a sailor, and a young woman (the tenantry of the rightful heir) come in; and the ghost makes dumb motions to them, which they, by supernatural interference, understand—for no one else can; and the ghost (who can’t do anything without blue fire) blesses the rightful heir, and the young lady, by half-suffocating them with smoke, and then a muffin-bell rings, and the curtain drops.<br /> <br /> The exhibitions next in popularity to these itinerant theatres are the travelling menageries, or, to speak more intelligibly, the &quot;Wild-beast shows,&quot; where a military band in beef-eater’s costume, with leopard-skin caps, play incessantly; and where large highly-coloured representations of tigers tearing men’s heads open, and a lion being burnt with red-hot irons to induce him to drop his victim, are hung up outside, by way of attracting visitors. The principal officer at these places is generally a very tall, hoarse, man, in a scarlet coat, with a cane in his hand, with which he occasionally raps the pictures we have just noticed, by way of illustrating his description—something in this way, &quot;Here, here, here; the lion, the lion (tap), exactly as he is represented on the canvass outside (three taps); no waiting, remember; no deception. The fe-ro-cious lion (tap, tap) who bit off the gentleman’s head last Cambervel vos a twelvemonth, and has killed on the awerage three keepers a-year ever since he arrived at matuority. No extra charge on this account recollect; the price of admission is only sixpence.&quot; This address never fails to produce a considerable sensation, and sixpences flow into the treasury with wonderful rapidity. The dwarfs are also objects of great curiosity: and as a dwarf, a giantess, a living skeleton, a wild Indian, &quot;a young lady of singular beauty, with perfectly white hair and pink eyes,&quot; and two or three other natural curiosities, are usually exhibited together for the small charge of a penny, they attract very numerous audiences. The best thing about a dwarf is, that he has always a little box, about two feet six inches high, into which, by long practice, he can just manage to get, by doubling himself up like a boot-jack; this box is painted outside like a six-roomed house, and as the crowd see him ring a bell, or fire a pistol out of the first-floor window, they verily believe that it is his ordinary town residence, divided like other mansions into drawing-rooms, dining-parlour, and bed-chambers. Shut up in this case, the unfortunate little object is brought out to delight the throng by holding a facetious dialogue with the proprietor: in the course of which, the dwarf (who is always particularly drunk) pledges himself to sing a comic song inside, and pays various compliments to the ladies, which induce them to &quot;come for’erd&quot; with great alacrity. As a giant is not so easily moved, a pair of indescribables of most capacious dimensions and a huge shoe are usually brought out, into which two or three stout men get all at once, to the enthusiastic delight of the crowd, who are quite satisfied with the solemn assurance that these habiliments form part of the giant’s every-day costume. The grandest and most numerously-frequented booth in the whole fair, however, is &quot;The Crown and Anchor&quot;—a temporary ball-room—we forget how many hundred feet long, the price of admission to which is one shilling. Immediately on your right hand as you enter, after paying your money, is a refreshment place, at which cold beef, roast and boiled—French rolls—stout—wine—tongue—ham—even fowls, if we recollect right, are displayed in tempting array. There is a raised orchestra, and the place is boarded all the way down in patches, just wide enough for a country dance. There is no master of the ceremonies in this artificial Eden—all is primitive, unreserved, and unstudied. The dust is blinding, the heat insupportable, the company somewhat noisy, and in the highest spirits possible: the ladies, in the height of their innocent animation, dancing in the gentlemen’s hats, and the gentlemen promenading &quot;the gay and festive scene&quot; in the ladies’ bonnets, or with the more expensive ornaments of false noses; and low-crowned, tinder-box looking hats: playing children’s drums, and accompanied by ladies on the penny trumpet. The noise of these various instruments, the orchestra, the shouting, the &quot;scratchers,&quot; and the dancing, is perfectly bewildering. The dancing, itself, beggars description —every figure lasts about an hour, and the ladies bounce about with a degree of spirit which is quite indescribable. As to the gentlemen, they stamp their feet against the ground, every time &quot;hands four round&quot; begins; go down the middle and up again, with cigars in their mouths and silk handkerchiefs in their hands, and whirl their partners round, nothing loth, scrambling and falling, and embracing, and knocking up against the other couples until they are fairly tired out, or half undressed, and can move no longer. The same scene is repeated again and again (slightly varied by an occasional &quot;row&quot;) until a late hour at night: and a great many clerks and ’prentices find themselves next morning with aching heads, empty pockets, damaged hats, and a very imperfect recollection of how it was they didn&#039;t get home.<br /> <br /> Our present sketch has encroached considerably on a second column. Fortunately, perhaps, for our readers, we have even now omitted many points we had originally intended to notice. As we purpose continuing our series until it reaches something under its two hundredth number, however, we shall watch an opportunity of including them under some other head. 18350416https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._IX_Greenwich_Fair/1835-04-16_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No.IX_Greenwich_Fair.pdf
45https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/45'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VI, London Recreations'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (17 March 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350317/033/0003" class="waffle-rich-text-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350317/033/0003</a>. <em>Source is faded and illegible in places.</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-03-17">1835-03-17</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1835-03-17_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVI_London_RecreationsDickens, Charles. '<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VI, London Recreations' (17 March 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-03-17_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVI_London_Recreations">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-03-17_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVI_London_Recreations</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-03-17_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVI_London_Recreations.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. VI, London Recreations.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (17 March 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>The wish of persons in the humbler classes of life, to ape the manners and customs of those whom fortune has placed above them, is often the subject of remark, and not unfrequently of complaint. The inclination may, and no doubt does, exist to a great extent among the small gentility—the would-be aristocrats—of the middle classes. Tradesmen and clerks, with Court Journal-reading families, and circulating-library-subscribing daughters, get up tavern assemblies in humble imitation of Almack’s, and promenade the dingy &quot;large room&quot; of some second rate hotel with as much complacency as the enviable few who are privileged to exhibit their magnificence in that exclusive haunt of fashion and foolery. Aspiring young ladies, who read flaming accounts of some &quot;fancy fair in high life,&quot; suddenly grow desperately charitable; visions of admiration and matrimony float before their eyes; some wonderfully meritorious institution, which, by the strangest accident in the world, has never been heard of before, is discovered to be in a languishing condition; Thomson’s great room, or Johnson’s nursery ground, is forthwith engaged, and the aforesaid young ladies, from mere charity, exhibit themselves for three days, from twelve to four, for the small charge of one shilling per head! With the exception of these classes of society, however, and a few other weak and insignificant persons, we do not think the contemptible attempt at imitation, to which we have alluded, prevails in any great degree. The different character of the recreations of different classes, has often afforded us amusement in our walks and musings; and we have chosen it for the subject of our present sketch, in the hope that it may possess some amusement for our readers. If the regular City man, who leaves Lloyd’s at five o’clock, and drives home to Hackney, Clapton, Stamford-hill, or elsewhere, can be said to have any daily recreation beyond his dinner, it is his garden. He never does anything to it with his own hands; but he takes a great pride in it notwithstanding; and if you are desirous of paying your addresses to the youngest daughter, be sure to be in raptures with every flower and shrub it contains. If your poverty of expression compel you to make any distinction between the two, we would certainly recommend your bestowing more admiration on his garden than his wine. He always takes a walk round it before he starts for town in the morning, and is particularly anxious that the fish-pond should be kept specially neat. If you call on him on Sunday in summer time, about an hour before dinner, you will find him sitting in an arm-chair, on the lawn behind the house, with a straw hat on, reading a Sunday paper. A short distance from him you will most likely observe a handsome paroquet in a large brass-wire cage; ten to one but the two eldest girls are loitering in one of the side walks accompanied by a couple of young fellows, who are holding parasols over them - of course only to keep the sun off, while the younger children, with the under nursery-maid, are strolling listlessly about in the shade. Beyond these occasions, his delight in his garden appears to arise more from the consciousness of possession than actual enjoyment of it. When he drives you down to dinner on a week day he is rather fatigued with the occupations of the morning, and tolerably cross into the bargain; but when the cloth is removed, and he has drank three or four glasses of his favourite port, he orders the French windows of the dining room (which of course look into the garden) to be opened, and throwing a silk handkerchief over his head, and leaning back in his arm chair, descants at considerable length upon its beauty, and the cost of maintaining it. This is to impress you - who are a young friend of the family - with a due sense of the excellence of the garden, and the wealth of its owner; and when he has exhausted the subject he goes to sleep. There is another and a very different class of men, whose recreation is their garden. An individual of this class, resides some short distance from town - say in the Hampstead-road, or the Kilburn-road, or any other road where the houses are small and neat, and have little slips of back garden. He and his wife - who is as clean and compact a little body as himself - have occupied the same house ever since he retired from business twenty years ago. They have no family. They once had a son, who died at about five years old. The child’s portrait hangs over the mantel-piece in the best sitting-room, and a little cart he used to draw about is carefully preserved as a relic. In fine weather the old gentleman is almost constantly in the garden; and when it is too wet to go into it, he will look out of the window at it by the hour together. He has always something to do in it, and you will see him digging, and sweeping, and cutting, and messing about, with manifest delight. In spring time, there is no end to the sowing of seeds, and sticking little bits of wood over them, with labels, which look like epitaphs to their memory; and in the evening, when the sun has gone down, the perseverance with which he lugs a great watering-pot about is perfectly astonishing. The only other recreation he has is the newspaper, which he peruses every day, from beginning to end, generally reading the most interesting pieces of intelligence to his wife, during breakfast. The old lady is very fond of flowers, as the hyacinth-glasses in the parlour window, and geranium-pots in the little front court testify. She takes a great pride in the garden too, and when one of the four fruit-trees produces a rather larger gooseberry than usual, it is carefully preserved under a wine-glass, on the sideboard, for the edification of visitors, who are duly informed that Mr. So-and-so planted the tree which produced it with his own hands. On a summer’s evening, when the large watering-pot has been filled and emptied some fourteen times, and the old couple have quite exhausted themselves by trotting about, you will see them sitting happily together in the little summer-house, enjoying the calm and peace of the twilight, and watching the shadows as they fall upon the garden, and gradually growing thicker and more sombre, obscure the tints of their gayest flowers - No bad emblem of the years that have silently rolled over their heads, deadening in their course the brightest hues of early hopes and feelings which have long since faded away. These are their only recreations, and they require no more. They have within themselves the materials of comfort and content; and the only anxiety of each is to die before the other. This is no ideal sketch; there used to be many old people of this description; their numbers may have diminished, and may decrease still more. Whether the course female education has taken of late days - whether the pursuit of giddy frivolities, and empty nothings - has tended to unfit women for that quiet domestic life, in which they show far more beautifully than in the most crowded assembly, is a question we should feel little gratification in discussing - we hope not. Let us turn, now, to another portion of the London population, whose recreations present about as strong a contrast as can well be conceived - we mean the Sunday pleasurers; and let us beg our readers to imagine themselves stationed by our side in some well-known rural &quot;Tea-gardens.&quot; The heat is intense this afternoon, and the people, of whom there are additional parties arriving every moment, look as warm as the tables which have been recently painted, and have the appearance of being red-hot. What a dust and noise! Men and women - boys and girls - sweethearts and married people - babies in arms, and children in chaises - pipes and shrimps - cigars and perriwinkles - tea and tobacco. Gentlemen, in alarming waistcoats, and steel watch-guards, promenading about, three abreast, with surprising dignity (or as the gentleman in the next box facetiously observes, &quot;cutting it uncommon fat!&quot;) - ladies, with great, long, white pocket-handkerchiefs like small table-cloths, in their hands, chasing one another on the grass, in the most playful and interesting manner, with the view of attracting the attention of the aforesaid gentlemen - husbands in perspective ordering bottles of ginger-beer for the objects of their affections, with a lavish disregard of expense; and the said objects washing down huge quantities of &quot;srimps&quot; and &quot;winkles,&quot; with an equal disregard of their own bodily health and subsequent comfort - boys, with great silk hats just balanced on the top of their heads, smoking cigars, and trying to look as if they liked &#039;em - gentlemen in pink shirts and blue waistcoats, occasionally upsetting either themselves, or somebody else, with their own canes - and children of every age and size in incredible numbers, from the boy of one in a straw hat and lace cockade, to the girl of twelve in a little scanty spencer, with a beaver bonnet and green veil. Some of the finery of these people provokes a smile; but they are all clean, and happy, and disposed to be good-natured and sociable. Those two motherly-looking women in the smart pelisses, who are chatting so confidentially, inserting a &quot;ma’am&quot; at every fourth word, scraped an acquaintance about a quarter of an hour ago: it originated in admiration of the little boy who belongs to one of them - that diminutive specimen of mortality in the three-cornered pink satin hat with black feathers. The two men in the blue coats and drab trousers, who are walking up and down, smoking their pipes, are their husbands. The party in the opposite box are a pretty fair specimen of the generality of the visitors. These are the father and mother, and old grandmother, a young man and woman, and an individual addressed by the euphonious title of &quot;Uncle Bill,&quot; who is evidently the wit of the party. They have some half dozen children with them, but it is scarcely necessary to notice the fact, for it&#039;s a matter of course here. Every woman in &quot;the gardens&quot; who has been married for any length of time, must have had twins on two or three occasions; it&#039;s impossible to account for the extent of juvenile population in any other way. Observe the inexpressible delight of the old grandmother at Uncle Bill’s splendid joke of &quot;tea for four: bread and butter for forty;&quot; and the loud explosion of mirth which follows his wafering a paper &quot;pigtail&quot; on the waiter’s collar. The young man is evidently &quot;keeping company&quot; with Uncle Bill’s niece: and Uncle Bill’s hints - such as &quot;Don’t forget me at the dinner, you know.&quot; &quot;I shall look out for the cake, Sally.&quot; &quot;I’ll be godfather to your first—wager it’s a boy&quot; and so forth, are equally embarrassing to the young people and delightful to the elder ones. As to the old grandmother, she&#039;s in perfect ecstacies, and does nothing but laugh herself into fits of coughing, until they have finished the &quot;gin-and-water warm with,&quot; of which Uncle Bill ordered &quot;glasses round&quot; after tea, &quot;jist to keep the night air out, and do it up comfortable and riglar arter sitch a day, which certainly was &#039;rayther warm,&#039; as the child said when it fell into the fire.&quot; It&#039;s getting dark, and the people begin to move: the field leading to town is quite full of them; the little hand-chaises are dragged wearily along: the children are tired, and amuse themselves and the company generally by crying, or resort to the much more pleasant expedient of going to sleep - the mothers begin to wish they were at home again - sweethearts grow more sentimental than ever, as the time for parting arrives - the gardens look mournful enough by the light of the two lanterns which hang against the trees for the convenience of smokers - and the waiters, who have been running about incessantly for the last six hours, think they feel a little tired, as they count their glasses and their gains. There are many other classes who regularly pursue the same round of reaction. The better description of clerks form rowing clubs, and dress themselves like sailors at fancy balls; others resort to the billiard table. Some people think the greatest enjoyment of existence is to stew in an unwholesome vault for a whole night, drinking bad spirits and hearing worse singing; and others go half-price to the theatre regularly every evening. A certain class of donkeys think the chief happiness of human existence is to knock at doors and run away again; and there are other men whose only recreation is leaning against the posts at street-corners, and not moving at all. Whatever be the class, or whatever the recreation, so long as it does not render a man absurd himself, or offensive to others, we hope it will never be interfered with, either by a misdirected feeling of propriety on the one hand, or detestable cant on the other. (Footnote): On consideration, we postpone for a week or two the sketch we announced in our last. We have various reasons for doing so, among which the inevitable sameness of the subject is not the least.18350317https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._VI_London_Recreations/1835-03-17_Sketches_of_London_No._VI_London_Recreations.pdf
46https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/46'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VII, Public Dinners'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 April 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350407/010/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350407/010/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-04-07">1835-04-07</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-04-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVII_Public_DinnersDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. VII, Public Dinners' (7 April 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVII_Public_Dinners">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVII_Public_Dinners</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-04-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVII_Public_Dinners.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. VII, Public Dinners.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (7 April 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>All public dinners in London—from the Lord Mayor&#039;s annual banquet at Guildhall, to the chimney-sweepers&#039; &quot;hanniversary&quot; at White Conduit-house; from the Goldsmiths&#039; to the Butchers&#039;; from the Sheriffs&#039; to the Licensed Victuallers—are amusing scenes. Of all entertainments of this description, however, we think the annual dinner of some public charity is the most amusing. At a Company&#039;s dinner the people are nearly all alike—regular old stagers who make it a matter of business, and a thing not to be laughed at; at a political dinner everybody is disagreeable and inclined to speechify—much the same thing, by the bye; but at a charity dinner you see people of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions: the wine may not be remarkably special, to be sure, and we have heard some hard-hearted monsters grumble at the collection; but we really think the amusement to be derived from the occasion sufficient to counterbalance even these disadvantages. Let us suppose you are induced to attend a dinner of this description—&quot;Indigent Orphans&#039; Friends&#039; Benevolent Institution,&quot; we think it is. The name of the charity is a line or two longer, but you have forgotten the rest. You have a distinct recollection, however, that you purchased a ticket at the solicitation of some charitable friend, and you deposit yourself in a hackney-coach, the driver of which—no doubt that you may do the thing in style —turns a deaf ear to your earnest entreaties to be set down at the corner of Great Queen-street, and persists in carrying you to the very door of the Freemasons&#039;, round which crowded people are assembled to witness the entrance of the indigent orphans&#039; friends. You hear great speculations, as you pay the fare, on the possibility of your being the Noble Lord who is announced to fill the chair on the occasion, and are highly gratified to hear it eventually decided that you are only a &quot;wocalist.&quot; The first thing that strikes you on your entrance is the astonishing importance of the committee. You observe a door on the first landing, carefully guarded by two waiters, in and out of which stout gentlemen, with very red faces, keep running with a degree of speed highly unbecoming the gravity of persons of their years and corpulency. You pause, quite alarmed at the bustle; and thinking, in your innocence, that two or three people must have been carried out of the dining-room in fits at the very least. You are immediately undeceived by the waiter—&quot;Up stairs, if you please, sir; this is the committee room.&quot; Up stairs you go, accordingly; wondering as you mount, what the duties of the committee can be and whether they ever do anything beyond confusing each other, and running over the waiters. Having deposited your hat and cloak, and received a remarkably small scrap of pasteboard in exchange (which as a matter of course you lose before you require it again), you enter the hall, down which there are four long tables for the less distinguished guests, with a cross table on a raised platform at the upper end for the reception of the very particular friends of the indigent orphans. Being fortunate enough to find a plate without anybody’s card in it, you wisely seat yourself at once, and have a little leisure to look about you. Waiters, with wine-baskets in their hands, are placing decanters of Sherry down the tables, at very respectable distances. Melancholy-looking salt-cellars, and decayed vinegar-cruets, which might have belonged to the parents of the indigent orphans in their time, are scattered at distant intervals on the cloth, and the knives and forks look as if they had done duty at every public dinner in London since the accession of George the First; the musicians are scraping and grating and screwing tremendously—playing no notes but notes of preparation; and several gentlemen are gliding along the sides of the tables, looking into plate after plate with frantic eagerness, the expression of their countenances growing more and more dismal as they meet with everybody’s card but their own. You turn round to take a look at the table behind you, and—not being in the habit of attending public dinners—are somewhat struck by the appearance of the party on which your eye rests. One of its principal members appears to be a little man, with a long and rather inflamed face, and grey hair brushed bolt upright in front; he wears a wisp of black silk round his neck, without any stiffener, as an apology for a neck-kerchief, and is addressed by his companions by the familiar appellation of—&quot;Fitz.&quot; Near him is a stout man in a white neck-kerchief and buff waistcoat; with shiny dark hair, cut very short in front, and a great, round, healthy-looking face, on which he studiously preserves a half sentimental simper. Next him, again, is a large-headed man, with black hair and bushy whiskers; and opposite them are two or three others, one of whom is a little round-faced person, in a dress-stock and blue under-waistcoat. There is something peculiar in their air and manner, though you could hardly describe what it is; you cannot divest yourself of the idea that they have come for some other purpose than mere eating and drinking. You have no time to debate the matter, however, for the waiters (who have been arranged in lines down the room, placing the dishes on table) retire to the lower end; the dark man in the blue coat and bright buttons, who has the direction of the music, looks up to the gallery, and calls out &quot;band&quot; in a very loud voice; out burst the orchestra, up rise the visitors; in march fourteen stewards, each with a long wand in his hand, like the evil genius in a pantomime; then the Chairman, then the titled visitors; they all make their way up the room, as fast as they can, bowing, and smiling, and smirking, and looking remarkably amiable. The applause ceases; grace is said; the clatter of plates and dishes begins; and every one appears highly gratified either with the presence of the distinguished visitors, or the commencement of the anxiously-expected dinner. As to the dinner itself—the mere dinner—it goes off much the same everywhere. Tureens of soup are emptied with awful rapidity—waiters take plates of turbot away to get lobster-sauce, and bring back plates of lobster-sauce without turbot. People who can carve poultry are great fools if they own it, and people who can’t have no wish to learn—the knives and forks form a pleasing accompaniment to Auber’s music, and Auber’s music would form a pleasing accompaniment to the dinner, if you could hear anything besides the violoncello—the substantials disappear—moulds of jelly vanish like lightning—hearty eaters wipe their foreheads, and appear rather overcome by their recent exertions— people who have looked very cross hitherto, become remarkably bland, and ask you to take wine in the most friendly manner possible—old gentlemen direct your attention to the ladies’ gallery, and take great pains to impress you with the fact that the charity is always peculiarly favoured in this respect—every one appears disposed to become talkative—and the hum of conversation is loud and general. &quot;Pray, silence, gentlemen, if you please, for Non nobis,&quot; shouts the toast-master with stentorian lungs—a toast-master’s shirt-front, waistcoat, and neck-kerchief, by-the-bye, always exhibit three distinct shades of cloudy-white.—&quot;Pray, silence, gentlemen, for Non nobis.&quot; The singers, whom you discover to be no other than the very party that excited your curiosity at first, after &quot;pitching&quot; their voices immediately begin too tooing most dismally, on which the regular old stagers burst into occasional cries of—&quot;Sh Sh-waiters! Silence— waiters.&quot; &quot;Stand still, waiters—keep back, waiters.&quot; and other exorcisms, delivered in a tone of indignant remonstrance. The grace is soon concluded, and the company resume their seats. The uninitiated portion of the guests applaud Non nobis as vehemently as if it were a capital comic song, greatly to the scandal and indignation of the regular diners, who immediately attempt to quell this sacrilegious approbation, by cries of &quot;Hush, hush,&quot; whereupon the others, mistaking these sounds for hisses, applaud more tumultuously than before, and, by way of placing their approval beyond the possibility of doubt, shout &quot;Encore!&quot; most vociferously. The moment the noise ceases, up starts the toast-master:—&quot;Gentlemen, charge your glasses, if you please.&quot; Decanters having been handed about, and glasses filled, the toast-master proceeds, in a regular, ascending scale:—&quot;Gentlemen—air—you—all charged? Pray—silence —gentlemen—for—the cha-i-r.&quot; The Chairman rises, and, after stating that he feels it quite unnecessary to preface the toast he is about to propose with any observations whatever, wanders into a maze of sentences, and flounders about in the most extraordinary manner, presenting a lamentable spectacle of mystified humanity, until he arrives at the words, &quot;constitutional sovereign of these realms,&quot; at which elderly gentlemen exclaim &quot;Bravo!&quot; and hammer the table tremendously with their knife-handles. &quot;Under any circumstances, it would give him the greatest pride, it would give him the greatest pleasure—he might almost say, it would afford him satisfaction [cheers] to propose that toast. What must be his feelings, then, when he has the gratification of announcing, that he has received her Majesty’s commands to apply to the Treasurer of her Majesty’s Household, for her Majesty’s annual donation of 25l. in aid of the funds of this charity.&quot; This announcement (which has been regularly made by every chairman since the first foundation of the charity forty-two years ago) calls forth the most vociferous applause; the toast is drunk with a great deal of cheering and knocking; and &quot;God save the King&quot; is sung by the &quot;professional gentlemen;&quot; the unprofessional Gentlemen joining in the chorus, and giving the national anthem an effect which the newspapers, with great justice, describe as &quot;perfectly electrical.&quot; The other &quot;loyal and patriotic&quot; toasts having been drunk with all due enthusiasm, a comic song having been sung by the man with the small neckerchief, and a sentimental ditto by the second of the party, we come to the most important toast of the evening—&quot;Prosperity to the Charity.&quot; Here again we are compelled to adopt newspaper phraseology, and express our regret at being &quot;precluded from giving even the substance of the Noble Lord’s observations.&quot; Suffice it to say, that the speech, which is somewhat of the longest, is rapturously received, and the toast having been drunk, the stewards (looking more important than ever) leave the room, and presently return, heading a procession of indigent orphans, boys and girls, who walk round the room, curtseying, and bowing, and treading on each other’s heels, and looking very much as if they would like a glass of wine apiece, to the high gratification of the company generally, and especially of the Lady Patronesses in the gallery. Exeunt children, and re-enter stewards, each with a blue plate in his hand. The band plays a lively air; the majority of the company put their hands in their pockets, and look rather serious; and the noise of sovereigns rattling on crockery, is heard from all parts of the room. After a short interval, occupied in singing and toasting, the Secretary puts on his spectacles, and proceeds to read the report and list of subscriptions the latter being listened to with great attention. &quot;Mr. Smith, one guinea; Mr. Tompkins one guinea— Mr. Wilson one guinea—Mr. Hickson one guinea—Mr. Nixon, one guinea—Mr. Charles Nixon one guinea—[hear, hear!]—Mr. James Nixon one guinea —Mr. Thomas Nixon, one pound one [tremendous applause]. Lord Fitz Winkle, the chairman of the day, in addition to an annual donation of fifteen pounds—thirty guineas [prolonged knocking; several gentlemen knock the stems off their wine-glasses in the vehemence of their approbation]. Lady Fitz Winkle, in addition to an annual donation of ten pound—twenty pound&quot; [protracted knocking and shouts of &quot;Bravo!&quot;]. The list being at length concluded, the chairman rises, and proposes the health of the secretary, than whom he knows no more zealous or estimable individual. The secretary, in returning thanks, observes that he knows no more excellent individual than the chairman—except the senior officer of the charity, whose health he begs to propose. The senior officer, in returning thanks, observes that he knows no more worthy man than the secretary—except Mr. Walker, the auditor, whose health he begs to propose. Mr. Walker, in returning thanks, discovers some other estimable individual, to whom alone the senior officer is inferior—and so they go on toasting and lauding and thanking: the only other toast of importance being &quot;The Lady Patronesses now present,&quot; on which all the gentlemen turn their faces towards the ladies’ gallery, shouting tremendously; and little priggish men, who have imbibed more wine than usual, kiss their hands and exhibit distressing contortions of visage, supposed to be intended for ogling. We have protracted our dinner to so great a length, that we have hardly time to add one word by way of grace. We can only entreat our readers not to imagine because we have attempted to extract some amusement from a charity dinner, that we are at all disposed to underrate either the excellence of the Benevolent Institutions, with which London abounds, or the estimable motives of those who support them. (Footnote) The sketch entitled &quot;Bellamy&#039;s,&quot; which we announced as a continuation of &quot;The House,&quot; shall form the next number of our series.18350407https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._VII_Public_Dinners/1835-04-07_Sketches_of_London_No.VII_Public_Dinners.pdf
47https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/47'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VIII, Bellamy's'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (11 April 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive, </em><a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350411/031/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350411/031/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-04-11">1835-04-11</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-04-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVIII_BellamysDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. VIII, Bellamy's' (11 April 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVIII_Bellamys">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVIII_Bellamys</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-04-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVIII_Bellamys.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. VIII, Bellamy's.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (11 April 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>In redemptions of the promise which we appended to the last number of our series, we now propose to introduce our readers to Bellamy&#039;s kitchen, or in other words, to the refreshment room, common to both houses of Parliament, where Ministerialists and Oppositionists, Whigs and Tories, Radicals and Destructives, Peers and Reporters, strangers from the gallery, and the more favoured strangers from below the bar, are alike at liberty to resort; where divers honourable members prove their perfect independence by remaining during the whole of a heavy debate, solacing themselves with the creature comforts; and from whence they are summoned by whippers-in, when the House is on the point of dividing; either to give their &quot;conscientious votes&quot; on questions of which they are conscientiously innocent of knowing anything whatever, or to find a vent for the playful exuberance of their wine-inspired fancies in boisterous shorts of &quot;Divide,&quot; occasionally varied with a little howling, barking and crowing, or other ebullitions of senatorial pleasantry. <br /> <br /> When you have ascended the narrow staircase which, in the present temporary House of Commons leads to the place we are describing, you will probably observe a couple of rooms on your right hand with tables spread for dining, neither of these is the kitchen, although they are both devoted to the same purpose; the kitchen is further on to your left, up these half-dozen stairs. Before we ascend the staircase, however, we must request you to pause in front of this little bar-place with the sash-windows; and beg your particular attention to the steady, honest-looking old fellow in black, who is its sole occupant. Nicholas (we do not mind mentioning the old fellow&#039;s name, for if Nicholas isn&#039;t a public man, who is?—and public men&#039;s names are public property). Nicholas is the butler of Bellamy&#039;s, and had held the same place, dressed exactly in the same mannor, and said precisely the same things ever since the oldest of its present visitors can remember. An excellent servant Nicholas is—an unrivaled compounder of salad-dressing—an admirable preparer of soda-water and lemon—a special mixer of cold grog and punch, and, above all, an unequalled judge of cheese. If the old man have such a thing as vanity in his composition, this is certainly his pride; and if it be possible to imagine that anything in this world could disturb his impenetrable calmness, we should say it would be the doubting his judgement on this important point. We needn&#039;t tell you all this however, for if you have an atom of observation, one glance at his sleek knowing-looking head and face—his prim, white neck-kerchief, with the wooden tie into which it has been regularly folded for twenty years past, merging by imperceptible degrees into a small-plaited shirt-frill, and his comfortable-looking form encased in a well-brushed suit of black—would give you a better idea of his real character than a column of our poor description could convey. Nicholas is rather out of his element now; he can&#039;t see the kitchen as he used to do in the old house; there, one window of his glass-case used to open into the room, and many a time, long after day-break on a summer&#039;s morning, have we amused ourself in drawing the cautious old man out by asking deferential questions about Sheridan, and Percival, and Castlereagh, and Heaven knows who beside, which he would answer with manifest delight, always inserting a &quot;Mister&quot; before every name. Nicholas, like all men of his age and standing, has a great idea of the degeneracy of the times. He seldom expresses any political opinions, but we managed to ascertain, just before the passing of the Reform Bill, that Nicholas was a thorough Reformer. What was our astonishment to discover, shortly after the meeting of the first reformed Parliament, that he was a most inveterate and decided Tory! &#039;Twas very odd: some men change their opinions from necessity, other from expediency, others from inspiration; but that Nicholas should undergo any change in that respect, was an event we had never contemplated, and should have considered impossible. His strong opinion against the clause which empowered the metropolitan districts to return Members to Parliament, too, was perfectly unaccountable. We discovered the secret at last; the metropolitan Members always dined at home. The Rascals! As for giving additional Members to Ireland, it was even worse—decidedly unconstitutional. Why, sir, an Irish Member would go up there, and eat more dinner than three English Members put together. He took no wine; drank table beer by the half-gallon; and went home to Manchester-buildings, or Milbank-street, for his whiskey and water, and what was the consequence? Why the concern lost—actually lost by their patronage. A queer old fellow is Nicholas, and as completely a part of the building as the house itself. We wonder he ever left the old place, and fully expected to see in the papers, the morning after the fire, a pathetic account of an old gentleman in black, of decent appearance, who was seen at one of the upper windows when the flames were at their height, and declared his resolution intention of falling with the floor. He must have been got out by force. However, he was got out— here he is again, looking, as he always does, as if he had been in a band box ever since last session. There he is at his old post every night, just as we have described him: and as characters are scarce, and faithful servants scarcer, long may he be there say we. <br /> <br /> The two persons who are seated at the table in the corner, at the further end of the room, have been constant guests here for many years past, and one of them has feasted within these walls many a time with the most brilliant characters of a brilliant period. He has gone up to the other house since then: the greater part of his boon companions have shared Yorick&#039;s fate, and his visits to Bellamy&#039;s are comparatively few. If he really be eating his supper now, at what hour can he possibly have dined? A second solid mass of rump-steak has disappeared, and he eat the first in four minutes and three-quarters by the clock over the window. Was there ever such a perfect personification of Falstaff? Mark the air with which he gloats over this Stilton as he removes the napkin which has been placed beneath his chin to catch the superfluous gravy of the steak, and with what gusto he imbibes the porter which has been fetched expressly for him in the pewter pot. Listen to the hoarse sound of that voice kept down as it is by layers of solids, and deep draughts of rich wine, and tell us if you ever saw such a perfect picture of a regular gourmond; and whether he is not exactly the man whom you would pitch upon as having been tho partner of Sheridan&#039;s Parliamentary carouses, the volunteer driver of the hackney coach that took him home, and the Involuntary upsetter of the whole party? What an amusing contrast between his voice and appearance, and that of the spare, squeaking old man, who sits at the same table, and who, elevating a little cracked bantum sort of voice to its highest pitch, invokes damnation upon his own eyes or somebody else&#039;s at the commencement of every sentence he utters. &quot;The Captain,&quot; as they call him, is a very old frequenter of Bellamy&#039;s; much addicted to stopping &quot;after the house is up&quot; (an inexpiable crime in Jane&#039;s eyes), and a complete walking reservoir of spirits and water. The old Peer—or rather, the old man; for his peerage is of recent date—has a huge tumbler of hot-punch brought him. The other damns and drinks, and drinks and damns and smokes—Members arrive every moment in a great bustle to report that &quot;The Chancellor of the Exchequer&#039;s up,&quot; and to get glasses of brandy and water to sustain them during the division—people who have ordered supper countermand it, and prepare to go down stairs, when suddenly a bell is heard to ring with tremendous violence, and a cry of &quot;Di-vi-sion&quot; is heard in the passage. This is enough; away rush the members pell-mell; the room is cleared in an instant; the noise rapidly dies away; you hear the creaking of the last boot on the last stair, and we are left alone with the Leviathan of Rump-steaks. <br /> <br /> We are sensible that we owe some apology to many of our readers for selecting for the second time, a subject involving allusions which they may not understand. If this be the case, we hope they will not object to our having written on these occasions for those who are more particularly connected with, or interested in, the scenes we have attempts to sketch, on our assurance that it always has been, and always will be, our object to sketch people and places which all our readers, in common with ourselves, have had opportunities of observing.18350411https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._VIII_Bellamy_s/1835-04-11_Sketches_of_London_No.VIII_Bellamys.pdf
49https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/49'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. X, Thoughts About People'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (23 April 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350423/016/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350423/016/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-04-23">1835-04-23</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoX_Thoughts_About_PeopleDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. X, Thoughts About People.' (23 April 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoX_Thoughts_About_People">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoX_Thoughts_About_People</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoX_Thoughts_About_People.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. X, Thoughts About People.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (23 April 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>&#039;Tis strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of any single person; his existence is a matter of interest to no one save himself, and he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one remembered him when he was alive. There really are a very numerous class of people in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and whom nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the first instance, they have resorted to London in search of employment and the means of subsistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties which bind us to our homes and friends; and harder still to efface the thousand recollections of happy days and old times, which have been slumbering in our bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind to bring before it with startling reality associations connected with the friends we have left, the scenes we have beheld, too probably for the last time, and the hopes we once cherished, but may entertain no more. These men, however, happily for themselves, have long since forgotten such thoughts, old country friends have died or emigrated, former correspondents have become lost like themselves in the crowd and turmoil of some busy city, and they have gradually settled down into mere passive creatures of habit and endurance. We were seated in the enclosure of St. James’s Park the other day, when our attention was attracted by a man whom we immediately set down in our own mind as one of this class. He was a tall thin pale person in a black coat, scanty grey trowsers, little pinched-up gaiters, and brown beaver gloves. He had an umbrella in his hand—not for use, for the day was fine; but evidently because he always carried one to the office in the morning; and he walked up and down before the little patch of grass on which the chairs are placed for hire, not as if he were doing it for pleasure or recreation, but as if it were a matter of compulsion—just as he walks to the office every morning from the back settlements of Islington. It was Monday—Easter Monday; he had escaped for four-and-twenty hours from the thraldom of the desk, and was walking here for exercise and amusement—perhaps for the first time in his life. We were inclined to think he had never had a holiday before, and that even now he didn&#039;t exactly know what to do with himself. Children were playing on the grass; groups of people were loitering about, chatting and laughing; but the man walked steadily up and down, unheeding and unheeded; his spare, pale face looking as if it were incapable of bearing the expression of curiosity or interest;—altogether there was something in his manner and appearance which told us, we fancied, his whole life, or rather his whole day, for a man of this sort has no variety. We almost saw the dingy little back office into which he walks every morning, hanging his hat on the same peg, and placing his legs beneath the same desk: first, taking off that black coat which lasts the year through, and putting on the one which did duty last year, and which he keeps in his desk to save the other. There he sits till five o’clock, only raising his head when some one enters the counting house, or when in the midst of some difficult calculation, he looks up to the ceiling as if there were inspiration in the dusty skylight with a green knot in the centre of every pane of glass; working the day through as regularly as the dial over the mantel-piece, whose loud ticking is almost as monotonous as his own existence. About five, or half-past, he slowly dismounts from his accustomed stool, and again changing his coat proceeds to his usual dining-place, somewhere near Bucklersbury. The waiter recites the bill of fare in a rather confidential manner—for he&#039;s a regular customer— and after inquiring, &quot;What’s in the best cut?&quot; and &quot;what was up last,&quot; he orders a small plate of roast beef with greens, and half a pint of porter. He has a small plate to-day because greens are a penny more than potatoes, and he had &quot;two heads&quot; yesterday, with the additional enormity of &quot;a cheese&quot; the day before. This important point being settled, he hangs up his hat—he took it off the moment he sat down—and bespeaks the paper after the next gentleman. If he can get it while he&#039;s at dinner he appears to eat it with much greater zest; balancing it against the water-bottle, and eating a bit of beef, and reading a line or two, alternately. Exactly at five minutes before the hour is up he produces a shilling, pays the reckoning, carefully deposits the change in his waistcoat pocket (first deducting a penny for the waiter) and returns to the office, from which, if it&#039;s not Foreign Post night, he again sallies forth in about half an hour. He then walks home at his usual pace to his little back room at Islington, where he has his tea; perhaps solacing himself during the meal with the conversation of his landlady’s little boy, whom he occasionally rewards with a penny for solving problems in simple addition. Sometimes there&#039;s a letter or two to take up to his employer’s in Bernard-street, Russell-square, and then the wealthy man of business hearing his voice, calls out from the dining-parlour, &quot;Come in, Mr. Smith,&quot;—and Mr. Smith, putting his hat at the feet of one of the hall chairs, walks timidly in, and being condescendingly desired to sit down, carefully tucks his legs under his chair, and sits at a considerable distance from the table while he drinks the glass of sherry which is poured out for him by the eldest boy, and after drinking which, he backs and slides out of the room in a state of nervous agitation, from which he does not perfectly recover until he finds himself once more in the Islington-road. Poor harmless creatures these men are; contented, but not happy; broken-spirited and humbled, they may feel no pain, but they never know pleasure. Compare these men with another class of beings who, like them have neither friend nor companion, but whose position in society is the result of their own choice. These are generally old fellows with white heads and red faces, addicted to port wine and Hessian boots, who, from some cause, real or imaginary—generally the former, the excellent reason being that they are rich and their relations poor—grow suspicious of everybody, and do the misanthropical in chambers, taking great delight in thinking themselves unhappy, and making everybody they come near miserable. You may see such men as these any where; you will know them at coffee-houses by their discontented exclamations and the luxury of their dinners; at theatres by their always sitting in the same place, and looking with a jaundiced eye on all the young people near them; at church by the pomposity with which they enter, and the loud tone in which they repeat the responses; at parties, by their getting cross at whist, and hating music. An old fellow of this kind will have his chambers splendidly furnished, collecting books, and plate, and pictures about him in profusion; not so much for his own gratification as to annoy those who have the desire, but not the means, to compete with him. He belongs to two or three Clubs, and is envied, and flattered, and hated by the members of them all. Sometimes he will be appealed to by a poor relation—a married nephew perhaps—for some little assistance and relief, and then he will declaim with honest indignation on the improvidence of young married people, the worthlessness of a wife, the insolence of having a family, the atrocity of getting into debt with a hundred and twenty-five pounds a year, and other unpardonable crimes; winding up his exhortation with a complacent review of his own conduct, and a delicate allusion to parochial relief. He dies, some day after dinner of apoplexy, having bequeathed his property to a Bible Society; and the Institution erects a tablet to his memory expressive of their admiration of his Christian conduct in this world, and their comfortable conviction of his happiness in the next. Next to our very particular friends, hackney-coachmen, cabmen, and cads, whom we admire in proportion to the extent of their cool impudence and perfect self-possession, there is no class of people who amuse us more than London apprentices. They are no longer an organized body, bound down by solemn compact to terrify his Majesty’s subjects whenever it pleased them to take offence in their heads, and staves in their hands. They are only bound now by indentures; and, as to their valour, it is easily restrained by the wholesome dread of the New Police, and a perspective view of a damp station-house, terminating in a police-office, and a reprimand. They are still, however, a peculiar class, and not the less pleasant for being inoffensive. Can any one fail to have noticed them in the streets on Sunday? And were there ever such beautiful attempts at the grand and magnificent as they display in their own proper persons! We walked down the Strand a Sunday or two ago, behind a little group; and they furnished food for our amusement the whole way. They had come out of some part of the city; it was between three and four o’clock in the afternoon, and they were on their way to the Park. There were four of them, all arm-in-arm, white kid gloves like so many bridegrooms, light oh-no-we-never-mention-&#039;ems, of unprecedented patterns, and coats for which the English language has as yet no name—a kind of cross between a great coat and a surtout, with the collar of the one, the skirts of the other, and pockets peculiar to themselves. Each of the gentlemen carried a thick stick with a large tassel at the top, which he occasionally twirled gracefully round, and the whole four, by way of looking easy and unconcerned, were walking with a sort of paralytic swagger irresistibly ludicrous. One of the party had got a watch about the size and shape of a Ribstone pippin, jammed into his waistcoat-pocket, which he carefully compared with the clocks at St. Clement’s and the New Church, the illuminated clock at The Chronicle office, the ditto ditto at Exeter Change, St. Martin’s Church clock, and the Horse Guards; and when they at last arrived in St. James’s-park, the member of the party who had the best made boots on, hired a second chair expressly for his feet, and flung himself on this two-pennyworth of sylvan luxury with an air which, in our mind, levelled all distinctions between Brookes’s and Snooks’s, Crockford’s and Bagnigge Wells. It may be urged that if London apprentices continue to pursue these freaks, they will no longer be the distinct class which we shall attempt to show they now are, by tracing them through the different scenes we propose sketch. We feel the whole force of the objection; and we see no reason why the same gentleman of enlarged and comprehensive views who proposes to Parliament a measure for preserving the amusements of the upper classes of society, and abolishing those of the lower, may not with equal wisdom preserve the former more completely, and mark the distinction between the two more effectively, by bringing in a Bill &quot;to limit to certain members of the hereditary peerages of this country and their families, the privilege of making fools of themselves as often as egregiously as to them shall seem meet.&quot; Precedent is a great thing in these cases, and Heaven knows he will have precedent enough to plead. There are so many classes of people in London, each one so different from the other, and each so peculiar in itself, that we find it time to bring our paper to a close before we have well brought our subject to a beginning. We are, therefore, induced to hope that we may calculate upon the permission of our readers to think about people again at some future time.18350423https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._X_Thoughts_About_People/1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No.X_Thoughts_About_People.pdf
50https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/50'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XI, Astley's'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (9 May 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350509/014/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350509/014/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-05-09">1835-05-09</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-05-09_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXI_AstleysDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XI, Astley's' (09 May 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-05-09_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXI_Astleys">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-05-09_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXI_Astleys</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-05-09_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXI_Astleys.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XI, Astley's.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (9 May 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>We never see any very large, staring, black Roman capitals in a book, or shop window, or placarded on a wall, without their immediately recalling to our mind an indistinct and confused recollection of the time when we were first initiated in the mysteries of the alphabet. We almost fancy we see the pen’s point following the letter, to impress its form more strongly on our bewildered imagination, and wince involuntarily, as we remember the hard knuckles with which the reverend old lady, who instilled into our mind the first principles of education for nine-pence per week, or ten and sixpence per quarter, was wont to poke our juvenile head occasionally by way of adjusting the confusion of ideas in which we were generally involved. The same kind of feeling pursues us in many other instances, but there is no place which recalls so strongly our recollections of childhood as Astley’s. It was not a &quot;Royal Amphitheatre&quot; in those days; nor had Ducrow arisen to shed the light of classic taste and portable gas over the saw-dust of the circus; but the whole character of the place was the same—the pieces were the same—the clown’s jokes were the same— the riding-masters were equally grand—the comic performers equally witty—the tragedians equally hoarse—and the &quot;highly-trained chargers&quot; equally spirited. Astley’s has altered for the better—we have changed for the worse. Our histrionic taste is gone; and with shame we confess, that we are far more delighted and amused with the audience, than with the pageantry we once so highly appreciated. We like to watch a regular Astley’s party in the Easter or midsummer holidays—Pa and Ma, and nine or ten children, varying from five foot six to two foot eleven; from fourteen years of age to four. We had just taken our seat in one of the boxes in the centre of the house the other night, when the next was occupied by just such a party as we should have attempted to describe, had we depicted our beau ideal of a group of Astley’s visitors. First of all, there came three little boys and a little girl, who in pursuance of Pa’s directions, issued in a very audible voice from the box-door, occupied the front row; then two more little girls were ushered in by a young lady, evidently the governess. Then came three more little boys, dressed like the first, in blue jackets and trousers, with a lay-down shirt-collar; then a child in a braided frock and high state of astonishment, with very large round eyes, opened to their utmost width, was lifted over the seats—a process which occasioned a considerable display of little pink legs —then came Ma and Pa, and then the eldest son, a boy of about fourteen years old, who was evidently trying to look as if he didn&#039;t belong to the family. The first five minutes were occupied in taking the shawls off the little girls and adjusting the bows which ornamented their hair; then it was providentially discovered that one of the little boys was seated behind a pillar and couldn&#039;t see, so the governess was stuck behind the pillar, and the boy lifted into her place; then Pa drilled the boys, and directed the stowing away of their pocket handkerchiefs; and Ma having just nodded and winked to the governess to pull the girls’ frocks a little more off their shoulders, stood up to review the little troop—an inspection which appeared to terminate much to her own satisfaction, for she looked with a complacent air at Pa, who was standing up at the other end of the seat; and Pa returned the glance, and blew his nose very emphatically; and the poor governess peeped out from behind the pillar, and timidly tried to catch Ma’s eye with a look expressive of her high admiration of the whole family. Then two of the little boys who had been discussing the point whether Astley’s was more than twice as large as Drury-Lane, agreed to refer it to &quot;George&quot; for his decision; at which &quot;George,&quot; who was no other than the young gentleman before noticed, waxed indignant, and remonstrated in no very gentle terms on the gross impropriety of having his name repeated in so loud a voice at a public place; on which all the children laughed very heartily, and one of the little boys wound up by expressing his opinion, that &quot;George began to think himself quite a man now,&quot; whereupon both Pa and Ma laughed too; and George (who carried a dress cane and was cultivating whiskers) muttered that &quot;William always was encouraged in his impertinence;&quot; and assumed a look of profound contempt, which lasted the whole evening. The play began, and the interest of the little boys knew no bounds; Pa was clearly interested too, although he very unsuccessfully endeavoured to look as if he wasn’t. As for Ma, she was perfectly overcome by the drollery of the principal comedian, and laughed till every one of the immense bows on her ample cap trembled, at which the governess peeped out from behind the pillar again; and whenever she could catch Ma’s eye, put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appeared, as in duty bound, to be in convulsions of laughter also. Then when the man in the splendid armour vowed to rescue the lady or perish in the attempt, the little boys applauded vehemently, especially one little fellow who was apparently on a visit to the family, and had been carrying on a child’s flirtation the whole evening with a small coquette of twelve years old, who looked like a model of her Mama on a reduced scale; and who, in common with the other little girls (who generally speaking have even more coquettishness about them than much older ones), looked very properly shocked when the knight’s squire kissed the princess’s confidential chambermaid. When the scenes in the circle commenced, the children were more delighted than ever, and the wish to see what was going forward completely conquering Pa’s dignity, he stood up in the box, and applauded as loudly as any of them. Between each feat of horsemanship, the governess leant across to Ma, and retailed the clever remarks of the children on that which had preceded; and Ma, in the openness of her heart, offered the governess an acidulated drop; and the governess, gratified to be taken notice of, retired behind her pillar again with a brighter countenance; and the whole party seemed quite happy except the exquisite in the back of the box, who, being to grand to take and interest in the children, and too insignificant to be taken notice of by any body else, occupied himself, from time to time in rubbing the place where the whiskers ought to be, and was completely alone in his glory. We defy any one who has been to Astley’s two or three times, and is consequently capable of appreciating the perseverance with which precisely the same jokes are repeated night after night, and season after season, not to be amused with one part of the performances at least—we mean the scenes in the circle. For ourselves, we know that when the hoop, composed of jets of gas is let down —the curtain drawn up, for the convenience of the half-price on their ejectment from the ring—the orange-peel cleared away, and the saw-dust shaken, with mathematical precision, into a complete circle—we feel as much enlivened as the youngest child present; and actually join in the laugh which follows the clown’s shrill shout of &quot;Here we are!&quot; just for old acquaintance sake. We can&#039;t even quite divest ourself of our old feeling of reverence for the riding-master, who follows the clown with a long whip in his hand, and bows to the audience with graceful dignity. We don&#039;t mean any of your second-rate riding-masters in nankeen dressing-gowns with brown frogs, but the regular gentleman attendant on the principal riders, who always wears a military uniform with a table-cloth inside the breast of the coat; in which costume he forcibly reminds one of a fowl trussed for roasting. He is—but why should we attempt to describe that of which no description can convey an adequate idea? Everybody knows the man, and everybody remembers his polished boots, his graceful demeanour stiff, as some misjudging persons have in their jealousy considered it, and the splendid head of black hair, parted high on the forehead, to impart to the countenance an appearance of deep thought and poetic melancholy. His soft and pleasing voice, too, is in perfect unison with his noble bearing, as he humours the clown by indulging in a little badinage, and the striking recollection of his own dignity, with which he exclaims, &quot;Now, sir, if you please, inquire for Miss Woolford, sir,&quot; can never be forgotten. Again, the graceful air with which he introduces Miss Woolford into the arena, and after assisting her on to the saddle, follows her fairy courser round the circle, can never fail to create a deep impression in the bosom of every female servant present. When Miss Woolford and the horse, and the orchestra, all stop together to take breath, he urbanely takes part in some such dialogue as the following (commenced by the clown): &quot;I say, sir!&quot;—&quot;Well, sir.&quot; (it’s always conducted in the politest manner.) &quot;Did you ever happen to hear I was in the army, sir?&quot;—&quot;No, sir.&quot;— &quot;Oh, yes, sir—I can go through my exercise, sir.&quot;— &quot;Indeed, sir!&quot;—&quot;Shall I do it now, sir?&quot;—&quot;If you please, sir, come, Sir—make haste&quot; (a cut with the long whip, and &quot;Ha’ done now—I don’t like it, from the clown). Here the clown throws himself on the ground, and goes through a variety of gymnastic convulsions, doubling himself up and untying himself again, and making himself look very like a man in the most hopeless extreme of human agony, to the vociferous delight of the gallery, until he is interrupted by a second cut from the long whip, and a request to see &quot;what Miss Woolford’s stopping for?&quot; On which, to the inexpressible mirth of the gallery, he exclaims, &quot;Now Miss Woolford, what can I come for to go for to fetch, for to bring, for to carry, for to do, for you, ma’am?&quot; On the lady’s announcing with a sweet smile, that she wants the two flags, they are with sundry grimaces procured and handed up; the clown facetiously observing after the performance of the latter ceremony—&quot;He, he, oh! I say sir, Miss Woolford knows me; she smiled at me.&quot; Another cut from the whip—a burst from the orchestra—a start from the horse, and round goes Miss Woolford again on her graceful performance, to the delight of every member of the audience, young or old. The next pause affords an opportunity for similar witticisms, the only additional fun being that of the clown making ludicrous grimaces at the riding-master every time his back is turned; and finally quitting the circle by jumping over his head, having previously directed his attention another way. Did any of our readers ever notice the class of people, who hang about the stage doors of our minor theatres in the day time? You will rarely pass one of these entrances without seeing a group of three or four men conversing on the pavement, with an indescribable public-house-parlour-swagger, and a kind of conscious air peculiar to people of this description. They always seem to think they are exhibiting; the lamps are ever before them. That young fellow in the faded brown coat, and very full light green trowsers, pulls down the wristbands of his check shirt as ostentatiously as if it were of the finest linen, and cocks the white hat of the summer before last as knowingly over his right eye as if it were a purchase of yesterday. Look at the dirty white berlin gloves, and the cheap silk handkerchief stuck in the bosom of his seedy coat. Is it possible to see him for an instant and not come to the conclusion that he is the walking gentleman who wears a blue surtout, clean collar, and white trowsers, for half an hour, and then shrinks into his worn-out scanty clothes; who has to boast night after night of his splendid fortune, with the painful consciousness of a pound a week and his boots to find; to talk of his father’s mansion in the country, with the dreary recollection of his own two-pair back, in the New Cut; and to be envied and flattered as the favoured lover of a rich heiress, remembering all the while that the ex-dancer at home, is in the family way, and out of an engagement! Next to him, perhaps, you will see a thin pale man, with a very long face, in a suit of shining black, thoughtfully knocking that part of his boot which once had a heel, with an ash stick. He is the man who does the heavy business, such as prosy fathers, virtuous servants, curates, landlords, and so forth. By-the-bye, talking of fathers, we should very much like to see some piece in which all the dramatis personae were orphans. Fathers are invariably great nuisances on the stage, and always have to give the hero or heroine a long explanation of what was done before the curtain rose, usually commencing with &quot;It is now nineteen years, my dear child, since your blessed mother (here the old villain’s voice faulters) confided you to my charge. You were then an infant,&quot; &amp;amp;c., &amp;amp;c. Or else they have to discover, all of a sudden, that somebody, whom they have been in constant communication with during three long acts, without the slightest suspicion, is their own child, in which case they exclaim, &quot;Ah! what do I see! This bracelet! That smile! These documents! Those eyes! Can I believe my senses? It must be!—Yes—it is—it is—my child!&quot; &quot;My father!&quot; exclaims the child, and they fall into each other’s arms, and look over each other’s shoulders; and the audience give three rounds of applause. To return from this digression; we were about to say that these are the sort of people whom you see talking, and attitudinizing outside the stage-doors of our minor theatres. At Astley’s they are always more numerous than at any other place; there is generally a groom or two sitting on the window-sill, and two or three dirty shabby-genteel men in checked neckerchiefs, and sallow linen, lounging about, and carrying, perhaps, under one arm a pair of stage shoes badly wrapped up in a piece of old newspaper. Some years ago we used to stand looking, open-mouthed, at these men with a feeling of mysterious curiosity, the very recollection of which provokes a smile at the moment we are writing. We could not believe that the beings of light and elegance, in milk-white tunics, salmon-coloured legs, and blue scarfs, who flitted on sleek cream-coloured horses before our eyes at night, with all the aid of lights, music, and artificial flowers, could be the pale, dissipated-looking creatures we beheld by day. We can hardly believe it now. Of the lower class of actors we have seen something, and it requires no great exercise of imagination to identify the walking gentleman with the &quot;dirty swell,&quot; the comic singer with the public-house chairman, or the leading tragedian with drunkenness and distress, but the other men are mysterious beings, never seen out of the ring, never beheld but in the costume of gods and sylphs. With the exception of Ducrow, who can scarcely be classed among them—who ever knew a rider at Astley’s, or saw him, but on horseback? Can our friend in the military uniform ever appear in threadbare attire, or descend to the comparatively un-wadded costume of every-day life? Impossible! We cannot—we will not—believe it. It is to us matter of positive wonder and astonishment that the infectious disease commonly known by the name of &quot;stage-struck,&quot; has never been eradicated, unless people really believe that the privilege of wearing velvet and feathers for an hour or two at night, is sufficient compensation for a life of wretchedness and misery. It is stranger still, that that denizens of attorneys&#039; offices, merchants&#039; counting-houses, haberdashers&#039; shops, and coal sheds, should squander their own resources to enrich some wily vagabond by paying—actually paying, and dearly too—to make unmitigated and unqualified asses of themselves at a Private Theatre. Private theatres, so far as we know, are peculiar to London; they flourish just now, for we have half a dozen at our fingers&#039; ends. We will take an early opportunity of introducing our readers to the Managers of one or two, and of sketching the interior of a Private Theatre, both before the curtain and behind it.18350509https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XI_Astley_s/1835-05-09_Sketches_of_London_No.XI_Astleys.pdf
51https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/51'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XII, Our Parish' (I)Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (19 May 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350519/021/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350519/021/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-05-19">1835-05-19</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXII_Our_ParishIDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XII, Our Parish (I)' (19 May 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Acessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXII_Our_ParishI">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXII_Our_ParishI</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXII_Our_ParishI.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XII, Our Parish' (I). <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (19 May 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>In a former number of our series we attempted a sketch of two or three of the worthies who hold office in our parish; and we wound up by observing that we should seek materials for another paper in that little kingdom. The promise escape our attention until a few days ago; but we now hasten to redeem it with a due sense of contrition for our negligence in not having done so before. We commenced the article to which we have referred with the beadle of our parish, deeply feeling the importance and dignity of his station. We will begin the present paper with the clergyman.—Our curate is a young gentleman of such prepossessing appearance and fascinating manners, that within one month after his first appearance in the parish half the young-lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other half desponding with love. Never were so many young ladies seen in our parish-church on Sunday before; and never had the little round angel&#039;s faces on Mr. Tomkins&#039;s monument in the side aisle, beheld such devotion on earth as they all exhibited. He was about five-and-twenty when he first came to astonish the parishioners, parted his hair on the centre of his forehead in the form of a Saxon arch, wore a brilliant of the first water on the fourth finger of his left hand (which he always applied to his left cheek when he read prayers); and had a deep sepulchral voice of unusual solemnity. Innumerable were the calls made by prudent mamas on our new curate; and innumerable the invitations with which he was assailed, and which to do him justice he readily accepted. If his manner in the pulpit had created an impression in his favour, the sensation was increased tenfold by his appearance in private circles. Pews in the immediate vicinity of the pulpit or reading desk rose in value: sittings in the centre circle were at a premium: an inch of room in the front row of the gallery could not be procured for love or money; and some people even went so far as to assert that the three Miss Browns, who had an obscure family pew just behind the churchwardens&#039;, were detected one Sunday, in the free seats by the communion-table, actually lying in wait for the curate as he passed to the vestry! He began to preach extempore sermons, and even grave papas caught the infection; he got out of bed at half-past twelve o&#039;clock one winter&#039;s night to half-baptize a washerwoman&#039;s child in a slop-basin; and the gratitude of the parishioners knew no bounds—the very churchwardens grew generous, and insisted on the parish defraying the expense of the watch-box on wheels, which the new curate had ordered for himself to perform the funeral service in, in wet weather. He sent three pints of gruel and a quarter of a pound of tea to a poor woman who had been brought to bed of four small children, all at once—the parish were charmed. He got up a subscription for her—the woman&#039;s fortune was made. He spoke for one hour and twenty-five minutes an anti-Slavery meeting at the Goat in Boots—the enthusiasm was at its height. A proposal was set on foot for presenting the Curate with a piece of plate, as a mark of esteem for his valuable services rendered to the parish. The list of subscriptions was filled up in no time; the contest was, not who should escape the contribution, but who should be the foremost to subscribe. A splendid silver ink-stand was made, and engraved with an appropriate inscription; the Curate was invited to a public breakfast, at the before-mentioned Goat in Boots: the ink-stand was presented in a neat speech by Mr. Gubbins, the ex-churchwarden, and acknowledged by the curate in terms which drew tears into the eyes of all present —the very waiters were melted. One would have supposed that by this time the theme of universal admiration was lifted to the very pinnacle of popularity. No such thing. The curate began to cough—four fits of coughing one morning between the Litany and the Epistle; and five in the afternoon service. Here was a discovery—the curate was consumptive. How interestingly melancholy! If the young ladies were energetic before, their sympathy and solicitude now knew no bounds. Such a man as the curate—such a dear—such a perfect love—to be consumptive! It was too much. Anonymous presents of black currant jam, and lozenges; elastic waistcoats, bosom friends, and warm stockings, poured in upon the curate until he was as completely fitted out with winter clothing as if he were on the verge of an expedition to the North Pole; verbal bulletins of the state of his health were circulated throughout the parish half-a-dozen times a day; and the curate was at the height, indeed, in the very zenith of his popularity. About this period, a change came over the spirit of the parish. A very quiet, respectable dozing old gentleman, who had officiated in one chapel of ease for twelve years previously, died one fine morning, without having given any notice whatever of his intention. This circumstance gave rise to counter-sensation the first; and the arrival of his successor occasioned counter-sensation the second. He was a pale, thin, cadaverous man, with large black eyes, and long straggling black hair: his dress was slovenly in the extreme; his manner ungainly; his doctrines startling; in short, he was in every respect the antipodes of the curate. Crowds of our female parishioners flocked to hear him at first, because he was so odd-looking, so expressive, then because he preached so well; and at last, because they really thought that, after all, there was something about him which it was quite impossible to describe. As to the curate, he was all very well; but certainly, after all, there was no denying that—that—in short the curate wasn&#039;t a novelty, and the other clergyman was. The inconstancy of public opinion is proverbial: the congregation migrated one by one; the curate coughed till he was black in the face—it was in vain. He respired with difficulty—it was equally ineffectual in awakening sympathy. Seats are once again to be had in any part of our parish church, and our chapel-of-ease is going to be enlarged, as it is crowded to suffocation every Sunday! The best known and most respected among our parishioners is an old lady, who resided in our parish long before our name was entered. Our parish is a sub-urban one, and the old lady lives in a neat row of houses in the most airy and pleasant part of it. The house is her own, and it, and everything about it, except the old lady herself, who looks a little older than she did ten years ago, is in just the same state as when she old gentleman was living. The little front parlour, which is the old lady&#039;s ordinary sitting-room, is a perfect picture of quiet neatness: the carpet is covered with brown Holland, the glass and picture-frames are carefully enveloped in yellow muslin; the table-covers are never taken off, except when the leaves are turpentined and bees&#039; waxes, an operation which is regularly commenced every other morning at half-past nine o&#039;clock—and the little nic nacs are always arranged in precisely the same manner. The greater part of these are presents from little girls whose parents live in the same row; but some of them, such as the two old-fashioned watches (which never keep the same time, one being always a quarter of an hour too slow, and the other a quarter of an hour too fast), the little picture of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold as they appeared in the Royal box at Drury-lane Theatre, and others of the same class, have been in the old lady&#039;s possession for many years. Here the old lady sits with her spectacles on, busily engaged in needle-work—near the window in summer time; and if she sees you coming up the steps and you happen to be a favourite, she trots out to open the street door for you before you knock, and as you must be fatigued after that hot walk, insists on your swallowing two glasses of sherry before you exert yourself by talking. If you call in the evening, you will find her cheerful, but rather more serious than usual, with an open Bible on the table before her., of which &quot;Sarah,&quot; who is just as neat and methodical as her mistress, regularly reads two or three chapters in the parlour aloud. The old lady sees scarcely any company, except the little girls before noticed, each of whom has always a regular fixed day for a periodical tea drinking with her, to which she child looks forward as the greatest treat of its existence. She seldom visits at a greater distance than the next door but one on either side, and when she drinks tea here, Sarah runs out first and knocks and double knock to prevent the possibility of her Missis&#039;s catching cold by having to wait at the door. She is very scrupulous in returning these little invitations, and when she asks Mr. and Mrs. So and So to meet Mr. and Mrs. somebody else, Sarah and she dust the urn, and the best china service, and the Pope Joan board; and the visitors are received in the drawing room in great state. She has but few relations, and they are scattered about in different parts of the country, and she seldom sees them. She has a son in India, whom she always describes to you as a fine, handsome fellow—so like the profile of his poor dear father over the sideboard; but the old lady adds, with a mournful shake of the head, that he&#039;s always been one of her greatest trials, and that indeed he once almost broke her hear; but it pleased God to enable her to get the better of it, and she&#039;d prefer your never mentioning the subject to her again. She has a great number of pensioners, and on Saturday, after she comes back from market, there is a regular levee of old men and women in the passage waiting for their weekly gratuity. Her name always heads the list of any benevolent subscriptions, and her&#039;s are always the most liberal donations to the Winter Coal and Soup Distribution Society. She subscribed twenty pounds towards the erection of an organ in our parish church, and was so overcome the first Sunday the children sang to it, that she was obliged to be carried out by the pew opener. Her entrance into church on Sunday is always the signal for a little bustle in the side aisle, occasioned by a general rise among the poor people, who bow and curtsy until the pew opener has ushered the old lady unto her accustomed seat, dropped a respectful curtsy, and shut the door; and the same ceremony is repeated on her leaving church, when she walks home with the family next door but one, and talks about the sermon all the way, invariably opening the conversation by asking the youngest boy where the text was. Thus, with the annual variation of a trip to some quiet place on the sea coast, passes the old lady&#039;s life. It has rolled on in the same unvarying and benevolent course for many years now, and must at no distant period be brought to its final close. She looks forward to its termination with calmness, and without apprehension. She has every thing to hope and nothing to fear. A very different personage, but one who has rendered himself very conspicuous in our parish, is one of the old lady&#039;s next door neighbours. He is an old naval officer on half pay; and his bluff and unceremonious behaviour disturbs the old lady&#039;s domestic economy, not a little. In the first place he will smoke cigars in the front court; and when he wants something to drink with them—which is by no means an uncommon circumstance—he lifts up the old lady&#039;s knocker with his walking-stick, and demands to have a glass of table ale handed over the rails. In addition to this cool proceeding he is a bit of a Jack of all trades, or to use his own words, &quot;A regular Robinson Crusoe,&quot; and nothing delights him better than to experimentalize on the old lady&#039;s property. One morning he got up early and planted three or four roots of full-blown marygolds in every bed of her front garden to the inconceivable astonishment of the old lady, who actually thought when she got up and looked out of the window, that it was some strange eruption which had come out in the night. Another time he took to pieces the eight-day clock on the front landing, under pretence of cleaning the wors, which he put together again by some undiscovered process in so wonderful a manner that the large hand has done nothing but trip up the little one ever since. Then he took to breeding silk-worms, which he would bring in two or three times a day, in little paper boxes, to show the old lady, generally dropping a worm or two at every visit. The consequence was, that one morning a very stout silk-worm was discovered in the act of walking up stairs—probably with the view of inquiring after his friends, for on further inspection it appeared that some of his companions had already found their way to every room in the house. The old lady went to the sea-side in despair, and during her absence he completely effected the name from her brass door-plate in his attempts to polish it with aqua fortis. But all this is nothing to his seditious conduct in public life. He attends every vestry meeting that is held; always opposes the constituted authorities of the parish; denounces the profligacy of the churchwardens, contests legal points against the vestry-clerk, will make the tax-gathered call for his money till he won&#039;t call any longer, and then he sends it; finds fault with the sermon every Sunday; says that the organist ought to be ashamed of himself; offers to back himself for any amount to sing the psalms better than all the children put together, male and female; and in short, conducts himself in the most turbulent and uproarious manner. The worst of it is, that having a high regard for the old lady, he wants to make her a convert to his views, and therefore walks into her little parlour with his newspaper in his hand, and talks violent politics by the hour. He is a cheritable, open-handed old fellow at bottom after all; so, although he puts the old lady a little out occasionally, they agree very well in the main; and she laughs as much at each feat of his handy-work when its all over as anybody else.We have attained our usual limits, and must conclude our paper. We are not sufficiently acquainted with the details of the recent alteration in the Poor-laws, to know whether we have a legal settlement anywhere or not; but we hope our readers will not object, when subjects are scarce, and we distressed, to our deriving assistance from the parochial funds. We are perfectly willing to work for their amusement; but we openly avow our determination, on some future occasions, to throw ourselves again upon—&quot;Our Parish.&quot;18350519https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XII_Our_Parish_[I]/1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No.XII_Our_Parish_I.pdf
52https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/52'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIII, The River'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (6 June 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive</em>, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350606/021/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350606/021/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-06-06">1835-06-06</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIII_The_RiverDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XIII, The River' (6 June 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIII_The_River">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIII_The_River</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIII_The_River.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XIII, The River.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (6 June 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>&quot;Are you fond of the water?&quot; is a question very frequently asked in hot summer weather by amphibious-looking young men. &quot;Very,&quot; is the general reply. &quot;An’t you?&quot;—&quot;Hardly ever off it,&quot; is the response, accompanied by sundry adjectives expressive of the speaker’s heartfelt admiration of that element. Now, with all respect for the opinion of society in general, and cutter clubs in particular, we humbly suggest that some of the most painful reminiscences in the mind of every individual who has occasionally disported himself on the Thames, must be connected with his aquatic recreations. Who ever heard of a successful water-party?—or to put the question in a still more intelligible form, who ever saw one? We have been on water excursions out of number; but we solemnly declare that we cannot call to mind one single occasion of the kind which was not marked by more miseries than any one would suppose could reasonably be crowded into the space of some eight or nine hours. Something has always gone wrong. Either the cork of the salad-dressing has come out, or the most anxiously expected member of the party has not come out, or the most disagreeable man in company would come out, or a child or two have fallen into the water, or the gentleman who undertook to steer has endangered everybody’s life all the way, or the gentlemen who volunteered to row have been &quot;out of practice,&quot; and performed very alarming evolutions, putting their oars down into the water and not being able to get them up again; or taking terrific pulls without putting them in at all; in either case, pitching over on the backs of their heads with startling violence, and exhibiting the soles of their pumps to the &quot;sitters&quot; in the boat, in a very humiliating manner. We grant that the banks of the Thames are very beautiful at Richmond and Twickenham, and other distant places, often sought though seldom reached; but from the &quot;Red-us&quot; back to Blackfriar&#039;s-bridge, the scene is wonderfully changed. The Penitentiary is a noble building no doubt, and the sportive youths who &quot;go in&quot; at that particular part of the river on a summer’s evening, may be all very well in perspective, but where you are obliged to keep in shore coming home, and the young ladies will colour up, and look perseveringly the other way, while the married dittoes cough slightly, and look at the water, you certainly feel rather awkward— especially if you happen to have been attempting the most distant approach to sentimentality for an hour or two previously. Although experience and suffering have produced in our minds the result we have just stated, we are by no means blind to a proper sense of the fun which a looker-on may extract from the amateurs of boating. What can be more amusing than Searle’s yard on a fine Sunday morning. It’s a Richmond tide, and some dozen boats are preparing for the reception of the parties who have engaged them. Two or three fellows in great rough trowsers and Guernsey shirts, are getting them ready by easy stages; now coming down the yard with a pair of sculls and a cushion—then having a chat with the &quot;jack,&quot; who, like all his tribe, seems to be wholly incapable of doing anything but lounging about—then going back again, and returning with a rudder-line and a stretcher—then solacing themselves with another chat—and then wondering, with their hands in their capacious pockets, &quot;where them gentlemen’s got to as ordered the six.&quot; One of these, the head man, with the legs of his trowsers carefully tucked up at the bottom, to admit the water, we presume—for it is an element in which he is infinitely more at home than on land—is quite a character, and shares with the defunct oyster-swallower the celebrated name of &quot;Dando.&quot; Watch him, as taking a few minutes respite from his toils, he negligently seats himself on the edge of a boat, and fans his broad bushy chest with a cap scarcely half so furry. Look at his magnificent though reddish whiskers, and mark the somewhat native humour with which he &quot;chaffs&quot; the boys and prentices, or cunningly gammons the gemmen into the gift of a glass of gin, of which we verily believe he swallows enough in a day to float a &quot;six oar&quot; without producing the slightest effect upon his scull. But the party has now arrived, and Dando relieved from his state of uncertainty starts up into activity. They approach in full aquatic costume, with round blue jackets, striped shirts, and caps of all sizes and patterns, from the velvet skull cap of Tully&#039;s lounge, to the easy head-dress familiar to the students of the old spelling-books as having on the authority of the portrait, formed part of the costume of the Reverend Mr. Dilworth. This is the most amusing time to observe a regular Cockney water-party. There has evidently been up to this period no inconsiderable degree of boasting on everybody’s part relative to his knowledge of navigation; the sight of the water rapidly cools their courage, and the air of self-denial with which each of them insists on somebody else’s taking an oar is perfectly delightful. At length, after a great deal of changing and fidgetting, consequent upon the election of a stroke-oar—the inability of one gentleman to pull on this side, of another to pull on that, and of a third to pull at all, the boat’s crew are seated. &quot;Shove her off!&quot; cries the cockswain, who looks about as easy and comfortable as if he were steering in the Bay of Biscay. The order is obeyed; the boat is immediately turned completely round, and proceeds towards Westminster-bridge, amidst such a splashing and struggling as never was seen before, except when the Royal George went down. &quot;Back wa’a&#039;ter, Sir,&quot; shouts Dando, &quot;Back wa’a&#039;ter, you, Sir, aft;&quot; upon which, everybody thinking he must be the individual referred to, they all back water, and back comes the boat, stern first, to the spot whence it started. &quot;Back water, you Sir, aft; pull round, you Sir, for’ad, can’t you?&quot; shouts Dando, in a phrenzy of excitement. &quot;Pull round, Tom, can’t you?&quot; re-echoes one of the party. &quot;Tom an’t for’ad,&quot; replies another. &quot;Yes, he is,&quot; cries a third; and the unfortunate young man, at the imminent risk of breaking a blood-vessel, pulls and pulls, until the head of the boat fairly lies in the direction of Vauxhall-bridge. &quot;That’s right—now pull all on you!&quot; shouts Dando again, adding, in an under tone, to somebody by him, &quot;Blowed if hever I see sitch a set of muffs!&quot; and away jogs the boat in a zig-zag direction, every one of the six oars dipping into the water at a different time; and the yard is once more clear, until the arrival of the next party. A well-contested rowing-match on the Thames, is a very lively and interesting scene. The water is studded with boats of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions—places in the coal-barges at the different wharfs are let to crowds of spectators—beer and tobacco flow freely about—men, women, and children wait for the start in breathless expectation—cutters of six and eight oars glide gently up and down, waiting to accompany their protégés during the race—bands of music add to the animation if not to the harmony of the scene —groups of watermen are assembled at the different stairs discussing the merits of the respective candidates—and the prize wherry which is rowed slowly about by a pair of sculls, is an object of general interest. Two o’clock strikes, and everybody looks anxiously in the direction of the bridge through which the candidates for the prize will come—half-past two, and the general attention which has been preserved so long begins to flag when suddenly a gun is heard, and the noise of distant hurra’ing along each bank of the river—every head is bent forward—the noise draws nearer and nearer—the boats which have been waiting at the bridge start briskly up the river—a well-manned galley shoots through the arch, the sitters cheering on the boats behind them, which are not yet visible —&quot;Here they are,&quot; is the general cry—and through darts the first boat, the men in her stripped to the skin, and exerting every muscle to preserve the advantage they have gained—four other boats follow close astern, there are not two boats’ length between them—the shouting is tremendous, and the interest intense. &quot;Go on, Pink&quot;—&quot;Give it her, Red&quot;—&quot;Sulliwin for ever&quot;—&quot;Brayvo! George&quot;—&quot;Now, Tom, now—now—now—why don’t your partner stretch out?&quot;—&quot;Two pots to a pint on yellow,&quot; &amp;amp;c., &amp;amp;c. Every little public-house fires its gun, and hoists its flag; and the men who win the heat, come in, amidst a splashing and shouting, and banging and confusion, which no one can imagine who has not witnessed it, and of which any description would convey a very faint idea. One of the most amusing places we know is the steam wharf of the London-bridge, or St. Katherine’s Dock Company, on a Saturday morning, when the Gravesend and Margate steamers are usually crowded to excess; and as we have just taken a glance at the river above bridge, we hope our readers will not object to accompany us on board a Gravesend packet. Coaches are every moment setting down at the entrance to the wharf, and the stare of bewildered astonishment with which the &quot;fares&quot; resign themselves and their luggage into the hands of the porters, who seize all the packages at once as a matter of course, and run away with them heaven knows where, is laughable in the extreme. A Margate boat lies alongside the wharf, the Gravesend boat (which starts first) lies alongside that again; and as a temporary communication is formed between the two, by means of a plank and hand-rail, the natural confusion of the scene is by no means diminished. &quot;Gravesend?&quot; inquires a stout father of a stout family, who follow him under the guidance of their mother and a servant, at the no small risk of two or three of them being left behind in the confusion. &quot;Gravesend.&quot; &quot;Pass on, if you please, Sir,&quot; replies the attendant—&quot;other boat, Sir,&quot; whereupon the stout father, being rather mystified, and the stout mother rather distracted by maternal anxiety, the whole party deposit themselves in the Margate boat, and after having congratulated himself on having secured very comfortable seats, the stout father sallies to the chimney to look for his luggage, which he has a faint recollection of having given some man something to take somewhere. No luggage, however, bearing the most remote resemblance to his in shape or form is to be discovered, on which the stout father calls very loudly for an officer, to whom he states the case in the presence of another father of another family—a little thin man, who entirely concurs with him (the stout father) in thinking that it’s high time something was done with these steam companies, and that as the Corporation Bill don&#039;t do it, something else must; for really people’s property is not to be sacrificed in this way; and that if the luggage isn’t restored without delay, he will take care it shall be put in the papers, for the public&#039;s not to be the victim of these great monopolies; on which the officer in his turn replies, that that company ever since it has been St. Kat’rine’s Dock Company, has protected life and property; that if it had been the London Bridge Wharf Company, indeed he shouldn’t have wondered, seeing that the morality of that company (they being the opposition) can’t be answered for, by no one; but as it is he’s convinced there must be some mistake, and he wouldn’t mind making a solemn oath afore a magistrate that the gentleman’ll find his luggage afore he gets to Margate. Here the stout father thinking he is making a capital point replies that as it happens he an&#039;t going to Margate at all, and that &quot;Passenger to Gravesend&quot; was on the luggage in letters of full two inches long, on which the officer rapidly explains the mistake, and the stout mother and the stout children and the servant are hurried with all possible despatch on board the Gravesend-boat, which they reach just in time to discover that their luggage is there, and that their comfortable seats are not. Then the bell, which is the signal for the Gravesend-boat starting, begins to ring most furiously, and people keep time to the bell by running in and out of our boat at a double quick pace: the bell stops, the boat starts: people who have been taking leave of their friends on board, are carried away against their will; and people who have been taking leave of their friends on shore, find that they have performed a very needless ceremony, in consequence of their not being carried away at all. The regular passengers, who have season tickets, go below to breakfast; people who have purchased morning papers, compose themselves to read them; and people who have not been down the river before, think that both the shipping and the water look a great deal better at a distance. When we get down about as far as Blackwall and begin to move at a quicker rate, the spirits of the passengers appear to rise in proportion. Old women who have brought large wicker hand-baskets with them, set seriously to work at the demolition of heavy sandwiches, and pass round a wine-glass, which is frequently replenished from a flat bottle like a stomach-warmer, with considerable glee, handing it first to the gentleman in the foraging-cap, who plays the harp—partly as an expression of satisfaction with his previous exertions, and partly to induce him to play &quot;Dumbledumbdeary,&quot; for &quot;Alick&quot; to dance to; which being done, Alick, who is a damp earthy-looking child, in red worsted socks, takes certain small jumps upon the deck, to the unspeakable satisfaction of his family circle. Girls who have brought the first volume of some new novel in their reticule, become extremely plaintive, and expatiate to Mr. Brown, or young Mr. O’Brien, who has been looking over them, on the blueness of the sky, and brightness of the water; on which Mr. Brown or Mr. O’Brien, as the case may be, remarks in a low voice that he has been quite insensible of late to the beauties of nature—that his whole thoughts and wishes have centered in one object alone—whereupon the young lady looks up, and failing in her attempt to appear unconscious, looks down again; and turns over the next leaf with great difficulty in order to afford opportunity for a lengthened pressure of the hand. Telescopes, sandwiches, and glasses of brandy-and-water cold-without, begin to be in great requisition; and bashful men who have been looking down the hatchway at the engine, find to their great relief, a subject on which they can converse with one another—and a copious one too—Steam— &quot;Wonderful thing steam, Sir.&quot; &quot;Ah! (a deep-drawn sigh) it is indeed, Sir&quot;—&quot;great power, Sir.&quot;— &quot;Immense—immense;&quot;—&quot;Great deal done by steam, Sir.&quot;—&quot;Ah (another sigh at the immensity of the subject, and a knowing shake of the head)! you may say that, Sir.&quot; &quot;Still in its infancy, they say Sir,&quot; and other novel remarks of this kind, are generally the commencement of a conversation which is prolonged until the conclusion of the trip—not a long one on the water; nor we hope no paper either. If the trip should have appeared tedious, our good humour returns the moment we reach the pier; and if our description should have unfortunately done so too, we hope our readers will forget it the instant they leave—The River.18350606https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XIII_The_River/1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_The_River.pdf
53https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/53'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIV, Our Parish' (II)Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (18 June 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350618/019/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350618/019/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-06-18">1835-06-18</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishIIDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XVI, Our Parish (II)' (18 June 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishII">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishII</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishII.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XIV, Our Parish' (II). <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (18 June 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>The row of houses in which our friends the old lady and her troublesome neighbour reside, contains, we think, within its circumscribed limits, a greater number of characters than all the rest of our parish put together. When we say that we live in the row ourselves, we have not the slightest intention to insinuate that we can lay claim to any particular characteristics. We merely mention the fact, in order that the statement may have the authority of our own personal observation and experience; and we present our readers occasionally with a slight sketch of the materials we have collected from this source, in the hope that an attempted delineation of character now and then will vary the numerous scenes we undertook to describe when we entitled these papers, &quot;Sketches of London.&quot; There is a family who live very near the old lady— two doors removed on the left-hand side—to which we must beg to introduce our readers without further delay. The four Miss Willises settled in our parish thirteen years ago: it is a melancholy reflection that the old adage, &quot;time and tide wait for no man,&quot; applies with equal force to the fairer portion of the creation; and willingly would we conceal the fact, that even thirteen years ago the Miss Willises were far from juvenile; our duty as faithful parochial chroniclers, however, is paramount to every other consideration, and we are bound to state that thirteen years since the authorities in matrimonial cases considered the youngest Miss Willis in a very precarious state, while the eldest sister was positively given over as being far beyond all human hope. Well, the Miss Willises took a lease of the house; it was fresh painted and papers from top to bottom; the paint inside was all wainscoted; the marble all cleaned; the old grates taken down and register-stoves, you could see to dress in, put up; four trees were planted in the back garden; several small baskets of gravel sprinkled over the front one; vans of elegant furniture arrived; spring blinds were fitted to the windows; carpenters who had been employed in the various preparations, alterations, and repairs, made confidential statements to the different maid servants in the row, relative to the magnificent scale on which the Miss Willises were commencing; the maid servants told their &quot;Missises;&quot; the Missises told their friends, and vague rumours were circulated throughout the parish, that No. 25, in Gordon-place, had been taken by four maiden ladies of immense property. At last the Miss Willises moved in; and then the &quot;calling&quot; began. The house was the perfection of neatness—so were the four Miss Willises. Everything was formal, stiff, and cold—so were the four Miss Willises. Not a single chair of the whole set was ever seen out of its place—not a single Miss Willis was ever seen out of her&#039;s. There they always sat, in the same places, doing precisely the same things at the same hour. The eldest Miss Willis used to knit, the second to draw, the two others to play duets on the piano. They seemed to have no separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together. They were three long graces in drapery, with the addition—like a school-dinner—of another long grace afterwards—the three fates with another sister—the Siamese twins multiplied by two. The eldest Miss Willis grew bilious—the four Miss Willises became bilious immediately—The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious—The four Miss Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly. Whatever the eldest did the others did, and whatever anybody else did they all disapproved of; and thus they vegetated—living in Polar harmony among themselves; and as they sometimes went out, or saw company &quot;in a quiet-way&quot; at home, occasionally icing the neighbours. Three years passed over in this way, when an unlooked-for and extraordinary phenomenon occurred. The Miss Willises showed symptoms of summer, the frost gradually broke up; a complete thaw took place. Was it possible! one of the four Miss Willises was going to be married! Now, where on earth the husband came from, by what feelings the poor man could have been actuated, or by what process of reasoning the four Miss Willises succeeded in persuading themselves that it was possible for a man to marry one of them without marrying them all, are questions too profound for us to resolve: certain it is, however, that the visits of Mr. Robinson (a gentleman in a public office with a good salary and a little property of his own beside) were received—that the four Miss Willises were courted in due form by the said Mr. Robinson—that the neighbours were perfectly frantic to discover which of the four Miss Willises was the fortunate fair—and that the difficulty they experienced in solving the problem was not at all lessened by the announcement of Miss Willis—&quot;We are going to marry Mr. Robinson.&quot; It was very extraordinary; they were so completely identified, the one with the other, that the curiosity of the whole row—even of the old lady herself—was roused almost beyond endurance. The subject was discussed at every little card table and tea-drinking; the old gentleman of silk-worm notoriety didn&#039;t hesitate to express his decided opinion that Mr. Robinson was of Eastern descent, and contemplated marrying the whole family at once; and the row generally shook their heads with considerable gravity, and declared the business to be very mysterious. They hoped it might all end well;—it certainly had a very singular appearance, but still it would be uncharitable to express any opinion without good grounds to go upon; and certainly the Miss Willises were quite old enough to judge for themselves, and to be sure people ought to know their own business best, and so forth. At last, one fine morning, at a quarter before eight o&#039;clock, A.M., two glass coaches drove up to the Miss Willises&#039; door, at which Mr. Robinson had arrived in a cab ten minutes before, dressed in a light blue coat and a double milled kersey pantaloons, white neck-kerchief, pumps, and dress gloves, his manner denoting, as appeared from the evidence of the housemaid at No. 23, who was sweeping the door-steps at the time, a considerable degree of nervous excitement. It was also hastily reported on the same testimony, that the cook, who opened the door, wore a large white bow, of unusual dimensions, in a much smarter head-dress than the regulation cap to which the Miss Willises invariably restricted the somewhat excursive taste of female servants in general. The intelligence spread rapidly from house to house; it was quite clear that the eventful morning had at length arrived; the whole row stationed themselves behind their first and second-floor blinds, and waited the result in breathless expectation. The Miss Willises&#039; door opened; the door of the first glass coach did the same; two gentlemen, and a pair of ladies to correspond—friends of the family no doubt; up went the steps, bang went the door; off went the first glass coach, and up came the second. The street door opened again; the excitement of the whole row increased - Mr. Robinson and the eldest Miss Willis. &quot;I thought so,&quot; said the lady at No. 19, &quot;I always said it was Miss Willis!&quot; &quot;Well I never!&quot; ejaculated the young lady at No. 18, to the young lady at No. 17—&quot;Did you ever, dear!&quot; responded the young lady at No. 17, to the young lady at No. 18. &quot;It&#039;s too ridiculous!&quot; exclaimed a spinster of an uncertain age, at No. 16, joining in the conversation. But who shall pourtray the astonishment of Gordon-place when Mr. Robinson handed in all the Miss Willises, one after the other, and then squeezed himself into an acute angle of the glass coach, which forthwith proceeded at a brisk pace after the other glass-coach; which other glass coach had itself proceeded at a brisk pace in the direction of the parish church. Who shall depict the perplexity of the clergy-man when all the Miss Willises knelt down at the communion table, and repeated the responses incidental to the marriage service in an audible voice?—or who shall describe the confusion which prevailed, when—even after the difficulties thus occasioned had been adjusted—all the Miss Willises went into hysterics at the conclusion of the ceremony until the sacred edifice resounded with their united wailings! As the four sisters and Mr. Robinson continued to occupy the same house after this memorable occasion, and as the married sister, whoever she was, never appeared in public without the other three, we are not quite clear that the neighbours would ever have discovered the real Mrs. Robinson but for a circumstance of the most gratifying description. Coming events cast their shadows before, and events like that at which we hint with becoming delicacy and diffidence, will happen occasionally in the best regulated families—indeed the best regulated are usually supposed to be the most subject to such occurrences. Three quarter days elapsed, and the row, on whom a new light appeared to have been bursting for some time, began to speak with a sort of implied confidence on the subject, and to wonder how Mrs. Robinson—the youngest Miss Willis that was—got on; and servants might be seen running up the steps about nine or ten o&#039;clock every morning, with &quot;Missis&#039;s compliments, and wishes to know how Mrs. Robinson finds herself this morning?&quot; And the answer always was, &quot;Mrs. Robinson&#039;s compliments, and she&#039;s in very good spirits, and doesn&#039;t find herself any worse.&quot; The piano was heard no longer—the knitting-needles were laid aside—drawing was neglected—and mantua-making and millinery on the smallest scale imaginable, appeared to have become the favourite amusement of the whole family. The parlour wasn&#039;t quite as tidy as it used to be; and if you called in the morning, you would see lying on a table, with an old newspaper carelessly thrown over them, two or three particularly small caps—rather larger than if they had been made for a moderate-sized doll—with a small piece of lace in the shape of a horse-shoe let in behind, or perhaps a white robe, not very large in circumference, but very much out of proportion in point of length, with a little tucker round the top, and a frill round the bottom; and once when we called we saw a long white roller, with a kind of blue margin down each side, the probable use of which we were at a loss to conjecture. Then we fanced that Mr. Dawson, the surgeon, &amp;amp;c., who displays a large lamp with a different colour in every pane of glass, at the corner of the row, began to be knocked up at night oftener than he used to be; and once we were very much alarmed by hearing a hackney coach stop at Mrs. Robinson&#039;s door at half-past two o&#039;clock in the morning, out of which there emerged a fat old woman in a cloak and night cap, with a bundle in one hand and a pair of pattens in the other, who looked as if she had been suddenly knocked up out of bed for some purpose of other; and when we got up in the morning we saw the knocker was tied up in an old white kid glove, and we, in our innocence (we are in a state of bachelorship), wondered what on earth it all meant, until we heard the eldest Miss Willis, in propriá persona, say with great dignity, in answer to the next inquiry, &quot;My compliments and Mrs. Robinson&#039;s doing as well as can be expected, and the little girl thrives wonderfully.&quot; And then, in common with the rest of the row, our curiosity was satisfied, and we began to wonder it had never occurred to us what the matter was before. Official parish registers of marriages, births, christenings, and deaths, are not generally considered to possess any amusement or much interest, except for those who are personally connected with some individual record contained within their musty leaves. Our parish register will have, at least, three advantages—it will be easy of access, it will be faithfully entered up from time to time, and it will at least be penned with a humble desire to amuse those who may consult it. As we dare not occupy any greater space at this busy period, we have only to add that we must defer any further account of the four Miss Willises until another opportunity; that we propose in future publishing a parochial sketch alternately with one coming more immediately under our first heading; and that from this time forward we shall make no further apology for an abrupt conclusion to an article under the title of &quot;Our Parish,&quot; than is contained in the words &quot;To be continued.&quot;18350618https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XIV_Our_Parish_[II]/1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XVI_Our_Parish_II.pdf
58https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/58'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIX, Private Theatres'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (11 August 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350811/016/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350811/016/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-08-11">1835-08-11</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIX_Private_TheatresDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XIX, Private Theatres' (11 August 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIX_Private_Theatres">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIX_Private_Theatres</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIX_Private_Theatres.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Sketches of London, No. XIX, Private Theatres.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (11 August 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>&quot;RICHARD THE THIRD. DUKE OF GLO’STER 2l. EARL OF RICHMOND, 1l. DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, 15s. CATESBY, 12s. TRESSEL, 10s. 6d. LORD STANLEY, 5s. LORD MAYOR OF LONDON, 2s. 6d.&quot; Such are the written placards wafered up in the gentlemen’s dressing-room or the green-room (where there is any) at a private theatre; and such are the sums extracted from the shop-till, or overcharged in the office expenditure, by the idiotic donkies who are prevailed upon to pay for permission to exhibit their lamentable ignorance and boobyism on the stage of a private theatre. This they do, in proportion to the scope afforded by the character for the display of their imbecility. For instance, the Duke of Glo’ster&#039;s well worth two pounds, because he has it all to himself, must wear a real sword, and what is better still, must draw it several times in the course of the piece. The soliloquies alone are well worth fifteen shillings; then ther&#039;s the stabbing King Henry—decidedly cheap at three and sixpence; that’s eighteen and sixpence; bullying the coffin-bearers—say eighteen pence, though it’s worth much more—that’s a pound. Then the love scene with Lady Anne, and the bustle of the fourth act can’t be dear at ten shillings more—that’s only one pound ten, including the &quot;off with his head!&quot;—which is sure to bring down the applause, and it is very easy to do—&quot;Orf with is ed&quot; (very quick and loud, then slow and sneeringly)—&quot;So much for Bu-u-u-uckingham!;&quot; lay the emphasis on the &quot;uck;&quot; get yourself gradually into a corner, and work with your right hand while your’e saying it, as if you were feeling your way; and its sure to do. The tent scene is confessedly worth half-a-sovereign, and so you have the fight in, gratis; and everybody knows what an effect may be produced by a good combat. One—two— three—four—over; then, one—two—three—four— under; then thrust; then dodge and slide about; then fall down on one knee; then get up again and stagger. You may keep on doing this, as long as it seems to take—say ten minutes—and then fall down (backwards, if you can manage it without hurting yourself), and die game. Nothing like it for producing an effect. They always do it at Astley’s and Sadler’s Wells, and if they don’t know how to do this sort of thing, who in the world does? A small child or a female in white increases the interest of a combat materially—indeed we don&#039;t think a regular legitimate terrific broad-sword combat could be done without; but it would be rather difficult, and somewhat unusual, to introduce this effect in the last scene of Richard the Third; so the only thing to be done is, just to make the best of a bad bargain, and be as long as possible fighting it out. The principal patrons of private theatres are dirty boys; low copying-clerks, in attornies’ offices; capacious headed youths from city counting-houses; Jews, whose business, as lenders of fancy dresses, is a sure passport to the amateur stage; shop-boys who now and then mistake their masters’ money for their own; and a choice miscellany of idle vagabonds. The proprietor of a private theatre may be an ex-scene painter, a low coffee-house keeper, a disappointed eighth-rate actor, a Chancery officer, a retired smuggler, or uncertificated bankrupt. The theatre itself may be in Catherine-street, Strand, the purlieus of the city, the neighbourhood of Gray’s-inn-lane, or the vicinity of Sadler’s-wells; or it may, perhaps, form the chief nuisance of some shabby street, on the Surrey side of Waterloo bridge. The lady performers pay nothing for their characters, and it is needless to add, are usually selected from one class of society; and the audiences are necessarily of much the same character as the performers, who receive in return for their contributions to the management tickets to the amount of the money they pay. All the minor theatres in London, especially the lowest, constitute the centre of a little stage-struck neighbourhood. Each of them has an audience exclusively its own, and at any you will see dropping into the pit at half-price, or swaggering into the back of a box, if the price of admission be a reduced one, divers boys of from 15 to 21 years of age, who throw back their coats, and turn up their wristbands, after the portraits of Count D’Orsay, hum tunes and whistle when the curtain is down, by way of persuading the people near them that they are not at all anxious to have it up again, and speak familiarly of the inferior performers as Bill Such-a-one, and Ned So-and-so, or tell each other how a new piece called The Unknown Bandit of the Invisible Cavern is in rehearsal; how Mister Palmer is to play The Unknown Bandit; how Charley Scarton is to take the part of an English sailor, and fight a broad-sword combat with six unknown bandits at one and the same time (one theatrical sailor is always equal to half a dozen men at least); how Mister Palmer and Charley Scarton are to go through a double hornpipe in fetters in the second act; how the interior of the invisible cavern is to occupy the whole extent of the stage, and other town—surprising theatrical announcements. These are your amateurs—these are the Richards, Shylocks, Beverleys, and Othellos—the Young Dorntons, Rovers, Captain Absolutes, and Charles Surfaces—of a private theatre. See them at the neighbouring public-house or the theatrical coffee-shop! Why, they&#039;re the kings of the place, supposing no real performers to be present; and roll-about, hats on one side, and arms a-kimbo, as if they had actually come into possession of eighteen shillings a week, and a share of a ticket night. If one of them does but know an Astley’s supernumerary he is a happy fellow. Look at that youth. You must have remarked the mingled air of envy and admiration with which his companions will regard him as he converses familiarly with the mouldy-looking man in a fancy neck-kerchief, whose partially corked eyebrows, and half rouged face, testify to the fact of his having just left the stage or the circle. Observe the indignation with which the man of mouldy appearance points to a newspaper of the day, and the perplexed air with which, after upsetting his half pint of coffee over that dirty scrap of paper, and then wiping it with his still dirtier pocket-handkerchief, his amateur friend attempts to scrawl a note, apparently to the editor. Poor creature! his visions of orthography are of the wildest; and he tortures pot-hooks into forms as distorted and unnatural as those into which his mouldy companion&#039;s unfortunate frame was twisted, when he first took lessons in the art of tumbling! With the double view of guarding against the discovery of friends or employers, and enhancing the interest of an assumed character, by attaching a high-sounding name to its representative, these geniuses assume fictitious cognomens, which are not the least amusing part of the play-bill of a private theatre. Belville, Melville, Treville, Berkeley, Randolph, Byron, St. Clair, and so forth, are among the humblest; and the less-imposing titles of Jenkins, Walker, Thompson, Huggins, Barker, Solomons, &amp;amp;c., are completely laid aside. There is something imposing in this, and it&#039;s an excellent apology for shabbiness into the bargain. A shrunken, faded coat, a decayed hat, a patched and soiled pair of trowsers—nay even a very dirty shirt (and none of these appearances are very uncommon among the members of the corps dramatique), may be worn for the purpose of disguise, and to prevent the remotest chance of recognition. Then it prevents any troublesome inquiries or explanations about employment and pursuits: everybody is a gentleman at large for the occasion, and there are none of those unpleasant and unnecessary distinctions to which even genius must occasionally succumb elsewhere. As to the ladies (God bless &#039;em) they&#039;re quite above any formal absurdities, the mere circumstance of your being behind the scenes is a sufficient introduction to their society—for of course they know that none but strictly respectable persons would be admitted into that close fellowship with them, which acting engenders. They place implicit reliance on the manager, no doubt; and, as to the manager, he is all affability when he knows you well,—or, in other words, when he has pocketed your money once, and entertains confident hopes of doing so again. A quarter before eight—There&#039;ll be a full house to-night—six parties in the boxes already; four little boys and a woman in the pit; and two fiddles and a flute in the orchestra, who have got through five overtures since seven o’clock (the hour fixed for the commencement of the performances) and have just begun the sixth. There&#039;ll be plenty of it though when it does begin, for there is enough in the bill to last six hours at least. That gentleman in the white hat and checked shirt, brown coat and brass buttons, lounging behind the stage-box on the O. P. side, is Mr. Horatio St. Julien, alias Jem Larkins. His line is genteel comedy—his father’s coal and tatur. He does Alfred Highflyer in the last piece, and very well he’ll do it—at the price. The party of gentlemen in the opposite box, to whom he has just nodded, are friends and supporters of Mr. Beverley (otherwise Loggins), the Macbeth of the night. You observe their attempts to appear easy and gentlemanly; each member of the party, with his feet cocked up on the cushion in front of the box? They let &#039;em do these things here upon the same humane principle which permits poor people’s children to knock double knocks at the door of an empty house—because they can’t do it anywhere else. The two stout men in the centre box, with an opera-glass ostentatiously placed before them, are friends of the proprietor&#039;s—opulent country managers, as he confidentially informs every individual among the crew behind the curtain— opulent country managers looking out for recruirts, a representation which Mr. Nathan the dresser, who is in the manager’s interest, and has just arrived with the costumes, offers to confirm upon oath if required—corroborative evidence, however, is quite unnecessary, for the gulls believe it at once. The stout Jewess who has just entered is the mother of the pale bony little girl with the necklace of blue glass beads, sitting by her. She is being brought up to &quot;the profession.&quot; Patomime is to be her line, and she&#039;s coming out to-night, in a hornpipe after the tragedy. The short thin man beside Mr. St. Julien, whose white face is deeply seared with the small-pox, and whose dirty shirt front is inlaid with open work, and embossed with coral studs like Lady Bird&#039;s, is the low comedian and comic singer of the establishment. The remainder of the audience—a tolerably numerous one by this time—are a motley group of dupes and blackguards. The foot-lights have just made their appearance: the wicks of the six little oil lamps round the only tier of boxes are being turned up, and the additional light thus afforded serves to show the presence of dirt and absence of paint, which forms a prominent feasure in the audience part of the house. As these preparations, however, announce the speedy commencement of the play, let us take a peep &quot;behind,&quot; previous to the ringing-up. The little narrow passages beneath the stage are neither especially clean, nor too brilliantly lighted; and the absence of any flooring, together with the damp, mildewy smell which pervades the places, does not conduce in any great degree to their comfortable appearance. Don’t fall over this plate basket—it’s one of the &quot;properties&quot;—the cauldron for the witches’ cave; and the three uncouth-looking figures with broken clothes-props in their hands, who are drinking gin and water out of a pint pot, are the weird sisters. This miserable room, lighted by candles in sconces placed at lengthened intervals round the wall, is the dressing-room common to the gentlemen performers, and the square hole in the ceiling is the trap door of the stage above. You will observe that the ceiling is ornamented with the beams that support the boards, and tastefully hung with cob-webs. The characters in the tragedy are all dressed, and their own clothes are scattered in hurried confusion over the wooden dresser which surrounds the room. That snuff-shop-looking figure in front of the glass is Banquo, and the young lady with the liberal display of legs, who is kindly painting his face with a hare’s foot, is dressed for Fleance. The large woman who is consulting the stage directions in Cumberland’s edition of Macbeth, is the Lady Macbeth of the night—she is always selected to play the part, because she&#039;s tall and stout, and looks a little like Mrs. Siddons—at a considerable distance. That stupid-looking milksop with light hair and bow legs—a kind of man whom you can warrant town-made—is fresh caught; he plays Malcolm to-night, just to accustom himself to an audience. He&#039;ll get on by degrees; he&#039;ll play Othello in a month, and in a month more will very probably be apprehended on a charge of embezzlement. The black-eyed female with whom he is talking so earnestly, is dressed for the &quot;gentlewoman.&quot; It&#039;s her first appearance, too—in that character. The boy of fourteen, who is having his eyebrows smeared with soap and whitening, is Duncan, King of Scotland; and the two dirty men with the corked countenances, in very old green tunics and dirty drab boots, are the &quot;army.&quot; &quot;Look sharp below there, gents,&quot; exclaims the dresser, a red-headed and red-whiskered Jew, calling through the trap, &quot;they’re a-going to ring up. The flute says he’ll be blowed if he plays any more, and they’re getting precious noisy in front.&quot; A general rush immediately takes place to the half dozen little steep steps leading to the stage, and the heterogeneous group are soon assembled at the side scenes in breathless anxiety and motley confusion. &quot;Now,&quot; cries the manager, consulting the written list which hangs behind the first P. S, wing, &quot;Scene 1, open country—lamps down—thunder and lightning—all ready, White?&quot; [this is addressed to one of the army]. &quot;All ready&quot;—&quot;Very well, scene 2 - front chamber; is the front chamber down?&quot; &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;Very well—Jones.&quot;—[To the other army who is up in the flies:] &quot;Hallo! Wind up the open country when we ring up.&quot; &quot;I’ll take care,&quot; growls the elevated army.—&quot;Scene 3, back perspective with practical bridge. Bridge ready, White? Got the tressels there?&quot; &quot;All right,&quot; responds the functionary. &quot;Very well. Clear the stage,&quot; adds the manager, hastily packing every member of the company into the little space there is between the wings and the wall, and one wing and another. &quot;Places, places, now then witches—Duncan—Malcolm—bloody officer—where’s that bloody officer?&quot;—&quot;Here!&quot; replies the officer, who has been rose-pinking for the character. &quot;Get ready, then; now, White, ring the second music bell.&quot; The actors who are to be discovered are hastily arranged, and the actors who are not to be discovered place themselves, in their anxiety to peep at the house, just where the whole audience can see them. The bell rings, and the orchestra, in acknowledgment of the call, play three distinct chords. The bell rings again, the tragedy (!) opens, and our description closes.18350811https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XIX_Private_Theatres/1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XIX_Private_Theatres.pdf
54https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/54'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XV, The Pawnbroker's Shop'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (30 June 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350630/023/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350630/023/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-06-20">1835-06-20</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXV_The_Pawnbrokers_ShopDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XV, The Pawnbroker's Shop' (30 June 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XV, The Pawnbroker's Shop.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (30 June 1835).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Of all the numerous receptacles for misery and distress with which the streets of London unhappily abound, there are, perhaps, none which present such striking scenes of vice and poverty as the pawnbrokers&#039; shops. The very nature and description of these places prevents their being but little known, except to the unfortunate beings whose profligacy or misfortune drives them to seek the temporary relief they offer: the subject may appear, at first sight, to be anything but an inviting one, but we venture on it nevertheless, in the hope that, as far as the limits of our present paper are concerned, it will present at all events nothing to disgust even the most fastidious reader.<br /> <br /> There are some pawnbrokers&#039; shops of a very superior description. There are grades in pawning as in everything else; and distinctions must be observed even in poverty. The aristocratic Spanish cloak, and the plebeian calico shirt—the silver fork and the flat-iron—the muslin cravat and the Belcher neck-kerchief, would assort but ill together; so the better sort of pawnbroker calls himself a silversmith, and decorates his shop with handsome trinkets and expensive jewellery, while the more humble money-lender boldly advertises his calling, and invites observation. It is with pawnbrokers&#039; shops of the latter class that we have to do. We have selected one for our purpose, and will endeavour to describe it.<br /> <br /> The pawnbroker&#039;s shop is situated near Drury-lane, at the corner of a court, which affords a side-entrance for the accommodation of such customers as may be desirous of avoiding the observation of the passers-by, or the chance of recognition in the public street. It is a low, dirty-looking dusty shop, the door of which stands always doubtfully, a little way open, half-inviting, half-repelling the hesitating visitor, who, if he be as yet uninitiated, examines one of the old garnet brooches in the window for a minute or two with affected eagerness, as if he contemplated making the purchase; and then looking cautiously round to ascertain that no one watches him, hastily slinks in; the door closing of itself after him to just its former width. The shop-front and the window-frames bear evident marks of having been once painted; but what the colour was originally, or at what date it was originally laid on, are, at this remote period, questions which may be asked, but cannot be answered. Tradition states that the transparency on the front door, which displays at night three red balls on a blue ground, once bore also, inscribed in graceful waves, the words &quot;Money advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of property,&quot; but a few illegible hieroglyphics are all that now remain to attest the fact. The plate and jewels would seem to have disappeared together with the announcement; for the articles of stock, which are displayed in some profusion in the window, do not include any very valuable luxuries of either kind. A few old china cups, some modern vases, adorned with paltry paintings of three Spanish cavaliers, playing three Spanish guitars, or a party of boors carousing, each boor with one leg painfully elevated in the air, by way of expressing his perfect freedom and gaiety—several sets of chess-men, two or three flutes, a few fiddles—a round-eyed portrait staring in astonishment from a very dark ground, some gaudily bound prayer-books and testaments—two rows of silver watches, quite as clumsy, and almost as large as Ferguson&#039;s first—numerous old fashioned table and tea-spoons displayed, fan-like, in half-dozens—strings of coral with great broad gilt snaps—cards of rings and brooches fastened and labelled separately like the insects in the British Museum—cheap silver penholders and snuff-boxes, with a masonic star, complete the jewellery department; while five or six beds in smeary, clouded ticks, strings of blankets and sheets, silk and cotton handkerchiefs, and wearing apparel of every description form the more useful, though even less ornamental, part of the articles exposed for sale. An extensive collection of planes, chisels, saws, and other carpenters&#039; tools, which have been pledged, and never redeemed, form the foreground of the picture; while the large frames, full of ticketted bundles which are dimly seen through the dirty casement up stairs—the squalid neighbourhood—the adjoining houses, straggling, shrunken, and rotten, with one or two filthy, unwholesome-looking heads thrust out of every window, and old red pans and stunted plants exposed on the tottering parapets, to the manifest hazard of the heads of the passers-by—the noisy men loitering under the archway at the corner of the court, or about the gin-shop next door, and their wives patiently standing on the curb-stone, with large baskets of cheap vegetables slung round them for sale, are its immediate auxiliaries.<br /> <br /> <br /> If the outside of the pawnbroker&#039;s shop be calculated to attract the attention, or excite the interest of the speculative pedestrian, its interior cannot fail to produce the same effect in a very increased degree. The front door, which we have before noticed, opens into the common shop, which is the resort of all those customers whose habitual acquaintance with such scenes render them indifferent to the observations of their companions in poverty. The side door opens into a small passage, from which some half dozen doors (which may be secured on the inside by bolts) open into a corresponding number of little dens or closets, which face the counter. Here the more timid, or respectable portion of the crowd, shroud themselves from the notice of the remainder, and patiently wait until the gentleman behind the counter, with the curly black hair, diamond ring, and double silver watch-guard, shall feel disposed to favour them with his notice—a consummation which depends considerably on the temper of the aforesaid gentleman for the time being. At the present moment this elegantly attired individual is in the act of entering the duplicate he has just made out in a thick book, a process from which he is diverted occasionally by a conversation he is carrying on with another young man similarly employed at a little distance from him, whose allusions to &quot;that last bottle of soda-water last night&quot;—and &quot;how regularly round my hat he felt himself when the young ooman gave &#039;em in charge,&quot; would appear to refer to the consequences of some stolen joviality of the preceding evening. The customers generally, however, seem rather unable to participate in the amusement derivable from this source, for an old sallow-looking woman who has been leaning with both arms on the counter, with a small bundle before her, for half-an-hour previously, suddenly interrupts the conversation by addressing the jewelled shopman - &quot;Now, Mr. Henry, do make haste, there&#039;s a good soul, for my two grand-children&#039;s a locked up at home, and I&#039;m afeer&#039;d o&#039; the fire.&quot; The shopman slightly raises his head, with an air of deep abstraction, and resumes his entry with as much deliberation as if he were engraving.—&quot;You&#039;re in a hurry, Mrs. Tatham, this ev&#039;nin&#039;—an&#039;t you?&quot; is the only notice he deigns to take after the lapse of five minutes or so. &quot;Yes, I am indeed, Mr. Henry; now do serve me next, there&#039;s a good creetur; I wouldn&#039;t worry you, only it&#039;s all along o&#039; them botherin&#039; children.&quot; &quot;Well what have you got here&quot; - inquires the shopman, unpinning the bundle—&quot;The old concern, I suppose—pair o&#039; stays and a petticut. You must look up something else, old ooman; I can&#039;t lend you any thing more upon them, they&#039;re completely worn out by this time, if it&#039;s only by putting in and taking out again, three times a week.&quot;—&quot;Oh! you are a rum &#039;un, you are,&quot; replies the old woman laughing extremely as in duty bound—&quot;I wish I&#039;d got the gift of the gab like you, see if I&#039;d be up the spout so often then? No, no; it ain&#039;t the petticut, it&#039;s a child&#039;s frock and a beautiful silk ankecher as belongs to my husband; he gave four shillin&#039; for it the wery same blessed day as he broke his arm.&quot;—&quot;What do you want upon these?&quot; inquires Mr. Henry, slightly glancing at the articles, which in all probability are old acquaintances. &quot;What do you want upon these?&quot;—&quot;Eighteenpence.&quot; —&quot;Lend you ninepence.&quot; &quot;Oh, make it a shillin&#039;— there&#039;s a dear! do now.&quot; &quot;Not another farden.&quot; &quot;Well, I suppose I must take it.&quot; The duplicate is made out; one ticket pinned on the parcel, the other given to the old woman; the parcel is flung carelessly down into a corner, and some other customer prefers his claim to be served without further delay. The choice falls upon an unshaven, dirty, sottish-looking fellow, whose tarnished paper cap, stuck negligently over one eye, communicates an additionally repulsive expression to his very uninviting countenance. He was enjoying a little relaxation from his sedentary pursuits a quarter of an hour ago, in kicking his wife up the court. He has come to redeem some tools:—probably to enable him to complete a job, on account of which he has already received some money, if his inflamed countenance and drunken stagger may be taken as evidence of the fact. Having waited some little time, he makes his presence known by venting his ill-humour on a ragged urchin, who, being unable to bring his face on a level with the counter by any other process has employed himself in climbing up and then hooking himself on with his elbows—an uneasy perch from which he has fallen at intervals, generally alighting on the toes of the person in his immediate vicinity. In the present case, the unfortunate little wretch has received a cuff which sends him reeling to the door, and the donor of the blow is immediately the object of general indignation. &quot;What do you strike the boy for, you brute?&quot; exclaims a slip-shod woman, with two flat-irons in a little basket. &quot;Do you think he&#039;s your wife you willin?&quot; &quot;Go and hang yourself,&quot; replies the gentleman addressed, with a drunken look of savage stupidity, aiming at the same time a blow at the woman, which fortunately misses its object. &quot;Go and hang yourself; and wait there till I come and cut you down.&quot;—&quot;Cut you down,&quot; rejoins the woman, &quot;I wish I had the cutting of you up, you wagabond! (loud).—oh! you precious wagabond! (rather louder).—where&#039;s your wife, you willin (louder still; women of this class are always sympathetic, and work themselves into a tremendous passion in no time)? Your poor dear wife as you uses worser nor a dog—strike a wo-man—you a man! (very shrill); I wish I had you—I&#039;d murder you, I would, if I died for it!&quot; &quot;Now be civil,&quot; retorts the man fiercely. &quot;Be civil, you wiper!&quot; ejaculates the woman contemptuously. &quot;An&#039;t it shocking,&quot; she continues, turning round and appealing to an old woman who is peeping out of one of the little closets we have before described, and who has not the slightest objection to join in the attack possessing, as she does, the comfortable conviction that she&#039;s bolted in. &quot;Ain&#039;t it shocking, ma&#039;am? (&quot;Dreadful!&quot; says the old woman in a parenthesis, not exactly knowing what the question refers to.); he&#039;s got a wife, ma&#039;am, as takes in mangling, and is as &#039;dustrious and hard working a young ooman as can be, (very fast) as lives in the back parlour of our &#039;ous, which my husband and me lives in the front one (with great rapidity)—and we hears him a beaten&#039; on her sometimes when he comes home drunk, the whole night through, and not only a beaten&#039; her, but beaten his own child too, to make her more miserable—ugh, you beast!—and she, poor creetur won&#039;t swear the peace agin him, nor do nothin&#039;, because she likes the wretch arter all—worse luck!&quot; Here as the woman has completely run herself out of breath, the pawnbroker himself, who has just appeared behind the counter in a grey dressing-gown, embraces the favourable opportunity of putting in a word:—&quot;Now I won&#039;t have none of this sort of thing on my premises,&quot; he interposes with an air of authority. &quot;Mrs. Mackin, keep yourself to yourself, or I&#039;m damned if you get four pence for a flat iron here; and, Jinkins you leave your ticket here till you&#039;re sober, and send your wife for them two planes, for I won&#039;t have you in my shop at no price; so make yourself scarce, before I make you scarcer.&quot; This eloquent address produces anything but the effect desired; the women rail in concert; the man hits about him in all directions, and is in the act of establishing an indisputable claim to gratuitous lodgings for the night, when the entrance of his wife—a wretched worn-out woman apparently in the last stage of consumption, whose face bears evident marks of recent ill-usage, and whose strength seems hardly equal to the burden—light enough, God knows—of the thin, sickly child she carries in her arms, turns his cowardly rage in a safer direction. &quot;Come home, dear,&quot; cries the miserable creature, in an imploring tone; &quot;Do come home, there&#039;s a good fellow, and go to bed.&quot; &quot;Go home yourself,&quot; rejoins the furious ruffian, accompanying an epithet we cannot repeat, with a kick we will not describe. &quot;Do come home quietly,&quot; repeats the wife, bursting into tears. &quot;Go home yourself,&quot; retorts the husband again, enforcing his argument by the application we have before hinted at. The poor creature flies out of the shop with the impetus thus administered; and her &quot;natural protector&quot; follows her up the court, alternately venting his rage in accelerating her progress, and in knocking the little scanty blue bonnet of the unfortunate child over its still more scanty and faded-looking face.<br /> <br /> The scene of which we have just attempted a slight description, is scarcely concluded, when a couple of the private boxes are occupied by persons who present so striking a contrast to each other, that we cannot resist the temptation of noticing them in our sketch as briefly as possible. In the last one which is situated in the darkest and most obscure corner of the shop considerably removed from either of the gas-lights, are a young delicate girl of about twenty and an elderly female—evidently her mother from the resemblance between them—who stand at some distance back, as if to avoid the observation even of the shopmen. It is not their first visit to a pawnbroker&#039;s shop, for they answer without a moment&#039;s hesitation the usual questions, put in a rather respectful manner, and in a much lower tone than usual, of &quot;What name shall I say?&quot; &quot;Your own property, of course?&quot; &quot;Where do you live, ma&#039;am?&quot; &quot;Housekeeper or lodger?&quot; They bargain, too, for a higher loan than the shopman is at first inclined to offer, which a perfect stranger would be little disposed to do, and the elderly female urges her daughter on in scarcely audible whispers to exert her utmost powers of persuasion to obtain an advance of the sum, and expatiate on the value of the articles they have brought to raise a present supply upon. They are a small gold chain and a &quot;Forget me not&quot; ring: the girl&#039;s property, for they are both too small for the mother; given her in better times—prized perhaps once for the giver&#039;s sake, but parted with now without a struggle; for want has hardened the mother, and her example has hardened the girl; and the prospect of receiving money, coupled with a recollection of the misery they have both endured from the want of it; the coldness of old friends—the stern refusal of some and the still more galling compassion of others—appears to  obliterate the consciousness of self humiliation which the bare idea of their present situation would once have aroused. In the next is a young female, whose attire, miserably poor but extremely gaudy, wretchedly cold but scrupulously fine, too plainly bespeaks her station in life. The rich satin gown with its faded trimmings—the worn-out thin shoes, and pink silk stockings—the summer bonnet in winter, and the sunken face where a daub of rouge only serves as an index to the ravages of squandered health never to be regained, and lost happiness never to be restored; and where the practised smile is a wretched mockery of the misery of the heart—cannot be mistaken. There is something in the glimpse she has just caught of her young neighbour, and in the sight of the little trinkets she has offered in pawn, that seems to have awakened in this woman&#039;s mind some slumbering recollection, and to have changed for an instant her whole demeanour. Her first hasty impulse was to bend forward as if to scan more minutely the appearance of her half-concealed companions; her next, on seeing them involuntarily shrink from her, to retreat to the back of the box, cover her face with her hands, and burst into an agony of tears. There are strange chords in the human heart, which will lie dormant through years of depravity and wickedness, but which will vibrate at last to some slight circumstance apparently trivial in itself, but connected by some undefined and indistinct association with past days that can never be recalled, and with bitter recollections from which the most degraded creature in existence cannot escape. There has been another spectator, in the person of a woman in the common shop; the lowest of the low; dirty, unbonnetted, flaunting, and slovenly. Her curiosity was at first attracted by the little she could see of the group; then her attention; the half- intoxicated leer changed to an expression of something like interest, and a feeling similar to that we have described, appeared for a moment, and only a moment, to extend itself even to her bosom.<br /> <br /> Who shall say how soon these women may change places? The last has but two more stages—the hospital and the grave! How many females situated as her two companions are, and as she may have been once, have terminated the same wretched course, in the same wretched manner? One is already tracing her footsteps with frightful rapidity. How soon may the other follow her example! How many have done the same!<br /> <br /> Such are a few of the sights and scenes of a Pawnbroker&#039;s Shop. We could extend this sketch much further; but we fear the subject would present few—very few—attractions. We will, therefore, only apologise for having dwelt upon it so long.18350630https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XV_The_Pawnbroker_s_Shop/1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop.pdf
56https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/56'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XVII, The Streets - Morning'Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (21 July 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350721/013/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350721/013/0001</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-07-21">1835-07-21</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVII_The_Streets_MorningDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XVII, The Streets - Morning' (21 July 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVII_The_Streets_Morning">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVII_The_Streets_Morning</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVII_The_Streets_Morning.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Sketches of London, No. XVII, The Streets - Morning.' <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (21 July 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sun-rise on a summer’s morning, is most striking even to the few whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, make them well acquainted with the scene. There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and the quiet closely shut buildings which throughout the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive. The last drunken man who shall find his way home before sunlight has just staggered heavily along, occasionally roaring out the burden of the drinking song of the previous night: the last houseless vagrant whom penury and police have left in the streets, has coiled up his chilly limbs in some paved corner, to dream of food and warmth: the drunken, the dissipated, and the wretched have disappeared: the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labours of the day; and the stillness of death is over the streets; its very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the grey, sombre light of daybreak. The coach-stands in the larger thoroughfares are deserted; the night houses are closed; the chosen promenades of profligate misery are empty. An occasional policeman may be seen at the street corners, listlessly gazing on the deserted prospect before him; and now and then a rakish-looking cat runs stealthily across the road, and descends his own area with as much caution and slyness—bounding first on the water-butt, then on the dust-hole, and then alighting on the flag-stones —as if he were conscious that his character depended on his gallantries of the preceding night escaping public observation. A partially opened bedroom-window here and there bespeaks the heat of the weather and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of the rush-light through the window-blind denotes the chamber of watching or sickness. With these few exceptions, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. An hour wears away; the spires of the churches and roofs of the principal buildings are faintly tinged with the light of the rising sun, and the streets, by almost imperceptible degrees, begin to resume their bustle and animation. Market carts roll slowly along, the sleepy waggoner impatiently urging on his tired horses, or vainly endeavouring to awaken the boy, who, luxuriously stretched on the top of the fruit baskets, forgets in happy oblivion his long-cherished curiosity to behold the wonders of London. Rough, sleepy-looking animals of strange appearance, something between ostlers and hackney coachmen, begin to take down the shutters of early public-houses, and little deal tables, with the ordinary preparations for a street breakfast, make their appearance at the customary stations. Numbers of men and women (principally the latter) carrying upon their heads heavy baskets of fruit, toil down the park side of Piccadilly, on their way to Covent-garden; and following each other in rapid succession, form a long straggling line from thence to the turn of the road at Knightsbridge. Here and there a bricklayer’s labourer, with the day’s dinner tied up in a handkerchief, walks briskly to his work, and occasionally a little knot of three or four school-boys on a stolen bathing expedition, rattle merrily over the pavement; their boisterous mirth contrasting forcibly with the demeanour of the little sweep, who, having knocked and rung till his arm aches, and being interdicted by a merciful Legislature from endangering his lungs by calling out, sits patiently down on the door-step until the house maid may happen to awake. Covent-garden Market, and the avenues leading to it, are thronged with carts of all sorts, sizes, and descriptions, from the heavy lumbering waggon with its four stout horses, to the jingling costermonger’s cart with its consumptive donkey. The pavement is already strewed with decayed cabbage leaves, broken haybands, and all the indescribable litter of a vegetable market and the numerous noises are almost as multifarious. Men shouting, carts backing, horses neighing, boys fighting, basket-women talking, piemen expatiating on the excellence of their pastry, donkeys braying, and a hundred other sounds form a compound discordant enough to a Londoner’s ears, and remarkably disagreeable to those of country gentlemen, who are sleeping at the Hummums for the first time. Another hour passes away, and the day begins in good earnest. The servant of all work, who, under the plea of sleeping very soundly, has utterly disregarded &quot;Missises ringing&quot; for half an hour previously, is warned by master (whom Missis has sent up in his drapery to the landing-place for that purpose) that it’s half-past six, whereupon she awakes all of a sudden with well feigned astonishment, and goes down stairs very sulkily, wishing, while she strikes a light, that the principle of spontaneous combustion would extend itself to coals and kitchen ranges; when the fire is lit she opens the street-door to take in the milk when, by the most singular coincidence in the world, she discovers that the servant next door has just taken in her milk too, and that Mr. Todd’s young man over the way is by an equally extraordinary chance taking down his master’s shutters. The inevitable consequence is, that she just steps milk-jug in hand as far as next door just to say &quot;good morning&quot; to Betsy Clark, and that Mr. Todd’s young man just steps over the way just to say &quot;good morning&quot; to both of ’em; and as the aforesaid Mr. Todd’s young man is almost as good-looking and fascinating as the baker himself, the conversation quickly becomes very interesting, and probably would become more so, if Betsy Clark’s missis, who always will be a followin’ her about, didn’t give an angry tap at her bed-room window, on which Mr. Todd’s young man tries to whistle coolly, as he goes back to his shop much faster than he came from it; and the two girls run back to their respective places, and shut their street-doors with surprising softness, each of them poking their heads out of the front parlour-window a minute afterwards, however, ostensibly with the view of looking at the mail which just then passes by, but really for the purpose of catching another glimpse of Mr. Todd’s young man, who, being fond of mails, but more fond of females, takes a short look at the coach and a long look at the girls, much to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. The mail itself goes on to the coach-office in due course, and the passengers who are going out by the early coach stare with astonishment at the passengers who are coming in by the early coach, who look blue and dismal, and are evidently under the influence of that odd feeling produced by travelling, which makes the events of yesterday morning seem as if they had happened at least six months ago, and induces people to wonder with considerable gravity whether the friends and relations they took leave of a fortnight before, have altered much since they have left them. The coach-office is all alive, and the coaches which are just going out are surrounded by the usual crowd of Jews and nondescripts, who seem to consider, God knows why, that it&#039;s quite impossible any man can mount a coach without requiring at least sixpenn&#039;orth of oranges, a pen-knife, a pocket-book, a last year’s annual, a pencil-case, a piece of sponge, and a small series of caricatures. Half-an-hour more, and the sun darts his bright rays cheerfully down the still half-empty streets, and shines with sufficient force to rouse the diurnal laziness of the apprentice, who pauses every other minute from his task of sweeping out the shop and watering the pavement in front of it, to tell another apprentice similarly employed how hot it will be to-day, or to stand with his right hand shading his eyes and his left resting on the broom, gazing at the Wonder, or the Tally-Ho, or the Nimrod, or some other fast coach, till it&#039;s out of sight, when he re-enters the shop envying the passengers on the outside of the fast coach, and thinking of the old red brick house &quot;down in the country,&quot; where he went to school: the miseries of thin milk and water and thick bread and scrapings fading into nothing before the pleasant recollection of the green field the boys used to play in, and the green pond he was caned for presuming to fall into, and other school-boy associations. Cabs, with trunks and band-boxes between the drivers’ legs and outside the apron, rattle briskly up and down the streets on their way to the coach-offices, or steam-packet wharfs; and the cab-drivers and hackney-coachmen who are on the stand. polish up the ornamental part of their dingy vehicles—the former wondering how people can prefer &quot;them wild-beast cariwans of omnibuses to a riglar cab with a fast trotter,&quot; and the latter admiring how people can trust their necks into one of &quot;them crazy cabs, when they can have a ’spectable ackney cotche with a pair of orses as von’t run away with no vun;&quot;—a consolation unquestionably founded in fact, seeing that a hackney-coach horse never was known to run at all, &quot;except,&quot; as the smart cabman in front of the rank observes, &quot;except one, and he run back’ards!&quot; The shops are now completely opened, and apprentices and shopmen are busily engaged in cleaning and decking the windows for the day. The bakers’ shops in town are filled with servants and children waiting for the drawing of the first batch of rolls—an operation which was performed a full hour ago in the suburbs; for the early clerk population of Somers and Camdon Towns, Islington and Pentonville, are fast pouring into the City, or directing their steps towards Chancery-lane and the inns of court. Middle-aged men, whose salaries have by no means increased in the same proportion as their families, plod steadily along, apparently with no object in view but the counting-house, knowing by sight almost everybody they meet or overtake, for they have seen them every morning (Sunday excepted) during the last twenty years; but speaking to no one. If they do happen to overtake a personal acquaintance, they just exchange a hurried salutation, and keep walking on, either by his side or in front of him, as his rate of walking may chance to be. As to stopping to shake hands, or to take the friend’s arm, they seem to think that it is not included in their salary, and they have no right to do it. Small office lads in large hats, who are made men before they are boys, hurry along in pairs with their first coat carefully brushed, and the white trowsers of last Sunday plentifully besmeared with dust and ink. It evidently requires a considerable mental struggle to avoid investing part of the day’s dinner-money in the purchase of the stale tarts so temptingly exposed in dusty tins at the pastry-cooks’ doors; but a consciousness of their own importance, and the receipt of seven shillings a week, with the prospect of an early rise to eight comes to their aid, and they accordingly put their hats a little more on one side, and look under the bonnets of all the milliners’ and stay-makers’ apprentices they meet. Poor girls! The hardest worked, the worst paid; and too often the worst used, class of the community. Eleven o’clock, and a new set of people fill the streets. The goods in the shop-windows are invitingly arranged: the shopmen in their white neck-kerchiefs and spruce coats, look as if they couldn’t clean a window if their lives depended on it: the carts have disappeared from Covent Garden: the waggoners have returned and the costermongers repaired to their ordinary &quot;beats&quot; in the suburbs: clerks are at their offices, and gigs, cabs, omnibuses, and saddle-horses are conveying their masters to the same destination. The streets are thronged with a vast concourse of people - gay and shabby, rich and poor, idle and industrious; and we come to the heat, bustle, and activity of noon.18350721https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XVII_The_Streets_-_Morning/1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London,_No._XVII_The_Streets_Morning.pdf
57https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/57'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XVIII, Our Parish' (IV)Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (28 July 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350728/018/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350728/018/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-07-28">1835-07-28</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-07-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVIII_Our_ParishIVDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XVIII, Our Parish' (IV) (28 July 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVIII_Our_ParishIV">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVIII_Our_ParishIV</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-07-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVIII_Our_ParishIV.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Sketches of London, No. XVIII, Our Parish' (IV). <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (28 July 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>The excitement of the election for Beadle having subsided, and our parish being again restored to a state of comparative tranquility, we are enabled to continue our sketches of individual parishioners who take no share in our party contests, or in the turmoil and bustle of public life. And we feel sincere pleasure in acknowledging here, that in collecting materials for this task we have been greatly assisted by Mr. Bung himself, who has imposed on us a debt of obligation which we fear we can never repay. The life of this gentleman has been one of a very chequered description: he has undergone transitions—not from grave to gay, for he never was grave—not from lively to severe, for severity forms no part of his disposition; his fluctuations have been between poverty in the extreme &amp;amp; poverty modified, or, to use his own emphatic languages, between nothing to eat and just half enough. He is not as he forcibly remarks, &quot;One of those fortunate men who if they were to dive under one side of a barge stark-naked, would come up on the other, with a new suit of clothes on, and a ticket for soup in the waistcoat pocket:&quot; neither is he one of those, whose spirit has been broken beyond redemption by misfortune and want. He is just one of the careless, good-for-nothing, happy fellows, who float cork like on the surface, for the world to play at hockey with: knocked here and there and every where: now to the right, then to the left, again up in the air, and anon to the bottom, but always reappearing, and bounding with the stream, buoyantly and merrily along. Some few months before he was prevailed upon to stand a contested election for the office of beadle, necessity attached him to the service of a broker; and on the opportunities he here acquired of ascertaining the condition of most of the poorer inhabitants of the parish, his patron, the Captain, first grounded his claims to public support. Chance threw the man in our way a short time since. We were, in the first instance, attracted by his prepossessing impudence at the election; we were not surprised, on further acquaintance, to find him a shrewd knowing fellow, with no inconsiderable power of observation, and after conversing with him a little, were somewhat struck (as we dare say our readers have frequently been in other cases) with the power some men seem to have, not only of sympathizing with, but to all appearance of understanding feelings, to which they themselves are entire strangers. We had been expressing to the new functionary our surprise that he should ever have served in the capacity to which we have just adverted, when we gradually led him into one or two professional anecdotes. As are are induced to think on reflection that they will tell better, in nearly his own words, than with any attempted embellishments of our&#039;s, we will at once entitle them <br /> MR. BUNG&#039;S NARRATIVE. &quot;It&#039;s very true, as you say Sir,&quot; Mr. Bung commenced, &quot;that a broker&#039;s man&#039;s is not a life to envied; and in course you know as well as I do, though you don&#039;t say it, that people hate and scout &#039;em, because they&#039;re the Ministers of wretchedness, like, to poor people. But what could I do Sir? The thing was no worse, because I did it instead of somebody else, and if putting me in possession of a house, would put me in possession of three and sixpence a day, and levying a distress on another man&#039;s goods would relieve my distress and that of my family, it can&#039;t be expected but what I&#039;d take the job and go through with it. I never liked it, God knows; I always looked out for something else, and the moment I got other work to do I left it, and if there is any thing wrong in being the agent in such matters—not the principal mind you—I&#039;m sure the business, to a beginning like I was, at all events carries its own punishment along with it. I wished again and again that the people would only blow me up, or pitch into me—that I wouldn&#039;t have minded: it&#039;s all in my way: but it&#039;s the being shut up by yourself in one room for three days, without so much as an old newspaper to look at, or any thing to see out o&#039; the winder but the roofs and chimnies at the back of the house, or any thing to listen to but the ticking perhaps of an old Dutch clock, the sobbing of the missis now and then, the low talking of friends in the next room, who speak in whispers, lest &quot;the man&quot; should over-hear them, or perhaps the occasional opening of the door, as a child peeps in to look at you, and then runs half frightened away.—It&#039;s all this that makes you feel sneaking somehow, and ashamed of yourself; and then if it&#039;s winter time they just give you fire enough to make you think you&#039;d like more, and bring in your grub as if they wish it u&#039;d choke you—as I dare say they do, for the matter of that, most heartily. If they&#039;re very civil, they make you up a bed in the room at night; and if they don&#039;t, your master sends one in for you; but there you are, without being washed or shaved all the time, shunned by every body and spoken to by no one unless some one comes in at dinner time, and asks you whether you want any more, in a tone as much to say, &quot;I hope you don&#039;t;&quot; or, in the evening, to inquire whether you wouldn&#039;t rather have a candle, after you&#039;ve been sitting in the dark half the night. When I was left in this way, I used to sit think, think, thinking, till I felt as lonesome as a kitten in a wash-house copper with the lid on; but I believe the old brokers&#039; men, who are regularly trained to it, never think at all. I have heard some on &#039;em say, indeed, that they don&#039;t know how! &quot;I put in a good many distresses in my time (continued Mr. Bung), and in course I wasn&#039;t long in finding that some people are not as much to be pitied as others are, and that people with good incomes, who get into difficulties, which they keep patching up day after day, and week after week, get so used to these sorts of things in time, that at last they come scarcely to feel them at all. I remember the very first place I was put in possession of was a gentleman&#039;s house in this parish here, that every body would suppose couldn&#039;t help having money if he tried. I went with old Fixem, my old master, &#039;bout half-arter eight in the morning, rang the area-bell, servant in livery opened the door; &#039;Governor at home?&#039;—&#039;Yes, he is,&#039; says the man; &#039;but he&#039;s a breakfasting just now&#039;—&#039;Never mind,&#039; says Fixem, &#039;just you tell him there&#039;s a gentleman here as wants to speak to him partickler.&quot; So the servant he opens his eyes, and stares about him all ways—looking for the gentleman, as it struck me; for I don&#039;t think anybody but a man as was stone-blind would mistake Fixem for one; and as for me, I was as seedy as a cheap cowcumber. Hows&#039;ever he turns round and goes to the breakfast-parlour, which was a little snug sort of room at the end of the passage, and Fixem (as we always did in that profession) without waiting to be announced, walks in arter him; and before the servant could get out—&#039;Please Sir, here&#039;s a man as wants to speak to you&#039;—looks in at the door as familiar and pleasant as may be. &#039;Who the devil are you: and how dare you walk into a gentleman&#039;s house without leave?&#039;—says the master, as fierce as a bull in fits—&#039;My name,&#039; says Fixem, winking at the master to send the servant away, and putting the warrant into his hands folded up like a note, &#039;My name&#039;s Smith,&#039; says he,&#039; and I called from Johnson&#039;s about that business of Thompson&#039;s.&#039;—&#039;Oh,&#039; says the other, quite down upon him directly, &#039;How is Thompson?&#039; says he.—&#039;Pray sit down, Mr. Smith: John—leave the room.&#039;— Out went the servant, and the gentleman and Fixem looked at one another till they couldn&#039;t look any longer, and then they varied the amusement by looking at me, who had been standing on the mat all this time.—&#039;Hundred and fifty pounds, I see,&#039; said the gentleman at last.—&#039;Hundred and fifty pound,&#039; said Fixem &#039;besides cost of levy, sheriff&#039;s poundage, and all other incidental expenses.&#039; &#039;Um,&#039; says the gentleman, &#039;I shan&#039;t be able to settle this before to-morrow afternoon.&#039;—&#039;Very sorry; but I shall be obliged to leave my man here till then,&#039; replies Fixem, pretending to look very miserably over it. &#039;That&#039;s very unfortunate,&#039; said the gentleman, &#039;for I&#039;ve got a large party here to-night; and I&#039;m ruined if those fellows of mine get an inkling of the matter.—Just step here, Mr. Smith,&#039; says he, after a short pause; so Fixem walks with him up to the window, and after a good deal o&#039; whispering, and a little chinking of suverins, and looking at me, he comes back and says &#039;Bung: you&#039;re a handy fellow, and very honest I know. This gentleman wants an assistant to clean the plate and wait at table today; and if you&#039;re not particularly engaged,&#039; says old Fixem, grinning like mad, and shoving a couple of suverins into my hand, &#039;he&#039;ll be very glad to avail himself of your services.&#039; Well, I laughed, and the gentleman laughed, and we all laughed; and I went home and cleaned myself, leaving Fixem there; and when I went back, Fixem went away, and I polished up the plate, and waited at table, and gammoned the servants, and nobody had the least idea I was in possession; though it very nearly came out after all: for one of the last gentlemen who remained, came down stairs into the hall where I was sitting pretty late at night, and putting half a crown in my hand says, &#039;Here, my man,&#039; says he, &#039;run and get me a coach, will you?&#039; I thought it was a do to get me out of the house, and was just going to say so, sulkily enough, when the gentleman (who was up to every thing) came running down stairs as if he was in great anxiety. &#039;Bung,&#039; says he, pretending to be in a con-suming passion, &#039;Sir,&#039; says I. &#039;Why the devil an&#039;t you looking after that plate?&#039; says he. &#039;I was just going to send him or a coach for me,&#039; says the other gentleman. &#039;And I was just a going to say,&#039; says I,—&#039;Any body else, my dear fellow,&#039; interrupts the master of the house, pushing me down the passage to get me out of the way—&#039;anybody else; but I have put this man in possession of all the plate and valuables, and I cannot allow him on any consideration whatever to leave the house. Bung, damn you, go and count those forks in the breakfast-parlour instantly.&#039; You may be sure I went laughing pretty hearty when I found it was all right. The money was paid next day, with the addition of something else for myself, and that was the best job that I (and I suspect old Fixem too) ever got in that line.&quot; &quot;But this is the bright side of the picture, sir, after all,&quot; resumed Mr. Bung, laying aside the knowing look and flash air with which he had repeated the previous anecdote—&quot;and I&#039;m sorry to say it&#039;s the side one sees very—very seldom in comparison with the dark one. The civility which money will purchase is rarely extended to those who have none; and there&#039;s a consolation even in being able to patch up one difficulty to make way for another, to which very poor people are strangers. I was once put into a house down George&#039;s-yard—that little dirty court at the back of the gas-works; and I never shall forget the misery of them people, dear me. It was a distress for half a year&#039;s rent—two pound ten I think. There were only two rooms in the house, as there was no passage, the lodgers up stairs always went through the room of the people of the house, as they passed in and out, and every time they did so—which on average was about four times every quarter of an hour—they blowed up quite frightful: for their things had been seized too, and included in the inventory. There was a little piece of inclosed dust in front of the house, with a cinder path leading up to the door, and an open rain-water butt on one side. A dirty striped curtain on a very slack strong hung in the window, and a little triangular bit of broken looking-glass rested on the sill inside. I suppose it was meant for the people&#039;s use, but their appearance was so wretched and so miserable, that I&#039;m certain they never could have plucked up courage to look themselves in the face a second time, if they survived the fright of doing so once. There was two or three chairs, that might have been worth, in their best days, from eight-pence to a shilling a-piece; a small deal table; an old corner cupboard, with nothing in it, and one of those bedsteads which turn up half way, and leave the bottom legs sticking out for you to knock your head against, or hang your hat upon; no bed, no bedding. There was an old sack, by way of rug, before the fire-place, and four or five children were grovelling about among the sand on the floor. The execution was only put in to get &#039;em out of the house, for there was nothing to take to pay the expenses; and here I stopped for three days, though that was a mere form too: for in course I knew, and we all knew, they could never pay the money. In one of the chairs by the side of the place where the fire ought to have been, was an old &#039;ooman—the ugliest and dirtiest I ever see—who sat rocking herself backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards without once stopping, except for an instant, now and then, to clasp together the withered hands which, with these exceptions, she kept constantly rubbing upon her knees, just raising and depressing her fingers convulsively, in time to the rocking of the chair. On the other side sat the mother with an infant in her arms which cried &#039;till it cried itself to sleep, and when it woke, cried &#039;till it cried itself off again. The old &#039;ooman&#039;s voice I never heard; she seemed completely stupified; and as to the mother&#039;s, it would have been better if she had been so too; for misery changed her to a devil; if you had heard how she cursed the little naked children as was rolling on the floor, and seen how savagely she struck the infant when it cried with hunger, you&#039;d have shuddered as much as I did. There they remained all the time: the children eat a morsel of bread once or twice, and I gave &#039;em best part of the dinners my missis brought me; but the women eat nothing: they never even laid down on the bedstead, nor was the room swept or cleaned all the time. The neighbours were all too poor themselves to take any notice of &#039;em; but what I could make out from the abuse of the woman up-stairs, it seemed the husband had been transported a few weeks before. When the time was up, the landlord and old Fixem too, got rather frightened about the family; and so they made a stir about it, and got &#039;em taken to the workhouse. They sent the sick couch for the old &#039;ooman; and Simmons took the children away at night. The old &#039;ooman went into the infirmary, and very soon died. The children are all in the house to this day, and very comfortable they are in comparison; as to the mother, there was no taming her at all. She had been a quiet, hard-working woman, I believe; but her misery had actually drove her wild; so after she had been sent to the House of Correction half a dozen times, for throwing inkstands at the overseers, blaspheming the churchwardens, and smashing every body as come near her, she burst a blood vessel one mornin&#039;, and died too—and a happy release it was, both for herself and the old paupers male and female, which she used to tip over in all directions, as if they were so many skittles, and she the ball. &quot;Now this was bad enough,&quot; resumed Mr. Bung, taking a half-step towards the door, as if to intimate that he had nearly concluded. &quot;This was bad enough, but there was a sort of quiet misery—if you understand what I mean by that, Sir—about a lady at one house I was put into, as touched me a good deal more. It doesn&#039;t matter where it was exactly; indeed, I&#039;d rather not say; but it was the same sort o&#039;job. I went with Fixem in the usual way—there was a year&#039;s rent in arrear; a very small servant-girl opened the door, and three or four fine looking little children was in the front parlour we was shown into, which was very clean, but very scantily furnished, much like the children themselves. &#039;Bung,&#039; says Fixem to me in a low voice when we were left alone for a minute, &#039;I know something about this here family, and my opinion is, it&#039;s no go.&#039; &#039;Do you think they can&#039;t settle?&#039; says I, quite anxiously: for I liked the looks of them children. Fixem shook his head, and was just about to reply when the door opened, and in come a lady as white as ever I see any one in my days, except about the eyes, which were red with crying. She walked in as firm as I could have done: shut the door carefully after her, and sat herself down with a face as composed as if it was made of stone. &#039;What is the matter, gentlemen,&#039; says she, in a surprisin&#039; steady voice. &#039;Is this an execution?&#039; &#039;It is, Mum,&#039; says Fixem. The lady looked at him as steady as ever; she didn&#039;t seem to have understood him. &#039;It is, Mum,&#039; says Fixem again, &#039;this is my warrant of distress, Mum&#039; says he, handing it over as polite as if it was a newspaper which had been bespoke arter the next gentleman. The lady&#039;s lip trembled as she took the printed paper. She cast her eye over it, and old Fixem began to explain the form, but I saw she wasn&#039;t reading it, plain enough, poor thing. &#039;Oh, my God!&#039; says she, suddenly a-bursting out crying, letting the warrant fall, and hiding her fact in her hands. &#039;Oh, my God! what will become of us?&#039; The noise she made brought in a young lady of about nineteen or twenty, who, I suppose, had been a-listening at the door: she&#039;d got a little boy in her arms; she sat him down in the lady&#039;s l ap, without speaking, and she hugged the poor little fellow to her bosom and cried over him, till even old Fixem put on his blue spectacles to hide the two tears that was a trickling down, one on each side of his dirty face. &#039;Now, dear Ma,&#039; says the young lady, &#039;you know how much you have borne. For all our sakes: for Pa&#039;s sake,&#039; says the lady, &#039;don&#039;t give way to this!&#039; &#039;No, no, I won&#039;t!&#039; says the lady, gathering herself up hastily and drying her eyes; &#039;I am very foolish, but I&#039;m better now—much better.&#039; And then she roused herself up; went with us into every room while we took the inventory; opened all the drawers of her own accord; sorted the children&#039;s little clothes to make the work easier; and, except doing everything in a strange sort of hurry, seemed as calm and composed as if nothing had happened. When we came down stairs again, she hesitated a minute or two, and at last says, &#039;Gentleman,&#039; says she, &#039;I am afraid I have done wrong, and perhaps it may bring you into trouble. I secreted just now,&#039; she says, &#039;the only trinket I have left in the world— here it is.&#039; So she lays down on the table a little miniature mounted in gold. &#039;It&#039;s a miniature,&#039; she says, &#039;of my poor dear father! I little thought, once that I should ever thank God for depriving me of the original; but I do, and have done for years back, most fervently. Take it away, sir,&#039; she says, &#039;it&#039;s a face that never turned from me in sickness or distress, and I can hardly bear to turn from it now, when, God knows, I suffer both in no ordinary degree.&#039;—I couldn&#039;t say nothing, but I raised my head from the inventory which I was filling up, and looked at Fixem; the old fellow nodded to me significantly; so I ran my pen through the &#039;Mini&#039; - I had just written, and left the miniature on the table. &quot;Well, sir, to make short of a long story, I was left in possession, and in possession I remained; and though I was an ignorant man, and the master of the house a clever one, I saw what he never did, but what he would give worlds now (if he had &#039;em) to have seen in time. I saw, sir, that his wife was wasting away beneath cares of which she never complained, and griefs she never told. I saw that she was dying before his eyes: I knew that an exertion from him might have saved her; but he never made it. I don&#039;t blame him: I don&#039;t think he could rouse himself. She had for so long anticipated all his wishes, and acted for him, that he was a lost man when left to himself. I used to think when I caught sight of her, in the clothes she used to wear, which looked shabby even upon her, and would have been scarcely decent on any one else, that if I was a gentleman it would wring my very heart to see the woman that was a smart and merry girl when I courted her, so altered through her love for me. Bitter cold and damp weather it was; yet though her dress was thin, and her shoes none of the best, during the whole three days, from morning to night, she was out of doors running about to try and raise the money. The money was raised, and the execution was paid out. The whole family crowded into the room where I was when the money arrived. The father was quiet happy as the inconvenience was removed—I dare say he didn&#039;t know how—the children looks merry and cheerful again; the eldest girl was bustling about making preparations for the first comfortable meal they had had since the distress was put in—and the mother looked pleased to see them all so; but if ever I saw death in a woman&#039;s face, I saw it in her&#039;s, that night. &quot;I was right, sir,&quot; concluded Mr. Bung, hurriedly passing his coat-sleeve over his face. &quot;The family grew more prosperous, and good fortune arrived. But it was too late. Those children are motherless now, and their father would give up all that he has since gained—house, home, goods, money; all that he has, or ever can have to restore the wife he has lost. (To be continued.)18350728https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XVIII_Our_Parish_[IV]/1835-07-28_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XVIII_Our_Parish_IV.pdf
59https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/59'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XX, Our Parish' (V)Published in <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (20 August 1835).Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350820/022/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350820/022/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-08-20">1835-08-20</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1835-08-20_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXX_Our_ParishVDickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XX, Our Parish' (V) (20 August 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-08-20_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXX_Our_ParishV">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-08-20_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXX_Our_ParishV</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-08-20_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXX_Our_ParishV.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Sketches of London, No. XX, Our Parish' (V). <em>The Evening Chronicle</em> (20 August 1835).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Evening+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Evening Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Our Parish is very prolific in ladies’ charitable societies. In winter, when wet feet are common and colds not scarce, we have the ladies’ soup distribution society, the ladies’ coal distribution society, and the ladies’ blanket distribution society; in summer, when stone fruits flourish and stomach-aches prevail, we have the ladies’ dispensary, and the ladies’ sick visitation committee; and all the year round we have the ladies’ child’s examination society, the ladies’ bible and prayer-book circulation society, and the ladies’ child-bed linen monthly loan society. The two latter are decidedly the most important; whether they are productive of more benefit than the rest is not for us to say, but we can take upon ourselves to affirm, with the utmost solemnity, that they create a greater stir and more bustle than all the others put together. We should be disposed to say, on the first blush of the matter, that the bible and prayer-book society is not so popular as the child-bed linen society; the bible and prayer-book society has, however, considerably increased in importance within the last year or two; having derived some adventitious aid from the factious opposition of the child’s examination society, which factious opposition originated in manner following:—When the young curate was popular, and all the unmarried ladies in the parish took a serious turn, the charity children all at once became objects of peculiar and especial interest. The three Miss Browns (enthusiastic admirers of the curate) taught, and exercised, and examined, and re-examined the unfortunate children, until the boys grew pale, and the girls consumptive with study and fatigue. The three Miss Browns stood it out very well, because they relieved each other; but the children, having no relief at all, exhibited decided symptoms of weariness and care. The unthinking part of the parishioners laughed at all this, but the more reflective portion of the inhabitants abstained from expressing any opinion on the subject until that of the curate had been clearly ascertained. The opportunity was not long wanting. The curate preached a charity sermon on behalf of the charity school; and in the charity sermon aforesaid, expatiated in glowing terms on the praiseworthy and indefatigable exertions of certain estimable individuals. Sobs were heard to issue from the three Miss Browns’ pew; the pew opener of the division was seen to hurry down the centre aisle to the vestry door, and to return immediately, bearing a glass of water in her hand; a low moaning ensued; two more pew openers rushed to the spot, and the three Miss Browns, each supported by a pew opener, were led out of the church, and led in again after a lapse of five minutes with white pocket handkerchiefs to their eyes, as if they had been attending a funeral in the churchyard adjoining. If any doubt had for a moment existed, as to whom the allusion was intended to apply, it was at once removed. The wish to enlighten the charity children became universal, and the three Miss Browns were unanimously besought to divide the school into classes, and to assign each class to the superintendence of two young ladies. A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a little patronage is more so: the three Miss Browns appointed all the old maids, and carefully excluded the young ones. Maiden aunts triumphed: mammas were reduced to the lowest depths of despair; &amp;amp; there is no telling in what act of violence the general indignation against the three Miss Browns might have vented itself, had not a perfectly providential occurrence changed the tide of public feeling. Mrs. Johnson Parker, the mother of seven extremely fine girls—all unmarried—hastily reported to several other mamma&#039;s of several other unmarried families, that five old men, six old women, and children innumerable, in the free seats near her pew, were in the habit of coming to church every Sunday without either bible or prayer-book. Was this to be borne in a civilized country? Could such things be tolerated in a christian land? Never! A Ladies’ Bible and Prayer-book Distribution Society was instantly formed: President, Mrs. Johnson Parker; treasurers, auditors, and secretary, the Misses Johnson Parker: subscriptions were entered into; books were bought, all the free seat people provided therewith; and when the first lesson was given out on the first Sunday succeeding these events, there was such a dropping of books, and rustling of leaves, that it was morally impossible to hear one word of the service for five minutes afterwards. The three Miss Browns and their party saw the approaching danger, and endeavoured to avert it by ridicule and sarcasm. Neither the old men nor the old women could read their books now they had got em, said the three Miss Browns. Never mind; they could learn, replied Mrs. Johnson Parker. The children couldn’t read either, suggested the three Miss Browns. No matter; they could be taught, retorted Mrs. Johnson Parker. A balance of parties took place. The Miss Browns publicly examined—popular feeling inclined to the child’s examination society. The Miss Johnson Parkers&#039; publicly distributed—a re-action took place in favour of the prayer-book distribution. A feather would have turned the scale, and a feather did turn it. A missionary returned from the West Indies; he was to be presented to the Dissenters’ Distribution Society on his marriage with a wealthy widow. Overtures were made to the Dissenters by the Johnson Parkers. Their object was the same, and why not have a joint meeting of the two societies? The proposition was accepted. The meeting was duly heralded by public announcement, and the room was crowded to suffocation. The missionary appeared on the platform; he was hailed with enthusiasm. He repeated a dialogue he had heard between two negroes behind a hedge, on the subject of distribution societies; he approbation was tumultuous. He gave an imitation of the two negroes in broken English; the roof was rent with applause. From that period we date (with one trifling exception) a daily increase in the popularity of the Distribution Society—an increase of popularity which the feeble and impotent opposition of the examination party has only tended to augment. Now, the great points about the Child-bed Linen Monthly Loan Society are, that it is less dependent on the fluctuations of public opinion than either the distribution or the child’s examination, and that come what may, there is never any lack of objects on which to exercise its benevolence. Our parish is a very populous one, and if anything, contributes, we should be disposed to say, rather more than its due share to the aggregate amount of births in the metropolis and its environs. The consequence is, that the Monthly Loan Society flourishes, and invests its members with a most enviable amount of bustling patronage. The society (whose only notion of dividing time, would appear to be its allotment into months) holds monthly tea-drinkings, at which the monthly report is received, a secretary elected for the month ensuing, and such of the monthly boxes as may not happen to be out on loan for the month, carefully examined. We were never present at one of these meetings, from all of which it is scarcely necessary to say, gentlemen are carefully excluded; but Mr. Bung has been called before the Board once or twice; and we have his authority for stating that its proceedings are conducted with great order and regularity, not more than four members being allowed to speak at one time on any pretence whatever. The regular committee is composed exclusively of married ladies, but a vast number of young unmarried ladies of from 18 to 25 years of age, respectively, are admitted as honorary members; partly because they are very useful in replenishing the boxes, and visiting the confined; partly because it is highly desirable that they should be initiated, at an early period, into the more serious and matronly duties of after life; and partly because prudent mammas have not unfrequently been known to turn this circumstance to wonderfully good account in matrimonial speculations. In addition to the loan of the monthly boxes (which are always painted blue, with the name of the society in large white letters on the lid), the society dispense occasional grants of beef tea, and a composition of warm beer, spice, eggs, and sugar, commonly known by the name of &quot;caudle,&quot; to its patients. And here again the services of the honorary members are called into requisition, and most cheerfully conceded. Deputations of twos or threes are sent out to visit the patients, and on these occasions there is such a tasting of caudle and beef tea, such a stirring about of little messes in tiny saucepans on the hob, such a dressing and undressing of infants, such a tying and folding, and pinning, such a nursing and warming of little legs and feet before the fire, such a delightful confusion of talking and cooking, bustle, importance, and officiousness, as never can be enjoyed in its full extent but on similar occasions. In rivalry of these two institutions, and as a last expiring effort to acquire parochial popularity, the child’s examination people determined, the other day on having a grand public examination of the pupils; and the large school-room of the national seminary was, by and with the consent of the parish authorities, devoted to the purpose. Invitation circulars were forwarded to all the principal parishioners, including, of course, the heads of the other two societies, for whose especial behoof and edification the display was intended; and a large audience was confidently anticipated on the occasion. The floor was carefully scrubbed the day before, under the immediate superintendence of the three Miss Browns; forms were placed across the room for the accommodation of the visitors; specimens in writing were carefully selected, and as carefully patched and touched up, until they astonished the children who had written them, rather more than the company who read them; sums in compound addition were re-hearsed and re-hearsed until all the children had the totals by heart; and the preparations altogether were on the most laborious and most comprehensive scale. The morning arrived, the children were yellow-soaped, and flannelled, and towelled, &#039;til their faces shone again; every pupil’s hair was carefully combed into his or her eyes, as the case might be; the girls were adorned with snow-white tippets, and caps bound round the head by a single purple ribbon: the necks of the elder boys were fixed into collars of startling dimensions. The doors were thrown open and the Miss Browns and Co. were discovered in plain white muslin dresses and caps of the same —the child’s examination uniform. The room filled; the greetings of the company were loud and cordial; the distributionists trembled, for their popularity was at stake. The eldest boy fell forward, and delivered a propitiatory address from behind his collar. It was from the pen of Mr. Henry Brown; the applause was universal, and the Johnson Parkers were aghast. The examination proceeded with success, and terminated in triumph. The Child’s Examination Society gained a momentary victory, and the Johnson Parkers retreated in despair. A secret council of the distributionists was held that night—Mrs. Johnson Parker in the Chair—to consider of the best means of recovering the ground they had lost in the favour of the parish. What could be done? Another meeting! alas! who was to attend it? The Missionary would not do twice; and the slaves were emancipated. A bold step must be taken; the parish must be astonished in some way or other; but no one was able to suggest what the step should be. At length a very old lady was heard to mumble in indistinct tones, &quot;Exeter Hall.&quot; A sudden light broke in upon the meeting. It was unanimously resolved that a deputation of old ladies should wait upon Mr. Somebody O&#039;Something, a celebrated Catholic renegade and Protestant bigot, imploring his assistance, and the favour of a speech; and that the deputation should also wait on two or three other imbecile old women, not resident in the parish, and entreat their attendance. The application was successful; the meeting was held; the Irishman came: he talked of green isles - other shores—vast Atlantic—bosom of the deep—Christian charity—blood and extermination—mercy in hearts—arms in hands—altars and homes—household gods—wiped his eyes, blew his nose, and quoted Latin. The effect was tremendous—the Latin was a decided hit. Nobody knew exactly what it was about, but everybody knew it must be affecting, because even the orator was overcome. The popularity of the Distribution Society among the ladies of our parish is unprecedented; and the Child’s Examination is fast going to decay. [To be continued].18350820https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XX_Our_Parish_[V]/1835-08-20_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_Our_Parish_No.XX.pdf
223https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/223'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. I, Omnibuses'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle </em>(26 September 1834), p.3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18340926/016/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18340926/016/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=18340926">18340926</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-09-26-Street_Sketches_No1_OmnibusesDickens, Charles. '<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. I, Omnibuses' (26 September 1834). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-09-26-Street_Sketches_No1_Omnibuses">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-09-26-Street_Sketches_No1_Omnibuses</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>It is very generally allowed that public conveyances afford an extensive field for amusement and observation. Of all the public conveyances that have been constructed since the days of the Ark—we think that is the earliest on record—to the present time, commend us to an omnibus. A long stage is not to be despised; but there you have only six insides, and the chances are, that the same people go all the way with you—there is no change, no variety. Besides, after the first twelve hours or so people get cross and sleepy, and after you have seen a man in his nightcap you lose all respect for him—at least that it is the case with us. Then on smooth roads people frequently get prosy, and tell long stories, and even those who don&#039;t talk may have very unpleasant predilections. We once travelled four hundred miles, inside a stage-coach with a stout man who had a glass of rum and water, warm, handed in at the window at every place where we changed horses. This was decidedly unpleasant. We have also travelled occasionally with a small boy of a pale aspect with light hair, and no perceptible neck, coming up to town from school under the protection of the guard, and directed to be left at the Cross Keys till called for. This is perhaps even worse than rum and water in a close atmosphere. Then there is the whole train of evils consequent on a change of the coachman; and the misery of the discovery—which the guard is sure to make the moment you begin to doze—that he wants a brown-paper parcel, which he distinctly remembers to have deposited under the seat on which you are reposing. A great deal of bustle and groping takes place, and when you are thoroughly awakened, and severely cramped by holding your legs up by an almost supernatural exertion while he is looking behind them, it suddenly occurs to him that he put it in the fore-boot. Bang goes the door, the parcel is immediately found, off starts the coach again, and the guard plays the key-bugle as loud as he can play it, as if in mockery of your wretchedness. Now you meet with none of these afflictions in an omnibus: sameness there can never be; the passengers change as often in the course of one journey as the figures in a kaleidoscope, and though not so glittering, are far more amusing. We believe there is no instance upon record of a man&#039;s having gone to sleep in one of these vehicles. As to long stories; would any man venture to tell a long story in an omnibus? And even if he did, where would be the harm? Nobody could possibly hear what he was talking about. Again; children, though occasionally, are not often to be found in an omnibus, and even when they are, if the vehicle be full, as is generally the case, somebody sits upon them, and we are unconscious of their presence. Yes, after mature reflection, and considerable experience, we are decidedly of opinion that of all known vehicles, from the glass coach in which we were taken to be christened, to that sombre caravan in which we must one day make our last earthly journey, there is nothing like an omnibus. We will back the machine in which we make our daily peregrination from the top of Oxford-street to the City, against any &quot;bus&quot; on the road, whether it be for the gaudiness of its exterior, the perfect simplicity of its interior, or the native coolness of its cad. This young gentleman is a singular instance of self-devotion; his somewhat intemperate zeal on behalf of his employers, is constantly getting him into trouble, and occasionally into the House of Correction. He is no sooner emancipated, however, than he resumes the duties of his profession with unabated ardour. His principal distinction is his activity. His great boast is, &quot;that he can chuck an old gen&#039;lm&#039;n into the bus, shut him in, and rattle off, afore he knows where it&#039;s a-going to&quot;—a feat which he frequently performs to the infinite amusement of every one but the old gentleman concerned, who, somehow or other, never can see the joke of the thing. We are not aware that it has ever been precisely ascertained, how many passengers our omnibus will contain. The impression on the cad&#039;s mind evidently is, that it is amply sufficient for the accommodation of any number of persons that can be enticed into it. &quot;Any room?&quot; cries a very hot pedestrian. &quot;Plenty o&#039; room, sir,&quot; replies the conductor, gradually opening the door, and not disclosing the real state of the case till the wretched man is on the steps. &quot;Where?&quot; inquires the entrapped individual, with an attempt to back out again. &quot;Either side, sir,&quot; rejoins the cad, shoving him in, and slamming the door. &quot;All right, Bill.&quot; Retreat is impossible; the new comer rolls about, till he falls down somewhere, and there he stops. As we get into the city, a little before ten, four or five of our party are regular passengers. We always take them up at the same places, and they generally occupy the same seats; they are always dressed in the same manner, and invariably discuss the same topics—the increasing rapidity of cabs, and the disregard of moral obligations evinced by omnibus men. There is a little testy old man, with a powdered head, who always sits on the right-hand side of the door as you enter, with his hands folded on the top of his umbrella. He is extremely impatient, and sits there for the purpose of keeping a sharp eye on the cad, with whom he generally holds a running dialogue. He is very officious in helping people in and out, and always volunteers to give the cad a poke with his umbrella, when any one wants to alight. He usually recommends ladies to have sixpence ready to prevent delay; and if anybody puts a window down, that he can reach, he immediately puts it up again. &quot;Now, what are you stopping for?&quot; says the little man every morning, the moment there is the slightest indication of pulling up at the corner of Regent-street, when some such dialogue as the following takes place between him and the cad:—&quot;What are you stopping for?&quot; Here the cad whistles, and affects not to hear the question. &quot;I say [a poke], what are you stopping for?&quot; &quot;For passengers, sir. Ba—nk.—Ty.&quot; &quot;I know you&#039;re stopping for passengers; but you&#039;ve no business to do so. Why are you stopping?&quot; &quot;Vy, sir, it&#039;s rayther a difficult question. I think it is because we prefer stopping here to going on.&quot; &quot;Now mind,&quot; exclaims the little old man with great vehemence, &quot;I&#039;ll pull you up to-morrow; I&#039;ve often threatened to do it; now I will.&quot; &quot;Thankee, sir,&quot; replies the cad, touching his hat with a mock expression of gratitude;—&quot;werry much obliged to you indeed, sir.&quot; Here the young men in the omnibus laugh very heartily, and the old gentleman gets very red in the face, and seems highly exasperated. The stout gentleman in the white neckcloth, at the other end of the vehicle, looks very prophetic, and says that something must shortly be done with these fellows, or there&#039;s no saying where all this will end; and the shabby-genteel man with the green bag, expresses his entire concurrence in the opinion, as he has done regularly every morning for the last six months. A second omnibus now comes up, and stops immediately behind us. Another old gentleman elevates his cane in the air, and runs with all his might towards our omnibus; we watch his progress with great interest; the door is opened to receive him, he suddenly disappears—he has been spirited away by the opposition. Hereupon the driver of the opposition taunts our people with his having &quot;regularly done &#039;em out of that old swell,&quot; and the voice of the &quot;old swell&quot; is heard, vainly protesting against this unlawful detention. We rattle off, the other omnibus rattles after us, and every time we stop to take up a passenger, they stop to take him too; sometimes we get him; sometimes they get him; but whoever don&#039;t get him say they ought to have had him, and the cads of the respective vehicles abuse one another accordingly. As we arrive in the vicinity of Lincoln&#039;s Inn-fields, Bedford-row, and other legal haunts, we drop a great many of our original passengers, and take up fresh ones, who meet with a very sulky reception. It is rather remarkable, that the people already in an omnibus always look at new comers, as if they entertained some undefined idea that they have no business to come in at all. We are quite persuaded the little old man has some notion of this kind—that he considers their entry as a sort of negative impertinence. Conversation is now entirely dropped; each person gazes vacantly through the window in front of him, and everybody thinks that his opposite neighbour is staring at him. If one man gets out at Shoe-lane and another at the corner of Farringdon-street, the little old gentleman grumbles, and suggests to the latter that if he had got out at Shoo-lane too, he would have saved them the delay of another stoppage; whereupon the young men laugh again, and the old gentleman looks very solemn, and says nothing more till he gets to the Bank, when he trots off as fast as he can, leaving us to do the same, and to wish, as we walk away, that we could impart to others any portion of the amusement we have derived for ourselves.18340926https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Street_Sketches_No._I_Omnibuses/1834-09-26-Street_Sketches_No1_Omnibuses.pdf
221https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/221'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. II, Shops, and Their Tenants'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle </em>(10 October 1834), p.3.Dickens, Charles.<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18341010/017/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18341010/017/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-10-10">1834-10-10</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-10-10-Street_Sketches_No2_Shops_and_Their_TenantsDickens, Charles. '<em>Street Sketches</em>, No.II, Shops, and Their Tenants' (10 October 1834). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-10-10-Street_Sketches_No2_Shops_and_Their_Tenants">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-10-10-Street_Sketches_No2_Shops_and_Their_Tenants</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>What inexhaustible food for speculation do the streets of London afford! We never were able to agree with Sterne in pitying the man who could travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say that all was barren; we have not the slightest commiseration for the man who can take up his hat and stick, and walk from Covent-garden to St. Paul’s Church-yard, and back into the bargain, without deriving some amusement—we had almost said instruction—from his perambulation. And yet there are such beings: we meet them every day. Large black stocks and light waistcoats—jet canes and discontented countenances, are the characteristics of the race; other people brush quickly by you, steadily plodding on to business, or cheerfully running after pleasure; these men linger listlessly past, looking as happy and animated as a policeman on duty; nothing seems to make an impression on their minds: nothing short of being knocked down by a porter, or run over by a cab, will disturb their equanimity. You will meet them on a fine day in any of the leading thoroughfares: peep through the window of a west-end cigar-shop in the evening, if you can manage to get a glimpse between the blue curtains which intercept the vulgar gaze, and you see them in their only enjoyment of existence. There they are, lounging about on round tubs, and pipe-boxes, in all the dignity of whiskers, and gilt watch-guards; whispering soft nothings to the young lady in amber, with the large ear-rings, who, as she sits behind the counter in a blaze of adoration and gas-light, is the admiration of all the female servants in the neighbourhood; and the envy of every milliner’s apprentice within two miles round. One of our principal amusements is to watch the gradual progress—the rise or fall—of particular shops. We have formed an intimate acquaintance with several, in different parts of town, and are perfectly acquainted with their whole history. We could name off-hand, twenty at least, which we are quite sure have paid no taxes for the last six years. They are never inhabited for more than two months consecutively, and we verily believe have witnessed every retail trade in the directory. There is one, whose history is a sample of the rest, in whose fate we have taken especial interest, having had the pleasure of knowing it ever since it has been a shop. It is on the Surrey side of the water—a little distance beyond the Marsh-gate. It was, originally, a substantial good-looking private house enough; the landlord got into difficulties; the house got into Chancery; the tenant went away; and the house went to ruin. At this period our acquaintance with it commenced: the paint was all worn off; the windows were broken, the area was green with neglect and the overflowings of the water-butt; the butt itself was without a lid, and the street-door was the very picture of misery. The chief pastime of the children in the vicinity had been to assemble in a body on the steps, and take it in turn to knock loud double knocks at the door, to the great satisfaction of the neighbours generally, and especially of the nervous old lady next door but one. Numerous complaints were made, and several small basins of water discharged over the offenders, but without effect; in this state of things the marine-store dealer at the corner of the street, in the most obliging manner, took the knocker off, and sold it; and the unfortunate house looked more wretched than ever. We deserted our friend for a few weeks. What was our surprize, on our return, to find no trace of its existence! In its place was a handsome shop, fast approaching to a state of completion, and on the shutters were large bills, informing the public that it would shortly be opened with &quot;an extensive stock of linen-drapery and haberdashery.&quot; It opened in due course; there was the name of the proprietor &quot;and co.&quot; in gilt letters, almost too dazzling to look at. Such ribbons and shawls! and two such elegant young men behind the counter, each in a clean collar and white neck-cloth, like the lover in a farce. As to the proprietor, he did nothing but walk up and down the shop, and hand seats to the ladies, and hold important conversations with the handsomest of the young men, who was shrewdly suspected by the neighbours to be the &quot;co.&quot; We saw all this with sorrow; we felt a fatal presentiment that the shop was doomed—and so it was. Its decay was gradual, but sure. Tickets gradually appeared in the windows; then, rolls of flannel, with labels on them, were stuck outside the door; then a bill was pasted on the street-door, intimating that the first-floor was to let unfurnished; then one of the young men disappeared altogether, and the other took to a black neck-kerchief, and the proprietor took to drinking. The shop became dirty, broken panes of glass remained unmended, and the stock disappeared piecemeal. At last the Company’s man came to cut off the water, and then the linen-draper cut off himself, leaving the landlord his compliments and the key. The next occupant was a fancy stationer; the shop was more modestly painted than before, still it was neat; but somehow we always thought, as we passed, that it looked like a poor and struggling concern. We wished the man well, but we trembled for his success. He was a widower evidently, and had employment elsewhere; for he passed us every morning on his road to the city. The business was carried on by his eldest daughter. Poor girl! she needed no assistance. We occasionally caught a glimpse of two or three children, in mourning like herself, as they sat in the little parlour behind the shop; and we never passed at night without seeing the eldest girl at work, either for them, or in making some elegant little trifle for sale. We often thought, as her pale face looked more sad and pensive in the dim candle-light, that if those thoughtless females who interfere with the miserable market of poor creatures such as these, knew but one half of the misery they suffer, and the bitter privations they endure, in their honourable attempts to earn a scanty subsistence, they would, perhaps, resign even opportunities for the gratification of vanity and an unmodest love of self-display, rather than drive them to a last dreadful resource, which it would shock the delicate feelings of these charitable ladies to hear named. But we are forgetting the shop. Well, we continued to watch it; and every day showed too clearly, the increasing poverty of its inmates. The children were clean, it is true, but their clothes were threadbare and shabby; no tenant had been procured for the upper part of the house, from the letting of which, a portion of the means of paying the rent was to have been derived, and a slow, wasting consumption prevented the eldest girl from continuing her exertions. Quarter-day arrived; the landlord had suffered from the extravagance of his last tenant, and he had no compassion for the struggles of his successor; he put in an execution. As we passed one morning, the broker’s men were removing the little furniture there was in the house, and a newly posted bill informed us it was again &quot;To Let.&quot; What became of the last tenant we never could learn, we believe the girl is past all suffering, and beyond all sorrow. God help her! We hope she is. We were somewhat curious to ascertain what would be the next stage—for that the place had no chance of succeeding now, was perfectly clear. The bill was soon taken down, and some alterations were being made in the interior of the shop, we were in a fever of expectation; we exhausted conjecture—we imagined all possible trades, none of which were perfectly reconcilable with our idea of the gradual decay of the tenement. It opened, and we wondered why we had not guessed at the real state of the case before. The shop—not a large one at the best of times, had been converted into two, one was a bonnet-shape maker’s, the other was opened by a tobacconist, who also dealt in walking-sticks, and Sunday newspapers; the two were separated by a thin partition, covered with tawdry striped paper. The tobacconist remained in possession longer than any tenant within our recollection. He was a red-faced, impudent, good-for-nothing dog, evidently accustomed to take things as they came, and to make the best of a bad job. He sold as many cigars as he could, and smoked the rest. He occupied the shop as long as he could make peace with the landlord, and when he could no longer live in quiet, he very coolly locked the door, and bolted himself. From this period the two little dens have undergone innumerable changes; the tobacconist was succeeded by a theatrical hair-dresser, who ornamented the window with a great variety of &quot;characters,&quot; and terrific combats. The bonnet-shape maker gave place to a green-grocer, and the histrionic barber was succeeded in his turn by a tailor. So numerous have been the changes, that we have of late done little more than mark the peculiar but certain indications of a house being poorly inhabited; it has been progressing by almost imperceptible degrees. The occupiers of the shops have gradually given up room after room, until they have only reserved the little parlour for themselves. First there appeared a brass-plate on the private door with &quot;Ladies School&quot; legibly engraved thereon; shortly afterwards we observed a second brass-plate; then a bell, and then another bell. When we paused in front of our old friend, and observed these signs of poverty, which are not to be mistaken, we thought, as we turned away, that the house had attained its lowest pitch of degradation. We were wrong. When we last passed it, a &quot;dairy&quot; was established in the area, and a party of melancholy-looking fowls were amusing themselves by running in at the front door, and out at the back one.18341010https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Street_Sketches_No._II_Shops_and_Their_Tenants/1834-10-10-Street_Sketches_No2_Shops_and_Their_Tenants.pdf
222https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/222'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. IV, Shabby-genteel People'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle </em>(5 November 1834), p.3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18341105/012/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18341105/012/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-11-05">1834-11-05</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-11-05-Street_Sketches_No4_Shabby-Genteel_PeopleDickens, Charles. '<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. IV, Shabby-genteel People' (5 November 1834). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-11-05-Street_Sketches_No4_Shabby-Genteel_People">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-11-05-Street_Sketches_No4_Shabby-Genteel_People</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>There are certain descriptions of people who, oddly enough, appear to appertain exclusively to the metropolis. You meet them every day in the streets of London, but no one ever encounters them elsewhere; they seem indigenous to the soil, and to belong as exclusively to London as its own smoke, or the dingy bricks and mortar. We could illustrate the remark by a variety of examples, but in our present sketch we will only advert to one class as a specimen—that class which is so aptly and expressively designated as &quot;shabby-genteel.&quot; Now, shabby people, God knows, may be found anywhere, and genteel people are not articles of greater scarcity out of London, than in it: but this compound of the two—this shabby-gentility—is as purely local as the statue at Charing-cross, or the pump at Aldgate. It is worthy of remark, too, that only men are shabby-genteel; a woman is always either dirty and slovenly in the extreme, or neat and respectable, however poverty-stricken in appearance. A very poor man, &quot;who has seen better days,&quot; as the phrase goes, is a strange compound of dirty slovenliness and wretched attempts at a kind of faded smartness. We will endeavour to explain our conception of the term which forms the title of this paper. If you meet a man lounging up Drury-lane, or leaning with his back against a post in Long-acre, with his hands in the pockets of a pair of drab trowsers plentifully besprinkled with grease spots, the trousers made very full over the boot, and ornamented with two cords down the outside of each leg—wearing also what has been a brown coat with bright buttons, and a hat very much pinched up at the sides, cocked over his right eye—don’t pity him; he is not shabby-genteel. The &quot;harmonic meetings&quot; at some fourth-rate public-house, or the purlieus of a private theatre, are his chosen haunts; he entertains a rooted antipathy to any kind of work, and is on familiar terms with several pantomime-men at the large houses. But, if you see hurrying along a bye street, keeping as close as he can to the area railings, a man of about 50 or 50, clad in an old rusty suit of threadbare black cloth, which shines with constant wear, as if it had been bees-waxed, the trowsers tightly strapped down, partly for the look of the thing, and partly to keep his old shoes from slipping off at the heels; if you observe, too, that his yellowish-white neck-kerchief is carefully pinned down, and his waistcoat as carefully pinned up, to conceal the tattered garment underneath, and that his hands are encased in the remains of an old pair of beaver gloves, you may set him down as a shabby-genteel man. A glance at that depressed face, and timorous air of conscious poverty, will make your heart ache—always supposing that you are neither a philosopher, nor a political economist. We were once haunted by a shabby-genteel man; he was bodily present to our senses all day, and he was in our mind’s eye all night. The man of whom Walter Scott speaks in his Demonology, did not suffer half the persecution from his imaginary gentleman-usher in black velvet, that we sustained from our friend in quondam black cloth. He first attracted our notice by sitting opposite to us in the reading-room at the British Museum, and what made the man more remarkable was, that he always had before him a couple of shabby-genteel books—two old dogs-eared folios, in mouldy worm-eaten covers, which had once been smart. He was in his chair every morning just as the clock struck ten; he was always the last to leave the room in the afternoon; and when he did, he quitted it with the air of a man who knew not where else to go for warmth and quiet. There he used to sit all day, as close to the table as possible, in order to conceal the lack of buttons on his coat, with his old hat carefully deposited at his feet, where he evidently flattered himself it escaped observation. About two o’clock you would see him munching a French roll or a penny loaf—not taking it boldly out of his pocket at once, like a man who knew he was only making a lunch, but breaking off little bits in his pocket, and eating them by stealth. He knew too well it was his dinner. When we first saw this poor object, we thought it quite impossible that his attire could ever become worse. We even went so far as to speculate on the possibility of his shortly appearing in a decent second-hand suit. We knew nothing about the matter; he grew more and more shabby genteel every day. The buttons dropped off his waistcoat one by one; then he buttoned his coat; and when one side of the coat was reduced to the same condition as the waistcoat, he buttoned it over on the other side. He looked somewhat better at the beginning of the week than at the conclusion, because the neck-kerchief, though yellow, was not quite so dingy; and in the midst of all this wretchedness he never appeared without gloves and straps. He remained in this state for a week or two; at length one of the buttons on the back of the coat fell off, and then the man himself disappeared, and we thought he was dead. We were sitting at the same table about a week after his disappearance, and as our eyes rested on his vacant chair, we insensibly fell into a train of meditation on the subject of his retirement from public life. We were wondering whether he had hung himself or thrown himself off a bridge—whether he really was dead, or had only been arrested—when our conjectures were suddenly set at rest by the entry of the man himself. He had undergone some strange metamorphosis, and walked up the centre of the room with an air which showed he was fully conscious of the improvement in his appearance. It was very odd; his clothes were a fine, deep, glossy black, and yet they looked like the same suit; nay, there were the very darns, with which old acquaintance had made us familiar. The hat, too—nobody could mistake the shape of that hat, with its high crown, gradually increasing in circumference towards the top. Long service had imparted to it a reddish-brown tint, but now it was as black as the coat. The truth flashed suddenly upon us—they had been &quot;revived.&quot; &#039;Tis a deceitful liquid that black and blue reviver; we have watched its effects on many a shabby-genteel man. It betrays its victims into a temporary assumption of importance, possibly into the purchase of a new pair of gloves, or a cheap stock, or some other trifling article of dress. It elevates their spirits for a week, only to depress them, if possible, below their original level. It was so in this case; the transient dignity of the unhappy man decreased in exact proportion as the &quot;reviver&quot; wore off. The knees of the unmentionables, and the elbows of the coat, and the seams generally, soon began to get alarmingly white; the hat was once more deposited under the table, and its owner crept into his seat as quietly as ever. There was a week of incessant small rain and mist. At its expiration the &quot;reviver&quot; had entirely vanished, and the shabby-genteel man never afterwards attempted to effect any improvement in his outward appearance. It would be difficult to name any particular part of town as the principal resort of shabby-genteel men. We have met a great many persons of this description in the neighbourhood of the Inns of Court. They may be met with in Holborn, between eight and ten any morning; and whoever has the curiosity to enter the Insolvent Debtors’ Court, will observe, both among spectators and practitioners, a great variety of them. We never went on ‘Change, by any chance, without seeing some shabby-genteel men, and we have often wondered what earthly business they can have there. They will sit there for hours, leaning on great, dropsical, mildewed umbrellas, or eating Abernethy biscuits; nobody speaks to them, nor they to any one. On consideration, we remember to have occasionally seen two shabby-genteel men conversing together on ‘Change; but our experience assures us that this is an uncommon circumstance, occasioned by the offer of a pinch of snuff, or some such civility. It would be a task of equal difficulty either to assign any particular spot for the residence of these beings, or to endeavour to enumerate their general occupations. We were never engaged in business with more than one shabby-genteel man; and he was a drunken engraver, and lived in a damp back parlour, in a new row of houses at Camden-town, half street, half brick-field, somewhere near the canal. A shabby-genteel man may have no occupation at all, or he may be a corn agent, or a coal agent, or a wine agent, or a collector of debts, or a broker’s assistant, or a broken-down attorney. He may be a clerk of the lowest description, or a contributor to the press of the same grade. Whether our readers have noticed these men in their walks as often as we have, we know not; this we know—that the miserably poor man (no matter whether he owes his distresses to his own conduct, or that of others) who feels his poverty, and vainly strives to conceal it, is one of the most pitiable objects in human nature. Such objects, with few exceptions, are &quot;shabby-genteel people.&quot;18341105https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Street_Sketches_No._IV_Shabby-genteel_People/1834-11-05-Street_Sketches_No4_Shabby-Genteel_People.pdf
160https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/160'<em>Street Sketches</em>. No. III. The Old Bailey'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle</em> (23 October 1834), p. 3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18341023/013/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18341023/013/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-10-23">1834-10-23</a><em>The British Newspaper Archive.</em> Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-10-23-Street_Sketches_No3_The_Old_BaileyDickens, Charles. '<em>Street Sketches</em>. No. III. The Old Bailey' (23 October 1834). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-10-23-Street_Sketches_No3_The_Old_Bailey">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-10-23-Street_Sketches_No3_The_Old_Bailey</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>We shall never forget the mingled feelings of awe and respect with which we used to gaze on the exterior of Newgate in our schoolboy days. How dreadful its rough, heavy walls, and low massive doors, appeared to us—the latter looking as if they were made for the express purpose of letting people in, and never letting them out again. Then the fetters over the debtors’ door, which we used to think were a bonâ fide set of irons, just hung up there, for convenience sake, ready to be taken down at a moment’s notice, and rivetted on the limbs of some refractory felon! We used to wonder how the hackney-coachmen on the opposite stand could cut jokes in the presence of such horrors, and drink pots of half-and-half so near the last drop. Often have we strayed here in sessions time, to catch a glimpse of the whipping-place, and that dark building on one side of the yard, in which is kept the gibbet, with all its dreadful apparatus, and on the door of which we half expected to see a brass plate, with the inscription &quot;Mr. Ketch;&quot; for we never imagined that the distinguished functionary could by possibility live anywhere else. The days of these childish dreams have passed away, and with them, many other boyish ideas of a gayer nature. But we still retain so much of our original feeling, that to this hour we never pass the building without something like a shudder. What London pedestrian is there who has not, at some time or other, cast a hurried glance through the wicket at which prisoners are admitted into this gloomy mansion, and surveyed the few objects he could discern, with an indescribable feeling of curiosity? The thick door, plated with iron, and mounted with spikes, just low enough to enable you to see, leaning over them, an ill-looking fellow in a broad-brimmed hat, belcher handkerchief, and top boots, with a brown coat, something between a great-coat and a &quot;sporting&quot; jacket, on his back, and an immense key in his left hand. Perhaps you are lucky enough to pass just as the gate is being opened, then, you see on the other side of the lodge another gate, the image of its predecessor, and two or three more turnkeys, who look like multiplications of the first one, seated round a fire which just lights up the whitewashed apartment sufficiently to enable you to catch a hasty glimpse of these different objects. We have a great respect for Mrs. Fry, but she certainly ought to have written more romances than Mrs. Radcliffe. We were walking leisurely down the Old Bailey, a few weeks ago, when, just as we passed this identical gate, it was opened by the officiating turnkey. We turned quickly round, as a matter of course, and saw two persons descending the steps. We could not help stopping, and observing them. They were an elderly woman, of decent appearance, though evidently poor, and a boy of about fourteen or fifteen. The woman was crying bitterly; she carried a small bundle in her hand, and the boy followed at a short distance behind her; their little history was obvious. The boy was her son, to whose early comfort she had perhaps sacrificed her own; for whose sake she had borne misery without repining, and poverty without a murmur; looking steadily forward to the time, when he who had so long witnessed her struggles for himself, might be enabled to make some exertions for their joint support. He had formed dissolute connexions; idleness had led to crime; and he had been committed to take his trial for some petty theft. He had been long in prison, and, after receiving some trifling additional punishments, had been ordered to be discharged that morning. It was his first offence, and his poor old mother, still hoping to reclaim him, had been waiting at the gate to implore him to return home. We cannot forget the boy; he descended the steps with a dogged look, shaking his head with an air of bravado, and obstinate determination. They walked a few paces, and paused. The woman put her hand upon his shoulder in an agony of entreaty; the boy sullenly raised his head as if in refusal; it was a brilliant morning, and every object looked fresh and happy in the broad, gay sun-light; he gazed around him for a few moments, bewildered with the brightness of the scene—it was long since he had beheld anything save the gloomy walls of a prison. The contrast was powerful; perhaps the wretchedness of his mother made some impression on the boy’s heart; perhaps some undefined recollection of the time when he was a happy child, and she his only friend, and best companion, crowded on him—he burst into tears; and covering his face with one hand, and hurriedly placing the other in his mother’s, they walked away together. Curiosity has occasionally led us into both Courts at the Old Bailey. Nothing is so likely to strike the person who enters them for the first time, as the calm indifference with which the proceedings are conducted; every trial seems a mere matter of business. There is a great deal of form, but no compassion; considerable interest, but no sympathy. Take the Old Court for example. There sit the Judges, with whose great dignity everybody is acquainted, and of whom therefore we need say no more. Then, there is the Lord Mayor in the centre, looking as cool as a Lord Mayor can look, with an immense bouquet before him, and habited in all the splendour of his office. We can never help thinking that a full-dressed Lord Mayor looks like a South Sea Idol, on which grateful devotees have hung a variety of georgeous ornaments without the slightest regard to the general effect of the whole. Then there are the Sheriffs, who are almost as dignified as the Lord Mayor himself; and the Barristers, who are quite dignified enough in their own opinion; and the spectators, who having paid for their admission, look upon the whole scene as if it were got up especially for their amusement. Look upon the whole group in the body of the Court—some wholly engrossed in the morning papers, others carelessly conversing in low whispers, and others, again, quietly dozing away an hour—and you can scarcely believe that the result of the trial is a matter of life or death to one wretched being present. Turn your eyes to the dock; watch the prisoner attentively for a few moments; and the fact is before you in all its painful reality. Mark how restlessly he has been engaged for the last ten minutes, in forming all sorts of fantastic figures with the herbs which are strewed upon the ledge before him; observe the ashy paleness of his face when a particular witness appears, and how he changes his position and wipes his clammy forehead, and feverish hands, when the case for the prosecution is closed, as if it were a relief to him to feel that the jury knew the worst. The defence is concluded; the judge proceeds to sum up the evidence, and the prisoner watches the countenances of the jury, as a dying man, clinging to life to the very last, vainly looks in the face of his physician for one slight ray of hope. They turn round to consult; you can almost hear the man’s heart beat, as he bites the stalk of rosemary, with a desperate effort to appear composed. They resume their places; a dead silence prevails as the foreman delivers in the verdict—&quot;Guilty!&quot; An appalling shriek bursts from a female in the gallery; the prisoner casts one bitter look of agony at the quarter from whence the noise proceeded, and is immediately hurried from the dock by the gaoler. The clerk directs one of the officers of the court to &quot;take the woman out,&quot; and fresh business is proceeded with as if nothing had occurred. No imaginary contrast to a case like this, could be as complete as that which is constantly presented in the New Court, the gravity of which is frequently disturbed in no small degree by the cunning and pertinacity of juvenile offenders. A boy of thirteen is tried, say for picking the pocket of some subject of his Majesty, and the offence is about as clearly proved as an offence can be. He is called upon for his defence, and contents himself with a little declamation about the jurymen and his country—asserts that all the witnesses have committed perjury, and hints that the police force generally have entered into a conspiracy &quot;again&quot; him. However probable this statement may be, it fails to convince the Court, and some such scene as the following then takes place:— Court: Have you any witnesses to speak to your character, boy?—Boy: Yes, my Lord; fifteen gen’lm’n is a vaten outside, and vos a vaten all day yesterday, vich they told me the night afore my trial vos a comin’ on. Court. Inquire for these witnesses.—Here, a stout beadle runs out, and vociferates for the witnesses at the very top of his voice; you hear his cry grow fainter and fainter as he descends the steps into the court-yard below. After an absence of five minutes he returns very warm, and hoarse, and informs the Court of what it was perfectly well aware of before—namely, that there are no such witnesses in attendance. Hereupon the boy sets up the most awful howling ever heard within or without the walls of a court; screws the lower part of the palms of his hands into the corners of his eyes, and endeavours to look the picture of injured innocence. The jury at once find him &quot;guilty,&quot; and his endeavours to squeeze out a tear or two are redoubled. The governor of the gaol then states, in reply to an inquiry from the bench, that the prisoner has been under his care twice before. This the urchin resolutely denies in some such terms as—&quot;S’elp me, gen’lm’n, I never vos in trouble afore—indeed, my Lord, I never vos. It’s all a howen to my having a twin brother, vich has wrongfully taken to prigging, and vich is so exactly like me, that no vun ever knows the difference atween us.&quot; This representation, like the defence, fails in producing the desired effect, and the boy is sentenced, perhaps, to seven years’ transportation. Finding it impossible to excite compassion, he gives vent to his feelings in an indignant cry of &quot;Flare up, old big vig!&quot; and as he declines to take the trouble of walking from the dock, is forthwith carried out by two men, congratulating himself on having succeeded in giving everybody as much trouble as possible.18341023https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Street_Sketches._No._III._The_Old_Bailey/1834-10-23-The_Old_Bailey.pdf
170https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/170'A Child's Dream of a Star'Published in <em>Household Words,</em> Vol. I, No. 2, 6 April 1850, pp. 25-26Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-25.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-25.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1850-04-06">1850-04-06</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1850-04-06-A_Childs_Dream_StarDickens, Charles. 'A Child's Dream of a Star' (6 April 1850). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1850-04-06-A_Childs_Dream_Star">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1850-04-06-A_Childs_Dream_Star</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>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 wondered 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, &quot;I see the star!&quot; 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, &quot;God bless the star!&quot; 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 out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face on the bed, &quot;I see the star!&quot; and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little weak voice used to say, &quot;God bless my brother and the star!&quot; 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 him, 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, opening, 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&#039;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 gloried and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all the host. His sister&#039;s angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to the leader among those who had brought the people thither: &quot;Is my brother come?&quot; And he said &quot;No.&quot; She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his arms, and cried &quot;O, sister, I am here! Take me!&quot; 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 he thought that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, because of his sister&#039;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 company of angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their beaming eyes all turned upon those people&#039;s faces. Said his sister&#039;s angel to the leader: &quot;Is my brother come?&quot; And he said &quot;Not that one, but another.&quot; As the child beheld his brother&#039;s angel in her arms, he cried, &quot;O, sister, I am here! Take me! &quot;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: &quot;Thy mother is no more. I bring her blessing on her darling son!&quot; Again at night he saw the star, and all that former company. Said his sister&#039;s angel to the leader: &quot;Is my brother come?&quot; And he said, &quot;Thy mother!&quot; 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, &quot;O, mother, sister, and brother, I am here! Take me!&quot; And they answered him &quot;Not yet,&quot; and the star was shining. He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning grey, and he was sitting in his chair by the reside, heavy with grief, and with his face bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again. Said his sister&#039;s angel to the leader, &quot;Is my brother come?&quot; And he said, &quot;Nay, but his maiden daughter.&quot; And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly lost to him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said &quot;My daughter&#039;s head is on my sister&#039;s bosom, and her arm is round my mother&#039;s neck, and at her feet there is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from her, GOD be praised!&quot; 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: &quot;I see the star!&quot; They whispered one another &quot;He is dying.&quot; And he said, &quot;I am. My age is falling from me like a garment, and I move towards the star as a child. And O, my Father, now I thank thee that it has so often opened, to receive those dear ones who await me!&quot; And the star was shining; and it shines upon his grave.18500406https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/A_Child_s_Dream_of_a_Star/1850-04-06-A_Childs_Dream_Star.pdf
16https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/16'A Child's Hymn'Published in <em>Household Words </em>vol. XIV (6 December 1856).Charles, Dickens<em>Household Words </em>Volume XIV (6 December 1856): p. 21.; <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xiv/page-593.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xiv/page-593.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1856-12-06">1856-12-06</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1856-12-06_Household_Words_A_Childs_HymnDickens, Charles. 'A Child's Hymn' from <em>The Wreck of the Golden Mary</em> (6 December 1856), <em>Household Words</em>, Volume XIV, p. 21. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1856-12-06_Household_Words_A_Childs_Hymn">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1856-12-06_Household_Words_A_Childs_Hymn</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1856-12-06_Household_Words_A_Childs_Hymn.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'A Child's Hymn.' <em>Household Words </em>vol. XIV (6 December 1856): p. 593.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>Hear my prayer, O! Heavenly Father, Ere I lay me down to sleep; Bid thy Angels, pure and holy, Round my bed their vigil keep. My sins are heavy, but Thy mercy Far outweighs them every one; Down before Thy Cross I cast them, Trusting in Thy help alone. Keep me through this night of peril Underneath its boundless shade; Take me to Thy rest, I pray Thee, When my pilgrimage is made. None shall measure out Thy patience By the span of human thought; None shall bound the tender mercies Which Thy Holy Son has bought. Pardon all my past transgressions, Give me strength for days to come; Guide and guard me with Thy blessing Till Thy Angels bid me home.18561206https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/A_Child_s_Hymn/1856-12-06_Household_Words_A_Childs_Hymn.pdf
18https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/18'A Christmas Carol'From <em>The Pickwick Papers, </em>ch. 28, no. 10 (December 1836).Dickens, Charles<em>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, </em>Chapter 28.&nbsp;Number 10 (December 1836), pp. 297-298. <em>UVic Libraries, </em><a href="https://vault.library.uvic.ca/concern/generic_works/003c9690-060f-4e1a-bc46-712154b6a510?">https://vault.library.uvic.ca/concern/generic_works/003c9690-060f-4e1a-bc46-712154b6a510?</a>.Chapman and Hall<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-12">1836-12</a><p class="p1"><i>UVic Libraries, </i>Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial, <span class="s1"><a href="https://creativecommons.org/lice%20nses/by-nc/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://creativecommons.org/lice nses/by-nc/4.0/</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">.</span></span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1836-12_Pickwick_Papers_A_Christmas_Carol<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'A Christmas Carol' from <i>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. </i>Issue 10, Chapter 28 (December 1836): pp. 297-298. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-12_Pickwick_Papers_A_Christmas_Carol">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-12_Pickwick_Papers_A_Christmas_Carol</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836-12_Pickwick_Papers_A_Christmas_Carol.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'A Christmas Carol.' <em>The Pickwick Papers</em>. Issue 10, ch. 28 (December 1836): p. 298.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Serial">Serial</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Pickwick+Papers%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Pickwick Papers</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>I care not for Spring; on his fickle wing, Let the blossoms and buds be borne: He wooes them amain with his treacherous rain, And he scatters them ere the morn. An inconstant elf, he knows not himself, Nor his own changing mind an hour, He’ll smile in your face, and, with wry grimace, He’ll wither your youngest flower. Let the Summer sun to his bright home run, He shall never be sought by me; When he’s dimmed by a cloud I can laugh aloud, And care not how sulky he be! For his darling child is the madness wild That sports in fierce fever’s train; And when love is too strong, it don’t last long, As many have found to their pain. A mild harvest night, by the tranquil light Of the modest and gentle moon, Has a far sweeter sheen, for me, I ween, Than the broad and unblushing noon. But every leaf awakens my grief, As it lieth beneath the tree; So let Autumn air be never so far, It by no means agrees with me. But my song I troll out, for CHRISTMAS stout, The heart, the true, and the bold; A bumper I drain, and with might and main Give three cheers for this Christmas old! We’ll usher him in with a merry din That shall gladden his joyous heart, And we’ll keep him up, while there’s bite or sup, And in fellowship good, we’ll part. In his fine honest pride, he scorns to hide One jot of his hard-weather scars; They’re no disgrace, for there’s much the same trace On the cheeks of our bravest tars. Then again I sing till the roof doth ring, And it echoes from wall to wall – To the stout old wight, fair welcome to-night, As the King of the Seasons all!18361201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/A_Christmas_Carol/1836-12_Pickwick_Papers_A_Christmas_Carol.pdf
39https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/39'A Dinner at Poplar Walk'Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres, </em><span>December 1833, pp. 617-624.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Internet Archive,</em> <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_monthly-magazine_1833-12_16_96/page/616/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/sim_monthly-magazine_1833-12_16_96/page/616/mode/2up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1833-12">1833-12</a><p><em>Internet Archive,</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://archive.org/about.terms.php">https://archive.org/about.terms.php</a>. Access to the Archive's Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1833-12-A_Dinner_at_Poplar_Walk"Mr. Minns and His Cousin." <em>Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People. </em>Illustrated by George Cruikshank. John Macrone, 1836, pp. 296-306, <em>Hathi Trust, </em><a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011591435" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011591435</a>.Dickens, Charles. 'A Dinner at Poplar Walk' (December 1833). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1833-12-A_Dinner_at_Poplar_Walk">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1833-12-A_Dinner_at_Poplar_Walk</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1833-12_The_Monthly_Magazine_A_Dinner_at_Poplar_Walk.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'A Dinner at Poplar Walk.' <em>The Monthly Magazine</em> (December 1833).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor of about forty as he said—of about eight and forty as his friends said. He was always exceedingly clean, precise, and tidy, perhaps somewhat priggish, and the most &quot;retiring man in the world.&quot; He usually wore a brown frock-coat without a wrinkle, light inexplicables without a spot, a neat neckerchief with a remarkably neat tie, and boots without a fault; moreover, he always carried a brown silk umbrella with an ivory handle. He was a clerk in Somerset House, or, as he said, he held &quot;a responsible situation under Government.&quot; He had a good and increasing salary, in addition to some 10,000l. of his own (invested in the funds), and he occupied a first floor in Tavistock-street, Covent Garden, where he had resided for twenty years, having been in the habit of quarrelling with his landlord the whole time, regularly giving notice of his intention to quit on the first day of every quarter, and as regularly countermanding it on the second. He had but two particular horrors in the world, and those were dogs and children. His prejudice arose from no unamiability of disposition, but that the habits of the animals were continually at variance with his love of order, which might be said to be equally as powerful as his love of life. Mr. Augustus Minns had no relation in or near London, with the exception of his cousin, Mr. Octavius Bagshaw, to whose son, whom he had never seen (for he disliked the father), he had consented to become godfather by proxy. Mr. Bagshaw having realised a moderate fortune by exercising &quot;the trade or calling&quot; of a corn-chandler, and having a great predilection for the country, had purchased a cottage in the vicinity of Stamford Hill, whither he retired with the wife of his bosom and his only son, Master Alexander Augustus Bagshaw. One evening, as Mr. and Mrs. B. were admiring their son, discussing his various merits, talking over his education, and disputing whether the classics should be made an essential part thereof, the lady pressed so strongly upon her husband the propriety of cultivating the friendship of Mr. Minns in behalf of their son, that Mr. Bagshaw at last made up his mind, that it should not be his fault if he and his cousin were not in future more intimate. &quot;I’ll break the ice, my love,&quot; said Mr. Bagshaw, stirring up the sugar at the bottom of his glass of brandy-and-water, and casting a sidelong look at his spouse to see the effect of the announcement of his determination,—&quot;by asking Minns down to dine with us, on Sunday.&quot; &quot;Then pray, Bagshaw, write to your cousin at once,’ replied his spouse; &quot;who knows, if we could only get him down here, but that he might take a fancy to our Alexander, and leave him his property?—Alick, my dear, take your legs off the rail of the chair.&quot; &quot;Very true,&quot; said Mr. Bagshaw, musing, &quot;very true indeed, my love.&quot; On the following morning, as Mr. Minns was sitting at his breakfast-table, alternately biting his dry toast and casting a look upon the columns of the Times, which he always read from the title to the printer’s name, he heard a loud knock at the street door, which was shortly afterwards followed by the entrance of his servant, who put into his hand a particularly small card, on which was engraved in immense letters, &quot;Mr. Octavius Bagshaw, AMELIA COTTAGE (Mrs. B.’s name was Amelia), Poplar Walk, Stamford Hill.&quot; &quot;Bagshaw!&quot; ejaculated Minns, &quot;what the deuce can bring that vulgar man here?—Say I’m asleep—say I’ve broken my leg—any thing.&quot; &quot;But, please, sir, the gentleman’s coming up,&quot; replied the servant;—and the fact was made evident by an appalling creaking of boots on the staircase, accompanied by a pattering noise, the cause of which Minns could not for the life of him divine. &quot;Hem! show the gentleman in,&quot; said he in a state of desperation.—Exit servant, and enter Octavius, preceded by a large white dog, dressed in a suit of fleecy-hosiery, with pink eyes, large ears, and no perceptible tail. The cause of the pattering on the stairs was but too plain.—If it be possible for a man to entertain feeling of the most deep-rooted and unconquerable aversion to any one thing, Minns entertained this feeling towards an animal of the canine species. This, by the way, was hinted before. &quot;My dear fellow, how are you?&quot; said Mr. Bagshaw, as he entered. (He always spoke at the top of his voice, and always said the same thing half-a-dozen times.)—&quot;How are you, my hearty?&quot; &quot;How do you do, Mr. Bagshaw?—pray take a chair!&quot; politely stammered the discomfited Minns. &quot;Thank you, thank you. Well, how are you, eh?&quot; &quot;Uncommonly well, thank you,&quot; said Minns, casting a diabolical look at the dog, who, with his hind-legs on the floor, and his fore-paws resting on the table, was dragging a bit of bread-and-butter out of a plate, which, in the ordinary course of things, it was natural to suppose he would eat with the buttered side next the carpet. &quot;Ah, you rogue!&quot; said Bagshaw to his dog.—&quot;You see, Minns, he’s like me, always at home: eh, my boy!—Egad, I’m precious hot and hungry! I’ve walked all the way from Stamford Hill, this morning.&quot; &quot;Have you breakfasted?&quot; ejaculated Minns. &quot;Oh, no!&quot; returned Bagshaw. &quot;oh no! Came to town to breakfast with you; so, ring the bell, my dear fellow, will you? and let’s have another cup and saucer, and the cold ham.—Make myself at home, you see!&quot; he continued, dusting his boots with a table-napkin.&quot;‘Ha!—ha!—ha!—’Pon my life, I’m hungry!&quot; Minns rang the bell, and tried to smile, but looked as merry as a farthing rushlight in a fog. &quot;I decidedly never was so hot in my life,&quot; continued Octavius, wiping his forehead;—&quot;Well, but how are you, Minns? ‘Pon my soul, you wear capitally!&quot; &quot;Humph! &#039;dye think so?&quot; &quot;’Pon my life, I do!&quot; &quot;Mrs. B. and—what’s his name—quite well?&quot; &quot;Alick—my son, you mean. Never better—never better. But such a place as we’ve got at Poplar Walk! you know. It certainly is a most capital place—beautiful! I&#039;ll trouble you for another cup of tea. Let&#039;s see—what was I saying? Oh! I know. Such a beautiful place! When I first saw it, by Jove! it looked so knowing, with the front garden like, and the green railings, and the brass knocker, and all that—I really thought it was a cut above me.&quot; &quot;Don’t you think you’d like the ham better,&quot; interrupted Minns, &quot;if you cut it the other way?&quot; as he saw, with feelings which it is impossible to describe, that his visitor was cutting, or rather maiming the ham, in utter violation of all established rules. &quot;No, thank ye,&quot; returned Bagshaw, with the most barbarous indifference to crime; &quot;I prefer it this way—it eats short. But, I say, Minns, when will you come down and see us? You&#039;ll be delighted with the place; I know you will. Amelia and I were talking about you the other night, and Amelia said—another lump of sugar, please: thank ye—she said, &quot;Don’t you think you could contrive, my dear, to say to Mr. Minns, in a friendly way—Come down, Sir—damn the dog! He’s spoiling your curtains, Minns—Ha!—ha!—ha!&quot; Minns leaped from his seat as though he had received the discharge from a galvanic battery. &quot;Come out, Sir!—go out, hoo!&quot; cried poor Augustus, keeping, nevertheless, at a very respectful distance from the dog, having read of a case of hydrophobia in the paper of that morning. By dint of great exertion, much shouting, and a marvellous deal of poking under the tables with a stick and umbrella, the dog was at last dislodged, and placed on the landing, outside the door, where he immediately commenced a most appalling howling; at the same time vehemently scratching the paint off the two nicely-varnished bottom panels of the door, until they resembled the interior of a backgammon-board. &quot;A good dog for the country that!&quot; coolly observed Bagshaw to the distracted Minns—&quot;he’s not much used to confinement, though. But now, Minns, when will you come down? I’ll take no denial, positively. Let’s see—to-day’s Thursday;—will you come on Sunday? We dine at five. Don’t say no—do.&quot; After a great deal of pressing, Mr. Augustus Minns, driven to despair, and finding that if the dog, remained in the house much longer, he, Mr. Augustus Minns, might just as well lodge in the Zoological Gardens, accepted the invitation, and promised to be at Poplar Walk on the ensuing Sunday, at a quarter before five, to the minute. &quot;Now mind the direction,&quot; said Bagshaw: &quot;the coach goes from the Flower-pot, in Bishopsgate-street, every half hour. When the coach stops at the Swan, you’ll see, immediately opposite you, a white house—&quot; &quot;Which is your house—I understand,&quot; said Minns, wishing to cut short the story and the visit at the same time. &quot;No, no, that’s not mine; that’s Grogus’s, the great ironmonger’s. I was going to say, you turn down by the side of the white house till you can’t go another step further—mind that; and then you turn to your right, by some stables—well; close to you, you’ll see a wall with &#039;BEWARE OF THE DOG&#039; written on it in large letters—[Minns shuddered]—go along by the side of that wall for about a quarter of a mile, and anybody will show you which is my place.&quot; &quot;Very well—thank ye—good bye.&quot; &quot;Be punctual.&quot; &quot;Certainly: good morning.&quot; &quot;I say, Minns, you’ve got a card?&quot; &quot;Yes, I have; thank ye.&quot; And Mr. Octavius Bagshaw departed, leaving his cousin looking forward to his visit on the following Sunday with the feelings of a pennyless poet to the weekly visit of his Scotch landlady. Sunday arrived; the sky was bright and clear; crowds of clean, decently-dressed people were hurrying along the streets, intent on their different schemes of pleasure for the day; and every thing, and every body, looked cheerful and happy but Mr. Augustus Minns. The day was fine, but the heat was considerable; and by the time Mr. Minns had fagged up the shady side of Fleet Street, Cheapside, and Threadneedle Street, he had become pretty warm, tolerably dusty, and it was getting late into the bargain. By the most extraordinary good fortune, however, a coach was waiting at the Flower Pot, into which Mr. Augustus Minn&#039;s got, on the solemn assurance of the cad that the coach would start in three minutes—that being the time the coach was allowed to wait by &quot;act of Parliament.&quot; A quarter of an hour elapsed, and there were no signs of moving. Minns looked at his watch for the sixth time. &quot;Coachman, are you going or not?&quot; bawled Mr. Minns (with his head and half his body out of the coach window). &quot;Di-rectly, Sir,&quot; said the coachman, with his hands in his pockets, looking as much unlike a man in a hurry as possible.—&quot;Bill, take them cloths off.&quot; Five minutes more elapsed; at the end of which time the coachman mounted the box, from whence he looked down the street, and up the street, and hailed all the pedestrians for another five minutes. &quot;Coachman! If you don’t go this moment, I shall get out,&quot; said Mr. Minns, rendered desperate by the lateness of the hour, and the impossibility of being in Poplar Walk at the appointed time. &quot;Going this minute, Sir,&quot; was the reply;—and, accordingly, the coach trundled on for a couple of hundred yards, and then stopped again. Minns doubled himself up into a corner of the coach, and abandoned himself to fate. &quot;Tell your missis to make haste, my dear—&#039;cause here&#039;s a gentleman inside vich is in a desperate hurry.&quot; In about five minutes more missis appeared, with a child and two band-boxes, and then they set off. &quot;Be quiet, love!&quot; said the mother—who saw the agony of Minns, as the child rubbed its shoes on his new drab trowsers—&quot;be quiet, dear! Here, play with this parasol—don&#039;t kick the gentleman.&quot; The interesting infant, however, with its agreeable plaything, contrived to tax Mr. Minns&#039;s ingenuity, in the &quot;art of self-defence,&quot; during the ride; and amidst these infantile assaults, and the mother&#039;s apologies, the distracted gentleman arrived at the Swan, when, on referring to his watch, to his great dismay he discovered that it was a quarter past five. The white house, the stables, the &quot;Beware of the Dog,&quot;—every landmark was passed, with a rapidity not unusual to a gentleman of a certain age when too late for dinner. After the lapse of a few minutes, Mr. Minns found himself opposite a yellow brick house, with a green door, brass knocker, and door-plate, green window-frames, and ditto railings, with &quot;a garden&quot; in front, that is to say, a small loose bit of gravelled ground, with one round and two scalene triangular beds, containing a fir-tree, twenty or thirty bulbs, and an unlimited number of marigolds. The taste of Mr. or Mrs. Bagshaw was further displayed by the appearance of a Cupid on each side of the door, perched upon a heap of large chalk flints, variegated with pink conch-shells. His knock at the door was answered by a stumpy boy, in drab-livery, cotton stockings and high-lows, who, after hanging his hat on one of the dozen brass-pegs which ornamented the passage, denominated by courtesy &quot;The Hall,&quot; ushered him into a front drawing-room, commanding a very extensive view of the backs of the neighbouring houses. The usual ceremony of introduction, and so forth, over, Mr. Minns took his seat: not a little agitated at feeling that he was the last comer, and, somehow or other, the Lion of a dozen people, sitting together in a small drawing-room, getting rid of that most tedious of all time, the time preceding dinner. &quot;Well, Brogson,&quot; said Bagshaw, addressing an elderly gentleman in a black coat, drab knee-breeches, and long gaiters, who, under pretence of inspecting the prints in an Annual, had been engaged in satisfying himself on the subject of Minns’ general appearance, by looking at him over the top of the leaves—&quot;well, Brogson, what do ministers mean to do? Will they go out, or what?’ &quot;Oh—why—really, you know, I’m the last person in the world to ask for news. Your cousin, from his situation, is the most likely person to answer the question.&quot; Mr. Minns assured the last speaker, that, although he was in Somerset House, he possessed no official communication relative to the projects of his Majesty’s Ministers. His remark was evidently received incredulously; and no further conjectures being hazarded on the subject, a long pause ensued, during which the company occupied themselves in coughing and blowing their noses, until the entrance of Mrs. Bagshaw caused a general rise. The ceremony of introduction being over, dinner was announced, and down stairs the party proceeded accordingly: Mr. Minns escorting Mrs. Bagshaw as far as the drawing-room door, but being prevented, by the narrowness of the stair-case, from extending his gallantry any further. The dinner passed off as such dinners usually do. Ever and anon, amidst the clatter of knives and forks, and the hum of conversation, Mr. Bagshaw’s voice might be heard asking a friend to take wine, and assuring him he was glad to see him; and a good deal of by-play took place between Mrs. Bagshaw and the servants respecting the removal of the dishes, during which her countenance assumed the variations of a weather-glass, sometimes &quot;stormy&quot; and occasionally &quot;set fair.&quot; Upon the dessert and wine being placed on the table, the servant, in compliance with a significant look from Mrs. Bagshaw, brought down &quot;Master Alexander,&quot; habited in a sky-blue suit with silver buttons, and with hair of nearly the same colour as the metal. After sundry praises from his mother, and various admonitions as to his behaviour from his pa, he was introduced to his godfather. &quot;Well, my little fellow—you are a fine boy, an’t you?&quot; said Minns, as happy as a tom-tit upon bird-lime. &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;How old are you?&quot; &quot;Eight, next We’nsday. How old are you?&quot; &quot;Alexander,&quot; interrupted his mother, &quot;how dare you ask Mr. Minns how old he is!&quot; &quot;He asked me how old I was,&quot; said the precocious darling, to whom Minns had, from that moment, internally resolved he never would bequeath one shilling. As soon as the titter occasioned by the observation had subsided, a little smirking man with red whiskers, sitting at the bottom of the table, who, during the whole of dinner, had been endeavouring to obtain a listener to some stories about Sheridan, called out, with a very patronising air,—&quot;Alick, what part of speech is be?&quot; &quot;A verb.&quot; &quot;That’s a good boy,&quot; said Mrs. Bagshaw, with all a mother’s pride. &quot;Now, you know what a verb is?&quot; &quot;A verb is a word which signifies to be, to do, or to suffer; as, I am—I rule—I am ruled. Give me an apple, Ma.&quot; &quot;I’ll give you an apple,&quot; replied the story-teller, who was clearly one of those bores who are commonly called &#039;friends of the family,&#039; &quot;if you’ll tell me what is the meaning of, be.&quot; &quot;Be?&quot; said the prodigy, after a little hesitation—&quot;an insect that gathers honey.&quot; &quot;No, dear,&quot; frowned Mrs. B—; &quot;B double E is the substantive.&quot; &quot;I don’t think he knows much yet about common substantives,&quot; said the smirking gentleman, who thought this an admirable opportunity for letting off a joke: &quot;It’s clear he’s not very well acquainted with proper names. He! he! he!&quot; &quot;Gentlemen,&quot; called out Mr. Bagshaw, from the end of the table, in a stentorian voice, and with a very important air, &quot;will you have the goodness to charge your glasses? I have a toast to propose.&quot; &quot;Hear! hear!&quot; cried the gentlemen, passing the decanters. After they had made the round of the table, Mr. Bagshaw proceeded—&quot;Gentlemen; there is an individual present—&quot; &quot;Hear! hear!&quot; said the little man with the red whiskers. &quot;Pray be quiet, Jones,&quot; remonstrated Bagshaw, sotto voce. &quot;I say, gentlemen, there is an individual present,&quot; resumed the host, &quot;in whose society, I am sure, we must take great delight—and—and—the conversation of that individual must have afforded to every individual present the utmost pleasure.&quot;— [&quot;Thank Heaven he does not mean me!&quot; thought Minns, conscious that his diffidence and exclusiveness had prevented his saying above a dozen words since he entered the house.]— &quot;Gentlemen, I am but a humble individual myself, and I perhaps ought to apologize for allowing any individual feelings of friendship and affection for the person I allude to, to induce me to venture to rise, to propose the health of that person—a person that, I am sure—that is to say, a person whose virtues must endear him to those who know him—and those who have not the pleasure of knowing him, cannot dislike him.&quot; &quot;Hear! hear!&quot; said the company, in a tone of encouragement and approval. &quot;Gentlemen,&quot; continued Bagshaw, &quot;my cousin is a man who—who is a relation of my own.&quot; (Hear! hear!) Minns groaned audibly—who I am most happy to see here, and who, if he were not here, would certainly have deprived us of the great pleasure we all feel in seeing him. (Loud cries of hear!)—Gentlemen: I feel that I have already trespassed on your attention for too long a time. With every feeling of—of—with every sentiment of—of—&quot; &quot;Gratification&quot;—suggested the friend of the family. &quot;—Of gratification, I beg to propose the health of Mr. Minns.&quot; &quot;Standing, gentlemen!&quot; shouted the indefatigable little man with the whiskers—&quot;and with the honours. Take your time from me, if you please. Hip! hip! hip!—Za!—Hip! hip! hip!—Za!—Hip hip!—Za—a—a!&quot; All eyes were now fixed on the subject of the toast, who, by gulping down port-wine at the imminent hazard of suffocation, endeavoured to conceal his confusion. After as long a pause as decency would admit, with a face as red as a flamingo, he rose; but, as the newspapers sometimes say in their reports of the debates, &quot;we regret that we are quite unable to give even the substance of the honourable gentleman’s observations.&quot; The words &quot;present company—honour—present occasion,&quot; and &quot;great happiness&quot;—heard occasionally, and repeated at intervals, with a countenance expressive of the utmost misery, convinced the company that he was making an excellent speech; and, accordingly, on his resuming his seat, they cried &quot;Bravo!&quot; and manifested tumultuous applause. Jones, who had been long watching his opportunity, then darted up. &quot;Bagshaw,&quot; said he, will you allow me to propose a toast?&quot; &quot;Certainly,&quot; replied Bagshaw, adding in an under tone to Minns right across the table—&quot;Devilish sharp fellow that: you’ll be very much pleased with his speech. He talks equally well on any subject.&quot; Minns bowed, and Mr. Jones proceeded: &quot;It has on several occasions, in various instances, under many circumstances, and in different companies, fallen to my lot to propose a toast to those by whom, at the time, I have had the honour to be surrounded. I have sometimes, I will cheerfully own—for why should I deny it?—felt the overwhelming nature of the task I have undertaken, and my own utter incapability to do justice to the subject. If such have been my feelings, however, on former occasions, what must they be now—now—under the extraordinary circumstances in which I am placed. (Hear! hear!)—To describe my feelings accurately would be impossible; but I cannot give you a better idea of them, gentlemen, than by referring to a circumstance which happens, oddly enough, to occur to my mind at the moment. On one occasion, when that truly great and illustrious man, Sheridan was—&quot; &quot;Please, Sir,&quot; said the boy, entering hastily, and addressing Bagshaw, &quot;as it&#039;s a very wet ev&#039;ning, the nine o&#039;clock stage has come round to know, whether any one&#039;s going to town. There&#039;s room for one inside.&quot; Minns, who had some time meditated suicide, now, with a courage heretofore unknown, started up to secure the chance of escape. Many were the expressions of surprise, and numerous the entreaties to stay, when Minns persisted in his determination to accept the offer of the vacant inside place. It was useless to press him further; so, after detaining the coach for the purpose of looking for his umbrella, and then making the pleasant discovery that he had left it in the other coach coming don, Minns was informed by the parsley-and-butter coated boy that the coachman &quot;couldn&#039;t wait no longer; but if the gentleman would make haste, he might catch him at the Swan.&quot; Minns muttered, for the first time in his life, a diabolical ejaculation. It was of no use that fresh entreaties poured upon him. Quite as effective was the appeal of Master Alick, who, after dabbling half-an-hour in raspberry jam and custard, and fixing the print of his paws on Minns&#039; trowsers, cried out—&quot;Do stop, godpa&#039;—I like you—Ma&#039; says I am to coax you to leave me all your money!&quot;—Had Minns been stung by an electric eel, he could not have made a more hysteric spring through the door-way; nor did he relax his speed until, arriving at the Swan, he saw the coach drive off—full inside and out. It was half-past three in the morning ere Mr. Augustus Minns knocked faintly at No. 11, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden. He had footed it every step of the way from Poplar Walk:—he had not a dry thread about him, and his boots were like pump-suckers. Never from that day could Mr. Minns endure the name of Bagshaw or Poplar Walk. It was to him as the writing on the wall was to Belshazzar. Mr. Minns has removed from Tavistock Street. His residence is at present a secret, as he is determined not to risk another assault from his cousin and his pink-eyed poodle.18331201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/A_Dinner_at_Poplar_Walk/1833-12-A_Dinner_At_Poplar_Walk.pdf
165https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/165'A Little Talk about Spring and the Sweeps'<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>The Library of Fiction,</em><span>&nbsp;vol. 1. London: Chapman and Hall, 1836, pp. 113-119.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Internet Archive,</em> <a href="https://archive.org/details/libraryoffiction01dick/page/112/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/libraryoffiction01dick/page/112/mode/2up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+Robert+Seymour">Illustrated by Robert Seymour</a><p><em>Internet Archive,</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://archive.org/about.terms.php">https://archive.org/about.terms.php</a>. Access to the Archive's Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1836-A_Little_Talk_about_Spring_SweepsDickens, Charles. 'A Little Talk About Spring and the Sweeps'. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-A_Little_Talk_about_Spring_Sweeps">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-A_Little_Talk_about_Spring_Sweeps</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Library+of+Fiction%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Library of Fiction</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>&quot;Now ladies, up in the sky-parlour: only once a year, if you please.&quot; YOUNG LADY WITH BRASS LADLE. &quot;Sweep-sweep-sue-e-ep.&quot; ILLEGAL WATCHWORD. The first of May! There is a merry freshness in the sound, calling to our minds a thousand thoughts of all that is pleasant and beautiful in nature, in her sweetest and most delightful form. What man is there, over whose mind a bright spring morning does not exercise a magic influence? carrying him back to the days of his childish sports, and conjuring up before him the old green field, with its gently-waving trees, where the birds sang as he has never heard them since—where the butterfly fluttered far more gaily than he ever sees him now in all his ramblings—where the sky seemed bluer, and the sun shone more brightly—where the air blew more freshly over greener grass, and sweeter smelling flowers—where every thing wore a richer and more brilliant hue than it is ever dressed in now! Such are the deep feelings of childhood, and such are the impressions which every lovely object stamps upon its heart. The hardy traveller wanders through the maze of thick and pathless woods, where the sun’s rays never shone, and heaven’s pure air never played: he stands on the brink of the roaring waterfall, and, giddy and bewildered, watches the foaming mass as it leaps from stone to stone, and from crag to crag; he lingers in the fertile plains of a land of perpetual sunshine, and revels in the luxury of their balmy breath. But what are the deep forests, or the thundering waters, or the richest landscapes that bounteous nature ever spread, to charm the eyes and captivate the senses of man, compared with the recollection of the old scenes of his early youth— magic scenes indeed; for the fairy thoughts of infancy dressed them in colours brighter than the rainbow, and almost as fleeting: colours which are the reflection only of the sparkling sunbeams of childhood, and can never be called into existence, in the dark and cloudy days of after-life! In former times, spring brought with it not only such associations as these, connected with the past, but sports and games for the present—merry dances round rustic pillars, adorned with emblems of the season, and reared in honour of its coming. Where are they now! Pillars we have, but they are no longer rustic ones; and as to dancers, they are used to rooms, and lights, and would not show well in the open air. Think of the immorality, too! What would your sabbath enthusiasts say, to an aristocratic ring encircling the Duke of York’s column in Carlton-terrace—a grand poussette of the middle classes, round Alderman Waithman’s monument in Fleet-street—or a general hands-four-round of ten-pound householders, at the foot of the Obelisk in St. George’s-fields? Alas! romance can make no head against the riot act; and pastoral simplicity is not understood by the police. Well; many years ago we began to get a steady and matter-of-fact sort of people; and dancing in spring, being beneath our dignity, we gave it up, and in course of time it descended to the sweeps—a fall certainly; because, though sweeps are very good fellows in their way, and moreover very useful in a civilized community, they are not exactly the sort of people to give the tone to the little elegances of society. The sweeps, however, got the dancing to themselves, and they kept it up, and handed it down. This was a severe blow to the romance of spring-time, but, it did not entirely destroy it, either; for a portion of it descended to the sweeps with the dancing, and rendered them objects of great interest. A mystery hung over the sweeps in those days. Legends were in existence of wealthy gentlemen who had lost children, and who, after many years of sorrow and suffering, had found them in the character of sweeps. Stories were related of a young gentleman who having been stolen from his parents in his infancy, and devoted to the occupation of chimney-sweeping, was sent, in the course of his professional career, to sweep the chimney of his mamma&#039;s bedroom; and how, being hot and tired when he came out of the chimney, he got into the bed he had so often slept in as an infant, and was discovered and recognised therein by his mother, who once every year of her life, thereafter requested the pleasure of the company of every London sweep, at half-past one o’clock, to roast beef, plum-pudding, porter, and sixpence. Such stories as these, and there were many such, threw an air of mystery round the sweeps, and produced for them some of those good effects, which animals derive from the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. No one, except the masters, thought of ill-treating a sweep, because no one knew who he might be, or what nobleman’s or gentleman’s son he might turn out. Chimney sweeping was, by many believers in the marvellous, considered as a sort of probationary term, at an earlier or later period of which, divers young noblemen were to come into possession of their rank and titles: and the profession was held by them in great respect accordingly. We remember, in our young days, a little sweep, about our own age, with curly hair and white teeth, whom we devoutly and sincerely believed to be the lost son and heir of some illustrious personage—an impression which was resolved into an unchangeable conviction on our infant mind, by the subject of our speculations informing us one day, in reply to our question, propounded a few moments before his ascent to the summit of the kitchen chimney, &quot;that he believed he’d been born in the vurkis, but he’d never know’d his father.&quot; We felt certain, from that time forth, that he would one day be owned by a lord at least: and we never heard the church bells ring, or saw a flag hoisted in the neighbourhood, without thinking that the happy event had at last occurred, and that his long lost parent had arrived in a coach and six, to take him home to Grosvenor Square. He never came, however; and, at the present moment, the young gentleman in question is settled down as a master sweep in the neighbourhood of Battle Bridge, his distinguishing characteristics being a decided antipathy to washing himself, and the possession of a pair of legs very inadequate to the support of his unwieldy and corpulent body. Now the romance of spring having gone out before our time, we were fain to console ourselves as we best could with the uncertainty that enveloped the birth and parentage of its attendant dancers, the sweeps; and we did console ourselves with it, for many years. But, even this wicked source of comfort received a shock, from which it has never recovered—a shock, which was in reality its death-blow. We could not disguise from ourselves the fact, that whole families of sweeps were regularly born of sweeps, in the rural districts of Somers&#039; Town and Camden Town—that the eldest son succeeded to the father’s business, that the other branches assisted him therein, and commenced on their own account; that their children again were educated to the profession; and that about their identity there could be no mistake whatever. We could not be blind, we say, to this melancholy truth, but we could not bring ourselves to admit it nevertheless, and we lived on for some years in a state of voluntary ignorance. We were roused from our pleasant slumber, by certain dark insinuations thrown out by a friend of ours, to the effect that children in the lower ranks of life, were beginning to choose chimney-sweeping as their particular walk, that applications had been made by various boys to the constituted authorities to allow them to pursue the object of their ambition, with the full concurrence and sanction of the law; that the affair, in short, was becoming one of mere legal contract. We turned a deaf ear to these rumours at first, but slowly and surely they stole upon us. Month after month, week after week, nay, day after day, at last, did we meet with accounts of similar applications. The veil was removed, all mystery was at an end, chimney-sweeping&amp;nbsp; became a favourite and chosen pursuit: there is no longer any occasion to steal boys, for boys flock in crowds to bind themselves. The romance of the trade has fled, and the chimney sweeper of the present day is no more like unto him of thirty years ago, than is a Fleet Street pickpocket to a Spanish brigand, or Paul Pry to Caleb Williams. This gradual decay and disuse of the practice of leading noble youths into captivity, and compelling them to ascend chimneys, was a severe blow, if we may so speak, to the romance of chimney sweeping, and to the romance of spring at the same time; but even this was not all; for some few years ago, the dancing on May-day began to decline; small sweeps were observed to congregate in twos or threes, unsupported by a &quot;green,&quot; with no &quot;My Lord&quot; to act as master of the ceremonies, and no &quot;My Lady&quot; to preside over the exchequer. Even in companies where there was a green it was an absolute nothing—a mere sprout; and the instrumental accompaniments rarely extended beyond the shovels and a set of Pan pipes, better known to the many, as a &quot;mouth organ.&quot; These were signs of the times, portentous omens of a coming change: and what was the result which they shadowed forth? Why, the master sweeps, influenced by a restless spirit of innovation, actually interposed their authority, in opposition to the dancing, and substituted a dinner—an anniversary dinner at White Conduit House—where clean faces appeared in lieu of black ones smeared with rose pink; and knee cords and tops, superseded nankeen drawers and rosetted shoes. Gentlemen who were in the habit of riding shy horses, and steady-going people, who have no vagrancy in their souls, lauded this alteration to the skies, and the conduct of the master sweeps was described as beyond the reach of praise. But how stands the real fact? Let any man deny, if he can, that when the cloth had been removed, fresh pots and pipes laid upon the table, and the customary loyal and patriotic toasts proposed, the celebrated Mr. Sluffen, of Adam and Eve Court, whose authority not the most malignant of our opponents can call in question, expressed himself in manner following: &quot;That now he’d cotcht the cheerman’s hi, he vished he might be jolly vell blessed, if he worn’t a goin’ to have his innins, vich he vould say these here obserwashuns—that how some mischeevus coves as know’d nuffin about the con-sarn, had tried to sit people agin the mas’r swips, and take the shine out o’ their bis’nes, and the bread out o’ the traps o’ their preshus kids, by a makin’ o’ this here remark, as chimblies could be as vel svept by ‘cheenery as by boys, and that the makin’ use o’ boys for that there purpuss vos barbareous; vereas he ’ad been a chummy—he begged the cheerman’s pard&#039;n for usin’ such a wulgar hexpression—more nor thirty year, he might say he’d been born in a chimbley, and he know’d uncommon vel as ‘cheenery vos vus nor o’ no use: and as to ker-hewelty to the boys, every body in the chimbley line know’d as vel as he did, that they liked the climbin’ better nor nuffin as vos.&quot; From this day, we date the total fall of the last lingering remnant of May-day dancing, among the élite of the profession: and from this period we commence a new era in that portion of our spring associations, which relates to the 1st of May. We are aware that the unthinking part of the population will meet us here, with the assertion, that dancing on May-day still continues—that &quot;greens&quot; are annually seen to roll along the streets—that sportive youths, in the garb of clowns, precede them, giving vent to the ebullitions of their sportive fancies; and that lords and ladies follow in their wake. Granted. We are ready to acknowledge that in outward show these processions have greatly improved: we do not deny the introduction of solos on the drum: we will even go so far as to admit an occasional fantasia on the triangle, but here our admissions end. We positively deny that the sweeps have act or part in these proceedings. We distinctly charge the dustmen with throwing what they ought to clear away, into the eyes of the public. We accuse scavengers, brick-makers, and gentlemen who devote their energies to the costermongering line, with obtaining money once a-year, under false pretences. We cling with peculiar fondness to the customs of days gone by, and have shut out conviction as long as we could, but it has forced itself upon us; and we now proclaim to a deluded public that the May-day dancers are not sweeps. The size of them alone is sufficient to repudiate the idea. It is a notorious fact that the widely spread taste for register-stoves has materially increased the demand for small boys; whereas the men, who under a fictitious character, dance about the streets on the first of May now-a-days, would be a tight fit in a kitchen flue, to say nothing of the parlour. This is strong presumptive evidence, but we have positive proof—the evidence of our own senses, and here is our testimony:— Upon the morning of the second of this present month of May, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, we went out for a stroll, with a kind of forlorn hope of seeing something or other which might induce us to believe that it was really spring, and not Christmas; and after wandering as far as Copenhagen House, without meeting anything calculated to dispel our impression that there was a mistake in the almanacks, we turned back down Maiden-lane, with the intention of passing through the extensive colony lying between it and Battle-bridge, which is inhabited by proprietors of donkey-carts, boilers of horse-flesh, and sifters of cinders: and through this colony we should have passed, without stoppage or interruption, if a little crowd gathered round a shed had not attracted our attention, and induced us to pause. When we say a &quot;shed,&quot; we do not mean the conservatory sort of building, which, according to the old song, Love tenanted when he was a young man; but a wooden house with windows stuffed with rags and paper, and a small yard at the side, with one dust-cart, two baskets, a few shovels, and little heaps of cinders, and fragments of China and tiles, scattered about it. Before this inviting spot we paused; and the longer we looked, the more we wondered what exciting circumstance it could be, that induced the foremost members of the crowd to flatten their noses against the parlour window, in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of what was going on inside. After staring vacantly about us for some minutes, we appealed, touching the cause of this assemblage, to a gentleman in a suit of tarpaulin, who was smoking his pipe on our right hand; but as the only answer we obtained, was a playful inquiry whether our maternal parent had disposed of her mangle, we determined to await the issue in silence. Judge of our virtuous indignation, when the street-door of the shed opened, and a party emerged therefrom, clad in the costume and emulating the appearance of May-day sweeps! The first person who appeared was &quot;my lord,&quot; habited in a blue coat and bright buttons, with gilt paper tacked over the seams, yellow knee-breeches, pink cotton stockings, and shoes, a cocked hat ornamented with shreds of various coloured paper on his head, a bouquet the size of a prize cauliflower in his button-hole, a long Belcher handkerchief in his right hand, and a thin cane in his left. A murmur of applause ran through the crowd (which was chiefly composed of his personal friends) when this graceful figure made his appearance, which swelled into a burst of applause as his fair partner in the dance bounded forth to join him. Her ladyship was attired in pink crape over bed-furniture, with a low body and short sleeves. The symmetry of her ankles was partially concealed by a very perceptible pair of frilled trousers; and the inconvenience which might have resulted from the circumstance of her white satin shoes being a few sizes too large, was obviated by their being firmly attached to her legs with strong tape sandals. Her head was ornamented with a profusion of artificial flowers, and in her hand she bore a large brass ladle, wherein to receive what she figuratively denominated &quot;the tin.&quot; The other characters were a young gentleman in girl’s clothes and a widow’s cap; two clowns who walked upon their hands in the mud, to the immeasurable delight of all the spectators, a man with a drum, another man with a flageolet, a dirty woman in a large shawl, with a box under her arm for the money,—and last, though not least, the Green, animated by no less a personage than our identical friend in the tarpaulin suit. The man hammered away at the drum, the flageolet squeaked, the shovels rattled, the Green rolled about, pitching first on one side and then on the other,—my lady threw her right foot over her left ankle, and her left foot over her right ankle alternately; my lord ran a few paces forward and butted at the Green, and then a few paces backward upon the toes of the crowd, and then went to the right, and then to the left, and then dodged my lady round the Green, and finally drew her arm through his, and called upon the boys to shout, which they did lustily—for this was the dancing. We passed the same group accidentally in the evening. We never saw a green so drunk, a lord so quarrelsome (except in the house of peers after dinner), a pair of clowns so melancholy, a lady so muddy, or a party so miserable. How has May-day decayed! thought we. How many merry sports, such as dancing round the Maypole, have fallen into desuetude! And, apparently trifling as their loss may appear, with how many profligate and vicious customs have they been replaced! How much of cheerfulness and simplicity of character have they carried away with them; and how much of degradation and discontent have they left behind!18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/A_Little_Talk_about_Spring_and_the_Sweeps/1836-A_little_Talk_about_Spring_Sweeps.pdf
6https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/6'A Word in Season'Published in <em>The Keepsake</em> (1844).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1844">1844</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1844_The_Keepsake_A_Word_In_SeasonDickens, Charles. 'A Word in Season.' <em>The Keepsake</em> (1844). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1844_The_Keepsake_A_Word_In_Season">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1844_The_Keepsake_A_Word_In_Season</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1844_The_Keepsake_A_Word_In_Season.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'A Word in Season.'&nbsp;<em>The Keepsake&nbsp;</em>(1844).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Keepsake%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Keepsake</em></a>They have a superstition in the East, That ALLAH, written on a piece of paper, Is better unction than can come of priest, Of rolling incense, and of lighted taper; Holding, that any scrap which bears that name, In any characters, its front imprest on, Shall help the finder through the purging flame, And give his toasted feet a place to rest on. Accordingly, they make a mighty fuss, With ev’ry wretched tract and fierce oration, And hoard the leaves – for they are not, like us, A highly civilized and thinking nation: And, always stooping in the miry ways, To look for matter of this earthy leaven, They seldom, in their dust-exploring days, Have any leisure to look up to Heaven. So have I known a country on the earth, Where darkness sat upon the living waters, And brutal ignorance, and toil, and dearth Were the hard portion of its sons and daughters: And yet, where they who should have ope’d the door Of charity and light, for all men’s finding, Squabbled for words upon the altar-floor, And rent the Book, in struggles for the binding. The gentlest man among these pious Turks, God’s living image ruthlessly defaces; Their best high-churchman, with no faith in works, Bowstrings the Virtues in the market-places: The Christian Pariah, whom both sects curse (They curse all other men, and curse each other), Walks thro’ the world, not very much the worse – Does all the good he can, and loves his brother.18440101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/A_Word_in_Season/1844_A_Word_in_Season.pdf
69https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/69'Acrostic'From the autograph album of Maria Beadnell (1830-1831).Dickens, CharlesThe Charles Dickens Museum, <a href="http://www.collections.dickensmuseum.com/object-b319--1971-1-105" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.collections.dickensmuseum.com/object-b319--1971-1-105</a>.; Autograph Album of Maria Beadnell.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1830">1830</a>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1831">1831</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1830-31_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_AcrosticDickens, Charles. 'Acrostic.' Autograph Album of Maria Beadnell (1830-31).&nbsp;<em>Dickens Search.</em>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1830-31_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_Acrostic">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1830-31_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_Acrostic</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1830-31_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_Acrostic.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Acrostic.' From the autograph album of Maria Beadnell (1830-1831).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Autograph+Album">Autograph Album</a>My life may chequered be with scenes of misery and pain, And’t may be my fate to struggle with adversity in vain: Regardless of misfortunes tho’ howe’er bitter they may be, I shall always have one retrospect, a hallowed one to me, And it will be of that happy time when first I gazed on thee. Blighted hopes, and prospects drear, for me will lose their sting, Endless troubles shall harm not me, when fancy on the wing A lapse of years shall travel o’er, and again before me cast Dreams of happy fleeting moments then for ever past: Not any worldly pleasure has such magic charms for me E’en now, as those short moments spent in company with thee; Life has no charms, no happiness, no pleasures, now for me Like those I feel, when ’tis my lot Maria, to gaze on thee.18300101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Acrostic/1830-31_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_Acrostic.pdf
176https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/176'Bob Tarter's Parody'Published in 'The Schoolboy's Story,' <em>Household Words,</em> Vol. VIII, no. 196, New Year Number, 18 February 1854, pp. 409-13.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-viii/page-610.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-viii/page-610.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1854-02-18">1854-02-18</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1854-02-18-Bob-Tarters-ParodyDickens, Charles. 'Bob Tarter's Parody' (18 February 1854). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/verse/1854-02-18-Bob-Tarters-Parody">https://www.dickenssearch.com/verse/1854-02-18-Bob-Tarters-Parody</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>Who made believe to be so meek That we could hardly hear him speak, Yet turned out an Informing Sneak? Old Cheeseman.18540218https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Bob_Tarter_s_Parody/1854-2-18-Bob_Tarters_Parody.pdf
153https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/153'Captain Boldheart's Song'Published in 'Romance. From the Pen of Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Redforth,' No. III. <em>Holiday Romance</em>. <em>Our Young Folks,</em><span> vol.4, no. 1 (March 1868), pp. 193-200. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom, p. 194.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=03-1868">03-1868</a><span>Public domain, Google-digitized</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Verse">Verse</a>1868-03-Captain_Boldhearts_SongDickens, Charles. 'Captain Boldheart's Song' (March 1868). <em>Holiday Romance.</em> <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-03-Captain_Boldhearts_Song">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-03-Captain_Boldhearts_Song</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EOur+Young+Folks%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Our Young Folks</em></a>O landsmen are folly! O Pirates are jolly! O Diddleum Dolly, Di! (Chorus.) Heave yo.18680301https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Captain_Boldheart_s_Song/1868-03-Captain_Boldhearts_Song.pdf
107https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/107'Charade'To Henry Riley Bradbury, from the Bradbury album, a scrapbook of letters, sketches, drawings, prints, photographs, and printed ephemera (3 June 1847).Dickens, Charles<span>'Appendix: Charade sent to Henry Riley Bradbury.' 3 June 1847.&nbsp;</span><em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Graham Storey and K. J. Fielding. Volume 5 (1847-1849), p.691. Oxford University Press, 1980.</span>; Bradbury Album, <a href="https://www.themorgan.org/literary-historical/283347" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.themorgan.org/literary-historical/283347</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1847-06-03">1847-06-03</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Riddle">Riddle</a>1847-06-03-Bradbury-Album-CharadeDickens, Charles. 'Charade.' Bradbury Album (3 June 1847). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1847-06-03-Bradbury-Album-Charade">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1847-06-03-Bradbury-Album-Charade</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1847-06-03-Bradbury-Album-Charade.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Charade.' Bradbury Album (3 June 1847).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Album">Album</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Bradbury+Album">Bradbury Album</a>A species of Nail, but headless and small, Cant word for the Coin which low people call “A farden”, “a copper”, and sweepers entreat You to favor Poor Jack with, in crossing the street,–Is my First. With its first letter chang’d, it’s a horse Change its last, it’s a spoilt child–and crying, of course. It’s a Sunday in London. Many there be Who do my sad Second, so dreary to see; Who wind through the streets, in dark, slow-pacing trains, Or ride behind horses with long-flowing manes; And heap up top-boots, cloaks and feathers, and bands, To swell the great riddle no man understands. In Naples, when they do my Second, Glowing colors, brightest reckon’d, Velvets, ribbons, flowers, and smoke, Make of the fête a ghastly joke.–Or stay–here’s a Miser, lean, trembling, and old, And he does my Second, poor wretch! With his gold. My whole is of Two Genders–man, and wife–It has, it has not, and it will have, life; Is born, is not, is living, and has died, In Marriage may be given–to the Bride; Is short, is tall, is smooth, is rough, of face; And, though not ridden, is a kind of Race.18470603
77https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/77'Chorus' (<em>O'Thello</em>)From <em>O'Thello</em> (1833-1834).Dickens, CharlesBeinecke Library, Yale University.; Manuscript<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1833">1833</a>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834">1834</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1833-34_Othello_Chorus<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Chorus.'&nbsp;<em>O'Thello&nbsp;</em>(1833-34).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><i>Dickens Search.<span>&nbsp;</span></i><span>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1833-34_Othello_Chorus">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1833-34_Othello_Chorus</a><span>.</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1833-34_Othello_Chorus.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Chorus.' <em>O'Thello&nbsp;</em>(1833-34).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EO%27Thello%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>O'Thello</em></a>Air – &quot;Gold&#039;s but dross&quot; – Robert le diable GU. Bring the porter in the Pewter and be sure they draw it mild E argo If he suspects his wife he&#039;ll shoot her and I am for vegeance wild. Cass Let&#039;s be happy Lots of baccy Let the cheerful smoke abound Desd Dancing lightly Gaily Sprightly Let the merry song go round GU. Right fal la ral la ral lide E argo. Right fal la ral liddle dol de Cass Right fal la ral la ral lide Desd Right fal la ral liddle dol de Cho: Right fal la ral de (at End of chorus go out with the rest)18330101
112https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/112'Chorus' (<em>The Strange Gentleman</em>)From Act 1, Scene 1 of <em>The Strange Gentleman</em> (Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, 1836).Dickens, CharlesLord Chamberlain’s Copy.; <span>'Chorus.' <em>The Strange</em> <em>Gentleman</em>. </span><em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 1 (1820-1839), p. 696. Oxford University Press, 1965.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Chorus<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Chorus.'&nbsp;</span><i>The Strange Gentleman </i><span>(1836).&nbsp;</span><i>Dickens Search.<span>&nbsp;</span></i><span>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Chorus">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Chorus</a><span>.</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Chorus.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Chorus.' <em>The Strange Gentleman&nbsp;</em>(Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, 1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Strange+Gentleman">The Strange Gentleman</a>Oh, What pleasure, tis to see Such a goodly Company Flocking to St James Arms. Where their Servants are to greet ‘em And good Entertainment wait ‘em Banishing all false alarms. Each is welcome here To enjoy the cheer That’s at St James Arms That’s at St James Arms.18360101
36https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/36'Dance and Finale'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah, pp. 17-18.Dickens, Charles<div class="field two columns alpha"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks.</div>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Dance_and_Finale<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Dance and Finale.' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): pp.17-18. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Dance_and_Finale">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Dance_and_Finale</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Dance_and_Finale.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Dance and Finale.' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts">The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</a>CHORUS. Join the dance, with step as light As ev’ry heart should be to-night; Music, shake the lofty dome, In honour of our Harvest Home. Join the dance, and banish care, All are young, and gay, and fair; Even age has youthful grown, In honour of our Harvest Home. Join the dance, bright faces beam, Sweet lips smile, and dark eyes gleam; All these charms have hither come, In honour of our Harvest Home. Join the dance, with step as light, As ev’ry heart should be to-night; Music shake the lofty dome In honour of our Harvest Home. QUINTET - Lucy - Rose - Edmunds - The Squire - Young Benson No light bound Of stag or timid hare, O’er the ground Where startled herds repair, Do we prize So high, or hold so dear, As the eyes That light our pleasures here. No cool breeze That gently plays by night, O’er calm seas, Whose waters glisten bright; No soft moan That sighs across the lea, Harvest Home, Is half so sweet as thee! CHORUS. Hail to the merry autumn days, when yellow corn-fields shine, Far brighter than the costly cup that holds the monarch&#039;s wine! Hail to the merry harvest time, the gayest of the year, The time of rich and bounteous crops, rejoicing, and good cheer. Hail! Hail! Hail!18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Dance_and_Finale/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Dance_and_Finale.pdf
29https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/29'Duet: Lucy and Squire Norton'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah, pp. 9-10.Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></p>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Duet_Lucy_SquireNorton<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Duet: Lucy and Squire Norton.' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): pp. 9-10. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Duet_Lucy_SquireNorton">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Duet_Lucy_SquireNorton</a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"></span></p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Duet_The_Squire_and_Lucy.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Duet: Lucy and Squire Norton.' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts">The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</a>Squire. In rich and lofty station shine, Before his jealous eyes; In golden splendour, lady mine, This peasant youth despise. Lucy (Apart-the Squire regarding her attentively). Oh! it would be revenge indeed, With scorn his glance to meet. I, I, his humble pleading heed! I’d spurn him from my feet. Squire. With love and rage her bosom’s torn, And rash the choice will be; Lucy. With love and rage my bosom’s torn, And rash the choice will be. Squire. From hence she quickly must be borne, Her home, her home, she’ll flee. Lucy. Oh! long shall I have cause to mourn My home, my home, for thee!18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Duet_Lucy_and_Squire_Norton/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Duet_Lucy_SquireNorton.pdf
117https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/117'Duet: Mr. and Mrs. Lovetown'From <em>Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular!</em> (<span>Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, </span>27 February 1837).Dickens, CharlesLord Chamberlain’s Copy, British Library.; <span>'Duet: Mr. and Mrs. Lovetown.' <em>Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular!</em>&nbsp;</span><em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 1 (1820-1839), pp. 698-699. Oxford University Press, 1965.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837-02-27">1837-02-27</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1837-02-27_Is_She_His_Wife_Or_Something_Singular_Duet_Mr_And_Mrs_LovetownDickens, Charles. 'Duet: Mr. and Mrs. Lovetown.' <em>Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular!</em> (27 February 1837). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1837-02-27_Is_She_His_Wife_Or_Something_Singular_Duet_Mr_And_Mrs_Lovetown">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1837-02-27_Is_She_His_Wife_Or_Something_Singular_Duet_Mr_And_Mrs_Lovetown</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1837-02-27_Is_She_His_Wife_Or_Something_Singular_Duet_Mr_And_Mrs_Lovetown.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Duet: Mr. and Mrs. Lovetown.' <em>Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular!</em> (27 February 1837).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Is+She+His+Wife%3F+Or%2C+Something+Singular%21">Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular!</a>A married life, Is not all joy; But noise &amp; strife, Its charms alloy. Tho’ to please we do our best: Misery’ll our life infest – Nought is right we e’re can do, But all is wrong – &amp; all is rue! Sometimes darling, Oft times snarling Now then pleasing Then there teasing Nought but care – and nought but strife Oh, who would sigh for a married life.18370227
27https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/27'Duet: Rose and Sparkins Flam'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah.Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></p>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Duet_Rose_and_Sparkins_Flam<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Duet: Rose and Sparkins Flam.' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): p.7. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Duet_Rose_and_Sparkins_Flam">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Duet_Rose_and_Sparkins_Flam</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Duet_Rose_and_Sparkins_Flam.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Duet: Rose and Sparkins Flam.' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em></a>Flam. ‘Tis true I’m caressed by the witty, The envy of all the fine beaux, The pet of the court and the city, But still, I’m the lover of Rose. Rose. Country sweethearts, oh, how I despise! And oh! How delighted I am To think that I shine in the eyes Of the elegant – sweet – Mr. Flam. Flam. Allow me. (Offers to kiss her) Rose. Pray don’t be so bold, sir (Kisses her.) Flam. What sweets on that honied lip hang! Rose. Your presumption, I know, I should scold, sir, But I really can’t scold Mr. Flam. Both. Then let us be happy together, Content with the world as it goes, An unchangeable couple for ever, Mr. Flam and his beautiful Rose.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Duet_Rose_and_Sparkins_Flam/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Duet_Rose_and_Sparkins_Flam.pdf
37https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/37'Duet'From <i>The Lamplighter </i>(1838).Dickens, Charles<em>The Poems and Verses of Charles Dickens</em> (1903). Ed. Frederic George Kitton. London: Chapman and Hall, pp. 31-32,<br /><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Poems_and_Verses_of_Charles_Dickens/lLs_AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=Duet%20from%20the%20lamplighter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Poems_and_Verses_of_Charles_Dickens/lLs_AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=Duet%20from%20the%20lamplighter</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1838">1838</a><em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/googlebooks/about/">https://www.google.com/googlebooks/about/</a>. Google's free books are made available to read through careful consideration of and respect for copyright law globally: they are public-domain works, made free on request of the copyright owner, or copyright-free.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1838-The_Lamplighter_Duet<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Duet.' <i>The Lamplighter </i>(1838): pp. 31-32. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1838-The_Lamplighter_Duet">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1838-The_Lamplighter_Duet</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1838_The_Lamplighter_Duet.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Duet.'&nbsp;<em>The Lamplighter&nbsp;</em>(1838).&nbsp;</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Lamplighter">The Lamplighter</a>Air – ‘The Young May-moon’ Tom. There comes a new moon twelve times a year. Betsy. And when there is none, all is dark and drear. Tom. In which I espy – Betsy. And so, too, do I – Both. A resemblance to womankind very clear – Both. There comes a new moon twelve times a year; And when there is none, all is dark and drear. Tom. In which I espy – Betsy. And so do I Both. A resemblance to womankind very clear. Tom: She changes, she’s fickle, she drives men mad. Betsy. She comes to bring light, and leaves them sad. Tom. So restless wild – Betsy. But so sweetly wild – Both. That no better companion could be had. Both. There comes a new moon twelve times a year; And when there is none, all is dark and drear. Tom. In which I espy – Betsy. And so do I – Both. A resemblance to womankind very clear.18380101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Duet/1838-The_Lamplighter_Duet.pdf
34https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/34'Duett: Squire, Edmunds, and Norton'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah.Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks, p.15.</p>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Duett_Squire_Edmunds_and_Norton<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Duett: Squire, Edmunds, and Norton.' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): p. 15. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Duett_Squire_Edmunds_and_Norton">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Duett_Squire_Edmunds_and_Norton</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Duett_Squire_Edmonds_and_Norton.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Duett: Squire, Edmunds, and Norton.' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts">The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</a>Squire. Listen, though I do not fear you, Listen to me, ere we part. Edmunds. List to you! Yes, I will hear you. Squire. Yours alone is Lucy’s heart, I swear it, by that heav’n above me. Edmunds. What! can I believe my ears! Could I hope that she still loves me. Squire. Banish all these doubts and fears, If a love were e’er worth gaining, If love were ever fond and true, No disguise or passion feigning, Such is her young love for you. Squire. Listen, though I do not fear you, Listen to me, ere we part. Edmunds. List to you! yes, I will hear you. Mine alone is her young heart.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Duett_Squire_Edmunds_and_Norton/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Duett_Squire_Edmunds_and_Norton.pdf
113https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/113'Duett'From Act 1, Scene 1 of <em>The Strange Gentleman</em> (Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, 1836).Dickens, CharlesLord Chamberlain’s Copy, British Library.; <span>'Duett.' <em>The Strange</em> <em>Gentleman</em>. </span><em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 1 (1820-1839), p. 696. Oxford University Press, 1965.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_DuettDickens, Charles. 'Duett.' <em>The Strange Gentleman</em> (1836). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Duett">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Duett</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Duett.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Duett.' <em>The Strange Gentleman&nbsp;</em>(Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, 1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Strange+Gentleman">The Strange Gentleman</a>Around the feet of smiling love In Wanton Gambols Myriads play – Like Summer Zephyr’s in the Sun And scatter roses in his way. – A wreath entwine Of bays divine To Crown the boy. With songs of praise Our voice we’ll raise To sing love’s joy.18360101
123https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/123'Elegy'From a letter to Mary Boyle (3 December 1849).Dickens, Charles'Elegy.' <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The Pilgrim Edition. </em><span>Edited by Graham Storey and K. J. Fielding. Volume 5 (1847-1849), p. 708-709. Oxford University Press, 1980.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1849-12-03">1849-12-03</a>Parody of Thomas Gray&#039;s &#039;Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard&#039;.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1849-12-03_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Elegy<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Elegy' (3 December 1849). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1849-12-03_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Elegy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1849-12-03_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Elegy</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1849-12-03_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Elegy.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Elegy' (3 December 1849).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>Written in a country churchyard. The small dog Spitz has given a shrill bark, And gone off with her tail uprais’d in air; I don’t know where she’s gone, it is so dark, And (what is more) I don’t think that I care. Now the gloom deepens like to that thick gloom Of which the Master of the School once spoke, Which can’t be swept away by any broom, And hangs enshrouding all things, like dense smoke. Within yon Castle Walls, of old admired, Where winking tapers in the windows doze, Each to a chamber snug and warm retir’d, Toe royst’ring wights of Rockingham repose! From them no more does Lady Teazle win Applause, fit tribute to her graces quaint: For them no more Sir Peter daubs his skin And looks out from a mist of flour and paint. The modest check and mien of “the young man”, The lunatic in custody next door, The mirth which Mrs Nickleby began, No longer interrupt their low-drawn snore. No more the host, as if he dealt at cards, Smiling deals lighted candles all about: No more the Fair inclusive of the Bard’s) Persist in blowing all the candles out. No more the Fair prolong the cheerful tread Of dancing feet until the lights low burn: No more the host, when they are gone to bed, Quickly retreats, foreboding their return. Let not Convention mock the cap and bells Which certain heads are not too wise to wear, Nor loftily disdain the voice that tells How harmless trifling purifies the air! Full many an impulse, generous and good, Has sprung from a light heart in cheery hours: Full many a wounded creature has withstood The thorns of life, rememb’ring its wild flowers. And so, may conjurors within that hall Again large watches cut, from loaves of bread: Again hot puddings bring, with magic call, From the hat sacred to a rev’rend head! For him who, mindful of that honored time, Does in these lines its artless tale relate, So read his fate in very feeble rhyme Written in chalk upon the churchyard Gate! The Epitaph Here rests his head upon his native soil A Youth who lived once, in the public whim: His death occasion’d by a mortal Boil, Which settled on his brain, and settled him.18491203
120https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/120'Epitaph of Charles Irving'From a letter to Dr F. H. Deane (4 April 1842).Dickens, Charles'To Dr F. H. Deane.' <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The Pilgrim Edition.&nbsp;</em>Edited by Madeline House, Graham Storey and Kathleen Tillotson. Volume 3 (1842-1843), p. 187. Oxford University Press, 1974.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1842-04-04">1842-04-04</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Epitaph">Epitaph</a>1842-04-04_Epitaph_Charles_Irving<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Epitaph of Charles Irving' (4 April 1842). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1842-04-04_Epitaph_Charles_Irving">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1842-04-04_Epitaph_Charles_Irving</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1842-04-04_Epitaph_Charles_Irving.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Epitaph of Charles Irving' (4 April 1842).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>This is the Grave of A Little Child, Whom God in his goodness Called to a Bright Eternity, When he was very young. Hard as it is For Human Affection To reconcile itself To Death, In any shape; (And most of all, perhaps, At First, In This) His parents Can even now believe That it will be a consolation to them, Throughout Their Lives, And when they shall have grown old And grey, Always to think of him As a Child, In Heaven. “And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them” He was the son of A and M Thornton. Christened CHARLES IRVING He was born on the 20th day of January 1841, And he died on the 12th day of March 1842. Having lived only Thirteen Months, and nine days.18420404
128https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/128'Epitaph of Katherine Thomson'From a letter to George Thomson (26 November 1841).Dickens, Charles.Sack, O. 'An Epitaph by Charles Dickens.' <em>The Dickensian</em> 10.9 (1914): 234-237.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1841-11-26">1841-11-26</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Epitaph">Epitaph</a>1841-11-26_Epitaph_Katherine_Thomson<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Epitaph of Katherine Thomson' (26 November 1841). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/ 1841-11-26_Epitaph_Katherine_Thomson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1841-11-26_Epitaph_Katherine_Thomson</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1841-11-26_Epitaph_Katherine_Thomson.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Epitaph of Katherine Thomson' (26 November 1841).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>Sacred to the ashes of Katherine Thomson, For Sixty Years The dear Wife of George Thomson of Edinburgh. She died at Brompton on the Thirteenth of October 1841; Closing at the age of Seventy Five, a life of affectionate devotion and domestic excellence. Reader! The adjoining grave Is that of her Grandchild who died In the early bloom of womanhood. This Is the resting-place of one whose honoured head was gray. It is hard to lose Those whom we fondly love at any time; But it is a happy thing To believe That in Eternity There is perpetual youth and happiness For all. The will of God be done!18411126
129https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/129'Epitaph of Mary Hogarth'Composed after the death of Mary Hogarth on 7 May 1837 (May 1837).Dickens, Charles<div id="dublin-core-source" class="element"> <div class="element-text"><span>'Epitaph of Mary Hogarth.'&nbsp;</span><em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 1 (1820-1839), p. 259<em>n</em>. Oxford University Press, 1965.</span></div> </div><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837-05">1837-05</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Epitaph">Epitaph</a>1837-05_Epitaph_Mary_Hogarth<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Epitaph of Mary Hogarth' (May 1837). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/ 1837-05_Epitaph_Mary_Hogarth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/<br />1837-05_Epitaph_Mary_Hogarth</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1837-05_Epitaph_Mary_Hogarth.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Epitaph of Mary Hogarth' (May 1837).</span></a>Mary Scott Hogarth Died 7th May 1837 Young Beautiful And Good God In His Mercy Numbered Her With His Angels At the Early Age Of Seventeen18370512
127https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/127'Epitaph of Mr. Arthur Smith'From a letter to Mrs Arthur Smith (9 October 1861).Dickens, Charles'To Mrs Arthur Smith.' <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The Pilgrim Edition. </em>Edited by Graham Storey. Volume 9 (1859-1861), p. 473. Oxford University Press, 1997.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1861-10-09">1861-10-09</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Epitaph">Epitaph</a>1861-10-09_Epitaph_Arthur_Smith<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Epitaph of Mr. Arthur Smith' (9 October 1861). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1861-10-09_Epitaph_Arthur_Smith" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1861-10-09_Epitaph_Arthur_Smith</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1861-10-09_Epitaph_Arthur_Smith.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Epitaph of Mr. Arthur Smith' (9 October 1861).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>Here also lie the remains of MR. ARTHUR SMITH, In the Grave of his brother and father. He died, 1st October 1861, Aged 36 Years. For his zeal, integrity, and fidelity, He was widely beloved and honoured. And it is believed By those who knew him best, That he had the clearest head In affairs of business, And the clearest heart In all the affairs of life, That were ever united to The simple tastes, The sweet temper and gentleness, Of an affectionate child.18611009
130https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/130'Epitaph of Walter Landor Dickens'Composed after the death of Walter Landor Dickens on the 31 December 1863 (February 1864).Dickens, Charles'Walter Savage Landor Dickens.' <em>The Dickensian</em> 7.2 (1911): 41-42.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1864-02">1864-02</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Epitaph">Epitaph</a>1864-02_Epitaph_Walter_Landor_Dickens<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Epitaph of Walter Landor Dickens' (February 1864). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1864-02_Epitaph_Walter_Landor_Dickens" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1864-02_Epitaph_Walter_Landor_Dickens</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1864-02_Epitaph_Walter_Landor_Dickens.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Epitaph of Walter Landor Dickens' (February 1864).</span></a>In memory of Lieut. WALTER LANDOR DICKENS, The second son of CHARLES DICKENS, who died At the Officers’ Hospital, Calcutta, On his way home on sick leave, December 31st, 1863, Aged 23 years18640201
155https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/155'Full Report of the First Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything'Published in <em>Bentley's Miscellany</em> vol.2 (October 1837), pp. 397-413. Edited by Charles Dickens.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust, </em><a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081673711&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=7&amp;skin=2021">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081673711&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=7&amp;skin=2021</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837-10">1837-10</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1837-10-Full_Report_First_Meeting_Mudfog_AssoDickens, Charles. 'Full Report of the First Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything'. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1837-10-Full_Report_First_Meeting_Mudfog_Asso">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1837-10-Full_Report_First_Meeting_Mudfog_Asso</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBentley%27s+Miscellany%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bentley's Miscellany</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>We have made the most unparalleled and extraordinary exertions to place before our readers a complete and accurate account of the proceedings at the late grand meeting of the Mudfog Association, holden in the town of Mudfog; it affords us great happiness to lay the result before them, in the shape of various communications received from our able, talented, and graphic correspondent, expressly sent down for the purpose, who has immortalised us, himself, Mudfog, and the association, all at one and the same time. We have been, indeed, for some days unable to determine who will transmit the greatest name to posterity; ourselves, who sent our correspondent down; our correspondent, who wrote an account of the matter; or the association, who gave our correspondent something to write about. We rather incline to the opinion that we are the greatest man of the party, inasmuch as the notion of an exclusive and authentic report originated with us; this may be prejudice: it may arise from a prepossession on our part in our own favour. Be it so. We have no doubt that every gentleman concerned in this mighty assemblage is troubled with the same complaint in a greater or less degree; and it is a consolation to us to know that we have at least this feeling in common with the great scientific stars, the brilliant and extraordinary luminaries, whose speculations we record. We give our correspondent&#039;s letters in the order in which they reached us. Any attempt at amalgamating them into one beautiful whole, would only destroy that glowing tone, that dash of wildness, and rich vein of picturesque interest, which pervade them throughout. &quot;Mudfog, Monday night, seven o&#039;clock. &quot;We are in a state of great excitement here. Nothing is spoken of, but the approaching meeting of the association. The inn-doors are thronged with waiters anxiously looking for the expected arrivals; and the numerous bills which are wafered up in the windows of private houses, intimating that there are beds to let within, give the streets a very animated and cheerful appearance, the wafers being of a great variety of colours, and the monotony of printed inscriptions being relieved by every possible size and style of hand-writing. It is confidently rumoured that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy have engaged three beds and a sitting-room at the Pig and Tinder-box. I give you the rumour as it has reached me; but I cannot, as yet, vouch for its accuracy. The moment I have been enabled to obtain any certain information upon this interesting point, you may depend upon receiving it.&#039; &quot;Half-past seven. &quot;I have just returned from a personal interview with the landlord of the Pig and Tinder-box. He speaks confidently of the probability of Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy taking up their residence at his house during the sitting of the association, but denies that the beds have been yet engaged; in which representation he is confirmed by the chambermaid,—a girl of artless manners, and interesting appearance. The boots denies that it is at all likely that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy will put up here; but I have reason to believe that this man has been suborned by the proprietor of the Original Pig, which is the opposition hotel. Amidst such conflicting testimony it is difficult to arrive at the real truth; but you may depend upon receiving authentic information upon this point the moment the fact is ascertained. The excitement still continues. A boy fell through the window of the pastrycook&#039;s shop at the corner of the High-street about half an hour ago, which has occasioned much confusion. The general impression is, that it was an accident. Pray heaven it may prove so!&#039; &quot;Tuesday, noon. &quot;At an early hour this morning the bells of all the churches struck seven o&#039;clock; the effect of which, in the present lively state of the town, was extremely singular. While I was at breakfast, a yellow gig, drawn by a dark grey horse, with a patch of white over his right eyelid, proceeded at a rapid pace in the direction of the Original Pig stables; it is currently reported that this gentleman has arrived here for the purpose of attending the association, and, from what I have heard, I consider it extremely probable, although nothing decisive is yet known regarding him. You may conceive the anxiety with which we are all looking forward to the arrival of the four o&#039;clock coach this afternoon. &quot;Notwithstanding the excited state of the populace, no outrage has yet been committed, owing to the admirable discipline and discretion of the police, who are nowhere to be seen. A barrel-organ is playing opposite my window, and groups of people, offering fish and vegetables for sale, parade the streets. With these exceptions everything is quiet, and I trust will continue so.&quot; &quot;Five o&#039;clock. &quot;It is now ascertained beyond all doubt that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy will not repair to the Pig and Tinder-box, but have actually engaged apartments at the Original Pig. This intelligence is exclusive; and I leave you and your readers to draw their own inferences from it. Why Professor Wheezy, of all people in the world, should repair to the Original Pig in preference to the Pig and Tinder-box, it is not easy to conceive. The professor is a man who should be above all such petty feelings. Some people here, openly impute treachery and a distinct breach of faith to Professors Snore and Doze; while others, again, are disposed to acquit them of any culpability in the transaction, and to insinuate that the blame rests solely with Professor Wheezy. I own that I incline to the latter opinion; and although it gives me great pain to speak in terms of censure or disapprobation of a man of such transcendent genius and acquirements, still I am bound to say, that if my suspicions be well founded, and if all the reports which have reached my ears be true, I really do not well know what to make of the matter. &quot;Mr. Slug, so celebrated for his statistical researches, arrived this afternoon by the four o&#039;clock stage. His complexion is a dark purple, and he has a habit of sighing constantly. He looked extremely well, and appeared in high health and spirits. Mr. Woodensconce also came down in the same conveyance. The distinguished gentleman was fast asleep on his arrival, and I am informed by the guard that he had been so, the whole way. He was, no doubt, preparing for his approaching fatigues; but what gigantic visions must those be, that flit through the brain of such a man, when his body is in a state of torpidity! &quot;The influx of visitors increases every moment. I am told (I know not how truly) that two post-chaises have arrived at the Original Pig within the last half-hour; and I myself observed a wheelbarrow, containing three carpet bags and a bundle, entering the yard of the Pig and Tinder-box no longer ago than five minutes since. The people are still quietly pursuing their ordinary occupations; but there is a wildness in their eyes, and an unwonted rigidity in the muscles of their countenances, which shows to the observant spectator that their expectations are strained to the very utmost pitch. I fear, unless some very extraordinary arrivals take place to-night, that consequences may arise from this popular ferment, which every man of sense and feeling would deplore.&quot; &quot;Twenty minutes past six. &quot;I have just heard that the boy who fell through the pastrycook&#039;s window last night, has died of the fright. He was suddenly called upon to pay three and sixpence for the damage done, and his constitution, it seems, was not strong enough to bear up against the shock. The inquest, it is said, will be held to-morrow.&quot; &quot;Three-quarters part seven. &quot;Professors Muff and Nogo have just driven up to the hotel door; they at once ordered dinner with great condescension. We are all very much delighted with the urbanity of their manners, and the ease with which they adapt themselves to the forms and ceremonies of ordinary life. Immediately on their arrival they sent for the head-waiter, and privately requested him to purchase a live dog,—as cheap a one as he could meet with,—and to send him up after dinner, with a pie-board, a knife and fork, and a clean plate. It is conjectured that some experiments will be tried upon the dog to-night; if any particulars should transpire, I will forward them by express.&quot; &quot;Half-past eight. &quot;The animal has been procured. He is a pug-dog, of rather intelligent appearance, in good condition, and with very short legs. He has been tied to a curtain-peg in a dark room, and is howling dreadfully.&quot; &quot;Ten minutes to nine. &quot;The dog has just been rung for. With an instinct which would appear almost the result of reason, the sagacious animal seized the waiter by the calf of the leg when he approached to take him, and made a desperate, though ineffectual resistance. I have not been able to procure admission to the apartment occupied by the scientific gentlemen; but, judging from the sounds which reached my ears when I stood upon the landing-place outside the door, just now, I should be disposed to say that the dog had retreated growling beneath some article of furniture, and was keeping the professors at bay. This conjecture is confirmed by the testimony of the ostler, who, after peeping through the keyhole, assures me that he distinctly saw Professor Nogo on his knees, holding forth a small bottle of prussic acid, to which the animal, who was crouched beneath an arm-chair, obstinately declined to smell. You cannot imagine the feverish state of irritation we are in, lest the interests of science should be sacrificed to the prejudices of a brute creature, who is not endowed with sufficient sense to foresee the incalculable benefits which the whole human race may derive from so very slight a concession on his part.&quot; &quot;Nine o&#039;clock. &quot;The dog&#039;s tail and ears have been sent down stairs to be washed; from which circumstance we infer that the animal is no more. His forelegs have been delivered to the boots to be brushed, which strengthens the supposition.&quot; &quot;Half after ten. &quot;My feelings are so overpowered by what has taken place in the course of the last hour and a half, that I have scarcely strength to detail the rapid succession of events which have quite bewildered all those who are cognizant of their occurrence. It appears that the pug-dog mentioned in my last was surreptitiously obtained,⁠—stolen, in fact,⁠—by some person attached to the stable department, from an unmarried lady resident in this town. Frantic on discovering the loss of her favourite, the lady rushed distractedly into the street, calling in the most heart-rending and pathetic manner upon the passengers to restore her, her Augustus,⁠—for so the deceased was named, in affectionate remembrance of a former lover of his mistress, to whom he bore a striking personal resemblance, which renders the circumstances additionally affecting. I am not yet in a condition to inform you what circumstance induced the bereaved lady to direct her steps to the hotel which had witnessed the last struggles of her protegé. I can only state that she arrived there, at the very instant when his detached members were passing through the passage on a small tray. Her shrieks still reverberate in my ears! I grieve to say that the expressive features of Professor Muff were much scratched and lacerated by the injured lady; and that Professor Nogo, besides sustaining several severe bites, has lost some handfuls of hair from the same cause. It must be some consolation to these gentlemen to know that their ardent attachment to scientific pursuits has alone occasioned these unpleasant consequences; for which the sympathy of a grateful country will sufficiently reward them. The unfortunate lady remains at the Pig and Tinder-box, and up to this time is reported in a very precarious state. &quot;I need scarcely tell you that this unlooked-for catastrophe has cast a damp and gloom upon us in the midst of our exhilaration; natural in any case, but greatly enhanced in this, by the amiable qualities of the deceased animal, who appears to have been much and deservedly respected by the whole of his acquaintance.&#039; &quot;Twelve o&#039;clock. &quot;I take the last opportunity before sealing my parcel to inform you that the boy who fell through the pastrycook&#039;s window is not dead, as was universally believed, but alive and well. The report appears to have had its origin in his mysterious disappearance. He was found half an hour since on the premises of a sweet-stuff maker, where a raffle had been announced for a second-hand seal-skin cap and a tambourine; and where⁠—a sufficient number of members not having been obtained at first⁠—he had patiently waited until the list was completed. This fortunate discovery has in some degree restored our gaiety and cheerfulness. It is proposed to get up a subscription for him without delay. &quot;Everybody is nervously anxious to see what to-morrow will bring forth. If any one should arrive in the course of the night, I have left strict directions to be called immediately. I should have sat up, indeed, but the agitating events of this day have been too much for me. &quot;No news yet of either of the Professors Snore, Doze, or Wheezy. It is very strange!&quot; &quot;Wednesday afternoon. &quot;All is now over; and, upon one point at least, I am at length enabled to set the minds of your readers at rest. The three professors arrived at ten minutes after two o&#039;clock, and, instead of taking up their quarters at the Original Pig, as it was universally understood in the course of yesterday that they would assuredly have done, drove straight to the Pig and Tinder-box, where they threw off the mask at once, and openly announced their intention of remaining. Professor Wheezy may reconcile this very extraordinary conduct with his notions of fair and equitable dealing, but I would recommend Professor Wheezy to be cautious how he presumes too far upon his well-earned reputation. How such a man as Professor Snore, or, which is still more extraordinary, such an individual as Professor Doze, can quietly allow himself to be mixed up with such proceedings as these, you will naturally inquire. Upon this head, rumour is silent; I have my speculations, but forbear to give utterance to them just now.&quot; &quot;Four o&#039;clock. &quot;The town is filling fast; eighteenpence has been offered for a bed, and refused. Several gentlemen were under the necessity last night of sleeping in the brick-fields, and on the steps of doors, for which they were taken before the magistrates in a body this morning, and committed to prison as vagrants for various terms. One of these persons I understand to be a highly-respectable tinker, of great practical skill, who had forwarded a paper to the President of Section D. Mechanical Science, on the construction of pipkins with copper bottoms and safety-values, of which report speaks highly. The incarceration of this gentleman is greatly to be regretted, as his absence will preclude any discussion on the subject. &quot;The bills are being taken down in all directions, and lodgings are being secured on almost any terms. I have heard of fifteen shillings a week for two rooms, exclusive of coals and attendance, but I can scarcely believe it. The excitement is dreadful. I was informed this morning that the civil authorities, apprehensive of some outbreak of popular feeling, had commanded a recruiting sergeant and two corporals to be under arms; and that, with the view of not irritating the people unnecessarily by their presence, they had been requested to take up their position before daybreak in a turnpike, distant about a quarter of a mile from the town. The vigour and promptness of these measures cannot be too highly extolled. &quot;Intelligence has just been brought me, that an elderly female, in a state of inebriety, has declared in the open street her intention to &#039;do&#039; for Mr. Slug. Some statistical returns compiled by that gentleman, relative to the consumption of raw spirituous liquors in this place, are supposed to be the cause of the wretch&#039;s animosity. It is added that this declaration was loudly cheered by a crowd of persons who had assembled on the spot; and that one man had the boldness to designate Mr. Slug aloud by the opprobrious epithet of &#039;Stick-in-the-mud!&#039; It is earnestly to be hoped that now, when the moment has arrived for their interference, the magistrates will not shrink from the exercise of that power which is vested in them by the constitution of our common country.&quot; &quot;Half-past ten. &quot;The disturbance, I am happy to inform you, has been completely quelled, and the ringleader taken into custody. She had a pail of cold water thrown over her, previous to being locked up, and expresses great contrition and uneasiness. We are all in a fever of anticipation about to-morrow; but, now that we are within a few hours of the meeting of the association, and at last enjoy the proud consciousness of having its illustrious members amongst us, I trust and hope everything may go off peaceably. I shall send you a full report of to-morrow&#039;s proceedings by the night coach.&#039; &quot;Eleven o&#039;clock. &quot;I open my letter to say that nothing whatever has occurred since I folded it up.&quot; &quot;Thursday. &quot;The sun rose this morning at the usual hour. I did not observe anything particular in the aspect of the glorious planet, except that he appeared to me (it might have been a delusion of my heightened fancy) to shine with more than common brilliancy, and to shed a refulgent lustre upon the town, such as I had never observed before. This is the more extraordinary, as the sky was perfectly cloudless, and the atmosphere peculiarly fine. At half-past nine o&#039;clock the general committee assembled, with the last year&#039;s president in the chair. The report of the council was read; and one passage, which stated that the council had corresponded with no less than three thousand five hundred and seventy-one persons, (all of whom paid their own postage,) on no fewer than seven thousand two hundred and forty-three topics, was received with a degree of enthusiasm which no efforts could suppress. The various committees and sections having been appointed, and the more formal business transacted, the great proceedings of the meeting commenced at eleven o&#039;clock precisely. I had the happiness of occupying a most eligible position at that time, in &quot;SECTION A.⁠—ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. &quot;GREAT ROOM, PIG AND TINDER-BOX. &quot;PRESIDENT—PROFESSOR SNORE. VICE-PRESIDENTS⁠—PROFESSORS DOZE AND WHEEZY. &quot;The scene at this moment was particularly striking. The sun streamed through the windows of the apartments, and tinted the whole scene with its brilliant rays, bringing out in strong relief the noble visages of the professors and scientific gentlemen, who, some with bald heads, some with red heads, some with brown heads, some with grey heads, some with black heads, some with block heads, presented a coup-d&#039;oeil which no eye-witness will readily forget. In front of these gentlemen were papers and inkstands; and round the room, on elevated benches extending as far as the forms could reach, were assembled a brilliant concourse of those lovely and elegant women for which Mudfog is justly acknowledged to be without a rival in the whole world. The contrast between their fair faces and the dark coats and trousers of the scientific gentlemen I shall never cease to remember while Memory holds her seat. &quot;Time having been allowed for a slight confusion, occasioned by the falling down of the greater part of the platforms, to subside, the president called on one of the secretaries to read a communication entitled, &#039;Some remarks on the industrious fleas, with considerations on the importance of establishing infant schools among that numerous class of society; of directing their industry to useful and practical ends; and of applying the surplus fruits thereof, towards providing for them a comfortable and respectable maintenance in their old age.&#039; &quot;The Author stated, that, having long turned his attention to the moral and social condition of these interesting animals, he had been induced to visit an exhibition in Regent-street, London, commonly known by the designation of &#039;The Industrious Fleas.&#039; He had there seen many fleas, occupied certainly in various pursuits and avocations, but occupied, he was bound to add, in a manner which no man of well-regulated mind could fail to regard with sorrow and regret. One flea, reduced to the level of a beast of burden, was drawing about a miniature gig, containing a particularly small effigy of His Grace the Duke of Wellington; while another was staggering beneath the weight of a golden model of his great adversary Napoleon Bonaparte. Some, brought up as mountebanks and ballet-dancers, were performing a figure-dance (he regretted to observe, that, of the fleas so employed, several were females); others were in training, in a small card-board box, for pedestrians,⁠—mere sporting characters⁠—and two were actually engaged in the cold-blooded and barbarous occupation of duelling; a pursuit from which humanity recoiled with horror and disgust. He suggested that measures should be immediately taken to employ the labour of these fleas as part and parcel of the productive power of the country, which might easily be done by the establishment among them of infant schools and houses of industry, in which a system of virtuous education, based upon sound principles, should be observed, and moral precepts strictly inculcated. He proposed that every flea who presumed to exhibit, for hire, music, or dancing, or any species of theatrical entertainment, without a licence, should be considered a vagabond, and treated accordingly; in which respect he only placed him upon a level with the rest of mankind. He would further suggest that their labour should be placed under the control and regulation of the state, who should set apart from the profits, a fund for the support of superannuated or disabled fleas, their widows and orphans. With this view, he proposed that liberal premiums should be offered for the three best designs for a general almshouse; from which⁠—as insect architecture was well known to be in a very advanced and perfect state⁠—we might possibly derive many valuable hints for the improvement of our metropolitan universities, national galleries, and other public edifices. &quot;THE PRESIDENT wished to be informed how the ingenious gentleman proposed to open a communication with fleas generally, in the first instance, so that they might be thoroughly imbued with a sense of the advantages they must necessarily derive from changing their mode of life, and applying themselves to honest labour. This appeared to him, the only difficulty. &quot;THE AUTHOR submitted that this difficulty was easily overcome, or rather that there was no difficulty at all in the case. Obviously the course to be pursued, if Her Majesty&#039;s government could be prevailed upon to take up the plan, would be, to secure at a remunerative salary the individual to whom he had alluded as presiding over the exhibition in Regent-street at the period of his visit. That gentleman would at once be able to put himself in communication with the mass of the fleas, and to instruct them in pursuance of some general plan of education, to be sanctioned by Parliament, until such time as the more intelligent among them were advanced enough to officiate as teachers to the rest. &quot;The President and several members of the section highly complimented the author of the paper last read, on his most ingenious and important treatise. It was determined that the subject should be recommended to the immediate consideration of the council. &quot;MR. WIGSBY produced a cauliflower somewhat larger than a chaise-umbrella, which had been raised by no other artificial means than the simple application of highly carbonated soda-water as manure. He explained that by scooping out the head, which would afford a new and delicious species of nourishment for the poor, a parachute, in principle something similar to that constructed by M. Garnerin, was at once obtained: the stalk of course being kept downwards. He added that he was perfectly willing to make a descent from a height of not less than three miles and a quarter; and had in fact already proposed the same to the proprietors of Vauxhall Gardens, who in the handsomest manner at once consented to his wishes, and appointed an early day next summer for the undertaking; merely stipulating that the rim of the cauliflower should be previously broken in three or four places to ensure the safety of the descent. &quot;THE PRESIDENT congratulated the public on the grand gala in store for them, and warmly eulogised the proprietors of the establishment alluded to, for their love of science, and regard for the safety of human life, both of which did them the highest honour. &quot;A Member wished to know how many thousand additional lamps the royal property would be illuminated with, on the night after the descent. &quot;MR. WIGSBY replied that the point was not yet finally decided; but he believed it was proposed, over and above the ordinary illuminations, to exhibit in various devices eight millions and a half of additional lamps. &quot;The Member expressed himself much gratified with this announcement. &quot;MR. BLUNDERUM delighted the section with a most interesting and valuable paper &#039;on the last moments of the learned pig,&#039; which produced a very strong impression on the assembly, the account being compiled from the personal recollections of his favourite attendant. The account stated in the most emphatic terms that the animal&#039;s name was not Toby, but Solomon; and distinctly proved that he could have no near relatives in the profession, as many designing persons had falsely stated, inasmuch as his father, mother, brothers and sisters, had all fallen victims to the butcher at different times. An uncle of his indeed, had with very great labour been traced to a sty in Somers Town; but as he was in a very infirm state at the time, being afflicted with measles, and shortly afterwards disappeared, there appeared too much reason to conjecture that he had been converted into sausages. The disorder of the learned pig was originally a severe cold, which, being aggravated by excessive trough indulgence, finally settled upon the lungs, and terminated in a general decay of the constitution. A melancholy instance of a presentiment entertained by the animal of his approaching dissolution, was recorded. After gratifying a numerous and fashionable company with his performances, in which no falling-off whatever, was visible, he fixed his eyes on the biographer, and, turning to the watch which lay on the floor, and on which he was accustomed to point out the hour, deliberately passed his snout twice round the dial. In precisely four-and-twenty hours from that time he had ceased to exist! &quot;PROFESSOR WHEEZY inquired whether, previous to his demise, the animal had expressed, by signs or otherwise, any wishes regarding the disposal of his little property. &quot;MR. BLUNDERUM replied, that, when the biographer took up the pack of cards at the conclusion of the performance, the animal grunted several times in a significant manner, and nodding his head as he was accustomed to do, when gratified. From these gestures it was understood that he wished the attendant to keep the cards, which he had ever since done. He had not expressed any wish relative to his watch, which had accordingly been pawned by the same individual. &quot;THE PRESIDENT wished to know whether any Member of the section had ever seen or conversed with the pig-faced lady, who was reported to have worn a black velvet mask, and to have taken her meals from a golden trough. &quot;After some hesitation a Member replied that the pig-faced lady was his mother-in-law, and that he trusted the President would not violate the sanctity of private life. &quot;THE PRESIDENT begged pardon. He had considered the pig-faced lady a public character. Would the honourable member object to state, with a view to the advancement of science, whether she was in any way connected with the learned pig? &quot;The Member replied in the same low tone, that, as the question appeared to involve a suspicion that the learned pig might be his half-brother, he must decline answering it. &quot;SECTION B.⁠—ANATOMY AND MEDICINE. &quot;COACH-HOUSE, PIG AND TINDER-BOX. &quot;PRESIDENT⁠—DR. TOORELL. VICE-PRESIDENTS⁠—PROFESSORS MUFF AND NOGO. &quot;DR. KUTANKUMAGEN (of Moscow) read to the section a report of a case which had occurred within his own practice, strikingly illustrative of the power of medicine, as exemplified in his successful treatment of a virulent disorder. He had been called in to visit the patient on the 1st of April, 1837. He was then labouring under symptoms peculiarly alarming to any medical man. His frame was stout and muscular, his step firm and elastic, his cheeks plump and red, his voice loud, his appetite good, his pulse full and round. He was in the constant habit of eating three meals per diem, and of drinking at least one bottle of wine, and one glass of spirituous liquors diluted with water, in the course of the four-and-twenty hours. He laughed constantly, and in so hearty a manner that it was terrible to hear him. By dint of powerful medicine, low diet, and bleeding, the symptoms in the course of three days perceptibly decreased. A rigid perseverance in the same course of treatment for only one week, accompanied with small doses of water-gruel, weak broth, and barley-water, led to their entire disappearance. In the course of a month he was sufficiently recovered to be carried down stairs by two nurses, and to enjoy an airing in a close carriage, supported by soft pillows. At the present moment he was restored so far as to walk about, with the slight assistance of a crutch and a boy. It would perhaps be gratifying to the section to learn that he ate little, drank little, slept little, and was never heard to laugh by any accident whatever. &quot;DR. W. R. FEE, in complimenting the honourable member upon the triumphant cure he had effected, begged to ask whether the patient still bled freely? &quot;DR. KUTANKUMAGEN replied in the affirmative. &quot;DR. W. R. FEE.—And you found that he bled freely during the whole course of the disorder? &quot;DR. KUTANKUMAGEN.⁠—Oh dear, yes; most freely. &quot;DR. NEESHAWTS supposed, that if the patient had not submitted to be bled with great readiness and perseverance, so extraordinary a cure could never, in fact, have been accomplished. Dr. Kutankumagen rejoined, certainly not. &quot;MR. KNIGHT BELL (M.R.C.S.) exhibited a wax preparation of the interior of a gentleman who in early life had inadvertently swallowed a door-key. It was a curious fact that a medical student of dissipated habits, being present at the post mortem examination, found means to escape unobserved from the room, with that portion of the coats of the stomach upon which an exact model of the instrument was distinctly impressed, with which he hastened to a locksmith of doubtful character, who made a new key from the pattern so shown to him. With this key the medical student entered the house of the deceased gentleman, and committed a burglary to a large amount, for which he was subsequently tried and executed. &quot;THE PRESIDENT wished to know what became of the original key after the lapse of years. Mr. Knight Bell replied that the gentleman was always much accustomed to punch, and it was supposed the acid had gradually devoured it. &quot;DR. NEESHAWTS and several of the members were of opinion that the key must have lain very cold and heavy upon the gentleman&#039;s stomach. &quot;MR. KNIGHT BELL believed it did at first. It was worthy of remark, perhaps, that for some years the gentleman was troubled with a night-mare, under the influence of which he always imagined himself a wine-cellar door. &quot;PROFESSOR MUFF related a very extraordinary and convincing proof of the wonderful efficacy of the system of infinitesimal doses, which the section were doubtless aware was based upon the theory that the very minutest amount of any given drug, properly dispersed through the human frame, would be productive of precisely the same result as a very large dose administered in the usual manner. Thus, the fortieth part of a grain of calomel was supposed to be equal to a five-grain calomel pill, and so on in proportion throughout the whole range of medicine. He had tried the experiment in a curious manner upon a publican who had been brought into the hospital with a broken head, and was cured upon the infinitesimal system in the incredibly short space of three months. This man was a hard drinker. He (Professor Muff) had dispersed three drops of rum through a bucket of water, and requested the man to drink the whole. What was the result? Before he had drunk a quart, he was in a state of beastly intoxication; and five other men were made dead drunk with the remainder. &quot;THE PRESIDENT wished to know whether an infinitesimal dose of soda-water would have recovered them? Professor Muff replied that the twenty-fifth part of a tea-spoonful, properly administered to each patient would have sobered him immediately. The President remarked that this was a most important discovery, and he hoped the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen would patronise it immediately. &quot;A Member begged to be informed whether it would be possible to administer⁠—say, the twentieth part of a grain of bread and cheese to all grown-up paupers, and the fortieth part to children, with the same satisfying effect as their present allowance. &quot;PROFESSOR MUFF was willing to stake his professional reputation on the perfect adequacy of such a quantity of food to the support of human life⁠—in workhouses; the addition of the fifteenth part of a grain of pudding twice a week would render it a high diet. &quot;PROFESSOR NOGO called the attention of the section to a very extraordinary case of animal magnetism. A private watchman, being merely looked at by the operator from the opposite side of a wide street, was at once observed to be in a very drowsy and languid state. He was followed to his box, and being once slightly rubbed on the palms of the hands, fell into a sound sleep, in which he continued without intermission for ten hours. &quot;SECTION C.⁠—STATISTICS. &quot;HAY-LOFT, ORIGINAL PIG. &quot;PRESIDENT⁠—MR. WOODENSCONCE. VICE-PRESIDENTS⁠—MR. LEDBRAIN AND MR. TIMBERED. &quot;MR. SLUG stated to the section the result of some calculations he had made with great difficulty and labour, regarding the state of infant education among the middle classes of London. He found that, within a circle of three miles from the Elephant and Castle, the following were the names and numbers of children&#039;s books principally in circulation:⁠— &quot;Jack the Giant-killer ... 7,943 Ditto and Bean-stalk.. 8,621 Ditto and Eleven Brothers...2,845 Ditto and Jill...1,998 Total..21,407 &quot;He found that the proportion of Robinson Crusoes to Philip Quarlls was as four and a half to one; and that the preponderance of Valentine and Orsons over Goody Two Shoeses was as three and an eighth of the former to half a one of the latter: a comparison of Seven Champions with Simple Simons gave the same result. The ignorance that prevailed, was lamentable. One child, on being asked whether he would rather be Saint George of England or a respectable tallow-chandler, instantly replied, &#039;Taint George of Ingling.&#039; Another, a little boy of eight years old, was found to be firmly impressed with a belief in the existence of dragons, and openly stated that it was his intention when he grew up, to rush forth sword in hand for the deliverance of captive princesses, and the promiscuous slaughter of giants. Not one child among the number interrogated had ever heard of Mungo Park,⁠—some inquiring whether he was at all connected with the black man that swept the crossing; and others whether he was in any way related to the Regent&#039;s Park. They had not the slightest conception of the commonest principles of mathematics, and considered Sindbad the Sailor the most enterprising voyager that the world had ever produced. &quot;A Member strongly deprecating the use of all the other books mentioned, suggested that Jack and Jill might perhaps be exempted from the general censure, inasmuch as the hero and heroine, in the very outset of the tale, were depicted as going up a hill to fetch a pail of water, which was a laborious and useful occupation,⁠—supposing the family linen was being washed, for instance. &quot;MR. SLUG feared that the moral effect of this passage was more than counterbalanced by another in a subsequent part of the poem, in which very gross allusion was made to the mode in which the heroine was personally chastised by her mother &quot;&#039;For laughing at Jack&#039;s disaster;&#039; besides, the whole work had this one great fault, it was not true. &quot;THE PRESIDENT complimented the honourable member on the excellent distinction he had drawn. Several other members, too, dwelt upon the immense and urgent necessity of storing the minds of children with nothing but facts and figures; which process the President very forcibly remarked, had made them (the section) the men they were. &quot;MR. SLUG then stated some curious calculations respecting the dogs&#039;-meat barrows of London. He found that the total number of small carts and barrows engaged in dispensing provision to the cats and dogs of the metropolis was, one thousand seven hundred and forty-three. The average number of skewers delivered daily with the provender, by each dogs&#039;-meat cart or barrow was thirty-six. Now, multiplying the number of skewers so delivered by the number of barrows, a total of sixty-two thousand seven hundred and forty-eight skewers daily would be obtained. Allowing that, of these sixty-two thousand seven hundred and forty-eight skewers, the odd two thousand seven hundred and forty-eight were accidentally devoured with the meat, by the most voracious of the animals supplied, it followed that sixty thousand skewers per day, or the enormous number of twenty-one millions nine hundred thousand skewers annually, were wasted in the kennels and dust-holes of London; which, if collected and warehoused, would in ten years&#039; time afford a mass of timber more than sufficient for the construction of a first-rate vessel of war for the use of her Majesty&#039;s navy, to be called &#039;The Royal Skewer,&#039; and to become under that name the terror of all the enemies of this island. &quot;MR. X. LEDBRAIN read a very ingenious communication, from which it appeared that the total number of legs belonging to the manufacturing population of one great town in Yorkshire was, in round numbers, forty thousand, while the total number of chair and stool legs in their houses was only thirty thousand, which, upon the very favourable average of three legs to a seat, yielded only ten thousand seats in all. From this calculation it would appear,⁠—not taking wooden or cork legs into the account, but allowing two legs to every person,⁠—that ten thousand individuals (one-half of the whole population) were either destitute of any rest for their legs at all, or passed the whole of their leisure time in sitting upon boxes. &quot;SECTION D.⁠—MECHANICAL SCIENCE. &quot;COACH-HOUSE, ORIGINAL PIG. &quot;PRESIDENT—MR. CARTER. VICE-PRESIDENTS—MR. TRUCK AND MR. WAGHORN. &quot;PROFESSOR QUEERSPECK exhibited an elegant model of a portable railway, neatly mounted in a green case, for the waistcoat pocket. By attaching this beautiful instrument to his boots, any Bank or public-office clerk could transport himself from his place of residence to his place of business, at the easy rate of sixty-five miles an hour, which, to gentlemen of sedentary pursuits, would be an incalculable advantage. &quot;THE PRESIDENT was desirous of knowing whether it was necessary to have a level surface on which the gentleman was to run. &quot;PROFESSOR QUEERSPECK explained that City gentlemen would run in trains, being handcuffed together to prevent confusion or unpleasantness. For instance, trains would start every morning at eight, nine, and ten o&#039;clock, from Camden Town, Islington, Camberwell, Hackney, and various other places in which City gentlemen are accustomed to reside. It would be necessary to have a level, but he had provided for this difficulty by proposing that the best line that the circumstances would admit of, should be taken through the sewers which undermine the streets of the metropolis, and which, well lighted by jets from the gas-pipes which run immediately above them, would form a pleasant and commodious arcade, especially in winter-time, when the inconvenient custom of carrying umbrellas, now so general, could be wholly dispensed with. In reply to another question, Professor Queerspeck stated that no substitute for the purposes to which these arcades were at present devoted had yet occurred to him, but that he hoped no fanciful objection on this head would be allowed to interfere with so great an undertaking. &quot;MR. JOBBA produced a forcing-machine on a novel plan, for bringing joint-stock railway shares prematurely to a premium. The instrument was in the form of an elegant gilt weather-glass, of most dazzling appearance, and was worked behind, by strings, after the manner of a pantomime trick, the strings being always pulled by the directors of the company to which the machine belonged. The quicksilver was so ingeniously placed, that when the acting directors held shares in their pockets, figures denoting very small expenses and very large returns appeared upon the glass; but the moment the directors parted with these pieces of paper, the estimate of needful expenditure suddenly increased itself to an immense extent, while the statements of certain profits became reduced in the same proportion. Mr. Jobba stated that the machine had been in constant requisition for some months past, and he had never once known it to fail. &quot;A Member expressed his opinion that it was extremely neat and pretty. He wished to know whether it was not liable to accidental derangement? Mr. Jobba said that the whole machine was undoubtedly liable to be blown up, but that was the only objection to it. &quot;PROFESSOR NOGO arrived from the anatomical section to exhibit a model of a safety fire-escape, which could be fixed at any time, in less than half an hour, and by means of which, the youngest or most infirm persons (successfully resisting the progress of the flames until it was quite ready) could be preserved if they merely balanced themselves for a few minutes on the sill of their bed-room window, and got into the escape without falling into the street. The Professor stated that the number of boys who had been rescued in the day-time by this machine from houses which were not on fire, was almost incredible. Not a conflagration had occurred in the whole of London for many months past to which the escape had not been carried on the very next day, and put in action before a concourse of persons. &quot;THE PRESIDENT inquired whether there was not some difficulty in ascertaining which was the top of the machine, and which the bottom, in cases of pressing emergency. &quot;PROFESSOR NOGO explained that of course it could not be expected to act quite as well when there was a fire, as when there was not a fire; but in the former case he thought it would be of equal service whether the top were up or down.&quot; ⁠— With the last section our correspondent concludes his most able and faithful Report, which will never cease to reflect credit upon him for his scientific attainments, and upon us for our enterprising spirit. It is needless to take a review of the subjects which have been discussed; of the mode in which they have been examined; of the great truths which they have elicited. They are now before the world, and we leave them to read, to consider, and to profit. The place of meeting for next year has undergone discussion, and has at length been decided; regard being had to, and evidence being taken upon, the goodness of its wines, the supply of its markets, the hospitality of its inhabitants, and the quality of its hotels. We hope at this next meeting our correspondent may again be present, and that we may be once more the means of placing his communications before the world. Until that period we have been prevailed upon to allow this number of our Miscellany to be retailed to the public, or wholesaled to the trade, without any advance upon our usual price. We have only to add, that the committees are now broken up, and that Mudfog is once again restored to its accustomed tranquillity,⁠—that Professors and Members have had balls, and soirées, and suppers, and great mutual complimentations, and have at length dispersed to their several homes,⁠—whither all good wishes and joys attend them, until next year!18371001https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Full_Report_of_the_First_Meeting_of_the_Mudfog_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Everything/1837-10-Full_Report_First_Meeting_Mudfog_Asso.pdf
156https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/156'Full Report of the Second Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything'Published in <em>Bentley's Miscellany </em>vol.4 (September 1838), pp. 209-227. Edited by Charles Dickens.Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Bentley_s_Miscellany/ZJhHAAAAYAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Bentley_s_Miscellany/ZJhHAAAAYAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1838-09">1838-09</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+George+Cruikshank">Illustrated by George Cruikshank</a><p>Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1838-09-Full_Report_Second_Meeting_Mudfog_AssoDickens, Charles. 'Full Report of the Second Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything'. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1838-09-Full_Report_Second_Meeting_Mudfog_Asso">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1838-09-Full_Report_Second_Meeting_Mudfog_Asso</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBentley%27s+Miscellany%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bentley's Miscellany</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>In October last, we did ourselves the immortal credit of recording, at an enormous expense, and by dint of exertions unparalleled in the history of periodical publication, the proceedings of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything, which in that month held its first great half-yearly meeting, to the wonder and delight of the whole empire. We announced at the conclusion of that extraordinary and most remarkable Report, that when the Second Meeting of the Society should take place we should be found again at our post, renewing our gigantic and spirited endeavours, and once more making the world ring with the accuracy, authenticity, immeasurable superiority, and intense remarkability of our account of its proceedings. In redemption of this pledge, we caused to be despatched per steam to Oldcastle (at which place this second meeting of the Society was held on the 20th instant,) the same superhumanly-endowed gentleman who furnished the former report, and who,—gifted by nature with transcendent abilities, and furnished by us with a body of assistants scarcely inferior to himself,—has forwarded a series of letters, which for faithfulness of description, power of language, fervour of thought, happiness of expression, and importance of subject-matter, have no equal in the epistolary literature of any age or country. We give this gentleman&#039;s correspondence entire, and in the order in which it reached our office. &quot;Saloon of Steamer, Thursday night, half-past eight. &quot;When I left New Burlington Street this evening in the hackney cabriolet, number four thousand two hundred and eighty-five, I experienced sensations as novel as they were oppressive. A sense of the importance of the task I had undertaken, a consciousness that I was leaving London, and, stranger still, going somewhere else, a feeling of loneliness and a sensation of jolting, quite bewildered my thoughts, and for a time rendered me even insensible to the presence of my carpet-bag and hat-box. I shall ever feel grateful to the driver of a Blackwall omnibus, who, by thrusting the pole of his vehicle through the small door of the cabriolet, awakened me from a tumult of imaginings that are wholly indescribable. But of such materials is our imperfect nature composed! &quot;I am happy to say that I am the first passenger on board, and shall thus be enabled to give you an account of all that happens in the order of its occurrence. The chimney is smoking a good deal, and so are the crew; and the captain, I am informed, is very drunk in a little house upon deck, something like a black turnpike. I should infer from all I hear that he has got the steam up. &quot;You will readily guess with what feelings I have just made the discovery that my berth is in the same closet with those engaged by Professor Woodensconce, Mr. Slug, and Professor Grime. Professor Woodensconce has taken the shelf above me, and Mr. Slug and Professor Grime the two shelves opposite. Their luggage has already arrived. On Mr. Slug&#039;s bed is a long tin tube of about three inches in diameter, carefully closed at both ends. What can this contain? Some powerful instrument of a new construction, doubtless.&quot; &quot;Ten minutes past nine. &quot;Nobody has yet arrived, nor has anything fresh come in my way except several joints of beef and mutton, from which I conclude that a good plain dinner has been provided for to-morrow. There is a singular smell below, which gave me some uneasiness at first; but as the steward says it is always there, and never goes away, I am quite comfortable again. I learn from this man that the different sections will be distributed at the Black Boy and Stomach-ache, and the Boot-jack and Countenance. If this intelligence be true, (and I have no reason to doubt it,) your readers will draw such conclusions as their different opinions may suggest. &quot;I write down these remarks as they occur to me, or as the facts come to my knowledge, in order that my first impressions may lose nothing of their original vividness. I shall despatch them in small packets as opportunities arise.&quot; &quot;Half past nine. &quot;Some dark object has just appeared upon the wharf. I think it is a travelling carriage.&quot; &quot;A quarter to ten. &quot;No, it isn&#039;t.&quot; &quot;Half-past ten. &quot;The passengers are pouring in every instant. Four omnibuses full have just arrived upon the wharf, and all is bustle and activity. The noise and confusion are very great. Cloths are laid in the cabins, and the steward is placing blue plates-full of knobs of cheese at equal distances down the centre of the tables. He drops a great many knobs; but, being used to it, picks them up again with great dexterity, and, after wiping them on his sleeve, throws them back into the plates. He is a young man of exceedingly prepossessing appearance,—either dirty or a mulatto, but I think the former. &quot;An interesting old gentleman who came to the wharf in an omnibus, has just quarrelled violently with the porters, and is staggering towards the vessel with a large trunk in his arms. I trust and hope that he may reach it in safety; but the board he has to cross is narrow and slippery. Was that a splash? Gracious powers! &quot;I have just returned from the deck. The trunk is standing upon the extreme brink of the wharf, but the old gentleman is nowhere to be seen. The watchman is not sure whether he went down or not, but promises to drag for him the first thing to-morrow morning. May his humane efforts prove successful! &quot;Professor Nogo has this moment arrived with his nightcap on under his hat. He has ordered a glass of cold brandy and water, with a hard biscuit and a bason, and has gone straight to bed. What can this mean! &quot;The three other scientific gentlemen to whom I have already alluded have come on board, and have all tried their beds, with the exception of Professor Woodensconce, who sleeps in one of the top ones, and can&#039;t get into it. Mr. Slug, who sleeps in the other top one, is unable to get out of his, and is to have his supper handed up by a boy. I have had the honour to introduce myself to these gentlemen, and we have amicably arranged the order in which we shall retire to rest; which it is necessary to agree upon, because, although the cabin is very comfortable, there is not room for more than one gentleman to be out of bed at a time, and even he must take his boots off in the passage. &quot;As I anticipated, the knobs of cheese were provided for the passengers&#039; supper, and are now in course of consumption. Your readers will be surprised to hear that Professor Woodensconce has abstained from cheese for eight years, although he takes butter in considerable quantities. Professor Grime having lost several teeth, is unable, I observe, to eat his crusts without previously soaking them in his bottled porter. How interesting are these peculiarities!&quot; &quot;Half-past eleven. &quot;Professors Woodensconce and Grime, with a degree of good humour that delights us all, have just arranged to toss for a bottle of mulled port. There has been some discussion whether the payment should be decided by the first toss or the best out of three. Eventually the latter course has been determined on. Deeply do I wish that both gentlemen could win; but that being impossible, I own that my personal aspirations (I speak as an individual, and do not compromise either you or your readers by this expression of feeling) are with Professor Woodensconce. I have backed that gentleman to the amount of eighteenpence.&quot; &quot;Twenty minutes to twelve. &quot;Professor Grime has inadvertently tossed his half-crown out of one of the cabin-windows, and it has been arranged that the steward shall toss for him. Bets are offered on any side to any amount, but there are no takers. &quot;Professor Woodensconce has just called &#039;woman;&#039; but the coin having lodged in a beam is a long time coming down again. The interest and suspense of this one moment are beyond anything that can be imagined.&quot; &quot;Twelve o&#039;clock. &#039;The mulled port is smoking on the table before me, and Professor Grime has won. Tossing is a game of chance; but on every ground, whether of public or private character, intellectual endowments, or scientific attainments, I cannot help expressing my opinion that Professor Woodensconce ought to have come off victorious. There is an exultation about Professor Grime incompatible, I fear, with true greatness.&#039; &quot;A quarter past twelve. &quot;Professor Grime continues to exult, and to boast of his victory in no very measured terms, observing that he always does win, and that he knew it would be a &#039;head&#039; beforehand, with many other remarks of a similar nature. Surely this gentleman is not so lost to every feeling of decency and propriety as not to feel and know the superiority of Professor Woodensconce? Is Professor Grime insane? or does he wish to be reminded in plain language of his true position in society, and the precise level of his acquirements and abilities? Professor Grime will do well to look to this.&quot; &quot;One o&#039;clock. &quot;I am writing in bed. The small cabin is illuminated by the feeble light of a flickering lamp suspended from the ceiling; Professor Grime is lying on the opposite shelf on the broad of his back, with his mouth wide open. The scene is indescribably solemn. The rippling of the tide, the noise of the sailors&#039; feet over-head, the gruff voices on the river, the dogs on the shore, the snoring of the passengers, and a constant creaking of every plank in the vessel, are the only sounds that meet the ear. With these exceptions, all is profound silence. &quot;My curiosity has been within the last moment very much excited. Mr. Slug, who lies above Professor Grime, has cautiously withdrawn the curtains of his berth, and, after looking anxiously out, as if to satisfy himself that his companions are asleep, has taken up the tin tube of which I have before spoken, and is regarding it with great interest. What rare mechanical combination can be contained in that mysterious case? It is evidently a profound secret to all.&#039; &quot;A quarter past one. &quot;The behaviour of Mr. Slug grows more and more mysterious. He has unscrewed the top of the tube, and now renews his observations upon his companions evidently to make sure that he is wholly unobserved. He is clearly on the eve of some great experiment. Pray heaven that it be not a dangerous one; but the interests of science must be promoted, and I am prepared for the worst.&quot; &quot;Five minutes later. &quot;He has produced a large pair of scissors, and drawn a roll of some substance, not unlike parchment in appearance, from the tin case. The experiment is about to begin. I must strain my eyes to the utmost, in the attempt to follow its minutest operation.&quot; &quot;Twenty minutes before two. &quot;I have at length been enabled to ascertain that the tin tube contains a few yards of some celebrated plaster, recommended—as I discover on regarding the label attentively through my eye-glass—as a preservative against sea-sickness. Mr. Slug has cut it up into small portions, and is now sticking it over himself in every direction.&quot; &quot;Three o&#039;clock. &quot;Precisely a quarter of an hour ago we weighed anchor, and the machinery was suddenly put in motion with a noise so appalling, that Professor Woodensconce (who had ascended to his berth by means of a platform of carpet-bags arranged by himself on geometrical principals) darted from his shelf head foremost, and, gaining his feet with all the rapidity of extreme terror, ran wildly into the ladies&#039; cabin, under the impression that we were sinking, and uttering loud cries for aid. I am assured that the scene which ensued baffles all description. There were one hundred and forty- seven ladies in their respective berths at the time. &quot;Mr. Slug has remarked, as an additional instance of the extreme ingenuity of the steam-engine as applied to purposes of navigation, that in whatever part of the vessel a passenger&#039;s berth may be situated, the machinery always appears to be exactly under his pillow. He intends stating this very beautiful, though simple discovery, to the association.&quot; &quot;Half-past ten. &quot;We are still in smooth water; that is to say, in as smooth water as a steam-vessel ever can be, for, as Professor Woodensconce (who has just woke up) learnedly remarks, another great point of ingenuity about a steamer is, that it always carries a little storm with it. You can scarcely conceive how exciting the jerking pulsation of the ship becomes. It is a matter of positive difficulty to get to sleep.&quot; &quot;Friday afternoon, six o&#039;clock. &quot;I regret to inform you that Mr. Slug&#039;s plaster has proved of no avail. He is in great agony, but has applied several large, additional pieces notwithstanding. How affecting is this extreme devotion to science and pursuit of knowledge under the most trying circumstances! &quot;We were extremely happy this morning, and the breakfast was one of the most animated description. Nothing unpleasant occurred until noon, with the exception of Doctor Foxey&#039;s brown silk umbrella and white hat becoming entangled in the machinery while he was explaining to a knot of ladies the construction of the steam-engine. I fear the gravy soup for lunch was injudicious. We lost a great many passengers almost immediately afterwards.&quot; &quot;Half-past six. &quot;I am again in bed. Anything so heart-rending as Mr. Slug&#039;s sufferings it has never yet been my lot to witness.&quot; &quot;Seven o&#039;clock. &quot;A messenger has just come down for a clean pocket-handkerchief from Professor Woodensconce&#039;s bag, that unfortunate gentleman being quite unable to leave the deck, and imploring constantly to be thrown overboard. From this man I understand that Professor Nogo, though in a state of utter exhaustion, clings feebly to the hard biscuit and cold brandy and water, under the impression that they will yet restore him. Such is the triumph of mind over matter. &quot;Professor Grime is in bed, to all appearance quite well; but he will eat, and it is disagreeable to see him. Has this gentleman no sympathy with the sufferings of his fellow-creatures? If he has, on what principle can he call for mutton-chops—and smile?&quot; &quot;Black Boy and Stomach-ache, Oldcastle, Saturday noon. &quot;You will be happy to learn that I have at length arrived here in safety. The town is excessively crowded, and all the private lodgings and hotels are filled with savans of both sexes. The tremendous assemblage of intellect that one encounters in every street is in the last degree overwhelming. &quot;Notwithstanding the throng of people here, I have been fortunate enough to meet with very comfortable accommodation on very reasonable terms, having secured a sofa in the first-floor passage at one guinea per night, which includes permission to take my meals in the bar, on condition that I walk about the streets at all other times, to make room for other gentlemen similarly situated. I have been over the outhouses intended to be devoted to the reception of the various sections, both here and at the Boot-jack and Countenance, and am much delighted with the arrangements. Nothing can exceed the fresh appearance of the saw-dust with which the floors are sprinkled. The forms are of unplaned deal, and the general effect, as you can well imagine, is extremely beautiful.&#039; &quot;Half-past nine. &quot;The number and rapidity of the arrivals are quite bewildering. Within the last ten minutes a stage-coach has driven up to the door, filled inside and out with distinguished characters, comprising Mr. Muddlebranes, Mr. Drawley, Professor Muff, Mr. X. Misty, Mr. X. X. Misty, Mr. Purblind, Professor Rummun, The Honourable and Reverend Mr. Long Eers, Professor John Ketch, Sir William Joltered, Doctor Buffer, Mr. Smith (of London), Mr. Brown (of Edinburgh), Sir Hookham Snivey, and Professor Pumpkinskull. The ten last-named gentlemen were wet through, and looked extremely intelligent.&quot; &quot;Sunday, two o&#039;clock, P.M. &#039;The Honourable and Reverend Mr. Long Eers, accompanied by Sir William Joltered, walked and drove this morning. They accomplished the former feat in boots, and the latter in a hired fly. This has naturally given rise to much discussion. &quot;I have just learnt that an interview has taken place at the Boot-jack and Countenance between Sowster, the active and intelligent beadle of this place, and Professor Pumpkinskull, who, as your readers are doubtless aware, is an influential member of the council. I forbear to communicate any of the rumours to which this very extraordinary proceeding has given rise until I have seen Sowster, and endeavoured to ascertain the truth from him.&quot; &quot;Half-past six. &quot;I engaged a donkey-chaise shortly after writing the above, and proceeded at a brisk trot in the direction of Sowster&#039;s residence, passing through a beautiful expanse of country, with red brick buildings on either side, and stopping in the marketplace to observe the spot where Mr. Kwakley&#039;s hat was blown off yesterday. It is an uneven piece of paving, but has certainly no appearance which would lead one to suppose that any such event had recently occurred there. From this point I proceeded—passing the gas-works and tallow-melter&#039;s—to a lane which had been pointed out to me as the beadle&#039;s place of residence; and before I had driven a dozen yards further, I had the good fortune to meet Sowster himself advancing towards me. &quot;Sowster is a fat man, with a more enlarged development of that peculiar conformation of countenance which is vulgarly termed a double chin than I remember to have ever seen before. He has also a very red nose, which he attributes to a habit of early rising—so red, indeed, that but for this explanation I should have supposed it to proceed from occasional inebriety. He informed me that he did not feel himself at liberty to relate what had passed between himself and Professor Pumpkinskull, but had no objection to state that it was connected with a matter of police regulation, and added with peculiar significance, &#039;Never wos sitch times!&#039; &quot;You will easily believe that this intelligence gave me considerable surprise, not wholly unmixed with anxiety, and that I lost no time in waiting on Professor Pumpkinskull, and stating the object of my visit. After a few moments&#039; reflection, the Professor, who, I am bound to say, behaved with the utmost politeness, openly avowed (I mark the passage in italics) that he had requested Sowster to attend on the Monday morning at the Boot-jack and Countenance, to keep off the boys; and that he had further desired that the under-beadle might be stationed, with the same object, at the Black Boy and Stomach-ache! &quot;Now I leave this unconstitutional proceeding to your comments and the consideration of your readers. I have yet to learn that a beadle, without the precincts of a church, churchyard, or work-house, and acting otherwise than under the express orders of churchwardens and overseers in council assembled, to enforce the law against people who come upon the parish, and other offenders, has any lawful authority whatever over the rising youth of this country. I have yet to learn that a beadle can be called out by any civilian to exercise a domination and despotism over the boys of Britain. I have yet to learn that a beadle will be permitted by the commissioners of poor law regulation to wear out the soles and heels of his boots in illegal interference with the liberties of people not proved poor or otherwise criminal. I have yet to learn that a beadle has power to stop up the Queen&#039;s highway at his will and pleasure, or that the whole width of the street is not free and open to any man, boy, or woman in existence, up to the very walls of the houses—ay, be they Black Boys and Stomach-aches, or Boot-Jacks and Countenances, I care not.&quot; &quot;Nine o&#039;clock. &quot;I have procured a local artist to make a faithful sketch of the tyrant Sowster, which, as he has acquired this infamous celebrity, you will no doubt wish to have engraved for the purpose of presenting a copy with every copy of your next number. I enclose it. The under-beadle has consented to write his life, but it is to be strictly anonymous. &quot;The accompanying likeness is of course from the life, and complete in every respect. Even if I had been totally ignorant of the man&#039;s real character, and it had been placed before me without remark, I should have shuddered involuntarily. There is an intense malignity of expression in the features, and a baleful ferocity of purpose in the ruffian&#039;s eye, which appals and sickens. His whole air is rampant with cruelty, nor is the stomach less characteristic of his demoniac propensities. &quot;Monday. &quot;The great day has at length arrived. I have neither eyes, nor ears, nor pens, nor ink, nor paper, for anything but the wonderful proceedings that have astounded my senses. Let me collect my energies and proceed to the account.&quot; SECTION A.—ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. FRONT PARLOUR, BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE. PRESIDENT—SIR WILLIAM JOLTERED. VICE-PRESIDENTS—MR. MUDDLE-BRANES AND MR. DRAWLEY. &quot;MR. X. X. MISTY communicated some remarks on the disappearance of dancing-bears from the streets of London, with observations on the exhibition of monkeys as connected with barrel-organs. The writer had observed, with feelings of the utmost pain and regret, that some years ago a sudden and unaccountable change in the public taste took place with reference to itinerant bears, who, being discountenanced by the populace, gradually fell off one by one from the streets of the metropolis, until not one remained to create a taste for natural history in the breasts of the poor and uninstructed. One bear, indeed,—a brown and ragged animal,—had lingered about the haunts of his former triumphs, with a worn and dejected visage and feeble limbs, and had essayed to wield his quarter-staff for the amusement of the multitude; but hunger, and an utter want of any due recompense for his abilities, had at length driven him from the field, and it was only too probable that he had fallen a sacrifice to the rising taste for grease. He regretted to add that a similar, and no less lamentable change, had taken place with reference to monkeys. These delightful animals had formerly been almost as plentiful as the organs on the tops of which they were accustomed to sit; the proportion in the year 1829 (it appeared by the parliamentary return) being as one monkey to three organs. Owing, however, to an altered taste in musical instruments, and the substitution, in a great measure, of narrow boxes of music for organs, which left the monkeys nothing to sit upon, this source of public amusement was wholly dried up. Considering it a matter of the deepest importance, in connection with national education, that the people should not lose such opportunities of making themselves acquainted with the manners and customs of two most interesting species of animals, the author submitted that some measures should be immediately taken for the restoration of these pleasing and truly intellectual amusements. &quot;THE PRESIDENT inquired by what means the honourable member proposed to attain this most desirable end? &quot;THE AUTHOR submitted that it could be most fully and satisfactorily accomplished, if Her Majesty&#039;s Government would cause to be brought over to England, and maintained at the public expense, and for the public amusement, such a number of bears as would enable every quarter of the town to be visited—say at least by three bears a week. No difficulty whatever need be experienced in providing a fitting place for the reception of these animals, as a commodious bear-garden could be erected in the immediate neighbourhood of both houses of parliament; obviously the most proper and eligible spot for such an establishment. &quot;PROFESSOR MULL doubted very much whether any correct ideas of natural history were propagated by the means to which the honourable member had so ably adverted. On the contrary, he believed that they had been the means of diffusing very incorrect and imperfect notions on the subject. He spoke from personal observation and personal experience, when he said that many children of great abilities had been induced to believe, from what they had observed in the streets, at and before the period to which the honourable gentleman had referred, that all monkeys were born in red coats and spangles, and that their hats and feathers also came by nature. He wished to know distinctly whether the honourable gentleman attributed the want of encouragement the bears had met with to the decline of public taste in that respect, or to a want of ability on the part of the bears themselves? &quot;MR. X. X. MISTY replied, that he could not bring himself to believe but that there must be a great deal of floating talent among the bears and monkeys generally; which, in the absence of any proper encouragement, was dispersed in other directions. &quot;PROFESSOR PUMPKINSKULL wished to take that opportunity of calling the attention of the section to a most important and serious point. The author of the treatise just read had alluded to the prevalent taste for bears&#039;-grease as a means of promoting the growth of hair, which undoubtedly was diffused to a very great and (as it appeared to him) very alarming extent. No gentleman attending that section could fail to be aware of the fact that the youth of the present age evinced, by their behaviour in the streets, and at all places of public resort, a considerable lack of that gallantry and gentlemanly feeling which, in more ignorant times, had been thought becoming. He wished to know whether it were possible that a constant outward application of bears&#039;-grease by the young gentlemen about town had imperceptibly infused into those unhappy persons something of the nature and quality of the bear? He shuddered as he threw out the remark; but if this theory, on inquiry, should prove to be well founded, it would at once explain a great deal of unpleasant eccentricity of behaviour, which, without some such discovery, was wholly unaccountable. &quot;THE PRESIDENT highly complimented the learned gentleman on his most valuable suggestion, which produced the greatest effect upon the assembly; and remarked that only a week previous he had seen some young gentlemen at a theatre eyeing a box of ladies with a fierce intensity, which nothing but the influence of some brutish appetite could possibly explain. It was dreadful to reflect that our youth were so rapidly verging into a generation of bears. &quot;After a scene of scientific enthusiasm it was resolved that this important question should be immediately submitted to the consideration of the council. &quot;THE PRESIDENT wished to know whether any gentleman could inform the section what had become of the dancing-dogs? &quot;A MEMBER replied, after some hesitation, that on the day after three glee-singers had been committed to prison as criminals by a late most zealous police-magistrate of the metropolis, the dogs had abandoned their professional duties, and dispersed themselves in different quarters of the town to gain a livelihood by less dangerous means. He was given to understand that since that period they had supported themselves by lying in wait for and robbing blind men&#039;s poodles. &quot;MR. FLUMMERY exhibited a twig, claiming to be a veritable branch of that noble tree known to naturalists as the SHAKSPEARE, which has taken root in every land and climate, and gathered under the shade of its broad green boughs the great family of mankind. The learned gentleman remarked that the twig had been undoubtedly called by other names in its time; but that it had been pointed out to him by an old lady in Warwickshire, where the great tree had grown, as a shoot of the genuine SHAKSPEARE, by which name he begged to introduce it to his countrymen. &quot;THE PRESIDENT wished to know what botanical definition the honourable gentleman could afford of the curiosity? &quot;MR. FLUMMERY expressed his opinion that it was A DECIDED PLANT.&quot; SECTION B.--DISPLAY OF MODELS AND MECHANICAL SCIENCE. LARGE ROOM, BOOT-JACK AND COUNTENANCE. PRESIDENT—MR.MALLETT. VICE-PRESIDENTS—MESSRS. LEAVER AND SCROO. &quot;MR. CRINKLES exhibited a most beautiful and delicate machine, of little larger size than an ordinary snuff-box, manufactured entirely by himself, and composed exclusively of steel; by the aid of which more pockets could be picked in one hour than by the present slow and tedious process in four-and-twenty. The inventor remarked that it had been put into active operation in Fleet Street, the Strand, and other thoroughfares, and had never been once known to fail. &quot;After some slight delay, occasioned by the various members of the section buttoning their pockets, &quot;THE PRESIDENT narrowly inspected the invention, and declared that he had never seen a machine of more beautiful or exquisite construction. Would the inventor be good enough to inform the section whether he had taken any and what means for bringing it into general operation? &quot;MR. CRINKLES stated that, after encountering some preliminary difficulties, he had succeeded in putting himself in communication with Mr. Fogle Hunter, and other gentlemen connected with the swell mob, who had awarded the invention the very highest and most unqualified approbation. He regretted to say, however, that these distinguished practitioners, in common with a gentleman of the name of Gimlet-eyed-Tommy, and other members of a secondary grade of the profession whom he was understood to represent, entertained an insuperable objection to its being brought into general use, on the ground that it would have the inevitable effect of almost entirely superseding manual labour, and throwing a great number of highly- deserving persons out of employment. &quot;THE PRESIDENT hoped that no such fanciful objections would be allowed to stand in the way of such a great public improvement. &quot;MR. CRINKLES hoped so too; but he feared that if the gentlemen of the swell mob persevered in their objection, nothing could be done. &quot;PROFESSOR GRIME suggested, that surely, in that case, Her Majesty&#039;s Government might be prevailed upon to take it up. &quot;MR. CRINKLES said, that if the objection were found to be insuperable he should apply to parliament, which he thought could not fail to recognise the utility of the invention. &quot;THE PRESIDENT observed, that up to this time parliament had certainly got on very well without it; but, as they did their business on a very large scale, he had no doubt they would gladly adopt the improvement. His only fear was that the machine might be worn out by constant working. &quot;MR. COPPERNOSE called the attention of the section to a proposition of great magnitude and interest, illustrated by a vast number of models, and stated with much clearness and perspicuity in a treatise entitled &quot;Practical Suggestions on the necessity of providing some harmless and wholesome relaxation for the young noblemen of England.&quot; His proposition was, that a space of ground of not less than ten miles in length and four in breadth should be purchased by a new company, to be incorporated by Act of Parliament, and inclosed by a brick wall of not less than twelve feet in height. He proposed that it should be laid out with highway roads, turnpikes, bridges, miniature villages, and every object that could conduce to the comfort and glory of Four-in-hand Clubs, so that they might be fairly presumed to require no drive beyond it. This delightful retreat would be fitted up with most commodious and extensive stables, for the convenience of such of the nobility and gentry as had a taste for ostlering, and with houses of entertainment furnished in the most expensive and handsome style. It would be further provided with whole streets of door-knockers and bell-handles of extra size, so constructed that they could be easily wrenched off at night, and regularly screwed on again, by attendants provided for the purpose, every day. There would also be gas lamps of real glass, which could be broken at a comparatively small expense per dozen, and a broad and handsome foot pavement for gentlemen to drive their cabriolets upon when they were humorously disposed—for the full enjoyment of which feat live pedestrians would be procured from the workhouse at a very small charge per head. The place being inclosed, and carefully screened from the intrusion of the public, there would be no objection to gentlemen laying aside any article of their costume that was considered to interfere with a pleasant frolic, or, indeed, to their walking about without any costume at all, if they liked that better. In short, every facility of enjoyment would be afforded that the most gentlemanly person could possibly desire. But as even these advantages would be incomplete unless there were some means provided of enabling the nobility and gentry to display their prowess when they sallied forth after dinner, and as some inconvenience might be experienced in the event of their being reduced to the necessity of pummelling each other, the inventor had turned his attention to the construction of an entirely new police force, composed exclusively of automaton figures, which, with the assistance of the ingenious Signor Gagliardi, of Windmill-street in the Haymarket, he had succeeded in making with such nicety, that a policeman, cab-driver, or old woman, made upon the principle of the models exhibited, would walk about until knocked down like any real man; nay, more, if set upon and beaten by six or eight noblemen or gentlemen, after it was down, the figure would utter divers groans, mingled with entreaties for mercy, thus rendering the illusion complete, and the enjoyment perfect. But the invention did not stop even here; for station-houses would be built, containing good beds for noblemen and gentlemen during the night, and in the morning they would repair to a commodious police office, where a pantomimic investigation would take place before the automaton magistrates,—quite equal to life,—who would fine them in so many counters, with which they would be previously provided for the purpose. This office would be furnished with an inclined plane for the convenience of any nobleman or gentleman who might wish to bring in his horse as a witness; and the prisoners would be at perfect liberty, as they were now, to interrupt the complainants as much as they pleased, and to make any remarks that they thought proper. The charge for these amusements would amount to very little more than they already cost, and the inventor submitted that the public would be much benefited and comforted by the proposed arrangement. &quot;PROFESSOR NOGO wished to be informed what amount of automaton police force it was proposed to raise in the first instance. &quot;MR. COPPERNOSE replied, that it was proposed to begin with seven divisions of police of a score each, lettered from A to G inclusive. It was proposed that not more than half this number should be placed on active duty, and that the remainder should be kept on shelves in the police office ready to be called out at a moment&#039;s notice. &quot;THE PRESIDENT, awarding the utmost merit to the ingenious gentleman who had originated the idea, doubted whether the automaton police would quite answer the purpose. He feared that noblemen and gentlemen would perhaps require the excitement of thrashing living subjects. &quot;MR. COPPERNOSE submitted, that as the usual odds in such cases were ten noblemen or gentlemen to one policeman or cab-driver, it could make very little difference in point of excitement whether the policeman or cab-driver were a man or a block. The great advantage would be, that a policeman&#039;s limbs might be all knocked off, and yet he would be in a condition to do duty next day. He might even give his evidence next morning with his head in his hand, and give it equally well. &quot;PROFESSOR MUFF. —Will you allow me to ask you, sir, of what materials it is intended that the magistrates&#039; heads shall be composed? &#039;MR. COPPERNOSE.—The magistrates will have wooden heads of course, and they will be made of the toughest and thickest materials that can possibly be obtained. &quot;PROFESSOR MUFF.—I am quite satisfied. This is a great invention. &quot;PROFESSOR NOGO.—I see but one objection to it. It appears to me that the magistrates ought to talk. &quot;MR. COPPERNOSE no sooner heard this suggestion than he touched a small spring in each of the two models of magistrates which were placed upon the table; one of the figures immediately began to exclaim with great volubility that he was sorry to see gentlemen in such a situation, and the other to express a fear that the policeman was intoxicated. &quot;The section, as with one accord, declared with a shout of applause that the invention was complete; and the President, much excited, retired with Mr. Coppernose to lay it before the council. On his return, &quot;MR. TICKLE displayed his newly-invented spectacles, which enabled the wearer to discern, in very bright colours, objects at a great distance, and rendered him wholly blind to those immediately before him. It was, he said, a most valuable and useful invention, based strictly upon the principle of the human eye. &quot;THE PRESIDENT required some information upon this point. He had yet to learn that the human eye was remarkable for the peculiarities of which the honourable gentleman had spoken. &quot;MR. TICKLE was rather astonished to hear this, when the President could not fail to be aware that a large number of most excellent persons and great statesmen could see, with the naked eye, most marvellous horrors on West India plantations, while they could discern nothing whatever in the interior of Manchester cotton mills. He must know, too, with what quickness of perception most people could discover their neighbour&#039;s faults, and how very blind they were to their own. If the President differed from the great majority of men in this respect, his eye was a defective one, and it was to assist his vision that these glasses were made. &quot;MR. BLANK exhibited a model of a fashionable annual, composed of copper-plates, gold leaf, and silk boards, and worked entirely by milk and water. &quot;MR. PROSEE, after examining the machine, declared it to be so ingeniously composed, that he was wholly unable to discover how it went on at all. &quot;MR. BLANK. —Nobody can, and that is the beauty of it. SECTION C.—ANATOMY AND MEDICINE. BAR-ROOM, BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE. PRESIDENT—DR. SOEMUP. VICT-PRESIDENTS—MESSRS. PESSELL AND MORTAIR. &quot;DR. GRUMMIDGE stated to the section a most interesting case of monomania, and described the course of treatment he had pursued with perfect success. The patient was a married lady in the middle rank of life, who, having seen another lady at an evening party in a full suit of pearls, was suddenly seized with a desire to possess a similar equipment, although her husband&#039;s finances were by no means equal to the necessary outlay. Finding her wish ungratified, she fell sick, and the symptoms soon became so alarming, that he (Dr. Grummidge) was called in. At this period the prominent tokens of the disorder were sullenness, a total indisposition to perform domestic duties, great peevishness, and extreme languor, except when pearls were mentioned, at which times the pulse quickened, the eyes grew brighter, the pupils dilated, and the patient, after various incoherent exclamations, burst into a passion of tears, and exclaimed that nobody cared for her, and that she wished herself dead. Finding that the patient&#039;s appetite was affected in the presence of company, he began by ordering a total abstinence from all stimulants, and forbidding any sustenance but weak gruel; he then took twenty ounces of blood, applied a blister under each ear, one upon the chest and another on the back; having done which, and administered five grains of calomel, he left the patient to her repose. The next day she was somewhat low, but decidedly better, and all appearances of irritation were removed. The next day she improved still further, and on the next again. On the fourth there was some appearance of a return of the old symptoms, which no sooner developed themselves than he administered another dose of calomel, and left strict orders that, unless a decidedly favourable change occurred within two hours, the patient&#039;s head should be immediately shaved to the very last curl. From that moment she began to mend, and in less than four-and-twenty hours was perfectly restored. She did not now betray the least emotion at the sight or mention of pearls or any other ornaments. She was cheerful and good-humoured, and a most beneficial change had been effected in her whole temperament and condition. &quot;MR. PIPKIN (M.R.C.S.) read a short but most interesting communication in which he sought to prove the complete belief of Sir William Courtenay, otherwise Thom, recently shot at Canterbury, in the Homoœpathic system. The section would bear in mind that one of the Homoœpathic doctrines was, that infinitesimal doses of any medicine which would occasion the disease under which the patient laboured, supposing him to be in a healthy state, would cure it. Now, it was a remarkable circumstance—proved in the evidence—that the deceased Thorn employed a woman to follow him about all day with a pail of water, assuring her that one drop (a purely homoœpathic remedy, the section would observe,) placed upon his tongue, after death, would restore him. What was the obvious inference? That Thorn, who was marching and countermarching in osier beds, and other swampy places, was impressed with a presentiment that he should be drowned; in which case, had his instructions been complied with, he could not fail to have been brought to life again instantly by his own prescription. As it was, if this woman, or any other person, had administered an infinitesimal dose of lead and gunpowder immediately after he fell, he would have recovered forthwith. But unhappily the woman concerned did not possess the power of reasoning by analogy, or carrying out a principle, and thus the unfortunate gentleman had been sacrificed to the ignorance of the peasantry. SECTION D.—STATISTICS. OUT-HOUSE, BLACK BOY AND STOMACH-ACHE. PRESIDENT—MR. SLUG. VICE-PRESIDENTS—MESSRS. NOAKES AND STYLES. &quot;MR. KWAKLEY stated the result of some most ingenious statistical inquiries relative to the difference between the value of the qualification of several members of Parliament as published to the world, and its real nature and amount. After reminding the section that every member of Parliament for a town or borough was supposed to possess a clear freehold estate of three hundred pounds per annum, the honourable gentleman excited great amusement and laughter by stating the exact amount of freehold property possessed by a column of legislators, in which he had included himself. It appeared from this table, that the amount of such income possessed by each was 0 pounds, 0 shillings, and 0 pence, yielding an average of the same. (Great laughter.) It was pretty well known that there were accommodating gentlemen in the habit of furnishing new members with temporary qualifications, to the ownership of which they swore solemnly—of course as a mere matter of form. He argued from these data that it was wholly unnecessary for members of Parliament to possess any property at all, especially as when they had none the public could get them so much cheaper. SUPPLEMENTARY SECTION, E. UMBUGOLOGY AND DITCHWATERISICS. PRESIDENT—MR. GRUB. VICE PRESIDENTS—MESSRS. DULL AND DUMMY. &quot;A paper was read by the secretary descriptive of a bay pony with one eye, which had been seen by the author standing in a butcher&#039;s cart at the corner of Newgate Market. The communication described the author of the paper as having, in the prosecution of a mercantile pursuit, betaken himself one Saturday morning last summer from Somers Town to Cheapside; in the course of which expedition he had beheld the extraordinary appearance above described. The pony had one distinct eye, and it had been pointed out to him by his friend Captain Blunderbore, of the Horse Marines, who assisted the author in his search, that whenever he winked this eye he whisked his tail (possibly to drive the flies off,) but that he always winked and whisked at the same time. The animal was lean, spavined, and tottering; and the author proposed to constitute it of the family of Fitfordogsmeataurious. It certainly did occur to him that there was no case on record of a pony with one clearly-defined and distinct organ of vision, winking and whisking at the same moment. &quot;MR. Q. J. SNUFFLETOFFLE had heard of a pony winking his eye, and likewise of a pony whisking his tail, but whether they were two ponies or the same pony he could not undertake positively to say. At all events he was acquainted with no authenticated instance of a simultaneous winking and whisking, and he really could not but doubt the existence of such a marvellous pony in opposition to all those natural laws by which ponies were governed. Referring, however, to the mere question of his one organ of vision, might he suggest the possibility of this pony having been literally half asleep at the time he was seen, and having closed only one eye. &quot;THE PRESIDENT observed that, whether the pony was half asleep or fast asleep, there could be no doubt that the association was wide awake, and therefore that they had better get the business over and go to dinner. He had certainly never seen anything analogous to this pony; but he was not prepared to doubt its existence; for he had seen many queerer ponies in his time, though he did not pretend to have seen any more remarkable donkeys than the other gentlemen around him. &quot;PROFESSOR JOHN KETCH was then called upon to exhibit the skull of the late Mr. Greenacre, which he produced from a blue bag, remarking, on being invited to make any observations that occurred to him, &#039;that he&#039;d pound it as that &#039;ere &#039;spectable section had never seed a more gamerer cove nor he vos.&#039; &quot;A most animated discussion upon this interesting relic ensued; and, some difference of opinion arising respecting the real character of the deceased gentleman, Mr. Blubb delivered a lecture upon the cranium before him, clearly showing that Mr. Greenacre possessed the organ of destructiveness to a most unusual extent, with a most remarkable developement of the organ of carveativeness. Sir Hookham Snivey was proceeding to combat this opinion, when Professor Ketch suddenly interrupted the proceedings by exclaiming, with great excitement of manner, &quot;Walker!&quot; &quot;THE PRESIDENT begged to call the learned gentleman to order. &quot;PROFESSOR KETCH.—&quot;Order be blowed! you&#039;ve got the wrong un, I tell you. It ain&#039;t no &#039;ed at all; it&#039;s a coker-nut as my brother-in-law has been a-carvin&#039; to hornament his new baked &#039;tatur-stall wots a-comin&#039; down &#039;ere vile the &#039;sociation&#039;s in the town. Hand over, vill you?&#039; &quot;With these words, Professor Ketch hastily repossessed himself of the cocoa-nut, and drew forth the skull, in mistake for which he had exhibited it. A most interesting conversation ensued; but as there appeared some doubt ultimately whether the skull was Mr. Greenacre&#039;s, or a hospital patient&#039;s, or a pauper&#039;s, or a man&#039;s, or a woman&#039;s, or a monkey&#039;s, no particular result was obtained.&quot; &quot;I cannot,&quot; says our talented correspondent in conclusion, &quot;I cannot close my account of these gigantic researches and sublime and noble triumphs without repeating a bon mot of Professor Woodensconce&#039;s, which shows how the greatest minds may occasionally unbend when truth can be presented to listening ears, clothed in an attractive and playful form. I was standing by, when, after a week of feasting and feeding, that learned gentleman, accompanied by the whole body of wonderful men, entered the hall yesterday, where a sumptuous dinner was prepared; where the richest wines sparkled on the board, and fat bucks—propitiatory sacrifices to learning—sent forth their savoury odours. &#039;Ah!&#039; said Professor Woodensconce, rubbing his hands, &#039;this is what we meet for; this is what inspires us; this is what keeps us together, and beckons us onward; this is the spread of science, and a glorious spread it is!&#039;&quot;18380901https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Full_Report_of_the_Second_Meeting_of_the_Mudfog_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Everything/1838-09-Full_Report_Second_Meeting_Mudfog_Asso.pdf
19https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/19'Gabriel Grub's Song'From <em>The Pickwick Papers </em>issue 10, ch. 29 (December 1836).Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. </i>Issue 10, Chapter 29 (December 1836), p. 300. <i>UVic Libraries,</i><a href="https://vault.library.uvic.ca/concern/file_sets/bf08b770-6776-47b5-be67-433295ac4b4a?locale=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> https://vault.library.uvic.ca/concern/file_sets/bf08b770-6776-47b5-be67-433295ac4b4a?locale=en</span></a>.</p>Chapman and Hall<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-12">1836-12</a><p class="p1"><i>UVic Libraries, </i>Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial, <span class="s1"><a href="https://creativecommons.org/lice%20nses/by-nc/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://creativecommons.org/lice nses/by-nc/4.0/</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">.</span></span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-12-Pickwick_Papers_Gabriel_Grubs_SongDickens, Charles. 'The Ivy Green' from The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Issue 10, Chapter 29 (December 1836), p. 300. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-12-Pickwick_Papers_Gabriel_Grubs_Song">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-12-Pickwick_Papers_Gabriel_Grubs_Song</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836-12_Pickwick_Papers_Gabriel_Grubs_Song.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Gabriel Grub's Song.' <em>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club</em>. Issue 10, Chapter 29 (December 1836): p. 300.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Serial">Serial</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Pickwick+Papers">The Pickwick Papers</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Boz">Boz</a>Brave lodgings for one, brave lodgings for one, A few feet of cold earth, when life is done; A stone at the head, a stone at the feet, A rich, juicy meal for the worms to eat; Rank grass over head, and damp clay around, Brave lodgings for one, these, in holy ground!18361201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Gabriel_Grub_s_Song/1836-12-Pickwick_Papers_Gabriel_Grubs_Song.pdf
25https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/25&#039;George Edmunds&#039; Song&#039;From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah, pp. 5-6.Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></p>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p>Hullah, John. 'Autumn Leaves.' V&amp;A, <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1286490/autumn-leaves-sheet-music-dickens-charles/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1286490/autumn-leaves-sheet-music-dickens-charles/</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_George_Edmunds_Song'A Song; to be said or sung about the end of October'<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'George Edmunds' Song'. <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): pp. 5-6. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_George_Edmunds_Song">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_George_Edmunds_Song</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_George_Edmonds_Song.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'George Edmunds' Song.' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts">The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</a>Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here; Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear! How like the hopes of childhood’s day, Thick clust’ring on the bough! How like those hopes in their decay – How faded are they now! Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here; Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear! Wither’d leaves, wither’d leaves, that fly before the gale; Withered leaves, withered leaves, ye tell a mournful tale, Of love once true, and friends once kind, And happy moments fled: Dispersed by every breath of wind, Forgotten, changed, or dead! Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here; Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/George_Edmunds_Song/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_George_Edmunds_Song.pdf
75https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/75'Grand Chorus'From Act 1, Scene 2 of <em>O'Thello</em> (1833-1834).Dickens, CharlesRosenbach Museum and Library.; Manuscript.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1833">1833</a>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834">1834</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1833-34_Othello_Grand_Chorus<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Grand Chorus.' <em>O'Thello </em>(1833-34).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><i>Dickens Search.<span>&nbsp;</span></i><span>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1833-34_Othello_Grand_Chorus">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1833-34_Othello_Grand_Chorus</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1833-34_Othello_Grand_Chorus.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Grand Chorus.' <em>O'Thello </em>(1833-34).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=O%27Thello">O&#039;Thello</a>Solo. The Great Unpaid Air – &quot;Away with melancholy&quot; – Away with grief. Be jolly Nor grave night charges bring Of drunken freaks and folly But merrily merrily sing falla! What&#039;s the use of repining At magistrates odd law? Can we prevent their fining? The merrily merrily sing falla Chorus&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;Away with grief etc.18330101
78https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/78'Grand Chorus'From Act 1, Scene 4 of <em>O'Thello</em> (1833-1834).Dickens, CharlesMorgan Library, New York.; Manuscript.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1833">1833</a>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834">1834</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1833-34_Othello_Grand_Chorus2<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Grand Chorus.' <em>O'Thello&nbsp;</em>(1833-34).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><i>Dickens Search.<span>&nbsp;</span></i><span>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1833-34_Othello_Grand_Chorus2">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1833-34_Othello_Grand_Chorus2</a><span>.</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1833-34_Othello_Grand_Chorus2.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Grand Chorus.' <em>O'Thello&nbsp;</em>(1833-34)</span><span>.</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=O%27Thello">O&#039;Thello</a>GU. Begone Dull Mike. I view you with detestation Cho Begone Dull Mike. You&#039;ve lost your situation Cass My wife will die, and so shall I If you don&#039;t let me stay GU. You very well know that&#039;s all my eye So Take yourself away. Cass My wife will die and so shall I If you don&#039;t let me stay Cho His wife will die he says, oh Cri! If he isn&#039;t allowed to stay Cass My wife will die and so shall I If you don&#039;t let me stay Cho: You very well know that&#039;s all my eye So take yourself away (Repeated)18330101
116https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/116'He’s Mad – Mad – Mad'From Act 2, Scene 1 of <em>The Strange Gentleman</em> (Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, 1836).Dickens, CharlesLord Chamberlain’s Copy, British Library.; <span>'He’s Mad – Mad – Mad.' <em>The Strange</em> <em>Gentleman</em>. </span><em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 1 (1820-1839), p. 697. Oxford University Press, 1965.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Hes_Mad_Mad_MadDickens, Charles. 'He’s Mad – Mad – Mad.' <em>The Strange Gentleman</em> (1836). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Hes_Mad_Mad_Mad">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Hes_Mad_Mad_Mad</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Hes_Mad_Mad_Mad.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'He’s Mad – Mad – Mad.' <em>The Strange Gentleman </em>(Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, 1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Strange+Gentleman">The Strange Gentleman</a>All He’s Mad – Mad – Mad. Alas! Poor lad Like a March Hare he’s Mad. Overton Quick seize him I say. And take him away – Mrs Nooke Be careful I pray Stranger Only hear what I say. All He’s Mad – Mad – Mad! etc. Overton To his bedroom now take him. Tom If he’s restive, I’ll shake him Mrs N. When asleep, pray don’t wake him Tom Oh, I’ll never forsake him. All He’s Mad – Mad – Mad! etc. Stranger Let me go Overton Hold him fast We’ve got him at last Mrs N. His sanity’s past Tom His die now is cast All He’s Mad – Mad – Mad! etc.18360101
131https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/131'Hidden Light'Published in <em>Household Words</em> vol. X (26 August 1854), co-author Adelaide Anne Procter.Dickens, Charles; Procter, Adelaide Anne<div class="element-text"><em>Household Words<span>&nbsp;</span></em>Volume X (26 August 1854): p. 37.</div>; <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/indexes/articles/hidden-light.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.djo.org.uk/indexes/articles/hidden-light.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1854-08-26">1854-08-26</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1854-08-26-Household_Words_Hidden_Light<span>Dickens, Charles and Adelaide Anne Procter. 'Hidden Light.' </span><em>Household Words</em><span>, Volume X, p. 37.&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1854-08-26_Household_Words_Hidden_Light">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1854-08-26_Household_Words_Hidden_Light</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1854-08-26_Household_Words_Hidden_Light.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Hidden Light.' <em>Household Words </em>vol. X (26 August 1854): p. 37.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>I MUCH mistrust the voice That says all hearts are cold: That mere self-interest reigns, And all is bought and bold. I much mistrust the man Who will not strive to find Some latent virtue in The soul of all mankind. Yes! If you say the fount Is seal&#039;d and dry, I know It needs a wiser hand To make the waters flow. If you will still appeal To Evil rife in all, I know a demon band Will answer to your call. But when the Lord was gone, The Lord who came to save, Two Angels fair and bright Sat watching by the grave. And from that blessed hour, With an immortal mien, In every tomb of Good Some Angel sits unseen. The spell to bring it forth? With lowly gentle mind, With patient love and trust, Go seek – and ye shall find!18540826https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Hidden_Light/1854-08-26_Household_Words_Hidden_Light.pdf
132https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/132'Horatio Sparkins'Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine</em> (February 1834).Dickens, Charles<em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres.</em> February 1834, pp. 151-176, <em>Internet Archive,</em> <a href="https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-02">1834-02</a><em>Internet Archive,</em> <a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>. Access to the Archive’s Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-02-Horatio_SparkinsDickens, Charles. "Horatio Sparkins." <em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres.</em> February 1834, pp. 151-176. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-02-Horatio_Sparkins">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-02-Horatio_Sparkins</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a>&quot;Indeed, my love, he paid Teresa very great attention on the last assembly night,&quot; said Mrs. Malderton, addressing her spouse, who, after the fatigues of the day in the City, was sitting with a silk handkerchief over his head, and his feet on the fender, drinking his port;—&quot;very great attention; and, I say again, every possible encouragement ought to be given him. He positively must be asked down here to dine.&quot; &quot;Who must?&quot; inquired Mr. Malderton. &quot;Why, you know whom I mean, my dear—the young man with the black whiskers and the white cravat, who has just come out at our assembly, and whom all the girls are talking about. Young—dear me, what’s his name?—Marianne, what is his name?&quot; continued Mrs. Malderton, addressing her youngest daughter, who was engaged in netting a purse, and endeavouring to look sentimental. &quot;Mr. Horatio Sparkins, ma,&quot; replied Miss Marianne, with a Juliet-like sigh. &quot;Oh! yes, to be sure—Horatio Sparkins,&quot; said Mrs. Malderton. &quot;Decidedly the most gentleman-like young man I ever saw. I am sure in the beautifully-made coat he wore the other night, he looked like—like—&quot; &quot;Like Prince Leopold, ma—so noble, so full of sentiment!&quot; suggested Miss Marianne, in a tone of enthusiastic admiration. &quot;You should recollect, my dear,&quot; resumed Mrs. Malderton, &quot;that Teresa is now eight-and-twenty; and that it really is very important that something should be done.&quot; Miss Teresa Malderton was a little girl, rather fat, with vermilion cheeks: but good humoured, still disengaged, although, to do her justice, the misfortune arose from no lack of perseverance on her part. In vain had she flirted for ten years; in vain had Mr. and Mrs. Malderton assiduously kept up an extensive acquaintance among the young eligible bachelors of Camberwell, and even of Newington Butts; on Sunday, likewise, many &quot;dropped in&quot; from town. Miss Malderton was as well known as the lion on the top of Northumberland House, and had about as much chance of &quot;going off.&quot; &quot;I am quite sure you’d like him,&quot; continued Mrs. Malderton; &quot;he is so gentlemanly!&quot; &quot;So clever!&quot; said Miss Marianne. &quot;And has such a flow of language!&quot; added Miss Teresa. &quot;He has a great respect for you, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Malderton to her husband, in a confident tone. Mr. Malderton coughed, and looked at the fire. &quot;Yes I’m sure he’s very much attached to pa’s society,&quot; said Miss Marianne. &quot;No doubt of it,&quot; echoed Miss Teresa. &quot;Indeed, he said as much to me in confidence,&quot; observed Mrs. Malderton. &quot;Well, well,&quot; returned Mr. Malderton, somewhat flattered; &quot;if I see him at the assembly to-morrow, perhaps I’ll ask him down here. I hope he knows we live at Oak Lodge, Camberwell, my dear?&quot; &quot;Of course—and that you keep a one-horse carriage.&quot; &quot;I’ll see about it,&quot; said Mr. Malderton, composing himself for a nap; &quot;I’ll see about it.&quot; Mr. Malderton was a man whose whole scope of ideas was limited to Lloyd’s, the Exchange, Broad-street, and the Bank. A few successful speculations had raised him from a situation of obscurity and comparative poverty, to a state of affluence. As it frequently happens in such cases the ideas of himself and his family became elevated to an extraordinary pitch as their means increased; they affected fashion, taste, and many other fooleries, in imitation of their superiors, and had a very becoming and decided horror of any thing which could by possibility be considered low. He was hospitable from ostentation, illiberal from ignorance, and prejudiced from conceit. Egotism and the love of display induced him to keep an excellent table: convenience, and a love of the good things of this life, ensured him plenty of guests. He liked to have clever men, or what he considered such, at his table, because it was a great thing to talk about; but he never could endure what he called &quot;sharp fellows.&quot; Probably he cherished this feeling out of compliment to his two sons, who gave their respected parent no uneasiness in that particular. The family were ambitious of forming acquaintances and connexions in some sphere of society superior to that in which they themselves moved; and one of the necessary consequences of this desire, added to their utter ignorance of the world beyond their own small circle, was that any one, who could lay claim to an acquaintance with people of rank and title, had a sure passport to the table at Oak-Lodge, Camberwell. The appearance of Mr. Horatio Sparkins at the City assembly had excited no small degree of surprise and curiosity among its regular frequenters. Who could he be? He was evidently reserved, and apparently melancholy. Was he a clergyman?—He danced too well. A barrister?—he was not called. He used very fine words, and said a great deal. Could he be a distinguished foreigner come to England for the purpose of describing the country, its manners and customs; and frequenting City balls and public dinners, with the view of becoming acquainted with high life, polished etiquette, and English refinement?—No, he had not a foreign accent. Was he a surgeon, a contributor to the magazines, a writer of fashionable novels, or an artist?—No; to each and all of these surmises there existed some valid objection.—&quot;Then,’&quot;said every body, &quot;he must be somebody.&quot;—&quot;I should think he must be,&quot; reasoned Mr. Malderton, within himself, &quot;because he perceives our superiority and pays us so much attention.&quot; The night succeeding the conversation we have just recorded, was &quot;assembly night.&quot; The double-fly was ordered to be at the door of Oak-Lodge at nine o’clock precisely. The Miss Maldertons were dressed in sky-blue satin, trimmed with artificial flowers; and Mrs. M. (who was a little fat woman), in ditto ditto, looked like her eldest daughter multiplied by two. Mr. Frederick Malderton the eldest son, in full-dress costume, was the very beau ideal of a smart waiter; and Mr. Thomas Malderton, the youngest, with his white dress-stock, blue coat, bright buttons, and red watch-ribbon, strongly resembled the portrait of that interesting though somewhat rash young gentleman, George Barnwell. Every member of the party had made up his or her mind to cultivate the acquaintance of Mr. Horatio Sparkins. Miss Teresa of course was to be as amiable and interesting as ladies of eight-and-twenty on the look out for a husband usually are; Mrs. Malderton would be all smiles and graces; Miss Marianne would request the favour of some verses for her album; Mr. Malderton would patronise the great unknown by asking him to dinner; Tom intended to ascertain the extent of his information on the interesting topics of snuff and cigars. Even Mr. Frederick Malderton himself, the family authority on all points of taste, dress, and fashionable arrangement - who had lodgings of his own at &quot;the west end,&quot; who had a free admission for Covent-Garden theatre, who always dressed according to the fashions of the month, who went up the water twice a week in the season, and who actually had an intimate friend who once knew a gentleman who formerly lived in the Albany,—even he had determined that Mr. Horatio Sparkins must be a devilish good fellow, and that he would do him the honour of challenging him to a game at billiards. The first object that met the anxious eyes of the expectant family, on their entrance into the ball-room, was the interesting Horatio, with his hair brushed off his forehead, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, reclining in a contemplative attitude on one of the seats. &quot;There he is, my dear,&quot; anxiously whispered Mrs. Malderton to Mr. Malderton. &quot;How like Lord Byron!&quot; murmured Miss Teresa. &quot;Or Montgomery!&quot; whispered Miss Marianne. &quot;Or the portraits of Captain Ross!&quot; suggested Tom. &quot;Tom—don’t be an ass!&quot; said his father, who checked him upon all occasions, probably with a view to prevent his becoming &quot;sharp&quot;—which, by-the-by, was very unnecessary. The elegant Sparkins attitudinized with admirable effect until the family had crossed the room. He then started up with the most natural appearance of surprise and delight: accosted Mrs. Malderton with the utmost cordiality, saluted the young ladies in the most enchanting manner; bowed to, and shook hands with Mr. Malderton, with a degree of respect amounting almost to veneration, and returned the greetings of the two young men in a half-gratified, half-patronising manner, which fully convinced them that he must be an important and, at the same time, condescending personage. &quot;Miss Malderton,&quot; said Horatio, after the ordinary salutations, and bowing very low, &quot;may I be permitted to presume to hope that you will allow me to have the pleasure—&quot; &quot;I don’t think I am engaged,&quot; said Miss Teresa, with a dreadful affectation of indifference—&quot;but, really—so many— —&quot; Horatio looked as handsomely miserable as a Hamlet sliding upon a bit of orange-peel. &quot;I shall be most happy,&quot; simpered the interesting Teresa, at last; and Horatio’s countenance brightened up like an old hat in a shower of rain. &quot;A very genteel young man, certainly!&quot; said the gratified Mr. Malderton, as the obsequious Sparkins and his partner joined the quadrille which was just forming. &quot;He has a remarkably good address,&quot; said Mr. Frederick. &quot;Yes, he is a prime fellow,&quot; interposed Tom; who always managed to put his foot in it—&quot;he talks just like an auctioneer.&quot; &quot;Tom!&quot; said his father, &quot;I think I desired you before not to be a fool.&quot;—Tom looked as happy as a cock on a drizzly morning. &quot;How delightful!&quot; said the interesting Horatio to his partner, as they promenaded the room at the conclusion of the set—&quot;how delightful, how refreshing it is, to retire from the cloudy storms, the vicissitudes, and the troubles of life, even if it be but for a few short, fleeting moments; and to spend those moments, fading and evanescent though they be, in the delightful, the blessed society of one individual—of her whose frowns would be death, whose coldness would be madness, whose falsehood would be ruin, whose constancy would be bliss; the possession of whose affection would be the brightest and best reward that heaven could bestow on man.’ &quot;What feeling! what sentiment!&quot; thought Miss Teresa, as she leaned more heavily upon her companion’s arm. &quot;But enough—enough,&quot; resumed the elegant Sparkins, with a theatrical air. &quot;What have I said? what have I—I—to do with sentiments like these? Miss Malderton,&quot; here he stopped short—&quot;may I hope to be permitted to offer the humble tribute of—&quot; &quot;Really, Mr. Sparkins,&quot; returned the enraptured Teresa, blushing in the sweetest confusion, &quot;I must refer you to papa. I never can without his consent, venture to—to— —&quot; &quot;Surely he cannot object—&quot; &quot;Oh, yes. Indeed, indeed, you know him not,&quot; interrupted Miss Teresa—well knowing there was nothing to fear, but wishing to make the interview resemble a scene in some romantic novel. &quot;He cannot object to my offering you a glass of negus,&quot; returned the adorable Sparkins, with some surprise. &quot;Is that all!&quot; said the disappointed Teresa to herself. &quot;What a fuss about nothing!&quot; &quot;It will give me the greatest pleasure, sir, to see you to dinner at Oak Lodge, Camberwell, on Sunday next, at five o’clock, if you have no better engagement,&quot; said Mr. Malderton, at the conclusion of the evening, as he and his sons were standing in conversation with Mr. Horatio Sparkins. Horatio bowed his acknowledgments, and accepted the flattering invitation. &quot;I must confess,&quot; continued the manœuvering father, offering his snuff-box to his new acquaintance, &quot;that I don’t enjoy these assemblies half so much as the comfort—I had almost said the luxury—of Oak Lodge: they have no great charms for an elderly man.&quot; &quot;And after all, sir, what is man?&quot; said the metaphysical Sparkins—&quot;I say, what is man?&quot; &quot;Ah! very true,&quot; said Mr. Malderton—&quot;very true.&quot; &quot;We know that we live and breathe,&quot; continued Horatio; &quot;that we have wants and wishes, desires and appetites—&quot; &quot;Certainly,&quot; said Mr. Frederick Malderton, looking very profound. &quot;I say, we know that we exist,&quot; repeated Horatio, raising his voice, &quot;but there we stop; there, is an end to our knowledge; there is the summit of our attainments; there is the termination of our ends. What more do we know?&quot; &quot;Nothing,&quot; replied Mr. Frederick—than whom no one was more capable of answering for himself in that particular. Tom was about to hazard something, but, fortunately for his reputation, he caught his father’s angry eye, and slunk off like a puppy convicted of petty larceny. &quot;Upon my word,&quot; said Mr. Malderton the elder, as they were returning home in the fly, &quot;that Mr. Sparkins is a wonderful young man. Such surprising knowledge! such extraordinary information! and such a splendid mode of expressing himself!&quot; &quot;I think he must be somebody in disguise,&quot; said Miss Marianne.—&quot;How charmingly romantic!&quot; &quot;He talks very loud and nicely,&quot; timidly observed Tom, &quot;but I don’t exactly understand what he means.&quot; &quot;I almost begin to despair of your understanding any thing, Tom,&quot; said his father, who, of course, had been much enlightened by Mr. Horatio Sparkins’ conversation. &quot;It strikes me, Tom,&quot; said Miss Teresa, &quot;that you have made yourself very ridiculous this evening.&quot; &quot;No doubt of it,&quot; cried every body—and the unfortunate Tom reduced himself into the least possible space. That night Mr. and Mrs. Malderton had a long conversation respecting their daughter’s prospects and future arrangements. Miss Teresa went to bed, considering whether, in the event of her marrying a title, she could conscientiously encourage the visits of her present associates, and dreamt all night of disguised noblemen, large routs, ostrich plumes, bridal favours, and Horatio Sparkins. Various surmises were hazarded on the Sunday morning, as to the mode of conveyance which the anxiously-expected Horatio would adopt. Did he keep a gig?—was it possible he would come on horseback?—or would he patronize the stage? These, and various other conjectures of equal importance, engrossed the attention of Mrs. Malderton and her daughters during the whole morning. &quot;Upon my word, my dear, it’s a most annoying thing that that vulgar brother of yours should have invited himself to dine here to-day,&quot; said Mr. Malderton to his wife. &quot;On account of Mr. Sparkins’ coming down, I purposely abstained from asking any one but Flamwell. And then to think of your brother—a tradesman—it’s insufferable! I declare I wouldn’t have him mention his shop before our new guest—no, not for a thousand pounds. I wouldn’t care if he had the good sense to conceal the disgrace he is to the family; but he’s so fond of his horrible business, that he will let people know what he is.&quot; Mr. Jacob Barton, the individual alluded to, was a large grocer; so vulgar, and so lost to all sense of feeling, that he actually never scrupled to avow that he wasn’t above his business: &quot;he’d made his money by it, and he didn’t care who know’d it.&quot; &quot;Ah! Flamwell, my dear fellow, how d’ye do?&quot; said Mr. Malderton, as a little spoffish man, with green spectacles, entered the room. &quot;You got my note?&quot; &quot;Yes, I did; and here I am in consequence.&quot; &quot;You don’t happen to know this Mr. Sparkins by name?—You know everybody?&quot; Mr. Flamwell was one of those gentlemen of remarkably extensive information whom one occasionally meets in society, who pretend to know every body, but who, of course, know nobody. At Malderton’s, where any stories about great people were received with a greedy ear, he was an especial favourite; and, knowing the kind of people he had to deal with, he carried his passion of claiming acquaintance with everybody, to the most immoderate length. He had rather a singular way of telling his greatest lies in a parenthesis, and with an air of self-denial, as if he feared being thought egotistical. &quot;Why, no, I don’t know him by that name,&quot; returned Flamwell, in a low tone, and with an air of immense importance. &quot;I have no doubt I know him though. Is he tall?&quot; &quot;Middle-sized,&quot; said Miss Teresa. &quot;With black hair?&quot; inquired Flamwell, hazarding a bold guess. &quot;Yes,&quot; returned Miss Teresa, eagerly. &quot;Rather a snub nose?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; said the disappointed Teresa, &quot;he has a Roman nose.&quot; &quot;I said a Roman nose, didn’t I?&quot; inquired Flamwell. &quot;He’s an elegant young man?&quot; &quot;Oh, certainly.&quot; &quot;With remarkably prepossessing manners?&quot; &quot;Oh, yes!&quot; said all the family together. &quot;You must know him.&quot; &quot;Yes, I thought you knew him, if he was anybody,&quot; triumphantly exclaimed Mr. Malderton. &quot;Who d’ye think he is?&quot; &#039;Why, from your description,&quot; said Flamwell, ruminating, and sinking his voice, almost to a whisper, &#039;he bears a strong resemblance to the Honourable Augustus Fitz-Edward Fitz-John Fitz-Osborne. He’s a very talented young man, and rather eccentric. It’s extremely probable he may have changed his name for some temporary purpose.&quot; Teresa’s heart beat high. Could he be the Honourable Augustus Fitz-Edward Fitz-John Fitz-Osborne? What a name to be elegantly engraved over two glazed cards, tied together with a piece of white satin ribbon! &quot;The Honourable Mrs. Augustus Fitz-Edward Fitz-John Fitz-Osborne!&quot; The thought was transport. &quot;It’s five minutes to five,&quot; said Mr. Malderton, looking at his watch: &quot;I hope he’s not going to disappoint us.&quot; &quot;There he is!&quot; exclaimed Miss Teresa, as a loud double-knock was heard at the door. Every body endeavoured to look—as people when they particularly expect a visitor alway do—as if they were perfectly unsuspicious of the approach of any one. The room door opened—&quot;Mr. Barton!&quot; said the servant. &quot;Confound the man!&quot; murmured Malderton.—&quot;Ah! my dear sir, how d’ye do! Any news?&quot; &quot;Why no,&quot; returned the grocer, in his usual honest, bluff manner. &quot;No, none partickler. None that I am much aware of.—How d’ye do, gals and boys?—Mr. Flamwell, sir—glad to see you.&quot; &quot;Here’s Mr. Sparkins!&quot; said Tom, who had been looking out at the window, &quot;on such a black horse!&quot; —There was Horatio sure enough, on a large black horse, curvetting and prancing along like an Astley’s supernumerary. After a great deal of reining in and pulling up, with the accompaniments of snorting, rearing, and kicking, the animal consented to stop at about a hundred yards from the gate, where Mr. Sparkins dismounted and confided him to the care of Mr. Malderton’s groom. The ceremony of introduction was gone through in all due form. Mr. Flamwell looked from behind his green spectacles at Horatio with an air of mysterious importance; and the gallant Horatio looked unutterable things at Teresa, who tried in her turn to appear uncommonly lackadaisycal. &quot;Is he the Honourable Mr. Augustus—what’s-his-name?&quot; whispered Mrs. Malderton, to Flamwell, as he was escorting her to the dining-room. &quot;Why, no—at least not exactly,&quot; returned that great authority—&quot;not exactly.&quot; &quot;Who is he then?&quot; &quot;Hush!&quot; said Flamwell, nodding his head with a grave air, importing that he knew very well; but was prevented, by some grave reasons of state from disclosing the important secret. It might be one of the ministers making himself acquainted with the views of the people. &quot;Mr. Sparkins,&quot; said the delighted Mrs. Malderton, &quot;pray divide the ladies. John, put a chair for the gentleman between Miss Teresa and Miss Marianne.&quot; This was addressed to a man who on ordinary occasions acted as half-groom, half-gardener; but who, as it was important to make an impression on Mr. Sparkins, had been forced into a white neckerchief and shoes, and touched up and brushed to look like a second footman. The dinner was excellent; Horatio was most attentive to Miss Teresa, and every one felt in high spirits, except Mr. Malderton, who, knowing the propensity of his brother-in-law, Mr. Barton, endured that sort of agony which the newspapers inform us is experienced by the surrounding neighbourhood when a pot-boy hangs himself in a hay-loft, and which is &quot;much easier to be imagined than described.&quot; &quot;Have you seen your friend, Sir Thomas Noland, lately, Flamwell?&quot; inquired Mr. Malderton, casting a sidelong look at Horatio, to see what effect the mention of so great a man had upon him. &quot;Why, no—not very lately. I saw Lord Gubbleton the day before yesterday.&quot; &quot;I hope his lordship is very well?&quot; said Malderton, in a tone of the greatest interest. It is scarcely necessary to say that until that moment he was quite innocent of the existence of such a person. &quot;Why, yes; he was very well—very well indeed. He’s a devilish good fellow: I met him in the City, and had a long chat with him. Indeed, I’m rather intimate with him. I couldn’t stop to talk to him as long as I could wish though, because I was on my way to a banker’s, a very rich man, and a member of Parliament, with whom I am also rather, indeed I may say very, intimate.&quot; &quot;I know whom you mean,&quot; returned the host, consequentially, in reality knowing as much about the matter as Flamwell himself. &quot;He has a capital business.&quot; This was touching on a dangerous topic. &quot;Talking of business,&quot; interposed Mr. Barton, from the centre of the table. &quot;A gentleman whom you knew very well, Malderton, before you made that first lucky spec of your&#039;s, called at our shop the other day, and—&quot; &quot;Barton, may I trouble you for a potatoe?&quot; interrupted the wretched master of the house, hoping to nip the story in the bud. &quot;Certainly,&quot; returned the grocer, quite insensible of his brother-in-law’s object—&quot;and he said in a very plain manner—&quot; &quot;Flowery, if you please,&quot; interrupted Malderton again; dreading the termination of the anecdote, and fearing a repetition of the word &quot;shop.&quot; &quot;He said, says he,&quot; continued the culprit, after despatching the potatoe;—&quot;says he, how goes on your business? So I said, jokingly—you know my way—says I, I’m never above my business, and I hope my business will never be above me. Ha, ha, ha!&quot; &quot;Mr. Sparkins,&quot; said the host, vainly endeavouring to conceal his dismay, &quot;a glass of wine?&quot; &quot;With the utmost pleasure, sir.&quot; &quot;Happy to see you.&quot; &quot;Thank you.&quot; &quot;We were talking the other evening,&quot; resumed the host, addressing Horatio, partly with the view of displaying the conversational powers of his new acquaintance, and partly in the hope of drowning the grocer’s stories; &quot;we were talking the other night about the nature of man. Your argument struck me very forcibly.&quot; &quot;And me,&quot; said Mr. Frederick. Horatio made a graceful inclination of the head. &quot;Pray, what is your opinion of women, Mr. Sparkins?&quot; inquired Mrs. Malderton. The young ladies simpered. &quot;Man,&quot; replied Horatio, &quot;man, whether he ranged the bright, gay, flowery plains of a second Eden, or the more sterile, barren, and I may say common-place regions, to which we are compelled to accustom ourselves in times such as these; man, I say, under any circumstances, or in any place—whether he were bending beneath the withering blasts of the frigid zone, or scorching under the rays of a vertical sun—man, without woman, would be—alone.&quot; &quot;I am very happy to find you entertain such honourable opinions, Mr. Sparkins,&quot; said Mrs. Malderton. &quot;And I,&quot; added Miss Teresa. Horatio looked his delight, and the young lady blushed like a full-blown peony. &quot;Now, it’s my opinion—&quot; said Mr. Barton.— &quot;I know what you’re going to say,&quot; interposed Malderton, determined not to give his relation another opportunity, &quot;and I don’t agree with you.&quot; &quot;What!&quot; inquired the astonished grocer. &quot;I am sorry to differ from you, Barton,&quot; said the host, in as positive a manner as if he really were contradicting a position which the other had laid down, &quot;but I cannot give my assent to what I consider a very monstrous proposition.&quot; &quot;But I meant to say—&quot; &quot;You never can convince me,&quot; said Malderton, with an air of obstinate determination. &quot;Never.&quot; &quot;And I,&quot; said Mr. Frederick, following up his father’s attack, &quot;cannot entirely agree in Mr. Sparkins’s argument.&quot; &quot;What!&quot; said Horatio, who became more metaphysical, and more argumentative, as he saw the female part of the family listening in wondering delight. &quot;What! is effect the consequence of cause? Is cause the precursor of effect?&quot; &quot;That’s the point,&quot; said Flamwell, in a tone of concurrence. &quot;To be sure,&quot; said Mr. Malderton. &quot;Because, if effect is the consequence of cause, and if cause does precede effect, I apprehend you are decidedly wrong,&quot; added Horatio. &quot;Decidedly,&quot; said the toad-eating Flamwell. &quot;At least, I apprehend that to be the just and logical deduction,&quot; said Sparkins, in a tone of interrogation. &quot;No doubt of it,&quot; chimed in Flamwell again. &quot;It settles the point.&quot; &quot;Well, perhaps it does,&quot; said Mr. Frederick; &quot;I didn’t see it before.&quot; &quot;I don’t exactly see it now,&quot; thought the grocer; &quot;but I suppose it’s all right.&quot; &quot;How wonderfully clever he is!&quot; whispered Mrs. Malderton to her daughters as they retired to the drawing-room. &quot;Oh! he’s quite a love,&quot; said both the young ladies together; &quot;he talks like a second Pelham. He must have seen a great deal of life.&quot; The gentlemen being left to themselves a pause ensued, during which everybody looked very grave, as if they were quite overcome by the profound nature of the previous discussion. Flamwell, who had made up his mind to find out who and what Mr. Horatio Sparkins really was, first broke silence. &quot;Excuse me, sir,&quot; said that distinguished personage. &quot;I presume you have studied for the bar; I thought of entering once, myself—indeed, I’m rather intimate with some of the highest ornaments of that distinguished profession. &quot;No—no!&quot; said Horatio, with a little hesitation, &quot;not exactly.&quot; &quot;But you have been much among the silk gowns, or I mistake?&quot; inquired Flamwell, deferentially. &quot;Nearly all my life,&quot; returned Sparkins. The question was thus pretty well settled in the mind of Mr. Flamwell.—He was a young gentleman &quot;about to be called.&quot; &quot;I shouldn’t like to be a barrister,&quot; said Tom, speaking for the first time, and looking round the table to find somebody who would notice the remark. No one made any reply. &quot;I shouldn’t like to wear a wig,&quot; said Tom, hazarding another observation. &quot;Tom, I beg you will not make yourself ridiculous,&quot; said his father. &quot;Pray listen, and improve yourself by the conversation you hear, and don’t be constantly making these absurd remarks.&quot; &quot;Very well, father,&quot; replied the unfortunate Tom, who had not spoken a word since he had asked for another slice of beef at a quarter-past five o’clock P.M., and it was then eight. &quot;Well, Tom,&#039; observed his good-natured uncle, &quot;never mind; I think with you. I shouldn’t like to wear a wig. I’d rather wear an apron.&quot; Mr. Malderton coughed violently. Mr. Barton resumed—&quot;For if a man’s above his business—&quot; The cough returned with tenfold violence, and did not cease until the unfortunate cause of it, in his alarm, had quite forgotten what he intended to say. &quot;Mr. Sparkins,&quot; said Flamwell, returning to the charge, &quot;do you happen to know Mr. Delafontaine, of Bedford-square?&quot; &quot;I have exchanged cards with him; since which, indeed, I have had an opportunity of serving him considerably,&quot; replied Horatio, slightly colouring; no doubt, at having been betrayed into making the acknowledgment. &quot;You are very lucky, if you have had an opportunity of obliging that great man,&quot; observed Flamwell, with an air of profound respect. &quot;I don’t know,&quot; whispered Flamwell to Mr. Malderton confidentially as they followed Horatio up to the drawing-room. &quot;It’s quite clear, however, that he belongs to the law, and that he is somebody of great importance, and very highly connected.&quot; &quot;No doubt, no doubt,&quot; returned his companion. The remainder of the evening passed away most delightfully. Mr. Malderton, relieved from his apprehensions by the circumstance of Mr. Barton’s falling into a profound sleep, was as affable and gracious as possible. Miss Teresa played &quot;The Falls of Paris,&quot; as Mr. Sparkins declared, in a most masterly manner, and both of them assisted by Mr. Frederick, tried over glees and trios without number; they having made the pleasing discovery that their voices harmonised beautifully. To be sure they all sang the first part; and Horatio, in addition to the slight drawback of having no ear, was perfectly innocent of knowing a note of music; still, they passed the time very agreeably, and it was past twelve o’clock before Mr. Sparkins ordered the mourning-coach-looking steed to be brought out—an order which was only complied with on the distinct understanding that he was to repeat his visit on the following Sunday.&quot; &quot;But, perhaps, Mr. Sparkins will form one of our party to-morrow evening?’ suggested Mrs. M. &quot;Mr. Malderton intends taking the girls to see St. George and the Dragon&quot;—Mr. Sparkins bowed and promised to join the party in box 48 in the course of the evening. &quot;We will not tax you for the morning,&quot; said Miss Teresa, bewitchingly; &quot;for ma is going to take us to all sorts of places, shopping. But I know that gentlemen have a great horror of that employment.&quot; Mr. Sparkins bowed again, and declared he should be delighted, but business of importance occupied him in the morning. Flamwell looked at Malderton significantly.—&quot;It’s term time!&quot; he whispered. At twelve o’clock on the following morning the &quot;fly&quot; was at the door of Oak Lodge, to convey Mrs. Malderton and her daughters on their expedition for the day. They were to dine and dress for the play at a friend’s house, first driving thither with their bandboxes; thence they departed on their first errand to make some purchases at Messrs. Jones, Spruggins, and Smith’s, of Tottenham-court-road; after which to Redmayne, in Bond-street; and thence to innumerable places that no one ever heard of. The young ladies beguiled the tediousness of the ride by eulogising Mr. Horatio Sparkins, scolding their mamma for taking them so far to save a shilling, and wondering whether they should ever reach their destination. At length, the vehicle stopped before a dirty-looking ticketed linen-draper’s shop, with goods of all kinds, and labels of all sorts and sizes, in the window. There were dropsical figures of a seven with a little three-quarter in the corner; something like the acquatic animalculæ disclosed by the gas microscope &quot;perfectly invisible to the naked eye;&quot; three hundred and fifty thousand ladies’ boas, from one shilling and a penny halfpenny; real French kid shoes, at two and nine-pence per pair; green parasols, with handles like carving-forks, at an equally cheap rate; and &quot;every description of goods,&quot; as the proprietors said—and they must know best—&quot;fifty per cent. under cost price.&quot; &quot;Lor! ma&#039;, what a place you have brought us to!&quot; said Miss Teresa; &quot;what would Mr. Sparkins say if he could see us!&quot; &quot;Ah! what, indeed!&quot; said Miss Marianne, horrified at the idea. &quot;Pray be seated, ladies. What is the first article?&quot; inquired the obsequious master of the ceremonies of the establishment, who, in his large white neckcloth and formal tie, looked like a bad &quot;portrait of a gentleman&quot; in the Somerset-house exhibition. &quot;I want to see some silks,&quot; answered Mrs. Malderton. &quot;Directly, ma’am.—Mr. Smith! Where is Mr. Smith?&quot; &quot;Here, sir,&quot; cried a voice at the back of the shop. &quot;Pray make haste, Mr. Smith,&quot; said the M.C. &quot;You never are to be found when you’re wanted, sir.&quot; Mr. Smith thus enjoined to use all possible despatch, leaped over the counter with great agility, and placed himself before the newly-arrived customers. Mrs. Malderton uttered a faint scream; Miss Teresa, who had been stooping down to talk to her sister, raised her head and beheld—Horatio Sparkins! &quot;We will draw a veil,&quot; as novel-writers say, over the scene that ensued. The mysterious, philosophical, romantic, metaphysical Sparkins—he who, to the interesting Teresa, seemed like the embodied idea of the young dukes and poetical exquisites in blue silk dressing-gowns, and ditto ditto slippers, of whom she had read and dreamt, but had never expected to behold—was suddenly converted into Mr. Samuel Smith, the assistant at a &quot;cheap shop;&quot; the junior partner in a slippery firm of some three weeks’ existence. The dignified evanishment of the hero of Oak Lodge on this unexpected announcement could only be equalled by that of a furtive dog with a considerable kettle at his tail. All the hopes of the Maldertons were destined at once to melt away, like the lemon ices at a Company’s dinner; Almacks was still to them as distant as the North Pole&quot; and Miss Teresa had as much chance of a husband as Captain Ross had of the north-west passage. Years have elapsed since the occurrence of this dreadful morning. The daisies have thrice bloomed on Camberwell-green—the sparrows have thrice repeated their vernal chirps in Camberwell-grove; but the Miss Maldertons are still unmated. Miss Teresa’s case is more desperate than ever; but Flamwell is yet in the zenith of his reputation; and the family have the same predilection for aristocratic personages, with an increased aversion to anything low.18340201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Horatio_Sparkins/1834-02-Horatio_Sparkins.pdf
161https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/161'Hunted Down', Part IPublished in <em>The New York Ledger</em> vol. 14 (20 August <span>1859), p. 5.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>The New York Public Library Digital Collections,</em> <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-new-york-ledger?filters%5Bname%5D=Dickens%2C+Charles%2C+1812-1870&amp;keywords=#/?tab=navigation">https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-new-york-ledger?filters%5Bname%5D=Dickens%2C+Charles%2C+1812-1870&amp;keywords=#/?tab=navigation</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1859-08-20">1859-08-20</a>All images remain the physical property of NYPL and the intellectual property of the copyright holder, if applicable.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1859-08-20-Hunted_Down_Part1Dickens, Charles. 'Hunted Down', Part I (20 August 1859). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1859-08-20-Hunted_Down_Part1">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1859-08-20-Hunted_Down_Part1</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+New+York+Ledger%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The New York Ledger</em></a>I. Most of us see some romances in life. In my capacity as Chief-Manager of a Life Assurance Office, I think I have within the last thirty years seen more romances than the generality of men: however unpromising the opportunity may, at first sight, seem. As I have retired, and live at my ease, I possess the means that I used to want, of considering what I have seen, at leisure. My experiences have a more remarkable aspect, so reviewed, than they had when they were in progress. I have come home from the Play now, and can recal the scenes of the Drama upon which the curtain has fallen, free from the glare, bewilderment, and bustle of the Theatre. Let me recal one of these Romances of the real world. There is nothing truer than physiognomy, taken in connection with manner. The art of reading that book of which Eternal Wisdom obliges every human creature to present his or her own page with the individual character written on it, is a difficult one, perhaps, and is little studied. It may require some natural aptitude, and it must require (for everything does), some patience and some pains. That, these are not usually given to it—that, numbers of people accept a few stock commonplace expressions of face as the whole list of characteristics, and neither seek nor know the refinements that are truest—that You, for instance, give a great deal of time and attention to the reading of music, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Hebrew if you please, and do not qualify yourself to read the face of the master or mistress looking over your shoulder teaching it to you—I assume to be five hundred times more probable than improbable. Perhaps, a little self-sufficiency may be at the bottom of this; facial expression requires no study from you, you think; it comes by nature to you to know enough about it, and you are not to be taken in. I confess, for my part, that I have been taken in, over and over and over again. I have been taken in by acquaintances, and I have been taken in (of course) by friends; far oftener by friends than by any other class of persons. How came I to be so deceived? Had I quite mis-read their faces? No. Believe me, my first impression of those people, founded on face and manner alone, was invariably true. My mistake was, in suffering them to come nearer to me and explain themselves away. II. The partition which separated my own office from our general outer office in the City, was of thick plate-glass. I could see through it what passed in the outer office, without hearing a word. I had it put up, in place of a wall that had been there for years—ever since the house was built. It is no matter whether I did or did not make the change, in order that I might derive my first impression of strangers who came to us on business, from their faces alone, without being influenced by anything they said. Enough to mention that I turned my glass partition to that account, and that a Life Assurance Office is at all times exposed to be practiced upon by the most crafty and cruel of the human race. It was through my glass partition that I first saw the gentleman whose story I am going to tell. He had come in, without my observing it, and had put his hat and umbrella on the broad counter, and was bending over it to take some papers from one of the clerks. He was about forty or so, dark, exceedingly well dressed in black—being in mourning—and the hand he extended with a polite air, had a particularly well-fitting, black kid glove upon it. His hair, which was elaborately brushed and oiled, was parted straight up the middle; and he presented this parting to the clerk, exactly (to my thinking) as if he had said, in so many words: &quot;You must take me, if you please, my friend, just as I show myself. Come straight up here, follow the gravel path, keep off the grass, I allow no trespassing.&quot; I conceived a very great aversion to that man, the moment I thus saw him. He had asked for some of our printed forms, and the clerk was giving them to him and explaining them. An obliged and agreeable smile was on his face, and his eyes met those of the clerk with a sprightly look. (I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance, any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.) I saw, in the corner of his eyelash, that he became aware of my looking at him. Immediately, he turned the parting in his hair toward the glass partition, as if he said to me with a sweet smile: &quot;Straight up here, if you please. Off the grass!&quot; In a few moments he had put on his hat and taken up his umbrella, and was gone. I beckoned the clerk into my room, and asked, &quot;Who was that?&quot; He had the gentleman’s card in his hand. &quot;Mr. Julius Slinkton, Middle Temple.&quot; &quot;A barrister, Mr. Adams?&quot; &quot;I think not, sir.&quot; &quot;I should have thought him a clergyman, but for his having no Reverend here,&quot; said I. &quot;Probably, from his appearance,&quot; Mr. Adams replied, &quot;he is reading for orders.&quot; I should mention that he wore a dainty white cravat, and dainty linen altogether. &quot;What did he want, Mr. Adams?&quot; &quot;Merely a form of proposal, sir, and form of reference.&quot; &quot;Recommended here? Did he say?&quot; &quot;Yes, he said he was recommended here by a friend of yours. He noticed you, but said that as he had not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance he would not trouble you.&quot; &quot;Did he know my name?&quot; &quot;Oh yes, sir! He said, &#039;There is Mr. Sampson, I see.&#039;&quot; &quot;A well-spoken gentleman, apparently?&quot; &quot;Remarkably so, sir.&quot; &quot;Insinuating manners, apparently?&quot; &quot;Very much so, indeed, sir.&quot; &quot;Hah!&quot; said I. &quot;I want nothing at present, Mr. Adams.&quot; Within a fortnight of that day, I went to dine with a friend of mine, a merchant, a man of taste who buys pictures and books; and the first man I saw among the company was Mr. Julius Slinkton. There he was, standing before the fire, with good large eyes and an open expression of face; but still (I thought) requiring everybody to come at him by the prepared way he offered, and by no other. I noticed him ask my friend to introduce him to Mr. Sampson, and my friend did so. Mr. Slinkton was very happy to see me. Not too happy; there was no over-doing of the matter; happy in a thoroughly well-bred, perfectly unmeaning, way. &quot;I thought you had met,&quot; our host observed. &quot;No,&quot; said Mr. Slinkton. &quot;I did look in at Mr. Sampson’s office, on your recommendation; but I really did not feel justified in troubling Mr. Sampson himself, on a point in the everyday routine of an ordinary clerk.&quot; I said I should have been glad to show him any attention on our friend’s introduction. &quot;I am sure of that,&quot; said he, &quot;and am much obliged. At another time, perhaps, I may be less delicate. Only, however, if I have real business; for I know, Mr. Sampson, how precious business time is, and what a vast number of impertinent people there are in the world.&quot; I acknowledged his consideration with a slight bow. &quot;You were thinking,&quot; said I, &quot;of effecting a policy on your life.&quot; &quot;Oh dear, no! I am afraid I am not so prudent as you pay me the compliment of supposing me to be, Mr. Sampson. I merely inquired for a friend. But, you know what friends are in such matters. Nothing may ever come of it. I have the greatest reluctance to trouble men of business with inquiries for friends, knowing the probabilities to be a thousand to one that the friends will never follow them up. People are so fickle, so selfish, so inconsiderate. Don’t you, in your business, find them so every day, Mr. Sampson?&quot; I was going to give a qualified answer; but he turned his smooth, white parting on me with its &quot;Straight up here, if you please!&quot; and I answered, &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;I hear, Mr. Sampson,&quot; he resumed, presently, for our friend had a new cook, and dinner was not so punctual as usual, &quot;that your profession has recently suffered a great loss.&quot; &quot;In money?&quot; said I. He laughed at my ready association of loss with money, and replied, &quot;No, in talent and vigour.&quot; Not at once following out his allusion, I considered for a moment. &quot;Has it sustained a loss of that kind?&quot; said I. &quot;I was not aware of it.&quot; &quot;Understand me, Mr. Sampson. I don’t imagine that you have retired. It is not so bad as that. But Mr. Meltham—&quot; &quot;Oh, to be sure!&quot; said I. &quot;Yes! Mr. Meltham, the young actuary of the &#039;Inestimable.&#039;&quot; &quot;Just so,&quot; he returned in a consoling way. &quot;He is a great loss. He was at once the most profound, the most original, and the most energetic man I have ever known connected with Life Assurance.&quot; I spoke strongly; for I had a high esteem and admiration for Meltham, and my gentleman had indefinitely conveyed to me some suspicion that he wanted to sneer at him. He recalled me to my guard by presenting that trim pathway up his head, with its internal &#039;Not on the grass, if you please—the gravel.’&quot; &quot;You knew him, Mr. Slinkton?&quot; &quot;Only by reputation. To have known him as an acquaintance, or as a friend, is an honour I should have sought if he had remained in society, though I might never have had the good fortune to attain it, being a man of far inferior mark. He was scarcely above thirty, I suppose?&quot; &quot;About thirty.&quot; &quot;Ah!&quot; He sighed in his former consoling way. &quot;What creatures we are! To break up, Mr. Sampson, and become incapable of business at that time of life!—Any reason assigned for the melancholy fact?&quot; (&quot;Humph!&quot; thought I, as I looked at him. &quot;But I WON’T go up the track, and I WILL go on the grass.&quot;) &quot;What reason have you heard assigned, Mr. Slinkton?&quot; I asked, point blank. &quot;Most likely a false one. You know what Rumour is, Mr. Sampson. I never repeat what I hear; it is the only way of paring the nails and shaving the head of Rumour. But when you ask me what reason I have heard assigned for Mr. Meltham’s passing away from among men, it is another thing. I am not gratifying idle gossip then. I was told. Mr. Sampson, that Mr. Meltham had relinquished all his avocations and all his prospects, because he was, in fact, broken-hearted. A disappointed attachment I heard—though it hardly seems probable, in the case of a man so distinguished and so attractive.&quot; &quot;Attractions and distinctions are no armour against death,&quot; said I. &quot;Oh! she died? Pray pardon me. I did not hear that. That, indeed, makes it very, very sad. Poor Mr. Meltham! She died? Ah, dear me! Lamentable, lamentable!&quot; I still thought his pity was not quite genuine, and I still suspected an unaccountable sneer under all this, until he said, as we were parted, like the other knots of talkers, by the announcement of dinner: &quot;Mr. Sampson, you are surprised to see me so moved on behalf of a man whom I have never known. I am not so disinterested as you may suppose. I have suffered, and recently too, from death myself. I have lost one of two charming nieces, who were my constant companions. She died young—barely three-and-twenty—and even her remaining sister is far from strong. The world is a grave!&quot; He said this with deep feeling, and I felt reproached for the coldness of my manner. Coldness and distrust had been engendered in me, I knew, by my bad experiences; they were not natural to me; and I often thought how much I had lost in life, losing trustfulness, and how little I had gained, gaining hard caution. This state of mind being habitual to me, I troubled myself more about this conversation than I might have troubled myself about a greater matter. I listened to his talk at dinner, and observed how readily other men responded to it, and with what a graceful instinct he adapted his subjects to the knowledge and habits of those he talked with. As, in talking with me, he had easily started the subject I might be supposed to understand best, and to be the most interested in, so, in talking with others, he guided himself by the same rule. The company was of a varied character; but, he was not at fault, that I could discover, with any member of it. He knew just as much of each man’s pursuit as made him agreeable to that man in reference to it, and just as little as made it natural in him to seek modestly for information when the theme was broached. As he talked and talked—but really not too much, for the rest of us seemed to force it upon him—I became quite angry with myself. I took his face to pieces in my mind, like a watch, and examined it in detail. I could not say much against any of his features separately; I could say even less against them when they were put together. &quot;Then is it not monstrous,&quot; I asked myself, &quot;that because a man happens to part his hair straight up the middle of his head, I should permit myself to suspect, and even to detest him?&quot; (I may stop to remark that this was no proof of my sense. An observer of men who finds himself steadily repelled by some apparently trifling thing in a stranger, is right to give it great weight. It may be the clue to the whole mystery. A hair or two will show where a lion is hidden. A very little key will open a very heavy door.) I took my part in the conversation with him after a time, and we got on remarkably well. In the drawing-room I asked the host how long he had known Mr. Slinkton? He answered, not many months; he had met him at the house of a celebrated painter then present, who had known him well when he was travelling with his nieces in Italy for their health. His plans in life being broken by the death of one of them, he was reading, with the intention of going back to college as a matter of form, taking his degree, and going into orders. I could not but argue with myself that here was the true explanation of his interest in poor Meltham, and that I had been almost brutal in my distrust on that simple head. III. On the very next day but one, I was sitting behind my glass partition, as before, when he came into the outer office, as before. The moment I saw him again without hearing him, I hated him worse than ever. It was only for a moment that I had this opportunity; for he waved his tight fitting black glove the instant I looked at him, and came straight in. &quot;Mr. Sampson, good day! I presume, you see, upon your kind permission to intrude upon you. I don’t keep my word in being justified by business, for my business here—if I may so abuse the word—is of the slightest nature.&quot; I asked, was it anything I could assist him in? &quot;I thank you, no. I merely called to inquire outside, whether my dilatory friend had been so false to himself, as to be practical and sensible. But, of course, he has done nothing. I gave him your papers with my own hand, and he was hot upon the intention, but of course he has done nothing. Apart from the general human disinclination to do anything that ought to be done, I dare say there is a specialty about assuring one’s life? You find it like will-making. People are so superstitious, and take it for granted they will die soon afterwards.&quot; Up here, if you please. Straight up here, Mr. Sampson. Neither to the right nor to the left! I almost fancied I could hear him breathe the words, as he sat smiling at me, with that intolerable parting exactly opposite the bridge of my nose. &quot;There is such a feeling sometimes, no doubt,&quot; I replied; &quot;but I don’t think it obtains to any great extent.&quot; &quot;Well!&quot; said he, with a shrug and a smile, &quot;I wish some good angel would influence my friend in the right direction. I rashly promised his mother and sister in Norfolk, to see it done, and he promised them that he would do it. But I suppose he never will.&quot; He spoke for a minute or two on indifferent topics, and went away. [TO BE CONTINUED IN OUR NEXT.] *This is the first and only story that MR. DICKENS has ever written for an American publication. It is but a short one, and will be comlpeted in two or three numbers of the LEDGER. We expect to have the pleasure of giving our readers a much longer one by-and-by.18590820https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Hunted_Down_Part_I/1859-08-20-Hunted_Down_Part1.pdf
162https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/162'Hunted Down', Part IIPublished in <em>The New York Ledger</em> vol.14 (27 August 1859), p. 5.Dickens, Charles<em>The New York Public Library Digital Collections,</em> <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-new-york-ledger?filters%5Bname%5D=Dickens%2C+Charles%2C+1812-1870&amp;keywords=#/?tab=navigation">https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-new-york-ledger?filters%5Bname%5D=Dickens%2C+Charles%2C+1812-1870&amp;keywords=#/?tab=navigation</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1859-08-27">1859-08-27</a>All images remain the physical property of NYPL and the intellectual property of the copyright holder, if applicable.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1859-08-27-Hunted_Down_Part2Dickens, Charles. 'Hunted Down', Part II (27 August 1859). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1859-08-27-Hunted_Down_Part2">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1859-08-27-Hunted_Down_Part2</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+New+York+Ledger%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The New York Ledger</em></a>I had scarcely unlocked the drawers of my writing-table next morning when he re-appeared. I noticed that he came straight to the door in the glass partition, and did not pause a single moment outside. &quot;Can you spare me two minutes, my dear Mr. Sampson?&quot; &quot;By all means.&quot; &quot;Much obliged,&quot; laying his hat and umbrella on the table; &quot;I came early, not to interrupt you. The fact is, I am taken by surprise in reference to this proposal my friend has made.&quot; &quot;Has he made one?&quot; said I. &quot;Ye-es,&quot; he answered, deliberately looking at me; and then a bright idea seemed to strike him—&quot;or he only tells me he has. Perhaps that may be a new way of evading the matter. By Jupiter, I never thought of that!&quot; Mr. Adams was opening the morning’s letters in the outer office. &quot;What is the name, Mr. Slinkton?&quot; I asked. &quot;Beckwith.&quot; I looked out at the door and requested Mr. Adams, if there were a proposal in that name, to bring it in. He had already laid it out of his hand on the counter. It was easily selected from the rest, and he gave it me. Alfred Beckwith. Proposal to effect a Policy with us for two thousand pounds. Dated yesterday. &quot;From the Middle Temple, I see, Mr. Slinkton.&quot; &quot;Yes. He lives on the same staircase with me; his door is opposite. I never thought he would make me his reference though.&quot; &quot;It seems natural enough that he should.&quot; &quot;Quite so, Mr. Sampson; but I never thought of it. Let me see.&quot; He took the printed paper from his pocket. &quot;How am I to answer all these questions!&quot; &quot;According to the truth, of course,&quot; said I. &quot;Oh! of course,&quot; he answered, looking up from the paper with a smile; &quot;I meant they were so many. But you do right to be particular. It stands to reason that you must be particular. Will you allow me to use your pen and ink?&quot; &quot;Certainly.&quot; &quot;And your desk?&quot; &quot;Certainly.&quot; He had been hovering about between his hat and his umbrella, for a place to write on. He now sat down in my chair, at my blotting paper and inkstand, with the long walk up his head in accurate perspective before me, as I stood with my back to the fire. Before answering each question, he ran over it aloud, and discussed it. How long had he known Mr. Alfred Beckwith? That he had to calculate by years upon his fingers. What were his habits? No difficulty about them; temperate in the last degree, and took a little too much exercise, if anything. All the answers were satisfactory. When he had written them all, he looked them over, and finally signed them in a very pretty hand. He supposed he had now done with the business? I told him he was not likely to be troubled any further. Should he leave the papers there? If he pleased. Much obliged. Good morning! I had had one other visitor before him; not at the office, but at my own house. That visitor had come to my bedside when it was not yet daylight, and had been seen by no one else but by my faithful confidential servant. A second reference paper (for we required always two) was sent down into Norfolk, and was duly received back by post. This, likewise, was satisfactorily answered in every respect. Our forms were all complied with; we accepted the proposal, and the premium for one year was paid. IV. For six or seven months, I saw no more of Mr. Slinkton. He called once at my house, but I was not at home; and he once asked me to dine with him in the Temple, but I was engaged. His friend’s Assurance was effected in March. Late in September or early in October, I was down at Scarborough for a breath of sea air, where I met him on the beach. It was a hot evening; he came toward me with his hat in his hand; and there was the walk I had felt so strongly disinclined to take, in perfect order again, exactly in front of the bridge of my nose. He was not alone, but had a young lady on his arm. She was dressed in mourning, and I looked at her with great interest. She had the appearance of being extremely delicate, and her face was remarkably pale and melancholy; but she was very pretty. He introduced her as his niece, Miss Niner. &quot;Are you strolling, Mr. Sampson? Is it possible you can be idle?&quot; It was possible, and I was strolling. &quot;Shall we stroll together?&quot; &quot;With pleasure.&quot; The young lady walked between us, and we walked on the cool sea sand, in the direction of Filey. &quot;There have been wheels here,&quot; said Mr. Slinkton. &quot;And now I look again, the wheels of a hand-carriage! Margaret, my love, your shadow, without doubt!&quot; &quot;Miss Niner’s shadow?&quot; I repeated, looking down at it on the sand. &quot;Not that one,&quot; Mr. Slinkton returned, laughing. &quot;Margaret, my dear, tell Mr. Sampson.&quot; &quot;Indeed,&quot; said the young lady, turning to me, &quot;there is nothing to tell—except that I constantly see the same invalid old gentleman, at all times, wherever I go. I have mentioned it to my uncle, and he calls the gentleman my shadow.&quot; &quot;Does he live in Scarborough?&quot; I asked. &quot;He is staying here.&quot; &quot;Do you live in Scarborough?&quot; &quot;No, I am staying here. My uncle has placed me with a family here, for my health.&quot; &quot;And your shadow?&quot; said I, smiling. &quot;My shadow,&quot; she answered, smiling too, &quot;is—like myself—not very robust, I fear; for, I lose my shadow sometimes, as my shadow loses me at other times. We both seem liable to confinement to the house. I have not seen my shadow, for days and days; but it does oddly happen, occasionally, that wherever I go, for many days together, this gentleman goes. We have come together in the most unfrequented nooks on this shore.&quot; &quot;Is this he?&quot; said I, pointing before us. The wheels had swept down to the water’s edge, and described a great loop on the sand in turning. Bringing the loop back towards us, and spinning it out as it came, was a hand-carriage drawn by a man. &quot;Yes,&quot; said Miss Niner, &quot;this really is my shadow, uncle!&quot; As the carriage approached us and we approached the carriage, I saw within it an old man, whose head was sunk on his breast, and who was enveloped in a variety of wrappers. He was drawn by a very quiet but very keen-looking man, with iron-grey hair, who was slightly lame. They had passed us, when the carriage stopped, and the old gentleman within putting out his arm, called to me by my name. I went back, and was absent from Mr. Slinkton and his niece for about five minutes. When I rejoined them, Mr. Slinkton was the first to speak. Indeed, he said to me in a raised voice before I came up with him: &quot;It is well you have not been longer, or my niece might have died of curiosity to know who her shadow is, Mr. Sampson.&quot; &quot;An old East India Director,&quot; said I. &quot;An intimate friend of our friend’s at whose house I first had the pleasure of meeting you. A certain Major Banks. You have heard of him?&quot; &quot;Never.&quot; &quot;Very rich, Miss Niner; but very old, and very crippled. An amiable man, sensible—much interested in you. He has just been expatiating on the affection that he has observed to exist between you and your uncle.&quot; Mr. Slinkton was holding his hat again, and he passed his hand up the straight walk, as if he himself went up it serenely, after me. &quot;Mr. Sampson,&quot; he said, tenderly pressing his niece’s arm in his, &quot;our affection was always a strong one, for we have had but few near ties. We have still fewer now. We have associations to bring us together, that are not of this world, Margaret.&quot; &quot;Dear uncle!&quot; murmured the young lady, and turned her face aside to hide her tears. &quot;My niece and I have such remembrances and regrets in common, Mr. Sampson,&quot; he feelingly pursued, &quot;that it would be strange indeed if the relations between us were cold or indifferent. If I remember a conversation we once had together, you will understand the reference I make. Cheer up, dear Margaret. Don’t droop, don’t droop. My Margaret! I cannot bear to see you droop!&quot; The poor young lady was very much affected, but controlled herself. His feelings, too, were very acute. In a word, he found himself under such great need of a restorative, that he presently went away, to take a bath of sea water, leaving the young lady and me sitting by a point of rock, and probably presuming—but that you will say was a pardonable indulgence in a luxury—that she would praise him with all her heart. She did, poor thing. With all her confiding heart, she praised him to me, for his care of her dead sister, and for his untiring devotion in her last illness. The sister had wasted away very slowly, and wild and terrible fantasies had come over her toward the end, but he had never been impatient with her, or at a loss; had always been gentle, watchful, and self-possessed. The sister had known him, as she had known him, to be the best of men, the kindest of men, and yet a man of such admirable strength of character, as to be a very tower for the support of their weak natures while their poor lives endured. &quot;I shall leave him, Mr. Sampson, very soon,&quot; said they oung lady; &quot;I know my life is drawing to an end; and when I am gone, I hope he will marry and be happy. I am sure he has lived single so long, only for my sake, and for my poor, poor sister’s.&quot; The little hand-carriage had made another great loop on the damp sand, and was coming back again, gradually spinning out a slim figure of eight, half a mile long. &quot;Young lady,&quot; said I, looking around, laying my hand upon her arm, and speaking in a low voice, &quot;time presses. You hear the gentle murmur of that sea?&quot; She looked at me with the utmost wonder and alarm, saying, &quot;Yes!&quot; &quot;And you know what a voice is in it when the storm comes?&quot; &quot;Yes!&quot; &quot;You see how quiet and peaceful it lies before us, and you know what an awful sight of power without pity it might be, this very night?&quot; &quot;Yes!&quot; &quot;But if you had never heard or seen it, or heard of it, in its cruelty, could you believe that it beats every inanimate thing in its way to pieces, without mercy, and destroys life without remorse?&quot; &quot;You terrify me, sir, by these questions!&quot; &quot;To save you, young lady, to save you! For God’s sake, collect your strength and collect your firmness! If you were here alone, and hemmed in by the rising tide on the flow to fifty feet above your head, you could not be in greater danger than the danger you are now to be saved from.&quot; The figure on the sand was spun out, and straggled off into a crooked little jerk that ended at the cliff very near us. &quot;As I am, before Heaven and the Judge of all mankind, your friend, and your dead sister’s friend, I solemnly entreat you, Miss Niner, without one moment’s loss of time, to come to this gentleman with me!&quot; If the little carriage had been less near to us, I doubt if I could have got her away; but it was so near that we were there before she had recovered the hurry of being urged from the rock. I did not remain there with her, two minutes. Certainly within five, I had the inexpressible satisfaction of seeing her—from the point we had sat on, and to which I had returned—half supported and half carried up some rude steps notched in the cliff, by the figure of an active man. With that figure beside her, I knew she was safe anywhere. I sat alone on the rock, awaiting Mr. Slinkton’s return. The twilight was deepening and the shadows were heavy, when he came round the point, with his hat hanging at his button-hole, smoothing his wet hair with one of his hands, and picking out the old path with the other and a pocket-comb. &quot;My niece not here, Mr. Sampson?&quot; he said, looking about. &quot;Miss Niner seemed to feel a chill in the air after the sun was down, and has gone home.&quot; He looked surprised, as though she were not accustomed to do anything without him: even to originate so slight a proceeding. &quot;I persuaded Miss Niner,&quot; I explained. &quot;Ah!&quot; said he. &quot;She is easily persuaded—for her good. Thank you, Mr. Sampson; she is better within doors. The bathing-place was further than I thought, to say the truth.&quot; &quot;Miss Niner is very delicate,&quot; I observed. He shook his head, and drew a deep sigh. &quot;Very, very, very. You may recollect my saying so. The time that has since intervened has not strengthened her. The gloomy shadow that fell upon her sister so early in life seems, in my anxious eyes, to gather over her, ever darker, ever darker. Dear Margaret, dear Margaret! But we must hope.&quot; The hand-carriage was spinning away before us, at a most indecorous pace for an invalid vehicle, and was making most irregular curves upon the sand. Mr. Slinkton, noticing it after he had put his handkerchief to his eyes, said: &quot;If I may judge from appearances, your friend will be upset, Mr. Sampson.&quot; &quot;It looks probable, certainly,&quot; said I. &quot;The servant must be drunk.&quot; &quot;The servants of old gentlemen will get drunk sometimes,&quot; said I. &quot;The major draws very light, Mr. Sampson.&quot; &quot;The major does draw light,&quot; said I. By this time the carriage, much to my relief, was lost in the darkness. We walked on for a little, side by side over the sand, in silence. After a short while he said, in a voice still affected by the emotion that his niece’s state of health had awakened in him: &quot;Do you stay here long, Mr. Sampson?&quot; &quot;Why, no. I am going away to-night.&quot; &quot;So soon? But business always holds you in request. Men like Mr. Sampson are too important to others, to be spared to their own need of relaxation and enjoyment.&quot; &quot;I don’t know about that,&quot; said I. &quot;However, I am going back.&quot; &quot;To London?&quot; &quot;To London.&quot; &quot;I shall be there too, soon after you.&quot; I knew that as well as he did. But I did not tell him so. Any more than I told him what defensive weapon my right hand rested on in my pocket, as I walked by his side. Any more than I told him why I did not walk on the sea-side of him with the night closing in. We left the beach, and our ways diverged. We exchanged Good night, and had parted indeed, when he said, returninG: &quot;Mr. Sampson, may I ask? Poor Meltham, whom we spoke of—Dead yet?&quot; &quot;Not when I last heard of him; but too broken a man to live long, and hopelessly lost to his old calling.&quot; &quot;Dear, dear, dear!&quot; said he, with great feeling. &quot;Sad, sad, sad! The world is a grave!&quot; And so went his way. It was not his fault if the world were not a grave; but I did not call that observation after him, any more than I had mentioned those other things just now enumerated. He went his way, and I went mine with all expedition. This happened, as I have said, either at the end of September or beginning of October. The next time I saw him, and the last time, was late in November.18590827https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Hunted_Down_Part_II/1859-08-27-Hunted_Down_Part2.pdf
163https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/163'Hunted Down', Part IIIDickens, Charles<em>The New York Public Library Digital Collections,</em> <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-new-york-ledger?filters%5Bname%5D=Dickens%2C+Charles%2C+1812-1870&amp;keywords=#/?tab=navigation">https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-new-york-ledger?filters%5Bname%5D=Dickens%2C+Charles%2C+1812-1870&amp;keywords=#/?tab=navigation</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=09-03-1859">09-03-1859</a>All images remain the physical property of NYPL and the intellectual property of the copyright holder, if applicable.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1859-09-03-Hunted_Down_Part3<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Hunted Down', Part III (3 September 1859).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1859-09-03-Hunted_Down_Part3">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1859-09-03-Hunted_Down_Part3</a></span><span>.&nbsp;</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+New+York+Ledger%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The New York Ledger</em></a>V. I had a very particular engagement to breakfast in the Temple. It was a bitter north-easterly morning, and the sleet and slush lay inches deep, in the streets. I could get no conveyance, and was soon wet to the knees; but I should have been true to that appointment though I had had to wade to it, up to my neck in the same impediments. The appointment took me to some chambers in the Temple. They were at the top of a lonely corner house overlooking the river. The name, MR. ALFRED BECKWITH was painted on the outer door. On the door opposite, on the same landing, the name MR. JULIUS SLINKTON. The doors of both sets of chambers stood open, so that anything said aloud in one set, could be heard in the other. I had never been in those chambers before. They were dismal, close, unwholesome, and oppressive; the furniture, originally good, and not yet old, was faded and dirty—the rooms were in great disorder; there was a strong prevailing smell of opium, brandy and tobacco; the grate and fire-irons were splashed all over, with unsightly blotches of rust; and on a sofa by the fire, in the room where breakfast had been prepared, lay the host, Mr. Beckwith, a man with all the appearances of the worst kind of drunkard, very far advanced upon his shameful way to death. &quot;Slinkton is not come yet,&quot; said this creature, staggering up when I went in; &quot;I’ll call him. Halloa! Julius Cæsar! Come and drink!&quot; As he hoarsely roared this out, he beat the poker and tongs together in a mad way, as if that were his usual manner of summoning his associate. The voice of Mr. Slinkton was heard through the clatter from the opposite side of the staircase, and he came in. He had not expected the pleasure of meeting me. I have seen several artful men brought to a stand, but I never saw a man so aghast as he was when his eyes rested on mine. &quot;Julius Cæsar,&quot; cried Beckwith, staggering between us, &quot;Mist’ Sampson! Mist’ Sampson, Julius Cæsar! Julius, Mist’ Sampson, is the friend of my soul. Julius keeps me plied with liquor, morning, noon, and night. Julius is a real benefactor. Julius threw the tea and coffee out of window when I used to have any. Julius empties all the water-jugs of their contents, and fills ’em with spirits. Julius winds me up and keeps me going.—Boil the brandy, Julius!&quot; There was a rusty and furred saucepan in the ashes,—the ashes looked like the accumulation of weeks—and Beckwith, rolling and staggering between us as if he were going to plunge headlong into the fire, got the saucepan out, and tried to force it into Slinkton’s hand. &quot;Boil the brandy, Julius Cæsar! Come! Do your usual office. Boil the brandy!&quot; He became so fierce in his gesticulations with the saucepan, that I expected to see him lay open Slinkton’s head with it. I therefore put out my hand to check him. He reeled back to the sofa, and sat there, panting, shaking, and red-eyed, in his rags of dressing-gown, looking at us both. I noticed then, that there was nothing to drink on the table but brandy, and nothing to eat but salted herrings, and a hot, sickly, highly peppered stew.&quot; &quot;At all events, Mr. Sampson,&quot; said Slinkton, offering me the smooth gravel path for the last time, &quot;I thank you for interfering between me and this unfortunate man’s violence. However you came here, Mr. Sampson, or with whatever motive you came here, at least I thank you for that.&quot; &quot;Boil the brandy,&quot; muttered Beckwith. Without gratifying his desire to know how I came there, I said, quietly: &quot;How is your niece, Mr. Slinkton?&quot; He looked hard at me, and I looked hard at him. &quot;I am sorry to say, Mr. Sampson, that my niece has proved treacherous and ungrateful to her best friend. She left me without a word of notice or explanation. She was misled, no doubt, by some designing rascal. Perhaps you may have heard of it.&quot; &quot;I did hear that she was misled by a designing rascal. In fact, I have proof of it.&quot; &quot;Are you sure of that?&quot; said he. &quot;Quite.&quot; &quot;Boil the brandy,&quot; muttered Beckwith. &quot;Company to breakfast, Julius Cæsar. Do your usual office—provide the usual breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper.—Boil the brandy!&quot; The eyes of Slinkton looked from him to me, and he said, after a moment’s consideration: &quot;Mr. Sampson, you are a man of the world, and so am I. I will be plain with you.&quot; &quot;Oh, no, you won’t,&quot; said I, shaking my head. &quot;I tell you, sir, I will be plain with you.&quot; &quot;And I tell you you will not,&quot; said I. &quot;I know all about you. You plain with any one? Nonsense, nonsense!&quot; &quot;I plainly tell you, Mr. Sampson,&quot; he went on, with a manner almost composed, &quot;that I understand your object. You want to save your funds, and escape from your liabilities; these are old tricks of trade with you Office-gentlemen. But you will not do it, sir; you will not succeed. You have not an easy adversary to play against, when you play against me. We shall have to inquire, in due time, when and how Mr. Beckwith fell into his present habits. With that remark, sir, I put this poor creature and his incoherent wanderings of speech, aside, and wish you a good morning and a better case next time.&quot; While he was saying this, Beckwith had filled a half pint glass with brandy. At this moment, he threw the brandy at his face, and threw the glass after it. Slinkton put his hands up, half blinded with the spirit, and cut with the glass across the forehead. At the sound of the breakage, a fourth person came into the room, closed the door, and stood at it; he was a very quiet but very keen-looking man, with iron-grey hair, and slightly lame. Slinkton pulled out his handkerchief, assuaged the pain in his smarting eyes, and dabbled the blood on his forehead. He was a long time about it, and I saw that, in the doing of it, a tremendous change came over him, occasioned by the change in Beckwith—who ceased to pant and tremble, sat upright, and never took his eyes off him. I never in my life saw a face in which abhorrence and determination were so forcibly painted, as in Beckwith’s then. &quot;Look at me, you villain,&quot; said Beckwith, &quot;and see me as I really am. I took these rooms, to make them a trap for you. I came into them as a drunkard, to bait the trap for you. You fell into the trap, and you will never leave it alive. On the morning when you last went to Mr. Sampson’s office, I had seen him first. Your plot has been known to both of us, all along, and you have been counterplotted all along. What? Having been cajoled into putting that prize of two thousand pounds in your power, I was to be done to death with brandy, and, brandy not proving quick enough, with something quicker? Have I never seen you, when you thought my senses gone, pouring from your little bottle into my glass? Why, you Murderer and Forger, alone here with you in the dead of night, as I have so often been, I have had my hand upon the trigger of a pistol, twenty times, to blow your brains out!&quot; This sudden starting up of the thing that he had supposed to be his imbecile victim into a determined man, with a settled resolution to hunt him down and be the death of him, mercilessly expressed from head to foot, was, in the first shock, too much for him. Without any figure of speech, he staggered under it. But, there is no greater mistake than to suppose that a man who is a calculating criminal, is, in any phase of his guilt, otherwise than true to himself and perfectly consistent with his whole character. Such a man commits murder, and murder is the natural culmination of his course; such a man has to outface murder, and will do it with hardihood and effrontery. It is a sort of fashion to express surprise that any notorious criminal, having such crime upon his conscience, can so brave it out. Do you think that if he had it on his conscience at all, or had a conscience to have it upon, he would ever have committed the crime? Perfectly consistent with himself, as I believe all such monsters to be, this Slinkton recovered himself, and showed a defiance that was sufficiently cold and quiet. He was white, he was haggard, he was changed; but, only as a sharper who had played for a great stake and had been outwitted and had lost the game. &quot;Listen to me, you villain,&quot; said Beckwith, &quot;and let every word you hear me say, be a stab in your wicked heart. When I took these rooms, to throw myself in your way and lead you on to the scheme that I knew my appearance and supposed character and habits would suggest to such a devil, how did I know that? Because you were no stranger to me. I knew you well. And I knew you to be the cruel wretch who, for so much money, had killed one innocent girl while she trusted him implicitly, and who was by inches, killing another.&quot; Slinkton took out a snuff-box, took a pinch of snuff, and laughed. &quot;But, see here,&quot; said Beckwith, never looking away, never raising his voice, never relaxing his face, never unclenching his hand. &quot;See what a dull wolf you have been, after all! The infatuated drunkard who never drank a fiftieth part of the liquor you plied him with, but poured it away, here, there, everywhere—almost before your eyes; who bought over the fellow you set to watch him and to ply him, by outbidding you in his bribe, before he had been at his work three days—with whom you have observed no caution, yet who was so bent on ridding the earth of you as a wild beast, that he would have defeated you if you had been ever so prudent—that drunkard whom you have, many a time, left on the floor of this room, and who has even let you go out of it, alive and undeceived, when you have turned him over with your foot—has, almost as often, on the same night, within an hour, within a few minutes, watched you awake, had his hand at your pillow when you were asleep, turned over your papers, taken samples from your bottles and packets of powder, changed their contents, rifled every secret of your life!&quot; He had had another pinch of snuff in his hand, but had gradually let it drop from between his fingers to the floor: where he now smoothed it out with his foot, looking down at it the while. &quot;That drunkard,&quot; said Beckwith, &quot;who had free access to your rooms at all times, that he might drink the strong drinks that you left in his way and be the sooner ended, holding no more terms with you than he would hold with a tiger, has had his master-key for all your locks, his test for all your poisons, his clue to your cipher writing. He can tell you, as well as you can tell him, how long it took to complete that deed, what doses there were, what intervals, what signs of gradual decay upon mind and body; what distempered fancies were produced, what observable changes, what physical pain. He can tell you, as well as you can tell him, that all this was recorded day by day, as a lesson of experience for future service. He can tell you, better than you can tell him, where that journal is at this moment.&quot; Slinkton stopped the action of his foot, and looked at Beckwith. &quot;No,&quot; said the latter, as if answering a question from him. &quot;Not in the drawer of the writing-desk that opens with a spring; it is not there, and it never will be there again.&quot; &quot;Then you are a thief!&quot; said Slinkton. Without any change whatever in the inflexible purpose which it was quite terrific even to me to contemplate, and from the power of which I had always felt convinced it was impossible for this wretch to escape, Beckwith returned: &quot;And I am your niece’s shadow, too.&quot; With an imprecation, Slinkton put his hand to his head, tore out some hair, and flung it to the ground. It was the end of the smooth walk; he destroyed it in the action, and it will soon be seen that his use for it was past. Beckwith went on: ‘Whenever you left here, I left here. Although I understood that you found it necessary to pause in the completion of that purpose, to avert suspicion, still I watched you close, with the poor confiding girl. When I had the diary, and could read it word by word—it was only about the night before your last visit to Scarborough—you remember the night? you slept with a small flat vial tied to your wrist—I sent to Mr. Sampson, who was kept out of view. This is Mr. Sampson’s trusty servant standing by the door. We three saved your niece among us.&quot; Slinkton looked at us all, took an uncertain step or two from the place where he had stood, returned to it, and glanced about him in a very curious way—as one of the meaner reptiles might, looking for a hole to hide in. I noticed at the same time, that a singular change took place in the figure of the man—as if it collapsed within his clothes, and they consequently became ill-shapen and ill-fitting. &quot;You shall know,&quot; said Beckwith, &quot;for I hope the knowledge will be bitter and terrible to you, why you have been pursued by one man, and why, when the whole interest that Mr. Sampson represents would have expended any money in hunting you down, you have been tracked to death at a single individual’s charge. I hear you have had the name of Meltham on your lips sometimes?&quot; I saw, in addition to those other changes, a sudden stoppage come upon his breathing. &quot;When you sent the sweet girl whom you murdered (you know with what artfully made-out surroundings and probabilities you sent her), to Meltham’s office, before taking her abroad to originate the transaction that doomed her to the grave, it fell to Meltham’s lot to see her and to speak with her. It did not fall to his lot to save her, though I know he would freely give his own life to have done it. He admired her;—I would say he loved her deeply, if I thought it possible that you could understand the word. When she was sacrificed, he was thoroughly assured of your guilt. Having lost her, he had but one object left in life, and that was to avenge her and destroy you.&quot; I saw the villain’s nostrils rise and fall, convulsively; but I saw no moving at his mouth. &quot;That man Meltham,&quot; Beckwith steadily pursued, &quot;was as absolutely certain that you could never elude him in this world, if he devoted himself to your destruction with his utmost fidelity and earnestness, and if he divided the sacred duty with no other duty in life, as he was certain that in achieving it he would be a poor instrument in the hands of Providence, and would do well before Heaven in striking you out from among living men. I am that man, and I thank GOD that I have done my work!&quot; If Slinkton had been running for his life from swift-footed savages, a dozen miles, he could not have shown more emphatic signs of being oppressed at heart and labouring for breath, than he showed now, when he looked at the pursuer who had so relentlessly hunted him down. &quot;You never saw me under my right name before; you see me under my right name now. You shall see me once again in the body, when you are tried for your life. You shall see me once again, in the spirit, when the cord is round your neck, and the crowd are crying against you!&quot; When Meltham had spoken these last words, the miscreant suddenly turned away his face, and seemed to strike his mouth with his open hand. At the same instant, the room was filled with a new and powerful odor, and, almost at the same instant, he broke into a crooked run, leap, start,—I have no name for the spasm,—and fell, with a dull weight that shook the heavy old doors and windows in their frames. That was the fitting end of him. When we saw that he was dead, we drew away from the room, and Meltham, giving me his hand, said, with a weary air: &quot;I have no more work on earth, my friend. But I shall see her again, elsewhere.&quot; It was in vain that I tried to rally him. He might have saved her, he said; he had not saved her, and he reproached himself; he had lost her, and he was broken-hearted. &quot;The purpose that sustained me is over, Sampson, and there is nothing now to hold me to life. I am not fit for life; I am weak and spiritless; I have no hope and no object; my day is done.&quot; In truth, I could hardly have believed that the broken man who then spoke to me was the man who had so strongly and so differently impressed me when his purpose was before him. I used such entreaties with him, as I could; but, he still said, and always said, in a patient, undemonstrative way—nothing could avail him—he was broken-hearted. He died early in the next spring. He was buried by the side of the poor young lady for whom he had cherished those tender and unhappy regrets; and he left all he had, to her sister. She lived to be a happy wife and mother; she married my sister’s son, who succeeded poor Meltham; she is living now, and her children ride about the garden on my walking-stick when I go to see her.18590903https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Hunted_Down_Part_III/1859-09-03-Hunted_Down_Part3.pdf
217https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/217'Lady Bowley's Song for the Villagers'Published in <em>The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In</em> (Chapman and Hall, 1844), p. 63.Dickens, Charles<em>Hathi Trust,</em> <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002606872">https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002606872</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1844-12">1844-12</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1844-12-Lady_Bowleys_Song_for_the_VillagersDickens, Charles. 'Lady Bowley's Song for the Villagers' (December 1844).&nbsp;<em>Dickens Search.</em>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/verse/1844-12-Lady_Bowleys_Song_for_the_Villagers">https://www.dickenssearch.com/verse/1844-12-Lady_Bowleys_Song_for_the_Villagers</a>.Oh let us love our occupations, Bless the squire and his relations, Live upon our daily rations, And always know our proper stations.18441201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Lady_Bowley_s_Song_for_the_Villagers/1844-12-Lady_Bowleys_Song_for_the_Villagers.pdf
72https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/72'Lodgings To Let'From the autograph album of Maria Beadnell (c. 1831).Dickens, CharlesThe Charles Dickens Museum, <a href="http://www.collections.dickensmuseum.com/object-b319--1971-1-105" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.collections.dickensmuseum.com/object-b319--1971-1-105</a>.; Autograph Album of Maria Beadnell.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1831">1831</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1831_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_Lodgings_To_Let<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Lodgings To Let.' Autograph Album of Maria Beadnell (1831). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1831_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_Lodgings_To_Let">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1831_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_Lodgings_To_Let</a><span>.</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1831_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_Lodgings_To_Let.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Lodgings To Let.' Autograph Album of Maria Beadnell (1831).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Autograph+Album">Autograph Album</a>Lodgings here! A charming place, The Owner’s such a lovely face The Neighbours too seem very pretty Lively, sprightly, gay, and witty Of all the spots that I could find This is the place to suit my mind. Then I will say sans hesitation This place shall be my habitation This charming spot my home shall be While dear “Maria” keeps the key, I’ll settle here, no more I’ll roam But make this place my happy home. A great advantage too will be, I shall keep such good company, So good that I fear my composing Will be considered very prosing Still I’m most proud amongst these pickings To rank the humblest name. – Charles Dickens.18310101
121https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/121'Love Song'From a letter to Mrs David C. Colden (29 April 1842).Dickens, CharlesThe Charles Dickens Museum.; 'To Mrs David C. Colden.' <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The Pilgrim Edition.&nbsp;</em>Edited by Madeline House, Graham Storey and Kathleen Tillotson. Volume 3 (1842-1843), p. 220. Oxford University Press, 1974.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1842-04-29">1842-04-29</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1842-04-29_Letter_To_Mrs_David_C_Colden_Love_Song<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Love Song' (29 April 1842). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1842-04-29_Letter_To_Mrs_David_C_Colden_Love_Song">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1842-04-29_Letter_To_Mrs_David_C_Colden_Love_Song</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1842-04-29_Letter_To_Mrs_David_C_Colden_Love_Song.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Love Song' (29 April 1842).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>Air – “London now is out of Town.” Sweet Woman is of many kinds; She sometimes is propi-tious; She sometimes has a Thousand minds; Sometimes is rather wi-cious. Above her sex, my love doth shine, Though by no means a bold ‘un “I’d crowns resign, to call her mine” – Her name is Missis …… – Poor Frankenstein, that Prince of fools Why grim male monster made he, When with the self-same clay and tools He might have built a Lady! How wealthy in the Worlds effects, If he had made and sold ‘un, So wery prime in all respects As charming Missis …… ! But vain reflection! who could rear, On scaffold, pier, or starling, A creetur half so bright or dear, As my unmentioned Darling! No artist in the World’s broad ways Could ever carve or mould ‘un, That might aspire to lace the stays Of charming Mrs ……18420429
23https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/23'Lucy's Song (I)'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah, p.5.Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></p>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Lucys_SongI<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Lucy's Song (I).' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): p. 5. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Lucys_SongI">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Lucys_SongI</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Lucys_SongI.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Lucy's Song (I).' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts&nbsp;</em>(1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts">The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</a>Love is not a feeling to pass away, Like the balmy breath of a summer day; It is not – it cannot be – laid aside; It is not a thing to forget or hide. It clings to the heart, ah, woe is me! As the ivy clings to the old oak tree. Love is not a passion of earthly mould, As a thirst for honour, or fame, or gold: For when all these wishes have died away, The deep strong love of a brighter day, Though nourished in secret, consumes the more, As the slow rust eats to the iron’s core.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Lucy_s_Song_[I]/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Lucys_SongI.pdf
35https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/35'Lucy's Song (II)'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah, p.16.Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></p>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Lucys_SongII<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Lucy's Song (II).' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): p. 16. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Lucys_SongII">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Lucys_SongII</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Lucys_SongII.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Lucy's Song (II).' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts">The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</a>How beautiful at eventide To see the twilight shadows pale, Steal o’er the landscape, far and wide, O’er stream and meadow, mound and dale. How soft is Nature’s calm repose When ev’ning skies their cool dews weep: The gentlest wind more gently blows, As if to soothe her in her sleep! The gay morn breaks, Mists roll away, All Nature awakes To glorious day. In my breast alone Dark shadows remain; The peace it has known, It can never regain.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Lucy_s_Song_[II]/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Lucys_SongII.pdf
76https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/76'Medley Chorus'From <em>O'Thello</em> (1833-1834).Dickens, CharlesBeinecke Library, Yale University.; Manuscript.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1833">1833</a>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834">1834</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1833-34_Othello_Medley_Chorus<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Grand Chorus.' <em>O'Thello </em>(1833-34).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><i>Dickens Search.<span>&nbsp;</span></i><span>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1833-34_Othello_Medley_Chorus">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1833-34_Othello_Medley_Chorus</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1833-34_Othello_Medley_Chorus.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Medley Chorus.' <em>O'Thello </em>(1833-34).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=O%27Thello">O&#039;Thello</a>Solo. Desdemona Air &quot;There&#039;s no luck about the house&quot; Oh! Let us pass a merry night Our house is rather small But being recovered I invite All present to a Ball. There is some cold duck in the house There&#039;s wine enough for all Likewise some spirits and some grouse So we&#039;ll enjoy the ball Cho. Oh let us pass etc Solo. E argo I felt all of a quiver With grief and shame I shiver Bring a cigar Bring a cigar It&#039;s balmy smoke I love18330101
133https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/133'Mrs. Joseph Porter, "Over the Way"'Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres</em>,<span> February 1834, pp. 11-18.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Internet Archive,<br /></em><a href="https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-02">1834-02</a><em>Internet Archive,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a><span>. Access to the Archive’s Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-02-Mrs_Joseph_Porter_Over_The_Way<span>Dickens, Charles. "Mrs. Joseph Porter, 'Over the Way.'"&nbsp;</span><em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres.</em><span>&nbsp;February 1834, pp. 11-18.&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-02-Mrs_Joseph_Porter_Over_The_Way">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-02-Mrs_Joseph_Porter_Over_The_Way</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a>Most extensive were the preparations at Rose Villa, Clapham Rise, in the occupation of Mr. Gattleton (a stock-broker in especially comfortable circumstances), and great was the anxiety of Mr. Gattleton’s interesting family as the day fixed for the representation of the Private Play, which had been &quot;many months in preparation,&quot; approached. The whole family was infected with the mania for Private Theatricals; the house, usually so clean and tidy, was, to use Mr. Gattleton’s expressive description &quot;regularly turned out o’ windows;&quot; the large dining-room, dismantled of it&#039;s furniture and ornaments, presented a strange jumble of flats, flies, wings, lamps, bridges, clouds, thunder and lightning, festoons and flowers, daggers and foil, and all the other messes which in theatrical slang are included under the comprehensive name of &quot;properties.&quot; The bedrooms were crowded with scenery, the kitchen was occupied by carpenters. Rehearsals took place every other night in the drawing-room, and every sofa in the house was more or less damaged by the perseverance and spirit with which Mr. Sempronius Gattleton, and Miss Lucina, rehearsed the smothering scene in &quot;Othello&quot;—it having been determined that that tragedy should form the first portion of the evening’s entertainments. &quot;When we’re a leetle more perfect, I think it will go off admirably,&quot; said Mr. Sempronius, addressing his corps dramatique, at the conclusion of the hundred and fiftieth rehearsal. In consideration of his sustaining the trifling inconvenience of bearing all the expenses of the play, Mr. Sempronius had been in the most handsome manner unanimously elected stage-manager. - &quot;Evans,&quot; continued Mr. Gattleton, the younger, addressing a tall, thin, pale young gentleman, with extensive whiskers—&quot;Evans, upon my word, you play Roderigo beautifully.&quot; &quot;Beautifully,&quot; echoed the three Miss Gattletons; for Mr. Evans was pronounced by all his lady-friends to be &quot;quite a dear.&quot; He looked so interesting and had such lovely whiskers, to say nothing of his talent for writing verses in albums and playing the flute! The interesting Roderigo simpered and bowed. &quot;But I think,&quot; added the manager, &quot;you are hardly perfect in the—fall—in the fencing-scene, where you are—you understand?&quot; &quot;It’s very difficult,&quot; said Mr. Evans, thoughtfully; &quot;I’ve fallen about a good deal in our counting-house lately, for practice; only it hurts one so. Being obliged to fall backward you see, it bruises one’s head a good deal.&quot; &quot;But you must take care you don’t knock a wing down,&quot; said Mr. Gattleton, sen., who had been appointed prompter, and who took as much interest in the play as the youngest of the company. &quot;The stage is very narrow, you know.&quot; &quot;Oh! don’t be afraid,&quot; said Mr. Evans, with a very self-satisfied air; &quot;I shall fall with my head &#039;off,&#039; and then I can’t do any harm.&quot; &quot;But, egad!&quot; said the manager, rubbing his hands, &quot;we shall make a decided hit in &#039;Masaniello.&#039; Harfield sings that music admirably.&quot; Everybody echoed the sentiment. Mr. Harfield smiled, and looked foolish,—not an unusual thing with him—hummed &quot;Behold how brightly breaks the morning,&quot; and blushed as red as the fisherman’s night-cap he was trying on. &quot;Let’s see,&quot; resumed the manager, telling the number on his fingers, we shall have three dancing female peasants, besides Fenella, and four fishermen. Then there’s our man Tom, he can have a pair of ducks of mine, and a check-shirt of Bob’s, and a red night-cap, and he’ll do for another—that’s five. In the chorusses, of course, we can sing at the sides, and in the market-scene we can walk about in cloaks and things. When the revolt takes place, Tom must keep rushing in on one side and out on the other, with a pickaxe, as fast as he can. The effect will be electrical; it will look exactly as if there were an immense number of ’em: and in the eruption scene we must burn the red fire, and upset the tea-trays, and halloo and make all sorts of noises—and it’s sure to do.&quot; &quot;Sure! sure!&quot; cried all the performers unâ voce—and away hurried Mr. Sempronius Gattleton to wash the burnt cork off his face, and superintend the &quot;setting up&quot; of some of the amateur-painted and never-sufficiently-to-be-admired scenery. Mrs. Gattleton was a kind, good-tempered, vulgar old soul, exceedingly fond of her husband and children, and entertaining only three dislikes. In the first place, she had a natural antipathy to anybody else’s unmarried daughters; in the second, she was in bodily fear of anything in the shape of ridicule; and, lastly—almost a necessary consequence of this feeling—she regarded with feelings of the utmost horror, one &quot;Mrs. Joseph Porter over the way.&quot; However, the good folks of Clapham and its vicinity stood very much in awe of scandal and sarcasm; and thus Mrs. Joseph Porter was courted, and flattered, and caressed, and invited, for very much the same reason that a poor author, without a farthing in his pocket behaves with extraordinary civility to a twopenny postman. &quot;Never mind, Ma,&quot; said Miss Emma Porter, in colloquy with her respected relative, and trying to look unconcerned; &quot;if they had invited me, you know that neither you nor Pa would have allowed me to take part in such an exhibition.&quot; &quot;Just what I should have thought from your high sense of propriety,&quot; returned the mother. &quot;I am glad to see, Emma, you know how to designate the proceeding.&quot; Miss P., by-the-by, had only the week before made an &quot;exhibition&quot; of herself for four days, behind a counter at a fancy fair, to all and every of her Majesty’s liege subjects who were disposed to pay a shilling each for the privilege of seeing some four dozen girls flirting with strangers, and playing at shop. &quot;There!&quot; said Mrs. Porter, looking out of window; &quot;there are two rounds of beef and a ham going in—clearly for sandwiches; and Thomas, the pastry-cook, says, there have been twelve dozen tarts ordered, besides blancmange and jellies. Upon my word! think of the Miss Gattletons in fancy dresses, too!&quot; &quot;Oh, it’s too ridiculous,&quot; said Miss Porter, with a sort of hysterical chuckle. &quot;I’ll manage to put them a little out of conceit with the business, however,&quot; said Mrs. Porter; and out she went on her charitable errand. &quot;Well, my dear Mrs. Gattleton, &quot; said Mrs. Joseph Porter - after they had been closeted for some time, and when, by dint of indefatigable pumping, she had managed to extract all the news about the play; - &quot;well, my dear, people may say what they please; indeed we know they will, for some folks are so ill-natured. - Ah, my dear Miss Lucina, how d’ye do? - I was just telling your mama that I have heard it said, that—&quot; &quot;What?&quot; inquired the Desdemona. &quot;Mrs. Porter is alluding to the play, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Gattleton; &quot;she was, I am sorry to say, just informing me that—&quot; &quot;Oh, now pray don’t mention it,: interrupted Mrs. Porter; &quot;it’s most absurd—quite as absurd as young what’s-his-name saying he wondered how Miss Caroline, with such a foot and ankle, could have the vanity to play Fenella.&quot; &quot;Highly impertinent, whoever said it,&quot; said Mrs. Gattleton, bridling up. &quot;Certainly, my dear,&quot; chimed in the delighted Mrs. Porter; &quot;most undoubtedly! Because, as I said, if Miss Caroline does play Fenella, it doesn’t follow, as a matter of course, that she should think she has a pretty foot; and then such puppies as these young men are; he had the impudence to say, that—’ How far the amiable Mrs. Porter might have succeeded in her pleasant purpose, it is impossible to say, had not the entrance of Mr. Thomas Balderstone, Mrs. Gattleton’s brother, familiarly called in the family &quot;Uncle Tom,&quot; changed the course of conversation, and suggested to her mind an excellent plan of operation on the evening of the play. Uncle Tom was very rich, and exceedingly fond of his nephews and nieces; as a matter of course, therefore, he was an object of great importance in his own family. He was one of the best-hearted men in existence; always in a good temper, and always talking. It was his boast that he wore top-boots on all occasions, and had never worn a black silk neck-kerchief; and it was his pride, that he remembered all the principal plays of Shakspeare from beginning to end—and so he did. The result of this parrot-like accomplishment was, that he was not only perpetually quoting himself, but that he could never sit by, and hear a mis-quotation from &quot;The Swan of Avon&quot; without setting the unfortunate delinquent right. He was also something of a wag: never missed an opportunity of saying what he considered a good thing, and invariably laughed until he cried at anything that appeared to him mirth-moving or ridiculous. &quot;Well, girls, well,&quot; said Uncle Tom, after the preparatory ceremony of kissing and how-d’ye-do-ing had been gone through—&quot;how d’ye get on? Know your parts, eh?—Lucina, my dear, act 2, scene 1—place, left-cue—&#039;Unknown fate,&#039;—What’s next, eh?—Go on—&#039;The heavens—&#039;&quot; &quot;Oh, yes,&quot; said Miss Lucina, &quot;I recollect - “ &#039;The heavens forbid But that our loves and comforts should increase Even as our days do grow!&#039;&quot; &quot;Make a pause here and there,&quot; said the old gentleman, who was a great critic. &#039;But that our loves and comforts should increase&#039;—emphasis on the last syllable, &#039;crease,&#039;—loud &#039;even,&#039;—one, two, three, four; then loud again, &#039;as our days do grow;&#039; emphasis on days. That’s the way, my dear; trust to your uncle for emphasis. Ah! Sem, my boy, how are you?&quot; &quot;Very well, thanky&#039;e, uncle,&quot; returned Mr. Sempronius, who had just appeared, looking something like a ringdove, with a small circle round each eye: the result of his constant corking. &quot;Of course we see you on Thursday.&quot; &quot;Of course, of course, my dear boy.&quot; &quot;What a pity it is your nephew didn’t think of making you prompter, Mr. Balderstone,&quot; whispered Mrs. Joseph Porter; &quot;you would have been invaluable.&quot; &quot;Well, I flatter myself, I should have been tolerably up to the thing,&quot; responded Uncle Tom. &quot;I must bespeak sitting next you on the night,&quot; resumed Mrs. Porter; &quot;and then, if our dear young friends here, should be at all wrong, you will be able to enlighten me. I shall be so interested.&quot; &quot;I am sure I shall be most happy to give you any assistance in my power, mem.&quot; &quot;Mind, it’s a bargain.&quot; &quot;Certainly.&quot; &quot;I don’t know how it is,&quot; said Mrs. Gattleton to her daughters, as they were sitting round the fire in the evening, looking over their parts, &quot;but I really very much wish Mrs. Joseph Porter wasn’t coming on Thursday. I am sure she’s scheming something.&quot; &quot;She can’t make us ridiculous, however,&quot; observed Mr. Sempronius Gattleton, haughtily. The long-looked-for Thursday arrived in due course, and brought with it, as Mr. Gattleton, senior, philosophically observed, &quot;no disappointments, to speak of.&quot; True, it was yet a matter of doubt whether Cassio would be enabled to get into the dress which had been sent for him from the masquerade warehouse. It was equally uncertain whether the principal female singer would be sufficiently recovered from the influenza to make her appearance; Mr. Harfield, the Masaniello of the night, was hoarse, and rather unwell, in consequence of the great quantity of lemon and sugar-candy he had eaten to improve his voice; and two flutes and a violoncello had pleaded severe colds. What of that? the audience were all coming. Everybody knew his part; the dresses were covered with tinsel and spangles; the white plumes looked beautiful; Mr. Evans had practised falling, till he was bruised from head to foot and quite perfect; Iago was sure that, in the stabbing-scene, he should make &quot;a decided hit.&quot; A self-taught deaf gentleman, who had kindly offered to bring his flute, would be a most valuable addition to the orchestra; Miss Jenkins’s talent for the piano was too well known to be doubted for an instant; Mr. Cape had practised the violin accompaniment with her frequently and Mr. Brown, who had kindly undertaken, at a few hours’ notice, to bring his violoncello, would, no doubt, manage extremely well. Seven o’clock came, and so did the audience; all the rank and fashion of Clapham and its vicinity was fast filling the theatre. There were the Smiths, the Stubbs&#039;s, the Halfpennys, the Gubbins&#039;s, the Nixons, the Dixons, the Hicksons, people with all sorts of names, two aldermen, a sheriff in perspective, Sir Thomas Glumper (who had been knighted in the last reign for carrying up an address on somebody’s escaping from something); and last, not least, there were Mrs. Joseph Porter and Uncle Tom, seated in the centre of the third row from the stage; Mrs. P. amusing Uncle Tom with all sorts of stories, and Uncle Tom amusing every one else by laughing most immoderately. Ting, ting, ting! went the prompter’s bell at eight o’clock precisely, and dash went the orchestra into the overture to &quot;The Men of Prometheus.&quot; The pianoforte player hammered away with the most laudable perseverance; and the violoncello, which struck in at intervals, &quot;sounded very well, considering.&quot; The unfortunate individual, however, who had undertaken to play the flute accompaniment &quot;at sight,&quot; found, from fatal experience, the perfect truth of the old adage, &quot;out of sight, out of mind;&quot; for being very near-sighted, and being placed at a considerable distance from his music-book, all he had an opportunity of doing was to play a bar now and then in the wrong place, and put the other performers out. It is, however, but justice to Mr. Brown to say that he did this to admiration. The overture, in fact, was not unlike a race between the different instruments; the piano came in first by several bars, and the violoncello next, quite distancing the poor flute; for the deaf gentleman too-too’d away, quite unconscious that he was at all wrong, until apprised, by the applause of the audience, that the overture was concluded. A considerable bustle and shuffling of feet was then heard upon the stage, accompanied by whispers of &quot;Here’s a pretty go!—what’s to be done?&quot; &amp;c. The audience applauded again, by way of raising the spirits of the performers; and then Mr. Sempronius desired the prompter, in a very audible voice, to &quot;clear the stage, and ring up.&quot; Ting, ting, ting! went the bell again. Everybody sat down; the curtain shook; rose sufficiently high to display several pair of yellow boots paddling about; and there remained. Ting, ting, ting! went the bell again. The curtain was violently convulsed, but rose no higher; the audience tittered; Mrs. Porter looked at Uncle Tom, Uncle Tom looked at every body, rubbing his hands, and laughing with perfect rapture. After as much ringing with the little bell as a muffin boy would make in going down a tolerably long street, and a vast deal of whispering, hammering, and calling for nails and cord, the curtain at length rose, and discovered Mr. Sempronius Gattleton solus and decked for Othello. After three distinct rounds of applause, during which Mr. Sempronius applied his right hand to his left breast, and bowed in the most approved manner, the manager advanced and said - &quot;Ladies and Gentlemen, I assure you it is with sincere regret, that I regret to be compelled to inform you, that Iago who was to have played Mr. Wilson—I beg your pardon, Ladies and Gentlemen; but I am naturally somewhat agitated (applause)—I mean, Mr. Wilson, who was to have played Iago, is—that is, has been—or, in other words, Ladies and Gentlemen, the fact is, that I have just received a note, in which I am informed that Iago is unavoidably detained at the Post-office this evening. Under these circumstances, I trust—a—a—amateur performance—a—another gentleman undertaken to read the part—request indulgence for a short time—courtesy and kindness of a British audience.&quot; Overwhelming applause. Exit Mr. Sempronius Gattleton, and curtain falls. The audience were, of course, exceedingly good-humoured; the whole business was a joke; and accordingly they waited for an hour with the utmost patience, being enlivened by an interlude of rout-cakes and lemonade. It appeared by Mr. Sempronius’s subsequent explanation, that the delay would not have been so great, had it not so happened that when the substitute Iago had finished dressing, and just as the play was on the point of commencing, the original Iago unexpectedly arrived. The former was, therefore, compelled to undress, and the latter to dress for his part, which, as he found some difficulty in getting into his clothes, occupied no inconsiderable time. At last, the tragedy began in real earnest. It went off well enough, until the third scene of the first act, in which Othello addresses the Senate, the only remarkable circumstance being, that as Iago could not get on any of the stage boots, in consequence of his feet being violently swelled with the heat and excitement, he was under the necessity of playing the part in a pair of common hessians, which contrasted rather oddly with his richly embroidered pantaloons. When Othello started with his address to the Senate (whose dignity was represented by, the Duke, a carpenter; two men engaged on the recommendation of the gardener; and a boy); Mrs. Porter found the opportunity she so anxiously sought. Mr. Sempronius proceeded - &quot;&#039; Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, My very noble and approv’d good masters, That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter, It is most true;—rude am I in my speech—&#039;&quot; &quot;Is that right?&quot; whispered Mrs. Porter to Uncle Tom. &quot;No.&quot; &quot;Tell him so, then.&quot; &quot;I will. - Sem!&quot; called out Uncle Tom, &quot;that’s wrong, my boy.&quot; &quot;What’s wrong, Uncle?&quot; demanded Othello, quite forgetting the dignity of his situation. &quot;You’ve left out something. &#039;True I have married—&#039;&quot; &quot;Oh, ah!&quot; said Mr. Sempronius, endeavouring to hide his confusion as much and as ineffectually as the audience attempted to conceal their half-suppressed tittering, by coughing with extraordinary violence - - &quot; &#039;true I have married her; - The very head and front of my offending Hath this extent; no more.&#039; (Aside). Why don’t you prompt, father?&quot; &quot;Because I’ve mislaid my spectacles,&quot; said poor Mr. Gattleton, almost dead with the heat and bustle. &quot;There, now it’s &#039;rude am I,&#039;&quot; said Uncle Tom.&quot; &quot;Yes, I know it is,&quot; returned the unfortunate manager, proceeding with his part. It would be useless and tiresome to quote the number of instances in which Uncle Tom, now completely in his element, and instigated by the mischievous Mrs. Porter, corrected the mistakes of the performers; suffice it to say, that having once mounted his hobby, nothing could induce him to dismount; so, during the whole remainder of the play, he performed a kind of running accompaniment, by muttering every body’s part, as it was being delivered, in an under tone. The audience were highly amused, Mrs. Porter delighted, the performers embarrassed; Uncle Tom never was better pleased in all his life; and Uncle Tom’s nephews and nieces had never, although the declared heirs to his large property, so heartily wished him gathered to his fathers as on that memorable occasion. Several other minor causes, too, united to damp the ardour of the dramatis personæ. None of the performers could walk in their tights, or move their arms in their jackets; the pantaloons were too small, the boots too large, and the swords of all shapes and sizes. Mr. Evans, naturally too tall for the scenery, wore a black velvet hat with immense white plumes, the glory of which was lost in &quot;the flies;&quot; and the only other inconvenience of which was, that when it was off his head he could not put it on, and when it was on he couldn&#039;t take it off. Notwithstanding all his practice, too, he fell with his head and shoulders as neatly through one of the side scenes, as a harlequin would jump through a panel in a Christmas pantomime. The pianoforte player, overpowered by the extreme heat of the room, fainted away at the commencement of the entertainments, leaving the music of &quot;Masaniello&quot; to the flute and violoncello. The orchestra complained that Mr. Harfield put them out, and Mr. Harfield declared that the orchestra prevented his singing at all. The fishermen, who were hired for the occasion, revolted to the very life, positively refusing to play without an increased allowance of spirits; and, their demand being complied with, they got drunk in the eruption-scene as naturally as possible. The red fire which was burnt at the conclusion of the second act not only nearly suffocated the audience, but they narrowly escaped setting the house on fire; as it was, the remainder of the piece was acted in a thick fog. In short, the whole affair was, as Mrs. Joseph Porter triumphantly told every body, &quot;a complete failure.&quot; The audience went home at four o’clock in the morning, exhausted with laughter, suffering from severe head aches, and smelling terribly of brimstone and gunpowder. The Messrs. Gattleton, senior and junior, retired to rest with a vague idea of emigrating to Swan River early in the ensuing week. Rose Villa has once again resumed its wonted appearance: the dining-room furniture has been replaced; the tables are as nicely polished as formerly; the horsehair chairs are ranged against the wall as regularly as ever; Venetian blinds have been fitted to every window in the house to intercept the prying gaze of Mrs. Joseph Porter. The subject of theatricals is never mentioned in the Gattleton family, unless, indeed, by Uncle Tom, who cannot refrain from sometimes expressing his surprise and regret at finding that his nephews and nieces appear to have lost the relish they once possessed for the beauties of Shakspeare and quotations from the works of the immortal bard.18340201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Mrs._Joseph_Porter_Over_the_Way/1834-02-Mrs_Joseph_Porter_Over_The_Way.pdf
63https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/63'New Song'From a letter to Mark Lemon (25 June 1849).Dickens, Charles'Mr. Mark Lemon.' <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. Edited by his Sister-in-Law and his Eldest Daughter.</em><span> Volume 1 (1833-1856), pp. 207-208. Chapman and Hall, 1880.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1849-06-25">1849-06-25</a><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1849_06_25_Letter_To_Mark_Lemon_New_Song<span>Dickens, Charles. 'New Song.' Letter to Mark Lemon (25 June 1849). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1849_Letter_To_Mark_Lemon_New_Song">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1849_Letter_To_Mark_Lemon_New_Song</a>.</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1849-06-25_Letter_To_Mark_Lemon_New_Song.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'New Song.' Letter to Mark Lemon (25 June 1849).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=T.+Sparkler">T. Sparkler</a>TUNE – &quot;Lesbia hath a beaming eye.&quot; 1. Lemon is a little hipped, And this is Lemon’s true position; He is not pale, he’s not white-lipped, Yet wants a little fresh condition. Sweeter ‘tis to gaze upon Old Ocean’s rising, falling billows, Than on the houses every one That form the street called Saint Anne Willers. Oh, my Lemon, round and fat, Oh my bright, my right, my tight ‘un, Think a little what you’re at – Don’t stay at home, but come to Brighton! 2. Lemon has a coat of frieze, But all so seldom Lemon wears it, That it is a prey to fleas, And ev’ry moth that’s hungry tears it. Oh, that coat’s the coat for me, That braves the railway sparks and breezes, Leaving every engine free To smoke it, till its owner sneezes! Then my Lemon, round and fat, L., my bright, my right, my tight ’un, Think a little what you’re at – On Tuesday first, come down to Brighton!18490625https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/New_Song/1849_06_25_Letter_To_Mark_Lemon_New_Song.pdf
10https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/10'Now if I don't make the completest mistake'From the autograph album of Mrs. S. C. Hall (after 1836).Dickens, Charles<em>Autograph Album of Mrs. S. C. Hall</em>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836%2C+after">1836, after</a>Held at The New York Public Library's Archives &amp; Manuscripts, <a href="http://archives.nypl.org/brg/19176#c218463" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://archives.nypl.org/brg/19176#c218463</a>. Quoted in Hall, S.C. and Mrs. S.C. Hall. ‘Memories of the Authors of the Age’. Art-Journal, vol.5, 1 January 1866, pp. 21-24; p. 22 and Hotten, John Camden. <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/uDUz2Uu8KxYC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=completest%20mistake" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>Charles Dickens, the Story of his Life</em></a> (John Camden Hotten, 1870), pp. 280-281.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1836-after-Now_if_I_dont_make_the_completest_mistakeDickens, Charles. 'Now if I don't make the completest mistake.' For Mrs. S.C. Hall (written after 1836): <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-after-Now_if_I_dont_make_the_completest_mistake">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-after-Now_if_I_dont_make_the_completest_mistake</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836-after-Now_if_I_dont_make_the_completest_mistake.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Now if I don't make the completest mistake.' Autograph Album of Mrs. S. C. Hall (after 1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Autograph+Album">Autograph Album</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Boz">Boz</a>Now, if I don&#039;t make The completest mistake That ever put man in a rage, This bird of two weathers Has moulted his feathers, And left them in some other cage.18370101
20https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/20'Ode to an Expiring Frog'From <em>The Pickwick Papers </em>issue 6, ch. 15 (August 1836).Dickens, Charles<em>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, </em>Chapter 15, Number 6 (August 1836), p.148. <em>UVic Libraries, </em><a href="https://vault.library.uvic.ca/concern/file_sets/070f8b17-ceef-4687-9ce5-e81bb81c1ac3?locale=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://vault.library.uvic.ca/concern/file_sets/070f8b17-ceef-4687-9ce5-e81bb81c1ac3?locale=en</a>.Chapman and Hall<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-08">1836-08</a><p class="p1"><i>UVic Libraries, </i>Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/lice%20nses/by-nc/4.0/&nbsp;" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span class="s1">https://creativecommons.org/lice nses/by-nc/4.0/</span></a>.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1836-08-Pickwick_Papers_Ode_to_an_Expiring_Frog<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Ode to an Expiring Frog' from <i>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. </i>Issue 6, Chapter 15 (August 1836), p. 148. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-08-Pickwick_Papers_Ode_to_an_Expiring_Frog">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-08-Pickwick_Papers_Ode_to_an_Expiring_Frog</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836-08_Pickwick_Papers_Ode_to_an_Expiring_Frog.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Ode to an Expiring Frog. <em>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.</em> Issue 6, Chapter 15 (August 1836): p. 148.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Serial">Serial</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Pickwick+Papers%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Pickwick Papers</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Boz">Boz</a>Can I view thee panting, lying On thy stomach, without sighing? Can I unmoved see thee dying On a log, Expiring frog? Say, have fiends in shape of boys, With wild halloo and brutal noise, Hunted thee from marshy joys, With a dog, Expiring frog?18360801https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Ode_to_an_Expiring_Frog/1836-08-Pickwick_Papers_Ode_to_an_Expiring_Frog.pdf
167https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/167'Our Next-Door Neighbours'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle</em> (18 March 1836), p. 3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18360318/009/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18360318/009/0003</a>. <em>Source is faded and illegible in places.</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-03-18">1836-03-18</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1836-03-18-Our_NextDoor_NeighboursDickens, Charles. 'Our Next-Door Neighbours'. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-03-18-Our_NextDoor_Neighbours">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-03-18-Our_NextDoor_Neighbours</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>We are very fond of speculating as we walk through a street, on the character and pursuits of the people who inhabit it; and nothing so materially assists us in these speculations as the appearance of the house doors. The various expressions of the human countenance afford a beautiful and interesting study; but there is something in the physiognomy of street-door knockers, almost as characteristic, and nearly as infallible. Whenever we visit a man for the first time, we contemplate the features of his knocker with the greatest curiosity, for we well know, that between the man and his knocker, there will inevitably be a greater or less degree of resemblance and sympathy. For instance, there is one description of knocker that used to be common enough, but which is fast passing away—a large round one, with the jolly face of a convivial lion smiling blandly at you, as you twist the sides of your hair into a curl or pull up your shirt-collar while you are waiting for the door to be opened; we never saw that knocker on the door of a churlish man—so far as our experience is concerned, it invariably bespoke hospitality and another bottle. No man ever saw this knocker on the door of a small attorney or bill-broker; they always patronise the other lion; a heavy ferocious-looking fellow, with a countenance expressive of savage stupidity—a sort of grand master among the knockers, and a great favourite with the selfish and brutal. Then there is a little pert Egyptian knocker, with a long thin face, a pinched-up nose, and a very sharp chin; he is most in vogue with your government-office people, in light drabs and starched cravats; little spare, priggish men, who are perfectly satisfied with their own opinions, and consider themselves of paramount importance. We were greatly troubled a few years ago, by the innovation of a new kind of knocker, without any face at all, composed of a wreath depending from a hand or small truncheon. A little trouble and attention, however, enabled us to overcome this difficulty, and to reconcile the new system to our favourite theory. You will invariably find this knocker on the doors of cold and formal people, who always ask you why you don’t come, and never say do. Everybody knows the brass knocker is common to suburban villas, and extensive boarding-schools; and having noticed this genus we have recapitulated all the most prominent and strongly-defined species. Some phrenologists affirm, that the agitation of a man’s brain by different passions, produces corresponding developments in the form of his skull. Do not let us be understood as pushing our theory to the full length of asserting, that any alteration in a man’s disposition would produce a visible effect on the feature of his knocker. Our position merely is, that in such a case, the magnetism which must exist between a man and his knocker, would induce the man to remove, and seek some knocker more congenial to his altered feelings. If you ever find a man changing his habitation without any reasonable pretext, depend upon it, that, although he may not be aware of the fact himself, it is because he and his knocker are at variance. This is a new theory, but we venture to launch it, nevertheless, as being quite as ingenious and infallible as many thousands of the learned speculations which are daily broached for public good and private fortune-making. Entertaining these feelings on the subject of knockers, it will be readily imagined with what consternation we viewed the entire removal of the knocker from the door of the next house to the one we lived in, some time ago, and the substitution of a bell. This was a calamity we had never anticipated. The bare idea of anybody being able to exist without a knocker, appeared so wild and visionary, that it had never for one instant entered our imagination. We sauntered moodily from the spot, and bent our steps towards Eaton-square, then just building. What was our astonishment and indignation to find that bells were fast becoming the rule, and knockers the exception! Our theory trembled beneath the shock. We hastened home; and fancying we foresaw in the swift progress of events, its entire abolition, resolved from that day forward to vent our speculations on our next-door neighbours in person. The house adjoining ours on the left hand was uninhabited, and we had, therefore, plenty of leisure to observe our next-door neighbours on the other side. The house without the knocker was in the occupation of a city clerk, and there was a neatly-written bill in the parlour window intimating that lodgings for a single gentleman were to be let within. It was a neat, dull little house, on the shady side of the way, with new, narrow floorcloth in the passage, and new, narrow stair-carpets up to the first floor. The paper was new, and the paint was new, and the furniture was new; and all three, paper, paint, and furniture, bespoke the limited means of the tenant. There was a little red and black carpet in the drawing-room, with a border of flooring all the way round; a few stained chairs and a pembroke table. A pink shell was displayed on each of the little sideboards, which, with the addition of a tea-tray and caddy, a few more shells on the mantelpiece, and three peacock’s feathers tastefully arranged above them, completed the decorative furniture of the apartment. This was the room destined for the reception of the single gentleman during the day, and a little back room on the same floor was assigned as his sleeping apartment by night. The bill had not been long in the window, when a stout, good-humoured looking gentleman, of about five-and-thirty, appeared as a candidate for the tenancy. Terms were soon arranged, for the bill was taken down immediately after his first visit. In a day or two the single gentleman came in, and shortly afterwards his real character came out. First of all, he displayed a most extraordinary partiality for sitting up till three or four o’clock in the morning, drinking whiskey-and-water, and smoking cigars; then he invited friends home, who used to come at ten o’clock, and begin to get happy about the small hours, when they evinced their perfect contentment by singing songs with half-a-dozen verses of two lines each, and a chorus of ten, which chorus used to be shouted forth by the whole strength of the company, in the most enthusiastic and vociferous manner, to the great annoyance of the neighbours, and the special discomfort of another single gentleman overhead. Now, this was bad enough, occurring as it did three times a week on the average, but this was not all; for when the company did go away, instead of walking quietly down the street, as anybody else’s company would have done, they amused themselves by making alarming and frightful noises, and counterfeiting the shrieks of females in distress; and one night, a red-faced gentleman in a white hat knocked in the most urgent manner at the door of the powdered-headed old gentleman at No. 3, and when the powdered-headed old gentleman, who thought one of his married daughters must have been taken ill prematurely, had groped down-stairs, and after a great deal of unbolting and key-turning, opened the street door, the red-faced man in the white hat said he hoped he’d excuse his giving him so much trouble, but he’d feel obliged if he’d favour him with a glass of cold spring water, and the loan of a shilling for a cab to take him home, on which the old gentleman slammed the door and went up-stairs, and threw the contents of his water jug out of window—very straight, only it went over the wrong man; and the whole street was involved in confusion. A joke’s a joke; and even practical jests are very capital in their way, if you can only get the other party to see the fun of them; but the population of our street were so dull of apprehension, as to be quite lost to a sense of the drollery of this proceeding: and the consequence was, that our next-door neighbour was obliged to tell the single gentleman, that unless he gave up entertaining his friends at home, he really must be compelled to part with him. The single gentleman received the remonstrance with great good-humour, and promised from that time forward, to spend his evenings at a coffee-house—a determination which afforded general and unmixed satisfaction. The next night passed off very well, everybody being delighted with the change; but on the next, the noises were renewed with greater spirit than ever. The single gentleman’s friends being unable to see him in his own house every alternate night, had come to the determination of seeing him home every night; and what with the discordant greetings of the friends at parting, and the noise created by the single gentleman in his passage up-stairs, and his subsequent struggles to get his boots off, the evil was not to be borne. So, our next-door neighbour gave the single gentleman, who was a very good lodger in other respects, notice to quit; and the single gentleman went away, and entertained his friends in other lodgings. The next applicant for the vacant first floor, was of a very different character from the troublesome single gentleman who had just quitted it. He was a tall, thin, young gentleman, with a profusion of brown hair, reddish whiskers, and very slightly developed moustaches. He wore a braided surtout, with frogs behind, light grey trousers, and wash-leather gloves, and had altogether rather a military appearance. So unlike the roystering single gentleman. Such insinuating manners, and such a delightful address! So seriously disposed, too! When he first came to look at the lodgings, he inquired most particularly whether he was sure to be able to get a seat in the parish church; and when he had agreed to take them, he requested to have a list of the different local charities, as he intended to subscribe his mite to the most deserving among them. Our next-door neighbour was now perfectly happy. He had got a lodger at last, of just his own way of thinking—a serious, well-disposed man, who abhorred gaiety, and loved retirement. He took down the bill with a light heart, and pictured in imagination a long series of quiet Sundays, on which he and his lodger would exchange mutual civilities and Sunday papers. The serious man arrived, and his luggage was to arrive from the country next morning. He borrowed a clean shirt, and a prayer-book, from our next-door neighbour, and retired to rest at an early hour, requesting that he might be called punctually at ten o’clock next morning—not before, as he was much fatigued. He was called, and did not answer: he was called again, but there was no reply. Our next-door neighbour became alarmed, and burst the door open. The serious man had left the house mysteriously; carrying with him the shirt, the prayer-book, a teaspoon, and the bedclothes. Whether this occurrence, coupled with the irregularities of his former lodger, gave our next-door neighbour an aversion to single gentlemen, we know not; we only know that the next bill which made its appearance in the parlour window intimated generally, that there were furnished apartments to let on the first floor. The bill was soon removed. The new lodgers at first attracted our curiosity, and afterwards excited our interest. They were a young lad of eighteen or nineteen, and his mother, a lady of about fifty, or it might be less. The mother wore a widow’s weeds, and the boy was also clothed in deep mourning. They were poor—very poor; for their only means of support arose from the pittance the boy earned, by copying writings, and translating for booksellers. They had removed from some country place and settled in London; partly because it afforded better chances of employment for the boy, and partly, perhaps, with the natural desire to leave a place where they had been in better circumstances, and where their poverty was known. They were proud under their reverses, and above revealing their wants and privations to strangers. How bitter those privations were, and how hard the boy worked to remove them, no one ever knew but themselves. Night after night, two, three, four hours after midnight, could we hear the occasional raking up of the scanty fire, or the hollow and half-stifled cough, which indicated his being still at work; and day after day, could we see more plainly that nature had set that unearthly light in his plaintive face, which is the beacon of her worst disease. Actuated, we hope, by a higher feeling than mere curiosity, we contrived to establish, first an acquaintance, and then a close intimacy, with the poor strangers. Our worst fears were realised; the boy was sinking fast. Through a part of the winter, and the whole of the following spring and summer, his labours were unceasingly prolonged: and the mother attempted to procure needle-work, embroidery—anything for bread. A few shillings now and then, were all she could earn. The boy worked steadily on; dying by minutes, but never once giving utterance to complaint or murmur. One beautiful autumn evening we went to pay our customary visit to the invalid. His little remaining strength had been decreasing rapidly for two or three days preceding, and he was lying on the sofa at the open window, gazing at the setting sun. His mother had been reading the Bible to him, for she closed the book as we entered, and advanced to meet us. &quot;I was telling William,&quot; she said, &quot;that we must manage to take him into the country somewhere, so that he may get quite well. He is not ill, you know, but he is not very strong, and has exerted himself too much lately.&quot; Poor thing! The tears that streamed through her fingers, as she turned aside, as if to adjust her close widow’s cap, too plainly showed how fruitless was the attempt to deceive herself. We sat down by the head of the sofa, but said nothing, for we saw the breath of life was passing gently but rapidly from the young form before us. At every respiration, his heart beat more slowly. The boy placed one hand in ours, grasped his mother’s arm with the other, drew her hastily towards him, and fervently kissed her cheek. There was a pause. He sunk back upon his pillow, and looked long and earnestly in his mother’s face. &quot;William, William!&quot; murmured the mother, after a long interval, &quot;don’t look at me so—speak to me, dear!&quot; The boy smiled languidly, but an instant afterwards his features resolved into the same cold, solemn gaze. &quot;William, dear William! rouse yourself; don’t look at me so, love—pray don’t! Oh, my God! what shall I do!&quot; cried the widow, clasping her hands in agony—&quot;my dear boy! he is dying!&quot; The boy raised himself by a violent effort, and folded his hands together—&quot;Mother! dear, dear mother, bury me in the open fields—anywhere but in these dreadful streets. I should like to be where you can see my grave, but not in these close crowded streets; they have killed me; kiss me again, mother; put your arm round my neck—&quot; He fell back, and a strange expression stole upon his features; not of pain or suffering, but an indescribable fixing of every line and muscle. The boy was dead.18360318https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Our_Next-Door_Neighbours/1836-03-18-Our_NextDoor_Neighbours.pdf
150https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/150'Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle' (Chapter the First)Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine</em> (January 1835), pp. 15-24.Dickens, Charles<em>Biodiversity Heritage Library, </em>(National History Museum): <a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/19851#page/29/mode/1up">https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/19851#page/29/mode/1up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-01">1835-01</a>Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1835-01-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_IDickens, Charles. (January 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-01-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_I">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-01-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_I</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Matrimony is proverbially a serious undertaking. Like an over-weening predilection for brandy and water, it is a misfortune into which a man easily falls, and from which he finds it remarkably difficult to extricate himself. It is no use telling a man who is timorous on these points, that it is but one plunge, and all is over. They say the same thing at the Old Bailey, and the unfortunate victims derive as much comfort from the assurance in the one case as in the other. Mr. Watkins Tottle was a rather uncommon compound of strong uxorious inclinations, and an unparalleled degree of anti-connubial timidity. He was about fifty years of age; stood four feet six inches and three-quarters in his socks—for he never stood in stockings at all—plump, clean, and rosy. He looked something like a vignette to one of Richardson’s novels, and had a clean cravatish formality of manner, and kitchen-pokerness of carriage, which Sir Charles Grandison himself might have envied. He lived on an annuity, which was well adapted to the individual who received it, in one respect—it was rather small. He received it in periodical payments on every alternate Monday; but he ran himself out about a day after the expiration of the first week as regularly as an eight-day clock, and then, to make the comparison complete, his landlady wound him up, and he went on with a regular tick. Mr. Watkins Tottle had long lived in a state of single blessedness, as bachelors say, or single cursedness, as spinsters think, but the idea of matrimony had never ceased to haunt him. Wrapt in profound reveries on this never-failing theme, fancy transformed his small parlour in Cecil-street into a neat house in the suburbs—the half-hundred weight of coals under the kitchen-stairs suddenly sprang up into three tons of the best Walls-End—his small French bedstead was converted into a regular matrimonial four-poster—and in the empty chair on the opposite side of the fireplace imagination seated a beautiful young lady with a very little independence or will of her own, and a very large independence under a will of her father’s. &quot;Who’s there?&quot; inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle, as a gentle tap at his room-door disturbed these meditations one evening. &quot;Tottle, my dear fellow, how do you do?&quot; said a short elderly gentleman with a gruffish voice, bursting into the room, and replying to the question by asking another, and then they shook hands with a great deal of solemnity. &quot;Told you I should drop in some evening,&quot; said the short gentleman, as he delivered his hat into Tottle’s hand, after a little struggling and dodging. &quot;Delighted to see you, I’m sure,&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle, wishing internally that his visitor had ‘dropped in’ to the Thames at the bottom of the street, instead of dropping into his parlour. The fortnight was nearly up, and Watkins was hard up. &quot;How is Mrs. Gabriel Parsons?&quot; inquired Tottle. &quot;Quite well, thank you,&quot; replied Mr. Gabriel Parsons, for that was the name the short gentleman revelled in. Here there was a pause; the short gentleman looked at the left hob of the fire-place; Mr. Watkins Tottle stared vacancy out of countenance. &quot;Quite well,&quot; repeated the short gentleman, when five minutes had expired. &quot;I may say remarkably well,&quot; and he rubbed the palms of his hands together as hard as if he were going to strike a light by friction. &quot;What will you take?&quot; inquired Tottle, with the desperate suddenness of a man who knew that unless the visitor took his leave he stood very little chance of taking any thing else. &quot;Oh, I don’t know.—Have you any whiskey?&quot; &quot;Why,&quot; replied Tottle very slowly, for all this was gaining time, &quot;I had some capital, and remarkably strong whiskey last week; but it’s all gone—and therefore its strength—&quot; &quot;Is much beyond proof; or, in other words, impossible to be proved,&quot; said the short gentleman; and he laughed very heartily, and seemed quite glad the whiskey had been drank. Mr. Tottle smiled—but it was the smile of despair. When Mr. Gabriel Parsons had done laughing, he delicately insinuated that, in the absence of whiskey, he would not be averse to brandy. And Mr. Watkins Tottle, lighting a flat candle very ostentatiously, and displaying an immense key, which belonged to the street-door—but which, for the sake of appearances, occasionally did duty in an imaginary wine-cellar, left the room to entreat his landlady to charge their glasses, and charge them in the bill. The application was successful—the spirits were speedily called;—not from &quot;the vasty deep,&quot; but the adjacent wine-vaults. The two short gentlemen mixed their grog; and then sat cosily down before the fire—a pair of shorts, airing themselves. &quot;Tottle,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &quot;you know my way—off-hand, open, say what I mean, and mean what I say, damn reserve, and can’t bear affectation. One is a bad domino which only hides what good-people have about ’em, without making the bad look better; and the other is much about the same thing as pinking a white cotton stocking to make it look like a silk one.—Now listen to what I’m going to say.&quot; Here, the little gentleman paused, and took a long pull at his brandy-and-water. Mr. Watkins Tottle took a sip of his, stirred the fire, and assumed an air of profound attention. &quot;It’s of no use humming and ha’ing about the matter,&quot; resumed the short gentleman.—&quot;You want to get married—don&#039;t you?&quot; &quot;Why,&quot; —replied Mr. Watkins Tottle evasively; for he trembled violently, and felt a sudden tingling throughout his whole frame—&quot;why—I should certainly—at least, I think I should like it.&quot; &quot;Won’t do,&quot; said the short gentleman.—&quot;Plain and free—or there’s an end of the matter. Do you want money?&quot; &quot;You know I do.&quot; &quot;You admire the sex?&quot; &quot;I do.&quot; &quot;And you’d like to be married?&quot; &quot;Certainly.&quot; &quot;Then you shall be.—There’s an end of that.&quot; And thus saying, Mr. Gabriel Parsons took a pinch of snuff, and mixed another glass. &quot;Let me entreat you to be more explanatory,&quot; said Tottle. —&quot;Really, as the party principally interested, I cannot consent to be disposed of in this way.&quot; &quot;I’ll tell you,&quot; replied Mr. Gabriel Parsons, warming with the subject, and the brandy-and-water—&quot;I know a lady—she’s stopping with my wife now—who is just the thing for you. Well educated; talks French; plays the piano; knows a good deal about flowers and shells—and all that sort of thing; and has five hundred a year, with an uncontrolled power of disposing of it by her last will and testament.&quot; &quot;I’ll pay my addresses to her,&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle.—&quot;She isn’t very young—is she?&quot; &quot;Not very; just the thing for you.—I’ve said that already.&quot; &quot;What coloured hair has the lady?&quot; inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;Egad, I hardly recollect,&quot; replied Gabriel, with great coolness. &quot;Perhaps I ought to have observed, at first, she wears a front.&quot; &quot;A what!&quot; ejaculated Tottle. &quot;One of those things with curls along here,&quot; said Parsons, drawing a straight line across his forehead, just over his eyes, in illustration of his meaning. —&quot;I know the front’s black; I can’t speak quite positively about her own hair; because, unless one walks behind her, and catches a glimpse of it under her bonnet, one seldom sees it; but I should say that it was rather lighter than the front—a shade of a greyish tinge, perhaps.&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle, looked as if he had certain misgivings of mind. Mr. Gabriel Parsons perceived it, and thought it would be safe to begin the next attack without delay. &quot;Were you ever in love, Tottle?&quot; he inquired. Mr. Watkins Tottle blushed up to the eyes, and down to the chin, and exhibited a most extensive combination of colours, as he confessed the soft impeachment. &quot;I suppose you popped the question more than once, when you were a young—,I beg your pardon—a younger—man,&quot; said Parsons. &quot;Never in my life,&quot; replied his friend, apparently indignant at being suspected of such an act. &quot;Never! the fact is, that I entertain, as you know, peculiar opinions on these subjects. I am not afraid of ladies, young or old—far from it; but, I think, that in compliance with the custom of the present day, they allow too much freedom of speech and manner to marriageable men. Now the fact is, that any thing like this easy freedom I never could acquire; and as I am always afraid of going too far, I am generally, I dare say, considered formal and cold.&quot; &quot;I shouldn’t wonder if you were,&quot; replied Parsons, gravely; &quot;I shouldn’t wonder. However, you’ll be all right in this case; for the strictness and delicacy of this lady’s ideas, greatly exceed your own. Lord bless you, why when she came to our house, there was an old portrait of some man or other, with two large black staring eyes, hanging up in her bed-room; she positively refused to go to bed there till it was taken down, considering it decidedly improper.&quot; &quot;I think so too,&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle; &quot;certainly.&quot; &quot;And then the other night—I never laughed so much in my life,&quot; resumed Mr. Gabriel Parsons; :I had driven home in a strong easterly wind, and caught a devil of a face-ache. Well; as Fanny—that’s Mrs. Parsons, you know—and this friend of hers, and I, and Frank Ross, were playing a rubber, I said, jokingly, that when I went to bed I should wrap my head up in Fanny’s flannel petticoat. She instantly threw up her cards and left the room.&quot; &quot;Quite right!&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle, &quot;she couldn&#039;t possibly have behaved in a more dignified manner. What did you do?&quot; &quot;Do?—Frank took dummy; and I won sixpence.&quot; &quot;But, didn’t you apologize for hurting her feelings?&quot; &quot;Devil a bit. Next morning at breakfast we talked it over. She contended that any reference to a flannel petticoat was highly improper;—men ought not to be supposed to know that such things were. I pleaded my coverture; being a married man.&quot; &quot;And what did the lady say to that?&quot; inquired Tottle; deeply interested. &quot;Changed her ground, and said that Frank being a single man, its impropriety was obvious.&quot; &quot;Noble-minded creature!&quot; exclaimed the enraptured Tottle. &quot;Oh! both Fanny and I, said at once, that she was regularly cut out for you.&quot; A gleam of placid satisfaction shone on the circular face of Mr. Watkins Tottle, as he heard the prophecy. &quot;There’s one thing I can’t understand,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he rose to depart, &quot;I cannot for the life and soul of me, imagine how the deuce you’ll ever contrive to come together. The lady would certainly go into convulsions if the subject were mentioned.&quot; Mr. Gabriel Parsons sat down again, and laughed until he was weak. Tottle owed him money: so he had a perfect right to laugh at Tottle’s expense. Mr. Watkins Tottle, feared in his own mind, that this was another characteristic which he had in common with this modern Lucretia. He, however, accepted the invitation to dine with the Parsons&#039; on the next day but one, with great firmness; and looked forward to the introduction, when again left alone, with tolerable composure. The sun that rose on the next day but one, had never beheld a sprucer personage on the outside of the Norwood-stage than Mr. Watkins Tottle, and when the coach drew up before a cardboard-looking house with disguised chimnies, and a lawn like a large sheet of green letter paper, he certainly had never lighted to his place of destination a gentleman who felt more awkward or uncomfortable. The coach stopped and Mr. Watkins Tottle jumped—we beg his pardon—alighted with great dignity. &quot;All right!&quot; said he, and away went the coach up the hill with that beautiful equanimity of pace for which &quot;short&quot; stages are generally remarkable. Mr. Watkins Tottle gave a faultering jerk to the handle of the garden-gate bell, in shape something like a gigantic note of admiration, and he stood for some minutes like the Duke of Wellington waiting in vain for a peal. He essayed a more energetic tug, and his previous nervousness was not at all diminished by hearing the bell ringing like a fire alarum. &quot;Is Mr. Parsons at home?&quot; inquired Tottle of the man who opened the gate. He could hardly hear himself speak, for the bell had not yet done tolling. &quot;Here I am,&quot; shouted a voice on the lawn,—and there was Mr. Gabriel Parsons in a flannel jacket, running backwards and forwards from a wicket to two hats piled on each other, and from the two hats to the wicket, in the most violent manner, while another gentleman with his coat off was getting down the area of the house, after a ball. When the gentleman without the coat had found it—which he did in less than ten minutes—he ran back to the hats, and Gabriel Parsons pulled up. Then, the gentleman without the coat called out &quot;play&quot; very loudly and bowled; Mr. Gabriel Parsons knocked the ball several yards and took another run. Then the other gentleman aimed at the wicket, and didn’t hit it; and Mr. Gabriel Parsons, having finished running on his own account, laid down the bat and ran after the ball which went into a neighbouring field. They called this cricket. &quot;Tottle, will you &#039;go in?&#039;&quot; inquired Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he approached him, wiping the perspiration off his face. Mr. Watkins Tottle declined the offer, the bare idea of accepting which, made him even warmer than his friend. &quot;Then we’ll go into the house as it’s past four, and I shall have to wash my hands before dinner,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons. &quot;Here, I hate ceremony, you know! Timson, that is Tottle—Tottle, that’s Timson, bred for the church, which I fear will never be bread for him,&quot; and he chuckled at the old joke. Mr. Timson bowed carelessly; Mr. Watkins Tottle bowed stiffly, and Mr. Gabriel Parsons led the way to the house. He was a rich sugar-baker, who mistook rudeness for honesty, and abrupt bluntness for an open and candid manner; many besides Gabriel mistake bluntness for sincerity. Mrs. Gabriel Parsons received the visitors most graciously on the steps, and preceded them to the drawing-room. On the sofa was seated a lady of very prim appearance, and remarkably inanimate. She was just one of those persons at whose age it is impossible to make any reasonable guess—her features might have been remarkably pretty when she was younger, and they might always have presented the same appearance. Her complexion—with a slight trace of powder here and there—was as clear as that of a well-made wax doll, and her face as expressive. She was handsomely dressed, and was winding up a gold watch for effect. &quot;Miss Lillerton, my dear, this is our friend Mr. Watkins Tottle; a very old acquaintance I assure you,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons, presenting the Strephon of Cecil-street, Strand. The lady rose, and made a deep courtesy; Mr. Watkins Tottle made a serio-comic bow. &quot;Splendid, majestic creature!&quot; thought Tottle. She was his beau idéal of a desirable female. Mr. Timson advanced, and Mr. Watkins Tottle began to hate him. Men generally discover a rival instinctively, and Mr. Watkins Tottle felt that his hate was deserved. &quot;May I beg,&quot; said the reverend gentleman—&quot;May I beg to call upon you, Miss Lillerton, for some trifling donation to my soup, coals, and blanket distribution society?&quot; &quot;Put my name down, for two sovereigns, if you please,&quot; responded the automaton-like Miss Lillerton. &quot;You are truly charitable, madam,&quot; said the Reverend Mr. Timson, &quot;and we know that charity will cover a multitude of sins. Let me beg you to understand that I do not say this from the supposition that you have many sins which require palliation; believe me when I say that I never yet met any one who had fewer to atone for than Miss Lillerton.&quot; Something like a bad imitation of animation lighted up the lady’s face, as she acknowledged the compliment. Watkins Tottle incurred the sin of wishing that the ashes of the Rev. Charles Timson were quietly deposited in the churchyard of his curacy, wherever it might be. &quot;I’ll tell you what,&quot; interrupted Parsons, who had just appeared with clean hands, and a black coat, &quot;it’s my private opinion Timson, that your &#039;distribution society&#039; is rather a humbug.&quot; &quot;You are so severe,&quot; replied Timson, with a christian smile;—he disliked Parsons, but liked his dinners. &quot;So positively unjust,&quot; said Miss Lillerton. &quot;Certainly,&quot; observed Tottle. The lady looked up; her eyes met those of Mr. Watkins Tottle. She withdrew them in a sweet confusion, and Watkins Tottle did the same—the confusion was mutual. &quot;Why,&quot; urged Mr. Parsons, pursuing his objections, &quot;what on earth is the use of giving a man coals who has nothing to cook; or giving him blankets when he hasn’t a bed; or giving him soup when he requires substantial food—like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt. Why not give ’em a trifle of money, as I do, when I think they deserve it, and let them purchase what they think best? Why?—because your subscribers wouldn’t see their names flourishing in print on the church-door—that’s the reason.&quot; &quot;Really, Mr. Parsons, I hope you don’t mean to insinuate that I wish to see my name in print, on the church-door,&quot; interrupted Miss Lillerton, indignantly. &quot;I hope not,&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle, putting in another word, and getting another glance. &quot;Certainly not,&quot; replied Parsons. &quot;I dare say you wouldn’t mind seeing it in writing though, in the church register—eh?&quot; &quot;Register! What register?&quot; enquired the lady gravely. &quot;Why, the register of marriages, to be sure,&quot; replied Parsons, chuckling at the sally, and glancing at Tottle. Mr. Watkins Tottle thought he should have fainted for very shame, and it is quite impossible to imagine what effect the joke would have had upon the lady, if dinner had not been that moment announced. Mr. Watkins Tottle, with an unprecedented effort of gallantry, offered the tip of his little finger; Miss Lillerton accepted it gracefully, with maiden modesty; and they proceeded in due state to the dinner table, where they were soon deposited side by side. The room was very snug, the dinner very good, and the little party in tolerable spirits. The conversation became pretty general, and when Mr. Watkins Tottle had extracted one or two cold observations from his neighbour, and taken wine with her, he began to acquire confidence rapidly. The cloth was removed; Mrs. Gabriel Parsons drank four glasses of port, on the plea of being a nurse just then; and Miss Lillerton took about the same number of sips, on the plea of not wanting any at all. At length the ladies retired, to the great gratification of Mr. Gabriel Parsons, who had been coughing and frowning at his wife, for half an hour previously—signals which Mrs. Parsons never happened to observe, until she had been pressed to take her ordinary quantum, which, to avoid giving trouble, she always did at once. &quot;What do you think of her?&quot; inquired Mr. Gabriel Parsons of Mr. Watkins Tottle, in an under tone. &quot;I dote on her with enthusiasm already,&quot; replied Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;Gentlemen, pray let us drink &#039;the ladies,&#039;&quot; said the Reverend Mr. Timson. &quot;The ladies!&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle, emptying his glass. In the fullness of his confidence he felt as if he could make love to a dozen ladies, off hand. &quot;Ah!&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &quot;I remember when I was a younger man—fill your glass, Timson.&quot; &quot;I have this moment emptied it.&quot; &quot;Then fill again.&quot; &quot;I will,&quot; said Timson, suiting the action to the word. &quot;I remember,&quot; resumed Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &quot;when I was a younger man, with what a strange compound of feelings I used to drink that toast, and how I used to think every woman was an angel—quite a superior being.&quot; &quot;Was that before you were married?&quot; mildly inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;Oh! certainly,&quot; replied Mr. Gabriel Parsons. I have never thought so since; and a precious milksop I must have been, ever to have thought so at all. Why, you know, I married Fanny under the oddest, and most ridiculous circumstances possible.&quot; &quot;What were they, if one may inquire?&quot; asked Timson, who had heard the story, on an average twice a week for the last six months. Mr. Watkins Tottle listened attentively, in the hope of picking up some suggestion that might be useful to him in his new undertaking. &quot;I spent my wedding-night in a back-kitchen chimney,&quot; said Parsons, by way of a beginning. &quot;In a back-kitchen chimney!&quot; ejaculated Watkins Tottle. &quot;How dreadful!&quot; &quot;Yes, it wasn’t very pleasant,&quot; replied the small host. &quot;The fact is, that Fanny’s father and mother liked me well enough as an individual, but had a decided objection to my becoming a husband. You see, I hadn’t any money in those days, and they had; and so they wanted Fanny to pick up somebody else. However, we managed to discover the state of each other’s affections somehow. I used to meet her at some mutual friends’ parties; at first we danced together, and talked, and flirted, and all that sort of thing; then I used to like nothing so well as sitting by her side—we didn’t talk so much then, but I remember I used to have a great notion of looking at her out of the extreme corner of my left eye, and then I got very miserable and sentimental, and began to write verses, and use macassar. At last I couldn’t bear it any longer, and after I had walked up and down the sunny side of Oxford-street, in tight boots for a week—and a devilish hot summer it was too—in the hope of meeting her, I sat down and wrote a letter, and begged her to manage to see me clandestinely, for I wanted to hear her decision from her own mouth. I said I had discovered, to my perfect satisfaction, that I couldn’t live without her, and that if she didn’t have me, I had made up my mind to take prussic acid, or take to drinking, or emigrate so as to take myself off in some way or other. Well, I borrowed a pound, and bribed the housemaid to give her the note which she did.&quot; &quot;And what was the reply?&quot; enquired Timson, who had found before, that to encourage the repetition of old stories, is sure to end in a general invitation. &quot;Oh, the usual way you know—Fanny expressed herself very miserable; hinted at the possibility of an early grave; said that nothing should induce her to swerve from the duty she owed her parents; and implored me to forget her, and find out somebody more deserving, and all that sort of thing. She said she could on no account think of meeting me unknown to her pa and ma; and entreated me, as she should be in a particular part of Kensington Gardens at eleven o’clock next morning, not to attempt to meet her there.&quot; &quot;You didn’t go, of course?&quot; said Watkins Tottle. &quot;Didn’t I?—Of course I did. There she was, with the identical housemaid in perspective, in order that there might be no interruption. We walked about for a couple of hours; made ourselves delightfully miserable; and were regularly engaged. Then we began to &#039;correspond&#039;—that is to say, we used to exchange about four letters a day: what we used to say in ’em I can’t imagine. And I used to have an interview in the kitchen, or the cellar, or some such place, every evening. Well, things went on in this way for some time; and we got fonder of each other every day. At last, as our love was raised to such a pitch, and as my salary had been raised too shortly before, we determined on a secret marriage. Fanny arranged to sleep at a friend’s the night before; we were to be married early in the morning, and then we were to return to her home and be pathetic. She was to fall at the old gentleman’s feet, and bathe his boots with her tears; and I was to hug the old lady, and call her &#039;mother,&#039; and use my pocket-handkerchief as much as possible. Married we were the next morning; two girls—friends of Fanny’s—acting as brides&#039;s-maids; and a man, who was hired for five shillings and a pint of porter, officiating as father. Now, the old lady unfortunately put off her return from Ramsgate, where she had been paying a visit, until the next morning; and as we placed great reliance on her, we agreed to postpone our confession for four-and-twenty hours. My newly-made wife returned home, and I spent my wedding-day in strolling about Hampstead-heath, and damning my father-in-law. Of course I went to comfort my dear little wife at night as much as I could, with the assurance that our troubles would soon be over. I opened the garden-gate, of which I had a key, and was shewn by the servant to our old place of meeting—a back kitchen, with a stone-floor, and a dresser, upon which, in the absence of chairs, we used to sit, and make love.&quot; &quot;Make love upon a kitchen-dresser!&quot; interrupted Mr. Watkins Tottle, whose ideas of decorum were greatly outraged. &quot;Ah!—on a kitchen-dresser!&quot; replied Parsons. —&quot;And let me tell you, old fellow, that, if you were really over head-and-ears in love, and had no other place to make love in, you’d be devilish glad to avail yourself of such an opportunity. However, let me see;—where was I?&quot; &quot;On the dresser,&quot; suggested Timson. &quot;Oh—ah! Well, here I found poor Fanny—quite disconsolate, and uncomfortable. The old boy had been very cross all day, which made her feel still more lonely; and she was quite out of spirits. So I put a good face on the matter, and laughed it off, and said we should enjoy the pleasures of a matrimonial life more by contrast; and, at length, poor Fanny brightened up a little. I stopped there, till about eleven o’clock; and, just as I was taking my leave for the fourteenth time, the girl came running down stairs, without her shoes, in a great fright, to tell us that the old villain—God forgive me for calling him so! for he is dead and gone now—prompted I suppose by the prince of darkness, was coming down, to draw his own beer for supper—a thing he had not done before for six months, to my certain knowledge; for the cask stood in that very back kitchen. If he discovered me there, explanation would have been out of the question; for he was so outrageously violent, when at all excited that he never would have listened to me. There was only one thing to be done.—The chimney was a very wide one: it had been originally built for an oven; went up perpendicularly for a few feet, and then shot backward, and formed a sort of small cavern. My hopes and fortune—the means of our joint existence almost—were at stake. I scrambled in like a squirrel; coiled myself up in this recess; and, as Fanny and the girl replaced the deal chimney-board, I could see the light of the candle which my unconscious father-in-law carried in his hand. I heard him draw the beer; and I never heard beer run so slowly. He was just leaving the kitchen, and I was preparing to descend, when down came the infernal chimney-board with a tremendous crash. He stopped, and put down the candle and the jug of beer on the dresser: he was a nervous old fellow; and any unexpected noise annoyed him. He, coolly observed that the fire-place was never used, and sending the frightened servant into the next kitchen for a hammer and nails, actually nailed up the board, and locked the door on the outside. So there was I, on my wedding night, in the light kerseymere trousers, fancy waistcoat, and blue coat, that I had been married in in the morning, in a back-kitchen chimney, the bottom of which was nailed up, and the top of which had been formerly raised some fifteen feet, to prevent the smoke from annoying the neighbours. And there,&quot; added Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he passed the bottle—&quot;there I remained till half-past seven o&#039;clock next morning, when the housemaid’s sweetheart, who was a carpenter, unshelled me. The old dog had nailed me up so securely, that, to this very hour, I firmly believe that no one but a carpenter could ever have got me out.&quot; &quot;And what did Mrs. Parsons’s father say, when he found you were married?&quot; enquired Watkins Tottle, who, although he never saw a joke, was not satisfied until he heard a story to the very end. &quot;Why, the affair of the chimney so tickled his fancy, that he pardoned us off-hand, and allowed us something to live upon, till he went the way of all flesh. I spent the next night in his second-floor front much more comfortably than I did the preceding one; for, as you will probably guess—&quot; &quot;Please Sir, missis has made tea,&quot; said a middle-aged female servant, bobbing into the room. &quot;That’s the very housemaid that figures in my story,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons. —&quot;She went into Fanny’s service when we were first married, and has been with us ever since; but I don’t think she has felt one atom of respect for me since the morning she saw me released, when she went into violent laughing hysterics, to which she has been subject ever since. Now, shall we join the ladies?&quot; &quot;If you please,&quot; said Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;By all means,&quot; added the obsequious Mr. Timson; and the trio made for the drawing-room accordingly. Tea being concluded, and the toast and cups having been duly handed, and occasionally upset, by Mr. Watkins Tottle, a rubber was proposed&#039; They cut for partners—Mr. and Mrs. Parsons; and Mr. Watkins Tottle and Miss Lillerton. Mr. Timson being a clergyman, and having conscientious scruples on the subject of card-playing, drank brandy-and-water, and kept up a running spar with Mr. Watkins Tottle. The evening went off well; Mr. Watkins Tottle was in high spirits, having some reason to be gratified with his reception by Miss Lillerton; and before he left, a small party was made up to visit the Beulah Spa on the following Saturday. &quot;It’s all right, I think,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons to Mr. Watkins Tottle, as he opened the garden-gate for him. &quot;I hope so,&quot; he replied, squeezing his friend’s hand. &quot;You’ll be down by the first coach on Saturday,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons. &quot;Certainly,&quot; replied Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;Undoubtedly.&quot; But fortune had decreed that Mr. Watkins Tottle should not be down by the first coach on Saturday. His adventures on that day, however, and the success of his wooing, are subjects which must be reserved for another chapter.18350101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Passage_in_the_Life_of_Mr._Watkins_Tottle_[Chapter_the_First]/1835-01-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_I.pdf
151https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/151'Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle' (Chapter the Second)Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine</em> (February 1835), pp. 121-137.Dickens, Charles<em>Biodiversity Heritage Library</em> (National History Museum): <a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/19851#page/135/mode/1up">https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/19851#page/135/mode/1up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1835-02">1835-02</a>Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection.<br /> <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1835-02-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_2Dickens, Charles. (February 1835). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/02-1835-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_2">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/02-1835-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_2</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>&quot;The first coach has not come in yet, has it, Tom?&quot; inquired Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he very complacently paced up and down the fourteen feet of gravel which bordered the &quot;lawn,&quot; on the Saturday morning which had been fixed upon for the Beulah Spa jaunt. &quot;No, Sir; I haven’t seen it,&quot; replied a gardener in a blue apron, who let himself out to do the ornamental for half-a-crown a day and his &quot;keep.&quot; &quot;Time Tottle was down,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, ruminating—&quot;Oh, here he is, no doubt,&quot; added Gabriel, as a cab drove rapidly up the hill; and he buttoned his dressing-gown, and opened the gate to receive the expected visitor. The cab stopped, and out jumped a man in a coarse Petersham great coat, whitey-brown neckerchief, faded black suit, gamboge-coloured top-boots, and one of those large crowned hats, formerly seldom met with, but now very generally patronised by gentlemen and costermongers. &quot;Mr. Parsons?&quot; said the man, looking at the superscription of a note he held in his hand, and addressing Gabriel with an inquiring air. &quot;My name is Parsons,&quot; responded the sugar-baker. &quot;I’ve brought this here note,&quot; replied the individual in the painted tops, in a hoarse whisper, &quot;I’ve brought this here note from a gen’lm’n as come to our house this mornin’.&quot; &quot;I expected the gentleman at my house,&quot; said Parsons, as he broke the seal, which bore the impression of his majesty’s profile, as it is seen on a sixpence. &quot;I’ve no doubt the gen’lm’n would ha’ been here,&quot; replied the stranger, &quot;if he hadn’t happened to call at our house first; but we never trusts no gen’lm’n furder nor we can see him—no mistake about that there&quot;—added the unknown, with a facetious grin; &quot;beg your pardon, Sir, no offence meant, only—once in, and I wish you may—catch the idea, Sir?&quot; Mr. Gabriel Parsons was not remarkable for catching anything suddenly, but a cold. He therefore only bestowed a glance of profound astonishment on his mysterious companion, and proceeded to unfold the note of which he had been the bearer. Once opened, and the idea was caught with very little difficulty. Mr. Watkins Tottle had been suddenly arrested for 33l. 10s. 4d., and dated his communication from a lock-up house in the vicinity of Chancery-lane. &quot;Unfortunate affair this!&quot; said Parsons, refolding then ote. &quot;Nothin’ ven you’re used to it,&quot; coolly observed the man in the Petersham. &quot;Tom!&quot; exclaimed Parsons, after a few minutes’ consideration, &quot;just put the horse in, will you?—Tell the gentleman that I shall be there almost as soon as you are,&quot; he continued, addressing the sheriff officer’s Mercury. &quot;Werry well,&quot; replied that important functionary; adding in a confidential manner, &quot;I’d adwise the gen’lm’n’s friends to settle. You see it’s a mere trifle; and, unless the gen’lm’n means to go up afore the court, it’s hardly worth while waiting for detainers, you know. Our governor’s wide awake, he is. I’ll never say nothin’ agin him, nor no man; but he knows what’s o’clock, he does, uncommon.&quot; Having delivered this eloquent, and, to Parsons, particularly intelligible harangue, the meaning of which was eked out by divers nods and winks, the gentleman in the boots reseated himself in the cab, which went rapidly off, and was soon out of sight. Mr. Gabriel Parsons continued to pace up and down the pathway for some minutes, apparently absorbed in deep meditation. The result of his cogitations seemed to be perfectly satisfactory to himself, for he ran briskly into the house; said that business had suddenly summoned him to town; that he had desired the messenger to inform Mr. Watkins Tottle of the fact; and that they would return together to dinner. He then hastily equipped himself for a drive, and mounting his gig, was soon on his way to the establishment of Mr. Solomon Jacobs, situate (as Mr. Watkins Tottle had informed him) in Cursitor-street, Chancery-lane. When a man is in a violent hurry to get on, and has a specific object in view, the attainment of which depends on the completion of his journey, the difficulties which interpose themselves in his way appear not only to be innumerable, but to have been called into existence especially for the occasion. The remark is by no means a new one, and Mr. Gabriel Parsons had practical and painful experience of its justice in the course of his drive. There are three classes of animated objects which prevent your driving with any degree of comfort or celerity through streets which are but little frequented—they are pigs, children, and old women. On the occasion we are describing, the pigs were luxuriating on cabbage-stalks, and the shuttlecocks fluttered from the little deal battledores, and the children played in the road; and women, with a basket in one hand and the street-door key in the other, would cross just before the horse’s head, until Mr. Gabriel Parsons was perfectly savage with vexation, and quite hoarse with hoi-ing and imprecating. Then, when he got into Fleet-street, there was &quot;a stoppage,&quot; in which people in vehicles have the satisfaction of remaining stationary for half an hour, and envying the slowest pedestrians; and where policemen rush about, and seize hold of horses’ bridles, and back them into shop windows, by way of clearing the road and preventing confusion. At length Mr. Gabriel Parsons turned into Chancery-lane, and having inquired for, and been directed to, Cursitor-street (for it was a locality of which he was quite ignorant), he soon found himself opposite the house of Mr. Solomon Jacobs. Confiding his horse and gig to the care of one of the fourteen boys who had followed him from the other side of Blackfriars-bridge on the chance of his requiring their services, Mr. Gabriel Parsons crossed the road and knocked at an inner door, the upper part of which was glass, grated like the windows of this inviting mansion with iron bars, painted white, to look comfortable. The knock was answered by a sallow-faced, red-haired, sulky boy, who, after surveying Mr. Gabriel Parsons through the glass applied a large key to an immense wooden excrescence, which was in reality a lock, but which, taken in conjunction with the iron nails with which the panels were studded, gave the door the appearance of being subject to warts. &quot;I want to see Mr. Watkins Tottle,&quot; said Parsons. &quot;It’s the gentleman that come in this morning, Jem,&quot; screamed a voice from the top of the kitchen-stairs, which belonged to a dirty woman who had just brought her chin to a level with the passage-floor. &quot;The gentleman’s in the coffee-room.&quot; &quot;Up stairs, Sir,&quot; said the boy, just opening the door wide enough to let Parsons in without squeezing him, and double-locking it the moment he had made his way through the aperture—&quot;First floor—door on the right.&quot; Mr. Gabriel Parsons thus instructed, ascended the uncarpeted and ill-lighted staircase, and after giving several subdued taps at the before-mentioned &quot;door on the right,&quot; which were rendered inaudible by the hum of voices within the room, and the hissing noise attendant on some frying operations which were carrying on below stairs, turned the handle, and entered the apartment. Being informed that the unfortunate object of his visit had just gone up stairs to write a letter, he had leisure to sit down and observe the scene before him. The room—which was a small, confined den—was partitioned off into boxes, like the common room of some inferior eating-house. The dirty floor had evidently been as long a stranger to the scrubbing-brush as to carpet or floor-cloth; and the ceiling was completely blackened by the flare of the oil-lamp by which the room was lighted at night. The grey ashes on the edges of the tables, and the cigar ends which were plentifully scattered about the dusty grate, fully accounted for the intolerable smell of tobacco which pervaded the place; and the empty glasses, and half-saturated slices of lemon on the tables, together with the porter pots beneath them, bore testimony to the frequent libations in which the individuals who honoured Mr. Solomon Jacobs by a temporary residence in his house indulged. Over the mantel-shelf was a paltry looking-glass, extending about half the width of the chimney-piece; but, by way of a counterpoise, the ashes were confined, by a rusty fender, about twice as long as the hearth. From this cheerful room itself, the attention of Mr. Gabriel Parsons was naturally directed to its inmates. In one of the boxes two men were playing at cribbage with a very dirty pack of cards, some with blue, some with green, and some with red backs—selections from decayed packs. The cribbage board had been long ago formed on the table by some ingenious visitor, with the assistance of a pocket-knife and a two-pronged fork, with which the necessary number of holes had been made in the table at proper distances for the reception of the wooden pegs. In another box a stout, hearty-looking man, of about forty, was eating some dinner, which his wife—an equally comfortable-looking personage—had brought him in a basket; and in a third, a genteel-looking young man was talking earnestly and in a low tone to a young female, whose face was concealed by a thick veil, but whom Mr. Gabriel Parsons immediately set down in his own mind as the debtor’s wife. A young fellow of vulgar manners, dressed in the very extremity of the prevailing fashion, was pacing up and down the room, with a lighted cigar in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, ever and anon puffing forth volumes of smoke, and occasionally applying with much apparent relish to a pint pot, the contents of which were &quot;chilling&quot; on the hob. &quot;Fourpence more, by G-d!&quot; exclaimed one of the cribbage-players, lighting a pipe, and addressing his adversary at the close of the game; &quot;one ’ud think you’d got luck in a pepper-cruet, and shook it out when you wanted it.&quot; &quot;Well, that a’n’t a bad un,&quot; replied the other, who was a horse-dealer from Islington. &quot;No; I’m blessed if it is,&quot; interposed the jolly-looking fellow, who, having finished his dinner, was drinking out of the same glass as his wife, in truly conjugal harmony, some hot gin-and-water. The faithful partner of his cares had brought a plentiful supply of the anti-temperance fluid in a large flat stone bottle, which looked like a half-gallon jar that had been successfully tapped for the dropsy. &quot;You’re a rum chap, you are, Mr. Walker—will you dip your beak into this, Sir?&quot; &quot;Thank’ee, Sir,&quot; replied Mr. Walker, leaving his box, and advancing to the other to accept the proffered glass. &quot;Here’s your health, Sir, and your good ’ooman’s here. Gentlemen all—your&#039;s, and better luck still. Well, Mr. Willis,&quot; continued the facetious prisoner, addressing the young man with the cigar, &quot;you seem rather down to-day—floored, as one may say. What’s the matter, Sir? Never say die, you know.&quot; &quot;Oh! I’m all right,&quot; replied the smoker. &quot;I shall be bailed out to-morrow.&quot; &quot;Shall you, though?&quot; enquired the other. &quot;Damme, I wish I could say the same. I am as regularly over head and ears as the Royal George; and stand about as much chance of being bailed out. Ha! ha! ha!&quot; &quot;Why,&quot; said the young man, stopping short, and speaking in a very loud key, &quot;Look at me. What d’ye ye think I’ve stopped here two days for?&quot; &quot;&#039;Cause you couldn’t get out, I suppose,&quot; interrupted Mr. Walker, winking to the company. &quot;Not that you’re exactly obliged to stop here, only you can’t help it. No compulsion, you know, only you must—eh?&quot; &quot;A’n’t he a rum un?&quot; inquired the delighted individual, who had offered the gin-and-water, of his wife. &quot;Oh, he just is!&quot; replied the lady, who was quite overcome by these flashes of imagination. &quot;Why, my case,&quot; frowned the victim, throwing the end of his cigar into the fire, and illustrating his argument by knocking the bottom of the pot on the table, at intervals,—&quot;my case is a very singular one: my father’s a man of large property, and I am his son.&quot; &quot;That’s a very strange circumstance,&quot; interrupted the jocose Mr. Walker, en passant. &quot;—I am his son, and have received a liberal education. I don’t owe no man nothing—not the value of a farthing, but I was induced, you see, to put my name to some bills for a friend—bills to a large amount. I may say a very large amount, for which I didn’t receive no consideration. What’s the consequence?&quot; &quot;Why, I suppose the bills went out, and you came in. The acceptances were&#039;nt taken up, and you were, eh?&quot; inquired Walker. &quot;To be sure,&quot; replied the liberally educated young gentleman. &quot;To be sure; and so here I am, locked up for a matter of twelve hundred pound.&quot; &quot;Why don’t you ask your old governor to stump up?&quot; inquired Walker, with a somewhat sceptical air. &quot;Oh! bless you, he’d never do it,&quot; replied the other, in a tone of expostulation—&quot;Never!&quot; &quot;Well, it is very odd to—be—sure,&quot; interposed the owner of the flat bottle, mixing another glass, &quot;but I’ve been in difficulties, as one may say, now for thirty year. I went to pieces when I was in a milk-walk, thirty year ago; arterwards, when I was a fruiterer, and kept a spring wan; and arter that again in the coal and ’tatur line—but all that time, I never see a youngish chap come into a place of this kind, who wasn’t going out again directly, and who hadn’t been arrested on bills which he’d given a friend, and for which he’d received nothing whatsomever—not a fraction.&quot; &quot;Oh! it’s always the cry,&quot; said Walker. &quot;I can’t see the use on it; that’s what makes me so wild. Why, I should have a much better opinion of an individual, if he’d say at once, in an honourable and gentlemanly manner, as he’d done everybody he possibly could.&quot; &quot;Ay, to be sure,&quot; interposed the horse-dealer, with whose notions of bargain and sale the axiom perfectly coincided, &quot;so should I.&quot; The young gentleman, who had given rise to these observations, was on the point of offering a rather angry reply to these sneers, but the rising of the young man before noticed, and of the female who had been sitting by him, to leave the room, interrupted the conversation. She had been weeping bitterly, and the noxious atmosphere of the room acting upon her excited feelings and delicate frame, rendered the support of her companion necessary as they quitted it together. There was an air of superiority about them both, and something in their appearance so unusual in such a place, that a respectful silence was observed until the whirr—r—bang of the spring door announced that they were out of hearing. It was broken by the wife of the ex-fruiterer. &quot;Poor creetur!&quot; said she, quenching a sigh in a rivulet of gin-and-water. &quot;She’s very young.&quot; &quot;She’s a nice-loooking ’ooman, too,&quot; added the horse-dealer. &quot;What’s he in for, Ikey?&quot; inquired Walker, of an individual who was spreading a cloth, with numerous blotches of mustard upon it, on one of the tables, and whom Mr. Gabriel Parsons had no difficulty in recognizing as the man who had called upon him in the morning. &quot;Vy,&quot; responded the factotum, &quot;it’s one of the rummiest rigs you ever heard on. He come in here last Vensday, which, by the bye, he’s a-going over the water to-night—hows’ever that’s neither here nor there. You see I’ve been a going back’ards and for’ards about his business, and ha’ managed to pick up some of his story from the servants and them; and so far as I can make it out, it seems to be summat to this here effect—&quot; &quot;Cut it short, old fellow,&quot; interrupted Walker, who knew from former experience that he of the top-boots was neither very concise nor intelligible in his narratives. &quot;Let me alone,&quot; replied Ikey, &quot;and I’ll ha’ vound up, and made my lucky in five seconds. This here young gen’lm’n’s father—so I’m told, mind ye—and the father o’ the young voman, have always been on very bad, out-and-out, rig’lar knock-me-down, sort o’ terms; but somehow or another when he was a wisitin’ at some gentlefolk’s house, as he know&#039;d at college, he came into contract with the young lady. He seed her several times; and then he up and said he’d keep company with her, if so be as she vos agreeable. Vell, she vos as sweet upon him as he vos upon her, and so I s’pose they made it all right: for they got married ’bout six months arterwards, unbeknown mind ye to the two fathers—leastways so I’m told. When they heard on it—my eyes, there was such a combustion! Starvation vos the very least that vos to be done to ’em. The young gen’lm’n’s father cut him off vith a bob, ’cos he’d cut himself off vith a wife; and the young lady’s father he behaved even worser and more unnat’ral, for he not only blow’d her up dreadful, and swore he’d never see her again, but he employed a chap as I knows—and as you knows, Mr. Valker, a precious sight too well—to go about and buy up the bills and them things on which the young husband, thinking his governor ’ud come round agin, had raised the vind just to blow himself on vith for a time; besides vich, he made all the interest he could to set other people agin him. Consequence vos, that he paid as long as he could; but things he never expected to have to meet till he’d had time to turn himself round, come fast upon him, and he vos nabbed. He vos brought here, as I said afore, last Vensday, and I think there’s about—ah half-a-dozen detainers agin him down stairs now. I have been,&quot; added Ikey,&quot;‘in the purfession these fifteen year, and I never met vith such windictiveness afore!&quot; &quot;Poor creeturs!&quot; exclaimed the coal-dealer’s wife once more: again resorting to the same excellent prescription for nipping a sigh in the bud; &quot;Ah! when they’ve seen as much trouble as I and my old man here have, they’ll be as comfortable under it, as we are.&quot; &quot;The young lady’s a pretty creature,&quot; said Walker, &quot;only she’s a little too delicate for my taste—there an’t enough of her. As to the young cove, he may be very respectable and what not, but he’s too down in the mouth for me—he an’t game.&quot; &quot;Game!&quot; exclaimed Ikey, who had been altering the position of a green-handled knife and fork at least a dozen times in order that he might remain in the room under the pretext of having something to do. &quot;He’s game enough ven there’s anything to be fierce about; but who could be game as you call it, Mr. Walker, with a pale young creetur like that, hanging about him?—It’s enough to drive any man’s heart into his boots, to see ’em together—and no mistake at all about it. I never shall forget her first comin’ here; he wrote to her on the Thursday to come—I know he did ’cos I took the letter. Uncommon fidgetty he was all day to be sure, and in the evening he goes down into the office, and he says to Jacobs, says he &#039;Sir, can I have the loan of a private room for a few minutes this evening, without incurring any additional expense—just to see my wife in?&#039; says he. Jacobs looked as much as to say—&#039;Strike me bountiful if you an’t one of the modest sort;&#039; but as the gen’lm’n who had been in the back parlour, had just gone out, and had paid for it for that day, he says—werry grave—&#039;Sir,&#039; says he, &#039;it’s agin our rules to let private rooms to our lodgers on gratis terms, but,&#039; says he, &#039;for a gentleman, I don’t mind breaking through them, for once.&#039; So then he turns round to me and says, &#039;Ikey, put two mould candles in the back parlour, and charge ’em to this gen’lm’n’s account,&#039; vich I did. Vell, by-and-by a hackney-coach comes up to the door, and there, sure enough, was the young lady wrapped up in a hopera-cloak, as it might be, and all alone. I opened the gate that night, so I went up when the coach came, and he vos a watin’ at the parlour door—wasn’t he a trembling neither? The poor creetur see him, and could hardly walk to meet him. &#039;Oh, Harry!&#039; she says, &#039;that it should have come to this! and all for my sake,&#039; says she, putting her hand upon his shoulder. So he puts his arm round her pretty little waist, and leading her gently a little way into the room, so that he might be able to shut the door, he says, so kind and soft-like—&#039;Why, Kate,&#039; says he—&quot; &quot;Here’s the gentleman you want, Sir,&quot; said Ikey abruptly breaking off in his story, and introducing Mr. Gabriel Parsons to the crest-fallen Watkins Tottle, who at that moment entered the room. Watkins advanced with a wooden expression of passive endurance, and accepted the hand which Mr. Gabriel Parsons held out. &quot;I want to speak to you,&quot; said Gabriel, with a look strongly expressive of his dislike of the company. &quot;This way,&quot; replied the imprisoned one, leading the way to the front drawing-room, where rich debtors did the luxurious at the rate of a couple of guineas a day. &quot;Well, here I am,&quot; said Watkins, as he sat down on the sofa; and placing the palms of his hands on his knees, anxiously glanced at his friend’s countenance. &quot;Yes; and here you’re likely to be,&quot; said Gabriel coolly, as he rattled the money in his unmentionable-pockets, and looked out of the window. &quot;What’s the amount with the costs?&quot; inquired Parsons after an awkward pause. &quot;37l. 3s. 10d.&quot; &quot;Have you any money?&quot; &quot;Nine and sixpence,&quot; Mr. Gabriel Parsons walked up and down the room for a few seconds before he could make up his mind to disclose the plan he had formed; he was accustomed to drive hard bargains, but was always most anxious to conceal his avarice; at length he stopped short, and said,—&quot;Tottle, you owe me fifty pounds.&quot; &quot;I do.&quot; &quot;And from all I see, I infer that you are likely to owe it me.&quot; &quot;I fear I am.&quot; &quot;Though you have every disposition to pay me if you could?&quot; &quot;Certainly.&quot; &quot;Then,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, &quot;listen; here’s my proposition. You know my way of old. Accept it—yes or no—I will or I won’t. I’ll pay the debt and costs, and I’ll lend you 10l. more (which, added to your annuity, will enable you to carry on the war well) if you’ll give me your note of hand to pay me one hundred and fifty pounds within six months after you are married to Miss Lillerton.&quot; &quot;My dear—&quot; &quot;Stop a minute—on one condition; and that is, that you propose to Miss Lillerton at once.&quot; &quot;At once! My dear Parsons, consider.&#039; &quot;It’s for you to consider, not me. She knows you well from reputation, though she did not know you personally, until lately. Notwithstanding all her maiden modesty, I think she’d be devilish glad to get married, out of hand, with as little delay as possible. My wife has sounded her on the subject, and she has confessed.&quot; &quot;What—what?&quot; eagerly interrupted the enamoured Watkins.&quot; &quot;Why,&quot; replied Parsons, &quot;to say exactly what she has confessed, would be rather difficult, because they only spoke in hints, and so forth; but my wife, who is no bad judge in these cases, declared to me that what she had confessed was as good as to say, that she was not insensible of your merits—in fact, that no other man should have her.&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle rose hastily from his seat, and rang the bell. &quot;What’s that for?&quot; inquired Parsons. &quot;I want to send the man for the bill stamp,&quot; replied Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;Then you’ve made up your mind?&quot; &quot;I have,&quot;—and they shook hands most cordially. The note of hand was given—the debt and costs were paid—Ikey was satisfied for his trouble, and the two friends soon found themselves on that side of Mr. Solomon Jacobs’ establishment, on which most of his visitors were very happy when they found themselves once again—to wit, the outside. &quot;Now,&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as they drove to Norwood together—&quot;you shall have an opportunity to make the disclosure to-night, and mind you speak out, Tottle.&quot; &quot;I will—I will!&quot; replied Watkins, valorously. &quot;How I should like to see you together,&quot; ejaculated Mr. Gabriel Parsons.—&quot;What fun!&quot;— and he laughed so long and so loudly, that he disconcerted Mr. Watkins Tottle, and frightened the horse. &quot;There’s Fanny and your intended walking about on the lawn,&quot; said Gabriel, as they approached the house.—&quot;Mind your eye, Tottle.&quot; &quot;Never fear,&quot; replied Watkins, resolutely, as he made his way to the spot where the ladies were walking. &quot;Here’s Mr. Tottle, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons, addressing Miss Lillerton. The lady turned quickly round, and acknowledged his courteous salute with the same sort of confusion that Watkins had noticed on their first interview, but with something like a slight expression of disappointment or carelessness. &quot;Did you see how glad she was to see you?&quot; whispered Parsons to his friend. &quot;Why, I really thought she looked as if she would rather have seen somebody else,&quot; replied Tottle. Pooh, nonsense!&quot; whispered Parsons again—&quot;It’s always the way with women, young or old. They never show how delighted they are to see those whose presence makes their hearts beat. It’s the way with the whole sex, and no man should have lived to your time of life without knowing it. Fanny confessed it to me, when we were first married, over and over again—see what it is to have a wife.&quot; &quot;Certainly,&quot; whispered Tottle, whose courage was vanishing fast. &quot;Well, now, you’d better begin to pave the way,&quot; said Parsons; who, having invested some money in the speculation, assumed the office of director. &quot;Yes, yes, I will—presently,&quot; replied Tottle, greatly flurried. &quot;Say something to her, man,&quot; urged Parsons again. &quot;Damn it! pay her a compliment, can’t you?&quot; &quot;No! not till after dinner,&quot; replied the bashful Tottle, anxious to postpone the evil moment. &quot;Well, gentlemen,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons, &quot;you are really very polite; you stay away the whole morning, after promising to take us out, and when you do come home, you stand whispering together and take no notice of us.&quot; &quot;We were talking of the business, my dear, which detained us this morning,&quot; replied Parsons, looking significantly at Tottle. &quot;Dear me! how very quickly the morning has gone,&quot; said Miss Lillerton, referring to the gold watch, which was wound up on state occasions, whether it required it or not. &quot;I think it has passed very slowly,&quot; mildly suggested Tottle. (&quot;That’s right—bravo!&quot;) whispered Parsons. &quot;Indeed!&quot; said Miss Lillerton, with an air of majestic surprise. &quot;I can only impute it to my unavoidable absence from your society, Madam,&quot; said Watkins, &quot;and that of Mrs. Parsons.&quot; During this short dialogue, the ladies had been leading the way to the house. &quot;What the deuce did you stick Fanny into that last compliment for?&quot; enquired Parsons, as they followed together! &quot;it quite spoilt the effect.&quot; &quot;Oh! it really would have been too broad without,&quot; replied Watkins Tottle, &quot;much too broad!&quot; &quot;He’s mad!&quot; Parsons whispered his wife, as they entered the drawing-room, &quot;mad from modesty.&quot; &quot;Dear me!&quot; ejaculated the lady, &quot;I never heard of such a thing.&quot; &quot;You’ll find we have quite a family dinner, Mr. Tottle,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons, when they sat down to table: &quot;Miss Lillerton is one of us, and, of course, we make no stranger of you.&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle expressed a hope that the Parsons family never would make a stranger of him, and wished internally that his bashfulness would allow him to feel a little less like a stranger himself. &quot;Take off the covers, Martha,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons, directing the shifting of the scenery with great anxiety. The order was obeyed, and a pair of boiled fowls, with tongue and et ceteras, were displayed at the top, and a fillet of veal at the bottom. On one side of the table two green sauce-tureens, with ladles of the same, were setting to each other in a green dish; and on the other was a curried rabbit, in a brown suit, turned up with lemon. &quot;Miss Lillerton, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons, &quot;shall I assist you?&quot; &quot;Thank you, no; I think I’ll trouble Mr. Tottle.&quot; Watkins started—trembled—helped the rabbit—and broke a tumbler. The countenance of the lady of the house, which had been all smiles previously, underwent an awful change. &quot;Extremely sorry,&quot; stammered Watkins, assisting himself to currie, and parsley and butter, in the extremity of his confusion. &quot;Not the least consequence,&quot; replied Mrs. Parsons, in a tone which implied that it was of the greatest consequence possible, directing aside the researches of the boy, who was groping under the table for the bits of broken glass. &quot;I presume,&quot; said Miss Lillerton, &quot;that Mr. Tottle is aware of the interest which bachelors usually pay in such cases; a dozen glasses for one is the lowest penalty.&quot; Mr. Gabriel Parsons gave his friend an admonitory tread on the toe. Here was a clear hint that the sooner he ceased to be a bachelor and emancipated himself from such penalties, the better. Mr. Watkins Tottle viewed the observation in the same light, and challenged Mrs. Parsons to take wine, with a degree of presence of mind, which, under all the circumstances, was really extraordinary. &quot;Miss Lillerton,&quot; said Gabriel, &quot;may I have the pleasure?&quot; &quot;I shall be most happy.&quot; &quot;Tottle, will you assist Miss Lillerton, and pass the decanter. Thank you.&quot; (The usual pantomimic ceremony of nodding and sipping gone through)— &quot;Tottle, were you ever in Suffolk?&quot; enquired the master of the house, who was burning to tell one of his seven stock stories. &quot;No,&quot; responded Watkins, adding, by way of a saving clause, &quot;but I’ve been in Devonshire.&quot; &quot;Ah!&quot; replied Gabriel, &quot;it was in Suffolk that a rather singular circumstance happened to me, many years ago. Did you ever happen to hear me mention it?&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle had happened to hear his friend mention it some four hundred times. Of course he expressed great curiosity, and evinced the utmost impatience to hear the story again. Mr. Gabriel Parsons forthwith attempted to proceed, in spite of the interruptions to which, as our readers must frequently have observed, the master of the house is often exposed in such cases. We will attempt to give them an idea of our meaning. &quot;When I was in Suffolk—&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons — &quot;Take off the fowls first, Martha,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons. &quot;I beg your pardon, my dear.&quot; &quot;When I was in Suffolk,&quot; resumed Mr. Parsons, with an impatient glance at his wife, who pretended not to observe it, &quot;which is now some years ago, business led me to the town of Bury St. Edmunds. I had to stop at the principal places in my way, and therefore, for the sake of convenience, I travelled in a gig. I left Sudbury one dark night—it was winter time—about nine o’clock; the rain poured in torrents, the wind howled among the trees that skirted the road-side, and I was obliged to proceed at a foot-pace, for I could hardly see my hand before me, it was so dark—&quot; &quot;John,&quot; interrupted Mrs. Parsons, in a low, hollow, voice, &quot;don’t spill that gravy.&quot; &quot;Fanny,&quot; said Parsons impatiently, &quot;I wish you’d defer these domestic reproofs to some more suitable time. Really, my dear, these constant interruptions are very annoying.&quot; &quot;My dear, I didn’t interrupt you,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons. &quot;But, my dear, you did interrupt me,&quot; remonstrated Mr. Parsons. &quot;How very absurd you are, my love! I must give directions to the servants; I am quite sure that if I sat here and allowed John to spill the gravy over the new carpet, you’d be the first to find fault when you saw the stain to-morrow morning.&quot; &quot;Well,&quot; continued Gabriel, with a resigned air, as if he knew there was no getting over the point about the carpet, &quot;I was just saying, it was so dark that I could hardly see my hand before me. The road was very lonely, and I assure you, Tottle (this was a device to arrest the wandering attention of that individual, which was distracted by a confidential communication between Mrs. Parsons and Martha, accompanied by the delivery of a large bunch of keys), I assure you, Tottle, I became somehow impressed with a sense of the loneliness of my situation—&quot; &quot;Pie to your master,&quot; interrupted Mrs. Parsons, again directing the servant. &quot;Now, pray, my dear,&quot; remonstrated Parsons once more, very pettishly. Mrs. P. turned up her hands and eyebrows, and appealed in dumb show to Miss Lillerton. &quot;As I turned a corner of the road,&quot; resumed Gabriel, &quot;the horse stopped short, and reared tremendously. I pulled up, jumped out, ran to his head, and found a man lying on his back in the middle of the road, with his eyes fixed on the sky. I thought he was dead; but no, he was alive, and there appeared to be nothing the matter with him. He jumped up, and putting his hand to his chest, and fixing upon me the most earnest gaze you can imagine, exclaimed—&quot; &quot;Pudding here,&quot; said Mrs. Parsons. &quot;Oh! it’s no use,&quot; exclaimed the host, who was now rendered desperate. &quot;Here, Tottle; a glass of wine. It’s useless to attempt relating any thing when Mrs. Parsons is present.&quot; This attack was received in the usual way. Mrs. Parsons talked to Miss Lillerton and at her bette half; expatiated on the impatience of men generally; hinted that her husband was peculiarly vicious in this respect, and wound up by insinuating that she must be one of the best tempers that ever existed, or she never could put up with it. Really what she had to endure sometimes, was more than any one who saw her in every-day life could by possibility suppose.—The story was now a painful subject, and therefore Mr. Parsons declined to enter into any details, and contented himself by stating that the man was a maniac, who had escaped from a neighbouring mad-house. The cloth was removed; the ladies soon afterwards retired, and Miss Lillerton played the piano in the drawing-room over head very loudly, for the edification of the visitor. Mr. Watkins Tottle and Mr. Gabriel Parsons sat chatting comfortably enough, until the conclusion of the second bottle, when the latter, in proposing an adjournment to the drawing-room, informed Watkins that he had concerted a plan with his wife, for leaving him and Miss Lillerton alone, soon after tea. &quot;I say,&quot; said Tottle, as they went up stairs, &quot;don’t you think it would be better if we put it off till—till—to-morrow?&quot; &quot;Don’t you think it would have been much better if I had left you in that wretched hole I found you in this morning?&quot; retorted Parsons, bluntly. &quot;Well—well—I only made a suggestion,&quot; said poor Watkins Tottle, with a deep sigh. Tea was soon concluded, and Miss Lillerton drawing a small work-table on one side of the fire, and placing a little wooden frame upon it, something like a miniature clay-mill without the horse, was soon busily engaged in making a watch-guard with brown silk. &quot;God bless me!&quot; exclaimed Parsons, starting up with well-feigned surprise, &quot;I’ve forgotten those confounded letters. Tottle, I know you’ll excuse me.&quot; If Tottle had been a free agent, he would have allowed no one to leave the room on any pretence, except himself. As it was, however, he was obliged to look cheerful when Parsons quitted the apartment. He had scarcely left, when Martha put her head into the room, with—&quot;please, Ma’am, you’re wanted.&quot; Mrs. Parsons left the room, shut the door carefully after her, and Mr. Watkins Tottle was left alone with Miss Lillerton. For the first five minutes there was a dead silence.—Mr. Watkins Tottle was thinking how he should begin, and Miss Lillerton appeared to be thinking of nothing. The fire was burning low; Mr. Watkins Tottle stirred it, and put some coals on. &quot;Hem!&quot; coughed Miss Lillerton; Mr. Watkins Tottle thought the fair creature had spoken— &quot;I beg your pardon,&quot; said he. &quot;Eh!&quot; &quot;I thought you spoke.&quot; &quot;No.&quot; &quot;Oh!&quot; &quot;There are some books on the sofa, Mr. Tottle, if you would like to look at them,&quot; said Miss Lillerton, after the lapse of another five minutes. &quot;No, thank you,&quot; returned Watkins; and then he added, with a courage which was perfectly astonishing, even to himself, &quot;Madam, that is Miss Lillerton, I wish to speak to you.&quot; &quot;To me!&quot; said Miss Lillerton, letting the silk drop from her hands, and sliding her chair back a few paces.—&quot;Speak—to me!&quot; &quot;To you, Madam—and on the subject of the state of your affections.&quot; The lady hastily rose, and would have left the room; but Mr. Watkins Tottle gently detained her by the hand, and holding it as far from him as the joint length of their arms would permit, he thus proceeded— &quot;Pray do not misunderstand me, or suppose that I am led to address you, after so short an acquaintance, by any feeling of my own merits—for merits I have none which could give me a claim to your hand. I hope you will acquit me of any presumption when I explain that I have been acquainted through Mrs. Parsons, with the state—that is, that Mrs. Parsons has told me—at least, not Mrs. Parsons, but—&quot; here Watkins began to wander, but Miss Lillerton relieved him. &quot;Am I to understand, Mr. Tottle, that Mrs. Parsons has acquainted you with my feeling—my affection—I mean my respect, for an individual of the opposite sex?&quot; &quot;She has.&quot; &quot;Then, what,&quot; inquired Miss Lillerton, averting her face, with a girlish air, &quot;what could induce you to seek such an interview as this? What can your object be? How can I promote your happiness, Mr. Tottle?&quot; Here was the time for a flourish—&quot;By allowing me,&quot; replied Watkins, falling bump on his knees, and breaking two brace-buttons and a waistcoat-string, in the act—&quot;By allowing me to be your slave, your servant—in short, by unreservedly making me the confidant of your heart’s feelings—may I say for the promotion of your own happiness—may I say, in order that you may become the wife of a kind and affectionate husband?&quot; &quot;Disinterested creature!&quot; exclaimed Miss Lillerton, hiding her face in a white pocket-handkerchief with an eyelet-hole border. Mr. Watkins Tottle thought that if the lady knew all, she might possibly alter her opinion on this last point. He raised the tip of her middle finger ceremoniously to his lips, and got off his knees, as gracefully as he could. &quot;My information was correct?&quot; he tremulously inquired, when he was once more on his feet. &quot;It was.&quot; Watkins elevated his hands, and looked up to the ornament in the centre of the ceiling, which had been made for a lamp, by way of expressing his rapture. &quot;Our situation, Mr. Tottle,&quot; resumed the lady, glancing at him through one of the eyelet-holes, &quot;is a most peculiar and delicate one.&quot; &quot;It is,&quot; said Mr. Tottle. &quot;Our acquaintance has been of so short duration,&quot; said Miss Lillerton. &quot;Only a week,&quot; assented Watkins Tottle. &quot;Oh! more than that,&#039; exclaimed the lady, in a tone of surprise. &quot;Indeed!&quot; said Tottle. &quot;More than a month—more than two months!&quot; said Miss Lillerton. Rather odd, this, thought Watkins. &quot;Oh!&quot; he said, recollecting Parsons’ assurance that she had known him from report, &quot;I understand. But, my dear madam, pray consider. The longer this acquaintance has existed, the less reason is there for delay now. Why not at once fix a period for gratifying the hopes of your devoted admirer?&quot; &quot;It has been represented to me again and again that this is the course I ought to pursue,&quot; replied Miss Lillerton, &quot;but—pardon my feelings of delicacy, Mr. Tottle—pray excuse this embarrassment—I have peculiar ideas on such subjects, and I am quite sure that I never could summon up fortitude enough to name the day to my future husband.&quot; &quot;Then allow me to name it,&quot; said Tottle eagerly. &quot;I should like to fix it myself,&quot; replied Miss Lillerton, bashfully, &quot;but I cannot do so without at once resorting to a third party.&quot; &quot;A third party!&quot; thought Watkins Tottle, &quot;who the deuce is that to be, I wonder!&quot; &quot;Mr. Tottle,&quot; continued Miss Lillerton, &quot;you have made me a most disinterested and kind offer—that offer I accept. Will you at once be the bearer of a note from me to—to Mr. Timson?&quot; &quot;Mr. Timson!&quot; said Watkins. &quot;After what has passed between us,&quot; responded Miss Lillerton, still averting her head, &quot;you must understand whom I mean; Mr. Timson, the—the—clergyman.&quot; &quot;Mr. Timson, the clergyman!&quot; ejaculated Watkins Tottle, in a state of inexpressible beatitude, and positive wonder at his own success. &quot;Angel! Certainly—this moment!&quot; &quot;I’ll prepare it immediately,&quot; said Miss Lillerton, making for the door; &quot;the events of this day have flurried me so much, Mr. Tottle, that I shall not leave my room again this evening; I will send you the note by the servant.&quot; &quot;Stay,—stay,&quot; cried Watkins Tottle, still keeping a most respectful distance from the lady; &quot;when shall we meet again?&quot; &quot;Oh! Mr. Tottle,&quot; replied Miss Lillerton, coquettishly, &quot;when we are married, I can never see you too often, nor thank you too much;&quot; and she left the room. Mr. Watkins Tottle flung himself into an arm-chair, and indulged in the most delicious reveries of future bliss, in which the idea of &quot;Five hundred pounds per annum, with an uncontrolled power of disposing of it, by her last will and testament,&quot; was somehow or other the foremost. He had gone through the interview so well, and it had terminated so admirably, that he almost began to wish he had expressly stipulated for the settlement of the annual five hundred on himself. &quot;May I come in?&quot; said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, peeping in at the door. &quot;Come in,&quot; replied Watkins. &quot;Well, have you done it?&quot; anxiously inquired Gabriel. &quot;Have I done it!&quot; said Watkins Tottle. &quot;Hush—I’m going to the clergyman.&quot; &quot;No!&quot; said Parsons. &quot;How well you have managed it.&quot; &quot;Where does Timson live?&quot; inquired Watkins. &quot;At his uncle’s,&quot; replied Gabriel, &quot;just round the lane. He’s waiting for a living, and has been assisting his uncle here for the last two or three months. But how well you have done it—I didn’t think you could have carried it off so.&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle was proceeding to demonstrate that the Richardsonian principle was the best on which love could possibly be made, when he was interrupted by the entrance of Martha with a little pink note folded like a fancy cocked-hat. &quot;Miss Lillerton’s compliments,&quot; said Martha, as she delivered it into Tottle’s hands, and vanished. &quot;Do you observe the delicacy?&quot; said Tottle, appealing to Mr. Gabriel Parsons. &quot;Compliments, not love, by the servant, eh?&quot; Mr. Gabriel Parsons didn’t exactly know what reply to make, so he poked the forefinger of his right hand between the third and fourth ribs of Mr. Watkins Tottle. &quot;Come,&quot; said Watkins, when the explosion of mirth, consequent on this practical jest, had subsided, &quot;we’ll be off at once—let’s lose no time.&quot; &quot;Capital!&quot; echoed Gabriel Parsons; and in five minutes they were at the garden-gate of the villa tenanted by the uncle of Mr. Timson. &quot;Is Mr. Charles Timson at home?&quot; inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle of Mr. Charles Timson’s uncle’s man. &quot;Mr. Charles is at home,&quot; replied the man, stammering; &quot;but he desired me to say he couldn’t be interrupted, Sir, by any of the parishioners.&quot; &quot;I am not a parishioner,&quot; replied Watkins. &quot;Is Mr. Charles writing a sermon, Tom?&quot; inquired Parsons, thrusting himself forward. &quot;No, Mr. Parsons, sir; he’s not exactly writing a sermon, but he is practising the violoncello in his own bedroom, and gave strict orders not to be disturbed.&quot; &quot;Say I’m here,&quot; replied Gabriel, leading the way across the garden; &quot;Mr. Parsons and Mr. Tottle, on private and particular business.&quot; They were shewn into the parlour, and the servant departed to deliver his message. The distant groaning of the violoncello ceased; footsteps were heard on the stairs, and Mr. Timson presented himself, and shook hands with Parsons with the utmost cordiality. &quot;How do you do, Sir?&quot; said Watkins Tottle with great solemnity. &quot;How do you do, sir?&quot; replied Timson, with as much coldness as if it were a matter of perfect indifference to him how he did, as it very likely was. &quot;I beg to deliver this note to you,&quot; said Watkins Tottle, producing the cocked hat. &quot;From Miss Lillerton!&quot; said Timson, suddenly changing colour. &quot;Pray sit down.&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle sat down, and while Timson perused the note, fixed his eyes on an oyster-sauce-coloured portrait of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which hung over the fire-place. Mr. Timson rose from his seat when he had concluded the note, and looked dubiously at Parsons. —&quot;May I ask,&quot; he inquired, appealing to Watkins Tottle, &quot;whether our friend here is acquainted with the object of your visit?&quot; &quot;Our friend is in my confidence,&quot; replied Watkins, with considerable importance. &quot;Then, Sir,&quot; said Timson, seizing both Tottle’s hands, &quot;allow me in his presence to thank you most unfeignedly and cordially, for the noble part you have acted in this affair.&quot; &quot;He thinks I recommended him,&quot; thought Tottle. &quot;Confound these fellows! they never think of anything but their fees.&quot; &quot;I deeply regret having misunderstood your intentions, my dear Sir,&quot; continued Timson. &quot;Disinterested and manly indeed! There are very few men who would have acted as you have done.&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle could not help thinking that this last remark was anything but complimentary. He therefore inquired rather hastily, &quot;When is it to be?&quot; &quot;On Thursday,&quot; replied Timson,—&quot;on Thursday morning at half-past-eight.&quot; &quot;Uncommonly early,&quot; observed Watkins Tottle, with an air of triumphant self-denial. &quot;I shall hardly be able to get down here by that hour.&quot; (This was intended for a joke.) &quot;Never mind, my dear fellow,&quot; replied Timson, all suavity, shaking hands with Tottle again most heartily, &quot;so long as we see you to breakfast, you know—&quot; &quot;Eh!&quot; said Parsons, with one of the most extraordinary expressions of countenance that ever appeared on the human face. &quot;What!&quot; ejaculated Watkins Tottle, at the same moment. &quot;I say that so long as we see you to breakfast,&quot; replied Timson, &quot;we will excuse your being absent from the ceremony, though of course your presence at it would give us the utmost pleasure.&quot; Mr. Watkins Tottle staggered against the wall, and fixed his eyes on Timson with apalling perseverance. &quot;Timson,&quot; said Parsons, hurriedly brushing his hat with his left arm, &quot;when you say “us,” whom do you mean?&quot; Mr. Timson looked foolish in his turn, when he replied, &quot;Why—Mrs. Timson that will be this day week: Miss Lillerton that is&quot;— &quot;Now don’t stare at that idiot in the corner,&quot; angrily exclaimed Parsons, as the extraordinary convulsions of Watkins Tottle’s countenance excited the wondering gaze of Timson, &quot;but have the goodness to tell me in three words the contents of that note?&quot; &quot;This note,&quot; replied Timson, &quot;is from Miss Lillerton, to whom I have been for the last five weeks regularly engaged. Her singular scruples and strange feeling on some points have hitherto prevented my bringing the engagement to that termination which I so anxiously desire. She informs me here, that she sounded Mrs. Parsons with the view of making her her confidante and go-between, that Mrs. Parsons informed this elderly gentleman, Mr. Tottle, of the circumstance, and that he, in the most kind and delicate terms, offered to assist us in any way, and even undertook to convey this note, which contains the promise I have long sought in vain—an act of kindness for which I can never be sufficiently grateful.&quot; &quot;Good night, Timson,&quot; said Parsons hurrying off, and lugging the bewildered Tottle with him. &quot;Won’t you stay—and have something?&quot; said Timson. &quot;No, thank ye,&quot; replied Parsons, &quot;I’ve had quite enough;&quot; and away he went, followed by Watkins Tottle in a state of stupefaction. Mr. Gabriel Parsons whistled until they had walked some quarter of a mile past his own gate, when he suddenly stopped, and said, &quot;You are a clever fellow, Tottle, an’t you?&quot; &quot;I don’t know,&quot; said the unfortunate Watkins. &quot;I suppose you’ll say this is Fanny’s fault, won’t you?&quot; inquired Gabriel. &quot;I don’t know anything about it,&quot; replied the bewildered Tottle. &quot;Well,&quot; said Parsons, turning on his heel to go home, &quot;the next time you make an offer, you had better speak plainly, and don’t throw a chance away. And the next time you’re locked up in a spunging-house, just wait there till I come and take you out, there’s a good fellow.&quot; How, or at what hour, Mr. Watkins Tottle returned to Cecil-street is unknown. His boots were seen outside his bedroom-door next morning, but we have the authority of his landlady for stating that he neither emerged therefrom, or accepted sustenance for four-and-twenty hours; at the expiration of that period, and when a council of war was being held in the kitchen on the propriety of summoning the parochial beadle to break his door open, he rang his bell, and demanded a cup of milk-and-water. The next morning he went through the formalities of eating and drinking as usual, but a week afterwards he was seized with a relapse, while perusing the list of marriages in a morning paper, from which he never perfectly recovered. A few weeks since, the body of a gentleman unknown was found in the Regent’s canal. In the trousers-pockets were four shillings and three-pence-halfpenny; a matrimonial advertisement from a lady, which appeared to have been cut out of the Sunday Times; a tooth-pick, and a card-case, which it is confidently believed would have led to the identification of the unfortunate gentleman, but for the circumstance of there being none but blank cards in it. Mr. Watkins Tottle absented himself from his lodgings shortly before. A bill which has not been taken up, was presented next morning; and a bill which has not been taken down, was soon afterwards affixed in his parlour-window. He left a variety of papers in the hands of his landlady—the materials collected in his wanderings among different classes of society—which that lady has determined to published, to defray the unpaid expenses of his board and lodging. They will be carefully arranged, and presented to the public from time to time, with all due humility, by BOZ.18350201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Passage_in_the_Life_of_Mr._Watkins_Tottle_[Chapter_the_Second]/1835-02-Watkins_Tottle_Chapter_II.pdf
12https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/12'Prologue'Published in the <em>Morning Advertiser</em> (12 December 1842).Dickens, Charles<em>British Newspapers Archive</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1842-12-12">1842-12-12</a><em>British Newspapers Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001427/18421212/018/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001427/18421212/018/0003</a>. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Prologue to John Westland Marston's <em>The Patrician's Daughter</em> (1842)<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Prologue">Prologue</a>1842-12-12_Morning_Advertiser_The_Patricians_Daughter_PrologueDickens, Charles. 'Prologue.' <em>The Patrician's Daughter </em>(1842) by John Westland Marston. <em>The Morning Advertiser </em>(12 December 1842): p.3. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1842-12-12_Morning_Advertiser_Prologue_The_Patricians_Daughter">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1842-12-12_Morning_Advertiser_Prologue_The_Patricians_Daughter</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1842-12-12_Morning_Advertiser_The_Patricians_Daughter_Prologue.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Prologue.' <em>Morning Advertiser</em> (12 December 1842).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Morning+Advertiser">Morning Advertiser</a>No tale of streaming plumes and harness bright Dwells on the poet’s maiden harp to-night; No trumpet’s clamour and no battle’s fire Breathes in the trembling accents of his lyre; Enough for him, if in his boldest word The beating heart of MAN be dimly heard. Its solemn music which, like strains that sigh Through charmèd gardens, all who hearing die; Its solemn music he does not pursue To distant ages out of human view; Nor listen to its wild and mournful chime In the dead caverns on the shore of time; But musing with a calm and steady gaze Before the crackling flames of living days, He hears it whisper through the busy roar Of what shall be and what has been before. Awake the Present! Shall no scene display The tragic passion of the passing day? Is it with Man, as with some meaner things, That out of death his single purpose springs? Can his eventful life no moral teach Until he be, for aye, beyond its reach? Obscurely shall he suffer, act, and fade, Dubb’d noble only by the sexton’s spade? Awake the Present! Though the steel-clad age Find life along within its storied page, Iron is worn, at heart by many still – The tyrant Custom binds the serf-like will; If the sharp rack, and screw, and chain be gone, These later days have tortures of their own; The guiltless writhe, while Guilt is stretch’d in sleep, And Virtues lies, too often, dungeon deep. Awake the Present! what the Past has sown Be in its harvest garner’d, reap’d, and grown! How pride breeds pride, and wrong engenders wrong, Read in the volume Truth has held so long, Assured that where life’s flowers freshest blow, The sharpest thorns and keenest briars grow, How social usage has the pow’r to change Good thoughts to evil; in its highest range To cramp the noble soul, and turn to ruth The kindling impulse of our glorious youth, Crushing the spirit in its house of clay, Learn from the lessons of the present day. Not light its import and not poor its mien; Yourselves the actors, and your homes the scene.18421212https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Prologue/The_Patrician.png
13https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/13'Prologue'Prologue to <em>The Lighthouse</em> (May 1855), co-author Wilkie Collins.Dickens, Charles"Miscellaneous Papers." Volume 2. <em>The Works of Charles Dickens</em>. Volume 20 (1911). London: Chapman and Hall; 483-484, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Works_of_Charles_Dickens/91s4AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=dickens+prologue+the+lighthouse&amp;pg=PA483&amp;printsec=frontcover" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Works_of_Charles_Dickens/91s4AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=dickens+prologue+the+lighthouse&amp;pg=PA483&amp;printsec=frontcover</a>.Chapman and Hall<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1855-05">1855-05</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Prologue">Prologue</a>1855-05_The_Lighthouse_PrologueDickens, Charles. 'Prologue' to <em>The Lighthouse</em> (May 1855), co-author Wilkie Collins. Printed in Volume 20 of <em>The Works of Charles Dickens</em> (1911). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1855-05_The_Lighthouse_Prologue">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1855-05_The_Lighthouse_Prologue</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1855-05_The_Lighthouse_Prologue.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Prologue.'&nbsp;<em>The Lighthouse&nbsp;</em>(May 1855).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Lighthouse">The Lighthouse</a>(Slow music all the time; unseen speaker; curtain down.) A story of those rock where doom’d ships come To cast them wreck’d upon the steps of home, Where solitary men, the long year through – The wind their music and the brine their view – Warn mariners to shun the beacon-light; A story of those rocks is here to-night. Eddystone Lighthouse! (Exterior view discovered.) In its ancient form, Ere he would built it wish’d for the great storm That shiver’d it to nothing, once again Behold outgleaming on the angry main! Within it are three men; to these repair In our frail bark of Fancy, swift as air! They are but shadows, as the rower grim Took none by shadows in his boat with him. So be ye shades, and, for a little space, The real world a dream without a trace. Return is easy. It will have ye back Too soon to the old beaten dusty track; For but one hour forget it. Billows, rise; Blow winds, fall rain, be black, ye midnight skies; And you who watch the light, arise! arise! (Exterior view rises and discovers the scene.)18550501https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Prologue/Prologue_Lighthouse.png
15https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/15'Prologue'Prologue to <em>The Frozen Deep</em> (1856), co-author Wilkie Collins.Dickens, CharlesVolume 20 of <em>The Works of Charles Dickens</em> (1911). London: Chapman and Hall; pp. 486-487, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Works_of_Charles_Dickens/91s4AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=The%20frozen%20deep" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Works_of_Charles_Dickens/91s4AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=The%20frozen%20deep</a>.Chapman and Hall<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1856">1856</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Prologue">Prologue</a>1856_The_Frozen_Deep_PrologueDickens, Charles. 'Prologue' to <em>The Frozen Deep</em> (1856), co-author Wilkie Collins. Printed in Volume 20 of <em>The Works of Charles Dickens</em> (1911). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1856_The_Frozen_Deep_Prologue">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1856_The_Frozen_Deep_Prologue</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1856_The_Frozen_Deep_Prologue.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Prologue.'&nbsp;<em>The Frozen Deep&nbsp;</em>(1856).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Frozen+Deep">The Frozen Deep</a>(Curtain rises; mists and darkness’ soft music throughout.) One savage footprint on the lonely shore Where one man listen’d to the surge’s roar, Not all the winds that stir the mighty sea Can ever ruffle in the memory. If such its interest and thrall, O then Pause on the footprints of heroic men, Making a garden of the desert wide Where Parry conquer’d death and Franklin died. To that white region where the Lost lie low, Wrapt in their mantles of eternal snow, - Unvisited by change, nothing to mock Those statues sculptured in the icy rock, We pray your company; that hearts as true (Though nothings of the air) may live for you; Nor only yet that on our little glass A faint reflection of those wilds may pass, But that the secrets of the vast Profound Within us, an exploring hand may sound, Testing the region of the ice-bound soul, Seeking the passage at its northern pole, Softening the horrors of its wintry sleep, Melting the surface of that ‘Frozen Deep.’ Vanish, ye mists! But ere this gloom departs, And to the union of three sister arts We give a winter evening, good to know That in the charms of such another show, That in the fiction of a friendly play, The Arctic sailors, too, put gloom away, Forgot their long night, saw no starry dome, Hail’d the warm sun, and were again at Home. Vanish, ye mists! Not yet do we repair To the still country of the piercing air; But seek, before the cross the troubled seas, An English hearth and Devon’s waving trees.18560101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Prologue/Prologue_The_Frozen_Deep.png
152https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/152'Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, Once Mayor of Mudfog'Published in <em>Bentley's Miscellany, </em>vol.1 (January 1837), pp. 49-63.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858046014936">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858046014936</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837-01">1837-01</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1837-01-Public_Life_TulrumbleDickens, Charles. 'Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, Once Mayor of Mudfog.' <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1837-01-Public_Life_Tulrumble">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1837-01-Public_Life_Tulrumble</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EBentley%27s+Miscellany%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Bentley's Miscellany</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Mudfog is a pleasant town—a remarkably pleasant town—situated in a charming hollow by the side of a river, from which river, Mudfog derives an agreeable scent of pitch, tar, coals, and rope-yarn, a roving population in oil-skin hats, a pretty steady influx of drunken bargemen, and a great many other maritime advantages. There is a good deal of water about Mudfog, and yet it is not exactly the sort of town for a watering-place, either. Water is a perverse sort of element at the best of times, and in Mudfog it is particularly so. In winter, it comes oozing down the streets and tumbling over the fields,—nay, rushes into the very cellars and kitchens of the houses, with a lavish prodigality that might well be dispensed with; but in the hot summer weather it will dry up, and turn green: and, although green is a very good colour in its way, especially in grass, still it certainly is not becoming to water; and it cannot be denied that the beauty of Mudfog is rather impaired, even by this trifling circumstance. Mudfog is a healthy place—very healthy;—damp, perhaps, but none the worse for that. It’s quite a mistake to suppose that damp is unwholesome: plants thrive best in damp situations, and why shouldn’t men? The inhabitants of Mudfog are unanimous in asserting that there exists not a finer race of people on the face of the earth; here we have an indisputable and veracious contradiction of the vulgar error at once. So, admitting Mudfog to be damp, we distinctly state that it is salubrious. The town of Mudfog is extremely picturesque. Limehouse and Ratcliffe Highway are both something like it, but they give you a very faint idea of Mudfog. There are a great many more public-houses in Mudfog,—more than in Ratcliffe Highway and Limehouse put together. The public buildings, too, are very imposing. We consider the Town-hall one of the finest specimens of shed architecture, extant: it is a combination of the pig-sty and tea-garden-box, orders; and the simplicity of its design is of surpassing beauty. The idea of placing a large window on one side of the door, and a small one on the other, is particularly happy. There is a fine bold Doric beauty, too, about the padlock and scraper, which is strictly in keeping with the general effect. In this room do the mayor and corporation of Mudfog assemble together in solemn council for the public weal. Seated on the massive wooden benches, which, with the table in the centre, form the only furniture of the whitewashed apartment, the sage men of Mudfog spend hour after hour in grave deliberation. Here they settle at what hour of the night the public-houses shall be closed, at what hour of the morning they shall be permitted to open, how soon it shall be lawful for people to eat their dinner on church-days, and other great political questions; and sometimes, long after silence has fallen on the town, and the distant lights from the shops and houses have ceased to twinkle, like far-off stars, to the sight of the boatmen on the river, the illumination in the two unequal-sized windows of the town-hall, warns the inhabitants of Mudfog that its little body of legislators, like a larger and better-known body of the same genus, a great deal more noisy, and not a whit more profound, are patriotically dozing away in company, far into the night, for their country’s good. Among this knot of sage and learned men, no one was so eminently distinguished, during many years, for the quiet modesty of his appearance and demeanour, as Nicholas Tulrumble, the well-known coal-dealer. However exciting the subject of discussion, however animated the tone of the debate, or however warm the personalities exchanged, (and even in Mudfog we get personal sometimes,) Nicholas Tulrumble was always the same. To say truth, Nicholas, being an industrious man, and always up betimes, was apt to fall asleep when a debate began, and to remain asleep till it was over, when he would wake up very much refreshed, and give his vote with the greatest complacency. The fact was, that Nicholas Tulrumble, knowing that everybody there, had made up his mind beforehand, considered the talking as just a long botheration about nothing at all; and to the present hour it remains a question, whether, on this point at all events, Nicholas Tulrumble was not pretty near right. Time, which strews a man’s head with silver, sometimes fills his pockets with gold. As he gradually performed one good office for Nicholas Tulrumble, he was obliging enough, not to omit the other. Nicholas began life in a wooden tenement of four feet square, with a capital of two and ninepence, and a stock in trade of three bushels and a-half of coals, exclusive of the large lump which hung, by way of sign-board, outside. Then he enlarged the shed, and kept a truck; then he left the shed, and the truck too, and started a donkey and a Mrs. Tulrumble; then he moved again and set up a cart; the cart was soon afterwards exchanged for a waggon; and so he went on, like his great predecessor Whittington—only without a cat for a partner—increasing in wealth and fame, until at last he gave up business altogether, and retired with Mrs. Tulrumble and family to Mudfog Hall, which he had himself erected, on something which he endeavoured to delude himself into the belief was a hill, about a quarter of a mile distant from the town of Mudfog. About this time, it began to be murmured in Mudfog that Nicholas Tulrumble was growing vain and haughty; that prosperity and success had corrupted the simplicity of his manners, and tainted the natural goodness of his heart; in short, that he was setting up for a public character, and a great gentleman, and affected to look down upon his old companions with compassion and contempt. Whether these reports were at the time well-founded, or not, certain it is that Mrs. Tulrumble very shortly afterwards started a four-wheel chaise, driven by a tall postilion in a yellow cap,—that Mr. Tulrumble junior took to smoking cigars, and calling the footman a “feller,”—and that Mr. Tulrumble from that time forth, was no more seen in his old seat in the chimney-corner of the Lighterman’s Arms at night. This looked bad; but, more than this, it began to be observed that Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble attended the corporation meetings more frequently than heretofore; that he no longer went to sleep as he had done for so many years, but propped his eyelids open with his two fore-fingers; that he read the newspapers by himself at home; and that he was in the habit of indulging abroad in distant and mysterious allusions to “masses of people,” and “the property of the country,” and “productive power,” and “the monied interest:” all of which denoted and proved that Nicholas Tulrumble was either mad, or worse; and it puzzled the good people of Mudfog amazingly. At length, about the middle of the month of October, Mr. Tulrumble and family went up to London; the middle of October being, as Mrs. Tulrumble informed her acquaintance in Mudfog, the very height of the fashionable season. Somehow or other, just about this time, despite the health-preserving air of Mudfog, the Mayor died. It was a most extraordinary circumstance; he had lived in Mudfog for eighty-five years. The corporation didn’t understand it at all; indeed it was with great difficulty that one old gentleman, who was a great stickler for forms, was dissuaded from proposing a vote of censure on such unaccountable conduct. Strange as it was, however, die he did, without taking the slightest notice of the corporation; and the corporation were imperatively called upon to elect his successor. So, they met for the purpose; and being very full of Nicholas Tulrumble just then, and Nicholas Tulrumble being a very important man, they elected him, and wrote off to London by the very next post to acquaint Nicholas Tulrumble with his new elevation. Now, it being November time, and Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble being in the capital, it fell out that he was present at the Lord Mayor’s show and dinner, at sight of the glory and splendour whereof, he, Mr. Tulrumble, was greatly mortified, inasmuch as the reflection would force itself on his mind, that, had he been born in London instead of in Mudfog, he might have been a Lord Mayor too, and have patronised the judges, and been affable to the Lord Chancellor, and friendly with the Premier, and coldly condescending to the Secretary to the Treasury, and have dined with a flag behind his back, and done a great many other acts and deeds which unto Lord Mayors of London peculiarly appertain.&amp;nbsp;The more he thought of the Lord Mayor, the more enviable a personage he seemed. To be a King was all very well; but what was the King to the Lord Mayor! When the King made a speech, everybody knew it was somebody else’s writing; whereas here was the Lord Mayor, talking away for half an hour—all out of his own head—amidst the enthusiastic applause of the whole company, while it was notorious that the King might talk to his parliament till he was black in the face without getting so much as a single cheer. As all these reflections passed through the mind of Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble, the Lord Mayor of London appeared to him the greatest sovereign on the face of the earth, beating the Emperor of Russia all to nothing, and leaving the Great Mogul immeasurably behind. Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble was pondering over these things, and inwardly cursing the fate which had pitched his coal-shed in Mudfog, when the letter of the corporation was put into his hand. A crimson flush mantled over his face as he read it, for visions of brightness were already dancing before his imagination. “My dear,” said Mr. Tulrumble to his wife, “they have elected me, Mayor of Mudfog.” “Lor-a-mussy!” said Mrs. Tulrumble: “why, what’s become of old Sniggs?” “The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble,” said Mr. Tulrumble sharply, for he by no means approved of the notion of unceremoniously designating a gentleman who had filled the high office of Mayor, as “old Sniggs,”—“The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble, is dead.” The communication was very unexpected; but Mrs. Tulrumble only ejaculated “Lor-a-mussy!” once again, as if a Mayor were a mere ordinary Christian, at which Mr. Tulrumble frowned gloomily. “What a pity ’tan’t in London, ain’t it?” said Mrs. Tulrumble, after a short pause; “what a pity ’tan’t in London, where you might have had a show.” “I might have a show in Mudfog, if I thought proper, I apprehend,” said Mr. Tulrumble mysteriously. “Lor! so you might, I declare,” replied Mrs. Tulrumble.“And a good one, too,” said Mr. Tulrumble. “Delightful!” exclaimed Mrs. Tulrumble. “One which would rather astonish the ignorant people down there,” said Mr. Tulrumble. “It would kill them with envy,” said Mrs. Tulrumble. So it was agreed that his Majesty’s lieges in Mudfog should be astonished with splendour, and slaughtered with envy, and that such a show should take place as had never been seen in that town, or in any other town before,—no, not even in London itself. On the very next day after the receipt of the letter, down came the tall postilion in a post-chaise,—not upon one of the horses, but inside—actually inside the chaise,—and, driving up to the very door of the town-hall, where the corporation were assembled, delivered a letter, written by the Lord knows who, and signed by Nicholas Tulrumble, in which Nicholas said, all through four sides of closely-written, gilt-edged, hot-pressed, Bath post letter-paper, that he responded to the call of his fellow-townsmen with feelings of heartfelt delight; that he accepted the arduous office which their confidence had imposed upon him; that they would never find him shrinking from the discharge of his duty; that he would endeavour to execute his functions with all that dignity which their magnitude and importance demanded; and a great deal more to the same effect. But even this was not all. The tall postilion produced from his right-hand top-boot, a damp copy of that afternoon’s number of the county paper; and there, in large type, running the whole length of the very first column, was a long address from Nicholas Tulrumble to the inhabitants of Mudfog, in which he said that he cheerfully complied with their requisition, and, in short, as if to prevent any mistake about the matter, told them over again what a grand fellow he meant to be, in very much the same terms as those in which he had already told them all about the matter in his letter. The corporation stared at one another very hard at all this, and then looked as if for explanation to the tall postilion, but as the tall postilion was intently contemplating the gold tassel on the top of his yellow cap, and could have afforded no explanation whatever, even if his thoughts had been entirely disengaged, they contented themselves with coughing very dubiously, and looking very grave. The tall postilion then delivered another letter, in which Nicholas Tulrumble informed the corporation, that he intended repairing to the town-hall, in grand state and gorgeous procession, on the Monday afternoon then next ensuing. At this, the corporation looked still more solemn; but, as the epistle wound up with a formal invitation to the whole body to dine with the Mayor on that day, at Mudfog Hall, Mudfog Hill, Mudfog, they began to see the fun of the thing directly, and sent back their compliments, and they’d be sure to come. Now there happened to be in Mudfog, as somehow or other there does happen to be, in almost every town in the British dominions, and perhaps in foreign dominions too—we think it very likely, but, being no great traveller, cannot distinctly say—there happened to be, in Mudfog a merry-tempered, pleasant-faced, good-for-nothing sort of vagabond, with an invincible dislike to manual labour, and an unconquerable attachment to strong beer and spirits, whom everybody knew, and nobody, except his wife, took the trouble to quarrel with, who inherited from his ancestors the appellation of Edward Twigger, and rejoiced in the&amp;nbsp;sobriquet&amp;nbsp;of Bottle-nosed Ned.&amp;nbsp;He was drunk upon the average once a day, and penitent upon an equally fair calculation once a month; and when he was penitent, he was invariably in the very last stage of maudlin intoxication. He was a ragged, roving, roaring kind of fellow, with a burly form, a sharp wit, and a ready head, and could turn his hand to anything when he chose to do it. He was by no means opposed to hard labour on principle, for he would work away at a cricket-match by the day together,—running, and catching, and batting, and bowling, and revelling in toil which would exhaust a galley-slave. He would have been invaluable to a fire-office; never was a man with such a natural taste for pumping engines, running up ladders, and throwing furniture out of two-pair-of-stairs’ windows: nor was this the only element in which he was at home; he was a humane society in himself, a portable drag, an animated life-preserver, and had saved more people, in his time, from drowning, than the Plymouth life-boat, or Captain Manby’s apparatus.&amp;nbsp;With all these qualifications, notwithstanding his dissipation, Bottle-nosed Ned was a general favourite; and the authorities of Mudfog, remembering his numerous services to the population, allowed him in return to get drunk in his own way, without the fear of stocks, fine, or imprisonment. He had a general licence, and he showed his sense of the compliment by making the most of it. We have been thus particular in describing the character and avocations of Bottle-nosed Ned, because it enables us to introduce a fact politely, without hauling it into the reader’s presence with indecent haste by the head and shoulders, and brings us very naturally to relate, that on the very same evening on which Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble and family returned to Mudfog, Mr. Tulrumble’s new secretary, just imported from London, with a pale face and light whiskers, thrust his head down to the very bottom of his neckcloth-tie, in at the tap-room door of the Lighterman’s Arms, and enquiring whether one Ned Twigger was luxuriating within, announced himself as the bearer of a message from Nicholas Tulrumble, Esquire, requiring Mr. Twigger’s immediate attendance at the hall, on private and particular business. It being by no means Mr. Twigger’s interest to affront the Mayor, he rose from the fire-place with a slight sigh, and followed the light-whiskered secretary through the dirt and wet of Mudfog streets, up to Mudfog Hall, without further ado. Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble was seated in a small cavern with a skylight, which he called his library, sketching out a plan of the procession on a large sheet of paper; and into the cavern the secretary ushered Ned Twigger. “Well, Twigger!” said Nicholas Tulrumble, condescendingly. There was a time when Twigger would have replied, “Well, Nick!” but that was in the days of the truck, and a couple of years before the donkey; so, he only bowed. “I want you to go into training, Twigger,” said Mr. Tulrumble. “What for, sir?” enquired Ned, with a stare. “Hush, hush, Twigger!” said the Mayor. “Shut the door, Mr. Jennings. Look here, Twigger.” As the Mayor said this, he unlocked a high closet, and disclosed a complete suit of brass armour, of gigantic dimensions. “I want you to wear this, next Monday, Twigger,” said the Mayor. “Bless your heart and soul, sir!” replied Ned, “you might as well ask me to wear a seventy-four pounder, or a cast-iron boiler.” “Nonsense, Twigger! nonsense!” said the Mayor. “I couldn’t stand under it, sir,” said Twigger; “it would make mashed potatoes of me, if I attempted it.” “Pooh, pooh, Twigger!” returned the Mayor. “I tell you I have seen it done with my own eyes, in London, and the man wasn’t half such a man as you are, either.” “I should as soon have thought of a man’s wearing the case of an eight-day clock to save his linen,” said Twigger, casting a look of apprehension at the brass suit. “It’s the easiest thing in the world,” rejoined the Mayor. “It’s nothing,” said Mr. Jennings. “When you’re used to it,” added Ned. “You do it by degrees,” said the Mayor. “You would begin with one piece to-morrow, and two the next day, and so on, till you had got it all on. Mr. Jennings, give Twigger a glass of rum. Just try the breast-plate, Twigger. Stay; take another glass of rum first. Help me to lift it, Mr. Jennings. Stand firm, Twigger! There!—it isn’t half as heavy as it looks, is it?” Twigger was a good strong, stout fellow; so, after a great deal of staggering, he managed to keep himself up, under the breast-plate, and even contrived, with the aid of another glass of rum, to walk about in it, and the gauntlets into the bargain. He made a trial of the helmet, but was not equally successful, inasmuch as he tipped over instantly,—an accident which Mr. Tulrumble clearly demonstrated to be occasioned by his not having a counteracting weight of brass on his legs. “Now, wear that with grace and propriety on Monday next,” said Tulrumble, “and I’ll make your fortune.” “I’ll try what I can do, sir,” said Twigger. “It must be kept a profound secret,” said Tulrumble. “Of course, sir,” replied Twigger. “And you must be sober,” said Tulrumble; “perfectly sober.” Mr. Twigger at once solemnly pledged himself to be as sober as a judge, and Nicholas Tulrumble was satisfied, although, had we been Nicholas, we should certainly have exacted some promise of a more specific nature; inasmuch as, having attended the Mudfog assizes in the evening more than once, we can solemnly testify to having seen judges with very strong symptoms of dinner under their wigs. However, that’s neither here nor there. The next day, and the day following, and the day after that, Ned Twigger was securely locked up in the small cavern with the skylight, hard at work at the armour. With every additional piece he could manage to stand upright in, he had an additional glass of rum; and at last, after many partial suffocations, he contrived to get on the whole suit, and to stagger up and down the room in it, like an intoxicated effigy from Westminster Abbey. Never was man so delighted as Nicholas Tulrumble; never was woman so charmed as Nicholas Tulrumble’s wife. Here was a sight for the common people of Mudfog! A live man in brass armour! Why, they would go wild with wonder! The day—the&amp;nbsp;Monday—arrived. If the morning had been made to order, it couldn’t have been better adapted to the purpose. They never showed a better fog in London on Lord Mayor’s day, than enwrapped the town of Mudfog on that eventful occasion. It had risen slowly and surely from the green and stagnant water with the first light of morning, until it reached a little above the lamp-post tops; and there it had stopped, with a sleepy, sluggish obstinacy, which bade defiance to the sun, who had got up very blood-shot about the eyes, as if he had been at a drinking-party over night, and was doing his day’s work with the worst possible grace. The thick damp mist hung over the town like a huge gauze curtain. All was dim and dismal. The church-steeples had bidden a temporary adieu to the world below; and every object of lesser importance—houses, barns, hedges, trees, and barges—had all taken the veil. The church-clock struck one. A cracked trumpet from the front-garden of Mudfog Hall produced a feeble flourish, as if some asthmatic person had coughed into it accidentally; the gate flew open, and out came a gentleman, on a moist-sugar coloured charger, intended to represent a herald, but bearing a much stronger resemblance to a court-card on horseback.&amp;nbsp;This was one of the Circus people, who always came down to Mudfog at that time of the year, and who had been engaged by Nicholas Tulrumble expressly for the occasion. There was the horse, whisking his tail about, balancing himself on his hind-legs, and flourishing away with his fore-feet, in a manner which would have gone to the hearts and souls of any reasonable crowd. But a Mudfog crowd never was a reasonable one, and in all probability never will be. Instead of scattering the very fog with their shouts, as they ought most indubitably to have done, and were fully intended to do, by Nicholas Tulrumble, they no sooner recognised the herald, than they began to growl forth the most unqualified disapprobation at the bare notion of his riding like any other man. If he had come out on his head indeed, or jumping through a hoop, or flying through a red-hot drum, or even standing on one leg with his other foot in his mouth, they might have had something to say to him; but for a professional gentleman to sit astride in the saddle, with his feet in the stirrups, was rather too good a joke. So, the herald was a decided failure, and the crowd hooted with great energy, as he pranced ingloriously away. On the procession came. We are afraid to say how many supernumeraries there were, in striped shirts and black velvet caps, to imitate the London watermen, or how many base imitations of running-footmen, or how many banners, which, owing to the heaviness of the atmosphere, could by no means be prevailed on to display their inscriptions: still less do we feel disposed to relate how the men who played the wind instruments, looking up into the sky (we mean the fog) with musical fervour, walked through pools of water and hillocks of mud, till they covered the powdered heads of the running-footmen aforesaid with splashes, that looked curious, but not ornamental; or how the barrel-organ performer put on the wrong stop, and played one tune while the band played another; or how the horses, being used to the arena, and not to the streets, would stand still and dance, instead of going on and prancing;—all of which are matters which might be dilated upon to great advantage, but which we have not the least intention of dilating upon, notwithstanding. Oh! it was a grand and beautiful sight to behold the corporation in glass coaches, provided at the sole cost and charge of Nicholas Tulrumble, coming rolling along, like a funeral out of mourning, and to watch the attempts the corporation made to look great and solemn, when Nicholas Tulrumble himself, in the four-wheel chaise, with the tall postilion, rolled out after them, with Mr. Jennings on one side to look like the chaplain, and a supernumerary on the other, with an old life-guardsman’s sabre, to imitate the sword-bearer; and to see the tears rolling down the faces of the mob as they screamed with merriment. This was beautiful! and so was the appearance of Mrs. Tulrumble and son, as they bowed with grave dignity out of their coach-window to all the dirty faces that were laughing around them: but it is not even with this that we have to do, but with the sudden stopping of the procession at another blast of the trumpet, whereat, and whereupon, a profound silence ensued, and all eyes were turned towards Mudfog Hall, in the confident anticipation of some new wonder. “They won’t laugh now, Mr. Jennings,” said Nicholas Tulrumble. “I think not, sir,” said Mr. Jennings. “See how eager they look,” said Nicholas Tulrumble. “Aha! the laugh will be on our side now; eh, Mr. Jennings?” “No doubt of that, sir,” replied Mr. Jennings; and Nicholas Tulrumble, in a state of pleasurable excitement, stood up in the four-wheel chaise, and telegraphed gratification to the Mayoress behind. While all this was going forward, Ned Twigger had descended into the kitchen of Mudfog Hall for the purpose of indulging the servants with a private view of the curiosity that was to burst upon the town; and, somehow or other, the footman was so companionable, and the housemaid so kind, and the cook so friendly, that he could not resist the offer of the first-mentioned to sit down and take something—just to drink success to master in. So, down Ned Twigger sat himself in his brass livery on the top of the kitchen-table; and in a mug of something strong, paid for the by unconscious Nicholas Tulrumble, and provided by the companionable footman, drank success to the Mayor and his procession; and, as Ned laid by his helmet to imbibe the something strong, the companionable footman put it on his own head, to the immeasurable and unrecordable delight of the cook and housemaid. The companionable footman was very facetious to Ned, and Ned was very gallant to the cook and housemaid by turns. They were all very cosy and comfortable; and the something strong went briskly round. At last Ned Twigger was loudly called for, by the procession people: and, having had his helmet fixed on, in a very complicated manner, by the companionable footman, and the kind housemaid, and the friendly cook, he walked gravely forth, and appeared before the multitude. The crowd roared—it was not with wonder, it was not with surprise; it was most decidedly and unquestionably with laughter. “What!” said Mr. Tulrumble, starting up in the four-wheel chaise. “Laughing? If they laugh at a man in real brass armour, they’d laugh when their own fathers were dying. Why doesn’t he go into his place, Mr. Jennings? What’s he rolling down towards us for?—he has no business here!” “I am afraid, sir —” faltered Mr. Jennings. “Afraid of what, sir?” said Nicholas Tulrumble, looking up into the secretary’s face. “I am afraid he’s drunk, sir;” replied Mr. Jennings. Nicholas Tulrumble took one look at the extraordinary figure that was bearing down upon them; and then, clasping his secretary by the arm, uttered an audible groan in anguish of spirit. It is a melancholy fact that Mr. Twigger having full licence to demand a single glass of rum on the putting on of every piece of the armour, got, by some means or other, rather out in his calculation in the hurry and confusion of preparation, and drank about four glasses to a piece instead of one, not to mention the something strong which went on the top of it. Whether the brass armour checked the natural flow of perspiration, and thus prevented the spirit from evaporating, we are not scientific enough to know; but, whatever the cause was, Mr. Twigger no sooner found himself outside the gate of Mudfog Hall, than he also found himself in a very considerable state of intoxication; and hence his extraordinary style of progressing. This was bad enough, but, as if fate and fortune had conspired against Nicholas Tulrumble, Mr. Twigger, not having been penitent for a good calendar month, took it into his head to be most especially and particularly sentimental, just when his repentance could have been most conveniently dispensed with. Immense tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he was vainly endeavouring to conceal his grief by applying to his eyes a blue cotton pocket-handkerchief with white spots,— an article not strictly in keeping with a suit of armour some three hundred years old, or thereabouts. “Twigger, you villain!” said Nicholas Tulrumble, quite forgetting his dignity, “go back!” “Never,” said Ned. “I’m a miserable wretch. I’ll never leave you.” The by-standers of course received this declaration with acclamations of “That’s right, Ned; don’t!” “I don’t intend it,” said Ned, with all the obstinacy of a very tipsy man. “I’m very unhappy. I’m the wretched father of an unfortunate family; but I am very faithful, sir. I’ll never leave you.” Having reiterated this obliging promise, Ned proceeded in broken words to harangue the crowd upon the number of years he had lived in Mudfog, the excessive respectability of his character, and other topics of the like nature. “Here! will anybody lead him away?” said Nicholas: “if they’ll call on me afterwards, I’ll reward them well.” Two or three men stepped forward, with the view of bearing Ned off, when the secretary interposed. “Take care! take care!” said Mr. Jennings. “I beg your pardon, sir; but they’d better not go too near him, because, if he falls over, he’ll certainly crush somebody.” At this hint the crowd retired on all sides to a very respectful distance, and left Ned, like the Duke of Devonshire, in a little circle of his own. “But, Mr. Jennings,” said Nicholas Tulrumble, “he’ll be suffocated.” “I’m very sorry for it, sir,” replied Mr. Jennings; “but nobody can get that armour off, without his own assistance. I’m quite certain of it, from the way he put it on.” Here Ned wept dolefully, and shook his helmeted head, in a manner that might have touched a heart of stone; but the crowd had not hearts of stone, and they laughed heartily. “Dear me, Mr. Jennings,” said Nicholas, turning pale at the possibility of Ned’s being smothered in his antique costume—“Dear me, Mr. Jennings, can nothing be done with him?” “Nothing at all,” replied Ned, “nothing at all. Gentlemen, I’m an unhappy wretch. I’m a body, gentlemen, in a brass coffin.” At this poetical idea of his own conjuring up, Ned cried so much that the people began to get sympathetic, and to ask what Nicholas Tulrumble meant by putting a man into such a machine as that; and one individual in a hairy waistcoat like the top of a trunk, who had previously expressed his opinion that if Ned hadn’t been a poor man, Nicholas wouldn’t have dared to do it, hinted at the propriety of breaking the four-wheel chaise, or Nicholas’s head, or both, which last compound proposition the crowd seemed to consider a very good notion. It was not acted upon, however, for it had hardly been broached, when Ned Twigger’s wife made her appearance abruptly in the little circle before noticed, and Ned no sooner caught a glimpse of her face and form, than from the mere force of habit he set off towards his home just as fast as his legs would carry him; and that was not very quick in the present instance either, for, however ready they might have been to carry &#039;&#039;him&#039;&#039;, they couldn’t get on very well under the brass armour. So, Mrs. Twigger had plenty of time to denounce Nicholas Tulrumble to his face: to express her opinion that he was a decided monster; and to intimate that, if her ill-used husband sustained any personal damage from the brass armour, she would have the law of Nicholas Tulrumble for manslaughter. When she had said all this with due vehemence, she posted after Ned, who was dragging himself along as best he could, and deploring his unhappiness in most dismal tones. What a wailing and screaming Ned’s children raised when he got home at last! Mrs. Twigger tried to undo the armour, first in one place, and then in another, but she couldn’t manage it; so she tumbled Ned into bed, helmet, armour, gauntlets, and all. Such a creaking as the bedstead made, under Ned’s weight in his new suit! It didn’t break down though; and there Ned lay, like the anonymous vessel in the Bay of Biscay, till next day, drinking barley-water, and looking miserable: and every time he groaned, his good lady said it served him right, which was all the consolation Ned Twigger got. Nicholas Tulrumble and the gorgeous procession went on together to the town-hall, amid the hisses and groans of all the spectators, who had suddenly taken it into their heads to consider poor Ned a martyr. Nicholas was formally installed in his new office, in acknowledgment of which ceremony he delivered himself of a speech, composed by the secretary, which was very long, and no doubt very good, only the noise of the people outside prevented anybody from hearing it, but Nicholas Tulrumble himself. After which, the procession got back to Mudfog Hall any how it could; and Nicholas and the corporation sat down to dinner. But the dinner was flat, and Nicholas was disappointed. They were such dull sleepy old fellows, that corporation. Nicholas made quite as long speeches as the Lord Mayor of London had done, nay, he said the very same things that the Lord Mayor of London had said, and the deuce a cheer the corporation gave him. There was only one man in the party who was thoroughly awake; and he was insolent, and called him Nick. Nick! What would be the consequence, thought Nicholas, of anybody presuming to call the Lord Mayor of London “Nick!” He should like to know what the sword-bearer would say to that; or the recorder, or the toast-master, or any other of the great officers of the city. They’d nick him. But these were not the worst of Nicholas Tulrumble’s doings; If they had been, he might have remained a Mayor to this day, and have talked till he lost his voice. He contracted a relish for statistics, and got philosophical; and the statistics and the philosophy together, led him into an act which increased his unpopularity and hastened his downfall. At the very end of the Mudfog High-street, and abutting on the river-side, stands the Jolly Boatmen, an old-fashioned, low-roofed, bay-windowed house, with a bar, kitchen, and tap-room all in one, and a large fire-place with a kettle to correspond, round which the working men have congregated time out of mind on a winter’s night, refreshed by draughts of good strong beer, and cheered by the sounds of a fiddle and tambourine: the Jolly Boatmen having been duly licensed by the Mayor and corporation, to scrape the fiddle and thumb the tambourine from time, whereof the memory of the oldest inhabitants goeth not to the contrary. Now Nicholas Tulrumble had been reading pamphlets on crime, and parliamentary reports,— or had made the secretary read them to him, which is the same thing in effect,—and he at once perceived that this fiddle and tambourine must have done more to demoralize Mudfog, than any other operating causes that ingenuity could imagine. So he read up for the subject, and determined to come out on the corporation with a burst, the very next time the licence was applied for. The licensing day came, and the red-faced landlord of the Jolly Boatmen, walked into the town-hall, looking as jolly as need be, having actually put on an extra fiddle for that night, to commemorate the anniversary of the Jolly Boatmen’s music licence. It was applied for in due form, and was just about to be granted as a matter of course, when up rose Nicholas Tulrumble, and drowned the astonished corporation in a torrent of eloquence. He descanted in glowing terms upon the increasing depravity of his native town of Mudfog, and the excesses committed by its population. Then, he related how shocked he had been, to see barrels of beer sliding down into the cellar of the Jolly Boatmen week after week; and how he had sat at a window opposite the Jolly Boatmen for two days together, to count the people who went in for beer between the hours of twelve and one o’clock alone—which, by-the-bye, was the time at which the great majority of the Mudfog people dined. Then, he went on to state, how the number of people who came out with beer-jugs, averaged twenty-one in five minutes, which, being multiplied by twelve, gave two hundred and fifty-two people with beer-jugs in an hour, and multiplied again by fifteen (the number of hours during which the house was open daily) yielded three thousand seven hundred and eighty people with beer-jugs per day, or twenty-six thousand four hundred and sixty people with beer-jugs, per week. Then he proceeded to show that a tambourine and moral degradation were synonymous terms, and a fiddle and vicious propensities wholly inseparable. All these arguments he strengthened and demonstrated by frequent references to a large book with a blue cover, and sundry quotations from the Middlesex magistrates; and in the end, the corporation, who were posed with the figures, and sleepy with the speech, and sadly in want of dinner into the bargain, yielded the palm to Nicholas Tulrumble, and refused the music licence to the Jolly Boatmen. But although Nicholas triumphed, his triumph was short. He carried on the war against beer-jugs and fiddles, forgetting the time when he was glad to drink out of the one, and to dance to the other, till the people hated, and his old friends shunned him. He grew tired of the lonely magnificence of Mudfog Hall, and his heart yearned towards the Lighterman’s Arms. He wished he had never set up as a public man, and sighed for the good old times of the coal-shop, and the chimney-corner. At length old Nicholas, being thoroughly miserable, took heart of grace, paid the secretary a quarter’s wages in advance, and packed him off to London by the next coach. Having taken this step, he put his hat on his head, and his pride in his pocket, and walked down to the old room at the Lighterman’s Arms. There were only two of the old fellows there, and they looked coldly on Nicholas as he proffered his hand. “Are you going to put down pipes, Mr. Tulrumble?” said one. “Or trace the progress of crime to ’baccer?”&amp;nbsp;growled the other. “Neither,” replied Nicholas Tulrumble, shaking hands with them both, whether they would or not. “I’ve come down to say that I’m very sorry for having made a fool of myself, and that I hope you’ll give me up, the old chair, again.” The old fellows opened their eyes, and three or four more old fellows opened the door, to whom Nicholas, with tears in his eyes, thrust out his hand too, and told the same story. They raised a shout of joy, that made the bells in the ancient church-tower vibrate again, and wheeling the old chair into the warm corner, thrust old Nicholas down into it, and ordered in the very largest-sized bowl of hot punch, with an unlimited number of pipes, directly. The next day, the Jolly Boatmen got the licence, and the next night, old Nicholas and Ned Twigger’s wife led off a dance to the music of the fiddle and tambourine, the tone of which seemed mightily improved by a little rest, for they never had played so merrily before. Ned Twigger was in the very height of his glory, and he danced hornpipes, and balanced chairs on his chin, and straws on his nose, till the whole company, including the corporation, were in raptures of admiration at the brilliancy of his acquirements. Mr. Tulrumble, junior, couldn’t make up his mind to be anything but magnificent, so he went up to London and drew bills on his father; and when he had overdrawn, and got into debt, he grew penitent and came home again. As to old Nicholas, he kept his word, and having had six weeks of public life, never tried it any more. He went to sleep in the town-hall at the very next meeting; and, in full proof of his sincerity, has requested us to write this faithful narrative. We wish it could have the effect of reminding the Tulrumbles of another sphere, that puffed-up conceit is not dignity, and that snarling at the little pleasures they were once glad to enjoy, because they would rather forget the times when they were of lower station, renders them objects of contempt and ridicule. This is the first time we have published any of our gleanings from this particular source. Perhaps, at some future period, we may venture to open the chronicles of Mudfog.18370101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Public_Life_of_Mr._Tulrumble_Once_Mayor_of_Mudfog/1837-01-Public_Life_Tulrumble.pdf
31https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/31'Quartette'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah, p.12.Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></p>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Quartette<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Quartette.' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): p.12. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Quartette">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Quartette</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Quartette.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Quartette.' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts">The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</a>Squire. Hear me, when I swear that the farm is your own Through all changes Fortune may make; The base charge of falsehood I never have known; This promise I never will break. Rose and Lucy. Hear him, when he swears that the farm is our own Through all changes Fortune may make; The base charge of falsehood he never has known; This promise he never will break. Enter YOUNG BENSON. Young Benson. My sister here! Lucy! begone, I command. Squire. To your home I restore you again. Young Benson. No boon I’ll accept from that treacherous hand As the price of my fair sister’s fame. Squire. To your home! Young B. (To Lucy.) Hence away! Lucy. Brother dear, I obey. Squire. I restore. Young B. Hence away! Young B. Rose and Lucy. Let us leave. Lucy. He swears it, dear brother. Squire. I swear it. Young B. Away! Squire. I swear it. Young B. You swear to deceive. Squire. Hear me, when I swear that the farm is your own Through all the changes Fortune may make. Lucy and Rose. Hear him, when he swears that the farm is our own Through all changes Fortune may make. Young B. Hear him swear, hear him swear, that the farm is our own Through all changes Fortune may make. Squire. The base charge of falsehood I never have known, This promise I never will break. Lucy and Rose. The base charge of falsehood he never has known, This promise he never will break. Young B. The base charge of falsehood he often has known, This promise he surely will break.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Quartette/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Quartette.pdf
21https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/21'Romance'From <em>The Pickwick Papers,</em> Chapter 43, Number 15 (June 1837).Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. </i>Issue 15, Chapter 43 (June 1837), p. 464. <i>UVic Libraries, </i><a href="https://vault.library.uvic.ca/concern/file_sets/93a0e9d2-e383-4c75-88eb-a6cdb9d29cac?locale=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://vault.library.uvic.ca/concern/file_sets/93a0e9d2-e383-4c75-88eb-a6cdb9d29cac?locale=en</a>.</p>Chapman and Hall<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837-06">1837-06</a><p class="p1"><i>UVic Libraries, </i>Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial, <span class="s1"><a href="https://creativecommons.org/lice%20nses/by-nc/4.0/&nbsp;" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://creativecommons.org/lice nses/by-nc/4.0/</a><span class="Apple-converted-space">.</span></span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1837-06-Pickwick_Papers_Romance<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Romance' from <i>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. </i>Chapter 43, Number 15 (June 1837), p. 464. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1837-06-Pickwick_Papers_Romance">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1837-06-Pickwick_Papers_Romance</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1837-06_Pickwick_Papers_Romance.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Romance.' <em>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club</em>. Issue 15, Chapter 43 (June 1837): p. 464.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Serial">Serial</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Pickwick+Papers%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Pickwick Papers</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Bold Turpin vunce, on Hounslow Heath, His bold mare Bess bestrode – er; Ven there he see’d the Bishop’s coach A-comin’ along the road – er.  So he gallops close to the ‘orse’s legs, And he claps his head vithin; And the Bishop says, &quot;Sure as eggs is eggs, This here’s the bold Turpin!” (CHORUS.) And the Bishop says, &quot;Sure as eggs is eggs, This here’s the bold Turpin!&quot; Says Turpin, &quot;You shall eat your words, With a sarse of leaden bul’let;&quot; So he puts a pistol to his mouth, And he fires it down his gul-let. The coachman, he not likin’ the job, Set off at a full gal-lop, But Dick put a couple of balls in his nob, And perwailed on him to stop. (CHORUS sarcastically.) But Dick put a couple of balls in his nob, And perwailed on him to stop.18370601https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Romance/1837-06-Pickwick_Papers_Romance.pdf
26https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/26'Rose's Song'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah, p.6.Dickens, Charles<i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Roses_Song<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Rose's Song.' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): p.6. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Roses_Song">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Roses_Song</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Roses_Song.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Rose's Song.' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em></a>Some folks who have grown old and sour, Say love does nothing but annoy. The fact is, they have had their hour, So envy what they can’t enjoy. I like the glance – I like the sigh – That does of ardent passion tell! If some folks were as young as I, I’m sure they’d like it quite as well. Old maiden aunts so hate the men, So well know how wives are harried, It makes them sad – not jealous – when They see their poor dear nieces married. All men are fair and false, they know, And with deep sighs they assail ‘em, It’s so long since they tried men, though, I rather think their mem’ries fail ‘em.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Rose_s_Song/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Roses_Song.pdf
22https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/22'Round'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah, p.3.Dickens, Charles<em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836). London: John Dicks.; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Round<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Round.' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): p. 3. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Round">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Round</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Round.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Round.' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836): p. 3.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em></a>Hail to the merry Autumn days, when yellow corn-fields shine, Far brighter than the costly cup, that holds the monarch’s wine! Hail to the merry harvest time, the gayest of the year, The time of rich and bounteous crops, rejoicing, and good cheer! ‘Tis pleasant on a fine Spring morn, to see the buds expand, ‘Tis pleasant in the Summer time, to view the teeming land; ‘Tis pleasant on a Winter’s night, to crouch around the blaze, But what are joys like these, my boys, to Autumn’s merry days! Then hail to merry Autumn days, when yellow corn-fields shine, Far brighter than the costly cup that holds the monarch’s wine! And hail to merry harvest time, the gayest of the year, The time of rich and bounteous crops, rejoicing, and good cheer!18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Round/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Round.pdf
60https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/60'Sentiment'Published in <em>The Magazine of the Beau Monde</em> (1 September 1836), pp. 122-126.Dickens, Charles<em>The Magazine of the Beau Monde,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Magazine_of_the_beau_monde_or_Monthl/piYGAAAAQAAJ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Magazine_of_the_beau_monde_or_Monthl/piYGAAAAQAAJ.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-09-01">1836-09-01</a><p>Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1836-09-01_The_Magazine_of_the_Beau_Monde_SentimentDickens, Charles. 'Sentiment' (1 September 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-09-01_The_Magazine_of_the_Beau_Monde_Sentiment">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-09-01_The_Magazine_of_the_Beau_Monde_Sentiment</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836-09-01_The_Magazine_of_the_Beau_Monde_Sentiment.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sentiment.' <em>The Magazine of the Beau Monde</em> (1 September 1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Magazine+of+the+Beau+Monde%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Magazine of the Beau Monde</em></a>The Miss Crumptons, or to quote the authority of the inscription on the garden-gate of Minerva House, Hammersmith—&quot;The Misses Crumpton&quot; were two unusually tall, particularly thin, and exceedingly skinny personages— very upright and very yellow. Miss Amelia Crumpton owned to thirty-eight, and Miss Maria Crumpton admitted she was forty—an admission which was rendered perfectly unnecessary by the self-evident fact of her being fifty at least. They dressed in the most interesting manner—like twins, and looks about as happy and comfortable as a couple of marigolds run to seed. They were very precise, had the strictest possible ideas of propriety, wore false hair, and always smelt very strongly of lavender. Minerva House, conducted under the auspices of the two sisters, was a &quot;finishing establishment for young ladies,&quot; where some twenty girls of the ages of from thirteen to nineteen inclusive, acquired a smattering of everything, and a knowledge of nothing; instruction in French and Italian, dancing lessons twice a week, and other necessaries of life. The house was a white one, a little removed from the road side, with close palings in front. The bed-room windows were always left partly open to afford a bird&#039;s eye view of numerous little bedsteads, with very white dimity furniture, and thereby impress the passer-by with a due sense of the luxuries of the establishment; and there was a front parlour hung round with highly varnished maps, which nobody ever looked at, and filled with books which no one ever read, appropriated exclusively to the reception of parents, who whenever they called, could not fail to be struck with the very knowledge-imparting appearance of the place. &quot;Amelia, my dear,&quot; said Miss Maria Crumpton, entering the school room, with her false hair in papers, as she occasionally did, in order to impress the young ladies with a conviction of its reality—&quot;Amelia, my dear, here&#039;s a most gratifying note I have just received. You needn&#039;t mind reading it aloud.&quot; Miss Amelia thus advised, proceeded to read the following note, with an air of great triumph. &quot;Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq. M.P. presents his compliments to Miss Crumpton, and will feel much obliged by Miss Crumpton&#039;s calling on him, if she conveniently can, to morrow morning at one o&#039;clock, as Cornelius Brook Dingall, Esq. M.P. is anxious to see Miss Crumpton on the subject of placing Miss Brook Dingwall under her charge. &quot;Adelphi. &quot;Monday morning.&quot; &quot;A Member of Parliament&#039;s daughter!&quot; ejaculated Amelia in an ecstatic tone. &quot;A Member of Parliament&#039;s daughter!&quot; repeated Miss Maria with a smile of delight, which of course, forthwith elicited a concurrent titter of pleasure from all the young ladies. &quot;Its exceedingly delightful,&quot; said Miss Amelia, whereupon all the young ladies murmured their admiration again. Courtiers are but schoolboys multiplied by fifty. So important an announcement at once superseded the business of the day. A holiday was declared in commemoration of the greatevent: the Miss Crumptons retired to their private apartment to talk it over; the smaller girls discussed the probable manners and customs of the daughter of a Member of Parliament, and the young ladies verging on eighteen, wondered whether she was engaged, whether she was pretty, whether she wore much bustle, and many other whethers of equal importance. The two Miss Crumptons proceeded to the Adelphi at the appointed time next day, dressed, of course, in their best style, and looking as amiable as they possibly could—which, by-the-bye, is not saying much for them. Having sent in their cards through the medium of a red-hot looking footman in bright livery, they were ushered into the august presence of the profound Dingwall. Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., M.P. was very haughty, solemn, and portentous. He had naturally a somewhat spasmodic expression of countenance, which was not rendered the less remarkable by his wearing an extremely stiff cravat. He was wonderfully proud of the &quot;M.P.,&quot; attached to his name, and never lost an opportunity of reminding people of his dignity. He had a great idea of his own abilities, which must have been a great comfort to him, as no one else had; and in diplomacy, on a small scale in his own family arrangements, he considered himself unrivalled. He was a country magistrate, and discharged the duties of his station with all due justice and impartiality, frequently committing poachers, and occasionally committing himself. Miss Brook Dingwall was one of that numerous class of young ladies, who, like adverbs may be known by their answering to a common-place question, and doing nothing else. On the present occasion this talented individual was seated in a small library at a table covered with papers, doing nothing; but trying to look busy—playing at shop. Acts of Parliament, and letters directed to &quot;Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq. M.P.,&quot; were ostentatiously scattered over the table, at a little distance from which, Mrs. Brook Dingwall was seated at work. One of those public nuisances, a spoiled child, was playing about the room, dressed after the most approved fashion, in a blue tunic with a black belt a quarter of a yard wide, fastened with an immense buckle, and looking like a robber in a Melo-Drama, seen through a diminishing glass. After a little pleasantry from the sweet child, who amused himself by running away with Miss Maria Crumpton&#039;s chair as fast as it was placed for her, the visitors were seated, and Cornelius Brook Dingwall Esq. opened the conversation. He had sent for Miss Crumpton, he said, in consequence of the high character he had received of her establishment from his friend Sir Alfred Muggs. Miss Crumpton murmured her acknowledgments to him (Muggs) and Cornelius proceeded. &quot;One of my principal reasons Miss Crumpton for parting with my daughter is, that she has lately acquired some false sentimental sort of ideas which it is most desirable to eradicate from her young mind.&quot; (Here the little innocent before-noticed, fell out of an arm chair with an awful crash.) &quot;Naughty boy,&quot; said his mamma, who appeared more surprised at his taking the liberty of falling down, than at anything else, &quot;I&#039;ll ring the bell for James to take him away.&quot; &quot;Pray don&#039;t check him, my love,&quot; said the diplomatist, as soon as he could make himself heard amidst the unearthly howling, consequent upon the threat and the tumble. &quot;It all arises from his great flow of spirits.&quot; This last explanation was addressed to Miss Crumpton. &quot;Certainly, Sir,&quot; replied the antique Maria, not exactly seeing, however, the connection between a flow of animal spirits, and a fall from an arm chair. Silence was restored, and the M.P. resumed: &quot;Now I know nothing so likely to effect this object, Miss Crumpton, as her mixing constantly in the society of girls of her own age; and as I know that in your establishment she will meet such as are not likely to contaminate her young mind, I propose to send her to you.&quot; The youngest Miss Crumpton expressed the acknowledgements of the establishment generally. Maria was rendered perfectly speechless by bodily pain—the dear little fellow having recovered his spirits, was standing upon her most tender foot, by way of getting his face (which looked like a capital O in a red-lettered play-bill) on a level with the writing-table. &quot;Of course Lavinia will be a parlour boarder,&quot; continued the enviable father; &quot;and on one point I wish my directions to be strictly observed. The fact is, that some ridiculous love affair with a person much her inferior in life has been the case of her present state of mind. Knowing that of course under your care she can have no opportunity of meeting this person, I do not object to—indeed, I should rather prefer—her joining in such society as you see yourself,&quot; The important statement was again interrupted by the high-spirited little creature, in the excess of his joyousness, breaking a pane of glass, and nearly precipitating himself into an adjacent area. James was rung for; considerable confusion and screaming succeeded, two little blue legs, about the size of hoopsticks, were seen to kick violently in the air, as the man left the room, and the child was gone. &quot;Mr. Brook Dingwall would like Miss Brook Dingwall to learn everything,&quot; said Mrs. Brook Dingwall, who hardly ever said any thing at all. &quot;Certainly.&quot; said both the Miss Crumptons together. &quot;And as I trust the plan I have devised will be effectual in weaning my daughter from this absurd idea, Miss Crumpton,&quot; continued the legislator, &quot;I hope you will have the goodness to comply in all respects with any request I may forward to you.&quot; The promise was of course made, and after a lengthened discussion, conducted on behalf of the Dingwall&#039;s with the most becoming diplomatic gravity, and on that of the Crumpton&#039;s with profound respect, it was finally arranged that Miss Lavinia should be forwarded to Hammersmith on the next day but one; on which occasion the half-yearly ball given at the establishment was to take place. It might divert the dear girl&#039;s mind. This, by the way, was another bit of diplomacy. Miss Lavinia was forthwith introduced to her future governesses, and both the Miss Crumpton&#039;s pronounced her &quot;a most charming girl,&quot; an opinion which, by a singular coincidence, they always entertained of any new pupil. Curtsies were made, acknowledgements expressed, condescension exhibited; and the interview terminated. Preparations, to make use of theatrical phraseology, &quot;on a scale of magnitude never before attempted,&quot; were incessantly made at Minerva House, to give every effect to the forthcoming ball. The largest room in the house was pleasingly ornamented with blue calico roses, plaid tulips, and other equally natural-looking artificial flowers, the work of the young ladies themselves. The carpet was taken up; the folding-doors were taken door; the furniture was taken out, and rout seats taken in. The linen-drapers of Hammersmith were astounded at the sudden demand for blue sarsnet ribbon, and long white gloves. Dozens of geraniums were purchased for bouquets, and a harp and two violins were bespoke from town, in addition to the grand-piano already on the premises. The young ladies who were selected to show off &quot;on the occasion,&quot; and do credit to the establishment, practised unceasingly, much to their own satisfaction, and greatly to the annoyance of the lame old gentleman over the way; and a constant correspondence was kept up with the Misses Crumpton and the Hammersmith pastry cook. The evening came: and then there was such a lacing of stays, and tying of sandals, and dressing of hair, as never can take place with a proper degree of bustle out of a boarding-school. The smaller girls managed to be in everybody&#039;s way, and were pushed about accordingly, and the elder ones dressed, and tied, and flattered, and envied one another as earnestly and sincerely as if they had actually come out. &quot;How do I look, dear?&quot; enquired Miss Emily Smithers, the belle of the house, of Miss Caroline Wilson, who was her bosom friend because she was the ugliest girl in Hammersmith, or out of it. &quot;Oh, charming dear. How do I?&quot; &quot;Delightful—you never looked so handsome,&quot; returned the belle, adjusting her own dress, and not bestowing a glance on her poor companion. &quot;I hope young Hilton will come early,&quot; said another young lady to Miss somebody else, in a fever of expectation. &quot;I&#039;m sure he&#039;d be highly flattered if he knew it,&quot; returned the other, who was practicing l&#039;eté for effect. &quot;Oh! he&#039;s so handsome,&quot; said the first. &quot;Such a charming person,&quot; added a second. &quot;Such a distingue air,&quot; said a third. &quot;Oh what do you think?&quot; said another girl running into the room; Miss Crumpton says that her cousin&#039;s coming.&quot; &quot;What! Theodosius Butler?&quot; said everybody, in raptures. &quot;Is he handsome,&quot; enquired a novice. &quot;No, not particularly handsome,&quot; was the general reply; but oh, so clever!&quot; Mr. Theodosius Butler was one of those immortal geniuses who are to be met with in almost every circle. They have usually very deep monotonous voices. They always persuade themselves that they are wonderful persons, and that they ought to be very miserable. They dont exactly know why. They are very conceited, and usually possess exactly half an idea: but with enthusiastic young ladies and silly young gentlemen, they are something wonderfully superior. The individual in question, Mr. Theodosius, had written a phamphlet containing some very weighty considerations on the expediency of doing something or other; and as every sentence contained at least fifty words of four syllables, his admirers took it for granted that he meant a good deal. &quot;Perhaps that&#039;s he,&quot; exclaimed several young ladies, as the first pull of the evening threatened destruction to the bell at the gate. An awful pause ensued. Some boxes arrived, and a young lady—it was Miss Brook Dingwall, in full ball costumes, with an immense gold chain round her neck, and her dress looped up with a single rose. An ivory fan in her hand, and a most interesting expression of despair in her face. The Miss Crumptons enquired after the family with the most excruciating anxiety, and Miss Brook Dingwall was formally introduced to her future companions. The Miss Crumptons conversed with the young ladies in the most mellifluous tones, in order that Miss Brook Dingwall might be properly impressed with their amiable treatment. Another pull at the bell. Mr. Dadson, the writing master and his wife. The wife in green silk, with shoes and cap trimmings to correspond, and the writing master in a white waistcoat, black knee shorts, and ditto silk stockings, displaying a leg large enough for two writing masters, at least. The young ladies whispered one another, and the writing master and his wife flattered the Miss Crumptons who were dressed in amber, with long sashes, like dolls. Repeated pulls at the bell, and arrivals too numerous to particularize: Papas and Mammas, and aunts and uncles, the owners and guardians of the different pupils; the singing master Signor Lobskini, in a black wig; the pianoforte player and the violins, the harp in a state of intoxication, and some twenty young men who stood near the door, and talked to one another, occasionally bursting into a giggle. A general hum of conversation.—Coffee handed round, and plentifully partaken of by fat mamma&#039;s, looking like the stout people who come on in pantomimes for the sole purpose of being knocked down. The popular Mr. Hilton was the next arrival, and having, at the request of the Miss Crumptons, undertaken the office of Master of Ceremonies, the quadrilles commenced with considerable spirit. The young men by the door gradually advanced into the middle of the room, and in time became sufficiently at ease to consent to be introduced to partners. The writing master danced every set, springing about with the most fearful agility, and his wife played a rubber in the back parlour—a little room with five book shelves dignified by the name of the study. Setting her down to whist was a half-yearly piece of generalship on the part of the Miss Crumptons, as it was necessary to hide her somewhere on account of her being a fright. The interesting Lavinia Brook Dingwall was the only girl present who appeared to take no interest in the proceedings of the evening. In vain was she solicited to dance, in vain was the universal homage paid to her as the daughter of a member of parliament. She was equally unmoved by the splendid tenor of the inimitable Lobskini, and the brilliant execution of Miss Letitia Parsons, who performance of &quot;The Recollections of Ireland,&quot; was universally declared to be almost equal to Moscheles himself. Not even the announcement of the arrival of Mr. Theodosius Butler could induce her to leave the corner of the back drawing room in which she was seated. &quot;Now, Theodosius,&quot; said Miss Maria Crumpton, after that enlightened pamphleteer had nearly run the gauntlet of he whole company, &quot;I must introduce you to our new pupil.&quot; Theodosius looked as if he cared for nothing earthly. &quot;She&#039;s the daughter of a member of parliament,&quot; said Maria - Theodosius started. &quot;And her name is—?&quot; he enquired. &quot;Miss Brook Dingwall.&quot; &quot;Great Heaven!&quot; poetically exclaimed Theodosius in a low tone. Miss Crumpton commenced the introduction in due form. Miss Brook Dingwall languidly raised her head. &quot;Edward!&quot; she exclaimed with a half shriek, on seeing the well known nankeen legs. Fortunately, as Miss Maria Crumpton possessed no remarkable share of penetration, and as it was one of the diplomatic arrangements that no attention was to be paid to Miss Lavinia&#039;s incoherent exclamations, she was perfectly unconscious of the mutual agitation of the parties; and therefore, seeing that the offer of his hand for the next quadrille was accepted, she left him by the side of Miss Brook Dingwall. &quot;Oh, Edward,&quot; exclaimed that most romantic of all romantic young ladies, as that light of science seated himself beside her, &quot;Oh, Edward is it you?&quot; Mr. Theodosius assured the dear creature in the most impassioned manner that he was not conscious of being anybody but himself. &quot;Then why—why—this disguise? oh, Edward McNeville Walter, what have I not suffered on your account.&quot; &quot;Lavinia, hear me,&quot; replied the hero in his most poetic strain &quot;Do not condemn me unheard. If anything that emanates from the soul of such a wretch as I, can occupy a place in your recollection—if any being so vile deserve your notice—you may remember that I once published a pamphlet (and paid for its publication) entitled &quot;Considerations on the policy of removing the duty on bee&#039;s wax.&quot; &quot;I do—I do—&quot; sobbed Lavinia. &quot;That,&quot; continued the lover &quot;was a subject to which your father was devoted heart and soul.&quot; &quot;He was—he was,&quot; reiterated the sentimentalist. &quot;I knew it&quot; continued Theodosius tragically, &quot;I knew it—I forwarded him a copy. He wished to know me. Could I disclose my real name? Never! no, I assumed that name which you have so often pronounced in tones of endearment. As McNeville Walter I devoted myself to the stirring cause; as McNeville Walter I gained your heart; in the same character i was ejected from your house by your father&#039;s domestics, and in no character at all, have I since been enabled to see you. We now meet again, and I proudly own that I am—Theodosius Butler. The young lady appeared perfectly satisfied with this very argumentative address, and bestowed a look of the most ardent affection on the immortal advocate of bees wax. &quot;May I hope,&quot; said he, &quot;that the promise, your father&#039;s violent behaviour interrupted, may be renewed?&quot; &quot;Let us join this set,&quot; replied Lavinia coquetishly—for girls of nineteen can coquette. &quot;No,&quot; ejaculated he of the nankeens. &quot;I stir not from this spot writhing under this torture of suspense. May I—may I hope?&quot; &quot;You may.&quot; &quot;The promise is renewed?&quot; &quot;It is.&quot; &quot;I have your permission?&quot; &quot;You have.&quot; &quot;To the fullest extent?&quot; &quot;You know it,&quot; returned Lavinia, affecting to blush. The contortions of the interesting Butler&#039;s visage expressed his raptures. We could dilate upon the occurrences of the evening. How Mr. Theodosius and Miss Lavinia danced and talked, and sighed for the remainder of the evening. How the Miss Crumpton&#039;s were delighted thereat. How the writing master continued to frisk about with one-horse power, and how his wife, from some unaccountable freak, left the whist table in the little back parlour, and persisted in displaying her green head dress in the most conspicuous part of the drawing-room. How the supper consisted of small triangular sandwiches in trays, with a tart here and there, by way of variety, and how the visitors consumed warm water disguised with lemon, and dotted with nutmeg, under the denomination of negus. These, and other matters of as much interest, however, we pass over, for the purpose of describing a scene of even more importance. A fortnight after the date of the ball, Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq. M.P. was seated at the same library table, and in the same room as we have before described. He was alone, and his face bore an expression of deep thought and solemn gravity—he was drawing up a bill for the better observance of Easter Monday. The footman tapped at the door. The legislator started from his reverie, and &quot;Miss Crumpton&quot; was announced. Permission was given for Miss Crumption to enter the sanctum; Maria came sidling in, and having taken her seat with a due portion of affectation, the footman retired, and the governess was left alone with the M.P. Oh! how she longed for the presence of a third party—even the facetious young gentleman would have been a relief. Miss Crumpton began the duet. She hoped Mrs. Brook Dingwall, and the handsome little boy were in good health. They were. Mrs. Brook Dingwall and little Frederick were at Brighton. &quot;Much obliged to you Miss Crumpton,&quot; said Cornelius in his dignified manner, &quot;for your attention to calling this morning. I should have driven down to Hammersmith to see Lavinia, but your account was so very satisfactory, and my duties in the House occupy me so much that I determined to postpone it for a week. How has she gone on.&quot; &quot;Very well, indeed, Sir,&quot; returned Maria, dreading to inform the father she had gone off. &quot;Ah, I thought the plan on which I proceeded would be a match for her.&quot; &quot;Here was a favourable opportunity to say that somebody else had been a match for her. The unfortunate governess was unequal to the task. &quot;You have persevered strictly in the line of conduct I prescribed Miss Crumpton?&quot; &quot;Strictly, Sir.&quot; &quot;You tell me in your note that her spirits gradually improved.&quot; &quot;Very much, indeed, sir.&quot; &quot;To be sure, I was convinced they would.&quot; &quot;But I fear, sir,&quot; said Miss Crumpton, with visible emotion. &quot;I fear the plan has not succeeded so well as we could have wished.&quot; &quot;No!&quot; exclaimed the prophet, &quot;God bless me, Miss Crumpton, you look alarmed. What has happened?&quot; &quot;Miss Brook Dingwall, Sir—&quot; &quot;Yes, Ma&#039;am.&quot; &quot;Has gone, Sir&quot;—said Maria, exhibiting a strong inclination to faint. &quot;Gone!&quot; &quot;Eloped, Sir.&quot; &quot;Eloped!—Who wish—when—where—how?&quot; almost shrieked the agitated diplomatist. The natural yellow of the unfortunate Maria&#039;s face, changed to all the hues of the rainbow, as she laid a small packet upon the member&#039;s table. He hurriedly opened it. A letter from his daughter and another from Theodosius. He glanced over their contents - &quot;ere this reaches you, far distant—appeal to feelings—love to distraction—bee&#039;s wax—slavery,&quot; &amp;amp;c., &amp;amp;c. He dashed his hand to his forehead, and paced the room with fearfully long strides, to the great alarm of the precise Maria. &quot;Now mind; from this time forward,&quot; said the Brook Dingwall, suddenly stopping at the table, and beating time upon it with his hand &quot;from this time forward, I never will, under any circumstances whatever, allow a man who writes pamphlets to enter any room of this house but the kitchen—I&#039;ll allow my daughter and her husband one hundred and fifty pounds a year, and never see their faces again—and damme, ma&#039;am, I&#039;ll bring in a bill for abolition of finishing schools!&quot; Some time has elapsed since this passionate declaration. Mr. and Mrs. Butler are at present rusticating in a small cottage at Ball&#039;s Pond, pleasantly situated in the immediate vicinity of a brick-field. They have no family. Mr. Theodosius looks very important and writes incessantly, but in consequence of some gross combination on the part of publishers, none of his productions appear in print. His young wife begins to think that ideal misery is preferable to real unhappiness; and that a marriage contracted in haste, and repented at leisure, is the cause of more substantial wretchedness, than she ever anticipated. On cool reflection, Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq. M.P., was reluctantly compelled to admit that the untoward result of his admirable arrangements, was attributable, not to the Miss Crumptons&#039;, but his own diplomacy. He, however, consoles himself, like some other small diplomatists, by satisfactorily proving that if his plans did not succeed, they ought to have done so. Minerva House is in statu quo, and &quot;The Misses Crumpton&quot; remain in the peaceable and undisturbed enjoyment of all the advantages resulting from their Finishing-school.18360901https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sentiment/1836-09-01_The_Magazine_of_the_Beau_Monde_Sentiment.pdf
30https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/30'Sestette and Chorus'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah, pp.10-11.Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></p>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Sestette_and_Chorus<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Sestette and Chorus.' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): pp. 10-11. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Sestette_and_Chorus">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Sestette_and_Chorus</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Sestette_and_Chorus.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sestette and Chorus.' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts">The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</a>Young Benson. Turn him from the farm! From his home will you cast The old man who has tilled it for years! Ev’ry tree, ev’ry flower, is linked with the past, And a friend of his childhood appears. Turn him from the farm! O’er its grassy hillside, A gay boy he once loved to range; His boyhood has fled, and its dear friends are dead, But these meadows have never known change. Edmunds. Oppressor, hear me! Lucy. On my knees I implore. Squire. I command it, and you will obey. Rose. Rise, dear Lucy, rise; you shall not kneel before The tyrant who drives us away. Squire. Your sorrows are useless, your prayers are in vain: I command it, and you will begone. I’ll hear no more. Edmunds. No, they shall not beg again Of a man whom I view with deep scorn. Flam. Do not yield. Young Benson - Squire - Lucy - Rose. Leave the farm! Edmunds. Your pow’r I despise. Squire. And your threats, boy, I disregard too. Flam. Do not yield. Young Benson - Squire - Lucy - Rose. Leave the farm! Rose. If he leaves it, he dies. Edmunds. This base act, proud man, you shall rue. Young Benson. Turn him from the farm! From his home will you cast, The old man who has tilled it for years? Ev’ry tree, ev’ry flower, is linked with the past, And a friend of his childhood appears! Squire. Yes, yes, leave the farm! From his home I will cast The old man who has tilled it for years; Though each tree and flower, is linked with the past, And a friend of his childhood appears. Chorus. He has turned from his farm! From his home he has cast The old man who has tilled it for years; Though each tree and flower is linked with the past, And a friend of his childhood appears.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Sestette_and_Chorus/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Sestette_and_Chorus.pdf
79https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/79'Solo – Cassio'From Act 1, Scene 4 of <em>O'Thello</em> (1833-1834).Dickens, CharlesBeinecke Library, Yale University.; Manuscript.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1833">1833</a>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834">1834</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1833-34_Othello_Solo_Cassio<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Solo – Cassio.' <em>O'Thello&nbsp;</em>(1833-34).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><i>Dickens Search.<span>&nbsp;</span></i><span>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1833-34_Othello_Solo_Cassio">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1833-34_Othello_Solo_Cassio</a><span>.</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1833-34_Othello_Solo_Cassio.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Solo – Cassio.' <em>O'Thello&nbsp;</em>(1833-34).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=O%27Thello">O&#039;Thello</a>Air – &quot;When in death I shall calm recline&quot; When in death I shall calm recline Oh take me home to my &quot;Missus&quot; dear Tell her I&#039;ve taken a little more wine Than I could carry, or very well bear Bid her not scold me on the morrow For staying out drinking all night But several bottles of Soda borrow To cool my coppers and set me right.18330101
80https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/80'Solo – The Great Unpaid'From Act 2, <em>O'Thello</em> (1833-1834).Dickens, CharlesBeinecke Library, Yale University.; Manuscript.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1833">1833</a>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834">1834</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1833-34_Othello_Solo_The_Great_Unpaid<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Solo – The Great Unpaid.'&nbsp;<em>O'Thello&nbsp;</em>(1833-34).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><i>Dickens Search.<span>&nbsp;</span></i><span>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1833-34_Othello_Solo_The_Great_Unpaid">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1833-34_Othello_Solo_The_Great_Unpaid</a><span>.</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1833-34_Othello_Solo_The_Great_Unpaid.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Solo – The Great Unpaid.' <em>O'Thello&nbsp;</em>(1833-34).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=O%27Thello">O&#039;Thello</a>Air – &quot;Merrily Oh&quot; Merrily ev&#039;ry heart will bound here Merrily oh Merrily oh! If with success our piece is crowned here Merrily oh! Merrily oh! If our humble efforts meet with yr applause Aand your smiles assure us, we have gained our cause Merrily every heart will bound here Merrily oh Merrily oh! Chorus. Repeat the whole18330101
115https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/115'Song – Fanny'From Act 1, Scene 2 of <em>The Strange Gentleman</em> (Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, 1836).Dickens, CharlesLord Chamberlain’s Copy, British Library.; <span>'Song – Fanny.' <em>The Strange</em> <em>Gentleman</em>. </span><em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 1 (1820-1839), p. 696-697. Oxford University Press, 1965.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Song_FannyDickens, Charles. 'Song – Fanny.' <em>The Strange Gentleman</em> (1836). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Song_Fanny">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Song_Fanny</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Song_Fanny.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Song – Fanny.' <em>The Strange Gentleman&nbsp;</em>(Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, 1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Strange+Gentleman">The Strange Gentleman</a>Tis Hope that cheers the lover’s breast And lulls the troubled mind to rest – Hope is the sailors leading star The Warriors shield in fiercest War – The youth, the aged to it cling ‘Twill comfort to the wretched bring. Then in my bosom let it dwell For there will ever be a spell In hope, fond hope. 2 The Captive bears the galling chain Nor thinks he call’s on hope in vain The Miser as he views his store Fears to lose, still hopes for more In hope there is a charm divine That all the joys of life combine. Then in my bosom let it dwell For there will ever be a spell In hope, fond hope.18360101
118https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/118'Song – Felix Tapkins'From <em>Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular!</em> (<span>Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, </span>27 February 1837).Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, British Library.; <span>'Song – Felix Tapkins.' <em>Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular!</em>.&nbsp;</span><em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 1 (1820-1839), p. 698-699. Oxford University Press, 1965.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837-02-27">1837-02-27</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1837-02-27_Is_She_His_Wife_Or_Something_Singular_Song_Felix_TapkinsDickens, Charles. 'Song – Felix Tapkins.' <em>Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular!</em> (27 February 1837). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1837-02-27_Is_She_His_Wife_Or_Something_Singular_Song_Felix_Tapkins">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1837-02-27_Is_She_His_Wife_Or_Something_Singular_Song_Felix_Tapkins</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1837-02-27_Is_She_His_Wife_Or_Something_Singular_Song_Felix_Tapkins.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Song – Felix Tapkins.' <em>Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular!</em> (27 February 1837).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Is+She+His+Wife%3F+Or%2C+Something+Singular%21">Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular!</a>1. It was in search of wonders so high and so low That the flying Phemominon, said he would go Where no mortal man had e’re been before For he, all the world was resolved to explore. 2. With wings made of leather, of steel, and of steam Of wonders he said, he should sure be the theme For who in the world could with him compare As like a great Goose he should fly thro’ the air. 3. No sooner the Globe he resolved o’er to range Then of linen, he packed in his bag up a change To give Mankind the bag, he thought it no harm So his bag he took with him just under his arm. 4. In the Morning it was, he first took his flight And in Greece on a Turkey, he supp’d the same night – He dined on his way, at Hamberg, upon Ham – And in Tartary, sipp’d his Bohe with the Cham. 5. In the Artic regeons, twas he took his lunc And on an Ice-burg – why he drank Ice’d punch. His heart was so full, it he couldn’t control So he sat and he sung on the famous North Pole. 6. He paid him a visit to Venus and Mars To the Sun, to the Moon, and the seven stars He shook hands with Satan, and then I declare That he had a hug of the very great Bear. 7. With a fiery Comit, he then tried his pace And in spite of its tail why he won the race But much further of, he couldn’t well roam For he sing’d all his wings, and was forced to come home. 8. Now I think that with me, you all will agree That a cleverer chap, sure there never could be But if what I have said, should not be quite right Why like him, I’ve indulged in fancy’s flight.18370227
114https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/114'Song – Julia'From Act 1, Scene 2 of <em>The Strange Gentleman</em> (Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, 1836).Dickens, CharlesLord Chamberlain’s Copy, British Library.; <span>'Song – Julia.' <em>The Strange</em> <em>Gentleman</em>. </span><em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 1 (1820-1839), p. 696. Oxford University Press, 1965.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Song_JuliaDickens, Charles. 'Song – Julia.' <em>The Strange Gentleman</em> (1836). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Song_Julia">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Song_Julia</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Strange_Gentleman_Song_Julia.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Song – Julia.' <em>The Strange Gentleman&nbsp;</em>(Lord Chamberlain’s Copy, 1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Strange+Gentleman">The Strange Gentleman</a>Ah, me, I am a lonely maid That’s made alone to sigh, Ah, me, I am so sore afraid That I a maid shall die. I’m sure I am not very tall Tho’ long enough I’ve waited Nor yet am I so very small Th’ I’m so underrated. I for a husband try each day But can’t a husband gain Each night I for a husband pray But praying is in vain.18360101
108https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/108'Song of the Ghost of Gaffer Thumb'From <em>Tom Thumb </em>(Twelfth Night celebrations at Tavistock House, January 1854).Dickens, Charles<em>The Plays and Poems of Charles Dickens.</em> Edited by Richard Herne Shepherd. Volume 1 (1882), p. 85. W. H. Allen &amp; Company.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Plays_and_Poems_of_Charles_Dickens/XbZJAQAAMAAJ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Plays_and_Poems_of_Charles_Dickens/XbZJAQAAMAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1854-01">1854-01</a><em>Google Books,</em> Fair Use.Inserted into an amateur performance of Kane O'Hara's <em>Tom Thumb </em>n.d (early 19th century) <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2010667656/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.loc.gov/item/2010667656/</a>. Dickens's poem was written to replace O'Hara's 'AIR. - GHOST' (Scene IV, p 221). O'Hara's play was adapted from Henry Fielding's <em>The Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great</em> (1731), which was in turn expanded from Fielding's original <em>Tom Thumb. A Tragedy</em> (1730).<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1854-01_Tom_Thumb_Song_of_the_Ghost_of_Gaffer_ThumbDickens, Charles. 'Song of the Ghost of Gaffer Thumb.' <em>Tom Thumb </em>(1854). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1854-01_Tom_Thumb_Song_of_the_Ghost_of_Gaffer_Thumb">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1854-01_Tom_Thumb_Song_of_the_Ghost_of_Gaffer_Thumb</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1854-01_Tom_Thumb_Song_of_the_Ghost_of_Gaffer_Thumb.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Song of the Ghost of Gaffer Thumb.'&nbsp;<em>Tom Thumb&nbsp;</em>(January 1854).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Tom+Thumb">Tom Thumb</a>I&#039;ve got up from my churchyard bed, And assumed the perpendicular, Having something to say in my head, Which isn&#039;t so very particular! I do not appear in sport, But in earnest, all danger scorning - I&#039;m in your service, in short, And I hereby give you warning - [Cock crows.] Who&#039;s dat crowing at the door? Dere&#039;s some one in the house with Dinah! I&#039;m call&#039;d (so can&#039;t say any more) By a voice from Cochin China!18540101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Song_of_the_Ghost_of_Gaffer_Thumb/1854_Song_of_the_Ghost_of_Gaffer_Thumb_The_Plays_and_Poems_of_Charles_Dickens.pdf
154https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/154'Song of the Green Savages'Published in 'Romance. From the Pen of Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Redforth,' No. III. <em>Holiday Romance. Our Young Folks,</em> vol.4, no. 1 (March 1868), pp. 193-200. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom, p. 197.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-03">1868-03</a>Public domain, Google-digitised<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Verse">Verse</a>1868-03_Song_of_the_Green_Savages<div class="element-text five columns omega"> <p>Dickens, Charles. 'Song of the Green Savages' (March 1868).<span>&nbsp;</span><em>Holiday Romance. Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;</span>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].<span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868_03_Song_of_the_Green_Savages">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868_03_Song_of_the_Green_Savages</a>.</p> </div><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EOur+Young+Folks%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Our Young Folks</em></a>Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nycey! Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nyce!18680301https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Song_of_the_Green_Savages/1868-03_Song_of_the_Green_Savages.pdf
218https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/218'Song of the Kettle'Published in <em>The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home</em> (Bradbury and Evans, December 1845), p.7.<em>Hathi Trust,</em> <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102287704">https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102287704</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1845-12">1845-12</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1845-12-Song_of_the_KettleDickens, Charles. 'Song of the Kettle' (1845). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/verse/1846-12-Song_of_the_Kettle">https://www.dickenssearch.com/verse/1846-12-Song_of_the_Kettle</a>.It’s a dark night, sang the Kettle, and the rotten leaves are lying by the way; and, above, all is mist and darkness, and below, all is mire and clay; and there’s only one relief in all the sad and murky air; and I don’t know that it is one, for it’s nothing but a glare, of deep and angry crimson, where the sun and wind together, set a brand upon the clouds for being guilty of such weather; and the widest open country is a long dull streak of black; and there’s hoar-frost on the finger-post, and thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn’t water, and the water isn’t free; and you couldn’t say that anything is what it ought to be; but he’s coming, coming, coming!—18451201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Song_of_the_Kettle/1845-12-Song_of__the_Kettle.pdf
7https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/7'Song of the Month. No. VIII.'Published in <em>Bentley's Miscellany</em> (1 August 1837).Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837-08-01">1837-08-01</a><em>HathiTrust</em>, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101055306201&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=133&amp;q1=August" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101055306201&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=133&amp;q1=August</a>. Public Domain, Google-digitized.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1837-08-01_Bentleys_Miscellany_Song_of_the_Month_NoVIIIDickens, Charles. 'Song of the Month. No. VIII.' Bentley's Miscellany (1 August <span>1837</span>): p. 109. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1837-08-01_Bentleys_Miscellany_Song_of_the_Month_NoVIII">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1837-08-01_Bentleys_Miscellany_Song_of_the_Month_NoVIII</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1837-08-01_Bentleys_Miscellany_Song_of_the_Month_NoVIII.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Song of the Month. No. VIII.' <em>Bentley's Miscellany </em>(1 August 1837): p. 109.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Bentley%27s+Miscellany">Bentley&#039;s Miscellany</a>Of all the months in the twelve that fly So lightly on, and noiselessly by, There is not one who can show so fair As this, with its soft and balmy air. The light graceful corn waves to and fro, Tinging the earth with its richest glow; The forest trees in their state and might Proclaim that Summer is at his height. Of all the months in the twelve that speed So quickly by, with so little heed From man, of the years that swiftly pass As an infant’s breath from a polished glass, There is not one whose fading away Bears such a lesson to mortal clay, Warning us sternly, when in our prime, To look for the withering winter time. I stood by a young girl’s grave last night, Beautiful, innocent, pure, and bright, Who, in the bloom of her summer’s pride, And all its loveliness, drooped and died. Since the sweetest flow’rs are soonest dust, As truest metal is quick to rust, Look for a change in that time of year, When Nature’s works at their best appear.18370801https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Song_of_the_Month._No._VIII./1837-08-01_Song_of_the_Month_No_VIII.jpg
24https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/24'Squire Norton's Song (I)'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah.Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks, p.5.</p>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongI<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Squire Norton's Song (I).' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): p. 5. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongI">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongI</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongI.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Squire Norton's Song (I).' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts&nbsp;</em>(1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts">The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</a>That very wise head, old Æsop, said, The bow should be sometimes loose; Keep it tight for ever, the string you sever: – Let’s turn his old moral to use. The world forget, and let us yet, The glass our spirits buoying, Revel to-night, in those moments bright, Which make life worth enjoying. The cares of the day, old moralists say, Are quite enough to perplex one; Then drive to-day’s sorrow away till to-morrow, And then put it off till the next one. Chorus – The cares of the day, &amp;c. Some plodding old crones, the heartless drones! Appeal to my cool reflection, And ask me whether, such nights can ever Charm sober recollection. Yes, yes! I cry, I’ll grieve and die, When those I love forsake me; But while friends so dear, surround me here, Let care, if he can, o’ertake me. Chorus – The cares of the day, &amp;c.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Squire_Norton_s_Song_[I]/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongI.pdf
28https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/28'Squire Norton's Song (II)'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah, p.9.Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></p>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongII<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Round.' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): p. 9. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongII">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongII</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongII.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Squire Norton's Song (II).' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts">The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</a>The child and the old man sat alone In the quiet, peaceful shade Of the old green boughs, that had richly grown In the deep, thick forest glade. It was a soft and pleasant sound, That rustling of the oak; And the gentle breeze played lightly round, As thus the fair boy spoke: – ‘Dear father, what can honour be, Of which I hear men rave? Field, cell and cloister, laud and sea, The tempest and the grave:  – It lives in all, ‘tis sought in each, ‘Tis never heard or seen: Now tell me, father, I beseech, What can this honour mean?’ ‘It is a name – a name, my child, - It lived in other days, When men were rude, their passions wild, Their sport, thick battle-frays. When, in armour bright, the warrior bold Knelt to his lady’s eyes: Beneath the abbey pavement old That warrior’s dust now lies. ‘The iron hearts of that old day Have mouldered in the grave; And chivalry has passed away, With knights so true and brave; The honour, which to them was life, Throbs in no bosom now; It only gilds the gambler’s strife, Or decks the worthless vow.’18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Squire_Norton_s_Song_[II]/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongII.pdf
32https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/32'Squire Norton's Song (III)'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah, p.14.Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></p>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p>Hullah, John. 'There's a charm in spring.' B<span>etween 1863 and 1877. </span><em>HathiTrust,</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015093760281&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015093760281&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=1</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongIII<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Squire Norton's Song (III).' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): p.14. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongIII">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongIII</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongIII.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Squire Norton's Song (III).' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em></a>There’s a charm in spring, when ev’rything Is bursting from the ground; When pleasant show’rs bring forth the flow’rs And all is life around. In summer day, the fragrant hay Most sweetly scents the breeze; And all is still, save murm’ring rill, Or sound of humming bees. Old autumn come; - with trusty gun In quest of birds we roam: Unerring aim, we mark the game, And proudly bear it home. A winter’s night has its delight, Well warmed to bed we go: A winter’s day, we’re blithe and gay, Snipe-shooting in the snow. A country life, without the strife, And noisy din of town, Is all I need, I take no heed Of splendour or renown. And when I die, oh, let me lie, Where trees above me wave; Let wild plants bloom around my tomb, My quiet country grave!18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Squire_Norton_s_Song_[III]/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Squire_Nortons_SongIII.pdf
3https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/3'Subjects For Painters'Published in <em>The Examiner</em> (21 August 1841).Dickens, Charles<em>British Library Newspapers</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1841-08-21">1841-08-21</a><em>British Library Newspapers,</em> <a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/BB3200992782/BNCN?u=loughuni&amp;sid=BNCN&amp;xid=784a4802" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/BB3200992782/BNCN?u=loughuni&amp;sid=BNCN&amp;xid=784a4802</a>. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1841-08-21_The_Examiner_Subjects_For_PaintersDickens, Charles. 'Subjects For Painters.' <em>The Examiner</em> (21 August 1841): p. 532. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1841-08-21_The_Examiner_Subjects_For_Painters">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1841-08-21_The_Examiner_Subjects_For_Painters</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1841-08-21_The_Examiner_Subjects_For_Painters.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Subjects For Painters.' <em>The Examiner</em> (21 August 1841): p. 532.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Examiner">The Examiner</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=W.">W.</a>(After Peter Pindar.) To you, SIR MARTIN, and your co. R.A.’s, I dedicate in meek, suggestive lays, Some subjects for your academic palettes; Hoping, by dint of these my scanty jobs, To fill with novel thoughts your teeming nobs, As though I beat them in with wooden mallets. To you, MACLISE, who Eve’s fair daughters paint With Nature’s hand, and want the maudlin taint Of the sweet Chalon school of silk and ermine: To you, E. LANDSEER, who from year to year Delight in beasts and birds, and dogs and deer, And seldom give us any human vermin: – – To all who practice art, or make believe, I offer subjects they may take or leave. Great Sibthorp and his butler, in debate (Arcades ambo) on affairs of state, Not altogether ‘gone,’ but rather funny; Cursing the Whigs for leaving in the lurch Our d–d, good, pleasant, gentlemanly Church, Would make a picture – cheap at any money. Or Sibthorp as the Tory Sec.–at–War, Encouraging his mates with loud ‘Yhor! Yhor!&#039; From Treas’ry benches’ most conspicuous end; As an expectant Premier without guile, Calls him his honourable and gallant friend. Or Sibthorp travelling in foreign parts, Through that rich portion of our Eastern charts Where lies the land of popular tradition; And fairly worshipp’d by the true devout In all his comings in and goings out, Because of the old Turkish superstition. Fame with her trumpet, blowing very hard, And making earth rich with celestial lard, In puffing deeds done through Lord Chamberlain Howe; While some few thousand persons of small gains, Who give their charities without such pains, Look up, much wondering what may be the row. Behind them Joseph Hume, who turns his pate To where great Marlbro’ House in princely state Shelters a host of lacqueys, lords, and pages, And says he knows of dowagers a crowd, Who, without trumpeting so very loud, Would do so much, and more, for half the wages. Limn, sirs, the highest lady in the land, When Joseph Surface, fawning cap in hand, Delivers in his list of patriot mortals; Those gentlemen of honour, faith, and truth, Who, foul-mouthed, spat upon her maiden youth, And dog-like did defile her palace portals. Paint me the Tories, full of grief and woe, Weeping (to voters) over Frost and Co., Their suff’ring, erring, much-enduring brothers. And in the background don’t forget to pack, Each grinning ghastly from its bloody sack, The heads of Thistlewood, Despard, and others. Paint, squandering the club’s election gold, Fierce lovers of our Constitution old, Lords who’re that sacred lady’s greatest debtors; And let the law, forbidding any voice Or act of Peer to influence the choice Of English people, flourish in bright letters. Paint that same dear old lady, ill at ease, Weak in her second childhood, hard to please, Unknowing what she ails or what she wishes; With all her Carlton nephews at the door, Deaf’ning both aunt and nurses with their roar, – Fighting already, for the loaves and fishes. Leaving these hints for you to dwell upon, I shall presume to offer more anon.18410821https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Subjects_For_Painters/1841-08-21_Subjects_for_Painters.jpeg
73https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/73'The Bill of Fare'MS in Maria Beadnell&#039;s hand (1831).Dickens, CharlesBeinecke Library, Yale University.; Manuscript.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1831">1831</a>Parody of Oliver Goldsmith's 'Retaliation: A Poem'.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1831_The_Bill_of_Fare<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Lodgings To Let.' Autograph Album of Maria Beadnell (1831). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1831_The_Bill_of_Fare">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1831_The_Bill_of_Fare</a><span>.</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1831_The_Bill_of_Fare.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>Dickens, Charles. 'The Bill of Fare.' Manuscript (1831).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Manuscript">Manuscript</a>As the great rage just now is imitation, &#039;Mong high-born and low, throughout the whole Nation, I trust &#039;twill excuse the few following lines, Of which I&#039;ll say nothing, but that these poor rhymes, As you might expect, in degenerate days Like these, are entitled to no share of praise Because they are novel, – the ground work at least, Is a copy from Goldsmith&#039;s ever famed Feast. &quot;And a bad one it is too,&quot; – you&#039;ll say, I fear, But let me entreat you, don&#039;t be too severe. – If, in a fair face, &#039;twill elicit a smile, If one single moment &#039;twill serve to beguile, – I shall think on it with great satisfaction, Et cet&#039;ra, – and so forth: – now then to action! Without further preface to waste the time in We&#039;ll set to at once, – If you please we&#039;ll begin. We&#039;ll say a small party to Dinner are met, And the guests are themselves about to be eat; Without saying Grace, – (I own I&#039;m a sinner, –) We&#039;ll endeavor to see what we&#039;ve for dinner. Mr. Beadnell&#039;s a good fine sirloin of beef, Though to see him cut up would cause no small grief; And then Mrs. Beadnell, I think I may name, As being an excellent Rib of the same. The Miss B&#039;s are next, who it must be confessed Are two nice little Ducks; and very well dressed. William Moule&#039;s of a trifle, a trifling dish; Mr. Leigh we all know is a very great fish; Mrs. Leigh a Curry, smart, hot and biting, Although a dish that is always inviting. For cooking our meat we utensils won&#039;t lack So Miss Leigh shall be called a fine roasting Jack, A thing of great use, when we dine or we sup, A patent one too – never wants winding up. Mr Moule&#039;s a bottle of excellent Port; Mrs. Moule of Champagne, – good humor&#039;s her forte; The Miss M&#039;s of Snipe are a brace, if you please, And Joe is a very fine flavored Dutch-Cheese; Mrs. Lloyd and her spouse are a nice side dish, – (Some type of their most happy state I must wish To produce; – let me see, I&#039;ve found out one soon) Of Honey and sweets in the form of a Moon; Arthur Beetham, – this dish has cost me some pains, Is a tongue with a well made garnish of brains; M&#039;Namara, I think must by the same rule Be a dish of excellent gooseberry-fool; And Charles Dickens, who in our Feast plays a part, Is a young Summer Cabbage, without any heart; – Not that he&#039;s heartless, but because, as folks say, He lost his a twelve month ago from last May. Now let us suppose that the dinner is done, And the guests have roll&#039;d on the floor one by one: – I don&#039;t mean to say that they&#039;re at the completion, Trying the fam&#039;d city cure for repletion. Nor do I by any means raise up the question Whether they owe their deaths to indigestion. We&#039;ll say they&#039;re all dead; it&#039;s a terrible sight But I&#039;ll dry my tears, and their Epitaphs write. Here lies Mr. Beadnell, beyond contradiction, An excellent man, and a good politician; His opinions were always sound and sincere, Come here! ye Reformers, o&#039;er him drop a tear: Come here, and with me weep at his sudden end, Ye who&#039;re to ballot and freedom a friend. Come here, all of ye who to him ever listened, Praise on rare quality – he was consistent; And if any one can say so much for you We&#039;ll try to write on you an epitaph too. He was most hospitable, friendly and kind; An enemy, I&#039;m sure, he&#039;s not left behind; And if he be fairly, and all in all ta&#039;en, &quot;We never shall look upon his like again.&quot; Here lies Mrs. Beadnell, whose conduct through life, As a mother, a woman, a friend, a wife, I shall think, while I possess recollection, Can be summ&#039;d up in one word – PERFECTION. Her faults I&#039;d tell you beyond any doubt, But for this plain reason, – I ne&#039;er found them out: Her character from my own knowledge I tell, For when she was living she was, I then knew her well. It chances to&#039;ve been by the fates brought about, That she was the means of first bringing me out: – All my thanks for that and her kindness since then I&#039;d vainly endeavor to tell with my pen: I think what I&#039;d say, – I feel it, that&#039;s better, Or I&#039;d scorn to write of these lines one letter. Excuse me, dear reader, for pause now I must; Here two charming Sisters lie low in the dust. – But why should I pause? do they want my poor aid To tell of their virtues while with us they stayed? Can a few words from me add a hundredth part To the regret felt for them in every heart? No, no! &#039;t is impossible; still I must try, To speak of them here, for I can&#039;t pass them by. And first then for Anne I&#039;ll my banner unfurl – A truly delightful and sweet-tempered girl, And, what&#039;s very odd, and will add to her fame, Is this one plain fact, – she was always the same. She was witty, clever, – you liked what she said; Without being blue, she was very well read. Her favourite Author, or else I&#039;m a fibber, And have been deceived, was the famed Colley Cibber. I don&#039;t think dear reader &#039;twill interest you, But still, if you please, keep that quite entre nous. I grow tedious, so of her I&#039;ll not din more, – Oh! – She sometimes drest her hair a la Chinois. Ladies, if you want this fashion to follow, And don&#039;t know where you the pattern can borrow, Don&#039;t look in &quot;the fashions&quot; &#039;mong bows and wreathings, You&#039;ll find it on any antique China Tea things. But who have we here? alas what sight is this? Has her spirit flown back to regions of bliss? Has Maria left this World of trouble and care Because for us she was too good and too fair? Has Heaven in its jealousy ta&#039;en her away As a blessing too great for us children of clay? All ye fair and beautiful, sadly come here, And Springs early flowers strew over her bier; Fit emblems are they of life&#039;s short fleeting day, Fit tributes are they to her mem&#039;ry to pay; For though blooming now, they will soon be decayed, They blossom one moment, then wither and fade. I linger here now, and I hardly know why, I&#039;ve no wish, no hope now, but this one – to die. My bright hopes and fond wishes were all centered here Their brightness has vanished, they&#039;re now dark and drear. The impression that Mem&#039;ry engraves in my heart Is all I have left, and with that I ne&#039;er part. I might tell you much, and I say&#039;t with a sigh, Of the grace of her form, and the glance of her eye; I might tell of happy days now pass&#039;d away, Which I fondly hoped then would never decay, But &#039;twere useless – I should only those times deplore, I know that again I can see them no more. But what&#039;s this small form that she folds to her breast, As if it had only laid down there to rest? Poor thing is it living? – Ah no! it&#039;s dead quite; It is a small dog, liver-colored and white. Dear me, now I see – &#039;tis the little dog that Would eat mutton chops if you cut off the fat! So very happy was its situation An object it was of such admiration, That I&#039;d resign all my natural graces, E&#039;en now, if I could with &quot;Daphne&quot; change places. William Moule next alas with the dead lieth here, And his loss we shall ne&#039;er recover I fear; No more shall the young men, among whom am I, Regard with great envy his elegant tie; No more shall the girls, with anxiety wait, At a party, and mourn that he came in late; Though it was not his fault, it must be confess&#039;d We knew very well that he lived &quot;in the West&quot; The purlieus of Tottenham Court Road!!! And men of great fashion now never go out, Till long after twelve when engaged to a rout. No more shall he waltz an hour with one lady, To the delight of tut&#039;ress, Miss A. B. Who no more shall turn to me, and whispering low, Say &quot;Doesn&#039;t he waltz well? I taught him, you know.&quot; No more shall he curse all the City Folks&#039; Balls, And vow that he never will honor their halls; No more from &quot;the London&quot;, will he be turned back Because of his wearing a Kerchief of black; No more when we sit round the blithe supper table Shall he hush to silence the prattling Babel, By, – When a lady, a speech made upon her – Rising to return us her thanks for the honor. No more – but I think I&#039;ll use that phrase no more, I feel that I can&#039;t this loss enough deplore. Momus and Bacchus, both be merry no more, Your friend Mr. Leigh lies dead on the floor. Weep both of ye, each hide your sorrowful head, For he isn&#039;t dead drunk, but he&#039;s really dead. We shall never again see his good humored face, We shall never again much admire the grace With which he would drink off his bottle of wine, Or with which he&#039;d ask you next Sunday to dine. We shall never again laugh aloud at his fun, We shall never in turn amuse him with a pun. In his Will I hope as a Legacy that He&#039;s left me that elegant, pretty dress hat, The shape, make, and color of which were so rare; And which on all extra occasions he&#039;d wear. I really do his loss most deeply regret, As the kindest best temper&#039;d man, I e&#039;er met. I&#039;m as hale and as hearty as any one here So I&#039;ll help to carry him to his new bier. Mrs. Leigh&#039;s life, alas, has come to an end: – But I can&#039;t speak of her, I fear to offend; I don&#039;t think the truth need her feelings much gall, But if I can&#039;t tell it I won&#039;t write at all. If &#039;twere not for the lesson that I&#039;ve been taught I&#039;d have painted her as in justice I ought; I&#039;d have said she was friendly, good hearted, kind, Her wit I&#039;d have praised and intelligent mind; &#039;Bout scandal, or spreading reports without heed, Of course I&#039;d say nothing, how could I indeed? Because if I did I should certainly lie, And my remarks here, doubtless, would not apply. So as I fear either to praise or to blame, I will not her faults or her virtues here name. And Mary Anne Leigh&#039;s death I much regret too, Though the greatest tormentor that I e&#039;er knew; Whenever she met you, at morn, noon or night To tease and torment you, was her chief delight; To each glance or smile she&#039;d a meaning apply, On every flirtation she kept a sharp eye. Though – tender feelings I trust I&#039;m not hurting – She ne&#039;er herself much objected to flirting. A singular fact. She to each little secret always held the candle, And I think she liked a small bit of scandal. I think, too, that she used to dress her hair well, Although Arthur said, – but that tale I won&#039;t tell. In short though she was so terribly teasing So pretty she looked, her ways were so pleasing, That when she had finished I used to remain Half fearing, half hoping, to be teased again. Here lies – Mr. Moule, at whose plentiful board We often have sat, and where, with one accord, Mirth, pleasure, good humor and capital Wine, Seem&#039;d always to meet when one went there to dine. To his friends he was always good-humored and kind And a much better host &#039;twould be hard to find. If he for an instant his good humor missed I&#039;ve heard it would be at a rubber of whist; At least I&#039;ve sometimes heard his Partners say so; Though of course I myself this fact cannot know. His hospitality deserved great credit; Indeed I much wish all men did inherit That merit from him; I&#039;m sure it is needed, That some should prize it as highly as he did. I think his opinions were not always quite So kind, or so just as they should be of right. However that question I&#039;ll not travel though, &#039;Twould not I think become me so to do. Some others in this point like him we may see, So I will say requiescat in pace. Mrs. Moule alas lieth here with the dead, Her good temper vanish&#039;d, her light spirits fled; I&#039;d say much of her but all knew her too well, To leave any thing new for me here to tell, So I&#039;ll only say, – in thus speaking of her I&#039;m sure all she e&#039;er knew will concur – If kindness and temper as virtues are held She never by any one yet was excelled. Louisa Moule&#039;s next, – I can&#039;t better call her Than the same pattern, – N.B. a size smaller. Here lies Fanny Moule, of whom&#039;t may be said, That romance or sentiment quite turned her head. Her chief pleasure was, but I cannot tell why To sit by herself in a corner and sigh. You might talk for an hour to her thinking she heard, And find out at last she had not heard a word; She&#039;d start turn her head, – the case was a hard one, – And say with a sigh, &quot;Dear! I beg your pardon.&quot; Whether this arose from love, doubt, hesitation, Or whether indeed, &#039;twas all affectation, I will not by my own decision abide, I&#039;ll leave it to others the point to decide; Thus much though, I will say, – I think it is droll, That one who so pleasing might be on the whole, Should take so much trouble, – it must be a toil, – All her charms and graces entirely to spoil. Here lies honest Joe, and I&#039;m sure when I say That he&#039;d a good heart, there&#039;s no one will say nay, The themes, of all others, on which he would doat Were splendid gold lace and a flaming red Coat; His mind always ran on battles and slaughters, Guards, Bands, Kettle-drums and splendid Head Quarters. I&#039;ve heard that the best bate to catch a young girl Is a red coat and a mustachio&#039;s curl; Bait your hook with but this, and Joe would soon bite Hint at it, he&#039;d talk on from morning to night. In portraits of Soldiers he spent all his hoard; You talked of a penknife – he thought of a sword. Inspecting accounts he ne&#039;er could get through His mind would revert to some former review. He ne&#039;er made a bill out, smaller or larger But he thought he was then mounting his charger. He ne&#039;er to the counting house trudged in a heat But he thought of forced marches and a retreat And ne&#039;er from the play to his home went again But trembling he thought of the roll call at TEN. But fallen at last is this &quot;gay young deceiver,&quot; A prey to Death and a bad Scarlet fever. Here lies Mrs. Lloyd, I&#039;m sorry to say That she too from us is so soon snatched away; That her fate is most hard it can&#039;t be denied, When we think how recently she was a bride. That she became one is no source of surprise, For if all that&#039;s charming in critical eyes Is likely to finish a dull single life, I&#039;m sure she ought t’ve been long since a wife Though we lament one so pleasing, so witty, And though her death we may think a great pitty I really myself do quite envy her fate, And I wish when with Death I&#039;ve my tête à tête, He&#039;d do me the favor to take me away When my prospects here were bright, blooming and gay, When I&#039;m quite happy, ere with sorrows jaded, I wish for my grave, when my hopes are faded, – When I might be certain of leaving behind Those who would ne&#039;er cease to bear me in mind She&#039;s gone and who shall now those sweet ballads sing Which still in my ears so delightfully ring? &quot;We met,&quot; &quot;Friends depart&quot; – I those sweet sounds retain, And I feel I shall never forget them again. And down here Mr. Lloyd&#039;s remains lie beside Those of his so recently blooming young bride, I&#039;m sorry he&#039;s dead, for I knew him to be, Good humored, most honest, kind hearted and free. That he was consistent, I ne&#039;er had a doubt, Although scandal said, and &#039;twas whisper&#039;d about, That when he last Summer from Paris came home (I think &#039;twas his marriage induced him to roam) He his principles changed, – so runs the story, Threw off the Whigs, and became a staunch Tory. But be that as it may, I think it&#039;s but fair, To say that I know he enjoyed the fresh air. And is Arthur Beetham for the first time hush&#039;d? And has he returned to his original dust? Has he gone the way of all flesh with the rest In spite of the great care he took of his Chest! The reason assigned by Mr. A. B. for constantly wearing his coat buttoned up to his chin, was his extreme anxiety to preserve his chest from cold. At our snug coteries will he never make one? Will he never again gladden us with his fun? Poor fellow! I fear, now he&#039;s laid in the earth, That of our amusements we&#039;ll all find a dearth; And yet he&#039;d his faults, – to speak without joking, He had a knack of being very provoking; So much so that several times t&#039; other day I devoutly, heartily, wished him away; But after I&#039;d done so, my conscience me smote And here perhaps a couple of lines I may quote Missing his mirth and agreeable vein, I directly wished we had him back again. And does M&#039;Namara with the dead recline? Poor Francis, his waistcoats were wond&#039;rously fine; He certainly was an elegant fellow, His coats were well made, his gloves a bright yellow; Florists shall hold up his Pall by the corners, Morgan a celebrated glove maker and Watkins a celebrated Tailor shall be his chief mourners. Last, here&#039;s Charles Dickens, who&#039;s now gone for ever; It&#039;s clear that he thought himself very clever; To all his friends&#039; faults – it almost makes me weep, He was wide awake – to his own fast asleep. Though blame he deserved for such wilful blindness He had one merit – he ne&#039;er forgot kindness. Perhaps I don&#039;t do right to call that a merit Which each human creature&#039;s bound to inherit; But when old Death claimed the debt that he owed him He felt most grateful to all that was showed him, His faults, and there were not in number few, As all his acquaintance extremely well knew, Emanated – to speak of him in good part – I think rather more from the head than the heart. His death wasn&#039;t sudden, he had long been ill, Slowly he languished and got worse, until, No mortal means could the poor young fellow save, And a sweet pair of eyes sent him home to his grave. Finis18310101
5https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/5'The Blacksmith'Published in <em>All The Year Round </em>(30 April 1859).Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online, </em><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-i/page-20.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-i/page-20.html</a>; attr. Shepherd, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Plays_and_Poems_of_Charles_Dickens/3FPOAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=shephard+plays+and+poems+the+blacksmith+dickens&amp;pg=PA232&amp;printsec=frontcover" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>Plays and Poems</em></a> (1885), p.232.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1859-04-30">1859-04-30</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1859-04-30_All_The_Year_Round_The_BlacksmithDickens, Charles. 'The Blacksmith.' <em>All the Year Round</em> (30 April 1859): p. 20. <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1859-04-30_All_The_Year_Round_The_Blacksmith">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1859-04-30_All_The_Year_Round_The_Blacksmith</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1859-04-30_All_The_Year_Round_The_Blacksmith.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'The Blacksmith.'&nbsp;<em>All the Year Round&nbsp;</em>(30 April 1859): p. 20.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=All+the+Year+Round">All the Year Round</a>OLD England, she has great warriors, Great princes, and poets great; But the Blacksmith is not to be quite forgot, In the history of the State. He is rich in the best of all metals, Yet silver he lacks and gold; And he payeth his due, and his heart is true, Though he bloweth both hot and cold. The boldest is he of incendiaries That ever the wide world saw, And a forger as rank as e’er robbed the Bank, Though he never doth break the law. He hath shoes that are worn by strangers, Yet he laugheth and maketh more; And a share (concealed) in the poor man’s field, Yet it adds to the poor man’s store. Then, hurrah for the iron Blacksmith! And hurrah for his iron crew! And whenever we go where his forges glow, We’ll sing what A MAN can do.18590430https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/The_Blacksmith/1859-04-30_The_Blacksmith.pdf
134https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/134'The Bloomsbury Christening'<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>The Monthly Magazine</em><span>&nbsp;(April 1834).</span>Dickens, Charles<em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres.</em><span>&nbsp;April 1834, pp. 375-386,&nbsp;</span><em>Internet Archive,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-04">1834-04</a><em>Internet Archive,<br /></em><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a><span>. Access to the Archive’s Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-04-The_Bloomsbury_ChristeningDickens, Charles. "The Bloomsbury Christening." <em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres.</em> <span>April 1834, pp. 375-386. </span><em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-04-The-Bloomsbury-Christening">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-04-The-Bloomsbury-Christening</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a>Mr. Nicodemus Dumps, or, as his acquaintance called him, &quot;long Dumps,&quot; was a bachelor, six feet high, and fifty years old, —cross, cadaverous, odd, and ill-natured. He was never happy but when he was miserable (pardon the contradiction); and always miserable when he had the best reason to be happy. The only real comfort of his existence was to make everybody about him wretched—then he might be truly said to enjoy life. He was afflicted with a situation in the Bank worth five hundred a-year, and he rented a &quot;first floor furnished&quot; at Pentonville, which he originally took because it commanded a dismal prospect of an adjacent churchyard. He was familiar with the face of every tombstone, and the burial service seemed to excite his strongest sympathy. His friends said he was surly—he insisted he was nervous; they thought him a lucky dog, but he protested that he was &quot;the most unfortunate man in the world.&quot; Cold as he was, and wretched as he declared himself to be, he was not wholly unsusceptible of attachments. He revered the memory of Hoyle, as he was himself an admirable and imperturbable whist-player, and he chuckled with delight at a fretful and impatient adversary. He adored King Herod for his massacre of the innocents; for if he hated one thing more than another, it was a child. However, he could hardly be said to hate any thing in particular, because he disliked every thing in general; but perhaps his greatest antipathies were cabs, old women, doors that would not shut, musical amateurs, and omnibus cads. He subscribed to the Society for the Suppression of Vice for the pleasure of putting a stop to any harmless amusements; and he contributed largely towards the support of two itinerant methodist parsons, under the amiable hope that if circumstances rendered any people happy in this world, they might perchance be rendered miserable by fears for the next. Mr. Dumps had a nephew who had been married about a year, and who was somewhat of a favourite with his uncle, because he was an admirable subject to exercise his misery-creating powers upon. Mr. Charles Kitterbell was a small, sharp, spare man, with a very large head, and a broad, good-humoured countenance. He looked like a faded giant, with the head and face partially restored; and he had a cast in his eye which rendered it quite impossible for any one with whom he conversed to know where he was looking. His eyes appeared fixed on the wall, and he was staring you out of countenance; in short, there was no catching his eye, and perhaps it is a merciful dispensation of Providence that such eyes are not catching. In addition to these characteristics, it may be added that Mr. Charles Kitterbell was one of the most credulous and matter-of-fact little personages that ever took to himself a wife, and for himself a house in Great Russell-street, Russell-square (Uncle Dumps always dropped the Russell-square,&quot; and inserted in lieu thereof the dreadful words &quot;Tottenham-court-road&quot;). &quot;No, but, uncle, ’pon my life you must—you must promise to be godfather,&quot; said Mr. Kitterbell, as he sat in conversation with his respected relative one morning. &quot;I cannot, indeed I cannot,&quot; returned Dumps. &quot;Well, but why not? Jemima will think it very unkind. It’s very little trouble.&quot; &quot;As to the trouble,&quot; rejoined the most unhappy man in existence, &quot;I don’t mind that; but my nerves are in that state—I cannot go through the ceremony. You know I don’t like going out.—For God’s sake, Charles, don’t fidget with that stool so, you’ll drive me mad.&quot; Mr. Kitterbell, quite regardless of his uncle’s nerves, had occupied himself for some ten minutes in describing a circle on the floor with one leg of the office-stool on which he was seated, keeping the other three up in the air and holding fast on by the desk. &quot;I beg your pardon, uncle,&quot; said Kitterbell, quite abashed, suddenly releasing his hold of the desk, and bringing the three wandering legs back to the floor with a force sufficient to drive them through it. &quot;But come, don’t refuse. If it’s a boy, you know, we must have two godfathers.&quot; &quot;If it’s a boy!&quot; said Dumps, &quot;why can’t you say at once whether it is a boy or not?&quot; &quot;I should be very happy to tell you, but it’s impossible I can undertake to say whether it’s a girl or a boy, if the child isn’t born yet.&quot; &quot;Not born yet!&quot; echoed Dumps, with a gleam of hope lighting up his lugubrious visage; &quot;oh, well, it may be a girl, and then you won’t want me, or if it is a boy, it may die before it&#039;s christened.&quot; &quot;I hope not,&quot; said the father that expected to be, looking very grave. &quot;I hope not,&quot; acquiesced Dumps, evidently pleased with the subject. He was beginning to get happy. &quot;I hope not, but distressing cases frequently occur during the first two or three days of a child’s life; fits, I am told, are exceedingly common, and alarming convulsions are almost matters of course.&quot; &quot;Lord, uncle!&quot; ejaculated little Kitterbell, gasping for breath. &quot;Yes; my landlady was confined—let me see—last Tuesday: an uncommonly fine boy. On the Thursday night the nurse was sitting with him upon her knee before the fire, and he was as well as possible. Suddenly he became black in the face, and alarmingly spasmodic. The medical man was instantly sent for, and every remedy was tried, but—&quot; &quot;How frightful!&quot; interrupted the horror-stricken Kitterbell. &quot;The child died, of course. However, your child may not die; and if it should be a boy, and should live to be christened, why I suppose I must be one of the sponsors.&quot; Dumps was evidently good-natured on the faith of his anticipations. &quot;Thank you, uncle,&quot; said his agitated nephew, grasping his hand as warmly as if he had done him some essential service. &quot;Perhaps I had better not tell Mrs. K. what you have mentioned.&quot; ‘Why, if she’s low-spirited, perhaps you had better not mention the melancholy case to her,’ returned Dumps, who of course had invented the whole story; &quot;though perhaps it would be but doing your duty as a husband to prepare her for the worst.&quot; A day or two afterwards, as Dumps was perusing a morning paper at the chop-house which he regularly frequented, the following-paragraph met his eye:- &quot;Births.—On Saturday, the 18th inst., in Great Russell-street, the lady of Charles Kitterbell, Esq., of a son.&quot; &quot;It is a boy!&quot; he exclaimed, dashing down the paper, to the astonishment of the waiters. &quot;It is a boy!&quot; But he speedily regained his composure as his eye rested on a paragraph quoting the number of infant deaths from the bills of mortality. Six weeks passed away, and as no communication had been received from the Kitterbells, Dumps was beginning to flatter himself that the child was dead, when the following note painfully resolved his doubts:- &quot;Great Russell-street, Monday morning. &quot;DEAR UNCLE: You will be delighted to hear that my dear Jemima has left her room, and that your future godson is getting on capitally; he was very thin at first, but he is getting much larger, and nurse says he is filling out every day. He cries a good deal, and is a very singular colour, which made Jemima and me rather uncomfortable; but as nurse says it’s natural, and as of course we know nothing about these things yet, we are quite satisfied with what nurse says. We think he will be a sharp child; and nurse says she’s sure he will, because he never goes to sleep. You will readily believe that we are all very happy, only we’re a little worn out for want of rest, as he keeps us awake all night; but this we must expect, nurse says, for the first six or eight months. He has been vaccinated, but in consequence of the operation being rather awkwardly performed, some small particles of glass were introduced into the arm with the matter. Perhaps this may in some degree account for his being rather fractious; at least, so nurse says. We propose to have him christened at twelve o’clock on Friday, at Saint George’s church, in Hart-street, by the name of Frederick Charles William. Pray don’t be later than a quarter before twelve. We shall have a very few friends in the evening, when, of course we shall see you. I am sorry to say that the dear boy appears rather restless and uneasy to-day: the cause, I fear, is fever. &quot;Believe me, dear Uncle, &quot;Yours affectionately, &quot;CHARLES KITTERBELL.&quot; &quot;P.S.—I open this note to say that we have just discovered the cause of little Frederick’s restlessness. It is not fever, as I apprehended, but a small pin, which nurse accidentally stuck in his leg yesterday evening. We have taken it out, and he appears more composed, though he still sobs a good deal.&quot; It is almost unnecessary to say that the perusal of the above interesting statement was no great relief to the mind of the hypochondriacal Dumps. It was impossible to recede, however, and so he put the best face—that is to say, an uncommonly miserable one—upon the matter; and purchased a handsome silver mug for the infant Kitterbell, upon which he ordered the initials &quot;F. C. W. K.,&quot; with the customary untrained grape-vine-looking flourishes, and a large full stop, to be engraved forthwith. Monday was a fine day, Tuesday was delightful, Wednesday was equal to either, and Thursday was finer than ever; four successive fine days in London! Hackney-coachmen became revolutionary, and crossing-sweepers began to doubt the existence of a First Cause. The Morning Herald informed its readers that an old woman, in Camden Town, had been heard to say that the fineness of the season was &quot;unprecedented in the memory of the oldest inhabitant;&quot; and Islington clerks, with large families and small salaries, left off their black gaiters, disdained to carry their once green cotton umbrellas, and walked to town in the conscious pride of white stockings, and cleanly brushed Bluchers. Dumps beheld all this with an eye of supreme contempt—his triumph was at hand. — He knew that if it had been fine for four weeks instead of four days, it would rain when he went out; he was lugubriously happy in the conviction that Friday would be a wretched day—and so it was. &quot;I knew how it would be,&quot; said Dumps, as he turned round opposite the Mansion House at half-past eleven o’clock on the Friday morning. &quot;I knew how it would be, I am concerned, and that’s enough;&quot;—and certainly the appearance of the day was sufficient to depress the spirits of a much more buoyant-hearted individual than himself. It had rained, without a moment’s cessation, since eight o’clock; everybody that passed up Cheapside, and down Cheapside, looked wet, cold, and dirty. All sorts of forgotten and long-concealed umbrellas had been put into requisition. Cabs whisked about, with the &quot;fare&quot; as carefully boxed up behind two glazed calico curtains as any mysterious picture in any one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s castles; omnibus horses smoked like steam-engines; nobody thought of &quot;standing up&quot; under doorways or arches; they were painfully convinced it was a hopeless case; and so everybody went hastily along, jumbling and jostling, and swearing and perspiring, and slipping about, like amateur skaters behind wooden chairs on the Serpentine on a frosty Sunday. Dumps paused; he could not think of walking, being rather smart for the christening. If he took a cab he was sure to be spilt, and a hackney-coach was too expensive for his economical ideas. An omnibus was waiting at the opposite corner—it was a desperate case—he had never heard of an omnibus upsetting or running away, and if the cad did knock him down, he could &quot;pull him up&quot; in return. &quot;Now, sir!&quot; cried the young gentleman who officiated as &quot;cad&quot; to the &quot;Lads of the Village,&quot; which was the name of the machine just noticed. Dumps crossed. &quot;This vay, sir!&quot; shouted the driver of the &quot;Hark away,&quot; pulling up his vehicle immediately across the door of the opposition—&quot;This vay, sir—he’s full.&quot; Dumps hesitated, whereupon the &quot;Lads of the Village&quot; commenced pouring out a torrent of abuse against the &quot;Hark away&quot;; but the conductor of the &quot;Admiral Napier&quot; settled the contest in a most satisfactory manner for all parties, by seizing Dumps round the waist, and thrusting him into the middle of his vehicle, which had just come up, and only wanted the sixteenth inside. &quot;All right,&quot; said the &quot;Admiral,&quot; and off the thing thundered, like a fire-engine at full gallop, with the kidnapped customer inside, standing in the position of a half doubled up boot-jack, and falling about with every jerk of the machine, first on one side, and then on the other, like a &quot;Jack-in-the-green,&quot; on May-day, &quot;setting&quot; to the lady with the brass ladle. &quot;For Heaven’s sake, where am I to sit?&quot; inquired the miserable man of an old gentleman, into whose stomach he had just fallen for the fourth time. &quot;Anywhere but on my chest, sir,&quot; replied the old gentleman, in a surly tone. &quot;Perhaps the box would suit the gentleman better,&quot; suggested a very damp lawyer’s clerk, in a pink shirt and a smirking countenance. After a great deal of struggling and falling about, Dumps at last managed to squeeze himself into a seat, which, in addition to the slight disadvantage of being between a window that wouldn&#039;t shut, and a door that must be open, placed him in close contact with a passenger, who had been walking about all the morning without an umbrella, and who looked as if he had spent the day in a full water-butt—only wetter. &quot;Don’t bang the door so,&quot; said Dumps to the conductor, as he shut it after letting out four of the passengers; &quot;I am very nervous—it destroys me.&quot; &quot;Did any gen’lm’n say anythink?&quot; replied the cad, thrusting in his head, and trying to look as if he didn’t understand the request. &quot;I told you not to bang the door so,&quot; repeated Dumps, with an expression of countenance like the knave of clubs, in convulsions. &quot;Oh! vy, it’s rather a sing’ler circumstance about this here door, sir, that it von’t shut without banging,&quot; replied the conductor; and he opened the door very wide, and shut it again with a terrific bang, in proof of the assertion. &quot;I beg your pardon, sir,&quot; said a little prim, wheezing old gentleman, sitting opposite Dumps, &quot;I beg your pardon; but have you ever observed, when you have been in an omnibus on a wet day, that four people out of five, always come in with large cotton umbrellas, without a handle at the top, or the brass spike at the bottom?&quot; ‘Why, sir,’ returned Dumps, as he heard the clock strike twelve, &quot;it never struck me before; but now you mention it, I—Hollo! hollo!&quot; shouted the persecuted individual, as the omnibus dashed past Drury-lane, where he had directed to be set down.—&quot;Where is the cad?&quot; &quot;I think he’s on the box, sir,&quot; said the young gentleman before noticed in the pink shirt, which looked like a white one ruled with red ink. &quot;I want to be set down!&quot; said Dumps in a faint voice, overcome by his previous efforts. &quot;I think these cads want to be set down,&quot; returned the attorney’s clerk, chuckling at his sally. &quot;Hollo!&quot; cried Dumps again. &quot;Hollo!&quot; echoed the passengers; the omnibus passed St. Giles’s church. &quot;Hold hard!&quot; said the conductor; &quot;I’m blowed if we ha’n’t forgot the gen’lm’n as vas to be set down at Doory-lane.—Now, sir, make haste, if you please,&quot; he added, opening the door, and assisting Dumps out with as much coolness as if it was &quot;all right.&quot; Dumps’s indignation was for once getting the better of his cynical equanimity. &quot;Drury-lane!&quot; he gasped, with the voice of a boy in a cold bath for the first time. &quot;Doory-lane, sir?—yes, sir,—third turning on the right-hand side, sir.&quot; Dumps’ passion was paramount, he clutched his umbrella, and was striding off with the firm determination of not paying the fare. The cad, by a remarkable coincidence, happened to entertain a directly contrary opinion, and Heaven knows how far the altercation would have proceeded if it had not been most ably and satisfactorily brought to a close by the driver. &quot;Hollo!&quot; said that respectable person standing up on the box, and leaning with one hand on the roof of the omnibus. &quot;Hollo, Tom! tell the gentleman if so be as he feels aggrieved, we will take him up to the Edge-er (Edgeware) Road for nothing, and set him down at Doory-lane when we comes back. He can’t reject that anyhow.&quot; The argument was irresistible; Dumps paid the disputed sixpence, and in a quarter of an hour was on the staircase of No. 14, Great Russell-street. Everything indicated that preparations were making for the reception of &quot;a few friends&quot; in the evening. Two dozen extra tumblers, and four ditto wine-glasses—looking anything but transparent, with little bits of straw in them — were on the slab in the passage, just arrived. There was a great smell of nutmeg, port wine, and almonds on the staircase; the covers were taken off the stair-carpet, and the figure of the Venus on the first landing looked as if she were ashamed of the composition-candle in her right hand, which contrasted beautifully with the lamp-blacked drapery of the goddess of love. The female servant (who looked very warm and bustling) ushered Dumps into a front drawing-room very prettily furnished with a plentiful sprinkling of little baskets, paper table-mats, china watchmen, pink and gold albums, and rainbow-bound little books on the different tables. &quot;Ah, uncle!&quot; said Mr. Kitterbell, &quot;how d’ye do? allow me—Jemima, my dear—my uncle, — I think you’ve seen Jemima before, sir?&quot; &quot;Have had the pleasure,&quot; returned big Dumps, his tone and look making it doubtful whether in his life he had ever experienced the sensation. &quot;I’m sure,&quot; said Mrs. Kitterbell, with a languid smile, and a slight cough. &quot;I’m sure—hem—any friend—of Charles’s—hem—much less a relation, is—&quot; &quot;Knew you’d say so, my love,&quot; said little Kitterbell, who, while he appeared to be gazing on the opposite houses, was looking at his wife with a most affectionate air: &quot;bless you.&quot; The last two words were accompanied with an interesting simper, and a squeeze of the hand, which stirred up all Uncle Dumps’ bile. &quot;Jane, tell nurse to bring down baby,&quot; said Mrs. Kitterbell, addressing the servant. Mrs. Kitterbell was a tall thin young lady with very light hair, and a particularly white face—one of those young women who almost invariably, though one hardly knows why, recal to one’s mind the idea of a cold fillet of veal. Out went the servant, and in came the nurse, with a remarkably small parcel in her arms packed up in a blue mantle trimmed with white fur.—This was the baby. &quot;Now, uncle,&quot; said Mr. Kitterbell, lifting up that part of the mantle which covered the infant’s face, with an air of great triumph, &quot;Who do you think he’s like?&quot; &quot;He! he! Yes, who?&quot; said Mrs. K. putting her arm through her husband’s, and looking up into Dumps’s face with an expression of as much interest as she was capable of displaying. &quot;Good God, how small he is!&quot; cried the amiable uncle, starting back with well-feigned surprise; &quot;remarkably small indeed.&quot; &quot;Do you think so?&quot; inquired poor little Kitterbell, rather alarmed. &quot;He’s a monster to what he was—an’t he, nurse?&quot; &quot;He’s a dear;&quot; said the nurse, squeezing the child, and evading the question—not because she scrupled to disguise the fact, but because she couldn’t afford to throw away the chance of Dumps’ half-crown. &quot;Well, but who is he like?&quot; inquired little Kitterbell. Dumps looked at the little pink heap before him, and only thought at the moment of the best mode of mortifying the youthful parents. &quot;I really don’t know who he’s like,&quot; he answered, very well knowing the reply expected of him. &quot;Don’t you think he’s like me?&quot; inquired his nephew with a knowing air. &quot;Oh, decidedly not!&quot; returned Dumps, with an emphasis not to be misunderstood. &quot;Decidedly not like you.—Oh, certainly not.&quot; &quot;Like Jemima?&quot; asked Kitterbell, faintly. &quot;Oh, dear no; not in the least. I’m no judge, of course, in such cases; but I really think he’s more like one of those little interesting carved representations that one sometimes sees blowing a trumpet on a tombstone!&quot; The nurse stooped down over the child, and with great difficulty prevented an explosion of mirth. Pa and ma looked almost as miserable as their amiable uncle. &quot;Well!&quot; said the disappointed little father, &quot;you’ll be better able to tell what he’s like by-and-by. You shall see him this evening with his mantle off.&quot; &quot;Thank you,&quot; said Dumps, feeling particularly grateful. &quot;Now, my love,&quot; said Kitterbell to his wife, &quot;it’s time we were off. We’re to meet the other godfather and the godmother at the church, uncle,—Mr. and Mrs. Wilson from over the way—uncommonly nice people. My love, are you well wrapped up?&quot; &quot;Yes, dear.&quot; &quot;Are you sure you won’t have another shawl?&quot; inquired the anxious husband. &quot;No, sweet,&quot; returned the charming mother, accepting Dumps’ proffered arm; and the little party entered the hackney-coach that was to take them to the church. Dumps amusing Mrs. Kitterbell by expatiating largely on the danger of measles, thrush, teeth-cutting, and other interesting diseases to which children are subject. The ceremony (which occupied about five minutes) passed off without anything particular occurring. The clergyman had to dine some distance from town, and had got two churchings, three christenings, and a funeral to perform in something less than an hour. The godfathers and godmother, therefore, promised to renounce the devil and all his works—&quot;and all that sort of thing,&quot;—as little Kitterbell said—&quot;in less than no time;&quot; and with the exception of Dumps nearly letting the child fall into the font when he handed it to the clergyman, the whole affair went off in the usual business-like and matter-of-course manner, and Dumps re-entered the Bank-gates at two o’clock with a heavy heart, and the painful conviction that he was regularly booked for an evening party. Evening came—and so did Dumps’ pumps, black silk stockings, and white cravat which he had ordered to be forwarded, per boy, from Pentonville. The depressed godfather dressed himself at a friend’s counting-house, from whence, with his spirits fifty degrees below proof, he sallied forth—as the weather had cleared up, and the evening was tolerably fine—to walk to Great Russell-street. Slowly he paced up Cheapside, Newgate-street, down Snow Hill, and up Holborn ditto, looking as grim as the figure-head of a man-of-war, and finding out fresh causes of misery at every step. As he was crossing the corner of Hatton Garden, a man, apparently intoxicated, rushed against him, and would have knocked him down had he not been providentially caught by a very genteel young man who happened to be close to him at the time. The shock so disarranged Dumps’ nerves, as well as his dress, that he could hardly stand. The gentleman took his arm, and in the kindest manner walked with him as far as Furnival’s Inn. Dumps, for about the first time in his life, felt grateful and polite; and he and the gentlemanly-looking young man parted with mutual expressions of good will. &quot;There are at least some well-disposed men in the world,&quot; ruminated the misanthropical Dumps, as he proceeded towards his destination. Rat—tat—ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-rat—knocked a hackney-coachman at Kitterbell’s door, in imitation of a gentleman’s servant, just as Dumps reached it, and out came an old lady in a large toque, and an old gentleman in a blue coat, and three female copies of the old lady in pink dresses, and shoes to match. &quot;It’s a large party,&quot; sighed the unhappy godfather, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, and leaning against the area-railings. It was some time before the miserable man could muster up courage to knock at the door, and when he did, the smart appearance of a neighbouring green-grocer (who had been hired to wait for seven and sixpence, and whose calves alone were worth double the money), the lamp in the passage, and the Venus on the landing, added to the hum of many voices, and the sound of a harp and two violins, painfully convinced him that his surmises were but too well founded &quot;How are you?&quot; said little Kitterbell in a greater bustle than ever, bolting out of the little back parlour with a cork-screw in his hand, and various particles of saw-dust, looking like so many inverted commas, on his inexpressibles. &quot;Good God!&quot; said Dumps, turning into the aforesaid parlour to put his shoes on which he had brought in his coat-pocket, and still more appalled by the sight of seven fresh drawn corks, and a corresponding number of decanters. &quot;How many people are there up-stairs?&quot; &quot;Oh, not above thirty-five. We’ve had the carpet taken up in the back drawing-room, and the piano, and the card-tables are in the front. Jemima thought we’d better have a regular sit-down supper, in the front parlour, because of the speechifying, and all that. But, Lord! uncle, what’s the matter?&quot; continued the excited little man, as Dumps stood with one shoe on, rummaging his pockets with the most frightful distortion of visage. &quot;What have you lost? Your pocket-book?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; returned Dumps, diving first into one pocket and then into the other, and speaking in a voice like Desdemona with the pillow over her mouth. &quot;Your card-case? snuff-box? the key of your lodgings?&quot; continued Kitterbell, pouring question on question with the rapidity of lightning. &quot;No! no!&quot; ejaculated Dumps, still diving eagerly into his empty pockets. &quot;Not—not—the mug you spoke of this morning?&quot; &quot;Yes, the mug!&quot; replied Dumps, sinking into a chair&quot; &quot;How could you have done it?&quot; inquired Kitterbell. &quot;Are you sure you brought it out?&quot; &quot;Yes! yes! I see it all;&quot; said Dumps, starting up as the idea flashed across his mind; &quot;miserable dog that I am—I was born to suffer. I see it all; it was the gentlemanly-looking young man!&quot; &quot;Mr. Dumps!&quot; shouted the green-grocer in a stentorian voice, as he ushered the somewhat recovered godfather into the drawing-room half an hour after the above declaration. &quot;Mr. Dumps!&quot;—everybody looked at the door, and in came Dumps, feeling about as much out of place as a salmon might be supposed to be on a gravel-walk. &quot;Happy to see you again,&quot; said Mrs. Kitterbell, quite unconscious of the unfortunate man’s confusion and misery; &quot;you must allow me to introduce you to a few of our friends:- my mama, Mr. Dumps—my papa and sisters.&quot; Dumps seized the hand of the mother as warmly as if she was his own parent, bowed to the young ladies, and against a gentleman behind him, and took no notice whatever of the father, who had been bowing incessantly for three minutes and a quarter.&quot; &quot;Uncle,&quot; said little Kitterbell, after Dumps had been introduced to a select dozen or two, &quot;you must let me lead you to the other end of the room, to introduce you to my friend Danton. Such a splendid fellow!—I’m sure you’ll like him—this way.&quot;—Dumps followed as tractably as a tame bear. Mr. Danton was a young man of about five-and-twenty, with a considerable stock of impudence, and a very small share of ideas: he was a great favourite, especially with young ladies of from sixteen to twenty-six years of age, both inclusive. He could imitate the French horn to admiration, sang comic songs most inimitably, and had the most insinuating way of saying impertinent nothings to his doting female admirers. He had acquired, somehow or other, the reputation of being a great wit, and, accordingly, whenever he opened his mouth, everybody who knew him laughed very heartily. The introduction took place in due form. Mr. Danton bowed and twirled a lady’s handkerchief, which he held in his hand, in a most comic way. Everybody smiled. &quot;Very warm,&quot; said Dumps, feeling it necessary to say something. &quot;Yes. It was warmer yesterday,&quot; returned the brilliant Mr. Danton.—A general laugh. &quot;I have great pleasure in congratulating you on your first appearance in the character of a father, sir,&quot; he continued, addressing Dumps—&quot;godfather, I mean.&quot;—The young ladies were convulsed, and the gentlemen in ecstasies. A general hum of admiration interrupted the conversation, and announced the entrance of nurse with the baby. An universal rush of the young ladies immediately took place. (Girls are always so fond of babies in company.) &quot;Oh, you dear!&quot; said one. &quot;How sweet!&quot; cried another, in a low tone of the most enthusiastic admiration. &quot;Heavenly!&quot; added a third. &quot;Oh! what dear little arms!&quot; said a fourth, holding up an arm and fist about the size and shape of the leg of a fowl cleanly picked. &quot;Did you ever&quot;—said a little coquette with a large bustle, who looked like a French lithograph, appealing to a gentleman in three waistcoats—&quot;Did you ever—&quot; &quot;Never, in my life,&quot; returned her admirer, pulling up his collar. &quot;Oh, do let me take it, nurse,&quot; cried another young lady. &quot;The love!&quot; &quot;Can it open its eyes, nurse?&quot; inquired another, affecting the utmost innocence.—Suffice it to say, that the single ladies unanimously voted him an angel, and that the married ones, nem. con., agreed that he was decidedly the finest baby they had ever beheld—except their own. The quadrilles were resumed with great spirit. Mr. Danton was universally admitted to be beyond himself, several young ladies enchanted the company and gained admirers by singing &quot;We met&quot;—&quot;I saw her at the Fancy Fair&quot;—&quot;Can I believe Love&#039;s Wreath will pain?&quot; — and other equally sentimental and interesting ballads. &quot;The young men,&quot; as Mrs. Kitterbell said, &quot;made themselves very agreeable;&quot; the girls did not lose their opportunity; and the evening promised to go off excellently. Dumps didn’t mind it: he had devised a plan for himself—a little bit of fun in his own way—and he was almost happy! He played a rubber and lost every point Mr. Danton said he could not have lost every point, because he made a point of losing: everybody laughed tremendously. Dumps retorted with a better joke, and nobody smiled, with the exception of the host, who seemed to consider it his duty to laugh, till he was black in the face, at everything. There was only one drawback—the musicians did not play with quite as much spirit as could have been wished. The cause, however, was satisfactorily explained; for it appeared, on the testimony of a gentleman who had come up from Gravesend in the afternoon, that they had been engaged on board a steamer all day, and had played almost without cessation all the way to Gravesend, and all the way back again. The &quot;sit-down supper&quot; was excellent; there were four barley-sugar temples on the table, which would have looked beautiful if they had not melted away when the supper began; and a water-mill, whose only fault was that instead of going round, it ran over the table-cloth. Then there were fowls, and tongue, and trifle, and sweets, and lobster salad, and potted beef—and everything. And little Kitterbell kept calling out for clean plates, and the clean plates didn&#039;t come: and then the gentlemen who wanted the plates said they didn’t mind, they’d take a lady’s; and then Mrs. Kitterbell applauded their gallantry; and the green-grocer ran about till he thought his 7s.6d. was very hardly earned; and the young ladies didn’t eat much for fear it shouldn’t look romantic, and the married ladies eat as much as possible for fear they shouldn’t have enough; and a great deal of wine was drank, and everybody talked and laughed considerably. &quot;Hush! hush!&quot; said Mr. Kitterbell, rising and looking very important. &quot;My love (this was addressed to his wife at the other end of the table), take care of Mrs. Maxwell, and your mama, and the rest of the married ladies; the gentlemen will persuade the young ladies to fill their glasses, I am sure.&quot; &quot;Ladies and gentlemen,&quot; said long Dumps, in a very sepulchral voice and rueful accent, rising from his chair like the ghost in Don Juan, &quot;will you have the kindness to charge your glasses? I am desirous of proposing a toast.&quot; A dead silence ensued, and the glasses were filled—everybody looked serious—&quot;from gay to grave, from lively to severe.&quot; &quot;Ladies and gentlemen,&quot; slowly continued the ominous Dumps, &quot;I&quot;—(here Mr. Danton imitated two notes from the French-horn, in a very loud key, which electrified the nervous toast-proposer, and convulsed his audience). &quot;Order! order!&quot; said little Kitterbell, endeavouring to suppress his laughter. &quot;Order!&quot; said the gentlemen. &quot;Danton, be quiet,&quot; said a particular friend on the opposite side of the table. &quot;Ladies and gentlemen,&quot; resumed Dumps, somewhat recovered, and not much disconcerted, for he was always a pretty good hand at a speech—&quot;In accordance with what is, I believe, the established usage on these occasions, I, as one of the godfathers of Master Frederick Charles William Kitterbell—(here the speaker’s voice faltered, for he remembered the mug)—venture to rise to propose a toast. I need hardly say that it is the health and prosperity of that young gentleman, the particular event of whose early life we are here met to celebrate—(applause). Ladies and gentlemen, it is impossible to suppose that our friends here, whose sincere well-wishers we all are, can pass through life without some trials, considerable suffering, severe affliction, and heavy losses!&quot;—Here the arch-traitor paused, and slowly drew forth a long, white pocket-handkerchief—his example was followed by several ladies. &quot;That these trials may be long spared them is my most earnest prayer, my most fervent wish (a distinct sob from the grandmother). I hope and trust, ladies and gentlemen, that the infant whose christening we have this evening met to celebrate, may not be removed from the arms of his parents by premature decay (several cambrics were in requisition): that his young and now apparently healthy form, may not be wasted by lingering disease. (Here Dumps cast a sardonic glance around, for a great sensation was manifest among the married ladies.) You, I am sure, will concur with me in wishing that he may live to be a comfort and a blessing to his parents. (&#039;Hear, hear!&#039; and an audible sob from Mr. Kitterbell.) But should he not be what we could wish—should he forget in after times, the duty which he owes to them—should they unhappily experience that distracting truth, &#039;how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child&#039;&quot;—Here Mrs. Kitterbell, with her handkerchief to her eyes, and accompanied by several ladies, rushed from the room, and went into violent hysterics in the passage, leaving her better half in almost as bad a condition, and a general impression in Dumps’s favour; for people like sentiment after all. It need hardly be added, that this occurrence quite put a stop to the harmony of the evening. Vinegar, hartshorn, and cold water, were now as much in request as negus, rout-cakes, and bon-bons had been a short time before. Mrs. Kitterbell was immediately conveyed to her apartment, the musicians were silenced, flirting ceased, and the company slowly departed. Dumps left the house at the commencement of the bustle, and walked home with a light step, and (for him) a cheerful heart. His landlady, who slept in the next room, has offered to make oath that she heard him laugh, in his peculiar manner, after he had locked his door. The assertion, however, is so improbable, and bears on the face of it such strong evidence of untruth, that it has never obtained credence to this hour. The family of Mr. Kitterbell has considerably increased since the period to which we have referred; he has now two sons and a daughter: and as he expects, at no distant period, to have another addition to his blooming progeny, he is anxious to secure an eligible godfather for the occasion. He is determined, however, to impose upon him two conditions: he must bind himself, by a solemn obligation, not to make any speech after supper; and it is indispensable that he should be in no way connected with &quot;the most miserable man in the world.&quot;18340401https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Bloomsbury_Christening/1834-04-The_Bloomsbury_Christening.pdf
135https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/135'The Boarding-House' (No. 1)<div id="dublin-core-description" class="element"> <div class="element-text">Published in&nbsp;<em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres, </em>May <span>1834, pp. 481-493.</span></div> </div> <div id="dublin-core-creator" class="element"></div>Dickens, Charles<em>Internet Archive,</em><span><br /></span><a href="https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/monthlymagazineo17lond/page/n9/mode/2up</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-05">1834-05</a><em>Internet Archive,<br /></em><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a><span>. Access to the Archive’s Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-05-The_Boarding_House_No1<span>Dickens, Charles. "The Boarding House" (No.1). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-05-The-Boarding_House_No1">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-05-The-Boarding_House_No1</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a>Mrs. Tibbs was, beyond all dispute, the most tidy, fidgetty, thrifty little personage that ever inhaled the smoke of London; and the house of Mrs. Tibbs was, decidedly, the neatest in all Great Coram-street. The area and the area steps, and the street-door and the street-door steps, and the brass handle, and the door-plate, and the knocker, and the fan-light, were all as clean and as bright as indefatigable white-washing, and hearth-stoning, and scrubbing and rubbing could make them. The wonder was that the brass door-plate, with the interesting inscription &quot;MRS. TIBBS,&quot; had never caught fire from constant friction, so perseveringly was it polished. There were meat-safe-looking wire-blinds in the parlour windows, blue and gold curtains in the drawing-room, and spring-roller blinds, as Mrs. Tibbs was wont, in the pride of her heart to boast, &quot;all the way up.&quot; The bell-lamp in the passage, looked as clear as a soap-bubble; you could see yourself in all the tables, and French polish yourself on any one of the chairs; the banisters were bees&#039;-waxed; and the very stair-wires made your eyes wink, they were so glittering. Mrs. Tibbs was somewhat short of stature, and Mr. Tibbs was by no means a large man; he had moreover very short legs, but, by way of indemnification, his face was peculiarly long; he was to his wife what the 0 is in 90—he was of some importance with her—he was nothing without her. Mrs. Tibbs was always talking. Mr. Tibbs rarely spoke; but if it were at any time possible to put in a word, when he should have said nothing at all, he did it. Mrs. Tibbs detested long stories, and Mr. Tibbs had one, the conclusion of which had never been heard by his most intimate friends. It always began, &quot;I recollect when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and six,&quot;—but, as he spoke very slowly and softly, and his better half very quickly and loudly, he rarely got beyond the introductory sentence. He was a melancholy specimen of the story-teller. He was the wandering Jew of Joe Millerism—ever pursuing and ever shunned. Mr. Tibbs enjoyed a small independence from the pension-list—about 43l. 15s. 10d. a-year. His father, mother, and five interesting scions from the same stock drew a like sum from the revenue of a grateful country, though for what particular service was never known. But as this said independence was not quite sufficient to furnish two people with all the luxuries of this life, it had occurred to the busy little spouse of Tibbs that the best thing she could do with a legacy of 700l., would be to take and furnish a tolerable house, somewhere in that partially-explored tract of country which lies between the British Museum, and a remote village called Somer&#039;s Town, for the reception of boarders. Great Coram-street was the spot pitched upon. The house had been furnished accordingly; two female servants and a boy engaged; and an advertisement inserted in the morning papers, informing the public that &quot;Six individuals would meet with all the comforts of a cheerful musical home, in a select private family, residing within ten minutes’ walk of everywhere.&quot; Answers out of number were received, with all sorts of initials; all the letters of the alphabet seemed to be seized with a sudden wish to go out boarding and lodging; voluminous was the correspondence between Mrs. Tibbs and the applicants, and most profound was the secrecy observed. &quot;E.&quot; didn’t like this, and &quot;I.&quot; couldn’t think of putting up with that; &quot;I. O. U.&quot; didn’t think the terms would suit him; and &quot;G. R.&quot; had never slept in a French bed. The result, however, was, that three gentlemen became inmates of Mrs. Tibbs’s house, on terms which were &quot;agreeable to all parties.&quot; In went the advertisement again, and a lady with her two daughters, proposed to increase—not their families, but Mrs. Tibbs’. &quot;Charming woman, that Mrs. Maplesone!&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, as she and her spouse were sitting by the fire after breakfast; the gentlemen having gone out on their several avocations. &quot;Charming woman, indeed!&quot; repeated little Mrs. Tibbs, more by way of soliloquy than anything else, for she never thought of consulting her husband. &quot;And the two daughters are delightful. We must have some fish to-day; they’ll join us at dinner for the first time.&quot; Mr. Tibbs placed the poker at right angles with the fire-shovel, and essayed to speak, but recollected he had nothing to say. &quot;The young ladies,&#039; continued Mrs. T., &quot;have kindly volunteered to bring their own piano.&quot; Tibbs thought of the volunteer story, but did not venture it. A bright thought struck him - &quot;It’s very likely,&quot; said he. &quot;Pray don’t lean your head against the paper,&quot; interrupted Mrs. Tibbs — &quot;and don’t put your feet on the steel fender; that’s worse.&quot; Tibbs took his head from the paper, and his feet from the fender; and proceeded. &quot;It’s very likely one of the young ladies may set her cap at young Mr. Simpson, and you know a marriage&quot;—— &quot;A what!&quot; shrieked Mrs. Tibbs. Tibbs modestly repeated his former suggestion. &quot;I beg you won’t mention such a thing,&quot; said Mrs. T. &quot;A marriage, indeed! — to rob me of my boarders—no, not for the world.&quot; Tibbs thought in his own mind that the event was by no means unlikely, but as he never argued with his wife, he put a stop to the dialogue, by observing it was &quot;time to go to business.&quot; He always went out at ten o’clock in the morning, and returned at five in the afternoon, with an exceedingly dirty face, and smelling very mouldy. Nobody knew what he was, or where he went to; but Mrs. Tibbs used to say with an air of great importance, that he was engaged in the City. The Miss Maplesones and their accomplished parent arrived in the course of the afternoon in a hackney-coach, and accompanied by a most astonishing number of packages. Trunks, bonnet-boxes, muff-boxes, parasols, guitar-cases; and parcels of all imaginable shapes, done up in brown paper, and fastened with pins, filled the passage. Then there was such a running up and down with the luggage, such scampering for warm water for the ladies to wash in, and such a bustle, and confusion, and heating of servants, and curling-irons, as had never been known in Great Coram-street before. Little Mrs. Tibbs was quite in her element, bustling about, talking incessantly, and distributing towels and soap, and all the et ceteras, like a head nurse in a hospital. The house was not restored to its usual state of quiet repose until the ladies were safely shut up in their respective bed-rooms, engaged in the important occupation of dressing for dinner. &quot;Are these gals andsome?&quot; inquired Mr. Simpson of Mr. Septimus Hicks, another of the boarders, as they were amusing themselves in the drawing-room before dinner, by lolling on sofas, and contemplating their pumps. &quot;Don’t know,&quot; replied Mr. Septimus Hicks, who was a tallish, white-faced young man, with spectacles, and a black ribbon round his neck instead of a neckerchief—a most interesting person; a poetical walker of the hospitals, and a &quot;very talented young man.&quot; He was fond of &quot;lugging&quot; into conversation all sorts of quotations from Don Juan, without fettering himself by the propriety of their application, in which particular he was remarkably independent. The other, Mr. Simpson, was one of those young men, who are in society what walking gentlemen are on the stage, only infinitely worse skilled in his vocation than the most indifferent artist. He was as empty-headed as the great bell of St. Paul’s, and had about as long a tongue. He always dressed according to the caricatures, published in Townsend&#039;s monthly fashions; and spelt Character with a K. &quot;I saw a devilish number of parcels in the passage when I came home,&quot; simpered Simpson. &quot;Materials for the toilet, no doubt,&quot; rejoined the Don Juan reader. &quot; — much linen, lace, and several pair Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete; With other articles of ladies&#039; fair, To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat.&quot; &quot;Is that from Milton?&quot; inquired Mr. Simpson. &quot;No—from Byron,&quot; returned Mr. Hicks, with a look of profound contempt. He was quite sure of his author, because he had never read any other. — &quot;Hush!&quot; said the sapient hospital walker,, &quot;Here come the gals,&quot; and they both commenced talking in a very loud key. &quot;Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesones, Mr. Hicks. Mr. Hicks—Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesones,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, with a very red face, for she had been superintending the cooking operations below stairs, and looked like a wax doll on a sunny day. Mr. Simpson, I beg your pardon—Mr. Simpson—Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesone&#039;s&quot;—and vice versa. The gentlemen immediately began to slide about with much politeness, and to look as if they wished their arms had been legs, so little did they know what to do with them. The ladies smiled, curtsied, and glided into chairs, and dived for dropped pockethandkerchiefs; the gentlemen leant against two of the curtain-pegs; Mrs. Tibbs went through an admirable bit of serious pantomime with a servant who had come up to ask some question about the fish sauce; and then the two young ladies looked at each other; and everybody else appeared to discover something very attractive in the pattern of the fender. &quot;Julia, my love,&quot; said Mrs. Maplesone to her youngest daughter, in a tone just loud enough for the remainder of the company to hear—&quot;Julia.&quot; &quot;Yes, Ma.&quot; &quot;Don’t stoop.&quot;—This was said for the purpose of directing general attention to Miss Julia’s figure, which was undeniable. Everybody looked at her, accordingly, and there was another pause. &quot;We had the most uncivil hackney-coachman to-day, you can imagine,&quot; said Mrs. Maplesone to Mrs. Tibbs, in a truly confidential tone. &quot;Dear me!&quot; replied the hostess, with an air of great commiseration. She couldn’t say more, for the servant again appeared at the door, and commenced telegraphing most earnestly to her &quot;Misses.&quot; &quot;I think hackney-coachmen generally are uncivil,&quot; said Mr. Hicks in his most insinuating tone. &quot;Positively I think they are,&quot; replied Mrs. Maplesone, as if the idea had never struck her before. &quot;And cabmen, too,&quot; said Mr. Simpson. This remark was a failure, for no one intimated by word or sign the slightest knowledge of the manners and customs of cabmen. &quot;Robinson, what do you want?&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs to the servant, who, by way of making her presence known to her mistress, had been giving sundry hems and sniffs outside the door, during the preceding five minutes. &quot;Please, ma’am, master wants his clean things,&quot; replied the servant, taken off her guard. There was no resisting this: the two young men turned their faces to the window, and &quot;went off&quot; like a couple of bottles of ginger-beer; the ladies put their cambrics to their mouths, and little Mrs. Tibbs bustled out of the room to give Tibbs his clean linen,—and the servant warning. Mr. Calton, the remaining boarder, shortly afterwards made his appearance, and proved a surprising promoter of the conversation. Mr. Calton was a superannuated beau—an old boy. He used to say of himself, that although his features were not regularly handsome, they were striking. They certainly were: it was impossible to look at his face without being reminded of a chubby street-door knocker, half-lion half-monkey; and the comparison might be extended to his whole character and conversation. He had stood still while everything else had been moving. He never originated a conversation, or started a new idea; but if any common-place topic were broached, or, to pursue the comparison, if anybody lifted him up, he would hammer away with surprising rapidity. He had the tic douloreux occasionally, and then he might be said to be muffled, because he did not make quite as much noise as at other times, when he would go on prosing, rat-tat-tat, the same thing over and over again. He had never been married; but he was still on the look-out for a wife with money. He had a life interest worth about 300l. a year—he was exceedingly vain, and inordinately selfish. He had acquired the reputation of being the very pink of politeness; and he walked round the park, and up Regent-street, every day. This respectable personage had made up his mind to render himself exceedingly agreeable to Mrs. Maplesone—indeed, the desire of being as amiable as possible extended itself to the whole party; Mrs. Tibbs having considered it an admirable little bit of management to represent to the gentlemen that she had some reason to believe the ladies were fortunes, and to hint to the ladies, that all the gentlemen were &quot;eligible.&quot; A little flirtation, she thought, might keep her house full, without leading to any other result. Mrs. Maplesone was an enterprising widow of about fifty; shrewd, scheming, and good-looking. She was amiably anxious on behalf of her daughters; in proof whereof she used to remark, that she would have no objection to marry again, if it would benefit her dear girls—she could have no other motive. The &quot;dear girls&quot; themselves were not at all insensible to the merits of &quot;a good establishment.&quot; One of them was twenty-five; the other three years younger. They had been at different watering-places for four seasons; they had gambled at libraries, read books in balconies, sold at fancy fairs, danced at assemblies, talked sentiment—in short, they had done all that industrious girls could do, and all to no purpose. &quot;What a magnificent dresser Mr. Simpson is!&quot; whispered Miss Matilda Maplesone to her sister Julia. &quot;Splendid!&quot; returned the youngest. The magnificent individual alluded to wore a maroon-coloured dress-coat, with a velvet collar and cuffs of the same tint—very like that which usually invests the form of the distinguished unknown who condescends to play the &quot;swell&quot; in the pantomime at &quot;Richardson’s Show.&quot; &quot;What whiskers!&quot; said Miss Julia. &quot;Charming!&quot; responded her sister; &quot;and what hair!&quot; His hair was like a wig, and distinguished by that insinuating wave which graces the shining locks of those chef-d’oeuvres of art surmounting the waxen images in Bartellot’s window in Regent-street; and his whiskers, meeting beneath his chin, seemed strings wherewith to tie it on, ere science had rendered them unnecessary by her patent invisible springs. &quot;Dinner’s on the table, ma’am, if you please,&quot; said the boy, who now appeared for the first time, in a revived black coat of his master’s. &quot;Oh! Mr. Calton, will you lead Mrs. Maplesone?—Thank you.&quot; Mr. Simpson offered his arm to Miss Julia; Mr. Septimus Hicks escorted the lovely Matilda; and the procession proceeded to the dining-room. Mr. Tibbs was introduced, and Mr. Tibbs bobbed up and down to the three ladies like a figure in a Dutch clock, with a powerful spring in the middle of his body, and then dived rapidly into his seat at the bottom of the table, delighted to screen himself behind a soup tureen, which he could just see over, and that was all. The boarders were seated, a lady and gentleman alternately, like the layers of bread and meat in a sandwich; and then Mrs. Tibbs directed James to take off the covers, and salmon, lobster-sauce, giblet-soup, and the usual accompaniments were discovered: potatoes like petrifactions, and bits of toasted bread, the shape and size of blank dice. &quot;Soup for Mrs. Maplesone, my dear,&quot; said the bustling Mrs. Tibbs. She always called her husband &quot;my dear&quot; before company. Tibbs, who had been eating his bread, and calculating how long it would be before he should get any fish, helped the soup in a hurry, made a small island on the table-cloth, and put his glass upon it, to hide it from his wife. &quot;Miss Julia, shall I assist you to some fish?&quot; &quot;If you please—very little—oh! plenty, thank you;&quot; (a bit about the size of a walnut put upon the plate). &quot;Julia is a very little eater,&quot; said Mrs. Maplesone to Mr. Calton. The knocker gave a single rap. He was busy eating the fish with his eyes: so he only ejaculated, &quot;Ah!&quot; &quot;My dear,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs to her spouse after every one else had been helped, &quot;what do you take?&quot; The inquiry was accompanied with a look intimating that he mustn’t say fish, because there was not much left. Tibbs thought the frown referred to the island on the table-cloth; he therefore coolly replied, &quot;Why—I’ll take a little—fish, I think.&quot; &quot;Did you say fish, my dear?&quot; (another frown.) &quot;Yes, dear,&quot; replied the villain, with an expression of acute hunger depicted in his countenance. The tears almost started to Mrs. Tibbs’s eyes, as she helped her &quot;wretch of a husband,&quot; as she inwardly called him, to the last eatable bit of salmon on the dish. &quot;James, take this to your master, and take away your master’s knife.&quot; This was deliberate revenge, as Tibbs never could eat fish without one. He was, however, constrained to chase small particles of salmon round and round his plate with a piece of bread and a fork, occasionally securing a bit; the number of successful attempts being about one in seventeen. &quot;Take away, James,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, as Tibbs swallowed the fourth mouthful—and away went the plates like lightning. &quot;I’ll take a bit of bread, James,&quot; said the poor &quot;master of the house,&quot; more hungry than ever. &quot;Never mind your master now, James,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, &quot;see about the meat.&quot; — This was conveyed in the tone in which ladies usually give admonitions to servants in company, that is to say, a low one; but which, like a stage whisper, from its peculiar emphasis, is most distinctly heard by everybody present. A pause ensued before the table was replenished—a sort of parenthesis in which Mr. Simpson, Mr. Calton, and Mr. Hicks produced respectively a bottle of sauterne, bucellas, and sherry, and took wine with everybody—except Tibbs: no one ever thought of him. Between the fish and an intimated sirloin there was a prolonged interval. Here was an opportunity for Mr. Hicks. He could not resist the singularly appropriate quotation: - &quot;But beef is rare within these oxless isles; Goats’ flesh there is, no doubt, and kid, and mutton, And when a holiday upon them smiles, A joint upon their barbarous spits they put on.&quot; &quot;Very ungentlemanly behaviour,&quot; thought little Mrs. Tibbs, &quot;to talk in that way.&quot; &quot;Ah,&quot; said Mr. Calton, filling his glass. &quot;Tom Moore is my poet.&quot; &quot;And mine,&quot; said Mrs. Maplesone. &quot;And mine,&quot; said Miss Julia. &quot;And mine,&quot; added Mr. Simpson. &quot;Look at his compositions,&quot; resumed the knocker. &quot;To be sure,&quot; said Simpson, with confidence. &quot;Look at Don Juan,&quot; replied Mr. Septimus Hicks. &quot;Julia’s letter,&quot; suggested Miss Matilda. &quot;Can anything be grander than The Fire Worshippers?&quot; inquired Miss Julia. &quot;To be sure,&quot; said Simpson. &quot;Or Paradise and the Peri,&quot; said the old beau. &quot;Yes; or Paradise and the Peer,&quot; repeated the deeply-read Simpson, who thought he was getting through it capitally. &quot;It’s all very well,&quot; replied Mr. Septimus Hicks, who, as we have before hinted, never had read anything but Don Juan. Where will you find anything finer than the description of the siege, at the commencement of the seventh canto?&quot; &quot;Talking of a siege,&quot; said Tibbs, with a mouthful of bread—&quot;when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and six, our commanding officer was Sir Charles Rampart; and one day, when we were exercising on the ground on which the London University now stands, he says, says he, Tibbs (calling me from the ranks), Tibbs—&quot; &quot;Tell your master, James,&quot; interrupted Mrs. Tibbs, in an awfully distinct tone, &quot;tell your master if he won’t carve those fowls, to send them to me.&quot; The discomfited volunteer instantly set to work, and carved the fowls almost as expeditiously as his wife operated on the haunch of mutton. Whether he ever finished that story is not exactly known. As the ice was now broken, and the new inmates more at home, every member of the company felt more at ease. Tibbs himself most certainly did, because he went to sleep immediately after dinner. Mr. Hicks and the ladies discoursed most eloquently about poetry, and the theatres, and Lord Chesterfield’s Letters; and Mr. Calton followed up what everybody said, with continuous double knocks. Mrs. Tibbs highly approved of every observation that fell from Mrs. Maplesone; and as Mr. Simpson sat with a smile upon his face and said &quot;Yes,&quot; or &quot;Certainly,&quot; at intervals of about four minutes each, he received full credit for understanding what was going forward. The gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room very shortly after they had left the dining-parlour. Mrs. Maplesone and Mr. Calton played cribbage, and the &quot;young people&quot; amused themselves with music and conversation. The Miss Maplesones sang the most fascinating duets, and accompanied themselves on guitars, ornamented with bits of ethereal blue ribbon. Mr. Simpson put on a pink waistcoat, and said he was in raptures; and Mr. Hicks felt in the seventh heaven of poetry or the seventh canto of Don Juan,—it was the same thing to him. Mrs. Tibbs was quite charmed with the new comers, and Mr. Tibbs spent the evening in his usual way—he went to sleep, and woke up, and went to sleep again, and woke at supper-time. We are not about to adopt the licence of novel-writers, and to let &quot;years roll on;&quot; but we will take the liberty of requesting the reader to suppose that six months have elapsed, since the dinner we have described, and that Mrs. Tibbs’s boarders have, during that period, sang, and danced, and gone to theatres and exhibitions together, as ladies and gentlemen, wherever they board, often do; and we will beg them, the period we have mentioned having elapsed, to imagine further, that Mr. Septimus Hicks received, in his own bed-room (a front attic), at an early hour one morning, a note from Mr. Calton, requesting the favour of seeing him, as soon as convenient to himself, in his (Calton’s) dressing-room on the second-floor back. &quot;Tell Mr. Calton I’ll come down directly,&quot; said Mr. Septimus to the boy. &quot;Stop—Is Mr. Calton unwell?&quot; inquired this excited walker of hospitals, as he put on a bed-furniture-looking dressing-gown. &quot;Not as I knows on, Sir,&quot; replied the boy. &quot;Please, Sir, he looked rather rum, as it might be.&quot; &quot;Ah, that’s no proof of his being ill,&quot; returned Hicks, unconsciously. &quot;Very well: I’ll be down directly.&quot; Down stairs ran the boy with the message, and down went the excited Hicks himself, almost as soon as the message was delivered. &quot;Tap, tap.&quot; &quot;Come in.&quot;—Door opens, and discovers Mr. Calton sitting in an easy chair, and looking more like a knocker than ever. Mutual shakes of the hand exchanged, and Mr. Septimus Hicks motioned to a seat. A short pause. Mr. Hicks coughed, and Mr. Calton took a pinch of snuff. It was just one of those interviews where neither party knows what to say. Mr. Septimus Hicks broke silence. &quot;I received a note—&quot; he said, very tremulously, in a voice like a Punch with a cold. &quot;Yes,&quot; returned the other, &quot;you did.&quot; &quot;Exactly.&quot; &quot;Yes.&quot; Now, although this dialogue must have been satisfactory, both gentlemen felt there was something more important to be said; therefore they did as most men in such a situation would have done—they looked at the table with a most determined aspect. The conversation had been opened, however, and Mr. Calton had made up his mind to continue it with a regular double knock. He always spoke very pompously. &quot;Hicks,&quot; said he, &quot;I have sent for you in consequence of certain arrangements which are pending in this house, connected with a marriage.&quot; &quot;With a marriage!&quot; gasped Hicks, compared with whose expression of countenance, Hamlet’s, when he sees his father’s ghost, is pleasing and composed. &quot;With a marriage!&quot; returned the knocker. &quot;I have sent for you to prove the great confidence I can repose in you.&quot; &quot;And will you betray me?&quot; eagerly inquired Hicks, who in his alarm had even forgotten to quote. I betray you! Won’t you betray me?&quot; &quot;Never: no one shall know, to my dying day, that you had a hand in the business,&quot; responded the agitated Hicks, with an inflamed countenance, and his hair standing on end as if he were on the stool of an electrifying machine in full operation. &quot;People must know that, some time or other—within a year, I imagine,&quot; said Mr. Calton, with an air of great self-complacency. &quot;We may have a family.&quot; &quot;We!—That won’t affect you, surely?&quot; &quot;The devil it won’t!&quot; &quot;No! How can it?&quot; said the bewildered Hicks. Calton was too much inwrapped in the contemplation of his happiness to see the equivoque between Hicks and himself; and threw himself back in his chair, &quot;Oh, Matilda!&quot; sighed the antique beau, in a lack-a-daysical voice, and applying his right hand a little to the left of the fourth button of his waistcoat, counting from the bottom. This was meant to be pathetic - &quot;Oh, Matilda!&quot; &quot;What Matilda?&quot; inquired Hicks, starting up. &quot;Matilda Maplesone,&quot; responded the other, doing the same. &quot;I marry her to-morrow morning,&quot; said Hicks, furiously. &quot;It’s false,&quot; rejoined his companion: &quot;I marry her!&quot; &quot;You marry her?&quot; &quot;I marry her!&quot; &quot;You marry Matilda Maplesone?&quot; &quot;Matilda Maplesone.&quot; &quot;Miss Maplesone marry you?&quot; &quot;Miss Maplesone! No; Mrs. Maplesone.&quot; &quot;Good Heaven!&quot; said Hicks, falling into his chair like Ward in Gustavus: &quot;You marry the mother, and I the daughter!&quot; &quot;Most extraordinary circumstance!&quot; replied Mr. Calton, &quot;and rather inconvenient too; for the fact is, that owing to Matilda’s wishing to keep her intention secret from her daughters until the ceremony had taken place, she doesn’t like applying to any of her friends to give her away. I entertain an objection to making the affair known to my acquaintance just now; and the consequence is, that I sent to you to know whether you’d oblige me by acting as father.&quot; &quot;I should have been most happy, I assure you,&quot; said Hicks, in a tone of condolence; &quot;but, you see, I shall be acting as bridegroom. One character is frequently a consequence of the other; but it is no usual to act in both at the same time. There’s Simpson—I have no doubt he’ll do it for you.&quot; &quot;I don’t like to ask him,&quot; replied Calton, &quot;he’s such a donkey.&quot; Mr. Septimus Hicks looked up at the ceiling and down at the floor; at last an idea struck him — &quot;Let the man of the house, Tibbs, be the father,&quot; he suggested; and then he quoted, as peculiarly applicable to Tibbs and the pair - &quot;Oh Powers of Heaven! what dark eyes meeets she there? &#039;Tis—’tis her father’s—fixed upon the pair.&quot; &quot;The idea has struck me already,&quot; said Mr. Calton: &quot;but, you see, Matilda, for what reason I know not, is very anxious that Mrs. Tibbs should know nothing about it, till it’s all over. It’s a natural delicacy, after all, you know.&quot; &quot;He’s the best-natured little man in existence, if you manage him properly,&quot; said Mr. Septimus Hicks. &quot;Tell him not to mention it to his wife, and assure him she won’t mind it, and he’ll do it directly. My marriage is to be a secret one, on account of the mother and my father; therefore he must be enjoined to secrecy.&quot; A small double knock, like a presumptuous single one, was that instant heard at the street door. It was Tibbs; it could be no one else; for no one else occupied five minutes in rubbing their shoes. He had been out to pay the baker’s bill. &quot;Mr. Tibbs,&quot; called Mr. Calton in a very bland tone, looking over the banisters. &quot;Sir!&quot; replied he of the dirty face. &quot;Will you have the kindness to step up-stairs for a moment.&quot; &quot;Certainly, sir,&quot; said Tibbs, delighted to be taken notice of. The bed-room door was carefully closed, and Tibbs, having put his hat on the floor (as all timid men do), and been accommodated with a seat, looked as astounded as if he were suddenly summoned before the familiars of the Inquisition. &quot;A rather unpleasant occurrence, Mr. Tibbs,&quot; said Calton, in a very portentous manner, &quot;obliges me to consult you, and to beg you will not communicate what I am about to say to your wife.&quot; Tibbs acquiesced, wondering in his own mind what the deuce the other could have done, and imagining that at least he must have broken the best decanters. Mr. Calton resumed; &quot;I am placed, Mr. Tibbs, in rather an unpleasant situation.&quot; Tibbs looked at Mr. Septimus Hicks, as if he thought his being in the immediate vicinity of his fellow-boarder constituted the unpleasantness of his situation; but as he did not exactly know what to say, he merely ejaculated the monosyllable &quot;Lor!&quot; &quot;Now,&quot; continued the knocker, &quot;let me beg you will exhibit no manifestations of surprise, which may be overheard by the domestics, when I tell you—command your feelings of astonishment—that two inmates of this house intend to be married to-morrow morning,&quot; — and he drew back his chair several feet to perceive the effect of the unlooked-for announcement. If Tibbs had rushed from the room, staggered down stairs, and fainted in the passage—if he had instantaneously jumped out of the window into the mews behind the house, in an agony of surprise —his behaviour would have been much less inexplicable to Mr. Calton than it was, when he put his hands into his inexpressible-pockets, and said, with a half-chuckle, &quot;Just so.&quot; &quot;You are not surprised, Mr. Tibbs?&quot; inquired Mr. Calton. &quot;Bless you, no, sir,&quot; returned Tibbs; &quot;after all, it&#039;s very natural. When two young people get together, you know—&quot; &quot;Certainly, certainly,&quot; said Calton, with an indescribable air of self-satisfaction. &quot;You don’t think it’s at all an out-of-the-way affair then?&quot; asked Mr. Septimus Hicks, who had watched the countenance of Tibbs in mute astonishment. &quot;No, Sir,&quot; replied Tibbs; &quot;I was just the same at his age.&quot; He actually smiled when he said this. &quot;How devilish well I must carry my years!&quot; thought the delighted old beau, knowing he was at least ten years older than Tibbs at that moment. &quot;Well, then, to come to the point at once,&quot; he continued, &quot;I have to ask you whether you will object to act as father on the occasion?&quot; &quot;Certainly not,&quot; replied Tibbs; still without evincing an atom of surprise. ‘You will not?’ &quot;Decidedly not,&quot; reiterated Tibbs, still as calm as a pot of porter with the head off. Mr. Calton seized the hand of the petticoat-governed little man, and vowed eternal friendship from that hour. Hicks, who was all admiration and surprise, did the same. &quot;Now, confess,&quot; asked Mr. Calton of Tibbs, as he picked up his hat, &quot;were you not a little surprised?&quot; &quot;I b’lieve you!&quot; replied that illustrious person, holding up one hand; &quot;I b’lieve you! when I first heard of it.&quot; &quot;So sudden,&quot; said Septimus Hicks. &quot;So strange to ask me, you know,&quot; said Tibbs. &quot;So odd altogether,&quot; said the superannuated love-maker; and then all three laughed. &quot;I say,&quot; said Tibbs, shutting the door which he had previously opened, and giving full vent to a hitherto corked-up giggle, &quot;what bothers me is, what will his father say?&quot; Mr. Septimus Hicks looked at Mr. Calton. &quot;Yes; but the best of it is,&quot; said the latter, giggling in his turn, &quot;I haven’t got a father—he! he! he!&quot; &quot;You haven’t got a father. No; but he has,&quot; said Tibbs. &quot;Who has?&quot; inquired Septimus Hicks. &quot;Why, him.&quot; &quot;Him, who? Do you know my secret? Do you mean me?&quot; &quot;You! No; you know who I mean,&quot; returned Tibbs, with a knowing wink. &quot;For Heaven’s sake, whom do you mean?&quot; inquired Mr. Calton, who, like Septimus Hicks, was all but out of his senses at the strange confusion. &quot;Why Mr. Simpson, of course,&quot; replied Tibbs; &quot;who else could I mean?&quot; &quot;I see it all,&quot; said the Byron-quoter; &quot;Simpson marries Julia Maplesone to-morrow morning!&quot; &quot;Undoubtedly,&quot; replied Tibbs, thoroughly satisfied, &quot;of course he does.&quot; It would require the pencil of Hogarth to illustrate—our feeble pen is inadequate to describe—the expression which the countenances of Mr. Calton and Mr. Septimus Hicks respectively assumed at this unexpected announcement. Equally impossible is it to describe, although perhaps it is easier for our lady readers to imagine, what arts the three ladies could have used, so completely to entangle their separate partners. Whatever they were, however, they were successful. The mother was perfectly aware of the intended marriage of both daughters; and the young ladies were equally acquainted with the intention of their estimable parent. They agreed, however, that it would have a much better appearance if each feigned ignorance of the other’s engagement; and it was equally desirable that all the marriages should take place on the same day, to prevent the discovery of one clandestine alliance, operating prejudicially on the others. Hence the mystification of Mr. Calton and Mr. Septimus Hicks, and the pre-engagement of the unwary Tibbs. On the following morning, Mr. Septimus Hicks was united to Miss Matilda Maplesone. Mr. Simpson also entered into a &quot;holy alliance&quot; with Miss Julia, Tibbs acting as father, &quot;his first appearance in that character.&quot; Mr. Calton not being quite so eager as the two young men, was rather struck by the double discovery; and as he had found some difficulty in getting any one to give the lady away, it occurred to him that the best mode of obviating the inconvenience would be not to take her at all. The lady, however, &quot;appealed,&quot; as her counsel said on the trial of the cause, Maplesone v. Calton, for a breach of promise, &quot;with a broken heart, to the outraged laws of her country.&quot; She recovered damages to the amount of 1,000l. which the unfortunate knocker was compelled to pay, because he had declined to ring the belle. Mr. Septimus Hicks having walked the hospitals, took it into his head to walk off altogether. His injured wife is at present residing with her mother at Boulonge. Mr. Simpson, having the misfortune to lose his wife six weeks after marriage (by her eloping with an officer during his temporary sojourn in the Fleet Prison, in consequence of his inability to discharge her little mantua-maker’s bill), and being disinherited by his father, who died soon afterwards, was fortunate enough to obtain a permanent engagement at a fashionable hair-cutter’s; hair dressing being a science to which he had frequently directed his attention. In this situation he had necessarily many opportunities of making himself acquainted with the habits and style of thinking of the exclusive portion of the nobility of this kingdom. To this fortunate circumstance are we indebted for the production of those brilliant efforts of genius, his fashionable novels, which so long as good taste, unsullied exaggeration, cant, and maudlin quackery continues to exist, cannot fail to instruct and amuse the thinking portion of the community. It only remains to add, that this &quot;complication of disorders&quot; completely deprived poor Mrs. Tibbs of all her inmates, except the one whom it would have afforded her the greatest pleasure to lose —her husband. That wretched little man returned home on the day of the wedding in a state of partial intoxication; and, under the influence of wine, excitement, and despair, actually dared to brave the anger of his wife. Since that ill-fated hour he has constantly taken his meals in the kitchen, to which apartment it is understood his witticisms will be in future confined, a turn-up bedstead having been conveyed there by Mrs. Tibbs’s order for his exclusive accommodation. It is very likely that he will be enabled to finish there his story of the volunteers. The advertisement has again appeared in the morning papers. Whether it will be productive of any beneficial result, we of course are unable to foretell. If it should, we may, perhaps, at no distant period, return to Mrs. Tibbs and her &quot;Boarding-House.&quot;18340501https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Boarding-House_[No._1]/1834-05-The_Boarding_House_No1.pdf
148https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/148'The Boarding-House' (No.2)Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres,</em>&nbsp;August 1834, pp. 177-192.Dickens, Charles<em>The Monthly Magazine, or The British Register of Politics, Art, Science, and the Belles-Lettres.</em> August 1834, pp. 177-192, <em>Internet Archive</em>, <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_monthly-magazine_1834_18_index/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/sim_monthly-magazine_1834_18_index/mode/2up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-08">1834-08</a><em>Internet Archive,</em> <a href="https://archive.org/about.terms.php">https://archive.org/about.terms.php</a>. Access to the Archive's Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-08-The_Boarding_House_No2Dickens, Charles. "The Boarding House" (No.2). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-08-The_Boarding_House_No2">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-08-The_Boarding_House_No2</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>&quot;Well,&quot; said little Mrs. Tibbs to herself, as she sat in the front parlour of the Coram-street mansion one morning, mending a piece of stair-carpet off the first landing;—&quot;well! things have not turned out so badly either, and if I only get a favourable answer to the advertisement, we shall be full again.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs resumed her occupation of making worsted lattice-work in the carpet, anxiously listening to the twopenny postman, who was hammering his way down the street at the rate of a penny a knock. The house was as quiet as possible. There was only one low sound to be heard—it was the unhappy Tibbs cleaning the gentlemen’s boots in the back kitchen, and accompanying himself with a buzzing noise, in wretched mockery of humming a tune. The postman drew near the house. He paused—so did Mrs. Tibbs—a knock—a bustle—a letter—post-paid. &quot;T. I. presents compt. to I. T. and T. I. begs To say that i see the advertisement And she will Do Herself the pleasure of calling On you at 12 o’clock to-morrow morning. &quot;T. I. as To apoligise to I. T. for the shortness Of the notice But i hope it will not unconvenience you. &quot;I remain &quot;yours Truly &quot;Wednesday evening.&quot; Little Mrs. Tibbs perused the document over and over again; and the more she read it, the more was she confused by the mixture of the first and third person; the substitution of the &quot;I&quot; for the &quot;T. I,&quot; and the transition from the &quot;I. T.&quot; to the you.&quot; The writing looked like a skein of thread in a tangle, and the note was ingeniously folded into a perfect square, with the direction squeezed up into the right-hand corner, as if it were ashamed of itself. The back of the epistle was pleasingly ornamented with a large red wafer, which, with the addition of divers ink-stains, bore a marvellous resemblance to a black-beetle trodden upon. One thing, however, was perfectly clear to the perplexed Mrs. Tibbs. Somebody was to call at twelve. The drawing-room was forthwith dusted for the third time that morning; three or four chairs were pulled out of their places, and a corresponding number of books carefully upset, in order that there might be a due absence of formality. Down went the piece of stair-carpet before noticed, and up ran Mrs. Tibbs &quot;to make herself tidy.&quot; The clock of New Saint Pancras Church struck twelve, and the Foundling, with laudable politeness, did the same ten minutes afterwards. Saint something else struck the quarter, and then there arrived a single lady with a double knock, in a pelisse the colour of the interior of a damson pie; a bonnet of the same, with a regular conservatory of artificial flowers; a white veil, and a green parasol, with a cobweb border. The visitor (who was very fat and red-faced) was shown into the drawing-room; Mrs. Tibbs presented herself, and the negociation commenced. &quot;I called in consequence of an advertizement,&quot; said the stranger, in a voice like a man who had been playing a set of Pan’s pipes for a fortnight without leaving off. &quot;Yes!&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, rubbing her hands very slowly, and looking the applicant full in the face—two things she always did on such occasions. &quot;Money isn’t no object whatever to me,&quot; said the lady, &quot;so much as living in a state of retirement and obtrusion.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs, as a matter of course, acquiesced in such an exceedingly natural desire. &quot;I am constantly attended by a medical man,&quot; resumed the pelisse wearer; &quot;have been a shocking unitarian for some time—have had very little peace since the death of Mr. Bloss.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs looked at the relict of the departed Bloss, and thought he must have had very little peace in his time. Of course she could not say so; so she looked very sympathising. &quot;I shall be a good deal of trouble to you,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss; &quot;but, for that trouble I am willing to pay. I am going through a course of treatment which renders attention necessary. I have one mutton chop in bed at half-past eight, and another at ten, every morning.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs, as in duty bound, expressed the pity she felt for any body placed in such a distressing situation; and the carnivorous Mrs. Bloss proceeded to arrange the various preliminaries with wonderful despatch. &quot;Now mind,&quot; said that lady, after terms were arranged; &quot;I am to have the second-floor front for my bedroom?&quot; &quot;Yes, ma’am.&quot; &quot;And you’ll find room for my little servant Agnes?&quot; &quot;Oh! certainly.&quot; &quot;And I can have one of the cellars in the area for my bottled porter.&quot; &quot;With the greatest pleasure;—James shall get it ready for you by Saturday.&quot; &quot;And I’ll join the company at the breakfast-table on Sunday morning,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss. &quot;I shall get up on purpose.&quot; &quot;Very well,&quot; returned Mrs. Tibbs, in her most amiable tone; for satisfactory references had &quot;been given and required,&quot; and it was quite certain that the new comer had plenty of money. &quot;It’s rather singular,&quot; continued Mrs. Tibbs, with what was meant for a most bewitching smile, &quot;that we have a gentleman now with us, who is in a very delicate state of health—a Mr. Gobler.—His apartment is the back drawing-room.&quot; &quot;The next room?&quot; inquired Mrs. Bloss. &quot;The next room,&quot; repeated the hostess. &quot;How very promiscuous!&quot; ejaculated the widow. &quot;He hardly ever gets up,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs in a whisper. &quot;Lor!&quot; cried Mrs. Bloss, in an equally low tone. &quot;And when he is up,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, &quot;we never can persuade him to go to bed again.&quot; &quot;Dear me!&quot; said the astonished Mrs. Bloss, drawing her chair nearer Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;What is his complaint?&quot; &quot;Why, the fact is,&quot; replied Mrs. Tibbs, with a most communicative air, &quot;he has no stomach whatever.&quot; &quot;No what?&quot; inquired Mrs. Bloss, with a look of the most indescribable alarm. &quot;No stomach,&quot; repeated Mrs. Tibbs, with a shake of the head. &quot;Lord bless us! what an extraordinary case!&quot; gasped Mrs. Bloss, as if she understood the communication in its literal sense, and was astonished at a gentleman without a stomach finding it necessary to board anywhere. &quot;When I say he has no stomach,&quot; explained the chatty little Mrs. Tibbs, &quot;I mean that his digestion is so much impaired, and his interior so deranged, that his stomach is not of the least use to him;—in fact, it’s rather an inconvenience than otherwise.&quot; &quot;Never heard such a case in my life!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Bloss. &quot;Why, he’s worse than I am.&quot; &quot;Oh, yes!&quot; replied Mrs. Tibbs;—&quot;certainly.&quot; She said this with great confidence, for the set of the damson pelisse satisfactorily proved that Mrs. Bloss, at all events, was not suffering under Mr. Gobler’s complaint. &quot;You have quite incited my curiosity,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, as she rose to depart. &quot;How I long to see him!&quot; &quot;He generally comes down once a week,&quot; replied Mrs. Tibbs; &quot;I dare say you’ll see him on Sunday.&quot; And with this consolatory promise Mrs. Bloss was obliged to be contented. She accordingly walked slowly down the stairs, detailing her complaints all the way; and Mrs. Tibbs followed her, uttering an exclamation of compassion at every step. James (who looked very gritty, for he was cleaning the knives) fell up the kitchen-stairs, and opened the street-door; and, after mutual farewells, Mrs. Bloss slowly departed down the shady side of the street. It is almost superfluous to say, that the lady whom we have just shown out at the street-door (and whom the two female servants are now inspecting from the second-floor windows) was exceedingly vulgar, ignorant, and selfish. Her deceased better-half had been an eminent cork-cutter, in which capacity he had amassed a decent fortune. He had no relative but his nephew, and no friend but his cook. The former had the insolence one morning to ask for the loan of fifteen pounds, and by way of retaliation he married the latter next day; he made a will immediately afterwards, containing a burst of honest indignation against his nephew (who supported himself and two sisters on 100l a year), and a bequest of his whole property to his wife. He felt ill after breakfast, and died after dinner. There is a mantelpiece-looking tablet in a civic parish church, setting forth his virtues, and deploring his loss. He never dishonoured a bill, or gave away a halfpenny! The relict and sole executrix of this noble-minded man was an odd mixture of shrewdness and simplicity, liberality and meanness. Bred up as she had been, she knew no mode of living so agreeable as a boarding-house; and having nothing to do, and nothing to wish for, she naturally imagined she must be very ill—an impression which was most assiduously promoted by her medical attendant, Dr. Wosky, and her handmaid, Agnes, both of whom, doubtless for excellent reasons, encouraged all her extravagant notions. Since the catastrophe recorded in our last, Mrs. Tibbs had been very shy of young lady boarders. Her present inmates were all lords of the creation, and she availed herself of the opportunity of their assemblage at the dinner table, to announce the expected arrival of Mrs. Bloss. The gentlemen received the communication with stoical indifference, and Mrs. Tibbs devoted all her energies to prepare for the reception of the valetudinarian. The second-floor front was scrubbed, and washed, and flannelled, till the wet went through to the drawing-room ceiling. Clean white counterpanes, and curtains, and napkins; water-bottles as clear as crystal, blue jugs, and mahogany furniture, added to the splendour and increased the comfort of the apartment. The warming-pan was in constant requisition, and a fire lighted in the room every day. The chattels of Mrs. Bloss were forwarded by instalments. First there came a large hamper of Guinness’s stout and an umbrella; then a train of trunks; then a pair of clogs and a bandbox; then an easy chair with an air cushion; then a variety of suspicious-looking packages; and—&quot;though last not least&quot;—Mrs. Bloss and Agnes, the latter in a cherry-coloured merino dress, open-work stockings, and shoes with sandals; looking like a disguised Columbine. The installation of the Duke of Wellington, as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, was nothing in point of bustle and turmoil to the installation of Mrs. Bloss in her new quarters. True, there was no bright doctor of civil law to deliver a classical address on the occasion; but there were several other old women present, who spoke quite as much to the purpose, and understood themselves equally well. The chop-eater was so fatigued with the process of removal that she declined leaving her room until the following morning; so a mutton-chop, pickle, a two-grain calomel pill, a pint-bottle of stout, and other medicines, were carried up stairs for her consumption. &quot;Why, what do you think, ma’am?&quot; inquired the inquisitive Agnes of her mistress, after they had been in the house some three hours; &quot;what do you think, ma’am? the lady of the house is married.&quot; &quot;Married!&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, taking the pill and a draught of Guinness—&quot;married! Unpossible!&quot; &quot;She is indeed, ma’am,&quot; returned the Columbine; &quot;and her husband, ma’am, lives—he—he—he—lives in the kitchen, ma’am.&quot; &quot;In the kitchen!&quot; &quot;Yes, ma’am: and he—he—he—the housemaid says, he never goes into the parlour except on Sundays; and that Ms. Tibbs makes him clean the gentlemen’s boots; and that he cleans the windows, too, sometimes; and that one morning early, when he was in the front balcony cleaning the drawing-room windows, he called out to a gentleman on the opposite side of the way, who used to live here—&#039;Ah! Mr. Calton, Sir, how are you?&#039;&quot; Here the attendant laughed till Mrs. Bloss was in serious apprehension of her chuckling herself into a fit. &quot;Well, I never!&quot; said Mrs. Bloss. &quot;Yes, and please, ma’am, the servants give him gin-and-water sometimes; and then he cries, and says he hates his wife and the boarders, and wants to tickle them.&quot; &quot;Tickle the boarders!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Bloss, seriously alarmed. &quot;No, ma’am, not the boarders, the servants.&quot; &quot;Oh, is that all!&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, quite satisfied. &quot;He wanted to kiss me as I came up the kitchen-stairs, just now,&quot; said Agnes, indignantly; &quot;but I gave it him—a little wretch!&quot; This intelligence was but too true. A long course of snubbing and neglect; his days spent in the kitchen, and his nights in the turn-up bedstead; had completely broken the little spirit that the unfortunate volunteer had ever possessed. He had no one to whom he could detail his injuries but the servants, and they were almost of necessity his chosen confidants. It is no less strange than true, however, that the little weaknesses which he had incurred, most probably, during his military career, seemed to increase as his comforts diminished. He was actually a sort of journeyman Giovanni in the basement story. The next morning, being Sunday, breakfast was laid in the front parlour at ten o’clock. Nine was the usual time, but the family always breakfasted an hour later on Sabbath. Tibbs enrobed himself in his Sunday costume—a black coat, and exceedingly short thin trowsers, with a very large white waistcoat, white stockings and cravat, and Blucher boots—and mounted to the parlour aforesaid. Nobody had come down, and he amused himself by drinking the contents of the milk-pot with a tea-spoon. A pair of slippers were heard descending the stairs; Tibbs flew to a chair, and a stern-looking man of about fifty, with very little hair on his head, and &quot;The Examiner&quot; in his hand, entered the room. &quot;Good morning, Mr. Evenson,&quot; said Tibbs, very humbly, with something between a nod and a bow. &quot;How do you do, Mr. Tibbs?&quot; replied he of the slippers, as he sat himself down, and began to read his paper without saying another word. &quot;Is Mr. Wisbottle in town to-day do you know, Sir?&quot; inquired Tibbs, just for the sake of saying something. &quot;I should think he was,&quot; replied the stern gentleman. &quot;He was whistling &#039;The Light Guitar,&#039; in the next room to mine, at five o’clock this morning.&quot; &quot;He’s very fond of whistling,&quot; said Tibbs, with a slight smirk. &quot;Yes—I an’t,&quot; was the laconic reply. Mr. John Evenson was in the receipt of an independent income, arising chiefly from various houses he owned in the different suburbs. He was very morose and discontented. He was a thorough radical, and used to attend a great variety of public meetings for the express purpose of finding fault with everything that was proposed. Mr. Wisbottle, on the other hand, was a high Tory. He was a clerk in the Woods and Forests office, which he considered rather an aristocratic employment; he knew the peerage by heart, and could tell you off-hand where any illustrious personage lived. He had a good set of teeth, and a capital tailor. Mr. Evenson looked on all these qualifications with profound contempt; and the consequence was that the two were always disputing, much to the edification of the rest of the house. It should be added, that, in addition to his partiality for whistling, Mr. Wisbottle had a great idea of his singing powers. There were two other boarders, besides the gentleman in the back drawing-room—Mr. Alfred Tomkins, and Mr. Frederick O’Bleary. Mr. Tomkins was a clerk in a wine-house; he was a connoisseur in paintings, and had a wonderful eye for the picturesque. Mr. O’Bleary was an Irishman, recently imported; he was in a perfectly wild state, and had come over to England to be an apothecary, a clerk in a government office, an actor, a reporter, or anything else that turned up—he was not particular. He was on familiar terms with two small Irish members, and got franks for everybody in the house. Like all Irishmen when they first come to England, he felt convinced that his intrinsic merits must procure him a high destiny. He wore shepherds&#039;-plaid inexpressibles, and used to look under all the ladies’ bonnets as he walked along the streets. His manners and appearance always forcibly reminded one of Orson. &quot;Here comes Mr. Wisbottle,&quot; said Tibbs; and Mr. Wisbottle forthwith appeared in blue slippers, and a shawl dressing-gown, whistling &quot;Di piacer.&quot; &quot;Good morning, Sir,&quot; said Tibbs again. It was about the only thing he ever said to any body. &quot;How are you, Tibbs?&quot; condescendingly replied the amateur; and he walked to the window, and whistled louder than ever. &quot;Pretty air, that!&quot; said Evenson with a snarl, and without taking his eyes off the paper. &quot;Glad you like it,&quot; replied Wisbottle, highly gratified. &quot;Don’t you think it would sound better, if you whistled it a little louder?&quot; inquired the mastiff. &quot;No; I don’t think it would,&quot; rejoined the unconscious Wisbottle. &quot;I’ll tell you what, Wisbottle,&quot; said Evenson, who had been bottling up his anger for some hours,&quot;the next time you feel disposed to whistle &#039;The Light Guitar,&#039; at five o’clock in the morning, I’ll trouble you to whistle it with your head out o’ window. If you don’t, I’ll learn the triangle—I will, by—.&quot; The entrance of Mrs. Tibbs (with the keys in a little basket) interrupted the threat, and prevented its conclusion. Mrs. Tibbs apologized for being down rather late; the bell was rung; James brought up the urn, and received an unlimited order for dry toast and bacon. Tibbs sat down at the bottom of the table and began eating water-cresses like a Nebuchadnezzar. Mr. O’Bleary appeared and Mr. Alfred Tomkins. The compliments of the morning were exchanged, and the tea was made. &quot;God bless me,&quot; exclaimed Tomkins, who had been looking out at window. &quot;Here—Wisbottle—pray come here; make haste.&quot; Mr. Wisbottle started from table, and every one looked up. &quot;Do you see,&quot; said the connoisseur, placing Wisbottle in the right position—&quot;a little more this way: there—do you see how splendidly the light falls upon the left side of that broken chimney-pot at No. 48?&quot; &quot;Dear me—I see,&quot; replied Wisbottle, in a tone of admiration. &quot;I never saw an object stand out so beautifully against the clear sky in my life,&quot; ejaculated Alfred. Every body (except John Evenson) echoed the sentiment, for Mr. Tomkins had a great character for finding out beauties which no one else could discover—he certainly deserved it. &quot;I have frequently observed a chimney-pot in College-green, Dublin, which has a much better effect,&quot; said the patriotic O’Bleary, who never allowed Ireland to be outdone on any point. The assertion was received with obvious incredulity, for Mr. Tomkins declared that no other chimney-pot in the United Kingdom, broken or unbroken, could be so beautiful as the one at No. 48. The room door was suddenly thrown open, and Agnes appeared leading in Mrs. Bloss, who was dressed in a geranium-coloured muslin gown, and displayed a gold watch of the dimensions of a breakfast-cup; a chain like a gilt street-door chain, and a splendid assortment of rings, with stones about the size of half-crowns. A general rush was made for a chair, and a regular introduction took place. Mr. John Evenson made a slight inclination of the head: Mr. Frederick O’Bleary, Mr. Alfred Tomkins, and Mr. Wisbottle bowed like the mandarins in a grocer’s shop; and Tibbs rubbed his hands, and went round in circles. He was observed to close one eye, and to assume a clock-work sort of expression with the other; this has been considered as a wink, and it has been reported that Agnes was its object. We repel the calumny, and challenge contradiction. Mrs. Tibbs inquired after Mrs. Bloss’s health in a low tone. Mrs. Bloss, with a supreme contempt for the memory of Lindley Murray, answered the various questions in a most satisfactory manner; and a pause ensued, during which the eatables disappeared with awful rapidity. &quot;You must have been very much pleased with the appearance of the ladies going to the drawing-room the other day, Mr. O’Bleary?&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, hoping to start a topic. &quot;Yes;&quot; replied Orson, with a mouthful of toast. &quot;Never saw any thing like it before, I suppose?&quot; suggested Wisbottle. &quot;No—except the Lord Lieutenant’s levees,&quot; replied O’Bleary. &quot;Are they at all equal to our drawing-rooms?&quot; &quot;Oh, infinitely superior.&quot; &quot;Gad I don’t know,&quot; said the aristocratic Wisbottle, &quot;the Dowager Marchioness of Publiccash was most magnificently dressed, and so was the Baron Slappenbachenhausen.&quot; &quot;What was he presented on?&quot; inquired Evenson. &quot;On his arrival in England.&quot; &quot;I thought so,&quot; growled the radical; &quot;you never hear of these fellows being presented on their going away again. They know better than that.&quot; &quot;Unless somebody pervades them with an apintment,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, joining in the conversation in a faint voice. &quot;Well,&quot; said Wisbottle, evading the point, &quot;it’s a splendid sight.&quot; &quot;And did it never occur to you,&quot; inquired the radical, who never would be quiet, —&quot;did it never occur to you, that you pay for these precious ornaments of society.&quot; &quot;It certainly has occurred to me,&quot; said Wisbottle, who thought this answer was a poser;&quot; it has occurred to me, and I am willing to pay for them.&quot; &quot;Well, and it has occurred to me too,&quot; replied John Evenson, &quot;and I an’t willing to pay for ’em. Then why should I?—I say, why should I?&quot; continued the politician, laying down the paper, and knocking his knuckles on the table. &quot;There are two great principles—demand—&quot; &quot;A cup of tea if you please, dear,&quot; interrupted Tibbs. &quot;And supply—&quot; &quot;May I trouble you to hand this tea to Mr. Tibbs?&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, interrupting the argument, and unconsciously illustrating it. The thread of the orator’s discourse was broken. He drank his tea and resumed the paper. &quot;If it’s very fine,&quot; said Mr. Alfred Tomkins, addressing the company in general, &quot;I shall ride down to Richmond to-day, and come back by the steamer. There are some splendid effects of light and shade on the Thames; the contrast between the blueness of the sky and the yellow water is frequently exceedingly beautiful.&quot; Mr. Wisbottle hummed, &quot;Flow on, thy shining river.&quot; &quot;We have some splendid steam-vessels in Ireland,&quot; said O’Bleary. &quot;Certainly,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, delighted to find a subject broached in which she could take part. &quot;The accommodations are extraordinary,&quot; said O’Bleary. &quot;Extraordinary indeed,&quot; returned Mrs. Bloss. &quot;When Mr. Bloss was alive, he was promiscuously obligated to go to Ireland on business. I went with him, and raly the manner in which the ladies and gentlemen were accommodated with births, is not creditable.&quot; Tibbs, who had been listening to the dialogue, looked very aghast, and evinced a strong inclination to ask a question, but was checked by a look from his wife. Mr. Wisbottle laughed, and said Tomkins had made a pun; and Tomkins laughed too, and said he hadn&#039;t. The remainder of the meal passed off as breakfasts usually do. Conversation flagged, and people played with their tea-spoons. The gentlemen looked out at the window; walked about the room, and when they got near the door, dropped off one by one. Tibbs retired to the back parlour by his wife’s orders, to check the green-grocer’s weekly account; and ultimately Mrs. Tibbs and Mrs. Bloss were left alone together. &quot;Oh dear,&quot; said the latter, &quot;I feel alarmingly faint; it’s very singular.&quot; (It certainly was, for she had eaten four pounds of solids that morning.) &quot;By-the-bye,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, &quot;I have not seen Mr. what’s-his-name yet.&quot; &quot;Mr. Gobler?&quot; suggested Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;Oh!&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, &quot;he is a most mysterious person. He has his meals regularly sent up stairs, and sometimes don’t leave his room for weeks together.&quot; &quot;I haven’t seen or heard nothing of him,&quot; repeated Mrs. Bloss. &quot;I dare say you’ll hear him to-night,&quot; replied Mrs. Tibbs; &quot;he generally groans a good deal on Sunday evenings.&quot; &quot;I never felt such an interest in any one in my life,&quot; ejaculated Mrs. Bloss. A finicking double-knock interrupted the conversation; Doctor Wosky was announced, and duly shown in. He was a little man with a red face, dressed of course in black, with a stiff white neckerchief. He had a very good practice, and plenty of money, which he had amassed by invariably humouring the worst fancies of all the females of all the families he had ever been introduced into. Mrs. Tibbs offered to retire, but was entreated to stay. &quot;Well, my dear ma’am, and how are we?&quot; inquired Wosky in a soothing tone. &quot;Very ill, doctor—very ill,&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, in a whisper. &quot;Ah! we must take care of ourselves;—we must, indeed,&quot; said the obsequious Wosky, as he felt the pulse of his interesting patient. &quot;How is our appetite?&quot; Mrs. Bloss shook her head. &quot;Our friend requires great care,&quot; said Wosky, appealing to Mrs. Tibbs, who of course assented. &quot;I hope, however, with the blessing of Providence, that we shall be enabled to make her quite stout again.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs wondered in her own mind what the patient would be when she had got quite stout; for she looked like a pincushion on eastors already. &quot;We must take stimulants,&quot; said the cunning Wosky—&quot;plenty of nourishment, and, above all, we must keep our nerves quiet; we positively must not give way to our sensibilities. We must take all we can get,&quot; concluded the Doctor as he pocketed his fee, &quot;and we must keep quiet.&quot; &quot;Dear man!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Bloss, as the Doctor stepped into the carriage. &quot;Charming creature indeed—quite a lady’s man!&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs; and Dr. Wosky rattled away to make fresh gulls of delicate females, and pocket fresh fees. As we had occasion in a former paper to describe a dinner at Mrs. Tibbs’s, and as one meal went off very like another on all ordinary occasions, we will not fatigue our readers by entering into any other detailed account of the domestic economy of the establishment. We will, therefore, proceed to events, merely premising that the mysterious tenant of the back drawing-room was a lazy, selfish hypochondriac; always complaining and never ill. As his character in many respects closely assimilated to that of Mrs. Bloss, a very warm friendship soon sprung up between them. He was tall, thin, and pale; he always fancied he had got a severe pain somewhere or other, and his face invariably wore a pinched, screwed-up expression; he looked like a man who had got his feet in a tub of exceedingly hot water against his will. For two or three months after Mrs. Bloss’s first appearance in Coram-street, John Evenson was observed to become every day more sarcastic and more ill-natured, and there was a degree of additional importance in his manner, which clearly showed that he fancied he had discovered something, which he only wanted a proper opportunity of divulging. He found it at last. One evening, the different inmates of the house were assembled in the drawing-room engaged in their ordinary occupations. Mr. Gobler and Mrs. Bloss were sitting at a small card-table near the centre window, playing cribbage; Mr. Wisbottle was describing semi-circles on the music-stool, turning over the leaves of a book on the piano, and humming most melodiously; Alfred Tomkins was sitting at the round table, with his elbows duly squared, making a pencil sketch of a head considerably larger than his own; O’Bleary was reading Horace, and trying to look as if he understood it; and John Evenson had drawn his chair close to Mrs. Tibbs’s work-table, and was talking to her very earnestly in a low tone. &quot;I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs,&quot; said the radical, laying his forefinger on the muslin she was at work on; &quot;I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs, that nothing but the interest I take in your welfare would induce me to make this communication. I repeat that I fear Wisbottle is endeavouring to gain the affections of that young woman Agnes, and that he is in the habit of meeting her in the store-room on the first floor, over the leads. From my bed-room I distinctly heard voices there last night. I opened my door immediately, and crept very softly on to the landing; there I saw Mr. Tibbs, who, it seems, had been disturbed also.—Bless me, Mrs. Tibbs, you change colour.&quot; &quot;No, no—it’s nothing,&quot; returned Mrs. T. in a hurried manner; &quot;it’s only the heat of the room.&quot; &quot;A flush!&quot; ejaculated Mrs. Bloss from the card-table; &quot;that’s good for four.&quot; &quot;If I thought it was Mr. Wisbottle,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, after a pause, &quot;he should leave this house instantly.&quot; &quot;Go!&quot; said Mrs. Bloss again. &quot;And if I thought,&quot; continued the hostess with a most threatening air, &quot;if I thought he was assisted by Mr. Tibbs—&quot; &quot;One for his nob!&quot; said Gobler. &quot;Oh,&quot; said Evenson, in a most soothing tone;—he liked to make mischief—&quot;I should hope Mr. Tibbs was not in any way implicated. He always appeared to me very harmless.&quot; &quot;I have generally found him so,&quot; sobbed poor little Mrs. Tibbs; crying like a watering-pot in full play. &quot;Hush! hush! pray—Mrs. Tibbs,—consider;—we shall be observed—pray, don’t!&quot; said John Evenson, fearing his whole plan would be interrupted. &quot;We will set the matter at rest with the utmost care, and I shall be most happy to assist you in doing so.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs murmured her thanks. &quot;When you think every one has retired to rest to-night,&quot; said Evenson very pompously, &quot;if you’ll meet me without a light, just outside my bed-room door, by the staircase window, I think we can ascertain who the parties really are, and you will afterwards be enabled to proceed as you think proper.&quot; Mrs. Tibbs was easily persuaded; her curiosity was excited, her jealousy was roused, and the arrangement was forthwith made. She resumed her work, and John Evenson walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets, looking as if nothing had happened. The game of cribbage was over, and conversation began again. &quot;Well, Mr. O’Bleary,&quot; said the humming-top, turning round on his pivot, and facing the company, &quot;what did you think of Vauxhall the other night?&quot; &quot;Oh, it’s very fair,&quot; replied Orson, who had been euthusiastically lelighted with the whole exhibition. &quot;Never saw anything like that Captain Ross’s set-out—eh?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; returned the patriot with his usual reservation—&quot;except in Dublin.&quot; &quot;I saw the Count de Canky and Captain Fitzthompson in the Gardens,&quot; said Wisbottle; &quot;they appeared much delighted.&quot; &quot;Then it must be beautiful!&quot; snarled Evenson. &quot;I think the white bears is partickerlerly well done, suggested Mrs. Bloss. &quot;In their shaggy white coats they look just like Polar bears—don’t you think they do, Mr. Evenson?&quot; &quot;I think they look a great deal more like omnibus cads on all fours,&quot; replied the discontented one. &quot;Upon the whole, I should have liked our evening very well,&quot; gasped Gobler; &quot;only I caught a desperate cold which increased my pain dreadfully; I was obliged to have several shower baths, before I could leave my room.&quot; &quot;Capital things those shower-baths!&quot; ejaculated Wisbottle. &quot;Excellent!&quot; said Tomkins. &quot;Delightful!&quot; chimed in O’Bleary. (He had once seen one, outside a tinman’s.) &quot;Disgusting machines!&quot; rejoined Evenson, who extended his dislike to almost every created object, masculine, feminine, or neuter. &quot;Disgusting, Mr. Evenson!&quot; said Gobler, in a tone of strong indignation.—&quot;Disgusting! Look at their utility—consider how many lives they&#039;ve saved by promoting perspiration.&quot; &quot;Promoting perspiration, indeed,&quot; growled John Evenson, stopping short in his walk across the large squares in the pattern of the carpet—&quot;I was ass enough to be persuaded some time ago to have one in my bedroom. &#039;Gad, I was in it once, and it effectually cured me, for the mere sight of it threw me into a profuse perspiration for six months afterwards.&quot; A titter followed this announcement, and before it had subsided, James brought up &quot;the tray,&quot; containing the remains of a leg of lamb which had made its début at dinner; bread, cheese; an atom of butter in a forest of parsley, one pickled walnut and the third of another, and so forth. The boy disappeared, and returned again with another tray, containing glasses and jugs of hot and cold water. The gentlemen brought in their spirit-bottles; the housemaid placed divers plated bedroom candlesticks under the card-table, and the servants retired for the night. Chairs were drawn round the table, and the conversation proceeded in the customary manner. John Evenson, who never eat supper, lolled on the sofa, and amused himself by contradicting everybody. O’Bleary eat as much as he could conveniently carry, and Mrs. Tibbs felt a due degree of indignation thereat; Mr. Gobler and Mrs. Bloss conversed most affectionately on the subject of pill-taking and other innocent amusements; and Tomkins and Wisbottle &quot;got into an argument;&quot; that is to say, they both talked very loudly and vehemently, each flattering himself that he had got some advantage about something, and neither of them having more than a very indistinct idea of what they were talking about. An hour or two passed away; and the boarders and the plated candlesticks retired in pairs to their respective bed-rooms. John Evenson pulled off his boots, locked his door, and determined to sit up until Mr. Gobler had retired. He always sat in the drawing-room an hour after everybody else had left it, taking medicine, and groaning. Great Coram-street was hushed into a state of profound repose: it was nearly two o’clock. A hackney-coach now and then rumbled slowly by; and occasionally some stray lawyer’s clerk on his way home to Somers Town struck his iron heel on the top of the coal-cellar with a noise resembling the click of a smoke-Jack. A low, monotonous, gushing sound was heard, which added considerably to the romantic dreariness of the scene. It was the water &quot;coming in&quot; at No.11. &quot;He must be asleep by this time,&quot; said John Evenson to himself, after waiting with exemplary patience for nearly an hour after Mr. Gobler had left the drawing-room. He listened for a few moments; the house was perfectly quiet; he extinguished his rushlight, and opened his bed-room door. The staircase was so dark that it was impossible to see anything. &quot;S-s-fit!&quot; whispered the mischief-maker, making a noise like the first indication a catherine-wheel gives of the probability of its going off. &quot;Hush!&quot; whispered somebody else. &quot;Is that you, Mrs. Tibbs?&quot; &quot;Yes, Sir.&quot; &quot;Where?&quot; &quot;Here;&quot; and the misty outline of Mrs. Tibbs appeared at the staircase-window, like the ghost of Queen Anne in the tent-scene in Richard. &quot;This way, Mrs. Tibbs;&quot; whispered the delighted busybody: &quot;give me your hand—there. Whoever these people are, they are in the store-room now, for I have been looking down from my window, and I could see that they accidentally upset their candlestick, and are now in darkness. You have no shoes on, have you?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; said little Mrs. Tibbs, who could hardly speak for trembling. &quot;Well; I have taken my boots off, so we can go down, close to the store-room door, and listen over the banisters,&quot; continued Evenson; and down stairs they both crept accordingly, every board creaking like a patent mangle on a Saturday afternoon. &quot;It’s Wisbottle and somebody I’ll swear,&quot; exclaimed the radical in an energetic whisper, when they had listened for a few moments. &quot;Hush—pray let’s hear what they say,&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs, the gratification of whose curiosity was now paramount to every other consideration. &quot;Ah! if I could but believe you,&quot; said a female voice coquettishly, &quot;I’d be bound to settle my missis for life.&quot; &quot;What does she say?&quot; inquired Mr. Evenson, who was not quite so well situated as his companion. &quot;She says she’ll settle her missis’s life,&quot; replied Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;The wretch! they’re plotting murder.&quot; &quot;I know you want money,&quot; continued the voice, which belonged to Agnes; &quot;and if you’d secure me the five hundred pound, I warrant she should take fire soon enough.&quot; &quot;What’s that?&quot; inquired Evenson again. He could just hear enough to want to hear more. &quot;I think she says she’ll set the house on fire,&quot; replied the affrighted Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;Thank God I’m insured in the Phoenix!&quot; &quot;The moment I have secured your mistress, my dear,&quot; said a man’s voice in a strong Irish brogue, &quot;you may depend on having the money.&quot; &quot;Bless my soul, it’s Mr. O’Bleary!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs in a parenthesis. &quot;The villain!&quot; said the indignant Mr. Evenson. &quot;The first thing to be done,&quot; continued the Hibernian, &quot;is to poison Mr. Gobler’s mind.&quot; &quot;Oh, certainly!&quot; returned Agnes, with the utmost coolness. &quot;What’s that?&quot; inquired Evenson again, in an agony of curiosity and a whisper. &quot;He says she’s to mind and poison Mr. Gobler,&quot; replied Mrs. Tibbs, aghast at this sacrifice of human life. &quot;And in regard of Mrs. Tibbs,&quot; continued O’Bleary.—Mrs. Tibbs shuddered. &quot;Hush!&quot; exclaimed Agnes, in a tone of the greatest alarm, just as Mrs. Tibbs was on the extreme verge of a fainting fit. &quot;Hush!&quot; &quot;Hush!&quot; exclaimed Evenson, at the same moment to Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;There’s somebody coming up stairs,&quot; said Agnes to O’Bleary. &quot;There’s somebody coming down stairs,&quot; whispered Evenson to Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;Go into the parlour, Sir,&quot; said Agnes to her companion. &quot;You will get there, before whoever it is gets to the top of the kitchen stairs.&quot; &quot;The drawing-room, Mrs. Tibbs!&quot; whispered the astonished Evenson to his equally astonished companion; and for the drawing-room they both made, plainly hearing the rustling of two persons coming down stairs, and one coming up. &quot;What can it be?&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs. &quot;It’s like a dream. I wouldn’t be found in this situation for the world!&quot; &quot;Nor I,&quot; returned Evenson, who could never bear a joke at his own expense. &quot;Hush! here they are at the door.&quot; &quot;What fun!&quot; whispered one of the new comers.—It was Wisbottle. &quot;Glorious!&quot; replied his companion, in an equally low tone.—This was Alfred Tomkins. &quot;Who would have thought it?&quot; &quot;I told you so,&quot; said Wisbottle, in a most knowing whisper. &quot;Lord bless you, he has paid her most extraordinary attention for the last two months. I saw ’em when I was sitting at the piano to-night.&quot; &quot;Well, do you know I didn’t notice it?&quot; interrupted Tomkins. &quot;Not notice it!&quot; continued Wisbottle. &quot;Bless you; I saw him whispering to her, and she crying; and then I’ll swear I heard him say something about to-night when we were all in bed.&quot; &quot;They’re talking of us!&quot; exclaimed the agonized Mrs. Tibbs, as the painful suspicion, and a sense of their situation, flashed upon her mind. &quot;I know it—I know it,&quot; replied Evenson, with a melancholy consciousness that there was no mode of escape. &quot;What’s to be done?—we cannot both stop here,&quot; ejaculated Mrs. Tibbs in a state of partial derangement. &quot;I’ll get up the chimney,&quot; replied Evenson, who really meant what he said. &quot;You can’t,&quot; said Mrs. Tibbs, in despair. &quot;You can’t—it’s a register stove.&quot; &quot;Hush!&quot; repeated John Evenson. &quot;Hush—hush!&quot; cried somebody down stairs. &quot;What a d-d hushing!&quot; said Alfred Tomkins, who began to get rather bewildered. &quot;There they are!&quot; exclaimed the sapient Wisbottle, as a rustling noise was heard in the store-room. &quot;Hark!&quot; whispered both the young men. &quot;Hark!&quot; repeated Mrs. Tibbs and Evenson. &quot;Let me alone, Sir,&quot; said a female voice in the store-room. &quot;Oh, Hagnes!&quot; cried another voice, which clearly belonged to Tibbs, for nobody else ever owned one like it, &quot;Oh, Hagnes—lovely creature!&quot; &quot;Be quiet, Sir!&quot; (a bounce.) &quot;Hag—&quot; &quot;Be quiet, Sir,—I am ashamed of you. Think of your wife, Mr. Tibbs.—Be quiet, Sir!&quot; &quot;My wife!&quot; exclaimed the valorous Tibbs, who was clearly under the influence of gin-and-water, and a misplaced attachment; &quot;I ate her! Oh, Hagnes! when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and—&quot; &quot;I declare I’ll scream. Be quiet, Sir, will you?&quot; (Another bounce, and a scuffle.) &quot;What’s that?&quot; exclaimed Tibbs with a start. &quot;What’s what?&quot; said Agnes, stopping short. &quot;Why that!&quot; &quot;Ah! you have done it nicely now, Sir,&quot; sobbed the frightened Agnes, as a tapping was heard at Mrs. Tibbs’ bed-room door, which would have beaten any twelve woodpeckers hollow. &quot;Mrs. Tibbs! Mrs. Tibbs!&quot; called out Mrs. Bloss. &quot;Mrs. Tibbs, pray get up.&quot; (Here the imitation of a woodpecker was resumed with tenfold violence.) &quot;Oh, dear—dear!&quot; exclaimed the wretched partner of the depraved Tibbs. &quot;She’s knocking at my door. We must be discovered. What will they think?&quot; &quot;Mrs. Tibbs! Mrs. Tibbs!&quot; screamed the woodpecker again. &quot;What’s the matter?&quot; shouted Gobler, bursting out of the back drawing-room, like the dragon at Astley’s—only without the portable gas in his countenance. &quot;Oh, Mr. Gobler!&quot; cried Mrs. Bloss, with a proper approximation to hysterics; &quot;I think the house is on fire, or else there’s thieves in it. I have heard the most dreadful noises.&quot; &quot;The devil you have!&quot; shouted Gobler again, bouncing back into his den, in happy imitation of the aforesaid dragon, and returning immediately with a lighted candle. &quot;Why, what’s this? Wisbottle! Tomkins! O’Bleary! Agnes! What the deuce, all up and dressed?&quot; &quot;Astonishing!&quot; said Mrs. Bloss, who had run down stairs, and taken Mr. Gobler’s arm. &quot;Call Mrs. Tibbs directly, somebody,&quot; said Gobler, turning into the front drawing-room. &quot;What! Mrs. Tibbs and Mr. Evenson!!&quot; &quot;Mrs. Tibbs and Mr. Evenson!&quot; repeated every body, as that unhappy pair were discovered, Mrs. Tibbs seated in an arm-chair by the fireplace, and Mr. Evenson standing by her side. We must leave the scene that ensued to the reader’s imagination. We could tell how Mrs. Tibbs forthwith fainted away, and how it required the united strength of Mr. Wisbottle and Mr. Alfred Tomkins to hold her in her chair; how Mr. Evenson explained it; and how his explanation was evidently disbelieved;—how Agnes repelled the accusations of Mrs. Tibbs, by proving that she was negotiating with Mr. O’Bleary to influence her mistress’s affections in his behalf; and how Mr. Gobler threw a damp counterpane on the hopes of Mr. O’Bleary by avowing that he (Gobler) had already proposed to, and been accepted by, Mrs. Bloss; how Agnes was discharged from that lady’s service; how Mr. O’Bleary discharged himself from Mrs. Tibbs’ house, without going through the form of previously discharging his bill; and how that disappointed young gentleman rails against England and the English, and vows there is no virtue or fine feeling extant, &quot;except in Ireland.&quot; We repeat that we could tell all this, but we love to exercise our self-denial, and we therefore prefer leaving it to be imagined. The lady whom we have hitherto described as Mrs. Bloss, is no more. Mrs. Gobler exists: Mrs. Bloss has left us for ever. In a secluded retreat in Newington Butts, far—far removed from the noisy strife of that great boarding-house the world, the enviable Gobler, and his pleasing wife, revel in retirement; happy in their complaints, their table, and their medicine; wafted through life by the grateful prayers of all the purveyors of animal food within three miles round. We would willingly stop here, but we have a painful duty imposed upon us, which we must discharge. Mr. and Mrs. Tibbs have separated by mutual consent, Mrs. Tibbs receiving one moiety of 43l.15s.10d., which we before stated to be the amount of her husband’s annual income, and Mr. Tibbs the other. He is spending the evening of his days in retirement; and he is spending also annually that small but honourable independence. He resides among the original settlers at Walworth, and it has been stated, on unquestionable authority, that the conclusion of the volunteer story has been heard in a small tavern in that respectable neighbourhood. The unfortunate Mrs. Tibbs has determined to dispose of the whole of her furniture by public auction, and to retire from a residence in which she has suffered so much. Mr. Robins has been applied to, to conduct the sale, and the transcendent abilities of the literary gentlemen connected with his establishment, are now devoted to the task of drawing up the preliminary advertisement. It is to contain, among a variety of brilliant matter, seventy-eight words in large capitals, and six original quotations in inverted commas. We fear Mrs. Tibb&#039;s determination is irrevocable. Should she, however, be induced to rescind it, we may become once again her faithful biographer.18340801https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Boarding-House_[No.2]/1834-08-The_Boarding_House_No2.pdf
4https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/4'The British Lion'Published in the <em>Daily News</em> (24 January 1846).Dickens, Charles<em>British Newspapers Archive</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1846-01-24">1846-01-24</a><em>British Newspapers Archive, </em><a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000051/18460124/061/0005">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000051/18460124/061/0005</a>.&nbsp;<br />Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1846-01-24-Daily_News_The_British_LionDickens, Charles. 'The British Lion.' <em>Daily News</em> (21 January 1841): p. 5. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1846-01-24-Daily_News_The_British_Lion">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1846-01-24-Daily_News_The_British_Lion</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1846-01-24_Daily_News_The_British_Lion.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'The British Lion.'&nbsp;<em>The Daily News </em>(24 January 1846): p. 5.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Daily+News">Daily News</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=CATNACH">CATNACH</a>A NEW SONG, BUT AN OLD STORY TUNE. - The Great Sea-Snake. Oh, p’raps you may heard, and if not, I’ll sing, Of the British Lion free, That was constantly a-going for to make a spring Upon his en-e-me; But who, being rather groggy at the knees, Broke down, always before; And generally gave a feeble wheeze Instead of a loud roar. Right toor rol, loor rol, fee faw fum, The British Lion bold! That was always a-going for to do great things, And was always being “sold”! He was carried about, in a caravan, And was show&#039;d in country parts, And they said “Walk-up! Be in time! He can Eat Corn-Law-Leagues like tarts!” And his showmen, shouting there and then, To puff him didn’t fail; And they said, as they peep&#039;d into his den, “Oh, Don’t he wag his tail!” Now, the principal keeper of this poor old beast, WAN HUMBUG was his name, Would once ev’ry day stir him up - at least - And wasn’t that a Game! For he hadn’t a tooth, and he hadn’t a claw, In that “Struggle” so “Sublime;” And, however sharp they touch’d him on the raw, He couldn’t come up to time. And this, you will observe, was the reason why WAN HUMBUG, on weak grounds, Was forced to make believe that he heard his cry In all unlikely sounds. So there wasn’t a bleat from an Essex Calf, Or a Duke, or a Lordling slim; But he said, with a very triumphant laugh, “I’m blest if that ain’t him.” At length, wery bald in his mane and tail, This British Lion growed: He pined, and declined, and he satisfied The last debt which he owed. And when they came to examine the skin, It was a wonder sore, To find that the an-i-mal within Was nothing but a BOAR! Right toor rol, loor rol, fee faw fum, The British Lion bold! That was always a-going for to do great things, And was always being &quot;sold&quot;!18460124https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/The_British_Lion/1846-01-24-Daily_News_The_British_Lion.pdf
71https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/71'The Churchyard'From the autograph album of Maria Beadnell (November 1831).Dickens, CharlesThe Charles Dickens Museum, <a href="http://www.collections.dickensmuseum.com/object-b319--1971-1-105" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.collections.dickensmuseum.com/object-b319--1971-1-105</a>.; Autograph Album of Maria Beadnell.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1831-11">1831-11</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1831-11_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_The_Churchyard<span>Dickens, Charles. 'The Churchyard.' Autograph Album of Maria Beadnell (November 1831).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1831-11_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_The_Churchyard">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1831-11_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_The_Churchyard</a><span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/poetry/1831-11_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_The_Devils_Walk"></a>.</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1831-11_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_The_Churchyard.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'The Churchyard.' Autograph Album of Maria Beadnell (November 1831).<br /></span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Autograph+Album+of+Maria+Beadnell.">Autograph Album of Maria Beadnell.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=C.D.">C.D.</a>How many tales these Tombstones tell Of life&#039;s e&#039;er changing scene, Of by gone days spent ill or well By those who gay have been; Who have been happy, rich, and vain, Who now are dead, and cold, Who&#039;ve gone alike to dust again The rich, poor, young, and old. Here lies a Man who lived to save Of Wordly gain a store; – It has not saved him from the grave He ne&#039;er can use it more. A marble Tablet tells his fame To those who shall survive; – It tells us not who blest his name While he remained alive. Now mark the contrast. – Near this mound Lie the remains of one With whom no fault was ever found, Who spotless as the sun Fulfilled his Christian duties here, Both cheerfully and well But no rich velvet deck&#039;d his Bier No lines his virtues tell. And is it so! Is man so vain, To riches such a Slave As to take his pride of gold, and gain E&#039;en with him to the Grave! – Why let him take it. – Let him see If &#039;twill avail him there, Where we must all one dread day be, Where all Men must appear. Here sleeps a girl. – A year ago Bright, beautiful, and gay, Peaceful, and happy, then but Oh! How soon such days decay: They changed to times of shame and brief And this the mournful token Death was to her a glad relief For her young heart was broken. Aye – broken. – Let the Roué smile And let him boldly speed Exulting in his shameless guile To boast of such a deed. Let him boast gaily among men – They&#039;ll hear without surprize And let him boast if he can when On his death bed he lies. In truth it is a manly deed With woman&#039;s heart to trifle, To break the bent and bruised reed And with neglect to stifle The feelings man himself has raised Which he can&#039;t prize too high. – To leave the object he has praised Alone to weep and die. But why pursue this painful theme Or longer here remain The dead sleep sound; they cannot dream Of sorrow, grief, or pain. From Man to GOD they will appeal Where no man can dissemble There will the wronged for justice kneel There will the Tyrant tremble.18311101
70https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/70'The Devil's Walk'From the autograph album of Maria Beadnell (November 1831).Dickens, CharlesThe Charles Dickens Museum, <a href="http://www.collections.dickensmuseum.com/object-b319--1971-1-105" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.collections.dickensmuseum.com/object-b319--1971-1-105</a>.; Autograph Album of Maria Beadnell.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1831-11">1831-11</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1831-11_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_The_Devils_Walk<span>Dickens, Charles. 'The Devil's Walk.' Autograph Album of Maria Beadnell (November 1831). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1831-11_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_The_Devils_Walk">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/</a><span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1831-11_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_The_Devils_Walk">1831-11_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_The_Devils_Walk</a>.</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1831-11_Autograph_Album_of_Maria_Beadnell_The_Devils_Walk.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'The Devil's Walk.' From the autograph album of Maria Beadnell (1830-1831).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Autograph+Album">Autograph Album</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=C.D.">C.D.</a>While sitting one day in his well aired halls Of which we&#039;ve often heard tell, The Devil determined to make a few calls To see if his Friends were well: So he put on his best and himself he drest In his long tailed coat of green And he buttoned it tightly o&#039;er his chest Lest his own tail should be seen. To the House of Lords the Devil went straight To learn the state of Nations, And with mixed feelings of pleasure and hate He heard their deliberations; For he saw a few Nobles rich and proud War &#039;gainst the people and Prince, And he thought with pain tho&#039; he laughed aloud Of the Wars in Heav&#039;n long since. Then to Irving&#039;s Chapel he gaily hied To hear the new &quot;unknown tongue&quot; And he welcomed with great pleasure and pride The Maniacs he&#039;d got among: For it always fills the Devil with glee To hear Religion mocked, And it pleases him very much to see Sights at which others are shocked. Then away to Bristol he quickly walked T&#039;indulge in meditation, And he gaily laughed as he slowly stalked O&#039;er a scene of desolation. He honored the hand that had done the deed Vowed that an &quot;Anti&quot; he&#039;d be Then back to London he started with speed His old friend Sir Charles to see. The Devil was walking up Regent Street As some other great folks do When a very old friend he chanced to meet Whom it pleased him much to view. Let those describe his great pleasure who can On the Member for Preston spying He took off his hat for he envied the Man His pow&#039;r of deceit and lying. As the Devil was passing I won&#039;t say where But not far from Lombard Street, He saw at a window a face so fair That it made him start and weep For a passing thought rushed over his brain Of days no beyond recal, He thought of the bright angelic train And of his own wretched fall. A dim cold feeling of what he had been Wrung from him a bitter groan He gazed and thought of the Angels who sing Surrounding Heaven&#039;s High Throne. He thought of the time, – the happy time, – When among them he had been And he madly cursed the impious crime Which plunged him in pain and sin. This feeling vanished as soon as it came And he turned to walk away But sought for this Album to find the name Of her he&#039;d seen that day. He cast his eye swiftly o&#039;er these few lines To drive away thoughts so sad And he said with glee &quot;they&#039;re worthy of me For I&#039;m sure they&#039;re devilish bad.&quot;18311101
1https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/1'The Fine Old English Gentleman'Published in <em>The Examiner </em>(7 August 1841).Dickens, Charles<em>British Newspapers Archive</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1841-08-07">1841-08-07</a><em>British Newspapers Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000054/18410807/001/0004">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000054/18410807/001/0004</a>. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1841-08-07_The_Examiner_The_Fine_Old_English_GentlemanDickens, Charles. 'The Fine Old English Gentleman.' <em>The Examiner&nbsp;</em>(7 August 1841): p. 500. <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1841-08-07-The_Examiner_The_Fine_Old_English_Gentleman">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1841-08-07-The_Examiner_The_Fine_Old_English_Gentleman</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1841-08-07_The_Fine_Old_English_Gentleman.xml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">'The Fine Old English Gentleman.'&nbsp;<em>The Examiner </em>(7 August 1841): p. 500.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Examiner%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Examiner</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=W.">W.</a>THE FINE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. NEW VERSION. (To be said or sung at all Conservative Dinners.) I&#039;ll sing you a new ballad, and I&#039;ll warrant it first-rate, Of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate; When they spent the public money at a bountiful old rate On ev&#039;ry mistress, pimp, and scamp, at ev&#039;ry noble gate, In the fine old English Tory times; Soon may they come again! The good old laws were garnished well with gibbets, whips, and chains, With fine old English penalties, and fine old English pains, With rebel heads, and seas of blood once hot in rebel veins; For all these things were requisite to guard the rich old gains Of the fine old English Tory times; Soon may they come again! This brave old code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes, And ev&#039;ry English peasant had his good old English spies, To tempt his starving discontent with fine old English lies, Then call the good old Yeomanry to stop his peevish cries, In the fine old English Tory times; Soon may they come again! The good old times for cutting throats that cried out in their need, The good old times for hunting men who held their fathers&#039; creed, The good old times when William Pitt, as all good men agreed, Came down direct from Paradise at more than railroad speed ... Oh the fine old English Tory times; When will they come again! In those rare days, the press was seldom known to snarl or bark, But sweetly sang of men in pow&#039;r, like any tuneful lark; Grave judges, too, to all their evil deeds were in the dark; And not a man in twenty score knew how to make his mark. Oh the fine old English Tory times; Soon may they come again! Those were the days for taxes, and for war&#039;s infernal din; For scarcity of bread, that fine old dowagers might win; For shutting men of letters up, through iron bars to grin, Because they didn&#039;t think the Prince was altogether thin, In the fine old English Tory times; Soon may they come again! But Tolerance, though slow in flight, is strong-wing&#039;d in the main; That night must come on these fine days, in course of time was plain; The pure old spirit struggled, but its struggles were in vain; A nation&#039;s grip was on it, and it died in choking pain, With the fine old English Tory days, All of the olden time. The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land, In England there shall be dear bread — in Ireland, sword and brand; And poverty, and ignorance, shall well the rich and grand. So, rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand, Of the fine old English Tory days; Hail to the coming time! W.18410807https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/The_Fine_Old_English_Gentleman/1841-08-07-The_Examiner_The_Fine_Old_English_Gentleman.pdf
8https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/8'The Grateful Impromptu'From the autograph album of Christiana Weller (March 1844).Dickens, Charles<em><span>The Charles Dickens Museum</span></em>, <a href="http://www.collections.dickensmuseum.com/object-a378" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.collections.dickensmuseum.com/object-a378</a>.; <em>British Library Newspapers</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1844-03">1844-03</a><em>British Library Newspapers,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000035/18990605/064/0002" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000035/18990605/064/0002</a>. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1844-03_Christiana_Thompson_The_Grateful_ImpromptuDickens, Charles. 'The Grateful Impromptu.' <span>Autograph Album of Christiana Weller (March 1844).</span>&nbsp;<em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1844-03_Christiana_Thompson_The_Grateful_Impromptu">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1844-03_Christiana_Thompson_The_Grateful_Impromptu</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1844-03_Christiana_Thompson_The_Grateful_Impromptu.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'The Grateful Impromptu' (March 1844).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Autograph+Album">Autograph Album</a>I put in a book once, by hook or by crook, The whole race (as I thought) of a &quot;feller&quot;, Who happily pleased the town&#039;s taste (much diseased), – And the name of this person was Weller. I find to my cost that one Weller I lost, Cruel Destiny so to arrange it! I love her dear name which has won me some fame, But great Heaven how gladly I&#039;d change it!18440301https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/The_Grateful_Impromptu/1845-10-21_before_i_put_in_a_book.jpg
219https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/219'The Hospital Patient'Published in <em>The Carlton Chronicle,</em> 6 August 1836, pp. 11.Dickens, Charles<em>Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/carlton-chronicle-aug-06-1836-p-11/">https://newspaperarchive.com/carlton-chronicle-aug-06-1836-p-11/</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-08-06">1836-08-06</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1836-08-06-The_Hospital_PatientA brief preface states,<em> 'LEAVES from an unpublished volume. By "BOZ," (which will be torn out once a fortnight).</em>Dickens, Charles. 'The Hospital Patient' (6 August 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-08-06-The_Hospital_Patient">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-08-06-The_Hospital_Patient</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Carlton+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Carlton Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>In my rambles through the streets of London after evening has set in, I have often paused beneath the windows of some public hospital, and picture to myself the gloomy and mournful scenes that were passing within. The sudden moving of a taper as its feeble ray shot from window after window, until its light gradually disappeared, as if it were carried further back into the room to the bedside of some suffering patient, has been enough to awaken a whole crowd of reflections; the mere glimmering of the low-burning lamps which when all other habitations are wrapped in darkness and slumber, denote the chamber where so many forms are writhing with pain, or wasting with disease, has been sufficient to check the most boisterous merriment. Who can tell the anguish of those weary hours, when the only sound the sick man hears, is the disjointed wanderings of some feverish slumberer near him, the low moan of pain, or perhaps the muttered, long-forgotten prayer of a dying man? Who, but they who have felt it, can imagine the sense of loneliness and desolation which must be the portion of those who in the hour of dangerous illness are left to be tended by strangers,—what hands, be they ever so gentle, can wipe the clammy brow, or smooth the restless bed, like those of mother, wife, or child? Impressed with these thoughts, I have turned away through the nearly-deserted streets; and the sight of the few miserable creatures still hovering about them, has not tended to lessen the pain which such meditations awaken. The hospital is a refuge and resting-place for hundreds, who but for such institutions must die in the streets and doorways; but what can be the feelings of outcasts like these, when they are stretched on the bed of sickness with scarcely a hope of recovery? The wretched woman who lingers about the pavement, hours after midnight, and the miserable shadow of a man—the ghastly remnant that want and drunkenness have left—which crouches beneath a window-ledge, to sleep where there is some shelter from the rain, have little to bind them to life, but what have they to look back upon, in death? What are the unwonted comforts of a roof and a bed to them, when the recollections of a whole life of debasement, stalk before them; when repentance seems a mockery, and sorrow comes too late? About a twelvemonth ago, as I was strolling through Covent Garden (I had been thinking about these things overnight), I was attracted by the very prepossessing appearance of a pickpocket, who having declined to take the trouble of walking to the Police Office, on the ground that he hadn&#039;t the slightest wish to go there at all, was being conveyed thither in a wheelbarrow, to the huge delight of a crowd, but apparently not very much to his own individual gratification. Somehow, I never can resist joining a crowd—nature certainly intended me for a vagabond—so I turned back with the mob, and entered the office, in company with my friend the pickpocket, a couple of policemen, and as many dirty-faced spectators as could squeeze their way in. There was a powerful, ill-looking young fellow at the bar, who was undergoing an examination on the very common charge of having, on the previous night, ill-treated a woman with whom he lived in some court hard by. Several witnesses bore testimony to acts of the grossest brutality, and a certificate was read from the house-surgeon of a neighbouring hospital, describing the nature of the injuries the woman had received, and intimating that her recovery was extremely doubtful. Some question appeared to have been raised about the identity of the prisoner; for when it was agreed that the two magistrates should visit the hospital at eight o&#039;clock that evening, to take her deposition, it was settled that the man should be taken there also. He turned deadly pale at this, and I saw him clench the bar very hard when the order was given. He was removed directly afterwards, and he spoke not a word. I felt an irrepressible curiosity to witness this interview, although I can hardly tell why, at this instant, for I knew it must be a painful one. It was no very difficult matter for me to gain permission, and I obtained it. The prisoner, and the officer who had him in custody, were already at the hospital when I reached it, and waiting the arrival of the magistrates in a small room below stairs. The man was handcuffed, and his hat was pulled forward over his eyes. I could tell though, by the livid whiteness of his countenance, and the constant twitching of the muscles of his face, that he dreaded what was to come. After a short interval, the magistrates and clerk were bowed in, by the house-surgeon, and a couple of young men who smelt very strongly of tobacco-smoke—&quot;dressers&quot; I think they call them&quot;—and after one magistrate had complained bitterly of the cold, and the other of the absence of any news in the evening paper, it was announced that the patient was prepared, and we were conducted to the &quot;casualty ward&quot; in which she was lying. The dim light which burnt in the spacious room, increased rather than diminished the ghastly appearance of the hapless creatures in the beds, which were ranged in two long rows on either side. In one bed, lay a child enveloped in bandages, with its body half-consumed by fire; in another, a female, rendered hideous by some dreadful accident, was wildly beating her clenched fists on the coverlet, in an agony of pain; on a third, there lay stretched a young girl, apparently in the heavy stupor which is sometimes the immediate precursor of death: her face was stained with blood, and her breast and arms were bound up in folds of linen. Two or three of the beds were empty, and their recent occupants were sitting beside them, but with faces so wan, and eyes so bright and glassy, that it was fearful to meet their gaze. On every face was stamped the expression of anguish and suffering. The object of the visit was lying at the upper end of the room. She was a fine young woman of about two or three and twenty. Her long black hair had been hastily cut from about the wounds on her head, and streamed over the pillow in jagged and matted locks. Her face bore frightful marks of the ill-usage she had received: her hand was pressed upon her side, as if her chief pain was there, her breathing was short and heavy, and it was plain to see that she was dying fast. She murmured a few words in reply to the magistrate&#039;s inquiry, whether she was in great pain: and having been raised on the pillow by the nurse, looked anxiously into the strange countenances that surrounded her bed. The magistrate nodded to the officer, to bring the man forward. He did so, and stationed him at the bedside. The girl looked on with a wild and troubled expression of face, but her sight was dim, and she did not know him. &quot;Take off his hat,&quot; said the magistrate. The officer did as he was desired, and the man&#039;s features were fully disclosed. The girl started up with an energy quite preternatural; the fire gleamed in her heavy eyes, and the blood rushed to her pale and sunken cheeks. It was a convulsive effort. She fell back upon her pillow, and covering her scarred and bruised face with her hands, burst into tears. The man cast an anxious look towards her, but otherwise appeared wholly unmoved. After a brief pause the nature of the errand was explained, and the oath tendered. &quot;Oh, no, gentlemen,&quot; said the girl, raising herself once more, and folding her hands together; &quot;no, gentlemen, for God&#039;s sake! I did it myself, it was nobody&#039;s fault, it was an accident. He didn&#039;t hurt me; he wouldn&#039;t for all the world. Jack, dear Jack, you know you wouldn&#039;t.&quot; Her sight was fast failing her, and her hand groped over the bedclothes in search of his, in vain. Brute as the man was, he was not prepared for this. He turned his face from the bed, and sobbed aloud. The girl&#039;s colour changed, and her breathing grew more difficult. She was evidently dying. &quot;We respect the feelings which prompt you to this,&quot; said the gentleman who had spoken first &quot;but let me warn you, not to persist in what you know to be untrue, until it is too late. It cannot save him.&quot; &quot;Jack,&quot; murmured the girl, laying her hand upon his arm. &quot;They shall not persuade me to swear your life away. He didn&#039;t do it, gentlemen He never hurt me.&quot; She grasped his arm tightly, and added, in a broken whisper, &quot;I hope God Almighty will forgive me all the wrong I have done, and the life I have led. God bless you, Jack. Some kind gentleman take my love to my poor old father. Five years ago, he said he wished I had died a child. Oh, I wish I had! I wish I had!&quot; We turned away; it was no sight for strangers to look upon. The nurse bent over the girl for a few seconds, and then drew the sheet over her face. It covered a corpse.18360806https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Hospital_Patient/1836-08-06-The_Hospital_Patient.pdf
9https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/9'The Hymn of the Wiltshire Labourers'Published in the <em>Daily News </em>(14 February 1846).Dickens, Charles<em>British Library Newspapers</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1846-02-14">1846-02-14</a><em>British Library Newspapers,</em> <a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/BA3202823099/BNCN?u=loughuni&amp;sid=BNCN&amp;xid=c30600e4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/BA3202823099/BNCN?u=loughuni&amp;sid=BNCN&amp;xid=c30600e4</a>. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1846-02-14_Daily_News_The_Hymn_of_the_Wiltshire_LabourersDickens, Charles. 'The Hymn of the Wiltshire Labourers.' <em>Daily News</em> (14 February 1846): p. 5. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1846-02-14_Daily_News_The_Hymn_of_the_Wiltshire_Labourers">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1846-02-14_Daily_News_The_Hymn_of_the_Wiltshire_Labourers</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1846-02-14_Daily_News_The_Hymn_of_the_Wiltshire_Labourers.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'The Hymn of the Wiltshire Labourers.' <em>Daily News</em> (14 February 1846): p. 5.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Daily+News">Daily News</a>&quot;Don&#039;t you all think that we have a great need to Cry to our God to put it in the hearst of our greacious Queen and her Members of Parlerment to grant us free bread.&quot; - LUCY SIMPKINS, AT BREMHILL. “Oh GOD, who by thy Prophet’s hand Didst smite the rocky brake, Whence water came, at thy command, They people’s thirst to slake; Strike, now, upon this granite wall, Stern, obdurate, and high; And let some drops of pity fall For us who starve and die! The GOD, who took a little child, And set him in the midst, And promised him His mercy mild, As, by Thy Son, Thou didst: Look down upon our children dear, So gaunt, so cold, so spare, And let their images appear, Where Lords and Genry are! Oh GOD, teach them to feel how we, When our poor infants droop, Are weakened in our trust in Thee, And how our spirits stoop; For, in thy rest, so bright and fair, All tears and sorrows sleep: And their young looks, so full of care, Would make Thine Angels weep! The GOD, who with His finger drew The Judgment coming on, Write, for these men, what must ensure, Ere many years be gone! Oh GOD whose bow is in the sky, Let them not brave and dare, Until they look (too late) on high, And see An Arrow there! Oh GOD remind them! In the bread They break upon the knee, Those sacred words may yet be read, “In memory of Me”! Oh GOD remind them! of His sweet Compassion for the poor, And how He gave them Bread to eat, And went from door to door! CHARLES DICKENS18460214https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/The_Hymn_of_the_Wiltshire_Labourers/1846-02-14_Daily_News_The_Hymn_of_the_Wiltshire_Labourers.jpeg
17https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/17'The Ivy Green'From&nbsp;<em>The Pickwick Papers, </em>ch. 6, number 3 (May 1836).Dickens, Charles<em>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, </em>Chapter 6. Number 3 (May 1836), p. 55. <em>UVic Libraries,</em> <a href="https://vault.library.uvic.ca/concern/generic_works/d9b13cdd-9d78-4f71-947e-5ad5fb7d50e4?">https://vault.library.uvic.ca/concern/generic_works/d9b13cdd-9d78-4f71-947e-5ad5fb7d50e4?</a>.&nbsp;Chapman and Hall<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-05">1836-05</a><em><em>UVic Libraries, </em></em>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial,&nbsp;<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1836-05_Pickwick_Papers_The_Ivy_GreenDickens, Charles. 'The Ivy Green' from <em>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.</em> Issue 3, Chapter 6 (May 1836), p. 55. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-05_Pickwick_Papers_The_Ivy_Green">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-05_Pickwick_Papers_The_Ivy_Green</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836-05_Pickwick_Papers_The_Ivy_Green.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'The Ivy Green.'&nbsp;</span><em>The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.</em><span>&nbsp;Issue 3, Chapter 6 (May 1836): p. 55.</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Serial">Serial</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Pickwick+Papers">The Pickwick Papers</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Boz">Boz</a>Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green, That creepeth o’er ruins old! Of right choice food are his meals, I ween, In his cell so lone and cold. The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed, To pleasure his dainty whim: And the mouldering dust that years have made Is a merry meal for him. Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the Ivy green. Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings, And a staunch old heart has he. How closely he twineth, how tight he clings, To his friend the huge Oak Tree! And slily he traileth along the ground, And his leaves he gently waves, As he joyously hugs and crawleth round The rich mould of dead men’s graves. Creeping where grim death hath been, A rare old plant is the Ivy green. Whole ages have fled and their works decayed, And nations have scattered been; But the stout old Ivy shall never fade, From its hale and hearty green. The brave old plant, in its lonely days, Shall fatten upon the past: For the stateliest building man can raise Is the Ivy’s food at last. Creeping on, where time has been, A rare old plant is the Ivy green.18360501https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/The_Ivy_Green/1836-05_Pickwick_Papers_The_Ivy_Green.pdf
169https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/169'The Lamplighter's Story'Published in <em>The Pic-nic Papers </em>as 'By the Editor'.&nbsp;London: Chapman and Hall, 1851.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100142129">https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100142129</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1851">1851</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+George+Cruikshank+and+Hablot+Knight+Browne+%28%27PHIZ%27%29">Illustrated by George Cruikshank and Hablot Knight Browne (&#039;PHIZ&#039;)</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.Based on the 1838 farce by Dickens of the same name.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1851-The_Lamplighters_Story_The_Picnic_PapersDickens, Charles. 'The Lamplighter's Story' (1851).<em> Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1851-The_Lamplighters_Story_The_Picnic_Papers">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1851-The_Lamplighters_Story_The_Picnic_Papers</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Pic-nic+Papers%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Pic-nic Papers</em></a>&quot;If you talk of Murphy and Francis Moore, gentlemen,&quot; said the lamplighter who was in the chair, &quot;I mean to say that neither of &#039;em ever had any more to do with the stars than Tom Grig had.&quot; &quot;And what had he to do with &#039;em?&quot; asked the lamplighter who officiated as vice. &quot;Nothing at all,&quot; replied the other; &quot;just exactly nothing at all.&quot; &quot;Do you mean to say you don&#039;t believe in Murphy, then?&quot; demanded the lamplighter who had opened the discussion. &quot;I mean to say I believe in Tom Grig,&quot; replied the chairman. &quot;Whether I believe in Murphy, or not, is a matter between me and my conscience; and whether Murphy believes in himself or not, is a matter between him and his conscience. Gentlemen, I drink your healths.&quot; The lamplighter who did the company this honour, was seated in the chimney corner of a certain tavern, which has been, time out of mind, the Lamplighters&#039; House of Call. He sat in the midst of a circle of lamplighters, and was the cacique, or chief of the tribe. If any of our readers have had the good fortune to behold a lamplighter&#039;s funeral, they will not be surprised to learn that lamplighters are a strange and primitive people; that they rigidly adhere to old ceremonies and customs which have been handed down among them from father to son since the first public lamp was lighted out of doors; that they intermarry, and betroth their children in infancy; that they enter into no plots or conspiracies (for who ever heard of a traitorous lamplighter?); that they commit no crimes against the laws of their country (there being no instance of a murderous or burglarious lamplighter); that they are, in short, notwithstanding their apparently volatile and restless character, a highly moral and reflective people: having among themselves as many traditional observances as the Jews, and being, as a body, if not as old as the hills, at least as old as the streets. It is an article of their creed that the first faint glimmering of true civilisation shone in the first street-light maintained at the public expense. They trace their existence and high position in the public esteem, in a direct line to the heathen mythology; and hold that the history of Prometheus himself is but a pleasant fable, whereof the true hero is a lamplighter. &quot;Gentlemen,&quot; said the lamplighter in the chair, &quot;I drink your healths.&quot; &quot;And perhaps, sir,&quot; said the vice, holding up his glass, and rising a little way off his seat and sitting down again, in token that he recognised and returned the compliment, &quot;perhaps you will add to that condescension by telling us who Tom Grig was, and how he came to be connected in your mind with Francis Moore, Physician.&quot; &quot;Hear, hear, hear!&quot; cried the lamplighters generally. &quot;Tom Grig, gentlemen,&quot; said the chairman, &quot;was one of us; and it happened to him as it don&#039;t often happen to a public character in our line, that he had his what-you-may-call-it cast.&quot; &quot;His head?&quot; said the vice. &quot;No,&quot; replied the chairman, &quot;not his head.&quot; &quot;His face, perhaps?&quot; said the vice. &quot;No, not his face.&quot; &quot;His legs?&quot; &quot;No, not his legs.&quot; Nor yet his arms, nor his hands, nor his feet, nor his chest—all of which were severally suggested. &quot;His nativity, perhaps?&quot; &quot;That&#039;s it,&quot; said the chairman, awakening from his thoughtful attitude at the suggestion. &quot;His nativity. That&#039;s what Tom had cast, gentlemen.&quot; &quot;In plaster?&quot; asked the vice. &quot;I don&#039;t rightly know how it&#039;s done,&quot; returned the chairman. &quot;But I suppose it was.&quot; And there he stopped as if that were all he had to say; whereupon there arose a murmur among the company, which at length resolved itself into a request, conveyed through the vice, that he would go on. This being exactly what the chairman wanted, he mused for a little time, performed that agreeable ceremony which is popularly termed wetting one&#039;s whistle, and went on thus: &quot;Tom Grig, gentlemen, was, as I have said, one of us; and I may go further, and say he was an ornament to us, and such a one as only the good old times of oil and cotton could have produced. Tom&#039;s family, gentlemen, were all lamplighters.&quot; &quot;Not the ladies, I hope?&quot; asked the vice. &quot;They had talent enough for it, sir,&quot; rejoined the chairman, &quot;and would have been, but for the prejudices of society. Let women have their rights, sir, and the females of Tom&#039;s family would have been every one of &#039;em in office. But that emancipation hasn&#039;t come yet, and hadn&#039;t then, and consequently they confined themselves to the bosoms of their families, cooked the dinners, mended the clothes, minded the children, comforted their husbands, and attended to the housekeeping generally. It&#039;s a hard thing upon the women, gentlemen, that they are limited to such a sphere of action as this; very hard.&quot; &quot;I happen to know all about Tom, gentlemen, from the circumstance of his uncle by his mother&#039;s side having been my particular friend. His (that&#039;s Tom&#039;s uncle&#039;s) fate was a melancholy one. Gas was the death of him. When it was first talked of, he laughed. He wasn&#039;t angry; he laughed at the credulity of human nature. &#039;They might as well talk,&#039; he says, &#039;of laying on an everlasting succession of glow-worms;&#039; and then he laughed again, partly at his joke, and partly at poor humanity. &quot;In course of time, however, the thing got ground, the experiment was made, and they lighted up Pall Mall. Tom&#039;s uncle went to see it. I&#039;ve heard that he fell off his ladder fourteen times that night, from weakness, and that he would certainly have gone on falling till he killed himself, if his last tumble hadn&#039;t been into a wheelbarrow which was going his way, and humanely took him home. &#039;I foresee in this,&#039; says Tom&#039;s uncle faintly, and taking to his bed as he spoke—&#039;I foresee in this,&#039; he says, &#039;the breaking up of our profession. There&#039;s no more going the rounds to trim by daylight, no more dribbling down of the oil on the hats and bonnets of ladies and gentlemen when one feels in spirits. Any low fellow can light a gas-lamp. And it&#039;s all up.&#039; In this state of mind, he petitioned the government for—I want a word again, gentlemen—what do you call that which they give to people when it&#039;s found out, at last, that they&#039;ve never been of any use, and have been paid too much for doing nothing?&quot; &quot;Compensation?&quot; suggested the vice. &quot;That&#039;s it,&quot; said the chairman. &quot;Compensation. They didn&#039;t give it him though, and then he got very fond of his country all at once, and went about saying that gas was a death-blow to his native land, and that it was a plot of the radicals to ruin the country and destroy the oil and cotton trade for ever, and that the whales would go and kill themselves privately, out of sheer spite and vexation at not being caught. At last he got right down cracked; called his tobacco-pipe a gas-pipe; thought his tears were lamp-oil; and went on with all manner of nonsense of that sort, till one night he hung himself on a lamp-iron in Saint Martin&#039;s Lane, and there was an end of him. &quot;Tom loved him, gentlemen, but he survived it. He shed a tear over his grave, got very drunk, spoke a funeral oration that night in the watch-house, and was fined five shillings for it, in the morning. Some men are none the worse for this sort of thing. Tom was one of &#039;em. He went that very afternoon on a new beat: as clear in his head, and as free from fever as Father Mathew himself. &quot;Tom&#039;s new beat, gentlemen, was—I can&#039;t exactly say where, for that he&#039;d never tell; but I know it was in a quiet part of town, where there were some queer old houses. I have always had it in my head that it must have been somewhere near Canonbury Tower in Islington, but that&#039;s a matter of opinion. Wherever it was, he went upon it, with a bran new ladder, a white hat, a brown holland jacket and trowsers, a blue neck-kerchief, and a sprig of full-blown double wall-flower in his button-hole. Tom was always genteel in his appearance, and I have heard from the best judges, that if he had left his ladder at home that afternoon, you might have took him for a lord. &quot;He was always merry, was Tom, and such a singer, that if there was any encouragement for native talent, he&#039;d have been at the opera. He was on his ladder, lighting his first lamp, and singing to himself in a manner more easily to be conceived than described, when he hears the clock strike five, and suddenly sees an old gentleman with a telescope in his hand, throw up a window and look at him very hard. &quot;Tom didn&#039;t know what could be passing in this old gentleman&#039;s mind. He thought it likely enough that he might be saying within himself, &#039;Here&#039;s a new lamplighter—a good-looking young fellow—shall I stand something to drink?&#039; Thinking this possible, he keeps quite still, pretending to be very particular about the wick, and looks at the old gentleman sideways, seeming to take no notice of him. &quot;Gentlemen, he was one of the strangest and most mysterious-looking files that ever Tom clapped his eyes on. He was dressed all slovenly and untidy, in a great gown of a kind of bed-furniture pattern, with a cap of the same on his head; and a long old flapped waistcoat; with no braces, no strings, very few buttons—in short, with hardly any of those artificial contrivances that hold society together. Tom knew by these signs, and by his not being shaved, and by his not being over-clean, and by a sort of wisdom not quite awake, in his face, that he was a scientific old gentleman. He often told me that if he could have conceived the possibility of the whole Royal Society being boiled down into one man, he should have said the old gentleman&#039;s body was that Body. &quot;The old gentleman claps the telescope to his eye, looks all round, sees nobody else in sight, stares at Tom again, and cries out very loud: &quot;&#039;Hal-loa!&#039; &quot;&#039;Halloa, Sir,&#039; says Tom from the ladder; &#039;and halloa again, if you come to that.&#039; &quot;&#039;Here&#039;s an extraordinary fulfilment,&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;of a prediction of the planets.&#039; &quot;&#039;Is there?&#039; says Tom. &#039;I&#039;m very glad to hear it.&#039; &quot;&#039;Young man,&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;you don&#039;t know me.&#039; &quot;&#039;Sir,&#039; says Tom, &#039;I have not that honour; but I shall be happy to drink your health, notwithstanding.&#039; &quot;&#039;I read,&#039; cries the old gentleman, without taking any notice of this politeness on Tom&#039;s part—&#039;I read what&#039;s going to happen, in the stars.&#039; &quot;Tom thanked him for the information, and begged to know if anything particular was going to happen in the stars, in the course of a week or so; but the old gentleman, correcting him, explained that he read in the stars what was going to happen on dry land, and that he was acquainted with all the celestial bodies. &quot;&#039;I hope they&#039;re all well, sir,&#039; says Tom,—&#039;everybody.&#039; &quot;&#039;Hush!&#039; cries the old gentleman. &#039;I have consulted the book of Fate with rare and wonderful success. I am versed in the great sciences of astrology and astronomy. In my house here, I have every description of apparatus for observing the course and motion of the planets. Six months ago, I derived from this source the knowledge that precisely as the clock struck five this afternoon a stranger would present himself— the destined husband of my young and lovely niece—in reality of illustrious and high descent, but whose birth would be enveloped in uncertainty and mystery. Don&#039;t tell me yours isn&#039;t,&#039; says the old gentleman, who was in such a hurry to speak that he couldn&#039;t get the words out fast enough, &#039;for I know better.&#039; &quot;Gentlemen, Tom was so astonished when he heard him say this, that he could hardly keep his footing on the ladder, and found it necessary to hold on by the lamp-post. There was a mystery about his birth. His mother had always admitted it. Tom had never known who was his father, and some people had gone so far as to say that even she was in doubt. &quot;While he was in this state of amazement, the old gentleman leaves the window, bursts out of the house-door, shakes the ladder, and Tom, like a ripe pumpkin, comes sliding down into his arms. &quot;&#039;Let me embrace you,&#039; he says, folding his arms about him, and nearly lighting up his old bed-furniture gown at Tom&#039;s link. &#039;You&#039;re a man of noble aspect. Everything combines to prove the accuracy of my observations. You have had mysterious promptings within you,&#039; he says; &#039;I know you have had whisperings of greatness, eh?&#039; he says. &quot;&#039;I think I have,&#039; says Tom—Tom was one of those who can persuade themselves to anything they like—&#039;I have often thought I wasn&#039;t the small beer I was taken for.&#039; &quot;&#039;You were right,&#039; cries the old gentleman, hugging him again. &#039;Come in. My niece awaits us.&#039; &quot;&#039;Is the young lady tolerable good-looking, sir?&#039; says Tom, hanging fire rather, as he thought of her playing the piano, and knowing French, and being up to all manner of accomplishments. &quot;&#039;She&#039;s beautiful!&#039; cries the old gentleman, who was in such a terrible bustle that he was all in a perspiration. &#039;She has a graceful carriage, an exquisite shape, a sweet voice, a countenance beaming with animation and expression; and the eye,&#039; he says, rubbing his hands, &#039;of a startled fawn.&#039;&quot; &quot;Tom supposed this might mean, what was called among his circle of acquaintance, &#039;a game eye;&#039; and, with a view to this defect, inquired whether the young lady had any cash. &quot;&#039;She has five thousand pounds,&#039; cries the old gentleman. &#039;But what of that? what of that? A word in your ear. I&#039;m in search of the philosopher&#039;s stone. I have very nearly found it —not quite. It turns everything to gold; that&#039;s its property.&#039; &#039;Tom naturally thought it must have a deal of property; and said that when the old gentleman did get it, he hoped he&#039;d be careful to keep it in the family. &quot;&#039;Certainly,&#039; he says, &#039;of course. Five thousand pounds! What&#039;s five thousand pounds to us? What&#039;s five million?&#039; he says. &#039;What&#039;s five thousand million? Money will be nothing to us. We shall never be able to spend it fast enough.&#039; &quot;&#039;We&#039;ll try what we can do, sir,&#039; says Tom. &quot;&#039;We will,&#039; says the old gentleman. &#039;Your name?&#039; &quot;&#039;Grig,&#039; says Tom. &#039;The old gentleman embraced him again, very tight; and without speaking another word, dragged him into the house in such an excited manner, that it was as much as Tom could do to take his link and ladder with him, and put them down in the passage. &quot;Gentlemen, if Tom hadn&#039;t been always remarkable for his love of truth, I think you would still have believed him when he said that all this was like a dream. There is no better way for a man to find out whether he is really asleep or awake, than calling for something to eat. If he&#039;s in a dream, gentlemen, he&#039;ll find something wanting in the flavour, depend upon it. &quot;Tom explained his doubts to the old gentleman, and said that if there was any cold meat in the house, it would ease his mind very much to test himself at once. The old gentleman ordered up a venison pie, a small ham, and a bottle of very old Madeira. At the first mouthful of pie, and the first glass of wine, Tom smacks his lips and cries out, &#039;I&#039;m awake—wide awake;&#039; and to prove that he was so, gentlemen, he made an end of &#039;em both. &quot;When Tom had finished his meal (which he never spoke of afterwards without tears in his eyes), the old gentleman hugs him again, and says, &#039;Noble stranger! let us visit my young and lovely niece.&#039; Tom, who was a little elevated with the wine, replies, &#039;The noble stranger is agreeable!&#039; At which words the old gentleman took him by the hand, and led him to the parlour; crying as he opened the door, &#039;Here is Mr. Grig, the favourite of the planets!&#039; &quot;I will not attempt a description of female beauty, gentlemen, for every one of us has a model of his own that suits his own taste best. In this parlour that I&#039;m speaking of, there were two young ladies; and if every gentleman present, will imagine two models of his own in their places, and will be kind enough to polish &#039;em up to the very highest pitch of perfection, he will then have a faint conception of their uncommon radiance. &quot;Besides these two young ladies, there was their waiting-woman, that under any other circumstances Tom would have looked upon as a Venus; and besides her, there was a tall, thin, dismal-faced young gentleman, half man and half boy, dressed in a childish suit of clothes very much too short in the legs and arms, and looking, according to Tom&#039;s comparison, like one of the wax juveniles from a tailor&#039;s door, grown up and run to seed. Now, this youngster stamped his foot upon the ground and looked very fierce at Tom, and Tom looked fierce at him—for to tell the truth, gentlemen, Tom more than half suspected that when they entered the room he was kissing one of the young ladies; and for anything Tom knew, you observe, it might be his young lady—which was not pleasant. &quot;&#039;Sir,&#039; says Tom, &#039;before we proceed any further, will you have the goodness to inform me who this young Salamander&#039;— Tom called him that for aggravation, you perceive, gentlemen—&#039;who this young Salamander may be?&#039; &quot;&#039;That, Mr. Grig,&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;is my little boy. He was christened Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead. Don&#039;t mind him. He&#039;s a mere child.&#039; &quot;&#039;And a very fine child too,&#039; says Tom—still aggravating, you&#039;ll observe—&#039;of his age, and as good as fine, I have no doubt. How do you do, my man?&#039; with which kind and patronising expressions, Tom reached up to pat him on the head, and quoted two lines about little boys, from Doctor Watts&#039;s Hymns, which he had learnt at a Sunday School. &quot;It was very easy to see, gentlemen, by this youngster&#039;s frowning and by the waiting-maid&#039;s tossing her head and turning up her nose, and by the young ladies turning their backs and talking together at the other end of the room, that nobody but the old gentleman took very kindly to the noble stranger. Indeed, Tom plainly heard the waiting-woman say of her master, that so far from being able to read the stars as he pretended, she didn&#039;t believe he knew his letters in &#039;em, or at best that he had got further than words in one syllable; but Tom, not minding this (for he was in spirits after the Madeira), looks with an agreeable air towards the young ladies, and, kissing his hand to both, says to the old gentleman, &#039;Which is which?&#039; &quot;&#039;This,&#039; says the old gentleman, leading out the handsomest, if one of &#039;em could possibly be said to be handsomer than the other—&#039;this is my niece, Miss Fanny Barker.&#039; &quot;&#039;If you&#039;ll permit me, miss,&#039; says Tom, &#039;being a noble stranger and a favourite of the planets, I will conduct myself as such.&#039; With these words, he kisses the young lady in a very affable way, turns to the old gentleman, slaps him on the back, and says, &#039;When&#039;s it to come off, my buck?&#039; &quot;The young lady coloured so deep, and her lip trembled so much, gentlemen, that Tom really thought she was going to cry. But she kept her feelings down, and turning to the old gentleman, says, &#039;Dear uncle, though you have the absolute disposal of my hand and fortune, and though you mean well in disposing of &#039;em thus, I ask you whether you don&#039;t think this is a mistake? Don&#039;t you think, dear uncle,&#039; she says, &#039;that the stars must be in error? Is it not possible that the comet may have put &#039;em out?&#039; &quot;&#039;The stars,&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;couldn&#039;t make a mistake if they tried. Emma,&#039; he says to the other young lady. &quot;&#039;Yes, papa,&#039; says she. &quot;&#039;The same day that makes your cousin Mrs. Grig will unite you to the gifted Mooney. No remonstrance—no tears. Now, Mr. Grig, let me conduct you to that hallowed ground, that philosophical retreat, where my friend and partner, the gifted Mooney of whom I have just now spoken, is even now pursuing those discoveries which shall enrich us with the precious metal, and make us masters of the world. Come, Mr. Grig,&#039; he says. &quot;&#039;With all my heart, sir,&#039; replies Tom; &#039;and luck to the gifted Mooney, say I—not so much on his account as for our worthy selves!&#039; With this sentiment, Tom kissed his hand to the ladies again, and followed him out; having the gratification to perceive, as he looked back, that they were all hanging on by the arms and legs of Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead, to prevent him from following the noble stranger, and tearing him to pieces. &quot;Gentlemen, Tom&#039;s father-in-law that was to be, took him by the hand, and having lighted a little lamp, led him across a paved court-yard at the back of the house, into a very large, dark, gloomy room: filled with all manner of bottles, globes, books, telescopes, crocodiles, alligators, and other scientific instruments of every kind. In the centre of this room was a stove or furnace, with what Tom called a pot, but which in my opinion was a crucible, in full boil. In one corner was a sort of ladder leading through the roof; and up this ladder the old gentleman pointed, as he said in a whisper: &quot;&#039;The observatory. Mr. Mooney is even now watching for the precise time at which we are to come into all the riches of the earth. It will be necessary for he and I, alone in that silent place, to cast your nativity before the hour arrives. Put the day and minute of your birth on this piece of paper, and leave the rest to me.&#039; &quot;&#039;You don&#039;t mean to say,&#039; says Tom, doing as he was told and giving him back the paper, &#039;that I&#039;m to wait here long, do you? It&#039;s a precious dismal place.&#039; &quot;&#039;Hush!&#039; says the old gentleman. &#039;it&#039;s hallowed ground. Farewell!&#039; &quot;&#039;Stop a minute,&#039; says Tom. &#039;What a hurry you&#039;re in! What&#039;s in that large bottle yonder?&#039; &quot;&#039;It&#039;s a child with three heads,&#039; says the old gentleman; &#039;and everything else in proportion.&#039; &quot;&#039;Why don&#039;t you throw him away?&#039; says Tom. &#039;What do you keep such unpleasant things here for?&#039; &quot;&#039;Throw him away!&#039; cries the old gentleman. &#039;We use him constantly in astrology. He&#039;s a charm.&#039; &quot;&#039;I shouldn&#039;t have thought it,&#039; says Tom, &#039;from his appearance. Must you go, I say?&#039; &quot;The old gentleman makes him no answer, but climbs up the ladder in a greater bustle than ever. Tom looked after his legs till there was nothing of him left, and then sat down to wait; feeling (so he used to say) as comfortable as if he was going to be made a freemason, and they were heating the pokers. &quot;Tom waited so long, gentlemen, that he began to think it must be getting on for midnight at least, and felt more dismal and lonely than ever he had done in all his life. He tried every means of wiling away the time, but it never had seemed to move so slow. First, he took a nearer view of the child with three heads, and thought what a comfort it must have been to his parents. Then he looked up a long telescope which was pointed out of the window, but saw nothing particular, in consequence of the stopper being on at the other end. Then he came to a skeleton in a glass case, labelled, &#039;Skeleton of a Gentleman—prepared by Mr. Mooney,&#039; —which made him hope that Mr. Mooney might not be in the habit of preparing gentlemen that way without their own consent. A hundred times at least, he looked into the pot where they were boiling the philosopher&#039;s stone down to the proper consistency, and wondered whether it was nearly done. &#039;When it is,&#039; thinks Tom, &#039;I&#039;ll send out for sixpenn&#039;orth of sprats, and turn &#039;em into gold fish for a first experiment.&#039; Besides which, he made up his mind, gentlemen, to have a country-house and a park; and to plant a bit of it with a double row of gas-lamps a mile long, and go out every night with a French-polished mahogany ladder, and two servants in livery behind him, to light &#039;em for his own pleasure. &quot;At length and at last, the old gentleman&#039;s legs appeared upon the steps leading through the roof, and he came slowly down: bringing along with him the gifted Mooney. This Mooney, gentlemen, was even more scientific in appearance than his friend; and had, as Tom often declared upon his word and honour, the dirtiest face we can possibly know of, in this imperfect state of existence. &quot;Gentlemen, you are all aware that if a scientific man isn&#039;t absent in his mind, he&#039;s of no good at all. Mr. Mooney was so absent, that when the old gentleman said to him, &#039;Shake hands with Mr. Grig,&#039; he put out his leg. &#039;Here&#039;s a mind, Mr. Grig!&#039; cries the old gentleman in a rapture. &#039;Here&#039;s philosophy! Here&#039;s rumination! Don&#039;t disturb him,&#039; he says, &quot;&#039;or this is amazing!&#039; &quot;Tom had no wish to disturb him, having nothing particular to say; but he was so uncommonly amazing, that the old gentleman got impatient, and determined to give him an electric shock to bring him to—&#039;for you must know, Mr. Grig,&#039; he says, &#039;that we always keep a strongly charged battery, ready for that purpose.&#039; These means being resorted to, gentlemen, the gifted Mooney revived with a loud roar, and he no sooner came to himself than both he and the old gentleman looked at Tom with compassion, and shed tears abundantly. &quot;&#039;My dear friend,&#039; says the old gentleman to the Gifted, &#039;prepare him.&#039; &quot;&#039;I say,&#039; cries Tom, falling back, &#039;none of that, you know. No preparing by Mr. Mooney if you please.&#039; &quot;&#039;Alas!&#039; replies the old gentleman, &#039;you don&#039;t understand us. My friend, inform him of his fate.—I can&#039;t.&#039; &quot;The Gifted mustered up his voice, after many efforts, and informed Tom that his nativity had been carefully cast, and he would expire at exactly thirty-five minutes, twenty-seven seconds, and five-sixths of a second past nine o&#039;clock, A.M., on that day two months. &quot;Gentlemen, I leave you to judge what were Tom&#039;s feelings at this announcement, on the eve of matrimony and endless riches. &#039;I think,&#039; he says in a trembling voice, &#039;there must be a mistake in the working of that sum. Will you do me the favour to cast it up again?&#039;—&#039;There is no mistake,&#039; replies the old gentleman, &#039;it is confirmed by Francis Moore, Physician. Here is the prediction for to-morrow two months.&#039; And he showed him the page, where sure enough were these words—&#039;The decease of a great person may be looked for, about this time.&#039; &quot;&#039;Which,&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;is clearly you, Mr. Grig.&#039; &quot;&#039;Too clearly,&#039; cries Tom, sinking into a chair, and giving one hand to the old gentleman, and one to the Gifted. &#039;The orb of day has set on Thomas Grig for ever!&#039; &quot;At this affecting remark, the Gifted shed tears again, and the other two mingled their tears with his, in a kind—if I may use the expression—of Mooney and Co.&#039;s entire. But the old gentleman recovering first, observed that this was only a reason for hastening the marriage, in order that Tom&#039;s distinguished race might be transmitted to posterity; and requesting the Gifted to console Mr. Grig during his temporary absence, he withdrew to settle the preliminaries with his niece immediately. &quot;And now, gentlemen, a very extraordinary and remarkable occurrence took place; for as Tom sat in a melancholy way in one chair, and the Gifted sat in a melancholy way in another, a couple of doors were thrown violently open, the two young ladies rushed in, and one knelt down in a loving attitude at Tom&#039;s feet, and the other at the Gifted&#039;s. So far, perhaps, as Tom was concerned—as he used to say—you will say there was nothing strange in this; but you will be of a different opinion when you understand that Tom&#039;s young lady was kneeling to the Gifted, and the Gifted&#039;s young lady was kneeling to Tom. &quot;&#039;Halloa! stop a minute!&#039; cries Tom; &#039;here&#039;s a mistake. I need condoling with by sympathising woman, under my afflicting circumstances; but we&#039;re out in the figure. Change partners, Mooney.&#039; &quot;&#039;Monster!&#039; cries Tom&#039;s young lady, clinging to the Gifted. &quot;&#039;Miss!&#039; says Tom. &#039;Is that your manners?&#039; &quot;&#039;I abjure thee!&#039; cries Tom&#039;s young lady. &#039;I renounce thee. I never will be thine. Thou,&#039; she says to the Gifted, &#039;art the object of my first and all-engrossing passion. Wrapt in thy sublime visions, thou hast not perceived my love; but, driven to despair, I now shake off the woman and avow it. Oh, cruel, cruel man!&#039; With which reproach she laid her head upon the Gifted&#039;s breast, and put her arms about him in the tenderest manner possible, gentlemen. &quot;&#039;And I,&#039; says the other young lady, in a sort of ecstasy, that made Tom start—&#039;I hereby abjure my chosen husband too. Hear me, Goblin!&#039;—this was to the Gifted—&#039;Hear me! I hold thee in the deepest detestation. The maddening interview of this one night has filled my soul with love—but not for thee. It is for thee, for thee, young man,&#039; she cries to Tom. &#039;As Monk Lewis finely observes, Thomas, Thomas, I am thine, Thomas, Thomas, thou art mine: thine for ever, mine for ever!&#039; with which words, she became very tender likewise. &quot;Tom and the Gifted, gentlemen, as you may believe, looked at each other in a very awkward manner, and with thoughts not at all complimentary to the two young ladies. As to the Gifted, I have heard Tom say often, that he was certain he was in a fit, and had it inwardly. &quot;&#039;Speak to me! Oh, speak to me!&#039; cries Tom&#039;s young lady to the Gifted. &quot;&#039;I don&#039;t want to speak to anybody,&#039; he says, finding his voice at last, and trying to push her away. &#039;I think I had better go. I&#039;m—I&#039;m frightened,&#039; he says, looking about as if he had lost something. &quot;&#039;Not one look of love!&#039; she cries. &#039;Hear me while I declare—&#039; &quot;&#039;I don&#039;t know how to look a look of love,&#039; he says, all in a maze. &#039;Don&#039;t declare anything. I don&#039;t want to hear anybody.&#039; &quot;&#039;That&#039;s right!&#039; cries the old gentleman (who it seems had been listening). &#039;That&#039;s right! Don&#039;t hear her. Emma shall marry you to-morrow, my friend, whether she likes it or not, and she shall marry Mr. Grig.&#039; &quot;Gentlemen, these words were no sooner out of his mouth than Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead (who it seems had been listening too) darts in, and spinning round and round, like a young giant&#039;s top, cries,&#039;&quot;Let her. Let her. I&#039;m fierce; I&#039;m furious. I give her leave. I&#039;ll never marry anybody after this— never. It isn&#039;t safe. She is the falsest of the false,&#039; he cries, tearing his hair and gnashing his teeth; &#039;and I&#039;ll live and die a bachelor!&#039; &quot;&#039;The little boy,&#039; observed the Gifted gravely, &#039;albeit of tender years, has spoken wisdom. I have been led to the contemplation of womankind, and will not adventure on the troubled waters of matrimony.&#039; &quot;&#039;What!&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;not marry my daughter! Won&#039;t you, Mooney? Not if I make her? Won&#039;t you? Won&#039;t you?&#039; &quot;&#039;No,&#039; says Mooney, &#039;I won&#039;t. And if anybody asks me any more, I&#039;ll run away, and never come back again.&#039; &quot;&quot;Mr. Grig,&#039; says the old gentleman,&#039;&quot;the stars must be obeyed. You have not changed your mind because of a little girlish folly—eh, Mr. Grig?&#039; &quot;Tom, gentlemen, had had his eyes about him, and was pretty sure that all this was a device and trick of the waiting-maid, to put him off his inclination. He had seen her hiding and skipping about the two doors, and had observed that a very little whispering from her pacified the Salamander directly. &#039;So,&#039; thinks Tom, &#039;this is a plot—but it won&#039;t fit.&#039; &quot;&#039;Eh, Mr. Grig?&#039; says the old gentleman. &quot;&#039;Why, sir,&#039; says Tom, pointing to the crucible, &#039;if the soup&#039;s nearly ready—&#039; &quot;&#039;Another hour beholds the consummation of our labours,&#039; returned the old gentleman. &quot;&#039;Very good,&#039; says Tom, with a mournful air. &#039;It&#039;s only for two months, but I may as well be the richest man in the world even for that time. I&#039;m not particular, I&#039;ll take her, sir. I&#039;ll take her.&#039; &quot;The old gentleman was in a rapture to find Tom still in the same mind, and drawing the young lady towards him by little and little, was joining their hands by main force, when all of a sudden, gentlemen, the crucible blows up, with a great crash; everybody screams; the room is filled with smoke; and Tom, not knowing what may happen next, throws himself into a Fancy attitude, and says, &#039;Come on, if you&#039;re a man!&#039; without addressing himself to anybody in particular. &quot;&#039;The labours of fifteen years!&#039; says the old gentleman, clasping his hands and looking down upon the Gifted, who was saving the pieces, &#039;are destroyed in an instant!&#039;—And I am told, gentlemen, by the by, that this same philosopher&#039;s stone would have been discovered a hundred times at least, to speak within bounds, if it wasn&#039;t for the one unfortunate circumstance that the apparatus always blows up, when it&#039;s on the very point of succeeding. &quot;Tom turns pale when he hears the old gentleman expressing himself to this unpleasant effect, and stammers out that if it&#039;s quite agreeable to all parties, he would like to know exactly what has happened, and what change has really taken place in the prospects of that company. &quot;&#039;We have failed for the present, Mr. Grig,&#039; says the old gentleman, wiping his forehead. &#039;And I regret it the more, because I have in fact invested my niece&#039;s five thousand pounds in this glorious speculation. But don&#039;t be cast down,&#039; he says, anxiously—&#039;in another fifteen years, Mr. Grig—&#039; &quot;&#039;Oh!&#039; cries Tom, letting the young lady&#039;s hand fall. &#039;Were the stars very positive about this union, sir?&#039; &quot;&#039;They were,&#039; says the old gentleman. &quot;&#039;I&#039;m sorry to hear it,&#039; Tom makes answer, &#039;for it&#039;s no go, sir.&#039; &quot;&#039;No what!&#039; cries the old gentleman. &quot;&#039;Go, sir,&#039; says Tom, fiercely. &#039;I forbid the banns.&#039; And with these words—which are the very words he used—he sat himself down in a chair, and, laying his head upon the table, thought with a secret grief of what was to come to pass on that day two months. &quot;Tom always said, gentlemen, that that waiting-maid was the artfullest minx he had ever seen; and he left it in writing in this country when he went to colonise abroad, that he was certain in his own mind she and the Salamander had blown up the philosopher&#039;s stone on purpose, and to cut him out of his property. I believe Tom was in the right, gentlemen; but whether or no, she comes forward at this point, and says, &#039;May I speak, sir?&#039; and the old gentleman answering, &#039;Yes, you may,&#039; she goes on to say that &#039;the stars are no doubt quite right in every respect, but Tom is not the man.&#039; And she says, &#039;Don&#039;t you remember, sir, that when the clock struck five this afternoon, you gave Master Galileo a rap on the head with your telescope, and told him to get out of the way?&#039; &#039;Yes, I do,&#039; says the old gentleman. &#039;Then,&#039; says the waiting-maid, &#039;I say he&#039;s the man, and the prophecy is fulfilled.&#039; The old gentleman staggers at this, as if somebody had hit him a blow on the chest, and cries, &#039;He! why, he&#039;s a boy!&#039; Upon that, gentlemen, the Salamander cries out that he&#039;ll be twenty-one next Lady-day; and complains that his father has always been so busy with the sun round which the earth revolves, that he has never taken any notice of the son that revolves round him; and that he hasn&#039;t had a new suit of clothes since he was fourteen; and that he wasn&#039;t even taken out of nankeen frocks and trowsers till he was quite unpleasant in &#039;em; and touches on a good many more family matters to the same purpose. To make short of a long story, gentlemen, they all talk together, and cry together, and remind the old gentleman that as to the noble family, his own grandfather would have been Lord Mayor if he hadn&#039;t died at a dinner the year before; and they show him by all kinds of arguments that if the cousins are married, the prediction comes true every way. At last, the old gentleman being quite convinced, gives in; and joins their hands; and leaves his daughter to marry anybody she likes; and they are all well pleased; and the Gifted as well as any of them. &quot;In the middle of this little family party, gentlemen, sits Tom all the while, as miserable as you like. But, when everything else is arranged, the old gentleman&#039;s daughter says, that their strange conduct was a little device of the waiting-maid&#039;s to disgust the lovers he had chosen for &#039;em, and will he forgive her? and if he will, perhaps he might even find her a husband—and when she says that, she looks uncommon hard at Tom. Then the waiting-maid says that, oh dear! she couldn&#039;t abear Mr. Grig should think she wanted him to marry her; and that she had even gone so far as to refuse the last lamp-lighter, who was now a literary character (having set up as a bill-sticker); and that she hoped Mr. Grig would not suppose she was on her last legs by any means, for the baker was very strong in his attentions at that moment, and as to the butcher, he was frantic. And I don&#039;t know how much more she might have said, gentlemen (for, as you know, this kind of young women are rare ones to talk), if the old gentleman hadn&#039;t cut in suddenly, and asked Tom if he&#039;d have her, with ten pounds to recompense him for his loss of time and disappointment, and as a kind of bribe to keep the story secret. &quot;&#039;It don&#039;t much matter, sir,&#039; says Tom, &#039;I ain&#039;t long for this world. Eight weeks of marriage, especially with this young woman, might reconcile me to my fate. I think,&#039; he says, &#039;I could go off easy after that.&#039; With which he embraces her with a very dismal face, and groans in a way that might move a heart of stone—even of philosopher&#039;s stone. &quot;&#039;Egad,&#039; says the old gentleman, &#039;that reminds me—this bustle put it out of my head—there was a figure wrong. He&#039;ll live to a green old age—eighty-seven at least!&#039; &quot;&#039;How much, sir?&#039; cries Tom. &quot;&#039;Eighty-seven!&#039; says the old gentleman. &quot;&#039;Without another word, Tom flings himself on the old gentleman&#039;s neck; throws up his hat; cuts a caper; defies the waiting-maid; and refers her to the butcher. &quot;&#039;You wont marry her!&#039; says the old gentleman, angrily. &quot;&#039;And live after it!&#039; says Tom. &#039;I&#039;d sooner marry a mermaid with a small-tooth comb and looking-glass.&#039; &quot;&#039;Then take the consequences,&#039; says the other. &quot;With those words—I beg your kind attention here, gentlemen, for it&#039;s worth your notice—the old gentleman wetted the forefinger of his right hand in some of the liquor from the crucible that was spilt on the floor, and drew a small triangle on Tom&#039;s forehead. The room swam before his eyes, and he found himself in the watch-house.&quot; &quot;Found himself where?&quot; cried the vice, on behalf of the company generally. &quot;In the watch-house,&quot; said the chairman. &quot;It was late at night, and he found himself in the very watch-house from which he had been let out that morning.&quot; &quot;Did he go home?&quot; asked the vice. &quot;The watch-house people rather objected to that,&quot; said the chairman; &quot;so he stopped there that night, and went before the magistrate in the morning. &#039;Why, you&#039;re here again, are you?&#039; says the magistrate, adding insult to injury; &#039;we&#039;ll trouble you for five shillings more, if you can conveniently spare the money.&#039; Tom told him he had been enchanted, but it was of no use. He told the contractors the same, but they wouldn&#039;t believe him. It was very hard upon him, gentlemen, as he often said, for was it likely he&#039;d go and invent such a tale? They shook their heads and told him he&#039;d say anything but his prayers—as indeed he would; there&#039;s no doubt about that. It was the only imputation on his moral character that ever I heard of.&quot;18510101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Lamplighter_s_Story/1851-The_Lamplighters_Story_The_Picnic_Papers.pdf
2https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/2'The Quack Doctor’s Proclamation'Published in <em>The Examiner</em> (14 August 1841).Dickens, Charles<em>British Newspapers Archive</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1841-08-14">1841-08-14</a><em>British Newspapers Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000054/18410814/001/0005">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000054/18410814/001/0005</a>.&nbsp;Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1841-08-14-The_Examiner_The_Quack_Doctors_ProclamationDickens, Charles. 'The Quack Doctor's Proclamation.' <em>The Examiner</em> (14 August 1841): p. 517. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1841-08-14-The_Examiner_The_Quack_Doctors_Proclamation">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1841-08-14-The_Examiner_The_Quack_Doctors_Proclamation</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1841-08-14_The_Examiner_The_Quack_Doctors_Proclamation.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'The Quack Doctor's Proclamation.' <em>The Examiner<span>&nbsp;</span></em>(14 August 1841): p. 517.</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Examiner">The Examiner</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=W.">W.</a>Tune – A Cobbler there was. An astonishing doctor has just come to town, Who will do all the faculty perfectly brown: He knows all diseases, their causes, and ends; And he ‘begs to appeal to his medical friends.’ Tol de rol: Diddle doll: Tol de rol, de dol, Diddle doll Tol de rol doll. He’s a magnetic doctor, and knows how to keep The whole of a Government snoring asleep To popular clamours; till popular pins Are stuck in their midriffs – and then he begins. Tol de rol. He’s a clairvoyant subject, and readily reads His countrymen’s wishes, conditions, and needs, With many more fine things I can’t tell in rhyme – And he keeps both his eyes shut, the whole of the time. Tol de rol. You mustn’t expect him to talk; but you’ll take Most particular notice the doctor’s awake, Though for aught from his words, or his looks that you reap, he Might just as well be most confoundedly sleepy. Tol de rol. Homëopathy too, he has practiced for ages; (You’ll find his prescriptions in Luke Hansard’s pages) Just giving his patient when maddened by pain, - Of Reform the ten thousandeth part of a grain. Tol de rol. He’s a med’cine for Ireland, in portable papers; The infallible cure for political vapours; A neat label round it his ‘prentices tie – ‘Put your trust in the Lord, and keep this powder dry!’ Tol de rol. He’s a corn doctor also, of wonderful skill, – No cutting, no rooting-up, purging, or pill – You’re merely to take, ‘stead of walking or riding, The sweet schoolboy exercise – innocent sliding. Tol de rol. There’s no advice gratis. If high ladies send His legitimate fee, he’s their soft spoken friend. At the great public counter with one hand behind him, And one in his waistcoat, they’re certain to find him. Tol de rol. He has only to add he’s the real Doctor Flam, All others being purely fictitious and sham; The house is a large one, tall, slated, and white, With a lobby; and lights in the passage at night. Tol de rol: Diddle doll: Tol de rol, de doll, Diddle doll Tol de rol doll.18410814https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/The_Quack_Doctor_s_Proclamation/1841-08-14-The_Examiner_The_Quack_Doctors_Proclamation.pdf
125https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/125'The Response'From a letter to W. H. Wills (1854).Dickens, Charles'To W. H. Wills.' <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The Pilgrim Edition. </em>Edited by Graham Storey, Kathleen Tillotson and Angus Easson. Volume 7 (1853-1855), p. 493. Oxford University Press, 1993.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1854">1854</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1854_Letter_To_W_H_Wills_The_Response<span>Dickens, Charles. 'The Response' (1854). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1854_Letter_To_W_H_Wills_The_Response" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1854_Letter_To_W_H_Wills_The_Response</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1854_Letter_To_W_H_Wills_The_Response.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'The Response' (1854).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>Air: “Isabel” At the Hou-ou-sehold Words at ha-alf past fo-our I’ll be found, I’ll be found, I’ll be found When if it don’t blow it will certainly pou-ur I’ll be bound, I’ll be bound, I’ll be bound! But whom you expect besi-i-des Lemming I dont know, I dont know, I dont know But I’ll write to old Stanny R. and Lemming I’ll do so, I’ll do so, I’ll do so. You haven’t got time I sup-po-o-o-ose To walk out to that Blades If you do not produce your old no-o-o-ose I’ll send him a line with all spee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-eed.18540101
14https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/14'The Song of the Wreck'From <em>The Lighthouse</em> (May 1855), co-author Wilkie Collins.Dickens, Charles"Miscellaneous Papers." Volume 2. <em>The Works of Charles Dickens.</em> Volume 20 (1911). London: Chapman and Hall; 484-485, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Works_of_Charles_Dickens/91s4AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=The%20song%20of%20the%20wreck" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Works_of_Charles_Dickens/91s4AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=The%20song%20of%20the%20wreck</a>.Chapman and Hall<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1855-05">1855-05</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1855-05_The_Lighthouse_The_Song_of_the_WreckDickens, Charles. 'The Song of the Wreck' from <em>The Lighthouse</em> (May 1855), co-author Wilkie Collins. Printed in Volume 20 of <em>The Works of Charles Dickens</em> (1911). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1855-05_The_Lighthouse_The_Song_of_the_Wreck">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1855-05_The_Lighthouse_The_Song_of_the_Wreck</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1855-05_The_Lighthouse_The_Song_of_the_Wreck.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'The Song of the Wreck.'&nbsp;<em>The Lighthouse&nbsp;</em>(May 1855).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Lighthouse">The Lighthouse</a>The wind blew high, the waters raved, A ship drove on the land, A hundred human creatures saved Kneel’d down upon the sand. Three-score were drown’d, three-score were thrown Upon the black rocks wild, And thus among them, left alone, They found one helpless child. A seaman rough, to shipwreck bred, Stood out from all the rest, And gently laid the lonely head Upon his honest breast. And travelling o’er the desert wide It was a solemn joy, To see them, ever side by side, The sailor and the boy. In famine, sickness, hunger, thirst, The two were still but one, Until the strong man droop’d the first And felt his labours done. Then to a trusty friend he spake, ‘Across the desert wide, O take this poor boy for my sake!’ And kiss’d the child and died. Toiling along in weary plight Through heavy jungle, mire, These two came later every night To warm them at the fire. Until the captain said one day, ‘O seaman good and kind, To save thyself now come away, And leave the boy behind!’ The child was slumbering near the blaze: ‘O captain, let him rest Until it sinks, when God’s own ways Shall teach us what is best!” They watch’d the whiten’d ashy heap, They touch’d the child in vain; They did not leave him there asleep, He never woke again.18550501https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/The_Song_of_the_Wreck/Song_of_the_Wreck_The_Lighthouse.png
149https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/149'The Steam Excursion'Published in <em>The Monthly Magazine</em> (October 1834), pp. 360-376.Dickens, Charles<em>Biodiversity Heritage Library, </em>(National History Museum)<em>: </em><a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/19780#page/360/mode/1up">https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/19780#page/360/mode/1up</a>.<span>Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-10-The_Steam_ExcursionDickens, Charles. 'The Steam Excursion' (October 1834). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https:www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-10-The_Steam_Excursion">https:www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-10-The_Steam_Excursion</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Monthly+Magazine%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Monthly Magazine</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Mr. Percy Noakes was a law-student inhabiting a set of chambers on the fourth floor, in one of those houses in Gray’s-inn-square, which command an extensive view of the gardens, and their usual adjuncts—flaunting nursery-maids, and town-made children, with parenthetical legs. Mr. Percy Noakes was what is generally termed—&quot;a devilish good fellow.&quot; He had a large circle of acquaintance, and seldom dined at his own expense. He used to talk politics to papas, flatter the vanity of mammas, do the amiable to their daughters, make pleasure engagements with their sons, and romp with the younger branches. Like those paragons of perfection, advertising footmen out of place, he was always &quot;willing to make himself generally useful.&quot; If any old lady, whose son was in India, gave a ball, Mr. Percy Noakes was master of the ceremonies; if any young lady made a stolen match, Mr. Percy Noakes gave her away; if a juvenile wife presented her husband with a blooming cherub, Mr. Percy Noakes was either godfather or deputy godfather; and if any member of a friend’s family died, Mr. Percy Noakes was invariably to be seen in the second mourning coach, with a white handkerchief to his eyes, sobbing—to use his own appropriate and expressive description—&quot;like winkin!&quot; It may readily be imagined that these numerous avocations were rather calculated to interfere with Mr. Percy Noakes’s professional studies. Mr. Percy Noakes was perfectly aware of the fact, and he had, therefore, after mature reflection, made up his mind not to study at all—a laudable determination, to which he adhered in the most praiseworthy manner. His sitting-room presented a strange chaos of dress-gloves, boxing-gloves, caricatures, albums, invitation cards, foils, cricket-bats, card-board drawings, paste, gum, and fifty other miscellaneous articles, heaped together in the strangest confusion. He was always making something for somebody, or planning some party of pleasure, which was his great forte. He invariably spoke with astonishing rapidity; was smart, spoffish, and eight-and-twenty. &quot;Splendid idea, ’pon my life,&quot; —soliloquised Mr. Percy Noakes, over his morning&#039;s coffee, as his mind reverted to a suggestion which had been thrown out the previous night, by a lady at whose house he had spent the evening. &quot;Glorious idea!—Mrs. Stubbs,&quot; cried the student, raising his voice. &quot;Yes, Sir,&quot; replied a dirty old woman, with an inflamed countenance, emerging from the bed-room, with a barrel of dirt and cinders.—This was the laundress. &quot;Did you call, Sir?&quot; &quot;Oh! Mrs. Stubbs, I’m going out. If that tailor should call again you’d better say—you’d better say, I’m out of town, and shan’t be back for a fortnight; and if that bootmaker should come, tell him I’ve lost his address, or I’d have sent him that little amount; mind he writes it down; and if Mr. Hardy should call—you know Mr. Hardy?—&quot; &quot;The funny gentleman, Sir?&quot; &quot;Ah! the funny gentleman. If Mr. Hardy should call, say I’ve gone to Mrs. Taunton’s about that water-party.&quot; &quot;Yes, Sir.&quot; &quot;And if any fellow calls, and says he’s come about a steamer, tell him to be here at five o’clock this afternoon, Mrs. Stubbs.&quot; &quot;Very well, Sir.&quot; Mr. Percy Noakes brushed his hat; whisked the crumbs off his inexplicables with a silk handkerchief, gave the ends of his hair a persuasive roll round his fore-finger, and sallied forth for Mrs. Taunton’s domicile in Great Marlborough-street, where she and her daughters occupied the upper part of a house. She was a good-looking widow of fifty, with the form of a giantess and the mind of a child. The pursuit of pleasure, and some means of killing time, appeared the sole end of her existence. She doted on her daughters, who were as frivolous as herself. A general exclamation of satisfaction hailed the arrival of Mr. Percy Noakes, who went through the ordinary salutations, and threw himself into an easy chair, near the ladies’ work-table, with all the ease of a regularly established friend of the family. Mrs. Taunton was busily engaged in planting immense bright bows on every part of a smart cap on which it was possible to stick one; Miss Emily Taunton was making a watch-guard; and Miss Sophia was at the piano, practising a new song—poetry by the young officer, or the police officer, or the custom-house officer, or some equally interesting amateur. &quot;You good creature!&quot; said Mrs. Taunton, addressing the gallant Percy. &quot;You really are a good soul! You’ve come about the water-party, I know.&quot; &quot;I should rather suspect I had,&quot; replied Mr. Noakes, triumphantly. &quot;Now come here, girls, and I’ll tell you all about it.&quot; Miss Emily and Miss Sophia advanced to the table, with that ballet sort of step which some young ladies appear to think so fascinating - something between a skip and a canter. &quot;Now,&quot; continued Mr. Percy Noakes, &quot;it seems to me that the best way will be to have a committee of ten, to make all the arrangements, and manage the whole set-out. Well, then, I propose that the expenses shall be paid by these ten fellows jointly.&quot; &quot;Excellent, indeed!&quot; said Mrs. Taunton, who highly approved of this part of the arrangements. &quot;Then my plan is, that each of these ten fellows shall have the power of asking five people. There must be a meeting of the committee, at my chambers, to make all the arrangements, and these people shall be then named; every member of the committee shall have the power of black-balling any one who is proposed; and one black-ball shall exclude that person. This will ensure our having a pleasant party, you know.&quot; &quot;What a manager you are!&quot; interrupted Mrs. Taunton again. &quot;Charming!&quot; said the lovely Emily. &quot;I never did!&quot; ejaculated Sophia. &quot;Yes, I think it’ll do,&quot; replied Mr. Percy Noakes, who was now quite in his element. &quot;I think it’ll do. Well, then, you know we shall go down to the Nore and back, and have a regular, capital cold dinner laid out in the cabin before we start, so that every thing may be ready without any confusion; and we shall have the lunch laid out on deck in those little tea-garden-looking concerns by the paddle-boxes—I don’t know what you call ’em. Then we shall hire a steamer expressly for our party, and a band, you know, and have the deck chalked, and we shall be able to dance quadrilles all day: and then whoever we know that’s musical, you know, why they’ll make themselves useful and agreeable—and—and—upon the whole I really hope we shall have a glorious day, you know.&quot; The announcement of these arrangements was received with the utmost enthusiasm. Mrs. Taunton, Emily, and Sophia, were loud in their praises. &quot;Well, but tell me, Percy,&quot; said Mrs. Taunton, &quot;who are the ten gentlemen to be?&quot; &quot;Oh! I know plenty of fellows who’ll be delighted with the scheme,&quot; replied Mr. Percy Noakes; &quot;of course we shall have—&quot; &quot;Mr. Hardy,&quot; interrupted the servant, announcing a visitor. Miss Sophia and Miss Emily hastily assumed the most interesting attitudes that could be adopted on so short a notice. &quot;How are you?&quot; said a stout gentleman of about forty, pausing at the door in the attitude of an awkward harlequin. This was Mr. Hardy, whom we have before described, on the authority of Mrs. Stubbs, as &quot;the funny gentleman.&quot; He was an Astley Cooperish Joe Miller—a practical joker, immensely popular with married ladies, and a general favourite with young men. He was always engaged in some pleasure excursion or other, and delighted in getting somebody into a scrape on such occasions. He could sing comic songs; imitate hackney coachmen and fowls; play airs on his chin, and execute concertos on the Jew&#039;s harp. He always eat and drank most immoderately, and was the bosom friend of Mr. Percy Noakes. He had a red face, a somewhat husky voice, and a tremendously loud laugh. &quot;How are you?&quot; said this worthy, laughing, as if it were the finest joke in the world to make a morning call; and shaking hands with the ladies with as much vehemence as if their arms were so many pump-handles. &quot;You’re just the very man I wanted,&quot; said Mr. Percy Noakes, who proceeded to explain the cause of his being in requisition. &quot;Ha! ha! ha!&quot; shouted Hardy, after hearing the statement, and receiving a detailed account of the proposed excursion. &quot;Oh, capital! glorious! What a day it will be! what fun! But, I say, when are you going to begin making the arrangements?&quot; &quot;No time like the present—at once, if you please.&quot; &quot;Oh, charming!&quot; cried the ladies. &quot;Pray, do.&quot; Writing materials were laid before Mr. Percy Noakes, and the names of the different members of the committee were agreed on, after as much discussion between him and Mr. Hardy as if at least the fate of nations had depended on their appointment. It was then agreed that a meeting should take place at Mr. Percy Noakes’s chambers on the ensuing Wednesday evening at eight o’clock, and the visitors departed. Wednesday evening arrived; eight o’clock came, and eight members of the committee were punctual in their attendance. Mr. Loggins, the solicitor, of Boswell-court, sent an excuse, and Mr. Samuel Briggs, the ditto of Furnival’s Inn, sent his brother, much to his (the brother’s) satisfaction, and greatly to the discomfiture of Mr. Percy Noakes. Between the Briggs&#039;s and the Tauntons there existed a degree of implacable hatred, quite unprecedented. The animosity between the Montagues and Capulets, was nothing to that which prevailed between these two illustrious houses. Mrs. Briggs was a widow, with three daughters and two sons; Mr. Samuel, the eldest, was an attorney, and Mr. Alexander, the youngest, was under definite articles to his brother. They resided in Portland-street, Oxford-street, and moved in the same orbit as the Tauntons—hence their mutual dislike. If the Miss Briggs&#039;s appeared in smart bonnets, the Miss Tauntons eclipsed them with smarter. If Mrs. Taunton appeared in a cap of all the hues of the rainbow, Mrs. Briggs forthwith mounted a toque, with all the patterns of the kaleidoscope. If Miss Sophia Taunton learnt a new song, two of the Miss Briggs&#039;s came out with a new duet. The Tauntons had once gained a temporary triumph with the assistance of a harp, but the Briggs&#039;s brought three guitars into the field, and effectually routed the enemy. In short, there was no end to the rivalry between them. Now, as Mr. Samuel Briggs was a mere machine, a sort of self-acting legal walking-stick; and as the party was known to have originated, however remotely, with Mrs. Taunton, the female branches of the Briggs&#039;s family had arranged that Mr. Alexander should attend, instead of his brother; and as the said Mr. Alexander was deservedly celebrated for possessing all the pertinacity of a bankruptcy-court attorney, combined with the obstinacy of that pleasing animal which brouzes upon the thistle—he required but little tuition. He was especially enjoined to make himself as disagreeable as possible; and, above all, to black-ball the Tauntons at every hazard. The proceedings of the evening were opened by Mr. Percy Noakes. After successfully urging on the gentlemen present the propriety of their mixing some brandy-and-water, he briefly stated the objects of the meeting, and concluded by observing that the first step must be the selection of a chairman, necessarily possessing some arbitrary—he trusted not unconstitutional—powers, to whom the personal direction of the whole of the arrangements (subject to the approval of the committee) should be confided. A pale young gentleman, in a green stock, and spectacles of the same, a member of the honourable society of the Inner Temple, immediately rose for the purpose of proposing Mr. Percy Noakes. He had known him long, and this he would say, that a more honourable, a more excellent, or a better hearted fellow, never existed—(hear, hear). The young gentleman, who was a member of a debating society, took this opportunity of entering into an examination of the state of the English law, from the days of William the Conqueror down to the present period; he briefly adverted to the code established by the ancient Druids; slightly glanced at the principles laid down by the Athenian law-givers; and concluded with a most glowing eulogium on pic-nics and constitutional rights. Mr. Alexander Briggs opposed the motion. He had the highest esteem for Mr. Percy Noakes as an individual, but he did consider that he ought not to be intrusted with these immense powers—(oh, oh!)—He believed that in the proposed capacity Mr. Percy Noakes would not act fairly, impartially, or honourably; but he begged it to be distinctly understood, that he said this without the slightest personal disrespect. Mr. Hardy defended his honourable friend, in a voice rendered partially unintelligible by emotion and brandy-and-water; the proposition was put to the vote, and there appearing to be only one dissentient voice, Mr. Percy Noakes was declared duly elected, and took the chair accordingly. The business of the meeting now proceeded with great rapidity. The chairman delivered in his estimate of the probable expense of the excursion, and every one present subscribed his portion thereof. The question was put that &quot;The Endeavour&quot; be hired for the occasion; Mr. Alexander Briggs moved as an amendment that the word &quot;Fly&quot; be substituted for the word &quot;Endeavour;&quot; but after some debate consented to withdraw his opposition. The important ceremony of balloting then commenced. A tea-caddy was placed on a table in a dark corner of the apartment, and every one was provided with two backgammon-men, one black and one white. The chairman with great solemnity then read the following list of the guests whom he proposed to introduce:—Mrs. Taunton and two daughters, Mr. Wizzle, Mr. Simson. The names were respectively balloted for, and Mrs. Taunton and her daughters were declared to be black-balled. Mr. Percy Noakes and Mr. Hardy exchanged glances. &quot;Is your list prepared, Mr. Briggs?&quot; inquired the chairman. &quot;It is,&quot; replied Alexander, delivering in the following:—&quot;Mrs. Briggs and three daughters, Mr. Samuel Briggs.&quot; The previous ceremony was repeated, and Mrs. Briggs and three daughters were declared to be black-balled. Mr. Alexander Briggs looked rather foolish, and the remainder of the company appeared somewhat overawed by the mysterious nature of the proceedings. The balloting proceeded; but one little circumstance which Mr. Percy Noakes had not originally foreseen, prevented the system from working quite as well as he had anticipated—everybody was black-balled. Mr. Alexander Briggs by way of retaliation exercised his power of exclusion in every instance, and the result was, that after three hours had been consumed in incessant balloting, the names of only three gentlemen were found to have been agreed to. In this dilemma what was to be done? either the whole plan must fall to the ground, or a compromise must be effected. The latter alternative was preferable; and Mr. Percy Noakes therefore, proposed that the form of balloting should be dispensed with, and that every gentleman should merely be required to state whom he intended to bring. The proposal was readily acceded to; the Tauntons and the Briggs&#039;s were reinstated, and the party was formed. The next Wednesday was fixed for the eventful day, and it was unanimously resolved that every member of the committee should wear a piece of blue sarsenet ribbon round his left arm. It appeared from the statement of Mr. Percy Noakes that the boat belonged to the General Steam Navigation Company, and was then lying off the Custom-house; and as he proposed that the dinner and wines should be provided by an eminent city purveyor, it was arranged that Mr. Percy Noakes should be on-board by seven o’clock to superintend the arrangements, and that the remaining members of the committee, together with the company generally, should be expected to join her by nine o’clock. More brandy-and-water was despatched; several speeches were made by the different law students present; thanks were voted to the chairman, and the meeting separated. The weather had been beautiful up to this period, and beautiful it continued to be. Sunday passed over, and Mr. Percy Noakes became unusually fidgetty—rushing, constantly, to and from the Steam Packet Wharf, to the astonishment of the clerks, and the great emolument of the Holborn cab-men. Tuesday arrived, and the anxiety of Mr. Percy Noakes knew no bounds: he was every instant running to the window to look out for clouds; and Mr. Hardy astonished the whole square by practising a new comic song for the occasion in the chairman’s chambers. Uneasy were the slumbers of Mr. Percy Noakes that night: he tossed and tumbled about, and had confused dreams of steamers starting off, and gigantic clocks with the hands pointing to a quarter past nine, and the ugly face of Mr. Alexander Briggs looking over the boat’s side, and grinning as if in derision of his fruitless attempts to move. He made a violent effort to get on board, and awoke. The bright sun was shining cheerfully into the bed-room; and Mr. Percy Noakes started up for his watch, in the dreadful expectation of finding his worst dreams realized. It was just five o’clock: he calculated the time—he should be a good half-hour dressing himself; and as it was a lovely morning, and the tide would be then running down, he would walk leisurely to Strand Lane, and have a boat to the Custom House. He dressed himself, took a hasty apology for a breakfast, and sallied forth. The streets looked as lonely and deserted as if they had been crowded over-night for the last time. Here and there an early apprentice, with quenched-looking, sleepy eyes, was taking down the shutters of a shop; and a policeman or milk-woman might occasionally be seen pacing slowly along; but the servants had not yet begun to clean the doors, or light the fires, and London looked the picture of desolation. At the corner of a bye-street, near Temple Bar, was stationed a &quot;street breakfast.&quot; The coffee was boiling over a charcoal fire, and large slices of bread and butter were piled one upon the other, like deals in a timber-yard. The company were seated on a form, which, with a view both to security and comfort, was placed against a neighbouring wall. Two young men, whose uproarious mirth and disordered dress bespoke the conviviality of the preceding evening, were treating three &quot;ladies&quot; and an Irish labourer. A little sweep was standing at a short distance, casting a longing eye at the tempting delicacies; and a policeman was watching the group from the opposite side of the street. The wan looks, and gaudy finery of the wretched, thinly-clad females contrasted as strangely with the gay sun-light, as did their forced merriment with the boisterous hilarity of the two young men, who now and then varied their amusements by &quot;bonneting&quot; the proprietor of this itinerant coffee-house. Mr. Percy Noakes walked briskly by, and when he turned down Strand-lane, and caught a glimpse of the glistening water, he thought he had never felt so important or so happy in his life. &quot;Boat, Sir?&quot; cried one of the three watermen who were mopping out their boats, and all whistling different tunes. &quot;Boat, Sir!&quot; &quot;No,&quot; replied Mr. Percy Noakes rather sharply, for the inquiry was not made in a manner at all suitable to his dignity. &quot;Would you prefer a wessel, Sir?&quot; inquired another, to the infinite delight of the &#039;Jack-in-the-water.&#039; Mr. Percy Noakes replied with a look of the most supreme contempt. &quot;Did you want to be put on board a steamer, Sir?&quot; inquired an old fireman-waterman, very confidentially. He was dressed in a faded red suit, just the colour of the cover of a very old Court-guide. &quot;Yes, make haste—the Endeavour; off the Custom-house.&quot; &quot;Endeavour!&quot; cried the man who had convulsed the ‘Jack’ before. &quot;Vy, I see the Endeavour go up half an hour ago.&quot; &quot;So did I,&quot; said another; &quot;and I should think she’d gone down by this time, for she’s a precious sight too full of ladies and gen’lmen.&quot; Mr. Percy Noakes affected to disregard these representations, and stepped into the boat, which the old man, by dint of scrambling, and shoving, and grating, had brought up to the causeway.— &quot;Shove her off,&quot; cried Mr. Percy Noakes, and away the boat glided down the river, Mr. Percy Noakes seated on the recently mopped seat, and the watermen at the stairs offering to bet him any reasonable sum that he’d never reach the &quot;Custum-us.&quot; &quot;Here she is, by Jove!&quot; said the delighted Percy, as they ran alongside the Endeavour. &quot;Hold hard!&quot; cried the steward over the side, and Mr. Percy Noakes jumped on board. &quot;Hope you&#039;ll find everything as you wished it, Sir—she looks uncommon well this morning.&quot; &quot;She does, indeed!&quot; replied the manager, in a state of ecstasy which it is impossible to describe. The deck was scrubbed, and the seats were scrubbed, and there was a bench for the band, and a place for dancing, and a pile of camp-stools, and an awning; and then Mr. Percy Noakes bustled down below, and there were the pastrycook’s men, and the steward’s wife laying out the dinner on two tables the whole length of the cabin; and then Mr. Percy Noakes took off his coat and rushed backwards and forwards, doing nothing, but quite convinced he was assisting everybody; and the steward’s wife laughed till she cried, and Mr. Percy Noakes panted with the violence of his exertions. And then the bell at London-bridge wharf rang, and a Margate boat was just starting, and a Gravesend boat was just starting, and people shouted, and porters ran down the steps with luggage that would crush any men but porters; and sloping boards, with bits of wood nailed on them, were placed between the outside boat and the inside boat, and the passengers ran along them, and looked like so many fowls coming out of an area; and then the bell ceased, and the boards were taken away, and the boats started; and a great many people who wanted to go were left behind, and a great many people who didn&#039;t want to go were carried away; and the whole scene was one of the most delightful bustle and confusion that can be imagined. The time wore on; half-past eight o’clock arrived; the pastry-cook’s men went ashore; the dinner was completely laid out, and Mr. Percy Noakes locked the principal cabin, and put the key into his pocket, in order that it might be suddenly disclosed in all its magnificence to the eyes of the astonished company. The band came on board, and so did the wine. Ten minutes to nine, and the committee embarked in a body. There was Mr. Hardy in a blue jacket and waistcoat, white trousers, silk stockings, and pumps; habited in full aquatic costume, with a straw hat on his head, and an immense telescope under his arm; and there was the young gentleman with the green spectacles in nankeen inexplicables, with a ditto waistcoat and bright buttons, like the pictures of Paul—not the saint, but he of Virginia notoriety. The remainder of the committee, dressed as they were in white hats, light jackets, waistcoats and trousers, looked something between waiters and West India planters. Nine o’clock struck, and the company arrived in shoals. Mr. Samuel Briggs, Mrs. Briggs, and the Misses Briggs made their appearance in a smart private wherry. The three guitars, in their respective dark green cases, were carefully stowed away in the bottom of the boat, accompanied by two immense portfolios of music, which it would take at least a week’s incessant playing to get through. The Tauntons arrived at the same moment with more music, and a lion—a gentleman with a bass voice, and incipient red moustachios. The colours of the Taunton party were pink; those of the Briggs&#039;s a light blue. The Tauntons had artificial flowers in their bonnets; here the Briggs&#039;s gained a decided advantage—they wore feathers. &quot;How d’ye do, dear?&quot; said the Misses Briggs to the Misses Taunton. (The word &quot;dear&quot; among girls is frequently synonymous with &quot;wretch.&quot;) &quot;Quite well, thank you, dear,&quot; replied the Misses Taunton, to the Misses Briggs—and then there was such a kissing, and congratulating, and shaking of hands, as would induce one to suppose the two families were the best friends in the world, instead of each wishing the other overboard, as they most sincerely did. Mr. Percy Noakes received the visitors, and bowed to the strange gentleman, as if he should like to know who he was. This was just what Mrs. Taunton wanted. Here was an opportunity to astonish the Briggs&#039;s. &quot;Oh! I beg your pardon,&quot; said the general of the Taunton party, with a careless air.—&quot;Captain Helves—Mr. Percy Noakes—Mrs. Briggs—Captain Helves.&quot; Mr. Percy Noakes bowed very low; the gallant captain did the same with all due ferocity, and the Briggs&#039;s were clearly overcome. &quot;Our friend, Mr. Wizzle, being unfortunately prevented from coming,&quot; resumed Mrs. Taunton, &quot;I did myself the pleasure of bringing the captain, whose musical talents I knew would be a great acquisition.&quot; &quot;In the name of the committee I have to thank you for doing so, and to offer you a most sincere welcome, Sir,&quot; replied Percy (here the scraping was renewed). &quot;But pray be seated—won’t you walk aft? Captain, will you conduct Miss Taunton?—Miss Briggs, will you allow me?&quot; &quot;Where could they have picked up that military man?&quot; inquired Mrs. Briggs of Miss Kate Briggs, as they followed the little party. &quot;Can’t imagine,&quot; replied Miss Kate, bursting with vexation; for the very fierce air with which the gallant captain regarded the company, had impressed her with a high sense of his importance. Boat after boat came alongside, and guest after guest arrived. The invites had been excellently arranged: Mr. Percy Noakes having considered it as important that the number of young men should exactly tally with that of the young ladies, as that the quantity of knives on board should be in precise proportion to the forks. &quot;Now is every one on board?&quot; inquired Mr. Percy Noakes. The committee (who, with their bits of blue ribbon, looked as if they were all going to be bled) bustled about to ascertain the fact, and reported that they might safely start. &quot;Go on,&quot; cried the master of the boat from the top of one of the paddle-boxes. &quot;Go on,&quot; echoed the boy, who was stationed over the hatchway to pass the directions down to the engineer—and away went the vessel with that agreeable noise which is peculiar to steamers, and which is composed of a mixture of creaking, gushing, clanging, and snorting. &quot;Hoi-oi-oi-oi-oi-oi-o-i-i-i!&quot; shouted half-a-dozen voices from a boat, a quarter of a mile astern. &quot;Ease her,&quot; cried the captain; &quot;do these people belong to us, sir?&quot; &quot;Noakes,&quot; exclaimed Hardy, who had been looking at every object, far and near, through the large telescope; &quot;it’s the Fleetwoods and the Wakefields—and two children with them, by Jove.&quot; &quot;What a shame to bring children!&quot; said every body; &quot;how very inconsiderate!&quot; &quot;I say, it would be a good joke to pretend not to see ’em, wouldn’t it?&quot; suggested Hardy, to the immense delight of the company generally. A council of war was hastily held, and it was resolved that the new comers should be taken on board, on Mr. Hardy&#039;s solemnly pledging himself to teaze the children during the whole of the day. &quot;Stop her,&quot; cried the captain. &quot;Stop her,&quot; repeated the boy; whizz went the steam, and all the young ladies, as in duty bound, screamed in concert. They were only appeased by the assurance of the martial Helves that the escape of steam consequent on stopping a vessel was seldom attended with any great losf of human life. Two men ran to the side, and after some shouting, and swearing, and angling for the wherry with a boat-hook, Mr. Fleetwood, and Mrs. Fleetwood, and Master Fleetwood; and Mr. Wakefield, and Mrs. Wakefield, and Miss Wakefield were safely deposited on the deck. The girl was about six years old; the boy about four; the former was dressed in a white frock with a pink sash, and a dog’s-eared-looking little spencer, a straw bonnet, and green veil, six inches by three and a half; the latter was attired for the occasion in a nankeen frock, between the bottom of which and the top of his plaid socks a considerable portion of two small mottled legs was discernible. He had a light blue cap with a gold band and tassel on his head, and a damp piece of gingerbread in his hand, with which he had slightly embossed his dear little countenance. The boat once more started off; the band played &quot;Off she goes,&quot; the major part of the company conversed cheerfully in groups, and the old gentlemen walked up and down the deck in pairs, as perseveringly and gravely as if they were doing a match against time for an immense stake. They ran briskly down the pool; the gentlemen pointed out the Docks, the Thames&#039; Police-office, and other elegant public edifices; and the young ladies exhibited a proper display of horror and bashfulness at the appearance of the coal-whippers, and ballast-heavers. Mr. Hardy told stories to the married ladies, at which they laughed very much in their pocket-handkerchiefs; and hit him on the knuckles with their fans, declaring him to be &quot;a naughty man—a shocking creature&quot;—and so forth; and Captain Helves gave slight descriptions of battles and duels, with a most bloodthirsty air, which made him the admiration of the women, and the envy of the men. Quadrilling commenced; Captain Helves danced one set with Miss Emily Taunton, and another set with Miss Sophia Taunton. Mrs. Taunton was in ecstasies. The victory appeared to be complete; but alas! the inconstancy of man!—having performed this necessary duty, he attached himself solely to Miss Julia Briggs, with whom he danced no less than three sets consecutively, and from whose side he evinced no intention of stirring for the remainder of the day. Mr. Hardy having played one or two very brilliant fantasias on the Jew&#039;s-harp, and having frequently repeated the exquisitely amusing joke of slily chalking a large cross on the back of some member of the committee, Mr. Percy Noakes expressed his hope that some of their musical friends would oblige the company by a display of their abilities. &quot;Perhaps,&quot; he said in a very insinuating manner, &quot;Captain Helves will oblige us?&quot; Mrs. Taunton’s countenance lightened up, for the captain only sang duets, and couldn’t sing them with anybody but one of her daughters. &quot;Really,&quot; said that warlike individual, &quot;I should be very happy, but—&quot; &quot;Oh! pray do,&quot; cried all the young ladies. &quot;Miss Sophia, have you any objection to join in a duet?&quot; &quot;Oh! not the slightest,&quot; returned the young lady, in a tone which clearly showed she had the greatest possible objection. &quot;Shall I accompany you, dear?&quot; inquired one of the Miss Briggs&#039;s, with the bland intention of spoiling the effect. &quot;Very much obliged to you, Miss Briggs,&quot; sharply retorted Mrs. Taunton, who saw through the manœuvre—&quot;my daughters always sing without accompaniments.&quot; &quot;And without voices,&quot; tittered Mrs. Briggs, in a low tone. &quot;Perhaps,&quot; said Mrs. Taunton, reddening, for she guessed the tenor of the observation, though she had not heard it clearly. &quot;Perhaps it would be as well for some people, if their voices were not quite so audible as they are to other people.&quot; &quot;And, perhaps, if gentlemen who are kidnapped to pay attention to some persons’ daughters, had not sufficient discernment to pay attention to other persons’ daughters,&quot; returned Mrs. Briggs, &quot;some persons would not be so ready to display that ill-temper, which, thank God, distinguishes them from other persons.&quot; &quot;Persons!&quot; ejaculated Mrs. Taunton. &quot;Yes; persons, ma&#039;am,&quot; replied Mrs. Briggs. &quot;Insolence!&quot; &quot;Creature!&quot; &quot;Hush! hush!&quot; interrupted Mr. Percy Noakes, who was one of the very few by whom this dialogue had been overheard. &quot;Hush!—pray; silence for the duet.&quot; After a great deal of preparatory crowing and humming, the Captain began the following duet from the opera of Paul and Virginia, in that grunting tone in which a man gets down, Heaven knows where, without the remotest chance of ever getting up again. This, in private circles, is frequently designated &quot;a bass voice.&quot; &quot;See (sung the Captain) from o—ce—an ri—sing Bright flames the or—b of d—ay. From yon gro—ove, the varied so—ongs—&quot; Here, the singer was interrupted by varied cries of the most dreadful description, proceeding from some grove in the immediate vicinity of the starboard paddle-box. &quot;My child!&quot; screamed Mrs. Fleetwood. &quot;My child! it is his voice—I know it.&quot; Mr. Fleetwood, accompanied by several gentlemen, here rushed to the quarter from whence the noise proceeded, and an exclamation of horror burst from the company; the general impression being, that the little innocent had either got his head in the water, or his legs in the machinery. &quot;What is the matter?&quot; shouted the agonized father, as he returned with the child in his arms. &quot;Oh! oh! oh!&quot; screamed the small sufferer again. &quot;What is the matter, dear?&quot; inquired the father, once more—hastily stripping off the nankeen frock, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the child had one bone which was not smashed to pieces. &quot;Oh! oh!—I’m so frightened.&quot; &quot;What at, dear?—what at?&quot; said the mother, soothing the sweet infant. &quot;Oh! he’s been making such dreadful faces at me,&quot; cried the boy, relapsing into convulsions, at the bare recollection. &quot;He!—who?&quot; cried every body, crowding round him. &quot;Oh!—him!&quot; replied the child, pointing at Hardy, who affected to be the most concerned of the whole group. The real state of the case at once flashed upon the minds of all present, with the exception of the Fleetwoods and the Wakefields. The facetious Hardy, in fulfilment of his promise, had watched the child to a remote part of the vessel, and, by suddenly appearing before him with the most awful contortions of visage, had produced his paroxysm of terror. Of course, he now observed that it was hardly necessary for him to deny the accusation; and the unfortunate little victim was, accordingly, led below, after receiving sundry thumps on the head from both his parents, for having the wickedness to tell a story. This little interruption having been adjusted, the captain resumed, and Miss Emily chimed in, in due course. The duet was loudly applauded; and, certainly, the perfect independence of the parties, deserved great commendation. Miss Emily sung her part, without the slightest reference to the captain, and the captain sang so loud that he had not the slightest idea what was being done by his partner. After having gone through the last few eighteen or nineteen bars by himself, therefore, he acknowledged the plaudits of the circle with that air of self-denial which men always assume, when they think they have done something to astonish the company, though they don&#039;t exactly know what. &quot;Now,&quot; said Mr. Percy Noakes, who had just ascended from the fore-cabin, where he had been busily engaged in decanting the wine, &quot;if the Misses Briggs will oblige us with something before dinner, I am sure we shall be very much delighted.&quot; One of those hums of admiration followed the suggestion, which one frequently hears in society when nobody has the most distant notion what he is expressing his approval of. The three Misses Briggs looked modestly at their mamma, and the mamma looked approvingly at her daughters, and Mrs. Taunton looked scornfully at all of them. The Misses Briggs asked for their guitars, and several gentlemen seriously damaged the cases in their anxiety to present them. Then there was a very interesting production of three little keys for the aforesaid cases, and a melodramatic expression of horror at finding a string broken; and a vast deal of screwing and tightening, and winding, and tuning, during which Mrs. Briggs expatiated to those near her on the immense difficulty of playing a guitar, and hinted at the wondrous proficiency of her daughters in that mystic art. Mrs. Taunton whispered to a neighbour that it was &quot;quite sickening!&quot; and the Misses Taunton looked as if they knew how to play, but disdained to do so. At length the Misses Briggs began in real earnest. It was a new Spanish composition for three voices and three guitars. The effect was electrical. All eyes were turned upon the captain, who was reported to have once passed through Spain with his regiment, and who, of course, must be well acquainted with the national music. He was in raptures. This was sufficient; the trio was encored—the applause was universal, and never had the Tauntons suffered such a complete defeat. Mrs. Taunton looked as philanthropic as one of Mr. Barnett&#039;s &quot;Salamanders.&quot; &quot;Bravo! Bravo!&quot; ejaculated the captain;—&quot;Bravo!&quot; &quot;Pretty! isn’t it, Sir?&quot; inquired Mr. Samuel Briggs, with the air of a self-satisfied showman. By-the-bye, they were the first words he had been heard to utter since he left Boswell-court the evening before. &quot;De-lightful!&quot; returned the captain, with a flourish, and a military cough;—&quot;de-lightful!&quot; &quot;Sweet instrument!&quot; said an old gentleman with a bald-head, who had been trying all the morning to look through a telescope, inside the glass of which Mr. Hardy had fixed a large black wafer. &quot;Did you ever hear a Portuguese tambourine?&quot; inquired that jocular individual. &quot;Did you ever hear a tom-tom, Sir?&quot; sternly inquired the captain, who lost no opportunity of shewing off his travels, real or pretended. &quot;A what?&quot; asked Hardy, rather taken aback. &quot;A tom-tom.&quot; &quot;Never!&quot; &quot;Nor a gum-gum?&quot; &quot;Never!&quot; &quot;What is a gum-gum?&quot; eagerly inquired several young ladies. &quot;When I was in the East Indies,&quot; replied the captain, (here was a discovery—he had been in the East Indies!)—&quot;when I was in the East Indies, I was once stopping a few thousand miles up the country, on a visit at the house of a very particular friend of mine, Ram Chowdar Doss Azuph Al Bowlar—a devilish pleasant fellow. As we were enjoying our hookahs one evening in the cool verandah, in front of his villa, we were rather surprised by the sudden appearance of thirty-four of his kit-ma-gars (for he had rather a large establishment there), accompanied by an equal number of Consumars, approaching the house with a threatening aspect, and beating a tom-tom. The Ram started up—&quot; &quot;The who?&quot; inquired the bald gentleman, intensely interested. &quot;The Ram—Ram Chowdar—&quot; &quot;Oh!&quot; said the old gentleman, &quot;I beg your pardon; it really didn&#039;t occur to me; pray go on.&quot; &quot;—Started up and drew a pistol. &#039;Helves,&#039; said he, &#039;my boy,&#039;—he always called me, my boy—&#039;Helves,&#039; said he, &#039;do you hear that tom-tom?&#039; &#039;I do,&#039; said I. His countenance, which before was pale, assumed a most frightful appearance; his whole visage was distorted, and his frame shaken by violent emotions. &#039;Do you see that gum-gum?&#039; said he. &#039;No,&#039; said I, staring about me. &#039;You don’t?&#039; said he. &#039;No, I’ll be damned if I do,&#039; said I; &#039;and what’s more, I don’t know what a gum-gum is,&#039; said I. I really thought the man would have dropped. He drew me aside, and with an expression of agony I shall never forget, said in a low whisper—&quot; &quot;Dinner’s on the table, ladies,&quot; interrupted the steward’s wife. &quot;Will you allow me?&quot; said the captain, immediately suiting the action to the word, and escorting Miss Julia Briggs to the cabin, with as much ease as if he had finished the story. &quot;What an extraordinary circumstance!&quot; ejaculated the same old gentleman, preserving his listening attitude. &quot;What a traveller!&quot; said the young ladies. &quot;What a singular name!&quot; exclaimed the gentlemen, rather confused by the coolness of the whole affair. &quot;I wish he had finished the story,&quot; said an old lady. &quot;I wonder what a gum-gum really is?&quot; &quot;By Jove!&quot; exclaimed Hardy, who until now had been lost in utter amazement, &quot;I don’t know what it may be in India, but in England I think a gum-gum has very much the same meaning as a hum-bug.&quot; &quot;How illiberal! how envious!&quot; cried every body, as they made for the cabin, fully impressed with a belief in the captain’s amazing adventures. Helves was the sole lion for the remainder of the day—impudence and the marvellous are pretty sure passports to any society. The party had by this time reached their destination, and put about on their return home. The wind, which had been with them the whole day, was now directly in their teeth; the weather had become gradually more and more overcast; and the sky, water, and shore, were all of that dull, heavy, uniform lead-colour which house-painters daub in the first instance over a street door which is gradually approaching a state of convalescence. It had been &quot;spitting&quot; with rain for the last half-hour, and now began to pour in good earnest. The wind was freshening very fast, and the &quot;jolly young waterman&quot; at the wheel had unequivocally expressed his opinion that there would shortly be a squall. A slight emotion on the part of the vessel now and then, seemed to suggest the possibility of its pitching to a very uncomfortable extent in the event of its blowing harder; and every timber began to creak as if the boat were an overladen clothes basket. Sea-sickness, however, is like a belief in ghosts—every one entertains some misgivings on the subject, but few will acknowledge them. The majority of the company, therefore, endeavoured to look peculiarly happy, feeling all the while especially miserable. &quot;Don’t it rain?&quot; inquired the old gentleman before noticed, when, by dint of squeezing and jamming, they were all seated at table. &quot;I think it does—a little,&quot; replied Mr. Percy Noakes, who could hardly hear himself speak, in consequence of the pattering on the deck. &quot;Don’t it blow?&quot; inquired some one else. &quot;No—I don’t think it does,&quot; responded Hardy, sincerely wishing that he could persuade himself that it did not, for he sat near the door, and was almost blown off his seat. &quot;It’ll soon clear up,&quot; said Mr. Percy Noakes, in a cheerful tone. &quot;Oh, certainly,&quot; ejaculated the committee generally. &quot;No doubt of it,&quot; said the remainder of the company, whose attention was now pretty well engrossed by the serious business of eating, carving, taking wine, and so forth. The throbbing motion of the engine was but too perceptible. There was a large, substantial, cold boiled leg of mutton at the bottom of the table, shaking like blanc-mange; a previously hearty sirloin of beef looked as if it had been suddenly seized with the palsy; and some tongues, which were placed on dishes rather too large for them, were going through the most surprising evolutions, darting from side to side and from end to end, like a fly in an inverted wine-glass. Then the sweets shook and trembled till it was quite impossible to help them, and people gave up the attempt in despair; and the pigeon-pies looked as if the birds, whose legs were stuck outside, were trying to get them in. The table vibrated and started like a feverish pulse, and the very legs were slightly convulsed—every thing was shaking and jarring. The beams in the roof of the cabin seemed as if they were put there for the sole purpose of giving people head-aches, and several elderly gentlemen became ill-tempered in consequence. As fast as the steward put the fire-irons up, they would fall down again; and the more the ladies and gentlemen tried to sit comfortably on their seats, the more the seats seemed to slide away from the ladies and gentlemen. Several ominous demands were made for small glasses of brandy, the countenances of the company gradually underwent most extraordinary changes; one gentleman was observed suddenly to rush from table without the slightest ostensible reason, and dart up the steps with incredible swiftness, thereby greatly damaging both himself and the steward, who happened to be coming down at the same moment. The cloth was removed; the desert was laid on the table, and the glasses were filled. The motion of the boat increased; several members of the party began to feel rather vague and misty, and looked as if they had only just got up. The young gentleman with the spectacles who had been in a fluctuating state for some time—one moment jolly, and another dismal, like a revolving light on the sea-coast—rashly announced his wish to propose a toast. After several ineffectual attempts to preserve his perpendicular, the young gentleman, having managed to hook himself to the centre leg of the table with his left hand, proceeded as follows:— &quot;Ladies and Gentlemen. A gentleman is among us—I may say a stranger—(here some painful thought seemed to strike the orator; he paused, and looked extremely odd) whose talents, whose travels, whose cheerfulness—&quot; &quot;I beg your pardon, Edkins,&quot; hastily interrupted Mr. Percy Noakes. &quot;Hardy, what’s the matter?&quot; &quot;Nothing,&quot; replied the ‘funny gentleman,’ who had just life enough left to utter two consecutive syllables. &quot;Will you have some brandy?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; replied Hardy in a tone of great indignation, and looking as comfortable as Temple Bar in a Scotch mist; &quot;what should I want brandy for?&quot; &quot;Will you go on deck?&quot; &quot;No, I will not.&quot; This was said with a most determined air, and in a voice which might have been taken for an imitation of anything; it was quite as much like a guinea-pig as a bassoon. &quot;I beg your pardon, Edkins,&quot; said the courteous Percy, &quot;I thought our friend was ill. Pray go on.&quot; A pause. &quot;Pray go on.&quot; &quot;Mr. Edkins is gone,&quot; cried somebody. &quot;I beg your pardon, Sir,&quot; said the steward, running up to Mr. Percy Noakes, &quot;I beg your pardon, Sir, but the gentleman as just went on deck—him with the green spectacles—is uncommon bad to be sure; and the young man as played the wiolin says, that unless he has some brandy he can’t answer for the consequences. He says he has a wife and two children, whose werry subsistence depends on his breaking a wessle, and that he expects to do so every moment. The flageolet’s been werry ill, but he’s better, only he’s in a dreadful prusperation.&quot; All disguise was now useless; the company staggered on deck; the gentlemen tried to see nothing but the clouds; and the ladies, muffled up in such shawls and cloaks as they had brought with them, lay about on the seats and under the seats, in the most wretched condition. Never was such a blowing, and raining, and pitching, and tossing endured by any pleasure party before. Several remonstrances were sent down below on the subject of Master Fleetwood, but they were totally unheeded in consequence of the indisposition of his natural protectors. That interesting child screamed at the very top of his voice, until he had no voice left to scream with, and then Miss Wakefield began, and screamed for the remainder of the passage. Mr. Hardy was observed some hours afterwards in an attitude which induced his friends to suppose that he was busily engaged in contemplating the beauties of the deep; they only regretted that his taste for the picturesque should lead him to remain so long in a position, very injurious at all times, but especially so to an individual labouring under a tendency of blood to the head. Having been for some months past subject to indigestion, and loss of appetite, he was recently persuaded to try a keener air and a more northern climate for the removal of the one, and the improvement of the other. We are credibly informed that he was present at the Edinburgh dinner, and, moreover, that he is the individual to whose eager appetite on that occasion we find allusion made in The Morning Chronicle of a few days since. The party arrived off the Custom-house at about two o’clock on the Thursday morning—dispirited and worn out. The Tauntons were too ill to quarrel with the Briggs&#039;s, and the Briggs&#039;s were too wretched to annoy the Tauntons. One of the guitar cases was lost on its passage to a hackney coach, and Mrs. Briggs has not scrupled to state that the Tauntons bribed a porter to throw it down an area. Mr. Alexander Briggs opposes vote by ballot—he says from personal experience of its inefficacy; and Mr. Samuel Briggs, whenever he is asked to express his sentiments on the point, says he has no opinion on that or any other subject. Mr. Edkins—the young gentleman in the green spectacles—makes a speech on every occasion on which a speech can possibly be made, the eloquence of which can only be equalled by its length. In the event of his not being previously appointed to a judgeship, it is most probable that he will practise as a barrister in the New Central Criminal Court. Captain Helves continued his attention to Miss Julia Briggs, whom he might possibly have espoused, if it had not unfortunately happened that Mr. Samuel arrested him, in the way of business, pursuant to instructions received from Messrs. Scroggins and Payne, whose town debts the gallant captain had condescended to collect, but whose accounts—with the indiscretion sometimes peculiar to military minds—he had omitted to keep with that dull accuracy which custom has rendered necessary. Mrs. Taunton complains that she has been much deceived in him. He introduced himself to the family on board a Gravesend steam-packet, and certainly, therefore, ought to have proved respectable. Mr. Percy Noakes is as light-hearted and careless as ever. We have described him as a general favourite in his private circle—we hope he may find a kindly disposed friend or two in public.18341001https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Steam_Excursion/1834-10-The_Steam_Excursion.pdf
164https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/164'The Tuggs's at Ramsgate'Published in <em>The Library of Fiction,</em> vol. 1. London: Chapman and Hall, 1836, pp. 1-17.Dickens, Charles<em>Internet Archive,</em> <a href="https://archive.org/details/libraryoffiction01dick/page/n9/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/libraryoffiction01dick/page/n9/mode/2up</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+Robert+Seymour">Illustrated by Robert Seymour</a><p><em>Internet Archive,</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://archive.org/about.terms.php">https://archive.org/about.terms.php</a>. Access to the Archive's Collections is granted for scholarship and research purposes only.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1836-The_Tuggss_at_Ramgate<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Library+of+Fiction%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Library of Fiction</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Once upon a time, there dwelt, in a narrow street on the Surrey side of the water, within three minutes’ walk of old London Bridge, Mr. Joseph Tuggs—a little, dark-faced man, with shiny hair, twinkling eyes, short legs, and a body of very considerable thickness, measuring from the centre button of his waistcoat in front, to the ornamental buttons of his coat behind. The figure of the amiable Mrs. Tuggs, if not perfectly symmetrical was decidedly comfortable; and the form of her only daughter, the accomplished Miss Charlotte Tuggs, was fast ripening into that state of luxuriant plumpness, which had enchanted the eyes, and captivated the heart, of Mr. Joseph Tuggs in his earlier days. Mr. Simon Tuggs, his only son, and Miss Charlotte Tuggs’s only brother, was as differently formed in body, as he was differently constituted in mind, from the remainder of his family. There was that elongation in his thoughtful face, and that tendency to weakness in his interesting legs, which tell so forcibly of a great mind and romantic disposition. The slightest traits of character in such a being, possess no mean interest to speculative minds. He usually appeared in public, in capacious shoes with black cotton stockings; and was observed to be particularly attached to a black glazed stock, without tie or ornament of any description. There is perhaps no profession, however useful, no pursuit, however meritorious, which can escape the petty attacks of vulgar minds. Mr. Joseph Tuggs was a grocer. It might be supposed that a grocer was beyond the breath of calumny; but no,—the neighbours stigmatised him as a chandler; and the poisonous voice of envy distinctly asserted that he dispensed tea and coffee by the quartern, retailed sugar by the ounce, cheese by the slice, tobacco by the screw, and butter by the pat. These taunts, however, were lost upon the Tuggs&#039;s. Mr. Tuggs attended to the grocery department, Mrs. Tuggs to the cheesemongery, and Miss Tuggs to her education. Mr. Simon Tuggs kept his father’s books, and his own counsel. One fine spring afternoon, the latter gentleman was seated on a tub of weekly Dorset behind the little red desk with a wooden rail, which ornamented a corner of the counter, when a stranger dismounted from a cab, and hastily entered the shop: he was habited in black cloth, and bore with him a green umbrella and a blue bag. &quot;Mr. Tuggs?&quot; said the stranger, inquiringly. &quot;My name is Tuggs,&quot; replied Mr. Simon. &quot;It’s the other Mr. Tuggs,&quot; said the stranger, looking towards the glass door which led into the parlour behind the shop, and on the inside of which, the round face of Mr. Tuggs, senior, was distinctly visible, peeping over the curtain. Mr. Simon gracefully waved his pen, as if in intimation of his wish that his father would advance, and Mr. Joseph Tuggs with considerable celerity removed his face from the curtain, and placed it before the stranger. &quot;I come from the Temple,&quot; said the man with the bag. &quot;From the Temple!&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs, flinging open the door of the little parlour, and disclosing Miss Tuggs in perspective. &quot;From the Temple!&quot; said Miss Tuggs and Mr. Simon Tuggs at the same moment. &quot;From the Temple!&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs, turning as pale as a Dutch cheese. &quot;From the Temple,&quot; repeated the man with the bag; &quot;from Mr. Cower’s, the solicitor’s. Mr. Tuggs, I congratulate you, sir. Ladies, I wish you joy of your prosperity! We have been successful.&quot; And the man with the bag, leisurely divested himself of his umbrella and glove, as a preliminary to shaking hands with Mr. Joseph Tuggs. Now the words &quot;we have been successful,&quot; had no sooner issued from the mouth of the man with the bag, than Mr. Simon Tuggs rose from the tub of weekly Dorset, opened his eyes very wide, gasped for breath, made figures of eight in the air with his pen, and finally fell into the arms of his anxious mother, and fainted away, without the slightest ostensible cause or pretence. &quot;Water!&quot; screamed Mrs. Tuggs. &quot;Look up, my son,&quot; exclaimed Mr. Tuggs. &quot;Simon! Dear Simon!&quot; shrieked Miss Tuggs. &quot;I’m better now,&quot; said Mr. Simon Tuggs. &quot;What! successful!&quot; And then, as corroborative evidence of his being better, he fainted away again, and was borne into the little parlour by the united efforts of the remainder of the family and the man with the bag. To a casual spectator, or to any one unacquainted with the position of the family, this fainting would have been unaccountable. To those who understood the mission of the man with the bag, and were moreover acquainted with the excitability of the nerves of Mr. Simon Tuggs, it was quite comprehensible. A long-pending lawsuit respecting the validity of a will, had been unexpectedly decided; and Mr. Joseph Tuggs was the possessor of twenty thousand pounds. A prolonged consultation took place that night in the little parlour—a consultation that was to settle the future destinies of the Tuggs&#039;s. The shop was shut up at an unusually early hour; and many were the unavailing kicks bestowed upon the closed door by applicants for quarterns of sugar, or half-quarterns of bread, or penn’orths of pepper, which were to have been &quot;left till Saturday,&quot; but which fortune had decreed were to be left alone altogether. &quot;We must certainly give up business,&quot; said Miss Tuggs. &quot;Oh, decidedly,&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs. &quot;Simon shall go to the bar,&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. &quot;And I shall always sign myself &#039;Cymon&#039; in future,&quot; said his son. &quot;And I shall call myself Charlotta,&quot; said Miss Tuggs. &quot;And you must always call me &#039;Ma,&#039; and father &#039;Pa,’&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs. &quot;Yes, and Pa must leave off all his vulgar habits,&quot; interposed Miss Tuggs. &quot;I’ll take care o&#039; all that,&quot; responded Mr. Joseph Tuggs, complacently.—He was at that very moment eating pickled salmon with a pocket-knife. &quot;We must leave town immediately,&quot; said Mr. Cymon Tuggs. Everybody concurred that this was an indispensable preliminary to being genteel. The question then arose—Where should they go? &quot;Gravesend,&quot; mildly suggested Mr. Joseph Tuggs. The idea was unanimously scouted. Gravesend was low. &quot;Margate,&quot; insinuated Mrs. Tuggs. Worse and worse—nobody there, but tradespeople. &quot;Brighton?&quot; Mr. Cymon Tuggs opposed an insurmountable objection. All the coaches had been upset, in turn, within the last three weeks; each coach had averaged two passengers killed, and six wounded; and, in every case, the newspapers had distinctly understood that &quot;no blame whatever was attributable to the coachman.&quot; &quot;Ramsgate!&quot; ejaculated Mr. Cymon, thoughtfully.—To be sure; how stupid they must have been not to have thought of that before. Ramsgate was just the place of all others that they ought to go to. Two months after this conversation, the City of London Ramsgate steamer was running gaily down the river. Her flag was flying, her band was playing, her passengers were conversing; everything about her seemed gay and lively.—No wonder, the Tuggs&#039;s were on board. &quot;Charming, a&#039;nt it?&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs, in a bottle-green great-coat, with a velvet collar of the same, and a blue travelling cap with a gold band. &quot;Soul-inspiring,&quot; replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs—he was entered at the bar.—&quot;Soul-inspiring!&quot; &quot;Delightful morning, sir,&quot; said a stoutish, military-looking gentleman in a blue surtout, buttoned up to his chin, and white trousers chained down to the soles of his boots. Mr. Cymon Tuggs took upon himself the responsibility of answering the observation. &quot;Heavenly!&quot; he replied. &quot;You are an enthusiastic admirer of the beauties of Nature, sir?&quot; said the military gentleman, deferentially. &quot;I am, sir,&quot; replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs. &quot;Travelled much, sir?&quot; inquired the military gentleman. &quot;Not much,&quot; replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs. &quot;You’ve been on the continent, of course?&quot; inquired the military gentleman. &quot;Not exactly,&quot; replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs, in a qualified tone, as if he wished it to be implied that he had gone half way and come back again. &quot;You of course intend your son to make the grand tour, sir?&quot; said the military gentleman, addressing Mr. Joseph Tuggs. As Mr. Joseph Tuggs did not precisely understand what the grand tour was, or how such an article was manufactured, he replied, &quot;Of course.&quot; Just as he said the word, there came tripping up, from her seat at the stern of the vessel, a young lady in a puce-coloured silk cloak, and boots of the same, with long black ringlets, large black eyes, brief petticoats, and unexceptionable ankles. &quot;Walter, my dear,&quot; said the young lady to the military gentleman. &quot;Yes, Belinda, my love,&quot; responded the military gentleman to the black-eyed young lady. &quot;What have you left me alone so long for?&quot; said the young lady. &quot;I have been stared out of countenance by those rude young men.&quot; &quot;What! stared at?&quot; exclaimed the military gentleman, with an emphasis which made Mr. Cymon Tuggs withdraw his eyes from the young lady’s face with inconceivable rapidity. &quot;Which young men—where?&quot; and the military gentleman clenched his fist, and glared fearfully on the cigar-smokers around. &quot;Be calm, Walter, I entreat,&quot; said the young lady. &quot;I won’t,&quot; said the military gentleman. &quot;Do, sir,&quot; interposed Mr. Cymon Tuggs. &quot;They a&#039;nt worth your notice.&quot; &quot;No—no—they are not indeed,&quot; urged the young lady. &quot;I will be calm,&quot; said the military gentleman. &quot;You speak truly, sir. I thank you for a timely remonstrance, which may have spared me the guilt of manslaughter;&quot; and calming his wrath, the military gentleman wrung Mr. Cymon Tuggs by the hand. &quot;My sister, sir,&quot; said Mr. Cymon Tuggs: seeing that the military gentleman was casting an admiring look towards Miss Charlotta. &quot;My wife, ma’am—Mrs. Captain Waters,&quot; said the military gentleman, presenting the black-eyed young lady. &quot;My mother, ma’am—Mrs. Tuggs,&quot; said Mr. Cymon. The military gentleman and his wife murmured enchanting courtesies; and the Tuggses looked as unembarrassed as they could. &quot;Walter, my dear,&quot; said the black-eyed young lady, after they had sat chatting with the Tuggs&#039;s some half hour. &quot;Yes, my love,&quot; said the military gentleman. &quot;Don’t you think this gentleman (with an inclination of the head towards Mr. Cymon Tuggs) is very much like the Marquis Carriwini.&quot; &quot;God bless me, very!&quot; said the military gentleman. &quot;It struck me, the moment I saw him,&quot; said the young lady, gazing intently, and with a melancholy air, on the scarlet countenance of Mr. Cymon Tuggs. Mr. Cymon Tuggs looked at every body; and finding that every body was looking at him, appeared to feel some temporary difficulty in disposing of his eyesight. &quot;So exactly the air of the marquis,&quot; said the military gentleman. &quot;Quite extraordinary!&quot; sighed the military gentleman’s lady. &quot;You don’t know the marquis, sir?&quot; inquired the military gentleman. Mr. Cymon Tuggs stammered a negative. &quot;If you did,&quot; continued Captain Walter Waters, &quot;you would feel how much reason you have to be proud of the resemblance—a most elegant man, with a most prepossessing appearance.&quot; &quot;He is—he is indeed!&quot; exclaimed Belinda Waters energetically: and as her eye caught that of Mr. Cymon Tuggs, she withdrew it from his features in bashful confusion. All this was highly gratifying to the feelings of the Tuggs&#039;s; and when in the course of further conversation, it was discovered that Miss Charlotta Tuggs was the fac simile of a titled relative of Mrs. Belinda Waters; and that Mrs. Tuggs herself was the very picture of the Dowager Duchess of Dobbleton; their delight in the acquisition of so genteel and friendly an acquaintance, knew no bounds. Even the dignity of Captain Walter Waters relaxed to such a degree, that he suffered himself to be prevailed upon by Mr. Joseph Tuggs, to partake of cold pigeon-pie and sherry on deck; and a most delightful conversation, aided by these agreeable stimulants, was prolonged until they ran alongside Ramsgate Pier. &quot;Good by&#039;e, dear!&quot; said Mrs. Captain Waters to Miss Charlotta Tuggs, just before the bustle of landing commenced; &quot;we shall see you on the sands in the morning: and, as we are sure to have found lodgings before then, I hope we shall be inseparables for many weeks to come.&quot; &quot;Oh! I hope so,&quot; said Miss Charlotta Tuggs, emphatically. &quot;Tickets, ladies and gen’lm’n,&quot; said the man on the paddle-box. &quot;Want a porter, sir?&quot; inquired a dozen men in smock-frocks. &quot;Now, my dear—&quot; said Captain Waters. &quot;Good by&#039;e,&quot; said Mrs. Captain Waters—&quot;good by&#039;e! Mr. Cymon!&quot; and with a pressure of the hand which threw the amiable young man’s nerves into a state of considerable derangement, Mrs. Captain Waters disappeared among the crowd. A pair of puce-coloured boots were seen ascending the steps, a white handkerchief fluttered, a black eye gleamed:&amp;nbsp; the Waters&#039;s were gone, and Mr. Cymon Tuggs was alone indeed. Silently and abstractedly did that too sensitive youth follow his revered parents, and a train of smock-frocks and wheel-barrows, along the pier, until the bustle of the scene around, recalled him to himself. The sun was shining brightly—the sea, dancing to its own music, rolled merrily in; crowds of people promenaded to and fro; young ladies tittered; old ladies talked, nursemaids displayed their charms to the greatest possible advantage, and their little charges ran up and down, and to and fro, and in and out, under the feet, and between the legs of the assembled concourse, in the most playful and exhilarating manner. There were old gentlemen, trying to make out objects through long telescopes, and young ones making objects of themselves in open shirt-collars; ladies, carrying about portable chairs, and portable chairs carrying about invalids. Parties were waiting on the pier for parties who had come by the steam-boat; and nothing was to be heard but talking, laughing, welcoming, and merriment. &quot;Fly, sir?&quot; exclaimed a chorus of fourteen men and six boys, the moment Mr. Joseph Tuggs, at the head of his little party, set foot in the street. &quot;Here’s the gen’lm’n at last!&quot; said one, touching his hat with mock politeness. &quot;Werry glad to see you, sir,—been a-waitin’ for you these six weeks. Jump in, if you please, sir.&quot; &quot;Nice light fly and a fast trotter, sir,&quot; said another: &quot;fourteen mile a hour, and surroundin’ objects rendered inwisible by hextreme welocity!&quot; &quot;Large fly for your luggage, sir,&quot; cried a third. &quot;Werry large fly here, sir—reg’lar bluebottle!&quot; &quot;Here’s your fly, sir!&quot; shouted another aspiring charioteer, mounting the box, and inducing an old grey horse to indulge in some imperfect reminiscences of a canter. &quot;Look at him, sir!—temper of a lamb and haction of a steam-ingin!&quot; Resisting even the temptation of securing the services of so valuable a quadruped as the last named, Mr. Joseph Tuggs beckoned to the proprietor of a dingy conveyance of a greenish hue, lined with faded striped calico; and the luggage and the family having been deposited therein, the animal in the shafts, after describing circles in the road for a quarter of an hour, at last consented to depart in quest of lodgings. &quot;How many beds have you got?&quot; screamed Mrs. Tuggs out of the fly, to the woman who opened the door of the first house, which displayed a bill, intimating that apartments were to be let within. &quot;How many did you want, ma’am?&quot; was of course the reply. &quot;Three.&quot; &quot;Will you step in, ma’am?&quot; Down got Mrs. Tuggs. The family were delighted. Splendid view of the sea from the front windows—charming! A short pause. Back came Mrs. Tuggs again.—One parlour and a mattress. &quot;Why the devil didn’t they say so at first?&quot; inquired Mr. Joseph Tuggs, rather pettishly. &quot;Don’t know,&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs. &quot;Wretches!&quot; exclaimed the nervous Cymon. Another bill—another stoppage. Same question—same answer—similar result. &quot;What do they mean by this?&quot; inquired Mr. Joseph Tuggs, thoroughly out of temper. &quot;Don’t know,&quot; said the placid Mrs. Tuggs. &quot;Orvis the vay here, sir,&quot; said the driver, by way of accounting for the circumstance in a satisfactory manner; and off they went again, to make fresh inquiries, and encounter fresh disappointments. It had grown dusk when the &quot;fly&quot;—the rate of whose progress greatly belied its name—after climbing up four or five perpendicular hills, stopped before the door of a dusty house, with a bay window, from which you could obtain a beautiful glimpse of the sea—if you thrust half of your body out of it, at the imminent peril of falling into the area. Mrs. Tuggs alighted. One ground-floor sitting-room, and three cells with beds in them up stairs—a double-house—family on the opposite side—five children milk-and-watering in the parlour, and one little boy, expelled for bad behaviour, screaming on his back in the passage. &quot;What’s the terms?&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs. The mistress of the house was considering the expediency of putting on an extra guinea; so she coughed slightly, and affected not to hear the question. &quot;What’s the terms?&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs, in a louder key. &quot;Five guineas a week, ma’am, with attendance,&quot; replied the lodging-house keeper. (Attendance means the privilege of ringing the bell as often as you like, for your own personal amusement.) &quot;Rather dear,&quot; said Mrs. Tuggs. &quot;Oh dear, no, ma’am,&quot; replied the mistress of the house, with a benign smile of pity at the ignorance of manners and customs, which the observation betrayed. &quot;Very cheap.&quot; &quot;Such an authority was indisputable. Mrs. Tuggs paid a week’s rent in advance, and took the lodgings for a month. In an hour’s time, the family were seated at tea in their new abode. &quot;Capital srimps!&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. Mr. Cymon eyed his father with a rebellious scowl, as he emphatically said &quot;Shrimps.&quot; &quot;Well, then, shrimps,&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. &quot;Srimps or shrimps, don’t much matter.&quot; There was pity, blended with malignity, in Mr. Cymon’s eye, as he replied, &quot;Don’t matter, father! What would Captain Waters say, if he heard such vulgarity?&quot; &quot;Or what would dear Mrs. Captain Waters say,&quot; added Charlotta, &quot;if she saw mother—ma, I mean—eating them whole, heads and all!&quot; &quot;It won’t bear thinking of!&quot; ejaculated Mr. Cymon, with a shudder. &quot;How different,&quot; he thought, &quot;from the Dowager Duchess of Dobbleton!&quot; &quot;Very pretty woman, Mrs. Captain Waters, is she not, Cymon?&quot; inquired Miss Charlotta. A glow of nervous excitement passed over the countenance of Mr. Cymon Tuggs, as he replied, &quot;An angel of beauty!&quot; &quot;Hallo!&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. &quot;Hallo, Cymon, my boy, take care—married lady, you know;&quot; and he winked one of his twinkling eyes, knowingly. &quot;Why,&quot; exclaimed Cymon, starting up with an ebullition of fury, as unexpected as alarming, &quot;Why am I to be reminded of that blight of my happiness, and ruin of my hopes? Why am I to be taunted with the miseries which are heaped upon my head! Is it not enough to—to—to—!&quot; and the orator paused; but whether for want of words, or lack of breath, was never distinctly ascertained. There was an impressive solemnity in the tone of this address, and in the air with which the romantic Cymon at its conclusion, rang the bell, and demanded a flat candlestick, which effectually forbade a reply. He stalked dramatically to bed, and the Tuggs&#039;s went to bed too, half an hour afterwards, in a state of considerable mystification and perplexity. If the pier had presented a scene of life and bustle to the Tuggs&#039;s on their first landing at Ramsgate, it was far surpassed by the appearance of the sands on the morning after their arrival. It was a fine, bright, clear day, with a light breeze from the sea. There were the same ladies and gentlemen, the same children, the same nursemaids, the same telescopes, the same portable chairs; the ladies were employed in needle-work, or watch-guard making, or knitting, or reading novels: the gentlemen were reading newspapers and magazines, the children were digging holes in the sand with wooden spades, and collecting water therein: the nursemaids with their youngest charges in arms, were running in after the waves, and then running back with the waves after them: and now and then a little sailing-boat either departed with a gay and talkative cargo of passengers, or returned with a very silent and particularly uncomfortable-looking one. &quot;Well, I never!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Tuggs, as she and Mr. Joseph Tuggs, and Miss Charlotta Tuggs, and Mr. Cymon Tuggs, with their eight feet in a corresponding number of yellow shoes, seated themselves on four rush-bottomed chairs, which, being placed in a soft part of the sand, forthwith sunk down some two feet and a half.—&quot;Well, I never!&quot; Mr. Cymon, by an exertion of great personal strength, uprooted the chairs, and removed them further back. &quot;Why, I’m blessed if there a&#039;nt some ladies a-going in!&quot; exclaimed Mr. Joseph Tuggs, with intense astonishment. &quot;Lor, pa!&quot; exclaimed Miss Charlotta. &quot;There is! my dear,&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs. And, sure enough, four young ladies, each furnished with a towel, tripped up the steps of a bathing machine; in went the horse, floundering about in the water: round turned the machine, down sat the driver, and presently out burst the young ladies aforesaid, with four distinct splashes. &quot;Well, that’s sing’ler, too!&quot; ejaculated Mr. Joseph Tuggs, after an awkward pause. Mr. Cymon coughed slightly. &quot;Why, here’s some gentlemen a-going in on this side,&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Tuggs, in a tone of horror. Three machines—three horses—three flounderings—three turnings round—three splashes—three gentlemen, disporting themselves in the water, like so many dolphins. &quot;Well, that’s sing’ler!&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs again. Miss Charlotta coughed this time, and another pause ensued. It was agreeably broken. &quot;How d’ye do, dear? We have been looking for you, all the morning,&quot; said a voice to Miss Charlotta Tuggs. Mrs. Captain Waters was the owner of it. &quot;How d’ye do?&quot; said Captain Walter Waters, all suavity; and a most cordial interchange of greetings ensued. &quot;Belinda, my love,&quot; said Captain Walter Waters, applying his glass to his eye, and looking in the direction of the sea. &quot;Yes, my dear,&quot; replied Mrs. Captain Waters. &quot;There’s Harry Thompson.&quot; &quot;Where?&quot; said Belinda, applying her glass to her eye. &quot;Bathing.&quot; &quot;Lor, so it is! He don’t see us, does he?&quot; &quot;No, I don’t think he does,&quot; replied the captain.—&quot;Bless my soul, how very singular!&quot; &quot;What?&quot; inquired Belinda. &quot;There’s Mary Golding, too.&quot; &quot;Lor!—where?&quot; (Up went the glass again.) &quot;There,&quot; said the captain, pointing to one of the young ladies before noticed, who, in her bathing costume, looked as if she was enveloped in a patent Mackintosh, of scanty dimensions. &quot;So it is, I declare!&quot; exclaimed Mrs. Captain Waters.—&quot;How very curious we should see them both!&quot; &quot;Very,&quot; said the captain, with perfect coolness. &quot;It’s the reg’lar thing here, you see,&quot; whispered Mr. Cymon Tuggs to his father. &quot;I see it is,&quot; whispered Mr. Joseph Tuggs in reply. &quot;Queer, though—an&#039;t it?&quot; Mr. Cymon Tuggs nodded assent. &quot;What do you think of doing with yourself this morning?&quot; inquired the captain.—&quot;Shall we lunch at Pegwell?&quot; &quot;I should like that very much indeed,&quot; interposed Mrs. Tuggs. She had never heard of Pegwell before; but the word &quot;lunch&quot; had reached her ears, and it sounded very agreeably. &quot;How shall we go?&quot; inquired the captain; &quot;it’s too warm to walk.&quot; &quot;A chay?&quot; suggested Mr. Joseph Tuggs. &quot;Chaise,&quot; whispered Mr. Cymon. &quot;I should think one would be enough,&quot; said Mr. Joseph Tuggs aloud, quite unconscious of the meaning of the correction. &quot;However, two chays, if you like.&quot; &quot;I should like a donkey so much,&quot; said Belinda. &quot;Oh, so should I!&quot; echoed Charlotta Tuggs. &quot;Well, we can have a fly,&quot; suggested the captain, &quot;and you can have a couple of donkeys.&quot; A fresh difficulty arose. Mrs. Captain Waters declared it would be decidedly improper for two ladies to ride alone. The remedy was obvious. Perhaps young Mr. Tuggs would be gallant enough to accompany them. Mr. Cymon Tuggs blushed, smiled, looked vacant, and faintly protested he was no horseman. The objection was at once overruled. A fly was speedily found; and three donkeys—which the proprietor declared on his solemn asseveration to be &quot;three parts blood, and the other corn&quot;—were engaged in the service. &quot;Kum up!&quot; shouted one of the two boys who followed behind to propel the donkeys, when Belinda Waters and Charlotta Tuggs had been hoisted, and pushed, and pulled, into their respective saddles. &quot;Hi—hi—hi!&quot; groaned the other boy behind Mr. Cymon Tuggs. Away went the donkey, with the stirrups jingling against the heels of Cymon’s boots, and Cymon’s boots nearly scraping the ground. &quot;Way—way! Wo—o—o—o—!&quot; cried Mr. Cymon Tuggs as well as he could, in the midst of the jolting. &quot;Don’t make it gallop!&quot; screamed Mrs. Captain Waters, behind. &quot;My donkey will go into the public-house!&quot; shrieked Miss Tuggs in the rear. &quot;Hi—hi—hi!&quot; groaned both the boys together; and on went the donkeys as if nothing would ever stop them. Everything has an end, however; and even the galloping of donkeys will cease in time. The animal which Mr. Cymon Tuggs bestrode, feeling sundry uncomfortable tugs at the bit, the intent of which he could by no means understand, abruptly sidled against a brick wall, and expressed his uneasiness by grinding Mr. Cymon Tuggs’s leg on the rough surface. Mrs. Captain Waters’s donkey, apparently under the influence of some playfulness of spirit, rushed suddenly, head first, into a hedge, and declined to come out again: and the quadruped on which Miss Tuggs was mounted expressed his delight at this humorous proceeding by firmly planting his fore-feet against the ground, and kicking up his hind-legs in a very agile, but somewhat alarming manner. This abrupt termination to the rapidity of the ride, naturally occasioned some confusion. Both the ladies indulged in vehement screaming for several minutes; and Mr. Cymon Tuggs, besides sustaining intense bodily pain, had the additional mental anguish of witnessing their distressing situation, without having the power to rescue them, by reason of his leg being firmly screwed in, between the animal and the wall. The efforts of the boys, however, assisted by the ingenious expedient of twisting the tail of the most rebellious donkey, restored order in a much shorter time than could have reasonably been expected, and the little party jogged slowly on together. &quot;Now let ’em walk,&quot; said Mr. Cymon Tuggs. &quot;It’s cruel to over-drive ’em.&quot; &quot;Werry well, sir,&quot; replied the boy, with a grin at his companion, as if he understood Mr. Cymon to mean that the cruelty applied less to the animals than to their riders. &quot;What a lovely day, dear!&quot; said Charlotta. &quot;Charming; enchanting, dear!&quot; responded Mrs. Captain Waters. &quot;What a beautiful prospect, Mr. Tuggs!&quot; Cymon looked full in Belinda’s face, as he responded—&quot;Beautiful, indeed!&quot; The lady cast down her eyes, and suffered the animal she was riding to fall a little back. Cymon Tuggs instinctively did the same. There was a brief silence, broken only by a sigh from Mr. Cymon Tuggs. &quot;Mr. Cymon,&quot; said the lady suddenly, in a low tone, &quot;Mr. Cymon—I am another’s.&quot; Mr. Cymon expressed his perfect concurrence in a statement which it was impossible to controvert. &quot;If I had not been—&quot; resumed Belinda; and there she stopped. &quot;What—what?&quot; said Mr. Cymon earnestly. &quot;Do not torture me. What would you say?&quot; &quot;If I had not been&quot;—continued Mrs. Captain Waters—&quot;If in earlier life, it had been my fate to have known, and been beloved by, a noble youth—a kindred soul—a congenial spirit—one capable of feeling and appreciating the sentiments which—&quot; &quot;Heavens! what do I hear?&quot; exclaimed Mr. Cymon Tuggs. &quot;Is it possible! can I believe my—Come up.&quot; (This last unsentimental parenthesis was addressed to the donkey, who with his head between his fore-legs, appeared to be examining the state of his shoes with great anxiety.) &quot;Hi—hi—hi,&quot; said the boys behind. &quot;Come up, expostulated Cymon Tuggs again. &quot;Hi—hi—hi,&quot; repeated the boys: and whether it was that the animal felt indignant at the tone of Mr. Tuggs’s command, or felt alarmed by the noise of the deputy proprietor’s boots running behind him, or whether he burned with a noble emulation to outstrip the other donkeys, certain it is that he no sooner heard the second series of &quot;hi—hi&#039;s,&quot; than he started away with a celerity of pace which jerked Mr. Cymon’s hat off instantaneously, and carried him to the Pegwell Bay hotel in no time, where he deposited his rider without giving him the trouble of dismounting, by sagaciously pitching him over his head, into the very door of the tavern. Great was the confusion of Mr. Cymon Tuggs, when he was put right end uppermost by two waiters; considerable was the alarm of Mrs. Tuggs in behalf of her son; and agonizing were the apprehensions of Mrs. Captain Waters on his account. It was speedily discovered, however, that he had not sustained much more injury than the donkey—he was grazed, and the animal was grazing—and then it was a delightful party to be sure! Mr. and Mrs. Tuggs, and the captain, had ordered lunch in the little garden behind:—small saucers of large shrimps, dabs of butter, crusty loaves, and bottled ale. The sky was without a cloud, there were flower-pots and turf before them; and the sea at the foot of the cliff, stretching away as far as the eye could discern any thing at all, and vessels in the distance with sails as white, and as small, as nicely-got-up cambric handkerchiefs. The shrimps were delightful, the ale better, and the captain even more pleasant than either. Mrs. Captain Waters was in such spirits after lunch; chasing, first the captain across the turf, and among the flower-pots, and then Mr. Cymon Tuggs, and then Miss Tuggs, laughing, too, quite boisterously. But as the captain said, it didn’t matter; who knew what they were, there? For all the people of the house knew, they might be common people. To which Mr. Joseph Tuggs responded, &quot;To be sure,&quot; and then they went down the steep wooden steps a little further on, which lead to the bottom of the cliff; and looked at the crabs, and the seaweed, and the eels, &#039;till it was more than fully time to go back to Ramsgate again, and finally, Mr. Cymon Tuggs ascended the steps last, and Mrs. Captain Waters last but one: and Mr. Cymon Tuggs discovered that the foot and ankle of Mrs. Captain Waters, were even more unexceptionable than he had at first supposed. Taking a donkey towards his ordinary place of residence, is a very different thing, and a feat much more easily to be accomplished, than taking him from it: it requires a great deal of foresight and presence of mind in the one case, to anticipate the numerous flights of his discursive imagination; while in the other, all you have to do is to hold on, and place a blind confidence in the animal. Mr. Cymon Tuggs adopted the latter expedient on his return; and his nerves were so little discomposed by the journey, that he distinctly understood they were all to meet again at the library in the evening. The library was crowded. There were the same ladies, and the same gentlemen, who had been on the sands in the morning, and on the pier the day before. There were young ladies in maroon-coloured gowns and black velvet bracelets, dispensing fancy articles in the shop, and presiding over games of chance in the concert-room. There were marriageable daughters, and marriage-making mammas, gaming, and promenading, and turning over music, and flirting. There were some male beaux doing the sentimental in whispers, and others doing the ferocious in moustache. There were Mrs. Tuggs in amber, Miss Tuggs in sky-blue, and Mrs. Captain Waters in pink. There was Captain Waters in a braided surtout: there was Mr. Cymon Tuggs in pumps, and a gilt waistcoat; and moreover there was Mr. Joseph Tuggs in a blue coat, and a shirt-frill. &quot;Number three, eight, and eleven,&quot; cried one of the young ladies in maroon-coloured gowns. &quot;Number three, eight, and eleven,&quot; echoed another young lady in the same uniform. &quot;Number three’s gone,&quot; said the first young lady. &quot;Number eight and eleven.&quot; &quot;Number eight and eleven,&quot; echoed the second young lady. &quot;Number eight’s gone, Mary Ann,&quot; said the first young lady. &quot;Number eleven,&quot; screamed the second. &quot;The numbers are all taken now, Ladies, if you please,&quot; said the first; and the representatives of numbers three, eight, and eleven, and the rest of the numbers, crowded round the table. &quot;Will you throw, ma’am?&quot; said the presiding goddess, handing the dice-box to the eldest daughter of a stout lady, with four girls. There was a profound silence among the lookers-on. &quot;Throw, Jane, my dear,&quot; said the stout lady—an interesting display of bashfulness—a little blushing in a cambric handkerchief—a whispering to a younger sister. &quot;Amelia, my dear, throw for your sister,&quot; said the stout lady; and then she turned to a walking advertisement of Rowland’s Macassar, who stood next her, and said, &quot;Jane is so very modest and retiring; but I can’t be angry with her for it. An artless and unsophisticated girl is so truly amiable, that I often wish Amelia was more like her sister!&quot; The gentleman with the whiskers, whispered his admiring approval; and the artless young lady glances across, to observe the effect of her most unqualified simplicity. &quot;Now, my dear!&quot; said the stout lady. Miss Amelia threw—eight for her sister, ten for herself. &quot;Nice figure, Amelia,&quot; whispered the stout lady to a thin youth beside her. &quot;Beautiful!&quot; &quot;And such a spirit! I am like you in that respect. I can not help admiring that life and vivacity. Ah! (a sigh) I wish I could make poor Jane a little more like my dear Amelia!&quot; The young gentleman cordially acquiesced in the sentiment; both he, and the individual first addressed, were perfectly contented. &quot;Who’s this?&quot; inquired Mr. Cymon Tuggs of Mrs. Captain Waters, as a short female, in a blue velvet hat and feathers, was led into the orchestra, by a fat man in black tights, and cloudy Berlins. &quot;Mrs. Tippin, of the London theatres,&quot; replied Belinda, referring to the programme of the concert. The talented Tippin having condescendingly acknowledged the clapping of hands, and shouts of &quot;bravo!&quot; which greeted her appearance, proceeded to sing the popular cavatina of &quot;Bid me discourse,&quot; accompanied on the piano by Mr. Tippin; after which Mr. Tippin sang a comic song, accompanied on the piano by Mrs. Tippin, the applause consequent upon which was only to be exceeded by the enthusiastic approbation bestowed upon an air with variations on the guitar, by Miss Tippin, accompanied on the chin by Master Tippin. Thus passed the evening: and thus passed the days and evenings of the Tuggs&#039;s, and the Waters&#039;s, for six weeks afterwards. Sands in the morning—donkeys at noon: pier in the afternoon—library at night; and the same people every where. On that very night six weeks, the moon was shining brightly over the calm sea, which dashed against the feet of the tall gaunt cliffs with just enough noise to lull the old fish to sleep, without disturbing the young ones, when two figures were discernible—or would have been, if any body had looked for them—seated on one of the wooden benches which are stationed near the verge of the western cliff. The moon had climbed higher into the heavens, by two hours’ journeying, since those figures first sat down, and yet they had moved not. The crowd of loungers had thinned and dispersed; the noise of itinerant musicians had died away; light after light had appeared in the windows of the different houses in the distance; blockade-man after blockade-man had passed the spot, wending his way towards his solitary post, and yet those figures had remained stationary. Some portions of the two forms were in deep shadow, but the light of the moon fell strongly on a puce-coloured boot and a glazed stock. Mr. Cymon Tuggs, and Mrs. Captain Waters, were seated on that bench. They spoke not, but were silently gazing on the sea. &quot;Walter will return to-morrow,&quot; said Mrs. Captain Waters, mournfully breaking silence. Mr. Cymon Tuggs sighed like a gust of wind through a forest of gooseberry bushes, as he replied—&quot;Alas! he will.&quot; &quot;Oh, Cymon!&quot; resumed Belinda, &quot;the chaste delight, the calm happiness, of this one week of Platonic love, is too much for me.&quot; Cymon was about to suggest that it was too little for him, but he stopped himself, and murmured unintelligibly. &quot;And to think that even this gleam of happiness, innocent as it is,&quot; exclaimed Belinda, &quot;is now to be lost for ever!&quot; &quot;Oh, do not say for ever! Belinda,&quot; exclaimed the excitable Cymon, as two strongly-defined tears chased each other down his pale face—it was so long that there was plenty of room for a chase.—&quot;Do not say for ever!&quot; &quot;I must,&quot; replied Belinda. ‘Why?’ urged Cymon, &quot;oh why? Such Platonic acquaintance as ours is so harmless, that even your husband can never object to it.&quot; &quot;My husband!&quot; exclaimed Belinda. &quot;You little know him. Jealous and revengeful; ferocious in his revenge—a maniac in his jealousy! Would you be assassinated before my eyes?&quot; Mr. Cymon Tuggs, in a voice broken by emotion, expressed his disinclination to undergo the process of assassination before the eyes of any body. &quot;Then leave me,&quot; said Mrs. Captain Waters. &quot;Leave me, this night, for ever. It is late; let us return.&quot; Mr. Cymon Tuggs sadly offered the lady his arm, and escorted her to her lodgings. He paused at the door—he felt a Platonic pressure of his hand. &quot;Good night,&quot; he said, hesitating. &quot;Good night,&quot; sobbed the lady. Mr. Cymon Tuggs paused again. &quot;Won’t you walk in, sir?&quot; said the servant. Mr. Tuggs hesitated. Oh, that hesitation! He did walk in. &quot;Good night,&quot; said Mr. Cymon Tuggs again, when he reached the drawing-room. &quot;Good night!’ replied Belinda; &quot;and, if at any period of my life, I— Hush!&quot; The lady paused, and stared, with a steady gaze of horror, on the ashy countenance of Mr. Cymon Tuggs. There was a double knock at the street-door. &quot;It is my husband!&quot; said Belinda, as the captain’s voice was heard below. &quot;And my family!&quot; added Cymon Tuggs, as the voices of his relatives floated up the staircase. &quot;The curtain! The curtain!&quot; gasped Mrs. Captain Waters, pointing to the window, before which some chintz hangings were closely drawn. &quot;But I have done nothing wrong,&quot; said the hesitating Cymon. &quot;The curtain!&quot; reiterated the lady, franticly: &quot;you will be murdered.&quot; This last appeal to his feelings was irresistible. The dismayed Cymon concealed himself behind the curtain, with pantomimic suddenness. Enter the captain, Joseph Tuggs, Mrs. Tuggs, and Charlotta. &quot;My dear,&quot; said the captain, &quot;Lieutenant, Slaughter.&#039; Two iron-shod boots and one gruff voice were heard by Mr. Cymon to advance, and acknowledge the honour of the introduction. The sabre of the lieutenant rattled heavily upon the floor, as he seated himself at the table. Mr. Cymon’s fears almost overcame his reason. &quot;The brandy, my dear,&quot; said the captain. Here was a situation! They were going to make a night of it: and Mr. Cymon Tuggs was pent up behind the curtain, and afraid to breathe. &quot;Slaughter,&quot; said the captain, &quot;a cigar?&quot; Now Mr. Cymon Tuggs never could smoke without feeling it indispensably necessary to retire immediately, and never could smell smoke without a strong disposition to cough. The cigars were introduced; the captain was a professed smoker, so was the lieutenant, so was Joseph Tuggs. The apartment was small, the door was closed, the smoke powerful: it hung in heavy wreaths over the room, and at length found its way behind the curtain. Cymon Tuggs held his nose, his mouth, his breath. It was all of no use—out came the cough. &quot;Bless my soul!&quot; said the captain, &quot;I beg your pardon, Miss Tuggs. You dislike smoking?&quot; &quot;Oh, no; I don’t indeed,&quot; said Charlotta. &quot;It makes you cough.&quot; &quot;Oh dear no.&quot; &quot;You coughed just now.&quot; &quot;Me, Captain Waters! Lor! how can you say so?&quot; &quot;Somebody coughed,&quot; said the captain. &quot;I certainly thought so,&quot; said Slaughter. No; every body denied it. &quot;Fancy,&quot; said the captain. &quot;Must be,&quot; echoed Slaughter. Cigars resumed, more smoke, another cough—smothered, but violent. &quot;Damned odd!&quot; said the captain, staring about him. &quot;Sing’ler!&quot; ejaculated the unconscious Mr. Joseph Tuggs. Lieutenant Slaughter looked first at one person mysteriously, then at another; then, laid down his cigar; then approached the window on tiptoe, and pointed, with his right thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the curtain. &quot;Slaughter!&quot; ejaculated the captain, rising from table, &quot;what do you mean?&quot; The lieutenant in reply, drew back the curtain, and discovered Mr. Cymon Tuggs behind it; pallid with apprehension, and blue with wanting to cough. &quot;Ah!&quot; exclaimed the captain, furiously. &quot;What do I see? Slaughter, your sabre!&quot; &quot;Cymon!&quot; screamed the Tuggs&#039;s. &quot;Mercy!&quot; said Belinda. &quot;Platonic!&quot; gasped Cymon. &quot;Your sabre!&#039; roared the captain, &quot;Slaughter—unhand me—the villain’s life!&quot; &quot;Murder!&quot; screamed the Tuggses. &quot;Hold him fast, sir!&quot; faintly articulated Cymon. &quot;Water!&quot; exclaimed Joseph Tuggs—and Mr. Cymon Tuggs, and all the ladies forthwith fainted away, and formed a tableau. Most willingly would we conceal the disastrous termination of the six weeks’ acquaintance. A troublesome form, and an arbitrary custom, however, prescribe that a story should have a conclusion, in addition to a commencement; we have therefore no alternative. Lieutenant Slaughter brought a message—the captain brought an action. Mr. Joseph Tuggs interposed—the lieutenant negotiated. When Mr. Cymon Tuggs recovered from the nervous disorder into which misplaced affection, and exciting circumstances had plunged him, he found that his family had lost their pleasant acquaintance; that his father was minus fifteen hundred pounds; and the captain plus the precise sum. The money was paid to hush the matter up, but it got abroad notwithstanding; and there are not wanting those who affirm that three designing impostors never found more easy dupes, than did Captain Waters, Mrs. Waters, and Lieutenant Slaughter, in the Tuggs&#039;s at Ramsgate.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Tuggs_s_at_Ramsgate/1836-The_Tuggss_at_Ramsgate.pdf
11https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/11'To Ariel'From the autograph album of Priscilla Horton (26 October 1838).Dickens, CharlesAutograph Album of Priscilla Horton, <a href="https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/31683" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/31683</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1838-10-26">1838-10-26</a><span>Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department.<br /></span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1838-10-26-Priscilla_Horton_To_ArielDickens, Charles. 'To Ariel.' Autograph Album of Priscilla Horton (26 October 1838). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1838-10-26-Priscilla_Horton_To_Ariel">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1838-10-26-Priscilla_Horton_To_Ariel</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1838-10-26_Priscilla_Horton_To_Ariel.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'To Ariel.' Autograph Album of Priscilla Horton (26 October 1838).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Autograph+Album">Autograph Album</a>Some saints there are who roar and cry, and rave and scream and bawl, To force some Spirit housed on high To bless them with a call; But though they sue on bended knee That Spirit’s deaf and dumb. – oh Spirit if you called on me, How very soon I’d come!18381026https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/To_Ariel/1838-10-26-To_Ariel.pdf
168https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/168'To Be Read at Dusk'Published in <em>The Keepsake</em>, Edited by Marguerite Power. Engraved by Frederick A. Heath. London: David Bogue, 1852, pp. 117-131.Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Keepsake_1852_Edited_by_Miss_Power_w/icKeHrEqFxEC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=read%20at%20dusk">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Keepsake_1852_Edited_by_Miss_Power_w/icKeHrEqFxEC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=read%20at%20dusk</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1852">1852</a><p>Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1852_To_Be_Read_at_DuskDickens, Charles 'To Be Read at Dusk' (1852). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1852_To_Be_Read_at_Dusk">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1852_To_Be_Read_at_Dusk</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Keepsake%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Keepsake</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Charles+Dickens">Charles Dickens</a>One, two, three, four, five. There were five of them. Five couriers, sitting on a bench outside the convent on the summit of the Great St. Bernard in Switzerland, looking at the remote heights, stained by the setting sun, as if a mighty quantity of red wine had been broached upon the mountain top, and had not yet had time to sink into the snow. This is not my simile. It was made for the occasion by the stoutest courier, who was a German. None of the others took any more notice of it than they took of me, sitting on another bench on the other side of the convent door, smoking my cigar, like them, and—also like them—looking at the reddened snow, and at the lonely shed hard by, where the bodies of belated travellers, dug out of it, slowly wither away, knowing no corruption in that cold region. The wine upon the mountain top soaked in as we looked; the mountain became white; the sky, a very dark blue; the wind rose; and the air turned piercing cold. The five couriers buttoned their rough coats. There being no safer man to imitate in all such proceedings than a courier, I buttoned mine. The mountain in the sunset had stopped the five couriers in a conversation. It is a sublime sight, likely to stop conversation. The mountain being now out of the sunset, they resumed. Not that I had heard any part of their previous discourse; for indeed, I had not then broken away from the American gentleman, in the travellers’ parlour of the convent, who, sitting with his face to the fire, had undertaken to realise to me the whole progress of events which had led to the accumulation by the Honourable Ananias Dodger of one of the largest acquisitions of dollars ever made in our country. &quot;My God!&quot; said the Swiss courier, speaking in French, which I do not hold (as some authors appear to do) to be such an all-sufficient excuse for a naughty word, that I have only to write it in that language to make it innocent; &quot;if you talk of ghosts—&quot; &quot;But I don’t talk of ghosts,&quot; said the German. &quot;Of what then?&quot; asked the Swiss. &quot;If I knew of what then,&quot; said the German, &quot;I should probably know a great deal more.&quot; It was a good answer, I thought, and it made me curious. So, I moved my position to that corner of my bench which was nearest to them, and leaning my back against the convent-wall, heard perfectly, without appearing to attend. &quot;Thunder and lightning!&quot; said the German, warming, &quot;when a certain man is coming to see you, unexpectedly; and, without his own knowledge, sends some invisible messenger, to put the idea of him in your head all day, what do you call that? When you walk along a crowded street—at Frankfort, Milan, London, Paris—and think that a passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich, and then that another passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich, and so begin to have a strange foreknowledge that presently you’ll meet your friend Heinrich—which you do, though you believed him at Trieste—what do you call that?&quot; &quot;It’s not uncommon, either,&quot; murmured the Swiss and the other three. &quot;Uncommon!&quot; said the German. &quot;It’s as common as cherries in the Black Forest. It’s as common as maccaroni at Naples. And Naples reminds me! When the old Marchesa Senzanima shrieks at a card-party on the Chiaja—as I heard and saw her, for it happened in a Bavarian family of mine, and I was overlooking the service that evening—I say, when the old Marchesa starts up at the card-table, white through her rouge, and cries, &#039;My sister in Spain is dead! I felt her cold touch on my back!&#039;—and when that sister is dead at the moment—what do you call that?&quot; &quot;Or when the blood of San Gennaro liquefies at the request of the clergy—as all the world knows that it does regularly once a-year, in my native city,&quot; said the Neapolitan courier after a pause, with a comical look, &quot;what do you call that?&quot; &quot;That!&quot; cried the German. &quot;Well! I think I know a name for that.&quot; &quot;Miracle?&quot; said the Neapolitan, with the same sly face. The German merely smoked and laughed; and they all smoked and laughed. &quot;Bah!&quot; said the German, presently. &quot;I speak of things that really do happen. When I want to see the conjurer, I pay to see a professed one, and have my money’s worth. Very strange things do happen without ghosts. Ghosts! Giovanni Baptista, tell your story of the English bride. There’s no ghost in that, but something full as strange. Will any man tell me what?&quot; As there was a silence among them, I glanced around. He whom I took to be Baptista was lighting a fresh cigar. He presently went on to speak. He was a Genoese, as I judged. &quot;The story of the English bride?&quot; said he. &quot;Basta! one ought not to call so slight a thing a story. Well, it’s all one. But it’s true. Observe me well, gentlemen, it’s true. That which glitters is not always gold; but what I am going to tell, is true.&quot; He repeated this more than once. Ten years ago, I took my credentials to an English gentleman at Long’s Hotel, in Bond Street, London, who was about to travel—it might be for one year, it might be for two. He approved of them; likewise of me. He was pleased to make inquiry. The testimony that he received was favourable. He engaged me by the six months, and my entertainment was generous. He was young, handsome, very happy. He was enamoured of a fair young English lady, with a sufficient fortune, and they were going to be married. It was the wedding-trip, in short, that we were going to take. For three months’ rest in the hot weather (it was early summer then) he had hired an old place on the Riviera, at an easy distance from my city, Genoa, on the road to Nice. Did I know that place? Yes; I told him I knew it well. It was an old palace, with great gardens. It was a little bare, and it was a little dark and gloomy, being close surrounded by trees; but it was spacious, ancient, grand, and on the sea shore. He said it had been so described to him exactly, and he was well pleased that I knew it. For its being a little bare of furniture, all such places were. For its being a little gloomy, he had hired it principally for the gardens, and he and my mistress would pass the summer weather in their shade. &quot;So all goes well, Baptista?&quot; said he. &quot;Indubitably, signor; very well.&quot; We had a travelling chariot for our journey, newly built for us, and in all respects complete. All we had was complete; we wanted for nothing. The marriage took place. They were happy. I was happy, seeing all so bright, being so well situated, going to my own city, teaching my language in the rumble to the maid, la bella Carolina, whose heart was gay with laughter: who was young and rosy. The time flew. But I observed—listen to this, I pray! (and here the courier dropped his voice)—I observed my mistress sometimes brooding in a manner very strange; in a frightened manner; in an unhappy manner; with a cloudy, uncertain alarm upon her. I think that I began to notice this when I was walking up hills by the carriage side, and master had gone on in front. At any rate, I remember that it impressed itself upon my mind one evening in the South of France, when she called to me to call master back; and when he came back, and walked for a long way, talking encouragingly and affectionately to her, with his hand upon the open window, and hers in it. Now and then, he laughed in a merry way, as if he were bantering her out of something. By and by, she laughed, and then all went well again. It was curious. I asked la bella Carolina, the pretty little one, Was mistress unwell?—No. Out of spirits?—No. Fearful of bad roads, or brigands?—No. And what made it more mysterious was, the pretty little one would not look at me in giving answer, but would look at the view. But, one day she told me the secret. &quot;If you must know,&quot; said Carolina, &quot;I find, from what I have overheard, that mistress is haunted.&quot; &quot;How haunted?&quot; &quot;By a dream.&quot; &quot;What dream?&quot; &quot;By a dream of a face. For three nights before her marriage, she saw a face in a dream—always the same face, and only One.&quot; &quot;A terrible face?&quot; &quot;No. The face of a dark, remarkable-looking man, in black, with black hair and a grey moustache—a handsome man except for a reserved and secret air. Not a face she ever saw, or at all like a face she ever saw. Doing nothing in the dream but looking at her fixedly, out of darkness.&quot; &quot;Does the dream come back?&quot; &quot;Never. The recollection of it is all her trouble.&quot; &quot;And why does it trouble her?&quot; Carolina shook her head. &quot;That’s master’s question,&quot; said la bella. &quot;She don’t know. She wonders why, herself. But I heard her tell him, only last night, that if she was to find a picture of that face in our Italian house (which she is afraid she will) she did not know how she could ever bear it.&quot; Upon my word I was fearful after this (said the Genoese courier) of our coming to the old palazzo, lest some such ill-starred picture should happen to be there. I knew there were many there; and, as we got nearer and nearer to the place, I wished the whole gallery in the crater of Vesuvius. To mend the matter, it was a stormy dismal evening when we, at last, approached that part of the Riviera. It thundered; and the thunder of my city and its environs, rolling among the high hills, is very loud. The lizards ran in and out of the chinks in the broken stone wall of the garden, as if they were frightened; the frogs bubbled and croaked their loudest; the sea-wind moaned, and the wet trees dripped; and the lightning—body of San Lorenzo, how it lightened! We all know what an old palace in or near Genoa is—how time and the sea air have blotted it—how the drapery painted on the outer walls has peeled off in great flakes of plaster—how the lower windows are darkened with rusty bars of iron—how the courtyard is overgrown with grass—how the outer buildings are dilapidated—how the whole pile seems devoted to ruin. Our palazzo was one of the true kind. It had been shut up close for months. Months?—years! It had an earthy smell, like a tomb. The scent of the orange-trees on the broad back terrace, and of the lemons ripening on the wall, and of some shrubs that grew around a broken fountain, had got into the house somehow, and had never been able to get out again. There it was, in every room, an aged smell, grown faint with confinement. It pined in all the cupboards and drawers. In the little rooms of communication between great rooms, it was stifling. If you turned a picture—to come back to the pictures—there it still was, clinging to the wall behind the frame, like a sort of bat. The lattice-blinds were close shut, all over the house. There were two ugly grey old women in the house, to take care of it; one of them with a spindle, who stood winding and mumbling in the doorway, and who would as soon have let in the devil as the air. Master, mistress, la bella Carolina, and I, went all through the palazzo. I went first, though I have named myself last, opening the windows and the lattice-blinds, and shaking down on myself splashes of rain, and scraps of mortar, and now and then a dozing mosquito, or a monstrous, fat, blotchy, Genoese spider. When I had let the evening light into a room, master, mistress, and la bella Carolina, entered. Then, we looked round at all the pictures, and I went forward again into another room. Mistress secretly had great fear of meeting with the likeness of that face—we all had; but there was no such thing. The Madonna and Bambino, San Francisco, San Sebastiano, Venus, Santa Caterina, Angels, Brigands, Friars, Temples at Sunset, Battles, White Horses, Forests, Apostles, Doges, all my old acquaintances many times repeated?—yes. Dark handsome man in black, reserved and secret, with black hair and grey moustache, looking fixedly at mistress out of darkness?—no. At last we got through all the rooms and all the pictures, and came out into the gardens. They were pretty well kept, being rented by a gardener, and were large and shady. In one place there was a rustic theatre, open to the sky; the stage a green slope; the coulisses, three entrances upon a side, sweet-smelling leafy screens. Mistress moved her bright eyes, even there, as if she looked to see the face come in upon the scene: but all was well. &quot;Now, Clara,&quot; master said, in a low voice, &quot;you see that it is nothing? You are happy.&quot; Mistress was much encouraged. She soon accustomed herself to that grim palazzo, and would sing, and play the harp, and copy the old pictures, and stroll with master under the green trees and vines, all day. She was beautiful. He was happy. He would laugh and say to me, mounting his horse for his morning ride before the heat: &quot;All goes well, Baptista!&quot; &quot;Yes, signore, thank God, very well.&quot; We kept no company. I took la bella to the Duomo and Annunciata, to the Café, to the Opera, to the village Festa, to the Public Garden, to the Day Theatre, to the Marionetti. The pretty little one was charmed with all she saw. She learnt Italian—heavens! miraculously! Was mistress quite forgetful of that dream? I asked Carolina sometimes. Nearly, said la bella—almost. It was wearing out. One day master received a letter, and called me. &quot;Baptista!&quot; &quot;Signore.&quot; &quot;A gentleman who is presented to me will dine here to day. He is called the Signor Dellombra. Let me dine like a prince.’ It was an odd name. I did not know that name. But, there had been many noblemen and gentlemen pursued by Austria on political suspicions, lately, and some names had changed. Perhaps this was one. Altro! Dellombra was as good a name to me as another. When the Signor Dellombra came to dinner (said the Genoese courier in the low voice, into which he had subsided once before), I showed him into the reception-room, the great sala of the old palazzo. Master received him with cordiality, and presented him to mistress. As she rose, her face changed, she gave a cry, and fell upon the marble floor. Then, I turned my head to the Signor Dellombra, and saw that he was dressed in black, and had a reserved and secret air, and was a dark, remarkable-looking man, with black hair and a grey moustache. Master raised mistress in his arms, and carried her to her own room, where I sent la bella Carolina straight. La bella told me afterwards that mistress was nearly terrified to death, and that she wandered in her mind about her dream, all night. Master was vexed and anxious—almost angry, and yet full of solicitude. The Signor Dellombra was a courtly gentleman, and spoke with great respect and sympathy of mistress’s being so ill. The African wind had been blowing for some days (they had told him at his hôtel of the Maltese Cross), and he knew that it was often hurtful. He hoped the beautiful lady would recover soon. He begged permission to retire, and to renew his visit when he should have the happiness of hearing that she was better. Master would not allow of this, and they dined alone. He withdrew early. Next day he called at the gate, on horseback, to inquire for mistress. He did so two or three times in that week. What I observed myself, and what la bella Carolina told me, united to explain to me that master had now set his mind on curing mistress of her fanciful terror. He was all kindness, but he was sensible and firm. He reasoned with her, that to encourage such fancies was to invite melancholy, if not madness. That it rested with herself to be herself. That if she once resisted her strange weakness, so successfully as to receive the Signor Dellombra as an English lady would receive any other guest, it was for ever conquered. To make an end, the Signor came again, and mistress received him without marked distress (though with constraint and apprehension still), and the evening passed serenely. Master was so delighted with this change, and so anxious to confirm it, that the Signor Dellombra became a constant guest. He was accomplished in pictures, books, and music; and his society, in any grim palazzo, would have been welcome. I used to notice, many times, that mistress was not quite recovered. She would cast down her eyes and droop her head, before the Signor Dellombra, or would look at him with a terrified and fascinated glance, as if his presence had some evil influence or power upon her. Turning from her to him, I used to see him in the shaded gardens, or the large half-lighted sala, looking, as I might say, &quot;fixedly upon her out of darkness.&quot; But, truly, I had not forgotten la bella Carolina’s words describing the face in the dream. After his second visit I heard master say: &quot;Now, see, my dear Clara, it’s over! Dellombra has come and gone, and your apprehension is broken like glass.&quot; &quot;Will he—will he ever come again?&quot; asked mistress. &quot;Again? Why, surely, over and over again! Are you cold?&quot; (she shivered.) &quot;No, dear—but—he terrifies me: are you sure that he need come again?&quot; &quot;The surer for the question, Clara!&quot; replied master, cheerfully. But, he was very hopeful of her complete recovery now, and grew more and more so every day. She was beautiful. He was happy. &quot;All goes well, Baptista?&quot; he would say to me again. &quot;Yes, signore, thank God; very well.&quot; We were all (said the Genoese courier, constraining himself to speak a little louder), we were all at Rome for the Carnival. I had been out, all day, with a Sicilian, a friend of mine, and a courier, who was there with an English family. As I returned at night to our hotel, I met the little Carolina, who never stirred from home alone, running distractedly along the Corso. &quot;Carolina! What’s the matter?&quot; &quot;O Baptista! O, for the Lord’s sake! where is my mistress?&quot; &quot;Mistress, Carolina?&quot; &quot;Gone since morning—told me, when master went out on his day’s journey, not to call her, for she was tired with not resting in the night (having been in pain), and would lie in bed until the evening; then get up refreshed. She is gone!—she is gone! Master has come back, broken down the door, and she is gone! My beautiful, my good, my innocent mistress!&quot; The pretty little one so cried, and raved, and tore herself that I could not have held her, but for her swooning on my arm as if she had been shot. Master came up—in manner, face, or voice, no more the master that I knew, than I was he. He took me (I laid the little one upon her bed in the hôtel, and left her with the chamber-women), in a carriage, furiously through the darkness, across the desolate Campagna. When it was day, and we stopped at a miserable posthouse, all the horses had been hired twelve hours ago, and sent away in different directions. Mark me!—iby the Signor Dellombra, who had passed there in a carriage, with a frightened English lady crouching in one corner. I never heard (said the Genoese courier, drawing a long breath) that she was ever traced beyond that spot. All I know is, that she vanished into infamous oblivion, with the dreaded face beside her that she had seen in her dream. &quot;What do you call that?&quot; said the German courier, triumphantly: &quot;Ghosts! There are no ghosts there! What do you call this, that I am going to tell you? Ghosts! There are no ghosts here!&quot; I took an engagement once (pursued the German courier) with an English gentleman, elderly and a bachelor, to travel through my country, my Fatherland. He was a merchant who traded with my country and knew the language, but who had never been there since he was a boy—as I judge, some sixty years before. His name was James, and he had a twin-brother John, also a bachelor. Between these brothers there was a great affection. They were in business together, at Goodman’s Fields, but they did not live together. Mr. James dwelt in Poland Street, turning out of Oxford Street, London. Mr. John resided by Epping Forest. Mr. James and I were to start for Germany in about a week. The exact day depended on business. Mr. John came to Poland Street (where I was staying in the house), to pass that week with Mr. James. But, he said to his brother on the second day, &quot;I don’t feel very well, James. There’s not much the matter with me; but I think I am a little gouty. I’ll go home and put myself under the care of my old housekeeper, who understands my ways. If I get quite better, I’ll come back and see you before you go. If I don’t feel well enough to resume my visit where I leave it off, why you will come and see me before you go.&quot; Mr. James, of course, said he would, and they shook hands—both hands, as they always did—and Mr. John ordered out his old-fashioned chariot and rumbled home. It was on the second night after that—that is to say, the fourth in the week—when I was awoke out of my sound sleep by Mr. James coming into my bedroom in his flannel-gown, with a lighted candle. He sat upon the side of my bed, and looking at me, said: &quot;Wilhelm, I have reason to think I have got some strange illness upon me.&quot; I then perceived that there was a very unusual expression in his face. &quot;Wilhelm,&quot; said he, &quot;I am not afraid or ashamed to tell you what I might be afraid or ashamed to tell another man. You come from a sensible country, where mysterious things are inquired into and are not settled to have been weighed and measured—or to have been unweighable and unmeasurable—or in either case to have been completely disposed of, for all time—ever so many years ago. I have just now seen the phantom of my brother.&quot; I confess (said the German courier) that it gave me a little tingling of the blood to hear it. &quot;I have just now seen,&quot; Mr. James repeated, looking full at me, that I might see how collected he was, &quot;the phantom of my brother John. I was sitting up in bed, unable to sleep, when it came into my room, in a white dress, and regarding me earnestly, passed up to the end of the room, glanced at some papers on my writing-desk, turned, and, still looking earnestly at me as it passed the bed, went out at the door. Now, I am not in the least mad, and am not in the least disposed to invest that phantom with any external existence out of myself. I think it is a warning to me that I am ill; and I think I had better be bled.&quot; I got out of bed directly (said the German courier) and began to get on my clothes, begging him not to be alarmed, and telling him that I would go myself to the doctor. I was just ready, when we heard a loud knocking and ringing at the street door. My room being an attic at the back, and Mr. James’s being the second-floor room in the front, we went down to his room, and put up the window, to see what was the matter. &quot;Is that Mr. James?&quot; said a man below, falling back to the opposite side of the way to look up. &quot;It is,&quot; said Mr. James, &quot;and you are my brother’s man, Robert.&quot; &quot;Yes, sir. I am sorry to say, sir, that Mr. John is ill. He is very bad, sir. It is even feared that he may be lying at the point of death. He wants to see you, sir. I have a chaise here. Pray come to him. Pray lose no time.&quot; Mr. James and I looked at one another. &quot;Wilhelm,&quot; said he, &quot;this is strange. I wish you to come with me!&quot; I helped him to dress, partly there and partly in the chaise; and no grass grew under the horses’ iron shoes between Poland Street and the Forest. Now, mind! (said the German courier) I went with Mr. James into his brother’s room, and I saw and heard myself what follows. His brother lay upon his bed, at the upper end of a long bed-chamber. His old housekeeper was there, and others were there: I think three others were there, if not four, and they had been with him since early in the afternoon. He was in white, like the figure—necessarily so, because he had his night-dress on. He looked like the figure—necessarily so, because he looked earnestly at his brother when he saw him come into the room. But, when his brother reached the bed-side, he slowly raised himself in bed, and looking full upon him, said these words: &quot;JAMES, YOU HAVE SEEN ME BEFORE, TO-NIGHT—AND YOU KNOW IT!&quot; And so died! I waited, when the German courier ceased, to hear something said of this strange story. The silence was unbroken. I looked round, and the five couriers were gone: so noiselessly that the ghostly mountain might have absorbed them into its eternal snows. By this time, I was by no means in a mood to sit alone in that awful scene, with the chill air coming solemnly upon me—or, if I may tell the truth, to sit alone anywhere. So I went back into the convent-parlour, and, finding the American gentleman still disposed to relate the biography of the Honourable Ananias Dodger, heard it all out.18520101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/To_Be_Read_at_Dusk/1852-To_Be_Read_at_Dusk.pdf
62https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/62'To Daniel Maclise'From a letter to Daniel Maclise (2 June 1840).Dickens, Charles<span>'To Daniel Maclise.' Letter to Daniel Maclise. 2 June 1840. </span><em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 2 (1840-1841), p. 79. Oxford University Press, 1969.</span>; Dickens, Charles. 'ALs to Daniel Maclise.' Letters, <a href="https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/28617">https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/28617</a>. Free Library of Philadelphia.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1840-06-02">1840-06-02</a><span>Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department.<br /></span>Parody of Lord Byron&#039;s &#039;To Thomas Moore&#039;, first stanza: <br /> <br /> My boat is on the shore,<br /> And my bark is on the sea,<br /> But, before I go, Tom Moore,<br /> Here&#039;s a double health to thee!<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1840-06-02_Letter_To_Daniel_Maclise_PoemDickens, Charles. 'To Daniel Maclise' (2 June 1840). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1840-06-02_Letter_To_Daniel_Maclise_Poem">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1840-06-02_Letter_To_Daniel_Maclise_Poem</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1840-06-02_Letter_To_Daniel_Maclise_Poem.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'To Daniel Maclise' (2 June 1840).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>My foot is in the house, My bath is on the sea, And, before I take a souse, Here’s a single note to thee.18400602https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/To_Daniel_Maclise/1840-06-02_Letter_To_Daniel_Maclise.pdf
111https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/111'To J. P. Harley'From a letter to J. P. Harley (9 April 1839). Dickens, Charles<span>'To J. P. Harley.' Letter to J. P. Harley. 9 April 1839.&nbsp;</span><em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 1 (1820-1839), p. 541-542. Oxford University Press, 1965.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1839-04-09">1839-04-09</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1839-04-09_Letter_To_J_P_Harley_PoemDickens, Charles. 'To J. P. Harley' (9 April 1839). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1839-04-09_Letter_To_J_P_Harley_Poem">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1839-04-09_Letter_To_J_P_Harley_Poem</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1839-04-09_Letter_To_J_P_Harley_Poem.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'To J. P. Harley' (9 April 1839).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>RECITATIVE You’re wery funny so you air, Good peoples’ sides you shake, But in that ‘ere poetic flare You’ve made a small mistake; For “Thursday” ain’t the day young Snipe, But “Wen’sday” is the cry: So please to put that in your pipe And act according-ly. AIR Oh come then tomorrow and taste of that cheer Purwided for good ‘uns like you: With the light of our countenance soften my beer, My champagne, and my other Wines too. And if in your fun, of that Beer you should think, (For you are old Momus’ child) Take a maxim from it while your sherry you drink, And pray Harley – pray – draw it mild. Oh come then tomorrow when church-clocks strike six, Dum vivimus – live while we may – And when you have eaten and drunk too “like bricks”, Oh then, like the Page – “Go and Play”. [Please to hang up this bill in the kitchen.]18390409
119https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/119'To J. P. Harley'From a letter to J. P. Harley (16 March 1840).Dickens, Charles<span>'To J. P. Harley.' Letter to J. P. Harley. 16 March 1840. </span><em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 2 (1840-1841), p. 44. Oxford University Press, 1969.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1840-03-16">1840-03-16</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1840-03-16_Letter_To_J_P_Harley_PoemDickens, Charles. 'To J. P. Harley' (16 March 1840). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1840-03-16_Letter_To_J_P_Harley_Poem">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1840-03-16_Letter_To_J_P_Harley_Poem</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1840-03-16_Letter_To_J_P_Harley_Poem.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'To J. P. Harley' (16 March 1840).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>If you know no reason Why good wine in season Should ever be forgot18400316
81https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/81'To John Forster'From a letter to John Forster (12 February 1840).Dickens, CharlesForster, John. <em>The Life of Charles Dickens</em>. Volume 1 (1812-1842), p. 196. Chapman and Hall, 1872.; <span>Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.458417/page/n217/mode/2up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.458417/page/n217/mode/2up</a></span><a href="https://archive.org/details/letterscharlesd09dickgoog/page/n363/mode/2up" target="_blank" rel="noopener"></a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1840-02-12">1840-02-12</a><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1840-02-12_Letter_To_John_Forster_Poem<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Letter to John Forster' (12 February 1840).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1840-02-12_Letter_To_John_Forster_Poem">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1840-02-12_Letter_To_John_Forster_Poem</a><span>.</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1840-02-12_Letter_To_John_Forster_Poem.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'Letter to John Forster' (12 February 1840).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>My heart is at Windsor, My heart isn&#039;t here; My heart is at Windsor, A following my dear.18400212https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/To_John_Forster/1840-02-12_Letter_To_John_Forster_Poem.png
110https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/110'To John Forster'From a letter to John Forster (August 1838).Dickens, Charles'To John Forster.' Letter to John Forster. [? August 1838]. <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition. </em>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 1 (1820-1839), p. 427. Oxford University Press, 1965.Parody of William Cowper&#039;s &#039;The Diverting History of John Gilpin&#039;, last stanza:<br /> <br /> Now let us sing, &#039;Long live the king,<br /> And Gilpin, long live he;<br /> And when he next doth ride abroad,<br /> May I be there to see!&#039;<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1838-08_Letter_To_John_Forster_PoemDickens, Charles. 'To John Forster' (August 1838). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1838-08_Letter_To_John_Forster_Poem">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1838-08_Letter_To_John_Forster_Poem</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1838-08_Letter_To_John_Forster_Poem.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'To John Forster' (August 1838).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>So let us scream long live the Queen And Jerdan long live he, And when he dies, let’s have no more Of sitch humbuggere.18380801
61https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/61'To John Groves'From a letter to John Groves (1 September 1838).Dickens, Charles'To John Groves.' Letter to John Groves (Early September 1838). <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em> <em>Pilgrim Edition. </em>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 1 (1820-1839), pp. 432-433. Oxford University Press, 1988.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1838-09">1838-09</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1838-09_Letter_To_John_Groves_PoemDickens, Charles. 'To John Groves' (September 1838). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1838-09_Letter_To_John_Groves_Poem">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1838-09_Letter_To_John_Groves_Poem</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1838-09_Letter_To_John_Groves_Poem.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'To John Groves' (1 September 1838).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Revolver">Revolver</a>Oh Mr. Groves If so be you approves Of writings in rhyme Knocked off in quick time And set down at once By an indolent dunce Who to Alum bay runs - Read these lines Mr. Groves. For those same twenty heads Who are coming for beds From Cowes or from Rhyde, Or from some hole beside, Don’t fit up that “Tent” Which in our room is meant For some very small child Of years meek and mild, Because I’ve a wife And I swear on my life It would our blushes bring To have that sort of thing, -So no stranger coves If you please Mr. Groves And when people repair Here, to dine in the air Just give ‘em their grub On some barrel or tub In the cow-yard or garden; -<br /> I’ll bet a brass farden They’ll eat as much cheese, And cough spit and sneeze And make as much shindy As outside our windy; So there put their loaves If you please Mr. Groves. And as Ann is a maid By no means afraid Of doing what’s right By day or by night, And perfectly able To wait well at table, If she’s wrong here and there Don’t bluster and swear But of slight faults absolve her. Yours Truly - Revolver.18380901
124https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/124'To Mary Boyle'From a letter to Mary Boyle (16 January 1854).Dickens, Charles'Miss Mary Boyle.' <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. Edited by his Sister-in-Law and his Eldest Daughter.</em>&nbsp;Volume 1 (1833-1856), p. 346. Chapman and Hall, 1880.; <span>Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/letterscharlesd09dickgoog/page/n363/mode/2up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/letterscharlesd09dickgoog/page/n363/mode/2up</a>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1854-01-16">1854-01-16</a><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1854-01-16_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Poem<span>Dickens, Charles. 'To Mary Boyle' (16 January 1854). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1854-01-16_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Poem" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1854-01-16_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Poem</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1854-01-16_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Poem.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'To Mary Boyle' (16 January 1854).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>When the praise thou meetest To thine ear is sweetest O then REMEMBER JOE!18540116https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/To_Mary_Boyle/1854-01-16_Letter_To_Mary_Boyle_Poem.pdf
109https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/109'To Mr. Hicks'From a letter to Charles Hicks (26 July 1837).Dickens, Charles'To Charles Hicks.' Letter to Charles Hicks. (26 July 1837). <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition. </em>Edited by Madeline House and Graham Storey. Volume 1 (1820-1839), p. 287. Oxford University Press, 1965.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837-07-26">1837-07-26</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1837-07-26_Letter_To_Charles_Hicks_PoemDickens, Charles. 'To Charles Hicks' (2 June 1840). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1837-07-26_Letter_To_Charles_Hicks_Poem">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1837-07-26_Letter_To_Charles_Hicks_Poem</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1837-07-26_Letter_To_Charles_Hicks_Poem.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'To Mr. Hicks' (26 July 1837).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>Oh Mr. Hick – S, I’m heartily sick Of this sixteenth Pickwick Which is just in the nick For the publishing trick, And will read nice and slick, If you’ll only be quick. I don’t write on tick, That’s my comfort, Avick!18370726
122https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/122'To Mrs Cowden Clarke'From a letter to Mrs Cowden Clarke (13 January 1849).Dickens, Charles'To Mrs Cowden Clarke.' <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The Pilgrim Edition. </em><span>Edited by Graham Storey and K. J. Fielding. Volume 5 (1847-1849), p. 476. Oxford University Press, 1980.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1849-01-13">1849-01-13</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1849-01-13_Letter_To_Mrs_Cowden_Clarke_Poem<span>Dickens, Charles. 'To Mrs Cowden Clarke' (13 January 1849).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1849-01-13_Letter_To_Mrs_Cowden_Clarke_Poem">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1849-01-13_Letter_To_Mrs_Cowden_Clarke_Poem</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1849-01-13_Letter_To_Mrs_Cowden_Clarke_Poem.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'To Mrs Cowden Clarke' (13 January 1849).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>– But had you seen him in “Used up”, His eye so beaming and so clear, When on his stool he sat to sup The oxtail – little Romer near etc etc – you would have forgotten and forgiven all.18490113
126https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/126'To Mrs Horne'From a letter to Mrs Horne (20 October 1856).Dickens, Charles'Mrs. Horne.' <em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. Edited by his Sister-in-Law and his Eldest Daughter.</em> Volume 1 (1833-1856), p. 456-457. Chapman and Hall, 1880.; <span>Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/letterscharlesd09dickgoog/page/n473/mode/2up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/letterscharlesd09dickgoog/page/n473/mode/2up</a>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1856-10-20">1856-10-20</a><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Poem">Poem</a>1856-10-20_Letter_To_Mrs_Horne_Poem<span>Dickens, Charles. 'To Mrs Horne' (20 October 1856). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1856-10-20_Letter_To_Mrs_Horne_Poem" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1856-10-20_Letter_To_Mrs_Horne_Poem</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1856-10-20_Letter_To_Mrs_Horne_Poem.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>'To Mrs Horne' (20 October 1856).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>My heart disowns Ophelia Jones; only I think it was a more sounding name, Are these the tones, – Volumnia Jones? No. Again it seems doubtful. God bless her bones, Petronia Jones! I think not. Carve I on stones Olympia Jones? Can that be the name? Fond memory favours it more than any other. My love to her.18561020https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/To_Mrs_Horne/1856-10-20_Letter_To_Mrs_Horne_Poem.pdf
33https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/33'Young Benson's Song'From <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </em>(1836). Music by John Hullah, p.14.Dickens, Charles<p class="p1"><i>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts </i>(1836). London: John Dicks.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></p>; Internet Archive, <a href="https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/details/villagecoquettes00dickuoft/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hullah%2C+John">Hullah, John</a><p class="p1"><i>Internet</i><span>&nbsp;<em>Archive</em>: Access to the Archive’s Collections is provided at no cost and is granted for scholarship and research purposes only (</span><span class="s1"><a href="https://archive.org/about/terms.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://archive.org/about/terms.php</a>).</span></p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">Song</a>1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Young_Bensons_Song<p class="p1">Dickens, Charles. 'Young Bensons's Song.' <i>The Village Coquettes </i>(1836): p. 14. <i>Dickens Search. </i>Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Young_Bensons_Song">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Young_Bensons_Song</a>.</p><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1836_The_Village_Coquettes_Young_Bensons_Song.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Young Benson's Song.' <em>The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</em> (1836).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">Play</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Village+Coquettes%2C+An+Operatic+Burletta+in+Two+Acts">The Village Coquettes, An Operatic Burletta in Two Acts</a>My fair home is no longer mine; From its roof-tree I’m driven away. Alas! who will tend the old vine, Which I planted in infancy’s day! The garden, the beautiful flowers, The oak with its branches on high, Dear friends of my happiest hours, Among thee I long hoped to die. The briar, the moss, and the bramble, Along the green paths will run wild: The paths where I once used to ramble, An innocent, light-hearted child.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Young_Benson_s_Song/1836-The_Village_Coquettes_Young_Bensons_Song.pdf
137https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/137<em>'New Series</em>, No. 1, Meditations in Monmouth-Street'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle </em>(24 September 1836), p. 3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18360924/009/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18360924/009/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-09-24">1836-09-24</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1836-09-24-Meditations_in_Monmouth_StreetDickens, Charles. <em>'New Series</em>, No. 1, Meditations in Monmouth-Street' (24 September 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-09-24-Meditations_in_Monmouth_Street">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-09-24-Meditations_in_Monmouth_Street</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>We have always entertained a particular attachment towards Monmouth-street, as the only true and real emporium for second-hand wearing apparel. Monmouth-street is venerable from its antiquity, and respectable from its usefulness. Holywell-street we despise; the red-headed and red-whiskered Jews who forcibly haul you into their squalid houses, and thrust you into a suit of clothes whether you will or not, we detest. The inhabitants of Monmouth-street are a distinct class; a peaceable and retiring race, who immure themselves for the most part in deep cellars or small back parlours, and who seldom come forth into the world, except in the dusk and coolness of evening, when they may be seen seated in chairs on the pavement, smoking their pipes or watching the gambols of their engaging children as they revel in the gutter, a happy troop of infantine scavengers. Their countenances bear a thoughtful and dirty cast—certain indications of their love of traffic; and their habitations are distinguished by that disregard of outward appearances, and neglect of personal comfort, so common among people who are constantly immersed in profound speculations, and deeply engaged in sedentary pursuits. We have hinted at the antiquity of our favourite spot. &quot;A Monmouth-street laced coat&quot; was a by-word years and years ago; and still we find Monmouth-street the same. Pilot great coats with wooden buttons, have usurped the place of the ponderous laced coats with full skirts; embroidered waistcoats with large flaps, have yielded to double-breasted checks with roll-collars; and three-cornered hats of quaint appearance have given place to the low crowns and broad brims of the coachman school; but it is the times that have changed, not Monmouth-street. Through every alteration and every change, Monmouth-street has still remained the burial-place of the fashions; and such, to judge from all present appearances, it will remain, until there are no more fashions to bury. We love to walk among these extensive groves of the illustrious dead, and to indulge in the speculations to which they give rise; now fitting a deceased coat, then a dead pair of trousers, and anon the mortal remains of a gaudy waistcoat, upon some being of our own conjuring up, and endeavouring, from the shape and fashion of the garment itself, to bring its former owner before our mind’s eye. We have gone on speculating in this way, until whole rows of coats have started from their pegs, and buttoned up, of their own accord, round the waists of imaginary wearers, lines of trousers have jumped down to meet them, waistcoats have almost burst with anxiety to put themselves on, and half an acre of shoes have suddenly found feet to fit them, and gone stumping down the street with a noise which has fairly awakened us from our pleasant reverie, and driven us slowly away, with a bewildered stare, an object of astonishment to the good people of Monmouth-street, and of no slight suspicion to the policemen at the opposite street corner. We were occupied in this manner the other day, endeavouring to fit a pair of lace-up half boots on an ideal personage, for whom, to say the truth, they were full a couple of sizes too small, when our eyes happened to alight on a few suits of clothes, ranged outside a shop-window, which it immediately struck us, must at different periods have all belonged to, and been worn by, the same individual, and had now, by one of those strange conjunctions of circumstances which will occur sometimes, come to be exposed together for sale in the same shop. The idea seemed a fantastic one, and we looked at the clothes again with a firm determination not to be easily led away. No, we were right, the more we looked the more we were convinced of the accuracy of our previous impression. There was the man’s whole life written as legibly on those clothes as if we had his autobiography engrossed on parchment before us. The first was a patched and much-soiled skeleton suit—one of those straight blue cloth cases in which small boys used to be confined, before belts and tunics had come in, and old notions had gone out: an ingenious contrivance for displaying the full symmetry of a boy’s figure, by fastening him into a very tight jacket, with an ornamental row of buttons over each shoulder, and then buttoning his trousers over it, so as to give his legs the appearance of being hooked on just under the armpits. This was the boy’s dress. It had belonged to a town boy, we could see; there was a shortness about the legs and arms of the suit, and a bagging at the knees, peculiar to the rising youth of London streets. A small day-school he had been at, evidently. If it had been a regular boys’ school they wouldn’t have let him play on the floor so much, and rub his knees so white. He had had an indulgent mother too, and plenty of halfpence, as the numerous smears of some sticky substance about the pockets, and just below the chin, which even the salesman’s skill could not succeed in disguising, sufficiently betokened. They were decent people, but not overburdened with riches, or he would not have so far outgrown the suit when he passed into those corduroys with the round jacket; in which he went to a boys’ school, however, and learnt to write—and in ink of pretty tolerable blackness too, if the place where he used to wipe his pen might be taken as evidence. A black suit, and the jacket changed into a diminutive coat. His father had died, and the mother had got the boy a message-lad’s place in some office. A long-worn suit that one; rusty and threadbare before it was laid aside, but clean and free from soil to the last. Poor woman! We could imagine her assumed cheerfulness over the scanty meal, and the refusal of her own small portion, that her hungry boy might have enough. Her constant anxiety for his welfare, her pride in his growth mingled sometimes with the thought, almost too acute to bear, that as he grew to be a man his old affection might cool, old kindnesses fade from his mind, and old promises be forgotten—the sharp pain that even then a careless word or a cold look would give her—all crowded on our thoughts as vividly as if the very scene were passing before us. These things happen every hour, and we all know it; and yet we felt as much sorrow when we saw, or fancied we saw—it makes no difference which—the change that began to take place now, as if we had just conceived the bare possibility of such a thing for the first time. The next suit, smart but slovenly; meant to be gay, and yet not half so decent as the threadbare apparel; redolent of the idle lounge, and the blackguard companions, told us, we thought, that the widow’s comfort had rapidly faded away. We could imagine that coat—imagine! we could see it; we had seen it a hundred times—sauntering in company with three or four other coats of the same cut, about some place of profligate resort at night. We dressed, from the same shop-window in an instant, half a dozen boys of from fifteen to twenty; and putting cigars into their mouths, and their hands into their pockets, watched them as they sauntered down the street, and lingered at the corner with the obscene jest, and the often-repeated oath. We never lost sight of them, till they had cocked their hats a little more on one side, and swaggered into the public-house; and then we entered the desolate house, where the mother sat, late in the night, alone; we watched her, as she paced the room in feverish anxiety, and every now and then opened the door, looked wistfully into the dark and empty street, and again returned, to be again and again disappointed. We beheld the look of patience with which she bore the brutish threat, and the drunken blow; and we heard the agony of tears that gushed from her very heart as she sunk upon her knees in her solitary and wretched chamber. A long period had elapsed, and a greater change had taken place by the time of casting off the suit that hung above. It was that of a stout, broad-shouldered, sturdy-chested man; and we knew at once, as anybody would who glanced at that broad-skirted green coat, with the large metal buttons, that its wearer seldom walked forth without a dog at his heels, and some idle ruffian, the very counterpart of himself, at his side. The vices of the boy had grown with the man, and we fancied his home then—if such a place deserved the name. The bare and miserable room, destitute of furniture, crowded with his wife and children, pale, hungry, and emaciated; the man cursing their lamentations, staggering to the tap-room, from whence he had just returned, followed by his wife and a sickly infant, clamouring for bread; and heard the street wrangle and noisy recrimination that his striking her occasioned. And then imagination led us to some metropolitan workhouse, situated in the midst of crowded streets and alleys, filled with noxious vapours, and ringing with boisterous cries, where an old and feeble woman, imploring pardon for her son, lay dying in a close dark room, with no child to clasp her hand, and no pure air from Heaven to fan her brow. A stranger closed the eyes that settled into a cold unmeaning glare, and strange ears received the words that murmured from the white and half-closed lips. A coarse round frock, with a worn cotton neckerchief, and other articles of clothing of the commonest description, completed the history. A prison, and the sentence— banishment or the gallows. What would the man have given then to be once again the contented humble drudge of his boyish years—to have been restored to life, but for a week, a day, an hour, a minute—only for so long a time as would enable him to say one word of passionate regret to, and hear one sound of heartfelt forgiveness from—the cold and ghastly form that lay rotting in the pauper’s grave? The children wild in the streets, the mother a destitute widow; both deeply tainted with the deep disgrace of the husband and father’s name, and impelled, by sheer necessity, down the precipice that had led him to a lingering death, possibly of many years’ duration, thousands of miles away. We had no clue to the end of the tale; but it was easy to guess its termination. We took a step or two further on, and by way of restoring the naturally cheerful tone of our thoughts, began fitting visionary feet and legs into a cellar-board full of boots and shoes, with a speed and accuracy that would have astonished the most expert artist in leather, living. There was one pair of boots in particular—a jolly, good-tempered, hearty-looking pair of tops—that excited our warmest regard, and we had got a fine, red-faced jovial fellow of a market-gardener into them, before we had made their acquaintance half a minute. They were just the very thing for him. There was his huge fat legs bulging over the tops, and fitting them too tight to admit of his tucking in the loops he had pulled them on by, and his knee-cords with an interval of stocking, and his blue apron tucked up round his waist, and his red neckerchief and blue coat, and a white hat stuck on one side of his head; and there he stood with a broad grin on his great red face, whistling away as if any other idea but that of being happy and comfortable had never entered his brain. This was the very man after our own heart—we knew all about him—we had seen him coming up to Covent-garden in his green chaise-cart, with the fat, tubby little horse, half a thousand times; and even while we cast an affectionate look upon his boots at that instant, the form of a coquettish servant-maid suddenly sprung into a pair of Denmark satin-shoes that stood beside them, and we at once recognised the very girl that accepted his offer of a ride, just on this side the Hammersmith suspension-bridge, the very last Tuesday morning we rode into town from Richmond. A very smart female, in a showy bonnet, stepped into a pair of grey cloth boots with black fringe and binding, that were studiously pointing out their toes on the other side of the top-boots, and seemed very anxious to engage his attention, but we didn’t observe that our friend the market-gardener appeared at all captivated with these blandishments, for beyond giving a knowing wink when they first began, as if to imply that he quite understood their end and object, he took no further notice of them. His indifference, however, was amply recompensed by the excessive gallantry of a very old gentleman with a silver-headed stick, who tottered into a pair of large list shoes, that were standing in one corner of the board, and indulged in a variety of gestures expressive of his admiration of the lady in the cloth boots, to the immeasurable amusement of a young fellow we put into a pair of long-quartered pumps, who we thought would have split the coat that slid down to meet him with laughing. We had been looking on at this little pantomime with great satisfaction for some time, when, to our unspeakable astonishment, we perceived that the whole of the characters, including a numerous corps de ballet of boots and shoes in the back-ground, into which we had been hastily thrusting as many feet as we could press into the service, were arranging themselves in order for dancing; and some music striking up at the moment, to it they went without delay. It was perfectly delightful to witness the agility of the market-gardener. Out went the boots, first on one side, then on the other, then cutting, then shuffling, then setting to the Denmark satins, then advancing, then retreating, then going round, and then repeating the whole of the evolutions again, without appearing to suffer in the least from the violence of the exercise. Nor were the Denmark satins a bit behind-hand, for they jumped and bounded about in all directions; and though they were neither so regular, nor so true to the time as the cloth boots, still, as they seemed to do it from the heart, and to enjoy it more, we candidly confess that we preferred their style of dancing to the other. But the old gentleman in the list shoes was the most amusing object in the whole party; for, besides his grotesque attempts to appear youthful, and amorous, which were sufficiently entertaining in themselves, the young fellow in the pumps managed so artfully that every time the old gentleman advanced to salute the lady in the cloth boots, he trod with his whole weight on the old fellow’s toes, which made him roar with anguish, and rendered all the others like to die of laughing. We were in the full enjoyment of these festivities when we heard a shrill, and by no means musical voice, exclaim, &quot;Hope you’ll know me agin, imperence;&quot; and on looking intently forward to see from whence the sound came, we found that it proceeded, not from the young lady in the cloth boots, as we had at first been inclined to suppose, but from a bulky lady of elderly appearance who was seated in a chair at the head of the cellar-steps, apparently for the purpose of superintending the sale of the articles arranged there. A barrel-organ, which had been in full force close behind us, ceased playing; the people we had been fitting into the shoes and boots took to flight at the interruption; and as we were conscious that in the depth of our meditations we might have been rudely staring at the old lady for half an hour without knowing it, we took to flight too, and were soon immersed in the deepest obscurity of the adjacent &quot;Dials.&quot;18360924https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/New_Series_No._1_Meditations_in_Monmouth-Street/1836-09-24-The-Morning_Chronicle_New_Series_I_Meditations_in_Monmouth_Street.pdf
138https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/138<em>'New Series</em>, No. 2, 'Scotland Yard'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle</em> (4 October 1836), p.3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive, </em><a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18361004/009/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18361004/009/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-10-04">1836-10-04</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1836-10-04-The-Morning_Chronicle__New_Series_No2_Scotland_YardDickens, Charles. '<em>New Series</em>, No. II, Scotland Yard' (4 October 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].<a href="1836-10-04-The-Morning_Chronicle__New_Series_No2_Scotland_Yard">1836-10-04-The-Morning_Chronicle__New_Series_No2_Scotland_Yard</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>If our recollection serves us, we have more than once hinted, confidentially, to our readers that we entertain a strong partiality for the queer little old streets which yet remain in some parts of London, and that we infinitely prefer them to the modern innovations, the wide streets with broad pavements, which are every day springing up around us. The old Exeter &#039;Change, for instance, and the narrow and dirty part of the Strand immediatley adjoining, we were warmly attached to. The death of the elephant was a great shock to us; we knew him well; and, having enjoyed the honour of his intimate acquaintance for some years, felt grieved—deeply grieved—that in a paroxysm of insanity he should have so far forgotten all his estimable and companionable qualities as to exhibit a sanguinary desire to scrunch his faithful valet, and pulverize even Mrs. Cross herself, who for a long period had evinced towards him that pure and touching attachment which woman alone can feel. This was a sad blow to us. The constitution of the beef-eater at the door sunk beneath the loss of the elephant; this was another. They pulled down Exeter &#039;Change itself; this was a greater trial than either but we got over it in time. And since that period the rage for improvement has exposed us to so many melancholy trials of a similar description, that we have grown callous to suffering, and the only effect of our persecutions is to render us more attached than ever to the few old spots that are yet left us. Of these, there is no one which, having a peculiar character of its own, preserved it so tenaciously, or took an honest pride in it so long, as Scotland-yard. It is so thoroughly a little colony of itself, it is so utterly unlike any other part of London, that a slight account of its progress and history has always seemed to us to be imperatively called for. None has as yet appeared, however, and we now take pen in hand, more with the view of throwing out a few slight hints for the guidance of future historians, than with any idea of developing with the ability which such an empire demands, the past and present state of this little empire. Scotland-yard, then, is a small—a very small—tract of land, bounded on one side by the river Thames, on the other by the gardens of Northumberland-house: abutting at one end on the bottom of Northumberland-street, at the other on the back of Whitehall-place. When this territory was first accidentally discovered by a country gentleman who lost his way in the Strand some years ago, the original settlers were found to be a tailor, a publican, two eating-house-keepers, and a fruit-pie-maker; and it was also found to contain a race of strong and bulky men, who repaired to the wharfs in Scotland-yard regularly every morning about five or six o’clock, to fill heavy waggons with coal, with which they proceeded to distant places up the country, and supplied the inhabitants with fuel. When they had emptied their waggons they again returned for a fresh supply, and this trade was continued throughout the year. As the settlers derived their subsistence from ministering to the wants of these primitive traders, the articles exposed for sale, and the places where they were sold, bore strong outward marks of being expressly adapted to their tastes and wishes. The tailor displayed in his window a Lilliputian pair of leather gaiters, and a diminutive round frock, while each doorpost was appropriately garnished with a model of a coal sack. The two eating-house-keepers exhibited joints of a magnitude and puddings of a solidity which coal-heavers alone could appreciate; and the fruit-pie-maker displayed on his well-scrubbed window-board large white compositions of flour and dripping ornamented with pink stains giving rich promise of the fruit within, which made their huge mouths water, as they lingered past. But the choicest spot in all Scotland-yard, was the old public-house in the corner. Here, in a dark, wainscotted room of ancient appearance, cheered by the glow of a mighty fire, and decorated with an enormous clock, whereof the face was white, and the figures black, sat the lusty coal-heavers, quaffing large draughts of Barclay’s best, and puffing forth volumes of smoke, which wreathed heavily above their heads, and involved the room in a thick dark cloud. From this apartment might their voices be heard on a winter’s night, penetrating to the very bank of the river, as they shouted out some sturdy chorus, or roared forth the burden of a popular song; dwelling upon the last few words with a strength and length of emphasis which made the very roof tremble above them. Here, too, would they tell old legends of what the Thames was in ancient times, when the Patent Shot Manufactory wasn’t built, and Waterloo-bridge had never been thought of; and then they would shake their heads with portentous looks, to the deep edification of the rising generation of heavers, who crowded round them, and wondered where all this would end, whereat the tailor would take his pipe solemnly from his mouth, and say, how that he hoped it might end well, but he very much doubted whether it would or not, and couldn’t rightly tell what to make of it—a mysterious expression of opinion, delivered with a semi-prophetic air, which never failed to elicit the fullest concurrence of the assembled company, and so they would go on drinking and wondering till ten o’clock came, and with it the tailor’s wife to fetch him home, when the little party broke up, to meet again in the same room, and say and do precisely the same things, on the following evening, at the same hour. About this time the barges that came up the river began to bring vague rumours to Scotland-yard of somebody in the city having been heard to say, that the Lord Mayor had threatened in so many words to pull down the old London-bridge and build up a new one. At first these rumours were disregarded as idle tales, wholly destitute of foundation, for nobody in Scotland-yard doubted that if the Lord Mayor contemplated any such dark design, he would just be clapped up in the Tower for a week or two, and then killed off for high treason. By degrees, however, the reports grew stronger, and more frequent, and at last a barge laden with numerous chaldrons of the best Wallsend brought up the positive intelligence that several of the arches of the old bridge were &#039;stopped, and that preparations were actually in progress for constructing the new one. What an excitement was visible in the old tap-room on that memorable night! Each man looked into his neighbour’s face, pale with alarm and astonishment, and read therein an echo of the sentiments which filled his own breast. The oldest heaver present proved to demonstration that the moment the piers were removed all the water in the Thames would run clean off, and leave a dry gulley in its place. What was to become of the coal-barges, - of the trade of Scotland-yard,—of the very existence of its population? The tailor shook his head more sagely than usual, and grimly pointing to a knife on the table, bid them wait and see what happened. He said nothing—not he; but if the Lord Mayor didn’t fall a victim to popular indignation, why he would be rather astonished; that was all. They did wait; barge after barge arrived, and still no tidings of the assassination of the Lord Mayor. The first stone was laid: it was done by a Duke—the King’s brother. Years passed away, and the bridge was opened by the King himself. In course of time, the piers were removed; and when the people in Scotland-yard got up next morning in the confident expectation of being able to step over to Pedlar’s-acre without wetting the soles of their shoes, they found to their unspeakable astonishment that the water was just where it used to be. A result so different from that which they had anticipated from this first improvement produced its full effect upon the inhabitants of Scotland-yard. One of the eating-house-keepers began to court public opinion, and to look for customers among a new class of people. He covered his little dining-tables with white cloths, and got a painter’s apprentice to inscribe something about hot joints from twelve till two in one of the little panes of his shop window. Improvement began to march with rapid strides to the very threshold of Scotland-yard. A new market sprung up at Hungerford, and the Police Commissioners established their office in Whitehall-place. The traffic in Scotland-yard increased; fresh Members were added to the House of Commons, the Metropolitan Representatives found it a near cut, and many other foot passengers followed their example. We marked the advance of civilization, and beheld it with a sigh. The eating-house-keeper who manfully resisted the innovation of table-cloth, was losing ground every day, as his opponent gained it; a deadly feud sprung up between them, and the genteel one no longer took his evening’s pint in Scotland-yard, but drank gin and water at a &quot;parlour&quot; in Parliament-street. The fruit-pie maker still continued to visit the old room, but he took to smoking cigars, and began to call himself a pastry-cook, and to read the papers. The old heavers still assembled round the ancient fireplace, but their talk was mournful; and the loud song and the joyous shout were heard no more. And what is Scotland-yard now? How have its old customs changed; and how has the ancient simplicity of its inhabitants faded away! The old tottering public-house is converted into a spacious and lofty &quot;wine-vaults;&quot; gold leaf has been used in the construction of the letters which emblazon its exterior, and the poet’s art has been called into requisition to intimate that if you drink a certain description of ale you must hold fast by the rail. The tailor exhibits in his window the pattern of a foreign-looking brown surtout, with silk buttons, a fur collar, and fur cuffs. He wears a stripe down the outside of each leg of his trousers, and we have detected his assistants (for he has assistants now) in the act of sitting on the shop-board in the same uniform. At the other end of the little row of houses a boot-maker has established himself in a brick box, with the additional innovation of a first floor; and here he exposes for sale, boots—real Wellington boots—an article which a few years ago, none of the original inhabitants had ever seen or heard of. It was but the other day, that a dress-maker opened another little box in the middle of the row; and, when we thought that the spirit of change could produce no alteration beyond that, a jeweller appeared, and not content with exposing gilt rings and copper bracelets out of number, put up an announcement, which still sticks in his window, that ladies’ ears may be pierced, within. The dress-maker employs a young lady who wears pockets in her apron, and the tailor informs the public that gentlemen may have their own materials made up. Amidst all this change, and restlessness, and innovation, there remains but one old man who seems to mourn the downfall of this ancient place. He holds no converse with human kind, but, seated on a wooden bench at the angle of the wall which fronts the crossing from Whitehall-place, watches in silence the gambols of his sleek and well-fed dogs. He is the presiding genius of Scotland-yard. Years and years have rolled over his head; but, in fine weather or in foul, hot or cold, wet or dry, hail, rain, or snow, he is still in his accustomed spot. Misery and want are depicted in his countenance; his form is bent by age, his head is grey with length of trial, but there he sits from day to day, brooding over the past, and thither he will continue to drag his feeble limbs, until his eyes have closed upon Scotland-yard and upon the world together. A few years hence, and the antiquary of another generation, looking into some mouldy record of the strife and passions that agitated the world in these times, may glance his eye over the column we have just filled: and not all his knowledge of the history of the past—not the dry studies of a whole life—may help him to the whereabout either of Scotland-yard, or any one of the land marks we have mentioned in describing it.18361004https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/New_Series_No._2_Scotland_Yard/1836-10-04-The-Morning_Chronicle__New_Series_No2_Scotland_Yard.pdf
139https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/139<em>'New Series</em>, No. 3, Doctors' Commons'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle</em> (11 October 1836), p.3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18361011/005/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18361011/005/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-10-11">1836-10-11</a><em>The British Newspaper Archive.</em> Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1836-10-11-The_Morning_Chronicle_New_Series_No3_Doctors_CommonsDickens, Charles. '<em>New Series</em>, No. III, Doctors' Commons' (11 October 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="1836-10-11-The_Morning_Chronicle_New_Series_No3_Doctors_Commons">1836-10-11-The_Morning_Chronicle_New_Series_No3_Doctors_Commons</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>Walking, without any definite object, through St. Paul’s Church-yard, a little while ago, we happened to turn down a street entitled &quot;Paul’s-chain,&quot; and keeping straight forward for a few hundred yards, found ourself, as a natural consequence, in Doctors’ Commons. Now, Doctors’ Commons being familiar by name to everybody as the place where they grant marriage-licenses to love-sick couples, and divorces to unfaithful ones; register the wills of people who have any property to leave, and punish hasty gentlemen who call ladies by unpleasant names; we no sooner discovered that we were really within its precincts, than we felt a laudable desire to become better acquainted therewith; and as the first object of our curiosity was the Court whose decrees can even unloose the bonds of matrimony, we procured a direction to it, and bent our steps thither without delay. Crossing a quiet and shady court-yard, paved with stone, and frowned upon by old red-brick houses, on the doors of which were painted the names of sundry learned civilians, we paused before a small, green-baized, brass-headed-nailed door, which, yielding to our gentle push, at once admitted us into an old quaint-looking apartment, with sunken windows, and black carved wainscoting, at the upper end of which, seated on a raised platform, of semicircular shape, were about a dozen solemn-looking gentlemen, in crimson gowns and wigs. At a more elevated desk, in the centre, sat a very fat and red-faced gentleman, in tortoise-shell spectacles, whose dignified appearance announced the judge; and round a long green-baized table below, something like a billiard-table without the cushions and pockets, were a number of very self-important-looking personages, in stiff neckcloths and black gowns with white fur collars, whom we at once set down as proctors. At the lower end of the billiard-table was an individual in an arm-chair, and a wig, whom we afterwards discovered to be the registrar; and seated behind a little desk, near the door, were a respectable-looking man in black, of about twenty stone weight or thereabouts, and a fat-faced, smirking, civil-looking body, in a black gown, black kid gloves, knee shorts, and silks, with a shirt-frill in his bosom, curls on his head, and a silver staff in his hand, whom we had no difficulty in recognising as the officers of the Court. The latter, indeed, speedily set our mind at rest upon this point, for advancing to our elbow, and opening a conversation forthwith, he had communicated to us in less than five minutes that he was the apparitor, and the other the court-keeper; that this was the Arches Court, and therefore the counsel wore red gowns, and the proctors fur collars; and that when the other Courts sat there, they didn’t wear red gowns or fur collars either; with many other scraps of intelligence equally interesting. Besides these two officers, there was a little thin old man, with long grizzly hair, crouched in a remote corner, whose duty our communicative friend informed us was to ring a large hand-bell when the Court opened in the morning, and who, for aught his appearance betokened to the contrary, might have been similarly employed for the last two centuries at least. The red-faced gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles had got all the talk to himself just then, and very well he was doing it, too, only he spoke very fast, but that was habit; and rather thick, but that was good-living. So we had plenty of time to look about us. There was one individual amused us mightily. This was one of the bewigged gentlemen in the red robes, who was straddling before the fire in the centre of the Court, in the attitude of the brazen colossus, to the complete exclusion of everybody else. He had gathered up his robe behind, in much the same manner as a slovenly woman would her petticoats on a very dirty day, in order that he might feel the full warmth of the fire. His wig was put on all awry, with the tail straggling about his neck, his scanty gray trowsers and short black gaiters, made in the worst possible style, imported an additional inelegant appearance to his uncouth person; and his limp, badly-starched shirt-collar almost obscured his eyes. We shall never be able to claim any credit as a physiognomist again, for, after a careful scrutiny of this gentleman’s countenance, we had come to the conclusion that it bespoke nothing but conceit and silliness, when our friend with the silver staff whispered in our ear that he was no other than a doctor of law, an ecclesiastical dignitary in the cinque ports, a not very distant relation to a commissioner of lunacy, and heaven knows what besides. So of course we were mistaken, and he must be a very talented man. He conceals it so well though—perhaps with the merciful view of not astonishing ordinary people too much—that you would suppose him to be one of the stupidest dogs alive. The gentleman in the spectacles having concluded his judgment, and a few minutes having been allowed to elapse, to afford time for the buzz of the court to subside, the registrar called on the next cause, which was &quot;the office of the Judge promoted by Bumple against Sludberry.&quot; A general movement was visible in the court at this announcement, and the obliging functionary with silver staff whispered us that &quot;there would be some fun now, for this was a brawling case.&quot; We were not rendered much the wiser by this piece of information till we found by the opening speech of the counsel for their promoter that, under a half-obsolete statute of one of the Edwards, the court was empowered to visit with the penalty of excommunication any person who should be proved guilty of the crime of &quot;brawling&quot; or &quot;smiting&quot; in any church, or vestry adjoining thereto; and it appeared, by some eight-and-twenty affidavits, which were duly referred to, that on a certain night, at a certain vestry, meeting in a certain parish particularly set forth, Thomas Sludberry, the party appeared against in that suit, had made use of and applied to Michael Bumple, the reporter, the words &quot;You be blowed;&quot; and that on the said Michael Bumple and others remonstrating with the said Thomas Sludberry on the impropriety of his conduct, the said Thomas Sludberry repeated the aforesaid expression, &quot;You be blowed;&quot; and furthermore desired and requested to know, whether the said Michael Bumple &quot;wanted anything for himself;&quot; adding, ‘that if the said Michael Bumple did want anything for himself, he the said Thomas Sludberry &quot;was the man to give it him;&quot; at the same time making use of other heinous and sinful expressions, all of which, Bumple submitted, came within the intent and meaning of the Act; and therefore he, for the soul’s health and chastening of Sludberry, prayed for sentence of excommunication against him accordingly. Upon these facts a long argument was entered into on both sides, to the great edification of a number of persons interested in the parochial squabbles, who crowded the court; and when some very long and grave speeches had been made pro and con, the red-faced gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles took a review of the case, which occupied half an hour more, and then pronounced upon Sludberry the awful sentence of excommunication for a fortnight, and payment of the costs of the suit. Upon this, Sludberry, who was a little, red-faced, sly-looking, ginger-beer seller, addressed the Court, and said, if they’d be good enough to take off the costs, and excommunicate him for the term of his natural life instead, it would be much more convenient to him; for he never went to church at all. To this appeal the gentleman in the spectacles made no other reply than a look of virtuous propriety; and Sludberry and his friends retired. As the man with the silver staff informed us that the Court was on the point of rising, we retired too—pondering, as we walked away, upon the beautiful spirit of these ancient ecclesiastical laws, the kind and neighbourly feelings they are calculated to awaken, and the strong attachment to religious institutions which they cannot fail to engender. We were so lost in these meditations, that we had turned into the street and run up against a door-post, before we recollected where we were walking. On looking upwards to see what house we had stumbled upon, the words &quot;Prerogative-office,&quot; written in large characters, met our eye; and as we were in a sight-seeing humour, and the place was a public one, we walked in, without more ado. The room into which we walked, was a long, busy-looking place, partitioned off, on either side, into a variety of little boxes, in which a few clerks were engaged in copying or examining deeds. Down the centre of the room were several desks, nearly breast high, at each of which three or four people were standing, poring over large volumes. As we knew that they were searching for wills, they attracted our attention at once. It was curious to contrast the lazy indifference of the attorneys’ clerks, who were making a search for some legal purpose, with the air of earnestness and interest which distinguished the strangers to the place, who were looking up the will of some deceased relative; the former pausing every now and then with an impatient yawn, or raising their heads to look at the people who passed up and down the room; the latter stooping over the book, and running down column after column of names in the deepest abstraction. There was one little dirty-faced man in a blue apron, who after a whole morning’s search, extending some fifty years back, had just found the will to which he wished to refer, which one of the officials was reading to him in a low hurried voice from a thick vellum book with large clasps. It was perfectly evident that the more the clerk read, the less the man with the blue apron understood about the matter. When the volume was first brought down, he took off his hat, smoothed down his hair, smiled with great self-satisfaction, and looked up in the reader’s face with the air of a man who had made up his mind to recollect every word he heard. The first two or three lines were intelligible enough; but then the technicalities began, and the little man began to look rather dubious. Then came a whole string of complicated trusts, and he was regularly at sea. As the reader proceeded, it was quite apparent that it was a hopeless case, and the little man, with his mouth open and his eyes fixed upon his face, looked on with an expression of bewilderment and perplexity irresistibly ludicrous. A little further on, a hard-featured old man with a deeply-wrinkled face, was intently perusing a lengthy will with the aid of a pair of horn spectacles, occasionally pausing from his task, and slily noting down some brief memorandum of the bequests contained in it. Every wrinkle about his toothless mouth, and sharp keen eyes, told of avarice and cunning. As he leisurely closed the register, put up his spectacles, and folded his scraps of paper in a large leathern pocket-book, we thought what a nice hard bargain he was driving with some poverty-stricken legatee, who, tired of waiting year after year, until some life-interest should fall in, was selling his chance, just as it began to grow most valuable, for a twelfth part of its worth. It was a good speculation—a very safe one. The old man stowed away his pocket-book in the breast of his great-coat, and hobbled away with a leer of anticipation. That will had made him ten years younger at least. Having commenced our observations, we should certainly have extended them to another dozen of people at least, had not a sudden shutting up, and putting away of the worm-eaten old books, warned us that the time for closing the office had arrived, and thus deprived us of a pleasure, and spared our readers an infliction. We naturally fell into a train of reflection as we walked homewards upon the curious old records of likings and dislikings; of jealousies and revenges; of affection defying the power of death, and hatred pursued beyond the grave, which these depositories contain; silent but striking tokens, some of them, of excellence of heart, and nobleness of soul; melancholy examples, others, of the worst passions of human nature. In short, the subject obtained such complete possession of us, that if we fail to write a whole paper about it one of these days we shall be rather surprised.18361011https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/New_Series_No._3_Doctors_Commons/1836-10-11-The_Morning_Chronicle_New_Series_No3_Doctors_Commons.pdf
166https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/166<em>'New Series</em>, No. 4, Vauxhall-Gardens by Day'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle</em> (26 October 1836), p. 3.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18361026/006/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000082/18361026/006/0003</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836-10-26">1836-10-26</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1836-10-26-VauxhallGardens_by_DayDickens, Charles. '<em>New Series</em>, No. 4, 'Vauxhall-Gardens by Day' (26 October 1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-10-26-VauxhallGardens_by_Day">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-10-26-VauxhallGardens_by_Day</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>There was a time when if a man ventured to wonder how Vauxhall-gardens would look by day, he was hailed with a shout of derision at the absurdity of the idea. Vauxhall by day-light! A porter pot without porter, the House of Commons without the Speaker, a gas lamp without the gas—pooh, nonsense, the thing was not to be thought of. It was rumoured, too, in those times, that Vauxhall-gardens by day were the scene of secret and hidden experiments; that there, carvers were exercised in the mystic art of cutting a moderate sized ham into slices thin enough to pave the whole of the grounds; that beneath the shade of the tall trees, studious men were constantly engaged in chemical experiments, with the view of discovering how much water a bowl of negus could possibly bear; and that in some retired nooks, appropriated to the study of ornithology, other sage and learned men were, by a process known only to themselves, incessantly employed in reducing fowls to a mere combination of skin and bone. Vague rumours of this kind, together with many others of a similar nature, cast over Vauxhall-gardens an air of deep mystery; and as there is a great deal in the mysterious, there is no doubt that to a good many people, at all events, the pleasure they afforded was not a little enhanced by this very circumstance. Of this class of people we confess to having made one. We loved to wander among these illuminated groves, thinking of the patient and laborious researches which had been carried on there during the day, and witnessing their results in the suppers which were served up, beneath the light of lamps, and to the sound of music at night. The temples and saloons and cosmoramas and fountains glittered and sparkled before our eyes; the beauty of the lady singers and the elegant deportment of the gentlemen captivated our hearts; a few hundred thousand of additional lamps dazzled our senses; a bowl or two of reeking punch bewildered our brains; and we were happy. In an evil hour, the proprietors of Vauxhall-gardens took to opening them by day. We regretted this as rudely and harshly disturbing that veil of mystery which had hung about the property for many years, and which none but the noon-day Sun and the late Mr. Simpson had ever penetrated. We shrunk from going; at this moment we scarcely know why. Perhaps a morbid consciousness of approaching disappointment—perhaps a fatal presentiment—perhaps the weather; whatever it was, we did not go until the second or third announcement of a race between two balloons tempted us, and we went. We paid our shilling at the gate, and then we saw, for the first time, that the entrance, if there had been any magic about it at all, was now decidedly disenchanted, being, in fact, nothing more nor less than a combination of very roughly-painted boards and saw-dust. We glanced at the orchestra and supper-room as we hurried past—we just recognised them, and that was all. We bent our steps to the firework-ground; there, at least, we should not be disappointed. We reached it, and stood rooted to the spot with mortification and astonishment. That the Moorish tower—that wooden shed with a door in the centre, and daubs of crimson and yellow all round, like a gigantic watch-case! That the place where night after night we had beheld the undaunted Mr. Blackmore make his terrific ascent, surrounded by flames of fire, and peals of artillery, and where the white garments of Madame Somebody or other, who nobly devoted her life to the manufacture of fireworks, had so often been seen fluttering in the wind, as she called up a red, blue, or party-coloured light to illumine her temple! That the—but at this moment the bell rung—the people scampered away, pell-mell, to the spot from whence the sound proceeded, and we, from the mere force of habit, found ourself running among the first, as if for very life. It was for the concert in the orchestra. A small party of dismal men in cocked hats were &quot;executing&quot; the overture to Tancredi, and a numerous assemblage of ladies and gentlemen, with their families, had rushed from their half-emptied stout mugs in the supper boxes, and crowded to the spot. Intense was the low murmur of admiration when a particularly small gentleman, in a dress coat, led on a particularly tall lady in a blue sarcenet pelisse and bonnet of the same, ornamented with large white feathers, and forthwith commenced a plaintive duet. We knew the small gentleman well; we had seen a lithographed semblance of him on many a piece of music, with his mouth wide open as if in the act of singing; a wine glass in his hand, and a table with two decanters and four pine-apples on it in the background. The tall lady, too, we had gazed on, lost in raptures of admiration, many and many a time—how different people do look by daylight and without punch, to be sure! It was a beautiful duet: first the small gentleman asked a question, and then the tall lady answered it; then the small gentleman and the tall lady sang together most melodiously; then the small gentleman went through a little piece of vehemence by himself, and got very tenor indeed in the excitement of his feelings, to which the tall lady responded in a similar manner; then the small gentleman had a shake or two, after which the tall lady had the same, and then they both merged imperceptibly into the original air, and the band wound themselves up to a pitch of fury and the small gentleman handed the tall lady out, and the applause was rapturous. The comic singer, however, was the especial favourite; we really thought that a gentleman with his dinner in a pocket handkerchief, who stood near us, would have fainted with excess of joy. A fearfully facetious old man that comic singer is; his distinguishing characteristics are, a wig approaching to the flaxen, and an aged countenance, and he bears the name of one of the English counties, if we recollect right. He sang a song about the seven ages, the first half hour of which seemed to afford the assembly the purest delight; of the rest we can make no report, as we did not stay to hear any more. We walked about, and met with a disappointment at every turn; our favourite views were mere patches of paint; the fountain that had sparkled so showily by lamp-light, presented very much the appearance of a water-pipe that had burst; all the ornaments were dingy, and all the walks gloomy. There was a spectral attempt at rope-dancing in the little open theatre; the sun shone upon the spangled dresses of the performers, and their evolutions were about as inspiriting and appropriate as a country dance in a family vault. So we retraced our steps to the firework-ground, and mingled with the little crowd of people who were contemplating Mr. Green. Some half-dozen men were restraining the impetuosity of one of the balloons, which was completely filled, and had the car already attached; and as rumours had gone abroad that a lord was &quot;going up,&quot; the crowd were more than usually anxious and talkative. There was one little man in faded black, with a dirty face and a rusty black neckerchief with a red border, tied in a narrow wisp round his neck, who entered into conversation with everybody, and had something to say upon every remark that was made within his hearing. He was standing with his arms folded, staring up at the balloon, and every now and then vented his feelings of reverence for the aeronaut, by saying, as he looked round to catch somebody’s eye, &quot;He’s a rum ’un is Green; think o’ this here being up’ards of his two hundredth ascent; by God, the man as is ekal to Green never had the tooth-ache yet, nor wo&#039;nt have within this hundred year, and that’s all about it. Wen you meets with real talent, and native, too, encourage it, that’s wot I say;&quot; and when he had delivered himself to this effect, he would fold his arms with more determination than ever, and stare at the balloon with a sort of admiring defiance of any other man alive, beyond himself and Green, that impressed the crowd with the opinion that he was an oracle. &quot;Ah, you’re very right, sir,&quot; said another gentleman, with his wife, and children, and mother, and wife’s sister, and a host of female friends, in all the gentility of white pocket-handkerchiefs, frills, and spencers, &quot;Mr. Green is a steady hand, sir, and there’s no fear about him.&quot; &quot;Fear!&quot; said the little man: &quot;ain&#039;t it a lovely thing to see him and his wife a going up in one balloon, and his own son and his wife a jostling up agin &#039;em in another, and all of &#039;em going twenty or thirty mile in three hours or so, and then coming back in po-chayses? I don’t know where this here science is to stop, mind you; that’s what bothers me.&quot; Here there was a considerable talking among the females in the spencers. &quot;What’s the ladies a laughing at, sir?&quot; inquired the little man, condescendingly. &quot;It’s only my sister Mary,&quot; said one of the girls, &quot;as says she hopes his Lordship won’t be frightened when he’s in the car, and want to come out agin.&quot; &quot;Make yourself easy about that there, my dear,&quot; replied the little man. &quot;If he was so much as to move a inch without leave, Green would jist fetch him a crack over the head with the telescope, as vid send him into the bottom of the basket in no time, and stun him till they come down again.&quot; &quot;Would he, though?&quot; inquired the other man. &quot;Yes, by God, would he,&quot; replied the little one, &#039;and think nothing of it, neither, if he was the king himself. Green’s presence of mind is wonderful.&quot; Just at this moment all eyes were directed to the preparations which were being made for starting. The car was attached to the second balloon, the two were brought pretty close together, and a military band commenced playing with a zeal and fervour which would render the most timid man in existence but too happy to accept any means of quitting that particular spot of earth on which they were stationed. Then Mr. Green, sen., and his noble companion entered one car, and Mr. Green, jun., and his companion the other; and then the balloons went up, and the aerial travellers stood up, and the crowd outside roared with delight, and the two gentlemen who had never ascended before, tried to wave their flags, as if they were not nervous, but held on very fast all the while, and the balloons were wafted gently away, our little friend solemnly protesting, long after they were reduced to mere specks in the air, that he could still distinguish the white hat of Mr. Green; the gardens disgorged their multitudes, boys ran up and down screaming &quot;bal-loon,&quot; and in all the crowded thoroughfares people rushed out of their shops into the middle of the road, and having stared up in the air at two little black objects till they almost dislocated their necks, walked slowly in again, perfectly satisfied. The next day there was a grand account of the ascent in the morning papers, and the public were informed how it was the finest day but four in Mr. Green’s remembrance; how they retained sight of the earth till they lost it behind the clouds; and how the reflection of the balloon on the undulating masses of vapour was gorgeously picturesque; together with a little science about the refraction of the sun’s rays, and some mysterious hints respecting atmospheric heat and eddying currents of air. There was also an interesting account how a man in a boat was distinctly heard by Mr. Green, jun., to exclaim, &quot;My eye!&quot; which Mr. Green, jun., attributed to his voice rising to the balloon, and the sound being thrown back from its surface into the car; and the whole concluded with a slight allusion to another ascent next Wednesday, all of which was very instructive and very amusing, as our readers will see if they look to the papers. If we have forgotten to mention the date, they have only to wait till next summer and take the account of the first ascent, and it will answer the purpose equally well.18361026https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/New_Series_No._4_Vauxhall-Gardens_by_Day/1836-10-26-VauxhallGardens_by_Day.pdf
220https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/220<em>'Street Sketches,</em> No. V, Brokers and Marine Store Shops'Published in <em>The Morning Chronicle</em> on 15 December 1834.Dickens, Charles<em>The British Newspaper Archive,</em> <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18341215/021/0006">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18341215/021/0006</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1834-12-15">1834-12-15</a><p><em>The British Newspaper Archive. </em>Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1834-12-15-Street_Sketches_No5_Brokers_and_Marine_Store_ShopsDickens, Charles. '<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. V, Brokers and Marine Store Shops' (15 December 1834). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-12-15-Street_Sketches_No5_Brokers_and_Marine_Store_Shops">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1834-12-15-Street_Sketches_No5_Brokers_and_Marine_Store_Shops</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Morning+Chronicle%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Morning Chronicle</em></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>When we affirm that brokers’ shops are strange places, and that if an authentic history of their contents could be procured, it would furnish many a page of amusement, and many a melancholy tale, it is necessary to explain the class of shops to which we allude. Perhaps when we make use of the term &quot;brokers’ shops,&quot; the minds of our readers will at once picture large, handsome warehouses, exhibiting a long perspective of French-polished dining-tables, rosewood chiffoniers, and mahogany wash-hand stands, with an occasional vista of a four-post bedstead and hangings, and an appropriate fore-ground of dining-room chairs. Perhaps they will imagine that we mean an humble class of second-hand furniture repositories. Their imagination will then naturally lead them to that street at the back of Long-acre, which is composed almost entirely of brokers’ shops, where you walk through groves of deceitful, showy-looking furniture, and where the prospect is occasionally enlivened by a bright red, blue, and yellow hearth-rug, embellished with the pleasing device of a mail-coach at full speed, or a strange animal, supposed to have been originally intended for a dog, with a mass of worsted-work in his mouth, which conjecture has likened to a basket of flowers. This, by-the-bye, is a tempting article to young wives in the humbler ranks of life, who have a first-floor front to furnish; they are lost in admiration, and hardly know which to admire most. The dog is very beautiful, but they have a dog already on the best tea-tray, and two more on the mantel piece. Then there is something so genteel about that mail-coach; and the passengers outside (who are all hat) give it such an air of reality! There are some of the most beautiful looking Pembroke tables that ever were beheld: the wood as green as the trees in the Park, and the leaves almost as certain to fall off in the course of a year. There is also a most extensive assortment of tent and turn-up bedsteads, made of stained wood; and innumerable specimens of that base Imposition on society—a sofa bedstead. A turn-up bedstead is a blunt, honest piece of furniture; it may be slightly disguised with a sham drawer, and sometimes a mad attempt is even made to pass it off for a book-case; ornament it as you will, however, the turn-up bedstead seems to defy disguise, and to insist on having it distinctly understood that he is a turn-up bedstead, and nothing else; that he is indispensably necessary; and that, being so useful, he disdains to be ornamental. How different is the demeanour of a sofa-bedstead! Ashamed of its real use, it strives to appear an article of luxury and gentility, an attempt in which it miserably fails. It has neither the respectability of a sofa, nor the virtues of a bed; every man who keeps a sofa-bedstead in his house, becomes a party to a wilful and designing fraud—we question whether you could insult him more than by insinuating that you entertain the least suspicion of its real use. To return from this digression, we beg to say, that neither of these classes of brokers’ shops forms the subject of our fifth sketch. The shops to which we advert, are immeasurably inferior to those on whose outward appearance we have slightly touched. Our readers must often have observed in some bye-street in a poor neighbourhood, a small, dirty shop, exposing for sale the most extraordinary and confused jumble of old, worn-out, wretched articles, that can well be imagined. Our wonder at their ever having been bought, is only to be equalled by our astonishment at the idea of their ever being sold again. On a board, at the side of the door, are placed about twenty books—all odd volumes, and as many wine-glasses—all different patterns; several locks, an old earthen-ware pan, full of rusty keys; two or three gaudy chimney-ornaments—cracked, of course; the remains of a lustre, without any drops, a round frame like a capital O, which has once held a mirror; a flute, complete, with the exception of the middle joint; a pair of curling-irons, and a tinder-box. In front of the shop-window, are ranged some half-dozen high-backed chairs, with spinal complaints and wasted legs; a corner cupboard; two or three very dark mahogany tables, with flaps like mathematical problems; some pickle jars, some surgeons’ ditto, with gilt labels, and without stoppers; an unframed portrait of some lady who flourished about the beginning of the thirteenth century, by an artist who never flourished at all; an incalculable host of miscellanies of every description; including bottles and cabinets, rags and bones, fenders and street-door knockers, fire irons, wearing apparel and bedding, a hall-lamp, and a room-door. Imagine, in addition to this incongruous mass, a black doll in a white frock with two faces, one looking up the street, and the other looking down, swinging over the door; a board with the squeezed-up inscription &quot;Dealer in Marine Stores,&quot; in lanky white letters, whose height is strangely out of proportion to their width; and you have before you precisely the kind of shop to which we wish to direct your attention. Although the same heterogeneous mixture of things which we have attempted to describe, will be found at all these places, it is curious to observe how truly and accurately some of the minor articles which are exposed for sale—articles of wearing apparel, for instance—mark the character of the neighbourhood. Take Drury-Lane and Covent-garden for example. This is essentially a theatrical neighbourhood. There is not a pot-boy in the vicinity who is not, to a greater or less extent, a dramatic character. The errand-boys and chandler’s-shop-keepers’ sons, are all stage-struck; they &quot;get up&quot; plays in back kitchens hired for the purpose, and will stand before a shop window for hours, contemplating a great staring portrait of Mr. Somebody or other, of the Royal Coburg Theatre, &quot;as he appeared in the character of Tongo the Denouncer.&quot; The consequence is, that there is not a marine-store shop in the neighbourhood which does not exhibit for sale some faded articles of dramatic finery, such as three or four pairs of soiled buff boots with turn-over red tops, heretofore worn by a &quot;fourth robber&quot; or &quot;fifth mob;&quot; a pair of rusty broad swords, a few gauntlets, and certain resplendent ornaments, which, if they were yellow instead of white, might be taken for insurance plates of the Sun Fire-office. There are several of these shops in the narrow streets and dirty courts, of which there are so many near our national Theatres, and they all have tempting goods of this description; with the addition, perhaps, of a lady’s pink dress, covered with spangles, white wreaths, stage shoes, and a tiara like a tin lamp-reflector. They have been purchased of some wretched supernumeraries, or sixth-rate actors, and are now offered for the benefit of the rising generation, who, on condition of making certain weekly payments, amounting in the whole to about ten times their value, may avail themselves of such desirable bargains. Let us take a very different quarter, and apply it to the test. Look at a marine store-dealer’s in that reservoir of dirt, drunkenness, and drabs, thieves, oysters, baked potatoes, and pickled salmon—Ratcliff-highway. Here, the wearing-apparel is all nautical: rough blue jackets, with mother-of-pearl buttons, oilskin hats, coarse checked shirts, and large canvass trousers, that look as if they were made for a pair of bodies instead of a pair of legs, are the staple commodities. Then there are large bunches of cotton pocket-handkerchiefs, in colour and pattern unlike any one ever saw before, with the exception of those on the backs of the three young ladies without bonnets who passed just now. The furniture is much the same as elsewhere, with the addition of one or two models of ships, and some old prints of naval engagements, in still older frames. In the window are a few compasses, and a small tray containing silver watches, in clumsy thick cases, and tobacco-boxes, the lid of each ornamented with a ship or an anchor, or some such trophy. A sailor generally pawns or sells all he has before he has been long ashore; and if he does not, some favoured companion kindly saves him the trouble. In either case it is an even chance that he afterwards unconsciously re-purchases the same things at a higher price than he gave for them at first. Again; pay a visit with a similar object, to a part of London, as unlike both of these as they are to each other. Cross over to the Surrey side, and look at such shops of this description as are to be found near the King’s Bench Prison, and in &quot;The Rules.&quot; How different, and how strikingly illustrative of the decay of some of the unfortunate residents in this part of the metropolis! Imprisonment and neglect have done their work: there is contamination in the profligate denizens of a debtor’s prison; old friends have fallen off; the recollection of former prosperity has passed away, and with it all thought of the past, all care for the future. First, watches and rings, then cloaks, coats, and all the more expensive articles of dress, have found their way to the pawnbroker’s. That miserable resource has failed at last, and the sale of some trifling article at one of these shops, has been the only mode left of raising a shilling or two, to meet the urgent demands of the moment. Dressing-cases, and writing-desks, too old to pawn, but too good to keep, guns, fishing-rods, musical instruments, in the same condition, have been first sold, and the sacrifice has been but slightly felt. But hunger must be allayed, and what has already become a habit is easily resorted to when an emergency arises. Light articles of clothing, first of the ruined man, then of his wife, at last of their children, even of the youngest, have been parted with piece-meal. There they are, thrown carelessly together, until a purchaser presents himself; old and patched, and repaired, it is true, but the make and materials tell of better days; and the older they are, the greater the misery and destitution of those whom they once adorned. We had intended to sketch this subject less in outline than is customary with us. We are, however, unwilling to exceed our ordinary limits, or to trespass at greater length than usual on the patience of our readers. We have more of these imperfect sketches to submit for their perusal; and as we hope to have many opportunies—when the partial absence of matter of pressing and absorbing interest again enables us to occupy a column occasionally—of laying our pen-and-ink drawings before them, we postpone the further consideration of this subject until a future time.18341215https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Street_Sketches_No._V_Brokers_and_Marine_Store_Shops/1834-12-15-Street_Sketches_No5_Brokers_and_Marine_Store_Shops.pdf
136https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/136<em>A Christmas Carol</em>Published by Chapman and Hall (December 1843)Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books, </em><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Christmas_Carol/d5U_AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=0">https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Christmas_Carol/d5U_AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=0</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1842-12">1842-12</a>Google Books, <a href="https://www.google.com/googlebooks/about/">https://www.google.com/googlebooks/about/</a>. Google's free books are made available to read through careful consideration of and respect for copyright law globally: they are public-domain works, made free on request of the copyright owner, or copyright-free.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Book">Christmas Book</a>1842-12-A_Christmas_CarolDickens, Charles. <em>A Christmas Carol.</em> Chapman and Hall, 1843. <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/christmas-stories/1842-12-A_Christmas_Carol">https://dickenssearch.com/christmas-stories/1842-12-A_Christmas_Carol</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a>STAVE ONE. MARLEY’S GHOST. MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. The mention of Marley’s funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet’s Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot—say Saint Paul’s Churchyard for instance—literally to astonish his son’s weak mind. Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him. Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas. External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn’t know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often “came down” handsomely, and Scrooge never did. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Scrooge, how are you? when will you come to see me?” No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o’clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blindmen’s dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, “no eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!” But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call “nuts” to Scrooge. Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve—old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement-stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already: it had not been light all day: and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale. The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed. “A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach. “Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!” He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge’s, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. “Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure.” “I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! what right have you to be merry? what reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.” “Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What right have you to be dismal? what reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.” Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” again; and followed it up with “Humbug.” “Don’t be cross, uncle,” said the nephew. “What else can I be” returned the uncle, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,” said Scrooge, indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas,’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!” “Uncle!” pleaded the nephew. “Nephew!” returned the uncle sternly, “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.” “Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. “But you don’t keep it.” “Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!” “There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew: “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded: becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever. “Let me hear another sound from you,” said Scrooge, “and you’ll keep your Christmas by losing your situation. You’re quite a powerful speaker, sir,” he added, turning to his nephew. “I wonder you don’t go into Parliament.” “Don’t be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.” Scrooge said that he would see him—yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first. “But why?” cried Scrooge’s nephew. “Why?” “Why did you get married?” said Scrooge. “Because I fell in love.” “Because you fell in love!” growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. “Good afternoon!” “Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?” “Good afternoon,” said Scrooge. “I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?” “Good afternoon,” said Scrooge. “I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I’ll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!” “Good afternoon!” said Scrooge. “And A Happy New Year!” “Good afternoon!” said Scrooge. His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially. “There’s another fellow,” muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: “my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I’ll retire to Bedlam.” This lunatic, in letting Scrooge’s nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge’s office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him. “Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe,” said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. “Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?” “Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,” Scrooge replied. “He died seven years ago, this very night.” “We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,” said the gentleman, presenting his credentials. It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word “liberality,” Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back. “At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.” “Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge. “Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again. “And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?” “They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.” “The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge. “Both very busy, sir.” “Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.” “Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?” “Nothing!” Scrooge replied. “You wish to be anonymous?” “I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.” “Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.” “If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don’t know that.” “But you might know it,” observed the gentleman. “It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!” Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him. Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became intense. In the main street, at the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp-heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers’ and grocers’ trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor’s household should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and blood-thirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow’s pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef. Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit’s nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge’s keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of “God bless you, merry gentleman! May nothing you dismay!” Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost. At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat. “You’ll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?” said Scrooge. “If quite convenient, Sir.” “It’s not convenient,” said Scrooge, “and it’s not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you’d think yourself ill-used, I’ll be bound?” The clerk smiled faintly. “And yet,” said Scrooge, “you don’t think me ill-used, when I pay a day’s wages for no work.” The clerk observed that it was only once a year. “A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!” said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. “But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning!” The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Corn-hill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas-eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman’s-buff. Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker’s-book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of London, even including—which is a bold word—the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven-years’ dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change: not a knocker, but Marley’s face. Marley’s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot-air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be, in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression. As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again. To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle. He did pause, with a moment’s irresolution, before he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half-expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley’s pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on; so he said “Pooh, pooh!” and closed it with a bang. The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant’s cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs: slowly too: trimming his candle as he went. You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall, and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn’t have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge’s dip. Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that: darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that. Sitting-room, bed-room, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker. Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his night-cap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel. It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fire-place was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels; Pharaoh’s daughters, Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figuresm to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet’s rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley’s head on every one. “Humbug!” said Scrooge; and walked across the room. After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house. This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant’s cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains. The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door. “It’s humbug still!” said Scrooge. “I won’t believe it.” His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, “I know him! Marley’s Ghost!” and fell again. The same face: the very same. Marley in his pig-tail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pig-tail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent: so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind. Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now. No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before; he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses. “How now!” said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. “What do you want with me?” “Much!”—Marley’s voice, no doubt about it. “Who are you?” “Ask me who I was.” “Who were you then?” said Scrooge, raising his voice. “You’re particular—for a shade.” He was going to say “to a shade,” but substituted this, as more appropriate. “In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.” “Can you—can you sit down?” asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him. “I can.” “Do it, then.” Scrooge asked the question, because he didn’t know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it. “You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost. “I don’t,” said Scrooge. “What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond that of your senses?” “I don’t know,” said Scrooge. “Why do you doubt your senses?” “Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!” Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre’s voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones. To sit, staring at those fixed, glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre’s being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven. “You see this toothpick?” said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision’s stony gaze from himself. “I do,” replied the Ghost. “You are not looking at it,” said Scrooge. “But I see it,” said the Ghost, “notwithstanding.” “Well!” returned Scrooge, “I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you; humbug!” At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear in-doors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast! Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face. “Mercy!” he said. “Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?” “Man of the worldly mind!” replied the Ghost, “do you believe in me or not?” “I do,” said Scrooge. “I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?” “It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!” Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain, and wrung its shadowy hands. “You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell me why?” “I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?” Scrooge trembled more and more. “Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!” Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing. “Jacob,” he said, imploringly. “Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob.” “I have none to give,” the Ghost replied. “It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house—mark me!—in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!” It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees. “You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,” Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though with humility and deference. “Slow!” the Ghost repeated. “Seven years dead,” mused Scrooge. “And travelling all the time?” “The whole time,” said the Ghost. “No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse.” “You travel fast?” said Scrooge. “On the wings of the wind,” replied the Ghost. “You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,” said Scrooge. The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance. “Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,” cried the phantom, “not to know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!” “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,” faultered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself. “Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” It held up its chain at arm’s length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again. “At this time of the rolling year,” the spectre said, “I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!” Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly. “Hear me!” cried the Ghost. “My time is nearly gone.” “I will,” said Scrooge. “But don’t be hard upon me! Don’t be flowery, Jacob! Pray!” “How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.” It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow. “That is no light part of my penance,” pursued the Ghost. “I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.” “You were always a good friend to me,” said Scrooge. “Thank’ee!” “You will be haunted,” resumed the Ghost, “by Three Spirits.” Scrooge’s countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost’s had done. “Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?” he demanded, in a faultering voice. “It is.” “I—I think I’d rather not,” said Scrooge. “Without their visits,” said the Ghost, “you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow, when the bell tolls One.” “Couldn’t I take ’em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?” hinted Scrooge. “Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!” When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm. The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Marley’s Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped. Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night. Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out. The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ancle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever. Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been when he walked home. Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say “Humbug!” but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant. STAVE TWO. THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. WHEN Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour. To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve! He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve; and stopped. “Why, it isn’t possible,” said Scrooge, “that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn’t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!” The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because “three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,” and so forth, would have become a mere United States’ security if there were no days to count by. Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought. Marley’s Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, “Was it a dream or not?” Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power. The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear. “Ding, dong!” “A quarter past,” said Scrooge, counting. “Ding, dong!” “Half-past!” said Scrooge. “Ding, dong!” “A quarter to it,” said Scrooge. “Ding, dong!” “The hour itself,” said Scrooge, triumphantly, “and nothing else!” He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow. It was a strange figure—like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm. Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever. “Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Scrooge. “I am!” The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance. “Who, and what are you?” Scrooge demanded. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.” “Long past?” inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature. “No. Your past.” Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered. “What!” exclaimed the Ghost, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!” Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully “bonneted” the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there. “Your welfare!” said the Ghost. Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately: “Your reclamation, then. Take heed!” It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm. “Rise! and walk with me!” It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman’s hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication. “I am a mortal,” Scrooge remonstrated, “and liable to fall.” “Bear but a touch of my hand there,” said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, “and you shall be upheld in more than this!” As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground. “Good Heaven!” said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. “I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!” The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man’s sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten! “Your lip is trembling,” said the Ghost. “And what is that upon your cheek?” Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would. “You recollect the way?” inquired the Spirit. “Remember it!” cried Scrooge with fervour; “I could walk it blindfold.” “Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!” observed the Ghost. “Let us go on.” They walked along the road; Scrooge recognising every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it. “These are but shadows of the things that have been,” said the Ghost. “They have no consciousness of us.” The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for their several homes! What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him? “The school is not quite deserted,” said the Ghost. “A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.” Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat. They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he had used to be. Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panneling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears. The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading an ass laden with wood by the bridle. “Why, it’s Ali Baba!” Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. “It’s dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,” said Scrooge, “and his wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what’s his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don’t you see him! And the Sultan’s Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve him right. I’m glad of it. What business had he to be married to the Princess!” To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed. “There’s the Parrot!” cried Scrooge. “Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. ‘Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?’ The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn’t. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!” Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, “Poor boy!” and cried again. “I wish,” Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: “but it’s too late now.” “What is the matter?” asked the Spirit. “Nothing,” said Scrooge. “Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that’s all.” The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, “Let us see another Christmas!” Scrooge’s former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The pannels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door. It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her “Dear, dear brother.” “I have come to bring you home, dear brother!” said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. “To bring you home, home, home!” “Home, little Fan?” returned the boy. “Yes!” said the child, brimful of glee. “Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you’re to be a man!” said the child, opening her eyes, “and are never to come back here; but first, we’re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.” “You are quite a woman, little Fan!” exclaimed the boy. She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her. A terrible voice in the hall cried, “Bring down Master Scrooge’s box, there!” and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people: at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of “something” to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge’s trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray. “Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,” said the Ghost. “But she had a large heart!” “So she had,” cried Scrooge. “You’re right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!” “She died a woman,” said the Ghost, “and had, as I think, children.” “One child,” Scrooge returned. “True,” said the Ghost. “Your nephew!” Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, “Yes.” Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up. The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it. “Know it!” said Scrooge. “Was I apprenticed here!” They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welch wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement: “Why, it’s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it’s Fezziwig alive again!” Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice: “Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!” Scrooge’s former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-’prentice. “Dick Wilkins, to be sure!” said Scrooge to the Ghost. “Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!” “Yo ho, my boys!” said Fezziwig. “No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let’s have the shutters up,” cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, “before a man can say, Jack Robinson!” You wouldn’t believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into the street with the shutters—one, two, three—had ’em up in their places—four, five, six—barred ’em and pinned ’em—seven, eight, nine—and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses. “Hilli-ho!” cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility. “Clear away, my lads, and let’s have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!” Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn’t have cleared away, or couldn’t have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter’s night. In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother’s particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her Mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, “Well done!” and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter; and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish. There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up “Sir Roger de Coverley.” Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking. But if they had been twice as many: ah, four times: old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that’s not high praise, tell me higher, and I’ll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig’s calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn’t have predicted, at any given time, what would have become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner; bow and curtsey; corkscrew; thread-the-needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig “cut”—cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger. When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two ’prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop. During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear. “A small matter,” said the Ghost, “to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.” “Small!” echoed Scrooge. The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said, “Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?” “It isn’t that,” said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. “It isn’t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ’em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.” He felt the Spirit’s glance, and stopped. “What is the matter?” asked the Ghost. “Nothing particular,” said Scrooge. “Something, I think?” the Ghost insisted. “No,” said Scrooge, “No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now! That’s all.” His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air. “My time grows short,” observed the Spirit. “Quick!” This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall. He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past. “It matters little,” she said, softly. “To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.” “What Idol has displaced you?” he rejoined. “A golden one.” “This is the even-handed dealing of the world!” he said. “There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!” “You fear the world too much,” she answered, gently. “All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?” “What then?” he retorted. “Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you.” She shook her head. “Am I?” “Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you were another man.” “I was a boy,” he said impatiently. “Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,” she returned. “I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you.” “Have I ever sought release?” “In words. No. Never.” “In what, then?” “In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us,” said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; “tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!” He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself. But he said, with a struggle, “You think not.” “I would gladly think otherwise if I could,” she answered, “Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl—you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were.” He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed. “You may—the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will—have pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!” She left him, and they parted. “Spirit!” said Scrooge, “show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?” “One shadow more!” exclaimed the Ghost. “No more!” cried Scrooge. “No more. I don’t wish to see it. Show me no more!” But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next. They were in another scene and place: a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn’t for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn’t have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn’t have done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value. But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who, came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him, with chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round the neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received! The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll’s frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlour and by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided. And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed. “Belle,” said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, “I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.” “Who was it?” “Guess!” “How can I? Tut, don’t I know,” she added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. “Mr. Scrooge.” “Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe.” “Spirit!” said Scrooge in a broken voice, “remove me from this place.” “I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,” said the Ghost. “That they are what they are, do not blame me!” “Remove me!” Scrooge exclaimed, “I cannot bear it!” He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it. “Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!” In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head. The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light: which streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground. He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep. STAVE THREE. THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS. AWAKING in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob Marley’s intervention. But finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hands; and lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous. Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don’t mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think—as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too—at last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room: from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door. The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed. It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove, from every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge’s time, or Marley’s, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty’s horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door. “Come in!” exclaimed the Ghost. “Come in! and know me better, man!” Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though its eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Spirit. “Look upon me!” Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free: free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust. “You have never seen the like of me before!” exclaimed the Spirit. “Never,” Scrooge made answer to it. “Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?” pursued the Phantom. “I don’t think I have,” said Scrooge. “I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?” “More than eighteen hundred,” said the Ghost. “A tremendous family to provide for!” muttered Scrooge. The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. “Spirit,” said Scrooge submissively, “conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.” “Touch my robe!” Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms. The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and re-crossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace, in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts’ content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. For the people who were shovelling away on the house-tops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball—better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest—laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers’ shops were still half open, and the fruiterers’ were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars; and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers’ benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement. The Grocers’! oh, the Grocers’! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress: but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose. But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers’ shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker’s doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled with each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was! In time the bells ceased, and the bakers’ were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker’s oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too. “Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?” asked Scrooge. “There is. My own.” “Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?” asked Scrooge. “To any kindly given. To a poor one most.” “Why to a poor one most?” asked Scrooge. “Because it needs it most.” “Spirit,” said Scrooge, after a moment’s thought, “I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people’s opportunities of innocent enjoyment.” “I!” cried the Spirit. “You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,” said Scrooge. “Wouldn’t you?” “I!” cried the Spirit. “You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?” said Scrooge. “And it comes to the same thing.” “I seek!” exclaimed the Spirit. “Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,” said Scrooge. “There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.” Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker’s), that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall. And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge’s clerk’s; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit’s dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen “Bob” a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house! Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit’s wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob’s private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker’s they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage-and-onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled. “What has ever got your precious father then,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn’t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour!” “Here’s Martha, mother!” said a girl, appearing as she spoke. “Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young Cratchits. “Hurrah! There’s such a goose, Martha!” “Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!” said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her, with officious zeal. “We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,” replied the girl, “and had to clear away this morning, mother!” “Well! Never mind so long as you are come,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!” “No, no! There’s father coming,” cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. “Hide, Martha, hide!” So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his thread-bare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame! “Why, where’s our Martha?” cried Bob Cratchit, looking round. “Not coming,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “Not coming!” said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim’s blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. “Not coming upon Christmas Day!” Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. “And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content. “As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.” Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty. His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs—as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby—compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession. Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course—and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah! There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by the apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone—too nervous to bear witnesses—to take the pudding up, and bring it in. Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose: a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed. Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house, and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered: flushed, but smiling proudly: with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass; two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle. These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed: “A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!” Which all the family re-echoed. “God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all. He sat very close to his father’s side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him. “Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, “tell me if Tiny Tim will live.” “I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.” “No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.” “If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost, “will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. “Man,” said the Ghost, “if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!” Scrooge bent before the Ghost’s rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on hearing his own name. “Mr. Scrooge!” said Bob; “I’ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!” “The Founder of the Feast indeed!” cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. “I wish I had him here. I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.” “My dear,” said Bob, “the children; Christmas Day.” “It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,” said she, “on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!” “My dear,” was Bob’s mild answer, “Christmas Day.” “I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,” said Mrs. Cratchit, “not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!” The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn’t care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes. After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter’s being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner’s, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord “was much about as tall as Peter;” at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldn’t have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim; who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed. There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker’s. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit’s torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last. By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour’s house; where, wo upon the single man who saw them enter—artful witches: well they knew it—in a glow! But if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed: though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas! And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed; or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse, rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night. “What place is this?” asked Scrooge. “A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,” returned the Spirit. “But they know me. See!” A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children’s children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song; it had been a very old song when he was a boy; and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again. The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped whither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge’s horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled, and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth. Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds—born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water—rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed. But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself. Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea—on, on—until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him. It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew’s, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability! “Ha, ha!” laughed Scrooge’s nephew. “Ha, ha, ha!” If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge’s nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I’ll cultivate his acquaintance. It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge’s nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge’s niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out, lustily. “Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!” “He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!” cried Scrooge’s nephew. “He believed it too!” “More shame for him, Fred!” said Scrooge’s niece, indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest. She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed—as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature’s head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory! “He’s a comical old fellow,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that’s the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.” “I’m sure he is very rich, Fred,” hinted Scrooge’s niece. “At least you always tell me so.” “What of that, my dear!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “His wealth is of no use to him. He don’t do any good with it. He don’t make himself comfortable with it. He hasn’t the satisfaction of thinking—ha, ha, ha!—that he is ever going to benefit Us with it.” “I have no patience with him,” observed Scrooge’s niece. Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion. “Oh, I have!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always. Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won’t come and dine with us. What’s the consequence? He don’t lose much of a dinner.” “Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,” interrupted Scrooge’s niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight. “Well! I’m very glad to hear it,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “because I haven’t great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?” Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge’s niece’s sister—the plump one with the lace tucker: not the one with the roses—blushed. “Do go on, Fred,” said Scrooge’s niece, clapping her hands. “He never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow!” Scrooge’s nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was unanimously followed. “I was only going to say,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can’t help thinking better of it—I defy him—if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that’s something; and I think I shook him yesterday.” It was their turn to laugh now, at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle, joyously. After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. Scrooge’s niece played well upon the harp; and played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton’s spade that buried Jacob Marley. But they didn’t devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at blind-man’s buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge’s nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went, there went he. He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn’t catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him, as some of them did, and stood there; he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding; and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn’t fair; and it really was not. But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in office, they were so very confidential together, behind the curtains. Scrooge’s niece was not one of the blind-man’s buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge’s nephew, beat her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you. There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for, wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be. The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done. “Here is a new game,” said Scrooge. “One half hour, Spirit, only one!” It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge’s nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn’t made a show of, and wasn’t led by anybody, and didn’t live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out: “I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!” “What is it?” cried Fred. “It’s your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!” Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to “Is it a bear?” ought to have been “Yes;” inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way. “He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,” said Fred, “and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, ‘Uncle Scrooge!’ ” “Well! Uncle Scrooge!” they cried. “A Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “He wouldn’t take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!” Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels. Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery’s every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts. It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children’s Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey. “Are spirits’ lives so short?” asked Scrooge. “My life upon this globe, is very brief,” replied the Ghost. “It ends to-night.” “To-night!” cried Scrooge. “To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.” The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment. “Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw!” “It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.” From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. “Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost. They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. “Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more. “They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!” “Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge. “Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. “Are there no workhouses?” The bell struck twelve. Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him. STAVE FOUR. THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. THE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded. He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved. “I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?” said Scrooge. The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand. “You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,” Scrooge pursued. “Is that so, Spirit?” The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received. Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover. But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black. “Ghost of the Future!” he exclaimed, “I fear you more than any Spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?” It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them. “Lead on!” said Scrooge. “Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!” The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along. They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on ’Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often. The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk. “No,” said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, “I don’t know much about it, either way. I only know he’s dead.” “When did he die?” inquired another. “Last night, I believe.” “Why, what was the matter with him?” asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. “I thought he’d never die.” “God knows,” said the first, with a yawn. “What has he done with his money?” asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock. “I haven’t heard,” said the man with the large chin, yawning again. “Left it to his Company, perhaps. He hasn’t left it to me. That’s all I know.” This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. “It’s likely to be a very cheap funeral,” said the same speaker; “for upon my life I don’t know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?” “I don’t mind going if a lunch is provided,” observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. “But I must be fed, if I make one.” Another laugh. “Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,” said the first speaker, “for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I’ll offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I’m not at all sure that I wasn’t his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!” Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation. The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here. He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view. “How are you?” said one. “How are you?” returned the other. “Well!” said the first. “Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?” “So I am told,” returned the second. “Cold, isn’t it?” “Seasonable for Christmas time. You’re not a skaiter, I suppose?” “No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!” Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting. Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost’s province was the Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy. He looked about in that very place for his own image; but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this. Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold. They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery. Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement. Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh. “Let the charwoman alone to be the first!” cried she who had entered first. “Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker’s man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here’s a chance! If we haven’t all three met here without meaning it!” “You couldn’t have met in a better place,” said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. “Come into the parlour. You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other two an’t strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks! There an’t such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I’m sure there’s no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We’re all suitable to our calling, we’re well matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the parlour.” The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again. While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two. “What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?” said the woman. “Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did.” “That’s true, indeed!” said the laundress. “No man more so.” “Why then, don’t stand staring as if you was afraid, woman; who’s the wiser? We’re not going to pick holes in each other’s coats, I suppose?” “No, indeed!” said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. “We should hope not.” “Very well, then!” cried the woman. “That’s enough. Who’s the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose.” “No, indeed,” said Mrs. Dilber, laughing. “If he wanted to keep ’em after he was dead, a wicked old screw,” pursued the woman, “why wasn’t he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he’d have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.” “It’s the truest word that ever was spoke,” said Mrs. Dilber. “It’s a judgment on him.” “I wish it was a little heavier judgment,” replied the woman; “and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I’m not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe. It’s no sin. Open the bundle, Joe.” But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each, upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found there was nothing more to come. “That’s your account,” said Joe, “and I wouldn’t give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who’s next?” Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner. “I always give too much to ladies. It’s a weakness of mine, and that’s the way I ruin myself,” said old Joe. “That’s your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I’d repent of being so liberal and knock off half-a-crown.” “And now undo my bundle, Joe,” said the first woman. Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff. “What do you call this?” said Joe. “Bed-curtains!” “Ah!” returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. “Bed-curtains!” “You don’t mean to say you took ’em down, rings and all, with him lying there?” said Joe. “Yes I do,” replied the woman. “Why not?” “You were born to make your fortune,” said Joe, “and you’ll certainly do it.” “I certainly shan’t hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He was, I promise you, Joe,” returned the woman coolly. “Don’t drop that oil upon the blankets, now.” “His blankets?” asked Joe. “Whose else’s do you think?” replied the woman. “He isn’t likely to take cold without ’em, I dare say.” “I hope he didn’t die of anything catching? Eh?” said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up. “Don’t you be afraid of that,” returned the woman. “I an’t so fond of his company that I’d loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah! you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won’t find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It’s the best he had, and a fine one too. They’d have wasted it, if it hadn’t been for me.” “What do you call wasting of it?” asked old Joe. “Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,” replied the woman with a laugh. “Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an’t good enough for such a purpose, it isn’t good enough for anything. It’s quite as becoming to the body. He can’t look uglier than he did in that one.” Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man’s lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself. “Ha, ha!” laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. “This is the end of it, you see! He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!” “Spirit!” said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. “I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is this!” He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language. The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man. Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge’s part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side. Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand WAS open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man’s. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal! No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge’s ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard dealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly! He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think. “Spirit!” he said, “this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!” Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head. “I understand you,” Scrooge returned, “and I would do it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power.” Again it seemed to look upon him. “If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this man’s death,” said Scrooge quite agonised, “show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!” The phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were. She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked up and down the room; started at every sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the voices of the children in their play. At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was care-worn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress. He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer. “Is it good?” she said, “or bad?”—to help him. “Bad,” he answered. “We are quite ruined?” “No. There is hope yet, Caroline.” “If he relents,” she said, amazed, “there is! Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened.” “He is past relenting,” said her husband. “He is dead.” She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart. “What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week’s delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then.” “To whom will our debt be transferred?” “I don’t know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money; and even though we were not, it would be a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!” Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children’s faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man’s death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure. “Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,” said Scrooge; “or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever present to me.” The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit’s house; the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and the children seated round the fire. Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet! “‘And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them.’” Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on? The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face. “The colour hurts my eyes,” she said. The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim! “They’re better now again,” said Cratchit’s wife. “It makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn’t show weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world It must be near his time.” “Past it rather,” Peter answered, shutting up his book. “But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother.” They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faultered once: “I have known him walk with—I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed.” “And so have I,” cried Peter. “Often.” “And so have I!” exclaimed another. So had all. “But he was very light to carry,” she resumed, intent upon her work, “and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door!” She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter—he had need of it, poor fellow—came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against his face, as if they said, “Don’t mind it, father. Don’t be grieved!” Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said. “Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?” said his wife. “Yes, my dear,” returned Bob. “I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you’ll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!” cried Bob. “My little child!” He broke down all at once. He couldn’t help it. If he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart perhaps than they were. He left the room, and went up stairs into the room above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy. They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge’s nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little—“just a little down you know” said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. “On which,” said Bob, “for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. ‘I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,’ he said, ‘and heartily sorry for your good wife.’ By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don’t know.” “Knew what, my dear?” “Why, that you were a good wife,” replied Bob. “Everybody knows that!” said Peter. “Very well observed, my boy!” cried Bob. “I hope they do. ‘Heartily sorry,’ he said, ‘for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in any way,’ he said, giving me his card, ‘that’s where I live. Pray come to me.’ Now, it wasn’t,” cried Bob, “for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us.” “I’m sure he’s a good soul!” said Mrs. Cratchit. “You would be surer of it, my dear,” returned Bob, “if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn’t be at all surprised, mark what I say , if he got Peter a better situation.” “Only hear that, Peter,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “And then,” cried one of the girls, “Peter will be keeping company with some one, and setting up for himself.” “Get along with you!” retorted Peter, grinning. “It’s just as likely as not,” said Bob, “one of these days; though there’s plenty of time for that, my dear. But however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim—shall we—or this first parting that there was among us?” “Never, father!” cried they all. “And I know,” said Bob, “I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.” “No, never, father!” they all cried again. “I am very happy,” said little Bob, “I am very happy!” Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God! “Spectre,” said Scrooge, “something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?” The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before—though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the Future—into the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment. “This court,” said Scrooge, “through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be, in days to come.” The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere. “The house is yonder,” Scrooge exclaimed. “Why do you point away?” The inexorable finger underwent no change. Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before. He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering. A churchyard. Here, then; the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation’s death, not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place! The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape. “Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?” Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood. “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!” The Spirit was immovable as ever. Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE. “Am I that man who lay upon the bed?” he cried, upon his knees. The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again. “No, Spirit! Oh no, no!” The finger still was there. “Spirit!” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope!” For the first time the hand appeared to shake. “Good Spirit,” he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: “Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!” The kind hand trembled. “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!” In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him. Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom’s hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost. STAVE FIVE. THE END OF IT. YES! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in! “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!” Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!” He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears. “They are not torn down,” cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, “they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here—I am here: the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will!” His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance. “I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!” He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing there: perfectly winded. “There’s the saucepan that the gruel was in!” cried Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace. “There’s the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There’s the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present, sat! There’s the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It’s all right, it’s all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!” Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs! “I don’t know what day of the month it is!” said Scrooge. “I don’t know how long I’ve been among the Spirits. I don’t know anything. I’m quite a baby. Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!” He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious! Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious! “What’s to-day!” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him. “EH?” returned the boy, with all his might of wonder. “What’s to-day, my fine fellow?” said Scrooge. “To-day!” replied the boy. “Why, CHRISTMAS DAY.” “It’s Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to himself. “I haven’t missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!” “Hallo!” returned the boy. “Do you know the Poulterer’s, in the next street but one, at the corner?” Scrooge inquired. “I should hope I did,” replied the lad. “An intelligent boy!” said Scrooge. “A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there? Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?” “What, the one as big as me?” returned the boy. “What a delightful boy!” said Scrooge. “It’s a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!” “It’s hanging there now,” replied the boy. “Is it?” said Scrooge. “Go and buy it.” “Walk-ER!” exclaimed the boy. “No, no,” said Scrooge, “I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell ’em to bring it here, that I may give them the direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and I’ll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes and I’ll give you half-a-crown!” The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast. “I’ll send it to Bob Cratchit’s!” whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. “He sha’n’t know who sends it. It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob’s will be!” The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down stairs to open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer’s man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye. “I shall love it, as long as I live!” cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. “I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face! It’s a wonderful knocker!—Here’s the Turkey! Hallo! Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!” It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped ’em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax. “Why, it’s impossible to carry that to Camden Town,” said Scrooge. “You must have a cab.” The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried. Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when you don’t dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaister over it, and been quite satisfied. He dressed himself “all in his best,” and at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, “Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!” And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears. He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his counting-house the day before, and said, “Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe?” It sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it. “My dear sir,” said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and taking the old gentleman by both his hands. “How do you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!” “Mr. Scrooge?” “Yes,” said Scrooge. “That is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have the goodness”—here Scrooge whispered in his ear. “Lord bless me!” cried the gentleman, as if his breath were gone. “My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?” “If you please,” said Scrooge. “Not a farthing less. A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favour?” “My dear sir,” said the other, shaking hands with him. “I don’t know what to say to such munifi—” “Don’t say anything, please,” retorted Scrooge. “Come and see me. Will you come and see me?” “I will!” cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it. “Thank’ee,” said Scrooge. “I am much obliged to you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you!” He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows; and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk—that anything—could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon, he turned his steps towards his nephew’s house. He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it: “Is your master at home, my dear?” said Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl! Very. “Yes, sir.” “Where is he, my love?” said Scrooge. “He’s in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I’ll show you up stairs, if you please.” “Thank’ee. He knows me,” said Scrooge, with his hand already on the dining-room lock. “I’ll go in here, my dear.” He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. They were looking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is right. “Fred!” said Scrooge. Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn’t have done it, on any account. “Why bless my soul!” cried Fred, “who’s that?” “It’s I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?” Let him in! It is a mercy he didn’t shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness! But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his heart upon. And he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank. His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o’clock. “Hallo!” growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. “What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?” “I am very sorry, sir,” said Bob. “I am behind my time.” “You are?” repeated Scrooge. “Yes. I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please.” “It’s only once a year, sir,” pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. “It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.” “Now, I’ll tell you what, my friend,” said Scrooge, “I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,” he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again: “and therefore I am about to raise your salary!” Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat. “A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!” Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!18431201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/7/A_Christmas_Carol/1842-12-A_Christmas_Carol.pdf
171https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/171<em>A House to Let </em>(1858 Christmas Number)Published in <em>Household Words, </em>Vol. XVIII, Extra Christmas Number, December 1858, pp. 18-23.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journal Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xviii/page-590.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xviii/page-590.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1858-12-07">1858-12-07</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1858-12-07-A_House_to_Let<ul> <li>Wilkie Collins. 'Over the Way' (No.1), pp. 1-6.</li> <li>Elizabeth Gaskell. 'The Manchester Marriage' (No.2), pp. 6-17.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens, 'Going into Society' (No.3), pp. 17-23.</strong></li> <li>Adelaide Anne Procter, 'Three Evenings in the House' (No.4), pp. 23-26.</li> <li>Wilkie Collins, 'Trottle's Report' (No.5), pp. 26-32.</li> <li><strong>Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens, 'Let at Last' (No.6), pp. 32-36.</strong></li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al. <em>A House to Let</em> (7 December 1858). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1858-12-07-A_House_to_Let">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1858-12-07-A_House_to_Let</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>At one period of its reverses, the House fell into the occupation of a Showman. He was found registered as its occupier, on the parish books of the time when he rented the House, and there was therefore no need of any clue to his name. But, he himself was less easy to be found; for, he had led a wandering life, and settled people had lost sight of him, and people who plumed themselves on being respectable were shy of admitting that they had ever known anything of him. At last, among the marsh lands near the river&#039;s level, that lie about Deptford and the neighbouring market-gardens, a Grizzled Personage in velveteen, with a face so cut up by varieties of weather that he looked as if he had been tattoo&#039;d, was found smoking a pipe at the door of a wooden house on wheels. The wooden house was laid up in ordinary for the winter near the mouth of a muddy creek; and everything near it, the foggy river, the misty marshes, and the steaming market-gardens, smoked in company with the grizzled man. In the midst of this smoking party, the funnel-chimney of the wooden house on wheels was not remiss, but took its pipe with the rest in a companionable manner. On being asked if it were he who had once rented the House to Let, Grizzled Velveteen looked surprised, and said yes. Then his name was Magsman? That was it, Toby Magsman—which lawfully christened Robert; but called in the line, from a infant, Toby. There was nothing agin Toby Magsman, he believed? If there was suspicion of such—mention it! There was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured. But, some inquiries were making about that House, and would he object to say why he left it? Not at all; why should he? He left it, along of a Dwarf. Along of a Dwarf? Mr. Magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically, Along of a Dwarf. Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman&#039;s inclination and convenience, to enter, as a favour, into a few particulars? Mr. Magsman entered into the following particulars. It was a long time ago, to begin with;— afore lotteries and a deal more, was done away with. Mr. Magsman was looking about for a good pitch, and he see that house, and he says to himselt, &quot;I&#039;ll have you, it you&#039;re to be had. If money&#039;ll get you, I&#039;ll have you.&quot; The neighbours cut up rough, and made complaints; but Mr. Magsman don&#039;t know what they would have had. It was a lovely thing. First of all, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Giant, in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was himself half the heighth of the house, and was run up with a line and pulley to a pole on the roof, so that his Ed was coeval with the parapet. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Albina lady, showin her white air to the Army and Navy in correct uniform. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Wild Indian a scalpin a member of some foreign nation. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of a child of a British Planter, seized by two Boa Constrictors—not that we never had no child, nor no Constrictors neither. Similiarly, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Wild Ass of the Prairies—not that we never had no wild asses, nor wouldn&#039;t have had &#039;em at a gift. Last, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Dwarf, and like him too (considerin), with George the Fourth in such a state of astonishment at him as His Majesty couldn&#039;t with his utmost politeness and stoutness express. The front of the House was so covered with canvasses, that there wasn&#039;t a spark of daylight ever visible on that side. &quot;MAGSMAN&#039;S AMUSEMENTS,&quot; fifteen foot long by two foot high, ran over the front door and parlor winders. The passage was a Arbour of green baize and gardenstuff. A barrel-organ performed there unceasing. And as to respectability,—if threepence ain&#039;t respectable, what is? But, the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth the money. He was wrote up as MAJOR TPSCHOFFKI, OF THE IMPERIAL BULGRADERIAN BRIGADE. Nobody couldn&#039;t pronounce the name, and it never was intended anybody should. The public always turned it, as a regular rule, into Chopski. In the line he was called Chops; partly on that account, and partly because his real name, if he ever had any real name (which was very dubious), was Stakes. He was a un-common small man, he really was. Certainly, not so small as he was made out to be, but where is your Dwarf as is? He was a most uncommon small man with a most uncommon large Ed; and what he had inside that Ed, nobody never knowed but himself: even supposin himself to have ever took stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do. The kindest little man as never growed! Spirited, but not proud. When he travelled with the Spotted Baby—though he knowed himself to be a nat&#039;ral Dwarf, and knowed the Baby&#039;s spots to be put upon him artificial, he nursed that Baby like a mother. You never heerd him give a ill-name to a Giant. He did allow himself to break out into strong language respectin the Fat Lady from Norfolk; but that was an affair of the &#039;art; and when a man&#039;s &#039;art has been trifled with by a lady, and the preference giv to a Indian, he ain&#039;t master of his actions. He was always in love, of course; every human nat&#039;ral phenomenon is. And he was always in love with a large woman; I never knowed the Dwarf as could be got to love a small one. Which helps to keep &#039;em the Curiosities they are. One sing&#039;ler idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have meant something, or it wouldn&#039;t have been there. It was always his opinion that he was entitled to property. He never would put his name to anything. He had been taught to write, by the young man without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a writing-master he was, and taught scores in the line), but Chops would have starved to death, afore he&#039;d have gained a bit of bread by putting his hand to a paper. This is the more curious to bear in mind, because HE had no property, nor hope of property, except his house and a sarser. When I say his house, I mean the box, painted and got up outside like a reg&#039;lar six-roomer, that he used to creep into, with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the Public believed to be the Drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean a Chancy sarser in which he made a collection for himself at the end of every Entertainment. His cue for that, he took from me: &quot;Ladies and gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain.&quot; When he said anything important, in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of words, and they was generally the last thing he said to me at night afore he went to bed. He had what I consider a fine mind—a poetic mind. His ideas respectin his property, never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run through him a little time, he would screech out, &quot;Toby, I feel my property coming—grind away! I&#039;m counting my guineas by thousands, Toby—grind away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a jingling in me, Toby, and I&#039;m swelling out into the Bank of England!&quot; Such is the influence of music on a poetic mind. Not that he was partial to any other music but a barrel-organ; on the contrairy, hated it. He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public: which is a thing you may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out of it. What riled him most in the nater of his occupation was, that it kep him out of Society. He was continiwally sayin, &quot;Toby, my ambition is, to go into Society. The curse of my position towards the Public, is, that it keeps me hout of Society. This don&#039;t signify to a low beast of a Indian; he an&#039;t formed for Society. This don&#039;t signify to a Spotted Baby; he an&#039;t formed for Society.—I am.&quot; Nobody never could make out what Chops done with his money. He had a good salary, down on the drum every Saturday as the day come round, besides having the run of his teeth—and he was a Woodpecker to eat—but all Dwarfs are. The sarser was a little income, bringing him in so many halfpence that he&#039;d carry &#039;em, for a week together, tied up in a pocket handkercher. And yet he never had money. And it couldn&#039;t be the Fat Lady from Norfolk, as was once supposed; because it stands to reason that when you have a animosity towards a Indian which makes you grind your teeth at him to his face, and which can hardly hold you from Goosing him audible when he&#039;s going through his War-Dance—it stands to reason you wouldn&#039;t under them circumstances deprive yourself, to support that Indian in the lap of luxury. Most unexpected, the mystery come out one day at Egham Eaces. The Public was shy of bein pulled in, and Chops was ringin his little bell out of his drawing-room winder, and was snarlin to me over his shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back-door—for he couldn&#039;t be shoved into his house without kneeling down, and the premises wouldn&#039;t accommodate his legs—was snarlin, &quot;Here&#039;s a precious Public for you; why the Devil don&#039;t they tumble up?&quot; when a man in the crowd holds up a carrier-pigeon, and cries out, &quot;If there&#039;s any person here as has got a ticket, the Lottery&#039;s just drawed, and the number as has come up for the great prize is three, seven, forty-two! Three, seven, forty-two!&quot; I was givin the man to the Furies myself, for calling off the Public&#039;s attention—for the Public will turn away, at any time, to look at anything in preference to the thing showed &#039;em; and if you doubt it, get &#039;em together for any indiwidual purpose on the face of the earth, and send only two people in late, and see if the whole company an&#039;t far more interested in takin particular notice of them two than of you—I say, I wasn&#039;t best pleased with the man for callin out, and, wasn&#039;t blessin him in my own mind, when I see Chops&#039;s little bell fly out of winder at a old lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin the whole secret, and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me, &quot;Carry me into the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over me or I&#039;m a dead man, for I&#039;ve come into my property!&quot; Twelve thousand odd hundred pound, was Chops&#039;s winnins. He had bought a half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and it had come up. The first use he made of his property, was, to offer to fight the Wild Indian for five hundred pound a side, him with a poisoned darnin-needle and the Indian with a club; but the Indian bein in want of backers to that amount, it went no further. Arter he had been mad for a week—in a state of mind, in short, in which, if I had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, I believe he would have bust—but we kep the organ from him—Mr. Chops come round, and behaved liberal and beautiful to all. He then sent for a young man he knowed, as had a wery genteel appearance and was a Bonnet at a gaming-booth (most respectable brought up, father havin been imminent in the livery stable line but unfort&#039;nate in a commercial crisis through paintin a old grey, ginger-bay, and sellin him with a Pedigree), and Mr. Chops said to this Bonnet, who said his name was Normandy, which it wasn&#039;t: &quot;Normandy, I&#039;m a goin into Society. Will you go with me?&quot; Says Normandy: &quot;Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hintimate that the &#039;ole of the expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?&quot; &quot;Correct,&quot; says Mr. Chops. &quot;And you shall have a Princely allowance too.&quot; The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair, to shake hands with him, and replied in poetry, with his eyes seeminly fall of tears: &quot;My boat is on the shore, And my bark is on the sea, And I do not ask for more, But I&#039;ll Go;—along with thee.&quot; They went into Society, in a chay and four greys with silk jackets. They took lodgings in Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away. In consequence of a note that was brought to Bartlemy Fair in the autumn of next year by a servant, most wonderful got up in milk-white cords and tops, I cleaned myself and went to Pall Mall, one evenin appinted. The gentlemen was at their wine arter dinner, and Mr. Chops&#039;s eyes was more fixed in that Ed of his than I thought good for him. There was three of &#039;em (in company, I mean), and I knowed the third well. When last met, he had on a white Roman shirt, and a bishop&#039;s-mitre covered with leopard-skin, and played the clarionet all wrong, in a band at a Wild Beast Show. This gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said: &quot;Gentlemen, this is a old friend of former days:&quot; and Normandy looked at me through a eye-glass, and said, &quot;Magsman, glad to see you!&quot;—which I&#039;ll take my oath he wasn&#039;t. Mr. Chops, to git him convenient to the table, had his chair on a throne (much of the form of George the Fourth&#039;s in the canvass), but he hardly appeared to me to be King there in any other pint of view, for his two gentlemen ordered about like Emperors. They was all dressed like May-Day—gorgeous!—and as to Wine, they &#039;swam in all sorts. I made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say I had done it), and then mixed &#039;em all together (to say I had done it), and then tried two of &#039;em as half-and-half, and then t&#039;other two. Altogether, I passed a pleasin evenin, but with a tendency to feel. muddled, until I considered it good manners to get up and say, &quot;Mr. Chops, the best of friends must part, I thank you for the wariety of foreign drains you have stood so &#039;ansome, I looks towards you in red wine, and I takes my leave.&quot; Mr. Chops replied, &quot;If you&#039;ll just hitch me out of this over your right arm, Magsman, and carry me downstairs, I&#039;ll see you out.&quot; I said I couldn&#039;t think of such a thing, but he would have it, so I lifted him off his throne. He smelt strong of Maideary, and I couldn&#039;t help thinking as I carried him down that it was like carrying a large bottle full of wine, with a rayther ugly stopper, a good deal out of proportion. When I set him on the door-mat in the hall, he kep me close to him by holding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers: &quot;I an&#039;t &#039;appy, Magsman.&quot; &quot;What&#039;s on your mind, Mr. Chops?&quot; &quot;They don&#039;t use me well. They an&#039;t grateful to me. They puts me on the mantelpiece when I won&#039;t have in more Champagne-wine, and they locks me in the sideboard when I won&#039;t give up my property.&quot; &quot;Get rid of &#039;em, Mr. Chops.&quot; &quot;I can&#039;t. We&#039;re in Society together, and what would Society say?&quot; &quot;Come out of Society,&quot; says I. &quot;I can&#039;t. You don&#039;t know what you&#039;re talking about. When you have once gone into Society, you mustn&#039;t come out of it.&quot; &quot;Then if you&#039;ll excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops,&quot; were my remark, shaking my head grave, &quot; I think it&#039;s a pity you ever went in.&quot; Mr. Chops shook that deep Ed of his, to a surprisin extent, and slapped it half a dozen times with his hand, and with more Wice than I thought were in him. Then, he says, &quot; You&#039;re a good feller, but you don&#039;t understand. Good night, go along. Magsman, the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain.&quot; The last I see of him on that occasion was his tryin, on the extremest werge of insensibility, to climb up the stairs, one by one, with his hands and knees. They&#039;d have been much too steep for him, if he had been sober; but he wouldn&#039;t be helped. It warn&#039;t long after that, that I read in the newspaper of Mr. Chops&#039;s being presented at court. It was printed, &quot; It will be recol-lected &quot;—and I&#039;ve noticed in my life, that it is sure to be printed that it will be recollected, whenever it won&#039;t—&#039;&#039;that Mr. Chops is the individual of small stature, whose brilliant success in the last State Lottery attracted so much attention.&quot; Well, I says to myself, Such is life! He has been and done it in earnest at last! He has astonished George the Fourth! (On account of which, I had that canvass new-painted, him with a bag of money in his hand, a presentin it to George the Fourth, and a lady in Ostrich Feathers fallin in love with him in a bag-wig, sword, and buckles correct.) I took the House as is the subject of pre-sent inquiries though not the honor of bein acquainted—and I run, Magsman&#039;s Amusements in it thirteen months—sometimes one thing, sometimes another, sometimes nothin particular, but always all the canvasses outside. One night, when we had played the last company out, which was a shy company through its raining Heavens hard, I was takin a pipe in the one pair back along with the young man with the toes, which I had taken on for a month (though he never drawed—except on paper), and I heard a kickin at the street door. &quot;Halloa!&quot; I says to the young man, &quot;what&#039;s up!&quot; He rubs his eyebrows with his toes, and he says, &quot;I can&#039;t imagine, Mr. Magsman &quot; which he never could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company. The noise not leavin off, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a candle, and I went down and opened the door. I looked out into the street; but nothin could I see, and nothin was I aware of, until I turned round quick, because some creetur run between my legs into the passage. There was Mr. Chops! &quot;Magsman,&quot; he says, &quot;take me, on the hold terms, and you&#039;ve got me; if it&#039;s done, say done!&quot; I was all of a maze, but I said, &quot;Done, sir.&quot; &quot;Done to your done, and double done!&quot; says he. &quot;Have you got a bit of supper in the house?&quot; Bearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we&#039;d guzzled away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold sassages and gin-and- water; but he took &#039;em both and took &#039;em free; havin a chair for his table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like hold times. I, all of a maze all the while. It was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, and to the best of my calculations two pound and a quarter), that the wisdom as was in that little man, began to come out of him like prespiration. &quot;Magsman,&quot; he says, &quot;look upon me! You see afore you, One as has both gone into Society and come out.&quot; &quot;Oh! You are out of it, Mr. Chops? How did you get out, sir?&quot; &quot;SOLD OUT!&quot; says he. You never saw the like of the wisdom as his Ed expressed, when he made use of them two words. &quot;My friend Magsman, I&#039;ll impart to you a discovery I&#039;ve made. It&#039;s wallable; it&#039;s cost twelve thousand five hundred pound; it may do you good in life.—The secret of this matter is, that it ain&#039;t so much that a person goes into Society, as that Society goes into a person.&quot; Not exactly keeping up with his meanin, I shook my head, put on a deep look, and said, &quot;You&#039;re right there, Mr. Chops.&quot; &quot;Magsman,&quot; he says, twitchin me by the leg, &quot;Society has gone into me, to the tune of every penny of my property.&quot; I felt that I went pale, and though natrally a bold speaker, I couldn&#039;t hardly say, &quot;Where&#039;s Normandy?&quot; &quot;Bolted. With the plate,&quot; said Mr. Chops. &quot;And t&#039;other one?&quot;—meaning him as formerly wore the bishop&#039;s mitre. &quot;Bolted. With the jewels,&quot; said Mr. Chops. I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me. &quot;Magsman,&quot; he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser as he got hoarser; &quot;Society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs. At the court of Saint James&#039;s, they was all a doin my hold bisness—all a goin three times round the Cairawan, in the hold Court-suits and properties. Elsewheres, they was most of &#039;em ringin their little bells out of make-believes. Everywheres, the sarser was a goin round, Magsman, the sarser is the uniwersal Institution!&quot; I perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfortuns, and I felt for Mr. Chops. &quot;As to Fat Ladies,&quot; says he, giving his Ed a tremendious one agin the wall, &quot;there&#039;s lots of them in Society, and worse than the original. Hers was a outrage upon Taste—simply a outrage upon Taste—awakenin contempt— carryin its own punishment in the form of a Indian!&quot; Here he giv himself another tremendious one. &quot;But theirs, Magsman, theirs is mercenary outrages. Lay in Cashmeer shawls, buy bracelets, strew &#039;em and a lot of &#039;andsome fans and things about your rooms, let it be known that you give away like water to all as come to admire, and the Fat Ladies that don&#039;t exhibit for so much down upon the drum, will come from all the pints of the compass to flock about you, whatever you are. They&#039;ll drill holes in your &#039;art, Magsman, like a Cullender. And when you&#039;ve no more left to give, they&#039;ll laugh at you to your face, and leave you to have your bones picked dry by Wulturs, like the dead Wild Ass of the Prairies that you deserve to be!&quot; Here he giv himself the most tremendious one of all, and dropped. I thought he was gone. His Ed was so heavy, and he knocked it so hard, and he fell so stoney, and the sassagerial disturbance in him must have been so immense, that I thought he was gone. But, he soon come round with care, and he sat up on the floor, and he said to me, with wisdom comin out of his eyes, if ever it come: &quot;Magsman! The most material difference between the two states of existence through which your unappy friend has passed;&quot; he reached out his poor little hand, and his tears dropped down on the moustachio which it was a credit to him to have done his best to grow, but it is not in mortals to command success, &#039;—the difference is this. When I was out of Society, I was paid light for being seen. When I went into Society, I paid heavy for being seen. I prefer theformer, even if I wasn&#039;t forced upon it. Give me out through the trumpet, in the hold way, tomorrow.&quot; Arter that, he slid into the line again as easy as if he had been iled all over. But, the organ was kep from him, and no allusions was ever made, when a company was in, to his property. He got wiser every day; his views of Society and the Public was luminous, bewilderin, awful; and his Ed got bigger and bigger as his Wisdom expanded it. He took well, and pulled &#039;em in most excellent fur nine weeks. At the expiration of that period, when his Ed was a sight, he expressed one evenin, the last Company havin been turned out, and the door shut, a wish to have a little music. &quot;Mr. Chops,&quot; I said (I never dropped the &quot;Mr.&quot; with him; the world might do it, but not me); &quot;Mr. Chops, are you sure as you are in a state of mind and body to sit upon the organ?&quot; His answer was this: &quot;Toby, when next met with on the tramp, I forgive her and the Indian. And I am.&quot; It was with fear and trembling that I began to turn the handle; but he sat like a lamb. It will be my belief to my dying day, that I see his Ed expand as he sat; you may therefore judge how great his thoughts was. He sat out all the changes, and then he come off. &quot;Toby,&quot; he says, with a quiet smile, &quot; the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain.&quot; When we called him in the morning, we found him gone into a much better Society than mine or Pall Mall&#039;s. I giv Mr. Chops as comfortable a funeral as lay in my power, followed myself as Chief, and had the George the Fourth canvass carried first, in the form of a banner. But, the House was so dismal arterwards, that I giv it up, and took to the Wan again. — &quot;I don&#039;t triumph,&quot; said Jarber, folding up the second manuscript, and looking hard at Trottle. &quot;I don&#039;t triumph over this worthy creature. I merely ask him if he is satisfied now?&quot; &quot;How can he be anything else? &quot; I said, answering for Trottle, who sat obstinately silent. &quot;This time, Jarber, you have not only read us a delightfully amusing story, but you have also answered the question about the House. Of course it stands empty now. Who would think of taking it after it had been turned into a caravan? &quot; I looked at Trottle, as I said those last words, and Jarber waved his hand indulgently in the same direction. &quot;Let this excellent person speak,&quot; said Jarber. &quot; You were about to say, my good man? &quot;— &quot;I only wished to ask, sir,&quot; said Trottle, doggedly, &quot;if you could kindly oblige me with a date or two, in connection with that last story?&quot; &quot;A date!&quot; repeated Jarber. &quot;What does the man want with dates!&quot; &quot;I should be glad to know, with great respect,&quot; persisted Trottle, &quot;if the person named Magsman was the last tenant who lived in the House. It&#039;s my opinion—if I may be excused for giving it—that he most decidedly was not.&quot; With those words, Trottle made a low bow, and quietly left the room. There is no denying that Jarber, when we were left together, looked sadly discomposed. He had evidently forgotten to inquire about dates; and, in spite of his magnificent talk about his series of discoveries, it was quite as plain that the two stories he had just read, had really and truly exhausted his present stock. I thought myself bound, in common gratitude, to help him out of his embarrassment by a timely suggestion. So I proposed that he should come to tea again, on the next Monday evening, the thirteenth, and should make such inquiries in the meantime, as might enable him to dispose triumphantly of Trottle&#039;s objection. He gallantly kissed my hand, made a neat little speech of acknowledgment, and took his leave. For the rest of the week I would not encourage Trottle by allowing him to refer to the House at all. I suspected he was making his own inquiries about dates, but I put no questions to him. On Monday evening, the thirteenth, that dear unfortunate Jarber came, punctual to the appointed time. He looked so terribly harassed, that he was really quite a spectacle of feebleness and fatigue. I saw, at a glance, that the question of dates had gone against him, that Mr. Magsman had not been the last tenant of the House, and that the reason of its emptiness was still to seek. &quot;What I have gone through,&quot; said Jarber, &quot;words arc not eloquent enough to tell. Oh, Sophonisba, I have begun another series of discoveries! Accept the last two as stories laid on your shrine; and wait to blame me for leaving your curiosity unappeased, until you have heard Number Three.&quot; Number Three looked like a very short manuscript, and I said as much. Jarber explained to me that we were to have some poetry this time. In the course of his investigations he had stepped into the Circulating Library, to seek for information on the one important subject. All the Library-people knew about the House was, that a female relative of the last tenant as they believed, had, just after that tenant left, sent a little manuscript poem to them which she described as referring to events that had actually passed in the House; and which she wanted the proprietor of the Library to publish. She had written no address on her letter; and the proprietor had kept the manuscript ready to be given back to her (the publishing of poems not being in his line) when she might call for it. She had never called for it; and the poem had been lent to Jarber, at his express request, to read to me. Before he began, I rang the bell for Trottle; being determined to have him present at the new reading, as a wholesome check on his obstinacy. To my surprise Peggy answered the bell, and told me that Trottle had stepped out, without saying where. I instantly felt the strongest possible conviction that he was at his old tricks: and that his stepping out in the evening, without leave, meant Philandering. Controlling myself on my visitor&#039;s account, I dismissed Peggy, stifled my indignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to listen to Jarber.18581207https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/A_House_to_Let_[1858_Christmas_Number]/1858-12-07-A_House_to_Let.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/A_House_to_Let_[1858_Christmas_Number]/1858-12-07-Going_Into_Society.pdf
188https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/188<em>A Message from the Sea </em>(1860 Christmas Number)Published in <em>All the Year Round,</em> Vol. IV, Extra Christmas Number, 25 December 1860, pp. 1-48.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-iv/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-iv/page-573.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-iv/page-576.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-iv/page-576.html</a><span>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-iv/page-616.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-iv/page-616.html</a>.<br /></span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1860-12-25">1860-12-25</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1860-12-25-A_Message_From_the_Sea<ul> <li>Charles Dickens (and Wilkie Collins?). 'The Village' (No.1), pp. 1-4.</li> <li>Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. 'The Money' (No.2), pp. 4-9.</li> <li>Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins (framing). 'The Club Night' (No.3), pp. 9-12,19,24,30-31. <ul> <li>Charles Allston Collins. Story of Tredgear in France (untitled), pp. 12-19.</li> <li>Harriet Parr. Story of James Lawrence (untitled), pp. 19-24.</li> <li>Henry Fothergill (H.F.) Chorley. Poem about white people cannibalising a black enslaved man (untitled), pp. 24-25.</li> <li>Amelia B. Edwards. Story about Penrewen's brother (untitled), pp. 25-30.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Wilkie Collins ('chiefly'). 'The Seafaring Man' (No.4), pp. 31-44.</li> <li>Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. 'The Restitution' (No.5), pp. 44-48.</li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al. <em>A Message From the Sea</em> (25 December 1860). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1860-12-25-A_Message_From_the_Sea">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1860-12-25-A_Message_From_the_Sea</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>&quot;And a mighty sing&#039;lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw in all the days of my life!&quot; said Captain Jorgan, looking up at it. Captain Jorgan had to look high to look at it, for the village was built sheer up the face of a steep and lofty cliff. There was no road in it, there was no wheeled vehicle in it, there was not a level yard in it. From the sea-beach to the cliff-top, two irregular rows of white houses, placed opposite to one another, and twisting here and there and there and here, rose, like the sides of a long succession of stages of crooked ladders, and you climbed up the village or climbed down the village by the staves between: some six feet wide or so, and made of sharp irregular stones. The old pack-saddle, long laid aside in most parts of England as one of the appendages of its infancy, nourished here intact. Strings of pack-horses and pack-donkeys toiled slowly up the staves of the ladders, bearing fish, and coal, and such other cargo as was unshipping at the pier from the dancing fleet of village boats, and from two or three little coasting traders. As the beasts of burden ascended laden, or descended light, they got so lost at intervals in the floating clouds of village smoke, that they seemed to dive down some of the village chimneys and come to the surface again far off, high above others. No two houses in the village were alike, in chimney, size, shape, door, window, gable, roof-tree, anything. The sides of the ladders were musical with water, running clear and bright. The staves were musical with the clattering feet of the pack-horses and pack-donkeys, and the voices of the fishermen urging them up, mingled with the voices of the fishermen&#039;s wives and their many children. The pier was musical with the wash of the sea, the creaking of capstans and windlasses, and the airy fluttering of little vanes and sails. The rough sea-bleached boulders of which the pier was made, and the whiter boulders of the shore, were brown with drying nets. The red-brown cliffs, richly wooded to their extremest verge, had their softened and beautiful forms reflected in the bluest water, under the clear North Devonshire sky of a November day without a cloud. The village itself was so steeped in autumnal foliage, from the houses giving on the pier, to the topmost round of the topmost ladder, that one might have fancied it was out a birds&#039;-nesting, and was (as indeed it was) a wonderful climber. And mentioning birds, the place was not without some music from them too; for, the rook was very busy on the higher levels, and the gull with his flapping wings was fishing in the bay, and the lusty little robin was hopping among the great stone blocks and iron rings of the breakwater, fearless in the faith of his ancestors and the Children in the Wood. Thus it came to pass that Captain Jorgan, sitting balancing himself on the pier-wall, struck his leg with his open hand, as some men do when they are pleased—and as he always did when he was pleased—and said: &quot;A mighty sing&#039;lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw in all the days of my life!&quot; Captain Jorgan had not been through the village, but had come down to the pier by a winding side-road, to have a preliminary look at it from the level of his own natural element. He had seen many things and places, and had stowed them all away in a shrewd intellect and a vigorous memory. He was an American born, was Captain Jorgan—a New Englander—but he was a citizen of the world, and a combination of most of the best qualities of most of its best countries. For Captain Jorgan to sit anywhere in his long-skirted blue coat and blue trousers, without holding converse with everybody within speaking distance, was a sheer impossibility. So, the captain fell to talking with the fishermen, and to asking them knowing questions about the fishery, and the tides, and the currents, and the race of water off that point yonder, and what you kept in your eye and got into a line with what else when you ran into the little harbour; and other nautical profundities. Among the men who exchanged ideas with the captain, was a young fellow who exactly hit his fancy—a young fisherman of two or three-and-twenty, in the rough sea-dress of his craft, with a brown face, dark curling hair, and bright modest eyes under his Sou&#039;-Wester hat, and with a frank but simple and retiring manner which the captain found uncommonly taking. &quot;I&#039;d bet a thousand dollars,&quot; said the captain to himself, &quot;that your father was an honest man!&quot; &quot;Might you be married now?&quot; asked the captain when he had had some talk with this new acquaintance. &quot;Not yet.&quot; &quot;Going to be?&quot; said the captain. &quot;I hope so.&quot; The captain&#039;s keen glance followed the slightest possible turn of the dark eye, and the slightest possible tilt of the Sou&#039;-Wester hat. The captain then slapped both his legs, and said to himself: &quot;Never knew such a good thing in all my life! There&#039;s his sweetheart looking over the wall!&quot; There was a very pretty girl looking over the wall, from a little platform of cottage, vine, and fuchsia; and she certainly did not look as if the presence of this young fisherman in the landscape, made it any the less sunny and hopeful for her. Captain Jorgan, having doubled himself up to laugh with that hearty good nature which is quite exultant in the innocent happiness of other people, had undoubled himself and was going to start a new subject, when there appeared coming down the lower ladders of stones a man whom he hailed as &quot;Tom Pettifer Ho!&quot; Tom Pettifer Ho responded with alacrity, and in speedy course descended on the pier. &quot;Afraid of a sunstroke in England in November, Tom, that you wear your tropical hat, strongly paid outside and paper-lined inside, here?&quot; said the captain, eyeing it. &quot;It&#039;s as well to be on the safe side, sir,&quot; replied Tom. &quot;Safe side!&quot; repeated the captain, laughing. &quot;You&#039;d guard against a sunstroke with that old hat, in an Ice Pack. Wa&#039;al! What have you made out at the Post-office?&quot; &quot;It is the Post-office, sir.&quot; &quot;What&#039;s the Post-office?&quot; said the captain. &quot;The name, sir. The name keeps the Post-office.&quot; &quot;A coincidence!&quot; said the captain. &quot;A lucky hit! Show me where it is. Good-by, shipmates, for the present! I shall come and have another look at you, afore I leave, this afternoon.&quot; This was addressed to all there, but especially the young fisherman; so, all there acknowledged it, but especially the young fisherman. &quot;He&#039;s a sailor!&quot; said one to another, as they looked after the captain moving away. That he was; and so outspeaking was the sailor in him, that although his dress had nothing nautical about it with the single exception of its colour, but was a suit of a shore-going shape and form, too long, in the sleeves, and too short in the legs, and too unaccommodating everywhere, terminating earthward in a pair of Wellington boots, and surmounted by a tall stiff hat which no mortal could have worn at sea in any wind under Heaven; nevertheless, a glimpse of his sagacious weather-beaten face or his strong brown hand would have established the captain&#039;s calling. Whereas, Mr. Pettifer—a man of a certain plump neatness with a curly whisker, and elaborately nautical in a jacket and shoes and all things correspondent—looked no more like a seaman, beside Captain Jorgan, than he looked like a sea-serpent. The two climbed high up the village—which had the most arbitrary turns and twists in it, so that the cobbler&#039;s house came dead across the ladder, and to have held a reasonable course you must have gone through his house, and through, him too, as he sat at his work between two little windows, with one eye microscopically on the geological formation of that part of Devonshire, and the other telescopically on the open sea—the two climbed high up the village, and stopped before a quaint little house, on which was painted &quot;MRS. RAYBROCK, DRAPER;&quot; and also, &quot;POST-OFFICE.&quot; Before it, ran a rill of murmuring water, and access to it was gained by a little plank-bridge. &quot;Here&#039;s the name,&quot; said Captain Jorgan, &quot;sure enough. You can come in if you like, Tom.&quot; The captain opened the door, and passed into an odd little shop about six feet high, with a great variety of beams and bumps in the ceiling, and, besides the principal window giving on the ladder of stones, a purblind little window of a single pane of glass: peeping out of an abutting corner at the sun-lighted ocean, and winking at its brightness. &quot;How do you do, ma&#039;am?&quot; said the captain. &quot;I am very glad to see you. I have come a long way to see you.&quot; &quot;Have you, sir? Then I am sure I am very glad to see you, though I don&#039;t know you from. Adam.&quot; Thus, a comely elderly woman, short of stature, plump of form, sparkling and dark of eye, who, perfectly clean and neat herself, stood in the midst of her perfectly clean and neat arrangements, and surveyed Captain Jorgan with smiling curiosity. &quot;Ah! but you are a sailor, sir,&quot; she added, almost immediately, and with a slight movement of her hands, that was not very unlike wringing them; &quot;then you are heartily welcome.&quot; &quot;Thankee, ma&#039;am,&quot; said the captain. &quot;I don&#039;t know what it is, I am sure, that brings out the salt in me, but everybody seems to see it on the crown of my hat and the collar of my coat. Yes, ma&#039;am, I am in that way of life.&quot; &quot;And the other gentleman, too,&quot; said Mrs. Raybrock. &quot;Well now, ma&#039;am,&quot; said the captain, glancing shrewdly at the other gentleman, &quot;you are that nigh right, that he goes to sea—if that makes him a sailor. This is my steward, ma&#039;am, Tom Pettifer; he&#039;s been a&#039;most all trades you could name, in the course of his life—would have bought all your chairs and tables, once, if you had wished to sell &#039;em—but now he&#039;s my steward. My name&#039;s Jorgan, and I&#039;m a shipowner, and I sail my own and my partners&#039; ships, and have done so this five-and-twenty year. According to custom I am called Captain Jordan, but I am no more a captain, bless your heart! than you are.&quot; &quot;Perhaps you&#039;ll come into my parlour, sir, and take a chair?&quot; said Mrs. Raybrock. &quot;Ex-actly what I was going to propose myself, ma&#039;am. After you.&quot; Thus replying, and enjoining Tom to give an eye to the shop, Captain Jorgan followed Mrs. Raybrock into the little low back-room—decorated with divers plants in pots, tea-trays, old china teapots, and punch-bowls which was at once the private sitting-room of the Raybrock family, and the inner cabinet of the post-office of the village of Steepways. &quot;Now, ma&#039;am,&quot; said the captain, &quot;it don&#039;t signify a cent to you where I was born, except.—&quot; But, here the shadow of some one entering, fell upon the captain&#039;s figure, and he broke off to double himself up, slap both his legs, and ejaculate, &quot;Never knew such a thing in all my life! Here he is again! How are you?&quot; These words referred to the young fellow who had so taken Captain Jorgan&#039;s fancy down at the pier. To make it all quite complete he came in accompanied by the sweetheart whom the captain had detected looking over the wall. A prettier sweetheart the sun could not have shone upon, that shining day. As she stood before the captain, with her rosy lips just parted in surprise, her brown eyes a little wider open than was usual from the same cause, and her breathing a little quickened by the ascent (and possibly by some mysterious hurry and flurry at the parlour door, in which the captain had observed her face to be for a moment totally eclipsed by the Sou&#039;-Wester hat), she looked so charming, that the captain felt himself under a moral obligation to slap both his legs again. She was very simply dressed, with no other ornament than an autumnal flower in her bosom. She wore neither hat nor bonnet, but merely a scarf or kerchief, folded squarely back over the head, to keep the sun off—according to a fashion that may be sometimes seen in the more genial parts of England as well as of Italy, and which is probably the first fashion of head-dress that came into the world when grasses and leaves went out. &quot;ln my country,&quot; said the captain, rising to give her his chair, and dexterously sliding it close to another chair on which the young fisherman must necessarily establish himself &quot;in my country we should call Devonshire beauty, first-rate!&quot; Whenever a frank manner is offensive, it is because it is strained or feigned; for, there may be quite as much intolerable affectation in plainness, as in mincing nicety. All that the captain said and did, was honestly according to his nature, and his nature was open nature and good nature; therefore, when he paid this little compliment, and expressed with a sparkle or two of his knowing eye, &quot;I see how it is, and nothing could be better,&quot; he had established a delicate confidence on that subject with the family. &quot;I was saying to your worthy mother,&quot; said the captain to the young man, after again introducing himself by name and occupation: &quot;I was saying to your mother (and you&#039;re very like her) that it didn&#039;t signify where I was born except that I was raised on question-asking ground, where the babies as soon as ever they come into the world, inquire of their mothers &#039;Neow, how old may you be, and wa&#039;at air you a goin&#039; to name me?&#039;— which is a fact.&quot; Here he slapped his leg. &quot;Such being the case, I may be excused for asking you if your name&#039;s Alfred?&quot; &quot;Yes, sir, my name is Alfred,&quot; returned the young man. &quot;I am not a conjuror,&quot; pursued the captain, &quot;and don&#039;t think me so, or I shall right soon undeceive you. Likewise don&#039;t think, if you please, though I do come from that country of the babies, that I am asking questions for question-asking&#039;s sake, for I am not. Somebody belonging to you, went to sea?&quot; &quot;My elder brother Hugh,&quot; returned the young man. He said it in an altered and lower voice, and glanced at his mother: who raised her hands hurriedly, and put them together across her black gown, and looked eagerly at the visitor. &quot;No! For God&#039;s sake, don&#039;t think that!&quot; said the captain, in a solemn way; &quot;I bring no good tidings of him.&quot; There was a silence, and the mother turned her face to the fire and put her hand between it and her eyes. The young fisherman slightly motioned towards the window, and the captain, looking in that direction, saw a young widow sitting at a neighbouring window across a little garden, engaged in needlework, with a young child sleeping on her bosom. The silence continued until the captain asked of Alfred: &quot;How long is it since it happened?&quot; &quot;He shipped for his last voyage, better than three years ago.&quot; &quot;Ship struck upon some reef or rock, as I take it,&quot; said the captain, &quot;and all hands lost?&quot; &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;Wa&#039;al!&quot; said the captain, after a shorter silence. &quot;Here I sit who may come to the same end, like enough. He holds the seas in the hollow of His hand. We must all strike somewhere and go down. Our comfort, then, for ourselves and one another, is, to have done our duty. I&#039;ll wager your brother did his!&quot; &quot;He did!&quot; answered the young fisherman. &quot;If ever man strove faithfully on all occasions to do his duty, my brother did. My brother was not a quick man (anything but that), but he was a faithful, true, and just man. We were the sons of only a small tradesman in this county, sir; yet our father was as watchful of his good name as if he had been a king.&quot; &quot;A precious sight more so, I hope—bearing in mind the general run of that class of crittur,&quot; said the captain. &quot;But I interrupt.&quot; &quot;My brother considered that our father left the good name to us, to keep clear and true.&quot; &quot;Your brother considered right,&quot; said the captain; &quot;and you couldn&#039;t take care of a better legacy. But again I interrupt.&quot; &quot;No; for I have nothing more to say. We know that Hugh lived well for the good name, and we feel certain that he died well for the good name. And now it has come into my keeping. And that&#039;s all.&quot; &quot;Well spoken!&quot; cried the captain. &quot;Well spoken, young man! Concerning the manner of your brother&#039;s death;&quot; by this time, the captain had released the hand he had shaken, and sat with his own broad brown hands spread out on his knees, and spoke aside; &quot;concerning the manner of your brother&#039;s death, it may be that I have some information to give you; though it may not be, for I am far from sure. Can we have a little talk alone?&quot; The young man rose; but, not before the captain&#039;s quick eye had noticed that, on the pretty sweetheart&#039;s turning to the window to greet the young widow with a nod and a wave of the hand, the young widow had held up to her the needlework on which she was engaged, with a patient and pleasant smile. So the captain said, being on his legs: &quot;What might she be making now?&quot; &quot;What is Margaret making, Kitty?&quot; asked the young fisherman—with one of his arms apparently mislaid somewhere. As Kitty only blushed in reply, the captain doubled himself up, as far as he could, standing, and said, with a slap of his leg: &quot;In my country we should call it wedding-clothes, fact! We should, I do assure you.&quot; But, it seemed to strike the captain in another light too; for, his laugh was not a long one, and he added in quite a gentle tone: &quot;And it&#039;s very pretty, my dear, to see her—poor young thing, with her fatherless child upon her bosom giving up her thoughts to your home and your happiness. It&#039;s very pretty, my dear, and it&#039;s very good. May your marriage be more prosperous than hers, and be a comfort to her, too. May the blessed sun see you all happy together, in possession of the good name, long after I have done ploughing the great salt field that is never sown!&quot; Kitty answered very earnestly. &quot;O! Thank you, sir, with all my heart!&quot; And, in her loving little way, kissed her hand to him, and possibly by implication to the young fisherman too, as the latter held the parlour door open for the captain to pass out. &quot;The stairs are very narrow, sir,&quot; said Alfred Raybrock to Captain Jorgan. &quot;Like my cabin-stairs,&quot; returned the captain, &quot;on many a voyage.&quot; &quot;And they are rather inconvenient for the head.&quot; &quot;If my head can&#039;t take care of itself by this time, after all the knocking about the world it has had,&quot; replied the captain, as unconcernedly as if he had no connexion with it, &quot;it&#039;s not worth looking after.&quot; Thus, they came into the young fisherman&#039;s bedroom, which was as perfectly neat and clean as the shop and parlour below: though it was but a little place, with a sliding window, and a phrenological ceiling expressive of all the peculiarities of the house-roof. Here the captain sat down on the foot of the bed, and, glancing at a dreadful libel on Kitty which ornamented the wall— the production of some wandering limner, whom the captain secretly admired, as having studied portraiture from the figure-heads of ships— motioned to the young man to take the rush-chair on the other side of the small round table. That done, the captain put his hand into the deep breast-pocket of his long-skirted blue coat, and took out of it a strong square case-bottle—not a large bottle, but such as may be seen in any ordinary ship&#039;s medicine chest. Setting this bottle on the table without removing his hand from it, Captain Jorgan then spake as follows. &quot;In my last voyage homeward-bound,&quot; said the captain, &quot;and that&#039;s the voyage off of which I now come straight, I encountered such weather off the Horn, as is not very often met with, even there. I have rounded that stormy Cape pretty often, and I believe I first beat about there in the identical storms that blew the devil&#039;s horns and tail off, and led to the horns being worked up into toothpicks for the plantation overseers in my country, who may be seen (if you travel down South, or away West, fur enough) picking their teeth with &#039;em, while the whips, made of the tail, flog hard. In this last voyage, homeward-bound for Liverpool from South America, I say to you my young friend, it blew. Whole measures! No half measures, nor making believe to blow; it blew! Now, I warn&#039;t blown clean out of the water into the sky—though I expected to be even that but I was blown clean out of my course; and when at last it fell calm, it fell dead calm, and a strong current set one way, day and night, night and day, and I drifted—drifted—drifted—out of all the ordinary tracks and courses of ships, and drifted yet, and yet drifted. It behoves a man who takes charge of fellow-critturs&#039; lives, never to rest from making himself master of his calling. I never did rest, and consequently I knew pretty well (specially looking over the side in the dead calm at that strong current), what dangers to expect, and what precautions to take against &#039;em. In short, we were driving head on, to an island. There was no Island in the chart, and, therefore, you may say it was ill manners in the Island to be there; I don&#039;t dispute its bad breeding, but there it was. Thanks be to Heaven, I was as ready for the Island as the Island was ready for me. I made it out myself from the masthead, and I got enough way upon her in good time, to keep her off. I ordered a boat to be lowered and manned, and went in that boat myself to explore the Island. There was a reef outside it, and, floating in a corner of the smooth water within the reef, was a heap of seaweed, and entangled in that seaweed was this bottle.&quot; Here, the captain took his hand from the bottle for a moment, that the young fisherman might direct a wondering glance at it; and then replaced his hand and went on: &quot;if ever you come—or even if ever you don&#039;t come—to a desert place, use you your eyes and your spy-glass well; for the smallest thing you see, may prove of use to you, and may have some information or some warning in it. That&#039;s the principle on which I came to see this bottle. I picked up the bottle and ran the boat alongside the Island and made fast and went ashore, armed, with a part of my boat&#039;s crew. We found that every scrap of vegetation on the Island (I give it you as in my opinion, but scant and scrubby at the best of times) had been consumed by fire. As we were making our way, cautiously and toilsomely, over the pulverised embers, one of my people sank into the earth, breast high. He turned pale, and &#039;Haul me out smart, shipmates,&#039; says he, &#039;for my feet are among bones.&#039; We soon got him on his legs again, and then we dug up the spot, and we found that the man was right, and that his feet had been among bones. More than that, they were human bones; though whether the remains of one man, or of two or three men, what with calcination and ashes, and what with a poor practical knowledge of anatomy, I can&#039;t undertake to say. We examined the whole Island and made out nothing else, save and except that, from its opposite side, I sighted a considerable tract of land, which land I was able to identify, and according to the bearings of which (not to trouble you with my log) I took a fresh departure. When I got aboard again, I opened the bottle, which was oilskin-covered as you see, and glass-stoppered as you see. Inside of it,&quot; pursued the captain, suiting his action to his words, &quot;I found this little crumpled folded paper, just as you see. Outside of it was written, as you see, these words: &#039;Whoever finds this, is solemnly entreated by the dead, to convey it unread to Alfred Raybrock, Steepways, North Devon, England.&#039; A sacred charge,&quot; said the captain, concluding his narrative, &quot;and, Alfred Raybrock, there it is!&quot; &quot;This is my poor brother&#039;s writing!&quot; &quot;I supposed so,&quot; said Captain Jorgan. &quot;I&#039;ll take a look out of this little window while you read it.&quot; &quot;Pray no, sir! I should be hurt. We should all be hurt. My brother couldn&#039;t know it would fall into such hands as yours.&quot; The captain sat down again on the foot of the bed, and the young man opened the folded paper with a trembling hand, and spread it on the table. The ragged paper, evidently creased and torn both before and after being written on, was much blotted and stained, and the ink had faded and run, and many words were wanting. What the captain and the young fisherman made out together, after much re-reading and much humouring of the folds of the paper, was this: Before meeting death with a made-up mind I put the below under-wrote for my own self&#039;s Reminder Days ago - in a bottle and set it floating. Loved brother Alfred if it comes to hand do as I would have done. Last love and thoughts to dear wife &amp; mother &amp; you Alfred. Hugh Raybrock Mem. For Self H. Raybrock to jog Memory Under His Hand Cast Away Very Unhappy is mind through his (L.C.&#039;s) telling me that poor father&#039;s 500 £ is Stolen Money. Likewise, for reasons here noted down no malice not the right books. He said I might If proof if ever we get taken off here He said Lanrean and so among the old men there. P.S. I believe nothing against poor father If ever taken off discover please God restore The young fisherman had become more and more agitated, as the writing had become clearer to him. He now left it lying before the captain, over whose shoulder he had been reading it, and, dropping into his former seat, leaned forward on the table and laid his face in his hands. &quot;What, man,&quot; urged the captain, &quot;don&#039;t give in! Be up and doing, like a man!&quot; &quot;It is selfish, I know—but doing what, doing what?&quot; cried the young fisherman, in complete despair, and stamping his sea-boot on the ground. &quot;Doing what?&quot; returned the captain. &quot;Something! I&#039;d go down to the little breakwater below, yonder, and take a wrench at one of the salt-rusted iron-rings there, and either wrench it up by the roots or wrench my teeth out of my head, sooner than I&#039;d do nothing. Nothing!&quot; ejaculated the captain. &quot;Any fool or faint-heart can do that, and nothing can come of nothing—Which was pretended to be found out, I believe, by one of them Latin critturs,&quot; said the captain, with the deepest disdain; &quot;as if Adam hadn&#039;t found it out, afore ever he so much as named the beasts!&quot; Yet the captain saw, in spite of his bold words, that there was some greater reason than he yet understood for the young man&#039;s distress. And he eyed him with a sympathising curiosity. &quot;Come, come!&quot; continued the captain. &quot;Speak out. What is it, boy?&quot; &quot;You have seen how beautiful she is, sir,&quot; said the young man, looking up for the moment, with a flushed face and rumpled hair. &quot;Did any man ever say she warn&#039;t beautiful?&quot; retorted the captain. &quot;If so, go and lick him.&quot; The young man laughed fretfully in spite of himself, and said, &quot;It&#039;s not that, it&#039;s not that.&quot; &quot;Wa&#039;al, then, what is it?&quot; said the captain, in a more soothing tone. The young fisherman mournfully composed himself to tell the captain what it was, and began: &quot;We were to have been married next Monday week—&quot; &quot;Were to have been!&quot; interrupted Captain Jorgan. &quot;And are to be? Hey?&quot; Young Raybrock shook his head, and traced out with his forefinger the words &quot;poor father&#039;s five hundred pounds,&quot; in the written paper. &quot;Go along.&quot; said the captain. &quot;Five hundred pounds? Yes?&quot; &quot;That sum of money,&quot; pursued the young fisherman, entering with the greatest earnestness on his demonstration, while the captain eyed him with equal earnestness, &quot;was all my late father possessed. When he died, he owed no man more than he left means to pay, but he had been able to lay by only five hundred pounds.&quot; &quot;Five hundred pounds,&quot; repeated the captain. &quot;Yes?&quot; &quot;In his lifetime, years before, he had expressly laid the money aside, to leave to my mother—like to settle upon her, if I make myself understood.&quot; &quot;Yes?&quot; &quot;He had risked it once—my father put down in writing at that time, respecting the money—and was resolved never to risk it again.&quot; &quot;Not a spec&#039;lator,&quot; said the captain. &quot;My country wouldn&#039;t have suited him. Yes?&quot; &quot;My mother has never touched the money till now. And now it was to have been laid out, this very next week, in buying me a handsome share in our neighbouring fishery here, to settle me in life with Kitty.&quot; The captain&#039;s face fell, and he passed and repassed his sun-browned right hand over his thin hair, in a discomfited manner. &quot;Kitty&#039;s father has no more than enough to live on, even in the sparing way in which we live about here. He is a kind of bailiff or steward of manor rights here, and they are not much, and it is but a poor little office. He was better off once, and Kitty must never marry to mere drudgery and hard living.&quot; The captain still sat stroking his thin hair, and looking at the young fisherman. &quot;I am as certain that my father had no knowledge that any one was wronged as to this money, or that any restitution ought to be made, as I am certain that the sun now shines. But, after this solemn warning from my brother&#039;s grave in the sea, that the money is Stolen Money,&quot; said Young Raybrock, forcing himself to the utterance of the words, &quot;can I doubt it? Can I touch it?&quot; &quot;About not doubting, I ain&#039;t so sure,&quot; observed the captain; &quot;but about not touching—no—I don&#039;t think you can.&quot; &quot;See, then,&quot; said Young Raybrock, &quot;why I am so grieved. Think of Kitty. Think what I have got to tell her!&quot; His heart quite failed him again when he had come round to that, and he once more beat his sea-boot softly on the floor. But, not for long; he soon began again, in a quietly resolute tone. &quot;However! Enough of that! You spoke some brave words to me just now, Captain Jorgan, and they shall not be spoken in vain. I have got to do Something. What I have got to do, before all other things, is to trace out the meaning of this paper, for the sake of the Good Name that has no one else to put it right or keep it right. And still, for the sake of the Good Name, and my father&#039;s memory, not a word of this writing must be breathed to my mother, or to Kitty, or to any human creature. You agree in this?&quot; &quot;I don&#039;t know what they&#039;ll think of us, below,&quot; said the captain, &quot;but for certain I can&#039;t oppose it. Now, as to tracing. How will you do?&quot; They both, as by consent, bent over the paper again, and again carefully puzzled out the whole of the writing. &quot;I make out that this would stand, if all the writing was here, &#039;Inquire among the old men living there, for&#039;—some one. Most like, you&#039;ll go to this village named here?&quot; said the captain, musing, with his finger on the name. &quot;Yes! And Mr. Tregarthen is a Cornishman, and—to be sure!—comes from Lanrean.&quot; &quot;Does he?&quot; said the captain, quietly. &quot;As I ain&#039;t acquainted with him, who may he be?&quot; &quot;Mr. Tregarthen is Kitty&#039;s father.&quot; &quot;Ay, ay!&quot; cried the captain. &quot;Now, you speak! Tregarthen knows this village of Lanrean, then?&quot; &quot;Beyond all doubt he does. I have often heard him mention it, as being his native place. He knows it well.&quot; &quot;Stop half a moment,&quot; said the captain. &quot;We want a name here. You could ask Tregarthen (or if you couldn&#039;t, I could) what names of old men he remembers in his time in those diggings? Hey?&quot; &quot;I can go straight to his cottage, and ask him now.&quot; &quot;Take me with you,&quot; said the captain, rising in a solid way that had a most comfortable reliability in it, &quot;and just a word more, first. I knocked about harder than you, and have got along further than you. I have had, all my sea-going life long, to keep my wits polished bright with acid and friction, like the brass cases of the ship&#039;s instruments. I&#039;ll keep you company on this expedition. Now, you don&#039;t live by talking, any more than I do. Clench that hand of yours in this hand of mine, and that&#039;s a speech on both sides.&quot; Captain Jorgan took command of the expedition with that hearty shake. He at once refolded the paper exactly as before, replaced it in the bottle, put the stopper in, put the oilskin over the stopper, confided the whole to Young Raybrock&#039;s keeping, and led the way down stairs. But it was harder navigation below stairs than above. The instant they set foot in the parlour, the quick womanly eye detected that there was something wrong. Kitty exclaimed, frightened, as she ran to her lover&#039;s side, &quot;Alfred! What&#039;s the matter?&quot; Mrs. Raybrock cried out to the captain, &quot;Gracious! what have you done to my son to change him like this, all in a minute!&quot; And the young widow—who was there with her work upon her arm was at first so agitated, that she frightened the little girl she held in her hand, who hid her face in her mother&#039;s skirts and screamed. The captain, conscious of being held responsible for this domestic change, contemplated it with quite a guilty expression of countenance, and looked to the young fisherman to come to his rescue. &quot;Kitty darling,&quot; said Young Raybrock, &quot;Kitty, dearest love, I must go away to Lanrean, and I don&#039;t know where else or how much farther, this very day. Worse than that—our marriage, Kitty, must be put off, and I don&#039;t know for how long.&quot; Kitty stared at him, in doubt and wonder and in anger, and pushed him from her with her hand &quot;Put off?&quot; cried Mrs. Raybrock. &quot;The marriage put off? And you going to Lanrean! &quot;Why, in the name of the dear Lord?&quot; &quot;Mother dear, I can&#039;t say why, I must not say why. It would be dishonourable and undutiful to say why.&quot; &quot;Dishonourable and undutiful?&quot; returned the dame. &quot;And is there nothing dishonourable or undutiful in the boy&#039;s breaking the heart of his own plighted love, and his mother&#039;s heart too, for the sake of the dark secrets and counsels of a wicked stranger? Why did you ever come here?&quot; she apostrophised the innocent captain. &quot;Who wanted you? Where did you come from? Why couldn&#039;t you rest in your own bad place, wherever it is, instead of disturbing the peace of quiet unoffending folk like us?&quot; &quot;And what,&quot; sobbed the poor little Kitty, &quot;have I ever done to you, you hard and cruel captain, that you should come and serve me so?&quot; And then they both began to weep most pitifully, while the captain could only look from the one to the other, and lay hold of himself by the coat-collar. &quot;Margaret,&quot; said the poor young fisherman, on his knees at Kitty&#039;s feet, while Kitty kept both her hands before her tearful face, to shut out the traitor from her view—but kept her fingers wide asunder and looked at him all the time: &quot;Margaret, you have suffered so much, so uncomplainingly, and are always so careful and considerate! Do take my part, for poor Hugh&#039;s sake!&quot; The quiet Margaret was not appealed to in vain. &quot;I will, Alfred,&quot; she returned, &quot;and I do. I wish this gentleman had never come near us;&quot; whereupon the captain laid hold of himself the tighter; &quot;but I take your part, for all that. I am sure you have some strong reason and some sufficient reason for what you do, strange as it is, and even for not saying why you do it, strange as that is. And, Kitty darling, you are bound to think so, more than any one, for true love believes everything, and bears everything, and trusts everything. And mother dear, you are bound to think so too, for you know you have been blest with good sons, whose word was always as good as their oath, and who were brought up in as true a sense of honour as any gentlemen in this land. And I am sure you have no more call, mother, to doubt your living son than to doubt your dead son; and for the sake of the dear dead, I stand up for the dear living.&quot; &quot;Wa&#039;al now,&quot; the captain struck in, with enthusiasm, &quot;this I say. That whether your opinions flatter me or not, you are a young woman of sense and spirit and feeling; and I&#039;d sooner have you by my side, in the hour of danger, than a good half of the men I&#039;ve ever fallen in with—or fallen out with, ayther.&quot; Margaret did not return the captain&#039;s compliment, or appear fully to reciprocate his good opinion, but she applied herself to the consolation of Kitty and of Kitty&#039;s mother-in-law that was to have been next Monday week, and soon restored the parlour to a quiet condition. &quot;Kitty, my darling,&quot; said the young fisher-man, &quot;I must go to your father to entreat him still to trust me in spite of this wretched change and mystery, and to ask him for some directions concerning Lanrean. Will you come home? Will you come with me, Kitty?&quot; Kitty answered not a word, but rose sobbing, with the end of her simple head-dress at her eyes. Captain Jorgan followed the lovers out, quite sheepishly: pausing in the shop to give. an instruction to Mr. Pettifer. &quot;Here, Tom!&quot; said the captain, in a low voice. &quot; Here&#039;s something in your line. Here&#039;s an old lady poorly and low in her spirits. Cheer her up a bit, Tom. Cheer &#039;em all up.&quot; Mr. Pettifer, with a brisk nod of intelligence, immediately assumed his steward face, and went with his quiet helpful steward step into the parlour: where the captain had the great satisfaction of seeing him, through the glass door, take the child in his arms (who offered no objection), and bend over Mrs. Raybrock, administering soft words of consolation. &quot;Though what he finds to say, unless he&#039;s telling her that it&#039;ll soon be over, or that most people is so at first, or that it&#039;ll do her good afterwards, I can not imaginate!&quot; was the captain&#039;s reflection as he followed the lovers. He had not far to follow them, since it was but a short descent down the stony ways to the cottage of Kitty&#039;s father. But, short as the distance was, it was long enough to enable the captain to observe that he was fast becoming the village Ogre; for, there was not a woman standing working at her door, or a fisherman coming up or going down, who saw Young Raybrock unhappy and little Kitty in tears, but she or he instantly darted a suspicious and indignant glance at the captain, as the foreigner who must somehow be responsible for this unusual spectacle. Consequently, when they came into Tregarthen&#039;s little garden—which formed the platform from which the captain had seen Kitty peeping over the wall—the captain brought to, and stood off and on at the gate, while Kitty hurried to hide her tears in her own room, and Alfred spoke with her father who was working in the garden. He was a rather infirm man, but could scarcely be called old yet, with an agreeable face and a promising air of making the best of things. The conversation began on his side with great cheerfulness and good humour, but soon became distrustful and soon angry. That was the captain&#039;s cue for striking both into the conversation and the garden. &quot;Morning, sir!&quot; said Captain Jorgan. &quot;How do you do?&quot; &quot;The gentleman I am going away with,&quot; said the young fisherman to Tregarthen. &quot;Oh!&quot; returned Kitty&#039;s father, surveying the unfortunate captain with a look of extreme disfavour. &quot;I confess that I can&#039;t say I am glad to see you.&quot; &quot;No,&quot; said the captain, &quot;and, to admit the truth, that seems to be the general, opinion in these parts. But don&#039;t be hasty; you may think better of me, by-and-by.&quot; &quot;I hope so,&quot; observed Tregarthen. &quot;Wa&#039;al, I hope so,&quot; observed the captain, quite at his ease; &quot;more than that, I believe so—though you don&#039;t. Now, Mr. Tregarthen, you don&#039;t want to exchange words of mistrust with me; and if you did, you couldn&#039;t, because I wouldn&#039;t. You and I are old enough to know better than to judge against experience from surfaces and appearances; and if you haven&#039;t lived to find out the evil and injustice of such judgments, you are a lucky man.&quot; The other seemed to shrink under this remark, and replied, &quot;Sir, I have lived to feel it deeply.&quot; &quot;Wa&#039;al,&quot; said the captain, mollified, &quot;then I&#039;ve made a good cast, without knowing it. Now, Tregarthen, there stands the lover of your only child, and here stand I who know his secret. I warrant it a righteous secret, and none of his making, though bound to be of his keeping. I want to help him out with it, and tewwards that end we ask you to favour us with the names of two or three old residents in the village of Lanrean. As I am taking out my pocket-book and pencil to put the names down, I may as well observe to you that this, wrote atop of the first page here, is my name and address: &#039;Silas Jonas Jorgan, Salem, Massachusetts, United States.&#039; If ever you take it in your head to run over, any morning, I shall be glad to welcome you. Now, what may be the spelling of these said names?&quot; &quot;There was an elderly man,&quot; said Tregarthen, &quot;named David Polreath. He may be dead.&quot; &quot;Wa&#039;al,&quot; said the captain, cheerfully, &quot;if Polreath&#039;s dead and buried, and can be made of any service to us, Polreath won&#039;t object to our digging of him up. Polreath&#039;s down, anyhow.&quot; &quot;There was another, named Penrewen. I don&#039;t know his Christian name.&quot; &quot;Never mind his Chris&#039;en name,&quot; said the captain. &quot;Penrewen for short.&quot; &quot;There was another, named John Tredgear.&quot; &quot;And a pleasant-sounding name, too,&quot; said the captain;&quot; John Tredgear&#039;s booked.&quot; &quot;I can recal no other, except old Parvis.&quot; &quot;One of old Parvis&#039;s fam&#039;ly, I reckon,&quot; said the captain, &quot;kept a dry-goods store in New York city, and realised a handsome competency by burning his house to ashes. Same name, anyhow. David Polreath, Unchris&#039;en Penrewen, John Tredgear, and old Arson Parvis.&quot; &quot;I cannot recal any others, at the moment.&quot; &quot;Thankee,&quot; said the captain. &quot;And so, Tregarthen, hoping for your good opinion yet, and likewise for the fair Devonshire Flower&#039;s, your daughter&#039;s, I give you my hand, sir, and wish you good day.&quot; Young Raybrock accompanied him disconsolately; for, there was no Kitty at the window when he looked up, no Kitty in the garden when he shut the gate, no Kitty gazing after them along the stony ways when they began to climb back. &quot;Now I tell you what,&quot; said the captain. &quot;Not being at present calc&#039;lated to promote harmony in your family, I won&#039;t come in. You go and get your dinner at home, and I&#039;ll get mine at the little hotel. Let our hour of meeting be two o&#039;clock, and you&#039;ll find me smoking a cigar in the sun afore the hotel door. Tell Tom Pettifer, my steward, to consider himself on duty, and to look after your people till we come back; you&#039;ll find he&#039;ll have made himself useful to &#039;em already, and will be quite acceptable.&quot; All was done as Captain Jorgan directed. Punctually at two o&#039;clock, the young fisherman, appeared with his knapsack at his back; and punctually at two o&#039;clock, the captain jerked away the last feathery end of his cigar. &quot;Let me carry your baggage, Captain Jorgan; I can easily take it with mine.&quot; &quot;Thank&#039;ee,&quot; said the captain, &quot; I&#039;ll carry it myself. It&#039;s on&#039;y a comb.&quot; They climbed out of the village, and paused among the trees and fern on the summit of the hill above, to take breath and to look down at the beautiful sea. Suddenly, the captain gave his leg a resounding slap, and cried, &quot;Never knew such a right thing in all my life!&quot;—and ran away. The cause of this abrupt retirement on the part of the captain, was little Kitty among the trees. The captain went out of sight and waited, and kept out of sight and waited, until it occurred to him to beguile the time with another cigar. He lighted it, and smoked it out, and still he was out of sight and waiting. He stole within sight at last, and saw the lovers, with their arms entwined and their bent heads touching, moving slowly among the trees. It was the golden time of the afternoon then, and the captain said to himself, &quot;Golden sun, golden sea, golden sails, golden leaves, golden love, golden youth—a golden state of things altogether!&quot; Nevertheless, the captain found it necessary to hail his young companion before going out of sight again. In a few moments more, he came up, and they began their journey. &quot;That still young woman with the fatherless child,&quot; said Captain Jorgan as they fell into step, &quot;didn&#039;t throw her words away; but good honest words are never thrown away. And now that I am conveying you off from that tender little thing that loves and relies and hopes, I feel just as if I was the snarling crittur in the picters, with the tight legs, the long nose, and the feather in his cap, the tips of whose mustachios get up nearer to his eyes, the wickeder he gets.&quot; The young fisherman knew nothing of Mephistopheles; but, he smiled when the captain stopped to double himself up and slap his leg, and they went along in right good fellowship. Captain Jorgan, up and out betimes, had put the whole village of Lanrean under an amicable cross-examination, and was returning to the King Arthur&#039;s Arms to breakfast, none the wiser for his trouble, when he beheld the young fisherman advancing to meet him, accompanied by a stranger. A glance at this stranger, assured the captain that he could be no other than the Seafaring Man; and the captain was about to hail him as a fellow-craftsman, when the two stood still and silent before the captain, and the captain stood still silent, and wondering before them. &quot;Why, what&#039;s this!&quot; cried the captain, when at last he broke the silence. &quot;You two are alike. You two are much alike! What&#039;s this!&quot; Not a word was answered on the other side, until after the seafaring brother had got hold of the captain&#039;s right hand, and the fisherman brother had got hold of the captain&#039;s left hand; and if ever the captain had had his fill of handshaking, from his birth to that hour, he had it then. And presently up and spoke the two brothers, one at a time, two at a time, two dozen at a time for the bewilderment into which they plunged the captain, until he gradually had Hugh Raybrock&#039;s deliverance made clear to him, and also unravelled the fact that the person referred to in the half-obliterated paper, was Tregarthen himself. &quot;Formerly, dear Captain Jorgan,&quot; said Alfred, &quot;of Lanrean, you recollect? Kitty and her father came to live at Steepways, after Hugh shipped on his last voyage.&quot; &quot;Ay, ay!&quot; cried the captain, fetching a breath. &quot;Now you have me in tow. Then your brother here, don&#039;t know his sister-in-law that is to be, so much as by name?&quot; &quot;Never saw her; never heard of her!&quot; &quot;Ay, ay, ay!&quot; cried the captain. &quot;Why, then we every one go back together—paper, writer, and all—and take Tregarthen into the secret we kept from him?&quot; &quot;Surely,&quot; said Alfred, &quot;we can&#039;t help it now. We must go through with our duty.&quot; &quot;Not a doubt,&quot; returned the captain. &quot;Give me an arm apiece, and let us set this ship-shape.&quot; So, walking up and down in the shrill wind on the wild moor, while the neglected breakfast cooled within, the captain and the brothers settled their course of action. It was, that they should all proceed by the quickest means they could secure, to Barnstaple, and there look over the father&#039;s books and papers in the lawyer&#039;s keeping: as Hugh had proposed to himself to do, if ever he reached home. That, enlightened or unenlightened, they should then return to Steepways and go straight to Mr. Tregarthen, and tell him all they knew, and see what came of it, and act accordingly. Lastly, that when they got there, they should enter the village with all precautions against Hugh&#039;s being recognised by any chance; and that to the captain should be consigned the task of preparing his wife and mother for his restoration to this life. &quot;For, you see,&quot; quoth Captain Jorgan, touching the last head, &quot;it requires caution any way; great joys being as dangerous as great griefs—if not more dangerous, as being more uncommon (and therefore less provided against) in this round world of ours. And besides, I should like to free my name with the ladies, and take you home again at your brightest and luckiest; so don&#039;t let&#039;s throw away a chance of success.&quot; The captain was highly lauded by the brothers for his kind interest and foresight. &quot;And now, stop!&quot; said the captain, coming to a stand-still, and looking from one brother to the other, with quite a new rigging of wrinkles about each eye; &quot;you are of opinion,&quot; to the elder, &quot;that you are ra&#039;ather slow?&quot; &quot;I assure you I am very slow,&quot; said the honest Hugh. &quot;Wa&#039;al,&quot; replied the captain, &quot; I assure you that to the best of my belief I am ra&#039;ather smart. Now, a slow man ain&#039;t good at quick business; is he?&quot; That was clear to both. &quot;You,&quot; said the captain, turning to the younger brother, &quot;are a little in love; ain&#039;t you?&quot; &quot;Not a little, Captain Jorgan.&quot; &quot;Much or little, you&#039;re sort preoccupied; ain&#039;t you?&quot; It was impossible to be denied. &quot;And a sort preoccupied man, ain&#039;t good at quick business; is he? said the captain. Equally clear on all sides. &quot;Now,&quot; said the captain, &quot;I ain&#039;t in love myself, and I&#039;ve made many a smart run across the ocean, and I should like to carry on and go ahead with this affair of yours and make a run slick through it. Shall I try? Will you hand it over to me?&quot; They were both delighted to do so, and thanked him heartily. &quot;Good,&quot; said the captain, taking out his watch. &quot;This is half-past eight A.M., Friday morning. I&#039;ll jot that down, and we&#039;ll compute how many hours we&#039;ve been out, when we run into your mother&#039;s post-office. There! The entry&#039;s made, and now we go ahead.&quot; They went ahead so well, that before the Barnstaple lawyer&#039;s office was open next morning, the captain was sitting whistling on the step of the door, waiting for the clerk to come down the street with his key and open it. But, instead of the clerk, there came the master: with whom the captain fraternised on the spot, to an extent that utterly confounded him. As he personally knew both Hugh and Alfred, there was no difficulty in obtaining immediate access to such of the father&#039;s papers as were in his keeping. These were chiefly old letters and cash accounts: from which the captain, with a shrewdness and despatch that left the lawyer far behind, established with perfect clearness, by noon, the following particulars. That, one Lawrence Clissold had borrowed of the deceased, at a time when he was a thriving young tradesman in the town of Barnstaple, the sum of five hundred pounds. That, he had borrowed it, on the written statement that it was to be laid out in furtherance of a speculation, which he expected would raise him to independence: he being, at the time of writing that letter, no more than a clerk in the house of Dringworth Brothers, America-square, London. That, the money was borrowed for a stipulated period; but that when the term was out, the aforesaid speculation had failed, and Clissold was without means of repayment. That, hereupon, he had written to his creditor, in no very persuasive terms, vaguely requesting further time. That, the creditor had refused this concession, declaring that he could not afford delay. That, Clissold then paid the debt, accompanying the remittance of the money, with an angry letter, describing it as having been advanced by a relative to save him from ruin. That, in acknowledging the receipt, Raybrock had cautioned Clissold to seek to borrow money of him no more, as he would never so risk money again. Before the lawyer, the captain said never a word in reference to these discoveries. But when the papers had been put back in their box, and he and his two companions were well out of the office, his right leg suffered for it, and he said: &quot;So far, this run&#039;s begun with a fair wind and a prosperous—for don&#039;t you see that all this agrees with that dutiful trust in his father, maintained by the slow member of the Raybrock family?&quot; Whether the brothers had seen it before or no, they saw it now. Not that the captain gave them much time to contemplate the state of things at their ease, for he instantly whipped them into a chaise again, and bore them off to Steepways. Although the afternoon was but just beginning to decline when they reached it, and it was broad daylight, still they had no difficulty, by dint of muffling the returned sailor up, and ascending the village rather than descending it, in reaching Tregarthen&#039;s cottage unobserved. Kitty was not visible, and they surprised Tregarthen sitting writing in the small bay-window of his little room. &quot;Sir, said the captain, instantly shaking hands with him, pen and all, &quot;I&#039;m glad to see you, sir. How do you do, sir? I told you you&#039;d think better of me by-and-by, and I congratulate you on going to do it.&quot; Here, the captain&#039;s eye fell on Tom Pettifer Ho, engaged in preparing some cookery at the fire. &quot;That crittur,&quot; said the captain, smiting his leg, &quot;is a born steward, and never ought to have been in any other way of life. Stop where you are, Tom, and make yourself useful. Now, Tregarthen, I&#039;m agoing to try a chair.&quot; Accordingly, the captain drew one close to him, and went on: &quot;This loving member of the Raybrock family you know, sir. This slow member of the same family, you don&#039;t know, sir. Wa&#039;al, these two are brothers—fact! Hugh&#039;s come to life again, and here he stands. Now, see here, my friend! You don&#039;t want to be told that he was cast away, but you do want to be told (for there&#039;s a purpose in it) that he was cast away with another man. That man, by name, was Lawrence Clissold.&quot; At the mention of this name, Tregarthen started and changed colour. &quot;What&#039;s the matter?&quot; said the captain. &quot;He was a fellow-clerk of mine, thirty—five-and-thirty—years ago.&quot; &quot;True,&quot; said the captain, immediately catching at the clue: &quot;Dringworth Brothers, America-square, London City.&quot; The other started again, nodded, and said, &quot;That was the House.&quot; &quot;Now,&quot; pursued the captain, &quot;between those two men cast away, there arose a mystery concerning the round sum of five hundred pound.&quot; Again Tregarthen started and changed colour. Again the captain said, &quot; What&#039;s the matter?&quot; As Tregarthen only answered, &quot;Please to go on,&quot; the captain recounted, very tersely and plainly, the nature of Clissold&#039;s wanderings on the barren island, as he had condensed them in his mind from the seafaring man. Tregarthen became greatly agitated during this recital, and at length exclaimed: &quot;Clissold was the man who ruined me! I have suspected it for many a long year, and now I know it.&quot; &quot;And how,&quot; said the captain, drawing his chair still closer to Tregarthen, and clapping his hand upon his shoulder, &quot;how may you know it?&quot; &quot;When we were fellow-clerks,&quot; replied Tregarthen, &quot;in that London House, it was one of my duties to enter daily in a certain book, an account of the sums received that day by the firm, and afterwards paid into the banker&#039;s. One memorable day—a Wednesday, the black day of my life—among the sums I so entered, was one of five hundred pounds.&quot; &quot;I begin to make it out,&quot; said the captain. Yes?&quot; &quot;It was one of Clissold&#039;s duties to copy from this entry, a memorandum of the sums which the clerk employed to go to the banker&#039;s paid in there. It was my duty to hand the money to Clissold; it was Clissold&#039;s to hand it to the clerk, with that memorandum of his writing. On that Wednesday, I entered a sum of five hundred pounds received. I handed that sum, as I handed the other sums in the day&#039;s entry, to Clissold. I was absolutely certain of it at the time; I have been absolutely certain of it ever since. A sum of five hundred pounds was afterwards found by the House to have been that day wanting from the bag, from Clissold&#039;s memorandum, and from the entries in my book. Clissold, being questioned, stood upon his perfect clearness in the matter, and emphatically declared that he asked no better than to be tested by &#039;Tregarthen&#039;s book.&#039; My book was examined, and the entry of five hundred pounds was not there.&quot; &quot;How not there,&quot; said the captain, &quot;when you made it yourself?&quot; Tregarthen continued: &quot;I was then questioned. Had I made the entry? Certainly I had. The House produced my book, and it was not there. I could not deny my book; I could not deny my writing. I knew there must be forgery by some one; but the writing was wonderfully like mine, and I could impeach no one if the House could not. I was required to pay the money back. I did so, and I left the House, almost broken-hearted, rather than remain there—even if I could have done so—with a dark shadow of suspicion always on me. I returned to my native place, Lanrean, and remained there, clerk to a mine, until I was appointed to my little post here.&quot; &quot;I well remember,&quot; said the captain, &quot;that I told you that if you had had no experience of ill-judgments on deceiving appearances, you were a lucky man. You were hurt at that, and I see why. I&#039;m sorry.&quot; &quot;Thus it is,&quot; said Tregarthen. &quot;Of my own innocence, I have of course been sure; it has been at once my comfort, and my trial. Of Clissold I have always had suspicions almost amounting to certainty, but they have never been confirmed until now. For my daughter&#039;s sake and for my own, I have carried this subject in my own heart, as the only secret of my life, and have long believed that it would die with me.&quot; &quot;Wa&#039;al, my good sir,&quot; said the captain, cordially, &quot;the present question is, and will be long, I hope, concerning living, and not dying. Now, here are our two honest friends, the loving Raybrock and the slow. Here they stand, agreed on one point, on which I&#039;d back &#039;em round the world, and right across it from north to south, and then again from east to west, and through it, from your deepest Cornish mine to China. It is, that they will never use this same so-often-mentioned sum of money, and that restitution of it must be made to you. These two, the loving member and the slow, for the sake of the right and of their father&#039;s memory, will have it ready for you to-morrow. Take it, and ease their minds and mine, and end a most unfort&#039;nate transaction.&quot; Tregarthen took the captain by the hand, and gave his hand to each of the young men, but positively and finally answered, No. He said, they trusted to his word, and he was glad of it, and at rest in his mind—but there was no proof, and the money must remain as it was. All were very earnest over this; and earnestness in men, when they are right and true, is so impressive, that Mr. Pettifer deserted his cookery and looked on quite moved. &quot;And so,&quot; said the captain, &quot;so we come—as that lawyer-crittur over yonder where we were this morning, might—to mere proof; do we? We must have it; must we? How? From this Clissold&#039;s wanderings, and from what you say, it ain&#039;t hard to make out that there was a neat forgery of your writing committed by the too smart Rowdy that was grease and ashes when I made his acquaintance, and a substitution of a forged leaf in your book for a real and true leaf torn out. Now, was that real and true leaf then and there destroyed? No—for says he, in his drunken way, he slipped it into a crack in his own desk, because you came into the office before there was time to burn it—and could never get back to it arterwards. Wait a bit. Where is that desk now? Do you consider it likely to be in America-square, London City?&quot; Tregarthen shook his head. &quot;The House has not, for years, transacted business in that place. I have heard of it and read of it, as removed, enlarged, every way altered. Things alter so fast in these times.&quot; &quot;You think so,&quot; returned the captain, with compassion; &quot;but you should come over and see me, afore you talk about that. Wa&#039;al, now. This desk, this paper this paper, this desk,&quot; said the captain, ruminating and walking about, and looking, in his uneasy abstraction, into Mr. Pettifer&#039;s hat on a table, among other things. &quot;This desk, this paper—this paper, this desk,&quot; the captain continued, musing and roaming about the room, &quot;I&#039;d give—&quot; However, he gave nothing, but took up his steward&#039;s hat instead, and stood looking into it, as if he had just come into Church. After that be roamed again, and again said, &quot;This desk, belonging to this House of Dringworth Brothers, America-square, London City—&quot; Mr. Pettifer, still strangely moved and now more moved than before, cut the captain off as he backed across the room, and bespake him thus: &quot;Captain Jorgan, I have been wishful to engage your attention, but I couldn&#039;t do it. I am unwilling to interrupt, Captain Jorgan, but I must do it. I know something about that House.&quot; The captain stood stock-still, and looked at him—with his (Mr. Pettifer&#039;s) hat under his arm. &quot;You&#039;re aware,&quot; pursued his steward, &quot;that I was once in the broking business, Captain Jorgan?&quot; &quot;I was aware,&quot; said the captain, &quot;that you had failed in that calling and in half the businesses going, Tom.&quot; &quot;Not quite so, Captain Jorgan; but I failed in the broking business. I was partners with my brother, sir. There was a sale of old office furniture at Dringworth Brothers when the House was moved from America-square, and me and my brother made what we call in the trade a Deal there, sir. And I&#039;ll make bold to say, sir, that the only thing I ever had from my brother, or from any relation—for my relations have mostly taken property from me, instead of giving me any—was an old desk we bought at that same sale, with a crack in it. My brother wouldn&#039;t have given me even that, when we broke partnership, if it had been worth anything.&quot; &quot;Where is that desk now?&quot; said the captain. &quot;Well, Captain Jorgan,&quot; replied the steward, &quot;I couldn&#039;t say for certain where it is now; but when I saw it last—which was last time we were outward-bound—it was at a very nice lady&#039;s at Wapping, along with a little chest of mine which was detained for a small matter of a bill owing.&quot; The captain, instead of paying that rapt attention to his steward which was rendered by the other three persons present, went to Church again, in respect of the steward&#039;s hat. And a most especially agitated and memorable face the captain produced from it, after a short pause. &quot;Now, Tom,&quot; said the captain, &quot;I spoke to you, when we first came here, respecting your constitutional weakness on the subject of sunstroke?&quot; &quot;You did, sir.&quot; &quot;Will my slow friend,&quot; said the captain, &quot;lend me his arm, or I shall sink right back&#039;ards into this blessed steward&#039;s cookery?—Now, Tom,&quot; pursued the captain, when the required assistance was given, &quot;on your oath as a steward, didn&#039;t you take that desk to pieces to make a better one of it, and put it together fresh—or something of the kind?&quot; &quot;On my oath I did, sir,&quot; replied the steward. &quot;And by the blessing of Heaven, my friends, one and all,&quot; cried the captain, radiant with joy —&quot;of the Heaven that put it into this Tom Pettifer&#039;s head to take so much care of his head against the bright sun—he lined his hat with the original leaf in Tregarthen&#039;s writing—and here it is!&quot; With that, the captain, to the utter destruction of Mr. Pettifer&#039;s favourite hat, produced the book-leaf, very much worn, but still legible, and gave both his legs such tremendous slaps, that they were heard far off in the bay, and never accounted for. &quot;A quarter-past five P.M.,&quot; said the captain, pulling out his watch, &quot;and that&#039;s thirty-three hours and a quarter in all, and a pritty run!&quot; How they were all overpowered with delight and triumph; how the money was restored, then and there to Tregarthen; how Tregarthen, then and there, gave it all to his daughter; how the captain undertook to go to Dringworth Brothers and re-establish the reputation of their forgotten old clerk; how Kitty came in, and was nearly torn to pieces, and the marriage was reappointed; needs not to be told. Nor, how she and the young fisherman went home to the post-office to prepare the way for the captain&#039;s coming, by declaring him to be the mightiest of men who had made all their fortunes—and then dutifully withdrew together, in order that he might have the domestic coast entirely to himself. How he availed himself of it, is all that remains to tell. Deeply delighted with his trust, and putting his heart into it, he raised the latch of the post-office parlour where Mrs. Raybrock and the young widow sat, and said: &quot;May I come in?&quot; &quot;Sure you may, Captain Jorgan!&quot; replied the old lady. &quot;And good reason you have to be free of the house, though you have not been too well used in it, by some who ought to have known better. I ask your pardon.&quot; &quot;No you don&#039;t, ma&#039;am,&quot; said the captain, &quot;for I won&#039;t let you. Wa&#039;al to be sure! By this time he had taken a chair on the hearth between them. &quot;Never felt such an evil spirit in the whole course of my life! There! I tell you! I could a&#039;most have cut my own connexion—Like the dealer in my country, away West, who when he had let himself be outdone in a bargain, said to himself, &#039;Now I tell you what! I&#039;ll never speak to you again.&#039; And he never did, but joined a settlement of oysters, and translated the multiplication-table into their language. Which is a fact that can be proved, if you doubt it, mention it to any oyster you come across, and see if he&#039;ll have the face to contradict it.&quot; He took the child from her mother&#039;s lap, and set it on his knee. &quot;Not a bit afraid of me now, yon see. Knows I am fond of small people. I have a child, and she&#039;s a girl, and I sing to her sometimes.&quot; &quot;What do you sing?&quot; asked Margaret. &quot;Not a long song, my dear. Silas Jorgan Played the organ. That&#039;s about all. And sometimes I tell her stories. Stories of sailors supposed to be lost, and recovered after all hope was abandoned.&quot; Here the captain musingly went back to his song: &quot;Silas Jorgan Played the organ,&quot; —repeating it with his eyes on the fire, as he softly danced the child on his knee. For, he felt that Margaret had stopped working. &quot;Yes,&quot; said the captain, still looking at the fire. &quot;I make up stories and tell &#039;em to that child. Stories of shipwreck on desert islands and long delay in getting back to civilised lands. It is to stories the like of that, mostly, that Silas Jorgan Plays the organ.&quot; There was no light in the room but the light of the fire; for, the shades of night were on the village, and the stars had begun to peep out of the sky one by one, as the houses of the village peeped out from among the foliage when the night departed. The captain felt that Margaret&#039;s eyes were upon him, and thought it discreetest to keep his own eyes on the fire. &quot;Yes; I make &#039;em up,&quot; said the captain. &quot;I make up stories of brothers brought together by the good providence of GOD. Of sons brought back to mothers—husbands brought back to wives—fathers raised from the deep, for little children like herself.&quot; Margaret&#039;s touch was on his arm, and he could not choose but look round now. Next moment her hand moved imploringly to his breast, and she was on her knees before him: supporting the mother, who was also kneeling. &quot;What&#039;s the matter?&quot; said the captain. &quot;What&#039;s the matter? Silas Jorgan Played the—&quot; Their looks and tears were too much for him, and he could not finish the song, short as it was. &quot;Mistress Margaret, you have borne ill fortune well. Could you bear good fortune equally well, if it was to come?&quot; &quot;I hope so. I thankfully and humbly and earnestly hope so!&quot; &quot;Wa&#039;al, my dear,&quot; said the captain, &quot;p&#039;raps it has come. He&#039;s—don&#039;t be frightened—shall I say the word?&quot; &quot;Alive?&quot; &quot;Yes!&quot; The thanks they fervently addressed to Heaven were again too much for the captain, who openly took out his handkerchief and dried his eyes. &quot;He&#039;s no further off,&quot; resumed the captain, &quot;than my country. Indeed, he&#039;s no further off than his own native country. To tell you the truth, he&#039;s no further off than Falmouth. Indeed, I doubt if he&#039;s quite so fur. Indeed, if you was sure you could bear it nicely, and I was to do no more than whistle for him—&quot; The captain&#039;s trust was discharged. A rush came, and they were all together again. This was a fine opportunity for Tom Pettifer to appear with a tumbler of cold water, and he presently appeared with it, and administered it to the ladies: at the same time soothing them, and composing their dresses, exactly as if they had been passengers crossing the Channel. The extent to which the captain slapped his legs, when Mr. Pettifer acquitted himself of this act of stewardship, could have been thoroughly appreciated by no one but himself: inasmuch as he must have slapped them black and blue, and they must have smarted tremendously. He couldn&#039;t stay for the wedding; having a few appointments to keep, at the irreconcilable distance of about four thousand miles. So, next morning, all the village cheered him up to the level ground above, and there he shook hands with a complete Census of its population, and invited the whole, without exception, to come and stay several months with him at Salem, Mass., U.S. And there, as he stood on the spot where he had seen that little golden picture of love and parting, and from which he could that morning contemplate another golden picture with a vista of golden years in it, little Kitty put her arms around his neck, and kissed him on both his bronzed cheeks, and laid her pretty face upon his storm-beaten breast, in sight of all: ashamed to have called such a noble captain names. And there, the captain waved his hat over his head three final times; and there, he was last seen, going away accompanied by Tom Pettifer Ho, and carrying his hands in his pockets. And there, before that ground was softened with the fallen leaves of three more summers, a rosy little boy took his first unsteady run to a fair young mother&#039;s breast, and the name of that infant fisherman, was Jorgan Raybrock. THE END.18601225https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/A_Message_from_the_Sea_[1860_Christmas_Number]/1860-12-25-A_Message_from_the_Sea.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/A_Message_from_the_Sea_[1860_Christmas_Number]/1860-12-25-The_Village.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/A_Message_from_the_Sea_[1860_Christmas_Number]/1860-12-25-The_Money.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/A_Message_from_the_Sea_[1860_Christmas_Number]/1860-12-25-The_Restitution.pdf
172https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/172<em>A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire </em>(1852 Christmas Number)Published in <em>Household Words, </em>Vol. VI, Extra Christmas Number, 25 December 1852, pp. 1-36.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-vi/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-vi/page-573.html</a>.<br /><em><br />Dickens Journals Online,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-vi/page-577.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-vi/page-577.html</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1852-12-25">1852-12-25</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1852-12-25-A_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Poor Relation's Story' (No.1), pp. 1-5.</strong></li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Child's Story' (No.2), pp. 5-7.</strong></li> <li>William Moy Thomas. 'Somebody's Story' (No.3), pp. 7-11.</li> <li>Elizabeth Gaskell. 'The Nurse's Story' (No.4), pp. 11-20.</li> <li>Edmund Ollier. 'The Host's Story' (No.5), pp. 20-21.</li> <li>Reverend James White. 'The Grandfather's Story' (No.6), pp. 21-25.</li> <li>Edmund Saul Dixon. 'The Charwoman's Story' (No.7), pp. 25-27.</li> <li>Harriet Martineau. 'The Deaf Playmate's Story' (No.8), pp. 27-30.</li> <li>Samuel Sidney. 'The Guest's Story' (No.9), pp. 30-33.</li> <li>Eliza Griffiths. 'The Mother's Story' (No.10), pp. 33-36.</li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al. <em>A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire </em>(25 December 1852). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Edited by Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1852-12-25-A_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1852-12-25-A_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>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 &quot;John our esteemed host&quot; (whose health he begged to drink) would have the kindness to begin. For as to himself, he said, he was so little used to lead the way, that really— But as they all cried out here, that he must begin, and agreed with one voice that he might, could, would, and should begin, he left off rubbing his hands, and took his legs out from under his armchair, 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 farther, 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 contradiction); that I am nobody&#039;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 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 nine o&#039;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&#039;t know why— and sit in Garraway&#039;s Coffee House, and on &#039;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&#039;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&#039;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 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. He 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, I used to take him to the windows of the toy-shops, and show him the toys inside. It is surprising how soon he found out that I would have made him a great many presents if I had been in circumstances to do it. Little Frank and I go and look at the outside of the Monument— he is very fond of the Monument—and at the Bridges, and at all the sights that are free. On two of my birthdays we have dined on 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, &quot;Sir, your little son has dropped his glove.&quot; 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 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&#039;t believe that it was ever like), which will be worth nothing to sell, and which I shall beg may be given to Frank. I have written my dear boy a little letter with it, in which I have told him that I felt very sorry to part from him, though bound to 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&#039;s enemy but his own; and I have endeavoured 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 beginning to speak a little louder) is the general impression about me. Now, it is a remarkable circumstance which forms the aim and purpose of my story, 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 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 John Spatter (who had been my clerk) into partnership, and when I was still a young man of not more than five-and-twenty, residing in the house of my uncle Chill from whom I had considerable expectations, that I ventured to propose to Christiana. I had loved Christiana, a long time. She was very beautiful, and very winning in all 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&#039;s sake. I never had loved any one but Christiana, and she had been all the world, and O far more than all the world, to me, from our childhood! Christiana accepted me with her mother&#039;s consent, and I was rendered very happy indeed. My life at my Uncle Chill&#039;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&#039;s love, I wanted nothing upon earth. I would not have changed my lot with any human being. Avarice was, unhappily, my Uncle Chill&#039;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&#039;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 (being infirm, he always walked about the house with a stick), and made a blow at me, and said, &quot;You fool!&quot; &#039;&#039;Uncle.&quot; I returned, &quot;I didn&#039;t expect you to be so angry as this.&quot; Nor had I expected it, though he was a hard and angry old man. &quot;You didn&#039;t expect!&quot; said he; &quot;when did you ever expect? When did you ever calculate, or look forward, you contemptible dog?&quot; &quot;These are hard words, uncle!&quot; &quot;Hard words? Feathers, to pelt such an idiot as you with,&quot; said he. &quot;Here! Betsy Snap! Look at him!&quot; Betsey Snap was a withered, hard-favored, yellow old woman— our only domestic—always employed, at this time of the morning, in rubbing my uncle&#039;s legs. As my uncle adjured her to look at me, he put his lean grip on the crown of her head, she kneeling beside him, and turned her face towards me. An involuntary thought connecting them both with the Dissecting Room, as it must often have been in the surgeon&#039;s time, passed across my mind in the midst of my anxiety. &quot;Look at the snivelling milksop !&quot; said my uncle. &quot;Look at the baby! This is the gentleman who, people say, is nobody&#039;s enemy but his own. This is the gentleman who can&#039;t say no. This is the gentleman who was making such large profits in his business that he must needs take a partner, t&#039;other day. This is the gentleman who is going to marry a wife without a penny, and who falls into the hands of Jezabels who are speculating on my death!&quot; I knew, now, how great my uncle&#039;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. &quot;On my death,&quot; he repeated, as if he were defying me by defying his own abhorrence of the word. &quot;On my death— death— Death! But I&#039;ll spoil the speculation. Eat your last under this roof, you feeble wretch, and may it choke you!&quot; 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 by my uncle; still I could bear that very well, possessing Christiana&#039;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-coloured, miserable day looked in upon us. &quot;Now, Mr. Michael,&quot; said he, &quot;before we part, I should like to have a word with these ladies in your presence.&quot; &quot;As you will, sir,&quot; I returned; &quot;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.&quot; To this, he only replied, &quot;You lie!&quot; 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. &quot;Your servant, ma&#039;am,&quot; said my uncle, to the mother. &quot;You divine the purpose of my visit, I dare say, ma&#039;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&#039;am— and you, your husband, miss. The gentleman is a perfect stranger to me, but I wish him joy of his wise bargain.&quot; 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 carriage wheels is often, in these changed times, thrown upon me as she rides by. No, no. She married me. The way we came to be married rather sooner than we intended, was this. I took a frugal lodging and was saving and planning for her sake, when, one day, she spoke to me with great earnestness, and said: &quot;My dear Michael, I have given you my heart. I have said that I loved you, and I have pledged myself to be your wife. I am as much yours through all changes of good and evil as if we had been married on the day when such words passed between us. I know you well, and know that if we should be separated and our union broken off, your whole life would be shadowed, and all that 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!&quot; &quot;God help me, Christiana!&quot; said I. &quot;You speak the truth.&quot; &quot;Michael!&quot; said she, putting her hand in mine, in all maidenly devotion, &quot;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!&quot; 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&#039;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 separation from my uncle, and even before the arrival at our counting-house of my trunks (which he sent after me, not carriage paid), I went down to our room of business, on our little wharf, 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 sentiment were moonshine and fiction. He addressed me thus: &quot;Michael,&quot; said John. &quot;We were at school together, and I generally had the knack of getting on better than you, and making a higher reputation.&quot; &quot;You had, John,&quot; I returned. &quot;Although,&quot; said John, &quot;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.&quot; &quot;All not worth mentioning, John Spatter,&quot; said I, &quot;but certainly true.&quot; &quot;When you were first established in this infant business, which promises to thrive so well,&quot; pursued John, &quot;I came to you, in my search for almost any employment, and you made me your clerk.&quot; &quot;Still not worth mentioning, my dear John Spatter,&quot; said I; &quot;still, equally true.&quot; &quot;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.&quot; &quot;Still less worth mentioning than any of those other little circumstances you have recalled, John Spatter,&quot; said I; &quot;for I was, and am, sensible of your merits and my deficiencies.&quot; &quot;Now my good friend,&quot; 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; &quot;let there, under these friendly circumstances, be a right understanding between us. You are too easy, Michael. You are nobody&#039;s enemy but your own. If I were to give you that damaging character among our connexion, 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—&quot; &quot;But you never will abuse it at all, John,&quot; I observed. &quot;Never!&quot; said he, &quot;but l 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 fortune, and you left behind on some bare common, a hopeless number of miles out of the way.&quot; &quot;Exactly so,&quot; said I. &quot;To prevent this, Michael,&quot; said John Spatter, &quot;or the remotest chance of this, there must be perfect openness between us. Nothing must be concealed, and we must have but one interest.&quot; &quot;My dear John Spatter,&quot; I assured him, &quot;that is precisely what I mean.&quot; &quot;And when you are too easy,&quot; pursued John, his face glowing with friendship, &quot;you must allow me to prevent that imperfection in your nature from being taken advantage of, by any one; you must not expect me to humour it—&quot; &quot;My dear John Spatter,&quot; I interrupted, &quot;I don&#039;t expect you to humour it. I want to correct it.&quot; &quot;And I, too!&quot; said John. &quot;Exactly so!&quot; cried I. &quot;We both have the same end in view; and, honorably seeking it, and fully trusting one another, and having but one interest, ours will be a prosperous and happy partnership.&quot; &quot;I am sure of it!&quot; returned John Spatter. And we shook hands most affectionately. I took John home to my Castle, and we had a very happy day. Our partnership throve well. My friend and partner supplied what I wanted, as I had foreseen that he would; and by improving both the business and myself, amply acknowledged any little rise in life to which I had helped him. I am not (said the poor relation, looking at the fire as he slowly rubbed his hands), not 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&#039;s eldest son. Our two families are closely united in other ties of attachment. It is very pleasant of an evening, when we are all assembled together—which frequently happens—and when John and I talk over old times, and the one interest there has always been between us. I really do not know, in my Castle, what loneliness is. Some of our children or grandchildren are always about it, and the young voices of my descendants are delightful—O, 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, &quot;Cousin Michael, whose hot tears are these that have fallen on my hand!&quot; 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 together. At this time of the year—the Christmas and New Year time—I am seldom out of my Castle. For, the associations of the season seem to hold me there, and the precepts of the season seem to teach me that it is well to be there. &quot;And the Castle is —&quot; observed a grave, kind voice among the company. &quot;Yes. My Castle,&quot; said the poor relation, shaking his head as he still looked at the fire, &quot;is in the Air. John our esteemed host suggests its situation accurately. My Castle is in the Air! I have done. Will you be so good as to pass the story.&quot; Once upon a time, a good many years ago, there was a traveller, 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, &quot;What do you do here?&quot; And the child said, &quot;I am always at play. Come and play with me!&quot; So, he played with that child, the whole day long, and they were very merry. The sky was so blue, the sun was so bright, the water was so sparkling, the leaves were so green, the flowers were so lovely, and they heard such singing-birds and saw so many butterflies, that everything was beautiful. This was in fine weather. When it rained, they loved to watch the falling drops, and to smell the fresh scents. When it blew, it was delightful to listen to the wind, and fancy what it said, as it came rushing from its home—where was that, they wondered!— whistling and howling, driving the clouds before it, bending the trees, rumbling in the chimnies, 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 slippers 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. 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, &quot;What do you do here?&quot; And the boy said, &quot;I am always learning. Come and learn with me.&quot; So he learned with that boy about Jupiter and Juno, and the Greeks and the Romans, and I don&#039;t know what, and learned more than I could tell—or he either, for he soon forgot a great deal of it. But, they were not always learning; they had the merriest games that ever were played. They rowed upon the river in 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&#039; 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 all night till midnight, and real Theatres where they saw palaces of real gold and silver rise out of the real earth, and saw all the wonders of the world at once. As to friends, they had such dear friends and so many of them, that I want the time to reckon them up. They were all young, like the handsome boy, and were never to be strange to one another all their lives through. Still, one day, in the midst of all these pleasures, the traveller lost the boy as he had lost the child, and, after calling to him in vain, went on upon his journey. So he went on for a little while without seeing anything, until at last he came to a young man. So, he said to the young man, &quot;What do you do here?&quot; And the young man said, &quot;I am always in love. Come and love with me.&quot; 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&#039;s, and she laughed and coloured just as Fanny does while I am talking about her. So, the young man fell in love directly— just as Somebody I won&#039;t mention, the first time he came here, did with Fanny. Well! He was teazed sometimes—just as Somebody used to be by Fanny; and they quarrelled sometimes—just as Somebody and Fanny used to quarrel; and they made it up, and sat in the dark, and wrote letters every day, and never were happy asunder, and were always looking out for 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&#039;t mention, and Fanny! But, the traveller lost them one day, as he had lost the rest of his friends, and, after calling to them to come back, which they never did, went on upon his journey. So, he went on for a little while without seeing anything, until at last he came to a middle-aged gentleman. So, he said to the gentleman, &quot;What are you doing here?&quot; And his answer was, &quot;I am always busy. Come and be busy with me!&quot; 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 distant voice crying, &quot;Father, father, I am another child! Stop for me!&quot; And presently they would see a very little figure, growing larger as it came along, running to join them. When it came up, they all crowded round it, and kissed and welcomed it; and then they all went on together. Sometimes, they came to several avenues at once, and then they all stood still, and one of the children said, &quot;Father, I am going to sea,&quot; and another said, &quot;Father, I am going to India,&quot; and another, &quot;Father, I am going to seek my fortune where I can,&quot; and another, &quot;Father, I am going to Heaven!&quot; So, with many tears at parting, they went, solitary, down those avenues, each child upon its way; and the child who went to Heaven, rose into the golden air and vanished. Whenever these partings happened, the traveller looked at the gentleman, and saw him glance up at the sky above the trees, where the day was beginning to decline, and the sunset to come on. He saw, too, that his hair was turning grey. But, they never could rest long, for they had their journey to perform, and it was necessary for them to be always busy. At last, there had been so many partings that there were no 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. &quot;My husband,&quot; said the lady, &quot;I am called.&quot; They listened, and they heard a voice, a long way down the avenue, say, &quot;Mother, mother!&quot; It was the voice of the first child who had said, &quot;I am going to Heaven!&quot; and the father said, &quot;I pray not yet. The sunset is very near. I pray not yet!&quot; But, the voice cried &quot;Mother, mother!&quot; 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 &quot;My dearest, I am summoned and I go!&quot; And she was gone. And the traveller and he were left alone together. And they went on and on together, until they came to very near the end of the wood: so near, that they could see the sunset shining red before them, through the trees. Yet, once more, while he broke his way among the branches, the traveller lost his friend. He called and called, but there was no reply, and when he passed out of the wood, and saw the peaceful sun going down upon a wide purple prospect, he came to an old man sitting on a fallen tree. So, he said to the old man, &quot;What do you do here?&quot; And the old man said with a calm smile, &quot;I am always remembering. Come and remember with me!&quot; So, the traveller sat down by the side of that old man, face to face with the serene sunset; and all his friends came softly back and stood around him. The beautiful child, the handsome boy, the young man in love, the father, mother, and children: every one of them was there, and he had lost nothing. So, he loved them all, and was kind and forbearing with them all, and was always pleased to watch them all, and they all 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.18521225https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/A_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire_[1852_Christmas_Number]/1852-12-25-A_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/A_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire_[1852_Christmas_Number]/1852-12-25-The_Poor_Relations_Story.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/A_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire_[1852_Christmas_Number]/1852-12-25-The_Childs_Story.pdf
174https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/174<em>Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire</em> (1853 Christmas Number)Published in <em>Household Words,</em> Vol. VIII, no. 196, New Year Number, 18 February 1854, pp. 409-444.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-viii/page-577.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-viii/page-577.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-viii/page-610.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-viii/page-610.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1854-2-18">1854-2-18</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1854-2-18-Another_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Schoolboy's Story' (No.1), pp. 409-413.</strong></li> <li>Eliza Lynn (later Linton). 'The Old Lady's Story' (No.2), pp. 413-417.</li> <li>George Augustus Sala. 'Over the Way's Story' (No.3), pp. 417-425.</li> <li>Adelaide Anne Proctor. 'The Angel's Story' (No.4), pp. 425-426.</li> <li>Elizabeth Gaskell. 'The Squire's Story' (No.5), pp. 426-433.</li> <li>Edmund Dixon and W.H. Wills. 'Uncle George's Story' (No.6), pp. 433-436.</li> <li>Samuel Sidney. 'The Colonel's Story' (No.7), pp. 436-440.</li> <li>Elizabeth and William Gaskell. 'The Scholar's Story' (No.8), pp. 440-442.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'Nobody's Story' (No.9), pp. 442-444.</strong></li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al. <em>Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire</em> (18 February 1854). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1854-2-18-Another_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1854-2-18-Another_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>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&#039;t much interest anybody here, I suppose, to know what a screw the Reverend is, or what a griffin she is, or how they do stick it into parents—particularly hair-cutting and medical attendance. One of our fellows was charged in his half&#039;s account twelve and six-pence for two pills—tolerably profitable at six and three-pence a-piece, I should think—and he never took them either, but put them up the sleeve of his jacket. As to the beef, it&#039;s shameful. It&#039;s not beef. Regular beef isn&#039;t veins. You can chew regular beef. Besides which there&#039;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&#039;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 destroyed for the sake of profit. Why, look at the pie-crust alone. There&#039;s no flakiness in it. It&#039;s solid—like damp lead. Then our fellows get nightmares, 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. When we all begin to walk in our sleeps, I suppose they&#039;ll be sorry for it. Old Cheeseman wasn&#039;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 that&#039;s pretty mild, I should hope!—so when they whistled to him, he looked up and nodded; and when they said &quot;Holloa Old Cheeseman, what have you had for dinner?&quot; he said &quot;Boiled mutton;&quot; and when they said &quot;An&#039;t it solitary, Old Cheeseman?&quot; he said &quot;It is a little dull, sometimes;&quot; and then they said &quot;Well, good bye, Old Cheeseman!&quot; 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&#039;t give him boiled mutton they gave him rice pudding, pretending it was a treat. And saved the butcher. So Old Cheeseman went on. The holidays brought him into other trouble besides the loneliness; because when the fellows began to come back, not wanting to, he was always glad to see them: which was aggravating when they were not at all glad to see him, and so he got his head knocked against walls, and that was the way his nose bled. But he was a favourite in general. Once, a subscription was raised for him; and, to keep up his spirits, he was presented before the holidays with two white mice, a rabbit, a pigeon, and a beautiful puppy. Old Cheeseman cried about it, especially soon afterwards, when they all ate one another. Of course Old Cheeseman used to be called by the names of all sorts of cheeses, Double Glo&#039;sterman, Family Cheshireman, Dutchman, North Wiltshireman, and all that. But he never minded it. And I don&#039;t mean to say he was old in point of years, because he wasn&#039;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 &quot;Mr. Cheeseman.&quot; Then our fellows all agreed that Old Cheeseman was a spy, and a deserter, who had gone over to the enemy&#039;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&#039;s mercenary motives could alone be taken into account, and that he had &quot;coined our blood for drachmas.&quot; The Parliament took the expression out of the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius. When it was settled in this strong way that Old Cheeseman was a tremendous traitor, who had wormed himself into our fellows secrets on purpose to get himself into favour by giving up everything he knew, all courageous fellows were invited to come forward and enrol 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, &quot;Who made believe to be so meek That we could hardly hear him speak, Yet turned out an Informing Sneak? Old Cheeseman.&quot; —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&#039;s desk. He trained one of the low boys too, a rosy cheeked little Brass who didn&#039;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 exprimitur—was never suspected, nisi distinctionis —of being an informer, aut emphasis gratia—until he proved one. Ut—for instance, Vos damnastis—when he sold the boys, Quasi—as though, dicat—he should say, Pretaerea nemo—I&#039;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&#039;s conscience. So Old Cheeseman went on, and didn&#039;t he lead a miserable life! Of course the Reverend turned up his nose at him, and of course she did—because both of them always do 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&#039;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 come at first, I believe, as a kind of apprentice, some of our fellows say from a Charity, but I don&#039;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&#039; 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 uncommonly neat and cheerful, and uncommonly comfortable and kind. And if anything was the matter with a fellow&#039;s mother, he always went and showed the letter to Jane. Jane was Old Cheeseman&#039;s friend. The more the Society went against him the more Jane stood by him. She used to give him a good-humoured look out of her still-room window, sometimes, that seemed to set him up for the day. She used to pass out of the orchard and the kitchen-garden (always kept locked, I believe you!) through the playground, when she might have gone the other way, only to give a turn of her head, as much as to say &quot;Keep up your spirits!&quot; to Old Cheeseman. His slip of a room was so fresh and orderly, that it was well known who looked after it while he was at his desk; and when our fellows, saw a smoking hot dumpling on his plate at dinner, they knew with indignation who had sent it up. Under these circumstances, the Society resolved, after a quantity of meeting and debating, that Jane should be requested to cut Old Cheeseman dead: and that if she refused, she must be sent to Coventry herself. So a deputation, headed by the President, was appointed to wait on Jane, and inform her of the vote the Society had been under the painful necessity of passing. She was very much respected for all her good qualities, and there was a story of 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&#039;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. Consequently it was entered in the Society&#039;s book (kept in astronomical cypher for fear of detection), that all communication with Jane was interdicted; and the President addressed the members on this convincing instance of Old Cheeseman&#039;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 whether the President was liable to hanging or only transportation for life, and the President&#039;s face showed a great anxiety to know which. However, he said that a jury of his countrymen 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 woodcutter, 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&#039; 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, &quot;so long our respected friend and fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowledge,&quot; he called him—O yes! I dare say! Much of that! was the orphan child of a disinherited young lady who had married against her father&#039;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&#039;s my putting in—and which grandfather&#039;s large property, there being no will, was now, and all of a sudden and for ever. Old Cheeseman&#039;s! Our so long respected friend and fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowledge, the Reverend wound up a lot of bothering quotations by saying, would &quot;come among us once more&quot; that day fortnight, when he desired to take leave of us himself in a more particular manner. With these words, he stared severely round at our fellows, and went solemnly out. There was precious consternation among the members of the Society now. Lots of them wanted to resign, and lots more began to try to make out that they had never belonged to it. However, the President stuck up, and said that they must stand or fall together, and that if a breach was made it should be over his body—which was meant to encourage the Society: but it didn&#039;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&#039;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 reproach 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 Prize-fighter concealed in the passage, who would then appear and pitch into the Reverend till he was left insensible. Old Cheeseman would then make Jane a present of from five to ten pounds, and would leave the establishment in fiendish triumph. The President explained that against the parlour part, or the Jane part, of these arrangements he had nothing to say; but, on the part of the Society, he counselled deadly resistance. With this view he recommended that all available desks should be filled with stones, and that the first word of the complaint should be the signal to every fellow to let fly at Old Cheeseman. The bold advice put the Society in better spirits, and was unanimously taken. A post about Old Cheeseman&#039;s size was put up in the playground, and all our fellows practised at it till it was dented 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 a triumphal car drawn by four horses, with two livery servants in front, and the Prize-fighter 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. &quot;Gentlemen,&quot; said the Reverend, presenting him, &quot;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!&quot; Every fellow stole his hand into his desk, and looked at the President The President was allready, 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, &quot;My dear companions and old friends!&quot; Every fellow&#039;s hand came out of his desk, and the President suddenly began to cry. &quot;My dear companions and old friends,&quot; said Old Cheeseman, &quot;you have heard of my good fortune. I have passed so many years under this roof—my entire life so far, I may say—that I hope you have been glad to hear of it for my sake. I could never enjoy it without exchanging congratulations with you. If we have ever misunderstood one another at all, pray my dear boys let us forgive and forget. I have a great tenderness for you, and I am sure you return it. I want, in the fulness of a grateful heart, to shake hands with you every one. I have come back to do it, if you please, my dear boys.&quot; Since the President had begun to cry, several other fellows had broken out here and there: but now, when Old Cheeseman began with him as first boy, laid his left hand affectionately on his shoulder and gave him his right; and when the President said &quot;Indeed I don&#039;t deserve it. Sir; upon my honour I don&#039;t;&quot; there was sobbing and crying all over the school. Every other fellow said he didn&#039;t deserve it, much in the same way; but Old Cheeseman, not minding that a bit, went cheerfully round to every boy, and wound up with every master—finishing off the Reverend last. Then a snivelling little chap in a corner, who was always under some punishment or other, set up a shrill cry of &quot;Success to Old Cheeseman! Hoorray!&quot; The Reverend glared upon him, and said &quot;Mr. Cheeseman, Sir.&quot; But, Old Cheeseman protesting that he liked his old name a great deal better than his new one, all our fellows took up the cry; and, for I don&#039;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&#039;s expense. After that, speeches, whole holiday, double and treble sets of all manners of games, donkeys, pony-chaises and drive yourself, dinner for all the masters at the Seven Bells, (twenty pounds a-head our fellows estimated it at,) an annual holiday and feast fixed for that day every year, and another on Old Cheeseman&#039;s birthday—Reverend bound down before the fellows to allow it, so that he could never back out—all at Old Cheeseman&#039;s expense. And didn&#039;t our fellows go down in a body and cheer outside the Seven Bells? O no! But there&#039;s some thing else besides. Don&#039;t look at the next story-teller, for there&#039;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! &quot;What? Gone for ever?&quot; said our fellows with long faces. &quot;Yes, to be sure,&quot; 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) replied severely, &quot;Yes sir. Miss Pitt is gone.&quot; 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&#039;s service at a rise of ten pounds a year. All that our fellows knew, was, she was gone. It was two or three months afterwards, when, one afternoon, an open carriage stopped at the cricket-field, just outside bounds, with a lady and gentleman in it, who looked at the game a long time and stood up to see it played. Nobody thought much about them, until the same little snivelling chap came in, against all rules, from the post where he was Scout, and said, &quot;It&#039;s Jane!&quot; Both Elevens forgot the game directly, and run crowding round the carriage. It was Jane! In such a bonnet! And if you&#039;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 play-ground, to see a carriage at the low part of the wall where it joins the high part, and a lady and gentleman standing up in it, looking over. The gentleman was always Old 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&#039;s father wasn&#039;t worth millions! He wasn&#039;t worth anything. Bob had gone for a soldier, and Old Cheeseman had purchased his discharge. But that&#039;s not the carriage. The carriage stopped, and all our fellows stopped as soon as it was seen. &quot;So you have never sent me to Coventry after all!&quot; said the lady laughing, as our fellows swarmed up the wall to shake hands with her. &quot;Are you never going to do it?&quot; &quot;Never! never! never!&quot; on all sides. I didn&#039;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&#039;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. &quot;Only a fortnight now,&quot; said Old Cheeseman, &quot;to the holidays. Who stops? Anybody?&quot; A good many fingers pointed at me, and a good many voices cried, &quot;He does!&quot; For it was the year when you were all away, and rather low I was about it, I can tell you. &quot;Oh!&quot; said Old Cheeseman. &quot;But it&#039;s solitary here in the holiday time. He had better come to us.&quot; So I went to their delightful house, and was as happy as I could possibly be. They understood how to conduct themselves towards boys, they do. When they take a boy to the play, for instance, they do take him. They don&#039;t go in after it&#039;s begun, or come out before it&#039;s over. They know how to bring a boy up, too. Look at their own! Though he is very little as yet, what a capital boy he is! Why, my next favourite to Mrs. Cheeseman, and Old Cheeseman, is young Cheeseman. So, now I have told you all I know about Old Cheeseman. And it&#039;s not much after all, I am afraid. Is it? 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 shall 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 labour with a cheerful will. He was one of an immense family, all of whose sons and daughters gained their daily bread by daily work, 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 speechmaking, in the neighbourhood where he dwelt; but he had nothing to do with that. Such clash and uproar came from the Bigwig family, at the unaccountable proceedings of which race he marvelled much. They set up the strangest statues, in iron, marble, bronze, and brass, before his door; and darkened his house with the legs and tails of uncouth images of horses. He wondered what it all meant, smiled in a rough good-humoured way he had, and kept at his hard work. The Bigwig family (composed of all the stateliest people thereabouts, and all the noisiest) had undertaken to save him the trouble of thinking for himself, and to manage him and his affairs. &quot;Why truly,&quot; said he, &quot;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&quot;—for the Bigwig family were not above his money—&quot;I shall be relieved and much obliged, considering that you know best.&quot; Hence the drumming, trumpeting, and speechmaking, and the ugly images of horses which he was expected to fall down and worship. &quot;I don&#039;t understand all this,&quot; said he, rubbing his furrowed brow confusedly. &quot;But it has a meaning, may be, if I could find it out.&quot; &quot;It means,&quot; returned the Bigwig family, suspecting something of what he said, &quot;honour and glory in the highest, to the highest merit.&quot; &quot;Oh!&quot; said he. And he was glad to hear that. But, when he looked among the images in iron, marble, bronze, and brass, he failed to find a rather meritorious countryman of his, once the son of a Warwickshire wool-dealer, or any single countryman whomsoever of that kind. He could find none of the men whose knowledge had rescued him and his children from terrific and disfiguring disease, whose boldness had raised his forefathers from the condition of serfs, whose wise infancy had opened a new and high existence to the humblest, whose skill had filled the working man&#039;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. &quot;Humph!&quot; said he. &quot;I don&#039;t quite understand it.&quot; 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 blackened streets; but it was a precious place to him. The hands of his wife were hardened with toil, and she was old before her time; but she was dear to him. His children, stunted in their growth, bore traces of unwholesome nurture; but they had beauty in his sight. Above all other things, it was an earnest desire of this man&#039;s soul that his children should be taught. &quot;If I am sometimes missed,&quot; said he, &quot;for want of knowledge, at least let them know better, and avoid my mistakes. If it is hard to me to reap the harvest of pleasure and instruction that is stored in books, let it be easier to them.&quot; But, the Bigwig family broke out into violent family quarrels concerning what it was lawful to teach to this man&#039;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; impounded one another in courts Lay and courts Ecclesiastical; threw dirt, exchanged pummellings, and fell together by the ears in unintelligible animosity. Meanwhile, this man, in his short evening snatches at his fire-side, saw the demon Ignorance arise there, and take his children to itself. He saw his daughter perverted into a heavy slatternly drudge; he saw his son go moping down the ways of low sensuality, to brutality and crime; he saw the dawning light of intelligence in the eyes of his babies so changing into cunning and suspicion, that he could have rather wished them idiots. &quot;I don&#039;t understand this any the better,&quot; said he; &quot;but I think it cannot be right. Nay, by the clouded Heaven above me, I protest against this as my wrong!&quot; 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 wth all its train of ruin. Then he appealed to the Bigwig family, and said, &quot;We are a labouring people, and I have a glimmering suspicion in me that labouring people of whatever condition, were made—by a higher intelligence than yours, as I poorly understand it—to be in need of mental refreshment and recreation. See what we fall into, when we rest without it. Come! Amuse me harmlessly, show me something, give me an escape!&quot; But, here the Bigwig family fell into a state of uproar absolutely 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 and the beauties of art—to show him these things, that is to say, at any period of his life when he could look upon them—there arose among the Bigwigs such roaring and raving, such pulpiting and petitioning, such maundering and memorialising, such name-calling and dirt-throwing, such a shrill wind of parliamentary questioning and feeble replying—where &quot;I dare not&quot; waited on &quot;I would&quot;—that the poor fellow stood aghast, staring wildly around. &quot;Have I provoked all this,&quot; said he, with his hands to his affrighted ears, &quot;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&#039;t understand, and I am not understood. What is to come of such a state of things?&quot; He was bending over his work, often asking himself the question, when the news began to spread that a pestilence had appeared among the labourers, and was slaying them by thousands. Going forth to look about him, he soon found this to be true. The dying and the dead were mingled in the close and tainted houses among which his life was passed. New poison was distilled into the always murky, always sickening air. The robust and the weak, old age and infancy, the father and the mother, all were stricken down alike. What means of fight had he? He remained 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: &quot;O what avails it, missionary, to come to me, a man condemned to residence in this foetid place, where every sense becomes a torment, and where every minute of my numbered days is new mire added to the heap under which I lie oppressed! But, give me my first glimpse of Heaven, through a little of its light and air; give me pure water; help me to be clean; lighten this heavy atmosphere and heavy life, in which our spirits sink, and we become the indifferent and callous creatures you too often see us; gently and kindly take the bodies of those who die among us, out of the small room where we grow to be so familiar with the awful change that even its sanctity is lost to us; and, Teacher, then I will hear—none know better than you, how willingly—of Him whose thoughts were so much with the poor, and who had compassion for all human sorrow!&quot; 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. &quot;Master, &#039;tis hard to bear—I know it—but be comforted. I would give you comfort, if I could.&quot; The Master thanked him from his heart, but, said he, &quot;O you labouring men! The calamity began among you. If you had but lived more healthy and decently, I should not be the widowed and bereft mourner that I am this day.&quot; &quot;Master,&quot; returned the other, shaking his head, &quot;I have begun to understand a little that most calamities will come from us, as this one did, and that none will stop at our poor doors, until we are united with that great squabbling family yonder, to do the things that are right. We cannot live healthily and decently, unless they who undertook to manage us provide the means. We cannot be instructed, unless they will teach us; we cannot be 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 enjoyments, will all come from us, and none of them will stop with us. They will spread far and wide. They always do; they always have done—just like the pestilence. I understand so much, I think, at last.&quot; But the Master said again, &quot;O you labouring men! how seldom do we ever hear of you, except in connection with some trouble!&quot; &quot;Master,&quot; he replied, &quot;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 can never end with me. As sure as Death, it comes down to me, and it goes up from me.&quot; There was so much reason in what he said, that the Bigwig family, getting wind of it, and being horribly frightened by the late desolation, resolved to unite with him to do the things that were right—at all events, so far as the said things were associated with the direct prevention, humanly speaking, of another pestilence. But as their fear wore off, which it soon began to do, they resumed their falling out among themselves, and did nothing. Consequently the scourge appeared again—low down as before—and spread avengingly upward as before, and carried off vast numbers of the brawlers. But not a man among them ever admitted, if in the least degree he ever perceived, that he had anything to do with it. So Nobody lived and died in the old, old, old way; and this, in the main, is the whole of Nobody&#039;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 littie church, a monument erected by faithful companions in arms to the memory of Colonel A, Major B, Captains C, D and E, Lieutenants F and G, Ensigns H, I and J, seven non-commissioned officers, and one hundred and thirty rank and file, who fell in the discharge of their duty on the memorable day. The story of Nobody is the 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. O! Let us think of them this year at the Christmas fire, and not forget them when it is burnt out.18530218https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Another_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire_[1853_Christmas_Number]/1854-2-18-Another_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Another_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire_[1853_Christmas_Number]/1854-2-18-The_Schoolboys_Story.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Another_Round_of_Stories_by_the_Christmas_Fire_[1853_Christmas_Number]/1854-2-18-Nobodys_Story.pdf
202https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/202<em>Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions&nbsp;</em>(1865 Christmas Number)<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>All the Year Round</em><span>, Vol. XIV, Extra Christmas Number, 7 December 1865, pp. 1-48.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xiv/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xiv/page-573.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online</em><span>,&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xiv/page-605.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xiv/page-605.html</a><span>.</span><br /><em><br />Dickens Journals Online,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xiv/page-618.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xiv/page-618.html</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1865-12-07">1865-12-07</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1865-12-07-Doctor_Marigolds_Prescriptions<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'To Be Taken Immediately' (No.1), pp. 1-9.</strong></li> <li>Rosa Mulholland. 'Not to Be Taken at Bedtime' (No.2), pp. 9-15.</li> <li>Charles Allston Collins. 'To Be Taken at the Dinner Table' (No.3), pp. 15-20.</li> <li>Hesba Stretton. 'Not to Be Taken for Granted' (No.4), pp. 20-27.</li> <li>Walter Thornbury. 'To Be Taken in Water' (No.5), pp. 27-33.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt' (No.6), pp. 33-38.</strong></li> <li>Mrs. Gascoyne (Caroline Leigh Smith?). 'To Be Taken and Tried' (No.7), pp. 38-46.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'To Be Taken for Life' (No.8), pp. 46-48.</strong></li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al. <em>Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions</em> (7 December 1865). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1865-12-07-Doctor_Marigolds_Prescriptions">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1865-12-07-Doctor_Marigolds_Prescriptions</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>I am a Cheap Jack, and my own father&#039;s name was Willum Marigold. It was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but my own father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which point I content myself with looking at the argument this way:—If a man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery? As to looking at the argument through the medium of the Register, Willum Marigold come into the world before Registers come up much—and went out of it too. They wouldn&#039;t have been greatly in his line neither, if they had chanced to come up before him. I was born on the Queen&#039;s highway, but it was the King&#039;s at that time. A doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when it took place on a common; and in consequence of his being a very kind gentleman, and accepting no fee but a tea-tray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to him. There you have me. Doctor Marigold. I am at present a middle-aged man of a broadish build, in cords, leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings of which is always gone behind. Repair them how you will, they go like fiddle-strings. You have been to the theatre, and you have seen one of the wiolin-players screw up his wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been whispering the secret to him that it feared it was out of order, and then you have heard it snap. That&#039;s as exactly similar to my waistcoat, as a waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one another. I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck wore loose and easy. Sitting down is my favourite posture. If I have a taste in point of personal jewellery, it is mother-of-pearl buttons. There you have me again, as large as life. The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you&#039;ll guess that my father was a Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He was. It was a pretty tray. It represented a large lady going along a serpentining up-hill gravel-walk, to attend a little church. Two swans had likewise come astray with the same intentions. When I call her a large lady, I don&#039;t mean in point of breadth, for there she fell below my views, but she more than made it up in heighth; her heighth and slimness was—in short THE heighth of both. I often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause (or more likely screeching one) of the doctor&#039;s standing it up on a table against the wall in his consulting-room. Whenever my own father and mother were in that part of the country, I used to put my head (I have heard my own mother say it was flaxen curls at that time, though you wouldn&#039;t know an old hearth-broom from it now, till you come to the handle and found it wasn&#039;t me) in at the doctor&#039;s door, and the doctor was always glad to see me, and said, &quot;Aha, my brother practitioner! Come in, little M.D. How are your inclinations as to sixpence?&quot; You can&#039;t go on for ever, you&#039;ll find, nor yet could my father nor yet my mother. If you don&#039;t go off as a whole when you are about due, you&#039;re liable to go off in part and two to one your head&#039;s the part. Gradually my father went off his, and my mother went off hers. It was in a harmless way, but it put out the family where I boarded them. The old couple, though retired, got to be wholly and solely devoted to the Cheap Jack business, and were always selling the family off. Whenever the cloth was laid for dinner, my father began rattling the plates and dishes, as we do in our line when we put up crockery for a bid, only he had lost the trick of it, and mostly let &#039;em drop and broke &#039;em. As the old lady had been used to sit in the cart, and hand the articles out one by one to the old gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same way she handed him every item of the family&#039;s property, and they disposed of it in their own imaginations from morning to night. At last the old gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries out in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for two days and nights: &quot;Now here, my jolly companions every one—which the Nightingale club in a village was held, At the sign of the Cabbage and Shears, Where the singers no doubt would have greatly excelled, But for want of taste voices and ears—now here, my jolly companions every one, is a working model of a used-up old Cheap Jack, without a tooth in his head, and with a pain in every bone: so like life that it would be just as good if it wasn&#039;t better, just as bad if it wasn&#039;t worse, and just as new if it wasn&#039;t worn out. Bid for the working model of the old Cheap Jack, who has drunk more gunpowder-tea with the ladies in his time than would blow the lid off a washerwoman&#039;s copper, and carry it as many thousands of miles higher than the moon as nought nix nought, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over. Now my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot? Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence? The gentleman in the scarecrow&#039;s hat? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow&#039;s hat. I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now I&#039;ll tell you what I&#039;ll do with you. Come! I&#039;ll throw you in a working model of a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack so long ago, that upon my word and honour it took place in Noah&#039;s Ark, before the Unicorn could get in to forbid the banns by blowing a tune upon his horn. There now! Come! What do you say for both? I&#039;ll tell you what I&#039;ll do with you. I don&#039;t bear you malice for being so backward. Here! If you make me a bid that&#039;ll only reflect a little credit on your town, I&#039;ll throw you in a warming-pan for nothing, and lend you a toasting-fork for life. Now come; what do you say after that splendid offer? Say two pound, say thirty shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say two and six. You don&#039;t say even two and six? You say two and three? No. You shan&#039;t have the lot for two and three. I&#039;d sooner give it you, if you was good looking enough. Here! Missis! Chuck the old man and woman into the cart, put the horse to, and drive &#039;em away and bury &#039;em!&quot; Such were the last words of Willum Marigold, my own father, and they were carried out, by him and by his wife my own mother on one and the same day, as I ought to know, having followed as mourner. My father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work, as his dying observations went to prove. But I top him. I don&#039;t say it because it&#039;s myself, but because it has been universally acknowledged by all that has had the means of comparison. I have worked at it. I have measured myself against other public speakers, Members of Parliament, Platforms, Pulpits, Counsel learned in the law—and where I have found &#039;em good, I have took a bit of imitation from &#039;em, and where I have found &#039;em bad, I have let &#039;em, alone. Now I&#039;ll tell you what. I mean to go down into my grave declaring that of all the callings ill used in Great Britain, the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used. Why ain&#039;t we a profession? Why ain&#039;t we endowed with privileges? Why are we forced to take out a hawkers&#039; license, when no such thing is expected of the political hawkers? Where&#039;s the difference betwixt us? Except that we are Cheap Jacks and they are Dear Jacks, I don&#039;t see any difference but what&#039;s in our favour. For look here! Say it&#039;s election-time. I am on the footboard of my cart in the market-place on a Saturday night. I put up a general miscellaneous lot. I say: &quot;Now here my free and independent woters, I&#039;m a going to give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days, nor yet the days preceding. Now I&#039;ll show you what I am a going to do with you. Here&#039;s a pair of razors that&#039;ll shave you closer than the Board of Guardians, here&#039;s a flat-iron worth its weight in gold, here&#039;s a frying-pan artificially flavoured with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you&#039;ve only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and there you are replete with animal food, here&#039;s a genuine chronometer watch in such a solid silver case that you may knock at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting and rouse your wife and family and save up your knocker for the postman, and here&#039;s half a dozen dinner plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm the baby when it&#039;s fractious. Stop! I&#039;ll throw you in another article and I&#039;ll give you that, and it&#039;s a rolling-pin, and if the baby can only get it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming and rub the gums once with it, they&#039;ll come through double in a fit of laughter equal to being tickled. Stop again! I&#039;ll throw you in another article, because I don&#039;t like the looks of you, for you haven&#039;t the appearance of buyers unless I lose by you, and because I&#039;d rather lose than not take money to-night, and that&#039;s a looking-glass in which you may see how ugly you look when you don&#039;t bid. What do you say now? Come! Do you say a pound? Not you, for you haven&#039;t got it. Do you say ten shillings? Not you, for you owe more to the tallyman. Well then, I&#039;ll tell you what I&#039;ll do with you. I&#039;ll heap &#039;em all on the footboard of the cart— there they are! razors, flat-iron, frying-pan, chronometer watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass—take &#039;em all away for four shillings, and I&#039;ll give you sixpence for your trouble!&quot; This is me, the Cheap Jack. But on the Monday morning, in the same marketplace, comes the Dear Jack on the hustings—his cart—and what does he say? &quot;Now my free and independent woters, I am a going to give you such a chance&quot; (he begins just like me) &quot;as you never had in all your born days, and that&#039;s the chance of sending Myself to Parliament. Now I&#039;ll tell you what I am a going to do for you. Here&#039;s the interests of this magnificent town promoted above all the rest of the civilised and uncivilised earth. Here&#039;s your railways carried, and your neighbours&#039; railways jockeyed. Here&#039;s all your sons in the Post-office. Here&#039;s Britannia smiling on you. Here&#039;s the eyes of Europe on you. Here&#039;s uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of animal food, golden cornfields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of applause from your own hearts, all in one lot and that&#039;s myself. Will you take me as I stand? You won&#039;t? Well then, I&#039;ll tell you what I&#039;ll do with you. Come now! I&#039;ll throw you in anything you ask for. There! Church-rates, abolition of church-rates, more malt tax, no malt tax, uniwersal education to the highest mark or uniwersal ignorance to the lowest, total abolition of flogging in the army or a dozen for every private once a month all round, Wrongs of Men or Rights of Women,—only say which it shall be, take &#039;em or leave &#039;em, and I&#039;m of your opinion altogether, and the lot&#039;s your own on your own terms. There! You won&#039;t take it yet? Well then, I&#039;ll tell you what I&#039;ll do with you. Come! You are such free and independent woters, and I am so proud of you—you are such a noble and enlightened constituency, and I am so ambitious of the honour and dignity of being your member, which is by far the highest level to which the wings of the human mind can soar—that I&#039;ll tell you what I&#039;ll do with you. I&#039;ll throw you in all the public-houses in your magnificent town for nothing. Will that content you? It won&#039;t? You won&#039;t take the lot yet? Well then, before I put the horse in and drive away, and make the offer to the next most magnificent town that can be discovered, I&#039;ll tell you what I&#039;ll do. Take the lot, and I&#039;ll drop two thousand pound in the streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can. Not enough? Now look here. This is the very furthest that I&#039;m a going to. I&#039;ll make it two thousand five hundred. And still you won&#039;t? Here, missis! Put the horse—no, stop half a moment, I shouldn&#039;t like to turn my back upon you neither for a trifle, I&#039;ll make it two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound. There! Take the lot on your own terms, and I&#039;ll count out two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound on the footboard of the cart, to be dropped in the streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can. What do you say? Come now! You won&#039;t do better, and you may do worse. You take it? Hooray! Sold again, and got the seat!&quot; These Dear Jacks soap the people shameful, but we Cheap Jacks don&#039;t. We tell &#039;em the truth about themselves to their faces, and scorn to court &#039;em. As to wenturesomeness in the way of puffing up the lots, the Dear Jacks beat us hollow. It is considered in the Cheap Jack calling that better patter can be made out of a gun than any article we put up from the cart, except a pair of spectacles. I often hold forth about a gun for a quarter of an hour, and feel as if I need never leave off. But when I tell &#039;em what the gun can do, and what the gun has brought down, I never go half so far as the Dear Jacks do when they make speeches in praise of their guns—their great guns that set &#039;em on to do it. Besides, I&#039;m in business for myself, I ain&#039;t sent down into the market-place to order, as they are. Besides again, my guns don&#039;t know what I say in their laudation, and their guns do, and the whole concern of &#039;em have reason to be sick and ashamed all round. These are some of my arguments for declaring that the Cheap Jack calling is treated ill in Great Britain, and for turning warm when I think of the other Jacks in question setting themselves up to pretend to look down upon it. I courted my wife from the footboard of the cart. I did indeed. She was a Suffolk young woman, and it was in Ipswich market-place right opposite the corn-chandler&#039;s shop. I had noticed her up at a window last Saturday that was, appreciating highly. I had took to her, and I had said to myself, &quot;If not already disposed of, I&#039;ll have that lot.&quot; Next Saturday that come, I pitched the cart on the same pitch, and I was in very high feather indeed, keeping &#039;em laughing the whole of the time and getting off the goods briskly. At last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket, a small lot wrapped in soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the window where she was). &quot;Now here my blooming English maidens is an article, the last article of the present evening&#039;s sale, which I offer to only you the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and I won&#039;t take a bid of a thousand pound for, from any man alive. Now what is it? Why, I&#039;ll tell you what it is. It&#039;s made of fine gold, and it&#039;s not broke though there&#039;s a hole in the middle of it, and it&#039;s stronger than any fetter that ever was forged, though it&#039;s smaller than any finger in my set of ten. Why ten? Because when my parents made over my property to me, I tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve tablecloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and twelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen and could never since be matched. Now what else is it? Come I&#039;ll tell you. It&#039;s a hoop of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper that I myself took off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle-street, London city. I wouldn&#039;t tell you so if I hadn&#039;t the paper to show, or you mightn&#039;t believe it even of me. Now what else is it? It&#039;s a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all in gold and all in one. Now what else is it? It&#039;s a wedding ring. Now I&#039;ll tell you what I&#039;m a-going to do with it. I&#039;m not a-going to offer this lot for money, but I mean to give it to the next of you beauties that laughs, and I&#039;ll pay her a visit to-morrow morning at exactly half after nine o&#039;clock as the chimes go, and I&#039;ll take her out for a walk to put up the banns.&quot; She laughed, and got the ring handed up to her. When I called in the morning, she says, &quot;Oh dear! It&#039;s never you and you never mean it?&quot; &quot;It&#039;s ever me,&quot; says I, &quot;and I am ever yours, and I ever mean it.&quot; So we got married, after being put up three times—which, by-the-by, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the Cheap Jack customs pervade society. She wasn&#039;t a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could have parted with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn&#039;t have swopped her away in exchange for any other woman in England. Not that I ever did swop her away, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year. Now my lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, I&#039;ll let you into a secret, though you won&#039;t believe it. Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would try the worst of you, but thirteen year of temper in a Cart would try the best of you. You are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see. There&#039;s thousands of couples among you, getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to the Divorce Court in a cart. Whether the jolting makes it worse, I don&#039;t undertake to decide, but in a cart it does come home to you and stick to you. Wiolence in a cart is so wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is so aggrawating. We might have had such a pleasant life! A roomy cart, with the large goods hung outside and the bed slung underneath it when on the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging shelf and a cupboard, a dog, and a horse. What more do you want? You draw off upon a bit of turf in a green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light your fire upon the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn&#039;t call the Emperor of France your father. But have a temper in the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and where are you then? Put a name to your feelings. My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before she broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it, was a mystery to me, but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him up out of his soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and bolt. At such times I wished I was him. The worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and I love children with all my heart. When she was in her furies, she beat the child. This got to be so shocking as the child got to be four or five year old, that I have many a time gone on with my whip over my shoulder, at the old horse&#039;s head, sobbing and crying worse than ever little Sophy did. For how could I prevent it? Such a thing is not to be tried with such a temper—in a cart—without coming to a fight. It&#039;s in the natural size and formation of a cart to bring it to a fight. And then the poor child got worse terrified than before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her mother made complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word went round, &quot;Here&#039;s a wretch of a Cheap Jack been a beating his wife.&quot; Little Sophy was such a brave child! She grew to be quite devoted to her poor father, though he could do so little to help her. She had a wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural about her. It is quite astonishing to me now, that I didn&#039;t go tearing mad when I used to see her run from her mother before the cart, and her mother catch her by this hair, and pull her down by it, and beat her. Such a brave child I said she was. Ah! with reason. &quot;Don&#039;t you mind next time, father dear,&quot; she would whisper to me, with her little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet; &quot;if I don&#039;t cry out, you may know I am not much hurt. And even if I do cry out, it will only be to get mother to let go and leave off.&quot; What I have seen the little spirit bear—for me—without crying out! Yet in other respects her mother took great care of her. Her clothes were always clean and neat, and her mother was never tired of working at &#039;em. Such is the inconsistency in things. Our being down in the marsh country in unhealthy weather, I consider the cause of Sophy&#039;s taking bad low fever; but however she took it, once she got it she turned away from her mother for evermore, and nothing would persuade her to be touched by her mother&#039;s hand. She would shiver and say &quot;No, no, no,&quot; when it was offered at, and would hide her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter round the neck. The Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had known it, what with one thing and what with another (and not least what with railroads, which will cut it all to pieces, I expect at last), and I was run dry of money. For which reason, one night at that period of little Sophy&#039;s being so bad, either we must have come to a dead-lock for victuals and drink, or I must have pitched the cart as I did. I couldn&#039;t get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and indeed I hadn&#039;t the heart to try, so I stepped out on the footboard with her holding round my neck. They all set up a laugh when they see us, and one chuckle-headed Joskin (that I hated for it) made the bidding, &quot;tuppence for her!&quot; &quot;Now, you country boobies,&quot; says I, feeling as if my heart was a heavy weight at the end of a broken sash-line, &quot;I give you notice that I am a going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to give you so much more than your money&#039;s worth that you&#039;ll only persuade yourselves to draw your Saturday night&#039;s wages ever again arterwards, by the hopes of meeting me to lay &#039;em out with, which you never will, and why not? Because I&#039;ve made my fortune by selling my goods on a large scale for seventy-five per cent less than I give for &#039;em, and I am consequently to be elevated to the House of Peers next week, by the title of the Duke of Cheap and Markis Jackaloorul. Now let&#039;s know what you want to-night, and you shall have it. But first of all, shall I tell you why I have got this little girl round my neck? You don&#039;t want to know? Then you shall. She belongs to the Fairies. She&#039;s a fortune-teller. She can tell me all about you in a whisper, and can put me up to whether you&#039;re a-going to buy a lot or leave it. Now do you want a saw? No, she says you don&#039;t, because you&#039;re too clumsy to use one. Else here&#039;s a saw which would be a lifelong blessing to a handy man, at four shillings, at three and six, at three, at two and six, at two, at eighteenpence. But none of you shall have it at any price, on account of your well-known awkwardness which would make it manslaughter. The same objection applies to this set of three planes which I won&#039;t let you have neither, so don&#039;t bid for &#039;em. Now I am a-going to ask her what you do want. (Then I whispered, &quot;Your head burns so, that I am afraid it hurts you bad, my pet,&quot; and she answered, without opening her heavy eyes, &quot;Just a little, father.&quot;) Oh! This little fortune-teller says it&#039;s a memorandum-book you want. Then why didn&#039;t you mention it? Here it is. Look at it. Two hundred super-fine hot-pressed wire-wove pages—if you don&#039;t believe me, count &#039;em—ready ruled for your expenses, an everlastingly-pointed pencil to put &#039;em down with, a double-bladed penknife to scratch &#039;em out with, a book of printed tables to calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to sit down upon while you give your mind to it! Stop! And an umbrella to keep the moon off when you give your mind to it on a pitch dark night. Now I won&#039;t ask you how much for the lot, but how little? How little are you thinking of? Don&#039;t be ashamed to mention it, because my fortune-teller knows already. (Then making believe to whisper, I kissed her, and she kissed me.) Why, she says you&#039;re thinking of as little as three and threepence! I couldn&#039;t have believed it, even of you, unless she told me. Three and threepence! And a set of printed tables in the lot that&#039;ll calculate your income up to forty thousand a year! With an income of forty thousand a year, you grudge three and sixpence. Well then, I&#039;ll tell you my opinion. I so despise the threepence, that I&#039;d sooner take three shillings. There. For three shillings, three shillings, three shillings! Gone. Hand &#039;em over to the lucky man.&quot; As there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and grinned at everybody, while I touched little Sophy&#039;s face and asked her if she felt faint or giddy. &quot;Not very, father. It will soon be over.&quot; Then turning from the pretty patient eyes, which were opened now, and seeing nothing but grins across my lighted grease-pot, I went on again in my Cheap Jack style. &quot;Where&#039;s the butcher?&quot; (My sorrowful eye had just caught sight of a fat young butcher on the outside of the crowd.) She says the good luck is the butcher&#039;s. &quot;Where is he?&quot; Everybody handed on the blushing butcher to the front, and there was a roar, and the butcher felt himself obliged to put his hand in his pocket and take the lot. The party so picked out, in general does feel obliged to take the lot—good four times out of six. Then we had another lot the counterpart of that one, and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is always wery much enjoyed. Then we had the spectacles. It ain&#039;t a special profitable lot, but I put &#039;em on, and I see what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to take off the taxes, and I see what the sweetheart of the young woman in the shawl is doing at home, and I see what the Bishops has got for dinner, and a deal more that seldom fails to fetch &#039;em up in their spirits; and the better their spirits, the better their bids. Then we had the ladies&#039; lot—the teapot, tea-caddy, glass sugar basin, half a dozen spoons, and caudle-cup—and all the time I was making similar excuses to give a look or two and say a word or two to my poor child. It was while the second ladies&#039; lot was holding &#039;em enchained that I felt her lift herself a little on my shoulder, to look across the dark street. &quot;What troubles you, darling?&quot; &quot;Nothing troubles me, father. I am not at all troubled. But don&#039;t I see a pretty churchyard over there?&quot; &quot;Yes, my dear.&quot; &quot;Kiss me twice, dear father, and lay me down to rest upon that churchyard grass so soft and green.&quot; I staggered back into the cart with her head dropped on my shoulder, and I says to her mother, &quot;Quick. Shut the door! Don&#039;t let those laughing people see!&quot; &quot;What&#039;s the matter?&quot; she cries. &quot;O, woman, woman,&quot; I tells her, &quot;you&#039;ll never catch my little Sophy by her hair again, for she has flown away from you!&quot; Maybe those were harder words than I meant &#039;em, but from that time forth my wife took to brooding, and would sit in the cart or walk beside it, hours at a stretch, with her arms crossed and her eyes looking on the ground. When her furies took her (which was rather seldomer than before) they took her in a new way, and she banged herself about to that extent that I was forced to hold her. She got none the better for a little drink now and then, and through some years I used to wonder as I plodded along at the old horse&#039;s head whether there was many carts upon the road that held so much dreariness as mine, for all my being looked up to as the King of the Cheap Jacks. So sad our lives went on till one summer evening, when as we were coming into Exeter out of the further West of England, we saw a woman beating a child in a cruel manner, who screamed, &quot;Don&#039;t beat me! O mother, mother, mother!&quot; Then my wife stopped her ears and ran away like a wild thing, and next day she was found in the river. Me and my dog were all the company left in the cart now, and the dog learned to give a short bark when they wouldn&#039;t bid, and to give another and a nod of his head when I asked him: &quot;Who said half-a-crown? Are you the gentleman, sir, that offered half-a-crown?&quot; He attained to an immense heighth of popularity, and I shall always believe taught himself entirely out of his own head to growl at any person in the crowd that bid as low as sixpence. But he got to be well on in years, and one night when I was conwulsing York with the spectacles, he took a conwulsion on his own account upon the very footboard by me, and it finished him. Being naturally of a tender turn, I had dreadful lonely feelings on me arter this. I conquered &#039;em at selling times, having a reputation to keep (not to mention keeping myself), but they got me down in private and rolled upon me. That&#039;s often the way with us public characters. See us on the footboard, and you&#039;d give pretty well anything you possess to be us. See us off the footboard, and you&#039;d add a trifle to be off your bargain. It was under those circumstances that I come acquainted with a giant. I might have been too high to fall into conversation with him, had it not been for my lonely feelings. For the general rule is, going round the country, to draw the line at dressing up. When a man can&#039;t trust his getting a living to his undisguised abilities, you consider him below your sort. And this giant when on view figured as a Roman. He was a languid young man, which I attribute to the distance betwixt his extremities. He had a little head and less in it, he had weak eyes and weak knees, and altogether you couldn&#039;t look at him without feeling that there was greatly too much of him both for his joints and his mind. But he was an amiable though timid young man (his mother let him out, and spent the money), and we come acquainted when he was walking to ease the horse betwixt two fairs. He was called Rinaldo di Velasco, his name being Pickleson. This giant otherwise Pickleson mentioned to me under the seal of confidence, that beyond his being a burden to himself, his life was made a burden to him, by the cruelty of his master towards a step-daughter who was deaf and dumb. Her mother was dead, and she had no living soul to take her part, and was used most hard. She travelled with his master&#039;s caravan only because there was nowhere to leave her, and this giant otherwise Pickleson did go so far as to believe that his master often tried to lose her. He was such a very languid young man, that I don&#039;t know how long it didn&#039;t take him to get this story out, but it passed through his defective circulation to his top extremity in course of time. When I heard this account from the giant otherwise Pickleson, and likewise that the poor girl had beautiful long dark hair, and was often pulled down by it and beaten, I couldn&#039;t see the giant through what stood in my eyes. Having wiped &#039;em, I give him sixpence (for he was kept as short as he was long), and he laid it out in two threepennorths of gin-and-water, which so brisked him up, that he sang the Favourite Comic of Shivery Shakey, ain&#039;t it cold. A popular effect which his master had tried every other means to get out of him as a Roman, wholly in vain. His master&#039;s name was Mim, a wery hoarse man and I knew him to speak to. I went to that Fair as a mere civilian, leaving the cart outside the town, and I looked about the back of the Vans while the performing was going on, and at last sitting dozing against a muddy cart-wheel, I come upon the poor girl who was deaf and dumb. At the first look I might almost have judged that she had escaped from the Wild Beast Show, but at the second I thought better of her, and thought that if she was more cared for and more kindly used she would be like my child. She was just the same age that my own daughter would have been, if her pretty head had not fell down upon my shoulder that unfortunate night. To cut it short, I spoke confidential to Mim while he was beating the gong outside betwixt two lots of Pickleson&#039;s publics, and I put it to him, &quot;She lies heavy on your own hands; what&#039;ll you take for her?&quot; Mim was a most ferocious swearer. Suppressing that part of his reply, which was much the longest part, his reply was, &quot;A pair of braces.&quot; &quot;Now I&#039;ll tell you,&quot; says I, &quot;what I&#039;m a going to do with you. I&#039;m a going to fetch you half a dozen pair of the primest braces in the cart, and then to take her away with me.&quot; Says Mim (again ferocious), &quot;I&#039;ll believe it when I&#039;ve got the goods, and no sooner.&quot; I made all the haste I could, lest he should think twice of it, and the bargain was completed, which Pickleson he was thereby so relieved in his mind that he come out at his little back door, longways like a serpent, and give us Shivery Shakey in a whisper among the wheels at parting. It was happy days for both of us when Sophy and me began to travel in the cart. I at once give her the name of Sophy, to put her ever towards me in the attitude of my own daughter. We soon made out to begin to understand one another through the goodness of the Heavens, when she knowed that I meant true and kind by her. In a very little time she was wonderful fond of me. You have no idea what it is to have any body wonderful fond of you, unless you have been got down and rolled upon by the lonely feelings that I have mentioned as having once got the better of me. You&#039;d have laughed—or the rewerse—it&#039;s according to your disposition—if you could have seen me trying to teach Sophy. At first I was helped—you&#039;d never guess by what—milestones. I got some large alphabets in a box, all the letters separate on bits of bone, and say we was going to WINDSOR, I give her those letters in that order, and then at every milestone I showed her those same letters in that same order again, and pointed towards the abode of royalty. Another time I give her C A R T, and then chalked the same upon the cart. Another time I give her D O C T O R M A R I G O L D, and hung a corresponding inscription outside my waistcoat. People that met us might stare a bit and laugh, but what did I care if she caught the idea? She caught it after long patience and trouble, and then we did begin to get on swimmingly, I believe you! At first she was a little given to consider me the cart, and the cart the abode of royalty, but that soon wore off. We had our signs, too, and they was hundreds in number. Sometimes, she would sit looking at me and considering hard how to communicate with me about something fresh—how to ask me what she wanted explained—and then she was (or I thought she was; what does it signify?) so like my child with those years added to her, that I half believed it was herself, trying to tell me where she had been to up in the skies, and what she had seen since that unhappy night when she flied away. She had a pretty face, and now that there was no one to drag at her bright dark hair and it was all in order, there was a something touching in her looks that made the cart most peaceful and most quiet, though not at all melancolly. [N.B. In the Cheap Jack patter, we generally sound it, lemonjolly, and it gets a laugh.] The way she learnt to understand any look of mine was truly surprising. When I sold of a night, she would sit in the cart unseen by them outside, and would give a eager look into my eyes when I looked in, and would hand me straight the precise article or articles I wanted. And then she would clap her hands and laugh for joy. And as for me, seeing her so bright, and remembering what she was when I first lighted on her, starved and beaten and ragged, leaning asleep against the muddy cart-wheel, it give me such heart that I gained a greater heighth of reputation than ever, and I put Pickleson down (by the name of Mim&#039;s Travelling Giant otherwise Pickleson) for a fypunnote in my will. This happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen year old. By which time I began to feel not satisfied that I had done my whole duty by her, and to consider that she ought to have better teaching than I could give her. It drew a many tears on both sides when I commenced explaining my views to her, but what&#039;s right is right and you can&#039;t neither by tears nor laughter do away with its character. So I took her hand in mine, and I went with her one day to the Deaf and Dumb Establishment in London, and when the gentleman come to speak to us, I says to him: &quot;Now I&#039;ll tell you what I&#039;ll do with you sir. I am nothing but a Cheap Jack, but of late years I have laid by for a rainy day notwithstanding. This is my only daughter (adopted) and you can&#039;t produce a deafer nor a dumber. Teach her the most that can be taught her, in the shortest separation that can be named—state the figure for it—and I am game to put the money down. I won&#039;t bate you a single farthing sir but I&#039;ll put down the money here and now, and I&#039;ll thankfully throw you in a pound to take it. There!&quot; The gentleman smiled, and then, &quot;Well, well,&quot; says he, &quot;I must first know what she has learnt already. How do you communicate with her?&quot; Then I showed him, and she wrote in printed writing many names of things and so forth, and we held some sprightly conversation, Sophy and me, about a little story in a book which the gentleman showed her and which she was able to read. &quot;This is most extraordinary,&quot; says the gentleman; &quot;is it possible that you have been her only teacher?&quot; &quot;I have been her only teacher, sir,&quot; I says, &quot;besides herself.&quot; &quot;Then,&quot; says the gentleman, and more acceptable words was never spoke to me, &quot;you&#039;re a clever fellow, and a good fellow.&quot; This he makes known to Sophy, who kisses his hands, claps her own, and laughs and cries upon it. We saw the gentleman four times in all, and when he took down my name and asked how in the world it ever chanced to be Doctor, it come out that he was own nephew by the sister&#039;s side, if you&#039;ll believe me, to the very Doctor that I was called after. This made our footing still easier, and he says to me: &quot;Now Marigold, tell me what more do you want your adopted daughter to know?&quot; &quot;I want her sir to be cut off from the world as little as can be, considering her deprivations, and therefore to be able to read whatever is wrote, with perfect ease and pleasure.&quot; &quot;My good fellow,&quot; urges the gentleman, opening his eyes wide, &quot;why I can&#039;t do that myself!&quot; I took his joke and give him a laugh (knowing by experience how flat you fall without it) and I mended my words accordingly. &quot;What do you mean to do with her afterwards?&quot; asks the gentleman, with a sort of a doubtful eye. &quot;To take her about the country?&quot; &quot;In the cart sir, but only in the cart. She will live a private life, you understand, in the cart. I should never think of bringing her infirmities before the public. I wouldn&#039;t make a show of her, for any money.&quot; The gentleman nodded and seemed to approve. &quot;Well,&quot; says he, &quot;can you part with her for two years?&quot; &quot;To do her that good—yes, sir.&quot; &quot;There&#039;s another question,&quot; says the gentleman, looking towards her: &quot;Can she part with you for two years?&quot; I don&#039;t know that it was a harder matter of itself (for the other was hard enough to me), but it was harder to get over. However, she was pacified to it at last, and the separation betwixt us was settled. How it cut up both of us when it took place, and when I left her at the door in the dark of an evening, I don&#039;t tell. But I know this:— remembering that night, I shall never pass that same establishment without a heart-ache and a swelling in the throat, and I couldn&#039;t put you up the best of lots in sight of it with my usual spirit—no, not even the gun, nor the pair of spectacles—for five hundred pound reward from the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and throw in the honour of putting my legs under his mahogany arterwards. Still, the loneliness that followed in the cart was not the old loneliness, because there was a term put to it however long to look forward to, and because I could think, when I was anyways down, that she belonged to me and I belonged to her. Always planning for her coming back, I bought in a few months&#039; time another cart, and what do you think I planned to do with it? I&#039;ll tell you. I planned to fit it up with shelves, and books for her reading, and to have a seat in it where I could sit and see her read, and think that I had been her first teacher. Not hurrying over the job, I had the fittings knocked together in contriving ways under my own inspection, and here was her bed in a berth with curtains, and there was her reading-table, and here was her writing-desk, and elsewhere was her books in rows upon rows, picters and no picters, bindings and no bindings, gilt-edged and plain, just as I could pick &#039;em up for her in lots up and down the country, North and South and West and East, Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone astray, Over the hills and far away. And when I had got together pretty well as many books as the cart would neatly hold, a new scheme come into my head which, as it turned out, kept my time and attention a good deal employed and helped me over the two years stile. Without being of an awaricious temper, I like to be the owner of things. I shouldn&#039;t wish, for instance, to go partners with yourself in the Cheap Jack cart. It&#039;s not that I mistrust you, but that I&#039;d rather know it was mine. Similarly, very likely you&#039;d rather know it was yours. Well! A kind of a jealousy began to creep into my mind when I reflected that all those books would have been read by other people long before they was read by her. It seemed to take away from her being the owner of &#039;em like. In this way, the question got into my head:—Couldn&#039;t I have a book new-made express for her, which she should be the first to read? It pleased me, that thought did, and as I never was a man to let a thought sleep (you must wake up all the whole family of thoughts you&#039;ve got and burn their nightcaps, or you won&#039;t do in the cheap Jack line), I set to work at it. Considering that I was in the habit of changing so much about the country, and that I should have to find out a literary character here to make a deal with, and another literary character there to make a deal with, as opportunities presented, I hit on the plan that this same book should be a general miscellaneous lot—like the razors, flat-iron, chronometer watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass—and shouldn&#039;t be offered as a single indiwidual article like the spectacles or the gun. When I had come to that conclusion, I come to another, which shall likewise be yours. Often had I regretted that she never had heard me on the footboard, and that she never could hear me. It ain&#039;t that I am vain, but that you don&#039;t like to put your own light under a bushel. What&#039;s the worth of your reputation, if you can&#039;t convey the reason for it to the person you most wish to value it? Now I&#039;ll put it to you. Is it worth sixpence, fippence, fourpence, threepence, twopence, a penny, a halfpenny, a farthing? No, it ain&#039;t. Not worth a farthing. Very well then. My conclusion was, that I would begin her book with some account of myself. So that, through reading a specimen or two of me on the footboard, she might form an idea of my merits there. I was aware that I couldn&#039;t do myself justice. A man can&#039;t write his eye (at least I don&#039;t know how to), nor yet can a man write his voice, nor the rate of his talk, nor the quickness of his action, nor his general spicy way. But he can write his turns of speech, when he is a public speaker—and indeed I have heard that he very often does, before he speaks &#039;em. Well! Having formed that resolution, then come the question of a name. How did I hammer that hot iron into shape? This way. The most difficult explanation I had ever had with her was, how I come to be called Doctor, and yet was no Doctor. After all, I felt that I had failed of getting it correctly into her mind, with my utmost pains. But trusting to her improvement in the two years, I thought that I might trust to her understanding it when she should come to read it as put down by my own hand. Then I thought I would try a joke with her and watch how it took, by which of itself I might fully judge of her understanding it. We had first discovered the mistake we had dropped into, through her having asked me to prescribe for her when she had supposed me to be a Doctor in a medical point of view, so thinks I, &quot;Now, if I give this book the name of my Prescriptions, and if she catches the idea that my only Prescriptions are for her amusement and interest—to make her laugh in a pleasant way, or to make her cry in a pleasant way—it will be a delightful proof to both of us that we have got over our difficulty. It fell out to absolute perfection. For when she saw the book, as I had it got up—the printed and pressed book—lying on her desk in her cart, and saw the title, DOCTOR MARIGOLD&#039;S PRESCRIPTIONS, she looked at me for a moment with astonishment, then fluttered the leaves, then broke out a laughing in the charmingest way, then felt her pulse and shook her head, then turned the pages pretending to read them most attentive, then kissed the book to me, and put it to her bosom with both her hands. I never was better pleased in all my life! But let me not anticipate. (I take that expression out of a lot of romances I bought for her. I never opened a single one of &#039;em—and I have opened many—but I found the romancer saying &quot;let me not anticipate.&quot; Which being so, I wonder why he did anticipate, or who asked him to it.) Let me not, I say, anticipate. This same book took up all my spare time. It was no play to get the other articles together in the general miscellaneous lot, but when it come to my own article! There! I couldn&#039;t have believed the blotting, nor yet the buckling to at it, nor the patience over it. Which again is like the footboard. The public have no idea. At last it was done, and the two years&#039; time was gone after all the other time before it, and where it&#039;s all gone to, Who knows? The new cart was finished—yellow outside, relieved with wermillion and brass fittings—the old horse was put in it, a new &#039;un and a boy being laid on for the Cheap Jack cart—and I cleaned myself up to go and fetch her. Bright cold weather it was, cart-chimneys smoking, carts pitched private on a piece of waste ground over at Wandsworth where you may see &#039;em from the Sou&#039; Western Railway when not upon the road. (Look out of the right-hand window going down.) &quot;Marigold,&quot; says the gentleman, giving his hand hearty, &quot;I am very glad to see you.&quot; &quot;Yet I have my doubts, sir,&quot; says I, &quot;if you can be half as glad to see me, as I am to see you.&quot; &quot;The time has appeared so long; has it, Marigold?&quot; &quot;I won&#039;t say that, sir, considering its real length; but—&quot; &quot;What a start, my good fellow!&quot; Ah! I should think it was! Grown such a woman, so pretty, so intelligent, so expressive! I knew then that she must be really like my child, or I could never have known her, standing quiet by the door. &quot;You are affected,&quot; says the gentleman in a kindly manner. &quot;I feel, sir,&quot; says I, &quot;that I am but a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat.&quot; &quot;I feel,&quot; says the gentleman, &quot;that it was you who raised her from misery and degradation, and brought her into communication with her kind. But why do we converse alone together, when we can converse so well with her? Address her in your own way.&quot; &quot;I am such a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat, sir,&quot; says I, &quot;and she is such a graceful woman, and she stands so quiet at the door!&quot; &quot;Try if she moves at the old sign,&quot; says the gentleman. They had got it up together o&#039; purpose to please me! For when I give her the old sign, she rushed to my feet, and dropped upon her knees, holding up her hands to me with pouring tears of love and joy; and when I took her hands and lifted her, she clasped me round the neck and lay there; and I don&#039;t know what a fool I didn&#039;t make of myself, until we all three settled down into talking without sound, as if there was a something soft and pleasant spread over the whole world for us. Now I&#039;ll tell you what I am a going to do with you. I am a going to offer you the general miscellaneous lot, her own book, never read by anybody else but me, added to and completed by me after her first reading of it, eight-and-forty printed pages, six-and-ninety columns, Whiting&#039;s own work, Beaufort House to wit, thrown off by the steam-ingine, best of paper, beautiful green wrapper, folded like clean linen come home from the clear-starcher&#039;s, and so exquisitely stitched that, regarded as a piece of needlework alone it&#039;s better than the sampler of a seamstress undergoing a Competitive Examination for Starvation before the Civil Service Commissioners—and I offer the lot for what? For eight pound? Not so much. For six pound? Less. For four pound? Why, I hardly expect you to believe me, but that&#039;s the sum. Four pound! The stitching alone cost half as much again. Here&#039;s forty-eight original pages, ninety-six original columns, for four pound. You want more for the money? Take it. Three whole pages of advertisements of thrilling interest thrown in for nothing. Read &#039;em and believe &#039;em. More? My best of wishes for your merry Christmases and your happy New Years, your long lives and your true prosperities. Worth twenty pound good if they are delivered as I send them. Remember! Here&#039;s a final prescription added, &quot;To be taken for life,&quot; which will tell you how the cart broke down, and where the journey ended. You think Four Pound too much? And still you think so? Come! I&#039;ll tell you what then. Say Four Pence, and keep the secret. I have always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener&#039;s internal life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it; but the same traveller having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of thought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental impression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it. To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our experiences of these subjective things, as we do our experiences of objective creation. The consequence is, that the general stock of experience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect of being miserably imperfect. In what I am going to relate I have no intention of setting up, opposing, or supporting, any theory whatever. I know the history of the Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of a late Astronomer Royal as related by Sir David Brewster, and I have followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of Spectral Illusion occurring within my private circle of friends. It may be necessary to state as to this last that the sufferer (a lady) was in no degree, however distant, related to me. A mistaken assumption on that head, might suggest an explanation of a part of my own case—but only a part—which would be wholly without foundation. It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any developed peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar experience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since. It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain Murder was committed in England, which attracted great attention. We hear more than enough of Murderers as they rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this particular brute, if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate Jail. I purposely abstain from giving any direct clue to the criminal&#039;s individuality. When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell—or I ought rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell—on the man who was afterwards brought to trial. As no reference was at that time made to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any description of him can at that time have been given in the newspapers. It is essential that this fact be remembered. Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the account of that first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times. The discovery had been made in a bedroom, and, when I laid down the paper, I was aware of a flash—rush—flow—I do not know what to call it—no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive—in which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear that I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of the dead body from the bed. It was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation, but in chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner of Saint James&#039;s-street. It was entirely new to me. I was in my easy-chair at the moment, and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver which started the chair from its position. (But it is to be noted that the chair ran easily on castors.) I went to one of the windows (there are two in the room, and the room is on the second floor) to refresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly. It was a bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and cheerful. The wind was high. As I looked out, it brought down from the Park a quantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took, and whirled into a spiral pillar. As the pillar fell and the leaves dispersed, I saw two men on the opposite side of the way, going from West to East. They were one behind the other. The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The second man followed him, at a distance of some thirty paces, with his right hand menacingly raised. First, the singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so public a thoroughfare, attracted my attention; and next, the more remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it. Both men threaded their way among the other passengers, with a smoothness hardly consistent even with the action of walking on a pavement, and no single creature that I could see, gave them place, touched them, or looked after them. In passing before my windows, they both stared up at me. I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that I could recognise them anywhere. Not that I had consciously noticed anything very remarkable in either face, except that the man who went first had an unusually lowering appearance, and that the face of the man who followed him was of the colour of impure wax. I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment. My occupation is in a certain Branch Bank, and I wish that my duties as head of a Department were as light as they are popularly supposed to be. They kept me in town that autumn, when I stood in need of change. I was not ill, but I was not well. My reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my feeling jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous life, and being &quot;slightly dyspeptic.&quot; I am assured by my renowned doctor that my real state of health at that time justifies no stronger description, and I quote his own from his written answer to my request for it. As the circumstances of the Murder, gradually unravelling, took stronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I kept them away from mine, by knowing as little about them as was possible in the midst of the universal excitement. But I knew that a verdict of Wilful Murder had been found against the suspected Murderer, and that he had been committed to Newgate for trial. I also knew that his trial had been postponed over one Sessions of the Central Criminal Court, on the ground of general prejudice and want of time for the preparation of the defence. I may further have known, but I believe I did not, when, or about when, the Sessions to which his trial stood postponed would come on. My sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room, are all on one floor. With the last, there is no communication but through the bedroom. True, there is a door in it, once communicating with the staircase; but a part of the fitting of my bath has been—and had then been for some years—fixed across it. At the same period, and as a part of the same arrangement, the door had been nailed up and canvased over. I was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some directions to my servant before he went to bed. My face was towards the only available door of communication with the dressing-room, and it was closed. My servant&#039;s back was towards that door. While I was speaking to him I saw it open, and a man look in, who very earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the man who had gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face was of the colour of impure wax. The figure, having beckoned, drew back and closed the door. With no longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom, I opened the dressing-room door, and looked in. I had a lighted candle already in my hand. I felt no inward expectation of seeing the figure in the dressing-room, and I did not see it there. Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to him, and said: &quot;Derrick, could you believe that in my cool senses I fancied I saw a—&quot; As I there laid my hand upon his breast, with a sudden start he trembled violently, and said, &quot;O Lord yes, sir! A dead man beckoning!&quot; Now, I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached servant for more than twenty years, had any impression whatever of having seen any such figure, until I touched him. The change in him was so startling when I touched him, that I fully believe he derived his impression in some occult manner from me at that instant. I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a dram, and was glad to take one myself. Of what had preceded that night&#039;s phenomenon, I told him not a single word. Reflecting on it, I was absolutely certain that I had never seen that face before, except on the one occasion in Piccadilly. Comparing its expression when beckoning at the door, with its expression when it had stared up at me as I stood at my window, I came to the conclusion that on the first occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and that on the second occasion it had made sure of being immediately remembered. I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty, difficult to explain, that the figure would not return. At daylight, I fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John Derrick&#039;s coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand. This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation at the door between its bearer and my servant. It was a summons to me to serve upon a Jury at the forthcoming Sessions of the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey. I had never before been summoned on such a Jury, as John Derrick well knew. He believed—I am not certain at this hour whether with reason or otherwise—that that class of Jurors were customarily chosen on a lower qualification than mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons. The man who served it had taken the matter very coolly. He had said that my attendance or non-attendance was nothing to him; there the summons was; and I should deal with it at my own peril, and not at his. For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call, or take no notice of it. I was not conscious of the slightest mysterious bias, influence, or attraction, one way or other. Of that I am as strictly sure as of every other statement that I make here. Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life, that I would go. The appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of November. There was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly, and it became positively black and in the last degree oppressive East of Temple Bar. I found the passages and staircases of the Court House flaringly lighted with gas, and the Court itself similarly illuminated. I think that until I was conducted by officers into the Old Court and saw its crowded state, I did not know that the Murderer was to be tried that day. I think that until I was so helped into the Old Court with considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the two Courts sitting, my summons would take me. But this must not be received as a positive assertion, for I am not completely satisfied in my mind on either point. I took my seat in the place appropriated to Jurors in waiting, and I looked about the Court as well as I could through the cloud of fog and breath that was heavy in it. I noticed the black vapour hanging like a murky curtain outside the great windows, and I noticed the stifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that was littered in the street; also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill whistle, or a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally pierced. Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, entered and took their seats. The buzz in the Court was awfully hushed. The direction was given to put the Murderer to the bar. He appeared there. And in that same instant I recognised in him, the first of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly. If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have answered to it audibly. But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel, and I was by that time able to say &quot;Here!&quot; Now, observe. As I stepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been looking on attentively but with no sign of concern, became violently agitated, and beckoned to his attorney. The prisoner&#039;s wish to challenge me was so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client, and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that gentleman, that the prisoner&#039;s first affrighted words to him were, &quot;At all hazards challenge that man!&quot; But, that as he would give no reason for it, and admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it called and I appeared, it was not done. Both on the ground already explained, that I wish to avoid reviving the unwholesome memory of that Murderer, and also because a detailed account of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my narrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the ten days and nights during which we, the Jury, were kept together, as directly bear on my own curious personal experience. It is in that, and not in the Murderer, that I seek to interest my reader. It is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I beg attention. I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morning of the trial, after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the church clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother-jurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I counted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In short, I made them one too many. I touched the brother-juryman whose place was next me, and I whispered to him, &quot;Oblige me by counting us.&quot; He looked surprised by the request, but turned his head and counted. &quot;Why,&quot; says he, suddenly, &quot;we are Thirt—; but no, it&#039;s not possible. No. We are twelve.&quot; According to my counting that day, we were always right in detail, but in the gross we were always one too many. There was no appearance—no figure—to account for it; but I had now an inward foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming. The Jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in one large room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the charge and under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safe-keeping. I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and (I was glad to hear) much respected in the City. He had an agreeable presence, good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a fine sonorous voice. His name was Mr. Harker. When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Harker&#039;s bed was drawn across the door. On the night of the second day, not being disposed to lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker sitting on his bed, I went and sat beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff. As Mr. Harker&#039;s hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a peculiar shiver crossed him, and he said: &quot;Who is this!&quot; Following Mr. Harker&#039;s eyes and looking along the room, I saw again the figure I expected—the second of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly. I rose, and advanced a few steps; then stopped, and looked round at Mr. Harker. He was quite unconcerned, laughed, and said in a pleasant way, &quot;I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth juryman, without a bed. But I see it is the moonlight.&quot; Making no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to take a walk with me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure did. It stood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven brother-jurymen, close to the pillow. It always went to the right-hand side of the bed, and always passed out crossing the foot of the next bed. It seemed from the action of the head, merely to look down pensively at each recumbent figure. It took no notice of me, or of my bed, which was that nearest to Mr. Harker&#039;s. It seemed to go out where the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an aërial flight of stairs. Next morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had dreamed of the murdered man last night, except myself and Mr. Harker. I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down Piccadilly was the murdered man (so to speak), as if it had been borne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony. But even this took place, and in a manner for which I was not at all prepared. On the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution was drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing from his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in a hiding-place where the Murderer had been seen digging, was put in evidence. Having been identified by the witness under examination, it was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be inspected by the Jury. As an officer in a black gown was making his way with it across to me, the figure of the second man who had gone down Piccadilly, impetuously started from the crowd, caught the miniature from the officer, and gave it to me with its own hands, at the same time saying in a low and hollow tone—before I saw the miniature, which was in a locket—&quot;I was younger then, and my face was not then drained of blood.&quot; It also came between me and the brother juryman to whom I would have given the miniature, and between him and the brother juryman to whom he would have given it, and so passed it on through the whole of our number, and back into my possession. Not one of them, however, detected this. At table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr. Harker&#039;s custody, we had from the first naturally discussed the day&#039;s proceedings a good deal. On that fifth day, the case for the prosecution being closed, and we having that side of the question in a completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated and serious. Among our number was a vestryman—the densest idiot I have ever seen at large—who met the plainest evidence with the most preposterous objections, and who was sided with by two flabby parochial parasites; all the three empanelled from a district so delivered over to Fever that they ought to have been upon their own trial, for five hundred Murders. When these mischievous blockheads were at their loudest, which was towards midnight while some of us were already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered man. He stood grimly behind them, beckoning to me. On my going towards them and striking into the conversation, he immediately retired. This was the beginning of a separate series of appearances, confined to that long room in which we were confined. Whenever a knot of my brother jurymen laid their heads together, I saw the head of the murdered man among theirs. Whenever their comparison of notes was going against him, he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me. It will be borne in mind that down to the production of the miniature on the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the Appearance in Court. Three changes occurred, now that we entered on the case for the defence. Two of them I will mention together, first. The figure was now in Court continually, and it never there addressed itself to me, but always to the person who was speaking at the time. For instance. The throat of the murdered man had been cut straight across. In the opening speech, for the defence, it was suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat. At that very moment, the figure with its throat in the dreadful condition referred to (this it had concealed before) stood at the speaker&#039;s elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with the right hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker himself, the impossibility of such a wound having been self-inflicted by either hand. For another instance. A witness to character, a woman, deposed to the prisoner&#039;s being the most amiable of mankind. The figure at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking her full in the face, and pointing out the prisoner&#039;s evil countenance with an extended arm and an outstretched finger. The third change now to be added, impressed me strongly, as the most marked and striking of all. I do not theorise upon it; I accurately state it, and there leave it. Although the Appearance was not itself perceived by those whom it addressed, its coming close to such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or disturbance on their part. It seemed to me as if it were prevented by laws to which I was not amenable, from fully revealing itself to others, and yet as if it could, invisibly, dumbly and darkly, overshadow their minds. When the leading counsel for the defence suggested that hypothesis of suicide and the figure stood at the learned gentleman&#039;s elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat, it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale. When the witness to character was confronted by the Appearance, her eyes most certainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest in great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner&#039;s face. Two additional illustrations will suffice. On the eighth day of the trial, after the pause which was every day made early in the afternoon for a few minutes&#039; rest and refreshment, I came back into Court with the rest of the Jury, some little time before the return of the Judges. Standing up in the box and looking about me, I thought the figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my eyes to the gallery, I saw it bending forward and leaning over a very decent woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had resumed their seats or not. Immediately afterwards, that woman screamed, fainted, and was carried out. So with the venerable, sagacious, and patient Judge who conducted the trial. When the case was over, and he settled himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered man entering by the Judges&#039; door, advanced to his Lordship&#039;s desk, and looked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which he was turning. A change came over his Lordship&#039;s face; his hand stopped; the peculiar shiver that I knew so well, passed over him; he faltered, &quot;Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few moments. I am somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air;&quot; and did not recover until he had drunk a glass of water. Through all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days—the same Judges and others on the bench, the same Murderer in the dock, the same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question and answer rising to the roof of the court, the same scratching of the Judge&#039;s pen, the same ushers going in and out, the same lights kindled at the same hour when there had been any natural light of day, the same foggy curtain outside the great windows when it was foggy, the same rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy, the same footmarks of turnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust, the same keys locking and unlocking the same heavy doors—through all the wearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been Foreman of the Jury for a vast period of time, and Piccadilly had flourished coevally with Babylon, the murdered man never lost one trace of his distinctness in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less distinct than anybody else. I must not omit, as a matter of fact, that I never once saw the Appearance which I call by the name of the murdered man, look at the Murderer. Again and again I wondered, &quot;Why does he not?&quot; But he never did. Nor did he look at me, after the production of the miniature, until the last closing minutes of the trial arrived. We retired to consider, at seven minutes before ten at night. The idiotic vestryman and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble, that we twice returned into Court, to beg to have certain extracts from the Judge&#039;s notes re-read. Nine of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages, neither, I believe, had any one in Court; the dunderheaded triumvirate however, having no idea but obstruction, disputed them for that very reason. At length we prevailed, and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes past twelve. The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the Jury-box, on the other side of the Court. As I took my place, his eyes rested on me, with great attention; he seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a great grey veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time, over his head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict &quot;Guilty,&quot; the veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty. The Murderer being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed upon him, indistinctly muttered something which was described in the leading newspapers of the following day as &quot;a few rambling, incoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was understood to complain that he had not had a fair trial, because the Foreman of the Jury was prepossessed against him.&quot; The remarkable declaration that he really made, was this: &quot;My Lord, I knew I was a doomed man when the Foreman of my Jury came into the box. My Lord, I knew he would never let me off, because, before I was taken, he somehow got to my bedside in the night, woke me, and put a rope round my neck.&quot; Sophy read through the whole of the foregoing several times over, and I sat in my seat in the Library Cart (that&#039;s the name we give it) seeing her read, and I was as pleased and as proud as a Pug-Dog with his muzzle black-leaded for an evening party and his tail extra curled by machinery. Every item of my plan was crowned with success. Our reunited life was more than all that we had looked forward to. Content and joy went with us as the wheels of the two carts went round, and the same stopped with us when the two carts stopped. But I had left something out of my calculations. Now, what had I left out? To help you to a guess, I&#039;ll say, a figure. Come. Make a guess, and guess right. Nought? No. Nine? No. Eight? No. Seven? No. Six? No. Five? No. Four? No. Three? No. Two? No. One? No. Now I&#039;ll tell you what I&#039;ll do with you. I&#039;ll say it&#039;s another sort of figure altogether. There. Why then, says you, it&#039;s a mortal figure. No nor yet a mortal figure. By such means you get yourself penned into a corner, and you can&#039;t help guessing a immortal figure. That&#039;s about it. Why didn&#039;t you say so sooner? Yes. It was a immortal figure that I had altogether left out of my calculations. Neither man&#039;s nor woman&#039;s, but a child&#039;s. Girl&#039;s, or boy&#039;s? Boy&#039;s. &quot;I says the sparrow, with my bow and arrow.&quot; Now you have got it. We were down at Lancaster, and I had done two nights&#039; more than fair average business (though I cannot in honour recommend them as a quick audience) in the open square there, near the end of the street where Mr. Sly&#039;s King&#039;s Arms and Royal Hotel stands. Mim&#039;s travelling giant otherwise Pickleson happened at the self-same time to be a trying it on in the town. The genteel lay was adopted with him. No hint of a van. Green baize alcove leading up to Pickleson in a Auction Room. Printed poster &quot;Free list suspended, with the exception of that proud boast of an enlightened country, a free press. Schools admitted by private arrangement. Nothing to raise a blush in the cheek of youth or shock the most fastidious.&quot; Mim swearing most horrible and terrific in a pink calico pay-place, at the slackness of the public. Serious hand-bill in the shops, importing that it was all but impossible to come to a right understanding of the history of David, without seeing Pickleson. I went to the Auction Room in question, and I found it entirely empty of everything but echoes and mouldiness, with the single exception of Pickleson on a piece of red drugget. This suited my purpose, as I wanted a private and confidential word with him, which was: &quot;Pickleson. Owing much happiness to you, I put you in my will for a fypunnote; but, to save trouble here&#039;s fourpunten down, which may equally suit your views, and let us so conclude the transaction.&quot; Pickleson, who up to that remark had had the dejected appearance of a long Roman rushlight that couldn&#039;t anyhow get lighted, brightened up at his top extremity and made his acknowledgments in a way which (for him) was parliamentary eloquence. He likewise did add, that, having ceased to draw as a Roman, Mim had made proposals for his going in as a conwerted Indian Giant worked upon by The Dairyman&#039;s Daughter. This, Pickleson, having no acquaintance with the tract named after that young woman, and not being willing to couple gag with his serious views, had declined to do, thereby leading to words and the total stoppage of the unfortunate young man&#039;s beer. All of which, during the whole of the interview, was confirmed by the ferocious growling of Mim down below in the pay-place, which shook the giant like a leaf. But what was to the present point in the remarks of the travelling giant otherwise Pickleson, was this: &quot;Doctor Marigold&quot;—I give his words without a hope of conweying their feebleness—&quot;who is the strange young man that hangs about your carts?&quot;—&quot;The strange young man?&quot; I gives him back, thinking that he meant her, and his languid circulation had dropped a syllable. &quot;Doctor,&quot; he returns, with a pathos calculated to draw a tear from even a manly eye, &quot;I am weak, but not so weak yet as that I don&#039;t know my words. I repeat them, Doctor. The strange young man.&quot; It then appeared that Pickleson being forced to stretch his legs (not that they wanted it) only at times when he couldn&#039;t be seen for nothing, to wit in the dead of the night and towards daybreak, had twice seen hanging about my carts, in that same town of Lancaster where I had been only two nights, this same unknown young man. It put me rather out of sorts. What it meant as to particulars I no more foreboded then, than you forebode now, but it put me rather out of sorts. Howsoever, I made light of it to Pickleson, and I took leave of Pickleson advising him to spend his legacy in getting up his stamina, and to continue to stand by his religion. Towards morning I kept a look-out for the strange young man, and what was more—I saw the strange young man. He was well dressed and well looking. He loitered very nigh my carts, watching them like as if he was taking care of them, and soon after daybreak turned and went away. I sent a hail after him, but he never started or looked round, or took the smallest notice. We left Lancaster within an hour or two, on our way towards Carlisle. Next morning at daybreak, I looked out again for the strange young man. I did not see him. But next morning I looked out again, and there he was once more. I sent another hail after him, but as before he gave not the slightest sign of being anyways disturbed. This put a thought into my head. Acting on it, I watched him in different manners and at different times not necessary to enter into, till I found that this strange young man was deaf and dumb. The discovery turned me over, because I knew that a part of that establishment where she had been, was allotted to young men (some of them well off), and I thought to myself &quot;If she favours him, where am I, and where is all that I have worked and planned for?&quot; Hoping—I must confess to the selfishness—that she might not favour him. I set myself to find out. At last I was by accident present at a meeting between them in the open air, looking on leaning behind a fir-tree without their knowing of it. It was a moving meeting for all the three parties concerned. I knew every syllable that passed between them, as well as they did. I listened with my eyes, which had come to be as quick and true with deaf and dumb conversation, as my ears with the talk of people that can speak. He was a going out to China as clerk in a merchant&#039;s house, which his father had been before him. He was in circumstances to keep a wife, and he wanted her to marry him and go along with him. She persisted, no. He asked if she didn&#039;t love him? Yes, she loved him dearly, dearly, but she could never disappoint her beloved good noble generous and I don&#039;t-know-what-all father (meaning me, the Cheap Jack in the sleeved waistcoat), and she would stay with him, Heaven bless him, though it was to break her heart! Then she cried most bitterly, and that made up my mind. While my mind had been in an unsettled state about her favouring this young man, I had felt that unreasonable towards Pickleson, that it was well for him he had got his legacy down. For I often thought &quot;If it hadn&#039;t been for this same weak-minded giant, I might never have come to trouble my head and wex my soul about the young man.&quot; But, once that I knew she loved him—once that I had seen her weep for him—it was a different thing. I made it right in my mind with Pickleson on the spot, and I shook myself together to do what was right by all. She had left the young man by that time (for it took a few minutes to get me thoroughly well shook together), and the young man was leaning against another of the fir-trees—of which there was a cluster—with his face upon his arm. I touched him on the back. Looking up and seeing me, he says, in our deaf and dumb talk: &quot;Do not be angry.&quot; &quot;I am not angry, good boy. I am your friend. Come with me.&quot; I left him at the foot of the steps of the Library Cart, and I went up alone. She was drying her eyes. &quot;You have been crying, my dear.&quot; &quot;Yes, father.&quot; &quot;Why?&quot; &quot;A head-ache.&quot; &quot;Not a heart-ache?&quot; &quot;I said a head-ache, father.&quot; &quot;Doctor Marigold must prescribe for that head-ache.&quot; She took up the book of my Prescriptions, and held it up with a forced smile; but seeing me keep still and look earnest, she softly laid it down again, and her eyes were very attentive. &quot;The Prescription is not there, Sophy.&quot; &quot;Where is it?&quot; &quot;Here, my dear.&quot; I brought her young husband in, and I put her hand in his, and my only further words to both of them were these: &quot;Doctor Marigold&#039;s last prescription. To be taken for life.&quot; After which I bolted. When the wedding come off, I mounted a coat (blue, and bright buttons), for the first and last time in all my days, and I give Sophy away with my own hand. There were only us three and the gentleman who had had charge of her for those two years. I give the wedding dinner of four in the Library Cart. Pigeon pie, a leg of pickled pork, a pair of fowls, and suitable garden-stuff. The best of drinks. I give them a speech, and the gentlemen give us a speech, and all our jokes told, and the whole went off like a sky-rocket. In the course of the entertainment I explained to Sophy that I should keep the Library Cart as my living-cart when not upon the road, and that I should keep all her books for her just as they stood, till she come back to claim them. So she went to China with her young husband, and it was a parting sorrowful and heavy, and I got the boy I had another service, and so as of old when my child and wife were gone, I went plodding along alone, with my whip over my shoulder, at the old horse&#039;s head. Sophy wrote me many letters, and I wrote her many letters. About the end of the first year she sent me one in an unsteady hand: &quot;Dearest father, not a week ago I had a darling little daughter, but I am so well that they let me write these words to you. Dearest and best father, I hope my child may not be deaf and dumb, but I do not yet know.&quot; When I wrote back, I hinted the question; but as Sophy never answered that question, I felt it to be a sad one, and I never repeated it. For a long time our letters were regular, but then they got irregular through Sophy&#039;s husband being moved to another station, and through my being always on the move. But we were in one another&#039;s thoughts, I was equally sure, letters or no letters. Five years, odd months, had gone since Sophy went away. I was still the King of the Cheap Jacks, and at a greater heighth of popularity than ever. I had had a first-rate autumn of it, and on the twenty-third of December, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, I found myself at Uxbridge, Middlesex, clean sold out. So I jogged up to London with the old horse, light and easy, to have my Christmas-Eve and Christmas Day alone by the fire in the Library Cart, and then to buy a regular new stock of goods all round, to sell &#039;em again and get the money. I am a neat hand at cookery, and I&#039;ll tell you what I knocked up for my Christmas-Eve dinner in the Library Cart. I knocked up a beefsteak pudding for one, with two kidneys, a dozen oysters, and a couple of mushrooms, thrown in. It&#039;s a pudding to put a man in good humour with everything, except the two bottom buttons of his waistcoat. Having relished that pudding and cleared away, I turned the lamp low, and sat down by the light of the fire, watching it as it shone upon the backs of Sophy&#039;s books. Sophy&#039;s books so brought up Sophy&#039;s self, that I saw her touching face quite plainly, before I dropped off dozing by the fire. This may be a reason why Sophy, with her deaf and dumb child in her arms, seemed to stand silent by me all through my nap. I was on the road, off the road, in all sorts of places, North and South and West and East, Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone astray, Over the hills and far away, and still she stood silent by me, with her silent child in her arms. Even when I woke with a start, she seemed to vanish, as if she had stood by me in that very place only a single instant before. I had started at a real sound, and the sound was on the steps of the cart. It was the light hurried tread of a child, coming clambering up. That tread of a child had once been so familiar to me, that for half a moment I believed I was a going to see a little ghost. But the touch of a real child was laid upon the outer handle of the door, and the handle turned and the door opened a little way, and a real child peeped in. A bright little comely girl with large dark eyes. Looking full at me, the tiny creature took off her mite of a straw hat, and a quantity of dark curls fell all about her face. Then she opened her lips, and said in a pretty voice: &quot;Grandfather!&quot; &quot;Ah my God!&quot; I cries out. &quot;She can speak!&quot; &quot;Yes, dear grandfather. And I am to ask you whether there was ever any one that I remind you of?&quot; In a moment Sophy was round my neck as well as the child, and her husband was a wringing my hand with his face hid, and we all had to shake ourselves together before we could get over it. And when we did begin to get over it, and I saw the pretty child a talking, pleased and quick and eager and busy, to her mother, in the signs that I had first taught her mother, the happy and yet pitying tears fell rolling down my face.18651207https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Doctor_Marigold_s_Prescriptions_nbsp_[1865_Christmas_Number]/1865-12-07-Doctor_Marigolds_Prescriptions.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Doctor_Marigold_s_Prescriptions_nbsp_[1865_Christmas_Number]/1865-12-07-To_be_Taken_Immediately.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Doctor_Marigold_s_Prescriptions_nbsp_[1865_Christmas_Number]/1865-12-07-To_be_Taken_with_a_Grain_Of_Salt.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Doctor_Marigold_s_Prescriptions_nbsp_[1865_Christmas_Number]/1865-12-07-To_be_Taken_for_Life.pdf
200https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/200<em>Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy </em>(1864 Christmas Number)Published in <em>All the Year Round</em>, Vol. XII, Extra Christmas Number, 12 January 1864, pp. 1-48.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xii/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xii/page-573.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,<span>&nbsp;</span></em><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xii/page-599.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xii/page-599.html</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1864-01-12">1864-01-12</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.*<br /><br /><br />*Pages 15-36 are missing on <em>DJO</em>. They will be added to the scan on <em>Dickens Search</em> eventually.<br /></span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1864-01-12-Mrs_Lirripers_Legacy<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'Mrs. Lirriper Relates How She Went On, and Went Over' (No.1), pp. 1-11.</strong></li> <li>Charles Allston Collins. 'A Past Lodger Relates a Wild Legend of a Doctor' (No.2), pp. 11-18.</li> <li>Rosa Mulholland. 'Another Past Lodger Relates His Experience as a Poor Relation' (No.3), pp. 18-24.</li> <li>Henry Spicer. 'Another Past Lodger Relates What Lot He Drew at Glumper House' (No.4), pp. 24-35.</li> <li>Amelia B. Edwards. 'Another Past Lodger Relates His Own Ghost Story' (No.5), pp. 35-40.</li> <li>Hesba Stretton. 'Another Past Lodger Relates Certain Passages to Her Husband' (No.6), pp. 40-47.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'Mrs. Lirriper Relates How Jemmy Topped Up' (No.7), pp. 47-48.</strong></li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al. <em>Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy</em> (12 January 1864). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1864-01-12-Mrs_Lirripers_Legacy">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1864-01-12-Mrs_Lirripers_Legacy</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>Ah! It&#039;s pleasant to drop into my own easy-chair my dear though a little palpitating what with trotting up-stairs and what with trotting down, and why kitchen-stairs should all be corner stairs is for the builders to justify though I do not think they fully understand their trade and never did, else why the sameness and why not more conveniences and fewer draughts and likewise making a practice of laying the plaster on too thick I am well convinced which holds the damp, and as to chimney-pots putting them on by guess-work like hats at a party and no more knowing what their effect will be upon the smoke bless you than I do if so much, except that it will mostly be either to send it down your throat in a straight form or give it a twist before it goes there. And what I says speaking as I find of those new metal chimneys all manner of shapes (there&#039;s a row of &#039;em at Miss Wozenham&#039;s lodging-house lower down on the other side of the way) is that they only work your smoke into artificial patterns for you before you swallow it and that I&#039;d quite as soon swallow mine plain, the flavour being the same, not to mention the conceit of putting up signs on the top of your house to show the forms in which you take your smoke into your inside. Being here before your eyes my dear in my own easy-chair in my own quiet room in my own Lodging House Number Eighty-one Norfolk-street Strand London situated midway between the City and St. James&#039;s—if anything is where it used to be with these hotels calling themselves Limited but called Unlimited by Major Jackman rising up everywhere and rising up into flagstaffs where they can&#039;t go any higher, but my mind of those monsters is give me a landlord&#039;s or landlady&#039;s wholesome face when I come off a journey and not a brass plate with an electrified number clicking out of it which it&#039;s not in nature can be glad to see me and to which I don&#039;t want to be hoisted like molasses at the Docks and left there telegraphing for help with the most ingenious instruments but quite in vain—being here my dear I have no call to mention that I am still in the Lodgings as a business hoping to die in the same and if agreeable to the clergy partly read over at Saint Clement&#039;s Danes and concluded in Hatfield churchyard when lying once again by my poor Lirriper ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Neither should I tell you any news my dear in telling you that the Major is still a fixture in the Parlours quite as much so as the roof of the house, and that Jemmy is of boys the best and brightest and has ever had kept from him the cruel story of his poor pretty young mother Mrs. Edson being deserted in the second floor and dying in my arms, fully believing that I am his born Gran and him an orphan, though what with engineering since he took a taste for it and him and the Major making Locomotives out of parasols broken iron pots and cotton-reels and them absolutely a getting off the line and falling over the table and injuring the passengers almost equal to the originals it really is quite wonderful. And when I says to the Major, &quot;Major can&#039;t you by any means give us a communication with the guard?&quot; the Major says quite huffy, &quot;No madam it&#039;s not to be done,&quot; and when I says &quot; Why not?&quot; the Major says, &quot;That is between us who are in the Railway Interest madam and our friend the Right Honourable Vice-President of the Board of Trade&quot; and if you&#039;ll believe me my dear the Major wrote to Jemmy at school to consult him on the answer I should have before I could get even that amount of unsatisfactoriness out of the man, the reason being that when we first began with the little model and the working signals beautiful and perfect (being in general as wrong as the real) and when I says laughing &quot;What appointment am I to hold in this undertaking gentlemen?&quot; Jemmy hugs me round the neck and tells me dancing, &quot;You shall be the Public Gran&quot; and consequently they put upon me just as much as ever they like and I sit a growling in my easy-chair. My dear whether it is that a grown man as clever as the Major cannot give half his heart and mind to anything—even a plaything—but must get into right down earnest with it, whether it is so or whether it is not so I do not undertake to say, but Jemmy is far outdone by the serious and believing ways of the Major in the management of the United Grand Junction Lirriper and Jackman Great Norfolk Parlour Line, &quot;For&quot; says my Jemmy with the sparkling eyes when it was christened, &quot;we must have a whole mouthful of name Gran or our dear old Public&quot; and there the young rogue kissed me, &quot;won&#039;t stump up.&quot; So the Public took the shares—ten at ninepence, and immediately when that was spent twelve Preference at one-and-sixpence—and they were all signed by Jemmy and countersigned by the Major, and between ourselves much better worth the money than some shares I have paid for in my time. In the same holidays the line was made and worked and opened and ran excursions and had collisions and burst its boilers and all sorts of accidents and offences all most regular correct and pretty. The sense of responsibility entertained by the Major as a military style of station-master my dear starting the down train behind time and ringing one of those little bells that you buy with the little coal-scuttles off the tray round the man&#039;s neck in the street did him honour, but noticing the Major of a night when he is writing out his monthly report to Jemmy at school of the state of the Rolling Stock and the Permanent Way and all the rest of it (the whole kept upon the Major&#039;s sideboard and dusted with his own hands every morning before varnishing his boots) I notice him as full of thought and care as full can be and frowning in a fearful manner, but indeed the Major does nothing by halves as witness his great delight in going out surveying with Jemmy when he has Jemmy to go with, carrying a chain and a measuring tape and driving I don&#039;t know what improvements right through Westminster Abbey and fully believed in the streets to be knocking everything upside down by Act of Parliament. As please Heaven will come to pass when Jemmy takes to that as a profession! Mentioning my poor Lirriper brings into my head his own youngest brother the Doctor though Doctor of what I am sure it would be hard to say unless Liquor, for neither Physic nor Music nor yet Law does Joshua Lirriper know a morsel of except continually being summoned to the County Court and having orders made upon him which he runs away from, and once was taken in the passage of this very house with an umbrella up and the Major&#039;s hat on, giving his name with the door-mat round him as Sir Johnson Jones K.C.B. in spectacles residing at the Horse Guards. On which occasion he had got into the house not a minute before, through the girl letting him on to the mat when he sent in a piece of paper twisted more like one of those spills for lighting candles than a note, offering me the choice between thirty shillings in hand and his brains on the premises marked immediate and waiting for an answer. My dear it gave me such a dreadful turn to think of the brains of my poor dear Lirriper&#039;s own flesh and blood flying about the new oilcloth however unworthy to be so assisted, that I went out of my room here to ask him what he would take once for all not to do it for life when I found him in the custody of two gentlemen that I should have judged to be in the feather-bed trade if they had not announced the law, so fluffy were their personal appearance. &quot;Bring your chains sir,&quot; says Joshua to the littlest of the two in the biggest hat, &quot;rivet on my fetters!&quot; Imagine my feelings when I pictered him clanking up Norfolk-street in irons and Miss Wozenham looking out of window! &quot;Gentlemen&quot; I says all of a tremble and ready to drop &quot;please to bring him into Major Jackman&#039;s apartments.&quot; So they brought him into the Parlours, and when the Major spies his own curly-brimmed hat on him which Joshua Lirriper had whipped off its peg in the passage for a military disguise he goes into such a tearing passion that he tips it off his head with his hand and kicks it up to the ceiling with his foot where it grazed long afterwards. &quot;Major&quot; I says &quot;be cool and advise me what to do with Joshua my dead and gone Lirriper&#039;s own youngest brother.&quot; &quot;Madam&quot; says the Major &quot;my advice is that you board and lodge him in a Powder Mill, with a handsome gratuity to the proprietor when exploded.&quot; &quot;Major&quot; I says &quot;as a Christian you cannot mean your words.&quot; &quot;Madam&quot; says the Major &quot;by the Lord I do!&quot; and indeed the Major besides being with all his merits a very passionate man for his size had a bad opinion of Joshua on account of former troubles even unattended by liberties taken with his apparel. When Joshua Lirriper hears this conversation betwixt us he turns upon the littlest one with the biggest hat and says &quot;Come sir! Remove me to my vile dungeon. Where is my mouldy straw!&quot; My dear at the picter of him rising in my mind dressed almost entirely in padlocks like Baron Trenck in Jemmy&#039;s book I was so overcome that I burst into tears and I says to the Major, &quot;Major take my keys and settle with these gentlemen or I shall never know a happy minute more,&quot; which was done several times both before and since, but still I must remember that Joshua Lirriper has his good feelings and shows them in being always so troubled in his mind when he cannot wear mourning for his brother. Many a long year have I left off my widow&#039;s mourning not being wishful to intrude, but the tender point in Joshua that I cannot help a little yielding to is when he writes &quot;One single sovereign would enable me to wear a decent suit of mourning for my much-loved brother. I vowed at the time of his lamented death that I would ever wear sables in memory of him but Alas how short-sighted is man, How keep that vow when penniless!&quot; It says a good deal for the strength of his feelings that he couldn&#039;t have been seven year old when my poor Lirriper died and to have kept to it ever since is highly creditable. But we know there&#039;s good in all of us—if we only knew where it was in some of us—and though it was far from delicate in Joshua to work upon the dear child&#039;s feelings when first sent to school and write down into Lincolnshire for his pocket-money by return of post and got it, still he is my poor Lirriper&#039;s own youngest brother and mightn&#039;t have meant not paying his bill at the Salisbury Arms when his affection took him down to stay a fortnight at Hatfield churchyard and might have meant to keep sober but for bad company. Consequently if the Major had played on him with the garden-engine which he got privately into his room without my knowing of it, I think that much as I should have regretted it there would have been words betwixt the Major and me. Therefore my dear though he played on Mr. Buffle by mistake being hot in his head, and though it might have been misrepresented down at Wozenham&#039;s into not being ready for Mr. Buffle in other respects he being the Assessed Taxes, still I do not so much regret it as perhaps I ought. And whether Joshua Lirriper will yet do well in life I cannot say, but I did hear of his coming out at a Private Theatre in the character of a Bandit without receiving any offers afterwards from the regular managers. Mentioning Mr. Buffle gives an instance of there being good in persons where good is not expected, for it cannot be denied that Mr. Buffle&#039;s manners when engaged in his business were not agreeable. To collect is one thing and to look about as if suspicious of the goods being gradually removing in the dead of the night by a back door is another, over taxing you have no control but suspecting is voluntary. Allowances too must ever be made for a gentleman of the Major&#039;s warmth not relishing being spoke to with a pen in the mouth, and while I do not know that it is more irritable to my own feelings to have a low-crowned hat with a broad brim kept on in-doors than any other hat still I can appreciate the Major&#039;s, besides which without bearing malice or vengeance the Major is a man that scores up arrears as his habit always was with Joshua Lirriper. So at last my dear the Major lay in wait for Mr. Buffle and it worrited me a good deal. Mr. Buffle gives his rap of two sharp knocks one day and the Major bounces to the door. &quot;Collector has called for two quarters&#039; Assessed Taxes&quot; says Mr. Buffle. &quot;They are ready for him&quot; says the Major and brings him in here. But on the way Mr. Buffle looks about him in his usual suspicious manner and the Major fires and asks him &quot;Do you see a Ghost sir?&quot; &quot;No sir&quot; says Mr. Buffle. &quot;Because I have before noticed you&quot; says the Major &quot;apparently looking for a spectre very hard beneath the roof of my respected friend. When you find that supernatural agent, be so good as point him out sir.&quot; Mr. Buffle stares at the Major and then nods at me. &quot;Mrs. Lirriper sir&quot; says the Major going off into a perfect steam and introducing me with his hand. &quot;Pleasure of knowing her&quot; says Mr. Buffle. &quot;A—hum—Jemmy Jackman sir!&quot; says the Major introducing himself. &quot;Honour of knowing you by sight&quot; says Mr. Buffle. &quot;Jemmy Jackman sir&quot; says the Major wagging his head sideways in a sort of an obstinate fury &quot;presents to you his esteemed friend that lady Mrs. Emma Lirriper of Eighty-one Norfolk-street Strand London in the County of Middlesex in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Upon which occasion sir,&quot; says the Major, &quot;Jemmy Jackman takes your hat off.&quot; Mr. Buffle looks at his hat where the Major drops it on the floor, and he picks it up and puts it on again. &quot;Sir&quot; says the Major very red and looking him full in the face &quot;there are two quarters of the Gallantry Taxes due and the Collector has called.&quot; Upon which if you can believe my words my dear the Major drops Mr. Buffle&#039;s hat off again. &quot;This—&quot; Mr. Buffle begins very angry with his pen in his mouth, when the Major steaming more and more says &quot;Take your bit out sir! Or by the whole infernal system of Taxation of this country and every individual figure in the National Debt, I&#039;ll get upon your back and ride you like a horse!&quot; which it&#039;s my belief he would have done and even actually jerking his neat little legs ready for a spring as it was. &quot;This&quot; says Mr. Buffle without his pen &quot;is an assault and I&#039;ll have the law of you.&quot; &quot;Sir&quot; replies the Major &quot;if you are a man of honour, your Collector of whatever may be due on the Honourable Assessment by applying to Major Jackman at The Parlours Mrs. Lirriper&#039;s Lodgings, may obtain what he wants in full at any moment.&quot; When the Major glared at Mr. Buffle with those meaning words my dear I literally gasped for a teaspoonful of sal volatile in a wine-glass of water, and I says &quot;Pray let it go no further gentlemen I beg and beseech of you!&quot; But the Major could be got to do nothing else but snort long after Mr. Buffle was gone, and the effect it had upon my whole mass of blood when on the next day of Mr. Buffle&#039;s rounds the Major spruced himself up and went humming a tune up and down the street with one eye almost obliterated by his hat there are not expressions in Johnson&#039;s Dictionary to state. But I safely put the street door on the jar and got behind the Major&#039;s blinds with my shawl on and my mind made up the moment I saw danger to rush out screeching till my voice failed me and catch the Major round the neck till my strength went and have all parties bound. I had not been behind the blinds a quarter of an hour when I saw Mr. Buffle approaching with his Collecting-books in his hand. The Major likewise saw him approaching and hummed louder and himself approached. They met before the Airy railings. The Major takes off his hat at arm&#039;s length and says &quot;Mr. Buffle I believe?&quot; Mr. Buffle takes off his hat at arm&#039;s length and says &quot;That is my name sir.&quot; Says the Major &quot;Have you any commands for me, Mr. Buffle?&quot; Says Mr. Buffle &quot;Not any sir.&quot; Then my dear both of &#039;em bowed very low and haughty and parted, and whenever Mr. Buffle made his rounds in future him and the Major always met and bowed before the Airy railings, putting me much in mind of Hamlet and the other gentleman in mourning before killing one another, though I could have wished the other gentleman had done it fairer and even if less polite no poison. Mr. Buffle&#039;s family were not liked in this neighbourhood, for when you are a householder my dear you&#039;ll find it does not come by nature to like the Assessed, and it was considered besides that a one-horse pheayton ought not to have elevated Mrs. Buffle to that heighth especially when purloined from the Taxes which I myself did consider uncharitable. But they were not liked and there was that domestic unhappiness in the family in consequence of their both being very hard with Miss Buffle and one another on account of Miss Buffle&#039;s favouring Mr. Buffle&#039;s articled young gentleman, that it was whispered that Miss Buffle would go either into a consumption or a convent she being so very thin and off her appetite and two close-shaved gentlemen with white bands round their necks peeping round the corner whenever she went out in waistcoats resembling black pinafores. So things stood towards Mr. Buffle when one night I was woke by a frightful noise and a smell of burning, and going to my bed-room window saw the whole street in a glow. Fortunately we had two sets empty just then and before I could hurry on some clothes I heard the Major hammering at the attics&#039; doors and calling out &quot;Dress yourselves!—Fire! Don&#039;t be frightened!—Fire ! Collect your presence of mind!—Fire! All right—Fire!&quot; most tremenjously. As I opened my bedroom door the Major came tumbling in over himself and me and caught me in his arms. &quot;Major&quot; I says breathless &quot;where is it?&quot; &quot;I don&#039;t know dearest madam&quot; says the Major—&quot;Fire! Jemmy Jackman will defend you to the last drop of his blood—Fire! If the dear boy was at home what a treat this would be for him—Fire!&quot; and altogether very collected and bold except that he couldn&#039;t say a single sentence without shaking me to the very centre with roaring Fire. We ran down to the drawing-room and put our heads out of window, and the Major calls to an unfeeling young monkey scampering by be joyful and ready to split &quot;Where is it?—Fire!&quot; The monkey answers without stopping &quot; Oh here&#039;s a lark! Old Buffle&#039;s been setting his house alight to prevent its being found out that he boned the Taxes. Hurrah! Fire!&quot; And then the sparks came flying up and the smoke came pouring down and the crackling of flames and spatting of water and banging of engines and hacking of axes and breaking of glass and knocking at doors and the shouting and crying and hurrying and the heat and altogether gave me a dreadful palpitation. &quot;Don&#039;t be frightened dearest madam,&quot; says the Major, &quot;—Fire! There&#039;s nothing to be alarmed at—Fire! Don&#039;t open the street door till I come back—Fire! I&#039;ll go and see if I can be of any service—Fire! You&#039;re quite composed and comfortable ain&#039;t you?—Fire, Fire, Fire!&quot; It was in vain for me to hold the man and tell him he&#039;d be galloped to death by the engines—pumped to death by his over-exertions—wet-feeted to death by the slop and mess—flattened to death when the roofs fell in—his spirit was up and he went scampering off after the young monkey with all the breath he had and none to spare, and me and the girls huddled together at the parlour windows looking at the dreadful flames above the houses over the way, Mr. Buffle&#039;s being round the corner. Presently what should we see but some people running down the street straight to our door, and then the Major directing operations in the busiest way, and then some more people and then—carried in a chair similar to Guy Fawkes—Mr. Buffle in a blanket! My dear the Major has Mr. Buffle brought up our steps and whisked into the parlour and carted out on the sofy, and then he and all the rest of them without so much as a word burst away again full speed, leaving the impression of a vision except for Mr. Buffle awful in his blanket with his eyes a rolling. In a twinkling they all burst back again with Mrs. Buffle in another blanket, which whisked in and carted out on the sofy they all burst off again and all burst back again with Miss Buffle in another blanket, which again whisked in and carted out they all burst off again and all burst back again with Mr. Buffle&#039;s articled young gentleman in another blanket—him a holding round the necks of two men carrying him by the legs, similar to the picter of the disgraceful creetur who has lost the fight (but where the chair I do not know) and his hair having the appearance of newly played. upon. When all four of a row, the Major rubs his hands and whispers me with what little hoarseness he can get together, &quot;If our dear remarkable boy was only at home what a delightful treat this would be for him!&quot; My dear we made them some hot tea and toast and some hot brandy-and-water with a little comfortable nutmeg in it, and at first they were scared and low in their spirits but being fully insured got sociable. And the first use Mr. Buffle made of his tongue was to call the Major his Preserver and his best of friends and to say &quot;My for ever dearest sir let me make you known to Mrs. Buffle&quot; which also addressed him as her Preserver and her best of friends and was fully as cordial as the blanket would admit of. Also Miss Buffle. The articled young gentleman&#039;s head was a little light and he sat a moaning &quot;Robina is reduced to cinders, Robina is reduced to cinders!&quot; Which went more to the heart on account of his having got wrapped in his blanket as if he was looking out of a violin-celler-case, until Mr. Buffle says &quot;Robina speak to him!&quot; Miss Buffle says &quot;Dear George!&quot; and but for the Major&#039;s pouring down brandy-and-water on the instant which caused a catching in his throat owing to the nutmeg and a violent fit of coughing it might have proved too much for his strength. When the articled young gentleman got the better of it Mr. Buffle leaned up against Mrs. Buffle being two bundles, a little while in confidence, and then says with tears in his eyes which the Major noticing wiped, &quot;We have not been an united family, let us after this danger become so, take her George.&quot; The young gentleman could not put his arm out far to do it, but his spoken expressions were very beautiful though of a wandering class. And I do not know that I ever had a much pleasanter meal than the breakfast we took together after we had all dozed, when Miss Buffle made tea very sweetly in quite the Roman style as depicted formerly at Covent Garden Theatre and when the whole family was most agreeable, as they have ever proved since that night when the Major stood at the foot of the Fire-Escape and claimed them as they came down—the young gentleman headforemost, which accounts. And though I do not say that we should be less liable to think ill of one another if strictly limited to blankets, still I do say that we might most of us come to a better understanding if we kept one another less at a distance. Why there&#039;s Wozenham&#039;s lower down on the other side of the street. I had a feeling of much soreness several years respecting what I must still ever call Miss Wozenham&#039;s systematic underbidding and the likeness of the house in Bradshaw having far too many windows and a most umbrageous and outrageous Oak which never yet was seen in Norfolk-street nor yet a carriage and four at Wozenham&#039;s door, which it would have been far more to Bradshaw&#039;s credit to have drawn a cab. This frame of mind continued bitter down to the very afternoon in January last when one of my girls, Sally Rairyganoo which I still suspect of Irish extraction though family represented Cambridge, else why abscond with a bricklayer of the Limerick persuasion and be married in pattens not waiting till his black eye was decently got round with all the company fourteen in number and one horse fighting outside on the roof of the vehicle—I repeat my dear my ill-regulated state of mind towards Miss Wozenham continued down to the very afternoon of January last past when Sally Rairyganoo came banging (I can use no milder expression) into my room with a jump which may be Cambridge and may not, and said &quot;Hurroo Missis! Miss Wozenham&#039;s sold up!&quot; My dear when I had it thrown in my face and conscience that the girl Sally had reason to think I could be glad of the ruin of a fellow-creeter, I burst into tears and dropped back in my chair and I says &quot;I am ashamed of myself!&quot; Well! I tried to settle to my tea but I could not do it what with thinking of Miss Wozenham and her distresses. It was a wretched night and I went up to a front window and looked over at Wozenham&#039;s and as well as I could make it out down the street in the fog it was the dismalest of the dismal and not a light to be seen. So at last I says to myself &quot;This will not do,&quot; and I puts on my oldest bonnet and shawl not wishing Miss Wozenham to be reminded of my best at such a time, and lo and behold you I goes over to Wozenham&#039;s and knocks. &quot;Miss Wozenham at home?&quot; I says turning my head when I heard the door go. And then I saw it was Miss Wozenham herself who had opened it and sadly worn she was poor thing and her eyes all swelled and swelled with crying. &quot;Miss Wozenham&quot; I says &quot;it is several years since there was a little unpleasantness betwixt us on the subject of my grandson&#039;s cap being down your Airy. I have overlooked it and I hope you have done the same.&quot; &quot;Yes Mrs. Lirriper&quot; she says in a surprise &quot;I have.&quot; &quot;Then my dear&quot; I says &quot;I should be glad to come in and speak a word to you.&quot; Upon my calling her my dear Miss Wozenham breaks out a crying most pitiful, and a not unfeeling elderly person that might have been better shaved in a nightcap with a hat over it offering a polite apology for the mumps having worked themselves into his constitution, and also for sending home to his wife on the bellows which was in his hand as a writing-desk, looks out of the back parlour and says &quot;The lady wants a word of comfort&quot; and goes in again. So I was able to say quite natural &quot;Wants a word of comfort does she sir? Then please the pigs she shall have it!&quot; And Miss Wozenham and me we go into the front room with a wretched light that seemed to have been crying too and was sputtering out, and I says &quot;Now my dear, tell me all,&quot; and she wrings her hands and says &quot;Oh Mrs. Lirriper that man is in possession here, and I have not a friend in the world who is able to help me with a shilling.&quot; It doesn&#039;t signify a bit what a talkative old body like me said to Miss Wozenham when she said that, and so I&#039;ll tell you instead my dear that I&#039;d have given thirty shillings to have taken her over to tea, only I durstn&#039;t on account of the Major. Not you see but what I knew I could draw the Major out like thread and wind him round my linger on most subjects and perhaps even on that if I was to set myself to it, but him and me had so often belied Miss Wozenham to one another that I was shamefaced, and I knew she had offended his pride and never mine, and likewise I felt timid that that Rairyganoo girl might make things awkward. So I says &quot;My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs.&quot; And we had the tea and the affairs too and after all it was but forty pound, and—There! she&#039;s as industrious and straight a creeter as ever lived and has paid back half of it already, and where&#039;s the use of saying more, particularly when it ain&#039;t the point? For the point is that when she was a kissing my hands and holding them in hers and kissing them again and blessing blessing blessing, I cheered up at last and I says &quot; Why what a waddling old goose I have been my dear to take you for something so very different!&quot; &quot;Ah but I too&quot; says she &quot;how have I mistaken you!&quot; &quot;Come for goodness&#039; sake tell me&quot; I says &quot;what you. thought of me?&quot; &quot;Oh&quot; says she &quot;I thought you had no feeling for such a hard hand-to-mouth life as mine, and were rolling in affluence.&quot; I says shaking my sides (and very glad to do it for I had been a choking quite long enough) &quot;Only look at my figure my dear and give me your opinion whether if I was in affluence I should be likely to roll in it!&quot; That did it! We got as merry as grigs (whatever they are, if you happen to know my dear—I don&#039;t) and I went home to my blessed home as happy and as thankful as could be. But before I make an end of it, think even of my having misunderstood the Major! Yes! For next forenoon the Major came into my little room with his brushed hat in his hand and he begins &quot;My dearest madam&quot; and then put his face in his hat as if he had just come into church. As I sat all in a maze he came out of his hat and began again. &quot;My esteemed and beloved friend—&quot; and then went into his hat again. &quot;Major,&quot; I cries out frightened &quot;has anything happened to our darling boy?&quot; &quot;No, no, no&quot; says the Major &quot;but Miss Wozenham has been here this morning to make her excuses to me, and by the Lord I can&#039;t get over what she told me.&quot; &quot;Hoity toity, Major,&quot; I says &quot;you don&#039;t know yet that I was afraid of you last night and didn&#039;t think half as well of you as I ought! So come out of church Major and forgive me like a dear old friend and I&#039;ll never do so any more.&quot; And I leave you to judge my dear whether I ever did or will. And how affecting to think of Miss Wozenham out of her small income and her losses doing so much for her poor old father, and keeping a brother that had had the misfortune to soften his brain against the hard mathematics as neat as a new pin in the three back represented to lodgers as a lumber-room and consuming a whole shoulder of mutton whenever provided! And now my dear I really am a going to tell you about my Legacy if you&#039;re inclined to favour me with your attention, and I did fully intend to have come straight to it only one thing does so bring up another. It was the month of June and the day before Midsummer Day when my girl—Winifred Madgers—she was what is termed a Plymouth Sister, and the Plymouth Brother that made away with her was quite right, for a tidier young woman for a wife never came into a house and afterwards called with the beautifullest Plymouth Twins — it was the day before Midsummer Day when Winifred Madgers comes and says to me &quot;A gentleman from the Consul&#039;s wishes particular to speak to Mrs. Lirriper.&quot; If you&#039;ll believe me my dear the Consols at the bank where I have a little matter for Jemmy got into my head, and I says &quot;Good gracious I hope he ain&#039;t had any dreadful fall!&quot; Says Winifred &quot;He don&#039;t look as if he had ma&#039;am.&quot; And I says &quot; Show him in.&quot; The gentleman came in dark and with his hair cropped what I should consider too close, and he says very polite &quot;Madame Lirrwiper!&quot; I says &quot;Yes sir. Take a chair.&quot; &quot;I come,&quot; says he &quot;frrwom the Frrwench Consul&#039;s.&quot; So I saw at once that it wasn&#039;t the Bank of England. &quot;We have rrweceived,&quot; says the gentleman turning his r&#039;s very curious and skilful, &quot;frrwom the Mairrwie at Sens, a communication which I will have the honour to rrwead. Madame Lirrwiper understands Frrwench?&quot; &quot;Oh dear no sir!&quot; says I. &quot;Madame Lirriper don&#039;t understand anything of the sort.&quot; &quot;It matters not,&quot; says the gentleman, &quot; I will trrwanslate.&quot; With that my dear the gentleman after reading something about a Department and a Mairie (which Lord forgive me I supposed till the Major came home was Mary, and never was I more puzzled than to think how that young woman came to have so much to do with it) translated a lot with the most obliging pains, and it came to this:—That in the town of Sens in France, an unknown Englishman lay a dying. That he was speechless and without motion. That in his lodging there was a gold watch and a purse containing such and such money and a trunk containing such and such clothes, but no passport and no papers, except that on his table was a pack of cards and that he had written in pencil on the back of the ace of hearts: &quot;To the authorities. When I am dead, pray send what is left, as a last Legacy, to Mrs. Lirriper Eighty-one Norfolk-street Strand London.&quot; When the gentleman had explained all this, which seemed to be drawn up much more methodical than I should have given the French credit for, not at that time knowing the nation, he put the document into my hand. And much the wiser I was for that you may be sure, except that it had the look of being made out upon grocery-paper and was stamped all over with eagles. &quot;Does Madame Lirrwiper&quot; says the gentleman &quot;believe she rrwecognises her unfortunate compatrrwiot?&quot; You may imagine the flurry it put me into my dear to be talked to about my compatriots. I says &quot;Excuse me. Would you have the kindness sir to make your language as simple as you can?&quot; &quot;This Englishman unhappy, at the point of death. This compatrrwiot afflicted,&quot; says the gentleman. &quot;Thank you sir&quot; I says &quot;I understand you now. No sir I have not the least idea who this can be.&quot; &quot;Has Madame Lirrwiper no son, no nephew, no godson, no frrwiend, no acquaintance of any kind in Frrwance?&quot; &quot;To my certain knowledge&quot; says I &quot;no relation or friend, and to the best of my belief no acquaintance.&quot; &quot;Pardon me. You take Locataires?&quot; says the gentleman. My dear fully believing he was offering me something with his obliging foreign manners—snuff for anything I knew—I gave a little bend of my head and I says if you&#039;ll credit it, &quot;No I thank you. I have not contracted the habit.&quot; The gentleman looks perplexed and says &quot;Lodgers?&quot; &quot;Oh!&quot; says I laughing. &quot;Bless the man! Why yes to be sure!&quot; &quot;May it not be a former lodger?&quot; says the gentleman. &quot;Some lodger that you pardoned some rrwent? You have pardoned lodgers some rrwent?&quot; &quot;Hem! It has happened sir&quot; says I, &quot;but I assure you I can call to mind no gentleman of that description that this is at all likely to be.&quot; In short my dear we could make nothing of it, and the gentleman noted down what I said and went away. But he left me the paper of which he had two with him, and when the Major came in I says to the Major as I put it in his hand &quot;Major here&#039;s Old Moore&#039;s Almanack with the hieroglyphic complete, for your opinion.&quot; It took the Major a little longer to read than I should have thought, judging from the copious flow with which he seemed to be gifted when attacking the organ-men, but at last he got through it and stood a gazing at me in amazement. &quot;Major&quot; I says &quot;you&#039;re paralysed.&quot; &quot;Madam&quot; says the Major, &quot;Jemmy Jackman is doubled up.&quot; Now it did so happen that the Major had been out to get a little information about railroads and steam-boats, as our boy was coming home for his Midsummer holidays next day and we were going to take him somewhere for a treat and a change. So while the Major stood a gazing it came into my head to say to him &quot;Major I wish you&#039;d go and look at some of your books and maps, and see whereabouts this same town of Sens is in France.&quot; The Major he roused himself and he went into the Parlours and he poked about a little, and he came back to me and lie says: &quot;Sens my dearest madam is seventy odd miles south of Paris.&quot; With what I may truly call a desperate effort &quot;Major&quot; I says &quot;we&#039;ll go there with our blessed boy!&quot; If ever the Major was beside himself it was at the thoughts of that journey. All day long he was like the wild man of the woods after meeting with an advertisement in the papers telling him something to his advantage, and early next morning hours before Jemmy could possibly come home he was outside in the street ready to call out to him that we was all a going to France. Young Rosy-cheeks you may believe was as wild as the Major, and they did carry on to that degree that I says &quot;If you two children ain&#039;t more orderly I&#039;ll pack you both off to bed.&quot; And then they fell to cleaning up the Major&#039;s telescope to see France with, and went out and bought a leather bag with a snap to hang round Jemmy, and him to carry the money like a little Fortunatus with his purse. If I hadn&#039;t passed my word and raised their hopes, I doubt if I could have gone through with the undertaking but it was too late to go back now. So on the second day after Midsummer Day we went off by the morning mail. And when we came to the sea which I had never seen but once in my life and that when my poor Lirriper was courting me, the freshness of it and the deepness and the airiness and to think that it had been rolling ever since and that it was always a rolling and so few of us minding, made me feel quite serious. But I felt happy too and so did Jemmy and the Major and not much motion on the whole, though me with a swimming in the head and a sinking but able to take notice that the foreign insides appear to be constructed hollower than the English, leading to much more tremenjous noises when bad sailors. But my dear the blueness and the lightness and the coloured look of everything and the very sentry-boxes striped and the shining rattling drums and the little soldiers with their waists and tidy gaiters, when we got across to the Continentit made me feel as if I don&#039;t know what—as if the atmosphere had been lifted off me. And as to lunch why bless you if I kept a man-cook and two kitchen-maids I couldn&#039;t get it done for twice the money, and no injured young women a glaring at you and grudging you and acknowledging your patronage by wishing that your food might choke you, but so civil and so hot and attentive and every way comfortable except Jemmy pouring wine down his throat by tumblers-full and me expecting to see him drop under the table. And the way in which Jemmy spoke his French was a real charm. It was often wanted of him, for whenever anybody spoke a syllable to me I says &quot;Noncomprenny, you&#039;re very kind but it&#039;s no use—Now Jemmy!&quot; and then Jemmy he fires away at &#039;em lovely, the only thing wanting in Jemmy&#039;s French being as it appeared to me that he hardly ever understood a word of what they said to him which made it scarcely of the use it might have been though in other respects a perfect Native, and regarding the Major&#039;s fluency I should have been of the opinion judging French by English that there might have been a greater choice of words in the language though still I must admit that if I hadn&#039;t known him when he asked a military gentleman in a grey cloak what o&#039;clock it was I should have took him for a Frenchman born. Before going on to look after my Legacy we were to make one regular day in Paris, and I leave you to judge my dear what a day that was with Jemmy and the Major and the telescope and me and the prowling young man at the inn door (but very civil too) that went along with us to show the sights. All along the railway to Paris Jemmy and the Major had been frightening me to death by stooping down on the platforms at stations to inspect the engines underneath their mechanical stomachs, and by creeping in and out I don&#039;t know where all, to find improvements for the United Grand Junction Parlour, but when we got out into the brilliant streets on a bright morning they gave up all their London improvements as a bad job and gave their minds to Paris. Says the prowling young man to me &quot;Will I speak Inglis No?&quot; So I says &quot;If you can young man I shall take it as a favour,&quot; but after half an hour of it when I fully believed the man had gone mad and me too I says &quot;Be so good as fall back on your French sir,&quot; knowing that then I shouldn&#039;t have the agonies of trying to understand him which was a happy release. Not that I lost much more than the rest either, for I generally noticed that when he had described something very long indeed and I says to Jemmy &quot;What does he say Jemmy?&quot; Jemmy says looking at him with vengeance in his eye &quot;He is so jolly indistinct!&quot; and that when he had described it longer all over again and I says to Jemmy &quot;Well Jemmy what&#039;s it all about?&quot; says &quot;He says the building was repaired in seventeen hundred and four, Gran.&quot; Wherever that prowling young man formed his prowling habits I cannot be expected to know, but the way in which he went round the corner while we had our breakfasts and was there again when we swallowed the last crumb was most marvellous, and just the same at dinner and at night, prowling equally at the theatre and the inn gateway and the shop-doors when we bought a trifle or two and everywhere else but troubled with a tendency to spit. And of Paris I can tell you no more my dear than that it&#039;s town and country both in one, and carved stone and long streets of high houses and gardens and fountains and statues and trees and gold, and immensely big soldiers and immensely little soldiers and the pleasantest nurses with the whitest caps a playing at skipping-rope with the bunchiest babies in the flattest caps, and clean tablecloths spread everywhere for dinner and people sitting out of doors smoking and sipping all day long and little plays being acted in the open air for little people and every shop a complete and elegant room, and everybody seeming to play at everything in this world. And as to the sparkling lights my dear after dark, glittering high up and low down and on before and on behind and all round, and the crowd of theatres and the crowd of people and the crowd of all sorts, it&#039;s pure enchantment. And pretty well the only thing that grated on me was that whether you pay your fare at the railway or whether you change your money at a money-dealer&#039;s or whether you take your ticket at the theatre, the lady or gentleman is caged up (I suppose by Government) behind the strongest iron bars having more of a Zoological appearance than a free country. Well to be sure when I did after all get my precious bones to bed that night, and my Young Rogue came in to kiss me and asks &quot;What do you think of this lovely lovely Paris, Gran?&quot; I says &quot;Jemmy I feel as if it was beautiful fireworks being let off in my head.&quot; And very cool and refreshing the pleasant country was next day when we went on to look after my Legacy, and rested me much and did me a deal of good. So at length and at last my dear we come to Sens, a pretty little town with a great two-towered cathedral and the rooks flying in and out of the loopholes and another tower atop of one of the towers like a sort of a stone pulpit. In which pulpit with the birds skimming below him if you&#039;ll believe me, I saw a speck while I was resting at the inn before dinner which they made signs to me was Jemmy and which really was. I had been a fancying as I sat in the balcony of the hotel that an Angel might light there and call down to the people to be good, but I little thought what Jemmy all unknown to himself was a calling down from that high place to some one in the town. The pleasantest-situated inn my dear! Right under the two towers, with their shadows a changing upon it all day like a kind of a sundial, and country people driving in and out of the court-yard in carts and hooded cabriolets and such-like, and a market outside in front of the cathedral, and all so quaint and like a picter. The Major and me agreed that whatever came of my Legacy this was the place to stay in for our holiday, and we also agreed that our dear boy had best not be checked in his joy that night by the sight of the Englishman if he was still alive, but that we would go together and alone. For you are to understand that the Major not feeling himself quite equal in his wind to the heighth to which Jemmy had climbed, had come back to me and left him with the Guide. So after dinner when Jemmy had set off to see the river, the Major went down to the Mairie, and presently came back with a military character in a sword and spurs and a cocked-hat and a yellow shoulder-belt and long tags about him that he must have found inconvenient. And the Major says &quot;The Englishman still lies in the same state dearest madam. This gentleman will conduct us to his lodging.&quot; Upon which the military character pulled off his cocked-hat to me, and I took notice that he had shaved his forehead in imitation of Napoleon Bonaparte but not like. We went out at the court-yard gate and past the great doors of the cathedral and down a narrow High Street where the people were sitting chatting at their shop-doors and the children were at play. The military character went in front and he stopped at a pork-shop with a little statue of a pig sitting up, in the window, and a private door that a donkey was looking out of. When the donkey saw the military character he came slipping out on the pavement to turn round and then clattered along the passage into a back-yard. So the coast being clear, the Major and me were conducted up the common stair and into the front room on the second, a bare room with a red tiled floor and the outside lattice blinds pulled close to darken it. As the military character opened the blinds I saw the tower where I had seen Jemmy, darkening as the sun got low, and I turned to the bed by the wall and saw the Englishman. It was some kind of brain fever he had had, and his hair was all gone, and some wetted folded linen lay upon his head. I looked at him very attentive as he lay there all wasted away with his eyes closed, and I says to the Major &quot;I never saw this face before.&quot; The Major looked at him very attentive too, and he says &quot;I never saw this face before.&quot; When the Major explained our words to the military character, that gentleman shrugged his shoulders and showed the Major the card on which it was written about the Legacy for me. It had been written with a weak and trembling hand in bed, and I knew no more of the writing than of the face. Neither did the Major. Though lying there alone, the poor creetur was as well taken care of as could be hoped, and would have been quite unconscious of any one&#039;s sitting by him then. I got the Major to say that we were not going away at present and that I would come back to-morrow and watch a bit by the bedside. But I got him to add—and I shook my head hard to make it stronger—&quot;We agree that we never saw this face before.&quot; Our boy was greatly surprised when we told him sitting out in the balcony in the starlight, and he ran over some of those stories of former Lodgers, of the Major&#039;s putting down, and asked wasn&#039;t it possible that it might be this lodger or that lodger. It was not possible and we went to bed. In the morning just at breakfast-time the military character came jingling round, and said that the doctor thought from the signs he saw there might be some rally before the end. So I says to the Major and Jemmy, &quot;You two boys go and enjoy yourselves, and I&#039;ll take my Prayer-Book and go sit by the bed.&quot; So I went, and I sat there some hours, reading a prayer for him poor soul now and then, and it was quite on in the day when he moved his hand. He had been so still, that the moment he moved I knew of it, and I pulled off my spectacles and laid down my book and rose and looked at him. From moving one hand he began to move both, and then his action was the action of a person groping in the dark. Long after his eyes had opened, there was a film over them and he still felt for his way out into light. But by slow degrees his sight cleared and his hands stopped. He saw the ceiling, he saw the wall, he saw me. As his sight cleared, mine cleared too, and when at last we looked in one another&#039;s faces, I started back and I cries passionately: &quot;O you wicked wicked man! Your sin has found you out!&quot; For I knew him, the moment life looked out of his eyes, to be Mr. Edson, Jemmy&#039;s father who had so cruelly deserted Jemmy&#039;s young unmarried mother who had died in my arms, poor tender creetur, and left Jemmy to me. &quot;You cruel wicked man! You bad black traitor!&quot; With the little strength he had, he made an attempt to turn over on his wretched face to hide it. His arm dropped out of the bed and his head with it, and there he lay before me crushed in body and in mind. Surely the miserablest sight under the summer sun! &quot;O blessed Heaven&quot; I says a crying, &quot;teach me what to say to this broken mortal! I am a poor sinful creetur, and the Judgment is not mine.&quot; As I lifted my eyes up to the clear bright sky, I saw the high tower where Jemmy had stood above the birds, seeing that very window; and the last look of that poor pretty young mother when her soul brightened and got free, seemed to shine down from it. &quot;O man, man, man!&quot; I says, and I went on my knees beside the bed; &quot;if your heart is rent asunder and you are truly penitent for what you did, Our Saviour will have mercy on you yet!&quot; As I leaned my face against the bed, his feeble hand could just move itself enough to touch me. I hope the touch was penitent. It tried to hold my dress and keep hold, but the fingers were too weak to close. I lifted him back upon the pillows, and I says to him: &quot;Can you hear me?&quot; He looked yes. &quot;Do you know me?&quot; He looked yes, even yet more plainly. &quot;I am not here alone. The Major is with me. You recollect the Major?&quot; Yes. That is to say he made out yes, in the same way as before. &quot;And even the Major and I are not alone. My grandson—his godson—is with us. Do you hear? My grandson.&quot; The fingers made another trial to catch at my sleeve, but could only creep near it and fall. &quot;Do you know who my grandson is?&quot; Yes. &quot;I pitied and loved his lonely mother. When his mother lay a dying I said to her, &#039;My dear this baby is sent to a childless old woman.&#039; He has been my pride and joy ever since. I love him as dearly as if he had drunk from my breast. Do you ask to see my grandson before you die?&#039; Yes. &quot;Show me, when I leave off speaking, if you correctly understand what I say. He has been kept unacquainted with the story of his birth. He has no knowledge of it. No suspicion of it. If I bring him here to the side of this bed, he will suppose you to be a perfect stranger. It is more than I can do, to keep from him the knowledge that there is such wrong and misery in the world; but that it was ever so near him in his innocent cradle, I have kept from him, and I do keep from him, and I ever will keep from him. For his mother&#039;s sake, and for his own.&quot; He showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears fell from his eyes. &quot;Now rest, and you shall see him.&quot; So I got him a little wine and some brandy and I put things straight about his bed. But I began to be troubled in my mind lest Jemmy and the Major might be too long of coming back. What with this occupation for my thoughts and hands, I didn&#039;t hear a foot upon the stairs, and was startled when I saw the Major stopped short in the middle of the room by the eyes of the man upon the bed, and knowing him then, as I had known him a little while ago. There was anger in the Major&#039;s face, and there was horror and repugnance and I don&#039;t know what. So I went up to him and I led him to the bedside and when I clasped my hands and lifted of them up, the Major did the like. &quot;O Lord &quot; I says &quot;Thou knowest what we two saw together of the sufferings and sorrows of that young creetur now with Thee. If this dying man is truly penitent, we two together humbly pray Thee to have mercy on him!&quot; The Major says &quot;Amen!&quot; and then after a little stop I whispers him, &quot;Dear old friend fetch our beloved boy.&quot; And the Major, so clever as to have got to understand it all without being told a word, went away and brought him. Never never never, shall I forget the fair bright face of our boy when he stood at the foot of the bed, looking at his unknown father. And O so like his dear young mother then! &quot;Jemmy&quot; I says, &quot;I have found out all about this poor gentleman who is so ill, and he did lodge in the old house once. And as he wants to see all belonging to it, now that he is passing away, I sent for you.&quot; &quot;Ah poor man!&quot; says Jemmy stepping forward and touching one of his hands with great gentleness. &quot;My heart melts for him. Poor, poor, man!&quot; The eyes that were so soon to close for ever, turned to me, and I was not that strong in the pride of my strength that I could resist them. &quot;My darling boy, there is a reason in the secret history of this fellow-creetur, lying as the best and worst of us must all lie one day, which I think would ease his spirit in his last hour if you would lay your cheek against his forehead and say &#039;May God forgive you!&#039;&quot; &quot;O Gran,&quot; says Jemmy with a full heart &quot;I am not worthy!&quot; But he leaned down and did it. Then the faltering fingers made out to catch hold of my sleeve at last, and I believe he was a trying to kiss me when he died. * * * * * There my dear! There you have the story of my Legacy in full, and it&#039;s worth ten times the trouble I have spent upon it if you are pleased to like it. You might suppose that it set us against the little French town of Sens, but no we didn&#039;t find that. I found myself that I never looked up at the high tower atop of the other tower, but the days came back again when that fair young creetur with her pretty bright hair trusted in me like a mother, and the recollection made the place so peaceful to me as I can&#039;t express. And every soul about the hotel down to the pigeons in the court-yard made friends with Jemmy and the Major, and went lumbering away with them on all sorts of expeditions in all sorts of vehicles drawn by rampagious cart-horses—with heads and without—mud for paint and ropes for harness and every new friend dressed in blue like a butcher, and every new horse standing on his hind legs wanting to devour and consume every other horse, and every man that had a whip to crack crack-crack-crack-crack-cracking it as if it was a schoolboy with his first. As to the Major my dear that man lived the greater part of his time with a little tumbler in one hand and a bottle of small wine in the other, and whenever he saw anybody else with a little tumbler, no matter who it was—the military character with the tags, or the inn servants at their supper in the court-yard, or towns-people a chatting on a bench, or country-people a starting home after market—down rushes the Major to clink his glass against their glasses and cry—Hola! Vive Somebody! or Vive Something! as if he was beside himself. And though I could not quite approve of the Major&#039;s doing it, still the ways of the world are the ways of the world varying according to different parts of it, and dancing at all in the open Square with a lady that kept a barber&#039;s shop my opinion is that the Major was right to dance his best and to lead off with a power that I did not think was in him, though I was a little uneasy at the Barricading sound of the cries that were set up by the other dancers and the rest of the company, until when I says &quot;What are they ever calling out Jemmy?&quot; Jemmy says &quot;They&#039;re calling out Gran, Bravo the Military English! Bravo the Military English!&quot; which was very gratifying to my feelings as a Briton and became the name the Major was known by. But every evening at a regular time we all three sat out in the balcony of the hotel at the end of the court-yard, looking up at the golden and rosy light as it changed on the great towers, and looking at the shadows of the towers as they changed on all about us ourselves included, and what do you think we did there? My dear if Jemmy hadn&#039;t brought some other of those stories of the Major&#039;s taking down from the telling of former lodgers at Eighty-one Norfolk-street, and if he didn&#039;t bring &#039;em out with this speech: &quot;Here you are Gran! Here you are Godfather! More of &#039;em! I&#039;ll read. And though you wrote &#039;em for me, Godfather, I know you won&#039;t disapprove of my making &#039;em over to Gran; will you?&quot; &quot;No my dear boy,&quot; says the Major. &quot;Everything we have is hers, and we are hers.&quot; &quot;Hers ever affectionately and devotedly J. Jackman, and J. Jackman Lirriper,&quot; cries the Young Rogue giving me a close hug. &quot;Very well then Godfather. Look here. As Gran is in the Legacy way just now, I shall make these stories a part of Gran&#039;s Legacy. I&#039;ll leave &#039;em to her. What do you say Godfather?&quot; &quot;Hip hip Hurrah!&quot; says the Major. &quot;Very well then&quot; cries Jemmy all in a bustle. &quot;Vive the Military English! Vive the Lady Lirriper! Vive the Jemmy Jackman Ditto! Vive the Legacy! Now, you look out, Gran. And you look out, Godfather, I&#039;ll read! And I&#039;ll tell you what I&#039;ll do besides. On the last night of our holiday here when we are all packed and going away, I&#039;ll top up with something of my own.&quot; &quot;Mind you do sir&quot; says I. &quot;Don&#039;t you be afraid, Gran&quot; cries Young Sparkles. &quot;Now then! I&#039;m going to read. Once, twice, three and away. Open your mouths and shut your eyes, and see what Fortune sends you. All in to begin. Look out Gran. Look out Godfather!&quot; So in his lively spirits Jemmy began a reading, and he read every evening while we were there, and sometimes we were about it late enough to have a candle burning quite steady out in the balcony in the still air. And so here is the rest of my Legacy my dear that I now hand over to you in this bundle of papers all in the Major&#039;s plain round writing. I wish I could hand you the church towers over too, and the pleasant air and the inn yard and the pigeons often coming and perching on the rail by Jemmy and seeming to be critical with their heads on one side, but you&#039;ll take as you find. Well my dear and so the evening readings of these jottings of the Major&#039;s brought us round at last to the evening when we were all packed and going away next day, and I do assure you that by that time though it was deliciously comfortable to look forward to the dear old house in Norfolk-street again, I had formed quite a high opinion of the French nation and had noticed them to be much more homely and domestic in their families and far more simple and amiable in their lives than I had ever been led to expect, and it did strike me between ourselves that in one particular they might be imitated to advantage by another nation which I will not mention, and that is in the courage with which they take their little enjoyments on little means and with little things and don&#039;t let solemn big-wigs stare them out of countenance or speechify them dull, of which said solemn big-wigs I have ever had the one opinion that I wish they were all made comfortable separately in coppers with the lids on and never let out any more. &quot;Now young man,&quot; I says to Jemmy when we brought our chairs into the balcony that last evening, &quot;you please to remember who was to &#039;top up.&#039;&quot; &quot;l am the illustrious personage.&quot; But he looked so serious after he had made me that light answer, that the Major raised his eyebrows at me and I raised mine at the Major. &quot;Gran and Godfather,&quot; says Jemmy, &quot;you can hardly think how much my mind has run on Mr. Edson&#039;s death.&quot; It gave me a little check. &quot;Ah! It was a sad scene my love&quot; I says, &quot;and sad remembrances come back stronger than merry. But this&quot; I says after a little silence, to rouse myself and the Major and Jemmy all together, &quot;is not topping up. Tell us your story my dear.&quot; &quot;I will&quot; says Jemmy. &quot;What is the date sir?&quot; says I. &quot;Once upon a time when pigs drank wine?&quot; &quot;No Gran,&quot; says Jemmy, still serious; &quot;once upon a time when the French drank wine.&quot; Again I glanced at the Major, and the Major glanced at me. &quot;In short, Gran and Godfather,&quot; says Jemmy, looking up, &quot;the date is this time, and I&#039;m going to tell you Mr. Edson&#039;s story.&quot; The flutter that it threw me into. The change of colour on the part of the Major! &quot;That is to say, you understand,&quot; our bright-eyed boy says, &quot;I am going to give you my version of it. I shall not ask whether it&#039;s right or not, firstly because you said you knew very little about it, Gran, and secondly because what little you did know was a secret.&quot; I folded my hands in my lap and I never took my eyes off Jemmy as he went running on. &quot;The unfortunate gentleman&quot; Jemmy commences, &quot;who is the subject of our present narrative was the son of Somebody, and was born Somewhere, and chose a profession Somehow. It is not with those parts of his career that we have to deal; but with his early attachment to a young and beautiful lady.&quot; I thought I should have dropped. I durstn&#039;t look at the Major; but I knew what his state was, without looking at him. &quot;The father of our ill-starred hero&quot; says Jemmy, copying as it seemed to me the style of some of his story-books, &quot;was a worldly man who entertained ambitious views for his only son and who firmly set his face against the contemplated alliance with a virtuous but penniless orphan. Indeed he went so far as roundly to assure our hero that unless he weaned his thoughts from the object of his devoted affection, he would disinherit him. At the same time, he proposed as a suitable match, the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman of a good estate, who was neither ill favoured nor unamiable, and whose eligibility in a pecuniary point of view could not be disputed. But young Mr. Edson, true to the first and only love that had inflamed his breast, rejected all considerations of self-advancement, and, deprecating his father&#039;s anger in a respectful letter, ran away with her.&quot; My dear I had begun to take a turn for the better, but when it come to running away I began to take another turn for the worse. &quot;The lovers&quot; says Jemmy &quot;fled to London and were united at the altar of Saint Clement&#039;s Danes. And it is at this period of their simple but touching story, that we find them inmates of the dwelling of a highly respected and beloved lady of the name of Gran, residing within a hundred miles of Norfolk street.&quot; I felt that we were almost safe now, I felt that the dear boy had no suspicion of the bitter truth, and I looked at the Major for the first time and drew a long breath. The Major gave me a nod. &quot;Our hero&#039;s father&quot; Jemmy goes on &quot;proving implacable and carrying his threat into unrelenting execution, the struggles of the young couple in London were severe, and would have been far more so, but for their good angel&#039;s having conducted them to the abode of Mrs. Gran: who, divining their poverty (in spite of their endeavours to conceal it from her), by a thousand delicate arts smoothed their rough way, and alleviated the sharpness of their first distress.&quot; Here Jemmy took one of my hands in one of his, and began a marking the turns of his story by making me give a beat from time to time upon his other hand. &quot;After a while, they left the house of Mrs. Gran, and pursued their fortunes through a variety of successes and failures elsewhere. But in all reverses, whether for good or evil, the words of Mr. Edson to the fair young partner of his life, were: &#039;Unchanging Love and Truth will carry us through all!&#039;&quot; My hand trembled in the dear boy&#039;s, those words were so wofully unlike the fact. &quot;Unchanging Love and Truth&quot; says Jemmy over again, as if he had a proud kind of a noble pleasure in it, &quot;will carry us through all! Those were his words. And so they fought their way, poor but gallant and happy, until Mrs. Edson gave birth to a child.&quot; &quot;A daughter,&quot; I says. &quot;No&quot; says Jemmy, &quot;a son. And the father was so proud of it that he could hardly bear it out of his sight. But a dark cloud overspread the scene. Mrs. Edson sickened, drooped, and died.&quot; &quot;Ah! Sickened, drooped, and died!&quot; I says. &quot;And so Mr. Edson&#039;s only comfort, only hope on earth, and only stimulus to action, was his darling boy. As the child grew older, he grew so like his mother that he was her living picture. It used to make him wonder why his father cried when he kissed him. But unhappily he was like his mother in constitution as well as in face, and he died too before he had grown out of childhood. Then Mr. Edson, who had good abilities, in his forlornness and despair threw them all to the winds. He became apathetic, reckless, lost. Little by little he sank down, down, down, down, until at last he almost lived (I think) by gaming. And so sickness overtook him in the town of Sens in France, and he lay down to die. But now that he laid him down when all was done, and looked back upon the green Past beyond the time when he had covered it with ashes, he thought gratefully of the good Mrs. Gran long lost sight of, who had been so kind to him and his young wife in the early days of their marriage, and he left the little that he had as a last Legacy to her. And she, being brought to see him, at first no more knew him than she would know from seeing the ruin of a Greek or Roman Temple, what it used to be before it fell; but at length she remembered him. And then he told her with tears, of his regret for the misspent part of his life, and besought her to think as mildly of it as she could, because it was the poor fallen Angel of his unchanging Love and Constancy after all. And because she had her grandson with her, and he fancied that his own boy, if he had lived, might have grown to be something like him, he asked her to let him touch his forehead with his cheek and say certain parting words.&quot; Jemmy&#039;s voice sank low when it got to that, and tears filled my eyes, and filled the Major&#039;s. &quot;You little Conjuror&quot; I says, &quot;how did you ever make it all out? Go in and write it every word down, for it&#039;s a wonder.&quot; Which Jemmy did, and I have repeated it to you my dear from his writing. Then the Major took my hand and kissed it, and said &quot;Dearest madam all has prospered with us.&quot; &quot;Ah Major&quot; I says drying my eyes, &quot;we needn&#039;t have been afraid. We might have known it. Treachery don&#039;t come natural to beaming youth; but trust and pity, love and constancy they do, thank God!&quot;18640112https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Mrs._Lirriper_s_Legacy_[1864_Christmas_Number]/1864-01-12_Mrs_Lirripers_Legacy.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Mrs._Lirriper_s_Legacy_[1864_Christmas_Number]/1864-01-12-Mrs_Lirriper_Relates_how_she_went_on_and_went_over.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Mrs._Lirriper_s_Legacy_[1864_Christmas_Number]/1864-01-12-Mrs_Lirriper_relates_how_Jimmy_topped_up.pdf
198https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/198<em>Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings </em>(1863 Christmas Number)Published in <em>All the Year Round,</em> Vol. X, Extra Christmas Number, 25 December 1863, pp. 1-48.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-x/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-x/page-573.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online</em><span>,&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-x/page-618.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-x/page-618.html</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1863-12-25">1863-12-25</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1863-12-25-Mrs_Lirripers_Lodgings<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'How Mrs. Lirriper Carried On the Business' (No.1), pp. 1-12.</strong></li> <li>Elizabeth Gaskell. 'How the First Floor Went to Crowley Castle' (No.2), pp. 12-25.</li> <li>Andrew Halliday. 'How the Side-Room Was Attended by a Doctor' (No.3), pp. 25-31.</li> <li>Edmund Yates. 'How the Second Floor Kept a Dog' (No.4), pp. 31-35.</li> <li>Amelia B. Edwards. 'How the Third Floor Knew the Potteries' (No.5), pp. 35-40.</li> <li>Charles Allston Collins. 'How the Best Attic Was Under a Cloud' (No.6), pp. 40-46.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'How the Parlours Added a Few Words' (No.7), pp. 46-48.</strong></li> </ul>Dickens, Charles. <em>Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings</em> (25 Christmas 1863). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1863-12-25-Mrs_Lirripers_Lodgings">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1863-12-25-Mrs_Lirripers_Lodgings</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>Whoever would begin to be worried with letting Lodgings that wasn&#039;t a lone woman with a living to get is a thing inconceivable to me my dear, excuse the familiarity but it comes natural to me in my own little room when wishing to open my mind to those that I can trust and I should be truly thankful if they were all mankind but such is not so, for have but a Furnished bill in the window and your watch on the mantelpiece and farewell to it if you turn your back for but a second however gentlemanly the manners, nor is being of your own sex any safeguard as I have reason in the form of sugar-tongs to know, for that lady (and a fine woman she was) got me to run for a glass of water on the plea of going to be confined, which certainly turned out true but it was in the Station-House. Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand—situated midway between the City and St. James&#039;s and within five minutes&#039; walk of the principal places of public amusement—is my address. I have rented this house many years as the parish rate-books will testify and I could wish my landlord was as alive to the fact as I am myself, but no bless you not a half a pound of paint to save his life nor so much my dear as a tile upon the roof though on your bended knees. My dear you never have found Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand advertised in Bradshaw&#039;s Railway Guide and with the blessing of Heaven you never will or shall so find it. Some there are who do not think it lowering themselves to make their names that cheap and even going the lengths of a portrait of the house not like it with a blot in every window and a coach and four at the door, but what will suit Wozenham&#039;s lower down on the other side of the way will not suit me, Miss Wozenham having her opinions and me having mine, though when it comes to systematic underbidding capable of being proved on oath in a court of justice and taking the form of &quot;If Mrs. Lirriper names eighteen shillings a week, I name fifteen and six&quot; it then comes to a settlement between yourself and your conscience supposing for the sake of argument your name to be Wozenham which I am well aware it is not or my opinion of you would be greatly lowered, and as to airy bedrooms and a night-porter in constant attendance the less said the better, the bedrooms being stuffy and the porter stuff. It is forty years ago since me and my poor Lirriper got married at St. Clement&#039;s Danes where I now have a sitting in a very pleasant pew with genteel company and my own hassock and being partial to evening service not too crowded. My poor Lirriper was a handsome figure of a man with a beaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey and steel, but he had ever been a free liver being in the commercial travelling line and travelling what he called a limekiln road—&quot;a dry road, Emma my dear,&quot; my poor Lirriper says to me &quot;where I have to lay the dust with one drink or another all day long and half the night, and it wears me Emma&quot;—and this led to his running through a good deal and might have run through the turnpike too when that dreadful horse that never would stand still for a single instant set off, but for its being night and the gate shut and consequently took his wheel my poor Lirriper and the gig smashed to atoms and never spoke afterwards. He was a handsome figure of a man and a man with a jovial heart and a sweet temper, but if they had come up then they never could have given you the mellowness of his voice, and indeed I consider photographs wanting in mellowness as a general rule and making you look like a new-ploughed field. My poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world and being buried at Hatfield church in Hertfordshire, not that it was his native place but that he had a liking for the Salisbury Arms where we went upon our wedding-day and passed as happy a fortnight as ever happy was, I went round to the creditors and I says &quot;Gentlemen I am acquainted with the fact that I am not answerable for my late husband&#039;s debts but I wish to pay them for I am his lawful wife and his good name is dear to me. I am going into the Lodgings gentlemen as a business and if I prosper every farthing that my late husband owed shall be paid for the sake of the love I bore him, by this right hand.&quot; It took a long time to do but it was done, and the silver cream-jug which is between ourselves and the bed and the mattress in my room up-stairs (or it would have found legs so sure as ever the Furnished bill was up) being presented by the gentlemen engraved &quot;To Mrs. Lirriper a mark of grateful respect for her honourable conduct&quot; gave me a turn which was too much for my feelings, till Mr. Betley which at that time had the parlours and loved his joke says &quot;Cheer up Mrs. Lirriper, you should feel as if it was only your christening and they were your godfathers and godmothers which did promise for you.&quot; And it brought me round, and I don&#039;t mind confessing to you my dear that I then put a sandwich and a drop of sherry in a little basket and went down to Hatfield churchyard outside the coach and kissed my hand and laid it with a kind of a proud and swelling love on my husband&#039;s grave, though bless you it had taken me so long to clear his name that my wedding ring was worn quite fine and smooth when I laid it on the green green waving grass. I am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but that&#039;s me my dear over the plate-warmer and considered like in the times when you used to pay two guineas on ivory and took your chance pretty much how you came out, which made you very careful how you left it about afterwards because people were turned so red and uncomfortable by mostly guessing it was somebody else quite different, and there was once a certain person that had put his money in a hop business that came in one morning to pay his rent and his respects being the second floor that would have taken it down from its hook and put it in his breast pocket—you understand my dear—for the L, he says, of the original— only there was no mellowness in his voice and I wouldn&#039;t let him, but his opinion of it you may gather from his saying to it &quot;Speak to me Emma!&quot; which was far from a rational observation no doubt but still a tribute to its being a likeness, and I think myself it was like me when I was young and wore that sort of stays. But it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to hold forth and certainly I ought to know something of the business having been in it so long, for it was early in the second year of my married life that I lost my poor Lirriper and I set up at Islington directly afterwards and afterwards came here, being two houses and eight and thirty years and some losses and a deal of experience. Girls are your first trial after fixtures and they try you even worse than what I call the Wandering Christians, though why they should roam the earth looking for bills and then coming in and viewing the apartments and stickling about terms and never at all wanting them or dreaming of taking them being already provided, is a mystery I should be thankful to have explained if by any miracle it could be. It&#039;s wonderful they live so long and thrive so on it but I suppose the exercise makes it healthy, knocking so much and going from house to house and up and down stairs all day, and then their pretending to be so particular and punctual is a most astonishing thing, looking at their watches and saying &quot;Could you give me the refusal of the rooms till twenty minutes past eleven the day after to-morrow in the forenoon, and supposing it to be considered essential by my friend from the country could there be a small iron bedstead put in the little room upon the stairs?&quot; Why when I was new to it my dear I used to consider before I promised and to make my mind anxious with calculations and to get quite wearied out with disappointments, but now I says &quot;Certainly by all means&quot; well knowing it&#039;s a Wandering Christian and I shall hear no more about it, indeed by this time I know most of the Wandering Christians by sight as well as they know me, it being the habit of each individual revolving round London in that capacity to come back about twice a year, and it&#039;s very remarkable that it runs in families and the children grow up to it, but even were it otherwise I should no sooner hear of the friend from the country which is a certain sign than I should nod and say to myself You&#039;re a Wandering Christian, though whether they are (as I have heard) persons of small property with a taste for regular employment and frequent change of scene I cannot undertake to tell you. Girls as I was beginning to remark are one of your first and your lasting troubles, being like your teeth which begin with convulsions and never cease tormenting you from the time you cut them till they cut you, and then you don&#039;t want to part with them which seems hard but we must all succumb or buy artificial, and even where you get a will nine times out of ten you&#039;ll get a dirty face with it and naturally lodgers do not like good society to be shown in with a smear of black across the nose or a smudgy eyebrow. Where they pick the black up is a mystery I cannot solve, as in the case of the willingest girl that ever came into a house half starved poor thing, a girl so willing that I called her Willing Sophy down upon her knees scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful but always smiling with a black face. And I says to Sophy &quot;Now Sophy my good girl have a regular day for your stoves and keep the width of the Airy between yourself and the blacking and do not brush your hair with the bottoms of the saucepans and do not meddle with the snuffs of the candles and it stands to reason that it can no longer be&quot; yet there it was and always on her nose, which turning up and being broad at the end seemed to boast of it and caused warning from a steady gentleman and excellent lodger with breakfast by the week but a little irritable and use of a sitting-room when required, his words being &quot;Mrs. Lirriper I have arrived at the point of admitting that the Black is a man and a brother, but only in a natural form and when it can&#039;t be got off.&quot; Well consequently I put poor Sophy on to other work and forbid her answering the door or answering a bell on any account but she was so unfortunately willing that nothing would stop her flying up the kitchen stairs whenever a bell was heard to tingle. I put it to her &quot; Oh Sophy Sophy for goodness goodness sake where does it come from?&quot; To which that poor unlucky willing mortal bursting out crying to see me so vexed replied &quot;I took a deal of black into me ma&#039;am when I was a small child being much neglected and I think it must be, that it works out,&quot; so it continuing to work out of that poor thing and not having another fault to find with her I says Sophy &quot;what do you seriously think of my helping you away to New South Wales where it might not be noticed?&quot; Nor did I ever repent the money which was well spent, for she married the ship&#039;s cook on the voyage (himself a Mulotter) and did well and lived happy, and so far as ever I heard it was not noticed in a new state of society to her dying day. In what way Miss Wozenham lower down on the other side of the way reconciled it to her feelings as a lady (which she is not) to entice Mary Anne Perkinsop from my service is best known to herself, I do not know and I do not wish to know how opinions are formed at Wozenham&#039;s on any point. But Mary Anne Perkinsop although I behaved handsomely to her and she behaved unhandsomely to me was worth her weight in gold as overawing lodgers without driving them away, for lodgers would be far more sparing of their bells with Mary Anne than I ever knew them be with Maid or Mistress, which is a great triumph especially when accompanied with a cast in the eye and a bag of bones, but it was the steadiness of her way with them through her father&#039;s having failed in Pork. It was Mary Anne&#039;s looking so respectable in her person and being so strict in her spirits that conquered the tea-and-sugarest gentleman (for he weighed them both in a pair of scales every morning) that I have ever had to deal with and no lamb grew meeker, still it afterwards came round to me that Miss Wozenham happening to pass and seeing Mary Anne take in the milk of a milkman that made free in a rosy-faced way (I think no worse of him) with every girl in the street but was quite frozen up like the statue at Charing Cross by her, saw Mary Anne&#039;s value in the lodging business and went as high as one pound per quarter more, consequently Mary Anne with not a word betwixt us says &quot;If you will provide yourself Mrs. Lirriper in a month from this day I have already done the same,&quot; which hurt me and I said so, and she then hurt me more by insinuating that her father having failed in Pork had laid her open to it. My dear I do assure you it&#039;s a harassing thing to know what kind of girls to give the preference to, for if they are lively they get bell&#039;d off their legs and if they are sluggish you suffer from it yourself in complaints and if they are sparkling-eyed they get made love to and if they are smart in their persons they try on your Lodger&#039;s bonnets and if they are musical I defy you to keep them away from bands and organs, and allowing for any difference you like in their heads their heads will be always out of window just the same. And then what the gentlemen like in girls the ladies don&#039;t, which is fruitful hot water for all parties, and then there&#039;s temper though such a temper as Caroline Maxey&#039;s I hope not often. A good-looking black-eyed girl was Caroline and a comely-made girl to your cost when she did break out and laid about her, as took place first and last through a new-married couple come to see London in the first floor and the lady very high and it was supposed not liking the good looks of Caroline having none of her own to spare, but anyhow she did try Caroline though that was no excuse. So one afternoon Caroline comes down into the kitchen flushed and flashing, and she says to me &quot;Mrs. Lirriper that woman in the first has aggravated me past bearing,&quot; I says &quot; Caroline keep your temper,&quot; Caroline says with a curdling laugh &quot;Keep my temper? You&#039;re right Mrs. Lirriper, so I will. Capital D her!&quot; bursts out Caroline (you might have struck me into the centre of the earth with a feather when she said it) &quot;I&#039;ll give her a touch of the temper that I keep!&quot; Caroline downs with her hair my dear, screeches and rushes upstairs, I following as fast as my trembling legs could bear me, but before I got into the room the dinner cloth and pink and white service all dragged off upon the floor with a crash and the new married couple on their backs in the fire-grate, him with the shovel and tongs and a dish of cucumber across him and a mercy it was summer-time. &quot;Caroline&quot; I says &quot;be calm,&quot; but she catches off my cap and tears it in her teeth as she passes me, then pounces on the new married lady makes her a bundle of ribbons takes her by the two ears and knocks the back of her head upon the carpet Murder screaming all the time Policemen running down the street and Wozenham&#039;s windows (judge of my feelings when I came to know it) thrown up and Miss Wozenham calling out from the balcony with crocodile&#039;s tears &quot;It&#039;s Mrs. Lirriper been overcharging somebody to madness—she&#039;ll be murdered—I always thought so—Pleeseman save her!&quot; My dear four of them and Caroline behind the chiffoniere attacking with the poker and when disarmed prize fighting with her double fists, and down and up and up and down and dreadful! But I couldn&#039;t bear to see the poor young creature roughly handled and her hair torn when they got the better of her, and I says &quot;Gentlemen Policemen pray remember that her sex is the sex of your mothers and sisters and your sweethearts, and God bless them and you!&quot; And there she was sitting down on the ground handcuffed, taking breath against the skirting-board and them cool with their coats in strips, and all she says was &quot;Mrs. Lirriper I am sorry as ever I touched you, for you&#039;re a kind motherly old thing,&quot; and it made me think that I had often wished I had been a mother indeed and how would my heart have felt if I had been the mother of that girl! Well you know it turned out at the Police-office that she had done it before, and she had her clothes away and was sent to prison, and when she was to come out I trotted off to the gate in the evening with just a morsel of jelly in that little basket of mine to give her a mite of strength to face the world again, and there I met with a very decent mother waiting for her son through bad company and a stubborn one he was with his half boots not laced. So out came Caroline and I says &quot;Caroline come along with me and sit down under the wall where it&#039;s retired and eat a little trifle that I have brought with me to do you good&quot; and she throws her arms round my neck and says sobbing &quot;O why were you never a mother when there are such mothers as there are!&quot; she says, and in half a minute more she begins to laugh and says &quot;Did I really tear your cap to shreds?&quot; and when I told her &quot;You certainly did so Caroline&quot; she laughed again and said while she patted my face &quot;Then why do you wear such queer old caps you dear old thing? If you hadn&#039;t worn such queer old caps I don&#039;t think I should have done it even then.&quot; Fancy the girl! Nothing could get out of her what she was going to do except O she would do well enough, and we parted she being very thankful and kissing my hands, and I never more saw or heard of that girl, except that I shall always believe that a very genteel cap which was brought anonymous to me one Saturday night in an oilskin basket by a most impertinent young sparrow of a monkey whistling with dirty shoes on the clean steps and playing the harp on the Airy railings with a hoop-stick came from Caroline. What you lay yourself open to my dear in the way of being the object of uncharitable suspicions when you go into the Lodging business I have not the words to tell you, but never was I so dishonourable as to have two keys nor would I willingly think it even of Miss Wozenham lower down on the other side of the way sincerely hoping that it may not be, though doubtless at the same time money cannot come from nowhere and it is not reason to suppose that Bradshaws put it in for love be it blotty as it may. It is a hardship hurting to the feelings that Lodgers open their minds so wide to the idea that you are trying to get the better of them and shut their minds so close to the idea that they are trying to get the better of you, but as Major Jackman says to me &quot;I know the ways of this circular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that&#039;s one of &#039;em all round it&quot; and many is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major has smoothed, for he is a clever man who has seen much. Dear dear, thirteen years have passed though it seems but yesterday since I was sitting with my glasses on at the open front parlour window one evening in August (the parlours being then vacant) reading yesterday&#039;s paper my eyes for print being poor though still I am thankful to say a long sight at a distance, when I hear a gentleman come posting across the road and up the street in a dreadful rage talking to himself in a fury and d&#039;ing and c&#039;ing somebody. &quot;By George!&quot; says he out loud and clutching his walking-stick, &quot;I&#039;ll go to Mrs. Lirriper&#039;s. Which is Mrs. Lirriper&#039;s?&quot; Then looking round and seeing me he flourishes his hat right off his head as if I had been the queen and he says &quot;Excuse the intrusion Madam, but pray Madam can you tell me at what number in this street there resides a well-known and much-respected lady by the name of Lirriper?&quot; A little flustered though I must say gratified I took off my glasses and curtseyed and said &quot;Sir, Mrs. Lirriper is your humble servant.&quot; &quot;As-tonishing!&quot; says he. &quot; A million pardons! Madam, may I ask you to have the kindness to direct one of your domestics to open the door to a gentleman in search of apartments, by the name of Jackman?&quot; I had never heard the name but a politer gentleman I never hope to see, for says he &quot;Madam I am shocked at your opening the door yourself to no worthier a fellow than Jemmy Jackman. After you Madam. I never precede a lady.&quot; Then he comes into the parlours and he sniffs and he says &quot;Hah! These are parlours! Not musty cupboards&quot; he says &quot;but parlours, and no smell of coal-sacks.&quot; Now my dear it having been remarked by some inimical to the whole neighbourhood that it always smells of coal-sacks which might prove a drawback to Lodgers if encouraged, I says to the Major gently though firmly that I think he is referring to Arundel or Surrey or Howard but not Norfolk. &quot;Madam&quot; says he &quot;I refer to Wozenham&#039;s lower down over the way—Madam you can form no notion what Wozenham&#039;s is— Madam it is a vast coal-sack, and Miss Wozenham has the principles and manners of a female heaver—Madam from the manner in which I have heard her mention you I know she has no appreciation of a lady, and from the manner in which she has conducted herself towards me I know she has no appreciation of a gentleman—Madam my name is Jackman—should you require any other reference than what I have already said, I name the Bank of England—perhaps you know it!&quot; Such was the beginning of the Major&#039;s occupying the parlours and from that hour to this the same and a most obliging Lodger and punctual in all respects except one irregular which I need not particularly specify, but made up for by his being a protection and at all times ready to fill in the papers of the Assessed Taxes and Juries and that, and once collared a young man with the drawing-room clock under his cloak, and once on the parapets with his own hands and blankets put out the kitchen chimney and afterwards attending the summons made a most eloquent speech against the Parish before the magistrates and saved the engine, and ever quite the gentleman though passionate. And certainly Miss Wozenham&#039;s detaining the trunks and umbrella was not in a liberal spirit though it may have been according to her rights in law or an act I would myself have stooped to, the Major being so much the gentleman that though he is far from tall he seems almost so when he has his shirt frill out and his frock-coat on and his hat with the curly brims, and in what service he was I cannot truly tell you my dear whether Militia or Foreign, for I never heard him even name himself as Major but always simple &quot;Jemmy Jackman&quot; and once soon after he came when I felt it my duty to let him know that Miss Wozenham had put it about that he was no Major and I took the liberty of adding &quot;which you are sir&quot; his words were &quot;Madam at any rate I am not a Minor, and sufficient for the day is the evil thereof&quot; which cannot be denied to be the sacred truth, nor yet his military ways of having his boots with only the dirt brushed off taken to him in the front parlour every morning on a clean plate and varnishing them himself with a little sponge and a saucer and a whistle in a whisper so sure as ever his breakfast is ended, and so neat his ways that it never soils his linen which is scrupulous though more in quality than quantity, neither that nor his moustachios which to the best of my belief are done at the same time and which are as black and shining as his boots, his head of hair being a lovely white. It was the third year nearly up of the Major&#039;s being in the parlours that early one morning in the month of February when Parliament was coming on and you may therefore suppose a number of impostors were about ready to take hold of anything they could get, a gentleman and lady from the country came in to view the Second, and I well remember that I had been looking out of window and had watched them and the heavy sleet driving down the street together looking for bills. I did not quite take to the face of the gentleman though he was good-looking too but the lady was a very pretty young thing and delicate, and it seemed too rough for her to be out at all though she had only come from the Adelphi Hotel which would not have been much above a quarter of a mile if the weather had been less severe. Now it did so happen my dear that I had been forced to put five shillings weekly additional on the second in consequence of a loss from running away full-dressed as if going out to a dinner-party, which was very artful and had made me rather suspicious taking it along with Parliament, so when the gentleman proposed three months certain and the money in advance and leave then reserved to renew on the same terms for six months more, I says I was not quite certain but that I might have engaged myself to another party but would step down stairs and look into it if they would take a seat. They took a seat and I went down to the handle of the Major&#039;s door that I had already began to consult finding it a great blessing, and I knew by his whistling in a whisper that he was varnishing his boots which was generally considered private, however he kindly calls out &quot;If it&#039;s you, Madam, come in,&quot; and I went in and told him. &quot;Well, Madam,&quot; says the Major rubbing his nose—as I did fear at the moment with the black sponge but it was only his knuckle, he being always neat and dexterous with his fingers—&quot;well, Madam, I suppose you would be glad of the money?&quot; I was delicate of saying &quot;Yes&quot; too out, for a little extra colour rose into the Major&#039;s cheeks and there was irregularity which I will not particularly specify in a quarter which I will not name. &quot;I am of opinion, Madam,&quot; says the Major &quot;that when money is ready for you—when it is ready for you Mrs. Lirriper—you ought to take it. What is there against it, Madam, in this case up-stairs?&quot; &quot;I really cannot say there is anything against it sir, still I thought I would consult you.&quot; &quot;You said a newly-married couple, I think, Madam?&quot; says the Major. I says &quot;Ye-es. Evidently. And indeed the young lady mentioned to me in a casual way that she had not been married many months.&quot; The Major rubbed his nose again and stirred the varnish round and round in its little saucer with his piece of sponge and took to his whistling in a whisper for a few moments. Then he says &quot;You would call it a Good Let, Madam?&quot; &quot;Oh certainly a Good Let sir.&quot; &quot;Say they renew for the additional six months. Would it put you about very much Madam if—if the worst was to come to the worst?&quot; said the Major. &quot;Well I hardly know,&quot; I says to the Major. &quot;It depends upon circumstances. Would you object Sir for instance?&quot; &quot;I?&quot; says the Major. &quot;Object? Jemmy Jackman? Mrs. Lirriper close with the proposal.&quot; So I went up-stairs and accepted, and they came in next day which was Saturday and the Major was so good as to draw up a Memorandum of an agreement in a beautiful round hand and expressions that sounded to me equally legal and military, and Mr. Edson signed it on the Monday morning and the Major called upon Mr. Edson on the Tuesday and Mr. Edson called upon the Major on the Wednesday and the Second and the parlours were as friendly as could be wished. The three months paid for had run out and we had got without any fresh overtures as to payment into May my dear, when there came an obligation upon Mr. Edson to go a business expedition right across the Isle of Man, which fell quite unexpected on that pretty little thing and is not a place that according to my views is particularly in the way to anywhere at any time but that may be a matter of opinion. So short a notice was it that he was to go next day, and dreadfully she cried poor pretty and I am sure I cried too when I saw her on the cold pavement in the sharp east wind—it being a very backward spring that year taking a last leave of him with her pretty bright hair blowing this way and that and her arms clinging round his neck and him saying &quot;There there there! Now let me go Peggy.&quot; And by that time it was plain that what the Major had been so accommodating as to say he would not object to happening in the house, would happen in it, and I told her as much when he was gone while I comforted her with my arm up the staircase, for I says &quot;You will soon have others to keep up for my pretty and you must think of that.&quot; His letter never came when it ought to have come and what she went through morning after morning when the postman brought none for her the very postman himself compassionated when she ran down to the door, and yet we cannot wonder at its being calculated to blunt the feelings to have all the trouble of other people&#039;s letters and none of the pleasure and doing it oftener in the mud and mizzle than not and at a rate of wages more resembling Little Britain than Great. But at last one morning when she was too poorly to come running down stairs he says to me with a pleased look in his face that made me next to love the man in his uniform coat though he was dripping wet &quot;I have taken you first in the street this morning Mrs. Lirriper, for here&#039;s the one for Mrs. Edson.&quot; I went up to her bedroom with it fast as ever I could go, and she sat up in bed when she saw it and kissed it and tore it open and then a blank stare came upon her. &quot;It&#039;s very short!&quot; she says lifting her large eyes to my face. &quot;O Mrs. Lirriper it&#039;s very short!&quot; I says &quot;My dear Mrs. Edson no doubt that&#039;s because your husband hadn&#039;t time to write more just at that time.&quot; &quot;No doubt, no doubt,&quot; says she, and puts her two hands on her face and turns round in her bed. I shut her softly in and I crept down stairs and I tapped at the Major&#039;s door, and when the Major having his thin slices of bacon in his own Dutch oven saw me he came out of his chair and put me down on the sofa. &quot;Hush!&quot; says he, &quot;I see something&#039;s the matter. Don&#039;t speak—take time.&quot; I says &quot;O Major I am afraid there&#039;s cruel work up-stairs.&quot; &quot;Yes yes&quot; says he &quot;I had begun to be afraid of it—take time.&quot; And then in opposition to his own words he rages out frightfully, and says &quot;I shall never forgive myself Madam, that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn&#039;t see it all that morning—didn&#039;t go straight up-stairs when my boot-sponge was in my hand—didn&#039;t force it down his throat—and choke him dead with it on the spot!&quot; The Major and me agreed when we came to ourselves that just at present we could do no more than take on to suspect nothing and use our best endeavours to keep that poor young creature quiet, and what I ever should have done without the Major when it got about among the organ-men that quiet was our object is unknown, for he made lion and tiger war upon them to that degree that without seeing it I could not have believed it was in any gentleman to have such a power of bursting out with fire-irons walking-sticks water-jugs coals potatoes off his table the very hat off his head, and at the same time so furious in foreign languages that they would stand with their handles half turned fixed like the Sleeping Ugly—for I cannot say Beauty. Ever to see the postman come near the house now gave me such a fear that it was a reprieve when he went by, but in about another ten days or a fortnight he says again &quot;Here&#039;s one for Mrs. Edson.—Is she pretty well?&quot; &quot;She is pretty well postman, but not well enough to rise so early as she used&quot; which was so far gospel-truth. I carried the letter in to the Major at his breakfast and I says tottering &quot;Major I have not the courage to take it up to her.&quot; &quot;It&#039;s an ill-looking villain of a letter,&quot; says the Major. &quot;I have not the courage Major&quot; I says again in a tremble &quot;to take it up to her.&quot; After seeming lost in consideration for some moments the Major says, raising his head as if something new and useful had occurred to his mind &quot;Mrs. Lirriper, I shall never forgive myself that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn&#039;t go straight up-stairs that morning when my boot-sponge was in my hand—and force it down his throat—and choke him dead with it.&quot; &quot;Major&quot; I says a little hasty &quot;you didn&#039;t do it which is a Blessing, for it would have done no good and I think your sponge was better employed on your own honourable boots.&quot; So we got to be rational, and planned that I should tap at her bedroom door and lay the letter on the mat outside and wait on the upper landing for what might happen, and never was gunpowder cannon-balls or shells or rockets more dreaded than that dreadful letter was by me as I took it to the second floor. A terrible loud scream sounded through the house the minute after she had opened it, and I found her on the floor lying as if her life was gone. My dear I never looked at the face of the letter which was lying open by her, for there was no occasion. Everything I needed to bring her round the Major brought up with his own hands, besides running out to the chemist&#039;s for what was not in the house and likewise having the fiercest of all his many skirmishes with a musical instrument representing a ball-room I do not know in what particular country and company waltzing in and out at folding-doors with rolling eyes. When after a long time I saw her coming to, I slipped on the landing till I heard her cry, and then I went in and says cheerily &quot;Mrs. Edson you&#039;re not well my dear and it&#039;s not to be wondered at,&quot; as if I had not been in before. Whether she believed or disbelieved I cannot say and it would signify nothing if I could, but I stayed by her for hours and then she God ever blesses me! and says she will try to rest for her head is bad. &quot;Major,&quot; I whispers, looking in at the parlours, &quot;I beg and pray of you don&#039;t go out.&quot; The Major whispers &quot;Madam, trust me I will do no such a thing. How is she?&quot; I says &quot;Major the good Lord above us only knows what burns and rages in her poor mind. I left her sitting at her window. I am going to sit at mine.&quot; It came on afternoon and it came on evening. Norfolk is a delightful street to lodge in—provided you don&#039;t go lower down—but of a summer evening when the dust and waste paper lie in it and stray children play in it and a kind of a gritty calm and bake settles on it and a peal of church-bells is practising in the neighbourhood it is a trifle dull, and never have I seen it since at such a time and never shall I see it evermore at such a time without seeing the dull June evening when that forlorn young creature sat at her open corner window on the second and me at my open corner window (the other corner) on the third. Something merciful, something wiser and better far than my own self, had moved me while it was yet light to sit in my bonnet and shawl, and as the shadows fell and the tide rose I could sometimes—when I put out my head and looked at her window below—see that she leaned out a little looking down the street. It was just settling dark when I saw her in the street. So fearful of losing sight of her that it almost stops my breath while I tell it, I went down stairs faster than I ever moved in all my life and only tapped with my hand at the Major&#039;s door in passing it and slipping out. She was gone already. I made the same speed down the street and when I came to the corner of Howard Street I saw that she had turned it and was there plain before me going towards the west. O with what a thankful heart I saw her going along! She was quite unacquainted with London and had very seldom been out for more than an airing in our own street where she knew two or three little children belonging to neighbours and had sometimes stood among them at the end of the street looking at the water. She must be going at hazard I knew, still she kept the by-streets quite correctly as long as they would serve her, and then turned up into the Strand. But at every corner I could see her head turned one way, and that way was always the river way. It may have been only the darkness and quiet of the Adelphi that caused her to strike into it but she struck into it much as readily as if she had set out to go there, which perhaps was the case. She went straight down to the Terrace and along it and looked over the iron rail, and I often woke afterwards in my own bed with the horror of seeing her doing it. The desertion of the wharf below and the flowing of the high water there seemed to settle her purpose. She looked about as if to make out the way down, and she struck out the right way or the wrong way—I don&#039;t know which, for I don&#039;t know the place before or since—and I followed her the way she went. It was noticeable that all this time she never once looked back. But there was now a great change in the manner of her going, and instead of going at a steady quick walk with her arms folded before her,—among the dark dismal arches she went in a wild way with her arms opened wide, as if they were wings and she was flying to her death. We were on the wharf and she stopped. I stopped. I saw her hands at her bonnet-strings, and I rushed between her and the brink and took her round the waist with both my arms. She might have drowned me, I felt then, but she could never have got quit of me. Down to that moment my mind had been all in a maze and not half an idea had I had in it what I should say to her, but the instant I touched her it came to me like magic and I had my natural voice and my senses and even almost my breath. &quot;Mrs. Edson!&quot; I says &quot; My dear! Take care. How ever did you lose your way and stumble on a dangerous place like this? Why you must have come here by the most perplexing streets in all London. No wonder you are lost, I am sure. And this place too! Why I thought nobody ever got here, except me to order my coals and the Major in the parlours to smoke his cigar!&quot;—for I saw that blessed man close by, pretending to it. &quot;Hah—Hah—Hum!&quot; coughs the Major. &quot;And good gracious me&quot; I says, &quot;why here he is!&quot; &quot;Halloa! who goes there!&quot; says the Major in a military manner. &quot;Well!&quot; I says, &quot;if this don&#039;t beat everything! Don&#039;t yon know us Major Jackman?&quot; &quot;Halloa!&quot; says the Major. &quot;Who calls on Jemmy Jackman?&quot; (and more out of breath he was, and did it less like life, than I should have expected). &quot;Why here&#039;s Mrs. Edson Major&quot; I says, &quot;strolling out to cool her poor head which has been very bad, has missed her way and got lost, and Goodness knows where she might have got to but for me coming here to drop an order into my coal merchant&#039;s letter-box and you coming here to smoke your cigar!—And you really are not well enough my dear&quot; I says to her &quot; to be half so far from home without me.—And your arm will be very acceptable I am sure Major&quot; I says to him &quot;and I know she may lean upon it as heavy as she likes.&quot; And now we had both got her—thanks be Above!—one on each side. She was all in a cold shiver and she so continued till I laid her on her own bed, and up to the early morning she held me by the hand and moaned and moaned &quot;O wicked, wicked, wicked!&quot; But when at last I made believe to droop my head and be overpowered with a dead sleep, I heard that poor young creature give such touching and such humble thanks for being preserved from taking her own life in her madness that I thought I should have cried my eyes out on the counterpane and I knew she was safe. Being well enough to do and able to afford it, me and the Major laid our little plans next day while she was asleep worn out, and so I says to her as soon as I could do it nicely: &quot;Mrs. Edson my dear, when Mr. Edson paid me the rent for these further six months—&quot; She gave a start and I felt her large eyes look at me, but I went on with it and with my needle-work. &quot;—I can&#039;t say that I am quite sure I dated the receipt right. Could you let me look at it?&quot; She laid her frozen cold hand upon mine and she looked through me when I was forced to look up from my needlework, but I had taken the precaution of having on my spectacles. &quot;I have no receipt&quot; says she. &quot;Ah! Then he has got it&quot; I says in a careless way. &quot;It&#039;s of no great consequence. A receipt&#039;s a receipt.&quot; From that time she always had hold of my hand when I could spare it which was generally only when I read to her, for of course she and me had our bits of needlework to plod at and neither of us was very handy at those little things, though I am still rather proud of my share in them too considering. And though she took to all I read to her, I used to fancy that next to what was taught upon the Mount she took most of all to His gentle compassion for us poor women and to His young life and to how His mother was proud of him and treasured His sayings in her heart. She had a grateful look in her eyes that never never never will be out of mine until they are closed in my last sleep, and when I chanced to look at her without thinking of it I would always meet that look, and she would often offer me her trembling lip to kiss, much more like a little affectionate half-broken-hearted child than ever I can imagine any grown person. One time the trembling of this poor lip was so strong and her tears ran down so fast that I thought she was going to tell me all her woe, so I takes her two hands in mine and I says: &quot;No my dear not now, you had best not try to do it now. Wait for better times when you have got over this and are strong, and then you shall tell me whatever you will. Shall it be agreed?&quot; With our hands still joined she nodded her head many times, and she lifted my hands and put them to her lips and to her bosom. &quot;Only one word now my dear&quot; I says. &quot;Is there any one?&quot; She looked inquiringly &quot;Any one?&quot; &quot;That I can go to?&quot; She shook her head. &quot;No one that I can bring?&quot; She shook her head. &quot;No one is wanted by me my dear. Now that may be considered past and gone.&quot; Not much more than a week afterwards—for this was far on in the time of our being so together—I was bending over at her bedside with my ear down to her lips, by turns listening for her breath and looking for a sign of life in her face. At last it came in a solemn way—not in a flash but like a kind of pale faint light brought very slow to the face. She said something to me that had no sound in it, but I saw she asked me: &quot;Is this death?&quot; And I says &quot;Poor dear poor dear, I think it is.&quot; Knowing somehow that she wanted me to move her weak right hand, I took it and laid it on her breast and then folded her other hand upon it, and she prayed a good good prayer and I joined in it poor me though there were no words spoke. Then I brought the baby in its wrappers from where it lay, and I says: &quot;My dear this is sent to a childless old woman. This is for me to take care of.&quot; The trembling lip was put up towards my face for the last time, and I dearly kissed it. &quot;Yes my dear&quot; I says. &quot;Please God! Me and the Major.&quot; I don&#039;t know how to tell it right, but I saw her soul brighten and leap up, and get free and fly away in the grateful look * * * * * So this is the why and wherefore of its coming to pass my dear that we called him Jemmy, being after the Major his own godfather with Lirriper for a surname being after myself, and never was a dear child such a brightening thing in a Lodgings or such a playmate to his grandmother as Jemmy to this house and me, and always good and minding what he was told (upon the whole) and soothing for the temper and making everything pleasanter except when he grew old enough to drop his cap down Wozenham&#039;s Airy and they wouldn&#039;t hand it up to him, and being worked into a state I put on my best bonnet and gloves and parasol with the child in my hand and I says &quot;Miss Wozenham I little thought ever to have entered your house but unless my grandson&#039;s cap is instantly restored, the laws of this country regulating the property of the Subject shall at length decide betwixt yourself and me, cost what it may.&quot; With a sneer upon her face which did strike me I must say as being expressive of two keys but it may have been a mistake and if there is any doubt let Miss Wozenham have the full benefit of it as is but right, she rang the bell and she says &quot;Jane, is there a street-child&#039;s old cap down our Airy?&quot; I says &quot;Miss Wozenham before your housemaid answers that question you must allow me to inform you to your face that my grandson is not a street-child and is not in the habit of wearing old caps. In fact&quot; I says &quot;Miss Wozenham I am far from sure that my grandson&#039;s cap may not be newer than your own&quot; which was perfectly savage in me, her lace being the commonest machine-make washed and torn besides, but I had been put into a state to begin with fomented by impertinence. Miss Wozenham says red in the face &quot;Jane you heard my question, is there any child&#039;s cap down our Airy?&quot; &quot; Yes Ma&#039;am&#039;&quot; says Jane &quot;I think I did see some such rubbish a lying there.&quot; &quot;Then&quot; says Miss Wozenham&quot; let these visitors out, and then throw up that worthless article out of my premises.&quot; But here the child who had been staring at Miss Wozenham with all his eyes and more, frowns down his little eyebrows purses up his little mouth puts his chubby legs far apart turns his little dimpled fists round and round slowly over one another like a little coffee-mill, and says to her &quot;Oo impdent to mi Gran, me tut oor hi!&quot; &quot; Oh!&quot; says Miss Wozenham looking down scornfully at the Mite &quot;this is not a street-child is it not! Really!&quot; I bursts out laughing and I says &quot; Miss Wozenham if this an&#039;t a pretty sight to you I don&#039;t envy your feelings and I wish you good day. Jemmy come along with Gran.&quot; And I was still in the best of humours though his cap came flying up into the street as if it had been just turned on out of the water-plug, and I went home laughing all the way, all owing to that dear boy. The miles and miles that me and the Major have travelled with Jemmy in the dusk between the lights are not to be calculated, Jemmy driving on the coach-box which is the Major&#039;s brass-bound writing-desk on the table, me inside in the easy-chair and the Major Guard up behind with a brown-paper horn doing it really wonderful. I do assure you my dear that sometimes when I have taken a few winks in my place inside the coach and have come half awake by the flashing light of the fire and have heard that precious pet driving and the Major blowing up behind to have the change of horses ready when we got to the Inn, I have half believed we were on the old North Road that my poor Lirriper knew so well. Then to see that child and the Major both wrapped up getting down to warm their feet and going stamping about and having glasses of ale out of the paper match-boxes on the chimney-piece is to see the Major enjoying it fully as much as the child I am very sure, and it&#039;s equal to any play when Coachee opens the coach-door to look in at me inside and say &quot;Wery &#039;past that &#039;tage. &#039;Prightened old lady?&quot; But what my inexpressible feelings were when we lost that child can only be compared to the Major&#039;s which were not a shade better, through his straying out at five years old and eleven o&#039;clock in the forenoon and never heard of by word or sign or deed till half-past nine at night, when the Major had gone to the Editor of the Times newspaper to put in an advertisement, which came out next day four and twenty hours after he was found, and which I mean always carefully to keep in my lavender drawer as the first printed account of him. The more the day got on, the more I got distracted and the Major too and both of us made worse by the composed ways of the police though very civil and obliging and what I must call their obstinacy in not entertaining the idea that he was stolen. &quot;We mostly find Mum&quot; says the sergeant who came round to comfort me, which he didn&#039;t at all and he had been one of the private constables in Caroline&#039;s time to which he referred in his opening words when he said &quot;Don&#039;t give way to uneasiness in your mind Mum, it&#039;ll all come as right as my nose did when I got the same barked by that young woman in your second floor&quot;—says this sergeant &quot;we mostly find Mum as people ain&#039;t over anxious to have what I may call second-hand children. You&#039;ll get him back Mum.&quot; &quot;O but my dear good sir&quot; I says clasping my hands and wringing them and clasping them again &quot;he is such an uncommon child!&quot; &quot;Yes Mum&quot; says the sergeant, &quot;we mostly find that too Mum. The question is what his clothes were worth.&quot; &quot;His clothes&quot; I says &quot;were not worth much sir for he had only got his playing-dress on, but the dear child!—&quot; &quot;All right Mum&quot; says the sergeant. &quot;You&#039;ll get him back, Mum. And even if he&#039;d had his best clothes on, it wouldn&#039;t come to worse than his being found wrapped up in a cabbage-leaf, a shivering in a lane.&quot; His words pierced my heart like daggers and daggers, and me and the Major ran in and out like wild things all day long till the Major returning from his interview with the Editor of the Times at night rushes into my little room hysterical and squeezes my hand and wipes his eyes and says &quot; Joy joy—officer in plain clothes came up on the steps as I was letting myself in—compose your feelings—Jemmy&#039;s found.&quot; Consequently I fainted away and when I came to, embraced the legs of the officer in plain clothes who seemed to be taking a kind of a quiet inventory in his mind of the property in my little room with brown whiskers, and I says &quot; Blessings on you sir where is the Darling!&quot; and he says &quot;In Kennington Station House.&quot; I was dropping at his feet Stone at the image of that Innocence in cells with murderers when he adds &quot;He followed the Monkey.&quot; I says deeming it slang language &quot;Oh sir explain for a loving grandmother what Monkey!&quot; He says &quot;him in the spangled cap with the strap under the chin, as won&#039;t keep on—him as sweeps the crossings on a round table and don&#039;t want to draw his sabre more than he can help.&quot; Then I understood it all and most thankfully thanked him, and me and the Major and him drove over to Kennington and there we found our boy lying quite comfortable before a blazing fire having sweetly played himself to sleep upon a small accordion nothing like so big as a flat iron which they had been so kind as to lend him for the purpose and which it appeared had been stopped upon a very young person. My dear the system upon which the Major commenced and as I may say perfected Jemmy&#039;s learning when he was so small that if the dear was on the other side of the table you had to look under it instead of over it to see him with his mother&#039;s own bright hair in beautiful curls, is a thing that ought to be known to the Throne and Lords and Commons and then might obtain some promotion for the Major which he well deserves and would be none the worse for (speaking between friends) L. S. D.-ically. When the Major first undertook his learning he says to me: &quot;I&#039;m going Madam.&quot; he says &quot; to make our child a Calculating Boy.&quot; &quot;Major&quot; I says, &quot;you terrify me and may do the pet a permanent injury you would never forgive yourself.&quot; &quot;Madam,&quot; says the Major, &quot;next to my regret that when I had my boot-sponge in my hand, I didn&#039;t choke that scoundrel with it—on the spot—&quot; &quot;There! For Gracious sake,&quot; I interrupts, &quot;let his conscience find him without sponges.&quot; &quot;I say next to that regret, Madam,&quot; says the Major &quot;would be the regret with which my breast,&quot; which he tapped, &quot;would be surcharged if this fine mind was not early cultivated. But mark me Madam,&quot; says the Major holding up his forefinger &quot;cultivated on a principle that will make it a delight.&quot; &quot;Major&quot; I says &quot;I will be candid with you and tell you openly that if ever I find the dear child fall off in his appetite I shall know it is his calculations and shall put a stop to them at two minutes&#039; notice. Or if I find them mounting to his head&quot; I says, &quot;or striking any ways cold to his stomach or leading to anything approaching flabbiness in his legs, the result will be the same, but Major you are a clever man and have seen much and you love the child and are his own godfather, and if you feel a confidence in trying try.&quot; &quot;Spoken Madam&quot; says the Major &quot;like Emma Lirriper. All I have to ask Madam, is, that you will leave my godson and myself to make a week or two&#039;s preparations for surprising you, and that you will give me leave to have up and down any small articles not actually in use that I may require from the kitchen.&quot; &quot;From the kitchen Major?&quot; I says half feeling as if he had a mind to cook the child. &quot;From the kitchen&quot; says the Major, and smiles and swells, and at the same time looks taller. So I passed my word and the Major and the dear boy were shut up together for half an hour at a time through a certain while, and never could I hear anything going on betwixt them but talking and laughing and Jemmy clapping his hands and screaming out numbers, so I says to myself &quot;it has not harmed him yet&quot; nor could I on examining the dear find any signs of it anywhere about him which was likewise a great relief. At last one day Jemmy brings me a card in joke in the Major&#039;s neat writing &quot;The Messrs. Jemmy Jackman&quot; for we had given him the Major&#039;s other name too &quot;request the honour of Mrs. Lirriper&#039;s company at the Jackman Institution in the front parlour this evening at five, military time, to witness a few slight feats of elementary arithmetic.&quot; And if you&#039;ll believe me there in the front parlour at five punctual to the moment was the Major behind the Pembroke table with both leaves up and a lot of things from the kitchen tidily set out on old newspapers spread atop of it, and there was the Mite stood up on a chair with his rosy cheeks flushing and his eyes sparkling clusters of diamonds. &quot;Now Gran&quot; says he, &quot;oo tit down and don&#039;t oo touch ler poople&quot;—for he saw with every one of those diamonds of his that I was going to give him a squeeze. &quot;Very well sir&quot; I says &quot;I am obedient in this good company I am sure.&quot; And I sits down in the easy-chair that was put for me, shaking my sides. But picture my admiration when the Major going on almost as quick as if he was conjuring sets out all the articles he names, and says, &quot;Three saucepans, an Italian iron, a hand-bell, a toasting-fork, a nutmeg-grater, four pot-lids, a spice-box, two egg-cups, and a chopping-board—how many?&quot; and when that Mite instantly cries &quot;Tifteen, tut down tive and carry ler &#039;toppin-board&quot; and then claps his hands draws up his legs and dances on his chair! My dear with the same astonishing ease and correctness him and the Major added up the tables chairs and sofy, the picters fender and fire-irons their own selves me and the cat and the eyes in Miss Wozenham&#039;s head, and whenever the sum was done Young Roses and Diamonds claps his hands and draws up his legs and dances on his chair. The pride of the Major! (&quot;Here&#039;s a mind Ma&#039;am!&quot; he says to me behind his hand.) Then he says aloud, &quot;We now come to the next elementary rule: which is called—&quot; &quot;Umtraction!&quot; cries Jemmy. &quot;Right&quot; says the Major. &quot;We have here a toasting-fork, a potato in its natural state, two pot-lids, one egg-cup, a wooden spoon, and two skewers, from which it is necessary for commercial purposes to subtract a sprat-gridiron, a small pickle-jar, two lemons, one pepper-castor, a blackbeetle-trap, and a knob of the dresser-drawer what remains?&quot; &quot;Toatin-fork!&quot; cries Jemmy. &quot;In numbers how many?&quot; says the Major. &quot;One!&quot; cries Jemmy. (&quot;Here&#039;s a boy, Ma&#039;am?&quot; says the Major to me, behind his hand.) Then the Major goes on: &quot;We now approach the next elementary rule: which is entitled—&quot; &quot;Tickleication&quot; cries Jemmy. &quot;Correct&quot; says the Major. But my dear to relate to you in detail the way in which they multiplied fourteen sticks of fire-wood by two bits of ginger and a larding-needle, or divided pretty well everything else there was on the table by the heater of the Italian iron and a chamber candlestick, and got a lemon over, would make my head spin round and round and round as it did at the time. So I says &quot;if you&#039;ll excuse my addressing the chair Professor Jackman I think the period of the lecture has now arrived when it becomes necessary that I should take a good hug of this young scholar.&quot; Upon which Jemmy calls out from his station on the chair &quot;Gran oo open oor arms and me&#039;ll make a &#039;pring into &#039;em.&quot; So I opened my arms to him as I had opened my sorrowful heart when his poor young mother lay a dying, and he had his jump and we had a good long hug together and the Major prouder than any peacock says to me behind his hand, &quot;You need not let him know it Madam&quot; (which I certainly need not for the Major was quite audible) &quot;but he is a boy!&quot; In this way Jemmy grew and grew and went to day-school and continued under the Major too, and in summer we were as happy as the days were long and in winter we were as happy as the days were short and there seemed to rest a Blessing on the Lodgings for they as good as Let themselves and would have done it if there had been twice the accommodation, when sore and hard against my will I one day says to the Major &quot;Major you know what I am going to break to you. Our boy must go to boarding-school.&quot; It was a sad sight to see the Major&#039;s countenance drop, and I pitied the good soul with all my heart. &quot;Yes Major&quot; I says &quot; though he is as popular with the Lodgers as you are yourself and though he is to you and me what only you and me know, still it is in the course of things and Life is made of partings and we must part with our Pet.&quot; Bold as I spoke, I saw two Majors and half a dozen fireplaces, and when the poor Major put one of his neat bright-varnished boots upon the fender and his elbow on his knee and his head upon his hand and rocked himself a little to and fro, I was dreadfully cut up. &quot;But&quot; says I clearing my throat &quot;you have so well prepared him Major—he has had such a Tutor in you—that he will have none of the first drudgery to go through. And he is so clever besides that he&#039;ll soon make his way to the front rank.&quot; &quot;He is a boy&quot; says the Major—having sniffed—&quot;that has not his like on the face of the earth.&quot; &quot;True as you say Major, and it is not for us merely for our own sakes to do anything to keep him back from being a credit and an ornament wherever he goes and perhaps even rising to be a great man, is it Major? He will have all my little savings when my work is done (being all the world to me) and we must try to make him a wise man and a good man, mustn&#039;t we Major?&quot; &#039;&#039;Madam&quot; says the Major rising &quot;Jemmy Jackman is becoming an older file than I was aware of, and you put him to shame. You are thoroughly right Madam. You are simply and undeniably right—And if you&#039;ll excuse me, I&#039;ll take a walk.&quot; So the Major being gone out and Jemmy being at home, I got the child into my little room here and I stood him by my chair and I took his mother&#039;s own curls in my hand and I spoke to him loving and serious. And when I had reminded the darling how that he was now in his tenth year and when I had said to him about his getting on in life pretty much what I had said to the Major I broke to him how that we must have this same parting, and there I was forced to stop for there I saw of a sudden the well remembered lip with its tremble, and it so brought back that time! But with the spirit that was in him he controlled it soon and he says gravely nodding through his tears, &quot;I understand Gran—I know it must be, Gran—go on Gran, don&#039;t be afraid of me.&quot; And when I had said all that ever I could think of, he turned his bright steady face to mine and he says just a little broken here and there &quot;You shall see Gran that I can be a man and that I can do anything that is grateful and loving to you—and if I don&#039;t grow up to be what you would like to have me—I hope it will be—because I shall die.&quot; And with that he sat down by me and I went on to tell him of the school of which I had excellent recommendations and where it was and how many scholars and what games they played as I had heard and what length of holidays, to all of which he listened bright and clear. And so it came that at last he says &quot; And now dear Gran let me kneel down here where I have been used to say my prayers and let me fold my face for just a minute in your gown and let me cry, for you have been more than father—more than mother—more than brothers sisters friends—to me!&quot; And so he did cry and I too and we were both much the better for it. From that time forth he was true to his word and ever blithe and ready, and even when me and the Major took him down into Lincolnshire he was far the gayest of the party though for sure and certain he might easily have been that, but he really was and put life into us only when it came to the last Good-by, he says with a wistful look &quot;You wouldn&#039;t have me not really sorry would you Gran?&quot; and when I says &quot; No dear, Lord forbid!&quot; he says &quot; I am glad of that!&quot; and ran in out of sight. But now that the child was gone out of the Lodgings the Major fell into a regularly moping state. It was taken notice of by all the Lodgers that the Major moped. He hadn&#039;t even the same air of being rather tall that he used to have, and if he varnished his boots with a single gleam of interest it was as much as he did. One evening the Major came into my little room to take a cup of tea and a morsel of buttered toast and to read Jemmy&#039;s newest letter which had arrived that afternoon (by the very same postman more than middle-aged upon the Beat now), and the letter raising him up a little I says to the Major: &quot;Major you mustn&#039;t get into a moping way.&quot; The Major shook his head. &quot;Jemmy Jackman Madam,&quot; he says with a deep sigh, &quot; is an older file than I thought him.&quot; &quot;Moping is not the way to grow younger Major.&quot; &quot;My dear Madam,&quot; says the Major, &quot;is there any way of growing younger?&quot; Feeling that the Major was getting rather the best of that point I made a diversion to another. &quot;Thirteen years! Thir-teen years! Many Lodgers have come and gone, in the thirteen years that you have lived in the parlours Major.&quot; &quot;Hah!&quot; says the Major warming. &quot;Many Madam, many.&quot; &quot;And I should say you have been familiar with them all?&quot; &quot;As a rule (with its exceptions like all rules) my dear Madam&quot; says the Major, &quot; they have honoured me with their acquaintance, and not infrequently with their confidence.&quot; Watching the Major as he drooped his white head and stroked his black moustachios and moped again, a thought which I think must have been going about looking for an owner somewhere dropped into my old noddle if you will excuse the expression. &quot;The walls of my Lodgings&quot; I says in a casual way—for my dear it is of no use going straight at a man who mopes—&quot; might have something to tell, if they could tell it.&quot; The Major neither moved nor said anything but I saw he was attending with his shoulders my dear—attending with his shoulders to what I said. In fact I saw that his shoulders were struck by it. &quot;The dear boy was always fond of story-books&quot; I went on, like as if I was talking to myself. &quot; I am sure this house—his own home—might write a story or two for his reading one day or another.&quot; The Major&#039;s shoulders gave a dip and a curve and his head came up in his shirt-collar. The Major&#039;s head came up in his shirt-collar as I hadn&#039;t seen it come up since Jemmy went to school. &quot;It is unquestionable that in intervals of cribbage and a friendly rubber, my dear Madam,&quot; says the Major, &quot;and also over what used to be called in my young times—in the salad days of Jemmy Jackman—the social glass, I have exchanged many a reminiscence with your Lodgers.&quot; My remark was—I confess I made it with the deepest and artfullest of intentions—&quot;I wish our dear boy had heard them!&quot; &quot;Are you serious Madam?&quot; asks the Major starting and turning full round. &quot;Why not Major?&quot; &quot;Madam&quot; says the Major, turning up one of his cuffs, &quot;they shall be written for him.&quot; &quot;Ah! Now you speak&quot; I says giving my hands a pleased clap. &quot;Now you are in a way out of moping Major!&quot; &quot;Between this and my holidays—I mean the dear boy&#039;s&quot; says the Major turning up his other cuff, &quot;a good deal may be done towards it.&quot; &quot;Major you are a clever man and you have seen much and not a doubt of it.&quot; &quot;I&#039;ll begin,&quot; says the Major looking as tall as ever he did, &quot;to-morrow.&quot; My dear the Major was another man in three days and he was himself again in a week and he wrote and wrote and wrote with his pen scratching like rats behind the wainscot, and whether he had many grounds to go upon or whether he did at all romance I cannot tell you, but what he has written is in the left-hand glass closet of the little bookcase close behind you, and if you&#039;ll put your hand in you&#039;ll find it come out heavy in lumps sewn together and being beautifully plain and unknown Greek and Hebrew to myself and me quite wakeful, I shall take it as a favour if you&#039;ll read out loud and read on. I have the honour of presenting myself by the name of Jackman. I esteem it a proud privilege to go down to posterity through the instrumentality of the most remarkable boy that ever lived—by the name of JEMMY JACKMAN LIRRIPER—and of my most worthy and most highly respected friend, Mrs. Emma Lirriper, of Eighty-one, Norfolk-street, Strand, in the County of Middlesex, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is not for me to express the rapture with which we received that dear and eminently remarkable boy, on the occurrence of his first Christmas holidays. Suffice it to observe that when he came flying into the house with two splendid prizes (Arithmetic, and Exemplary Conduct), Mrs. Lirriper and myself embraced with emotion, and instantly took him to the Play, where we were all three admirably entertained. Nor, is it to render homage to the virtues of the best of her good and honoured sex—whom, in deference to her unassuming worth, I will only here designate by the initials E. L.—that I add this record to the bundle of papers with which our, in a most distinguished degree, remarkable boy has expressed himself delighted, before re-consigning the same to the left-hand glass closet of Mrs. Lirriper&#039;s little bookcase. Neither, is it to obtrude the name of the old original superannuated obscure Jemmy Jackman, once (to his degradation) of Wozenham&#039;s, long (to his elevation) of Lirriper&#039;s. If I could be consciously guilty of that piece of bad taste, it would indeed be a work of supererogation, now that the name is borne by JEMMY JACKMAN LIRRIPER. No. I take up my humble pen to register a little record of our strikingly remarkable boy, which my poor capacity regards as presenting a pleasant little picture of the dear boy&#039;s mind. The picture may be interesting to himself when he is a man. Our first re-united Christmas-day was the most delightful one we have ever passed together. Jemmy was never silent for five minutes, except in church-time. He talked as we sat by the fire, he talked when we were out walking, he talked as we sat by the fire again, he talked incessantly at dinner, though he made a dinner almost as remarkable as himself. It was the spring of happiness in his fresh young heart flowing and flowing, and it fertilised (if I may be allowed so bold a figure) my much-esteemed friend, and J— J—the present writer. There were only we three. We dined in my esteemed friend&#039;s little room, and our entertainment was perfect. But everything in the establishment is, in neatness, order, and comfort, always perfect. After dinner, our boy slipt away to his old stool at my esteemed friend&#039;s knee, and there, with his hot chesnuts and his glass of brown sherry (really, a most excellent wine!) on a chair for a table, his face outshone the apples in the dish. We talked of these jottings of mine, which Jemmy had read through and through by that time; and so it came about that my esteemed friend remarked, as she sat smoothing Jemmy&#039;s curls: &quot;And as you belong to the house too, Jemmy, —and so much more than the Lodgers, having been born in it—why, your story ought to be added to the rest, I think, one of these days.&quot; Jemmy&#039;s eye sparkled at this, and he said, &quot;So I think, Gran.&quot; Then, he sat looking at the fire, and then he began to laugh, in a sort of confidence with the fire, and then he said, folding his arms across my esteemed friend&#039;s lap and raising his bright face to hers: &quot;Would you like to hear a boy&#039;s story, Gran?&quot; &quot;Of all things,&quot; replied my esteemed friend. &quot;Would you, godfather?&quot; &quot;Of all things,&quot; I too replied. &quot;Well then,&quot; said Jemmy, &quot; I&#039;ll tell you one.&quot; Here, our indisputably remarkable boy gave himself a hug, and laughed again, musically, at the idea of his coming out in that new line. Then, he once more took the fire into the same sort of confidence as before, and began: &quot;Once upon a time, When pigs drank wine, And monkeys chewed tobaccer, &#039;Twas neither in your time nor mine, But that&#039;s no macker—&quot; &quot;Bless the child!&quot; cried my esteemed friend, &quot;what&#039;s amiss with his brain&#039;!&quot; &quot;It&#039;s poetry, Gran,&quot; returned Jemmy, shouting with laughter. &quot;We always begin stories that way, at school.&quot; &quot;Gave me quite a turn, Major,&quot; said my esteemed friend, fanning herself with a plate. &quot;Thought he was light-headed!&quot; &quot;In those remarkable times, Gran and God- father, there was once a boy;—not me, you know.&quot; &quot;No, no,&quot; says my respected friend, &quot;not you. Not him, Major, you understand?&quot; &quot;No, no,&quot; says I. &quot;And he went to school in Rutlandshire&quot; &quot;Why not Lincolnshire?&quot; says my respected friend. &quot;Why not, you dear old Gran? Because I go to school in Lincolnshire, don&#039;t I?&quot; &quot;Ah, to be sure!&quot; says my respected friend. &quot;And it&#039;s not Jemmy, you understand, Major?&quot; &quot;No, no,&quot; says I. &quot;Well!&quot; our boy proceeded, hugging himself comfortably, and laughing merrily (again in confidence with the fire), before he again looked up in Mrs. Lirriper&#039;s face, &quot;and so he was tremendously in love with his schoolmaster&#039;s daughter, and she was the most beautiful creature that ever was seen, and she had brown eyes, and she had brown hair all curling beautifully, and she had a delicious voice, and she was delicious altogether, and her name was Seraphina.&quot; &quot;What&#039;s the name of your schoolmaster&#039;s daughter, Jemmy?&quot; asks my respected friend. &quot;Polly!&quot; replied Jemmy, pointing his forefinger at her. &quot;There now! Caught you! Ha! ha! ha!&quot; When he and my respected friend had had a laugh and a hug together, our admittedly remarkable boy resumed with a great relish: &quot;Well! And so he loved her. And so he thought about her, and dreamed about her, and made her presents of oranges and nuts, and would have made her presents of pearls and diamonds if he could have afforded it out of his pocket-money, but he couldn&#039;t. And so her father—O, he WAS a Tartar! Keeping the boys up to the mark, holding examinations once a month, lecturing upon all sorts of subjects at all sorts of times, and knowing everything in the world out of book. And so this boy—&quot; &quot;Had he any name?&quot; asks my respected friend. &quot;No he hadn&#039;t, Gran. Ha! ha! There now! Caught you again!&quot; After this, they had another laugh and another hug, and then our boy went on. &quot;Well! And so this boy he had a friend about as old as himself, at the same school, and his name (for He had a name, as it happened) was—let me remember—was Bobbo.&quot; &quot;Not Bob,&quot; says my respected friend. &quot;Of course not,&quot; says Jemmy. &quot; What made you think it was, Gran? Well! And so this friend was the cleverest and bravest and best looking and most generous of all the friends that ever were, and so he was in love with Seraphina&#039;s sister, and so Seraphina&#039;s sister was in love with him, and so they all grew up.&quot; &quot;Bless us!&quot; says my respected friend. &quot;They were very sudden about it.&quot; &quot;So they all grew up,&quot; our boy repeated, laughing heartily, &quot;and Bobbo and this boy went away together on horseback to seek their fortunes, and they partly got their horses by favour, and partly in a bargain; that is to say, they had saved up between them seven-and-fourpence, and the two horses, being Arabs, were worth more, only the man said he would take that, to favour them. Well! And so they made their fortunes and came prancing back to the school, with their pockets full of gold enough to last for ever. And so they rang at the parents&#039; and visitors&#039; bell (not the back gate), and when the bell was answered they proclaimed, &#039;The same as if it was scarlet fever! Every boy goes home for an indefinite period!&#039; And then there was great hurrahing, and then they kissed Seraphina and her sister—each his own love and not the other&#039;s on any account—and then they ordered the Tartar into instant confinement.&quot; &quot;Poor man!&quot; said my respected friend. &quot;Into instant confinement, Gran,&quot; repeated Jemmy, trying to look severe and roaring with laughter, &quot;and he was to have nothing to eat but the boys&#039; dinners, and was to drink half a cask of their beer, every day. And so then the preparations were made for the two weddings, and there were hampers, and potted things, and sweet things, and nuts, and postage-stamps, and all manner of things. And so they were so jolly, that they let the Tartar out, and he was jolly too.&quot; &quot;I am glad they let him out,&quot; says my respected friend, &quot;because he had only done his duty.&quot; &quot;Oh but hadn&#039;t he overdone it though!&quot; cried Jemmy. &quot; Well! And so then this boy mounted his horse, with his bride in his arms, and cantered away, and cantered on and on till he came to a certain place where he had a certain Gran and a certain godfather—not you two, you know.&quot; &quot;No, no,&quot; we both said. &quot;And there he was received with great rejoicings, and he filled the cupboard and the bookcase with gold, and he showered it out on his Gran and his godfather because they were the two kindest and dearest people that ever lived in this world. And so while they were sitting up to their knees in gold, a knocking was heard at the street door, and who should it be but Bobbo, also on horseback with his bride in his arms, and what had he come to say but that he would take (at double rent) all the Lodgings for ever, that were not wanted by this boy and this Gran and this godfather, and that they would all live together, and all be happy! And so they were, and so it never ended!&quot; &quot;And was there no quarrelling?&quot; asked my respected friend, as Jemmy sat upon her lap, and hugged her. &quot;No! Nobody ever quarrelled.&quot; &quot;And did the money never melt away?&quot; &quot;No! Nobody could ever spend it all.&quot; &quot;And did none of them ever grow older?&quot; &quot;No! Nobody ever grew older after that.&quot; &quot;And did none of them ever die?&quot; &quot;O no, no, no, Gran!&quot; exclaimed our dear boy, laying his cheek upon her breast, and drawing her closer to him. &quot;Nobody ever died.&quot; &quot;Ah Major, Major,&quot; says my respected friend, smiling benignly upon me. &quot;This beats our stories. Let us end with the Boy&#039;s story, Major, for the Boy&#039;s story is the best that is ever told!&quot; In submission to which request on the part of the best of women, I have here noted it down as faithfully as my best abilities, coupled with my best intentions, would admit, subscribing it with my name, J. JACKMAN. THE PARLOURS. MRS. LIRRIPER&#039;S LODGINGS.18631225https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Mrs._Lirriper_s_Lodgings_[1863_Christmas_Number]/1863-12-25-Mrs_Lirripers_Lodgings.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Mrs._Lirriper_s_Lodgings_[1863_Christmas_Number]/1863-12-25-How_Mrs_Lirriper_carried_on_the_Business.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Mrs._Lirriper_s_Lodgings_[1863_Christmas_Number]/1863-12-25-How_the_Parlours_added_a_few_words.pdf
205https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/205<em>Mugby Junction </em>(1866 Christmas Number)<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>All the Year Round</em><span>, Vol. XVI, Extra Christmas Number, 10 December 1866, pp. 1-48.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xvi/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xvi/page-573.html</a>.*<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xvi/page-582.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xvi/page-582.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xvi/page-589.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xvi/page-589.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xvi/page-592.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xvi/page-592.html</a><span>.</span><br /><br />*DJO is lacking pp. 41-42. Eventually, these pages will be added to the scan on <em>Dickens Search.</em><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1866-12-10">1866-12-10</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cul%3E%0D%0A%3Cli%3E%3Cstrong%3ECharles+Dickens.+%27Barbox+Brothers%27+%28No.1%29%2C+pp.+1-10.%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fli%3E%0D%0A%3Cli%3E%3Cstrong%3ECharles+Dickens.+%27Barbox+Brothers+and+Co.%27+%28No.2%29%2C+pp.+10-16.%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fli%3E%0D%0A%3Cli%3E%3Cstrong%3ECharles+Dickens.+%27Main+Line.+The+Boy+at+Mugby%27+%28No.3%29%2C+pp.+17-20.%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fli%3E%0D%0A%3Cli%3E%3Cstrong%3ECharles+Dickens%2C+%27No.+1+Branch+Line.+The+Signalman%27+%28No.4%29%2C+pp.+20-25.%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3C%2Fli%3E%0D%0A%3Cli%3EAndrew+Halliday.+%27No.+2+Branch+Line.+The+Engine-Driver%27+%28No.5%29%2C+pp.+25-28.%3C%2Fli%3E%0D%0A%3Cli%3ECharles+Allston+Collins.+%27No.+3+Branch+Line.+The+Compensation+House%27+%28No.6%29%2C+pp.+28-35.%3C%2Fli%3E%0D%0A%3Cli%3EHesba+Stretton.+%27No.+4+Branch+Line.+The+Travelling+Post-Office%27+%28No.7%29%2C+pp.+35-42.%3C%2Fli%3E%0D%0A%3Cli%3EAmelia+B.+Edwards.+%27No.+5+Branch+Line.+The+Engineer%27+%28No.8%29%2C+pp.+42-48.%3C%2Fli%3E%0D%0A%3C%2Ful%3E"><ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'Barbox Brothers' (No.1), pp. 1-10.</strong></li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'Barbox Brothers and Co.' (No.2), pp. 10-16.</strong></li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'Main Line. The Boy at Mugby' (No.3), pp. 17-20.</strong></li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens, 'No. 1 Branch Line. The Signalman' (No.4), pp. 20-25.</strong></li> <li>Andrew Halliday. 'No. 2 Branch Line. The Engine-Driver' (No.5), pp. 25-28.</li> <li>Charles Allston Collins. 'No. 3 Branch Line. The Compensation House' (No.6), pp. 28-35.</li> <li>Hesba Stretton. 'No. 4 Branch Line. The Travelling Post-Office' (No.7), pp. 35-42.</li> <li>Amelia B. Edwards. 'No. 5 Branch Line. The Engineer' (No.8), pp. 42-48.</li> </ul></a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1866-12-10-Mugby_Junction<span>Dickens, Charles et. al. <em>Mugby Junction</em> (10 December 1866). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1866-12-10-Mugby_Junction" title="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1866-12-10-Mugby_Junction">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1866-12-</a></span><a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1866-12-10-Mugby_Junction" title="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1866-12-10-Mugby_Junction">10-Mugby_Junction</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>&quot;Guard! What place is this?&quot; &quot;Mugby Junction, sir.&quot; &quot;A windy place!&quot; &quot;Yes, it mostly is, sir.&quot; &quot;And looks comfortless indeed!&quot; &quot;Yes, it generally does, sir.&quot; &quot;Is it a rainy night still?&quot; &quot;Pours, sir.&quot; &quot;Open the door. I&#039;ll get out.&quot; &quot;You&#039;ll have, sir,&quot; said the guard, glistening with drops of wet, and looking at the tearful face of his watch by the light of his lantern as the traveller descended, &quot;three minutes here.&quot; &quot;More, I think.— For I am not going on.&quot; &quot;Thought you had a through ticket, sir?&quot; &quot;So I have, but I shall sacrifice the rest of it. I want my luggage.&quot; &quot;Please to come to the van and point it out sir. Be good enough to look very sharp, sir. Not a moment to spare.&quot; The guard hurried to the luggage van, and the traveller hurried after him. The guard got into it, and the traveller looked into it. &quot;Those two large black portmanteaus in the corner where your light shines. Those are mine.&quot; &quot;Name upon &#039;em, sir?&quot; &quot;Barbox Brothers.&quot; &quot;Stand clear, sir, if you please. One. Two Right!&quot; Lamp waved. Signal lights ahead already changing. Shriek from engine. Train gone. &quot;Mugby Junction!&quot; said the traveller, pulling up the woollen muffler round his throat with both hands. &quot;At past three o&#039;clock of a tempestuous morning! So!&quot; He spoke to himself. There was no one else to speak to. Perhaps, though there had been any one else to speak to, he would have preferred to speak to himself. Speaking to himself, he spoke to a man within five years of fifty either way, who had turned grey too soon, like a neglected fire; a man of pondering habit, brooding carriage of the head, and suppressed internal voice; a man with many indications on him of having been much alone. He stood unnoticed on the dreary platform, except by the rain and by the wind. Those two vigilant assailants made a rush at him. &quot;Very well,&quot; said he, yielding. &quot;It signifies nothing to me, to what quarter I turn my face.&quot; Thus, at Mugby Junction, at past three o&#039;clock of a tempestuous morning, the traveller went where the weather drove him. Not but what he could make a stand when he was so minded, for, coming to the end of the roofed shelter (it is of considerable extent at Mugby Junction) and looking out upon the dark night, with a yet darker spirit-wing of storm beating its wild way through it, he faced about, and held his own as ruggedly in the difficult direction, as he had held it in the easier one. Thus, with a steady step, the traveller went up and down, up and down, up and down, seeking nothing, and finding it. A place replete with shadowy shapes, this Mugby Junction in the black hours of the four-and-twenty. Mysterious goods trains, covered with palls and gliding on like vast weird funerals, conveying themselves guiltily away from the presence of the few lighted lamps, as if their freight had come to a secret and unlawful end. Half miles of coal pursuing in a Detective manner, following when they lead, stopping when they stop, backing when they back. Red hot embers showering out upon the ground, down this dark avenue, and down the other, as if torturing fires were being raked clear; concurrently, shrieks and groans and grinds invading the ear, as if the tortured were at the height of their suffering. Iron-barred cages full of cattle jangling by midway, the drooping beasts with horns entangled, eyes frozen with terror, and mouths too: at least they have long icicles (or what seem so) hanging from from their lips. Unknown languages in the air, conspiring in red, green, and white, characters. An earthquake accompanied with thunder and lightning, going up express to London. Now, all quiet, all rusty, wind and rain in possession, lamps extinguished, Mugby Junction dead and indistinct, with its robe drawn over its head, like Caesar. Now, too, as the belated traveller plodded up and down, a shadowy train went by him in the gloom which was no other than the train of a life. From whatsoever intangible deep cutting or dark tunnel it emerged, here it came, unsumrnoned and unannounced, stealing upon him and passing away into obscurity. Here, mournfully went by, a child who had. never had a childhood or known a parent, inseparable from a youth with a bitter sense of his namelessness, coupled to a man the enforced business of whose best years had been distasteful and oppressive, linked to an ungrateful friend, dragging after him a woman once beloved. Attendant, with many a clank and wrench, were lumbering cares, dark meditations, huge dim disappointments, monotonous years, a long jarring line of the discords of a solitary and unhappy existence. &quot;—Yours, sir?&quot; The traveller recalled his eyes from the waste into which they had been staring, and fell back a step or so under the abruptness, and perhaps the chance appropriateness, of the question. &quot;O! My thoughts were not here for the moment. Yes. Yes. Those two portmanteaus are mine. Are you a Porter?&quot; &quot;On Porter&#039;s wages, sir. But I am Lamps.&quot; The traveller looked a little confused. &quot;Who did you say you are?&quot; &quot;Lamps, sir,&quot; showing an oily cloth in his hand, as further explanation. &quot;Surely, surely. Is there any hotel or tavern here?&quot; &quot;Not exactly here, sir. There is a Refreshment Room here, but—&quot; Lamps, with a mighty serious look, gave his head a warning roll that plainly added—&quot;but it&#039;s a blessed circumstance for you that it&#039;s not open.&quot; &quot;You couldn&#039;t recommend it, I see, if it was available?&quot; &quot;Ask your pardon, sir. If it was—?&quot; &quot;Open?&quot; &quot;It ain&#039;t my place, as a paid servant of the company to give my opinion on any of the company&#039;s toepics,&quot; he pronounced it more like toothpicks, &quot;beyond lamp-ile and cottons,&quot; returned Lamps, in a confidential tone; &quot;but speaking as a man, I wouldn&#039;t recommend my father (if he was to come to life again) to go and try how he&#039;d be treated at the Refreshment Room. Not speaking as a man, no, I would not.&quot; The traveller nodded conviction. &quot;I suppose I can put up in the town? There is a town here?&quot; For the traveller (though a-stay-at-home compared with most travellers) had been like many others, carried on the steam winds and the iron tides through that Junction before, without having ever, as one might gone ashore there. &quot;O yes, there&#039;s a town, sir. Anyways there&#039;s town enough to put up in. But,&quot; following the glance of the other at his luggage, &quot;this is a very dead time of the night with us, sir. The deadest, time. I might a&#039;most call it our deadest and buriedest time.&quot; &quot;No porters about?&quot; &quot;Well, sir, you see,&quot; returned Lamps, confidential again, &quot;they in general goes off with the gas. That&#039;s how it is. And they seem to have overlooked you, through your walking to the furder end of the platform. But in about twelve minutes or so, she may be up.&quot; &quot;Who may be up?&quot; &quot;The three forty-two, sir. She goes off in a sidin&#039; till the Up X passes, and then she,&quot; here an air of hopeful vagueness pervaded Lamps, &quot;doos all as lays in her power.&quot; &quot;I doubt if I comprehend the arrangement.&quot; &quot;I doubt if anybody do, sir. She&#039;s a Parliamentary, sir. And, you see, a Parliamentary, or a Skirmishun—&quot; &quot;Do you mean an Excursion?&quot; &quot;That&#039;s it, sir.— A Parliamentary or a Skirmishun, she mostly doos go off into a sidin&#039;. But when she can get a chance, she&#039;s whistled out of it, and she&#039;s whistled up into doin&#039; all as,&quot; Lamps again wore the air of a highly sanguine man who hoped for the best, &quot;all as lays in her power.&quot; He then explained that porters on duty being required to be in attendance on the Parliamentary matron in question, would doubtless turn up with the gas. In the mean time, if the gentleman would not very much object to the smell of lamp-oil, and would accept the warmth of his little room.— The gentleman being by this time very cold, instantly closed with the proposal. A greasy little cabin it was, suggestive to the sense of smell, of a cabin in a Whaler. But there was a bright fire burning in its rusty grate, and on the floor there stood a wooden stand of newly trimmed and lighted lamps, ready for carriage service. They made a bright show, and their light, and the warmth, accounted for the popularity of the room, as borne witness to by many impressions of velveteen trousers on a form by the fire, and many rounded smears and smudges of stooping velveteen shoulders on the adjacent wall. Various untidy shelves accommodated a quantity of lamps and oil-cans, and also a fragrant collection of what looked like the pocket-handkerchiefs of the whole lamp family. As Barbox Brothers (so to call the traveller on the warranty of his luggage) took his seat upon the form, and warmed his now ungloved hands at the fire, he glanced aside at a little deal desk, much blotched with ink, which his elbow touched. Upon it, were some scraps of coarse paper, and a superannuated steel pen in very reduced and gritty circumstances. From glancing at the scraps of paper, he turned involuntarily to his host, and said, with some roughness: &quot;Why, you are never a poet, man!&quot; Lamps had certainly not the conventional appearance of one, as he stood modestly rubbing his squab nose with a handkerchief so exceedingly oily, that he might have been in the act of mistaking himself for one of his charges. He was a spare man of about the Barbox Brothers time of life, with his features whimsically drawn upward as if they were attracted by the roots of his hair. He had a peculiarly shining transparent complexion, probably occasioned by constant oleaginous application; and his attractive hair, being cut short, and being grizzled, and standing straight up on end as if it in its turn were attracted by some invisible magnet above it, the top of his head was not very unlike a lamp-wick. &quot;But to be sure it&#039;s no business of mine,&quot; said Barbox Brothers. &quot;That was an impertinent observation on my part. Be what you like.&quot; &quot;Some people, sir,&quot; remarked Lamps, in a tone of apology, &quot;are sometimes what they don&#039;t like.&quot; &quot;Nobody knows that better than I do,&quot; sighed the other. &quot;I &#039;have been what I don&#039;t like, all my life.&quot; &quot;When I first took, sir,&quot; resumed Lamps, &quot;to composing little Comic-Songs-like—&quot; Barbox Brothers eyed him with great disfavour. &quot;—To composing little Comic-Songs—like and what was more hard—to singing &#039;em afterwards,&quot; said Lamps, &quot;it went against the grain at that time, it did indeed.&quot; Something that was not all oil here shining in Lamps&#039;s eye, Barbox Brothers withdrew his own a little disconcerted, looked at the fire, and put a foot on the top bar. &quot;Why did you do it, then?&quot; he asked, after a short pause; abruptly enough but in a softer tone. &quot;If you didn&#039;t want to do it, why did you do it? Where did you sing them? Public-house?&quot; To which Mr. Lamps returned the curious reply: &quot;Bedside.&quot; At this moment, while the traveller looked at him for elucidation, Mugby Junction started suddenly, trembled violently, and opened its gas eyes. &quot;She&#039;s got up!&quot; Lamps announced, excited. &quot;What lays in her power is sometimes more, and sometimes less; but it&#039;s laid in her power to get up to-night, by George!&quot; The legend &quot;Barbox Brothers&quot; in large white letters on two black surfaces, was very soon afterwards trundling on a truck through a silent street, and, when the owner of the legend had shivered on the pavement half an hour, what time the porter&#039;s knocks at the Inn Door knocked up the whole town first, and the Inn last, he groped his way into the close air of a shut-up house, and so groped between the sheets of a shut-up bed that seemed to have been expressly refrigerated for him when last made. II. &quot;You remember me, Young Jackson?&quot; &quot;What do I remember if not you? You are my first remembrance. It was you who told me that was my name. It was you who told me that on every twentieth of December my life had a penitential anniversary in it called a birthday. I suppose the last communication was truer than the first!&quot; &quot;What am I like, Young Jackson?&quot; &quot;You are like a blight all through the year, to me. You hard-lined, thin-lipped, repressive, changeless woman with a wax mask on. You are like the Devil to me; most of all when you teach me religious things, for you make me abhor them.&quot; &quot;You remember me, Mr. Young Jackson?&quot; In another voice from another quarter. &quot;Most gratefully, sir. You were the ray of hope and prospering ambition in my life. When I attended your course, I believed that I should come to be a great healer, and I felt almost happy—even though I was still the one boarder in the house with that horrible mask, and ate and drank in silence and constraint with the mask before me, every day. As I had done every, every, every, day, through my school-time and from my earliest recollection.&quot; &quot;What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?&quot; &quot;You are like a Superior Being to me. You are like Nature beginning to reveal herself to me. I hear you again, as one of the hushed crowd of young men kindling under the power of your presence and knowledge, and you bring into my eyes the only exultant tears that ever stood in them.&quot; &quot;You remember Me, Mr. Young Jackson?&quot; In a grating voice from quite another quarter. &quot;Too well. You made your ghostly appearance in my life one day, and announced that its course was to be suddenly and wholly changed. You showed me which was my wearisome seat in the Galley of Barbox Brothers. (When they were, if they ever were, is unknown to me; there was nothing of them but the name when I bent to the oar.) You told me what I was to do, and what to be paid; you told me, afterwards, at intervals of years, when I was to sign for the Firm, when I became a partner, when I became the Firm. I know no more of it, or of myself.&quot; &quot;What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?&quot; &quot;You are like my father, I sometimes think. You are hard enough and cold enough so to have brought up an unacknowledged son. I see your scanty figure, your close brown suit, and your tight brown wig; but you, too, wear a wax mask to your death. You never by a chance remove it—it never by a chance falls off—and I know no more of you.&quot; Throughout this dialogue, the traveller spoke to himself at his window in the morning, as he had spoken to himself at the Junction overnight. And as he had then looked in the darkness, a man who had turned grey too soon, like a neglected fire: so he now looked in the sunlight, an ashier grey, like a fire which the brightness of the sun put out. The firm of Barbox Brothers had been some offshoot or irregular branch of the Public Notary and bill-broking tree. It had gained for itself a griping reputation before the days of Young Jackson, and the reputation had stuck to it and to him. As he had imperceptibly come into possession of the dim den up in the corner of a court off Lombard-street, on whose grimy windows the inscription Barbox Brothers had for many long years daily interposed itself between him and the sky, so ho had insensibly found himself a personage held in chronic distrust, whom it was essential to screw tight to every transaction in which he engaged, whose word was never to be taken without his attested bond whom all dealers with openly set up guards and wards against. This character had come upon him through no act of his own. It was as if the original Barbox had stretched himself down upon the office-floor, and had thither caused to be conveyed Young Jackson in his sleep, and had there effected a metempsychosis and exchange of persons with him. The discovery—aided in its turn by the deceit of the only woman he had ever loved, and the deceit of the only friend he had ever made: who eloped from him to be married together—the discovery, so followed up, completed what his earliest rearing had begun. He shrank, abashed, within the form of Barbox, and lifted up his head and heart no more. But he did at last effect one great release in his condition. He broke the oar he had plied so long, and he scuttled and sank the galley. He prevented the gradual retirement of an old conventional business from him, by taking the initiative and retiring from it. With enough to live on (though after all with not too much), he obliterated the firm of Barbox Brothers from the pages of the Post-office Directory and the face of the earth, leaving nothing of it but its name on two portmanteaus. &quot;For one must have some name in going about, for people to pick up,&quot; he explained to Mugby High-street, through the Inn-window, &quot;and that name at least was real once. Whereas, Young Jackson! Not to mention its being a sadly satirical misnomer for Old Jackson.&quot; He took up his hat and walked out, just in time to see, passing along on the opposite side of the way, a velveteen man, carrying his day&#039;s dinner in a small bundle that might have been larger without suspicion of gluttony, and pelting away towards the Junction at a great pace. &quot;There&#039;s Lamps!&quot; said Barbox Brothers. &quot;And by-the-by—&quot; Ridiculous, surely, that a man so serious, so self-contained, and not yet three days emancipated from a routine of drudgery, should stand rubbing his chin in the street, in a brown study about Comic Songs. &quot;Bedside?&quot; said Barbox Brothers, testily. &quot;Sings them at the bedside? Why at the bedside, unless he goes to bed drunk? Does, I shouldn&#039;t wonder. But it&#039;s no business of mine. Let me see. Mugby Junction, Mugby Junction. Where shall I go next? As it came into my head lust night when I woke from an uneasy sleep in the carriage and found myself here, I can go anywhere from here. Where shall I go? I&#039;ll go and look at the Junction by daylight. There&#039;s no hurry, and I may like the look of one Line better than another.&quot; But there were so many Lines. Gazing down upon them from a bridge at the Junction, it was as if the concentrating Companies formed a great Industrial Exhibition of the works of extraordinary ground-spiders that spun iron. And then so many of the Lines went such wonderful ways, so crossing and curving among one another, that the eye lost them. And then some of them appeared to start with the fixed intention of going five hundred miles, and all of a sudden gave it up at an insignificant barrier, or turned off into a workshop. And then others, like intoxicated men, went a little way very straight, and surprisingly slued round and came back again. And then others were so chock-full of trucks of coal, others were so blocked with trucks of casks, others were so gorged with trucks of ballast, others were so set apart for wheeled objects like immense iron cotton-reels: while others were so bright and clear, and others were so delivered over to rust and ashes and idle wheelbarrows out of work, with their legs in the air (looking much like their masters on strike), that there was no beginning, middle, or end, to the bewilderment. Barbox Brothers stood puzzled on the bridge, passing his right hand across the lines on his forehead, which multiplied while he looked down, as if the railway Lines were getting themselves photographed on that sensitive plate. Then, was heard a distant ringing of bells and blowing of whistles. Then, puppet-looking heads of men popped out of boxes in perspective, aud popped in again. Then, prodigious wooden razors set up on end, began shaving the atmosphere. Then, several locomotive engines in several directions began to scream and be agitated. Then, along one avenue a train came in. Then, along another two trains appeared that didn&#039;t come in, but stopped without. Then, bits of trains broke off. Then, a struggling horse became involved with them. Then, the locomotives shared the bits of trains, and ran away with the whole. &quot;I have not made my next move much clearer by this. No hurry. No need to make up my mind to-day, or to-morrow, nor yet the day after. I&#039;ll take a walk.&quot; It fell out somehow (perhaps he meant it should) that the walk tended to the platform at which he had alighted, and to Lamps&#039;s room. But Lamps was not in his room. A pair of velveteen shoulders were adapting themselves to one of the impressions on the wall by Lamps&#039;s fireplace, but otherwise the room was void. In passing back to get out of the station again, he learnt the cause of this vacancy, by catching sight of Lamps on the opposite line of railway, skipping along the top of a train, from carriage to carriage, and catching lighted namesakes thrown up to him by a coadjutor. &quot;He is busy. He has not much time for composing or singing Comic Songs this moming, I take it.&quot; The direction he pursued now, was into the country, keeping very near to the side of one great Line ot railway, and within easy view of others. &quot;I have half a mind,&quot; he said, glancing around, &quot;to settle the question from this point, by saying, &#039;I&#039;ll take this set of rails, or that, or t&#039;other, and stick to it. They separate themselves from the confusion, out here, and go their ways.&quot; Ascending a gentle hill of some extent, he came to a few cottages. There, looking about him as a very reserved man might who had never looked about him in his life before, he saw some six or eight young children come merrily trooping and whooping from one of the cottages, and disperse. But not until they had all turned at the little garden gate, and kissed their hands to a face at the upper window: a low window enough, although the upper, for the cottage had but a story of one room above the ground. Now, that the children should do this was nothing; but that they should do this to a face lying on the sill of the open window, turned towards them in a horizontal position, and apparently only a face, was something noticeable. He looked up at the window again. Could only see a very fragile though a very bright face, lying on one cheek on the window-sill. The delicate smiling face of a girl or woman. Framed in long bright brown hair, round which was tied a light blue band or fillet, passing under the chin. He walked on, turned back, passed the window again, shyly glanced up again. No change. He struck off by a winding branch-road at the top of the hill—which he must otherwise have descended—kept the cottages in view, worked his way round at a distance so as to come out once more into the main road and be obliged to pass the cottages again. The face still lay on the window-sill, but not so much inclined towards him. And now there were a pair of delicate hands too. They had the action of performing on some musical instrument, and yet it produced no sound that reached his ears. &quot;Mugby Junction must be the maddest place in England,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, pursuing his way down the hill. &quot;The first thing I find here is a Railway Porter who composes comic songs to sing at his bedside. The second thing I find here is a face, and a pair of hands playing a musical instrument that don&#039;t play!&quot; The day was a fine bright day in the early beginning of November, the air was clear and inspiriting, and the landscape was rich in beautiful colours. The prevailing colours in the court off Lombard-street, London city, had been few and sombre. Sometimes, when the weather elsewhere was very bright indeed, the dwellers in those tents enjoyed a pepper-and-salt-coloured day or two, but their atmosphere&#039;s usual wear was slate, or snuff colour. He relished his walk so well, that he repeated it next day. He was a little earlier at the cottage than on the day before, and he could hear the children up-stairs singing to a regular measure and clapping out the time with their hands. &quot;Still, there is no sound of any musical instrument,&quot; he said, listening at the corner, &quot;and yet I saw the performing hands again, as I came by. What are the children singing? Why, good Lord, they can never be singing the multiplication-table!&quot; They were though, and with infinite enjoyment. The mysterious face had a voice attached to it which occasionally led or set the children right. Its musical cheerfulness was delightful. The measure at length stopped, and was succeeded by a murmuring of young voices, and then by a short song which he made out to be about the current month of the year, and about what work it yielded to the labourers in the fields and farm-yards. Then, there was a stir of little feet, and the children came trooping and whooping out, as on the previous day. And again, as on the previous day, they all turned at the garden gate, and kissed their hands— evidently to the face on the window-sill, though Barbox Brothers from his retired post of disadvantage at the corner could not see it. But as the children dispersed, he cut off one small straggler a brown-faced boy with flaxen hair and said to him: &quot;Come here, little one. Tell me whose house is that?&quot; The child, with one swarthy arm held up across his eyes, half in shyness, and half ready for defence, said from behind the inside of his elbow: &#039;&quot;Phoebe&#039;s.&quot; &quot;And who,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, quite as much embarrassed by his part in the dialogue as the child could possibly be by his, &quot;is Phoebe?&quot; To which the child made answer: &quot;Why, Phoebe, of course.&quot; The small but sharp observer had eyed his questioner closely, and had taken, his moral measure. He lowered his guard, and rather assumed a tone with him: as having discovered him to be an unaccustomed person in the art of polite conversation. &quot;Phoebe,&quot; said the child, &quot;can&#039;t be anybobby else but Phoebe. Can she?&quot; &quot;No, I suppose not.&quot; &quot;Well,&quot; returned the child, &quot;then why did you ask me?&quot; Deeming it prudent to shift his ground, Barbox Brothers took up a new position. &quot;What do you do there? Up there in that room where the open window is. What do you do there?&quot; &quot;Cool,&quot; said the child. &quot;Eh?&quot; &quot;Co-o-ol,&quot; the child repeated in a louder voice, lengthening out the word with a fixed look and great emphasis, as much as to say: &quot;What&#039;s the use of your having grown up, if you&#039;re such a donkey as not to understand me?&quot; &quot;Ah! School, school,&quot; said Barbox Brothers. &quot;Yes, yes, yes. And Phoebe teaches you?&quot; The child nodded. &quot;Good boy.&quot; &quot;Tound it out, have you?&quot; said the child. &quot;Yes, I have found it out. What would you do with twopence, if I gave it you?&quot; &quot;Pend it.&quot; The knock-down promptitude of this reply leaving him not a leg to stand upon, Barbox Brothers produced the twopence with great lameness, and withdrew in a state of humiliation. But, seeing the face on the window-sill as he passed the cottage, he acknowledged its presence there with a gesture, which was not a nod, not a bow, not a removal of his hat from his head, but was a diffident compromise between or struggle with all three. The eyes in the face seemed amused, or cheered, or both, and the lips modestly said: &quot;Good day to you, sir.&quot; &quot;I find I must stick for a time to Mugby Junction,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, with much gravity, after once more stopping on his return road to look at the Lines where they went their several ways so quietly. &quot;I can&#039;t make up my mind yet, which iron road to take. In fact, I must get a little accustomed to the Junction before I can decide.&quot; So, he announced at the Inn that he was &quot;going to stay on, for the present,&quot; and improved his acquaintance with the Junction that night, and again next morning, and again next night and morning: going down to the station, mingling with the people there, looking about him down all the avenues of railway, and beginning to take an interest in the incomings and outgoings of the trains. At first, he often put his head into Lamps&#039;s little room, but he never found Lamps there. A pair or two of velveteen shoulders he usually found there, stooping over the fire, sometimes in connexion with a clasped knife and a piece of bread and meat; but the answer to his inquiry, &quot;Where&#039;s Lamps?&quot; was, either that he was &quot;t&#039;other side the line,&quot; or, that it was his off-time, or (in the latter case), his own personal introduction to another Lamps who was not his Lamps. However, he was not so desperately set upon seeing Lamps now, but he bore the disappointment. Nor did he so wholly devote himself to his severe application to the study of Mugby Junction, as to neglect exercise. On the contrary, he took a walk every day, and always the same walk. But the weather turned cold and wet again, and the window was never open. iii At length, after a lapse of some days, there came another streak of fine bright hardy autumn weather. It was a Saturday. The window was open, and the children were gone. Not surprising, this, for he had patiently watched and waited at the corner, until they were gone. &quot;Good day,&quot; he said to the face; absolutely getting his hat clear off his head this time. &quot;Good day to you, sir.&quot; &quot;I am glad you have a fine sky again, to look at.&quot; &quot;Thank you, sir. It is kind of you.&quot; &quot;You are an invalid, I fear?&quot; &quot;No, sir. I have very good health.&quot; &quot;But are you not always lying down?&quot; &quot;O yes, I am always lying down, because I cannot sit up. But I am not an invalid.&quot; The laughing eyes seemed highly to enjoy his great mistake. &quot;Would you mind taking the trouble to come in, sir? There is a beautiful view from this window. And you would see that I am not at all ill—being so good as to care.&quot; It was said to help him, as he stood irresolute, but evidently desiring to enter, with his diffident hand on the latch of the garden gate. It did help him, and he went in. The room up-stairs was a very clean white room with a low roof. Its only inmate lay on a couch that brought her face to a level with the window. The couch was white too; and her simple dress or wrapper being light blue, like the band around her hair, she had an ethereal look, and a fanciful appearance of lying among clouds. He felt that she instinctively perceived him to be by habit a downcast taciturn man; it was another help to him to have established that understanding so easily, and got it over. There was an awkward constraint upon him, nevertheless, as he touched her hand, and took a chair at the side of her couch. &quot;I see now,&quot; he began, not at all fluently, &quot;how you occupy your hands. Only seeing you from the path outside, I thought you were playing upon something.&quot; She was engaged in very nimbly and dexterously making lace. A lace-pillow lay upon her breast; and the quick movements and changes of her hands upon it as she worked, had given them the action he had misinterpreted. &quot;That is curious,&quot; she answered, with a bright smile. &quot;For I often fancy, myself, that I play tunes while I am at work.&quot; &quot;Have you any musical knowledge?&quot; She shook her head. &quot;I think I could pick out tunes, if I had any instrument, which could be made as handy to me as my lace-pillow. But I dare say I deceive myself. At all events, I shall never know.&quot; &quot;You have a musical voice. Excuse me; I have heard you sing.&quot; &quot;With the children?&quot; she answered, slightly colouring. &quot;O yes. I sing with the dear children, if it can be called singing.&quot; Barbox Brothers glanced at the two small forms in the room, and hazarded the speculation that she was fond of children, and that she was learned in new systems of teaching them? &quot;Very fond of them,&quot; she said, shaking her head again; &quot;but I know nothing of teaching, beyond the interest I have in it, and the pleasure it gives me when they learn. Perhaps your overhearing my little scholars sing some of their lessons, has led you so far astray as to think me a grand teacher? Ah! I thought so! No, I have only read and been told about that system. It seemed so pretty and pleasant, and to treat them so like the merry Robins they are, that I took up with it in my little way. You don&#039;t need to be told what a very little way mine is, sir,&quot; she added, with a glance at the small forms and round the room. All this time her hands were busy at her lace-pillow. As they still continued so, and as there was a kind of substitute for conversation in the click and play of its pegs, Barbox Brothers took the opportunity of observing her. He guessed her to be thirty. The charm of her transparent face and large bright brown eyes, was, not that they were passively resigned, but that they were actively and thoroughly cheerful. Even her busy hands, which of their own thinness alone might have besought compassion, plied their task with a gay courage that made mere compassion an unjustifiable assumption of superiority, and an impertinence. He saw her eyes in the act of rising towards his, and he directed his towards the prospect, saying: &quot;Beautiful indeed!&quot; &quot;Most beautiful, sir. I have sometimes had a fancy that I would like to sit up, for once, only to try how it looks to an erect head. But what a foolish fancy that would be to encourage! It cannot look more lovely to any one than it does to me.&quot; Her eyes were turned to it as she spoke, with most delighted admiration and enjoyment. There was not a trace in it of any sense of deprivation. &quot;And those threads of railway, with their puffs of smoke and steam changing places so fast, make it so lively for me,&quot; she went on. &quot;I think of the number of people who can go where they wish, on their business, or their pleasure; I remember that the puffs make signs to me that they are actually going while I look; and that enlivens the prospect with abundance of company, if I want company. There is the great Junction, too. I don&#039;t see it under the foot of the hill, but I can very often hear it, and I always know it is there. It seems to join me, in a way, to I don&#039;t know how many places and things that I shall never see.&quot; With an abashed kind of idea that it might have already joined himself to something he had never seen, he said constrainedly: &quot;Just so.&quot; &quot;And so you see, sir,&quot; pursued Phoebe, &quot;I am not the invalid you thought me, and I am very well off indeed.&quot; &quot;You have a happy disposition,&quot; said Barbox Brothers: perhaps with a slight excusatory touch for his own disposition. &quot;Ah! But you should know my father,&quot; she replied. &quot;His is the happy disposition!—Don&#039;t mind, sir!&quot; For his reserve took the alarm at a step upon the stairs, and he distrusted that he would be set down for a troublesome intruder. &quot;This is my father coming.&quot; The door opened, and the father paused there. &quot;Why, Lamps!&quot; exclaimed Barbox Brothers, starting from his chair. &quot;How do you do, Lamps?&quot; To which, Lamps responded: &quot;The gentleman for Nowhere! How do you DO, sir?&quot; And they shook hands, to the greatest admiration and surprise of Lamps&#039;s daughter. &quot;I have looked you up, half a dozen times since that night,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, but have never found you.&quot; &quot;So I&#039;ve heerd on, sir, so I&#039;ve heerd on,&quot; returned Lamps. &quot;It&#039;s your being noticed so often down at the Junction, without taking any train, that has begun to get you the name among us of the gentleman for Nowhere. No offence in my having called you by it when took by surprise, I hope, sir?&quot; &quot;None at all. It&#039;s as good a name for me as any other you could call me by. But may I ask you a question in the corner here?&quot; Lamps suffered himself to be led aside from his daughter&#039;s couch, by one of the buttons of his velveteen jacket. &quot;Is this the bedside where you sing your songs?&quot; Lamps nodded. The gentleman for Nowhere clapped him on the shoulder, and they faced about again. &quot;Upon my word, my dear,&quot; said Lamps then to his daughter, looking from her to her visitor, &quot;it is such an amaze to me, to find you brought acquainted with this gentleman, that I must (if this gentleman will excuse me) take a rounder.&quot; Mr. Lamps demonstrated in action what this meant, by pulling out his oily handkerchief rolled up in the form of a ball, and giving himself an elaborate smear, from behind the right ear, up the cheek, across the forehead, and down the other cheek to behind his left ear. After this operation, he shone exceedingly. &quot;It&#039;s according to my custom when par-ticular warmed up by any agitation, sir,&quot; he offered by way of apology. &quot;And really, I am throwed into that state of amaze by finding you brought acquainted with Phoebe, that I—that I think I will, if you&#039;ll excuse me, take another rounder.&quot; Which he did, seeming to be greatly restored by it. They were now both standing by the side of her couch, and she was working at her lace-pillow. &quot;Your daughter tells me,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, still in a half reluctant shamefaced way, &quot;that she never sits up.&quot; &quot;No, sir, nor never has done. You see, her mother (who died when she was a year and two months old) was subject to very bad fits, and as she had never mentioned to me that she was subject to fits, they couldn&#039;t be guarded against. Consequently, she dropped the baby when took, and thishappened.&quot; &quot;It was very wrong of her,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, with a knitted brow, &quot;to marry you, making a secret of her infirmity.&quot; &quot;Well, sir,&quot; pleaded Lamps, in behalf of the long-deceased. &quot;You see, Phoebe and me, we have talked that over too. And Lord bless us! Such a number on us has our infirmities, what with fits, and what with misfits, of one sort and another, that if we confessed to &#039;em all before we got married, most of us might never get married.&quot; &quot;Might not that be for the better?&quot; &quot;Not in this case, sir,&quot; said Phoebe, giving her hand to her father. &quot;No, not in this case, sir,&quot; said her father, patting it between his own. &quot;You correct me&quot; returned Barbox Brothers, with a blush; &quot;and I must look so like a Brute, that at all events it would be superfluous in me to confess to that infirmity. I wish you would tell me a little more about yourselves. I hardly know how to ask it of you, for I am conscious that I have a bad stiff manner, a dull discouraging way with me, but I wish you would.&quot; &quot;With all our hearts, sir,&quot; returned Lamps, gaily, for both. &quot;And first of all, that you may know my name—&quot; &quot;Stay!&quot; interposed the visitor, with a slight flush. &quot;What signifies your name! Lamps is name enough for me. I like it. It is bright and expressive. What do I want more!&quot; &quot;Why to be sure, sir,&quot; returned Lamps. &quot;I have in general no other name down at the Junction; but I thought, on account of your being here as a first-class single, in a private character, that you might—&quot; The visitor waved the thought away with his hand, and Lamps acknowledged the mark of confidence by taking another rounder. &quot;You are hard-worked, I take for granted?&quot; said Barbox Brothers, when the subject of the rounder came out of it much dirtier than he went into it. Lamps was beginning, &quot; Not particular so&quot;— when his daughter took him up. &quot;O yes, sir, he is very hard-worked. Fourteen, fifteen, eighteen, hours a day. Sometimes twenty-four hours at a time.&quot; &quot;And you,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, &quot;what with your school, Phoebe, and what with your lace-making—&quot; &quot;But my school is a pleasure to me,&quot; she interrupted, opening her brown eyes wider, as if surprised to find him so obtuse. &quot;I began it when I was but a child, because it brought me and other children into company, don&#039;t you see? That was not work. I carry it on still, because it keeps children about me. That is not work. I do it as love, not as work. Then my lace-pillow;&quot; her busy hands had stopped, as if her argument required all her cheerful earnestness, but now went on again at the name; &quot; it goes with my thoughts when I think, and it goes with my tunes when I hum any, and that&#039;s not work. Why, you yourself thought it was music, you know, sir. And so it is, to me.&quot; &quot;Everything is!&quot; cried Lamps, radiantly. &quot;Everything is music to her, sir.&quot; &quot;My father is, at any rate,&quot; said Phoebe, exultingly pointing her thin forefinger at him. &quot;There is more music in my father than there is in a brass band.&quot; &quot;I say! My dear! It&#039;s very fillyillially done, you know; but you are flattering your father,&quot; he protested, sparkling. &quot;No I am not, sir, I assure you. No I am not. If you could hear my father sing, you would know I am not. But you never will hear him sing, because he never sings to any one but me. However tired he is, he always sings to me when he comes home. When I lay here long ago, quite a poor little broken doll, he used to sing to me. More than that, he used to make songs, bringing in whatever little jokes we had between us. More than that, he often does so to this day. O! I&#039;ll tell of you, father, as the gentleman has asked about you. He is a poet, sir.&quot; &quot;I shouldn&#039;t wish the gentleman, my dear,&quot; observed Lamps, for the moment turning grave, &quot;to carry away that opinion of your father, because it might look as if I was given to asking the stars in a molloncolly manner what they was up to. Which I wouldn&#039;t at once waste the time, and take the liberty, my dear.&quot; &quot;My father,&quot; resumed Phoebe, amending her text, &quot;is always on the bright side, and the good side. You told me just now, I had a happy disposition. How can I help it?&quot; &quot;Well; but my dear,&quot; returned Lamps argumentatively, &quot; how can I help it,? Put it to yourself, sir. Look at her. Always as you see her now. Always working—and after all, sir, for but a very few shillings a week—always contented, always lively, always interested in others, of all sorts. I said, this moment, she was always as you see her now. So she is, with a difference that comes to much the same. For, when it&#039;s my Sunday off and the morning bells have done ringing, I hear the prayers and thanks read in the touchingest way, and I have the hymns sung to me so soft, sir, that you couldn&#039;t hear &#039;em out of this room—in notes that seem to me, I am sure, to come from Heaven and go back to it.&quot; It might have been merely through the association of these words with their sacredly quiet time, or it might have been through the larger association of the words with the Redeemer&#039;s presence beside the bedridden; but here her dexterous fingers came to a stop on the lace-pillow, and clasped themselves around his neck as he bent down. There was great natural sensibility in both father and daughter, the visitor could easily see; but each made it, for the other&#039;s sake, retiring, not demonstrative; and perfect cheerfulness, intuitive or acquired, was either the first or second nature of both. In a very few moments, Lamps was taking another rounder with his comical features beaming, while Phoebe&#039;s laughing eyes (just a glistening speck or so upon their lashes) were again directed by turns to him, and to her work, and to Barbox Brothers. &quot;When my father, sir,&quot; she said brightly, &quot;tells you about my being interested in other people even though they know nothing about me—which, by-the-by, I told you myself—you ought to know how that comes about. That&#039;s my father&#039;s doing.&quot; &quot;No, it isn&#039;t!&quot; he protested. &quot;Don&#039;t you believe him, sir; yes, it is. He tells me of everything he sees down at his work. You would be surprised what a quantity he gels together for me, every day. He looks into the carriages, and tells me how the ladies are drest—so that I know all the fashions! He looks into the carriages, and tells me what pairs of lovers he sees, and what new-married couples on their wedding trip—so that I know all about that! He collects chance newspapers and books—so that I have plenty to read! He tells me. about the sick people who are travelling to try to get better—so that I know all about them! In short, as I began by saying, he tells me everything he sees and makes out, down at his work, and you can&#039;t think what a quantity he does see and make out.&quot; &quot;As to collecting newspapers and books, my dear,&quot; said Lamps, &quot; it&#039;s clear I can have no merit in that, because they&#039;re not my perquisites. You see, sir, it&#039;s this way: A Guard, he&#039;ll say to me, &#039;Hallo, here you are, Lamps. I&#039;ve saved this paper for your daughter. How is she agoing on?&#039; A Head-Porter, he&#039;ll say to me, &#039;Here! Catch hold, Lamps. Here&#039;s a couple of wollumes for your daughter. Is she pretty much where she were?&#039; And that&#039;s what makes it double welcome, you see. If she had a thousand pound in a box, they wouldn&#039;t trouble themselves about her; but being what she is—that is, you understand,&quot; Lamps added, somewhat hurriedly, &quot;not having a thousand pound in a box—they take thought for her. And as concerning the young pairs, married and unmarried, it&#039;s only natural I should bring home what little I can about them, seeing that there&#039;s not a Couple of either sort in the neighbourhood that don&#039;t come of their own accord to confide in Phoebe.&quot; She raised her eyes triumphantly to Barbox Brothers, as she said: &quot;Indeed, sir, that is true. If I could have got up and gone to church, I don&#039;t know how often I should have been a bridesmaid. But if I could have done that, some girls in love might have been jealous of me, and as it is, no girl is jealous of me. And my pillow would not have been half as ready to put the piece of cake under, as I always find it,&quot; she added, turning her face on it with a light sigh, and a smile at her father. The arrival of a little girl, the biggest of the scholars, now led to an understanding on the part of Barbox Brothers, that she was the domestic of the cottage, and had come to take active measures in it, attended by a pail that might have extinguished her, and a broom three times her height. He therefore rose to take his leave, and took it; saying that if Phoebe had no objection, he would come again. He had muttered that he would come &quot;in the. course of his walks.&quot; The course of his walks must have been highly favourable to his return, for he returned after an interval of a single day. &quot;You thought you would never see me any more, I suppose?&quot; he said to Phoebe as he touched her hand, and sat down by her couch. &quot;Why should I think so!&quot; was her surprised rejoinder. &quot;I took it for granted you would mistrust me.&quot; &quot;For granted, sir? Have you been so much mistrusted?&quot; &quot;I think I am justified in answering yes. But I may have mistrusted too, on my part. No matter just now. We were speaking of the Junction last time. I have passed hours there since the day before yesterday.&quot; &quot;Are you now the gentleman for Somewhere?&quot; she asked with a smile. &quot;Certainly for Somewhere; but I don&#039;t yet know Where. You would never guess what I am travelling from. Shall I tell you? I am travelling from my birthday.&quot; Her hands stopped in her work, and she looked at him with incredulous astonishment. &quot;Yes,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, not quite easy in his chair, &quot;from my birthday. I am, to myself, an unintelligible book with the earlier chapters all torn out, and thrown away. My childhood had no grace of childhood, my youth had no charm of youth, and what can be expected from such a lost beginning?&quot; His eyes meeting hers as they were addressed intently to him, something seemed to stir within his breast, whispering: &quot;Was this bed a place for the graces of childhood and the charms of youth to take to, kindly? O shame, shame!&quot; &quot;It is a disease with me,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, checking himself, and making as though he had a difficulty in swallowing something, &quot;to go wrong about that. I don&#039;t know how I came to speak of that. I hope it is because of an old misplaced confidence in one of your sex involving an old bitter treachery. I don&#039;t know. I am all wrong together.&quot; Her hands quietly and slowly resumed their work. Glancing at her, he saw that her eyes were thoughtfully following them. &quot;I am travelling from my birthday,&quot; he resumed, &quot;because it has always been a dreary day to me. My first free birthday coming round some five or six weeks hence, I am travelling to put its predecessors far behind me, and to try to crush the day—or, at all events, put it out of my sigh—by heaping new objects on it.&quot; As he paused, she looked at him; but only shook her head as being quite at a loss. &quot;This is unintelligible to your happy disposition,&quot; he pursued, abiding by his former phrase as if there were some lingering virtue of self-defence in it: &quot;I knew it would be, and am glad it is. However, on this travel of mine (in which I mean to pass the rest of my days, having abandoned all thought of a fixed home), I stopped, as you heard from your father, at the Junction here. The extent of its ramifications quite confused me as to whither I should go, from here. I have not yet settled, being still perplexed among so many roads. What do you think I mean to do? How many of the branching roads can you see from your window?&quot; Looking out, full of interest, she answered, &quot;Seven.&quot; &quot;Seven,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, watching her with a grave smile. &quot;Well! I propose to myself, at once to reduce the gross number to those very seven, and gradually to fine them down to one—the most. promising for me—and to take that,&quot; &quot;But how will you know, sir, which is the most promising?&quot; she asked, with her brightened eyes roving over the view. &quot;Ah!&quot; said Barbox Brothers, with another grave smile, and considerably improving in his ease of speech. &quot;To be sure. In this way. Where your father can pick up so much every clay for a good purpose,I may once and again pick up a little for an indifferent purpose. The gentleman for Nowhere must become still better known at the Junction. He shall continue to explore it, until he attaches something that he has seen, heard, or found out, at the head of each of the seven roads, to the road itself. And so his choice of a road shall be determined by his choice among his discoveries.&quot; Her hands still busy, she again glanced at the prospect, as if it comprehended something that had not been in it before, and laughed as if it yielded her new pleasure. &quot;But I must not forget,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, &quot;(having got so far) to ask a favour. I want your help in this expedient of mine. I want to bring you what I pick up at the heads of the seven roads that you lie here looking out at, and to compare notes with you about it. May I? They say two heads are better than one. I should say myself that probably depends upon the heads concerned. But I am quite sure, though we are so newly acquainted, that your head and your father&#039;s have found out better things, Phoebe, than ever mine of itself discovered.&quot; She gave him her sympathetic right hand, in perfect rapture with his proposal, and eagerly and gratefully thanked him. &quot;That&#039;s well!&quot; said Barbox Brothers. &quot;Again I must not forget (having got so far) to ask a favour. Will you shut your eyes?&quot; Laughing playfully at the strange nature of the request, she did so. &quot;Keep them shut,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, going softly to the door, and coming back. &quot;You are on your honour, mind, not to open your eyes until I tell you that you may?&quot; &quot;Yes! On my honour.&quot; &quot;Good. May I take your lace-pillow from you for a minute?&quot; Still laughing and wondering, she removed her hands trom it, and he put it aside. &quot;Tell me. Did you see the puffs of smoke and steam made by the morning fast-train yesterday on road number seven from here?&quot; &quot;Behind the elm-trees and the spire?&quot; &quot;That&#039;s the road,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, directing his eyes towards it. &quot;Yes. I watched them melt away.&quot; &quot;Anything unusual in what they expressed?&quot; &quot;No!&quot; she answered, merrily. &quot;Not complimentary to me, for I was in that train. I went—don&#039;t open your eyes—to fetch you this, from the great ingenious town. It is not half so large as your lace-pillow, and lies easily and lightly in its place. These little keys are like the keys of a miniature piano, and you supply the air required with your left hand. May you pick out delightful music from it, my dear! For the present you—can open your eyes now—good-bye!&quot; In his embarrassed way, he closed the door upon himself, and only saw, in doing so, that she ecstatically took the present to her her bosom and caressed it. The glimpse, gladdened his heart, and yet saddened it; for so might, she, if her youth had flourished in its natural course, have taken to her breast that day the slumbering music of her own child&#039;s voice. With good will and earnest purpose, the gentleman for Nowhere began, on the very next day, his researches at the heads of the seven roads. The results of his researches, as he and Phoebe afterwards set them down in fair writing, hold their due places in this veracious chronicle, from its seventeenth page, onward. But they occupied a much longer time in the getting together than they ever will in the perusal. And this is probably the case with most reading matter, except when it is of that highly beneficial kind (for Posterity) which is &quot;thrown off in a few moments of leisure&quot; by the superior poetic geniuses who scorn to take prose pains. It must be admitted, however, that Barbox by no means hurried himself. His heart being in his work of good-nature, he revelled in it. There was the joy, too (it was a true joy to him), of sometimes sitting by, listening to Phoebe as she picked out more and more discourse from her musical instrument, and as her natural taste and ear refined daily upon her first discoveries. Besides being a pleasure, this was an occupation, and in the course of weeks it consumed hours. It resulted that his dreaded birthday was close upon him before he had troubled himself any more about it. The matter was made more pressing by the unforeseen circumstance that the councils held (at which Mr. Lamps, beaming most brilliantly, on a few rare occasions assisted) respecting the road to be selected, were, after all, in no wise assisted by his investigations. For, he had connected this interest with this road, or that interest with the other, but could deduce no reason from, it for giving any road the preference. Consequently, when the last council was holden, that part of the business stood, in the end, exactly where it had stood in the beginning. &quot;But, sir,&quot; remarked Phoebe, &quot;we have only six roads after all. Is the seventh road dumb?&quot; &quot;The seventh road? O!&quot; said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his chin. &quot;That is the road I took, you know, when I went to get your little present. That is its story, Phoebe.&#039;&#039; &quot;Would you mind taking that road again, sir?&quot; she asked with hesitation. &quot;Not in the least; it is a great high road after all.&quot; &quot;I should like you to take it,&quot; returned Phoebe, with a persuasive smile, &quot;for the love of that little present which must ever be so dear to me. I should like you to take it, because that road can never. be again, like any other road to me. I should like you to take it, in remembrance of your having done me so much good: of your having made me so much happier! If you leave me by the road you travelled when you went to do me this great kindness,&quot; sounding a faint chord as she spoke, &quot;I shall feel, lying here watching at my window, as if it must conduct you to a prosperous end, and bring you back some day.&quot; &quot;It shall be done, my dear; it shall be done.&quot; So at last the gentleman for Nowhere took a ticket for Somewhere, and his destination was the great ingenious town. He had loitered so long about the Junction that it was the eighteenth of December when he left it. &quot;High time,&quot; he reflected, as he seated himself in the train, &quot;that I started in earnest! Only one clear day remains between me and the day I am running away from. I&#039;ll push onward for the hill-country to-morrow. I&#039;ll go to Wales.&quot; It was with some pains that he placed before himself the undeniable advantages to be gained in the way of novel occupation for his senses from misty mountains, swollen streams, rain, cold, a wild seashore, and rugged roads. And yet he scarcely made them out as distinctly as he could have wished. Whether the poor girl, in spite of her new resource, her music, would have any feeling of loneliness upon her now—just at first—that she had not had before; whether she saw those very puffs of steam and smoke that he saw, as he sat in the train thinking of her; whether her face would have any pensive shadow on it as they died out of the distant view from her window; whether, in telling him he had done her so much good, she had not unconsciously corrected his old moody bemoaning of his station in life, by setting him thinking that a man might be a great healer, if he would, and yet not be a great doctor; these and other similar meditations got between him and his Welsh picture. There was within him, too, that dull sense of vacuity which follows separation from an object of interest, and cessation of a pleasant pursuit; and this sense, being quite new to him, made him restless. Further, in losing Mugby Junction he had found himself again; and he was not the more enamoured of himself for having lately passed his time in better company. But surely, here not far ahead, must be the great ingenious town. This crashing and clashing that the train was undergoing, and this coupling on to it of a multitude of new echoes, could mean nothing less than approach to the great station. It did mean nothing less. After some stormy flashes of town lightning, in the way of swift revelations of red-brick blocks of houses, high red-brick chimney-shafts, vistas of red-brick railway arches, tongues of fire, blots of smoke, valleys of canal, and hills of coal, there came the thundering in at the journey&#039;s end. Having seen his portmanteaus safely housed in the hotel he chose, and having appointed his dinner-hour, Barbox Brothers went out for a walk in the busy streets. And now it began to be suspected by him that Mugby Junction was a Junction of many branches, invisible as well as visible, and had joined him to an endless number of byways. For, whereas he would, but a little while ago, have walked these streets blindly brooding, he now had eyes and thoughts for a new external world. How the many toiling people lived, and loved, and died; how wonderful it was to consider the various trainings of eye and hand, the nice distinctions of sight and touch, that separated them into classes of workers, and even into classes of workers at subdivisions of one complete whole which combined their many intelligences and forces, though of itself but some cheap object of use or ornament in common life; how good it was to know that such assembling in a multitude on their part, and such contribution of their several dexterities towards a civilising end, did not deteriorate them as it was the fashion of the supercilious Mayflies of humanity to pretend, but engendered among them a self-respect and yet a modest desire to be much wiser than they were (the first, evinced in their well-balanced bearing and manner of speech when he stopped to ask a question; the second, in the announcements of their popular studies and amusements on the public walls); these considerations, and a host of such, made his walk a memorable one.&quot; I too am but a little part of a great whole,&quot; he began to think; &quot;and to be serviceable to myself and others, or to be happy, I must cast my interest into, and draw it out of, the common stock.&quot; Although he had arrived at his journey&#039;s end for the day by noon, he had since insensibly walked about the town so far and so long that the lamplighters were now at their work in the streets, and the shops were sparkling up brilliantly. Thus reminded to turn towards his quarters, he was in the act of doing so, when a very little hand crept into his, and a very little voice said: &quot;O! If you please, I am lost!&quot; He looked down, and saw a very little fair-haired girl. &quot;Yes,&quot; she said, confirming her words with a serious nod. &quot;I am indeed. I am lost.&quot; Greatly perplexed, he stopped, looked about him for help, descried none, and said, bending low: &quot;Where do you, live, my child?&quot; &quot;I don&#039;t know where I live,&quot; she returned. &quot;I am lost.&quot; &quot;What is your name?&quot; &quot;Polly.&quot; &quot;What is your other name?&quot; The reply was prompt, but unintelligible. Imitating the sound, as he caught it, he hazarded the guess, &quot;Trivits?&quot; &quot;O no!&quot; said the child, shaking her head. &quot;Nothing like that.&quot; &quot;Say it again, little one.&quot; An unpromising business. For this time it had quite a different sound. He made the venture: &quot;Paddens?&quot; &quot;O no!&quot; said the child. &quot; Nothing like that,&quot; &quot;Once more. Let us try it again, dear.&quot; A most hopeless business. This time it swelled into four syllables. &quot;It can&#039;t be Tappitarver?&quot; said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his head with his hat in discomfiture. &quot;No! It ain&#039;t,&quot; the child quietly assented. On her trying this unfortunate name once more, with extraordinary efforts at distinctness, it swelled into eight syllables at least. &quot;Ah! I think,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, with a desperate air of resignation, &quot;that we had better give it up.&quot; &quot;But I am lost,&quot; said the child, nestling her little hand more closely in his, &quot; and you&#039;ll take care of me, won&#039;t you?&quot; If ever a man were disconcerted by division between compassion on the one hand, and the very imbecility of irresolution on the other, here the man was. &quot;Lost!&quot; he repeated, looking down at the child. &quot;I am sure I am. What is to be done!&quot; &quot;Where do you live?&quot; asked the child, looking up at him, wistfully. &quot;Over there,&quot; he answered, pointing vaguely in the direction of his hotel. &quot;Hadn&#039;t we better go there?&quot; said the child. &quot;Really,&quot; he replied, &quot;I don&#039;t know but what we had.&quot; So they set off, hand in hand. He, through comparison of himself against his little companion, with a clumsy feeling on him as if he had just developed into a foolish giant. She, clearly elevated in her own tiny opinion by having got him so neatly out of his embarrassment. &quot;We are going to have dinner when we get there, I suppose?&quot; said Polly. &quot;Well,&quot; he rejoined, &quot; I—yes, I suppose we are.&quot; &quot;Do you like your dinner?&quot; asked the child. &quot;Why, on the whole,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, &quot;yes, I think I do.&quot; &quot;I do mine,&quot; said Polly. &quot; Have you any brothers and sisters?&quot; &quot;No. Have you?&quot; &quot;Mine are dead.&quot; &quot;O!&quot; said Barbox Brothers. With that absurd sense of unwieldiness of mind and body weighing him down, he would have not known how to pursue the conversation beyond this curt rejoinder, but that the child was always ready for him. &quot;What,&quot; she asked, turning her soft hand coaxingly in his, &quot;are you going to do to amuse me, after dinner?&quot; &quot;Upon my soul, Polly,&quot; exclaimed Barbox Brothers, very much at a loss, &quot;I have not the slightest idea!&quot; &quot;Then I tell you what,&quot; said Polly. &quot;Have you got any cards at your house?&quot; &quot;Plenty,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, in a boastful vein. &quot;Very well. Then I&#039;ll build houses, and you shall look at me. You mustn&#039;t blow, you know.&quot; &quot;O no!&quot; said Barbox Brothers. &quot;No, no, no. No blowing. Blowing&#039;s not fair.&quot; He flattered himself that he had said this pretty well for an idiotic monster; but the child, instantly perceiving the awkwardness of his attempt to adapt himself to her level, utterly destroyed his hopeful opinion of himself by saying, compassionately: &quot;What a funny man you are!&quot; Feeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he every minute grew bigger and heavier in person, and weaker in mind, Barbox gave himself up for a bad job. No giant ever submitted more meekly to be led in triumph by all-conquering Jack, than he to be bound in slavery to Polly. &quot;Do you know any stories?&quot; she asked him. He was reduced to the humiliating confession: &quot;No.&quot; &quot;What a dunce you must be, mustn&#039;t you?&quot; said Polly. He was reduced to the humiliating confession: &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;Would you like me to teach you a story? But you must remember it, you know, and be able to tell it right to somebody else afterwards?&quot; He professed that it would afford him the highest mental gratification to be taught a story, and that he would humbly endeavour to retain it in his mind. Whereupon Polly, giving her hand a new little turn in his, expressive of settling down for enjoyment, commenced a long romance, of which every relishing clause began with the words: &quot;So this&quot; or &quot;And so this.&quot; As, &quot;So this boy;&quot; or, &quot;So this fairy;&quot; or, &quot;And so this pie was four yards round, and two yards and a quarter deep.&quot; The interest of the romance was derived from the intervention of this fairy to punish this boy for having a greedy appetite. To achieve which purpose, this fairy made this pie, and this boy ate and ate and ate, and his cheeks swelled and swelled and swelled. There were many tributary circumstances, but the forcible interest culminated in the total consumption of this pie, and the bursting of this boy. Truly he was a fine sight, Barbox Brothers, witk serious attentive face, and ear bent down, much jostled on the pavements of the busy town, but afraid of losing a single incident of the epic, lest he should be examined in it by-and-by and found deficient. Thus they arrived at the hotel. And there he had to say at the bar, and said awkwardly enough: &quot;I have found a little girl!&quot; The whole establishment turned out to look at the little girl. Nobody knew her; nobody could make out her name, as she set it forth—except one chambermaid, who said it was Constantinople—which it wasn&#039;t. &quot;I will dine with my young friend in a private room,&quot; said Barbox Brothers to the hotel authorities, &quot;and perhaps you will be so good as let the police know that the pretty baby is here. I suppose she is sure to be inquired for, soon, if she has not been already. Come along, Polly.&quot; Perfectly at ease and peace, Polly came along, but, finding the stairs rather stiff work, was carried up by Barbox Brothers. The dinner was a most transcendent success, and the Barbox sheepishness, under Polly&#039;s directions how to mince her meat for her, and how to diffuse gravy over the plate with a liberal and equal hand, was another fine sight. &quot;And now,&quot; said Polly, &quot;while we are at dinner, you be good, and tell me that story I taught you.&quot; With the tremors of a civil service examination on him, and very uncertain indeed, not only as to the epoch at which the pie appeared in history, but also as to the measurements of that indispensable fact, Barbox Brothers made a shaky beginning, but under encouragement did very fairly. There was a want of breadth observable in his rendering of the cheeks, as well as the appetite, of the boy; and there was a certain tameness in his fairy, referable to an under-current of desire to account for her. Still, as the first lumbering performance of a good-humoured monster, it passed muster. &quot;I told you to be good,&quot; said Polly, &quot;and you are good, ain&#039;t you?&quot; &quot;I hope so,&quot; replied Barbox Brothers. Such was his deference that Polly, elevated on a platform of sofa-cushions in a chair at his right hand, encouraged him with a pat or two on the face from the greasy bowl of her spoon, and even, with a gracious kiss. In getting on her feet upon her chair, however, to give him this last reward, she toppled forward among the dishes, and caused him to exclaim as he effected her rescue: &quot;Gracious Angels! Whew! I thought we were in the fire, Polly!&quot; &quot;What a coward you are, ain&#039;t you?&quot; said Polly, when replaced. &quot;Yes, I am rather nervous,&quot; he replied. &quot;Whew! Don&#039;t, Polly! Don&#039;t flourish your spoon, or you&#039;ll go over sideways. Don&#039;t tilt up your legs when you laugh, Polly, or you&#039;ll go over backwards. Whew! Polly, Polly, Polly,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, nearly succumbing to despair,&quot; we are environed with dangers!&quot; Indeed, he could descry no security from the pitfalls that were yawning for Polly, but in proposing to her, after dinner, to sit upon a low stool. &quot;I will, if you will,&quot; said Polly. So, as peace of mind should go before all, he begged the waiter to wheel aside the table, bring a pack of cards, a couple of footstools, and a screen, and close in Polly and himself before the fire, as it were in a snug room within the room. Then, finest sight of all, was Barbox Brothers on his footstool, with a pint decanter on the rug, contemplating Polly as she built successfully, and growing blue in the face with holding his breath, lest he should blow the house down. &quot;How you stare, don&#039;t you?&quot; said Polly, in a houseless pause. Detected in the ignoble fact, he felt obliged to admit, apologetically: &quot;I am afraid I was looking rather hard at you, Polly.&quot; &quot;Why do you stare?&quot; asked Polly. &quot;I cannot,&quot; he murmured to himself, &quot;recall why.—I don&#039;t know, Polly.&#039; &quot;You must be a simpleton to do things and not know why, mustn&#039;t you?&quot; said Polly. In spite or which reproof, he looked at the child again, intently, as she bent her head over her card-structure, her rich curls shading her face. &quot;It is impossible,&quot; he thought, &quot;that I can ever have seen this pretty baby before. Can I have dreamed of her? In some sorrowful dream?&quot; He could make nothing of it. So he went into the building trade as a journeyman under Polly, and they built three stories high, four stories high: even five. &quot;I say. Who do you think is coming?&quot; asked Polly, rubbing her eyes after tea. He guessed: &quot;The waiter?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; said Polly, &quot;the dustman. I am getting sleepy.&quot; A new embarrassment for Barbox Brothers! &quot;I don&#039;t think I am going to be fetched tonight,&quot; said Polly; &quot;what do you think?&quot; He thought not, either. After another quarter of an hour, the dustman not merely impending but actually arriving, recourse was had to the Constantinopolitan chambermaid: who cheerily undertook that the child should sleep in a comfortable and wholesome room, which she herself would share. &quot;And I know you will be careful, won&#039;t you,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, as a new fear dawned upon him, &quot;that she don&#039;t fall out of bed.&quot; Polly found this so highly entertaining that she was under the necessity of clutching him round the neck with both arms as he sat on his footstool picking up the cards, and rocking him to and fro, with her dimpled chin on his shoulder. &quot;O what a coward you are, ain&#039;t you!&quot; said Polly. &quot;Do you fall out of bed?&quot; &quot;N—not generally, Polly.&quot; &quot;No more do I.&quot;&quot; With that, Polly gave him a reassuring hug or two to keep him going, and then giving that confiding mite of a hand of hers to be swallowed up in the hand of the Constantinopolitan chambermaid, trotted off, chattering, without a vestige of anxiety. He looked after her, had the screen removed and the table and chairs replaced, and still looked after her. He paced the room for half an hour. A most engaging little creature, but it&#039;s not that. A most winning little voice, but it&#039;s not that. That has much to do with it, but there is something more. How can it be that I seem to know this child? What was it she imperfectly recalled to me when I felt her touch in the street, and, looking down at her, saw her looking up at me?&quot; &quot;Mr. Jackson!&quot; With a start he turned towards the sound of the subdued voice, and saw his answer standing at the door. &quot;O Mr. Jackson, do not be severe with me. Speak a word of encouragement to me, I beseech you.&quot; &quot;You are Polly&#039;s mother.&quot; &quot;Yes.&quot; Yes Polly herself might come to this, one day. As you see what the rose was, in its faded leaves; as you see what the summer growth of the woods was, in their wintry branches; so Polly might be traced, one day, in a care-worn woman like this, with her hair turned grey. Before him, were the ashes of a dead fire that had once burned bright. This was the woman he had loved. This was the woman he had lost. Such had been the constancy of his imagination to her, so had Time spared her under its withholding, that now, seeing how roughly the inexorable hand had struck her, his soul was filled with pity and amazement. He led her to a chair, and stood leaning on a comer of the chimney-piece, with his head resting on his hand, and his face half averted. &quot;Did you see me in the street, and show me to your child?&quot; he asked. &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;Is the little creature, then, a party to deceit?&quot; &quot;I hope there is no deceit. I said to her, &#039;We have lost our way. and I must try to find mine by myself. Go to that gentleman and tell him you are lost. You shall be fetched by-and-by.&#039; Perhaps you have not thought how very young she, is?&quot; &quot;She is very self-reliant.&quot; &quot;Perhaps because she is so young?&quot; He asked, after a short pause, &quot;Why did you do this?&quot; &quot;O Mr. Jackson, do you ask me? In the hope that you might see something in my innocent child to soften your heart, towards me. Not only towards me, but towards my husband.&quot; He suddenly turned about, and walked to the opposite end of the room. He came back again with a slower step, and resumed his former attitude, saying: &quot;I thought you had emigrated to America?&quot; &quot;We did. But life went ill with us there, and we came back.&quot; &quot;Do you live in this town?&quot; &quot;Yes. I am a daily teacher of music here. My husband is a book-keeper.&quot; &quot;Are you—forgive me asking—poor?&quot; &quot;We earn enough for our wants. That is not our distress. My husband is very, very ill of a lingering disorder. He will never recover—.&quot; &quot;You check yourself. If it, is for want of the encouraging word you spoke of, take it from me. I cannot forget the old time, Beatrice.&quot; &quot;God bless you!&quot; she replied, with a burst of tears, and gave him her trembling hand. Compose yourself. I cannot be composed if you are not, for to see you weep distresses me beyond expression. Speak freely to me. Trust me.&quot; She shaded her face with her veil, and after a little while spoke calmly. Her voice had the ring of Polly&#039;s. &quot;It is not that my husband&#039;s mind is at all impaired by his bodily suffering, for I assure you that is not the case. But in his weakness, and in his knowledge that, he is incurably ill, he cannot overcome the ascendancy of one idea. It preys upon him, embitters every moment of his painful life, and will shorten it.&quot; She stopping, he said again: &quot;Speak freely to me. Trust me.&quot; &quot;We have had five children before this darling, and they all lie in their little graves.He believes that they have withered away under a curse, and that it will blight this child like the rest.&quot; &quot;Under what curse?&quot; &quot;Both I and he have it on our conscience that we tried you very heavily, and I do not know but. that, if I were as ill as he, I might, suffer in my mind as he does. This is the constant burden:—&#039; I believe, Beatrice, I was the only friend that Mr. Jackson ever cared to make, though I was so much his junior. The more influence he acquired in the business the higher he advanced me, and I was alone in his private confidence. I came between him and you, and I took you from him. We were both secret, and the blow fell when he was wholly unprepared. The anguish it caused a man so compressed, must have been terrible; the wrath it awakened, inappeasable. So, a curse came to be invoked on our poor pretty little flowers, and they fall.&#039;&quot; &quot;And you, Beatrice,&quot; he asked, when she had ceased to speak, and there had been a silence afterwards: &quot;how say you?&#039;&#039; &quot;Until within these few weeks I was afraid of you, and I believed that you would never, never, forgive.&quot; &quot;Until within these few weeks,&quot; he repeated. &quot;Have you changed your opinion of me within these few weeks?&quot; &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;For what reason?&quot; &quot;I was getting some pieces of music in a shop in this town, when, to my terror, you came in. As I veiled my face and stood in the dark end of the shop, I heard you explain that you wanted a musical instrument, for a bedridden girl. Your voice and manner were so softened, you showed such interest in its selection, you took it away yourself with so much tenderness of care and pleasure, that I knew you were a man with a most gentle heart. O Mr. Jackson, Mr. Jackson, if you could have felt the refreshing rain of tears that followed for me I&quot; Was Phoebe playing at that moment, on her distant couch? He seemed to hear her. &quot;I inquired in the shop where you lived, but could get no information. As I had heard you say that you were going back by the next train (but you did not say where), I resolved to visit the station at about that time of day, as often as I could, between my lessons on the chance of seeing you again. I have been there very often, but saw you no more until yesterday. You were meditating as you walked the street, but the calm expression of your face emboldened me to send my child to you. And when I saw you bend your head to speak tenderly to her, I prayed to GOD to forgive me for having ever brought a sorrow on it. I now pray to you to forgive me, and to forgive my husband. I was very young, he was young too, and in the ignorant hardihood of such a time of life we don&#039;t know what we do to those who have undergone more discipline. You generous man! You good man! So to raise me up and make nothing of my crime against you!&quot;—for he would not see her on her knees, and soothed her as a kind father might have soothed an erring daughter—&quot;thank you, bless you, thank you!&quot; When he next spoke, it was after having drawn aside the window-curtain and looked out a while. Then, he only said: &quot;Is Polly asleep?&quot; &quot;Yes. As I came in, I met her going away upstairs, and put her to bed myself.&quot; &quot;Leave her with me for to-morrow, Beatrice, and write me your address on this leaf of my pocket-book. In the evening I will bring her home to you—and to her father.&quot; * * * * &quot;Hallo!&quot; cried Polly, putting her saucy sunny face in at the door next morning when breakfast was ready: &quot;I thought I was fetched last night?&quot; &quot;So you were, Polly, but I asked leave to keep you here for the day, and to take you home in the evening.&quot; &quot;Upon my word!&quot; said Polly. &quot;You are very cool, ain&#039;t you?&quot; However, Polly seemed to think it a good idea, and added, &quot;I suppose I must give you a kiss though you are cool.&quot; The kiss given and taken, they sat down to breakfast in a highly conversational tone. &quot;Of course, you are going to amuse me?&quot; said Polly. &quot;Oh, of course,&quot; said Barbox Brothers. In the pleasurable height of her anticipations, Polly found it indispensable to put down her piece of toast, cross one of her little fat knees over the other, and bring her little fat right hand down into her left hand with a business-like slap. After this gathering of herself together, Polly, by that time, a mere heap of dimples asked in a wheedling manner: &quot;What are we going to do, you dear old thing?&quot; &quot;Why, I was thinking,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, &quot;—but are you fond of horses, Polly?&quot; &quot;Ponies, I am,&quot; said Polly, &quot;especially when their tails are long. But horses—n—no—too big, you know.&quot; &quot;Well,&quot; pursued Barbox Brothers, in a spirit of grave mysterious confidence adapted to the importance of the consultation, &quot;I did see yesterday,Polly, on the walls, pictures of two long-tailed ponies, speckled all over—&quot; &quot;No, no, NO!&quot; cried Polly, in an ecstatic desire to linger on the charming details. &quot;Not speckled all over!&quot; &quot;Speckled all over. Which ponies jump through hoops—&quot; &quot;No, no, NO!&quot; cried Polly, as before. &quot;They never jump through hoops!&quot; &quot;Yes, they do. O I assure you they do. And eat pie in pinafores—&quot; &quot;Ponies eating pie in pinafores!&quot; said Polly. &quot;What a story-teller you are, ain&#039;t you?&quot; &quot;Upon my honour—. And fire off guns.&quot; (Polly hardly seemed to see the force of the ponies resorting to fire-arms.) &quot;And I was thinking,&quot; pursued the exemplary Barbox, &quot;that if you and I were to go to the Circus where these ponies are, it would do our constitutions good.&quot; &quot;Does that mean, amuse us?&quot; inquired Polly. &quot;What long words you do use, don&#039;t you?&quot; Apologetic for having wandered out of his depth, he replied: &quot;That means amuse us. That is exactly what it means. There are many other wonders besides the ponies, and we, shall see them all. Ladies and gentlemen in spangled dresses, and elephants and lions and tigers.&quot; Polly became observant of the teapot, with a curled-up nose indicating some uneasiness of mind. &quot;They never get out, of course,&quot; she remarked as a mere truism. &quot;The elephants and lions and tigers? O dear no!&quot; &quot;O dear no!&quot; said Polly. &quot;And of course nobody&#039;s afraid of the ponies shooting anybody.&quot; &quot;Not the least in the world.&quot; &quot;No, no, not the least in the world,&quot; said Polly. &quot;I was also thinking,&quot; proceeded Barbox, &quot;that if we were to look in at the toy-shop, to choose a doll—&quot; &quot;Not dressed!&quot; cried Polly, with a clap of her hands. &quot;No, no, NO, not dressed!&quot; &quot;Full dressed. Together with a house, and all things necessary for housekeeping—&quot; Polly gave a little scream, and seemed in danger of falling into a swoon of bliss. &quot;What a darling you are!&quot; she languidly exclaimed, leaning back in her chair. &quot;Come and be hugged, or I must come and hug you.&quot; This resplendent programme was carried into execution with the utmost rigour of the law. It being essential to make the purchase of the doll its first feature—or that lady would have lost the ponies—the toy-shop expedition took precedence. Polly in the magic warehouse, with a doll as large as herself under each arm, and a neat assortment of some twenty more on view upon the counter, did indeed present a spectacle of indecision not quite compatible with unalloyed happiness, but the light cloud passed. The lovely specimen oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected, and finally abided by, was of Circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty as was reconcilable with extreme feebleness of mouth, and combining a sky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a black velvet hat: which this fair stranger to our northern shores would seem to have founded on the portraits of the late Duchess of Kent. The name this distinguished foreigner brought with her from beneath the glowing skies of a sunny clime was (on Polly&#039;s authority) Miss Melluka, and the costly nature of her outfit as a housekeeper, from the Barbox coffers, may be inferred from the two facts that her silver teaspoons were as large as her kitchen poker, and that the proportions of her watch exceeded those of her frying-pan. Miss Melluka was graciously pleased to express her entire approbation of the Circus, and so was Polly; for the ponies were speckled, and brought down nobody when they fired, and the savagery of the wild beasts appeared to be mere smoke—which article, in fact, they did produce in large quantities from their insides. The Barbox absorption in the general subject throughout the realisation of these delights was again a sight to see, nor was it less worthy to behold at dinner, when he drank to Miss Melluka, tied stiff in a chair opposite to Polly (the fair Circassian possessing an unbendable spine), and even induced the waiter to assist in carrying out with due decorum the prevailing glorious idea. To wind up, there came the agreeable fever of getting Miss Melluka and all her wardrobe and rich possesions into a fly with Polly, to be taken home. But by that time Polly had become unable to look upon such accumulated joys with waking eyes, and had withdrawn her consciousness into the wonderful Paradise of a child&#039;s sleep. &quot;Sleep, Polly, sleep,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, as her head dropped on his shoulder; &quot;you shall not fall out of this bed, easily, at any rate!&quot; What rustling piece of paper he took from his pocket, and carefully folded into the bosom of Polly&#039;s frock, shall not be mentioned. He said nothing about it, and nothing shall be said about it. They drove to a modest suburb of the great ingenious town, and stopped at the fore-court of a small house. &quot;Do not wake the child,&quot; said Barbox Brothers, softly, to the driver, &quot; I will carry her in as she is.&quot; Greeting the light at the opened door which was held by Polly&#039;s mother, Polly&#039;s bearer passed on with mother and child into a ground-floor room. There, stretched on a sofa, lay a sick man, sorely wasted, who covered his eyes with his emaciated hands. &quot;Tresham,&quot; said Barbox, in a kindly voice, &quot;I have brought you back your Polly, fast asleep. Give me your hand, and tell me you are better.&quot; The sick man reached forth his right hand, and bowed his head over the hand into which it taken, and kissed it. &quot;Thank you, thank you! I may say that I am well and happy.&quot; &quot;That&#039;s brave,&quot; said Barbox. &quot;Tresham, I have a fancy—can you make room for me beside you here?&quot; He sat down on the sofa as he said the words, cherishing the plump peachy cheek that lay uppermost on his shoulder. &quot;I have a fancy, Tresham (I am getting quite an old fellow now, you know, and old fellows may take fancies into their heads sometimes) to give up Polly, having found her, to no one but you. Will you take her from me?&quot; As the father held out his arms for the child, each of the two men looked steadily at the other. &quot;She is very dear to you, Tresham?&quot; &quot;Unutterably dear.&quot; &quot;God bless her! It is not much, Polly,&quot; he continued, turning his eyes upon her peaceful face as he apostrophised her, &quot;it is not much, Polly, for a blind and sinful man to invoke a blessing on something so far better than himself as a little child is; but it would be much—much upon his cruel head, and much upon, his guilty soul—if he could be so wicked as to invoke a curse. He had better have a millstone round his neck, and be cast into the deepest sea. Live and thrive, my pretty baby!&quot; Here he kissed her. &quot;Live and prosper, and become in time the mother of other little children, like the Angels who behold The Father&#039;s face!&quot; He kissed her again, gave her up gently to both her parents, and went out. But he went not to Wales. No, he never went to Wales. He went straightway for another stroll about the town, and he looked in upon the people at their work, and at their play, here, there, everywhere, and where not. For he was Barbox Brothers and Co. now, and had taken thousands of partners into the solitary firm. He had at length got back to his hotel room, and was standing before his fire refreshing himself with a glass of hot drink which he had stood upon the chimney-piece, when he heard the town clocks striking, and, referring to his watch, found the evening to have so slipped away, that they were striking twelve. As he put up his watch again, his eyes met those of his reflection in the chimney-glass. &quot;Why it&#039;s your birthday already,&quot; he said, smiling. &quot;You are looking very well. I wish you many happy returns of the day.&quot; He had never before bestowed that wish upon himself. &quot;By Jupiter!&quot; he discovered, &quot;it alters the whole case of running away from one&#039;s birthday! It&#039;s a thing to explain to Phoebe. Besides, here is quite a long story to tell her, that has sprung out of the road with no story. I&#039;ll go back, instead of going on. I&#039;ll go back by my friend Lamps&#039;s Up X presently.&quot; He went back to Mugby Junction, and in point of fact he established himself at Mugby Junction. It was the convenient place to live in, for brightening Phoebe&#039;s life. It was the convenient place to live in, for having her taught music by Beatrice. It was the convenient place to live in, for occasionally borrowing Polly. It was the convenient place to live in, for being joined at will to all sorts of agreeable places and persons. So, he became settled there, and, his house, standing in an elevated situation, it is noteworthy of him in conclusion, as Polly herself might (not irreverently) have put it: There was an Old Barbox who lived on a hill, And if he ain&#039;t gone, he lives there still. I am The Boy at Mugby. That&#039;s about what I am. You don&#039;t know what I mean? What a pity! But I think you do. I think you must. Look here. I am the Boy at what is called The Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, and what&#039;s proudest boast is, that it never yet refreshed a mortal being. Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, in the height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I&#039;ve often counted &#039;em while they brush the First Class hair twenty-seven ways), behind the bottles, among the glasses, bounded on the nor&#039;-west by the beer, stood pretty far to the right of a metallic object that&#039;s at times the tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its contents which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveller by a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly exposed sideways to the glare of Our Missis&#039;s eye—you ask a Boy so sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything to drink; you take particular notice that he&#039;ll try to seem not to hear you, that he&#039;ll appear in a Absent manner to survey the Line through a transparent medium composed of your head and body, and that he won&#039;t serve you as long as you can possibly bear it. That&#039;s Me. What a lark it is! We are the Model Establishment, we are, at Mugby. Other Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young ladies up to be finished off by our Missis. For some of the young ladies, when they&#039;re new to the business, come into it mild! Ah! Our Missis, she soon takes that out of &#039;em. Why, I originally come into the business meek myself. But Our Missis she soon took that out of me. What a delightful lark it is! I look upon us Refreshmenters as ockipying the only proudly independent footing on the Line. There&#039;s Papers for instance—my honourable friend if he will allow me to call him so—him as belongs to Smith&#039;s bookstall. Why he no more dares to be up to our Refreshmenting games, than he dares to jump atop of a locomotive with her steam at full pressure, and cut away upon her alone, driving himself, at limited-mail speed. Papers, he&#039;d get his head punched at every compartment, first second and third, the whole length of a train, if he was to ventur to imitate my demeanour. It&#039;s the same with the porters, the same with the guards, the same with the ticket clerks, the same the whole way up to the secretary, traffic manager, or very chairman. There ain&#039;t a one among &#039;em on the nobly independent footing we are. Did you ever catch one of them, when you wanted anything of him, making a system of surveying the Line through a transparent medium composed of your head and body? I should hope not. You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction. It&#039;s led to, by the door behind the counter which you&#039;ll notice usually stands ajar, and it&#039;s the room where Our Missis and our young ladies Bandolines their hair. You should see &#039;em at it, betwixt trains, Bandolining away, as if they was anointing themselves for the combat. When you&#039;re telegraphed, you should see their noses all a going up with scorn, as if it was a part of the working of the same Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery. You should hear Our Missis give the word &quot;Here comes the Beast to be Fed!&quot; and then you should see &#039;em indignantly skipping across the Line, from the Up to the Down, or Wicer Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale pastry into the plates, and chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers, and get out the—ha ha ha!—the Sherry—O my eye, my eye!—for your Refreshment. It&#039;s only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which of course I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting is so effective, so &#039;olesome, so constitutional, a check upon the public. There was a foreigner, which having politely, with his hat off, beseeched our young ladies and Our Missis for &quot;a leetel gloss hoff prarndee,&quot; and having had the Line surveyed through him by all and no other acknowledgment, was a proceeding at last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his own country, when Our Missis with her hair almost a coming un-Bandolined with rage, and her eyes omitting sparks flew at him, cotched the decanter out of his hand, and said: &quot;Put it down! I won&#039;t allow that!&quot; The foreigner turned pale, stepped back with his arms stretched out in front of him, his hands clasped, and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed: &quot;Ah! Is it possible this! That these disdaineous females and this ferocious old woman are placed here by the administration, not only to empoison the voyagers, but to affront them! Great Heaven! How arrives it? The English people. Or is he then a slave? Or idiot?&quot; Another time, a merry wideawake American gent had tried the sawdust and spit it out, and had tried the Sherry and spit that out, and had tried in vain to sustain exhausted natur upon Butter-Scotch, and had been rather extra Bandolined and Line-surveyed through, when, as the bell was ringing and he paid Our Missis, he says, very loud and good-tempered: &quot;I tell Yew what &#039;tis, ma&#039;arm. I la&#039;af. Theer! I la&#039;af. I Dew. I oughter ha,&#039; seen most things, for I hail from the Onlimited side of the Atlantic Ocean, and I haive travelled right slick over the Limited, head on through Jee-rusalemm and the East, and likeways France and Italy, Europe Old World, and am now upon the track to the Chief Europian Village; but such an institution as Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin&#039;s solid and liquid, afore the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet! And if I hain&#039;t found the eighth wonder of monarchical Creation, in finding Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin&#039;s solid and liquid, all as aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the innermostest grit! Wheerfur—T heer!—I la&#039;af! I Dew, ma&#039;arm. I la&#039;af!&quot; And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides along the platform all the way to his own compartment. I think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner, as giv&#039; Our Missis the idea of going over to France, and droring a comparison betwixt Refreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters, and Refreshmenting as triumphant in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which of course I mean to say agin, Britannia). Our young ladies, Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her going; for, as they says to Our Missis one and all, it is well In-known to the hends of the herth as no other nation except Britain has a idea of anythink, but above all of business. &quot;Why then should you tire yourself to prove what is already proved? Our Missis however (being a teazer at all pints) stood out grim obstinate, and got a return pass by South-Eastern Tidal, to go right through, if such should be her dispositions, to Marseilles. Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove. He looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is sometimes when we are very hard put to it let in behind the counter with a corkscrew; but never when it can be helped, his demeanour towards the public being disgusting servile. How Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to lower herself as to marry him, I don&#039;t know; but I suppose he does, and I should think he wished he didn&#039;t, for he leads a awful life. Mrs. Sniff couldn&#039;t be much harder with him if he was public. Similarly, Miss Whiff and Miss Piff, taking the tone of Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he is let in with a corkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in his servility he is a going to let the public have &#039;em, and they snap him up when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he is a going to answer a public question, and they drore more tears into his eyes than ever the mustard does which he all day long lays on to the sawdust. (But it ain&#039;t strong.) Once, when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to get the milk-pot to hand over for a baby, I see Our Missis in her rage catch him by both his shoulders and spin him out into the Bandolining Room. But Mrs. Sniff. How different! She&#039;s the one! She&#039;s the one as you&#039;ll notice to be always looking another way from you, when you look at her. She&#039;s the one with the small waist buckled in tight in front, and with the lace cuffs at her wrists, which she puts on the edge of the counter before her, and stands a smoothing while the public foams. This smoothing the cuffs and looking another way while the public foam is the last accomplishment taught to the young ladies as come to Mugby to be finished by Our Missis; and it&#039;s always taught by Mrs. Sniff. When Our Missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff was left in charge. She did hold the public in cheek most beautiful! In all my time, I never see half so many cups of tea given without milk to people as wanted it with, nor half so many cups of tea with milk given to people as wanted it without. When foaming ensued, Mrs. Sniff would say: &quot;Then you&#039;d better settle it among yourselves, and change with one another.&quot; It was a most highly delicious lark. I enjoyed the Refreshmenting business more than ever, and was so glad I had took to it when young. Our Missis returned. It got circulated among the young ladies, and it as if might be penetrated to me through the crevices of the Bandolining Room, that she had Orrors to reveal, if revelations so contemptible could be dignfied with the name. Agitation become awakened. Excitement was up in the stirrups. Expectations stood a tiptoe. At length it was put forth that on our slackest evening in the week, and at our slackest time of that evening betwixt trains, Our Missis would give her views of foreign Refreshmenting, in the Bandolining Room. It was arranged tasteful for the purpose. The Bandolining table and glass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated on a packing-case for Our Missis&#039;s ockypation, a table and a tumbler of water (no sherry in it, thankee) was placed beside it. Two of the pupils, the season being autumn, and hollyhocks and daliahs being in, ornamented the wall with three devices in those flowers. On one might be read, &quot;MAY ALBION NEVER LEARN;&quot; on another, &quot;KEEP THE PUBLIC DOWN;&quot; on another, &quot;OUR REFRESHMENTING CHARTER.&quot; The whole had a beautiful appearance, with which the beauty of the sentiments corresponded. On Our Missis&#039;s brow was wrote Severity, as she ascended the. fatal platform. (Not that that was anythink new.) Miss Whiff and Miss Piff sat at her feet. Three chairs from the Waiting Room might have been perceived by a average eye, in front of her, on which the pupils was accommodated. Behind them, a very close observer might have discerned a Boy. Myself. &quot;Where,&quot; said Our Missis, glancing gloomily around, &quot;is Sniff?&quot; &quot;I thought it better,&quot; answered Mrs. Sniff, &quot;that he should not be let to come in. He is such an Ass.&quot; &quot;No doubt,&quot; assented Our Missis. &quot;But for that reason is it not desirable to improve his mind?&quot; &quot;O! Nothing will ever improve him,&quot; said Mrs. Sniff. &quot;However,&quot; pursued Our Missis, &quot;call him in, Ezekiel.&quot; I called him in. The appearance of the low-minded cove was hailed wilh disapprobation from all sides, on account of his having brought his corkscrew with him. He pleaded &quot;the force of habit.&#039;&#039; &quot;The force!&quot; said Mrs. Sniff. &quot;Don&#039;t let us have you talking about force, for Gracious sake. There! Do stand still where you are, with your back against the wall.&quot; He is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean way in which he will even smile at the public if he gets a chance (language can say no meaner of him), and he stood upright near the door with the back of his head agin the wall, as if he was a waiting for somebody to come and measure his heighth for the Army. &quot;I should not enter, ladies,&quot; says Our Missis, &quot;on the revolting disclosures I am about to make, if it was not in the hope that they will cause you to be yet more implacable in the exercise of the power you wield in a constitutional country, and yet more devoted to the constitutional motto which I see before me;&quot; it was behind her, but the words sounded better so; &quot;&#039;May Albion never learn!&#039;&quot; Here the pupils as had made the motto, admired it, and cried, &quot;Hear! Hear! Hear!&quot; Sniff, showing an inclination to join in chorus, got himself frowned down by every brow. &quot;The baseness of the French,&quot; pursued Our Missis, &quot;as displayed in the fawning nature of their Refreshmenting, equals, if not surpasses, anythink as was ever heard of the baseness of the celebrated Buonaparte.&quot; Miss Whiff, Miss Piff and me, we drored a heavy breath, equal to saying, &quot;We thought as much!&quot; Miss Whiff and Miss Piff seeming to object to my droring mine along with theirs, I drored another, to aggravate &#039;em. &quot;Shall I be believed,&quot; says Our Missis, with flashing eyes, &quot;when I tell you that no sooner had I set my foot upon that treacherous shore—&quot; Here Sniff, either busting out mad, or thinking aloud, says, in a low voice: &quot;Feet. Plural, you know.&quot; The cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by all eyes, added to his being beneath contempt, was sufficient punishment for a cove so grovelling. In the midst of a silence rendered more impressive by the turned-up female noses with which it was pervaded, Our Missis went on: &quot;Shall I be believed when I tell you that no sooner had I landed,&quot; this word with a killing look at Sniff, &quot;on that treacherous shore, than I was ushered into a Refreshment Room where there were, I do not exaggerate, actually eatable things to eat?&quot; A groan burst from the ladies. I not only did myself the honour of jining, but also of lengthening it out. &quot;Where there were,&quot; Our Missis added, &quot;not only eatable things to eat, but also drinkable things to drink?&quot; A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz. Miss Piff, trembling with indignation, called out: &quot;Name!&quot; &quot;I will name,&quot; said Our Missis. &quot;There was roast fowls, hot and cold; there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned potatoes; there was hot soup with (again I ask shall I be credited?) nothing bitter in it, and no flour to choke off the consumer; there was a variety of cold dishes set off with jelly; there was salad; there was—mark me!—fresh pastry, and that of a light construction; there was a luscious show of fruit. There was bottles and decanters of sound small wine, of every size and adapted to every pocket; the same odious statement will apply to brandy; and these were set out upon the counter so that all could help themselves.&quot; Our Missis&#039;s lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely less convulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them. &quot;This,&quot; proceeds Our Missis, &quot;was my first unconstitutional experience. Well would it have been, if it had been my last and worst. But no. As I proceeded further into that enslaved and ignorant land, its aspect became more hideous. I need not explain to this assembly, the ingredients and formation of the British Refreshment sangwich?&quot; Universal laughter—except from Sniff, who, as sangwich-cutter, shook his head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood with it agin the wall. &quot;Well!&quot; said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils.&quot; Take a fresh crisp long crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour. Cut it longwise through the middle. Insert a fair and nicely fitting slice of ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind it together. Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which to hold it. And the universal French Refreshment sangwich busts on your disgusted vision.&quot; A cry of &quot;Shame!&quot; from all—except Sniff, which rubbed his stomach with a soothing hand. &quot;I need not,&quot; said Our Missis, &quot;explain to this assembly, the usual formation and fitting of the British Refreshment Room?&quot; No, no, and laughter. Sniff agin shaking his head in low spirits agin the wall. &quot;Well,&quot; said Our Missis, &quot;what would you say to a general decoration of everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvet furniture, to abundance of little tables, to abundance of little seats, to brisk bright waiters, to great convenience, to a pervading cleanliness and tastefulness positively addressing the public and making the Beast thinking itself worth the pains?&quot; Contemptous fury on the part of all the ladies. Mrs. Sniff looking as if she wanted somebody to hold her, and everybody else looking as if they&#039;d rayther not. &quot;Three times,&quot; said Our Missis, working herself into a truly terrimcnjious state, &quot;three times did I see these shamful things, only between the coast and Paris, and not counting either: at Hazebrouckc, at Arras, at Amiens. But worse remains. Tell me, what would you call a person who should propose in England that there should be kept, say at our own model Mugby Junction, pretty baskets, each holding an assorted cold lunch and dessert for one, each at a certain fixed price, and each within a passenger&#039;s power to take away, to empty in the carriage at perfect leisure, and to return at another station fifty or a hundred miles further on?&quot; There was disagreement that such a person should he called. Whether revolutionist, atheist, Bright (I said him), or Un-English. Miss Piff screeched her shrill opinion last, in the words: &quot;A malignant maniac!&quot; &quot;I adopt,&quot; says Our Missis, &quot;the brand set upon such a person by the righteous indignation of my friend Miss Plff. A malignant maniac. Know then, that that malignant maniac has sprung from the congenial soil of France, and that his malignant madness was unchecked action on this same part of my journey.&quot; I noticed that Snilf was a rubbing his hands, and that Mrs. Sniff had got her eye upon him. But I did not take more particular notice, owing to the excited state in which the young ladies was, and to feeling myself called upon to keep it up with a howl. &quot;On my experience south of Paris,&quot; said Our Missis, in a deep tone, &quot;I will not expatiate. Too loathsome were the task! But fancy this. Fancy a guard coming round, with the train at full speed, to inquire how many for dinner. Fancy his telegraphing forward, the number of diners. Fancy every one expected, and the table elegantly laid for the complete party. Fancy a charming dinner, in a charming room, and the head-cook, concerned for the honour of every dish, superintending in his clean white jacket and cap. Fancy the Beast travelling six hundred miles on end, very fast, and with great punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this to be done for it!&quot; A spirited chorus of &quot;The Beast!&quot; I noticed that Sniff was agin a rubbing his stomach with a soothing hand, and that he had drored up one leg. But agin I didn&#039;t take particular notice, looking on myself as called upon to stimilate public feeling. It being a lark besides. &quot;Putting everything together,&quot; said Our Missis, &quot;French Refreshmenting comes to this, and O it conies to a nice total! First: eatable things to eat, and drinkable things to drink.&quot; A groan from the young ladies, kep&#039; up by me. &quot;Second: convenience, and even elegance.&quot; Another groan from the young ladies, kep&#039; up by me. &quot;Third: moderate charges.&quot; This time, a groan from me, kep&#039; up by the young ladies. &quot;Fourth:—and here,&quot; says Our Missis, &quot;I claim your angriest sympathy—attention, common civility, nay, even politeness!&quot; Me, and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together. &quot;And I cannot in conclusion,&quot; says Our Missis, with her spitefullest sneer, &quot;give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (after what I have related), than assuring you that they wouldn&#039;t bear our constitutional ways and noble independence at Mugby Junction, for a single mouth, and that they would turn us to the right-about and put another system in our places, as soon as look at us; perhaps sooner, for I do not believe they have the good taste to care to look at us twice.&quot; The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore away by his servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and a higher relish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrew over his head. It was at this moment, that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep&#039; her eye upon him like the fabled obelisk, descended on her victim. Our Missis followed them both out, and cries was heard in the sawdust department. You come into the Down Refreshment Room, at the Junction, making believe you don&#039;t know me, and I&#039;ll pint you out with my right, thumb over my shoulder which is Our Missis, and which is Miss Whiff, and which is Miss Piff, and which is Mrs. Sniff. But you won&#039;t get a chance to see Sniff, because he disappeared that night. Whether he perished, tore to pieces, I cannot say; but his corkscrew alone remains, to bear witness to the servility of his disposition. &quot;Halloa! Below there!&quot; When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but, instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about and looked down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said, for my life, what. But, I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all. &quot;Halloa! Below!&quot; From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him. &quot;Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?&quot; He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without, pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question. Just then, there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down. When such vapour as rose to my height from this rapid train, had passed me and was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again, and saw him re-furling the flag he had shown while the train went by. I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down to him, &quot;All right!&quot; and made for that point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zig-zag descending path notched out: which I followed. The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone that became oozier and wetter as I went down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recal a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out the path. When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent, to see him again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his right hand crossed over his breast. His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness, that I stopped a moment, wondering at it. I resumed my downward way, and, stepping out upon the level of the railroad and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way, only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction, terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world. Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step, and lifted his hand. This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In me, he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly-awakened interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far from sure of the terms I used, for, besides that I am not happy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man that daunted me. He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel&#039;s mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were missing from it, and then looked at me. That light was part of his charge? Was it not? He answered in a low voice: &quot;Don&#039;t you know it is?&quot; The monstrous thought came into my mind as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. I have speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind. In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I detected in his eyes some latent fear of me. This put the monstrous thought to flight. &quot;You look at me,&quot; I said, forcing a smile, &quot;as if you had a dread of me.&quot; &quot;I was doubtful,&quot; he returned, &quot;whether I had seen you before.&quot; &quot;Where?&quot; He pointed to the red light he had looked at. &quot;There?&quot; I said. Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), Yes. &quot;My good fellow, what should I do there? However, be that as it may, I never was there, you may swear.&quot; &quot;I think I may,&quot; he rejoined. &quot;Yes. I am sure I may.&quot; His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my remarks with readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he much to do there? Yes; that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness and watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual work—manual labour—he had next to none. To change that signal, to trim those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, was all he had to do under that head. Regarding those many long and lonely hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only say that the routine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had grown used to it. He had taught himself a language down here—if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its pronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also worked at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it necessary for him when on duty, always to remain in that channel of damp air, and could he never rise into the sunshine from between those high stone walls? Why, that depended upon times and circumstances. Under some conditions there would be less upon the Line than under others, and the same held good as to certain hours of the day and night. In bright weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little above these lower shadows; but, being at all times liable to be called by his electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled anxiety, the relief was less than I would suppose. He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an official book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic instrument with its dial face and needles, and the little bell of which he had spoken. On my trusting that he would excuse the remark that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say without offence), perhaps educated above that station, he observed that instances of slight incongruity in such-wise would rarely be found wanting among large bodies of men; that he had heard it was so in workhouses, in the police force, even in that last desperate resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I could believe it, sitting in that hut; he scarcely could), a student of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again. He had no complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, and he lay upon it. It was far too late to make another. All that I have here condensed, he said in a quiet manner, with his grave dark regards divided between me and the fire. He threw in the word &quot;Sir,&quot; from time to time, and especially when he referred to his youth: as though to request me to understand that he claimed to be nothing but what I found him. He was several times interrupted by the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies. Once, he had to stand without the door, and display a flag as a train passed, and make some verbal communication to the driver. ln the discharge of his duties I observed him to be remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining silent until what he had to do was done. In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of men to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen colour, turned his face towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy damp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel. On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being able to define, when we were so far asunder. Said I when I rose to leave him: &quot;You almost make me think that I have met with a contented man.&quot; (I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.) &quot;I believe I used to be so,&quot; he rejoined, in the low voice in which he had first spoken; &quot;but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled.&quot; He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said them, however, and I took them up quickly. With what? What is your trouble?&quot; &quot;It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very, difficult to speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell you.&quot; &quot;But I expressly intend to make you another visit. Say, when shall it be?&quot; &quot;I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten to-morrow night, sir.&quot; &quot;I will come at eleven.&quot; He thanked me, and went out at the door with me. &quot;I&#039;ll show my white light, sir,&quot; he said, in his peculiar low voice, &quot;till you have found the way up. When you have found it, don&#039;t call out! And when you are at the top, don&#039;t call out!&quot; His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said no more than &quot;Very well.&quot; &quot;And when you come down to-morrow night, don&#039;t call out! Let me ask you a parting question. What made you cry &#039;Halloa! Below there!&#039; to-night?&quot; &quot;Heaven knows,&quot; said I. &quot;I cried something to that effect—&quot; Not to that effect, sir. Those were the very words. I know them well.&#039;&#039; &quot;Admit those were the very words. | them, no doubt, because I saw you below.&quot; &quot;For no other reason?&quot; &quot;What other reason could I possibly have!&quot; &quot;You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any supernatural way?&quot; &quot;No.&quot; He wished me good night, and held up his light. I walked by the side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation of a train coming behind me), until I found the path. It was easier to mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any adventure. Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of the zig-zag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven. He was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on. &quot;I have not called out,&quot; I said, when we came close together; &quot;may I speak now?&quot; &quot;By all means, sir.&quot; &quot;Good night then, and here&#039;s my hand.&quot; &quot;Good night, sir, and here&#039;s mine.&quot; With that, we walked side by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down by the fire. &quot;I have made up my mind, sir,&quot; he began, bending forward as soon as we were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper, &quot;that, you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I took you for some one else yesterday evening. That troubles me.&quot; &quot;That mistake?&quot; &quot;No. That some one else.&quot; &quot;Who is it?&quot; &quot;I don&#039;t know.&quot; &quot;Like me?&quot; &quot;I don&#039;t know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the face, and the right arm is waved. Violently waved. This way.&quot; I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm gesticulating with the utmost passion and vehemence: &quot;For God&#039;s sake clear the way!&quot; &quot;One moonlight night,&quot; said the man, &quot;I was sitting here, when I heard a voice cry &#039;Halloa! Below there!&#039; I started up, looked from that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red light near the tunnel waving as I just now showed you. The voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, &#039;Look out! Look out!&#039; And then again &#039;Halloa! Below there! Look out!&#039; I caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, &#039;What&#039;s wrong? What has happened? Where?&#039; It stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close upon it that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up at it, and had my hand lied out to pull the sleeve away, when it was gone.&quot; &quot;Into the tunnel,&#039;&#039; said I. &quot;No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I stopped and held my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the measured distance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and trickling through the arch. I ran out again, faster than I had run in (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again, and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways: &#039;An alarm has been given, is anything wrong?&#039; The answer came back, both ways: &#039;All well.&#039;&quot; Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of sight, and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments upon themselves. &quot;As to an imaginary cry,&quot; said I, &quot;do but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires!&quot; That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for a while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the wires, he who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and watching. But he would beg to remark that he had not finished. I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my arm: &quot;Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on this Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had stood.&quot; A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it. It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind. But, it was unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur, and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject. Though to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he was going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of common sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary calculations of life. He again begged to remark that he had not finished. I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions. &quot;This,&quot; he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing over his shoulder with hollow eyes, &quot;was just a year ago. Six or seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and shock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at that door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre again,&quot; He stopped, with a fixed look at me. &quot;Did it cry out?&quot; &quot;No. It was silent.&quot; &quot;Did it wave its arm?&quot; &quot;No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands before the face. Like this.&quot; Once more, I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action of mourning. I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs. &quot;Did you go up to it?&quot; &quot;I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly because it had turned me faint. When I went to the door again, daylight was above me, and the ghost was gone.&quot; &quot;But nothing followed? Nothing came of this?&quot; He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice, giving a ghastly nod each time: &quot;That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a carriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of hands and heads, and something waved. I saw it, just in time to signal the driver, Stop! He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after it, and, as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the compartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor between us.&quot; Involuntarily, I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards at which he pointed, to himself. &quot;True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you.&quot; I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long lamenting wail. He resumed. &quot;Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is troubled. The spectre came back, a week ago. Ever since, it has been there, now and again, by fits and starts.&quot; &quot;At the light?&quot; &quot;At the Danger-light.&quot; &quot;What does it seem to do?&quot; He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that former gesticulation of &quot;For God&#039;s sake clear the way!&quot; Then, he went on. &quot;I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me, for many minutes together, in an agonised in manner, &#039;Below there! Look out! Look out!&#039; It stands waving to me. It rings my little bell—&quot; I caught at that. &quot;Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I was here, and you went to the door?&quot;&#039; &quot;Twice.&quot; &quot;Why, see,&quot; said I, &quot;how your imagination misleads you. My eyes were on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and if I am a living man, it did NOT ring at those times. No, nor at any other time, except when it was rung in the natural course of physical things by the station communicating with you.&quot; He shook his head. &quot;I have never made a mistake as to that, yet, sir. I have never confused the spectre&#039;s ring with the man&#039;s. The ghost&#039;s ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from nothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the eye. I don&#039;t wonder that you failed to hear it. But I heard it.&quot; &quot;And did the spectre seem to be there, when you looked out?&#039;&#039; &quot;It WAS there.&quot; &quot;Both times?&quot; He repeated firmly: &quot;Both times.&quot; &quot;Will you come to the door with me, and look for it now?&quot; He bit his under-lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but arose. I opened the door, and stood on the step, while he stood in the doorway. There, was the Danger-light. There, the dismal mouth of the tunnel. There, were the high wet stone walls of the cutting. There, were the stars above them. &quot;Do you see it?&quot; I asked him, taking particular note of his face. His eyes were prominent and strained; but not very much more so, perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly towards the same spot. &quot;No,&quot; he answered. &quot;It is not there.&quot; &quot;Agreed,&quot; said I. We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats. I was thinking how best to improve this advantage, if it might be called one, when he took up the conversation in such a matter of course way, so assuming that there could be no serious question of fact between us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions. &quot;By this time you will fully understand, sir,&quot; he said, &quot;that what troubles me so dreadfully, is the question, What does the spectre mean?&quot; I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand. &quot;What is its warning against?&quot; he said, ruminating, with his eyes on the fire, and only by times turning them on me. &quot;What is the danger? Where is the danger? There is danger overhanging, somewhere on the Line. Some dreadful calamity will happen. It is not to be doubted this third time, after what has gone before. But surely this is a cruel haunting of me. What can I do!&quot; He pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the drops from his heated forehead. &quot;If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can give no reason for it,&quot; he went on, wiping the palms of his hands. &quot;I should get into trouble, and do no good. They would think I was mad. This is the way it would work:— Message: &#039;Danger! Take care!&#039; Answer: &#039;What Danger? Where?&#039; Message: &#039;Don&#039;t know. But for God&#039;s sake take care!&#039; They would displace me. What else could they do?&quot; His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life. &quot;When it first stood under the Danger-light,&quot; he went on, putting his dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands outward across and across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress, &quot; why not tell me where that accident was to happen—if it must happen? Why not tell me how it could be averted if—it could have been averted? When on its second coming hid its face, why not tell me instead: &#039;She is going to die. Let them keep her at home&#039;? If it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its warnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not warn me plainly now? And I, Lord help me! A mere poor signalman on this solitary station! Why not go to somebody with credit to be believed, and power to act!&quot; When I saw him in this state, I saw that, for the poor man&#039;s sake, as well as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was, to compose his mind. Therefore, setting aside all question of reality or unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever thoroughly discharged his duty, must do well, and that at least it was his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not understand these confounding Appearances. In this effort I succeeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his conviction. He became calm; the occupations incidental to his post as the night advanced, began to make larger demands on his attention; and I left him at two in the morning. I had offered to stay through the night, but he would not hear of it. That I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended the pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to conceal. Nor, did I like the two sequences of the accident and the dead girl. I see no reason to conceal that, either. But, what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure? I had proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact; but how long might he remain so, in his state of mind? Though in a subordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of his continuing to execute it with precision? Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something treacherous in my communicating what he had told me, to his superiors in the Company, without first being plain with himself and proposing a middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to offer to accompany him (otherwise keeping his secret for the present) to the wisest medical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take his opinion. A change in his time of duty would come round next night, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after sunrise, and on again soon after sunset. I had appointed to return accordingly. Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy it. The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field-path near the top of the deep cutting. I would extend my walk for an hour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and it would then be time to go to my signalman&#039;s box. Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and mechanically looked down, from the point from which I had first seen him. I cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the mouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man, with his left sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm. The nameless horror that oppressed me, passed in a moment, for in a moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed, and that there was a little group of other men standing at a short distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made. The Danger-light was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger than a bed. With an irresistible sense that something was wrong—with a flashing self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my leaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to overlook or correct what he did—I descended the notched path with all the speed I could make. &quot;What is the matter?&quot; I asked the men. &quot;Signalman killed this morning, sir.&quot; &quot;Not the man belonging to that box?&quot; &quot;Yes, sir.&quot;&quot;Not the man I know?&quot; &quot;You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him,&quot; said the man who spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his own head and raising an end of the tarpaulin, &quot; for his face is quite composed.&quot; &quot;O! how did this happen, how did this happen?&quot; I asked, turning from one to another as the hut closed in again. &quot;He was cut down by an engine, sir. No man in England knew his work better. But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail. It was just at broad day. He had struck the light, and had the lamp in his hand. As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was towards her, and she cut him down. That man drove her, and was showing how it happened. Show the gentleman, Tom.&quot; The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his former place at the mouth of the tunnel: &quot;Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir,&quot; he said, &quot;I saw him at the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-glass. There was no time to cheek speed, and I knew him to be very careful. As he didn&#039;t seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were running down upon him, and called to him as loud as I could call.&quot; &quot;What did you say?&quot; &quot;I said, Below there! Look out! Look out! For God&#039;s sake clear the way!&quot; I started. &quot;All! it was a dreadful time, sir. I never left off calling to him. I put this arm before my eyes, not to see, and I waved this arm to the last; but it was no use.&quot; Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its curious circumstances more than on any other, I may, in closing it, point out the coincidence that the warning of the Engine-Driver included, not only the words which the unfortunate Signalman had repeated to me as haunting him, but also the words which I myself—not—he had attached, and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he had imitated.18661210https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Mugby_Junction_[1866_Christmas_Number]/1866-12-10-Mugby_Junction.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Mugby_Junction_[1866_Christmas_Number]/1866-12-10-Barbox_Brothers.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Mugby_Junction_[1866_Christmas_Number]/1866-12-10-Barbox_Brothers_and_Co.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Mugby_Junction_[1866_Christmas_Number]/1866-12-10-Main_Line_The_Boy_at_Mugby.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Mugby_Junction_[1866_Christmas_Number]/1866-12-10-No_1_Branch_Line_The_Signalman.pdf
216https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/216<em>No Thoroughfare </em>(1867 Christmas Number)Published in <em>All the Year Round,</em> Extra Christmas Number, 12 December 1867, Vol. XVIII, pp. 1-48.<br /><br />Dickens is known to have primarily written most of The Overture, Act I, Act III, with Collins taking Act 2. Both collaborated on Acts IV and V. However, they deliberately interspersed passages into each other's parts to confuse readers as to which author had written which 'Acts' (Slater, <em>Charles Dickens</em>, pp. 569-573).Charles Dickens<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xviii/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xviii/page-573.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1867-12-12">1867-12-12</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Wilkie+Collins">Wilkie Collins</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1867-12-12-No_Thoroughfare_Christmas_StoryDickens Charles and Wilkie Collins. <em>No Thoroughfare</em> (Christmas Number) (December 1867). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1867-12-12-No_Thoroughfare">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1867-12-12-No_Thoroughfare</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>THE OVERTURE. Day of the month and year, November the thirtieth, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five. London Time by the great clock of Saint Paul’s, ten at night. All the lesser London churches strain their metallic throats. Some, flippantly begin before the heavy bell of the great cathedral; some, tardily begin three, four, half a dozen, strokes behind it; all are in sufficiently near accord, to leave a resonance in the air, as if the winged father who devours his children, had made a sounding sweep with his gigantic scythe in flying over the city. What is this clock lower than most of the rest, and nearer to the ear, that lags so far behind to-night as to strike into the vibration alone? This is the clock of the Hospital for Foundling Children. Time was, when the Foundlings were received without question in a cradle at the gate. Time is, when inquiries are made respecting them, and they are taken as by favour from the mothers who relinquish all natural knowledge of them and claim to them for evermore. The moon is at the full, and the night is fair with light clouds. The day has been otherwise than fair, for slush and mud, thickened with the droppings of heavy fog, lie black in the streets. The veiled lady who flutters up and down near the postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children has need to be well shod to-night. She flutters to and fro, avoiding the stand of hackney-coaches, and often pausing in the shadow of the western end of the great quadrangle wall, with her face turned towards the gate. As above her there is the purity of the moonlit sky, and below her there are the defilements of the pavement, so may she, haply, be divided in her mind between two vistas of reflection or experience? As her footprints crossing and recrossing one another have made a labyrinth in the mire, so may her track in life have involved itself in an intricate and unravellable tangle? The postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children opens, and a young woman comes out. The lady stands aside, observes closely, sees that the gate is quietly closed again from within, and follows the young woman. Two or three streets have been traversed in silence before she, following close behind the object of her attention, stretches out her hand and touches her. Then the young woman stops and looks round, startled. “You touched me last night, and, when I turned my head, you would not speak. Why do you follow me like a silent ghost?” “It was not,” returned the lady, in a low voice, “that I would not speak, but that I could not when I tried.” “What do you want of me? I have never done you any harm?” “Never.” “Do I know you?” “No.” “Then what can you want of me?” “Here are two guineas in this paper. Take my poor little present, and I will tell you.” Into the young woman’s face, which is honest and comely, comes a flush as she replies: “There is neither grown person nor child in all the large establishment that I belong to, who hasn’t a good word for Sally. I am Sally. Could I be so well thought of, if I was to be bought?” “I do not mean to buy you; I mean only to reward you very slightly.” Sally firmly, but not ungently, closes and puts back the offering hand. “If there is anything I can do for you, ma’am, that I will not do for its own sake, you are much mistaken in me if you think that I will do it for money. What is it you want?” “You are one of the nurses or attendants at the Hospital; I saw you leave to-night and last night.” “Yes, I am. I am Sally.” “There is a pleasant patience in your face which makes me believe that very young children would take readily to you.” “God bless ‘em! So they do.” The lady lifts her veil, and shows a face no older than the nurse’s. A face far more refined and capable than hers, but wild and worn with sorrow. “I am the miserable mother of a baby lately received under your care. I have a prayer to make to you.” Instinctively respecting the confidence which has drawn aside the veil, Sally—whose ways are all ways of simplicity and spontaneity—replaces it, and begins to cry. “You will listen to my prayer?” the lady urges. “You will not be deaf to the agonised entreaty of such a broken suppliant as I am?” “O dear, dear, dear!” cries Sally. “What shall I say, or can say! Don’t talk of prayers. Prayers are to be put up to the Good Father of All, and not to nurses and such. And there! I am only to hold my place for half a year longer, till another young woman can be trained up to it. I am going to be married. I shouldn’t have been out last night, and I shouldn’t have been out to-night, but that my Dick (he is the young man I am going to be married to) lies ill, and I help his mother and sister to watch him. Don’t take on so, don’t take on so!” “O good Sally, dear Sally,” moans the lady, catching at her dress entreatingly. “As you are hopeful, and I am hopeless; as a fair way in life is before you, which can never, never, be before me; as you can aspire to become a respected wife, and as you can aspire to become a proud mother, as you are a living loving woman, and must die; for GOD’S sake hear my distracted petition!” “Deary, deary, deary ME!” cries Sally, her desperation culminating in the pronoun, “what am I ever to do? And there! See how you turn my own words back upon me. I tell you I am going to be married, on purpose to make it clearer to you that I am going to leave, and therefore couldn’t help you if I would, Poor Thing, and you make it seem to my own self as if I was cruel in going to be married and not helping you. It ain’t kind. Now, is it kind, Poor Thing?” “Sally! Hear me, my dear. My entreaty is for no help in the future. It applies to what is past. It is only to be told in two words.” “There! This is worse and worse,” cries Sally, “supposing that I understand what two words you mean.” “You do understand. What are the names they have given my poor baby? I ask no more than that. I have read of the customs of the place. He has been christened in the chapel, and registered by some surname in the book. He was received last Monday evening. What have they called him?” Down upon her knees in the foul mud of the by-way into which they have strayed—an empty street without a thoroughfare giving on the dark gardens of the Hospital—the lady would drop in her passionate entreaty, but that Sally prevents her. “Don’t! Don’t! You make me feel as if I was setting myself up to be good. Let me look in your pretty face again. Put your two hands in mine. Now, promise. You will never ask me anything more than the two words?” “Never! Never!” “You will never put them to a bad use, if I say them?” “Never! Never!” “Walter Wilding.” The lady lays her face upon the nurse’s breast, draws her close in her embrace with both arms, murmurs a blessing and the words, “Kiss him for me!” and is gone. Day of the month and year, the first Sunday in October, one thousand eight hundred and forty-seven. London Time by the great clock of Saint Paul’s, half-past one in the afternoon. The clock of the Hospital for Foundling Children is well up with the Cathedral to-day. Service in the chapel is over, and the Foundling children are at dinner. There are numerous lookers-on at the dinner, as the custom is. There are two or three governors, whole families from the congregation, smaller groups of both sexes, individual stragglers of various degrees. The bright autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards; and the heavy-framed windows through which it shines, and the panelled walls on which it strikes, are such windows and such walls as pervade Hogarth’s pictures. The girls’ refectory (including that of the younger children) is the principal attraction. Neat attendants silently glide about the orderly and silent tables; the lookers-on move or stop as the fancy takes them; comments in whispers on face such a number from such a window are not unfrequent; many of the faces are of a character to fix attention. Some of the visitors from the outside public are accustomed visitors. They have established a speaking acquaintance with the occupants of particular seats at the tables, and halt at those points to bend down and say a word or two. It is no disparagement to their kindness that those points are generally points where personal attractions are. The monotony of the long spacious rooms and the double lines of faces is agreeably relieved by these incidents, although so slight. A veiled lady, who has no companion, goes among the company. It would seem that curiosity and opportunity have never brought her there before. She has the air of being a little troubled by the sight, and, as she goes the length of the tables, it is with a hesitating step and an uneasy manner. At length she comes to the refectory of the boys. They are so much less popular than the girls that it is bare of visitors when she looks in at the doorway. But just within the doorway, chances to stand, inspecting, an elderly female attendant: some order of matron or housekeeper. To whom the lady addresses natural questions: As, how many boys? At what age are they usually put out in life? Do they often take a fancy to the sea? So, lower and lower in tone until the lady puts the question: “Which is Walter Wilding?” Attendant’s head shaken. Against the rules. “You know which is Walter Wilding?” So keenly does the attendant feel the closeness with which the lady’s eyes examine her face, that she keeps her own eyes fast upon the floor, lest by wandering in the right direction they should betray her. “I know which is Walter Wilding, but it is not my place, ma’am, to tell names to visitors.” “But you can show me without telling me.” The lady’s hand moves quietly to the attendant’s hand. Pause and silence. “I am going to pass round the tables,” says the lady’s interlocutor, without seeming to address her. “Follow me with your eyes. The boy that I stop at and speak to, will not matter to you. But the boy that I touch, will be Walter Wilding. Say nothing more to me, and move a little away.” Quickly acting on the hint, the lady passes on into the room, and looks about her. After a few moments, the attendant, in a staid official way, walks down outside the line of tables commencing on her left hand. She goes the whole length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside. Very slightly glancing in the lady’s direction, she stops, bends forward, and speaks. The boy whom she addresses, lifts his head and replies. Good humouredly and easily, as she listens to what he says, she lays her hand upon the shoulder of the next boy on his right. That the action may be well noted, she keeps her hand on the shoulder while speaking in return, and pats it twice or thrice before moving away. She completes her tour of the tables, touching no one else, and passes out by a door at the opposite end of the long room. Dinner is done, and the lady, too, walks down outside the line of tables commencing on her left hand, goes the whole length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside. Other people have strolled in, fortunately for her, and stand sprinkled about. She lifts her veil, and, stopping at the touched boy, asks how old he is? “I am twelve, ma’am,” he answers, with his bright eyes fixed on hers. “Are you well and happy?” “Yes, ma’am.” “May you take these sweetmeats from my hand?” “If you please to give them to me.” In stooping low for the purpose, the lady touches the boy’s face with her forehead and with her hair. Then, lowering her veil again, she passes on, and passes out without looking back. ACT I. THE CURTAIN RISES. In a court-yard in the City of London, which was No Thoroughfare either for vehicles or foot-passengers; a court-yard diverging from a steep, a slippery, and a winding street connecting Tower-Street with the Middlesex shore of the Thames; stood the place of business of Wilding &amp;amp; Co., Wine Merchants. Probably as a jocose acknowledgment of the obstructive character of this main approach, the point nearest to its base at which one could take the river (if so inodorously minded) bore the appellation Break-Neck-Stairs. The court-yard itself had likewise been descriptively entitled in old time, Cripple Corner. Years before the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, people had left off taking boat at Break-Neck-Stairs, and watermen had ceased to ply there. The slimy little causeway had dropped into the river by a slow process of suicide, and two or three stumps of piles and a rusty iron mooring-ring were all that remained of the departed Break-Neck glories. Sometimes, indeed, a laden coal barge would bump itself into the place, and certain laborious heavers, seemingly mud-engendered, would arise, deliver the cargo in the neighbourhood, shove off, and vanish; but at most times the only commerce of Break-Neck-Stairs arose out of the conveyance of casks and bottles, both full and empty, both to and from the cellars of Wilding &amp;amp; Co. Wine Merchants. Even that commerce was but occasional, and through three-fourths of its rising tides the dirty indecorous drab of a river would come solitarily oozing and lapping at the rusty ring, as if it had heard of the Doge and the Adriatic, and wanted to be married to the great conserver of its filthiness, the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor. Some two hundred and fifty yards on the right, up the opposite hill (approaching it from the low ground of Break-Neck-Stairs) was Cripple Corner. There was a pump in Cripple Corner, there was a tree in Cripple Corner. All Cripple Corner belonged to Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants. Their cellars burrowed under it, their mansion towered over it. It really had been a mansion in the days when merchants inhabited the City, and had a ceremonious shelter to the doorway without visible support, like the sounding-board over an old pulpit. It had also a number of long narrow strips of window, so disposed in its grave brick front as to render it symmetrically ugly. It had also on its roof, a cupola with a bell in it. “When a man at five-and-twenty can put his hat on, and can say ‘this hat covers the owner of this property and of the business which is transacted on this property,’ I consider, Mr. Bintrey, that, without being boastful, he may be allowed to be deeply thankful. I don’t know how it may appear to you, but so it appears to me.” Thus Mr. Walter Wilding to his man of law, in his own counting-house; taking his hat down from its peg to suit the action to the word, and hanging it up again when he had done so, not to overstep the modesty of nature. An innocent, open-speaking, unused-looking man, Mr. Walter Wilding, with a remarkably pink and white complexion, and a figure much too bulky for so young a man, though of a good stature. With crispy curling brown hair, and amiable bright blue eyes. An extremely communicative man: a man with whom loquacity was the irrestrainable outpouring of contentment and gratitude. Mr. Bintrey, on the other hand, a cautious man, with twinkling beads of eyes in a large overhanging bald head, who inwardly but intensely enjoyed the comicality of openness of speech, or hand, or heart. “Yes,” said Mr. Bintrey. “Yes. Ha, ha!” A decanter, two wine-glasses, and a plate of biscuits, stood on the desk. “You like this forty-five year old port-wine?” said Mr. Wilding. “Like it?” repeated Mr. Bintrey. “Rather, sir!” “It’s from the best corner of our best forty-five year old bin,” said Mr. Wilding. “Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Bintrey. “It’s most excellent.” He laughed again, as he held up his glass and ogled it, at the highly ludicrous idea of giving away such wine. “And now,” said Wilding, with a childish enjoyment in the discussion of affairs, “I think we have got everything straight, Mr. Bintrey.” “Everything straight,” said Bintrey. “A partner secured—” “Partner secured,” said Bintrey. “A housekeeper advertised for—” “Housekeeper advertised for,” said Bintrey, “‘apply personally at Cripple Corner, Great Tower Street, from ten to twelve’—to-morrow, by the bye.” “My late dear mother’s affairs wound up—” “Wound up,” said Bintrey. “And all charges paid.” “And all charges paid,” said Bintrey, with a chuckle: probably occasioned by the droll circumstance that they had been paid without a haggle. “The mention of my late dear mother,” Mr. Wilding continued, his eyes filling with tears and his pocket-handkerchief drying them, “unmans me still, Mr. Bintrey. You know how I loved her; you (her lawyer) know how she loved me. The utmost love of mother and child was cherished between us, and we never experienced one moment’s division or unhappiness from the time when she took me under her care. Thirteen years in all! Thirteen years under my late dear mother’s care, Mr. Bintrey, and eight of them her confidentially acknowledged son! You know the story, Mr. Bintrey, who but you, sir!” Mr. Wilding sobbed and dried his eyes, without attempt at concealment, during these remarks. Mr. Bintrey enjoyed his comical port, and said, after rolling it in his mouth: “I know the story.” “My late dear mother, Mr. Bintrey,” pursued the wine-merchant, “had been deeply deceived, and had cruelly suffered. But on that subject my late dear mother’s lips were for ever sealed. By whom deceived, or under what circumstances, Heaven only knows. My late dear mother never betrayed her betrayer.” “She had made up her mind,” said Mr. Bintrey, again turning his wine on his palate, “and she could hold her peace.” An amused twinkle in his eyes pretty plainly added—“A devilish deal better than you ever will!” “‘Honour,’” said Mr. Wilding, sobbing as he quoted from the Commandments, “‘thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land.’ When I was in the Foundling, Mr. Bintrey, I was at such a loss how to do it, that I apprehended my days would be short in the land. But I afterwards came to honour my mother deeply, profoundly. And I honour and revere her memory. For seven happy years, Mr. Bintrey,” pursued Wilding, still with the same innocent catching in his breath, and the same unabashed tears, “did my excellent mother article me to my predecessors in this business, Pebbleson Nephew. Her affectionate forethought likewise apprenticed me to the Vintners’ Company, and made me in time a free Vintner, and—and—everything else that the best of mothers could desire. When I came of age, she bestowed her inherited share in this business upon me; it was her money that afterwards bought out Pebbleson Nephew, and painted in Wilding and Co.; it was she who left me everything she possessed but the mourning ring you wear. And yet, Mr. Bintrey,” with a fresh burst of honest affection, “she is no more. It is little over half a year since she came into the Corner to read on that door-post with her own eyes, WILDING AND CO. WINE MERCHANTS. And yet she is no more!” “Sad. But the common lot, Mr. Wilding,” observed Bintrey. “At some time or other we must all be no more.” He placed the forty-five year old port-wine in the universal condition, with a relishing sigh. “So now, Mr. Bintrey,” pursued Wilding, putting away his pocket-handkerchief, and smoothing his eyelids with his fingers, “now that I can no longer show my love and honour for the dear parent to whom my heart was mysteriously turned by Nature when she first spoke to me, a strange lady, I sitting at our Sunday dinner-table in the Foundling, I can at least show that I am not ashamed of having been a Foundling, and that I, who never knew a father of my own, wish to be a father to all in my employment. Therefore,” continued Wilding, becoming enthusiastic in his loquacity, “therefore, I want a thoroughly good housekeeper to undertake this dwelling-house of Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants, Cripple Corner, so that I may restore in it some of the old relations betwixt employer and employed! So that I may live in it on the spot where my money is made! So that I may daily sit at the head of the table at which the people in my employment eat together, and may eat of the same roast and boiled, and drink of the same beer! So that the people in my employment may lodge under the same roof with me! So that we may one and all—I beg your pardon, Mr. Bintrey, but that old singing in my head has suddenly come on, and I shall feel obliged if you will lead me to the pump.” Alarmed by the excessive pinkness of his client, Mr. Bintrey lost not a moment in leading him forth into the court-yard. It was easily done; for the counting-house in which they talked together opened on to it, at one side of the dwelling-house. There the attorney pumped with a will, obedient to a sign from the client, and the client laved his head and face with both hands, and took a hearty drink. After these remedies, he declared himself much better. “Don’t let your good feelings excite you,” said Bintrey, as they returned to the counting-house, and Mr. Wilding dried himself on a jack-towel behind an inner door. “No, no. I won’t,” he returned, looking out of the towel. “I won’t. I have not been confused, have I?” “Not at all. Perfectly clear.” “Where did I leave off, Mr. Bintrey?” “Well, you left off—but I wouldn’t excite myself, if I was you, by taking it up again just yet.” “I’ll take care. I’ll take care. The singing in my head came on at where, Mr. Bintrey?” “At roast, and boiled, and beer,” answered the lawyer,—“prompting lodging under the same roof—and one and all—” “Ah! And one and all singing in the head together—” “Do you know, I really would not let my good feelings excite me, if I was you,” hinted the lawyer again, anxiously. “Try some more pump.” “No occasion, no occasion. All right, Mr. Bintrey. And one and all forming a kind of family! You see, Mr. Bintrey, I was not used in my childhood to that sort of individual existence which most individuals have led, more or less, in their childhood. After that time I became absorbed in my late dear mother. Having lost her, I find that I am more fit for being one of a body than one by myself one. To be that, and at the same time to do my duty to those dependent on me, and attach them to me, has a patriarchal and pleasant air about it. I don’t know how it may appear to you, Mr Bintrey, but so it appears to me.” “It is not I who am all-important in the case, but you,” returned Bintrey. “Consequently, how it may appear to me is of very small importance.” “It appears to me,” said Mr. Wilding, in a glow, “hopeful, useful, delightful!” “Do you know,” hinted the lawyer again, “I really would not ex—” “I am not going to. Then there’s Handel.” “There’s who?” asked Bintrey. “Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, Mendelssohn. I know the choruses to those anthems by heart. Foundling Chapel Collection. Why shouldn’t we learn them together?” “Who learn them together?” asked the lawyer, rather shortly. “Employer and employed.” “Ay, ay,” returned Bintrey, mollified; as if he had half expected the answer to be, Lawyer and client. “That’s another thing.” “Not another thing, Mr. Bintrey! The same thing. A part of the bond among us. We will form a Choir in some quiet church near the Corner here, and, having sung together of a Sunday with a relish, we will come home and take an early dinner together with a relish. The object that I have at heart now is, to get this system well in action without delay, so that my new partner may find it founded when he enters on his partnership.” “All good be with it!” exclaimed Bintrey, rising. “May it prosper! Is Joey Ladle to take a share in Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, and Mendelssohn? “I hope so.” “I wish them all well out of it,” returned Bintrey, with much heartiness. “Good-bye, sir.” They shook hands and parted. Then (first knocking with his knuckles for leave) entered to Mr. Wilding from a door of communication between his private counting-house and that in which his clerks sat, the Head Cellarman of the cellars of Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants, and erst Head Cellarman of the cellars of Pebbleson Nephew. The Joey Ladle in question. A slow and ponderous man, of the drayman order of human architecture, dressed in a corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a composite of door-mat and rhinoceros-hide. “Respecting this same boarding and lodging, Young Master Wilding,” said he. “Yes, Joey?” “Speaking for myself, Young Master Wilding—and I never did speak and I never do speak for no one else—I don’t want no boarding nor yet no lodging. But if you wish to board me and to lodge me, take me. I can peck as well as most men. Where I peck ain’t so high a object with me as What I peck. Nor even so high a object with me as How Much I peck. Is all to live in the house, Young Master Wilding? The two other cellarmen, the three porters, the two ‘prentices, and the odd men?” “Yes. I hope we shall all be an united family, Joey.” “Ah!” said Joey. “I hope they may be.” “They? Rather say we, Joey.” Joey Ladle shook his held. “Don’t look to me to make we on it, Young Master Wilding, not at my time of life and under the circumstances which has formed my disposition. I have said to Pebbleson Nephew many a time, when they have said to me, ‘Put a livelier face upon it, Joey’—I have said to them, ‘Gentlemen, it is all wery well for you that has been accustomed to take your wine into your systems by the conwivial channel of your throttles, to put a lively face upon it; but,’ I says, ‘I have been accustomed to take my wine in at the pores of the skin, and, took that way, it acts different. It acts depressing. It’s one thing, gentlemen,’ I says to Pebbleson Nephew, ‘to charge your glasses in a dining-room with a Hip Hurrah and a Jolly Companions Every One, and it’s another thing to be charged yourself, through the pores, in a low dark cellar and a mouldy atmosphere. It makes all the difference betwixt bubbles and wapours,’ I tells Pebbleson Nephew. And so it do. I’ve been a cellarman my life through, with my mind fully given to the business. What’s the consequence? I’m as muddled a man as lives—you won’t find a muddleder man than me—nor yet you won’t find my equal in molloncolly. Sing of Filling the bumper fair, Every drop you sprinkle, O’er the brow of care, Smooths away a wrinkle? Yes. P’raps so. But try filling yourself through the pores, underground, when you don’t want to it!” “I am sorry to hear this, Joey. I had even thought that you might join a singing-class in the house.” “Me, sir? No, no, Young Master Wilding, you won’t catch Joey Ladle muddling the Armony. A pecking-machine, sir, is all that I am capable of proving myself, out of my cellars; but that you’re welcome to, if you think it is worth your while to keep such a thing on your premises.” “I do, Joey.” “Say no more, sir. The Business’s word is my law. And you’re a going to take Young Master George Vendale partner into the old Business?” “I am, Joey.” “More changes, you see! But don’t change the name of the Firm again. Don’t do it, Young Master Wilding. It was bad luck enough to make it Yourself and Co. Better by far have left it Pebbleson Nephew that good luck always stuck to. You should never change luck when it’s good, sir.” “At all events, I have no intention of changing the name of the House again, Joey.” “Glad to hear it, and wish you good-day, Young Master Wilding. But you had better by half,” muttered Joey Ladle inaudibly, as he closed the door and shook his head, “have let the name alone from the first. You had better by half have followed the luck instead of crossing it.” ENTER THE HOUSEKEEPER/ The wine-merchant sat in his dining-room next morning, to receive the personal applicants for the vacant post in his establishment. It was an old-fashioned wainscoted room; the panels ornamented with festoons of flowers carved in wood; with an oaken floor, a well-worn Turkey carpet, and dark mahogany furniture, all of which had seen service and polish under Pebbleson Nephew. The great sideboard had assisted at many business-dinners given by Pebbleson Nephew to their connexion, on the principle of throwing sprats overboard to catch whales; and Pebbleson Nephew’s comprehensive three-sided plate-warmer, made to fit the whole front of the large fireplace, kept watch beneath it over a sarcophagus-shaped cellaret that had in its time held many a dozen of Pebbleson Nephew’s wine. But the little rubicund old bachelor with a pigtail, whose portrait was over the sideboard (and who could easily be identified as decidedly Pebbleson and decidedly not Nephew), had retired into another sarcophagus, and the plate-warmer had grown as cold as he. So, the golden and black griffins that supported the candelabra, with black balls in their mouths at the end of gilded chains, looked as if in their old age they had lost all heart for playing at ball, and were dolefully exhibiting their chains in the Missionary line of inquiry, whether they had not earned emancipation by this time, and were not griffins and brothers? Such a Columbus of a morning was the summer morning, that it discovered Cripple Corner. The light and warmth pierced in at the open windows, and irradiated the picture of a lady hanging over the chimney-piece, the only other decoration of the walls. “My mother at five-and-twenty,” said Mr. Wilding to himself, as his eyes enthusiastically followed the light to the portrait’s face, “I hang up here, in order that visitors may admire my mother in the bloom of her youth and beauty. My mother at fifty I hang in the seclusion of my own chamber, as a remembrance sacred to me. Oh! It’s you, Jarvis!” These latter words he addressed to a clerk who had tapped at the door, and now looked in. “Yes, sir. I merely wished to mention that it’s gone ten, sir, and that there are several females in the Counting-House.” “Dear me!” said the wine-merchant, deepening in the pink of his complexion and whitening in the white, “are there several? So many as several? I had better begin before there are more. I’ll see them one by one, Jarvis, in the order of their arrival.” Hastily entrenching himself in his easy-chair at the table behind a great inkstand, having first placed a chair on the other side of the table opposite his own seat, Mr. Wilding entered on his task with considerable trepidation. He ran the gauntlet that must be run on any such occasion. There were the usual species of profoundly unsympathetic women, and the usual species of much too sympathetic women. There were buccaneering widows who came to seize him, and who griped umbrellas under their arms, as if each umbrella were he, and each griper had got him. There were towering maiden ladies who had seen better days, and who came armed with clerical testimonials to their theology, as if he were Saint Peter with his keys. There were gentle maiden ladies who came to marry him. There were professional housekeepers, like non-commissioned officers, who put him through his domestic exercise, instead of submitting themselves to catechism. There were languid invalids, to whom salary was not so much an object as the comforts of a private hospital. There were sensitive creatures who burst into tears on being addressed, and had to be restored with glasses of cold water. There were some respondents who came two together, a highly promising one and a wholly unpromising one: of whom the promising one answered all questions charmingly, until it would at last appear that she was not a candidate at all, but only the friend of the unpromising one, who had glowered in absolute silence and apparent injury. At last, when the good wine-merchant’s simple heart was failing him, there entered an applicant quite different from all the rest. A woman, perhaps fifty, but looking younger, with a face remarkable for placid cheerfulness, and a manner no less remarkable for its quiet expression of equability of temper. Nothing in her dress could have been changed to her advantage. Nothing in the noiseless self-possession of her manner could have been changed to her advantage. Nothing could have been in better unison with both, than her voice when she answered the question: “What name shall I have the pleasure of noting down?” with the words, “My name is Sarah Goldstraw. Mrs. Goldstraw. My husband has been dead many years, and we had no family.” Half-a-dozen questions had scarcely extracted as much to the purpose from any one else. The voice dwelt so agreeably on Mr. Wilding’s ear as he made his note, that he was rather long about it. When he looked up again, Mrs. Goldstraw’s glance had naturally gone round the room, and now returned to him from the chimney-piece. Its expression was one of frank readiness to be questioned, and to answer straight. “You will excuse my asking you a few questions?” said the modest wine-merchant. “Oh, surely, sir. Or I should have no business here.” “Have you filled the station of housekeeper before?” “Only once. I have lived with the same widow lady for twelve years. Ever since I lost my husband. She was an invalid, and is lately dead: which is the occasion of my now wearing black.” “I do not doubt that she has left you the best credentials?” said Mr. Wilding. “I hope I may say, the very best. I thought it would save trouble, sir, if I wrote down the name and address of her representatives, and brought it with me.” Laying a card on the table. “You singularly remind me, Mrs. Goldstraw,” said Wilding, taking the card beside him, “of a manner and tone of voice that I was once acquainted with. Not of an individual—I feel sure of that, though I cannot recall what it is I have in my mind—but of a general bearing. I ought to add, it was a kind and pleasant one.” She smiled, as she rejoined: “At least, I am very glad of that, sir.” “Yes,” said the wine-merchant, thoughtfully repeating his last phrase, with a momentary glance at his future housekeeper, “it was a kind and pleasant one. But that is the most I can make of it. Memory is sometimes like a half-forgotten dream. I don’t know how it may appear to you, Mrs. Goldstraw, but so it appears to me.” Probably it appeared to Mrs. Goldstraw in a similar light, for she quietly assented to the proposition. Mr. Wilding then offered to put himself at once in communication with the gentlemen named upon the card: a firm of proctors in Doctors’ Commons. To this, Mrs. Goldstraw thankfully assented. Doctors’ Commons not being far off, Mr. Wilding suggested the feasibility of Mrs. Goldstraw’s looking in again, say in three hours’ time. Mrs. Goldstraw readily undertook to do so. In fine, the result of Mr. Wilding’s inquiries being eminently satisfactory, Mrs. Goldstraw was that afternoon engaged (on her own perfectly fair terms) to come to-morrow and set up her rest as housekeeper in Cripple Corner. THE HOUSEKEEPER SPEAKS. On the next day Mrs. Goldstraw arrived, to enter on her domestic duties. Having settled herself in her own room, without troubling the servants, and without wasting time, the new housekeeper announced herself as waiting to be favoured with any instructions which her master might wish to give her. The wine-merchant received Mrs. Goldstraw in the dining-room, in which he had seen her on the previous day; and, the usual preliminary civilities having passed on either side, the two sat down to take counsel together on the affairs of the house. “About the meals, sir?” said Mrs. Goldstraw. “Have I a large, or a small, number to provide for?” “If I can carry out a certain old-fashioned plan of mine,” replied Mr. Wilding, “you will have a large number to provide for. I am a lonely single man, Mrs. Goldstraw; and I hope to live with all the persons in my employment as if they were members of my family. Until that time comes, you will only have me, and the new partner whom I expect immediately, to provide for. What my partner’s habits may be, I cannot yet say. But I may describe myself as a man of regular hours, with an invariable appetite that you may depend upon to an ounce.” “About breakfast, sir?” asked Mrs. Goldstraw. “Is there anything particular—?” She hesitated, and left the sentence unfinished. Her eyes turned slowly away from her master, and looked towards the chimney-piece. If she had been a less excellent and experienced housekeeper, Mr. Wilding might have fancied that her attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview. “Eight o’clock is my breakfast-hour,” he resumed. “It is one of my virtues to be never tired of broiled bacon, and it is one of my vices to be habitually suspicious of the freshness of eggs.” Mrs. Goldstraw looked back at him, still a little divided between her master’s chimney-piece and her master. “I take tea,” Mr. Wilding went on; “and I am perhaps rather nervous and fidgety about drinking it, within a certain time after it is made. If my tea stands too long—” He hesitated, on his side, and left the sentence unfinished. If he had not been engaged in discussing a subject of such paramount interest to himself as his breakfast, Mrs. Goldstraw might have fancied that his attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview. “If your tea stands too long, sir—?” said the housekeeper, politely taking up her master’s lost thread. “If my tea stands too long,” repeated the wine-merchant mechanically, his mind getting farther and farther away from his breakfast, and his eyes fixing themselves more and more inquiringly on his housekeeper’s face. “If my tea—Dear, dear me, Mrs. Goldstraw! what is the manner and tone of voice that you remind me of? It strikes me even more strongly to-day, than it did when I saw you yesterday. What can it be?” “What can it be?” repeated Mrs. Goldstraw. She said the words, evidently thinking while she spoke them of something else. The wine-merchant, still looking at her inquiringly, observed that her eyes wandered towards the chimney-piece once more. They fixed on the portrait of his mother, which hung there, and looked at it with that slight contraction of the brow which accompanies a scarcely conscious effort of memory. Mr. Wilding remarked. “My late dear mother, when she was five-and-twenty.” Mrs. Goldstraw thanked him with a movement of the head for being at the pains to explain the picture, and said, with a cleared brow, that it was the portrait of a very beautiful lady. Mr. Wilding, falling back into his former perplexity, tried once more to recover that lost recollection, associated so closely, and yet so undiscoverably, with his new housekeeper’s voice and manner. “Excuse my asking you a question which has nothing to do with me or my breakfast,” he said. “May I inquire if you have ever occupied any other situation than the situation of housekeeper?” “O yes, sir. I began life as one of the nurses at the Foundling.” “Why, that’s it!” cried the wine-merchant, pushing back his chair. “By heaven! Their manner is the manner you remind me of!” In an astonished look at him, Mrs. Goldstraw changed colour, checked herself, turned her eyes upon the ground, and sat still and silent. “What is the matter?” asked Mr. Wilding. “Do I understand that you were in the Foundling, sir?” “Certainly. I am not ashamed to own it.” “Under the name you now bear?” “Under the name of Walter Wilding.” “And the lady—?” Mrs. Goldstraw stopped short with a look at the portrait which was now unmistakably a look of alarm. “You mean my mother,” interrupted Mr. Wilding. “Your—mother,” repeated the housekeeper, a little constrainedly, “removed you from the Foundling? At what age, sir?” “At between eleven and twelve years old. It’s quite a romantic adventure, Mrs. Goldstraw.” He told the story of the lady having spoken to him, while he sat at dinner with the other boys in the Foundling, and of all that had followed in his innocently communicative way. “My poor mother could never have discovered me,” he added, “if she had not met with one of the matrons who pitied her. The matron consented to touch the boy whose name was ‘Walter Wilding’ as she went round the dinner-tables—and so my mother discovered me again, after having parted from me as an infant at the Foundling doors.” At those words Mrs. Goldstraw’s hand, resting on the table, dropped helplessly into her lap. She sat, looking at her new master, with a face that had turned deadly pale, and with eyes that expressed an unutterable dismay. “What does this mean?” asked the wine-merchant. “Stop!” he cried. “Is there something else in the past time which I ought to associate with you? I remember my mother telling me of another person at the Foundling, to whose kindness she owed a debt of gratitude. When she first parted with me, as an infant, one of the nurses informed her of the name that had been given to me in the institution. You were that nurse?” “God forgive me, sir—I was that nurse!” “God forgive you?” “We had better get back, sir (if I may make so bold as to say so), to my duties in the house,” said Mrs. Goldstraw. “Your breakfast-hour is eight. Do you lunch, or dine, in the middle of the day?” The excessive pinkness which Mr. Bintrey had noticed in his client’s face began to appear there once more. Mr. Wilding put his hand to his head, and mastered some momentary confusion in that quarter, before he spoke again. “Mrs. Goldstraw,” he said, “you are concealing something from me!” The housekeeper obstinately repeated, “Please to favour me, sir, by saying whether you lunch, or dine, in the middle of the day?” “I don’t know what I do in the middle of the day. I can’t enter into my household affairs, Mrs. Goldstraw, till I know why you regret an act of kindness to my mother, which she always spoke of gratefully to the end of her life. You are not doing me a service by your silence. You are agitating me, you are alarming me, you are bringing on the singing in my head.” His hand went up to his head again, and the pink in his face deepened by a shade or two. “It’s hard, sir, on just entering your service,” said the housekeeper, “to say what may cost me the loss of your good will. Please to remember, end how it may, that I only speak because you have insisted on my speaking, and because I see that I am alarming you by my silence. When I told the poor lady, whose portrait you have got there, the name by which her infant was christened in the Foundling, I allowed myself to forget my duty, and dreadful consequences, I am afraid, have followed from it. I’ll tell you the truth, as plainly as I can. A few months from the time when I had informed the lady of her baby’s name, there came to our institution in the country another lady (a stranger), whose object was to adopt one of our children. She brought the needful permission with her, and after looking at a great many of the children, without being able to make up her mind, she took a sudden fancy to one of the babies—a boy—under my care. Try, pray try, to compose yourself, sir! It’s no use disguising it any longer. The child the stranger took away was the child of that lady whose portrait hangs there!” Mr. Wilding started to his feet. “Impossible!” he cried out, vehemently. “What are you talking about? What absurd story are you telling me now? There’s her portrait! Haven’t I told you so already? The portrait of my mother!” “When that unhappy lady removed you from the Foundling, in after years,” said Mrs. Goldstraw, gently, “she was the victim, and you were the victim, sir, of a dreadful mistake.” He dropped back into his chair. “The room goes round with me,” he said. “My head! my head!” The housekeeper rose in alarm, and opened the windows. Before she could get to the door to call for help, a sudden burst of tears relieved the oppression which had at first almost appeared to threaten his life. He signed entreatingly to Mrs. Goldstraw not to leave him. She waited until the paroxysm of weeping had worn itself out. He raised his head as he recovered himself, and looked at her with the angry unreasoning suspicion of a weak man. “Mistake?” he said, wildly repeating her last word. “How do I know you are not mistaken yourself?” “There is no hope that I am mistaken, sir. I will tell you why, when you are better fit to hear it.” “Now! now!” The tone in which he spoke warned Mrs. Goldstraw that it would be cruel kindness to let him comfort himself a moment longer with the vain hope that she might be wrong. A few words more would end it, and those few words she determined to speak. “I have told you,” she said, “that the child of the lady whose portrait hangs there, was adopted in its infancy, and taken away by a stranger. I am as certain of what I say as that I am now sitting here, obliged to distress you, sir, sorely against my will. Please to carry your mind on, now, to about three months after that time. I was then at the Foundling, in London, waiting to take some children to our institution in the country. There was a question that day about naming an infant—a boy—who had just been received. We generally named them out of the Directory. On this occasion, one of the gentlemen who managed the Hospital happened to be looking over the Register. He noticed that the name of the baby who had been adopted (‘Walter Wilding’) was scratched out—for the reason, of course, that the child had been removed for good from our care. ‘Here’s a name to let,’ he said. ‘Give it to the new foundling who has been received to-day.’ The name was given, and the child was christened. You, sir, were that child.” The wine-merchant’s head dropped on his breast. “I was that child!” he said to himself, trying helplessly to fix the idea in his mind. “I was that child!” “Not very long after you had been received into the Institution, sir,” pursued Mrs. Goldstraw, “I left my situation there, to be married. If you will remember that, and if you can give your mind to it, you will see for yourself how the mistake happened. Between eleven and twelve years passed before the lady, whom you have believed to be your mother, returned to the Foundling, to find her son, and to remove him to her own home. The lady only knew that her infant had been called ‘Walter Wilding.’ The matron who took pity on her, could but point out the only ‘Walter Wilding’ known in the Institution. I, who might have set the matter right, was far away from the Foundling and all that belonged to it. There was nothing—there was really nothing that could prevent this terrible mistake from taking place. I feel for you—I do indeed, sir! You must think—and with reason—that it was in an evil hour that I came here (innocently enough, I’m sure), to apply for your housekeeper’s place. I feel as if I was to blame—I feel as if I ought to have had more self-command. If I had only been able to keep my face from showing you what that portrait and what your own words put into my mind, you need never, to your dying day, have known what you know now.” Mr. Wilding looked up suddenly. The inbred honesty of the man rose in protest against the housekeeper’s last words. His mind seemed to steady itself, for the moment, under the shock that had fallen on it. “Do you mean to say that you would have concealed this from me if you could?” he exclaimed. “I hope I should always tell the truth, sir, if I was asked,” said Mrs. Goldstraw. “And I know it is better for me that I should not have a secret of this sort weighing on my mind. But is it better for you? What use can it serve now—?” “What use? Why, good Lord! if your story is true—” “Should I have told it, sir, as I am now situated, if it had not been true?” “I beg your pardon,” said the wine-merchant. “You must make allowance for me. This dreadful discovery is something I can’t realise even yet. We loved each other so dearly—I felt so fondly that I was her son. She died, Mrs. Goldstraw, in my arms—she died blessing me as only a mother could have blessed me. And now, after all these years, to be told she was not my mother! O me, O me! I don’t know what I am saying!” he cried, as the impulse of self-control under which he had spoken a moment since, flickered, and died out. “It was not this dreadful grief—it was something else that I had it in my mind to speak of. Yes, yes. You surprised me—you wounded me just now. You talked as if you would have hidden this from me, if you could. Don’t talk in that way again. It would have been a crime to have hidden it. You mean well, I know. I don’t want to distress you—you are a kind-hearted woman. But you don’t remember what my position is. She left me all that I possess, in the firm persuasion that I was her son. I am not her son. I have taken the place, I have innocently got the inheritance of another man. He must be found! How do I know he is not at this moment in misery, without bread to eat? He must be found! My only hope of bearing up against the shock that has fallen on me, is the hope of doing something which she would have approved. You must know more, Mrs. Goldstraw, than you have told me yet. Who was the stranger who adopted the child? You must have heard the lady’s name?” “I never heard it, sir. I have never seen her, or heard of her, since.” “Did she say nothing when she took the child away? Search your memory. She must have said something.” “Only one thing, sir, that I can remember. It was a miserably bad season, that year; and many of the children were suffering from it. When she took the baby away, the lady said to me, laughing, ‘Don’t be alarmed about his health. He will be brought up in a better climate than this—I am going to take him to Switzerland.’” “To Switzerland? What part of Switzerland?” “She didn’t say, sir.” “Only that faint clue!” said Mr. Wilding. “And a quarter of a century has passed since the child was taken away! What am I to do?” “I hope you won’t take offence at my freedom, sir,” said Mrs. Goldstraw; “but why should you distress yourself about what is to be done? He may not be alive now, for anything you know. And, if he is alive, it’s not likely he can be in any distress. The, lady who adopted him was a bred and born lady—it was easy to see that. And she must have satisfied them at the Foundling that she could provide for the child, or they would never have let her take him away. If I was in your place, sir—please to excuse my saying so—I should comfort myself with remembering that I had loved that poor lady whose portrait you have got there—truly loved her as my mother, and that she had truly loved me as her son. All she gave to you, she gave for the sake of that love. It never altered while she lived; and it won’t alter, I’m sure, as long as you live. How can you have a better right, sir, to keep what you have got than that?” Mr. Wilding’s immovable honesty saw the fallacy in his housekeeper’s point of view at a glance. “You don’t understand me,” he said. “It’s because I loved her that I feel it a duty—a sacred duty—to do justice to her son. If he is a living man, I must find him: for my own sake, as well as for his. I shall break down under this dreadful trial, unless I employ myself—actively, instantly employ myself—in doing what my conscience tells me ought to be done. I must speak to my lawyer; I must set my lawyer at work before I sleep to-night.” He approached a tube in the wall of the room, and called down through it to the office below. “Leave me for a little, Mrs. Goldstraw,” he resumed; “I shall be more composed, I shall be better able to speak to you later in the day. We shall get on well—I hope we shall get on well together—in spite of what has happened. It isn’t your fault; I know it isn’t your fault. There! there! shake hands; and—and do the best you can in the house—I can’t talk about it now.” The door opened as Mrs. Goldstraw advanced towards it; and Mr. Jarvis appeared. “Send for Mr. Bintrey,” said the wine-merchant. “Say I want to see him directly.” The clerk unconsciously suspended the execution of the order, by announcing “Mr. Vendale,” and showing in the new partner in the firm of Wilding and Co. “Pray excuse me for one moment, George Vendale,” said Wilding. “I have a word to say to Jarvis. Send for Mr. Bintrey,” he repeated—“send at once.” Mr. Jarvis laid a letter on the table before he left the room. “From our correspondents at Neuchâtel, I think, sir. The letter has got the Swiss postmark.” NEW CHARACTERS ON THE SCENE. The words, “The Swiss Postmark,” following so soon upon the housekeeper’s reference to Switzerland, wrought Mr. Wilding’s agitation to such a remarkable height, that his new partner could not decently make a pretence of letting it pass unnoticed. “Wilding,” he asked hurriedly, and yet stopping short and glancing around as if for some visible cause of his state of mind: “what is the matter?” “My good George Vendale,” returned the wine-merchant, giving his hand with an appealing look, rather as if he wanted help to get over some obstacle, than as if he gave it in welcome or salutation: “my good George Vendale, so much is the matter, that I shall never be myself again. It is impossible that I can ever be myself again. For, in fact, I am not myself.” The new partner, a brown-cheeked handsome fellow, of about his own age, with a quick determined eye and an impulsive manner, retorted with natural astonishment: “Not yourself?” “Not what I supposed myself to be,” said Wilding. “What, in the name of wonder, did you suppose yourself to be that you are not?” was the rejoinder, delivered with a cheerful frankness, inviting confidence from a more reticent man. “I may ask without impertinence, now that we are partners.” “There again!” cried Wilding, leaning back in his chair, with a lost look at the other. “Partners! I had no right to come into this business. It was never meant for me. My mother never meant it should be mine. I mean, his mother meant it should be his—if I mean anything—or if I am anybody.” “Come, come,” urged his partner, after a moment’s pause, and taking possession of him with that calm confidence which inspires a strong nature when it honestly desires to aid a weak one. “Whatever has gone wrong, has gone wrong through no fault of yours, I am very sure. I was not in this counting-house with you, under the old régime, for three years, to doubt you, Wilding. We were not younger men than we are, together, for that. Let me begin our partnership by being a serviceable partner, and setting right whatever is wrong. Has that letter anything to do with it?” “Hah!” said Wilding, with his hand to his temple. “There again! My head! I was forgetting the coincidence. The Swiss postmark.” “At a second glance I see that the letter is unopened, so it is not very likely to have much to do with the matter,” said Vendale, with comforting composure. “Is it for you, or for us?” “For us,” said Wilding. “Suppose I open it and read it aloud, to get it out of our way?” “Thank you, thank you.” “The letter is only from our champagne-making friends, the house at Neuchâtel. ‘Dear Sir. We are in receipt of yours of the 28th ult., informing us that you have taken your Mr. Vendale into partnership, whereon we beg you to receive the assurance of our felicitations. Permit us to embrace the occasion of specially commanding to you M. Jules Obenreizer.’ Impossible!” Wilding looked up in quick apprehension, and cried, “Eh?” “Impossible sort of name,” returned his partner, slightly—“Obenreizer. ‘—Of specially commanding to you M. Jules Obenreizer, of Soho Square, London (north side), henceforth fully accredited as our agent, and who has already had the honour of making the acquaintance of your Mr. Vendale, in his (said M. Obenreizer’s) native country, Switzerland.’ To be sure! pooh pooh, what have I been thinking of! I remember now; ‘when travelling with his niece.’” “With his—?” Vendale had so slurred the last word, that Wilding had not heard it. “When travelling with his Niece. Obenreizer’s Niece,” said Vendale, in a somewhat superfluously lucid manner. “Niece of Obenreizer. (I met them in my first Swiss tour, travelled a little with them, and lost them for two years; met them again, my Swiss tour before last, and have lost them ever since.) Obenreizer. Niece of Obenreizer. To be sure! Possible sort of name, after all! ‘M. Obenreizer is in possession of our absolute confidence, and we do not doubt you will esteem his merits.’ Duly signed by the House, ‘Defresnier et Cie.’ Very well. I undertake to see M. Obenreizer presently, and clear him out of the way. That clears the Swiss postmark out of the way. So now, my dear Wilding, tell me what I can clear out of your way, and I’ll find a way to clear it.” More than ready and grateful to be thus taken charge of, the honest wine-merchant wrung his partner’s hand, and, beginning his tale by pathetically declaring himself an Impostor, told it. “It was on this matter, no doubt, that you were sending for Bintrey when I came in?” said his partner, after reflecting. “It was.” “He has experience and a shrewd head; I shall be anxious to know his opinion. It is bold and hazardous in me to give you mine before I know his, but I am not good at holding back. Plainly, then, I do not see these circumstances as you see them. I do not see your position as you see it. As to your being an Impostor, my dear Wilding, that is simply absurd, because no man can be that without being a consenting party to an imposition. Clearly you never were so. As to your enrichment by the lady who believed you to be her son, and whom you were forced to believe, on her showing, to be your mother, consider whether that did not arise out of the personal relations between you. You gradually became much attached to her; she gradually became much attached to you. It was on you, personally you, as I see the case, that she conferred these worldly advantages; it was from her, personally her, that you took them.” “She supposed me,” objected Wilding, shaking his head, “to have a natural claim upon her, which I had not.” “I must admit that,” replied his partner, “to be true. But if she had made the discovery that you have made, six months before she died, do you think it would have cancelled the years you were together, and the tenderness that each of you had conceived for the other, each on increasing knowledge of the other?” “What I think,” said Wilding, simply but stoutly holding to the bare fact, “can no more change the truth than it can bring down the sky. The truth is that I stand possessed of what was meant for another man.” “He may be dead,” said Vendale. “He may be alive,” said Wilding. “And if he is alive, have I not—innocently, I grant you innocently—robbed him of enough? Have I not robbed him of all the happy time that I enjoyed in his stead? Have I not robbed him of the exquisite delight that filled my soul when that dear lady,” stretching his hand towards the picture, “told me she was my mother? Have I not robbed him of all the care she lavished on me? Have I not even robbed him of all the devotion and duty that I so proudly gave to her? Therefore it is that I ask myself, George Vendale, and I ask you, where is he? What has become of him?” “Who can tell!” “I must try to find out who can tell. I must institute inquiries. I must never desist from prosecuting inquiries. I will live upon the interest of my share—I ought to say his share—in this business, and will lay up the rest for him. When I find him, I may perhaps throw myself upon his generosity; but I will yield up all to him. I will, I swear. As I loved and honoured her,” said Wilding, reverently kissing his hand towards the picture, and then covering his eyes with it. “As I loved and honoured her, and have a world of reasons to be grateful to her!” And so broke down again. His partner rose from the chair he had occupied, and stood beside him with a hand softly laid upon his shoulder. “Walter, I knew you before to-day to be an upright man, with a pure conscience and a fine heart. It is very fortunate for me that I have the privilege to travel on in life so near to so trustworthy a man. I am thankful for it. Use me as your right hand, and rely upon me to the death. Don’t think the worse of me if I protest to you that my uppermost feeling at present is a confused, you may call it an unreasonable, one. I feel far more pity for the lady and for you, because you did not stand in your supposed relations, than I can feel for the unknown man (if he ever became a man), because he was unconsciously displaced. You have done well in sending for Mr. Bintrey. What I think will be a part of his advice, I know is the whole of mine. Do not move a step in this serious matter precipitately. The secret must be kept among us with great strictness, for to part with it lightly would be to invite fraudulent claims, to encourage a host of knaves, to let loose a flood of perjury and plotting. I have no more to say now, Walter, than to remind you that you sold me a share in your business, expressly to save yourself from more work than your present health is fit for, and that I bought it expressly to do work, and mean to do it.” With these words, and a parting grip of his partner’s shoulder that gave them the best emphasis they could have had, George Vendale betook himself presently to the counting-house, and presently afterwards to the address of M. Jules Obenreizer. As he turned into Soho-square, and directed his steps towards its north side, a deepened colour shot across his sun-browned face, which Wilding, if he had been a better observer, or had been less occupied with his own trouble, might have noticed when his partner read aloud a certain passage in their Swiss correspondent’s letter, which he had not read so distinctly as the rest. A curious colony of mountaineers has long been enclosed within that small flat London district of Soho. Swiss watchmakers, Swiss silver-chasers, Swiss jewellers, Swiss importers of Swiss musical boxes and Swiss toys of various kinds, draw close together there. Swiss professors of music, painting, and languages; Swiss artificers in steady work; Swiss couriers, and other Swiss servants chronically out of place; industrious Swiss laundresses and clear-starchers; mysteriously existing Swiss of both sexes; Swiss creditable and Swiss discreditable; Swiss to be trusted by all means, and Swiss to be trusted by no means; these diverse Swiss particles are attracted to a centre in the district of Soho. Shabby Swiss eating-houses, coffee-houses, and lodging-houses, Swiss drinks and dishes, Swiss service for Sundays, and Swiss schools for week-days, are all to be found there. Even the native-born English taverns drive a sort of broken-English trade; announcing in their windows Swiss whets and drams, and sheltering in their bars Swiss skirmishes of love and animosity on most nights in the year. When the new partner in Wilding and Co. rang the bell of a door bearing the blunt inscription OBENREIZER on a brass plate—the inner door of a substantial house, whose ground story was devoted to the sale of Swiss clocks—he passed at once into domestic Switzerland. A white-tiled stove for winter-time filled the fireplace of the room into which he was shown, the room’s bare floor was laid together in a neat pattern of several ordinary woods, the room had a prevalent air of surface bareness and much scrubbing; and the little square of flowery carpet by the sofa, and the velvet chimney-board with its capacious clock and vases of artificial flowers, contended with that tone, as if, in bringing out the whole effect, a Parisian had adapted a dairy to domestic purposes. Mimic water was dropping off a mill-wheel under the clock. The visitor had not stood before it, following it with his eyes, a minute, when M. Obenreizer, at his elbow, startled him by saying, in very good English, very slightly clipped: “How do you do? So glad!” “I beg your pardon. I didn’t hear you come in.” “Not at all! Sit, please.” Releasing his visitor’s two arms, which he had lightly pinioned at the elbows by way of embrace, M. Obenreizer also sat, remarking, with a smile: “You are well? So glad!” and touching his elbows again. “I don’t know,” said Vendale, after exchange of salutations, “whether you may yet have heard of me from your House at Neuchâtel?” “Ah, yes!” “In connection with Wilding and Co.?” “Ah, surely!” “Is it not odd that I should come to you, in London here, as one of the Firm of Wilding and Co. to pay the Firm’s respects?” “Not at all! What did I always observe when we were on the mountains? We call them vast; but the world is so little. So little is the world, that one cannot keep away from persons. There are so few persons in the world, that they continually cross and re-cross. So very little is the world, that one cannot get rid of a person. Not,” touching his elbows again, with an ingratiatory smile, “that one would desire to get rid of you.” “I hope not, M. Obenreizer.” “Please call me, in your country, Mr. I call myself so, for I love your country. If I could be English! But I am born. And you? Though descended from so fine a family, you have had the condescension to come into trade? Stop though. Wines? Is it trade in England or profession? Not fine art?” “Mr. Obenreizer,” returned Vendale, somewhat out of countenance, “I was but a silly young fellow, just of age, when I first had the pleasure of travelling with you, and when you and I and Mademoiselle your niece—who is well?” “Thank you. Who is well.” “—Shared some slight glacier dangers together. If, with a boy’s vanity, I rather vaunted my family, I hope I did so as a kind of introduction of myself. It was very weak, and in very bad taste; but perhaps you know our English proverb, ‘Live and Learn.’” “You make too much of it,” returned the Swiss. “And what the devil! After all, yours was a fine family.” George Vendale’s laugh betrayed a little vexation as he rejoined: “Well! I was strongly attached to my parents, and when we first travelled together, Mr. Obenreizer, I was in the first flush of coming into what my father and mother left me. So I hope it may have been, after all, more youthful openness of speech and heart than boastfulness.” “All openness of speech and heart! No boastfulness!” cried Obenreizer. “You tax yourself too heavily. You tax yourself, my faith! as if you was your Government taxing you! Besides, it commenced with me. I remember, that evening in the boat upon the lake, floating among the reflections of the mountains and valleys, the crags and pine woods, which were my earliest remembrance, I drew a word-picture of my sordid childhood. Of our poor hut, by the waterfall which my mother showed to travellers; of the cow-shed where I slept with the cow; of my idiot half-brother always sitting at the door, or limping down the Pass to beg; of my half-sister always spinning, and resting her enormous goître on a great stone; of my being a famished naked little wretch of two or three years, when they were men and women with hard hands to beat me, I, the only child of my father’s second marriage—if it even was a marriage. What more natural than for you to compare notes with me, and say, ‘We are as one by age; at that same time I sat upon my mother’s lap in my father’s carriage, rolling through the rich English streets, all luxury surrounding me, all squalid poverty kept far from me. Such is my earliest remembrance as opposed to yours!’” Mr. Obenreizer was a black-haired young man of a dark complexion, through whose swarthy skin no red glow ever shone. When colour would have come into another cheek, a hardly discernible beat would come into his, as if the machinery for bringing up the ardent blood were there, but the machinery were dry. He was robustly made, well proportioned, and had handsome features. Many would have perceived that some surface change in him would have set them more at their ease with him, without being able to define what change. If his lips could have been made much thicker, and his neck much thinner, they would have found their want supplied. But the great Obenreizer peculiarity was, that a certain nameless film would come over his eyes—apparently by the action of his own will—which would impenetrably veil, not only from those tellers of tales, but from his face at large, every expression save one of attention. It by no means followed that his attention should be wholly given to the person with whom he spoke, or even wholly bestowed on present sounds and objects. Rather, it was a comprehensive watchfulness of everything he had in his own mind, and everything that he knew to be, or suspected to be, in the minds of other men. At this stage of the conversation, Mr. Obenreizer’s film came over him. “The object of my present visit,” said Vendale, “is, I need hardly say, to assure you of the friendliness of Wilding and Co., and of the goodness of your credit with us, and of our desire to be of service to you. We hope shortly to offer you our hospitality. Things are not quite in train with us yet, for my partner, Mr. Wilding, is reorganising the domestic part of our establishment, and is interrupted by some private affairs. You don’t know Mr. Wilding, I believe?” Mr. Obenreizer did not. “You must come together soon. He will be glad to have made your acquaintance, and I think I may predict that you will be glad to have made his. You have not been long established in London, I suppose, Mr. Obenreizer?” “It is only now that I have undertaken this agency.” “Mademoiselle your niece—is—not married?” “Not married.” George Vendale glanced about him, as if for any tokens of her. “She has been in London?” “She is in London.” “When, and where, might I have the honour of recalling myself to her remembrance?” Mr. Obenreizer, discarding his film and touching his visitor’s elbows as before, said lightly: “Come up-stairs.” Fluttered enough by the suddenness with which the interview he had sought was coming upon him after all, George Vendale followed up-stairs. In a room over the chamber he had just quitted—a room also Swiss-appointed—a young lady sat near one of three windows, working at an embroidery-frame; and an older lady sat with her face turned close to another white-tiled stove (though it was summer, and the stove was not lighted), cleaning gloves. The young lady wore an unusual quantity of fair bright hair, very prettily braided about a rather rounder white forehead than the average English type, and so her face might have been a shade—or say a light—rounder than the average English face, and her figure slightly rounder than the figure of the average English girl at nineteen. A remarkable indication of freedom and grace of limb, in her quiet attitude, and a wonderful purity and freshness of colour in her dimpled face and bright gray eyes, seemed fraught with mountain air. Switzerland too, though the general fashion of her dress was English, peeped out of the fanciful bodice she wore, and lurked in the curious clocked red stocking, and in its little silver-buckled shoe. As to the elder lady, sitting with her feet apart upon the lower brass ledge of the stove, supporting a lap-full of gloves while she cleaned one stretched on her left hand, she was a true Swiss impersonation of another kind; from the breadth of her cushion-like back, and the ponderosity of her respectable legs (if the word be admissible), to the black velvet band tied tightly round her throat for the repression of a rising tendency to goitre; or, higher still, to her great copper-coloured gold ear-rings; or, higher still, to her head-dress of black gauze stretched on wire. “Miss Marguerite,” said Obenreizer to the young lady, “do you recollect this gentleman?” “I think,” she answered, rising from her seat, surprised and a little confused: “it is Mr. Vendale?” “I think it is,” said Obenreizer, dryly. “Permit me, Mr. Vendale. Madame Dor.” The elder lady by the stove, with the glove stretched on her left hand, like a glover’s sign, half got up, half looked over her broad shoulder, and wholly plumped down again and rubbed away. “Madame Dor,” said Obenreizer, smiling, “is so kind as to keep me free from stain or tear. Madame Dor humours my weakness for being always neat, and devotes her time to removing every one of my specks and spots.” Madame Dor, with the stretched glove in the air, and her eyes closely scrutinizing its palm, discovered a tough spot in Mr. Obenreizer at that instant, and rubbed hard at him. George Vendale took his seat by the embroidery-frame (having first taken the fair right hand that his entrance had checked), and glanced at the gold cross that dipped into the bodice, with something of the devotion of a pilgrim who had reached his shrine at last. Obenreizer stood in the middle of the room with his thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, and became filmy. “He was saying down-stairs, Miss Obenreizer,” observed Vendale, “that the world is so small a place, that people cannot escape one another. I have found it much too large for me since I saw you last.” “Have you travelled so far, then?” she inquired. “Not so far, for I have only gone back to Switzerland each year; but I could have wished—and indeed I have wished very often—that the little world did not afford such opportunities for long escapes as it does. If it had been less, I might have found my follow-travellers sooner, you know.” The pretty Marguerite coloured, and very slightly glanced in the direction of Madame Dor. “You find us at length, Mr. Vendale. Perhaps you may lose us again.” “I trust not. The curious coincidence that has enabled me to find you, encourages me to hope not.” “What is that coincidence, sir, if you please?” A dainty little native touch in this turn of speech, and in its tone, made it perfectly captivating, thought George Vendale, when again he noticed an instantaneous glance towards Madame Dor. A caution seemed to be conveyed in it, rapid flash though it was; so he quietly took heed of Madame Dor from that time forth. “It is that I happen to have become a partner in a House of business in London, to which Mr. Obenreizer happens this very day to be expressly recommended: and that, too, by another house of business in Switzerland, in which (as it turns out) we both have a commercial interest. He has not told you?” “Ah!” cried Obenreizer, striking in, filmless. “No. I had not told Miss Marguerite. The world is so small and so monotonous that a surprise is worth having in such a little jog-trot place. It is as he tells you, Miss Marguerite. He, of so fine a family, and so proudly bred, has condescended to trade. To trade! Like us poor peasants who have risen from ditches!” A cloud crept over the fair brow, and she cast down her eyes. “Why, it is good for trade!” pursued Obenreizer, enthusiastically. “It ennobles trade! It is the misfortune of trade, it is its vulgarity, that any low people—for example, we poor peasants—may take to it and climb by it. See you, my dear Vendale!” He spoke with great energy. “The father of Miss Marguerite, my eldest half-brother, more than two times your age or mine, if living now, wandered without shoes, almost without rags, from that wretched Pass—wandered—wandered—got to be fed with the mules and dogs at an Inn in the main valley far away—got to be Boy there—got to be Ostler—got to be Waiter—got to be Cook—got to be Landlord. As Landlord, he took me (could he take the idiot beggar his brother, or the spinning monstrosity his sister?) to put as pupil to the famous watchmaker, his neighbour and friend. His wife dies when Miss Marguerite is born. What is his will, and what are his words to me, when he dies, she being between girl and woman? ‘All for Marguerite, except so much by the year for you. You are young, but I make her your ward, for you were of the obscurest and the poorest peasantry, and so was I, and so was her mother; we were abject peasants all, and you will remember it.’ The thing is equally true of most of my countrymen, now in trade in this your London quarter of Soho. Peasants once; low-born drudging Swiss Peasants. Then how good and great for trade:” here, from having been warm, he became playfully jubilant, and touched the young wine-merchant’s elbows again with his light embrace: “to be exalted by gentlemen!” “I do not think so,” said Marguerite, with a flushed cheek, and a look away from the visitor, that was almost defiant. “I think it is as much exalted by us peasants.” “Fie, fie, Miss Marguerite,” said Obenreizer. “You speak in proud England.” “I speak in proud earnest,” she answered, quietly resuming her work, “and I am not English, but a Swiss peasant’s daughter.” There was a dismissal of the subject in her words, which Vendale could not contend against. He only said in an earnest manner, “I most heartily agree with you, Miss Obenreizer, and I have already said so, as Mr. Obenreizer will bear witness,” which he by no means did, “in this house.” Now, Vendale’s eyes were quick eyes, and sharply watching Madame Dor by times, noted something in the broad back view of that lady. There was considerable pantomimic expression in her glove-cleaning. It had been very softly done when he spoke with Marguerite, or it had altogether stopped, like the action of a listener. When Obenreizer’s peasant-speech came to an end, she rubbed most vigorously, as if applauding it. And once or twice, as the glove (which she always held before her, a little above her face) turned in the air, or as this finger went down, or that went up, he even fancied that it made some telegraphic communication to Obenreizer: whose back was certainly never turned upon it, though he did not seem at all to heed it. Vendale observed too, that in Marguerite’s dismissal of the subject twice forced upon him to his misrepresentation, there was an indignant treatment of her guardian which she tried to cheek: as though she would have flamed out against him, but for the influence of fear. He also observed—though this was not much—that he never advanced within the distance of her at which he first placed himself: as though there were limits fixed between them. Neither had he ever spoken of her without the prefix “Miss,” though whenever he uttered it, it was with the faintest trace of an air of mockery. And now it occurred to Vendale for the first time that something curious in the man, which he had never before been able to define, was definable as a certain subtle essence of mockery that eluded touch or analysis. He felt convinced that Marguerite was in some sort a prisoner as to her free will—though she held her own against those two combined, by the force of her character, which was nevertheless inadequate to her release. To feel convinced of this, was not to feel less disposed to love her than he had always been. In a word, he was desperately in love with her, and thoroughly determined to pursue the opportunity which had opened at last. For the present, he merely touched upon the pleasure that Wilding and Co. would soon have in entreating Miss Obenreizer to honour their establishment with her presence—a curious old place, though a bachelor house withal—and so did not protract his visit beyond such a visit’s ordinary length. Going down stairs, conducted by his host, he found the Obenreizer counting-house at the back of the entrance-hall, and several shabby men in outlandish garments hanging about, whom Obenreizer put aside that he might pass, with a few words in patois. “Countrymen,” he explained, as he attended Vendale to the door. “Poor compatriots. Grateful and attached, like dogs! Good-bye. To meet again. So glad!” Two more light touches on his elbows dismissed him into the street. Sweet Marguerite at her frame, and Madame Dor’s broad back at her telegraph, floated before him to Cripple Corner. On his arrival there, Wilding was closeted with Bintrey. The cellar doors happening to be open, Vendale lighted a candle in a cleft stick, and went down for a cellarous stroll. Graceful Marguerite floated before him faithfully, but Madame Dor’s broad back remained outside. The vaults were very spacious, and very old. There had been a stone crypt down there, when bygones were not bygones; some said, part of a monkish refectory; some said, of a chapel; some said, of a Pagan temple. It was all one now. Let who would make what he liked of a crumbled pillar and a broken arch or so. Old Time had made what he liked of it, and was quite indifferent to contradiction. The close air, the musty smell, and the thunderous rumbling in the streets above, as being, out of the routine of ordinary life, went well enough with the picture of pretty Marguerite holding her own against those two. So Vendale went on until, at a turning in the vaults, he saw a light like the light he carried. “Oh! You are here, are you, Joey?” “Oughtn’t it rather to go, ‘Oh! You’re here, are you, Master George?’ For it’s my business to be here. But it ain’t yourn.” “Don’t grumble, Joey.” “Oh! I don’t grumble,” returned the Cellarman. “If anything grumbles, it’s what I’ve took in through the pores; it ain’t me. Have a care as something in you don’t begin a grumbling, Master George. Stop here long enough for the wapours to work, and they’ll be at it.” His present occupation consisted of poking his head into the bins, making measurements and mental calculations, and entering them in a rhinoceros-hide-looking note-book, like a piece of himself. “They’ll be at it,” he resumed, laying the wooden rod that he measured with across two casks, entering his last calculation, and straightening his back, “trust ‘em! And so you’ve regularly come into the business, Master George?” “Regularly. I hope you don’t object, Joey?” “I don’t, bless you. But Wapours objects that you’re too young. You’re both on you too young.” “We shall get over that objection day by day, Joey.” “Ay, Master George; but I shall day by day get over the objection that I’m too old, and so I shan’t be capable of seeing much improvement in you.” The retort so tickled Joey Ladle that he grunted forth a laugh and delivered it again, grunting forth another laugh after the second edition of “improvement in you.” “But what’s no laughing matter, Master George,” he resumed, straightening his back once more, “is, that young Master Wilding has gone and changed the luck. Mark my words. He has changed the luck, and he’ll find it out. I ain’t been down here all my life for nothing! I know by what I notices down here, when it’s a-going to rain, when it’s a-going to hold up, when it’s a-going to blow, when it’s a-going to be calm. I know, by what I notices down here, when the luck’s changed, quite as well.” “Has this growth on the roof anything to do with your divination?” asked Vendale, holding his light towards a gloomy ragged growth of dark fungus, pendent from the arches with a very disagreeable and repellent effect. “We are famous for this growth in this vault, aren’t we?” “We are Master George,” replied Joey Ladle, moving a step or two away, “and if you’ll be advised by me, you’ll let it alone.” Taking up the rod just now laid across the two casks, and faintly moving the languid fungus with it, Vendale asked, “Ay, indeed? Why so?” “Why, not so much because it rises from the casks of wine, and may leave you to judge what sort of stuff a Cellarman takes into himself when he walks in the same all the days of his life, nor yet so much because at a stage of its growth it’s maggots, and you’ll fetch ‘em down upon you,” returned Joey Ladle, still keeping away, “as for another reason, Master George.” “What other reason?” “(I wouldn’t keep on touchin’ it, if I was you, sir.) I’ll tell you if you’ll come out of the place. First, take a look at its colour, Master George.” “I am doing so.” “Done, sir. Now, come out of the place.” He moved away with his light, and Vendale followed with his. When Vendale came up with him, and they were going back together, Vendale, eyeing him as they walked through the arches, said: “Well, Joey? The colour.” “Is it like clotted blood, Master George?” “Like enough, perhaps.” “More than enough, I think,” muttered Joey Ladle, shaking his head solemnly. “Well, say it is like; say it is exactly like. What then?” “Master George, they do say—” “Who?” “How should I know who?” rejoined the Cellarman, apparently much exasperated by the unreasonable nature of the question. “Them! Them as says pretty well everything, you know. How should I know who They are, if you don’t?” “True. Go on.” “They do say that the man that gets by any accident a piece of that dark growth right upon his breast, will, for sure and certain, die by Murder.” As Vendale laughingly stopped to meet the Cellarman’s eyes, which he had fastened on his light while dreamily saying those words, he suddenly became conscious of being struck upon his own breast by a heavy hand. Instantly following with his eyes the action of the hand that struck him—which was his companion’s—he saw that it had beaten off his breast a web or clot of the fungus even then floating to the ground. For a moment he turned upon the Cellarman almost as scared a look as the Cellarman turned upon him. But in another moment they had reached the daylight at the foot of the cellar-steps, and before he cheerfully sprang up them, he blew out his candle and the superstition together. EXIT WILDING. On the morning of the next day, Wilding went out alone, after leaving a message with his clerk. “If Mr. Vendale should ask for me,” he said, “or if Mr. Bintrey should call, tell them I am gone to the Foundling.” All that his partner had said to him, all that his lawyer, following on the same side, could urge, had left him persisting unshaken in his own point of view. To find the lost man, whose place he had usurped, was now the paramount interest of his life, and to inquire at the Foundling was plainly to take the first step in the direction of discovery. To the Foundling, accordingly, the wine-merchant now went. The once familiar aspect of the building was altered to him, as the look of the portrait over the chimney-piece was altered to him. His one dearest association with the place which had sheltered his childhood had been broken away from it for ever. A strange reluctance possessed him, when he stated his business at the door. His heart ached as he sat alone in the waiting-room while the Treasurer of the institution was being sent for to see him. When the interview began, it was only by a painful effort that he could compose himself sufficiently to mention the nature of his errand. The Treasurer listened with a face which promised all needful attention, and promised nothing more. “We are obliged to be cautious,” he said, when it came to his turn to speak, “about all inquiries which are made by strangers.” “You can hardly consider me a stranger,” answered Wilding, simply. “I was one of your poor lost children here, in the bygone time.” The Treasurer politely rejoined that this circumstance inspired him with a special interest in his visitor. But he pressed, nevertheless for that visitor’s motive in making his inquiry. Without further preface, Wilding told him his motive, suppressing nothing. The Treasurer rose, and led the way into the room in which the registers of the institution were kept. “All the information which our books can give is heartily at your service,” he said. “After the time that has elapsed, I am afraid it is the only information we have to offer you.” The books were consulted, and the entry was found expressed as follows: “3d March, 1836. Adopted, and removed from the Foundling Hospital, a male infant, named Walter Wilding. Name and condition of the person adopting the child—Mrs. Jane Ann Miller, widow. Address—Lime-Tree Lodge, Groombridge Wells. References—the Reverend John Harker, Groombridge Wells; and Messrs. Giles, Jeremie, and Giles, bankers, Lombard-street.” “Is that all?” asked the wine-merchant. “Had you no after-communication with Mrs. Miller?” “None—or some reference to it must have appeared in this book.” “May I take a copy of the entry?” “Certainly! You are a little agitated. Let me make a copy for you.” “My only chance, I suppose,” said Wilding, looking sadly at the copy, “is to inquire at Mrs. Miller’s residence, and to try if her references can help me?” “That is the only chance I see at present,” answered the Treasurer. “I heartily wish I could have been of some further assistance to you.” With those farewell words to comfort him, Wilding set forth on the journey of investigation which began from the Foundling doors. The first stage to make for, was plainly the house of business of the bankers in Lombard-street. Two of the partners in the firm were inaccessible to chance-visitors when he asked for them. The third, after raising certain inevitable difficulties, consented to let a clerk examine the ledger marked with the initial letter “M.” The account of Mrs. Miller, widow, of Groombridge Wells, was found. Two long lines, in faded ink, were drawn across it; and at the bottom of the page there appeared this note: “Account closed, September 30th, 1837.” So the first stage of the journey was reached—and so it ended in No Thoroughfare! After sending a note to Cripple Corner to inform his partner that his absence might be prolonged for some hours, Wilding took his place in the train, and started for the second stage on the journey—Mrs. Miller’s residence at Groombridge Wells. Mothers and children travelled with him; mothers and children met each other at the station; mothers and children were in the shops when he entered them to inquire for Lime-Tree Lodge. Everywhere, the nearest and dearest of human relations showed itself happily in the happy light of day. Everywhere, he was reminded of the treasured delusion from which he had been awakened so cruelly—of the lost memory which had passed from him like a reflection from a glass. Inquiring here, inquiring there, he could hear of no such place as Lime-Tree Lodge. Passing a house-agent’s office, he went in wearily, and put the question for the last time. The house-agent pointed across the street to a dreary mansion of many windows, which might have been a manufactory, but which was an hotel. “That’s where Lime-Tree Lodge stood, sir,” said the man, “ten years ago.” The second stage reached, and No Thoroughfare again! But one chance was left. The clerical reference, Mr. Harker, still remained to be found. Customers coming in at the moment to occupy the house-agent’s attention, Wilding went down the street, and entering a bookseller’s shop, asked if he could be informed of the Reverend John Harker’s present address. The bookseller looked unaffectedly shocked and astonished, and made no answer. Wilding repeated his question. The bookseller took up from his counter a prim little volume in a binding of sober grey. He handed it to his visitor, open at the title-page. Wilding read: “The martyrdom of the Reverend John Harker in New Zealand. Related by a former member of his flock.” Wilding put the book down on the counter. “I beg your pardon,” he said thinking a little, perhaps, of his own present martyrdom while he spoke. The silent bookseller acknowledged the apology by a bow. Wilding went out. Third and last stage, and No Thoroughfare for the third and last time. There was nothing more to be done; there was absolutely no choice but to go back to London, defeated at all points. From time to time on the return journey, the wine-merchant looked at his copy of the entry in the Foundling Register. There is one among the many forms of despair—perhaps the most pitiable of all—which persists in disguising itself as Hope. Wilding checked himself in the act of throwing the useless morsel of paper out of the carriage window. “It may lead to something yet,” he thought. “While I live, I won’t part with it. When I die, my executors shall find it sealed up with my will.” Now, the mention of his will set the good wine-merchant on a new track of thought, without diverting his mind from its engrossing subject. He must make his will immediately. The application of the phrase No Thoroughfare to the case had originated with Mr. Bintrey. In their first long conference following the discovery, that sagacious personage had a hundred times repeated, with an obstructive shake of the head, “No Thoroughfare, Sir, No Thoroughfare. My belief is that there is no way out of this at this time of day, and my advice is, make yourself comfortable where you are.” In the course of the protracted consultation, a magnum of the forty-five-year-old port wine had been produced for the wetting of Mr. Bintrey’s legal whistle; but the more clearly he saw his way through the wine, the more emphatically he did not see his way through the case; repeating as often as he set his glass down empty. “Mr. Wilding, No Thoroughfare. Rest and be thankful.” It is certain that the honest wine-merchant’s anxiety to make a will originated in profound conscientiousness; though it is possible (and quite consistent with his rectitude) that he may unconsciously have derived some feeling of relief from the prospect of delegating his own difficulty to two other men who were to come after him. Be that as it may, he pursued his new track of thought with great ardour, and lost no time in begging George Vendale and Mr. Bintrey to meet him in Cripple Corner and share his confidence. “Being all three assembled with closed doors,” said Mr. Bintrey, addressing the new partner on the occasion, “I wish to observe, before our friend (and my client) entrusts us with his further views, that I have endorsed what I understand from him to have been your advice, Mr. Vendale, and what would be the advice of every sensible man. I have told him that he positively must keep his secret. I have spoken with Mrs. Goldstraw, both in his presence and in his absence; and if anybody is to be trusted (which is a very large IF), I think she is to be trusted to that extent. I have pointed out to our friend (and my client), that to set on foot random inquiries would not only be to raise the Devil, in the likeness of all the swindlers in the kingdom, but would also be to waste the estate. Now, you see, Mr. Vendale, our friend (and my client) does not desire to waste the estate, but, on the contrary, desires to husband it for what he considers—but I can’t say I do—the rightful owner, if such rightful owner should ever be found. I am very much mistaken if he ever will be, but never mind that. Mr. Wilding and I are, at least, agreed that the estate is not to be wasted. Now, I have yielded to Mr. Wilding’s desire to keep an advertisement at intervals flowing through the newspapers, cautiously inviting any person who may know anything about that adopted infant, taken from the Foundling Hospital, to come to my office; and I have pledged myself that such advertisement shall regularly appear. I have gathered from our friend (and my client) that I meet you here to-day to take his instructions, not to give him advice. I am prepared to receive his instructions, and to respect his wishes; but you will please observe that this does not imply my approval of either as a matter of professional opinion.” Thus Mr. Bintrey; talking quite is much at Wilding as to Vendale. And yet, in spite of his care for his client, he was so amused by his client’s Quixotic conduct, as to eye him from time to time with twinkling eyes, in the light of a highly comical curiosity. “Nothing,” observed Wilding, “can be clearer. I only wish my head were as clear as yours, Mr. Bintrey.” “If you feel that singing in it coming on,” hinted the lawyer, with an alarmed glance, “put it off.—I mean the interview.” “Not at all, I thank you,” said Wilding. “What was I going to—” “Don’t excite yourself, Mr. Wilding,” urged the lawyer. “No; I wasn’t going to,” said the wine-merchant. “Mr. Bintrey and George Vendale, would you have any hesitation or objection to become my joint trustees and executors, or can you at once consent?” “I consent,” replied George Vendale, readily. “I consent,” said Bintrey, not so readily. “Thank you both. Mr. Bintrey, my instructions for my last will and testament are short and plain. Perhaps you will now have the goodness to take them down. I leave the whole of my real and personal estate, without any exception or reservation whatsoever, to you two, my joint trustees and executors, in trust to pay over the whole to the true Walter Wilding, if he shall be found and identified within two years after the day of my death. Failing that, in trust to you two to pay over the whole as a benefaction and legacy to the Foundling Hospital.” “Those are all your instructions, are they, Mr. Wilding?” demanded Bintrey, after a blank silence, during which nobody had looked at anybody. “The whole.” “And as to those instructions, you have absolutely made up your mind, Mr. Wilding?” “Absolutely, decidedly, finally.” “It only remains,” said the lawyer, with one shrug of his shoulders, “to get them into technical and binding form, and to execute and attest. Now, does that press? Is there any hurry about it? You are not going to die yet, sir.” “Mr. Bintrey,” answered Wilding, gravely, “when I am going to die is within other knowledge than yours or mine. I shall be glad to have this matter off my mind, if you please.” “We are lawyer and client again,” rejoined Bintrey, who, for the nonce, had become almost sympathetic. “If this day week—here, at the same hour—will suit Mr. Vendale and yourself, I will enter in my Diary that I attend you accordingly.” The appointment was made, and in due sequence, kept. The will was formally signed, sealed, delivered, and witnessed, and was carried off by Mr. Bintrey for safe storage among the papers of his clients, ranged in their respective iron boxes, with their respective owners’ names outside, on iron tiers in his consulting-room, as if that legal sanctuary were a condensed Family Vault of Clients. With more heart than he had lately had for former subjects of interest, Wilding then set about completing his patriarchal establishment, being much assisted not only by Mrs. Goldstraw but by Vendale too: who, perhaps, had in his mind the giving of an Obenreizer dinner as soon as possible. Anyhow, the establishment being reported in sound working order, the Obenreizers, Guardian and Ward, were asked to dinner, and Madame Dor was included in the invitation. If Vendale had been over head and ears in love before—a phrase not to be taken as implying the faintest doubt about it—this dinner plunged him down in love ten thousand fathoms deep. Yet, for the life of him, he could not get one word alone with charming Marguerite. So surely as a blessed moment seemed to come, Obenreizer, in his filmy state, would stand at Vendale’s elbow, or the broad back of Madame Dor would appear before his eyes. That speechless matron was never seen in a front view, from the moment of her arrival to that of her departure—except at dinner. And from the instant of her retirement to the drawing-room, after a hearty participation in that meal, she turned her face to the wall again. Yet, through four or five delightful though distracting hours, Marguerite was to be seen, Marguerite was to be heard, Marguerite was to be occasionally touched. When they made the round of the old dark cellars, Vendale led her by the hand; when she sang to him in the lighted room at night, Vendale, standing by her, held her relinquished gloves, and would have bartered against them every drop of the forty-five year old, though it had been forty-five times forty-five years old, and its nett price forty-five times forty-five pounds per dozen. And still, when she was gone, and a great gap of an extinguisher was clapped on Cripple Corner, he tormented himself by wondering, Did she think that he admired her! Did she think that he adored her! Did she suspect that she had won him, heart and soul! Did she care to think at all about it! And so, Did she and Didn’t she, up and down the gamut, and above the line and below the line, dear, dear! Poor restless heart of humanity! To think that the men who were mummies thousands of years ago, did the same, and ever found the secret how to be quiet after it! “What do you think, George,” Wilding asked him next day, “of Mr. Obenreizer? (I won’t ask you what you think of Miss Obenreizer).” “I don’t know,” said Vendale, “and I never did know, what to think of him.” “He is well informed and clever,” said Wilding. “Certainly clever.” “A good musician.” (He had played very well, and sung very well, overnight.) “Unquestionably a good musician.” “And talks well.” “Yes,” said George Vendale, ruminating, “and talks well. Do you know, Wilding, it oddly occurs to me, as I think about him, that he doesn’t keep silence well!” “How do you mean? He is not obtrusively talkative.” “No, and I don’t mean that. But when he is silent, you can hardly help vaguely, though perhaps most unjustly, mistrusting him. Take people whom you know and like. Take any one you know and like.” “Soon done, my good fellow,” said Wilding. “I take you.” “I didn’t bargain for that, or foresee it,” returned Vendale, laughing. “However, take me. Reflect for a moment. Is your approving knowledge of my interesting face mainly founded (however various the momentary expressions it may include) on my face when I am silent?” “I think it is,” said Wilding. “I think so too. Now, you see, when Obenreizer speaks—in other words, when he is allowed to explain himself away—he comes out right enough; but when he has not the opportunity of explaining himself away, he comes out rather wrong. Therefore it is, that I say he does not keep silence well. And passing hastily in review such faces as I know, and don’t trust, I am inclined to think, now I give my mind to it, that none of them keep silence well.” This proposition in Physiognomy being new to Wilding, he was at first slow to admit it, until asking himself the question whether Mrs. Goldstraw kept silence well, and remembering that her face in repose decidedly invited trustfulness, he was as glad as men usually are to believe what they desire to believe. But, as he was very slow to regain his spirits or his health, his partner, as another means of setting him up—and perhaps also with contingent Obenreizer views—reminded him of those musical schemes of his in connection with his family, and how a singing-class was to be formed in the house, and a Choir in a neighbouring church. The class was established speedily, and, two or three of the people having already some musical knowledge, and singing tolerably, the Choir soon followed. The latter was led, and chiefly taught, by Wilding himself: who had hopes of converting his dependents into so many Foundlings, in respect of their capacity to sing sacred choruses. Now, the Obenreizers being skilled musicians it was easily brought to pass that they should be asked to join these musical unions. Guardian and Ward consenting, or Guardian consenting for both, it was necessarily brought to pass that Vendale’s life became a life of absolute thraldom and enchantment. For, in the mouldy Christopher-Wren church on Sundays, with its dearly beloved brethren assembled and met together, five-and-twenty strong, was not that Her voice that shot like light into the darkest places, thrilling the walls and pillars as though they were pieces of his heart! What time, too, Madame Dor in a corner of the high pew, turning her back upon everybody and everything, could not fail to be Ritualistically right at some moment of the service; like the man whom the doctors recommended to get drunk once a month, and who, that he might not overlook it, got drunk every day. But, even those seraphic Sundays were surpassed by the Wednesday concerts established for the patriarchal family. At those concerts she would sit down to the piano and sing them, in her own tongue, songs of her own land, songs calling from the mountain-tops to Vendale, “Rise above the grovelling level country; come far away from the crowd; pursue me as I mount higher; higher, higher, melting into the azure distance; rise to my supremest height of all, and love me here!” Then would the pretty bodice, the clocked stocking, and the silver-buckled shoe be, like the broad forehead and the bright eyes, fraught with the spring of a very chamois, until the strain was over. Not even over Vendale himself did these songs of hers cast a more potent spell than over Joey Ladle in his different way. Steadily refusing to muddle the harmony by taking any share in it, and evincing the supremest contempt for scales and such-like rudiments of music—which, indeed, seldom captivate mere listeners—Joey did at first give up the whole business for a bad job, and the whole of the performers for a set of howling Dervishes. But, descrying traces of unmuddled harmony in a part-song one day, he gave his two under-cellarmen faint hopes of getting on towards something in course of time. An anthem of Handel’s led to further encouragement from him: though he objected that that great musician must have been down in some of them foreign cellars pretty much, for to go and say the same thing so many times over; which, took it in how you might, he considered a certain sign of your having took it in somehow. On a third occasion, the public appearance of Mr. Jarvis with a flute, and of an odd man with a violin, and the performance of a duet by the two, did so astonish him that, solely of his own impulse and motion, he became inspired with the words, “Ann Koar!” repeatedly pronouncing them as if calling in a familiar manner for some lady who had distinguished herself in the orchestra. But this was his final testimony to the merits of his mates, for, the instrumental duet being performed at the first Wednesday concert, and being presently followed by the voice of Marguerite Obenreizer, he sat with his mouth wide open, entranced, until she had finished; when, rising in his place with much solemnity, and prefacing what he was about to say with a bow that specially included Mr. Wilding in it, he delivered himself of the gratifying sentiment: “Arter that, ye may all on ye get to bed!” And ever afterwards declined to render homage in any other words to the musical powers of the family. Thus began a separate personal acquaintance between Marguerite Obenreizer and Joey Ladle. She laughed so heartily at his compliment, and yet was so abashed by it, that Joey made bold to say to her, after the concert was over, he hoped he wasn’t so muddled in his head as to have took a liberty? She made him a gracious reply, and Joey ducked in return. “You’ll change the luck time about, Miss,” said Joey, ducking again. “It’s such as you n the place that can bring round the luck of the place.” “Can I? Round the uck?” she answered, in her pretty English, and with a pretty wonder. “I fear I do not understand. I am so stupid.” “Young Master Wilding, Miss,” Joey explained confidentially, though not much to her enlightenment, “changed the luck, afore he took in young Master George. So I say, and so they’ll find. Lord! Only come into the place and sing over the luck a few times, Miss, and it won’t be able to help itself!” With this, and with a whole brood of ducks, Joey backed out of the presence. But Joey being a privileged person, and even an involuntary conquest being pleasant to youth and beauty, Marguerite merrily looked out for him next time. “Where is my Mr. Joey, please?” she asked Vendale. So Joey was produced, and shaken hands with, and that became an Institution. Another Institution arose in this wise. Joey was a little hard of hearing. He himself said it was “Wapours,” and perhaps it might have been; but whatever the cause of the effect, there the effect was, upon him. On this first occasion he had been seen to sidle along the wall, with his left hand to his left ear, until he had sidled himself into a seat pretty near the singer, in which place and position he had remained, until addressing to his friends the amateurs the compliment before mentioned. It was observed on the following Wednesday that Joey’s action as a Pecking Machine was impaired at dinner, and it was rumoured about the table that this was explainable by his high-strung expectations of Miss Obenreizer’s singing, and his fears of not getting a place where he could hear every note and syllable. The rumour reaching Wilding’s ears, he in his good nature called Joey to the front at night before Marguerite began. Thus the Institution came into being that on succeeding nights, Marguerite, running her hands over the keys before singing, always said to Vendale, “Where is my Mr. Joey, please?” and that Vendale always brought him forth, and stationed him near by. That he should then, when all eyes were upon him, express in his face the utmost contempt for the exertions of his friends and confidence in Marguerite alone, whom he would stand contemplating, not unlike the rhinocerous out of the spelling-book, tamed and on his hind legs, was a part of the Institution. Also that when he remained after the singing in his most ecstatic state, some bold spirit from the back should say, “What do you think of it, Joey?” and he should be goaded to reply, as having that instant conceived the retort, “Arter that ye may all on ye get to bed!” These were other parts of the Institution. But, the simple pleasures and small jests of Cripple Corner were not destined to have a long life. Underlying them from the first was a serious matter, which every member of the patriarchal family knew of, but which, by tacit agreement, all forbore to speak of. Mr. Wilding’s health was in a bad way. He might have overcome the shock he had sustained in the one great affection of his life, or he might have overcome his consciousness of being in the enjoyment of another man’s property; but the two together were too much for him. A man haunted by twin ghosts, he became deeply depressed. The inseparable spectres sat at the board with him, ate from his platter, drank from his cup, and stood by his bedside at night. When he recalled his supposed mother’s love, he felt as though he had stolen it. When he rallied a little under the respect and attachment of his dependants, he felt as though he were even fraudulent in making them happy, for that should have been the unknown man’s duty and gratification. Gradually, under the pressure of his brooding mind, his body stooped, his step lost its elasticity, his eyes were seldom lifted from the ground. He knew he could not help the deplorable mistake that had been made, but he knew he could not mend it; for the days and weeks went by, and no one claimed his name or his possessions. And now there began to creep over him, a cloudy consciousness of often-recurring confusion in his head. He would unaccountably lose, sometimes whole hours, sometimes a whole day and night. Once, his remembrance stopped as he sat at the head of the dinner-table, and was blank until daybreak. Another time, it stopped as he was beating time to their singing, and went on again when he and his partner were walking in the courtyard by the light of the moon, half the night later. He asked Vendale (always full of consideration, work, and help) how this was? Vendale only replied, “You have not been quite well; that’s all.” He looked for explanation into the faces of his people. But they would put it off with “Glad to see you looking so much better, sir;” or “Hope you’re doing nicely now, sir;” in which was no information at all. At length, when the partnership was but five months old, Walter Wilding took to his bed, and his housekeeper became his nurse. “Lying here, perhaps you will not mind my calling you Sally, Mrs. Goldstraw?” said the poor wine-merchant. “It sounds more natural to me, sir, than any other name, and I like it better.” “Thank you, Sally. I think, Sally, I must of late have been subject to fits. Is that so, Sally? Don’t mind telling me now.” “It has happened, sir.” “Ah! That is the explanation!” he quietly remarked. “Mr. Obenreizer, Sally, talks of the world being so small that it is not strange how often the same people come together, and come together at various places, and in various stages of life. But it does seem strange, Sally, that I should, as I may say, come round to the Foundling to die.” He extended his hand to her, and she gently took it. “You are not going to die, dear Mr. Wilding.” “So Mr. Bintrey said, but I think he was wrong. The old child-feeling is coming back upon me, Sally. The old hush and rest, as I used to fall asleep.” After an interval he said, in a placid voice, “Please kiss me, Nurse,” and, it was evident, believed himself to be lying in the old Dormitory. As she had been used to bend over the fatherless and motherless children, Sally bent over the fatherless and motherless man, and put her lips to his forehead, murmuring: “God bless you!” “God bless you!” he replied, in the same tone. After another interval, he opened his eyes in his own character, and said: “Don’t move me, Sally, because of what I am going to say; I lie quite easily. I think my time is come, I don’t know how it may appear to you, Sally, but—” Insensibility fell upon him for a few minutes; he emerged from it once more. “—I don’t know how it may appear to you, Sally, but so it appears to me.” When he had thus conscientiously finished his favourite sentence, his time came, and he died. ACT II. VENDALE MAKES LOVE. The summer and the autumn passed. Christmas and the New Year were at hand. As executors honestly bent on performing their duty towards the dead, Vendale and Bintrey had held more than one anxious consultation on the subject of Wilding’s will. The lawyer had declared, from the first, that it was simply impossible to take any useful action in the matter at all. The only obvious inquiries to make, in relation to the lost man, had been made already by Wilding himself; with this result, that time and death together had not left a trace of him discoverable. To advertise for the claimant to the property, it would be necessary to mention particulars—a course of proceeding which would invite half the impostors in England to present themselves in the character of the true Walter Wilding. “If we find a chance of tracing the lost man, we will take it. If we don’t, let us meet for another consultation on the first anniversary of Wilding’s death.” So Bintrey advised. And so, with the most earnest desire to fulfil his dead friend’s wishes, Vendale was fain to let the matter rest for the present. Turning from his interest in the past to his interest in the future, Vendale still found himself confronting a doubtful prospect. Months on months had passed since his first visit to Soho-square—and through all that time, the one language in which he had told Marguerite that he loved her was the language of the eyes, assisted, at convenient opportunities, by the language of the hand. What was the obstacle in his way? The one immovable obstacle which had been in his way from the first. No matter how fairly the opportunities looked, Vendale’s efforts to speak with Marguerite alone ended invariably in one and the same result. Under the most accidental circumstances, in the most innocent manner possible, Obenreizer was always in the way. With the last days of the old year came an unexpected chance of spending an evening with Marguerite, which Vendale resolved should be a chance of speaking privately to her as well. A cordial note from Obenreizer invited him, on New Year’s Day, to a little family dinner in Soho-square. “We shall be only four,” the note said. “We shall be only two,” Vendale determined, “before the evening is out!” New Year’s Day, among the English, is associated with the giving and receiving of dinners, and with nothing more. New Year’s Day, among the foreigners, is the grand opportunity of the year for the giving and receiving of presents. It is occasionally possible to acclimatise a foreign custom. In this instance Vendale felt no hesitation about making the attempt. His one difficulty was to decide what his New Year’s gift to Marguerite should be. The defensive pride of the peasant’s daughter—morbidly sensitive to the inequality between her social position and his—would be secretly roused against him if he ventured on a rich offering. A gift, which a poor man’s purse might purchase, was the one gift that could be trusted to find its way to her heart, for the giver’s sake. Stoutly resisting temptation, in the form of diamonds and rubies, Vendale bought a brooch of the filagree-work of Genoa—the simplest and most unpretending ornament that he could find in the jeweller’s shop. He slipped his gift into Marguerite’s hand as she held it out to welcome him on the day of the dinner. “This is your first New Year’s Day in England,” he said. “Will you let me help to make it like a New Year’s Day at home?” She thanked him, a little constrainedly, as she looked at the jeweller’s box, uncertain what it might contain. Opening the box, and discovering the studiously simple form under which Vendale’s little keepsake offered itself to her, she penetrated his motive on the spot. Her face turned on him brightly, with a look which said, “I own you have pleased and flattered me.” Never had she been so charming, in Vendale’s eyes, as she was at that moment. Her winter dress—a petticoat of dark silk, with a bodice of black velvet rising to her neck, and enclosing it softly in a little circle of swansdown—heightened, by all the force of contrast, the dazzling fairness of her hair and her complexion. It was only when she turned aside from him to the glass, and, taking out the brooch that she wore, put his New Year’s gift in its place, that Vendale’s attention wandered far enough away from her to discover the presence of other persons in the room. He now became conscious that the hands of Obenreizer were affectionately in possession of his elbows. He now heard the voice of Obenreizer thanking him for his attention to Marguerite, with the faintest possible ring of mockery in its tone. (“Such a simple present, dear sir! and showing such nice tact!”) He now discovered, for the first time, that there was one other guest, and but one, besides himself, whom Obenreizer presented as a compatriot and friend. The friend’s face was mouldy, and the friend’s figure was fat. His age was suggestive of the autumnal period of human life. In the course of the evening he developed two extraordinary capacities. One was a capacity for silence; the other was a capacity for emptying bottles. Madame Dor was not in the room. Neither was there any visible place reserved for her when they sat down to table. Obenreizer explained that it was “the good Dor’s simple habit to dine always in the middle of the day. She would make her excuses later in the evening.” Vendale wondered whether the good Dor had, on this occasion, varied her domestic employment from cleaning Obenreizer’s gloves to cooking Obenreizer’s dinner. This at least was certain—the dishes served were, one and all, as achievements in cookery, high above the reach of the rude elementary art of England. The dinner was unobtrusively perfect. As for the wine, the eyes of the speechless friend rolled over it, as in solemn ecstasy. Sometimes he said “Good!” when a bottle came in full; and sometimes he said “Ah!” when a bottle went out empty—and there his contributions to the gaiety of the evening ended. Silence is occasionally infectious. Oppressed by private anxieties of their own, Marguerite and Vendale appeared to feel the influence of the speechless friend. The whole responsibility of keeping the talk going rested on Obenreizer’s shoulders, and manfully did Obenreizer sustain it. He opened his heart in the character of an enlightened foreigner, and sang the praises of England. When other topics ran dry, he returned to this inexhaustible source, and always set the stream running again as copiously as ever. Obenreizer would have given an arm, an eye, or a leg to have been born an Englishman. Out of England there was no such institution as a home, no such thing as a fireside, no such object as a beautiful woman. His dear Miss Marguerite would excuse him, if he accounted for her attractions on the theory that English blood must have mixed at some former time with their obscure and unknown ancestry. Survey this English nation, and behold a tall, clean, plump, and solid people! Look at their cities! What magnificence in their public buildings! What admirable order and propriety in their streets! Admire their laws, combining the eternal principle of justice with the other eternal principle of pounds, shillings, and pence; and applying the product to all civil injuries, from an injury to a man’s honour, to an injury to a man’s nose! You have ruined my daughter—pounds, shillings, and pence! You have knocked me down with a blow in my face—pounds, shillings, and pence! Where was the material prosperity of such a country as that to stop? Obenreizer, projecting himself into the future, failed to see the end of it. Obenreizer’s enthusiasm entreated permission to exhale itself, English fashion, in a toast. Here is our modest little dinner over, here is our frugal dessert on the table, and here is the admirer of England conforming to national customs, and making a speech! A toast to your white cliffs of Albion, Mr. Vendale! to your national virtues, your charming climate, and your fascinating women! to your Hearths, to your Homes, to your Habeas Corpus, and to all your other institutions! In one word—to England! Heep-heep-heep! hooray! Obenreizer’s voice had barely chanted the last note of the English cheer, the speechless friend had barely drained the last drop out of his glass, when the festive proceedings were interrupted by a modest tap at the door. A woman-servant came in, and approached her master with a little note in her hand. Obenreizer opened the note with a frown; and, after reading it with an expression of genuine annoyance, passed it on to his compatriot and friend. Vendale’s spirits rose as he watched these proceedings. Had he found an ally in the annoying little note? Was the long-looked-for chance actually coming at last? “I am afraid there is no help for it?” said Obenreizer, addressing his fellow-countryman. “I am afraid we must go.” The speechless friend handed back the letter, shrugged his heavy shoulders, and poured himself out a last glass of wine. His fat fingers lingered fondly round the neck of the bottle. They pressed it with a little amatory squeeze at parting. His globular eyes looked dimly, as through an intervening haze, at Vendale and Marguerite. His heavy articulation laboured, and brought forth a whole sentence at a birth. “I think,” he said, “I should have liked a little more wine.” His breath failed him after that effort; he gasped, and walked to the door. Obenreizer addressed himself to Vendale with an appearance of the deepest distress. “I am so shocked, so confused, so distressed,” he began. “A misfortune has happened to one of my compatriots. He is alone, he is ignorant of your language—I and my good friend, here, have no choice but to go and help him. What can I say in my excuse? How can I describe my affliction at depriving myself in this way of the honour of your company?” He paused, evidently expecting to see Vendale take up his hat and retire. Discerning his opportunity at last, Vendale determined to do nothing of the kind. He met Obenreizer dexterously, with Obenreizer’s own weapons. “Pray don’t distress yourself,” he said. “I’ll wait here with the greatest pleasure till you come back.” Marguerite blushed deeply, and turned away to her embroidery-frame in a corner by the window. The film showed itself in Obenreizer’s eyes, and the smile came something sourly to Obenreizer’s lips. To have told Vendale that there was no reasonable prospect of his coming back in good time would have been to risk offending a man whose favourable opinion was of solid commercial importance to him. Accepting his defeat with the best possible grace, he declared himself to be equally honoured and delighted by Vendale’s proposal. “So frank, so friendly, so English!” He bustled about, apparently looking for something he wanted, disappeared for a moment through the folding-doors communicating with the next room, came back with his hat and coat, and protesting that he would return at the earliest possible moment, embraced Vendale’s elbows, and vanished from the scene in company with the speechless friend. Vendale turned to the corner by the window, in which Marguerite had placed herself with her work. There, as if she had dropped from the ceiling, or come up through the floor—there, in the old attitude, with her face to the stove—sat an Obstacle that had not been foreseen, in the person of Madame Dor! She half got up, half looked over her broad shoulder at Vendale, and plumped down again. Was she at work? Yes. Cleaning Obenreizer’s gloves, as before? No; darning Obenreizer’s stockings. The case was now desperate. Two serious considerations presented themselves to Vendale. Was it possible to put Madame Dor into the stove? The stove wouldn’t hold her. Was it possible to treat Madame Dor, not as a living woman, but as an article of furniture? Could the mind be brought to contemplate this respectable matron purely in the light of a chest of drawers, with a black gauze held-dress accidentally left on the top of it? Yes, the mind could be brought to do that. With a comparatively trifling effort, Vendale’s mind did it. As he took his place on the old-fashioned window-seat, close by Marguerite and her embroidery, a slight movement appeared in the chest of drawers, but no remark issued from it. Let it be remembered that solid furniture is not easy to move, and that it has this advantage in consequence—there is no fear of upsetting it. Unusually silent and unusually constrained—with the bright colour fast fading from her face, with a feverish energy possessing her fingers—the pretty Marguerite bent over her embroidery, and worked as if her life depended on it. Hardly less agitated himself, Vendale felt the importance of leading her very gently to the avowal which he was eager to make—to the other sweeter avowal still, which he was longing to hear. A woman’s love is never to be taken by storm; it yields insensibly to a system of gradual approach. It ventures by the roundabout way, and listens to the low voice. Vendale led her memory back to their past meetings when they were travelling together in Switzerland. They revived the impressions, they recalled the events, of the happy bygone time. Little by little, Marguerite’s constraint vanished. She smiled, she was interested, she looked at Vendale, she grew idle with her needle, she made false stitches in her work. Their voices sank lower and lower; their faces bent nearer and nearer to each other as they spoke. And Madame Dor? Madame Dor behaved like an angel. She never looked round; she never said a word; she went on with Obenreizer’s stockings. Pulling each stocking up tight over her left arm, and holding that arm aloft from time to time, to catch the light on her work, there were moments—delicate and indescribable moments—when Madame Dor appeared to be sitting upside down, and contemplating one of her own respectable legs, elevated in the air. As the minutes wore on, these elevations followed each other at longer and longer intervals. Now and again, the black gauze head-dress nodded, dropped forward, recovered itself. A little heap of stockings slid softly from Madame Dor’s lap, and remained unnoticed on the floor. A prodigious ball of worsted followed the stockings, and rolled lazily under the table. The black gauze head-dress nodded, dropped forward, recovered itself, nodded again, dropped forward again, and recovered itself no more. A composite sound, partly as of the purring of an immense cat, partly as of the planing of a soft board, rose over the hushed voices of the lovers, and hummed at regular intervals through the room. Nature and Madame Dor had combined together in Vendale’s interests. The best of women was asleep. Marguerite rose to stop—not the snoring—let us say, the audible repose of Madame Dor. Vendale laid his hand on her arm, and pressed her back gently into her chair. “Don’t disturb her,” he whispered. “I have been waiting to tell you a secret. Let me tell it now.” Marguerite resumed her seat. She tried to resume her needle. It was useless; her eyes failed her; her hand failed her; she could find nothing. “We have been talking,” said Vendale, “of the happy time when we first met, and first travelled together. I have a confession to make. I have been concealing something. When we spoke of my first visit to Switzerland, I told you of all the impressions I had brought back with me to England—except one. Can you guess what that one is?” Her eyes looked steadfastly at the embroidery, and her face turned a little away from him. Signs of disturbance began to appear in her neat velvet bodice, round the region of the brooch. She made no reply. Vendale pressed the question without mercy. “Can you guess what the one Swiss impression is which I have not told you yet?” Her face turned back towards him, and a faint smile trembled on her lips. “An impression of the mountains, perhaps?” she said slyly. “No; a much more precious impression than that.” “Of the lakes?” “No. The lakes have not grown dearer and dearer in remembrance to me every day. The lakes are not associated with my happiness in the present, and my hopes in the future. Marguerite! all that makes life worth having hangs, for me, on a word from your lips. Marguerite! I love you!” Her head drooped as he took her hand. He drew her to him, and looked at her. The tears escaped from her downcast eyes, and fell slowly over her cheeks. “Oh, Mr. Vendale,” she said, sadly, “it would have been kinder to have kept your secret. Have you forgotten the distance between us? It can never, never, be!” “There can be but one distance between us, Marguerite—a distance of your making. My love, my darling, there is no higher rank in goodness, there is no higher rank in beauty, than yours! Come! whisper the one little word which tells me you will be my wife!” She sighed bitterly. “Think of your family,” she murmured; “and think of mine!” Vendale drew her a little nearer to him. “If you dwell on such an obstacle as that,” he said, “I shall think but one thought—I shall think I have offended you.” She started, and looked up. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed innocently. The instant the words passed her lips, she saw the construction that might be placed on them. Her confession had escaped her in spite of herself. A lovely flush of colour overspread her face. She made a momentary effort to disengage herself from her lover’s embrace. She looked up at him entreatingly. She tried to speak. The words died on her lips in the kiss that Vendale pressed on them. “Let me go, Mr. Vendale!” she said faintly. “Call me George.” She laid her head on his bosom. All her heart went out to him at last. “George!” she whispered. “Say you love me!” Her arms twined themselves gently round his neck. Her lips, timidly touching his cheek, murmured the delicious words—“I love you!” In the moment of silence that followed, the sound of the opening and closing of the house-door came clear to them through the wintry stillness of the street. Marguerite started to her feet. “Let me go!” she said. “He has come back!” She hurried from the room, and touched Madame Dor’s shoulder in passing. Madame Dor woke up with a loud snort, looked first over one shoulder and then over the other, peered down into her lap, and discovered neither stockings, worsted, nor darning-needle in it. At the same moment, footsteps became audible ascending the stairs. “Mon Dieu!” said Madame Dor, addressing herself to the stove, and trembling violently. Vendale picked up the stockings and the ball, and huddled them all back in a heap over her shoulder. “Mon Dieu!” said Madame Dor, for the second time, as the avalanche of worsted poured into her capacious lap. The door opened, and Obenreizer came in. His first glance round the room showed him that Marguerite was absent. “What!” he exclaimed, “my niece is away? My niece is not here to entertain you in my absence? This is unpardonable. I shall bring her back instantly.” Vendale stopped him. “I beg you will not disturb Miss Obenreizer,” he said. “You have returned, I see, without your friend?” “My friend remains, and consoles our afflicted compatriot. A heart-rending scene, Mr. Vendale! The household gods at the pawnbroker’s—the family immersed in tears. We all embraced in silence. My admirable friend alone possessed his composure. He sent out, on the spot, for a bottle of wine.” “Can I say a word to you in private, Mr. Obenreizer?” “Assuredly.” He turned to Madame Dor. “My good creature, you are sinking for want of repose. Mr. Vendale will excuse you.” Madame Dor rose, and set forth sideways on her journey from the stove to bed. She dropped a stocking. Vendale picked it up for her, and opened one of the folding-doors. She advanced a step, and dropped three more stockings. Vendale stooping to recover them as before, Obenreizer interfered with profuse apologies, and with a warning look at Madame Dor. Madame Dor acknowledged the look by dropping the whole of the stockings in a heap, and then shuffling away panic-stricken from the scene of disaster. Obenreizer swept up the complete collection fiercely in both hands. “Go!” he cried, giving his prodigious handful a preparatory swing in the air. Madame Dor said, “Mon Dieu,” and vanished into the next room, pursued by a shower of stockings. “What must you think, Mr. Vendale,” said Obenreizer, closing the door, “of this deplorable intrusion of domestic details? For myself, I blush at it. We are beginning the New Year as badly as possible; everything has gone wrong to-night. Be seated, pray—and say, what may I offer you? Shall we pay our best respects to another of your noble English institutions? It is my study to be, what you call, jolly. I propose a grog.” Vendale declined the grog with all needful respect for that noble institution. “I wish to speak to you on a subject in which I am deeply interested,” he said. “You must have observed, Mr. Obenreizer, that I have, from the first, felt no ordinary admiration for your charming niece?” “You are very good. In my niece’s name, I thank you.” “Perhaps you may have noticed, latterly, that my admiration for Miss Obenreizer has grown into a tenderer and deeper feeling—?” “Shall we say friendship, Mr. Vendale?” “Say love—and we shall be nearer to the truth.” Obenreizer started out of his chair. The faintly discernible beat, which was his nearest approach to a change of colour, showed itself suddenly in his cheeks. “You are Miss Obenreizer’s guardian,” pursued Vendale. “I ask you to confer upon me the greatest of all favours—I ask you to give me her hand in marriage.” Obenreizer dropped back into his chair. “Mr. Vendale,” he said, “you petrify me.” “I will wait,” rejoined Vendale, “until you have recovered yourself.” “One word before I recover myself. You have said nothing about this to my niece?” “I have opened my whole heart to your niece. And I have reason to hope—” “What!” interposed Obenreizer. “You have made a proposal to my niece, without first asking for my authority to pay your addresses to her?” He struck his hand on the table, and lost his hold over himself for the first time in Vendale’s experience of him. “Sir!” he exclaimed, indignantly, “what sort of conduct is this? As a man of honour, speaking to a man of honour, how can you justify it?” “I can only justify it as one of our English institutions,” said Vendale quietly. “You admire our English institutions. I can’t honestly tell you, Mr. Obenreizer, that I regret what I have done. I can only assure you that I have not acted in the matter with any intentional disrespect towards yourself. This said, may I ask you to tell me plainly what objection you see to favouring my suit?” “I see this immense objection,” answered Obenreizer, “that my niece and you are not on a social equality together. My niece is the daughter of a poor peasant; and you are the son of a gentleman. You do us an honour,” he added, lowering himself again gradually to his customary polite level, “which deserves, and has, our most grateful acknowledgments. But the inequality is too glaring; the sacrifice is too great. You English are a proud people, Mr. Vendale. I have observed enough of this country to see that such a marriage as you propose would be a scandal here. Not a hand would be held out to your peasant-wife; and all your best friends would desert you.” “One moment,” said Vendale, interposing on his side. “I may claim, without any great arrogance, to know more of my country people in general, and of my own friends in particular, than you do. In the estimation of everybody whose opinion is worth having, my wife herself would be the one sufficient justification of my marriage. If I did not feel certain—observe, I say certain—that I am offering her a position which she can accept without so much as the shadow of a humiliation—I would never (cost me what it might) have asked her to be my wife. Is there any other obstacle that you see? Have you any personal objection to me?” Obenreizer spread out both his hands in courteous protest. “Personal objection!” he exclaimed. “Dear sir, the bare question is painful to me.” “We are both men of business,” pursued Vendale, “and you naturally expect me to satisfy you that I have the means of supporting a wife. I can explain my pecuniary position in two words. I inherit from my parents a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. In half of that sum I have only a life-interest, to which, if I die, leaving a widow, my widow succeeds. If I die, leaving children, the money itself is divided among them, as they come of age. The other half of my fortune is at my own disposal, and is invested in the wine-business. I see my way to greatly improving that business. As it stands at present, I cannot state my return from my capital embarked at more than twelve hundred a year. Add the yearly value of my life-interest—and the total reaches a present annual income of fifteen hundred pounds. I have the fairest prospect of soon making it more. In the meantime, do you object to me on pecuniary grounds?” Driven back to his last entrenchment, Obenreizer rose, and took a turn backwards and forwards in the room. For the moment, he was plainly at a loss what to say or do next. “Before I answer that last question,” he said, after a little close consideration with himself, “I beg leave to revert for a moment to Miss Marguerite. You said something just now which seemed to imply that she returns the sentiment with which you are pleased to regard her?” “I have the inestimable happiness,” said Vendale, “of knowing that she loves me.” Obenreizer stood silent for a moment, with the film over his eyes, and the faintly perceptible beat becoming visible again in his cheeks. “If you will excuse me for a few minutes,” he said, with ceremonious politeness, “I should like to have the opportunity of speaking to my niece.” With those words, he bowed, and quitted the room. Left by himself, Vendale’s thoughts (as a necessary result of the interview, thus far) turned instinctively to the consideration of Obenreizer’s motives. He had put obstacles in the way of the courtship; he was now putting obstacles in the way of the marriage—a marriage offering advantages which even his ingenuity could not dispute. On the face of it, his conduct was incomprehensible. What did it mean? Seeking, under the surface, for the answer to that question—and remembering that Obenreizer was a man of about his own age; also, that Marguerite was, strictly speaking, his half-niece only—Vendale asked himself, with a lover’s ready jealousy, whether he had a rival to fear, as well as a guardian to conciliate. The thought just crossed his mind, and no more. The sense of Marguerite’s kiss still lingering on his cheek reminded him gently that even the jealousy of a moment was now a treason to her. On reflection, it seemed most likely that a personal motive of another kind might suggest the true explanation of Obenreizer’s conduct. Marguerite’s grace and beauty were precious ornaments in that little household. They gave it a special social attraction and a special social importance. They armed Obenreizer with a certain influence in reserve, which he could always depend upon to make his house attractive, and which he might always bring more or less to bear on the forwarding of his own private ends. Was he the sort of man to resign such advantages as were here implied, without obtaining the fullest possible compensation for the loss? A connexion by marriage with Vendale offered him solid advantages, beyond all doubt. But there were hundreds of men in London with far greater power and far wider influence than Vendale possessed. Was it possible that this man’s ambition secretly looked higher than the highest prospects that could be offered to him by the alliance now proposed for his niece? As the question passed through Vendale’s mind, the man himself reappeared—to answer it, or not to answer it, as the event might prove. A marked change was visible in Obenreizer when he resumed his place. His manner was less assured, and there were plain traces about his mouth of recent agitation which had not been successfully composed. Had he said something, referring either to Vendale or to himself, which had raised Marguerite’s spirit, and which had placed him, for the first time, face to face with a resolute assertion of his niece’s will? It might or might not be. This only was certain—he looked like a man who had met with a repulse. “I have spoken to my niece,” he began. “I find, Mr. Vendale, that even your influence has not entirely blinded her to the social objections to your proposal.” “May I ask,” returned Vendale, “if that is the only result of your interview with Miss Obenreizer?” A momentary flash leapt out through the Obenreizer film. “You are master of the situation,” he answered, in a tone of sardonic submission. “If you insist on my admitting it, I do admit it in those words. My niece’s will and mine used to be one, Mr. Vendale. You have come between us, and her will is now yours. In my country, we know when we are beaten, and we submit with our best grace. I submit, with my best grace, on certain conditions. Let us revert to the statement of your pecuniary position. I have an objection to you, my dear sir—a most amazing, a most audacious objection, from a man in my position to a man in yours.” “What is it?” “You have honoured me by making a proposal for my niece’s hand. For the present (with best thanks and respects), I beg to decline it.” “Why?” “Because you are not rich enough.” The objection, as the speaker had foreseen, took Vendale completely by surprise. For the moment he was speechless. “Your income is fifteen hundred a year,” pursued Obenreizer. “In my miserable country I should fall on my knees before your income, and say, ‘What a princely fortune!’ In wealthy England, I sit as I am, and say, ‘A modest independence, dear sir; nothing more. Enough, perhaps, for a wife in your own rank of life who has no social prejudices to conquer. Not more than half enough for a wife who is a meanly born foreigner, and who has all your social prejudices against her.’ Sir! if my niece is ever to marry you, she will have what you call uphill work of it in taking her place at starting. Yes, yes; this is not your view, but it remains, immovably remains, my view for all that. For my niece’s sake, I claim that this uphill work shall be made as smooth as possible. Whatever material advantages she can have to help her, ought, in common justice, to be hers. Now, tell me, Mr. Vendale, on your fifteen hundred a year can your wife have a house in a fashionable quarter, a footman to open her door, a butler to wait at her table, and a carriage and horses to drive about in? I see the answer in your face—your face says, No. Very good. Tell me one more thing, and I have done. Take the mass of your educated, accomplished, and lovely country-women, is it, or is it not, the fact that a lady who has a house in a fashionable quarter, a footman to open her door, a butler to wait at her table, and a carriage and horses to drive about in, is a lady who has gained four steps, in female estimation, at starting? Yes? or No?” “Come to the point,” said Vendale. “You view this question as a question of terms. What are your terms?” “The lowest terms, dear sir, on which you can provide your wife with those four steps at starting. Double your present income—the most rigid economy cannot do it in England on less. You said just now that you expected greatly to increase the value of your business. To work—and increase it! I am a good devil after all! On the day when you satisfy me, by plain proofs, that your income has risen to three thousand a year, ask me for my niece’s hand, and it is yours.” “May I inquire if you have mentioned this arrangement to Miss Obenreizer?” “Certainly. She has a last little morsel of regard still left for me, Mr. Vendale, which is not yours yet; and she accepts my terms. In other words, she submits to be guided by her guardian’s regard for her welfare, and by her guardian’s superior knowledge of the world.” He threw himself back in his chair, in firm reliance on his position, and in full possession of his excellent temper. Any open assertion of his own interests, in the situation in which Vendale was now placed, seemed to be (for the present at least) hopeless. He found himself literally left with no ground to stand on. Whether Obenreizer’s objections were the genuine product of Obenreizer’s own view of the case, or whether he was simply delaying the marriage in the hope of ultimately breaking it off altogether—in either of these events, any present resistance on Vendale’s part would be equally useless. There was no help for it but to yield, making the best terms that he could on his own side. “I protest against the conditions you impose on me,” he began. “Naturally,” said Obenreizer; “I dare say I should protest, myself, in your place.” “Say, however,” pursued Vendale, “that I accept your terms. In that case, I must be permitted to make two stipulations on my part. In the first place, I shall expect to be allowed to see your niece.” “Aha! to see my niece? and to make her in as great a hurry to be married as you are yourself? Suppose I say, No? you would see her perhaps without my permission?” “Decidedly!” “How delightfully frank! How exquisitely English! You shall see her, Mr. Vendale, on certain days, which we will appoint together. What next?” “Your objection to my income,” proceeded Vendale, “has taken me completely by surprise. I wish to be assured against any repetition of that surprise. Your present views of my qualification for marriage require me to have an income of three thousand a year. Can I be certain, in the future, as your experience of England enlarges, that your estimate will rise no higher?” “In plain English,” said Obenreizer, “you doubt my word?” “Do you purpose to take my word for it when I inform you that I have doubled my income?” asked Vendale. “If my memory does not deceive me, you stipulated, a minute since, for plain proofs?” “Well played, Mr. Vendale! You combine the foreign quickness with the English solidity. Accept my best congratulations. Accept, also, my written guarantee.” He rose; seated himself at a writing-desk at a side-table, wrote a few lines, and presented them to Vendale with a low bow. The engagement was perfectly explicit, and was signed and dated with scrupulous care. “Are you satisfied with your guarantee?” “I am satisfied.” “Charmed to hear it, I am sure. We have had our little skirmish—we have really been wonderfully clever on both sides. For the present our affairs are settled. I bear no malice. You bear no malice. Come, Mr. Vendale, a good English shake hands.” Vendale gave his hand, a little bewildered by Obenreizer’s sudden transitions from one humour to another. “When may I expect to see Miss Obenreizer again?” he asked, as he rose to go. “Honour me with a visit to-morrow,” said Obenreizer, “and we will settle it then. Do have a grog before you go! No? Well! well! we will reserve the grog till you have your three thousand a year, and are ready to be married. Aha! When will that be?” “I made an estimate, some months since, of the capacities of my business,” said Vendale. “If that estimate is correct, I shall double my present income—” “And be married!” added Obenreizer. “And be married,” repeated Vendale, “within a year from this time. Good-night.” VENDALE MAKES MISCHIEF When Vendale entered his office the next morning, the dull commercial routine at Cripple Corner met him with a new face. Marguerite had an interest in it now! The whole machinery which Wilding’s death had set in motion, to realise the value of the business—the balancing of ledgers, the estimating of debts, the taking of stock, and the rest of it—was now transformed into machinery which indicated the chances for and against a speedy marriage. After looking over results, as presented by his accountant, and checking additions and subtractions, as rendered by the clerks, Vendale turned his attention to the stock-taking department next, and sent a message to the cellars, desiring to see the report. The Cellarman’s appearance, the moment he put his head in at the door of his master’s private room, suggested that something very extraordinary must have happened that morning. There was an approach to alacrity in Joey Ladle’s movements! There was something which actually simulated cheerfulness in Joey Ladle’s face “What’s the matter?” asked Vendale. “Anything wrong?” “I should wish to mention one thing,” answered Joey. “Young Mr. Vendale, I have never set myself up for a prophet.” “Who ever said you did?” “No prophet, as far as I’ve heard I tell of that profession,” proceeded Joey, “ever lived principally underground. No prophet, whatever else he might take in at the pores, ever took in wine from morning to night, for a number of years together. When I said to young Master Wilding, respecting his changing the name of the firm, that one of these days he might find he’d changed the luck of the firm—did I put myself forward as a prophet? No, I didn’t. Has what I said to him come true? Yes, it has. In the time of Pebbleson Nephew, Young Mr. Vendale, no such thing was ever known as a mistake made in a consignment delivered at these doors. There’s a mistake been made now. Please to remark that it happened before Miss Margaret came here. For which reason it don’t go against what I’ve said respecting Miss Margaret singing round the luck. Read that, sir,” concluded Joey, pointing attention to a special passage in the report, with a forefinger which appeared to be in process of taking in through the pores nothing more remarkable than dirt. “It’s foreign to my nature to crow over the house I serve, but I feel it a kind of solemn duty to ask you to read that.” Vendale read as follows:—“Note, respecting the Swiss champagne. An irregularity has been discovered in the last consignment received from the firm of Defresnier and Co.” Vendale stopped, and referred to a memorandum-book by his side. “That was in Mr. Wilding’s time,” he said. “The vintage was a particularly good one, and he took the whole of it. The Swiss champagne has done very well, hasn’t it?” “I don’t say it’s done badly,” answered the Cellarman. “It may have got sick in our customers’ bins, or it may have bust in our customers’ hands. But I don’t say it’s done badly with us.” Vendale resumed the reading of the note: “We find the number of the cases to be quite correct by the books. But six of them, which present a slight difference from the rest in the brand, have been opened, and have been found to contain a red wine instead of champagne. The similarity in the brands, we suppose, caused a mistake to be made in sending the consignment from Neuchâtel. The error has not been found to extend beyond six cases.” “Is that all!” exclaimed Vendale, tossing the note away from him. Joey Ladle’s eye followed the flying morsel of paper drearily. “I’m glad to see you take it easy, sir,” he said. “Whatever happens, it will be always a comfort to you to remember that you took it easy at first. Sometimes one mistake leads to another. A man drops a bit of orange-peel on the pavement by mistake, and another man treads on it by mistake, and there’s a job at the hospital, and a party crippled for life. I’m glad you take it easy, sir. In Pebbleson Nephew’s time we shouldn’t have taken it easy till we had seen the end of it. Without desiring to crow over the house, Young Mr. Vendale, I wish you well through it. No offence, sir,” said the Cellarman, opening the door to go out, and looking in again ominously before he shut it. “I’m muddled and molloncolly, I grant you. But I’m an old servant of Pebbleson Nephew, and I wish you well through them six cases of red wine.” Left by himself, Vendale laughed, and took up his pen. “I may as well send a line to Defresnier and Company,” he thought, “before I forget it.” He wrote at once in these terms: “Dear Sirs. We are taking stock, and a trifling mistake has been discovered in the last consignment of champagne sent by your house to ours. Six of the cases contain red wine—which we hereby return to you. The matter can easily be set right, either by your sending us six cases of the champagne, if they can be produced, or, if not, by your crediting us with the value of six cases on the amount last paid (five hundred pounds) by our firm to yours. Your faithful servants, “WILDING AND CO.” This letter despatched to the post, the subject dropped at once out of Vendale’s mind. He had other and far more interesting matters to think of. Later in the day he paid the visit to Obenreizer which had been agreed on between them. Certain evenings in the week were set apart which he was privileged to spend with Marguerite—always, however, in the presence of a third person. On this stipulation Obenreizer politely but positively insisted. The one concession he made was to give Vendale his choice of who the third person should be. Confiding in past experience, his choice fell unhesitatingly upon the excellent woman who mended Obenreizer’s stockings. On hearing of the responsibility entrusted to her, Madame Dor’s intellectual nature burst suddenly into a new stage of development. She waited till Obenreizer’s eye was off her—and then she looked at Vendale, and dimly winked. The time passed—the happy evenings with Marguerite came and went. It was the tenth morning since Vendale had written to the Swiss firm, when the answer appeared, on his desk, with the other letters of the day: “Dear Sirs. We beg to offer our excuses for the little mistake which has happened. At the same time, we regret to add that the statement of our error, with which you have favoured us, has led to a very unexpected discovery. The affair is a most serious one for you and for us. The particulars are as follows: “Having no more champagne of the vintage last sent to you, we made arrangements to credit your firm to the value of six cases, as suggested by yourself. On taking this step, certain forms observed in our mode of doing business necessitated a reference to our bankers’ book, as well as to our ledger. The result is a moral certainty that no such remittance as you mention can have reached our house, and a literal certainty that no such remittance has been paid to our account at the bank. “It is needless, at this stage of the proceedings, to trouble you with details. The money has unquestionably been stolen in the course of its transit from you to us. Certain peculiarities which we observe, relating to the manner in which the fraud has been perpetrated, lead us to conclude that the thief may have calculated on being able to pay the missing sum to our bankers, before an inevitable discovery followed the annual striking of our balance. This would not have happened, in the usual course, for another three months. During that period, but for your letter, we might have remained perfectly unconscious of the robbery that has been committed. “We mention this last circumstance, as it may help to show you that we have to do, in this case, with no ordinary thief. Thus far we have not even a suspicion of who that thief is. But we believe you will assist us in making some advance towards discovery, by examining the receipt (forged, of course) which has no doubt purported to come to you from our house. Be pleased to look and see whether it is a receipt entirely in manuscript, or whether it is a numbered and printed form which merely requires the filling in of the amount. The settlement of this apparently trivial question is, we assure you, a matter of vital importance. Anxiously awaiting your reply, we remain, with high esteem and consideration, “DEFRESNIER &amp;amp; CIE.” Vendale had the letter on his desk, and waited a moment to steady his mind under the shock that had fallen on it. At the time of all others when it was most important to him to increase the value of his business, that business was threatened with a loss of five hundred pounds. He thought of Marguerite, as he took the key from his pocket and opened the iron chamber in the wall in which the books and papers of the firm were kept. He was still in the chamber, searching for the forged receipt, when he was startled by a voice speaking close behind him. “A thousand pardons,” said the voice; “I am afraid I disturb you.” He turned, and found himself face to face with Marguerite’s guardian. “I have called,” pursued Obenreizer, “to know if I can be of any use. Business of my own takes me away for some days to Manchester and Liverpool. Can I combine any business of yours with it? I am entirely at your disposal, in the character of commercial traveller for the firm of Wilding and Co.” “Excuse me for one moment,” said Vendale; “I will speak to you directly.” He turned round again, and continued his search among the papers. “You come at a time when friendly offers are more than usually precious to me,” he resumed. “I have had very bad news this morning from Neuchâtel.” “Bad news,” exclaimed Obenreizer. “From Defresnier and Company?” “Yes. A remittance we sent to them has been stolen. I am threatened with a loss of five hundred pounds. What’s that?” Turning sharply, and looking into the room for the second time, Vendale discovered his envelope case overthrown on the floor, and Obenreizer on his knees picking up the contents. “All my awkwardness,” said Obenreizer. “This dreadful news of yours startled me; I stepped back—” He became too deeply interested in collecting the scattered envelopes to finish the sentence. “Don’t trouble yourself,” said Vendale. “The clerk will pick the things up.” “This dreadful news!” repeated Obenreizer, persisting in collecting the envelopes. “This dreadful news!” “If you will read the letter,” said Vendale, “you will find I have exaggerated nothing. There it is, open on my desk.” He resumed his search, and in a moment more discovered the forged receipt. It was on the numbered and printed form, described by the Swiss firm. Vendale made a memorandum of the number and the date. Having replaced the receipt and locked up the iron chamber, he had leisure to notice Obenreizer, reading the letter in the recess of a window at the far end of the room. “Come to the fire,” said Vendale. “You look perished with the cold out there. I will ring for some more coals.” Obenreizer rose, and came slowly back to the desk. “Marguerite will be as sorry to hear of this as I am,” he said, kindly. “What do you mean to do?” “I am in the hands of Defresnier and Company,” answered Vendale. “In my total ignorance of the circumstances, I can only do what they recommend. The receipt which I have just found, turns out to be the numbered and printed form. They seem to attach some special importance to its discovery. You have had experience, when you were in the Swiss house, of their way of doing business. Can you guess what object they have in view?” Obenreizer offered a suggestion. “Suppose I examine the receipt?” he said. “Are you ill?” asked Vendale, startled by the change in his face, which now showed itself plainly for the first time. “Pray go to the fire. You seem to be shivering—I hope you are not going to be ill?” “Not I!” said Obenreizer. “Perhaps I have caught cold. Your English climate might have spared an admirer of your English institutions. Let me look at the receipt.” Vendale opened the iron chamber. Obenreizer took a chair, and drew it close to the fire. He held both hands over the flames. “Let me look at the receipt,” he repeated, eagerly, as Vendale reappeared with the paper in his hand. At the same moment a porter entered the room with a fresh supply of coals. Vendale told him to make a good fire. The man obeyed the order with a disastrous alacrity. As he stepped forward and raised the scuttle, his foot caught in a fold of the rug, and he discharged his entire cargo of coals into the grate. The result was an instant smothering of the flame, and the production of a stream of yellow smoke, without a visible morsel of fire to account for it. “Imbecile!” whispered Obenreizer to himself, with a look at the man which the man remembered for many a long day afterwards. “Will you come into the clerks’ room?” asked Vendale. “They have a stove there.” “No, no. No matter.” Vendale handed him the receipt. Obenreizer’s interest in examining it appeared to have been quenched as suddenly and as effectually as the fire itself. He just glanced over the document, and said, “No; I don’t understand it! I am sorry to be of no use.” “I will write to Neuchâtel by to-night’s post,” said Vendale, putting away the receipt for the second time. “We must wait, and see what comes of it.” “By to-night’s post,” repeated Obenreizer. “Let me see. You will get the answer in eight or nine days’ time. I shall be back before that. If I can be of any service, as commercial traveller, perhaps you will let me know between this and then. You will send me written instructions? My best thanks. I shall be most anxious for your answer from Neuchâtel. Who knows? It may be a mistake, my dear friend, after all. Courage! courage! courage!” He had entered the room with no appearance of being pressed for time. He now snatched up his hat, and took his leave with the air of a man who had not another moment to lose. Left by himself, Vendale took a turn thoughtfully in the room. His previous impression of Obenreizer was shaken by what he had heard and seen at the interview which had just taken place. He was disposed, for the first time, to doubt whether, in this case, he had not been a little hasty and hard in his judgment on another man. Obenreizer’s surprise and regret, on hearing the news from Neuchâtel, bore the plainest marks of being honestly felt—not politely assumed for the occasion. With troubles of his own to encounter, suffering, to all appearance, from the first insidious attack of a serious illness, he had looked and spoken like a man who really deplored the disaster that had fallen on his friend. Hitherto, Vendale had tried vainly to alter his first opinion of Marguerite’s guardian, for Marguerite’s sake. All the generous instincts in his nature now combined together and shook the evidence which had seemed unanswerable up to this time. “Who knows?” he thought. “I may have read that man’s face wrongly, after all.” The time passed—the happy evenings with Marguerite came and went. It was again the tenth morning since Vendale had written to the Swiss firm; and again the answer appeared on his desk with the other letters of the day: “Dear Sir. My senior partner, M. Defresnier, has been called away, by urgent business, to Milan. In his absence (and with his full concurrence and authority), I now write to you again on the subject of the missing five hundred pounds. “Your discovery that the forged receipt is executed upon one of our numbered and printed forms has caused inexpressible surprise and distress to my partner and to myself. At the time when your remittance was stolen, but three keys were in existence opening the strong-box in which our receipt-forms are invariably kept. My partner had one key; I had the other. The third was in the possession of a gentleman who, at that period, occupied a position of trust in our house. We should as soon have thought of suspecting one of ourselves as of suspecting this person. Suspicion now points at him, nevertheless. I cannot prevail on myself to inform you who the person is, so long as there is the shadow of a chance that he may come innocently out of the inquiry which must now be instituted. Forgive my silence; the motive of it is good. “The form our investigation must now take is simple enough. The handwriting of your receipt must be compared, by competent persons whom we have at our disposal, with certain specimens of handwriting in our possession. I cannot send you the specimens for business reasons, which, when you hear them, you are sure to approve. I must beg you to send me the receipt to Neuchâtel—and, in making this request, I must accompany it by a word of necessary warning. “If the person, at whom suspicion now points, really proves to be the person who has committed this forger and theft, I have reason to fear that circumstances may have already put him on his guard. The only evidence against him is the evidence in your hands, and he will move heaven and earth to obtain and destroy it. I strongly urge you not to trust the receipt to the post. Send it to me, without loss of time, by a private hand, and choose nobody for your messenger but a person long established in your own employment, accustomed to travelling, capable of speaking French; a man of courage, a man of honesty, and, above all things, a man who can be trusted to let no stranger scrape acquaintance with him on the route. Tell no one—absolutely no one—but your messenger of the turn this matter has now taken. The safe transit of the receipt may depend on your interpreting literally the advice which I give you at the end of this letter. “I have only to add that every possible saving of time is now of the last importance. More than one of our receipt-forms is missing—and it is impossible to say what new frauds may not be committed if we fail to lay our hands on the thief. Your faithful servant ROLLAND, (Signing for Defresnier and Cie.) Who was the suspected man? In Vendale’s position, it seemed useless to inquire. Who was to be sent to Neuchâtel with the receipt? Men of courage and men of honesty were to be had at Cripple Corner for the asking. But where was the man who was accustomed to foreign travelling, who could speak the French language, and who could be really relied on to let no stranger scrape acquaintance with him on his route? There was but one man at hand who combined all those requisites in his own person, and that man was Vendale himself. It was a sacrifice to leave his business; it was a greater sacrifice to leave Marguerite. But a matter of five hundred pounds was involved in the pending inquiry; and a literal interpretation of M. Rolland’s advice was insisted on in terms which there was no trifling with. The more Vendale thought of it, the more plainly the necessity faced him, and said, “Go!” As he locked up the letter with the receipt, the association of ideas reminded him of Obenreizer. A guess at the identity of the suspected man looked more possible now. Obenreizer might know. The thought had barely passed through his mind, when the door opened, and Obenreizer entered the room. “They told me at Soho-square you were expected back last night,” said Vendale, greeting him. “Have you done well in the country? Are you better?” A thousand thanks. Obenreizer had done admirably well; Obenreizer was infinitely better. And now, what news? Any letter from Neuchâtel? “A very strange letter,” answered Vendale. “The matter has taken a new turn, and the letter insists—without excepting anybody—on my keeping our next proceedings a profound secret.” “Without excepting anybody?” repeated Obenreizer. As he said the words, he walked away again, thoughtfully, to the window at the other end of the room, looked out for a moment, and suddenly came back to Vendale. “Surely they must have forgotten?” he resumed, “or they would have excepted me?” “It is Monsieur Rolland who writes,” said Vendale. “And, as you say, he must certainly have forgotten. That view of the matter quite escaped me. I was just wishing I had you to consult, when you came into the room. And here I am tried by a formal prohibition, which cannot possibly have been intended to include you. How very annoying!” Obenreizer’s filmy eyes fixed on Vendale attentively. “Perhaps it is more than annoying!” he said. “I came this morning not only to hear the news, but to offer myself as messenger, negotiator—what you will. Would you believe it? I have letters which oblige me to go to Switzerland immediately. Messages, documents, anything—I could have taken them all to Defresnier and Rolland for you.” “You are the very man I wanted,” returned Vendale. “I had decided, most unwillingly, on going to Neuchâtel myself, not five minutes since, because I could find no one here capable of taking my place. Let me look at the letter again.” He opened the strong room to get at the letter. Obenreizer, after first glancing round him to make sure that they were alone, followed a step or two and waited, measuring Vendale with his eye. Vendale was the tallest man, and unmistakably the strongest man also of the two. Obenreizer turned away, and warmed himself at the fire. Meanwhile, Vendale read the last paragraph in the letter for the third time. There was the plain warning—there was the closing sentence, which insisted on a literal interpretation of it. The hand, which was leading Vendale in the dark, led him on that condition only. A large sum was at stake: a terrible suspicion remained to be verified. If he acted on his own responsibility, and if anything happened to defeat the object in view, who would be blamed? As a man of business, Vendale had but one course to follow. He locked the letter up again. “It is most annoying,” he said to Obenreizer—“it is a piece of forgetfulness on Monsieur Rolland’s part which puts me to serious inconvenience, and places me in an absurdly false position towards you. What am I to do? I am acting in a very serious matter, and acting entirely in the dark. I have no choice but to be guided, not by the spirit, but by the letter of my instructions. You understand me, I am sure? You know, if I had not been fettered in this way, how gladly I should have accepted your services?” “Say no more!” returned Obenreizer. “In your place I should have done the same. My good friend, I take no offence. I thank you for your compliment. We shall be travelling companions, at any rate,” added Obenreizer. “You go, as I go, at once?” “At once. I must speak to Marguerite first, of course!” “Surely! surely! Speak to her this evening. Come, and pick me up on the way to the station. We go together by the mail train to-night?” “By the mail train to-night.” It was later than Vendale had anticipated when he drove up to the house in Soho-square. Business difficulties, occasioned by his sudden departure, had presented themselves by dozens. A cruelly large share of the time which he had hoped to devote to Marguerite had been claimed by duties at his office which it was impossible to neglect. To his surprise and delight, she was alone in the drawing-room when he entered it. “We have only a few minutes, George,” she said. “But Madame Dor has been good to me—and we can have those few minutes alone.” She threw her arms round his neck, and whispered eagerly, “Have you done anything to offend Mr. Obenreizer?” “I!” exclaimed Vendale, in amazement. “Hush!” she said, “I want to whisper it. You know the little photograph I have got of you. This afternoon it happened to be on the chimney-piece. He took it up and looked at it—and I saw his face in the glass. I know you have offended him! He is merciless; he is revengeful; he is as secret as the grave. Don’t go with him, George—don’t go with him!” “My own love,” returned Vendale, “you are letting your fancy frighten you! Obenreizer and I were never better friends than we are at this moment.” Before a word more could be said, the sudden movement of some ponderous body shook the floor of the next room. The shock was followed by the appearance of Madame Dor. “Obenreizer” exclaimed this excellent person in a whisper, and plumped down instantly in her regular place by the stove. Obenreizer came in with a courier’s bag strapped over his shoulder. “Are you ready?” he asked, addressing Vendale. “Can I take anything for you? You have no travelling-bag. I have got one. Here is the compartment for papers, open at your service.” “Thank you,” said Vendale. “I have only one paper of importance with me; and that paper I am bound to take charge of myself. Here it is,” he added, touching the breast-pocket of his coat, “and here it must remain till we get to Neuchâtel.” As he said those words, Marguerite’s hand caught his, and pressed it significantly. She was looking towards Obenreizer. Before Vendale could look, in his turn, Obenreizer had wheeled round, and was taking leave of Madame Dor. “Adieu, my charming niece!” he said, turning to Marguerite next. “En route, my friend, for Neuchâtel!” He tapped Vendale lightly over the breast-pocket of his coat and led the way to the door. Vendale’s last look was for Marguerite. Marguerite’s last words to him were, “Don’t go!” ACT III. IN THE VALLEY. It was about the middle of the month of February when Vendale and Obenreizer set forth on their expedition. The winter being a hard one, the time was bad for travellers. So bad was it that these two travellers, coming to Strasbourg, found its great inns almost empty. And even the few people they did encounter in that city, who had started from England or from Paris on business journeys towards the interior of Switzerland, were turning back. Many of the railroads in Switzerland that tourists pass easily enough now, were almost or quite impracticable then. Some were not begun; more were not completed. On such as were open, there were still large gaps of old road where communication in the winter season was often stopped; on others, there were weak points where the new work was not safe, either under conditions of severe frost, or of rapid thaw. The running of trains on this last class was not to be counted on in the worst time of the year, was contingent upon weather, or was wholly abandoned through the months considered the most dangerous. At Strasbourg there were more travellers’ stories afloat, respecting the difficulties of the way further on, than there were travellers to relate them. Many of these tales were as wild as usual; but the more modestly marvellous did derive some colour from the circumstance that people were indisputably turning back. However, as the road to Basle was open, Vendale’s resolution to push on was in no wise disturbed. Obenreizer’s resolution was necessarily Vendale’s, seeing that he stood at bay thus desperately: —He must be ruined, or must destroy the evidence that Vendale carried about him, even if he destroyed Vendale with it. The state of mind of each of these two fellow-travellers towards the other was this. Obenreizer, encircled by impending ruin through Vendale’s quickness of action, and seeing the circle narrowed every hour by Vendale’s energy, hated him with the animosity of a fierce cunning lower animal. He had always had instinctive movements in his breast against him; perhaps, because of that old sore of gentleman and peasant; perhaps, because of the openness of his nature, perhaps, because of his better looks; perhaps, because of his success with Marguerite; perhaps, on all those grounds, the two last not the least. And now he saw in him, besides, the hunter who was tracking him down. Vendale, on the other hand, always contending generously against his first vague mistrust, now felt bound to contend against it more than ever: reminding himself, “He is Marguerite’s guardian. We are on perfectly friendly terms; he is my companion of his own proposal, and can have no interested motive in sharing this undesirable journey.” To which pleas in behalf of Obenreizer, chance added one consideration more, when they came to Basle, after a journey of more than twice the average duration. They had had a late dinner, and were alone in an inn room there, overhanging the Rhine: at that place rapid and deep, swollen and loud. Vendale lounged upon a couch, and Obenreizer walked to and fro: now, stopping at the window, looking at the crooked reflection of the town lights in the dark water (and peradventure thinking, “If I could fling him into it!”); now, resuming his walk with his eyes upon the floor. “Where shall I rob him, if I can? Where shall I murder him, if I must?” So, as he paced the room, ran the river, ran the river, ran the river. The burden seemed to him, at last, to be growing so plain, that he stopped; thinking it as well to suggest another burden to his companion. “The Rhine sounds to-night,” he said with a smile, “like the old waterfall at home. That waterfall which my mother showed to travellers (I told you of it once). The sound of it changed with the weather, as does the sound of all falling waters and flowing waters. When I was pupil of the watchmaker, I remembered it as sometimes saying to me for whole days, ‘Who are you, my little wretch? Who are you, my little wretch?’ I remembered it as saying, other times, when its sound was hollow, and storm was coming up the Pass: ‘Boom, boom, boom. Beat him, beat him, beat him.’ Like my mother enraged—if she was my mother.” “If she was?” said Vendale, gradually changing his attitude to a sitting one. “If she was? Why do you say ‘if’?” “What do I know?” replied the other negligently, throwing up his hands and letting them fall as they would. “What would you have? I am so obscurely born, that how can I say? I was very young, and all the rest of the family were men and women, and my so-called parents were old. Anything is possible of a case like that.” “Did you ever doubt—” “I told you once, I doubt the marriage of those two,” he replied, throwing up his hands again, as if he were throwing the unprofitable subject away. “But here I am in Creation. I come of no fine family. What does it matter?” “At least you are Swiss,” said Vendale, after following him with his eyes to and fro. “How do I know?” he retorted abruptly, and stopping to look back over his shoulder. “I say to you, at least you are English. How do you know?” “By what I have been told from infancy.” “Ah! I know of myself that way.” “And,” added Vendale, pursuing the thought that he could not drive back, “by my earliest recollections.” “I also. I know of myself that way—if that way satisfies.” “Does it not satisfy you?” “It must. There is nothing like ‘it must’ in this little world. It must. Two short words those, but stronger than long proof or reasoning.” “You and poor Wilding were born in the same year. You were nearly of an age,” said Vendale, again thoughtfully looking after him as he resumed his pacing up and down. “Yes. Very nearly.” Could Obenreizer be the missing man? In the unknown associations of things, was there a subtler meaning than he himself thought, in that theory so often on his lips about the smallness of the world? Had the Swiss letter presenting him followed so close on Mrs. Goldstraw’s revelation concerning the infant who had been taken away to Switzerland, because he was that infant grown a man? In a world where so many depths lie unsounded, it might be. The chances, or the laws—call them either—that had wrought out the revival of Vendale’s own acquaintance with Obenreizer, and had ripened it into intimacy, and had brought them here together this present winter night, were hardly less curious; while read by such a light, they were seen to cohere towards the furtherance of a continuous and an intelligible purpose. Vendale’s awakened thoughts ran high while his eyes musingly followed Obenreizer pacing up and down the room, the river ever running to the tune: “Where shall I rob him, if I can? Where shall I murder him, if I must?” The secret of his dead friend was in no hazard from Vendale’s lips; but just as his friend had died of its weight, so did he in his lighter succession feel the burden of the trust, and the obligation to follow any clue, however obscure. He rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be the real Wilding? No. Argue down his mistrust as he might, he was unwilling to put such a substitute in the place of his late guileless, outspoken childlike partner. He rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be rich? No. He had more power than enough over Marguerite as it was, and wealth might invest him with more. Would he like this man to be Marguerite’s Guardian, and yet proved to stand in no degree of relationship towards her, however disconnected and distant? No. But these were not considerations to come between him and fidelity to the dead. Let him see to it that they passed him with no other notice than the knowledge that they had passed him, and left him bent on the discharge of a solemn duty. And he did see to it, so soon that he followed his companion with ungrudging eyes, while he still paced the room; that companion, whom he supposed to be moodily reflecting on his own birth, and not on another man’s—least of all what man’s—violent Death. The road in advance from Basle to Neuchâtel was better than had been represented. The latest weather had done it good. Drivers, both of horses and mules, had come in that evening after dark, and had reported nothing more difficult to be overcome than trials of patience, harness, wheels, axles, and whipcord. A bargain was soon struck for a carriage and horses, to take them on in the morning, and to start before daylight. “Do you lock your door at night when travelling?” asked Obenreizer, standing warming his hands by the wood fire in Vendale’s chamber, before going to his own. “Not I. I sleep too soundly.” “You are so sound a sleeper?” he retorted, with an admiring look. “What a blessing!” “Anything but a blessing to the rest of the house,” rejoined Vendale, “if I had to be knocked up in the morning from the outside of my bedroom door.” “I, too,” said Obenreizer, “leave open my room. But let me advise you, as a Swiss who knows: always, when you travel in my country, put your papers—and, of course, your money—under your pillow. Always the same place.” “You are not complimentary to your countrymen,” laughed Vendale. “My countrymen,” said Obenreizer, with that light touch of his friend’s elbows by way of Good Night and benediction, “I suppose are like the majority of men. And the majority of men will take what they can get. Adieu! At four in the morning.” “Adieu! At four.” Left to himself, Vendale raked the logs together, sprinkled over them the white wood-ashes lying on the hearth, and sat down to compose his thoughts. But they still ran high on their latest theme, and the running of the river tended to agitate rather than to quiet them. As he sat thinking, what little disposition he had had to sleep, departed. He felt it hopeless to lie down yet, and sat dressed by the fire. Marguerite, Wilding, Obenreizer, the business he was then upon, and a thousand hopes and doubts that had nothing to do with it, occupied his mind at once. Everything seemed to have power over him but slumber. The departed disposition to sleep kept far away. He had sat for a long time, thinking, on the hearth, when his candle burned down and its light went out. It was of little moment; there was light enough in the fire. He changed his attitude, and, leaning his arm on the chair-back, and his chin upon that hand, sat thinking still. But he sat between the fire and the bed, and, as the fire flickered in the play of air from the fast-flowing river, his enlarged shadow fluttered on the white wall by the bedside. His attitude gave it an air, half of mourning and half of bending over the bed imploring. His eyes were observant of it, when he became troubled by the disagreeable fancy that it was like Wilding’s shadow, and not his own. A slight change of place would cause it to disappear. He made the change, and the apparition of his disturbed fancy vanished. He now sat in the shade of a little nook beside the fire, and the door of the room was before him. It had a long cumbrous iron latch. He saw the latch slowly and softly rise. The door opened a very little, and came to again: as though only the air had moved it. But he saw that the latch was out of the hasp. The door opened again very slowly, until it opened wide enough to admit some one. It afterwards remained still for a while, as though cautiously held open on the other side. The figure of a man then entered, with its face turned towards the bed, and stood quiet just within the door. Until it said, in a low half-whisper, at the same time taking one stop forward: “Vendale!” “What now?” he answered, springing from his seat; “who is it?” It was Obenreizer, and he uttered a cry of surprise as Vendale came upon him from that unexpected direction. “Not in bed?” he said, catching him by both shoulders with an instinctive tendency to a struggle. “Then something is wrong!” “What do you mean?” said Vendale, releasing himself. “First tell me; you are not ill?” “Ill? No.” “I have had a bad dream about you. How is it that I see you up and dressed?” “My good fellow, I may as well ask you how it is that I see you up and undressed?” “I have told you why. I have had a bad dream about you. I tried to rest after it, but it was impossible. I could not make up my mind to stay where I was without knowing you were safe; and yet I could not make up my mind to come in here. I have been minutes hesitating at the door. It is so easy to laugh at a dream that you have not dreamed. Where is your candle?” “Burnt out.” “I have a whole one in my room. Shall I fetch it?” “Do so.” His room was very near, and he was absent for but a few seconds. Coming back with the candle in his hand, he kneeled down on the hearth and lighted it. As he blew with his breath a charred billet into flame for the purpose, Vendale, looking down at him, saw that his lips were white and not easy of control. “Yes!” said Obenreizer, setting the lighted candle on the table, “it was a bad dream. Only look at me!” His feet were bare; his red-flannel shirt was thrown back at the throat, and its sleeves were rolled above the elbows; his only other garment, a pair of under pantaloons or drawers, reaching to the ankles, fitted him close and tight. A certain lithe and savage appearance was on his figure, and his eyes were very bright. “If there had been a wrestle with a robber, as I dreamed,” said Obenreizer, “you see, I was stripped for it.” “And armed too,” said Vendale, glancing at his girdle. “A traveller’s dagger, that I always carry on the road,” he answered carelessly, half drawing it from its sheath with his left hand, and putting it back again. “Do you carry no such thing?” “Nothing of the kind.” “No pistols?” said Obenreizer, glancing at the table, and from it to the untouched pillow. “Nothing of the sort.” “You Englishmen are so confident! You wish to sleep?” “I have wished to sleep this long time, but I can’t do it.” “I neither, after the bad dream. My fire has gone the way of your candle. May I come and sit by yours? Two o’clock! It will so soon be four, that it is not worth the trouble to go to bed again.” “I shall not take the trouble to go to bed at all, now,” said Vendale; “sit here and keep me company, and welcome.” Going back to his room to arrange his dress, Obenreizer soon returned in a loose cloak and slippers, and they sat down on opposite sides of the hearth. In the interval Vendale had replenished the fire from the wood-basket in his room, and Obenreizer had put upon the table a flask and cup from his. “Common cabaret brandy, I am afraid,” he said, pouring out; “bought upon the road, and not like yours from Cripple Corner. But yours is exhausted; so much the worse. A cold night, a cold time of night, a cold country, and a cold house. This may be better than nothing; try it.” Vendale took the cup, and did so. “How do you find it?” “It has a coarse after-flavour,” said Vendale, giving back the cup with a slight shudder, “and I don’t like it.” “You are right,” said Obenreizer, tasting, and smacking his lips; “it has a coarse after-flavour, and I don’t like it. Booh! It burns, though!” He had flung what remained in the cup upon the fire. Each of them leaned an elbow on the table, reclined his head upon his hand, and sat looking at the flaring logs. Obenreizer remained watchful and still; but Vendale, after certain nervous twitches and starts, in one of which he rose to his feet and looked wildly about him, fell into the strangest confusion of dreams. He carried his papers in a leather case or pocket-book, in an inner breast-pocket of his buttoned travelling-coat; and whatever he dreamed of, in the lethargy that got possession of him, something importunate in those papers called him out of that dream, though he could not wake from it. He was berated on the steppes of Russia (some shadowy person gave that name to the place) with Marguerite; and yet the sensation of a hand at his breast, softly feeling the outline of the packet-book as he lay asleep before the fire, was present to him. He was ship-wrecked in an open boat at sea, and having lost his clothes, had no other covering than an old sail; and yet a creeping hand, tracing outside all the other pockets of the dress he actually wore, for papers, and finding none answer its touch, warned him to rouse himself. He was in the ancient vault at Cripple Corner, to which was transferred the very bed substantial and present in that very room at Basle; and Wilding (not dead, as he had supposed, and yet he did not wonder much) shook him, and whispered, “Look at that man! Don’t you see he has risen, and is turning the pillow? Why should he turn the pillow, if not to seek those papers that are in your breast? Awake!” And yet he slept, and wandered off into other dreams. Watchful and still, with his elbow on the table, and his head upon that hand, his companion at length said: “Vendale! We are called. Past Four!” Then, opening his eyes, he saw, turned sideways on him, the filmy face of Obenreizer. “You have been in a heavy sleep,” he said. “The fatigue of constant travelling and the cold!” “I am broad awake now,” cried Vendale, springing up, but with an unsteady footing. “Haven’t you slept at all?” “I may have dozed, but I seem to have been patiently looking at the fire. Whether or no, we must wash, and breakfast, and turn out. Past four, Vendale; past four!” It was said in a tone to rouse him, for already he was half asleep again. In his preparation for the day, too, and at his breakfast, he was often virtually asleep while in mechanical action. It was not until the cold dark day was closing in, that he had any distincter impressions of the ride than jingling bells, bitter weather, slipping horses, frowning hill-sides, bleak woods, and a stoppage at some wayside house of entertainment, where they had passed through a cow-house to reach the travellers’ room above. He had been conscious of little more, except of Obenreizer sitting thoughtful at his side all day, and eyeing him much. But when he shook off his stupor, Obenreizer was not at his side. The carriage was stopping to bait at another wayside house; and a line of long narrow carts, laden with casks of wine, and drawn by horses with a quantity of blue collar and head-gear, were baiting too. These came from the direction in which the travellers were going, and Obenreizer (not thoughtful now, but cheerful and alert) was talking with the foremost driver. As Vendale stretched his limbs, circulated his blood, and cleared off the lees of his lethargy, with a sharp run to and fro in the bracing air, the line of carts moved on: the drivers all saluting Obenreizer as they passed him. “Who are those?” asked Vendale. “They are our carriers—Defresnier and Company’s,” replied Obenreizer. “Those are our casks of wine.” He was singing to himself, and lighting a cigar. “I have been drearily dull company to-day,” said Vendale. “I don’t know what has been the matter with me.” “You had no sleep last night; and a kind of brain-congestion frequently comes, at first, of such cold,” said Obenreizer. “I have seen it often. After all, we shall have our journey for nothing, it seems.” “How for nothing?” “The House is at Milan. You know, we are a Wine House at Neuchâtel, and a Silk House at Milan? Well, Silk happening to press of a sudden, more than Wine, Defresnier was summoned to Milan. Rolland, the other partner, has been taken ill since his departure, and the doctors will allow him to see no one. A letter awaits you at Neuchâtel to tell you so. I have it from our chief carrier whom you saw me talking with. He was surprised to see me, and said he had that word for you if he met you. What do you do? Go back?” “Go on,” said Vendale. “On?” “On? Yes. Across the Alps, and down to Milan.” Obenreizer stopped in his smoking to look at Vendale, and then smoked heavily, looked up the road, looked down the road, looked down at the stones in the road at his feet. “I have a very serious matter in charge,” said Vendale; “more of these missing forms may be turned to as bad account, or worse: I am urged to lose no time in helping the House to take the thief; and nothing shall turn me back.” “No?” cried Obenreizer, taking out his cigar to smile, and giving his hand to his fellow-traveller. “Then nothing shall turn me back. Ho, driver! Despatch. Quick there! Let us push on!” They travelled through the night. There had been snow, and there was a partial thaw, and they mostly travelled at a foot-pace, and always with many stoppages to breathe the splashed and floundering horses. After an hour’s broad daylight, they drew rein at the inn-door at Neuchâtel, having been some eight-and-twenty hours in conquering some eighty English miles. When they had hurriedly refreshed and changed, they went together to the house of business of Defresnier and Company. There they found the letter which the wine-carrier had described, enclosing the tests and comparisons of handwriting essential to the discovery of the Forger. Vendale’s determination to press forward, without resting, being already taken, the only question to delay them was by what Pass could they cross the Alps? Respecting the state of the two Passes of the St. Gotthard and the Simplon, the guides and mule-drivers differed greatly; and both passes were still far enough off, to prevent the travellers from having the benefit of any recent experience of either. Besides which, they well knew that a fall of snow might altogether change the described conditions in a single hour, even if they were correctly stated. But, on the whole, the Simplon appearing to be the hopefuller route, Vendale decided to take it. Obenreizer bore little or no part in the discussion, and scarcely spoke. To Geneva, to Lausanne, along the level margin of the lake to Vevay, so into the winding valley between the spurs of the mountains, and into the valley of the Rhone. The sound of the carriage-wheels, as they rattled on, through the day, through the night, became as the wheels of a great clock, recording the hours. No change of weather varied the journey, after it had hardened into a sullen frost. In a sombre-yellow sky, they saw the Alpine ranges; and they saw enough of snow on nearer and much lower hill-tops and hill-sides, to sully, by contrast, the purity of lake, torrent, and waterfall, and make the villages look discoloured and dirty. But no snow fell, nor was there any snow-drift on the road. The stalking along the valley of more or less of white mist, changing on their hair and dress into icicles, was the only variety between them and the gloomy sky. And still by day, and still by night, the wheels. And still they rolled, in the hearing of one of them, to the burden, altered from the burden of the Rhine: “The time is gone for robbing him alive, and I must murder him.” They came, at length, to the poor little town of Brieg, at the foot of the Simplon. They came there after dark, but yet could see how dwarfed men’s works and men became with the immense mountains towering over them. Here they must lie for the night; and here was warmth of fire, and lamp, and dinner, and wine, and after-conference resounding, with guides and drivers. No human creature had come across the Pass for four days. The snow above the snow-line was too soft for wheeled carriage, and not hard enough for sledge. There was snow in the sky. There had been snow in the sky for days past, and the marvel was that it had not fallen, and the certainty was that it must fall. No vehicle could cross. The journey might be tried on mules, or it might be tried on foot; but the best guides must be paid danger-price in either case, and that, too, whether they succeeded in taking the two travellers across, or turned for safety and brought them back. In this discussion, Obenreizer bore no part whatever. He sat silently smoking by the fire until the room was cleared and Vendale referred to him. “Bah! I am weary of these poor devils and their trade,” he said, in reply. “Always the same story. It is the story of their trade to-day, as it was the story of their trade when I was a ragged boy. What do you and I want? We want a knapsack each, and a mountain-staff each. We want no guide; we should guide him; he would not guide us. We leave our portmanteaus here, and we cross together. We have been on the mountains together before now, and I am mountain-born, and I know this Pass—Pass!—rather High Road!—by heart. We will leave these poor devils, in pity, to trade with others; but they must not delay us to make a pretence of earning money. Which is all they mean.” Vendale, glad to be quit of the dispute, and to cut the knot: active, adventurous, bent on getting forward, and therefore very susceptible to the last hint: readily assented. Within two hours, they had purchased what they wanted for the expedition, had packed their knapsacks, and lay down to sleep. At break of day, they found half the town collected in the narrow street to see them depart. The people talked together in groups; the guides and drivers whispered apart, and looked up at the sky; no one wished them a good journey. As they began the ascent, a gleam of sun shone from the otherwise unaltered sky, and for a moment turned the tin spires of the town to silver. “A good omen!” said Vendale (though it died out while he spoke). “Perhaps our example will open the Pass on this side.” “No; we shall not be followed,” returned Obenreizer, looking up at the sky and back at the valley. “We shall be alone up yonder.” ON THE MOUNTAIN. The road was fair enough for stout walkers, and the air grew lighter and easier to breathe as the two ascended. But the settled gloom remained as it had remained for days back. Nature seemed to have come to a pause. The sense of hearing, no less than the sense of sight, was troubled by having to wait so long for the change, whatever it might be, that impended. The silence was as palpable and heavy as the lowering clouds—or rather cloud, for there seemed to be but one in all the sky, and that one covering the whole of it. Although the light was thus dismally shrouded, the prospect was not obscured. Down in the valley of the Rhône behind them, the stream could be traced through all its many windings, oppressively sombre and solemn in its one leaden hue, a colourless waste. Far and high above them, glaciers and suspended avalanches overhung the spots where they must pass, by-and-by; deep and dark below them on their right, were awful precipice and roaring torrent; tremendous mountains arose in every vista. The gigantic landscape, uncheered by a touch of changing light or a solitary ray of sun, was yet terribly distinct in its ferocity. The hearts of two lonely men might shrink a little, if they had to win their way for miles and hours among a legion of silent and motionless men—mere men like themselves—all looking at them with fixed and frowning front. But how much more, when the legion is of Nature’s mightiest works, and the frown may turn to fury in an instant! As they ascended, the road became gradually more rugged and difficult. But the spirits of Vendale rose as they mounted higher, leaving so much more of the road behind them conquered. Obenreizer spoke little, and held on with a determined purpose. Both, in respect of agility and endurance, were well qualified for the expedition. Whatever the born mountaineer read in the weather-tokens that was illegible to the other, he kept to himself. “Shall we get across to-day?” asked Vendale. “No,” replied the other. “You see how much deeper the snow lies here than it lay half a league lower. The higher we mount the deeper the snow will lie. Walking is half wading even now. And the days are so short! If we get as high as the fifth Refuge, and lie to-night at the Hospice, we shall do well.” “Is there no danger of the weather rising in the night,” asked Vendale, anxiously, “and snowing us up?” “There is danger enough about us,” said Obenreizer, with a cautious glance onward and upward, “to render silence our best policy. You have heard of the Bridge of the Ganther?” “I have crossed it once.” “In the summer?” “Yes; in the travelling season.” “Yes; but it is another thing at this season;” with a sneer, as though he were out of temper. “This is not a time of year, or a state of things, on an Alpine Pass, that you gentlemen holiday-travellers know much about.” “You are my Guide,” said Vendale, good humouredly. “I trust to you.” “I am your Guide,” said Obenreizer, “and I will guide you to your journey’s end. There is the Bridge before us.” They had made a turn into a desolate and dismal ravine, where the snow lay deep below them, deep above them, deep on every side. While speaking, Obenreizer stood pointing at the Bridge, and observing Vendale’s face, with a very singular expression on his own. “If I, as Guide, had sent you over there, in advance, and encouraged you to give a shout or two, you might have brought down upon yourself tons and tons and tons of snow, that would not only have struck you dead, but buried you deep, at a blow.” “No doubt,” said Vendale. “No doubt. But that is not what I have to do, as Guide. So pass silently. Or, going as we go, our indiscretion might else crush and bury me. Let us get on!” There was a great accumulation of snow on the Bridge; and such enormous accumulations of snow overhung them from protecting masses of rock, that they might have been making their way through a stormy sky of white clouds. Using his staff skilfully, sounding as he went, and looking upward, with bent shoulders, as it were to resist the mere idea of a fall from above, Obenreizer softly led. Vendale closely followed. They were yet in the midst of their dangerous way, when there came a mighty rush, followed by a sound as of thunder. Obenreizer clapped his hand on Vendale’s mouth and pointed to the track behind them. Its aspect had been wholly changed in a moment. An avalanche had swept over it, and plunged into the torrent at the bottom of the gulf below. Their appearance at the solitary Inn not far beyond this terrible Bridge, elicited many expressions of astonishment from the people shut up in the house. “We stay but to rest,” said Obenreizer, shaking the snow from his dress at the fire. “This gentleman has very pressing occasion to get across; —tell them, Vendale.” “Assuredly, I have very pressing occasion. I must cross.” “You hear, all of you. My friend has very pressing occasion to get across, and we want no advice and no help. I am as good a guide, my fellow-countrymen, as any of you. Now, give us to eat and drink.” In exactly the same way, and in nearly the same words, when it was coming on dark and they had struggled through the greatly increased difficulties of the road, and had at last reached their destination for the night, Obenreizer said to the astonished people of the Hospice, gathering about them at the fire, while they were yet in the act of getting their wet shoes off, and shaking the snow from their clothes: “It is well to understand one another, friends all. This gentleman—” “—Has,” said Vendale, readily taking him up with a smile, “very pressing occasion to get across. Must cross.” “You hear?—has very pressing occasion to get across, must cross. We want no advice and no help. I am mountain-born, and act as Guide. Do not worry us by talking about it, but let us have supper, and wine, and bed.” All through the intense cold of the night, the same awful stillness. Again at sunrise, no sunny tinge to gild or redden the snow. The same interminable waste of deathly white; the same immovable air; the same monotonous gloom in the sky. “Travellers!” a friendly voice called to them from the door, after they were afoot, knapsack on back and staff in hand, as yesterday; “recollect! There are five places of shelter, near together, on the dangerous road before you; and there is the wooden cross, and there is the next Hospice. Do not stray from the track. If the Tourmente comes on, take shelter instantly!” “The trade of these poor devils!” said Obenreizer to his friend, with a contemptuous backward wave of his hand towards the voice. “How they stick to their trade! You Englishmen say we Swiss are mercenary. Truly, it does look like it.” They had divided between the two knapsacks, such refreshments as they had been able to obtain that morning, and as they deemed it prudent to take. Obenreizer carried the wine as his share of the burden; Vendale, the bread and meat and cheese, and the flask of brandy. They had for some time laboured upward and onward through the snow—which was now above their knees in the track, and of unknown depth elsewhere—and they were still labouring upward and onward through the most frightful part of that tremendous desolation, when snow begin to fall. At first, but a few flakes descended slowly and steadily. After a little while the fall grew much denser, and suddenly it began without apparent cause to whirl itself into spiral shapes. Instantly ensuing upon this last change, an icy blast came roaring at them, and every sound and force imprisoned until now was let loose. One of the dismal galleries through which the road is carried at that perilous point, a cave eked out by arches of great strength, was near at hand. They struggled into it, and the storm raged wildly. The noise of the wind, the noise of the water, the thundering down of displaced masses of rock and snow, the awful voices with which not only that gorge but every gorge in the whole monstrous range seemed to be suddenly endowed, the darkness as of night, the violent revolving of the snow which beat and broke it into spray and blinded them, the madness of everything around insatiate for destruction, the rapid substitution of furious violence for unnatural calm, and hosts of appalling sounds for silence: these were things, on the edge of a deep abyss, to chill the blood, though the fierce wind, made actually solid by ice and snow, had failed to chill it. Obenreizer, walking to and fro in the gallery without ceasing, signed to Vendale to help him unbuckle his knapsack. They could see each other, but could not have heard each other speak. Vendale complying, Obenreizer produced his bottle of wine, and poured some out, motioning Vendale to take that for warmth’s sake, and not brandy. Vendale again complying, Obenreizer seemed to drink after him, and the two walked backwards and forwards side by side; both well knowing that to rest or sleep would be to die. The snow came driving heavily into the gallery by the upper end at which they would pass out of it, if they ever passed out; for greater dangers lay on the road behind them than before. The snow soon began to choke the arch. An hour more, and it lay so high as to block out half the returning daylight. But it froze hard now, as it fell, and could be clambered through or over. The violence of the mountain storm was gradually yielding to steady snowfall. The wind still raged at intervals, but not incessantly; and when it paused, the snow fell in heavy flakes. They might have been two hours in their frightful prison, when Obenreizer, now crunching into the mound, now creeping over it with his head bowed down and his body touching the top of the arch, made his way out. Vendale followed close upon him, but followed without clear motive or calculation. For the lethargy of Basle was creeping over him again, and mastering his senses. How far he had followed out of the gallery, or with what obstacles he had since contended, he knew not. He became roused to the knowledge that Obenreizer had set upon him, and that they were struggling desperately in the snow. He became roused to the remembrance of what his assailant carried in a girdle. He felt for it, drew it, struck at him, struggled again, struck at him again, cast him off, and stood face to face with him. “I promised to guide you to your journey’s end,” said Obenreizer, “and I have kept my promise. The journey of your life ends here. Nothing can prolong it. You are sleeping as you stand.” “You are a villain. What have you done to me?” “You are a fool. I have drugged you. You are doubly a fool, for I drugged you once before upon the journey, to try you. You are trebly a fool, for I am the thief and forger, and in a few moments I shall take those proofs against the thief and forger from your insensible body.” The entrapped man tried to throw off the lethargy, but its fatal hold upon him was so sure that, even while he heard those words, he stupidly wondered which of them had been wounded, and whose blood it was that he saw sprinkled on the snow. “What have I done to you,” he asked, heavily and thickly, “that you should be—so base—a murderer?” “Done to me? You would have destroyed me, but that you have come to your journey’s end. Your cursed activity interposed between me, and the time I had counted on in which I might have replaced the money. Done to me? You have come in my way—not once, not twice, but again and again and again. Did I try to shake you off in the beginning, or no? You were not to be shaken off. Therefore you die here.” Vendale tried to think coherently, tried to speak coherently, tried to pick up the iron-shod staff he had let fall; failing to touch it, tried to stagger on without its aid. All in vain, all in vain! He stumbled, and fell heavily forward on the brink of the deep chasm. Stupefied, dozing, unable to stand upon his feet, a veil before his eyes, his sense of hearing deadened, he made such a vigorous rally that, supporting himself on his hands, he saw his enemy standing calmly over him, and heard him speak. “You call me murderer,” said Obenreizer, with a grim laugh. “The name matters very little. But at least I have set my life against yours, for I am surrounded by dangers, and may never make my way out of this place. The Tourmente is rising again. The snow is on the whirl. I must have the papers now. Every moment has my life in it.” “Stop!” cried Vendale, in a terrible voice, staggering up with a last flash of fire breaking out of him, and clutching the thievish hands at his breast, in both of his. “Stop! Stand away from me! God bless my Marguerite! Happily she will never know how I died. Stand off from me, and let me look at your murderous face. Let it remind me—of something—left to say.” The sight of him fighting so hard for his senses, and the doubt whether he might not for the instant be possessed by the strength of a dozen men, kept his opponent still. Wildly glaring at him, Vendale faltered out the broken words: “It shall not be—the trust—of the dead—betrayed by me—reputed parents—misinherited fortune—see to it!” As his head dropped on his breast, and he stumbled on the brink of the chasm as before, the thievish hands went once more, quick and busy, to his breast. He made a convulsive attempt to cry “No!” desperately rolled himself over into the gulf; and sank away from his enemy’s touch, like a phantom in a dreadful dream. The mountain storm raged again, and passed again. The awful mountain-voices died away, the moon rose, and the soft and silent snow fell. Two men and two large dogs came out at the door of the Hospice. The men looked carefully around them, and up at the sky. The dogs rolled in the snow, and took it into their mouths, and cast it up with their paws. One of the men said to the other: “We may venture now. We may find them in one of the five Refuges.” Each fastened on his back a basket; each took in his hand a strong spiked pole; each girded under his arms a looped end of a stout rope, so that they were tied together. Suddenly the dogs desisted from their gambols in the snow, stood looking down the ascent, put their noses up, put their noses down, became greatly excited, and broke into a deep loud bay together. The two men looked in the faces of the two dogs. The two dogs looked, with at least equal intelligence, in the faces of the two men. “Au secours, then! Help! To the rescue!” cried the two men. The two dogs, with a glad, deep, generous bark, bounded away. “Two more mad ones!” said the men, stricken motionless, and looking away in the moonlight. “Is it possible in such weather! And one of them a woman!” Each of the dogs had the corner of a woman’s dress in its mouth, and drew her along. She fondled their heads as she came up, and she came up through the snow with an accustomed tread. Not so the large man with her, who was spent and winded. “Dear guides, dear friends of travellers! I am of your country. We seek two gentlemen crossing the Pass, who should have reached the Hospice this evening.” “They have reached it, ma’amselle.” “Thank Heaven! O thank Heaven!” “But, unhappily, they have gone on again. We are setting forth to seek them even now. We had to wait until the Tourmente passed. It has been fearful up here.” “Dear guides, dear friends of travellers! Let me go with you. Let me go with you for the love of GOD! One of those gentlemen is to be my husband. I love him, oh, so dearly. O so dearly! You see I am not faint, you see I am not tired. I am born a peasant girl. I will show you that I know well how to fasten myself to your ropes. I will do it with my own hands. I will swear to be brave and good. But let me go with you, let me go with you! If any mischance should have befallen him, my love would find him, when nothing else could. On my knees, dear friends of travellers! By the love your dear mothers had for your fathers!” The good rough fellows were moved. “After all,” they murmured to one another, “she speaks but the truth. She knows the ways of the mountains. See how marvellously she has come here. But as to Monsieur there, ma’amselle?” “Dear Mr. Joey,” said Marguerite, addressing him in his own tongue, “you will remain at the house, and wait for me; will you not?” “If I know’d which o’ you two recommended it,” growled Joey Ladle, eyeing the two men with great indignation, “I’d fight you for sixpence, and give you half-a-crown towards your expenses. No, Miss. I’ll stick by you as long as there’s any sticking left in me, and I’ll die for you when I can’t do better.” The state of the moon rendering it highly important that no time should be lost, and the dogs showing signs of great uneasiness, the two men quickly took their resolution. The rope that yoked them together was exchanged for a longer one; the party were secured, Marguerite second, and the Cellarman last; and they set out for the Refuges. The actual distance of those places was nothing: the whole five, and the next Hospice to boot, being within two miles; but the ghastly way was whitened out and sheeted over. They made no miss in reaching the Gallery where the two had taken shelter. The second storm of wind and snow had so wildly swept over it since, that their tracks were gone. But the dogs went to and fro with their noses down, and were confident. The party stopping, however, at the further arch, where the second storm had been especially furious, and where the drift was deep, the dogs became troubled, and went about and about, in quest of a lost purpose. The great abyss being known to lie on the right, they wandered too much to the left, and had to regain the way with infinite labour through a deep field of snow. The leader of the line had stopped it, and was taking note of the landmarks, when one of the dogs fell to tearing up the snow a little before them. Advancing and stooping to look at it, thinking that some one might be overwhelmed there, they saw that it was stained, and that the stain was red. The other dog was now seen to look over the brink of the gulf, with his fore legs straightened out, lest he should fall into it, and to tremble in every limb. Then the dog who had found the stained snow joined him, and then they ran to and fro, distressed and whining. Finally, they both stopped on the brink together, and setting up their heads, howled dolefully. “There is some one lying below,” said Marguerite. “I think so,” said the foremost man. “Stand well inward, the two last, and let us look over.” The last man kindled two torches from his basket, and handed them forward. The leader taking one, and Marguerite the other, they looked down; now shading the torches, now moving them to the right or left, now raising them, now depressing them, as moonlight far below contended with black shadows. A piercing cry from Marguerite broke a long silence. “My God! On a projecting point, where a wall of ice stretches forward over the torrent, I see a human form!” “Where, ma’amselle, where?” “See, there! On the shelf of ice below the dogs!” The leader, with a sickened aspect, drew inward, and they were all silent. But they were not all inactive, for Marguerite, with swift and skilful fingers, had detached both herself and him from the rope in a few seconds. “Show me the baskets. These two are the only ropes?” “The only ropes here, ma’amselle; but at the Hospice—” “If he is alive—I know it is my lover—he will be dead before you can return. Dear Guides! Blessed friends of travellers! Look at me. Watch my hands. If they falter or go wrong, make me your prisoner by force. If they are steady and go right, help me to save him!” She girded herself with a cord under the breast and arms, she formed it into a kind of jacket, she drew it into knots, she laid its end side by side with the end of the other cord, she twisted and twined the two together, she knotted them together, she set her foot upon the knots, she strained them, she held them for the two men to strain at. “She is inspired,” they said to one another. “By the Almighty’s mercy!” she exclaimed. “You both know that I am by far the lightest here. Give me the brandy and the wine, and lower me down to him. Then go for assistance and a stronger rope. You see that when it is lowered to me—look at this about me now—I can make it fast and safe to his body. Alive or dead, I will bring him up, or die with him. I love him passionately. Can I say more?” They turned to her companion, but he was lying senseless on the snow. “Lower me down to him,” she said, taking two little kegs they had brought, and hanging them about her, “or I will dash myself to pieces! I am a peasant, and I know no giddiness or fear; and this is nothing to me, and I passionately love him. Lower me down!” “Ma’amselle, ma’amselle, he must be dying or dead.” “Dying or dead, my husband’s head shall lie upon my breast, or I will dash myself to pieces.” They yielded, overborne. With such precautions as their skill and the circumstances admitted, they let her slip from the summit, guiding herself down the precipitous icy wall with her hand, and they lowered down, and lowered down, and lowered down, until the cry came up: “Enough!” “Is it really he, and is he dead?” they called down, looking over. The cry came up: “He is insensible; but his heart beats. It beats against mine.” “How does he lie?” The cry came up: “Upon a ledge of ice. It has thawed beneath him, and it will thaw beneath me. Hasten. If we die, I am content.” One of the two men hurried off with the dogs at such topmost speed as he could make; the other set up the lighted torches in the snow, and applied himself to recovering the Englishman. Much snow-chafing and some brandy got him on his legs, but delirious and quite unconscious where he was. The watch remained upon the brink, and his cry went down continually: “Courage! They will soon be here. How goes it?” And the cry came up: “His heart still beats against mine. I warm him in my arms. I have cast off the rope, for the ice melts under us, and the rope would separate me from him; but I am not afraid.” The moon went down behind the mountain tops, and all the abyss lay in darkness. The cry went down: “How goes it?” The cry came up: “We are sinking lower, but his heart still beats against mine.” At length the eager barking of the dogs, and a flare of light upon the snow, proclaimed that help was coming on. Twenty or thirty men, lamps, torches, litters, ropes, blankets, wood to kindle a great fire, restoratives and stimulants, came in fast. The dogs ran from one man to another, and from this thing to that, and ran to the edge of the abyss, dumbly entreating Speed, speed, speed! The cry went down: “Thanks to God, all is ready. How goes it?” The cry came up: “We are sinking still, and we are deadly cold. His heart no longer beats against mine. Let no one come down, to add to our weight. Lower the rope only.” The fire was kindled high, a great glare of torches lighted the sides of the precipice, lamps were lowered, a strong rope was lowered. She could be seen passing it round him, and making it secure. The cry came up into a deathly silence: “Raise! Softly!” They could see her diminished figure shrink, as he was swung into the air. They gave no shout when some of them laid him on a litter, and others lowered another strong rope. The cry again came up into a deathly silence: “Raise! Softly!” But when they caught her at the brink, then they shouted, then they wept, then they gave thanks to Heaven, then they kissed her feet, then they kissed her dress, then the dogs caressed her, licked her icy hands, and with their honest faces warmed her frozen bosom! She broke from them all, and sank over him on his litter, with both her loving hands upon the heart that stood still. ACT IV. THE CLOCK-LOCK. The pleasant scene was Neuchâtel; the pleasant month was April; the pleasant place was a notary’s office; the pleasant person in it was the notary: a rosy, hearty, handsome old man, chief notary of Neuchâtel, known far and wide in the canton as Maître Voigt. Professionally and personally, the notary was a popular citizen. His innumerable kindnesses and his innumerable oddities had for years made him one of the recognised public characters of the pleasant Swiss town. His long brown frock-coat and his black skull-cap were among the institutions of the place; and he carried a snuff-box which, in point of size, was popularly believed to be without a parallel in Europe. There was another person in the notary’s office, not so pleasant as the notary. This was Obenreizer. An oddly pastoral kind of office it was, and one that would never have answered in England. It stood in a neat back yard, fenced off from a pretty flower-garden. Goats browsed in the doorway, and a cow was within half-a-dozen feet of keeping company with the clerk. Maître Voigt’s room was a bright and varnished little room, with panelled walls, like a toy-chamber. According to the seasons of the year, roses, sunflowers, hollyhocks, peeped in at the windows. Maître Voigt’s bees hummed through the office all the summer, in at this window and out at that, taking it frequently in their day’s work, as if honey were to be made from Maître Voigt’s sweet disposition. A large musical box on the chimney-piece often trilled away at the Overture to Fra Diavolo, or a Selection from William Tell, with a chirruping liveliness that had to be stopped by force on the entrance of a client, and irrepressibly broke out again the moment his back was turned. “Courage, courage, my good fellow!” said Maître Voigt, patting Obenreizer on the knee, in a fatherly and comforting way. “You will begin a new life to-morrow morning in my office here.” Obenreizer—dressed in mourning, and subdued in manner—lifted his hand, with a white handkerchief in it, to the region of his heart. “The gratitude is here,” he said. “But the words to express it are not here.” “Ta-ta-ta! Don’t talk to me about gratitude!” said Maître Voigt. “I hate to see a man oppressed. I see you oppressed, and I hold out my hand to you by instinct. Besides, I am not too old yet, to remember my young days. Your father sent me my first client. (It was on a question of half an acre of vineyard that seldom bore any grapes.) Do I owe nothing to your father’s son? I owe him a debt of friendly obligation, and I pay it to you. That’s rather neatly expressed, I think,” added Maître Voigt, in high good humour with himself. “Permit me to reward my own merit with a pinch of snuff!” Obenreizer dropped his eyes to the ground, as though he were not even worthy to see the notary take snuff. “Do me one last favour, sir,” he said, when he raised his eyes. “Do not act on impulse. Thus far, you have only a general knowledge of my position. Hear the case for and against me, in its details, before you take me into your office. Let my claim on your benevolence be recognised by your sound reason as well as by your excellent heart. In that case, I may hold up my head against the bitterest of my enemies, and build myself a new reputation on the ruins of the character I have lost.” “As you will,” said Maître Voigt. “You speak well, my son. You will be a fine lawyer one of these days.” “The details are not many,” pursued Obenreizer. “My troubles begin with the accidental death of my late travelling companion, my lost dear friend Mr. Vendale.” “Mr. Vendale,” repeated the notary. “Just so. I have heard and read of the name, several times within these two months. The name of the unfortunate English gentleman who was killed on the Simplon. When you got that scar upon your cheek and neck.” “—From my own knife,” said Obenreizer, touching what must have been an ugly gash at the time of its infliction. “From your own knife,” assented the notary, “and in trying to save him. Good, good, good. That was very good. Vendale. Yes. I have several times, lately, thought it droll that I should once have had a client of that name.” “But the world, sir,” returned Obenreizer, “is so small!” Nevertheless he made a mental note that the notary had once had a client of that name. “As I was saying, sir, the death of that dear travelling comrade begins my troubles. What follows? I save myself. I go down to Milan. I am received with coldness by Defresnier and Company. Shortly afterwards, I am discharged by Defresnier and Company. Why? They give no reason why. I ask, do they assail my honour? No answer. I ask, what is the imputation against me? No answer. I ask, where are their proofs against me? No answer. I ask, what am I to think? The reply is, ‘M. Obenreizer is free to think what he will. What M. Obenreizer thinks, is of no importance to Defresnier and Company.’ And that is all.” “Perfectly. That is all,” asserted the notary, taking a large pinch of snuff. “But is that enough, sir?” “That is not enough,” said Maître Voigt. “The House of Defresnier are my fellow townsmen—much respected, much esteemed—but the House of Defresnier must not silently destroy a man’s character. You can rebut assertion. But how can you rebut silence?” “Your sense of justice, my dear patron,” answered Obenreizer, “states in a word the cruelty of the case. Does it stop there? No. For, what follows upon that?” “True, my poor boy,” said the notary, with a comforting nod or two; “your ward rebels upon that.” “Rebels is too soft a word,” retorted Obenreizer. “My ward revolts from me with horror. My ward defies me. My ward withdraws herself from my authority, and takes shelter (Madame Dor with her) in the house of that English lawyer, Mr. Bintrey, who replies to your summons to her to submit herself to my authority, that she will not do so.” “—And who afterwards writes,” said the notary, moving his large snuff-box to look among the papers underneath it for the letter, “that he is coming to confer with me.” “Indeed?” replied Obenreizer, rather checked. “Well, sir. Have I no legal rights?” “Assuredly, my poor boy,” returned the notary. “All but felons have their legal rights.” “And who calls me felon?” said Obenreizer, fiercely. “No one. Be calm under your wrongs. If the House of Defresnier would call you felon, indeed, we should know how to deal with them.” While saying these words, he had handed Bintrey’s very short letter to Obenreizer, who now read it and gave it back. “In saying,” observed Obenreizer, with recovered composure, “that he is coming to confer with you, this English lawyer means that he is coming to deny my authority over my ward.” “You think so?” “I am sure of it. I know him. He is obstinate and contentious. You will tell me, my dear sir, whether my authority is unassailable, until my ward is of age?” “Absolutely unassailable.” “I will enforce it. I will make her submit herself to it. For,” said Obenreizer, changing his angry tone to one of grateful submission, “I owe it to you, sir; to you, who have so confidingly taken an injured man under your protection, and into your employment.” “Make your mind easy,” said Maître Voigt. “No more of this now, and no thanks! Be here to-morrow morning, before the other clerk comes—between seven and eight. You will find me in this room; and I will myself initiate you in your work. Go away! go away! I have letters to write. I won’t hear a word more.” Dismissed with this generous abruptness, and satisfied with the favourable impression he had left on the old man’s mind, Obenreizer was at leisure to revert to the mental note he had made that Maître Voigt once had a client whose name was Vendale. “I ought to know England well enough by this time;” so his meditations ran, as he sat on a bench in the yard; “and it is not a name I ever encountered there, except—” he looked involuntarily over his shoulder—“as his name. Is the world so small that I cannot get away from him, even now when he is dead? He confessed at the last that he had betrayed the trust of the dead, and misinherited a fortune. And I was to see to it. And I was to stand off, that my face might remind him of it. Why my face, unless it concerned me? I am sure of his words, for they have been in my ears ever since. Can there be anything bearing on them, in the keeping of this old idiot? Anything to repair my fortunes, and blacken his memory? He dwelt upon my earliest remembrances, that night at Basle. Why, unless he had a purpose in it?” Maître Voigt’s two largest he-goats were butting at him to butt him out of the place, as if for that disrespectful mention of their master. So he got up and left the place. But he walked alone for a long time on the border of the lake, with his head drooped in deep thought. Between seven and eight next morning, he presented himself again at the office. He found the notary ready for him, at work on some papers which had come in on the previous evening. In a few clear words, Maître Voigt explained the routine of the office, and the duties Obenreizer would be expected to perform. It still wanted five minutes to eight, when the preliminary instructions were declared to be complete. “I will show you over the house and the offices,” said Maître Voigt, “but I must put away these papers first. They come from the municipal authorities, and they must be taken special care of.” Obenreizer saw his chance, here, of finding out the repository in which his employer’s private papers were kept. “Can’t I save you the trouble, sir?” he asked. “Can’t I put those documents away under your directions?” Maître Voigt laughed softly to himself; closed the portfolio in which the papers had been sent to him; handed it to Obenreizer. “Suppose you try,” he said. “All my papers of importance are kept yonder.” He pointed to a heavy oaken door, thickly studded with nails, at the lower end of the room. Approaching the door, with the portfolio, Obenreizer discovered, to his astonishment, that there were no means whatever of opening it from the outside. There was no handle, no bolt, no key, and (climax of passive obstruction!) no keyhole. “There is a second door to this room?” said Obenreizer, appealing to the notary. “No,” said Maître Voigt. “Guess again.” “There is a window?” “Nothing of the sort. The window has been bricked up. The only way in, is the way by that door. Do you give it up?” cried Maître Voigt, in high triumph. “Listen, my good fellow, and tell me if you hear nothing inside?” Obenreizer listened for a moment, and started back from the door. “I know!” he exclaimed. “I heard of this when I was apprenticed here at the watchmaker’s. Perrin Brothers have finished their famous clock-lock at last—and you have got it?” “Bravo!” said Maître Voigt. “The clock-lock it is! There, my son! There you have one more of what the good people of this town call, ‘Daddy Voigt’s follies.’ With all my heart! Let those laugh who win. No thief can steal my keys. No burglar can pick my lock. No power on earth, short of a battering-ram or a barrel of gunpowder, can move that door, till my little sentinel inside—my worthy friend who goes ‘Tick, Tick,’ as I tell him—says, ‘Open!’ The big door obeys the little Tick, Tick, and the little Tick, Tick, obeys me. That!” cried Daddy Voigt, snapping his fingers, “for all the thieves in Christendom!” “May I see it in action?” asked Obenreizer. “Pardon my curiosity, dear sir! You know that I was once a tolerable worker in the clock trade.” “Certainly you shall see it in action,” said Maître Voigt. “What is the time now? One minute to eight. Watch, and in one minute you will see the door open of itself.” In one minute, smoothly and slowly and silently, as if invisible hands had set it free, the heavy door opened inward, and disclosed a dark chamber beyond. On three sides, shelves filled the walls, from floor to ceiling. Arranged on the shelves, were rows upon rows of boxes made in the pretty inlaid woodwork of Switzerland, and bearing inscribed on their fronts (for the most part in fanciful coloured letters) the names of the notary’s clients. Maître Voigt lighted a taper, and led the way into the room. “You shall see the clock,” he said proudly. “I possess the greatest curiosity in Europe. It is only a privileged few whose eyes can look at it. I give the privilege to your good father’s son—you shall be one of the favoured few who enter the room with me. See! here it is, on the right-hand wall at the side of the door.” “An ordinary clock,” exclaimed Obenreizer. “No! Not an ordinary clock. It has only one hand.” “Aha!” said Maître Voigt. “Not an ordinary clock, my friend. No, no. That one hand goes round the dial. As I put it, so it regulates the hour at which the door shall open. See! The hand points to eight. At eight the door opened, as you saw for yourself.” “Does it open more than once in the four-and-twenty hours?” asked Obenreizer. “More than once?” repeated the notary, with great scorn. “You don’t know my good friend, Tick-Tick! He will open the door as often as I ask him. All he wants is his directions, and he gets them here. Look below the dial. Here is a half-circle of steel let into the wall, and here is a hand (called the regulator) that travels round it, just as my hand chooses. Notice, if you please, that there are figures to guide me on the half-circle of steel. Figure I. means: Open once in the four-and-twenty hours. Figure II. means: Open twice; and so on to the end. I set the regulator every morning, after I have read my letters, and when I know what my day’s work is to be. Would you like to see me set it now? What is to-day? Wednesday. Good! This is the day of our rifle-club; there is little business to do; I grant a half-holiday. No work here to-day, after three o’clock. Let us first put away this portfolio of municipal papers. There! No need to trouble Tick-Tick to open the door until eight to-morrow. Good! I leave the dial-hand at eight; I put back the regulator to I.; I close the door; and closed the door remains, past all opening by anybody, till to-morrow morning at eight.” Obenreizer’s quickness instantly saw the means by which he might make the clock-lock betray its master’s confidence, and place its master’s papers at his disposal. “Stop, sir!” he cried, at the moment when the notary was closing the door. “Don’t I see something moving among the boxes—on the floor there?” (Maître Voigt turned his back for a moment to look. In that moment, Obenreizer’s ready hand put the regulator on, from the figure “I.” to the figure “II.” Unless the notary looked again at the half-circle of steel, the door would open at eight that evening, as well as at eight next morning, and nobody but Obenreizer would know it.) “There is nothing!” said Maître Voigt. “Your troubles have shaken your nerves, my son. Some shadow thrown by my taper; or some poor little beetle, who lives among the old lawyer’s secrets, running away from the light. Hark! I hear your fellow-clerk in the office. To work! to work! and build to-day the first step that leads to your new fortunes!” He good-humouredly pushed Obenreizer out before him; extinguished the taper, with a last fond glance at his clock which passed harmlessly over the regulator beneath; and closed the oaken door. At three, the office was shut up. The notary and everybody in the notary’s employment, with one exception, went to see the rifle-shooting. Obenreizer had pleaded that he was not in spirits for a public festival. Nobody knew what had become of him. It was believed that he had slipped away for a solitary walk. The house and offices had been closed but a few minutes, when the door of a shining wardrobe in the notary’s shining room opened, and Obenreizer stopped out. He walked to a window, unclosed the shutters, satisfied himself that he could escape unseen by way of the garden, turned back into the room, and took his place in the notary’s easy-chair. He was locked up in the house, and there were five hours to wait before eight o’clock came. He wore his way through the five hours: sometimes reading the books and newspapers that lay on the table: sometimes thinking: sometimes walking to and fro. Sunset came on. He closed the window-shutters before he kindled a light. The candle lighted, and the time drawing nearer and nearer, he sat, watch in hand, with his eyes on the oaken door. At eight, smoothly and softly and silently the door opened. One after another, he read the names on the outer rows of boxes. No such name as Vendale! He removed the outer row, and looked at the row behind. These were older boxes, and shabbier boxes. The four first that he examined, were inscribed with French and German names. The fifth bore a name which was almost illegible. He brought it out into the room, and examined it closely. There, covered thickly with time-stains and dust, was the name: “Vendale.” The key hung to the box by a string. He unlocked the box, took out four loose papers that were in it, spread them open on the table, and began to read them. He had not so occupied a minute, when his face fell from its expression of eagerness and avidity, to one of haggard astonishment and disappointment. But, after a little consideration, he copied the papers. He then replaced the papers, replaced the box, closed the door, extinguished the candle, and stole away. As his murderous and thievish footfall passed out of the garden, the steps of the notary and some one accompanying him stopped at the front door of the house. The lamps were lighted in the little street, and the notary had his door-key in his hand. “Pray do not pass my house, Mr. Bintrey,” he said. “Do me the honour to come in. It is one of our town half-holidays—our Tir—but my people will be back directly. It is droll that you should ask your way to the Hotel of me. Let us eat and drink before you go there.” “Thank you; not to-night,” said Bintrey. “Shall I come to you at ten to-morrow?” “I shall be enchanted, sir, to take so early an opportunity of redressing the wrongs of my injured client,” returned the good notary. “Yes,” retorted Bintrey; “your injured client is all very well—but—a word in your ear.” He whispered to the notary and walked off. When the notary’s housekeeper came home, she found him standing at his door motionless, with the key still in his hand, and the door unopened. OBENREIZER’S VICTORY. The scene shifts again—to the foot of the Simplon, on the Swiss side. In one of the dreary rooms of the dreary little inn at Brieg, Mr. Bintrey and Maître Voigt sat together at a professional council of two. Mr. Bintrey was searching in his despatch-box. Maître Voigt was looking towards a closed door, painted brown to imitate mahogany, and communicating with an inner room. “Isn’t it time he was here?” asked the notary, shifting his position, and glancing at a second door at the other end of the room, painted yellow to imitate deal. “He is here,” answered Bintrey, after listening for a moment. The yellow door was opened by a waiter, and Obenreizer walked in. After greeting Maître Voigt with a cordiality which appeared to cause the notary no little embarrassment, Obenreizer bowed with grave and distant politeness to Bintrey. “For what reason have I been brought from Neuchâtel to the foot of the mountain?” he inquired, taking the seat which the English lawyer had indicated to him. “You shall be quite satisfied on that head before our interview is over,” returned Bintrey. “For the present, permit me to suggest proceeding at once to business. There has been a correspondence, Mr. Obenreizer, between you and your niece. I am here to represent your niece.” “In other words, you, a lawyer, are here to represent an infraction of the law.” “Admirably put!” said Bintrey. “If all the people I have to deal with were only like you, what an easy profession mine would be! I am here to represent an infraction of the law—that is your point of view. I am here to make a compromise between you and your niece—that is my point of view.” “There must be two parties to a compromise,” rejoined Obenreizer. “I decline, in this case, to be one of them. The law gives me authority to control my niece’s actions, until she comes of age. She is not yet of age; and I claim my authority.” At this point Maître attempted to speak. Bintrey silenced him with a compassionate indulgence of tone and manner, as if he was silencing a favourite child. “No, my worthy friend, not a word. Don’t excite yourself unnecessarily; leave it to me.” He turned, and addressed himself again to Obenreizer. “I can think of nothing comparable to you, Mr. Obenreizer, but granite—and even that wears out in course of time. In the interests of peace and quietness—for the sake of your own dignity—relax a little. If you will only delegate your authority to another person whom I know of, that person may be trusted never to lose sight of your niece, night or day!” “You are wasting your time and mine,” returned Obenreizer. “If my niece is not rendered up to my authority within one week from this day, I invoke the law. If you resist the law, I take her by force.” He rose to his feet as he said the last word. Maître Voigt looked round again towards the brown door which led into the inner room. “Have some pity on the poor girl,” pleaded Bintrey. “Remember how lately she lost her lover by a dreadful death! Will nothing move you?” “Nothing.” Bintrey, in his turn, rose to his feet, and looked at Maître Voigt. Maître Voigt’s hand, resting on the table, began to tremble. Maître Voigt’s eyes remained fixed, as if by irresistible fascination, on the brown door. Obenreizer, suspiciously observing him, looked that way too. “There is somebody listening in there!” he exclaimed, with a sharp backward glance at Bintrey. “There are two people listening,” answered Bintrey. “Who are they?” “You shall see.” With this answer, he raised his voice and spoke the next words—the two common words which are on everybody’s lips, at every hour of the day: “Come in!” The brown door opened. Supported on Marguerite’s arm—his sun-burnt colour gone, his right arm bandaged and clung over his breast—Vendale stood before the murderer, a man risen from the dead. In the moment of silence that followed, the singing of a caged bird in the court-yard outside was the one sound stirring in the room. Maître Voigt touched Bintrey, and pointed to Obenreizer. “Look at him!” said the notary, in a whisper. The shock had paralysed every movement in the villain’s body, but the movement of the blood. His face was like the face of a corpse. The one vestige of colour left in it was a livid purple streak which marked the course of the scar, where his victim had wounded him on the cheek and neck. Speechless, breathless, motionless alike in eye and limb, it seemed as if, at the sight of Vendale, the death to which he had doomed Vendale had struck him where he stood. “Somebody ought to speak to him,” said Maître Voigt. “Shall I?” Even at that moment Bintrey persisted in silencing the notary, and in keeping the lead in the proceedings to himself. Checking Maître Voigt by a gesture, he dismissed Marguerite and Vendale in these words:—“The object of your appearance here is answered,” he said. “If you will withdraw for the present, it may help Mr. Obenreizer to recover himself.” It did help him. As the two passed through the door and closed it behind them, he drew a deep breath of relief. He looked round him for the chair from which he had risen, and dropped into it. “Give him time!” pleaded Maître Voigt. “No,” said Bintrey. “I don’t know what use he may make of it if I do.” He turned once more to Obenreizer, and went on. “I owe it to myself,” he said—“I don’t admit, mind, that I owe it to you—to account for my appearance in these proceedings, and to state what has been done under my advice, and on my sole responsibility. Can you listen to me?” “I can listen to you.” “Recal the time when you started for Switzerland with Mr. Vendale,” Bintrey begin. “You had not left England four-and-twenty hours before your niece committed an act of imprudence which not even your penetration could foresee. She followed her promised husband on his journey, without asking anybody’s advice or permission, and without any better companion to protect her than a Cellarman in Mr. Vendale’s employment.” “Why did she follow me on the journey? and how came the Cellarman to be the person who accompanied her?” “She followed you on the journey,” answered Bintrey, “because she suspected there had been some serious collision between you and Mr. Vendale, which had been kept secret from her; and because she rightly believed you to be capable of serving your interests, or of satisfying your enmity, at the price of a crime. As for the Cellarman, he was one, among the other people in Mr. Vendale’s establishment, to whom she had applied (the moment your back was turned) to know if anything had happened between their master and you. The Cellarman alone had something to tell her. A senseless superstition, and a common accident which had happened to his master, in his master’s cellar, had connected Mr. Vendale in this man’s mind with the idea of danger by murder. Your niece surprised him into a confession, which aggravated tenfold the terrors that possessed her. Aroused to a sense of the mischief he had done, the man, of his own accord, made the one atonement in his power. ‘If my master is in danger, miss,’ he said, ‘it’s my duty to follow him, too; and it’s more than my duty to take care of you.’ The two set forth together—and, for once, a superstition has had its use. It decided your niece on taking the journey; and it led the way to saving a man’s life. Do you understand me, so far?” “I understand you, so far.” “My first knowledge of the crime that you had committed,” pursued Bintrey, “came to me in the form of a letter from your niece. All you need know is that her love and her courage recovered the body of your victim, and aided the after-efforts which brought him back to life. While he lay helpless at Brieg, under her care, she wrote to me to come out to him. Before starting, I informed Madame Dor that I knew Miss Obenreizer to be safe, and knew where she was. Madame Dor informed me, in return, that a letter had come for your niece, which she knew to be in your handwriting. I took possession of it, and arranged for the forwarding of any other letters which might follow. Arrived at Brieg, I found Mr. Vendale out of danger, and at once devoted myself to hastening the day of reckoning with you. Defresnier and Company turned you off on suspicion; acting on information privately supplied by me. Having stripped you of your false character, the next thing to do was to strip you of your authority over your niece. To reach this end, I not only had no scruple in digging the pitfall under your feet in the dark—I felt a certain professional pleasure in fighting you with your own weapons. By my advice the truth has been carefully concealed from you up to this day. By my advice the trap into which you have walked was set for you (you know why, now, as well as I do) in this place. There was but one certain way of shaking the devilish self-control which has hitherto made you a formidable man. That way has been tried, and (look at me as you may) that way has succeeded. The last thing that remains to be done,” concluded Bintrey, producing two little slips of manuscript from his despatch-box, “is to set your niece free. You have attempted murder, and you have committed forgery and theft. We have the evidence ready against you in both cases. If you are convicted as a felon, you know as well as I do what becomes of your authority over your niece. Personally, I should have preferred taking that way out of it. But considerations are pressed on me which I am not able to resist, and this interview must end, as I have told you already, in a compromise. Sign those lines, resigning all authority over Miss Obenreizer, and pledging yourself never to be seen in England or in Switzerland again; and I will sign an indemnity which secures you against further proceedings on our part.” Obenreizer took the pen in silence, and signed his niece’s release. On receiving the indemnity in return, he rose, but made no movement to leave the room. He stood looking at Maître Voigt with a strange smile gathering at his lips, and a strange light flashing in his filmy eyes. “What are you waiting for?” asked Bintrey. Obenreizer pointed to the brown door. “Call them back,” he answered. “I have something to say in their presence before I go.” “Say it in my presence,” retorted Bintrey. “I decline to call them back.” Obenreizer turned to Maître Voigt. “Do you remember telling me that you once had an English client named Vendale?” he asked. “Well,” answered the notary. “And what of that?” “Maître Voigt, your clock-lock has betrayed you.” “What do you mean?” “I have read the letters and certificates in your client’s box. I have taken copies of them. I have got the copies here. Is there, or is there not, a reason for calling them back?” For a moment the notary looked to and fro, between Obenreizer and Bintrey, in helpless astonishment. Recovering himself, he drew his brother-lawyer aside, and hurriedly spoke a few words close at his ear. The face of Bintrey—after first faithfully reflecting the astonishment on the face of Maître Voigt—suddenly altered its expression. He sprang, with the activity of a young man, to the door of the inner room, entered it, remained inside for a minute, and returned followed by Marguerite and Vendale. “Now, Mr. Obenreizer,” said Bintrey, “the last move in the game is yours. Play it.” “Before I resign my position as that young lady’s guardian,” said Obenreizer, “I have a secret to reveal in which she is interested. In making my disclosure, I am not claiming her attention for a narrative which she, or any other person present, is expected to take on trust. I am possessed of written proofs, copies of originals, the authenticity of which Maître Voigt himself can attest. Bear that in mind, and permit me to refer you, at starting, to a date long past—the month of February, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six.” “Mark the date, Mr. Vendale,” said Bintrey. “My first proof,” said Obenreizer, taking a paper from his pocket-book. “Copy of a letter, written by an English lady (married) to her sister, a widow. The name of the person writing the letter I shall keep suppressed until I have done. The name of the person to whom the letter is written I am willing to reveal. It is addressed to ‘Mrs. Jane Ann Miller, of Groombridge-ells, England.’” Vendale started, and opened his lips to speak. Bintrey instantly stopped him, as he had stopped Maître Voigt. “No,” said the pertinacious lawyer. “Leave it to me.” Obenreizer went on: “It is needless to trouble you with the first half of the letter,” he said. “I can give the substance of it in two words. The writer’s position at the time is this. She has been long living in Switzerland with her husband—obliged to live there for the sake of her husband’s health. They are about to move to a new residence on the Lake of Neuchâtel in a week, and they will be ready to receive Mrs. Miller as visitor in a fortnight from that time. This said, the writer next enters into an important domestic detail. She has been childless for years—she and her husband have now no hope of children; they are lonely; they want an interest in life; they have decided on adopting a child. Here the important part of the letter begins; and here, therefore, I read it to you word for word.” He folded back the first page of the letter and read as follows. “* * * Will you help us, my dear sister, to realise our new project? As English people, we wish to adopt an English child. This may be done, I believe, at the Foundling: my husband’s lawyers in London will tell you how. I leave the choice to you, with only these conditions attached to it—that the child is to be an infant under a year old, and is to be a boy. Will you pardon the trouble I am giving you, for my sake; and will you bring our adopted child to us, with your own children, when you come to Neuchâtel? “I must add a word as to my husband’s wishes in this matter. He is resolved to spare the child whom we make our own any future mortification and loss of self-respect which might be caused by a discovery of his true origin. He will bear my husband’s name, and he will be brought up in the belief that he is really our son. His inheritance of what we have to leave will be secured to him—not only according to the laws of England in such cases, but according to the laws of Switzerland also; for we have lived so long in this country, that there is a doubt whether we may not be considered as I &#039;domiciled&#039; in Switzerland. The one precaution left to take is to prevent any after-discovery at the Foundling. Now, our name is a very uncommon one; and if we appear on the Register of the Institution as the persons adopting the child, there is just a chance that something might result from it. Your name, my dear, is the name of thousands of other people; and if you will consent to appear on the Register, there need be no fear of any discoveries in that quarter. We are moving, by the doctor’s orders, to a part of Switzerland in which our circumstances are quite unknown; and you, as I understand, are about to engage a new nurse for the journey when you come to see us. Under these circumstances, the child may appear as my child, brought back to me under my sister’s care. The only servant we take with us from our old home is my own maid, who can be safely trusted. As for the lawyers in England and in Switzerland, it is their profession to keep secrets—and we may feel quite easy in that direction. So there you have our harmless little conspiracy! Write by return of post, my love, and tell me you will join it.” * * * “Do you still conceal the name of the writer of that letter?” asked Vendale. “I keep the name of the writer till the last,” answered Obenreizer, “and I proceed to my second proof—a mere slip of paper this time, as you see. Memorandum given to the Swiss lawyer, who drew the documents referred to in the letter I have just read, expressed as follows:—‘Adopted from the Foundling Hospital of England, 3d March, 1836, a male infant, called, in the Institution, Walter Wilding. Person appearing on the register, as adopting the child, Mrs. Jane Anne Miller, widow, acting in this matter for her married sister, domiciled in Switzerland.’ Patience!” resumed Obenreizer, as Vendale, breaking loose from Bintrey, started to his feet. “I shall not keep the name concealed much longer. Two more little slips of paper, and I have done. Third proof! Certificate of Doctor Ganz, still living in practice at Neuchâtel, dated July, 1838. The doctor certifies (you shall read it for yourselves directly), first, that he attended the adopted child in its infant maladies; second, that, three months before the date of the certificate, the gentleman adopting the child as his son died; third, that on the date of the certificate, his widow and her maid, taking the adopted child with them, left Neuchâtel on their return to England. One more link now added to this, and my chain of evidence is complete. The maid remained with her mistress till her mistress’s death, only a few years since. The maid can swear to the identity of the adopted infant, from his childhood to his youth—from his youth to his manhood, as he is now. There is her address in England—and there, Mr. Vendale, is the fourth, and final proof!” “Why do you address yourself to me?” said Vendale, as Obenreizer threw the written address on the table. Obenreizer turned on him, in a sudden frenzy of triumph. “Because you are the man! If my niece marries you, she marries a bastard, brought up by public charity. If my niece marries you, she marries an impostor, without name or lineage, disguised in the character of a gentleman of rank and family.” “Bravo!” cried Bintrey. “Admirably put, Mr. Obenreizer! It only wants one word more to complete it. She marries—thanks entirely to your exertions—a man who inherits a handsome fortune, and a man whose origin will make him prouder than ever of his peasant-wife. George Vendale, as brother-executors, let us congratulate each other! Our dear dead friend’s last wish on earth is accomplished. We have found the lost Walter Wilding. As Mr. Obenreizer said just now—you are the man!” The words passed by Vendale unheeded. For the moment he was conscious of but one sensation; he heard but one voice. Marguerite’s hand was clasping his. Marguerite’s voice was whispering to him: “I never loved you, George, as I love you now!” THE CURTAIN FALLS. May-Day. There is merry-making in Cripple Corner, the chimneys smoke, the patriarchal dining-hall is hung with garlands, and Mrs. Goldstraw, the respected housekeeper, is very busy. For, on this bright morning the young master of Cripple Corner is married to its young mistress, far away: to wit, in the little town of Brieg, in Switzerland, lying at the foot of the Simplon Pass where she saved his life. The bells ring gaily in the little town of Brieg, and flags are stretched across the street, and rifle shots are heard, and sounding music from brass instruments. Streamer-decorated casks of wine have been rolled out under a gay awning in the public way before the Inn, and there will be free feasting and revelry. What with bells and banners, draperies hanging from windows, explosion of gunpowder, and reverberation of brass music, the little town of Brieg is all in a flutter, like the hearts of its simple people. It was a stormy night last night, and the mountains are covered with snow. But the sun is bright to-day, the sweet air is fresh, the tin spires of the little town of Brieg are burnished silver, and the Alps are ranges of far-off white cloud in a deep blue sky. The primitive people of the little town of Brieg have built a greenwood arch across the street, under which the newly married pair shall pass in triumph from the church. It is inscribed, on that side, “HONOUR AND LOVE TO MARGUERITE VENDALE!” for the people are proud of her to enthusiasm. This greeting of the bride under her new name is affectionately meant as a surprise, and therefore the arrangement has been made that she, unconscious why, shall be taken to the Church by a tortuous back way. A scheme not difficult to carry into execution in the crooked little town of Brieg. So, all things are in readiness, and they are to go and come on foot. Assembled in the Inn’s best chamber, festively adorned, are the bride and bridegroom, the Neuchâtel notary, the London lawyer, Madame Dor, and a certain large mysterious Englishman, popularly known as Monsieur Zhoé-Ladelle. And behold Madame Dor, arrayed in a spotless pair of gloves of her own, with no hand in the air, but both hands clasped round the neck of the bride; to embrace whom Madame Dor has turned her broad back on the company, consistent to the last. “Forgive me, my beautiful,” pleads Madame Dor, “for that I ever was his she-cat!” “She-cat, Madame Dor? “Engaged to sit watching my so charming mouse,” are the explanatory words of Madame Dor, delivered with a penitential sob. “Why, you were our best friend! George, dearest, tell Madame Dor. Was she not our best friend?” “Undoubtedly, darling. What should we have done without her?” “You are both so generous,” cries Madame Dor, accepting consolation, and immediately relapsing. “But I commenced as a she-cat.” “Ah! But like the cat in the fairy-story, good Madame Dor,” says Vendale, saluting her cheek, “you were a true woman. And, being a true woman, the sympathy of your heart was with true love.” “I don’t wish to deprive Madame Dor of her share in the embraces that are going on,” Mr. Bintrey puts in, watch in hand, “and I don’t presume to offer any objection to your having got yourselves mixed together, in the corner there, like the three Graces. I merely remark that I think it’s time we were moving. What are your sentiments on that subject, Mr. Ladle?” “Clear, sir,” replies Joey, with a gracious grin. “I’m clearer altogether, sir, for having lived so many weeks upon the surface. I never was half so long upon the surface afore, and it’s done me a power of good. At Cripple Corner, I was too much below it. Atop of the Simpleton, I was a deal too high above it. I’ve found the medium here, sir. And if ever I take it in convivial, in all the rest of my days, I mean to do it this day, to the toast of ‘Bless ‘em both.’” “I, too!” says Bintrey. “And now, Monsieur Voigt, let you and me be two men of Marseilles, and allons, marchons, arm-in-arm!” They go down to the door, where others are waiting for them, and they go quietly to the church, and the happy marriage takes place. While the ceremony is yet in progress, the notary is called out. When it is finished, he has returned, is standing behind Vendale, and touches him on the shoulder. “Go to the side door, one moment, Monsieur Vendale. Alone. Leave Madame to me.” At the side door of the church, are the same two men from the Hospice. They are snow-stained and travel-worn. They wish him joy, and then each lays his broad hand upon Vendale’s breast, and one says in a low voice, while the other steadfastly regards him: “It is here, Monsieur. Your litter. The very same.” “My litter is here? Why?” “Hush! For the sake of Madame. Your companion of that day—” “What of him?” The man looks at his comrade, and his comrade takes him up. Each keeps his hand laid earnestly on Vendale’s breast. “He had been living at the first Refuge, monsieur, for some days. The weather was now good, now bad.” “Yes?” “He arrived at our Hospice the day before yesterday, and, having refreshed himself with sleep on the floor before the fire, wrapped in his cloak, was resolute to go on, before dark, to the next Hospice. He had a great fear of that part of the way, and thought it would be worse to-morrow.” “Yes?” “He went on alone. He had passed the gallery when an avalanche—like that which fell behind you near the Bridge of the Ganther—” “Killed him?” “We dug him out, suffocated and broken all to pieces! But, monsieur, as to Madame. We have brought him here on the litter, to be buried. We must ascend the street outside. Madame must not see. It would be an accursed thing to bring the litter through the arch across the street, until Madame has passed through. As you descend, we who accompany the litter will set it down on the stones of the street the second to the right, and will stand before it. But do not let Madame turn her head towards the street the second to the right. There is no time to lose. Madame will be alarmed by your absence. Adieu!” Vendale returns to his bride, and draws her hand through his unmaimed arm. A pretty procession awaits them at the main door of the church. They take their station in it, and descend the street amidst the ringing of the bells, the firing of the guns, the waving of the flags, the playing of the music, the shouts, the smiles, and tears, of the excited town. Heads are uncovered as she passes, hands are kissed to her, all the people bless her. “Heaven’s benediction on the dear girl! See where she goes in her youth and beauty; she who so nobly saved his life!” Near the corner of the street the second to the right, he speaks to her, and calls her attention to the windows on the opposite side. The corner well passed, he says: “Do not look round, my darling, for a reason that I have,” and turns his head. Then, looking back along the street, he sees the litter and its bearers passing up alone under the arch, as he and she and their marriage train go down towards the shining valley.18671212https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/No_Thoroughfare_[1867_Christmas_Number]/1867-12-12-No_Thoroughfare_Christmas_Number.pdf
212https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/212<em>Sketches by Boz </em>(1839)Published by Chapman and Hall, 1839, 1. vol.Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em>&nbsp;<br /><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/niIGAAAAQAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/niIGAAAAQAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1839">1839</a>Public domain, Google-digitisedTable of Contents and Relation to Previous <em>Sketches.<br /></em><br />*An asterisk marks where titles were altered, usually in punctuation, from their appearance in <em>Sketches by Boz, </em>First Series (1836) and Second Series (1837) published by John Macrone. Note that, due to Dickens's efforts to include both the First Series and Second Series in one organised volume, placement and/or pagination is different for a given story or sketch in the 1839 Chapman and Hall new edition (one volume) in contrast to the previous editions. Only 'The Tuggs's at Ramsgate' is included in a <em>Sketches</em> edition for the first time, not having been in the 1836 and 1837 editions.<br /> <ul> <li><em>Seven Sketches From Our Parish.</em> <ul> <li>Chap. I. 'The Beadle<span>—The Parish Engine—The Schoolmaster', pp. 3-8. Originally </span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/43">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. IV, The Parish'</a></li> <li>Chap. II. 'The Curate<span>—The Old Lady—The Half-Pay Captain',* pp. 9-14. Orig. </span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/51">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XII, Our Parish' (I)</a></li> <li>Chap. III. 'The Four Sisters', pp. 15-20. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/53">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIV, Our Parish' (II)</a></li> <li>Chap. IV. 'The Election for Beadle', pp. 21-28. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/55">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XVI, Our Parish' (III)</a></li> <li>Chap. V. 'The Broker's Man', pp. 29-38. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/57">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XVIII, Our Parish' (IV)</a>&nbsp;</li> <li>Chap. VI. 'The Ladies' Societies', pp. 39-44. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/59">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XX, Our Parish' (V)</a></li> <li>'Our Next-Door Neighbour',* pp. 45-54. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/167">'Our Next-Door Neighbours'</a>.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <ul> <li><em>Scenes</em>. <ul> <li>'The Streets by Morning', pp. 55-60. Originally <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/56">'Sketches of London, No. XVII, The Streets—Morning'</a>.</li> <li>'The Streets by Night', pp. 61-66. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/106">'Scenes and Characters, No. 12, The Streets at Night'</a>.</li> <li>'Shops and their Tenants',* pp. 67-71. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/id/221">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. II, Shops and their Tenants'</a>.</li> <li>'Scotland Yard',* pp. 72-76. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/138">New Series, No. 2, 'Scotland Yard'</a>.</li> <li>'Seven Dials', pp. 77-81. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/64">'Scenes and Characters, No. 1, Seven Dials'</a>.</li> <li>'Meditations in Monmouth-Street', pp. 82-88. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/137">New Series, No. 1, 'Meditations in Monmouth-Street'</a>.</li> <li>'Hackney-Coach Stands', pp. 89-93. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/40">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No.I. Hackney-Coach Stands'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'Doctors' Commons', pp. 94-99. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/139">'New Series, No. 3, 'Doctors' Commons'</a>.</li> <li>'London Recreations', pp. 100-105. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/45">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VI, London Recreations'</a>.</li> <li>'The River', pp. 106-112.&nbsp;Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/52">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIII, The River'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'Astley's', pp. 113-119. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/50">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XI, Astley's'</a>.</li> <li>'Greenwich Fair', pp. 120-128. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/48">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. IX, Greenwich Fair'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'Private Theatres', pp. 129-135.&nbsp;Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/58">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIX, Private Theatres'</a>.</li> <li>'Vauxhall-Gardens by Day',* pp. 136-140. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/166">New Series No. 4, 'Vauxhall-Gardens by Day'.</a></li> <li>'Early Coaches', pp. 141-147. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/42">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. III, Early Coaches'</a>.</li> <li>'Omnibuses', pp. 148-152. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/id/223">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. I, Omnibuses'</a>.</li> <li>'The Last Cab Driver, and the First Omnibus Cad',* pp. 153-162. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/87">'Scenes and Characters, No. 6, Some Account of an Omnibus Cad'</a>.</li> <li>'A Parliamentary Sketch'*, pp. 163-174. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/44">'Sketches of London, No. V, The House'</a> and <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/47">'Sketches of London, No. VIII, Bellamy's'</a>.</li> <li>'Public Dinners', pp. 175-180. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/46">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VII, Public Dinners'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'The First of May', pp. 181-188. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/165">'A Little Talk about Spring and the Sweeps'</a>.</li> <li>'Brokers' and Marine-Store Shops', pp. 189-193. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/220">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. V, 'Brokers and Marine Store Shops'</a>.</li> <li>'Gin-Shops', pp. 194-199. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/41">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. II, Gin Shops'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'The Pawnbroker's Shop', pp. 200-207. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/54">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XV, The Pawnbrokers' Shop'</a>.</li> <li>'Criminal Courts', pp. 208-217. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/160">'Street Sketches. No. III. The Old Bailey'</a>.</li> <li>'A Visit to Newgate', 218-228. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/213">'A Visit to Newgate'</a> (<em>Sketches by Boz, </em>Vol.1, 1836).</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <ul> <li><em>Characters</em>.&nbsp; <ul> <li>'Thoughts about People', pp. 229-233. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/49">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. X, Thoughts About People'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'A Christmas Dinner', pp. 234-238. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/104">'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 10, Christmas Festivities'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'The New Year', pp. 239-244. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/105">'Scenes and Characters, No. 11, The New Year'</a>.</li> <li>'Miss Evans and the Eagle', pp. 245-249. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/65">'<em>Scenes and Characters,</em> No.2, Miss Evans and "The Eagle"'</a>.</li> <li>'The Parlour Orator', pp. 250-254. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/103">'Scenes and Characters, No. 9, The Parlour'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'The Hospital Patient', pp. 255-259. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/219">'The Hospital Patient'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'Misplaced Attachment of Mr. John Dounce', pp. 260-266. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/68">'Scenes and Characters, No. 5, Love and Oysters'</a>.</li> <li>'The Mistaken Milliner (A Tale of Ambition)',* pp. 267-273. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/101">'Scenes and Characters, No. 7, The Vocal Dressmaker'</a>.</li> <li>'The Dancing Academy', pp. 274-280. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/66">'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 3, The Dancing Academy'</a>.</li> <li>'Shabby-genteel People', pp. 281-285. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/id/222">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. IV, Shabby-genteel People'</a>.</li> <li>'Making a Night of It', pp. 286-291. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/67">'Scenes and Characters, No. 4, Making a Night of It'</a>.</li> <li>'The Prisoners' Van', pp. 292-296. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/102">'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 9, The Prisoners' Van'</a>.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <ul> <li><em>Tales.</em> <ul> <li>‘The Boarding-House’, * pp. 297-334. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1834-05-The_Boarding_House_No1">'The Boarding-House No.1'</a> and <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1834-08-The_Boarding_House_No2">'The Boarding-House No.2'</a>.</li> <li>'Mr. Minns and His Cousin', pp. 335-345. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/39">'A Dinner at Poplar Walk'</a>.</li> <li><strong>'Sentiment', pp. 346-357. Orig. 'Sentiment'.</strong></li> <li>‘The Tuggs’s at Ramsgate’, pp. 358-377. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1836-The_Tuggss_at_Ramgate">'The Tuggs's at Ramgate'</a>.</li> <li>'Horatio Sparkins', pp. 111-141. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/132">'Horatio Sparkins'</a>.</li> <li>'The Black Veil', pp. 396-407. Orig. ‘The Black Veil’ (<em>Sketches by Boz</em>, 1836).</li> <li>'The Steam Excursion', pp. 408-430. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/149">'The Steam Excursion'</a>.</li> <li>'The Great Winglebury Duel', pp. 431-448. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/213">‘The Great Winglebury Duel’</a> (<em>Sketches by Boz</em>, Vol.2, 1836).</li> <li>'Mrs. Joseph Porter', pp. 449-459. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/133">'Mrs. Joseph Porter, "Over the Way"'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>‘Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle’,* pp. 460-496. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/150">'Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle. Chapter the First'</a> and <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/151">'Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle. Chapter the Second'</a>.</li> <li>'The Bloomsbury Christening', pp. 497-514. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1834-04-The_Bloomsbury_Christening">'The Bloomsbury Christening'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>‘The Drunkard’s Death’, pp. 515-525. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/159">‘The Drunkard’s Death’</a> (<em>Sketches by Boz,</em> 1837).</li> </ul> </li> </ul><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1839-Sketches_by_BozDickens, Charles. <em>Sketches by Boz</em> (1839). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1839-Sketches_by_Boz">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1839-Sketches_by_Boz</a>.18390101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_by_Boz_[1839]/1839-Sketches_by_Boz.pdf
211https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/211<em>Sketches by Boz </em>(1850 Cheap Edition)Published by Chapman and Hall, 1850Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz_i_e_Charles_Dickens_With/e0JWAAAAcAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz_i_e_Charles_Dickens_With/e0JWAAAAcAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1850">1850</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1850-Sketches_by_Boz_Cheap_EditionDickens, Charles. <em>Sketches by Boz</em> (Cheap Edition, 1850). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1850-Sketches_by_Boz_Cheap_Edition">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1850-Sketches_by_Boz_Cheap_Edition</a>.18500101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_by_Boz_[1850_Cheap_Edition]/1850-Sketches-by-Boz-Cheap-Edition.pdf
213https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/213<em>Sketches by Boz,</em> First Series (1836)Published by John Macrone, 1836, 2 vols.Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/_P5NAAAAcAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/_P5NAAAAcAAJ</a>&nbsp;(Vol.1)<br /><br /><em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/Ff9NAAAAcAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/Ff9NAAAAcAAJ</a> (Vol.2)<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1836">1836</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+George+Cruikshank">Illustrated by George Cruikshank</a><span>Public domain, Google-digitised</span>Table of Contents and Relation to Previous <em>Sketches:</em><br /><br />Vol. I:<br /> <ul> <li><em>The Parish.</em> <ul> <li>Chapter I. 'The Beadle<span>—The Parish-Engine—The Schoolmaster', pp. 1-11. Originally </span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/43">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. IV, The Parish'</a></li> <li>Chapter II. 'The Curate<span>—The Old Lady—The Captain', pp. 12-23. Orig. </span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/51">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XII, Our Parish' (I)</a></li> <li>Chapter III. 'The Four Sisters', pp. 24-33. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/53">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIV, Our Parish' (II)</a>&nbsp;</li> <li>Chapter IV. 'The Election for Beadle', pp. 34-47. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/55">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XVI, Our Parish' (III)</a></li> <li>Chapter V. 'The Broker's Man', pp. 48-66. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/57">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XVIII, Our Parish' (IV)</a></li> <li>Chapter VI. 'The Ladies' Societies', pp. 67-78. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/59">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XX, Our Parish' (V)</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>'Miss Evans and the Eagle', pp. 79-87. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/65">'<em>Scenes and Characters,</em> No.2, Miss Evans and "The Eagle"'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Shops, and their Tenants', pp. 88-96. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/id/221">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. II, Shops and their Tenants'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Thoughts about People', pp. 97-106. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/49">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. X, Thoughts About People'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'A Visit to Newgate', 107-135. First Printing.</strong></li> <li><strong>'London Recreations', pp. 136-146. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/45">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VI, London Recreations'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong><em>The Boarding House. </em></strong> <ul> <li><strong>Chapter the First, pp. 147-180. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1834-05-The_Boarding_House_No1">'The Boarding-House No.1'</a></strong></li> <li><strong>Chapter the Second, pp. 181-223. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1834-08-The_Boarding_House_No2">'The Boarding-House No.2'</a>.</strong></li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>'Hackney-Coach Stands', pp. 224-232. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/40">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No.I. Hackney-Coach Stands'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'Brokers' and Marine-Store Shops', pp. 233-241. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/220">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. V, 'Brokers and Marine Store Shops'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'The Bloomsbury Christening', pp. 242-275. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/1834-04-The_Bloomsbury_Christening">'The Bloomsbury Christening'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'Gin-Shops', pp. 276-287. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/41">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. II, Gin Shops'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'Public Dinners', pp. 288-299. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/46">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. VII, Public Dinners'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'Astley's', pp. 300-313. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/50">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XI, Astley's'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Greenwich Fair', pp. 314-330. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/48">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. IX, Greenwich Fair'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'The Prisoners' Van', pp. 331-337. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/102">'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 9, The Prisoners' Van'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'A Christmas Dinner', pp. 338-348. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/104">'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 10, Christmas Festivities'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> </ul> <strong>Vol. II:</strong><br /> <ul> <li><strong><em>Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle.</em></strong> <ul> <li><strong>Chapter the First, pp. 1-29. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/150">'Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle. Chapter the First'</a>&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>Chapter the Second, pp. 30-76. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/151">'Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle. Chapter the Second'</a>.</strong></li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>'The Black Veil', pp. 77-100. First Printing.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Shabby-genteel People', pp. 101-110. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/id/222">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. IV, Shabby-genteel People'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Horatio Sparkins', pp. 111-141. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/132">'Horatio Sparkins'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'The Pawnbroker's Shop', pp. 142-157. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/54">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XV, The Pawnbrokers' Shop'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'The Dancing Academy', pp. 158-170. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/66">'<em>Scenes and Characters</em>, No. 3, The Dancing Academy'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Early Coaches', pp. 171-181. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/42">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. III, Early Coaches'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'The River', pp. 182-195. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/52">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIII, The River'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'Private Theatres', pp. 196-208. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/58">'<em>Sketches of London</em>, No. XIX, Private Theatres'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'The Great Winglebury Duel', pp. 209-243. First Printing.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Omnibuses', pp. 244-252. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/id/223">'<em>Street Sketches</em>, No. I, Omnibuses'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Mrs. Joseph Porter', pp. 253-272. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/133">'Mrs. Joseph Porter, "Over the Way"'</a>.&nbsp;</strong></li> <li><strong>'The Steam Excursion', pp. 273-318. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/149">'The Steam Excursion'</a>.</strong></li> <li><strong>'Sentiment', pp. 319-342. Orig. 'Sentiment'.</strong></li> </ul><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1836-Sketches_by_BozDickens, Charles. <em>Sketches by Boz</em> (1836). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-Sketches_by_Boz">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1836-Sketches_by_Boz</a>.18360101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_by_Boz_First_Series_[1836]/1836-Sketches_by_Boz_First_Series_Vol1.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_by_Boz_First_Series_[1836]/1836-Sketches_by_Boz_First_Series_Vol2.pdf
159https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/159<em>Sketches by Boz,</em> Second Series (1837)Published by John Macrone, 1837, 1 vol.Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/NyAGAAAAQAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_by_Boz/NyAGAAAAQAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837">1837</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+George+Cruikshank">Illustrated by George Cruikshank</a>Public domain, Google-digitised<span>Table of Contents and Relation to Previous&nbsp;</span><em>Sketches:<br /></em> <ul> <li>'The Streets by Morning', pp. 1-16. Originally <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/56">'Sketches of London, No. XVII, The Streets<span>—</span>Morning'</a>.</li> <li>'The Streets by Night', pp. 17-23. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/106">'Scenes and Characters, No. 12, The Streets at Night'</a>.</li> <li>'Making a Night of It', pp. 24-48. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/67">'Scenes and Characters, No. 4, Making a Night of It'</a>.</li> <li>'Criminal Courts', pp. 49-62. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/160">'Street Sketches. No. III. The Old Bailey'</a>.</li> <li>'Scotland-Yard', pp. 63-76. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/138">New Series, No. 2, 'Scotland Yard'</a>.</li> <li>'The New Year', pp. 77-92. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/105">'Scenes and Characters, No. 11, The New Year'</a>.</li> <li>'Meditations in Monmouth-Street', pp. 93-112. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/137">New Series, No. 1, 'Meditations in Monmouth-Street'</a>.</li> <li>'Our Next-Door Neighbours', pp. 113-131. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/167">'Our Next-Door Neighbours'</a>.</li> <li>'The Hospital Patient', pp. 132-142. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/219">'The Hospital Patient'</a>.&nbsp;</li> <li>'Seven Dials', pp. 143-156. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/64">'Scenes and Characters, No. 1, Seven Dials'</a>.</li> <li>'The Mistaken Milliner. A Tale of Ambition', pp. 157-174. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/101">'Scenes and Characters, No. 7, The Vocal Dressmaker'</a>.</li> <li>'Doctors' Commons', pp. 175-190. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/139">'New Series, No. 3, 'Doctors' Commons'</a>.</li> <li>'Misplaced Attachment of Mr. John Dounce', pp. 191-208. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/68">'Scenes and Characters, No. 5, Love and Oysters'</a>.</li> <li>'Vauxhall Gardens by Day', pp. 209-224. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/166">New Series No. 4, 'Vauxhall-Gardens by Day'.</a></li> <li>'A Parliamentary Sketch—With a Few Portraits', pp. 225-255. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/44">'Sketches of London, No. V, The House'</a> and <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/47">'Sketches of London, No. VIII, Bellamy's'</a>.</li> <li><span>'Mr. Minns and His Cousin', pp. 256-282. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/39">'A Dinner at Poplar Walk'</a>.&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span>'The Last Cab-Driver, and the First Omnibus Cad', pp. 283-308. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/87">'Scenes and Characters, No. 6, Some Account of an Omnibus Cad'</a>.</span></li> <li>'The Parlour Orator', pp. 309. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/103">'Scenes and Characters, No. 9, The Parlour'</a>.</li> <li>'The First of May', pp. 325-346. Orig. <a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/show/165">'A Little Talk about Spring and the Sweeps'</a>.</li> <li><span>'The Drunkard's Death', pp. 347-377. First Printing.</span></li> </ul><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1837_Sketches_by_Boz_Second_SeriesDickens, Charles. <em>Sketches by Boz, Second Series</em> (1837). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1837_Sketches_by_Boz_Second_Series">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1837_Sketches_by_Boz_Second_Series</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=95&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=BOZ">BOZ</a>18370101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_by_Boz_Second_Series_[1837]/1837_Sketches_by_Boz_Second_Series.pdf
158https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/158<em>Sketches of Young Couples</em>Published London: Chapman and Hall, 1840.Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books,</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_of_young_couples_by_the_author/KtwDAAAAQAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_of_young_couples_by_the_author/KtwDAAAAQAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1840">1840</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+Hablot+Knight+Browne+%28%27PHIZ%27%29">Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('PHIZ')</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1840-Sketches_of_Young_CouplesDickens, Charles. <em>Sketches of Young Couples.</em> <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1840-Sketches_of_Young_Couples">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1840-Sketches_of_Young_Couples</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a>An Urgent Remonstrance, &amp;c. TO THE GENTLEMEN OF ENGLAND, (BEING BACHELORS OR WIDOWERS,) THE REMONSTRANCE OF THEIR FAITHFUL FELLOW-SUBJECT, Sheweth,— That Her Most Gracious Majesty, Victoria, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, did, on the 23rd day of November last past, declare and pronounce to Her Most Honourable Privy Council, Her Majesty’s Most Gracious intention of entering into the bonds of wedlock. That Her Most Gracious Majesty, in so making known Her Most Gracious intention to Her Most Honourable Privy Council as aforesaid, did use and employ the words—&quot;It is my intention to ally myself in marriage with Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha.&quot; That the present is Bissextile, or Leap Year, in which it is held and considered lawful for any lady to offer and submit proposals of marriage to any gentleman, and to enforce and insist upon acceptance of the same, under pain of a certain fine or penalty; to wit, one silk or satin dress of the first quality, to be chosen by the lady and paid (or owed) for, by the gentleman. That these and other the horrors and dangers with which the said Bissextile, or Leap Year, threatens the gentlemen of England on every occasion of its periodical return, have been greatly aggravated and augmented by the terms of Her Majesty’s said Most Gracious communication, which have filled the heads of divers young ladies in this Realm with certain new ideas destructive to the peace of mankind, that never entered their imagination before. That a case has occurred in Camberwell, in which a young lady informed her Papa that &quot;she intended to ally herself in marriage&quot; with Mr. Smith of Stepney; and that another, and a very distressing case, has occurred at Tottenham, in which a young lady not only stated her intention of allying herself in marriage with her cousin John, but, taking violent possession of her said cousin, actually married him. That similar outrages are of constant occurrence, not only in the capital and its neighbourhood, but throughout the kingdom, and that unless the excited female populace be speedily checked and restrained in their lawless proceedings, most deplorable results must ensue therefrom; among which may be anticipated a most alarming increase in the population of the country, with which no efforts of the agricultural or manufacturing interest can possibly keep pace. That there is strong reason to suspect the existence of a most extensive plot, conspiracy, or design, secretly contrived by vast numbers of single ladies in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and now extending its ramifications in every quarter of the land; the object and intent of which plainly appears to be the holding and solemnising of an enormous and unprecedented number of marriages, on the day on which the nuptials of Her said Most Gracious Majesty are performed. That such plot, conspiracy, or design, strongly savours of Popery, as tending to the discomfiture of the Clergy of the Established Church, by entailing upon them great mental and physical exhaustion; and that such Popish plots are fomented and encouraged by Her Majesty’s Ministers, which clearly appears—not only from Her Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs traitorously getting married while holding office under the Crown; but from Mr. O’Connell having been heard to declare and avow that, if he had a daughter to marry, she should be married on the same day as Her said Most Gracious Majesty. That such arch plots, conspiracies, and designs, besides being fraught with danger to the Established Church, and (consequently) to the State, cannot fail to bring ruin and bankruptcy upon a large class of Her Majesty’s subjects; as a great and sudden increase in the number of married men occasioning the comparative desertion (for a time) of Taverns, Hotels, Billiard-rooms, and Gaming-Houses, will deprive the Proprietors of their accustomed profits and returns. And in further proof of the depth and baseness of such designs, it may be here observed, that all proprietors of Taverns, Hotels, Billiard-rooms, and Gaming-Houses, are (especially the last) solemnly devoted to the Protestant religion. For all these reasons, and many others of no less gravity and import, an urgent appeal is made to the gentlemen of England (being bachelors or widowers) to take immediate steps for convening a Public meeting; To consider of the best and surest means of averting the dangers with which they are threatened by the recurrence of Bissextile, or Leap Year, and the additional sensation created among single ladies by the terms of Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Declaration; To take measures, without delay, for resisting the said single Ladies, and counteracting their evil designs; And to pray Her Majesty to dismiss her present Ministers, and to summon to her Councils those distinguished Gentlemen in various Honourable Professions who, by insulting on all occasions the only Lady in England who can be insulted with safety, have given a sufficient guarantee to Her Majesty’s Loving Subjects that they, at least, are qualified to make war with women, and are already expert in the use of those weapons which are common to the lowest and most abandoned of the sex. THE YOUNG COUPLE. There is to be a wedding this morning at the corner house in the terrace. The pastry-cook’s people have been there half-a-dozen times already; all day yesterday there was a great stir and bustle, and they were up this morning as soon as it was light. Miss Emma Fielding is going to be married to young Mr. Harvey. Heaven alone can tell in what bright colours this marriage is painted upon the mind of the little housemaid at number six, who has hardly slept a wink all night with thinking of it, and now stands on the unswept door-steps leaning upon her broom, and looking wistfully towards the enchanted house. Nothing short of omniscience can divine what visions of the baker, or the green-grocer, or the smart and most insinuating butterman, are flitting across her mind—what thoughts of how she would dress on such an occasion, if she were a lady—of how she would dress, if she were only a bride—of how cook would dress, being bridesmaid, conjointly with her sister &quot;in place&quot; at Fulham, and how the clergyman, deeming them so many ladies, would be quite humbled and respectful. What day-dreams of hope and happiness—of life being one perpetual holiday, with no master and no mistress to grant or withhold it—of every Sunday being a Sunday out—of pure freedom as to curls and ringlets, and no obligation to hide fine heads of hair in caps—what pictures of happiness, vast and immense to her, but utterly ridiculous to us, bewilder the brain of the little housemaid at number six, all called into existence by the wedding at the corner! We smile at such things, and so we should, though perhaps for a better reason than commonly presents itself. It should be pleasant to us to know that there are notions of happiness so moderate and limited, since upon those who entertain them, happiness and lightness of heart are very easily bestowed. But the little housemaid is awakened from her reverie, for forth from the door of the magical corner house there runs towards her, all fluttering in smart new dress and streaming ribands, her friend Jane Adams, who comes all out of breath to redeem a solemn promise of taking her in, under cover of the confusion, to see the breakfast table spread forth in state, and—sight of sights!—her young mistress ready dressed for church. And there, in good truth, when they have stolen up-stairs on tip-toe and edged themselves in at the chamber-door—there is Miss Emma &quot;looking like the sweetest picter,&quot; in a white chip bonnet and orange flowers, and all other elegancies becoming a bride, (with the make, shape, and quality of every article of which the girl is perfectly familiar in one moment, and never forgets to her dying day)—and there is Miss Emma’s mamma in tears, and Miss Emma’s papa comforting her, and saying how that of course she has been long looking forward to this, and how happy she ought to be—and there too is Miss Emma’s sister with her arms round her neck, and the other bridesmaid all smiles and tears, quieting the children, who would cry more but that they are so finely dressed, and yet sob for fear sister Emma should be taken away—and it is all so affecting, that the two servant-girls cry more than anybody; and Jane Adams, sitting down upon the stairs, when they have crept away, declares that her legs tremble so that she don’t know what to do, and that she will say for Miss Emma, that she never had a hasty word from her, and that she does hope and pray she may be happy. But Jane soon comes round again, and then surely there never was anything like the breakfast table, glittering with plate and china, and set out with flowers and sweets, and long-necked bottles, in the most sumptuous and dazzling manner. In the centre, too, is the mighty charm, the cake, glistening with frosted sugar, and garnished beautifully. They agree that there ought to be a little Cupid under one of the barley-sugar temples, or at least two hearts and an arrow; but, with this exception, there is nothing to wish for, and a table could not be handsomer. As they arrive at this conclusion, who should come in but Mr. John! to whom Jane says that its only Anne from number six; and John says he knows, for he’s often winked his eye down the area, which causes Anne to blush and look confused. She is going away, indeed; when Mr. John will have it that she must drink a glass of wine, and he says never mind it’s being early in the morning, it won’t hurt her: so they shut the door and pour out the wine; and Anne drinking lane’s health, and adding, &quot;and here’s wishing you yours, Mr. John,&quot; drinks it in a great many sips,—Mr. John all the time making jokes appropriate to the occasion. At last Mr. John, who has waxed bolder by degrees, pleads the usage at weddings, and claims the privilege of a kiss, which he obtains after a great scuffle; and footsteps being now heard on the stairs, they disperse suddenly. By this time a carriage has driven up to convey the bride to church, and Anne of number six prolonging the process of &quot;cleaning her door,&quot; has the satisfaction of beholding the bride and bridesmaids, and the papa and mamma, hurry into the same and drive rapidly off. Nor is this all, for soon other carriages begin to arrive with a posse of company all beautifully dressed, at whom she could stand and gaze for ever; but having something else to do, is compelled to take one last long look and shut the street-door. And now the company have gone down to breakfast, and tears have given place to smiles, for all the corks are out of the long-necked bottles, and their contents are disappearing rapidly. Miss Emma’s papa is at the top of the table; Miss Emma’s mamma at the bottom; and beside the latter are Miss Emma herself and her husband,—admitted on all hands to be the handsomest and most interesting young couple ever known. All down both sides of the table, too, are various young ladies, beautiful to see, and various young gentlemen who seem to think so; and there, in a post of honour, is an unmarried aunt of Miss Emma’s, reported to possess unheard-of riches, and to have expressed vast testamentary intentions respecting her favourite niece and new nephew. This lady has been very liberal and generous already, as the jewels worn by the bride abundantly testify, but that is nothing to what she means to do, or even to what she has done, for she put herself in close communication with the dressmaker three months ago, and prepared a wardrobe (with some articles worked by her own hands) fit for a Princess. People may call her an old maid, and so she may be, but she is neither cross nor ugly for all that; on the contrary, she is very cheerful and pleasant-looking, and very kind and tender-hearted: which is no matter of surprise except to those who yield to popular prejudices without thinking why, and will never grow wiser and never know better. Of all the company though, none are more pleasant to behold or better pleased with themselves than two young children, who, in honour of the day, have seats among the guests. Of these, one is a little fellow of six or eight years old, brother to the bride,—and the other a girl of the same age, or something younger, whom he calls &quot;his wife.&quot; The real bride and bridegroom are not more devoted than they: he all love and attention, and she all blushes and fondness, toying with a little bouquet which he gave her this morning, and placing the scattered rose-leaves in her bosom with nature’s own coquettishness. They have dreamt of each other in their quiet dreams, these children, and their little hearts have been nearly broken when the absent one has been dispraised in jest. When will there come in after-life a passion so earnest, generous, and true as theirs; what, even in its gentlest realities, can have the grace and charm that hover round such fairy lovers! By this time the merriment and happiness of the feast have gained their height; certain ominous looks begin to be exchanged between the bridesmaids, and somehow it gets whispered about that the carriage which is to take the young couple into the country has arrived. Such members of the party as are most disposed to prolong its enjoyments, affect to consider this a false alarm, but it turns out too true, being speedily confirmed, first by the retirement of the bride and a select file of intimates who are to prepare her for the journey, and secondly by the withdrawal of the ladies generally. To this there ensues a particularly awkward pause, in which everybody essays to be facetious, and nobody succeeds; at length the bridegroom makes a mysterious disappearance in obedience to some equally mysterious signal; and the table is deserted. Now, for at least six weeks last past it has been solemnly devised and settled that the young couple should go away in secret; but they no sooner appear without the door than the drawing-room windows are blocked up with ladies waving their handkerchiefs and kissing their hands, and the dining-room panes with gentlemen’s faces beaming farewell in every queer variety of its expression. The hall and steps are crowded with servants in white favours, mixed up with particular friends and relations who have darted out to say good-bye; and foremost in the group are the tiny lovers arm in arm, thinking, with fluttering hearts, what happiness it would be to dash away together in that gallant coach, and never part again. The bride has barely time for one hurried glance at her old home, when the steps rattle, the door slams, the horses clatter on the pavement, and they have left it far away. A knot of women servants still remain clustered in the hall, whispering among themselves, and there of course is Anne from number six, who has made another escape on some plea or other, and been an admiring witness of the departure. There are two points on which Anne expatiates over and over again, without the smallest appearance of fatigue or intending to leave off; one is, that she &quot;never see in all her life such a—oh such a angel of a gentleman as Mr. Harvey&quot;—and the other, that she &quot;can’t tell how it is, but it don’t seem a bit like a work-a-day, or a Sunday neither—it’s all so unsettled and unregular.&quot; THE FORMAL COUPLE. The formal couple are the most prim, cold, immovable, and unsatisfactory people on the face of the earth. Their faces, voices, dress, house, furniture, walk, and manner, are all the essence of formality, unrelieved by one redeeming touch of frankness, heartiness, or nature. Everything with the formal couple resolves itself into a matter of form. They don’t call upon you on your account, but their own; not to see how you are, but to show how they are: it is not a ceremony to do honour to you, but to themselves,—not due to your position, but to theirs. If one of a friend’s children die, the formal couple are as sure and punctual in sending to the house as the undertaker; if a friend’s family be increased, the monthly nurse is not more attentive than they. The formal couple, in fact, joyfully seize all occasions of testifying their good-breeding and precise observance of the little usages of society; and for you, who are the means to this end, they care as much as a man does for the tailor who has enabled him to cut a figure, or a woman for the milliner who has assisted her to a conquest. Having an extensive connexion among that kind of people who make acquaintances and eschew friends, the formal gentleman attends from time to time a great many funerals, to which he is formally invited, and to which he formally goes, as returning a call for the last time. Here his deportment is of the most faultless description; he knows the exact pitch of voice it is proper to assume, the sombre look he ought to wear, the melancholy tread which should be his gait for the day. He is perfectly acquainted with all the dreary courtesies to be observed in a mourning-coach; knows when to sigh, and when to hide his nose in the white handkerchief; and looks into the grave and shakes his head when the ceremony is concluded, with the sad formality of a mute. &quot;What kind of funeral was it?&quot; says the formal lady, when he returns home. &quot;Oh!&quot; replies the formal gentleman, &quot;there never was such a gross and disgusting impropriety; there were no feathers.&quot; &quot;No feathers!&quot; cries the lady, as if on wings of black feathers dead people fly to Heaven, and, lacking them, they must of necessity go elsewhere. Her husband shakes his head; and further adds, that they had seed-cake instead of plum-cake, and that it was all white wine. &quot;All white wine!&quot; exclaims his wife. &quot;Nothing but sherry and madeira,&quot; says the husband. &quot;What! no port?&quot; &quot;Not a drop.&quot; No port, no plums, and no feathers! &quot;You will recollect, my dear,&quot; says the formal lady, in a voice of stately reproof, &quot;that when we first met this poor man who is now dead and gone, and he took that very strange course of addressing me at dinner without being previously introduced, I ventured to express my opinion that the family were quite ignorant of etiquette, and very imperfectly acquainted with the decencies of life. You have now had a good opportunity of judging for yourself, and all I have to say is, that I trust you will never go to a funeral there again.&quot; &quot;My dear,&quot; replies the formal gentleman, &quot;I never will.&quot; So the informal deceased is cut in his grave; and the formal couple, when they tell the story of the funeral, shake their heads, and wonder what some people’s feelings are made of, and what their notions of propriety can be! If the formal couple have a family (which they sometimes have), they are not children, but little, pale, sour, sharp-nosed men and women; and so exquisitely brought up, that they might be very old dwarfs for anything that appeareth to the contrary. Indeed, they are so acquainted with forms and conventionalities, and conduct themselves with such strict decorum, that to see the little girl break a looking-glass in some wild outbreak, or the little boy kick his parents, would be to any visitor an unspeakable relief and consolation. The formal couple are always sticklers for what is rigidly proper, and have a great readiness in detecting hidden impropriety of speech or thought, which by less scrupulous people would be wholly unsuspected. Thus, if they pay a visit to the theatre, they sit all night in a perfect agony lest anything improper or immoral should proceed from the stage; and if anything should happen to be said which admits of a double construction, they never fail to take it up directly, and to express by their looks the great outrage which their feelings have sustained. Perhaps this is their chief reason for absenting themselves almost entirely from places of public amusement. They go sometimes to the Exhibition of the Royal Academy;—but that is often more shocking than the stage itself, and the formal lady thinks that it really is high time Mr. Etty was prosecuted and made a public example of. We made one at a christening party not long since, where there were amongst the guests a formal couple, who suffered the acutest torture from certain jokes, incidental to such an occasion, cut—and very likely dried also—by one of the godfathers; a red-faced elderly gentleman, who, being highly popular with the rest of the company, had it all his own way, and was in great spirits. It was at supper-time that this gentleman came out in full force. We—being of a grave and quiet demeanour—had been chosen to escort the formal lady down-stairs, and, sitting beside her, had a favourable opportunity of observing her emotions. We have a shrewd suspicion that, in the very beginning, and in the first blush—literally the first blush—of the matter, the formal lady had not felt quite certain whether the being present at such a ceremony, and encouraging, as it were, the public exhibition of a baby, was not an act involving some degree of indelicacy and impropriety; but certain we are that when that baby’s health was drunk, and allusions were made, by a grey-headed gentleman proposing it, to the time when he had dandled in his arms the young christian’s mother,—certain we are that then the formal lady took the alarm, and recoiled from the old gentleman as from a hoary profligate. Still she bore it; she fanned herself with an indignant air, but still she bore it. A comic song was sung, involving a confession from some imaginary gentleman that he had kissed a female, and yet the formal lady bore it. But when at last, the health of the godfather before-mentioned being drunk, the godfather rose to return thanks, and in the course of his observations darkly hinted at babies yet unborn, and even contemplated the possibility of the subject of that festival having brothers and sisters, the formal lady could endure no more, but, bowing slightly round, and sweeping haughtily past the offender, left the room in tears, under the protection of the formal gentleman. THE LOVING COUPLE. There cannot be a better practical illustration of the wise saw and ancient instance, that there may be too much of a good thing, than is presented by a loving couple. Undoubtedly it is meet and proper that two persons joined together in holy matrimony should be loving, and unquestionably it is pleasant to know and see that they are so; but there is a time for all things, and the couple who happen to be always in a loving state before company, are well nigh intolerable. And in taking up this position we would have it distinctly understood that we do not seek alone the sympathy of bachelors, in whose objection to loving couples we recognise interested motives and personal considerations. We grant that to that unfortunate class of society there may be something very irritating, tantalising, and provoking, in being compelled to witness those gentle endearments and chaste interchanges which to loving couples are quite the ordinary business of life. But while we recognise the natural character of the prejudice to which these unhappy men are subject, we can neither receive their biassed evidence, nor address ourself to their inflamed and angered minds. Dispassionate experience is our only guide; and in these moral essays we seek no less to reform hymeneal offenders than to hold out a timely warning to all rising couples, and even to those who have not yet set forth upon their pilgrimage towards the matrimonial market. Let all couples, present or to come, therefore profit by the example of Mr. and Mrs. Leaver, themselves a loving couple in the first degree. Mr. and Mrs. Leaver are pronounced by Mrs. Starling, a widow lady who lost her husband when she was young, and lost herself about the same-time—for by her own count she has never since grown five years older—to be a perfect model of wedded felicity. &quot;You would suppose,&quot; says the romantic lady, &quot;that they were lovers only just now engaged. Never was such happiness! They are so tender, so affectionate, so attached to each other, so enamoured, that positively nothing can be more charming!&quot; &quot;Augusta, my soul,&quot; says Mr. Leaver. &quot;Augustus, my life,&quot; replies Mrs. Leaver. &quot;Sing some little ballad, darling,&quot; quoth Mr. Leaver. &quot;I couldn’t, indeed, dearest,&quot; returns Mrs. Leaver. &quot;Do, my dove,&quot; says Mr. Leaver. &quot;I couldn’t possibly, my love,&quot; replies Mrs. Leaver; &quot;and it’s very naughty of you to ask me.&quot; &quot;Naughty, darling!&quot; cries Mr. Leaver. &quot;Yes, very naughty, and very cruel,&quot; returns Mrs. Leaver, &quot;for you know I have a sore throat, and that to sing would give me great pain. You’re a monster, and I hate you. Go away!&quot; Mrs. Leaver has said &quot;go away,&quot; because Mr. Leaver has tapped her under the chin: Mr. Leaver not doing as he is bid, but on the contrary, sitting down beside her, Mrs. Leaver slaps Mr. Leaver; and Mr. Leaver in return slaps Mrs. Leaver, and it being now time for all persons present to look the other way, they look the other way, and hear a still small sound as of kissing, at which Mrs. Starling is thoroughly enraptured, and whispers her neighbour that if all married couples were like that, what a heaven this earth would be! The loving couple are at home when this occurs, and maybe only three or four friends are present, but, unaccustomed to reserve upon this interesting point, they are pretty much the same abroad. Indeed upon some occasions, such as a pic-nic or a water-party, their lovingness is even more developed, as we had an opportunity last summer of observing in person. There was a great water-party made up to go to Twickenham and dine, and afterwards dance in an empty villa by the river-side, hired expressly for the purpose. Mr. and Mrs. Leaver were of the company; and it was our fortune to have a seat in the same boat, which was an eight-oared galley, manned by amateurs, with a blue striped awning of the same pattern as their Guernsey shirts, and a dingy red flag of the same shade as the whiskers of the stroke oar. A coxswain being appointed, and all other matters adjusted, the eight gentlemen threw themselves into strong paroxysms, and pulled up with the tide, stimulated by the compassionate remarks of the ladies, who one and all exclaimed, that it seemed an immense exertion—as indeed it did. At first we raced the other boat, which came alongside in gallant style; but this being found an unpleasant amusement, as giving rise to a great quantity of splashing, and rendering the cold pies and other viands very moist, it was unanimously voted down, and we were suffered to shoot a-head, while the second boat followed ingloriously in our wake. It was at this time that we first recognised Mr. Leaver. There were two firemen-watermen in the boat, lying by until somebody was exhausted; and one of them, who had taken upon himself the direction of affairs, was heard to cry in a gruff voice, &quot;Pull away, number two—give it her, number two—take a longer reach, number two—now, number two, sir, think you’re winning a boat.&quot; The greater part of the company had no doubt begun to wonder which of the striped Guernseys it might be that stood in need of such encouragement, when a stifled shriek from Mrs. Leaver confirmed the doubtful and informed the ignorant; and Mr. Leaver, still further disguised in a straw hat and no neckcloth, was observed to be in a fearful perspiration, and failing visibly. Nor was the general consternation diminished at this instant by the same gentleman (in the performance of an accidental aquatic feat, termed &quot;catching a crab&quot;) plunging suddenly backward, and displaying nothing of himself to the company, but two violently struggling legs. Mrs. Leaver shrieked again several times, and cried piteously—&quot;Is he dead? Tell me the worst. Is he dead?&quot; Now, a moment’s reflection might have convinced the loving wife, that unless her husband were endowed with some most surprising powers of muscular action, he never could be dead while he kicked so hard; but still Mrs. Leaver cried, &quot;Is he dead? is he dead?&quot; and still everybody else cried—&quot;No, no, no,&quot; until such time as Mr. Leaver was replaced in a sitting posture, and his oar (which had been going through all kinds of wrong-headed performances on its own account) was once more put in his hand, by the exertions of the two firemen-watermen. Mr. Leaver then exclaimed, &quot;Augustus, my child, come to me;&quot; and Mr. Leaver said, &quot;Augusta, my love, compose yourself, I am not injured.&quot; But Mrs. Leaver cried again more piteously than before, &quot;Augustus, my child, come to me;&quot; and now the company generally, who seemed to be apprehensive that if Mr. Leaver remained where he was, he might contribute more than his proper share towards the drowning of the party, disinterestedly took part with Mrs. Leaver, and said he really ought to go, and that he was not strong enough for such violent exercise, and ought never to have undertaken it. Reluctantly, Mr. Leaver went, and laid himself down at Mrs. Leaver’s feet, and Mrs. Leaver stooping over him, said, &quot;Oh Augustus, how could you terrify me so?&quot; and Mr. Leaver said, &quot;Augusta, my sweet, I never meant to terrify you;&quot; and Mrs. Leaver said, &quot;You are faint, my dear;&quot; and Mr. Leaver said, &quot;I am rather so, my love;&quot; and they were very loving indeed under Mrs. Leaver’s veil, until at length Mr. Leaver came forth again, and pleasantly asked if he had not heard something said about bottled stout and sandwiches. Mrs. Starling, who was one of the party, was perfectly delighted with this scene, and frequently murmured half-aside, &quot;What a loving couple you are!&quot; or &quot;How delightful it is to see man and wife so happy together!&quot; To us she was quite poetical, (for we are a kind of cousins,) observing that hearts beating in unison like that made life a paradise of sweets; and that when kindred creatures were drawn together by sympathies so fine and delicate, what more than mortal happiness did not our souls partake! To all this we answered &quot;Certainly,&quot; or &quot;Very true,&quot; or merely sighed, as the case might be. At every new act of the loving couple, the widow’s admiration broke out afresh; and when Mrs. Leaver would not permit Mr. Leaver to keep his hat off, lest the sun should strike to his head, and give him a brain fever, Mrs. Starling actually shed tears, and said it reminded her of Adam and Eve. The loving couple were thus loving all the way to Twickenham, but when we arrived there (by which time the amateur crew looked very thirsty and vicious) they were more playful than ever, for Mrs. Leaver threw stones at Mr. Leaver, and Mr. Leaver ran after Mrs. Leaver on the grass, in a most innocent and enchanting manner. At dinner, too, Mr. Leaver would steal Mrs. Leaver’s tongue, and Mrs. Leaver would retaliate upon Mr. Leaver’s fowl; and when Mrs. Leaver was going to take some lobster salad, Mr. Leaver wouldn’t let her have any, saying that it made her ill, and she was always sorry for it afterwards, which afforded Mrs. Leaver an opportunity of pretending to be cross, and showing many other prettinesses. But this was merely the smiling surface of their loves, not the mighty depths of the stream, down to which the company, to say the truth, dived rather unexpectedly, from the following accident. It chanced that Mr. Leaver took upon himself to propose the bachelors who had first originated the notion of that entertainment, in doing which, he affected to regret that he was no longer of their body himself, and pretended grievously to lament his fallen state. This Mrs. Leaver’s feelings could not brook, even in jest, and consequently, exclaiming aloud, &quot;He loves me not, he loves me not!&quot; she fell in a very pitiable state into the arms of Mrs. Starling, and, directly becoming insensible, was conveyed by that lady and her husband into another room. Presently Mr. Leaver came running back to know if there was a medical gentleman in company, and as there was, (in what company is there not?) both Mr. Leaver and the medical gentleman hurried away together. The medical gentleman was the first who returned, and among his intimate friends he was observed to laugh and wink, and look as unmedical as might be; but when Mr. Leaver came back he was very solemn, and in answer to all inquiries, shook his head, and remarked that Augusta was far too sensitive to be trifled with—an opinion which the widow subsequently confirmed. Finding that she was in no imminent peril, however, the rest of the party betook themselves to dancing on the green, and very merry and happy they were, and a vast quantity of flirtation there was; the last circumstance being no doubt attributable, partly to the fineness of the weather, and partly to the locality, which is well known to be favourable to all harmless recreations. In the bustle of the scene, Mr. and Mrs. Leaver stole down to the boat, and disposed themselves under the awning, Mrs. Leaver reclining her head upon Mr. Leaver’s shoulder, and Mr. Leaver grasping her hand with great fervour, and looking in her face from time to time with a melancholy and sympathetic aspect. The widow sat apart, feigning to be occupied with a book, but stealthily observing them from behind her fan; and the two firemen-watermen, smoking their pipes on the bank hard by, nudged each other, and grinned in enjoyment of the joke. Very few of the party missed the loving couple; and the few who did, heartily congratulated each other on their disappearance. THE CONTRADICTORY COUPLE. One would suppose that two people who are to pass their whole lives together, and must necessarily be very often alone with each other, could find little pleasure in mutual contradiction; and yet what is more common than a contradictory couple? The contradictory couple agree in nothing but contradiction. They return home from Mrs. Bluebottle’s dinner-party, each in an opposite corner of the coach, and do not exchange a syllable until they have been seated for at least twenty minutes by the fireside at home, when the gentleman, raising his eyes from the stove, all at once breaks silence: &quot;What a very extraordinary thing it is,&quot; says he, &quot;that you will contradict, Charlotte!&#039; &quot;I contradict!&quot; cries the lady, &quot;but that’s just like you.&quot; &quot;What’s like me?&quot; says the gentleman sharply. &quot;Saying that I contradict you,&quot; replies the lady. &quot;Do you mean to say that you do not contradict me?&quot; retorts the gentleman; &quot;do you mean to say that you have not been contradicting me the whole of this day? Do you mean to tell me now, that you have not?&quot; &quot;I mean to tell you nothing of the kind,&quot; replies the lady quietly; &quot;when you are wrong, of course I shall contradict you.&quot; During this dialogue the gentleman has been taking his brandy-and-water on one side of the fire, and the lady, with her dressing-case on the table, has been curling her hair on the other. She now lets down her back hair, and proceeds to brush it; preserving at the same time an air of conscious rectitude and suffering virtue, which is intended to exasperate the gentleman—and does so. &quot;I do believe,&quot; he says, taking the spoon out of his glass, and tossing it on the table, &quot;that of all the obstinate, positive, wrong-headed creatures that were ever born, you are the most so, Charlotte.&quot; &quot;Certainly, certainly, have it your own way, pray. You see how much I contradict you,&quot; rejoins the lady. &quot;Of course, you didn’t contradict me at dinner-time—oh no, not you!&quot; says the gentleman. &quot;Yes, I did,&quot; says the lady. &quot;Oh, you did,&quot; cries the gentleman; &quot;you admit that?&quot; &quot;If you call that contradiction, I do,&quot; the lady answers; &quot;and I say again, Edward, that when I know you are wrong, I will contradict you. I am not your slave.&quot; &quot;Not my slave!&quot; repeats the gentleman bitterly; &quot;and you still mean to say that in the Blackburns’ new house there are not more than fourteen doors, including the door of the wine-cellar!&quot; &quot;I mean to say,&quot; retorts the lady, beating time with her hair-brush on the palm of her hand, &quot;that in that house there are fourteen doors and no more.&quot; &quot;Well then—&quot; cries the gentleman, rising in despair, and pacing the room with rapid strides. &quot;By G-, this is enough to destroy a man’s intellect, and drive him mad!&quot; By and by the gentleman comes-to a little, and passing his hand gloomily across his forehead, reseats himself in his former chair. There is a long silence, and this time the lady begins. &quot;I appealed to Mr. Jenkins, who sat next to me on the sofa in the drawing-room during tea—&quot; &quot;Morgan, you mean,&quot; interrupts the gentleman. &quot;I do not mean anything of the kind,&quot; answers the lady. &quot;Now, by all that is aggravating and impossible to bear,&quot; cries the gentleman, clenching his hands and looking upwards in agony, &quot;she is going to insist upon it that Morgan is Jenkins!&quot; &quot;Do you take me for a perfect fool?&quot; exclaims the lady; &quot;do you suppose I don’t know the one from the other? Do you suppose I don’t know that the man in the blue coat was Mr. Jenkins?&quot; &quot;Jenkins in a blue coat!&quot; cries the gentleman with a groan; &quot;Jenkins in a blue coat! a man who would suffer death rather than wear anything but brown!&quot; &quot;Do you dare to charge me with telling an untruth?&quot; demands the lady, bursting into tears. &quot;I charge you, ma’am,&quot; retorts the gentleman, starting up, &quot;with being a monster of contradiction, a monster of aggravation, a—a—a—Jenkins in a blue coat!—what have I done that I should be doomed to hear such statements!&quot; Expressing himself with great scorn and anguish, the gentleman takes up his candle and stalks off to bed, where feigning to be fast asleep when the lady comes up-stairs drowned in tears, murmuring lamentations over her hard fate and indistinct intentions of consulting her brothers, he undergoes the secret torture of hearing her exclaim between whiles, &quot;I know there are only fourteen doors in the house, I know it was Mr. Jenkins, I know he had a blue coat on, and I would say it as positively as I do now, if they were the last words I had to speak!&quot; If the contradictory couple are blessed with children, they are not the less contradictory on that account. Master James and Miss Charlotte present themselves after dinner, and being in perfect good humour, and finding their parents in the same amiable state, augur from these appearances half a glass of wine a-piece and other extraordinary indulgences. But unfortunately Master James, growing talkative upon such prospects, asks his mamma how tall Mrs. Parsons is, and whether she is not six feet high; to which his mamma replies, &quot;Yes, she should think she was, for Mrs. Parsons is a very tall lady indeed; quite a giantess.&quot; &quot;For Heaven’s sake, Charlotte,&quot; cries her husband, &quot;do not tell the child such preposterous nonsense. Six feet high!&quot; &quot;Well,&quot; replies the lady, &quot;surely I may be permitted to have an opinion; my opinion is, that she is six feet high—at least six feet.&quot; &quot;Now you know, Charlotte,&quot; retorts the gentleman sternly, &quot;that that is not your opinion—that you have no such idea—and that you only say this for the sake of contradiction.&quot; &quot;You are exceedingly polite,&quot; his wife replies; &quot;to be wrong about such a paltry question as anybody’s height, would be no great crime; but I say again, that I believe Mrs. Parsons to be six feet—more than six feet; nay, I believe you know her to be full six feet, and only say she is not, because I say she is.&quot; This taunt disposes the gentleman to become violent, but he cheeks himself, and is content to mutter, in a haughty tone, &quot;Six feet—ha! ha! Mrs. Parsons six feet!&quot; and the lady answers, &quot;Yes, six feet. I am sure I am glad you are amused, and I’ll say it again—six feet.&quot; Thus the subject gradually drops off, and the contradiction begins to be forgotten, when Master James, with some undefined notion of making himself agreeable, and putting things to rights again, unfortunately asks his mamma what the moon’s made of; which gives her occasion to say that he had better not ask her, for she is always wrong and never can be right; that he only exposes her to contradiction by asking any question of her; and that he had better ask his papa, who is infallible, and never can be wrong. Papa, smarting under this attack, gives a terrible pull at the bell, and says, that if the conversation is to proceed in this way, the children had better be removed. Removed they are, after a few tears and many struggles; and Pa having looked at Ma sideways for a minute or two, with a baleful eye, draws his pocket-handkerchief over his face, and composes himself for his after-dinner nap. The friends of the contradictory couple often deplore their frequent disputes, though they rather make light of them at the same time: observing, that there is no doubt they are very much attached to each other, and that they never quarrel except about trifles. But neither the friends of the contradictory couple, nor the contradictory couple themselves, reflect, that as the most stupendous objects in nature are but vast collections of minute particles, so the slightest and least considered trifles make up the sum of human happiness or misery. THE COUPLE WHO DOTE UPON THEIR CHILDREN. The couple who dote upon their children have usually a great many of them: six or eight at least. The children are either the healthiest in all the world, or the most unfortunate in existence. In either case, they are equally the theme of their doting parents, and equally a source of mental anguish and irritation to their doting parents’ friends. The couple who dote upon their children recognise no dates but those connected with their births, accidents, illnesses, or remarkable deeds. They keep a mental almanack with a vast number of Innocents’ days, all in red letters. They recollect the last coronation, because on that day little Tom fell down the kitchen stairs; the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, because it was on the fifth of November that Ned asked whether wooden legs were made in heaven and cocked hats grew in gardens. Mrs. Whiffler will never cease to recollect the last day of the old year as long as she lives, for it was on that day that the baby had the four red spots on its nose which they took for measles: nor Christmas day, for twenty-one days after Christmas day the twins were born; nor Good Friday, for it was on a Good Friday that she was frightened by the donkey-cart when she was in the family way with Georgiana. The movable feasts have no motion for Mr. and Mrs. Whiffler, but remain pinned down tight and fast to the shoulders of some small child, from whom they can never be separated any more. Time was made, according to their creed, not for slaves but for girls and boys; the restless sands in his glass are but little children at play. As we have already intimated, the children of this couple can know no medium. They are either prodigies of good health or prodigies of bad health; whatever they are, they must be prodigies. Mr. Whiffler must have to describe at his office such excruciating agonies constantly undergone by his eldest boy, as nobody else’s eldest boy ever underwent; or he must be able to declare that there never was a child endowed with such amazing health, such an indomitable constitution, and such a cast-iron frame, as his child. His children must be, in some respect or other, above and beyond the children of all other people. To such an extent is this feeling pushed, that we were once slightly acquainted with a lady and gentleman who carried their heads so high and became so proud after their youngest child fell out of a two-pair-of-stairs window without hurting himself much, that the greater part of their friends were obliged to forego their acquaintance. But perhaps this may be an extreme case, and one not justly entitled to be considered as a precedent of general application. If a friend happen to dine in a friendly way with one of these couples who dote upon their children, it is nearly impossible for him to divert the conversation from their favourite topic. Everything reminds Mr. Whiffler of Ned, or Mrs. Whiffler of Mary Anne, or of the time before Ned was born, or the time before Mary Anne was thought of. The slightest remark, however harmless in itself, will awaken slumbering recollections of the twins. It is impossible to steer clear of them. They will come uppermost, let the poor man do what he may. Ned has been known to be lost sight of for half an hour, Dick has been forgotten, the name of Mary Anne has not been mentioned, but the twins will out. Nothing can keep down the twins. &quot;It’s a very extraordinary thing, Saunders,&quot; says Mr. Whiffler to the visitor, &quot;but—you have seen our little babies, the—the—twins?&quot; The friend’s heart sinks within him as he answers, &quot;Oh, yes—often.&quot; &quot;Your talking of the Pyramids,&quot; says Mr. Whiffler, quite as a matter of course, &quot;reminds me of the twins. It’s a very extraordinary thing about those babies—what colour should you say their eyes were?&quot; &quot;Upon my word,&quot; the friend stammers, &quot;I hardly know how to answer&quot;—the fact being, that except as the friend does not remember to have heard of any departure from the ordinary course of nature in the instance of these twins, they might have no eyes at all for aught he has observed to the contrary. &quot;You wouldn’t say they were red, I suppose?&quot; says Mr. Whiffler. The friend hesitates, and rather thinks they are; but inferring from the expression of Mr. Whiffler’s face that red is not the colour, smiles with some confidence, and says, &quot;No, no! very different from that.&quot; &quot;What should you say to blue?&quot; says Mr. Whiffler. The friend glances at him, and observing a different expression in his face, ventures to say, &quot;I should say they were blue—a decided blue.&quot; &quot;To be sure!&quot; cries Mr. Whiffler, triumphantly, &quot;I knew you would! But what should you say if I was to tell you that the boy’s eyes are blue and the girl’s hazel, eh?&quot; &quot;Impossible!&quot; exclaims the friend, not at all knowing why it should be impossible. &quot;A fact, notwithstanding,&quot; cries Mr. Whiffler; &quot;and let me tell you, Saunders, that’s not a common thing in twins, or a circumstance that’ll happen every day.&quot; In this dialogue Mrs. Whiffler, as being deeply responsible for the twins, their charms and singularities, has taken no share; but she now relates, in broken English, a witticism of little Dick’s bearing upon the subject just discussed, which delights Mr. Whiffler beyond measure, and causes him to declare that he would have sworn that was Dick’s if he had heard it anywhere. Then he requests that Mrs. Whiffler will tell Saunders what Tom said about mad bulls; and Mrs. Whiffler relating the anecdote, a discussion ensues upon the different character of Tom’s wit and Dick’s wit, from which it appears that Dick’s humour is of a lively turn, while Tom’s style is the dry and caustic. This discussion being enlivened by various illustrations, lasts a long time, and is only stopped by Mrs. Whiffler instructing the footman to ring the nursery bell, as the children were promised that they should come down and taste the pudding. The friend turns pale when this order is given, and paler still when it is followed up by a great pattering on the staircase, (not unlike the sound of rain upon a skylight,) a violent bursting open of the dining-room door, and the tumultuous appearance of six small children, closely succeeded by a strong nursery-maid with a twin in each arm. As the whole eight are screaming, shouting, or kicking—some influenced by a ravenous appetite, some by a horror of the stranger, and some by a conflict of the two feelings—a pretty long space elapses before all their heads can be ranged round the table and anything like order restored; in bringing about which happy state of things both the nurse and footman are severely scratched. At length Mrs. Whiffler is heard to say, &quot;Mr. Saunders, shall I give you some pudding?&quot; A breathless silence ensues, and sixteen small eyes are fixed upon the guest in expectation of his reply. A wild shout of joy proclaims that he has said &quot;No, thank you.&quot; Spoons are waved in the air, legs appear above the table-cloth in uncontrollable ecstasy, and eighty short fingers dabble in damson syrup. While the pudding is being disposed of, Mr. and Mrs. Whiffler look on with beaming countenances, and Mr. Whiffler nudging his friend Saunders, begs him to take notice of Tom’s eyes, or Dick’s chin, or Ned’s nose, or Mary Anne’s hair, or Emily’s figure, or little Bob’s calves, or Fanny’s mouth, or Carry’s head, as the case may be. Whatever the attention of Mr. Saunders is called to, Mr. Saunders admires of course; though he is rather confused about the sex of the youngest branches and looks at the wrong children, turning to a girl when Mr. Whiffler directs his attention to a boy, and falling into raptures with a boy when he ought to be enchanted with a girl. Then the dessert comes, and there is a vast deal of scrambling after fruit, and sudden spirting forth of juice out of tight oranges into infant eyes, and much screeching and wailing in consequence. At length it becomes time for Mrs. Whiffler to retire, and all the children are by force of arms compelled to kiss and love Mr. Saunders before going up-stairs, except Tom, who, lying on his back in the hall, proclaims that Mr. Saunders &quot;is a naughty beast;&quot; and Dick, who having drunk his father’s wine when he was looking another way, is found to be intoxicated and is carried out, very limp and helpless. Mr. Whiffler and his friend are left alone together, but Mr. Whiffler’s thoughts are still with his family, if his family are not with him. &quot;Saunders,&quot; says he, after a short silence, &quot;if you please, we’ll drink Mrs. Whiffler and the children.&quot; Mr. Saunders feels this to be a reproach against himself for not proposing the same sentiment, and drinks it in some confusion. &quot;Ah!&quot; Mr. Whiffler sighs, &quot;these children, Saunders, make one quite an old man.&quot; Mr. Saunders thinks that if they were his, they would make him a very old man; but he says nothing. &quot;And yet,&quot; pursues Mr. Whiffler, &quot;what can equal domestic happiness? what can equal the engaging ways of children! Saunders, why don’t you get married?&quot; Now, this is an embarrassing question, because Mr. Saunders has been thinking that if he had at any time entertained matrimonial designs, the revelation of that day would surely have routed them for ever. &quot;I am glad, however,&quot; says Mr. Whiffler, &quot;that you are a bachelor,—glad on one account, Saunders; a selfish one, I admit. Will you do Mrs. Whiffler and myself a favour?&quot; Mr. Saunders is surprised—evidently surprised; but he replies, &quot;with the greatest pleasure.&quot; &quot;Then, will you, Saunders,&quot; says Mr. Whiffler, in an impressive manner, &quot;will you cement and consolidate our friendship by coming into the family (so to speak) as a godfather?&quot; &quot;I shall be proud and delighted,&quot; replies Mr. Saunders: &quot;which of the children is it? really, I thought they were all christened; or—&quot; &quot;Saunders,&quot; Mr. Whiffler interposes, &quot;they are all christened; you are right. The fact is, that Mrs. Whiffler is—in short, we expect another.&quot; &quot;Not a ninth!&quot; cries the friend, all aghast at the idea. &quot;Yes, Saunders,&quot; rejoins Mr. Whiffler, solemnly, &quot;a ninth. Did we drink Mrs. Whiffler’s health? Let us drink it again, Saunders, and wish her well over it!&quot; Doctor Johnson used to tell a story of a man who had but one idea, which was a wrong one. The couple who dote upon their children are in the same predicament: at home or abroad, at all times, and in all places, their thoughts are bound up in this one subject, and have no sphere beyond. They relate the clever things their offspring say or do, and weary every company with their prolixity and absurdity. Mr. Whiffler takes a friend by the button at a street corner on a windy day to tell him a bon mot of his youngest boy’s; and Mrs. Whiffler, calling to see a sick acquaintance, entertains her with a cheerful account of all her own past sufferings and present expectations. In such cases the sins of the fathers indeed descend upon the children; for people soon come to regard them as predestined little bores. The couple who dote upon their children cannot be said to be actuated by a general love for these engaging little people (which would be a great excuse); for they are apt to underrate and entertain a jealousy of any children but their own. If they examined their own hearts, they would, perhaps, find at the bottom of all this, more self-love and egotism than they think of. Self-love and egotism are bad qualities, of which the unrestrained exhibition, though it may be sometimes amusing, never fails to be wearisome and unpleasant. Couples who dote upon their children, therefore, are best avoided. THE COOL COUPLE. There is an old-fashioned weather-glass representing a house with two doorways, in one of which is the figure of a gentleman, in the other the figure of a lady. When the weather is to be fine the lady comes out and the gentleman goes in; when wet, the gentleman comes out and the lady goes in. They never seek each other’s society, are never elevated and depressed by the same cause, and have nothing in common. They are the model of a cool couple, except that there is something of politeness and consideration about the behaviour of the gentleman in the weather-glass, in which, neither of the cool couple can be said to participate. The cool couple are seldom alone together, and when they are, nothing can exceed their apathy and dulness: the gentleman being for the most part drowsy, and the lady silent. If they enter into conversation, it is usually of an ironical or recriminatory nature. Thus, when the gentleman has indulged in a very long yawn and settled himself more snugly in his easy-chair, the lady will perhaps remark, &quot;Well, I am sure, Charles! I hope you’re comfortable.&quot; To which the gentleman replies, &quot;Oh yes, he’s quite comfortable—quite.&quot; &quot;There are not many married men, I hope,&quot; returns the lady, &quot;who seek comfort in such selfish gratifications as you do.&quot; &quot;Nor many wives who seek comfort in such selfish gratifications as you do, I hope,&quot; retorts the gentleman. &quot;Whose fault is that?&quot; demands the lady. The gentleman becoming more sleepy, returns no answer. &quot;Whose fault is that?&quot; the lady repeats. The gentleman still returning no answer, she goes on to say that she believes there never was in all this world anybody so attached to her home, so thoroughly domestic, so unwilling to seek a moment’s gratification or pleasure beyond her own fireside as she. God knows that before she was married she never thought or dreamt of such a thing; and she remembers that her poor papa used to say again and again, almost every day of his life, &quot;Oh, my dear Louisa, if you only marry a man who understands you, and takes the trouble to consider your happiness and accommodate himself a very little to your disposition, what a treasure he will find in you!&quot; She supposes her papa knew what her disposition was—he had known her long enough—he ought to have been acquainted with it, but what can she do? If her home is always dull and lonely, and her husband is always absent and finds no pleasure in her society, she is naturally sometimes driven (seldom enough, she is sure) to seek a little recreation elsewhere; she is not expected to pine and mope to death, she hopes. &quot;Then come, Louisa,&quot; says the gentleman, waking up as suddenly as he fell asleep, &quot;stop at home this evening, and so will I.&quot; &quot;I should be sorry to suppose, Charles, that you took a pleasure in aggravating me,&quot; replies the lady; &quot;but you know as well as I do that I am particularly engaged to Mrs. Mortimer, and that it would be an act of the grossest rudeness and ill-breeding, after accepting a seat in her box and preventing her from inviting anybody else, not to go.&quot; &quot;Ah! there it is!&quot; says the gentleman, shrugging his shoulders, &quot;I knew that perfectly well. I knew you couldn’t devote an evening to your own home. Now all I have to say, Louisa, is this—recollect that I was quite willing to stay at home, and that it’s no fault of mine we are not oftener together.&quot; With that the gentleman goes away to keep an old appointment at his club, and the lady hurries off to dress for Mrs. Mortimer’s; and neither thinks of the other until by some odd chance they find themselves alone again. But it must not be supposed that the cool couple are habitually a quarrelsome one. Quite the contrary. These differences are only occasions for a little self-excuse,—nothing more. In general they are as easy and careless, and dispute as seldom, as any common acquaintances may; for it is neither worth their while to put each other out of the way, nor to ruffle themselves. When they meet in society, the cool couple are the best-bred people in existence. The lady is seated in a corner among a little knot of lady friends, one of whom exclaims, &quot;Why, I vow and declare there is your husband, my dear!&quot; &quot;Whose?—mine?&quot; she says, carelessly. &quot;Ay, yours, and coming this way too.&quot; &quot;How very odd!&quot; says the lady, in a languid tone, &quot;I thought he had been at Dover.&quot; The gentleman coming up, and speaking to all the other ladies and nodding slightly to his wife, it turns out that he has been at Dover, and has just now returned. &quot;What a strange creature you are!&quot; cries his wife; &quot;and what on earth brought you here, I wonder?&quot; &quot;I came to look after you, of course,&quot; rejoins her husband. This is so pleasant a jest that the lady is mightily amused, as are all the other ladies similarly situated who are within hearing; and while they are enjoying it to the full, the gentleman nods again, turns upon his heel, and saunters away. There are times, however, when his company is not so agreeable, though equally unexpected; such as when the lady has invited one or two particular friends to tea and scandal, and he happens to come home in the very midst of their diversion. It is a hundred chances to one that he remains in the house half an hour, but the lady is rather disturbed by the intrusion, notwithstanding, and reasons within herself,—&quot;I am sure I never interfere with him, and why should he interfere with me? It can scarcely be accidental; it never happens that I have a particular reason for not wishing him to come home, but he always comes. It’s very provoking and tiresome; and I am sure when he leaves me so much alone for his own pleasure, the least he could do would be to do as much for mine.&quot; Observing what passes in her mind, the gentleman, who has come home for his own accommodation, makes a merit of it with himself; arrives at the conclusion that it is the very last place in which he can hope to be comfortable; and determines, as he takes up his hat and cane, never to be so virtuous again. Thus a great many cool couples go on until they are cold couples, and the grave has closed over their folly and indifference. Loss of name, station, character, life itself, has ensued from causes as slight as these, before now; and when gossips tell such tales, and aggravate their deformities, they elevate their hands and eyebrows, and call each other to witness what a cool couple Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so always were, even in the best of times. THE PLAUSIBLE COUPLE. The plausible couple have many titles. They are &quot;a delightful couple,&quot; an &quot;affectionate couple,&quot; &quot;a most agreeable couple,&quot; &quot;a good-hearted couple,&quot; and &quot;the best-natured couple in existence.&quot; The truth is, that the plausible couple are people of the world; and either the way of pleasing the world has grown much easier than it was in the days of the old man and his ass, or the old man was but a bad hand at it, and knew very little of the trade. &quot;But is it really possible to please the world!&quot; says some doubting reader. It is indeed. Nay, it is not only very possible, but very easy. The ways are crooked, and sometimes foul and low. What then? A man need but crawl upon his hands and knees, know when to close his eyes and when his ears, when to stoop and when to stand upright; and if by the world is meant that atom of it in which he moves himself, he shall please it, never fear. Now, it will be readily seen, that if a plausible man or woman have an easy means of pleasing the world by an adaptation of self to all its twistings and twinings, a plausible man and woman, or, in other words, a plausible couple, playing into each other’s hands, and acting in concert, have a manifest advantage. Hence it is that plausible couples scarcely ever fail of success on a pretty large scale; and hence it is that if the reader, laying down this unwieldy volume at the next full stop, will have the goodness to review his or her circle of acquaintance, and to search particularly for some man and wife with a large connexion and a good name, not easily referable to their abilities or their wealth, he or she (that is, the male or female reader) will certainly find that gentleman or lady, on a very short reflection, to be a plausible couple. The plausible couple are the most ecstatic people living: the most sensitive people—to merit—on the face of the earth. Nothing clever or virtuous escapes them. They have microscopic eyes for such endowments, and can find them anywhere. The plausible couple never fawn—oh no! They don’t even scruple to tell their friends of their faults. One is too generous, another too candid; a third has a tendency to think all people like himself, and to regard mankind as a company of angels; a fourth is kind-hearted to a fault. &quot;We never flatter, my dear Mrs. Jackson,&quot; say the plausible couple; &quot;we speak our minds. Neither you nor Mr. Jackson have faults enough. It may sound strangely, but it is true. You have not faults enough. You know our way,—we must speak out, and always do. Quarrel with us for saying so, if you will; but we repeat it,—you have not faults enough!&quot; The plausible couple are no less plausible to each other than to third parties. They are always loving and harmonious. The plausible gentleman calls his wife &quot;darling,&quot; and the plausible lady addresses him as &quot;dearest.&quot; If it be Mr. and Mrs. Bobtail Widger, Mrs. Widger is &quot;Lavinia, darling,’ and Mr. Widger is &quot;Bobtail, dearest.&quot; Speaking of each other, they observe the same tender form. Mrs. Widger relates what &quot;Bobtail&quot; said, and Mr. Widger recounts what &quot;darling&quot; thought and did. If you sit next to the plausible lady at a dinner-table, she takes the earliest opportunity of expressing her belief that you are acquainted with the Clickits; she is sure she has heard the Clickits speak of you—she must not tell you in what terms, or you will take her for a flatterer. You admit a knowledge of the Clickits; the plausible lady immediately launches out in their praise. She quite loves the Clickits. Were there ever such true-hearted, hospitable, excellent people—such a gentle, interesting little woman as Mrs. Clickit, or such a frank, unaffected creature as Mr. Clickit? were there ever two people, in short, so little spoiled by the world as they are? &quot;As who, darling?&quot; cries Mr. Widger, from the opposite side of the table. &quot;The Clickits, dearest,&quot; replies Mrs. Widger. &quot;Indeed you are right, darling,&quot; Mr. Widger rejoins; &quot;the Clickits are a very high-minded, worthy, estimable couple.&quot; Mrs. Widger remarking that Bobtail always grows quite eloquent upon this subject, Mr. Widger admits that he feels very strongly whenever such people as the Clickits and some other friends of his (here he glances at the host and hostess) are mentioned; for they are an honour to human nature, and do one good to think of. &quot;You know the Clickits, Mrs. Jackson?&quot; he says, addressing the lady of the house. &quot;No, indeed; we have not that pleasure,&quot; she replies. &quot;You astonish me!&quot; exclaims Mr. Widger: &quot;not know the Clickits! why, you are the very people of all others who ought to be their bosom friends. You are kindred beings; you are one and the same thing:—not know the Clickits! Now will you know the Clickits? Will you make a point of knowing them? Will you meet them in a friendly way at our house one evening, and be acquainted with them?&quot; Mrs. Jackson will be quite delighted; nothing would give her more pleasure. &quot;Then, Lavinia, my darling,&quot; says Mr. Widger, &quot;mind you don’t lose sight of that; now, pray take care that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson know the Clickits without loss of time. Such people ought not to be strangers to each other.&quot; Mrs. Widger books both families as the centre of attraction for her next party; and Mr. Widger, going on to expatiate upon the virtues of the Clickits, adds to their other moral qualities, that they keep one of the neatest phaetons in town, and have two thousand a year. As the plausible couple never laud the merits of any absent person, without dexterously contriving that their praises shall reflect upon somebody who is present, so they never depreciate anything or anybody, without turning their depreciation to the same account. Their friend, Mr. Slummery, say they, is unquestionably a clever painter, and would no doubt be very popular, and sell his pictures at a very high price, if that cruel Mr. Fithers had not forestalled him in his department of art, and made it thoroughly and completely his own;—Fithers, it is to be observed, being present and within hearing, and Slummery elsewhere. Is Mrs. Tabblewick really as beautiful as people say? Why, there indeed you ask them a very puzzling question, because there is no doubt that she is a very charming woman, and they have long known her intimately. She is no doubt beautiful, very beautiful; they once thought her the most beautiful woman ever seen; still if you press them for an honest answer, they are bound to say that this was before they had ever seen our lovely friend on the sofa, (the sofa is hard by, and our lovely friend can’t help hearing the whispers in which this is said;) since that time, perhaps, they have been hardly fair judges; Mrs. Tabblewick is no doubt extremely handsome,—very like our friend, in fact, in the form of the features,—but in point of expression, and soul, and figure, and air altogether—oh dear! But while the plausible couple depreciate, they are still careful to preserve their character for amiability and kind feeling; indeed the depreciation itself is often made to grow out of their excessive sympathy and good will. The plausible lady calls on a lady who dotes upon her children, and is sitting with a little girl upon her knee, enraptured by her artless replies, and protesting that there is nothing she delights in so much as conversing with these fairies; when the other lady inquires if she has seen young Mrs. Finching lately, and whether the baby has turned out a finer one than it promised to be. &quot;Oh dear!&quot; cries the plausible lady, &quot;you cannot think how often Bobtail and I have talked about poor Mrs. Finching—she is such a dear soul, and was so anxious that the baby should be a fine child—and very naturally, because she was very much here at one time, and there is, you know, a natural emulation among mothers—that it is impossible to tell you how much we have felt for her.&quot; &quot;Is it weak or plain, or what?&quot; inquires the other. &quot;Weak or plain, my love,&quot; returns the plausible lady, &quot;it’s a fright—a perfect little fright; you never saw such a miserable creature in all your days. Positively you must not let her see one of these beautiful dears again, or you’ll break her heart, you will indeed.—Heaven bless this child, see how she is looking in my face! can you conceive anything prettier than that? If poor Mrs. Finching could only hope—but that’s impossible—and the gifts of Providence, you know—What did I do with my pocket-handkerchief!&quot; What prompts the mother, who dotes upon her children, to comment to her lord that evening on the plausible lady’s engaging qualities and feeling heart, and what is it that procures Mr. and Mrs. Bobtail Widger an immediate invitation to dinner? THE NICE LITTLE COUPLE. A custom once prevailed in old-fashioned circles, that when a lady or gentleman was unable to sing a song, he or she should enliven the company with a story. As we find ourself in the predicament of not being able to describe (to our own satisfaction) nice little couples in the abstract, we purpose telling in this place a little story about a nice little couple of our acquaintance. Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup are the nice little couple in question. Mr. Chirrup has the smartness, and something of the brisk, quick manner of a small bird. Mrs. Chirrup is the prettiest of all little women, and has the prettiest little figure conceivable. She has the neatest little foot, and the softest little voice, and the pleasantest little smile, and the tidiest little curls, and the brightest little eyes, and the quietest little manner, and is, in short, altogether one of the most engaging of all little women, dead or alive. She is a condensation of all the domestic virtues,—a pocket edition of the young man’s best companion,—a little woman at a very high pressure, with an amazing quantity of goodness and usefulness in an exceedingly small space. Little as she is, Mrs. Chirrup might furnish forth matter for the moral equipment of a score of housewives, six feet high in their stockings—if, in the presence of ladies, we may be allowed the expression—and of corresponding robustness. Nobody knows all this better than Mr. Chirrup, though he rather takes on that he don’t. Accordingly he is very proud of his better-half, and evidently considers himself, as all other people consider him, rather fortunate in having her to wife. We say evidently, because Mr. Chirrup is a warm-hearted little fellow; and if you catch his eye when he has been slyly glancing at Mrs. Chirrup in company, there is a certain complacent twinkle in it, accompanied, perhaps, by a half-expressed toss of the head, which as clearly indicates what has been passing in his mind as if he had put it into words, and shouted it out through a speaking-trumpet. Moreover, Mr. Chirrup has a particularly mild and bird-like manner of calling Mrs. Chirrup &quot;my dear;&quot; and—for he is of a jocose turn—of cutting little witticisms upon her, and making her the subject of various harmless pleasantries, which nobody enjoys more thoroughly than Mrs. Chirrup herself. Mr. Chirrup, too, now and then affects to deplore his bachelor-days, and to bemoan (with a marvellously contented and smirking face) the loss of his freedom, and the sorrow of his heart at having been taken captive by Mrs. Chirrup—all of which circumstances combine to show the secret triumph and satisfaction of Mr. Chirrup’s soul. We have already had occasion to observe that Mrs. Chirrup is an incomparable housewife. In all the arts of domestic arrangement and management, in all the mysteries of confectionery-making, pickling, and preserving, never was such a thorough adept as that nice little body. She is, besides, a cunning worker in muslin and fine linen, and a special hand at marketing to the very best advantage. But if there be one branch of housekeeping in which she excels to an utterly unparalleled and unprecedented extent, it is in the important one of carving. A roast goose is universally allowed to be the great stumbling-block in the way of young aspirants to perfection in this department of science; many promising carvers, beginning with legs of mutton, and preserving a good reputation through fillets of veal, sirloins of beef, quarters of lamb, fowls, and even ducks, have sunk before a roast goose, and lost caste and character for ever. To Mrs. Chirrup the resolving a goose into its smallest component parts is a pleasant pastime—a practical joke—a thing to be done in a minute or so, without the smallest interruption to the conversation of the time. No handing the dish over to an unfortunate man upon her right or left, no wild sharpening of the knife, no hacking and sawing at an unruly joint, no noise, no splash, no heat, no leaving off in despair; all is confidence and cheerfulness. The dish is set upon the table, the cover is removed; for an instant, and only an instant, you observe that Mrs. Chirrup’s attention is distracted; she smiles, but heareth not. You proceed with your story; meanwhile the glittering knife is slowly upraised, both Mrs. Chirrup’s wrists are slightly but not ungracefully agitated, she compresses her lips for an instant, then breaks into a smile, and all is over. The legs of the bird slide gently down into a pool of gravy, the wings seem to melt from the body, the breast separates into a row of juicy slices, the smaller and more complicated parts of his anatomy are perfectly developed, a cavern of stuffing is revealed, and the goose is gone! To dine with Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup is one of the pleasantest things in the world. Mr. Chirrup has a bachelor friend, who lived with him in his own days of single blessedness, and to whom he is mightily attached. Contrary to the usual custom, this bachelor friend is no less a friend of Mrs. Chirrup’s, and, consequently, whenever you dine with Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup, you meet the bachelor friend. It would put any reasonably-conditioned mortal into good-humour to observe the entire unanimity which subsists between these three; but there is a quiet welcome dimpling in Mrs. Chirrup’s face, a bustling hospitality oozing as it were out of the waistcoat-pockets of Mr. Chirrup, and a patronising enjoyment of their cordiality and satisfaction on the part of the bachelor friend, which is quite delightful. On these occasions Mr. Chirrup usually takes an opportunity of rallying the friend on being single, and the friend retorts on Mr. Chirrup for being married, at which moments some single young ladies present are like to die of laughter; and we have more than once observed them bestow looks upon the friend, which convinces us that his position is by no means a safe one, as, indeed, we hold no bachelor’s to be who visits married friends and cracks jokes on wedlock, for certain it is that such men walk among traps and nets and pitfalls innumerable, and often find themselves down upon their knees at the altar rails, taking M. or N. for their wedded wives, before they know anything about the matter. However, this is no business of Mr. Chirrup’s, who talks, and laughs, and drinks his wine, and laughs again, and talks more, until it is time to repair to the drawing-room, where, coffee served and over, Mrs. Chirrup prepares for a round game, by sorting the nicest possible little fish into the nicest possible little pools, and calling Mr. Chirrup to assist her, which Mr. Chirrup does. As they stand side by side, you find that Mr. Chirrup is the least possible shadow of a shade taller than Mrs. Chirrup, and that they are the neatest and best-matched little couple that can be, which the chances are ten to one against your observing with such effect at any other time, unless you see them in the street arm-in-arm, or meet them some rainy day trotting along under a very small umbrella. The round game (at which Mr. Chirrup is the merriest of the party) being done and over, in course of time a nice little tray appears, on which is a nice little supper; and when that is finished likewise, and you have said good night, you find yourself repeating a dozen times, as you ride home, that there never was such a nice little couple as Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup. Whether it is that pleasant qualities, being packed more closely in small bodies than in large, come more readily to hand than when they are diffused over a wider space, and have to be gathered together for use, we don’t know, but as a general rule,—strengthened like all other rules by its exceptions,—we hold that little people are sprightly and good-natured. The more sprightly and good-natured people we have, the better; therefore, let us wish well to all nice little couples, and hope that they may increase and multiply. THE EGOTISTICAL COUPLE. Egotism in couples is of two kinds.—It is our purpose to show this by two examples. The egotistical couple may be young, old, middle-aged, well to do, or ill to do; they may have a small family, a large family, or no family at all. There is no outward sign by which an egotistical couple may be known and avoided. They come upon you unawares; there is no guarding against them. No man can of himself be forewarned or forearmed against an egotistical couple. The egotistical couple have undergone every calamity, and experienced every pleasurable and painful sensation of which our nature is susceptible. You cannot by possibility tell the egotistical couple anything they don’t know, or describe to them anything they have not felt. They have been everything but dead. Sometimes we are tempted to wish they had been even that, but only in our uncharitable moments, which are few and far between. We happened the other day, in the course of a morning call, to encounter an egotistical couple, nor were we suffered to remain long in ignorance of the fact, for our very first inquiry of the lady of the house brought them into active and vigorous operation. The inquiry was of course touching the lady’s health, and the answer happened to be, that she had not been very well. &quot;Oh, my dear!&quot; said the egotistical lady, &quot;don’t talk of not being well. We have been in such a state since we saw you last!&quot;—The lady of the house happening to remark that her lord had not been well either, the egotistical gentleman struck in: &quot;Never let Briggs complain of not being well—never let Briggs complain, my dear Mrs. Briggs, after what I have undergone within these six weeks. He doesn’t know what it is to be ill, he hasn’t the least idea of it; not the faintest conception.&quot;—&quot;My dear,&quot; interposed his wife smiling, &quot;you talk as if it were almost a crime in Mr. Briggs not to have been as ill as we have been, instead of feeling thankful to Providence that both he and our dear Mrs. Briggs are in such blissful ignorance of real suffering.&quot;—&quot;My love,&quot; returned the egotistical gentleman, in a low and pious voice, &quot;you mistake me;—I feel grateful—very grateful. I trust our friends may never purchase their experience as dearly as we have bought ours; I hope they never may!&quot; Having put down Mrs. Briggs upon this theme, and settled the question thus, the egotistical gentleman turned to us, and, after a few preliminary remarks, all tending towards and leading up to the point he had in his mind, inquired if we happened to be acquainted with the Dowager Lady Snorflerer. On our replying in the negative, he presumed we had often met Lord Slang, or beyond all doubt, that we were on intimate terms with Sir Chipkins Glogwog. Finding that we were equally unable to lay claim to either of these distinctions, he expressed great astonishment, and turning to his wife with a retrospective smile, inquired who it was that had told that capital story about the mashed potatoes. &quot;Who, my dear?&quot; returned the egotistical lady, &quot;why Sir Chipkins, of course; how can you ask! Don’t you remember his applying it to our cook, and saying that you and I were so like the Prince and Princess, that he could almost have sworn we were they?&quot; &quot;To be sure, I remember that,&quot; said the egotistical gentleman, &quot;but are you quite certain that didn’t apply to the other anecdote about the Emperor of Austria and the pump?&quot; &quot;Upon my word then, I think it did,&quot; replied his wife. &quot;To be sure it did,&quot; said the egotistical gentleman, &quot;it was Slang’s story, I remember now, perfectly.&quot; However, it turned out, a few seconds afterwards, that the egotistical gentleman’s memory was rather treacherous, as he began to have a misgiving that the story had been told by the Dowager Lady Snorflerer the very last time they dined there; but there appearing, on further consideration, strong circumstantial evidence tending to show that this couldn’t be, inasmuch as the Dowager Lady Snorflerer had been, on the occasion in question, wholly engrossed by the egotistical lady, the egotistical gentleman recanted this opinion; and after laying the story at the doors of a great many great people, happily left it at last with the Duke of Scuttlewig:—observing that it was not extraordinary he had forgotten his Grace hitherto, as it often happened that the names of those with whom we were upon the most familiar footing were the very last to present themselves to our thoughts. It not only appeared that the egotistical couple knew everybody, but that scarcely any event of importance or notoriety had occurred for many years with which they had not been in some way or other connected. Thus we learned that when the well-known attempt upon the life of George the Third was made by Hatfield in Drury Lane theatre, the egotistical gentleman’s grandfather sat upon his right hand and was the first man who collared him; and that the egotistical lady’s aunt, sitting within a few boxes of the royal party, was the only person in the audience who heard his Majesty exclaim, &quot;Charlotte, Charlotte, don’t be frightened, don’t be frightened; they’re letting off squibs, they’re letting off squibs.&quot; When the fire broke out, which ended in the destruction of the two houses of parliament, the egotistical couple, being at the time at a drawing-room window on Blackheath, then and there simultaneously exclaimed, to the astonishment of a whole party—&quot;It’s the House of Lords!&quot; Nor was this a solitary instance of their peculiar discernment, for chancing to be (as by a comparison of dates and circumstances they afterwards found) in the same omnibus with Mr. Greenacre, when he carried his victim’s head about town in a blue bag, they both remarked a singular twitching in the muscles of his countenance; and walking down Fish Street Hill, a few weeks since, the egotistical gentleman said to his lady—slightly casting up his eyes to the top of the Monument—&quot;There’s a boy up there, my dear, reading a Bible. It’s very strange. I don’t like it.—In five seconds afterwards, Sir,&quot; says the egotistical gentleman, bringing his hands together with one violent clap—&quot;the lad was over!&quot; Diversifying these topics by the introduction of many others of the same kind, and entertaining us between whiles with a minute account of what weather and diet agreed with them, and what weather and diet disagreed with them, and at what time they usually got up, and at what time went to bed, with many other particulars of their domestic economy too numerous to mention; the egotistical couple at length took their leave, and afforded us an opportunity of doing the same. Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone are an egotistical couple of another class, for all the lady’s egotism is about her husband, and all the gentleman’s about his wife. For example:—Mr. Sliverstone is a clerical gentleman, and occasionally writes sermons, as clerical gentlemen do. If you happen to obtain admission at the street-door while he is so engaged, Mrs. Sliverstone appears on tip-toe, and speaking in a solemn whisper, as if there were at least three or four particular friends up-stairs, all upon the point of death, implores you to be very silent, for Mr. Sliverstone is composing, and she need not say how very important it is that he should not be disturbed. Unwilling to interrupt anything so serious, you hasten to withdraw, with many apologies; but this Mrs. Sliverstone will by no means allow, observing, that she knows you would like to see him, as it is very natural you should, and that she is determined to make a trial for you, as you are a great favourite. So you are led up stairs—still on tip-toe—to the door of a little back room, in which, as the lady informs you in a whisper, Mr. Sliverstone always writes. No answer being returned to a couple of soft taps, the lady opens the door, and there, sure enough, is Mr. Sliverstone, with dishevelled hair, powdering away with pen, ink, and paper, at a rate which, if he has any power of sustaining it, would settle the longest sermon in no time. At first he is too much absorbed to be roused by this intrusion; but presently looking up, says faintly, &quot;Ah!&quot; and pointing to his desk with a weary and languid smile, extends his hand, and hopes you’ll forgive him. Then Mrs. Sliverstone sits down beside him, and taking his hand in hers, tells you how that Mr. Sliverstone has been shut up there ever since nine o’clock in the morning, (it is by this time twelve at noon,) and how she knows it cannot be good for his health, and is very uneasy about it. Unto this Mr. Sliverstone replies firmly, that &quot;It must be done;&quot; which agonizes Mrs. Sliverstone still more, and she goes on to tell you that such were Mr. Sliverstone’s labours last week—what with the buryings, marryings, churchings, christenings, and all together,—that when he was going up the pulpit stairs on Sunday evening, he was obliged to hold on by the rails, or he would certainly have fallen over into his own pew. Mr. Sliverstone, who has been listening and smiling meekly, says, &quot;Not quite so bad as that, not quite so bad!&quot; he admits though, on cross-examination, that he was very near falling upon the verger who was following him up to bolt the door; but adds, that it was his duty as a Christian to fall upon him, if need were, and that he, Mr. Sliverstone, and (possibly the verger too) ought to glory in it. This sentiment communicates new impulse to Mrs. Sliverstone, who launches into new praises of Mr. Sliverstone’s worth and excellence, to which he listens in the same meek silence, save when he puts in a word of self-denial relative to some question of fact, as—&quot;Not seventy-two christenings that week, my dear. Only seventy-one, only seventy-one.&quot; At length his lady has quite concluded, and then he says, Why should he repine, why should he give way, why should he suffer his heart to sink within him? Is it he alone who toils and suffers? What has she gone through, he should like to know? What does she go through every day for him and for society? With such an exordium Mr. Sliverstone launches out into glowing praises of the conduct of Mrs. Sliverstone in the production of eight young children, and the subsequent rearing and fostering of the same; and thus the husband magnifies the wife, and the wife the husband. This would be well enough if Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone kept it to themselves, or even to themselves and a friend or two; but they do not. The more hearers they have, the more egotistical the couple become, and the more anxious they are to make believers in their merits. Perhaps this is the worst kind of egotism. It has not even the poor excuse of being spontaneous, but is the result of a deliberate system and malice aforethought. Mere empty-headed conceit excites our pity, but ostentatious hypocrisy awakens our disgust. THE COUPLE WHO CODDLE THEMSELVES. Mrs. Merrywinkle’s maiden name was Chopper. She was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Chopper. Her father died when she was, as the play-books express it, &quot;yet an infant;&quot; and so old Mrs. Chopper, when her daughter married, made the house of her son-in-law her home from that time henceforth, and set up her staff of rest with Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle. Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle are a couple who coddle themselves; and the venerable Mrs. Chopper is an aider and abettor in the same. Mr. Merrywinkle is a rather lean and long-necked gentleman, middle-aged and middle-sized, and usually troubled with a cold in the head. Mrs. Merrywinkle is a delicate-looking lady, with very light hair, and is exceedingly subject to the same unpleasant disorder. The venerable Mrs. Chopper—who is strictly entitled to the appellation, her daughter not being very young, otherwise than by courtesy, at the time of her marriage, which was some years ago—is a mysterious old lady who lurks behind a pair of spectacles, and is afflicted with a chronic disease, respecting which she has taken a vast deal of medical advice, and referred to a vast number of medical books, without meeting any definition of symptoms that at all suits her, or enables her to say, &quot;That’s my complaint.&quot; Indeed, the absence of authentic information upon the subject of this complaint would seem to be Mrs. Chopper’s greatest ill, as in all other respects she is an uncommonly hale and hearty gentlewoman. Both Mr. and Mrs. Chopper wear an extraordinary quantity of flannel, and have a habit of putting their feet in hot water to an unnatural extent. They likewise indulge in chamomile tea and such-like compounds, and rub themselves on the slightest provocation with camphorated spirits and other lotions applicable to mumps, sore-throat, rheumatism, or lumbago. Mr. Merrywinkle’s leaving home to go to business on a damp or wet morning is a very elaborate affair. He puts on wash-leather socks over his stockings, and India-rubber shoes above his boots, and wears under his waistcoat a cuirass of hare-skin. Besides these precautions, he winds a thick shawl round his throat, and blocks up his mouth with a large silk handkerchief. Thus accoutred, and furnished besides with a great-coat and umbrella, he braves the dangers of the streets; travelling in severe weather at a gentle trot, the better to preserve the circulation, and bringing his mouth to the surface to take breath, but very seldom, and with the utmost caution. His office-door opened, he shoots past his clerk at the same pace, and diving into his own private room, closes the door, examines the window-fastenings, and gradually unrobes himself: hanging his pocket-handkerchief on the fender to air, and determining to write to the newspapers about the fog, which, he says, &quot;has really got to that pitch that it is quite unbearable.&quot; In this last opinion Mrs. Merrywinkle and her respected mother fully concur; for though not present, their thoughts and tongues are occupied with the same subject, which is their constant theme all day. If anybody happens to call, Mrs. Merrywinkle opines that they must assuredly be mad, and her first salutation is, &quot;Why, what in the name of goodness can bring you out in such weather? You know you must catch your death.&quot; This assurance is corroborated by Mrs. Chopper, who adds, in further confirmation, a dismal legend concerning an individual of her acquaintance who, making a call under precisely parallel circumstances, and being then in the best health and spirits, expired in forty-eight hours afterwards, of a complication of inflammatory disorders. The visitor, rendered not altogether comfortable perhaps by this and other precedents, inquires very affectionately after Mr. Merrywinkle, but by so doing brings about no change of the subject; for Mr. Merrywinkle’s name is inseparably connected with his complaints, and his complaints are inseparably connected with Mrs. Merrywinkle’s; and when these are done with, Mrs. Chopper, who has been biding her time, cuts in with the chronic disorder—a subject upon which the amiable old lady never leaves off speaking until she is left alone, and very often not then. But Mr. Merrywinkle comes home to dinner. He is received by Mrs. Merrywinkle and Mrs. Chopper, who, on his remarking that he thinks his feet are damp, turn pale as ashes and drag him up-stairs, imploring him to have them rubbed directly with a dry coarse towel. Rubbed they are, one by Mrs. Merrywinkle and one by Mrs. Chopper, until the friction causes Mr. Merrywinkle to make horrible faces, and look as if he had been smelling very powerful onions; when they desist, and the patient, provided for his better security with thick worsted stockings and list slippers, is borne down-stairs to dinner. Now, the dinner is always a good one, the appetites of the diners being delicate, and requiring a little of what Mrs. Merrywinkle calls &quot;tittivation;&quot; the secret of which is understood to lie in good cookery and tasteful spices, and which process is so successfully performed in the present instance, that both Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle eat a remarkably good dinner, and even the afflicted Mrs. Chopper wields her knife and fork with much of the spirit and elasticity of youth. But Mr. Merrywinkle, in his desire to gratify his appetite, is not unmindful of his health, for he has a bottle of carbonate of soda with which to qualify his porter, and a little pair of scales in which to weigh it out. Neither in his anxiety to take care of his body is he unmindful of the welfare of his immortal part, as he always prays that for what he is going to receive he may be made truly thankful; and in order that he may be as thankful as possible, eats and drinks to the utmost. Either from eating and drinking so much, or from being the victim of this constitutional infirmity, among others, Mr. Merrywinkle, after two or three glasses of wine, falls fast asleep; and he has scarcely closed his eyes, when Mrs. Merrywinkle and Mrs. Chopper fall asleep likewise. It is on awakening at tea-time that their most alarming symptoms prevail; for then Mr. Merrywinkle feels as if his temples were tightly bound round with the chain of the street-door, and Mrs. Merrywinkle as if she had made a hearty dinner of half-hundredweights, and Mrs. Chopper as if cold water were running down her back, and oyster-knives with sharp points were plunging of their own accord into her ribs. Symptoms like these are enough to make people peevish, and no wonder that they remain so until supper-time, doing little more than doze and complain, unless Mr. Merrywinkle calls out very loudly to a servant &quot;to keep that draught out,&quot; or rushes into the passage to flourish his fist in the countenance of the twopenny-postman, for daring to give such a knock as he had just performed at the door of a private gentleman with nerves. Supper, coming after dinner, should consist of some gentle provocative; and therefore the tittivating art is again in requisition, and again—done honour to by Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, still comforted and abetted by Mrs. Chopper. After supper, it is ten to one but the last-named old lady becomes worse, and is led off to bed with the chronic complaint in full vigour. Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, having administered to her a warm cordial, which is something of the strongest, then repair to their own room, where Mr. Merrywinkle, with his legs and feet in hot water, superintends the mulling of some wine which he is to drink at the very moment he plunges into bed, while Mrs. Merrywinkle, in garments whose nature is unknown to and unimagined by all but married men, takes four small pills with a spasmodic look between each, and finally comes to something hot and fragrant out of another little saucepan, which serves as her composing-draught for the night. There is another kind of couple who coddle themselves, and who do so at a cheaper rate and on more spare diet, because they are niggardly and parsimonious; for which reason they are kind enough to coddle their visitors too. It is unnecessary to describe them, for our readers may rest assured of the accuracy of these general principles:—that all couples who coddle themselves are selfish and slothful,—that they charge upon every wind that blows, every rain that falls, and every vapour that hangs in the air, the evils which arise from their own imprudence or the gloom which is engendered in their own tempers,—and that all men and women, in couples or otherwise, who fall into exclusive habits of self-indulgence, and forget their natural sympathy and close connexion with everybody and everything in the world around them, not only neglect the first duty of life, but, by a happy retributive justice, deprive themselves of its truest and best enjoyment. THE OLD COUPLE. They are grandfather and grandmother to a dozen grown people and have great-grandchildren besides; their bodies are bent, their hair is grey, their step tottering and infirm. Is this the lightsome pair whose wedding was so merry, and have the young couple indeed grown old so soon! It seems but yesterday—and yet what a host of cares and griefs are crowded into the intervening time which, reckoned by them, lengthens out into a century! How many new associations have wreathed themselves about their hearts since then! The old time is gone, and a new time has come for others—not for them. They are but the rusting link that feebly joins the two, and is silently loosening its hold and dropping asunder. It seems but yesterday—and yet three of their children have sunk into the grave, and the tree that shades it has grown quite old. One was an infant—they wept for him; the next a girl, a slight young thing too delicate for earth—her loss was hard indeed to bear. The third, a man. That was the worst of all, but even that grief is softened now. It seems but yesterday—and yet how the gay and laughing faces of that bright morning have changed and vanished from above ground! Faint likenesses of some remain about them yet, but they are very faint and scarcely to be traced. The rest are only seen in dreams, and even they are unlike what they were, in eyes so old and dim. One or two dresses from the bridal wardrobe are yet preserved. They are of a quaint and antique fashion, and seldom seen except in pictures. White has turned yellow, and brighter hues have faded. Do you wonder, child? The wrinkled face was once as smooth as yours, the eyes as bright, the shrivelled skin as fair and delicate. It is the work of hands that have been dust these many years. Where are the fairy lovers of that happy day whose annual return comes upon the old man and his wife, like the echo of some village bell which has long been silent? Let yonder peevish bachelor, racked by rheumatic pains, and quarrelling with the world, let him answer to the question. He recollects something of a favourite playmate; her name was Lucy—so they tell him. He is not sure whether she was married, or went abroad, or died. It is a long while ago, and he don’t remember. Is nothing as it used to be; does no one feel, or think, or act, as in days of yore? Yes. There is an aged woman who once lived servant with the old lady’s father, and is sheltered in an alms-house not far off. She is still attached to the family, and loves them all; she nursed the children in her lap, and tended in their sickness those who are no more. Her old mistress has still something of youth in her eyes; the young ladies are like what she was but not quite so handsome, nor are the gentlemen as stately as Mr. Harvey used to be. She has seen a great deal of trouble; her husband and her son died long ago; but she has got over that, and is happy now—quite happy. If ever her attachment to her old protectors were disturbed by fresher cares and hopes, it has long since resumed its former current. It has filled the void in the poor creature’s heart, and replaced the love of kindred. Death has not left her alone, and this, with a roof above her head, and a warm hearth to sit by, makes her cheerful and contented. Does she remember the marriage of great-grandmamma? Ay, that she does, as well—as if it was only yesterday. You wouldn’t think it to look at her now, and perhaps she ought not to say so of herself, but she was as smart a young girl then as you’d wish to see. She recollects she took a friend of hers up-stairs to see Miss Emma dressed for church; her name was—ah! she forgets the name, but she remembers that she was a very pretty girl, and that she married not long afterwards, and lived—it has quite passed out of her mind where she lived, but she knows she had a bad husband who used her ill, and that she died in Lambeth work-house. Dear, dear, in Lambeth workhouse! And the old couple—have they no comfort or enjoyment of existence? See them among their grandchildren and great-grandchildren; how garrulous they are, how they compare one with another, and insist on likenesses which no one else can see; how gently the old lady lectures the girls on points of breeding and decorum, and points the moral by anecdotes of herself in her young days—how the old gentleman chuckles over boyish feats and roguish tricks, and tells long stories of a &quot;barring-out&quot; achieved at the school he went to: which was very wrong, he tells the boys, and never to be imitated of course, but which he cannot help letting them know was very pleasant too—especially when he kissed the master’s niece. This last, however, is a point on which the old lady is very tender, for she considers it a shocking and indelicate thing to talk about, and always says so whenever it is mentioned, never failing to observe that he ought to be very penitent for having been so sinful. So the old gentleman gets no further, and what the schoolmaster’s niece said afterwards (which he is always going to tell) is lost to posterity. The old gentleman is eighty years old, to-day—&quot;Eighty years old, Crofts, and never had a headache,&quot; he tells the barber who shaves him (the barber being a young fellow, and very subject to that complaint). &quot;That’s a great age, Crofts,&quot; says the old gentleman. &quot;I don’t think it’s sich a wery great age, Sir,&quot; replied the barber. &quot;Crofts,&quot; rejoins the old gentleman, &quot;you’re talking nonsense to me. Eighty not a great age?&quot; &quot;It’s a wery great age, Sir, for a gentleman to be as healthy and active as you are,&quot; returns the barber; &quot;but my grandfather, Sir, he was ninety-four.&quot; &quot;You don’t mean that, Crofts?&quot; says the old gentleman. &quot;I do indeed, Sir,&quot; retorts the barber, &quot;and as wiggerous as Julius Cæsar, my grandfather was.&quot; The old gentleman muses a little time, and then says, &quot;What did he die of, Crofts?&quot; &quot;He died accidentally, Sir,&quot; returns the barber; &quot;he didn’t mean to do it. He always would go a running about the streets—walking never satisfied his spirit—and he run against a post and died of a hurt in his chest.&quot; The old gentleman says no more until the shaving is concluded, and then he gives Crofts half-a-crown to drink his health. He is a little doubtful of the barber’s veracity afterwards, and telling the anecdote to the old lady, affects to make very light of it—though to be sure (he adds) there was old Parr, and in some parts of England, ninety-five or so is a common age, quite a common age. This morning the old couple are cheerful but serious, recalling old times as well as they can remember them, and dwelling upon many passages in their past lives which the day brings to mind. The old lady reads aloud, in a tremulous voice, out of a great Bible, and the old gentleman with his hand to his ear, listens with profound respect. When the book is closed, they sit silent for a short space, and afterwards resume their conversation, with a reference perhaps to their dead children, as a subject not unsuited to that they have just left. By degrees they are led to consider which of those who survive are the most like those dearly-remembered objects, and so they fall into a less solemn strain, and become cheerful again. How many people in all, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and one or two intimate friends of the family, dine together to-day at the eldest son’s to congratulate the old couple, and wish them many happy returns, is a calculation beyond our powers; but this we know, that the old couple no sooner present themselves, very sprucely and carefully attired, than there is a violent shouting and rushing forward of the younger branches with all manner of presents, such as pocket-books, pencil-cases, pen-wipers, watch-papers, pin-cushions, sleeve-buckles, worked-slippers, watch-guards, and even a nutmeg-grater: the latter article being presented by a very chubby and very little boy, who exhibits it in great triumph as an extraordinary variety. The old couple’s emotion at these tokens of remembrance occasions quite a pathetic scene, of which the chief ingredients are a vast quantity of kissing and hugging, and repeated wipings of small eyes and noses with small square pocket-handkerchiefs, which don’t come at all easily out of small pockets. Even the peevish bachelor is moved, and he says, as he presents the old gentleman with a queer sort of antique ring from his own finger, that he’ll be de’ed if he doesn’t think he looks younger than he did ten years ago. But the great time is after dinner, when the dessert and wine are on the table, which is pushed back to make plenty of room, and they are all gathered in a large circle round the fire, for it is then—the glasses being filled, and everybody ready to drink the toast—that two great-grandchildren rush out at a given signal, and presently return, dragging in old Jane Adams leaning upon her crutched stick, and trembling with age and pleasure. Who so popular as poor old Jane, nurse and story-teller in ordinary to two generations; and who so happy as she, striving to bend her stiff limbs into a curtsey, while tears of pleasure steal down her withered cheeks! The old couple sit side by side, and the old time seems like yesterday indeed. Looking back upon the path they have travelled, its dust and ashes disappear; the flowers that withered long ago, show brightly again upon its borders, and they grow young once more in the youth of those about them. CONCLUSION. We have taken for the subjects of the foregoing moral essays, twelve samples of married couples, carefully selected from a large stock on hand, open to the inspection of all comers. These samples are intended for the benefit of the rising generation of both sexes, and, for their more easy and pleasant information, have been separately ticketed and labelled in the manner they have seen. We have purposely excluded from consideration the couple in which the lady reigns paramount and supreme, holding such cases to be of a very unnatural kind, and like hideous births and other monstrous deformities, only to be discreetly and sparingly exhibited. And here our self-imposed task would have ended, but that to those young ladies and gentlemen who are yet revolving singly round the church, awaiting the advent of that time when the mysterious laws of attraction shall draw them towards it in couples, we are desirous of addressing a few last words. Before marriage and afterwards, let them learn to centre all their hopes of real and lasting happiness in their own fireside; let them cherish the faith that in home, and all the English virtues which the love of home engenders, lies the only true source of domestic felicity; let them believe that round the household gods, contentment and tranquillity cluster in their gentlest and most graceful forms; and that many weary hunters of happiness through the noisy world, have learnt this truth too late, and found a cheerful spirit and a quiet mind only at home at last. How much may depend on the education of daughters and the conduct of mothers; how much of the brightest part of our old national character may be perpetuated by their wisdom or frittered away by their folly—how much of it may have been lost already, and how much more in danger of vanishing every day—are questions too weighty for discussion here, but well deserving a little serious consideration from all young couples nevertheless. To that one young couple on whose bright destiny the thoughts of nations are fixed, may the youth of England look, and not in vain, for an example. From that one young couple, blessed and favoured as they are, may they learn that even the glare and glitter of a court, the splendour of a palace, and the pomp and glory of a throne, yield in their power of conferring happiness, to domestic worth and virtue. From that one young couple may they learn that the crown of a great empire, costly and jewelled though it be, gives place in the estimation of a Queen to the plain gold ring that links her woman’s nature to that of tens of thousands of her humble subjects, and guards in her woman’s heart one secret store of tenderness, whose proudest boast shall be that it knows no Royalty save Nature’s own, and no pride of birth but being the child of heaven! So shall the highest young couple in the land for once hear the truth, when men throw up their caps, and cry with loving shouts— GOD BLESS THEM.18400101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_Young_Couples/1840-Sketches_of_Young_Couples.pdf
157https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/157<em>Sketches of Young Gentlemen</em><em>Sketches of Young Gentlemen.</em> London: Chapman and Hall, 1838.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102287701">https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102287701</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1838">1838</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+Hablot+Knight+Browne+%28%22PHIZ%22%29">Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne (&quot;PHIZ&quot;)</a>Google digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<em>Sketches of Young Gentlemen</em> (1838) was a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort <em>Sketches of Young Ladies</em> (1838), which is referenced throughout Dickens's rejoinder.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1838-Sketches_of_Young_GentlemenDickens, Charles. <em>Sketches of Young Gentlemen</em> (1838). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/shortstories/1838-Sketches_of_Young_Gentlemen">https://www.dickenssearch.com/shortstories/1838-Sketches_of_Young_Gentlemen</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a>TO THE YOUNG LADIES OF THE United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; ALSO THE YOUNG LADIES OF THE PRINCIPALITY OF WALES, AND LIKEWISE THE YOUNG LADIES RESIDENT IN THE ISLES OF Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark, THE HUMBLE DEDICATION OF THEIR DEVOTED ADMIRER, Sheweth,— That your Dedicator has perused, with feelings of virtuous indignation, a work purporting to be &quot;Sketches of Young Ladies;&quot; written by Quiz, illustrated by Phiz, and published in one volume, square twelvemo. That after an attentive and vigilant perusal of the said work, your Dedicator is humbly of opinion that so many libels, upon your Honourable sex, were never contained in any previously published work, in twelvemo or any other mo. That in the title page and preface to the said work, your Honourable sex are described and classified as animals; and although your Dedicator is not at present prepared to deny that you are animals, still he humbly submits that it is not polite to call you so. That in the aforesaid preface, your Honourable sex are also described as Troglodites, which, being a hard word, may, for aught your Honourable sex or your Dedicator can say to the contrary, be an injurious and disrespectful appellation. That the author of the said work applied himself to his task in malice prepense and with wickedness aforethought; a fact which, your Dedicator contends, is sufficiently demonstrated, by his assuming the name of Quiz, which, your Dedicator submits, denotes a foregone conclusion, and implies an intention of quizzing. That in the execution of his evil design, the said Quiz, or author of the said work, must have betrayed some trust or confidence reposed in him by some members of your Honourable sex, otherwise he never could have acquired so much information relative to the manners and customs of your Honourable sex in general. That actuated by these considerations, and further moved by various slanders and insinuations respecting your Honourable sex contained in the said work, square twelvemo, entitled &quot;Sketches of Young Ladies,&quot; your Dedicator ventures to produce another work, square twelvemo, entitled &quot;Sketches of Young Gentlemen,&quot; of which he now solicits your acceptance and approval. That as the Young Ladies are the best companions of the Young Gentlemen, so the Young Gentlemen should be the best companions of the Young Ladies; and extending the comparison from animals (to quote the disrespectful language of the said Quiz) to inanimate objects, your Dedicator humbly suggests, that such of your Honourable sex as purchased the bane should possess themselves of the antidote, and that those of your Honourable sex who were not rash enough to take the first, should lose no time in swallowing the last,—prevention being in all cases better than cure, as we are informed upon the authority, not only of general acknowledgment, but also of traditionary wisdom. That with reference to the said bane and antidote, your Dedicator has no further remarks to make, than are comprised in the printed directions issued with Doctor Morison’s pills; namely, that whenever your Honourable sex take twenty-five of Number, 1, you will be pleased to take fifty of Number 2, without delay. And your Dedicator shall ever pray, &amp;c. THE BASHFUL YOUNG GENTLEMAN. We found ourself seated at a small dinner party the other day, opposite a stranger of such singular appearance and manner, that he irresistibly attracted our attention. This was a fresh-coloured young gentleman, with as good a promise of light whisker as one might wish to see, and possessed of a very velvet-like soft-looking countenance. We do not use the latter term invidiously, but merely to denote a pair of smooth, plump, highly-coloured cheeks of capacious dimensions, and a mouth rather remarkable for the fresh hue of the lips than for any marked or striking expression it presented. His whole face was suffused with a crimson blush, and bore that downcast, timid, retiring look, which betokens a man ill at ease with himself. There was nothing in these symptoms to attract more than a passing remark, but our attention had been originally drawn to the bashful young gentleman, on his first appearance in the drawing-room above-stairs, into which he was no sooner introduced, than making his way towards us who were standing in a window, and wholly neglecting several persons who warmly accosted him, he seized our hand with visible emotion, and pressed it with a convulsive grasp for a good couple of minutes, after which he dived in a nervous manner across the room, oversetting in his way a fine little girl of six years and a quarter old—and shrouding himself behind some hangings, was seen no more, until the eagle eye of the hostess detecting him in his concealment, on the announcement of dinner, he was requested to pair off with a lively single lady, of two or three and thirty. This most flattering salutation from a perfect stranger, would have gratified us not a little as a token of his having held us in high respect, and for that reason been desirous of our acquaintance, if we had not suspected from the first, that the young gentleman, in making a desperate effort to get through the ceremony of introduction, had, in the bewilderment of his ideas, shaken hands with us at random. This impression was fully confirmed by the subsequent behaviour of the bashful young gentleman in question, which we noted particularly, with the view of ascertaining whether we were right in our conjecture. The young gentleman seated himself at table with evident misgivings, and turning sharp round to pay attention to some observation of his loquacious neighbour, overset his bread. There was nothing very bad in this, and if he had had the presence of mind to let it go, and say nothing about it, nobody but the man who had laid the cloth would have been a bit the wiser; but the young gentleman in various semi-successful attempts to prevent its fall, played with it a little, as gentlemen in the streets may be seen to do with their hats on a windy day, and then giving the roll a smart rap in his anxiety to catch it, knocked it with great adroitness into a tureen of white soup at some distance, to the unspeakable terror and disturbance of a very amiable bald gentleman, who was dispensing the contents. We thought the bashful young gentleman would have gone off in an apoplectic fit, consequent upon the violent rush of blood to his face at the occurrence of this catastrophe. From this moment we perceived, in the phraseology of the fancy, that it was &quot;all up&quot; with the bashful young gentleman, and so indeed it was. Several benevolent persons endeavoured to relieve his embarrassment by taking wine with him, but finding that it only augmented his sufferings, and that after mingling sherry, champagne, hock, and moselle together, he applied the greater part of the mixture externally, instead of internally, they gradually dropped off, and left him to the exclusive care of the talkative lady, who not noting the wildness of his eye, firmly believed she had secured a listener. He broke a glass or two in the course of the meal, and disappeared shortly afterwards; it is inferred that he went away in some confusion, inasmuch as he left the house in another gentleman’s coat, and the footman’s hat. This little incident led us to reflect upon the most prominent characteristics of bashful young gentlemen in the abstract; and as this portable volume will be the great text-book of young ladies in all future generations, we record them here for their guidance and behoof. If the bashful young gentleman, in turning a street corner, chance to stumble suddenly upon two or three young ladies of his acquaintance, nothing can exceed his confusion and agitation. His first impulse is to make a great variety of bows, and dart past them, which he does until, observing that they wish to stop, but are uncertain whether to do so or not, he makes several feints of returning, which causes them to do the same; and at length, after a great quantity of unnecessary dodging and falling up against the other passengers, he returns and shakes hands most affectionately with all of them, in doing which he knocks out of their grasp sundry little parcels, which he hastily picks up, and returns very muddy and disordered. The chances are that the bashful young gentleman then observes it is very fine weather, and being reminded that it has only just left off raining for the first time these three days, he blushes very much, and smiles as if he had said a very good thing. The young lady who was most anxious to speak, here inquires, with an air of great commiseration, how his dear sister Harriet is to-day; to which the young gentleman, without the slightest consideration, replies with many thanks, that she is remarkably well. &quot;Well, Mr. Hopkins!&quot; cries the young lady, &quot;why, we heard she was bled yesterday evening, and have been perfectly miserable about her.&quot; &quot;Oh, ah,&quot; says the young gentleman, &quot;so she was. Oh, she’s very ill, very ill indeed.&quot; The young gentleman then shakes his head, and looks very desponding (he has been smiling perpetually up to this time), and after a short pause, gives his glove a great wrench at the wrist, and says, with a strong emphasis on the adjective, &quot;Good morning, good morning.&quot; And making a great number of bows in acknowledgment of several little messages to his sister, walks backward a few paces, and comes with great violence against a lamp-post, knocking his hat off in the contact, which in his mental confusion and bodily pain he is going to walk away without, until a great roar from a carter attracts his attention, when he picks it up, and tries to smile cheerfully to the young ladies, who are looking back, and who, he has the satisfaction of seeing, are all laughing heartily. At a quadrille party, the bashful young gentleman always remains as near the entrance of the room as possible, from which position he smiles at the people he knows as they come in, and sometimes steps forward to shake hands with more intimate friends: a process which on each repetition seems to turn him a deeper scarlet than before. He declines dancing the first set or two, observing, in a faint voice, that he would rather wait a little; but at length is absolutely compelled to allow himself to be introduced to a partner, when he is led, in a great heat and blushing furiously, across the room to a spot where half-a-dozen unknown ladies are congregated together. &quot;Miss Lambert, let me introduce Mr. Hopkins for the next quadrille.&quot; Miss Lambert inclines her head graciously. Mr. Hopkins bows, and his fair conductress disappears, leaving Mr. Hopkins, as he too well knows, to make himself agreeable. The young lady more than half expects that the bashful young gentleman will say something, and the bashful young gentleman feeling this, seriously thinks whether he has got anything to say, which, upon mature reflection, he is rather disposed to conclude he has not, since nothing occurs to him. Meanwhile, the young lady, after several inspections of her bouquet, all made in the expectation that the bashful young gentleman is going to talk, whispers her mamma, who is sitting next her, which whisper the bashful young gentleman immediately suspects (and possibly with very good reason) must be about him. In this comfortable condition he remains until it is time to &quot;stand up,&quot;when murmuring a &quot;Will you allow me?&quot; he gives the young lady his arm, and after inquiring where she will stand, and receiving a reply that she has no choice, conducts her to the remotest corner of the quadrille, and making one attempt at conversation, which turns out a desperate failure, preserves a profound silence until it is all over, when he walks her twice round the room, deposits her in her old seat, and retires in confusion. A married bashful gentleman—for these bashful gentlemen do get married sometimes; how it is ever brought about, is a mystery to us—a married bashful gentleman either causes his wife to appear bold by contrast, or merges her proper importance in his own insignificance. Bashful young gentlemen should be cured, or avoided. They are never hopeless, and never will be, while female beauty and attractions retain their influence, as any young lady will find, who may think it worth while on this confident assurance to take a patient in hand. THE OUT-AND-OUT YOUNG GENTLEMAN. Out-and-out young gentlemen may be divided into two classes—those who have something to do, and those who have nothing. I shall commence with the former, because that species come more frequently under the notice of young ladies, whom it is our province to warn and to instruct. The out-and-out young gentleman is usually no great dresser, his instructions to his tailor being all comprehended in the one general direction to &quot;make that what’s-a-name a regular bang-up sort of thing.&quot; For some years past, the favourite costume of the out-and-out young gentleman has been a rough pilot coat, with two gilt hooks and eyes to the velvet collar; buttons somewhat larger than crown-pieces; a black or fancy neckerchief, loosely tied; a wide-brimmed hat, with a low crown; tightish inexpressibles, and iron-shod boots. Out of doors he sometimes carries a large ash stick, but only on special occasions, for he prefers keeping his hands in his coat pockets. He smokes at all hours, of course, and swears considerably. The out-and-out young gentleman is employed in a city counting-house or solicitor’s office, in which he does as little as he possibly can: his chief places of resort are, the streets, the taverns, and the theatres. In the streets at evening time, out-and-out young gentlemen have a pleasant custom of walking six or eight abreast, thus driving females and other inoffensive persons into the road, which never fails to afford them the highest satisfaction, especially if there be any immediate danger of their being run over, which enhances the fun of the thing materially. In all places of public resort, the out-and-outers are careful to select each a seat to himself, upon which he lies at full length, and (if the weather be very dirty, but not in any other case) he lies with his knees up, and the soles of his boots planted firmly on the cushion, so that if any low fellow should ask him to make room for a lady, he takes ample revenge upon her dress, without going at all out of his way to do it. He always sits with his hat on, and flourishes his stick in the air while the play is proceeding, with a dignified contempt of the performance; if it be possible for one or two out-and-out young gentlemen to get up a little crowding in the passages, they are quite in their element, squeezing, pushing, whooping, and shouting in the most humorous manner possible. If they can only succeed in irritating the gentleman who has a family of daughters under his charge, they are like to die with laughing, and boast of it among their companions for a week afterwards, adding, that one or two of them were &quot;devilish fine girls,&quot; and that they really thought the youngest would have fainted, which was the only thing wanted to render the joke complete. If the out-and-out young gentleman have a mother and sisters, of course he treats them with becoming contempt, inasmuch as they (poor things!) having no notion of life or gaiety, are far too weak-spirited and moping for him. Sometimes, however, on a birth-day or at Christmas time, he cannot very well help accompanying them to a party at some old friend’s, with which view he comes home when they have been dressed an hour or two, smelling very strongly of tobacco and spirits, and after exchanging his rough coat for some more suitable attire (in which however he loses nothing of the out-and-outer), gets into the coach and grumbles all the way at his own good-nature: his bitter reflections aggravated by the recollection, that Tom Smith has taken the chair at a little impromptu dinner at a fighting man’s, and that a set-to was to take place on a dining-table, between the fighting man and his brother-in-law, which is probably &quot;coming off&quot; at that very instant. As the out-and-out young gentleman is by no means at his ease in ladies’ society, he shrinks into a corner of the drawing-room when they reach the friend’s, and unless one of his sisters is kind enough to talk to him, remains there without being much troubled by the attentions of other people, until he espies, lingering outside the door, another gentleman, whom he at once knows, by his air and manner (for there is a kind of free-masonry in the craft), to be a brother out-and-outer, and towards whom he accordingly makes his way. Conversation being soon opened by some casual remark, the second out-and-outer confidentially informs the first, that he is one of the rough sort and hates that kind of thing, only he couldn’t very well be off coming; to which the other replies, that that’s just his case—&quot;and I’ll tell you what,&quot; continues the out-and-outer in a whisper, &quot;I should like a glass of warm brandy and water just now,&quot;— &quot;Or a pint of stout and a pipe,&quot; suggests the other out-and-outer. The discovery is at once made that they are sympathetic souls; each of them says at the same moment, that he sees the other understands what’s what: and they become fast friends at once, more especially when it appears, that the second out-and-outer is no other than a gentleman, long favourably known to his familiars as &quot;Mr. Warmint Blake,&quot; who upon divers occasions has distinguished himself in a manner that would not have disgraced the fighting man, and who—having been a pretty long time about town—had the honour of once shaking hands with the celebrated Mr. Thurtell himself. At supper, these gentlemen greatly distinguish themselves, brightening up very much when the ladies leave the table, and proclaiming aloud their intention of beginning to spend the evening—a process which is generally understood to be satisfactorily performed, when a great deal of wine is drunk and a great deal of noise made, both of which feats the out-and-out young gentlemen execute to perfection. Having protracted their sitting until long after the host and the other guests have adjourned to the drawing-room, and finding that they have drained the decanters empty, they follow them thither with complexions rather heightened, and faces rather bloated with wine; and the agitated lady of the house whispers her friends as they waltz together, to the great terror of the whole room, that &quot;both Mr. Blake and Mr. Dummins are very nice sort of young men in their way, only they are eccentric persons, and unfortunately rather too wild!&quot; The remaining class of out-and-out young gentlemen is composed of persons, who, having no money of their own and a soul above earning any, enjoy similar pleasures, nobody knows how. These respectable gentlemen, without aiming quite so much at the out-and-out in external appearance, are distinguished by all the same amiable and attractive characteristics, in an equal or perhaps greater degree, and now and then find their way into society, through the medium of the other class of out-and-out young gentlemen, who will sometimes carry them home, and who usually pay their tavern bills. As they are equally gentlemanly, clever, witty, intelligent, wise, and well-bred, we need scarcely have recommended them to the peculiar consideration of the young ladies, if it were not that some of the gentle creatures whom we hold in such high respect, are perhaps a little too apt to confound a great many heavier terms with the light word eccentricity, which we beg them henceforth to take in a strictly Johnsonian sense, without any liberality or latitude of construction. THE VERY FRIENDLY YOUNG GENTLEMAN. We know—and all people know—so many specimens of this class, that in selecting the few heads our limits enable us to take from a great number, we have been induced to give the very friendly young gentleman the preference over many others, to whose claims upon a more cursory view of the question we had felt disposed to assign the priority. The very friendly young gentleman is very friendly to everybody, but he attaches himself particularly to two, or at most to three families: regulating his choice by their dinners, their circle of acquaintance, or some other criterion in which he has an immediate interest. He is of any age between twenty and forty, unmarried of course, must be fond of children, and is expected to make himself generally useful if possible. Let us illustrate our meaning by an example, which is the shortest mode and the clearest. We encountered one day, by chance, an old friend of whom we had lost sight for some years, and who—expressing a strong anxiety to renew our former intimacy—urged us to dine with him on an early day, that we might talk over old times. We readily assented, adding, that we hoped we should be alone. &quot;Oh, certainly, certainly,&quot; said our friend, &quot;not a soul with us but Mincin.&quot; &quot;And who is Mincin?’ was our natural inquiry. &quot;O don’t mind him,&quot; replied our friend, &quot;he’s a most particular friend of mine, and a very friendly fellow you will find him;&quot; and so he left us. We thought no more about Mincin until we duly presented ourselves at the house next day, when, after a hearty welcome, our friend motioned towards a gentleman who had been previously showing his teeth by the fire-place, and gave us to understand that it was Mr. Mincin, of whom he had spoken. It required no great penetration on our part to discover at once that Mr. Mincin was in every respect a very friendly young gentleman. &quot;I am delighted,&quot; said Mincin, hastily advancing, and pressing our hand warmly between both of his, &quot;I am delighted, I am sure, to make your acquaintance—(here he smiled)—very much delighted indeed—(here he exhibited a little emotion)—I assure you that I have looked forward to it anxiously for a very long time:&quot; here he released our hands, and rubbing his own, observed, that the day was severe, but that he was delighted to perceive from our appearance that it agreed with us wonderfully; and then went on to observe, that, notwithstanding the coldness of the weather, he had that morning seen in the paper an exceedingly curious paragraph, to the effect, that there was now in the garden of Mr. Wilkins of Chichester, a pumpkin, measuring four feet in height, and eleven feet seven inches in circumference, which he looked upon as a very extraordinary piece of intelligence. We ventured to remark, that we had a dim recollection of having once or twice before observed a similar paragraph in the public prints, upon which Mr. Mincin took us confidentially by the button, and said, Exactly, exactly, to be sure, we were very right, and he wondered what the editors meant by putting in such things. Who the deuce, he should like to know, did they suppose cared about them? that struck him as being the best of it. The lady of the house appeared shortly afterwards, and Mr. Mincin’s friendliness, as will readily be supposed, suffered no diminution in consequence; he exerted much strength and skill in wheeling a large easy-chair up to the fire, and the lady being seated in it, carefully closed the door, stirred the fire, and looked to the windows to see that they admitted no air; having satisfied himself upon all these points, he expressed himself quite easy in his mind, and begged to know how she found herself to-day. Upon the lady’s replying very well, Mr. Mincin (who it appeared was a medical gentleman) offered some general remarks upon the nature and treatment of colds in the head, which occupied us agreeably until dinner-time. During the meal, he devoted himself to complimenting everybody, not forgetting himself, so that we were an uncommonly agreeable quartette. &quot;I’ll tell you what, Capper,&quot; said Mr. Mincin to our host, as he closed the room door after the lady had retired, &quot;you have very great reason to be fond of your wife. Sweet woman, Mrs. Capper, sir!&quot; &quot;Nay, Mincin—I beg,&quot; interposed the host, as we were about to reply that Mrs. Capper unquestionably was particularly sweet. &quot;Pray, Mincin, don’t.&quot; &quot;Why not?&quot; exclaimed Mr. Mincin, &quot;why not? Why should you feel any delicacy before your old friend—our old friend, if I may be allowed to call you so, sir; why should you, I ask?&quot; We of course wished to know why he should also, upon which our friend admitted that Mrs. Capper was a very sweet woman, at which admission Mr. Mincin cried &quot;Bravo!&quot; and begged to propose Mrs. Capper with heartfelt enthusiasm, whereupon our host said, &quot;Thank you, Mincin,&quot; with deep feeling; and gave us, in a low voice, to understand, that Mincin had saved Mrs. Capper’s cousin’s life no less than fourteen times in a year and a half, which he considered no common circumstance—an opinion to which we most cordially subscribed. Now that we three were left to entertain ourselves with conversation, Mr. Mincin’s extreme friendliness became every moment more apparent; he was so amazingly friendly, indeed, that it was impossible to talk about anything in which he had not the chief concern. We happened to allude to some affairs in which our friend and we had been mutually engaged nearly fourteen years before, when Mr. Mincin was all at once reminded of a joke which our friend had made on that day four years, which he positively must insist upon telling—and which he did tell accordingly, with many pleasant recollections of what he said, and what Mrs. Capper said, and how he well remembered that they had been to the play with orders on the very night previous, and had seen Romeo and Juliet, and the pantomime, and how Mrs. Capper being faint had been led into the lobby, where she smiled, said it was nothing after all, and went back again, with many other interesting and absorbing particulars: after which the friendly young gentleman went on to assure us, that our friend had experienced a marvellously prophetic opinion of that same pantomime, which was of such an admirable kind, that two morning papers took the same view next day: to this our friend replied, with a little triumph, that in that instance he had some reason to think he had been correct, which gave the friendly young gentleman occasion to believe that our friend was always correct; and so we went on, until our friend, filling a bumper, said he must drink one glass to his dear friend Mincin, than whom he would say no man saved the lives of his acquaintances more, or had a more friendly heart. Finally, our friend having emptied his glass, said, &quot;God bless you, Mincin,&quot;—and Mr. Mincin and he shook hands across the table with much affection and earnestness. But great as the friendly young gentleman is, in a limited scene like this, he plays the same part on a larger scale with increased éclat. Mr. Mincin is invited to an evening party with his dear friends the Martins, where he meets his dear friends the Cappers, and his dear friends the Watsons, and a hundred other dear friends too numerous to mention. He is as much at home with the Martins as with the Cappers; but how exquisitely he balances his attentions, and divides them among his dear friends! If he flirts with one of the Miss Watsons, he has one little Martin on the sofa pulling his hair, and the other little Martin on the carpet riding on his foot. He carries Mrs. Watson down to supper on one arm, and Miss Martin on the other, and takes wine so judiciously, and in such exact order, that it is impossible for the most punctilious old lady to consider herself neglected. If any young lady, being prevailed upon to sing, become nervous afterwards, Mr. Mincin leads her tenderly into the next room, and restores her with port wine, which she must take medicinally. If any gentleman be standing by the piano during the progress of the ballad, Mr. Mincin seizes him by the arm at one point of the melody, and softly beating time the while with his head, expresses in dumb show his intense perception of the delicacy of the passage. If anybody’s self-love is to be flattered, Mr. Mincin is at hand. If anybody’s overweening vanity is to be pampered, Mr. Mincin will surfeit it. What wonder that people of all stations and ages recognise Mr. Mincin’s friendliness; that he is universally allowed to be handsome as amiable; that mothers think him an oracle, daughters a dear, brothers a beau, and fathers a wonder! And who would not have the reputation of the very friendly young gentleman? THE MILITARY YOUNG GENTLEMAN. We are rather at a loss to imagine how it has come to pass that military young gentlemen have obtained so much favour in the eyes of the young ladies of this kingdom. We cannot think so lightly of them as to suppose that the mere circumstance of a man’s wearing a red coat ensures him a ready passport to their regard; and even if this were the case, it would be no satisfactory explanation of the circumstance, because, although the analogy may in some degree hold good in the case of mail coachmen and guards, still general postmen wear red coats, and they are not to our knowledge better received than other men; nor are firemen either, who wear (or used to wear) not only red coats, but very resplendent and massive badges besides—much larger than epaulettes. Neither do the twopenny post-office boys, if the result of our inquiries be correct, find any peculiar favour in woman’s eyes, although they wear very bright red jackets, and have the additional advantage of constantly appearing in public on horseback, which last circumstance may be naturally supposed to be greatly in their favour. We have sometimes thought that this phenomenon may take its rise in the conventional behaviour of captains and colonels and other gentlemen in red coats on the stage, where they are invariably represented as fine swaggering fellows, talking of nothing but charming girls, their king and country, their honour, and their debts, and crowing over the inferior classes of the community, whom they occasionally treat with a little gentlemanly swindling, no less to the improvement and pleasure of the audience, than to the satisfaction and approval of the choice spirits who consort with them. But we will not devote these pages to our speculations upon the subject, inasmuch as our business at the present moment is not so much with the young ladies who are bewitched by her Majesty’s livery as with the young gentlemen whose heads are turned by it. For &quot;heads&quot; we had written &quot;brains;&quot; but upon consideration, we think the former the more appropriate word of the two. These young gentlemen may be divided into two classes—young gentlemen who are actually in the army, and young gentlemen who, having an intense and enthusiastic admiration for all things appertaining to a military life, are compelled by adverse fortune or adverse relations to wear out their existence in some ignoble counting-house. We will take this latter description of military young gentlemen first. The whole heart and soul of the military young gentleman are concentrated in his favourite topic. There is nothing that he is so learned upon as uniforms; he will tell you, without faltering for an instant, what the habiliments of any one regiment are turned up with, what regiment wear stripes down the outside and inside of the leg, and how many buttons the Tenth had on their coats; he knows to a fraction how many yards and odd inches of gold lace it takes to make an ensign in the Guards; is deeply read in the comparative merits of different bands, and the apparelling of trumpeters; and is very luminous indeed in descanting upon &quot;crack regiments,&quot; and the &quot;crack&quot; gentlemen who compose them, of whose mightiness and grandeur he is never tired of telling. We were suggesting to a military young gentleman only the other day, after he had related to us several dazzling instances of the profusion of half-a-dozen honourable ensign somebodies or nobodies in the articles of kid gloves and polished boots, that possibly &quot;cracked&quot; regiments would be an improvement upon &quot;crack,&quot; as being a more expressive and appropriate designation, when he suddenly interrupted us by pulling out his watch, and observing that he must hurry off to the Park in a cab, or he would be too late to hear the band play. Not wishing to interfere with so important an engagement, and being in fact already slightly overwhelmed by the anecdotes of the honourable ensigns afore-mentioned, we made no attempt to detain the military young gentleman, but parted company with ready good-will. Some three or four hours afterwards, we chanced to be walking down Whitehall, on the Admiralty side of the way, when, as we drew near to one of the little stone places in which a couple of horse soldiers mount guard in the day-time, we were attracted by the motionless appearance and eager gaze of a young gentleman, who was devouring both man and horse with his eyes, so eagerly, that he seemed deaf and blind to all that was passing around him. We were not much surprised at the discovery that it was our friend, the military young gentleman, but we were a little astonished when we returned from a walk to South Lambeth to find him still there, looking on with the same intensity as before. As it was a very windy day, we felt bound to awaken the young gentleman from his reverie, when he inquired of us with great enthusiasm, whether &quot;that was not a glorious spectacle,&quot; and proceeded to give us a detailed account of the weight of every article of the spectacle’s trappings, from the man’s gloves to the horse’s shoes. We have made it a practice since, to take the Horse Guards in our daily walk, and we find it is the custom of military young gentlemen to plant themselves opposite the sentries, and contemplate them at leisure, in periods varying from fifteen minutes to fifty, and averaging twenty-five. We were much struck a day or two since, by the behaviour of a very promising young butcher who (evincing an interest in the service, which cannot be too strongly commanded or encouraged), after a prolonged inspection of the sentry, proceeded to handle his boots with great curiosity, and as much composure and indifference as if the man were wax-work. But the really military young gentleman is waiting all this time, and at the very moment that an apology rises to our lips, he emerges from the barrack gate (he is quartered in a garrison town), and takes the way towards the high street. He wears his undress uniform, which somewhat mars the glory of his outward man; but still how great, how grand, he is! What a happy mixture of ease and ferocity in his gait and carriage, and how lightly he carries that dreadful sword under his arm, making no more ado about it than if it were a silk umbrella! The lion is sleeping: only think if an enemy were in sight, how soon he’d whip it out of the scabbard, and what a terrible fellow he would be! But he walks on, thinking of nothing less than blood and slaughter; and now he comes in sight of three other military young gentlemen, arm-in-arm, who are bearing down towards him, clanking their iron heels on the pavement, and clashing their swords with a noise, which should cause all peaceful men to quail at heart. They stop to talk. See how the flaxen-haired young gentleman with the weak legs—he who has his pocket-handkerchief thrust into the breast of his coat-glares upon the fainthearted civilians who linger to look upon his glory; how the next young gentleman elevates his head in the air, and majestically places his arms a-kimbo, while the third stands with his legs very wide apart, and clasps his hands behind him. Well may we inquire—not in familiar jest, but in respectful earnest—if you call that nothing. Oh! if some encroaching foreign power—the emperor of Russia, for instance, or any of those deep fellows, could only see those military young gentlemen as they move on together towards the billiard-room over the way, wouldn’t he tremble a little! And then, at the Theatre at night, when the performances are by command of Colonel Fitz-Sordust and the officers of the garrison—what a splendid sight it is! How sternly the defenders of their country look round the house as if in mute assurance to the audience, that they may make themselves comfortable regarding any foreign invasion, for they (the military young gentlemen) are keeping a sharp look-out, and are ready for anything. And what a contrast between them, and that stage-box full of grey-headed officers with tokens of many battles about them, who have nothing at all in common with the military young gentlemen, and who—but for an old-fashioned kind of manly dignity in their looks and bearing—might be common hard-working soldiers for anything they take the pains to announce to the contrary! Ah! here is a family just come in who recognise the flaxen-headed young gentleman; and the flaxen-headed young gentleman recognises them too, only he doesn’t care to show it just now. Very well done indeed! He talks louder to the little group of military young gentlemen who are standing by him, and coughs to induce some ladies in the next box but one to look round, in order that their faces may undergo the same ordeal of criticism to which they have subjected, in not a wholly inaudible tone, the majority of the female portion of the audience. Oh! a gentleman in the same box looks round as if he were disposed to resent this as an impertinence; and the flaxen-headed young gentleman sees his friends at once, and hurries away to them with the most charming cordiality. Three young ladies, one young man, and the mamma of the party, receive the military young gentleman with great warmth and politeness, and in five minutes afterwards the military young gentleman, stimulated by the mamma, introduces the two other military young gentlemen with whom he was walking in the morning, who take their seats behind the young ladies and commence conversation; whereat the mamma bestows a triumphant bow upon a rival mamma, who has not succeeded in decoying any military young gentlemen, and prepares to consider her visitors from that moment three of the most elegant and superior young gentlemen in the whole world. THE POLITICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN. Once upon a time—not in the days when pigs drank wine, but in a more recent period of our history—it was customary to banish politics when ladies were present. If this usage still prevailed, we should have had no chapter for political young gentlemen, for ladies would have neither known nor cared what kind of monster a political young gentleman was. But as this good custom in common with many others has &quot;gone out,&quot; and left no word when it is likely to be home again; as political young ladies are by no means rare, and political young gentlemen the very reverse of scarce, we are bound in the strict discharge of our most responsible duty not to neglect this natural division of our subject. If the political young gentleman be resident in a country town (and there are political young gentlemen in country towns sometimes), he is wholly absorbed in his politics; as a pair of purple spectacles communicate the same uniform tint to all objects near and remote, so the political glasses, with which the young gentleman assists his mental vision, give to everything the hue and tinge of party feeling. The political young gentleman would as soon think of being struck with the beauty of a young lady in the opposite interest, as he would dream of marrying his sister to the opposite member. If the political young gentleman be a Conservative, he has usually some vague ideas about Ireland and the Pope which he cannot very clearly explain, but which he knows are the right sort of thing, and not to be very easily got over by the other side. He has also some choice sentences regarding church and state, culled from the banners in use at the last election, with which he intersperses his conversation at intervals with surprising effect. But his great topic is the constitution, upon which he will declaim, by the hour together, with much heat and fury; not that he has any particular information on the subject, but because he knows that the constitution is somehow church and state, and church and state somehow the constitution, and that the fellows on the other side say it isn’t, which is quite a sufficient reason for him to say it is, and to stick to it. Perhaps his greatest topic of all, though, is the people. If a fight takes place in a populous town, in which many noses are broken, and a few windows, the young gentleman throws down the newspaper with a triumphant air, and exclaims, &quot;Here’s your precious people!&quot; If half-a-dozen boys run across the course at race time, when it ought to be kept clear, the young gentleman looks indignantly round, and begs you to observe the conduct of the people; if the gallery demand a hornpipe between the play and the afterpiece, the same young gentleman cries &quot;No&quot; and &quot;Shame&quot; till he is hoarse, and then inquires with a sneer what you think of popular moderation now; in short, the people form a never-failing theme for him; and when the attorney, on the side of his candidate, dwells upon it with great power of eloquence at election time, as he never fails to do, the young gentleman and his friends, and the body they head, cheer with great violence against the other people, with whom, of course, they have no possible connexion. In much the same manner the audience at a theatre never fail to be highly amused with any jokes at the expense of the public—always laughing heartily at some other public, and never at themselves. If the political young gentleman be a Radical, he is usually a very profound person indeed, having great store of theoretical questions to put to you, with an infinite variety of possible cases and logical deductions therefrom. If he be of the utilitarian school, too, which is more than probable, he is particularly pleasant company, having many ingenious remarks to offer upon the voluntary principle and various cheerful disquisitions connected with the population of the country, the position of Great Britain in the scale of nations, and the balance of power. Then he is exceedingly well versed in all doctrines of political economy as laid down in the newspapers, and knows a great many parliamentary speeches by heart; nay, he has a small stock of aphorisms, none of them exceeding a couple of lines in length, which will settle the toughest question and leave you nothing to say. He gives all the young ladies to understand, that Miss Martineau is the greatest woman that ever lived; and when they praise the good looks of Mr. Hawkins the new member, says he’s very well for a representative, all things considered, but he wants a little calling to account, and he is more than half afraid it will be necessary to bring him down on his knees for that vote on the miscellaneous estimates. At this, the young ladies express much wonderment, and say surely a Member of Parliament is not to be brought upon his knees so easily; in reply to which the political young gentleman smiles sternly, and throws out dark hints regarding the speedy arrival of that day, when Members of Parliament will be paid salaries, and required to render weekly accounts of their proceedings, at which the young ladies utter many expressions of astonishment and incredulity, while their lady-mothers regard the prophecy as little else than blasphemous. It is extremely improving and interesting to hear two political young gentlemen, of diverse opinions, discuss some great question across a dinner-table; such as, whether, if the public were admitted to Westminster Abbey for nothing, they would or would not convey small chisels and hammers in their pockets, and immediately set about chipping all the noses off the statues; or whether, if they once got into the Tower for a shilling, they would not insist upon trying the crown on their own heads, and loading and firing off all the small arms in the armoury, to the great discomposure of Whitechapel and the Minories. Upon these, and many other momentous questions which agitate the public mind in these desperate days, they will discourse with great vehemence and irritation for a considerable time together, both leaving off precisely where they began, and each thoroughly persuaded that he has got the better of the other. In society, at assemblies, balls, and playhouses, these political young gentlemen are perpetually on the watch for a political allusion, or anything which can be tortured or construed into being one; when, thrusting themselves into the very smallest openings for their favourite discourse, they fall upon the unhappy company tooth and nail. They have recently had many favourable opportunities of opening in churches, but as there the clergyman has it all his own way, and must not be contradicted, whatever politics he preaches, they are fain to hold their tongues until they reach the outer door, though at the imminent risk of bursting in the effort. As such discussions can please nobody but the talkative parties concerned, we hope they will henceforth take the hint and discontinue them, otherwise we now give them warning, that the ladies have our advice to discountenance such talkers altogether. THE DOMESTIC YOUNG GENTLEMAN. Let us make a slight sketch of our amiable friend, Mr. Felix Nixon. We are strongly disposed to think, that if we put him in this place, he will answer our purpose without another word of comment. Felix, then, is a young gentleman who lives at home with his mother, just within the twopenny-post office circle of three miles from St. Martin le Grand. He wears India-rubber goloshes when the weather is at all damp, and always has a silk handkerchief neatly folded up in the right-hand pocket of his great-coat, to tie over his mouth when he goes home at night; moreover, being rather near-sighted, he carries spectacles for particular occasions, and has a weakish tremulous voice, of which he makes great use, for he talks as much as any old lady breathing. The two chief subjects of Felix’s discourse, are himself and his mother, both of whom would appear to be very wonderful and interesting persons. As Felix and his mother are seldom apart in body, so Felix and his mother are scarcely ever separate in spirit. If you ask Felix how he finds himself to-day, he prefaces his reply with a long and minute bulletin of his mother’s state of health; and the good lady in her turn, edifies her acquaintance with a circumstantial and alarming account, how he sneezed four times and coughed once after being out in the rain the other night, but having his feet promptly put into hot water, and his head into a flannel-something, which we will not describe more particularly than by this delicate allusion, was happily brought round by the next morning, and enabled to go to business as usual. Our friend is not a very adventurous or hot-headed person, but he has passed through many dangers, as his mother can testify: there is one great story in particular, concerning a hackney coachman who wanted to overcharge him one night for bringing them home from the play, upon which Felix gave the aforesaid coachman a look which his mother thought would have crushed him to the earth, but which did not crush him quite, for he continued to demand another sixpence, notwithstanding that Felix took out his pocket-book, and, with the aid of a flat candle, pointed out the fare in print, which the coachman obstinately disregarding, he shut the street-door with a slam which his mother shudders to think of; and then, roused to the most appalling pitch of passion by the coachman knocking a double knock to show that he was by no means convinced, he broke with uncontrollable force from his parent and the servant girl, and running into the street without his hat, actually shook his fist at the coachman, and came back again with a face as white, Mrs. Nixon says, looking about her for a simile, as white as that ceiling. She never will forget his fury that night, Never! To this account Felix listens with a solemn face, occasionally looking at you to see how it affects you, and when his mother has made an end of it, adds that he looked at every coachman he met for three weeks afterwards, in hopes that he might see the scoundrel; whereupon Mrs. Nixon, with an exclamation of terror, requests to know what he would have done to him if he had seen him, at which Felix smiling darkly and clenching his right fist, she exclaims, &quot;Goodness gracious!&quot; with a distracted air, and insists upon extorting a promise that he never will on any account do anything so rash, which her dutiful son—it being something more than three years since the offence was committed—reluctantly concedes, and his mother, shaking her head prophetically, fears with a sigh that his spirit will lead him into something violent yet. The discourse then, by an easy transition, turns upon the spirit which glows within the bosom of Felix, upon which point Felix himself becomes eloquent, and relates a thrilling anecdote of the time when he used to sit up till two o’clock in the morning reading French, and how his mother used to say, &quot;Felix, you will make yourself ill, I know you will;&quot; and how he used to say, &quot;Mother, I don’t care—I will do it;&quot; and how at last his mother privately procured a doctor to come and see him, who declared, the moment he felt his pulse, that if he had gone on reading one night more—only one night more—he must have put a blister on each temple, and another between his shoulders; and who, as it was, sat down upon the instant, and writing a prescription for a blue pill, said it must be taken immediately, or he wouldn’t answer for the consequences. The recital of these and many other moving perils of the like nature, constantly harrows up the feelings of Mr. Nixon’s friends. Mrs. Nixon has a tolerably extensive circle of female acquaintance, being a good-humoured, talkative, bustling little body, and to the unmarried girls among them she is constantly vaunting the virtues of her son, hinting that she will be a very happy person who wins him, but that they must mind their P’s and Q’s, for he is very particular, and terribly severe upon young ladies. At this last caution the young ladies resident in the same row, who happen to be spending the evening there, put their pocket-handkerchiefs before their mouths, and are troubled with a short cough; just then Felix knocks at the door, and his mother drawing the tea-table nearer the fire, calls out to him as he takes off his boots in the back parlour that he needn’t mind coming in in his slippers, for there are only the two Miss Greys and Miss Thompson, and she is quite sure they will excuse him, and nodding to the two Miss Greys, she adds, in a whisper, that Julia Thompson is a great favourite with Felix, at which intelligence the short cough comes again, and Miss Thompson in particular is greatly troubled with it, till Felix coming in, very faint for want of his tea, changes the subject of discourse, and enables her to laugh out boldly and tell Amelia Grey not to be so foolish. Here they all three laugh, and Mrs. Nixon says they are giddy girls; in which stage of the proceedings, Felix, who has by this time refreshened himself with the grateful herb that &quot;cheers but not inebriates,&quot; removes his cup from his countenance and says with a knowing smile, that all girls are; whereat his admiring mamma pats him on the back and tells him not to be sly, which calls forth a general laugh from the young ladies, and another smile from Felix, who, thinking he looks very sly indeed, is perfectly satisfied. Tea being over, the young ladies resume their work, and Felix insists upon holding a skein of silk while Miss Thompson winds it on a card. This process having been performed to the satisfaction of all parties, he brings down his flute in compliance with a request from the youngest Miss Grey, and plays divers tunes out of a very small music-book till supper-time, when he is very facetious and talkative indeed. Finally, after half a tumblerful of warm sherry and water, he gallantly puts on his goloshes over his slippers, and telling Miss Thompson’s servant to run on first and get the door open, escorts that young lady to her house, five doors off: the Miss Greys who live in the next house but one stopping to peep with merry faces from their own door till he comes back again, when they call out &quot;Very well, Mr. Felix,&quot; and trip into the passage with a laugh more musical than any flute that was ever played. Felix is rather prim in his appearance, and perhaps a little priggish about his books and flute, and so forth, which have all their peculiar corners of peculiar shelves in his bedroom; indeed all his female acquaintance (and they are good judges) have long ago set him down as a thorough old bachelor. He is a favourite with them however, in a certain way, as an honest inoffensive, kind-hearted creature; and as his peculiarities harm nobody, not even himself, we are induced to hope that many who are not personally acquainted with him will take our good word in his behalf, and be content to leave him to a long continuance of his harmless existence. THE CENSORIOUS YOUNG GENTLEMAN. There is an amiable kind of young gentleman going about in society, upon whom, after much experience of him, and considerable turning over of the subject in our mind, we feel it our duty to affix the above appellation. Young ladies mildly call him a &quot;sarcastic&quot; young gentleman, or a &quot;severe&quot; young gentleman. We, who know better, beg to acquaint them with the fact, that he is merely a censorious young gentleman, and nothing else. The censorious young gentleman has the reputation among his familiars of a remarkably clever person, which he maintains by receiving all intelligence and expressing all opinions with a dubious sneer, accompanied with a half smile, expressive of anything you please but good-humour. This sets people about thinking what on earth the censorious young gentleman means, and they speedily arrive at the conclusion that he means something very deep indeed; for they reason in this way—&quot;This young gentleman looks so very knowing that he must mean something, and as I am by no means a dull individual, what a very deep meaning he must have if I can’t find it out!&quot; It is extraordinary how soon a censorious young gentleman may make a reputation in his own small circle if he bear this in his mind, and regulate his proceedings accordingly. As young ladies are generally—not curious, but laudably desirous to acquire information, the censorious young gentleman is much talked about among them, and many surmises are hazarded regarding him. &quot;I wonder,&quot; exclaims the eldest Miss Greenwood, laying down her work to turn up the lamp, &quot;I wonder whether Mr. Fairfax will ever be married.&quot; &quot;Bless me, dear,’ cries Miss Marshall, &quot;what ever made you think of him?&quot; &quot;Really I hardly know,&quot; replies Miss Greenwood; &quot;he is such a very mysterious person, that I often wonder about him.&quot; &quot;Well, to tell you the truth,’ replies Miss Marshall, &quot;and so do I.&quot; Here two other young ladies profess that they are constantly doing the like, and all present appear in the same condition except one young lady, who, not scrupling to state that she considers Mr. Fairfax &quot;a horror,&quot; draws down all the opposition of the others, which having been expressed in a great many ejaculatory passages, such as &quot;Well, did I ever!&quot;—and &quot;Lor, Emily, dear!&quot; ma takes up the subject, and gravely states, that she must say she does not think Mr. Fairfax by any means a horror, but rather takes him to be a young man of very great ability; &quot;and I am quite sure,&quot; adds the worthy lady, &quot;he always means a great deal more than he says.&quot; The door opens at this point of the disclosure, and who of all people alive walks into the room, but the very Mr. Fairfax, who has been the subject of conversation! &quot;Well, it really is curious,&quot; cries ma, &quot;we were at that very moment talking about you.&quot; &quot;You did me great honour,&quot; replies Mr. Fairfax;&quot;‘may I venture to ask what you were saying?&quot; &quot;Why, if you must know,&quot; returns the eldest girl, &quot;we were remarking what a very mysterious man you are.&quot; &quot;Ay, ay!&quot; observes Mr. Fairfax, &quot;Indeed!&quot; Now Mr. Fairfax says this ay, ay, and indeed, which are slight words enough in themselves, with so very unfathomable an air, and accompanies them with such a very equivocal smile, that ma and the young ladies are more than ever convinced that he means an immensity, and so tell him he is a very dangerous man, and seems to be always thinking ill of somebody, which is precisely the sort of character the censorious young gentleman is most desirous to establish; wherefore he says, &quot;Oh, dear, no,&quot; in a tone, obviously intended to mean, &quot;You have me there,&quot; and which gives them to understand that they have hit the right nail on the very centre of its head. When the conversation ranges from the mystery overhanging the censorious young gentleman’s behaviour, to the general topics of the day, he sustains his character to admiration. He considers the new tragedy well enough for a new tragedy, but Lord bless us—well, no matter; he could say a great deal on that point, but he would rather not, lest he should be thought ill-natured, as he knows he would be. &quot;But is not Mr. So-and-so’s performance truly charming?&quot; inquires a young lady. &quot;Charming!&quot; replies the censorious young gentleman. &quot;Oh, dear, yes, certainly; very charming—oh, very charming indeed.&quot; After this, he stirs the fire, smiling contemptuously all the while: and a modest young gentleman, who has been a silent listener, thinks what a great thing it must be, to have such a critical judgment. Of music, pictures, books, and poetry, the censorious young gentleman has an equally fine conception. As to men and women, he can tell all about them at a glance. &quot;Now let us hear your opinion of young Mrs. Barker,&quot; says some great believer in the powers of Mr. Fairfax, &quot;but don’t be too severe.&quot; &quot;I never am severe,&quot; replies the censorious young gentleman. &quot;Well, never mind that now. She is very lady-like, is she not?&quot; &quot;Lady-like!&quot; repeats the censorious young gentleman (for he always repeats when he is at a loss for anything to say). &quot;Did you observe her manner? Bless my heart and soul, Mrs. Thompson, did you observe her manner?—that’s all I ask.&quot; &quot;I thought I had done so,&quot; rejoins the poor lady, much perplexed; &quot;I did not observe it very closely perhaps.&quot; &quot;Oh, not very closely,&quot; rejoins the censorious young gentleman, triumphantly. &quot;Very good; then I did. Let us talk no more about her.&quot; The censorious young gentleman purses up his lips, and nods his head sagely, as he says this; and it is forthwith whispered about, that Mr. Fairfax (who, though he is a little prejudiced, must be admitted to be a very excellent judge) has observed something exceedingly odd in Mrs. Barker’s manner. THE FUNNY YOUNG GENTLEMAN. As one funny young gentleman will serve as a sample of all funny young gentlemen we purpose merely to note down the conduct and behaviour of an individual specimen of this class, whom we happened to meet at an annual family Christmas party in the course of this very last Christmas that ever came. We were all seated round a blazing fire which crackled pleasantly as the guests talked merrily and the urn steamed cheerily—for, being an old-fashioned party, there was an urn, and a teapot besides—when there came a postman’s knock at the door, so violent and sudden, that it startled the whole circle, and actually caused two or three very interesting and most unaffected young ladies to scream aloud and to exhibit many afflicting symptoms of terror and distress, until they had been several times assured by their respective adorers, that they were in no danger. We were about to remark that it was surely beyond post-time, and must have been a runaway knock, when our host, who had hitherto been paralysed with wonder, sank into a chair in a perfect ecstasy of laughter, and offered to lay twenty pounds that it was that droll dog Griggins. He had no sooner said this, than the majority of the company and all the children of the house burst into a roar of laughter too, as if some inimitable joke flashed upon them simultaneously, and gave vent to various exclamations of—To be sure it must be Griggins, and How like him that was, and What spirits he was always in! with many other commendatory remarks of the like nature. Not having the happiness to know Griggins, we became extremely desirous to see so pleasant a fellow, the more especially as a stout gentleman with a powdered head, who was sitting with his breeches buckles almost touching the hob, whispered us he was a wit of the first water, when the door opened, and Mr. Griggins being announced, presented himself, amidst another shout of laughter and a loud clapping of hands from the younger branches. This welcome he acknowledged by sundry contortions of countenance, imitative of the clown in one of the new pantomimes, which were so extremely successful, that one stout gentleman rolled upon an ottoman in a paroxysm of delight, protesting, with many gasps, that if somebody didn’t make that fellow Griggins leave off, he would be the death of him, he knew. At this the company only laughed more boisterously than before, and as we always like to accommodate our tone and spirit if possible to the humour of any society in which we find ourself, we laughed with the rest, and exclaimed, &quot;Oh! capital, capital!&quot; as loud as any of them. When he had quite exhausted all beholders, Mr. Griggins received the welcomes and congratulations of the circle, and went through the needful introductions with much ease and many puns. This ceremony over, he avowed his intention of sitting in somebody’s lap unless the young ladies made room for him on the sofa, which being done, after a great deal of tittering and pleasantry, he squeezed himself among them, and likened his condition to that of love among the roses. At this novel jest we all roared once more. &quot;You should consider yourself highly honoured, sir,&quot; said we. &quot;Sir,&quot; replied Mr. Griggins, &quot;you do me proud.&quot; Here everybody laughed again; and the stout gentleman by the fire whispered in our ear that Griggins was making a dead set at us. The tea things having been removed, we all sat down to a round game, and here Mr. Griggins shone forth with peculiar brilliancy, abstracting other people’s fish, and looking over their hands in the most comical manner. He made one most excellent joke in snuffing a candle, which was neither more nor less than setting fire to the hair of a pale young gentleman who sat next him, and afterwards begging his pardon with considerable humour. As the young gentleman could not see the joke however, possibly in consequence of its being on the top of his own head, it did not go off quite as well as it might have done; indeed, the young gentleman was heard to murmur some general references to &quot;impertinence,&quot; and a &quot;rascal,&quot; and to state the number of his lodgings in an angry tone—a turn of the conversation which might have been productive of slaughterous consequences, if a young lady, betrothed to the young gentleman, had not used her immediate influence to bring about a reconciliation: emphatically declaring in an agitated whisper, intended for his peculiar edification but audible to the whole table, that if he went on in that way, she never would think of him otherwise than as a friend, though as that she must always regard him. At this terrible threat the young gentleman became calm, and the young lady, overcome by the revulsion of feeling, instantaneously fainted. Mr. Griggins’s spirits were slightly depressed for a short period by this unlooked-for result of such a harmless pleasantry, but being promptly elevated by the attentions of the host and several glasses of wine, he soon recovered, and became even more vivacious than before, insomuch that the stout gentleman previously referred to, assured us that although he had known him since he was that high (something smaller than a nutmeg-grater), he had never beheld him in such excellent cue. When the round game and several games at blind man’s buff which followed it were all over, and we were going down to supper, the inexhaustible Mr. Griggins produced a small sprig of mistletoe from his waistcoat pocket, and commenced a general kissing of the assembled females, which occasioned great commotion and much excitement. We observed that several young gentlemen—including the young gentleman with the pale countenance—were greatly scandalised at this indecorous proceeding, and talked very big among themselves in corners; and we observed too, that several young ladies when remonstrated with by the aforesaid young gentlemen, called each other to witness how they had struggled, and protested vehemently that it was very rude, and that they were surprised at Mrs. Brown’s allowing it, and that they couldn’t bear it, and had no patience with such impertinence. But such is the gentle and forgiving nature of woman, that although we looked very narrowly for it, we could not detect the slightest harshness in the subsequent treatment of Mr. Griggins. Indeed, upon the whole, it struck us that among the ladies he seemed rather more popular than before! To recount all the drollery of Mr. Griggins at supper, would fill such a tiny volume as this, to the very bottom of the outside cover. How he drank out of other people’s glasses, and ate of other people’s bread, how he frightened into screaming convulsions a little boy who was sitting up to supper in a high chair, by sinking below the table and suddenly reappearing with a mask on; how the hostess was really surprised that anybody could find a pleasure in tormenting children, and how the host frowned at the hostess, and felt convinced that Mr. Griggins had done it with the very best intentions; how Mr. Griggins explained, and how everybody’s good-humour was restored but the child’s;—to tell these and a hundred other things ever so briefly, would occupy more of our room and our readers’ patience, than either they or we can conveniently spare. Therefore we change the subject, merely observing that we have offered no description of the funny young gentleman’s personal appearance, believing that almost every society has a Griggins of its own, and leaving all readers to supply the deficiency, according to the particular circumstances of their particular case. THE THEATRICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN. All gentlemen who love the drama—and there are few gentlemen who are not attached to the most intellectual and rational of all our amusements—do not come within this definition. As we have no mean relish for theatrical entertainments ourself, we are disinterestedly anxious that this should be perfectly understood. The theatrical young gentleman has early and important information on all theatrical topics. &quot;Well,&quot; says he, abruptly, when you meet him in the street, &quot;here’s a pretty to-do. Flimkins has thrown up his part in the melodrama at the Surrey.&quot;—&quot;And what’s to be done?’ you inquire with as much gravity as you can counterfeit. &quot;Ah, that’s the point,&quot; replies the theatrical young gentleman, looking very serious; &quot;Boozle declines it; positively declines it. From all I am told, I should say it was decidedly in Boozle’s line, and that he would be very likely to make a great hit in it; but he objects on the ground of Flimkins having been put up in the part first, and says no earthly power shall induce him to take the character. It’s a fine part, too—excellent business, I’m told. He has to kill six people in the course of the piece, and to fight over a bridge in red fire, which is as safe a card, you know, as can be. Don’t mention it; but I hear that the last scene, when he is first poisoned, and then stabbed, by Mrs. Flimkins as Vengedora, will be the greatest thing that has been done these many years.&quot; With this piece of news, and laying his finger on his lips as a caution for you not to excite the town with it, the theatrical young gentleman hurries away. The theatrical young gentleman, from often frequenting the different theatrical establishments, has pet and familiar names for them all. Thus Covent-Garden is the garden, Drury-Lane the lane, the Victoria the vic, and the Olympic the pic. Actresses, too, are always designated by their surnames only, as Taylor, Nisbett, Faucit, Honey; that talented and lady-like girl Sheriff, that clever little creature Horton, and so on. In the same manner he prefixes Christian names when he mentions actors, as Charley Young, Jemmy Buckstone, Fred. Yates, Paul Bedford. When he is at a loss for a Christian name, the word &quot;old&quot; applied indiscriminately answers quite as well: as old Charley Matthews at Vestris’s, old Harley, and old Braham. He has a great knowledge of the private proceedings of actresses, especially of their getting married, and can tell you in a breath half-a-dozen who have changed their names without avowing it. Whenever an alteration of this kind is made in the playbills, he will remind you that he let you into the secret six months ago. The theatrical young gentleman has a great reverence for all that is connected with the stage department of the different theatres. He would, at any time, prefer going a street or two out of his way, to omitting to pass a stage-entrance, into which he always looks with a curious and searching eye. If he can only identify a popular actor in the street, he is in a perfect transport of delight; and no sooner meets him, than he hurries back, and walks a few paces in front of him, so that he can turn round from time to time, and have a good stare at his features. He looks upon a theatrical-fund dinner as one of the most enchanting festivities ever known; and thinks that to be a member of the Garrick Club, and see so many actors in their plain clothes, must be one of the highest gratifications the world can bestow. The theatrical young gentleman is a constant half-price visitor at one or other of the theatres, and has an infinite relish for all pieces which display the fullest resources of the establishment. He likes to place implicit reliance upon the play-bills when he goes to see a show-piece, and works himself up to such a pitch of enthusiasm, as not only to believe (if the bills say so) that there are three hundred and seventy-five people on the stage at one time in the last scene, but is highly indignant with you, unless you believe it also. He considers that if the stage be opened from the foot-lights to the back wall, in any new play, the piece is a triumph of dramatic writing, and applauds accordingly. He has a great notion of trap-doors too; and thinks any character going down or coming up a trap (no matter whether he be an angel or a demon—they both do it occasionally) one of the most interesting feats in the whole range of scenic illusion. Besides these acquirements, he has several veracious accounts to communicate of the private manners and customs of different actors, which, during the pauses of a quadrille, he usually communicates to his partner, or imparts to his neighbour at a supper table. Thus he is advised, that Mr. Liston always had a footman in gorgeous livery waiting at the side-scene with a brandy bottle and tumbler, to administer half a pint or so of spirit to him every time he came off, without which assistance he must infallibly have fainted. He knows for a fact, that, after an arduous part, Mr. George Bennett is put between two feather beds, to absorb the perspiration; and is credibly informed, that Mr. Baker has, for many years, submitted to a course of lukewarm toast-and-water, to qualify him to sustain his favourite characters. He looks upon Mr. Fitz Ball as the principal dramatic genius and poet of the day; but holds that there are great writers extant besides him,—in proof whereof he refers you to various dramas and melodramas recently produced, of which he takes in all the sixpenny and three-penny editions as fast as they appear. The theatrical young gentleman is a great advocate for violence of emotion and redundancy of action. If a father has to curse a child upon the stage, he likes to see it done in the thorough-going style, with no mistake about it: to which end it is essential that the child should follow the father on her knees, and be knocked violently over on her face by the old gentleman as he goes into a small cottage, and shuts the door behind him. He likes to see a blessing invoked upon the young lady, when the old gentleman repents, with equal earnestness, and accompanied by the usual conventional forms, which consist of the old gentleman looking anxiously up into the clouds, as if to see whether it rains, and then spreading an imaginary tablecloth in the air over the young lady’s head—soft music playing all the while. Upon these, and other points of a similar kind, the theatrical young gentleman is a great critic indeed. He is likewise very acute in judging of natural expressions of the passions, and knows precisely the frown, wink, nod, or leer, which stands for any one of them, or the means by which it may be converted into any other: as jealousy, with a good stamp of the right foot, becomes anger; or wildness, with the hands clasped before the throat, instead of tearing the wig, is passionate love. If you venture to express a doubt of the accuracy of any of these portraitures, the theatrical young gentleman assures you, with a haughty smile, that it always has been done in that way, and he supposes they are not going to change it at this time of day to please you; to which, of course, you meekly reply that you suppose not. There are innumerable disquisitions of this nature, in which the theatrical young gentleman is very profound, especially to ladies whom he is most in the habit of entertaining with them; but as we have no space to recapitulate them at greater length, we must rest content with calling the attention of the young ladies in general to the theatrical young gentlemen of their own acquaintance. THE POETICAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN. Time was, and not very long ago either, when a singular epidemic raged among the young gentlemen, vast numbers of whom, under the influence of the malady, tore off their neckerchiefs, turned down their shirt collars, and exhibited themselves in the open streets with bare throats and dejected countenances, before the eyes of an astonished public. These were poetical young gentlemen. The custom was gradually found to be inconvenient, as involving the necessity of too much clean linen and too large washing bills, and these outward symptoms have consequently passed away; but we are disposed to think, notwithstanding, that the number of poetical young gentlemen is considerably on the increase. We know a poetical young gentleman—a very poetical young gentleman. We do not mean to say that he is troubled with the gift of poesy in any remarkable degree, but his countenance is of a plaintive and melancholy cast, his manner is abstracted and bespeaks affliction of soul: he seldom has his hair cut, and often talks about being an outcast and wanting a kindred spirit; from which, as well as from many general observations in which he is wont to indulge, concerning mysterious impulses, and yearnings of the heart, and the supremacy of intellect gilding all earthly things with the glowing magic of immortal verse, it is clear to all his friends that he has been stricken poetical. The favourite attitude of the poetical young gentleman is lounging on a sofa with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling, or sitting bolt upright in a high-backed chair, staring with very round eyes at the opposite wall. When he is in one of these positions, his mother, who is a worthy, affectionate old soul, will give you a nudge to bespeak your attention without disturbing the abstracted one, and whisper with a shake of the head, that John’s imagination is at some extraordinary work or other, you may take her word for it. Hereupon John looks more fiercely intent upon vacancy than before, and suddenly snatching a pencil from his pocket, puts down three words, and a cross on the back of a card, sighs deeply, paces once or twice across the room, inflicts a most unmerciful slap upon his head, and walks moodily up to his dormitory. The poetical young gentleman is apt to acquire peculiar notions of things too, which plain ordinary people, unblessed with a poetical obliquity of vision, would suppose to be rather distorted. For instance, when the sickening murder and mangling of a wretched woman was affording delicious food wherewithal to gorge the insatiable curiosity of the public, our friend the poetical young gentleman was in ecstasies—not of disgust, but admiration. &quot;Heavens!&quot; cried the poetical young gentleman, &quot;how grand; how great!&quot; We ventured deferentially to inquire upon whom these epithets were bestowed: our humble thoughts oscillating between the police officer who found the criminal, and the lock-keeper who found the head. &quot;Upon whom!&quot; exclaimed the poetical young gentleman in a frenzy of poetry, &quot;Upon whom should they be bestowed but upon the murderer!&quot;—and thereupon it came out, in a fine torrent of eloquence, that the murderer was a great spirit, a bold creature full of daring and nerve, a man of dauntless heart and determined courage, and withal a great casuist and able reasoner, as was fully demonstrated in his philosophical colloquies with the great and noble of the land. We held our peace, and meekly signified our indisposition to controvert these opinions—firstly, because we were no match at quotation for the poetical young gentleman; and secondly, because we felt it would be of little use our entering into any disputation, if we were: being perfectly convinced that the respectable and immoral hero in question is not the first and will not be the last hanged gentleman upon whom false sympathy or diseased curiosity will be plentifully expended. This was a stern mystic flight of the poetical young gentleman. In his milder and softer moments he occasionally lays down his neckcloth, and pens stanzas, which sometimes find their way into a Lady’s Magazine, or the &quot;Poets’ Corner&quot; of some country newspaper; or which, in default of either vent for his genius, adorn the rainbow leaves of a lady’s album. These are generally written upon some such occasions as contemplating the Bank of England by midnight, or beholding Saint Paul’s in a snow storm; and when these gloomy objects fail to afford him inspiration, he pours forth his soul in a touching address to a violet, or a plaintive lament that he is no longer a child, but has gradually grown up. The poetical young gentleman is fond of quoting passages from his favourite authors, who are all of the gloomy and desponding school. He has a great deal to say too about the world, and is much given to opining, especially if he has taken anything strong to drink, that there is nothing in it worth living for. He gives you to understand, however, that for the sake of society, he means to bear his part in the tiresome play, manfully resisting the gratification of his own strong desire to make a premature exit; and consoles himself with the reflection, that immortality has some chosen nook for himself and the other great spirits whom earth has chafed and wearied. When the poetical young gentleman makes use of adjectives, they are all superlatives. Everything is of the grandest, greatest, noblest, mightiest, loftiest; or the lowest, meanest, obscurest, vilest, and most pitiful. He knows no medium: for enthusiasm is the soul of poetry; and who so enthusiastic as a poetical young gentleman? &quot;Mr. Milkwash,&quot; says a young lady as she unlocks her album to receive the young gentleman’s original impromptu contribution, &quot;how very silent you are! I think you must be in love.&quot; &quot;Love!&quot; cries the poetical young gentleman, starting from his seat by the fire and terrifying the cat who scampers off at full speed, &quot;Love! that burning, consuming passion; that ardour of the soul, that fierce glowing of the heart. Love! The withering, blighting influence of hope misplaced and affection slighted. Love did you say! Ha! ha! ha!&quot; With this, the poetical young gentleman laughs a laugh belonging only to poets and Mr. O. Smith of the Adelphi Theatre, and sits down, pen in hand, to throw off a page or two of verse in the biting, semi-atheistical demoniac style, which, like the poetical young gentleman himself, is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. THE &quot;THROWING-OFF&quot; YOUNG GENTLEMAN. There is a certain kind of impostor—a bragging, vaunting, puffing young gentleman—against whom we are desirous to warn that fairer part of the creation, to whom we more peculiarly devote these our labours. And we are particularly induced to lay especial stress upon this division of our subject, by a little dialogue we held some short time ago, with an esteemed young lady of our acquaintance, touching a most gross specimen of this class of men. We had been urging all the absurdities of his conduct and conversation, and dwelling upon the impossibilities he constantly recounted—to which indeed we had not scrupled to prefix a certain hard little word of one syllable and three letters—when our fair friend, unable to maintain the contest any longer, reluctantly cried, &quot;Well; he certainly has a habit of throwing-off, but then—&quot; &quot;What then? Throw him off yourself,&quot; said we. And so she did, but not at our instance, for other reasons appeared, and it might have been better if she had done so at first. The throwing-off young gentleman has so often a father possessed of vast property in some remote district of Ireland, that we look with some suspicion upon all young gentlemen who volunteer this description of themselves. The deceased grandfather of the throwing-off young gentleman was a man of immense possessions, and untold wealth; the throwing-off young gentleman remembers, as well as if it were only yesterday, the deceased baronet’s library, with its long rows of scarce and valuable books in superbly embossed bindings, arranged in cases, reaching from the lofty ceiling to the oaken floor; and the fine antique chairs and tables, and the noble old castle of Ballykillbabaloo, with its splendid prospect of hill and dale, and wood, and rich wild scenery, and the fine hunting stables and the spacious court-yards, &quot;and—and—everything upon the same magnificent scale&quot; says the throwing-off young gentleman, &quot;princely; quite princely. Ah!&quot; And he sighs as if mourning over the fallen fortunes of his noble house. The throwing-off young gentleman is a universal genius; at walking, running, rowing, swimming, and skating, he is unrivalled; at all games of chance or skill, at hunting, shooting, fishing, riding, driving, or amateur theatricals, no one can touch him—that is could not, because he gives you carefully to understand, lest there should be any opportunity of testing his skill, that he is quite out of practice just now, and has been for some years. If you mention any beautiful girl of your common acquaintance in his hearing, the throwing-off young gentleman starts, smiles, and begs you not to mind him, for it was quite involuntary: people do say indeed that they were once engaged, but no—although she is a very fine girl, he was so situated at that time that he couldn’t possibly encourage the—&quot;but it’s of no use talking about it!&quot; he adds, interrupting himself. &quot;She has got over it now, and I firmly hope and trust is happy.&quot; With this benevolent aspiration he nods his head in a mysterious manner, and whistling the first part of some popular air, thinks perhaps it will be better to change the subject. There is another great characteristic of the throwing-off young gentleman, which is, that he &quot;happens to be acquainted&quot; with a most extraordinary variety of people in all parts of the world. Thus in all disputed questions, when the throwing-off young gentleman has no argument to bring forward, he invariably happens to be acquainted with some distant person, intimately connected with the subject, whose testimony decides the point against you, to the great—may we say it—to the great admiration of three young ladies out of every four, who consider the throwing-off young gentleman a very highly-connected young man, and a most charming person. Sometimes the throwing-off young gentleman happens to look in upon a little family circle of young ladies who are quietly spending the evening together, and then indeed is he at the very height and summit of his glory; for it is to be observed that he by no means shines to equal advantage in the presence of men as in the society of over-credulous young ladies, which is his proper element. It is delightful to hear the number of pretty things the throwing-off young gentleman gives utterance to, during tea, and still more so to observe the ease with which, from long practice and study, he delicately blends one compliment to a lady with two for himself. &quot;Did you ever see a more lovely blue than this flower, Mr. Caveton?&quot; asks a young lady who, truth to tell, is rather smitten with the throwing-off young gentleman. &quot;Never,&quot; he replies, bending over the object of admiration, &quot;never but in your eyes.&quot; &quot;Oh, Mr. Caveton,&quot; cries the young lady, blushing of course. &quot;Indeed I speak the truth,&quot; replies the throwing-off young gentleman, ‘I never saw any approach to them. I used to think my cousin’s blue eyes lovely, but they grow dim and colourless beside yours.&quot; &quot;Oh! a beautiful cousin, Mr. Caveton!&quot; replies the young lady, with that perfect artlessness which is the distinguishing characteristic of all young ladies; &quot;an affair, of course.&quot; &quot;No; indeed, indeed you wrong me,&quot; rejoins the throwing-off young gentleman with great energy. &quot;I fervently hope that her attachment towards me may be nothing but the natural result of our close intimacy in childhood, and that in change of scene and among new faces she may soon overcome it. I love her! Think not so meanly of me, Miss Lowfield, I beseech, as to suppose that title, lands, riches, and beauty, can influence my choice. The heart, the heart, Miss Lowfield.&quot; Here the throwing-off young gentleman sinks his voice to a still lower whisper; and the young lady duly proclaims to all the other young ladies when they go up-stairs, to put their bonnets on, that Mr. Caveton’s relations are all immensely rich, and that he is hopelessly beloved by title, lands, riches, and beauty. We have seen a throwing-off young gentleman who, to our certain knowledge, was innocent of a note of music, and scarcely able to recognise a tune by ear, volunteer a Spanish air upon the guitar when he had previously satisfied himself that there was not such an instrument within a mile of the house. We have heard another throwing-off young gentleman, after striking a note or two upon the piano, and accompanying it correctly (by dint of laborious practice) with his voice, assure a circle of wondering listeners that so acute was his ear that he was wholly unable to sing out of tune, let him try as he would. We have lived to witness the unmasking of another throwing-off young gentleman, who went out a visiting in a military cap with a gold band and tassel, and who, after passing successfully for a captain and being lauded to the skies for his red whiskers, his bravery, his soldierly bearing and his pride, turned out to be the dishonest son of an honest linen-draper in a small country town, and whom, if it were not for this fortunate exposure, we should not yet despair of encountering as the fortunate husband of some rich heiress. Ladies, ladies, the throwing-off young gentlemen are often swindlers, and always fools. So pray you avoid them. THE YOUNG LADIES’ YOUNG GENTLEMAN. This young gentleman has several titles. Some young ladies consider him &quot;a nice young man,&quot; others &quot;a fine young man,&quot; others &quot;quite a lady’s man,&quot; others &quot;a handsome man,&quot; others &quot;a remarkably good-looking young man.&quot; With some young ladies he is &quot;a perfect angel,&quot; and with others &quot;quite a love.&quot; He is likewise a charming creature, a duck, and a dear. The young ladies’ young gentleman has usually a fresh colour and very white teeth, which latter articles, of course, he displays on every possible opportunity. He has brown or black hair, and whiskers of the same, if possible; but a slight tinge of red, or the hue which is vulgarly known as sandy, is not considered an objection. If his head and face be large, his nose prominent, and his figure square, he is an uncommonly fine young man, and worshipped accordingly. Should his whiskers meet beneath his chin, so much the better, though this is not absolutely insisted on; but he must wear an under-waistcoat, and smile constantly. There was a great party got up by some party-loving friends of ours last summer, to go and dine in Epping Forest. As we hold that such wild expeditions should never be indulged in, save by people of the smallest means, who have no dinner at home, we should indubitably have excused ourself from attending, if we had not recollected that the projectors of the excursion were always accompanied on such occasions by a choice sample of the young ladies’ young gentleman, whom we were very anxious to have an opportunity of meeting. This determined us, and we went. We were to make for Chigwell in four glass coaches, each with a trifling company of six or eight inside, and a little boy belonging to the projectors on the box—and to start from the residence of the projectors, Woburn-place, Russell-square, at half-past ten precisely. We arrived at the place of rendezvous at the appointed time, and found the glass coaches and the little boys quite ready, and divers young ladies and young gentlemen looking anxiously over the breakfast-parlour blinds, who appeared by no means so much gratified by our approach as we might have expected, but evidently wished we had been somebody else. Observing that our arrival in lieu of the unknown occasioned some disappointment, we ventured to inquire who was yet to come, when we found from the hasty reply of a dozen voices, that it was no other than the young ladies’ young gentleman. &quot;I cannot imagine,&quot; said the mama, &quot;what has become of Mr. Balim—always so punctual, always so pleasant and agreeable. I am sure I can-not think.&quot; As these last words were uttered in that measured, emphatic manner which painfully announces that the speaker has not quite made up his or her mind what to say, but is determined to talk on nevertheless, the eldest daughter took up the subject, and hoped no accident had happened to Mr. Balim, upon which there was a general chorus of &quot;Dear Mr. Balim!&quot; and one young lady, more adventurous than the rest, proposed that an express should be straightway sent to dear Mr. Balim’s lodgings. This, however, the papa resolutely opposed, observing, in what a short young lady behind us termed &quot;quite a bearish way,&quot; that if Mr. Balim didn’t choose to come, he might stop at home. At this all the daughters raised a murmur of &quot;Oh pa!&quot; except one sprightly little girl of eight or ten years old, who, taking advantage of a pause in the discourse, remarked, that perhaps Mr. Balim might have been married that morning—for which impertinent suggestion she was summarily ejected from the room by her eldest sister. We were all in a state of great mortification and uneasiness, when one of the little boys, running into the room as airily as little boys usually run who have an unlimited allowance of animal food in the holidays, and keep their hands constantly forced down to the bottoms of very deep trouser-pockets when they take exercise, joyfully announced that Mr. Balim was at that moment coming up the street in a hackney-cab; and the intelligence was confirmed beyond all doubt a minute afterwards by the entry of Mr. Balim himself, who was received with repeated cries of &quot;Where have you been, you naughty creature?&quot; whereunto the naughty creature replied, that he had been in bed, in consequence of a late party the night before, and had only just risen. The acknowledgment awakened a variety of agonizing fears that he had taken no breakfast; which appearing after a slight cross-examination to be the real state of the case, breakfast for one was immediately ordered, notwithstanding Mr. Balim’s repeated protestations that he couldn’t think of it. He did think of it though, and thought better of it too, for he made a remarkably good meal when it came, and was assiduously served by a select knot of young ladies. It was quite delightful to see how he ate and drank, while one pair of fair hands poured out his coffee, and another put in the sugar, and another the milk; the rest of the company ever and anon casting angry glances at their watches, and the glass coaches,—and the little boys looking on in an agony of apprehension lest it should begin to rain before we set out; it might have rained all day, after we were once too far to turn back again, and welcome, for aught they cared. However, the cavalcade moved at length, every coachman being accommodated with a hamper between his legs something larger than a wheelbarrow; and the company being packed as closely as they possibly could in the carriages, &quot;according,&quot; as one married lady observed, &quot;to the immemorial custom, which was half the diversion of gipsy parties.&quot; Thinking it very likely it might be (we have never been able to discover the other half), we submitted to be stowed away with a cheerful aspect, and were fortunate enough to occupy one corner of a coach in which were one old lady, four young ladies, and the renowned Mr. Balim the young ladies’ young gentleman. We were no sooner fairly off, than the young ladies’ young gentleman hummed a fragment of an air, which induced a young lady to inquire whether he had danced to that the night before. &quot;By Heaven, then, I did,&quot; replied the young gentleman, &quot;and with a lovely heiress; a superb creature, with twenty thousand pounds.&quot; &quot;You seem rather struck,&quot; observed another young lady. &quot; &#039;Gad she was a sweet creature,&quot; returned the young gentleman, arranging his hair. &quot;Of course she was struck too?&quot; inquired the first young lady. &quot;How can you ask, love?&quot; interposed the second; &quot;Could she fail to be?&quot; &quot;Well, honestly I think she was,&quot; observed the young gentleman. At this point of the dialogue, the young lady who had spoken first, and who sat on the young gentleman’s right, struck him a severe blow on the arm with a rosebud, and said he was a vain man—whereupon the young gentleman insisted on having the rosebud, and the young lady appealing for help to the other young ladies, a charming struggle ensued, terminating in the victory of the young gentleman, and the capture of the rosebud. This little skirmish over, the married lady, who was the mother of the rosebud, smiled sweetly upon the young gentleman, and accused him of being a flirt; the young gentleman pleading not guilty, a most interesting discussion took place upon the important point whether the young gentleman was a flirt or not, which being an agreeable conversation of a light kind, lasted a considerable time. At length, a short silence occurring, the young ladies on either side of the young gentleman fell suddenly fast asleep; and the young gentleman, winking upon us to preserve silence, won a pair of gloves from each, thereby causing them to wake with equal suddenness and to scream very loud. The lively conversation to which this pleasantry gave rise, lasted for the remainder of the ride, and would have eked out a much longer one. We dined rather more comfortably than people usually do under such circumstances, nothing having been left behind but the corkscrew and the bread. The married gentlemen were unusually thirsty, which they attributed to the heat of the weather; the little boys ate to inconvenience; mamas were very jovial, and their daughters very fascinating; and the attendants being well-behaved men, got exceedingly drunk at a respectful distance. We had our eye on Mr. Balim at dinner-time, and perceived that he flourished wonderfully, being still surrounded by a little group of young ladies, who listened to him as an oracle, while he ate from their plates and drank from their glasses in a manner truly captivating from its excessive playfulness. His conversation, too, was exceedingly brilliant. In fact, one elderly lady assured us, that in the course of a little lively badinage on the subject of ladies’ dresses, he had evinced as much knowledge as if he had been born and bred a milliner. As such of the fat people who did not happen to fall asleep after dinner entered upon a most vigorous game at ball, we slipped away alone into a thicker part of the wood, hoping to fall in with Mr. Balim, the greater part of the young people having dropped off in twos and threes and the young ladies’ young gentleman among them. Nor were we disappointed, for we had not walked far, when, peeping through the trees, we discovered him before us, and truly it was a pleasant thing to contemplate his greatness. The young ladies’ young gentleman was seated upon the ground, at the feet of a few young ladies who were reclining on a bank; he was so profusely decked with scarfs, ribands, flowers, and other pretty spoils, that he looked like a lamb—or perhaps a calf would be a better simile—adorned for the sacrifice. One young lady supported a parasol over his interesting head, another held his hat, and a third his neck-cloth, which in romantic fashion he had thrown off; the young gentleman himself, with his hand upon his breast, and his face moulded into an expression of the most honeyed sweetness, was warbling forth some choice specimens of vocal music in praise of female loveliness, in a style so exquisitely perfect, that we burst into an involuntary shout of laughter, and made a hasty retreat. What charming fellows these young ladies’ young gentlemen are! Ducks, dears, loves, angels, are all terms inadequate to express their merit. They are such amazingly, uncommonly, wonderfully, nice men. CONCLUSION. As we have placed before the young ladies so many specimens of young gentlemen, and have also in the dedication of this volume given them to understand how much we reverence and admire their numerous virtues and perfections; as we have given them such strong reasons to treat us with confidence, and to banish, in our case, all that reserve and distrust of the male sex which, as a point of general behaviour, they cannot do better than preserve and maintain—we say, as we have done all this, we feel that now, when we have arrived at the close of our task, they may naturally press upon us the inquiry, what particular description of young gentlemen we can conscientiously recommend. Here we are at a loss. We look over our list, and can neither recommend the bashful young gentleman, nor the out-and-out young gentleman, nor the very friendly young gentleman, nor the military young gentleman, nor the political young gentleman, nor the domestic young gentleman, nor the censorious young gentleman, nor the funny young gentleman, nor the theatrical young gentleman, nor the poetical young gentleman, nor the throwing-off young gentleman, nor the young ladies’ young gentleman. As there are some good points about many of them, which still are not sufficiently numerous to render any one among them eligible, as a whole, our respectful advice to the young ladies is, to seek for a young gentleman who unites in himself the best qualities of all, and the worst weaknesses of none, and to lead him forthwith to the hymeneal altar, whether he will or no. And to the young lady who secures him, we beg to tender one short fragment of matrimonial advice, selected from many sound passages of a similar tendency, to be found in a letter written by Dean Swift to a young lady on her marriage. &quot;The grand affair of your life will be, to gain and preserve the esteem of your husband. Neither good-nature nor virtue will suffer him to esteem you against his judgment; and although he is not capable of using you ill, yet you will in time grow a thing indifferent and perhaps contemptible; unless you can supply the loss of youth and beauty with more durable qualities. You have but a very few years to be young and handsome in the eyes of the world; and as few months to be so in the eyes of a husband who is not a fool; for I hope you do not still dream of charms and raptures, which marriage ever did, and ever will, put a sudden end to.&quot; From the anxiety we express for the proper behaviour of the fortunate lady after marriage, it may possibly be inferred that the young gentleman to whom we have so delicately alluded, is no other than ourself. Without in any way committing ourself upon this point, we have merely to observe, that we are ready to receive sealed offers containing a full specification of age, temper, appearance, and condition; but we beg it to be distinctly understood that we do not pledge ourself to accept the highest bidder. These offers may be forwarded to the Publishers, Messrs. Chapman and Hall, one hundred and eighty-six, Strand, London; to whom all pieces of plate and other testimonials of approbation from the young ladies generally, are respectfully requested to be addressed.18380101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_Young_Gentlemen/1838-Sketches_of_Young_Gentlemen.pdf
194https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/194<em>Somebody's Luggage&nbsp;</em>(1862 Christmas Number)Published in <em>All the Year Round,</em> Vol. VIII, Extra Christmas Number, 4 December 1862, pp. 1-48.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online, </em><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-viii/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-viii/page-573.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-viii/page-578.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-viii/page-578.html</a><span>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,&nbsp;</em><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-viii/page-602.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-viii/page-602.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,&nbsp;</em><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-viii/page-617.html" class="waffle-rich-text-link">h</a><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-viii/page-617.html" class="waffle-rich-text-link">ttps://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-viii/page-617.html</a><em>.&nbsp;</em><br /></span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1862-12-04">1862-12-04</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1862-12-04-Somebodys_Luggage<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'His Leaving It Till Called For' (No.1), pp.1-6.</strong></li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'His Boots' (No.2), pp. 6-13.</strong></li> <li>John Oxenford 'His Umbrella' (No.3), pp. 13-18.</li> <li>Charles Allston Collins. 'His Black Bag' (No.4), pp. 18-24.</li> <li>Charles Allston Collins. 'His Writing Desk' (No.5), pp. 24-26.</li> <li>Arthur Locker. 'His Dressing-Case' (No.6), pp. 26-30.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'His Brown Paper Parcel' (No.7), pp. 30-34.</strong></li> <li>Julia Cecilia Stretton. 'His Portmanteau' (No.8), pp. 34-40.</li> <li>Julia Cecilia Stretton. 'His Hat Box' (No.9), pp. 40-45.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'His Wonderful End' (No.10), pp. 45-48.</strong></li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al. <em>Somebody's Luggage</em> (4 December 1862). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1862-12-04-Somebodys_Luggage">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1862-12-04-Somebodys_Luggage</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>The writer of these humble lines being a Waiter, and having come of a family of Waiters, and owning at the present time five brothers who are all Waiters, and likewise an only sister who is a Waitress, would wish to offer a few words respecting his calling; first having the pleasure of hereby in a friendly manner offering the Dedication of the same unto JOSEPH, much respected Head Waiter at the Slamjam Coffeehouse, London, E.C., than which a individual more eminently deserving of the name of man, or a more amenable honour to his own head and heart, whether considered in the light of a Waiter or regarded as a human being, do not exist. In case confusion should arise in the public mind (which it is open to confusion on many subjects) respecting what is meant or implied by the term Waiter, the present humble lines would wish to offer an explanation. It may not be generally known that the person as goes out to wait, is not a Waiter. It may not be generally known that the hand as is called in extra, at the Freemasons&#039; Tavern, or the London, or the Albion, or otherwise, is not a Waiter. Such hands may be took on for Public Dinners, by the bushel (and you may know them by their breathing with difficulty when in attendance, and taking away the bottle &#039;ere yet it is half out), but such are not Waiters. For, you cannot lay down the tailoring, or the shoemaking, or the brokering, or the green-grocering, or the pictorial periodicalling, or the second-hand wardrobe, or the small fancy, businesses—you cannot lay down those lines of life at your will and pleasure by the half-day or evening, and take up Waitering. You may suppose you can, but you cannot; or you may go so far as to say you do, but you do not. Nor yet can you lay down the gentleman&#039;s-service when stimulated by prolonged incompatibility on the part of Cooks (and here it may be remarked that Cooking and Incompatibility will be mostly found united), and take up Waitering. It has been ascertained that what a gentleman will sit meek under, at home, he will not bear out of doors, at the Slamjam or any similar establishment. Then, what is the inference to be drawn respecting true Waitering? You must be bred to it. You must be born to it. Would you know how born to it, Fair Reader—if of the adorable female sex? Then learn from the biographical experience of one that is a Waiter in the sixty-first year of his age. You were conveyed, ere yet your dawning powers were otherwise developed than to harbour vacancy in your inside—you were conveyed, by surreptitious means, into a pantry adjoining the Admiral Nelson, Civic and General Dining Rooms, there to receive by stealth that healthful sustenance which is the pride and boast of the British female constitution. Your mother was married to your father (himself a distant Waiter) in the profoundest secresy; for a Waitress known to be married would ruin the best of businesses—it is the same as on the stage. Hence your being smuggled into the pantry, and that—to add to the infliction—by an unwilling grandmother. Under the combined influence of the smells of roast and boiled, and soup, and gas, and malt liquors, you partook of your earliest nourishment; your unwilling grandmother sitting prepared to catch you when your mother was called and dropped you; your grandmother&#039;s shawl ever ready to stifle your natural complainings; your innocent mind surrounded by uncongenial cruets, dirty plates, dish-covers, and cold gravy; your mother calling down the pipe for veals and porks, instead of soothing you with nursery rhymes. Under these untoward circumstances you were early weaned. Your unwilling grandmother, ever growing more unwilling as your food assimilated less, then contracted habits of shaking you till your system curdled, and your food would not assimilate at all. At length she was no longer spared, and could have been thankfully spared much sooner. When your brothers began to appear in succession, your mother retired, left off her smart dressing (she had previously been a smart dresser), and her dark ringlets (which had previously been flowing), and haunted your father late of nights, lying in wait for him, through all weathers, up the shabby court which led to the back door of the Royal Old Dust-Binn (said to have been so named by George the Fourth), where your father was Head. But the Dust-Binn was going down then, and your father took but little—excepting from a liquid point of view. Your mother&#039;s object in those visits was of a housekeeping character, and you was set on to whistle your father out. Sometimes he came out, but generally not. Come or not come, however, all that part of his existence which was unconnected with open Waitering, was kept a close secret, and was acknowledged by your mother to be a close secret, and you and your mother flitted about the court, close secrets both of you, and would scarcely have confessed under torture that you knew your father, or that your father had any name than Dick (which wasn&#039;t his name, though he was never known by any other), or that he had kith or kin or chick or child. Perhaps the attraction of this mystery, combined with your father&#039;s having a damp compartment to himself, behind a leaky cistern, at the Dust-Binn—a sort of a cellar compartment, with a sink in it, and a smell, and a plate-rack and a bottle-rack, and three windows that didn&#039;t match each other or anything else, and no daylight—caused your young mind to feel convinced that you must grow up to be a Waiter too; but you did feel convinced of it, and so did all your brothers, down to your sister. Every one of you felt convinced that you was born to the Waitering. At this stage of your career, what was your feelings one day when your father came home to your mother in open broad daylight— of itself an act of Madness on the part of a Waiter—and took to his bed (leastwise, your mother and family&#039;s bed), with the statement that his eyes were devilled kidneys. Physicians being in vain, your father expired, after repeating at intervals for a day and a night, when gleams of reason and old business fitfully illuminated his being, &quot;Two and two is five. And three is sixpence.&quot; Interred in the parochial department of the neighbouring churchyard, and accompanied to the grave by as many Waiters of long standing as could spare the morning time from their soiled glasses (namely, one), your bereaved form was attired in a white neckankecher, and you was took on from motives of benevolence at The George and Gridiron, theatrical and supper. Here, supporting nature on what you found in the plates (which was as it happened, and but too often thoughtlessly immersed in mustard), and on what you found in the glasses (which rarely went beyond driblets and lemon), by night you dropped asleep standing, till you was cuffed awake, and by day was set to polishing every individual article in the coffee-room. Your couch being sawdust; your counterpane being ashes of cigars. Here, frequently hiding a heavy heart under the smart tie of your white neckankecher (or correctly speaking lower down and more to the left), you picked up the rudiments of knowledge from an extra, by the name of Bishops, and by calling plate-washer, and gradually elevating your mind with chalk on the back of the corner-box-partition, until such time as you used the inkstand when it was out of hand, attained to manhood and to be the Waiter that you find yourself. I could wish here to offer a few respectful words on behalf of the calling so long the calling of myself and family, and the public interest in which is but too often very limited. We are not generally understood. No, we are not. Allowance enough is not made for us. For, say that we ever show a little drooping listlessness of spirits, or what might be termed indifference or apathy. Put it to yourself what would your own state of mind be, if you was one of an enormous family every member of which except you was always greedy, and in a hurry. Put it to yourself that you was regularly replete with animal food at the slack hours of one in the day and again at nine P.M., and that the repleter you was, the more voracious all your fellow-creatures came in. Put it to yourself that it was your business when your digestion was well on, to take a personal interest and sympathy in a hundred gentlemen fresh and fresh (say, for the sake of argument, only a hundred), whose imaginations was given up to grease and fat and gravy and melted butter, and abandoned to questioning you about cuts of this, and dishes of that—each of &#039;em going on as if him and you and the bill of fare was alone in the world. Then look what you are expected to know. You are never out, but they seem to think you regularly attend everywhere. &quot;What&#039;s this, Christopher, that I hear about the smashed Excursion Train?&quot;—&quot;How are they doing at the Italian Opera, Christopher?&quot;—&quot;Christopher, what are the real particulars of this business at the Yorkshire Bank?&quot; Similarly a ministry gives me more trouble than it gives the Queen. As to Lord Palmerston, the constant and wearing connexion into which I have been brought with his lordship during the last few years, is deserving of a pension. Then look at the Hypocrites we are made, and the lies (white, I hope) that are forced upon us! Why must a sedentary-pursuited Waiter be considered to be a judge of horseflesh, and to have a most tremenjous interest in horse-training and racing? Yet it would be half our little incomes out of our pockets if we didn&#039;t take on to have those sporting tastes. It is the same (inconceivable why!) with Farming. Shooting, equally so. I am sure that so regular as the months of August, September, and October come round, I am ashamed of myself in my own private bosom for the way in which I make believe to care whether or not the grouse is strong on the wing (much their wings or drumsticks either signifies to me, uncooked!), and whether the partridges is plentiful among the turnips, and whether the pheasants is shy or bold, or anything else you please to mention. Yet you may see me, or any other Waiter of my standing, holding on by the back of the box and leaning over a gentleman with his purse out and his bill before him, discussing these points in a confidential tone of voice, as if my happiness in life entirely depended on &#039;em. I have mentioned our little incomes. Look at the most unreasonable point of all, and the point on which the greatest injustice is done us! Whether it is owing to our always carrying so much change in our right-hand trousers-pocket, and so many halfpence in our coat-tails, or whether it is human nature (which I were loathe to believe), what is meant by the everlasting fable that Head Waiters is rich? How did that fable get into circulation? Who first put it about, and what are the facts to establish the unblushing statement? Come forth, thou slanderer, and refer the public to the Waiter&#039;s will in Doctors&#039; Commons supporting thy malignant hiss! Yet this is so commonly dwelt upon–especially by the screws who give Waiters the least–that denial is vain, and we are obliged, for our credit&#039;s sake, to carry our heads as if we were going into a business, when of the two we are much more likely to go into a union. There was formerly a screw as frequented the Slamjam ere yet the present writer had quitted that establishment on a question of tea-ing his assistant staff out of his own pocket, which screw carried the taunt to its bitterest heighth. Never soaring above threepence, and as often as not grovelling on the earth a penny lower, he yet represented the present writer as a large holder of Consols, a lender of money on mortgage, a Capitalist. He has been overheard to dilate to other customers on the allegation that the present writer put out thousands of pounds at interest, in Distilleries and Breweries. &quot;Well, Christopher,&quot; he would say (having grovelled his lowest on the earth, half a moment before), &quot;looking out for a House to open, eh? Can&#039;t find a business to be disposed of, on a scale as is up to your resources, humph?&quot; To such a dizzy precipice of falsehood has this misrepresentation taken wing, that the well-known and highly-respected OLD CHARLES, long eminent at the West Country Hotel, and by some considered the Father of the Waitering, found himself under the obligation to fall into it through so many years that his own wife (for he had an unbeknown old lady in that capacity towards himself) believed it! And what was the consequence? When he was borne to his grave on the shoulders of six picked Waiters, with six more for change, six more acting as pall-bearers, all keeping step in a pouring shower without a dry eye visible, and a concourse only inferior to Royalty, his pantry and lodgings was equally ransacked high and low for property and none was found! How could it be found, when, beyond his last monthly collection of walking-sticks, umbrellas, and pocket-handkerchiefs (which happened to have been not yet disposed of, though he had ever been through life punctual in clearing off his collections by the month), there was no property existing? Such, however, is the force of this universal libel, that the widow of Old Charles, at the present hour an inmate of the Almshouses of the Cork-Cutters&#039; Company, in Blue Anchor-road (identified sitting at the door of one of &#039;em, in a clean cap and a Windsor armchair, only last Monday), expects John&#039;s hoarded wealth to be found hourly! Nay, ere yet he had succumbed to the grisly dart, and when his portrait was painted in oils, life-size, by subscription of the frequenters of the West Country, to hang over the coffee-room chimney-piece, there were not wanting those who contended that what is termed the accessories of such portrait ought to be the Bank of England out of window, and a strong-box on the table. And but for better-regulated minds contending for a bottle and screw and the attitude of drawing–and carrying their point–it would have been so handed down to posterity. I am now brought to the title of the present remarks. Having, I hope without offence to any quarter, offered such observations as I felt it my duty to offer, in a free country which has ever dominated the seas, on the general subject, I will now proceed to wait on the particular question. At a momentuous period of my life, when I was off, so far as concerned notice given, with a House that shall be nameless—for the question on which I took my departing stand was a fixed charge for Waiters, and no House as commits itself to that eminently Un-English act of more than foolishness and baseness shall be advertised by me–I repeat, at a momentuous crisis when I was off with a House too mean for mention, and not yet on with that to which I have ever since had the honour of being attached in the capacity of Head,* I was casting about what to do next. Then it were that proposals were made to me on behalf of my present establishment. Stipulations were necessary on my part, emendations were necessary on my part; in the end, ratifications ensued on both sides, and I entered on a new career. We are a bed business, and a coffee-room business. We are not a general dining business, nor do we wish it. In consequence, when diners drop in, we know what to give &#039;em as will keep &#039;em away another time. We are a Private Room or Family business also; but Coffee Room principal. Me and the Directory and the Writing Materials and cetrer occupy a place to ourselves: a place fended off up a step or two at the end of the Coffee Room, in what I call the good old-fashioned style. The good old-fashioned style is, that whatever you want, down to a wafer, you must be olely and solely dependent on the Head Waiter for. You must put yourself a new-born Child into his hands. There is no other way in which a business untinged with Continental Vice can be conducted. (It were bootless to add that if languages is required to be jabbered and English is not good enough, both families and gentlemen had better go somewhere else.) When I began to settle down in this right-principled and well-conducted House, I noticed under the bed in No. 24 B (which it is up a angle off the staircase, and usually put off upon the lowly-minded), a heap of things in a corner. I asked our Head Chambermaid in the course of the day: &quot;What are them things in 24 B?&quot; To which she answered with a careless air: &quot;Somebody&#039;s Luggage.&quot; Regarding her with a eye not free from severity, I says: &quot;Whose Luggage?&quot; Evading my eye, she replied: &quot;Lor! How should I know!&quot; –Being, it may be right to mention, a female of some pertness, though acquainted with her business. A Head Waiter must be either Head or Tail. He must be at one extremity or the other of the social scale. He cannot be at the waist of it, or anywhere else but the extremities. It is for him to decide which of the extremities. On the eventful occasion under consideration, I give Mrs. Pratchett so distinctly to understand my decision that I broke her spirit as towards myself, then and there, and for good. Let not inconsistency be suspected on account of my mentioning Mrs. Pratchett as &quot;Mrs.,&quot; and having formerly remarked that a waitress must not be married. Readers are respectfully requested to notice that Mrs. Pratchett was not a waitress, but a chambermaid. Now, a chambermaid may be married: if Head, generally is married–or says so. It comes to the same thing as expressing what is customary. (N.B. Mr. Pratchett is in Australia, and his address there is &quot;the Bush.&quot;) Having took Mrs. Pratchett down as many pegs as was essential to the future happiness of all parties, I requested her to explain herself. &quot;For instance,&quot; I says, to give her a little encouragement, &quot;who is Somebody?&quot; &quot;I give you my sacred honour, Mr. Christopher,&quot; answers Pratchett, &quot;that I haven&#039;t the faintest notion.&quot; But for the manner in which she settled her cap-strings, I should have doubted this; but in respect of positiveness it was hardly to be discriminated from an affidavit. &quot;Then you never saw him?&quot; I followed her up with. &quot;Nor yet,&quot; said Mrs. Pratchett, shutting her eyes and making as if she had just took a pill of unusual circumference–which gave a remarkable force to her denial–&quot;nor yet any servant in this house. All have been changed, Mr. Christopher, within five year, and Somebody left his Luggage here before then.&quot; Inquiry of Miss Martin yielded (in the language of the Bard of A.1.) &quot;confirmation strong.&quot; So it had really and truly happened. Miss Martin is the young lady at the bar as makes out our bills; and though higher than I could wish, considering her station, is perfectly well behaved. Further investigations led to the disclosure that there was a bill against this Luggage to the amount of two sixteen six. The Luggage had been lying under the bedstead in 24 B, over six year. The bedstead is a four-poster, with a deal of old hanging and vallance, and is, as I once said, probably connected with more than 24 Bs–which I remember my hearers was pleased to laugh at, at the time. I don&#039;t know why–when DO we know why?–but this Luggage laid heavy on my mind. I fell a wondering about Somebody, and what he had got and been up to. I couldn&#039;t satisfy my thoughts why he should leave so much Luggage against so small a bill. For I had the Luggage out within a day or two and turned it over, and the following were the items:–A black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick. It was all very dusty and fluey. I had our porter up to get under the bed and fetch it out; and though he habitually wallows in dust—swims in it from morning to night, and wears a close-fitting waistcoat with black calimanco sleeves for the purpose–it made him sneeze again, and his throat was that hot with it, that it was obliged to be cooled with a drink of Allsopp&#039;s draft. The Luggage so got the better of me, that instead of having it put back when it was well dusted and washed with a wet cloth–previous to which it was so covered with feathers, that you might have thought it was turning into poultry, and would by-and-by begin to Lay–I say, instead of having it put back, I had it carried into one of my places down stairs. There from time to time I stared at it and stared at it, till it seemed to grow big and grow little, and come forward at me and retreat again, and go through all manner of performances resembling intoxication. When this had lasted weeks—I may say, months, and not be far out—I one day thought of asking Miss Martin for the particulars of the Two sixteen six total. She was so obliging as to extract it from the books—it dating before her time—and here follows a true copy: Coffee Room. 1856. No. 4. February 2nd. Pen and paper.......................£0 0 6 Port Negus.............................. 0 2 0 Ditto......................................... 0 2 0 Pen and paper......................... 0 0 6 Tumbler broken....................... 0 2 6 Brandy..................................... 0 2 0 Pen and paper......................... 0 0 6 Anchovy toast.......................... 0 2 6 Pen and paper......................... 0 0 6 Bed.......................................... 0 3 0 February 3rd. Pen and paper......................... 0 0 6 Breakfast................................. 0 2 6 &quot; Broiled ham.............. 0 2 0 &quot; Eggs......................... 0 1 0 &quot; Water cresses.......... 0 1 0 &quot; Shrimps.................... 0 1 0 — Carried forward.......................................£1 4 0 Brought forward..................................£1 4 0 Pen and paper......................... 0 0 6 Blotting-paper.......................... 0 0 6 Messenger to Paternoster- row and back........................ 0 1 6 Again, when No Answer............ 0 1 6 Brandy 2s., Devilled Pork chop 2s........................... 0 4 0 Pens and paper........................ 0 1 0 Messenger to Albemarle- street and back....................... 0 1 0 Again (detained), when No Answer............................... 0 1 6 Saltcellar broken....................... 0 3 6 Large Liqueur- glass Orange Brandy....................... 0 1 6 Dinner, Soup Fish Joint and bird................................... 0 7 6 Bottle old East India Brown...................................... 0 8 0 Pen and paper.......................... 0 0 6 — £2 16 6 Mem.: January 1st, 1857. He went out after dinner, directing Luggage to be ready when he called for it. Never called. So far from throwing a light upon the subject, this bill appeared to me, if I may so express my doubts, to involve it in a yet more lurid halo. Speculating it over with the Mistress, she informed me that the luggage had been advertised in the Master&#039;s time as being to be sold after such and such a day to pay expenses, but no further steps had been taken. (I may here remark that the Mistress is a widow in her fourth year. The Master was possessed of one of those unfortunate constitutions in which Spirits turns to Water, and rises in the ill-starred Victim.) My speculating it over, not then only but repeatedly, sometimes with the Mistress, sometimes with one, sometimes with another, led up to the Mistress&#039;s saying to me—whether at first in joke or in earnest, or half joke and half earnest, it matters not: &quot;Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer.&quot; (If this should meet her eye–a lovely blue– may she not take it ill my mentioning that if I had been eight or ten year younger, I would have done as much by her! That is, I would have made her a offer. It is for others than me to denominate it a handsome one.) &quot;Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer.&quot; &quot;Put a name to it, ma&#039;am.&quot; &quot;Look here, Christopher. Run over the articles of Somebody&#039;s Luggage. You&#039;ve got it all by heart, I know.&quot; &quot;A black portmanteau, ma&#039;am, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick.&quot; &quot;All just as they were left. Nothing opened, nothing tampered with.&quot; &quot;You are right, ma&#039;am. All locked but the brown-paper parcel, and that sealed.&quot; The Mistress was leaning on Miss Martin&#039;s desk at the bar-window, and she taps the open book that lays upon the desk–she has a pretty-made hand, to be sure and bobs her head over it, and laughs. &quot;Come,&quot; says she, &quot;Christopher. Pay me Somebody&#039;s bill, and you shall have Somebody&#039;s luggage.&quot; I rather took to the idea from the first moment; but, &quot;It mayn&#039;t be worth the money,&quot; I objected, seeming to hold back. &quot;That&#039;s a Lottery,&quot; says the Mistress, folding her arms upon the book–it ain&#039;t her hands alone that&#039;s pretty made: the observation extends right up her arms–&quot;Won&#039;t you venture two pound sixteen shillings and sixpence in the Lottery? Why, there&#039;s no blanks!&quot; says the Mistress, laughing and bobbing her head again, &quot;you must win. If you lose, you must win! All prizes in this Lottery! Draw a blank, and remember, Gentlemen-Sportsmen, you&#039;ll still be entitled to a black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a sheet of brown paper, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick!&quot; To make short of it, Miss Martin come round me, and Mrs. Pratchett come round me, and the Mistress she was completely round me already, and all the women in the house come round me, and if it had been Sixteen two instead of Two sixteen, I should have thought myself well out of it. For what can you do when they do come round you? So I paid the money–down–and such a laughing as there was among &#039;em! But I turned the tables on &#039;em regularly, when I said: &quot;My family-name is Blue Beard. I&#039;m going to open Somebody&#039;s Luggage all alone in the Secret Chamber, and not a female eye catches sight of the contents!&quot; Whether I thought proper to have the firmness to keep to this, don&#039;t signify, or whether any female eye, and if any how many, was really present when the opening of the Luggage came off. Somebody&#039;s Luggage is the question at present: Nobody&#039;s eyes, nor yet noses. What I still look at most, in connexion with that Luggage, is the extraordinary quantity of writing-paper, and all written on! And not our paper neither–not the paper charged in the bill, for we know our paper–so he must have been always at it. And he had crumpled up this writing of his, everywhere, in every part and parcel of his luggage. There was writing in his dressing-case, writing in his boots, writing among his shaving-tackle, writing in his hat-box, writing folded away down among the very whalebones of his umbrella. His clothes wasn&#039;t bad, what there was of &#039;em. His dressing-case was poor––not a particle of silver stopper—bottle apertures with nothing in &#039;em, like empty little dog-kennels––and a most searching description of tooth-powder diffusing itself around, as under a deluded mistake that all the chinks in the fittings was divisions in teeth. His clothes I parted with, well enough, to a second-hand dealer not far from St. Clement&#039;s Danes, in the Strand–him as the officers in the Army mostly dispose of their uniforms to, when hard pressed with debts of honour, if I may judge from their coats and epaulettes diversifying the window, with their backs towards the public. The same party bought in one lot, the portmanteau, the bag, the desk, the dressing-case, the hat-box, the umbrella, strap, and walking-stick. On my remarking that I should have thought those articles not quite in his line, he said: &quot;No more ith a man&#039;th grandmother, Mithter Chrithtopher; but if any man will bring hith grandmother here, and offer her at a fair trifle below what the&#039;ll feth with good luck when the&#039;th thcoured and turned—I&#039;ll buy her!&quot; These transactions brought me home, and, indeed, more than home, for they left a goodish profit on the original investment. And now there remained the writings; and the writings I particular wish to bring under the candid attention of the reader. I wish to do so without postponement, for this reason. That is to say, namely, viz., i.e., as follows, thus:—Before I proceed to recount the mental sufferings of which I became the prey in consequence of the writings, and before following up that harrowing tale with a statement of the wonderful and impressive catastrophe, as thrilling in its nature as unlooked for in any other capacity, which crowned the ole and filled the cup of unexpectedness to overflowing, the writings themselves ought to stand forth to view. Therefore it is that they now come next. One word to introduce them, and I lay down my pen (I hope, my unassuming pen), until I take it up to trace the gloomy sequel of a mind with something on it. He was a smeary writer, and wrote a dreadful bad hand. Utterly regardless of ink, he lavished it on every undeserving object—on his clothes. his desk, his hat, the handle of his tooth-brush, his umbrella. Ink was found freely on the coffee-room carpet by No. 4 table, and two blots was on his restless couch. A reference to the document I have given entire, will show that on the morning of the third of February, eighteen &#039;fifty-six, he procured his no less than fifth pen and paper. To whatever deplorable act of ungovernable composition he immolated those materials obtained from the bar, there is no doubt that the fatal deed was committed in bed, and that it left its evidences but too plainly, long afterwards, upon the pillow-case. He had put no Heading to any of his writings. Alas! Was he likely to have a Heading without a Head, and where was his Head when he took such things into it! The writings are consequently called, here, by the names of the articles of Luggage to which they was found attached. In some cases, such as his Boots, he would appear to have hid the writings: thereby involving his style in greater obscurity. But his Boots was at least pairs—and no two of his writings can put in any claim to be so regarded. With a low-spirited anticipation of the gloomy state of mind in which it will be my lot to describe myself as having drooped, when I next resume my artless narrative, I will now withdraw. If there should be any flaw in the writings, or anything missing in the writings, it is Him as is responsible—not me. With that observation in justice to myself, I for the present conclude. * Its name and address at length, with other full particulars, all editorially struck out. &quot;Eh! well then, Monsieur Mutuel! What do I know, what can I say? I assure you that he calls himself Monsieur The Englishman.&quot; &quot;Pardon. But I think it is impossible,&quot; said Monsieur Mutuel.—A spectacled, snuffy, stooping old gentleman in carpet shoes and a cloth cap with a peaked shade, a loose blue frock-coat reaching to his heels, a large limp white shirt-frill, and cravat to correspond,—that is to say, white was the natural colour of his linen on Sundays, but it toned down with the week. &quot;It is,&quot; repeated Monsieur Mutuel: his amiable old walnut-shell countenance, very walnut-shelly indeed as he smiled and blinked in the bright morning sunlight, &quot;it is, my cherished Madame Bouclet, I think, impossible.&quot; &quot;Hey!&quot; (with a little vexed cry and a great many tosses of her head). &quot;But it is not impossible that you are a Pig!&quot; retorted Madame Bouclet: a compact little woman of thirty-five or so. &quot;See then—look there—read! &#039;On the second floor Monsieur L&#039;Anglais.&#039; Is it not so?&quot; &quot;It is so,&quot; said Monsieur Mutuel. &quot;Good. Continue your morning walk. Get out!&quot; Madame Bouclet dismissed him with a lively snap of her fingers. The morning walk of Monsieur Mutuel was in the brightest patch that the sun made in the Grande Place of a dull old fortified French town. The manner of his morning walk was with his hands crossed behind him: an umbrella, in figure the express image of himself, always in one hand: a snuff-box in the other. Thus, with the shuffling gait of the Elephant (who really does deal with the very worst trousers-maker employed by the Zoological world, and who appeared to have recommended him to Monsieur Mutuel), the old gentleman sunned himself daily when sun was to be had—of course, at the same time sunning a red ribbon at his button-hole; for was he not an ancient Frenchman? Being told by one of the angelic sex to continue his morning walk and get out, Monsieur Mutuel laughed a walnut-shell laugh, pulled off his cap at arm&#039;s length with the hand that contained his snuff-box, kept it off for a considerable period after he had parted from Madame Bouclet, and continued his morning walk and got out: like a man of gallantry as he was. The documentary evidence to which Madame Bouclet had referred Monsieur Mutuel, was the list of her lodgers, sweetly written forth by her own Nephew and Book-keeper, who held the pen of an Angel, and posted up at the side of her gateway for the information of the Police. &quot;Au second, M. L&#039;Anglais, Proprietaire.&quot; On the second floor, Mr. The Englishman, man of property. So it stood; nothing could be plainer. Madame Bouclet now traced the line with her forefinger, as it were to confirm and settle herself in her parting snap at Monsieur Mutuel, and so, placing her right hand on her hip with a defiant air, as if nothing should ever tempt her to unsnap that snap, strolled out into the Place to glance up at the windows of Mr. The Englishman. That worthy happening to be looking out of window at the moment, Madame Bouclet gave him a graceful salutation with her head, looked to the right and looked to the left to account to him for her being there, considered for a moment like one who accounted to herself for somebody she had expected not being there, and re-entered her own gateway. Madame Bouclet let all her house giving on the Place, in furnished flats or floors, and lived up the yard behind, in company with Monsieur Bouclet her husband (great at billiards), an inherited brewing business, several fowls, two carts, a nephew, a little dog in a big kennel, a grape-vine, a counting-house, four horses, a married sister (with a share in the brewing business), the husband and two children of the married sister, a parrot, a drum (performed on by the little boy of the married sister), two billeted soldiers, a quantity of pigeons, a fife (played by the nephew in a ravishing manner), several domestics and supernumeraries, a perpetual flavour of coffee and soup, a terrific range of artificial rocks and wooden precipices at least four feet high, a small fountain, and half a dozen large sunflowers. Now, the Englishman in taking his Appartement—or, as one might say on our side of the Channel, his set of chambers—had given his name, correct to the letter, LANGLEY. But as he had a British way of not opening his mouth very wide on foreign soil, except at meals, the Brewery had been able to make nothing of it but L&#039; Anglais. So, Mr. The Englishman he had become and he remained. &quot;Never saw such a people!&quot; muttered Mr. The Englishman, as he now looked out of window. &quot;Never did, in my life!&quot; This was true enough, for he had never before been out of his own country—a right little island, a tight little island, a bright little island, a show-fight little island, and full of merit of all sorts; but not the whole round world. &quot;These chaps,&quot; said Mr. The Englishman to himself, as his eye rolled over the Place, sprinkled with military here and there, &quot;are no more like soldiers—!&quot; Nothing being sufficiently strong for the end of his sentence, he left it unended. This again (from the point of view of his experience) was strictly correct; for, though there was a great agglomeration of soldiers in the town and neighbouring country, you might have held a grand Review and Field Day of them every one, and looked in vain among them all for a soldier choking behind his foolish stock, or a soldier lamed by his ill-fitting shoes, or a soldier deprived of the use of his limbs by straps and buttons, or a soldier elaborately forced to be self-helpless in all the small affairs of life. A swarm of brisk bright active bustling handy odd skirmishing fellows, able to turn to cleverly at anything, from a siege to soup, from great guns to needles and thread, from the broad-sword exercise to slicing an onion, from making war to making omelettes, was all you would have found. What a swarm! From the Great Place under the eye of Mr. The Englishman, where a few awkward squads from the last conscription were doing the goose-step—some members of those squads still as to their bodies in the chrysalis peasant-state of Blouse, and only military butterflies as to their regimentally-clothed legs—from the Great Place, away outside the fortifications and away for miles along the dusty roads, soldiers swarmed. All day long, upon the grass-grown ramparts of the town, practising soldiers trumpeted and bugled; all day long, down in angles of dry trenches, practising soldiers drummed and drummed. Every forenoon, soldiers burst out of the great barracks into the sandy gymnasium-ground hard by, and flew over the wooden horse, and hung on to flying ropes, and dangled upside-down between parallel bars, and shot themselves off wooden platforms, splashes, sparks, coruscations, showers, of soldiers. At every corner of the town wall, every guard-house, every gateway, every sentry-box, every drawbridge, every reedy ditch and rushy dyke, soldiers soldiers soldiers. And the town being pretty well all wall, guard-house, gateway, sentry-box, drawbridge, reedy ditch and rushy dyke, the town was pretty well all soldiers. What would the sleepy old town have been without the soldiers, seeing that even with them it had so overslept itself as to have slept its echoes hoarse, its defensive bars and locks and bolts and chains all rusty, and its ditches stagnant! From the days when VAUBAN engineered it to that perplexing extent that to look at it was like being knocked on the head with it: the stranger becoming stunned and stertorous under the shock of its incomprehensibility—from the days when VAUBAN made it the express incorporation of every substantive and adjective in the art of military engineering, and not only twisted you into it and twisted you out of it, to the right, to the left, opposite, under here, over there, in the dark, in the dirt, by gateway, archway, covered way, dry way, wet way, fosse, portcullis, drawbridge, sluice, squat tower, pierced wall, and heavy battery, but likewise took a fortifying dive under the neighbouring country, and came to the surface three or four miles off, blowing out incomprehensible mounds and batteries among the quiet crops of chicory and beet-root—from those days to these, the town had been asleep, and dust and rust and must had settled on its drowsy Arsenals and Magazines, and grass had grown up in its silent streets. On market-days alone, its Great Place suddenly leaped out of bed. On market-days, some friendly enchanter struck his staff upon the stones of the Great Place, and instantly arose the liveliest booths and stalls and sittings and standings, and a pleasant hum of chaffering and huckstering from many hundreds of tongues, and a pleasant though peculiar blending of colours—white caps, blue blouses, and green vegetables—and at last the Knight destined for the adventure seemed to have come in earnest, and all the Vaubanois sprang up awake. And now, by long low-lying avenues of trees, jolting in white-hooded donkey-cart, and on donkey back, and in tumbril and waggon and cart and cabriolet, and a-foot with barrow and burden—and along the dykes and ditches and canals, in little peak-prowed country boats—came peasant men and women in flocks and crowds, bringing articles for sale. And here you had boots and shoes and sweetmeats and stuffs to wear, and here (in the cool shade of the Town Hall) you had milk and cream and butter and cheese, and here you had fruits and onions and carrots and all things needful for your soup, and here you had poultry and flowers and protesting pigs, and here new shovels axes spades and bill-hooks for your farming work, and here huge mounds of bread, and here your unground grain in sacks, and here your children&#039;s dolls, and here the cake-seller announcing his wares by beat and roll of drum. And hark! fanfaronade of trumpets, and here into the Great Place, resplendent in an open carriage with four gorgeously-attired servitors up behind, playing horns drums and cymbals, rolled &quot;the Daughter of a Physician&quot; in massive golden chains and ear-rings, and blue-feathered hat, shaded from the admiring sun by two immense umbrellas of artificial roses, to dispense (from motives of philanthropy) that small and pleasant dose which had cured so many thousands! Toothache earache headache heartache stomach-ache debility nervousness fits faintings fever ague, all equally cured by the small and pleasant dose of the great Physician&#039;s great daughter! The process was this:—she, the Daughter of a Physician, proprietress of the superb equipage you now admired, with its confirmatory blasts of trumpet drum and cymbal, told you so:—On the first day after taking the small and pleasant dose, you would feel no particular influence beyond a most harmonious sensation of indescribable and irresistible joy, on the second day, you would be so astonishingly better that you would think yourself changed into somebody else; on the third day, you would be entirely free from your disorder, whatever its nature and however long you had had it, and would seek out the Physician&#039;s daughter, to throw yourself at her feet, kiss the hem of her garment, and buy as many more of the small and pleasant doses as by the sale of all your few effects you could obtain; but she would be inaccessible—gone for herbs to the Pyramids of Egypt—and you would be (though cured) reduced to despair! Thus would the Physician&#039;s daughter drive her trade (and briskly too), and thus would the buying and selling and mingling of tongues and colours continue until the changing sunlight, leaving the Physician&#039;s Daughter in the shadow of high roofs, admonished her to jolt out westward, with a departing effect of gleam and glitter on the splendid equipage and brazen blast. And now the enchanter struck his staff upon the stones of the Great Place once more, and down went the booths the sittings and standings, and vanished the merchandise, and with it the barrows donkeys donkey-carts and tumbrils and all other things on wheels and feet, except the slow scavengers with unwieldy carts and meagre horses, clearing up the rubbish, assisted by the sleek town pigeons, better plumped out than on non-market days. While there was yet an hour or two to wane before the autumn sunset, the loiterer outside town-gate and drawbridge and postern and double-ditch, would see the last white-hooded cart lessening in the avenue of lengthening shadows of trees, or the last country boat, paddled by the last market-woman on her way home, showing black upon the reddening long low narrow dyke between him and the mill; and as the paddle-parted scum and weed closed over the boat&#039;s track, he might be comfortably sure that its sluggish rest would be troubled no more until next market-day. As it was not one of the Great Place&#039;s days for getting out of bed when Mr. The Englishman looked down at the young soldiers practising the goose-step there, his mind was left at liberty to take a military turn. &quot;These fellows are billeted everywhere about,&quot; said he, &quot;and to see them lighting the people&#039;s fires, boiling the people&#039;s pots, minding the people&#039;s babies, rocking the people&#039;s cradles, washing the people&#039;s greens, and making themselves generally useful, in every sort of unmilitary way, is most ridiculous!—Never saw such a set of fellows; never did in my life!&quot; All perfectly true again. Was there not Private Valentine, in that very house, acting as sole housemaid, valet, cook, steward, and nurse, in the family of his captain, Monsieur le Capitaine De la Cour—cleaning the floors, making the beds, doing the marketing, dressing the captain, dressing the dinners, dressing the salads, and dressing the baby, all with equal readiness? Or, to put him aside, he being in loyal attendance on his Chief, was there not Private Hyppolite, billeted at the Perfumer&#039;s two hundred yards off, who, when not on duty, volunteered to keep shop while the fair Perfumeress stepped out to speak to a neighbour or so, and laughingly sold soap with his war sword girded on him? Was there not Emile, billeted at the Clockmaker&#039;s, perpetually turning to of an evening with his coat off, winding up the stock? Was there not Eugène, billeted at the Tinman&#039;s, cultivating, pipe in mouth, a garden four feet square for the tinman, in the little court behind the shop, and extorting the fruits of the earth from the same, on his knees, with the sweat of his brow? Not to multiply examples, was there not Baptiste, billeted on the poor Water-Carrier, at that very instant sitting on the pavement in the sunlight, with his martial legs asunder, and one of the Water-Carrier&#039;s spare pails between them, which (to the delight and glory of the heart of the Water-Carrier coming across the Place from the fountain, yoked and burdened) he was painting bright green outside and bright red within? Or, to go no further than the Barber&#039;s at the very next door, was there not Corporal Théophile— &quot;No,&quot; said Mr. The Englishman, glancing down at the Barber&#039;s, &quot;he is not there at present. There&#039;s the child though.&quot; A mere mite of a girl stood on the steps of the Barber&#039;s shop, looking across the Place. A mere baby, one might call her, dressed in the close white linen cap which small French country-children wear (like the Children in Dutch pictures), and in a frock of homespun blue, that had no shape except where it was tied round her little fat throat. So that, being naturally short and round all over, she looked, behind, as if she had been cut off at her natural waist, and had had her head neatly fitted on it. &quot;There&#039;s the child though.&quot; To judge from the way in which the dimpled hand was rubbing the eyes, the eyes had been closed in a nap and were newly opened. But they seemed to be looking so intently across the Place, that the Englishman looked in the same direction. &quot;Oh!&quot; said he, presently, &quot;I thought as much. The Corporal&#039;s there.&quot; The Corporal, a smart figure of a man of thirty: perhaps a thought under the middle size, but very neatly made—a sunburnt Corporal with a brown peaked beard—faced about at the moment, addressing voluble words of instruction to the squad in hand. Nothing was amiss or awry about the Corporal. A lithe and nimble Corporal, quite complete, from the sparkling dark eyes under his knowing uniform cap, to his sparkling white gaiters. The very image and presentment of a Corporal of his country&#039;s army, in the line of his shoulders, the line of his waist, the broadest line of his Bloomer trousers, and their narrowest line at the calf of his leg. Mr. The Englishman looked on, and the child looked on, and the Corporal looked on (but the last-named at his men), until the drill ended a few minutes afterwards and the military sprinkling dried up directly and was gone. Then said Mr. The Englishman to himself, &quot;Look here! By George!&quot; And the Corporal, dancing towards the Barber&#039;s with his arms wide open, caught up the child, held her over his head in a flying attitude, caught her down again, kissed her, and made off with her into the Barber&#039;s house. Now, Mr. The Englishman had had a quarrel with his erring and disobedient and disowned daughter, and there was a child in that case too. Had not his daughter been a child, and had she not taken angel-flights above his head as this child had flown above the Corporal&#039;s? &quot;He&#039;s a&quot;—National Participled—&quot;fool!&quot; said the Englishman. And shut his window. But the windows of the house of Memory, and the windows of the house of Mercy, are not so easily closed as windows of glass and wood. They fly open unexpectedly; they rattle in the night; they must be nailed up. Mr. The Englishman had tried nailing them, but had not driven the nails quite home. So he passed but a disturbed evening and a worse night. By nature a good-tempered man? No; very little gentleness, confounding the quality with weakness. Fierce and wrathful when crossed? Very, and stupendously unreasonable. Moody? Exceedingly so. Vindictive? Well; he had had scowling thoughts that he would formally curse his daughter, as he had seen it done on the stage. But remembering that the real Heaven is some paces removed from the mock one in the great chandelier of the Theatre, he had given that up. And he had come abroad to be rid of his repudiated daughter for the rest of his life. And here he was. At bottom, it was for this reason more than for any other that Mr. The Englishman took it extremely ill that Corporal Théophile should be so devoted to little Bebelle, the child at the Barber&#039;s shop. In an unlucky moment he had chanced to say to himself, &quot;Why, confound the fellow, he is not her father!&quot; There was a sharp sting in the speech which ran into him suddenly and put him in a worse mood. So he had National Participled the unconscious Corporal with most hearty emphasis, and had made up his mind to think no more about such a mountebank. But, it came to pass that the Corporal was not to be dismissed. If he had known the most delicate fibres of the Englishman&#039;s mind, instead of nothing knowing on earth about him, and if he had been the most obstinate Corporal in the Grand Army of France instead of being the most obliging, he could not have planted himself with more determined immovability plump in the midst of all the Englishman&#039;s thoughts. Not only so, but he seemed to be always in his view. Mr. The Englishman had but to look out of window, to look upon the Corporal with Little Bebelle. He had but to go for a walk, and there was the Corporal walking with Bebelle. He had but to come home again, disgusted, and the Corporal and Bebelle were at home before him. If he looked out at his back windows early in the morning, the Corporal was in the Barber&#039;s back-yard, washing and dressing and brushing Bebelle. If he took refuge at his front windows, the Corporal brought his breakfast out into the Place, and shared it there with Bebelle. Always Corporal and always Bebelle. Never Corporal without Bebelle. Never Bebelle without Corporal. Mr. The Englishman was not particularly strong in the French language as a means of oral communication, though he read it very well. It is with languages as with people—when you only know them by sight, you are apt to mistake them; you must be on speaking terms before you can be said to have established an acquaintance. For this reason, Mr. The Englishman had to gird up his loins considerably, before he could bring himself to the point of exchanging ideas with Madame Bouclet on the subject of this Corporal and this Bebelle. But Madame Bouclet looking in apologetically one morning to remark, that O Heaven she was in a state of desolation because the lampmaker had not sent home that lamp confided to him to repair, but that truly he was a lampmaker against whom the whole world shrieked out, Mr. The Englishman seized the occasion. &quot;Madame, that baby—&quot; &quot;Pardon, monsieur. That lamp.&quot; &quot;No, no, that little girl.&quot; &quot;But, pardon!&quot; said Madame Bouclet, angling for a clue; &quot;one cannot light a little girl, or send her to be repaired?&quot; &quot;The little girl—at the house of the barber.&quot; &quot;Ah-h-h!&quot; cried Madame Bouclet, suddenly catching the idea, with her delicate little line and rod. &quot;Little Bebelle? Yes, yes, yes! And her friend the Corporal? Yes, yes, yes, yes! So genteel of him; is it not?&quot; &quot;He is not—?&quot; &quot;Not at all; not at all! He is not one of her relations. Not at all!&quot; &quot;Why then, he—&quot; &quot;Perfectly!&quot; cried Madame Bouclet, &quot;you are right, monsieur. It is so genteel of him. The less relation, the more genteel. As you say.&quot; &quot;Is she—?&quot; &quot;The child of the barber?&quot; Madame Bouclet whisked up her skilful little line and rod again. &quot;Not at all, not at all! She is the child of—in a word, of no one.&quot; &quot;The wife of the barber, then—?&quot; &quot;Indubitably. As you say. The wife of the barber receives a small stipend to take care of her. So much by the month. Eh, then! It is without doubt very little, for we are all poor here.&quot; &quot;You are not poor, madame.&quot; &quot;As to my lodgers,&quot; replied Madame Bouclet, with a smiling and a gracious bend of her head, &quot;no. As to all things else, so-so.&quot; &quot;You flatter me, madame.&quot; &quot;Monsieur, it is you who flatter me in living here.&quot; Certain fishy gasps on Mr. The Englishman&#039;s part, denoting that he was about to resume his subject under difficulties, Madame Bouclet observed him closely, and whisked up her delicate line and rod again with triumphant success. &quot;Oh no, monsieur, certainly not. The wife of the barber is not cruel to the poor child, but she is careless. Her health is delicate, and she sits all day, looking out at window. Consequently, when the Corporal first came, the poor little Bebelle was much neglected.&quot; &quot;It is a curious—&quot; began Mr. The Englishman. &quot;Name? That Bebelle? Again, you are right, monsieur. But it is a playful name for Gabrielle.&quot; &quot;And so the child is a mere fancy of the Corporal&#039;s?&quot; said Mr. The Englishman, in a gruffly disparaging tone of voice. &quot;Eh well!&quot; returned Madame Bouclet, with a pleading shrug: &quot;one must love something. Human nature is weak.&quot; (&quot;Devilish weak,&quot; muttered the Englishman in his own language.) &quot;And the Corporal,&quot; pursued Madame Bouclet, &quot;being billeted at the barber&#039;s—where he will probably remain a long time, for he is attached to the General—and finding the poor unowned child in need of being loved, and finding himself in need of loving—why, there you have it all, you see!&quot; Mr. The Englishman accepted this interpretation of the matter with an indifferent grace, and observed to himself, in an injured manner, when he was again alone: &quot;I shouldn&#039;t mind it so much, if these people were not such a&quot;—National Participled—&quot;sentimental people!&quot; There was a Cemetery outside the town, and it happened ill for the reputation of the Vaubanois in this sentimental connexion, that he took a walk there that same afternoon. To be sure there were some wonderful things in it (from the Englishman&#039;s point of view), and of a certainty in all Britain you would have found nothing like it. Not to mention the fanciful flourishes of hearts and crosses, in wood and iron, that were planted all over the place, making it look very like a Firework-ground where a most splendid pyrotechnic display might be expected after dark, there were so many wreaths upon the graves, embroidered, as it might be, &quot;To my mother,&quot; &quot;To my daughter,&quot; &quot;To my father,&quot; &quot;To my brother,&quot; &quot;To my sister,&quot; &quot;To my friend,&quot; and those many wreaths were in so many stages of elaboration and decay, from the wreath of yesterday all fresh colour and bright beads, to the wreath of last year, a poor mouldering wisp of straw! There were so many little gardens and grottos made upon graves, in so many tastes, with plants and shells and plaster figures and porcelain pitchers, and so many odds and ends! There were so many tributes of remembrance hanging up, not to be discriminated by the closest inspection from little round waiters, whereon were depicted in glowing hues either a lady or a gentleman with a white pocket-handkerchief out of all proportion, leaning, in a state of the most faultless mourning and most profound affliction, on the most architectural and gorgeous urn! There were so many surviving wives who had put their names on the tombs of their deceased husbands with a blank for the date of their own departure from this weary world; and there were so many surviving husbands who had rendered the same homage to their deceased wives; and out of the number there must have been so many who had long ago married again! In fine, there was so much in the place that would have seemed mere frippery to a stranger, save for the consideration that the lightest paper flower that lay upon the poorest heap of earth was never touched by a rude hand, but perished there, a sacred thing. &quot;Nothing of the solemnity of Death, here,&quot; Mr. The Englishman had been going to say; when this last consideration touched him with a mild appeal, and on the whole he walked out without saying it. &quot;But these people are,&quot; he insisted, by way of compensation when he was well outside the gate, &quot;they are so,&quot; Participled, &quot;sentimental!&quot; His way back, lay by the military gymnasium-ground. And there he passed the Corporal glibly instructing young soldiers how to swing themselves over rapid and deep water-courses on their way to Glory, by means of a rope, and himself deftly plunging off a platform and flying a hundred feet or two as an encouragement to them to begin. And there he also passed, perched on a crowning eminence (probably by the Corporal&#039;s careful hands), the small Bebelle, with her round eyes wide open, surveying the proceeding like a wondering sort of blue and white bird. &quot;If that child was to die;&quot; this was his reflection as he turned his back and went his way, &quot;—and it would almost serve the fellow right for making such a fool of himself—I suppose we should have him sticking up a wreath and a waiter in that fantastic burying-ground.&quot; Nevertheless, after another early morning or two of looking out of window, he strolled down into the Place, when the Corporal and Bebelle were walking there, and touching his hat to the Corporal (an immense achievement) wished him Good Day. &quot;Good day, monsieur.&quot; &quot;This is a rather pretty child you have here,&quot; said Mr. The Englishman, taking her chin in his hand, and looking down into her astonished blue eyes. &quot;Monsieur, she is a very pretty child,&quot; returned the Corporal, with a stress on his polite correction of the phrase. &quot;And good?&quot; said The Englishman. &quot;And very good. Poor little thing!&quot; &quot;Hah!&quot; The Englishman stooped down and patted her cheek: not without awkwardness, as if he were going too far in his conciliation. &quot;And what is this medal round your neck, my little one?&quot; Bebelle having no other reply on her lips than her chubby right fist, the Corporal offered his services as interpreter. &quot;Monsieur demands, what is this, Bebelle?&quot; &quot;It is the Holy Virgin,&quot; said Bebelle. &quot;And who gave it you?&quot; asked The Englishman. &quot;Théophile.&quot; &quot;And who is Théophile?&quot; Bebelle broke into a laugh, laughed merrily and heartily, clapped her chubby hands, and beat her little feet on the stone pavement of the Place. &quot;He doesn&#039;t know Théophile! Why he doesn&#039;t know any one! He doesn&#039;t know anything!&quot; Then, sensible of a small solecism in her manners, Bebelle twisted her right hand in a leg of the Corporal&#039;s Bloomer trousers, and laying her cheek against the place, kissed it. &quot;Monsieur Théophile, I believe?&quot; said The Englishman to the Corporal. &quot;It is I, monsieur.&quot; &quot;Permit me.&quot; Mr. The Englishman shook him heartily by the hand and turned away. But he took it mighty ill that old Monsieur Mutuel in his patch of sunlight, upon whom he came as he turned, should pull off his cap to him with a look of pleased approval. And he muttered, in his own tongue, as he returned the salutation, &quot;Well, walnut-shell! And what business is it of yours?&quot; Mr. The Englishman went on for many weeks passing but disturbed evenings and worse nights, and constantly experiencing that those aforesaid windows in the houses of Memory and Mercy rattled after dark, and that he had very imperfectly nailed them up. Likewise, he went on for many weeks, daily improving the acquaintance of the Corporal and Bebelle. That is to say, he took Bebelle by the chin, and the Corporal by the hand, and offered Bebelle sous and the Corporal cigars, and even got the length of changing pipes with the Corporal and kissing Bebelle. But he did it all in a shamefaced way, and always took it extremely ill that Monsieur Mutuel in his patch of sunlight should note what he did. Whenever that seemed to be the case, he always growled in his own tongue, &quot;There you are again, walnut-shell! What business is it of yours?&quot; In a word, it had become the occupation of Mr. The Englishman&#039;s life to look after the Corporal and little Bebelle, and to resent old Monsieur Mutuel&#039;s looking after him. An occupation only varied by a fire in the town one windy night, and much passing of water-buckets from hand to hand (in which the Englishman rendered good service), and much beating of drums—when all of a sudden the Corporal disappeared. Next, all of a sudden, Bebelle disappeared. She had been visible a few days later than the Corporal—sadly deteriorated as to washing and brushing—but she had not spoken when addressed by Mr. The Englishman, and had looked scared and had run away. And now it would seem that she had run away for good. And there lay the Great Place under the windows, bare and barren. In his shamefaced and constrained way, Mr. The Englishman asked no question of any one, but watched from his front windows, and watched from his back windows, and lingered about the Place, and peeped in at the Barber&#039;s shop, and did all this and much more with a whistling and tune-humming pretence of not missing anything, until one afternoon when Monsieur Mutuel&#039;s patch of sunlight was in shadow, and when according to all rule and precedent he had no right whatever to bring his red ribbon out of doors, behold here he was, advancing with his cap already in his hand twelve paces off! Mr. The Englishman had got as far into his usual objurgation as &quot;What bu—si—&quot; when he checked himself. &quot;Ah, it is sad, it is sad! Helas, it is unhappy, it is sad!&quot; Thus, old Monsieur Mutuel, shaking his grey head. &quot;What busin—at least, I would say what do you mean, Monsieur Mutuel?&quot; &quot;Our Corporal. Helas, our dear Corporal!&quot; &quot;What has happened to him?&quot; &quot;You have not heard?&quot; &quot;No.&quot; &quot;At the fire. But he was so brave, so ready. Ah, too brave, too ready!&quot; &quot;May the devil carry you away,&quot; the Englishman broke in impatiently; &quot;I beg your pardon—I mean me—I am not accustomed to speak French—go on, will you!&quot; &quot;And a falling beam—&quot; &quot;Good God!&quot; exclaimed the Englishman. &quot;It was a private soldier who was killed?&quot; &quot;No. A Corporal, the same Corporal, our dear Corporal. Beloved by all his comrades. The funeral ceremony was touching—penetrating. Monsieur The Englishman, your eyes fill with tears.&quot; &quot;What bu—si—&quot; &quot;Monsieur The Englishman, I honour those emotions. I salute you with profound respect. I will not obtrude myself upon your noble heart.&quot; Monsieur Mutuel, a gentleman in every thread of his cloudy linen, under whose wrinkled hand every grain in the quarter of an ounce of poor snuff in his poor little tin box became a gentleman&#039;s property,—Monsieur Mutuel passed on with his cap in his hand. &quot;I little thought,&quot; said the Englishman, after walking for several minutes, and more than once blowing his nose, &quot;when I was looking round that Cemetery,—I&#039;ll go there!&quot; Straight he went there, and when he came within the gate he paused, considering whether he should ask at the lodge for some direction to the grave. But he was less than ever in a mood for asking questions, and he thought, &quot;I shall see something on it, to know it by.&quot; In search of the Corporal&#039;s grave, he went softly on, up this walk and down that, peering in among the crosses and hearts and columns and obelisks and tombstones for a recently disturbed spot. It troubled him now, to think how many dead there were in the cemetery—he had not thought them a tenth part so numerous before—and, after he had walked and sought for some time, he said to himself as he struck down a new vista of tombs, &quot;I might suppose that every one was dead but I.&quot; Not every one. A live child was lying on the ground asleep. Truly he had found something on the Corporal&#039;s grave to know it by, and the something was Bebelle. With such a loving will had the dead soldier&#039;s comrades worked at his resting-place, that it was already a neat garden. On the green turf of the garden, Bebelle lay sleeping, with her cheek touching it. A plain unpainted little wooden Cross was planted in the turf, and her short arm embraced this little Cross, as it had many a time embraced the Corporal&#039;s neck. They had put a tiny flag (the flag of France) at his head, and a laurel garland. Mr. The Englishman took off his hat, and stood for a while silent. Then, covering his head again, he bent down on one knee, and softly roused the child. &quot;Bebelle! My little one!&quot; Opening her eyes, on which the tears were still wet, Bebelle was at first frightened; but seeing who it was, she suffered him to take her in his arms, looking steadfastly at him. &quot;You must not lie here my little one. You must come with me.&quot; &quot;No, no. I can&#039;t leave Théophile. I want the good dear Théophile.&quot; &quot;We will go and seek him, Bebelle. We will go and look for him in England. We will go and look for him at my daughter&#039;s, Bebelle.&quot; &quot;Shall we find him there?&quot; &quot;We shall find the best part of him there. Come with me, poor forlorn little one. Heaven is my witness,&quot; said the Englishman, in a low voice, as, before he rose, he touched the turf above the gentle Corporal&#039;s breast, &quot;that I thankfully accept this trust!&quot; It was a long way for the child to have come unaided. She was soon asleep again, with her embrace transferred to the Englishman&#039;s neck. He looked at her worn shoes, and her galled feet, and her tired face, and believed that she had come there every day. He was leaving the grave with the slumbering Bebelle in his arms, when he stopped, looked wistfully down at it, and looked wistfully at the other graves around. &quot;It is the innocent custom of the people,&quot; said Mr. The Englishman, with hesitation, &quot;I think I should like to do it. No one sees.&quot; Careful not to wake Bebelle as he went, he repaired to the lodge where such little tokens of remembrance were sold, and bought two wreaths. One, blue and white and glistening silver, &quot;To my friend;&quot; one of a soberer red and black and yellow, &quot;To my friend.&quot; With these he went back to the grave, and so down on one knee again. Touching the child&#039;s lips with the brighter wreath, he guided her hand to hang it on the Cross; then hung his own wreath there. After all, the wreaths were not far out of keeping with the little garden. To my friend. To my friend. Mr. The Englishman took it very ill when he looked round a street-corner into the Great Place, carrying Bebelle in his arms, that old Mutuel should be there airing his red ribbon. He took a world of pains to dodge the worthy Mutuel, and devoted a surprising amount of time and trouble to skulking into his own lodging like a man pursued by Justice. Safely arrived there at last, he made Bebelle&#039;s toilette with as accurate a remembrance as he could bring to bear upon that work, of the way in which he had often seen the poor Corporal make it, and, having given her to eat and drink, laid her down on his own bed. Then, he slipped out into the barber&#039;s shop, and after a brief interview with the barber&#039;s wife and a brief recourse to his purse and card-case, came back again, with the whole of Bebelle&#039;s personal property in such a very little bundle that it was quite lost under his arm. As it was irreconcilable with his whole course and character that he should carry Bebelle off in state, or receive any compliments or congratulations on that feat, he devoted the next day to getting his two portmanteaus out of the house by artfulness and stealth, and to comporting himself in every particular as if he were going to run away—except indeed that he paid his few debts in the town, and prepared a letter to leave for Madame Bouclet, enclosing a sufficient sum of money in lieu of notice. A railway train would come through at midnight, and by that train he would take away Bebelle to look for Théophile in England and at his forgiven daughter&#039;s. At midnight on a moonlight night, Mr. The Englishman came creeping forth like a harmless assassin, with Bebelle on his breast instead of a dagger. Quiet the Great Place, and quiet the never-stirring streets; closed the cafés; huddled together motionless their billiard-balls; drowsy the guard or sentinel on duty here and there; lulled for the time, by sleep, even the insatiate appetite of the Office of Town-dues. Mr. The Englishman left the Place behind and left the streets behind, and left the civilian-inhabited town behind, and descended down among the military works of Vauban, hemming all in. As the shadow of the first heavy arch and postern fell upon him and was left behind, as the shadow of the second heavy arch and postern fell upon him and was left behind, as his hollow tramp over the first drawbridge was succeeded by a gentler sound, as his hollow tramp over the second drawbridge was succeeded by a gentler sound, as he overcame the stagnant ditches one by one, and passed out where the flowing waters were and where the moonlight, so the dark shades and the hollow sounds and the unwholesomely-locked currents of his soul, were vanquished and set free. See to it, Vaubans, of your own hearts, who gird them in with triple walls and ditches, and with bolt and chain and bar and lifted bridge—raze those fortifications and lay them level with the all-absorbing dust, before the night cometh when no hand can work! All went prosperously, and he got into an empty carriage in the train, where he could lay Bebelle on the seat over against him, as on a couch, and cover her from head to foot with his mantle. He had just drawn himself up from perfecting this arrangement, and had just leaned back in his own seat contemplating it with great satisfaction, when he became aware of a curious appearance at the open carriage-window—a ghostly little tin box floating up in the moonlight, and hovering there. He leaned forward and put out his head. Down among the rails and wheels and ashes, Monsieur Mutuel, red ribbon and all! &quot;Excuse me, Monsieur The Englishman,&quot; said Monsieur Mutuel, holding up his box at arm&#039;s length; the carriage being so high and he so low; &quot;but I shall reverence the little box for ever, if your so generous hand will take a pinch from it at parting.&quot; Mr. The Englishman reached out of the window before complying, and—without asking the old fellow what business it was of his—shook hands and said, &quot;Adieu! God bless you!&quot; &quot;And, Mr. The Englishman, God bless you!&quot; cried Madame Bouclet, who was also there among the rails and wheels and ashes. &quot;And God will bless you in the happiness of the protected child now with you. And God will bless you in your own child at home. And God will bless you in your own remembrances. And this from me!&quot; He had barely time to catch a bouquet from her hand, when the train was flying through the night. Round the paper that enfolded it was bravely written (doubtless by the nephew who held the pen of an Angel), &quot;Homage to the friend of the friendless.&quot; &quot;Not bad people, Bebelle!&quot; said Mr. The Englishman, softly drawing the mantle a little from her sleeping face, that he might kiss it, &quot;though they are so—&quot; Too &quot;sentimental&quot; himself at the moment to be able to get out that word, he added nothing but a sob, and travelled for some miles, through the moonlight, with his hand before his eyes. My works are well known. I am a young man in the Art line. You have seen my works many a time, though it&#039;s fifty thousand to one if you have seen me. You say you don&#039;t want to see me? You say your interest is in my works and not in me? Don&#039;t be too sure about that. Stop a bit. Let us have it down in black and white at the first go off, so that there may be no unpleasantness or wrangling afterwards. And this is looked over by a friend of mine, a ticket-writer, that is up to literature. I am a young man in the Art line—in the Fine Art line. You have seen my works over and over again, and you have been curious about me, and you think you have seen me. Now, as a safe rule, you never have seen me, and you never do see me, and you never will see me. I think that&#039;s plainly put—and it&#039;s what knocks me over. If there&#039;s a blighted public character going, I am the party. It has been remarked by a certain (or an uncertain) philosopher, that the world knows nothing of its greatest men. He might have put it plainer if he had thrown his eye in my direction. He might have put it, that while the world knows something of them that apparently go in and win, it knows nothing of them that really go in and don&#039;t win. There it is again in another form—and that&#039;s what knocks me over. Not that it&#039;s only myself that suffers from injustice, but that I am more alive to my own injuries than to any other man&#039;s. Being, as I have mentioned, in the Fine Art line, and not the Philanthropic line, I openly admit it. As to company in injury, I have company enough. Who are you passing every day at your Competitive Excruciations? The fortunate candidates whose heads and livers you have turned upside-down for life? Not you. You are really passing the Crammers and Coaches. If your principle is right, why don&#039;t you turn out to-morrow morning with the keys of your cities on velvet cushions, your musicians playing, and your flags flying, and read addresses to the Crammers and Coaches on your bended knees, beseeching them to come out and govern you? Then, again, as to your public business of all sorts, your Financial statements and your Budgets; the Public knows much, truly, about the real doers of all that! Your Nobles and Right Honourables are first-rate men? Yes, and so is a goose a first-rate bird. But I&#039;ll tell you this about the goose;—you&#039;ll find his natural flavour disappointing, without stuffing. Perhaps I am soured by not being popular? But suppose I AM popular. Suppose my works never fail to attract. Suppose that whether they are exhibited by natural light or by artificial, they invariably draw the public. Then no doubt they are preserved in some Collection? No they are not; they are not preserved in any Collection. Copyright? No, nor yet copyright. Anyhow they must be somewhere? Wrong again, for they are often nowhere. Says you, &quot;at all events you are in a moody state of mind, my friend.&quot; My answer is, I have described myself as a public character with a blight upon him—which fully accounts for the curdling of the milk in that cocoa-nut. Those that are acquainted with London, are aware of a locality on the Surrey side of the river Thames, called the Obelisk, or more generally, the Obstacle. Those that are not acquainted with London, will also be aware of it, now that I have named it. My lodging is not far from that locality. I am a young man of that easy disposition, that I lie abed till it&#039;s absolutely necessary to get up and earn something, and then I lie abed again till I have spent it. It was on an occasion when I had had to turn to with a view to victuals, that I found myself walking along the Waterloo-road, one evening after dark, accompanied by an acquaintance and fellow-lodger in the gas-fitting way of life. He is very good company, having worked at the theatres, and indeed he has a theatrical turn himself and wishes to be brought out in the character of Othello; but whether on account of his regular work always blacking his face and hands more or less, I cannot say. &quot;Tom,&quot; he says, &quot;what a mystery hangs over you!&quot; &quot;Yes, Mr. Click&quot;—the rest of the house generally give him his name, as being first, front, carpeted all over, his own furniture, and if not mahogany, an out-and-out imitation—&quot;Yes, Mr. Click, a mystery does hang over me.&quot; &quot;Makes you low, you see, don&#039;t it?&quot; says he, eyeing me sideways. &quot;Why yes, Mr. Click, there are circumstances connected with it that have,&quot; I yielded to a sigh, &quot;a lowering effect.&quot; &quot;Gives you a touch of the misanthrope too, don&#039;t it?&quot; says he. &quot;Well, I&#039;ll tell you what. If I was you, I&#039;d shake it off.&quot; &quot;If I was you, I would, Mr. Click; but if you was me, you wouldn&#039;t.&quot; &quot;Ah!&quot; says he, &quot;there&#039;s something in that.&quot; When we had walked a little further, he took it up again by touching me on the chest. &quot;You see, Tom, it seems to me as if, in the words of the poet who wrote the domestic drama of the Stranger, you had a silent sorrow there.&quot; &quot;I have, Mr. Click.&quot; &quot;I hope, Tom,&quot; lowering his voice in a friendly way, &quot;it isn&#039;t coining, or smashing?&quot; &quot;No, Mr. Click. Don&#039;t be uneasy.&quot; &quot;Nor yet forg—&quot; Mr. Click checked himself, and added, &quot;counterfeiting anything, for instance?&quot; &quot;No, Mr. Click. I am lawfully in the Art line—Fine Art line—but I can say no more.&quot; &quot;Ah! Under a species of star? A kind of a malignant spell? A sort of a gloomy destiny? A cankerworm pegging away at your vitals in secret, as well as I make it out?&quot; said Mr. Click, eyeing me with some admiration. I told Mr. Click that was about it, if we came to particulars; and I thought he appeared rather proud of me. Our conversation had brought us to a crowd of people, the greater part struggling for a front place from which to see something on the pavement, which proved to be various designs executed in coloured chalks on the pavement-stones, lighted by two candles stuck in mud sconces. The subjects consisted of a fine fresh salmon&#039;s head and shoulders, supposed to have been recently sent home from the fishmonger&#039;s; a moonlight night at sea (in a circle); dead game; scroll-work; the head of a hoary hermit engaged in devout contemplation; the head of a pointer smoking a pipe; and a cherubim, his flesh creased as in infancy, going on a horizontal errand against the wind. All these subjects appeared to me to be exquisitely done. On his knees on one side of this gallery, a shabby person of modest appearance who shivered dreadfully (though it wasn&#039;t at all cold), was engaged in blowing the chalk-dust off the moon, toning the outline of the back of the hermit&#039;s head with a bit of leather, and fattening the down-stroke of a letter or two in the writing. I have forgotten to mention that writing formed a part of the composition, and that it also—as it appeared to me—was exquisitely done. It ran as follows, in fine round characters: &quot;An honest man is the noblest work of God. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0. £ s. d. Employment in an office is humbly requested. Honour the Queen. Hunger is a 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 sharp thorn. Chip chop, cherry chop, fol de rol de ri do. Astronomy and mathematics. I do this to support my family.&quot; Murmurs of admiration at the exceeding beauty of this performance went about among the crowd. The artist having finished his touching (and having spoilt those places), took his seat on the pavement with his knees crouched up very nigh his chin; and halfpence began to rattle in. &quot;A pity to see a man of that talent brought so low; ain&#039;t it?&quot; said one of the crowd to me. &quot;What he might have done in the coach-painting, or house-decorating!&quot; said another man, who took up the first speaker because I did not. &quot;Why he writes—alone—like the Lord Chancellor!&quot; said another man. &quot;Better,&quot; said another. &quot;I know his writing. He couldn&#039;t support his family this way.&quot; Then, a woman noticed the natural fluffiness of the hermit&#039;s hair, and another woman, her friend, mentioned of the salmon&#039;s gills that you could almost see him gasp. Then, an elderly country gentleman stepped forward and asked the modest man how he executed his work? And the modest man took some scraps of brown paper with colours in &#039;em out of his pockets and showed them. Then a fair-complexioned donkey with sandy hair and spectacles, asked if the hermit was a portrait? To which the modest man, casting a sorrowful glance upon it, replied that it was, to a certain extent, a recollection of his father. This caused a boy to yelp out, &quot;Is the Pinter a smoking the pipe, your mother?&quot; who was immediately shoved out of view by a sympathetic carpenter with his basket of tools at his back. At every fresh question or remark, the crowd leaned forward more eagerly, and dropped the halfpence more freely, and the modest man gathered them up more meekly. At last, another elderly gentleman came to the front, and gave the artist his card, to come to his office tomorrow and get some copying to do. The card was accompanied by sixpence, and the artist was profoundly grateful, and, before he put the card in his hat, read it several times by the light of his candles to fix the address well in his mind, in case he should lose it. The crowd was deeply interested by this last incident, and a man in the second row with a gruff voice, growled to the artist, &quot;You&#039;ve got a chance in life now, ain&#039;t you?&quot; The artist answered (sniffing in a very low-spirited way, however), &quot;I&#039;m thankful to hope so.&quot; Upon which there was a general chorus of &quot;You are all right,&quot; and the halfpence slackened very decidedly. I felt myself pulled away by the arm, and Mr. Click and I stood alone at the corner of the next crossing. &quot;Why, Tom,&quot; said Mr. Click, &quot;what a horrid expression of face you&#039;ve got!&quot; &quot;Have I?&quot; says I. &quot;Have you?&quot; says Mr. Click. &quot;Why you looked as if you would have his blood.&quot; &quot;Whose blood?&quot; &quot;The artist&#039;s.&quot; &quot;The artist&#039;s!&quot; I repeated. And I laughed, frantically, wildly, gloomily, incoherently, disagreeably. I am sensible that I did. I know I did. Mr. Click stared at me in a scared sort of a way, but said nothing until we had walked a street&#039;s length. He then stopped short, and said, with excitement on the part of his fore-finger: &quot;Thomas, I find it necessary to be plain with you. I don&#039;t like the envious man. I have identified the cankerworm that&#039;s pegging away at your vitals, and it&#039;s envy, Thomas.&quot; &quot;Is it?&quot; says I. &quot;Yes, it is,&quot; says he. &quot;Thomas, beware of envy. It is the green-eyed monster which never did and never will improve each shining hour, but quite the reverse. I dread the envious man, Thomas. I confess that I am afraid of the envious man, when he is so envious as you are. Whilst you contemplated the works of a gifted rival, and whilst you heard that rival&#039;s praises, and especially whilst you met his humble glance as he put that card away, your countenance was so malevolent as to be terrific. Thomas, I have heard of the envy of them that follows the Fine Art line, but I never believed it could be what yours is. I wish you well, but I take my leave of you. And if you should ever get into trouble through knifeing—or say, garotting—a brother artist, as I believe you will, don&#039;t call me to character, Thomas, or I shall be forced to injure your case.&quot; Mr. Click parted from me with those words, and we broke off our acquaintance. I became enamoured. Her name was Henerietta. Contending with my easy disposition, I frequently got up to go after her. She also dwelt in the neighbourhood of the Obstacle, and I did fondly hope that no other would interpose in the way of our union. To say that Henerietta was volatile, is but to say that she was woman. To say that she was in the bonnet-trimming, is feebly to express the taste which reigned predominant in her own. She consented to walk with me. Let me do her the justice to say that she did so upon trial. &quot;I am not,&quot; said Henerietta, &quot;as yet prepared to regard you, Thomas, in any other light than as a friend; but as a friend I am willing to walk with you, on the understanding that softer sentiments may flow.&quot; We walked. Under the influence of Henerietta&#039;s beguilements, I now got out of bed daily. I pursued my calling with an industry before unknown, and it cannot fail to have been observed at that period, by those most familiar with the streets of London, that there was a larger supply—but hold! The time is not yet come! One evening in October, I was walking with Henerietta, enjoying the cool breezes wafted over Vauxhall Bridge. After several slow turns, Henerietta gaped frequently (so inseparable from woman is the love of excitement), and said, &quot;Let&#039;s go home by Grosvenor-place, Piccadilly, and Waterloo&quot;—localities, I may state for the information of the stranger and the foreigner, well known in London, and the last a Bridge. &quot;No. Not by Piccadilly, Henerietta,&quot; said I. &quot;And why not Piccadilly, for goodness&#039; sake?&quot; said Henerietta. Could I tell her? Could I confess to the gloomy presentiment that overshadowed me? Could I make myself intelligible to her? No. &quot;I don&#039;t like Piccadilly, Henerietta.&quot; &quot;But I do,&quot; said she. &quot;It&#039;s dark now, and the long rows of lamps in Piccadilly after dark are beautiful. I will go to Piccadilly!&quot; Of course we went. It was a pleasant night, and there were numbers of people in the streets. It was a brisk night, but not too cold, and not damp. Let me darkly observe, it was the best of all nights—FOR THE PURPOSE. As we passed the garden-wall of the Royal Palace, going up Grosvenor-place, Henerietta murmured, &quot;I wish I was a Queen!&quot; &quot;Why so, Henerietta?&quot; &quot;I would make you Something,&quot; said she, and crossed her two hands on my arm, and turned away her head. Judging from this that the softer sentiments alluded to above had begun to flow, I adapted my conduct to that belief. Thus happily we passed on into the detested thoroughfare of Piccadilly. On the right of that thoroughfare is a row of trees, the railing of the Green Park, and a fine broad eligible piece of pavement. &quot;O my!&quot; cried Henerietta, presently. &quot;There&#039;s been an accident!&quot; I looked to the left, and said, &quot;Where, Henerietta?&quot; &quot;Not there, stupid,&quot; said she. &quot;Over by the Park railings. Where the crowd is! O no, it&#039;s not an accident, it&#039;s something else to look at! What&#039;s them lights?&quot; She referred to two lights twinkling low amongst the legs of the assemblage: two candles on the pavement. &quot;O do come along!&quot; cried Henerietta, skipping across the road with me;—I hung back, but in vain. &quot;Do let&#039;s look!&quot; Again, designs upon the pavement. Centre compartment, Mount Vesuvius going it (in a circle), supported by four oval compartments, severally representing a ship in heavy weather, a shoulder of mutton attended by two cucumbers, a golden harvest with distant cottage of proprietor, and a knife and fork after nature; above the centre compartment a bunch of grapes, and over the whole a rainbow. The whole, as it appeared to me, exquisitely done. The person in attendance on these works of art was in all respects, shabbiness excepted, unlike the former person. His whole appearance and manner denoted briskness. Though threadbare, he expressed to the crowd that poverty had not subdued his spirit or tinged with any sense of shame this honest effort to turn his talents to some account. The writing which formed a part of his composition was conceived in a similarly cheerful tone. It breathed the following sentiments: &quot;The writer is poor but not despondent. To a British 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 Public he £ s. d. appeals. Honour to our brave Army! And also 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 to our gallant Navy. BRITONS STRIKE the A B C D E F G writer in common chalks would be grateful for any suitable employment HOME! HURRAH!&quot; The whole of this writing appeared to me to be exquisitely done. But this man, in one respect like the last, though seemingly hard at it with a great show of brown paper and rubbers, was only really fattening the down-stroke of a letter here and there, or blowing the loose chalk off the rainbow, or toning the outside edge of the shoulder of mutton. Though he did this with the greatest confidence, he did it (as it struck me) in so ignorant a manner, and so spoilt everything he touched, that when he began upon the purple smoke from the chimney of the distant cottage of the proprietor of the golden harvest (which smoke was beautifully soft), I found myself saying aloud, without considering of it: &quot;Let that alone, will you?&quot; &quot;Halloa!&quot; said the man next me in the crowd, jerking me roughly from him with his elbow, &quot;why didn&#039;t you send a telegram? If we had known you was coming, we&#039;d have provided something better for you. You understand the man&#039;s work better than he does himself, don&#039;t you? Have you made your will? You&#039;re too clever to live long.&quot; &quot;Don&#039;t be hard upon the gentleman, sir,&quot; said the person in attendance on the works of art, with a twinkle in his eye as he looked at me, &quot;he may chance to be an artist himself. If so, sir, he will have a fellow-feeling with me, sir, when I&quot;—he adapted his action to his words as he went on, and gave a smart slap of his hands between each touch, working himself all the time about and about the composition—&quot;when I lighten the bloom of my grapes—shade off the orange in my rainbow—dot the i of my Britons—throw a yellow-light into my cow-cum-ber—insinuate another morsel of fat into my shoulder of mutton—dart another zig-zag flash of lightning at my ship in distress!&quot; He seemed to do this so neatly, and was so nimble about it, that the halfpence came flying in. &quot;Thanks, generous public, thanks!&quot; said the professor. &quot;You will stimulate me to further exertions. My name will be found in the list of British Painters yet. I shall do better than this, with encouragement. I shall indeed.&quot; &quot;You never can do better than that bunch of grapes,&quot; said Henerietta. &quot;O, Thomas, them grapes!&quot; &quot;Not better than that, lady? I hope for the time when I shall paint anything but your own bright eyes and lips, equal to life.&quot; &quot;(Thomas, did you ever?) But it must take a long time, sir,&quot; said Henerietta, blushing, &quot;to paint equal to that.&quot; &quot;I was prenticed to it, Miss,&quot; said the young man, smartly touching up the composition—&quot;prenticed to it in the caves of Spain and Portingale, ever so long and two year over.&quot; There was a laugh from the crowd; and a new man who had worked himself in next me, said, &quot;He&#039;s a smart chap, too; ain&#039;t he?&quot; &quot;And what a eye!&quot; exclaimed Henerietta, softly. &quot;Ah! He need have a eye,&quot; said the man. &quot;Ah! He just need,&quot; was murmured among the crowd. &quot;He couldn&#039;t come that &#039;ere burning mountain without a eye,&quot; said the man. He had got himself accepted as an authority, somehow, and everybody looked at his finger as it pointed out Vesuvius. &quot;To come that effect in a general illumination, would require a eye; but to come it with two dips—why it&#039;s enough to blind him!&quot; That impostor pretending not to have heard what was said, now winked to any extent with both eyes at once, as if the strain upon his sight was too much, and threw back his long hair—it was very long—as if to cool his fevered brow. I was watching him doing it, when Henerietta suddenly whispered, &quot;Oh, Thomas, how horrid you look!&quot; and pulled me out by the arm. Remembering Mr. Click&#039;s words, I was confused when I retorted, &quot;What do you mean by horrid?&quot; &quot;Oh gracious! Why, you looked,&quot; said Henerietta, &quot;as if you would have his blood.&quot; I was going to answer, &quot;So I would, for twopence—from his nose,&quot; when I checked myself and remained silent. We returned home in silence. Every step of the way, the softer sentiments that had flowed, ebbed twenty mile an hour. Adapting my conduct to the ebbing, as I had done to the flowing, I let my arm drop limp, so as she could scarcely keep hold of it, and I wished her such a cold good night at parting, that I keep within the bounds of truth when I characterise it as a Rasper. In the course of the next day, I received the following document: &quot;Henerietta informs Thomas that my eyes are open to you. I must ever wish you well, but walking and us is separated by an unfarmable abyss. One so malignant to superiority—Oh that look at him!—can never never conduct HENERIETTA. P.S.—To the altar.&quot; Yielding to the easiness of my disposition, I went to bed for a week, after receiving this letter. During the whole of such time, London was bereft of the usual fruits of my labour. When I resumed it, I found that Henerietta was married to the artist of Piccadilly. Did I say to the artist? What fell words were those, expressive of what a galling hollowness, of what a bitter mockery! I—I—I—am the artist. I was the real artist of Piccadilly, I was the real artist of the Waterloo-road, I am the only artist of all those pavement- subjects which daily and nightly arouse your admiration. I do &#039;em, and I let &#039;em out. The man you behold with the papers of chalks and the rubbers, touching up the down-strokes of the writing and shading off the salmon, the man you give the credit to, the man you give the money to, hires—yes! and I live to tell it!—hires those works of art of me, and brings nothing to &#039;em but the candles. Such is genius in a commercial country. I am not up to the shivering, I am not up to the liveliness, I am not up to the-wanting-employment-in-an-office move; I am only up to originating and executing the work. In consequence of which you never see me, you think you see me when you see somebody else, and that somebody else is a mere Commercial character. The one seen by self and Mr. Click in the Waterloo-road, can only write a single word, and that I taught him, and its MULTIPLICATION—which you may see him execute upside down, because he can&#039;t do it the natural way. The one seen by self and Henerietta by the Green Park railings, can just smear into existence the two ends of a rainbow, with his cuff and a rubber—if very hard put upon making a show—but he could no more come the arch of the rainbow, to save his life, than he could come the moonlight, fish, volcano, shipwreck, mutton, hermit, or any of my most celebrated effects. To conclude as I began; if there&#039;s a blighted public character going, I am the party. And often as you have seen, do see, and will see, my Works, it&#039;s fifty thousand to one if you&#039;ll ever see me, unless, when the candles are burnt down and the Commercial character is gone, you should happen to notice a neglected young man perseveringly rubbing out the last traces of the pictures, so that nobody can renew the same. That&#039;s me. It will have been, &#039;ere now, perceived that I sold the foregoing writings. From the fact of their being printed in these pages, the inference will, &#039;ere now, have been drawn by the reader (may I add the gentle reader?) that I sold them to One who never yet.* Having parted with the writings on most satisfactory terms—for in opening negotiations with the present Journal, was I not placing myself in the hands of One of whom it may be said, in the words of Another†—I resumed my usual functions. But I too soon discovered that peace of mind had fled from a brow which, up to that time, Time had merely took the hair off, leaving an unruffled expanse within. It were superfluous to veil it,—the brow to which I allude, is my own. Yes, over that brow, uneasiness gathered like the sable wing of the fabled bird, as—as no doubt will be easily identified by all right-minded individuals. If not, I am unable, on the spur of the moment, to enter into particulars of him. The reflection that the writings must now inevitably get into print, and that He might yet live and meet with them, sat like the Hag of Night upon my jaded form. The elasticity of my spirits departed. Fruitless was the Bottle, whether Wine or Medicine. I had recourse to both, and the effect of both upon my system was witheringly lowering. In this state of depression, into which I subsided when I first began to revolve what could I ever say if He—the unknown—was to appear in the Coffee Room and demand reparation, I one forenoon in this last November received a turn that appeared to be given me by the finger of Fate and Conscience, hand in hand. I was alone in the Coffee Room and had just poked the fire into a blaze, and was standing with my back to it, trying whether heat would penetrate with soothing influence to the Voice within, when a young man in a cap, of an intelligent countenance though requiring his hair cut, stood before me. &quot;Mr. Christopher, the Head Waiter?&quot; &quot;The same.&quot; The young man shook his hair out of his vision—which it impeded—took a packet from his breast, and, handing it over to me, said, with his eye (or did I dream?) fixed with a lambent meaning on me, &quot;THE PROOFS.&quot; Although I smelt my coat-tails singeing at the fire, I had not the power to withdraw them. The young man put the packet in my faltering grasp, and repeated—let me do him the justice to add, with civility: &quot;THE PROOFS. A. Y. R.&quot; With those words he departed. A. Y. R.? And You Remember. Was that his meaning? At Your Risk. Were the letters short for that reminder? Anticipate Your Retribution. Did they stand for that warning? Outdacious Youth Repent? But no; for that, a O was happily wanting, and the vowel here was a A. I opened the packet and found that its contents were the foregoing writings printed, just as the reader (may I add the discerning reader?) peruses them. In vain was the reassuring whisper—A. Y. R., All the Year Round—it could not cancel the Proofs. Too appropriate name. The Proofs of my having sold the Writings. My wretchedness daily increased. I had not thought of the risk I ran, and the defying publicity I put my head into, until all was done, and all was in print. Give up the money to be off the bargain and prevent the publication, I could not. My family was down in the world, Christmas was coming on, a brother in the hospital and a sister in the rheumatics could not be entirely neglected. And it was not only ins in the family that had told on the resources of one unaided Waitering; outs were not wanting. A brother out of a situation, and another brother out of money to meet an acceptance, and another brother out of his mind, and another brother out at New York (not the same, though it might appear so), had really and truly brought me to a stand till I could turn myself round. I got worse and worse in my meditations, constantly reflecting &quot;The Proofs,&quot; and reflecting that when Christmas drew nearer, and the Proofs were published, there could be no safety from hour to hour but that He might confront me in the Coffee Room, and in the face of day and his country demand his rights. The impressive and unlooked-for catastrophe towards which I dimly pointed the reader (shall I add, the highly intellectual reader?) in my first remarks, now rapidly approaches. It was November still, but the last echoes of the Guy-Foxes had long ceased to reverberate. We was slack—several joints under our average mark, and wine of course proportionate. So slack had we become at last, that Beds Nos. 26, 27, 28, and 31 having took their six o&#039;clock dinners and dozed over their respective pints, had drove away in their respective Hansoms for their respective Night Mail-Trains, and left us empty. I had took the evening paper to No. 6 table—which is warm and most to be preferred—and lost in the all-absorbing topics of the day, had dropped into a slumber. I was recalled to consciousness by the well-known intimation, &quot;Waiter!&quot; and replying &quot;Sir!&quot; found a gentleman standing at No. 4 table. The reader (shall I add, the observant reader?) will please to notice the locality of the gentleman—at No. 4 table. He had one of the new-fangled uncollapsable bags in his hand (which I am against, for I don&#039;t see why you shouldn&#039;t collapse, while you are about it, as your fathers collapsed before you), and he said: &quot;I want to dine, waiter. I shall sleep here tonight.&quot; &quot;Very good, sir. What will you take for dinner, sir?&quot; &quot;Soup, bit of codfish, oyster sauce, and the joint.&quot; &quot;Thank you, sir.&quot; I rang the chambermaid&#039;s bell; and Mrs. Pratchett marched in, according to custom, demurely carrying a lighted flat candle before her, as if she was one of a long public procession, all the other members of which was invisible. In the mean while the gentleman had gone up to the mantelpiece, right in front of the fire, and had laid his forehead against the mantelpiece (which it is a low one, and brought him into the attitude of leap-frog), and had heaved a tremenjous sigh. His hair was long and lightish; and when he laid his forehead against the mantelpiece, his hair all fell in a dusty fluff together, over his eyes; and when he now turned round and lifted up his head again, it all fell in a dusty fluff together, over his ears. This give him a wild appearance, similar to a blasted heath. &quot;Oh! The chambermaid. Ah!&quot; He was turning something in his mind. &quot;To be sure. Yes. I won&#039;t go up-stairs now, if you will take my bag. It will be enough for the present to know my number.—Can you give me 24 B?&quot; (O Conscience, what a Adder art thou!) Mrs. Pratchett allotted him the room, and took his bag to it. He then went back before the fire, and fell a biting his nails. &quot;Waiter!&quot; biting between the words, &quot;give me,&quot; bite, &quot;pen and paper; and in five minutes,&quot; bite, &quot;let me have, if you please,&quot; bite, &quot;a,&quot; bite, &quot;Messenger.&quot; Unmindful of his waning soup, he wrote and sent off six notes before he touched his dinner. Three were City; three West-End. The City letters were to Cornhill, Ludgate-hill, and Farringdon-street. The West-End letters were to Great Marlborough-street, New Burlington-street, and Piccadilly. Everybody was systematically denied at every one of the six places, and there was not a vestige of any answer. Our light porter whispered to me when he came back with that report, &quot;All Booksellers.&quot; But before then, he had cleared off his dinner, and his bottle of wine. He now—mark the concurrence with the document formerly given in full!—knocked a plate of biscuits off the table with his agitated elber (but without breakage), and demanded boiling brandy-and-water. Now fully convinced that it was Himself, I perspired with the utmost freedom. When he become flushed with the heated stimulant referred to, he again demanded pen and paper, and passed the succeeding two hours in producing a manuscript, which he put in the fire when completed. He then went up to bed, attended by Mrs. Pratchett. Mrs. Pratchett (who was aware of my emotions) told me on coming down that she had noticed his eye rolling into every corner of the passages and staircase, as if in search of his Luggage, and that, looking back as she shut the door of 24 B, she perceived him with his coat already thrown off immersing himself bodily under the bedstead, like a chimley-sweep before the application of machinery. The next day—I forbear the horrors of that night—was a very foggy day in our part of London, insomuch that it was necessary to light the Coffee Room gas. We was still alone, and no feverish words of mine can do justice to the fitfulness of his appearance as he sat at No. 4 table, increased by there being something wrong with the meter. Having again ordered his dinner he went out, and was out for the best part of two hours. Inquiring on his return whether any of the answers had arrived, and receiving an unqualified negative, his instant call was for mulligatawny, the cayenne pepper, and orange brandy. Feeling that the mortal struggle was now at hand, I also felt that I must be equal to him, and with that view resolved that whatever he took, I would take. Behind my partition, but keeping my eye on him over the curtain, I therefore operated on Mulligatawny, Cayenne Pepper, and Orange Brandy. And at a later period of the day, when he again said &quot;Orange Brandy,&quot; I said so too, in a lower tone, to George, my Second Lieutenant (my First was absent on leave), who acts between me and the bar. Throughout that awful day, he walked about the Coffee Room continually. Often he came close up to my partition, and then his eye rolled within, too evidently in search of any signs of his Luggage. Half-past six came, and I laid his cloth. He ordered a bottle of old Brown. I likewise ordered a bottle of old Brown. He drank his. I drank mine (as nearly as my duties would permit) glass for glass against his. He topped with coffee and a small glass. I topped with coffee and a small glass. He dozed. I dozed. At last, &quot;Waiter!&quot;—and he ordered his bill. The moment was now at hand when we two must be locked in the deadly grapple. Swift as the arrow from the bow, I had formed my resolution; in other words, I had hammered it out between nine and nine. It was, that I would be the first to open up the subject with a full acknowledgment, and would offer any gradual settlement within my power. He paid his bill (doing what was right by attendance) with his eye rolling about him to the last, for any tokens of his Luggage. One only time our gaze then met, with the lustrous fixedness (I believe I am correct in imputing that character to it?) of the well-known Basilisk. The decisive moment had arrived. With a tolerable steady hand, though with humility, I laid The Proofs before him. &quot;Gracious Heavens!&quot; he cries out, leaping up and catching hold of his hair. &quot;What&#039;s this! Print!&quot; &quot;Sir,&quot; I replied, in a calming voice, and bending forward, &quot;I humbly acknowledge to being the unfortunate cause of it. But I hope, sir, that when you have heard the circumstances explained, and the innocence of my intentions—&quot; To my amazement, I was stopped short by his catching me in both his arms, and pressing me to his breast-bone; where I must confess to my face (and particular nose) having undergone some temporary vexation from his wearing his coat buttoned high up, and his buttons being uncommon hard. &quot;Ha, ha, ha!&quot; he cries, releasing me with a wild laugh, and grasping my hand. &quot;What is your name, my Benefactor?&quot; &quot;My name, sir&quot; (I was crumpled, and puzzled to make him out), &quot;is Christopher; and I hope, sir, that as such when you&#039;ve heard my ex—&quot; &quot;In print!&quot; he exclaims again, dashing the proofs over and over as if he was bathing in them. &quot;In print!! Oh, Christopher! Philanthropist! Nothing can recompense you but what sum of money would be acceptable to you?&quot; I had drawn a step back from him, or I should have suffered from his buttons again. &quot;Sir, I assure you I have been already well paid, and—&quot; &quot;No, no, Christopher! Don&#039;t talk like that! What sum of money would be acceptable to you, Christopher? Would you find twenty pounds acceptable, Christopher?&quot; However great my surprise, I naturally found words to say, &quot;Sir, I am not aware that the man was ever yet born without more than the average amount of water on the brain, as would not find twenty pound acceptable. But—extremely obliged to you, sir, I&#039;m sure;&quot; for he had tumbled it out of his purse and crammed it in my hand in two bank-notes; &quot;but I could wish to know, sir, if not intruding, how I have merited this liberality?&quot; &quot;Know then, my Christopher,&quot; he says, &quot;that from boyhood&#039;s hour, I have unremittingly and unavailingly endeavoured to get into print. Know, Christopher, that all the Booksellers alive—and several dead—have refused to put me into print. Know, Christopher, that I have written imprinted Reams. But they shall be read to you, my friend and brother. You sometimes have a holiday?&quot; Seeing the great danger I was in, I had the presence of mind to answer, &quot;Never!&quot; To make it more final, I added, &quot;Never! Not from the cradle to the grave.&quot; &quot;Well,&quot; says he, thinking no more about that, and chuckling at his proofs again. &quot;But I am in print! The first flight of ambition emanating from my father&#039;s lowly cot, is realised at length! The golden bowl&quot;—he was getting on—&quot;struck by the magic hand, has emitted a complete and perfect sound! When did this happen, my Christopher:&quot; &quot;Which happen, sir?&quot; &quot;This,&quot; he held it out at arm&#039;s length to admire it, &quot;this Per-rint.&quot; When I had given him my detailed account of it, he grasped me by the hand again, and said: &quot;Dear Christopher, it should be gratifying to you to know that you are an instrument in the hands of Destiny. Because you are.&quot; A passing Something of a melancholy cast put it into my head to shake it, and to say: &quot;Perhaps we all are.&quot; &quot;I don&#039;t mean that,&quot; he answered; &quot;I don&#039;t take that wide range; I confine myself to the special case. Observe me well, my Christopher! Hopeless of getting rid, through any effort of my own, of any of the manuscripts among my Luggage—all of which, send them where I would, were always coming back to me—it is now some seven years since I left that Luggage here, on the desperate chance, either that the too too faithful manuscripts would come back to me no more, or that some one less accursed than I might give them to the world. You follow me, my Christopher?&quot; &quot;Pretty well, sir.&quot; I followed him so far as to judge that he had a weak head, and that the Orange the Boiling and Old Brown combined was beginning to tell. (The old Brown being heady, is best adapted to seasoned cases.) &quot;Years elapsed, and those compositions slumbered in dust. At length, Destiny, choosing her agent from all mankind, sent You here, Christopher, and lo! the Casket was burst asunder, and the Giant was free!&quot; He made hay of his hair after he said this, and he stood a tiptoe. &quot;But,&quot; he reminded himself in a state of great excitement, &quot;we must sit up all night, my Christopher. I must correct these Proofs for the press. Fill all the inkstands and bring me several new pens.&quot; He smeared himself and he smeared the Proofs, the night through, to that degree, that when Sol give him warning to depart (in a four-wheeler), few could have said which was them, and which was him, and which was blots. His last instructions was, that I should instantly run and take his corrections to the office of the present Journal. I did so. They most likely will not appear in print, for I noticed a message being brought round from Beaufort Printing House while I was a throwing this concluding statement on paper, that the ole resources of that establishment was unable to make out what they meant. Upon which a certain gentleman in company, as I will not more particularly name—but of whom it will be sufficient to remark, standing on the broad basis of a wave-girt isle, that whether we regard him in the light of—* laughed, and put the corrections in the fire. * The remainder of this complimentary sentence editorially struck out. † The remainder of this complimentary parenthesis editorially struck out. * The remainder of this complimentary parenthesis editorially struck out.18621204https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Somebody_s_Luggage_nbsp_[1862_Christmas_Number]/1862-12-04-Somebodys_Luggage.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Somebody_s_Luggage_nbsp_[1862_Christmas_Number]/1862-12-04-His_Leaving_it_Till_Called_For.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Somebody_s_Luggage_nbsp_[1862_Christmas_Number]/1862-12-04-His_Boots.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Somebody_s_Luggage_nbsp_[1862_Christmas_Number]/1862-12-04-His_BrownPaper_Parcel.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Somebody_s_Luggage_nbsp_[1862_Christmas_Number]/1862-12-04-His_Wonderful_End.pdf
210https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/210<em>The Battle of Life. A Love Story</em>Published by Bradbury and Evans, 1846Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books, </em><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Battle_of_Life/mSkEAAAAQAAJ">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Battle_of_Life/mSkEAAAAQAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1846-12">1846-12</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Book">Christmas Book</a>1846-12-The_Battle_of_LifeDickens, Charles. <em>The Battle of Life. A Love Story</em> (December 1846). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp; <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-books/1846-12-The_Battle_of_Life">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-books/1846-12-The_Battle_of_Life</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>Part the First. Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought. It was fought upon a long summer day when the waving grass was green. Many a wild flower formed by the Almighty Hand to be a perfumed goblet for the dew, felt its enamelled cup filled high with blood that day, and shrinking dropped. Many an insect deriving its delicate colour from harmless leaves and herbs, was stained anew that day by dying men, and marked its frightened way with an unnatural track. The painted butterfly took blood into the air upon the edges of its wings. The stream ran red. The trodden ground became a quagmire, whence, from sullen pools collected in the prints of human feet and horses’ hoofs, the one prevailing hue still lowered and glimmered at the sun. Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the sights the moon beheld upon that field, when, coming up above the black line of distant rising-ground, softened and blurred at the edge by trees, she rose into the sky and looked upon the plain, strewn with upturned faces that had once at mothers’ breasts sought mothers’ eyes, or slumbered happily. Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the secrets whispered afterwards upon the tainted wind that blew across the scene of that day’s work and that night’s death and suffering! Many a lonely moon was bright upon the battle-ground, and many a star kept mournful watch upon it, and many a wind from every quarter of the earth blew over it, before the traces of the fight were worn away. They lurked and lingered for a long time, but survived in little things; for, Nature, far above the evil passions of men, soon recovered Her serenity, and smiled upon the guilty battle-ground as she had done before, when it was innocent. The larks sang high above it; the swallows skimmed and dipped and flitted to and fro; the shadows of the flying clouds pursued each other swiftly, over grass and corn and turnip-field and wood, and over roof and church-spire in the nestling town among the trees, away into the bright distance on the borders of the sky and earth, where the red sunsets faded. Crops were sown, and grew up, and were gathered in; the stream that had been crimsoned, turned a watermill; men whistled at the plough; gleaners and haymakers were seen in quiet groups at work; sheep and oxen pastured; boys whooped and called, in fields, to scare away the birds; smoke rose from cottage chimneys; sabbath bells rang peacefully; old people lived and died; the timid creatures of the field, the simple flowers of the bush and garden, grew and withered in their destined terms: and all upon the fierce and bloody battle-ground, where thousands upon thousands had been killed in the great fight. But, there were deep green patches in the growing corn at first, that people looked at awfully. Year after year they re-appeared; and it was known that underneath those fertile spots, heaps of men and horses lay buried, indiscriminately, enriching the ground. The husbandmen who ploughed those places, shrunk from the great worms abounding there; and the sheaves they yielded, were, for many a long year, called the Battle Sheaves, and set apart; and no one ever knew a Battle Sheaf to be among the last load at a Harvest Home. For a long time, every furrow that was turned, revealed some fragments of the fight. For a long time, there were wounded trees upon the battle-ground; and scraps of hacked and broken fence and wall, where deadly struggles had been made; and trampled parts where not a leaf or blade would grow. For a long time, no village girl would dress her hair or bosom with the sweetest flower from that field of death: and after many a year had come and gone, the berries growing there, were still believed to leave too deep a stain upon the hand that plucked them. The Seasons in their course, however, though they passed as lightly as the summer clouds themselves, obliterated, in the lapse of time, even these remains of the old conflict; and wore away such legendary traces of it as the neighbouring people carried in their minds, until they dwindled into old wives’ tales, dimly remembered round the winter fire, and waning every year. Where the wild flowers and berries had so long remained upon the stem untouched, gardens arose, and houses were built, and children played at battles on the turf. The wounded trees had long ago made Christmas logs, and blazed and roared away. The deep green patches were no greener now than the memory of those who lay in dust below. The ploughshare still turned up from time to time some rusty bits of metal, but it was hard to say what use they had ever served, and those who found them wondered and disputed. An old dinted corselet, and a helmet, had been hanging in the church so long, that the same weak half-blind old man who tried in vain to make them out above the whitewashed arch, had marvelled at them as a baby. If the host slain upon the field, could have been for a moment reanimated in the forms in which they fell, each upon the spot that was the bed of his untimely death, gashed and ghastly soldiers would have stared in, hundreds deep, at household door and window; and would have risen on the hearths of quiet homes; and would have been the garnered store of barns and granaries; and would have started up between the cradled infant and its nurse; and would have floated with the stream, and whirled round on the mill, and crowded the orchard, and burdened the meadow, and piled the rickyard high with dying men. So altered was the battle-ground, where thousands upon thousands had been killed in the great fight. Nowhere more altered, perhaps, about a hundred years ago, than in one little orchard attached to an old stone house with a honeysuckle porch; where, on a bright autumn morning, there were sounds of music and laughter, and where two girls danced merrily together on the grass, while some half-dozen peasant women standing on ladders, gathering the apples from the trees, stopped in their work to look down, and share their enjoyment. It was a pleasant, lively, natural scene; a beautiful day, a retired spot; and the two girls, quite unconstrained and careless, danced in the freedom and gaiety of their hearts. If there were no such thing as display in the world, my private opinion is, and I hope you agree with me, that we might get on a great deal better than we do, and might be infinitely more agreeable company than we are. It was charming to see how these girls danced. They had no spectators but the apple-pickers on the ladders. They were very glad to please them, but they danced to please themselves (or at least you would have supposed so); and you could no more help admiring, than they could help dancing. How they did dance! Not like opera dancers. Not at all. And not like Madame Anybody’s finished pupils. Not the least. It was not quadrille dancing, nor minuet dancing, nor even country-dance dancing. It was neither in the old style, nor the new style, nor the French style, nor the English style: though it may have been, by accident, a trifle in the Spanish style, which is a free and joyous one, I am told, deriving a delightful air of off-hand inspiration, from the chirping little castanets. As they danced among the orchard trees, and down the groves of stems and back again, and twirled each other lightly round and round, the influence of their airy motion seemed to spread and spread, in the sun-lighted scene, like an expanding circle in the water. Their streaming hair and fluttering skirts, the elastic grass beneath their feet, the boughs that rustled in the morning air—the flashing leaves, the speckled shadows on the soft green ground—the balmy wind that swept along the landscape, glad to turn the distant windmill, cheerily—everything between the two girls, and the man and team at plough upon the ridge of land, where they showed against the sky as if they were the last things in the world—seemed dancing too. At last, the younger of the dancing sisters, out of breath, and laughing gaily, threw herself upon a bench to rest. The other leaned against a tree hard by. The music, a wandering harp and fiddle, left off with a flourish, as if it boasted of its freshness; though the truth is, it had gone at such a pace, and worked itself to such a pitch of competition with the dancing, that it never could have held on, half a minute longer. The apple-pickers on the ladders raised a hum and murmur of applause, and then, in keeping with the sound, bestirred themselves to work again like bees. The more actively, perhaps, because an elderly gentleman, who was no other than Doctor Jeddler himself—it was Doctor Jeddler’s house and orchard, you should know, and these were Doctor Jeddler’s daughters—came bustling out to see what was the matter, and who the deuce played music on his property, before breakfast. For he was a great philosopher, Doctor Jeddler, and not very musical. &quot;Music and dancing to-day!&quot; said the Doctor, stopping short, and speaking to himself. &quot;I thought they dreaded to-day. But it’s a world of contradictions. Why, Grace; why, Marion!&quot; he added, aloud, &quot;is the world more mad than usual this morning?&quot; &quot;Make some allowance for it, father, if it be,&quot; replied his younger daughter, Marion, going close to him, and looking into his face, &quot;for it’s somebody’s birth-day.&quot; &quot;Somebody’s birth-day, Puss,&quot; replied the Doctor. &quot;Don’t you know it’s always somebody’s birth-day? Did you never hear how many new performers enter on this—ha! ha! ha!—it’s impossible to speak gravely of it—on this preposterous and ridiculous business called Life, every minute?&quot; &quot;No, father!&quot; &quot;No, not you, of course; you’re a woman—almost,&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;By-the-by,&quot; and he looked into the pretty face, still close to his, &quot;I suppose it’s your birth-day.&quot; &quot;No! Do you really, father?&quot; cried his pet daughter, pursing up her red lips to be kissed. &quot;There! Take my love with it,&quot; said the Doctor, imprinting his upon them; &quot;and many happy returns of the—the idea!—of the day. The notion of wishing happy returns in such a farce as this,&quot; said the Doctor to himself, &quot;is good! Ha! ha! ha!&quot; Doctor Jeddler was, as I have said, a great philosopher, and the heart and mystery of his philosophy was, to look upon the world as a gigantic practical joke; as something too absurd to be considered seriously, by any rational man. His system of belief had been, in the beginning, part and parcel of the battle-ground on which he lived, as you shall presently understand. &quot;Well! But how did you get the music?&quot; asked the Doctor. &quot;Poultry-stealers, of course. Where did the minstrels come from?&quot; &quot;Alfred sent the music,&quot; said his daughter Grace, adjusting a few simple flowers in her sister’s hair, with which, in her admiration of that youthful beauty, she had herself adorned it half-an-hour before, and which the dancing had disarranged. &quot;Oh! Alfred sent the music, did he?&quot; returned the Doctor. &quot;Yes. He met it coming out of the town as he was entering early. The men are travelling on foot, and rested there last night; and as it was Marion’s birth-day, and he thought it would please her, he sent them on, with a pencilled note to me, saying that if I thought so too, they had come to serenade her.&quot; &quot;Ay, ay,&quot; said the Doctor, carelessly, &quot;he always takes your opinion.&quot; &quot;And my opinion being favourable,&quot; said Grace, good-humouredly; and pausing for a moment to admire the pretty head she decorated, with her own thrown back; &quot;and Marion being in high spirits, and beginning to dance, I joined her: and so we danced to Alfred’s music till we were out of breath. And we thought the music all the gayer for being sent by Alfred. Didn’t we, dear Marion?&quot; &quot;Oh, I don’t know, Grace. How you teaze me about Alfred.&quot; &quot;Teaze you by mentioning your lover!&quot; said her sister. &quot;I am sure I don’t much care to have him mentioned,&quot; said the wilful beauty, stripping the petals from some flowers she held, and scattering them on the ground. &quot;I am almost tired of hearing of him; and as to his being my lover&quot;— &quot;Hush! Don’t speak lightly of a true heart, which is all your own, Marion,&quot; cried her sister, &quot;even in jest. There is not a truer heart than Alfred’s in the world!&quot; &quot;No-no,&quot; said Marion, raising her eyebrows with a pleasant air of careless consideration, &quot;perhaps not. But I don’t know that there’s any great merit in that. I—I don’t want him to be so very true. I never asked him. If he expects that I— But, dear Grace, why need we talk of him at all, just now!&quot; It was agreeable to see the graceful figures of the blooming sisters, twined together, lingering among the trees, conversing thus, with earnestness opposed to lightness, yet, with love responding tenderly to love. And it was very curious indeed to see the younger sister’s eyes suffused with tears; and something fervently and deeply felt, breaking through the wilfulness of what she said, and striving with it painfully. The difference between them, in respect of age, could not exceed four years at most: but Grace, as often happens in such cases, when no mother watches over both (the Doctor’s wife was dead), seemed, in her gentle care of her young sister, and in the steadiness of her devotion to her, older than she was; and more removed, in course of nature, from all competition with her, or participation, otherwise than through her sympathy and true affection, in her wayward fancies, than their ages seemed to warrant. Great character of mother, that, even in this shadow and faint reflection of it, purifies the heart, and raises the exalted nature nearer to the angels! The Doctor’s reflections, as he looked after them, and heard the purport of their discourse, were limited, at first, to certain merry meditations on the folly of all loves and likings, and the idle imposition practised on themselves by young people, who believed, for a moment, that there could be anything serious in such bubbles, and were always undeceived—always! But, the home-adorning, self-denying qualities of Grace, and her sweet temper, so gentle and retiring, yet including so much constancy and bravery of spirit, seemed all expressed to him in the contrast between her quiet household figure and that of his younger and more beautiful child; and he was sorry for her sake—sorry for them both—that life should be such a very ridiculous business as it was. The Doctor never dreamed of inquiring whether his children, or either of them, helped in any way to make the scheme a serious one. But then he was a Philosopher. A kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled, by chance, over that common Philosopher’s stone (much more easily discovered than the object of the alchemist’s researches), which sometimes trips up kind and generous men, and has the fatal property of turning gold to dross and every precious thing to poor account. &quot;Britain!&quot; cried the Doctor. &quot;Britain! Holloa!&quot; A small man, with an uncommonly sour and discontented face, emerged from the house, and returned to this call the unceremonious acknowledgment of &quot;Now then!&quot; &quot;Where’s the breakfast table?&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;In the house,&quot; returned Britain. &quot;Are you going to spread it out here, as you were told last night?&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;Don’t you know that there are gentlemen coming? That there’s business to be done this morning, before the coach comes by? That this is a very particular occasion?&quot; &quot;I couldn’t do anything, Dr. Jeddler, till the women had done getting in the apples, could I?&quot; said Britain, his voice rising with his reasoning, so that it was very loud at last. &quot;Well, have they done now?&quot; replied the Doctor, looking at his watch, and clapping his hands. &quot;Come! make haste! where’s Clemency?&quot; &quot;Here am I, Mister,&quot; said a voice from one of the ladders, which a pair of clumsy feet descended briskly. &quot;It’s all done now. Clear away, gals. Everything shall be ready for you in half a minute, Mister.&quot; With that she began to bustle about most vigorously; presenting, as she did so, an appearance sufficiently peculiar to justify a word of introduction. She was about thirty years old; and had a sufficiently plump and cheerful face, though it was twisted up into an odd expression of tightness that made it comical. But the extraordinary homeliness of her gait and manner, would have superseded any face in the world. To say that she had two left legs, and somebody else’s arms; and that all four limbs seemed to be out of joint, and to start from perfectly wrong places when they were set in motion; is to offer the mildest outline of the reality. To say that she was perfectly content and satisfied with these arrangements, and regarded them as being no business of hers, and that she took her arms and legs as they came, and allowed them to dispose of themselves just as it happened, is to render faint justice to her equanimity. Her dress was a prodigious pair of self-willed shoes, that never wanted to go where her feet went; blue stockings; a printed gown of many colours, and the most hideous pattern procurable for money; and a white apron. She always wore short sleeves, and always had, by some accident, grazed elbows, in which she took so lively an interest that she was continually trying to turn them round and get impossible views of them. In general, a little cap placed somewhere on her head; though it was rarely to be met with in the place usually occupied in other subjects, by that article of dress; but from head to foot she was scrupulously clean, and maintained a kind of dislocated tidiness. Indeed her laudable anxiety to be tidy and compact in her own conscience as well as in the public eye, gave rise to one of her most startling evolutions, which was to grasp herself sometimes by a sort of wooden handle (part of her clothing, and familiarly called a busk), and wrestle as it were with her garments, until they fell into a symmetrical arrangement. Such, in outward form and garb, was Clemency Newcome; who was supposed to have unconsciously originated a corruption of her own christian name, from Clementina (but nobody knew, for the deaf old mother, a very phenomenon of age, whom she had supported almost from a child, was dead, and she had no other relation); who now busied herself in preparing the table; and who stood, at intervals, with her bare red arms crossed, rubbing her grazed elbows with opposite hands, and staring at it very composedly, until she suddenly remembered something else it wanted, and jogged off to fetch it. &quot;Here are them two lawyers a-coming, Mister!&quot; said Clemency, in a tone of no very great good-will. &quot;Aha!&quot; cried the Doctor, advancing to the gate to meet them. &quot;Good morning, good morning! Grace, my dear! Marion! Here are Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs. Where’s Alfred?&quot; &quot;He’ll be back directly, father, no doubt,&quot; said Grace. &quot;He had so much to do this morning in his preparations for departure, that he was up and out by daybreak. Good morning, gentlemen.&quot; &quot;Ladies!&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, &quot;For Self and Craggs,&quot; who bowed, &quot;good morning. Miss,&quot; to Marion, &quot;I kiss your hand.&quot; Which he did. &quot;And I wish you&quot;—which he might or might not, for he didn’t look, at first sight, like a gentleman troubled with many warm outpourings of soul, in behalf of other people, &quot;a hundred happy returns of this auspicious day.&quot; &quot;Ha ha ha!&quot; laughed the Doctor thoughtfully, with his hands in his pockets. &quot;The great farce in a hundred acts!&quot; &quot;You wouldn’t, I am sure,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, standing a small professional blue bag against one leg of the table, &quot;cut the great farce short for this actress, at all events, Doctor Jeddler.&quot; &quot;No,&quot; returned the Doctor. &quot;God forbid! May she live to laugh at it, as long as she can laugh, and then say, with the French wit, &#039;The farce is ended; draw the curtain.&#039;&quot; &quot;The French wit,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, peeping sharply into his blue bag, &quot;was wrong, Doctor Jeddler, and your philosophy is altogether wrong, depend upon it, as I have often told you. Nothing serious in life! What do you call law?&quot; &quot;A joke,&quot; replied the Doctor. &quot;Did you ever go to law?&quot; asked Mr. Snitchey, looking out of the blue bag. &quot;Never,&quot; returned the Doctor. &quot;If you ever do,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, &quot;perhaps you’ll alter that opinion.&quot; Craggs, who seemed to be represented by Snitchey, and to be conscious of little or no separate existence or personal individuality, offered a remark of his own in this place. It involved the only idea of which he did not stand seized and possessed in equal moieties with Snitchey; but, he had some partners in it among the wise men of the world. &quot;It’s made a great deal too easy,&quot; said Mr. Craggs. &quot;Law is?&quot; asked the Doctor. &quot;Yes,&quot; said Mr. Craggs, &quot;everything is. Everything appears to me to be made too easy, now-a-days. It’s the vice of these times. If the world is a joke (I am not prepared to say it isn’t), it ought to be made a very difficult joke to crack. It ought to be as hard a struggle, Sir, as possible. That’s the intention. But, it’s being made far too easy. We are oiling the gates of life. They ought to be rusty. We shall have them beginning to turn, soon, with a smooth sound. Whereas they ought to grate upon their hinges, Sir.&quot; Mr. Craggs seemed positively to grate upon his own hinges, as he delivered this opinion; to which he communicated immense effect—being a cold, hard, dry, man, dressed in grey and white, like a flint; with small twinkles in his eyes, as if something struck sparks out of them. The three natural kingdoms, indeed, had each a fanciful representative among this brotherhood of disputants; for Snitchey was like a magpie or raven (only not so sleek), and the Doctor had a streaked face like a winter-pippin, with here and there a dimple to express the peckings of the birds, and a very little bit of pigtail behind, that stood for the stalk. As the active figure of a handsome young man, dressed for a journey, and followed by a porter bearing several packages and baskets, entered the orchard at a brisk pace, and with an air of gaiety and hope that accorded well with the morning,— these three drew together, like the brothers of the sister Fates, or like the Graces most effectually disguised, or like the three weird prophets on the heath, and greeted him. &quot;Happy returns, Alf,&quot; said the Doctor, lightly. &quot;A hundred happy returns of this auspicious day, Mr. Heathfield,&quot; said Snitchey, bowing low. &quot;Returns!&quot; Craggs murmured in a deep voice, all alone. &quot;Why, what a battery!&quot; exclaimed Alfred, stopping short, &quot;and one—two—three—all foreboders of no good, in the great sea before me. I am glad you are not the first I have met this morning: I should have taken it for a bad omen. But, Grace was the first—sweet, pleasant Grace—so I defy you all!&quot; &quot;If you please, Mister, I was the first you know,&quot; said Clemency Newcome. &quot;She was walking out here, before sunrise, you remember. I was in the house.&quot; &quot;That’s true! Clemency was the first,&quot; said Alfred. &quot;So I defy you with Clemency.&quot; &quot;Ha, ha, ha!—for Self and Craggs,&quot; said Snitchey. &quot;What a defiance!&quot; &quot;Not so bad a one as it appears, may be,&quot; said Alfred, shaking hands heartily with the Doctor, and also with Snitchey and Craggs, and then looking round. &quot;Where are the—Good Heavens!&quot; With a start, productive for the moment of a closer partnership between Jonathan Snitchey and Thomas Craggs than the subsisting articles of agreement in that wise contemplated, he hastily betook himself to where the sisters stood together, and—however, I needn’t more particularly explain his manner of saluting Marion first, and Grace afterwards, than by hinting that Mr. Craggs may possibly have considered it &quot;too easy.&quot; Perhaps to change the subject, Dr. Jeddler made a hasty move towards the breakfast, and they all sat down at table. Grace presided; but so discreetly stationed herself, as to cut off her sister and Alfred from the rest of the company. Snitchey and Craggs sat at opposite corners, with the blue bag between them for safety; the Doctor took his usual position, opposite to Grace. Clemency hovered galvanically about the table, as waitress; and the melancholy Britain, at another and a smaller board, acted as Grand Carver of a round of beef, and a ham. &quot;Meat?&quot; said Britain, approaching Mr. Snitchey, with the carving knife and fork in his hands, and throwing the question at him like a missile. &quot;Certainly,&quot; returned the lawyer. &quot;Do you want any?&quot; to Craggs. &quot;Lean and well done,&quot; replied that gentleman. Having executed these orders, and moderately supplied the Doctor (he seemed to know that nobody else wanted anything to eat), he lingered as near the Firm as he decently could, watching with an austere eye their disposition of the viands, and but once relaxing the severe expression of his face. This was on the occasion of Mr. Craggs, whose teeth were not of the best, partially choking, when he cried out with great animation, &quot;I thought he was gone!&quot; &quot;Now, Alfred,&quot; said the Doctor, &quot;for a word or two of business, while we are yet at breakfast.&quot; &quot;While we are yet at breakfast,&quot; said Snitchey and Craggs, who seemed to have no present idea of leaving off. Although Alfred had not been breakfasting, and seemed to have quite enough business on his hands as it was, he respectfully answered: &quot;If you please, Sir.&quot; &quot;If anything could be serious,&quot; the Doctor began, &quot;in such a—&quot; &quot;Farce as this, Sir,&quot; hinted Alfred. &quot;In such a farce as this,&quot; observed the Doctor, &quot;it might be this recurrence, on the eve of separation, of a double birth-day, which is connected with many associations pleasant to us four, and with the recollection of a long and amicable intercourse. That’s not to the purpose.&quot; &quot;Ah! yes, yes, Dr. Jeddler,&quot; said the young man. &quot;It is to the purpose. Much to the purpose, as my heart bears witness this morning; and as yours does too, I know, if you would let it speak. I leave your house to-day; I cease to be your ward to-day; we part with tender relations stretching far behind us, that never can be exactly renewed, and with others dawning—yet before us,&quot; he looked down at Marion beside him, &quot;fraught with such considerations as I must not trust myself to speak of now. Come, come!&quot; he added, rallying his spirits and the Doctor at once, &quot;there’s a serious grain in this large foolish dust-heap, Doctor. Let us allow to-day, that there is One.&quot; &quot;To-day!&quot; cried the Doctor. &quot;Hear him! Ha, ha, ha! Of all days in the foolish year. Why, on this day, the great battle was fought on this ground. On this ground where we now sit, where I saw my two girls dance this morning, where the fruit has just been gathered for our eating from these trees, the roots of which are struck in Men, not earth,—so many lives were lost, that within my recollection, generations afterwards, a churchyard full of bones, and dust of bones, and chips of cloven skulls, has been dug up from underneath our feet here. Yet not a hundred people in that battle knew for what they fought, or why; not a hundred of the inconsiderate rejoicers in the victory, why they rejoiced. Not half a hundred people were the better for the gain or loss. Not half-a-dozen men agree to this hour on the cause or merits; and nobody, in short, ever knew anything distinct about it, but the mourners of the slain. Serious, too!&quot; said the Doctor, laughing. &quot;Such a system!&quot; &quot;But, all this seems to me,&quot; said Alfred, &quot;to be very serious.&quot; &quot;Serious!&quot; cried the Doctor. &quot;If you allowed such things to be serious, you must go mad, or die, or climb up to the top of a mountain, and turn hermit.&quot; &quot;Besides—so long ago,&quot; said Alfred. &quot;Long ago!&quot; returned the Doctor. &quot;Do you know what the world has been doing, ever since? Do you know what else it has been doing? I don’t!&quot; &quot;It has gone to law a little,&quot; observed Mr. Snitchey, stirring his tea. &quot;Although the way out has been always made too easy,&quot; said his partner. &quot;And you’ll excuse my saying, Doctor,&quot; pursued Mr. Snitchey, &quot;having been already put a thousand times in possession of my opinion, in the course of our discussions, that, in its having gone to law, and in its legal system altogether, I do observe a serious side—now, really, a something tangible, and with a purpose and intention in it—&quot; Clemency Newcome made an angular tumble against the table, occasioning a sounding clatter among the cups and saucers. &quot;Heyday! what’s the matter there?&quot; exclaimed the Doctor. &quot;It’s this evil-inclined blue bag,&quot; said Clemency, &quot;always tripping up somebody!&quot; &quot;With a purpose and intention in it, I was saying,&quot; resumed Snitchey, &quot;that commands respect. Life a farce, Dr. Jeddler? With law in it?&quot; The Doctor laughed, and looked at Alfred. &quot;Granted, if you please, that war is foolish,&quot; said Snitchey. &quot;There we agree. For example. Here’s a smiling country,&quot; pointing it out with his fork, &quot;once overrun by soldiers—trespassers every man of ’em—and laid waste by fire and sword. He, he, he! The idea of any man exposing himself, voluntarily, to fire and sword! Stupid, wasteful, positively ridiculous; you laugh at your fellow-creatures, you know, when you think of it! But take this smiling country as it stands. Think of the laws appertaining to real property; to the bequest and devise of real property; to the mortgage and redemption of real property; to leasehold, freehold, and copyhold estate; think,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, with such great emotion that he actually smacked his lips, &quot;of the complicated laws relating to title and proof of title, with all the contradictory precedents and numerous acts of parliament connected with them; think of the infinite number of ingenious and interminable chancery suits, to which this pleasant prospect may give rise; —and acknowledge, Doctor Jeddler, that there is a green spot in the scheme about us! I believe,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, looking at his partner, &quot;that I speak for Self and Craggs?&quot; Mr. Craggs having signified assent, Mr. Snitchey, somewhat freshened by his recent eloquence, observed that he would take a little more beef, and another cup of tea. &quot;I don’t stand up for life in general,&quot; he added, rubbing his hands and chuckling, &quot;it’s full of folly; full of something worse. Professions of trust, and confidence, and unselfishness, and all that! Bah, bah, bah! We see what they’re worth. But, you mustn’t laugh at life; you’ve got a game to play; a very serious game indeed! Everybody’s playing against you, you know, and you’re playing against them. Oh! it’s a very interesting thing. There are deep moves upon the board. You must only laugh, Doctor Jeddler, when you win; and then not much. He, he, he! And then not much,&quot; repeated Snitchey, rolling his head and winking his eye, as if he would have added, &#039;you may do this instead!’ &quot;Well, Alfred!&quot; cried the Doctor, &quot;what do you say now?&quot; &quot;I say, Sir,&quot; replied Alfred, &quot;that the greatest favour you could do me, and yourself too, I am inclined to think, would be to try sometimes to forget this battle-field, and others like it, in that broader battle-field of Life, on which the sun looks every day.&quot; &quot;Really, I’m afraid that wouldn’t soften his opinions, Mr. Alfred,&quot; said Snitchey. &quot;The combatants are very eager and very bitter in that same battle of Life. There’s a great deal of cutting and slashing, and firing into people’s heads from behind; terrible treading down, and trampling on; it&#039;s rather a bad business.&quot; &quot;I believe, Mr. Snitchey,&quot; said Alfred, &quot;there are quiet victories and struggles, great sacrifices of self, and noble acts of heroism, in it—even in many of its apparent lightnesses and contradictions—not the less difficult to achieve, because they have no earthly chronicle or audience; done every day in nooks and corners, and in little households, and in men’s and women’s hearts—any one of which might reconcile the sternest man to such a world, and fill him with belief and hope in it, though two-fourths of its people were at war, and another fourth at law; and that’s a bold word.&quot; Both the sisters listened keenly. &quot;Well, well!&quot; said the Doctor, &quot;I am too old to be converted, even by my friend Snitchey here, or my good spinster sister, Martha Jeddler; who had what she calls her domestic trials ages ago, and has led a sympathising life with all sorts of people ever since; and who is so much of your opinion (only she’s less reasonable and more obstinate, being a woman), that we can’t agree, and seldom meet. I was born upon this battle-field. I began, as a boy, to have my thoughts directed to the real history of a battle-field. Sixty years have gone over my head; and I have never seen the Christian world, including Heaven knows how many loving mothers and good enough girls, like mine here, anything but mad for a battle-field. The same contradictions prevail in everything. One must either laugh or cry at such stupendous inconsistencies; and I prefer to laugh.&quot; Britain, who had been paying the profoundest and most melancholy attention to each speaker in his turn, seemed suddenly to decide in favour of the same preference, if a deep sepulchral sound that escaped him might be construed into a demonstration of risibility. His face, however, was so perfectly unaffected by it, both before and afterwards, that although one or two of the breakfast party looked round as being startled by a mysterious noise, nobody connected the offender with it. Except his partner in attendance, Clemency Newcome; who rousing him with one of those favourite joints, her elbows, inquired, in a reproachful whisper, what he laughed at. &quot;Not you!&quot; said Britain. &quot;Who then?&quot; &quot;Humanity,&quot; said Britain. &quot;That’s the joke.&quot; &quot;What between master and them lawyers, he’s getting more and more addle-headed every day!&quot; cried Clemency, giving him a lunge with the other elbow, as a mental stimulant. &quot;Do you know where you are? Do you want to get warning?&quot; &quot;I don’t know anything,&quot; said Britain, with a leaden eye and an immovable visage. &quot;I don’t care for anything. I don’t make out anything. I don’t believe anything. And I don’t want anything.&quot; Although this forlorn summary of his general condition may have been overcharged in an access of despondency, Benjamin Britain—sometimes called Little Britain, to distinguish him from Great; as we might say Young England, to express Old England with a decided difference—had defined his real state more accurately than might be supposed. For, serving as a sort of man Miles, to the Doctor’s Friar Bacon, and listening day after day to innumerable orations addressed by the Doctor to various people, all tending to show that his very existence was at best a mistake and an absurdity; this unfortunate servitor had fallen, by degrees, into such an abyss of confused and contradictory suggestions from within and without, that Truth at the bottom of her well, was on the level surface as compared with Britain in the depths of his mystification. The only point he clearly comprehended, was, that the new element usually brought into these discussions by Snitchey and Craggs, never served to make them clearer, and always seemed to give the Doctor a species of advantage and confirmation. Therefore, he looked upon the Firm as one of the proximate causes of his state of mind, and held them in abhorrence accordingly. &quot;But, this is not our business, Alfred,&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;Ceasing to be my ward (as you have said) to-day; and leaving us full to the brim of such learning as the Grammar School down here was able to give you, and your studies in London could add to that, and such practical knowledge as a dull old country Doctor like myself could graft upon both; you are away, now, into the world. The first term of probation appointed by your poor father, being over, away you go now, your own master, to fulfil his second desire: and long before your three years’ tour among the foreign schools of medicine is finished, you’ll have forgotten us. Lord, you’ll forget us easily in six months!&quot; &quot;If I do—But you know better; why should I speak to you!&quot; said Alfred, laughing. &quot;I don’t know anything of the sort,&quot; returned the Doctor. &quot;What do you say, Marion?&quot; Marion, trifling with her teacup, seemed to say—but she didn’t say it—that he was welcome to forget them, if he could. Grace pressed the blooming face against her cheek, and smiled. &quot;I haven’t been, I hope, a very unjust steward in the execution of my trust,&quot; pursued the Doctor; &quot;but I am to be, at any rate, formally discharged, and released, and what not this morning; and here are our good friends Snitchey and Craggs, with a bagful of papers, and accounts, and documents, for the transfer of the balance of the trust fund to you (I wish it was a more difficult one to dispose of, Alfred, but you must get to be a great man and make it so), and other drolleries of that sort, which are to be signed, sealed, and delivered.&quot; &quot;And duly witnessed, as by law required,&quot; said Snitchey, pushing away his plate, and taking out the papers, which his partner proceeded to spread upon the table; &quot;and Self and Craggs having been co-trustees with you, Doctor, in so far as the fund was concerned, we shall want your two servants to attest the signatures—can you read, Mrs. Newcome?&quot; &quot;I an’t married, Mister,&quot; said Clemency. &quot;Oh! I beg your pardon. I should think not,&quot; chuckled Snitchey, casting his eyes over her extraordinary figure. &quot;You can read?&quot; &quot;A little,&quot; answered Clemency. &quot;The marriage service, night and morning, eh?&quot; observed the lawyer, jocosely. &quot;No,&quot; said Clemency. &quot;Too hard. I only reads a thimble.&quot; &quot;Read a thimble!&quot; echoed Snitchey. &quot;What are you talking about, young woman?&quot; Clemency nodded. &quot;And a nutmeg-grater.&quot; &quot;Why, this is a lunatic! a subject for the Lord High Chancellor!&quot; said Snitchey, staring at her. —&quot;If possessed of any property,&quot; stipulated Craggs. Grace, however, interposing, explained that each of the articles in question bore an engraved motto, and so formed the pocket library of Clemency Newcome, who was not much given to the study of books. &quot;Oh, that’s it, is it, Miss Grace!&quot; said Snitchey. &quot;Yes, yes. Ha, ha, ha! I thought our friend was an idiot. She looks uncommonly like it,&quot; he muttered, with a supercilious glance. &quot;And what does the thimble say, Mrs. Newcome?&quot; &quot;I an’t married, Mister,&quot; observed Clemency. &quot;Well, Newcome. Will that do?&quot; said the lawyer. &quot;What does the thimble say, Newcome?&quot; How Clemency, before replying to this question, held one pocket open, and looked down into its yawning depths for the thimble which wasn’t there,—and how she then held an opposite pocket open, and seeming to descry it, like a pearl of great price, at the bottom, cleared away such intervening obstacles as a handkerchief, an end of wax candle, a flushed apple, an orange, a lucky penny, a cramp bone, a padlock, a pair of scissors in a sheath, more expressively describable as promising young shears, a handful or so of loose beads, several balls of cotton, a needle-case, a cabinet collection of curl-papers, and a biscuit, all of which articles she entrusted individually and separately to Britain to hold,—is of no consequence. Nor how, in her determination to grasp this pocket by the throat and keep it prisoner (for it had a tendency to swing, and twist itself round the nearest corner), she assumed, and calmly maintained, an attitude apparently inconsistent with the human anatomy and the laws of gravity. It is enough that at last she triumphantly produced the thimble on her finger, and rattled the nutmeg-grater; the literature of both those trinkets being obviously in course of wearing out and wasting away, through excessive friction. &quot;That’s the thimble, is it, young woman?&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, diverting himself at her expense. &quot;And what does the thimble say?&quot; &quot;It says,&quot; replied Clemency, reading slowly round as if it were a tower, &quot;For-get and For-give.&quot; Snitchey and Craggs laughed heartily. &quot;So new!&quot; said Snitchey. &quot;So easy!&quot; said Craggs. &quot;Such a knowledge of human nature in it,&quot; said Snitchey. &quot;So applicable to the affairs of life,&quot; said Craggs. &quot;And the nutmeg-grater?&quot; inquired the head of the Firm. &quot;The grater says,&quot; returned Clemency, &quot;Do as you—wold—be—done by.&quot; &quot;&#039;Do, or you’ll be done brown,&#039; you mean,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey. &quot;I don’t understand,&quot; retorted Clemency, shaking her head vaguely. &quot;I a&#039;n’t no lawyer.&quot; &quot;I am afraid that if she was, Doctor,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, turning to him suddenly, as if to anticipate any effect that might otherwise be consequent on this retort, &quot;she’d find it to be the golden rule of half her clients. They are serious enough in that—whimsical as your world is—and lay the blame on us afterwards. We, in our profession, are little else than mirrors after all, Mr. Alfred; but, we are generally consulted by angry and quarrelsome people, who are not in their best looks; and it’s rather hard to quarrel with us if we reflect unpleasant aspects. I think,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, &quot;that I speak for Self and Craggs?&quot; &quot;Decidedly,&quot; said Craggs. &quot;And so, if Mr. Britain will oblige us with a mouthful of ink,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, returning to the papers, &quot;we’ll sign, seal, and deliver as soon as possible, or the coach will be coming past before we know where we are.&quot; If one might judge from his appearance, there was every probability of the coach coming past before Mr. Britain knew where he was; for he stood in a state of abstraction, mentally balancing the Doctor against the lawyers, and the lawyers against the Doctor, and their clients against both; and engaged in feeble attempts to make the thimble and nutmeg-grater (a new idea to him) square with anybody’s system of philosophy; and, in short, bewildering himself as much as ever his great namesake has done with theories and schools. But Clemency, who was his good Genius—though he had the meanest possible opinion of her understanding, by reason of her seldom troubling herself with abstract speculations, and being always at hand to do the right thing at the right time—having produced the ink in a twinkling, tendered him the further service of recalling him to himself by the application of her elbows; with which gentle flappers she so jogged his memory, in a more literal construction of that phrase than usual, that he soon became quite fresh and brisk. How he laboured under an apprehension not uncommon to persons in his degree, to whom the use of pen and ink is an event, that he couldn’t append his name to a document, not of his own writing, without committing himself in some shadowy manner, or somehow signing away vague and enormous sums of money; and how he approached the deeds under protest, and by dint of the Doctor’s coercion, and insisted on pausing to look at them before writing (the cramped hand, to say nothing of the phraseology, being so much Chinese to him), and also on turning them round to see whether there was anything fraudulent, underneath; and how, having signed his name, he became desolate as one who had parted with his property and rights; I want the time to tell. Also, how the blue bag containing his signature, afterwards had a mysterious interest for him, and he couldn’t leave it; also, how Clemency Newcome, in an ecstasy of laughter at the idea of her own importance and dignity, brooded over the whole table with her two elbows, like a spread eagle, and reposed her head upon her left arm as a preliminary to the formation of certain cabalistic characters, which required a deal of ink, and imaginary counterparts whereof she executed at the same time with her tongue. Also how, having once tasted ink, she became thirsty in that regard, as tame tigers are said to be after tasting another sort of fluid, and wanted to sign everything, and put her name in all kinds of places. In brief, the Doctor was discharged of his trust and all its responsibilities; and Alfred, taking it on himself, was fairly started on the journey of life. &quot;Britain!&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;Run to the gate, and watch for the coach. Time flies, Alfred!&quot; &quot;Yes, Sir, yes,&quot; returned the young man, hurriedly. &quot;Dear Grace! a moment! Marion—so young and beautiful, so winning and so much admired, dear to my heart as nothing else in life is—remember! I leave Marion to you!&quot; &quot;She has always been a sacred charge to me, Alfred. She is doubly so, now. I will be faithful to my trust, believe me.&quot; &quot;I do believe it, Grace. I know it well. Who could look upon your face, and hear your voice, and not know it! Ah, Grace! If I had your well-governed heart, and tranquil mind, how bravely I would leave this place to-day!&quot; &quot;Would you?&quot; she answered with a quiet smile. &quot;And yet, Grace—Sister, seems the natural word.&quot; &quot;Use it!&quot; she said quickly. &quot;I am glad to hear it, call me nothing else.&quot; &quot;And yet, Sister, then,&quot; said Alfred, &quot;Marion and I had better have your true and stedfast qualities serving us here, and making us both happier and better. I wouldn’t carry them away, to sustain myself, if I could!&quot; &quot;Coach upon the hill-top!&quot; exclaimed Britain. &quot;Time flies, Alfred,&quot; said the Doctor. Marion had stood apart, with her eyes fixed upon the ground; but, this warning being given, her young lover brought her tenderly to where her sister stood, and gave her into her embrace. &quot;I have been telling Grace, dear Marion,&quot; he said, &quot;that you are her charge; my precious trust at parting. And when I come back and reclaim you, dearest, and the bright prospect of our married life lies stretched before us, it shall be one of our chief pleasures to consult how we can make Grace happy; how we can anticipate her wishes; how we can show our gratitude and love to her; how we can return her something of the debt she will have heaped upon us.&quot; The younger sister had one hand in his; the other rested on her sister’s neck. She looked into that sister’s eyes, so calm, serene, and cheerful, with a gaze in which affection, admiration, sorrow, wonder, almost veneration, were blended. She looked into that sister’s face, as if it were the face of some bright angel. Calm, serene, and cheerful, the face looked back on her and on her lover. &quot;And when the time comes, as it must one day,&quot; said Alfred,—&quot;I wonder it has never come yet: but Grace knows best, for Grace is always right—when she will want a friend to open her whole heart to, and to be to her something of what she has been to us,—then, Marion, how faithful we will prove, and what delight to us to know that she, our dear good sister, loves and is loved again, as we would have her!&quot; Still the younger sister looked into her eyes, and turned not—even towards him. And still those honest eyes looked back, so calm, serene, and cheerful, on herself and on her lover. &quot;And when all that is past, and we are old, and living (as we must!) together—close together; talking often of old times,’ said Alfred—&quot;these shall be our favourite times among them—this day most of all; and, telling each other what we thought and felt, and hoped and feared, at parting; and how we couldn’t bear to say good bye&quot;— &quot;Coach coming through the wood,&quot; cried Britain. &quot;Yes! I am ready—and how we met again, so happily in spite of all; we’ll make this day the happiest in all the year, and keep it as a treble birth-day. Shall we, dear?&quot; &quot;Yes!&quot; interposed the elder sister, eagerly, and with a radiant smile. &quot;Yes! Alfred, don’t linger. There’s no time. Say good bye to Marion. And Heaven be with you!&quot; He pressed the younger sister to his heart. Released from his embrace, she again clung to her sister; and her eyes, with the same blended look, again sought those so calm, serene, and cheerful. &quot;Farewell, my boy!&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;To talk about any serious correspondence or serious affections, and engagements and so forth, in such a—ha ha ha!—you know what I mean—why that, of course, would be sheer nonsense. All I can say is, that if you and Marion should continue in the same foolish minds, I shall not object to have you for a son-in-law one of these days.&quot; &quot;Over the bridge!&quot; cried Britain. &quot;Let it come!&quot; said Alfred, wringing the Doctor’s hand stoutly. &quot;Think of me sometimes, my old friend and guardian, as seriously as you can! Adieu, Mr. Snitchey! Farewell, Mr. Craggs!&quot; &quot;Coming down the road!&quot; cried Britain. &quot;A kiss of Clemency Newcome for long acquaintance’ sake—shake hands, Britain—Marion, dearest heart, good bye! Sister Grace! remember!&quot; The quiet household figure, and the face so beautiful in its serenity, were turned towards him in reply; but Marion’s look and attitude remained unchanged. The coach was at the gate. There was a bustle with the luggage. The coach drove away. Marion never moved. &quot;He waves his hat to you, my love,&quot; said Grace.&quot;Your chosen husband, darling. Look!&quot; The younger sister raised her head, and, for a moment, turned it. Then, turning back again, and fully meeting, for the first time, those calm eyes, fell sobbing on her neck. &quot;Oh, Grace. God bless you! But I cannot bear to see it, Grace! It breaks my heart.&quot; Part the Second. Snitchey and Craggs had a snug little office on the old Battle Ground, where they drove a snug little business, and fought a great many small pitched battles for a great many contending parties. Though it could hardly be said of these conflicts that they were running fights—for in truth they generally proceeded at a snail’s pace—the part the Firm had in them came so far within the general denomination, that now they took a shot at this Plaintiff, and now aimed a chop at that Defendant, now made a heavy charge at an estate in Chancery, and now had some light skirmishing among an irregular body of small debtors, just as the occasion served, and the enemy happened to present himself. The Gazette was an important and profitable feature in some of their fields, as in fields of greater renown; and in most of the Actions wherein they showed their generalship, it was afterwards observed by the combatants that they had had great difficulty in making each other out, or in knowing with any degree of distinctness what they were about, in consequence of the vast amount of smoke by which they were surrounded. The offices of Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs stood convenient with an open door, down two smooth steps in the market-place: so that any angry farmer inclining towards hot water, might tumble into it at once. Their special council-chamber and hall of conference was an old back room up stairs, with a low dark ceiling, which seemed to be knitting its brows gloomily in the consideration of tangled points of law. It was furnished with some high-backed leathern chairs, garnished with great goggle-eyed brass nails, of which, every here and there, two or three had fallen out; or had been picked out, perhaps, by the wandering thumbs and forefingers of bewildered clients. There was a framed print of a great judge in it, every curl in whose dreadful wig had made a man’s hair stand on end. Bales of papers filled the dusty closets, shelves, and tables; and round the wainscot there were tiers of boxes, padlocked and fireproof, with people’s names painted outside, which anxious visitors felt themselves, by a cruel enchantment, obliged to spell backwards and forwards, and to make anagrams of, while they sat, seeming to listen to Snitchey and Craggs, without comprehending one word of what they said. Snitchey and Craggs had each, in private life as in professional existence, a partner of his own. Snitchey and Craggs were the best friends in the world, and had a real confidence in one another; but Mrs. Snitchey, by a dispensation not uncommon in the affairs of life, was, on principle, suspicious of Mr. Craggs; and Mrs. Craggs was, on principle, suspicious of Mr. Snitchey. &quot;Your Snitcheys indeed,&quot; the latter lady would observe, sometimes, to Mr. Craggs; using that imaginative plural as if in disparagement of an objectionable pair of pantaloons, or other articles not possessed of a singular number; &quot;I don’t see what you want with your Snitcheys, for my part. You trust a great deal too much to your Snitcheys, I think, and I hope you may never find my words come true.&quot; While Mrs. Snitchey would observe to Mr. Snitchey, of Craggs, &quot;that if ever he was led away by man he was led away by that man; and that if ever she read a double purpose in a mortal eye, she read that purpose in Craggs’s eye.&quot; Notwithstanding this, however, they were all very good friends in general: and Mrs. Snitchey and Mrs. Craggs maintained a close bond of alliance against &quot;the office,&quot; which they both considered a Blue chamber, and common enemy, full of dangerous (because unknown) machinations. In this office, nevertheless, Snitchey and Craggs made honey for their several hives. Here sometimes they would linger, of a fine evening, at the window of their council-chamber, overlooking the old battle-ground, and wonder (but that was generally at assize time, when much business had made them sentimental) at the folly of mankind, who couldn’t always be at peace with one another, and go to law comfortably. Here days, and weeks, and months, and years, passed over them; their calendar, the gradually diminishing number of brass nails in the leathern chairs, and the increasing bulk of papers on the tables. Here, nearly three years’ flight had thinned the one and swelled the other, since the breakfast in the orchard; when they sat together in consultation, at night. Not alone; but with a man of thirty, or about that time of life, negligently dressed, and somewhat haggard in the face, but well-made, well-attired, and well-looking, who sat in the arm-chair of state, with one hand in his breast, and the other in his dishevelled hair, pondering moodily. Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs sat opposite each other at a neighbouring desk. One of the fire-proof boxes, unpadlocked and opened, was upon it; a part of its contents lay strewn upon the table, and the rest was then in course of passing through the hands of Mr. Snitchey, who brought it to the candle, document by document; looked at every paper singly, as he produced it, shook his head, and handed it to Mr. Craggs, who looked it over also, shook his head, and laid it down. Sometimes they would stop, and shaking their heads in concert, look towards the abstracted client; and the name on the box being Michael Warden, Esquire, we may conclude from these premises that the name and the box were both his, and that the affairs of Michael Warden, Esquire, were in a bad way. &quot;That’s all,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, turning up the last paper. &quot;Really there’s no other resource. No other resource.&quot; &quot;All lost, spent, wasted, pawned, borrowed, and sold, eh?&quot; said the client, looking up. &quot;All,&quot; returned Mr. Snitchey. &quot;Nothing else to be done, you say?&quot; &quot;Nothing at all.&quot; The client bit his nails, and pondered again. &quot;And I am not even personally safe in England? You hold to that, do you?&quot; &quot;In no part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,&quot; replied Mr. Snitchey. &quot;A mere prodigal son with no father to go back to, no swine to keep, and no husks to share with them? Eh?&quot; pursued the client, rocking one leg over the other, and searching the ground with his eyes. Mr. Snitchey coughed, as if to deprecate the being supposed to participate in any figurative illustration of a legal position. Mr. Craggs, as if to express that it was a partnership view of the subject, also coughed. &quot;Ruined at thirty!&quot; said the client. &quot;Humph!&quot; &quot;Not ruined, Mr. Warden,&quot; returned Snitchey. &quot;Not so bad as that. You have done a good deal towards it, I must say, but you are not ruined. A little nursing—&quot; &quot;A little Devil,&quot; said the client. &quot;Mr. Craggs,&quot; said Snitchey, &quot;will you oblige me with a pinch of snuff? Thank you, Sir.&quot; As the imperturbable lawyer applied it to his nose, with great apparent relish and a perfect absorption of his attention in the proceeding, the client gradually broke into a smile, and, looking up, said: &quot;You talk of nursing. How long nursing?&quot; &quot;How long nursing?&quot; repeated Snitchey, dusting the snuff from his fingers, and making a slow calculation in his mind. &quot;For your involved estate, Sir? In good hands? S. and C.’s, say? Six or seven years.&quot; &quot;To starve for six or seven years!&quot; said the client with a fretful laugh, and an impatient change of his position. &quot;To starve for six or seven years, Mr. Warden,&quot; said Snitchey, &quot;would be very uncommon indeed. You might get another estate by shewing yourself, the while. But, we don’t think you could do it—speaking for Self and Craggs—and consequently don’t advise it.&quot; &quot;What do you advise?&quot; &quot;Nursing, I say,&quot; repeated Snitchey. &quot;Some few years of nursing by Self and Craggs would bring it round. But to enable us to make terms, and hold terms, and you to keep terms, you must go away; you must live abroad. As to starvation, we could ensure you some hundreds a-year to starve upon, even in the beginning—I dare say, Mr. Warden.&quot; &quot;Hundreds,&quot; said the client. &quot;And I have spent thousands!&quot; &quot;That,&quot; retorted Mr. Snitchey, putting the papers slowly back into the cast-iron box, &quot;there is no doubt about. No doubt a—bout,&quot; he repeated to himself, as he thoughtfully pursued his occupation. The lawyer very likely knew his man; at any rate his dry, shrewd, whimsical manner, had a favourable influence on the client’s moody state, and disposed him to be more free and unreserved. Or, perhaps the client knew his man, and had elicited such encouragement as he had received, to render some purpose he was about to disclose the more defensible in appearance. Gradually raising his head, he sat looking at his immovable adviser with a smile, which presently broke into a laugh. &quot;After all,&quot; he said, &quot;my iron-headed friend—&quot; Mr. Snitchey pointed out his partner. &quot;Self and—excuse me—Craggs.&quot; &quot;I beg Mr. Craggs’s pardon,&quot; said the client. &quot;After all, my iron-headed friends,&quot; he leaned forward in his chair, and dropped his voice a little, &quot;you don’t know half my ruin yet.&quot; Mr. Snitchey stopped and stared at him. Mr. Craggs also stared. &quot;I am not only deep in debt,&quot; said the client, &quot;but I am deep in—&quot; &quot;Not in love!&quot; cried Snitchey. &quot;Yes!&quot; said the client, falling back in his chair, and surveying the Firm with his hands in his pockets. &quot;Deep in love.&quot; &quot;And not with an heiress, Sir?&quot; said Snitchey. &quot;Not with an heiress.&quot; &quot;Nor a rich lady?&quot; &quot;Nor a rich lady that I know of—except in beauty and merit.&quot; &quot;A single lady, I trust?&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, with great expression. &quot;Certainly.&quot; ‘It’s not one of Doctor Jeddler’s daughters?’ said Snitchey, suddenly squaring his elbows on his knees, and advancing his face at least a yard. ‘Yes!’ returned the client. &quot;Not his younger daughter?&quot; said Snitchey. &quot;Yes!&quot; returned the client. &quot;Mr. Craggs,&quot; said Snitchey, much relieved, &quot;will you oblige me with another pinch of snuff? Thank you. I am happy to say it don’t signify, Mr. Warden; she’s engaged, sir, she’s bespoke. My partner can corroborate me. We know the fact.&quot; &quot;We know the fact,&quot; repeated Craggs. &quot;Why, so do I perhaps,&quot; returned the client quietly. &quot;What of that? Are you men of the world, and did you never hear of a woman changing her mind?&quot; &quot;There certainly have been actions for breach,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, &quot;brought against both spinsters and widows, but in the majority of cases—&quot; &quot;Cases!&quot; interposed the client, impatiently. &quot;Don’t talk to me of cases. The general precedent is in a much larger volume than any of your law books. Besides, do you think I have lived six weeks in the Doctor’s house for nothing?&quot; &quot;I think, sir,&quot; observed Mr. Snitchey, gravely addressing himself to his partner, &quot;that of all the scrapes Mr. Warden’s horses have brought him into at one time and another—and they have been pretty numerous, and pretty expensive, as none know better than himself and you and I—the worst scrape may turn out to be, if he talks in this way, this having ever been left by one of them at the Doctor’s garden wall, with three broken ribs, a snapped collar-bone, and the Lord knows how many bruises. We didn’t think so much of it, at the time when we knew he was going on well under the Doctor’s hands and roof; but it looks bad now, Sir. Bad! It looks very bad. Doctor Jeddler too—our client, Mr. Craggs.&quot; &quot;Mr. Alfred Heathfield too—a sort of client, Mr. Snitchey,&quot; said Craggs. &quot;Mr. Michael Warden too, a kind of client,&quot; said the careless visitor, &quot;and no bad one either: having played the fool for ten or twelve years. However Mr. Michael Warden has sown his wild oats now—there’s their crop, in that box; and he means to repent and be wise. And in proof of it, Mr. Michael Warden means, if he can, to marry Marion, the Doctor’s lovely daughter, and to carry her away with him.&quot; &quot;Really, Mr. Craggs,&quot; Snitchey began. &quot;Really, Mr. Snitchey, and Mr. Craggs, partners both,&quot; said the client, interrupting him; &quot;you know your duty to your clients, and you know well enough, I am sure, that it is no part of it to interfere in a mere love affair, which I am obliged to confide to you. I am not going to carry the young lady off, without her own consent. There’s nothing illegal in it. I never was Mr. Heathfield’s bosom friend. I violate no confidence of his. I love where he loves, and I mean to win where he would win, if I can.&quot; &quot;He can’t, Mr. Craggs,&quot; said Snitchey, evidently anxious and discomfited. &quot;He can’t do it, Sir. She dotes on Mr. Alfred.&quot; &quot;Does she?&quot; returned the client. &quot;Mr. Craggs, she dotes on him, Sir,&quot; persisted Snitchey. &quot;I didn’t live six weeks, some few months ago, in the Doctor’s house for nothing; and I doubted that soon,&quot; observed the client. &quot;She would have doted on him, if her sister could have brought it about; but I watched them. Marion avoided his name, avoided the subject: shrunk from the least allusion to it, with evident distress.&quot; &quot;Why should she, Mr. Craggs, you know? Why should she, Sir?&quot; inquired Snitchey. &quot;I don’t know why she should, though there are many likely reasons,&quot; said the client, smiling at the attention and perplexity expressed in Mr. Snitchey’s shining eye, and at his cautious way of carrying on the conversation, and making himself informed upon the subject; &quot;but I know she does. She was very young when she made the engagement—if it may be called one, I am not even sure of that—and has repented of it, perhaps. Perhaps—it seems a foppish thing to say, but upon my soul I don’t mean it in that light—she may have fallen in love with me, as I have fallen in love with her.&quot; &quot;He, he! Mr. Alfred, her old playfellow too, you remember, Mr. Craggs,&quot; said Snitchey, with a disconcerted laugh; &quot;knew her almost from a baby!&quot; &quot;Which makes it the more probable that she may be tired of his idea,&quot; calmly pursued the client, &quot;and not indisposed to exchange it for the newer one of another lover, who presents himself (or is presented by his horse) under romantic circumstances; has the not unfavourable reputation—with a country girl—of having lived thoughtlessly and gaily, without doing much harm to anybody; and who, for his youth and figure, and so forth—this may seem foppish again, but upon my soul I don’t mean it in that light—might perhaps pass muster in a crowd with Mr. Alfred himself.&quot; There was no gainsaying the last clause, certainly; and Mr. Snitchey, glancing at him, thought so. There was something naturally graceful and pleasant in the very carelessness of his air. It seemed to suggest, of his comely face and well-knit figure, that they might be greatly better if he chose: and that, once roused and made earnest (but he never had been earnest yet), he could be full of fire and purpose. &quot;A dangerous sort of libertine,&quot; thought the shrewd lawyer, &quot;to seem to catch the spark he wants from a young lady’s eyes.&quot; &quot;Now, observe, Snitchey,&quot; he continued, rising and taking him by the button, &quot;and Craggs,&quot; taking him by the button also, and placing one partner on either side of him, so that neither might evade him. &quot;I don’t ask you for any advice. You are right to keep quite aloof from all parties in such a matter, which is not one in which grave men like you could interfere, on any side. I am briefly going to review in half-a-dozen words, my position and intention, and then I shall leave it to you to do the best for me, in money matters, that you can: seeing, that, if I run away with the Doctor’s beautiful daughter (as I hope to do, and to become another man under her bright influence), it will be, for the moment, more chargeable than running away alone. But I shall soon make all that up in an altered life.&quot; &quot;I think it will be better not to hear this, Mr. Craggs?&quot; said Snitchey, looking at him across the client. &quot;I think not,&quot; said Craggs.—Both listening attentively. &quot;Well! You needn’t hear it,&quot; replied their client. &quot;I’ll mention it, however. I don’t mean to ask the Doctor’s consent, because he wouldn’t give it me. But I mean to do the Doctor no wrong or harm, because (besides there being nothing serious in such trifles, as he says) I hope to rescue his child, my Marion, from what I see—I know—she dreads, and contemplates with misery: that is, the return of this old lover. If anything in the world is true, it is true that she dreads his return. Nobody is injured so far. I am so harried and worried here just now, that I lead the life of a flying-fish; skulk about in the dark, I am shut out of my own house, and warned off my own grounds: but that house, and those grounds, and many an acre besides, will come back to me one day, as you know and say; and Marion will probably be richer—on your showing, who are never sanguine—ten years hence as my wife, than as the wife of Alfred Heathfield, whose return she dreads (remember that), and in whom or in any man, my passion is not surpassed. Who is injured yet? It is a fair case throughout. My right is as good as his, if she decide in my favor; and I will try my right by her alone. You will like to know no more after this, and I will tell you no more. Now you know my purpose, and wants. When must I leave here?&quot; &quot;In a week,&quot; said Snitchey. &quot;Mr. Craggs?&quot;— &quot;In something less, I should say,&quot; responded Craggs. &quot;In a month,&quot; said the client, after attentively watching the two faces. &quot;This day month. To-day is Thursday. Succeed or fail, on this day month I go.&quot; &quot;It’s too long a delay,&quot; said Snitchey; &quot;much too long. But let it be so. I thought he’d have stipulated for three,&quot; he murmured to himself. &quot;Are you going? Good night, Sir!&quot; &quot;Good night!&quot; returned the client, shaking hands with the Firm. &quot;You’ll live to see me making a good use of riches yet. Henceforth the star of my destiny is, Marion!&quot; &quot;Take care of the stairs, Sir,&quot; replied Snitchey; &quot;for she don’t shine there. Good night!&quot; &quot;Good night!&quot; So they both stood at the stair-head with a pair of office-candles, watching him down; and when he had gone away, stood looking at each other. &quot;What do you think of all this, Mr. Craggs?&quot; said Snitchey. Mr. Craggs shook his head. &quot;It was our opinion, on the day when that release was executed, that there was something curious in the parting of that pair, I recollect,&quot; said Snitchey. &quot;It was,&quot; said Mr. Craggs. &quot;Perhaps he deceives himself altogether,&quot; pursued Mr. Snitchey, locking up the fireproof box, and putting it away; &quot;or, if he don’t, a little bit of fickleness and perfidy is not a miracle, Mr. Craggs. And yet I thought that pretty face was very true. I thought,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, putting on his great-coat (for the weather was very cold), drawing on his gloves, and snuffing out one candle, &quot;that I had even seen her character becoming stronger and more resolved of late. More like her sister’s.&quot; &quot;Mrs. Craggs was of the same opinion,&quot; returned Craggs. &quot;I’d really give a trifle to-night,&quot; observed Mr. Snitchey, who was a good-natured man, &quot;if I could believe that Mr. Warden was reckoning without his host; but light-headed, capricious, and unballasted as he is, he knows something of the world and its people (he ought to, for he has bought what he does know, dear enough); and I can’t quite think that. We had better not interfere: we can do nothing, Mr. Craggs, but keep quiet.&quot; &quot;Nothing,&quot; returned Craggs. &quot;Our friend the Doctor makes light of such things,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, shaking his head. &quot;I hope he mayn’t stand in need of his philosophy. Our friend Alfred talks of the battle of life,&quot; he shook his head again, &quot;I hope he mayn’t be cut down early in the day. Have you got your hat, Mr. Craggs? I am going to put the other candle out.&quot; Mr. Craggs replying in the affirmative, Mr. Snitchey suited the action to the word, and they groped their way out of the council-chamber: now dark as the subject, or the law in general. My story passes to a quiet little study, where, on that same night, the sisters and the hale old Doctor sat by a cheerful fire-side. Grace was working at her needle. Marion read aloud from a book before her. The Doctor, in his dressing-gown and slippers, with his feet spread out upon the warm rug, leaned back in his easy chair, and listened to the book, and looked upon his daughters. They were very beautiful to look upon. Two better faces for a fireside, never made a fireside bright and sacred. Something of the difference between them had been softened down in three years’ time; and enthroned upon the clear brow of the younger sister, looking through her eyes, and thrilling in her voice, was the same earnest nature that her own motherless youth had ripened in the elder sister long ago. But she still appeared at once the lovelier and weaker of the two; still seemed to rest her head upon her sister’s breast, and put her trust in her, and look into her eyes for counsel and reliance. Those loving eyes, so calm, serene, and cheerful, as of old. &quot; &#039;And being in her own home,&#039;&quot; read Marion, from the book; &quot; &#039;her home made exquisitely dear by these remembrances, she now began to know that the great trial of her heart must soon come on, and could not be delayed. O Home, our comforter and friend when others fall away, to part with whom, at any step between the cradle and the grave—&#039;&quot; &quot;Marion, my love!&quot; said Grace. &quot;Why, Puss!&quot; exclaimed her father, &quot;what’s the matter?&quot; She put her hand upon the hand her sister stretched towards her, and read on; her voice still faltering and trembling, though she made an effort to command it when thus interrupted. &quot; &#039;To part with whom, at any step between the cradle and the grave, is always sorrowful. Oh Home, so true to us, so often slighted in return, be lenient to them that turn away from thee, and do not haunt their erring footsteps too reproachfully! Let no kind looks, no well-remembered smiles, be seen upon thy phantom face. Let no ray of affection, welcome, gentleness, forbearance, cordiality, shine from thy white head. Let no old loving word, or tone, rise up in judgment against thy deserter; but if thou canst look harshly and severely, do, in mercy to the Penitent!&#039;&quot; &quot;Dear Marion, read no more to-night,&quot; said Grace —for she was weeping. &quot;I cannot,&quot; she replied, and closed the book. &quot;The words seem all on fire!&quot; The Doctor was amused at this; and laughed as he patted her on the head. &quot;What! overcome by a story-book!&quot; said Doctor Jeddler. &quot;Print and paper! Well, well, it’s all one. It’s as rational to make a serious matter of print and paper as of anything else. But dry your eyes, love, dry your eyes. I dare say the heroine has got home again long ago, and made it up all round—and if she hasn’t, a real home is only four walls; and a fictitious one, mere rags and ink. What’s the matter now?&quot; &quot;It’s only me, Mister,&quot; said Clemency, putting in her head at the door. &quot;And what’s the matter with you?&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;Oh, bless you, nothing an’t the matter with me,&quot; returned Clemency—and truly too, to judge from her well-soaped face, in which there gleamed as usual the very soul of good humour, which, ungainly as she was, made her quite engaging. Abrasions on the elbows are not generally understood, it is true, to range within that class of personal charms called beauty-spots. But, it is better, going through the world, to have the arms chafed in that narrow passage, than the temper: and Clemency’s was sound and whole as any beauty’s in the land. &quot;Nothing an’t the matter with me,&quot; said Clemency, entering, &quot;but—come a little closer, Mister.&quot; The Doctor, in some astonishment, complied with this invitation. &quot;You said I wasn’t to give you one before them, you know,&quot; said Clemency. A novice in the family might have supposed, from her extraordinary ogling as she said it, as well as from a singular rapture or ecstasy which pervaded her elbows, as if she were embracing herself, that ‘one,’ in its most favorable interpretation, meant a chaste salute. Indeed the Doctor himself seemed alarmed, for the moment; but quickly regained his composure, as Clemency, having had recourse to both her pockets—beginning with the right one, going away to the wrong one, and afterwards coming back to the right one again—produced a letter from the Post-office. &quot;Britain was riding by on a errand,&quot; she chuckled, handing it to the Doctor, &quot;and see the mail come in, and waited for it. There’s A. H. in the corner. Mr. Alfred’s on his journey home, I bet. We shall have a wedding in the house—there was two spoons in my saucer this morning. Oh Luck, how slow he opens it!&quot; All this she delivered, by way of soliloquy, gradually rising higher and higher on tiptoe, in her impatience to hear the news, and making a corkscrew of her apron, and a bottle of her mouth. At last, arriving at a climax of suspense, and seeing the Doctor still engaged in the perusal of the letter, she came down flat upon the soles of her feet again, and cast her apron, as a veil, over her head, in a mute despair, and inability to bear it any longer. &quot;Here! Girls!&quot; cried the Doctor. &quot;I can’t help it: I never could keep a secret in my life. There are not many secrets, indeed, worth being kept in such a—well! never mind that. Alfred’s coming home, my dears, directly.&quot; &quot;Directly!&quot; exclaimed Marion. &quot;What! The story-book is soon forgotten!&quot; said the Doctor, pinching her cheek. &quot;I thought the news would dry those tears. Yes. &#039;Let it be a surprise,&#039; he says, here. But I can’t let it be a surprise. He must have a welcome.&quot; &quot;Directly!&quot; repeated Marion. &quot;Why, perhaps not what your impatience calls &#039;directly,’&quot; returned the Doctor; &quot;but pretty soon too. Let us see. Let us see. To-day is Thursday, is it not? Then he promises to be here, this day month.&quot; &quot;This day month!&quot; repeated Marion, softly. &quot;A gay day and a holiday for us,&quot; said the cheerful voice of her sister Grace, kissing her in congratulation. &quot;Long looked forward to, dearest, and come at last.&quot; She answered with a smile; a mournful smile, but full of sisterly affection. As she looked in her sister’s face, and listened to the quiet music of her voice, picturing the happiness of this return, her own face glowed with hope and joy. And with a something else: a something shining more and more through all the rest of its expression: for which I have no name. It was not exultation, triumph, proud enthusiasm. They are not so calmly shown. It was not love and gratitude alone, though love and gratitude were part of it. It emanated from no sordid thought, for sordid thoughts do not light up the brow, and hover on the lips, and move the spirit like a fluttered light, until the sympathetic figure trembles. Dr. Jeddler, in spite of his system of philosophy—which he was continually contradicting and denying in practice, but more famous philosophers have done that—could not help having as much interest in the return of his old ward and pupil, as if it had been a serious event. So he sat himself down in his easy chair again, stretched out his slippered feet once more upon the rug, read the letter over and over a great many times, and talked it over more times still. &quot;Ah! The day was,&quot; said the Doctor, looking at the fire, &quot;when you and he, Grace, used to trot about arm-in-arm, in his holiday time, like a couple of walking dolls. You remember?&quot; &quot;I remember,&quot; she answered, with her pleasant laugh, and plying her needle busily. &quot;This day month, indeed!&quot; mused the Doctor. &quot;That hardly seems a twelve-month ago. And where was my little Marion then!&quot; &quot;Never far from her sister,&quot; said Marion, cheerily, &quot;however little. Grace was everything to me, even when she was a young child herself.&quot; &quot;True, Puss, true,&quot; returned the Doctor. &quot;She was a staid little woman, was Grace, and a wise housekeeper, and a busy, quiet, pleasant body; bearing with our humours and anticipating our wishes, and always ready to forget her own, even in those times. I never knew you positive or obstinate, Grace, my darling, even then, on any subject but one.&quot; &quot;I am afraid I have changed sadly for the worse, since,&quot; laughed Grace, still busy at her work. &quot;What was that one, father?&quot; &quot;Alfred, of course,&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;Nothing would serve you but you must be called Alfred’s wife; so we called you Alfred’s wife; and you liked it better, I believe (odd as it seems now), than being called a Duchess, if we could have made you one.&quot; &quot;Indeed?&quot; said Grace, placidly. &quot;Why, don’t you remember?&quot; inquired the Doctor. &quot;I think I remember something of it,&quot; she returned, &quot;but not much. It’s so long ago.&quot; And as she sat at work, she hummed the burden of an old song, which the Doctor liked. &quot;Alfred will find a real wife soon,&quot; she said, breaking off; &quot;and that will be a happy time indeed for all of us. My three years’ trust is nearly at an end, Marion. It has been a very easy one. I shall tell Alfred, when I give you back to him, that you have loved him dearly all the time, and that he has never once needed my good services. May I tell him so, love?&quot; &quot;Tell him, dear Grace,&quot; replied Marion, &quot;that there never was a trust so generously, nobly, steadfastly discharged; and that I have loved you, all the time, dearer and dearer every day; and oh! how dearly now!&quot; &quot;Nay,&quot; said her cheerful sister, returning her embrace, &quot;I can scarcely tell him that; we will leave my deserts to Alfred’s imagination. It will be liberal enough, dear Marion; like your own.&quot; With that, she resumed the work she had for a moment laid down, when her sister spoke so fervently: and with it the old song the Doctor liked to hear. And the Doctor, still reposing in his easy chair, with his slippered feet stretched out before him on the rug, listened to the tune, and beat time on his knee with Alfred’s letter, and looked at his two daughters, and thought that among the many trifles of the trifling world, these trifles were agreeable enough. Clemency Newcome, in the mean time, having accomplished her mission and lingered in the room until she had made herself a party to the news, descended to the kitchen, where her coadjutor, Mr. Britain, was regaling after supper, surrounded by such a plentiful collection of bright pot-lids, well-scoured saucepans, burnished dinner-covers, gleaming kettles, and other tokens of her industrious habits, arranged upon the walls and shelves, that he sat as in the centre of a hall of mirrors. The majority did not give forth very flattering portraits of him, certainly; nor were they by any means unanimous in their reflections; as some made him very long-faced, others very broad-faced, some tolerably well-looking, others vastly ill-looking, according to their several manners of reflecting: which were as various, in respect of one fact, as those of so many kinds of men. But they all agreed that in the midst of them sat, quite at his ease, an individual with a pipe in his mouth, and a jug of beer at his elbow, who nodded condescendingly to Clemency, when she stationed herself at the same table. &quot;Well, Clemmy,&quot; said Britain, &quot;how are you by this time, and what’s the news?&quot; Clemency told him the news, which he received very graciously. A gracious change had come over Benjamin from head to foot. He was much broader, much redder, much more cheerful, and much jollier in all respects. It seemed as if his face had been tied up in a knot before, and was now untwisted and smoothed out. &quot;There’ll be another job for Snitchey and Craggs, I suppose,&quot; he observed, puffing slowly at his pipe. &quot;More witnessing for you and me, perhaps, Clemmy!&quot; &quot;Lor!&quot; replied his fair companion, with her favorite twist of her favorite joints. &quot;I wish it was me, Britain!&quot; &quot;Wish what was you?&quot; &quot;A going to be married,&quot; said Clemency. Benjamin took his pipe out of his mouth and laughed heartily. &quot;Yes! you’re a likely subject for that!&quot; he said. &quot;Poor Clem!&quot; Clemency for her part laughed as heartily as he, and seemed as much amused by the idea. &quot;Yes,&quot; she assented, &quot;I’m a likely subject for that; an’t I?&quot; &quot;You’ll never be married, you know,&quot; said Mr. Britain, resuming his pipe. &quot;Don’t you think I ever shall though?&quot; said Clemency, in perfect good faith. Mr. Britain shook his head. &quot;Not a chance of it!&quot; &quot;Only think!&quot; said Clemency. &quot;Well!—I suppose you mean to, Britain, one of these days; don’t you?&quot; A question so abrupt, upon a subject so momentous, required consideration. After blowing out a great cloud of smoke, and looking at it with his head now on this side and now on that, as if it were actually the question, and he were surveying it in various aspects, Mr. Britain replied that he wasn’t altogether clear about it, but—ye-es—he thought he might come to that at last. &quot;I wish her joy, whoever she may be!&quot; cried Clemency. &quot;Oh she’ll have that,&quot; said Benjamin, &quot;safe enough.&quot; &quot;But she wouldn’t have led quite such a joyful life as she will lead, and wouldn’t have had quite such a sociable sort of husband as she will have,&quot; said Clemency, spreading herself half over the table, and staring retrospectively at the candle, &quot;if it hadn’t been for—not that I went to do it, for it was accidental, I am sure—if it hadn’t been for me; now would she, Britain?&quot; &quot;Certainly not,&quot; returned Mr. Britain, by this time in that high state of appreciation of his pipe, when a man can open his mouth but a very little way for speaking purposes; and sitting luxuriously immovable in his chair, can afford to turn only his eyes towards a companion, and that very passively and gravely. &quot;Oh! I’m greatly beholden to you, you know, Clem.&quot; &quot;Lor, how nice that is to think of!&quot; said Clemency. At the same time, bringing her thoughts as well as her sight to bear upon the candle-grease, and becoming abruptly reminiscent of its healing qualities as a balsam, she anointed her left elbow with a plentiful application of that remedy. &quot;You see I’ve made a good many investigations of one sort and another in my time,&quot; pursued Mr. Britain, with the profundity of a sage, &quot;having been always of an inquiring turn of mind; and I’ve read a good many books about the general Rights of things and Wrongs of things, for I went into the literary line myself, when I began life.&quot; &quot;Did you though!&quot; cried the admiring Clemency. &quot;Yes,&quot; said Mr. Britain: &quot;I was hid for the best part of two years behind a bookstall, ready to fly out if anybody pocketed a volume; and after that, I was light porter to a stay and mantua maker, in which capacity I was employed to carry about, in oilskin baskets, nothing but deceptions—which soured my spirits and disturbed my confidence in human nature; and after that, I heard a world of discussions in this house, which soured my spirits fresh; and my opinion after all is, that, as a safe and comfortable sweetener of the same, and as a pleasant guide through life, there’s nothing like a nutmeg-grater.&quot; Clemency was about to offer a suggestion, but he stopped her by anticipating it. &quot;Com-bined,&quot; he added gravely, &quot;with a thimble.&quot; &quot;Do as you wold, you know, and cetrer, eh!&quot; observed Clemency, folding her arms comfortably in her delight at this avowal, and patting her elbows. &quot;Such a short cut, an’t it?&quot; &quot;I’m not sure,&quot; said Mr. Britain, &quot;that it’s what would be considered good philosophy. I’ve my doubts about that: but it wears well, and saves a quantity of snarling, which the genuine article don’t always.&quot; &quot;See how you used to go on once, yourself, you know!&quot; said Clemency. &quot;Ah!&quot; said Mr. Britain. &quot;But the most extraordinary thing, Clemmy, is that I should live to be brought round, through you. That’s the strange part of it. Through you! Why, I suppose you haven’t so much as half an idea in your head.&quot; Clemency, without taking the least offence, shook it, and laughed and hugged herself, and said, &quot;No, she didn’t suppose she had.&quot; &quot;I’m pretty sure of it,&quot; said Mr. Britain. &quot;Oh! I dare say you’re right,&quot; said Clemency. &quot;I don’t pretend to none. I don’t want any.&quot; Benjamin took his pipe from his lips, and laughed till the tears ran down his face. &quot;What a natural you are, Clemmy!&quot; he said, shaking his head, with an infinite relish of the joke, and wiping his eyes. Clemency, without the smallest inclination to dispute it, did the like, and laughed as heartily as he. &quot;I can’t help liking you,&quot; said Mr. Britain; &quot;you’re a regular good creature in your way, so shake hands, Clem. Whatever happens, I’ll always take notice of you, and be a friend to you.&quot; &quot;Will you?&quot; returned Clemency. &quot;Well! that’s very good of you.&quot; &quot;Yes, yes,&quot; said Mr. Britain, giving her his pipe to knock the ashes out of it; &quot;I’ll stand by you. Hark! That’s a curious noise!&quot; &quot;Noise!&quot; repeated Clemency. &quot;A footstep outside. Somebody dropping from the wall, it sounded like,&quot; said Britain. &quot;Are they all abed up-stairs?&quot; &quot;Yes, all abed by this time,&quot; she replied. &quot;Didn’t you hear anything?&quot; &quot;No.&quot; They both listened, but heard nothing. &quot;I tell you what,&quot; said Benjamin, taking down a lantern. &quot;I’ll have a look round, before I go to bed myself, for satisfaction’s sake. Undo the door while I light this, Clemmy.&quot; Clemency complied briskly; but observed as she did so, that he would only have his walk for his pains, that it was all his fancy, and so forth. Mr. Britain said &#039;very likely;&#039; but sallied out, nevertheless, armed with the poker, and casting the light of the lantern far and near in all directions. &quot;It’s as quiet as a churchyard,&quot; said Clemency, looking after him; &quot;and almost as ghostly too!&quot; Glancing back into the kitchen, she cried fearfully, as a light figure stole into her view, &quot;What’s that!&quot; &quot;Hush!&quot; said Marion in an agitated whisper. &quot;You have always loved me, have you not!&quot; &quot;Loved you, child! You may be sure I have.&quot; &quot;I am sure. And I may trust you, may I not? There is no one else just now, in whom I can trust.&quot; &quot;Yes,&quot; said Clemency, with all her heart. &quot;There is some one out there,&quot; pointing to the door, &quot;whom I must see, and speak with, to-night. Michael Warden, for God’s sake retire! Not now!&quot; Clemency started with surprise and trouble as, following the direction of the speaker’s eyes, she saw a dark figure standing in the doorway. &quot;In another moment you may be discovered,&quot; said Marion. &quot;Not now! Wait, if you can, in some concealment. I will come presently.&quot; He waved his hand to her, and was gone. &quot;Don’t go to bed. Wait here for me!&quot; said Marion, hurriedly. &quot;I have been seeking to speak to you for an hour past. Oh, be true to me!&quot; Eagerly seizing her bewildered hand, and pressing it with both her own to her breast—an action more expressive, in its passion of entreaty, than the most eloquent appeal in words,—Marion withdrew; as the light of the returning lantern flashed into the room. &quot;All still and peaceable. Nobody there. Fancy, I suppose,&quot; said Mr. Britain, as he locked and barred the door. &quot;One of the effects of having a lively imagination. Halloa! Why, what’s the matter?&quot; Clemency, who could not conceal the effects of her surprise and concern, was sitting in a chair: pale, and trembling from head to foot. &quot;Matter!&quot; she repeated, chafing her hands and elbows, nervously, and looking anywhere but at him. &quot;That’s good in you, Britain, that is! After going and frightening one out of one’s life with noises and lanterns, and I don’t know what all. Matter! Oh, yes!&quot; &quot;If you’re frightened out of your life by a lantern, Clemmy,&quot; said Mr. Britain, composedly blowing it out and hanging it up again, &quot;that apparition’s very soon got rid of. But you’re as bold as brass in general,&quot; he said, stopping to observe her; &quot;and were, after the noise and the lantern too. What have you taken into your head? Not an idea, eh?&quot; But as Clemency bade him good night very much after her usual fashion, and began to bustle about with a show of going to bed herself immediately, Little Britain, after giving utterance to the original remark that it was impossible to account for a woman’s whims, bade her good night in return, and taking up his candle strolled drowsily away to bed. When all was quiet, Marion returned. &quot;Open the door,&quot; she said; &quot;and stand there close beside me, while I speak to him, outside.&quot; Timid as her manner was, it still evinced a resolute and settled purpose, such as Clemency could not resist. She softly unbarred the door: but before turning the key, looked round on the young creature waiting to issue forth when she should open it. The face was not averted or cast down, but looking full upon her, in its pride of youth and beauty. Some simple sense of the slightness of the barrier that interposed itself between the happy home and honoured love of the fair girl, and what might be the desolation of that home, and shipwreck of its dearest treasure, smote so keenly on the tender heart of Clemency, and so filled it to overflowing with sorrow and compassion, that, bursting into tears, she threw her arms round Marion’s neck. &quot;It’s little that I know, my dear,&quot; cried Clemency, &quot;very little; but I know that this should not be. Think of what you do!&quot; &quot;I have thought of it many times,&quot; said Marion, gently. &quot;Once more,&quot; urged Clemency. &quot;Till to-morrow.&quot; Marion shook her head. &quot;For Mr. Alfred’s sake,&quot; said Clemency, with homely earnestness. &quot;Him that you used to love so dearly, once!&quot; She hid her face, upon the instant, in her hands, repeating &quot;Once!&quot; as if it rent her heart. &quot;Let me go out,&quot; said Clemency, soothing her. &quot;I’ll tell him what you like. Don’t cross the door-step to-night. I’m sure no good will come of it. Oh, it was an unhappy day when Mr. Warden was ever brought here! Think of your good father, darling: of your sister.&quot; &quot;I have,&quot; said Marion, hastily raising her head. &quot;You don’t know what I do. You don&#039;t know what I do. I must speak to him. You are the best and truest friend in all the world for what you have said to me, but I must take this step. Will you go with me, Clemency,&quot; she kissed her on her friendly face, &quot;or shall I go alone?&quot; Sorrowing and wondering, Clemency turned the key, and opened the door. Into the dark and doubtful night that lay beyond the threshold, Marion passed quickly, holding by her hand. In the dark night he joined her, and they spoke together earnestly and long: and the hand that held so fast by Clemency’s, now trembled, now turned deadly cold, now clasped and closed on hers, in the strong feeling of the speech it emphasized unconsciously. When they returned, he followed to the door; and pausing there a moment, seized the other hand, and pressed it to his lips. Then stealthily withdrew. The door was barred and locked again, and once again she stood beneath her father’s roof. Not bowed down by the secret that she brought there, though so young; but with that same expression on her face for which I had no name before, and shining through her tears. Again she thanked and thanked her humble friend, and trusted to her, as she said, with confidence, implicitly. Her chamber safely reached, she fell upon her knees; and with her secret weighing on her heart, could pray! Could rise up from her prayers, so tranquil and serene, and bending over her fond sister in her slumber, look upon her face and smile: though sadly: murmuring as she kissed her forehead, how that Grace had been a mother to her, ever, and she loved her as a child! Could draw the passive arm about her neck when lying down to rest—it seemed to cling there, of its own will, protectingly and tenderly even in sleep—and breathe upon the parted lips, God bless her! Could sink into a peaceful sleep, herself; but for one dream, in which she cried out, in her innocent and touching voice, that she was quite alone, and they had all forgotten her. A month soon passes, even at its tardiest pace. The month appointed to elapse between that night and the return, was quick of foot, and went by, like a vapour. The day arrived. A raging winter day, that shook the old house, sometimes, as if it shivered in the blast. A day to make home doubly home. To give the chimney corner new delights. To shed a ruddier glow upon the faces gathered round the hearth; and draw each fireside group into a closer and more social league, against the roaring elements without. Such a wild winter day as best prepares the way for shut-out night; for curtained rooms, and cheerful looks; for music, laughter, dancing, light, and jovial entertainment! All these the Doctor had in store to welcome Alfred back. They knew that he could not arrive till night; and they would make the night air ring, he said, as he approached. All his old friends should congregate about him. He should not miss a face that he had known and liked. No! They should every one be there! So, guests were bidden, and musicians were engaged, and tables spread, and floors prepared for active feet, and bountiful provision made, of every hospitable kind. Because it was the Christmas season, and his eyes were all unused to English holly, and its sturdy green, the dancing room was garlanded and hung with it; and the red berries gleamed an English welcome to him, peeping from among the leaves. It was a busy day for all of them: a busier day for none of them than Grace, who noiselessly presided everywhere, and was the cheerful mind of all the preparations. Many a time that day (as well as many a time within the fleeting month preceding it), did Clemency glance anxiously, and almost fearfully, at Marion. She saw her paler, perhaps, than usual; but there was a sweet composure on her face that made it lovelier than ever. At night when she was dressed, and wore upon her head a wreath that Grace had proudly twined about it—its mimic flowers were Alfred’s favourites, as Grace remembered when she chose them—that old expression, pensive, almost sorrowful, and yet so spiritual, high, and stirring, sat again upon her brow, enhanced a hundred fold. &quot;The next wreath I adjust on this fair head, will be a marriage wreath,&quot; said Grace; &quot;or I am no true prophet, dear.&quot; Her sister smiled, and held her in her arms. &quot;A moment, Grace. Don’t leave me yet. Are you sure that I want nothing more?&quot; Her care was not for that. It was her sister’s face she thought of, and her eyes were fixed upon it, tenderly. &quot;My art,&quot; said Grace, &quot;can go no farther, dear girl; nor your beauty. I never saw you look so beautiful as now.&quot; &quot;I never was so happy,&quot; she returned. &quot;Ay, but there is a greater happiness in store. In such another home, as cheerful and as bright as this looks now,&quot; said Grace, &quot;Alfred and his young wife will soon be living.&quot; She smiled again. &quot;It is a happy home, Grace, in your fancy. I can see it in your eyes. I know it will be happy, dear. How glad I am to know it.&quot; &quot;Well,&quot; cried the Doctor, bustling in. &quot;Here we are, all ready for Alfred, eh? He can’t be here until pretty late—an hour or so before midnight—so there’ll be plenty of time for making merry before he comes. He’ll not find us with the ice unbroken. Pile up the fire here, Britain! Let it shine upon the holly till it winks again. It’s a world of nonsense, Puss; true lovers and all the rest of it—all nonsense; but we’ll be nonsensical with the rest of ’em, and give our true lover a mad welcome. Upon my word!&quot; said the old Doctor, looking at his daughters proudly, &quot;I’m not clear to-night, among other absurdities, but that I’m the father of two handsome girls.&quot; &quot;All that one of them has ever done, or may do—may do, dearest father—to cause you pain or grief, forgive her,&quot; said Marion, &quot;forgive her now, when her heart is full. Say that you forgive her. That you will forgive her. That she shall always share your love, and—,&quot; and the rest was not said, for her face was hidden on the old man’s shoulder. &quot;Tut, tut, tut,&quot; said the Doctor gently. &quot;Forgive! What have I to forgive? Heyday, if our true lovers come back to flurry us like this, we must hold ’em at a distance; we must send expresses out to stop ’em short upon the road, and bring ’em on a mile or two a day, until we’re properly prepared to meet ’em. Kiss me, Puss. Forgive! Why, what a silly child you are! If you had vexed and crossed me fifty times a day, instead of not at all, I’d forgive you everything, but such a supplication. Kiss me again, Puss. There! Prospective and retrospective—a clear score between us. Pile up the fire here! Would you freeze the people on this bleak December night! Let us be light, and warm, and merry, or I’ll not forgive some of you!&quot; So gaily the old Doctor carried it! And the fire was piled up, and the lights were bright, and company arrived, and a murmuring of lively tongues began, and already there was a pleasant air of cheerful excitement stirring through all the house. More and more company came flocking in. Bright eyes sparkled upon Marion; smiling lips gave her joy of his return; sage mothers fanned themselves, and hoped she mightn’t be too youthful and inconstant for the quiet round of home; impetuous fathers fell into disgrace for too much exaltation of her beauty; daughters envied her; sons envied him; innumerable pairs of lovers profited by the occasion; all were interested, animated, and expectant. Mr. and Mrs. Craggs came arm in arm, but Mrs. Snitchey came alone. &quot;Why, what’s become of him?&quot; inquired the Doctor. The feather of a Bird of Paradise in Mrs. Snitchey’s turban, trembled as if the Bird of Paradise were alive again, when she said that doubtless Mr. Craggs knew. She was never told. &quot;That nasty office,&quot; said Mrs. Craggs. &quot;I wish it was burnt down,&quot; said Mrs. Snitchey. &quot;He’s—he’s—there’s a little matter of business that keeps my partner rather late,&quot; said Mr. Craggs, looking uneasily about him. &quot;Oh-h! Business. Don’t tell me!&quot; said Mrs. Snitchey. &quot;We know what business means,&quot; said Mrs. Craggs. But their not knowing what it meant, was perhaps the reason why Mrs. Snitchey’s Bird of Paradise feather quivered so portentously, and why all the pendant bits on Mrs. Craggs’s ear-rings shook like little bells. &quot;I wonder you could come away, Mr. Craggs,&quot; said his wife. &quot;Mr. Craggs is fortunate, I’m sure!&quot; said Mrs. Snitchey. &quot;That office so engrosses ’em,&quot; said Mrs. Craggs. &quot;A person with an office has no business to be married at all,&quot; said Mrs. Snitchey. Then, Mrs. Snitchey said, within herself, that that look of hers had pierced to Craggs’s soul, and he knew it; and Mrs. Craggs observed to Craggs, that &#039;is Snitcheys’ were deceiving him behind his back, and he would find it out when it was too late. Still, Mr. Craggs, without much heeding these remarks, looked uneasily about until his eye rested on Grace, to whom he immediately presented himself. &quot;Good evening, ma’am,&quot; said Craggs. &quot;You look charmingly. Your—Miss—your sister, Miss Marion, is she—&quot; &quot;Oh, she’s quite well, Mr. Craggs.&quot; &quot;Yes—I—is she here?&quot; asked Craggs. &quot;Here! Don’t you see her yonder? Going to dance?&quot; said Grace. Mr. Craggs put on his spectacles to see the better; looked at her through them, for some time; coughed; and put them, with an air of satisfaction, in their sheath again, and in his pocket. Now the music struck up, and the dance commenced. The bright fire crackled and sparkled, rose and fell, as though it joined the dance itself, in right good fellowship. Sometimes it roared as if it would make music too. Sometimes it flashed and beamed as if it were the eye of the old room: it winked too, sometimes, like a knowing patriarch, upon the youthful whisperers in corners. Sometimes, it sported with the holly-boughs; and, shining on the leaves by fits and starts, made them look as if they were in the cold winter night again, and fluttering in the wind. Sometimes its genial humour grew obstreperous, and passed all bounds; and then it cast into the room, among the twinkling feet, with a loud burst, a shower of harmless little sparks, and in its exultation leaped and bounded, like a mad thing, up the broad old chimney. Another dance was near its close, when Mr. Snitchey touched his partner, who was looking on, upon the arm. Mr. Craggs started, as if his familiar had been a spectre. &quot;Is he gone?&quot; he asked. &quot;Hush! He has been with me,&quot; said Snitchey, &quot;for three hours and more. He went over everything. He looked into all our arrangements for him, and was very particular indeed. He—Humph!&quot; The dance was finished. Marion passed close before him, as he spoke. She did not observe him, or his partner; but looked over her shoulder towards her sister in the distance, as she slowly made her way into the crowd, and passed out of their view. &quot;You see! All safe and well,&quot; said Mr. Craggs. &quot;He didn’t recur to that subject, I suppose?&quot; &quot;Not a word.&quot; &quot;And is he really gone? Is he safe away?&quot; &quot;He keeps to his word. He drops down the river with the tide in that shell of a boat of his, and so goes out to sea on this dark night—a dare-devil he is—before the wind. There’s no such lonely road anywhere else. That’s one thing. The tide flows, he says, an hour before midnight about this time. I’m glad it’s over.&quot; Mr. Snitchey wiped his forehead, which looked hot and anxious. &quot;What do you think,&quot; said Mr. Craggs, &quot;about—&quot; &quot;Hush!&quot; replied his cautious partner, looking straight before him. &quot;I understand you. Don’t mention names, and don’t let us seem to be talking secrets. I don’t know what to think; and to tell you the truth, I don’t care now. It’s a great relief. His self-love deceived him, I suppose. Perhaps the young lady coquetted a little. The evidence would seem to point that way. Alfred not arrived?&quot; &quot;Not yet,&quot; said Mr. Craggs. &quot;Expected every minute.&quot; &quot;Good.&quot; Mr. Snitchey wiped his forehead again. &quot;It’s a great relief. I haven’t been so nervous since we’ve been in partnership. I intend to spend the evening now, Mr. Craggs.&quot; Mrs. Craggs and Mrs. Snitchey joined them as he announced this intention. The Bird of Paradise was in a state of extreme vibration, and the little bells were ringing quite audibly. &quot;It has been the theme of general comment, Mr. Snitchey,&quot; said Mrs. Snitchey. &quot;I hope the office is satisfied.&quot; &quot;Satisfied with what, my dear?&quot; asked Mr. Snitchey. &quot;With the exposure of a defenceless woman to ridicule and remark,&quot; returned his wife. &quot;That is quite in the way of the office, that is.&quot; &quot;I really, myself,&quot; said Mrs. Craggs, &quot;have been so long accustomed to connect the office with everything opposed to domesticity, that I am glad to know it as the avowed enemy of my peace. There is something honest in that, at all events.&quot; &quot;My dear,&quot; urged Mr. Craggs, &quot;your good opinion is invaluable, but I never avowed that the office was the enemy of your peace.&quot; &quot;No,&quot; said Mrs. Craggs, ringing a perfect peal upon the little bells. &quot;Not you, indeed. You wouldn’t be worthy of the office, if you had the candor to.&quot; &quot;As to my having been away to-night, my dear,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, giving her his arm, &quot;the deprivation has been mine, I’m sure; but, as Mr. Craggs knows—&quot; Mrs. Snitchey cut this reference very short by hitching her husband to a distance, and asking him to look at that man. To do her the favour to look at him! &quot;At which man, my dear?&quot; said Mr. Snitchey. &quot;Your chosen companion; I’m no companion to you, Mr. Snitchey.&quot; &quot;Yes, yes, you are, my dear,&quot; he interposed. &quot;No, no, I’m not,&quot; said Mrs. Snitchey with a majestic smile. &quot;I know my station. Will you look at your chosen companion, Mr. Snitchey; at your referee, at the keeper of your secrets, at the man you trust; at your other self, in short?&quot; The habitual association of Self with Craggs, occasioned Mr. Snitchey to look in that direction. &quot;If you can look that man in the eye this night,&quot; said Mrs. Snitchey, &quot;and not know that you are deluded, practised upon: made the victim of his arts, and bent down prostrate to his will by some unaccountable fascination which it is impossible to explain, and against which no warning of mine is of the least avail: all I can say is—I pity you!&quot; At the very same moment Mrs. Craggs was oracular on the cross subject. Was it possible she said, that Craggs could so blind himself to his Snitcheys, as not to feel his true position? Did he mean to say that he had seen his Snitcheys come into that room, and didn’t plainly see that there was reservation, cunning, treachery, in the man? Would he tell her that his very action, when he wiped his forehead and looked so stealthily about him, didn’t show that there was something weighing on the conscience of his precious Snitcheys (if he had a conscience), that wouldn’t bear the light? Did anybody but his Snitcheys come to festive entertainments like a burglar?—which, by the way, was hardly a clear illustration of the case, as he had walked in very mildly at the door. And would he still assert to her at noon-day (it being nearly midnight), that his Snitcheys were to be justified through thick and thin, against all facts, and reason, and experience? Neither Snitchey nor Craggs openly attempted to stem the current which had thus set in, but, both were content to be carried gently along it, until its force abated; which happened at about the same time as a general movement for a country dance; when Mr. Snitchey proposed himself as a partner to Mrs. Craggs, and Mr. Craggs gallantly offered himself to Mrs. Snitchey; and after some such slight evasions as &quot;why don’t you ask somebody else?&quot; and &quot;you’ll be glad, I know, if I decline,&quot; and &quot;I wonder you can dance out of the office&quot; (but this jocosely now), each lady graciously accepted, and took her place. It was an old custom among them, indeed, to do so, and to pair off, in like manner, at dinners and suppers; for they were excellent friends, and on a footing of easy familiarity. Perhaps the false Craggs and the wicked Snitchey were a recognised fiction with the two wives, as Doe and Roe, incessantly running up and down bailiwicks, were with the two husbands: or, perhaps the ladies had instituted, and taken upon themselves, these two shares in the business, rather than be left out of it altogether. But, certain it is, that each wife went as gravely and steadily to work in her vocation as her husband did in his: and would have considered it almost impossible for the Firm to maintain a successful and respectable existence, without her laudable exertions. But now the Bird of Paradise was seen to flutter down the middle; and the little bells began to bounce and jingle in poussette; and the Doctor’s rosy face spun round and round, like an expressive pegtop highly varnished; and breathless Mr. Craggs began to doubt already, whether country dancing had been made &quot;too easy,&quot; like the rest of life; and Mr. Snitchey, with his nimble cuts and capers, footed it for Self and Craggs, and half a dozen more. Now, too, the fire took fresh courage, favored by the lively wind the dance awakened, and burnt clear and high. It was the Genius of the room, and present everywhere. It shone in people’s eyes, it sparkled in the jewels on the snowy necks of girls, it twinkled at their ears as if it whispered to them slyly, it flashed about their waists, it flickered on the ground and made it rosy for their feet, it bloomed upon the ceiling that its glow might set off their bright faces, and it kindled up a general illumination in Mrs. Craggs’s little belfry. Now, too, the lively air that fanned it, grew less gentle as the music quickened and the dance proceeded with new spirit; and a breeze arose that made the leaves and berries dance upon the wall, as they had often done upon the trees; and rustled in the room as if an invisible company of fairies, treading in the foot-steps of the good substantial revellers, were whirling after them. Now, too, no feature of the Doctor’s face could be distinguished as he spun and spun; and now there seemed a dozen Birds of Paradise in fitful flight; and now there were a thousand little bells at work; and now a fleet of flying skirts was ruffled by a little tempest; when the music gave in, and the dance was over. Hot and breathless as the Doctor was, it only made him the more impatient for Alfred’s coming. &quot;Anything been seen, Britain? Anything been heard?&quot; &quot;Too dark to see far, Sir. Too much noise inside the house to hear.&quot; &quot;That’s right! The gayer welcome for him. How goes the time?&quot; &quot;Just twelve, sir. He can’t be long, Sir.&quot; &quot;Stir up the fire, and throw another log upon it,&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;Let him see his welcome blazing out upon the night—good boy!—as he comes along!&quot; He saw it—Yes! From the chaise he caught the light, as he turned the corner by the old church. He knew the room from which it shone. He saw the wintry branches of the old trees between the light and him. He knew that one of those trees rustled musically in the summer time at the window of Marion’s chamber. The tears were in his eyes. His heart throbbed so violently that he could hardly bear his happiness. How often he had thought of this time—pictured it under all circumstances—feared that it might never come—yearned, and wearied for it—far away! Again the light! Distinct and ruddy; kindled, he knew, to give him welcome, and to speed him home. He beckoned with his hand, and waved his hat, and cheered out, loud, as if the light were they, and they could see and hear him, as he dashed towards them through the mud and mire, triumphantly. Stop! He knew the Doctor, and understood what he had done. He would not let it be a surprise to them. But he could make it one, yet, by going forward on foot. If the orchard-gate were open, he could enter there; if not, the wall was easily climbed, as he knew of old; and he would be among them in an instant. He dismounted from the chaise, and telling the driver—even that was not easy in his agitation—to remain behind for a few minutes, and then to follow slowly, ran on with exceeding swiftness, tried the gate, scaled the wall, jumped down on the other side, and stood panting in the old orchard. There was a frosty rime upon the trees, which, in the faint light of the clouded moon, hung upon the smaller branches like dead garlands. Withered leaves crackled and snapped beneath his feet, as he crept softly on towards the house. The desolation of a winter night sat brooding on the earth, and in the sky. But the red light came cheerily towards him from the windows; figures passed and repassed there; and the hum and murmur of voices greeted his ear sweetly. Listening for hers: attempting, as he crept on, to detach it from the rest, and half believing that he heard it: he had nearly reached the door, when it was abruptly opened, and a figure coming out encountered his. It instantly recoiled with a half-suppressed cry. &quot;Clemency,&quot; he said, &quot;don’t you know me?&quot; &quot;Don’t come in!&quot; she answered, pushing him back. &quot;Go away. Don’t ask me why. Don’t come in.&quot; &quot;What is the matter?&quot; he exclaimed. &quot;I don’t know. I—I am afraid to think. Go back. Hark!&quot; There was a sudden tumult in the house. She put her hands upon her ears. A wild scream, such as no hands could shut out, was heard; and Grace—distraction in her looks and manner—rushed out at the door. &quot;Grace!&quot; He caught her in his arms. &quot;What is it! Is she dead!&quot; She disengaged herself, as if to recognise his face, and fell down at his feet. A crowd of figures came about them from the house. Among them was her father, with a paper in his hand. &quot;What is it!&quot; cried Alfred, grasping his hair with his hands, and looking in an agony from face to face, as he bent upon his knee beside the insensible girl. &quot;Will no one look at me? Will no one speak to me? Does no one know me? Is there no voice among you all, to tell me what it is!&quot; There was a murmur among them. &quot;She is gone.&quot; &quot;Gone!&quot; he echoed. &quot;Fled, my dear Alfred!&quot; said the Doctor, in a broken voice, and with his hands before his face. &quot;Gone from her home and us. To-night! She writes that she has made her innocent and blameless choice—entreats that we will forgive her—prays that we will not forget her—and is gone.&quot; &quot;With whom? Where?&quot; He started up, as if to follow in pursuit; but, when they gave way to let him pass, looked wildly round upon them, staggered back, and sunk down in his former attitude, clasping one of Grace’s cold hands in his own. There was a hurried running to and fro, confusion, noise, disorder, and no purpose. Some proceeded to disperse themselves about the roads, and some took horse, and some got lights, and some conversed together, urging that there was no trace or track to follow. Some approached him kindly, with the view of offering consolation; some admonished him that Grace must be removed into the house, and that he prevented it. He never heard them, and he never moved. The snow fell fast and thick. He looked up for a moment in the air, and thought that those white ashes strewn upon his hopes and misery, were suited to them well. He looked round on the whitening ground, and thought how Marion’s foot-prints would be hushed and covered up, as soon as made, and even that remembrance of her blotted out. But he never felt the weather and he never stirred. Part the Third. The world had grown six years older since that night of the return. It was a warm autumn afternoon, and there had been heavy rain. The sun burst suddenly from among the clouds; and the old battle-ground, sparkling brilliantly and cheerfully at sight of it in one green place, flashed a responsive welcome there, which spread along the country side as if a joyful beacon had been lighted up, and answered from a thousand stations. How beautiful the landscape kindling in the light, and that luxuriant influence passing on like a celestial presence, brightening everything! The wood, a sombre mass before, revealed its varied tints of yellow, green, brown, red; its different forms of trees, with raindrops glittering on their leaves and twinkling as they fell. The verdant meadow-land, bright and glowing, seemed as if it had been blind a minute since, and now had found a sense of sight wherewith to look up at the shining sky. Corn-fields, hedge-rows, fences, homesteads, the clustered roofs, the steeple of the church, the stream, the watermill, all sprang out of the gloomy darkness, smiling. Birds sang sweetly, flowers raised their drooping heads, fresh scents arose from the invigorated ground; the blue expanse above, extended and diffused itself; already the sun’s slanting rays pierced mortally the sullen bank of cloud that lingered in its flight; and a rainbow, spirit of all the colors that adorned the earth and sky, spanned the whole arch with its triumphant glory. At such a time, one little roadside Inn, snugly sheltered behind a great elm-tree with a rare seat for idlers encircling its capacious bole, addressed a cheerful front towards the traveller, as a house of entertainment ought, and tempted him with many mute but significant assurances of a comfortable welcome. The ruddy sign-board perched up in the tree, with its golden letters winking in the sun, ogled the passer-by, from among the green leaves, like a jolly face, and promised good cheer. The horse-trough, full of clear fresh water, and the ground below it, sprinkled with droppings of fragrant hay, made every horse that passed prick up his ears. The crimson curtains in the lower rooms, and the pure white hangings in the little bed-chambers above, beckoned, Come in! with every breath of air. Upon the bright green shutters, there were golden legends about beer and ale, and neat wines, and good beds; and an affecting picture of a brown jug frothing over at the top. Upon the window-sills were flowering plants in bright red pots, which made a lively show against the white front of the house; and in the darkness of the doorway there were streaks of light, which glanced off from the surfaces of bottles and tankards. On the door-step, appeared a proper figure of a landlord, too; for though he was a short man, he was round and broad; and stood with his hands in his pockets, and his legs just wide enough apart to express a mind at rest upon the subject of the cellar, and an easy confidence—too calm and virtuous to become a swagger—in the general resources of the Inn. The superabundant moisture, trickling from everything after the late rain, set him off well. Nothing near him was thirsty. Certain top-heavy dahlias, looking over the palings of his neat well-ordered garden, had swilled as much as they could carry—perhaps a trifle more—and may have been the worse for liquor; but the sweetbriar, roses, wall-flowers, the plants at the windows, and the leaves on the old tree, were in the beaming state of moderate company that had taken no more than was wholesome for them, and had served to develope their best qualities. Sprinkling dewy drops about them on the ground, they seemed profuse of innocent and sparkling mirth, that did good where it lighted, softening neglected corners which the steady rain could seldom reach, and hurting nothing. This village Inn had assumed, on being established, an uncommon sign. It was called The Nutmeg-Grater. And underneath that household word, was inscribed, up in the tree, on the same flaming board, and in the like golden characters, By Benjamin Britain. At a second glance, and on a more minute examination of his face, you might have known that it was no other than Benjamin Britain himself who stood in the doorway—reasonably changed by time, but for the better; a very comfortable host indeed. &quot;Mrs. B.,&quot; said Mr. Britain, looking down the road, &quot;is rather late. It’s tea time.&quot; As there was no Mrs. Britain coming, he strolled leisurely out into the road and looked up at the house, very much to his satisfaction. &quot;It’s just the sort of house,&quot; said Benjamin, &quot;I should wish to stop at, if I didn’t keep it.&quot; Then he strolled towards the garden paling, and took a look at the dahlias. They looked over at him, with a helpless, drowsy hanging of their heads: which bobbed again, as the heavy drops of wet dripped off them. &quot;You must be looked after,&quot; said Benjamin. &quot;Memorandum, not to forget to tell her so. She’s a long time coming!&quot; Mr. Britain’s better half seemed to be by so very much his better half, that his own moiety of himself was utterly cast away and helpless without her. &quot;She hadn’t much to do, I think,&quot; said Ben. &quot;There were a few little matters of business after market, but not many. Oh! here we are at last!&quot; A chaise-cart, driven by a boy, came clattering along the road: and seated in it, in a chair, with a large well-saturated umbrella spread out to dry behind her, was the plump figure of a matronly woman, with her bare arms folded across a basket which she carried on her knee, several other baskets and parcels lying crowded around her, and a certain bright good-nature in her face and contented awkwardness in her manner, as she jogged to and fro with the motion of her carriage, which smacked of old times, even in the distance. Upon her nearer approach, this relish of bygone days was not diminished; and when the cart stopped at the Nutmeg Grater door, a pair of shoes, alighting from it, slipped nimbly through Mr. Britain’s open arms, and came down with a substantial weight upon the pathway, which shoes could hardly have belonged to any one but Clemency Newcome. In fact they did belong to her, and she stood in them, and a rosy comfortable-looking soul she was: with as much soap on her glossy face as in times of yore, but with whole elbows now, that had grown quite dimpled in her improved condition. &quot;You’re late, Clemmy!&quot; said Mr. Britain. &quot;Why, you see, Ben, I’ve had a deal to do!&quot; she replied, looking busily after the safe removal into the house of all the packages and baskets: &quot;eight, nine, ten—where’s eleven? Oh! my basket’s eleven! It’s all right. Put the horse up, Harry, and if he coughs again give him a warm mash to-night. Eight, nine, ten. Why, where’s eleven? Oh I forgot, it’s all right. How’s the children, Ben?&quot; &quot;Hearty, Clemmy, hearty.&quot; &quot;Bless their precious faces!&quot; said Mrs. Britain, unbonneting her own round countenance (for she and her husband were by this time in the bar), and smoothing her hair with her open hands. &quot;Give us a kiss, old man.&quot; Mr. Britain promptly complied. &quot;I think,&quot; said Mrs. Britain, applying herself to her pockets and drawing forth an immense bulk of thin books and crumpled papers, a very kennel of dogs’ ears: &quot;I’ve done everything. Bills all settled—turnips sold—brewer’s account looked into and paid—’bacco pipes ordered—seventeen pound four paid into the Bank—Doctor Heathfield’s charge for little Clem—you’ll guess what that is—Doctor Heathfield won’t take nothing again, Ben.&quot; &quot;I thought he wouldn’t,&quot; returned Ben. &quot;No. He says whatever family you was to have, Ben, he’d never put you to the cost of a halfpenny. Not if you was to have twenty.&quot; Mr. Britain’s face assumed a serious expression, and he looked hard at the wall. &quot;An’t it kind of him?&quot; said Clemency. &quot;Very,&quot; returned Mr. Britain. &quot;It’s the sort of kindness that I wouldn’t presume upon, on any account.&quot; &quot;No,&quot; retorted Clemency. &quot;Of course not. Then there’s the pony—he fetched eight pound two; and that an’t bad, is it?&quot; &quot;It’s very good,&quot; said Ben. &quot;I’m glad you’re pleased!&quot; exclaimed his wife. &quot;I thought you would be; and I think that’s all, and so no more at present from yours and cetrer, C. Britain. Ha ha ha! There! Take all the papers, and lock ’em. Oh! Wait a minute. Here’s a printed bill to stick on the wall. Wet from the printer’s. How nice it smells!&quot; &quot;What’s this?&quot; said Ben, looking over the document. &quot;I don’t know,&quot; replied his wife. &quot;I haven’t read a word of it.&quot; &quot;&#039;To be sold by Auction,&#039;&quot; read the host of the Nutmeg-Grater, &quot;&#039;unless previously disposed of by private contract.&#039;&quot; &quot;They always put that,&quot; said Clemency. &quot;Yes, but they don’t always put this,&quot; he returned. &quot;Look here, &#039;Mansion,&#039; &amp;c.—&#039;offices,&#039; &amp;c., &#039;shrubberies,&#039; &amp;c., &#039;ring fence,&#039; &amp;c. &#039;Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs,&#039; &amp;c. &#039;ornamental portion of the unencumbered freehold property of Michael Warden, Esquire, intending to continue to reside abroad&#039;!&quot; &quot;Intending to continue to reside abroad!&quot; repeated Clemency. &quot;Here it is,&quot; said Britain. &quot;Look!&quot; &quot;And it was only this very day that I heard it whispered at the old house, that better and plainer news had been half promised of her, soon!&quot; said Clemency, shaking her head sorrowfully, and patting her elbows as if the recollection of old times unconsciously awakened her old habits. &quot;Dear, dear, dear! There’ll be heavy hearts, Ben, yonder.&quot; Mr. Britain heaved a sigh, and shook his head, and said he couldn’t make it out: he had left off trying long ago. With that remark, he applied himself to putting up the bill just inside the bar window: and Clemency, after meditating in silence for a few moments, roused herself, cleared her thoughtful brow, and bustled off to look after the children. Though the host of the Nutmeg Grater had a lively regard for his good-wife, it was of the old patronising kind; and she amused him mightily. Nothing would have astonished him so much, as to have known for certain from any third party, that it was she who managed the whole house, and made him, by her plain straightforward thrift, good-humour, honesty, and industry, a thriving man. So easy it is, in any degree of life (as the world very often finds it,) to take those cheerful natures that never assert their merit, at their own modest valuation; and to conceive a flippant liking of people for their outward oddities and eccentricities, whose innate worth, if we would look so far, might make us blush in the comparison! It was comfortable to Mr. Britain, to think of his own condescension in having married Clemency. She was a perpetual testimony to him of the goodness of his heart, and the kindness of his disposition; and he felt that her being an excellent wife was an illustration of the old precept that virtue is its own reward. He had finished wafering up the bill, and had locked the vouchers for her day’s proceedings in the cupboard—chuckling all the time, over her capacity for business—when, returning with the news that the two Master Britains were playing in the coach-house under the superintendence of one Betsey, and that little Clem was sleeping &quot;like a picture,&quot; she sat down to tea, which had awaited her arrival, on a little table. It was a very neat little bar, with the usual display of bottles and glasses; a sedate clock, right to the minute (it was half-past five); everything in its place, and everything furbished and polished up to the very utmost. &quot;It’s the first time I’ve sat down quietly to-day, I declare,&quot; said Mrs. Britain, taking a long breath, as if she had sat down for the night; but getting up again immediately to hand her husband his tea, and cut him his bread-and-butter; &quot;how that bill does set me thinking of old times!&quot; &quot;Ah!&quot; said Mr. Britain, handling his saucer like an oyster, and disposing of its contents on the same principle. &quot;That same Mr. Michael Warden,&quot; said Clemency, shaking her head at the notice of sale, &quot;lost me my old place.&quot; &quot;And got you your husband,&quot; said Mr. Britain. &quot;Well! So he did,&quot; retorted Clemency, &quot;and many thanks to him.&quot; &quot;Man’s the creature of habit,&quot; said Mr. Britain, surveying her, over his saucer. &quot;I had somehow got used to you, Clem; and I found I shouldn’t be able to get on without you. So we went and got made man and wife. Ha! ha! We! Who’d have thought it!&quot; &quot;Who indeed!&quot; cried Clemency. &quot;It was very good of you, Ben.&quot; &quot;No, no, no,&quot; replied Mr. Britain, with an air of self-denial. &quot;Nothing worth mentioning.&quot; &quot;Oh yes it was, Ben,&quot; said his wife, with great simplicity; &quot;I’m sure I think so, and am very much obliged to you. Ah!&quot; looking again at the bill; &quot;when she was known to be gone, and out of reach, dear girl, I couldn’t help telling—for her sake quite as much as theirs—what I knew, could I?&quot; &quot;You told it, anyhow,&quot; observed her husband. &quot;And Doctor Jeddler,&quot; pursued Clemency, putting down her tea-cup, and looking thoughtfully at the bill, &quot;in his grief and passion, turned me out of house and home! I never have been so glad of anything in all my life, as that I didn’t say an angry word to him, and hadn’t any angry feeling towards him, even then; for he repented that truly, afterwards. How often he has sat in this room, and told me over and over again he was sorry for it!—the last time, only yesterday, when you were out. How often he has sat in this room, and talked to me, hour after hour, about one thing and another, in which he made believe to be interested!—but only for the sake of the days that are gone by, and because he knows she used to like me, Ben!&quot; &quot;Why, how did you ever come to catch a glimpse of that, Clem?&quot; asked her husband: astonished that she should have a distinct perception of a truth which had only dimly suggested itself to his inquiring mind. &quot;I don’t know, I’m sure,&quot; said Clemency, blowing her tea, to cool it. &quot;Bless you, I couldn’t tell you, if you was to offer me a reward of a hundred pound.&quot; He might have pursued this metaphysical subject but for her catching a glimpse of a substantial fact behind him, in the shape of a gentleman attired in mourning, and cloaked and booted like a rider on horseback, who stood at the bar-door. He seemed attentive to their conversation, and not at all impatient to interrupt it. Clemency hastily rose at this sight. Mr. Britain also rose and saluted the guest. &quot;Will you please to walk up-stairs, Sir? There’s a very nice room up-stairs, sir.&quot; &quot;Thank you,&quot; said the stranger, looking earnestly at Mr. Britain’s wife. &quot;May I come in here?&quot; &quot;Oh, surely, if you like, Sir,&quot; returned Clemency, admitting him. &quot;What would you please to want, Sir?&quot; The bill had caught his eye, and he was reading it. &quot;Excellent property that, Sir,&quot; observed Mr. Britain. He made no answer; but turning round, when he had finished reading, looked at Clemency with the same observant curiosity as before. &quot;You were asking me,&quot; he said, still looking at her,— &quot;What you would please to take, Sir,&quot; answered Clemency, stealing a glance at him in return. &quot;If you will let me have a draught of ale,&quot; he said, moving to a table by the window, &quot;and will let me have it here, without being any interruption to your meal, I shall be much obliged to you.&quot; He sat down as he spoke, without any further parley, and looked out at the prospect. He was an easy, well-knit figure of a man in the prime of life. His face, much browned by the sun, was shaded by a quantity of dark hair; and he wore a moustache. His beer being set before him, he filled out a glass, and drank, good-humouredly, to the house; adding, as he put the tumbler down again: &quot;It’s a new house, is it not?&quot; &quot;Not particularly new, Sir,&quot; replied Mr. Britain. &quot;Between five and six years old,&quot; said Clemency; speaking very distinctly. &quot;I think I heard you mention Doctor Jeddler’s name, as I came in,&quot; inquired the stranger. &quot;That bill reminds me of him; for I happen to know something of that story, by hearsay, and through certain connexions of mine.—Is the old man living?&quot; &quot;Yes, he’s living, Sir,&quot; said Clemency. &quot;Much changed?&quot; &quot;Since when, Sir?&quot; returned Clemency, with remarkable emphasis and expression. &quot;Since his daughter—went away.&quot; &quot;Yes! he’s greatly changed since then,&quot; said Clemency. &quot;He’s grey and old, and hasn’t the same way with him at all; but I think he’s happy now. He has taken on with his sister since then, and goes to see her very often. That did him good, directly. At first, he was sadly broken down; and it was enough to make one’s heart bleed, to see him wandering about, railing at the world; but a great change for the better came over him after a year or two, and then he began to like to talk about his lost daughter, and to praise her, ay and the world too! and was never tired of saying, with the tears in his poor eyes, how beautiful and good she was. He had forgiven her then. That was about the same time as Miss Grace’s marriage. Britain, you remember?&quot; Mr. Britain remembered very well. &quot;The sister is married then,&quot; returned the stranger. He paused for some time before he asked, &quot;To whom?&quot; Clemency narrowly escaped oversetting the tea-board, in her emotion at this question. &quot;Did you never hear?&quot; she said. &quot;I should like to hear,&quot; he replied, as he filled his glass again, and raised it to his lips. &quot;Ah! It would be a long story, if it was properly told,&quot; said Clemency, resting her chin on the palm of her left hand, and supporting that elbow on her right hand, as she shook her head, and looked back through the intervening years, as if she were looking at a fire. &quot;It would be a long story, I am sure.&quot; &quot;But told as a short one,&quot; suggested the stranger. &quot;Told as a short one,&quot; repeated Clemency in the same thoughtful tone, and without any apparent reference to him, or consciousness of having auditors, &quot;what would there be to tell? That they grieved together, and remembered her together, like a person dead; that they were so tender of her, never would reproach her, called her back to one another as she used to be, and found excuses for her? Every one knows that. I’m sure I do. No one better,&quot; added Clemency, wiping her eyes with her hand. &quot;And so,&quot; suggested the stranger. &quot;And so,&quot; said Clemency, taking him up mechanically, and without any change in her attitude or manner, &quot;they at last were married. They were married on her birth-day—it comes round again to-morrow—very quiet, very humble like, but very happy. Mr. Alfred said, one night when they were walking in the orchard, &#039;Grace, shall our wedding-day be Marion’s birth-day?&#039; And it was.&quot; &quot;And they have lived happily together?&quot; said the stranger. &quot;Ay,&quot; said Clemency. &quot;No two people ever more so. They have had no sorrow but this.&quot; She raised her head as with a sudden attention to the circumstances under which she was recalling these events, and looked quickly at the stranger. Seeing that his face was turned toward the window, and that he seemed intent upon the prospect, she made some eager signs to her husband, and pointed to the bill, and moved her mouth as if she were repeating with great energy, one word or phrase to him over and over again. As she uttered no sound, and as her dumb motions like most of her gestures were of a very extraordinary kind, this unintelligible conduct reduced Mr. Britain to the confines of despair. He stared at the table, at the stranger, at the spoons, at his wife—followed her pantomime with looks of deep amazement and perplexity—asked in the same language, was it property in danger, was it he in danger, was it she—answered her signals with other signals expressive of the deepest distress and confusion—followed the motions of her lips—guessed half aloud &quot;milk and water,&quot; &quot;monthly warning,&quot; &quot;mice and walnuts&quot;—and couldn’t approach her meaning. Clemency gave it up at last, as a hopeless attempt; and moving her chair by very slow degrees a little nearer to the stranger, sat with her eyes apparently cast down but glancing sharply at him now and then, waiting until he should ask some other question. She had not to wait long; for he said, presently: &quot;And what is the after history of the young lady who went away? They know it, I suppose?&quot; Clemency shook her head. &quot;I’ve heard,&quot; she said, &quot;that Doctor Jeddler is thought to know more of it than he tells. Miss Grace has had letters from her sister, saying that she was well and happy, and made much happier by her being married to Mr. Alfred: and has written letters back. But there’s a mystery about her life and fortunes, altogether, which nothing has cleared up to this hour, and which—&quot; She faultered here, and stopped. &quot;And which&quot;—repeated the stranger. &quot;Which only one other person, I believe, could explain,&quot; said Clemency, drawing her breath quickly. &quot;Who may that be?&quot; asked the stranger. &quot;Mr. Michael Warden!&quot; answered Clemency, almost in a shriek: at once conveying to her husband what she would have had him understand before, and letting Michael Warden know that he was recognised. &quot;You remember me, sir?&quot; said Clemency, trembling with emotion; &quot;I saw just now you did! You remember me, that night in the garden. I was with her!&quot; &quot;Yes. You were,&quot; he said. &quot;Yes, sir,&quot; returned Clemency. &quot;Yes, to be sure. This is my husband, if you please. Ben, my dear Ben, run to Miss Grace—run to Mr. Alfred—run somewhere, Ben! Bring somebody here, directly!&quot; &quot;Stay!&quot; said Michael Warden, quietly interposing himself between the door and Britain. &quot;What would you do?&quot; &quot;Let them know that you are here, Sir,&quot; answered Clemency, clapping her hands in sheer agitation. &quot;Let them know that they may hear of her, from your own lips; let them know that she is not quite lost to them, but that she will come home again yet, to bless her father and her loving sister—even her old servant, even me,&quot; she struck herself upon the breast with both hands, &quot;with a sight of her sweet face. Run, Ben, run!&quot; And still she pressed him on towards the door, and still Mr. Warden stood before it, with his hand stretched out, not angrily, but sorrowfully. &quot;Or perhaps,&quot; said Clemency, running past her husband, and catching in her emotion at Mr. Warden’s cloak, &quot;perhaps she’s here now; perhaps she’s close by. I think from your manner she is. Let me see her, Sir, if you please. I waited on her when she was a little child. I saw her grow to be the pride of all this place. I knew her when she was Mr. Alfred’s promised wife. I tried to warn her when you tempted her away. I know what her old home was when she was like the soul of it, and how it changed when she was gone and lost. Let me speak to her, if you please!&quot; He gazed at her with compassion, not unmixed with wonder: but he made no gesture of assent. &quot;I don’t think she can know,&quot; pursued Clemency, &quot;how truly they forgive her; how they love her; what joy it would be to them, to see her once more. She may be timorous of going home. Perhaps if she sees me, it may give her new heart. Only tell me truly, Mr. Warden, is she with you?&quot; &quot;She is not,&quot; he answered, shaking his head. This answer, and his manner, and his black dress, and his coming back so quietly, and his announced intention of continuing to live abroad, explained it all. Marion was dead. He didn’t contradict her; yes, she was dead! Clemency sat down, hid her face upon the table, and cried. At that moment, a grey-headed old gentleman came running in: quite out of breath, and panting so much that his voice was scarcely to be recognised as the voice of Mr. Snitchey. &quot;Good Heaven, Mr. Warden!&quot; said the lawyer, taking him aside, &quot;what wind has blown—&quot; He was so blown himself, that he couldn’t get on any further until after a pause, when he added, feebly, &quot;you here?&quot; &quot;An ill-wind, I am afraid,&quot; he answered. &quot;If you could have heard what has just passed—how I have been besought and entreated to perform impossibilities—what confusion and affliction I carry with me!&quot; &quot;I can guess it all. But why did you ever come here, my good Sir?&quot; retorted Snitchey. &quot;Come! How should I know who kept the house? When I sent my servant on to you, I strolled in here because the place was new to me; and I had a natural curiosity in everything new and old, in these old scenes; and it was outside the town. I wanted to communicate with you first, before appearing there. I wanted to know what people would say to me. I see by your manner that you can tell me. If it were not for your confounded caution, I should have been possessed of everything long ago.&quot; &quot;Our caution!&quot; returned the lawyer, &quot;speaking for Self and Craggs—deceased,&quot; here Mr. Snitchey, glancing at his hat-band, shook his head, &quot;how can you reasonably blame us, Mr. Warden? It was understood between us that the subject was never to be renewed, and that it wasn’t a subject on which grave and sober men like us (I made a note of your observations at the time) could interfere. Our caution too! When Mr. Craggs, Sir, went down to his respected grave in the full belief—&quot; &quot;I had given a solemn promise of silence until I should return, whenever that might be,&quot; interrupted Mr. Warden; &quot;and I have kept it.&quot; &quot;Well, Sir, and I repeat it,&quot; returned Mr. Snitchey, &quot;we were bound to silence too. We were bound to silence in our duty towards ourselves, and in our duty towards a variety of clients, you among them, who were as close as wax. It was not our place to make inquiries of you on such a delicate subject. I had my suspicions, Sir; but, it is not six months since I have known the truth, and been assured that you lost her.&quot; &quot;By whom?&quot; inquired his client. &quot;By Doctor Jeddler himself, sir, who at last reposed that confidence in me voluntarily. He, and only he, has known the whole truth, years and years.&quot; &quot;And you know it?&quot; said his client. &quot;I do, Sir!&quot; replied Snitchey; &quot;and I have also reason to know that it will be broken to her sister to-morrow evening. They have given her that promise. In the meantime, perhaps you’ll give me the honor of your company at my house; being unexpected at your own. But, not to run the chance of any more such difficulties as you have had here, in case you should be recognised—though you’re a good deal changed—I think I might have passed you myself, Mr. Warden—we had better dine here, and walk on in the evening. It’s a very good place to dine at, Mr. Warden: your own property, by the bye. Self and Craggs (deceased) took a chop here sometimes, and had it very comfortably served. Mr. Craggs, Sir,&quot; said Snitchey, shutting his eyes tight for an instant, and opening them again, &quot;was struck off the roll of life too soon.&quot; &quot;Heaven forgive me for not condoling with you,&quot; returned Michael Warden, passing his hand across his forehead, &quot;but I’m like a man in a dream at present. I seem to want my wits. Mr. Craggs—yes—I am very sorry we have lost Mr. Craggs.&quot; But he looked at Clemency as he said it, and seemed to sympathise with Ben, consoling her. &quot;Mr. Craggs, Sir,&quot; observed Snitchey, &quot;didn’t find life, I regret to say, as easy to have and to hold as his theory made it out, or he would have been among us now. It’s a great loss to me. He was my right arm, my right leg, my right ear, my right eye, was Mr. Craggs. I am paralytic without him. He bequeathed his share of the business to Mrs. Craggs, her executors, administrators, and assigns. His name remains in the Firm to this hour. I try, in a childish sort of a way, to make believe, sometimes, that he’s alive. You may observe that I speak for Self and Craggs—deceased Sir—deceased,&quot; said the tender-hearted attorney, waving his pocket-handkerchief. Michael Warden, who had still been observant of Clemency, turned to Mr. Snitchey when he ceased to speak, and whispered in his ear. &quot;Ah, poor thing!&quot; said Snitchey, shaking his head. &quot;Yes. She was always very faithful to Marion. She was always very fond of her. Pretty Marion! Poor Marion! Cheer up, Mistress—you are married now, you know, Clemency.&quot; Clemency only sighed, and shook her head. &quot;Well, well! Wait till to-morrow,&quot; said the lawyer, kindly. &quot;To-morrow can’t bring back the dead to life, Mister,&quot; said Clemency, sobbing. &quot;No. It can’t do that, or it would bring back Mr. Craggs, deceased,&quot; returned the lawyer. &quot;But it may bring some soothing circumstances; it may bring some comfort. Wait till to-morrow!&quot; So Clemency, shaking his proffered hand, said she would; and Britain, who had been terribly cast down at sight of his despondent wife (which was like the business hanging its head), said that was right; and Mr. Snitchey and Michael Warden went up stairs; and there they were soon engaged in a conversation so cautiously conducted, that no murmur of it was audible above the clatter of plates and dishes, the hissing of the frying-pan, the bubbling of saucepans, the low monotonous waltzing of the Jack—with a dreadful click every now and then as if it had met with some mortal accident to its head, in a fit of giddiness—and all the other preparations in the kitchen, for their dinner. To-morrow was a bright and peaceful day; and nowhere were the autumn tints more beautifully seen, than from the quiet orchard of the Doctor’s house. The snows of many winter nights had melted from that ground, the withered leaves of many summer times had rustled there, since she had fled. The honey-suckle porch was green again, the trees cast bountiful and changing shadows on the grass, the landscape was as tranquil and serene as it had ever been; but where was she! Not there. Not there. She would have been a stranger sight in her old home now, even than that home had been at first, without her. But a lady sat in the familiar place, from whose heart she had never passed away; in whose true memory she lived, unchanging, youthful, radiant with all promise and all hope; in whose affection—and it was a mother’s now: there was a cherished little daughter playing by her side—she had no rival, no successor; upon whose gentle lips her name was trembling then. The spirit of the lost girl looked out of those eyes. Those eyes of Grace, her sister, sitting with her husband in the orchard, on their wedding-day, and his and Marion’s birth-day. He had not become a great man; he had not grown rich; he had not forgotten the scenes and friends of his youth; he had not fulfilled any one of the Doctor’s old predictions. But in his useful, patient, unknown visiting of poor men’s homes; and in his watching of sick beds; and in his daily knowledge of the gentleness and goodness flowering the bye-paths of the world, not to be trodden down beneath the heavy foot of poverty, but springing up, elastic, in its track, and making its way beautiful; he had better learned and proved, in each succeeding year, the truth of his old faith. The manner of his life, though quiet and remote, had shown him how often men still entertained angels, unawares, as in the olden time; and how the most unlikely forms—even some that were mean and ugly to the view, and poorly clad—became irradiated by the couch of sorrow, want, and pain, and changed to ministering spirits with a glory round their heads. He lived to better purpose on the altered battle-ground perhaps, than if he had contended restlessly in more ambitious lists; and he was happy with his wife, dear Grace. And Marion. Had he forgotten her? &quot;The time has flown, dear Grace,&quot; he said, &quot;since then;&quot; they had been talking of that night; &quot;and yet it seems a long long while ago. We count by changes and events within us. Not by years.&quot; &quot;Yet we have years to count by, too, since Marion was with us,&quot; returned Grace. &quot;Six times, dear husband, counting to-night as one, we have sat here on her birth-day, and spoken together of that happy return, so eagerly expected and so long deferred. Ah when will it be! When will it be!&quot; Her husband attentively observed her, as the tears collected in her eyes; and drawing nearer, said: &quot;But, Marion told you, in that farewell letter which she left for you upon your table, love, and which you read so often, that years must pass away before it could be. Did she not?&quot; She took a letter from her breast, and kissed it, and said &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;That through these intervening years, however happy she might be, she would look forward to the time when you would meet again, and all would be made clear: and prayed you, trustfully and hopefully to do the same. The letter runs so, does it not, my dear?&quot; &quot;Yes, Alfred.&quot; &quot;And every other letter she has written since?&quot; &quot;Except the last—some months ago—in which she spoke of you, and what you then knew, and what I was to learn to-night.&quot; He looked towards the sun, then fast declining, and said that the appointed time was sunset. &quot;Alfred!&quot; said Grace, laying her hand upon his shoulder earnestly, &quot;there is something in this letter—this old letter, which you say I read so often—that I have never told you. But to-night, dear husband, with that sunset drawing near, and all our life seeming to soften and become hushed with the departing day, I cannot keep it secret.&quot; &quot;What is it, love?&quot; &quot;When Marion went away, she wrote me, here, that you had once left her a sacred trust to me, and that now she left you, Alfred, such a trust in my hands: praying and beseeching me, as I loved her, and as I loved you, not to reject the affection she believed (she knew, she said) you would transfer to me when the new wound was healed, but to encourage and return it.’ &quot;—And make me a proud, and happy man again, Grace. Did she say so?&quot; &quot;She meant, to make myself so blest and honored in your love,&quot; was his wife’s answer, as he held her in his arms. &quot;Hear me, my dear!&quot; he said.—&quot;No. Hear me so!&quot;—and as he spoke, he gently laid the head she had raised, again upon his shoulder. &quot;I know why I have never heard this passage in the letter, until now. I know why no trace of it ever showed itself in any word or look of yours at that time. I know why Grace, although so true a friend to me, was hard to win to be my wife. And knowing it, my own! I know the priceless value of the heart I gird within my arms, and thank GOD for the rich possession!&quot; She wept, but not for sorrow, as he pressed her to his heart. After a brief space, he looked down at the child, who was sitting at their feet, playing with a little basket of flowers, and bade her look how golden and how red the sun was. &quot;Alfred,&quot; said Grace, raising her head quickly at these words. &quot;The sun is going down. You have not forgotten what I am to know before it sets.&quot; &quot;You are to know the truth of Marion’s history, my love,&quot; he answered. &quot;All the truth,&quot; she said, imploringly. &quot;Nothing veiled from me, any more. That was the promise. Was it not?&quot; &quot;It was,&quot; he answered. &quot;Before the sun went down on Marion’s birth-day. And you see it, Alfred? It is sinking fast.&quot; He put his arm about her waist; and, looking steadily into her eyes, rejoined: &quot;That truth is not reserved so long for me to tell, dear Grace. It is to come from other lips.&quot; &quot;From other lips!&quot; she faintly echoed. &quot;Yes. I know your constant heart, I know how brave you are, I know that to you a word of preparation is enough. You have said, truly, that the time is come. It is. Tell me that you have present fortitude to bear a trial—a surprise—a shock: and the messenger is waiting at the gate.&quot; &quot;What messenger?&quot; she said. &quot;And what intelligence does he bring?&quot; &quot;I am pledged,&quot; he answered her, preserving his steady look, &quot;to say no more. Do you think you understand me?&quot; &quot;I am afraid to think,&quot; she said. There was that emotion in his face, despite its steady gaze, which frightened her. Again she hid her own face on his shoulder, trembling, and entreated him to pause—a moment. &quot;Courage, my wife! When you have firmness to receive the messenger, the messenger is waiting at the gate. The sun is setting on Marion’s birth-day. Courage, courage, Grace!&quot; She raised her head, and, looking at him, told him she was ready. As she stood, and looked upon him going away, her face was so like Marion’s as it had been in her later days at home, that it was wonderful to see. He took the child with him. She called her back—she bore the lost girl’s name—and pressed her to her bosom. The little creature, being released again, sped after him, and Grace was left alone. She knew not what she dreaded, or what hoped; but remained there, motionless, looking at the porch by which they had disappeared. Ah! what was that, emerging from its shadow; standing on its threshold! That figure, with its white garments rustling in the evening air; its head laid down upon her father’s breast, and pressed against it to his loving heart! O God! was it a vision that came bursting from the old man’s arms, and with a cry, and with a waving of its hands, and with a wild precipitation of itself upon her in its boundless love, sank down in her embrace! &quot;Oh, Marion, Marion! Oh, my sister! Oh, my heart’s dear love! Oh, joy and happiness unutterable, so to meet again!&quot; It was no dream, no phantom conjured up by hope and fear, but Marion, sweet Marion! So beautiful, so happy, so unalloyed by care and trial, so elevated and exalted in her loveliness, that as the setting sun shone brightly on her upturned face, she might have been a spirit visiting the earth upon some healing mission. Clinging to her sister, who had dropped upon a seat and bent down over her: and smiling through her tears, and kneeling close before her, with both arms twining round her, and never turning for an instant from her face: and with the glory of the setting sun upon her brow, and with the soft tranquillity of evening gathering around them: Marion at length broke silence; her voice, so calm, low, clear, and pleasant, well-tuned to the time. &quot;When this was my dear home, Grace, as it will be now again—&quot; &quot;Stay, my sweet love! A moment! O Marion, to hear you speak again.&quot; She could not bear the voice she loved so well, at first. &quot;When this was my dear home, Grace, as it will be now again, I loved him from my soul. I loved him most devotedly. I would have died for him, though I was so young. I never slighted his affection in my secret breast for one brief instant. It was far beyond all price to me. Although it is so long ago, and past, and gone, and everything is wholly changed, I could not bear to think that you, who love so well, should think I did not truly love him once. I never loved him better, Grace, than when he left this very scene upon this very day. I never loved him better, dear one, than I did that night when I left here.&quot; Her sister, bending over her, could look into her face, and hold her fast. &quot;But he had gained, unconsciously,&quot; said Marion, with a gentle smile, &quot;another heart, before I knew that I had one to give him. That heart—yours, my sister—was so yielded up, in all its other tenderness, to me; was so devoted, and so noble; that it plucked its love away, and kept its secret from all eyes but mine—Ah! what other eyes were quickened by such tenderness and gratitude!—and was content to sacrifice itself to me. But I knew something of its depths. I knew the struggle it had made. I knew its high, inestimable worth to him, and his appreciation of it, let him love me as he would. I knew the debt I owed it. I had its great example every day before me. What you had done for me, I knew that I could do, Grace, if I would, for you. I never laid my head down on my pillow, but I prayed with tears to do it. I never laid my head down on my pillow, but I thought of Alfred’s own words on the day of his departure, and how truly he had said (for I knew that, by you) that there were victories gained every day, in struggling hearts, to which these fields of battle were nothing. Thinking more and more upon the great endurance cheerfully sustained, and never known or cared for, that there must be, every day and hour, in that great strife of which he spoke, my trial seemed to grow light and easy: and He who knows our hearts, my dearest, at this moment, and who knows there is no drop of bitterness or grief—of anything but unmixed happiness—in mine, enabled me to make the resolution that I never would be Alfred’s wife. That he should be my brother, and your husband, if the course I took could bring that happy end to pass; but that I never would (Grace, I then loved him dearly, dearly!) be his wife!&quot; &quot;Oh, Marion! oh, Marion!&quot; &quot;I had tried to seem indifferent to him;&quot; and she pressed her sister’s face against her own; &quot;but that was hard, and you were always his true advocate. I had tried to tell you of my resolution, but you would never hear me; you would never understand me. The time was drawing near for his return. I felt that I must act, before the daily intercourse between us was renewed. I knew that one great pang, undergone at that time, would save a lengthened agony to all of us. I knew that if I went away then, that end must follow which has followed, and which has made us both so happy, Grace! I wrote to good Aunt Martha, for a refuge in her house: I did not then tell her all, but something of my story, and she freely promised it. While I was contesting that step with myself, and with my love of you, and home, Mr. Warden, brought here by an accident, became, for some time, our companion.&quot; &quot;I have sometimes feared of late years, that this might have been,&quot; exclaimed her sister; and her countenance was ashy-pale. &quot;You never loved him—and you married him in your self-sacrifice to me!&quot; &quot;He was then,&quot; said Marion, drawing her sister closer to her, &quot;on the eve of going secretly away for a long time. He wrote to me, after leaving here; told me what his condition and prospects really were; and offered me his hand. He told me he had seen I was not happy in the prospect of Alfred’s return. I believe he thought my heart had no part in that contract; perhaps thought I might have loved him once, and did not then; perhaps thought that when I tried to seem indifferent, I tried to hide indifference—I cannot tell. But I wished that you should feel me wholly lost to Alfred—hopeless to him—dead. Do you understand me, love?&quot; Her sister looked into her face, attentively. She seemed in doubt. &quot;I saw Mr. Warden, and confided in his honour; charged him with my secret, on the eve of his and my departure. He kept it. Do you understand me, dear?&quot; Grace looked confusedly upon her. She scarcely seemed to hear. &quot;My love, my sister!&quot; said Marion, &quot;recall your thoughts a moment; listen to me. Do not look so strangely on me. There are countries, dearest, where those who would abjure a misplaced passion, or would strive, against some cherished feeling of their hearts and conquer it, retire into a hopeless solitude, and close the world against themselves and worldly loves and hopes for ever. When women do so, they assume that name which is so dear to you and me, and call each other Sisters. But, there may be sisters, Grace, who, in the broad world out of doors, and underneath its free sky, and in its crowded places and among its busy life, and trying to assist and cheer it and to do some good,—learn the same lesson; and, with hearts still fresh and young, and open to all happiness and means of happiness, can say the battle is long past, the victory long won. And such a one am I! You understand me now?&quot; Still she looked fixedly upon her, and made no reply. &quot;Oh Grace, dear Grace,&quot; said Marion, clinging yet more tenderly and fondly to that breast from which she had been so long exiled, &quot;if you were not a happy wife and mother—if I had no little namesake here—if Alfred, my kind brother, were not your own fond husband—from whence could I derive the ecstasy I feel to-night! But, as I left here, so I have returned. My heart has known no other love, my hand has never been bestowed apart from it. I am still your maiden sister: unmarried, unbetrothed: your own loving old Marion, in whose affection you exist alone, and have no partner, Grace!&quot; She understood her now. Her face relaxed: sobs came to her relief; and falling on her neck, she wept and wept, and fondled her as if she were a child again. When they were more composed, they found that the Doctor, and his sister good Aunt Martha, were standing near at hand, with Alfred. &quot;This is a weary day for me,&quot; said good Aunt Martha, smiling through her tears, as she embraced her nieces; &quot;for I lose my dear companion in making you all happy; and what can you give me, in return for my Marion?&quot; &quot;A converted brother,&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;That’s something, to be sure,&quot; retorted Aunt Martha, &quot;in such a farce as—&quot; &quot;No, pray don’t,&quot; said the doctor penitently. &quot;Well, I won’t,&quot; replied Aunt Martha. &quot;But, I consider myself ill used. I don’t know what’s to become of me without my Marion, after we have lived together half-a-dozen years.&quot; &quot;You must come and live here, I suppose,&quot; replied the Doctor. &quot;We shan’t quarrel now, Martha.&quot; &quot;Or you must get married, Aunt,&quot; said Alfred. &quot;Indeed,&quot; returned the old lady, &quot;I think it might be a good speculation if I were to set my cap at Michael Warden, who, I hear, is come home much the better for his absence in all respects. But as I knew him when he was a boy, and I was not a very young woman then, perhaps he mightn’t respond. So I’ll make up my mind to go and live with Marion, when she marries, and until then (it will not be very long, I dare say) to live alone. What do you say, Brother?&quot; &quot;I’ve a great mind to say it’s a ridiculous world altogether, and there’s nothing serious in it,&quot; observed the poor old Doctor. &quot;You might take twenty affidavits of it if you chose, Anthony,&quot; said his sister; &quot;but nobody would believe you with such eyes as those.&quot; &quot;It’s a world full of hearts,&quot; said the Doctor, hugging his youngest daughter, and bending across her to hug Grace—for he couldn’t separate the sisters; &quot;and a serious world, with all its folly—even with mine, which was enough to have swamped the whole globe; and it is a world on which the sun never rises, but it looks upon a thousand bloodless battles that are some set-off against the miseries and wickedness of Battle-Fields; and it is a world we need be careful how we libel, Heaven forgive us, for it is a world of sacred mysteries, and its Creator only knows what lies beneath the surface of His lightest image!&quot; You would not be the better pleased with my rude pen, if it dissected and laid open to your view the transports of this family, long severed and now reunited. Therefore, I will not follow the poor Doctor through his humbled recollection of the sorrow he had had, when Marion was lost to him; nor will I tell how serious he had found that world to be, in which some love, deep-anchored, is the portion of all human creatures; nor, how such a trifle as the absence of one little unit in the great absurd account, had stricken him to the ground. Nor, how, in compassion for his distress, his sister had, long ago, revealed the truth to him by slow degrees, and brought him to the knowledge of the heart of his self-banished daughter, and to that daughter’s side. Nor, how Alfred Heathfield had been told the truth, too, in the course of that then current year; and Marion had seen him, and had promised him, as her brother, that on her birth-day, in the evening, Grace should know it from her lips at last. &quot;I beg your pardon, Doctor,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, looking into the orchard, &quot;but have I liberty to come in?&quot; Without waiting for permission, he came straight to Marion, and kissed her hand, quite joyfully. &quot;If Mr. Craggs had been alive, my dear Miss Marion,&quot; said Mr. Snitchey, &quot;he would have had great interest in this occasion. It might have suggested to him, Mr. Alfred, that our life is not too easy perhaps; that, taken altogether, it will bear any little smoothing we can give it; but Mr. Craggs was a man who could endure to be convinced, Sir. He was always open to conviction. If he were open to conviction, now, I—this is weakness. Mrs. Snitchey, my dear,&quot;—at his summons that lady appeared from behind the door, &quot;you are among old friends.&quot; Mrs. Snitchey having delivered her congratulations, took her husband aside. &quot;One moment, Mr. Snitchey,&quot; said that lady. &quot;It is not in my nature to rake up the ashes of the departed.&quot; &quot;No, my dear,&quot; returned her husband. &quot;Mr. Craggs is—&quot; &quot;Yes, my dear, he is deceased,&quot; said Snitchey. &quot;But I ask you if you recollect,&quot; pursued his wife, &quot;that evening of the ball? I only ask you that. If you do; and if your memory has not entirely failed you, Mr. Snitchey; and if you are not absolutely in your dotage; I ask you to connect this time with that—to remember how I begged and prayed you, on my knees—&quot; &quot;Upon your knees, my dear?&quot; said Mr. Snitchey. &quot;Yes,&quot; said Mrs. Snitchey, confidently, &quot;and you know it—to beware of that man—to observe his eye—and now to tell me whether I was right, and whether at that moment he knew secrets which he didn’t choose to tell.&quot; &quot;Mrs. Snitchey,&quot; returned her husband, in her ear, &quot;Madam. Did you ever observe anything in my eye?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; said Mrs. Snitchey, sharply. &quot;Don’t flatter yourself.&quot; &quot;Because, Madam, that night,&quot; he continued, twitching her by the sleeve, &quot;it happens that we both knew secrets which we didn’t choose to tell, and both knew just the same, professionally. And so the less you say about such things the better, Mrs. Snitchey; and take this as a warning to have wiser and more charitable eyes another time. Miss Marion, I brought a friend of yours along with me. Here! Mistress!&quot; Poor Clemency, with her apron to her eyes, came slowly in, escorted by her husband; the latter doleful with the presentiment, that if she abandoned herself to grief, the Nutmeg Grater was done for. &quot;Now, Mistress,&quot; said the lawyer, checking Marion as she ran towards her, and interposing himself between them, &quot;what’s the matter with you?&quot; &quot;The matter!&quot; cried poor Clemency. When, looking up in wonder, and in indignant remonstrance, and in the added emotion of a great roar from Mr. Britain, and seeing that sweet face so well-remembered close before her, she stared, sobbed, laughed, cried, screamed, embraced her, held her fast, released her, fell on Mr. Snitchey and embraced him (much to Mrs. Snitchey’s indignation), fell on the Doctor and embraced him, fell on Mr. Britain and embraced him, and concluded by embracing herself, throwing her apron over her head, and going into hysterics behind it. A stranger had come into the orchard, after Mr. Snitchey, and had remained apart, near the gate, without being observed by any of the group; for they had little spare attention to bestow, and that had been monopolised by the ecstasies of Clemency. He did not appear to wish to be observed, but stood alone, with downcast eyes; and there was an air of dejection about him (though he was a gentleman of a gallant appearance) which the general happiness rendered more remarkable. None but the quick eyes of Aunt Martha, however, remarked him at all; but almost as soon as she espied him, she was in conversation with him. Presently, going to where Marion stood with Grace and her little namesake, she whispered something in Marion’s ear, at which she started, and appeared surprised; but soon recovering from her confusion, she timidly approached the stranger, in Aunt Martha’s company, and engaged in conversation with him too. &quot;Mr. Britain,&quot; said the lawyer, putting his hand in his pocket, and bringing out a legal-looking document, while this was going on, &quot;I congratulate you. You are now the whole and sole proprietor of that freehold tenement, at present occupied and held by yourself as a licensed tavern, or house of public entertainment, and commonly called or known by the sign of the Nutmeg Grater. Your wife lost one house, through my client Mr. Michael Warden; and now gains another. I shall have the pleasure of canvassing you for the county, one of these fine mornings.&quot; &quot;Would it make any difference in the vote if the sign was altered, Sir?&quot; asked Britain. &quot;Not in the least,&quot; replied the lawyer. &quot;Then,&quot; said Mr. Britain, handing him back the conveyance, &quot;just clap in the words, &#039;and Thimble,&#039; will you be so good; and I’ll have the two mottoes painted up in the parlour instead of my wife’s portrait.&quot; &quot;And let me,&quot; said a voice behind them; it was the stranger’s—Michael Warden’s; &quot;let me claim the benefit of those inscriptions. Mr. Heathfield and Dr. Jeddler, I might have deeply wronged you both. That I did not, is no virtue of my own. I will not say that I am six years wiser than I was, or better. But I have known, at any rate, that term of selfreproach. I can urge no reason why you should deal gently with me. I abused the hospitality of this house; and learnt by my own demerits, with a shame I never have forgotten, yet with some profit too, I would fain hope, from one,&quot; he glanced at Marion, &quot;to whom I made my humble supplication for forgiveness, when I knew her merit and my deep unworthiness. In a few days I shall quit this place for ever. I entreat your pardon. Do as you would be done by! Forget, and forgive!&quot; TIME—from whom I had the latter portion of this story, and with whom I have the pleasure of a personal acquaintance of some five-and-thirty years’ duration—informed me, leaning easily upon his scythe, that Michael Warden never went away again, and never sold his house, but opened it afresh, maintained a golden means of hospitality, and had a wife, the pride and honor of that countryside, whose name was Marion. But as I have observed that Time confuses facts occasionally, I hardly know what weight to give to his authority.18461201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/7/The_Battle_of_Life._A_Love_Story/1846-12-The_Battle_of_Life.pdf
214https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/214<em>The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In</em>Published by Chapman and Hall, 1844 Dickens, Charles<em>Hathi Trust,</em> <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002606872">https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002606872</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1844-12">1844-12</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+John+Leech%2C+Richard+Doyle%2C+Daniel+Maclise%2C+and+Clarkson+Stanfield">Illustrated by John Leech, Richard Doyle, Daniel Maclise, and Clarkson Stanfield</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Book">Christmas Book</a>1844-12-The_ChimesDickens, Charles. <em>The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In</em> (December 1844). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-books/1844-12-The_Chimes">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-books/1844-12-The_Chimes</a>.First Quarter. There are not many people—and as it is desirable that a story-teller and a story-reader should establish a mutual understanding as soon as possible, I beg it to be noticed that I confine this observation neither to young people nor to little people, but extend it to all conditions of people: little and big, young and old: yet growing up, or already growing down again—there are not, I say, many people who would care to sleep in a church. I don’t mean at sermon-time in warm weather (when the thing has actually been done, once or twice), but in the night, and alone. A great multitude of persons will be violently astonished, I know, by this position, in the broad bold Day. But it applies to Night. It must be argued by night. And I will undertake to maintain it successfully on any gusty winter’s night appointed for the purpose, with any one opponent chosen from the rest, who will meet me singly in an old churchyard, before an old church door; and will previously empower me to lock him in, if needful to his satisfaction, until morning. For the night-wind has a dismal trick of wandering round and round a building of that sort, and moaning as it goes; and of trying, with its unseen hand, the windows and the doors; and seeking out some crevices by which to enter. And when it has got in; as one not finding what it seeks, whatever that may be; it wails and howls to issue forth again: and not content with stalking through the aisles, and gliding round and round the pillars, and tempting the deep organ, soars up to the roof, and strives to rend the rafters: then flings itself despairingly upon the stones below, and passes, muttering, into the vaults. Anon, it comes up stealthily, and creeps along the walls: seeming to read, in whispers, the Inscriptions sacred to the Dead. At some of these, it breaks out shrilly, as with laughter; and at others, moans and cries as if it were lamenting. It has a ghostly sound too, lingering within the altar; where it seems to chaunt, in its wild way, of Wrong and Murder done, and false Gods worshipped; in defiance of the Tables of the Law, which look so fair and smooth, but are so flawed and broken. Ugh! Heaven preserve us, sitting snugly round the fire! It has an awful voice, that wind at Midnight, singing in a church! But high up in the steeple! There the foul blast roars and whistles! High up in the steeple, where it is free to come and go through many an airy arch and loophole, and to twist and twine itself about the giddy stair, and twirl the groaning weathercock, and make the very tower shake and shiver! High up in the steeple, where the belfry is; and iron rails are ragged with rust; and sheets of lead and copper, shrivelled by the changing weather, crackle and heave beneath the unaccustomed tread; and birds stuff shabby nests into corners of old oaken joists and beams; and dust grows old and grey; and speckled spiders, indolent and fat with long security, swing idly to and fro in the vibration of the bells, and never loose their hold upon their thread-spun castles in the air, or climb up sailor-like in quick alarm, or drop upon the ground and ply a score of nimble legs to save a life! High up in the steeple of an old church, far above the light and murmur of the town and far below the flying clouds that shadow it, is the wild and dreary place at night: and high up in the steeple of an old church, dwelt the Chimes I tell of. They were old Chimes, trust me. Centuries ago, these Bells had been baptized by bishops: so many centuries ago, that the register of their baptism was lost long, long before the memory of man: and no one knew their names. They had had their Godfathers and Godmothers, these Bells (for my own part, by the way, I would rather incur the responsibility of being Godfather to a Bell than a Boy): and had had their silver mugs no doubt, besides. But Time had mowed down their sponsors, and Henry the Eighth had melted down their mugs: and they now hung, nameless and mugless, in the church tower. Not speechless, though. Far from it. They had clear, loud, lusty, sounding voices, had these Bells; and far and wide they might be heard upon the wind. Much too sturdy Chimes were they, to be dependent on the pleasure of the wind, moreover; for, fighting gallantly against it when it took an adverse whim, they would pour their cheerful notes into a listening ear right royally; and bent on being heard, on stormy nights, by some poor mother watching a sick child, or some lone wife whose husband was at sea, they had been sometimes known to beat a blustering Nor’-Wester — aye, &quot;all to fits,&quot; as Toby Veck said; for though they chose to call him Trotty Veck, his name was Toby, and nobody could make it anything else either (except Tobias) without a special act of parliament; he having been as lawfully christened in his day as the Bells had been in theirs, though with not quite so much of solemnity or public rejoicing. For my part, I confess myself of Toby Veck’s belief, for I am sure he had opportunities enough of forming a correct one. And whatever Toby Veck said, I say. And I take my stand by Toby Veck, although he did stand all day long (and weary work it was) just outside the church-door. In fact he was a ticket-porter, Toby Veck, and waited there for jobs. And a breezy, goose-skinned, blue-nosed, red-eyed, stony-toed, tooth-chattering place it was, to wait in, in the winter-time, as Toby Veck well knew. The wind came tearing round the corner—especially the east wind—as if it had sallied forth, express, from the confines of the earth, to have a blow at Toby. And oftentimes it seemed to come upon him sooner than it had expected, for bouncing round the corner, and passing Toby, it would suddenly wheel round again, as if it cried &quot;Why, here he is!&quot; Incontinently his little white apron would be caught up over his head like a naughty boy’s garments, and his feeble little cane would be seen to wrestle and struggle unavailingly in his hand, and his legs would undergo tremendous agitation, and Toby himself all aslant, and facing now in this direction, now in that, would be so banged and buffeted, and touzled, and worried, and hustled, and lifted off his feet, as to render it a state of things but one degree removed from a positive miracle, that he wasn’t carried up bodily into the air as a colony of frogs or snails or other portable creatures sometimes are, and rained down again, to the great astonishment of the natives, on some strange corner of the world where ticket-porters are unknown. But windy weather, in spite of its using him so roughly, was, after all, a sort of holiday for Toby. That’s the fact. He didn’t seem to wait so long for a sixpence in the wind, as at other times; for the having to fight with that boisterous element took off his attention, and quite freshened him up, when he was getting hungry and low-spirited. A hard frost too, or a fall of snow, was an Event; and it seemed to do him good, somehow or other—it would have been hard to say in what respect though, Toby! So wind and frost and snow, and perhaps a good stiff storm of hail, were Toby Veck’s red-letter days. Wet weather was the worst: the cold, damp, clammy wet, that wrapped him up like a moist great-coat: the only kind of great-coat Toby owned, or could have added to his comfort by dispensing with. Wet days, when the rain came slowly, thickly, obstinately down; when the street’s throat, like his own, was choked with mist; when smoking umbrellas passed and re-passed, spinning round and round like so many teetotums, as they knocked against each other on the crowded footway, throwing off a little whirlpool of uncomfortable sprinklings; when gutters brawled and water-spouts were full and noisy; when the wet from the projecting stones and ledges of the church fell drip, drip, drip, on Toby, making the wisp of straw on which he stood mere mud in no time; those were the days that tried him. Then indeed, you might see Toby looking anxiously out from his shelter in an angle of the church wall—such a meagre shelter that in summer time it never cast a shadow thicker than a good-sized walking stick upon the sunny pavement—with a disconsolate and lengthened face. But coming out, a minute afterwards, to warm himself by exercise: and trotting up and down some dozen times: he would brighten even then, and go back more brightly to his niche. They called him Trotty from his pace, which meant speed if it didn&#039;t make it. He could have Walked faster perhaps; most likely; but rob him of his trot, and Toby would have taken to his bed and died. It bespattered him with mud in dirty weather; it cost him a world of trouble; he could have walked with infinitely greater ease; but that was one reason for his clinging to it so tenaciously. A weak, small, spare old man, he was a very Hercules, this Toby, in his good intentions. He loved to earn his money. He delighted to believe—Toby was very poor, and couldn&#039;t well afford to part with a delight—that he was worth his salt. With a shilling or an eighteenpenny message or small parcel in hand, his courage, always high, rose higher. As he trotted on, he would call out to fast Postmen ahead of him, to get out of the way; devoutly believing that in the natural course of things he must inevitably overtake and run them down; and he had perfect faith—not often tested—in his being able to carry anything that man could lift. Thus, even when he came out of his nook to warm himself on a wet day, Toby trotted. Making, with his leaky shoes, a crooked line of slushy footprints in the mire; and blowing on his chilly hands and rubbing them against each other, poorly defended from the searching cold by threadbare mufflers of grey worsted, with a private apartment only for the thumb and a common room or tap for the rest of the fingers; Toby, with his knees bent and his cane beneath his arm, still trotted. Falling out into the road to look up at the belfry when the Chimes resounded, Toby trotted still. He made this last excursion several times a day, for they were company to him; and when he heard their voices, he had an interest in glancing at their lodging-place, and thinking how they were moved, and what hammers beat upon them. Perhaps he was the more curious about these Bells, because there were points of resemblance between themselves and him. They hung there, in all weathers: with the wind and rain driving in upon them: facing only the outsides of all those houses; never getting any nearer to the blazing fires that gleamed and shone upon the windows, or came puffing out of the chimney tops; and incapable of participation in any of the good things that were constantly being handed, through the street doors and the area railings, to prodigious cooks. Faces came and went at many windows: sometimes pretty faces, youthful faces, pleasant faces: sometimes the reverse: but Toby knew no more (though he often speculated on these trifles, standing idle in the streets) whence they came, or where they went, or whether, when the lips moved, one kind word was said of him in all the year, than did the Chimes themselves. Toby was not a casuist—that he knew of, at least—and I don&#039;t mean to say that when he began to take to the Bells, and to knit up his first rough acquaintance with them into something of a closer and more delicate woof, he passed through these considerations one by one, or held any formal review or great field-day in his thoughts. But what I mean to say and do say is, that as the functions of Toby’s body, his digestive organs for example, did of their own cunning, and by a great many operations of which he was altogether ignorant, and the knowledge of which would have astonished him very much, arrive at a certain end; so his mental faculties, without his privity or concurrence, set all these wheels and springs in motion, with a thousand others, when they worked to bring about his liking for the Bells. And though I had said his love, I would not have recalled the word, though it would scarcely have expressed his complicated feeling. For, being but a simple man, he invested them with a strange and solemn character. They were so mysterious, often heard and never seen; so high up, so far off, so full of such a deep strong melody, that he regarded them with a species of awe; and sometimes when he looked up at the dark arched windows in the tower, he half expected to be beckoned to by something which was not a Bell, and yet was what he had heard so often sounding in the Chimes. For all this, Toby scouted with indignation a certain flying rumour that the Chimes were haunted, as implying the possibility of their being connected with any Evil thing. In short, they were very often in his ears, and very often in his thoughts, but always in his good opinion; and he very often got such a crick in his neck by staring with his mouth wide open, at the steeple where they hung, that he was fain to take an extra trot or two, afterwards, to cure it. The very thing he was in the act of doing one cold day, when the last drowsy sound of Twelve o’clock, just struck, was humming like a melodious monster of a Bee, and not by any means a busy Bee, all through the steeple. &quot;Dinner-time, eh!&quot; said Toby, trotting up and down before the church. &quot;Ah!&quot; Toby’s nose was very red, and his eyelids were very red, and he winked very much, and his shoulders were very near his ears, and his legs were very stiff; and altogether he was evidently a long way upon the frosty side of cool. &quot;Dinner-time, eh!&quot; repeated Toby, using his right-hand muffler like an infantine boxing-glove, and punishing his chest for being cold. &quot;Ah-h-h-h!&quot; He took a silent trot, after that, for a minute or two. &quot;There’s nothing,&quot; said Toby, breaking forth afresh—but here he stopped short in his trot, and with a face of great interest and some alarm, felt his nose carefully all the way up. It was but a little way: not being much of a nose: and he had soon finished. &quot;I thought it was gone,&quot; said Toby, trotting off again. &quot;It&#039;s all right, however. I am sure I couldn&#039;t blame it if it was to go. It has a precious hard service of it in the bitter weather, and precious little to look forward to: for I don’t take snuff myself. It&#039;s a good deal tried, poor creetur, at the best of times; for when it does get hold of a pleasant whiff or so (which an&#039;t too often) it&#039;s generally from somebody else&#039;s dinner, a-coming home from the baker&#039;s.&quot; The reflection reminded him of that other reflection, which he had left unfinished. &quot;There&#039;s nothing,&quot; said Toby, &quot;more regular in its coming round than dinner-time, and nothing less regular in its coming round than dinner. That’s the great difference between &#039;em. It&#039;s took me a long time to find it out. I wonder whether it would be worth any gentleman&#039;s while, now, to buy that obserwation for the Papers; or the Parliament!&quot; Toby was only joking, for he gravely shook his head in self-depreciation. &quot;Why! Lord!&quot; said Toby. &quot;The Papers is full of obserwations as it is; and so&#039;s the Parliament. Here&#039;s last week&#039;s paper, now;&quot; taking a very dirty one from his pocket, and holding it from him at arm&#039;s length; &quot;full of obserwations! Full of obserwations! I like to know the news as well as any man,&quot; said Toby, slowly; folding it a little smaller, and putting it in his pocket again; &quot;but it almost goes against the grain with me to read a paper now. It frightens me almost. I don’t know what we poor people are coming to. Lord send we may be coming to something better in the New Year nigh upon us!&quot; &quot;Why, father, father!&quot; said a pleasant voice, hard by. But Toby, not hearing it, continued to trot backwards and forwards: musing as he went, and talking to himself. &quot;It seems as if we can’t go right, or do right, or be righted,&quot; said Toby. &quot;I hadn’t much schooling, myself, when I was young; and I can’t make out whether we have any business on the face of the earth, or not. Sometimes I think we must have a little; and sometimes I think we must be intruding. I get so puzzled sometimes that I am not even able to make up my mind whether there is any good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem to be dreadful things; we seem to give a deal of trouble; we are always being complained of and guarded against. One way or other, we fill the papers. Talk of a New Year!&quot; said Toby, mournfully. &quot;I can bear up as well as another man at most times; better than a good many, for I am as strong as a lion, and all men an’t; but supposing it should really be that we have no right to a New Year—supposing we really are intruding—&quot; “Why, father, father!” said the pleasant voice again. Toby heard it this time; started; stopped; and shortening his sight, which had been directed a long way off as seeking the enlightenment in the very heart of the approaching year, found himself face to face with his own child, and looking close into her eyes. Bright eyes they were. Eyes that would bear a world of looking in, before their depth was fathomed. Dark eyes, that reflected back the eyes which searched them; not flashingly, or at the owner’s will, but with a clear, calm, honest, patient radiance, claiming kindred with that light which Heaven called into being. Eyes that were beautiful and true, and beaming with Hope. With Hope so young and fresh; with Hope so buoyant, vigorous, and bright, despite the twenty years of work and poverty on which they had looked; that they became a voice to Trotty Veck, and said: &quot;I think we have some business here—a little!&quot; Trotty kissed the lips belonging to the eyes, and squeezed the blooming face between his hands. &quot;Why, Pet,&quot; said Trotty. &quot;What’s to do? I didn’t expect you to-day, Meg.&quot; &quot;Neither did I expect to come, father,&quot; cried the girl, nodding her head and smiling as she spoke. &quot;But here I am! And not alone; not alone!&quot; &quot;Why you don’t mean to say,&quot; observed Trotty, looking curiously at a covered basket which she carried in her hand, &quot;that you—&quot; &quot;Smell it, father dear,&quot; said Meg. &quot;Only smell it!&quot; Trotty was going to lift up the cover at once, in a great hurry, when she gaily interposed her hand. &quot;No, no, no,&quot; said Meg, with the glee of a child. &quot;Lengthen it out a little. Let me just lift up the corner; just the lit-tle ti-ny cor-ner, you know,&quot; said Meg, suiting the action to the word with the utmost gentleness, and speaking very softly, as if she were afraid of being overheard by something inside the basket; &quot;there. Now. What’s that?&quot; Toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge of the basket, and cried out in a rapture: &quot;Why, it’s hot!&quot; &quot;It’s burning hot!&quot; cried Meg. &quot;Ha, ha, ha! It’s scalding hot!&quot; &quot;Ha, ha, ha!&quot; roared Toby, with a sort of kick. &quot;It’s scalding hot.&quot; &quot;But what is it, father?&quot; said Meg. &quot;Come! You haven’t guessed what it is. And you must guess what it is. I can’t think of taking it out, till you guess what it is. Don’t be in such a hurry! Wait a minute! A little bit more of the cover. Now guess!&quot; Meg was in a perfect fright lest he should guess right too soon; shrinking away, as she held the basket towards him; curling up her pretty shoulders; stopping her ear with her hand, as if by so doing she could keep the right word out of Toby’s lips; and laughing softly the whole time. Meanwhile Toby, putting a hand on each knee, bent down his nose to the basket, and took a long inspiration at the lid; the grin upon his withered face expanding in the process, as if he were inhaling laughing gas. &quot;Ah! It&#039;s very nice,&quot; said Toby. &quot;It an&#039;t—I suppose it an&#039;t Polonies?&quot; &quot;No, no, no!&quot; cried Meg, delighted. &quot;Nothing like Polonies!&quot; &quot;No,&quot; said Toby, after another sniff. &quot;It’s—it’s mellower than Polonies. It’s very nice. It improves every moment. It’s too decided for Trotters. An’t it?&quot; Meg was in an ecstasy. He could not have gone wider of the mark than Trotters—except Polonies. “Liver?” said Toby, communing with himself. “No. There’s a mildness about it that don’t answer to liver. Pettitoes? No. It an’t faint enough for pettitoes. It wants the stringiness of Cocks’ heads. And I know it an’t sausages. I’ll tell you what it is. It’s chitterlings!” “No, it an’t!” cried Meg, in a burst of delight. “No, it an’t!” “Why, what am I a thinking of!” said Toby, suddenly recovering a position as near the perpendicular as it was possible for him to assume. “I shall forget my own name next. It’s tripe!” Tripe it was; and Meg, in high joy, protested he should say, in half a minute more, it was the best tripe ever stewed. “And so,” said Meg, busying herself exultingly with the basket, “I’ll lay the cloth at once, father; for I have brought the tripe in a basin, and tied the basin up in a pocket-handkerchief; and if I like to be proud for once, and spread that for a cloth, and call it a cloth, there’s no law to prevent me; is there, father?” “Not that I know of, my dear,” said Toby. “But they’re always a-bringing up some new law or other.” “And according to what I was reading you in the paper the other day, father; what the Judge said, you know; we poor people are supposed to know them all. Ha ha! What a mistake! My goodness me, how clever they think us!” “Yes, my dear,” cried Trotty; “and they’d be very fond of any one of us that did know ’em all. He’d grow fat upon the work he’d get, that man, and be popular with the gentlefolks in his neighbourhood. Very much so!” “He’d eat his dinner with an appetite, whoever he was, if it smelt like this,” said Meg, cheerfully. “Make haste, for there’s a hot potatoe besides, and half a pint of fresh-drawn beer in a bottle. Where will you dine, father? On the Post, or on the Steps? Dear, dear, how grand we are. Two places to choose from!” “The steps to-day, my Pet,” said Trotty. “Steps in dry weather. Post in wet. There’s a greater conveniency in the steps at all times, because of the sitting down; but they’re rheumatic in the damp.” “Then here,” said Meg, clapping her hands, after a moment’s bustle; “here it is, all ready! And beautiful it looks! Come, father. Come!” Since his discovery of the contents of the basket, Trotty had been standing looking at her—and had been speaking too—in an abstracted manner, which showed that though she was the object of his thoughts and eyes, to the exclusion even of tripe, he neither saw nor thought about her as she was at that moment, but had before him some imaginary rough sketch or drama of her future life. Roused, now, by her cheerful summons, he shook off a melancholy shake of the head which was just coming upon him, and trotted to her side. As he was stooping to sit down, the Chimes rang. “Amen!” said Trotty, pulling off his hat and looking up towards them. “Amen to the Bells, father?” cried Meg. “They broke in like a grace, my dear,” said Trotty, taking his seat. “They’d say a good one, I am sure, if they could. Many’s the kind thing they say to me.” “The Bells do, father!” laughed Meg, as she set the basin, and a knife and fork before him. “Well!” &quot;Seem to, my Pet,&quot; said Trotty, falling to with great vigour. &quot;And where’s the difference? If I hear ’em, what does it matter whether they speak it or not? Why bless you, my dear,&quot; said Toby, pointing at the tower with his fork, and becoming more animated under the influence of dinner, &quot;how often have I heard them bells say, ‘Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart Toby! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart Toby!’ A million times? More!&quot; “Well, I never!” cried Meg. She had, though—over and over again. For it was Toby’s constant topic. “When things is very bad,” said Trotty; “very bad indeed, I mean; almost at the worst; then it’s ‘Toby Veck, Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby!’ That way.” “And it comes—at last, father,” said Meg, with a touch of sadness in her pleasant voice. “Always,” answered the unconscious Toby. “Never fails.” While this discourse was holding, Trotty made no pause in his attack upon the savoury meat before him, but cut and ate, and cut and drank, and cut and chewed, and dodged about, from tripe to hot potatoe, and from hot potatoe back again to tripe, with an unctuous and unflagging relish. But happening now to look all round the street—in case anybody should be beckoning from any door or window, for a porter—his eyes, in coming back again, encountered Meg: sitting opposite to him, with her arms folded: and only busy in watching his progress with a smile of happiness. “Why, Lord forgive me!” said Trotty, dropping his knife and fork. “My dove! Meg! why didn’t you tell me what a beast I was?” “Father?” “Sitting here,” said Trotty, in penitent explanation, “cramming, and stuffing, and gorging myself; and you before me there, never so much as breaking your precious fast, nor wanting to, when—&quot; “But I have broken it, father,” interposed his daughter, laughing, “all to bits. I have had my dinner.” “Nonsense,” said Trotty. “Two dinners in one day! It an’t possible! You might as well tell me that two New Year’s Days will come together, or that I have had a gold head all my life, and never changed it.” “I have had my dinner, father, for all that,” said Meg, coming nearer to him. “And if you’ll go on with yours, I’ll tell you how and where; and how your dinner came to be brought; and—and something else besides.” Toby still appeared incredulous; but she looked into his face with her clear eyes, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, motioned him to go on while the meat was hot. So Trotty took up his knife and fork again, and went to work. But much more slowly than before, and shaking his head, as if he were not at all pleased with himself. “I had my dinner, father,” said Meg, after a little hesitation, “with—with Richard. His dinner-time was early; and as he brought his dinner with him when he came to see me, we—we had it together, father.” Trotty took a little beer, and smacked his lips. Then he said, “Oh!”—because she waited. “And Richard says, father—&quot; Meg resumed. Then stopped. “What does Richard say, Meg?” asked Toby. “Richard says, father—&quot; Another stoppage. “Richard’s a long time saying it,” said Toby. “He says then, father,” Meg continued, lifting up her eyes at last, and speaking in a tremble, but quite plainly; “another year is nearly gone, and where is the use of waiting on from year to year, when it is so unlikely we shall ever be better off than we are now? He says we are poor now, father, and we shall be poor then, but we are young now, and years will make us old before we know it. He says that if we wait: people in our condition: until we see our way quite clearly, the way will be a narrow one indeed—the common way—the Grave, father.” A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have drawn upon his boldness largely, to deny it. Trotty held his peace. “And how hard, father, to grow old, and die, and think we might have cheered and helped each other! How hard in all our lives to love each other; and to grieve, apart, to see each other working, changing, growing old and grey. Even if I got the better of it, and forgot him (which I never could), oh father dear, how hard to have a heart so full as mine is now, and live to have it slowly drained out every drop, without the recollection of one happy moment of a woman’s life, to stay behind and comfort me, and make me better!” Trotty sat quite still. Meg dried her eyes, and said more gaily: that is to say, with here a laugh, and there a sob, and here a laugh and sob together: “So Richard says, father; as his work was yesterday made certain for some time to come, and as I love him, and have loved him full three years—ah! longer than that, if he knew it!—will I marry him on New Year’s Day; the best and happiest day, he says, in the whole year, and one that is almost sure to bring good fortune with it. It’s a short notice, father—isn’t it?—but I haven’t my fortune to be settled, or my wedding dresses to be made, like the great ladies, father — have I? And he said so much, and said it in his way; so strong and earnest, and all the time so kind and gentle; that I said I’d come and talk to you, father. And as they paid the money for that work of mine this morning (unexpectedly, I am sure!) and as you have fared very poorly for a whole week, and as I couldn’t help wishing there should be something to make this day a sort of holiday to you as well as a dear and happy day to me, father, I made a little treat and brought it to surprise you.” “And see how he leaves it cooling on the step!” said another voice. It was the voice of this same Richard, who had come upon them unobserved, and stood before the father and daughter: looking down upon them with a face as glowing as the iron on which his stout sledge-hammer daily rung. A handsome, well-made, powerful youngster he was; with eyes that sparkled like the red-hot droppings from a furnace fire; black hair that curled about his swarthy temples rarely; and a smile—a smile that bore out Meg’s eulogium on his style of conversation. “See how he leaves it cooling on the step!” said Richard. “Meg don’t know what he likes. Not she!” Trotty, all action and enthusiasm, immediately reached up his hand to Richard, and was going to address him in a great hurry, when the house-door opened without any warning, and a footman very nearly put his foot into the tripe. “Out of the vays here, will you! You must always go and be a-settin on our steps, must you! You can’t go and give a turn to none of the neighbours never, can’t you! Will you clear the road, or won’t you?” Strictly speaking, the last question was irrelevant, as they had already done it. “What’s the matter, what’s the matter!” said the gentleman for whom the door was opened; coming out of the house at that kind of light-heavy pace—that peculiar compromise between a walk and a jog-trot—with which a gentleman upon the smooth down-hill of life, wearing creaking boots, a watch-chain, and clean linen, may come out of his house: not only without any abatement of his dignity, but with an expression of having important and wealthy engagements elsewhere. “What’s the matter! What’s the matter!” “You’re always a-being begged, and prayed, upon your bended knees you are,” said the footman with great emphasis to Trotty Veck, “to let our door-steps be. Why don’t you let ’em be? CAN’T you let ’em be?” “There! That’ll do, that’ll do!” said the gentleman. “Halloa there! Porter!” beckoning with his head to Trotty Veck. “Come here. What’s that? Your dinner?” “Yes, sir,” said Trotty, leaving it behind him in a corner. “Don’t leave it there,” exclaimed the gentleman. “Bring it here, bring it here. So! This is your dinner, is it?” “Yes, Sir,” repeated Trotty, looking, with a fixed eye and a watery mouth, at the piece of tripe he had reserved for a last delicious tit-bit; which the gentleman was now turning over and over on the end of the fork. Two other gentlemen had come out with him. One was a low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a meagre habit, and a disconsolate face; who kept his hands continually in the pockets of his scanty pepper-and-salt trousers, very large and dog’s-eared from that custom; and was not particularly well brushed or washed. The other, a full-sized, sleek, well-conditioned gentleman, in a blue coat with bright buttons, and a white cravat. This gentleman had a very red face, as if an undue proportion of the blood in his body were squeezed up into his head; which perhaps accounted for his having also the appearance of being rather cold about the heart. He who had Toby’s meat upon the fork, called to the first one by the name of Filer; and they both drew near together. Mr. Filer being exceedingly short-sighted, was obliged to go so close to the remnant of Toby’s dinner before he could make out what it was, that Toby’s heart leaped up into his mouth. But Mr. Filer didn’t eat it. “This is a description of animal food, Alderman,” said Filer, making little punches in it with a pencil-case, “commonly known to the labouring population of this country, by the name of tripe.” The Alderman laughed, and winked; for he was a merry fellow, Alderman Cute. Oh, and a sly fellow too! A knowing fellow. Up to everything. Not to be imposed upon. Deep in the people’s hearts! He knew them, Cute did. I believe you! “But who eats tripe?” said Mr. Filer, looking round. “Tripe is without an exception the least economical, and the most wasteful article of consumption that the markets of this country can by possibility produce. The loss upon a pound of tripe has been found to be, in the boiling, seven-eights of a fifth more than the loss upon a pound of any other animal substance whatever. Tripe is more expensive, properly understood, than the hothouse pine-apple. Taking into account the number of animals slaughtered yearly within the bills of mortality alone; and forming a low estimate of the quantity of tripe which the carcases of those animals, reasonably well butchered, would yield; I find that the waste on that amount of tripe, if boiled, would victual a garrison of five hundred men for five months of thirty-one days each, and a February over. The Waste, the Waste!” Trotty stood aghast, and his legs shook under him. He seemed to have starved a garrison of five hundred men with his own hand. “Who eats tripe?” said Mr. Filer, warmly. “Who eats tripe?” Trotty made a miserable bow. “You do, do you?” said Mr. Filer. “Then I’ll tell you something. You snatch your tripe, my friend, out of the mouths of widows and orphans.” “I hope not Sir,” said Trotty, faintly. “I’d sooner die of want!” “Divide the amount of tripe before-mentioned, Alderman,” said Mr. Filer, “by the estimated number of existing widows and orphans, and the result will be one pennyweight of tripe to each. Not a grain is left for that man. Consequently, he’s a robber.” Trotty was so shocked, that it gave him no concern to see the Alderman finish the tripe himself. It was a relief to get rid of it, anyhow. “And what do you say?” asked the Alderman, jocosely, of the red-faced gentleman in the blue coat. “You have heard friend Filer. What do you say?” “What’s it possible to say?” returned the gentleman. “What is to be said? Who can take any interest in a fellow like this,” meaning Trotty; “in such degenerate times as these? Look at him! What an object! The good old times, the grand old times, the great old times! Those were the times for a bold peasantry, and all that sort of thing. Those were the times for every sort of thing, in fact. There’s nothing now-a-days. Ah!” sighed the red-faced gentleman. “The good old times, the good old times!” The gentleman didn’t specify what particular times he alluded to; nor did he say whether he objected to the present times, from a disinterested consciousness that they had done nothing very remarkable in producing himself. “The good old times, the good old times,” repeated the gentleman. “What times they were! They were the only times. It’s of no use talking about any other times, or discussing what the people are in these times. You don’t call these, times, do you? I don’t. Look into Strutt’s Costumes, and see what a Porter used to be, in any of the good old English reigns.” “He hadn’t, in his very best circumstances, a shirt to his back, or a stocking to his foot; and there was scarcely a vegetable in all England for him to put into his mouth,” said Mr. Filer. “I can prove it, by tables.” But still the red-faced gentleman extolled the good old times, the grand old times, the great old times. No matter what anybody else said, he still went turning round and round in one set form of words concerning them; as a poor squirrel turns and turns in its revolving cage; touching the mechanism, and trick of which, it has probably quite as distinct perceptions, as ever this red-faced gentleman had of his deceased Millennium. It is possible that poor Trotty’s faith in these very vague Old Times was not entirely destroyed, for he felt vague enough, at that moment. One thing, however, was plain to him, in the midst of his distress; to wit, that however these gentlemen might differ in details, his misgivings of that morning, and of many other mornings, were well founded. “No, no. We can’t go right or do right,” thought Trotty in despair. “There is no good in us. We are born bad!” But Trotty had a father’s heart within him; which had somehow got into his breast in spite of this decree; and he could not bear that Meg, in the blush of her brief joy, should have her fortune read by these wise gentlemen. “God help her,” thought poor Trotty. “She will know it soon enough.” He anxiously signed, therefore, to the young smith, to take her away. But he was so busy, talking to her softly at a little distance, that he only became conscious of this desire, simultaneously with Alderman Cute. Now, the Alderman had not yet had his say, but he was a philosopher, too—practical, though! Oh, very practical—and, as he had no idea of losing any portion of his audience, he cried “Stop!” “Now, you know,” said the Alderman, addressing his two friends, with a self-complacent smile upon his face, which was habitual to him, “I am a plain man, and a practical man; and I go to work in a plain practical way. That’s my way. There is not the least mystery or difficulty in dealing with this sort of people if you only understand ’em, and can talk to ’em in their own manner. Now, you Porter! Don’t you ever tell me, or anybody else, my friend, that you haven’t always enough to eat, and of the best; because I know better. I have tasted your tripe, you know, and you can’t ‘chaff’ me. You understand what ‘chaff’ means, eh? That’s the right word, isn’t it? Ha, ha, ha! Lord bless you,” said the Alderman, turning to his friends again, “it’s the easiest thing on earth to deal with this sort of people, if you understand ’em.” Famous man for the common people, Alderman Cute! Never out of temper with them! Easy, affable, joking, knowing gentleman! “You see, my friend,” pursued the Alderman, “there’s a great deal of nonsense talked about Want—&#039;hard up,’ you know; that’s the phrase, isn’t it? ha! ha! ha!—and I intend to Put it Down. There’s a certain amount of cant in vogue about Starvation, and I mean to Put it Down. That’s all! Lord bless you,” said the Alderman, turning to his friends again, “you may Put Down anything among this sort of people, if you only know the way to set about it!” Trotty took Meg’s hand and drew it through his arm: He didn’t seem to know what he was doing though. “Your daughter, eh?” said the Alderman, chucking her familiarly under the chin. Always affable with the working classes, Alderman Cute! Knew what pleased them! Not a bit of pride! “Where’s her mother?” asked that worthy gentleman. “Dead,” said Toby. “Her mother got up linen; and was called to Heaven when She was born.” “Not to get up linen there, I suppose,” remarked the Alderman pleasantly. Toby might or might not have been able to separate his wife in Heaven from her old pursuits. But query: If Mrs. Alderman Cute had gone to Heaven, would Mr. Alderman Cute have pictured her as holding any state or station there? “And you’re making love to her, are you?” said Cute to the young smith. “Yes,” returned Richard quickly, for he was nettled by the question. “And we are going to be married on New Year’s Day.” “What do you mean!” cried Filer sharply. “Married!” “Why, yes, we’re thinking of it, Master,” said Richard. “We’re rather in a hurry, you see, in case it should be Put Down first.” “Ah!” cried Filer, with a groan. “Put that down indeed, Alderman, and you’ll do something. Married! Married!! The ignorance of the first principles of political economy on the part of these people; their improvidence; their wickedness; is, by Heavens! enough to—Now look at that couple, will you!” Well? They were worth looking at. And marriage seemed as reasonable and fair a deed as they need have in contemplation. “A man may live to be as old as Methuselah,” said Mr. Filer, “and may labour all his life for the benefit of such people as those; and may heap up facts on figures, facts on figures, facts on figures, mountains high and dry; and he can no more hope to persuade ’em that they have no right or business to be married, than he can hope to persuade ’em that they have no earthly right or business to be born. And that we know they haven’t. We reduced it to a mathematical certainty long ago!” Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his right forefinger on the side of his nose, as much as to say to both his friends, “Observe me, will you! Keep your eye on the practical man!”—and called Meg to him. “Come here, my girl!” said Alderman Cute. The young blood of her lover had been mounting, wrathfully, within the last few minutes; and he was indisposed to let her come. But, setting a constraint upon himself, he came forward with a stride as Meg approached, and stood beside her. Trotty kept her hand within his arm still, but looked from face to face as wildly as a sleeper in a dream. “Now, I’m going to give you a word or two of good advice, my girl,” said the Alderman, in his nice easy way. “It’s my place to give advice, you know, because I’m a Justice. You know I’m a Justice, don’t you?” Meg timidly said, “Yes.” But everybody knew Alderman Cute was a Justice! Oh dear, so active a Justice always! Who such a mote of brightness in the public eye, as Cute! “You are going to be married, you say,” pursued the Alderman. “Very unbecoming and indelicate in one of your sex! But never mind that. After you are married, you’ll quarrel with your husband and come to be a distressed wife. You may think not; but you will, because I tell you so. Now, I give you fair warning, that I have made up my mind to Put distressed wives Down. So, don’t be brought before me. You’ll have children—boys. Those boys will grow up bad, of course, and run wild in the streets, without shoes and stockings. Mind, my young friend! I’ll convict ’em summarily, every one, for I am determined to Put boys without shoes and stockings, Down. Perhaps your husband will die young (most likely) and leave you with a baby. Then you’ll be turned out of doors, and wander up and down the streets. Now, don’t wander near me, my dear, for I am resolved, to Put all wandering mothers Down. All young mothers, of all sorts and kinds, it’s my determination to Put Down. Don’t think to plead illness as an excuse with me; or babies as an excuse with me; for all sick persons and young children (I hope you know the church-service, but I’m afraid not) I am determined to Put Down. And if you attempt, desperately, and ungratefully, and impiously, and fraudulently attempt, to drown yourself, or hang yourself, I’ll have no pity for you, for I have made up my mind to Put all suicide Down! If there is one thing,” said the Alderman, with his self-satisfied smile, “on which I can be said to have made up my mind more than on another, it is to Put suicide Down. So don’t try it on. That’s the phrase, isn’t it? Ha, ha! now we understand each other.” Toby knew not whether to be agonised or glad to see that Meg had turned a deadly white, and dropped her lover’s hand. “And as for you, you dull dog,” said the Alderman, turning with even increased cheerfulness and urbanity to the young smith, “what are you thinking of being married for? What do you want to be married for, you silly fellow? If I was a fine, young, strapping chap like you, I should be ashamed of being milksop enough to pin myself to a woman’s apron-strings! Why, she’ll be an old woman before you’re a middle-aged man! And a pretty figure you’ll cut then, with a draggle-tailed wife and a crowd of squalling children crying after you wherever you go!” Oh, he knew how to banter the common people, Alderman Cute! “There! Go along with you,” said the Alderman, “and repent. Don’t make such a fool of yourself as to get married on New Year’s Day. You’ll think very differently of it long before next New Year’s Day: a trim young fellow like you, with all the girls looking after you. There! Go along with you!” They went along. Not arm in arm, or hand in hand, or interchanging bright glances” but, she in tears, he gloomy and down-looking. Were these the hearts that had so lately made old Toby’s leap up from its faintness? No, no. The Alderman (a blessing on his head!) had Put them Down. “As you happen to be here,” said the Alderman to Toby, “you shall carry a letter for me. Can you be quick? You’re an old man.” Toby, who had been looking after Meg, quite stupidly, made shift to murmur out that he was very quick, and very strong. “How old are you?” inquired the Alderman. “I’m over sixty, Sir,” said Toby. “Oh! This man’s a great deal past the average age, you know,” cried Mr. Filer breaking in as if his patience would bear some trying, but this really was carrying matters a little too far. “I feel I’m intruding, sir,” said Toby. “I—I misdoubted it this morning. Oh dear me!” The Alderman cut him short by giving him the letter from his pocket. Toby would have got a shilling too; but Mr. Filer clearly showing that in that case he would rob a certain given number of persons of ninepence-halfpenny a-piece, he only got sixpence; and thought himself very well off to get that. Then the Alderman gave an arm to each of his friends, and walked off in high feather; but he immediately came hurrying back alone, as if he had forgotten something. “Porter!” said the Alderman. “Sir!” said Toby. “Take care of that daughter of yours. She’s much too handsome.” “Even her good looks are stolen from somebody or other, I suppose,” thought Toby, looking at the sixpence in his hand, and thinking of the tripe. “She’s been and robbed five hundred ladies of a bloom a-piece, I shouldn’t wonder. It’s very dreadful!” “She’s much too handsome, my man,” repeated the Alderman. “The chances are, that she’ll come to no good, I clearly see. Observe what I say. Take care of her!” With which, he hurried off again. “Wrong every way. Wrong every way!” said Trotty, clasping his hands. “Born bad. No business here!” The Chimes came clashing in upon him as he said the words. Full, loud, and sounding—but with no encouragement. No, not a drop. “The tune’s changed,” cried the old man, as he listened. “There’s not a word of all that fancy in it. Why should there be? I have no business with the New Year nor with the old one neither. Let me die!” Still the Bells, pealing forth their changes, made the very air spin. Put ’em down, Put ’em down! Good old Times, Good old Times! Facts and figures, Facts and figures! Put ’em down, Put ’em down! If they said anything they said this, until the brain of Toby reeled. He pressed his bewildered head between his hands, as if to keep it from splitting asunder. A well-timed action, as it happened; for finding the letter in one of them, and being by that means reminded of his charge, he fell, mechanically, into his usual trot, and trotted off. The Second Quarter. The letter Toby had received from Alderman Cute, was addressed to a great man in the great district of the town. The greatest district of the town. It must have been the greatest district of the town, because it was commonly called The World by its inhabitants. The letter positively seemed heavier in Toby’s hand, than another letter. Not because the Alderman had sealed it with a very large coat of arms and no end of wax, but because of the weighty name on the superscription, and the ponderous amount of gold and silver with which it was associated. “How different from us!” thought Toby, in all simplicity and earnestness, as he looked at the direction. “Divide the lively turtles in the bills of mortality, by the number of gentlefolks able to buy ’em; and whose share does he take but his own! As to snatching tripe from anybody’s mouth—he’d scorn it!” With the involuntary homage due to such an exalted character, Toby interposed a corner of his apron between the letter and his fingers. “His children,” said Trotty, and a mist rose before his eyes; “his daughters—Gentlemen may win their hearts and marry them; they may be happy wives and mothers; they may be handsome like my darling M-e-.” He couldn’t finish the name. The final letter swelled in his throat, to the size of the whole alphabet. “Never mind,” thought Trotty. “I know what I mean. That’s more than enough for me.” And with this consolatory rumination, trotted on. It was a hard frost, that day. The air was bracing, crisp, and clear. The wintry sun, though powerless for warmth, looked brightly down upon the ice it was too weak to melt, and set a radiant glory there. At other times, Trotty might have learned a poor man’s lesson from the wintry sun; but he was past that, now. The Year was Old, that day. The patient Year had lived through the reproaches and misuses of its slanderers, and faithfully performed its work. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. It had laboured through the destined round, and now laid down its weary head to die. Shut out from hope, high impulse, active happiness, itself, but active messenger of many joys to others, it made appeal in its decline to have its toiling days and patient hours remembered, and to die in peace. Trotty might have read a poor man’s allegory in the fading year; but he was past that now. And only he? Or has the like appeal been ever made, by seventy years at once upon an English labourer’s head, and made in vain! The streets were full of motion, and the shops were decked out gaily. The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole world, was waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings. There were books and toys for the New Year, glittering trinkets for the New Year, dresses for the New Year, schemes of fortune for the New Year; new inventions to beguile it. Its life was parcelled out in almanacks and pocket-books; the coming of its moons, and stars, and tides, was known beforehand to the moment; all the workings of its seasons in their days and nights, were calculated with as much precision as Mr. Filer could work sums in men and women. The New Year, the New Year. Everywhere the New Year! The Old Year was already looked upon as dead; and its effects were selling cheap, like some drowned mariner’s aboardship. Its patterns were Last Year’s and going at a sacrifice, before its breath was gone. Its treasures were mere dirt, beside the riches of its unborn successor! Trotty had no portion, to his thinking, in the New Year or the Old. “Put ’em down, Put ’em down! Facts and Figures, facts and figures! Good old Times, Good old Times! Put ’em down, put ’em down!”—his trot went to that measure, and would fit itself to nothing else. But, even that one, melancholy as it was, brought him, in due time, to the end of his journey. To the mansion of Sir Joseph Bowley, Member of Parliament. The door was opened by a Porter. Such a Porter! Not of Toby’s order. Quite another thing. His place was the ticket though; not Toby’s. This Porter underwent some hard panting before he could speak; having breathed himself by coming incautiously out of his chair, without first taking time to think about it and compose his mind. When he had found his voice—which it took him a long time to do, for it was a long way off, and hidden under a load of meat—he said in a fat whisper, “Who’s it from?” Toby told him. “You’re to take it in, yourself,” said the Porter, pointing to a room at the end of a long passage, opening from the hall. “Everything goes straight in, on this day of the year. You’re not a bit too soon, for the carriage is at the door now, and they have only come to town for a couple of hours, a’ purpose.” Toby wiped his feet (which were quite dry already) with great care, and took the way pointed out to him; observing as he went that it was an awfully grand house, but hushed and covered up, as if the family were in the country. Knocking at the room door, he was told to enter from within; and doing so found himself in a spacious library, where, at a table strewn with files and papers, were a stately lady in a bonnet; and a not very stately gentleman in black who wrote from her dictation; while another, and an older, and a much statelier gentleman, whose hat and cane were on the table, walked up and down, with one hand in his breast, and looked complacently from time to time at his own picture—a full length; a very full length—hanging over the fire-place. “What is this?” said the last-named gentleman. “Mr. Fish, will you have the goodness to attend?” Mr. Fish begged pardon, and taking the letter from Toby, handed it, with great respect. “From Alderman Cute, Sir Joseph.” “Is this all? Have you nothing else, Porter?” inquired Sir Joseph. Toby replied in the negative. “You have no bill or demand upon me; my name is Bowley, Sir Joseph Bowley; of any kind from anybody, have you?” said Sir Joseph. “If you have, present it. There is a cheque-book by the side of Mr. Fish. I allow nothing to be carried into the New Year. Every description of account is settled in this house at the close of the old one. So that if death was to—to—&quot; “To cut,” suggested Mr. Fish. “To sever, Sir,” returned Sir Joseph, with great asperity, “the cord of existence—my affairs would be found, I hope, in a state of preparation.” “My dear Sir Joseph!” said the lady, who was greatly younger than the gentleman. “How shocking!” “My lady Bowley,” returned Sir Joseph, floundering now and then, as in the great depth of his observations, “at this season of the year we should think of—of—ourselves. We should look into our—our accounts. We should feel that every return of so eventful a period in human transactions, involves a matter of deep moment between a man and his—and his banker.” Sir Joseph delivered these words as if he felt the full morality of what he was saying; and desired that even Trotty should have an opportunity of being improved by such discourse. Possibly he had this end before him in still forbearing to break the seal of the letter, and in telling Trotty to wait where he was, a minute. “You were desiring Mr. Fish to say, my lady—” observed Sir Joseph. “Mr. Fish has said that, I believe,” returned his lady, glancing at the letter. “But, upon my word, Sir Joseph, I don’t think I can let it go after all. It is so very dear.” “What is dear?” inquired Sir Joseph. “That Charity, my love. They only allow two votes for a subscription of five pounds. Really monstrous!” “My lady Bowley,” returned Sir Joseph, “you surprise me. Is the luxury of feeling in proportion to the number of votes; or is it, to a rightly constituted mind, in proportion to the number of applicants and the wholesome state of mind to which their canvassing reduces them? Is there no excitement of the purest kind in having two votes to dispose of among fifty people?” “Not to me, I acknowledge,” replied the lady. “It bores one. Besides, one can’t oblige one’s acquaintance. But you are the Poor Man’s Friend, you know, Sir Joseph. You think otherwise.” “I am the Poor Man’s Friend,” observed Sir Joseph, glancing at the poor man present. “As such I may be taunted. As such I have been taunted. But I ask no other title.” “Bless him for a noble gentleman!” thought Trotty. “I don’t agree with Cute here, for instance,” said Sir Joseph, holding out the letter. “I don’t agree with the Filer party. I don’t agree with any party. My friend the Poor Man, has no business with anything of that sort, and nothing of that sort has any business with him. My friend the Poor Man, in my district, is my business. No man or body of men has any right to interfere between my friend and me. That is the ground I take. I assume a—a paternal character towards my friend. I say, ‘My good fellow, I will treat you paternally.”’ Toby listened with great gravity, and began to feel more comfortable. &quot;Your only business, my good fellow,&quot; pursued Sir Joseph, looking abstractedly at Toby; &quot;your only business in life is with me. You needn’t trouble yourself to think about anything. I will think for you; I know what is good for you; I am your perpetual parent. Such is the dispensation of an all-wise Providence! Now, the design of your creation is: not that you should swill, and guzzle, and associate your enjoyments, brutally, with food&quot; —Toby thought remorsefully of the tripe— &quot;but that you should feel the Dignity of Labor; go forth erect into the cheerful morning air, and—and stop there. Live hard and temperately, be respectful, exercise your self-denial, bring up your family on next to nothing, pay your rent as regularly as the clock strikes, be punctual in your dealings (I set you a good example; you will find Mr. Fish, my confidential secretary, with a cash-box before him at all times); and you may trust to me to be your Friend and Father.&quot; “Nice children, indeed, Sir Joseph!” said the lady, with a shudder. “Rheumatisms, and fevers, and crooked legs, and asthmas, and all kinds of horrors!” “My lady,” returned Sir Joseph, with solemnity, “not the less am I the Poor Man’s Friend and Father. Not the less shall he receive encouragement at my hands. Every quarter-day he will be put in communication with Mr. Fish. Every New-Year’s Day, myself and friends will drink his health. Once every year, myself and friends will address him with the deepest feeling. Once in his life, he may even perhaps receive; in public, in the presence of the gentry; a Trifle from a Friend. And when, upheld no more by these stimulants, and the Dignity of Labor, he sinks into his comfortable grave, then my lady”—here Sir Joseph blew his nose—&quot;I will be a Friend and a Father—on the same terms—to his children.” Toby was greatly moved. “Oh! You have a thankful family, Sir Joseph!” cried his wife. “My lady,” said Sir Joseph, quite majestically, “Ingratitude is known to be the sin of that class. I expect no other return.” “Ah! Born bad!” thought Toby. “Nothing melts us.” “What man can do, I do,” pursued Sir Joseph. “I do my duty as the Poor Man’s Friend and Father; and I endeavour to educate his mind, by inculcating on all occasions the one great moral lesson which that class requires. That is, entire Dependence on myself. They have no business whatever with—with themselves. If wicked and designing persons tell them otherwise, and they become impatient and discontented, and are guilty of insubordinate conduct and black-hearted ingratitude; which is undoubtedly the case; I am their Friend and Father still. It is so Ordained. It is in the nature of things.” With that great sentiment, he opened the Alderman’s letter; and read it. “Very polite and attentive, I am sure!” exclaimed Sir Joseph. “My lady, the Alderman is so obliging as to remind me that he has had ‘the distinguished honour’—he is very good—of meeting me at the house of our mutual friend Deedles, the banker; and he does me the favour to inquire whether it will be agreeable to me to have Will Fern put down.” “Most agreeable!” replied my Lady Bowley. “The worst man among them! He has been committing a robbery, I hope?” “Why no,” said Sir Joseph, referring to the letter. “Not quite. Very near. Not quite. He came up to London, it seems, to look for employment (trying to better himself—that’s his story), and being found at night asleep in a shed, was taken into custody, and carried next morning before the Alderman. The Alderman observes (very properly) that he is determined to put this sort of thing down; and that if it will be agreeable to me to have Will Fern put down, he will be happy to begin with him.” “Let him be made an example of, by all means,” returned the lady. “Last winter, when I introduced pinking and eyelet-holing among the men and boys in the village, as a nice evening employment, and had the lines, O let us love our occupations, Bless the squire and his relations, Live upon our daily rations, And always know our proper stations, set to music on the new system, for them to sing the while; this very Fern—I see him now—touched that hat of his, and said, ‘I humbly ask your pardon, my lady, but an’t I something different from a great girl?’ I expected it, of course; who can expect anything but insolence and ingratitude from that class of people! That is not to the purpose, however. Sir Joseph! Make an example of him!” “Hem!” coughed Sir Joseph. “Mr. Fish, if you’ll have the goodness to attend”— Mr. Fish immediately seized his pen, and wrote from Sir Joseph’s dictation. “Private. My dear Sir. I am very much indebted to you for your courtesy in the matter of the man William Fern, of whom, I regret to add, I can say nothing favourable. I have uniformly considered myself in the light of his Friend and Father, but have been repaid (a common case, I grieve to say) with ingratitude, and constant opposition to my plans. He is a turbulent and rebellious spirit. His character will not bear investigation. Nothing will persuade him to be happy when he might. Under these circumstances, it appears to me, I own, that when he comes before you again (as you informed me he promised to do to-morrow, pending your inquiries, and I think he may be so far relied upon), his committal for some short term as a Vagabond, would be a service to society, and would be a salutary example in a country where—for the sake of those who are, through good and evil report, the Friends and Fathers of the Poor, as well as with a view to that, generally speaking, misguided class themselves—examples are greatly needed. And I am,” and so forth. “It appears,” remarked Sir Joseph when he had signed this letter, and Mr. Fish was sealing it, “as if this were Ordained: really. At the close of the year, I wind up my account and strike my balance, even with William Fern!” Trotty, who had long ago relapsed, and was very low-spirited, stepped forward with a rueful face to take the letter. “With my compliments and thanks,” said Sir Joseph. “Stop!” “Stop!” echoed Mr. Fish. “You have heard, perhaps,” said Sir Joseph, oracularly, “certain remarks into which I have been led respecting the solemn period of time at which we have arrived, and the duty imposed upon us of settling our affairs, and being prepared. You have observed that I don’t shelter myself behind my superior standing in society, but that Mr. Fish—that gentleman—has a cheque-book at his elbow, and is in fact here, to enable me to turn over a perfectly new leaf, and enter on the epoch before us with a clean account. Now, my friend, can you lay your hand upon your heart, and say, that you also have made preparations for a New Year?” “I am afraid, Sir,” stammered Trotty, looking meekly at him, “that I am a—a—little behind-hand with the world.” “Behind-hand with the world!” repeated Sir Joseph Bowley, in a tone of terrible distinctness. “I am afraid, Sir,” faltered Trotty, “that there’s a matter of ten or twelve shillings owing to Mrs. Chickenstalker.” “To Mrs. Chickenstalker!” repeated Sir Joseph, in the same tone as before. “A shop Sir,” exclaimed Toby, “in the general line. Also a—a little money on account of rent. A very little, sir. It oughtn’t to be owing, I know, but we have been hard put to it, indeed!” Sir Joseph looked at his lady, and at Mr. Fish, and at Trotty, one after another, twice all round. He then made a despondent gesture with both hands at once, as if he gave the thing up altogether. “How a man, even among this improvident and impracticable race; an old man; a man grown grey; can look a New Year in the face, with his affairs in this condition; how he can lie down on his bed at night, and get up again in the morning, and—There!” he said, turning his back on Trotty. “Take the letter. Take the letter!” “I heartily wish it was otherwise, sir,” said Trotty, anxious to excuse himself. “We have been tried very hard.” Sir Joseph still repeating “Take the letter, take the letter!” and Mr. Fish not only saying the same thing, but giving additional force to the request by motioning the bearer to the door, he had nothing for it but to make his bow and leave the house. And in the street, poor Trotty pulled his worn old hat down on his head, to hide the grief he felt at getting no hold on the New Year, anywhere. He didn’t even lift his hat to look up at the Bell tower when he came to the old church on his return. He halted there a moment, from habit: and knew that it was growing dark, and that the steeple rose above him, indistinct and faint, in the murky air. He knew, too, that the Chimes would ring immediately; and that they sounded to his fancy, at such a time, like voices in the clouds. But he only made the more haste to deliver the Alderman’s letter, and get out of the way before they began; for he dreaded to hear them tagging “Friends and Fathers, Friends and Fathers,” to the burden they had rung out last. Toby discharged himself of his commission, therefore, with all possible speed, and set off trotting homeward. But what with his pace, which was at best an awkward one in the street; and what with his hat, which didn’t improve it; he trotted against somebody in less than no time, and was sent staggering out into the road. “I beg your pardon, I’m sure!” said Trotty, pulling up his hat in great confusion, and between the hat and the torn lining, fixing his head into a kind of bee-hive. “I hope I haven’t hurt you.” As to hurting anybody, Toby was not such an absolute Samson, but that he was much more likely to be hurt himself: and indeed, he had flown out into the road, like a shuttlecock. He had such an opinion of his own strength, however, that he was in real concern for the other party: and said again, “I hope I haven’t hurt you?” The man against whom he had run; a sun-browned, sinewy, country-looking man, with grizzled hair, and a rough chin; stared at him for a moment, as if he suspected him to be in jest. But, satisfied of his good faith, he answered: “No, friend. You have not hurt me.” “Nor the child, I hope?” said Trotty. “Nor the child,” returned the man. “I thank you kindly.” As he said so, he glanced at a little girl he carried in his arms, asleep: and shading her face with the long end of the poor handkerchief he wore about his throat, went slowly on. The tone in which he said “I thank you kindly,” penetrated Trotty’s heart. He was so jaded and foot-sore, and so soiled with travel, and looked about him so forlorn and strange, that it was a comfort to him to be able to thank any one: no matter for how little. Toby stood gazing after him as he plodded wearily away; with the child’s arm clinging round his neck. At the figure in the worn shoes—now the very shade and ghost of shoes—rough leather leggings, common frock, and broad slouched hat, Trotty stood gazing, blind to the whole street. And at the child’s arm, clinging round its neck. Before he merged into the darkness the traveller stopped; and looking round, and seeing Trotty standing there yet, seemed undecided whether to return or go on. After doing first the one and then the other, he came back, and Trotty went half way to meet him. “You can tell me, perhaps,” said the man with a faint smile, “and if you can I am sure you will, and I’d rather ask you than another—where Alderman Cute lives.” “Close at hand,” replied Toby. “I’ll show you his house with pleasure.” “I was to have gone to him elsewhere to-morrow,” said the man, accompanying Toby, “but I’m uneasy under suspicion, and want to clear myself, and to be free to go and seek my bread—I don’t know where. So, maybe he’ll forgive my going to his house to-night.” “It’s impossible,” cried Toby with a start, “that your name’s Fern!” “Eh!” cried the other, turning on him in astonishment. “Fern! Will Fern!” said Trotty. “That’s my name,” replied the other. “Why then,” said Trotty, seizing him by the arm, and looking cautiously round, “for Heaven’s sake don’t go to him! Don’t go to him! He’ll put you down as sure as ever you were born. Here! come up this alley, and I’ll tell you what I mean. Don’t go to him.” His new acquaintance looked as if he thought him mad; but he bore him company nevertheless. When they were shrouded from observation, Trotty told him what he knew, and what character he had received, and all about it. The subject of his history listened to it with a calmness that surprised him. He did not contradict or interrupt it, once. He nodded his head now and then—more in corroboration of an old and worn-out story, it appeared, than in refutation of it; and once or twice threw back his hat, and passed his freckled hand over a brow, where every furrow he had ploughed seemed to have set its image in little. But he did no more. “It’s true enough in the main,” he said, “master, I could sift grain from husk here and there, but let it be as ’tis. What odds? I have gone against his plans; to my misfortun’. I can’t help it; I should do the like to-morrow. As to character, them gentlefolks will search and search, and pry and pry, and have it as free from spot or speck in us, afore they’ll help us to a dry good word! Well! I hope they don’t lose good opinion as easy as we do, or their lives is strict indeed, and hardly worth the keeping. For myself, master, I never took with that hand”—holding it before him—&quot;what wasn’t my own; and never held it back from work, however hard, or poorly paid. Whoever can deny it, let him chop it off! But when work won’t maintain me like a human creetur; when my living is so bad, that I am Hungry, out of doors and in; when I see a whole working life begin that way, go on that way, and end that way, without a chance or change; then I say to the gentlefolks ‘Keep away from me! Let my cottage be. My doors is dark enough without your darkening of ’em more. Don’t look for me to come up into the Park to help the show when there’s a Birthday, or a fine Speechmaking, or what not. Act your Plays and Games without me, and be welcome to ’em, and enjoy ’em. We’ve nought to do with one another. I’m best let alone!’” Seeing that the child in his arms had opened her eyes, and was looking about her in wonder, he checked himself to say a word or two of foolish prattle in her ear, and stand her on the ground beside him. Then slowly winding one of her long tresses round and round his rough forefinger like a ring, while she hung about his dusty leg, he said to Trotty: “I’m not a cross-grained man by natu’, I believe; and easy satisfied, I’m sure. I bear no ill-will against none of ’em: I only want to live like one of the Almighty’s creeturs. I can’t; I don’t; and so there’s a pit dug between me and them that can and do. There’s others like me. You might tell ’em off by hundreds and by thousands, sooner than by ones.” Trotty knew he spoke the Truth in this, and shook his head to signify as much. “I’ve got a bad name this way,” said Fern; “and I’m not likely, I’m afeared, to get a better. ’Tan’t lawful to be out of sorts, and I AM out of sorts, though God knows I’d sooner bear a cheerful spirit if I could. Well! I don’t know as this Alderman could hurt me much by sending me to jail; but without a friend to speak a word for me, he might do it; and you see—!” pointing downward with his finger, at the child. “She has a beautiful face,” said Trotty. “Why yes!” replied the other in a low voice, as he gently turned it up with both his hands towards his own, and looked upon it steadfastly. “I’ve thought so, many times. I’ve thought so, when my hearth was very cold, and cupboard very bare. I thought so t’other night, when we were taken like two thieves. But they—they shouldn’t try the little face too often, should they, Lilian? That’s hardly fair upon a man!” He sunk his voice so low, and gazed upon her with an air so stern and strange, that Toby, to divert the current of his thoughts, inquired if his wife were living. “I never had one,” he returned, shaking his head. “She’s my brother’s child: a orphan. Nine year old, though you’d hardly think it; but she’s tired and worn out now. They’d have taken care on her, the Union—eight and twenty mile away from where we live; between four walls (as they took care of my old father when he couldn’t work no more, though he didn’t trouble ’em long); but I took her instead, and she’s lived with me ever since. Her mother had a friend once, in London here. We are trying to find her, and to find work too; but it’s a large place. Never mind. More room for us to walk about in, Lilly!” Meeting the child’s eyes with a smile which melted Toby more than tears, he shook him by the hand. “I don’t so much as know your name,” he said, “but I’ve opened my heart free to you, for I’m thankful to you; with good reason. I’ll take your advice, and keep clear of this—&quot; “Justice,” suggested Toby. “Ah!” he said. “If that’s the name they give him. This Justice. And to-morrow will try whether there’s better fortun’ to be met with, somewheres near London. Good night. A Happy New Year!” “Stay!” cried Trotty, catching at his hand, as he relaxed his grip. “Stay! The New Year never can be happy to me, if we part like this. The New Year never can be happy to me, if I see the child and you, go wandering away you don’t know where, without a shelter for your heads. Come home with me! I’m a poor man, living in a poor place; but I can give you lodging for one night and never miss it. Come home with me! Here! I’ll take her!” cried Trotty, lifting up the child. “A pretty one! I’d carry twenty times her weight, and never know I’d got it. Tell me if I go too quick for you. I’m very fast. I always was!” Trotty said this, taking about six of his trotting paces to one stride of his fatigued companion; and with his thin legs quivering again, beneath the load he bore. “Why, she’s as light,” said Trotty, trotting in his speech as well as in his gait; for he couldn’t bear to be thanked, and dreaded a moment’s pause; “as light as a feather. Lighter than a Peacock’s feather—a great deal lighter. Here we are and here we go! Round this first turning to the right, Uncle Will, and past the pump, and sharp off up the passage to the left, right opposite the public-house. Here we are and here we go! Cross over, Uncle Will, and mind the kidney pieman at the corner! Here we are and here we go! Down the Mews here, Uncle Will, and stop at the black door, with ‘T. Veck, Ticket Porter,’ wrote upon a board; and here we are and here we go, and here we are indeed, my precious Meg, surprising you!” With which words Trotty, in a breathless state, set the child down before his daughter in the middle of the floor. The little visitor looked once at Meg; and doubting nothing in that face, but trusting everything she saw there; ran into her arms. “Here we are and here we go!” cried Trotty, running round the room, and choking audibly. “Here, Uncle Will, here’s a fire you know! Why don’t you come to the fire? Oh here we are and here we go! Meg, my precious darling, where’s the kettle? Here it is and here it goes, and it’ll bile in no time!” Trotty really had picked up the kettle somewhere or other in the course of his wild career, and now put it on the fire: while Meg, seating the child in a warm corner, knelt down on the ground before her, and pulled off her shoes, and dried her wet feet on a cloth. Ay, and she laughed at Trotty too—so pleasantly, so cheerfully, that Trotty could have blessed her where she kneeled: for he had seen that, when they entered, she was sitting by the fire in tears. “Why, father!” said Meg. “You’re crazy to-night, I think. I don’t know what the Bells would say to that. Poor little feet. How cold they are!” “Oh, they’re warmer now!” exclaimed the child. “They’re quite warm now!” “No, no, no,” said Meg. “We haven’t rubbed ’em half enough. We’re so busy. So busy! And when they’re done, we’ll brush out the damp hair; and when that’s done, we’ll bring some colour to the poor pale face with fresh water; and when that’s done, we’ll be so gay, and brisk, and happy—!” The child, in a burst of sobbing, clasped her round the neck; caressed her fair cheek with its hand; and said, “Oh Meg! oh dear Meg!” Toby’s blessing could have done no more. Who could do more! “Why, father!” cried Meg, after a pause. “Here I am and here I go, my dear!” said Trotty. “Good Gracious me!” cried Meg. “He’s crazy! He’s put the dear child’s bonnet on the kettle, and hung the lid behind the door!” “I didn’t go for to do it, my love,” said Trotty, hastily repairing this mistake. “Meg, my dear?” Meg looked towards him and saw that he had elaborately stationed himself behind the chair of their male visitor, where with many mysterious gestures he was holding up the sixpence he had earned. “I see, my dear,” said Trotty, “as I was coming in, half an ounce of tea lying somewhere on the stairs; and I’m pretty sure there was a bit of bacon too. As I don’t remember where it was exactly, I’ll go myself and try to find ’em.” With this inscrutable artifice, Toby withdrew to purchase the viands he had spoken of, for ready money, at Mrs. Chickenstalker’s; and presently came back, pretending he had not been able to find them, at first, in the dark. “But here they are at last,” said Trotty, setting out the tea-things, “all correct! I was pretty sure it was tea, and a rasher. So it is. Meg, my Pet, if you’ll just make the tea, while your unworthy father toasts the bacon, we shall be ready, immediate. It’s a curious circumstance,” said Trotty, proceeding in his cookery, with the assistance of the toasting-fork, “curious, but well known to my friends, that I never care, myself, for rashers, nor for tea. I like to see other people enjoy ’em,” said Trotty, speaking very loud, to impress the fact upon his guest, “but to me, as food, they’re disagreeable.” Yet Trotty sniffed the savour of the hissing bacon—ah!—as if he liked it; and when he poured the boiling water in the tea-pot, looked lovingly down into the depths of that snug cauldron, and suffered the fragrant steam to curl about his nose, and wreathe his head and face in a thick cloud. However, for all this, he neither ate nor drank, except at the very beginning, a mere morsel for form’s sake, which he appeared to eat with infinite relish, but declared was perfectly uninteresting to him. No. Trotty’s occupation was, to see Will Fern and Lilian eat and drink; and so was Meg’s. And never did spectators at a city dinner or court banquet find such high delight in seeing others feast: although it were a monarch or a pope: as those two did, in looking on that night. Meg smiled at Trotty, Trotty laughed at Meg. Meg shook her head, and made belief to clap her hands, applauding Trotty; Trotty conveyed, in dumb-show, unintelligible narratives of how and when and where he had found their visitors, to Meg; and they were happy. Very happy. “Although,” thought Trotty, sorrowfully, as he watched Meg’s face; “that match is broken off, I see!” “Now, I’ll tell you what,” said Trotty after tea. “The little one, she sleeps with Meg, I know.” “With good Meg!” cried the child, caressing her. “With Meg.” “That’s right,” said Trotty. “And I shouldn’t wonder if she kiss Meg’s father, won’t she? I’m Meg’s father.” Mightily delighted Trotty was, when the child went timidly towards him, and having kissed him, fell back upon Meg again. “She’s as sensible as Solomon,” said Trotty. “Here we come and here we—no, we don’t—I don’t mean that—I—what was I saying, Meg, my precious?” Meg looked towards their guest, who leaned upon her chair, and with his face turned from her, fondled the child’s head, half hidden in her lap. “To be sure,” said Toby. “To be sure! I don’t know what I’m rambling on about, to-night. My wits are wool-gathering, I think. Will Fern, you come along with me. You’re tired to death, and broken down for want of rest. You come along with me.” The man still played with the child’s curls, still leaned upon Meg’s chair, still turned away his face. He didn’t speak, but in his rough coarse fingers, clenching and expanding in the fair hair of the child, there was an eloquence that said enough. “Yes, yes,” said Trotty, answering unconsciously what he saw expressed in his daughter’s face. “Take her with you, Meg. Get her to-bed. There! Now, Will, I’ll show you where you lie. It’s not much of a place: only a loft; but having a loft, I always say, is one of the great conveniences of living in a mews; and till this coach-house and stable gets a better let, we live here cheap. There’s plenty of sweet hay up there, belonging to a neighbour; and it’s as clean, as hands and Meg can make it. Cheer up! Don’t give way. A new heart for a New Year, always!” The hand released from the child’s hair, had fallen, trembling, into Trotty’s hand. So Trotty, talking without intermission, led him out as tenderly and easily as if he had been a child himself. Returning before Meg, he listened for an instant at the door of her little chamber; an adjoining room. The child was murmuring a simple Prayer before lying down to sleep; and when she had remembered Meg’s name, “Dearly, Dearly”—so her words ran—Trotty heard her stop and ask for his. It was some short time before the foolish little old fellow could compose himself to mend the fire, and draw his chair to the warm hearth. But, when he had done so, and had trimmed the light, he took his newspaper from his pocket, and began to read. Carelessly at first, and skimming up and down the columns; but with an earnest and a sad attention, very soon. For this same dreaded paper re-directed Trotty’s thoughts into the channel they had taken all that day, and which the day’s events had so marked out and shaped. His interest in the two wanderers had set him on another course of thinking, and a happier one, for the time; but being alone again, and reading of the crimes and violences of the people, he relapsed into his former train. In this mood, he came to an account (and it was not the first he had ever read) of a woman who had laid her desperate hands not only on her own life but on that of her young child. A crime so terrible, and so revolting to his soul, dilated with the love of Meg, that he let the journal drop, and fell back in his chair, appalled. “Unnatural and cruel!” Toby cried. “Unnatural and cruel! None but people who were bad at heart: born bad: who had no business on the earth: could do such deeds. It’s too true, all I’ve heard to-day; too just, too full of proof. We’re Bad!” The Chimes took up the words so suddenly—burst out so loud, and clear, and sonorous—that the Bells seemed to strike him in his chair. And what was that, they said? &quot;Toby Veck, Toby Veck, waiting for you Toby! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, waiting for you Toby! Come and see us, come and see us, Drag him to us, drag him to us, Haunt and hunt him, haunt and hunt him, Break his slumbers, break his slumbers! Toby Veck Toby Veck, door open wide Toby, Toby Veck Toby Veck, door open wide Toby—&quot; then fiercely back to their impetuous strain again, and ringing in the very bricks and plaster on the walls. Toby listened. Fancy, fancy! His remorse for having run away from them that afternoon! No, no. Nothing of the kind. Again, again, and yet a dozen times again. &quot;Haunt and hunt him, haunt and hunt him, Drag him to us, drag him to us!&quot; Deafening the whole town! &quot;Meg,&quot; said Trotty softly: tapping at her door. &quot;Do you hear anything?&quot; &quot;I hear the Bells, father. Surely they’re very loud to-night.&quot; &quot;Is she asleep,&quot; said Toby, making an excuse for peeping in. &quot;So peacefully and happily! I can’t leave her yet though, father. Look how she holds my hand!&quot; &quot;Meg,&quot; whispered Trotty. &quot;Listen to the Bells!&quot; She listened, with her face towards him all the time. But it underwent no change. She didn’t understand them. Trotty withdrew, resumed his seat by the fire, and once more listened by himself. He remained here a little time. It was impossible to bear it; their energy was dreadful. &quot;If the tower-door is really open,&#039; said Toby, hastily laying aside his apron, but never thinking of his hat, &quot;what’s to hinder me from going up into the steeple and satisfying myself? If it’s shut, I don’t want any other satisfaction. That’s enough.&quot; He was pretty certain as he slipped out quietly into the street that he should find it shut and locked, for he knew the door well, and had so rarely seen it open, that he couldn’t reckon above three times in all. It was a low arched portal, outside the church, in a dark nook behind a column; and had such great iron hinges and such a monstrous lock, that there was more hinge and lock than door. But what was his astonishment when, coming bare-headed to the church; and putting his hand into this dark nook, with a certain misgiving that it might be unexpectedly seized, and a shivering propensity to draw it back again; he found that the door, which opened outwards, actually stood ajar! He thought, on the first surprise, of going back; or of getting a light, or a companion; but his courage aided him immediately; and he determined to ascend alone. &quot;What have I to fear?&quot; said Trotty. &quot;It’s a church! Besides, the ringers may be there, and have forgotten to shut the door.&quot; So he went in; feeling his way as he went, like a blind man; for it was very dark. And very quiet, for the Chimes were silent. The dust from the street had blown into the recess; and lying there, heaped up, made it so soft and velvet-like to the foot, that there was something startling even in that. The narrow stair was so close to the door, too, that he stumbled at the very first; and shutting the door upon himself, by striking it with his foot, and causing it to rebound back heavily, he couldn’t open it again. This was another reason, however, for going on. Trotty groped his way, and went on. Up, up, up, and round and round; and up, up, up; higher, higher, higher up! It was a disagreeable staircase for that groping work; so low and narrow, that his groping hand was always touching something; and it often felt so like a man or ghostly figure standing up erect and making room for him to pass without discovery, that he would rub the smooth wall upward searching for its face, and downward searching for its feet, while a chill tingling crept all over him. Twice or thrice a door or niche broke the monotonous surface; and then it seemed a gap as wide as the whole church; and he felt on the brink of an abyss, and going to tumble headlong down; until he found the wall again. Still up, up, up; and round and round; and up, up, up; higher, higher, higher up! At length, the dull and stifling atmosphere began to freshen: presently to feel quite windy: presently it blew so strong, that he could hardly keep his legs. But he got to an arched window in the tower, breast high, and holding tight, looked down upon the house-tops, on the smoking chimneys, on the blur and blotch of lights (towards the place where Meg was wondering where he was and calling to him perhaps), all kneaded up together in a leaven of mist and darkness. This was the belfry, where the ringers came. He had caught hold of one of the frayed ropes which hung down through apertures in the oaken roof. At first he started; thinking it was hair; then trembled at the very thought of waking the deep Bell. The Bells themselves were higher. Higher, Trotty, in his fascination, or in working out the spell upon him, groped his way. By ladders now, and toilsomely, for it was steep, and not too certain holding for the feet. Up, up, up; and climb and clamber; up, up, up; higher, higher, higher up! Until, ascending through the floor, and pausing with his head just raised above its beams, he came among the Bells. It was barely possible to make out their great shapes in the gloom; but there they were. Shadowy, and dark, and dumb. A heavy sense of dread and loneliness fell instantly upon him, as he climbed into this airy nest of stone and metal. His head went round and round. He listened, and then raised a wild &quot;Halloa!&quot; Halloa! was mournfully protracted by the echoes. Giddy, confused, and out of breath, and frightened, Toby looked about him vacantly, and sunk down in a swoon. Third Quarter. Black are the brooding clouds and troubled the deep waters, when the Sea of Thought, first heaving from a calm, gives up its Dead. Monsters uncouth and wild, arise in premature, imperfect resurrection; the several parts and shapes of different things are joined and mixed by chance; and when, and how, and by what wonderful degrees, each separates from each, and every sense and object of the mind resumes its usual form and lives again, no man—though every man is every day the casket of this type of the Great Mystery—can tell. So, when and how the darkness of the night-black steeple changed to shining light; when and how the solitary tower was peopled with a myriad figures; when and how the whispered &quot;Haunt and hunt him,&quot; breathing monotonously through his sleep or swoon, became a voice exclaiming in the waking ears of Trotty, &quot;Break his slumbers;&quot; when and how he ceased to have a sluggish and confused idea that such things were, companioning a host of others that were not; there are no dates or means to tell. But: awake, and standing on his feet upon the boards where he had lately lain: he saw this Goblin Sight. He saw the tower, whither his charmed footsteps had brought him, swarming with dwarf phantoms, spirits, elfin creatures of the Bells. He saw them leaping, flying, dropping, pouring from the Bells without a pause. He saw them, round him on the ground; above him, in the air; clambering from him, by the ropes below; looking down upon him, from the massive iron-girded beams; peeping in upon him, through the chinks and loopholes in the walls; spreading away and away from him in enlarging circles, as the water ripples give way to a huge stone that suddenly comes plashing in among them. He saw them, of all aspects and all shapes. He saw them ugly, handsome, crippled, exquisitely formed. He saw them young, he saw them old, he saw them kind, he saw them cruel, he saw them merry, he saw them grim; he saw them dance, and heard them sing; he saw them tear their hair, and heard them howl. He saw the air thick with them. He saw them come and go, incessantly. He saw them riding downward, soaring upward, sailing off afar, perching near at hand, all restless and all violently active. Stone, and brick, and slate, and tile, became transparent to him as to them. He saw them in the houses, busy at the sleepers’ beds. He saw them soothing people in their dreams; he saw them beating them with knotted whips; he saw them yelling in their ears; he saw them playing softest music on their pillows; he saw them cheering some with the songs of birds and the perfume of flowers; he saw them flashing awful faces on the troubled rest of others, from enchanted mirrors which they carried in their hands. He saw these creatures, not only among sleeping men but waking also, active in pursuits irreconcilable with one another, and possessing or assuming natures the most opposite. He saw one buckling on innumerable wings to increase his speed; another loading himself with chains and weights, to retard his. He saw some putting the hands of clocks forward, some putting the hands of clocks backward, some endeavouring to stop the clock entirely. He saw them representing, here a marriage ceremony, there a funeral; in this chamber an election, and in that a ball; everywhere, restless and untiring motion. Bewildered by the host of shifting and extraordinary figures, as well as by the uproar of the Bells, which all this while were ringing, Trotty clung to a wooden pillar for support, and turned his white face here and there, in mute and stunned astonishment. As he gazed, the Chimes stopped. Instantaneous change! The whole swarm fainted! their forms collapsed, their speed deserted them; they sought to fly, but in the act of falling died and melted into air. No fresh supply succeeded them. One straggler leaped down pretty briskly from the surface of the Great Bell, and alighted on his feet, but he was dead and gone before he could turn round. Some few of the late company who had gambolled in the tower, remained there, spinning over and over a little longer; but these became at every turn more faint, and few, and feeble, and soon went the way of the rest. The last of all was one small hunchback, who had got into an echoing corner, where he twirled and twirled, and floated by himself a long time; showing such perseverance, that at last he dwindled to a leg and even to a foot, before he finally retired; but he vanished in the end, and then the tower was silent. Then and not before, did Trotty see in every Bell a bearded figure of the bulk and stature of the Bell—incomprehensibly, a figure and the Bell itself. Gigantic, grave, and darkly watchful of him, as he stood rooted to the ground. Mysterious and awful figures! Resting on nothing; poised in the night air of the tower, with their draped and hooded heads merged in the dim roof; motionless and shadowy. Shadowy and dark, although he saw them by some light belonging to themselves—none else was there—each with its muffled hand upon its goblin mouth. He could not plunge down wildly through the opening in the floor; for all power of motion had deserted him. Otherwise he would have done so—aye, would have thrown himself, headforemost, from the steeple-top, rather than have seen them watching him with eyes that would have waked and watched although the pupils had been taken out. Again, again, the dread and terror of the lonely place, and of the wild and fearful night that reigned there, touched him like a spectral hand. His distance from all help; the long, dark, winding, ghost-beleaguered way that lay between him and the earth on which men lived; his being high, high, high, up there, where it had made him dizzy to see the birds fly in the day; cut off from all good people, who at such an hour were safe at home and sleeping in their beds; all this struck coldly through him, not as a reflection but a bodily sensation. Meantime his eyes and thoughts and fears, were fixed upon the watchful figures; which, rendered unlike any figures of this world by the deep gloom and shade enwrapping and enfolding them, as well as by their looks and forms and supernatural hovering above the floor, were nevertheless as plainly to be seen as were the stalwart oaken frames, cross-pieces, bars and beams, set up there to support the Bells. These hemmed them, in a very forest of hewn timber; from the entanglements, intricacies, and depths of which, as from among the boughs of a dead wood blighted for their phantom use, they kept their darksome and unwinking watch. A blast of air—how cold and shrill!—came moaning through the tower. As it died away, the Great Bell, or the Goblin of the Great Bell, spoke. &quot;What visitor is this!&quot; it said. The voice was low and deep, and Trotty fancied that it sounded in the other figures as well. &quot;I thought my name was called by the Chimes!&quot; said Trotty, raising his hands in an attitude of supplication. &quot;I hardly know why I am here, or how I came. I have listened to the Chimes these many years. They have cheered me often.&quot; &quot;And you have thanked them?&quot; said the Bell. &quot;A thousand times!&quot; cried Trotty. &quot;How?&quot; &quot;I am a poor man,&quot; faltered Trotty, &quot;and could only thank them in words.&quot; &quot;And always so?&quot; inquired the Goblin of the Bell. &quot;Have you never done us wrong in words?&quot; &quot;No!&quot; cried Trotty eagerly. &quot;Never done us foul, and false, and wicked wrong, in words?&quot; pursued the Goblin of the Bell. Trotty was about to answer, &quot;Never!&quot; But he stopped, and was confused. &quot;The voice of Time,&quot; said the Phantom, &quot;cries to man, Advance! Time is for his advancement and improvement; for his greater worth, his greater happiness, his better life; his progress onward to that goal within its knowledge and its view, and set there, in the period when Time and He began. Ages of darkness, wickedness, and violence, have come and gone; millions uncountable, have suffered, lived, and died; to point the way Before him. Who seeks to turn him back, or stay him on his course, arrests a mighty engine which will strike the meddler dead; and be the fiercer and the wilder, ever, for its momentary check!&quot; &quot;I never did so to my knowledge, Sir,&quot; said Trotty. &quot;It was quite by accident if I did. I wouldn’t go to do it, I’m sure.&quot; &quot;Who puts into the mouth of Time, or of its servants,&quot; said the Goblin of the Bell, &quot;a cry of lamentation for days which have had their trial and their failure, and have left deep traces of it which the blind may see—a cry that only serves the Present Time, by showing men how much it needs their help when any ears can listen to regrets for such a Past—who does this, does a wrong. And you have done that wrong, to us, the Chimes.&quot; Trotty’s first excess of fear was gone. But he had felt tenderly and gratefully towards the Bells, as you have seen; and when he heard himself arraigned as one who had offended them so weightily, his heart was touched with penitence and grief. &quot;If you knew,&quot; said Trotty, clasping his hands earnestly—&quot;or perhaps you do know—if you know how often you have kept me company; how often you have cheered me up when I’ve been low; how you were quite the plaything of my little daughter Meg (almost the only one she ever had) when first her mother died, and she and me were left alone; you won’t bear malice for a hasty word!&quot; &quot;Who hears in us, the Chimes, one note bespeaking disregard, or stern regard, of any hope, or joy, or pain, or sorrow, of the many-sorrowed throng; who hears us make response to any creed that gauges human passions and affections, as it gauges the amount of miserable food on which humanity may pine and wither; does us wrong. That wrong you have done us!&quot; said the Bell. &quot;I have!&quot; said Trotty. &quot;Oh forgive me!&quot; &quot;Who hears us echo the dull vermin of the earth: the Putters Down of crushed and broken natures, formed to be raised up higher than such maggots of the time can crawl or can conceive,&quot; pursued the Goblin of the Bell; &quot;who does so, does us wrong. And you have done us wrong!&quot; &quot;Not meaning it,&quot; said Trotty. &quot;In my ignorance. Not meaning it!&quot; &quot;Lastly, and most of all,&quot; pursued the Bell. &quot;Who turns his back upon the fallen and disfigured of his kind; abandons them as Vile; and does not trace and track with pitying eyes the unfenced precipice by which they fell from Good—grasping in their fall some tufts and shreds of that lost soil, and clinging to them still when bruised and dying in the gulf below; does wrong to Heaven and Man, to Time and to Eternity. And you have done that wrong!&quot; &quot;Spare me!&quot; cried Trotty, falling on his knees; &quot;for Mercy’s sake!&quot; &quot;Listen!&quot; said the Shadow. &quot;Listen!&quot; cried the other Shadows. &quot;Listen!&quot; said a clear and child-like voice, which Trotty thought he recognised as having heard before. The organ sounded faintly in the church below. Swelling by degrees, the melody ascended to the roof, and filled the choir and nave. Expanding more and more, it rose up, up; up, up; higher, higher, higher up; awakening agitated hearts within the burly piles of oak: the hollow bells, the iron-bound doors, the stairs of solid stone; until the tower walls were insufficient to contain it, and it soared into the sky. No wonder that an old man’s breast could not contain a sound so vast and mighty. It broke from that weak prison in a rush of tears; and Trotty put his hands before his face. &quot;Listen!&quot; said the Shadow. &quot;Listen!&quot; said the other Shadows. &quot;Listen!&quot; said the child’s voice. A solemn strain of blended voices, rose into the tower. It was a very low and mournful strain: a Dirge: and as he listened, Trotty heard his child among the singers. &quot;She is dead!&quot; exclaimed the old man. &quot;Meg is dead! Her Spirit calls to me. I hear it!&quot; &quot;The Spirit of your child bewails the dead, and mingles with the dead—dead hopes, dead fancies, dead imaginings of youth,&quot; returned the Bell, &quot;but she is living. Learn from her life, a living truth. Learn from the creature dearest to your heart, how bad the Bad are born. See every bud and leaf plucked one by one from off the fairest stem, and know how bare and wretched it may be. Follow her! To Desperation!&quot; Each of the shadowy figures stretched its right arm forth, and pointed downward. &quot;The Spirit of the Chimes is your companion,&quot; said the figure. &quot;Go! It stands behind you!&quot; Trotty turned, and saw—the child? The child Will Fern had carried in the street; the child whom Meg had watched, but now, asleep! &quot;I carried her myself, to-night,&quot; said Trotty. &quot;In these arms!&quot; &quot;Show him what he calls himself,&quot; said the dark figures, one and all. The tower opened at his feet. He looked down, and beheld his own form, lying at the bottom, on the outside: crushed and motionless. &quot;No more a living man!&quot; cried Trotty. &quot;Dead!&quot; &quot;Dead!&quot; said the figures all together. &quot;Gracious Heaven! And the New Year—&quot; &quot;Past,&quot; said the figures. &quot;What!&quot; he cried, shuddering. &quot;I missed my way, and coming on the outside of this tower in the dark, fell down—a year ago?&quot; &quot;Nine years ago!&quot; replied the figures. As they gave the answer, they recalled their outstretched hands; and where their figures had been, there the Bells were. And they rung; their time being come again. And once again, vast multitudes of phantoms sprung into existence; once again, were incoherently engaged, as they had been before; once again, faded on the stopping of the Chimes; and dwindled into nothing. &quot;What are these?&quot; he asked his guide. &quot;If I am not mad, what are these?&quot; &quot;Spirits of the Bells. Their sound upon the air,&quot; returned the child. &quot;They take such shapes and occupations as the hopes and thoughts of mortals, and the recollections they have stored up, give them.&quot; &quot;And you,&quot; said Trotty wildly. &quot;What are you?’ &quot;Hush, hush!&quot; returned the child. &quot;Look here!&quot; In a poor, mean room; working at the same kind of embroidery which he had often, often seen before her; Meg, his own dear daughter, was presented to his view. He made no effort to imprint his kisses on her face; he did not strive to clasp her to his loving heart; he knew that such endearments were, for him, no more. But, he held his trembling breath; and brushed away the blinding tears, that he might look upon her; that he might only see her. Ah! Changed. Changed. The light of the clear eye, how dimmed. The bloom, how faded from the cheek. Beautiful she was, as she had ever been, but Hope, Hope, Hope, oh where was the fresh Hope that had spoken to him like a voice! She looked up from her work, at a companion. Following her eyes, the old man started back. In the woman grown, he recognised her at a glance. In the long silken hair, he saw the self-same curls; around the lips, the child’s expression lingering still. See! In the eyes, now turned inquiringly on Meg, there shone the very look that scanned those features when he brought her home! Then what was this, beside him! Looking with awe into its face, he saw a something reigning there: a lofty something, undefined and indistinct, which made it hardly more than a remembrance of that child—as yonder figure might be—yet it was the same: the same: and wore the dress. Hark. They were speaking! &quot;Meg,&quot; said Lilian, hesitating. &quot;How often you raise your head from your work to look at me!&quot; &quot;Are my looks so altered, that they frighten you?&quot; asked Meg. &quot;Nay, dear! But you smile at that, yourself! Why not smile, when you look at me, Meg?&quot; &quot;I do so. Do I not?&quot; she answered: smiling on her. &quot;Now you do,&quot; said Lilian, &quot;but not usually. When you think I’m busy, and don’t see you, you look so anxious and so doubtful, that I hardly like to raise my eyes. There is little cause for smiling in this hard and toilsome life, but you were once so cheerful.&quot; &quot;Am I not now!&quot; cried Meg, speaking in a tone of strange alarm, and rising to embrace her. &quot;Do I make our weary life more weary to you, Lilian!&quot; &quot;You have been the only thing that made it life,&quot; said Lilian, fervently kissing her; &quot;sometimes the only thing that made me care to live so, Meg. Such work, such work! So many hours, so many days, so many long, long nights of hopeless, cheerless, never-ending work—not to heap up riches, not to live grandly or gaily, not to live upon enough, however coarse; but to earn bare bread; to scrape together just enough to toil upon, and want upon, and keep alive in us the consciousness of our hard fate! Oh Meg, Meg!&#039; she raised her voice and twined her arms about her as she spoke, like one in pain. &quot;How can the cruel world go round, and bear to look upon such lives!&quot; &quot;Lilly!&quot; said Meg, soothing her, and putting back her hair from her wet face. &quot;Why, Lilly! You! So pretty and so young!&quot; &quot;Oh Meg!&quot; she interrupted, holding her at arm’s-length, and looking in her face imploringly. &quot;The worst of all, the worst of all! Strike me old, Meg! Wither me, and shrivel me, and free me from the dreadful thoughts that tempt me in my youth!&quot; Trotty turned to look upon his guide. But the Spirit of the child had taken flight. Was gone. Neither did he himself remain in the same place; for, Sir Joseph Bowley, Friend and Father of the Poor, held a great festivity at Bowley Hall, in honour of the natal day of Lady Bowley; and as Lady Bowley had been born on New Year’s day (which the local newspapers considered an especial pointing of the finger of Providence to number One, as Lady Bowley’s destined figure in Creation), it was on a New Year’s Day that this festivity took place. Bowley Hall was full of visitors. The red-faced gentleman was there, Mr. Filer was there, the great Alderman Cute was there—Alderman Cute had a sympathetic feeling with great people, and had considerably improved his acquaintance with Sir Joseph Bowley on the strength of his attentive letter: indeed had become quite a friend of the family since then—and many guests were there. Trotty’s ghost was there, wandering about, poor phantom, drearily; and looking for its guide. There was to be a great dinner in the Great Hall. At which Sir Joseph Bowley, in his celebrated character of Friend and Father of the Poor, was to make his great speech. Certain plum-puddings were to be eaten by his Friends and Children in another Hall first; and, at a given signal, Friends and Children flocking in among their Friends and Fathers, were to form a family assemblage, with not one manly eye therein unmoistened by emotion. But, there was more than this to happen. Even more than this. Sir Joseph Bowley, Baronet and Member of Parliament, was to play a match at skittles—real skittles—with his tenants. &quot;Which quite reminds me,&quot; said Alderman Cute, &quot;of the days of old King Hal, stout King Hal, bluff King Hal. Ah! Fine character!&quot; &quot;Very,&quot; said Mr. Filer, dryly. &quot;For marrying women and murdering ’em. Considerably more than the average number of wives by the bye.&quot; &quot;You’ll marry the beautiful ladies, and not murder ’em, eh?&quot; said Alderman Cute to the heir of Bowley, aged twelve. &quot;Sweet boy! We shall have this little gentleman in Parliament now,&quot; said the Alderman, holding him by the shoulders, and looking as reflective as he could, &quot;before we know where we are. We shall hear of his successes at the poll; his speeches in the House; his overtures from Governments; his brilliant achievements of all kinds; ah! we shall make our little orations about him in the common council, I’ll be bound; before we have time to look about us!&quot; &quot;Oh, the difference of shoes and stockings!&quot; Trotty thought. But his heart yearned towards the child, for the love of those same shoeless and stockingless boys, predestined (by the Alderman) to turn out bad, who might have been the children of poor Meg. &quot;Richard,&quot; moaned Trotty, roaming among the company, to and fro; &quot;where is he? I can’t find Richard! Where is Richard?&quot; Not likely to be there, if still alive! But Trotty’s grief and solitude confused him; and he still went wandering among the gallant company, looking for his guide, and saying, &quot;Where is Richard? Show me Richard!&quot; He was wandering thus, when he encountered Mr. Fish, the confidential Secretary: in great agitation. &quot;Bless my heart and soul!&quot; cried Mr. Fish. &quot;Where’s Alderman Cute? Has anybody seen the Alderman?&quot; Seen the Alderman? Oh dear! Who could ever help seeing the Alderman? He was so considerate, so affable; he bore so much in mind the natural desire of folks to see him, that if he had a fault, it was the being constantly On View. And wherever the great people were, there, to be sure, attracted by the kindred sympathy between great souls, was Cute. Several voices cried that he was in the circle round Sir Joseph. Mr. Fish made way there; found him; and took him secretly into a window near at hand. Trotty joined them. Not of his own accord. He felt that his steps were led in that direction. &quot;My dear Alderman Cute,&quot; said Mr. Fish. &quot;A little more this way. The most dreadful circumstance has occurred. I have this moment received the intelligence. I think it will be best not to acquaint Sir Joseph with it till the day is over. You understand Sir Joseph, and will give me your opinion. The most frightful and deplorable event!&quot; &quot;Fish!&quot; returned the Alderman. &quot;Fish! My good fellow, what is the matter? Nothing revolutionary, I hope! No—no attempted interference with the magistrates?&quot; &quot;Deedles, the banker,&quot; gasped the Secretary. &quot;Deedles Brothers—who was to have been here to-day—high in office in the Goldsmiths’ Company—&quot; &quot;Not stopped!&quot; exclaimed the Alderman, &quot;It can’t be!&quot; &quot;Shot himself.&quot; &quot;Good God!&quot; &quot;Put a double-barrelled pistol to his mouth, in his own counting house,&quot; said Mr. Fish, &quot;and blew his brains out. No motive. Princely circumstances!&quot; &quot;Circumstances!&quot; exclaimed the Alderman. &quot;A man of noble fortune. One of the most respectable of men. Suicide, Mr. Fish! By his own hand!&quot; &quot;This very morning,&quot; returned Mr. Fish. &quot;Oh the brain, the brain!&quot; exclaimed the pious Alderman, lifting up his hands. &quot;Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called Man! Oh the little that unhinges it: poor creatures that we are! Perhaps a dinner, Mr. Fish. Perhaps the conduct of his son, who, I have heard, ran very wild, and was in the habit of drawing bills upon him without the least authority! A most respectable man. One of the most respectable men I ever knew! A lamentable instance, Mr. Fish. A public calamity! I shall make a point of wearing the deepest mourning. A most respectable man! But there is One above. We must submit, Mr. Fish. We must submit!&quot; What, Alderman! No word of Putting Down? Remember, Justice, your high moral boast and pride. Come, Alderman! Balance those scales. Throw me into this, the empty one, No Dinner, and Nature’s founts in some poor woman, dried by starving misery and rendered obdurate to claims for which her offspring has authority in holy mother Eve. Weigh me the two, you Daniel going to judgment, when your day shall come! Weigh them, in the eyes of suffering thousands, audience (not unmindful) of the grim farce you play! Or supposing that you strayed from your five wits—it’s not so far to go, but that it might be—and laid hands upon that throat of yours, warning your fellows (if you have a fellow) how they croak their comfortable wickedness to raving heads and stricken hearts. What then? The words rose up in Trotty’s breast, as if they had been spoken by some other voice within him. Alderman Cute pledged himself to Mr. Fish that he would assist him in breaking the melancholy catastrophe to Sir Joseph when the day was over. Then, before they parted, wringing Mr. Fish’s hand in bitterness of soul, he said, &quot;The most respectable of men!&quot; And added that he hardly knew; not even he; why such afflictions were allowed on earth. &quot;It’s almost enough to make one think, if one didn’t know better,&quot; said Alderman Cute, &quot;that at times some motion of a capsizing nature was going on in things, which affected the general economy of the social fabric. Deedles Brothers!&quot; The skittle-playing came off with immense success. Sir Joseph knocked the pins about quite skilfully; Master Bowley took an innings at a shorter distance also; and everybody said that now, when a Baronet and the Son of a Baronet played at skittles, the country was coming round again, as fast as it could come. At its proper time, the Banquet was served up. Trotty involuntarily repaired to the Hall with the rest, for he felt himself conducted thither by some stronger impulse than his own free will. The sight was gay in the extreme; the ladies were very handsome; the visitors delighted, cheerful, and good-tempered. When the lower doors were opened, and the people flocked in, in their rustic dresses, the beauty of the spectacle was at its height; but Trotty only murmured more and more, &quot;Where is Richard! He should help and comfort her! I can’t see Richard!&quot; There had been some speeches made; and Lady Bowley’s health had been proposed; and Sir Joseph Bowley had returned thanks, and had made his great speech, showing by various pieces of evidence that he was the born Friend and Father, and so forth; and had given as a Toast, his Friends and Children, and the Dignity of Labor; when a slight disturbance at the bottom of the hall attracted Toby’s notice. After some confusion, noise, and opposition, one man broke through the rest, and stood forward by himself. Not Richard. No. But one whom he had thought of, and had looked for, many times. In a scantier supply of light, he might have doubted the identity of that worn man, so old, and grey, and bent; but with a blaze of lamps upon his gnarled and knotted head, he knew Will Fern as soon as he stepped forth. &quot;What is this!&quot; exclaimed Sir Joseph, rising. &quot;Who gave this man admittance? This is a criminal from prison! Mr. Fish, Sir, will you have the goodness—&quot; &quot;A minute!&quot; said Will Fern. &quot;A minute! My Lady, you was born on this day along with a New Year. Get me a minute’s leave to speak.&quot; She made some intercession for him. Sir Joseph took his seat again, with native dignity. The ragged visitor—for he was miserably dressed—looked round upon the company, and made his homage to them with a humble bow. &quot;Gentlefolks!&quot; he said. &quot;You’ve drunk the Labourer. Look at me!&quot; &quot;Just come from jail,&quot; said Mr. Fish. &quot;Just come from jail,&quot; said Will. &quot;And neither for the first time, nor the second, nor the third, nor yet the fourth.&quot; Mr. Filer was heard to remark testily, that four times was over the average; and he ought to be ashamed of himself. &quot;Gentlefolks!&quot; repeated Will Fern. &quot;Look at me! You see I’m at the worst. Beyond all hurt or harm; beyond your help; for the time when your kind words or kind actions could have done ME good,&quot;—he struck his hand upon his breast, and shook his head, &quot;is gone, with the scent of last year’s beans or clover on the air. Let me say a word for these,&quot; pointing to the labouring people in the Hall; &quot;and when you’re met together, hear the real Truth spoke out for once.&quot; &quot;There’s not a man here,&quot; said the host, &quot;who would have him for a spokesman.&quot; &quot;Like enough, Sir Joseph. I believe it. Not the less true, perhaps, is what I say. Perhaps that’s a proof on it. Gentlefolks, I’ve lived many a year in this place. You may see the cottage from the sunk fence over yonder. I’ve seen the ladies draw it in their books a hundred times. It looks well in a picter, I’ve heerd say; but there an’t weather in picters, and maybe ’tis fitter for that, than for a place to live in. Well! I lived there. How hard—how bitter hard, I lived there, I won’t say. Any day in the year, and every day, you can judge for your own selves.&quot; He spoke as he had spoken on the night when Trotty found him in the street. His voice was deeper and more husky, and had a trembling in it now and then; but he never raised it passionately, and seldom lifted it above the firm stern level of the homely facts he stated. &quot;’Tis harder than you think for, gentlefolks, to grow up decent, commonly decent, in such a place. That I growed up a man and not a brute, says something for me—as I was then. As I am now, there’s nothing can be said for me or done for me. I’m past it.&quot; &quot;I am glad this man has entered,&quot; observed Sir Joseph, looking round serenely. &quot;Don’t disturb him. It appears to be Ordained. He is an Example: a living example. I hope and trust, and confidently expect, that it will not be lost upon my Friends here.&quot; &quot;I dragged on,&quot; said Fern, after a moment’s silence, &quot;Somehow. Neither me nor any other man knows how; but so heavy, that I couldn’t put a cheerful face upon it, or make believe that I was anything but what I was. Now, gentlemen—you gentlemen that sits at Sessions—when you see a man with discontent writ on his face, you says to one another, &#039;he’s suspicious. I has my doubts,&#039; says you, &#039;about Will Fern. Watch that fellow!&#039; I don’t say, gentlemen, it ain’t quite nat’ral, but I say ’tis so; and from that hour, whatever Will Fern does, or lets alone—all one—it goes against him.&quot; Alderman Cute stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, and leaning back in his chair, and smiling, winked at a neighbouring chandelier. As much as to say, &quot;Of course! I told you so. The common cry! Lord bless you, we are up to all this sort of thing—myself and human nature.&quot; &quot;Now, gentlemen,&quot; said Will Fern, holding out his hands, and flushing for an instant in his haggard face, &quot;See how your laws are made to trap and hunt us when we’re brought to this. I tries to live elsewhere. And I’m a vagabond. To jail with him! I comes back here. I goes a-nutting in your woods, and breaks—who don’t?—a limber branch or two. To jail with him! One of your keepers sees me in the broad day, near my own patch of garden, with a gun. To jail with him! I has a nat’ral angry word with that man, when I’m free again. To jail with him! I cuts a stick. To jail with him! I eats a rotten apple or a turnip. To jail with him! It’s twenty mile away; and coming back I begs a trifle on the road. To jail with him! At last, the constable, the keeper—anybody—finds me anywhere, a-doing anything. To jail with him, for he’s a vagrant, and a jail-bird known; and jail’s the only home he’s got.&quot; The Alderman nodded sagaciously, as who should say, &quot;A very good home too!&quot; &quot;Do I say this to serve MY cause!&quot; cried Fern. &quot;Who can give me back my liberty, who can give me back my good name, who can give me back my innocent niece? Not all the Lords and Ladies in wide England. But, gentlemen, gentlemen, dealing with other men like me, begin at the right end. Give us, in mercy, better homes when we’re a-lying in our cradles; give us better food when we’re a-working for our lives; give us kinder laws to bring us back when we&#039;re a-going wrong; and don’t set Jail, Jail, Jail, afore us, everywhere we turn. There an’t a condescension you can show the Labourer then, that he won’t take, as ready and as grateful as a man can be; for he has a patient, peaceful, willing heart. But you must put his rightful spirit in him first; for whether he’s a wreck and ruin such as me, or is like one of them that stand here now, his spirit is divided from you at this time. Bring it back, gentlefolks, bring it back! Bring it back, afore the day comes when even his Bible changes in his altered mind, and the words seem to him to read, as they have sometimes read in my own eyes—in Jail: &#039;Whither thou goest, I can Not go; where thou lodgest, I do Not lodge; thy people are Not my people; Nor thy God my God!&#039;&quot; A sudden stir and agitation took place in Hall. Trotty thought at first, that several had risen to eject the man; and hence this change in its appearance. But, another moment showed him that the room and all the company had vanished from his sight, and that his daughter was again before him, seated at her work. But in a poorer, meaner garret than before; and with no Lilian by her side. The frame at which she had worked, was put away upon a shelf and covered up. The chair in which she had sat, was turned against the wall. A history was written in these little things, and in Meg’s grief-worn face. Oh! who could fail to read it! Meg strained her eyes upon her work until it was too dark to see the threads; and when the night closed in, she lighted her feeble candle and worked on. Still her old father was invisible about her; looking down upon her; loving her—how dearly loving her!—and talking to her in a tender voice about the old times, and the Bells. Though he knew, poor Trotty, though he knew she could not hear him. A great part of the evening had worn away, when a knock came at her door. She opened it. A man was on the threshold. A slouching, moody, drunken sloven: wasted by intemperance and vice, and with his matted hair and unshorn beard in wild disorder: but with some traces on him, too, of having been a man of good proportion and good features in his youth. He stopped until he had her leave to enter; and she, retiring a pace or two from the open door, silently and sorrowfully looked upon him. Trotty had his wish. He saw Richard. &quot;May I come in, Margaret?&quot; &quot;Yes! Come in. Come in!&quot; It was well that Trotty knew him before he spoke; for with any doubt remaining on his mind, the harsh discordant voice would have persuaded him that it was not Richard but some other man. There were but two chairs in the room. She gave him hers, and stood at some short distance from him, waiting to hear what he had to say. He sat, however, staring vacantly at the floor; with a lustreless and stupid smile. A spectacle of such deep degradation, of such abject hopelessness, of such a miserable downfall, that she put her hands before her face and turned away, lest he should see how much it moved her. Roused by the rustling of her dress, or some such trifling sound, he lifted his head, and began to speak as if there had been no pause since he entered. &quot;Still at work, Margaret? You work late.&quot; &quot;I generally do.&quot; &quot;And early?&quot; &quot;And early.&quot; &quot;So she said. She said you never tired; or never owned that you tired. Not all the time you lived together. Not even when you fainted, between work and fasting. But I told you that, the last time I came.&quot; &quot;You did,&quot; she answered. &quot;And I implored you to tell me nothing more; and you made me a solemn promise, Richard, that you never would.&quot; &quot;A solemn promise,&quot; he repeated, with a drivelling laugh and vacant stare. &quot;A solemn promise. To be sure. A solemn promise!&quot; Awakening, as it were, after a time; in the same manner as before; he said with sudden animation: &quot;How can I help it, Margaret? What am I to do? She has been to me again!&quot; &quot;Again!&quot; cried Meg, clasping her hands. &quot;Oh, does she think of me so often! Has she been again!&quot; &quot;Twenty times again,&quot; said Richard. &quot;Margaret, she haunts me. She comes behind me in the street, and thrusts it in my hand. I hear her foot upon the ashes when I’m at my work (ha, ha! that an’t often), and before I can turn my head, her voice is in my ear, saying, &#039;Richard, don’t look round. For Heaven’s love, give her this!&#039; She brings it where I live: she sends it in letters; she taps at the window and lays it on the sill. What can I do? Look at it!&quot; He held out in his hand a little purse, and chinked the money it enclosed. &quot;Hide it,&quot; said Meg. &quot;Hide it! When she comes again, tell her, Richard, that I love her in my soul. That I never lie down to sleep, but I bless her, and pray for her. That in my solitary work, I never cease to have her in my thoughts. That she is with me, night and day. That if I died to-morrow, I would remember her with my last breath. But that I cannot look upon it!&quot; He slowly recalled his hand, and crushing the purse together, said with a kind of drowsy thoughtfulness: &quot;I told her so. I told her so, as plain as words could speak. I’ve taken this gift back and left it at her door, a dozen times since then. But when she came at last, and stood before me, face to face, what could I do?&quot; &quot;You saw her!&quot; exclaimed Meg. &quot;You saw her! O, Lilian, my sweet girl! O, Lilian, Lilian!&quot; &quot;I saw her,&quot; he went on to say, not answering, but engaged in the same slow pursuit of his own thoughts. &quot;There she stood: trembling! &#039;How does she look, Richard? Does she ever speak of me? Is she thinner? My old place at the table: what’s in my old place? And the frame she taught me our old work on—has she burnt it, Richard!&#039;&quot; There she was. I heard her say it.’ Meg checked her sobs, and with the tears streaming from her eyes, bent over him to listen. Not to lose a breath. With his arms resting on his knees; and stooping forward in his chair, as if what he said were written on the ground in some half legible character, which it was his occupation to decipher and connect; he went on. &quot;&#039;Richard, I have fallen very low; and you may guess how much I have suffered in having this sent back, when I can bear to bring it in my hand to you. But you loved her once, even in my memory, dearly. Others stepped in between you; fears, and jealousies, and doubts, and vanities, estranged you from her; but you did love her, even in my memory!&#039; I suppose I did,&quot; he said, interrupting himself for a moment. &quot;I did! That’s neither here nor there. &#039;O Richard, if you ever did; if you have any memory for what is gone and lost, take it to her once more. Once more! Tell her how I begged and prayed. Tell her how I laid my head upon your shoulder, where her own head might have lain, and was so humble to you, Richard. Tell her that you looked into my face, and saw the beauty which she used to praise, all gone: all gone: and in its place, a poor, wan, hollow cheek, that she would weep to see. Tell her everything, and take it back, and she will not refuse again. She will not have the heart!&#039;&quot; So he sat musing, and repeating the last words, until he woke again, and rose. &quot;You won’t take it, Margaret?&quot; She shook her head, and motioned an entreaty to him to leave her. &quot;Good night, Margaret.&quot; &quot;Good night!&quot; He turned to look upon her; struck by her sorrow, and perhaps by the pity for himself which trembled in her voice. It was a quick and rapid action; and for the moment some flash of his old bearing kindled in his form. In the next he went as he had come. Nor did this glimmer of a quenched fire seem to light him to a quicker sense of his debasement. In any mood, in any grief, in any torture of the mind or body, Meg’s work must be done. She sat down to her task, and plied it. Night, midnight. Still she worked. She had a meagre fire, the night being very cold; and rose at intervals to mend it. The Chimes rang half-past twelve while she was thus engaged; and when they ceased she heard a gentle knocking at the door. Before she could so much as wonder who was there, at that unusual hour, it opened. O Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look at this. O Youth and Beauty, blest and blessing all within your reach, and working out the ends of your Beneficent Creator, look at this! She saw the entering figure; screamed its name; cried &quot;Lilian!&quot; It was swift, and fell upon its knees before her: clinging to her dress. &quot;Up, dear! Up! Lilian! My own dearest!&quot; &quot;Never more, Meg; never more! Here! Here! Close to you, holding to you, feeling your dear breath upon my face!&quot; &quot;Sweet Lilian! Darling Lilian! Child of my heart—no mother’s love can be more tender—lay your head upon my breast!&quot; &quot;Never more, Meg; never more! When I first looked into your face, you knelt before me. On my knees before you, let me die. Let it be here!&quot; &quot;You have come back. My Treasure! We will live together, work together, hope together, die together!&quot; &quot;Ah! Kiss my lips, Meg; fold your arms about me; press me to your bosom; look kindly on me; but don’t raise me. Let it be here. Let me see the last of your dear face upon my knees!&quot; O Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look at this! O Youth and Beauty, working out the ends of your Beneficent Creator, look at this! &quot;Forgive me, Meg! So dear, so dear! Forgive me! I know you do, I see you do, but say so, Meg!&quot; She said so, with her lips on Lilian’s cheek. And with her arms twined round—she knew it now—a broken heart. &quot;His blessing on you, dearest love. Kiss me once more! He suffered her to sit beside His feet, and dry them with her hair. O Meg, what Mercy and Compassion!&quot; As she died, the Spirit of the child returning, innocent and radiant, touched the old man with its hand, and beckoned him away. Fourth Quarter. Some new remembrance of the ghostly figures in the Bells; some faint impression of the ringing of the Chimes; some giddy consciousness of having seen the swarm of phantoms reproduced and reproduced until the recollection of them lost itself in the confusion of their numbers; some hurried knowledge, how conveyed to him he knew not, that more years had passed; and Trotty, with the Spirit of the child attending him, stood looking on at mortal company. Fat company, rosy-cheeked company, comfortable company. They were but two, but they were red enough for ten. They sat before a bright fire, with a small low table between them; and unless the fragrance of hot tea and muffins lingered longer in that room than in most others, the table had seen service very lately. But all the cups and saucers being clean, and in their proper places in the corner-cupboard; and the brass toasting-fork hanging in its usual nook and spreading its four idle fingers out as if it wanted to be measured for a glove; there remained no other visible tokens of the meal just finished, than such as purred and washed their whiskers in the person of the basking cat, and glistened in the gracious, not to say the greasy, faces of her patrons. This cosy couple (married, evidently) had made a fair division of the fire between them, and sat looking at the glowing sparks that dropped into the grate; now nodding off into a doze; now waking up again when some hot fragment, larger than the rest, came rattling down, as if the fire were coming with it. It was in no danger of sudden extinction, however; for it gleamed not only in the little room, and on the panes of window-glass in the door, and on the curtain half drawn across them, but in the little shop beyond. A little shop, quite crammed and choked with the abundance of its stock; a perfectly voracious little shop, with a maw as accommodating and full as any shark’s. Cheese, butter, firewood, soap, pickles, matches, bacon, table-beer, peg-tops, sweetmeats, boys’ kites, bird-seed, cold ham, birch brooms, hearth-stones, salt, vinegar, blacking, red-herrings, stationery, lard, mushroom-ketchup, staylaces, loaves of bread, shuttlecocks, eggs, and slate pencil; everything was fish that came to the net of this greedy little shop, and all articles were in its net. How many other kinds of petty merchandise were there, it would be difficult to say; but balls of packthread, ropes of onions, pounds of candles, cabbage-nets, and brushes, hung in bunches from the ceiling, like extraordinary fruit; while various odd canisters emitting aromatic smells, established the veracity of the inscription over the outer door, which informed the public that the keeper of this little shop was a licensed dealer in tea, coffee, tobacco, pepper, and snuff. Glancing at such of these articles as were visible in the shining of the blaze, and the less cheerful radiance of two smoky lamps which burnt but dimly in the shop itself, as though its plethora sat heavy on their lungs; and glancing, then, at one of the two faces by the parlour-fire; Trotty had small difficulty in recognising in the stout old lady, Mrs. Chickenstalker: always inclined to corpulency, even in the days when he had known her as established in the general line, and having a small balance against him in her books. The features of her companion were less easy to him. The great broad chin, with creases in it large enough to hide a finger in; the astonished eyes, that seemed to expostulate with themselves for sinking deeper and deeper into the yielding fat of the soft face; the nose afflicted with that disordered action of its functions which is generally termed The Snuffles; the short thick throat and labouring chest, with other beauties of the like description; though calculated to impress the memory, Trotty could at first allot to nobody he had ever known: and yet he had some recollection of them too. At length, in Mrs. Chickenstalker’s partner in the general line, and in the crooked and eccentric line of life, he recognised the former porter of Sir Joseph Bowley; an apoplectic innocent, who had connected himself in Trotty’s mind with Mrs. Chickenstalker years ago, by giving him admission to the mansion where he had confessed his obligations to that lady, and drawn on his unlucky head such grave reproach. Trotty had little interest in a change like this, after the changes he had seen; but association is very strong sometimes; and he looked involuntarily behind the parlour-door, where the accounts of credit customers were usually kept in chalk. There was no record of his name. Some names were there, but they were strange to him, and infinitely fewer than of old; from which he argued that the porter was an advocate of ready-money transactions, and on coming into the business had looked pretty sharp after the Chickenstalker defaulters. So desolate was Trotty, and so mournful for the youth and promise of his blighted child, that it was a sorrow to him, even to have no place in Mrs. Chickenstalker’s ledger. &quot;What sort of a night is it, Anne?&quot; inquired the former porter of Sir Joseph Bowley, stretching out his legs before the fire, and rubbing as much of them as his short arms could reach; with an air that added, &quot;Here I am if it’s bad, and I don’t want to go out if it’s good.&quot; &quot;Blowing and sleeting hard,&quot; returned his wife; &quot;and threatening snow. Dark. And very cold.&quot; &quot;I’m glad to think we had muffins,&quot; said the former porter, in the tone of one who had set his conscience at rest. &quot;It’s a sort of night that’s meant for muffins. Likewise crumpets. Also Sally Lunns.&quot; The former porter mentioned each successive kind of eatable, as if he were musingly summing up his good actions. After which he rubbed his fat legs as before, and jerking them at the knees to get the fire upon the yet unroasted parts, laughed as if somebody had tickled him. &quot;You’re in spirits, Tugby, my dear,&quot; observed his wife. The firm was Tugby, late Chickenstalker. &quot;No,&quot; said Tugby. &quot;No. Not particular. I’m a little elewated. The muffins came so pat!&quot; With that he chuckled until he was black in the face; and had so much ado to become any other colour, that his fat legs took the strangest excursions into the air. Nor were they reduced to anything like decorum until Mrs. Tugby had thumped him violently on the back, and shaken him as if he were a great bottle. &quot;Good gracious, goodness, lord-a-mercy bless and save the man!&quot; cried Mrs. Tugby, in great terror. &quot;What’s he doing?&quot; Mr. Tugby wiped his eyes, and faintly repeated that he found himself a little elewated. &quot;Then don’t be so again, that’s a dear good soul,&quot; said Mrs. Tugby, &quot;if you don’t want to frighten me to death, with your struggling and fighting!&quot; Mr. Tugby said he wouldn’t; but, his whole existence was a fight, in which, if any judgment might be founded on the constantly-increasing shortness of his breath, and the deepening purple of his face, he was always getting the worst of it. &quot;So it’s blowing, and sleeting, and threatening snow; and it’s dark, and very cold, is it, my dear?&quot; said Mr. Tugby, looking at the fire, and reverting to the cream and marrow of his temporary elevation. &quot;Hard weather indeed,&quot; returned his wife, shaking her head. &quot;Aye, aye! Years,&quot; said Mr. Tugby, &quot;are like christians in that respect. Some of ’em die hard; some of ’em die easy. This one hasn’t many days to run, and is making a fight for it. I like him all the better. There’s a customer, my love!&quot; Attentive to the rattling door, Mrs. Tugby had already risen. &quot;Now then!’ said that lady, passing out into the little shop. ‘What’s wanted? Oh! I beg your pardon, Sir, I’m sure. I didn’t think it was you.&quot; She made this apology to a gentleman in black, who, with his wristbands tucked up, and his hat cocked loungingly on one side, and his hands in his pockets, sat down astride on the table-beer barrel, and nodded in return. &quot;This is a bad business up-stairs, Mrs. Tugby,&quot; said the gentleman. &quot;The man can’t live.&quot; &quot;Not the back-attic can’t!&quot; cried Tugby, coming out into the shop to join the conference. &quot;The back-attic, Mr. Tugby,&quot; said the gentleman, &quot;is coming down-stairs fast, and will be below the basement very soon.&quot; Looking by turns at Tugby and his wife, he sounded the barrel with his knuckles for the depth of beer, and having found it, played a tune upon the empty part. &quot;The back-attic, Mr. Tugby,&quot; said the gentleman: Tugby having stood in silent consternation for some time: &quot;is Going.&quot; &quot;Then,&quot; said Tugby, turning to his wife, &quot;he must Go, you know, before he’s Gone.&quot; &quot;I don’t think you can move him,&quot; said the gentleman, shaking his head. &quot;I wouldn’t take the responsibility of saying it could be done, myself. You had better leave him where he is. He can’t live long.&quot; &quot;It’s the only subject,&quot; said Tugby, bringing the butter-scale down upon the counter with a crash, by weighing his fist on it, &quot;that we’ve ever had a word upon; she and me; and look what it comes to! He’s going to die here, after all. Going to die upon the premises. Going to die in our house!&quot; &quot;And where should he have died, Tugby?&quot; cried his wife. &quot;In the workhouse,&quot; he returned. &quot;What are workhouses made for?&quot; &quot;Not for that,&quot; said Mrs. Tugby, with great energy. &quot;Not for that! Neither did I marry you for that. Don’t think it, Tugby. I won’t have it. I won’t allow it. I’d be separated first, and never see your face again. When my widow’s name stood over that door, as it did for many years: this house being known as Mrs. Chickenstalker’s far and wide, and never known but to its honest credit and its good report: when my widow’s name stood over that door, Tugby, I knew him as a handsome, steady, manly, independent youth; I knew her as the sweetest-looking, sweetest-tempered girl, eyes ever saw; I knew her father (poor old creetur, he fell down from the steeple walking in his sleep, and killed himself), for the simplest, hardest-working, childest-hearted man, that ever drew the breath of life; and when I turn them out of house and home, may angels turn me out of Heaven. As they would! And serve me right!&quot; Her old face, which had been a plump and dimpled one before the changes which had come to pass, seemed to shine out of her as she said these words; and when she dried her eyes, and shook her head and her handkerchief at Tugby, with an expression of firmness which it was quite clear was not to be easily resisted, Trotty said, &quot;Bless her! Bless her!&quot; Then he listened, with a panting heart, for what should follow. Knowing nothing yet, but that they spoke of Meg. If Tugby had been a little elevated in the parlour, he more than balanced that account by being not a little depressed in the shop, where he now stood staring at his wife, without attempting a reply; secretly conveying, however—either in a fit of abstraction or as a precautionary measure—all the money from the till into his own pockets, as he looked at her. The gentleman upon the table-beer cask, who appeared to be some authorised medical attendant upon the poor, was far too well accustomed, evidently, to little differences of opinion between man and wife, to interpose any remark in this instance. He sat softly whistling, and turning little drops of beer out of the tap upon the ground, until there was a perfect calm: when he raised his head, and said to Mrs. Tugby, late Chickenstalker: &quot;There’s something interesting about the woman, even now. How did she come to marry him?&quot; &quot;Why that,&quot; said Mrs. Tugby, taking a seat near him, &quot;is not the least cruel part of her story, sir. You see they kept company, she and Richard, many years ago. When they were a young and beautiful couple, everything was settled, and they were to have been married on a New Year’s Day. But, somehow, Richard got it into his head, through what the gentlemen told him, that he might do better, and that he’d soon repent it, and that she wasn’t good enough for him, and that a young man of spirit had no business to be married. And the gentlemen frightened her, and made her melancholy, and timid of his deserting her, and of her children coming to the gallows, and of its being wicked to be man and wife, and a good deal more of it. And in short, they lingered and lingered, and their trust in one another was broken, and so at last was the match. But the fault was his. She would have married him, Sir, joyfully. I’ve seen her heart swell many times afterwards, when he passed her in a proud and careless way; and never did a woman grieve more truly for a man, than she for Richard when he first went wrong.&quot; &quot;Oh! he went wrong, did he?&quot; said the gentleman, pulling out the vent-peg of the table-beer, and trying to peep down into the barrel through the hole. &quot;Well, Sir, I don’t know that he rightly understood himself, you see. I think his mind was troubled by their having broke with one another; and that but for being ashamed before the gentlemen, and perhaps for being uncertain too, how she might take it, he’d have gone through any suffering or trial to have had Meg’s promise and Meg’s hand again. That’s my belief. He never said so; more’s the pity! He took to drinking, idling, bad companions: all the fine resources that were to be so much better for him than the Home he might have had. He lost his looks, his character, his health, his strength, his friends, his work: everything!&quot; &quot;He didn’t lose everything, Mrs. Tugby,&quot; returned the gentleman, &quot;because he gained a wife; and I want to know how he gained her.&quot; &quot;I’m coming to it, Sir, in a moment. This went on for years and years; he sinking lower and lower; she enduring, poor thing, miseries enough to wear her life away. At last, he was so cast down, and cast out, that no one would employ or notice him; and doors were shut upon him, go where he would. Applying from place to place, and door to door; and coming for the hundredth time to one gentleman who had often and often tried him (he was a good workman to the very end); that gentleman, who knew his history, said, &#039;I believe you are incorrigible; there is only one person in the world who has a chance of reclaiming you; ask me to trust you no more, until she tries to do it.&#039; Something like that, in his anger and vexation.&quot; &quot;Ah!&quot; said the gentleman. &quot;Well?&quot; &quot;Well, sir, he went to her, and kneeled to her; said it was so; said it ever had been so; and made a prayer to her to save him.&quot; &quot;And she?—Don’t distress yourself, Mrs. Tugby.&quot; &quot;She came to me that night to ask me about living here. &#039;What he was once to me,&#039; she said, &#039;is buried in a grave, side by side with what I was to him. But I have thought of this; and I will make the trial. In the hope of saving him; for the love of the light-hearted girl (you remember her) who was to have been married on a New Year’s Day; and for the love of her Richard.&#039; And she said he had come to her from Lilian, and Lilian had trusted to him, and she never could forget that. So they were married; and when they came home here, and I saw them, I hoped that such prophecies as parted them when they were young, may not often fulfil themselves as they did in this case, or I wouldn’t be the makers of them for a Mine of Gold.&quot; The gentleman got off the cask, and stretched himself, observing: &quot;I suppose he used her ill, as soon as they were married?&quot; &quot;I don’t think he ever did that,&quot; said Mrs. Tugby, shaking her head, and wiping her eyes. &quot;He went on better for a short time; but his habits were too old and strong to be got rid of; he soon fell back a little; and was falling fast back, when his illness came so strong upon him. I think he has always felt for her. I am sure he has. I have seen him, in his crying fits and tremblings, try to kiss her hand; and I have heard him call her &#039;Meg,&#039; and say it was her nineteenth birthday. There he has been lying, now, these weeks and months. Between him and her baby, she has not been able to do her old work; and by not being able to be regular, she has lost it, even if she could have done it. How they have lived, I hardly know!&quot; &quot;I know,&quot; muttered Mr. Tugby; looking at the till, and round the shop, and at his wife; and rolling his head with immense intelligence. &quot;Like Fighting Cocks!&quot; He was interrupted by a cry—a sound of lamentation—from the upper story of the house. The gentleman moved hurriedly to the door. &quot;My friend,&quot; he said, looking back, &quot;you needn’t discuss whether he shall be removed or not. He has spared you that trouble, I believe.&quot; Saying so, he ran up-stairs, followed by Mrs. Tugby; while Mr. Tugby panted and grumbled after them at leisure: being rendered more than commonly short-winded by the weight of the till, in which there had been an inconvenient quantity of copper. Trotty, with the child beside him, floated up the staircase like mere air. &quot;Follow her! Follow her! Follow her!&quot; He heard the ghostly voices in the Bells repeat their words as he ascended. &quot;Learn it, from the creature dearest to your heart!&quot; It was over. It was over. And this was she, her father’s pride and joy! This haggard, wretched woman, weeping by the bed, if it deserved that name, and pressing to her breast, and hanging down her head upon, an infant. Who can tell how spare, how sickly, and how poor an infant! Who can tell how dear! &quot;Thank God!&quot; cried Trotty, holding up his folded hands. &quot;Oh, God be thanked! She loves her child!&quot; The gentleman, not otherwise hard-hearted or indifferent to such scenes, than that he saw them every day, and knew that they were figures of no moment in the Filer sums—mere scratches in the working of these calculations—laid his hand upon the heart that beat no more, and listened for the breath, and said, &quot;His pain is over. It’s better as it is!&quot; Mrs. Tugby tried to comfort her with kindness. Mr. Tugby tried philosophy. &quot;Come, come!&quot; he said, with his hands in his pockets, &quot;you mustn’t give way, you know. That won’t do. You must fight up. What would have become of me if I had given way when I was porter; and we had as many as six runaway carriage-doubles at our door in one night! But I fell back upon my strength of mind, and didn’t open it!&quot; Again Trotty heard the voices saying, &quot;Follow her!&quot; He turned towards his guide, and saw it rising from him, passing through the air. &quot;Follow her!&quot; it said. And vanished. He hovered round her; sat down at her feet; looked up into her face for one trace of her old self; listened for one note of her old pleasant voice. He flitted round the child: so wan, so prematurely old, so dreadful in its gravity, so plaintive in its feeble, mournful, miserable wail. He almost worshipped it. He clung to it as her only safeguard; as the last unbroken link that bound her to endurance. He set his father’s hope and trust on the frail baby; watched her every look upon it as she held it in her arms; and cried a thousand times, &quot;She loves it! God be thanked, she loves it!&quot; He saw the woman tend her in the night; return to her when her grudging husband was asleep, and all was still; encourage her, shed tears with her, set nourishment before her. He saw the day come, and the night again; the day, the night; the time go by; the house of death relieved of death; the room left to herself and to the child; he heard it moan and cry; he saw it harass her, and tire her out, and when she slumbered in exhaustion, drag her back to consciousness, and hold her with its little hands upon the rack; but she was constant to it, gentle with it, patient with it. Patient! Was its loving mother in her inmost heart and soul, and had its Being knitted up with hers as when she carried it unborn. All this time, she was in want: languishing away, in dire and pining want. With the baby in her arms, she wandered here and there, in quest of occupation; and with its thin face lying in her lap, and looking up in hers, did any work for any wretched sum; a day and night of labour for as many farthings as there were figures on the dial. If she had quarrelled with it; if she had neglected it; if she had looked upon it with a moment’s hate; if, in the frenzy of an instant, she had struck it! No. His comfort was, She loved it always. She told no one of her extremity, and wandered abroad in the day lest she should be questioned by her only friend: for any help she received from her hands, occasioned fresh disputes between the good woman and her husband; and it was new bitterness to be the daily cause of strife and discord, where she owed so much. She loved it still. She loved it more and more. But a change fell on the aspect of her love. One night. She was singing faintly to it in its sleep, and walking to and fro to hush it, when her door was softly opened, and a man looked in. &quot;For the last time,&quot; he said. &quot;William Fern!&quot; &quot;For the last time.&quot; He listened like a man pursued: and spoke in whispers. &quot;Margaret, my race is nearly run. I couldn’t finish it, without a parting word with you. Without one grateful word.&quot; &quot;What have you done?&quot; she asked: regarding him with terror. He looked at her, but gave no answer. After a short silence, he made a gesture with his hand, as if he set her question by; as if he brushed it aside; and said: &quot;It’s long ago, Margaret, now: but that night is as fresh in my memory as ever ’twas. We little thought, then,&quot; he added, looking round, &quot;that we should ever meet like this. Your child, Margaret? Let me have it in my arms. Let me hold your child.&quot; He put his hat upon the floor, and took it. And he trembled as he took it, from head to foot. &quot;Is it a girl?&quot; &quot;Yes.&quot; He put his hand before its little face. &quot;See how weak I’m grown, Margaret, when I want the courage to look at it! Let her be, a moment. I won’t hurt her. It’s long ago, but—What’s her name?&quot; &quot;Margaret,&quot; she answered, quickly. &quot;I’m glad of that,&quot; he said. &quot;I’m glad of that!&quot; He seemed to breathe more freely; and after pausing for an instant, took away his hand, and looked upon the infant’s face. But covered it again, immediately. &quot;Margaret!&quot; he said; and gave her back the child. &quot;It’s Lilian’s.&quot; &quot;Lilian’s!&quot; &quot;I held the same face in my arms when Lilian’s mother died and left her.&quot; &quot;When Lilian’s mother died and left her!&quot; she repeated, wildly. &quot;How shrill you speak! Why do you fix your eyes upon me so? Margaret!&quot; She sunk down in a chair, and pressed the infant to her breast, and wept over it. Sometimes, she released it from her embrace, to look anxiously in its face: then strained it to her bosom again. At those times, when she gazed upon it, then it was that something fierce and terrible began to mingle with her love. Then it was that her old father quailed. &quot;Follow her!&quot; was sounded through the house. &quot;Learn it, from the creature dearest to your heart!&quot; &quot;Margaret,&quot; said Fern, bending over her, and kissing her upon the brow: &quot;I thank you for the last time. Good night. Good bye. Put your hand in mine, and tell me you’ll forget me from this hour, and try to think the end of me was here.&quot; &quot;What have you done?&quot; she asked again. &quot;There’ll be a Fire to-night,&quot; he said, removing from her. &quot;There’ll be Fires this winter-time, to light the dark nights, East, West, North, and South. When you see the distant sky red, they’ll be blazing. When you see the distant sky red, think of me no more; or, if you do, remember what a Hell was lighted up inside of me, and think you see its Flames reflected in the clouds. Good night. Good bye!&quot; She called to him; but he was gone. She sat down stupefied, until her infant roused her to a sense of hunger, cold, and darkness. She paced the room with it the livelong night, hushing it and soothing it. She said at intervals, &quot;Like Lilian, when her mother died and left her!&quot; Why was her step so quick, her eye so wild, her love so fierce and terrible, whenever she repeated those words? &quot;But, it is Love,&quot; said Trotty. &quot;It is Love. She’ll never cease to love it. My poor Meg!&quot; She dressed the child next morning with unusual care—ah, vain expenditure of care upon such squalid robes!—and once more tried to find some means of life. It was the last day of the Old Year. She tried till night, and never broke her fast. She tried in vain. She mingled with an abject crowd, who tarried in the snow, until it pleased some officer appointed to dispense the public charity (the lawful charity; not that once preached upon a Mount), to call them in, and question them, and say to this one, &quot;go to such a place,&quot; to that one, &quot;come next week;&quot; to make a foot-ball of another wretch, and pass him here and there, from hand to hand, from house to house, until he wearied and lay down to die; or started up and robbed, and so became a higher sort of criminal, whose claims allowed of no delay. Here, too, she failed. She loved her child, and wished to have it lying on her breast. And that was quite enough. It was night: a bleak, dark, cutting night: when, pressing the child close to her for warmth, she arrived outside the house she called her home. She was so faint and giddy, that she saw no one standing in the doorway until she was close upon it, and about to enter. Then, she recognised the master of the house, who had so disposed himself—with his person it was not difficult—as to fill up the whole entry. &quot;Oh!&quot; he said softly. &quot;You have come back?&quot; She looked at the child, and shook her head. &quot;Don’t you think you have lived here long enough without paying any rent? Don’t you think that, without any money, you’ve been a pretty constant customer at this shop, now?&quot; said Mr. Tugby. She repeated the same mute appeal. &quot;Suppose you try and deal somewhere else,&quot; he said. &quot;And suppose you provide yourself with another lodging. Come! Don’t you think you could manage it?&quot; She said in a low voice, that it was very late. To-morrow. &quot;Now I see what you want,&quot; said Tugby; &quot;and what you mean. You know there are two parties in this house about you, and you delight in setting ’em by the ears. I don’t want any quarrels; I’m speaking softly to avoid a quarrel; but if you don’t go away, I’ll speak out loud, and you shall cause words high enough to please you. But you shan’t come in. That I am determined.&quot; She put her hair back with her hand, and looked in a sudden manner at the sky, and the dark lowering distance. &quot;This is the last night of an Old Year, and I won’t carry ill-blood and quarrellings and disturbances into a New One, to please you nor anybody else,&quot; said Tugby, who was quite a retail Friend and Father. &quot;I wonder you an’t ashamed of yourself, to carry such practices into a New Year. If you haven’t any business in the world, but to be always giving way, and always making disturbances between man and wife, you’d be better out of it. Go along with you.&quot; &quot;Follow her! To desperation!&quot; Again the old man heard the voices. Looking up, he saw the figures hovering in the air, and pointing where she went, down the dark street. &quot;She loves it!&quot; he exclaimed, in agonised entreaty for her. &quot;Chimes! she loves it still!&quot; &quot;Follow her!&quot; The shadow swept upon the track she had taken, like a cloud. He joined in the pursuit; he kept close to her; he looked into her face. He saw the same fierce and terrible expression mingling with her love, and kindling in her eyes. He heard her say, &quot;Like Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!&quot; and her speed redoubled. Oh, for something to awaken her! For any sight, or sound, or scent, to call up tender recollections in a brain on fire! For any gentle image of the Past, to rise before her! &quot;I was her father! I was her father!&quot; cried the old man, stretching out his hands to the dark shadows flying on above. &quot;Have mercy on her, and on me! Where does she go? Turn her back! I was her father!&quot; But they only pointed to her, as she hurried on; and said, &quot;To desperation! Learn it from the creature dearest to your heart!&quot; A hundred voices echoed it. The air was made of breath expended in those words. He seemed to take them in, at every gasp he drew. They were everywhere, and not to be escaped. And still she hurried on; the same light in her eyes, the same words in her mouth, &quot;Like Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!&quot; All at once she stopped. &quot;Now, turn her back!&quot; exclaimed the old man, tearing his white hair. &quot;My child! Meg! Turn her back! Great Father, turn her back!&quot; In her own scanty shawl, she wrapped the baby warm. With her fevered hands, she smoothed its limbs, composed its face, arranged its mean attire. In her wasted arms she folded it, as though she never would resign it more. And with her dry lips, kissed it in a final pang, and last long agony of Love. Putting its tiny hand up to her neck, and holding it there, within her dress: next to her distracted heart: she set its sleeping face against her: closely, steadily, against her: and sped onward to the river. To the rolling River, swift and dim, where Winter Night sat brooding like the last dark thoughts of many who had sought a refuge there before her. Where scattered lights upon the banks gleamed sullen, red, and dull, as torches that were burning there, to show the way to Death. Where no abode of living people cast its shadow, on the deep, impenetrable, melancholy shade. To the River! To that portal of Eternity, her desperate footsteps tended with the swiftness of its rapid waters running to the sea. He tried to touch her as she passed him, going down to its dark level; but the wild distempered form, the fierce and terrible love, the desperation that had left all human check or hold behind, swept by him like the wind. He followed her. She paused a moment on the brink, before the dreadful plunge. He fell down on his knees, and in a shriek addressed the figures in the Bells now hovering above them. &quot;I have learnt it!&quot; cried the old man. &quot;From the creature dearest to my heart! Oh, save her, save her!&quot; He could wind his fingers in her dress; could hold it! As the words escaped his lips he felt his sense of touch return, and knew that he detained her. The figures looked down steadfastly upon him. &quot;I have learnt it!&quot; cried the old man. &quot;Oh, have mercy on me in this hour, if, in my love for her, so young and good, I slandered Nature in the breasts of mothers rendered desperate! Pity my presumption, wickedness, and ignorance, and save her.&quot; He felt his hold relaxing. They were silent still. &quot;Have mercy on her!&quot; he exclaimed, &quot;as one in whom this dreadful crime has sprung from Love perverted; from the strongest, deepest Love we fallen creatures know! Think what her misery must have been, when such seed bears such fruit! Heaven meant her to be Good. There is no loving mother on the earth who might not come to this, if such a life had gone before. Oh, have mercy on my child, who, even at this pass, means mercy to her own, and dies herself, and perils her Immortal Soul, to save it!&quot; She was in his arms. He held her now. His strength was like a giant’s. &quot;I see the Spirit of the Chimes among you!&quot; cried the old man, singling out the child, and speaking in some inspiration, which their looks conveyed to him. &quot;I know that our Inheritance is held in store for us by Time. I know there is a Sea of Time to rise one day, before which all who wrong us or oppress us will be swept away like leaves. I see it, on the flow! I know that we must trust and hope, and neither doubt ourselves, nor doubt the Good in one another. I have learnt it from the creature dearest to my heart. I clasp her in my arms again. O Spirits, merciful and good, I take your lesson to my breast along with her! O Spirits, merciful and good, I am grateful!&quot; He might have said more, but the Bells; the old familiar Bells; his own dear, constant, steady friends, the Chimes; began to ring the joy-peals for a New Year: so lustily, so merrily, so happily, so gaily, that he leapt upon his feet, and broke the spell that bound him. &quot;And whatever you do, father,&quot; said Meg, &quot;don’t eat tripe again, without asking some doctor whether it’s likely to agree with you; for how you have been going on, Good gracious!&quot; She was working with her needle, at the little table by the fire; dressing her simple gown with ribbons for her wedding. So quietly happy, so blooming and youthful, so full of beautiful promise, that he uttered a great cry as if it were An Angel in his house; then flew to clasp her in his arms. But he caught his feet in the newspaper, which had fallen on the hearth; and somebody came rushing in between them. &quot;No!&quot; cried the voice of this same somebody; a generous and jolly voice it was! &quot;Not even you. Not even you. The first kiss of Meg in the New Year is mine. Mine! I have been waiting outside the house, this hour, to hear the Bells and claim it. Meg, my precious prize, a happy year! A life of happy years, my darling wife!&quot; And Richard smothered her with kisses. You never in all your life saw anything like Trotty after this. I don’t care where you have lived or what you have seen; you never in all your life saw anything at all approaching him! He sat down in his chair and beat his knees and cried; he sat down in his chair and beat his knees and laughed; he sat down in his chair and beat his knees and laughed and cried together; he got out of his chair and hugged Meg; he got out of his chair and hugged Richard; he got out of his chair and hugged them both at once; he kept running up to Meg, and squeezing her fresh face between his hands and kissing it, going from her backwards not to lose sight of it, and running up again like a figure in a magic lantern; and whatever he did, he was constantly sitting himself down in his chair, and never stopping in it for one single moment; being—that’s the truth—beside himself with joy. &quot;And to-morrow’s your wedding-day, my pet!&quot; cried Trotty. &quot;Your real, happy wedding-day!&quot; &quot;To-day!&quot; cried Richard, shaking hands with him. &quot;To-day. The Chimes are ringing in the New Year. Hear them!&quot; They WERE ringing! Bless their sturdy hearts, they WERE ringing! Great Bells as they were; melodious, deep-mouthed, noble Bells; cast in no common metal; made by no common founder; when had they ever chimed like that, before! &quot;But, to-day, my Pet,&quot; said Trotty. &quot;You and Richard had some words to-day.&quot; &quot;Because he’s such a bad fellow, father,&quot; said Meg. &quot;An’t you, Richard? Such a headstrong, violent man! He’d have made no more of speaking his mind to that great Alderman, and putting him down I don’t know where, than he would of—&quot; &quot;—Kissing Meg,&quot; suggested Richard. Doing it too! &quot;No. Not a bit more,&quot; said Meg. &quot;But I wouldn’t let him, father. Where would have been the use!&quot; &quot;Richard my boy!&quot; cried Trotty. &quot;You was turned up Trumps originally; and Trumps you must be, till you die! But, you were crying by the fire to-night, my Pet, when I came home! Why did you cry by the fire?&quot; &quot;I was thinking of the years we’ve passed together, father. Only that. And thinking that you might miss me, and be lonely.&quot; Trotty was backing off to that extraordinary chair again, when the child, who had been awakened by the noise, came running in half-dressed. &quot;Why, here she is!&quot; cried Trotty, catching her up. &#039;Here’s little Lilian! Ha ha ha! Here we are and here we go! O here we are and here we go again! And here we are and here we go! and Uncle Will too!&quot; Stopping in his trot to greet him heartily. &quot;Oh, Uncle Will, the Vision that I’ve had to-night, through lodging you! Oh, Uncle Will, the obligations that you’ve laid me under, by your coming, my good friend!&quot; Before Will Fern could make the least reply, a Band of Music burst into the room, attended by a lot of neighbours, screaming &quot;A Happy New Year, Meg!&quot; &quot;A Happy Wedding!&quot; &quot;Many of ’em!&quot; and other fragmentary good wishes of that sort. The Drum (who was a private friend of Trotty’s) then stepped forward, and said: &quot;Trotty Veck, my boy! It’s got about, that your daughter is going to be married to-morrow. There an’t a soul that knows you that don’t wish you well, or that knows her and don’t wish her well. Or that knows you both, and don’t wish you both all the happiness the New Year can bring. And here we are, to play it in and dance it in, accordingly.&quot; Which was received with a general shout. The Drum was rather drunk, by-the-bye; but, never mind. &quot;What a happiness it is, I’m sure,&quot; said Trotty, &quot;to be so esteemed! How kind and neighbourly you are! It’s all along of my dear daughter. She deserves it!&quot; They were ready for a dance in half a second (Meg and Richard at the top); and the Drum was on the very brink of feathering away with all his power; when a combination of prodigious sounds was heard outside, and a good-humoured comely woman of some fifty years of age, or thereabouts, came running in, attended by a man bearing a stone pitcher of terrific size, and closely followed by the marrow-bones and cleavers, and the bells; not the Bells, but a portable collection on a frame. Trotty said, &quot;It’s Mrs. Chickenstalker!&quot; And sat down and beat his knees again. &quot;Married, and not tell me, Meg!&quot; cried the good woman. &quot;Never! I couldn’t rest on the last night of the Old Year without coming to wish you joy. I couldn’t have done it, Meg. Not if I had been bed-ridden. So here I am; and as it’s New Year’s Eve, and the Eve of your wedding too, my dear, I had a little flip made, and brought it with me.&quot; Mrs. Chickenstalker’s notion of a little flip did honour to her character. The pitcher steamed and smoked and reeked like a volcano; and the man who had carried it, was faint. &quot;Mrs. Tugby!&quot; said Trotty, who had been going round and round her, in an ecstasy.—&quot;I should say, Chickenstalker—Bless your heart and soul! A Happy New Year, and many of ’em! Mrs. Tugby,&quot; said Trotty when he had saluted her;—&quot;I should say, Chickenstalker—This is William Fern and Lilian.&quot; The worthy dame, to his surprise, turned very pale and very red. &quot;Not Lilian Fern whose mother died in Dorsetshire!&quot; said she. Her uncle answered &quot;Yes,&quot; and meeting hastily, they exchanged some hurried words together; of which the upshot was, that Mrs. Chickenstalker shook him by both hands; saluted Trotty on his cheek again of her own free will; and took the child to her capacious breast. &quot;Will Fern!&quot; said Trotty, pulling on his right-hand muffler. &quot;Not the friend you was hoping to find?&quot; &quot;Aye!&quot; returned Will, putting a hand on each of Trotty’s shoulders. &quot;And like to prove a’most as good a friend, if that can be, as one I found.&quot; &quot;Oh!&quot; said Trotty. &quot;Please to play up there. Will you have the goodness!&quot; To the music of the band, and, the bells, the marrow-bones and cleavers, all at once; and while The Chimes were yet in lusty operation out of doors; Trotty, making Meg and Richard, second couple, led off Mrs. Chickenstalker down the dance, and danced it in a step unknown before or since; founded on his own peculiar trot. Had Trotty dreamed? Or, are his joys and sorrows, and the actors in them, but a dream; himself a dream; the teller of this tale a dreamer, waking but now? If it be so, oh Listener, dear to him in all his visions, try to bear in mind the stern realities from which these shadows come; and in your sphere—none is too wide, and none too limited for such an end—endeavour to correct, improve, and soften them. So may the New Year be a happy one to You, Happy to many more whose Happiness depends on You! So may each Year be happier than the last, and not the meanest of our brethren or sisterhood debarred their rightful share, in what our Great Creator formed them to enjoy.18441201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/7/The_Chimes_A_Goblin_Story_of_Some_Bells_that_Rang_an_Old_Year_Out_and_a_New_Year_In/1844-12-The_Chimes.pdf
215https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/215<em>The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home</em>Published by Bradbury and Evans, 1845 (Eleventh Edition)Dickens, Charles<em>Hathi Trust,</em> <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102287704">https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102287704</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1845-12">1845-12</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+Daniel+Maclise%2C+John+Leech%2C+Richard+Doyle%2C+Clarkson+Stanfield%2C+and+Edwin+Henry+Landseer">Illustrated by Daniel Maclise, John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, and Edwin Henry Landseer</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Book">Christmas Book</a>1845-12-The_Cricket_on_the_HearthDickens, Charles. <em>The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home</em> (1845). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-books/1845-12-The_Cricket_on_the_Hearth">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-books/1845-12-The_Cricket_on_the_Hearth</a>.Chirp the First The Kettle began it! Don’t tell me what Mrs. Peerybingle said. I know better. Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of time that she couldn’t say which of them began it; but, I say the Kettle did. I ought to know, I hope? The Kettle began it, full five minutes by the little waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner before the Cricket uttered a chirp. As if the clock hadn’t finished striking, and the convulsive little Haymaker at the top of it, jerking away right and left with a scythe in front of a Moorish Palace, hadn’t mowed down half an acre of imaginary grass before the Cricket joined in at all! Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows that. I wouldn’t set my own opinion against the opinion of Mrs. Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any account whatever. Nothing should induce me. But this is a question of fact. And the fact is, that the Kettle began it, at least five minutes before the Cricket gave any sign of being in existence. Contradict me: and I’ll say ten. Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should have proceeded to do so in my very first word, but for this plain consideration—if I am to tell a story I must begin at the beginning; and how is it possible to begin at the beginning, without beginning at the Kettle? It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill, you must understand, between the Kettle and the Cricket. And this is what led to it, and how it came about. Mrs. Peerybingle going out into the raw twilight, and clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the yard—Mrs. Peerybingle filled the Kettle at the water butt. Presently returning, less the pattens: and a good deal less, for they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short: she set the Kettle on the fire. In doing which she lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for the water being uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state wherein it seems to penetrate through every kind of substance, patten rings included—had laid hold of Mrs. Peerybingle’s toes, and even splashed her legs. And when we rather plume ourselves (with reason too) upon our legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point of stockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear. Besides, the Kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It wouldn’t allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn’t hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very Idiot of a Kettle, on the hearth. It was quarrelsome; and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle’s fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in—down to the very bottom of the Kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the water, which the lid of that Kettle employed against Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again. It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, &quot;I won’t boil. Nothing shall induce me!&quot; But Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humour, dusted her chubby little hands against each other, and sat down before the Kettle: laughing. Meantime, the jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and gleaming on the little Haymaker at the top of the Dutch clock, until one might have thought he stood stock still before the Moorish Palace, and nothing was in motion but the flame. He was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two to the second, all right and regular. But, his sufferings when the clock was going to strike, were frightful to behold; and, when a Cuckoo looked out of a trap-door in the Palace, and gave note six times, it shook him, each time, like a spectral voice—or like a something wiry, plucking at his legs. It was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise among the weights and ropes below him had quite subsided, that this terrified Haymaker became himself again. Nor was he startled without reason; for these rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting in their operation, and I wonder very much how any set of men, but most of all how Dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them. There is a popular belief that Dutchmen love broad cases and much clothing for their own lower selves; and they might know better than to leave their clocks so very lank and unprotected, surely. Now it was, you observe, that the Kettle began to spend the evening. Now it was, that the Kettle, growing mellow and musical, began to have irrepressible gurglings in its throat, and to indulge in short vocal snorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn’t quite made up its mind yet, to be good company. Now it was, that after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so cosy and hilarious, as never maudlin nightingale yet formed the least idea of. So plain too! Bless you, you might have understood it like a book—better than some books you and I could name, perhaps. With its warm breath gushing forth in a light cloud which merrily and gracefully ascended a few feet, then hung about the chimney-corner as its own domestic Heaven, it trolled its song with that strong energy of cheerfulness, that its iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire; and the lid itself, the recently rebellious lid—such is the influence of a bright example—performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known the use of its twin brother. That this song of the Kettle’s, was a song of invitation and welcome to somebody out of doors; to somebody at that moment coming on, towards the snug small home and the crisp fire; there is no doubt whatever. Mrs. Peerybingle knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing before the hearth. It’s a dark night, sang the Kettle, and the rotten leaves are lying by the way; and, above, all is mist and darkness, and below, all is mire and clay; and there’s only one relief in all the sad and murky air; and I don’t know that it is one, for it’s nothing but a glare, of deep and angry crimson, where the sun and wind together, set a brand upon the clouds for being guilty of such weather; and the widest open country is a long dull streak of black; and there’s hoar-frost on the finger-post, and thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn’t water, and the water isn’t free; and you couldn’t say that anything is what it ought to be; but he’s coming, coming, coming!— And here, if you like, the Cricket DID chime in! with a Chirrup, Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude, by way of chorus; with a voice so astoundingly disproportionate to its size, as compared with the Kettle; (size! you couldn’t See it!) that if it had then and there burst itself like an overcharged gun: if it had fallen a victim on the spot, and chirruped its little body into fifty pieces: it would have seemed a natural and inevitable consequence, for which it had expressly laboured. The Kettle had had the last of its solo performance. It persevered with undiminished ardour; but the Cricket took first fiddle and kept it. Good Heaven, how it chirped! Its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through the house, and seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a Star. There was an indescribable little trill and tremble in it, at its loudest, which suggested its being carried off its legs, and made to leap again, by its own intense enthusiasm. Yet they went very well together, the Cricket and the Kettle. The burden of the song was still the same; and louder, louder, louder still, they sang it in their emulation. The fair little listener; for fair she was, and young—though something of what is called the dumpling shape; but I don’t myself object to that—lighted a candle; glanced at the Haymaker on the top of the clock, who was getting in a pretty average crop of minutes; and looked out of the window, where she saw nothing, owing to the darkness, but her own face imaged in the glass. And my opinion is (and so would your&#039;s have been), that she might have looked a long way, and seen nothing half so agreeable. When she came back, and sat down in her former seat, the Cricket and the Kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of competition. The Kettle’s weak side clearly being that he didn’t know when he was beat. There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle making play in the distance, like a great top. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket round the corner. Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle sticking to him in his own way; no idea of giving in. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket fresher than ever. Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket going in to finish him. Hum, hum, hum—m—m! Kettle not to be finished. Until at last, they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry, helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the Kettle chirped and the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the Kettle hummed, or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer head than your&#039;s or mine to have decided with anything like certainty. But of this, there is no doubt: that the Kettle and the Cricket, at one and the same moment, and by some power of amalgamation best known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside song of comfort streaming into a ray of the candle that shone out through the window; and a long way down the lane. And this light, bursting on a certain person who, on the instant, approached towards it through the gloom, expressed the whole thing to him, literally in a twinkling, and cried, &quot;Welcome home, old fellow! Welcome home, my Boy!&quot; This end attained, the Kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and was taken off the fire. Mrs. Peerybingle then went running to the door, where, what with the wheels of a cart, the tramp of a horse, the voice of a man, the tearing in and out of an excited dog, and the surprising and mysterious appearance of a Baby, there was soon the very What’s-his-name to pay. Where the Baby came from, or how Mrs. Peerybingle got hold of it in that flash of time, I don’t know. But a live Baby there was, in Mrs. Peerybingle’s arms; and a pretty tolerable amount of pride she seemed to have in it, when she was drawn gently to the fire, by a sturdy figure of a man, much taller and much older than herself; who had to stoop a long way down, to kiss her. But she was worth the trouble. Six foot six, with the lumbago, might have done it. &quot;Oh goodness, John!&quot; said Mrs. P. &quot;What a state you are in with the weather!&quot; He was something the worse for it, undeniably. The thick mist hung in clots upon his eyelashes like candied thaw; and between the fog and fire together, there were rainbows in his very whiskers. &quot;Why, you see, Dot,&quot; John made answer, slowly, as he unrolled a shawl from about his throat; and warmed his hands; &quot;it—it an’t exactly summer weather. So, no wonder.&quot; &quot;I wish you wouldn’t call me Dot, John. I don’t like it,&quot; said Mrs. Peerybingle: pouting in a way that clearly showed she did like it, very much. &quot;Why what else are you?&quot; returned John, looking down upon her with a smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze as his huge hand and arm could give. &quot;A dot and&quot;—here he glanced at the Baby—&quot;a dot and carry—I won’t say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I was very near a joke. I don’t know as ever I was nearer.&quot; He was often near to something or other very clever, by his own account: this lumbering, slow, honest John; this John so heavy but so light of spirit; so rough upon the surface, but so gentle at the core; so dull without, so quick within; so stolid, but so good! Oh Mother Nature, give thy children the true Poetry of Heart that hid itself in this poor Carrier’s breast—he was but a Carrier by the way—and we can bear to have them talking Prose, and leading lives of Prose; and bear to bless Thee for their company! It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure and her Baby in her arms: a very doll of a Baby: glancing with a coquettish thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her delicate little head just enough on one side to let it rest in an odd, half-natural, half-affected, wholly nestling and agreeable manner, on the great rugged figure of the Carrier. It was pleasant to see him, with his tender awkwardness, endeavouring to adapt his rude support to her slight need, and make his burly middle-age a leaning-staff not inappropriate to her blooming youth. It was pleasant to observe how Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the background for the Baby, took special cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of this grouping; and stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, and her head thrust forward, taking it in as if it were air. Nor was it less agreeable to observe how John the Carrier, reference being made by Dot to the aforesaid Baby, checked his hand when on the point of touching the infant, as if he thought he might crack it; and bending down, surveyed it from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride: such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed to show, if he found himself, one day, the father of a young canary. &quot;An’t he beautiful, John? Don’t he look precious in his sleep?&quot; &quot;Very precious,&quot; said John. &quot;Very much so. He generally is asleep, an’t he?&quot; &quot;Lor, John! Good gracious no!&quot; &quot;Oh,&quot; said John, pondering. &quot;I thought his eyes was generally shut. Halloa!&quot; &quot;Goodness, John, how you startle one!&quot; &quot;It an’t right for him to turn ’em up in that way!&quot; said the astonished Carrier, &quot;is it? See how he’s winking with both of ’em at once! and look at his mouth! why he’s gasping like a gold and silver fish!&quot; &quot;You don’t deserve to be a father, you don’t,&quot; said Dot, with all the dignity of an experienced matron. &quot;But how should you know what little complaints children are troubled with, John! You wouldn’t so much as know their names, you stupid fellow.&quot; And when she had turned the Baby over on her left arm, and had slapped its back as a restorative, she pinched her husband’s ear, laughing. &quot;No,&quot; said John, pulling off his outer coat. &quot;It’s very true, Dot. I don’t know much about it. I only know that I’ve been fighting pretty stiffly with the Wind to-night. It’s been blowing north-east, straight into the cart, the whole way home.&quot; &quot;Poor old man, so it has!&quot; cried Mrs. Peerybingle, instantly becoming very active. &quot;Here! Take the precious darling, Tilly, while I make myself of some use. Bless it, I could smother it with kissing it; I could! Hie then, good dog! Hie Boxer, boy! Only let me make the tea first, John; and then I’ll help you with the parcels, like a busy bee. &#039;How doth the little&#039;—and all the rest of it, you know John. Did you ever learn &#039;how doth the little,&#039; when you went to school, John?&quot; &quot;Not to quite know it,&quot; John returned. &quot;I was very near it once. But I should only have spoilt it, I dare say.&quot; &quot;Ha ha!&quot; laughed Dot. She had the blithest little laugh you ever heard. &quot;What a dear old darling of a dunce you are, John, to be sure!&quot; Not at all disputing this position, John went out to see that the boy with the lantern, which had been dancing to and fro before the door and window, like a Will of the Wisp, took due care of the horse; who was fatter than you would quite believe, if I gave you his measure, and so old that his birthday was lost in the mists of antiquity. Boxer, feeling that his attentions were due to the family in general, and must be impartially distributed, dashed in and out with bewildering inconstancy: now, describing a circle of short barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed down at the stable-door; now feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now eliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the fire, by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her countenance; now exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the Baby; now going round and round upon the hearth, and lying down as if he had established himself for the night; now getting up again, and taking that nothing of a fag-end of a tail of his, out into the weather, as if he had just remembered an appointment, and was off, at a round trot, to keep it. &quot;There! There’s the teapot, ready on the hob!&quot; said Dot; as briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house. &quot;And there’s the old knuckle of ham; and there’s the butter; and there’s the crusty loaf, and all! Here’s the clothes-basket for the small parcels, John, if you’ve got any there—where are you, John? Don’t let the dear child fall under the grate, Tilly, whatever you do!&quot; It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her rejecting the caution with some vivacity, that she had a rare and surprising talent for getting this Baby into difficulties: and had several times imperilled its short life, in a quiet way peculiarly her own. She was of a spare and straight shape, this young lady, insomuch that her garments appeared to be in constant danger of sliding off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which they were loosely hung. Her costume was remarkable for the partial development, on all possible occasions, of some flannel vestment of a singular structure; also for affording glimpses, in the region of the back, of a corset, or pair of stays, in colour a dead-green. Being always in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed, besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress’s perfections and the Baby’s, Miss Slowboy, in her little errors of judgment, may be said to have done equal honour to her head and to her heart; and though these did less honour to the Baby’s head, which they were the occasional means of bringing into contact with deal doors, dressers, stair-rails, bedposts, and other foreign substances, still they were the honest results of Tilly Slowboy’s constant astonishment at finding herself so kindly treated, and installed in such a comfortable home. For, the maternal and paternal Slowboy were alike unknown to Fame, and Tilly had been bred by public charity, a Foundling; which word, though only differing from Fondling by one vowel’s length, is very different in meaning, and expresses quite another thing. To have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with her husband; tugging at the clothes-basket, and making the most strenuous exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried it); would have amused you almost as much as it amused him. It may have entertained the Cricket too, for anything I know; but, certainly, it now began to chirp again, vehemently. &quot;Heyday!&quot; said John, in his slow way. &quot;It’s merrier than ever, to-night, I think.&quot; &quot;And it’s sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has done so. To have a Cricket on the Hearth, is the luckiest thing in all the world!&quot; John looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought into his head, that she was his Cricket in chief, and he quite agreed with her. But, it was probably one of his narrow escapes, for he said nothing. &quot;The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John, was on that night when you brought me home—when you brought me to my new home here; its little mistress. Nearly a year ago. You recollect, John?&quot; O yes. John remembered. I should think so! &quot;Its chirp was such a welcome to me! It seemed so full of promise and encouragement. It seemed to say, you would be kind and gentle with me, and would not expect (I had a fear of that, John, then) to find an old head on the shoulders of your foolish little wife.&quot; John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then the head, as though he would have said No, No; he had had no such expectation; he had been quite content to take them as they were. And really he had reason. They were very comely. &quot;It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so: for you have ever been, I am sure, the best, the most considerate, the most affectionate of husbands to me. This has been a happy home, John; and I love the Cricket for its sake!&quot; &quot;Why so do I then,&quot; said the Carrier. &quot;So do I, Dot.&quot; &quot;I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me. Sometimes, in the twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and down-hearted, John—before Baby was here to keep me company and make the house gay; when I have thought how lonely you would be if I should die; how lonely I should be if I could know that you had lost me, dear; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp upon the hearth, has seemed to tell me of another little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before whose coming sound, my trouble vanished like a dream. And when I used to fear—I did fear once, John; I was very young you know—that ours might prove to be an ill-assorted marriage: I being such a child, and you more like my guardian than my husband: and that you might not, however hard you tried, be able to learn to love me, as you hoped and prayed you might; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp, has cheered me up again, and filled me with new trust and confidence. I was thinking of these things to-night, dear, when I sat expecting you; and I love the Cricket for their sake!&quot; &quot;And so do I,&quot; repeated John. &quot;But, Dot? I hope and pray that I might learn to love you? How you talk! I had learnt that, long before I brought you here, to be the Cricket’s little mistress, Dot!&quot; She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at him with an agitated face, as if she would have told him something. Next moment, she was down upon her knees before the basket; speaking in a sprightly voice, and busy with the parcels. &quot;There are not many of them to-night, John, but I saw some goods behind the cart, just now; and though they give more trouble, perhaps, still they pay as well; so we have no reason to grumble, have we? Besides, you have been delivering, I dare say, as you came along?&quot; Oh yes, John said. A good many. &quot;Why what’s this round box? Heart alive, John, it’s a wedding-cake!&quot; &quot;Leave a woman alone to find out that,&quot; said John, admiringly. &quot;Now a man would never have thought of it! whereas, it’s my belief that if you was to pack a wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a turn-up bedstead, or a pickled salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a woman would be sure to find it out directly. Yes; I called for it at the pastry-cook’s.&quot; &quot;And it weighs I don’t know what—whole hundredweights!&quot; cried Dot, making a great demonstration of trying to lift it. &quot;Whose is it, John? Where is it going?&quot; &quot;Read the writing on the other side,&quot; said John. &quot;Why, John! My Goodness, John!&quot; &quot;Ah! who’d have thought it!&quot; John returned. &quot;You never mean to say,&quot; pursued Dot, sitting on the floor and shaking her head at him, &quot;that it’s Gruff and Tackleton the toymaker!&quot; John nodded. Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. Not in assent: in dumb and pitying amazement; screwing up her lips, the while, with all their little force (they were never made for screwing up; I am clear of that), and looking the good Carrier through and through, in her abstraction. Miss Slowboy, in the mean time, who had a mechanical power of reproducing scraps of current conversation for the delectation of the Baby, with all the sense struck out of them, and all the Nouns changed into the Plural number, inquired aloud of that young creature, Was it Gruffs and Tackletons the toymakers then, and Would it call at Pastry-cooks for wedding-cakes, and Did its mothers know the boxes when its fathers brought them homes; and so on. &quot;And that is really to come about!&quot; said Dot. &quot;Why, she and I were girls at school together, John.&quot; He might have been thinking of her: or nearly thinking of her, perhaps: as she was in that same school time. He looked upon her with a thoughtful pleasure, but he made no answer. &quot;And he’s as old! As unlike her!—Why, how many years older than you, is Gruff and Tackleton, John?&quot; &quot;How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night at one sitting, than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in four, I wonder!&quot; replied John, good-humouredly, as he drew a chair to the round table, and began at the cold Ham. &quot;As to eating, I eat but little; but that little I enjoy, Dot.&quot; Even this; his usual sentiment at meal times; one of his innocent delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, and flatly contradicted him); awoke no smile in the face of his little wife, who stood among the parcels, pushing the cake-box slowly from her with her foot, and never once looked, though her eyes were cast down too, upon the dainty shoe she generally was so mindful of. Absorbed in thought, she stood there, heedless alike of the tea and John (although he called to her, and rapped the table with his knife to startle her), until he rose and touched her on the arm; when she looked at him for a moment, and hurried to her place behind the teaboard, laughing at her negligence. But not as she had laughed before. The manner, and the music, were quite changed. The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was not so cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it. &quot;So, these are all the parcels, are they, John?&quot; she said: breaking a long silence, which the honest Carrier had devoted to the practical illustration of one part of his favourite sentiment—certainly enjoying what he ate, if it couldn’t be admitted that he ate but little. &quot;So these are all the parcels; are they, John?&quot; &quot;That’s all,&quot; said John. &quot;Why—no—I—&quot; laying down his knife and fork, and taking a long breath. &quot;I declare—I’ve clean forgotten the old gentleman!&quot; &quot;The old gentleman?&quot; &quot;In the cart,&quot; said John. &quot;He was asleep, among the straw, the last time I saw him. I’ve very nearly remembered him, twice, since I came in; but he went out of my head again. Halloa! Yahip there! rouse up! That’s my hearty!&quot; John said these latter words, outside the door, whither he had hurried with the candle in his hand. Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to The Old Gentleman, and connecting in her mystified imagination certain associations of a religious nature with the phrase, was so disturbed, that hastily rising from the low chair by the fire to seek protection near the skirts of her mistress, and coming into contact as she crossed the doorway with an ancient Stranger, she instinctively made a charge or butt at him with the only offensive instrument within her reach. This instrument happening to be the Baby, great commotion and alarm ensued, which the sagacity of Boxer rather tended to increase; for, that good dog, more thoughtful than its master, had, it seemed, been watching the old gentleman in his sleep lest he should walk off with a few young Poplar trees that were tied up behind the cart; and he still attended on him very closely; worrying his gaiters in fact, and making dead sets at the buttons. &quot;You’re such an undeniable good sleeper, Sir,&quot; said John when tranquillity was restored; in the mean time the old gentleman had stood, bare-headed and motionless, in the centre of the room; &quot;that I have half a mind to ask you where the other six are: only that would be a joke, and I know I should spoil it. Very near though,&quot; murmured the Carrier, with a chuckle; &quot;very near!&quot; The Stranger, who had long white hair; good features, singularly bold and well defined for an old man, and dark, bright, penetrating eyes, looked round with a smile, and saluted the Carrier’s wife by gravely inclining his head. His garb was very quaint and odd—a long, long way behind the time. Its hue was brown, all over. In his hand he held a great brown club or walking-stick; and striking this upon the floor, it fell asunder, and became a chair. On which he sat down, quite composedly. &quot;There!&quot; said the Carrier, turning to his wife. &quot;That’s the way I found him, sitting by the roadside! upright as a milestone. And almost as deaf.&quot; &quot;Sitting in the open air, John!&quot; &quot;In the open air,&quot; replied the Carrier, &quot;just at dusk. &#039;Carriage Paid,&#039; he said; and gave me eighteenpence. Then he got in. And there he is.&quot; &quot;He’s going, John, I think!&quot; Not at all. He was only going to speak. &quot;If you please, I was to be left till called for,&quot; said the Stranger, mildly. &quot;Don’t mind me.&quot; With that, he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large pockets, and a book from another; and leisurely began to read. Making no more of Boxer than if he had been a house lamb! The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity. The Stranger raised his head; and glancing from the latter to the former, said: &quot;Your daughter, my good friend?&quot; &quot;Wife,&quot; returned John. &quot;Niece?&quot; said the Stranger. &quot;Wife,&quot; roared John. &quot;Indeed?&quot; observed the Stranger. &quot;Surely? Very young!&quot; He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. But, before he could have read two lines, he again interrupted himself to say: &quot;Baby, yours?&quot; John gave him a gigantic nod; equivalent to an answer in the affirmative, delivered through a speaking trumpet. &quot;Girl?&quot; &quot;Bo-o-oy!&#039; roared John. &quot;Also very young, eh?&quot; Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. &quot;Two months and three da-ays! Vaccinated just six weeks ago-o! Took very fine-ly! Considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful chi-ild! Equal to the general run of children at five months o-old! Takes notice, in a way quite won-der-ful! May seem impossible to you, but feels his legs al-ready!&quot; Here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these short sentences into the old man’s ear, until her pretty face was crimsoned, held up the Baby before him as a stubborn and triumphant fact; while Tilly Slowboy, with a melodious cry of Ketcher, Ketcher—which sounded like some unknown words, adapted to a popular Sneeze—performed some cow-like gambols round that all unconscious Innocent. &quot;Hark! He’s called for, sure enough,&quot; said John. &quot;There’s somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly.&quot; Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from without; being a primitive sort of door, with a latch, that any one could lift if he chose—and a good many people did choose, I can tell you; for all kinds of neighbours liked to have a cheerful word or two with the Carrier, though he was no great talker for the matter of that. Being opened, it gave admission to a little, meagre, thoughtful, dingy-faced man, who seemed to have made himself a great-coat from the sack-cloth covering of some old box; for when he turned to shut the door, and keep the weather out, he disclosed upon the back of that garment, the inscription G &amp;amp; T in large black capitals. Also the word GLASS in bold characters. &quot;Good evening John!&quot; said the little man. &quot;Good evening Mum. Good evening Tilly. Good evening Unbeknown! How’s Baby Mum? Boxer’s pretty well I hope?&quot; &quot;All thriving, Caleb,&quot; replied Dot. &quot;I am sure you need only look at the dear child, for one, to know that.&quot; &quot;And I’m sure I need only look at you for another,&quot; said Caleb. He didn’t look at her though; he had a wandering and thoughtful eye which seemed to be always projecting itself into some other time and place, no matter what he said; a description which will equally apply to his voice. &quot;Or at John for another,&quot; said Caleb. &quot;Or at Tilly, as far as that goes. Or certainly at Boxer.&quot; &quot;Busy just now, Caleb?&quot; asked the Carrier. &quot;Why, pretty well, John,&quot; he returned, with the distraught air of a man who was casting about for the Philosopher’s stone, at least. &quot;Pretty much so. There’s rather a run on Noah’s Arks at present. I could have wished to improve upon the Family, but I don’t see how it’s to be done at the price. It would be a satisfaction to one’s mind, to make it clearer which was Shems and Hams, and which was Wives. Flies an’t on that scale neither, as compared with elephants you know! Ah! well! Have you got anything in the parcel line for me, John?&quot; The Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had taken off; and brought out, carefully preserved in moss and paper, a tiny flower-pot. &quot;There it is!&quot; he said, adjusting it with great care. &quot;Not so much as a leaf damaged. Full of buds!&quot; Caleb’s dull eye brightened, as he took it, and thanked him. &quot;Dear, Caleb,&quot; said the Carrier. &quot;Very dear at this season.&quot; &quot;Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, whatever it cost,&quot; returned the little man. &quot;Anything else, John?&quot; &quot;A small box,&quot; replied the Carrier. &quot;Here you are!&quot; &quot;&#039;For Caleb Plummer,&#039;&quot; said the little man, spelling out the direction. &quot;&#039;With Cash.&#039; With Cash, John? I don’t think it’s for me.&quot; &quot;With Care,&quot; returned the Carrier, looking over his shoulder. &quot;Where do you make out cash?&quot; &quot;Oh! To be sure!&quot; said Caleb. &quot;It’s all right. With care! Yes, yes; that’s mine. It might have been with cash, indeed, if my dear Boy in the Golden South Americas had lived, John. You loved him like a son; didn’t you? You needn’t say you did. I know, of course. &#039;Caleb Plummer. With care.&#039; Yes, yes, it’s all right. It’s a box of dolls’ eyes for my daughter’s work. I wish it was her own sight in a box, John.&quot; &quot;I wish it was, or could be!&quot; cried the Carrier. &quot;Thank’ee,&quot; said the little man. &quot;You speak very hearty. To think that she should never see the Dolls; and them a-staring at her, so bold, all day long! That’s where it cuts. What’s the damage, John?&quot; &quot;I’ll damage you,&quot; said John, &quot;if you inquire. Dot! Very near?&quot; &quot;Well! it’s like you to say so,&quot; observed the little man. &quot;It’s your kind way. Let me see. I think that’s all.&quot; &quot;I think not,&quot; said the Carrier. &quot;Try again.&quot; &quot;Something for our Governor, eh?&quot; said Caleb, after pondering a little while. &quot;To be sure. That’s what I came for; but my head’s so running on them Arks and things! He hasn’t been here, has he?&quot; &quot;Not he,&quot; returned the Carrier. &quot;He’s too busy, courting.&quot; &quot;He’s coming round though,&quot; said Caleb; &quot;for he told me to keep on the near side of the road going home, and it was ten to one he’d take me up. I had better go, by the bye.—You couldn’t have the goodness to let me pinch Boxer’s tail, Mum, for half a moment, could you?&quot; &quot;Why, Caleb! what a question!&quot; &quot;Oh never mind, Mum,&quot; said the little man. &quot;He mightn’t like it perhaps. There’s a small order just come in, for barking dogs; and I should wish to go as close to Natur’ as I could, for sixpence. That’s all. Never mind, Mum.&quot; It happened opportunely, that Boxer, without receiving the proposed stimulus, began to bark with great zeal. But, as this implied the approach of some new visitor, Caleb, postponing his study from the life to a more convenient season, shouldered the round box, and took a hurried leave. He might have spared himself the trouble, for he met the visitor upon the threshold. &quot;Oh! You are here, are you? Wait a bit. I’ll take you home. John Peerybingle, my service to you. More of my service to your pretty wife. Handsomer every day! Better too, if possible! And younger,&quot; mused the speaker, in a low voice; &quot;that’s the Devil of it!&quot; &quot;I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. Tackleton,&quot; said Dot, not with the best grace in the world; &quot;but for your condition.&quot; &quot;You know all about it then?&quot; &quot;I have got myself to believe it, somehow,&quot; said Dot. &quot;After a hard struggle, I suppose?&quot; &quot;Very.&quot; Tackleton the Toy-merchant, pretty generally known as Gruff and Tackleton—for that was the firm, though Gruff had been bought out long ago; only leaving his name, and as some said his nature, according to its Dictionary meaning, in the business—Tackleton the Toy merchant, was a man whose vocation had been quite misunderstood by his Parents and Guardians. If they had made him a Money Lender, or a sharp Attorney, or a Sheriff’s Officer, or a Broker, he might have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and, after having had the full-run of himself in ill-natured transactions, might have turned out amiable, at last, for the sake of a little freshness and novelty. But, cramped and chafing in the peaceable pursuit of toy-making, he was a domestic Ogre, who had been living on chiidren all his life, and was their implacable enemy. He despised all toys; wouldn’t have bought one for the world; delighted, in his malice, to insinuate grim expressions into the faces of brown-paper farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised lost lawyers’ consciences, movable old ladies who darned stockings or carved pies; and other like samples of his stock in trade. In appalling masks; hideous, hairy, red-eyed Jacks in Boxes; Vampire Kites; demoniacal Tumblers who wouldn’t lie down, and were perpetually flying forward, to stare infants out of countenance; his soul perfectly revelled. They were his only relief, and safety-valve. He was great in such inventions. Anything suggestive of a Pony-nightmare, was delicious to him. He had even lost money (and he took to that toy very kindly) by getting up Goblin slides for magic lanterns, whereon the Powers of Darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural shell-fish, with human faces. In intensifying the portraiture of Giants, he had sunk quite a little capital; and, though no painter himself, he could indicate, for the instruction of his artists, with a piece of chalk, a certain furtive leer for the countenances of those monsters, which was safe to destroy the peace of mind of any young gentleman between the ages of six and eleven, for the whole Christmas or Midsummer Vacation. What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in all other things. You may easily suppose, therefore, that within the great green cape, which reached down to the calves of his legs, there was buttoned up to the chin an uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was about as choice a spirit and as agreeable a companion, as ever stood in a pair of bull-headed-looking boots with mahogany-colored tops. Still, Tackleton, the Toy-merchant, was going to be married. In spite of all this, he was going to be married. And to a young wife too; a beautiful young wife. He didn’t look much like a Bridegroom, as he stood in the Carrier’s kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic ill-conditioned self peering out of one little corner of one little eye, like the concentrated essence of any number of ravens. But, a Bridegroom he designed to be. &quot;In three days’ time. Next Thursday. The last day of the first month in the year. That’s my wedding-day,&quot; said Tackleton. Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open, and one eye nearly shut; and that the one eye nearly shut, was always the expressive eye? I don’t think I did. &quot;That’s my wedding-day!&quot; said Tackleton, rattling his money. &quot;Why, it’s our wedding-day too,&quot; exclaimed the Carrier. &quot;Ha ha!&quot; laughed Tackleton. &quot;Odd! You’re just such another couple. Just!&quot; The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion is not to be described. What next? His imagination would compass the possibility of just such another Baby, perhaps. The man was mad. &quot;I say! A word with you,&quot; murmured Tackleton, nudging the Carrier with his elbow, and taking him a little apart. &quot;You’ll come to the wedding? We’re in the same boat, you know.&quot; &quot;How in the same boat?&quot; inquired the Carrier. &quot;A little disparity, you know;&quot; said Tackleton, with another nudge. &quot;Come and spend an evening with us, beforehand.&quot; &quot;Why?&quot; demanded John, astonished at this pressing hospitality. &quot;Why?&quot; returned the other. &quot;That’s a new way of receiving an invitation. Why, for pleasure—sociability, you know, and all that!&quot; &quot;I thought you were never sociable,&quot; said John, in his plain way. &quot;Tchah! It’s of no use to be anything but free with you I see,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Why, then, the truth is you have a—what tea-drinking people call a sort of a comfortable appearance together, you and your wife. We know better, you know, but—&quot; &quot;No, we don’t know better,&quot; interposed John. &quot;What are you talking about?&quot; &quot;Well! We don’t know better, then,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;We’ll agree that we don’t. As you like; what does it matter? I was going to say, as you have that sort of appearance, your company will produce a favourable effect on Mrs. Tackleton that will be. And, though I don’t think your good lady’s very friendly to me, in this matter, still she can’t help herself from falling into my views, for there’s a compactness and cosiness of appearance about her that always tells, even in an indifferent case. You’ll say you’ll come?&quot; &quot;We have arranged to keep our Wedding-Day (as far as that goes) at home,&quot; said John. &quot;We have made the promise to ourselves these six months. We think, you see, that home—&quot; &quot;Bah! what’s home?&quot; cried Tackleton. &quot;Four walls and a ceiling! (why don’t you kill that Cricket? I would! I always do. I hate their noise.) There are four walls and a ceiling at my house. Come to me!&quot; &quot;You kill your Crickets, eh?&quot; said John. &quot;Scrunch ’em, sir,&quot; returned the other, setting his heel heavily on the floor. &quot;You’ll say you’ll come? It’s as much your interest as mine, you know, that the women should persuade each other that they’re quiet and contented, and couldn’t be better off. I know their way. Whatever one woman says, another woman is determined to clinch, always. There’s that spirit of emulation among ’em, Sir, that if your wife says to my wife, &#039;I’m the happiest woman in the world, and mine’s the best husband in the world, and I dote on him,&#039; my wife will say the same to yours, or more, and half believe it.&quot; &quot;Do you mean to say she don’t, then?&quot; asked the Carrier. &quot;Don’t!&quot; cried Tackleton, with a short, sharp laugh. &quot;Don’t what?&quot; The Carrier had some faint idea of adding, &quot;dote upon you.&quot; But, happening to meet the half-closed eye, as it twinkled upon him over the turned-up collar of the cape, which was within an ace of poking it out, he felt it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to be doted on, that he substituted, &quot;that she don’t believe it?&quot; &quot;Ah you dog! you’re joking,&quot; said Tackleton. But the Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift of his meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner, that he was obliged to be a little more explanatory. &quot;I have the humour,&quot; said Tackleton: holding up the fingers of his left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply &#039;there I am, Tackleton to wit:’ ‘I have the humour, Sir, to marry a young wife, and a pretty wife:&quot; here he rapped his little finger, to express the Bride; not sparingly, but sharply; with a sense of power. &quot;I’m able to gratify that humour and I do. It’s my whim. But—now look there.&quot; He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully, before the fire; leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and watching the bright blaze. The Carrier looked at her, and then at him, and then at her, and then at him again. &quot;She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know,&quot; said Tackleton; &quot;and that, as I am not a man of sentiment, is quite enough for me. But do you think there’s anything more in it?&quot; &quot;I think,&quot; observed the Carrier, &quot;that I should chuck any man out of window, who said there wasn’t.&quot; &quot;Exactly so,&quot; returned the other with an unusual alacrity of assent. &quot;To be sure! Doubtless you would. Of course. I’m certain of it. Good night. Pleasant dreams!&quot; The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and uncertain, in spite of himself. He couldn’t help showing it, in his manner. &quot;Good night, my dear friend!&quot; said Tackleton, compassionately. &quot;I’m off. We’re exactly alike, in reality, I see. You won’t give us to-morrow evening? Well! Next day you go out visiting, I know. I’ll meet you there, and bring my wife that is to be. It’ll do her good. You’re agreeable? Thankee. What’s that!&quot; It was a loud cry from the Carrier’s wife; a loud, sharp, sudden cry, that made the room ring, like a glass vessel. She had risen from her seat, and stood like one transfixed by terror and surprise. The Stranger had advanced towards the fire, to warm himself, and stood within a short stride of her chair. But quite still. &quot;Dot!&quot; cried the Carrier. &quot;Mary! Darling! What’s the matter?&quot; They were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who had been dozing on the cake-box, in the first imperfect recovery of his suspended presence of mind seized Miss Slowboy by the hair of her head, but immediately apologised. &quot;Mary!&quot; exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his arms. &quot;Are you ill! what is it? Tell me dear!&quot; She only answered by beating her hands together, and falling into a wild fit of laughter. Then, sinking from his grasp upon the ground, she covered her face with her apron, and wept bitterly. And then she laughed again; and then she cried again; and then she said how cold it was, and suffered him to lead her to the fire, where she sat down as before. The old man standing, as before; quite still. &quot;I’m better, John,&quot; she said. &quot;I’m quite well now—I—&quot; John! But John was on the other side of her. Why turn her face towards the strange old gentleman, as if addressing him! Was her brain wandering? &quot;Only a fancy, John dear—a kind of shock—a something coming suddenly before my eyes—I don’t know what it was. It’s quite gone; quite gone.&quot; &quot;I’m glad it’s gone,&quot; muttered Tackleton, turning the expressive eye all round the room. &quot;I wonder where it’s gone, and what it was. Humph! Caleb, come here! Who’s that with the grey hair?&quot; &quot;I don’t know Sir,&quot; returned Caleb in a whisper. &quot;Never see him before, in all my life. A beautiful figure for a nut-cracker; quite a new model. With a screw-jaw opening down into his waistcoat, he’d be lovely.&quot; &quot;Not ugly enough,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Or for a firebox, either,&quot; observed Caleb, in deep contemplation, &quot;what a model! Unscrew his head to put the matches in; turn him heels up’ards for the light; and what a firebox for a gentleman’s mantel-shelf, just as he stands!&quot; &quot;Not half ugly enough,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Nothing in him at all! Come! Bring that box! All right now, I hope?&quot; &quot;Oh quite gone! Quite gone!&quot; said the little woman, waving him hurriedly away. &quot;Good night!&quot; &quot;Good night,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Good night, John Peerybingle! Take care how you carry that box, Caleb. Let it fall, and I’ll murder you! Dark as pitch, and weather worse than ever, eh? Good night!&quot; So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out at the door; followed by Caleb with the wedding-cake on his head. The Carrier had been so much astounded by his little wife, and so busily engaged in soothing and tending her, that he had scarcely been conscious of the Stranger’s presence, until now, when he again stood there, their only guest. &quot;He don’t belong to them, you see,&quot; said John. &quot;I must give him a hint to go.&quot; &quot;I beg your pardon, friend,&quot; said the old gentleman, advancing to him; &quot;the more so, as I fear your wife has not been well; but the Attendant whom my infirmity,&quot; he touched his ears and shook his head, &quot;renders almost indispensable, not having arrived, I fear there must be some mistake. The bad night which made the shelter of your comfortable cart (may I never have a worse!) so acceptable, is still as bad as ever. Would you, in your kindness, suffer me to rent a bed here?&quot; &quot;Yes, yes,&quot; cried Dot. &quot;Yes! Certainly!&quot; &quot;Oh!&quot; said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this consent. &quot;Well! I don’t object; but, still I’m not quite sure that—&quot; &quot;Hush!&quot; she interrupted. &quot;Dear John!&quot; &quot;Why, he’s stone deaf,&quot; urged John. &quot;I know he is, but—Yes, Sir, certainly. Yes! certainly! I’ll make him up a bed, directly, John.&quot; As she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and the agitation of her manner, were so strange, that the Carrier stood looking after her, quite confounded. &quot;Did its mothers make it up a Beds then!&quot; cried Miss Slowboy to the Baby; &quot;and did its hair grow brown and curly, when its caps was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious Pets, a sitting by the fires!&quot; With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the Carrier, as he walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even these absurd words, many times. So many times that he got them by heart, and was still conning them over and over, like a lesson, when Tilly, after administering as much friction to the little bald head with her hand as she thought wholesome (according to the practice of nurses), had once more tied the Baby’s cap on. &quot;And frighten it, a Precious Pets, a sitting by the fires. What frightened Dot, I wonder!&quot; mused the Carrier, pacing to and fro. He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the Toy merchant, and yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite uneasiness; for Tackleton was quick and sly; and he had that painful sense, himself, of being a man of slow perception, that a broken hint was always worrying to him. He certainly had no intention in his mind of linking anything that Tackleton had said, with the unusual conduct of his wife; but the two subjects of reflection came into his mind together, and he could not keep them asunder. The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining all refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. Then, Dot: quite well again, she said, quite well again: arranged the great chair in the chimney corner for her husband; filled his pipe and gave it him; and took her usual little stool beside him on the hearth. She always would sit on that little stool; I think she must have had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling, little stool. She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I should say, in the four quarters of the globe. To see her put that chubby little finger in the bowl, and then blow down the pipe to clear the tube; and when she had done so, affect to think that there was really something in the tube, and blow a dozen times, and hold it to her eye like a telescope, with a most provoking twist in her capital little face, as she looked down it; was quite a brilliant thing. As to the tobacco, she was perfect mistress of the subject; and her lighting of the pipe, with a wisp of paper, when the Carrier had it in his mouth—going so very near his nose, and yet not scorching it—was Art: high Art, Sir. And the Cricket and the Kettle, turning up again, acknowledged it! The bright fire, blazing up again, acknowledged it! The little Mower on the clock, in his unheeded work, acknowledged it! The Carrier, in his smoothing forehead and expanding face, acknowledged it, the readiest of all. And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe; and as the Dutch clock ticked; and as the red fire gleamed; and as the Cricket chirped; that Genius of his Hearth and Home (for such the Cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned many forms of Home about him. Dots of all ages, and all sizes, filled the chamber. Dots who were merry children, running on before him, gathering flowers, in the fields; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots, attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots of daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and beset by troops of rosy grand-children; withered Dots, who leaned on sticks, and tottered as they crept along. Old Carriers too, appeared, with blind old Boxers lying at their feet; and newer carts with younger drivers (&quot;Peerybingle Brothers&quot; on the tilt); and sick old Carriers, tended by the gentlest hands; and graves of dead and gone old Carriers, green in the churchyard. And as the Cricket showed him all these things—he saw them plainly, though his eyes were fixed upon the fire—the Carrier’s heart grew light and happy, and he thanked his Household Gods with all his might, and cared no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do. But, what was that young figure of a man, which the same Fairy Cricket set so near Her stool, and which remained there, singly and alone? Why did it linger still, so near her, with its arm upon the chimney-piece, ever repeating &quot;Married! and not to me!&quot; O Dot! O failing Dot! There is no place for it in all your husband’s visions; why has its shadow fallen on his hearth! Chirp the Second Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, as the Story-books say—and my blessing, with yours to back it I hope, on the Story-books, for saying anything in this workaday world!—Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, in a little cracked nutshell of a wooden house, which was, in truth, no better than a pimple on the prominent red-brick nose of Gruff and Tackleton. The premises of Gruff and Tackleton were the great feature of the street; but you might have knocked down Caleb Plummer’s dwelling with a hammer or two, and carried off the pieces in a cart. If any one had done the dwelling-house of Caleb Plummer the honour to miss it after such an inroad, it would have been, no doubt, to commend its demolition as a vast improvement. It stuck to the premises of Gruff and Tackleton, like a barnacle to a ship’s keel, or a snail to a door, or a little bunch of toadstools to the stem of a tree. But it was the germ from which the full-grown trunk of Gruff and Tackleton had sprung; and under its crazy roof, the Gruff before last, had, in a small way, made toys for a generation of old boys and girls, who had played with them, and found them out, and broken them, and gone to sleep. I have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter lived here; but I should have said that Caleb lived here, and his poor Blind Daughter somewhere else; in an enchanted home of Caleb’s furnishing, where scarcity and shabbiness were not, and trouble never entered. Caleb was no Sorcerer, but in the only magic art that still remains to us: the magic of devoted, deathless love: Nature had been the mistress of his study; and from her teaching, all the wonder came. The Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were discoloured; walls blotched, and bare of plaster here and there; high crevices unstopped, and widening every day; beams mouldering and tending downward. The Blind Girl never knew that iron was rusting, wood rotting, paper peeling off; the very size, and shape, and true proportion of the dwelling, withering away. The Blind Girl never knew that ugly shapes of delf and earthenware were on the board; that sorrow and faint-heartedness were in the house; that Caleb’s scanty hairs were turning greyer and more grey before her sightless face. The Blind Girl never knew they had a master, cold, exacting, and uninterested: never knew that Tackleton was Tackleton in short; but lived in the belief of an eccentric humourist who loved to have his jest with them; and while he was the Guardian Angel of their lives, disdained to hear one word of thankfulness. And all was Caleb’s doing; all the doing of her simple father! But he too had a Cricket on his Hearth; and listening sadly to its music when the motherless Blind Child was very young, that Spirit had inspired him with the thought that even her great deprivation might be almost changed into a blessing, and the girl made happy by these little means. For all the Cricket Tribe are potent Spirits, even though the people who hold converse with them do not know it (which is frequently the case); and there are not in the Unseen World, Voices more gentle and more true; that may be so implicitly relied on, or that are so certain to give none but tenderest counsel; as the Voices in which the Spirits of the Fireside and the Hearth, address themselves to human kind. Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual working-room, which served them for their ordinary living-room as well; and a strange place it was. There were houses in it, finished and unfinished, for Dolls of all stations in life. Suburban tenements for Dolls of moderate means; kitchens and single apartments for Dolls of the lower classes; capital town residences for Dolls of high estate. Some of these establishments were already furnished according to estimate, with a view to the convenience of Dolls of limited income; others could be fitted on the most expensive scale, at a moment’s notice, from whole shelves of chairs and tables, sofas, bedsteads, and upholstery. The nobility and gentry and public in general, for whose accommodation these tenements were designed, lay, here and there, in baskets, staring straight up at the ceiling; but in denoting their degrees in society, and confining them to their respective stations (which experience shows to be lamentably difficult in real life), the makers of these Dolls had far improved on Nature, who is often froward and perverse; for, they, not resting on such arbitrary marks as satin, cotton-print, and bits of rag, had superadded striking personal differences which allowed of no mistake. Thus, the Doll-lady of distinction had wax limbs of perfect symmetry; but only she and her compeers; the next grade in the social scale being made of leather; and the next of coarse linen stuff. As to the common-people, they had just so many matches out of tinder-boxes for their arms and legs, and there they were—established in their sphere at once, beyond the possibility of getting out of it. There were various other samples of his handicraft, besides Dolls, in Caleb Plummer’s room. There were Noah’s Arks, in which the Birds and Beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, I assure you; though they could be crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and shaken into the smallest compass. By a bold poetical licence, most of these Noah’s Arks had knockers on the doors; inconsistent appendages, perhaps, as suggestive of morning callers and a Postman, yet a pleasant finish to the outside of the building. There were scores of melancholy little carts which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture; no end of cannon, shields, swords, spears, and guns. There were little tumblers in red breeches, incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red-tape, and coming down, head first, upon the other side; and there were innumerable old gentlemen of respectable, not to say venerable appearance, insanely flying over horizontal pegs, inserted, for the purpose, in their own street doors. There were beasts of all sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed; from the spotted barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to the thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle. As it would have been hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities, on the turning of a handle; so it would have been no easy task to mention any human folly, vice, or weakness, that had not its type, immediate or remote, in Caleb Plummer’s room. And not in an exaggerated form; for very little handles will move men and women to as strange performances, as any Toy was ever made to undertake. In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daughter sat at work. The Blind Girl busy as a Doll’s dressmaker; and Caleb painting and glazing the four-pair front of a desirable family mansion. The care imprinted in the lines of Caleb’s face, and his absorbed and dreamy manner, which would have sat well on some alchemist or abstruse student, were at first sight an odd contrast to his occupation, and the trivialities about him. But trivial things, invented and pursued for bread, become very serious matters of fact; and, apart from this consideration, I am not at all prepared to say, myself, that if Caleb had been a Lord Chamberlain, or a Member of Parliament, or a lawyer, or even a great speculator, he would have dealt in toys one whit less whimsical; while I have a very great doubt whether they would have been as harmless. &quot;So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your beautiful, new, great-coat,&quot; said Caleb’s daughter. &quot;In my beautiful new great-coat,&quot; answered Caleb, glancing towards a clothes-line in the room, on which the sack-cloth garment previously described, was carefully hung up to dry. &quot;How glad I am you bought it, father!&quot; &quot;And of such a tailor, too,&quot; said Caleb. &quot;Quite a fashionable tailor. It’s too good for me.&quot; The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed with delight. &quot;Too good, father! What can be too good for you?&quot; &quot;I’m half-ashamed to wear it though,&quot; said Caleb, watching the effect of what he said, upon her brightening face; &quot;upon my word! When I hear the boys and people say behind me, &#039;Hal-loa! Here’s a swell!&#039; I don’t know which way to look. And when the beggar wouldn’t go away last night; and when I said I was a very common man, said &#039;No, your Honour! Bless your Honour don’t say that!&#039; I was quite ashamed. I really felt as if I hadn’t a right to wear it.&quot; Happy Blind Girl! How merry she was, in her exultation! &quot;I see you, father,&quot; she said, clasping her hands, &quot;as plainly, as if I had the eyes I never want when you are with me. A blue coat—&quot; &quot;Bright blue,&quot; said Caleb. &quot;Yes, yes! Bright blue!&quot; exclaimed the girl, turning up her radiant face; &quot;the colour I can just remember in the blessed sky! You told me it was blue before! A bright blue coat—&quot; &quot;Made loose to the figure,&quot; suggested Caleb. &quot;Made loose to the figure!&quot; cried the Blind Girl, laughing heartily; &quot;and in it, you, dear father, with your merry eye, your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair: looking so young and handsome!&quot; &quot;Halloa! Halloa!&quot; said Caleb. &quot;I shall be vain, presently!&quot; &quot;I think you are, already,&quot; cried the Blind Girl, pointing at him, in her glee. &quot;I know you, father! Ha ha ha! I’ve found you out, you see!&quot; How different the picture in her mind, from Caleb, as he sat observing her! She had spoken of his free step. She was right in that. For years and years, he had never once crossed that threshold at his own slow pace, but with a footfall counterfeited for her ear; and never had he, when his heart was heaviest, forgotten the light tread that was to render hers so cheerful and courageous! Heaven knows! But I think Caleb’s vague bewilderment of manner may have half originated in his having confused himself about himself and everything around him, for the love of his Blind Daughter. How could the little man be otherwise than bewildered, after labouring for so many years to destroy his own identity, and that of all the objects that had any bearing on it! &quot;There we are,&quot; said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the better judgment of his work; &quot;as near the real thing as sixpenn’orth of halfpence is to sixpence. What a pity that the whole front of the house opens at once! If there was only a staircase in it now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at! But that’s the worst of my calling, I’m always deluding myself, and swindling myself.&quot; &quot;You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, father?&quot; &quot;Tired!&quot; echoed Caleb, with a great burst of animation, &quot;what should tire me, Bertha? I was never tired. What does it mean?&quot; To give the greater force to his words, he checked himself in an involuntary imitation of two half-length stretching and yawning figures on the mantel-shelf, who were represented as in one eternal state of weariness from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment of a song. It was a Bacchanalian song, something about a Sparkling Bowl; and he sang it with an assumption of a Devil-may-care voice, that made his face a thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful than ever. &quot;What! You’re singing, are you?&quot; said Tackleton, putting his head in at the door. &quot;Go it! I can’t sing.&quot; Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn’t what is generally termed a singing face, by any means. &quot;I can’t afford to sing,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;I’m glad you can. I hope you can afford to work too. Hardly time for both, I should think?&quot; &quot;If you could only see him, Bertha, how he’s winking at me!&quot; whispered Caleb. &quot;Such a man to joke! you’d think, if you didn’t know him, he was in earnest—wouldn’t you now?&quot; The Blind Girl smiled and nodded. &quot;The bird that can sing and won’t sing, must be made to sing, they say,&quot; grumbled Tackleton. &quot;What about the owl that can’t sing, and oughtn’t to sing, and will sing; is there anything that he should be made to do?&quot; &quot;The extent to which he’s winking at this moment!&quot; whispered Caleb to his daughter. &quot;Oh, my gracious!&quot; &quot;Always merry and light-hearted with us!&quot; cried the smiling Bertha. &quot;Oh, you’re there, are you?&quot; answered Tackleton. &quot;Poor Idiot!&quot; He really did believe she was an Idiot; and he founded the belief, I can’t say whether consciously or not, upon her being fond of him. &quot;Well! and being there,—how are you?&quot; said Tackleton, in his grudging way. &quot;Oh! well; quite well. And as happy as even you can wish me to be. As happy as you would make the whole world, if you could!&quot; &quot;Poor Idiot!&quot; muttered Tackleton. &quot;No gleam of reason. Not a gleam!&quot; The Blind Girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a moment in her own two hands; and laid her cheek against it tenderly, before releasing it. There was such unspeakable affection and such fervent gratitude in the act, that Tackleton himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than usual: &quot;What’s the matter now?&quot; &quot;I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to sleep last night, and remembered it in my dreams. And when the day broke, and the glorious red sun—the red sun, father?&quot; &quot;Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha,&quot; said poor Caleb, with a woeful glance at his employer. &quot;When it rose, and the bright light I almost fear to strike myself against in walking, came into the room, I turned the little tree towards it, and blessed Heaven for making things so precious, and blessed you for sending them to cheer me!&quot; &quot;Bedlam broke loose!&quot; said Tackleton under his breath. &quot;We shall arrive at the strait-waistcoat and mufflers soon. We’re getting on!&quot; Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared vacantly before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really were uncertain (I believe he was) whether Tackleton had done anything to deserve her thanks, or not. If he could have been a perfectly free agent, at that moment, required, on pain of death, to kick the Toy-merchant, or fall at his feet, according to his merits, I believe it would have been an even chance which course he would have taken. Yet, Caleb knew that with his own hands he had brought the little rose tree home for her, so carefully; and that with his own lips he had forged the innocent deception which should help to keep her from suspecting how much, how very much, he every day denied himself, that she might be the happier. &quot;Bertha!&quot; said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little cordiality. &quot;Come here.&quot; &quot;Oh! I can come straight to you! You needn’t guide me!&quot; she rejoined. &quot;Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?&quot; &quot;If you will!&quot; she answered, eagerly. How bright the darkened face! How adorned with light, the listening head! &quot;This is the day on which little what’s-her-name; the spoilt child; Peerybingle’s wife; pays her regular visit to you—makes her fantastic Pic-Nic here; an’t it?&quot; said Tackleton, with a strong expression of distaste for the whole concern. &quot;Yes,&quot; replied Bertha. &quot;This is the day.&quot; &quot;I thought so,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;I should like to join the party.&quot; &quot;Do you hear that, father!&quot; cried the Blind Girl in an ecstasy. &quot;Yes, yes, I hear it,&quot; murmured Caleb, with the fixed look of a sleep-walker; &quot;but I don’t believe it. It’s one of my lies, I’ve no doubt.&quot; &quot;You see I—I want to bring the Peerybingles a little more into company with May Fielding,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;I am going to be married to May.&quot; &quot;Married!&quot; cried the Blind Girl, starting from him. &quot;She’s such a con-founded Idiot,&quot; muttered Tackleton, &quot;that I was afraid she’d never comprehend me. Ah, Bertha! Married! Church, parson, clerk, beadle, glass-coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake, favours, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all the rest of the tom-foolery. A wedding, you know; a wedding. Don’t you know what a wedding is?&quot; &quot;I know,&quot; replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone. &quot;I understand!&quot; &quot;Do you?&quot; muttered Tackleton. &quot;It’s more than I expected. Well! on that account I want to join the party, and to bring May and her mother. I’ll send in a little something or other, before the afternoon. A cold leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of that sort. You’ll expect me?&quot; &quot;Yes,&quot; she answered. She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her hands crossed, musing. &quot;I don’t think you will,&quot; muttered Tackleton, looking at her; &quot;for you seem to have forgotten all about it, already. Caleb!&quot; &quot;I may venture to say I’m here, I suppose,&quot; thought Caleb. &quot;Sir!&quot; &quot;Take care she don’t forget what I’ve been saying to her.&quot; &quot;She never forgets,&quot; returned Caleb. &quot;It’s one of the few things she an’t clever in.&quot; &quot;Every man thinks his own geese swans,&quot; observed the Toy merchant, with a shrug. &quot;Poor devil!&quot; Having delivered himself of which remark, with infinite contempt, old Gruff and Tackleton withdrew. Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. The gaiety had vanished from her downcast face, and it was very sad. Three or four times, she shook her head, as if bewailing some remembrance or some loss; but her sorrowful reflections found no vent in words. It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time, in yoking a team of horses to a waggon by the summary process of nailing the harness to the vital parts of their bodies, that she drew near to his working-stool, and sitting down beside him, said: &quot;Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes: my patient, willing eyes.&quot; &quot;Here they are,&quot; said Caleb. &quot;Always ready. They are more your&#039;s than mine, Bertha, any hour in the four and twenty. What shall your eyes do for you, dear?&quot; &quot;Look round the room, father.&quot; &quot;All right,&quot; said Caleb. &quot;No sooner said than done, Bertha.&quot; &quot;Tell me about it.&quot; &quot;It’s much the same as usual,&quot; said Caleb. &quot;Homely, but very snug. The gay colors on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and dishes; the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the general cheerfulness and neatness of the building; make it very pretty.&quot; Cheerful and neat it was wherever Bertha’s hands could busy themselves. But nowhere else, were cheerfulness and neatness possible, in the old crazy shed which Caleb’s fancy so transformed. &quot;You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant as when you wear the handsome coat?&quot; said Bertha, touching him. &quot;Not quite so gallant,&quot; answered Caleb. &quot;Pretty brisk though.&quot; &quot;Father,&quot; said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side, and stealing one arm round his neck &quot;Tell me something about May. She is very fair?&quot; &quot;She is indeed,&quot; said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was quite a rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw on his invention. &quot;Her hair is dark,&quot; said Bertha, pensively, &quot;darker than mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have often loved to hear it. Her shape—&quot; &quot;There’s not a Doll’s in all the room to equal it,&quot; said Caleb. &quot;And her eyes!—&quot; He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck; and, from the arm that clung about him, came a warning pressure which he understood too well. He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then fell back upon the song about the Sparkling Bowl; his infallible resource in all such difficulties. &quot;Our friend, father; our benefactor. I am never tired you know of hearing about him.—Now was I, ever?&quot; she said, hastily. &quot;Of course not,&quot; answered Caleb. &quot;And with reason.&quot; &quot;Ah! With how much reason!&quot; cried the Blind Girl. With such fervency, that Caleb, though his motives were so pure, could not endure to meet her face; but dropped his eyes, as if she could have read in them his innocent deceit. &quot;Then, tell me again about him, dear father,&quot; said Bertha. &quot;Many times again! His face is benevolent, kind, and tender. Honest and true, I am sure it is. The manly heart that tries to cloak all favours with a show of roughness and unwillingness, beats in its every look and glance.&quot; &quot;And makes it noble!&quot; added Caleb, in his quiet desperation. &quot;And makes it noble!&quot; cried the Blind Girl. &quot;He is older than May, father.&quot; &quot;Ye-es,&quot; said Caleb, reluctantly. &quot;He’s a little older than May. But that don’t signify.&quot; &quot;Oh father, yes! To be his patient companion in infirmity and age; to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant friend in suffering and sorrow; to know no weariness in working for his sake; to watch him, tend him, sit beside his bed and talk to him awake; and pray for him asleep; what privileges these would be! What opportunities for proving all her truth and devotion to him! Would she do all this, dear father?&quot; &quot;No doubt of it,&quot; said Caleb. &quot;I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!&quot; exclaimed the Blind Girl. And saying so, she laid her poor blind face on Caleb’s shoulder, and so wept and wept, that he was almost sorry to have brought that tearful happiness upon her. In the mean time, there had been a pretty sharp commotion at John Peerybingle’s; for little Mrs. Peerybingle naturally couldn’t think of going anywhere without the Baby; and to get the Baby under weigh, took time. Not that there was much of the Baby: speaking of it as a thing of weight and measure: but there was a vast deal to do about and about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. For instance, when the Baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain point of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed that another touch or two would finish him off, and turn him out a tip-top Baby, challenging the world, he was unexpectedly extinguished in a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to speak) between two blankets for the best part of an hour. From this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and roaring violently, to partake of—well! I would rather say, if you’ll permit me to speak generally—of a slight repast. After which, he went to sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of this interval, to make herself as smart in a small way as ever you saw anybody in all your life; and, during the same short truce, Miss Slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with herself or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog’s-eared, independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all alive again, was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised-pie for its head; and so in course of time they all three got down to the door, where the old horse had already taken more than the full value of his day’s toll out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing up the road with his impatient autographs—and whence Boxer might be dimly seen in the remote perspective, standing looking back, and tempting him to come on without orders. As to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping Mrs. Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of John, I flatter myself, if you think that was necessary. Before you could have seen him lift her from the ground, there she was in her place, fresh and rosy, saying, &quot;John! How can you! Think of Tilly!&quot; If I might be allowed to mention a young lady’s legs, on any terms, I would observe of Miss Slowboy’s that there was a fatality about them which rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; and that she never effected the smallest ascent or descent, without recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as Robinson Crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. But as this might be considered ungenteel, I’ll think of it. &quot;John? You’ve got the Basket with the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer?’ said Dot. ‘If you haven’t, you must turn round again, this very minute.&quot; &quot;You’re a nice little article,&quot; returned the Carrier, &quot;to be talking about turning round, after keeping me a full quarter of an hour behind my time.&quot; &quot;I am sorry for it, John,&quot; said Dot in a great bustle, &quot;but I really could not think of going to Bertha’s—I would not do it, John, on any account—without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer. Way!&quot; This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn’t mind it at all. &quot;Oh do way, John!&quot; said Mrs. Peerybingle. &quot;Please!&quot; &quot;It’ll be time enough to do that,&quot; returned John, &quot;when I begin to leave things behind me. The basket’s here, safe enough.&quot; &quot;What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not to have said so, at once, and saved me such a turn! I declare I wouldn’t go to Bertha’s without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer, for any money. Regularly once a fortnight ever since we have been married, John, have we made our little Pic-Nic there. If anything was to go wrong with it, I should almost think we were never to be lucky again.&quot; &quot;It was a kind thought in the first instance,&quot; said the Carrier: &quot;and I honour you for it, little woman.&quot; &quot;My dear John,&quot; replied Dot, turning very red. &quot;Don’t talk about honouring me. Good Gracious!’ &quot;By the bye—&quot; observed the Carrier. &quot;That old gentleman,—&quot; Again so visibly, and instantly embarrassed! &quot;He’s an odd fish,&quot; said the Carrier, looking straight along the road before them. &quot;I can’t make him out. I don’t believe there’s any harm in him.&quot; &quot;None at all. I’m—I’m sure there’s none at all.&quot; &quot;Yes,&quot; said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face by the great earnestness of her manner. &quot;I am glad you feel so certain of it, because it’s a confirmation to me. It’s curious that he should have taken it into his head to ask leave to go on lodging with us; an’t it? Things come about so strangely.&quot; &quot;So very strangely,&quot; she rejoined in a low voice: scarcely audible. &quot;However, he’s a good-natured old gentleman,&quot; said John, &quot;and pays as a gentleman, and I think his word is to be relied upon, like a gentleman’s. I had quite a long talk with him this morning: he can hear me better already, he says, as he gets more used to my voice. He told me a great deal about himself, and I told him a great deal about myself, and a rare lot of questions he asked me. I gave him information about my having two beats, you know, in my business; one day to the right from our house and back again; another day to the left from our house and back again (for he’s a stranger and don’t know the names of places about here); and he seemed quite pleased. &#039;Why, then I shall be returning home to-night your way,&#039; he says, &#039;when I thought you’d be coming in an exactly opposite direction. That’s capital! I may trouble you for another lift perhaps, but I’ll engage not to fall so sound asleep again.&#039; He was sound asleep, sure-ly!—Dot! what are you thinking of?&quot; &quot;Thinking of, John? I—I was listening to you.&quot; &quot;Oh! That’s all right!&quot; said the honest Carrier. &quot;I was afraid, from the look of your face, that I had gone rambling on so long, as to set you thinking about something else. I was very near it, I’ll be bound.&quot; Dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little time, in silence. But, it was not easy to remain silent very long in John Peerybingle’s cart, for everybody on the road had something to say. Though it might only be &quot;How are you!&quot; and indeed it was very often nothing else, still, to give that back again in the right spirit of cordiality, required, not merely a nod and a smile, but as wholesome an action of the lungs withal, as a long-winded Parliamentary speech. Sometimes, passengers on foot, or horseback, plodded on a little way beside the cart, for the express purpose of having a chat; and then there was a great deal to be said, on both sides. Then, Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured recognitions of and by the Carrier, than half a dozen Christians could have done! Everybody knew him, all along the road, especially the fowls and pigs, who when they saw him approaching, with his body all on one side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, and that knob of a tail making the most of itself in the air, immediately withdrew into remote back settlements, without waiting for the honour of a nearer acquaintance. He had business everywhere; going down all the turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the Dame-Schools, fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the cats, and trotting into the public-houses like a regular customer. Wherever he went, somebody or other might have been heard to cry, &quot;Halloa! Here’s Boxer!&quot; and out came that somebody forthwith, accompanied by at least two or three other somebodies, to give John Peerybingle and his pretty wife, Good Day. The packages and parcels for the errand cart, were numerous; and there were many stoppages to take them in and give them out; which were not by any means the worst parts of the journey. Some people were so full of expectation about their parcels, and other people were so full of wonder about their parcels, and other people were so full of inexhaustible directions about their parcels, and John had such a lively interest in all the parcels, that it was as good as a play. Likewise, there were articles to carry, which required to be considered and discussed, and in reference to the adjustment and disposition of which, councils had to be holden by the Carrier and the senders: at which Boxer usually assisted, in short fits of the closest attention, and long fits of tearing round and round the assembled sages and barking himself hoarse. Of all these little incidents, Dot was the amused and open-eyed spectatress from her chair in the cart; and as she sat there, looking on: a charming little portrait framed to admiration by the tilt: there was no lack of nudgings and glancings and whisperings and envyings among the younger men, I promise you. And this delighted John the Carrier, beyond measure; for he was proud to have his little wife admired, knowing that she didn’t mind it—that, if anything, she rather liked it perhaps. The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January weather; and was raw and cold. But who cared for such trifles? Not Dot, decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, to be the highest point of human joys; the crowning circumstance of earthly hopes. Not the Baby, I’ll be sworn; for it’s not in Baby nature to be warmer or more sound asleep, though its capacity is great in both respects, than that blessed young Peerybingle was, all the way. You couldn’t see very far in the fog, of course; but you could see a great deal, oh a great deal! It’s astonishing how much you may see, in a thicker fog than that, if you will only take the trouble to look for it. Why, even to sit watching for the Fairy-rings in the fields, and for the patches of hoar-frost still lingering in the shade, near hedges and by trees, was a pleasant occupation: to make no mention of the unexpected shapes in which the trees themselves came starting out of the mist, and glided into it again. The hedges were tangled and bare, and waved a multitude of blighted garlands in the wind; but there was no discouragement in this. It was agreeable to contemplate; for it made the fireside warmer in possession, and the summer greener in expectancy. The river looked chilly; but it was in motion, and moving at a good pace; which was a great point. The canal was rather slow and torpid; that must be admitted. Never mind. It would freeze the sooner when the frost set fairly in, and then there would be skating, and sliding; and the heavy old barges, frozen up somewhere, near a wharf, would smoke their rusty iron chimney-pipes all day, and have a lazy time of it. In one place, there was a great mound of weeds or stubble burning; and they watched the fire, so white in the day time, flaring through the fog, with only here and there a dash of red in it, until, in consequence as she observed, of the smoke &quot;getting up her nose,&quot; Miss Slowboy choked—she could do anything of that sort, on the smallest provocation—and woke the Baby, who wouldn’t go to sleep again. But Boxer, who was in advance some quarter of a mile or so, had already passed the outposts of the town, and gained the corner of the street where Caleb and his daughter lived; and long before they had reached the door, he and the Blind Girl were on the pavement waiting to receive them. Boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of his own, in his communication with Bertha, which persuade me fully that he knew her to be blind. He never sought to attract her attention by looking at her, as he often did with other people, but touched her, invariably. What experience he could ever have had of blind people or blind dogs, I don’t know. He had never lived with a blind master; nor had Mr. Boxer the elder, nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his respectable family on either side, ever been visited with blindness, that I am aware of. He may have found it out for himself, perhaps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and therefore he had hold of Bertha too, by the skirt, and kept hold, until Mrs. Peerybingle and the Baby, and Miss Slowboy, and the basket, were all got safely within doors. May Fielding was already come; and so was her mother—a little querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish face, who, in right of having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was supposed to be a most transcendent figure; and who, in consequence of having once been better off, or of labouring under an impression that she might have been, if something had happened which never did happen, and seemed to have never been particularly likely to come to pass—but it’s all the same—was very genteel and patronising indeed. Gruff and Tackleton was also there, doing the agreeable; with the evident sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as unquestionably in his own element, as a fresh young salmon on the top of the Great Pyramid. &quot;May! My dear old friend!&quot; cried Dot, running up to meet her. &quot;What a happiness to see you.&quot; Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as she; and it really was, if you’ll believe me, quite a pleasant sight to see them embrace. Tackleton was a man of taste, beyond all question. May was very pretty. You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, how, when it comes into contact and comparison with another pretty face, it seems for the moment to be homely and faded, and hardly to deserve the high opinion you have had of it. Now, this was not at all the case, either with Dot or May; for May’s face set off Dot’s, and Dot’s face set off May’s, so naturally and agreeably, that, as John Peerybingle was very near saying when he came into the room, they ought to have been born sisters: which was the only improvement you could have suggested. Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful to relate, a tart besides—but we don’t mind a little dissipation when our brides are in the case; we don’t get married every day—and in addition to these dainties, there were the Veal and Ham-Pie, and &quot;things,&quot; as Mrs. Peerybingle called them; which were chiefly nuts and oranges, and cakes, and such small deer. When the repast was set forth on the board, flanked by Caleb’s contribution, which was a great wooden bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited, by solemn compact, from producing any other viands), Tackleton led his intended mother-in-law to the post of honour. For the better gracing of this place at the high Festival, the majestic old Soul had adorned herself with a cap, calculated to inspire the thoughtless with sentiments of awe. She also wore her gloves. But let us be genteel, or die! Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old schoolfellow were side by side; the good Carrier took care of the bottom of the table. Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article of furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing else to knock the Baby’s head against. As Tilly stared about her at the Dolls and Toys, they stared at her and at the company. The venerable old gentlemen at the street doors (who were all in full action) showed especial interest in the party: pausing occasionally before leaping, as if they were listening to the conversation: and then plunging wildly over and over, a great many times, without halting for breath—as in a frantic state of delight with the whole proceedings. Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a fiendish joy in the contemplation of Tackleton’s discomfiture, they had good reason to be satisfied. Tackleton couldn’t get on at all; and the more cheerful his intended Bride became in Dot’s society, the less he liked it, though he had brought them together for that purpose. For he was a regular Dog in the Manger, was Tackleton; and when they laughed, and he couldn’t, he took it into his head, immediately, that they must be laughing at him. &quot;Ah, May!&quot; said Dot. &quot;Dear dear, what changes! To talk of those merry school-days makes one young again.&quot; &quot;Why, you an’t particularly old, at any time; are you?&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Look at my sober plodding husband there,&quot; returned Dot. &quot;He adds Twenty years to my age at least. Don’t you John?&quot; &quot;Forty,&quot; John replied. &quot;How many you’ll add to May’s, I am sure I don’t know,&quot; said Dot, laughing. &quot;But she can’t be much less than a hundred years of age on her next birthday.&quot; &quot;Ha ha!&quot; laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum, that laugh though. And he looked as if he could have twisted Dot’s neck: comfortably. &quot;Dear dear!&quot; said Dot. &quot;Only to remember how we used to talk, at school, about the husbands we would choose. I don’t know how young, and how handsome, and how gay, and how lively, mine was not to be! and as to May’s!—Ah dear! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, when I think what silly girls we were.&quot; May seemed to know which to do; for the colour flushed into her face, and tears stood in her eyes. &quot;Even the very persons themselves—real live young men—were fixed on sometimes,&quot; said Dot. &quot;We little thought how things would come about. I never fixed on John I’m sure; I never so much as thought of him. And if I had told you, you were ever to be married to Mr. Tackleton, why you’d have slapped me. Wouldn’t you, May?&quot; Though May didn’t say yes, she certainly didn’t say no, or express no, by any means. Tackleton laughed—quite shouted, he laughed so loud. John Peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary good-natured and contented manner; but his was a mere whisper of a laugh, to Tackleton’s. &quot;You couldn’t help yourselves, for all that. You couldn’t resist us, you see,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Here we are! Here we are!&quot; &quot;Where are your gay young bridegrooms now!&quot; &quot;Some of them are dead,&quot; said Dot; &quot;and some of them forgotten. Some of them, if they could stand among us at this moment, would not believe we were the same creatures; would not believe that what they saw and heard was real, and we could forget them so. No! they would not believe one word of it!&quot; &quot;Why, Dot!&quot; exclaimed the Carrier. &quot;Little woman!&quot; She had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she stood in need of some recalling to herself, without doubt. Her husband’s check was very gentle, for he merely interfered, as he supposed, to shield old Tackleton; but it proved effectual, for she stopped, and said no more. There was an uncommon agitation, even in her silence, which the wary Tackleton, who had brought his half-shut eye to bear upon her, noted closely; and remembered to some purpose too, as you will see. May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with her eyes cast down; and made no sign of interest in what had passed. The good lady her mother now interposed: observing, in the first instance, that girls were girls, and byegones byegones, and that so long as young people were young and thoughtless, they would probably conduct themselves like young and thoughtless persons: with two or three other positions of a no less sound and incontrovertible character. She then remarked, in a devout spirit, that she thanked Heaven she had always found in her daughter May, a dutiful and obedient child; for which she took no credit to herself, though she had every reason to believe it was entirely owing to herself. With regard to Mr. Tackleton she said, That he was in a moral point of view an undeniable individual; and That he was in an eligible point of view a son-in-law to be desired, no one in their senses could doubt. (She was very emphatic here). With regard to the family into which he was so soon about, after some solicitation, to be admitted, she believed Mr. Tackleton knew that, although reduced in purse, it had some pretensions to gentility; and if certain circumstances, not wholly unconnected, she would go so far as to say, with the Indigo Trade, but to which she would not more particularly refer, had happened differently, it might perhaps have been in possession of Wealth. She then remarked that she would not allude to the past, and would not mention that her daughter had for some time rejected the suit of Mr. Tackleton; and that she would not say a great many other things which she did say, at great length. Finally, she delivered it as the general result of her observation and experience, that those marriages in which there was least of what was romantically and sillily called love, were always the happiest; and that she anticipated the greatest possible amount of bliss—not rapturous bliss; but the solid, steady-going article—from the approaching nuptials. She concluded by informing the company that to-morrow was the day she had lived for, expressly; and that when it was over, she would desire nothing better than to be packed up and disposed of, in any genteel place of burial. As these remarks were quite unanswerable: which is the happy property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of the purpose: they changed the current of the conversation, and diverted the general attention to the Veal and Ham-Pie, the cold mutton, the potatoes, and the tart. In order that the bottled beer might not be slighted, John Peerybingle proposed To-morrow: the Wedding-Day: and called upon them to drink a bumper to it, before he proceeded on his journey. For you ought to know that he only rested there, and gave the old horse a bait. He had to go some four or five miles farther on; and when he returned in the evening, he called for Dot, and took another rest on his way home. This was the order of the day on all the Pic-Nic occasions, had been, ever since their institution. There were two persons present, besides the bride and bridegroom elect, who did but indifferent honour to the toast. One of these was Dot, too flushed and discomposed to adapt herself to any small occurrence of the moment; the other Bertha, who rose up hurriedly, before the rest, and left the table. &quot;Good bye!&quot; said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on his dreadnought coat. &quot;I shall be back at the old time. Good bye all!&quot; &quot;Good bye John,&quot; returned Caleb. He seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the same unconscious manner; for he stood observing Bertha with an anxious wondering face, that never altered its expression. &quot;Good bye young shaver!&quot; said the jolly Carrier, bending down to kiss the child; which Tilly Slowboy, now intent upon her knife and fork, had deposited asleep (and strange to say, without damage) in a little cot of Bertha’s furnishing; &quot;good bye! Time will come, I suppose, when you’ll turn out into the cold, my little friend, and leave your old father to enjoy his pipe and his rheumatics in the chimney-corner; eh? Where’s Dot?&quot; &quot;I’m here, John!&quot; she said, starting. &quot;Come, come!’ returned the Carrier, clapping his sounding hands. &quot;Where’s the pipe?&quot; &quot;I quite forgot the pipe, John.&quot; Forgot the pipe! Was such a wonder ever heard of! She! Forgot the pipe! &quot;I’ll—I’ll fill it directly. It’s soon done.&quot; But it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the usual place; the Carrier’s dreadnought pocket; with the little pouch, her own work, from which she was used to fill it, but her hand shook so, that she entangled it (and yet her hand was small enough to have come out easily, I am sure), and bungled terribly. The filling of the pipe and lighting it; those little offices in which I have commended her discretion, if you recollect; were vilely done, from first to last. During the whole process, Tackleton stood looking on maliciously with the half-closed eye; which, whenever it met her&#039;s—or caught it, for it can hardly be said to have ever met another eye: rather being a kind of trap to snatch it up—augmented her confusion in a most remarkable degree. &quot;Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon!&quot; said John. &quot;I could have done it better myself, I verily believe!&quot; With these good-natured words, he strode away; and presently was heard, in company with Boxer, and the old horse, and the cart, making lively music down the road. What time the dreamy Caleb still stood, watching his Blind Daughter, with the same expression on his face. &quot;Bertha!&quot; said Caleb, softly. &quot;What has happened? How changed you are, my Darling, in a few hours—since this morning. You silent and dull all day! What is it? Tell me!&quot; &quot;Oh father, father!&quot; cried the Blind Girl, bursting into tears. &quot;Oh my hard, hard Fate!&quot; Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her. &quot;But think how cheerful and how happy you have been, Bertha! How good, and how much loved, by many people.&quot; &quot;That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always so mindful of me! Always so kind to me!&quot; Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her. &quot;To be—to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear,&quot; he faultered, &quot;is a great affliction; but—&quot; &quot;I have never felt it!&quot; cried the Blind Girl. &quot;I have never felt it, in its fulness. Never! I have sometimes wished that I could see you, or could see him; only once, dear father; only for one little minute; that I might know what it is I treasure up,&quot; she laid her hands upon her breast, &quot;and hold here! That I might be sure and have it right! And sometimes (but then I was a child) I have wept in my prayers at night, to think that when your images ascended from my heart to Heaven, they might not be the true resemblance of yourselves. But I have never had these feelings long. They have passed away and left me tranquil and contented.&quot; &quot;And they will again,&quot; said Caleb. &quot;But, father! Oh my good, gentle father, bear with me, if I am wicked!&quot; said the Blind Girl. &quot;This is not the sorrow that so weighs me down!&quot; Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes overflow; she was so earnest and pathetic, but he did not understand her, yet. &quot;Bring her to me,&quot; said Bertha. &quot;I cannot hold it closed and shut within myself. Bring her to me, father!&quot; She knew he hesitated, and said, &quot;May. Bring May!&quot; May heard the mention of her name, and coming quietly towards her, touched her on the arm. The Blind Girl turned immediately, and held her by both hands. &quot;Look into my face, Dear heart, Sweet heart!&quot; said Bertha. &quot;Read it with your beautiful eyes, and tell me if the truth is written on it.&quot; &quot;Dear Bertha, Yes!&quot; The Blind Girl still, upturning the blank sightless face, down which the tears were coursing fast, addressed her in these words: &quot;There is not, in my Soul, a wish or thought that is not for your good, bright May! There is not, in my Soul, a grateful recollection stronger than the deep remembrance which is stored there, of the many many times when, in the full pride of Sight and Beauty, you have had consideration for Blind Bertha, even when we two were children, or when Bertha was as much a child as ever blindness can be! Every blessing on your head! Light upon your happy course! Not the less, my dear May;&quot; and she drew towards her, in a closer grasp; &quot;not the less, my Bird, because, to-day, the knowledge that you are to be His wife has wrung my heart almost to breaking! Father, May, Mary! oh forgive me that it is so, for the sake of all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark life: and for the sake of the belief you have in me, when I call Heaven to witness that I could not wish him married to a wife more worthy of his Goodness!&quot; While speaking, she had released May Fielding’s hands, and clasped her garments in an attitude of mingled supplication and love. Sinking lower and lower down, as she proceeded in her strange confession, she dropped at last at the feet of her friend, and hid her blind face in the folds of her dress. &quot;Great Power!&quot; exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow with the truth, &quot;have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last!&quot; It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, busy little Dot—for such she was, whatever faults she had; and however you may learn to hate her, in good time—it was well for all of them, I say, that she was there: or where this would have ended, it were hard to tell. But Dot, recovering her self-possession, interposed, before May could reply, or Caleb say another word. &quot;Come, come, dear Bertha! come away with me! Give her your arm, May. So! How composed she is, you see, already; and how good it is of her to mind us,&quot; said the cheery little woman, kissing her upon the forehead. &quot;Come away, dear Bertha. Come! and here’s her good father will come with her; won’t you, Caleb? To—be—sure!&quot; Well, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and it must have been an obdurate nature that could have withstood her influence. When she had got poor Caleb and his Bertha away, that they might comfort and console each other, as she knew they only could, she presently came bouncing back,—the saying is, as fresh as any daisy; I say fresher—to mount guard over that bridling little piece of consequence in the cap and gloves, and prevent the dear old creature from making discoveries. &quot;So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly,&quot; said she, drawing a chair to the fire; &quot;and while I have it in my lap, here’s Mrs. Fielding, Tilly, will tell me all about the management of Babies, and put me right in twenty points where I’m as wrong as can be. Won’t you, Mrs. Fielding?&quot; Not even the Welsh Giant, who, according to the popular expression, was so &quot;slow&quot; as to perform a fatal surgical operation upon himself, in emulation of a juggling-trick achieved by his arch-enemy at breakfast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the Snare prepared for him, as the old lady did into this artful Pitfall. The fact of Tackleton having walked out; and furthermore, of two or three people having been talking together at a distance, for two minutes, leaving her to her own resources; was quite enough to have put her on her dignity, and the bewailment of that mysterious convulsion in the Indigo trade, for four-and-twenty hours. But this becoming deference to her experience, on the part of the young mother, was so irresistible, that after a short affectation of humility, she began to enlighten her with the best grace in the world; and sitting bolt upright before the wicked Dot, she did, in half an hour, deliver more infallible domestic recipes and precepts, than would (if acted on) have utterly destroyed and done up that Young Peerybingle, though he had been an Infant Samson. To change the theme, Dot did a little needlework—she carried the contents of a whole workbox in her pocket; how ever she contrived it, I don’t know—then did a little nursing; then a little more needlework; then had a little whispering chat with May, while the old lady dozed; and so in little bits of bustle, which was quite her manner always, found it a very short afternoon. Then, as it grew dark, and as it was a solemn part of this Institution of the Pic-Nic that she should perform all Bertha’s household tasks, she trimmed the fire, and swept the hearth, and set the tea-board out, and drew the curtain, and lighted a candle. Then she played an air or two on a rude kind of harp, which Caleb had contrived for Bertha, and played them very well; for Nature had made her delicate little ear as choice a one for music as it would have been for jewels, if she had had any to wear. By this time it was the established hour for having tea; and Tackleton came back again, to share the meal, and spend the evening. Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and Caleb had sat down to his afternoon’s work. But he couldn’t settle to it, poor fellow, being anxious and remorseful for his daughter. It was touching to see him sitting idle on his working-stool, regarding her so wistfully; and always saying in his face, &quot;have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart!&quot; When it was night, and tea was done, and Dot had nothing more to do in washing up the cups and saucers; in a word—for I must come to it, and there is no use in putting it off—when the time drew nigh for expecting the Carrier’s return in every sound of distant wheels; her manner changed again; her colour came and went, and she was very restless. Not as good wives are, when listening for their husbands. No, no, no. It was another sort of restlessness from that. Wheels heard. A horse’s feet. The barking of a dog. The gradual approach of all the sounds. The scratching paw of Boxer at the door! &quot;Whose step is that!&quot; cried Bertha, starting up. &quot;Whose step?&quot; returned the Carrier, standing in the portal, with his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the keen night air. &quot;Why, mine.&quot; &quot;The other step,&quot; said Bertha. &quot;The man’s tread behind you!&quot; &quot;She is not to be deceived,&quot; observed the Carrier, laughing. &quot;Come along, Sir. You’ll be welcome, never fear!&quot; He spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the deaf old gentleman entered. &quot;He’s not so much a stranger, that you haven’t seen him once, Caleb,&quot; said the Carrier. &quot;You’ll give him house-room till we go?&quot; &quot;Oh surely, John; and take it as an honour.&quot; &quot;He’s the best company on earth, to talk secrets in,&quot; said John. &quot;I have reasonable good lungs, but he tries ’em, I can tell you. Sit down, Sir. All friends here, and glad to see you!&quot; When he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that amply corroborated what he had said about his lungs, he added in his natural tone, &quot;A chair in the chimney-corner, and leave to sit quite silent and look pleasantly about him, is all he cares for. He’s easily pleased.&quot; Bertha had been listening intently. She called Caleb to her side, when he had set the chair, and asked him, in a low voice, to describe their visitor. When he had done so (truly now; with scrupulous fidelity), she moved, for the first time since he had come in; and sighed; and seemed to have no further interest concerning him. The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was; and fonder of his little wife than ever. &quot;A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!&quot; he said, encircling her with his rough arm, as she stood, removed from the rest; &quot;and yet I like her somehow. See yonder, Dot!&quot; He pointed to the old man. She looked down. I think she trembled. &quot;He’s—ha ha ha!—he’s full of admiration for you!&quot; said the Carrier. &quot;Talked of nothing else, the whole way here. Why, he’s a brave old boy. I like him for it!&quot; &quot;I wish he had had a better subject, John;&quot; she said, with an uneasy glance about the room. At Tackleton especially. &quot;A better subject!&quot; cried the jovial John. &quot;There’s no such thing. Come, off with the great-coat, off with the thick shawl, off with the heavy wrappers! and a cosy half-hour by the fire! My humble service, Mistress. A game at cribbage, you and I? That’s hearty. The cards and board, Dot. And a glass of beer here, if there’s any left, small wife!&quot; His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accepting it with gracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon the game. At first, the Carrier looked about him sometimes, with a smile, or now and then called Dot to peep over his shoulder at his hand, and advise him on some knotty point. But his adversary being a rigid disciplinarian, and subject to an occasional weakness in respect of pegging more than she was entitled to, required such vigilance on his part, as left him neither eyes nor ears to spare. Thus, his whole attention gradually became absorbed upon the cards; and he thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder restored him to a consciousness of Tackleton. &quot;I am sorry to disturb you—but a word, directly.&quot; &quot;I’m going to deal,&quot; returned the Carrier. &quot;It’s a crisis.&quot; &quot;It is,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Come here, man!&quot; There was that in his pale face which made the other rise immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was. &quot;Hush! John Peerybingle,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;I am sorry for this. I am indeed. I have been afraid of it. I have suspected it from the first.&quot; &quot;What is it?&quot; asked the Carrier, with a frightened aspect. &quot;Hush! I’ll show you, if you’ll come with me.&quot; The Carrier accompanied him, without another word. They went across a yard, where the stars were shining; and by a little side-door, into Tackleton’s own counting-house, where there was a glass window, commanding the ware-room: which was closed for the night. There was no light in the counting-house itself, but there were lamps in the long narrow ware-room; and consequently the window was bright. &quot;A moment!&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Can you bear to look through that window, do you think?&quot; &quot;Why not?&quot; returned the Carrier. &quot;A moment more,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Don’t commit any violence. It’s of no use. It’s dangerous too. You’re a strong-made man; and you might do Murder before you know it.&quot; The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as if he had been struck. In one stride he was at the window, and he saw— Oh Shadow on the Hearth! Oh truthful Cricket! Oh perfidious Wife! He saw her, with the old man; old no longer, but erect and gallant: bearing in his hand the false white hair that had won his way into their desolate and miserable home. He saw her listening to him, as he bent his head to whisper in her ear; and suffering him to clasp her round the waist, as they moved slowly down the dim wooden gallery towards the door by which they had entered it. He saw them stop, and saw her turn—to have the face, the face he loved so, so presented to his view!—and saw her, with her own hands, adjust the Lie upon his head, laughing, as she did it, at his unsuspicious nature! He clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would have beaten down a lion. But opening it immediately again, he spread it out before the eyes of Tackleton (for he was tender of her, even then), and so, as they passed out, fell down upon a desk, and was as weak as any infant. He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse and parcels, when she came into the room, prepared for going home. &quot;Now, John, dear! Good night, May! Good night, Bertha!&quot; Could she kiss them? Could she be blithe and cheerful in her parting? Could she venture to reveal her face to them without a blush? Yes. Tackleton observed her closely, and she did all this. Tilly was hushing the Baby; and she crossed and re-crossed Tackleton, a dozen times, repeating drowsily: &quot;Did the knowledge that it was to be its wifes, then, wring its hearts almost to breaking; and did its fathers deceive it from its cradles but to break its hearts at last!&quot; &quot;Now, Tilly, give me the Baby! Good night, Mr. Tackleton. Where’s John, for Goodness’ sake?&quot; &quot;He’s going to walk beside the horse’s head,&quot; said Tackleton; who helped her to her seat. &quot;My dear John. Walk? To-night?&quot; The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in the affirmative; and the false Stranger and the little nurse being in their places, the old horse moved off. Boxer, the unconscious Boxer, running on before, running back, running round and round the cart, and barking as triumphantly and merrily as ever. When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May and her mother home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire beside his daughter; anxious and remorseful at the core; and still saying in his wistful contemplation of her, &quot;have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last!&quot; The toys that had been set in motion for the Baby, had all stopped, and run down, long ago. In the faint light and silence, the imperturbably calm dolls; the agitated rocking-horses with distended eyes and nostrils; the old gentlemen at the street-doors, standing half doubled up upon their failing knees and ankles; the wry-faced nut-crackers; the very Beasts upon their way into the Ark, in twos, like a Boarding School out walking; might have been imagined to be stricken motionless with fantastic wonder, at Dot being false, or Tackleton beloved, under any combination of circumstances. Chirp the Third The Dutch clock in the corner struck Ten, when the Carrier sat down by his fireside. So troubled and grief-worn, that he seemed to scare the Cuckoo, who, having cut his ten melodious announcements as short as possible, plunged back into the Moorish Palace again, and clapped his little door behind him, as if the unwonted spectacle were too much for his feelings. If the little Haymaker had been armed with the sharpest of scythes, and had cut at every stroke into the Carrier’s heart, he never could have gashed and wounded it, as Dot had done. It was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up and held together by innumerable threads of winning remembrance, spun from the daily working of her many qualities of endearment; it was a heart in which she had enshrined herself so gently and so closely; a heart so single and so earnest in its Truth: so strong in right, so weak in wrong: that it could cherish neither passion nor revenge at first, and had only room to hold the broken image of its Idol. But, slowly, slowly; as the Carrier sat brooding on his hearth, now cold and dark; other and fiercer thoughts began to rise within him, as an angry wind comes rising in the night. The Stranger was beneath his outraged roof. Three steps would take him to his chamber door. One blow would beat it in. &quot;You might do Murder before you know it,&quot; Tackleton had said. How could it be Murder, if he gave the Villain time to grapple with him hand to hand! He was the younger man. It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind. It was an angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that should change the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely travellers would dread to pass by night; and where the timid would see shadows struggling in the ruined windows when the moon was dim, and hear wild noises in the stormy weather. He was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover who had won the heart that he had never touched. Some lover of her early choice: of whom she had thought and dreamed: for whom she had pined and pined: when he had fancied her so happy by his side. Oh agony to think of it! She had been above-stairs with the Baby, getting it to bed. As he sat brooding on the hearth, she came close beside him, without his knowledge—in the turning of the rack of his great misery, he lost all other sounds—and put her little stool at his feet. He only knew it, when he felt her hand upon his own, and saw her looking up into his face. With wonder? No. It was his first impression, and he was fain to look at her again, to set it right. No, not with wonder. With an eager and enquiring look; but not with wonder. At first it was alarmed and serious; then, it changed into a strange, wild, dreadful smile of recognition of his thoughts; then, there was nothing but her clasped hands on her brow, and her bent head, and falling hair. Though the power of Omnipotence had been his to wield at that moment, he had too much of its Diviner property of Mercy in his breast, to have turned one feather’s weight of it against her. But he could not bear to see her crouching down upon the little seat where he had often looked on her, with love and pride, so innocent and gay; and, when she rose and left him, sobbing as she went, he felt it a relief to have the vacant place beside him rather than her so long-cherished presence. This in itself was anguish keener than all: reminding him how desolate he was become, and how the great bond of his life was rent asunder. The more he felt this, and the more he knew he could have better borne to see her lying prematurely dead before him with their little child upon her breast, the higher and the stronger rose his wrath against his enemy. He looked about him for a weapon. There was a Gun, hanging on the wall. He took it down, and moved a pace or two towards the door of the perfidious Stranger’s room. He knew the Gun was loaded. Some shadowy idea that it was just to shoot this man like a Wild Beast, seized him; and dilated in his mind until it grew into a monstrous demon in complete possession of him, casting out all milder thoughts and setting up its undivided empire. That phrase is wrong. Not casting out his milder thoughts, but artfully transforming them. Changing them into scourges to drive him on. Turning water into blood, Love into hate, Gentleness into blind ferocity. Her image, sorrowing, humbled, but still pleading to his tenderness and mercy with resistless power, never left his mind; but staying there, it urged him to the door; raised the weapon to his shoulder; fitted and nerved his finger to the trigger; and cried &quot;Kill him! In his Bed!&quot; He reversed the Gun to beat the stock upon the door; he already held it lifted in the air; some indistinct design was in his thoughts of calling out to him to fly, for God’s sake, by the window— When, suddenly, the struggling fire illumined the whole chimney with a glow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth began to chirp! No sound he could have heard; no human voice, not even her&#039;s; could so have moved and softened him. The artless words in which she had told him of her love for this same Cricket, were once more freshly spoken; her trembling, earnest manner at the moment, was again before him; her pleasant voice—oh what a voice it was, for making household music at the fireside of an honest man!—thrilled through and through his better nature, and awoke it into life and action. He recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his sleep, awakened from a frightful dream; and put the Gun aside. Clasping his hands before his face, he then sat down again beside the fire, and found relief in tears. The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and stood in Fairy shape before him. &quot;&#039;I love it,&#039;&quot; said the Fairy Voice, repeating what he well remembered, &quot;&#039;for the many times I have heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me.&#039;&quot; &quot;She said so!&quot; cried the Carrier. &quot;True!&quot; &quot;&#039;This has been a happy Home, John; and I love the Cricket for its sake!&#039;&quot; &quot;It has been, Heaven knows,&quot; returned the Carrier. &quot;She made it happy, always,—until now.&quot; &quot;So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful, busy, and light-hearted!&quot; said the Voice. &quot;Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did,&quot; returned the Carrier. The Voice, correcting him, said &quot;do.&quot; The Carrier repeated &quot;as I did.&quot; But not firmly. His faltering tongue resisted his controul, and would speak in its own way, for itself and him. The Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand and said: &quot;Upon your own hearth&quot;— &quot;The hearth she has blighted,&quot; interposed the Carrier. &quot;The hearth she has—how often!—blessed and brightened,&quot; said the Cricket: &quot;the hearth which, but for her, were only a few stones and bricks and rusty bars, but which has been, through her, the Altar of your Home; on which you have nightly sacrificed some petty passion, selfishness, or care, and offered up the homage of a tranquil mind, a trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that the smoke from this poor chimney has gone upward with a better fragrance than the richest incense that is burnt before the richest shrines in all the gaudy Temples of this World!—Upon your own hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; surrounded by its gentle influences and associations; hear her! Hear me! Hear everything that speaks the language of your hearth and home!&quot; &quot;And pleads for her?&quot; inquired the Carrier. &quot;All things that speak the language of your hearth and home, must plead for her!&quot; returned the Cricket. &quot;For they speak the Truth.&quot; And while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands, continued to sit meditating in his chair, the Presence stood beside him; suggesting his reflections by its power, and presenting them before him, as in a Glass or Picture. It was not a solitary Presence. From the hearthstone, from the chimney; from the clock, the pipe, the kettle, and the cradle; from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs; from the cart without, and the cupboard within, and the household implements; from every thing and every place with which she had ever been familiar, and with which she had ever entwined one recollection of herself in her unhappy husband’s mind; Fairies came trooping forth. Not to stand beside him as the Cricket did, but to busy and bestir themselves. To do all honor to her image. To pull him by the skirts, and point to it when it appeared. To cluster round it, and embrace it, and strew flowers for it to tread on. To try to crown its fair head with their tiny hands. To show that they were fond of it and loved it; and that there was not one ugly, wicked or accusatory creature to claim knowledge of it—none but their playful and approving selves. His thoughts were constant to her Image. It was always there. She sat plying her needle, before the fire, and singing to herself. Such a blithe, thriving, steady little Dot! The fairy figures turned upon him all at once, by one consent, with one prodigious concentrated stare; and seemed to say, &quot;Is this the light wife you are mourning for!&quot; There were sounds of gaiety outside: musical instruments, and noisy tongues, and laughter. A crowd of young merry-makers came pouring in; among whom were May Fielding and a score of pretty girls. Dot was the fairest of them all; as young as any of them too. They came to summon her to join their party. It was a dance. If ever little foot were made for dancing, hers was, surely. But she laughed, and shook her head, and pointed to her cookery on the fire, and her table ready spread: with an exulting defiance that rendered her more charming than she was before. And so she merrily dismissed them: nodding to her would-be partners, one by one, as they passed, but with a comical indifference, enough to make them go and drown themselves immediately if they were her admirers—and they must have been so, more or less; they couldn’t help it. And yet indifference was not her character. O no! For presently, there came a certain Carrier to the door; and bless her what a welcome she bestowed upon him! Again the staring figures turned upon him all at once, and seemed to say, &quot;Is this the wife who has forsaken you!&quot; A shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture: call it what you will. A great shadow of the Stranger, as he first stood underneath their roof; covering its surface, and blotting out all other objects. But the nimble Fairies worked like Bees to clear it off again; and Dot again was there. Still bright and beautiful. Rocking her little Baby in its cradle; singing to it softly; and resting her head upon a shoulder which had its counterpart in the musing figure by which the Fairy Cricket stood. The night—I mean the real night: not going by Fairy clocks—was wearing now; and in this stage of the Carrier’s thoughts, the moon burst out, and shone brightly in the sky. Perhaps some calm and quiet light had risen also, in his mind; and he could think more soberly of what had happened. Although the shadow of the Stranger fell at intervals upon the glass—always distinct, and big, and thoroughly defined—it never fell so darkly as at first. Whenever it appeared, the Fairies uttered a general cry of consternation, and plied their little arms and legs, with inconceivable activity, to rub it out. And whenever they got at Dot again, and showed her to him once more, bright and beautiful, they cheered in the most inspiring manner. They never showed her, otherwise than beautiful and bright, for they were Household Spirits to whom falsehood is annihilation; and being so, what Dot was there for them, but the one active, beaming, pleasant little creature who had been the light and sun of the Carrier’s Home! The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed her, with the Baby, gossiping among a knot of sage old matrons, and affecting to be wondrous old and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid, demure old way upon her husband’s arm, attempting—she! such a bud of a little woman—to convey the idea of having abjured the vanities of the world in general, and of being the sort of person to whom it was no novelty at all to be a mother; yet in the same breath, they showed her, laughing at the Carrier for being awkward, and pulling up his shirt-collar to make him smart, and mincing merrily about that very room to teach him how to dance! They turned, and stared immensely at him when they showed her with the Blind Girl; for, though she carried cheerfulness and animation with her wheresoever she went, she bore those influences into Caleb Plummer’s home, heaped up and running over. The Blind Girl’s love for her, and trust in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy way of setting Bertha’s thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for filling up each moment of the visit in doing something useful to the house, and really working hard while feigning to make holiday; her bountiful provision of those standing delicacies, the Veal and Ham-Pie and the bottles of Beer; her radiant little face arriving at the door, and taking leave; the wonderful expression in her whole self, from her neat foot to the crown of her head, of being a part of the establishment—a something necessary to it, which it couldn’t be without; all this the Fairies revelled in, and loved her for. And once again they looked upon him all at once, appealingly; and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in her dress and fondled her, &quot;Is this the Wife who has betrayed your confidence!&quot; More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful night, they showed her to him sitting on her favourite seat, with her bent head, her hands clasped on her brow, her falling hair. As he had seen her last. And when they found her thus, they neither turned nor looked upon him, but gathered close round her, and comforted and kissed her: and pressed on one another to show sympathy and kindness to her: and forgot him altogether. Thus the night passed. The moon went down; the stars grew pale; the cold day broke; the sun rose. The Carrier still sat, musing, in the chimney corner. He had sat there, with his head upon his hands, all night. All night the faithful Cricket had been Chirp, Chirp, Chirping on the Hearth. All night he had listened to its voice. All night the household Fairies had been busy with him. All night she had been amiable and blameless in the Glass, except when that one shadow fell upon it. He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed himself. He couldn’t go about his customary cheerful avocations; he wanted spirit for them; but it mattered the less, that it was Tackleton’s wedding-day, and he had arranged to make his rounds by proxy. He thought to have gone merrily to church with Dot. But such plans were at an end. It was their own wedding-day too. Ah! how little he had looked for such a close to such a year! The Carrier had expected that Tackleton would pay him an early visit; and he was right. He had not walked to and fro before his own door, many minutes, when he saw the Toy Merchant coming in his chaise along the road. As the chaise drew nearer, he perceived that Tackleton was dressed out sprucely for his marriage: and that he had decorated his horse’s head with flowers and favors. The horse looked much more like a Bridegroom than Tackleton, whose half-closed eye was more disagreeably expressive than ever. But the Carrier took little heed of this. His thoughts had other occupation. &quot;John Peerybingle!&quot; said Tackleton, with an air of condolence. &quot;My good fellow, how do you find yourself this morning?&quot; &quot;I have had but a poor night, Master Tackleton,&quot; returned the Carrier, shaking his head: &quot;for I have been a good deal disturbed in my mind. But it’s over now! Can you spare me half an hour or so, for some private talk?&quot; &quot;I came on purpose,&quot; returned Tackleton, alighting. &quot;Never mind the horse. He’ll stand quiet enough, with the reins over this post, if you’ll give him a mouthful of hay.&quot; The Carrier having brought it from his stable and set it before him, they turned into the house. &quot;You are not married before noon,&quot; he said, &quot;I think?&quot; &quot;No,&quot; answered Tackleton. &quot;Plenty of time. Plenty of time.&quot; When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was rapping at the Stranger’s door; which was only removed from it by a few steps. One of her very red eyes (for Tilly had been crying all night long, because her mistress cried) was at the keyhole; and she was knocking very loud; and seemed frightened. &quot;If you please I can’t make nobody hear,&quot; said Tilly, looking round. &quot;I hope nobody an’t gone and been and died if you please!&quot; This philanthropic wish, Miss Slowboy emphasised with various new raps and kicks at the door; which led to no result whatever. &quot;Shall I go?&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;It’s curious.&quot; The Carrier who had turned his face from the door, signed to him to go if he would. So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy’s relief; and he too kicked and knocked; and he too failed to get the least reply. But he thought of trying the handle of the door; and as it opened easily, he peeped in, looked in, went in; and soon came running out again. &quot;John Peerybingle,&quot; said Tackleton, in his ear. &quot;I hope there has been nothing—nothing rash in the night?&quot; The Carrier turned upon him quickly. &quot;Because he’s gone!&quot; said Tackleton; &quot;and the window’s open. I don’t see any marks—to be sure it’s almost on a level with the garden: but I was afraid there might have been some—some scuffle. Eh?&quot; He nearly shut up the expressive eye altogether; he looked at him so hard. And he gave his eye, and his face, and his whole person, a sharp twist. As if he would have screwed the truth out of him. &quot;Make yourself easy,&quot; said the Carrier. &quot;He went into that room last night, without harm in word or deed from me, and no one has entered it since. He is away of his own free will. I’d go out gladly at that door, and beg my bread from house to house, for life, if I could so change the past that he had never come. But he has come and gone. And I have done with him!&quot; &quot;Oh!—Well, I think he has got off pretty easy,&quot; said Tackleton, taking a chair. The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too: and shaded his face with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding. &quot;You showed me last night,&quot; he said at length, &quot;my wife; my wife that I love; secretly—&quot; &quot;And tenderly,&quot; insinuated Tackleton. &quot;Conniving at that man’s disguise, and giving him opportunities of meeting her alone. I think there’s no sight I wouldn’t have rather seen than that. I think there’s no man in the world I wouldn’t have rather had to show it me.&quot; &quot;I confess to having had my suspicions always,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;And that has made me objectionable here, I know.&quot; &quot;But as you did show it me,&quot; pursued the Carrier, not minding him; &quot;and as you saw her; my wife; my wife that I love&quot;—his voice, and eye, and hand, grew steadier and firmer as he repeated these words: evidently in pursuance of a stedfast purpose—&quot;as you saw her at this disadvantage, it is right and just that you should also see with my eyes, and look into my breast, and know what my mind is, upon the subject. For it’s settled,&quot; said the Carrier, regarding him attentively. &quot;And nothing can shake it now.&quot; Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent, about its being necessary to vindicate something or other; but he was overawed by the manner of his companion. Plain and unpolished as it was, it had a something dignified and noble in it, which nothing but the soul of generous Honor dwelling in the man could have imparted. &quot;I am a plain, rough man,&quot; pursued the Carrier, &quot;with very little to recommend me. I am not a clever man, as you very well know. I am not a young man. I loved my little Dot, because I had seen her grow up, from a child, in her father’s house; because I knew how precious she was; because she had been my Life, for years and years. There’s many men I can’t compare with, who never could have loved my little Dot like me, I think!&quot; He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with his foot, before resuming: &quot;I often thought that though I wasn’t good enough for her, I should make her a kind husband, and perhaps know her value better than another; and in this way I reconciled it to myself, and came to think it might be possible that we should be married. And in the end it came about, and we were married.&quot; &quot;Hah!&quot; said Tackleton, with a significant shake of the head. &quot;I had studied myself; I had had experience of myself; I knew how much I loved her, and how happy I should be,&quot; pursued the Carrier. &quot;But I had not—I feel it now—sufficiently considered her.&quot; &quot;To be sure,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Giddiness, frivolity, fickleness, love of admiration! Not considered! All left out of sight! Hah!&quot; &quot;You had best not interrupt me,&quot; said the Carrier, with some sternness, &quot;till you understand me; and you’re wide of doing so. If, yesterday, I’d have struck that man down at a blow, who dared to breathe a word against her, to-day I’d set my foot upon his face, if he was my brother!&quot; The Toy Merchant gazed at him in astonishment. He went on in a softer tone: &quot;Did I consider,&quot; said the Carrier, &quot;that I took her; at her age, and with her beauty; from her young companions, and the many scenes of which she was the ornament; in which she was the brightest little star that ever shone; to shut her up from day to day in my dull house, and keep my tedious company? Did I consider how little suited I was to her sprightly humour, and how wearisome a plodding man like me must be, to one of her quick spirit? Did I consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me, that I loved her, when everybody must, who knew her? Never. I took advantage of her hopeful nature and her cheerful disposition; and I married her. I wish I never had! For her sake; not for mine!&quot; The Toy Merchant gazed at him, without winking. Even the half-shut eye was open now. &quot;Heaven bless her!&quot; said the Carrier, &quot;for the cheerful constancy with which she tried to keep the knowledge of this from me! And Heaven help me, that, in my slow mind, I have not found it out before! Poor child! Poor Dot! I not to find it out, who have seen her eyes fill with tears, when such a marriage as our own was spoken of! I, who have seen the secret trembling on her lips a hundred times, and never suspected it till last night! Poor girl! That I could ever hope she would be fond of me! That I could ever believe she was!&quot; &quot;She made a show of it,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;She made such a show of it, that to tell you the truth it was the origin of my misgivings.&quot; And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, who certainly made no sort of show of being fond of him. &quot;She has tried,&quot; said the poor Carrier, with greater emotion than he had exhibited yet; &quot;I only now begin to know how hard she has tried, to be my dutiful and zealous wife. How good she has been; how much she has done; how brave and strong a heart she has; let the happiness I have known under this roof bear witness! It will be some help and comfort to me, when I am here alone.&quot; &quot;Here alone?&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Oh! Then you do mean to take some notice of this?&quot; &quot;I mean,&quot; returned the Carrier, &quot;to do her the greatest kindness, and make her the best reparation, in my power. I can release her from the daily pain of an unequal marriage, and the struggle to conceal it. She shall be as free as I can render her.&quot; &quot;Make her reparation!&quot; exclaimed Tackleton, twisting and turning his great ears with his hands. &quot;There must be something wrong here. You didn’t say that, of course.&quot; The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the Toy Merchant, and shook him like a reed. &quot;Listen to me!&quot; he said. &quot;And take care that you hear me right. Listen to me. Do I speak plainly?&quot; &quot;Very plainly indeed,&quot; answered Tackleton. &quot;As if I meant it?&quot; &quot;Very much as if you meant it.&quot; &quot;I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night,&quot; exclaimed the Carrier. &quot;On the spot where she has often sat beside me, with her sweet face looking into mine. I called up her whole life, day by day; I had her dear self, in its every passage, in review before me. And upon my soul she is innocent, if there is One to judge the innocent and guilty!&quot; Staunch Cricket on the Hearth! Loyal household Fairies! &quot;Passion and distrust have left me!&quot; said the Carrier; &quot;and nothing but my grief remains. In an unhappy moment some old lover, better suited to her tastes and years than I; forsaken, perhaps, for me, against her will; returned. In an unhappy moment: taken by surprise, and wanting time to think of what she did: she made herself a party to his treachery, by concealing it. Last night she saw him, in the interview we witnessed. It was wrong. But otherwise than this, she is innocent if there is Truth on earth!&quot; &quot;If that is your opinion&quot;—Tackleton began. &quot;So, let her go!&quot; pursued the Carrier. &quot;Go, with my blessing for the many happy hours she has given me, and my forgiveness for any pang she has caused me. Let her go, and have the peace of mind I wish her! She’ll never hate me. She’ll learn to like me better, when I’m not a drag upon her, and she wears the chain I have rivetted, more lightly. This is the day on which I took her, with so little thought for her enjoyment, from her home. To-day she shall return to it; and I will trouble her no more. Her father and mother will be here to-day—we had made a little plan for keeping it together—and they shall take her home. I can trust her, there, or anywhere. She leaves me without blame, and she will live so I am sure. If I should die—I may perhaps while she is still young; I have lost some courage in a few hours—she’ll find that I remembered her, and loved her to the last! This is the end of what you showed me. Now, it’s over!&quot; &quot;Oh no, John, not over. Do not say it’s over yet! Not quite yet. I have heard your noble words. I could not steal away, pretending to be ignorant of what has affected me with such deep gratitude. Do not say it’s over, ‘till the clock has struck again!&quot; She had entered shortly after Tackleton; and had remained there. She never looked at Tackleton, but fixed her eyes upon her husband. But she kept away from him, setting as wide a space as possible between them; and though she spoke with most impassioned earnestness, she went no nearer to him even then. How different in this from her old self! &quot;No hand can make the clock which will strike again for me the hours that are gone,&quot; replied the Carrier, with a faint smile. &quot;But let it be so, if you will, my dear. It will strike soon. It’s of little matter what we say. I’d try to please you in a harder case than that.&quot; &quot;Well!&quot; muttered Tackleton. &quot;I must be off: for when the clock strikes again, it’ll be necessary for me to be upon my way to church. Good morning, John Peerybingle. I’m sorry to be deprived of the pleasure of your company. Sorry for the loss, and the occasion of it too!&quot; &quot;I have spoken plainly?&quot; said the Carrier, accompanying him to the door. &quot;Oh quite!&quot; &quot;And you’ll remember what I have said?&quot; &quot;Why, if you compel me to make the observation,&quot; said Tackleton; previously taking the precaution of getting into his chaise; &quot;I must say that it was so very unexpected, that I’m far from being likely to forget it.&quot; &quot;The better for us both,&quot; returned the Carrier. &quot;Good bye. I give you joy!&quot; &quot;I wish I could give it to you,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;As I can’t; thank’ee. Between ourselves, (as I told you before, eh?) I don’t much think I shall have the less joy in my married life, because May hasn’t been too officious about me, and too demonstrative. Good bye! Take care of yourself.&quot; The Carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller in the distance than his horse’s flowers and favours near at hand; and then, with a deep sigh, went strolling like a restless, broken man, among some neighbouring elms; unwilling to return until the clock was on the eve of striking. His little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but often dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, how excellent he was! and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all the time), that Tilly was quite horrified. &quot;Ow if you please don’t!&quot; said Tilly. &quot;It’s enough to dead and bury the Baby, so it is if you please.&quot; &quot;Will you bring him sometimes, to see his father, Tilly,&quot; inquired her mistress, drying her eyes; &quot;when I can’t live here, and have gone to my old home?&quot; &quot;Ow if you please don’t!&quot; cried Tilly, throwing back her head, and bursting out into a howl; she looked at the moment uncommonly like Boxer. &quot;Ow if you please don’t! Ow, what has everybody gone and been and done with everybody, making everybody else so wretched! Ow-w-w-w!&quot; The soft-hearted Slowboy trailed off at this juncture, into such a deplorable howl: the more tremendous from its long suppression: that she must infallibly have awakened the Baby, and frightened him into something serious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not encountered Caleb Plummer, leading in his daughter. This spectacle restoring her to a sense of the proprieties, she stood for some few moments silent, with her mouth wide open: and then, posting off to the bed on which the Baby lay asleep, danced in a Weird, Saint Vitus manner on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among the bedclothes: apparently deriving much relief from those extraordinary operations. &quot;Mary!&quot; said Bertha. &quot;Not at the marriage!&quot; &quot;I told her you would not be there Mum,&quot; whispered Caleb. &quot;I heard as much last night. But bless you,&quot; said the little man, taking her tenderly by both hands, &quot;I don’t care for what they say. I don’t believe them. There an’t much of me, but that little should be torn to pieces sooner than I’d trust a word against you!&quot; He put his arms about her and hugged her, as a child might have hugged one of his own dolls. &quot;Bertha couldn’t stay at home this morning,&quot; said Caleb. &quot;She was afraid, I know, to hear the Bells ring: and couldn’t trust herself to be so near them on their wedding-day. So we started in good time, and came here. I have been thinking of what I have done,&quot; said Caleb, after a moment’s pause; &quot;I have been blaming myself till I hardly knew what to do or where to turn, for the distress of mind I have caused her; and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d better, if you’ll stay with me, Mum, the while, tell her the truth. You’ll stay with me the while?&quot; he enquired, trembling from head to foot. &quot;I don’t know what effect it may have upon her; I don’t know what she’ll think of me; I don’t know that she’ll ever care for her poor father afterwards. But it’s best for her that she should be undeceived, and I must bear the consequences as I deserve!&quot; &quot;Mary,&quot; said Bertha, &quot;where is your hand! Ah! Here it is here it is!&quot; pressing it to her lips, with a smile, and drawing it through her arm. &quot;I heard them speaking softly among themselves, last night, of some blame against you. They were wrong.&quot; The Carrier’s Wife was silent. Caleb answered for her. &quot;They were wrong,&quot; he said. &quot;I knew it!&quot; cried Bertha, proudly. &quot;I told them so. I scorned to hear a word! Blame her with justice!&quot; she pressed the hand between her own, and the soft cheek against her face. &quot;No! I am not so blind as that.&quot; Her father went on one side of her, while Dot remained upon the other: holding her hand. &quot;I know you all,&quot; said Bertha, &quot;better than you think. But none so well as her. Not even you, father. There is nothing half so real and so true about me, as she is. If I could be restored to sight this instant, and not a word were spoken, I could choose her from a crowd! My Sister!&quot; &quot;Bertha, my dear!&quot; said Caleb, &quot;I have something on my mind I want to tell you, while we three are alone. Hear me kindly! I have a confession to make to you, my Darling.&quot; &quot;A confession, father?&quot; &quot;I have wandered from the Truth and lost myself, my child,&quot; said Caleb, with a pitiable expression in his bewildered face. &quot;I have wandered from the truth, intending to be kind to you; and have been cruel.&quot; She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and repeated &quot;Cruel!&quot; &quot;He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha,&quot; said Dot. &quot;You’ll say so, presently. You’ll be the first to tell him so.&quot; &quot;He cruel to me!&quot; cried Bertha, with a smile of incredulity. &quot;Not meaning it, my child,&quot; said Caleb. &quot;But I have been; though I never suspected it, till yesterday. My dear Blind Daughter, hear me and forgive me! The world you live in, heart of mine, doesn’t exist as I have represented it. The eyes you have trusted in, have been false to you.&quot; She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still; but drew back, and clung closer to her friend. &quot;Your road in life was rough, my poor one,&quot; said Caleb, &quot;and I meant to smooth it for you. I have altered objects, changed the characters of people, invented many things that never have been, to make you happier. I have had concealments from you, put deceptions on you, God forgive me! and surrounded you with fancies.&quot; &quot;But living people are not fancies!&quot; she said hurriedly, and turning very pale, and still retiring from him. &quot;You can’t change them.&quot; &quot;I have done so, Bertha,&quot; pleaded Caleb. &quot;There is one person that you know, my Dove—&quot; &quot;Oh father! why do you say, I know?&quot; she answered, in a term of keen reproach. &quot;What and whom do I know! I who have no leader! I so miserably blind.&quot; In the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, as if she were groping her way; then spread them, in a manner most forlorn and sad, upon her face. &quot;The marriage that takes place to-day,&quot; said Caleb, &quot;is with a stern, sordid, grinding man. A hard master to you and me, my dear, for many years. Ugly in his looks, and in his nature. Cold and callous always. Unlike what I have painted him to you in everything, my child. In everything.&quot; &quot;Oh why,&quot; cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it seemed, almost beyond endurance, &quot;why did you ever do this! Why did you ever fill my heart so full, and then come in like Death, and tear away the objects of my love! O Heaven, how blind I am! How helpless and alone!&quot; Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but in his penitence and sorrow. She had been but a short time in this passion of regret, when the Cricket on the Hearth, unheard by all but her, began to chirp. Not merrily, but in a low, faint, sorrowing way. It was so mournful that her tears began to flow; and when the Presence which had been beside the Carrier all night, appeared behind her, pointing to her father, they fell down like rain. She heard the Cricket-voice more plainly soon; and was conscious, through her blindness, of the Presence hovering about her father. &quot;Mary,&quot; said the Blind Girl, &quot;tell me what my Home is. What it truly is.&quot; &quot;It is a poor place, Bertha; very poor and bare indeed. The house will scarcely keep out wind and rain another winter. It is as roughly shielded from the weather, Bertha,&quot; Dot continued in a low, clear voice, &quot;as your poor father in his sackcloth coat.&quot; The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the Carrier’s little wife aside. &quot;Those presents that I took such care of; that came almost at my wish, and were so dearly welcome to me&quot;’ she said, trembling; &quot;where did they come from? Did you send them?&quot; &quot;No.&quot; &quot;Who then?&quot; Dot saw she knew, already; and was silent. The Blind Girl spread her hands before her face again. But in quite another manner now. &quot;Dear Mary, a moment. One moment! More this way. Speak softly to me. You are true, I know. You’d not deceive me now; would you?&quot; &quot;No, Bertha, indeed!&quot; &quot;No, I am sure you would not. You have too much pity for me. Mary, look across the room to where we were just now; to where my father is—my father, so compassionate and loving to me—and tell me what you see.&quot; &quot;I see,&quot; said Dot, who understood her well, &quot;an old man sitting in a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with his face resting on his hand. As if his child should comfort him, Bertha.&quot; &quot;Yes, yes. She will. Go on.&quot; &quot;He is an old man, worn with care and work. He is a spare, dejected, thoughtful, grey-haired man. I see him now, despondent and bowed down, and striving against nothing. But, Bertha, I have seen him many times before; and striving hard in many ways for one great sacred object. And I honor his grey head, and bless him!&quot; The Blind Girl broke away from her; and throwing herself upon her knees before him, took the grey head to her breast. &quot;It is my sight restored. It is my sight!&quot; she cried. &quot;I have been blind, and now my eyes are open. I never knew him! To think I might have died, and never truly seen the father who has been so loving to me!&quot; There were no words for Caleb’s emotion. &quot;There is not a gallant figure on this earth,&quot; exclaimed the Blind Girl, holding him in her embrace, &quot;that I would love so dearly, and would cherish so devotedly, as this! The greyer, and more worn, the dearer, father! Never let them say I am blind again. There’s not a furrow in his face, there’s not a hair upon his head, that shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks to Heaven!&quot; Caleb managed to articulate &quot;My Bertha!&quot; &quot;And in my Blindness, I believed him,&quot; said the girl, caressing him with tears of exquisite affection, &quot;to be so different! And having him beside me, day by day, so mindful of me always, never dreamed of this!&quot; &quot;The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha,&quot; said poor Caleb. &quot;He’s gone!&quot; &quot;Nothing is gone,&quot; she answered. &quot;Dearest father, no! Everything is here—in you. The father that I loved so well; the father that I never loved enough, and never knew; the Benefactor whom I first began to reverence and love, because he had such sympathy for me; All are here in you. Nothing is dead to me. The Soul of all that was most dear to me is here—here, with the worn face, and the grey head. And I am NOT blind, father, any longer!&quot; Dot’s whole attention had been concentrated, during this discourse, upon the father and daughter; but looking, now, towards the little Haymaker in the Moorish meadow, she saw that the clock was within a few minutes of striking, and fell, immediately, into a nervous and excited state. &quot;Father,&quot; said Bertha, hesitating. &quot;Mary.&quot; &quot;Yes, my dear,&quot; returned Caleb. &quot;Here she is.&quot; &quot;There is no change in her. You never told me anything of her that was not true?’ &quot;I should have done it, my dear, I am afraid,&quot; returned Caleb, &quot;if I could have made her better than she was. But I must have changed her for the worse, if I had changed her at all. Nothing could improve her, Bertha.&quot; Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked the question, her delight and pride in the reply, and her renewed embrace of Dot, were charming to behold. &quot;More changes than you think for, may happen though, my dear,&quot; said Dot. &quot;Changes for the better, I mean; changes for great joy to some of us. You mustn’t let them startle you too much, if any such should ever happen, and affect you? Are those wheels upon the road? You’ve a quick ear, Bertha. Are they wheels?&quot; &quot;Yes. Coming very fast.&quot; &quot;I—I—I know you have a quick ear,&quot; said Dot, placing her hand upon her heart, and evidently talking on, as fast as she could, to hide its palpitating state, &quot;because I have noticed it often, and because you were so quick to find out that strange step last night. Though why you should have said, as I very well recollect you did say, Bertha, &#039;whose step is that!&#039; and why you should have taken any greater observation of it than of any other step, I don’t know. Though as I said just now, there are great changes in the world: great changes: and we can’t do better than prepare ourselves to be surprised at hardly anything.&quot; Caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she spoke to him, no less than to his daughter. He saw her, with astonishment, so fluttered and distressed that she could scarcely breathe; and holding to a chair, to save herself from falling. &quot;They are wheels indeed!&quot; she panted. &quot;Coming nearer! Nearer! Very close! And now you hear them stopping at the garden gate! And now you hear a step outside the door—the same step, Bertha, is it not!—and now!&quot;— She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and running up to Caleb put her hands upon his eyes, as a young man rushed into the room, and flinging away his hat into the air, came sweeping down upon them. &quot;Is it over?&quot; cried Dot. &quot;Yes!&quot; &quot;Happily over?&quot; &quot;Yes!&quot; &quot;Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you ever hear the like of it before?&quot; cried Dot. &quot;If my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive&quot;—said Caleb, trembling. &quot;He is alive!&quot; shrieked Dot, removing her hands from his eyes, and clapping them in ecstasy; &quot;look at him! See where he stands before you, healthy and strong! Your own dear son! Your own dear living, loving brother, Bertha!&quot; All honor to the little creature for her transports! All honor to her tears and laughter, when the three were locked in one another’s arms! All honour to the heartiness with which she met the sunburnt Sailor-fellow, with his dark streaming hair, half way, and never turned her rosy little mouth aside, but suffered him to kiss it, freely, and to press her to his bounding heart! And honour to the Cuckoo too—why not!—for bursting out of the trap-door in the Moorish Palace like a housebreaker, and hiccoughing twelve times on the assembled company, as if he had got drunk for joy! The Carrier, entering, started back: and well he might: to find himself in such good company. &quot;Look, John!&quot; said Caleb, exultingly, &quot;look here! My own boy from the Golden South Americas! My own son! Him that you fitted out, and sent away yourself; Him that you were always such a friend to!&quot; The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but, recoiling, as some feature in his face awakened a remembrance of the Deaf Man in the Cart, said: &quot;Edward! Was it you?&quot; &quot;Now tell him all!&quot; cried Dot. &quot;Tell him all, Edward; and don’t spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself in his eyes, ever again.&quot; &quot;I was the man,&quot; said Edward. &quot;And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your old friend?&quot; rejoined the Carrier. &quot;There was a frank boy once—how many years is it, Caleb, since we heard that he was dead, and had it proved, we thought?—who never would have done that.&quot; &quot;There was a generous friend of mine, once; more a father to me than a friend;&quot; said Edward, &quot;who never would have judged me, or any other man, unheard. You were he. So I am certain you will hear me now.&quot; The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept far away from him, replied, &quot;Well! that’s but fair. I will.&quot; &quot;You must know that when I left here, a boy,&quot; said Edward, &quot;I was in love, and my love was returned. She was a very young girl, who perhaps (you may tell me) didn’t know her own mind. But I knew mine, and I had a passion for her.&quot; &quot;You had!&quot; exclaimed the Carrier. &quot;You!&quot; &quot;Indeed I had,&quot; returned the other. &quot;And she returned it. I have ever since believed she did; and now I am sure she did.&quot; &quot;Heaven help me!&quot; said the Carrier. &quot;This is worse than all.&quot; &quot;Constant to her,&quot; said Edward, &quot;and returning, full of hope, after many hardships and perils, to redeem my part of our old contract, I heard, twenty miles away, that she was false to me; that she had forgotten me; and had bestowed herself upon another and a richer man. I had no mind to reproach her; but I wished to see her, and to prove beyond dispute that this was true. I hoped she might have been forced into it, against her own desire and recollection. It would be small comfort, but it would be some, I thought: and on I came. That I might have the truth, the real truth; observing freely for myself, and judging for myself, without obstruction on the one hand, or presenting my own influence (if I had any) before her, on the other; I dressed myself unlike myself—you know how; and waited on the road—you know where. You had no suspicion of me; neither had—had she,&quot; pointing to Dot, &quot;until I whispered in her ear at that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me.&quot; &quot;But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had come back,&quot; sobbed Dot, now speaking for herself, as she had burned to do, all through this narrative; &quot;and when she knew his purpose, she advised him by all means to keep his secret close; for his old friend John Peerybingle was much too open in his nature, and too clumsy in all artifice—being a clumsy man in general,&quot; said Dot, half laughing and half crying—&quot;to keep it for him. And when she—that’s me, John,&quot; sobbed the little woman—&quot;told him all, and how his sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she had at last been over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the silly, dear old thing called advantageous; and when she—that’s me again, John—told him they were not yet married (though close upon it), and that it would be nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for there was no love on her side; and when he went nearly mad with joy to hear it; then she—that’s me again—said she would go between them, as she had often done before in old times, John, and would sound his sweetheart and be sure that what she—me again, John—said and thought was right. And it WAS right, John! And they were brought together, John! And they were married, John, an hour ago! And here’s the Bride! And Gruff and Tackleton may die a bachelor! And I’m a happy little woman, May, God bless you!&quot; She was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything to the purpose; and never so completely irresistible as in her present transports. There never were congratulations so endearing and delicious, as those she lavished on herself and on the Bride. Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest Carrier had stood, confounded. Flying, now, towards her, Dot stretched out her hand to stop him, and retreated as before. &quot;No, John, no! Hear all! Don’t love me any more, John, &#039;till you’ve heard every word I have to say. It was wrong to have a secret from you, John. I’m very sorry. I didn’t think it any harm, till I came and sat down by you on the little stool last night. But when I knew by what was written in your face, that you had seen me walking in the gallery with Edward; and knew what you thought; I felt how giddy and how wrong it was. But oh, dear John, how could you, could you, think so!&quot; Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peerybingle would have caught her in his arms. But no; she wouldn’t let him. &quot;Don’t love me yet, please, John! Not for a long time yet! When I was sad about this intended marriage, dear, it was because I remembered May and Edward such young lovers; and knew that her heart was far away from Tackleton. You believe that, now. Don’t you John?&quot; John was going to make another rush at this appeal; but she stopped him again. &quot;No; keep there, please, John! When I laugh at you, as I sometimes do, John; and call you clumsy, and a dear old goose, and names of that sort, it’s because I love you, John, so well; and take such pleasure in your ways, and wouldn’t see you altered in the least respect to have you made a King to-morrow.&quot; &quot;Hooroar!&quot; said Caleb with unusual vigour. &quot;My opinion!&quot; &quot;And when I speak of people being middle-aged, and steady, John, and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of way, it’s only because I’m such a silly little thing, John, that I like, sometimes, to act a kind of Play with Baby, and all that: and make believe.&quot; She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. But she was very nearly too late. &quot;No, don’t love me for another minute or two, if you please, John! What I want most to tell you, I have kept to the last. My dear, good, generous John; when we were talking the other night about the Cricket, I had it on my lips to say, that at first I did not love you quite so dearly as I do now; that when I first came home here, I was half afraid I mightn’t learn to love you every bit as well as I hoped and prayed I might—being so very young, John! But, dear John, every day and hour, I loved you more and more. And if I could have loved you better than I do, the noble words I heard you say this morning, would have made me. But I can’t. All the affection that I had (it was a great deal John) I gave you, as you well deserve, long, long ago, and I have no more left to give. Now, my dear Husband, take me to your heart again! That’s my home, John; and never, never think of sending me to any other!&quot; You never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious little woman in the arms of a third party, as you would have felt if you had seen Dot run into the Carrier’s embrace. It was the most complete, unmitigated, soul-fraught little piece of earnestness that ever you beheld in all your days. You may be sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect rapture; and you may be sure Dot was likewise; and you may be sure they all were, inclusive of Miss Slowboy, who cried copiously for joy, and, wishing to include her young charge in the general interchange of congratulations, handed round the Baby to everybody in succession, as if it were something to drink. But now the sound of wheels was heard again outside the door; and somebody exclaimed that Gruff and Tackleton was coming back. Speedily that worthy gentleman appeared: looking warm and flustered. &quot;Why, what the Devil’s this, John Peerybingle!&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;There’s some mistake. I appointed Mrs. Tackleton to meet me at the church; and I’ll swear I passed her on the road, on her way here. Oh! here she is! I beg your pardon Sir; I haven’t the pleasure of knowing you; but if you can do me the favour to spare this young lady, she has rather a particular engagement this morning.&quot; &quot;But I can’t spare her,&quot; returned Edward. &quot;I couldn’t think of it.&quot; &quot;What do you mean, you vagabond?&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;I mean, that as I can make allowance for your being vexed,&quot; returned the other, with a smile, &quot;I am as deaf to harsh discourse this morning, as I was to all discourse last night.&quot; The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start he gave! &quot;I am sorry Sir,&quot; said Edward, holding out May’s left hand, and especially the third finger; &quot;that the young lady can’t accompany you to church; but as she has been there once, this morning, perhaps you’ll excuse her.&quot; Tackleton looked hard at the third finger: and took a little piece of silver-paper, apparently containing a ring, from his waistcoat-pocket. &quot;Miss Slowboy,&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Will you have the kindness to throw that in the fire? Thank’ee.&quot; &quot;It was a previous engagement; quite an old engagement: that prevented my wife from keeping her appointment with you, I assure you,&quot; said Edward. &quot;Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge that I revealed it to him faithfully; and that I told him, many times, I never could forget it,&quot; said May, blushing. &quot;Oh certainly!&quot; said Tackleton. &quot;Oh to be sure. Oh it’s all right. It’s quite correct. Mrs. Edward Plummer, I infer?&quot; &quot;That’s the name,&quot; returned the bridegroom. &quot;Ah, I shouldn’t have known you Sir,&quot; said Tackleton, scrutinising his face narrowly, and making a low bow. &quot;I give you joy Sir!&quot; &quot;Thank’ee.&quot; &quot;Mrs. Peerybingle,&quot; said Tackleton, turning suddenly to where she stood with her husband; &quot;I am sorry. You haven’t done me a very great kindness, but, upon my life I am sorry. You are better than I thought you. John Peerybingle, I am sorry. You understand me; that’s enough. It’s quite correct, ladies and gentlemen all, and perfectly satisfactory. Good morning!&quot; With these words he carried it off, and carried himself off too: merely stopping at the door, to take the flowers and favours from his horse’s head, and to kick that animal once, in the ribs, as a means of informing him that there was a screw loose in his arrangements. Of course it became a serious duty now, to make such a day of it, as should mark these events for a high Feast and Festival in the Peerybingle Calendar for evermore. Accordingly, Dot went to work to produce such an entertainment, as should reflect undying honour on the house and on every one concerned; and in a very short space of time, she was up to her dimpled elbows in flour, and whitening the Carrier’s coat, every time he came near her, by stopping him to give him a kiss. That good fellow washed the greens, and peeled the turnips, and broke the plates, and upset iron pots full of cold water on the fire, and made himself useful in all sorts of ways: while a couple of professional assistants, hastily called in from somewhere in the neighbourhood, as on a point of life or death, ran against each other in all the doorways and round all the corners; and everybody tumbled over Tilly Slowboy and the Baby, everywhere. Tilly never came out in such force before. Her ubiquity was the theme of general admiration. She was a stumbling-block in the passage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at five-and-twenty minutes to three. The Baby’s head was, as it were, a test and touchstone for every description of matter, animal, vegetable, and mineral. Nothing was in use that day that didn’t come, at some time or other, into close acquaintance with it. Then, there was a great Expedition set on foot to go and find out Mrs. Fielding; and to be dismally penitent to that excellent gentlewoman; and to bring her back, by force, if needful, to be happy and forgiving. And when the Expedition first discovered her, she would listen to no terms at all, but said, an unspeakable number of times, that ever she should have lived to see the day! and couldn’t be got to say anything else, except, &quot;Now carry me to the grave;&quot; which seemed absurd, on account of her not being dead, or anything at all like it. After a time, she lapsed into a state of dreadful calmness, and observed, that when that unfortunate train of circumstances had occurred in the Indigo Trade, she had foreseen that she would be exposed, during her whole life, to every species of insult and contumely; and that she was glad to find it was the case; and begged they wouldn’t trouble themselves about her,—for what was she? oh, dear! a nobody!—but would forget that such a being lived, and would take their course in life without her. From this bitterly sarcastic mood, she passed into an angry one, in which she gave vent to the remarkable expression that the worm would turn if trodden on; and, after that, she yielded to a soft regret, and said, if they had only given her their confidence, what might she not have had it in her power to suggest! Taking advantage of this crisis in her feelings, the Expedition embraced her; and she very soon had her gloves on, and was on her way to John Peerybingle’s in a state of unimpeachable gentility; with a paper parcel at her side containing a cap of state, almost as tall, and quite as stiff, as a Mitre. Then, there were Dot’s father and mother to come, in another little chaise; and they were behind their time; and fears were entertained; and there was much looking out for them down the road; and Mrs. Fielding always would look in the wrong and morally impossible direction; and being apprised thereof, hoped she might take the liberty of looking where she pleased. At last they came: a chubby little couple, jogging along in a snug and comfortable little way that quite belonged to the Dot family: and Dot and her mother, side by side, were wonderful to see. They were so like each other. Then, Dot’s mother had to renew her acquaintance with May’s mother; and May’s mother always stood on her gentility; and Dot’s mother never stood on anything but her active little feet. And old Dot—so to call Dot’s father; I forgot it wasn’t his right name, but never mind: took liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and seemed to think a cap but so much starch and muslin, and didn’t defer himself at all to the Indigo trade, but said there was no help for it now; and, in Mrs. Fielding’s summing up, was a good-natured kind of man—but coarse, my dear. I wouldn’t have missed Dot, doing the honors in her wedding-gown, my benison on her bright face! for any money. No! nor the good Carrier, so jovial and so ruddy, at the bottom of the table. Nor the brown, fresh sailor-fellow, and his handsome wife. Nor any one among them. To have missed the dinner would have been to miss as jolly and as stout a meal as man need eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in which they drank The Wedding Day, would have been the greatest miss of all. After dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling Bowl! As I’m a living man: hoping to keep so, for a year or two, he sang it through. And, by-the-by, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, just as he finished the last verse. There was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without saying with your leave, or by your leave, with something heavy on his head. Setting this down in the middle of the table, symmetrically in the centre of the nuts and apples, he said: &quot;Mr. Tackleton’s compliments, and as he hasn’t got no use for the cake himself, p’raps you’ll eat it.&quot; And with those words, he walked off. There was some surprise among the company, as you may imagine. Mrs. Fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, suggested that the cake was poisoned; and related a narrative of a cake, which, within her knowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies, blue. But she was overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by May, with much ceremony and rejoicing. I don’t think any one had tasted it, when there came another tap at the door; and the same man appeared again, having under his arm a vast brown-paper parcel. &quot;Mr. Tackleton’s compliments, and he’s sent a few toys for the Babby. They ain’t ugly.&quot; After the delivery of which expressions, he retired again. The whole party would have experienced great difficulty in finding words for their astonishment, even if they had had ample time to seek them. But they had none at all; for the messenger had scarcely shut the door behind him, when there came another tap, and Tackleton himself walked in. &quot;Mrs. Peerybingle!&quot; said the Toy-merchant, hat in hand. &quot;I’m sorry. I’m more sorry than I was this morning. I have had time to think of it. John Peerybingle! I’m sour by disposition; but I can’t help being sweetened, more or less, by coming face to face with such a man as you. Caleb! This unconscious little nurse gave me a broken hint last night, of which I have found the thread. I blush to think how easily I might have bound you and your daughter to me; and what a miserable idiot I was, when I took her for one! Friends, one and all, my house is very lonely to-night. I have not so much as a Cricket on my Hearth. I have scared them all away. Be gracious to me; let me join this happy party!&quot; He was at home in five minutes. You never saw such a fellow. What had he been doing with himself all his life, never to have known, before, his great capacity of being jovial! Or what had the Fairies been doing with him, to have effected such a change! &quot;John! you won’t send me home this evening; will you?&quot; whispered Dot. He had been very near it though! There wanted but one living creature to make the party complete; and, in the twinkling of an eye, there he was: very thirsty with hard running, and engaged in hopeless endeavours to squeeze his head into a narrow pitcher. He had gone with the cart to its journey’s-end, very much disgusted with the absence of his master, and stupendously rebellious to the Deputy. After lingering about the stable for some little time, vainly attempting to incite the old horse to the mutinous act of returning on his own account, he had walked into the tap-room and laid himself down before the fire. But suddenly yielding to the conviction that the Deputy was a humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got up again, turned tail and come home. There was a dance in the evening. With which general mention of that recreation, I should have left it alone, if I had not some reason to suppose that it was quite an original dance, and one of a most uncommon figure. It was formed in an odd way; in this way. Edward, that sailor-fellow—a good free dashing sort of a fellow he was—had been telling them various marvels concerning parrots, and mines, and Mexicans, and gold dust, when all at once he took it in his head to jump up from his seat and propose a dance; for Bertha’s harp was there, and she had such a hand upon it as you seldom hear. Dot (sly little piece of affectation when she chose) said her dancing days were over; I think because the Carrier was smoking his pipe, and she liked sitting by him, best. Mrs. Fielding had no choice, of course, but to say her dancing days were over, after that; and everybody said the same, except May; May was ready. So, May and Edward get up, amid great applause, to dance alone; and Bertha plays her liveliest tune. Well! if you’ll believe me, they have not been dancing five minutes, when suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe away, takes Dot round the waist, dashes out into the room, and starts off with her, toe and heel, quite wonderfully. Tackleton no sooner sees this, than he skims across to Mrs. Fielding, takes her round the waist, and follows suit. Old Dot no sooner sees this, than up he is, all alive, whisks off Mrs. Dot in the middle of the dance, and is the foremost there. Caleb no sooner sees this, than he clutches Tilly Slowboy by both hands and goes off at score; Miss Slowboy, firm in the belief that diving hotly in among the other couples, and effecting any number of concussions with them, is your only principle of footing it. Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp; and how the kettle hums! * * * * * But what is this! Even as I listen to them, blithely, and turn towards Dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very pleasant to me, she and the rest have vanished into air, and I am left alone. A Cricket sings upon the Hearth; a broken child’s-toy lies upon the ground; and nothing else remains.18451201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/7/The_Cricket_on_the_Hearth._A_Fairy_Tale_of_Home/1845-12-The_Cricket_on_the_Hearth.pdf
185https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/185<em>The Haunted House </em>(1859 Christmas Number)<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>All the Year Round</em><span>, Vol. II, Extra Christmas Number, 13 December 1859, pp. 1-49.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-ii/page-569.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-ii/page-569.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-ii/page-595.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-ii/page-595.html</a><span>.</span><br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,<span>&nbsp;</span></em><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-ii/page-616.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-ii/page-616.html</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1859-12-13">1859-12-13</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1859-12-13-The_Haunted_House<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Mortals in the House' (No.1), pp. 1-8.</strong></li> <li>Hesba Stretton. 'The Ghost in the Clock Room' (No.2), pp. 8-13.</li> <li>George Augustus Sala. 'The Ghost in the Double Room' (No.3), pp. 13-19.</li> <li>Adelaide Anne Procter. 'The Ghost in the Picture Room' (No.4), pp. 19-21.</li> <li>Wilkie Collins. 'The Ghost in the Cupboard Room' (No.5), pp. 21-26.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Ghost in Master B's Room' (No.6), pp. 27-31.</strong></li> <li>Elizabeth Gaskell. 'The Ghost in the Garden Room' (No. 7), pp. 31-48.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Ghost in the Corner Room' (No.8), pp. 48.&nbsp;</strong></li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al. <em>The Haunted House</em> (13 December 1859). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1859-12-13-The_Haunted_House">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1859-12-13-The_Haunted_House</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed by none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas piece. I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it. There was no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect. More than that: I had come to it direct from a railway station; it was not more than a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood outside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I could see the goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the valley. I will not say that everything was utterly common-place, because I doubt if anything can be that, except to utterly common-place people and there my vanity steps in; but, I will take it on myself to say that anybody might see the house as I saw it, any fine autumn morning. The manner of my lighting on it was this. I was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to stop by the way, to look at the house. My health required a temporary residence in the country; and a friend of mine who knew that, and who had happened to drive past the house, had written to me to suggest it as a likely place. I had got into the train at midnight, and had fallen asleep, and had woke up and had sat looking out of window at the brilliant Northern Lights in the sky, and had fallen asleep again, and had woken up again to find the night gone, with the usual discontented conviction on me that I hadn&#039;t been to sleep at all; — upon which question, in the first imbecility of that condition, I am ashamed to believe that I would have done wager by battle with the man who sat opposite me. That opposite man had had, through the night—as that opposite man always has—several legs too many, and all of them too long. In addition to this unreasonable conduct (which was only to be expected of him), he had had a pencil and a pocket-book, and had been perpetually listening and taking notes. It had appeared to me that these aggravating notes related to the jolts and bumps of the carriage, and I should have resigned myself to his taking them, under a general supposition that he was in the civil- engineering way of life, if he had not sat staring straight over my head whenever he listened. He was a goggle-eyed gentleman of a perplexed aspect, and his demeanour became unbearable. It was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and when I had out-watched the paling light of the fires of the iron country, and the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between me and the stars and between me and the day, I turned to my fellow-traveller and said : &quot;I beg your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything particular in me?&quot; For, really, he appeared to be taking down, either my travelling-cap or my hair, with a minuteness that was a liberty. The goggle-eyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me, as if the back of the carriage were a hundred miles off, and said, with a lofty look of compassion for my insignificance. &quot;In you, sir?–B.&quot; &quot;B, sir?&quot; said I, growing warm. &quot;I have nothing to do with you, sir,&quot; returned the gentleman; &quot;pray let me listen–O.&quot; He enunciated this vowel after a pause, and noted it down. At first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no communication with the guard, is a serious position. The thought came to my relief that the gentleman might be what is popularly called a Rapper: one of a sect for (some of) whom I have the highest respect, but whom I don&#039;t believe in. I was going to ask him the question, when he took the bread out of my mouth. &quot;You will excuse me,&quot; said the gentleman, contemptuously, &quot;if I am too much in advance of common humanity to trouble myself at all about it. I have passed the night — as indeed I pass the whole of my time now — in spiritual intercourse.&quot; &quot;Oh!&quot; said I, something snappishly. &quot;The conferences of the night began,&quot; continued the gentleman, turning several leaves of his note-book, &quot;with this message: &#039;Evil communications corrupt good manners.&#039;&quot; &quot;Sound,&quot; said I; &quot;but, absolutely new?&quot; &quot;New from spirits,&quot; returned the gentleman. I could only repeat my rather snappish &quot;Oh!&quot; and ask if I might be favoured with the last communication? &quot;&#039;A bird in the hand,&#039; &quot; said the gentleman, reading his last entry with great solemnity, &quot; &#039;is worth two in the Bosh.&#039;&quot; &quot;Truly I am of the same opinion,&quot; said I; &quot;but shouldn&#039;t it be Bush?&quot; &quot;It came to me, Bosh,&quot; returned the gentleman. The gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had delivered this special revelation in the course of the night. &quot;My friend, I hope you are pretty well. There are two in this railway carriage. How do you do? There are seventeen thousand four hundred and seventy- nine spirits here, but you cannot see them. Pythagoras is here. He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes you like travelling.&quot; Galileo likewise had dropped in, with this scientific intelligence. &quot;I am glad to see you, amico. Coma sta? Water will freeze when it is cold enough. Addio!&quot; In the course of the night, also, the following phenomena had occurred. Bishop Butler had insisted on spelling his name, &quot;Bubler,&quot; for which offence against orthography and good manners he had been dismissed as out of temper. John Milton (suspected of wilful mystification) had repudiated the authorship of Paradise Lost, and had introduced as joint authors of that poem, two Unknown gentlemen, respectively named Grungers and Scadgingtone. And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of England, had described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh circle where, he was learning to paint on velvet, under the direction of Mrs. Trimmer and Mary Queen of Scots. If this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favoured me with these disclosures, I trust he will excuse my confessing that the sight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnificent Order of the vast Universe, made me impatient of them. In a word, I was so impatient of them, that I was mightily glad to get out at the next station, and to exchange these clouds and vapours for the free air of Heaven. By that time it was a beautiful morning. As I walked away among such leaves as had already fallen from the golden, brown, and russet trees; and as I looked around me on the wonders of Creation, and thought of the steady, unchanging, and harmonious laws by which they are sustained ; the gentleman&#039;s spiritual intercourse seemed to me as poor a piece of journey-work as ever this world saw. In which heathen state of mind, I came within view of the house, and stopped to examine it attentively. It was a solitary house, standing in a sadly neglected garden: a pretty even square of some two acres. It was a house of about the time of George the Second; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in as bad taste, as could possibly be desired by the most loyal admirer of the whole quartett of Georges. It was uninhabited, but had, within a year or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable; I say cheaply, because the work had been done in a surface manner, and was already decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the colours were fresh. A lop-sided board drooped over the garden wall, announcing that it was &quot;to let on very reasonable terms, well furnished.&quot; It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by trees, and, in particular, there were six tall poplars before the front windows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of which had been extremely ill chosen. It was easy to see that it was an avoided house—a house that was shunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church spire some half a mile off—a house that nobody would take. And the natural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a haunted house. No period within the four-and-twenty hours of day and night, is so solemn to me, as the early morning. In the summer time, I often rise very early, and repair to my room to do a day&#039;s work before breakfast, and I am always on those occasions deeply impressed by the stillness and solitude around me. Besides that there is something awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces asleep—in the knowledge that those who are dearest to us and to whom we are dearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive state anticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are all tending—the stopped life, the broken threads of yesterday, the deserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned occupation, all are images of Death. The tranquillity of the hour is the tranquillity of Death. The colour and the chill have the same association. Even a certain air that familiar household objects take upon them when they first emerge from the shadows of the night into the morning, of being newer, and as they used to be long ago, has its counterpart in the subsidence of the worn face of maturity or age, in death, into the old youthful look. Moreover, I once saw the apparition of my father, at this hour. He was alive and well, and nothing ever came of it, but I saw him in the daylight, sitting with his back towards me, on a seat that stood beside my bed. His head was resting on his hand, and whether he was slumbering or grieving, I could not discern. Amazed to see him there, I sat up, moved my position, leaned out of bed, and watched him. As he did not move, I spoke to him more than once. As he did not move then, I became alarmed and laid my hand upon his shoulder, as I thought—and there was no such thing. For all these reasons, and for others less easily and briefly statable, I find the early morning to be my most ghostly time. Any house would be more or less haunted, to me, in the early morning; and a haunted house could scarcely address me to greater advantage than then. I walked on into the village, with the desertion of this house upon my mind, and I found the landlord of the little inn, sanding his door-step. I bespoke breakfast, and broached the subject of the house. &quot;Is it haunted?&quot; I asked. The landlord looked at me, shook his head, and answered, &quot;I say nothing.&quot; &quot;Then it is haunted?&quot; &quot;Well!&quot; cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had the appearance of desperation— &quot;I wouldn&#039;t sleep in it.&quot; &quot;Why not?&quot; &quot;If I wanted to have all the bells in a house ring, with nobody to ring &#039;em; and all the doors in a house bang with nobody to bang &#039;em; and all sorts of feet treading about with no feet there; why then,&quot; said the landlord, &quot;I&#039;d sleep in that house.&quot; &quot;Is anything seen there?&quot; The landlord looked at me again, and then, with his former appearance of desperation, called down his stable-yard for &quot;Ikey!&quot; The call produced a high-shouldered young fellow, with a round red face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth, a turned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars with mother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to be in a fair way—if it were not pruned—of covering his head and overrunning his boots. &quot;This gentleman wants to know,&quot; said the landlord, &quot;if anything&#039; s seen at the Poplars.&quot; &quot;&#039;Ooded woman with a howl,&quot; said Ikey, in a state of great freshness. &quot;Do you mean a cry?&quot; &quot;I mean a bird, sir.&quot; &quot;A hooded woman with an owl. Dear me! Did you ever see her?&quot; &quot;I seen the howl.&quot; &quot;Never the woman?&quot; &quot;Not so plain as the howl, but they always keeps together.&quot; &quot;Has anybody ever seen the woman as plainly as the owl?&quot; &quot;Lord bless you, sir! Lots.&quot; &quot;Who?&quot; &quot;Lord bless you, sir! Lots.&quot; &quot;The general-dealer opposite, for instance, who is opening his shop?&quot; &quot;Perkins? Bless you, Perkins wouldn&#039;t go a-nigh the place. No!&quot; observed the young man, with considerable feeling; &quot;he an&#039;t overwise, an&#039;t Perkins, but he an&#039;t such a fool as that.&quot; (Here, the landlord murmured his confidence in Perkins&#039;s knowing better.) &quot;Who is—or who was—the hooded woman with the owl? Do you know?&quot; &quot;Well!&quot; said Ikey, holding up his cap with one hand while he scratched his head with the other, &quot;they say, in general, that she was murdered, and the howl he &#039;ooted the while.&quot; This very concise summary of the facts was all I could learn, except that a young man, as hearty and likely a young man as ever I see, had been took with fits and held down in &#039;em, after seeing the hooded woman. Also, that a personage dimly described as &quot;a hold chap, a sort of a one-eyed tramp, answering to the name of Joby, unless you challenged him as Greenwood, and then he said, &#039;Why not? and even if so, mind your own business,&#039;&quot; had encountered the hooded woman, a matter of five or six times. But, I was not materially assisted by these witnesses: inasmuch as the first was in California, and the last was, as Ikey said (and he was confirmed by the landlord) Anywheres. Now, although I regard with a hushed and solemn fear, the mysteries, between which and this state of existence is interposed the barrier of the great trial and change that fall on all the things that live; and although I have not the audacity to pretend that I know anything of them; I can no more reconcile the mere banging of doors, ringing of bells, creaking of boards, and such-like insignificances, with the majestic beauty and pervading analogy of all the Divine rules that I am permitted to understand, than I had been able, a little while before, to yoke the spiritual intercourse of my fellow-traveller to the chariot of the rising sun. Moreover, I had lived in two haunted houses—both abroad. In one of these, an old Italian palace, which bore the reputation of being very badly haunted indeed, and which had recently been twice abandoned on that account, I lived eight months, most tranquilly and pleasantly: notwithstanding that the house had a score of mysterious bedrooms, which were never used, and possessed, in one large room in which I sat reading, times out of number at all hours, and next to which I slept, a haunted chamber of the first pretensions. I gently hinted these considerations to the landlord. And as to this particular house having a bad name, I reasoned with him, Why, how many things had bad names undeservedly, and how easy it was to give bad names, and did he not think that if he and I were persistently to whisper in the village that any weird-looking old drunken tinker of the neighbourhood had sold himself to the Devil, he would come in time to be suspected of that commercial venture! All this wise talk was perfectly ineffective with the landlord, I am bound to confess, and was as dead a failure as ever I made in my life. To cut this part of the story short, I was piqued about the haunted house, and was already half resolved to take it. So, after breakfast, I got the keys from Perkins&#039;s brother-in-law (a whip and harness-maker, who keeps the Post Office, and is under submission to a most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel persuasion), and went up to the house, attended by my landlord and by Ikey. Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendantly dismal. The slowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, were doleful in the last degree; the house was ill-placed, ill-built, ill-planned, and ill-fitted. It was damp, it was not free from dry rot, there was a flavour of rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim of that indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man&#039;s hands whenever it is not turned to man&#039;s account. The kitchens and offices were too large, and too remote from each other. Above stairs and below, waste tracks of passage intervened between patches of fertility represented by rooms ; and there was a mouldy old well with a green growth upon it, hiding, like a murderous trap, near the bottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells. One of these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white letters, MASTER B. This, they told me, was the bell that rang the most. &quot;Who was Master B.?&quot; I asked. &quot;Is it known what he did while the owl hooted?&quot; &quot;Rang the bell,&quot; said Ikey. I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself. It was a loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound. The other bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms to which their wires were conducted: as &quot;Picture Room,&quot; &quot;Double Room,&quot; &quot;Clock Room,&quot; and the like. Following Master B.&#039;s bell to its source, I found that young gentleman to have had but indifferent third-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cock-loft, with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been exceedingly small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a corner chimney-piece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb. The papering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost blocked up the door. It appeared that Master B. in his spiritual condition, always made a point of pulling the paper down. Neither the landlord nor Ikey could suggest why he made such a fool of himself. Except that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at top, I made no other discoveries. It was moderately well furnished, but sparely. Some of the furniture — say, a third—was as old as the house; the rest, was of various periods within the last half century. I was referred to a corn-chandler in the market-place of the county-town to treat for the house. I went that day, and I took it for six months. It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden sister (I venture to call her eight-and-thirty, she is so very handsome, sensible, and engaging). We took with us, a deaf stable-man, my bloodhound Turk, two woman servants, and a young person called an Odd Girl. I have reason to record of the attendant last enumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence&#039;s Union Female Orphans, that she was a fatal mistake and a disastrous engagement. The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house was most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn of intellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and requested that her silver watch might be delivered over to her sister (2, Tuppintock&#039;s Gardens, Liggs&#039;s Walk, Clapham Rise), in the event of anything happening to her from the damp. Streaker, the housemaid, feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr. The Odd Girl, who had never been in the country, alone was pleased, and made arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside the scullery window, and rearing an oak. We went, before dark, through all the natural—as opposed to supernatural—miseries incidental to our state. Dispiriting reports ascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and descended from the upper rooms. There was no rolling-pin, there was no salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don&#039;t know what it is), there was nothing in the house, what there was, was broken, the last people must have lived like pigs, what could the meaning of the landlord be? Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was cheerful and exemplary. But, within four hours after dark we had got into a supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen &quot;Eyes,&quot; and was in hysterics. My sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to ourselves, and my impression was, and still is, that I had not left Ikey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or any one of them, for one minute. Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd Girl had &quot;seen Eyes&quot; (no other explanation could ever be drawn from her), before nine, and by ten o&#039;clock had had as much vinegar applied to her as would pickle a handsome salmon. I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under these untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o&#039;clock Master B.&#039;s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk howled until the house resounded with his lamentations! I hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as the mental frame in which I lived for some weeks, respecting the memory of Master B. Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or bats, or wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by one cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I don&#039;t know; but, certain it is, that it did ring, two nights out of three, until I conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.&#039;s neck—in other words, breaking his bell short off—and silencing that young gentleman, as to my experience and belief, for ever. But, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers of catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that very inconvenient disorder. She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes endowed with unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions. I would address the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that I had painted Master B.&#039;s room and balked the paper, and taken Master B.&#039;s bell away and balked the ringing, and if they could suppose that that confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe himself with no better behaviour than would most unquestionably have brought him and the sharpest particles of a birch- broom into close acquaintance in the present imperfect state of existence, could they also suppose a mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible means of counteracting and limiting the powers of the disembodied spirits of the dead, or of any spirits?— I say I would become emphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd Girl&#039;s suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among us like a parochial petrifaction. Streaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most discomfiting nature. I am unable to say whether she was of an unusually lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with her, but this young woman became a mere Distillery for the production of the largest and most transparent tears I ever met with. Combined with these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity of hold in those specimens, so that they didn&#039;t fall, but hung upon her face and nose. In this condition, and mildly and deploringly shaking her head, her silence would throw me more heavily than the Admirable Crichton could have done in a verbal disputation for a purse of money. Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion as with a garment, by neatly winding up the session with the protest that the Ouse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating her last wishes regarding her silver watch. As to our nightly life; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky. Hooded woman? According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent of hooded women. Noises? With that contagion down stairs, I myself have sat in the dismal parlour, listening, until I have heard so many and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my blood if I had not warmed it by dashing out to make discoveries. Try this in bed, in the dead of the night; try this at your own comfortable fireside, in the life of the night. You can fill any house with noises, if you will, until you have a noise for every nerve in your nervous system. I repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky. The women (their noses in a chronic state of excoriation from smelling-salts), were always primed and loaded for a swoon, and ready to go off with hair-triggers. The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expeditions that were considered doubly hazardous, and she always established the reputation of such adventures by coming back cataleptic. If Cook or Streaker went overhead after dark, we knew we should presently hear a bump on the ceiling; and this took place so constantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go about the house, administering a touch of his art which I believe is called The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met with. It was in vain to do anything. It was in vain to be frightened, for the moment in one&#039;s own person, by a real owl, and then to show the owl. It was in vain to discover, by striking an accidental discord on the piano, that Turk always howled at particular notes and combinations. It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus with the bells, and if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to have it down inexorably and silence it. It was in vain to fire up chimneys, let torches down the well, charge furiously into suspected rooms and recesses. We changed servants, and it was no better. The new set ran away, and a third set came, and it was no better. At last, our comfortable housekeeping got to be so disorganised and wretched, that I one night dejectedly said to my sister: &quot;Patty, I begin to despair of our getting people to go on with us here, and I think we must give this up.&quot; My sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied. &quot;No, John, don&#039;t give it up. Don&#039;t be beaten, John. There is another way.&quot; &quot;And what is that?&quot; said I. &quot;John,&quot; returned my sister, &quot;if we are not to be driven out of this house, and that for no reason whatever, that is apparent to you or me, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and solely into our own hands.&quot; &quot;But, the servants,&quot; said I. &quot;Have no servants,&quot; said my sister, boldly. Like most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the possibility of going on without those faithful obstructions. The notion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very doubtful. &quot;We know they come here to be frightened and infect one another, and we know they are frightened and do infect one another,&quot; said my sister. &quot;With the exception of Bottles,&quot; I observed, in a meditative tone. (The deaf stableman. I kept him in my service, and still keep him, as a phenomenon of moroseness not to be matched in England.) &quot;To be sure, John,&quot; assented my sister; &quot;except Bottles. And what does that go to prove? Bottles talks to nobody, and hears nobody unless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles ever given, or taken! None.&quot; This was perfectly true; the individual in question having retired, every night at ten o&#039;clock, to his bed over the coach-house, with no other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water. That the pail of water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through me, if I had put myself without announcement in Bottles&#039;s way after that minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth remembering. Neither had Bottles ever taken the least notice of any of our many uproars. An imperturbable and speechless man, he had sat at his supper, with Streaker present in a swoon, and the Odd Girl marble, and had only put another potato in his cheek, or profited by the general misery to help himself to beefsteak pie. &quot;And so,&quot; continued my sister, &quot;I exempt Bottles. And considering, John, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, to be kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast about among our friends for a certain selected number of the most reliable and willing—form a Society here for three months—wait upon ourselves and one another—live cheerfully and socially—and see what happens.&quot; I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the spot, and went into her plan with the greatest ardour. We were then in the third week of November; but, we took our measures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the friends in whom we confided, that there was still a week of the month unexpired, when our party all came down together merrily, and mustered in the haunted house. I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while my sister and I were yet alone. It occurring to me as not improbable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because he wanted to get out of it, I stationed him in his kennel outside, but unchained; and I seriously warned the village that any man who came in his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his own throat. I then casually asked Ikey if he were a judge of a gun? On his saying, &quot;Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees her,&quot; I begged the favour of his stepping up to the house and looking at mine. &quot;She&#039;s a true one, sir,&quot; said Ikey, after inspecting a double-barreled rifle that I bought in New York a few years ago. &quot;No mistake about her, sir.&quot; &quot;Ikey,&quot; said I, &quot;don&#039;t mention it; I have seen something in this house.&quot; &quot;No sir?&quot; he whispered, greedily opening his eyes. &quot;&#039;Ooded lady, sir?&quot; &quot;Don&#039;t be frightened,&quot; said I. &quot;It was a figure rather like you.&quot; &quot;Lord, sir?&quot; &quot;Ikey!&quot; said I, shaking hands with him warmly: I may say affectionately; &quot;if there is any truth in these ghost-stories, the greatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure. And I promise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do it with this gun if I see it again!&quot; The young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little precipitation, after declining a glass of liquor. I imparted my secret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his cap at the bell; because I had, on another occasion, noticed something very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one night when it had burst out ringing; and because I had remarked that we were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the evening to comfort the servants. Let me do Ikey no injustice. He was afraid of the house, and believed in its being haunted; and yet he would play false on the haunting side, so surely as he got an opportunity. The Odd Girl&#039;s case was exactly similar. She went about the house in a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and wilfully, and invented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the sounds we heard. I had had my eye on the two, and I know it. It is not necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state of mind; I content myself with remarking that it is familiarly known to every intelligent man who has had fair medical, legal, or other watchful experience; that it is as well established and as common a state of mind as any with which observers are acquainted; and that it is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be suspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any question of this kind. To return to our party. The first thing we did when we were all assembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms. That done, and every bedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely examined by the whole body, we allotted the various household duties, as if we had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or a hunting party, or were ship-wrecked. I then recounted the floating rumours concerning the hooded lady, the owl, and Master B.: with others, still more filmy, which had floated about during our occupation, relative to some ridiculous old ghost of the female gender who went up and down, carrying the ghost of a round table; and also to an impalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to catch. Some of these ideas I really believe our people below had communicated to one another in some diseased way, without conveying them in words. We then gravely called one another to witness, that we were not there to be deceived, or to deceive—which we considered pretty much the same thing—and that, with a serious sense of responsibility, we would be strictly true to one another, and would strictly follow out the truth. The understanding was established, that any one who heard unusual noises in the night, and who wished to trace them, should knock at my door; lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last night of holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since that then present hour of our coming together in the haunted house, should be brought to light for the good of all; and that we would hold our peace on the subject till then, unless on some remarkable provocation to break silence. We were, in number and in character, as follows: First — to get my sister and myself out of the way—there were we two. In the drawing of lots, my sister drew her own room, and I drew Master B.&#039;s. Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel, so called after the great astronomer: than whom I suppose a better man at a telescope does not breathe. With him, was his wife: a charming creature to whom he had been married in the previous spring. I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent to bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may do at such a time; but I suppose he knew his own business best, and I must say that if she had been my wife, I never could have left her endearing and bright face behind. They drew the Clock Room. Alfred Starling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-and-twenty for whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room: mine, usually, and designated by that name from having a dressing-room within it, with two large and cumbersome windows, which no wedges I was ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any weather, wind or no wind. Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to be &quot;fast&quot; (another word for loose, as I understand the term), but who is much too good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would have distinguished himself before now, if his father had not unfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a year, on the strength of which his only occupation in life has been to spend six. I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may break, or that he may enter into some speculation, guaranteed to pay twenty per cent; for, I am convinced that if he could only be ruined, his fortune is made. Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a most intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture Room. She has a fine genius for poetry, combined with real business earnestness, and &quot;goes in&quot;—to use an expression of Alfred&#039;s—for Woman&#039;s mission, Woman&#039;s rights, Woman&#039;s wrongs, and everything that is Woman&#039;s with a capital W, or is not and ought to be, or is and ought not to be. &quot;Most praise- worthy, my dear, and Heaven prosper you!&quot; I whispered to her on the first night of my taking leave of her at the Picture Room door, &quot;but don&#039;t overdo it. And in respect of the great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments being within the reach of Woman than our civilisation has as yet assigned to her, don&#039;t fly at the unfortunate men, even those men who are at first sight in your way, as if they were the natural oppressors of your sex ; for, trust me, Belinda, they do sometimes spend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and grandmothers; and the play is, really, not all Wolf and Red Riding-Hood, but has other parts in it.&quot; However, I digress. Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room, We had but three other chambers: the Corner Room, the Cupboard Room, and the Garden Room. My old friend, Jack Governor, &quot;slung his hammock,&quot; as he called it, in the Corner Room. I have always regarded Jack as the finest-looking sailor that ever sailed. He is grey now, but as handsome as he was a quarter of a century ago—nay, handsomer. A portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-shouldered man, with a frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow. I remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for their silver setting. He has been wherever his Union namesake flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the Mediterranean and on the other side of the Atlantic, who have beamed and brightened at the casual mention of his name, and have cried, &quot;You know Jack Governor? Then you know a prince of men!&quot; That he is! And so unmistakably a naval officer, that if you were to meet him coming out of an Esquimaux snow-hut in seal&#039;s skin, you would be vaguely persuaded he was in full naval uniform. Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it fell out that he married another lady and took her to South America, where she died. This was a dozen years ago or more. He brought down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for, he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling, is mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a piece in his portmanteau. He had also volunteered to bring with him one &quot;Nat Beaver,&quot; an old comrade of his, captain of a merchantman. Mr. Beaver, with a thick-set wooden face and figure, and apparently as hard as a block all over, proved to be an intelligent man, with a world of watery experiences in him, and great practical knowledge. At times, there was a curious nervousness about him, apparently the lingering result of some old illness; but, it seldom lasted many minutes. He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr. Undery, my friend and solicitor: who came down, in an amateur capacity, &quot;to go through with it,&quot; as he said, and who plays whist better than the whole Law List, from the red cover at the beginning to the red cover at the end. I never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the universal feeling among us. Jack Governor, always a man of wonderful resources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I ever ate, including unapproachable curries. My sister was pastrycook and confectioner. Starling and I were Cook&#039;s Mate, turn and turn about, and on special occasions the chief cook &quot;pressed&quot; Mr. Beaver. We had a great deal of out-door sport and exercise, but nothing was neglected within, and there was no ill humour or misunderstanding among us, and our evenings were so delightful that we had at least one good reason for being reluctant to go to bed. We had a few night alarms in the beginning. On the first night, I was knocked up by Jack with a most wonderful ship&#039;s lantern in his hand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, who informed me that he was &quot;going aloft to the main truck,&quot; to have the weathercock down. It was a stormy night and I remonstrated; but Jack called my attention to its making a sound like a cry of despair, and said somebody would be &quot;hailing a ghost&quot; presently, if it wasn&#039;t done. So, up to the top of the house, where I could hardly stand for the wind, we went, accompanied by Mr. Beaver; and there Jack, lantern and all with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up to the top of a cupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood upon nothing particular, coolly knocking the weathercock off, until they both got into such good spirits with the wind and the height, that I thought they would never come down. Another night, they turned out again, and had a chimney-cowl off. Another night, they cut a sobbing and gulping water-pipe away. Another night, they found out something else. On several occasions, they both, in the coolest manner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective bedroom windows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to &quot;overhaul&quot; something mysterious in the garden. The engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody revealed anything. All we knew, was, if any one&#039;s room were haunted, no one looked the worse for it. Christmas came, and we had noble Christmas fare (&quot;all hands&quot; had been pressed for the pudding), and Twelfth Night came, and our store of mincemeat was ample to hold out to the last day of our time, and our cake was quite a glorious sight. It was then, as we all sat round the table and the fire, that I recited the terms of our compact, and called, first, for It being now my own turn, I &quot;took the word&quot; as the French say, and went on: When I established myself in the triangular garret which had gained so distinguished a reputation, my thoughts naturally turned to Master B. My speculations about him were uneasy and manifold. Whether his Christian name was Benjamin, Bissextile (from his having been born in Leap Year), Bartholomew, or Bill. Whether the initial letter belonged to his family name, and that was Baxter, Black, Brown, Barker, Buggins, Baker, or Bird. Whether he was a foundling, and had been baptized B. Whether he was a lion-hearted boy, and B. was short for Briton, or for Bull. Whether he could possibly have been kith and kin to an illustrious lady who brightened my own childhood, and had come of the blood of the brilliant Mother Bunch? With these profitless meditations I tormented myself much. I also carried the mysterious letter into the appearance and pursuits of the deceased; wondering whether he dressed in Blue, wore Boots (he couldn&#039;t have been Bald), was a boy of Brains, liked Books, was good at Bowling, had any skill as a Boxer, ever in his Buoyant Boyhood Bathed from a Bathing-machine at Bognor, Bangor, Bournemouth, Brighton, or Broadstairs, like a Bounding Billiard Ball? So, from the first, I was haunted by the letter B. It was not long before I remarked that I never by any hazard had a dream of Master B., or of anything belonging to him. But, the instant I awoke from sleep, at whatever hour of the night, my thoughts took him up, and roamed away, trying to attach his initial letter to something that would fit it and keep it quiet. For six nights, I had been worried thus in Master B.&#039;s room, when I began to perceive that things were going wrong. The first appearance that presented itself was early in the morning, when it was but just daylight and no more. I was standing shaving at my glass, when I suddenly discovered, to my consternation and amazement, that I was shaving—not myself—I am fifty—but a boy. Apparently Master B.? I trembled and looked over my shoulder; nothing there. I looked again in the glass, and distinctly saw the features and expression of a boy, who was shaving, not to get rid of a beard, but to get one. Extremely troubled in my mind, I took a few turns in the room, and went back to the looking-glass, resolved to steady my hand and complete the operation in which I had been disturbed. Opening my eyes, which I had shut while recovering my firmness, I now met in the glass, looking straight at me, the eyes of a young man of four or five and twenty. Terrified by this new ghost, I closed my eyes, and made a strong effort to recover myself. Opening them again, I saw, shaving his cheek in the glass, my father, who has long been dead. Nay, I even saw my grandfather too, whom I never did see in my life. Although naturally much affected by these remarkable visitations, I determined to keep my secret, until the time agreed upon for the present general disclosure. Agitated by a multitude of curious thoughts, I retired to my room, that night, prepared to encounter some new experience of a spectral character. Nor was my preparation needless, for, waking from an uneasy sleep at exactly two o&#039;clock in the morning, what were my feelings to find that I was sharing my bed, with the skeleton of Master B.! I sprang up, and the skeleton sprang up also. I then heard a plaintive voice saying, &quot;Where am I? What is become of me?&quot; and, looking hard in that direction, perceived the ghost of Master B. The young spectre was dressed in an obsolete fashion: or rather, was not so much dressed as put into a case of inferior pepper-and-salt cloth, made horrible by means of shining buttons. I observed that these buttons went, in a double row, over each shoulder of the young ghost, and appeared to descend his back. He wore a frill round his neck. His right hand (which I distinctly noticed to be inky) was laid upon his stomach; connecting this action with some feeble pimples on his countenance, and his general air of nausea, I concluded this ghost to be the ghost of a boy who had habitually taken a great deal too much medicine. &quot;Where am I?&quot; said the little spectre, in a pathetic voice. &quot;And why was I born in the Calomel days, and why did I have all that Calomel given me?&quot; I replied, with sincere earnestness, that upon my soul I couldn&#039;t tell him. &quot;Where is my little sister,&quot; said the ghost, &quot;and where my angelic little wife, and where is the boy I went to school with?&quot; I entreated the phantom to be comforted, and above all things to take heart respecting the loss of the boy he went to school with. I represented to him that probably that boy never did, within human experience, come out well, when discovered. I urged that I myself had, in later life, turned up several boys whom I went to school with, and none of them had at all answered. I expressed my humble belief that that boy never did answer. I represented that he was a mythic character, a delusion, and a snare. I recounted how, the last time I found him, I found him at a dinner party behind a wall of white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion on every possible subject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely Titanic. I related how, on the strength of our having been together at &quot;Old Doylance&#039;s,&quot; he had asked himself to breakfast with me (a social offence of the largest magnitude); how, fanning my weak embers of belief in Doylance&#039;s boys, I had let him in; and how, he had proved to be a fearful wanderer about the earth, pursuing the race of Adam with inexplicable notions concerning the currency, and with a proposition that the Bank of England should, on pain of being abolished, instantly strike off and circulate, God knows how many thousand millions of ten-and-sixpenny notes. The ghost heard me in silence, and with a fixed stare. &quot;Barber!&quot; it apostrophised me when I had finished. &quot;Barber?&quot; I repeated—for I am not of that profession. &quot;Condemned,&quot; said the ghost, &quot;to shave a constant change of customers—now, me—now, a young man—now, thyself as thou art—now, thy father—now, thy grandfather; condemned, too, to lie down with a skeleton every night, and to rise with it every morning—&quot; (I shuddered on hearing this dismal announcement). &quot;Barber! Pursue me!&quot; I had felt, even before the words were uttered, that I was under a spell to pursue the phantom. I immediately did so, and was in Master B.&#039;s room no longer. Most people know what long and fatiguing night journeys had been forced upon the witches who used to confess, and who, no doubt, told the exact truth—particularly as they were always assisted with leading questions, and the Torture was always ready. I asseverate that, during my occupation of Master B.&#039;s room, I was taken by the ghost that haunted it, on expeditions fully as long and wild as any of those. Assuredly, I was presented to no shabby old man with a goat&#039;s horns and tail (something between Pan and an old clothesman), holding conventional receptions, as stupid as those of real life and less decent; but, I came upon other things which appeared to me to have more meaning. Confident that I speak the truth and shall be believed, I declare without hesitation that I followed the ghost, in the first instance on a broom-stick, and afterwards on a rocking-horse. The very smell of the animal&#039;s paint—especially when I brought it out, by making him warm—I am ready to swear to. I followed the ghost, afterwards, in a hackney coach; an institution with the peculiar smell of which, the present generation is unacquainted, but to which I am again ready to swear as a combination of stable, dog with the mange, and very old bellows. (In this, I appeal to previous generations to confirm or refute me.) I pursued the phantom, on a headless donkey: at least, upon a donkey who was so interested in the state of his stomach that his head was always down there, investigating it; on ponies, expressly born to kick up behind; on roundabouts and swings, from fairs; in the first cab—another forgotten institution where the fare regularly got into bed, and was tucked up with the driver. Not to trouble you with a detailed account of all my travels in pursuit of the ghost of Master B., which were longer and more wonderful than those of Sindbad the Sailor, I will confine myself to one experience from which you may judge of many. I was marvellously changed. I was myself, yet not myself. I was conscious of something within me, which has been the same all through my life, and which I have always recognised under all its phases and varieties as never altering, and yet I was not the I who had gone to bed in Master B.&#039;s room. I had the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs, and I had taken another creature like myself, also with the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs, behind a door, and was confiding to him a proposition of the most astounding nature. This proposition was, that we should have a Seraglio. The other creature assented warmly. He had no notion of respectability, neither had I. It was the custom of the East, it was the way of the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid (let me have the corrupted name again for once, it is so scented with sweet memories!), the usage was highly laudable, and most worthy of imitation. &quot;Oh, yes! Let us,&quot; said the other creature with a jump, &quot;have a Seraglio.&quot; It was not because we entertained the faintest doubts of the meritorious character of the Oriental establishment we proposed to import, that we perceived it must be kept a secret from Miss Griffin. It was because we knew Miss Griffin to be bereft of human sympathies, and incapable of appreciating the greatness of the great Haroun. Mystery impenetrably shrouded from Miss Griffin then, let us entrust it to Miss Bale. We were ten in Miss Griffin&#039;s establishment by Hampstead Ponds; eight ladies and two gentlemen. Miss Bule, whom I judge to have attained the ripe age of eight or nine, took the lead in society. I opened the subject to her in the course of the day, and proposed that she should become the Favourite. Miss Bale, after struggling with the diffidence so natural to, and charming in, her adorable sex, expressed herself as flattered by the idea, but wished to know how it was proposed to provide for Miss Pipson? Miss Bule—who was understood to have vowed towards that young lady, a friendship, halves, and no secrets, until death, on the Church Service and Lessons complete in two volumes with case and lock—Miss Bule said she could not, as the friend of Pipson, disguise from herself, or me, that Pipson was not one of the common. Now, Miss Pipson, having curly light hair and blue eyes (which was my idea of anything mortal and feminine that was called Fair), I promptly replied that I regarded Miss Pipson in the light of a Fair Circassian. &quot;And what then?&quot; Miss Bule pensively asked. I replied that she must be inveigled by a Merchant, brought to me veiled, and purchased as a slave. [The other creature had already fallen into the second male place in the State, and was set apart for Grand Vizier. He afterwards resisted this disposal of events, but had his hair pulled until he yielded]. &quot;Shall I not be jealous?&quot; Miss Bule inquired, casting down her eyes. &quot;Zobeide, no,&quot; I replied; &quot;you will ever be the favourite Sultana ; the first place in my heart, and on my throne, will be ever yours.&quot; Miss Bule, upon that assurance, consented to propound the idea to her seven beautiful companions. It occurring to me, in the course of the same day, that we knew we could trust a grinning and good-natured soul called Tabby, who was the serving drudge of the house, and had no more figure than one of the beds, and upon whose face there was always more or less blacklead, I slipped into Miss Bule&#039;s hand after supper, a little note to that effect: dwelling on the blacklead as being in a manner deposited by the finger of Providence, pointing Tabby out for Mesrour, the celebrated chief of the Blacks of the Hareem. There were difficulties in the formation of the desired institution, as there are in all combinations. The other creature showed himself of a low character, and, when defeated in aspiring to the throne, pretended to have conscientious scruples about prostrating himself before the Caliph; wouldn&#039;t call him Commander of the Faithful; spoke of him slightingly and inconsistently as a mere &quot;chap;&quot; said he, the other creature, &quot;wouldn&#039;t play&quot;—Play!— and was otherwise coarse and offensive. This meanness of disposition was, however, put down by the general indignation of an united Seraglio, and I became blessed in the smiles of eight of the fairest of the daughters of men. The smiles could only be bestowed when Miss Griffin was looking another way, and only then in a very wary manner, for there was a legend among the followers of the Prophet that she saw with a little round ornament in the middle of the pattern on the back of her shawl. But, every day after dinner, for an hour, we were all together, and then the Favourite and the rest of the Royal Hareem competed who should most beguile the leisure of the Serene Haroun reposing from the cares of State—which were generally, as in most affairs of State, of an Arithmetical character, the Commander of the Faithful being a fearful boggler at a sum. On these occasions, the devoted Mesrour, chief of the Blacks of the Hareem, was always in attendance (Miss Griffin usually ringing for that officer, at the same time, with great vehemence), but never acquitted himself in a manner worthy of his historical reputation. In the first place, his bringing a broom into the Divan of the Caliph, even when Haroun wore on his shoulders the red robe of anger (Miss Pipson&#039;s pelisse), though it might be got over for the moment, was never to be quite satisfactorily accounted for. In the second place, his breaking out into grinning exclamations of &quot;Lork you pretties!&quot; was neither Eastern nor respectful. In the third place, when specially instructed to say &quot; Bismillah!&quot; he always said &quot;Hallelujah!&quot; This officer, unlike his class, was too good-humoured altogether, kept hls mouth open far too wide, expressed approbation to an incongruous extent, and even once—it was on the occasion of the purchase of the Fair Circassian for five hundred thousand purses of gold, and cheap, too—embraced the Slave, the Favourite, and the Caliph, all round. (Parenthetically let me say God bless Mesrour, and may there have been sons and daughters on that tender bosom, softening many a hard day since!) Miss Griffin was a model of propriety, and I am at a loss to imagine what the feelings of the virtuous woman would have been, if she had known, when she paraded us down the Hampstead-road two and two, that she was walking with a stately step at the head of Polygamy and Mahomedanism. I believe that a mysterious and terrible joy with which the contemplation of Miss Griffin, in this unconscious state, inspired us, and a grim sense prevalent among us that there was a dreadful power in our knowledge of what Miss Griffin (who knew all things that could be learnt out of book) didn&#039;t know, were the mainspring of the preservation of our secret. It was wonderfully kept, but was once upon the verge of self-betrayal. The danger and escape occurred upon a Sunday. We were all ten ranged in a conspicuous part of the gallery at church, with Miss Griffin at our head—as we were every Sunday— advertising the establishment in an unsecular sort of way—when the description of Solomon in his domestic glory, happened to be read. The moment that monarch was thus referred to, conscience whispered me, &quot;Thou, too, Haroun!&quot; The officiating minister had a cast in his eye, and it assisted conscience by giving him the appearance of reading personally at me. A crimson blush, attended by a fearful perspiration, suffused my features. The Grand Vizier became more dead than alive, and the whole Seraglio reddened as if the sunset of Bagdad shone direct upon their lovely faces. At this portentous time the awful Griffin rose, and balefully surveyed the children of Islam. My own impression was, that Church and State had entered into a conspiracy with Miss Griffin to expose us, and that we should all be put into white sheets, and exhibited in the centre aisle. But, so Westerly—if I may be allowed the expression as opposite to Eastern associations—was Miss Griffin&#039;s sense of rectitude, that she merely suspected Apples, and we were saved. I have called the Seraglio, united. Upon the question, solely, whether the Commander of the Faithful durst exercise a right of kissing in that sanctuary of the palace, were its peerless inmates divided. Zobeide asserted a counter-right in the Favourite to scratch, and the fair Circassian put her face, for refuge, into a green baize bag, originally designed for books. On the other hand, a young antelope of transcendant beauty from the fruitful plains of Camden-town (whence she had been brought, by traders, in the half-yearly caravan that crossed the intermediate desert after the holidays), held more liberal opinions, but stipulated for limiting the benefit of them to that dog, and son of a dog, the Grand Vizier—who had no rights, and was not in question. At length, the difficulty was compromised by the installation of a very youthful slave as Deputy. She, raised upon a stool, officially received upon her cheeks the salutes intended by the gracious Haroun for other Sultanas, and was privately rewarded from the coffers of the Ladies of the Hareem. And now it was, at the full height of enjoyment of my bliss, that I became heavily troubled. I began to think of my mother, and what she would say to my taking home at Midsummer eight of the most beautiful of the daughters of men, but all unexpected. I thought of the number of beds we made up at our house, of my father&#039;s income, and of the baker, and my despondency redoubled. The Seraglio and malicious Vizier, divining the cause of their Lord&#039;s unhappiness, did their utmost to augment it. They professed unbounded fidelity, and declared that they would live and die with him. Reduced to the utmost wretchedness by these protestations of attachment, I lay awake, for hours at a time, ruminating on my frightful lot. In my despair, I think I might have taken, an early opportunity of falling on my knees before Miss Griffin, avowing my resemblance to Solomon, and praying to be dealt with according to the outraged laws of my country, if an unthought-of means of escape had not opened before me. One day, we were out walking, two and two—on which occasion the Vizier had his usual instructions to take note of the boy at. the turnpike, and if he profanely gazed (which he always did) at the beauties of the Hareem, to have him bowstrung in the course of the night—and it happened that our hearts were veiled in gloom. An unaccountable action on the part of the antelope had plunged the State into disgrace. That charmer, on the representation that the previous day was her birthday, and that vast treasures had been sent in a hamper for its celebration (both baseless assertions), had secretly but most pressingly invited thirty-five neighbouring princes and princesses to a ball and supper: with a special stipulation that they were &quot;not to be fetched till twelve.&quot; This wandering of the antelope&#039;s fancy, led to the surprising arrival at Miss Griffin&#039;s door, in divers equipages and under various escorts, of a great company in full dress, who were deposited on the top step in a flush of high expectancy, and who were dismissed in tears. At the beginning of the double knocks attendant on these ceremonies, the antelope had retired to a back attic, and bolted herself in; and at every new arrival, Miss Griffin had gone so much more and more distracted, that at last she had been seen to tear her front. Ultimate capitulation on the part of the offender, had been followed by solitude in the linen-closet, bread and water, and a lecture to all, of vindictive length, in which Miss Griffin had used the expressions: Firstly, &quot;I believe you all of you knew of it;&quot; Secondly, &quot;Every one of you is as wicked as another;&quot; Thirdly, &quot;A pack of little wretches.&quot; Under these circumstances, we were walking drearily along; and I especially, with my Moosulmaun responsibilities heavy on me, was in a very low state of mind; when a strange man accosted Miss Griffin, and, after walking on at her side for a little while and talking with her, looked at me. Supposing him to be a minion of the law, and that my hour was come, I instantly ran away, with a general purpose of making for Egypt. The whole Seraglio cried out, when they saw me making off as fast as my legs would carry me (I had an impression that the first turning on the left, and round by the public-house, would be the shortest way to the Pyramids), Miss Griffin screamed after me, the faithless Vizier ran after me, and the boy at the turnpike dodged me into a corner, like a sheep, and cut me off. Nobody scolded me when I was taken and brought back; Miss Griffin only said, with a stunning gentleness, This was very curious! Why had I run away when the gentleman looked at me? If I had had any breath to answer with, I dare say I should have made no answer; having no breath, I certainly made none. Miss Griffin and the strange man took me between them, and walked me back to the palace in a sort of state; but not at all (as I couldn&#039;t help feeling, with astonishment), in culprit state. When we got there, we went into a room by ourselves, and Miss Griffin called in to her assistance, Mesrour, chief of the dusky guards of the Hareem. Mesrour, on being whispered to, began to shed tears. &quot;Bless you, my precious!&quot; said that officer, turning to me; &quot;your Pa&#039;s took bitter bad!&quot; I asked, with a fluttered heart, &quot;Is he very ill?&quot; &quot;Lord temper the wind to you, my lamb!&quot; said the good Mesrour, kneeling down, that I might have a comforting shoulder for my head to rest on, &quot;your Pa&#039;s dead!&quot; Haroun Alraschid took to flight at the words; the Seraglio vanished; from that moment, I never again saw one of the eight of the fairest of the daughters of men. I was taken home, and there was Debt at home as well as Death, and we had a sale there. My own little bed was so superciliously looked upon by a Power unknown to me, hazily called &quot;The Trade,&quot; that a brass coal-scuttle, a roasting-jack, and a birdcage, were obliged to be put into it to make a Lot of it, and then it went for a song. So I heard mentioned, and I wondered what song, and thought what a dismal song it must have been to sing! Then, I was sent to a great, cold, bare, school of big boys; where everything to eat and wear was thick and clumpy, without being enough; where everybody, large and small, was cruel; where the boys knew all about the sale, before I got there, and asked me what I had fetched, and who had bought me, and hooted at me, &quot;Going, going, gone!&quot; I never whispered in that wretched place that I had been Haroun, or had had a Seraglio: for, I knew that if I mentioned my reverses, I should be so worried, that I should have to drown myself in the muddy pond near the playground, which looked like the beer. Ah me, ah me! No other ghost has haunted the boy&#039;s room, my friends, since I have occupied it, than the ghost of my own childhood, the ghost of my own innocence, the ghost of my own airy belief. Many a time have I pursued the phantom: never with this man&#039;s stride of mine to come up with it, never with these man&#039;s hands of mine to touch it, never more to this man&#039;s heart of mine to hold it in its purity. And here you see me working out, as cheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of shaving in the glass a constant change of customers, and of lying down and rising up with the skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion. I has observed Mr. Governor growing fidgety as his turn—his &quot;spell,&quot; he called it—approached, and he now surprised us all, by rising with a serious countenance, and requesting permission to &quot;come aft&quot; and have speech with me, before he spun his yarn. His great popularity led to a gracious concession of this indulgence, and we went out together into the hall. &quot;Old shipmate,&quot; said Mr. Governor to me; &quot;ever since I have been aboard of this old hulk, I have been haunted, day and night.&quot; &quot;By what, Jack?&quot; Mr. Governor, clapping his hand on my shoulder and keeping it there, said: &quot;By something in the likeness of a Woman.&quot; &quot;Ah! Your old affliction. You&#039;ll never get over that, Jack, if you live to be a hundred.&quot; &quot;No, don&#039;t talk so, because I am very serious. All night long, I have been haunted by one figure. All day, the same figure has so bewildered me in the kitchen, that I wonder I haven&#039;t poisoned the whole ship&#039;s company. Now, there&#039;s no fancy here. Would you like to see the figure?&quot; &quot;I should like to see it very much.&quot; &quot;Then here it is!&quot; said Jack. Thereupon, he presented my sister, who had stolen out quietly, after us. &quot;Oh, indeed?&quot; said I. &quot;Then, I suppose, Patty, my dear, I have no occasion to ask whether you have been haunted?&quot; &quot;Constantly, Joe,&quot; she replied. The effect of our going back again, all three together, and of my presenting my sister as the Ghost from the Corner Room, and Jack as the Ghost from my Sister&#039;s Room, was triumphant—the crowning hit of the night. Mr. Beaver was &quot;so particularly delighted, that he by-and-by declared &quot;a very little would make him dance a hornpipe.&quot; Mr. Governor immediately supplied the very little, by offering to make it a double hornpipe; and there ensued such toe-and-heeling, and buckle-covering, and double-shuffling, and heel-sliding, and execution of all sorts of slippery manoeuvres with vibratory legs, as none of us ever saw before, or will ever see again. When we had all laughed and applauded till we were faint, Starling, not to be outdone, favoured us with a more modern saltatory entertainment in the Lancashire clog manner—to the best of my belief, the longest dance ever performed: in which the sound of his feet became a Locomotive going through cuttings, tunnels, and open country, and became a vast number of other things we should never have suspected, unless he had kindly told us what they were. It was resolved before we separated that night, that our three months&#039; period in the Haunted House should be wound up with the marriage of my sister and Mr. Governor. Belinda was nominated bridesmaid, and Starling was engaged for bridegroom&#039;s man. In a word, we lived our term out, most happily, and were never for a moment haunted by anything more disagreeable than our own imaginations and remembrances. My cousin&#039;s wife, in her great love for her husband and in her gratitude to him for the change her love had wrought in her, had told us, through his lips, her own story; and I am sure there was not one of us who did not like her the better for it, and respect her the more. So, at last, before the shortest month in the year was quite out, we all walked forth one morning to the church with the spire, as if nothing uncommon were going to happen; and there Jack and my sister were married, as sensibly as could be. It occurs to me to mention that I observed Belinda and Alfred Starling to be rather sentimental and low, on the occasion, and that they are since engaged to be married in the same church. I regard it as an excellent thing for both, and a kind of union very wholesome for the times in which we live. He wants a little poetry, and she wants a little prose, and the marriage of the two things is the happiest marriage I know for all mankind. Finally, I derived this Christmas Greeting from the Haunted House, which I affectionately address with all my heart to all my readers: — Let us use the great virtue, Faith, but not abuse it; and let us put it to its best use, by having faith in the great Christmas book of the New Testament, and in one another. THE END.18591213https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Haunted_House_[1859_Christmas_Number]/1859-12-13-The_Haunted_House.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Haunted_House_[1859_Christmas_Number]/1859-12-13-The_Mortals_in_the_House.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Haunted_House_[1859_Christmas_Number]/1859-12-13-The_Ghost_in_Master_Bs_Room.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Haunted_House_[1859_Christmas_Number]/1859-12-13-The_Ghost_in_the_Corner_Room.pdf
209https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/209<em>The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain</em>Published by Bradbury and Evans, December 1848Dickens, Charles<em>Google Books</em>, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Haunted_Man_and_the_Ghost_s_Bargain/riMEAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=haunted+man+ghost%27s+bargain+dickens&amp;pg=PP11&amp;printsec=frontcover" class="waffle-rich-text-link">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Haunted_Man_and_the_Ghost_s_Bargain/riMEAAAAQAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1848-12">1848-12</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Book">Christmas Book</a>12-1848-The_Haunted_Man_and_the_Ghosts_BargainDickens, Charles. <em>The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain</em> (December 1848). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-books/12-1848-The_Haunted_Man_and_the_Ghosts_Bargain">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-books/12-1848-The_Haunted_Man_and_the_Ghosts_Bargain</a>.CHAPTER I The Gift Bestowed Everybody said so. Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true. Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right. In the general experience, everybody has been wrong so often, and it has taken, in most instances, such a weary while to find out how wrong, that the authority is proved to be fallible. Everybody may sometimes be right; &quot;but that’s no rule,&quot; as the ghost of Giles Scroggins says in the ballad. The dread word, Ghost, recals me. Everybody said he looked like a haunted man. The extent of my present claim for everybody is, that they were so far right. He did. Who could have seen his hollow cheek; his sunken brilliant eye; his black-attired figure, indefinably grim, although well-knit and well-proportioned; his grizzled hair hanging, like tangled sea-weed, about his face,—as if he had been, through his whole life, a lonely mark for the chafing and beating of the great deep of humanity,—but might have said he looked like a haunted man? Who could have observed his manner, taciturn, thoughtful, gloomy, shadowed by habitual reserve, retiring always and jocund never, with a distraught air of reverting to a byegone place and time, or of listening to some old echoes in his mind, but might have said it was the manner of a haunted man? Who could have heard his voice, slow-speaking, deep, and grave, with a natural fulness and melody in it which he seemed to set himself against and stop, but might have said it was the voice of a haunted man? Who that had seen him in his inner chamber, part library and part laboratory,—for he was, as the world knew, far and wide, a learned man in chemistry, and a teacher on whose lips and hands a crowd of aspiring ears and eyes hung daily,—who that had seen him there, upon a winter night, alone, surrounded by his drugs and instruments and books; the shadow of his shaded lamp a monstrous beetle on the wall, motionless among a crowd of spectral shapes raised there by the flickering of the fire upon the quaint objects around him; some of these phantoms (the reflection of glass vessels that held liquids), trembling at heart like things that knew his power to uncombine them, and to give back their component parts to fire and vapour;—who that had seen him then, his work done, and he pondering in his chair before the rusted grate and red flame, moving his thin mouth as if in speech, but silent as the dead, would not have said that the man seemed haunted and the chamber too? Who might not, by a very easy flight of fancy, have believed that everything about him took this haunted tone, and that he lived on haunted ground? His dwelling was so solitary and vault-like,—an old, retired part of an ancient endowment for students, once a brave edifice, planted in an open place, but now the obsolete whim of forgotten architects, smoke-age-and-weather-darkened, squeezed on every side by the overgrowing of the great city, and choked, like an old well, with stones and bricks; its small quadrangles, lying down in very pits formed by the streets and buildings, which, in course of time, had been constructed above its heavy chimney stacks; its old trees, insulted by the neighbouring smoke, which deigned to droop so low when it was very feeble and the weather very moody; its grass-plots, struggling with the mildewed earth to be grass, or to win any show of compromise; its silent pavements, unaccustomed to the tread of feet, and even to the observation of eyes, except when a stray face looked down from the upper world, wondering what nook it was; its sun-dial in a little bricked-up corner, where no sun had straggled for a hundred years, but where, in compensation for the sun’s neglect, the snow would lie for weeks when it lay nowhere else, and the black east wind would spin like a huge humming top, when in all other places it was silent and still. His dwelling, at its heart and core—within doors—at his fireside—was so lowering and old, so crazy, yet so strong, with its worm-eaten beams of wood in the ceiling, and its sturdy floor shelving downward to the great oak chimney-piece; so environed and hemmed in by the pressure of the town, yet so remote in fashion, age, and custom; so quiet, yet so thundering with echoes when a distant voice was raised or a door was shut,—echoes, not confined to the many low passages and empty rooms, but rumbling and grumbling till they were stifled in the heavy air of the forgotten Crypt where the Norman arches were half-buried in the earth. You should have seen him in his dwelling about twilight, in the dead winter time. When the wind was blowing, shrill and shrewd, with the going down of the blurred sun. When it was just so dark, as that the forms of things were indistinct and big, but not wholly lost. When sitters by the fire began to see wild faces and figures, mountains and abysses, ambuscades and armies, in the coals. When people in the streets bent down their heads, and ran before the weather. When those who were obliged to meet it, were stopped at angry corners, stung by wandering snow-flakes alighting on the lashes of their eyes,—which fell too sparingly, and were blown away too quickly, to leave a trace upon the frozen ground. When windows of private houses closed up tight and warm. When lighted gas began to burst forth in the busy and the quiet streets, fast blackening otherwise. When stray pedestrians, shivering along the latter, looked down at the glowing fires in kitchens, and sharpened their sharp appetites by sniffing up the fragrance of whole miles of dinners. When travellers by land were bitter cold, and looked wearily on gloomy landscapes, rustling and shuddering in the blast. When mariners at sea, outlying upon icy yards, were tossed and swung above the howling ocean dreadfully. When lighthouses, on rocks and headlands, showed solitary and watchful; and benighted sea-birds breasted on against their ponderous lanterns, and fell dead. When little readers of story-books, by the firelight, trembled to think of Cassim Baba cut into quarters, hanging in the Robbers’ Cave, or had some small misgivings that the fierce little old woman, with the crutch, who used to start out of the box in the merchant Abudah’s bedroom, might, one of these nights, be found upon the stairs, in the long, cold, dusky journey up to bed. When, in rustic places, the last glimmering of daylight died away from the ends of avenues; and the trees, arching overhead, were sullen and black. When, in parks and woods, the high wet fern and sodden moss, and beds of fallen leaves, and trunks of trees, were lost to view, in masses of impenetrable shade. When mists arose from dyke, and fen, and river. When lights in old halls and in cottage windows, were a cheerful sight. When the mill stopped, the wheelwright and the blacksmith shut their workshops, the turnpike-gate closed, the plough and harrow were left lonely in the fields, the labourer and team went home, and the striking of the church-clock had a deeper sound than at noon, and the church-yard wicket would be swung no more that night. When twilight everywhere released the shadows, prisoned up all day, that now closed in and gathered like mustering swarms of ghosts. When they stood lowering, in corners of rooms, and frowned out from behind half-opened doors. When they had full possession of unoccupied apartments. When they danced upon the floors, and walls, and ceilings of inhabited chambers, while the fire was low, and withdrew like ebbing waters when it sprang into a blaze. When they fantastically mocked the shapes of household objects, making the nurse an ogress, the rocking-horse a monster, the wondering child, half-scared and half-amused, a stranger to itself,—the very tongs upon the hearth, a straddling giant with his arms a-kimbo, evidently smelling the blood of Englishmen, and wanting to grind people’s bones to make his bread. When these shadows brought into the minds of older people, other thoughts, and showed them different images. When they stole from their retreats, in the likenesses of forms and faces from the past, from the grave, from the deep, deep gulf, where the things that might have been, and never were, are always wandering. When he sat, as already mentioned, gazing at the fire. When, as it rose and fell, the shadows went and came. When he took no heed of them, with his bodily eyes; but, let them come or let them go, looked fixedly at the fire. You should have seen him, then. When the sounds that had arisen with the shadows, and come out of their lurking-places at the twilight summons, seemed to make a deeper stillness all about him. When the wind was rumbling in the chimney, and sometimes crooning, sometimes howling, in the house. When the old trees outside were so shaken and beaten, that one querulous old rook, unable to sleep, protested now and then, in a feeble, dozy, high-up &quot;Caw!&quot; When, at intervals, the window trembled, the rusty vane upon the turret-top complained, the clock beneath it recorded that another quarter of an hour was gone, or the fire collapsed and fell in with a rattle. —When a knock came at his door, in short, as he was sitting so, and roused him. &quot;Who’s that?&quot; said he. &quot;Come in!&quot; Surely there had been no figure leaning on the back of his chair; no face looking over it. It is certain that no gliding footstep touched the floor, as he lifted up his head, with a start, and spoke. And yet there was no mirror in the room on whose surface his own form could have cast its shadow for a moment; and Something had passed darkly and gone! &quot;I’m humbly fearful, sir,&quot; said a fresh-coloured busy man, holding the door open with his foot for the admission of himself and a wooden tray he carried, and letting it go again by very gentle and careful degrees, when he and the tray had got in, lest it should close noisily, &quot;that it’s a good bit past the time to-night. But Mrs. William has been taken off her legs so often&quot;— &quot;By the wind? Ay! I have heard it rising.&quot; &quot;—By the wind, sir—that it’s a mercy she got home at all. Oh dear, yes. Yes. It was by the wind, Mr. Redlaw. By the wind.&quot; He had, by this time, put down the tray for dinner, and was employed in lighting the lamp, and spreading a cloth on the table. From this employment he desisted in a hurry, to stir and feed the fire, and then resumed it; the lamp he had lighted, and the blaze that rose under his hand, so quickly changing the appearance of the room, that it seemed as if the mere coming in of his fresh red face and active manner had made the pleasant alteration. &quot;Mrs. William is of course subject at any time, sir, to be taken off her balance by the elements. She is not formed superior to that.&quot; &quot;No,&quot; returned Mr. Redlaw good-naturedly, though abruptly. &quot;No, sir. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Earth; as for example, last Sunday week, when sloppy and greasy, and she going out to tea with her newest sister-in-law, and having a pride in herself, and wishing to appear perfectly spotless though pedestrian. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Air; as being once over-persuaded by a friend to try a swing at Peckham Fair, which acted on her constitution instantly like a steam-boat. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Fire; as on a false alarm of engines at her mother’s, when she went two mile in her nightcap. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Water; as at Battersea, when rowed into the piers by her young nephew, Charley Swidger junior, aged twelve, which had no idea of boats whatever. But these are elements. Mrs. William must be taken out of elements for the strength of her character to come into play.&quot; As he stopped for a reply, the reply was &quot;Yes,&quot; in the same tone as before. &quot;Yes, sir. Oh dear, yes!&quot; said Mr. Swidger, still proceeding with his preparations, and checking them off as he made them. &quot;That’s where it is, sir. That’s what I always say myself, sir. Such a many of us Swidgers!—Pepper. Why there’s my father, sir, superannuated keeper and custodian of this Institution, eigh-ty-seven year old. He’s a Swidger!—Spoon.&quot; &quot;True, William,&quot; was the patient and abstracted answer, when he stopped again. &quot;Yes, sir,&quot; said Mr. Swidger. &quot;That’s what I always say, sir. You may call him the trunk of the tree!—Bread. Then you come to his successor, my unworthy self—Salt—and Mrs. William, Swidgers both.—Knife and fork. Then you come to all my brothers and their families, Swidgers, man and woman, boy and girl. Why, what with cousins, uncles, aunts, and relationships of this, that, and t’other degree, and what-not degree, and marriages, and lyings-in, the Swidgers—Tumbler—might take hold of hands, and make a ring round England!&quot; Receiving no reply at all here, from the thoughtful man whom he addressed, Mr. William approached him nearer, and made a feint of accidentally knocking the table with a decanter, to rouse him. The moment he succeeded, he went on, as if in great alacrity of acquiescence. &quot;Yes, sir! That’s just what I say myself, sir. Mrs. William and me have often said so. ‘There’s Swidgers enough,’ we say, ‘without our voluntary contributions,’—Butter. In fact, sir, my father is a family in himself—Castors—to take care of; and it happens all for the best that we have no child of our own, though it’s made Mrs. William rather quiet-like, too. Quite ready for the fowl and mashed potatoes, sir? Mrs. William said she’d dish in ten minutes when I left the Lodge.&quot; &quot;I am quite ready,&quot; said the other, waking as from a dream, and walking slowly to and fro. &quot;Mrs. William has been at it again, sir!&quot; said the keeper, as he stood warming a plate at the fire, and pleasantly shading his face with it. Mr. Redlaw stopped in his walking, and an expression of interest appeared in him. &#039;What I always say myself, sir. She will do it! There’s a motherly feeling in Mrs. William’s breast that must and will have went.&quot; &quot;What has she done?&quot; “Why, sir, not satisfied with being a sort of mother to all the young gentlemen that come up from a wariety of parts, to attend your courses of lectures at this ancient foundation—it&#039;s surprising how stone-chaney catches the heat this frosty weather, to be sure!” Here he turned the plate, and cooled his fingers. &quot;Well?&quot; said Mr. Redlaw. &quot;That’s just what I say myself, sir,&quot; returned Mr. William, speaking over his shoulder, as if in ready and delighted assent. &quot;That’s exactly where it is, sir! There ain’t one of our students but appears to regard Mrs. William in that light. Every day, right through the course, they puts their heads into the Lodge, one after another, and have all got something to tell her, or something to ask her. ‘Swidge’ is the appellation by which they speak of Mrs. William in general, among themselves, I’m told; but that’s what I say, sir. Better be called ever so far out of your name, if it’s done in real liking, than have it made ever so much of, and not cared about! What’s a name for? To know a person by. If Mrs. William is known by something better than her name—I allude to Mrs. William’s qualities and disposition—never mind her name, though it is Swidger, by rights. Let ’em call her Swidge, Widge, Bridge—Lord! London Bridge, Blackfriars&#039;, Chelsea, Putney, Waterloo, or Hammersmith Suspension—if they like!&quot; The close of this triumphant oration brought him and the plate to the table, upon which he half laid and half dropped it, with a lively sense of its being thoroughly heated, just as the subject of his praises entered the room, bearing another tray and a lantern, and followed by a venerable old man with long grey hair. Mrs. William, like Mr. William, was a simple, innocent-looking person, in whose smooth cheeks the cheerful red of her husband’s official waistcoat was very pleasantly repeated. But whereas Mr. William’s light hair stood on end all over his head, and seemed to draw his eyes up with it in an excess of bustling readiness for anything, the dark brown hair of Mrs. William was carefully smoothed down, and waved away under a trim tidy cap, in the most exact and quiet manner imaginable. Whereas Mr. William’s very trousers hitched themselves up at the ankles, as if it were not in their iron-grey nature to rest without looking about them, Mrs. William’s neatly-flowered skirts—red and white, like her own pretty face—were as composed and orderly, as if the very wind that blew so hard out of doors could not disturb one of their folds. Whereas his coat had something of a fly-away and half-off appearance about the collar and breast, her little bodice was so placid and neat, that there should have been protection for her, in it, had she needed any, with the roughest people. Who could have had the heart to make so calm a bosom swell with grief, or throb with fear, or flutter with a thought of shame! To whom would its repose and peace have not appealed against disturbance, like the innocent slumber of a child! &quot;Punctual, of course, Milly,&quot; said her husband, relieving her of the tray, &quot;or it wouldn’t be you. Here’s Mrs. William, sir!—He looks lonelier than ever to-night,&quot; whispering to his wife, as he was taking the tray, &quot;and ghostlier altogether.&quot; Without any show of hurry or noise, or any show of herself even, she was so calm and quiet, Milly set the dishes she had brought upon the table,—Mr. William, after much clattering and running about, having only gained possession of a butter-boat of gravy, which he stood ready to serve. &quot;What is that the old man has in his arms?&quot; asked Mr. Redlaw, as he sat down to his solitary meal. &quot;Holly, sir,&quot; replied the quiet voice of Milly. &quot;That’s what I say myself, sir,&quot; interposed Mr. William, striking in with the butter-boat. &quot;Berries is so seasonable to the time of year!—Brown gravy!&quot; &quot;Another Christmas come, another year gone!&quot; murmured the Chemist, with a gloomy sigh. &quot;More figures in the lengthening sum of recollection that we work and work at to our torment, till Death idly jumbles all together, and rubs all out. So, Philip!&quot; breaking off, and raising his voice as he addressed the old man, standing apart, with his glistening burden in his arms, from which the quiet Mrs. William took small branches, which she noiselessly trimmed with her scissors, and decorated the room with, while her aged father-in-law looked on much interested in the ceremony. &quot;My duty to you, sir,&quot; returned the old man. &quot;Should have spoke before, sir, but know your ways, Mr. Redlaw—proud to say—and wait till spoke to! Merry Christmas, sir, and Happy New Year, and many of ’em. Have had a pretty many of ’em myself—ha, ha!—and may take the liberty of wishing ’em. I’m eighty-seven!&quot; &quot;Have you had so many that were merry and happy?&quot; asked the other. &quot;Ay, sir, ever so many,&quot; returned the old man. &quot;Is his memory impaired with age? It is to be expected now,&quot; said Mr. Redlaw, turning to the son, and speaking lower. &quot;Not a morsel of it, sir,&quot; replied Mr. William. &quot;That’s exactly what I say myself, sir. There never was such a memory as my father’s. He’s the most wonderful man in the world. He don’t know what forgetting means. It’s the very observation I’m always making to Mrs. William, sir, if you’ll believe me!&quot; Mr. Swidger, in his polite desire to seem to acquiesce at all events, delivered this as if there were no iota of contradiction in it, and it were all said in unbounded and unqualified assent. The Chemist pushed his plate away, and, rising from the table, walked across the room to where the old man stood looking at a little sprig of holly in his hand. &quot;It recalls the time when many of those years were old and new, then?&quot; he said, observing him attentively, and touching him on the shoulder. &quot;Does it?&quot; &quot;Oh many, many!&quot; said Philip, half awaking from his reverie. &#039;I’m eighty-seven!&quot; &quot;Merry and happy, was it?&quot; asked the Chemist in a low voice. &quot;Merry and happy, old man?&quot; &quot;Maybe as high as that, no higher,&quot; said the old man, holding out his hand a little way above the level of his knee, and looking retrospectively at his questioner, &quot;when I first remember ’em! Cold, sunshiny day it was, out a-walking, when some one—it was my mother as sure as you stand there, though I don’t know what her blessed face was like, for she took ill and died that Christmas-time—told me they were food for birds. The pretty little fellow thought—that’s me, you understand—that birds’ eyes were so bright, perhaps, because the berries that they lived on in the winter were so bright. I recollect that. And I’m eighty-seven!&quot; &quot;Merry and happy!&quot; mused the other, bending his dark eyes upon the stooping figure, with a smile of compassion. &quot;Merry and happy—and remember well?&quot; &quot;Ay, ay, ay!&quot; resumed the old man, catching the last words. “I remember &#039;em well in my school time, year after year, and all the merry-making that used to come along with them. I was a strong chap then, Mr. Redlaw; and, if you&#039;ll believe me, hadn&#039;t my match at football within ten mile. Where&#039;s my son William? Hadn&#039;t my match at foot-ball, William, within ten mile!&#039; &quot;That&#039;s what I always say, father!&quot; returned the son promptly, and with great respect. &quot;You ARE a Swidger, if ever there was one of the family!&quot; &quot;Dear!&quot; said the old man, shaking his head as he again looked at the holly. &quot;His mother—my son William&#039;s my youngest son—and I, have sat among &#039;em all, boys and girls, little children and babies, many a year, when the berries like these were not shining half so bright all round us, as their bright faces. Many of &#039;em are gone; she&#039;s gone; and my son George (our eldest, who was her pride more than all the rest!) is fallen very low: but I can see them, when I look here, alive and healthy, as they used to be in those days; and I can see him, thank God, in his innocence. It&#039;s a blessed thing to me, at eighty-seven.&quot; The keen look that had been fixed upon him with so much earnestness, had gradually sought the ground. &quot;When my circumstances got to be not so good as formerly, through not being honestly dealt by, and I first come here to be custodian,&quot; said the old man, &quot;—which was upwards of fifty years ago—where&#039;s my son William? More than half a century ago, William!&quot; &quot;That’s what I say, father,&quot; replied the son, as promptly and dutifully as before, &quot;that’s exactly where it is. Two times ought’s an ought, and twice five ten, and there&#039;s a hundred of ’em.&quot; &quot;It was quite a pleasure to know that one of our founders—or more correctly speaking,&quot; said the old man, with a great glory in his subject and his knowledge of it, &quot;one of the learned gentlemen that helped endow us in Queen Elizabeth’s time, for we were founded afore her day—left in his will, among the other bequests he made us, so much to buy holly, for garnishing the walls and windows, come Christmas. There was something homely and friendly in it. Being but strange here, then, and coming at Christmas time, we took a liking for his very picter that hangs in what used to be, anciently, afore our ten poor gentlemen commuted for an annual stipend in money, our great Dinner Hall.—A sedate gentleman in a peaked beard, with a ruff round his neck, and a scroll below him, in old English letters, &#039;Lord! keep my memory green!&#039; You know all about him, Mr. Redlaw?&quot; &quot;I know the portrait hangs there, Philip.&quot; &quot;Yes, sure, it&#039;s the second on the right, above the panelling. I was going to say—he has helped to keep my memory green, I thank him; for going round the building every year, as I&#039;m a doing now, and freshening up the bare rooms with these branches and berries, freshens up my bare old brain. One year brings back another, and that year another, and those others numbers! At last, it seems to me as if the birth-time of our Lord was the birth-time of all I have ever had affection for, or mourned for, or delighted in,—and they&#039;re a pretty many, for I’m eighty-seven!&quot; &quot;Merry and happy,&quot; murmured Redlaw to himself. The room began to darken strangely. &quot;So you see, sir,&quot; pursued old Philip, whose hale wintry cheek had warmed into a ruddier glow, and whose blue eyes had brightened while he spoke, &quot;I have plenty to keep, when I keep this present season. Now, where’s my quiet Mouse? Chattering&#039;s the sin of my time of life, and there&#039;s half the building to do yet, if the cold don&#039;t freeze us first, or the wind don&#039;t blow us away, or the darkness don&#039;t swallow us up.&quot; The quiet Mouse had brought her calm face to his side, and silently taken his arm, before he finished speaking. &quot;Come away, my dear,&quot; said the old man. &quot;Mr. Redlaw won&#039;t settle to his dinner, otherwise, till it&#039;s cold as the winter. I hope you&#039;ll excuse me rambling on, sir, and I wish you good night, and, once again, a merry—&quot; &quot;Stay!&quot; said Mr. Redlaw, resuming his place at the table, more, it would have seemed from his manner, to reassure the old keeper, than in any remembrance of his own appetite. &quot;Spare me another moment, Philip. William, you were going to tell me something to your excellent wife’s honour. It will not be disagreeable to her to hear you praise her. What was it?&quot; &quot;Why, that’s where it is, you see, sir,&quot; returned Mr. William Swidger, looking towards his wife in considerable embarrassment. &quot;Mrs. William&#039;s got her eye upon me.&quot; &quot;But you&#039;re not afraid of Mrs. William’s eye?&quot; &quot;Why, no, sir,&quot; returned Mr. Swidger, &quot;that’s what I say myself. It wasn&#039;t made to be afraid of. It wouldn’t have been made so mild, if that was the intention. But I wouldn’t like to—Milly!—him, you know. Down in the Buildings.&quot; Mr. William, standing behind the table, and rummaging disconcertedly among the objects upon it, directed persuasive glances at Mrs. William, and secret jerks of his head and thumb at Mr. Redlaw, as alluring her towards him. &quot;Him, you know, my love,&quot; said Mr. William. &quot;Down in the Buildings. Tell, my dear! You’re the works of Shakespeare in comparison with myself. Down in the Buildings, you know, my love.—Student.&quot; &quot;Student?&quot; repeated Mr. Redlaw, raising his head. &quot;That’s what I say, sir!&quot; cried Mr. William, in the utmost animation of assent. &quot;If it wasn&#039;t the poor student down in the Buildings, why should you wish to hear it from Mrs. William’s lips? Mrs. William, my dear—Buildings.&quot; &quot;I didn’t know,&quot; said Milly, with a quiet frankness, free from any haste or confusion, &quot;that William had said anything about it, or I wouldn&#039;t have come. I asked him not to. It&#039;s a sick young gentleman, sir—and very poor, I am afraid—who is too ill to go home this holiday-time, and lives, unknown to any one, in but a common kind of lodging for a gentleman, down in Jerusalem Buildings. That&#039;s all, sir.&quot; &quot;Why have I never heard of him?&quot; said the Chemist, rising hurriedly. &quot;Why has he not made his situation known to me? Sick!—give me my hat and cloak. Poor!—what house?—what number?&quot; &quot;Oh, you mustn’t go there, sir,&quot; said Milly, leaving her father-in-law, and calmly confronting him with her collected little face and folded hands. &quot;Not go there?&quot; &quot;Oh dear, no!&quot; said Milly, shaking her head as at a most manifest and self-evident impossibility. &quot;It couldn’t be thought of!&quot; &quot;What do you mean? Why not?&quot; &quot;Why, you see, sir,&quot; said Mr. William Swidger, persuasively and confidentially, &quot;that&#039;s what I say. Depend upon it, the young gentleman would never have made his situation known to one of his own sex. Mrs. Williams has got into his confidence, but that&#039;s quite different. They all confide in Mrs. William; they all trust her. A man, sir, couldn&#039;t have got a whisper out of him; but woman, sir, and Mrs. William combined—!&quot; &quot;There is good sense and delicacy in what you say, William,&quot; returned Mr. Redlaw, observant of the gentle and composed face at his shoulder. And laying his finger on his lip, he secretly put his purse into her hand. &quot;Oh dear no, sir!&quot; cried Milly, giving it back again. &quot;Worse and worse! Couldn’t be dreamed of!&quot; Such a staid matter-of-fact housewife she was, and so unruffled by the momentary haste of this rejection, that, an instant afterwards, she was tidily picking up a few leaves which had strayed from between her scissors and her apron, when she had arranged the holly. Finding, when she rose from her stooping posture, that Mr. Redlaw was still regarding her with doubt and astonishment, she quietly repeated—looking about, the while, for any other fragments that might have escaped her observation: &quot;Oh dear no, sir! He said that of all the world he would not be known to you, or receive help from you—though he is a student in your class. I have made no terms of secrecy with you, but I trust to your honour completely.&quot; &quot;Why did he say so?&quot; &quot;Indeed I can’t tell, sir,&quot; said Milly, after thinking a little, &quot;because I am not at all clever, you know; and I wanted to be useful to him in making things neat and comfortable about him, and employed myself that way. But I know he is poor, and lonely, and I think he is somehow neglected too.—How dark it is!&quot; The room had darkened more and more. There was a very heavy gloom and shadow gathering behind the Chemist’s chair. &quot;What more about him?&quot; he asked. &quot;He is engaged to be married when he can afford it,&quot; said Milly, &quot;and is studying, I think, to qualify himself to earn a living. I have seen, a long time, that he has studied hard and denied himself much.—How very dark it is!&quot; &quot;It&#039;s turned colder, too,&quot; said the old man, rubbing his hands. &quot;There’s a chill and dismal feeling in the room. Where&#039;s my son William? William, my boy, turn the lamp, and rouse the fire!&quot; Milly’s voice resumed, like quiet music very softly played: &quot;He muttered in his broken sleep yesterday afternoon, after talking to me&quot; (this was to herself) &quot;about some one dead, and some great wrong done that could never be forgotten; but whether to him or to another person, I don’t know. Not by him, I am sure.&quot; &quot;And, in short, Mrs. William, you see—which she wouldn&#039;t say herself, Mr. Redlaw, if she was to stop here till the new year after this next one—&quot; said Mr. William, coming up to him to speak in his ear, &quot;has done him worlds of good! Bless you, worlds of good! All at home just the same as ever—my father made as snug and comfortable—not a crumb of litter to be found in the house, if you were to offer fifty pound ready money for it—Mrs. William apparently never out of the way—yet Mrs. William backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, up and down, up and down, a mother to him!&quot; The room turned darker and colder, and the gloom and shadow gathering behind the chair was heavier. &quot;Not content with this, sir, Mrs. William goes and finds, this very night, when she was coming home (why it&#039;s not above a couple of hours ago), a creature more like a young wild beast than a young child, shivering upon a door-step. What does Mrs. William do, but brings it home to dry it, and feed it, and keep it till our old Bounty of food and flannel is given away, on Christmas morning! If it ever felt a fire before, it&#039;s as much as ever it did; for it&#039;s sitting in the old Lodge chimney, staring at ours as if its ravenous eyes would never shut again. It&#039;s sitting there, at least,&quot; said Mr. William, correcting himself, on reflection, &quot;unless it’s bolted!&quot; &quot;Heaven keep her happy!&quot; said the Chemist aloud, &quot;and you too, Philip! and you, William! I must consider what to do in this. I may desire to see this student, I’ll not detain you any longer now. Good-night!&quot; &quot;I thank’ee, sir, I thank’ee!&quot; said the old man, &quot;for Mouse, and for my son William, and for myself. Where&#039;s my son William? William, you take the lantern and go on first, through them long dark passages, as you did last year and the year afore. Ha ha! I remember—though I&#039;m eighty-seven! &#039;Lord, keep my memory green!&#039; It’s a very good prayer, Mr. Redlaw, that of the learned gentleman in the peaked beard, with a ruff round his neck—hangs up, second on the right above the panelling, in what used to be, afore our ten poor gentlemen commuted, our great Dinner Hall. &#039;Lord, keep my memory green!&#039; It&#039;s very good and pious, sir. Amen! Amen!&quot; As they passed out and shut the heavy door, which, however carefully withheld, fired a long train of thundering reverberations when it shut at last, the room turned darker. As he fell a-musing in his chair alone, the healthy holly withered on the wall, and dropped—dead branches. As the gloom and shadow thickened behind him, in that place where it had been gathering so darkly, it took, by slow degrees,—or out of it there came, by some unreal, unsubstantial process—not to be traced by any human sense,—an awful likeness of himself! Ghastly and cold, colourless in its leaden face and hands, but with his features, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed in the gloomy shadow of his dress, it came into his terrible appearance of existence, motionless, without a sound. As he leaned his arm upon the elbow of his chair, ruminating before the fire, it leaned upon the chair-back, close above him, with its appalling copy of his face looking where his face looked, and bearing the expression his face bore. This, then, was the Something that had passed and gone already. This was the dread companion of the haunted man! It took, for some moments, no more apparent heed of him, than he of it. The Christmas Waits were playing somewhere in the distance, and, through his thoughtfulness, he seemed to listen to the music. It seemed to listen too. At length he spoke; without moving or lifting up his face. &quot;Here again!&quot; he said. &quot;Here again,&quot; replied the Phantom. &quot;I see you in the fire,&quot; said the haunted man; &quot;I hear you in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night.&quot; The Phantom moved its head, assenting. &quot;Why do you come, to haunt me thus?&quot; &quot;I come as I am called,&quot; replied the Ghost. &quot;No. Unbidden,&quot; exclaimed the Chemist. &quot;Unbidden be it,&quot; said the Spectre. &quot;It is enough. I am here.&quot; Hitherto the light of the fire had shone on the two faces—if the dread lineaments behind the chair might be called a face—both addressed towards it, as at first, and neither looking at the other. But, now, the haunted man turned, suddenly, and stared upon the Ghost. The Ghost, as sudden in its motion, passed to before the chair, and stared on him. The living man, and the animated image of himself dead, might so have looked, the one upon the other. An awful survey, in a lonely and remote part of an empty old pile of building, on a winter night, with the loud wind going by upon its journey of mystery—whence or whither, no man knowing since the world began—and the stars, in unimaginable millions, glittering through it, from eternal space, where the world’s bulk is as a grain, and its hoary age is infancy. &quot;Look upon me!&quot; said the Spectre. &quot;I am he, neglected in my youth, and miserably poor, who strove and suffered, and still strove and suffered, until I hewed out knowledge from the mine where it was buried, and made rugged steps thereof, for my worn feet to rest and rise on.&quot; &quot;I am that man,&quot; returned the Chemist. &quot;No mother’s self-denying love,&quot; pursued the Phantom, &quot;no father’s counsel, aided me. A stranger came into my father’s place when I was but a child, and I was easily an alien from my mother’s heart. My parents, at the best, were of that sort whose care soon ends, and whose duty is soon done; who cast their offspring loose, early, as birds do theirs; and, if they do well, claim the merit; and, if ill, the pity.&quot; It paused, and seemed to tempt and goad him with its look, and with the manner of its speech, and with its smile. &quot;I am he,&quot; pursued the Phantom, &quot;who, in this struggle upward, found a friend. I made him—won him—bound him to me! We worked together, side by side. All the love and confidence that in my earlier youth had had no outlet, and found no expression, I bestowed on him.&quot; &quot;Not all,&quot; said Redlaw, hoarsely. &#039;No, not all,&quot; returned the Phantom. &quot;I had a sister.&quot; The haunted man, with his head resting on his hands, replied &quot;I had!&quot; The Phantom, with an evil smile, drew closer to the chair, and resting its chin upon its folded hands, its folded hands upon the back, and looking down into his face with searching eyes, that seemed instinct with fire, went on: &quot;Such glimpses of the light of home as I had ever known, had streamed from her. How young she was, how fair, how loving! I took her to the first poor roof that I was master of, and made it rich. She came into the darkness of my life, and made it bright.—She is before me!&quot; &quot;I saw her, in the fire, but now. I hear her in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night,&quot; returned the haunted man. &quot;Did he love her?&quot; said the Phantom, echoing his contemplative tone. &quot;I think he did, once. I am sure he did. Better had she loved him less—less secretly, less dearly, from the shallower depths of a more divided heart!&quot; &quot;Let me forget it!&quot; said the Chemist, with an angry motion of his hand. &quot;Let me blot it from my memory!&quot; The Spectre, without stirring, and with its unwinking, cruel eyes still fixed upon his face, went on: &quot;A dream, like hers, stole upon my own life.&quot; &quot;It did,&quot; said Redlaw. &quot;A love, as like hers,&quot; pursued the Phantom, &quot;as my inferior nature might cherish, arose in my own heart. I was too poor to bind its object to my fortune then, by any thread of promise or entreaty. I loved her far too well, to seek to do it. But, more than ever I had striven in my life, I strove to climb! Only an inch gained, brought me something nearer to the height. I toiled up! In the late pauses of my labour at that time,—my sister (sweet companion!) still sharing with me the expiring embers and the cooling hearth,—when day was breaking, what pictures of the future did I see!&quot; &quot;I saw them, in the fire, but now,&quot; he murmured. &quot;They come back to me in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night, in the revolving years.&quot; &quot;—Pictures of my own domestic life, in aftertime, with her who was the inspiration of my toil. Pictures of my sister, made the wife of my dear friend, on equal terms—for he had some inheritance, we none—pictures of our sobered age and mellowed happiness, and of the golden links, extending back so far, that should bind us, and our children, in a radiant garland,&quot; said the Phantom. &quot;Pictures,&quot; said the haunted man, &quot;that were delusions. Why is it my doom to remember them too well!&quot; &quot;Delusions,&quot; echoed the Phantom in its changeless voice, and glaring on him with its changeless eyes. &quot;For my friend (in whose breast my confidence was locked as in my own), passing between me and the centre of the system of my hopes and struggles, won her to himself, and shattered my frail universe. My sister, doubly dear, doubly devoted, doubly cheerful in my home, lived on to see me famous, and my old ambition so rewarded when its spring was broken, and then—&quot; &quot;Then died,&quot; he interposed. &quot;Died, gentle as ever; happy; and with no concern but for her brother. Peace!&quot; The Phantom watched him silently. &quot;Remembered!&quot; said the haunted man, after a pause. &quot;Yes. So well remembered, that even now, when years have passed, and nothing is more idle or more visionary to me than the boyish love so long outlived, I think of it with sympathy, as if it were a younger brother’s or a son’s. Sometimes I even wonder when her heart first inclined to him, and how it had been affected towards me.—Not lightly, once, I think.—But that is nothing. Early unhappiness, a wound from a hand I loved and trusted, and a loss that nothing can replace, outlive such fancies.&quot; &quot;Thus,&quot; said the Phantom, &quot;I bear within me a Sorrow and a Wrong. Thus I prey upon myself. Thus, memory is my curse; and, if I could forget my sorrow and my wrong, I would!&quot; &quot;Mocker!&quot; said the Chemist, leaping up, and making, with a wrathful hand, at the throat of his other self. &quot;Why have I always that taunt in my ears?&quot; &quot;Forbear!&quot; exclaimed the Spectre in an awful voice. &quot;Lay a hand on Me, and die!&quot; He stopped midway, as if its words had paralysed him, and stood looking on it. It had glided from him; it had its arm raised high in warning; and a smile passed over its unearthly features, as it reared its dark figure in triumph. &quot;If I could forget my sorrow and wrong, I would,&quot; the Ghost repeated. &quot;If I could forget my sorrow and my wrong, I would!&quot; &quot;Evil spirit of myself,&quot; returned the haunted man, in a low, trembling tone, &quot;my life is darkened by that incessant whisper.&quot; &quot;It is an echo,&quot; said the Phantom. &quot;If it be an echo of my thoughts—as now, indeed, I know it is,&quot; rejoined the haunted man, &quot;why should I, therefore, be tormented? It is not a selfish thought. I suffer it to range beyond myself. All men and women have their sorrows,—most of them their wrongs; ingratitude, and sordid jealousy, and interest, besetting all degrees of life. Who would not forget their sorrows and their wrongs?&quot; &quot;Who would not, truly, and be happier and better for it?&quot; said the Phantom. &quot;These revolutions of years, which we commemorate,&quot; proceeded Redlaw, &quot;what do they recall! Are there any minds in which they do not re-awaken some sorrow, or some trouble? What is the remembrance of the old man who was here to-night? A tissue of sorrow and trouble.&quot; &quot;But common natures,&quot; said the Phantom, with its evil smile upon its glassy face, &quot;unenlightened minds and ordinary spirits, do not feel or reason on these things like men of higher cultivation and profounder thought.&quot; &quot;Tempter,&quot; answered Redlaw, &quot;whose hollow look and voice I dread more than words can express, and from whom some dim foreshadowing of greater fear is stealing over me while I speak, I hear again an echo of my own mind.&quot; &quot;Receive it as a proof that I am powerful,&quot; returned the Ghost. &quot;Hear what I offer! Forget the sorrow, wrong, and trouble you have known!&quot; &quot;Forget them!&quot; he repeated. &quot;I have the power to cancel their remembrance—to leave but very faint, confused traces of them, that will die out soon,&quot; returned the Spectre. &quot;Say! Is it done?&quot; &quot;Stay!&quot; cried the haunted man, arresting by a terrified gesture the uplifted hand. &quot;I tremble with distrust and doubt of you; and the dim fear you cast upon me deepens into a nameless horror I can hardly bear.—I would not deprive myself of any kindly recollection, or any sympathy that is good for me, or others. What shall I lose, if I assent to this? What else will pass from my remembrance?&quot; &quot;No knowledge; no result of study; nothing but the intertwisted chain of feelings and associations, each in its turn dependent on, and nourished by, the banished recollections. Those will go.&quot; &quot;Are they so many?&quot; said the haunted man, reflecting in alarm. &quot;They have been wont to show themselves in the fire, in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night, in the revolving years,&quot; returned the Phantom scornfully. &quot;In nothing else?&quot; The Phantom held its peace. But having stood before him, silent, for a little while, it moved towards the fire; then stopped. &quot;Decide!&quot; it said, &quot;before the opportunity is lost!&quot; &quot;A moment! I call Heaven to witness,&quot; said the agitated man, &quot;that I have never been a hater of any kind,—never morose, indifferent, or hard, to anything around me. If, living here alone, I have made too much of all that was and might have been, and too little of what is, the evil, I believe, has fallen on me, and not on others. But, if there were poison in my body, should I not, possessed of antidotes and knowledge how to use them, use them? If there be poison in my mind, and through this fearful shadow I can cast it out, shall I not cast it out?&quot; &quot;Say,&quot; said the Spectre, &quot;is it done?&quot; &quot;A moment longer!&quot; he answered hurriedly. &quot;I would forget it if I could! Have I thought that, alone, or has it been the thought of thousands upon thousands, generation after generation? All human memory is fraught with sorrow and trouble. My memory is as the memory of other men, but other men have not this choice. Yes, I close the bargain. Yes! I WILL forget my sorrow, wrong, and trouble!&quot; &quot;Say,&quot; said the Spectre, &quot;is it done?&quot; &quot;It is!&quot; &quot;It is. And take this with you, man whom I here renounce! The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where you will. Without recovering yourself the power that you have yielded up, you shall henceforth destroy its like in all whom you approach. Your wisdom has discovered that the memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble is the lot of all mankind, and that mankind would be the happier, in its other memories, without it. Go! Be its benefactor! Freed from such remembrance, from this hour, carry involuntarily the blessing of such freedom with you. Its diffusion is inseparable and inalienable from you. Go! Be happy in the good you have won, and in the good you do!&quot; The Phantom, which had held its bloodless hand above him while it spoke, as if in some unholy invocation, or some ban; and which had gradually advanced its eyes so close to his, that he could see how they did not participate in the terrible smile upon its face, but were a fixed, unalterable, steady horror; melted before him and was gone. As he stood rooted to the spot, possessed by fear and wonder, and imagining he heard repeated in melancholy echoes, dying away fainter and fainter, the words, &quot;Destroy its like in all whom you approach!&quot; a shrill cry reached his ears. It came, not from the passages beyond the door, but from another part of the old building, and sounded like the cry of some one in the dark who had lost the way. He looked confusedly upon his hands and limbs, as if to be assured of his identity, and then shouted in reply, loudly and wildly; for there was a strangeness and terror upon him, as if he too were lost. The cry responding, and being nearer, he caught up the lamp, and raised a heavy curtain in the wall, by which he was accustomed to pass into and out of the theatre where he lectured,—which adjoined his room. Associated with youth and animation, and a high amphitheatre of faces which his entrance charmed to interest in a moment, it was a ghostly place when all this life was faded out of it, and stared upon him like an emblem of Death. &quot;Halloa!&quot; he cried. &quot;Halloa! This way! Come to the light!&quot; When, as he held the curtain with one hand, and with the other raised the lamp and tried to pierce the gloom that filled the place, something rushed past him into the room like a wild-cat, and crouched down in a corner. &quot;What is it?&quot; he said, hastily. He might have asked &quot;What is it?&quot; even had he seen it well, as presently he did when he stood looking at it gathered up in its corner. A bundle of tatters, held together by a hand, in size and form almost an infant’s, but in its greedy, desperate little clutch, a bad old man’s. A face rounded and smoothed by some half-dozen years, but pinched and twisted by the experiences of a life. Bright eyes, but not youthful. Naked feet, beautiful in their childish delicacy,—ugly in the blood and dirt that cracked upon them. A baby savage, a young monster, a child who had never been a child, a creature who might live to take the outward form of man, but who, within, would live and perish a mere beast. Used, already, to be worried and hunted like a beast, the boy crouched down as he was looked at, and looked back again, and interposed his arm to ward off the expected blow. &quot;I’ll bite,&quot; he said, &quot;if you hit me!&quot; The time had been, and not many minutes since, when such a sight as this would have wrung the Chemist’s heart. He looked upon it now, coldly; but with a heavy effort to remember something—he did not know what—he asked the boy what he did there, and whence he came. &quot;Where’s the woman?&quot; he replied. &quot;I want to find the woman.&quot; &quot;Who?&quot; &quot;The woman. Her that brought me here, and set me by the large fire. She was so long gone, that I went to look for her, and lost myself. I don’t want you. I want the woman.&quot; He made a spring, so suddenly, to get away, that the dull sound of his naked feet upon the floor was near the curtain, when Redlaw caught him by his rags. &quot;Come! you let me go!&quot; muttered the boy, struggling, and clenching his teeth. &quot;I’ve done nothing to you. Let me go, will you, to the woman!&quot; &quot;That is not the way. There is a nearer one,&quot; said Redlaw, detaining him, in the same blank effort to remember some association that ought, of right, to bear upon this monstrous object. &quot;What is your name?&quot; &quot;Got none.&quot; &quot;Where do you live?&quot; &quot;Live! What’s that?&quot; The boy shook his hair from his eyes to look at him for a moment, and then, twisting round his legs and wrestling with him, broke again into his repetition of &quot;You let me go, will you? I want to find the woman.&quot; The Chemist led him to the door. &quot;This way,&quot; he said, looking at him still confusedly, but with repugnance and avoidance, growing out of his coldness. &quot;I’ll take you to her.&quot; The sharp eyes in the child’s head, wandering round the room, lighted on the table where the remnants of the dinner were. &quot;Give me some of that!&quot; he said, covetously. &quot;Has she not fed you?&quot; &quot;I shall be hungry again to-morrow, sha’n’t I? Ain’t I hungry every day?&quot; Finding himself released, he bounded at the table like some small animal of prey, and hugging to his breast bread and meat, and his own rags, all together, said: &quot;There! Now take me to the woman!&quot; As the Chemist, with a new-born dislike to touch him, sternly motioned him to follow, and was going out of the door, he trembled and stopped. &quot;The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where you will!&quot; The Phantom’s words were blowing in the wind, and the wind blew chill upon him. &quot;I’ll not go there, to-night,&quot; he murmured faintly. &quot;I’ll go nowhere to-night. Boy! straight down this long-arched passage, and past the great dark door into the yard,—you will see the fire shining on the window there.&quot; &quot;The woman’s fire?&quot; inquired the boy. He nodded, and the naked feet had sprung away. He came back with his lamp, locked his door hastily, and sat down in his chair, covering his face like one who was frightened at himself. For now he was, indeed, alone. Alone, alone. CHAPTER II The Gift Diffused A small man sat in a small parlour, partitioned off from a small shop by a small screen, pasted all over with small scraps of newspapers. In company with the small man, was almost any amount of small children you may please to name—at least it seemed so; they made, in that very limited sphere of action, such an imposing effect, in point of numbers. Of these small fry, two had, by some strong machinery, been got into bed in a corner, where they might have reposed snugly enough in the sleep of innocence, but for a constitutional propensity to keep awake, and also to scuffle in and out of bed. The immediate occasion of these predatory dashes at the waking world, was the construction of an oyster-shell wall in a corner, by two other youths of tender age; on which fortification the two in bed made harassing descents (like those accursed Picts and Scots who beleaguer the early historical studies of most young Britons), and then withdrew to their own territory. In addition to the stir attendant on these inroads, and the retorts of the invaded, who pursued hotly, and made lunges at the bed-clothes under which the marauders took refuge, another little boy, in another little bed, contributed his mite of confusion to the family stock, by casting his boots upon the waters; in other words, by launching these and several small objects, inoffensive in themselves, though of a hard substance considered as missiles, at the disturbers of his repose,—who were not slow to return these compliments. Besides which, another little boy—the biggest there, but still little—was tottering to and fro, bent on one side, and considerably affected in his knees by the weight of a large baby, which he was supposed by a fiction that obtains sometimes in sanguine families, to be hushing to sleep. But oh! the inexhaustible regions of contemplation and watchfulness into which this baby’s eyes were then only beginning to compose themselves to stare, over his unconscious shoulder! It was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose insatiate altar the whole existence of this particular young brother was offered up a daily sacrifice. Its personality may be said to have consisted in its never being quiet, in any one place, for five consecutive minutes, and never going to sleep when required. &quot;Tetterby’s baby&quot; was as well known in the neighbourhood as the postman or the pot-boy. It roved from door-step to door-step, in the arms of little Johnny Tetterby, and lagged heavily at the rear of troops of juveniles who followed the Tumblers or the Monkey, and came up, all on one side, a little too late for everything that was attractive, from Monday morning until Saturday night. Wherever childhood congregated to play, there was little Moloch making Johnny fag and toil. Wherever Johnny desired to stay, little Moloch became fractious, and would not remain. Whenever Johnny wanted to go out, Moloch was asleep, and must be watched. Whenever Johnny wanted to stay at home, Moloch was awake, and must be taken out. Yet Johnny was verily persuaded that it was a faultless baby, without its peer in the realm of England, and was quite content to catch meek glimpses of things in general from behind its skirts, or over its limp flapping bonnet, and to go staggering about with it like a very little porter with a very large parcel, which was not directed to anybody, and could never be delivered anywhere. The small man who sat in the small parlour, making fruitless attempts to read his newspaper peaceably in the midst of this disturbance, was the father of the family, and the chief of the firm described in the inscription over the little shop front, by the name and title of A. Tetterby and Co., Newsmen. Indeed, strictly speaking, he was the only personage answering to that designation, as Co. was a mere poetical abstraction, altogether baseless and impersonal. Tetterby’s was the corner shop in Jerusalem Buildings. There was a good show of literature in the window, chiefly consisting of picture-newspapers out of date, and serial pirates, and footpads. Walking-sticks, likewise, and marbles, were included in the stock in trade. It had once extended into the light confectionery line; but it would seem that those elegancies of life were not in demand about Jerusalem Buildings, for nothing connected with that branch of commerce remained in the window, except a sort of small glass lantern containing a languishing mass of bull’s-eyes, which had melted in the summer and congealed in the winter until all hope of ever getting them out, or of eating them without eating the lantern too, was gone for ever. Tetterby’s had tried its hand at several things. It had once made a feeble little dart at the toy business; for, in another lantern, there was a heap of minute wax dolls, all sticking together upside down, in the direst confusion, with their feet on one another’s heads, and a precipitate of broken arms and legs at the bottom. It had made a move in the millinery direction, which a few dry, wiry bonnet-shapes remained in a corner of the window to attest. It had fancied that a living might lie hidden in the tobacco trade, and had stuck up a representation of a native of each of the three integral portions of the British Empire, in the act of consuming that fragrant weed; with a poetic legend attached, importing that united in one cause they sat and joked, one chewed tobacco, one took snuff, one smoked: but nothing seemed to have come of it—except flies. Time had been when it had put a forlorn trust in imitative jewellery, for in one pane of glass there was a card of cheap seals, and another of pencil-cases, and a mysterious black amulet of inscrutable intention, labelled ninepence. But, to that hour, Jerusalem Buildings had bought none of them. In short, Tetterby’s had tried so hard to get a livelihood out of Jerusalem Buildings in one way or other, and appeared to have done so indifferently in all, that the best position in the firm was too evidently Co.’s; Co., as a bodiless creation, being untroubled with the vulgar inconveniences of hunger and thirst, being chargeable neither to the poor’s-rates nor the assessed taxes, and having no young family to provide for. Tetterby himself, however, in his little parlour, as already mentioned, having the presence of a young family impressed upon his mind in a manner too clamorous to be disregarded, or to comport with the quiet perusal of a newspaper, laid down his paper, wheeled, in his distraction, a few times round the parlour, like an undecided carrier-pigeon, made an ineffectual rush at one or two flying little figures in bed-gowns that skimmed past him, and then, bearing suddenly down upon the only unoffending member of the family, boxed the ears of little Moloch’s nurse. &quot;You bad boy!&quot; said Mr. Tetterby, &quot;haven’t you any feeling for your poor father after the fatigues and anxieties of a hard winter’s day, since five o’clock in the morning, but must you wither his rest, and corrode his latest intelligence, with your wicious tricks? Isn’t it enough, sir, that your brother &#039;Dolphus is toiling and moiling in the fog and cold, and you rolling in the lap of luxury with a—with a baby, and everything you can wish for,&quot; said Mr. Tetterby, heaping this up as a great climax of blessings, &quot;but must you make a wilderness of home, and maniacs of your parents? Must you, Johnny? Hey?&quot; At each interrogation, Mr. Tetterby made a feint of boxing his ears again, but thought better of it, and held his hand. &quot;Oh, father!&quot; whimpered Johnny, &quot;when I wasn’t doing anything, I&#039;m sure, but taking such care of Sally, and getting her to sleep. Oh, father!&quot; &quot;I wish my little woman would come home!&quot; said Mr. Tetterby, relenting and repenting, &quot;I only wish my little woman would come home! I ain’t fit to deal with ’em. They make my head go round, and get the better of me. Oh, Johnny! Isn’t it enough that your dear mother has provided you with that sweet sister?&quot; indicating Moloch; &quot;isn’t it enough that you were seven boys before without a ray of gal, and that your dear mother went through what she did go through, on purpose that you might all of you have a little sister, but must you so behave yourself as to make my head swim?&quot; Softening more and more, as his own tender feelings and those of his injured son were worked on, Mr. Tetterby concluded by embracing him, and immediately breaking away to catch one of the real delinquents. A reasonably good start occurring, he succeeded, after a short but smart run, and some rather severe cross-country work under and over the bedsteads, and in and out among the intricacies of the chairs, in capturing this infant, whom he condignly punished, and bore to bed. This example had a powerful, and apparently, mesmeric influence on him of the boots, who instantly fell into a deep sleep, though he had been, but a moment before, broad awake, and in the highest possible feather. Nor was it lost upon the two young architects, who retired to bed, in an adjoining closet, with great privacy and speed. The comrade of the Intercepted One also shrinking into his nest with similar discretion, Mr. Tetterby, when he paused for breath, found himself unexpectedly in a scene of peace. &quot;My little woman herself,&quot; said Mr. Tetterby, wiping his flushed face, &quot;could hardly have done it better! I only wish my little woman had had it to do, I do indeed!&quot; Mr. Tetterby sought upon his screen for a passage appropriate to be impressed upon his children’s minds on the occasion, and read the following. &quot;&#039;It is an undoubted fact that all remarkable men have had remarkable mothers, and have respected them in after life as their best friends.&#039; Think of your own remarkable mother, my boys,&quot; said Mr. Tetterby, &quot;and know her value while she is still among you!&quot; He sat down again in his chair by the fire, and composed himself, cross-legged, over his newspaper. &quot;Let anybody, I don’t care who it is, get out of bed again,&quot; said Tetterby, as a general proclamation, delivered in a very soft-hearted manner, &quot;and astonishment will be the portion of that respected contemporary!&quot;—which expression Mr. Tetterby selected from his screen. &quot;Johnny, my child, take care of your only sister, Sally; for she’s the brightest gem that ever sparkled on your early brow.&quot; Johnny sat down on a little stool, and devotedly crushed himself beneath the weight of Moloch. &quot;Ah, what a gift that baby is to you, Johnny!&quot; said his father, &quot;and how thankful you ought to be! &#039;It is not generally known, Johnny,&#039;&quot; he was now referring to the screen again, &quot;&#039;but it is a fact ascertained, by accurate calculations, that the following immense percentage of babies never attain to two years old; that is to say—&#039;&quot; &quot;Oh, don’t, father, please!&quot; cried Johnny. &quot;I can’t bear it, when I think of Sally.&quot; Mr. Tetterby desisting, Johnny, with a profound sense of his trust, wiped his eyes, and hushed his sister. &quot;Your brother &#039;Dolphus,&quot; said his father, poking the fire, &quot;is late to-night, Johnny, and will come home like a lump of ice. What&#039;s got your precious mother?&quot; &quot;Here&#039;s mother, and &#039;Dolphus too, father!&quot; exclaimed Johnny, &quot;I think.&quot; &quot;You’re right!&quot; returned his father, listening. &quot;Yes, that’s the footstep of my little woman.&quot; The process of induction, by which Mr. Tetterby had come to the conclusion that his wife was a little woman, was his own secret. She would have made two editions of himself, very easily. Considered as an individual, she was rather remarkable for being robust and portly; but considered with reference to her husband, her dimensions became magnificent. Nor did they assume a less imposing proportion, when studied with reference to the size of her seven sons, who were but diminutive. In the case of Sally, however, Mrs. Tetterby had asserted herself, at last; as nobody knew better than the victim Johnny, who weighed and measured that exacting idol every hour in the day. Mrs. Tetterby, who had been marketing, and carried a basket, threw back her bonnet and shawl, and sitting down, fatigued, commanded Johnny to bring his sweet charge to her straightway, for a kiss. Johnny having complied, and gone back to his stool, and again crushed himself, Master Adolphus Tetterby, who had by this time unwound his torso out of a prismatic comforter, apparently interminable, requested the same favour. Johnny having again complied, and again gone back to his stool, and again crushed himself, Mr. Tetterby, struck by a sudden thought, preferred the same claim on his own parental part. The satisfaction of this third desire completely exhausted the sacrifice, who had hardly breath enough left to get back to his stool, crush himself again, and pant at his relations. &quot;Whatever you do, Johnny,&quot; said Mrs. Tetterby, shaking her head, &quot;take care of her, or never look your mother in the face again.&quot; &quot;Nor your brother,&quot; said Adolphus. &quot;Nor your father, Johnny,&quot; added Mr. Tetterby. Johnny, much affected by this conditional renunciation of him, looked down at Moloch&#039;s eyes to see that they were all right, so far, and skilfully patted her back (which was uppermost), and rocked her with his foot. &quot;Are you wet, &#039;Dolphus, my boy?&quot; said his father. &quot;Come and take my chair, and dry yourself.&quot; &quot;No, father, thank&#039;ee,&quot; said Adolphus, smoothing himself down with his hands. &quot;I an’t very wet, I don&#039;t think. Does my face shine much, father?&quot; &quot;Well, it does look waxy, my boy,&quot; returned Mr. Tetterby. &quot;It&#039;s the weather, father,&quot; said Adolphus, polishing his cheeks on the worn sleeve of his jacket. &quot;What with rain, and sleet, and wind, and snow, and fog, my face gets quite brought out into a rash sometimes. And shines, it does—oh, don&#039;t it, though!&quot; Master Adolphus was also in the newspaper line of life, being employed, by a more thriving firm than his father and Co., to vend newspapers at a railway station, where his chubby little person, like a shabbily-disguised Cupid, and his shrill little voice (he was not much more than ten years old), were as well known as the hoarse panting of the locomotives, running in and out. His juvenility might have been at some loss for a harmless outlet, in this early application to traffic, but for a fortunate discovery he made of a means of entertaining himself, and of dividing the long day into stages of interest, without neglecting business. This ingenious invention, remarkable, like many great discoveries, for its simplicity, consisted in varying the first vowel in the word “paper,” and substituting, in its stead, at different periods of the day, all the other vowels in grammatical succession. Thus, before daylight in the winter-time, he went to and fro, in his little oilskin cap and cape, and his big comforter, piercing the heavy air with his cry of &quot;Morn-ing Pa-per!&quot; which, about an hour before noon, changed to &quot;Morn-ing Pepper!&quot; which, at about two, changed to &quot;Morn-ing Pip-per!&quot; which in a couple of hours changed to &quot;Morn-ing Pop-per!&quot; and so declined with the sun into &quot;Eve-ning Pup-per!&quot; to the great relief and comfort of this young gentleman’s spirits. Mrs. Tetterby, his lady-mother, who had been sitting with her bonnet and shawl thrown back, as aforesaid, thoughtfully turning her wedding-ring round and round upon her finger, now rose, and divesting herself of her out-of-door attire, began to lay the cloth for supper. &quot;Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!&quot; said Mrs. Tetterby. &quot;That’s the way the world goes!&quot; &quot;Which is the way the world goes, my dear?&quot; asked Mr. Tetterby, looking round. &quot;Oh, nothing,&quot; said Mrs. Tetterby. Mr. Tetterby elevated his eyebrows, folded his newspaper afresh, and carried his eyes up it, and down it, and across it, but was wandering in his attention, and not reading it. Mrs. Tetterby, at the same time, laid the cloth, but rather as if she were punishing the table than preparing the family supper; hitting it unnecessarily hard with the knives and forks, slapping it with the plates, dinting it with the salt-cellar, and coming heavily down upon it with the loaf. &quot;Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!&quot; said Mrs. Tetterby. &quot;That’s the way the world goes!&quot; &quot;My duck,&quot; returned her husband, looking round again, &quot;you said that before. Which is the way the world goes?&quot; &quot;Oh, nothing!&quot; said Mrs. Tetterby. &quot;Sophia!&quot; remonstrated her husband, &quot;you said that before, too.&quot; &quot;Well, I’ll say it again if you like,&quot; returned Mrs. Tetterby. &quot;Oh nothing—there! And again if you like, oh nothing—there! And again if you like, oh nothing—now then!&quot; Mr. Tetterby brought his eye to bear upon the partner of his bosom, and said, in mild astonishment: &quot;My little woman, what has put you out?&quot; &quot;I’m sure I don’t know,&quot; she retorted. &quot;Don’t ask me. Who said I was put out at all? I never did.&quot; Mr. Tetterby gave up the perusal of his newspaper as a bad job, and, taking a slow walk across the room, with his hands behind him, and his shoulders raised—his gait according perfectly with the resignation of his manner—addressed himself to his two eldest offspring. &quot;Your supper will be ready in a minute, &#039;Dolphus,&quot; said Mr. Tetterby. &quot;Your mother has been out in the wet, to the cook’s shop, to buy it. It was very good of your mother so to do. You shall get some supper too, very soon, Johnny. Your mother&#039;s pleased with you, my man, for being so attentive to your precious sister.&quot; Mrs. Tetterby, without any remark, but with a decided subsidence of her animosity towards the table, finished her preparations, and took, from her ample basket, a substantial slab of hot pease pudding wrapped in paper, and a basin covered with a saucer, which, on being uncovered, sent forth an odour so agreeable, that the three pair of eyes in the two beds opened wide and fixed themselves upon the banquet. Mr. Tetterby, without regarding this tacit invitation to be seated, stood repeating slowly, &quot;Yes, yes, your supper will be ready in a minute, &#039;Dolphus—your mother went out in the wet, to the cook’s shop, to buy it. It was very good of your mother so to do&quot;—until Mrs. Tetterby, who had been exhibiting sundry tokens of contrition behind him, caught him round the neck, and wept. &quot;Oh, Dolphus!&quot; said Mrs. Tetterby, &quot;how could I go and behave so?&quot; This reconciliation affected Adolphus the younger and Johnny to that degree, that they both, as with one accord, raised a dismal cry, which had the effect of immediately shutting up the round eyes in the beds, and utterly routing the two remaining little Tetterbys, just then stealing in from the adjoining closet to see what was going on in the eating way. &quot;I am sure, &#039;Dolphus,&quot; sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, &quot;coming home, I had no more idea than a child unborn—&quot; Mr. Tetterby seemed to dislike this figure of speech, and observed, &quot;Say than the baby, my dear.&quot; &quot;—Had no more idea than the baby,&quot; said Mrs. Tetterby.—&quot;Johnny, don’t look at me, but look at her, or she’ll fall out of your lap and be killed, and then you’ll die in agonies of a broken heart, and serve you right.—No more idea I hadn’t than that darling, of being cross when I came home; but somehow, &#039;Dolphus—&quot; Mrs. Tetterby paused, and again turned her wedding-ring round and round upon her finger. &quot;I see!&quot; said Mr. Tetterby. &quot;I understand! My little woman was put out. Hard times, and hard weather, and hard work, make it trying now and then. I see, bless your soul! No wonder! Dolf, my man,&quot; continued Mr. Tetterby, exploring the basin with a fork, &quot;here’s your mother been and bought, at the cook’s shop, besides pease pudding, a whole knuckle of a lovely roast leg of pork, with lots of crackling left upon it, and with seasoning gravy and mustard quite unlimited. Hand in your plate, my boy, and begin while it&#039;s simmering.&quot; Master Adolphus, needing no second summons, received his portion with eyes rendered moist by appetite, and withdrawing to his particular stool, fell upon his supper tooth and nail. Johnny was not forgotten, but received his rations on bread, lest he should, in a flush of gravy, trickle any on the baby. He was required, for similar reasons, to keep his pudding, when not on active service, in his pocket. There might have been more pork on the knucklebone,—which knucklebone the carver at the cook&#039;s shop had assuredly not forgotten in carving for previous customers—but there was no stint of seasoning, and that is an accessory dreamily suggesting pork, and pleasantly cheating the sense of taste. The pease pudding, too, the gravy and mustard, like the Eastern rose in respect of the nightingale, if they were not absolutely pork, had lived near it; so, upon the whole, there was the flavour of a middle-sized pig. It was irresistible to the Tetterbys in bed, who, though professing to slumber peacefully, crawled out when unseen by their parents, and silently appealed to their brothers for any gastronomic token of fraternal affection. They, not hard of heart, presenting scraps in return, it resulted that a party of light skirmishers in nightgowns were careering about the parlour all through supper, which harassed Mr. Tetterby exceedingly, and once or twice imposed upon him the necessity of a charge, before which these guerilla troops retired in all directions and in great confusion. Mrs. Tetterby did not enjoy her supper. There seemed to be something on Mrs. Tetterby’s mind. At one time she laughed without reason, and at another time she cried without reason, and at last she laughed and cried together in a manner so very unreasonable that her husband was confounded. &quot;My little woman,&quot; said Mr. Tetterby, &quot;if the world goes that way, it appears to go the wrong way, and to choke you.&quot; &quot;Give me a drop of water,&quot; said Mrs. Tetterby, struggling with herself, &quot;and don’t speak to me for the present, or take any notice of me. Don’t do it!&quot; Mr. Tetterby having administered the water, turned suddenly on the unlucky Johnny (who was full of sympathy), and demanded why he was wallowing there, in gluttony and idleness, instead of coming forward with the baby, that the sight of her might revive his mother. Johnny immediately approached, borne down by its weight; but Mrs. Tetterby holding out her hand to signify that she was not in a condition to bear that trying appeal to her feelings, he was interdicted from advancing another inch, on pain of perpetual hatred from all his dearest connections; and accordingly retired to his stool again, and crushed himself as before. After a pause, Mrs. Tetterby said she was better now, and began to laugh. &quot;My little woman,&quot; said her husband, dubiously, &quot;are you quite sure you&#039;re better? Or are you, Sophia, about to break out in a fresh direction?&quot; &quot;No, &#039;Dolphus, no,&quot; replied his wife. &quot;I’m quite myself.&quot; With that, settling her hair, and pressing the palms of her hands upon her eyes, she laughed again. &quot;What a wicked fool I was, to think so for a moment!&quot; said Mrs. Tetterby. &quot;Come nearer, &#039;Dolphus, and let me ease my mind, and tell you what I mean. Let me tell you all about it.&quot; Mr. Tetterby bringing his chair closer, Mrs. Tetterby laughed again, gave him a hug, and wiped her eyes. &quot;You know, Dolphus, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Tetterby, &quot;that when I was single, I might have given myself away in several directions. At one time, four after me at once; two of them were sons of Mars.&quot; &quot;We’re all sons of Ma&#039;s, my dear,&quot; said Mr. Tetterby, &quot;jointly with Pa’s.&quot; &quot;I don’t mean that,&quot; replied his wife, &quot;I mean soldiers—serjeants.&quot; &quot;Oh!&quot; said Mr. Tetterby. &quot;Well, &#039;Dolphus, I&#039;m sure I never think of such things now, to regret them; and I&#039;m sure I&#039;ve got as good a husband, and would do as much to prove that I was fond of him, as—&quot; &quot;As any little woman in the world,&quot; said Mr. Tetterby. &quot;Very good. Very good.&quot; If Mr. Tetterby had been ten feet high, he could not have expressed a gentler consideration for Mrs. Tetterby’s fairy-like stature; and if Mrs. Tetterby had been two feet high, she could not have felt it more appropriately her due. &quot;But you see, &#039;Dolphus,&quot; said Mrs. Tetterby, &quot;this being Christmas-time, when all people who can, make holiday, and when all people who have got money, like to spend some, I did, somehow, get a little out of sorts when I was in the streets just now. There were so many things to be sold—such delicious things to eat, such fine things to look at, such delightful things to have—and there was so much calculating and calculating necessary, before I durst lay out a sixpence for the commonest thing; and the basket was so large, and wanted so much in it; and my stock of money was so small, and would go such a little way;—you hate me, don’t you, &#039;Dolphus?&quot; &quot;Not quite,&quot; said Mr. Tetterby, &quot;as yet.&quot; &quot;Well! I&#039;ll tell you the whole truth,&quot; pursued his wife, penitently, &quot;and then perhaps you will. I felt all this, so much, when I was trudging about in the cold, and when I saw a lot of other calculating faces and large baskets trudging about, too, that I began to think whether I mightn’t have done better, and been happier, if—I—hadn&#039;t—&quot; the wedding-ring went round again, and Mrs. Tetterby shook her downcast head as she turned it. &quot;I see,&quot; said her husband quietly; &quot;if you hadn&#039;t married at all, or if you had married somebody else?&quot; &quot;Yes,&quot; sobbed Mrs. Tetterby. &quot;That’s really what I thought. Do you hate me now, &#039;Dolphus?&quot; &quot;Why no,&quot; said Mr. Tetterby. &quot;I don’t find that I do, as yet.&quot; Mrs. Tetterby gave him a thankful kiss, and went on. &quot;I begin to hope you won&#039;t, now, &#039;Dolphus, though I’m afraid I haven&#039;t told you the worst. I can&#039;t think what came over me. I don&#039;t know whether I was ill, or mad, or what I was, but I couldn&#039;t call up anything that seemed to bind us to each other, or to reconcile me to my fortune. All the pleasures and enjoyments we had ever had—they seemed so poor and insignificant, I hated them. I could have trodden on them. And I could think of nothing else, except our being poor, and the number of mouths there were at home.&quot; &quot;Well, well, my dear,&quot; said Mr. Tetterby, shaking her hand encouragingly, &quot;that’s truth, after all. We are poor, and there are a number of mouths at home here.&quot; &quot;Ah! but, Dolf, Dolf!&quot; cried his wife, laying her hands upon his neck, &quot;my good, kind, patient fellow, when I had been at home a very little while—how different! Oh, Dolf, dear, how different it was! I felt as if there was a rush of recollection on me, all at once, that softened my hard heart, and filled it up till it was bursting. All our struggles for a livelihood, all our cares and wants since we have been married, all the times of sickness, all the hours of watching, we have ever had, by one another, or by the children, seemed to speak to me, and say that they had made us one, and that I never might have been, or could have been, or would have been, any other than the wife and mother I am. Then, the cheap enjoyments that I could have trodden on so cruelly, got to be so precious to me—Oh so priceless, and dear!—that I couldn’t bear to think how much I had wronged them; and I said, and say again a hundred times, how could I ever behave so, &#039;Dolphus, how could I ever have the heart to do it!&quot; The good woman, quite carried away by her honest tenderness and remorse, was weeping with all her heart, when she started up with a scream, and ran behind her husband. Her cry was so terrified, that the children started from their sleep and from their beds, and clung about her. Nor did her gaze belie her voice, as she pointed to a pale man in a black cloak who had come into the room. &quot;Look at that man! Look there! What does he want?&quot; &quot;My dear,&quot; returned her husband, &quot;I’ll ask him if you’ll let me go. What’s the matter! How you shake!&quot; &quot;I saw him in the street, when I was out just now. He looked at me, and stood near me. I am afraid of him.&quot; &quot;Afraid of him! Why?&quot; &quot;I don’t know why—I—stop! husband!&quot; for he was going towards the stranger. She had one hand pressed upon her forehead, and one upon her breast; and there was a peculiar fluttering all over her, and a hurried unsteady motion of her eyes, as if she had lost something. &quot;Are you ill, my dear?&quot; &quot;What is it that is going from me again?&quot; she muttered, in a low voice. &quot;What is this that is going away?&quot; Then she abruptly answered: &#039;Ill? No, I am quite well,&quot; and stood looking vacantly at the floor. Her husband, who had not been altogether free from the infection of her fear at first, and whom the present strangeness of her manner did not tend to reassure, addressed himself to the pale visitor in the black cloak, who stood still, and whose eyes were bent upon the ground. &quot;What may be your pleasure, sir,&quot; he asked, &quot;with us?&quot; &quot;I fear that my coming in unperceived,&quot; returned the visitor, &quot;has alarmed you; but you were talking and did not hear me.&quot; &quot;My little woman says—perhaps you heard her say it,&quot; returned Mr. Tetterby, &quot;that it’s not the first time you have alarmed her to-night.&quot; &quot;I am sorry for it. I remember to have observed her, for a few moments only, in the street. I had no intention of frightening her.&quot; As he raised his eyes in speaking, she raised hers. It was extraordinary to see what dread she had of him, and with what dread he observed it—and yet how narrowly and closely. &quot;My name,&quot; he said, &quot;is Redlaw. I come from the old college hard by. A young gentleman who is a student there, lodges in your house, does he not?&quot; &quot;Mr. Denham?&quot; said Tetterby. &quot;Yes.&quot; It was a natural action, and so slight as to be hardly noticeable; but the little man, before speaking again, passed his hand across his forehead, and looked quickly round the room, as though he were sensible of some change in its atmosphere. The Chemist, instantly transferring to him the look of dread he had directed towards the wife, stepped back, and his face turned paler. &quot;The gentleman’s room,&quot; said Tetterby, &quot;is upstairs, sir. There’s a more convenient private entrance; but as you have come in here, it will save your going out into the cold, if you’ll take this little staircase,&quot; showing one communicating directly with the parlour, &quot;and go up to him that way, if you wish to see him.&quot; &quot;Yes, I wish to see him,&quot; said the Chemist. &quot;Can you spare a light?&quot; The watchfulness of his haggard look, and the inexplicable distrust that darkened it, seemed to trouble Mr. Tetterby. He paused; and looking fixedly at him in return, stood for a minute or so, like a man stupefied, or fascinated. At length he said, &quot;I’ll light you, sir, if you’ll follow me.&quot; &quot;No,&quot; replied the Chemist, &quot;I don’t wish to be attended, or announced to him. He does not expect me. I would rather go alone. Please to give me the light, if you can spare it, and I’ll find the way.&quot; In the quickness of his expression of this desire, and in taking the candle from the newsman, he touched him on the breast. Withdrawing his hand hastily, almost as though he had wounded him by accident (for he did not know in what part of himself his new power resided, or how it was communicated, or how the manner of its reception varied in different persons), he turned and ascended the stair. But when he reached the top, he stopped and looked down. The wife was standing in the same place, twisting her ring round and round upon her finger. The husband, with his head bent forward on his breast, was musing heavily and sullenly. The children, still clustering about the mother, gazed timidly after the visitor, and nestled together when they saw him looking down. &quot;Come!&quot; said the father, roughly. &quot;There’s enough of this. Get to bed here!&quot; &quot;The place is inconvenient and small enough,&quot; the mother added, &quot;without you. Get to bed!&quot; The whole brood, scared and sad, crept away; little Johnny and the baby lagging last. The mother, glancing contemptuously round the sordid room, and tossing from her the fragments of their meal, stopped on the threshold of her task of clearing the table, and sat down, pondering idly and dejectedly. The father betook himself to the chimney-corner, and impatiently raking the small fire together, bent over it as if he would monopolise it all. They did not interchange a word. The Chemist, paler than before, stole upward like a thief; looking back upon the change below, and dreading equally to go on or return. &quot;What have I done!&quot; he said confusedly. &quot;What am I going to do!&quot; &quot;To be the benefactor of mankind,&quot; he thought he heard a voice reply. He looked round, but there was nothing there; and a passage now shutting out the little parlour from his view, he went on, directing his eyes before him at the way he went. &quot;It is only since last night,&quot; he muttered gloomily, &quot;that I have remained shut up, and yet all things are strange to me. I am strange to myself. I am here, as in a dream. What interest have I in this place, or in any place that I can bring to my remembrance? My mind is going blind!&quot; There was a door before him, and he knocked at it. Being invited, by a voice within, to enter, he complied. &quot;Is that my kind nurse?&quot; said the voice. &quot;But I need not ask her. There is no one else to come here.&quot; It spoke cheerfully, though in a languid tone, and attracted his attention to a young man lying on a couch, drawn before the chimney-piece, with the back towards the door. A meagre scanty stove, pinched and hollowed like a sick man’s cheeks, and bricked into the centre of a hearth that it could scarcely warm, contained the fire, to which his face was turned. Being so near the windy house-top, it wasted quickly, and with a busy sound, and the burning ashes dropped down fast. &quot;They chink when they shoot out here,&quot; said the student, smiling, &quot;so, according to the gossips, they are not coffins, but purses. I shall be well and rich yet, some day, if it please God, and shall live perhaps to love a daughter Milly, in remembrance of the kindest nature and the gentlest heart in the world.&quot; He put up his hand as if expecting her to take it, but, being weakened, he lay still, with his face resting on his other hand, and did not turn round. The Chemist glanced about the room;—at the student’s books and papers, piled upon a table in a corner, where they, and his extinguished reading-lamp, now prohibited and put away, told of the attentive hours that had gone before this illness, and perhaps caused it;—at such signs of his old health and freedom, as the out-of-door attire that hung idle on the wall;—at those remembrances of other and less solitary scenes, the little miniatures upon the chimney-piece, and the drawing of home;—at that token of his emulation, perhaps, in some sort, of his personal attachment too, the framed engraving of himself, the looker-on. The time had been, only yesterday, when not one of these objects, in its remotest association of interest with the living figure before him, would have been lost on Redlaw. Now, they were but objects; or, if any gleam of such connexion shot upon him, it perplexed, and not enlightened him, as he stood looking round with a dull wonder. The student, recalling the thin hand which had remained so long untouched, raised himself on the couch, and turned his head. &quot;Mr. Redlaw!&quot; he exclaimed, and started up. Redlaw put out his arm. &quot;Don’t come nearer to me. I will sit here. Remain you, where you are!&quot; He sat down on a chair near the door, and having glanced at the young man standing leaning with his hand upon the couch, spoke with his eyes averted towards the ground. &quot;I heard, by an accident, by what accident is no matter, that one of my class was ill and solitary. I received no other description of him, than that he lived in this street. Beginning my inquiries at the first house in it, I have found him.&quot; &quot;I have been ill, sir,&quot; returned the student, not merely with a modest hesitation, but with a kind of awe of him, &quot;but am greatly better. An attack of fever—of the brain, I believe—has weakened me, but I am much better. I cannot say I have been solitary, in my illness, or I should forget the ministering hand that has been near me.&quot; &quot;You are speaking of the keeper’s wife,&quot; said Redlaw. &quot;Yes.&quot; The student bent his head, as if he rendered her some silent homage. The Chemist, in whom there was a cold, monotonous apathy, which rendered him more like a marble image on the tomb of the man who had started from his dinner yesterday at the first mention of this student’s case, than the breathing man himself, glanced again at the student leaning with his hand upon the couch, and looked upon the ground, and in the air, as if for light for his blinded mind. &quot;I remembered your name,&quot; he said, &quot;when it was mentioned to me down stairs, just now; and I recollect your face. We have held but very little personal communication together?&quot; &quot;Very little.&quot; &quot;You have retired and withdrawn from me, more than any of the rest, I think?&quot; The student signified assent. &quot;And why?&quot; said the Chemist; not with the least expression of interest, but with a moody, wayward kind of curiosity. &quot;Why? How comes it that you have sought to keep especially from me, the knowledge of your remaining here, at this season, when all the rest have dispersed, and of your being ill? I want to know why this is?&quot; The young man, who had heard him with increasing agitation, raised his downcast eyes to his face, and clasping his hands together, cried with sudden earnestness and with trembling lips: &quot;Mr. Redlaw! You have discovered me. You know my secret!&quot; &quot;Secret?&quot; said the Chemist, harshly. “I know?” &quot;Yes! Your manner, so different from the interest and sympathy which endear you to so many hearts, your altered voice, the constraint there is in everything you say, and in your looks,&quot; replied the student, &quot;warn me that you know me. That you would conceal it, even now, is but a proof to me (God knows I need none!) of your natural kindness and of the bar there is between us.&quot; A vacant and contemptuous laugh, was all his answer. &quot;But, Mr. Redlaw,&quot; said the student, &quot;as a just man, and a good man, think how innocent I am, except in name and descent, of participation in any wrong inflicted on you or in any sorrow you have borne.&quot; &quot;Sorrow!&quot; said Redlaw, laughing. &quot;Wrong! What are those to me?&quot; &quot;For Heaven’s sake,&quot; entreated the shrinking student, &quot;do not let the mere interchange of a few words with me change you like this, sir! Let me pass again from your knowledge and notice. Let me occupy my old reserved and distant place among those whom you instruct. Know me only by the name I have assumed, and not by that of Longford—&quot; &quot;Longford!&quot; exclaimed the other. He clasped his head with both his hands, and for a moment turned upon the young man his own intelligent and thoughtful face. But the light passed from it, like the sun-beam of an instant, and it clouded as before. &quot;The name my mother bears, sir,&quot; faltered the young man, &quot;the name she took, when she might, perhaps, have taken one more honoured. Mr. Redlaw,&quot; hesitating, &quot;I believe I know that history. Where my information halts, my guesses at what is wanting may supply something not remote from the truth. I am the child of a marriage that has not proved itself a well-assorted or a happy one. From infancy, I have heard you spoken of with honour and respect—with something that was almost reverence. I have heard of such devotion, of such fortitude and tenderness, of such rising up against the obstacles which press men down, that my fancy, since I learnt my little lesson from my mother, has shed a lustre on your name. At last, a poor student myself, from whom could I learn but you?&quot; Redlaw, unmoved, unchanged, and looking at him with a staring frown, answered by no word or sign. &quot;I cannot say,&quot; pursued the other, &quot;I should try in vain to say, how much it has impressed me, and affected me, to find the gracious traces of the past, in that certain power of winning gratitude and confidence which is associated among us students (among the humblest of us, most) with Mr. Redlaw’s generous name. Our ages and positions are so different, sir, and I am so accustomed to regard you from a distance, that I wonder at my own presumption when I touch, however lightly, on that theme. But to one who—I may say, who felt no common interest in my mother once—it may be something to hear, now that all is past, with what indescribable feelings of affection I have, in my obscurity, regarded him; with what pain and reluctance I have kept aloof from his encouragement, when a word of it would have made me rich; yet how I have felt it fit that I should hold my course, content to know him, and to be unknown. Mr. Redlaw,&quot; said the student, faintly, &quot;what I would have said, I have said ill, for my strength is strange to me as yet; but for anything unworthy in this fraud of mine, forgive me, and for all the rest forget me!&quot; The staring frown remained on Redlaw’s face, and yielded to no other expression until the student, with these words, advanced towards him, as if to touch his hand, when he drew back and cried to him: &quot;Don’t come nearer to me!&quot; The young man stopped, shocked by the eagerness of his recoil, and by the sternness of his repulsion; and he passed his hand, thoughtfully, across his forehead. &quot;The past is past,&quot; said the Chemist. &quot;It dies like the brutes. Who talks to me of its traces in my life? He raves or lies! What have I to do with your distempered dreams? If you want money, here it is. I came to offer it; and that is all I came for. There can be nothing else that brings me here,&quot; he muttered, holding his head again, with both his hands. &quot;There can be nothing else, and yet—&quot; He had tossed his purse upon the table. As he fell into this dim cogitation with himself, the student took it up, and held it out to him. &quot;Take it back, sir,&quot; he said proudly, though not angrily. &quot;I wish you could take from me, with it, the remembrance of your words and offer.&quot; &quot;You do?&quot; he retorted, with a wild light in his eyes. &quot;You do?&quot; &quot;I do!&quot; The Chemist went close to him, for the first time, and took the purse, and turned him by the arm, and looked him in the face. &quot;There is sorrow and trouble in sickness, is there not?&quot; he demanded, with a laugh. The wondering student answered, &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;In its unrest, in its anxiety, in its suspense, in all its train of physical and mental miseries?&quot; said the Chemist, with a wild unearthly exultation. &quot;All best forgotten, are they not?&quot; The student did not answer, but again passed his hand, confusedly, across his forehead. Redlaw still held him by the sleeve, when Milly’s voice was heard outside. &quot;I can see very well now,&quot; she said, &quot;thank you, Dolf. Don’t cry, dear. Father and mother will be comfortable again, to-morrow, and home will be comfortable too. A gentleman with him, is there!&quot; Redlaw released his hold, as he listened. &quot;I have feared, from the first moment,&quot; he murmured to himself, &quot;to meet her. There is a steady quality of goodness in her, that I dread to influence. I may be the murderer of what is tenderest and best within her bosom.&quot; She was knocking at the door. &quot;Shall I dismiss it as an idle foreboding, or still avoid her?&quot; he muttered, looking uneasily around. She was knocking at the door again. &quot;Of all the visitors who could come here,&quot; he said, in a hoarse alarmed voice, turning to his companion, &quot;this is the one I should desire most to avoid. Hide me!&quot; The student opened a frail door in the wall, communicating where the garret-roof began to slope towards the floor, with a small inner room. Redlaw passed in hastily, and shut it after him. The student then resumed his place upon the couch, and called to her to enter. &quot;Dear Mr. Edmund,&quot; said Milly, looking round, &quot;they told me there was a gentleman here.&quot; &quot;There is no one here but I.&quot; &quot;There has been some one?&quot; &quot;Yes, yes, there has been some one.&quot; She put her little basket on the table, and went up to the back of the couch, as if to take the extended hand—but it was not there. A little surprised, in her quiet way, she leaned over to look at his face, and gently touched him on the brow. &quot;Are you quite as well to-night? Your head is not so cool as in the afternoon.&quot; &quot;Tut!&quot; said the student, petulantly, &quot;very little ails me.&quot; A little more surprise, but no reproach, was expressed in her face, as she withdrew to the other side of the table, and took a small packet of needlework from her basket. But she laid it down again, on second thoughts, and going noiselessly about the room, set everything exactly in its place, and in the neatest order; even to the cushions on the couch, which she touched with so light a hand, that he hardly seemed to know it, as he lay looking at the fire. When all this was done, and she had swept the hearth, she sat down, in her modest little bonnet, to her work, and was quietly busy on it directly. &quot;It’s the new muslin curtain for the window, Mr. Edmund,&quot; said Milly, stitching away as she talked. &quot;It will look very clean and nice, though it costs very little, and will save your eyes, too, from the light. My William says the room should not be too light just now, when you are recovering so well, or the glare might make you giddy.&quot; He said nothing; but there was something so fretful and impatient in his change of position, that her quick fingers stopped, and she looked at him anxiously. &quot;The pillows are not comfortable,&quot; she said, laying down her work and rising. &quot;I will soon put them right.&quot; &quot;They are very well,&quot; he answered. &quot;Leave them alone, pray. You make so much of everything.&quot; He raised his head to say this, and looked at her so thanklessly, that, after he had thrown himself down again, she stood timidly pausing. However, she resumed her seat, and her needle, without having directed even a murmuring look towards him, and was soon as busy as before. &quot;I have been thinking, Mr. Edmund, that you have been often thinking of late, when I have been sitting by, how true the saying is, that adversity is a good teacher. Health will be more precious to you, after this illness, than it has ever been. And years hence, when this time of year comes round, and you remember the days when you lay here sick, alone, that the knowledge of your illness might not afflict those who are dearest to you, your home will be doubly dear and doubly blest. Now, isn’t that a good, true thing?&quot; She was too intent upon her work, and too earnest in what she said, and too composed and quiet altogether, to be on the watch for any look he might direct towards her in reply; so the shaft of his ungrateful glance fell harmless, and did not wound her. &quot;Ah!&quot; said Milly, with her pretty head inclining thoughtfully on one side, as she looked down, following her busy fingers with her eyes. &quot;Even on me—and I am very different from you, Mr. Edmund, for I have no learning, and don’t know how to think properly—this view of such things has made a great impression, since you have been lying ill. When I have seen you so touched by the kindness and attention of the poor people down stairs, I have felt that you thought even that experience some repayment for the loss of health, and I have read in your face, as plain as if it was a book, that but for some trouble and sorrow we should never know half the good there is about us.&quot; His getting up from the couch, interrupted her, or she was going on to say more. &quot;We needn’t magnify the merit, Mrs. William,&quot; he rejoined slightingly. &quot;The people down stairs will be paid in good time I dare say, for any little extra service they may have rendered me; and perhaps they anticipate no less. I am much obliged to you, too.&quot; Her fingers stopped, and she looked at him. &quot;I can’t be made to feel the more obliged by your exaggerating the case,&quot; he said. &quot;I am sensible that you have been interested in me, and I say I am much obliged to you. What more would you have?&quot; Her work fell on her lap, as she still looked at him walking to and fro with an intolerant air, and stopping now and then. &quot;I say again, I am much obliged to you. Why weaken my sense of what is your due in obligation, by preferring enormous claims upon me? Trouble, sorrow, affliction, adversity! One might suppose I had been dying a score of deaths here!&quot; &quot;Do you believe, Mr. Edmund,&quot; she asked, rising and going nearer to him, &quot;that I spoke of the poor people of the house, with any reference to myself? To me?&quot; laying her hand upon her bosom with a simple and innocent smile of astonishment. &quot;Oh! I think nothing about it, my good creature,&quot; he returned. &quot;I have had an indisposition, which your solicitude—observe! I say solicitude—makes a great deal more of, than it merits; and it&#039;s over, and we can&#039;t perpetuate it.&quot; He coldly took a book, and sat down at the table. She watched him for a little while, until her smile was quite gone, and then, returning to where her basket was, said gently: &quot;Mr. Edmund, would you rather be alone?&quot; &quot;There is no reason why I should detain you here,&quot; he replied. &quot;Except—&quot; said Milly, hesitating, and showing her work. &quot;Oh! the curtain,&quot; he answered, with a supercilious laugh. &quot;That’s not worth staying for.&quot; She made up the little packet again, and put it in her basket. Then, standing before him with such an air of patient entreaty that he could not choose but look at her, she said: &quot;If you should want me, I will come back willingly. When you did want me, I was quite happy to come; there was no merit in it. I think you must be afraid, that, now you are getting well, I may be troublesome to you; but I should not have been, indeed. I should have come no longer than your weakness and confinement lasted. You owe me nothing; but it is right that you should deal as justly by me as if I was a lady—even the very lady that you love; and if you suspect me of meanly making much of the little I have tried to do to comfort your sick room, you do yourself more wrong than ever you can do me. That is why I am sorry. That is why I am very sorry.&quot; If she had been as passionate as she was quiet, as indignant as she was calm, as angry in her look as she was gentle, as loud of tone as she was low and clear, she might have left no sense of her departure in the room, compared with that which fell upon the lonely student when she went away. He was gazing drearily upon the place where she had been, when Redlaw came out of his concealment, and came to the door. &quot;When sickness lays its hand on you again,&quot; he said, looking fiercely back at him, &quot;—may it be soon!—Die here! Rot here!&quot; &quot;What have you done?&quot; returned the other, catching at his cloak. &quot;What change have you wrought in me? What curse have you brought upon me? Give me back myself!&quot; &quot;Give me back myself!&quot; exclaimed Redlaw like a madman. &quot;I am infected! I am infectious! I am charged with poison for my own mind, and the minds of all mankind. Where I felt interest, compassion, sympathy, I am turning into stone. Selfishness and ingratitude spring up in my blighting footsteps. I am only so much less base than the wretches whom I make so, that in the moment of their transformation I can hate them.&quot; As he spoke—the young man still holding to his cloak—he cast him off, and struck him: then, wildly hurried out into the night air where the wind was blowing, the snow falling, the cloud-drift sweeping on, the moon dimly shining; and where, blowing in the wind, falling with the snow, drifting with the clouds, shining in the moonlight, and heavily looming in the darkness, were the Phantom’s words, &quot;The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where you will!&quot; Whither he went, he neither knew nor cared, so that he avoided company. The change he felt within him made the busy streets a desert, and himself a desert, and the multitude around him, in their manifold endurances and ways of life, a mighty waste of sand, which the winds tossed into unintelligible heaps and made a ruinous confusion of. Those traces in his breast which the Phantom had told him would &quot;die out soon,&quot; were not, as yet, so far upon their way to death, but that he understood enough of what he was, and what he made of others, to desire to be alone. This put it in his mind—he suddenly bethought himself, as he was going along, of the boy who had rushed into his room. And then he recollected, that of those with whom he had communicated since the Phantom’s disappearance, that boy alone had shown no sign of being changed. Monstrous and odious as the wild thing was to him, he determined to seek it out, and prove if this were really so; and also to seek it with another intention, which came into his thoughts at the same time. So, resolving with some difficulty where he was, he directed his steps back to the old college, and to that part of it where the general porch was, and where, alone, the pavement was worn by the tread of the students’ feet. The keeper’s house stood just within the iron gates, forming a part of the chief quadrangle. There was a little cloister outside, and from that sheltered place he knew he could look in at the window of their ordinary room, and see who was within. The iron gates were shut, but his hand was familiar with the fastening, and drawing it back by thrusting in his wrist between the bars, he passed through softly, shut it again, and crept up to the window, crumbling the thin crust of snow with his feet. The fire, to which he had directed the boy last night, shining brightly through the glass, made an illuminated place upon the ground. Instinctively avoiding this, and going round it, he looked in at the window. At first, he thought that there was no one there, and that the blaze was reddening only the old beams in the ceiling and the dark walls; but peering in more narrowly, he saw the object of his search coiled asleep before it on the floor. He passed quickly to the door, opened it, and went in. The creature lay in such a fiery heat, that, as the Chemist stooped to rouse him, it scorched his head. So soon as he was touched, the boy, not half awake, clutching his rags together with the instinct of flight upon him, half rolled and half ran into a distant corner of the room, where, heaped upon the ground, he struck his foot out to defend himself. &quot;Get up!&quot; said the Chemist. &quot;You have not forgotten me?&quot; &quot;You let me alone!&quot; returned the boy. &quot;This is the woman’s house—not yours.&quot; The Chemist’s steady eye controlled him somewhat, or inspired him with enough submission to be raised upon his feet, and looked at. &quot;Who washed them, and put those bandages where they were bruised and cracked?&quot; asked the Chemist, pointing to their altered state. &quot;The woman did.&quot; &quot;And is it she who has made you cleaner in the face, too?&quot; &quot;Yes, the woman.&quot; Redlaw asked these questions to attract his eyes towards himself, and with the same intent now held him by the chin, and threw his wild hair back, though he loathed to touch him. The boy watched his eyes keenly, as if he thought it needful to his own defence, not knowing what he might do next; and Redlaw could see well that no change came over him. &quot;Where are they?&quot; he inquired. &quot;The woman’s out.&quot; &quot;I know she is. Where is the old man with the white hair, and his son?&quot; &quot;The woman’s husband, d’ye mean?&quot; inquired the boy. &quot;Ay. Where are those two?&quot; &quot;Out. Something’s the matter, somewhere. They were fetched out in a hurry, and told me to stop here.&quot; &quot;Come with me,&quot; said the Chemist, &quot;and I’ll give you money.&quot; &quot;Come where? and how much will you give?&quot; &quot;I’ll give you more shillings than you ever saw, and bring you back soon. Do you know your way to where you came from?&quot; &quot;You let me go,&quot; returned the boy, suddenly twisting out of his grasp. &quot;I’m not a going to take you there. Let me be, or I’ll heave some fire at you!&quot; He was down before it, and ready, with his savage little hand, to pluck the burning coals out. What the Chemist had felt, in observing the effect of his charmed influence stealing over those with whom he came in contact, was not nearly equal to the cold vague terror with which he saw this baby-monster put it at defiance. It chilled his blood to look on the immovable impenetrable thing, in the likeness of a child, with its sharp malignant face turned up to his, and its almost infant hand, ready at the bars. &quot;Listen, boy!&quot; he said. &quot;You shall take me where you please, so that you take me where the people are very miserable or very wicked. I want to do them good, and not to harm them. You shall have money, as I have told you, and I will bring you back. Get up! Come quickly!&quot; He made a hasty step towards the door, afraid of her returning. &quot;Will you let me walk by myself, and never hold me, nor yet touch me?&quot; said the boy, slowly withdrawing the hand with which he threatened, and beginning to get up. &quot;I will!&quot; &quot;And let me go, before, behind, or anyways I like?&quot; &quot;I will!&quot; &quot;Give me some money first, then, and go.&quot; The Chemist laid a few shillings, one by one, in his extended hand. To count them was beyond the boy’s knowledge, but he said &quot;one,&quot; every time, and avariciously looked at each as it was given, and at the donor. He had nowhere to put them, out of his hand, but in his mouth; and he put them there. Redlaw then wrote with his pencil on a leaf of his pocket-book, that the boy was with him; and laying it on the table, signed to him to follow. Keeping his rags together, as usual, the boy complied, and went out with his bare head and naked feet into the winter night. Preferring not to depart by the iron gate by which he had entered, where they were in danger of meeting her whom he so anxiously avoided, the Chemist led the way, through some of those passages among which the boy had lost himself, and by that portion of the building where he lived, to a small door of which he had the key. When they got into the street, he stopped to ask his guide—who instantly retreated from him—if he knew where they were. The savage thing looked here and there, and at length, nodding his head, pointed in the direction he designed to take. Redlaw going on at once, he followed, something less suspiciously; shifting his money from his mouth into his hand, and back again into his mouth, and stealthily rubbing it bright upon his shreds of dress, as he went along. Three times, in their progress, they were side by side. Three times they stopped, being side by side. Three times the Chemist glanced down at his face, and shuddered as it forced upon him one reflection. The first occasion was when they were crossing an old churchyard, and Redlaw stopped among the graves, utterly at a loss how to connect them with any tender, softening, or consolatory thought. The second was, when the breaking forth of the moon induced him to look up at the Heavens, where he saw her in her glory, surrounded by a host of stars he still knew by the names and histories which human science has appended to them; but where he saw nothing else he had been wont to see, felt nothing he had been wont to feel, in looking up there, on a bright night. The third was when he stopped to listen to a plaintive strain of music, but could only hear a tune, made manifest to him by the dry mechanism of the instruments and his own ears, with no address to any mystery within him, without a whisper in it of the past, or of the future, powerless upon him as the sound of last year’s running water, or the rushing of last year’s wind. At each of these three times, he saw with horror that, in spite of the vast intellectual distance between them, and their being unlike each other in all physical respects, the expression on the boy’s face was the expression on his own. They journeyed on for some time—now through such crowded places, that he often looked over his shoulder thinking he had lost his guide, but generally finding him within his shadow on his other side; now by ways so quiet, that he could have counted his short, quick, naked footsteps coming on behind—until they arrived at a ruinous collection of houses, and the boy touched him and stopped. &quot;In there!&quot; he said, pointing out one house where there were scattered lights in the windows, and a dim lantern in the doorway, with &quot;Lodgings for Travellers&quot; painted on it. Redlaw looked about him; from the houses to the waste piece of ground on which the houses stood, or rather did not altogether tumble down, unfenced, undrained, unlighted, and bordered by a sluggish ditch; from that, to the sloping line of arches, part of some neighbouring viaduct or bridge with which it was surrounded, and which lessened gradually towards them, until the last but one was a mere kennel for a dog, the last a plundered little heap of bricks; from that, to the child, close to him, cowering and trembling with the cold, and limping on one little foot, while he coiled the other round his leg to warm it, yet staring at all these things with that frightful likeness of expression so apparent in his face, that Redlaw started from him. &quot;In there!&quot; said the boy, pointing out the house again. &quot;I’ll wait.&quot; &quot;Will they let me in?&quot; asked Redlaw. &quot;Say you’re a doctor,&quot; he answered with a nod. &quot;There’s plenty ill here.&quot; Looking back on his way to the house-door, Redlaw saw him trail himself upon the dust and crawl within the shelter of the smallest arch, as if he were a rat. He had no pity for the thing, but he was afraid of it; and when it looked out of its den at him, he hurried to the house as a retreat. &quot;Sorrow, wrong, and trouble,&quot; said the Chemist, with a painful effort at some more distinct remembrance, &quot;at least haunt this place darkly. He can do no harm, who brings forgetfulness of such things here!&quot; With these words, he pushed the yielding door, and went in. There was a woman sitting on the stairs, either asleep or forlorn, whose head was bent down on her hands and knees. As it was not easy to pass without treading on her, and as she was perfectly regardless of his near approach, he stopped, and touched her on the shoulder. Looking up, she showed him quite a young face, but one whose bloom and promise were all swept away, as if the haggard winter should unnaturally kill the spring. With little or no show of concern on his account, she moved nearer to the wall to leave him a wider passage. &quot;What are you?&quot; said Redlaw, pausing, with his hand upon the broken stair-rail. &quot;What do you think I am?&quot; she answered, showing him her face again. He looked upon the ruined Temple of God, so lately made, so soon disfigured; and something, which was not compassion—for the springs in which a true compassion for such miseries has its rise, were dried up in his breast—but which was nearer to it, for the moment, than any feeling that had lately struggled into the darkening, but not yet wholly darkened, night of his mind—mingled a touch of softness with his next words. &quot;I am come here to give relief, if I can,&quot; he said. &quot;Are you thinking of any wrong?&quot; She frowned at him, and then laughed; and then her laugh prolonged itself into a shivering sigh, as she dropped her head again, and hid her fingers in her hair. &quot;Are you thinking of a wrong?&quot; he asked once more. “I am thinking of my life,” she said, with a momentary look at him. He had a perception that she was one of many, and that he saw the type of thousands, when he saw her, drooping at his feet. “What are your parents?” he demanded. &quot;I had a good home once. My father was a gardener, far away, in the country.&quot; &quot;Is he dead?&quot; &quot;He’s dead to me. All such things are dead to me. You a gentleman, and not know that!&quot; She raised her eyes again, and laughed at him. “Girl!” said Redlaw, sternly, “before this death, of all such things, was brought about, was there no wrong done to you? In spite of all that you can do, does no remembrance of wrong cleave to you? Are there not times upon times when it is misery to you?” So little of what was womanly was left in her appearance, that now, when she burst into tears, he stood amazed. But he was more amazed, and much disquieted, to note that in her awakened recollection of this wrong, the first trace of her old humanity and frozen tenderness appeared to show itself. He drew a little off, and in doing so, observed that her arms were black, her face cut, and her bosom bruised. “What brutal hand has hurt you so?” he asked. “My own. I did it myself!” she answered quickly. “It is impossible.” “I’ll swear I did! He didn’t touch me. I did it to myself in a passion, and threw myself down here. He wasn’t near me. He never laid a hand upon me!” In the white determination of her face, confronting him with this untruth, he saw enough of the last perversion and distortion of good surviving in that miserable breast, to be stricken with remorse that he had ever come near her. “Sorrow, wrong, and trouble!” he muttered, turning his fearful gaze away. “All that connects her with the state from which she has fallen, has those roots! In the name of God, let me go by!” Afraid to look at her again, afraid to touch her, afraid to think of having sundered the last thread by which she held upon the mercy of Heaven, he gathered his cloak about him, and glided swiftly up the stairs. Opposite to him, on the landing, was a door, which stood partly open, and which, as he ascended, a man with a candle in his hand, came forward from within to shut. But this man, on seeing him, drew back, with much emotion in his manner, and, as if by a sudden impulse, mentioned his name aloud. In the surprise of such a recognition there, he stopped, endeavouring to recollect the wan and startled face. He had no time to consider it, for, to his yet greater amazement, old Philip came out of the room, and took him by the hand. “Mr. Redlaw,” said the old man, “this is like you, this is like you, sir! you have heard of it, and have come after us to render any help you can. Ah, too late, too late!” Redlaw, with a bewildered look, submitted to be led into the room. A man lay there, on a truckle-bed, and William Swidger stood at the bedside. “Too late!” murmured the old man, looking wistfully into the Chemist’s face; and the tears stole down his cheeks. “That’s what I say, father,” interposed his son in a low voice. “That’s where it is, exactly. To keep as quiet as ever we can while he’s a dozing, is the only thing to do. You’re right, father!” Redlaw paused at the bedside, and looked down on the figure that was stretched upon the mattress. It was that of a man, who should have been in the vigour of his life, but on whom it was not likely the sun would ever shine again. The vices of his forty or fifty years’ career had so branded him, that, in comparison with their effects upon his face, the heavy hand of Time upon the old man’s face who watched him had been merciful and beautifying. “Who is this?” asked the Chemist, looking round. “My son George, Mr. Redlaw,” said the old man, wringing his hands. “My eldest son, George, who was more his mother’s pride than all the rest!” Redlaw’s eyes wandered from the old man’s grey head, as he laid it down upon the bed, to the person who had recognised him, and who had kept aloof, in the remotest corner of the room. He seemed to be about his own age; and although he knew no such hopeless decay and broken man as he appeared to be, there was something in the turn of his figure, as he stood with his back towards him, and now went out at the door, that made him pass his hand uneasily across his brow. “William,” he said in a gloomy whisper, “who is that man?” “Why you see, sir,” returned Mr. William, “that’s what I say, myself. Why should a man ever go and gamble, and the like of that, and let himself down inch by inch till he can’t let himself down any lower!” “Has he done so?” asked Redlaw, glancing after him with the same uneasy action as before. “Just exactly that, sir,” returned William Swidger, “as I’m told. He knows a little about medicine, sir, it seems; and having been wayfaring towards London with my unhappy brother that you see here,” Mr. William passed his coat-sleeve across his eyes, “and being lodging up stairs for the night—what I say, you see, is that strange companions come together here sometimes—he looked in to attend upon him, and came for us at his request. What a mournful spectacle, sir! But that’s where it is. It’s enough to kill my father!” Redlaw looked up, at these words, and, recalling where he was and with whom, and the spell he carried with him—which his surprise had obscured—retired a little, hurriedly, debating with himself whether to shun the house that moment, or remain. Yielding to a certain sullen doggedness, which it seemed to be a part of his condition to struggle with, he argued for remaining. “Was it only yesterday,” he said, “when I observed the memory of this old man to be a tissue of sorrow and trouble, and shall I be afraid, to-night, to shake it? Are such remembrances as I can drive away, so precious to this dying man that I need fear for him? No! I’ll stay here.” But he stayed in fear and trembling none the less for these words; and, shrouded in his black cloak with his face turned from them, stood away from the bedside, listening to what they said, as if he felt himself a demon in the place. “Father!” murmured the sick man, rallying a little from stupor. “My boy! My son George!” said old Philip. “You spoke, just now, of my being mother’s favourite, long ago. It’s a dreadful thing to think now, of long ago!” “No, no, no;” returned the old man. “Think of it. Don’t say it’s dreadful. It’s not dreadful to me, my son.” “It cuts you to the heart, father.” For the old man’s tears were falling on him. “Yes, yes,” said Philip, “so it does; but it does me good. It’s a heavy sorrow to think of that time, but it does me good, George. Oh, think of it too, think of it too, and your heart will be softened more and more! Where’s my son William? William, my boy, your mother loved him dearly to the last, and with her latest breath said, ‘Tell him I forgave him, blessed him, and prayed for him.’ Those were her words to me. I have never forgotten them, and I’m eighty-seven!” “Father!” said the man upon the bed, “I am dying, I know. I am so far gone, that I can hardly speak, even of what my mind most runs on. Is there any hope for me beyond this bed?” “There is hope,” returned the old man, “for all who are softened and penitent. There is hope for all such. Oh!” he exclaimed, clasping his hands and looking up, “I was thankful, only yesterday, that I could remember this unhappy son when he was an innocent child. But what a comfort it is, now, to think that even God himself has that remembrance of him!” Redlaw spread his hands upon his face, and shrank, like a murderer. “Ah!” feebly moaned the man upon the bed. “The waste since then, the waste of life since then!” “But he was a child once,” said the old man. “He played with children. Before he lay down on his bed at night, and fell into his guiltless rest, he said his prayers at his poor mother’s knee. I have seen him do it, many a time; and seen her lay his head upon her breast, and kiss him. Sorrowful as it was to her and me, to think of this, when he went so wrong, and when our hopes and plans for him were all broken, this gave him still a hold upon us, that nothing else could have given. Oh, Father, so much better than the fathers upon earth! Oh, Father, so much more afflicted by the errors of Thy children! take this wanderer back! Not as he is, but as he was then, let him cry to Thee, as he has so often seemed to cry to us!” As the old man lifted up his trembling hands, the son, for whom he made the supplication, laid his sinking head against him for support and comfort, as if he were indeed the child of whom he spoke. When did man ever tremble, as Redlaw trembled, in the silence that ensued! He knew it must come upon them, knew that it was coming fast. “My time is very short, my breath is shorter,” said the sick man, supporting himself on one arm, and with the other groping in the air, “and I remember there is something on my mind concerning the man who was here just now, Father and William—wait!—is there really anything in black, out there?” “Yes, yes, it is real,” said his aged father. “Is it a man?” “What I say myself, George,” interposed his brother, bending kindly over him. “It’s Mr. Redlaw.” “I thought I had dreamed of him. Ask him to come here.” The Chemist, whiter than the dying man, appeared before him. Obedient to the motion of his hand, he sat upon the bed. “It has been so ripped up, to-night, sir,” said the sick man, laying his hand upon his heart, with a look in which the mute, imploring agony of his condition was concentrated, “by the sight of my poor old father, and the thought of all the trouble I have been the cause of, and all the wrong and sorrow lying at my door, that—” Was it the extremity to which he had come, or was it the dawning of another change, that made him stop? “—that what I can do right, with my mind running on so much, so fast, I’ll try to do. There was another man here. Did you see him?” Redlaw could not reply by any word; for when he saw that fatal sign he knew so well now, of the wandering hand upon the forehead, his voice died at his lips. But he made some indication of assent. “He is penniless, hungry, and destitute. He is completely beaten down, and has no resource at all. Look after him! Lose no time! I know he has it in his mind to kill himself.” It was working. It was on his face. His face was changing, hardening, deepening in all its shades, and losing all its sorrow. “Don’t you remember? Don’t you know him?” he pursued. He shut his face out for a moment, with the hand that again wandered over his forehead, and then it lowered on Redlaw, reckless, ruffianly, and callous. “Why, d-n you!” he said, scowling round, “what have you been doing to me here! I have lived bold, and I mean to die bold. To the Devil with you!” And so lay down upon his bed, and put his arms up, over his head and ears, as resolute from that time to keep out all access, and to die in his indifference. If Redlaw had been struck by lightning, it could not have struck him from the bedside with a more tremendous shock. But the old man, who had left the bed while his son was speaking to him, now returning, avoided it quickly likewise, and with abhorrence. “Where’s my boy William?” said the old man hurriedly. “William, come away from here. We’ll go home.” “Home, father!” returned William. “Are you going to leave your own son?” “Where’s my own son?” replied the old man. “Where? why, there!” “That’s no son of mine,” said Philip, trembling with resentment. “No such wretch as that, has any claim on me. My children are pleasant to look at, and they wait upon me, and get my meat and drink ready, and are useful to me. I’ve a right to it! I’m eighty-seven!” “You’re old enough to be no older,” muttered William, looking at him grudgingly, with his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know what good you are, myself. We could have a deal more pleasure without you.” “My son, Mr. Redlaw!” said the old man. “My son, too! The boy talking to me of my son! Why, what has he ever done to give me any pleasure, I should like to know?” “I don’t know what you have ever done to give me any pleasure,” said William, sulkily. “Let me think,” said the old man. “For how many Christmas times running, have I sat in my warm place, and never had to come out in the cold night air; and have made good cheer, without being disturbed by any such uncomfortable, wretched sight as him there? Is it twenty, William?” “Nigher forty, it seems,” he muttered. “Why, when I look at my father, sir, and come to think of it,” addressing Redlaw, with an impatience and irritation that were quite new, “I’m whipped if I can see anything in him but a calendar of ever so many years of eating and drinking, and making himself comfortable, over and over again.” “I—I’m eighty-seven,” said the old man, rambling on, childishly and weakly, “and I don’t know as I ever was much put out by anything. I’m not going to begin now, because of what he calls my son. He’s not my son. I’ve had a power of pleasant times. I recollect once—no I don’t—no, it’s broken off. It was something about a game of cricket and a friend of mine, but it’s somehow broken off. I wonder who he was—I suppose I liked him? And I wonder what became of him—I suppose he died? But I don’t know. And I don’t care, neither; I don’t care a bit.” In his drowsy chuckling, and the shaking of his head, he put his hands into his waistcoat pockets. In one of them he found a bit of holly (left there, probably last night), which he now took out, and looked at. “Berries, eh?” said the old man. “Ah! It’s a pity they’re not good to eat. I recollect, when I was a little chap about as high as that, and out a walking with—let me see—who was I out a walking with?—no, I don’t remember how that was. I don’t remember as I ever walked with any one particular, or cared for any one, or any one for me. Berries, eh? There’s good cheer when there’s berries. Well; I ought to have my share of it, and to be waited on, and kept warm and comfortable; for I’m eighty-seven, and a poor old man. I’m eigh-ty-seven. Eigh-ty-seven!” The drivelling, pitiable manner in which, as he repeated this, he nibbled at the leaves, and spat the morsels out; the cold, uninterested eye with which his youngest son (so changed) regarded him; the determined apathy with which his eldest son lay hardened in his sin; impressed themselves no more on Redlaw’s observation,—for he broke his way from the spot to which his feet seemed to have been fixed, and ran out of the house. His guide came crawling forth from his place of refuge, and was ready for him before he reached the arches. “Back to the woman’s?” he inquired. “Back, quickly!” answered Redlaw. “Stop nowhere on the way!” For a short distance the boy went on before; but their return was more like a flight than a walk, and it was as much as his bare feet could do, to keep pace with the Chemist’s rapid strides. Shrinking from all who passed, shrouded in his cloak, and keeping it drawn closely about him, as though there were mortal contagion in any fluttering touch of his garments, he made no pause until they reached the door by which they had come out. He unlocked it with his key, went in, accompanied by the boy, and hastened through the dark passages to his own chamber. The boy watched him as he made the door fast, and withdrew behind the table, when he looked round. “Come!” he said. “Don’t you touch me! You’ve not brought me here to take my money away.” Redlaw threw some more upon the ground. He flung his body on it immediately, as if to hide it from him, lest the sight of it should tempt him to reclaim it; and not until he saw him seated by his lamp, with his face hidden in his hands, began furtively to pick it up. When he had done so, he crept near the fire, and, sitting down in a great chair before it, took from his breast some broken scraps of food, and fell to munching, and to staring at the blaze, and now and then to glancing at his shillings, which he kept clenched up in a bunch, in one hand. “And this,” said Redlaw, gazing on him with increased repugnance and fear, “is the only one companion I have left on earth!” How long it was before he was aroused from his contemplation of this creature, whom he dreaded so—whether half-an-hour, or half the night—he knew not. But the stillness of the room was broken by the boy (whom he had seen listening) starting up, and running towards the door. “Here’s the woman coming!” he exclaimed. The Chemist stopped him on his way, at the moment when she knocked. “Let me go to her, will you?” said the boy. “Not now,” returned the Chemist. “Stay here. Nobody must pass in or out of the room now. Who’s that?” “It’s I, sir,” cried Milly. “Pray, sir, let me in!” “No! not for the world!” he said. “Mr. Redlaw, Mr. Redlaw, pray, sir, let me in.” “What is the matter?” he said, holding the boy. “The miserable man you saw, is worse, and nothing I can say will wake him from his terrible infatuation. William’s father has turned childish in a moment, William himself is changed. The shock has been too sudden for him; I cannot understand him; he is not like himself. Oh, Mr. Redlaw, pray advise me, help me!” “No! No! No!” he answered. “Mr. Redlaw! Dear sir! George has been muttering, in his doze, about the man you saw there, who, he fears, will kill himself.” “Better he should do it, than come near me!” “He says, in his wandering, that you know him; that he was your friend once, long ago; that he is the ruined father of a student here—my mind misgives me, of the young gentleman who has been ill. What is to be done? How is he to be followed? How is he to be saved? Mr. Redlaw, pray, oh, pray, advise me! Help me!” All this time he held the boy, who was half-mad to pass him, and let her in. “Phantoms! Punishers of impious thoughts!” cried Redlaw, gazing round in anguish, “look upon me! From the darkness of my mind, let the glimmering of contrition that I know is there, shine up and show my misery! In the material world as I have long taught, nothing can be spared; no step or atom in the wondrous structure could be lost, without a blank being made in the great universe. I know, now, that it is the same with good and evil, happiness and sorrow, in the memories of men. Pity me! Relieve me!” There was no response, but her “Help me, help me, let me in!” and the boy’s struggling to get to her. “Shadow of myself! Spirit of my darker hours!” cried Redlaw, in distraction, “come back, and haunt me day and night, but take this gift away! Or, if it must still rest with me, deprive me of the dreadful power of giving it to others. Undo what I have done. Leave me benighted, but restore the day to those whom I have cursed. As I have spared this woman from the first, and as I never will go forth again, but will die here, with no hand to tend me, save this creature’s who is proof against me,—hear me!” The only reply still was, the boy struggling to get to her, while he held him back; and the cry, increasing in its energy, “Help! let me in. He was your friend once, how shall he be followed, how shall he be saved? They are all changed, there is no one else to help me, pray, pray, let me in!” CHAPTER III The Gift Reversed Night was still heavy in the sky. On open plains, from hill-tops, and from the decks of solitary ships at sea, a distant low-lying line, that promised by-and-by to change to light, was visible in the dim horizon; but its promise was remote and doubtful, and the moon was striving with the night-clouds busily. The shadows upon Redlaw’s mind succeeded thick and fast to one another, and obscured its light as the night-clouds hovered between the moon and earth, and kept the latter veiled in darkness. Fitful and uncertain as the shadows which the night-clouds cast, were their concealments from him, and imperfect revelations to him; and, like the night-clouds still, if the clear light broke forth for a moment, it was only that they might sweep over it, and make the darkness deeper than before. Without, there was a profound and solemn hush upon the ancient pile of building, and its buttresses and angles made dark shapes of mystery upon the ground, which now seemed to retire into the smooth white snow and now seemed to come out of it, as the moon’s path was more or less beset. Within, the Chemist’s room was indistinct and murky, by the light of the expiring lamp; a ghostly silence had succeeded to the knocking and the voice outside; nothing was audible but, now and then, a low sound among the whitened ashes of the fire, as of its yielding up its last breath. Before it on the ground the boy lay fast asleep. In his chair, the Chemist sat, as he had sat there since the calling at his door had ceased—like a man turned to stone. At such a time, the Christmas music he had heard before, began to play. He listened to it at first, as he had listened in the church-yard; but presently—it playing still, and being borne towards him on the night air, in a low, sweet, melancholy strain—he rose, and stood stretching his hands about him, as if there were some friend approaching within his reach, on whom his desolate touch might rest, yet do no harm. As he did this, his face became less fixed and wondering; a gentle trembling came upon him; and at last his eyes filled with tears, and he put his hands before them, and bowed down his head. His memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble, had not come back to him; he knew that it was not restored; he had no passing belief or hope that it was. But some dumb stir within him made him capable, again, of being moved by what was hidden, afar off, in the music. If it were only that it told him sorrowfully the value of what he had lost, he thanked Heaven for it with a fervent gratitude. As the last chord died upon his ear, he raised his head to listen to its lingering vibration. Beyond the boy, so that his sleeping figure lay at its feet, the Phantom stood, immovable and silent, with its eyes upon him. Ghastly it was, as it had ever been, but not so cruel and relentless in its aspect—or he thought or hoped so, as he looked upon it trembling. It was not alone, but in its shadowy hand it held another hand. And whose was that? Was the form that stood beside it indeed Milly’s, or but her shade and picture? The quiet head was bent a little, as her manner was, and her eyes were looking down, as if in pity, on the sleeping child. A radiant light fell on her face, but did not touch the Phantom; for, though close beside her, it was dark and colourless as ever. “Spectre!” said the Chemist, newly troubled as he looked, “I have not been stubborn or presumptuous in respect of her. Oh, do not bring her here. Spare me that!” “This is but a shadow,” said the Phantom; “when the morning shines seek out the reality whose image I present before you.” “Is it my inexorable doom to do so?” cried the Chemist. “It is,” replied the Phantom. “To destroy her peace, her goodness; to make her what I am myself, and what I have made of others!” “I have said seek her out,” returned the Phantom. “I have said no more.” “Oh, tell me,” exclaimed Redlaw, catching at the hope which he fancied might lie hidden in the words. “Can I undo what I have done?” “No,” returned the Phantom. “I do not ask for restoration to myself,” said Redlaw. “What I abandoned, I abandoned of my own free will, and have justly lost. But for those to whom I have transferred the fatal gift; who never sought it; who unknowingly received a curse of which they had no warning, and which they had no power to shun; can I do nothing?” “Nothing,” said the Phantom. “If I cannot, can any one?” The Phantom, standing like a statue, kept its gaze upon him for a while; then turned its head suddenly, and looked upon the shadow at its side. “Ah! Can she?” cried Redlaw, still looking upon the shade. The Phantom released the hand it had retained till now, and softly raised its own with a gesture of dismissal. Upon that, her shadow, still preserving the same attitude, began to move or melt away. “Stay,” cried Redlaw with an earnestness to which he could not give enough expression. “For a moment! As an act of mercy! I know that some change fell upon me, when those sounds were in the air just now. Tell me, have I lost the power of harming her? May I go near her without dread? Oh, let her give me any sign of hope!” The Phantom looked upon the shade as he did—not at him—and gave no answer. “At least, say this—has she, henceforth, the consciousness of any power to set right what I have done?” “She has not,” the Phantom answered. “Has she the power bestowed on her without the consciousness?” The phantom answered: “Seek her out.” And her shadow slowly vanished. They were face to face again, and looking on each other, as intently and awfully as at the time of the bestowal of the gift, across the boy who still lay on the ground between them, at the Phantom’s feet. “Terrible instructor,” said the Chemist, sinking on his knee before it, in an attitude of supplication, “by whom I was renounced, but by whom I am revisited (in which, and in whose milder aspect, I would fain believe I have a gleam of hope), I will obey without inquiry, praying that the cry I have sent up in the anguish of my soul has been, or will be, heard, in behalf of those whom I have injured beyond human reparation. But there is one thing—” “You speak to me of what is lying here,” the phantom interposed, and pointed with its finger to the boy. “I do,” returned the Chemist. “You know what I would ask. Why has this child alone been proof against my influence, and why, why, have I detected in its thoughts a terrible companionship with mine?” “This,” said the Phantom, pointing to the boy, “is the last, completest illustration of a human creature, utterly bereft of such remembrances as you have yielded up. No softening memory of sorrow, wrong, or trouble enters here, because this wretched mortal from his birth has been abandoned to a worse condition than the beasts, and has, within his knowledge, no one contrast, no humanising touch, to make a grain of such a memory spring up in his hardened breast. All within this desolate creature is barren wilderness. All within the man bereft of what you have resigned, is the same barren wilderness. Woe to such a man! Woe, tenfold, to the nation that shall count its monsters such as this, lying here, by hundreds and by thousands!” Redlaw shrank, appalled, from what he heard. “There is not,” said the Phantom, “one of these—not one—but sows a harvest that mankind MUST reap. From every seed of evil in this boy, a field of ruin is grown that shall be gathered in, and garnered up, and sown again in many places in the world, until regions are overspread with wickedness enough to raise the waters of another Deluge. Open and unpunished murder in a city’s streets would be less guilty in its daily toleration, than one such spectacle as this.” It seemed to look down upon the boy in his sleep. Redlaw, too, looked down upon him with a new emotion. “There is not a father,” said the Phantom, “by whose side in his daily or his nightly walk, these creatures pass; there is not a mother among all the ranks of loving mothers in this land; there is no one risen from the state of childhood, but shall be responsible in his or her degree for this enormity. There is not a country throughout the earth on which it would not bring a curse. There is no religion upon earth that it would not deny; there is no people upon earth it would not put to shame.” The Chemist clasped his hands, and looked, with trembling fear and pity, from the sleeping boy to the Phantom, standing above him with his finger pointing down. “Behold, I say,” pursued the Spectre, “the perfect type of what it was your choice to be. Your influence is powerless here, because from this child’s bosom you can banish nothing. His thoughts have been in ‘terrible companionship’ with yours, because you have gone down to his unnatural level. He is the growth of man’s indifference; you are the growth of man’s presumption. The beneficent design of Heaven is, in each case, overthrown, and from the two poles of the immaterial world you come together.” The Chemist stooped upon the ground beside the boy, and, with the same kind of compassion for him that he now felt for himself, covered him as he slept, and no longer shrank from him with abhorrence or indifference. Soon, now, the distant line on the horizon brightened, the darkness faded, the sun rose red and glorious, and the chimney stacks and gables of the ancient building gleamed in the clear air, which turned the smoke and vapour of the city into a cloud of gold. The very sun-dial in his shady corner, where the wind was used to spin with such unwindy constancy, shook off the finer particles of snow that had accumulated on his dull old face in the night, and looked out at the little white wreaths eddying round and round him. Doubtless some blind groping of the morning made its way down into the forgotten crypt so cold and earthy, where the Norman arches were half buried in the ground, and stirred the dull sap in the lazy vegetation hanging to the walls, and quickened the slow principle of life within the little world of wonderful and delicate creation which existed there, with some faint knowledge that the sun was up. The Tetterbys were up, and doing. Mr. Tetterby took down the shutters of the shop, and, strip by strip, revealed the treasures of the window to the eyes, so proof against their seductions, of Jerusalem Buildings. Adolphus had been out so long already, that he was halfway on to “Morning Pepper.” Five small Tetterbys, whose ten round eyes were much inflamed by soap and friction, were in the tortures of a cool wash in the back kitchen; Mrs. Tetterby presiding. Johnny, who was pushed and hustled through his toilet with great rapidity when Moloch chanced to be in an exacting frame of mind (which was always the case), staggered up and down with his charge before the shop door, under greater difficulties than usual; the weight of Moloch being much increased by a complication of defences against the cold, composed of knitted worsted-work, and forming a complete suit of chain-armour, with a head-piece and blue gaiters. It was a peculiarity of this baby to be always cutting teeth. Whether they never came, or whether they came and went away again, is not in evidence; but it had certainly cut enough, on the showing of Mrs. Tetterby, to make a handsome dental provision for the sign of the Bull and Mouth. All sorts of objects were impressed for the rubbing of its gums, notwithstanding that it always carried, dangling at its waist (which was immediately under its chin), a bone ring, large enough to have represented the rosary of a young nun. Knife-handles, umbrella-tops, the heads of walking-sticks selected from the stock, the fingers of the family in general, but especially of Johnny, nutmeg-graters, crusts, the handles of doors, and the cool knobs on the tops of pokers, were among the commonest instruments indiscriminately applied for this baby’s relief. The amount of electricity that must have been rubbed out of it in a week, is not to be calculated. Still Mrs. Tetterby always said “it was coming through, and then the child would be herself;” and still it never did come through, and the child continued to be somebody else. The tempers of the little Tetterbys had sadly changed with a few hours. Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby themselves were not more altered than their offspring. Usually they were an unselfish, good-natured, yielding little race, sharing short commons when it happened (which was pretty often) contentedly and even generously, and taking a great deal of enjoyment out of a very little meat. But they were fighting now, not only for the soap and water, but even for the breakfast which was yet in perspective. The hand of every little Tetterby was against the other little Tetterbys; and even Johnny’s hand—the patient, much-enduring, and devoted Johnny—rose against the baby! Yes, Mrs. Tetterby, going to the door by mere accident, saw him viciously pick out a weak place in the suit of armour where a slap would tell, and slap that blessed child. Mrs. Tetterby had him into the parlour by the collar, in that same flash of time, and repaid him the assault with usury thereto. “You brute, you murdering little boy,” said Mrs. Tetterby. “Had you the heart to do it?” “Why don’t her teeth come through, then,” retorted Johnny, in a loud rebellious voice, “instead of bothering me? How would you like it yourself?” “Like it, sir!” said Mrs. Tetterby, relieving him of his dishonoured load. “Yes, like it,” said Johnny. “How would you? Not at all. If you was me, you’d go for a soldier. I will, too. There an’t no babies in the Army.” Mr. Tetterby, who had arrived upon the scene of action, rubbed his chin thoughtfully, instead of correcting the rebel, and seemed rather struck by this view of a military life. “I wish I was in the Army myself, if the child’s in the right,” said Mrs. Tetterby, looking at her husband, “for I have no peace of my life here. I’m a slave—a Virginia slave:” some indistinct association with their weak descent on the tobacco trade perhaps suggested this aggravated expression to Mrs. Tetterby. “I never have a holiday, or any pleasure at all, from year’s end to year’s end! Why, Lord bless and save the child,” said Mrs. Tetterby, shaking the baby with an irritability hardly suited to so pious an aspiration, “what’s the matter with her now?” Not being able to discover, and not rendering the subject much clearer by shaking it, Mrs. Tetterby put the baby away in a cradle, and, folding her arms, sat rocking it angrily with her foot. “How you stand there, ’Dolphus,” said Mrs. Tetterby to her husband. “Why don’t you do something?” “Because I don’t care about doing anything,” Mr. Tetterby replied. “I am sure I don’t,” said Mrs. Tetterby. “I’ll take my oath I don’t,” said Mr. Tetterby. A diversion arose here among Johnny and his five younger brothers, who, in preparing the family breakfast table, had fallen to skirmishing for the temporary possession of the loaf, and were buffeting one another with great heartiness; the smallest boy of all, with precocious discretion, hovering outside the knot of combatants, and harassing their legs. Into the midst of this fray, Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby both precipitated themselves with great ardour, as if such ground were the only ground on which they could now agree; and having, with no visible remains of their late soft-heartedness, laid about them without any lenity, and done much execution, resumed their former relative positions. “You had better read your paper than do nothing at all,” said Mrs. Tetterby. “What’s there to read in a paper?” returned Mr. Tetterby, with excessive discontent. “What?” said Mrs. Tetterby. “Police.” “It’s nothing to me,” said Tetterby. “What do I care what people do, or are done to?” “Suicides,” suggested Mrs. Tetterby. “No business of mine,” replied her husband. “Births, deaths, and marriages, are those nothing to you?” said Mrs. Tetterby. “If the births were all over for good, and all to-day; and the deaths were all to begin to come off to-morrow; I don’t see why it should interest me, till I thought it was a coming to my turn,” grumbled Tetterby. “As to marriages, I’ve done it myself. I know quite enough about them.” To judge from the dissatisfied expression of her face and manner, Mrs. Tetterby appeared to entertain the same opinions as her husband; but she opposed him, nevertheless, for the gratification of quarrelling with him. “Oh, you’re a consistent man,” said Mrs. Tetterby, “an’t you? You, with the screen of your own making there, made of nothing else but bits of newspapers, which you sit and read to the children by the half-hour together!” “Say used to, if you please,” returned her husband. “You won’t find me doing so any more. I’m wiser now.” “Bah! wiser, indeed!” said Mrs. Tetterby. “Are you better?” The question sounded some discordant note in Mr. Tetterby’s breast. He ruminated dejectedly, and passed his hand across and across his forehead. “Better!” murmured Mr. Tetterby. “I don’t know as any of us are better, or happier either. Better, is it?” He turned to the screen, and traced about it with his finger, until he found a certain paragraph of which he was in quest. “This used to be one of the family favourites, I recollect,” said Tetterby, in a forlorn and stupid way, “and used to draw tears from the children, and make ’em good, if there was any little bickering or discontent among ’em, next to the story of the robin redbreasts in the wood. ‘Melancholy case of destitution. Yesterday a small man, with a baby in his arms, and surrounded by half-a-dozen ragged little ones, of various ages between ten and two, the whole of whom were evidently in a famishing condition, appeared before the worthy magistrate, and made the following recital:’—Ha! I don’t understand it, I’m sure,” said Tetterby; “I don’t see what it has got to do with us.” “How old and shabby he looks,” said Mrs. Tetterby, watching him. “I never saw such a change in a man. Ah! dear me, dear me, dear me, it was a sacrifice!” “What was a sacrifice?” her husband sourly inquired. Mrs. Tetterby shook her head; and without replying in words, raised a complete sea-storm about the baby, by her violent agitation of the cradle. “If you mean your marriage was a sacrifice, my good woman—” said her husband. “I do mean it,” said his wife. “Why, then I mean to say,” pursued Mr. Tetterby, as sulkily and surlily as she, “that there are two sides to that affair; and that I was the sacrifice; and that I wish the sacrifice hadn’t been accepted.” “I wish it hadn’t, Tetterby, with all my heart and soul I do assure you,” said his wife. “You can’t wish it more than I do, Tetterby.” “I don’t know what I saw in her,” muttered the newsman, “I’m sure;—certainly, if I saw anything, it’s not there now. I was thinking so, last night, after supper, by the fire. She’s fat, she’s ageing, she won’t bear comparison with most other women.” “He’s common-looking, he has no air with him, he’s small, he’s beginning to stoop and he’s getting bald,” muttered Mrs. Tetterby. “I must have been half out of my mind when I did it,” muttered Mr. Tetterby. “My senses must have forsook me. That’s the only way in which I can explain it to myself,” said Mrs. Tetterby with elaboration. In this mood they sat down to breakfast. The little Tetterbys were not habituated to regard that meal in the light of a sedentary occupation, but discussed it as a dance or trot; rather resembling a savage ceremony, in the occasionally shrill whoops, and brandishings of bread and butter, with which it was accompanied, as well as in the intricate filings off into the street and back again, and the hoppings up and down the door-steps, which were incidental to the performance. In the present instance, the contentions between these Tetterby children for the milk-and-water jug, common to all, which stood upon the table, presented so lamentable an instance of angry passions risen very high indeed, that it was an outrage on the memory of Dr. Watts. It was not until Mr. Tetterby had driven the whole herd out at the front door, that a moment’s peace was secured; and even that was broken by the discovery that Johnny had surreptitiously come back, and was at that instant choking in the jug like a ventriloquist, in his indecent and rapacious haste. “These children will be the death of me at last!” said Mrs. Tetterby, after banishing the culprit. “And the sooner the better, I think.” “Poor people,” said Mr. Tetterby, “ought not to have children at all. They give us no pleasure.” He was at that moment taking up the cup which Mrs. Tetterby had rudely pushed towards him, and Mrs. Tetterby was lifting her own cup to her lips, when they both stopped, as if they were transfixed. “Here! Mother! Father!” cried Johnny, running into the room. “Here’s Mrs. William coming down the street!” And if ever, since the world began, a young boy took a baby from a cradle with the care of an old nurse, and hushed and soothed it tenderly, and tottered away with it cheerfully, Johnny was that boy, and Moloch was that baby, as they went out together! Mr. Tetterby put down his cup; Mrs. Tetterby put down her cup. Mr. Tetterby rubbed his forehead; Mrs. Tetterby rubbed hers. Mr. Tetterby’s face began to smooth and brighten; Mrs. Tetterby’s began to smooth and brighten. “Why, Lord forgive me,” said Mr. Tetterby to himself, “what evil tempers have I been giving way to? What has been the matter here!” “How could I ever treat him ill again, after all I said and felt last night!” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, with her apron to her eyes. “Am I a brute,” said Mr. Tetterby, “or is there any good in me at all? Sophia! My little woman!” “’Dolphus dear,” returned his wife. “I—I’ve been in a state of mind,” said Mr. Tetterby, “that I can’t abear to think of, Sophy.” “Oh! It’s nothing to what I’ve been in, Dolf,” cried his wife in a great burst of grief. “My Sophia,” said Mr. Tetterby, “don’t take on. I never shall forgive myself. I must have nearly broke your heart, I know.” “No, Dolf, no. It was me! Me!” cried Mrs. Tetterby. “My little woman,” said her husband, “don’t. You make me reproach myself dreadful, when you show such a noble spirit. Sophia, my dear, you don’t know what I thought. I showed it bad enough, no doubt; but what I thought, my little woman!—” “Oh, dear Dolf, don’t! Don’t!” cried his wife. “Sophia,” said Mr. Tetterby, “I must reveal it. I couldn’t rest in my conscience unless I mentioned it. My little woman—” “Mrs. William’s very nearly here!” screamed Johnny at the door. “My little woman, I wondered how,” gasped Mr. Tetterby, supporting himself by his chair, “I wondered how I had ever admired you—I forgot the precious children you have brought about me, and thought you didn’t look as slim as I could wish. I—I never gave a recollection,” said Mr. Tetterby, with severe self-accusation, “to the cares you’ve had as my wife, and along of me and mine, when you might have had hardly any with another man, who got on better and was luckier than me (anybody might have found such a man easily I am sure); and I quarrelled with you for having aged a little in the rough years you have lightened for me. Can you believe it, my little woman? I hardly can myself.” Mrs. Tetterby, in a whirlwind of laughing and crying, caught his face within her hands, and held it there. “Oh, Dolf!” she cried. “I am so happy that you thought so; I am so grateful that you thought so! For I thought that you were common-looking, Dolf; and so you are, my dear, and may you be the commonest of all sights in my eyes, till you close them with your own good hands. I thought that you were small; and so you are, and I’ll make much of you because you are, and more of you because I love my husband. I thought that you began to stoop; and so you do, and you shall lean on me, and I’ll do all I can to keep you up. I thought there was no air about you; but there is, and it’s the air of home, and that’s the purest and the best there is, and God bless home once more, and all belonging to it, Dolf!” “Hurrah! Here’s Mrs. William!” cried Johnny. So she was, and all the children with her; and so she came in, they kissed her, and kissed one another, and kissed the baby, and kissed their father and mother, and then ran back and flocked and danced about her, trooping on with her in triumph. Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby were not a bit behind-hand in the warmth of their reception. They were as much attracted to her as the children were; they ran towards her, kissed her hands, pressed round her, could not receive her ardently or enthusiastically enough. She came among them like the spirit of all goodness, affection, gentle consideration, love, and domesticity. “What! are you all so glad to see me, too, this bright Christmas morning?” said Milly, clapping her hands in a pleasant wonder. “Oh dear, how delightful this is!” More shouting from the children, more kissing, more trooping round her, more happiness, more love, more joy, more honour, on all sides, than she could bear. “Oh dear!” said Milly, “what delicious tears you make me shed. How can I ever have deserved this! What have I done to be so loved?” “Who can help it!” cried Mr. Tetterby. “Who can help it!” cried Mrs. Tetterby. “Who can help it!” echoed the children, in a joyful chorus. And they danced and trooped about her again, and clung to her, and laid their rosy faces against her dress, and kissed and fondled it, and could not fondle it, or her, enough. “I never was so moved,” said Milly, drying her eyes, “as I have been this morning. I must tell you, as soon as I can speak.—Mr. Redlaw came to me at sunrise, and with a tenderness in his manner, more as if I had been his darling daughter than myself, implored me to go with him to where William’s brother George is lying ill. We went together, and all the way along he was so kind, and so subdued, and seemed to put such trust and hope in me, that I could not help crying with pleasure. When we got to the house, we met a woman at the door (somebody had bruised and hurt her, I am afraid), who caught me by the hand, and blessed me as I passed.” “She was right!” said Mr. Tetterby. Mrs. Tetterby said she was right. All the children cried out that she was right. “Ah, but there’s more than that,” said Milly. “When we got up stairs, into the room, the sick man who had lain for hours in a state from which no effort could rouse him, rose up in his bed, and, bursting into tears, stretched out his arms to me, and said that he had led a mis-spent life, but that he was truly repentant now, in his sorrow for the past, which was all as plain to him as a great prospect, from which a dense black cloud had cleared away, and that he entreated me to ask his poor old father for his pardon and his blessing, and to say a prayer beside his bed. And when I did so, Mr. Redlaw joined in it so fervently, and then so thanked and thanked me, and thanked Heaven, that my heart quite overflowed, and I could have done nothing but sob and cry, if the sick man had not begged me to sit down by him,—which made me quiet of course. As I sat there, he held my hand in his until he sank in a doze; and even then, when I withdrew my hand to leave him to come here (which Mr. Redlaw was very earnest indeed in wishing me to do), his hand felt for mine, so that some one else was obliged to take my place and make believe to give him my hand back. Oh dear, oh dear,” said Milly, sobbing. “How thankful and how happy I should feel, and do feel, for all this!” While she was speaking, Redlaw had come in, and, after pausing for a moment to observe the group of which she was the centre, had silently ascended the stairs. Upon those stairs he now appeared again; remaining there, while the young student passed him, and came running down. “Kind nurse, gentlest, best of creatures,” he said, falling on his knee to her, and catching at her hand, “forgive my cruel ingratitude!” “Oh dear, oh dear!” cried Milly innocently, “here’s another of them! Oh dear, here’s somebody else who likes me. What shall I ever do!” The guileless, simple way in which she said it, and in which she put her hands before her eyes and wept for very happiness, was as touching as it was delightful. “I was not myself,” he said. “I don’t know what it was—it was some consequence of my disorder perhaps—I was mad. But I am so no longer. Almost as I speak, I am restored. I heard the children crying out your name, and the shade passed from me at the very sound of it. Oh, don’t weep! Dear Milly, if you could read my heart, and only knew with what affection and what grateful homage it is glowing, you would not let me see you weep. It is such deep reproach.” “No, no,” said Milly, “it’s not that. It’s not indeed. It’s joy. It’s wonder that you should think it necessary to ask me to forgive so little, and yet it’s pleasure that you do.” “And will you come again? and will you finish the little curtain?” “No,” said Milly, drying her eyes, and shaking her head. “You won’t care for my needlework now.” “Is it forgiving me, to say that?” She beckoned him aside, and whispered in his ear. “There is news from your home, Mr. Edmund.” “News? How?” “Either your not writing when you were very ill, or the change in your handwriting when you began to be better, created some suspicion of the truth; however that is—but you’re sure you’ll not be the worse for any news, if it’s not bad news?” “Sure.” “Then there’s some one come!” said Milly. “My mother?” asked the student, glancing round involuntarily towards Redlaw, who had come down from the stairs. “Hush! No,” said Milly. “It can be no one else.” “Indeed?” said Milly, “are you sure?” “It is not—” Before he could say more, she put her hand upon his mouth. “Yes it is!” said Milly. “The young lady (she is very like the miniature, Mr. Edmund, but she is prettier) was too unhappy to rest without satisfying her doubts, and came up, last night, with a little servant-maid. As you always dated your letters from the college, she came there; and before I saw Mr. Redlaw this morning, I saw her. She likes me too!” said Milly. “Oh dear, that’s another!” “This morning! Where is she now?” “Why, she is now,” said Milly, advancing her lips to his ear, “in my little parlour in the Lodge, and waiting to see you.” He pressed her hand, and was darting off, but she detained him. “Mr. Redlaw is much altered, and has told me this morning that his memory is impaired. Be very considerate to him, Mr. Edmund; he needs that from us all.” The young man assured her, by a look, that her caution was not ill-bestowed; and as he passed the Chemist on his way out, bent respectfully and with an obvious interest before him. Redlaw returned the salutation courteously and even humbly, and looked after him as he passed on. He drooped his head upon his hand too, as trying to reawaken something he had lost. But it was gone. The abiding change that had come upon him since the influence of the music, and the Phantom’s reappearance, was, that now he truly felt how much he had lost, and could compassionate his own condition, and contrast it, clearly, with the natural state of those who were around him. In this, an interest in those who were around him was revived, and a meek, submissive sense of his calamity was bred, resembling that which sometimes obtains in age, when its mental powers are weakened, without insensibility or sullenness being added to the list of its infirmities. He was conscious that, as he redeemed, through Milly, more and more of the evil he had done, and as he was more and more with her, this change ripened itself within him. Therefore, and because of the attachment she inspired him with (but without other hope), he felt that he was quite dependent on her, and that she was his staff in his affliction. So, when she asked him whether they should go home now, to where the old man and her husband were, and he readily replied “yes”—being anxious in that regard—he put his arm through hers, and walked beside her; not as if he were the wise and learned man to whom the wonders of Nature were an open book, and hers were the uninstructed mind, but as if their two positions were reversed, and he knew nothing, and she all. He saw the children throng about her, and caress her, as he and she went away together thus, out of the house; he heard the ringing of their laughter, and their merry voices; he saw their bright faces, clustering around him like flowers; he witnessed the renewed contentment and affection of their parents; he breathed the simple air of their poor home, restored to its tranquillity; he thought of the unwholesome blight he had shed upon it, and might, but for her, have been diffusing then; and perhaps it is no wonder that he walked submissively beside her, and drew her gentle bosom nearer to his own. When they arrived at the Lodge, the old man was sitting in his chair in the chimney-corner, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his son was leaning against the opposite side of the fire-place, looking at him. As she came in at the door, both started, and turned round towards her, and a radiant change came upon their faces. “Oh dear, dear, dear, they are all pleased to see me like the rest!” cried Milly, clapping her hands in an ecstasy, and stopping short. “Here are two more!” Pleased to see her! Pleasure was no word for it. She ran into her husband’s arms, thrown wide open to receive her, and he would have been glad to have her there, with her head lying on his shoulder, through the short winter’s day. But the old man couldn’t spare her. He had arms for her too, and he locked her in them. “Why, where has my quiet Mouse been all this time?” said the old man. “She has been a long while away. I find that it’s impossible for me to get on without Mouse. I—where’s my son William?—I fancy I have been dreaming, William.” “That’s what I say myself, father,” returned his son. “I have been in an ugly sort of dream, I think.—How are you, father? Are you pretty well?” “Strong and brave, my boy,” returned the old man. It was quite a sight to see Mr. William shaking hands with his father, and patting him on the back, and rubbing him gently down with his hand, as if he could not possibly do enough to show an interest in him. “What a wonderful man you are, father!—How are you, father? Are you really pretty hearty, though?” said William, shaking hands with him again, and patting him again, and rubbing him gently down again. “I never was fresher or stouter in my life, my boy.” “What a wonderful man you are, father! But that’s exactly where it is,” said Mr. William, with enthusiasm. “When I think of all that my father’s gone through, and all the chances and changes, and sorrows and troubles, that have happened to him in the course of his long life, and under which his head has grown grey, and years upon years have gathered on it, I feel as if we couldn’t do enough to honour the old gentleman, and make his old age easy.—How are you, father? Are you really pretty well, though?” Mr. William might never have left off repeating this inquiry, and shaking hands with him again, and patting him again, and rubbing him down again, if the old man had not espied the Chemist, whom until now he had not seen. “I ask your pardon, Mr. Redlaw,” said Philip, “but didn’t know you were here, sir, or should have made less free. It reminds me, Mr. Redlaw, seeing you here on a Christmas morning, of the time when you was a student yourself, and worked so hard that you were backwards and forwards in our Library even at Christmas time. Ha! ha! I’m old enough to remember that; and I remember it right well, I do, though I am eighty-seven. It was after you left here that my poor wife died. You remember my poor wife, Mr. Redlaw?” The Chemist answered yes. “Yes,” said the old man. “She was a dear creetur.—I recollect you come here one Christmas morning with a young lady—I ask your pardon, Mr. Redlaw, but I think it was a sister you was very much attached to?” The Chemist looked at him, and shook his head. “I had a sister,” he said vacantly. He knew no more. “One Christmas morning,” pursued the old man, “that you come here with her—and it began to snow, and my wife invited the lady to walk in, and sit by the fire that is always a burning on Christmas Day in what used to be, before our ten poor gentlemen commuted, our great Dinner Hall. I was there; and I recollect, as I was stirring up the blaze for the young lady to warm her pretty feet by, she read the scroll out loud, that is underneath that pictur, ‘Lord, keep my memory green!’ She and my poor wife fell a talking about it; and it’s a strange thing to think of, now, that they both said (both being so unlike to die) that it was a good prayer, and that it was one they would put up very earnestly, if they were called away young, with reference to those who were dearest to them. ‘My brother,’ says the young lady—‘My husband,’ says my poor wife.—‘Lord, keep his memory of me, green, and do not let me be forgotten!’” Tears more painful, and more bitter than he had ever shed in all his life, coursed down Redlaw’s face. Philip, fully occupied in recalling his story, had not observed him until now, nor Milly’s anxiety that he should not proceed. “Philip!” said Redlaw, laying his hand upon his arm, “I am a stricken man, on whom the hand of Providence has fallen heavily, although deservedly. You speak to me, my friend, of what I cannot follow; my memory is gone.” “Merciful power!” cried the old man. “I have lost my memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble,” said the Chemist, “and with that I have lost all man would remember!” To see old Philip’s pity for him, to see him wheel his own great chair for him to rest in, and look down upon him with a solemn sense of his bereavement, was to know, in some degree, how precious to old age such recollections are. The boy came running in, and ran to Milly. “Here’s the man,” he said, “in the other room. I don’t want him.” “What man does he mean?” asked Mr. William. “Hush!” said Milly. Obedient to a sign from her, he and his old father softly withdrew. As they went out, unnoticed, Redlaw beckoned to the boy to come to him. “I like the woman best,” he answered, holding to her skirts. “You are right,” said Redlaw, with a faint smile. “But you needn’t fear to come to me. I am gentler than I was. Of all the world, to you, poor child!” The boy still held back at first, but yielding little by little to her urging, he consented to approach, and even to sit down at his feet. As Redlaw laid his hand upon the shoulder of the child, looking on him with compassion and a fellow-feeling, he put out his other hand to Milly. She stooped down on that side of him, so that she could look into his face, and after silence, said: “Mr. Redlaw, may I speak to you?” “Yes,” he answered, fixing his eyes upon her. “Your voice and music are the same to me.” “May I ask you something?” “What you will.” “Do you remember what I said, when I knocked at your door last night? About one who was your friend once, and who stood on the verge of destruction?” “Yes. I remember,” he said, with some hesitation. “Do you understand it?” He smoothed the boy’s hair—looking at her fixedly the while, and shook his head. “This person,” said Milly, in her clear, soft voice, which her mild eyes, looking at him, made clearer and softer, “I found soon afterwards. I went back to the house, and, with Heaven’s help, traced him. I was not too soon. A very little and I should have been too late.” He took his hand from the boy, and laying it on the back of that hand of hers, whose timid and yet earnest touch addressed him no less appealingly than her voice and eyes, looked more intently on her. “He is the father of Mr. Edmund, the young gentleman we saw just now. His real name is Longford.—You recollect the name?” “I recollect the name.” “And the man?” “No, not the man. Did he ever wrong me?” “Yes!” “Ah! Then it’s hopeless—hopeless.” He shook his head, and softly beat upon the hand he held, as though mutely asking her commiseration. “I did not go to Mr. Edmund last night,” said Milly,—“You will listen to me just the same as if you did remember all?” “To every syllable you say.” “Both, because I did not know, then, that this really was his father, and because I was fearful of the effect of such intelligence upon him, after his illness, if it should be. Since I have known who this person is, I have not gone either; but that is for another reason. He has long been separated from his wife and son—has been a stranger to his home almost from this son’s infancy, I learn from him—and has abandoned and deserted what he should have held most dear. In all that time he has been falling from the state of a gentleman, more and more, until—” she rose up, hastily, and going out for a moment, returned, accompanied by the wreck that Redlaw had beheld last night. “Do you know me?” asked the Chemist. “I should be glad,” returned the other, “and that is an unwonted word for me to use, if I could answer no.” The Chemist looked at the man, standing in self-abasement and degradation before him, and would have looked longer, in an ineffectual struggle for enlightenment, but that Milly resumed her late position by his side, and attracted his attentive gaze to her own face. “See how low he is sunk, how lost he is!” she whispered, stretching out her arm towards him, without looking from the Chemist’s face. “If you could remember all that is connected with him, do you not think it would move your pity to reflect that one you ever loved (do not let us mind how long ago, or in what belief that he has forfeited), should come to this?” “I hope it would,” he answered. “I believe it would.” His eyes wandered to the figure standing near the door, but came back speedily to her, on whom he gazed intently, as if he strove to learn some lesson from every tone of her voice, and every beam of her eyes. “I have no learning, and you have much,” said Milly; “I am not used to think, and you are always thinking. May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us, to remember wrong that has been done us?” “Yes.” “That we may forgive it.” “Pardon me, great Heaven!” said Redlaw, lifting up his eyes, “for having thrown away thine own high attribute!” “And if,” said Milly, “if your memory should one day be restored, as we will hope and pray it may be, would it not be a blessing to you to recall at once a wrong and its forgiveness?” He looked at the figure by the door, and fastened his attentive eyes on her again; a ray of clearer light appeared to him to shine into his mind, from her bright face. “He cannot go to his abandoned home. He does not seek to go there. He knows that he could only carry shame and trouble to those he has so cruelly neglected; and that the best reparation he can make them now, is to avoid them. A very little money carefully bestowed, would remove him to some distant place, where he might live and do no wrong, and make such atonement as is left within his power for the wrong he has done. To the unfortunate lady who is his wife, and to his son, this would be the best and kindest boon that their best friend could give them—one too that they need never know of; and to him, shattered in reputation, mind, and body, it might be salvation.” He took her head between her hands, and kissed it, and said: “It shall be done. I trust to you to do it for me, now and secretly; and to tell him that I would forgive him, if I were so happy as to know for what.” As she rose, and turned her beaming face towards the fallen man, implying that her mediation had been successful, he advanced a step, and without raising his eyes, addressed himself to Redlaw. “You are so generous,” he said, “—you ever were—that you will try to banish your rising sense of retribution in the spectacle that is before you. I do not try to banish it from myself, Redlaw. If you can, believe me.” The Chemist entreated Milly, by a gesture, to come nearer to him; and, as he listened looked in her face, as if to find in it the clue to what he heard. “I am too decayed a wretch to make professions; I recollect my own career too well, to array any such before you. But from the day on which I made my first step downward, in dealing falsely by you, I have gone down with a certain, steady, doomed progression. That, I say.” Redlaw, keeping her close at his side, turned his face towards the speaker, and there was sorrow in it. Something like mournful recognition too. “I might have been another man, my life might have been another life, if I had avoided that first fatal step. I don’t know that it would have been. I claim nothing for the possibility. Your sister is at rest, and better than she could have been with me, if I had continued even what you thought me: even what I once supposed myself to be.” Redlaw made a hasty motion with his hand, as if he would have put that subject on one side. “I speak,” the other went on, “like a man taken from the grave. I should have made my own grave, last night, had it not been for this blessed hand.” “Oh dear, he likes me too!” sobbed Milly, under her breath. “That’s another!” “I could not have put myself in your way, last night, even for bread. But, to-day, my recollection of what has been is so strongly stirred, and is presented to me, I don’t know how, so vividly, that I have dared to come at her suggestion, and to take your bounty, and to thank you for it, and to beg you, Redlaw, in your dying hour, to be as merciful to me in your thoughts, as you are in your deeds.” He turned towards the door, and stopped a moment on his way forth. “I hope my son may interest you, for his mother’s sake. I hope he may deserve to do so. Unless my life should be preserved a long time, and I should know that I have not misused your aid, I shall never look upon him more.” Going out, he raised his eyes to Redlaw for the first time. Redlaw, whose steadfast gaze was fixed upon him, dreamily held out his hand. He returned and touched it—little more—with both his own; and bending down his head, went slowly out. In the few moments that elapsed, while Milly silently took him to the gate, the Chemist dropped into his chair, and covered his face with his hands. Seeing him thus, when she came back, accompanied by her husband and his father (who were both greatly concerned for him), she avoided disturbing him, or permitting him to be disturbed; and kneeled down near the chair to put some warm clothing on the boy. “That’s exactly where it is. That’s what I always say, father!” exclaimed her admiring husband. “There’s a motherly feeling in Mrs. William’s breast that must and will have went!” “Ay, ay,” said the old man; “you’re right. My son William’s right!” “It happens all for the best, Milly dear, no doubt,” said Mr. William, tenderly, “that we have no children of our own; and yet I sometimes wish you had one to love and cherish. Our little dead child that you built such hopes upon, and that never breathed the breath of life—it has made you quiet-like, Milly.” “I am very happy in the recollection of it, William dear,” she answered. “I think of it every day.” “I was afraid you thought of it a good deal.” “Don’t say, afraid; it is a comfort to me; it speaks to me in so many ways. The innocent thing that never lived on earth, is like an angel to me, William.” “You are like an angel to father and me,” said Mr. William, softly. “I know that.” “When I think of all those hopes I built upon it, and the many times I sat and pictured to myself the little smiling face upon my bosom that never lay there, and the sweet eyes turned up to mine that never opened to the light,” said Milly, “I can feel a greater tenderness, I think, for all the disappointed hopes in which there is no harm. When I see a beautiful child in its fond mother’s arms, I love it all the better, thinking that my child might have been like that, and might have made my heart as proud and happy.” Redlaw raised his head, and looked towards her. “All through life, it seems by me,” she continued, “to tell me something. For poor neglected children, my little child pleads as if it were alive, and had a voice I knew, with which to speak to me. When I hear of youth in suffering or shame, I think that my child might have come to that, perhaps, and that God took it from me in His mercy. Even in age and grey hair, such as father’s, it is present: saying that it too might have lived to be old, long and long after you and I were gone, and to have needed the respect and love of younger people.” Her quiet voice was quieter than ever, as she took her husband’s arm, and laid her head against it. “Children love me so, that sometimes I half fancy—it’s a silly fancy, William—they have some way I don’t know of, of feeling for my little child, and me, and understanding why their love is precious to me. If I have been quiet since, I have been more happy, William, in a hundred ways. Not least happy, dear, in this—that even when my little child was born and dead but a few days, and I was weak and sorrowful, and could not help grieving a little, the thought arose, that if I tried to lead a good life, I should meet in Heaven a bright creature, who would call me, Mother!” Redlaw fell upon his knees, with a loud cry. “O Thou,” he said, “who through the teaching of pure love, hast graciously restored me to the memory which was the memory of Christ upon the Cross, and of all the good who perished in His cause, receive my thanks, and bless her!” Then, he folded her to his heart; and Milly, sobbing more than ever, cried, as she laughed, “He is come back to himself! He likes me very much indeed, too! Oh, dear, dear, dear me, here’s another!” Then, the student entered, leading by the hand a lovely girl, who was afraid to come. And Redlaw so changed towards him, seeing in him and his youthful choice, the softened shadow of that chastening passage in his own life, to which, as to a shady tree, the dove so long imprisoned in his solitary ark might fly for rest and company, fell upon his neck, entreating them to be his children. Then, as Christmas is a time in which, of all times in the year, the memory of every remediable sorrow, wrong, and trouble in the world around us, should be active with us, not less than our own experiences, for all good, he laid his hand upon the boy, and, silently calling Him to witness who laid His hand on children in old time, rebuking, in the majesty of His prophetic knowledge, those who kept them from Him, vowed to protect him, teach him, and reclaim him. Then, he gave his right hand cheerily to Philip, and said that they would that day hold a Christmas dinner in what used to be, before the ten poor gentlemen commuted, their great Dinner Hall; and that they would bid to it as many of that Swidger family, who, his son had told him, were so numerous that they might join hands and make a ring round England, as could be brought together on so short a notice. And it was that day done. There were so many Swidgers there, grown up and children, that an attempt to state them in round numbers might engender doubts, in the distrustful, of the veracity of this history. Therefore the attempt shall not be made. But there they were, by dozens and scores—and there was good news and good hope there, ready for them, of George, who had been visited again by his father and brother, and by Milly, and again left in a quiet sleep. There, present at the dinner, too, were the Tetterbys, including young Adolphus, who arrived in his prismatic comforter, in good time for the beef. Johnny and the baby were too late, of course, and came in all on one side, the one exhausted, the other in a supposed state of double-tooth; but that was customary, and not alarming. It was sad to see the child who had no name or lineage, watching the other children as they played, not knowing how to talk with them, or sport with them, and more strange to the ways of childhood than a rough dog. It was sad, though in a different way, to see what an instinctive knowledge the youngest children there had of his being different from all the rest, and how they made timid approaches to him with soft words and touches, and with little presents, that he might not be unhappy. But he kept by Milly, and began to love her—that was another, as she said!—and, as they all liked her dearly, they were glad of that, and when they saw him peeping at them from behind her chair, they were pleased that he was so close to it. All this, the Chemist, sitting with the student and his bride that was to be, Philip, and the rest, saw. Some people have said since, that he only thought what has been herein set down; others, that he read it in the fire, one winter night about the twilight time; others, that the Ghost was but the representation of his gloomy thoughts, and Milly the embodiment of his better wisdom. I say nothing. —Except this. That as they were assembled in the old Hall, by no other light than that of a great fire (having dined early), the shadows once more stole out of their hiding-places, and danced about the room, showing the children marvellous shapes and faces on the walls, and gradually changing what was real and familiar there, to what was wild and magical. But that there was one thing in the Hall, to which the eyes of Redlaw, and of Milly and her husband, and of the old man, and of the student, and his bride that was to be, were often turned, which the shadows did not obscure or change. Deepened in its gravity by the fire-light, and gazing from the darkness of the panelled wall like life, the sedate face in the portrait, with the beard and ruff, looked down at them from under its verdant wreath of holly, as they looked up at it; and, clear and plain below, as if a voice had uttered them, were the words. Lord keep my Memory green.18481201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/7/The_Haunted_Man_and_the_Ghost_s_Bargain/1848-12-The_Haunted_Man_and_the_Ghosts_Bargain.pdf
179https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/179<em>The Holly-Tree Inn </em>(1855 Christmas Number)Published in <em>Household Words,</em> Vol. XII, Extra Christmas Number, 15 December 1855, pp. 1-36.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xii/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xii/page-573.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xii/page-590.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xii/page-590.html</a><span>.</span><br /><em><br />Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xii/page-607.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xii/page-607.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1855-12-15">1855-12-15</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1855-12-15-The_HollyTree_Inn<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Guest' (No.1), pp. 1-9.</strong></li> <li>Wilkie Collins. 'The Ostler' (No.2), pp. 9-18.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Boots' (No.3), pp. 18-22.</strong></li> <li>William Howitt. 'The Landlord' (No.4), pp. 22-30.</li> <li>Adelaide Anne Procter. 'The Barmaid' (No.5), pp. 30-31.</li> <li>Harriet Parr. 'The Poor Pensioner' (No.6), pp. 31-35.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Bill' (No.7), pp. 35-36.</strong></li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al. <em>The Holly-Tree Inn</em> (15 December 1855). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https:www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1855-12-15-The_HollyTree_Inn">https:www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1855-12-15-The_HollyTree_Inn</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>I have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashful man. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody ever did suppose it. But, I am naturally a bashful man. This is the secret which I have never breathed until now. I might greatly move the reader, by some account of the innumerable places I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called upon or received, the innumerable social evasions I have been guilty of, solely because I am by original constitution and character, a bashful man. But, I will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me. That object is, to give a plain account of my travels and discoveries in the Holly-Tree Inn; in which place of good entertainment for man and beast, I was once snowed up. It happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever from Angela Leath whom I was shortly to have married, on making the discovery that she preferred my bosom friend. From our school days I had freely admitted Edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself, and, though I was grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natural, and tried to forgive them both. It was under these circumstances that I resolved to go to America—on my way to the Devil. Communicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, but resolving to write each of them an affecting letter conveying my blessing and forgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore should carry to the post when I myself should be bound for the New World, far beyond recall;—I say, locking up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as I could, with the prospect of being generous, I quietly left all I held dear, and started on the desolate journey I have mentioned. The dead winter-time was in full dreariness when I left my chambers for ever, at five o&#039;clock in the morning. I had shaved by candle-light, of course, and was miserably cold, and experienced that general all- pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged, which I have usually found inseparable from untimely rising under such circumstances. How well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet Street when I came out of the Temple! The street-lamps flickering in the gusty north-east wind, as if the very gas were contorted with cold; the white-topped houses; the bleak, star-lighted sky; the market people and other early stragglers, trotting, to circulate their almost frozen blood; the hospitable light and warmth of the few coffee-shops and public-houses that were open for such customers; the hard, dry, frosty rime with which the air was charged (the wind had already beaten it into every crevice), and which lashed my face like a steel whip. It wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the year. The Post-office packet for the United States was to depart from Liverpool, weather permitting, on the first of the ensuing month, and I had the intervening time on my hands. I had taken this into consideration, and had resolved to make a visit to a certain spot (which I need not name), on the further borders of Yorkshire. It was endeared to me by my having first seen Angela at a farm-house in that place, and my melancholy was gratified by the idea of taking a wintry leave of it before my expatriation. I ought to explain, that to avoid being sought out before my resolution should have been rendered irrevocable by being carried into full effect, I had written to Angela overnight, in my usual manner, lamenting that urgent business of which she should know all particulars by- and-by—took me unexpectedly away from her for a week or ten days. There was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its place there were stage-coaches: which I occasionally find myself, in common with some other people, affecting to lament now, but which everybody dreaded as a very serious penance then. I had secured the box-seat on the fastest of these, and my business in Fleet Street was, to get into a cab with my portmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the Peacock at Islington, where I was to join this coach. But, when one of our Temple watchmen who carried my portmanteau into Fleet Street for me, told me about the huge blocks of ice that had for some days past been floating in the river, having closed up in the night and made a walk from the Temple Gardens over to the Surrey shore, I began to ask myself the question, Whether the box-seat would not be likely to put a sudden and a frosty end to my unhappiness? I was heart-broken, it is true, and yet I was not quite so far gone as to wish to be frozen to death. When I got up to the Peacock—where I found everybody drinking hot purl, in self-preservation—I asked, if there were an inside seat to spare? I then discovered that, inside or out, I was the only passenger. This gave me a still livelier idea of the great inclemency of the weather, since that coach always loaded particularly well. However, I took a little purl (which I found uncommonly good), and got into the coach. When I was seated, they built me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of making a rather ridiculous appearance, I began my journey. It was still dark when we left the Peacock. For a little while, pale uncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished, and then it was hard, black, frozen day. People were lighting their fires; smoke was mounting straight up, high into the rarefied air; and we were rattling for Highgate Archway over the hardest ground I have ever heard the ring of iron shoes on. As we got into the country, everything seemed to have grown old and grey. The roads, the trees, thatched roofs of cottages and homesteads, the ricks in farmers&#039; yards. Out-door work was abandoned, horse-troughs at roadside Inns were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged about, doors were close shut, little turnpike-houses had blazing fires inside, and children (even turnpike-people have children, and seem to like them), rubbed the frost from the little panes of glass with their chubby arms, that their bright eyes might catch a glimpse of the solitary coach going by. I don&#039;t know when the snow began to set in; but, I know that we were changing horses somewhere when I heard the guard remark, &quot;That the old lady up in the sky was picking her geese pretty hard to-day.&quot; Then, indeed, I found the white down falling fast and thick. The lonely day wore on, and I dozed it out as a lonely traveller does. I was warm and valiant after eating and drinking—particularly after dinner; cold and depressed at all other times. I was always bewildered as to time and place, and always more or less out of my senses. The coach and horses seemed to execute in chorus, Auld Lang Syne, without a moment&#039;s intermission. They kept the time and tune with the greatest regularity, and rose into the swell at the beginning of the Refrain, with a precision that worried me to death. While we changed horses, the guard and coachman went stumping up and down the road, printing off their shoes in the snow, and poured so much liquid consolation into themselves without being any the worse for it, that I began to confound them, as it darkened again, with two great white casks standing on end. Our horses tumbled down in solitary places, and we got them up—which was the pleasantest variety I had, for it warmed me. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. All night long, we went on in this manner. Thus, we came round the clock, upon the Great North Road, to the performance of Auld Lang Syne by day again. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. I forget now, where we were at noon on the second day, and where we ought to have been; but, I know that we were scores of miles behindhand, and that our case was growing worse every hour. The drift was becoming prodigiously deep; landmarks were getting snowed out; the road and the fields were all one; instead of having fences and hedgerows to guide us, we went crunching on, over an unbroken surface of ghastly white that might sink beneath us at any moment and drop us down a whole hill-side. Still, the coachman and guard—who kept together on the box, always in council, and looking well about them—made out the track with astonishing sagacity. When we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a large drawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended on the churches and houses where the snow lay thickest. When we came within a town, and found the church clocks all stopped, the dial-faces choked with snow, and the Inn-signs blotted out, it seemed as if the whole place were overgrown with white moss. As to the coach, it was a mere snowball; similarly, the men and boys who ran along beside us to the town&#039;s end, turning our clogged wheels and encouraging our horses, were men and boys of snow; and the bleak wild solitude to which they at last dismissed us, was a snowy Saharah. One would have thought this enough; notwithstanding which, I pledge my word that it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. We performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day; seeing nothing, out of towns and villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, and sometimes of birds. At nine o&#039;clock at night, on a Yorkshire moor, a cheerful burst from our horn, and a welcome sound of talking, with a glimmering and moving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy state. I found that we were going to change. They helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head became as white as King Lear&#039;s in a single minute: &quot;What Inn is this?&quot; &quot;The Holly-Tree, sir,&quot; said he. &quot;Upon my word, I believe,&quot; said I, apologetically to the guard and coachman, &quot;that I must stop here.&quot; Now, the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the postboy, and all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the wide-eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant to go on? The coachman had already replied, &quot;Yes, he&#039;d take her through it&quot;—meaning by Her, the coach—&quot;if so be as George would stand by him.&quot; George was the guard, and he had already sworn that he would stand by him. So, the helpers were already getting the horses out. My declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not an announcement without preparation. Indeed, but for the way to the announcement being smoothed by the parley, I more than doubt whether, as an innately bashful man, I should have had the confidence to make it. As it was, it received the approval, even of the guard and coachman. Therefore, with many confirmations of my inclining, and many remarks from one bystander to another, that the gentleman could go for&#039;ard by the mail to-morrow, whereas to-night he would only be froze, and where was the good of a gentleman being froze—ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause was added by a humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely well received), I saw my portmanteau got out stiff, like a frozen body; did the handsome thing by the guard and coachman; wished them good night and a prosperous journey; and, a little ashamed of myself after all, for leaving them to fight it out alone, followed the landlord, landlady, and waiter of the Holly-Tree, up-stairs. I thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which they showed me. It had five windows, with dark red curtains that would have absorbed the light of a general illumination; and there were complications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that went wandering about the wall in a most extraordinary manner. I asked for a smaller room, and they told me there was no smaller room. They could screen me in, however, the landlord said. They brought a great old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I suppose), engaged in a variety of idiotic pursuits all over it; and left me, roasting whole before an immense fire. My bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase, at the end of a long gallery; and nobody knows what a misery this is to a bashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs. It was them grimmest room I have ever had the nightmare in; and all the furniture, from the four posts of the bed to the two old silver candlesticks, was tall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted. Below, in my sitting-room, if I looked round my screen, the wind rushed at me like a mad bull; if I stuck to my arm-chair, the fire scorched me to the colour of a new brick. The chimney-piece was very high, and there was a bad glass—what I may call a wavy glass—above it, which, when I stood up, just showed me my anterior phrenological developments—and these never look well, in any subject, cut short off at the eyebrow. If I stood with my back to the fire, a gloomy vault of darkness above and beyond the screen insisted on being looked at; and, in its dim remoteness, the drapery of the ten curtains of the five windows went twisting and creeping about, like a nest of gigantic worms. I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some other men of similar character in themselves; therefore I am emboldened to mention, that when I travel, I never arrive at a place but I immediately want to go away from it. Before I had finished my supper of broiled fowl and mulled port, I had impressed upon the waiter in detail, my arrangements for departure in the morning. Breakfast and bill at eight. Fly at nine. Two horses, or, if needful, even four. Tired though I was, the night appeared about a week long. In cases of nightmare, I thought of Angela, and felt more depressed than ever by the reflection that I was on the shortest road to Gretna Green. What had I to do with Gretna Green? I was not going that way to the Devil, but by the American route, I remarked, in my bitterness. In the morning I found that it was snowing still, that it had snowed all night, and that I was snowed up. Nothing could get out of that spot on the moor, or could come at it, until the road had been cut out by laborers from the market-town. When they might cut their way to the Holly-Tree, nobody could tell me. It was now Christmas Eve. I should have had a dismal Christmas-time of it anywhere, and, consequently, that did not so much matter; still, being snowed up, was, like dying of frost, a thing I had not bargained for. I felt very lonely. Yet I could no more have proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though I should have liked it very much), than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate. Here my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were bashful too. Besides being far too shame-faced to make the proposal myself, I really had a delicate misgiving that it would be in the last degree disconcerting to them. Trying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, I first of all asked what books there were in the house? The waiter brought me a Book of Roads, two or three old Newspapers, a little Song-book terminating in a collection of Toasts and Sentiments, a little Jest-book, an odd volume of Peregrine Pickle, and the Sentimental Journey. I knew every word of the two last already, but I read them through again; then tried to hum all the songs (Auld Lang Syne was among them); went entirely through the jokes—in which I found a fund of melancholy adapted to my state of mind; proposed all the toasts, enunciated all the sentiments, and mastered the papers. The latter had nothing in them but Stock advertisements, a meeting about a county rate, and a highway robbery. As I am a greedy reader, I could not make this supply hold out until night; it was exhausted by tea-time. Being then entirely cast upon my own resources, I got through an hour in considering what to do next. Ultimately, it came into my head (from which I was anxious by any means to exclude Angela and Edwin), that I would endeavour to recall my experience of Inns, and would try how long it lasted me. I stirred the fire, moved my chair a little to one side of the screen—not daring to go far, for I knew the wind was waiting to make a rush at me—I could hear it growling—and began. My first impressions of an Inn, dated from the Nursery; consequently, I went back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found myself at the knee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a green gown, whose speciality was a dismal narrative of a landlord by the roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for many years, until it was discovered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert them into pies. For the better devotion of himself to this branch of industry, he had constructed a secret door behind the head of the bed; and when the visitor (oppressed with pie), had fallen asleep, this wicked landlord would look softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the other, would cut his throat, and would make him into pies; for which purpose he had coppers underneath a trap-door, always boiling; and rolled out his pastry in the dead of the night. Yet even he was not insensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to sleep without being heard to mutter, &quot;Too much pepper!&quot;—which was eventually the cause of his being brought to justice. I had no sooner disposed of this criminal than there started up another, of the same period, whose profession was, originally, housebreaking; in the pursuit of which art he had had his right ear chopped off one night as he was burglariously getting in at a window, by a brave and lovely servant-maid (whom the aquiline-nosed woman, though not at all answering the description, always mysteriously implied to be herself). After several years, this brave and lovely servant-maid was married to the land-lord of a country Inn: which landlord had this remarkable characteristic, that he always wore a silk nightcap, and never would, on any consideration, take it off. At last, one night, when he was fast asleep, the brave and lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap on the right side, and found that he had no ear there; upon which, she sagaciously perceived that he was the clipped housebreaker, who had married her with the intention of putting her to death. She immediately heated the poker and terminated his career, for which she was taken to King George upon his throne, and received the compliments of royalty on her great discretion and valour. This same narrator, who had a Ghoulish pleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the utmost confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within her own experience, founded, I now believe, upon Raymond and Agnes or the Bleeding Nun. She said it happened to her brother-in-law, who was immensely rich—which my father was not; and immensely tall—which my father was not. It was always a point with this Ghoule to present my dearest relations and friends to my youthful mind, under circumstances of disparaging contrast. The brother-in-law was riding once, through a forest, on a magnificent horse (we had no magnificent horse at our house), attended by a favourite and valuable Newfoundland dog (we had no dog), when he found himself benighted, and came to an Inn. A dark woman opened the door, and he asked her if he could have a bed there? She answered yes, and put his horse in the stable, and took him into a room where there were two dark men. While he was at supper, a parrot in the room began to talk, saying, &quot;Blood, blood! Wipe up the blood!&quot; Upon which, one of the dark men wrung the parrot&#039;s neck, and said he was fond of roasted parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the morning. After eating and drinking heartily, the immensely rich tall brother-in-law went up to bed; but, he was rather vexed, because they had shut his dog in the stable, saying that they never allowed dogs in the house. He sat very quiet for more than an hour, thinking and thinking, when, just as his candle was burning out, he heard a scratch at the door. He opened the door, and there was the Newfoundland dog! The dog came softly in, smelt about him, went straight to some straw in a corner which the dark men had said covered apples, tore the straw away, and disclosed two sheets steeped in blood. Just at that moment the candle went out, and the brother-in-law, looking through a chink in the door, saw the two dark men stealing up-stairs; one armed with a dagger, that long (about five feet); the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and a spade. Having no remembrance of the close of this adventure, I suppose my faculties to have been always so frozen with terror at this stage of it, that the power of listening stagnated within me for some quarter of an hour. These barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the Holly-Tree hearth, to the Roadside Inn, renowned in my time in a sixpenny book with a folding plate, representing in a central compartment of oval form the portrait of Jonathan Bradford, and in four corner compartments four incidents of the tragedy with which the name is associated—coloured with a hand at once so free and economical, that the bloom of Jonathan&#039;s complexion passed without any pause into the breeches of the ostler, and, smearing itself off into the next division, became rum in a bottle. Then, I remembered how the landlord was found at the murdered traveller&#039;s bedside, with his own knife at his feet, and blood upon his hand; how he was hanged for the murder, notwithstanding his protestation, that he had indeed come there to kill the traveller for his saddlebags, but had been stricken motionless on finding him already slain; and how the ostler, years afterwards, owned the deed. By this time I had made myself quite uncomfortable. I stirred the fire, and stood with my back to it, as long as I could bear the heat, looking up at the darkness beyond the screen, and at the wormy curtains creeping in and creeping out, like the worms in the ballad of Alonzo the Brave and the fair Imogene. There was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school, which had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these. I took it next. It was the Inn where friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped. It had an ecclesiastical sign—the Mitre—and a bar that seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug. I loved the landlord&#039;s youngest daughter to distraction—but let that pass. It was in this Inn that I was cried over by my rosy little sister, because I had acquired a black eye in a fight. And though she had been, that Holly-Tree night, for many a long year where all tears are dried, the Mitre softened me yet. &quot;To be continued, to-morrow,&quot; said I, when I took my candle to go to bed. But, my bed took it upon itself to continue the train of thought that night. It carried me away, like the enchanted carpet, to a distant place (though still in England), and there, alighting from a stage-coach at another Inn in the snow, as I had actually done some years before, I repeated in my sleep, a curious experience I had really had there. More than a year before I made the journey in the course of which I put up at that Inn, I had lost a very near and dear friend by death. Every night since, at home or away from home, I had dreamed of that friend; sometimes, as still living; sometimes, as returning from the world of shadows to comfort me; always as being beautiful, placid, and happy; never in association with any approach to fear or distress. It was at a lonely Inn in a wide moorland place, that I halted to pass the night. When I had looked from my bedroom window over the waste of snow on which the moon was shining, I sat down by my fire, to write a letter. I had always, until that hour, kept it within my own breast that I dreamed every night of the dear lost one. But, in the letter that I wrote, I recorded the circumstance, and added that I felt much interested in proving whether the subject of my dream would still be faithful to me, travel-tired, and in that remote place. No. I lost the beloved figure of my vision in parting with the secret. My sleep has never looked upon it since, in sixteen years, but once. I was in Italy, and awoke (or seemed to awake), the well-remembered voice distinctly in my ears, conversing with it. I entreated it, as it rose above my bed and soared up to the vaulted roof of the old room, to answer me a question I had asked, touching the Future Life. My hands were still outstretched towards it as it vanished, when I heard a bell ringing by the garden wall, and a voice, in the deep stillness of the night, calling on all good Christians to pray for the souls of the dead; it being All Souls Eve. To return to the Holly-Tree. When I awoke next day, it was freezing hard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow. My breakfast cleared away, I drew my chair into its former place, and, with the fire getting so much the better of the landscape that I sat in twilight, resumed my Inn remembrances. That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, in the days of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness. It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the midnight wind that rattled my lattice window, came moaning at me from Stonehenge. There was a hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally-preserved Druid, I believe him to have been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off: who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for the re-appearance on the verge of the horizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mutton for many ages. He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them; likewise, that any one who counted them three times nine times, and then stood in the centre and said &quot;I dare!&quot; would behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken dead. He pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him to have been familiar with the dodo), in manner following: He was out upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day, when he dimly discerned, going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace, what he at first supposed to be a gig-umbrella that had been blown from some conveyance, but what he presently believed to be a lean dwarf man upon a little pony. Having followed this object for some distance without gaining on it, and having called to it many times without receiving any answer, he pursued it for miles and miles, when, at length coming up with it, he discovered it to be the last bustard in Great Britain, degenerated into a wingless state, and running along the ground. Resolved to capture him or perish in the attempt, he closed with the bustard; but, the bustard, who had formed a counter-resolution that he should do neither, threw him, stunned him, and was last seen making off due west. This weird man at that stage of metempsychosis, may have been a sleep- walker, or an enthusiast, or a robber; but, I awoke one night to find him in the dark at my bedside, repeating the Athanasian Creed in a terrific voice. I paid my bill next day, and retired from the county with all possible precipitation. That was not a common-place story which worked itself out at a little Inn in Switzerland, while I was staying there. It was a very homely place, in a village of one narrow, zig-zag street among mountains, and you went in at the main door through the cow-house, and among the mules and the dogs and the fowls, before ascending a great bare staircase to the rooms: which were all of unpainted wood, without plastering or papering—like rough packing-cases. Outside, there was nothing but the straggling street, a little toy church with a copper-coloured steeple, a pine forest, a torrent, mists, and mountain-sides. A young man belonging to this Inn, had disappeared eight weeks before (it was winter-time), and was supposed to have had some undiscovered love affair, and to have gone for a soldier. He had got up in the night, and dropped into the village street from the loft in which he slept with another man; and he had done it so quietly, that his companion and fellow-laborer had heard no movement when he was awakened in the morning, and they said &quot;Louis, where is Henri?&quot; They looked for him high and low, in vain, and gave him up. Now, outside this Inn there stood, as there stood outside every dwelling in the village, a stack of firewood; but, the stack belonging to the Inn was higher than any of the rest, because the Inn was the richest house and burnt the most fuel. It began to be noticed, while they were looking high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the livestock of the Inn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to the top of this wood-stack; and that he would stay there for hours and hours, crowing, until he appeared in danger of splitting himself. Five weeks went on—six weeks—and still this terrible Bantam, neglecting his domestic affairs, was always on the top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes out of his head. By this time it was perceived that Louis had become inspired with a violent animosity towards the terrible Bantam, and one morning he was seen by a woman who sat nursing her goitre at a little window in a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough billet of wood, with a great oath, hurl it at the terrible Bantam crowing on the wood-stack, and bring him down dead. Hereupon, the woman, with a sudden light in her mind, stole round to the back of the wood-stack, and, being a good climber, as all those women are, climbed up, and soon was seen upon the summit, screaming, looking down the hollow within, and crying, &quot;Seize Louis, the murderer! Ring the church bell! Here is the body!&quot; I saw the murderer that day, and I saw him as I sat by my fire at the Holly-Tree Inn, and I see him now, lying shackled with cords on the stable litter, among the mild eyes and the smoking breath of the cows, waiting to be taken away by the police, and stared at by the fearful village. A heavy animal—the dullest animal in the stables— with a stupid head, and a lumpish face devoid of any trace of sensibility, who had been, within the knowledge of the murdered youth, an embezzler of certain small moneys belonging to his master, and who had taken this hopeful mode of putting a possible accuser out of his way. All of which he confessed next day, like a sulky wretch who couldn&#039;t be troubled any more, now that they had got hold of him and meant to make an end of him. I saw him once again, on the day of my departure from the Inn. In that Canton the headsman still does his office with a sword; and I came upon this murderer sitting bound to a chair, with his eyes bandaged, on a scaffold in a little market-place. In that instant, a great sword (loaded with quicksilver in the thick part of the blade), swept round him like a gust of wind, or fire, and there was no such creature in the world. My wonder was—not that he was so suddenly dispatched, but that any head was left unreaped, within a radius of fifty yards of that tremendous sickle. That was a good Inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady and the honest landlord, where I lived in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and where one of the apartments has a zoological papering on the walls, not so accurately joined but that the elephant occasionally rejoices in a tiger&#039;s hind legs and tail; while the lion puts on a trunk and tusks; and the bear, moulting as it were, appears as to portions of himself like a leopard. I made several American friends at that Inn, who all called Mont Blanc, Mount Blank—except one good-humored gentle- man, of a very sociable nature, who became on such intimate terms with it that he spoke of it familiarly as &quot; Blank; &quot; observing at breakfast, &quot; Blank looks pretty tall this morning; &quot; or considerably doubting in the court-yard in the evening, whether there warn&#039;t some go-ahead naters in our country, sir, that would make out the top of Blank in a couple of hours from first start—now! Once, I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of England, where I was haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie. It was a Yorkshire pie, like a fort—an abandoned fort with nothing in it; but the waiter had a fixed idea that it was a point of ceremony at every meal, to put the pie on the table. After some days, I tried to hint, in several delicate ways, that I considered the pie done with; as, for example, by emptying fag-ends of glasses of wine into it; putting cheese-plates and spoons into it, as into a basket; putting wine-bottles into it, as into a cooler; but always in vain, the pie being invariably cleaned out again and brought up as before. At last, beginning to be doubtful whether I was not the victim of a spectral illusion, and whether my health and spirits might not sink under the horrors of an imaginary pie, I cut a triangle out of it, fully as large as the musical instrument of that name in a power orchestra. Human prevision could not have foreseen the result—but the waiter mended the pie. With some effectual species of cement, he adroitly fitted the triangle in again, and I paid my reckoning and fled. The Holly-Tree was getting rather dismal. I made an overland expedition beyond the screen, and penetrated as far as the fourth window. Here, I was driven back by stress of weather. Arrived at my winter quarters once more, I made up the fire, and took another Inn. It was in the remotest part of Cornwall. A great annual Miners&#039; Feast was being holden at the Inn, when I and my travelling companions presented ourselves at night among the wild crowd that were dancing before it by torchlight. We had had a break-down in the dark, on a stony morass some miles away; and I had the honor of leading one of the unharnessed post-horses. If any lady or gentleman on perusal of the present lines, will take any very tall post-horse with his traces hanging about his legs, and will conduct him by the bearing- rein into the heart of a country dance of a hundred and fifty couples, that lady or gentleman will then, and only then, form an adequate idea of the extent to which that post-horse will tread on his conductor&#039;s toes. Over and above which, the post-horse, finding three hundred people whirling about him, will probably rear, and also lash out with his hind legs, in a manner incompatible with dignity or self-respect on his conductor&#039;s part. With such little drawbacks on my usually impressive aspect, I appeared at this Cornish Inn, to the unutterable wonder of the Cornish Miners. It was full, and twenty times full, and nobody could be received but the post-horse—though to get rid of that noble animal was something. While my fellow-travellers and I were discussing how to pass the night and so much of the next day as must intervene before the jovial blacksmith and the jovial wheelwright would be in a condition to go out on the morass and mend the coach, an honest man stepped forth from the crowd and proposed his unlet floor of two rooms, with supper of eggs and bacon, ale and punch. We joyfully accompanied him home to the strangest of clean houses, where we were well entertained to the satisfaction of all parties. But, the novel feature of the entertainment was, that our host was a chairmaker, and that the chairs assigned to us were mere frames, altogether without bottoms of any sort; so that we passed the evening on perches. Nor was this the absurdest consequence; for when we unbent at supper, and any one of us gave way to laughter, he forgot the peculiarity of his position, and instantly disappeared. I myself, doubled up into an attitude from which self-extrication was impossible, was taken out of my frame, like a Clown in a comic pantomime who has tumbled into a tub, five times by the taper&#039;s light during the eggs and bacon. The Holly-Tree was fast reviving within me a sense of loneliness. I began to feel conscious that my subject would never carry me on until I was dug out. I might be a week here—weeks! There was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with an Inn I once passed a night at, in a picturesque old town on the Welch border. In a large, double-bedded room of this Inn, there had been a suicide committed by poison, in one bed, while a tired traveller slept unconscious in the other. After that time, the suicide bed was never used, but the other constantly was; the disused bedstead remaining in the room empty, though as to all other respects in its old state. The story ran, that whosoever slept in this room, though never so entire a stranger, from never so far off, was invariably observed to come down in the morning with an impression that he smelt Laudanum; and that his mind always turned upon the subject of suicide; to which, whatever kind of man he might be, he was certain to make some reference if he conversed with any one. This went on for years, until it at length induced the landlord to take the disused bedstead down, and bodily burn it—bed, hangings, and all. The strange influence (this was the story), now changed to a fainter one, but never changed afterwards. The occupant of that room, with occasional but very rare exceptions, would come down in the morning, trying to recall a forgotten dream he had had in the night. The landlord, on his mentioning his perplexity, would suggest various common-place subjects, not one of which, as he very well knew, was the true subject. But the moment the landlord suggested &quot;Poison,&quot; the traveller started, and cried &quot;Yes!&quot; He never failed to accept that suggestion, and he never recalled any more of the dream. This reminiscence brought the Welch Inns in general, before me; with the women in their round hats, and the harpers with their white beards (venerable, but humbugs, I am afraid), playing outside the door while I took my dinner. The transition was natural to the Highland Inns, with the oatmeal bannocks, the honey, the venison steaks, the trout from the loch, the whiskey, and perhaps (having the materials so temptingly at hand) the Athol brose. Once, was I coming south from the Scottish Highlands in hot haste, hoping to change quickly at the station at the bottom of a certain wild historical glen, when these eyes did with mortification see the landlord come out with a telescope and sweep the whole prospect for the horses: which horses were away picking up their own living, and did not heave in sight under four hours. Having thought of the loch-trout I was taken by quick association to the Anglers&#039; Inns of England (I have assisted at innumerable feats of angling, by lying in the bottom of the boat, whole summer days, doing nothing with the greatest perseverance: which I have generally found to be as effectual towards the taking of fish as the finest tackle and the utmost science); and to the pleasant white, clean, flower-pot-decorated bed-rooms of those inns, overlooking the river, and the ferry, and the green ait, and the church-spire, and the country bridge; and to the peerless Emma with the bright eyes and the pretty smile, who waited, bless her! with a natural grace that would have converted Blue Beard. Casting my eyes upon my Holly-Tree fire, I next discerned among the glowing coals, tlie pictures of a score or more of those wonderful English posting-inns which we are all so sorry to have lost, which were so large and so comfortable, and which were such monuments of British submission to rapacity and extortion. He who would see these houses pining away, let him walk from Basingstoke or even Windsor to London, by way of Hounslow, and moralise on their perishing remains; the stables crumbling to dust; unsettled laborers and wanderers bivouacing in the outhouses; grass growing in the yards; the rooms where erst so many hundred beds of down were made up, let off to Irish lodgers at eighteen-pence a-week; a little ill-looking beer-shop shrinking in the tap of former days, burning coach-house gates for fire-wood, having one of its two windows bunged up, as if it had received punishment in a fight with the Railroad; a low, bandy-legged, brick-making bulldog standing in the door-way. What could I next see in my fire, so naturally, as the new railway- house of these times near the dismal country station; with nothing particular on draught but cold air and damp, nothing worth mentioning in the larder but new mortar, and no business doing, beyond a conceited affectation of luggage in the hall? Then, I came to the Inns of Paris, with the pretty appartement of four pieces up one hundred and seventy-five waxed stairs, the privilege of ringing the bell all day long without influencing anybody&#039;s mind or body but your own, and the not-too-much-for-dinner, considering the price. Next, to the provincial Inns of France, with the great church-tower rising above the courtyard, the horse-bells jingling merrily up and down the street beyond, and the clocks of all descriptions in all the rooms, which are never right, unless taken at the precise minute when by getting exactly twelve hours too fast or too slow, they unintentionally become so. Away I went, next, to the lesser road-side Inns of Italy; where all the dirty clothes in the house (not in wear) are always lying in your ante-room; where the mosquitoes make a raisin pudding of your face in summer, and the cold bites it blue in winter; where you get what you can, and forget what you can&#039;t; where I should again like to be boiling my tea in a pocket-handkerchief dumpling, for want of a tea-pot. So, to the old palace Inns and old monastery Inns, in towns and cities of the same bright country; with their massive quadrangular stair-cases whence you may look from among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of Heaven; with their stately banqueting- rooms, and vast refectories; with their labyrinths of ghostly bed-chambers, and their glimpses into gorgeous streets that have no appearance of reality or possibility. So, to the close little Inns of the Malaria districts, with their pale attendants, and their peculiar smell of never letting in the air. So, to the immense fantastic Inns of Venice, with the cry of the gondolier below, as he skims the corner; the grip of the watery odors on one particular little bit of the bridge of your nose (which is never released while you stay there); and the great bell of St. Mark&#039;s Cathedral tolling midnight. Next, I put up for a minute at the restless Inns upon the Rhine, where your going to bed, no matter at what hour, appears to be the tocsin for everybody else&#039;s getting up; and where, in the table d&#039;hôte room at the end of the long table (with several Towers of Babel on it at the other end, all made of white plates), one knot of stoutish men, entirely drest in jewels and dirt, and having nothing else upon them, will remain all night, clinking glasses, and singing about the river that flows and the grape that grows and Rhine wine that beguiles and Rhine woman that smiles and hi drink drink my friend and ho drink drink my brother, and all the rest of it. I departed thence, as a matter of course, to other German Inns, where all the eatables are sodden down to the same flavor, and where the mind is disturbed by the apparition of hot puddings, and boiled cherries sweet and slab, at awfully unexpected periods of the repast. After a draught of sparkling beer from a foaming glass jug, and a glance of recognition through the windows of the student beer-houses at Heidelberg and elsewhere, I put out to sea for the Inns of America, with their four hundred beds a-piece, and their eight or nine hundred ladies and gentlemen at dinner every day. Again, I stood in the bar-rooms bar-rooms thereof, taking my evening cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail. Again, I listened to my friend the General—whom I had known for five minutes, in the course of which period he had made me intimate for life with two Majors, who again had made me intimate for life with three Colonels, who again had made me brother to twenty-two civilians—again, I say, I listened to my friend the General, leisurely expounding the resources of the establishment, as to gentlemen&#039;s morning-room, sir; ladies&#039; morning-room, sir; gentlemen&#039;s evening-room, sir; ladies&#039; evening-room, sir; ladies&#039; and gentlemen&#039;s evening reuniting-room, sir; music-room, sir; reading room, sir; over four-hundred sleeping-rooms, sir; and the entire planned and finited within twelve calendar months from the first clearing off of the old incumbrances on the plot, at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars, sir. Again I found, as to my individual way of thinking, that the greater, the more gorgeous, and the more dollarous, the establishment was, the less desirable it was. Nevertheless, again I drank my cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail, in all good-will, to my friend the General, and my friends the Majors, Colonels, and civilians, all; full-well knowing that whatever little motes my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, they belong to a kind, generous, large-hearted, and great people. I had been going on lately, at a quick pace, to keep my solitude out of my mind; but, here I broke down for good, and gave up the subject. What was I to do? What was to become of me? Into what extremity was I submissively to sink? Supposing that, like Baron Trenck, I looked out for a mouse or spider, and found one, and beguiled my imprisonment by training it? Even that might be dangerous with a view to the future. I might be so far gone when the road did come to be cut through the snow, that, on my way forth, I might burst into tears, and beseech, like the prisoner who was released in his old age from the Bastille, to be taken back again to the five windows, the ten curtains, and the sinuous drapery. A desperate idea came into my head. Under any other circumstances I should have rejected it; but, in the strait at which I was, I held it fast. Could I so far overcome the inherent bashfulness which withheld me from the landlord&#039;s table and the company I might find there, as to make acquaintance, under various pretences, with some of the inmates of the house, singly—with the object of getting from each, either a whole autobiography, or a passage or experience in one, with which I could cheat the tardy time: first of all by seeking out, then by listening to, then by remembering and writing down? Could I, I asked myself, so far overcome my retiring nature as to do this. I could. I would. I did. The results of this conception I proceed to give, in the exact order in which I attained them. I began my plan of operations at once, and, by slow approaches and after overcoming many obstacles (all of my own making, I believe), reached the story of: Where had he been in his time? he repeated when I asked him the question. Lord, he had been everywhere! And what had he been? Bless you, he had been everything you could mention a&#039;most. Seen a good deal? Why, of course he had. I should say so, he could assure me, if I only knew about a twentieth part of what had come in his way. Why, it would be easier for him, he expected, to tell what he hadn&#039;t seen, than what he had. Ah! A deal, it would. What was the curiousest thing he had seen? Well! He didn&#039;t know. He couldn&#039;t momently name what was the curiousest thing he had seen—unless it was a Unicorn—and he see him once, at a Fair. But, supposing a young gentleman not eight year old, was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, might I think that a queer start? Certainly?Then, that was a start as he himself had had his blessed eyes on—and he had cleaned the shoes they run away in—and they was so little that he couldn&#039;t get his hand into &#039;em. Master Harry Walmers&#039;s father, you see, he lived at the Elmses, down away by Shooter&#039;s Hill there, six or seven mile from Lunnon. He was a gentleman of spirit, and good looking, and held his head up when he walked, and had what you may call Fire about him. He wrote poetry, and he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and he done it all equally beautiful. He was uncommon proud of Master Harry as was his only child; but he didn&#039;t spoil him, neither. He was a gentleman that had a will of his own and a eye of his own, and that would be minded. Consequently, though he made quite a companion of the fine bright boy, and was delighted to see him so fond of reading his fairy books, and was never tired of hearing him say my name is Norval, or hearing him sing his songs about Young May Moons is beaming love, and When he as adores thee has left but the name, and that: still he kept the command over the child, and the child was a child, and it&#039;s to be wished more of &#039;em was! How did Boots happen to know all this? Why, through being under-gardener. Of course he couldn&#039;t be under-gardener, and be always about, in the summer-time, near the windows on the lawn, a mowing, and sweeping, and weeding, and pruning, and this and that, without getting acquainted with the ways of the family.—Even supposing Master Harry hadn&#039;t come to him one morning early, and said, &quot;Cobbs, how should you spell Norah, if you was asked?&quot; and then begun cutting it in print, all over the fence. He couldn&#039;t say he had taken particular notice of children before that; but, really it was pretty to see them two mites a going about the place together, deep in love. And the courage of the boy! Bless your soul, he&#039;d have throwed off his little hat, and tucked up his little sleeves, and gone in at a Lion, he would, if they had happened to meet one and she had been frightened of him. One day he stops, along with her, where Boots was hoeing weeds in the, gravel, and says—speaking up, &quot;Cobbs,&quot; he says, &quot;I like you.&quot; &quot;Do you, sir? I&#039;m proud to hear it.&quot; &quot;Yes, I do, Cobbs. Why do I like you, do you think, Cobbs?&quot; &quot;Don&#039;t know, Master Harry, I am sure.&quot; &quot;Because Norah likes you, Cobbs.&quot; Indeed, sir? That&#039;s very gratifying.&quot; &quot;Gratifying, Cobbs? It&#039;s better than millions of the brightest diamonds, to be liked by Norah.&quot; &quot;Certainly, sir.&quot; &quot;You&#039;re going away, ain&#039;t you, Cobbs?&quot; &quot;Yes sir.&quot; &quot;Would you like another situation, Cobbs? &quot; &quot;Well, sir, I shouldn&#039;t object, if it was a good &#039;un.&quot; &quot;Then, Cobbs,&quot; says he, &quot;you shall be our Head Gardener when we are married.&quot; And he tucks her, in her little sky blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away. Boots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal to a play, to see them babies with their long bright curling hair, their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a rambling about the garden, deep in love. Boots was of opinion that the birds believed they was birds, and kept up with &#039;em, singing to please &#039;em. Sometimes, they would creep under the Tulip-tree, and would sit there with their arms round one another&#039;s necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a reading about the Prince, and the Dragon, and the good and bad enchanters, and the king&#039;s fair daughter. Sometimes, he would hear them planning about having a house in a forest, keeping bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk and honey. Once, he came upon them by the pond, and heard Master Harry say, &quot;Adorable Norah, kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or I&#039;ll jump in head-foremost.&quot; And Boots made no question he would have done it, if she hadn&#039;t complied. On the whole, Boots said it had a tendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself—only he didn&#039;t exactly know who with. &quot;Cobbs,&quot; said Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was watering the flowers; &quot; I am going on a visit, this present Midsummer, to my grandmamma&#039;s at York.&quot; &quot;Are you indeed, sir? I hope you&#039;ll have a pleasant time. I am going into Yorkshire myself, when I leave here.&quot; &quot;Are you going to your grandmamma&#039;s, Cobbs?&quot; &quot;No, sir. I haven&#039;t got such a thing.&quot; &quot;Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?&quot; &quot;No, sir.&quot; The boy looked on at the watering of the flowers, for a little while, and then said, &quot;I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs—Norah&#039;s going.&quot; &quot;You&#039;ll be all right then, sir,&quot; says Cobbs, &quot;with your beautiful sweetheart by your side.&quot; &quot;Cobbs,&quot; returned the boy, flushing. &quot;I never let anybody joke about it, when I can prevent them.&quot; &quot;It wasn&#039;t a joke, sir,&quot; says Cobbs with humility, &quot;—wasn&#039;t so meant.&quot; &quot;I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and you&#039;re going to live with us.—Cobbs!&quot; &quot;Sir.&quot; &quot;What do you think my grandmamma gives me, when I go down there?&quot; &quot;I couldn&#039;t so much as make a guess, sir.&quot; &quot;A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs.&quot; &quot;Whew! &quot; says Cobbs, &quot; that&#039;s a spanking sum of money, Master Harry.&quot; &quot;A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that. Couldn&#039;t a person, Cobbs?&quot; &quot;I believe you, sir!&quot; &quot;Cobbs,&quot; said the boy, &quot;I&#039;ll tell you a secret. At Norah&#039;s house, they have been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being engaged. Pretending to make game of it, Cobbs!&quot; &quot;Such, sir,&quot; says Cobbs, &quot;is the depravity of human natur.&quot; The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes with his glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with &quot;Good-night, Cobbs. I&#039;m going in.&quot; If I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was a going to leave that place just at that present time, well, he couldn&#039;t rightly answer me. He did suppose he might have stayed there till now, if he had been anyways inclined. But, you see, he was younger then and he wanted change. That&#039;s what he wanted—change. Mr. Walmers, he said, to him when he give him notice of his intentions to leave, &quot;Cobbs,&quot; he says, &quot;have you anythink to complain of? I make the inquiry, because if I find that any of my people really has anythink to complain of, I wish to make it right if I can.&quot; &quot;No, sir,&quot; says Cobbs; &quot;thanking you, sir, I find myself as well sitiwated here as I could hope to be anywheres. The truth is, sir, that I&#039;m a going to seek my fortun.&quot; &quot;O, indeed, Cobbs?&quot; he says; &quot; I hope you may find it.&quot; And Boots could assure me—which he did, touching his hair with his boot-jack, as a salute in the way of his present—calling that he hadn&#039;t found it yet. Well, sir! Boots left the Elmses when his time was up, and Master Harry he went down to the old lady&#039;s at York, which old lady would have given that child the teeth out of her head (if she had had any), she was so wrapt up in him. What does that Infant do—for Infant you may call him and be within the mark—but cut away from that old lady&#039;s with his Norah, on a expedition to go to Gretna Green and be married! Sir, Boots was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left it several times since to better himself, but always come back through one thing or another), when, one summer afternoon, the coach drives up, and out of the coach gets them two children. The Guard says to our Governor, &quot;I don&#039;t quite make out these little passengers, but the young gentleman&#039;s words was, that they was to be brought here.&quot; The young gentleman gets out; hands his lady out; gives the Guard something for himself; says to our Governor, &quot;We&#039;re to stop here to-night, please. Sitting-room and two bed-rooms will be required. Chops and cherry-pudding for two!&quot; and tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much bolder than Brass. Boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establishment was, when those two tiny creatures all alone by themselves was marched into the Angel;—much more so, when he, who had seen them without their seeing him, give the Governor his views of the expedition they was upon. &quot;Cobbs,&quot; says the Governor, &quot;if this is so, I must set off myself to York and quiet their friends&#039; minds. In which case you must keep your eye upon &#039;em, and humour &#039;em, till I come back. But, before I take these measures, Cobbs, I should wish you to find from themselves whether your opinions is correct.&quot; &quot;Sir to you,&quot; says Cobbs, &quot;that shall be done directly.&quot; So, Boots goes upstairs to the Angel, and there he finds Master Harry on a e-normous sofa—immense at any time, but looking like the Great Bed of Ware, compared with him—a drying the eyes of Miss Norah with his pocket hankecher. Their little legs was entirely off the ground, of course, and it really is not possible for Boots to express to me how small them children looked. &quot;It&#039;s Cobbs! It&#039;s Cobbs!&quot; cries Master Harry, and comes running to him and catching hold of his hand. Miss Norah comes running to him on t&#039;other side and catching hold of his t&#039;other hand, and they both jump for joy. &quot;I see you a getting out, sir,&quot; says Cobbs. &quot;I thought it was you. I thought I couldn&#039;t be mistaken in your height and figure. What&#039;s the object of your journey, sir?—Matrimonial? &quot;We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green,&quot; returned the boy. &quot;We have run away on purpose. Norah has been in rather low spirits, Cobbs; but she&#039;ll be happy, now we have found you to be our friend.&quot; &quot;Thank you, sir, and thank you, miss,&quot; says Cobbs, &quot;for your good opinion. Did you bring any luggage with you, sir?&quot; If I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honour upon it, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush—seemingly, a doll&#039;s. The gentleman had got about half-a-dozen yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprising small, a orange, and a Chaney mug with his name upon it. &quot;What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir? &quot; says Cobbs. &quot;To go on,&quot; replied the boy—which the courage of that boy was something wonder-ful!—&quot;in the morning, and be married to-morrow.&quot; &quot;Just so, sir,&quot; says Cobbs. &quot;Would it meet your views, sir, if I was to accompany you?&quot; When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, &quot;O yes, yes, Cobbs! Yes!&quot; &quot;Well, sir,&quot; say a Cobbs. &quot;If you will excuse my having the freedom to give an opinion, what I should recommend would be this. I&#039;m acquainted with a pony, sir, which, put in a pheayton that I could borrow, would take you and Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior (myself driving, if you approved), to the end of your journey in a very short space of time. I am not altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty to-morrow, but even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth your while. As to the small account here, sir, in case you was to find yourself running at all short, that don&#039;t signify; because I&#039;m a part proprietor of this inn, and it could stand over.&quot; Boots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and jumped for joy again, and called him &quot;Good Cobbs!&quot; and &quot;Dear Cobbs!&quot; and bent across him to kiss one another in the delight of their confiding hearts, he felt himself the meanest rascal for deceiving &#039;em, that ever was born. &quot;Is there anything you want just at present, sir?&quot; says Cobbs, mortally ashamed of himself. &quot;We should like some cakes after dinner,&quot; answered Master Harry, folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at him, &quot;and two apples—and jam. With dinner we should like to have toast-and-water. But, Norah has always been accustomed to haIf a, glass of currant wine at dessert. And so have I.&quot; &quot;It shall be ordered at the bar, sir,&quot; says Cobbs; and away he went. Boots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speaking, as he had then, that he would far rather have had it out in half-a-dozen rounds with the Governor, than have combined with him; and that he wished with all his heart there was any impossible place where those two babies could make an impossible marriage, and live impossibly happy ever afterwards. However, as it couldn&#039;t be, he went into the Governor&#039;s plans, and the Governor set off for York in half-an-hour. The way in which the women of that house—without exception—every one of &#039;em—married and single—took to that boy when they heard the story, Boots considers surprising. It was as much as he could do to keep &#039;em from dashing into the room and kissing him. They climbed up all sorts of places, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of glass. They was seven deep at the key-hole. They was out of their minds about him and his bold spirit. In the evening, Boots went into the room, to see how the runaway couple was getting on. The gentleman was on the window-seat, supporting the lady in his arms. She had tears upon her face, and was lying, very tired and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder, &quot;Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior, fatigued, sir?&quot; says Cobbs. &quot;Yes, she is tired, Cobbs; but, she is not used to be away from home, and she has been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do you think you could bring a biffin, please?&quot; &quot;I ask your pardon, sir,&quot; says Cobbs. &quot;What was it you?—&quot; &quot;I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very fond of them.&quot; Boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and, when he brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with a spoon, and took a little himself. The lady being heavy with sleep, and rather cross, &quot;What should you think, sir,&quot; says Cobbs, &quot;of a chamber candlestick? &quot; The gentleman approved; the chambermaid went first, up the great staircase; the lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the gentleman; the gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his own apartment, where Boots softly locked him up. Boots couldn&#039;t but feel with increased acuteness what a base deceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly, overnight), about the pony. It really was as much as he could do, he don&#039;t mind confessing to me, to look them two young things in the face, and think what a wicked old father of lies he had grown up to be. Howsomever, he went on lying like a Trojan, about the pony. He told &#039;em that it did so unfort&#039;nately happen that the pony was half clipped, you see, and that he couldn&#039;t be taken out in that state, for fear it should strike to his inside. But, that he&#039;d be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that to morrow morning at eight o&#039;clock the pheayton would be ready. Boots&#039;s view of the whole case, looking back upon it in my room, is, that Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior was beginning to give in. She hadn&#039;t had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn&#039;t seem quite up to brushing it herself, and it&#039;s getting in her eyes put her out. But, nothing put out Master Harry. He sat behind his breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own father. After breakfast, Boots is inclined to consider that they drawed soldiers—at least, he knows that many such was found in the fire- place, all on horseback. In the course of the morning, Master Harry rang the bell—it was surprising how that there boy did carry on—and said in a sprightly way, &quot;Cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighbourhood?&quot; &quot;Yes, sir,&quot; says Cobbs. &quot;There&#039;s Love Lane.&quot; &quot;Get out with you, Cobbs!&quot;—that was that there boy&#039;s expression—&quot;you&#039;re joking.&quot; &quot;Begging your pardon, sir,&quot; says Cobbs, &quot;there really is Love Lane. And a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it to yourself and Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior.&quot; &quot;Norah, dear,&quot; said Master Harry, &quot;this is curious. We really ought to see Love Lane. Put on your bonnet, my sweetest darling, and we will go there with Cobbs.&quot; Boots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, when that young pair told him, they all three jogged along together, that they had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year as head gardener, on accounts of his being so true a friend to &#039;em. Boots could have wished at the moment that the earth would have opened and swallerd him up; he felt so mean, with their beaming eyes a-looking at him, and believing him. Well, sir, he turned the conversation as well as he could, and he took &#039;em down Love Lane to the water-meadows, and there Master Harry would have drownded himself in half a moment more, a-getting out a water-lily for her—but nothing daunted that boy. Well, sir, they was tired out. All being so new and strange to &#039;em, they was tired as tired could be. And they laid down on a bank of daisies, like the children in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep. Boots don&#039;t know—perhaps I do—but never mind, it don&#039;t signify either way—why it made a man fit to make a fool of himself, to see them two pretty babies a lying there in the clear still sunny day, not dreaming half so hard when they was asleep, as they done when they was awake. But, Lord! when you come to think of yourself, you know, and what a game you have been up to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap you are, and how it&#039;s always either Yesterday with you, or else To-mor-row, and never To-day, that&#039;s where it is! Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty clear to Boots: namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses Junior&#039;s temper was on the move. When Master Harry took her round the waist, she said he &quot;teased her so;&quot; and when he says, &quot;Norah, my young May Moon, your Harry tease you?&quot; she tells him, &quot;Yes; and I want to go home!&quot; A biled fowl, and baked bread-and-butter pudding, brought Mrs. Walmers up a little; but Boots could have wished, he must privately own to me, to have seen her more sensible of the woice of love, and less abandoning of herself to currants. However, Master Harry he kept up, and his noble heart was as fond as ever. Mrs. Walmers turned very sleepy about dusk, and began to cry. Therefore, Mrs. Walmers went off to bed as per yesterday; and Master Harry ditto repeated. About eleven or twelve at night, comes back the Governor in a chaise, along with Mr Walmers and a elderly lady. Mr. Walmers looks amused and very serious, both at once, and says to our missis, &quot;We are much indebted to you, ma&#039;am, for your kind care of our little children, which we can never sufficiently acknowledge. Pray ma&#039;am, where is my boy?&quot; Our missis says, &quot;Cobbs has the dear child in charge, sir. Cobbs, show Forty!&quot; Then, he says to Cobbs, &quot;Ah Cobbs! I am glad to see you. I understood you was here! &quot; And Cobbs says, &quot;Yes, sir. Your most obedient, sir.&quot; I may be surprised to hear Boots say it perhaps; but, Boots assures me that his heart beat like a hammer, going up stairs. &quot;I beg your pardon, sir,&quot; says he, while unlocking the door; &quot;I hope you are not angry with Master Harry. For, Master Harry is a fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honour.&quot; And Boots signifies to me, that if the fine boy&#039;s father had contradicted him in the daring state of mind in which he then was, he thinks he should have &quot;fetched him a crack,&quot; and taken the consequences. But, Mr. Walmers only says, &quot;No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. Thank you!&quot; And, the door being opened, goes in. Boots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees Mr. Walmers go up to the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face. Then, he stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like it (they do say he ran away with Mrs. Walmers); and then he gently shakes the little shoulder. &quot;Harry, my dear boy! Harry!&quot; Master Harry starts up and looks at him. Looks at Cobbs too. Such is the honour of that mite, that he looks at Cobbs, to see whether he has brought him into trouble. &quot;I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself and come home.&quot; &quot;Yes, Pa.&quot; Master Harry dresses himself quickly. His breast begins to swell when he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more as he stands at last, a-looking at his father; his father standing a-looking at him, the quiet image of him. &quot;Please may I&quot;—the spirit of that litlle creatur, and the way he kept his rising tears down! &quot;—Please dear Pa—may I—kiss Norah, before I go?&quot; &quot;You may, my child.&quot; So, he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the way with the candle, and they come to that other bedroom: where the elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior is fast asleep. There, the father lifts the child up to the pillow, and he lays his little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor unconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior, and gently draws it to him—a sight so touching to the chambermaids who are peeping through the door, that one of them calls out &quot;It&#039;s a shame to part &#039;em!&quot; But this chambermaid was always, as Boots informs me, a soft-hearted one. Not that there was any harm in that girl. Far from it. Finally, Boots says, that&#039;s all about it. Mr. Walmers drove away in the chaise, having hold of Master Harry&#039;s hand. The elderly lady and Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior that was never to be, (she married a Captain, long afterwards, and died in India), went off next day. In conclusion, Boots puts it to me whether I hold with him in two opinions; firstly, that there are not many couples on their way to be married, who are half as innocent of guile as those two children; secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing for a great many couples on their way to be married, if they could only be stopped in time and brought back separately. I could scarcely believe, when I came to the last word of the foregoing recital and finished it off with a flourish, as I am apt to do when I make an end of any writing, that I had been snowed up a whole week. The time had hung so lightly on my hands, and the Holly-Tree, so bare at first, had borne so many berries for me, that I should have been in great doubt of the fact but for a piece of documentary evidence that lay upon my table. The road had been dug out of the snow, on the previous day, and the document in question was my Bill. It testified, emphatically, to my having eaten and drunk, and warmed myself, and slept, among the sheltering branches of the Holly-Tree, seven days and nights. I had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours to improve itself, finding that I required that additional margin of time for the completion of my task. I had ordered my Bill to be upon the table, and a chaise to be at the door, &quot;at eight o&#039;clock to-morrow evening.&quot; It was eight o&#039;clock to-morrow evening, when I buckled up my travelling writing-desk in its leather case, paid my Bill, and got on my warm coats and wrappers. Of course, no time now remained for my travelling on, to add a frozen tear to the icicles which were doubtless hanging plentifully about the farm-house where I had first seen Angela. What I had to do, was, to get across to Liverpool by the shortest open road, there to meet my heavy baggage and embark. It was quite enough to do, and I had not an hour too much time to do it in. I had taken leave of all my Holly-Tree friends—almost, for the time being, of my bashfulness too—and was standing for half a minute at the Inn-door, watching the ostler as he took another turn at the cord which tied my portmanteau on the chaise, when I saw lamps coming down towards the Holly-Tree. The road was so padded with snow that no wheels were audible; but, all of us who were standing at the Inn-door, saw lamps coming on, and at a lively rate too, between the walls of snow that had been heaped up, on either side of the track. The chamber- maid instantly divined how the case stood, and called to the ostler: &quot;Tom, this is a Gretna job!&quot; The ostler, knowing that her sex instinctively scented a marriage or anything in that direction, rushed up the yard, bawling, &quot;Next four out!&quot; and in a moment the whole establishment was thrown into commotion. I had a melancholy interest in seeing the happy man who loved and was beloved; and, therefore, instead of driving off at once, I remained at the Inn-door when the fugitives drove up. A bright-eyed fellow, muffled in a mantle, jumped out so briskly that he almost overthrew me. He turned to apologise, and, by Heaven, it was Edwin! &quot;Charley!&quot; said he, recoiling. &quot;Gracious powers, what do you do here?&quot; &quot;Edwin, &quot;said I, recoiling, &quot;Gracious powers, what do you do here!&quot; I struck my forehead as I said it, and an insupportable blaze of light seemed to shoot before my eyes. He hurried me into the little parlor (always kept with a slow fire in it and no poker), where posting company waited while their horses were putting to; and, shutting the door, said: &quot;Charley, forgive me!&quot; &quot;Edwin!&quot; I returned. &quot;Was this well? When I loved her so dearly! When I had garnered up my heart so long!&quot; I could say no more. He was shocked when he saw how moved I was, and made the cruel observation, that he had not thought I should have taken it so much to heart. I looked at him. I reproached him no more. But I looked at him. &#039;&#039;My dear, dear Charley,&quot; said he; &quot;don&#039;t think ill of me, I beseech you! I know you have a right to my utmost confidence, and, believe me, you have ever had it until now. I abhor secresy. Its meanness is intolerable to me. But, I and my dear girl have observed it for your sake.&quot; He and his dear girl! It steeled me. &quot;You have observed it for my sake, sir?&quot; said I, wondering how his frank face could face it out so. &quot;Yes!—and Angela&#039;s,&quot; said he. I found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like a laboring humming-top. &quot;Explain yourself,&#039;&#039; said I, holding on by one hand to an arm-chair. &quot;Dear old darling Charley!&quot; returned Edwin, in his cordial manner, &quot;consider! When you were going on so happily with Angela, why should I compromise you with the old gentleman by making you a party to our engagement, and (after he had declined my proposals) to our secret intention? Surely it was better that you should be able honorably to say, &#039;He never took counsel with me, never told me, never breathed a word of it.&#039; If Angela suspected it and showed me all the favor and support she could—God bless her for a precious creature and a priceless wife!—I couldn&#039;t help that. Neither I nor Emmeline ever told her, any more than we told you. And for the same good reason, Charley; trust me, for the same good reason, and no other upon earth!&quot; Emmeline was Angela&#039;s cousin. Lived with her. Had been brought up with her. Was her father&#039;s ward. Had property. &quot;Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin?&quot; said I, embracing him with the greatest affection. &quot;My good fellow!&quot; said he, &quot;Do you suppose I should be going to Gretna Green without her!&quot; I ran out with Edwin, I opened the chaise door, I took Emmeline in my arms, I folded her to my heart. She was wrapped in soft white fur, like the snowy landscape; but was warm, and young, and lovely. I put their leaders to with my own hands, I gave the boys a five-pound note a-piece, I cheered them as they drove away, I drove the other way myself as hard as I could pelt. I never went to Liverpool, I never went to America, I went straight back to London, and I married Angela. I have never until this time, even to her, disclosed the secret of my character, and the mistrust and the mistaken journey into which it led me. When she, and they, and our eight children and their seven—I mean Edwin&#039;s and Emmeline&#039;s, whose eldest girl is old enough now to wear white fur herself, and to look very like her mother in it—come to read these pages, as of course they will, I shall hardly fail to be found out at last. Never mind! I can bear it. I began at the Holly-Tree, by idle accident, to associate the Christmas time of year with human interest, and with some inquiry into, and some care for, the lives of those by whom I find myself surrounded. I hope that I am none the worse for it, and that no one near me or afar off is the worse for it. And I say, May the green Holly-Tree flourish, striking its roots deep into our English ground, and having its germinating qualities carried by the birds of Heaven all over the world!18551215https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Holly-Tree_Inn_[1855_Christmas_Number]/1855-12-15-The_HollyTree_Inn.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Holly-Tree_Inn_[1855_Christmas_Number]/1855-12-15-The_Guest.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Holly-Tree_Inn_[1855_Christmas_Number]/1855-12-15-The_Boots.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Holly-Tree_Inn_[1855_Christmas_Number]/1855-12-15-The_Bill.pdf
183https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/183<em>The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, and Their Treasure in Women, Children, Silver, and Jewels </em>(1857 Christmas Number)Published in <em>Household Words, </em>Vol. XVI, Extra Christmas Number, 7 December 1857, pp. 1-36.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-573.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-602.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-602.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1857-12-07">1857-12-07</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1857-12-07-The_Perils_of_Certain_English_Prisoners<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Island of Silver-Store' (No.1), pp. 1-14.</strong></li> <li><span>Wilkie Collins. 'The Prison in the Woods' (No.2), pp. 14-30.</span></li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Rafts on the River' (No.3), pp. 30-36.</strong></li> </ul>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins. <em>The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, and Their Treasure in Women, Children, Silver, and Jewels</em> (7 December 1857). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1857-12-07-The_Perils_of_Certain_English_Prisoners">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1857-12-07-The_Perils_of_Certain_English_Prisoners</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>It was in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-four, that I, Gill Davis to command, His Mark, having then the honor to be a private in the Royal Marines, stood a-leaning over the bulwarks of the armed sloop Christopher Columbus, in the South American waters off the Mosquito shore. My lady remarks to me, before I go any further, that there is no such christian-name as Gill, and that her confident opinion is, that the name given to me in the baptism wherein I was made, &amp;amp;c., was Gilbert. She is certain to be right, but I never heard of it. I was a foundling child, picked up somewhere or another, and I always understood my christian-name to be Gill. It is true that I was called Gills when employed at Snorridge Bottom betwixt Chatham and Maidstone, to frighten birds; but that had nothing to do with the Baptism wherein I was made, &amp;amp;c., and wherein a number of things were promised for me by somebody, who let me alone ever afterwards as to performing any of them, and who, I consider, must have been the Beadle. Such name of Gills was entirely owing to my cheeks, or gills, which at that time of my life were of a raspy description. My lady stops me again, before I go any further, by laughing exactly in her old way and waving the feather of her pen at me. That action on her part, calls to my mind as I look at her hand with the rings on it—Well! I won&#039;t! To be sure it will come in, in its own place. But it&#039;s always strange to me, noticing the quiet hand, and noticing it (as I have done, you know, so many times) a-fondling children and grandchildren asleep, to think that when blood and honor were up—there! I won&#039;t! not at present!—Scratch it out. She won&#039;t scratch it out, and quite honorable; because we have made an understanding that everything is to be taken down, and that nothing that is once taken down shall be scratched out. I have the great misfortune not to be able to read and write, and I am speaking my true and faithful account of those Adventures, and my lady is writing it, word for word. I say, there I was, a-leaning over the bulwarks of the sloop Christopher Columbus in the South American waters off the Mosquito shore: a subject of his Gracious Majesty King George of England, and a private in the Royal Marines. In those climates, you don&#039;t want to do much. I was doing nothing. I was thinking of the shepherd (my father, I wonder?) on the hill-sides by Snorridge Bottom, with a long staff, and with a rough white coat in all weathers all the year round, who used to let me lie in a corner of his hut by night, and who used to let me go about with him and his sheep by day when I could get nothing else to do, and who used to give me so little of his victuals and so much of his staff, that I ran away from him—which was what he wanted all along, I expect—to be knocked about the world in preference to Snorridge Bottom. I had been knocked about the world for nine-and-twenty years in all, when I stood looking along those bright blue South American waters. Looking after the shepherd, I may say. Watching him in a half-waking dream, with my eyes half-shut, as he, and his flock of sheep, and his two dogs, seemed to move away from the ship&#039;s side, far away over the blue water, and go right down into the sky. &quot;It&#039;s rising out of the water, steady,&quot; a voice said close to me. I had been thinking on so, that it like woke me with a start, though it was no stranger voice than the voice of Harry Charker, my own comrade. &quot;What&#039;s rising out of the water, steady?&quot; I asked my comrade. &quot;What?&quot; says he. &quot;The Island.&quot; &quot;O! The Island!&quot; says I, turning my eyes towards it. &quot;True. I forgot the Island.&quot; &quot;Forgot the port you&#039;re going to? That&#039;s odd, an&#039;t it?&quot; &quot;It is odd,&quot; says I. &quot;And odd,&quot; he said, slowly considering with himself, &quot;an&#039;t even. Is it, Gill?&quot; He had always a remark just like that to make, and seldom another. As soon as he had brought a thing round to what it was not, he was satisfied. He was one of the best of men, and, in a certain sort of a way, one with the least to say for himself. I qualify it, because, besides being able to read and write like a Quarter-master, he had always one most excellent idea in his mind. That was, Duty. Upon my soul, I don&#039;t believe, though I admire learning beyond everything, that he could have got a better idea out of all the books in the world, if he had learnt them every word, and been the cleverest of scholars. My comrade and I had been quartered in Jamaica, and from there we had been drafted off to the British settlement of Belize, lying away West and North of the Mosquito coast. At Belize there had been great alarm of one cruel gang of pirates (there were always more pirates than enough in those Caribbean Seas), and as they got the better of our English cruisers by running into out-of-the-way creeks and shallows, and taking the land when they were hotly pressed, the governor of Belize had received orders from home to keep a sharp look-out for them along shore. Now, there was an armed sloop came once a-year from Port Royal, Jamaica, to the Island, laden with all manner of necessaries, to eat and to drink, and to wear, and to use in various ways; and it was aboard of that sloop which had touched at Belize, that I was a-standing, leaning over the bulwarks. The Island was occupied by a very small English colony. It had been given the name of Silver-Store. The reason of its being so called, was, that the English colony owned and worked a silver mine over on the mainland, in Honduras, and used this island as a safe and convenient place to store their silver in, until it was annually fetched away by the sloop. It was brought down from the mine to the coast on the backs of mules, attended by friendly Indians and guarded by white men; from thence, it was conveyed over to Silver-Store, when the weather was fair, in the canoes of that country; from Silver-Store, it was carried to Jamaica by the armed sloop once a-year, as I have already mentioned; from Jamaica it went, of course, all over the world. How I came to be aboard the armed sloop, is easily told. Four-and-twenty marines under command of a lieutenant—that officer&#039;s name was Linderwood—had been told off at Belize, to proceed to Silver-Store, in aid of boats and seamen stationed there for the chace of the Pirates. The island was considered a good post of observation against the pirates, both by land and sea; neither the pirate ship nor yet her boats had been seen by any of us, but they had been so much heard of, that the reinforcement was sent. Of that party, I was one. It included a corporal and a Serjeant. Charker was corporal, and the serjeant&#039;s name was Drooce. He was the most tyrannical non-commissioned officer in His Majesty&#039;s service. The night came on, soon after I had had the foregoing words with Charker. All the wonderful bright colors went out of the sea and sky, in a few minutes, and all the stars in the Heavens seemed to shine out together, and to look down at themselves in the sea, over one another&#039;s shoulders, millions deep. Next morning, we cast anchor off the Island. There was a snug harbor within a little reef; there was a sandy beach; there were cocoa-nut trees with high straight stems, quite bare, and foliage at the top like plumes of magnificent green feathers; there were all the objects that are usually seen in those parts, and I am not going to describe them, having something else to tell about. Great rejoicings, to be sure, were made on our arrival. All the flags in the place were hoisted, all the guns in the place were fired, and all the people in the place came down to look at us. One of those Sambo fellows—they call those natives Sambos, when they are half-negro and half-Indian—had come off outside the reef, to pilot us in, and remained on board after we had let go our anchor. He was called Christian George King, and was fonder of all hands than anybody else was. Now, I confess, for myself, that on that first day, if I had been captain of the Christopher Columbus, instead of private in the Royal Marines, I should have kicked Christian George King—who was no more a Christian, than he was a King, or a George—over the side, without exactly knowing why, except that it was the right thing to do. But, I must likewise confess, that I was not in a particularly pleasant humor, when I stood under arms that morning, aboard the Christopher Columbus in the harbor of the Island of Silver-Store. I had had a hard life, and the life of the English on the Island seemed too easy and too gay, to please me. &quot;Here you are,&quot; I thought to myself, &quot;good scholars and good livers; able to read what you like, able to write what you like, able to eat and drink what you like, and spend what you like, and do what you like; and much you care for a poor, ignorant Private in the Royal Marines! Yet it&#039;s hard, too, I think, that you should have all the halfpence, and I all the kicks; you all the smooth, and I all the rough; you all the oil, and I all the vinegar.&quot; It was as envious a thing to think as might be, let alone its being nonsensical; but, I thought it. I took it so much amiss, that, when a very beautiful young English lady came aboard, I grunted to myself, &quot;Ah! you have got a lover, I&#039;ll be bound!&quot; As if there was any new offence to me in that, if she had! She was sister to the captain of our sloop, who had been in a poor way for some time, and who was so ill then that he was obliged to be carried ashore. She was the child of a military officer, and had come out there with her sister, who was married to one of the owners of the silver-mine, and who had three children with her. It was easy to see that she was the light and spirit of the Island. After I had got a good look at her, I grunted to myself again, in an even worse state of mind than before, &quot;I&#039;ll be damned, if I don&#039;t hate him, whoever he is!&quot; My officer, Lieutenant Linderwood, was as ill as the captain of the sloop, and was carried ashore, too. They were both young men of about my age, who had been delicate in the West India climate. I even took that, in bad part. I thought I was much fitter for the work than they were, and that if all of us had our deserts, I should be both of them rolled into one. (It may be imagined what sort of an officer of marines I should have made, without the power of reading a written order. And as to any knowledge how to command the sloop—Lord! I should have sunk her in a quarter of an hour!) However, such were my reflections; and when we men were ashore and dismissed, I strolled about the place along with Charker, making my observations in a similar spirit. It was a pretty place: in all its arrangements partly South American and partly English, and very agreeable to look at on that account, being like a bit of home that had got chipped off and had floated away to that spot, accommodating itself to circumstances as it drifted along. The huts of the Sambos, to the number of five-and-twenty, perhaps, were down by the beach to the left of the anchorage. On the right was a sort of barrack, with a South American Flag and the Union Jack, flying from the same staff, where the little English colony could all come together, if they saw occasion. It was a walled square of building, with a sort of pleasure-ground inside, and inside that again, a sunken block like a powder magazine, with a little square trench round it, and steps down to the door. Charker and I were looking in at the gate, which was not guarded; and I had said to Charker, in reference to the bit like a powder magazine, &quot;that&#039;s where they keep the silver, you see;&quot; and Charker had said to me, after thinking it over, &quot;And silver an&#039;t gold. Is it, Gill?&quot; when the beautiful young English lady I had been so bilious about, looked out of a door, or a window—at all events looked out, from under a bright awning. She no sooner saw us two in uniform, than she came out so quickly that she was still putting on her broad Mexican hat of plaited straw when we saluted. &quot;Would you like to come in,&quot; she said, &quot;and see the place? It is rather a curious place.&quot; We thanked the young lady, and said we didn&#039;t wish to be troublesome; but, she said it could be no trouble to an English soldier&#039;s daughter, to show English soldiers how their countrymen and countrywomen fared, so far away from England; and consequently we saluted again, and went in. Then, as we stood in the shade, she showed us (being as affable as beautiful), how the different families lived in their separate houses, and how there was a general house for stores, and a general reading-room, and a general room for music and dancing, and a room for Church; and how there were other houses on the rising-ground called the Signal Hill, where they lived in the hotter weather. &quot;Your officer has been carried up there,&quot; she said, &quot;and my brother, too, for the better air. At present, our few residents are dispersed over both spots: deducting, that is to say, such of our number as are always going to, or coming from, or staying at, the Mine.&quot; (&quot;He is among one of those parties,&quot; I thought, &quot;and I wish somebody would knock his head off.&quot;) &quot;Some of our married ladies live here,&quot; she said, &quot;during at least half the year, as lonely as widows, with their children.&quot; &quot;Many children here, ma&#039;am?&quot; &quot;Seventeen. There are thirteen married ladies, and there are eight like me.&quot; There were not eight like her—there was not one like her—in the world. She meant, single. &quot;Which, with about thirty Englishmen of various degrees,&quot; said the young lady, &quot;form the little colony now on the Island. I don&#039;t count the sailors, for they don&#039;t belong to us. Nor the soldiers,&quot; she gave us a gracious smile when she spoke of the soldiers, &quot;for the same reason.&quot; &quot;Nor the Sambos, ma&#039;am,&quot; said I. &quot;No.&quot; &quot;Under your favor, and with your leave, ma&#039;am,&quot; said I, &quot;are they trustworthy?&quot; &quot;Perfectly! We are all very kind to them, and they are very grateful to us.&quot; &quot;Indeed, ma&#039;am? Now—Christian George King?—&quot; &quot;Very much attached to us all. Would die for us.&quot; She was, as in my uneducated way I have observed very beautiful women almost always to be, so composed, that her composure gave great weight to what she said, and I believed it. Then, she pointed out to us the building like a powder magazine, and explained to us in what manner the silver was brought from the mine, and was brought over from the mainland, and was stored there. The Christopher Columbus would have a rich lading, she said, for there had been a great yield that year, a much richer yield than usual, and there was a chest of jewels besides the silver. When we had looked about us, and were getting sheepish, through fearing we were troublesome, she turned us over to a young woman, English born but West India bred, who served her as her maid. This young woman was the widow of a non-commissioned officer in a regiment of the line. She had got married and widowed at St. Vincent, with only a few months between the two events. She was a little saucy woman, with a bright pair of eyes, rather a neat little foot and figure, and rather a neat little turned-up nose. The sort of young woman, I considered at the time, who appeared to invite you to give her a kiss, and who would have slapped your face if you accepted the invitation. I couldn&#039;t make out her name at first; for, when she gave it in answer to my inquiry, it sounded like Beltot, which didn&#039;t sound right. But, when we became better acquainted—which was while Charker and I were drinking sugar-cane sangaree, which she made in a most excellent manner—I found that her Christian name was Isabella, which they shortened into Bell, and that the name of the deceased non-commissioned officer was Tott. Being the kind of neat little woman it was natural to make a toy of,—I never saw a woman so like a toy in my life—she had got the plaything name of Belltott. In short, she had no other name on the island. Even Mr. Commissioner Pordage (and he was a grave one!) formally addressed her as Mrs. Belltott. But, I shall come to Mr. Commissioner Pordage presently. The name of the captain of the sloop was Captain Maryon, and therefore it was no news to hear from Mrs. Belltott, that his sister, the beautiful unmarried young English lady, was Miss Maryon. The novelty was, that her Christian name was Marion too. Marion Maryon. Many a time I have run off those two names in my thoughts, like a bit of verse. O many, and many, and many, a time! We saw out all the drink that was produced, like good men and true, and then took our leaves, and went down to the beach. The weather was beautiful; the wind steady, low, and gentle; the island, a picture; the sea, a picture; the sky, a picture. In that country there are two rainy seasons in the year. One sets in at about our English Midsummer; the other, about a fortnight after our English Michaelmas. It was the beginning of August at that time; the first of these rainy seasons was well over; and everything was in its most beautiful growth, and had its loveliest look upon it. &quot;They enjoy themselves here,&quot; I says to Charker, turning surly again. &quot;This is better than private-soldiering.&quot; We had come down to the beach, to be friendly with the boat&#039;s-crew who were camped and hutted there; and we were approaching towards their quarters over the sand, when Christian George King comes up from the landing-place at a wolf&#039;s-trot, crying, &quot;Yup, So-Jeer!&quot;—which was that Sambo Pilot&#039;s barbarous way of saying, Hallo, Soldier! I have stated myself to be a man of no learning, and, if I entertain prejudices, I hope allowance may be made. I will now confess to one. It may be a right one or it may be a wrong one; but, I never did like Natives, except in the form of oysters. So, when Christian George King, who was individually unpleasant to me besides, comes a trotting along the sand, clucking &quot;Yap, So-Jeer!&quot; I had a thundering good mind to let fly at him with my right. I certainly should have done it, but that it would have exposed me to reprimand. &quot;Yup, So-Jeer!&quot; says he. &quot;Bad job.&quot; &quot;What do you mean?&quot; says I. &quot;Yup, So-Jeer!&quot; says he, &quot;Ship Leakee.&quot; &quot;Ship leaky?&quot; says I. &quot;Iss,&quot; says he, with a nod that looked as if it was jerked out of him by a most violent hiccup—which is the way with those savages. I cast my eyes at Charker, and we both heard the pumps going aboard the sloop, and saw the signal run up, &quot;Come on board; hands wanted from the shore.&quot; In no time some of the sloop&#039;s liberty-men were already running down to the water&#039;s edge, and the party of seamen, under orders against the Pirates, were putting off to the Columbus in two boats. &quot;Oh Christian George King sar berry sorry!&quot; says that Sambo vagabond, then. &quot;Christian George King cry, English fashion!&quot; His English fashion of crying was to screw his black knuckles into his eyes, howl like a dog, and roll himself on his back on the sand. It was trying not to kick him, but I gave Charker the word, &quot;Double-quick, Harry!&quot; and we got down to the water&#039;s edge, and got on board the sloop. By some means or other, she had sprung such a leak, that no pumping would keep her free; and what between the two fears that she would go down in the harbor, and that, even if she did not, all the supplies she had brought for the little colony would be destroyed by the sea-water as it rose in her, there was great confusion. In the midst of it, Captain Maryon was heard hailing from the beach. He had been carried down in his hammock, and looked very bad; but, he insisted on being stood there on his feet; and I saw him, myself, come off in the boat, sitting upright in the stern-sheets, as if nothing was wrong with him. A quick sort of council was held, and Captain Maryon soon resolved that we must all fall to work to get the cargo out, and, that when that was done, the guns and heavy matters must be got out, and that the sloop must be hauled ashore, and careened, and the leak stopped. We were all mustered (the Pirate-Chace party volunteering), and told off into parties, with so many hours of spell and so many hours of relief, and we all went at it with a will. Christian George King was entered one of the party in which I worked, at his own request, and he went at it with as good a will as any of the rest. He went at it with so much heartiness, to say the truth, that he rose in my good opinion, almost as fast as the water rose in the ship. Which was fast enough, and faster. Mr. Commissioner Pordage kept in a red and black japanned box, like a family lump-sugar box, some document or other which some Sambo chief or other had got drunk and spilt some ink over (as well as I could understand the matter), and by that means had given up lawful possession of the Island. Through having hold of this box, Mr. Pordage got his title of Commissioner. He was styled Consul, too, and spoke of himself as &quot;Government.&#039;&quot; He was a stiff-jointed, high-nosed old gentleman, without an ounce of fat on him, of a very angry temper and a very yellow complexion. Mrs. Commissioner Pordage, making allowance for difference of sex, was much the same. Mr. Kitten, a small, youngish, bald, botanical and mineralogical gentleman, also connected with the mine—but everybody there was that, more or less—was sometimes called by Mr. Commissioner Pordage, his Vice-commissioner, and sometimes his Deputy-consul. Or sometimes he spoke of Mr. Kitten, merely as being &quot;under Government.&quot; The beach was beginning to be a lively scene with the preparations for careening the sloop, and, with cargo, and spars, and rigging, and water-casks, dotted about it, and with temporary quarters for the men rising up there out of such sails and odds and ends as could be best set on one side to make them, when Mr. Commissioner Pordage comes down in a high fluster, and asks for Captain Maryon. The Captain, ill as he was, was slung in his hammock betwixt two trees, that he might direct; and he raised his head, and answered for himself. &quot;Captain Maryon,&quot; cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage, &quot;this is not official. This is not regular.&quot; &quot;Sir,&quot; says the Captain, &quot;it hath been arranged with the clerk and supercargo, that you should be communicated with, and requested to render any little assistance that may lie in your power. I am quite certain that hath been duly done.&quot; &quot;Captain Maryon,&quot; replies Mr. Commissioner Pordage, &quot;there hath been no written correspondence. No documents have passed, no memoranda have been made, no minutes have been made, no entries and counter-entries appear in the official muniments. This is indecent. I call upon you, sir, to desist, until all is regular, or Government will take this up.&quot; &quot;Sir,&quot; says Captain Maryon, chafing a little, as he looked out of his hammock; &quot;between the chances of Government taking this up, and my ship taking herself down, I much prefer to trust myself to the former.&quot; &quot;You do, sir?&quot; cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage. &quot;I do, sir,&quot; says Captain Maryon, lying down again. &quot;Then, Mr. Kitten,&quot; says the Commissioner, &quot;send up instantly for my Diplomatic coat.&quot; He was dressed in a linen suit at that moment; but, Mr. Kitten started off himself and brought down the Diplomatic coat, which was a blue cloth one, gold-laced, and with a crown on the button. &quot;Now, Mr. Kitten,&quot; says Pordage, &quot;I instruct you, as Vice-commissioner, and Deputy-consul of this place, to demand of Captain Maryon, of the sloop Christopher Columbus, whether he drives me to the act of putting this coat on?&quot; &quot;Mr. Pordage,&quot; says Captain Maryon, looking out of his hammock again, &quot;as I can hear what you say, I can answer it without troubling the gentleman. I should be sorry that you should be at the pains of putting on too hot a coat on my account; but, otherwise, you may put it on hind-side before, or inside-out, or with your legs in the sleeves, or your head in the skirts, for any objection that I have to offer to your thoroughly pleasing yourself.&quot; &quot;Very good, Captain Maryon,&quot; says Pordage, in a tremendous passion. &quot;Very good, sir. Be the consequences on your own head! Mr. Kitten, as it has come to this, help me on with it.&quot; When he had given that order, he walked off in the coat, and all our names were taken, and I was afterwards told that Mr. Kitten wrote from his dictation more than a bushel of large paper on the subject, which cost more before it was done with, than ever could be calculated, and which only got done with after all, by being lost. Our work went on merrily, nevertheless, and the Christopher Columbus, hauled up, lay helpless on her side like a great fish out of water. While she was in that state, there was a feast, or a ball, or an entertainment, or more properly all three together, given us in honor of the ship, and the ship&#039;s company, and the other visitors. At that assembly, I believe, I saw all the inhabitants then upon the Island, without any exception. I took no particular notice of more than a few, but I found it very agreeable in that little corner of the world to see the children, who were of all ages, and mostly very pretty—as they mostly are. There was one handsome elderly lady, with very dark eyes and grey hair, that I inquired about. I was told that her name was Mrs. Venning; and her married daughter, a fair slight thing, was pointed out to me by the name of Fanny Fisher. Quite a child she looked, with a little copy of herself holding to her dress; and her husband, just come back from the mine, exceeding proud of her. They were a good-looking set of people on the whole, but I didn&#039;t like them. I was out of sorts; in conversation with Charker, I found fault with all of them. I said of Mrs. Venning, she was proud; of Mrs. Fisher, she was a delicate little baby-fool. What did I think of this one? Why, he was a fine gentleman. What did I say to that one? Why, she was a fine lady. What could you expect them to be (I asked Charker), nursed in that climate, with the tropical night shining for them, musical instruments playing to them, great trees bending over them, soft lamps lighting them, fire-flies sparkling in among them, bright flowers and birds brought into existence to please their eyes, delicious drinks to be had for the pouring out, delicious fruits to be got for the picking, and every one dancing and murmuring happily in the scented air, with the sea breaking low on the reef for a pleasant chorus. &quot;Fine gentlemen and fine ladies, Harry?&quot; I says to Charker. &quot;Yes, I think so! Dolls! Dolls! Not the sort of stuff for wear, that comes of poor private soldiering in the Royal Marines!&quot; However, I could not gainsay that they were very hospitable people, and that they treated us uncommonly well. Every man of us was at the entertainment, and Mrs. Belltott had more partners than she could dance with: though she danced all night, too. As to Jack (whether of the Christopher Columbus, or of the Pirate pursuit party, it made no difference), he danced with his brother Jack, danced with himself, danced with the moon, the stars, the trees, the prospect, anything. I didn&#039;t greatly take to the chief-officer of that party, with his bright eyes, brown face, and easy figure. I didn&#039;t much like his way when he first happened to come where we were, with Miss Maryon on his arm. &quot;Oh, Captain Carton,&quot; she says, &quot;here are two friends of mine!&quot; He says, &quot;Indeed? These two Marines?&quot;—meaning Charker and self. &quot;Yes,&quot; says she, &quot;I showed these two friends of mine when they first came, all the wonders of Silver-Store.&quot; He gave us a laughing look, and says he, &quot;You are in luck, men. I would be disrated and go before the mast to-morrow, to be shown the way upward again by such a guide. You are in luck, men.&quot; When we had saluted, and he and the young lady had waltzed away, I said, &quot;You are a pretty fellow, too, to talk of luck. You may go to the Devil!&quot; Mr. Commissioner Pordage and Mrs. Commissioner, showed among the company on that occasion like the King and Queen of a much Greater Britain than Great Britain. Only two other circumstances in that jovial night made much separate impression on me. One was this. A man in our draft of marines, named Tom Packer, a wild unsteady young fellow, but the son of a respectable shipwright in Portsmouth Yard, and a good scholar who had been well brought up, comes to me after a spell of dancing, and takes me aside by the elbow, and says, swearing angrily: &quot;Gill Davis, I hope I may not be the death of Serjeant Drooce one day!&quot; Now, I knew Drooce always had borne particularly hard on this man, and I knew this man to be of a very hot temper: so, I said: &quot;Tut, nonsense! don&#039;t talk so to me! If there&#039;s a man in the corps who scorns the name of an assassin, that man and Tom Packer are one.&quot; Tom wipes his head, being in a mortal sweat, and says he: &quot;I hope so, but I can&#039;t answer for myself when he lords it over me, as he has just now done, before a woman. I tell you what, Gill! Mark my words! It will go hard with Serjeant Drooce, if ever we are in an engagement together, and he has to look to me to save him. Let him say a prayer then, if he knows one, for it&#039;s all over with him, and he is on his Death-bed. Mark my words!&quot; I did mark his words, and very soon afterwards, too, as will shortly be taken down. The other circumstance that I noticed at that ball, was, the gaiety and attachment of Christian George King. The innocent spirits that Sambo Pilot was in, and the impossibility he found himself under of showing all the little colony, but especially the ladies and children, how fond he was of them, how devoted to them, and how faithful to them for life and death, for present, future, and everlasting, made a great impression on me. If ever a man, Sambo or no Sambo, was trustful and trusted, to what may be called quite an infantine and sweetly beautiful extent, surely, I thought that morning when I did at last lie down to rest, it was that Sambo Pilot, Christian George King. This may account for my dreaming of him. He stuck in my sleep, cornerwise, and I couldn&#039;t get him out. He was always flitting about me, dancing round me, and peeping in over my hammock, though I woke and dozed off again fifty times. At last, when I opened my eyes, there he really was, looking in at the open side of the little dark hut; which was made of leaves, and had Charker&#039;s hammock slung in it as well as mine. &quot;So-Jeer!&quot; says he, in a sort of a low croak. &quot;Yup!&quot; &quot;Hallo!&quot; says I, starting up. &quot;What? You are there, are you?&quot; &quot;Iss,&quot; says he. &quot;Christian George King got news.&quot; &quot;What news has he got?&quot; &quot;Pirates out!&quot; I was on my feet in a second. So was Charker. We were both aware that Captain Carton, in command of the boats, constantly watched the main land for a secret signal, though, of course, it was not known to such as us what the signal was. Christian George King had vanished before we touched the ground. But, the word was already passing from hut to hut to turn out quietly, and we knew that the nimble barbarian had got hold of the truth, or something near it. In a space among the trees behind the encampment of us visitors, naval and military, was a snugly-screened spot, where we kept the stores that were in use, and did our cookery. The word was passed to assemble here. It was very quickly given, and was given (so far as we were concerned) by Serjeant Drooce, who was as good in a soldier point of view, as he was bad in a tyrannical one. We were ordered to drop into this space, quietly, behind the trees, one by one. As we assembled here, the seamen assembled too. Within ten minutes, as I should estimate, we were all here, except the usual guard upon the beach. The beach (we could see it through the wood) looked as it always had done in the hottest time of the day. The guard were in the shadow of the sloop&#039;s hull, and nothing was moving but the sea, and that moved very faintly. Work had always been knocked off at that hour, until the sun grew less fierce, and the sea-breeze rose; so that its being holiday with us, made no difference, just then, in the look of the place. But, I may mention that it was a holiday, and the first we had had since our hard work began. Last night&#039;s ball had been given, on the leak&#039;s being repaired, and the careening done. The worst of the work was over, and to-morrow we were to begin to get the sloop afloat again. We marines were now drawn up here, under arms. The chace-party were drawn up separate. The men of the Columbus were drawn up separate. The officers stepped out into the midst of the three parties, and spoke so as all might hear. Captain Carton was the officer in command, and he had a spy-glass in his hand. His coxswain stood by him with another spyglass, and with a slate on which he seemed to have been taking down signals. &quot;Now, men!&quot; says Captain Carton; &quot;I have to let you know, for your satisfaction: Firstly, that there are ten pirate-boats, strongly-manned and armed, lying hidden up a creek yonder on the coast, under the overhanging branches of the dense trees. Secondly, that they will certainly come out this night when the moon rises, on a pillaging and murdering expedition, of which some part of the main land is the object. Thirdly—don&#039;t cheer, men!—that we will give chace, and, if we can get at them, rid the world of them, please God!&quot; Nobody spoke, that I heard, and nobody moved, that I saw. Yet there was a kind of ring, as if every man answered and approved with the best blood that was inside of him. &quot;Sir,&quot; says Captain Maryon, &quot;I beg to volunteer on this service, with my boats. My people volunteer, to the ship&#039;s boys.&quot; &quot;In His Majesty&#039;s name and service,&quot; the other answers, touching his hat, &quot;I accept your aid with pleasure. Lieutenant Linderwood, how will you divide your men?&quot; I was ashamed—I give it out to be written down as large and plain as possible—I was heart and soul ashamed of my thoughts of those two sick officers, Captain Maryon and Lieutenant Linderwood, when I saw them, then and there. The spirit in those two gentlemen beat down their illness (and very ill I knew them to be) like Saint George beating down the Dragon. Pain and weakness, want of ease and want of rest, had no more place in their minds than fear itself. Meaning now to express for my lady to write down, exactly what I felt then and there, I felt this: &quot;You two brave fellows that I have been so grudgeful of, I know that if you were dying you would put it off to get up and do your best, and then you would be so modest that in lying down again to die, you would hardly say, &#039;I did it!&#039;&quot; It did me good. It really did me good. But, to go back to where I broke off. Says Captain Carton to Lieutenant Linderwood, &quot;Sir, how will you divide your men? There is not room for all; and a few men should, in any case, be left here.&quot; There was some debate about it. At last, it was resolved to leave eight Marines and four seamen on the Island, besides the sloop&#039;s two boys. And because it was considered that the friendly Sambos would only want to be commanded in case of any danger (though none at all was apprehended there), the officers were in favour of leaving the two non-commissioned officers, Drooce and Charker. It was a heavy disappointment to them, just as my being one of the left was a heavy disappointment to me—then, but not soon afterwards. We men drew lots for it, and I drew &quot;Island.&quot; So did Tom Packer. So, of course, did four more of our rank and file. When this was settled, verbal instructions were given to all hands to keep the intended expedition secret, in order that the women and children might not be alarmed, or the expedition put in a difficulty by more volunteers. The assembly was to be on that same spot, at sunset. Every man was to keep up an appearance, meanwhile, of occupying himself in his usual way. That is to say, every man excepting four old trusty seamen, who were appointed, with an officer, to see to the arms and ammunition, and to muffle the rullocks of the boats, and to make everything as trim and swift and silent as it could be made. The Sambo Pilot had been present all the while, in case of his being wanted, and had said to the officer in command, five hundred times over if he had said it once, that Christian George King would stay with the So-Jeers, and take care of the booffer ladies and the booffer childs—booffer being that native&#039;s expression for beautiful. He was now asked a few questions concerning the putting off of the boats, and in particular whether there was any way of embarking at the back of the Island: which Captain Carton would have half liked to do, and then have dropped round in its shadow and slanted across to the main. But, &quot;No,&quot; says Christian George King. &quot;No, no, no! Told you so, ten time. No, no, no! All reef, all rock, all swim, all drown!&quot; Striking out as he said it, like a swimmer gone mad, and turning over on his back on dry land, and spluttering himself to death, in a manner that made him quite an exhibition. The sun went down, after appearing to be a long time about it, and the assembly was called. Every man answered to his name, of course, and was at his post. It was not yet black dark, and the roll was only just gone through, when up comes Mr. Commissioner Pordage with his Diplomatic coat on. &quot;Captain Carton,&quot; says he, &quot;Sir, what is this?&quot; &quot;This, Mr. Commissioner,&quot; (he was very short with him) &quot;is an expedition against the Pirates. It is a secret expedition, so please to keep it a secret.&quot; &quot;Sir,&quot; says Commissioner Pordage, &quot;I trust there is going to be no unnecessary cruelty committed?&quot; &quot;Sir,&quot; returns the officer, &quot;I trust not.&quot; &quot;That is not enough, sir,&quot; cries Commissioner Pordage, getting wroth. &quot;Captain Carton, I give you notice. Government requires you to treat the enemy with great delicacy, consideration, clemency, and forbearance.&quot; &quot;Sir,&quot; says Captain Carton, &quot;I am an English Officer, commanding English Men, and I hope I am not likely to disappoint the Government&#039;s just expectations. But, I presume you know that these villains under their black flag have despoiled our countrymen of their property, burnt their homes, barbarously murdered them and their little children, and worse than murdered their wives and daughters?&quot; &quot;Perhaps I do, Captain Carton,&quot; answers Pordage, waving his hand, with dignity; &quot;perhaps I do not. It is not customary, sir, for Government to commit itself.&quot; &quot;It matters very little, Mr. Pordage, whether or no. Believing that I hold my commission by the allowance of God, and not that I have received it direct from the Devil, I shall certainly use it, with all avoidance of unnecessary suffering and with all merciful swiftness of execution, to exterminate these people from the face of the earth. Let me recommend you to go home, sir, and to keep out of the night-air.&quot; Never another syllable did that officer say to the Commissioner, but turned away to his men. The Commissioner buttoned his Diplomatic coat to the chin, said, &quot;Mr. Kitten, attend me!&quot; gasped, half choked himself, and took himself off. It now fell very dark, indeed. I have seldom, if ever, seen it darker, nor yet so dark. The moon was not due until one in the morning, and it was but a little after nine when our men lay down where they were mustered. It was pretended that they were to take a nap, but everybody knew that no nap was to be got under the circumstances. Though all were very quiet, there was a restlessness among the people; much what I have seen among the people on a race-course, when the bell has rung for the saddling for a great race with large stakes on it. At ten, they put off; only one boat putting off at a time; another following in five minutes; both then lying on their oars until another followed. Ahead of all, paddling his own outlandish little canoe without a sound, went the Sambo pilot, to take them safely outside the reef. No light was shown but once, and that was in the commanding officer&#039;s own hand. I lighted the dark lantern for him, and he took it from me when he embarked. They had blue lights and such like with them, but kept themselves as dark as Murder. The expedition got away with wonderful quietness, and Christian George King soon came back, dancing with joy. &quot;Yup, So-Jeer,&quot; says he to myself in a very objectionable kind of convulsions, &quot;Christian George King sar berry glad. Pirates all be blown a-pieces. Yup! Yup!&quot; My reply to that cannibal was, &quot;However glad you may be, hold your noise, and don&#039;t dance jigs and slap your knees about it, for I can&#039;t abear to see you do it.&quot; I was on duty then; we twelve who were left, being divided into four watches of three each, three hours&#039; spell. I was relieved at twelve. A little before that time, I had challenged, and Miss Maryon and Mrs. Belltott had come in. &quot;Good Davis,&quot; says Miss Maryou, &quot;what is the matter? Where is my brother?&quot; I told her what was the matter, and where her brother was. &quot;O Heaven help him!&quot; says she, clasping her hands and looking up—she was close in front of me, and she looked most lovely to be sure; &quot;he is not sufficiently recovered, not strong enough, for such strife!&quot; &quot;If you had seen him, miss,&quot; I told her, &quot;as I saw him when he volunteered, you would have known that his spirit is strong enough for any strife. It will bear his body, miss, to wherever duty calls him. It will always bear him to an honorable life, or a brave death.&quot; &quot;Heaven bless you!&quot; says she, touching my arm. &quot;I know it. Heaven bless you!&quot; Mrs. Belltott surprised me by trembling and saying nothing. They were still standing looking towards the sea and listening, after the relief had come round. It continuing very dark, I asked to be allowed to take them back. Miss Maryon thanked me, and she put her arm in mine, and I did take them back. I have now got to make a confession that will appear singular. After I had left them, I laid myself down on my face on the beach, and cried, for the first time since I had frightened birds as a boy at Snorridge Bottom, to think what a poor, ignorant, low-placed, private soldier I was. It was only for half a minute or so. A man can&#039;t at all times be quite master of himself, and it was only for half a minute or so. Then I up and went to my hut, and turned into my hammock, and fell asleep with wet eyelashes, and a sore, sore heart. Just as I had often done when I was a child, and had been worse used than usual. I slept (as a child under those circumstances might) very sound, and yet very sore at heart all through my sleep. I was awoke by the words, &quot;He is a determined man.&quot; I had sprung out of my hammock, and had seized my firelock, and was standing on the ground, saying the words myself. &quot;He is a determined man.&quot; But, the curiosity of my state was, that I seemed to be repeating them after somebody, and to have been wonderfully startled by hearing them. As soon as I came to myself, I went out of the hut, and away to where the guard was. Charker challenged: &quot;Who goes there?&quot; &quot;A friend.&quot; &quot;Not Gill?&quot; says he, as he shouldered his piece. &quot;Gill,&quot; says I. &quot;Why, what the deuce do you do out of your hammock?&quot; says he. &quot;Too hot for sleep,&quot; says I; &quot;is all right?&quot; &quot;Right!&quot; says Charker, &quot;yes, yes; all&#039;s right enough here; what should be wrong here? It&#039;s the boats that we want to know of. Except for fire-flies twinkling about, and the lonesome splashes of great creatures as they drop into the water, there&#039;s nothing going on here to ease a man&#039;s mind from the boats.&quot; The moon was above the sea, and had risen, I should say, some half-an-hour. As Charker spoke, with his face towards the sea, I, looking landward, suddenly laid my right hand on his breast, and said, &quot;Don&#039;t move. Don&#039;t turn. Don&#039;t raise your voice! You never saw a Maltese face here?&quot; &quot;No. What do you mean?&quot; he asks, staring at me. &quot;Nor yet an English face, with one eye and a patch across the nose?&quot; &quot;No. What ails you? What do you mean?&#039;&#039; I had seen both, looking at us round the stem of a cocoa-nut tree, where the moon struck them. I had seen that Sambo Pilot, with one hand laid on the stem of the tree, drawing them back into the heavy shadow. I had seen their naked cutlasses twinkle and shine, like bits of the moonshine in the water that had got blown ashore among the trees by the light wind. I had seen it all, in a moment. And I saw in a moment (as any man would), that the signalled move of the pirates on the main-land was a plot and a feint; that the leak had been made to disable the sloop; that the boats had been tempted away, to leave the Island unprotected; that the pirates had landed by some secreted way at the back; and that Christian George King was a double-dyed traitor, and a most infernal villain. I considered, still all in one and the same moment, that Charker was a brave man, but not quick with his head; and that Serjeant Drooce, with a much better head, was close by. All I said to Charker was, &quot;I am afraid we are betrayed. Turn your back full to the moonlight on the sea, and cover the stem of the cocoa-nut tree which will then be right before you, at the height of a man&#039;s heart. Are you right?&quot; &quot;I am right,&quot; says Charker, turning instantly, and falling into the position with a nerve of iron; &quot;and right a&#039;nt left. Is it Gill?&quot; A few seconds brought me to Serjeant Drooce&#039;s hut. He was fast asleep, and being a heavy sleeper, I had to lay my hand upon him to rouse him. The instant I touched him he came rolling out of his hammock, and upon me like a tiger. And a tiger he was, except that he knew what he was up to, in his utmost heat, as well as any man. I had to struggle with him pretty hard to bring him to his senses, panting all the while (for he gave me a breather), &quot;Serjeant, I am Gill Davis! Treachery! Pirates on the Island!&quot; The last words brought him round, and he took his hands off. &quot;I have seen two of them within this minute,&quot; said I. And so I told him what I had told Harry Charker. His soldierly, though tyrannical, head was clear in an instant. He didn&#039;t waste one word, even of surprise. &quot;Order the guard,&quot; says he, &quot;to draw off quietly into the Fort.&quot; (They called the enclosure I have before mentioned, the Fort, though it was not much of that.) &quot;Then get you to the Fort as quick as you can, rouse up every soul there, and fasten the gate. I will bring in all those who are up at the Signal Hill. If we are surrounded before we can join you, you must make a sally and cut us out if you can. The word among our men is, &#039;Women and children!&#039;&quot; He burst away, like fire going before the wind over dry reeds. He roused up the seven men who were off duty, and had them bursting away with him, before they knew they were not asleep. I reported orders to Charker, and ran to the Fort, as I have never run at any other time in all my life: no, not even in a dream. The gate was not fast, and had no good fastening: only a double wooden bar, a poor chain, and a bad lock. Those, I secured as well as they could be secured in a few seconds by one pair of hands, and so ran to that part of the building where Miss Maryon lived. I called to her loudly by her name until she answered. I then called loudly all the names I knew—Mrs. Macey (Miss Maryon&#039;s married sister), Mr. Macey, Mrs. Venning, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, even Mr. and Mrs. Pordage. Then I called out, &quot;All you gentlemen here, get up and defend the place! We are caught in a trap. Pirates have landed. We are attacked!&quot; At the terrible word &quot;Pirates!&quot;—for, those villains had done such deeds in those seas as never can be told in writing, and can scarcely be so much as thought of—cries and screams rose up from every part of the place. Quickly, lights moved about from window to window, and the cries moved about with them, and men, women and children came flying down into the square. I remarked to myself, even then, what a number of things I seemed to see at once. I noticed Mrs. Macey coming towards me, carrying all her three children together. I noticed Mr. Pordage, in the greatest terror, in vain trying to get on his Diplomatic coat; and Mr. Kitten respectfully tying his pocket-handkerchief over Mrs. Pordage&#039;s nightcap. I noticed Mrs. Belltott run out screaming, and shrink upon the ground near me, and cover her face in her hands, and lie, all of a bundle, shivering. But, what I noticed with the greatest pleasure was, the determined eyes with which those men of the Mine that I had thought fine gentlemen, came round me with what arms they had: to the full as cool and resolute as I could be, for my life—aye, and for my soul, too, into the bargain! The chief person being Mr. Macey, I told him how the three men of the guard would be at the gate directly, if they were not already there, and how Serjeant Drooce and the other seven were gone to bring in the outlying part of the people of Silver-store. I next urged him, for the love all who were dear to him, to trust no Sambo, and, above all, if he could get any good chance at Christian George King, not to lose it, but to put him out of the world. &quot;I will follow your advice to the letter, Davis,&quot; says he; &quot;what next?&quot; My answer was, &quot;I think, sir, I would recommend you next, to order down such heavy furniture and lumber as can be moved, and make a barricade within the gate.&quot; &quot;That&#039;s good again,&quot; says he; &quot;will you see it done?&quot; &quot;I&#039;ll willingly help to do it,&quot; says I, &quot;unless or until my superior, Serjeant Drooce, gives me other orders.&quot; He shook me by the hand, and having told off some of his companions to help me, bestirred himself to look to the arms and ammunition. A proper quick, brave, steady, ready gentleman! One of their three little children was deaf and dumb. Miss Maryon had been from the first with all the children, soothing them, and dressing them (poor little things, they had been brought out of their beds), and making them believe that it was a game of play, so that some of them were now even laughing. I had been working hard with the others at the barricade, and had got up a pretty good breastwork within the gate. Drooce and the seven had come back, bringing in the people from the Signal Hill, and had worked along with us: but, I had not so much as spoken a word to Drooce, nor had Drooce so much as spoken a word to me, for we were both too busy. The breastwork was now finished, and I found Miss Maryon at my side, with a child in her arms. Her dark hair was fastened round her head with a band. She had a quantity of it, and it looked even richer and more precious, put up hastily out of her way, than I had seen it look when it was carefully arranged. She was very pale, but extraordinarily quiet and still. &quot;Dear good Davis,&quot; said she, &quot;I have been waiting to speak one word to you.&quot; I turned to her directly. If I had received a musket-ball in the heart, and she had stood there, I almost believe I should have turned to her before I dropped. &quot;This pretty little creature,&quot; said she, kissing the child in her arms, who was playing with her hair and trying to pull it down, &quot;cannot hear what we say—can hear nothing. I trust you so much, and have such great confidence in you, that I want you to make me a promise.&quot; &quot;What is it, Miss?&quot; &quot;That if we are defeated, and you are absolutely sure of my being taken, you will kill me.&quot; &quot;I shall not be alive to do it, Miss. I shall have died in your defence before it comes to that. They must step across my body, to lay a hand on you.&quot; &quot;But, if you are alive, you brave soldier.&quot; How she looked at me! &quot;And if you cannot save me from the Pirates, living, you will save me, dead. Tell me so.&quot; Well! I told her I would do that, at the last, if all else failed. She took my hand—my rough, coarse hand—and put it to her lips. She put it to the child&#039;s lips, and the child kissed it. I believe I had the strength of half a dozen men in me, from that moment, until the fight was over. All this time, Mr. Commissioner Pordage had been wanting to make a Proclamation to the Pirates, to lay down their arms and go away; and everybody had been hustling him about and tumbling over him, while he was calling for pen and ink to write it with. Mrs. Pordage, too, had some curious ideas about the British respectability of her nightcap (which had as many frills to it, growing in layers one inside another, as if it was a white vegetable of the artichoke sort), and she wouldn&#039;t take the nightcap off, and would be angry when it got crushed by the other ladies who were handing things about, and, in short, she gave as much trouble as her husband did. But, as we were now forming for the defence of the place, they were both poked out of the way with no ceremony. The children and ladies were got into the little trench which surrounded the silver-house (we were afraid of leaving them in any of the light buildings, lest they should be set on fire), and we made the best disposition we could. There was a pretty good store, in point of amount, of tolerable swords and cutlasses. Those were issued. There were, also, perhaps a score or so of spare muskets. Those were brought out. To my astonishment, little Mrs. Fisher that I had taken for a doll and a baby, was not only very active in that service, but volunteered to load the spare arms. &quot;For, I understand it well,&quot; says she, cheerfully, without a shake in her voice. &quot;I am a soldier&#039;s daughter and a sailor&#039;s sister, and I understand it too,&quot; says Miss Maryon, just in the same way. Steady and busy behind where I stood, those two beautiful and delicate young women fell to handling the guns, hammering the flints, looking to the locks, and quietly directing others to pass up powder and bullets from hand to hand, as unflinching as the best of tried soldiers. Serjeant Drooce had brought in word that the pirates were very strong in numbers— over a hundred, was his estimate—and that they were not, even then, all landed; for, he had seen them in a very good position on the further side of the Signal Hill, evidently waiting for the rest of their men to come up. In the present pause, the first we had had since the alarm, he was telling this over again to Mr. Macey, when Mr. Macey suddenly cried out: &quot;The signal! Nobody has thought of the signal!&quot; We knew of no signal, so we could not have thought of it. &quot;What signal may you mean, sir?&quot; says Serjeant Drooce, looking sharp at him. &quot;There is a pile of wood upon the Signal Hill. If it could be lighted—which never has been done yet—it would be a signal of distress to the mainland.&quot; Charker cries, directly: &quot;Serjeant Drooce, dispatch me on that duty. Give me the two men who were on guard with me to-night, and I&#039;ll light the fire, if it can be done.&quot; &quot;And if it can&#039;t, Corporal—&quot; Mr. Macey strikes in. &quot;Look at these ladies and children, sir!&quot; says Charker. &quot;I&#039;d sooner light myself, than not try any chance to save them.&quot; We gave him a Hurrah!—it burst from us, come of it what might—and he got his two men, and was let out at the gate, and crept away. I had no sooner come back to my place from being one of the party to handle the gate, than Miss Maryon said in a low voice behind me: &quot;Davis, will you look at this powder. This is not right?&quot; I turned my head. Christian George King again, and treachery again! Sea-water had been conveyed into the magazine, and every grain of powder was spoiled! &quot;Stay a moment,&quot; said Serjeant Drooce, when I had told him, without causing a movement in a muscle of his face: &quot;look to your pouch, my lad. You Tom Packer, look to your pouch, confound you! Look to your pouches, all you Marines.&quot; The same artful savage had got at them, somehow or another, and the cartridges were all unserviceable. &quot;Hum!&quot; says the Serjeant, &quot;Look to your loading, men. You are right so far?&quot; Yes; we were right so far. &quot;Well, my lads, and gentlemen all,&quot; says the Serjeant, &quot;this will be a hand-to-hand affair, and so much the better.&quot; He treated himself to a pinch of snuff, and stood up, square-shouldered and broad-chested, in the light of the moon—which was now very bright—as cool as if he was waiting for a play to begin. He stood quiet, and we all stood quiet, for a matter of something like half-an-hour. I took notice from such whispered talk as there was, how little we that the silver did not belong to, thought about it, and how much the people that it did belong to, thought about it. At the end of the half-hour, it was reported from the gate that Charker and the two were falling back on us, pursued by about a dozen. &quot;Sally! Gate-party, under Gill Davis,&quot; says the Sergeant, &quot;and bring &#039;em in! Like men, now!&quot; We we&#039;re not long about it, and we brought them in. &quot;Don&#039;t take me,&quot; says Charker, holding me round the neck, and stumbling down at my feet when the gate was fast, &quot;don&#039;t take me near the ladies or the children, Gill. They had better not see Death, till it can&#039;t be helped. They&#039;ll see it soon enough.&quot; &quot;Harry!&quot; I answered, holding up his head. &quot;Comrade!&quot; He was cut to pieces. The signal had been secured by the first pirate party that lauded; his hair was all singed off, and his face was blackened with the running pitch from a torch. He made no complaint of pain, or of anything. &quot;Good bye, old chap,&quot; was all he said, with a smile. &quot;I&#039;ve got my death. And Death a&#039;nt life. Is it, Gill?&quot; Having helped to lay his poor body on one side, I went back to my post. Serjeant Drooce looked at me, with his eyebrows a little lifted. I nodded. &quot;Close up here, men, and gentlemen all!&quot; said the Serjeant. &quot;A place too many, in the line.&quot; The Pirates were so close upon us at this time, that the foremost of them were already before the gate. More and more came up with a great noise, and shouting loudly. When we believed from the sound that they were all there, we gave three English cheers. The poor little children joined, and were so fully convinced of our being at play, that they enjoyed the noise, and were heard clapping their hands in the silence that followed. Our disposition was this, beginning with the rear. Mrs. Venning, holding her daughter&#039;s child in her arms, sat on the steps of the little square trench surrounding the silver-house, encouraging and directing those women and children as she might have done in the happiest and easiest time of her life. Then, there was an armed line, under Mr. Macey, across the width of the enclosure, facing that way and having their backs towards the gate, in order that they might watch the walls and prevent our being taken by surprise. Then, there was a space of eight or ten feet deep, in which the spare arms were, and in which Miss Maryon and Mrs. Fisher, their hands and dresses blackened with the spoilt gunpowder, worked on their knees, tying such things as knives, old bayonets, and spear-heads, to the muzzles of the useless muskets. Then, there was a second armed line, under Serjeant Drooce, also across the width of the enclosure, but facing to the gate. Then, came the breastwork we had made, with a zig-zag way through it for me and my little party to hold good in retreating, as long as we could, when we were driven from the gate. We all knew that it was impossible to hold the place long, and that our only hope was in the timely discovery of the plot by the boats, and in their coming back. I and my men were now thrown forward to the gate. From a spy-hole, I could see the whole crowd of Pirates. There were Malays among them, Dutch, Maltese, Greeks, Sambos, Negroes, and Convict Englishmen from the West India Islands; among the last, him with the one eye and the patch across the nose. There were some Portuguese, too, and a few Spaniards. The captain was a Portuguese; a little man with very large ear-rings under a very broad hat, and a great bright shawl twisted about his shoulders. They were all strongly armed, but like a boarding party, with pikes, swords, cutlasses, and axes. I noticed a good many pistols, but not a gun of any kind among them. This gave me to understand that they had considered that a continued roll of musketry might perhaps have been heard on the mainland; also, that for the reason that fire would be seen from the mainland they would not set the Fort in flames and roast us alive; which was one of their favorite ways of carrying on. I looked about for Christian George King, and if I had seen him I am much mistaken if he would not have received my one round of ball-cartridge in his head. But, no Christian George King was visible. A sort of a wild Portuguese demon, who seemed either fierce-mad or fierce-drunk—but, they all seemed one or the other—came forward with the black flag, and gave it a wave or two. After that, the Portuguese captain called out in shrill English. &quot;I say you! English fools! Open the gate! Surrender!&quot; As we kept close and quiet, he said something to his men which I didn&#039;t understand, and when he had said it, the one-eyed English rascal with the patch (who had stepped out when he began), said it again in English. It was only this. &quot;Boys of the black flag, this is to be quickly done. Take all the prisoners you can. If they don&#039;t yield, kill the children to make them. Forward!&quot; Then, they all came on at the gate, and, in another half minute were smashing and splitting it in. We struck at them through the gaps and shivers, and we dropped many of them, too; but, their very weight would have carried such a gate, if they had been unarmed. I soon found Serjeant Drooce at my side, forming us six remaining marines in line—Tom Packer next to me—and ordering us to fall back three paces, and, as they broke in, to give them our one little volley at short distance. &quot;Then,&quot; says he, &quot;receive them behind your breastwork on the bayonet, and at least let every man of you pin one of the cursed cockchafers through the body.&quot; We checked them by our fire, slight as it was, and we checked them at the breastwork. However, they broke over it like swarms of devils—they were, really and truly, more devils than men—and then it was hand to hand, indeed. We clubbed our muskets and laid about us; even then, those two ladies—always behind me—were steady and ready with the arms. I had a lot of Maltese and Malays upon me, and, but for a broadsword that Miss Maryon&#039;s own hand put in mine, should have got my end from them. But, was that all? No. I saw a heap of banded dark hair and a white dress come thrice between me and them, under my own raised right arm, which each time might have destroyed the wearer of the white dress; and each time one of the lot went down, struck dead. Drooce was armed with a broad-sword, too, and did such things with it, that there was a cry, in half-a dozen languages, of &quot;Kill that serjeant! &quot;as I knew, by the cry being raised in English, and taken up in other tongues. I had received a severe cut across the left arm a few moments before, and should have known nothing of it, except supposing that somebody had struck me a smart blow, if I had not felt weak, and seen myself covered with spouting blood, and, at the same instant of time, seen Miss Maryon tearing her dress, and binding it with Mrs. Fisher&#039;s help round the wound. They called to Tom Packer, who was scouring by, to stop and guard me for one minute, while I was bound, or I should bleed to death in trying to defend myself. Tom stopped directly, with a good sabre in his hand. In that same moment all—things seem to happen in that same moment, at such a time—half-a-dozen had rushed howling at Serjeant Drooce. The Serjeant, stepping back against the wall, stopped one howl for ever with such a terrible blow, and waited for the rest to come on, with such a wonderfully unmoved face, that they stopped and looked at him. &quot;See him now!&quot; cried Tom Packer. &quot;Now, when I could cut him out! Gill! Did I tell you to mark my words?&quot; I implored Tom Packer in the Lord&#039;s name, as well as I could in my faintness, to go to the Serjeant&#039;s aid. &quot;I hate and detest him,&quot; says Tom, moodily wavering. &quot;Still, he is a brave man.&quot; Then he calls out, &quot;Serjeant Drooce, Serjeant Drooce! Tell me you have driven me too hard, and are sorry for it.&quot; The Serjeant, without turning his eyes from his assailants, which would have been instant death to him, answers: &quot;No. I won&#039;t.&quot; &quot;Serjeant Drooce!&quot; cries Tom, in a kind of an agony. &quot;I have passed my word that I would never save you from Death, if I could, but would leave you to die. Tell me you have driven me too hard and are sorry for it, and that shall go for nothing.&quot; One of the group laid the Serjeant&#039;s bald bare head open. The Serjeant laid him dead. &quot;I tell you,&quot; says the Serjeant, breathing a little short, and waiting for the next attack. &quot;No. I won&#039;t. If you are not man enough to strike for a fellow-soldier because he wants help, and because of nothing else, I&#039;ll go into the other world and look for a better man.&quot; Tom swept upon them, and cut him out. Tom and he fought their way through another knot of them, and sent them flying, and came over to where I was beginning again to feel, with inexpressible joy, that I had got a sword in my hand. They had hardly come to us, when I heard, above all the other noises, a tremendous cry of women&#039;s voices. I also saw Miss Maryon, with quite a new face, suddenly clap her two hands over Mrs. Fisher&#039;s eyes. I looked towards the silver-house, and saw Mrs. Venning—standing upright on the top of the steps of the trench, with her grey hair and her dark eyes—hide her daughter&#039;s child behind her, among the folds of her dress, strike a pirate with her other hand, and fall, shot by his pistol. The cry arose again, and there was a terrible and confusing rush of the women into the midst of the struggle. In another moment, something came tumbling down upon me that I thought was the wall. It was a heap of Sambos who had come over the wall; and of four men who clung to my legs like serpents, one who clung to my right leg was Christian George King. &quot;Yup, So-Jeer!&quot; says he, &quot;Christian George King sar berry glad So-Jeer a prisoner. Christian George King been waiting for So-Jeer sech long time. Yup, yup!&quot; What could I do, with five-and-twenty of them on me, but be tied hand and foot? So, I was tied hand and foot. It was all over now—boats not come back—all lost! When I was fast bound and was put up against the wall, the one-eyed English convict came up with the Portuguese Captain, to have a look at me. &quot;See!&quot; says he, &quot;Here&#039;s the determined man! If you had slept sounder, last night, you&#039;d have slept your soundest last night, my determined man.&quot; The Portuguese Captain laughed in a cool way, and, with the flat of his cutlass, hit me crosswise, as if I was the bough of a tree that he played with: first on the face, and then across the chest and the wounded arm. I looked him steady in the face without tumbling while he looked at me, I am happy to say; but, when they went away, I fell, and lay there. The sun was up, when I was roused and told to come down to the beach and be embarked. I was full of aches and pains, and could not at first remember; but, I remembered quite soon enough. The killed were lying about all over the place, and the Pirates were burying their dead, and taking away their wounded on hastily-made litters, to the back of the Island. As for us prisoners, some of their boats had come round to the usual harbour, to carry us off. We looked a wretched few, I thought, when I got down there; still, it was another sign that we had fought well, and made the enemy suffer. The Portuguese Captain had all the women already embarked in the boat he himself commanded, which was just putting off when I got down. Miss Maryon sat on one side of him, and gave me a moment&#039;s look, as full of quiet courage, and pity, and confidence, as if it had been an hour long. On the other side of him was poor little Mrs. Fisher, weeping for her child and her mother. I was shoved into the same boat with Drooce and Packer, and the remainder of our party of marines: of whom we had lost two privates, besides Charker, my poor, brave comrade. We all made a melancholy passage, under the hot sun, over to the mainland. There, we landed in a solitary place, and were mustered on the sea sand. Mr. and Mrs. Macey and their children were amongst us, Mr. and Mrs. Pordage, Mr. Kitten, Mr. Fisher, and Mrs. Belltott. We mustered only fourteen men, fifteen women, and seven children. Those were all that remained of the English who had lain down to sleep last night, unsuspecting and happy, on the Island of Silver-Store. We contrived to keep afloat all that night, and, the stream running strong with us, to glide a long way down the river. But, we found the night to be a dangerous time for such navigation, on account of the eddies and rapids, and it was therefore settled next day that in future we would bring-to at sunset, and encamp on the shore. As we knew of no boats that the Pirates possessed, up at the Prison in the Woods, we settled always to encamp on the opposite side of the stream, so as to have the breadth of the river between our sleep and them. Our opinion was, that if they were acquainted with any near way by land to the mouth of this river, they would come up it in force, and re-take us or kill us, according as they could; but, that if that was not the case, and if the river ran by none of their secret stations, we might escape. When I say we settled this or that, I do not mean that we planned anything with any confidence as to what might happen an hour hence. So much had happened in one night, and such great changes had been violently and suddenly made in the fortunes of many among us, that we had got better used to uncertainty, in a little while, than I dare say most people do in the course of their lives. The difficulties we soon got into, through the off-settings and point-currents of the stream, made the likelihood of our being drowned, alone—to say nothing of our being retaken— as broad and plain as the sun at noon-day to all of us. But, we all worked hard at managing the rafts, under the direction of the seamen (of our own skill, I think we never could have prevented them from oversetting), and we also worked hard at making good the defects in their first hasty construction—which the water soon found out. While we humbly resigned ourselves to going down, if it was the will of Our Father that was in Heaven, we humbly made up our minds, that we would all do the best that was in us. And so we held on, gliding with the stream. It drove us to this bank, and it drove us to that bank, and it turned us, and whirled us; but yet it carried us on. Sometimes much too slowly, sometimes much too fast, but yet it carried us on. My little deaf and dumb boy slumbered a good deal now, and that was the case with all the children. They caused very little trouble to any one. They seemed, in my eyes, to get more like one another, not only in quiet manner, but in the face, too. The motion of the raft was usually so much the same, the scene was usually so much the same, the sound of the soft wash and ripple of the water was usually so much the same, that they were made drowsy, as they might have been by the constant playing of one tune. Even on the grown people, who worked hard and felt anxiety, the same things produced something of the same effect. Every day was so like the other, that I soon lost count of the days, myself, and had to ask Miss Maryon, for instance, whether this was the third or fourth? Miss Maryon had a pocketbook and pencil, and she kept the log; that is to say, she entered up a clear little journal of the time, and of the distances our seamen thought we had made, each night. So, as I say, we kept afloat and glided on. All day long, and every day, the water, and the woods, and sky; all day long, and every day, the constant watching of both sides of the river, and far a-head at every bold turn and sweep it made, for any signs of Pirate-boats, or Pirate-dwellings. So, as I say, we kept afloat and glided on. The days melting themselves together to that degree, that I could hardly believe my ears when I asked &quot;How many, now, Miss?&quot; and she answered, &quot;Seven.&quot; To be sure, poor Mr. Pordage had, by about now, got his Diplomatic coat into such a state as never was seen. What with the mud of the river, what with the water of the river, what with the sun, and the dews, and the tearing boughs, and the thickets, it hung about him in discoloured shreds like a mop. The sun had touched him a bit. He had taken to always polishing one particular button, which just held on to his left wrist, and to always calling for stationery. I suppose that man called for pens, ink, and paper, tape, and sealing-wax, upwards of one thousand times in four and twenty hours. He had an idea that we should never get out of that river unless we were written out of it in a formal Memorandum; and the more we laboured at navigating the rafts, the more he ordered us not to touch them at our peril, and the more he sat and roared for stationery. Mrs. Pordage, similarly, persisted in wearing her nightcap. I doubt if any one but ourselves who had seen the progress of that article of dress, could by this time have told what it was meant for. It had got so limp and rugged that she couldn&#039;t see out of her eyes for it. It was so dirty, that whether it was vegetable matter out of a swamp, or weeds out of the river, or an old porter&#039;s-knot from England, I don&#039;t think any new spectator could have said. Yet, this unfortunate old woman had a notion that it was not only vastly genteel, but that it was the correct thing as to propriety. And she really did carry herself over the other ladies who had no night-caps, and who were forced to tie up their hair how they could, in a superior manner that was perfectly amazing. I don&#039;t know what she looked like, sitting in that blessed night-cap, on a log of wood, outside the hut or cabin upon our raft. She would have rather resembled a fortune-teller in one of the picture-books that used to be in the shop windows in my boyhood, except for her stateliness. But, Lord bless my heart, the dignity with which she sat and moped, with her head in that bundle of tatters, was like nothing else in the world! She was not on speaking terms with more than three of the ladies. Some of them had, what she called, &quot;taken precedence&quot; of her—in getting into, or out of, that miserable little shelter!—and others had not called to pay their respects, or something of that kind. So, there she sat, in her own state and ceremony, while her husband sat on the same log of wood, ordering us one and all to let the raft go to the bottom, and to bring him stationery. What with this noise on the part of Mr. Commissioner Pordage, and what with the cries of Serjeant Drooce on the raft astern (which were sometimes more than Tom Packer could silence), we often made our slow way down the river, anything but quietly. Yet, that it was of great importance that no ears should be able to hear us from the woods on the banks, could not be doubted. We were looked for, to a certainty, and we might be retaken at any moment. It was an anxious time; it was, indeed, indeed, an anxious time. On the seventh night of our voyage on the rafts, we made fast, as usual, on the opposite side of the river to that from which we had started, in as dark a place as we could pick out. Our little encampment was soon made, and supper was eaten, and the children fell asleep. The watch was set, and everything made orderly for the night. Such a starlight night, with such blue in the sky, and such black in the places of heavy shade on the banks of the great stream! Those two ladies, Miss Maryon and Mrs. Fisher, had always kept near me since the night of the attack. Mr. Fisher, who was untiring in the work of our raft, had said to me: &quot;My dear little childless wife has grown so attached to you, Davis, and you are such a gentle fellow, as well as such a determined one;&quot; our party had adopted that last expression from the one-eyed English pirate, and I repeat what Mr. Fisher said, only because he said it; &quot;that it takes a load off my mind to leave her in your charge.&quot; I said to him: &quot;Your lady is in far better charge than mine, sir, having Miss Maryon to take care of her; but, you may rely upon it, that I will guard them both—faithful and true.&quot; Says he: &quot;I do rely upon it, Davis, and I heartily wish all the silver on our old Island was yours.&quot; That seventh starlight night, as I have said, we made our camp, and got our supper, and set our watch, and the children fell asleep. It was solemn and beautiful in those wild and solitary parts, to see them, every night before they lay down, kneeling under the bright sky, saying their little prayers at women&#039;s laps. At that time we men all uncovered, and mostly kept at a distance. When the innocent creatures rose up, we murmured &quot;Amen!&quot; all together. For, though we had not heard what they said, we knew it must be good for us. At that time, too, as was only natural, those poor mothers in our company whose children had been killed, shed many tears. I thought the sight seemed to console them while it made them cry; but, whether I was right or wrong in that, they wept very much. On this seventh night, Mrs. Fisher had cried for her lost darling until she cried herself asleep. She was lying on a little couch of leaves and such-like (I made the best little couch I could, for them every night), and Miss Maryon had covered her, and sat by her, holding her hand. The stars looked down upon them. As for me, I guarded them. &quot;Davis!&quot; says Miss Maryon. (I am not going to say what a voice she had. I couldn&#039;t if I tried.) &quot;I am here, Miss.&quot; &quot;The river sounds as if it were swollen to-night.&quot; &quot;We all think, Miss, that we are coming near the sea.&quot; &quot;Do you believe, now, we shall escape?&quot; &quot;I do now, Miss, really believe it.&quot; I had always said I did; but, I had in my own mind been doubtful.&quot; &quot;How glad you will be, my good Davis, to see England again!&quot; I have another confession to make that will appear singular. When she said these words, something rose in my throat; and the stars I looked away at, seemed to break into sparkles that fell down my face and burnt it. &quot;England is not much to me, Miss, except as a name.&quot; &quot;Oh! So true an Englishman should not say that!—Are you not well to-night, Davis?&quot; Very kindly, and with a quick change. &quot;Quite well, Miss.&quot; &quot;Are you sure? Your voice sounds altered in my hearing.&quot; &quot;No, Miss, I am a stronger man than ever. But, England is nothing to me.&quot; Miss Maryon sat silent for so long a while, that I believed she had done speaking to me for one time. However, she had not; for by and by she said in a distinct, clear tone: &quot;No, good friend; you must not say, that England is nothing to you. It is to be much to you, yet—everything to you. You have to take back to England the good name you have earned here, and the gratitude and attachment and respect you have won here; and you have to make some good English girl very happy and proud, by marrying her; and I shall one day see her, I hope, and make her happier and prouder still, by telling her what noble services her husband&#039;s were in South America, and what a noble friend he was to me there.&quot; Though she spoke these kind words in a cheering manner, she spoke them compassionately. I said nothing. It will appear to be another strange confession, that I paced to and fro, within call, all that night, a most unhappy man reproaching myself all the night long. &quot;You are as ignorant as any man alive; you are as obscure as any man alive; you are as poor as any man alive; you are no better than the mud under your foot.&quot; That was the way in which I went on against myself until the morning. With the day, came the day&#039;s labour. What I should have done without the labour, I don&#039;t know. We were afloat again at the usual hour, and were again making our way down the river. It was broader, and clearer of obstructions than it had been, and it seemed to flow faster. This was one of Drooce&#039;s quiet days; Mr. Pordage, besides being sulky, had almost lost his voice; and we made good way, and with little noise. There was always a seaman forward on the raft, keeping a bright look-out. Suddenly, in the full heat of the day, when the children were slumbering, and the very trees and reeds appeared to be slumbering, this man—it was Short—holds up his hand, and cries with great caution: &quot;Avast! Voices ahead!&quot; We held on against the stream as soon as we could bring her up, and the other raft followed suit. At first, Mr. Macey, Mr. Fisher, and myself, could hear nothing; though both the seamen aboard of us agreed that they could hear voices and oars. After a little pause, however, we united in thinking that we could hear the sound of voices, and the dip of oars. But, you can hear a long way in those countries, and there was a bend of the river before us, and nothing was to be seen except such waters and such banks as we were now in the eighth day (and might, for the matter of our feelings, have been in the eightieth), of having seen with anxious eyes. It was soon decided to put a man ashore who should creep through the wood, see what was coming, and warn the rafts. The rafts in the meantime to keep the middle of the stream. The man to be put ashore, and not to swim ashore, as the first thing could be more quickly done than the second. The raft conveying him, to get back into mid-stream, and to hold on along with the other, as well as it could, until signalled by the man. In case of danger, the man to shift, for himself until it should be safe to take him aboard again. I volunteered to be the man. We knew that the voices and oars must come up slowly against the stream; and our seamen knew, by the set of the stream, under which bank they would come. I was put ashore accordingly. The raft got off well, and I broke into the wood. Steaming hot it was, and a tearing place to get through. So much the better for me, since it was something to contend against and do. I cut off the bend in the river, at a great saving of space, came to the water&#039;s edge again, and hid myself, and waited. I could now hear the dip of the oars very distinctly; the voices had ceased. The sound came on in a regular tune, and as I lay hidden, I fancied the tune so played to be, &quot;Chris&#039;en—George—King!—Chris&#039;en—George—King! Chris&#039;en—George—King!&quot; over and over again, always the same, with the pauses always at the same places. I had likewise time to make up my mind that if these were the Pirates, I could and would (barring my being shot), swim off to my raft, in spite of my wound, the moment I had given the alarm, and hold my old post by Miss Maryon. &quot;Chris&#039;en—George—King! Chris&#039;en—George—King! Chris&#039;en—George—King!&quot; coming up, now, very near. I took a look at the branches about me, to see where a shower of bullets would be most likely to do me least hurt; and I took a look back at the track I had made in forcing my way in; and now I was wholly prepared and fully ready for them. &quot;Chris&#039;en—George—King! Chrise&#039;n—George—King! Chris&#039;en—George—King!&quot; Here they were! Who were they? The barbarous Pirates, scum of all nations, headed by such men as the hideous little Portuguese monkey, and the one-eyed English convict with the gash across his face, that ought to have gashed his wicked head off? The worst men in the world picked out from the worst, to do the cruellest and most atrocious deeds that ever stained it? The howling, murdering, black-flag waving, mad, and drunken crowd of devils that had overcome us by numbers and by treachery? No. These were English men in English boats—good blue-jackets and red-coats—marines that I knew myself, and sailors that knew our seamen! At the helm of the first boat, Captain Carton, eager and steady. At the helm of the second boat, Captain Maryon, brave and bold. At the helm of the third boat, an old seaman, with determination carved into his watchful face, like the figure-head of a ship. Every man doubly and trebly armed from head to foot. Every man lying-to at his work, with a will that had all his heart and soul in it. Every man looking out for any trace of friend or enemy, and burning to be the first to do good, or avenge evil. Every man with his face on fire when he saw me, his countryman who had been taken prisoner, and hailed me with a cheer, as Captain Carton&#039;s boat ran in and took me on board. I reported, &quot;All escaped, sir! All well, all safe, all here!&quot; God bless me—and God bless them—what a cheer! It turned me weak, as I was passed on from hand to hand to the stern of the boat: every hand patting me or grasping me in some way or other, in the moment of my going by. &quot;Hold up, my brave fellow,&quot; says Captain Carton, clapping me on the shoulder like a friend, and giving me a flask. &quot;Put your lips to that, and they&#039;ll be red again. Now, boys, give way!&quot; The banks flew by us, as if the mightiest stream that ever ran was with us; and so it was, I am sure, meaning the stream of those men&#039;s ardour and spirit. The banks flew by us, and we came in sight of the rafts—the banks flew by us, and we came alongside of the rafts—the banks stopped; and there was a tumult of laughing and crying and kissing and shaking of hands, and catching up of children and setting of them down again, and a wild hurry of thankfulness and joy that melted every one and softened all hearts. I had taken notice, in Captain Carton&#039;s boat, that there was a curious and quite new sort of fitting on board. It was a kind of a little bower made of flowers, and it was set up behind the captain, and betwixt him and the rudder. Not only was this arbor, so to call it, neatly made of flowers, but it was ornamented in a singular way. Some of the men had taken the ribbons and buckles off their hats, and hung them among the flowers; others, had made festoons and streamers of their handkerchiefs, and hung them there; others, had intermixed such trifles as bits of glass and shining fragments of lockets and tobacco-boxes, with the flowers; so that altogether it was a very bright and lively object in the sunshine. But, why there, or what for, I did not understand. Now, as soon as the first bewilderment was over, Captain Carton gave the order to land for the present. But, this boat of his, with two hands left in her, immediately put off again when the men were out of her, and kept off, some yards from the shore. As she floated there, with the two hands gently backing water to keep her from going down the stream, this pretty little arbor attracted many eyes. None of the boat&#039;s crew, however, had anything to say about it, except that it was the captain&#039;s fancy. The captain, with the women and children clustering round him, and the men of all ranks grouped outside them, and all listening, stood telling how the Expedition, deceived by its bad intelligence, had chased the light Pirate boats all that fatal night, and had still followed in their wake next day, and had never suspected until many hours too late that the great Pirate body had drawn off in the darkness when the chace began, and shot over to the Island. He stood telling how the Expedition, supposing the whole array of armed boats to be ahead of it, got tempted into shallows and went aground; but, not without having its revenge upon the two decoy-boats, both of which it had come up with, overland, and sent to the bottom with all on board. He stood telling how the Expedition, fearing then that the case stood as it did, got afloat again, by great exertion, after the loss of four more tides, and returned to the Island, where they found the sloop scuttled and the treasure gone. He stood telling how my officer, Lieutenant Linderwood, was left upon the Island, with as strong a force as could be got together hurriedly from the mainland, and how the three boats we saw before us were manned and armed and had come away, exploring the coast and inlets, in search of any tidings of us. He stood telling all this, with his face to the river; and, as he stood telling it, the little arbor of flowers floated in the sunshine before all the faces there. Leaning on Captain Carton&#039;s shoulder, between him and Miss Maryon, was Mrs. Fisher, her head drooping on her arm. She asked him, without raising it, when he had told so much, whether he had found her mother? &quot;Be comforted! She lies,&quot; said the Captain, gently, &quot;under the cocoa-nut trees on the beach.&quot; &quot;And my child, Captain Carton, did you find my child, too? Does my darling rest with my mother?&quot; &quot;No. Your pretty child sleeps,&quot; said the Captain, &quot;under a shade of flowers.&quot; His voice shook; but, there was something in it that struck all the hearers. At that moment, there sprung from the arbor in his boat, a little creature, clapping her hand and stretching out her arms, and crying, &quot;Dear papa! Dear mamma! I am not killed. I am saved. I am coming to kiss you. Take me to them, take me to them, good, kind sailors!&quot; Nobody who saw that scene has ever forgotten it, I am sure, or ever will forget it. The child had kept quite still, where her brave grandmama had put her (first whispering in her ear, &quot;Whatever happens to me, do not stir, my dear!&quot;), and had remained quiet until the fort was deserted; she had then crept out of the trench, and gone into her mother&#039;s house; and there, alone on the solitary Island, in her mother&#039;s room, and asleep on her mother&#039;s bed, the Captain had found her. Nothing could induce her to be parted from him after he took her up in his arms, and he had brought her away with him, and the men had made the bower for her. To see those men now, was a sight. The joy of the women was beautiful; the joy of those women who had lost their own children, was quite sacred and divine; but, the ecstasies of Captain Carton&#039;s boat&#039;s crew, when their pet was restored to her parents, were wonderful for the tenderness they showed in the midst of roughness. As the Captain stood with the child in his arms, and the child&#039;s own little arms now clinging round his neck, now round her father&#039;s, now round her mother&#039;s, now round some one who pressed up to kiss her, the boat&#039;s crew shook hands with one another, waved their hats over their heads, laughed, sang, cried, danced—and all among themselves, without wanting to interfere with anybody—in a manner never to be represented. At last, I saw the coxswain and another, two very hard-faced men with grizzled heads who had been the heartiest of the hearty all along, close with one another, get each of them the other&#039;s head under his arm, and pummel away at it with his fist as hard as he could, in his excess of joy. When we had well rested and refreshed ourselves—and very glad we were to have some of the heartening things to eat and drink that had come up in the boats—we recommenced our voyage down the river: rafts, and boats, and all. I said to myself, it was a very different kind of voyage now, from what it had been; and I fell into my proper place and station among my fellow-soldiers. But, when we halted for the night, I found that Miss Maryon had spoken to Captain Carton concerning me. For, the Captain came straight up to me, and says he, &quot;My brave fellow, you have been Miss Maryon&#039;s body-guard all along, and you shall remain so. Nobody shall supersede you in the distinction and pleasure of protecting that young lady.&quot; I thanked his honor in the fittest words I could find, and that night I was placed on my old post of watching the place where she slept. More than once in the night, I saw Captain Carton come out into the air, and stroll about there, to see that all was well. I have now this other singular confession to make, that I saw him with a heavy heart. Yes; I saw him with a heavy, heavy heart. In the day-time, I had the like post in Captain Carton&#039;s boat. I had a special station of my own, behind Miss Maryon, and no hands but hers ever touched my wound. (It has been healed these many long years; but, no other hands have ever touched it.) Mr. Pordage was kept tolerably quiet now, with pen and ink, and began to pick up his senses a little. Seated in the second boat, he made documents with Mr. Kitten, pretty well all day; and he generally handed in a Protest about something whenever we stopped. The Captain, however, made so very light of these papers that it grew into a saying among the men, when one of them wanted a match for his pipe, &quot;Hand us over a Protest, Jack!&quot; As to Mrs. Pordage, she still wore the nightcap, and she now had cut all the ladies on account of her not having been formally and separately rescued by Captain Carton before anybody else. The end of Mr. Pordage, to bring to an end all I know about him, was, that he got great compliments at home for his conduct on these trying occasions, and that he died of yellow jaundice, a Governor and a K.C.B. Serjeant Drooce had fallen from a high fever into a low one, Tom Packer—the only man who could have pulled the Serjeant through it—kept hospital a-board the old raft, and Mrs. Belltott, as brisk as ever again (but the spirit of that little woman, when things tried it, was not equal to appearances), was head-nurse under his directions. Before we got down to the Mosquito coast, the joke had been made by one of our men, that we should see her gazetted Mrs. Tom Packer, vice Belltott exchanged. When we reached the coast, we got native boats as substitutes for the rafts; and we rowed along under the land; and in that beautiful climate, and upon that beautiful water, the blooming days were like enchantment. Ah! They were running away, faster than any sea or river, and there was no tide to bring them back. We were coming very near the settlement where the people of Silver-Store were to be left, and from which we Marines were under orders to return to Belize. Captain Carton had, in the boat by him, a curious long-barreled Spanish gun, and he had said to Miss Maryon one day that it was the best of guns, and had turned his head to me, and said: &quot;Gill Davis, load her fresh with a couple of slugs, against a chance of showing how good she is.&quot; So, I had discharged the gun over the sea, and had loaded her, according to orders, and there it had lain at the Captain&#039;s feet, convenient to the Captain&#039;s hand. The last day but one of our journey was an uncommonly hot day. We started very early; but, there was no cool air on the sea as the day got on, and by noon the heat was really hard to bear, considering that there were women and children to bear it. Now, we happened to open, just at that time, a very pleasant little cove or bay, where there was a deep shade from a great growth of trees. Now, the Captain, therefore, made the signal to the other boats to follow him in and lie by a while. The men who were off duty went ashore, and lay down, but were ordered, for caution&#039;s sake, not to stray, and to keep within view. The others rested on their oars, and dozed. Awnings had been made of one thing and another, in all the boats, and the passengers found it cooler to be under them in the shade, when there was room enough, than to be in the thick woods. So, the passengers were all afloat, and mostly sleeping. I kept my post behind Miss Maryon, and she was on Captain Carton&#039;s right in the boat, and Mrs. Fisher sat on her right again. The Captain had Mrs. Fisher&#039;s daughter on his knee. He and the two ladies were talking about the Pirates, and were talking softly: partly, because people do talk softly under such indolent circumstances, and partly because the little girl had gone off asleep. I think I have before given it out for my Lady to write down, that Captain Carton had a fine bright eye of his own. All at once, he darted me a side look, as much as to say. &quot;Steady—don&#039;t take on—I see something!&quot;—and gave the child into her mother&#039;s arms. That eye of his was so easy to understand, that I obeyed it by not so much as looking either to the right or to the left out of a corner of my own, or changing my attitude the least trifle. The Captain went on talking in the same mild and easy way; but began—with his arms resting across his knees, and his head a little hanging forward, as if the heat were rather too much for him—began to play with the Spanish gun. &quot;They had laid their plans, you see,&quot; says the Captain, taking up the Spanish gun across his knees, and looking, lazily, at the inlaying on the stock, &quot;with a great deal of art; and the corrupt or blundering local authorities were so easily deceived;&quot; he ran his left hand idly along the barrel, but I saw, with my breath held, that he covered the action of cocking the gun with his right—&quot;so easily deceived, that they summoned us out to come into the trap. But my intention as to future operations——&quot; In a flash the Spanish gun was at his bright eye, and he fired. All started up; innumerable echoes repeated the sound of the discharge; a cloud of bright-colored birds flew out of the woods screaming; a handful of leaves were scattered in the place where the shot had struck; a crackling of branches was heard; and some lithe but heavy creature sprang into the air, and fell forward, head down, over the muddy bank. &quot;What is it?&quot; cries Captain Maryon from his boat. All silent then, but the echoes rolling away. &quot;It is a Traitor and a Spy,&quot; said Captain Carton, handing me the gun to load again. &quot;And I think the other name of the animal is Christian George King!&quot; Shot through the heart. Some of the people ran round to the spot, and drew him out, with the slime and wet trickling down his face; but, his face itself would never stir any more to the end of time. &quot;Leave him hanging to that tree,&quot; cried Captain Carton; his boat&#039;s crew giving way, and he leaping ashore. &quot;But first into this wood, every man in his place. And boats! Out of gunshot!&quot; It was a quick change, well meant and well made, though it ended in disappointment. No Pirates were there; no one but the Spy was found. It was supposed that the Pirates, unable to retake us, and expecting a great attack upon them, to be the consequence of our escape, had made from the ruins in the Forest, taken to their ship along with the Treasure, and left the Spy to pick up what intelligence he could. In the evening we went away, and he was left hanging to the tree, all alone, with the red sun making a kind of a dead sunset on his black face. Next day, we gained the settlement on the Mosquito coast for which we were bound. Having stayed there to refresh, seven days, and having been much commended, and highly spoken of, and finely entertained, we Marines stood under orders to march from the Town-Gate (it was neither much of a town nor much of a gate), at five in the morning. My officer had joined us before then. When we turned out at the gate, all the people were there; in the front of them all those who had been our fellow-prisoners, and all the seamen. &quot;Davis,&quot; says Lieutenant Linderwood. &quot;Stand out, my friend!&quot; I stood out from the ranks, and Miss Maryon and Captain Carton came up to me. &quot;Dear Davis,&quot; says Miss Maryon, while the tears fell fast down her face, &quot;your grateful friends, in most unwillingly taking leave of you, ask the favour that, while you bear away with you their affectionate remembrance which nothing can ever impair, you will also take this purse of money—far more valuable to you, we all know, for the deep attachment and thankfulness with which it is offered, than for its own contents, though we hope those may prove useful to you, too, in after life.&quot; I got out, in answer, that I thankfully accepted the attachment and affection, but not the money. Captain Carton looked at me very attentively, and stepped back, and moved away. I made him my bow as he stepped back, to thank him for being so delicate. &quot;No, miss,&quot; said I, &quot;I think it would break my heart to accept of money. But, if you could condescend to give to a man so ignorant and common as myself, any little thing you have worn—such as a bit of ribbon—&quot; She took a ring from her finger, and put it in my hand. And she rested her hand in mine, while she said these words: &quot;The brave gentlemen of old—but not one of them was braver, or had a nobler nature than you—took such gifts from ladies, and did all their good actions for the givers&#039; sakes. If you will do yours for mine, I shall think with pride that I continue to have some share in the life of a gallant and generous man.&quot; For the second time in my life, she kissed my hand. I made so bold, for the first time, as to kiss hers; and I tied the ring at my breast, and I fell back to my place. Then, the horse-litter went out at the gate, with Serjeant Drooce in it; and the horse- litter went out at the gate with Mrs. Belltott in it; and Lieutenant Linderwood gave the word of command, &quot;Quick march!&quot; and, cheered and cried for, we went out of the gate too, marching along the level plain towards the serene blue sky as if we were marching straight to Heaven. When I have added here that the Pirate scheme was blown to shivers, by the Pirate-ship which had the Treasure on board being so vigorously attacked by one of His Majesty&#039;s cruisers, among the West India Keys, and being so swiftly boarded and carried, that nobody suspected anything about the scheme until three-fourths of the Pirates were killed, and the other fourth were in irons, and the Treasure was recovered; I come to the last singular confession I have got to make. It is this. I well knew what an immense and hopeless distance there was between me and Miss Maryon; I well knew that I was no fitter company for her than I was for the angels; I well knew that she was as high above my reach as the sky over my head; and yet I loved her. What put it in my low heart to be so daring, or whether such a thing ever happened before or since, as that a man so uninstructed and obscure as myself got his unhappy thoughts lifted up to such a height, while knowing very well how presumptuous and impossible to be realised they were, I am unable to say; still, the suffering to me was just as great as if I had been a gentleman. I suffered agony—agony. I suffered hard, and I suffered long. I thought of her last words to me, however, and I never disgraced them. If it had not been for those dear words, I think I should have lost myself in despair and recklessness. The ring will be found lying on my heart, of course, and will be laid with me wherever I am laid. I am getting on in years now, though I am able and hearty. I was recommended for promotion, and everything was done to reward me that could be done; but, my total want of all learning stood in my way, and I found myself so completely out of the road to it, that I could not conquer any learning, though I tried. I was long in the service, and I respected it, and was respected in it, and the service is dear to me at this present hour. At this present hour, when I give this out to my Lady to be written down, all my old pain has softened away, and I am as happy as a man can be, at this present fine old country-house of Admiral Sir George Carton, Baronet. It was my Lady Carton who herself sought me out, over a great many miles of the wide world, and found me in Hospital wounded, and brought me here. It is my Lady Carton who writes down my words. My Lady was Miss Maryon. And now, that I conclude what I had to tell, I see my Lady&#039;s honored grey hair droop over her face, as she leans a little lower at her desk; and I fervently thank her for being so tender as I see she is, towards the past pain and trouble of her poor, old, faithful, humble soldier.18571207https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Perils_of_Certain_English_Prisoners_and_Their_Treasure_in_Women_Children_Silver_and_Jewels_[1857_Christmas_Number]/1857-12-07-The_Perils_of_Certain_English_Prisoners.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Perils_of_Certain_English_Prisoners_and_Their_Treasure_in_Women_Children_Silver_and_Jewels_[1857_Christmas_Number]/1857-12-07-The_Island_of_Silver-Store.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Perils_of_Certain_English_Prisoners_and_Their_Treasure_in_Women_Children_Silver_and_Jewels_[1857_Christmas_Number]/1857-12-07-The_Rafts_on_the_River.pdf
177https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/177<em>The Seven Poor Travellers </em>(1854 Christmas Number)Published in <em>Household Words,</em> Vol. X, Extra Christmas Number, 25 December 1854, pp. 1-36.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-x/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-x/page-573.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-x/page-607.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-x/page-607.html</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1854-12-25">1854-12-25</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1854-12-15-The_Seven_Poor_Travellers<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The First' (No.1), pp. 1-10.</strong></li> <li>George Augustus Sala. 'The Second' (No.2), pp. 10-16.</li> <li>Adelaide Anne Proctor. 'The Third' (No.3), pp. 16-19.</li> <li>Wilkie Collins. 'The Fourth' (No.4), pp. 19-26.</li> <li>George Augustus Sala. 'The Fifth' (No.5), pp. 26-29.</li> <li>Eliza Lynn (later Linton). 'The Sixth' (No.6), pp. 29-34.&nbsp;</li> <li>Adelaide Anne Proctor. 'The Seventh' (No.7), pp. 34-35.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Road' (No.8), pp. 35-36.</strong></li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al. <em>The Seven Poor Travellers</em> (25 December 1854). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1854-12-15-The_Seven_Poor_Travellers">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1854-12-15-The_Seven_Poor_Travellers</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>Strictly speaking, there were only six Poor Travellers; but, being a Traveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor as I hope to be, I brought the number up to seven. This word of explanation is due at once, for what says the inscription over the quaint old door? RICHARD WATTS, Esq. by his Will, dated 22 Aug. 1579, founded this Charity for Six poor Travellers, who not being ROGUES,or PROCTORS, May receive gratis for one Night, Lodging, Entertainment, and Four-pence each. It was in the ancient little city of Rochester in Kent, of all the good days in the year upon a Christmas Eve, that I stood reading this inscription over the quaint old door in question. I had been wandering about the neighbouring Cathedral, and had seen the tomb of Richard Watts, with the effigy of worthy Master Richard starting out of it like a ship&#039;s figure-head; and I had felt that I could do no less, as I gave the Verger his fee, than inquire the way to Watts&#039;s Charity. The way being very short and very plain, I had come prosperously to the inscription and the quaint old door. &quot;Now,&quot; said I to myself, as I looked at the knocker, &quot;I know I am not a Proctor; I wonder whether I am a Rogue!&quot; Upon the whole, though Conscience reproduced two or three pretty faces which might have had smaller attraction for a moral Goliath than they had had for me, who am but a Tom Thumb in that way, I came to the conclusion that I was not a Rogue. So, beginning to regard the establishment as in some sort my property, bequeathed to me and divers co-legatees, share and share alike, by the Worshipful Master Richard Watts, I stepped backward into the road to survey my inheritance. I found it to be a clean white house, of a staid and venerable air, with the quaint old door already three times mentioned (an arched door), choice little long low lattice-windows, and a roof of three gables. The silent High Street of Rochester is full of gables, with old beams and timbers carved into strange faces. It is oddly garnished with a queer old clock that projects over the pavement out of a grave red brick building, as if Time carried on business there, and hung out his sign. Sooth to say, he did an active stroke of work in Rochester, in the old days of the Romans, and the Saxons, and the Normans, and down to the times of King John, when the rugged castle—I will not undertake to say how many hundreds of years old then—was abandoned to the centuries of weather which have so defaced the dark apertures in its walls, that the ruin looks as if the rooks and daws had picked its eyes out. I was very well pleased, both with my property and its situation. While I was yet surveying it with growing content, I espied at one of the upper lattices which stood open, a decent body, of a wholesome matronly appearance, whose eyes I caught inquiringly addressed to mine. They said so plainly, &quot;Do you wish to see the house?&quot; that I answered aloud, &quot;Yes, if you please.&quot; And within a minute the old door opened, and I bent my head, and went down two steps into the entry. &quot;This,&quot; said the matronly presence, ushering me into a low room on the right, &quot;is where the Travellers sit by the fire, and cook What bits of suppers they buy with their fourpences.&quot; &quot;Oh! Then they have no Entertainment?&quot; said I. For, the inscription over the outer door was still running in my head, and I was mentally repeating in a kind of tune, &quot;Lodging, entertainment, and fourpence each.&quot; &quot;They have a fire provided for &#039;em,&quot; returned the matron: a mighty civil person, not, as I could make out, overpaid: &quot;and these cooking utensils. And this what&#039;s painted on a board, is the rules for their behaviour. They have their fourpences when they get their tickets from the steward over the way—for I don&#039;t admit &#039;em myself, they must get their tickets first—and sometimes one buys a rasher of bacon, and another a herring, and another a pound of potatoes, or what not. Sometimes, two or three of &#039;em will club their fourpences together, and make a supper that way. But, not much of anything is to be got for fourpence, at present, when provisions is so dear.&quot; &quot;True indeed,&quot; I remarked. I had been looking about the room, admiring its snug fireside at the upper end, its glimpse of the street through the low mullioned window, and its beams overhead. &quot;It is very comfortable,&quot; said I. &quot;Ill-conwenient,&quot; observed the matronly presence. I liked to hear her say so; for, it showed a commendable anxiety to execute in no niggardly spirit the intentions of Master Richard Watts. But, the room was really so well adapted to its purpose that I protested, quite enthusiastically, against her disparagement. &quot;Nay, ma&#039;am,&quot; said I, &quot;I am sure it is warm in winter and cool in summer. It has a look of homely welcome and soothing rest. It has a remarkably cosey fireside, the very blink of which, gleaming out into the street upon a winter night, is enough to warm all Rochester&#039;s heart. And as to the convenience of the six Poor Travellers—&quot; &quot;I don&#039;t mean them,&quot; returned the presence. &quot;I speak of its being an ill-conwenience to myself and my daughter having no other room to sit in of a night.&quot; This was true enough, but there was another quaint room of corresponding dimensions on the opposite side of the entry: so, I stepped across to it, through the open doors of both rooms, and asked what this chamber was for? &quot;This,&quot; returned the presence, &quot;is the Board Room. Where the gentlemen meet when they come here.&quot; Let me see. I had counted from the street six upper windows besides these on the ground-story. Making a perplexed calculation in my mind, I rejoined, &quot;Then the six Poor Travellers sleep upstairs?&quot; My new friend shook her head. &quot;They sleep,&quot; she answered, &quot;in two little outer galleries at the back, where their beds has always been, ever since the Charity was founded. It being so very ill-conwenient to me as things is at present, the gentlemen are going to take off a bit of the back yard and make a slip of a room for &#039;em there, to sit in before they go to bed.&quot; &quot;And then the six Poor Travellers,&quot; said I, &quot;will be entirely out of the house?&quot; &quot;Entirely out of the house,&quot; assented the presence, comfortably smoothing her hands. &quot;Which is considered much better for all parties, and much more conwenient.&quot; I had been a little startled, in the cathedral, by the emphasis with which the effigy of Master Richard Watts was bursting out of his tomb; but, I began to think, now, that it might be expected to come across the High Street some stormy night, and make a disturbance here. Howbeit, I kept my thoughts to myself, and accompanied the presence to the little galleries at the back. I found them, on a tiny scale, like the galleries in old inn yards; and they were very clean. While I was looking at them, the matron gave me to understand that the prescribed number of Poor Travellers were forthcoming every night from year&#039;s end to year&#039;s end; and that the beds were always occupied. My questions upon this, and her replies, brought us back to the Board Room so essential to the dignity of &quot;the gentlemen,&quot; where she showed me the printed accounts of the Charity hanging up by the window. From them, I gathered that the greater part of the property bequeathed by the Worshipful Master Richard Watts for the maintenance of this foundation, was, at the period of his death, mere marsh-land; but that, in course of time, it had been reclaimed and built upon, and was very considerably increased in value. I found, too, that about a thirtieth part of the annual revenue was now expended on the purposes commemorated in the inscription over the door: the rest being handsomely laid out in Chancery, law expenses, collectorship, receivership, poundage, and other appendages of management, highly complimentary to the importance of the six Poor Travellers. In short, I made the not entirely new discovery that it may be said of an establishment like this, in dear Old England, as of the fat oyster in the American story, that it takes a good many men to swallow it whole. &quot;And pray, ma&#039;am,&quot; said I, sensible that the blankness of my face began to brighten as a thought occurred to me, &quot;could one see these Travellers?&quot; Well! she returned dubiously; no! &quot;Not to-night, for instance ?&quot; said I. Well! she returned more positively; no. Nobody ever asked to see them, and nobody ever did see them. As I am not easily baulked in a design when I am set upon it, I urged to the good lady that this was Christmas Eve; that Christmas comes but once a year—which is unhappily too true, for when it begins to stay with us the whole year round, we shall make this earth a very different place; that I was possessed by the desire to treat the Travellers to a supper and a temperate, glass of hot Wassail; that the voice of Fame had been heard in the land, declaring my ability to make hot Wassail; that if I were permitted to hold the feast, I should be found conformable to reason, sobriety, and good hours; in a word, that I could be merry and wise myself, and had been even known at a pinch to keep others so, although I was decorated with no badge or medal, and was not a Brother, Orator, Apostle, Saint, or Prophet of any denomination whatever. In the end, I prevailed, to my great joy. It was settled that at nine o&#039;clock that night, a Turkey and a piece of Roast Beef should smoke upon the board; and that I, faint and unworthy minister for once of Master Richard Watts, should preside as the Christmas-supper host of the six Poor Travellers. I went back to my inn, to give the necessary directions for the Turkey and Roast Beef, and, during the remainder of the day, could settle to nothing for thinking of the Poor Travellers. When the wind blew hard against the windows—it was a cold day, with dark gusts of sleet alternating with periods of wild brightness, as if the year were dying fitfully—I pictured them advancing towards their resting-place along various cold roads, and felt delighted to think how little they foresaw the supper that awaited them. I painted their portraits in my mind, and indulged in little heightening touches. I made them footsore; I made them weary; I made them carry packs and bundles; I made them stop by linger posts and milestones, leaning on their bent sticks and looking wistfully at what was written there; I made them lose their way, and filled their five wits with apprehensions of lying out all night, and being frozen to death. I took up my hat and went out, climbed to the top of the Old Castle, and looked over the windy hills that slope down to the Medway: almost believing that I could descry some of my Travellers in the distance. After it fell dark, and the Cathedral bell was heard in the invisible steeple—quite a bower of frosty rime when I had last seen it—striking five, six, seven; I became so full of my Travellers that I could eat no dinner, and felt constrained to watch them still, in the red coals of my fire. They were all arrived by this time, I thought, had got their tickets, and were gone in.—There, my pleasure was dashed by the reflection that probably some Travellers had come too late and were shut out. After the Cathedral bell had struck eight, I could smell a delicious savour of Turkey and Roast Beef rising to the window of my adjoining bed-room, which looked down into the inn yard, just where the lights of the kitchen reddened a massive fragment of the Castle Wall. It was high time to make the Wassail now; therefore, I had up the materials (which, together with their proportions and combinations, I must decline to impart, as the only secret of my own I was ever known to keep), and made a glorious jorum. Not in a bowl; for, a bowl anywhere but on a shelf, is a low superstition fraught with cooling and slopping; but, in a brown earthenware pitcher, tenderly suffocated when full, with a coarse cloth. It being now upon the stroke of nine, I set out for Watts&#039;s Charity, carrying my brown beauty in my arms. I would trust Ben the waiter with untold gold; but, there are strings in the human heart which must never be sounded by another, and drinks that I make myself are those strings in mine. The Travellers were all assembled, the cloth was laid, and Ben had brought a great billet of wood, and had laid it artfully on the top of the fire, so that a touch or two of the poker after supper should make a roaring blaze. Having deposited my brown beauty in a red nook of the hearth inside the fender, where she soon began to sing like an ethereal cricket, diffusing at the same time odours as of ripe vineyards, spice forests, and orange groves—I say, having stationed my beauty in a place of security and improvement, I introduced myself to my guests by shaking hands all round, and giving them a hearty welcome. I found the party to be thus composed. Firstly, myself. Secondly, a very decent man indeed, with his right arm in a sling; who had a certain clean, agreeable smell of wood about him, from which I judged him to have something to do with shipbuilding. Thirdly, a little sailor-boy, a mere child, with a profusion of rich dark brown hair, and deep womanly-looking eyes. Fourthly, a shabby- genteel personage in a threadbare black suit, and apparently in very bad circumstances, with a dry suspicious look; the absent buttons on his waistcoat eked out with red tape; and a bundle of extraordinarily tattered papers sticking out of an inner breast-pocket. Fifthly, a foreigner by birth, but an Englishman in speech, who carried his pipe in the band of his hat, and lost no time in telling me, in an easy, simple, engaging way, that he was a watchmaker from Geneva, and travelled all about the continent, mostly on foot, working as a journeyman, and seeing new countries—possibly (I thought) also smuggling a watch or so, now and then. Sixthly, a little widow, who had been very pretty and was still very young, but whose beauty had been wrecked in some great misfortune, and whose manner was remarkably timid, scared, and solitary. Seventhly and lastly, a Traveller of a kind familiar to my boyhood, but now almost obsolete: a Book-Pedlar: who had a quantity of Pamphlets and Numbers with him, and who presently boasted that he could repeat more verses in an evening, than he could sell in a twelvemonth. All these I have mentioned, in the order in which they sat at table. I presided, and the matronly presence faced me. We were not long in taking our placs, for the supper had arrived with me, in the following procession. Myself with the pitcher. Ben with Beer. Inattentive Boy with hot plates./Inattentive Boy with hot plates. THE TURKEY. Female carrying sauces to be heated on the spot. THE BEEF. Man with Tray on his head, containing Vegetables and Sundries. Volunteer hostler from Hotel, grinning, And rendering no assistance. As we passed along the High-street, Comet-like, we left a long tail of fragrance behind us which caused the public to stop, sniffing in wonder. We had previously left at the corner of the inn-yard, a wall-eyed young man connected with the Fly department, and well accustomed to the sound of a railway whistle which Ben always carries in his pocket: whose instructions were, so soon as he should hear the whistle blown, to dash into the kitchen, seize the hot plum-pudding and mince pies, and speed with them, to Watts&#039;s Charity: where they would be received (he was further instructed) by the sauce-female, who would be provided with brandy in a blue state of combustion. All these arrangements were executed in the most exact and punctual manner. I never saw a finer turkey, finer beef, or greater prodigality of sauce and gravy; and my Travellers did wonderful justice to everything set before them. It made my heart rejoice, to observe how their wind-and-frost hardened faces, softened in the clatter of plates and knives and forks, and mellowed in the fire and supper heat. While their hats and caps, and wrappers, hanging up; a few small bundles on the ground in a corner; and, in another corner, three or four old walking sticks, worn down at the end to mere fringe; linked this snug interior with the bleak outside in a golden chain. When supper was done, and my brown beauty had been elevated on the table, there was a general requisition to me, to &quot;take the corner;&quot; which suggested to me, comfortably enough, how much my friends here made of a fire—for when had / ever thought so highly of the corner, since the days when I connected it with Jack Horner? However, as I declined, Ben, whose touch on all convivial instruments is perfect, drew the table apart, and instructing my Travellers to open right and left on either side of me, and form round the fire, closed up the centre with myself and my chair, and preserved the order we had kept at table. He had already, in a tranquil manner, boxed the ears of the inattentive boys until they had been by imperceptible degrees boxed out of the room; and he now rapidly skirmished the sauce-female into the High Street, disappeared, and softly closed the door. This was the time for bringing the poker to bear on the billet of wood. I tapped it three times, like an enchanted talisman, and a brilliant host of merrymakers burst out of it, and sported off by the chimney—rushing up the middle in a fiery country dance, and never coming down again. Meanwhile, by their sparkling light which threw our lamp into the shade, I filled the glasses, and gave my Travellers, CHRISTMAS! —CHRISTMAS EVE, my friends, when the Shepherds, who were Poor Travellers too in their way, heard the Angels sing, &quot;On earth, peace. Goodwill towards men!&quot; I don&#039;t know who was the first among us to think that we ought to take hands as we sat, in deference to the toast, or whether any one of us anticipated the others, but at any rate we all did it. We then drank to the memory of the good Master Richard Watts. And I wish his Ghost may never have had worse usage under that roof, than it had from us! It was the witching time for Story-telling. &quot;Our whole life, Travellers,&quot; said I, &quot;is a story more or less intelligible—generally less; but, we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended. I for one, am so divided this night between fact and fiction, that I scarce know which is which. Shall we beguile the time by telling stories, in our order as we sit here?&quot; They all answered, Yes, provided I would begin. I had little to tell them, but I was bound by my own proposal. Therefore, after looking for a while at the spiral column of smoke wreathing up from my brown beauty, through which I could have almost sworn I saw the effigy of Master Richard Watts less startled than usual; I fired away. In the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, a relative of mine came limping down, on foot, to this town of Chatham. I call it this town, because if anybody present knows to a nicety where Rochester ends and Chatham begins, it is more than I do. He was a poor traveller, with not a farthing in his pocket. He sat by the fire in this very room, and he slept one night in a bed that will be occupied to-night by some one here. My relative came down to Chatham, to enlist in a cavalry regiment, if a cavalry regiment would have him; if not, to take King George&#039;s shilling from any corporal or sergeant who would put a bunch of ribbons in his hat. His object was, to get shot; but, he thought he might as well ride to death as be at the trouble of walking. My relative&#039;s Christian name was Richard, but he was better known as Dick. He dropped his own surname on the road down, and took up that of Doubledick. He was passed as Richard Doubledick; age twenty-two; height, five foot ten; native place, Exmouth; which he had never been near in his life. There was no cavalry in Chatham when he limped over the bridge here with half a shoe to his dusty foot, so he enlisted into a regiment of the line, and was glad to get drunk and forget all about it. You are to know that this relative of mine had gone wrong and run wild. His heart was in the right place, but it was sealed up. He had been betrothed to a good and beautiful girl whom he had loved better than she—or perhaps even he—believed; but, in an evil hour, he had given her cause to say to him, solemnly, &quot;Richard, I will never marry any other man. I will live single for your sake, but Mary Marshall&#039;s lips;&quot; her name was Mary Marshall; &quot;never address another word to you on earth. Go, Richard! Heaven forgive you!&quot; This finished him. This brought him down to Chatham. This made him Private Richard Doubledick, with a determination to be shot. There was not a more dissipated and reckless soldier in Chatham barracks, in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, than Private Richard Doubledick. He associated with the dregs of every regiment, he was as seldom sober as he could be, and was consistently under punishment. It became clear to the whole barracks, that Private Richard Doubledick would very soon be flogged. Now, the Captain of Richard Doubledick&#039;s company was a young gentleman not above five years his senior, whose eyes had an expression in them which affected Private Richard Doubledick in a very remarkable way. They were bright, handsome, dark eyes—what are called laughing eyes generally and, when serious, rather steady than severe—but, they were the only eyes now left in his narrowed world that Private Richard Doubledick could not stand. Unabashed by evil report and punishment, defiant of everything else and everybody else, he had but to know that those eyes looked at him for a moment and he felt ashamed. He could not so much as salute Captain Taunton in the street, like any other officer. He was reproached and confused—troubled by the mere possibility of the captain&#039;s looking at him. In his worst moments he would rather turn back and go any distance out of his way, than encounter those two handsome, dark, bright eyes. One day, when Private Richard Doubledick came out of the Black hole, where he had been passing the last eight-and-forty hours, and in which retreat he spent a good deal of his time, he was ordered to betake himself to Captain Taunton&#039;s quarters. In the stale and squalid state of a man just out of the Black hole, he had less fancy than ever for being seen by the captain; but, he was not so mad yet as to disobey orders, and consequently went up to the terrace overlooking the parade-ground, where the officers&#039; quarters were: twisting and breaking in his hands as he went along, a bit of the straw that had formed the decorative furniture of the Black hole. &quot;Come in!&quot; cried the Captain, when he knocked with his knuckles at the door. Private Richard Doubledick pulled off his cap, took a stride forward, and felt very conscious that he stood in the light of the dark bright eyes. There was a silent pause. Private Richard Doubledick had put the straw in his mouth, and was gradually doubling it up into his windpipe and choking himself. &quot;Doubledick,&quot; said the Captain, &quot;Do you know where you are going to?&quot; &quot;To the Devil, sir?&quot; faltered Doubledick. &quot;Yes,&quot; returned the Captain. &quot;And very fast.&quot; Private Richard Doubledick turned the straw of the Black hole in his mouth, and made a miserable salute of acquiescence. &quot;Doubledick,&quot; said the Captain, &quot;since I entered his Majesty&#039;s service, a boy of seventeen, I have been pained to see many men of promise going that road; but, I have never been so pained to see a man determined to make the shameful journey, as I have been, ever since you joined the regiment, to see you.&quot; Private Richard Doubledick began to find a film stealing over the floor at which he looked; also to find the legs of the Captain&#039;s breakfast-table turning crooked, as if he saw them through water. &quot;I am only a common soldier, sir,&quot; said he. &quot;It signifies very little what such a poor brute comes to.&quot; &quot;You are a man,&quot; returned the Captain with grave indignation, &quot;of education and superior advantages; and if you say that, meaning what you say, you have sunk lower than I had believed. How low that must be, I leave you to consider: knowing what I know of your disgrace, and seeing what I see.&quot; &quot;I hope to get shot soon, sir,&quot; said Private Richard Doubledick; &quot;and then the regiment, and the world together, will be rid of me.&quot; The legs of the table were becoming very crooked. Doubledick, looking up to steady his vision, met the eyes that had so strong an influence over him. He put his hand before his own eyes, and the breast of his disgrace-jacket swelled as if it would fly asunder. &quot;I would rather,&quot; said the young Captain, &quot;see this in you, Doubledick, than I would see five thousand guineas counted out upon this table for a gift to my good mother. Have you a mother?&quot; &quot;I am thankful to say she is dead, sir.&quot; &quot;If your praises,&quot; returned the Captain, &quot;were sounded from mouth to mouth through the whole regiment, through the whole army, through the whole country, you would wish she had lived, to say with pride arnd joy, &#039;He is my son!&#039;&quot; &quot;Spare me, sir;&quot; said Doubledick. &quot;She would never have heard any good of me. She would never have had any pride and joy in owning herself my mother. Love and compassion she might have had. and would have always had, I know; but not—Spare me, sir! I am a broken wretch, quite at your mercy!&quot; And he turned his face to the wall, and stretched out his imploring hand. &quot;My friend—&quot; began the captain. &quot;God bless you, sir!&quot; sobbed Private Richard Doubledick. &quot;You are at the crisis of your fate. Hold your course unchanged, a little longer, and you know what must happen, I know even better than you can imagine, that after that has happened, you are lost. No man who could shed those tears, could bear those marks.&quot; &quot;I fully believe it, sir,&quot; in a low, shivering voice, said Private Richard Doubledick. &quot;But a man in any station can do his duty,&quot; said the young Captain, &quot;and, in doing it, can earn his own respect, even if his case should be so very unfortunate and so very rare, that he can earn no other man&#039;s. A common soldier, poor brute though you called him just now, has this advantage in the stormy times we live in, that he always does his duty before a host of sympathising witnesses. Do you doubt that he may so do it as to be extolled through a whole regiment, through a whole army, through a whole country? Turn while you may yet retrieve the past, and try.&quot; &quot;I will! I ask for only one witness, sir,&quot; cried Richard, with a bursting heart. &quot;I understand you. I will be a watchful and a faithful one.&quot; I have heard from Private Richard Doubledick&#039;s own lips, that he dropped down upon his knee, kissed that officer&#039;s hand, arose, and went out of the light of the dark bright eyes, an altered man. In that year, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, the French were in Egypt, in Italy, in Germany, where not? Napoleon Buonaparte had likewise begun to stir against us in India, and most men could read the signs of the great troubles that were coming on. In the very next year, when we formed an alliance with Austria against him, Captain Taunton&#039;s regiment was on service in India. And there was not a finer non-commissioned officer in it no, nor in the whole line than Corporal Richard Doubledick. In eighteen hundred and one, the Indian army were on the coast of Egypt. Next year was the year of the proclamation of the short peace, and they were recalled. It had then become well known to thousands of men, that wherever Captain Taunton with the dark bright eyes, led, there, close to him, ever at his side, firm as a rock, true as the sun, and brave as Mars, would be certain to be found, while life beat in their hearts, that famous soldier, Sergeant Richard Doubledick. Eighteen hundred and five, besides being the great year of Trafalgar, was a year of hard fighting in India. That year saw such wonders done by a Sergeant-Major, who cut his way single-handed through a solid mass of men, recovered the colours of his regiment which had been seized from the hand of a poor boy shot through the heart, and rescued his wounded captain, who was down, and in a very jungle of horses&#039; hoofs and sabres—saw such wonders done, I say, by this brave Sergeant-Major, that he was specially made the bearer of the colours he had won; and Ensign Richard Doubledick had risen from the ranks. Sorely cut up in every battle, but always reinforced by the bravest of men—for, the fame of following the old colours, shot through and through, which Ensign Richard Doubledick had saved, inspired all breasts—this regiment fought its way through the Peninsular war, up to the investment of Badajos in eighteen hundred and twelve. Again and again it had been cheered through the British ranks until the tears had sprung into men&#039;s eyes at the mere hearing of the mighty British voice so exultant in their valour; and there was not a drummer-boy but knew the legend, that wherever the two friends, Major Taunton with the dark bright eyes, and Ensign Richard Doubledick who was devoted to him, were seen to go, there the boldest spirits in the English army became wild to follow. One day, at Badajos—not in the great storming, but in repelling a hot sally of the besieged upon our men at work in the trenches, who had given way, the two officers found themselves hurrying forward, face to face, against a party of French infantry who made a stand. There was an officer at their head, encouraging his men—a courageous, handsome, gallant officer of five and thirty—whom Doubledick saw hurriedly, almost momentarily, but saw well. He particularly noticed this officer waving his sword, and rallying his men with an eager and excited cry, when they fired in obedience to his gesture, and Major Taunton dropped. It was over in ten minutes more, and Doubledick returned to the spot where he had laid the best friend man ever had, on a coat spread upon the wet clay. Major Taunton&#039;s uniform was opened at the breast, and on his shirt were three little spots of blood. &quot;Dear Doubledick,&quot; said he, &quot;I am dying.&quot; &quot;For the love of Heaven, no!&quot; exclaimed the other, kneeling down beside him, and passing his arm round his neck to raise his head. &quot;Taunton! My preserver, my guardian angel, my witness! Dearest, truest, kindest of human beings! Taunton! For God&#039;s sake!&quot; The bright dark eyes—so very, very dark now, in the pale face—smiled upon him; and the hand he had kissed thirteen years ago, laid itself fondly on his breast. &quot;Write to my mother. Yon will see Home again. Tell her how we became friends. It will comfort her, as it comforts me.&quot; He spoke no more, but faintly signed for a moment towards his hair as it fluttered in the wind. The Ensign understood him. He smiled again when he saw that, and gently turning his face over on the supporting arm as if for rest, died, with his hand upon the breast in which he had revived a soul. No dry eye looked on Ensign Richard Doubledick, that melancholy day. He buried his friend on the field, and became a lone, bereaved man. Beyond his duty he appeared to have but two remaining cares in life; one, to preserve the little packet of hair he was to give to Taunton&#039;s mother; the other, to encounter that French officer who had rallied the men under whose fire Taunton fell. A new legend now began to circulate among our troops; and it was, that when he and the French oificer came face to face once more, there would be weeping in France. The war went on—and through it went the exact picture of the French officer on the one side, and the bodily reality upon the other—until the Battle of Toulouse was fought. In the returns sent home, appeared these words: &quot;Severely wounded, but not dangerously, Lieutenant Richard Doubledick.&quot; At Midsummer time in the year eighteen hundred and fourteen, Lieutenant Richard Doubledick, now a browned soldier, seven and thirty years of age, came home to England, invalided. He brought the hair with him, near his heart. Many a French officer had he seen, since that day; many a dreadful night, in searching with men and lanterns for his wounded, had he relieved French officers lying disabled; but, the mental picture and the reality had never come together. Though he was weak and suffered pain, he lost not an hour in getting down to Frome in Somersetshire, where Taunton&#039;s mother lived. In the sweet, compassionate words that naturally present themselves to the mind tonight, &quot;he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.&quot; It was a Sunday evening, and the lady sat at her quiet garden-window, reading the Bible; reading to herself, in a trembling voice, that very passage in it as I have heard him tell. He heard the words; &quot; Young man, I say unto thee, arise!&quot; He had to pass the window; and the bright dark eyes of his debased time seemed to look at him. Her heart told her who he was; she came to the door, quickly, and fell upon his neck. &quot;He saved me from ruin, made me a human creature, won me from infamy and shame. O God, for ever bless him! As He will, He will!&quot; &quot;He will!&quot; the lady answered. &quot;I know he is in Heaven!&quot; Then she piteously cried, &quot; But, O, my darling boy, my darling boy!&quot; Never, from the hour when Private Richard Doubledick enlisted at Chatham, had the Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Sergeant-Major, Ensign, or Lieutenant, breathed his right name, or the name of Mary Marshall, or a word of the story of his life, into any ear, except his reclaimer&#039;s. That previous scene in his existence was closed. He had firmly resolved that his expiation should be, to live unknown; to disturb no more the peace that had long grown over his old offences; to let it be revealed when he was dead, that he had striven and suffered, and had never forgotten; and then, if they could forgive him and believe him—well, it would be time enough—time enough! But, that night, remembering the words he had cherished for two years, &quot;Tell her how we became friends. It will comfort her, as it comforts me,&quot; he related everything. It gradually seemed to him, as if in his maturity he had recovered a mother; it gradually seemed to her, as if in her bereavement she had found a son. During his stay in England, the quiet garden into which he had slowly and painfully crept, a stranger, became the boundary of his home; when he was able to rejoin his regiment in the spring, he left the garden, thinking was this indeed the first time he had ever turned his face towards the old colours, with a woman&#039;s blessing! He followed them—so ragged, so scarred and pierced now, that they would scarcely hold together—to Quatre Bras, and Ligny. He stood beside them, in an awful stillness of many men, shadowy through the mist and drizzle of a wet June forenoon, on the field of Waterloo. And down to that hour, the picture in his mind of the French officer had never been compared with the reality. The famous regiment was in action early in the battle, and received its first check in many an eventful year, when he was seen to fall. But, it swept on to avenge him, and left behind it no such creature in the world of consciousness, as Lieutenant Richard Doubledick. Through pits of mire, and pools of rain; along deep ditches, once roads, that were pounded and ploughed to pieces by artillery, heavy waggons, tramp of men and horses, and the struggle of every wheeled thing that could carry wounded soldiers; jolted among the dying and the dead, so disfigured by blood and mud as to be hardly recognisable for humanity; undisturbed by the moaning of men and the shrieking of horses, which, newly taken from the peaceful pursuits of life, could not endure the sight of the stragglers lying by the wayside, never to resume their toilsome journey; dead, as to any sentient life that was in it, and yet alive; the form that had been Lieutenant Richard Doubledick, with whose praises England rang, was conveyed to Brussels. There, it was tenderly laid down in hospital: and there it lay, week after week, through the long bright summer days, until the harvest, spared by war, had ripened and was gathered in. Over and over again, the sun rose and set upon the crowded city; over and over again, the moonlight nights were quiet on the plains of Waterloo; and all that time was a blank to what had been Lieutenant Richard Doubledick. Rejoicing troops marched into Brussels, and marched out; brothers and fathers, sisters, mothers, and wives, came thronging thither, drew their lots of joy or agony, and departed; so many times a day, the bells rang; so many times, the shadows of the great buildings changed; so many lights sprang up at dusk; so many feet passed here and there upon the pavements; so many hours of sleep and cooler air of night succeeded; indifferent to all, a marble face lay on a bed, like the face of a recumbent statue on the tomb of Lieutenant Richard Doubledick. Slowly laboring, at last, through a longheavy dream of confused time and place, presenting faint glimpses of army surgeons whom he knew, and of faces that had been familiar to his youth—dearest and kindest among them, Mary Marshall&#039;s, with a solicitude upon it more like reality than anything he could discern—Lieutenant Richard Doubledick came back to life. To the beautiful life of a calm autumn-evening sunset. To the peaceful life of a fresh quiet room with a large window standing open; a balcony beyond, in which were moving leaves and sweet-smelling flowers; beyond again, the clear sky, with the sun full in his sight, pouring its golden radiance on his bed. It was so tranquil and so lovely, that he thought he had passed into another world. And he said in a faint voice, &quot;Taunton, are you near me?&quot; A face bent over him. Not his; his mother&#039;s. &quot;I came to nurse you. We have nursed you, many weeks. You were moved here, long ago. Do you remember nothing?&quot; &quot;Nothing.&quot; The lady kissed his cheek, and held his hand, soothing him. &quot;Where is the regiment? What has happened? Let me call you mother. What has happened, mother?&quot; &quot;A great victory, dear. The war is over, and the regiment was the bravest in the field.&quot; His eyes kindled, his lips trembled, he sobbed, and the tears ran down his face. He was very weak: too weak to move his hand. &quot;Was it dark just now?&quot; he asked presently. &quot;No.&quot; &quot;It was only dark to me? Something passed away, like a black shadow. But, as it went, and the sun—O the blessed sun, how beautiful it is!—touched my face, I thought I saw a light white cloud pass out at the door. Was there nothing that went out?&quot; She shook her head, and, in a little while, he fell asleep: she still holding his hand, and soothing him. From that time, he recovered. Slowly, for he had been desperately wounded in the head, and had been shot in the body; but, making some little advance every day. When he had gained sufficient strength to converse as he lay in bed, he soon began to remark that Mrs. Taunton always brought him back to his own history. Then, he recalled his preserver&#039;s dying words, and thought, &quot;it comforts her.&quot; One day, he awoke out of a sleep, refreshed, and asked her to read to him. But, the curtain of the bed, softening the light, which she always drew back when he awoke, that she might see him from her table at the bedside where she sat at work, was held undrawn; and a woman&#039;s voice spoke, which was not hers. &quot;Can you bear to see a stranger?&quot; it said softly. &quot;Will you like to see a stranger?&quot; &quot;Stranger!&quot; he repeated. The voice awoke old memories, before the days of Private Richard Doubledick. &quot;A stranger now, but not a stranger once,&quot; it said in tones that thrilled him. &quot;Richard, dear Richard, lost through so many years, my name—&quot; He cried out her name, &quot;Mary!&quot; and she held him in her arms, and his head lay on her bosom. &quot;I am not breaking a rash vow, Richard. These are not Mary Marshall&#039;s lips that speak. I have another name.&quot; She was married. &quot;I have another name, Richard. Did you ever hear it?&quot; &quot;Never!&quot; He looked into her face, so pensively beautiful, and wondered at the smile upon it through her tears. &quot;Think again, Richard. Are you sure you never heard my altered name?&quot; &quot;Never!&quot; &quot;Don&#039;t move your head to look at me, dear Richard. Let it lie here, while I tell my story. I loved a generous, noble man; loved him with my whole heart; loved him for years and years; loved him faithfully, devotedly; loved him with no hope of return; loved him, knowing nothing of his highest qualities—not even knowing that he was alive. He was a brave soldier. He was honoured and beloved by thousands of thousands, when the mother of his dear friend found me, and showed me that in all his triumphs he had never forgotten me. He was wounded in a great battle. He was brought, dying, here, into Brussels. I came to watch and tend him, as I would have joyfully gone, with such a purpose, to the dreariest ends of the earth. When he knew no one else, he knew me. When he suffered most, he bore his sufferings barely murmuring, content to rest his head where yours rests now. When he lay at the point of death, he married me, that he might call me Wife before he died. And the name, my dear love, that I took on that forgotten night—&quot; &quot;I know it now!&quot; he sobbed. &quot;The shadowy remembrance strengthens. It is come back. I thank Heaven that my mind is quite restored! My Mary, kiss me; lull this weary head to rest, or I shall die of gratitude. His parting words are fulfilled. I see Home again!&quot; Well! They were happy. It was a long recovery, but they were happy through it all. The snow had melted on the ground, and the birds were singing in the leafless thickets of the early spring, when those three were first able to ride out together, and when people flocked about the open carriage to cheer and congratulate Captain Richard Doubledick. But, even then, it became necessary for the Captain, instead of returning to England, to complete his recovery in the climate of Southern France. They found a spot upon the Rhone, within a ride of the old town of Avignon and within view of its broken bridge, which was all they could desire; they lived there, together, six months; then returned to England. Mrs. Taunton growing old after three years—though not so old as that her bright dark eyes were dimmed—and remembering that her strength had been benefited by the change, resolved to go back for a year to those parts. So, she went with a faithful servant, who had often carried her son in his arms; and she was to be rejoined and escorted home, at the year&#039;s end, by Captain Richard Doubledick. She wrote regularly to her children (as she called them now), and they to her. She went to the neighbourhood of Aix; and there, in their own chateau near the farmer&#039;s house she rented, she grew into intimacy with a family belonging to that part of France. The intimacy began, in her often meeting among the vineyards a pretty child: a girl with a most compassionate heart, who was never tired of listening to the solitary English lady&#039;s stories of her poor son and the cruel wars. The family were as gentle as the child, and at length she came to know them so well, that she accepted their invitation to pass the last month of her residence abroad, under their roof. All this intelligence she wrote home, piecemeal as it came about, from time to time; and, at last, enclosed a polite note from the head of the chateau, soliciting, on the occasion of his approaching mission to that neighbourhood, the honour of the company of cet homme si justement célèbre. Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick. Captain Doubledick; now a hardy handsome man in the full vigour of life, broader across the chest and shoulders than he had ever been before; dispatched a courteous reply, and followed it in person. Travelling through all that extent of country after three years of Peace, he blessed the better days on which the world had fallen. The corn was golden, not drenched in unnatural red; was bound in sheaves for food, not trodden under-foot by men in mortal fight. The smoke rose up from peaceful hearths, not blazing ruins. The carts were laden with the fair fruits of the earth, not with wounds and death. To him who had so often seen the terrible reverse, these things were beautiful indeed, and they brought him in a softened spirit to the old chateau near Aix, upon a deep blue evening. It was a large chateau of the genuine old ghostly kind, with round towers, and extinguishers and a high leaden roof, and more windows than Aladdin&#039;s Palace. The lattice blinds were all thrown open, after the heat of the day, and there were glimpses of rambling walls and corridors within. Then, there were immense outbuildings fallen into partial decay, masses of dark trees, terrace-gardens, balustrades; tanks of water, too weak to play and too dirty to work; statues, weeds, and thickets of iron-railing that seemed to have overgrown themselves like the shrubberies, and to have branched out in all manner of wild shapes. The entrance doors stood open, as doors often do in that country when the heat of the day is past; and the Captain saw no bell or knocker, and walked in. He walked into a lofty stone hall, refreshingly cool and gloomy after the glare of a Southern day&#039;s travel. Extending along the four sides of this hall, was a gallery, leading to suites of rooms; and it was lighted from the top. Still, no bell was to be seen. &quot;Faith,&quot; said the Captain, halting, ashamed of the clanking of his boots, &quot; this is a ghostly beginning!&quot; He started back, and felt his face turn white. In the gallery, looking down at him, stood the French officer: the officer whose picture he had carried in his mind so long and so far. Compared with the original, at last—in every lineament how like it was! He moved, and disappeared, and Captain Richard Doubledick heard his steps coming quickly down into the hall. He entered through an archway. There was a bright, sudden look upon his face. Much such a look as it had worn in that fatal moment. Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick? Enchanted to receive him! A thousand apologies! The servants were all out in the air. There was a little fête among them in the garden. In effect, it was the fête day of my daughter, the little cherished and protected of Madame Taunton. He was so gracious and so frank, that Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick could not withhold his hand. &quot;It is the hand of a brave Englishman,&quot; said the French officer, retaining it while he spoke. &quot;I could respect a brave Englishman, even as my foe; how much more as my friend! I, also, am a soldier.&quot; &quot;He has not remembered me, as I have remembered him; he did not take such note of my face, that day, as I took of his,&quot; thought Captain Richard Doubledick. &quot;How shall I tell him!&quot; The French officer conducted his guest into a garden, and presented him to his wife: an engaging and beautiful woman, sitting with Mrs. Taunton in a whimsical old- fashioned pavilion. His daughter, her fair young face beaming with joy, came running to embrace him; and there was a boy-baby to tumble down among the orange-trees on the broad steps, in making for his father&#039;s legs. A multitude of children-visitors were dancing to sprightly music; and all the servants and peasants about the chateau were dancing too. It was a scene of innocent happiness that might have been invented for the climax of the scenes of Peace which had soothed the captain&#039;s journey. He looked on, greatly troubled in his mind, until a resounding bell rang, and the French officer begged to show him his rooms. They went upstairs into the gallery from which the officer had looked down; and Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick was cordially welcomed to a grand outer chamber, and a smaller one within, all clocks, and draperies, and hearths, and brazen dogs, and tiles, and cool devices, and elegance, and vastness. &quot;You were at Waterloo,&quot; said the French officer. &quot;I was,&quot; said Captain Richard Doubledick. &quot;And at Badajos.&quot; Left alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he sat down to consider, What shall I do, and how shall I tell him? At that time, unhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought between English and French officers, arising out of the recent war; and these duels, and how to avoid this officer&#039;s hospitality, were the uppermost thought in Captain Richard Doubleclick&#039;s mind. He was thinking, and letting the time run out in which he should have dressed for dinner, when Mrs. Taunton spoke to him outside the door, asking if he could give her the letter he had brought from Mary? &quot;His mother above all,&quot; the Captain thought. &quot;How shall I tell her?&quot; &quot;You will form a friendship with your host, I hope,&quot; said Mrs. Taunton, whom he hurriedly admitted, &quot;that will last for life. He is so true-hearted and so generous, Richard, that you can hardly fail to esteem one another. If He had been spared,&quot; she kissed (not without tears) the locket in which she wore his hair, &quot;he would have appreciated him with his own magnanimity, and would have been truly happy that the evil days were past, which made such a man his enemy.&quot; She left the room; and the Captain walked, first to one window whence he could see the dancing in the garden, then to another window whence he could see the smiling prospect and the peaceful vineyards. &quot;Spirit of my departed friend,&quot; said he, &quot;is it through thee, these better thoughts are rising in my mind! Is it thou who hast shown me, all the way I have been drawn to meet this man, the blessings of the altered time! Is it thou who hast sent thy stricken mother to me, to stay my angry hand! Is it from thee the whisper comes, that this man did his duty as thou didst—and as I did, through thy guidance, which has wholly saved me, here on earth—and that he did no more!&quot; He sat down, with his head buried in his hands, and, when he rose up, made the second strong resolution of his life: That neither to the French officer, nor to the mother of his departed friend, nor to any soul while either of the two was living, would he breathe what only he knew. And when he touched that French officer&#039;s glass with his own, that day at dinner, he secretly forgave him in the name of the Divine Forgiver of injuries. Here, I ended my story as the first Poor Traveller. But, if I had told it now, I could have added that the time has since come when the son of Major Richard Doubledick, and the son of that French officer, friends as their fathers were before them, fought side by side in one cause: with their respective nations, like long-divided brothers whom the better times have brought together, fast united. The stories being all finished, and the Wassail too, we broke up as the Cathedral-bell struck Twelve. I did not take leave of my Travellers that night; for, it had come into my head to reappear in conjunction with some hot cotfee, at seven in the morning. As I passed along the High Street, I heard the Waits at a distance, and struck off to find them. They were playing near one of the old gates of the City, at the corner of a wonderfully quaint row of red-brick tenements, which the clarionet obligingly informed me were inhabited by the Minor-Canons. They had odd little porches over the doors, like sounding-boards over old pulpits; and I thought I should like to see one of the Minor-Canons come out upon his top step, and favour us with a little Christmas discourse about the poor scholars of Rochester: taking for his text the words of his Master, relative to the devouring of Widows&#039; houses. The clarionet was so communicative, and my inclinations were (as they generally are), of so vagabond a tendency, that I accompanied the Waits across an open green called the Vines, and assisted—in the French sense—at the performance of two waltzes, two polkas, and three Irish melodies, before I thought of my inn any more. However, I returned to it then, and found a fiddle in the kitchen, and Ben, the wall-eyed young man, and two chambermaids, circling round the great deal table with the utmost animation. I had a very bad night. It cannot have been owing to the turkey, or the beef—and the Wassail is out of the question—but, in every endeavour that I made to get to sleep, I failed most dismally. Now, I was at Badajos with a fiddle; now, haunted by the widow&#039;s murdered sister. Now, I was riding on a little blind girl, to save my native town from sack and ruin. Now, I was expostulating with the dead mother of the unconscious little sailor-boy; now, dealing in diamonds in Sky Fair; now, for life or death, hiding mince-pies under bed-room carpets. For all this, I was never asleep; and, in whatsoever unreasonable direction my mind rambled, the effigy of Master Richard Watts perpetually embarrassed it. In a word, I only got out of the worshipful Master Richard Watts&#039;s way, by getting out of bed in the dark at six o&#039;clock, and tumbling, as my custom is, into all the cold water that could be accumulated for the purpose. The outer air was dull and cold enough in the street, when I came down there; and the one candle in our supper-room at Watts&#039;s Charity looked as pale in the burning, as if it had had a bad night too. But, my Travellers had all slept soundly, and they took to the hot coffee, and the piles of bread and butter which Ben had arranged like deals in a timber-yard, as kindly as I could desire. While it was yet scarcely daylight, we all came out into the street together, and there shook hands. The widow took the little sailor towards Chatham, where he was to find a steamboat for Sheerness; the lawyer, with an extremely knowing look, went his own way, without committing himself by announcing his intentions; two more struck off by the cathedral and old castle for Maidstone; and the book-pedlar accompanied me over the bridge. As for me, I was going to walk, by Cobham Woods, as far upon my way to London as I fancied. When I came to the stile and footpath by which I was to diverge from the main-road, I bade farewell to my last remaining Poor Traveller, and pursued my way alone. And now, the mists began to rise in the most beautiful manner, and the sun to shine; and as I went on through the bracing air seeing the hoar-frost sparkle everywhere, I felt as if all Nature shared in the joy of the great Birthday. Going through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossy ground and among the brown leaves, enhanced the Christmas sacredness by which I felt surrounded. As the whitened stems environed me, I thought how the Founder of the time had never raised his benignant hand, save to bless and heal, except in the case of one unconscious tree. By Cobham Hall, I came to the village, and the churchyard where the dead had been quietly buried, &quot;in the sure and certain hope&quot; which Christmas time inspired. What children could I see at play, and not be loving of, recalling who had loved them! No garden that I passed, was out of unison with the day, for I remembered that the tomb was in a garden, and that &quot;she, supposing him to be the gardener,&quot; had said, &quot;Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.&quot; In time, the distant river with the ships, came full in view, and with it pictures of the poor fishermen mending their nets, who arose and followed him—of the teaching of the people from a ship pushed off a little way from shore, by reason of the multitude—of a majestic figure walking on the water, in the loneliness of night. My very shadow on the ground was eloquent of Christmas; for, did not the people lay their sick where the mere shadows of the men who had heard and seen him, might fall as they passed along? Thus, Christmas begirt me, far and near, until I had come to Blackheath, and had walked down the long vista of gnarled old trees in Greenwich Park, and was being steam-rattled, through the mists now closing in once more, towards the lights of London. Brightly they shone, but not so brightly as my own fire and the brighter faces around it, when we came together to celebrate the day. And there I told of worthy Master Richard Watts, and of my supper with the Six Poor Travellers who were neither Rogues nor Proctors, and from that hour to this, I have never seen one of them again. The End18541225https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Seven_Poor_Travellers_[1854_Christmas_Number]/1854-12-25-The_Seven_Poor_Travellers.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Seven_Poor_Travellers_[1854_Christmas_Number]/1854-12-25-The_First.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Seven_Poor_Travellers_[1854_Christmas_Number]/1854-12-25-The_Road.pdf
182https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/182<em>The Wreck of the 'Golden Mary' </em>(1856 Christmas Number)Published in <em>Household Words,</em> Vol. XIV, Extra Christmas Number, 25 December 1856, pp. 1-30.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xiv/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xiv/page-573.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1856-12-25">1856-12-25</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1856-12-25-The_Wreck_of_the_Golden_Mary<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'The Wreck' (No.1), pp. 1-10.</strong> <ul> <li><span>Wilkie Collins. 'All that follows was written by John Steadiman, Chief Mate' (No.1), pp. 11-13.</span></li> </ul> </li> <li>Percy Fitzgerald. 'The Beguilement in the Boats' (No.2), pp. 13-18. <ul> <li>Harriet Parr. 'Poor Dick's Story', pp. 18-21.</li> <li>Percy Fitzgerald. 'The Supercargo's Story', pp. 21-25.</li> <li>Adelaide Anne Procter. 'The Old Sailor's Story', pp. 25-27.</li> <li>Rev. James White. 'The Scotch Boy's Story', pp. 27-29.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Wilkie Collins. 'The Deliverance' (No.3), pp. 30-36.</li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al. <em>The Wreck of the Golden Mary</em> (25 December 1856). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1856-12-25-The_Wreck_of_the_Golden_Mary">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1856-12-25-The_Wreck_of_the_Golden_Mary</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>I was apprenticed to the Sea when I was twelve years old, and I have encountered a great deal of rough weather, both literal and metaphorical. It has always been my opinion since I first possessed such a thing as an opinion, that the man who knows only one subject is next tiresome to the man who knows no subject. Therefore, in the course of my life I have taught myself whatever I could, and although I am not an educated man, I am able, I am thankful to say, to have an intelligent interest in most things. A person might suppose, from reading the above, that I am in the habit of holding forth about number one. That is not the case. Just as if I was to come into a room among strangers, and must either be introduced or introduce myself, so I have taken the liberty of passing these few remarks, simply and plainly that it may be known who and what I am. I will add no more of the sort than that my name is William George Ravender, that I was born at Penrith half a year after my own father was drowned, and that I am on the second day of this present blessed Christmas week of one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, fifty-six years of age. When the rumour first went flying up and down that there was gold in California—which, as most people know, was before it was discovered in the British colony of Australia—I was in the West Indies, trading among the Islands. Being in command and likewise part-owner of a smart schooner, I had my work cut out for me, and I was doing it. Consequently, gold in California was no business of mine. But, by the time when I came home to England again, the thing was as clear as your hand held up before you at noon-day. There was Californian gold in the museums and in the goldsmiths’ shops, and the very first time I went upon ’Change, I met a friend of mine (a seafaring man like myself), with a Californian nugget hanging to his watch-chain. I handled it. It was as like a peeled walnut with bits unevenly broken off here and there, and then electrotyped all over, as ever I saw anything in my life. I am a single man (she was too good for this world and for me, and she died six weeks before our marriage-day), so when I am ashore, I live in my house at Poplar. My house at Poplar is taken care of and kept ship-shape by, an old lady who was my mother&#039;s maid before I was born. She is as handsome and as upright as any old lady in the world. She is as fond of me as if she had ever had an only son, and I was he. Well do I know wherever I sail that she never lays down her head at night without having said, “Merciful Lord! bless and preserve William George Ravender, and send him safe home, through Christ our Saviour!” I have thought of it in many a dangerous moment, when it has done me no harm, I am sure. In my house at Poplar, along with this old lady, I lived quiet for best part of a year: having had a long spell of it among the Islands, and having (which was very uncommon in me) taken the fever rather badly. At last, being strong and hearty, and having read every book I could lay hold of, right out, I was walking down Leadenhall Street in the City of London, thinking of turning-to again, when I met what I call Smithick and Watersby of Liverpool. I chanced to lift up my eyes from looking in at a ship&#039;s chronometer in a window, and I saw him bearing down upon me, head on. It is, personally, neither Smithick, nor Watersby, that I here mention, nor was I ever acquainted with any man of either of those names, nor do I think that there has been any one of either of those names in that Liverpool House for years back. But, it is in reality the House itself that I refer to; and a wiser merchant or a truer gentleman never stepped. “My dear Captain Ravender,” says he. “Of all the men on earth, I wanted to see you most. I was on my way to you.” “Well!” says I. “That looks as if you were to see me, don&#039;t it?” With that, I put my arm in his, and we walked on towards the Royal Exchange, and, when we got there, walked up and down at the back of it where the Clock-Tower is. We walked an hour and more, for he had much to say to me. He had a scheme for chartering a new ship of their own to take out cargo to the diggers and emigrants in California, and to buy and bring back gold. Into the particulars of that scheme I will not enter, and I have no right to enter. All I say of it, is, that it was a very original one, a very fine one, a very sound one, and a very lucrative one, beyond doubt. He imparted it to me as freely as if l had been a part of himself. After doing so, he made me the handsomest sharing offer that ever was made to me, boy or man—or I believe to any other captain in the Merchant Navy—and he took this round turn to finish with: “Ravender, you are well aware that the lawlessness of that coast and country at present, is as special as the circumstances in which it is placed. Crews of vessels outward-bound, desert as soon as they make the land; crews of vessels homeward-bound, ship at enormous wages, with the express intention of murdering the captain and seizing the gold freight; no man can trust another, and the devil seems let loose. Now,” says he, “you know my opinion of you, and you know I am only expressing it, and with no singularity, when I tell you that you are almost the only man on whose integrity, discretion, and energy—” &amp;amp;c., &amp;amp;c. For, I don&#039;t want to repeat what he said, though I was and am sensible of it. Notwithstanding my being, as I have mentioned, quite ready for a voyage, still I had some doubts of this voyage. Of course I knew, without being told, that there were peculiar difficulties and dangers in it, a long way over and above those which attend all voyages. It must not be supposed that I was afraid to face them; but, in my opinion a man has no manly motive or sustainment in his own breast for facing dangers, unless he has well considered what they are, and is able quietly to say to himself, “None of these perils can now take me by surprise; I shall know what to do for the best in any of them; all the rest lies in the higher and greater hands to which I humbly commit myself.” On this principle I have so attentively considered (regarding it as my duty) all the hazards I have ever been able to think of, in the ordinary way of storm, shipwreck, and fire at sea, that I hope I should be prepared to do, in any of those cases, whatever could be done, to save the lives entrusted to my charge. As I was thoughtful, my good friend proposed that he should leave me to walk there as long as I liked, and that I should dine with him by-and-by at his club in Pall Mall. I accepted the invitation, and I walked up and down there, quarter-deck fashion, a matter of a couple of hours; now and then looking up at the weathercock as I might have looked up aloft; and now and then taking a look into Cornhill, as I might have taken a look over the side. All dinner-time, and all after-dinner-time, we talked it over again. I gave him my views of his plan, and he very much approved of the same. I told him I had nearly decided, but not quite. “Well, well,” says he, “come down to Liverpool to-morrow with me, and see the Golden Mary.” I liked the name (her name was Mary, and she was golden, if golden stands for good), so I began to feel that it was almost done when I said I would go to Liverpool. On the next morning but one we were on board the Golden Mary. I might have known, from his asking me to come down and see her, what she was. I declare her to have been the completest and most exquisite Beauty that ever I set my eyes upon. We had inspected every timber in her, and had come back to the gangway to go ashore from the dock-basin, when I put out my hand to my friend. “Touch upon it,” says I, “and touch heartily. I take command of this ship, and I am hers and yours, if I can get John Steadiman for my chief mate.” John Steadiman had sailed with me four voyages. The first voyage, John was third mate out to China, and came home second. The other three voyages, he was my first officer. At this time of chartering the Golden Mary, he was aged thirty-two. A brisk, bright, blue-eyed fellow, a very neat figure and rather under the middle size, never out of the way and never in it, a face that pleased everybody and that all children took to, a habit of going about singing as cheerily as a blackbird, and a perfect sailor. We were in one of those Liverpool hackney- coaches in less than a minute, and we cruised about in her upwards of three hours, looking for John. John had come home from Van Diemen’s Land barely a month before, and I had heard of him as taking a frisk in Liverpool. We asked after him, among many other places, at the two boarding-houses he was fondest of, and we found he had had a week&#039;s spell at each of them; but, he had gone here and gone there, and had set off “to lay out on the main-to&#039;-gallant-yard of the highest Welsh mountain” (so he had told the people of the house), and where he might be then, or when he might come back nobody could tell us. But it was surprising, to be sure, to see how every face brightened the moment there was mention made of the name of Mr. Steadiman. We were taken aback at meeting with no better luck, and we had wore ship and put her head for my friends, when, as we were jogging through the streets, I clap my eyes on John himself coming out of a toyshop! He was carrying a little boy, and conducting two uncommon pretty women to their coach, and he told me afterwards that he had never in his life seen one of the three before, but that he was so taken with them on looking in at the toy-shop while they were buying the child a cranky Noah’s Ark, very much down by the head, that he had gone in and asked the ladies’ permission to treat him to a tolerably correct Cutter there was in the window, in order that such a handsome boy might not grow up with a lubberly idea of naval architecture. We stood off and on until the ladies’ coachman began to give way, and then we hailed John. On his coming aboard of us, I told him, very gravely, what I had said to my friend. It struck him, as he said himself, amidships. He was quite shaken by it. “Captain Ravender,” were John Steadiman’s words, “such an opinion from you is true commendation, and I’ll sail round the world with you for twenty years if you hoist the signal, and stand by you for ever!” And now indeed I felt that it was done, and that the Golden Mary was afloat. Grass never grew yet under the feet of Smithick and Watersby. The riggers were out of that ship in a fortnight’s time, and we had begun taking in cargo. John was always aboard, seeing everything stowed with his own eyes; and whenever I went aboard myself, early or late, whether he was below in the hold, or on deck at the hatchway, or overhauling his cabin, nailing up pictures in it of the Blush Roses of England, the Blue Belles of Scotland, and the female Shamrock of Ireland: of a certainty I heard John singing like a blackbird. We had room for twenty passengers. Our sailing advertisement was no sooner out, than we might have taken these, twenty times over. In entering our men, I and John (both together) picked them, and we entered none but good hands—as good as were to be found in that port. And so, in a good ship of the best build, well owned, well arranged, well officered, well manned, well found in all respects, we parted with our pilot at a quarter past four o’clock in the afternoon of the seventh of March, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, and stood with a fair wind out to sea. It may be easily believed that up to that time I had had no leisure to be intimate with my passengers. The most of them were then in their berths sea-sick; however, in going among them, telling them what was good for them, persuading them not to be there, but to come up on deck and feel the breeze, and in rousing them with a joke, or a comfortable word, I made acquaintance with them, perhaps, in a more friendly and confidential way from the first, than I might have done at the cabin table. Of my passengers, I need only particularise, just at present, a bright-eyed, blooming young wife who was going out to join her husband in California, taking with her their only child, a little girl of three years old, whom he had never seen; a sedate young woman in black, some five years older (about thirty, as I should say), who was going out to join a brother; and an old gentleman, a good deal like a hawk if his eyes had been better and not so red, who was always talking, morning, noon, and night, about the gold discovery. But, whether he was making the voyage, thinking his old arms could dig for gold, or whether his speculation was to buy it, or, to barter for it, or to cheat for it, or to snatch it anyhow from other people, was his secret. He kept his secret. These three and the child were the soonest well. The child was a most engaging child, to be sure, and very fond of me: though I am bound to admit that John Steadiman and I were borne on her pretty little books in reverse order, and that he was captain there, and I was mate. It was beautiful to watch her with John, and it was beautiful to watch John with her. Few would have thought it possible, to see John playing at bo-peep round the mast, that he was the man who had caught up an iron bar and struck a Malay and a Maltese dead, as they were gliding with their knives down the cabin stair aboard the barque Old England, when the captain lay ill in his cot, off Saugar Point. But he was; and give him his back against a bulwark, he would have done the same by half a dozen of them. The name of the young mother was Mrs. Atherfield, the name of the young lady in black was Miss Coleshaw, and the name of the old gentleman was Mr. Rarx. As the child had a quantity of shining fair hair, clustering in curls all about her face, and as her name was Lucy, Steadiman gave her the name of the Golden Lucy. So, we had the Golden Lucy and the Golden Mary; and John kept up the idea to that extent as he and the child went playing about the decks, that I believe she used to think the ship was alive somehow—a sister or companion, going to the same place as herself. She liked to be by the wheel, and in fine weather, I have often stood by the man whose trick it was at the wheel, only to hear her, sitting near my feet, talking to the ship. Never had a child such a doll before, I suppose; but she made a doll of the Golden Mary, and used to dress her up by tying ribbons and little bits of finery to the belaying-pins; and nobody ever moved them, unless it was to save them from being blown away. Of course I took charge of the two young women, and I called them “my dear,” and they never minded, knowing that whatever I said was said in a fatherly and protecting spirit. I gave them their places on each side of me at dinner, Mrs. Atherfield on my right and Miss Coleshaw on my left; and I directed the unmarried lady to serve out the breakfast, and the married lady to serve out the tea. Likewise I said to my black steward in their presence, “Tom Snow, these two ladies are equally the mistresses of this house, and do you obey their orders equally;” at which Tom laughed, and they all laughed. Old Mr. Rarx was not a pleasant man to look at, nor yet to talk to, or to be with, for no one could help seeing that he was a sordid and selfish character, and that he had warped further and further out of the straight with time. Not but what he was on his best behaviour with us, as everybody was; for, we had no bickering among us, for’ard or aft. I only mean to say, he was not the man one would have chosen for a messmate. If choice there had been, one might even have gone a few points out of one’s course, to say, “No! Not him!” But, there was one curious inconsistency in Mr. Rarx. That was, that he took an astonishing interest in the child. He looked, and, I may add, he was, one of the last of men to care at all for a child, or to care much for any human creature. Still, he went so far as to be habitually uneasy, if the child was long on deck, out of his sight. He was always afraid of her falling overboard, or falling down a hatchway, or of a block or what not coming down upon her from the rigging in the working of the ship, or of her getting some hurt or other. He used to look at her and touch her, as if she was something precious to him. He was always solicitous about her not injuring her health, and constantly entreated her mother to be careful of it. This was so much the more curious, because the child did not like him, but used to shrink away from him, and would not even put out her hand to him without coaxing from others. I believe that every soul on board frequently noticed this, and that not one of us understood it. However, it was such a plain fact, that John Steadiman said more than once when old Mr. Rarx was not within earshot, that if the Golden Mary felt a tenderness for the dear old gentleman she carried in her lap, she must be bitterly jealous of the Golden Lucy. Before I go any further with this narrative, I will state that our ship was a barque of three hundred tons, carrying a crew of eighteen men, a second mate in addition to John, a carpenter, an armourer or smith, and two apprentices (one a Scotch boy, poor little fellow). We had three boats; the Long-boat, capable of carrying twenty-five men; the Cutter, capable of carrying fifteen; and the Surf-boat, capable of carrying ten. I put down the capacity of these boats according to the numbers they were really meant to hold. We had tastes of bad weather and headwinds, of course; but, on the whole we had as fine a run as any reasonable man could expect, for sixty days. I then began to enter two remarks in the ship’s Log and in my Journal; first, that there was an unusual and amazing quantity of ice; second, that the nights were most wonderfully dark, in spite of the ice. For five days and a half, it seemed quite useless and hopeless to alter the ship’s course so as to stand out of the way of this ice. I made what southing I could; but, all that time, we were beset by it. Mrs. Atherfield after standing by me on deck once, looking for some time in an awed manner at the great bergs that surrounded us, said in a whisper, “O! Captain Ravender, it looks as if the whole solid earth had changed into ice, and broken up!” I said to her, laughing, “I don&#039;t wonder that it does, to your inexperienced eyes, my dear.” But I had never seen a twentieth part of the quantity, and, in reality, I was pretty much of her opinion. However, at two p.m. on the afternoon of the sixth day, that is to say, when we were sixty-six days out, John Steadiman who had gone aloft, sang out from the top, that the sea was clear ahead. Before four p.m. a strong breeze springing up right astern, we were in open water at sunset. The breeze then freshening into half a gale of wind, and the Golden Mary being a very fast sailer, we went before the wind merrily, all night. I had thought it impossible that it could be darker than it had been, until the sun, moon, and stars should fall out of the Heavens, and Time should be destroyed; but, it had been next to light, in comparison with what it was now. The darkness was so profound, that looking into it was painful and oppressive—like looking, without a ray of light, into a dense black bandage put as close before the eyes as it could be, without touching them. I doubled the look-out, and John and I stood in the bow side-by-side, never leaving it all night. Yet I should no more have known that he was near me when he was silent, without putting out my arm and touching him, than I should if he had turned in and been fast asleep below. We were not so much looking out, all of us, as listening to the utmost, both with our eyes and ears. Next day, I found that the mercury in the barometer, which had risen steadily since we cleared the ice, remained steady. I had had very good observations, with now and then the interruption of a day or so, since our departure. I got the sun at noon, and found that we were in Lat. 58° S., Long. 60° W., off New South Shetland; in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn. We were sixty-seven days out, that day. The ship’s reckoning was accurately worked and made up. The ship did her duty admirably, all on board were well, and all hands were as smart, efficient, and contented, as it was possible to be. When the night came on again as dark as before, it was the eighth night I had been on deck. Nor had I taken more than a very little sleep in the day-time, my station being always near the helm, and often at it, while we were among the ice. Few but those who have tried it can imagine the difficulty and pain of only keeping the eyes open—physically open—under such circumstances, in such darkness. They get struck by the darkness, and blinded by the darkness. They make patterns in it, and they flash in it, as if they had gone out of your head to look at you. On the turn of midnight, John Steadiman, who was alert and fresh (for I had always made him turn in by day), said to me, “Captain Ravender, I entreat of you to go below. I am sure you can hardly stand, and your voice is getting weak, sir. Go below, and take a little rest. I’ll call you if a block chafes.” I said to John in answer, “Well, well, John! Let us wait till the turn of one o’clock, before we talk about that.” I had just had one of the ship’s lanterns held up, that I might see how the night went by my watch, and it was then twenty minutes after twelve. At five minutes before one, John sang out to the boy to bring the lantern again, and, when I told him once more what the time was, entreated and prayed of me to go below. “Captain Ravender,” says he, “all’s well; we can’t afford to have you laid up for a single hour; and I respectfully and earnestly beg of you to go below.” The end of it was, that I agreed to do so, on the understanding that if I failed to come up of my own accord within three hours, I was to be punctually called. Having settled that, I left John in charge. But, I called him to me once afterwards, to ask him a question. I had been to look at the barometer, and had seen the mercury still perfectly steady, and had come up the companion again, to take a last look about me—if I can use such a word in reference to such darkness—when I thought that the waves, as the Golden Mary parted them and shook them off, had a hollow sound in them; something that I fancied was a rather unusual reverberation. I was standing by the quarter-deck rail on the starboard side, when I called John aft to me, and bade him listen. He did so with the greatest attention. Turning to me he then said, “Rely upon it, Captain Ravender, you have been without rest too long, and the novelty is only in the state of your sense of hearing.” I thought so too by that time, and I think so now, though I can never know for absolute certain in this world, whether it was or not. When I left John Steadiman in charge, the ship was still going at a great rate through the water. The wind still blew right astern. Though she was making great way, she was under shortened sail, and had no more than she could easily carry. All was snug, and nothing complained. There was a pretty sea running, but not a very high sea neither, nor at all a confused one. I turned in, as we seamen say, all standing. The meaning of that, is, I did not pull my clothes off—no, not even so much as my coat: though I did my shoes, for my feet were badly swelled with the deck. There was a little swing-lamp alight in my cabin. I thought, as I looked at it before shutting my eyes, that I was so tired of darkness, and troubled by darkness, that I could have gone to sleep best in the midst of a million of flaming gas-lights. That was the last thought I had before I went off, except the prevailing thought that I should not be able to get to sleep at all. I dreamed that I was back at Penrith again, and was trying to get round the church, which had altered its shape very much since I last saw it, and was cloven all down the middle of the steeple in a most singular manner. Why I wanted to get round the church, I don&#039;t know; but, I was as anxious to do it as if my life depended on it. Indeed, I believe it did, in the dream. For all that, I could not get round the church. I was still trying, when I came against it with a violent shock, and was flung out of my cot against the ship’s side. Shrieks and a terrific outcry struck me far harder than the bruising timbers, and amidst sounds of grinding and crashing, and a heavy rushing and breaking of water—sounds I understood too well—I made my way on deck. It was not an easy thing to do, for the ship heeled over frightfully, and was beating in a furious manner. I could not see the men as I went forward, but I could hear that they were hauling in sail, in disorder. I had my trumpet in my hand, and, after directing and encouraging them in this till it was done, I hailed first John Steadiman, and then my second mate, Mr. William Rames. Both answered clearly and steadily. Now, I had practised them and all my crew, as I have ever made it a custom to practise all who sail with me, to take certain stations, and wait my orders, in case of any unexpected crisis. When my voice was heard hailing, and their voices were heard answering, I was aware, through all the noises of the ship and sea, and all the crying of the passengers below, that there was a pause. “Are you ready, Rames?”— “Aye, aye, sir!”—“Then light up, for God’s sake!” In a moment he and another were burning blue-lights, and the ship and all on board seemed to be enclosed in a mist of light, under a great black dome. The light shone up so high that I could see the huge Iceberg upon which we had struck, cloven at the top and down the middle, exactly like Penrith Church in my dream. At the same moment I could see the watch last relieved, crowding up and down on deck; I could see Mrs. Atherfield and Miss Coleshaw thrown about on the top of the companion as they struggled to bring the child up from below; I could see that the masts were going with the shock and the beating of the ship; I could see the frightful breach stove in on the starboard side, half the length of the vessel, and the sheathing and timbers spirting up; I could see that the Cutter was disabled, in a wreck of broken fragments; and I could see every eye turned upon me. It is my belief that if there had been ten thousand eyes there, I should have seen them all, with their different looks. And all this in a moment. But you must consider what a moment. I saw the men, as they looked at me, fall towards their appointed stations, like good men and true. If she had not righted, they could have done very little there or anywhere but die—not that it is little for a man to die at his post—I mean they could have done nothing to save the passengers and themselves. Happily, however, the violence of the shock with which we had so determinedly borne down direct on that fatal Iceberg, as if it had been our destination instead of our destruction, had so smashed and pounded the ship that she got off in this same instant, and righted. I did not want the carpenter to tell me she was filling and going down; I could see and hear that. I gave Rames the word to lower the Long-boat and the Surf-boat, and I myself told off the men for each duty. Not one hung back, or came before the other. I now whispered to John Steadiman, “John, I stand at the gangway here, to see every soul on board safe over the side. You shall have the next post of honor, and shall be the last but one to leave the ship. Bring up the passengers, and range them behind me; and put what provision and water you can get at, in the boats. Cast your eye for’ard, John, and you’ll see you have not a moment to lose.” My noble fellows got the boats over the side, as orderly as I ever saw boats lowered with any sea running, and, when they were launched, two or three of the nearest men in them as they held on, rising and falling with the swell, called out, looking up at me, “Captain Ravender, if anything goes wrong with us and you are saved, remember we stood by you!”—“We’ll all stand by one another ashore, yet, please God, my lads!” says I. “Hold on bravely, and be tender with the women.” The women were an example to us. They trembled very much, but they were quiet and perfectly collected. “Kiss me, Captain Ravender,” says Mrs. Atherfield, “and God in Heaven bless you, you good man!” “My dear,” says I, “those words are better for me than a life-boat.” I held her child in my arms till she was in the boat, and then kissed the child and handed her safe down. I now said to the people in her, “You have got your freight, my lads, all but me, and I am not coming yet awhile. Pull away from the ship, and keep off!” That was the Long-boat. Old Mr. Rarx was one of her complement, and he was the only passenger who had greatly misbehaved since the ship struck. Others had been a little wild, which was not to be wondered at, and not very blameable; but, he had made a lamentation and uproar which it was dangerous for the people to hear, as there is always contagion in weakness and selfishness. His incessant cry had been that he must not be separated from the child, that he couldn’t see the child, and that he and the child must go together. He had even tried to wrest the child out of my arms, that he might keep her in his. “Mr. Rarx,” said I to him when it came to that, “I have a loaded pistol in my pocket; and if you don&#039;t stand out of the gangway, and keep perfectly quiet, I shall shoot you through the heart, if you have got one.” Says he, “You won’t do murder, Captain Ravender?” “No, sir,” says I, “I won’t murder forty-four people to humour you, but I’ll shoot you to save them.” After that, he was quiet, and stood shivering a little way off, until I named him to go over the side. The Long-boat being cast off, the Surf-boat was soon filled. There only remained aboard the Golden Mary, John Mullion the man who had kept on burning the blue-lights (and who had lighted every new one at every old one before it went out, as quietly as if he had been at an illumination); John Steadiman; and myself. I hurried those two into the Surf-boat, called to them to keep off, and waited with a grateful and relieved heart for the Long-boat to come and take me in, if she could. I looked at my watch, and it showed me, by the blue-light, ten minutes past two. They lost no time. As soon as she was near enough, I swung myself in to her, and called to the men, “With a will, lads! She’s reeling!” We were not an inch too far out of the inner vortex of her going down, when, by the blue-light which John Mullion still burnt in the bow of the Surf-boat, we saw her lurch, and plunge to the bottom head- foremost. The child cried, weeping wildly, “O the dear Golden Mary! O look at her! Save her! Save the poor Golden Mary!” And then the light burnt out, and the black dome seemed to come down upon us. I suppose if we had all stood a-top of a mountain, and seen the whole remainder of the world sink away from under us, we could hardly have felt more shocked and solitary than we did when we knew we were alone on the wide ocean, and that the beautiful ship in which most of us had been securely asleep within half an hour was gone for ever. There was an awful silence in our boat, and such a kind of palsy on the rowers and the man at the rudder, that I felt they were scarcely keeping her before the sea. I spoke out then, and said, “Let every one here thank the Lord for our preservation!” All the voices answered (even the child’s), “We thank the Lord!” I then said the Lord’s Prayer, and all hands said it after me with a solemn murmuring. Then I gave the word “Cheerily, O men, Cherrily!” and I felt that they were handling the boat again as a boat ought to be handled. The Surf-boat now burnt another blue-light to show us where they were, and we made for her, and laid ourselves as nearly alongside of her as we dared. I had always kept my boats with a coil or two of good stout stuff in each of them, so both boats had a rope at hand. We made a shift, with much labor and trouble, to get near enough to one another to divide the blue-lights (they were no use after that night, for the sea-water soon got at them), and to get a tow-rope out between us. All night long we kept together, sometimes obliged to cast off the rope, and sometimes getting it out again, and all of us wearying for the morning—which appeared so long in coming that old Mr. Rarx screamed out, in spite of his fears of me, “The world is drawing to an end, and the sun will never rise any more!” When the day broke, I found that we were all huddled together in a miserable manner. We were deep in the water; being, as I found on mustering, thirty-one in number, or at least six too many. In the Surf-boat they were fourteen in number, being at least four too many. The first thing I did, was to get myself passed to the rudder—which I took from that time—and to get Mrs. Atherfield, her child, and Miss Coleshaw, passed on to sit next me. As to old Mr. Rarx, I put him in the bow, as far from us as I could. And I put some of the best men near us, in order that if I should drop, there might be a skilful hand ready to take the helm. The sea moderating as the sun came up, though the sky was cloudy and wild, we spoke the other boat, to know what stores they had, and to overhaul what we had. I had a compass in my pocket, a small telescope, a double-barrelled pistol, a knife, and a fire-box and matches. Most of my men had knives, and some had a little tobacco: some, a pipe as well. We had a mug among us, and an iron-spoon. As to provisions, there were in my boat two bags of biscuit, one piece of raw beef, one piece of raw pork, a bag of coffee, roasted but not ground (thrown in, I imagine, by mistake, for something else), two small casks of water, and about half-a-gallon of rum in a keg. The Surf-boat, having rather more rum than we, and fewer to drink it, gave us, as I estimated, another quart into our keg. In return, we gave them three double-handfuls of coffee, tied up in a piece of a handkerchief; they reported that they had aboard besides, a bag of biscuit, a piece of beef, a small cask of water, a small box of lemons, and a Dutch cheese. It took a long time to make these exchanges, and they were not made without risk to both parties; the sea running quite high enough to make our approaching near to one another very hazardous. In the bundle with the coffee, I conveyed to John Steadiman (who had a ship’s compass with him), a paper written in pencil, and torn from my pocket-book, containing the course I meant to steer, in the hope of making land, or being picked up by some vessel—I say in the hope, though I had little hope of either deliverance. I then sang out to him, so as all might hear, that if we two boats could live or die together, we would; but, that if we should be parted by the weather, and join company no more, they should have our prayers and blessings, and we asked for theirs. We then gave them three cheers, which they returned, and I saw the men’s heads droop in both boats as they fell to their oars again. These arrangements had occupied the general attention advantageously for all, though (as I expressed in the last sentence) they ended in a sorrowful feeling. I now said a few words to my fellow-voyagers on the subject of the small stock of food on which our lives depended if they were preserved from the great deep, and on the rigid necessity of our eking it out in the most frugal manner. One and all replied that whatever allowance I thought best to lay down should be strictly kept to. We made a pair of scales out of a thin scrap of iron-plating and some twine, and I got together for weights such of the heaviest buttons among us as I calculated made up some fraction over two ounces. This was the allowance of solid food served out once a-day to each, from that time to the end; with the addition of a coffee-berry, or sometimes half a one, when the weather was very fair, for breakfast. We had nothing else whatever, but half a pint of water each per day, and sometimes, when we were coldest and weakest, a teaspoonful of rum each, served out as a dram. I know how learnedly it can be shown that rum is poison, but I also know that in this case, as in all similar cases I have ever read of—which are numerous—no words can express the comfort and support derived from it. Nor have I the least doubt that it saved the lives of far more than half our number. Having mentioned half a pint of water as our daily allowance, I ought to observe that sometimes we had less, and sometimes we had more; for, much rain fell, and we caught it in a canvas stretched for the purpose. Thus, at that tempestuous time of the year, and in that tempestuous part of the world, we shipwrecked people rose and fell with the waves. It is not my intention to relate (if I can avoid it), such circumstances appertaining to our doleful condition as have been better told in many other narratives of the kind than I can be expected to tell them. I will only note, in so many passing words, that day after day and night after night, we received the sea upon our backs to prevent it from swamping the boat; that one party was always kept baling, and that every hat and cap among us soon got worn out, though patched up fifty times, as the only vessels we had for that service; that another party lay down in the bottom of the boat, while a third rowed; and that we were soon all in boils and blisters and rags. The other boat was a source of such anxious interest to all of us that I used to wonder whether, if we were saved, the time could ever come when the survivors in this boat of ours could be at all indifferent to the fortunes of the survivors in that. We got out a tow-rope whenever the weather permitted, but that did not often happen, and how we two parties kept within the same horizon, as we did, He, who mercifully permitted it to be so for our consolation, only knows. I never shall forget the looks with which, when the morning light came, we used to gaze about us over the stormy waters, for the other boat. We once parted company for seventy-two hours, and we believed them to have gone down, as they did us. The joy on both sides when we came within view of one another again, had something in a manner Divine in it; each was so forgetful of individual suffering, in tears of delight and sympathy for the people in the other boat. I have been wanting to get round to the individual or personal part of my subject, as I call it, and the foregoing incident puts me in the right way. The patience and good disposition aboard of us, was wonderful. I was not surprised by it in the women; for, all men born of women know what great qualities they will show when men will fail; but, I own I was a little surprised by it in some of the men. Among one-and-thirty people assembled at the best of times, there will usually, I should say, be two or three uncertain tempers. I knew that I had more than one rough temper with me among my own people, for I had chosen those for the Long-boat that I might have them under my eye. But, they softened under their misery, and were as considerate of the ladies, and as compassionate of the child, as the best among us, or among men they could not have been more so. I heard scarcely any complaining. The party lying down would moan a good deal in their sleep, and I would often notice a man—not always the same man, it is to be understood, but nearly all of them at one time or other—sitting moaning at his oar, or in his place, as he looked mistily over the sea. When it happened to be long before I could catch his eye, he would go on moaning all the time in the dismallest manner; but, when our looks met, he would brighten and leave off. I almost always got the impression that he did not know what sound he had been making, but that he thought he had been humming a tune. Our sufferings from cold and wet were far greater than our sufferings from hunger. We managed to keep the child warm; but, I doubt if any one else among us ever was warm for five minutes together; and the shivering, and the chattering of teeth, were sad to hear. The child cried a little at first for her lost playfellow, The Golden Mary; but hardly ever whimpered afterwards; and when the state of the weather made it possible, she used now and then to be held up in the arms of some of us, to look over the sea for John Steadiman’s boat. I see the golden hair and the innocent face now, between me and the driving clouds, like an Angel going to fly away. It had happened on the second day, towards night, that Mrs. Atherfield, in getting Little Lucy to sleep, sang her a song. She had a soft, melodious voice, and, when she had finished it, our people up and begged for. another. She sang them another, and after it had fallen dark ended with the Evening Hymn. From that time, whenever anything could be heard above the sea and wind, and while she had any voice left, nothing would serve the people but that she should sing at sunset. She always did, and always ended with the Evening Hymn. We mostly took up the last line, and shed tears when it was done, but not miserably. We had a prayer night and morning, also, when the weather allowed of it. Twelve nights and eleven days we had been driving in the boat, when old Mr. Rarx began to be delirious, and to cry out to me to throw the gold overboard or it would sink us, and we should all be lost. For days past the child had been declining, and that was the great cause of his wildness. He had been over and over again shrieking out to me to give her all the remaining meat, to give her all the remaining rum, to save her at any cost, or we should all be ruined. At this time, she lay in her mother’s arms at my feet. One of her little hands was almost always creeping about her mother&#039;s neck or chin. I had watched the wasting of the little hand, and I knew it was nearly over. The old man’s cries were so discordant with the mother’s love and submission, that I called out to him in an angry voice, unless he held his peace on the instant, I would order him to be knocked on the head and thrown overboard. He was mute then, until the child died, very peacefully, an hour afterwards: which was known to all in the boat by the mother’s breaking out into lamentations for the first time since the wreck—for, she had great fortitude and constancy, though she was a little gentle woman. Old Mr. Rarx then became quite ungovernable, tearing what rags he had on him, raging in imprecations, and calling to me that if I had thrown the gold overboard (always the gold with him!) I might have saved the child, “And now,” says he, in a terrible voice, “we shall founder, and all go to the Devil, for our sins will sink us, when we have no innocent child to bear us up!” We so discovered with amazement, that this old wretch had only cared for the life of the pretty little creature dear to all of us, because of the influence he superstitiously hoped she might have in preserving him! Altogether it was too much for the smith or armourer, who was sitting next the old man, to bear. He took him by the throat and rolled him under the thwarts, where he lay still enough for hours afterwards. All that thirteenth night, Miss Coleshaw, lying across my knees as I kept the helm, comforted and supported the poor mother. Her child, covered with a pea-jacket of mine, lay in her lap. It troubled me all night to think that there was no Prayer-Book among us, and that I could remember but very few of the exact words of the burial service. When I stood up at broad day, all knew what was going to be done, and I noticed that my poor fellows made the motion of uncovering their heads, though their heads had been stark bare to the sky and sea for many a weary hour. There was a long heavy swell on, but otherwise it was a fair morning, and there were broad fields of sunlight on the waves in the east. I said no more than this. “I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord. He raised the daughter of Jairus the ruler, and said she was not dead but slept. He raised the widow’s son. He arose himself, and was seen of many. He loved little children, saying Suffer them to come unto me and rebuke them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven. In His name, my friends, and committed to His merciful goodness!” With those words I laid my rough face softly on the placid little forehead, and buried the Golden Lucy in the grave of the Golden Mary. Having had it on my mind to relate the end of this dear little child, I have omitted something from its exact place, which I will supply here. It will come quite as well here as anywhere else. Foreseeing that if the boat lived through the stormy weather, the time must come, and soon come, when we should have absolutely no morsel to eat, I had one momentous point often in my thoughts. Although I had, years before that, fully satisfied myself that the instances in which human beings in the last distress have fed upon each other, are exceedingly few, and have very seldom indeed (if ever) occurred when the people in distress, however dreadful their extremity, have been accustomed to moderate forbearance and restraint—I say, though I had, long before, quite satisfied my mind on this topic, I felt doubtful whether there might not have been in former cases some harm and danger from keeping it out of sight and pretending not to think of it. I felt doubtful whether some. minds, growing weak with fasting and exposure, and having such a terrific idea to dwell upon in secret, might not magnify it until it got to have an awful attraction about it. This was not a new thought of mine, for it had grown out of my reading. However, it came over me stronger than it had ever done before—as it had reason for doing—in the boat, and on the fourth day I decided that I would bring out into the light that unformed fear which must have been more or less darkly in every brain among us. Therefore, as a means of beguiling the time and inspiring hope, I gave them the best summary in my power of Bligh’s voyage of more than three thousand miles, in an open boat, after the Mutiny of the Bounty, and of the wonderful preservation of that boat’s crew. They listened throughout with great interest, and I concluded by telling them, that, in my opinion, the happiest circumstance in the whole narrative was, that Bligh, who was no delicate man either, had solemnly placed it on record therein that he was sure and certain that under no conceivable circumstances whatever, would that emaciated party who had gone through all the pains of famine, have preyed on one another. I cannot describe the visible relief which this spread through the boat, and how the tears stood in every eye. From that time I was as well convinced as Bligh himself that there was no danger, and that this phantom, at any rate, did not haunt us. Now, it was a part of Bligh’s experience that when the people in his boat were most cast down, nothing did them so much good as hearing a story told by one of their number. When I mentioned that, I saw that it struck the general attention as much as it did my own, for I had not thought of it until I came to it in my summary. This was on the day after Mrs. Atherfield first sang to us. I proposed that whenever the weather would permit, we should have a story two hours after dinner (I always issued the allowance I have mentioned, at one o’clock and called it by that name), as well as our song at sunset. The proposal was received with a cheerful satisfaction that warmed my heart within me; and I do not say too much when I say that those two periods in the four-and-twenty hours were expected with positive pleasure, and were really enjoyed, by all hands. Spectres as we soon were in our bodily wasting, our imaginations did not perish like the gross flesh upon our bones. Music and Adventure, two of the great gifts of Providence to mankind, could charm us long after that was lost. The wind was almost always against us after the second day; and for many days together we could not nearly hold our own. We had all varieties of bad weather. We had rain, hail, snow, wind, mist, thunder and lightning. Still the boats lived through the heavy seas, and still we perishing people rose and fell with the great waves. Sixteen nights and fifteen days, twenty nights and nineteen days, twenty-four nights and twenty-three days. So the time went on. Disheartening as I knew that our progress, or want of progress, must be, I never deceived them as to my calculations of it. In the first place, I felt that we were all too near eternity for deceit; in the second place, I knew that if I failed, or died, the man who followed me must have a knowledge of the true state of things to begin upon. When I told them at noon, what I reckoned we had made or lost, they generally received what I said, in a tranquil and resigned manner, and always gratefully towards me. It was not unusual at any time of the day for some one to burst out weeping loudly without any new cause, and, when the burst was over, to calm down a little better than before. I had seen exactly the same thing in a house of mourning. During the whole of this time, old Mr. Rarx had had his fits of calling out to me to throw the gold (always the gold!) overboard, and of heaping violent reproaches upon me for not having saved the child; but, now, the food being all gone, and I having nothing left to serve out but a bit of coffee-berry now and then, he began to be too weak to do this, and consequently fell silent. Mrs. Atherneld and Miss Coleshaw generally lay, each with an arm across one of my knees, and her head upon it. They never complained at all. Up to the time of her child’s death, Mrs. Atherfield had bound up her own beautiful hair every day; and I took particular notice that this was always before she sang her song at night, when every one looked at her. But, she never did it after the loss of her darling; and it would have been now all tangled with dirt and wet, but that Miss Coleshaw was careful of it long after she was herself, and would sometimes smooth it down with her weak thin hands. We were past mustering a story now; but, one day, at about this period, I reverted to the superstition of old Mr. Rarx, concerning the Golden Lucy, and told them that nothing vanished from the eye of God, though much might pass away from the eyes of men. “We were all of us,” says I, “children once; and our baby feet have strolled in green woods ashore; and our baby hands have gathered flowers in gardens, where the birds were singing. The children that we were, are not lost to the great knowledge of our Creator. Those innocent creatures will appear with us before Him, and plead for us. What we were in the best time of our generous youth will arise and go with us too. The purest part of our lives will not desert us at the pass to which all of us here present are gliding. What we were then, will be as much in existence before Him, as what we are now.” They were no less comforted by this consideration, than I was myself; and Miss Coleshaw, drawing my ear nearer to her lips, said, “Captain Ravender, I was on my way to marry a disgraced and broken man, whom I dearly loved when he was honorable and good. Your words seem to have come out of my own poor heart.” She pressed my hand upon it, smiling. Twenty-seven nights and twenty-six days. We were in no want of rain-water, but we had nothing else. And yet, even now, I never turned my eyes upon a waking face but it tried to brighten before mine. O! what a thing it is, in a time of danger, and in the presence of death, the shining of a face upon a face! I have heard it broached that orders should be given in great new ships by electric telegraph. I admire machinery as much as any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be for what it does for us. But, it will never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and true. Never try it for that. It will break down like a straw. I now began to remark certain changes in myself which I did not like. They caused me much disquiet. I often saw the Golden Lucy in the air above the boat. I often saw her I have spoken of before, sitting beside me. I saw the Golden Mary go down as she really had gone down, twenty times in a day. And yet the sea was mostly, to my thinking, not sea neither, but moving country and extraordinary mountainous regions, the like of which have never been beheld. I felt it time to leave my last words regarding John Steadiman, in case any lips should last out to repeat them to any living ears. I said that John had told me (as he had on deck) that he had sung out “Breakers ahead!” the instant they were audible, and had tried to wear ship, but she struck before it could be done. (His cry, I dare say, had made my dream.) I said that the circumstances were altogether without warning and out of any course that could have been guarded against; that the same loss would have happened if I had been in charge; and that John was not to blame, but from first to last had done his duty nobly, like the man he was. I tried to write it down in my pocket-book, but could make no words, though I knew what the words were that I wanted to make. When it had come to that, her hands—though she was dead so long—laid me down gently in the bottom of the boat, and she and the Golden Lucy swung me to sleep.18561225https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Wreck_of_the_Golden_Mary_[1856_Christmas_Number]/1856-12-25-The_Wreck_of_the_Golden_Mary.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Wreck_of_the_Golden_Mary_[1856_Christmas_Number]/1856-12-25-The_Wreck.pdf
191https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/191<em>Tom Tiddler's Ground </em>(1861 Christmas Number)Published in <em>All the Year Round,</em> Vol. VI, Extra Christmas Number, 25 December 1861, pp. 1-48.Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-vi/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-vi/page-573.html</a>.<br /><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,<span>&nbsp;</span></em><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-vi/page-615.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-vi/page-615.html</a><span>.<br /></span><br /><em>Dickens Journals Online,</em><span>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-vi/page-619.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-vi/page-619.html</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1861-12-25">1861-12-25</a><span>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, </span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. A<span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1861-12-25-Tom_Tiddlers_Ground<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'Picking Up Soot and Cinders' (No.1), pp. 1-5.</strong></li> <li>Charles Allston Collins. 'Picking Up Evening Shadows' (No.2), pp. 5-14.</li> <li>Amelia B. Edwards. 'Picking Up Terrible Company' (No.3), pp. 14-21.</li> <li>Wilkie Collins. 'Picking Up Waifs at Sea' (No.4), pp. 21-29.</li> <li>John Harwood. 'Picking Up a Pocket-Book' (No.5), pp. 29-43.</li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'Picking Up Miss Kimmeens' (No.6), pp. 43-47.</strong></li> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'Picking Up the Tinker' (No.7), pp. 47-48.</strong></li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al. Tom Tiddler's Ground (25 December 1861). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1861-12-25-Tom_Tiddlers_Ground">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1861-12-25-Tom_Tiddlers_Ground</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>&quot;And why Tom Tiddler&#039;s ground?&quot; asked the Traveller. &quot;Because he scatters halfpence to Tramps and such-like,&quot; returned the Landlord,&quot;and of course they pick &#039;em up. And this being done on his own land (which it is his own land, you observe, and were his family&#039;s before him), why it is but regarding the halfpence as gold and silver, and turning the ownership of the property a bit round your finger, and there you have the name of the children&#039;s game complete. And it&#039;s appropriate too,&quot; said the Landlord, with his favourite action of stooping a little, to look across the table out of window at vacancy, under the window-blind which was half drawn down. &quot;Leastwise it has been so considered by many gentlemen which have partook of chops and tea in the present humble parlour.&quot; The traveller was partaking of chops and tea in the present humble parlour, and the Landlord&#039;s shot was fired obliquely at him. &quot;And you call him a Hermit?&quot; said the Traveller. &quot;They call him such,&quot; returned the Landlord, evading personal responsibility; &quot;he is in general so considered.&quot; &quot;What is a Hermit?&quot; asked the Traveller. &quot;What is it?&quot; repeated the Landlord, drawing his hand across his chin. &quot;Yes, what is it?&quot; The Landlord stooped again, to get a more comprehensive view of vacancy under the window- blind, and—with an asphyxiated appearance on him as one unaccustomed to definition—made no answer. &quot;I&#039;ll tell you what I suppose it to be,&quot; said the Traveller. &quot;An abominably dirty thing.&quot; &quot;Mr. Mopes is dirty, it cannot be denied,&quot; said the Landlord. &quot;Intolerably conceited.&quot; &quot;Mr. Mopes is vain of the life he leads, some do say,&quot; replied the Landlord, as another concession. &quot;A slothful unsavoury nasty reversal of the laws of human nature,&quot; said the Traveller; &quot;and for the sake of GOD&#039;S working world and its wholesomeness, both moral and physical, I would put the thing on the treadmill (if I had my way) wherever I found it; whether on a pillar, or in a hole; whether on Tom Tiddler&#039;s ground, or the Pope of Rome&#039;s ground, or a Hindoo fakeer&#039;s ground, or any other ground.&quot; &quot;I don&#039;t know about putting Mr. Mopes on the treadmill,&quot; said the Landlord, shaking his head very seriously. &quot;There ain&#039;t a doubt but what he has got landed property.&quot; &quot;How far may it be to this said Tom Tiddler&#039;s ground?&quot; asked the Traveller. &quot;Put it at five mile,&quot; returned the Landlord. &quot;Well! When I have done my breakfast,&quot; said the Traveller, &quot;I&#039;ll go there. I came over here this morning, to find it out and see it.&quot; &quot;Many does,&quot; observed the Landlord. The conversation passed, in the Midsummer weather of no remote year of grace, down among the pleasant dales and trout-streams of a green English county. No matter what county. Enough that you may hunt there, shoot there, fish there, traverse long grass-grown Roman roads there, open ancient barrows there, see many a square mile of richly cultivated land there, and hold Arcadian talk with a bold peasantry, their country&#039;s pride, who will tell you (if you want to know) how pastoral house-keeping is done on nine shillings a week. Mr. Traveller sat at his breakfast in the little sanded parlour of the Peal of Bells village ale-house, with the dew and dust of an early walk upon his shoes—an early walk by road and meadow and coppice, that had sprinkled him bountifully with little blades of grass, and scraps of new hay, and with leaves both young and old, and with other such fragrant tokens of the freshness and wealth of summer. The window through which the landlord had concentrated his gaze upon vacancy, was shaded, because the morning sun was hot and right on the village street. The village street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little dwellings with the largest of window-shutters (to shut up Nothing as carefully as if it were the Mint, or the Bank of England) had called in the Doctor&#039;s house so suddenly, that his brass door-plate and three stories stood among them as conspicuous and different as the Doctor himself in his broadcloth, among the smock-frocks of his patients. The village residences seemed to have gone to law with a similar absence of consideration, for a score of weak little lath- and-plaster cabins clung in confusion about the Attorney&#039;s red-brick house, which, with glaring door-steps and a most terrific scraper, seemed to serve all manner of ejectments upon them. They were as various as labourers—high- shouldered, wry-necked, one-eyed, goggle-eyed, squinting, bow-legged, knock-knee&#039;d, rheumatic, crazy. Some of the small tradesmen&#039;s houses, such as the crockery-shop and the harness-maker&#039;s, had a Cyclops window in the middle of the gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that some forlorn rural Prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment horizontally, when he retired to rest, after the manner of the worm. So bountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country,and so lean and scant the village, that one might have thought the village had sown and planted everything it once possessed, to convert the same into crops. This would account for the bareness of the little shops, the bareness of the few boards and trestles designed for market purposes in a corner of the street, the bareness of the obsolete Inn and Inn Yard, with the ominous inscription &quot;Excise Office,&quot; not yet faded out from the gateway, as indicating the very last thing that poverty could get rid of. This would also account for the determined abandonment of the village by one stray dog, fast lessening in the perspective where the white posts and the pond were, and would explain his conduct on the hypothesis that he was going (through the act of suicide) to convert himself into manure, and become a part proprietor in turnips or mangold-wurzel. Mr. Traveller having finished his breakfast and paid his moderate score, walked out to the threshold of the Peal of Bells, and, thence directed by the pointing finger of his host, betook himself towards the ruined hermitage of Mr. Mopes the hermit. For, Mr. Mopes, by suffering everything about him to go to ruin, and by dressing himself in a blanket and skewer, and by steeping himself in soot and grease and other nastiness, had acquired great renown in all that countryside—far greater renown than he could ever have won for himself, if his career had been that of any ordinary Christian, or decent Hottentot. He had even blanketed and skewered and sooted and greased himself, into the London papers. And it was curious to find, as Mr. Traveller found by stopping for a new direction at this farm-house or at that cottage as he went along, with how much accuracy the morbid Mopes had counted on the weakness of his neighbours to embellish him. A mist of home-brewed marvel and romance surrounded Mopes, in which (as in all fogs) the real proportions of the real object were extravagantly heightened. He had murdered his beautiful beloved in a fit of jealousy and was doing penance; he had made a vow under the influence of grief; he had made a vow under the influence of a fatal accident; he had made a vow under the influence of religion; he had made a vow under the influence of drink; he had made a vow under the influence of disappointment; he had never made any vow, but &quot;had got led into it&quot; by the possession of a mighty and most awful secret; he was enormously rich, he was stupendously charitable, he was profoundly learned, he saw spectres, he knew and could do all kinds of wonders. Some said he went out every night, and was met by terrified wayfarers stalking along dark roads, others said he never went out, some knew his penance to be nearly expired, others had positive information that his seclusion was not a penance at all, and would never expire but with himself. Even, as to the easy facts of how old he was, or how long he had held verminous occupation of his blanket and skewer, no consistent information was to be got, from those who must know if they would. He was represented as being all the ages between five-and-twenty and sixty, and as having been a hermit seven years, twelve, twenty, thirty—though twenty, on the whole, appeared the favourite term. &quot;Well, well!&quot; said Mr. Traveller.&quot; At any rate, let us see what a real live Hermit looks like.&quot; So, Mr. Traveller went on, and on, and on, until he came to Tom Tiddler&#039;s Ground. It was a nook in a rustic by-road, which the genius of Mopes had laid waste as completely, as if he had been born an Emperor and a Conqueror. Its centre object was a dwelling-house, sufficiently substantial, all the window-glass of which had been long ago abolished by the surprising genius of Mopes, and all the windows of which were barred across with rough-split logs of trees nailed over them on the outside. A rick-yard, hip-high in vegetable rankness and ruin, contained outbuildings, from which the thatch had lightly fluttered away, on all the winds of all the seasons of the year, and from which the planks and beams had heavily dropped and rotted. The frosts and damps of winter, and the heats of summer, had warped what wreck remained, so that not a post or a board retained the position it was meant to hold, but everything was twisted from its purpose, like its owner, and degraded and debased. In this homestead of the sluggard, behind the ruined hedge, and sinking away among the ruined grass and the nettles, were the last perishing fragments of certain ricks: which had gradually mildewed and collapsed, until they looked like mounds of rotten honeycomb, or dirty sponge. Tom Tiddler&#039;s ground could even show its ruined water; for, there was a slimy pond into which a tree or two had fallen one—soppy trunk and branches lay across it then—which in its accumulation of stagnant weed, and in its black decomposition, and in all its foulness and filth, was almost comforting, regarded as the only water that could have reflected the shameful place without seeming polluted by that low office. Mr. Traveller looked all around him on Tom Tiddler&#039;s ground, and his glance at last encountered a dusty Tinker lying among the weeds and rank grass, in the shade of the dwelling-house. A rough walking-staff lay on the ground by his side, and his head rested on a small wallet. He met Mr. Traveller&#039;s eye without lifting up his head, merely depressing his chin a little (for he was lying on his back) to get a better view of him. &quot;Good day!&quot; said Mr. Traveller. &quot;Same to you, if you like it,&quot; returned the Tinker. &quot;Don&#039;t you like it? It&#039;s a very fine day.&quot; &quot;I ain&#039;t partickler in weather,&quot; returned the Tinker, with a yawn. Mr. Traveller had walked up to where he lay, and was looking down at him. &quot;This is a curious place,&quot; said Mr. Traveller. &quot;Ay, I suppose so!&quot; returned the Tinker. &quot;Tom Tiddler&#039;s ground, they call this.&quot; &quot;Are you well acquainted with it?&quot; &quot;Never saw it afore to-day,&quot; said the Tinker, with another yawn, &quot;and don&#039;t care if I never see it again. There was a man here just now, told me what it was called. If you want to see Tom himself, you must go in at that gate.&quot; He faintly indicated with his chin, a little mean ruin of a wooden gate at the side of the house. &quot;Have you seen Tom?&quot; &quot;No, and I ain&#039;t partickler to see him. I can see a dirty man anywhere.&quot; &quot;He does not live in the house, then?&quot; said Mr. Traveller, casting his eyes upon the house anew. &quot;The man said,&quot; returned the Tinker, rather irritably,—&quot;him as was here just now,—this what you&#039;re a lying on, mate, is Tom Tiddler&#039;s ground. And if you want to see Tom,&#039; he says, &#039;you must go in at that gate.&#039; The man come out at that gate himself, and he ought to know.&quot; &quot;Certainly,&quot; said Mr. Traveller. &quot;Though, perhaps,&quot; exclaimed the Tinker, so struck by the brightness of his own idea, that it had the electric effect upon him of causing him to lift up his head an inch or so, &quot;perhaps he was a liar! He told some rum&#039;uns—him as was here just now, did—about this place of Tom&#039;s. He says—him as was here just now—&#039;When Tom shut up the house, mate, to go to rack, the beds was left, all made, like as if somebody was a going to sleep in every bed. And if you was to walk through the bedrooms now, you&#039;d see the ragged mouldy bedclothes a heaving and a heaving like seas. And a heaving and a heaving with what?&#039; he says. &#039;Why, with the rats under &#039;em.&#039;&quot; &quot;I wish I had seen that man,&quot; Mr. Traveller remarked. &quot;You&#039;d have been welcome to see him instead of me seeing him,&quot; growled the Tinker; &quot;for he was a long-winded one.&quot; Not without a sense of injury in the remembrance, the Tinker gloomily closed his eyes. Mr. Traveller, deeming the Tinker a short-winded one, from whom no further breath of information was to be derived, betook himself to the gate. Swung upon its rusty hinges, it admitted him into a yard in which there was nothing to be seen but an outhouse attached to the ruined building, with a barred window in it. As there were traces of many recent footsteps under this window, and as it was a low window, and unglazed, Mr. Traveller made bold to peep within the bars. And there to be sure he had a real live Hermit before him, and could judge how the real dead Hermits used to look. He was lying on a bank of soot and cinders, on the floor, in front of a rusty fireplace. There was nothing else in the dark little kitchen, or scullery, or whatever his den had been originally used as, but a table with a litter of old bottles on it. A rat made a clatter among these bottles, jumped down, and ran over the real live Hermit on his way to his hole, or the man in his hole would not have been so easily discernible. Tickled in the face by the rat&#039;s tail, the owner of Tom Tiddler&#039;s ground opened his eyes, saw Mr. Traveller, started up, and sprang to the window. &quot;Humph!&quot; thought Mr. Traveller, retiring a pace or two from the bars. &quot;A compound of Newgate, Bedlam, a Debtors&#039; Prison in the worst time, a chimney-sweep, a mudlark, and the Noble Savage! A nice old family, the Hermit family. Hah!&quot; Mr. Traveller thought this, as he silently confronted the sooty object in the blanket and skewer (in sober truth it wore nothing else), with the matted hair and the staring eyes. Further, Mr. Traveller thought, as the eyes surveyed him with a very obvious curiosity in ascertaining the effect they produced, &quot;Vanity, vanity, vanity! Verily, all is vanity!&quot; &quot;What is your name, sir, and where do you come from?&quot; asked Mr. Mopes the Hermit—with an air of authority, but in the ordinary human speech of one who has been to school. Mr. Traveller answered the inquiries. &quot;Did you come here, sir, to see me?&quot; &quot;I did. I heard of you, and I came to see you.—I know you like to be seen.&quot; Mr. Traveller coolly threw the last words in, as a matter of course, to forestal an affectation of resentment or objection that he saw rising beneath the grease and grime of the face. They had their effect. &quot;So,&quot; said the Hermit, after a momentary silence, unclasping the bars by which he had previously held, and seating himself behind them on the ledge of the window, with his bare legs and feet crouched up, &quot;you know I like to be seen?&quot; Mr. Traveller looked about him for something to sit on, and, observing a billet of wood in a corner, brought it near the window. Deliberately seating himself upon it, he answered: &quot;Just so.&quot; Each looked at the other, and each appeared to take some pains to get the measure of the other. &quot;Then you have come to ask me why I lead this life,&quot; said the Hermit, frowning in a stormy manner. &quot;I never tell that to any human being. I will not be asked that.&quot; &quot;Certainly you will not be asked that by me,&quot; said Mr. Traveller, &quot;for I have not the slightest desire to know.&quot; &quot;You are an uncouth man,&quot; said Mr. Mopes the Hermit. &quot;You are another,&quot; said Mr. Traveller. The Hermit, who was plainly in the habit of overawing his visitors with the novelty of his filth and his blanket and skewer, glared at his present visitor in some discomfiture and surprise: as if he had taken aim at him with a sure gun, and his piece had missed fire. &quot;Why do you come here at all?&quot; he asked, after a pause. &quot;Upon my life,&quot; said Mr. Traveller, &quot;I was made to ask myself that very question only a few minutes ago—by a Tinker too.&quot; As he glanced towards the gate in saying it, the hermit glanced in that direction likewise. &quot;Yes. He is lying on his back in the sunlight outside,&quot; said Mr. Traveller, as if he had been asked concerning the man, &quot;and he won&#039;t come in; for he says—and really very reasonably —&#039;What should I come in for? I can see a dirty man anywhere.&#039;&quot; &quot;You are an insolent person. Go away from my premises. Go!&quot; said the Hermit, in an imperious and angry tone. &quot;Come, come!&quot; returned Mr. Traveller, quite undisturbed. &quot;This is a little too much. You are not going to call yourself clean? Look at your legs. And as to these being your premises:—they are in far too disgraceful a condition to claim any privilege of ownership, or anything else.&quot; The Hermit bounced down from his window-ledge, and cast himself on his bed of soot and cinders. &quot;I am not going,&quot; said Mr. Traveller, glancing in after him: &quot;you won&#039;t get rid of me in that way. You had better come and talk.&quot; &quot;I won&#039;t talk,&quot; said the Hermit, flouncing round to get his back towards the window. &quot;Then I will,&quot; said Mr. Traveller. &quot;Why should you take it ill that I have no curiosity to know why you live this highly absurd and highly indecent life? When I contemplate a man in a state of disease, surely there is no moral obligation on me to be anxious to know how he took it.&quot; After a short silence, the Hermit bounced up again, and came back to the barred window. &quot;What? You are not gone?&quot; he said, affecting to have supposed that he was. &quot;Nor going,&quot; Mr. Traveller replied: &quot;I design to pass this summer day here.&quot; &quot;How dare you come, sir, upon my premises—&quot; the Hermit was returning, when his visitor interrupted him. &quot;Really, you know, you must not talk about your premises. I cannot allow such a place as this to be dignified with the name of premises.&quot; &quot;How dare you,&quot; said the Hermit, shaking his bars, &quot;come in at my gate, to taunt me with being in a diseased state?&quot; &quot;Why, Lord bless my soul,&quot; returned the other, very composedly, &quot;you have not the face to say that you are in a wholesome state? Do allow me again to call your attention to your legs. Scrape yourself anywhere—with anything—and then tell me you are in a wholesome state. The fact is, Mr. Mopes, that you are not only a Nuisance—&quot; &quot;A Nuisance?&quot; repeated the Hermit, fiercely. &quot;What is a place in this obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance? What is a man in your obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance? Then, as you very well know, you cannot do without an audience, and your audience is a Nuisance. You attract all the disreputable vagabonds and prowlers within ten miles round, by exhibiting yourself to them in that objectionable blanket, and by throwing copper money among them, and giving them drink out of those very dirty jars and bottles that I see in there (their stomachs need be strong!); and in short,&quot; said Mr. Traveller, summing up in a quietly and comfortably settled manner, &quot;you are a Nuisance, and this kennel is a Nuisance, and the audience that you cannot possibly dispense with is a Nuisance, and the Nuisance is not merely a local Nuisance, because it is a general Nuisance to know that there can be such a Nuisance left in civilisation so very long after its time.&quot; &quot;Will you go away? I have a gun in here,&quot; said the Hermit. &quot;Pooh!&quot; &quot;I have!&quot; &quot;Now, I put it to you. Did I say you had not? And as to going away, didn&#039;t I say I am not going away? You have made me forget where I was. I now remember that I was remarking on your conduct being a Nuisance. Moreover, it is in the last and lowest degree inconsequent foolishness and weakness.&quot; &quot;Weakness?&quot; echoed the Hermit. &quot;Weakness,&quot; said Mr. Traveller, with his former comfortably settled final air. &quot;I weak, you fool?&quot; cried the Hermit, &quot;I, who have held to my purpose, and my diet, and my only bed there, all these years?&quot; &quot;The more the years, the weaker you,&quot; returned Mr. Traveller. &quot;Though the years are not so many as folks say, and as you willingly take credit for. The crust upon your face is thick and dark, Mr. Mopes, but I can see enough of you through it, to see that you are still a young man.&quot; &quot;Inconsequent foolishness is lunacy, I suppose?&quot; said the Hermit. &quot;I suppose it is very like it,&quot; answered Mr. Traveller. &quot;Do I converse like a lunatic?&quot; &quot;One of us two must have a strong presumption against him of being one, whether or no. Either the clean and decorously clad man, or the dirty and indecorously clad man. I don&#039;t say which.&quot; &quot;Why, you self-sufficient bear,&quot; said the Hermit, &quot;not a day passes but I am justified in my purpose by the conversations I hold here; not a day passes but I am shown, by everything I hear and see here, how right and strong I am in holding my purpose.&quot; Mr. Traveller, lounging easily on his billet of wood, took out a pocket pipe and began to fill it. &quot;Now, that a man,&quot; he said, appealing to the summer sky as he did so, &quot;that a man—even behind bars, in a blanket and skewer—should tell me that he can see, from day to day, any orders or conditions of men, women, or children, who can by any possibility teach him that it is anything but the miserablest drivelling for a human creature to quarrel with his social nature—not to go so far as to say, to renounce his common human decency, for that is an extreme case; or who can teach him that he can in any wise separate himself from his kind and the habits of his kind, without becoming a deteriorated spectacle calculated to give the Devil (and perhaps the monkeys) pleasure; is something wonderful! I repeat,&quot; said Mr. Traveller, beginning to smoke, &quot;the unreasoning hardihood of it, is something wonderful—even in a man with the dirt upon him an inch or two thick—behind bars in a blanket and skewer!&quot; The Hermit looked at him irresolutely, and retired to his soot and cinders and lay down, and got up again and came to the bars, and again looked at him irresolutely, and finally said with sharpness: &quot;I don&#039;t like tobacco.&quot; &quot;I don&#039;t like dirt,&quot; rejoined Mr. Traveller; &quot;tobacco is an excellent disinfectant. We shall both be the better for my pipe. It is my intention to sit here through this summer day, until that blessed summer sun sinks low in the west, and to show you what a poor creature you are, through the lips of every chance wayfarer who may come in at your gate.&quot; &quot;What do you mean?&quot; inquired the Hermit, with a furious air. &quot;I mean that yonder is your gate, and there are you, and here am I; I mean that I know it to be a moral impossibility that any person can stray in at that gate from any point of the compass, with any sort of experience, gained at first hand, or derived from another, that can confute me and justify you.&quot; &quot;You are an arrogant and boastful hero,&quot; said the Hermit. &quot;You think yourself profoundly wise.&quot; &quot;Bah!&quot; returned Mr. Traveller, quietly smoking. &quot;There is little wisdom in knowing that every man must be up and doing, and that all mankind are made dependent on one another.&quot; &quot;You have companions outside,&quot; said the Hermit. &quot;I am not to be imposed upon by your assumed confidence in the people who may enter.&quot; &quot;A depraved distrust,&quot; returned the visitor, compassionately raising his eyebrows, &quot;of course belongs to your state. I can&#039;t help that.&quot; &quot;Do you mean to tell me you have no confederates?&quot; &quot;I mean to tell you nothing but what I have told you. What I have told you, is, that it is a moral impossibility that any son or daughter of Adam can stand on this ground that I put my foot on, or on any ground that mortal treads, and gainsay the healthy tenure on which we hold our existence.&quot; &quot;Which is,&quot; sneered the Hermit, &quot;according to you—&quot; &quot;Which is,&quot; returned the other, &quot;according to Eternal Providence, that we must arise and wash our faces and do our gregarious work and act and re-act on one another, leaving only the idiot and the palsied to sit blinking in the corner. Come!&quot; apostrophising the gate; &quot;Open Sesame! Show his eyes and grieve his heart! I don&#039;t care who comes, for I know what must come of it!&quot; With that, he faced round a little on his billet of wood towards the gate; and Mr. Mopes the Hermit, after two or three ridiculous bounces of indecision at his bed and back again, submitted to what he could not help himself against, and coiled himself on his window-ledge, holding to his bars and looking out rather anxiously. The day was by this time waning, when the gate again opened, and, with the brilliant golden light that streamed from the declining sun and touched the very bars of the sooty creature&#039;s den, there passed in a little child; a little girl with beautiful bright hair. She wore a plain straw hat, had a door-key in her hand, and tripped towards Mr. Traveller as if she were pleased to see him and were going to repose some childish confidence in him, when she caught sight of the figure behind the bars, and started back in terror. &quot;Don&#039;t be alarmed, darling!&quot; said Mr. Traveller, taking her by the hand. &quot;Oh, but I don&#039;t like it!&quot; urged the shrinking child; &quot;it&#039;s dreadful.&quot; &quot;Well! I don&#039;t like it, either,&quot; said Mr. Traveller. &quot;Who has put it there?&quot; asked the little girl. &quot;Does it bite?&quot; &quot;No,—only barks. But can&#039;t you make up your mind to see it, my dear?&quot; For she was covering her eyes. &quot;O no no no!&quot; returned the child. &quot;I cannot bear to look at it!&quot; Mr. Traveller turned his head towards his friend in there, as much as to ask him how he liked that instance of his success, and then took the child out at the still open gate, and stood talking to her for some half an hour in the mellow sunlight. At length he returned, encouraging her as she held his arm with both her hands; and laying his protecting hand upon her head and smoothing her pretty hair, he addressed his friend behind the bars as follows: Miss Pupford&#039;s establishment for six young ladies of tender years, is an establishment of a compact nature, an establishment in miniature, quite a pocket establishment. Miss Pupford, Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant with the Parisian accent, Miss Pupford&#039;s cook, and Miss Pupford&#039;s housemaid, complete what Miss Pupford calls the educational and domestic staff of her Lilliputian College. Miss Pupford is one of the most amiable of her sex; it necessarily follows that she possesses a sweet temper, and would own to the possession of a great deal of sentiment if she considered it quite reconcilable with her duty to parents. Deeming it not in the bond, Miss Pupford keeps it as far out of sight as she can—which (God bless her!) is not very far. Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant with the Parisian accent, may be regarded as in some sort an inspired lady, for she never conversed with a Parisian, and was never out of England—except once in the pleasure-boat, Lively, in the foreign waters that ebb and flow two miles off Margate at high water. Even under those geographically favourable circumstances for the acquisition of the French language in its utmost politeness and purity, Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant did not fully profit by the opportunity; for, the pleasure-boat, Lively, so strongly asserted its title to its name on that occasion, that she was reduced to the condition of lying in the bottom of the boat pickling in brine as if she were being salted down, for the use of the Navy—undergoing at the same time great mental alarm, corporeal distress, and clear-starching derangement. When Miss Pupford and her assistant first foregathered, is not known to men, or pupils. But, it was long ago. A belief would hare established itself among pupils that the two once went to school together, were it not for the difficulty and audacity of imagining Miss Pupford born without mittens, and without a front, and without a bit of gold wire among her front teeth, and without little dabs of powder on her neat little face and nose. Indeed, whenever Miss Pupford gives a little lecture on the mythology of the misguided heathens (always carefully excluding Cupid from recognition), and tells how Minerva sprang, perfectly equipped, from the brain of Jupiter, she is half supposed to hint, &quot;So I myself came into the world, completely up in Pinnock, Mangnall, Tables, and the use of the Globes.&quot; Howbeit, Miss Pupford and Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant are old old friends. And it is thought by pupils that, after pupils are gone to bed, they even call one another by their christian names in the quiet little parlour. For, once upon a time on a thunderous afternoon, when Miss Pupford fainted away without notice, Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant (never heard, before or since, to address her otherwise than as Miss Pupford) ran to her, crying out &quot;My dearest Euphemia!&quot; And Euphemia is Miss Pupford&#039;s christian name on the sampler (date picked out) hanging up in the College-hall, where the two peacocks, terrified to death by some German text that is waddling down hill after them out of a cottage, are scuttling away to hide their profiles in two immense bean-stalks growing out of flower-pots. Also, there is a notion latent among pupils, that Miss Pupford was once in love, and that the beloved object still moves upon this ball. Also, that he is a public character, and a personage of vast consequence. Also, that Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant knows all about it. For, sometimes of an afternoon when Miss Pupford has been reading the paper through her little gold eye-glass (it is necessary to read it on the spot, as the boy calls for it, with ill-conditioned punctuality, in an hour), she has become agitated, and has said to her assistant, &quot;G!&quot; Then Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant has gone to Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford has pointed out, with her eye-glass, G in the paper, and then Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant has read about G, and has shown sympathy. So stimulated has the pupil-mind been in its time to curiosity on the subject of G, that once, under temporary circumstances favourable to the bold sally, one fearless pupil did actually obtain possession of the paper, and range all over it in search of G, who had been discovered therein by Miss Pupford not ten minutes before. But no G could be identified, except one capital offender who had been executed in a state of great hardihood, and it was not to be supposed that Miss Pupford could ever have loved him. Besides, he couldn&#039;t be always being executed. Besides, he got into the paper again, alive, within a month. On the whole, it is suspected by the pupil-mind that G is a short chubby old gentleman, with little black sealing-wax boots up to his knees, whom a sharply observant pupil, Miss Linx, when she once went to Tunbridge Wells with Miss Pupford for the holidays, reported on her return (privately and confidentially) to have seen come capering up to Miss Pupford on the Promenade, and to have detected in the act of squeezing Miss Pupford&#039;s hand, and to have heard pronounce the words, &quot;Cruel Euphemia, ever thine!&quot;—or something like that. Miss Linx hazarded a guess that he might be House of Commons, or Money Market, or Court Circular, or Fashionable Movements; which would account for his getting into the paper so often. But, it was fatally objected by the pupil-mind, that none of those notabilities could possibly be spelt with a G. There are other occasions, closely watched and perfectly comprehended by the pupil-mind, when Miss Pupford imparts with mystery to her assistant that there is special excitement in the morning paper. These occasions are, when Miss Pupford finds an old pupil coming out under the head of Births, or Marriages. Affectionate tears are invariably seen in Miss Pupford&#039;s meek little eyes when this is the case; and the pupil-mind, perceiving that its order has distinguished itself—though the fact is never mentioned by Miss Pupford—becomes elevated, and feels that it likewise is reserved for greatness. Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant with the Parisian accent has a little more bone than Miss Pupford, but is of the same trim orderly diminutive cast, and, from long contemplation, admiration, and imitation of Miss Pupford, has grown like her. Being entirely devoted to Miss Pupford, and having a pretty talent for pencil-drawing, she once made a portrait of that lady: which was so instantly identified and hailed by the pupils, that it was done on stone at five shillings. Surely the softest and milkiest stone that ever was quarried, received that likeness of Miss Pupford! The lines of her placid little nose are so undecided in it that strangers to the work of art are observed to be exceedingly perplexed as to where the nose goes to, and involuntarily feel their own noses in a disconcerted manner. Miss Pupford being represented in a state of dejection at an open window, ruminating over a bowl of gold fish, the pupil-mind has settled that the bowl was presented by G, and that he wreathed the bowl with flowers of soul, and that Miss Pupford is depicted as waiting for him on a memorable occasion when he was behind his time. The approach of the last Midsummer holidays had a particular interest for the pupil mind, by reason of its knowing that Miss Pupford was bidden, on the second day of those holidays, to the nuptials of a former pupil. As it was impossible to conceal the fact—so extensive were the dress-making preparations—Miss Pupford openly announced it. But, she held it due to parents to make the announcement with an air of gentle melancholy, as if marriage were (as indeed it exceptionally has been) rather a calamity. With an air of softened resignation and pity, therefore, Miss Pupford went on with her preparations; and meanwhile no pupil ever went up-stairs, or came down, without peeping in at the door of Miss Pupford&#039;s bedroom (when Miss Pupford wasn&#039;t there), and bringing back some surprising intelligence concerning the bonnet. The extensive preparations being completed on the day before the holidays, an unanimous entreaty was preferred to Miss Pupford by the pupil-mind—finding expression through Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant—that she would deign to appear in all her splendour. Miss Pupford consenting, presented a lovely spectacle. And although, the oldest pupil was barely thirteen, every one of the six became in two minutes perfect in the shape, cut, colour, price, and quality, of every article Miss Pupford wore. Thus delightfully ushered in, the holidays began. Five of the six pupils kissed little Kitty Kimmeens twenty times over (round total, one hundred times, for she was very popular), and so went home. Miss Kitty Kimmeens remained behind, for her relations and friends were all in India, far away. A self-helpful steady little child is Miss Kitty Kimmeens: a dimpled child too, and a loving. So, the great marriage-day came, and Miss Pupford, quite as much fluttered as any bride could be (G! thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens), went away, splendid to behold, in the carriage that was sent for her. But, not Miss Pupford only went away; for Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant went away with her, on a dutiful visit to an aged uncle—though surely the venerable gentleman couldn&#039;t live in the gallery of the church where the marriage was to be, thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens—and yet Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant had let out that she was going there. Where the cook was going, didn&#039;t appear, but she generally conveyed to Miss Kimmeens that she was bound, rather against her will, on a pilgrimage to perform some pious office that rendered new ribbons necessary to her best bonnet, and also sandals to her shoes. &quot;So you see,&quot; said the housemaid, when they were all gone, &quot;there&#039;s nobody left in the house but you and me, Miss Kimmeens.&quot; &quot;Nobody else,&quot; said Miss Kitty Kimmeens, shaking her curls a little sadly. &quot;Nobody!&quot; &quot;And you wouldn&#039;t like your Bella to go too; would you Miss Kimmeens?&quot; said the housemaid. (She being Bella.) &quot; N—no,&quot; answered little Miss Kimmeens. &quot;Your poor Bella is forced to stay with you, whether she likes it or not; ain&#039;t she, Miss Kimmeens?&quot; &quot;Don&#039;t you like it?&quot; inquired Kitty. &quot;Why, you&#039;re such a darling, Miss, that it would be unkind of your Bella to make objections. Yet my brother-in-law has been took unexpected bad by this morning&#039;s post. And your poor Bella is much attached to him, letting alone her favourite sister, Miss Kimmeens.&quot; &quot;Is he very ill?&quot; asked little Kitty. &quot;Your poor Bella has her fears so, Miss Kimmeens,&quot; returned the housemaid, with her apron at her eyes. &quot;It was but his inside, it is true, but it might mount, and the doctor said that if it mounted he wouldn&#039;t answer.&quot; Here the housemaid was so overcome that Kitty administered the only comfort she had ready: which was a kiss. &quot;If it hadn&#039;t been for disappointing Cook, dear Miss Kimmeens,&quot; said the housemaid, &quot;your Bella would have asked her to stay with you. For Cook is sweet company, Miss Kimmeens; much more so than your own poor Bella.&quot; &quot;But you are very nice, Bella.&quot; &quot;Your Bella could wish to be so, Miss Kimmeens,&quot; returned the housemaid, &quot;but she knows full well that it do not lay in her power this day.&quot; With which despondent conviction, the housemaid drew a heavy sigh, and shook her head, and dropped it on one side. &quot;If it had been anyways right to disappoint Cook,&quot; she pursued, in a contemplative and abstracted manner, &quot;it might have been so easy done! I could have got to my brother-in-law&#039;s, and had the best part of the day there, and got back, long before our ladies come home at night, and neither the one nor the other of them need never have known it. Not that Miss Pupford would at all object, but that it might put her out, being tender-hearted. Hows&#039;ever, your own poor Bella, Miss Kimmeens,&quot; said the housemaid, rousing herself, &quot;is forced to stay with you, and you&#039;re a precious love, if not a liberty.&quot; &quot;Bella,&quot; said little Kitty, after a short silence. &quot;Call your own poor Bella, your Bella, dear,&quot; the housemaid besought her. &quot;My Bella, then.&quot; &quot;Bless your considerate heart!&quot; said the housemaid. &quot;If you would not mind leaving me, I should not mind being left. I am not afraid to stay in the house alone. And you need not be uneasy on my account, for I would be very careful to do no harm.&quot; &quot;Oh! As to harm, you more than sweetest, if not a liberty,&quot; exclaimed the housemaid, in a rapture, &quot;your Bella could trust you anywhere, being so steady, and so answerable. The oldest head in this house (me and Cook says), but for its bright hair, is Miss Kimmeens. But no, I will not leave you; for you would think your Bella unkind.&quot; &quot;But if you are my Bella, you must go,&quot; returned the child. &quot;Must I?&quot; said the housemaid, rising, on the whole with alacrity. &quot;What must be, must be, Miss Kimmeens. Your own poor Bella acts according, though unwilling. But go or stay, your own poor Bella loves you, Miss Kimmeens.&quot; It was certainly go, and not stay, for within five minutes Miss Kimmeens&#039;s own poor Bella—so much improved in point of spirits as to have grown almost sanguine on the subject of her brother-in-law—went her way, in apparel that seemed to have been expressly prepared for some festive occasion. Such are the changes of this fleeting world, and so short-sighted are we poor mortals! When the house door closed with a bang and a shake, it seemed to Miss Kimmeens to be a very heavy house door, shutting her up in a wilderness of a house. But, Miss Kimmeens being, as before stated, of a self-reliant and methodical character, presently began to parcel out the long summer-day before her. And first she thought she would go all over the house, to make quite sure that nobody with a great-coat on and a carving-knife in it, had got under one of the beds or into one of the cupboards. Not that she had ever before been troubled by the image of anybody armed with a great-coat and a carving-knife, but that it seemed to have been shaken into existence by the shake and the bang of the great street door, reverberating through the solitary house. So, little Miss Kimmeens looked under the five empty beds of the five departed pupils, and looked under her own bed, and looked under Miss Pupford&#039;s bed, and looked under Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant&#039;s bed. And when she had done this, and was making the tour of the cupboards, the disagreeable thought came into her young head, What a very alarming thing it would be to find somebody with a mask on, like Guy Fawkes, hiding bolt upright in a corner and pretending not to be alive! However, Miss Kimmeens having finished her inspection without making any such uncomfortable discovery, sat down in her tidy little manner to needlework, and began stitching away at a great rate. The silence all about her soon grew very oppressive, and the more so because of the odd inconsistency that the more silent it was, the more noises there were. The noise of her own needle and thread as she stitched, was infinitely louder in her ears than the stitching of all the six pupils, and of Miss Pupford, and of Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant, all stitching away at once on a nighly emulative afternoon. Then, the schoolroom clock conducted itself in a way in which it had never conducted itself before—fell lame, somehow, and yet persisted in running on as hard and as loud as it could: the consequence of which behaviour was, that it staggered among the minutes in a state of the greatest confusion, and knocked them about in all directions without appearing to get on with its regular work. Perhaps this alarmed the stairs; but be that as it might, they began to creak in a most unusual manner, and then the furniture began to crack, and then poor little Miss Kimmeens, not liking the furtive aspect of things in general, began to sing as she stitched. But, it was not her own voice that she heard—it was somebody else making believe to be Kitty, and singing excessively flat, without any heart—so as that would never mend matters, she left off again. By-and-by, the stitching became so palpable a failure that Miss Kitty Kimmeens folded her work neatly, and put it away in its box, and gave it up. Then the question arose about reading. But no; the book that was so delightful when there was somebody she loved for her eyes to fall on when they rose from the page, had not more heart in it than her own singing now. The book went to its shelf as the needlework had gone to its box, and, since something must be done— thought the child, &quot;I&#039;ll go put my room to rights.&quot; She shared her room with her dearest little friend among the other five pupils, and why then should she now conceive a lurking dread of the little friend&#039;s bedstead? But, she did. There was a stealthy air about its innocent white curtains, and there were even dark hints of a dead girl lying under the coverlet. The great want of human company, the great need of a human face, began now to express itself in the facility with which the furniture put on strange exaggerated resemblances to human looks. A chair with a menacing frown was horribly out of temper in a corner; a most vicious chest of drawers snarled at her from between the windows. It was no relief to escape from those monsters to the looking- glass, for the reflexion said, &quot;What? Is that you all alone there? How you stare!&quot; And the background was all a great void stare as well. The day dragged on, dragging Kitty with it very slowly by the hair of her head, until it was time to eat. There were good provisions in the pantry, but their right flavour and relish had evaporated with the five pupils, and Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant, and the cook and housemaid. Where was the use of laying the cloth symmetrically for one small guest, who had gone on ever since the morning growing smaller and smaller, while the empty house had gone on swelling larger and larger? The very Grace came out wrong, for who were &quot;we&quot; who were going to receive and be thankful? So, Miss Kimmeens was not thankful, and found herself taking her dinner in very slovenly style—gobbling it up, in short, rather after the manner of the lower animals, not to particularise the pigs. But, this was by no means the worst of the change wrought out in the naturally loving and cheery little creature as the solitary day wore on. She began to brood and be suspicious. She discovered that she was full of wrongs and injuries. All the people she knew, got tainted by her lonely thoughts and turned bad. It was all very well for Papa, a widower in India, to send her home to be educated, and to pay a handsome round sum every year for her to Miss Pupford, and to write charming letters to his darling little daughter; but what did he care for her being left by herself, when he was (as no doubt he always was) enjoying himself in company from morning till night? Perhaps he only sent her here, after all, to get her out of the way. It looked like it—looked like it to-day, that is, for she had never dreamed of such a thing before. And this old pupil who was being married. It was insupportably conceited and selfish in the old pupil to be married. She was very vain, and very glad to show off; but it was highly probable that she wasn&#039;t pretty; and even if she were pretty (which Miss Kimmeens now totally denied), she had no business to be married; and, even if marriage were conceded, she had no business to ask Miss Pupford to her wedding. As to Miss Pupford, she was too old to go to any wedding. She ought to know that. She had much better attend to her business. She had thought she looked nice in the morning, but she didn&#039;t look nice. She was a stupid old thing. G was another stupid old thing. Miss Pupford&#039;s assistant was another. They were all stupid old things together. More than that: it began to be obvious that this was a plot. They had said to one another, &quot;Never mind Kitty; you get off, and I&#039;ll get off; and we&#039;ll leave Kitty to look after herself. Who cares for her?&quot; To be sure they were right in that question; for who did care for her, a poor little lonely thing against whom they all planned and plotted? Nobody, nobody! Here Kitty sobbed. At all other times she was the pet of the whole house, and loved her five companions in return with a child&#039;s tenderest and most ingenuous attachment; but now, the five companions put on ugly colours, and appeared for the first time under a sullen cloud. There they were, all at their homes that day, being made much of, being taken out, being spoilt and made disagreeable, and caring nothing for her! It was like their artful selfishness always to tell her when they came back, under pretence of confidence and friendship, all those details about where they had been, and what they had done and seen, and how often they had said &quot;O! If we had only darling little Kitty here!&quot; Here indeed! I dare say! When they came back after the holidays, they were used to being received by Kitty, and to saying that coming to Kitty was like coming to another home. Very well then, why did they go away? If they meant it, why did they go away? Let them answer that. But they didn&#039;t mean it, and couldn&#039;t answer that, and they didn&#039;t tell the truth, and people who didn&#039;t tell the truth were hateful. When they came back next time, they should be received in a new manner; they should be avoided and shunned. And there, the while she sat all alone revolving how ill she was used, and how much better she was than the people who were not alone, the wedding breakfast was going on: no question of it! With a nasty great bride-cake, and with those ridiculous orange-flowers, and with that conceited bride, and that hideous bridegroom, and those heartless bridesmaids, and Miss Pupford stuck up at the table! They thought they were enjoying themselves, but it would come home to them one day to have thought so. They would all be dead in a few years, let them enjoy themselves ever so much. It was a religious comfort to know that. It was such a comfort to know it, that little Miss Kitty Kimmeens suddenly sprang from the chair in which she had been musing in a corner, and cried out, &quot;O those envious thoughts are not mine, this wicked creature isn&#039;t me! Help me somebody! I go wrong, alone by my weak self. Help me anybody!&quot; &quot;—Miss Kimmeens is not a professed philosopher, sir,&quot; said Mr. Traveller, presenting her at the barred window, and smoothing her shining hair, &quot;but I apprehend there was some tincture of philosophy in her words, and in the prompt action with which she followed them. That action was, to emerge from her unnatural solitude, and look abroad for wholesome sympathy, to bestow and to receive. Her footsteps strayed to this gate, bringing her here by chance, as an apposite contrast to you. The child came out, sir. If you have the wisdom to learn from a child (but I doubt it, for that requires more wisdom than one in your condition would seem to possess), you cannot do better than imitate the child, and come out too—from that very demoralising hutch of yours.&quot; It was now sunset. The Hermit had betaken himself to his bed of cinders half an hour ago, and lying on it in his blanket and skewer with his back to the window, took not the smallest heed of the appeal addressed to him. All that had been said for the last two hours, had been said to a tinkling accompaniment performed by the Tinker, who had got to work upon some villager&#039;s pot or kettle, and was working briskly outside. This music still continuing, seemed to put it into Mr. Traveller&#039;s mind to have another word or two with the Tinker. So, holding Miss Kimmeens (with whom he was now on the most friendly terms) by the hand, he went out at the gate to where the Tinker was seated at his work on the patch of grass on the opposite side of the road, with his wallet of tools open before him, and his little fire smoking. &quot;I am glad to see you employed,&quot; said Mr. Traveller. &quot;I am glad to be employed,&quot; returned the Tinker, looking up as he put the finishing touches to his job. &quot;But why are you glad?&quot; &quot;I thought you were a lazy fellow when I saw you this morning.&quot; &quot;I was only disgusted,&quot; said the Tinker. &quot;Do you mean with the fine weather?&quot; &quot;With the fine weather?&quot; repeated the Tinker, staring. &quot;You told me you were not particular as to weather, and I thought—&quot; &quot;Ha, ha! How should such as me get on, if we was partickler as to weather? We must take it as it comes, and make the best of it. There&#039;s something good in all weathers. If it don&#039;t happen to be good for my work to-day, it&#039;s good for some other man&#039;s to-day, and will come round to me to-morrow. We must all live.&quot; &quot;Pray shake hands!&quot; said Mr. Traveller. &quot;Take care, sir,&quot; was the Tinker&#039;s caution, as he reached up his hand in surprise; &quot;the black comes off.&quot; &quot;I am glad of it,&quot; said Mr. Traveller. &quot;I have been for several hours among other black that does not come off.&quot; &quot;You are speaking of Tom in there?&quot; &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot;Well now,&quot; said the Tinker, blowing the dust off his job: which was finished. &quot;Ain&#039;t it enough to disgust a pig, if he could give his mind to it?&quot; &quot;If he could give his mind to it,&quot; returned the other, smiling, &quot;the probability is that he wouldn&#039;t be a pig.&quot; &quot;There you clench the nail,&quot; returned the Tinker. &quot;Then what&#039;s to be said for Tom?&quot; &quot;Truly, very little.&quot; &quot;Truly nothing you mean, sir,&quot; said the Tinker, as he put away his tools. &quot;A better answer, and (I freely acknowledge) my meaning. I infer that he was the cause of your disgust?&quot; &quot;Why, look&#039;ee here, sir,&quot; said the Tinker, rising to his feet, and wiping his face on the corner of his black apron energetically; &quot;I leave you to judge!—I ask you!—Last night I has a job that needs to be done in the night, and I works all night. Well, there&#039;s nothing in that. But this morning I comes along this road here, looking for a sunny and soft spot to sleep in, and I sees this desolation and ruination. I&#039;ve lived myself in desolation and ruination; I knows many a fellow-creetur that&#039;s forced to live, life long, in desolation and ruination; and I sits me down and takes pity on it, as I casts my eyes about. Then comes up the long-winded one as I told you of, from that gate, and spins himself out like a silkworm concerning the Donkey (if my Donkey at home will excuse me) as has made it all—made it of his own choice! And tells me, if you please, of his likewise choosing to go ragged and naked, and grimy—maskerading, mountebanking, in what is the real hard lot of thousands and thousands! Why, then I say it&#039;s a unbearable and nonsensical piece of inconsistency, and I&#039;m disgusted. I&#039;m ashamed and disgusted!&quot; &quot;I wish you would come and look at him,&quot; said Mr. Traveller, clapping the Tinker on the shoulder. &quot;Not I, sir,&quot; he rejoined. &quot;I ain&#039;t a going to flatter him up, by looking at him!&quot; &quot;But he is asleep.&quot; &quot;Are you sure he is asleep?&quot; asked the Tinker, with an unwilling air, as he shouldered his wallet. &quot;Sure.&quot; &quot;Then I&#039;ll look at him for a quarter of a minute,&quot; said the Tinker, &quot;since you so much wish it; but not a moment longer.&quot; They all three went back across the road; and, through the barred window, by the dying glow of the sunset coming in at the gate—which the child held open for its admission—he could be pretty clearly discerned lying on his bed. &quot;You see him?&quot; asked Mr. Traveller. &quot;Yes,&quot; returned the Tinker, &quot;and he&#039;s worse than I thought him.&quot; Mr. Traveller then whispered in few words what he had done since morning; and asked the Tinker what he thought of that? &quot;I think,&quot; returned the Tinker, as he turned from the window, &quot;that you&#039;ve wasted a day on him.&quot; &quot;I think so too; though not, I hope, upon myself. Do you happen to be going anywhere near the Peal of Bells?&quot; &quot;That&#039;s my direct way, sir,&quot; said the Tinker. &quot;I invite you to supper there. And as I learn from this young lady that she goes some three-quarters of a mile in the same direction, we will drop her on the road, and we will spare time to keep her company at her garden gate until her own Bella comes home.&quot; So, Mr. Traveller, and the child, and the Tinker, went along very amicably in the sweet-scented evening; and the moral with which the Tinker dismissed the subject was, that he said in his trade that metal that rotted for want of use, had better be left to rot, and couldn&#039;t rot too soon, considering how much true metal rotted from over-use and hard service.18611225https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Tom_Tiddler_s_Ground_[1861_Christmas_Number]/1861-12-25-Tom_Tiddlers_Ground.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Tom_Tiddler_s_Ground_[1861_Christmas_Number]/1861-12-25-Picking_up_Soot_and_Cinders.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Tom_Tiddler_s_Ground_[1861_Christmas_Number]/1861-12-25-Picking_up_Miss_Kimmeens.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/Tom_Tiddler_s_Ground_[1861_Christmas_Number]/1861-12-25-Picking_up_the_Tinker.pdf
98https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/98After a Reading at Steinway HallSpeech given after a reading of <em>David Copperfield</em> and 'Mr. Bob Sawyer’s Party' (31 December 1867).Dickens, Charles'Mr. Dickens.' <em>New York Tribune</em> (1 January 1868): p. 4.; <em>Chronicling America</em>, <span><a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83030214/1868-01-01/ed-1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83030214/1868-01-01/ed-1/</a>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1867-12-31">1867-12-31</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1867-12-31_Speech_After_a_Reading_at_Steinway_Hall<span>Dickens, Charles. 'After a Reading at Steinway Hall' (31 December 1867).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1867-12-31_Speech_After_a_Reading_at_Steinway_Hall">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1867-12-31_Speech_After_a_Reading_at_Steinway_Hall</a></span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1859-10-22_Speech_Reading_in_Peterborough"></a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Steinway+Hall">Steinway Hall</a><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1867-12-31_Speech_After_a_Reading_at_Steinway_Hall.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">After a Reading at Steinway Hall (31 December 1867).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=New+York+Tribune">New York Tribune</a>Ladies and gentlemen: I wish you, from my heart of hearts, a happy, happy New Year.18671231<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=New+York">New York</a>https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/6/After_a_Reading_at_Steinway_Hall/1867-12-31_Speech_After_a_Reading_at_Steinway_Hall.pdf
248https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/248After Reading in SheffieldAfter a reading of <em>A Christmas</em> <em>Carol</em> in Sheffield (22 December 1855)Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1855-12-22">1855-12-22</a>1855-12-22_Speech_After-Reading-in-Sheffield<span>Dickens, Charles. 'After Reading in Sheffield' </span><span>(22 December 1855). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1855-12-22_Speech_After-Reading-in-Sheffield">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1855-12-22_Speech_After-Reading-in-Sheffield</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Mechanics%27+Hall">Mechanics&#039; Hall</a>Mr. Mayor, I beg to assure you, and those gentlemen who are associated with you in this kind gift, that I accept with heartfelt delight and cordial gratitude such beautiful specimens of the work of your famous town. The kind expressions with which you have accompanied this presentation, and the response which they have received from the assembly, will never be obliterated from my memory. You have heard my voice so much tonight that out of pure forbearance I will not say more than to assure you that these things shall be heirlooms in my family. They will be prized by those who love me as testifying not only to the work of Sheffield hands, but to the warmth and generosity of Sheffield hearts. Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, that to the earnestness of my aim and desire to do right by my readers, and to leave our imaginative and popular literature more closely associated than I found it at once with the private homes and public rights of the English people, I shall ever be faithful – to my death – in the principles which have won your approval. Allow me to take a reluctant leave, wishing you, one and all, many many merry Christmases, and many, many happy new years.18551222<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Sheffield">Sheffield</a>
247https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/247Artists&#039; Benevolent Fund Anniversary FestivalShort response to a toast at the Artists&#039; Benevolent Fund Anniversary Festival (12 May 1838).Dickens, CharlesThe Examiner<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1838-05-12">1838-05-12</a>1838-05-12_Speech_Artists-Benevolent-Fund-Anniversary-Festival<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Artists' Benevolent Fund Anniversary Festival' </span><span>(12 May 1838). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1838-05-12_Speech_Artists-Benevolent-Fund-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1838-05-12_Speech_Artists-Benevolent-Fund-Anniversary-Festival</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Freemasons%27+Tavern">Freemasons&#039; Tavern</a><p>During the course of the evening, after the usual proceedings, one of the toasts proposed was ‘The health of the Royal Academicians’, which was acknowledged by their president, Sir Martin Archer Shee. ‘A Similar compliment to the Stewards was acknowledged by Mr. Dickens, whose presence we may add, gave no slight additional <em>éclat</em> to the affair, and whose name was received as a donor to the fund with such a burst of enthusiasm, again and again renewed, as we have never heard equalled in a meeting of this sort.’</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Examiner%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>The Examiner</em></a>18380512<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
238https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/238At the Annual Dinner of the Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the ChestToast at the Annual Dinner of the Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest (6 May 1843).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1843-05-06">1843-05-06</a>1843-05-06_Speech_Hospital-for-Consumption<span>Dickens, Charles. 'At the Annual Dinner of the Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest' </span><span>(6 May 1843). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1843-05-06_Speech_Hospital-for-Consumption">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1843-05-06_Speech_Hospital-for-Consumption</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a><p>The institution, he said, although at this time but a very young plant almost in the bud, had struck a deep root and taken a strong hold in the bosoms of tens of thousands of our fellow creatures. Little more than six months, according to the report just read, had passed since the hospital was open for the reception of patients, and within that short time no fewer than sixty or seventy patients had occupied its beds, while the number of out-patients – many whom they had been delighted to learn had, by the skill and timely aid they had received, been enabled to resume their accustomed occupations – amounted to no fewer than 750.</p> <p>If this charity had not existed, the doors of no sick house within London’s wide bounds would have been open to these poor persons. Before the hospital was founded they would have suffered, lingered, pined, and died in their poor homes, without a hand stretched out to help them in their slow decay. Remembering that the classes of suffering which the charity purposed to alleviate were of all others peculiarly the growth and produce of the country; that they were often the inheritance of the youngest, fairest, best amongst us, that they deprived fair England of those whom it could least afford to lose, struck down the objects of our dearest hopes when in their youthful prime, and when it was hardest to lose them – remembering these things who could doubt that such a charity must be munificently endowed? He now called upon them to drink ‘Prosperity’ to the institution, not as an unmeaning toast, but as a pledge that nothing on their parts should be wanting to aid and urge it onward in its prosperous course.</p>18430506<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
97https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/97At the School Ship, BostonSpeech at the School Ship, Boston (1 December 1867).Dickens, CharlesPayne, Edward F. <em>Dickens Days in Boston</em>. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1927. p. 185.; <em>Alexandria Gazette</em> (28 August 1868).<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1867-12-01">1867-12-01</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1867-12-01_Speech_At_the_School_Ship<span>Dickens, Charles. 'At the School Ship, Boston' (1 December 1867). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1867-12-01_Speech_At_the_School_Ship">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1867-12-01_Speech_At_the_School_Ship</a>.<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1867-12-01_Speech_At_the_School_Ship.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">At the School Ship, Boston (1 December 1867).</a>‘He had not thought that he could speak, but the sight of the boys moved him to address them. His remarks were inspiring and he concluded with these words:’<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book">Book</a>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Dickens+Days+in+Boston">Dickens Days in Boston</a>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Alexandria+Gazette">Alexandria Gazette</a>Boys, if you have ever cause to remember me, think of me as a visitor who had sincere interest in your welfare and who told you above all to tell the truth as being the best way and the only way to earn God’s blessing.; Boys, do all the good you can, and don&#039;t make any fuss about it.18671201<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Boston">Boston</a>https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/6/At_the_School_Ship_Boston/1867-12-01_Speech_At_the_School_Ship.pdf
234https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/234At the Waterloo Rooms, EdinburghSpeech given at a banquet in his honour in Edinburgh (25 June 1841).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1851-06-25">1851-06-25</a>1851-06-25_Speech_Waterloo_RoomsDickens, Charles. 'Shakespeare Club Dinner' (25 June 1841). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-06-25_Speech_Waterloo_Rooms">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-06-25_Speech_Waterloo_Rooms</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Waterloo+Rooms">Waterloo Rooms</a>If I felt your warm and generous welcome less, I should be better able to thank you. If I could have listened, as you have listened, to the glowing language of your distinguished chairman, and if I could have heard, as you heard, the “thoughts that breathe and words that burn”, which he has uttered, it would have gone hard but I should have caught some portion of his enthusiasm, and kindled at his example. But every word which fell from his lips, and every demonstration of sympathy and approbation with which you received his eloquent expressions, renders me unable to respond to his kindness, and leaves me at last all heart and no lips. Yearning to respond as I would do to your cordial greeting – possessing, Heaven knows, the will, and desiring only to find the way. The way to your good opinion, favour, and support, has been to me very pleasant – a path strewn with flowers and cheered with sunshine. I feel as if I stood amongst old friends, whom I had intimately known and highly valued. I feel as if the deaths of the fictitious creatures, in which you have been kind enough to express an interest, had endeared us to each other as real afflictions deepen friendships in actual life; I feel as if they had been real persons, whose fortunes we had pursued together in inseparable connexion, and that I had never known them apart from you. It is a difficult thing for a man to speak of himself or of his works. But perhaps on this occasion I may, without impropriety, venture to say a word on the spirit in which mine were conceived. I felt an earnest and humble desire, and shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness. I felt that the world was not utterly to be despised; that it was worthy of living in for many reasons. I was anxious to find, as the Professor has said, if I could, in evil things, that soul of goodness which the Creator has put in them. I was anxious to show that virtue may be found in the by-ways of the world, that it is not incompatible with poverty and even with rags, and to keep steadily through life the motto, expressed in the burning words of your Northern poet The rank is but the guinea stamp, The Man’s the gowd for a’ that. And in following this track, where could I have better assurance that I was right, or where could I have stronger assurance to cheer me on than in your kindness on this, to me, memorable night? I am anxious and glad to have an opportunity of saying a word in reference to one incident in which I am happy to know you were interested and still more happy to know, though it may sound paradoxical, that you were disappointed: I mean the death of the little heroine. When I first conceived the idea of conducting that simple story to its termination, I determined rigidly to adhere to it, and never to forsake the end I had in view. Not untried in the school of affliction, in the death of those we love, I thought what a good thing it would be if in my little work of pleasant amusement I could substitute a garland of fresh flowers for the sculptured horrors which disgrace the tomb. If I have put into my book anything which can fill the young mind with better thoughts of death, or soften the grief of older hearts; if I have written one word which can afford pleasure or consolation to old or young in time of trial, I shall consider it as something achieved – something which I shall be glad to look back upon in after life. Therefore I kept to my purpose, notwithstanding that towards the conclusion of the story, I daily received letters of remonstrance, especially from the ladies. God bless them for their tender mercies! The Professor was quite right when he said that I had not reached to an adequate delineation of their virtues; and I fear that I must go on blotting their characters in endeavouring to reach the ideal in my mind. These letters were, however, combined with others from the sterner sex, and some of them were not altogether free from personal invective. But notwithstanding, I kept to my purpose, and I am happy to know that many of those who at first condemned me are now foremost in their approbation. If I have made a mistake in detaining you with this little incident, I do not regret having done so; for your kindness has given me such a confidence in you, that the fault is yours and not mine. I come once more to thank you, and here I am in a difficulty again. The distinction you have conferred upon me is one which I never hoped for, and of which I never dared to dream. That it is one which I shall never forget, and that while I live I shall be proud of its remembrance, you must well know. I believe I shall never hear the name of this capital of Scotland without a thrill of gratitude and pleasure. I shall love while I have life her people, her hills, and her houses, and even the very stones of her streets. And if, in the future works which may lie before me, you should discern – God grant you may – a brighter spirit and a clearer wit, I pray you to refer it back to this night, and point to that as a Scottish passage for evermore. I thank you again and again, with the energy of a thousand thanks in each one, and I drink to you with a heart as full as my glass, and far less easily emptied, I do assure you. I have the honour to be entrusted with a toast, the very mention of which will recommend itself to you I know, as one possessing no ordinary claims to your sympathy and approbation, and the proposing of which is as congenial to my wishes and feelings as its acceptance must be to yours. It is the health of our Chairman, and coupled with his name I have to propose the ‘Literature of Scotland’: a literature which he has done much to render famous through the world, and of which he has been for many years – as I hope and believe he will be for many more – a most brilliant and distinguished ornament. Who can revert to the literature of the land of Scott and of Burns without having directly in his mind, as inseparable from the subject and foremost in the picture, that old man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred crutch, Christopher North? I am glad to remember the time when I believed him to be a real, actual, veritable old gentleman, that might be seen any day hobbling along the High Street with the most brilliant eye – but that is no fiction – and the greyest hair in all the world, who wrote not because he cared to write, not because he cared for the wonder and admiration of his fellow-men, but who wrote because he could not help it, because there was always springing up in his mind a clear and sparkling stream of poetry which must have vent, and like the glittering fountain in the fairy tale, draw what you might, was ever at the full, and never languished even by a single drop or bubble. I had so figured him in my mind, and when I saw the Professor two days ago, striding along the Parliament House, I was disposed to take it as a personal offence – I was vexed to see him look so hearty, I drooped to see twenty Christophers in one. I began to think that Scottish life was all ‘light’ and no ‘shadows’, and I began to doubt that beautiful book to which I have turned again and again, always to find new beauties and fresh sources of interest. It had been the happy lot of Scotland that her great writers have loved to exhibit her in various forms, whether in scenes of solitary grandeur or her simple village ways. The mighty genius who lately departed from you was equally at home in the wild grandeur of Highland scenery or the burning sands of Syria, and in the low haunts of London life; while there is not a shepherd or peasant who has not his type immortalized in the verse of him whose hand was on the plough while his heart was with the muse. There is not a glen of a lonely haunt in the Highlands which has not been visited by Christopher North in his shooting jacket, with a heart as free and as wild as the winds that swept over him. His voice has been heard from the lonely heaths and the snow drifts of the mountains, in the highways of Edinburgh, and in the caves of the Covenanters. By his genius every foot of ground in Scotland has been pictured to dwellers afar off as a fairy land. It is difficult to follow the Professor through all the scenes which he has depicted with such exquisite beauty, from the varied stores of his rich and teeming fancy; so that the epitaph of Goldsmith may be applied to him, that there was no subject but he touched, and nothing which he touched that he did not adorn. But the literature of Scotland comprises other names which are familiar to you: poets, historians, critics, all of the foremost rank. The learned Lord who I am proud to call my friend, to whom, by his fine taste and just appreciation of the beauties of an author, literature owes so much, and to the generosity of whose nature those who are opposed to him have borne high testimony; the author of Matthew Wold and Adam Blair, who has lately depicted with vivid colouring the last days of the mighty genius who departed on the banks of the river he loved so well; the gentleman who is present amongst us, and who under the signature of ‘Delta’ has given the world assurance of a poet, who has raised in us all admiration which we would fain be at liberty to increase still further by meeting him oftener; these, and other great names, are all included in the toast, which we drink to do honour, not to them, but to ourselves. I am less fortunate than the two gentlemen who have preceded me in their toasts, for I have to mention a name known to all present, but which I cannot utter at this time without deep sorrow – a name in which Scotland had high and endearing pride, which England delighted to honour, and which was cherished in the breast of every reflecting man throughout the whole civilized world. From among the gifted spirits of our times a gentle, honest, generous and true one has passed away, as it were but yesterday. The life of one devoted to all that was true and beautiful, and elevating, in art and nature, hath come to an end. I will give you the memory of Wilkie. It is not as one whom many of us knew and loved; it is not as one whose simple nature his high fame and fortune never spoiled or changed; it is not as one who acted up to what he taught, and who made the domestic virtues and duties his daily practice, that I think of him tonight. I think of him as one – and you should do so too – who has left behind him unwonted fire, who has left an undying and imperishable name, who made the cottage hearth his grave theme, and who surrounded the lives, and cares, and daily toils, and occupations of the poor, with dignity and beauty: who indeed found ‘books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything’, and who has left behind in all his works the same breathing of health, as of the air wafted from the heather of his native land. However desirous one may be on an occasion like the present to separate his memory from these mournful associations which gather around it, it is impossible, they are peculiarly inseparable from him: the painter’s study with the empty easel, the brush and palette which he was wont to use, now lie idly by, his unfinished pictures turn their faces to the wall, and that bereaved and affectionate mourner whom he loved in his days to honour, will look upon him no more. He is gone, and has left behind him, particularly to his countrymen and all who knew him, a name and fame as pure and unsullied as the bright sky which shines over the painter’s grave. He has filled our minds and memories with what is mournful, yet as soothing as the roll of the blue waters over his honoured head. Mindful of his only sister, I cannot help expressing the hope that the time will shortly come when she, like us, will feel a solemn pleasure in speaking of his goodness and greatness, and when she will have the grateful recollection that he died in the fulness of his powers, before age or sickness had dimmed his sight, or had bowed his head.18510625<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Edinburgh">Edinburgh</a>
240https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/240Banquet at HartfordSpeech at a banquet in his honour in Hartford, Connecticut (7 February 1842).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1842-02-07">1842-02-07</a>1842-02-07_Speech_Banquet-at-Hartford<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at Hartford' </span><span>(7 February 1842). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1842-02-07_Speech_1842-02-07_Speech_Banquet-at-Hartford">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1842-02-07_Speech_1842-02-07_Speech_Banquet-at-Hartford</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=City+Hotel">City Hotel</a>Gentlemen, to say that I thank you for the earnest manner in which you have drunk the toast just now so eloquently proposed to you; to say that I give you back your kind wishes and good feelings with more than compound interest, and that I feel how dumb and powerless the best acknowledgements would be beside such genial hospitality as yours–is nothing. To say that in this winter season, flowers have sprung up in every footstep’s length of the path which has brought me here, that no country ever smiled more pleasantly than yours has smiled on me, and that I have rarely looked upon a brighter summer prospect than that which now lies before me now – is nothing. But it is something to be no stranger in a strange place; to feel, sitting at a board for the first time, the ease and affection of an old guest, to be at once on such intimate terms with the family as to have a homely, genuine interest in its every member; it is, I say, something to be in this novel and happy frame of mind. And as it is of your creation, and owes its being to you, I have no reluctance in urging it as a reason why, in addressing you, I should not so much consult the form and fashion of my speech, as I should employ the universal language of the heart which you, and such as you, best teach and best can understand. Gentlemen, in that universal language–common to you in America, and to us in England, as that younger mother tongue which, by means of, and through the happy union of our two great countries, shall be spoken ages hence, by land and sea, over the wide surface of the glove–I thank you. I had occasion, gentlemen, to say the other night in Boston, as I have more than once had occasion to remark before, that it is not easy for an author to speak of his own books. If the task be a difficult one at any time, its difficult certainly is not diminished when a frequent occurrence to the same theme has left one nothing new to say. Still I feel that, in a company like this, and especially after what has been said by the President, that I ought not to pass over those labours of love which, if they have no other merit, have been the happy means of bringing us together. It has been observed that you cannot judge of an author’s personal character from his writings. It may be that you cannot–I think it very likely, for many reasons, that you cannot–but, at least, a reader will rise from the perusal of a book with some defined and tangible idea of the writer’s moral creed and broad purposes, if he has any at all; and it is probably enough that he may like to have this idea confirmed from the author’s lips, or dissipated by his explanation. Gentlemen, my moral creed–which is a very wide and comprehensive one, and includes all sects and parties–is very easily summed up. I have faith, and I wish to diffuse faith in the existence–yes, of beautiful things, even in those conditions of society which are so degenerate, degraded, and forlorn that, at first sight, it would seem as though they could not be described but by a strange and terrible reversal of the words of Scripture – God said, Let there be light, and there was none. I take it that we are born and that we hold our sympathies, hopes, and energies in trust for the many, and not for the few. That we cannot hold in too strong a light of disgust and contempt, before the view of others, all meanness, falsehood, cruelty, and oppression, of every grade and kind. Above all, that nothing is high, because it is in a high place; and that nothing is low, because it is in a low one. [Loud applause.] This is a lesson taught us in the great book of nature. This is the lesson which may be read, alike in the bright track of the stars, and in the dusty course of the poorest thing that drags its tiny length upon the ground. This is the lesson every uppermost in the thoughts of that inspired man, who tells us that there are &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Tongues in tress, books in the running brooks &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Sermons in stones, and good in everything. Gentlemen, keeping these objects steadily before me, I am at no loss to refer your favour and your generous hospitality back to the right source. While I know, on the one hand, that if, instead of being what it is, this were a land of tyranny and wrong, I should care very little for your smiles or frowns, so I am sure upon the other, that if, instead of being what I am, I were the greatest genius that every trod the earth, and had exerted myself for the oppression and degradation of mankind, you would despise and reject me. I hope you will, whenever, through such means, I give you the opportunity. Trust me that whenever you give me the like occasion, I will return the compliment with interest. Gentlemen, as I have no secrets from you, in the spirit of confidence you have engendered between us, and as I have made a kind of compact with myself that I never will, while I remain in America, omit an opportunity of referring to a topic in which I and all others of my class on both sides of the water are equally interested–equally interested, there is no difference between us–I would beg leave to whisper in your ear two words, International Copyright. I use them in no sordid sense, believe me, and those that know me best, best know that. For myself, I would rather that my children coming after me, trudged in the mud, and knew by the general feeling of society that their father was beloved, and had been of some use, that I would have them ride in their carriages, and know by their banker’s books that he was rich. But I do not see, I confess, why one should be obliged to make the choice, or why fame, besides playing that delightful reveille for which she is so justly celebrated, should not blow out of her trumpet a few notes of a different kind from those with which she has hitherto contented herself. It was well observed the other night by a beautiful speaker, whose words went to the heart of every man who heard him, that if there had existed any law in this respect, Scott might not have sunk beneath the mighty pressure on his brain, but might have lived to add new creatures of his fancy to the crowd which swarm about you in your summer walks and gather round your winter evening hearths. As I listened to his words there came back fresh upon me, that touching scene in the great man’s life, when he lay upon his couch surrounded by his family and listened, for the last time, to the rippling of the river he had so well loved, over its stony bed. I pictured him to myself, faint, wan, dying, crushed both in his mind and body by his honourable struggle, and hovering round him the ghosts of his own imagination–Waverley, Ravenswood, Jeannie Deans, Rob Roy, Caleb Balderstone, Dominie Sampson–all the familiar throng – with cavaliers, and Puritans, and Highland chiefs innumerable overflowing the chamber, and fading away in the dim distance beyond. I pictured them, fresh from traversing the world, and hanging down their heads in shame and sorrow that, from all those lands into which they had carried gladness, instruction, and delight for millions, they had brought him now one friendly hand to help to raise him from that sad, sad bed. No, nor brought him from that land in which his own language was spoken, and in every house and hut of which his own books were read in his own tongue, one grateful dollar-piece to buy a garland for his grave. Oh! if every man who goes from here, as many do, to look upon that tomb in Dryburgh Abbey, would but remember this, and bring the recollection home! Gentlemen I thank you again, and once again, and many times to that. You have given me a new reason for remembering this day, which is already one of the mark of my calendar, it being my birthday; and you have given those who are nearest and dearest to me a new reason for recollection it with pride and interest. Heaven knows that, although I should grow ever so grey, I shall need nothing to remind me of this epoch in my life. But I am glad to think that from this time you are inseparably connected with every recurrence of this day; and, that on its periodical return, I shall always, in imagination, have the unfading pleasure of entertaining you as my guests in return for the gratification you have afforded me tonight.18420207<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Hartford%2C+Connecticut">Hartford, Connecticut</a>
241https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/241Banquet in his Honour, New YorkSpeech at a banquet in his honour in New York (18 February 1842).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1842-02-18">1842-02-18</a>1842-02-18_Speech_Banquet-New-York<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at Hartford' </span><span>(7 February 1842). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1842-02-18_Speech_Banquet-New-York">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1842-02-18_Speech_Banquet-New-York</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=City+Hotel">City Hotel</a>Mr. President and Gentlemen, I don’t know how to thank you – I really don’t know how. You might, perhaps, suppose that by the dint of custom and from the experience your kindness has heaped upon me since my arrival in this country, that the difficult would have been somewhat diminished or dwindled into nothing but I do assure you the fact is exactly the reverse. Unlike that rolling stone which gathers no moss, I have, in my progress to your city, collected around me such a heap of obligation and weight of acknowledgement, that in my power of expressing it I have grown more and more unwieldy every hour! I picked up such a quantity of fresh moss – so to speak – at a certain brilliant scene on Monday night, that I thought I never could, by any possibility, grow any bigger. But crowded upon that, there comes again tonight a new accumulation of such extent and magnitude, that I am fairly at a standstill and can roll no more! Gentlemen, we know from all the authorities, that whenever a fairy stone, or ball, or reel of thread, stopped of its own accord–which I do not–some catastrophe was sure to be at hand. Its precedent, however, holds good in my case. For, remembering the short time I have before me in this land of mighty interest, and the poor opportunities I can have at best of acquiring a knowledge of, and making myself acquainted with it, I have felt it almost a duty to decline the honours which my generous friends elsewhere would heap upon me, and henceforth to pass through the country more quietly. Argus himself, though he had but one mouth for his hundred eyes, would have found the reception of a public entertainment once a week somewhat relaxing to his vigilance and activity. And as I would lose no scrap or jot from the rich mines of gratification and instruction which await me, I know, on every hand–and of which I have already derived no small instalment from your hospitals and common jails–I have resolved to take up my staff, and go upon my way rejoicing, and for the future to shake hands with Americans not at parties, but at home. And therefore, gentlemen, I say tonight, with a full heart and an honest purpose and grateful feelings, that I bear with me, and shall ever bear with me, a deeper sense of your kind, affectionate and noble greeting, than it is possible to convey in words; that no European sky without, and no cheerful home or well-warmed room within shall every shut out this land from my vision; that I shall often hear your words of welcome in my quiet room, oftenest when it is most quiet, and shall see your aces in the winter evening fire; that if I should live to grow old, the light of this hall and others like it will shine as brightly to my dull eyes fifty years hence as it does tonight and that when my course is run the sympathy you have shown to me shall be well remembered and paid back, so please God, in my undying love and honest endeavours for the good of my race. Gentlemen, one other word with reference to this tiresome first person, and I close that theme. I came here in an open, honest, and confiding spirit, if ever man did, and because I heartily inclined toward you; had I felt otherwise I should have kept away. As I came here, and am here, without the least admixture of the hundredth portion of a grain of base alloy, without the faintest unworthy reference to self in any word I have ever addressed to you, or in any sentiment I have ever interchanged with you, I assert my right tonight, in regard to the past for the last time, my right in reason, truth, and justice, to appeal to you, as I have done on two former occasions, on a question of universal literary interest in both countries. And, gentlemen, I claim this justice: that I have made the appeal as one who has a most righteous claim to speak and to be heard; and that I have done so in a frank, and courteous, and good-humoured spirit of deference to those who frankly, courteously, and good humouredly differed from me in any or every respect. For myself, gentlemen, I have only to add that I will ever be as true to you as you have been to me. I recognise in your enthusiastic approval of the creations of my fancy, as in a glass, your enlightened care for the happiness of the many, your tender and gentle regard for the afflicted and helpless, your sympathy for the downcast, your plans for the correction and improvement of the bad, and the encouragement and solace of the good–the education and advancement of every member of society. My constant and increasing devotion to the end of my life to these ends, and to every other object to the extent of my humble capacity, having the common good in view, shall prove to you that in this you do not mistake me, and that the light you have shed around my path was not unworthily bestowed. And now that I have said this much in reference to myself, let me have the gratification I have long expected of saying a few words in reference to somebody else. There is in this city a gentleman who, at the conclusion of one of my books–I well remember it was the Old Curiosity Shop – wrote to me in England a letter so generous, so affectionate, and so manly, that if I had written the book under every circumstance of disadvantage, discouragement, and difficult, instead of with everything to cheer and urge me on, I should have found in the receipt of that letter my best and happiest reward. I answered him, and he answered me, and so we kept shaking hands autobiographically, as if no ocean rolled between us, until I came here on Saturday night, longing and eager to see him. And here he sits! And I I need not tell you that it is the crowning circumstance to me of the night, that he is here in this capacity. Why, gentlemen, I don’t go upstairs to bed two nights out of seven, as I have a credible witness very near at hand to testify,–I say, gentlemen, I do not go to bed two nights out of seven without taking Washington Irving under my arm upstairs to bed with me; and when I don’t take him I take his next of kin – his own brother – Oliver Goldsmith. Washington Irving! Why, who but he was in my thoughts the other day as I approached your city in the steamboat from New Haven, when I was looking out for the Hog’s Back, the Frying Pan, and Hell Gate and all those horrible places of renown that were a terror to the Dutch navigators? Washington Irving! Why, when I visited Shakespeare’s birthplace not long ago, and went beneath the roof where he first saw light, whose name but his was the first that was pointed out with pride upon the wall?– Washington Irving! – Diedrich Knickerbocker, Geoffrey Crayon! Why, where can we go that they have not been before us? In the English farmhouse, in the crowded city, along the beautiful lanes, across the pleasant fields of England, and amidst her blessed, happy homes, his name above every name rises up with hallowed recollections of his virtues and talents, and like his memory will continue to be hallowed in those bright and innocent sanctuaries, until the last tick of the clock of Time! If we go into the country are there no Bracebridge Halls in existence? If we visit the crowded city, has Little Britain never had a chronicler? Is there no Boar’s Head in Eastcheap? Why, gentlemen, when Mr. Crayon left England he left sitting in the small back parlour of a certain public house near that same Boar’s Head, a man of infinite wisdom, with a red nose and an oilskin hat, who was sitting there when I came away. Yes, gentlemen, it was the same man – not a man that was very like him, but the self-same man–his nose in an immortal redness, and his hat in an undying glaze. Why, Mr. Crayon was also on terms of intimacy, in a certain village near that same Bracebridge Hall, with a certain radical fellow, who used to go about very much out at elbow, with his hat full of old newspapers. Gentlemen, I knew the man. He’s there to this very hour, with the newspapers in his hat, very much to the dissatisfaction of Mr. Tibbets the elder. And he has not changed a hair; and when I came away he charged me to give his best respects to Washington Irving! Gentlemen, leaving the town and ‘Rural Life in England,’ and forgetting for a moment, if anybody can, ‘The Pride of the Village,’ and ‘The Broken Heart’, let us cross the water again and ask who has associated himself most closely with the Italian Post-House, and the Bandits of the Pyrenees? When the traveller beyond the Alps is lighted to his little chamber, along dark, echoing, and spacious corridors, damp, gloomy, and cold; when he has sat down by the fire to watch the gradual change of his room from misery to comfort; when he has drawn his curtains, such as they are, moth-eaten and mouldy, and hearts the tempest beating with fury against his window; and when all the ghost stories that ever were told crowd around and I upon him – amid all his thick-coming fancies – who is it he thinks of at such a time? Why, Washington Irving! Go further away still, to the Moorish fountain, sparkling full in the moonlight, with a few water carriers and village gossips lingering about it still, as in days of old, for its refreshing coolness, and the voices of others going to the village dying away in the distance, like bees. Who, at such an hour, takes his silent stand beside the traveller, and points with his magic wand to the walls of Alhambra? Who awakens in every cave the echoing music, the tread of many twinkling feet, the sound of cymbals, the rattling clang of armour, the tramp of mailed men, and bids legions which for centuries have slept a dreamless sleep within the earth, or watched unwinkingly for buried treasure – who bids them start up and pass in grim array before your eyes? Or, leaving this, who embarked with Colombus in his gallant ship, traversed with him the dark and mighty ocean, leaped into the main, upon the land, and planted there the flag of Spain? Who but this same man now sitting by my side. And who, to come to your coast, is a more fit companion for the buccaneers, and monder-diggers, or who more fit to accompany Rip Van Winkle in his fearful journey to the mountains, where the uncouth crew did play at ninepins on that thundery afternoon? [Roars of laughter.] What pen but his could call such spirits from the vasty deep – make them come, too, at his call – peopling those Catskill mountains until they seem as much a part of them as any crag that ever frowned, or torrent that ever darted headlong from their heights. But, gentlemen, this is a most dangerous theme for me, for I have been enchanted with these people from my boyhood, and my glass slipper is on me still. Lest I should be tempted now to talk too long about them I will, in conclusion, give you a sentiment, most appropriate in the presence of Bryant, Halleck, and – but I suppose I must not mention the ladies here – I will give you ‘The Literature of America – She well knows how to honour her own literature, and to do honour to that of other lands, when she chooses Washington Irving for her representative in the country of Cervantes!’18420218<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=New+York">New York</a>
249https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/249Commercial Travellers&#039; Schools Anniversary DinnerChairman&#039;s speeches at the Commercial Travellers&#039; Schools Anniversary Dinner (30 December 1854).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1854-12-30">1854-12-30</a>1854-12-30_Speech_Commercial-Travellers-Schools-Anniversary-Dinner<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Commercial Travellers' Schools Anniversary Dinner' </span><span>(30 December 1854). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1854-12-30_Speech_Commercial-Travellers-Schools-Anniversary-Dinner">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1854-12-30_Speech_Commercial-Travellers-Schools-Anniversary-Dinner</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a>He had, he said, omitted the toast from the proper place on the list, partly because he had been engaged with one of the officers of the institution in conversation, and partly because he connected the name of his Royal Highness Prince Albert with the charity in which his Royal Highness had always taken so deep an interest.I shall beg to suggest a reform in these proceedings at the outset by addressing this assembly as ‘Ladies and gentlemen’. I beg to propose to you the health of a constitutional Sovereign of a free people, the embodiment of the private virtues and public principles of the English nation – a Sovereign who in her public contact fully appreciates the national resolution never to allow the light of civilization and freedom to be quenched in the darkness of any irresponsible will on the face of the earth. Gentlemen, I give you the Queen, with all the honours. It does not require any extraordinary sagacity in a commercial assembly to appreciate the dire evils of war. The great interests of trade enfeebled by it, the enterprise of better times paralysed by it, all the peaceful arts sent down before it too palpably indicate its character and results, so that far less practical intelligence than that by which I am surrounded would be sufficient to appreciate the horrors of war. But there are seasons when the evils of peace though not so acutely felt are immeasurably greater, and when a powerful nation by admitting the right of any autocrat to do wrong sows by such complicity the seeds of its own ruin, and overshadows itself in time to come with that fatal influence which great and ambitious powers are sure to exercise over their weaker neighbours. Therefore it is, ladies and gentlemen, that the tree has not its roots in English ground from which the yard wand will be made that will measure – the mine has not its place in English soil which will supply the material of a pair of scales to weigh – the influence, that may be at stake in the war in which we are now straining all our energies. That war is at any time, and in any shape, a most dreadful and deplorable calamity we need no proverb to tell us; but it is just because it is such a calamity, and because that calamity must not for ever be impending over us at the fancy of one man against all mankind, that we must not allow that man to darken from our view the figures of peace and justice between whom and us he now interposes. Ladies and gentlemen, if ever there were a time when the true spirits of two countries were really fighting in the cause of human advancement and freedom – no matter what diplomatic notes or other nameless botherations, from number one to one hundred thousand and one, may have preceded their taking the field – if ever there were a time when noble hearts were deserving well of mankind by exposing themselves to the obedient bayonets of a rash and barbarian tyrant, it is now, when the faithful children of England and France are fighting so bravely in the Crimea. Those faithful children are the admiration and wonder of the world so gallantly are they discharging their duty; and therefore I propose to an assembly emphatically representing the interests and arts of peace, to drink the health of the Allied Armies of England and France, with all possible honours. I think it may be assumed that most of us here present know something about travelling. I do not mean in distant regions or foreign countries, although I dare say some of us have had experience in that way, but at home, and within the limits of the United Kingdom. I dare say most of us have had experience of the extinct ‘fast coaches’, the ‘Wonders’, ‘Taglionis’, and ‘Tallyhos’, of other days. I dare say most of us remember certain modest post-chaises, dragging us down interminable roads through slush and mud, to little country towns with no visible populations except half a dozen men in smock frocks smoking pipes under the lee of the Town Hall; half a dozen women with umbrellas and pattens, and a washed-out dog or so shivering under the gables to complete the desolate picture. We can all discourse, I dare say, if so minded, upon our recollections of the ‘Talbot’, the ‘King’s Head’, or the ‘Lion’ of those days. We have all been to that room on the ground floor on one side of the old inn yard, not quite free from a certain fragrant smell of tobacco, where the cruets on the sideboard were usually absorbed by the skirts of the box coats that hung from the wall, where driving-seats were laid out at every turn like so many human mantraps, where county members framed and glazed were eternally presenting that petition which somehow or other made their glory in the county, though nothing else had ever come of it. Where the Book of Roads, the first and last thing always required, was always missing, and generally wanted the first and last dozen leaves, and where one man was always arriving at some unusual hour in the night, and requiring his breakfast at a similarly singular period of the day. I have no doubt we could all be very eloquent on the comforts of our favourite hotel, wherever it was, – its beds, its stables, its vast amount of posting, its excellent cheese, its head waiter, its capital dishes, its pigeon-pies, or its 1820 port. Or possibly we could recall our chaste and innocent admiration of its landlady, or our fraternal regard for its handsome chambermaid. A celebrated dramatic critic once writing of a famous actress, renowned for her virtue and beauty, gave her the character of being ‘an eminently gatherable-to-one’s-arms, sort of person’. Perhaps someone amongst us has borne a somewhat similar mental tribute to the charms of the ladies associated with the administration of our favourite hotel. With the travelling characteristics of later times we are all, no doubt, equally familiar. We know all about that station of which we have a clear idea although we were never there; we know that if we arrive after dark we are certain to find it half a mile from the town, where the old road is sure to have been abolished, and the new road is going to be made, where the old neighbourhood has been tumbled down, and the new one is not half built up. We know all about that porter on the platform who with the best intentions in the world cannot do anything particularly efficacious with the luggage by looking at it with that bell in his hand. We know all about that particularly short omnibus, in which one is to be doubled up to the imminent danger of the crown of one’s hat; and about that fly, whose leading peculiarity is never to be there when it is wanted. We know, too, how instantaneously the lights of the station disappear the moment the train slips away, and about that grope to the new Railway Hotel, which will be an excellent house when the customers come, but which at present has nothing to offer but a liberal allowance of damp mortar and new lime. I record these little incidents of home travel mainly with the object of increasing your interest in the purpose of this assemblage. Every traveller has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering. If he has no home, he learns the same lesson unselfishly by turning to the homes of other men. He may have his experiences of cheerful and exciting pleasures abroad; but home is the best, after all, and its pleasures are the most heartily and enduringly prized. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, everyone must be prepared to learn that commercial travellers as a body know how to prize those domestic relations from which their pursuits so frequently sever them; for no one could possibly invent a more delightful or more convincing testimony to the fact than they themselves afford in founding and maintaining a school for the children of deceased or unfortunate members of their own body, – those children who now appeal to you in mute but eloquent terms from the gallery. It is to support that school, founded with such high and friendly objects, so very honourable to your calling, and so useful in its solid and practical results, that we are here tonight. It is to roof that building which is to shelter the children of your deceased friends with one crowning ornament, the best that any building can have, namely a receipt stamp for the full amount of the cost. It is for this that your active sympathy is appealed to, for the completion of your own good work. You know how to put your hands to the plough in earnest as well as any men in existence, for this little book informs me that you raised last year no less a sum than eight hundred pounds; and while fully half that sum consisted of new donations to the Building Fund, I find that the regular revenue of the charity has only suffered to the extent of thirty pounds. After this I most earnestly and sincerely say that were we all authors together I might boast, if in my profession were exhibited the same unity and steadfastness I find in yours. I will not urge on you the casualties of a life of travel, or the vicissitudes of business, or the claims fostered by that bond of brotherhood which ought always to exist amongst men who are united in a common pursuit. You have already recognized those claims so nobly, that I will not presume to lay them before you in any further detail. Suffice it to say that I do not think it is in your nature to do things by halves. I do not think you could so if you tried, and I have a moral certainty that you never will try. To those gentlemen present who are not members of the travellers’ body, I will say in the words of the French proverb, ‘Heaven helps those who help themselves’. The Commercial Travellers having helped themselves so gallantly, it is clear that the visitors who come as a sort of celestial representatives ought to bring that aid in their pockets which the precept teaches us to expect from them. With these few remarks, which not even your good nature will induce me to prolong, I beg to give you as a toast, ‘Success to the Commercial Travellers’ School’. Ladies and Gentlemen, You have made me tonight the representative of so many travellers rich in all kinds of enthusiasm, in addition to my own seven poor ones, and that necessity has involved the necessity of your hearing my voice so often, that I shall confine myself to simply thanking you most sincerely for the very kind manner in which you have received my health. If the President of this Institution had been here, I should possibly have made one of the best speeches you ever heard, but as he is not here, I shall turn to the next toast on my list, the Health of your worth Treasurer, Mr. George Moore, – a name which is a synonym for integrity, enterprise, public spirit, and benevolence. He is one of the most zealous officers I ever saw in my life; he appears to me to have been doing nothing during the last week but rushing into and out of railway-carriages, and making eloquent speeches at all sorts of public dinners in favour of this charity. Last evening he was in Manchester, and this evening he comes here, sacrificing his time and convenience, and exhausting in the meantime the contents of two vast leaden inkstands, and no end of pens, with the energy of fifty bankers’ clerks rolled into one. But I clearly foresee that the Treasurer will have so much to do tonight, such gratifying sums to acknowledge, and such large lines of figures to write in his books, that I feel the greatest consideration I can show him is to propose his health without further observation, leaving him to address you in his own behalf. I propose to you, therefore, the health of Mr. George Moore, the Treasurer of this charity, and I need hardly add that it is one which is to be drunk with all the honours. So many travellers have been going up Mont Blanc lately, both in fact and in fiction, that I have heard recently of a proposal for the establishment of a company to employ Sir Joseph Paxton to take it down. Only one of those travellers, however, has been enabled to bring Mont Blanc to Piccadilly, and by his own ability and good humour so to thaw its eternal ice and snow, as that the most timid lady may ascend it twice a day ‘during the holidays’, without the smallest danger or fatigue. Mr. Albert Smith, who is present amongst us tonight, is undoubtedly ‘a Traveller’. I do not know whether he takes many orders, but this I can testify, on behalf of the children of his friends, that he gives them in the most liberal manner. We have also amongst us my friend Mr. Peter Cunningham, who is also a traveller, not only in right of his able edition of Goldsmith’s Traveller, but in right of his admirable Handbook, which proves him to be a traveller in the right spirit through all the labyrinths of London. We have also amongst us my friend Horace Mayhew, very well known also for his books, but especially for his genuine admiration of the company at that end of the room, and who, whenever the fair sex is mentioned, will be found to have the liveliest personal interest in the conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to propose to you the health of these three distinguished visitors. They are all admirable speakers, but Mr. Albert Smith has confessed to me, that on fairly balancing his own merits as a speaker and a singer, he rather thinks he excels in the latter art. I have, therefore, yielded to his estimate of himself, and I have now the pleasure of informing you that he will lead off the speeches of the other two gentlemen with a song. Mr. Albert Smith has just said to me in an earnest tone of voice, ‘What song would you recommend?’ and I replied, ‘Galignani’s Messenger’. Ladies and gentlemen, I therefore beg to propose the health of Messrs. Albert Smith, Peter Cunningham, and Horace Mayhew, and call on the first-named gentleman for a song.18541230<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
250https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/250Commercial Travellers&#039; Schools Anniversary FestivalChairman&#039;s speeches at the Commercial Travellers&#039; Schools Anniversary Festival (22 December 1859).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1859-12-22">1859-12-22</a>1859-12-22_Speech_Commercial-Travellers-Schools-Anniversary-Festival<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Commercial Travellers' Schools Anniversary Festival' (22 December 1859)</span><span>. </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1859-12-22_Speech_Commercial-Travellers-Schools-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1859-12-22_Speech_Commercial-Travellers-Schools-Anniversary-Festival</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a><p>They were sometimes told, he said, as if it were a new discovery, that war was the greatest of all evils. Now, he thought he preferred no high claim on the intelligence of this company when he said they all knew it to be so. Common humanity taught them to regard war as an unparalleled calamity. So strongly rooted was this feeling in the English mind, that it might truly be said that the popular voice was almost always for peace, and always attached enormous responsibility to any men in power who, for selfish ends, should be the first to ‘cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war’. But the next greatest sin to such an act was that of any men who accepted the responsibility of government and left the people ill prepared to resist aggressive war. It was because they who sat there were devoted to the arts and ways of peace, and because they exhibited all the signs of outward prosperity, that he congratulated them upon the manly and national spirit which was then stirring amongst them as well as amongst our professed defenders by sea and land.</p> <p>We Englishmen uttered no defiance, no braggart boast, against any nation on the face of the earth, but wished quietly to keep our own; and, with the blessing of heaven, which helped those who helped themselves, they would most assuredly do it. The plain meaning of the Rifle movement was but the revival of the old brave spirit of our forefathers, and a proof that all who had a stake in the country – and who that had life in it had not? – were ready if occasion required to fight and die in its defence. On that account, he would, with their permission, slightly alter the toast about the be proposed, and give ‘The Army and Navy, and the Volunteers’.</p>; He was told, he said, that it was once observed by a lady who kept a commercial boarding-house in the neighbourhood of the Monument, named Mrs. Todgers, that no such strong passion existed in the human breast as that of commercial gentlemen for gravy. She said, as he had been informed, and had reason to believe true, that it was her opinion that no animal known to butchers or experienced housekeepers would yield from any of its joints the amount of gravy that was called for by the peculiarity of the commercial palate. The anxiety, and mental agony that this most estimable lady had undergone from this single cause was sufficient to undermine the strongest constitution. With this lady’s experience and responsibilities heavy on his soul, he was thrown into a gloomy state of feeling when the duties and responsibilities of this eventful day loomed and darkened upon him. He was disturbed by the amount of oratorical gravy which he knew would be expected from the head of the table, and his sorrows were aggravated by his own personal knowledge of the inadequacy of the supply. It was very small comfort for him to remember that the last time he had the honour to fill that place the guests were most kind and considerate. He could not banish the shadow of ‘Todgers’s’, nor get rid of the horrors of that lady’s experience of what gravy was to a commercial man. In short he was dreadfully perplexed to know how he should act upon the present occasion. In this disturbed state of mind he had made several forlorn attempts to get material for a speech. He had looked through the advertisement pages of Bradshaw, and asked himself whether anything could be done with those inviting advertisements of hotels in which were offered, at fixed charges, bed, breakfast, and attendance, with the additional advantages of perfect solitude and an Italian atmosphere. He had asked himself, despondingly, the question whether anything apropos might be got out of the unfortunate porter who sat up all night, and who never went to bed in the day time. He had then started off by express train of remembrances to another and much larger hotel at Leeds, where he had happened to be staying about seven weeks before, where the chamber appurtenances belonged to a period far anterior to the present, and where the night candles were nothing less than mutton truncheons of most exaggerated proportions, and could not by any possibility be blown out.; He went on to ask permission to propose the health of a gentleman to whom the institution, the progress of which they were met to celebrate, was more indebted than to any other creature, and to whose zeal and liberality much of its success was owing. He proposed ‘The health of Mr. George Moore, the Treasurer’. He must say, in passing, that he was the commercial giant, who would accompanied him on the occasion to which he had referred, but he himself could never be Jack, for he could neither deceive or kill such a giant on any account.In that hotel I had seen many members of the present company, next morning, brushing their coats in the hall, and I then considered whether anything could be done with the word Travellers; and I thought whether any fanciful analogy could be drawn between those travellers who diffuse the luxuries and necessities of existence, and those who carry into desert places the waters of life, such as Dr. Livingstone, or Captain McClintock and his bold companions, who have graved the record of English modesty, gallantry and perseverance in the everlasting ice surrounding the North Pole. This put into my mind the fact that the best and greatest of these travellers have usually been amongst the gentle and mildest of men. I then asked myself whether I could make any fanciful parallel between my friend Mr. Layard, who brought to light the hidden memorials of a long extinct people, and my friend Mr. George Moore, who sits beside me, who has brought to light the hidden capabilities of a great trade.<br /> <br /> Not deriving any comfort from these ingenious speculations, I resolved, like the heroes in the fairy tales, to go out to seek my fortune; and I resorted to a friendly giant – a commercial giant – and we sallied out together only yesterday. We travelled on and on, very like the people in the fairy tales, until we came to a great castle of a bright red colour, looking perfectly glorious in the cold sunlight of a winter afternoon. We were received, not by one of those conventional monsters with a great eye in his forehead as large as six, but by a man with an extremely humorous expression of countenance and two bright eyes, under whose guidance we inspected the livestock and eatables of the establishment, which suggested to us nothing but an abundance of milk and pork.<br /> <br /> We then entered the castle, and found it within, a noble structure, with a cheerful lofty hall, large airy corridors, dormitories, and bathrooms, and an admirable banqueting-hall – not at all a mere matter of form, as I found on perusing the dietary table hanging on the wall; for I perceived that the most agreeable weekly exercises were practised, varying from roast beef and plum pudding to boiled mutton and hashes, with cold meat as an exceptional mortification, until the weekly circle was completed, and the roast beef of old England with its pleasing concomitant of plum pudding – by the by, suggestive of the season – made the pleasing appearance on the table before the happy and cheerful faces of the recipients of your bounty.<br /> <br /> My attention was called to the circumstance that one hundred young male giants, and fifty young female giants, with a partakers of this magnificent diurnal hospitality, and that they were at the same time receiving an excellent education in this spacious edifice. I looked over some of the examination papers, and I found them remarkable for a prevailing good sense and adaptation to the solid business and solid virtues of life, which I had not seen – no verily -  in some colleges and ancient foundations. I looked at these young people – the male creatures – and I saw that they were healthy, cheerful, easy, and rational, under system of moral restraint far better than all the physical force that ever crushed a timid nature and never bent a stubborn one. I found other of these young people walking under their own control in the lanes outside the establishment, and coming home in the frosty air with cheery faces that were worthy of the season and of the weather. I spoke to many of them, and I found that they answered truly and fearlessly. I observed that they had an excellent way of looking those in authority full in the face. I did not see the sisterhood, and was very glad not to see them, because they were out for a long walk and had not yet come home. Gentlemen, I am told that these young people of both sexes are instructed, lodged, clothed, and boarded until they are fifteen years of age, when they are sent into the world, to the region of gold and silver which is the dream of aspiring youth. Some of the children were preparing themselves for this great world, which many of them will no doubt hereafter distinguish themselves. by studying a number of cardboard locomotive engines and trains, admirably made, and closely resembling those which by day and night pass before the windows of their school at Pinner. Finally, I made two discoveries of considerable importance to me; firstly that this was indeed, a most rare magical castle, by reason that it costs some £20,000, and belongs to a public body, and is paid for; secondly, and lastly, I found that I had gone out to seek my fortune not in vain, for in this castle I discovered my speech.<br /> <br /> Gentlemen, this castle is your own, and I assure you that its solid timbers, bricks and stones are not more solid than the effects which I have fancifully set before you. This castle is the Commercial Travellers’ Schools; and, in the endowing and maintaining of such an institution, the Commercial Travellers must raise themselves both in their own esteem and in the public regard. In this place any individual here can establish an individual right and title by the humble contribution of one guinea, and it could be handsomely maintained if every commercial traveller in the world would give it one half crown on a given day in every year. Gentlemen, I wish I could say of my order, or of others of greater pretensions, that its members were united in following such an example. I can say that there is no other order of men in this kingdom who, in their selection of men in whom to propose educational trust, do greater honour to themselves or to the cause of education than the board of management of this institution. I hope then, sincerely, that the time is not far distant when the Commercial Traveller who does not belong to this institution will be a rare and isolated case. I do hope this with some confidence, because I cannot believe that it is possible that many Commercial Travellers can look upon their own dear children and not feel they would be better and lighter hearted for being sharers in this institution.<br /> <br /> Gentlemen, we should remember tonight that we are all Travellers, and every round we take converges nearer and nearer to our home; that all our little journeyings bring us together to one certain end; and that the good that we do, and the virtues that we show, and particularly the children that we rear, survive us through the long and unknown perspective of time. When those children who now contemplate our proceedings pass around as presently, it can scarcely be but that some of this company will recognize in some little face the likeness of some friend or companion. An yone of us may read the affecting words of tenderness which were spoken by Him, who was once a child, and who loved little children. Let those words, not mine, speak eloquently for those Schools.<br /> <br /> And now I will not detain you longer; I feel that I have put the case of this invaluable institution on its own merits, and having done so feel cold upon to propose the toast of the evening, namely ‘Prosperity to the Commercial Travellers’ Schools’. In half a century to come, the boys of today will remember what has occurred this evening and, at a meeting like the present, evince by their conduct how they appreciate the good performed by those who had gone before them.18591222<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
243https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/243Dinner in His Honour, RichmondA speech at a social dinner in his honour, Richmond (18 March 1842).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1842-03-18">1842-03-18</a>1842-03-18_Speech_Dinner-Richmond<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Dinner in His Honour, Richmond' </span><span>(18 March 1842). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1842-03-18_Speech_Dinner-Richmond">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1842-03-18_Speech_Dinner-Richmond</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Exchange+Hotel">Exchange Hotel</a>Mr. President and Gentlemen, I am most truly grateful and obliged to you for the kind welcome which you have given me. I receive and acknowledge with gratitude this testimonial of your kindly feelings towards me. If it were possible to convey to you my sense and appreciation of your favours, I would indeed acknowledge, as I receive, your good wishes an hundred fold. But, as I said at a social party a few nights since at Washington – a party somewhat similar to this – it is my misfortune to be passing through this country with almost as rapid a flight as that of any bird of the air–the American Eagle excepted. I find, in my career amongst you, no little resemblance to that far-famed Sultan of the thousand-and-one nights, who was in the habit of acquiring a new friend every night and cutting his head off in the morning. I find another resemblance to what we read in the history of that Sultan. He was diverted from his bad habit by listening to the tales of one who proved a favourite above all the rest; so I am stopped in my original intention by the hospitalities of the Americans. I say that the best flag of truce between two nations having the same common origin, and speaking the same language, is a fair sheet of white paper inscribed with the literature of each. If, hereafter, I think of this night, if I remember the welcome which you have assured me, believe me, my small corner, my humble portion of that fair sheet shall be inscribed with the hospitalities I have received from the friends I have seen and made here. It has been said, gentlemen, that an after-dinner speech may be too long. If so, it may be said with more truth, that an after-supper speech cannot be too short, and especially to those with whom to listen to a speech is no novelty, and mong whom a man of few words is a rare and almost literal ‘phenomenon’. I therefore deem it only necessary to say to you that I am most deeply and sincerely obliged to you for your kindness. In reference to the admonition tendered to me by my worthy friend, your President, I will say that it has long been a thing near my heart. But I hope I shall never need the monitor of which he reminds us. My situation forbids all paralysis of my pen – as I hope you will discover from November next, when I shall resume my literary labours. The hospitalities of America can never be forgotten among them: your kindness, certainly never. Imagine me thinking of you tomorrow; imagine me on the road to Fredericksberg – on that Virginia road from Fredericksburg to the Potomac. In fact throughout all my travels in these parts I shall think of the pleasure I have enjoyed in the bosom of your society.18420318<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Richmond">Richmond</a>
83https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/83Dinner to Celebrate the Completion of <em>Nicholas Nickleby</em>Speech given at the dinner to celebrate the completion of <em>Nicholas Nickleby </em>(5 October 1839).Dickens, CharlesMacready, William Charles.&nbsp;<em>The Diaries of William Charles Macready 1833-1851.</em> Vol. 2. Ed. William Toynbee. New York: <span>Putnam's, 1912. p. 25.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1839-10-05">1839-10-05</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1839-10-05_Speech_Nickleby_DinnerDickens, Charles. 'Dinner to Celebrate the Completion of <em>Nicholas Nickleby</em> (5 October 1839). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1839-10-05_Speech_Nickleby_Dinner">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1839-10-05_Speech_Nickleby_Dinner</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Albion+Hotel">Albion Hotel</a>'Dickens was not as good as he usually is. He stated that <em>Nickleby&nbsp;</em>had been to him a diary of the last two years: the various papers preserving to him the recollection of the events and feelings connected with their production.'<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Diary">Diary</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Diaries+of+William+Charles+Macready">The Diaries of William Charles Macready</a>18391005<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
254https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/254First Anniversary Festival of the General Theatrical FundSpeech at the First Anniversary Festival of the General Theatrical Fund (6 April 1846).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=18460406">18460406</a>1846-04-06_Speech_First-Anniversary-Festival-General-Theatrical-Fund<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the First Anniversary Festival of the General Theatrical Fund' (6 April 1846).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/ 1846-04-06_Speech_First-Anniversary-Festival-General-Theatrical-Fund">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/ 1846-04-06_Speech_First-Anniversary-Festival-General-Theatrical-Fund</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a>Gentlemen, in offering to you a toast which has not yet been publicly drunk in any company, it becomes incumbent on me to offer a few words in explanation, – in the first place premising that the toast will be, ‘The General Theatrical Fund’. The association whose anniversary we celebrate tonight, was founded seven years ago, for the purpose of granting permanent pensions to such members of the corps dramatique as had retired from the stage, either from a decline in their years or decay in their powers. Collected within the scope of its benevolence are all actors and actresses, singers or dancers, of five years’ standing in the profession. To relieve their necessities and to protect them from want is the great aim of the society; and it is good to know that for seven years the members of it have steadily, patiently, quietly, and perseveringly pursued this end, advancing by regular contribution moneys which many of them could ill afford, and cheered by no external help or assistance whatsoever. It has thus served a regular apprenticeship; but I trust that we shall establish tonight that its time is out, and that henceforth the Fund will enter upon a flourishing and brilliant career. I have no doubt that you are all aware that there are, and were when this institution was founded, two other institutions existing, of a similar nature – Covent Garden and Drury Lane – both of long standing, both richly endowed. It cannot, however, be tpo distinctly understood that the present institution is not in any way adverse to those. How can it be, when it is only a wide and broad extension of all that is most excellent in the principles on which they are founded? That such an extension was absolutely necessary was sufficiently proved by the fact that the great body of the dramatic corps were excluded from the benefits conferred by a membership of either of these institutions; for it was essential in order to become a member of the Drury Lane society that the applicant, either he or she, should have been engaged for three consecutive seasons as performer. This was afterwards reduced, in the case of Covent Garden, to a period of two years; but it really is as exclusive one way as another, for I need not tell you that Covent Garden is now but a vision of the past. You might play the bottle-conjuror with its dramatic company, and put them all into a pint bottle. The human voice is rarely heard within its walls save in connexion with Corn, or the ambidextrous prestidigitation of the Wizard of the North. The only run there, is the run of rats and mice. In like manner Drury Lane is so devoted to foreign ballets and foreign operas that it is more deserving of the name of the Opéra Comique, than of a national theatre; while the statue of Shakespeare is well placed over its portal, since it serves as emphatically to point out his grave as does his bust at Stratford-upon-Avon. How can the profession generally hope to qualify for the Drury Lane or Covent Garden institutions, when the oldest and most distinguished members have been driven from the boards on which they earned their reputations, to delight the town in theatres to which the General Theatrical Fund alone extends? I will again repeat that I attach no reproach to those other Funds, with which I have had the honour of being connected at different periods of my life. At the time those associations were established, an engagement of one of those theatres was almost a matter of course, and a successful engagement would last a whole life; but in an engagement of two months’ duration at Covent Garden would be a perfect Old Parr of an engagement just now. It should never be forgotten that when those two funds were established the two great theatres were protected by patent, and that at that time the minor theatres were condemned by law to the representation of the most preposterous nonsense, and some gentlemen whom I see around me could have no more belonged to the minor theatres of that day than they could now belong to St. Bartholomew’s Fair. As I honour the two old Funds for the great good which they have done, so I honour this for the much greater good it is resolved to do. It is not because I love them less, but because I love this more – because it includes more in its operation. Let us ever remember that there is no class of actors who stand so much in need of a retiring fund as those who do not win the great prizes, but who are nevertheless an essential part of the theatrical system, by consequent bear a part in contributing to our pleasure. We owe them a debt which we ought to pay. The beds of such men are not of roses, but of very artificial flowers indeed. Their lives are full of care and privation, and hard struggles with very stern realities. It is from among the poor actors who drink wine from goblets, in colour marvellously like toast and water, and who preside at Barmecide feasts with wonderful appetites for steaks, – it is from their ranks that the most triumphant favourites have sprung. And surely, besides this, the greater the instruction and delight we derive from the rich English drama, the more we are bound to succour and protect the humblest of those votaries of the art, who add to our instruction and amusement. Hazlitt has well said that ‘There is no class of society whom so many people regard with affection as actors. We greet them on the stage, we like to meet them in the streets; they almost always recall to us pleasant associations.’ When they have strutted and fretted their hour upon the stage, let them not be heard no more, – but let them be heard sometimes to say that they are happy in their old age. When they have passed for the last time behind that glittering row of lights with which we are all familiar, let them not pass away into the gloom and darkness; but let them pass into cheerfulness and light, into a contented and happy home. This is the object for which we have met; and I am too familiar with the English character not to know that it will be effected. When we come suddenly in a crowded street upon the careworn features of a familiar face, crossing us like the ghost of pleasant hours forgotten, let us not recall these features in pain, in sad remembrance of what they once were; but let us in joy recognize, and go back a pace or two to meet it once again, as that of a friend who has beguiled us of a moment of care, who was taught us to sympathize with virtuous grief cheating us to tears for sorrows not our own – and we all know how pleasant are such tears. Let such a face be ever remembered as that of our benefactor and our friend. I tried to recollect, in coming here, whether I had ever been in any theatre in my life from which I had not brought away some pleasant association, however poor the theatre; and I protest, out of my varied experience, I could not remember even one from which I had not brought some favourable impression – and that, commencing with the period when I believed that the Clown was a being born into the world with infinite pockets, and ending with that in which I saw the other night, outside one of the ‘Royal Saloons’, a playbill which showed me ships completely rigged, carrying men and careering over boundless and tempestuous oceans. And now, bespeaking your kindest remembrance of our theatres and actors, I beg to propose that you drink as heartily and freely as ever a toast was drunk in this toast-drinking city, ‘Prosperity to the General Theatrical Fund’.18460406<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
235https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/235For the Hospital for Sick ChildrenSpeech given to fundraise for the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street (9 February 1858). Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1858-02-09">1858-02-09</a>1858-02-09_Speech_Hospital_for_Sick_ChildrenDickens, Charles. 'For the Hospital for Sick Children' (9 February 1858). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-02-09_Speech_Hospital_for_Sick_Children">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-02-09_Speech_Hospital_for_Sick_Children</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Freemasons%27+Hall">Freemasons&#039; Hall</a>He hoped, he said, it would not be incompatible with the latest fashion, if he reminded the company that a large portion of the army were at this moment in India employed in punishing great treachery and great cruelty, and in upholding a government which, whatever its faults, had proved immeasurably superior to Asiatic rule. Of the army so employed he would say no more than to express his hope, in the words of the immortal Nelson applied to another service, that their humanity after the action might be as great as their valour in the field. This was a peaceful country, and we wished to love on the best terms with all our neighbours, and he therefore hoped that a certain obstructive branch of our national defence might never find it necessary to throw itself in the way of those gay military spirits who had recently announced their intention ‘to march far within the bowels of the land, without impediment’. For he had a strong misgiving that the naval capacity for understanding such practical jokes was none of the keenest, and that the gay spirits to whom he had alluded might, under certain possible contingencies, find themselves in a rather disagreeable dilemma. He begged to couple with this toast the name of Colonel Hamley, who had distinguished himself no less in his literary than in his military capacity.Ladies and Gentlemen, It is one of my rules in life not to believe a man who may happen to tell me that he feels no interest in children. I hold myself bound to this principle by all kind consideration, because I know, as we all must, that any heart which could really toughen its affections and sympathies against those dear little people must be wanting in so many humanizing experiences of innocence and tenderness, as to be quite an unsafe monstrosity among men. Therefore I set the assertion down, whenever I happen to meet with it – which is sometimes, though not often – as an idle word, originating possibly in the genteel languor of the hour, and meaning about as much as that knowing social lassitude, which has used up the cardinal virtues and quite found out things in general, usually does mean. I suppose it may be taken for granted that we, who come together in the name of children and for the sake of children, acknowledge that we have an interest in them; indeed, I have observed since I sit down here that we are quite in a childlike state altogether, representing an infant institution, and not even yet a grown-up company. A few years are necessary to the increase of our strength and the expansion of our figure; and then these tables, which now have a few tucks in them, will be let out, and then this hall, which now sits so easily upon us, will be too tight and small for us. Nevertheless, it is likely that even we are not without our experience now and then of spoilt children. I do not mean of our own spoilt children, because nobody’s own children ever were spoilt, but I mean the disagreeable children of our particular friends. We know by experience what it is to have them down after dinner, and, across the rich perspective of a miscellaneous dessert to see, as in a black dose darkly, the family doctor looming in the distance. We know – I have no doubt we all know – what it is to assist at those little maternal anecdotes and table entertainments illustrated with imitations and descriptive dialogue which might not be inaptly called, after the manner of my friend Mr. Albert Smith, the toilsome ascent of Miss Mary and the eruption (cutaneous) of Master Alexander. We know what it is when those children won’t go to bed; we know how they prop their eyelids open with their forefingers when they will sit up; how, when they become fractious, they say aloud that they don’t like us, and our nose is too long, and why don’t we go? And we are perfectly acquainted with those kicking bundles which are carried off at last protesting. An eminent eye-witness told me that he was one of a company of learned pundits who assembled at the house of a very distinguished philosopher of the last generation, to hear him expound his stringent views concerning infant education and early mental development, and he told me that while the philosopher did this in very beautiful and lucid language, the philosopher’s little boy, for his part, edified the assembled sages by dabbling up to the elbows in an apple pie which had been provided for their entertainment, having previously anointed his hair with the syrup, combed it with his fork, and brushed it with his spoon. It is probable that we also have our similar experiences, sometimes, of principles that are not quite practice, and that we know people claiming to be very wise and profound about nations of men who show themselves to be rather weak and shallow about units of babies. But, ladies and gentlemen, the spoilt children whom I have to present to you after this dinner of today are not of this class. I have glanced at these for the easier and lighter introduction of another, a very different, a far more numerous, and a far more serious class. The spoilt children whom I must show you are the spoilt children of the poor in this great city – the children who are, every year, for ever and ever irrevocably spoilt out of this breathing life of ours by tens of thousands, but who may in vast numbers be preserved, if you, assisting and not contravening the ways of Providence, will help to save them. The two grim nurses, Poverty and Sickness, who bring these children before you, preside over their births, rock their wretched cradles, nail down their little coffins, pile up the earth above their graves. Of the annual deaths in this great town, their unnatural deaths form more than one-third. I shall not ask you, according to the custom as to the other class – I shall not ask you on behalf of these children, to observe how good they are, how pretty they are, how clever they are, how promising they are, whose beauty they most resemble – I shall only ask you to observe how weak they are, and how like death they are! And I shall ask you, by the remembrance of everything that lies between your own infancy and that so miscalled second childhood when the child’s graces are gone and nothing but its helplessness remains – I shall ask you to turn your thoughts to these spoilt children in the sacred names of Pity and Compassion. Some years ago, being in Scotland, I went with one of the most humane members of the humane medical profession, on a morning tour among some of the worst lodged inhabitants of the old town of Edinburgh. In the closes and wynds of that picturesque place – I am sorry to remind you what fast friends picturesqueness and typhus often are – we saw more poverty and sickness in an hour than many people would believe in a life. Our way lay from one to another of the most wretched dwellings – reeking with horrible odours – shut out from the sky – shut out from the air – mere pits and dens. In a room in one of these places, where there was an empty porridge-pot on the cold hearth, with a ragged woman and some ragged children crouching on the bare ground near it – where, I remember as I speak, that the very light, refracted from a high damp-stained and time- stained house-wall, came trembling in, as if the fever which had shaken everything else there had shaken even it – there lay, in an old egg-box which the mother had begged from a shop, a little feeble, wasted, wan, sick child. With his little wasted face, and his little hot worn hands folded over his breast, and his little bright attentive eyes, I can see him now, as I have seen him for several years, look in steadily at us. There he lay in his little frail box, which was not at all a bad emblem of the little body from which he was slowly parting – there he lay, quite quiet, quite patient, saying never a word. He seldom cried, the mother said; he seldom complained; ‘he lay there, seemin’ to woonder what it was a‘ aboot’. God knows, I thought, as I stood looking at him, he had his reasons for wondering – reasons for wondering how it could possibly come to be that he lay there, left alone, feeble and full of pain, when he ought to have been as bright and as brisk as the birds that never got near him – reasons for wondering how he came to be left there, a little decrepit old man pining to death, quite a thing of course, as if there were no crowds of healthy and happy children playing on the grass under the summer’s sun within a stone’s throw of him, as if there were no bright, moving sea on the other side of the great hill overhanging the city; as if there were no great clouds rushing over it; as if there were no life, and movement, and vigour anywhere in the world – nothing but stoppage and decay. There he lay looking at us, saying, in his silence, more pathetically than I have ever heard anything said by any orator in my life, ‘Will you please to tell me what this means, strange man? and if you can give me any good reason why I should be so soon, so far advanced on my way to Him who said that children were to come into His presence and were not to be forbidden, but who scarcely meant, that they should come by this hard road by which I am travelling – pray give that reason to me, for I seek it very earnestly and wonder about it very much’; and to my mind he has been wondering about it ever since. Many a poor child, sick and neglected, I have seen since that time in this London; many a poor sick child I have seen most affectionately and kindly tended by poor people, in an unwholesome house and under untoward circumstances, wherein its recovery was quite impossible; but at all such times I have seen my poor little drooping friend in his egg-box, and he has always addressed his dumb speech to me, and I have always found him wondering what it meant, and why, in the name of a gracious God, such things should be! Now, ladies and gentlemen, such things need not be, and will not be, if this company, which is a drop of the life-blood of the great compassionate public heart, will only accept the means of rescue and prevention which it is mine to offer. Within a quarter of a mile of this place where I speak, stands a courtly old house, where once, no doubt, blooming children were born, and grew up to be men and women, and married, and brought their own blooming children back to patter up the old oak staircase which stood but the other day, and to wonder at the old oak carvings on the chimney-pieces. In the airy wards into which the old state drawing-rooms and family bedchambers of that house are now converted are such little patients that the attendant nurses look like reclaimed giantesses, and the kind medical practitioner like an amiable Christian ogre. Grouped about the little low tables in the centre of the rooms are such tiny convalescents that they seem to be playing at having been ill. On the doll’s beds are such diminutive creatures that each poor sufferer is supplied with its tray of toys; and, looking round, you may see how the little tired, flushed cheek has toppled over half the brute creation on its way into the ark; or how one little dimpled arm has mowed down (as I saw myself) the whole tin soldiery of Europe. On the walls of these rooms are graceful, pleasant, bright, childish pictures. At the bed’s heads, are pictures of the figure which is the universal embodiment of all mercy and compassion, the figure of Him who was once a child himself, and a poor one. Besides these little creatures on the beds, you may learn in that place that the number of small Out-patients brought to that house for relief is no fewer than ten thousand in the compass of one single year. In the room in which these are received, you may see against the wall a box, on which it is written, that it has been calculated, that if every grateful mother who brings a child there will drop a penny into it, the Hospital funds may possibly be increased in a year by so large a sum as forty pounds. And you may read in the Hospital Report, with a glow of pleasure, that these poor women are so respondent as to have made, even in a toiling year of difficulty and high prices, this estimated forty, fifty pounds. In the printed papers of this same Hospital, you may read with what a generous earnestness the highest and wisest members of the medical profession testify to the great need of it; to the immense difficulty of treating children in the same hospitals with grown-up people, by reason of their different ailments and requirements, to the vast amount of pain that will be assuaged, and of life that will be saved, through this Hospital; not only among the poor, observe, but among the prosperous too, by reason of the increased knowledge of children’s illnesses, which cannot fail to arise from a more systematic mode of studying them. Lastly, gentlemen, and I am sorry to say, worst of all —(for I must present no rose-coloured picture of this place to you – I must not deceive you;) lastly, the visitor to this Children’s Hospital, reckoning up the number of its beds, will find himself perforce obliged to stop at very little over thirty; and will learn, with sorrow and surprise, that even that small number, so forlornly, so miserably diminutive, compared with this vast London, cannot possibly be maintained, unless the Hospital be made better known; I limit myself to saying better known, because I will not believe that in a Christian community of fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, it can fail, being better known, to be well and richly endowed. Now, ladies and gentlemen, this, without a word of adornment – which I resolved when I got up not to allow myself – this is the simple case. This is the pathetic case which I have to put to you; not only on behalf of the thousands of children who annually die in this great city, but also on behalf of the thousands of children who live half developed, racked with preventable pain, shorn of their natural capacity for health and enjoyment. If these innocent creatures cannot move you for themselves, how can I possibly hope to move you in their name? The most delightful paper, the most charming essay, which the tender imagination of Charles Lamb conceived, represents him as sitting by his fireside on a winter night telling stories to his own dear children, and delighting in their society, until he suddenly comes to his old, solitary, bachelor self, and finds that they were but dream-children who might have been, but never were. ‘We are nothing’, they say to him; ‘less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and we must wait upon the tedious shore of Lethe, millions of ages, before we have existence and a name’. ‘And immediately awaking’, he says, ‘I found myself in my arm-chair’. The dream-children whom I would now raise, if I could, before every one of you, according to your various circumstances, should be the dear child you love, the dearer child you have lost, the child you might have had, the child you certainly have been. Each of these dream-children should hold in its powerful hand one of the little children now lying in the Child’s Hospital, or now shut out of it to perish. Each of these dream-children should say to you, ‘O help this little suppliant in my name; O, help it for my sake!’ Well! – And immediately awaking, you should find yourselves in the Freemasons’ Hall, happily arrived at the end of a rather long speech, drinking ‘Prosperity to the Hospital for Sick Children’, and thoroughly resolved that it shall flourish.18580209<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
244https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/244General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival 1847Toast at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival (29 March 1847).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1847-03-29">1847-03-29</a>1847-03-29_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Dinner<span>Dickens, Charles. 'General Theatrical Anniversary Festival' </span><span>(29 March 1847). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1847-03-29_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Dinner">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1847-03-29_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Dinner</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a>Gentlemen, it is well for me, and better for you, that the admirable exposition we have heard from my friend on my left of the claims and merits of the General Theatrical Fund, and its immense superiority in its freedom from exclusive restrictions to any other institution having any similar but narrower object, leaves nothing to be added on that head: though the case is so clear and so strong, and has always in its common sense and justice interested me so earnestly, that I could hold forth on this theme ‘until my eyelids could no longer wag’, and am happy to be relieved of the danger of producing any influence on your eyelids by dealing with it at all. As it has been written of Vice, that she is A monster of such hideous mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen. so, I am sure, it might be written of the General Theatrical Fund, that its objects are: so worthy and so much its own As to be favoured, need but to be known. And better known they never can be, than from the lips which have proclaimed them to the room this night. There is, however, gentlemen, one point that seems to me to arise naturally out of the observations of our distinguished President, and at which I cannot help just glancing as I go along. Hope lingered at the bottom of a box in ancient days, as we are told: I cannot help fancying that I descry her lingering yet, at the bottom of those two strong-boxes of the Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatrical Funds, to offer solid consolation to the General Theatrical Fund in time to come. For as the natural recipients of that treasure pass away in natural course, and no one among them bears in his hand ‘a glass that shows me many more’ – or any more – I cannot help fancying that some portion of the garnered wealth must come our way at last, and float into our roomy coffers. Gentlemen, I hardly think it possible that two such large golden camels can entirely pass through the eyes of two such little needles; and when an institution has arisen, so broad and free as this is, which extends its advantages, not to the pale shades of two dead and buried companies of actors, but to the whole theatrical profession throughout England, I hold it would be a faint-hearted blinking of the question not to avow what most of us here must surely feel – a confident belief that to such resources it may justly, and of right, look for valuable endowment in the days to come. It is ill ‘waiting for dead men’s shoes’, I know; but it is quite another matter waiting for shoes that have been made for people who can never be born to try them on. I come now, gentlemen, to propose to you a toast which is uppermost, I dare say, in the thoughts of everybody present, which is ‘the very head and front’ of the occasion, and the cause which brings us together; which is, and ever must be, inseparably associated with the honour, dignity, and glory of the English stage; with its revival in splendour and magnificence from ruin and rubbish, with its claims to be respected as an art and as a noble means of general instruction and improvement. To whom could such a toast apply, if not to our chairman, Mr. Macready? Of whom, gentlemen – so graceful and appropriate is the position he now occupies among us – I would say, if I may paraphrase what he knows well, that nothing in the Chair became him like the taking of it. It is as generous and true in him – at the head of his profession, and at the zenith of a proud and prosperous career, to take part with this Fund, and to be heard in this pace urging its claims with a manly earnestness, because it is not restrictive, and because it does not favour a few, and because it addresses itself to the great body of actors, and most of all to those who most need it, – as it must be of enduring service to the institution to receive such high and valuable testimony. Gentlemen, it would be difficult for me to find terms in which to discharge the duty of proposing our chairman’s health, in the difficulty I always feel as to the separation of his name from sentiments of strong personal affection and attachment, if I were not happily relieved by the knowledge that, in your breasts as well as mine, the mere mention of Mr. Macready’s name awakens a host of eloquent associations, – Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, grey-haired Lear, Virginius, Werner, and a host of others, speak for him within us, like spirits. We once again forget the encircling walls of his Covent Garden Theatre, or of Drury Lane – theatres then with nothing infamous to mock the lesson that the poet taught or shame the woman-student of it – and look upon old Rome, its senate and its army, or the Forest of Arden with its gnarled and melancholy boughs, or Swinstead Abbey Gardens with the cruel king upon his death-bed, or Prospero’s enchanted island, or any of those scenes of airy nothings that he made plain and palpable. Oh! if one touch of nature makes the whole world kin, think, gentlemen, for how much of the kindred feeling that is amongst us tonight, or at any time, we are indebted to such an art, and such a man! May we be more and more indebted to him, year by year, for very many years to come! May we yet behold the English drama – this is a hope to which I always cling – in some theatre of his own, rising proudly from its ashes, into new and vigorous existence. And may we, in the reception we now give his name, express all this, and twenty times as much; including the past, the present, and the future; and give him reason years hence to remember this occasion, with something of the pleasure and delight that we have through him derived from it ourselves! I beg to propose to you to drink the health of our chairman, Mr. Macready.18470329<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
255https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/255General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival 1848Toasts given at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival (17 April 1848).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1848-04-17">1848-04-17</a>1848-04-17_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Toasts given at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival' (17 April 1848).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1848-04-17_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1848-04-17_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a>He had, he said, never been in limbo, and therefore his knowledge of the Old Bailey was limited; and as the sheriff had been pleased to remark that but few, if any actors, had been in ‘durance vile’, he thought he might return the compliment by saying that but few sheriffs had been resident in Newgate. With respect to the speech of the gallant officer, who returned thanks for the Navy, he could assure him that though his friend Captain Cuttle was not present, he would most indubitably ‘take a note of it’. ‘Good wine’, as Rosalind says, ‘needs no bush’; so a good play needs no epilogue; a good book no preface; and a good toast but few words. It was conventionally supposed that actors were an improvident race; but he would maintain that it was more creditable to those who yielded up out of so many shillings so many pence to a fund for their decayed brethren, than those who hoarded up hundreds. And he would assert that, in the profession, there were a number of highly honourable, talented and striving men and women, of whose daily lives many of the company then assembled might take an example. Dickens then pronounced a high eulogium on the talents of the chairman, who, he said, had written the best comedy since Goldsmith’s time; and as to his works of fiction, they were known and appreciated by all the world. He concluded by calling on the company to drink his health.; He had, he said, but half a dozen words to say. The Muses were ladies; the Graces were ladies; some of the best writers were ladies; some of the best characters in tragedy and comedy were ladies; the brightest portion of our existence were ladies. He would, therefore, give ‘The Ladies’.18480417<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
256https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/256General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival 1849Speech at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival (21 May 1849).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1849-05-21">1849-05-21</a>1849-05-21_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival' (21 May 1849).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1849-05-21_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1849-05-21_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a>Gentlemen, in hope that you will not object to a Trustee with a cold, however naturally you might object to a cold Trustee, I beg, in behalf of my absent colleagues, to return you their thanks for the honour you have rendered them, and on my own part to acknowledge the honour you have rendered me. And I am well assured, gentlemen, that I express their feelings no less than my own, when I congratulate the General Theatrical Fund on the brilliant assembly by which I am surrounded; and on its being presided over by a gentleman who has a triple claim on its consideration and respect. I do not mean to say, gentlemen, with Mrs. Malaprop’s own happy confusion of ideas, that the chairman is ‘like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once’; but I think I give utterance to the sentiment – to the general sentiment – of all this company, when I hail him as gracefully seated in his right place tonight, not only in consideration of his own talents and public position, but in memory of the genius of his immortal father, and in consideration of the many tender and sweet remembrances all England must associate with his accomplished wife. Gentlemen, if, like some Trustees on an infinitely larger scale – some of those legislative Trustees who occasionally refresh themselves with odd vagaries elsewhere – I might espy ‘strangers present’; though Heaven forbid that the sudden sharpness of my eyesight should be attended with the disastrous House of Commons consequences, and lead to the withdrawal of those fair ornaments of our society; but I say, if, with the proverbial clearness of vision of an Irish member, I might espy ‘strangers present,’ I would appeal to them confidently as the best judges whether their sex has ever had a gentler, better, truer exponent than the lady of whom I speak. Perchance, gentlemen, I would appeal to them to say whether her sitting among us at this time is not the crowning grace of our festivity. In common, gentlemen, both with the chairman and Secretary, I regret very much to miss at this board today the pleasant and familiar face of our Treasurer; I regret it selfishly for our sakes, for I can guess to how many faces his is imparting something of its own delightful cheerfulness and mirth at this moment. But as a less important officer of this institution, it is a great pleasure to me to confirm all that you have heard stated of its continued prosperity, and to bear my admiring testimony to the patience and perseverance with which its members contribute, many of them from very scanty and uncertain resources, those periodical sums which are to be a provision for their old age; to exult, as I annually do, in the refutation thus afforded to the sweeping charge of improvidence, which is somewhat thoughtlessly made, and as I conceive ungenerously, against the members of the theatrical profession, and other not dissimilar pursuits. Gentlemen, I always consider when I hear that charge made, that it is not sufficiently recollected that if you are born to the possession of a silver spoon, it may not be very difficult to apply yourself to the task of keeping it well polished on the side-board, but that if you are born to the possession of a wooden ladle instead, the process of transmuting it into that article of plate is often a very difficult and discouraging process. And most of all we should remember that it is so at a time of general trouble and distress. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’ indeed, in days when crowns of so many sorts, of gold, brass, and iron, are tumbling from the heads of the wearers; but the head that wears a mimic crown, and the hand that grasps a mimic sceptre, fare at such a season, worst of all; for then the peaceful, graceful arts of life go down, and the slighter ornaments of social existence are the first things crushed. Therefore, gentlemen, if the King of Sardinia cannot get into trouble without involving the King or Mr. Daggerwood’s Company; and if the leader of the Austrian armies cannot make a movement without affecting the leader of the business at the Theatre Royal, Little Pedlington, so much the more have we reason to rejoice in the continued prosperity of this institution – so much the more have we reason to rejoice in its floating on this sea of trouble; like the veritable sea-serpent, according to Captain McQuhae, with which it tallies in all its essential features, for it is apparently bent on a vigorous and determined object, with its head considerably above water, and drawing easily behind it a long train of useful circumstances. One other word, gentlemen, on the hopes of the Drama, and consequently on the hopes of the extended operations of this establishment, and I have done. When the chairman made his first admirable speech, I confess I had some doubts whether I quite agreed with him, but I was quite sure that if we did not agree, we should agree to differ; but when made that admirable other speech in reference to the Fund, I was happy to find that we were cordially agreed. Gentlemen, I allude to the regeneration of the Drama. I think it is next to impossible but that it must come to pass, because the Drama is founded on an eternal principle in human nature. I say it respectfully, I do not think it within the power of any potentate on earth, however virtuous, however munificent, however strong in the love and honour of a people, to raise the Drama up, or to pull the Drama down. In this room, in Windsor Castle, in an African hut, in a North American wigwam, there is the same inborn delight and interest in a living representation of the actions, passions, joys, and sorrows of mankind. In England, of all countries on the earth, this interest is purified and exalted by the loftiest masterpieces of human fancy, and the proudest monuments of human wit. Such an art, gentlemen, I hold to be imperishable; reverses it may suffer, from many causes, but ‘malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing’, to my thinking, can root it out.18490521<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
258https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/258General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival 1850Speech at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival (25 March 1850).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1850-03-25">1850-03-25</a>1850-03-25_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival' (25 March 1850).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1850-03-25_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1850-03-25_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a>Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, Before I proceed to discharge the very simple office entrusted to me, you will perhaps allow me to congratulate you upon the very agreeable mode of spending Quarter Day – a day not always connected with agreeable associations, or devoted to such hilarity. Perhaps we will also allow me, gentlemen, to renew my annual congratulations on the prosperity of the General Theatrical Fund, and the courage and perseverance with which its members, many of them under very unpropitious circumstances indeed, continue to fulfil their task. I never go into any of our smaller London theatres, or even into country theatres – such a one for instance as I was at the other night, where no particular piece belonged to the immense night in the bill, where generally people walked in and out, where a sailor fought a combat with anyone he chanced to meet and who happened to be in possession of a sword, – I never go into any of the neglected temples of the drama, where it is so hard to get a living, but I come out again with a considerably strengthened and increased admiration of those who are the members of this Fund, and who, with constancy and perseverance, bear up under the greatest difficulties. It is, I say, an extraordinary and a remarkable fact, and an excellent example to the members of other and more lauded professions. Gentlemen, I now come to the toast which I have to propose to you. I shall not express, as I ought to express according to all precedent, my sorrow that it has not fallen into better hands; although it might easily have done that, to tell the truth, I am exceedingly glad to hold it in mine, as it gives me the opportunity of publicly rendering my humble tribute of respect to the character and exertions of a gentleman to whom this fund is much indebted, who is connected in no slight degree with the public enjoyment, and in no slight degree with the successes and hopes of the English Drama, its literature and art. I mean our chairman, Mr. Webster. I knew very well you would give a cordial reception to his name. I was well assured of it because I esteem, as every friend of this institution must esteem, the very great importance of his encouragement, because I feel it is honourable to him and to it, that setting aside all considerations of this Fund or that Fund, of this theatre or that theatre, he puts himself at the head of a society which comprehends all theatres, and which includes all the members of the profession of which he is an old and great supporter. I felt assured, gentlemen, of the sympathy of all this company who are not connected with the profession, because our chairman has been now, for a long time, the manager of two admirably conducted theatres; because he has never been behind the public requirements in any respect, but has even outstripped them; because he has a very strong demand upon our respect and admiration. My friend, Mr. Buckstone, admirably expressed in one sentence a capital summary of his merits, that ‘he not only employed a great number of actors, but paid them too’; and really, gentlemen, in drinking such a toast as the present, we must not forget what a very difficult and arduous career such a manager has to encounter; what untoward circumstances and great difficulties he has to struggle against, and how likely he is to be injured by any depression in the public mind, from whatever cause. Yet, notwithstanding all this, he has evinced a steadiness of purpose not to close his theatre, night after night, whatever may be the great temptations he has had to do so, being too mindful of the poor hangers-on dependent upon him for their daily bread, and who hope for the public support. Such a manager as this, gentlemen, Mr. Webster has always been; And when we add to this, that for many years he has fought a manly, stand-up English battle against very powerful rivals of various countries, English, Swedish, French, Italian, and has encountered all kinds of strange animals, lions, tigers, Ethiopians and Nightingales; and when we add to this list that it is sometimes softly whispered, though I do not believe it myself, that certain members of the theatrical profession, on rare and particular occasions, at great distances apart, are a little capricious and difficult to deal with: when we take all these circumstances into our consideration, I think we shall agree that he has come very nobly through his difficulties, and looks exceedingly well tonight after all that he has gone through. I cannot, gentlemen, in conclusion, express my sense of Mr. Webster&#039;s position in reference to the Drama, and in reference to this society , more to my own satisfaction, at all events, than by relating little story (a very short one) that was told to me last night of an exceedingly intelligent and strictly veracious friend of mine, an American Sea Captain. Gentlemen, once upon a time, he had as a passenger upon board his ship a young lady of great personal attractions, they used that phrase as one entirely new to you, and five young gentlemen, also passengers, and who in the course of a short voyage all fell desperately in love with the young lady. The young lady, liking all the five young gentlemen, and liking them all equally well, felt herself placed in a position of some difficulty, and in this emergency applied for advice to my friend the Captain. My friend the Captain, himself a man of an original turn of mind, proposed to the young lady that she should jump overboard, he having a well-manned boat alongside to prevent the possibility of accidents, and that she should marry the man that jumped in after her. She was very much struck by it, and it being summer time and fine weather, and naturally fond of bathing, decided to accept the proposition. Accordingly, on a certain morning, when her five admirers were all on deck, she went over the side head foremost. Four of the five immediately plunged in after her; and, said the young lady to the Captain when they were all on deck again, ‘What am I to do now? See how wet they are.’ Said the Captain to the young lady, ‘Take the dry one!’ Which she did. Now the way in which I adapt this story to the present purpose is simply by reversing it: that the British drama having gone overboard, and a great many admirers having looked on coolly, and one having gone in and kept his head above water for a long time, my advice to this society would have been, ‘Take the wet one.’ And you have got him. I am thoroughly glad you have, and I beg to propose to you, in all sincerity, to drink his health with acclamation. On behalf of the Hon. Mr. Justice Talfourd, and my brother Trustee, I beg to return you my best thanks, and particularly to my friend Mr. Webster, for his kind mention of my name. The only embarrassment that I feel on these occasions is that I really don&#039;t know what we have to do. I might illustrate our position by a theatrical case. Perhaps you may have observed that when a young lady performs a piece of horsemanship, there are generally two or three ambiguous looking gentleman who follow Mr. Widdicombe about, and who are indispensable to the performance, though the lady never knows why or in what particular, but she is perfectly satisfied that they must be there, and that without them the thing could not possibly be done. I might suppose my friend Mr. Buckstone, in reference to this institution, to be the party representing Mr. Widdicombe, and Mr. Cullenford performing the pleasing act of Secretaryship upon the highly trained charger: well we, the Trustees, represent those attendants looking on so very hard after them.18500325<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
259https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/259General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival 1851Chairman&#039;s speeches at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival (14 April 1851).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1851-04-14">1851-04-14</a>1851-04-14_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Chairman's speeches at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival' (14 April 1851).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-04-14_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-04-14_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a><p>In reply the chairman begged to be allowed to offer them his deepest thanks for the manner in which the last toast had been responded to. He deeply felt the honour conferred upon him, having attended the meeting as a matter of duty, though placed from peculiar circumstances in a highly painful and difficult position. If his services were of any value to the institution, he said, he could assure its members that those services were always freely and heartily at their disposal. He would say no more upon the subject, but proceed to a toast which he doubted not would be warmly received and responded to.</p> <p>He had always taken the highest interest in the prosperity of the Drama, because he believed that a noble Drama tended to purify the human heart, and was the most important agent in the work of education and civilization. He would not dismiss the hope that the British Drama would ultimately ‘look up’, after a pretty long contemplation of its feet; because he could not believe that any art which so appealed to the various passions and affections of human nature could become extinct. A love of the Drama in some shape was implanted in the breast of all people. When the officers of Captain Cook’s ships, who had left their children enacting mimic plays in this country, arrived in the South Sea Uslands, they found the untutored natives doing the same beneath the shadow of their broad-leaved trees. It constituted one of the distinctions which separated man from the brute creation, and he should continue in that belief until he heard of the monkeys producing a play, or the elephants coming out in a good jog-trot, see-saw comedy.</p> <p>It had often been his misfortune to hear the Drama decried by people of the best intentions because of its abuses. Now doubt the Drama had its abuses like other institutions, but so far from that being a reason why they should decry it, it was a reason why they should endeavour to improve and elevate it. In some shape you would always have it; and, depend upon it, if you would not have it at its best, with your own help and consent, you would have it at its worst in your own despite. Perhaps the one reason why the Drama did not hold so good a position in this country as it ought to do, was to be found in the fact that, up to a comparatively recent period, English legislation had drearily discouraged it, and its professors had not been looked upon with respect to which they were justly entitled. But notwithstanding all discouragement, he hoped that it could, and believed that it would, be restored to its proper position among the Arts; and in no way could they better assist the endeavour to raise it, than by extending their support and assistance to those who had always shown their anxiety to maintain the respectability and honour of Dramatic Profession.</p>; <p>The chairman then said that the next toast he had to give was the Professional Ladies and Gentlemen who delighted them with their exertions that evening. After what they had heard and witnessed he felt sure that he need do no more to recommend that toast to them, than to remind them that the whole of those Ladies and Gentlemen gave their assistance, not only gratuitously, but cheerfully, to aid the cause which they had met to promote, and he was sure that they wished for no greater reward than the knowledge that they had been instrumental in promoting the prosperity of the General Theatrical Fund.</p> <p>The Chairman said that he had now come to the last toast of the evening. There was a story told of an Eastern potentate, that when any intelligence of mischief having occurred was brought to him, he always used to exclaim, ‘Who is she?’ – invariably anticipating that it must be caused by a woman. In this country they had a somewhat better application of the same idea, for whenever there was a cause of benevolence to be served, they had only to say ‘Where is she?’ and the answer was sure to be ‘She is here'. The Drama was full of beautiful specimens of woman’s love and woman’s wit, but without stopping to draw comparisons between the characters of Desdemona, Juliet, or other interesting creatures of the poet's brain, he would conclude by giving them, ‘The Ladies’.</p>Gentlemen, in offering to you the loyal and always acceptable toast, ‘The Queen’, I have the pleasure of informing you that the Secretary has, this morning, received Her Majesty’s usual annual donation of one hundred pounds to the funds of the Institution. ‘The Queen.’ Gentlemen, I am sure it will not be necessary for me in presenting to you the next toast, to remind any gentleman present – it being sufficiently known to all parties – of the great interest taken by the illustrious individual whose health I am about to propose, in all the arts and sciences, or the zealous co-operation which His Royal Highness Prince Albert has always shown to any measure devised for their encouragement. At the present time, that is more particularly brought under the attention of the public through the exertions now being made on the suggestion of His Royal highness, to open within a few days, an Exhibition of the world’s progress in the arts and sciences in the magnificent and surprising Palace of Glass, which is, of itself, one of the most remarkable works of art of the age. ‘His Royal Highness Prince Albert, Albert Prince of Wales, and the rest of the Royal Family.’ Gentlemen, the next toast which I have to propose is one, in reference to which the gallant deeds of the members of the professions that are the subjects of it, speak sufficiently in themselves, and need no words of mine, – ‘The Army and Navy.’ Gentlemen, I have so often have the gratification of bearing my testimony in this place to the usefulness of the excellent institution in whose behalf we are assembled, that I should be sensible of the disadvantage of having nothing new to say to you in proposing the toast you all anticipate, if I were not relieved by the conviction that nothing new needs to be said, inasmuch as its old grounds of appeal to you can neither be weakened or strengthened by any advocacy of mine. Although the General Theatrical Fund, unlike some similar public institutions, is represented by no fabric of stone, or brick, or glass – like that wonderful achievement of my ingenious friend Mr. Paxton, of which the great demerit, as we learn from the best authorities, is, that it ought to have fallen down before it was quite built, and would by no means consent to do it. Although, I say, the General Theatrical Fund is represented by no great architectural edifice, it is nevertheless as plain a fact, rests upon as solid a foundation, and carries as erect a front as any building in the world. And the best that its exponent, standing in this place, can do, is to point it out to all beholders, saying simply, ‘There it is! Judge of it for yourselves.’ But, gentlemen, though there may be no necessity for me to state what the General Theatrical Fund is, it may be desirable (with reference to that portion of the present company who have hitherto had but a limited acquaintance with it), that I should state what it is not. It is not a theatrical association whose benefits are confined to a small body of actors, while its claims to public supports are uniformly preferred in the name of the whole histrionic art. It is not a theatrical association adapted to a state of things entirely past and gone, and no more a feature of the present time than groves of highwaymen hanging in chains on Hounslow Heath, or strings of packhorses between London and Birmingham. It is not a rich old gentlemen, with the gout in his vitals, brushed up once a year to look as vigorous as possible, and taken out for a public airing by the few survivors of a large family of nephews and nieces, who keep him laid up in lavender all the rest of the year as a mighty delicate old gentleman: then ask his poor relations, whom they lock out with a double turn of the street door key, why they don&#039;t come in and enjoy his money? It is not a theatrical association, which says to the poor actor, ‘You have only to strut and fret your hour, for so many consecutive nights and for so many seasons, on this stage – whereon it is impossible you ever can set foot; you have only to declaim for so many consecutive nights, in English – here, upon these boards where the English tongue is never heard; you have only to force yourself between these bars (of music), and to make your way – you, an unwieldy Swan of Avon, into this aviary of singing birds – you have only to do this, and you shall come into your share of the advantages of the fund which was raised from the public, in the name, and for the love, of your all-embracing art.’ No, gentlemen, if there be any such funds, this Fund is not of that kind. This Fund is a theatrical association, addressed to the means, and adapted to the wants – and sore and dire those often are – of the whole theatrical profession throughout England. It is a society in which the word ‘exclusiveness’ is unknown. It is a society which says to the actor, ‘You may be the Brigand, or the Hamlet, or the Ghost, or the Court Physician, or the King&#039;s whole army; you may do the light business, or the heavy business, or the comic business, or the serious business, or the eccentric business; you may be the captain who courts the young lady, whose guardian unaccountably persists in dressing himself a hundred years behind the time; or you may be the lady&#039;s younger brother, in white kid gloves and trousers, whose position in the family would appear to be to listen to all the female members of it when they sing, and to shake hands with them between all the verses; or you may be the Baron who gives the fête, and who sits on the sofa under the canopy, with the Baroness, to behold the fête; or you may be the peasant who swells the drinking chorus at the fête, and who may usually be observed to turn his glass upside-down immediately before drinking the Baron’s health; or you may be the Clown who takes away the door-step of the house where there&#039;s a dinner party; or you may be the first stout gentleman who issues forth out of that house, on the false alarm of fire, and precipitates himself into the area; or you may be a Fairy, residing for ever in a revolving Star, in the Regions of Pleasure, or the Palaces of Delight; or you may even be a Witch in Macbeth, bearing a marvellous resemblance to the Malcolm or Donalbain of the previous scenes with his wig hind-side before. But, be you what you may; be your path in the profession never so high or never so humble, this institution addresses you, and offers you the means of doing good to yourself, and doing good to other people.’ Nor let it be forgotten, gentlemen, that the General Theatrical Fund is essentially a Provident Institution. Its members are of a class whose earnings are, at the best, precarious; and they are required to lay by, out of their weekly salary, when they get it, a certain small weekly sum. This they do through every difficulty, with constancy that cannot be too much admired; and the first effect of the institution on them, is, to engender a habit of forethought and self-denial. By becoming a member of this society the actor is placing himself in a position to secure his own right at no man&#039;s wrong; and when in old age or times of distress he makes his claim to it, he will be entitled to say, ‘I do not compromise my independence herein; I do not disgrace my children; I am neither a beggar nor a suppliant; I come to reap the harvest from the seed which I sowed long ago.’ Therefore it is, gentlemen, that in asking you to support this Institution, I never will hold out to you the inducement, that you are performing an act of charity in the common acceptation of the word. Of all the abuses of that much abused term, none have so raised my indignation as some that I have heard in this room. If you help this Fund you will not be performing an act of charity, but you will be helping those who help themselves, and you will be coming to the aid of men who put their own shoulders to the wheel of their sunken carriage, and did not stand idly by while it sank deeper in the mire. Have you help this Fund you will not be performing an act of charity, but you will do an act of Christian kindness, benevolence, encouragement. You will do an act of justice – you will do an act of gratitude. But I will not so wrong a body of men struggling so manfully for independence, as to solicit you to perform, in their behalf, an act of charity. Gentlemen, I have used the term ‘gratitude’. Let any of us look back upon his past life, and say whether he owes no gratitude to the actor’s art! Not because it is often exercised in the midst of sickness, poverty, and misfortune, – other arts, God knows, are liable to the like distresses! Not because the actor sometimes comes from scenes of affliction and misfortune – even from death itself – to play his part before us; all men must do that violence to their feelings, in passing on to the fulfilment of their duties in the great strife and fight of life. But because in the relief afforded to us by the actor’s art, we always find some reflection, humorous or pathetic, sombre or grotesque, of all the best things that we feel and know. If any man were to tell me that he owed no great acknowledgement to the stage, I would ask him the one question, whether he remembered his first play? Oh, gentlemen, if you can but carry back your thoughts to that night, and think a little of the bright and harmless world it opened to your view, full well assured am I that we shall hear of it expressively from Mr. Cullenford, when he comes to read out the donations by and by! Gentlemen, this is the sixth year the members of this society have met together in this room. This is the sixth time your child has been brought down and introduced to the company after dinner. His nurse, a very worthy person of the name of Buckstone, with excellent characters from several places, is here, and will presently speak to you regarding the health of the child; and will, I have no doubt, be able to tell you that is chest is perfectly sound, and its general health in the best condition. Long may it continue so – long may it thrive and grow! Long may we meet here to congratulate each other on its increased and increasing prosperity, and longer than the line of Banquo may the line of figures be, in which its patriotic share in the National Debt shall be stated a hundred years hence, in the account books of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England! I beg to give you, ‘Prosperity to the General Theatrical Fund!’18510414<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
260https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/260General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival 1852Speech at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival (5 April 1852).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1852-04-05">1852-04-05</a>1852-05-04_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival-1852<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival' (5 April 1852).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1852-05-04_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival-1852">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1852-05-04_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival-1852</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a><p>He could assure them, he said, that he really was not using a common form of words, but was honestly expressing the feeling at the moment when he avowed himself at some loss, both to think the company for their hearty greeting, and to thank his generous friend in the Chair for the terms in which he had referred to him. Sir Anthony Absolute was of the opinion that in love of affairs it was best to begin with a little aversion; and if he (Mr. Dickens) could only have started with a little coldness on the part of his friend in the Chair, or even a moderate warmth on the part of the audience, it was quite unknown into what an admirable speech he should have presently soared. But a tribute so noble, and a welcome so cordial, he found to be very bad preparations indeed for such an achievement.</p> <p>Before referring to the Fund, which is the main object of interest with all of them my evening, he would take leave to say that he was exceedingly glad that his friend, the chairman, it happened to allude to him, and that company, in his Stage-Managerial capacity; because he did particularly desire to express his conviction in such a company, of all others, that the dramatic profession was very ill served by some misjudging friends, when they supposed that it could possibly be injured by, or could possibly regard with anything like resentment or jealousy, Amateur Theatricals. He had, for a brief space, assumed the functions of an amateur manager and actor, in furtherance of a cause in which his warmest sympathies and aspirations were (like those of his friend in the Chair) enlisted; and to represent that the stage could possibly be injured, or could fairly claim any right to consider itself injured by such performances was to exclude it from the liberal position assumed in such wise by every other liberal art. And literature there were received, freely, and, without cavil, amateurs of all kinds: physicians, lawyers, officers of the army and navy, merchants’ clerks who travelled and saw strange countries, lords and ladies of various degrees, – anybody who had anything to say, and possibly, now, and then, somebody had nothing to say. Through the whole of the last season, a gallery was opened in Pall Mall for the exhibition of pictures of amateur artists; he never heard that the members of the Royal Academy were much aggrieved by the circumstance, or very desperately alarmed by its public patronage, and success. So, in music: he believed it was generally acknowledged that some excellent lessons have been given to the public and the profession by the knowledge and patience of amateurs in chorus singing, and that the production of some of the most admired works of the old masters were due to the exertions of amateurs, without the least injury to the regular professors of the art. The liberal and generous feeling which thus distinguished other kindred arts, surely was to be claimed for the stage, as <em>its</em> just characteristic too; and could not be better claimed for it than at the anniversary celebration of its most comprehensive and its least restricted institution.</p> <p>With reference to the General Theatrical Fund, he had been so often before them as one of the Trustees, that he found it very difficult to say anything relative to it which he had not said before, or which they did not know as well as himself. Independently of the fact that their Fund had been established seven years, and that their position was improving every time they met, the eloquence of their chairman in proposing the toast of the evening, and their Treasurer’s admirable acknowledgement of it, had completely exhausted the subject, and he now stood before them a bankrupt Trustee without a leg to stand upon. If he could only have found one good vice in the management, he would have been well set up in business for the evening, and might have remained in a perfectly self-satisfied condition until next year. If, for instance, he could only have complained that the institution was expensively managed, that there was nobody connected with the management, who had any sympathy with the unfortunate members of the Dramatic profession: that none of them had had any experience of the habits or struggles of poor actors; if hr could only have said that the Treasurer was a stern, austere man, altogether a hard-favoured person, severe of countenance and very difficult to approach; or if he could have said that the institution was exclusive in its nature, one that required candidates for admission to its benefits to have complied with some trifling condition – reasonable, but not easy, such as having held an engagement for two or three consecutive years in the moon, or having appeared in Sir Edward Lytton’s <em>Money</em> two or three hundred nights before the Esquimaux – if he could have found any such trifling ground of complaint, he would have been at no loss for a topic. But, whereas in the General Theatrical Fund, the local comedian was not expected to have fulfilled those consecutive engagements in the moon; the tragedian was not expected to have played Evelyn two or three hundred consecutive nights in the icy regions of the North; Fenella, the sister of Masaniello, was not refused relief because she was only a dancer, nor Masaniello himself because he was only a singer.</p> <p>He had nothing left to say in lieu of that great speech he might, and indisputably would, under these happiest circumstances have made, but that he wanted a grievance. Indeed, he was so utterly utter loss for a grievance that he had had serious thoughts of abandoning these festivals altogether, and taking to attending those banquets which he sometimes saw advertised to take place in the neighbourhood of Freemasons’ Hall, where he was informed that he could find all these causes of complaint ready made to his hand. Like his friend, Mr. Buckstone, however, he did not wish to indulge in any unkind expressions towards the other theatrical funds, some old and esteemed friends of his were connected with them, and as he would wish to make them also the friends of this institution. What he would suggest, afar off, was that these Funds should make some change in their constitutions adopted to the altered times, and he thought there was nothing so likely to reconcile all differences, and to do so much good to all parties, as a happy marriage.</p> <p>All he would say in his official position was that the General Theatrical Fund was progressing steadily, that they had not the slightest difficulty to state to that company, and that the institution was steadily and gallantly supported by the members of the profession. All who had the least theatrical experience must know how necessary it was to any play, in order to ensure success, that it should possess some female interest. No institution could succeed that was not backed by that influence; and, therefore, it was with great pleasure that he learned from their worthy Secretary that a large portion of the subscribers consisted of the gentler sex. Nor were they wanting there, to shed on the assembly a grace which nothing else could give to it; for whether he looked before or behind him (and here he might be allowed to say that he almost regretted, to occupy one of the posts of honour, and wished he was situated among some of his friends in a more private situation at the side of the room) –, he met with nothing but beaming faces, encouraging and gentle looks. On the part of his brother Trustees, and on his own behalf, he begged to acknowledge the toast with many thanks; and he begged to assure those present that they need not be in the least afraid, that evening, of troubling the Treasurer or the Trustees by swelling their contributions and support of the fund to any inconvenient amount; for they were perfectly ready to bear, with the utmost cheerfulness, the heaviest total with which they might think fit to burden them.</p>18520405<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
262https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/262Metropolitan Rowing ClubChairman&#039;s Speech at the Metropolitan Rowing Club (7 May 1866).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1866-05-07">1866-05-07</a>1866-05-07_Speech_ Metropolitan-Rowing-Club<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Chairman's Speech at the Metropolitan Rowing Club' (7 May 1866).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1866-05-07_Speech_ Metropolitan-Rowing-Club">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1866-05-07_Speech_ Metropolitan-Rowing-Club</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a><p>Having asked the indulgence of those present, as he was labouring under a bad cold, he went on to remark that he could not avoid the remembrance of what very poor things the amateur rowing clubs on the Thames were in the early days of his noviciate; not to mention the difference in the build of the boats. He could not get on in the beginning without being a pupil under an anomalous creature called a ‘fireman-waterman’, who wore an evidently tall hat, and a perfectly unaccountable uniform, of which it might be said that if it were less adapted for one thing than another, that thing was fire. He recollected that this gentleman had on some former day won a King’s prize wherry, and they used to go about in this accursed wherry, he and a partner, doing all the hard work, while the fireman drank all the beer.</p> <p>The river was very much clearer, freer, and cleaner in those days than these; but he was persuaded that this philosophical old boatman could no more have dreamt of seeing the spectacle which had taken place on Saturday, or of seeing these clubs matched for skill and speed, then he should dare to announce through the usual authentic channels that he was to be heard of at the bar below, and that he was perfectly prepared to accommodate Mr. James Mace if he meant business. Nevertheless, he could recollect that he had turned out for a spurt a few years ago on the River Thames with an occasional Secretary, who should be nameless, and some other Eton boys, and that he could hold his own against them. More recently still, the last time that he rode down from Oxford he was supposed to have covered himself with honour, though he must admit that he found the locks so picturesque as to require more examination for the discovery of their beauty.</p> <p>But what he wanted to say was this: though his ‘fireman-waterman’ was one of the greatest humbugs that ever existed, he taught him what an honest, healthy, manly sport this was. The waterman would bid them pull away, and assure them that they were certain of winning in some race. And he would remark that aquatic sports never entailed a moment’s cruelty, or a moment’s pain, upon any living creature. Rowing men pursued recreation under circumstances which brace their muscles, and cleared the cobwebs from their minds. He assured them that he regarded such clubs as these as a ‘national blessing’. They owed, it was true, a vast deal to steam power – as was sometimes proved at matches on the Thames – but, at the same time, they were greatly indebted to all the tended to keep up a healthy, manly tone. He understood that there had been a committee selected for the purpose of arranging a great amateur regatta, which was to take place off Putney in the course of the season that was just begun. He could not abstain from availing himself of the occasion to express a hope that the committee would successfully carry on its labour to a triumphant result, and that they should see upon the Thames, in the course of this summer, such a brilliant sight as had never been seen there before. To secure this there must be some hard work, skilful combinations, and rather large subscriptions. But although the aggregate result must be great, if by no means followed that it need to be at all large in its individual details.</p> <p>In conclusion, Dickens went on to to make a laughable comparison between the paying off or purification of the National Debt, just advocated by Mr. Gladstone in his budget speech, and the purification of the river Thames.</p>18660507<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
252https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/252Metropolitan Sanitary Association Anniversary BanquetSpeech at the Metropolitan Sanitary Association Anniversary Banquet (10 May 1851).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1851-05-10">1851-05-10</a>1851-05-10_Speech_Metropolitan-Sanitary-Association-Anniversary-Banquet<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Metropolitan Sanitary Association Anniversary Banquet' (10 May 1851)</span><span>.&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-05-10_Speech_Metropolitan-Sanitary-Association-Anniversary-Banquet">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-05-10_Speech_Metropolitan-Sanitary-Association-Anniversary-Banquet</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Gore+House">Gore House</a>My Lord and Gentlemen, I am placed in that peculiarly advantageous position for speaking, that I must either turn from the chairman or from the company. But, as the company includes that best and brightest of all company, whose presence (I assume) we&#039;re supposed not to recognise on these occasions as we never address them – and, as I have abundant experience of the innate courtesy and politeness of my noble friend – I shall take the cause which I am sure will be most agreeable to him, and turn to this assembly in general. Indeed, gentlemen, I have but a few words to say, either on the needfulness of Sanitary Reform, or on the consequent usefulness of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association. That no one can estimate the amount of mischief which is grown in dirt; that no man can say, here it stops, or there it stops, either in its physical or moral results, when both begin in the cradle and are not at rest in the obscene grave, is now as certain as it is that the air from Gin Lane will be carried, when the wind is Easterly, into May Fair, and that if you once have a vigorous pestilence raging furiously in St. Giles’s, no mortal list of Lady Patronesses can keep it out of Almack’s. Twelve or fifteen years ago some, of the first valuable reports of Mr. Chadwick and of Dr. Southwood Smith strengthening and much enlarging my previous imperfect knowledge of this truth, made me, in my sphere, earnest in this Sanitary Cause. And I can honestly declare tonight, that all the use I have since made of my eyes – or nose – that all the information I have since been able to acquire through any of my senses, has strengthened me in the conviction that Searching Sanitary Reform must precede all other social remedies, and that even Education and Religion can do nothing where they are most needed, until the way is paved for their ministrations by Cleanliness and Decency. Am I singular in this opinion? You will remember the speech made this night by the Right Reverend Prelate, which no true Sanitary Reformer can have heard without emotion. What avails it to send a Missionary to me, a miserable man or woman living in a foetid Court where every sense bestowed upon me for my delight becomes a torment, and every month of my life is new mire added to the heap under which I lie degraded? To what natural feeling within me is he to address himself? What ancient chord within me can he hope to touch? Is it my remembrance of my children? Is it a remembrance of distortion and decay, scrofula and fever? Would he address himself to my hopes of immortality? I am so surrounded by material filth that my Soul can not rise to the contemplation an immaterial existence! Or, if I be a miserable child, born and natured in the same wretched place, and tempted, in these better times, to the Ragged School, what can the few hours’ teaching that I get there do for me, against the noxious, constant, ever-renewed lesson of my whole existence. But, give me my first glimpse of Heaven through a little of its light and air – give me water – help me to be clean – lighten this heavy atmosphere in which my spirit droops and I become the indifferent and callous creature that you see me – gently and kindly take the body of my dead relation out of the small room where I grow to be so familiar with the awful change that even its sanctity is lost to me – and, Teacher, then I’ll hear, you know how willingly, of Him whose thoughts were so much with the Poor, and who had compassion for all human sorrow! I am now, gentlemen, to propose to you as a toast a public Body without whose efficient aid this preparation so much to be desired, for Christianity at home, cannot be effected; and, by whom, if we earnestly desire such preparation, we must stand, giving them all the support it is in our power to render. I mean, the Board of Health. We have a transparent instance very near at hand of the mysterious arrangement that no great thing can possibly be done without a certain amount of nonsense being talked about it in the way of objection. Much as I respected friend the Ex-unprotected Female was confounded, at that family dinner party where we last heard of her, by some alarming conversation respecting the sparrows in Mr. Paxton&#039;s gutters, and the casks of gunpowder sent to the Great Exposition under the semblance of coffee, so, I dare say, it has been the fortune of most of us to hear the Board of Health discussed in various congenial circles. I&#039;ve never been able to make out, distinctly, more than two objections to it; the first is expressed in a long word which I seem to have heard pronounced with a sort of violent relish on two or three previous occasions – Centralization. Now, gentlemen, in the year before last, in the time of the cholera, you had an excellent opportunity of judging between this Centralization on the one hand, and what I may be permitted to call Vestrylization on the other. You may recollect the Reports of the Board of Health on the subject of cholera, and you may recollect the Reports of the discussions on the same subject at some Vestry Meetings. I have the honour – of which I am very sensible – to be one of the constituent body of the amazing Vestry of Marylebone; and if you chance to remember (as you very likely do) what the Board of Health did, in Glasgow and other places, and what my vestry said, you will probably agree with me that between this so-called Centralization, and this Vestrylization, the former is by far the best thing to stand by in an emergency. My vestry even took the high ground of denying the existence of cholera in any unusual degree. And though that denial had no greater effect upon the disease than my vestry’s denial of the existence of Jacob’s Island had upon the Earth about Bermondsey, the circumstance may be suggestive to you in considering what Vestrylization is, when a few noisy little landlords interested in the maintenance of abuses, struggle to the foremost ranks; and what the so-called Centralization is when it is a combination of active business habits, sound medical knowledge, and a zealous sympathy with the sufferings of the people. But gentlemen there is, as I have said, another objection to the Board of Health. It is conveyed in the shorter and less alarming word – delay. Now, I need not suggest to you that it would surely be unreasonable to object to a first-rate chronometer that it wouldn&#039;t go – when its owner wouldn&#039;t wind it up. Yet I cannot help thinking, I must plainly avow, that the Board of Health is in the parallel position of being excellently adapted for going, being very willing and anxious to go, but not being able to go, because its lawful master has fallen into a gentle slumber, and forgotten to set it a-going. As a component particle of this association which my Noble friend in the chair considers useful as a gentle stimulus to governments, I must take leave to say that I do not, and can not, consider the Board of Health responsible for delay in sanitary reforms. Lord Robert Grosvenor referred just now to Lord Castlereagh’s favourite adage, that you must never hallo until you are out of the Wood. It occurred to me that with a very slight addition that would be an excellent adage for all Sanitary Reformers: to wit, that you must never hallo until you&#039;re out of the Woods – and Forests. If I may venture to make the remark under the presiding of my Noble friend whom we are all glad to see, and would all have been so happy to retain, in those leafy regions, I would say that since the remote period when ‘the noble Savage’ ran wild there, some other Nobles – not savages by any means, but gentlemen of high accomplishments and worth – have&#039; gone a little wild in the same districts and wandered rather more languidly out of the direct path than is quite good for the public. You will of course understand that in saying this, I merely express my own individual misgivings. But I will tell you why I entertain them. Considering the Report of the Board of Health on Intra-mural Interments to be one of the most remarkable social documents ever issued under any Government, and an honour to the country and the time, I cannot but believe that the Board of Health would have advanced a little quicker in the carrying-out of the measure founded upon it but for some stoppage in the way above them which we don&#039;t clearly see. Remembering the vigour and perspicuity with which they have indicated to us the chief Sanitary evils it is essential to remove, I cannot hold them responsible for the prolonged existence of those evils. As with omission, so with commission. Remembering how clearly they showed us the advantages of a continuous supply of soft water, and how they pointed out to us an abundant source of supply, I cannot cast upon them the blame of a measure which gives us only hard water. Remembering how they dwelt upon the necessity of a combination of water-works, I cannot charge them with the injury of perpetuated separation. Remembering how they demonstrated to us that disease must lurk in houses founded over cesspools or built upon foundations saturated with cesspool matter, I cannot hold them responsible for a system of drainage which does not remove these ills. And therefore, gentlemen, both for the good they have done, and for the good they may be fairly assumed to have had the will to do, but not the power, I commend the Board of Health to you as especially deserving and requiring the sympathy, the encouragement, and the support of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association. I shall beg, in conclusion, to couple with the toast the name of a Noble Lord, one of its members, whose Earnestness in all good works no man can doubt, and who always has the courage to face the and commonest of all cants; that is to say, the cant about the cant of philanthropy and benevolence. I propose to you Lord Ashley and the Board of Health.18510510<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Kensington">Kensington</a>
253https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/253Metropolitan Sanitary Association Public MeetingSpeech at the first Metropolitan Sanitary Association Public Meeting (6 February 1850).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1850-02-06">1850-02-06</a>1850-02-06_Speech_Metropolitan-Sanitary-Association-Public-Meeting<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the first Metropolitan Sanitary Association Public Meeting' (6 February 1850).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1850-02-06_Speech_Metropolitan-Sanitary-Association-Public-Meeting">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1850-02-06_Speech_Metropolitan-Sanitary-Association-Public-Meeting</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Freemason%27s+Tavern">Freemason&#039;s Tavern</a><p>Having been requested to second the resolution, he said, he was happy to say that he would have but very few words to address them in doing so, chiefly because all that was to be set up on the subject had been anticipated by the previous speakers. But they would excuse him if he so far followed in the footsteps of those who had preceded him, as to endeavour to impress upon the meeting that their great object was to bring the metropolis within the provision of the Public Health Act, from the operation of which it had been most absurdly and monstrously excluded – because it was their duty to diminish an amount of suffering and a waste of life which would be a disgrace to a heathen land, to atone for long years of neglect, of which they had all to a greater or lesser extent been guilty, and to address a most grievous and cruel injustice.</p> <p>It was a common figure of speech when anything very important was left out of any great scheme, to say that it was the tragedy of <em>Hamlet</em> with Hamlet left out; but the existence of a Public Health Act with the metropolis excluded from its operation suggested something to him even more sad, and that was the representation of <em>Hamlet</em> with nothing in it but the gravedigger. They had agreed that this was a state of things which must not be allowed to continue. They found every year 13,000 unfortunate persons dying unnaturally in prematurely around them. They found infancy was made stunted, ugly, and full of pain; maturity made old, and old age imbecile; and pauperism made hopeless every day. They claimed for the metropolis of a Christian country that this should be remedied, and that the capital should set an example of humanity and justice to the whole empire.</p> <p>Of the sanitary condition of London at the present moment, he solemnly believed it would be almost impossible to speak too ill. He knew of many places in it unsurpassed in the accumulated horrors of their neglect by the dirtiest old spots in the dirtiest old towns, under the worst old governments in Europe. Great contrasts of rank, great contrasts of wealth, and great contrasts of comfort must, as every man of sense was aware exist among all civilized communities; but he sincerely believed that no such contrasts as were afforded by our handsome streets, our railroads and our electric telegraphs, in the year of our Lord 1850, as compared with the great mass of the dwellings of the poor in many parts of this metropolis, had ever before been presented on this earth.</p> <p>The principle objectors to to the improvement of the sanitary condition of London – not to mention those noble and honourable friends of theirs who were that day at Westminster and elsewhere,’ letting I dare not wait upon I would’ – the principle objectors to the sanitary improvement of the metropolis, might be divided into two classes. The first of these classes consisted of the small owners of small tenements, who pushed themselves forward on boards of guardians and parish vestries, and were clamorous about the ratings of their property. The other class was composed of gentlemen more independent and less selfish, who had a weak leaning to the words ‘self-government’. Now, the first of these classes preceded generally on the supposition that the compulsory improvement of their dwellings, when exceedingly defective, would prove very expensive. But that was a great mistake, for nothing was cheaper than good sanitary improvement, as they knew in the case of ‘Jacob’s Island’, which he had described in a work of fiction some ten or eleven years ago, and where the improvements had been made at a cost of less than the price of a pint of porter or two glasses of gin a week to each inhabitant. With regard to the objectors on the principle of self-government, and that what was done in the next parish was no business of theirs, he should begin to think there was something in it when he found any court or street keeping its disease within its own bounds, or any parish keeping to itself its own fever or its own smallpox, just as it maintained its own beadles on its own fire-engine. But until that time should have arrived, and so long as he breathed the same air as the inhabitants of that court, or street, or parish, – so long as he lived on the same soil, was lighted by the same sun and moon, and fanned by the same winds, he should consider their health and sickness as most decidedly his business, and would endeavour to force them to be pure and clean, and would place them under the control of a General Board for the general good.</p> <p>The Right Rev. prelate in the chair had referred in the most impressive manner to that charge frequently made, among other ill-considered charges, against the poor, that they like to be dirty and to lead degraded lives. Now if that charge were true it would only present to him another proof of our living in a very alarming under most unnatural state of society. But it was no more of them than that when they first had public baths they would not bathe, and that when they first had washhouses their wives would not wash. We could not expect to gather ‘grapes from thorns nor figs from thistles’; and we could not be surprised if the poor were not sensible of the decencies of life when they had no opportunity of being made acquainted with them. The main wonder in connexion with the poor was that they did so soon esteem what was really for their good when they had any fair experience of it.</p> <p>No one who had any experience of the poor could fail to be deeply affected by their patience, by their sympathy with one another, and by the beautiful alacrity with which they helped each other in toil, in the day of suffering, and at the hour of death. It hardly ever happened that any case of extreme protracted destitution found its way into the public prints without our reading at the same time of some ragged Samaritan sharing his last loaf or spending his last penny to relieve the poor miserable in the little room upstairs, or in the cellar underground. It was with a view to mitigate the sufferings of that class; to develop in these people the virtue which nothing could eradicate; to raise them in the social scale as they should be raised; to lift them from a condition into which they did not allow their beasts to sink, and to cleanse the foul air for the passage of Christianity and education throughout the land, that the meeting was assembled. He could not lay it to his heart, nor could he flatter any of those present with the idea that they had met there to plume themselves on their charity or their philanthropy. They could claim little merit for each other in such a cause, for the object of their assembling, as he regarded it, was simply to help to set that right which was very wrong before God and before man.</p>18500206<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
140https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/140No. I 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>Atlantic Monthly</em>)Published in the <em>Atlantic Monthly, </em>vol. 21 (January 1868), pp. 118-123.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000555786">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000555786</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-01">1868-01</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=50&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=No.I+%27George+Silverman%27s+Explanation%27+%28%3Cem%3EATYR%3C%2Fem%3E%29">No.I 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>)</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1868-01_George_Silvermans_Explanation_1Dickens, Charles. 'George Silverman's Explanation' (January 1868). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-01_George_Silvermans_Explanation_1">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-01_George_Silvermans_Explanation_1</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAtlantic+Monthly%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Atlantic Monthly</em></a>FIRST CHAPTER. It happened in this wise: — But, sitting with my pen in my hand looking at those words again, without descrying any hint in them of the words that should follow, it comes into my mind that they have an abrupt appearance. They may serve, however, if I let them remain, to suggest how very difficult I find it to begin to explain my Explanation. An uncouth phrase: and yet I do not see my way to a better. SECOND CHAPTER. It happened in this wise: — But, looking at those words, and comparing them with my former opening, I find they are the selfsame words repeated. This is the more surprising to me, because I employ them in quite a new connection. For indeed I declare that my intention was to discard the commencement I first had in my thoughts, and to give the preference to another of an entirely different nature, dating my explanation from an anterior period of my life. I will make a third trial, without erasing this second failure, protesting that it is not my design to conceal any of my infirmities, whether they be of head or heart. THIRD CHAPTER. Not as yet directly aiming at how it came to pass, I will come upon it by degrees. The natural manner, after all, for God knows that is how it came upon me! My parents were in a miserable condition of life, and my infant home was a cellar in Preston. I recollect the sound of Father’s Lancashire clogs on the street pavement above, as being different in my young hearing from the sound of all other clogs; and I recollect that, when Mother came down the cellar-steps, I used tremblingly to speculate on her feet having a good or an ill-tempered look,—on her knees,—on her waist,—until finally her face came into view and settled the question. From this it will be seen that I was timid, and that the cellar-steps were steep, and that the doorway was very low. Mother had the gripe and clutch of Poverty upon her face, upon her figure, and not least of all upon her voice. Her sharp and high-pitched words were squeezed out of her, as by the compression of bony fingers on a leathern bag; and she had a way of rolling her eyes about and about the cellar, as she scolded, that was gaunt and hungry. Father, with his shoulders rounded, would sit quiet on a three-legged stool, looking at the empty grate, until she would pluck the stool from under him, and bid him go bring some money home. Then he would dismally ascend the steps; and I, holding my ragged shirt and trousers together with a hand (my only braces), would feint and dodge from Mother’s pursuing grasp at my hair. A worldly little devil was Mother’s usual name for me. Whether I cried for that I was in the dark, or for that it was cold, or for that I was hungry, or whether I squeezed myself into a warm corner when there was a fire, or ate voraciously when there was food, she would still say, &quot;O, you worldly little devil!&quot; And the sting of it was, that I quite well knew myself to be a worldly little devil. Worldly as to wanting to be housed and warmed, worldly as to wanting to be fed, worldly as to the greed with which I inwardly compared how much I got of those good things with how much Father and Mother got, when, rarely, those good things were going. Sometimes they both went away seeking work, and then I would be locked up in the cellar for a day or two at a time. I was at my worldliest then. Left alone, I yielded myself up to a worldly yearning for enough of anything (except misery), and for the death of Mother’s father, who was a machine-maker at Birmingham, and on whose decease, I had heard Mother say, she would come into a whole courtful of houses &quot;if she had her rights.&quot; Worldly little devil, I would stand about, musingly fitting my cold bare feet into cracked bricks and crevices of the damp cellar floor,—walking over my grandfather’s body, so to speak, into the courtful of houses, and selling them for meat and drink, and clothes to wear. At last a change came down into our cellar. The universal change came down even as low as that,—so will it mount to any height on which a human creature can perch,—and brought other changes with it. We had a heap of I don’t know what foul litter in the darkest corner, which we called &quot;the bed.&quot; For three days Mother lay upon it without getting up, and then began at times to laugh. If I had ever heard her laugh before, it had been so seldom that the strange sound frightened me. It frightened Father, too; and we took it by turns to give her water. Then she began to move her head from side to side, and sing. After that, she getting no better, Father fell a laughing and a singing, and then there was only I to give them both water, and they both died. FOURTH CHAPTER. When I was lifted out of the cellar by two men, of whom one came peeping down alone first, and ran away and brought the other, I could hardly bear the light of the street. I was sitting in the roadway, blinking at it, and at a ring of people collected around me, but not close to me, when, true to my character of worldly little devil, I broke silence by saying, &quot;I am hungry and thirsty!&quot; &quot;Does he know they are dead?&quot; asked one of another. &quot;Do you know your father and mother are both dead of fever?&quot; asked a third of me, severely. &quot;I don’t know what it is to be dead. I supposed it meant that, when the cup rattled against their teeth and the water spilt over them. I am hungry and thirsty.&quot; That was all I had to say about it. The ring of people widened outward from the inner side as I looked around me; and I smelt vinegar, and what I know to be camphor, thrown in towards where I sat. Presently some one put a great vessel of smoking vinegar on the ground near me, and then they all looked at me in silent horror as I ate and drank of what was brought for me. I knew at the time they had a horror of me, but I couldn’t help it. I was still eating and drinking, and a murmur of discussion had begun to arise respecting what was to be done with me next, when I heard a cracked voice somewhere in the ring say, &quot;My name is Hawkyard, Mr. Verity Hawkyard, of West Bromwich.&quot; Then the ring split in one place; and a yellow-faced, peak-nosed gentleman, clad all in iron-gray to his gaiters, pressed forward with a policeman and another official of some sort. He came forward close to the vessel of smoking vinegar; from which he sprinkled himself carefully, and me copiously. &quot;He had a grandfather at Birmingham, this young boy, who is just dead too,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard. I turned my eyes upon the speaker, and said in a ravening manner, &quot;Where’s his houses?&quot; &quot;Hah! Horrible worldliness on the edge of the grave,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard, casting more of the vinegar over me, as if to get my devil out of me. &quot;I have undertaken a slight—a very slight—trust in behalf of this boy; quite a voluntary trust: a matter of mere honour, if not of mere sentiment: still I have taken it upon myself, and it shall be (O, yes, it shall be!) discharged.&quot; The bystanders seemed to form an opinion of this gentleman much more favourable than their opinion of me. &quot;He shall be taught,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard, &quot;(O, yes, he shall be taught!) but what is to be done with him for the present? He may be infected. He may disseminate infection.&quot; The ring widened considerably. &quot;What is to be done with him?&quot; He held some talk with the two officials. I could distinguish no word save &quot;Farm-house.&quot; There was another sound several times repeated, which was wholly meaningless in my ears then, but which I knew afterwards to be &quot;Hoghton Towers.&quot; &quot;Yes,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard. &quot;I think that sounds promising; I think that sounds hopeful. And he can be put by himself in a Ward, for a night or two, you say?&quot; It seemed to be the police-officer who had said so; for it was he who replied, Yes. It was he, too, who finally took me by the arm, and walked me before him through the streets, into a whitewashed room in a bare building, where I had a chair to sit in, a table to sit at, an iron bedstead and good mattress to lie upon, and a rug and blanket to cover me. Where I had enough to eat too, and was shown how to clean the tin porringer in which it was conveyed to me, until it was as good as a looking-glass. Here, likewise, I was put in a bath, and had new clothes brought to me; and my old rags were burnt, and I was camphored and vinegared, and disinfected in a variety of ways. When all this was done,—I don’t know in how many days or how few, but it matters not,—Mr. Hawkyard stepped in at the door, remaining close to it, and said, &quot;Go and stand against the opposite wall, George Silverman. As far off as you can. That’ll do. How do you feel?&quot; I told him that I didn’t feel cold, and didn’t feel hungry, and didn’t feel thirsty. That was the whole round of human feelings, as far as I knew, except the pain of being beaten. &quot;Well,&quot; said he, &quot;you are going, George, to a healthy farm-house to be purified. Keep in the air there as much as you can. Live an out-of-door life there, until you are fetched away. You had better not say much—in fact, you had better be very careful not to say anything—about what your parents died of, or they might not like to take you in. Behave well, and I’ll put you to school; (O, yes, I’ll put you to school!), though I am not obligated to do it. I am a servant of the Lord, George, and I have been a good servant to him (I have!) these five-and-thirty years. The Lord has had a good servant in me, and he knows it.&quot; What I then supposed him to mean by this, I cannot imagine. As little do I know when I began to comprehend that he was a prominent member of some obscure denomination or congregation, every member of which held forth to the rest when so inclined, and among whom he was called Brother Hawkyard. It was enough for me to know, on that day in the Ward, that the farmer’s cart was waiting for me at the street corner. I was not slow to get into it, for it was the first ride I ever had in my life. It made me sleepy, and I slept. First, I stared at Preston streets as long as they lasted, and, meanwhile I may have had some small dumb wondering within me whereabouts our cellar was. But I doubt it. Such a worldly little devil was I, that I took no thought who would bury Father and Mother, or where they would be buried, or when. The question whether the eating and drinking by day, and the covering by night, would be as good at the farm-house as at the Ward superseded those questions. The jolting of the cart on a loose stony road awoke me, and I found that we were mounting a steep hill, where the road was a rutty by-road through a field. And so, by fragments of an ancient terrace, and by some rugged outbuildings that had once been fortified, and passing under a ruined gateway we came to the old farm-house in the thick stone wall outside the old quadrangle of Hoghton Towers. Which I looked at like a stupid savage; seeing no specialty in; seeing no antiquity in; assuming all farm-houses to resemble it; assigning the decay I noticed to the one potent cause of all ruin that I knew,—Poverty; eyeing the pigeons in their flights, the cattle in their stalls, the ducks in the pond, and the fowls pecking about the yard, with a hungry hope that plenty of them might be killed for dinner while I stayed there; wondering whether the scrubbed dairy vessels drying in the sunlight could be goodly porringers out of which the master ate his belly-filling food, and which he polished when he had done, according to my Ward experience; shrinkingly doubtful whether the shadows, passing over that airy height on the bright spring day were not something in the nature of frowns; sordid, afraid, unadmiring, a small Brute to shudder at. To that time I had never had the faintest impression of beauty. I had had no knowledge whatever that there was anything lovely in this life. When I had occasionally slunk up the cellar steps into the street, and glared in at shop-windows, I had done so with no higher feelings than we may suppose to animate a mangy young dog or wolf-cub. It is equally the fact that I had never been alone, in the sense of holding unselfish converse with myself. I had been solitary often enough, but nothing better. Such was my condition when I sat down to my dinner that day, in the kitchen of the old farm-house. Such was my condition when I lay on my bed in the old farm-house that night, stretched out opposite the narrow mullioned window, in the cold light of the moon, like a young Vampire. FIFTH CHAPTER. What do I know of Hoghton Towers? Very little, for I have been gratefully unwilling to disturb my first impressions. A house, centuries old, on high ground a mile or so removed from the road between Preston and Blackburn, where the first James of England, in his hurry to make money by making Baronets, perhaps made some of those remunerative dignitaries. A house, centuries old, deserted and falling to pieces, its woods and gardens long since grass-land or ploughed up, the Rivers Ribble and Darwen glancing below it, and a vague haze of smoke, against which not even the supernatural prescience of the first Stuart could foresee a Counterblast, hinting at Steam Power, powerful in two distances. What did I know then of Hoghton Towers? When I first peeped in at the gate of the lifeless quadrangle, and started from the mouldering statue becoming visible to me like its Guardian Ghost; when I stole round by the back of the farm-house, and got in among the ancient rooms, many of them with their floors and ceilings falling, the beams and rafters hanging dangerously down, the plaster dropping as I trod, the oaken panels stripped away, the windows half walled up, half broken; when I discovered a gallery commanding the old kitchen, and looked down between balustrades upon a massive old table and benches, fearing to see I know not what dead-alive creatures come in and seat themselves, and look up with I know not what dreadful eyes, or lack of eyes, at me; when all over the house I was awed by gaps and chinks where the sky stared sorrowfully at me, where the birds passed, and the ivy rustled, and the stains of winter-weather blotched the rotten floors; when down at the bottom of dark pits of staircase, into which the stairs had sunk, green leaves trembled, butterflies fluttered, and bees hummed in and out through the broken door-ways; when encircling the whole ruin were sweet scents and sights of fresh green growth and ever-renewing life, that I had never dreamed of,—I say, when I passed into such clouded perception of these things as my dark soul could compass, what did I know then of Hoghton Towers? I have written that the sky stared sorrowfully at me. Therein have I anticipated the answer. I knew that all these things looked sorrowfully at me. That they seemed to sigh or whisper, not without pity for me: &quot;Alas! poor worldly little devil!&quot; There were two or three rats at the bottom of one of the smaller pits of broken staircase when I craned over and looked in. They were scuffling for some prey that was there. And, when they started and hid themselves close together in the dark, I thought of the old life (it had grown old already) in the cellar. How not to be this worldly little devil? How not to have a repugnance towards myself as I had towards the rats? I hid in a corner of one of the smaller chambers, frightened at myself, and crying (it was the first time I had ever cried for any cause not purely physical), and I tried to think about it. One of the farm-ploughs came into my range of view just then; and it seemed to help me as it went on with its two horses up and down the field so peacefully and quietly. There was a girl of about my own age in the farm-house family, and she sat opposite to me at the narrow table at meal-times. It had come into my mind at our first dinner that she might take the fever from me. The thought had not disquieted me then; I had only speculated how she would look under the altered circumstances, and whether she would die. But it came into my mind now, that I might try to prevent her taking the fever, by keeping away from her. I knew I should have but scrambling board if I did; so much the less worldly and less devilish the deed would be, I thought. From that hour, I withdrew myself at early morning into secret corners of the ruined house, and remained hidden there until she went to bed. At first, when meals were ready, I used to hear them calling me; and then my resolution weakened. But I strengthened it again by going farther off into the ruin, and getting out of hearing. I often watched for her at the dim windows; and, when I saw that she was fresh and rosy, felt much happier. Out of this holding her in my thoughts, to the humanising of myself, I suppose some childish love arose within me. I felt in some sort dignified by the pride of protecting her, by the pride of making the sacrifice for her. As my heart swelled with that new feeling, it insensibly softened about Mother and Father. It seemed to have been frozen before, and now to be thawed. The old ruin and all the lovely things that haunted it were not sorrowful for me only, but sorrowful for Mother and Father as well. Therefore did I cry again, and often too. The farm-house family conceived me to be of a morose temper, and were very short with me; though they never stinted me in such broken fare as was to be got out of regular hours. One night when I lifted the kitchen latch at my usual time, Sylvia (that was her pretty name) had but just gone out of the room. Seeing her ascending the opposite stairs, I stood still at the door. She had heard the clink of the latch, and looked round. &quot;George,&quot; she called to me in a pleased voice, &quot;to-morrow is my birthday, and we are to have a fiddler, and there’s a party of boys and girls coming in a cart, and we shall dance. I invite you. Be sociable for once, George.&quot; &quot;I am very sorry, miss,&quot; I answered, &quot;but I—but, no; I can’t come.&quot; &quot;You are a disagreeable, ill-humoured lad,&quot; she returned disdainfully, &quot;and I ought not to have asked you. I shall never speak to you again.&quot; As I stood with my eyes fixed on the fire after she was gone, I felt that the farmer bent his brows upon me. &quot;Eh, lad!&quot; said he, &quot;Sylvy’s right. You’re as moody and broody a lad as never I set eyes on yet!&quot; I tried to assure him that I meant no harm; but he only said coldly, &quot;Maybe not, maybe not. There! Get thy supper, get thy supper, and then thou canst sulk to thy heart’s content again.&quot; Ah! If they could have seen me next day in the ruin, watching for the arrival of the cart full of merry young guests; if they could have seen me at night, gliding out from behind the ghostly statue, listening to the music and the fall of dancing feet, and watching the lighted farm-house windows from the quadrangle when all the ruin was dark; if they could have read my heart as I crept up to bed by the back way, comforting myself with the reflection, &quot;They will take no hurt from me,&quot;—they would not have thought mine a morose or an unsocial nature! It was in these ways that I began to form a shy disposition; to be of a timidly silent character under misconstruction; to have an inexpressible, perhaps a morbid, dread of ever being sordid or worldly. It was in these ways that my nature came to shape itself to such a mould, even before it was affected by the influences of the studious and retired life of a poor scholar.18680101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._I_George_Silverman_s_Explanation_[Atlantic_Monthly]/1868-01_George_Silvermans_Explanation_No1.pdf
229https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/229No. I, 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>Household Words</em><span>, Vol. XVI, No. 393, 3 October 1857, pp. 313-319.</span>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins<em>Dickens Journals Online, </em><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-313.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-313.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1857-10-03">1857-10-03</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1857-10-03-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No1Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins. No.I 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'.<span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;</span>Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-03-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No1">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-03-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No1</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>In the autumn month of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, wherein these presents bear date, two idle apprentices, exhausted by the long hot summer and the long hot work it had brought with it, ran away from their employer. They were bound to a highly meritorious lady (named Literature), of fair credit and repute, though, it must be acknowledged, not quite so highly esteemed in the City as she might be. This is the more remarkable, as there is nothing against the respectable lady in that quarter, but quite the contrary; her family having rendered eminent service to many famous citizens of London. It may be sufficient to name Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor under King Richard the Second, at the time of Wat Tyler&#039;s insurrection, and Sir Richard Whittington: which latter distinguished man and magistrate was doubtless indebted to the lady&#039;s family for the gift of his celebrated cat. There is also strong reason to suppose that they rang the Highgate bells for him with their own hands. The misguided young men who thus shirked their duty to the mistress from whom they had received many favors, were actuated by the low idea of making a perfectly idle trip, in any direction. They had no intention of going anywhere, in particular; they wanted to see nothing, they wanted to know nothing, they wanted to learn nothing, they wanted to do nothing. They wanted only to be idle. They took to themselves (after HOGARTH), the names of Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild; but, there was not a moral pin to choose between them, and they were both idle in the last degree. Between Francis and Thomas, however, there was this difference of character: Goodchild was laboriously idle, and would take upon himself any amount of pains and labour to assure himself that he was idle; in short, had no better idea of idleness than that it was useless industry. Thomas Idle, on the other hand, was an idler of the unmixed Irish or Neapolitan type; a passive idler, a born-and-bred idler, a consistent idler, who practised what he would have preached if he had not been too idle to preach; a one entire and perfect chrysolite of idleness. The two idle apprentices found themselves, within a few hours of their escape, walking down into the North of England. That is to say, Thomas was lying in a meadow, looking at the railway trains as they passed over a distant viaduct—which was his idea of walking down into the North; while Francis was walking a mile due South against time—which was his idea of walking down into the North. In the meantime the day waned, and the milestones remained unconquered. &quot;Tom,&quot; said Goodchild, &quot;The sun is getting low. Up, and let us go forward!&quot; &quot;Nay,&quot; quoth Thomas Idle, &quot;I have not done with Annie Laurie yet.&quot; And he proceeded with that idle but popular ballad, to the effect that for the bonnie young person of that name he would &quot;lay him doon and dee,&quot;— equivalent, in prose, to lay him down and die. &quot;What an ass that fellow was!&quot; cried Goodchild, with the bitter emphasis of contempt. &quot;Which fellow? &quot; asked Thomas Idle. &quot;The fellow in your song. Lay him doon and dee! Finely he&#039;d show off before the girl by doing that. A Sniveller! Why couldn&#039;t he get up, and punch somebody&#039;s head!&quot; &quot;Whose?&quot; asked Thomas Idle. &quot;Anybody&#039;s. Everybody&#039;s would be better than nobody&#039;s! If I fell into that state of mind about a girl, do you think I&#039;d lay me doon and dee? No, sir,&quot; proceeded Goodchild, with a disparaging assumption of the Scottish accent, &quot;I&#039;d get me oop and peetch into somebody. Wouldn&#039;t you ?&quot; &quot;I wouldn&#039;t have anything to do with her,&quot; yawned Thomas Idle. &quot;Why should I take the trouble?&quot; &quot;It&#039;s no trouble Tom, to fall in love,&quot; said Goodchild, shaking his head. &quot;It&#039;s trouble enough to fall out of it, once you&#039;re in it,&quot; retorted Tom. &quot;So I keep out of it altogether. It would be better for you, if you did the same.&quot; Mr. Goodchild, who is always in love with somebody, and not unfrequently with several objects at once, made no reply. He heaved a sigh of the kind which is termed by the lower orders &quot;a bellowser,&quot; and then, heaving Mr. Idle on his feet (who was not half so heavy as the sigh), urged him northward. These two had sent their personal baggage on by train: only retaining, each a knapsack. Idle now applied himself to constantly regretting the train, to tracking it through the intricacies of Bradshaw&#039;s Guide, and finding out where it was now—and where now—and where now—and to asking what was the use of walking, when you could ride at such a pace as that. Was it to see the country? If that was the object, look at it out of carriage-windows. There was a great deal more of it to be seen there, than here. Besides, who wanted to see the country? Nobody. And, again, who ever did walk? Nobody. Fellows set off to walk, but they never did it. They came back and said they did, but they didn&#039;t. Then why should he walk? He wouldn&#039;t walk. He swore it by this milestone! It was the fifth from London, so far had they penetrated into the North. Submitting to the powerful chain of argument, Goodchild proposed a return to the Metropolis, and a falling back upon Euston Square Terminus. Thomas assented with alacrity, and so they walked down into the North by the next morning&#039;s express, and carried their knapsacks in the luggage-van. It was like all other expresses, as every express is and must be. It bore through the harvested country, a smell like a large washing-day, and a sharp issue of steam as from a huge brazen tea-urn. The greatest power in nature and art combined, it yet glided over dangerous heights in the sight of people looking up from fields and roads, as smoothly and unreally as a light miniature plaything. Now, the engine shrieked in hysterics of such intensity, that it seemed desirable that the men who had her in charge should hold her feet, slap her hands, and bring her to; now, burrowed into tunnels with a stubborn and undemonstrative energy so confusing that the train seemed to be flying back into leagues of darkness. Here, were station after station, swallowed up by the press without stopping; here, stations where it fired itself in like a volley of cannon-balls, swooped away four country-people with nosegays and three men of business with portmanteaus, and fired itself off again, bang, bang, bang! At long intervals were uncomfortable refreshment rooms, made more uncomfortable by the scorn of Beauty towards Beast, the public (but to whom she never relented, as Beauty did in the story, towards the other Beast), and where sensitive stomachs were fed, with a contemptuous sharpness occasioning indigestion. Here, again, were stations with nothing going but a bell, and wonderful wooden razors set aloft on great posts, shaving the air. In these fields, the horses, sheep, and cattle were well used to the thundering meteor, and didn&#039;t mind; in those, they were all set scampering together, and a herd of pigs scoured after them. The pastoral country darkened, became coaly, became smoky, became infernal, got better, got worse, improved again, grew rugged, turned romantic; was a wood, a stream, a chain of hills, a gorge, a moor, a cathedral town, a fortified place, a waste. Now, miserable black dwellings, a black canal, and sick black towers of chimneys; now, a trim garden, where the flowers were bright and fair; now, a wilderness of hideous altars all a-blaze; now, the water meadows with their fairy rings; now, the mangy patch of unlet building ground outside the stagnant town, with the larger ring where the Circus was last week. The temperature changed, the dialect changed, the people changed, faces got sharper, manner got shorter, eyes got shrewder and harder; yet all so quickly, that the spruce guard in the London uniform and silver lace, had not yet rumpled his shirt-collar, delivered half the dispatches in his shining little pouch, or read his newspaper. Carlisle! Idle and Goodchild had got to Carlisle. It looked congenially and delightfully idle. Something in the way of public amusement had happened last month, and something else was going to happen before Christmas; and, in the meantime there was a lecture on India for those who liked it—which Idle and Goodchild did not. Likewise, by those who liked them, there were impressions to be bought of all the vapid prints, going and gone, and of nearly all the vapid books. For those who wanted to put anything in missionary boxes, here were the boxes. For those who wanted the Reverend Mr. Podgers (artist&#039;s proofs, thirty shillings), here was Mr. Podgers to any amount. Not less gracious and abundant, Mr. Codgers, also of the vineyard, but opposed to Mr. Podgers, brotherly tooth and nail. Here, were guide-books to the neighbouring antiquities, and eke the Lake country, in several dry and husky sorts; here, many physically and morally impossible heads of both sexes, for young ladies to copy, in the exercise of the art of drawing; here, further, a large impression of Mr. SPURGEON, solid as to the flesh, not to say even something gross. The working young men of Carlisle were drawn up, with their hands in their pockets, across the pavements, four and six abreast, and appeared (much to the satisfaction of Mr. Idle) to have nothing else to do. The working and growing young women of Carlisle, from the age of twelve upwards, promenaded the streets in the cool of the evening, and rallied the said young men. Sometimes the young men rallied the young women, as in the case of a group gathered round an accordion-player, from among whom a young man advanced behind a young woman for whom he appeared to have a tenderness, and hinted to her that he was there and playful, by giving her (he wore clogs) a kick. On market morning, Carlisle woke up amazingly, and became (to the two Idle Apprentices) disagreeably and reproachfully busy. There were its cattle market, its sheep market, and its pig market down by the river, with raw-boned and shock-headed Rob Roys hiding their Lowland dresses beneath heavy plaids, prowling in and out among the animals, and flavouring the air with fumes of whiskey. There was its corn market down the main street, with hum of chaffering over open sacks. There was its general market in the street too, with heather brooms on which the purple flower still flourished, and heather baskets primitive and fresh to behold. With women trying on clogs and caps at open stalls, and &quot;Bible stalls&quot; adjoining. With &quot;Doctor Mantle&#039;s Dispensary for the cure of all Human Maladies and no charge for advice,&quot; and with Doctor Mantle&#039;s &quot;Laboratory of Medical, Chemical, and Botanical Science&quot;—both healing institutions established on one pair of trestles, one board, and one sun-blind. With the renowned phrenologist from London, begging to be favoured (at sixpence each) with the company of clients of both sexes, to whom, on examination of their heads, he would make revelations &quot;enabling him or her to know themselves.&quot; Through all these bargains and blessings, the recruiting serjeant watchfully elbowed his way, a thread of War in the peaceful skein. Likewise on the walls were printed hints that the Oxford Blues might not be indisposed to hear of a few fine active young men; and that whereas the standard of that distinguished corps is full six feet, &quot;growing lads of five feet eleven&quot; need not absolutely despair of being accepted. Scenting the morning air more pleasantly than the buried majesty of Denmark did, Messrs. Idle and Goodchild rode away from Carlisle at eight o&#039;clock one forenoon, bound for the village of Heske, Newmarket, some fourteen miles distant. Goodchild (who had already begun to doubt whether he was idle: as his way always is when he has nothing to do), had read of a certain black old Cumberland hill or mountain, called Carrock, or Carrock Fell; and had arrived at the conclusion that it would be the culminating triumph of Idleness to ascend the same. Thomas Idle, dwelling on the pains inseparable from that achievement, had expressed the strongest doubts of the expediency, and even of the sanity, of the enterprise; but Goodchild had carried his point, and they rode away. Up hill and down hill, and twisting to the right, and twisting to the left, and with old Skiddaw (who has vaunted himself a great deal more than his merits deserve; but that is rather the way of the Lake country), dodging the apprentices in a picturesque and pleasant manner. Good, weather-proof, warm, peasant houses, well white-limed, scantily dotting the road. Clean children coming out to look, carrying other clean children as big as themselves. Harvest still lying out and much rained upon; here and there, harvest still unreaped. Well cultivated gardens attached to the cottages, with plenty of produce forced out of their hard soil. Lonely nooks, and wild; but people can be born, and married, and buried in such nooks, and can live and love, and be loved, there as elsewhere, thank God! (Mr. Goodchild&#039;s remark.) By-and-by, the village. Black, coarse-stoned, rough-windowed houses; some with outer staircases, like Swiss houses; a sinuous and stony gutter winding up hill and round the corner, by way of street. All the children running out directly. Women pausing in washing, to peep from doorways and very little windows. Such were the observations of Messrs. Idle and Goodchild, as their conveyance stopped at the village shoemaker&#039;s. Old Carrock gloomed down upon it all in a very ill-tempered state; and rain was beginning. The village shoemaker declined to have anything to do with Carrock. No visitors went up Carrock. No visitors came there at all. Aa&#039; the world ganged awa&#039; yon. The driver appealed to the Innkeeper. The Inn-keeper had two men working in the fields, and one of them should be called in, to go up Carrock as guide. Messrs. Idle and Goodchild, highly approving, entered the Innkeeper&#039;s house, to drink whiskey and eat oakcake. The Innkeeper was not idle enough—was not idle at all, which was a great fault in him—but was a fine specimen of a north- country man, or any kind of man. He had a ruddy cheek, a bright eye, a well-knit frame, an immense hand, a cheery outspeaking voice, and a straight, bright, broad look. He had a drawing-room, too, up-stairs, which was worth a visit to the Cumberland Fells. (This was Mr. Francis Goodchild&#039;s opinion, in which Mr. Thomas Idle did not concur.) The ceiling of this drawing-room was so crossed and re-crossed by beams of unequal lengths, radiating from a centre in a corner, that it looked like a broken star-fish. The room was comfortably and solidly furnished with good mahogany and horsehair. It had a snug fire-side, and a couple of well-curtained windows, looking out upon the wild country behind the house. What it most developed was, an unexpected taste for little ornaments and nick-nacks, of which it contained a most surprising number. They were not very various, consisting in great part of waxen babies with their limbs more or less mutilated, appealing on one leg to the parental affections from under little cupping-glasses; but, Uncle Tom was there, in crockery, receiving theological instructions from Miss Eva, who grew out of his side like a wen, in an exceedingly rough state of profile propagandism. Engravings of Mr. Hunt&#039;s country-boy, before and after his pie were on the wall, divided by a highly coloured nautical piece, the subject of which had all her colors (and more) flying, and was making great way through a sea of a regular pattern, like a lady&#039;s collar. A benevolent elderly gentleman of the last century, with a powdered head, kept guard, in oil and varnish, over a most perplexing piece of furniture on a table; in appearance between a driving seat and an angular knife-box, but, when opened, a musical instrument of tinkling wires, exactly like David&#039;s harp packed for travelling. Everything became a nick-nack in this curious room. The copper tea-kettle, burnished up to the highest point of glory, took his station on a stand of his own at the greatest possible distance from the fire-place, and said, &quot;By your leave, not a kittle, but a bijou.&quot; The Staffordshire-ware butter-dish with the cover on, got upon a little round occasional table in a window, with a worked top, and announced itself to the two chairs accidentally placed there, as an aid to polite conversation, a graceful trifle in china to be chatted over by callers, as they airily trifled away the visiting moments of a butterfly existence, in that rugged old village on the Cumberland Fells. The very footstool could not keep the floor, but got upon the sofa, and therefrom proclaimed itself, in high relief of white and liver-colored wool, a favourite spaniel coiled up for repose. Though, truly, in spite of its bright glass eyes, the spaniel was the least successful assumption in the collection: being perfectly flat, and dismally suggestive of a recent mistake in sitting down, on the part of some corpulent member of the family. There were books, too, in this room; books on the table, books on the chimney-piece, books in an open press in the corner. Fielding was there, and Smollett was there, and Steele and Addison were there, in dispersed volumes; and there were tales of those who go down to the sea in ships, for windy nights; and there was really a choice of good books for rainy days or fine. It was so very pleasant to see these things in such a lonesome by-place—so very agreeable to find these evidences of a taste, however homely, that went beyond the beautiful cleanliness and trimness of the house—so fanciful to imagine what a wonder the room must be to the little children born in the gloomy village—what grand impressions of it those of them who became wanderers over the earth would carry away; and how, at distant ends of the world, some old voyagers would die, cherishing the belief that the finest apartment known to men was once in the Hesket-Newmarket Inn, in rare old Cumberland—it was such a charmingly lazy pursuit to entertain these rambling thoughts over the choice oat-cake and the genial whiskey, that Mr. Idle and Mr. Goodchild never asked themselves how it came to pass that the men in the fields were never heard of more, how the stalwart landlord replaced them without explanation, how his dog-cart came to be waiting at the door, and how everything was arranged without the least arrangement, for climbing to old Carrock&#039;s shoulders, and standing on his head. Without a word of inquiry, therefore, The Two Idle Apprentices drifted out resignedly into a fine, soft, close, drowsy, penetrating rain; got into the landlord&#039;s light dog-cart, and rattled off, through the village, for the foot of Carrock. The journey at the outset was not remarkable. The Cumberland road went up and down like other roads; the Cumberland curs burst out from backs of cottages and barked like other curs, and the Cumberland peasantry stared after the dog-cart amazedly, as long as it was in sight, like the rest of their race. The approach to the foot of the mountain resembled the approaches to the feet of most other mountains all over the world. The cultivation gradually ceased, the trees grew gradually rare, the road became gradually rougher, and the sides of the mountain looked gradually more and more lofty, and more and more difficult to get up. The dog-cart was left at a lonely farm-house. The landlord borrowed a large umbrella, and, assuming in an instant the character of the most cheerful and adventurous of guides, led the way to the ascent. Mr. Goodchild looked eagerly at the top of the mountain, and, feeling apparently that he was now going to be very lazy indeed, shone all over wonderfully to the eye, under the influence of the contentment within and the moisture without. Only in the bosom of Mr. Thomas Idle did Despondency now hold her gloomy state. He kept it a secret; but he would have given a very handsome sum, when the ascent began, to have been back again at the inn. The sides of Carrock looked fearfully steep, and the top of Carrock was hidden in mist. The rain was falling faster and faster. The knees of Mr. Idle—always weak on walking excursions—shivered and shook with fear and damp. The wet was already penetrating through the young man&#039;s outer coat to a bran new shooting-jacket, for which he had reluctantly paid the large sum of two guineas on leaving town; he had no stimulating refreshment about him but a small packet of clammy gingerbread nuts; he had nobody to give him an arm, nobody to push him gently behind, nobody to pull him up tenderly in front, nobody to speak to who really felt the difficulties of the ascent, the dampness of the rain, the denseness of the mist, and the unutterable folly of climbing, undriven, up any steep place in the world, when there is level ground within reach to walk on instead. Was it for this that Thomas had left London? London, where there are nice short walks in level public gardens,with benches of repose set up at convenient distances for weary travellers—London, where rugged stone is humanely pounded into little lumps for the road, and intelligently shaped into smooth slabs for the pavement! No! it was not for the laborious ascent of the crags of Carrock that Idle had left his native city and travelled to Cumberland. Never did he feel more disastrously convinced that he had committed a very grave error in judgment than when he found himself standing in the rain at the bottom of a steep mountain, and knew that the responsibility rested on his weak shoulders of actually getting to the top of it. The honest landlord went first, the beaming Goodchild followed, the mournful Idle brought up the rear. From time to time, the two foremost members of the expedition changed places in the order of march; but the rearguard never altered his position. Up the mountain or down the mountain, in the water or out of it, over the rocks, through the bogs, skirting the heather, Mr. Thomas Idle was always the last, and was always the man who had to be looked after and waited for. At first the ascent was delusively easy: the sides of the mountain sloped gradually, and the material of which they were composed was a soft spongy turf, very tender and pleasant to walk upon. After a hundred yards or so, however, the verdant scene and the easy slope disappeared, and the rocks began. Not noble, massive rocks, standing upright, keeping a certain regularity in their positions, and possessing, now and then, flat tops to sit upon, but little, irritating, comfortless rocks, littered about anyhow by Nature; treacherous, disheartening rocks of all sorts of small shapes and small sizes, bruisers of tender toes and trippers-up of wavering feet. When these impediments were passed, heather and slough followed. Here the steepness of the ascent was slightly mitigated; and here the exploring party of three turned round to look at the view below them. The scene of the moorland and the fields was like a feeble water-colour drawing half sponged out. The mist was darkening, the rain was thickening, the trees were dotted about like spots of faint shadow, the division-lines which mapped out the fields were all getting blurred together, and the lonely farm- house where the dog-cart had been left, loomed spectral in the grey light like the last human dwelling at the end of the habitable world. Was this a sight worth climbing to see? Surely—surely not! Up again—for the top of Carrock is not reached yet. The landlord, just as good-tempered and obliging as he was at the bottom of the mountain. Mr. Goodchild brighter in the eyes and rosier in the face than ever; full of cheerful remarks and apt quotations; and walking with a springiness of step wonderful to behold. Mr. Idle, farther and farther in the rear, with the water squeaking in the toes of his boots, with his two-guinea shooting-jacket clinging damply to his aching sides, with his over-coat so full of rain, and standing out so pyramidically stiff, in consequence, from his shoulders downwards, that he felt as if he was walking in a gigantic extinguisher—the despairing spirit within him representing but too aptly the candle that had just been put out. Up and up and up again, till a ridge is reached, and the outer edge of the mist on the summit of Carrock is darkly and drizzlingly near. Is this the top ? No, nothing like the top. It is an aggravating peculiarity of all mountains, that, although they have only one top when they are seen (as they ought always to be seen) from below, they turn out to have a perfect eruption of false tops whenever the traveller is sufficiently ill-advised to go out of his way for the purpose of ascending them. Carrock is but a trumpery little mountain of fifteen hundred feet, and it presumes to have false tops, and even precipices, as if it was Mont Blanc. No matter; Goodchild enjoys it, and will go on; and Idle, who is afraid of being left behind by himself, must follow. On entering the edge of the mist, the landlord stops, and says he hopes that it will not get any thicker. It is twenty years since he last ascended Carrock, and it is barely possible, if the mist increases, that the party may be lost on the mountain. Goodchild hears this dreadful intimation, and is not in the least impressed by it. He marches for the top that is never to be found, as if he was them Wandering Jew, bound to go on for ever, in defiance of everything. The landlord faithfully accompanies him. The two, to the dim eye of Idle, far below,look in the exaggerative mist, like a pair of friendly giants, mounting the steps of some invisible castle together. Up and up, and then down a little, and then up, and then along a strip of level ground, and then up again. The wind, a wind unknown in the happy valley, blows keen and strong; the rain-mist gets impenetrable; a dreary little cairn of stones appears. The landlord adds one to the heap, first walking all round the cairn as if he were about to perform an incantation, then dropping the stone on to the top of the heap with the gesture of a magician adding an ingredient to a cauldron in full bubble. Goodchild sits down by the cairn as if it was his study-table at home; Idle, drenched and panting, stands up with his back to the wind, ascertains distinctly that this is the top at last, looks round with all the little curiosity that is left in him, and gets, in return, a magnificent view of—Nothing! The effect of this sublime spectacle on the minds of the exploring party is a little injured by the nature of the direct conclusion to which the sight of it points—the said conclusion being that the mountain mist has actually gathered round them, as the landlord feared it would. It now becomes imperatively necessary to settle the exact situation of the farm-house in the valley at which the dog-cart has been left, before the travellers attempt to descend. While the landlord is endeavouring to make this discovery in his own way, Mr. Goodchild plunges his hand under his wet coat, draws out a little red morocco-case, opens it, and displays to the view of his companions a neat pocket-compass. The north is found, the point at which the farm-house is situated is settled, and the descent begins. After a little downward walking, Idle (behind as usual) sees his fellow-travellers turn aside sharply—tries to follow them—loses them in the mist—is shouted after, waited for, recovered—and then finds that a halt has been ordered, partly on his account, partly for the purpose of again consulting the compass. The point in debate is settled as before between Goodchild and the landlord, and the expedition moves on, not down the mountain, but marching straight forward round the slope of it. The difficulty of following this new route is acutely felt by Thomas Idle. He finds the hardship of walking at all, greatly increased by the fatigue of moving his feet straight forward along the side of a slope, when their natural tendency, at every step, is to turn off at a right angle, and go straight down the declivity. Let the reader imagine himself to be walking along the roof of a barn, instead of up or down it, and he will have an exact idea of the pedestrian difficulty in which the travellers had now involved themselves. In ten minutes more Idle was lost in the distance again, was shouted for, recovered as before; found Goodchild repeating his observation of the compass, and remonstrated warmly against the sideway route that his companions persisted in following. It appeared to the uninstructed mind of Thomas that when three men want to get to the bottom of a mountain, their business is to walk down it; and he put this view of the case, not only with emphasis, but even with some irritability. He was answered from the scientific eminence of the compass on which his companions were mounted, that there was a frightful chasm somewhere near the foot of Carrock, called The Black Arches, into which the travellers were sure to march in the mist, if they risked continuing the descent from the place where they had now halted. Idle received this answer with the silent respect which was due to the commanders of the expedition, and followed along the roof of the barn, or rather the side of the mountain, reflecting upon the assurance which he received on starting again, that the object of the party was only to gain &quot;a certain point,&quot; and, this haven attained, to continue the descent afterwards until the foot of Carrock was reached. Though quite unexceptionable as an abstract form of expression, the phrase &quot;a certain point&quot; has the disadvantage of sounding rather vaguely when it is pronounced on unknown ground, under a canopy of mist much thicker than a London fog. Nevertheless, after the compass, this phrase was all the clue the party had to hold by, and Idle clung to the extreme end of it as hopefully as he could. More sideway walking, thicker and thicker mist, all sorts of points reached except the &quot;certain point;&quot; third loss of Idle, third shouts for him, third recovery of him, third consultation of compass. Mr. Goodchild draws it tenderly from his pocket, and prepares to adjust it on a stone. Something falls on the turf—it is the glass. Something else drops immediately after—it is the needle. The compass is broken, and the exploring party is lost! It is the practice of the English portion of the human race to receive all great disasters in dead silence. Mr. Goodchild restored the useless compass to his pocket without saying a word, Mr. Idle looked at the landlord, and the landlord looked at Mr. Idle. There was nothing for it now but to go on blindfold, and trust to the chapter of chances. Accordingly, the lost travellers moved forward, still walking round the slope of the mountain, still desperately resolved to avoid the Black Arches, and to succeed in reaching the &quot;certain point.&quot; A quarter of an hour brought them to the brink of a ravine, at the bottom of which there flowed a muddy little stream. Here another halt was called, and another consultation took place. The landlord, still clinging pertinaciously to the idea of reaching the &quot;point,&quot; voted for crossing the ravine and going on round the slope of the mountain. Mr. Goodchild, to the great relief of his fellow-traveller, took another view of the case, and backed Mr. Idle&#039;s proposal to descend Carrock at once, at any hazard—the rather as the running stream was a sure guide to follow from the mountain to the valley. Accordingly, the party descended to the rugged and stony banks of the stream; and here again Thomas lost ground sadly, and fell far behind his travelling companions. Not much more than six weeks had elapsed since he had sprained one of his ancles, and he began to feel this same ancle getting rather weak when he found himself among the stones that were strewn about the running water. Goodchild and the landlord were getting farther and farther ahead of him. He saw them cross the stream and disappear round a projection on its banks. He heard them shout the moment after as a signal that they had halted and were waiting for him. Answering the shout, he mended his pace, crossed the stream where they had crossed it, and was within one step of the opposite bank, when his foot slipped on a wet stone, his weak ankle gave a twist outwards, a hot, rending, tearing pain ran through it at the same moment, and down fell the idlest of the Two Idle Apprentices, crippled in an instant. The situation was now, in plain terms, one of absolute danger. There lay Mr. Idle writhing with pain, there was the mist as thick as ever, there was the landlord as completely lost as the strangers whom he was conducting, and there was the compass broken in Goodchild&#039;s pocket. To leave the wretched Thomas on unknown ground was plainly impossible; and to get him to walk with a badly sprained ankle seemed equally out of the question. However, Goodchild (brought back by his cry for help) bandaged the ankle with a pocket-handkerchief, and assisted by the landlord, raised the crippled Apprentice to his legs, offered him a shoulder to lean on, and exhorted him for the sake of the whole party to try if he could walk. Thomas, assisted by the shoulder on one side, and a stick on the other, did try, with what pain and difficulty those only can imagine who have sprained an ankle and have had to tread on it afterwards. At a pace adapted to the feeble hobbling of a newly-lamed man, the lost party moved on, perfectly ignorant whether they were on the right side of the mountain or the wrong, and equally uncertain how long Idle would be able to contend with the pain in his ancle, before he gave in altogether and fell down again, unable to stir another step. Slowly and more slowly, as the clog of crippled Thomas weighed heavily and more heavily on the march of the expedition, the lost travellers followed the windings of the stream, till they came to a faintly-marked cart-track, branching off nearly at right angles, to the left. After a little consultation it was resolved to follow this dim vestige of a road in the hope that it might lead to some farm or cottage, at which Idle could be left in safety. It was now getting on towards the afternoon, and it was fast becoming more than doubtful whether the party, delayed in their progress as they now were, might not be overtaken by the darkness before the right route was found, and be condemned to pass the night on the mountain, without bit or drop to comfort them, in their wet clothes. The cart-track grew fainter and fainter, until it was washed out altogether by another little stream, dark, turbulent, and rapid. The landlord suggested, judging by the colour of the water, that it must be flowing from one of the lead mines in the neighbourhood of Carrock; and the travellers accordingly kept by the stream for a little while, in the hope of possibly wandering towards help in that way. After walking forward about two hundred yards, they came upon a mine indeed, but a mine, exhausted and abandoned; a dismal, ruinous place, with nothing but the wreck of its works and buildings left to speak for it. Here, there were a few sheep feeding. The landlord looked at them earnestly, thought he recognised the marks on them—then thought he did not—finally gave up the sheep in despair—and walked on, just as ignorant of the whereabouts of the party as ever. The march in the dark, literally as well as metaphorically in the dark, had now been continued for three-quarters of an hour from the time when the crippled Apprentice had met with his accident. Mr. Idle, with all the will to conquer the pain in his ankle, and to hobble on, found the power rapidly failing him, and felt that another ten minutes at most would find him at the end of his last physical resources. He had just made up his mind on this point, and was about to communicate the dismal result of his reflections to his companions, when the mist suddenly brightened, and began to lift straight ahead. In another minute, the landlord, who was in advance, proclaimed that he saw a tree. Before long, other trees appeared—then a cottage—then a house beyond the cottage, and a familiar line of road rising behind it. Last of all, Carrock itself loomed darkly into view, far away to the right hand. The party had not only got down the mountain without knowing how, but had wandered away from it in the mist, without knowing why—away, far down on the very moor by which they had approached the base of Carrock that morning. The happy lifting of the mist, and the still happier discovery that the travellers had groped their way, though by a very round-about direction, to within a mile or so of the part of the valley in which the farm-house was situated, restored Mr. Idle&#039;s sinking spirits and reanimated his failing strength. While the landlord ran off to get the dog-cart, Thomas was assisted by Goodchild to the cottage which had been the first building seen when the darkness brightened, and was propped up against the garden-wall, like an artist&#039;s lay-figure waiting to be forwarded, until the dog-cart should arrive from the farm-house below. In due time—and a very long time it seemed to Mr. Idle—the rattle of wheels was heard, and the crippled Apprentice was lifted into his seat. As the dog-cart was driven back to the inn, the landlord related an anecdote which he had just heard at the farm-house, of an unhappy man who had been lost, like his two guests and himself, on Carrock; who had passed the night there alone; who had been found the next morning, &quot;scared and starved;&quot; and who never went out afterwards, except on his way to the grave. Mr. Idle heard this sad story, and derived at least one useful impression from it. Bad as the pain in his ankle was, he contrived to bear it patiently, for he felt grateful that a worse accident had not befallen him in the wilds of Carrock.18571003https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._I_The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices/1857-10-03-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No1.pdf
144https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/144No. I, <em>Holiday Romance, </em>'Introductory Romance. From the Pen of William Tinkling, Esquire'Published in <em>Our Young Folks,</em> vol. 4, no.1 (January 1868), pp. 1-7. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=01-1868">01-1868</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+John+Gilbert">Illustrated by John Gilbert</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-01_No1_Holiday_Romance_William_TinklingDickens, Charles. 'Introductory Romance. From the Pen of William Tinkling, Esquire' (January 1868). <em>Holiday Romance. Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-01_No1_Holiday_Romance_William_Tinkling">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-01_No1_Holiday_Romance_William_Tinkling</a>.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-01_William_Tinkling_A_Holiday_Romance_1"></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EOur+Young+Folks%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Our Young Folks</em></a>IN FOUR PARTS PART I. INTRODUCTORY ROMANCE. FROM THE PEN OF WILLIAM TINKLING ESQUIRE.* This beginning-part is not made out of anybody’s head, you know. It’s real. You must believe this beginning-part more than what comes after, else you won’t understand how what comes after came to be written. You must believe it all, but you must believe this most, please. I am the Editor of it. Bob Redforth (he’s my cousin, and shaking the table on purpose) wanted to be the Editor of it, but I said he shouldn’t because he couldn’t. He has no idea of being an Editor. Nettie Ashford is my Bride. We were married in the right-hand closet in the corner of the dancing-school where first we met, with a ring (a green one) from Wilkingwater’s toy-shop. I owed for it out of my pocket-money. When the rapturous ceremony was over, we all four went up the lane and let off a cannon (brought loaded in Bob Redforth’s waistcoat pocket) to announce our Nuptials. It flew right up when it went off, and turned over. Next day, Lieutenant Colonel Robin Redforth was united, with similar ceremonies, to Alice Rainbird. This time, the cannon burst with a most terrific explosion, and made a puppy bark. My peerless Bride was, at the period of which we now treat, in captivity at Miss Grimmer’s. Drowvey and Grimmer is the partnership, and opinion is divided which is the greatest Beast. The lovely Bride of the Colonel was also immured in the Dungeons of the same establishment. A vow was entered into, between the Colonel and myself that we would cut them out on the following Wednesday when walking two and two. Under the desperate circumstances of the case, the active brain of the Colonel, combining with his lawless pursuit (he is a Pirate), suggested an attack with fireworks. This however, from motives of humanity, was abandoned as too expensive. Lightly armed with a paper-knife buttoned up under his jacket, and waving the dreaded black flag at the end of a cane, the Colonel took command of me at 2 P.M. on the eventful and appointed day. He had drawn out the plan of attack on a piece of paper which was rolled up round a hoop-stick. He showed it to me. My position and my full-length portrait (but my real ears don’t stick out horizontal) was behind a corner-lamp-post, with written orders to remain there till I should see Miss Drowvey fall. The Drowvey who was to fall was the one in spectacles, not the one with the large lavender bonnet. At that signal I was to rush forth, seize my Bride, and fight my way to the lane. There, a junction would be effected between myself and the Colonel, and putting our Brides behind us, between ourselves and the palings, we were to conquer or die. The enemy appeared—approached. Waving his black flag, the Colonel attacked. Confusion ensued. Anxiously I awaited my signal, but my signal came not. So far from falling, the hated Drowvey in spectacles appeared to me to have muffled the Colonel’s head in his outlawed banner, and to be pitching into him with a parasol. The one in the lavender bonnet also performed prodigies of valour with her fists on his back. Seeing that all was for the moment lost, I fought my desperate way hand to hand to the lane. Through taking the back road, I was so fortunate as to meet nobody, and arrived there uninterrupted. It seemed an age ere the Colonel joined me. He had been to the jobbing-tailor’s to be sewn up in several places, and attributed our defeat to the refusal of the detested Drowvey to fall. Finding her so obstinate he had said to her, &quot;Die recreant!&quot; but had found her no more open to reason on that point than the other. My blooming Bride appeared, accompanied by the Colonel’s Bride, at the Dancing School next day. What? Was her face averted from me? Hah? Even so. With a look of scorn, she put into my hand a bit of paper, and took another partner. On the paper was pencilled, &quot;Heavens! Can I write the word! Is my husband a Cow.&quot; In the first bewilderment of my heated brain, I tried to think what slanderer could have traced my family to the ignoble animal mentioned above. Vain were my endeavors. At the end of that dance I whispered the Colonel to come into the cloak-room, and I showed him the note. &quot;There is a syllable wanting,&quot; said he, with a gloomy brow. &quot;Hah! What syllable?&quot; was my inquiry. &quot;She asks, Can she write the word? And no; you see she couldn’t,&quot; said the Colonel, pointing out the passage. &quot;And the word was?&quot; said I. &quot;Cow—cow—coward,&quot; hissed the Pirate-Colonel in my ear, and gave me back the note. Feeling that I must for ever tread the earth a branded boy —person I mean—or that I must clear up my honor, I demanded to be tried by a Court-Martial. The Colonel admitted my right to be tried. Some difficulty was found in composing the court, on account of the Emperor of France’s aunt refusing to let him come out. He was to be the President. Ere yet we had appointed a substitute, he made his escape over the back-wall, and stood among us, a free monarch. The court was held on the grass by the pond. I recognized, in a certain Admiral among my judges, my deadliest foe. A cocoa-nut had given rise to language that I could not brook. But confiding in my innocence, and also in the knowledge that the President of the United States (who sat next him) owed me a knife, I braced myself for the ordeal. It was a solemn spectacle that court. Two executioners with pinafores reversed led me in. Under the shade of an umbrella I perceived my Bride, supported by the Bride of the Pirate-Colonel. The President (having reproved a little female ensign for tittering, on a matter of Life or Death) called upon me to plead, &quot;Coward or no Coward, Guilty or not Guilty?&quot; I pleaded in a firm tone, &quot;No Coward and not Guilty. (The little female ensign being again reproved by the President for misconduct, mutinied, left the court, and threw stones.) My implacable enemy, the Admiral, conducted the case against me. The Colonel’s Bride was called to prove that I had remained behind the corner-lamp-post during the engagement. I might have been spared the anguish of my own Bride’s being also made a witness to the same point, but the Admiral knew where to wound me. Be still, my soul, no matter. The Colonel was then brought forward with his evidence. It was for this point that I had saved myself up, as the turning-point of my case. Shaking myself free of my guards —who had no business to hold me, the stupids! unless I was found Guilty,—I asked the Colonel what he considered the first duty of a soldier? Ere he could reply, the President of the United States rose and informed the court that my foe the Admiral had suggested &quot;Bravery,&quot; and that prompting a witness wasn’t fair. The President of the court immediately ordered the Admiral’s mouth to be filled with leaves, and tied up with string. I had the satisfaction of seeing the sentence carried into effect before the proceedings went further. I then took a paper from my trousers-pocket, and asked: &quot;What do you consider, Colonel Redforth, the first duty of a soldier? Is it obedience?&quot; &quot;It is,&quot; said the Colonel. &quot;Is that paper—please to look at it—in your hand?&quot; &quot;It is,&quot; said the Colonel. &quot;Is it a military sketch?&quot; &quot;It is,&quot; said the Colonel. &quot;Of an engagement?&quot; &quot;Quite so,&quot; said the Colonel. &quot;Of the late engagement?&quot; &quot;Of the late engagement.&quot; &quot;Please to describe it, and then hand it to the President of the Court.&quot; From that triumphant moment my sufferings and my dangers were at an end. The court rose up and jumped, on discovering that I had strictly obeyed orders. My foe, the Admiral, who though muzzled was malignant yet, contrived to suggest that I was dishonored by having quitted the field. But the Colonel himself had done as much, and gave his opinion, upon his word and honour as a Pirate, that when all was lost the field might be quitted without disgrace. I was going to be found &quot;No Coward and Not Guilty,&quot; and my blooming Bride was going to be publicly restored to my arms in a procession, when an unlooked for event disturbed the general rejoicing. This was no other than the Emperor of France’s aunt catching hold of his hair. The proceedings abruptly terminated, and the court tumultuously dissolved. It was when the shades of the next evening but one were beginning to fall, ere yet the silver beams of Luna touched the earth, that four forms might have been descried slowly advancing towards the weeping willow on the borders of the pond, the now deserted scene of the day before yesterday’s agonies and triumphs. On a nearer approach, and by a practised eye, these might have been identified as the forms of the Pirate-Colonel with his Bride, and of the day before yesterday’s gallant prisoner with his Bride. On the beauteous faces of the Nymphs, dejection sat enthroned. All four reclined under the willow for some minutes without speaking, till at length the Bride of the Colonel poutingly observed, &quot;It’s of no use pretending any more, and we had better give it up.&quot; &quot;Hah!&quot; exclaimed the Pirate. &quot;Pretending?&quot; &quot;Don’t go on like that; you worry me,&quot; returned his Bride. The lovely Bride of Tinkling echoed the incredible declaration. The two warriors exchanged stony glances. &quot;If,&quot; said the Bride of the Pirate-Colonel, &quot;grown-up people WON’T do what they ought to do, and WILL put us out, what comes of our pretending?&quot; &quot;We only get into scrapes,&quot; said the Bride of Tinkling. &quot;You know very well,&quot; pursued the Colonel’s Bride, &quot;that Miss Drowvey wouldn’t fall. You complained of it yourself. And you know how disgracefully the court-martial ended. As to our marriage; would my people acknowledge it at home?&quot; &quot;Or would my people acknowledge ours?&quot; said the bride of Tinkling. Again the two warriors exchanged stony glances. &quot;If you knocked at the door and claimed me, after you were told to go away,&quot; said the Colonel’s Bride, &quot;you would only have your hair pulled, or your ears, or your nose.&quot; &quot;If you persisted in ringing at the bell and claiming Me,&quot; said the Bride of Tinkling to that gentleman, &quot;you would have things dropped on your head from the window over the handle, or you would be played upon by the garden-engine.&quot; &quot;And at your own homes,&quot; resumed the Bride of the Colonel, &quot;it would be just as bad. You would be sent to bed, or something equally undignified. Again, how would you support us?&quot; The Pirate-Colonel replied in a courageous voice, &quot;By rapine!&quot; But his Bride retorted, &quot;Suppose the grown-up people wouldn’t be rapined?&quot; Then, said the colonel, they should pay the penalty in Blood. But suppose they should object, retorted his bride, and wouldn’t pay the penalty in Blood or anything else? A mournful silence ensued. &quot;Then do you no longer love me, Alice?&quot; asked the Colonel. &quot;Redforth! I am ever thine,&quot; returned his Bride. &quot;Then do you no longer love me, Nettie?&quot; asked the present writer. &quot;Tinkling! I am ever thine,&quot; returned my Bride. We all four embraced. Let me not be misunderstood by the giddy. The Colonel embraced his own Bride, and I embraced mine. But two times two make four. &quot;Nettie and I,&quot; said Alice mournfully, &quot;have been considering our position. The grown-up people are too strong for us. They make us ridiculous. Besides, they have changed the times. William Tinkling’s baby brother was christened yesterday. What took place? Was any king present? Answer, William.&quot; I said No, unless disguised as great-uncle Chopper. &quot;Any queen?&quot; There had been no queen that I knew of at our house. There might have been one in the kitchen; but I didn’t think so, or the servants would have mentioned it. &quot;Any fairies?&quot; None that were visible. &quot;We had an idea among us, I think,&quot; said Alice, with a melancholy smile, &quot;we four, that Miss Grimmer would prove to be the wicked fairy, and would come in at the christening with her crutch-stick, and give the child a bad gift? Was there anything of that sort? Answer, William.&quot; I said that Ma had said afterwards (and so she had), that great-uncle Chopper’s gift was a shabby one; but she hadn’t said a bad one. She had called it shabby, electrotyped, second-hand, and below his income. &quot;It must be the grown-up people who have changed all this,&quot; said Alice. &quot;We couldn’t have changed it, if we had been so inclined, and we never should have been. Or perhaps Miss Grimmer is a wicked fairy after all, and won’t act up to it because the grown-up people have persuaded her not to. Either way, they would make us ridiculous if we told them what we expected.&quot; &quot;Tyrants!&quot; muttered the Pirate-Colonel. &quot;Nay, my Redforth,&quot; said Alice, &quot;say not so. Call not names, my Redforth, or they will apply to pa.&quot; &quot;Let ’em,&quot; said the Colonel. &quot;I don&#039;t care! Who’s he?&quot; Tinkling here undertook the perilous task of remonstrating with his lawless friend, who consented to withdraw the moody expressions above quoted. &quot;What remains for us to do?&quot; Alice went on in her mild, wise way. &quot;We must educate, we must pretend in a new manner, we must wait.&quot; The Colonel clenched his teeth,—four out in front, and a piece off another, and he had been twice dragged to the door of a dentist-despot, but had escaped from his guards. &quot;How educate? How pretend in a new manner? How wait?&quot; &quot;Educate the grown-up people,&quot; replied Alice. &quot;We part to-night. Yes, Redforth!&quot;—for the Colonel tucked up his cuffs,—&quot;part to-night! Let us, in these next Holidays now going to begin, throw our thoughts into something educational for the grown-up people, hinting to them how things ought to be. Let us veil our meaning under a mask of romance; you, I, and Nettie. William Tinkling being the plainest and quickest writer shall copy out. Is it agreed?&quot; The Colonel answered sulkily, &quot;I don’t mind!&quot; He then asked, &quot;How about pretending?&quot; &quot;We will pretend,&quot; said Alice, &quot;that we are children; not that we are those grown-up people who won’t help us out as they ought, and who understand us so badly.&quot; The Colonel, still much dissatisfied, growled, &quot;How about waiting?&quot; &quot;We will wait,&quot; answered little Alice, taking Nettie’s hand in hers, and looking up to the sky, &quot;we will wait—ever constant and true—till the times have got so changed as that everything helps us out, and nothing makes us ridiculous, and the fairies have come back. We will wait—ever constant and true—till we are eighty, ninety, or one hundred. And then the fairies will send us children, and we will help them out, poor pretty little creatures, if they pretend ever so much.&quot; &quot;So we will, dear,&quot; said Nettie Ashford, taking her round the waist with both arms and kissing her. &quot;And now if my husband will go and buy some cherries for us, I have got some money.&quot; In the friendliest manner I invited the Colonel to go with me; but he so far forgot himself as to acknowledge the invitation by kicking out behind, and then lying down on his stomach on the grass, pulling it up and chewing it. When I came back, however, Alice had nearly brought him out of his vexation, and was soothing him by telling him how soon we should all be ninety. As we sat under the willow-tree and ate the cherries (fair, for Alice shared them out), we played at being ninety. Nettie complained that she had a bone in her old back and it made her hobble, and Alice sang a song in an old woman’s way, but it was very pretty, and we were all merry. At least I don’t know about merry exactly, but all comfortable. There was a most tremendous lot of cherries, and Alice always had with her some neat little bag or box or case, to hold things. In it that night was a tiny wine-glass. So Alice and Nettie said they would make some cherry-wine to drink our love at parting. Each of us had a glassful, and it was delicious, and each of us drank the toast, &quot;Our love at parting.&quot; The Colonel drank his wine last, and it got into my head directly that it got into his directly. Anyhow his eyes rolled immediately after he had turned the glass upside down, and he took me on one side and proposed in a hoarse whisper that we should &quot;Cut ‘em out still.&quot; &quot;How did he mean?&quot; I asked my lawless friend. &quot;Cut our Brides out,&quot; said the Colonel, &quot;and then cut our way, without going down a single turning, Bang to the Spanish Main!&quot; We might have tried it, though I didn’t think it would answer; only we looked round and saw that there was nothing but moonlight under the willow-tree, and that our pretty pretty wives were gone. We burst out crying. The colonel gave in second, and came to first; but he gave in strong. We were ashamed of our red eyes, and hung about for half an hour to whiten them. Likewise a piece of chalk round the rims, I doing the Colonel’s, and he mine, but afterwards found in the bedroom looking-glass not natural, besides inflammation. Our conversation turned on being ninety. The Colonel told me he had a pair of boots that wanted soling and heeling, but he thought it hardly worth while to mention it to his father, as he himself should so soon be ninety, when he thought shoes would be more convenient. The Colonel also told me with his hand upon his hip that he felt himself already getting on in life, and turning rheumatic. And I told him the same. And when they said at our house at supper (they are always bothering about something) that I stooped, I felt so glad! This is the end of the beginning-part that you were to believe most. *Aged Eight.18680101https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._I_Holiday_Romance_Introductory_Romance._From_the_Pen_of_William_Tinkling_Esquire/1868-01_No1_Holiday_Romance_William_Tinkling.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._I_Holiday_Romance_Introductory_Romance._From_the_Pen_of_William_Tinkling_Esquire/1868-01_No1_Holiday_Romance_William_Tinkling_Illustration_Part1.pdf
141https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/141No. II 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>Atlantic Monthly</em>)Published in the <em>Atlantic Monthly, </em>vol.21 (February 1868), pp. 145-149.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust</em>, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000555786">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000555786</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1861-02">1861-02</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=50&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=No.II+%27George+Silverman%27s+Explanation%27+%28%3Cem%3EATYR%3C%2Fem%3E%29">No.II 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>)</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+Story">Short Story</a>1868-02_George_Silvermans_Explanation_2Dickens, Charles. No. II, 'George Silverman's Explanation' (February 1868). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02_George_Silvermans_Explanation_2">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02_George_Silvermans_Explanation_2</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAtlantic+Monthly%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Atlantic Monthly</em></a>SIXTH CHAPTER Brother Hawkyard (as he insisted on my calling him) put me to school, and told me to work my way. &quot;You are all right, George,&quot; he said. &quot;I have been the best servant the Lord has had in his service for this five-and-thirty year, (O, I have!) and he knows the value of such a servant as I have been to him, (O, yes, he does!) and he’ll prosper your schooling as a part of my reward. That’s what he’ll do, George. He’ll do it for me.&quot; From the first I could not like this familiar knowledge of the ways of the sublime inscrutable Almighty, on Brother Hawkyard’s part. As I grew a little wiser and still a little wiser, I liked it less and less. His manner, too, of confirming himself in a parenthesis,—as if, knowing himself, he doubted his own word,—I found distasteful. I cannot tell how much these dislikes cost me, for I had a dread that they were worldly. As time went on, I became a Foundation-Boy on a good Foundation, and I cost Brother Hawkyard nothing. When I had worked my way so far, I worked yet harder, in the hope of ultimately getting a presentation to College and a Fellowship. My health has never been strong (some vapor from the Preston cellar cleaves to me I think), and what with much work and some weakness, I came again to be regarded—that is, by my fellow-students—as unsocial. All through my time as a Foundation-Boy I was within a few miles of Brother Hawkyard’s congregation, and whenever I was what we called a Leave-Boy on a Sunday, I went over there at his desire. Before the knowledge became forced upon me that outside their place of meeting these Brothers and Sisters were no better than the rest of the human family, but on the whole were, to put the case mildly, as bad as most, in respect of giving short weight in their shops, and not speaking the truth, — I say, before this knowledge became forced upon me, their prolix addresses, their inordinate conceit, their daring ignorance, their investment of the Supreme Ruler of Heaven and Earth with their own miserable meannesses and littlenesses greatly shocked me. Still, as their term for the frame of mind that could not perceive them to be in an exalted state of Grace was the &quot;worldly&quot; state, I did for a time suffer tortures under my inquiries of myself whether that young worldly-devilish spirit of mine could secretly be lingering at the bottom of my non-appreciation. Brother Hawkyard was the popular expounder in this assembly, and generally occupied the platform (there was a little platform with a table on it, in lieu of a pulpit) first, on a Sunday afternoon. He was by trade a drysalter. Brother Gimblet, an elderly man with a crabbed face, a large dog’s-eared shirt-collar, and a spotted blue neckerchief reaching up behind to the crown of his head, was also a drysalter, and an expounder. Brother Gimblet professed the greatest admiration for Brother Hawkyard, but (I had thought more than once) bore him a jealous grudge. Let whosoever may peruse these lines kindly take the pains here to read twice my solemn pledge, that what I write of the language and customs of the congregation in question I write scrupulously, literally, exactly, from the life and the truth. On the first Sunday after I had won what I had so long tried for, and when it was certain that I was going up to college, Brother Hawkyard concluded a long exhortation thus:— &quot;Well, my friends and fellow-sinners, now I told you when I began, that I didn’t know a word of what I was going to say to you, (and no, I did not!) but that it was all one to me, because I knew the Lord would put into my mouth the words I wanted.&quot; (&quot;That’s it!&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;And he did put into my mouth the words I wanted.&quot; ( (&quot;So he did!&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;And why?&quot; (&quot;Ah, let’s have that!&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;Because I have been his faithful servant for five-and-thirty years, and because he knows it. For five-and-thirty years! And he knows it, mind you! I got those words that I wanted on account of my wages. I got ’em from the Lord, my fellow-sinners. Down. I said, &#039;Here’s a heap of wages due; let us have something down, on account.&#039; And I got it down, and I paid it over to you, and you won’t wrap it up in a napkin, nor yet in a towel, nor yet pocketankercher, but you’ll put it out at good interest. Very well. Now, my brothers and sisters and fellow-sinners, I am going to conclude with a question, and I’ll make it so plain (with the help of the Lord, after five-and-thirty years, I should rather hope!) as that the Devil shall not be able to confuse it in your heads. Which he would be overjoyed to do.&quot; (&quot;Just his way. Crafty old blackguard!&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;And the question is this. Are the angels learned?&quot; (&quot;Not they. Not a bit on it.&quot; From Brother Gimblet, with the greatest confidence.) &quot;Not they. And where’s the proof? Sent ready-made by the hand of the Lord. Why, there’s one among us here now, that has got all the Learning that could be crammed into him. I got him all the Learning that could be crammed into him. His grandfather’&quot;(this I had never heard before) &quot;was a Brother of ours. He was Brother Parksop. That’s what he was. Parksop. Brother Parksop. His worldly name was Parksop, and he was a Brother of this Brotherhood. Then wasn’t he Brother Parksop?&quot; (&quot;Must be. Couldn’t help hisself.&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;Well, he left that one now here present among us to the care of a Brother-Sinner of his, (and that Brother-Sinner, mind you, was a sinner of a bigger size in his time than any of you, Praise the Lord!) Brother Hawkyard. Me. I got him without fee or reward,—without a morsel of myrrh, or frankincense, nor yet Amber, letting alone the honeycomb,—all the Learning that could be crammed into him. Has it brought him into our Temple, in the spirit? No. Have we had any ignorant Brothers and Sisters that didn’t know round O from crooked S, come in among us meanwhile? Many. Then the Angels are not learned. Then they don’t so much as know their alphabet. And now, my friends and fellow-sinners, having brought it to that, perhaps some Brother present—perhaps you, Brother Gimblet—will pray a bit for us?&quot; Brother Gimblet undertook the sacred function, after having drawn his sleeve across his mouth, and muttered: &quot;Well! I don’t know as I see my way to hitting any of you quite in the right place neither.&quot; He said this with a dark smile, and then began to bellow. What we were specially to be preserved from, according to his solicitations, was despoilment of the orphan, suppression of testamentary intentions on the part of a Father or (say) Grandfather, appropriation of the orphan’s house-property, feigning to give in charity to the wronged one from whom we withheld his due; and that class of sins. He ended with the petition, &quot;Give us peace!&quot; Which, speaking for myself, was very much needed after twenty minutes of his bellowing. Even though I had not seen him when he rose from his knees, steaming with perspiration, glance at Brother Hawkyard, and even though I had not heard Brother Hawkyard’s tone of congratulating him on the vigor with which he had roared, I should have detected a malicious application in this prayer. Unformed suspicions to a similar effect had sometimes passed through my mind in my earlier school-days, and had always caused me great distress; for they were worldly in their nature, and wide, very wide, of the spirit that had drawn me from Sylvia. They were sordid suspicions, without a shadow of proof. They were worthy to have originated in the unwholesome cellar. They were not only without proof, but against proof. For was I not myself a living proof of what Brother Hawkyard had done? And without him, how should I ever have seen the sky look sorrowfully down upon that wretched boy at Hoghton Towers? Although the dread of a relapse into a stage of savage selfishness was less strong upon me as I approached manhood, and could act in an increased degree for myself, yet I was always on my guard against any tendency to such relapse. After getting these suspicions under my feet, I had been troubled by not being able to like Brother Hawkyard’s manner, or his professed religion. So it came about, that, as I walked back that Sunday evening, I thought it would be an act of reparation for any such injury my struggling thoughts had unwillingly done him, if I wrote, and placed in his hands, before going to College, a full acknowledgment of his goodness to me, and an ample tribute of thanks. It might serve as an implied vindication of him against any dark scandal from a rival Brother and Expounder, or from any other quarter. Accordingly, I wrote the document with much care. I may add with much feeling too, for it affected me as I went on. Having no set studies to pursue, in the brief interval between leaving the Foundation and going to Cambridge, I determined to walk out to his place of business and give it into his own hands. It was a winter afternoon when I tapped at the door of his little counting-house, which was at the farther end of his long, low shop. As I did so (having entered by the back yard, where casks and boxes were taken in, and where there was the inscription, &quot;Private Way to the Counting-house&quot;), a shopman called to me from the counter that he was engaged. &quot;Brother Gimblet&quot; (said the shopman, who was one of the Brotherhood) &quot;is with him.&quot; I thought this all the better for my purpose, and made bold to tap again. They were talking in a low tone, and money was passing, for I heard it being counted out. &quot;Who is it?&quot; asked Brother Hawkyard, sharply. &quot;George Silverman,&quot; I answered, holding the door open. &quot;May I come in?&quot; Both Brothers seemed so astounded to see me that I felt shier than usual. But they looked quite cadaverous in the early gaslight, and perhaps that accidental circumstance exaggerated the expression of their faces. &quot;What is the matter?&quot; asked Brother Hawkyard. &quot;Ay! What is the matter?&quot; asked Brother Gimblet. &quot;Nothing at all,&quot; I said, diffidently producing my document. &quot;I am only the bearer of a letter from myself.&quot; &quot;From yourself, George?&quot; cried Brother Hawkyard. &quot;And to you,&quot; said I. &quot;And to me, George?&quot; He turned paler, and opened it hurriedly; but looking over it, and seeing generally what it was, became less hurried, recovered his color, and said, &quot;Praise the Lord!&quot; &quot;That’s it!&quot; cried Brother Gimblet. &quot;Well put! Amen.&quot; Brother Hawkyard then said, in a livelier strain: &quot;You must know, George, that Brother Gimblet and I are going to make our two businesses one. We are going into partnership. We are settling it now. Brother Gimblet is to take one clear half of the profits (O, yes! And he shall have it, he shall have it to the last farthing!)&quot; &quot;D.V.!&quot; said Brother Gimblet, with his right fist firmly clinched on his right leg. &quot;There is no objection,&quot; pursued Brother Hawkyard, &quot;to my reading this aloud, George?&quot; As it was what I expressly desired should be done, after yesterday’s prayer, I more than readily begged him to read it aloud. He did so, and Brother Gimblet listened with a crabbed smile. &quot;It was in a good hour that I came here,&quot; he said, wrinkling up his eyes. &quot;It was in a good hour, likewise, that I was moved yesterday to depict for the terror of evil-doers a character the direct opposite of Brother Hawkyard’s. But it was the Lord that done it. I felt him at it, while I was perspiring.&quot; After that it was proposed by both of them that I should attend the congregation once more, before my final departure. What my shy reserve would undergo, from being expressly preached at and prayed at, I knew beforehand. But I reflected that it would be for the last time, and that it might add to the weight of my letter. It was well known to the Brothers and Sisters that there was no place taken for me in their Paradise; and if I showed this last token of deference to Brother Hawkyard, notoriously in despite of my own sinful inclinations, it might go some little way in aid of my statement that he had been good to me, and that I was grateful to him. Merely stipulating, therefore, that no express endeavour should be made for my conversion,—which would involve the rolling of several Brothers and Sisters on the floor, declaring that they felt all their sins in a heap on their left side, weighing so many pounds avoirdupois, as I knew from what I had seen of those repulsive mysteries,—I promised. Since the reading of my letter, Brother Gimblet had been at intervals wiping one eye with an end of his spotted blue neckerchief, and grinning to himself. It was, however, a habit that Brother had, to grin in an ugly manner even when expounding. I call to mind a delighted snarl with which he used to detail from the platform the torments reserved for the wicked (meaning all human creation except the Brotherhood), as being remarkably hideous. I left the two to settle their articles of partnership, and count money; and I never saw them again but on the following Sunday. Brother Hawkyard died within two or three years, leaving all he possessed to Brother Gimblet, in virtue of a will dated (as I have been told) that very day. Now I was so far at rest with myself, when Sunday came, knowing that I had conquered my own mistrust, and righted Brother Hawkyard in the jaundiced vision of a rival, that I went, even to that coarse chapel, in a less sensitive state than usual. How could I foresee that the delicate, perhaps the diseased, corner of my mind, where I winced and shrunk when it was touched, or was even approached, would be handled as the theme of the whole proceedings? On this occasion it was assigned to Brother Hawkyard to pray, and to Brother Gimblet to preach. The prayer was to open the ceremonies; the discourse was to come next. Brothers Hawkyard and Gimblet were both on the platform; Brother Hawkyard on his knees at the table, unmusically ready to pray; Brother Gimblet sitting against the wall, grinningly ready to preach. &quot;Let us offer up the sacrifice of prayer, my brothers and sisters and fellow-sinners.&quot; Yes. But it was I who was the sacrifice. It was our poor sinful worldly-minded Brother here present who was wrestled for. The now-opening career of this our unawakened Brother might lead to his becoming a minister of what was called The Church. That was what he looked to. The Church. Not the chapel, Lord. The Church. No rectors, no vicars, no archdeacons, no bishops, no archbishops, in the chapel, but, O Lord! many such in the Church. Protect our sinful Brother from his love of lucre. Cleanse from our unawakened Brother’s breast his sin of worldly-mindedness. The prayer said infinitely more in words, but nothing more to any intelligible effect. Then Brother Gimblet came forward, and took (as I knew he would) the text, &quot;My kingdom is not of this world.&quot; Ah! but whose was, my fellow-sinners? Whose? Why, our Brother’s here present was. The only kingdom he had an idea of was of this world. (&quot;That’s it!&quot; from several of the congregation). What did the woman do when she lost the piece of money? Went and looked for it. What should our Brother do when he lost his way? (&quot;Go and look for it,&quot; from a Sister.) Go and look for it. True. But must he look for it in the right direction, or in the wrong? (&quot;In the right,&quot; from a Brother.) There spake the prophets! He must look for it in the right direction, or he couldn’t find it. But he had turned his back upon the right direction, and he wouldn’t find it. Now, my fellow-sinners, to show you the difference betwixt worldly-mindedness and unworldly-mindedness, betwixt kingdoms not of this world and kingdoms of this world, here was a letter wrote by even our worldly-minded Brother unto Brother Hawkyard. Judge, from hearing of it read, whether Brother Hawkyard was the faithful steward that the Lord had in his mind only t’other day, when, in this very place, he drew you the picter of the unfaithful one; for it was him that done it, not me. Don’t doubt that! Brother Gimblet then grinned and bellowed his way through my composition, and subsequently through an hour. The service closed with a hymn, in which the Brothers unanimously roared, and the Sisters unanimously shrieked, at me, that I by wiles of worldly gain was mocked, and they on waters of sweet love were rocked; that I with Mammon struggled in the dark, while they were floating in a second Ark. I went out from all this with an aching heart and a weary spirit; not because I was quite so weak as to consider these narrow creatures interpreters of the Divine majesty and wisdom; but because I was weak enough to feel as though it were my hard fortune to be misrepresented and misunderstood, when I most tried to subdue any risings of mere worldliness within me, and when I most hoped, that, by dint of trying earnestly, I had succeeded.18680201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._II_George_Silverman_s_Explanation_[Atlantic_Monthly]/1868_02_George_Silvermans_Explanation_No2.pdf
145https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/145No. II, <em>Holiday Romance,</em> 'Romance. From the Pen of Miss Alice Rainbird'Published in <em>Our Young Folks,</em> vol. 4, no. 3 (March 1868), pp. 129-136. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=03-1868">03-1868</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+John+Gilbert">Illustrated by John Gilbert</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-03_No2_Holiday_Romance_Alice_RainbirdDickens, Charles. 'Romance. From the Pen of Miss Alice Rainbird' (March 1868). <em>Holiday Romance. Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;<br /><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-03_No2_Holiday_Romance_Alice_Rainbird">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-03_No2_Holiday_Romance_Alice_Rainbird</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EOur+Young+Folks%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Our Young Folks</em></a>PART II. ROMANCE. FROM THE PEN OF MISS ALICE RAINBIRD* There was once a King, and he had a Queen, and he was the manliest of his sex, and she was the loveliest of hers. The King was, in his private profession, Under Government. The Queen’s father had been a medical man out of town. They had nineteen children, and were always having more. Seventeen of these children took care of the baby, and Alicia, the eldest, took care of them all. Their ages varied from seven years to seven months. Let us now resume our story. One day the king was going to the Office, when he stopped at the fishmonger’s to buy a pound and a half of salmon not too near the tail, which the Queen (who was a careful housekeeper) had requested him to send home. Mr. Pickles, the fishmonger, said, &quot;Certainly, sir, is there any other article, Good morning.&quot; The King went on towards the Office in a melancholy mood; for Quarter Day was such a long way off, and several of the dear children were growing out of their clothes. He had not proceeded far, when Mr. Pickles’s errand-boy came running after him, and said, &quot;Sir, you didn’t notice the old lady in our shop.&quot; &quot;What old lady?&quot; inquired the King. &quot;I saw none.&quot; Now the King had not seen any old lady, because this old lady had been invisible to him, though visible to Mr. Pickles’s boy. Probably because he messed and splashed the water about to that degree, and flopped the pairs of soles down in that violent manner, that, if she had not been visible to him, he would have spoilt her clothes. Just then the old lady came trotting up. She was dressed in shot-silk of the richest quality, smelling of dried lavender. &quot;King Watkins the First, I believe?&quot; said the old lady. &quot;Watkins,&quot; replied the King, &quot;is my name.&quot; &quot;Papa, if I am not mistaken, of the beautiful Princess Alicia?&quot; said the old lady. &quot;And of eighteen other darlings,&quot; replied the king. &quot;Listen. You are going to the Office,&quot; said the old lady. It instantly flashed upon the King that she must be a Fairy, or how could she know that? &quot;You are right,&quot; said the old lady, answering his thoughts, &quot;I am the Good Fairy Grandmarina. Attend! When you return home to dinner, politely invite the Princess Alicia to have some of the salmon you bought just now.&quot; &quot;It may disagree with her,&quot; said the King. The old lady became so very angry at this absurd idea, that the King was quite alarmed, and humbly begged her pardon. &quot;We hear a great deal too much about this thing disagreeing and that thing disagreeing,&quot; said the old lady, with the greatest contempt it was possible to express. &quot;Don’t be greedy. I think you want it all yourself.&quot; The King hung his head under this reproof, and said he wouldn’t talk about things disagreeing, any more. &quot;Be good, then,&quot; said the Fairy Grandmarina, &quot;and don’t. When the beautiful Princess Alicia consents to partake of the salmon—as I think she will—you will find she will leave a fish-bone on her plate. Tell her to dry it, and to rub it, and to polish it till it shines like mother-of-pearl, and to take care of it as a present from me.&quot; &quot;Is that all?&quot; asked the King. &quot;Don’t be impatient, sir,&quot; returned the Fairy Grandmarina, scolding him severely. &quot;Don’t catch people short, before they have done speaking. Just the way with you grown-up persons. You are always doing it.&quot; The King again hung his head, and said he wouldn’t do so any more. &quot;Be good, then,&quot; said the Fairy Grandmarina, &quot;and don’t! Tell the Princess Alicia, with my love, that the fish-bone is a magic present which can only be used once; but that it will bring her, that once, whatever she wishes for, PROVIDED SHE WISHES FOR IT AT THE RIGHT TIME. That is the message. Take care of it.&quot; The King was beginning, &quot;Might I ask the reason—?&quot; When the Fairy became absolutely furious. &quot;Will you be good, sir?&quot; she exclaimed, stamping her foot on the ground. &quot;The reason for this, and the reason for that, indeed! You are always wanting the reason. No reason. There! Hoity toity me! I am sick of your grown-up reasons.&quot; The King was extremely frightened by the old lady’s flying into such a passion, and said he was very sorry to have offended her, and he wouldn’t ask for reasons any more. &quot;Be good, then,&quot; said the old lady, &quot;and don’t!&quot; With those words, Grandmarina vanished, and the King went on and on and on, till he came to the office. There he wrote and wrote and wrote, till it was time to go home again. Then he politely invited the Princess Alicia, as the Fairy had directed him, to partake of the salmon. And when she had enjoyed it very much, he saw the fish-bone on her plate, as the Fairy had told him he would, and he delivered the Fairy’s message, and the Princess Alicia took care to dry the bone, and to rub it, and to polish it till it shone like mother-of-pearl. And so, when the Queen was going to get up in the morning, she said, &quot;O, dear me, dear me, my head, my head!&quot; And then she fainted away. The Princess Alicia, who happened to be looking in at the chamber door, asking about breakfast, was very much alarmed when she saw her Royal Mamma in this state, and she rang the bell for Peggy, — which was the name of the Lord Chamberlain. But remembering where the smelling-bottle was, she climbed on a chair and got it, and after that she climbed on another chair by the bedside and held the smelling-bottle to the Queen’s nose, and after that she jumped down and got some water, and after that she jumped up again and wetted the Queen’s forehead, and, in short, when the Lord Chamberlain came in, that dear old woman said to the little Princess, &quot;What a Trot you are! I couldn’t have done it better myself!&quot; But that was not the worst of the good Queen’s illness. O no! She was very ill indeed, for a long time. The Princess Alicia kept the seventeen young Princes and Princesses quiet, and dressed and undressed and danced the baby, and made the kettle boil, and heated the soup, and swept the hearth, and poured out the medicine, and nursed the Queen, and did all that ever she could, and was as busy busy busy as busy could be. For there were not many servants at that Palace for three reasons; because the King was short of money, because a rise in his office never seemed to come, and because quarter-day was so far off that it looked almost as far off and as little as one of the stars. But on the morning when the Queen fainted away, where was the magic fish-bone? Why, there it was in the Princess Alicia’s pocket. She had almost taken it out to bring the Queen to life again, when she put it back, and looked for the smelling-bottle. After the Queen had come out of her swoon that morning, and was dozing, the Princess Alicia hurried up-stairs to tell a most particular secret to a most particularly confidential friend of hers, who was a Duchess. People did suppose her to be a Doll, but she was really a Duchess, though nobody knew it except the Princess. This most particular secret was the secret about the magic fish-bone, the history of which was well known to the Duchess, because the princess told her everything. The Princess kneeled down by the bed on which the Duchess was lying, full-dressed and wide awake, and whispered the secret to her. The Duchess smiled and nodded. People might have supposed that she never smiled and nodded, but she often did, though nobody knew it except the Princess. Then the Princess Alicia hurried down stairs again, to keep watch in the Queen’s room. She often kept watch by herself in the Queen’s room; but every evening, while the illness lasted, she sat there watching with the King. And every evening the King sat looking at her with a cross look, wondering why she never brought out the magic fish-bone. As often as she noticed this, she ran up stairs, whispered the secret to the Duchess over again, and said to the Duchess besides, &quot;They think we children never have a reason or a meaning!&quot; And the Duchess, though the most fashionable Duchess that ever was heard of, winked her eye. &quot;Alicia,&quot; said the King, one evening when she wished him Good Night. &quot;Yes, Papa.&quot; &quot;What is become of the magic fish-bone?&quot; &quot;In my pocket, Papa!&quot; &quot;I thought you had lost it?&quot; &quot;O no, Papa!&quot; &quot;Or forgotten it?&quot; &quot;No, indeed, Papa.&quot; And so another time the dreadful little snapping pug-dog next door made a rush at one of the young Princes as he stood on the steps coming home from school, and terrified him out of his wits, and he put his hand through a pane of glass, and bled bled bled. When the seventeen other young Princes and Princesses saw him bleed bleed bleed, they were terrified out of their wits too, and screamed themselves black in their seventeen faces all at once. But the Princess Alicia put her hands over all their seventeen mouths, one after another, and persuaded them to be quiet because of the sick Queen. And then she put the wounded Prince’s hand in a basin of fresh cold water, while they stared with their twice seventeen are thirty-four, put down four and carry three eyes, and then she looked in the hand for bits of glass, and there were fortunately no bits of glass there. And then she said to two chubby-legged Princes, who were sturdy though small, &quot;Bring me in the Royal rag-bag; I must snip and stitch and cut and contrive.&quot; So these two young Princes tugged at the Royal rag-bag and lugged it in, and the Princess Alicia sat down on the floor with a large pair of scissors and a needle and thread, and snipped and stitched and cut and contrived, and made a bandage and put it on, and it fitted beautifully, and so when it was all done, she saw the King her Papa looking on by the door. &quot;Alicia.&quot; &quot;Yes, Papa.&quot; &quot;What have you been doing?&quot; &quot;Snipping, stitching, cutting, and contriving, Papa.&quot; &quot;Where is the magic fish-bone?&quot; &quot;In my pocket, Papa.&quot; &quot;I thought you had lost it?&quot; &quot;O no, Papa!&quot; &quot;Or forgotten it?&quot; &quot;No, indeed, Papa!&quot; After that, she ran up stairs to the Duchess and told her what had passed, and told her the secret over again, and the Duchess shook her flaxen curls, and laughed with her rosy lips. Well! and so another time the baby fell under the grate. The seventeen young Princes and Princesses were used to it, for they were almost always falling under the grate or down the stairs, but the baby was not used to it yet, and it gave him a swelled face and a black eye. The way the poor little darling came to tumble was, that he was out of the Princess Alicia’s lap just as she was sitting, in a great coarse apron that quite smothered her, in front of the kitchen fire, beginning to peel the turnips for the broth for dinner; and the way she came to be doing that was, that the King’s cook had run away that morning with her own true love, who was a very tall but very tipsy soldier. Then, the seventeen young Princes and Princesses, who cried at everything that happened, cried and roared. But the Princess Alicia (who couldn’t help crying a little herself) quietly called to them to be still, on account of not throwing back the Queen up stairs, who was fast getting well, and said, &quot;Hold your tongues, you wicked little monkeys, every one of you, while I examine baby!&quot; Then she examined baby, and found that he hadn’t broken anything, and she held cold iron to his poor dear eye, and smoothed his poor dear face, and he presently fell asleep in her arms. Then she said to the seventeen Princes and Princesses, &quot;I am afraid to let him down yet, lest he should wake and feel pain, be good, and you shall all be cooks.&quot; They jumped for joy when they heard that, and began making themselves cooks’ caps out of old newspapers. So to one she gave the salt-box, and to one she gave the barley, and to one she gave the herbs, and to one she gave the turnips, and to one she gave the carrots, and to one she gave the onions, and to one she gave the spice-box, till they were all cooks, and all running about at work, she sitting in the middle, smothered in the great coarse apron, nursing baby. By and by the broth was done, and the baby woke up, smiling like an angel, and was trusted to the sedatest Princess to hold, while the other Princes and Princesses were squeezed into a far-off corner to look at the Princess Alicia turning out the saucepan-full of broth, for fear (as they were always getting into trouble) they should get splashed and scalded. When the broth came tumbling out, steaming beautifully, and smelling like a nosegay good to eat, they clapped their hands. That made the baby clap his hands; and that, and his looking as if he had a comic toothache, made all the Princes and Princesses laugh. So the Princess Alicia said, &quot;Laugh and be good, and after dinner we will make him a nest on the floor in a corner, and he shall sit in his nest and see a dance of eighteen cooks.&quot; That delighted the young Princes and Princesses, and they ate up all the broth, and washed up all the plates and dishes, and cleared away, and pushed the table into a corner, and then they in their cooks’ caps, and the Princess Alicia, in the smothering coarse apron that belonged to the cook that had run away with her own true love that was the very tall but very tipsy soldier, danced a dance of eighteen cooks before the angelic baby, who forgot his swelled face and his black eye, and crowed with joy. And so then, once more the Princess Alicia saw King Watkins the First, her father, standing in the doorway looking on, and he said: &quot;What have you been doing, Alicia?&quot; &quot;Cooking and contriving, Papa.&quot; &quot;What else have you been doing, Alicia?&quot; &quot;Keeping the children light-hearted, Papa.&quot; &quot;Where is the magic fish-bone, Alicia?&quot; &quot;In my pocket, Papa.&quot; &quot;I thought you had lost it?&quot; &quot;O no, Papa!&quot; &quot;Or forgotten it?&quot; &quot;No, indeed, Papa.&quot; The King then sighed so heavily, and seemed so low-spirited, and sat down so miserably, leaning his head upon his hand, and his elbow upon the kitchen table pushed away in the corner, that the seventeen Princes and Princesses crept softly out of the kitchen, and left him alone with the Princess Alicia and the angelic baby. &quot;What is the matter, Papa?&quot; &quot;I am dreadfully poor, my child.&quot; &quot;Have you no money at all, Papa?&quot; &quot;None, my child.&quot; &quot;Is there no way of getting any, Papa?&quot; &quot;No way,&quot; said the King. &quot;I have tried very hard, and I have tried all ways.&quot; When she heard those last words, the Princess Alicia began to put her hand into the pocket where she kept the magic fish-bone. &quot;Papa,&quot; said she, &quot;when we have tried very hard, and tried all ways, we must have done our very very best?&quot; &quot;No doubt, Alicia.&quot; &quot;When we have done our very very best, Papa, and that is not enough, then I think the right time must have come for asking help of others.&quot; This was the very secret connected with the magic fish-bone, which she had found out for herself from the good fairy Grandmarina’s words, and which she had so often whispered to her beautiful and fashionable friend, the Duchess. So she took out of her pocket the magic fish-bone, that had been dried and rubbed and polished till it shone like mother-of-pearl; and she gave it one little kiss, and wished it was quarter-day. And immediately it was Quarter-Day, and the King’s quarter’s salary came rattling down the chimney, and bounced into the middle of the floor. But this was not half of what happened, no, not a quarter, for immediately afterwards the good Fairy Grandmarina came riding in, in a carriage and four (Peacocks), with Mr. Pickles’s boy up behind, dressed in silver and gold, with a cocked-hat, powdered hair, pink silk stockings, a jewelled cane, and a nosegay. Down jumped Mr. Pickles’s boy with his cocked-hat in his hand and wonderfully polite (being entirely changed by enchantment), and handed Grandmarina out, and there she stood, in her rich shot-silk smelling of dried lavender, fanning herself with a sparkling fan. &quot;Alicia, my dear,&quot; said this charming old Fairy, &quot;how do you do, I hope I see you pretty well, give me a kiss.&quot; The Princess Alicia embraced her; and then Grandmarina turned to the King, and said rather sharply: &quot;Are you good?&quot; The King said he hoped so. &quot;I suppose you know the reason, now, why my god-Daughter here,&quot; kissing the Princess again, &quot;did not apply to the fish-bone sooner?&quot; said the Fairy. The King made her a shy bow. &quot;Ah! but you didn’t then!&quot; said the Fairy. The king made her a shyer bow. &quot;Any more reasons to ask for?&quot; said the fairy. The King said no, and he was very sorry. &quot;Be good, then,&quot; said the Fairy, &quot;and live happy ever afterwards.&quot; Then Grandmarina waved her fan, and the Queen came in most splendidly dressed, and the seventeen young Princes and Princesses, no longer grown out of their clothes, came in, newly fitted out from top to toe, with tucks in everything to admit of its being let out. After that, the Fairy tapped the Princess Alicia with her fan, and the smothering coarse apron flew away, and she appeared exquisitely dressed, like a little Bride, with a wreath of orange-flowers and a silver veil. After that, the kitchen dresser changed of itself into a wardrobe, made of beautiful woods and gold and looking-glass, which was full of dresses of all sorts, all for her and all exactly fitting her. After that, the angelic baby came in, running alone, with his face and eye not a bit the worse but much the better. Then Grandmarina begged to be introduced to the Duchess, and, when the Duchess was brought down many compliments passed between them. A little whispering took place between the Fairy and the Duchess, and then the Fairy said out loud, &quot;Yes. I thought she would have told you.&quot; Grandmarina then turned to the King and Queen, and said, &quot;We are going in search of Prince Certainpersonio. The pleasure of your company is requested at church in half an hour precisely.&quot; So she and the Princess Alicia got into the carriage, and Mr. Pickles’s boy handed in the Duchess who sat by herself on the opposite seat, and then Mr. Pickles’s boy put up the steps and got up behind, and the Peacocks flew away with their tails spread. Prince Certainpersonio was sitting by himself, eating barley-sugar and waiting to be ninety. When he saw the Peacocks followed by the carriage, coming in at the window, it immediately occurred to him that something uncommon was going to happen. &quot;Prince,&quot; said Grandmarina, &quot;I bring you your Bride.&quot; The moment the Fairy said those words, Prince Certainpersonio’s face left off being sticky, and his jacket and corduroys changed to peach-bloom velvet, and his hair curled, and a cap and feather flew in like a bird and settled on his head. He got into the carriage by the Fairy’s invitation, and there he renewed his acquaintance with the Duchess whom he had seen before. In the church were the Prince’s relations and friends, and the Princess Alicia’s relations and friends, and the seventeen Princes and Princesses, and the baby, and a crowd of the neighbors. The marriage was beautiful beyond expression. The Duchess was bridesmaid, and beheld the ceremony from the pulpit where she was supported by the cushion of the desk. Grandmarina gave a magnificent wedding feast afterwards, in which there was everything and more to eat, and everything and more to drink. The wedding cake was delicately ornamented with white satin ribbons, frosted silver and white lilies, and was forty-two yards round. When Grandmarina had drunk her love to the young couple, and Prince Certainpersonio had made a speech, and everybody had cried, Hip Hip Hip Hurrah! Grandmarina announced to the King and Queen that in future there would be eight Quarter-Days in every year, except in leap-year, when there would be ten. She then turned to Certainpersonio and Alicia, and said, &quot;My dears, you will have thirty-five children, and they will all be good and beautiful. Seventeen of your children will be boys, and eighteen will be girls. The hair of the whole of your children will curl naturally. They will never have the measles, and will have recovered from the whooping-cough before being born.&quot; On hearing such good news, everybody cried out &quot;Hip Hip Hip Hurrah!&quot; again. &quot;It only remains,&quot; said Grandmarina in conclusion, &quot;to make an end of the fish-bone.&quot; So she took it from the hand of the Princess Alicia, and it instantly flew down the throat of the dreadful little snapping pug-dog, next door and choked him, and he expired in convulsions. *Aged Seven.18680301https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._II_Holiday_Romance_Romance._From_the_Pen_of_Miss_Alice_Rainbird/1868-03_No2_Holiday_Romance_Alice_Rainbird.pdf
142https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/142No. III, 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>Atlantic Monthly</em>)Published in the <em>Atlantic Monthly, </em>vol. 21 (March 1868), pp. 277-283.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust</em>, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000555786">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000555786</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-03">1868-03</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=50&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=No.III+%27George+Silverman%27s+Explanation%27+%28%3Cem%3EATYR%3C%2Fem%3E%29">No.III 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>)</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-03_George_Silvermans_Explanation_3Dickens, Charles. 'George Silverman's Explanation' (January 1868). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-03_George_Silvermans_Explanation_3">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-03_George_Silvermans_Explanation_3</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAtlantic+Monthly%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Atlantic Monthly</em></a>SEVENTH CHAPTER. MY timidity and my obscurity occasioned me to live a secluded life at College, and to be little known. No relative ever came to visit me, for I had no relative. No intimate friends broke in upon my studies, for I made no intimate friends. I supported myself on my scholarship, and read much. My College time was otherwise not so very different from my time at Hoghton Towers. Knowing myself to be unfit for the noisier stir of social existence, but believing myself qualified to do my duty in a moderate though earnest way, if I could obtain some small preferment in the Church, I applied my mind to the clerical profession. In due sequence I took orders, was ordained, and began to look about me for employment. I must observe that I had taken a good degree, that I had succeeded in winning a good fellowship, and that my means were ample for my retired way of life. By this time I had read with several young men, and the occupation increased my income, while it was highly interesting to me. I once accidentally overheard our greatest Don say, to my boundless joy, &quot;That he heard it reported of Silverman that his gift of quiet explanation, his patience, his amiable temper, and his conscientiousness made him the best of coaches.&quot; May my &quot;gift of quiet explanation&quot; come more seasonably and powerfully to my aid in this present explanation than I think it will! It may be, in a certain degree, owing to the situation of my College rooms (in a corner where the daylight was sobered), but it is in a much larger degree referable to the state of my own mind, that I seem to myself, on looking back to this time of my life, to have been always in the peaceful shade. I can see others in the sunlight; I can see our boats’ crews and our athletic young men on the glistening water, or speckled with the moving lights of sunlit leaves; but I myself am always in the shadow looking on. Not unsympathetically,—GOD forbid!—but looking on, alone, much as I looked at Sylvia from the shadows of the ruined house, or looked at the red gleam shining through the farmer’s windows, and listened to the fall of dancing feet, when all the ruin was dark that night in the quadrangle. I now come to the reason of my quoting that laudation of myself above given. Without such reason, to repeat it would have been mere boastfulness. Among those who had read with me was Mr. Fareway, second son of Lady Fareway, widow of Sir Gaston Fareway, Baronet. This young gentleman’s abilities were much above the average, but he came of a rich family, and was idle and luxurious. He presented himself to me too late, and afterwards came to me too irregularly, to admit of my being of much service to him. In the end I considered it my duty to dissuade him from going up for an examination which he could never pass, and he left College without taking a degree. After his departure, Lady Fareway wrote to me representing the justice of my returning half my fee, as I had been of so little use to her son. Within my knowledge a similar demand had not been made in any other case, and I most freely admit that the justice of it had not occurred to me until it was pointed out. But I at once perceived it, yielded to it, and returned the money. Mr. Fareway had been gone two years or more and I had forgotten him, when he one day walked into my rooms as I was sitting at my books. Said he, after the usual salutations had passed: &quot;Mr. Silverman, my mother is in town here, at the hotel, and wishes me to present you to her.&quot; I was not comfortable with strangers, and I dare say I betrayed that I was a little nervous or unwilling. &quot;For,&quot; said he, without my having spoken, &quot;I think the interview may tend to the advancement of your prospects.&quot; It put me to the blush to think that I should be tempted by a worldly reason, and I rose immediately. Said Mr. Fareway, as we went along, &quot;Are you a good hand at business?&quot; &quot;I think not,&quot; said I. Said Mr. Fareway then, &quot;My mother is.&quot; &quot;Truly?&quot; said I. &quot;Yes. My mother is what is usually called a managing woman. Doesn’t make a bad thing, for instance, even out of the spendthrift habits of my eldest brother abroad. In short, a managing woman. This is in confidence.&quot; He had never spoken to me in confidence, and I was surprised by his doing so. I said I should respect his confidence, of course, and said no more on the delicate subject. We had but a little way to walk, and I was soon in his mother’s company. He presented me, shook hands with me, and left us two (as he said) to business. I saw in my Lady Fareway a handsome, well-preserved lady of somewhat large stature, with a steady glare in her great round dark eyes that embarrassed me. Said my Lady: &quot;I have heard from my son, Mr. Silverman, that you would be glad of some preferment in the Church.&quot; I gave my lady to understand that was so. &quot;I don’t know whether you are aware,&quot; my Lady proceeded, &quot;that we have a presentation to a living? I say we have; but, in point of fact, I have.&quot; I gave my Lady to understand that I had not been aware of this. Said my Lady: &quot;So it is. Indeed, I have two presentations: one, to two hundred a year; one to six. Both livings are in our county,—North Devonshire, as you probably know. The first is vacant. Would you like it?&quot; What with my Lady’s eyes, and what with the suddenness of this proposed gift, I was much confused. &quot;I am sorry it is not the larger presentation,&quot; said my Lady, rather coldly; &quot;though I will not, Mr. Silverman, pay you the bad compliment of supposing that you are, because that would be mercenary,—and mercenary I am persuaded you are not.&quot; Said I, with my utmost earnestness: &quot;Thank you, Lady Fareway, thank you, thank you! I should be deeply hurt if I thought I bore the character.&quot; &quot;Naturally,&quot; said my Lady. &quot;Always detestable, but particularly in a clergyman. You have not said whether you will like the Living?&quot; With apologies for my remissness or indistinctness, I assured my Lady that I accepted it most readily and gratefully. I added that I hoped she would not estimate my appreciation of the generosity of her choice by my flow of words, for I was not a ready man in that respect when taken by surprise or touched at heart. &quot;The affair is concluded,&quot; said my Lady. &quot;Concluded. You will find the duties very light, Mr. Silverman. Charming house; charming little garden, orchard, and all that. You will be able to take pupils. By the bye! No. I will return to the word afterwards. What was I going to mention, when it put me out?&quot; My Lady stared at me, as if I knew. And I didn’t know. And that perplexed me afresh. Said my Lady, after some consideration, &quot;Oh! Of course. How very dull of me! The last incumbent,—least mercenary man I ever saw,—in consideration of the duties being so light and the house so delicious, couldn’t rest, he said, unless I permitted him to help me with my correspondence, accounts, and various little things of that kind; nothing in themselves, but which it worries a lady to cope with. Would Mr. Silverman also like to—? Or shall I—?&quot; I hastened to say that my poor help would be always at her ladyship’s service. &quot;I am absolutely blessed,&quot; said my Lady, casting up her eyes (and so taking them off me for one moment), &quot;in having to do with gentlemen who cannot endure an approach to the idea of being mercenary!&quot; She shivered at the word. &quot;And now as to the pupil.&quot; &quot;The—?&quot; I was quite at a loss. &quot;Mr. Silverman, you have no idea what she is. She is,&quot; said my Lady, laying her touch upon my coat-sleeve, &quot;I do verily believe, the most extraordinary girl in this world. Already knows more Greek and Latin than Lady Jane Grey. And taught herself! Has not yet, remember, derived a moment’s advantage from Mr. Silverman’s classical acquirements. To say nothing of mathematics, which she is bent upon becoming versed in, and in which (as I hear from my son and others) Mr. Silverman’s reputation is so deservedly high!&quot; Under my Lady’s eyes I must have lost the clew, I felt persuaded; and yet I did not know where I could have dropped it. &quot;Adelina,&quot; said my Lady, &quot;is my only daughter. If I did not feel quite convinced that I am not blinded by a mother’s partiality; unless I was absolutely sure that when you know her, Mr. Silverman, you will esteem it a high and unusual privilege to direct her studies,—I should introduce a mercenary element into this conversation, and ask you on what terms—&quot; I entreated my Lady to go no further. My Lady saw that I was troubled, and did me the honour to comply with my request. EIGHTH CHAPTER. Everything in mental acquisition that her brother might have been, if he would, and everything in all gracious charms and admirable qualities that no one but herself could be,—this was Adelina. I will not expatiate upon her beauty. I will not expatiate upon her intelligence, her quickness of perception, her powers of memory, her sweet consideration from the first moment for the slow-paced tutor who ministered to her wonderful gifts. I was thirty then; I am over sixty now; she is ever present to me in these hours as she was in those, bright and beautiful and young, wise and fanciful and good. When I discovered that I loved her, how can I say? In the first day? In the first week? In the first month? Impossible to trace. If I be (as I am) unable to represent to myself any previous period of my life as quite separable from her attracting power, how can I answer for this one detail? Whensoever I made the discovery, it laid a heavy burden on me. And yet, comparing it with the far heavier burden that I afterwards took up, it does not seem to me now to have been very hard to bear. In the knowledge that I did love her, and that I should love her while my life lasted, and that I was ever to hide my secret deep in my own breast, and she was never to find it, there was a kind of sustaining joy or pride or comfort mingled with my pain. But later on,—say, a year later on,—when I made another discovery, then indeed my suffering and my struggle were strong. That other discovery was—? These words will never see the light, if ever, until my heart is dust; until her bright spirit has returned to the regions of which, when imprisoned here, it surely retained some unusual glimpse of remembrance; until all the pulses that ever beat around us shall have long been quiet; until all the fruits of all the tiny victories and defeats achieved in our little breasts shall have withered away. That discovery was, that she loved me. She may have enhanced my knowledge, and loved me for that; she may have over-valued my discharge of duty to her, and loved me for that; she may have refined upon a playful compassion which she would sometimes show for what she called my want of wisdom according to the light of the world’s dark lanterns, and loved me for that; she may—she must—have confused the borrowed light of what I had only learned, with its brightness in its pure, original rays; but she loved me at that time, and she made me know it. Pride of family and pride of wealth put me as far off from her in my Lady’s eyes as if I had been some domesticated creature of another kind. But they could not put me farther from her than I put myself when I set my merits against hers. More than that. They could not put me, by millions of fathoms, half so low beneath her as I put myself when in imagination I took advantage of her noble trustfulness, took the fortune that I knew she must possess in her own right, and left her to find herself, in the zenith of her beauty and genius, bound to poor rusty, plodding Me. No. Worldliness should not enter here, at any cost. If I had tried to keep it out of other ground, how much harder was I bound to try to keep it from this sacred place! But there was something daring in her broad generous character that demanded at so delicate a crisis to be delicately and patiently addressed. After many and many a bitter night (O, I found I could cry for reasons not purely physical, at this pass of my life!) I took my course. My Lady had in our first interview unconsciously overstated the accommodation of my pretty house. There was room in it for only one pupil. He was a young gentleman near coming of age, very well connected, but what is called a poor relation. His parents were dead. The charges of his living and reading with me were defrayed by an uncle, and he and I were to do our utmost together for three years towards qualifying him to make his way. At this time he had entered into his second year with me. He was well-looking, clever, energetic, enthusiastic, bold; in the best sense of the term, a thorough young Anglo-Saxon. I resolved to bring these two together. NINTH CHAPTER. Said I, one night, when I had conquered myself, &quot;Mr. Granville,&quot;—Mr. Granville Wharton his name was,—&quot;I doubt if you have ever yet so much as seen Miss Fareway.&quot; &quot;Well, sir,&quot; returned he, laughing, &quot;you see her so much yourself, that you hardly leave another fellow a chance of seeing her.’&quot; &quot;I am her tutor, you know,&quot; said I. And there the subject dropped for that time. But I so contrived as that they should come together shortly afterwards. I had previously so contrived as to keep them asunder, for while I loved her,—I mean before I had determined on my sacrifice,—a lurking jealousy of Mr. Granville lay within my unworthy breast. It was quite an ordinary interview in the Fareway Park; but they talked easily together for some time: like takes to like, and they had many points of resemblance. Said Mr. Granville to me, when he and I sat at our supper that night: &quot;Miss Fareway is remarkably beautiful, sir, and remarkably engaging. Don’t you think so?&quot; &quot;I think so,&quot; said I. And I stole a glance at him, and saw that he had reddened and was thoughtful. I remember it most vividly, because the mixed feeling of grave pleasure and acute pain that the slight circumstance caused me was the first of a long, long series of such mixed impressions under which my hair turned slowly gray. I had not much need to feign to be subdued, but I counterfeited to be older than I was in all respects (Heaven knows, my heart being all too young the while!), and feigned to be more of a recluse and bookworm than I had really become, and gradually set up more and more of a fatherly manner towards Adelina. Likewise, I made my tuition less imaginative than before; separated myself from my poets and philosophers; was careful to present them in their own light, and me, their lowly servant, in my own shade. Moreover, in the matter of apparel I was equally mindful. Not that I had ever been dapper that way, but that I was slovenly now. As I depressed myself with one hand, so did I labour to raise Mr. Granville with the other; directing his attention to such subjects as I too well knew interested her, and fashioning him (do not deride or misconstrue the expression, unknown reader of this writing, for I have suffered!) into a greater resemblance to myself in my solitary one strong aspect. And gradually, gradually, as I saw him take more and more to these thrown-out lures of mine, then did I come to know better and better that love was drawing him on, and was drawing Her from me. So passed more than another year; every day a year in its number of my mixed impressions of grave pleasure and acute pain; and then, these two, being of age and free to act legally for themselves, came before me hand in hand (my hair being now quite white), and entreated me that I would unite them together. &quot;And indeed, dear Tutor,&quot; said Adelina, &quot;it is but consistent in you that you should do this thing for us, seeing that we should never have spoken together that first time but for you, and that but for you we could never have met so often afterwards.&quot; The whole of which was literally true, for I had availed myself of my many business attendances on, and conferences with, my Lady, to take Mr. Granville to the house, and leave him in the outer room with Adelina. I knew that my Lady would object to such a marriage for her daughter, or to any marriage that was other than an exchange of her for stipulated lands, goods, and moneys. But, looking on the two, and seeing with full eyes that they were both young and beautiful; and knowing that they were alike in the tastes and acquirements that will outlive youth and beauty; and considering that Adelina had a fortune now, in her own keeping; and considering further that Mr. Granville, though for the present poor, was of a good family that had never lived in a cellar in Preston; and believing that their love would endure, neither having any great discrepancy to find out in the other,—I told them of my readiness to do this thing which Adelina asked of her dear Tutor, and to send them forth, Husband and Wife, into the shining world with golden gates that awaited them. It was on a summer morning that I rose before the sun, to compose myself for the crowning of my work with this end. And my dwelling being near to the sea, I walked down to the rocks on the shore, in order that I might behold the sun in his majesty. The tranquillity upon the Deep and on the firmament, the orderly withdrawal of the stars, the calm promise of coming day, the rosy suffusion of the sky and waters, the ineffable splendor that then burst forth, attuned my mind afresh after the discords of the night. Methought that all I looked on said to me, and that all I heard in the sea and in the air said to me, &quot;Be comforted, mortal, that thy life is so short. Our preparation for what is to follow has endured, and shall endure, for unimaginable ages.&quot; I married them. I knew that my hand was cold when I placed it on their hands clasped together; but the words with which I had to accompany the action I could say without faltering, and I was at peace. They being well away from my house and from the place, after our simple breakfast, the time was come when I must do what I had pledged myself to them that I would do,—break the intelligence to my Lady. I went up to the house, and found my Lady in her ordinary business-room. She happened to have an unusual amount of commissions to intrust to me that day, and she had filled my hands with papers before I could originate a word. &quot;My Lady,&quot; — I then began, as I stood beside her table. &quot;Why, what’s the matter?&quot; she said quickly, looking up. &quot;Not much, I would fain hope, after you shall have prepared yourself, and considered a little.&quot; &quot;Prepared myself! And considered a little! You appear to have prepared yourself but indifferently, anyhow, Mr. Silverman.&quot; This, mighty scornfully, as I experienced my usual embarrassment under her stare. Said I, in self-extenuation, once for all: &quot;Lady Fareway, I have but to say for myself that I have tried to do my duty.&quot; &quot;For yourself?&quot; repeated my Lady. &quot;Then there are others concerned, I see. Who are they?&quot; I was about to answer, when she made towards the bell with a dart that stopped me, and said, &quot;Why, where is Adelina?&quot; &quot;Forbear! be calm, my Lady. I married her this morning to Mr. Granville Wharton.&quot; She set her lips, looked more intently at me than ever, raised her right hand, and smote me hard upon the cheek. &quot;Give me back those papers! give me back those papers!&quot; She tore them out of my hands and tossed them on her table. Then seating herself defiantly in her great chair, and folding her arms, she stabbed me to the heart with the unlooked-for reproach: &quot;You worldly wretch!&quot; &quot;Worldly?&quot; I cried. &quot;Worldly!&quot; &quot;This, if you please,&quot; she went on with supreme scorn, pointing me out as if there were some one there to see—&quot;this, if you please, is the disinterested scholar, with not a design beyond his books! This, if you please, is the simple creature whom any one could overreach in a bargain! This, if you please, is Mr. Silverman! Not of this world, not he! He has too much simplicity for this world’s cunning. He has too much singleness of purpose to be a match for this world’s double-dealing. What did he give you for it?&quot; &quot;For what? And who?&quot; &quot;How much,&quot; she asked, bending forward in her great chair, and insultingly tapping the fingers of her right hand on the palm of her left,—&quot;how much does Mr. Granville Wharton pay you for getting him Adelina’s money? What is the amount of your percentage upon Adelina’s fortune? What were the terms of the agreement that you proposed to this boy when you, the Reverend George Silverman, licensed to marry, engaged to put him in possession of this girl? You made good terms for yourself, whatever they were. He would stand a poor chance against your keenness.&quot; Bewildered, horrified, stunned by this cruel perversion, I could not speak. But I trust that I looked innocent, being so. &quot;Listen to me, shrewd hypocrite,&quot; said my Lady, whose anger increased as she gave it utterance, &quot;Attend to my words, you cunning schemer, who have carried this plot through with such a practised double face that I have never suspected you. I had my projects for my daughter; projects for family connection; projects for fortune. You have thwarted them, and overreached me; but I am not one to be thwarted and overreached without retaliation. Do you mean to hold this living another month?&quot; &quot;Do you deem it possible, Lady Fareway, that I can hold it another hour, under your injurious words?&quot; &quot;Is it resigned, then?&quot; &quot;It was mentally resigned, my Lady, some minutes ago.&quot; &quot;Don’t equivocate, sir. Is it resigned?&quot; &quot;Unconditionally and entirely. And I would that I had never, never come near it!&quot; &quot;A cordial response from me to that wish, Mr. Silverman! But take this with you, sir. If you had not resigned it, I would have had you deprived of it. And though you have resigned it, you will not get quit of me as easily as you think for. I will pursue you with this story. I will make this nefarious conspiracy of yours, for money, known. You have made money by it, but you have at the same time made an enemy by it. You will take good care that the money sticks to you; I will take good care that the enemy sticks to you.&quot; Then said I finally, &quot;Lady Fareway, I think my heart is broken. Until I came into this room just now, the possibility of such mean wickedness as you have imputed to me never dawned upon my thoughts. Your suspicions—&quot; &quot;Suspicions! Pah!&quot; said she indignantly. &quot;Certainties.&quot; &quot;Your certainties, my Lady, as you call them, your suspicions, as I call them, are cruel, unjust, wholly devoid of foundation in fact. I can declare no more, except that I have not acted for my own profit or my own pleasure. I have not in this proceeding considered myself. Once again, I think my heart is broken. If I have unwittingly done any wrong with a righteous motive, that is some penalty to pay.&quot; She received this with another and more indignant &quot;Pah!&quot; and I made my way out of her room (I think I felt my way out with my hands, although my eyes were open), almost suspecting that my voice had a repulsive sound, and that I was a repulsive object. There was a great stir made, the Bishop was appealed to, I received a severe reprimand, and narrowly escaped suspension. For years a cloud hung over me, and my name was tarnished. But my heart did not break, if a broken heart involves death; for I lived through it. They stood by me, Adelina and her husband, through it all. Those who had known me at College, and even most of those who had only known me there by reputation, stood by me too. Little by little, the belief widened that I was not capable of what was laid to my charge. At length I was presented to a College-Living in a sequestered place, and there I now pen my Explanation. I pen it at my open window in the summer-time, before me, lying in the churchyard, equal resting-place for sound hearts, wounded hearts, and broken hearts. I pen it for the relief of my own mind, not foreseeing whether or no it will ever have a reader.18680301https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._III_George_Silverman_s_Explanation_[Atlantic_Monthly]/1868-03_George_Silvermans_Explanation_No.3.pdf
146https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/146No. III, <em>Holiday Romance</em>, 'Romance. From the Pen of Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Redforth'Published in <em>Our Young Folks,</em> vol.4, no. 1 (March 1868), pp. 193-200. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=03-1868">03-1868</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+John+Gilbert">Illustrated by John Gilbert</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-03_No3_Holiday_Romance_Lieut_Col_Robin_RedforthDickens, Charles. 'Romance. From the Pen of Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Redforth' (March 1868). <em>Holiday Romance. Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868_03_No3_Holiday_Romance_Lieut_Col_Robin_Redforth">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868_03_No3_Holiday_Romance_Lieut_Col_Robin_Redforth</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EOur+Young+Folks%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Our Young Folks</em></a>PART III. ROMANCE. FROM THE PEN OF LIEUT.-COL. ROBIN REDFORTH* The subject of our present narrative would appear to have devoted himself to the Pirate profession at a comparatively early age. We find him in command of a splendid schooner of one hundred guns loaded to the muzzle, ere yet he had had a party in honor of his tenth birthday. It seems that our hero, considering himself spited by a Latin-Grammar-Master, demanded the satisfaction due from one man of honor to another. Not getting it, he privately withdrew his haughty spirit from such low company, bought a second-hand pocket-pistol, folded up some sandwiches in a paper bag, made a bottle of Spanish liquorice-water, and entered on a career of valor. It were tedious to follow Boldheart (for such was his name) through the commencing stages of his story. Suffice it that we find him bearing the rank of Captain Boldheart, reclining in full uniform on a crimson hearth-rug spread out upon the quarter-deck of his schooner the Beauty, in the China Seas. It was a lovely evening, and as his crew lay grouped about him, he favored them with the following melody: — O landsmen are folly! O Pirates are jolly! O Diddleum Dolly, Di! (Chorus.) Heave yo. The soothing effect of these animated sounds floating over the waters, as the common sailors united their rough voices to take up the rich tones of Boldheart, may be more easily conceived than described. It was under these circumstances that the lookout at the mast-head gave the word, &quot;Whales!&quot; All was now activity. &quot;Where away?&quot; cried Captain Boldheart, starting up. &quot;On the larboard bow, sir,&quot; replied the fellow at the mast-head, touching his hat. For such was the height of discipline on board the Beauty, that even at that height he was obliged to mind it or be shot through the head. &quot;This adventure belongs to me,&quot; said Boldheart. &quot;Boy, my harpoon. Let no man follow&quot;; and leaping alone into his boat, the Captain rowed with admirable dexterity in the direction of the monster. All was now excitement. &quot;He nears him!&quot; said an elderly seaman, following the Captain through his spy-glass. &quot;He strikes him!&quot; said another seaman, a mere stripling, but also with a spy-glass. &quot;He tows him towards us!&quot; said another seaman, a man in the full vigor of life, but also with a spy-glass. In fact, the Captain was seen approaching, with the huge bulk following. We will not dwell on the deafening cries of &quot;Boldheart! Boldheart!&quot; with which he was received, when, carelessly leaping on the quarter-deck, he presented his prize to his men. They afterwards made two thousand four hundred and seventeen pound ten and sixpence by it. Ordering the sails to be braced up, the Captain now stood W.N.W. The Beauty flew rather than floated over the dark blue waters. Nothing particular occurred for a fortnight, except taking, with considerable slaughter, four Spanish galleons, and a Snow from South America, all richly laden. Inaction began to tell upon the spirits of the men. Captain Boldheart called all hands aft, and said, &quot;My lads, I hear there are discontented ones among ye. Let any such stand forth.&quot; After some murmuring, in which the expressions, &quot;Ay, ay, sir,&quot; &quot;Union Jack,&quot; &quot;Avast,&quot; &quot;Starboard,&quot; &quot;Port,&quot; &quot;Bowsprit,&quot; and similar indications of a mutinous undercurrent, though subdued were audible, Bill Boozey, captain of the foretop, came out from the rest. His form was that of a giant, but he quailed under the Captain’s eye. &quot;What are your wrongs?&quot; said the Captain. &quot;Why, d’ye see, Captain Boldheart,&quot; returned the towering mariner, &quot;I’ve sailed man and boy for many a year, but I never yet know’d the milk served out for the ship’s company’s teas to be so sour as ‘t is aboard this craft.&quot; At this moment the thrilling cry, &quot;Man overboard!&quot; announced to the astonished crew that Boozey, in stepping back as the Captain (in mere thoughtfulness) laid his hand upon the faithful pocket-pistol which he wore in his belt, had lost his balance, and was struggling with the foaming tide. All was now stupefaction. But with Captain Boldheart, to throw off his uniform coat regardless of the various rich orders with which it was decorated, and to plunge into the sea after the drowning giant, was the work of a moment. Maddening was the excitement when boats were lowered; intense the joy when the Captain was seen holding up the drowning man with his teeth; deafening the cheering when both were restored to the main deck of the Beauty. And from the instant of his changing his wet clothes for dry ones, Captain Boldheart had no such devoted though humble friend as William Boozey. Boldheart now pointed to the horizon, and called the attention of his crew to the taper spars of a ship lying snug in harbor under the guns of a fort. &quot;She shall be ours at sunrise,&quot; said he. &quot;Serve out a double allowance of grog, and prepare for action.&quot; All was now preparation. When morning dawned after a sleepless night, it was seen that the stranger was crowding on all sail to come out of the harbor and offer battle. As the two ships came nearer to each other, the stranger fired a gun and hoisted Roman colors. Boldheart then perceived her to be the Latin-Grammar Master’s bark. Such indeed she was, and had been tacking about the world in unavailing pursuit, from the time of his first taking to a roving life. Boldheart now addressed his men, promising to blow them up, if he should feel convinced that their reputation required it, and giving orders that the Latin-Grammar-Master should be taken alive. He then dismissed them to their quarters, and the fight began with a broadside from the Beauty. She then veered round and poured in another. The Scorpion (so was the bark of the Latin-Grammar-Master appropriately called) was not slow to return her fire, and a terrific cannonading ensued, in which the guns of the Beauty did tremendous execution. The Latin-Grammar-Master was seen upon the poop in the midst of the smoke and fire, encouraging his men. To do him justice, he was no Craven, though his white hat, his short gray trousers, and his long snuff-colored surtout reaching to his heels, — the self-same coat in which he had spited Boldheart, — contrasted most unfavorably with the brilliant uniform of the latter. At this moment Boldheart, seizing a pike and putting himself at the head of his men, gave the word to board. A desperate conflict ensued in the hammock-nettings,—or somewhere in about that direction,—until the Latin-Grammar-Master, having all his masts gone, his hull and rigging shot through and through, and seeing Boldheart slashing a path towards him, hauled down his flag himself, gave up his sword to Boldheart, and asked for quarter. Scarce had he been put into the captain’s boat, ere the Scorpion went down with all on board. On Captain Boldheart’s now assembling his men, a circumstance occurred. He found it necessary with one blow of his cutlass to kill the Cook, who, having lost his brother in the late action, was making at the Latin-Grammar-Master in an infuriated state, intent on his destruction with a carving-knife. Captain Boldheart then turned to the Latin-Grammar-Master, severely reproaching him with his perfidy, and put it to his crew what they considered that a master who spited a boy deserved? They answered with one voice, &quot;Death.&quot; &quot;It may be so,&quot; said the Captain, &quot;but it shall never be said that Boldheart stained his hour of triumph with the blood of his enemy. Prepare the cutter.&quot; The cutter was immediately prepared. &quot;Without taking your life,&quot; said the Captain, &quot;I must yet for ever deprive you of the power of spiting other boys. I shall turn you adrift in this boat. You will find in her two oars, a compass, a bottle of rum, a small cask of water, a piece of pork, a bag of biscuit, and my Latin grammar. Go! And spite the Natives, if you can find any.&quot; Deeply conscious of this bitter sarcasm, the unhappy wretch was put into the cutter and was soon left far behind. He made no effort to row, but was seen lying on his back with his legs up, when last made out by the ship’s telescopes. A stiff breeze now beginning to blow, Captain Boldheart gave orders to keep her S.S.W., easing her a little during the night by falling off a point or two W. by W., or even by W.S., if she complained much. He then retired for the night, having in truth much need of repose. In addition to the fatigues he had undergone, this brave officer had received sixteen wounds in the engagement, but had not mentioned it. In the morning a white squall came on, and was succeeded by other squalls of various colors. It thundered and lightened heavily for six weeks. Hurricanes then set in for two months. Waterspouts and tornadoes followed. The oldest sailor on board—and he was a very old one—had never seen such weather. The Beauty lost all idea where she was, and the carpenter reported six feet two of water in the hold. Everybody fell senseless at the pumps every day. Provisions now ran very low. Our hero put the crew on short allowance, and put himself on shorter allowance than any man in the ship. But his spirit kept him fat. In this extremity, the gratitude of Boozey, the captain of the foretop whom our readers may remember, was truly affecting. The loving though lowly William repeatedly requested to be killed, and preserved for the Captain’s table. We now approach a change of affairs. One day during a gleam of sunshine and when the weather had moderated, the man at the mast-head—too weak now to touch his hat, besides its having been blown away—called out, &quot;Savages!&quot; All was now expectation. Presently fifteen hundred canoes, each paddled by twenty savages, were seen advancing in excellent order. They were of a light green colour (the Savages were), and sang, with great energy, the following strain: — Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nycey! Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nyce! As the shades of night were by this time closing in, these expressions were supposed to embody this simple people’s views of the Evening Hymn. But it too soon appeared that the song was a translation of &quot;For what we are going to receive,&quot; &amp;c. The chief, imposingly decorated with feathers of lively colors, and having the majestic appearance of a fighting Parrot, no sooner understood (he understood English perfectly) that the ship was the Beauty, Captain Boldheart, than he fell upon his face on the deck, and could not be persuaded to rise until the Captain had lifted him up, and told him he wouldn’t hurt him. All the rest of the savages also fell on their faces with marks of terror, and had also to be lifted up one by one. Thus the fame of the great Boldheart had gone before him, even among these children of nature. Turtles and oysters were now produced in astonishing numbers, and on these and yams the people made a hearty meal. After dinner the Chief told Captain Boldheart that there was better feeding up at the village, and that he would be glad to take him and his officers there. Apprehensive of treachery, Boldheart ordered his boat’s crew to attend him completely armed. And well were it for other commanders if their precautions, but let us not anticipate. When the canoes arrived at the beach, the darkness of the night was illumined by the light of an immense fire. Ordering his boat’s crew (with the intrepid though illiterate William at their head) to keep close and be upon their guard, Boldheart bravely went on, arm in arm with the Chief. But how to depict the Captain’s surprise when he found a ring of savages singing in chorus that barbarous translation of &quot;For what we are going to receive,&quot; &amp;c., which has been given above, and dancing hand in hand round the Latin-Grammar- Master, in a hamper with his head shaved, while two savages floured him, before putting him to the fire to be cooked! Boldheart now took counsel with his officers on the course to be adopted. In the mean time the miserable captive never ceased begging pardon and imploring to be delivered. On the generous Boldheart’s proposal, it was at length resolved that he should not be cooked, but should be allowed to remain raw, on two conditions. Namely, 1. That he should never under any circumstances presume to teach any boy anything any more. 2. That, if taken back to England, he should pass his life in travelling to find out boys who wanted their exercises done, and should do their exercises for those boys for nothing, and never say a word about it. Drawing the sword from its sheath, Boldheart swore him to these conditions on its shining blade. The prisoner wept bitterly, and appeared acutely to feel the errors of his past career. The Captain then ordered his boat’s crew to make ready for a volley, and after firing to re-load quickly. &quot;And expect a score or two on ye to go head over heels,&quot; murmured William Boozey, &quot;for I’m a-looking at ye.&quot; With those words, the derisive though deadly William took a good aim. &quot;Fire!&quot; The ringing voice of Boldheart was lost in the report of the guns and the screeching of the savages. Volley after volley awakened the numerous echoes. Hundreds of savages were killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands ran howling into the woods. The Latin-Grammar-Master had a spare nightcap lent him, and a long-tail coat which he wore hind side before. He presented a ludicrous though pitiable appearance, and serve him right. We now find Captain Boldheart with this rescued wretch on board, standing off for other islands. At one of these, not a cannibal island but a pork and vegetable one, he married (only in fun on his part) the King’s daughter. Here he rested some time, receiving from the natives great quantities of precious stones, gold dust, elephants’ teeth, and sandal wood, and getting very rich. This, too, though he almost every day made presents of enormous value to his men. The ship being at length as full as she could hold of all sorts of valuable things, Boldheart gave orders to weigh the anchor, and turn the Beauty’s head towards England. These orders were obeyed with three cheers, and ere the sun went down full many a hornpipe had been danced on deck by the uncouth though agile William. We next find Captain Boldheart about three leagues off Madeira, surveying through his spy-glass a stranger of suspicious appearance making sail towards him. On his firing a gun ahead of her to bring her to, she ran up a flag, which he instantly recognized as the flag from the mast in the back garden at home. Inferring, from this, that his father had put to sea to seek his long-lost son, the Captain sent his own boat on board the stranger, to inquire if this was so, and, if so, whether his father’s intentions were strictly honorable. The boat came back with a present of greens and fresh meat, and reported that the stranger was The Family, of twelve hundred tons, and had not only the Captain’s father on board, but also his mother, with the majority of his aunts and uncles, and all his cousins. It was further reported to Boldheart that the whole of these relations had expressed themselves in a becoming manner, and were anxious to embrace him and thank him for the glorious credit he had done them. Boldheart at once invited them to breakfast next morning on board the Beauty, and gave orders for a brilliant ball that should last all day. It was in the course of the night that the captain discovered the hopelessness of reclaiming the Latin-Grammar-Master. That thankless traitor was found out as the two ships lay near each other, communicating with The Family by signals, and offering to give up Boldheart. He was hanged at the yard-arm the first thing in the morning, after having it impressively pointed out to him by Boldheart that this was what spiters came to. The meeting between the Captain and his parents was attended with tears. His uncles and aunts would have attended their meeting with tears too, but he wasn’t going to stand that. His cousins were very much astonished by the size of his ship and the discipline of his men, and were greatly overcome by the splendor of his uniform. He kindly conducted them round the vessel, and pointed out everything worthy of notice. He also fired his hundred guns, and found it amusing to witness their alarm. The entertainment surpassed everything ever seen on board ship, and lasted from ten in the morning until seven the next morning. Only one disagreeable incident occurred. Captain Boldheart found himself obliged to put his cousin Tom in irons, for being disrespectful. On the boy’s promising amendment, however, he was humanely released, after a few hours’ close confinement. Boldheart now took his mother down into the great cabin, and asked after the young lady with whom, it was well known to the world, he was in love. His mother replied that the object of his affections was then at school at Margate, for the benefit of sea-bathing (it was the month of September), but that she feared the young lady’s friends were still opposed to the union. Boldheart at once resolved, if necessary, to bombard the town. Taking the command of his ship with this intention, and putting all but fighting men on board The Family, with orders to that vessel to keep in company, Boldheart soon anchored in Margate Roads. Here he went ashore well armed, and attended by his boat’s crew (at their head the faithful though ferocious William), and demanded to see the Mayor, who came out of his office. &quot;Dost know the name of yon ship, Mayor?&quot; asked Boldheart, fiercely. &quot;No,&quot; said the Mayor, rubbing his eyes, which he could scarce believe when he saw the goodly vessel riding at anchor. &quot;She is named the Beauty,&quot; said the Captain. &quot;Hah!&quot; exclaimed the Mayor, with a start. &quot;And you, then, are Captain Boldheart?&quot; &quot;The same.&quot; A pause ensued. The Mayor trembled. &quot;Now, Mayor,&quot; said the Captain, &quot;choose! Help me to my Bride, or be bombarded.&quot; The Mayor begged for two hours’ grace, in which to make inquiries respecting the young lady. Boldheart accorded him but one, and during that one placed William Boozey sentry over him, with a drawn sword and instructions to accompany him wherever he went, and to run him through the body if he showed a sign of playing false. At the end of the hour, the Mayor re-appeared more dead than alive, closely waited on by Boozey more alive than dead. &quot;Captain,&quot; said the Mayor, &quot;I have ascertained that the young lady is going to bathe. Even now she waits her turn for a machine. The tide is low, though rising. I, in one of our town-boats, shall not be suspected. When she comes forth in her bathing-dress into the shallow water from behind the hood of the machine, my boat shall intercept her and prevent her return. Do you the rest.&quot; &quot;Mayor,&quot; returned Captain Boldheart, &quot;thou hast saved thy town.&quot; The Captain then signalled his boat to take him off, and, steering her himself, ordered her crew to row towards the bathing-ground, and there to rest upon their oars. All happened as had been arranged. His lovely bride came forth, the Mayor glided in behind her, she became confused and had floated out of her depth, when, with one skilful touch of the rudder and one quivering stroke from the boat’s crew, her adoring Boldheart held her in his strong arms. There her shrieks of terror were changed to cries of joy. Before the Beauty could get under way, the hoisting of all the flags in the town and harbor, and the ringing of all the bells, announced to the brave Boldheart that he had nothing to fear. He therefore determined to be married on the spot, and signalled for a clergyman and clerk, who came off promptly in a sailing-boat named the Skylark. Another great entertainment was then given on board the Beauty, in the midst of which the Mayor was called out by a messenger. He returned with the news that Government had sent down to know whether Captain Boldheart, in acknowledgment of the great services he had done his country by being a Pirate, would consent to be made a Lieutenant-Colonel. For himself he would have spurned the worthless boon, but his Bride wished it and he consented. Only one thing further happened before the good ship Family was dismissed, with rich presents to all on board. It is painful to record (but such is human nature in some cousins) that Captain Boldheart’s unmannerly Cousin Tom was actually tied up to receive three dozen with a rope’s end &quot;for cheekiness and making game,&quot; when Captain Boldheart’s Lady begged for him and he was spared. The Beauty then refitted, and the Captain and his Bride departed for the Indian Ocean to enjoy themselves forevermore. *Aged Nine.18680301https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._III_Holiday_Romance_Romance._From_the_Pen_of_Lieutenant-Colonel_Robin_Redforth/1868-03_No3_Holiday_Romance_Lieut_Col_Robin_Redforth.pdf
232https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/232No. IV, 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'Published in <em>Household Words</em>, Vol. XVI, No. 394, 24 October 1857, pp. 385-393.Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,<a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-385.html"></a> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-385.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-385.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1857-10-10">1857-10-10</a>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, <a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. Available under CC-BY licence.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1857-10-24-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No4<span>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins. No.IV 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'.</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;</span><span>Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-24-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No4">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-24-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No4</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>When Mr. Goodchild had looked out of the Lancaster Inn-window for two hours on end, with great perseverance, he began to entertain a misgiving that he was growing industrious. He therefore set himself next, to explore the country from the tops of all the steep hills in the neighbourhood. He came back at dinner-time, red and glowing, to tell Thomas Idle what he had seen. Thomas, on his back reading, listened with great composure, and asked him whether he really had gone up those hills, and bothered himself with those views, and walked all those miles? &quot;Because I want to know,&quot; added Thomas, &quot;what you would say of it, if you were obliged to do it?&quot; &quot;It would be different, then,&quot; said Francis. &quot;It would be work, then; now, it&#039;s play.&quot; &quot;Play!&quot; repeated Thomas Idle, utterly repudiating the reply. &quot;Play! Here is a man goes systematically tearing himself to pieces, and putting himself through an incessant course of training, as if he were always under articles to fight a match for the champion&#039;s belt, and he calls it Play! Play!&quot; exclaimed Thomas Idle, scornfully contemplating his one boot in the air. &quot;You can&#039;t play. You don&#039;t know what it is. You make work of everything.&quot; The bright Goodchild amiably smiled. &quot;So you do,&quot; said Thomas.&quot; I mean it. To me you are an absolutely terrible fellow. You do nothing like another man. Where another fellow would fall into a footbath of action or emotion, you fall into a mine. Where any other fellow would be a painted butterfly, you are a fiery dragon. Where another man would stake a sixpence, you stake your existence. If you were to go up in a balloon, you would make for Heaven; and if you were to dive into the depths of the earth, nothing short of the other place would content you. What a fellow you are, Francis!&quot; The cheerful Goodchild laughed. &quot;It&#039;s all very well to laugh, but I wonder you don&#039;t feel it to be serious,&quot; said Idle. &quot;A man who can do nothing by halves appears to me to be a fearful man.&quot; &quot;Tom, Tom,&quot; returned Goodchild, &quot;if I can do nothing by halves, and be nothing by halves, it&#039;s pretty clear that you must take me as a whole, and make the best of me.&quot; With this philosophical rejoinder, the airy Goodchild clapped Mr. Idle on the shoulder in a final manner, and they sat down to dinner. &quot;By the bye,&quot; said Goodchild, &quot;I have been over a lunatic asylum too, since I have been out.&quot; &quot;He has been,&quot; exclaimed Thomas Idle, casting up his eyes, &quot;over a lunatic asylum! Not content with being as great an Ass as Captain Barclay in the pedestrian way, he makes a Lunacy Commissioner of himself—for nothing!&quot; &quot;An immense place,&quot; said Goodchild, &quot;admirable offices, very good arrangements, very good attendants; altogether a remarkable place.&quot; &quot;And what did you see there?&quot; asked Mr. Idle, adapting Hamlet&#039;s advice to the occasion, and assuming the virtue of interest, though he had it not. &quot;The usual thing,&quot; said Francis Goodchild, with a sigh. &quot;Long groves of blighted men-and-women-trees; interminable avenues of hopeless faces; numbers, without the slightest power of really combining for any earthly purpose; a society of human creatures who have nothing in common but that they have all lost the power of being humanly social with one another.&quot; &quot;Take a glass of wine with me,&quot; said Thomas Idle, &quot;and let us be social.&quot; &quot;In one gallery, Tom,&quot; pursued Francis Goodchild, &quot;which looked to me about the length of the Long Walk at Windsor, more or less—&quot; &quot;Probably less,&quot; observed Thomas Idle. &quot;In one gallery, which was otherwise quite clear of patients (for they were all out), there was a poor little dark-chinned, meagre man, with a perplexed brow and a pensive face, stooping low over the matting on the floor, and picking out with his thumb and fore-finger the course of its fibres. The afternoon sun was slanting in at the large end-window, and there were cross patches of light and shade all down the vista, made by the unseen orders were so, in that excellent hotel), the door opened, and One old man stood there. He did not come in, but stood with the door in his hand. &quot;One of the six, Tom, at last!&quot; said Mr. Goodchild, in a surprised whisper.— &quot;Sir, your pleasure?&quot; &quot;Sir, your pleasure?&quot; said the One old man. &quot;I didn&#039;t ring.&quot; &quot;The Bell did,&quot; said the One old man. He said BELL, in a deep strong way, that would have expressed the church Bell. &quot;I had the pleasure, I believe, of seeing you, yesterday?&quot; said Goodchild. &quot;I cannot undertake to say for certain,&quot; was the grim reply of the One old man. &quot;I think you saw me? Did you not?&quot; &quot;Saw you?&quot; said the old man. &quot;O yes, I saw you. But, I see many who never see me.&quot; A chilled, slow, earthy, fixed old man. A cadaverous old man of measured speech. An old man who seemed as unable to wink, as if his eyelids had been nailed to his forehead. An old man whose eyes— two spots of fire—had no more motion than if they had been connected with the back of his skull by screws driven through it, and rivetted and bolted outside, among his grey hair. The night had turned so cold, to Mr. Goodchild&#039;s sensations, that he shivered. He remarked lightly, and half apologetically, &quot;I think somebody is walking over my grave.&quot; &quot;No,&quot; said the weird old man, &quot;there is no one there.&quot; Mr. Goodchild looked at Idle, but Idle lay with his head enwreathed in smoke. &quot;No one there?&quot; said Goodchild. &quot;There is no one at your grave, I assure you,&quot; said the old man. He had come in and shut the door, and he now sat down. He did not bend himself to sit, as other people do, but seemed to sink bolt upright, as if in water, until the chair stopped him. &quot;My friend, Mr. Idle,&quot; said Goodchild, extremely anxious to introduce a third person into the conversation. &quot;I am,&quot; said the old man, without looking at him,&quot; at Mr. Idle&#039;s service.&quot; &quot;If you are an old inhabitant of this place,&quot; Francis Goodchild resumed: &quot;Yes.&quot; —&quot;Perhaps you can decide a point my friend and I were in doubt upon, this morning. They hang condemned criminals at the Castle, I believe?&quot; &quot;I believe so,&quot; said the old man. &quot;Are their faces turned towards that noble prospect?&quot; &quot;Your face is turned,&quot; replied the old man, &quot;to the Castle wall. When you are tied up, you see its stones expanding and contracting violently, and a similar expansion and contraction seem to take place in your own head and breast. Then, there is a rush of fire and an earthquake, and the Castle springs into the air, and you tumble down a precipice.&quot; His cravat appeared to trouble him. He put his hand to his throat, and moved his neck from side to side. He was an old man of a swollen character of face, and his nose was immoveably hitched up on one side, as if by a little hook inserted in that nostril. Mr. Goodchild felt exceedingly uncomfortable, and began to think the night was hot, and not cold. &quot;A strong description, sir,&quot; he observed. &quot;A strong sensation,&quot; the old man rejoined. Again, Mr. Goodchild looked to Mr. Thomas Idle; but, Thomas lay on his back with his face attentively turned towards the One old man, and made no sign. At this time Mr. Goodchild believed that he saw two threads of fire stretch from the old man&#039;s eyes to his own, and there attach themselves. (Mr. Goodchild writes the present account of his experience, and, with the utmost solemnity, protests that he had the strongest sensation upon him of being forced to look at the old man along those two fiery films, from that moment.) &quot;I must tell it to you,&quot; said the old man, with a ghastly and a stony stare. &quot;What?&quot; asked Francis Goodchild. &quot;You know where it took place. Yonder!&quot; Whether he pointed to the room above, or to the room below, or to any room in that old house, or to a room in some other old house in that old town, Mr. Goodchild was not, nor is, nor ever can be, sure. He was confused by the circumstance that the right fore-finger of the One old man seemed to dip itself in one of the threads of fire, light itself, and make a fiery start in the air, as it pointed somewhere. Having pointed somewhere, it went out. &quot;You know she was a Bride,&quot; said the old man. &quot;I know they still send up Bride-cake,&quot; Mr. Goodchild faltered. &quot;This is a very oppressive air.&quot; &quot;She was a Bride,&quot; said the old man. &quot;She was a fair, flaxen-haired, large-eyed girl, who had no character, no purpose. A weak, credulous, incapable, helpless nothing. Not like her mother. No, no. It was her father whose character she reflected. &quot;Her mother had taken care to secure everything to herself, for her own life, when, the father of this girl (a child at that time) died—of sheer helplessness; no other disorder—and then He renewed the acquaintance that had once subsisted between the mother and Him. He had been put aside for the flaxen-haired, large-eyed man (or non-entity) with Money. He could overlook that for Money. He wanted compensation in Money. &quot;So, he returned to the side of that woman the mother, made love to her again, danced attendance on her, and submitted himself to her whims. She wreaked upon him every whim she had, or could invent. He bore it. And the more he bore, the more he wanted compensation in Money, and the more he was resolved to have it. &quot;But, lo! Before he got it, she cheated him. In one of her imperious states, she froze, and never thawed again. She put her hands to her head one night, uttered a cry, stiffened, lay in that attitude certain hours, and died. And he had got no compensation from her in Money, yet. Blight and Murrain on her! Not a penny. &quot;He had hated her throughout that second pursuit, and had longed for retaliation on her. He now counterfeited her signature to an instrument, leaving all she had to leave, to her daughter—ten years old then—to whom the property passed absolutely, and appointing himself the daughter&#039;s Guardian. When He slid it under the pillow of the bed on which she lay, He bent down in the deaf ear of Death, and whispered: &#039;Mistress Pride, I have determined a long time that, dead or alive, you must make me compensation in Money.&#039; &quot;So, now there were only two left. Which two were, He, and the fair flaxen-haired, large-eyed foolish daughter, who afterwards became the Bride. &quot;He put her to school. In a secret, dark, oppressive, ancient house, he put her to school with a watchful and unscrupulous woman. &#039;My worthy lady,&#039; he said,&#039; here is a mind to be formed; will you help me to form it?&#039; She accepted the trust. For which she, too, wanted compensation in Money, and had it. &quot;The girl was formed in the fear of him, and in the conviction, that there was no escape from him. She was taught, from the first, to regard him as her future husband—the man who must marry her— the destiny that overshadowed her—the appointed certainty that could never be evaded. The poor fool was soft white wax in their hands, and took the impression that they put upon her. It hardened with time. It became a part of herself. Inseparable from herself, and only to be torn away from her, by tearing life away from her. &quot;Eleven years she lived in the dark house and its gloomy garden. He was jealous of the very light and air getting to her, and they kept her close. He stopped the wide chimneys, shaded the little windows, left the strong-stemmed ivy to wander where it would over the house-front, the moss to accumulate on the untrimmed fruit-trees in the red-walled garden, the weeds to over-run its green and yellow walks. He surrounded her with images of sorrow and desolation. He caused her to be filled with fears of the place and of the stories that were told of it, and then on pretext of correcting them, to be left in it in solitude, or made to shrink about it in the dark. When her mind was most depressed and fullest of terrors, then, he would come out of one of the hiding-places from which he overlooked her, and present himself as her sole resource. &quot;Thus, by being from her childhood the one embodiment her life presented to her of power to coërce and power to relieve, power to bind and power to loose, the ascendency over her weakness was secured. She was twenty-one years and twenty-one days old, when he brought her home to the gloomy house, his half-witted, frightened, and submissive Bride of three weeks. &quot;He had dismissed the governess by that time— what he had left to do, he could best do alone—and they came back, upon a rainy night, to the scene of her long preparation. &#039;She turned to him upon the threshhold, as the rain was dripping from the porch, and said: &quot;&#039;O sir, it is the Death-watch ticking for me!&#039; &quot;&#039;Well!&#039; he answered. &#039;And if it were?&#039; &quot;&#039;O sir!&#039; she returned to him, &#039;look kindly on me, and be merciful to me! I beg your pardon. I will do anything you wish, if you will only forgive me!&#039; &quot;That had become the poor fool&#039;s constant song: &#039;I beg your pardon,&#039; and &#039;Forgive me!&#039; &quot;She was not worth hating; he felt nothing but contempt for her. But, she had long been in the way, and he had long been weary, and the work was near its end, and had to be worked out. &quot;&#039;You fool,&#039; he said. &#039;Go up the stairs!&#039; &quot;She obeyed very quickly, murmuring, &#039;I will do anything you wish!&#039; When he came into the Bride&#039;s Chamber, having been a little retarded by the heavy fastenings of the great door (for they were alone in the house, and he had arranged that the people who attended on them should come and go in the day), he found her withdrawn to the furthest corner, and there standing pressed against the paneling as if she would have shrunk through it: her flaxen hair all wild about her face, and her large eyes staring at him in vague terror. &quot;&#039;What are you afraid of? Come and sit down by me.&#039; &quot;&#039;I will do anything you wish. I beg your pardon, sir. Forgive me!&#039; Her monotonous tune as usual. &quot;&#039;Ellen, here is a writing that you must write out to-morrow, in your own hand. You may as well be seen by others, busily engaged upon it. When you have written it all fairly, and corrected all mistakes, call in any two people there may be about the house, and sign your name to it before them. Then, put it in your bosom to keep it safe, and when I sit here again to-morrow night, give it to me.&#039; &quot;&#039;I will do it all, with the greatest care. I will do anything you wish.&#039; &quot;&#039;Don&#039;t shake and tremble, then.&#039; &quot;&#039;I will try my utmost not to do it—if you will only forgive me!&#039; &quot;Next day, she sat down at her desk, and did as she had been told. He often passed in and out of the room, to observe her, and always saw her slowly and laboriously writing: repeating to herself the words she copied, in appearance quite mechanically, and without caring or endeavouring to comprehend them, so that she did her task. He saw her follow the directions she had received, in all particulars; and at night, when they were alone again in the same Bride&#039;s Chamber, and he drew his chair to the hearth, she timidly approached him from her distant seat, took the paper from her bosom, and gave it into his hand. &quot;It secured all her possessions to him, in the event of her death. He put her before him, face to face, that he might look at her steadily; and he asked her, in so many plain words, neither fewer nor more, did she know that? &quot;There were spots of ink upon the bosom of her white dress, and they made her face look whiter and her eyes look larger as she nodded her head. There were spots of ink upon the hand with which she stood before him, nervously plaiting and folding her white skirts. &quot;He took her by the arm, and looked her, yet more closely and steadily, in the face. &#039;Now, die! I have done with you.&#039; &quot;She shrunk, and uttered a low, suppressed cry. &quot;&#039;I am not going to kill you. I will not endanger my life for yours. Die!&#039; &quot;He sat before her in the gloomy Bride&#039;s Chamber, day after day, night after night, looking the word at her when he did not utter it. As often as her large unmeaning eyes were raised from the hands in which she rocked her head, to the stern figure, sitting with crossed arms and knitted forehead, in the chair, they read in it, &#039;Die!&#039; When she dropped asleep in exhaustion, she was called back to shuddering consciousness, by the whisper, &#039;Die!&#039; When she fell upon her old entreaty to be pardoned, she was answered, &#039;Die!&#039; When she had out-watched and out-suffered the long night, and the rising sun flamed into the sombre room, she heard it hailed with, &#039;Another day and not dead?—Die!&#039; &quot;Shut up in the deserted mansion, aloof from all mankind, and engaged alone in such a struggle without any respite, it came to this—that either he must die, or she. He knew it very well, and concentrated his strength against her feebleness. Hours upon hours he held her by the arm when her arm was black where he held it, and bade her Die! &quot;It was done, upon a windy morning, before sunrise. He computed the time to be half-past four; but, his forgotten watch had run down, and he could not be sure. She had broken away from him in the night, with loud and sudden cries—the first of that kind to which she had given vent—and he had had to put his hands over her mouth. Since then, she had been quiet in the corner of the paneling where she had sunk down; and he had left her, and had gone back with his folded arms and his knitted forehead to his chair. &quot;Paler in the pale light, more colourless than ever in the leaden dawn, he saw her coming, trailing herself along the floor towards him—a white wreck of hair, and dress, and wild eyes, pushing itself on by an irresolute and bending hand. &quot;&#039;O, forgive me! I will do anything. O, sir, pray tell me I may live!&#039; &quot;&#039;Die!&#039; &quot;&#039;Are you so resolved? Is there no hope for me?&#039; &quot;&#039;Die!&#039; &quot;Her large eyes strained themselves with wonder and fear; wonder and fear changed to reproach; reproach to blank nothing. It was done. He was not at first so sure it was done, but that the morning sun was hanging jewels in her hair—he saw the diamond, emerald, and ruby, glittering among it in little points, as he stood looking down at her—when he lifted her and laid her on her bed. &quot;She was soon laid in the ground. And now they were all gone, and he had compensated himself well. &quot;He had a mind to travel. Not that he meant to waste his Money, for he was a pinching man and liked his Money dearly (liked nothing else, indeed), but, that he had grown tired of the desolate house and wished to turn his back upon it and have done with it. But, the house was worth Money, and Money must not be thrown away. He determined to sell it before he went. That it might look the less wretched and bring a better price, he hired some labourers to work in the overgrown garden; to cut out the dead wood, trim the ivy that drooped in heavy masses over the windows and gables, and clear the walks in which the weeds were growing mid-leg high. &quot;He worked, himself, along with them. He worked later than they did, and, one evening at dusk, was left working alone, with his bill-hook in his hand. One autumn evening, when the Bride was five weeks dead. &quot;&#039;It grows too dark to work longer,&#039; he said to himself, &#039;I must give over for the night.&#039; &quot;He detested the house, and was loath to enter it. He looked at the dark porch waiting for him like a tomb, and felt that it was an accursed house. Near to the porch, and near to where he stood, was a tree whose branches waved before the old bay-window of the Bride&#039;s Chamber, where it had been done. The tree swung suddenly, and made him start. It swung again, although the night was still. Looking up into it, he saw a figure among the branches. &quot;It was the figure of a young man. The face looked down, as his looked up; the branches cracked and swayed; the figure rapidly descended, and slid upon its feet before him. A slender youth of about her age, with long light brown hair. &quot;&#039;What thief are you?&#039; he said, seizing the youth by the collar. &quot;The young man, in shaking himself free, swung him a blow with his arm across the face and throat. They closed, but the young man got from him and stepped back, crying, with great eagerness and horror, &#039;Don&#039;t touch me! I would as lieve be touched by the Devil!&#039; &quot;He stood still, with his bill-hook in his hand, looking at the young man. For, the young man&#039;s look was the counterpart of her last look, and he had not expected ever to see that again. &quot;&#039;I am no thief. Even if I were, I would not have a coin of your wealth, if it would buy me the Indies. You murderer!&#039; &quot;&#039;What!&#039; &quot;&#039;I climbed it,&#039; said the young man, pointing up into the tree, &#039;for the first time, nigh four years ago. I climbed it, to look at her. I saw her. I spoke to her. I have climbed it, many a time, to watch and listen for her. I was a boy, hidden among its leaves, when from that bay-window she gave me this!&#039; &quot;He showed a tress of flaxen hair, tied with a mourning ribbon. &quot;&#039;Her life,&#039; said the young man, &#039;was a life of mourning. She gave me this, as a token of it, and a sign that she was dead to every one but you. If I had been older, if I had seen her sooner, I might have saved her from you. But, she was fast in the web when I first climbed the tree, and what could I do then to break it!&#039; &quot;In saying those words, he burst into a fit of sobbing and crying: weakly at first, then passionately. &quot;&#039;Murderer! I climbed the tree on the night when you brought her back. I heard her, from the tree, speak of the Death-watch at the door. I was three times in the tree while you were shut up with her, slowly killing her. I saw her, from the tree, lie dead upon her bed. I have watched you, from the tree, for proofs and traces of your guilt. The manner of it, is a mystery to me yet, but I will pursue you until you have rendered up your life to the hangman. You shall never, until then, be rid of me. I loved her! I can know no relenting towards you. Murderer, I loved her!&#039; &quot;The youth was bare-headed, his hat having fluttered away in his descent from the tree. He moved towards the gate. He had to pass—Him—to get to it. There was breadth for two old-fashioned carriages abreast; and the youth&#039;s abhorrence, openly expressed in every feature of his face and limb of his body, and very hard to bear, had verge enough to keep itself at a distance in. He (by which I mean the other) had not stirred hand or foot, since he had stood still to look at the boy. He faced round, now, to follow him with his eyes. As the back of the bare light-brown head was turned to him, he saw a red curve stretch from his hand to it. He knew, before he threw the bill-hook, where it had alighted—I say, had alighted, and not, would alight; for, to his clear perception the thing was done before he did it. It cleft the head, and it remained there, and the boy lay on his face. &quot;He buried the body in the night, at the foot of the tree. As soon as it was light in the morning, he worked at turning up all the ground near the tree, and hacking and hewing at the neighbouring bushes and undergrowth. When the laborers came, there was nothing suspicious, and nothing was suspected. &quot;But, he had, in a moment, defeated all his precautions, and destroyed the triumph of the scheme he had so long concerted, and so successfully worked out. He had got rid of the Bride, and had acquired her fortune without endangering his life; but now, for a death by which he had gained nothing, he had evermore to live with a rope around his neck. &quot;Beyond this, he was chained to the house of gloom and horror, which he could not endure. Being afraid to sell it or to quit it, lest discovery should be made, he was forced to live in it. He hired two old people, man and wife, for his servants; and dwelt in it, and dreaded it. His great difficulty, for a long time, was the garden. Whether he should keep it trim, whether he should suffer it to fall into its former state of neglect, what would be the least likely way of attracting attention to it? &quot;He took the middle course of gardening, himself, in his evening leisure, and of then calling the old serving-man to help him; but, of never letting him work there alone. And he made himself an arbour over against the tree, where he could sit and see that it was safe. &quot;As the seasons changed, and the tree changed, his mind perceived dangers that were always changing. In the leafy time, he perceived that the upper boughs were growing into the form of the young man—that they made the shape of him exactly, sitting in a forked branch swinging in the wind. In the time of the falling leaves, he perceived that they came down from the tree, forming tell-tale letters on the path, or that they had a tendency to heap themselves into a church-yard-mound above the grave. In the winter, when the tree was bare, he perceived that the boughs swung at him the ghost of the blow the young man had given, and that they threatened him openly. In the spring, when thesap was mounting in the trunk, he asked himself, were the dried-up particles of blood mounting with it: to make out more obviously this year than last, the leaf-screened figure of the young man, swinging in the wind? &quot;However, he turned his Money over and over, and still over. He was in the dark trade, the gold-dust trade, and most secret trades that yielded great returns. In ten years, he had turned his Money over, so many times, that the traders and shippers who had dealings with him, absolutely did not lie—for once—when they declared that he had increased his fortune, Twelve Hundred Per Cent. &quot;He possessed his riches one hundred years ago, when people could be lost easily. He had heard who the youth was, from hearing of the search that was made after him; but, it died away, and the youth was forgotten. &quot;The annual round of changes in the tree had been repeated ten times since the night of the burial at its foot, when there was a great thunder-storm over this place. It broke at midnight, and raged until morning. The first intelligence he heard from his old serving-man that morning, was, that the tree had been struck by Lightning. &quot;It had been riven down the stem, in a very surprising manner, and the stem lay in two blighted shafts: one resting against the house, and one against a portion of the old red garden-wall in which its fall had made a gap. The fissure went down the tree to a little above the earth, and there stopped. There was great curiosity to see the tree, and, with most of his former fears revived, he sat in his arbour—grown quite an old man—watching the people who came to see it. &quot;They quickly began to come, in such dangerous numbers, that he closed his garden-gate and refused to admit any more. But, there were certain men of science who travelled from a distance to examine the tree, and, in an evil hour, he let them in—Blight and Murrain on them, let them in! &quot;They wanted to dig up the ruin by the roots, and closely examine it, and the earth about it. Never, while he lived! They offered money for it. They! Men of science, whom he could have bought by the gross, with a scratch of his pen! He showed them the garden-gate again, and locked and barred it. &quot;But, they were bent on doing what they wanted to do, and they bribed the old serving-man—a thankless wretch who regularly complained when he received his wages, of being underpaid—and they stole into the garden by night with their lanterns, picks, and shovels, and fell to at the tree. He was lying in a turret-room on the other side of the house (the Bride&#039;s Chamber had been unoccupied ever since), but he soon dreamed of picks and shovels, and got up. &quot;He came to an upper window on that side, whence he could see their lanterns, and them, and the loose earth in a heap which he had himself disturbed and put back, when it was last turned to the air. It was found! They had that minute lighted on it. They were all bending over it. One of them said, &#039;The skull is fractured;&#039; and another,&#039; See here the bones;&#039; and another, &#039;See here the clothes;&#039; and then the first struck in again, and said, &#039;A rusty bill-hook!&#039; &quot;He became sensible, next day, that he was already put under a strict watch, and that he could go nowhere without being followed. Before a week was out, he was taken and laid in hold. The circumstances were gradually pieced together against him, with a desperate malignity, and an appalling ingenuity. But, see the justice of men, and how it was extended to him! He was further accused of having poisoned that girl in the Bride&#039;s Chamber. He, who had carefully and expressly avoided imperilling a hair of his head for her, and who had seen her die of her own incapacity! &quot;There was doubt for which of the two murders he should be first tried; but, the real one was chosen, and he was found Guilty, and cast for Death. Bloodthirsty wretches! They would have made him Guilty of anything, so set they were upon having his life. &quot;His money could do nothing to save him, and he was hanged. I am He, and I was hanged at Lancaster Castle with my face to the wall, a hundred years ago!&quot; At this terrific announcement, Mr. Goodchild tried to rise and cry out. But, the two fiery lines extending from the old man&#039;s eyes to his own, kept him down, and he could not utter a sound. His sense of hearing, however, was acute, and he could hear the clock strike Two. No sooner had he heard the clock strike Two, than he saw before him Two old men! Two. The eyes of each, connected with his eyes by two films of fire: each, exactly like the other: each, addressing him at precisely one and the same instant: each, gnashing the same teeth in the same head, with the same twitched nostril above them, and the same suffused expression around it. Two old men. Differing in nothing, equally distinct to the sight, the copy no fainter than the original, the second as real as the first. &quot;At what time,&quot; said the Two old men, &quot;did you arrive at the door below?&quot; &quot;At Six.&quot; &quot;And there were Six old men upon the stairs!&quot; Mr. Goodchild having wiped the perspiration from his brow, or tried to do it, the Two old men proceeded in one voice, and in the singular number: &quot;I had been anatomised, but had not yet had my skeleton put together and re-hung on an iron hook, when it began to be whispered that the Bride&#039;s Chamber was haunted. It was haunted, and I was there. &quot;We were there. She and I were there. I, in the chair upon the hearth; she, a white wreck again, trailing itself towards me on the floor. But, I was the speaker no more. She was the sole speaker now, and the one word that she said to me from midnight until dawn was, &#039;Live!&#039; &quot;The youth was there, likewise. In the tree outside the window. Coming and going in the moonlight, as the tree bent and gave. He has, ever since, been there; peeping in at me in my torment; revealing to me by snatches, in the pale lights and slatey shadows where he comes and goes, bare-headed—a bill-hook, standing edgewise in his hair. &quot;In the Bride&#039;s Chamber, every night from midnight until dawn—one month in the year excepted, as I am going to tell you—he hides in the tree, and she comes towards me on the floor; always approaching; never coming nearer; always visible as if by moonlight, whether the moon shines or no; always saying, from midnight until dawn, her one word, &#039;Live!&#039; &quot;But, in the month wherein I was forced out of this life—this present month of thirty days—the Bride&#039;s Chamber is empty and quiet. Not so my old dungeon. Not so the rooms where I was restless and afraid, ten years. Both are fitfully haunted then. At One in the morning, I am what you saw me when the clock struck that hour—One old man. At Two in the morning, I am Two old men. At Three, I am Three. By Twelve at noon, I am Twelve old men, One for every hundred per cent of old gain. Every one of the Twelve, with Twelve times my old power of suffering and agony. From that hour until Twelve at night, I, Twelve old men in anguish and fearful foreboding, wait for the coming of the executioner. At Twelve at night, I, Twelve old men turned off, swing invisible outside Lancaster Castle, with Twelve faces to the wall! &quot;When the Bride&#039;s Chamber was first haunted, it was known to me that this punishment would never cease, until I could make its nature, and my story, known to two living men together. I waited for the coming of two living men together into the Bride&#039;s Chamber, years upon years. It was infused into my knowledge (of the means I am ignorant) that if two living men, with their eyes open, could be in the Bride&#039;s Chamber at One in the morning, they would see me sitting in my chair. &quot;At length, the whispers that the room was spiritually troubled, brought two men to try the adventure. I was scarcely struck upon the hearth at midnight (I come there as if the Lightning blasted me into being), when I heard them ascending the stairs. Next, I saw them enter. One of them was a bold, gay, active man, in the prime of life, some five and forty years of age; the other, a dozen years younger. They brought provisions with them in a basket, and bottles. A young woman accompanied them, with wood and coals for the lighting of the fire. When she had lighted it, the bold, gay, active man accompanied her along the gallery outside the room, to see her safely down the staircase, and came back laughing. &quot;He locked the door, examined the chamber, put out the contents of the basket on the table before the fire—little recking of me, in my appointed station on the hearth, close to him—and filled the glasses, and ate and drank. His companion did the same, and was as cheerful and confident as be: though he was the leader. When they had supped, they laid pistols on the table, turned to the fire, and began to smoke their pipes of foreign make. &quot;They had travelled together, and had been much together, and had an abundance of subjects in common. In the midst of their talking and laughing, the younger man made a reference to the leader&#039;s being always ready for any adventure; that one, or any other. He replied in these words: &quot;&#039;Not quite so, Dick; if I am afraid of nothing else, I am afraid of myself.&#039; &quot;His companion seeming to grow a little dull, asked him, in what sense? How? &quot;&#039;Why, thus,&#039; he returned. &#039;Here is a Ghost to be disproved. Well! I cannot, answer for what my fancy might do if I were alone here, or what tricks my senses might play with me if they had me to themselves. But, in company with another man, and especially with you, Dick, I would consent to outface all the Ghosts that were ever told of in the universe.&#039; &quot;&#039;I had not the vanity to suppose that I was of so much importance to-night,&#039; said the other. &quot;&#039;Of so much,&#039; rejoined the leader, more seriously than he had spoken yet, &#039;that I would, for the reason I have given, on no account have undertaken to pass the night here alone.&#039; &quot;It was within a few minutes of One. The head of the younger man had drooped when he made his last remark, and it drooped lower now. &quot;&#039;Keep awake, Dick!&#039; said the leader, gaily. &#039;The small hours are the worst.&#039; &quot;He tried, but his head drooped again. &quot;&#039;Dick!&#039; urged the leader. &#039;Keep awake!&#039; &quot;&#039;I can&#039;t,&#039; he indistinctly muttered. &#039;I don&#039;t know what strange influence is stealing over me. I can&#039;t.&#039; &quot;His companion looked at him with a sudden horror, and I, in my different way, felt a new horror also; for, it was on the stroke of One, and I felt that the secondwatcher was yielding to me, and that the curse was upon me that I must send him to sleep. &quot;&#039;Get up and walk, Dick!&#039; cried the leader. Try!&#039; &quot;It was in vain to go behind the slumberer&#039;s chair and shake him. One o&#039;clock sounded, and I was present to the elder man, and he stood transfixed before me. &quot;To him alone, I was obliged to relate my story, without hope of benefit. To him alone, I was an awful phantom making a quite useless confession. I foresee it will ever be the same. The two living men together will never come to release me. When I appear, the senses of one of the two will be locked in sleep; he will neither see nor hear me; my communication will ever be made to a solitary listener, and will ever be unserviceable. Woe! Woe! Woe!&quot; As the Two old men, with these words, wrung their hands, it shot into Mr. Goodchild&#039;s mind that he was in the terrible situation of being virtually alone with the spectre, and that Mr. Idle&#039;s immoveability was explained by his having been charmed asleep at One o&#039;clock. In the terror of this sudden discovery which produced an indescribable dread, he struggled so hard to get free from the four fiery threads, that he snapped them, after he had pulled them out to a great width. Being then out of bonds, he caught up Mr. Idle from the sofa and rushed down stairs with him. &quot;What are you about, Francis?&quot; demanded Mr. Idle. &quot;My bedroom is not down here. What the deuce are you carrying me at all for? I can walk with a stick now. I don&#039;t want to be carried. Put me down.&quot; Mr. Goodchild put him down in the old hall, and looked about him wildly. &quot;What are you doing? Idiotically plunging at your own sex, and rescuing them or perishing in the attempt?&quot; asked Mr. Idle, in a highly petulant state. &quot;The One old man!&quot; cried Mr. Goodchild, distractedly,—&quot;and the Two old men!&quot; Mr. Idle deigned no other reply than &quot;The One old woman, I think you mean,&quot; as he began hobbling his way back up the staircase, with the assistance of its broad balustrade. &quot;I assure you, Tom,&quot; began Mr. Goodchild, attending at his side, &quot;that since you fell asleep—&quot; &quot;Come, I like that!&quot; said Thomas Idle, &quot;I haven&#039;t closed an eye!&quot; With the peculiar sensitiveness on the subject of the disgraceful action of going to sleep out of bed, which is the lot of all mankind, Mr. Idle persisted in this declaration. The same peculiar sensitiveness impelled Mr. Goodchild, on being taxed with the same crime, to repudiate it with honourable resentment. The settlement of the question of The One old man and The Two old men was thus presently complicated, and soon made quite impracticable. Mr. Idle said it was all Bride-cake, and fragments, newly arranged, of things seen and thought about in the day. Mr. Goodchild said how could that be, when he hadn&#039;t been asleep, and what right could Mr. Idle have to say so, who had been asleep? Mr. Idle said he had never been asleep, and never did go to sleep, and that Mr. Goodchild, as a general rule, was always asleep. They consequently parted for the rest of the night, at their bedroom doors, a little ruffled. Mr. Goodchild&#039;s last words were, that he had had, in that real and tangible old sitting-room of that real and tangible old Inn (he supposed Mr. Idle denied its existence?), every sensation and experience, the present record of which is now within a line or two of completion; and that he would write it out and print it every word. Mr. Idle returned that he might if he liked—and he did like, and has now done it.18571024https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._IV_The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices/1857-10-24-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No4.pdf
147https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/147No. IV, <em>Holiday Romance</em>, 'Romance. From the Pen of Miss Nettie Ashford'Published in <em>Our Young Folks</em>, vol. 4, no. v (May 1868), pp. 257-263. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom.Dickens, Charles<em>HathiTrust,</em> <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-05">1868-05</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=37&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Illustrated+by+John+Gilbert">Illustrated by John Gilbert</a>Google-digitised. Digitised materials on <em>Google Books</em> published before 1922 are in the public domain.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-05_No4_Holiday_NettieAshfordDickens, Charles.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EOur+Young+Folks%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Our Young Folks</em></a>PART IV. ROMANCE FROM THE PEN OF MISS NETTIE ASHFORD* There is a country, which I will show you when I get into Maps, where the children have everything their own way. It is a most delightful country to live in. The grown-up people are obliged to obey the children, and are never allowed to sit up to supper, except on their birthdays. The children order them to make jam and jelly and marmalade, and tarts and pies and puddings and all manner of pastry. If they say they won’t, they are put in the corner till they do. They are sometimes allowed to have some, but when they have some, they generally have powders given them afterwards. One of the inhabitants of this country, a truly sweet young creature of the name of Mrs. Orange, had the misfortune to be sadly plagued by her numerous family. Her parents required a great deal of looking after, and they had connections and companions who were scarcely ever out of mischief. So Mrs. Orange said to herself, &quot;I really cannot be troubled with these torments any longer, I must put them all to school.&quot; Mrs. Orange took off her pinafore, and dressed herself very nicely, and took up her baby, and went out to call upon another lady of the name of Mrs. Lemon, who kept a Preparatory Establishment. Mrs. Orange stood upon the scraper to pull at the bell, and gave a Ring-ting-ting. Mrs. Lemon’s neat little housemaid, pulling up her socks as she came along the passage, answered the Ring-ting-ting. &quot;Good morning,&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;Fine day. How do you do? Mrs. Lemon at home?&quot; &quot;Yes, ma’am.&quot; &quot;Will you say Mrs. Orange and baby?&quot; &quot;Yes, ma’am. Walk in.&quot; Mrs. Orange’s baby was a very fine one, and real wax all over. Mrs. Lemon’s baby was leather and bran. However, when Mrs. Lemon came into the drawing-room with her baby in her arms, Mrs. Orange said politely, &quot;Good-morning. Fine day. How do you do? And how is little Tootleum-Boots?&quot; &quot;Well, she is but poorly. Cutting her teeth, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;O, indeed, ma’am!&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;No fits, I hope?&quot; &quot;No, ma’am.&quot; &quot;How many teeth has she, ma’am?&quot; &quot;Five, ma’am.&quot; &quot;My Emilia, ma’am, has eight,&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;Shall we lay them on the mantel-piece side by side, while we converse?&quot; &quot;By all means, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon.&quot;Hem!&quot; &quot;The first question is, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, —&quot;I don’t bore you?&quot; &quot;Not in the least, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;Far from it, I assure you.&quot; &quot;Then pray have you,&quot; said Mrs. Orange,&quot;have you any vacancies?&quot; &quot;Yes, ma’am. How many might you require?&quot; &quot;Why, the truth is, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, &quot;I have come to the conclusion that my children,&quot;—O, I forgot to say that they call the grown-up people children in that country,—&quot;that my children are getting positively too much for me. Let me see. Two parents, two intimate friends of theirs, one godfather, two godmothers, and an aunt. Have you as many as eight vacancies?&quot; &quot;I have just eight, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;Most fortunate! Terms moderate, I think?&quot; &quot;Very moderate, ma’am.&quot; &quot;Diet good, I believe?&quot; &quot;Excellent, ma’am.&quot; &quot;Unlimited?&quot; &quot;Unlimited.&quot; &quot;Most satisfactory! Corporal punishment dispensed with?&quot; &quot;Why, we do occasionally shake,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon, &quot;and we have slapped. But only in extreme cases.&quot; &quot;Could I, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, &quot;could I see the establishment?&quot; &quot;With the greatest of pleasure, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. Mrs. Lemon took Mrs. Orange into the school-room, where there were a number of pupils. &quot;Stand up, children!&quot; said Mrs. Lemon, and they all stood up. Mrs. Orange whispered to Mrs. Lemon, &quot;There is a pale, bald child with red whiskers, in disgrace. Might I ask what he has done?&quot; &quot;Come here, White,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon, &quot;and tell this lady what you have been doing.&quot; &quot;Betting on horses,&quot; said White, sulkily. &quot;Are you sorry for it, you naughty child?&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;No,&quot; said White. &quot;Sorry to lose, but shouldn’t be sorry to win.&quot; &quot;There’s a vicious boy for you, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;Go along with you, sir. This is Brown, Mrs. Orange. O, a sad case, Brown’s! Never knows when he has had enough. Greedy. How is your gout, sir?&quot; &quot;Bad,&quot; said Brown. &quot;What else can you expect?&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;Your stomach is the size of two. Go and take exercise directly. Mrs. Black, come here to me. Now, here is a child, Mrs. Orange, ma’am, who is always at play. She can’t be kept at home a single day together; always gadding about and spoiling her clothes. Play, play, play, play, from morning to night, and to morning again. How can she expect to improve?&quot; &quot;Don’t expect to improve,&quot; sulked Mrs. Black. &quot;Don’t want to.&quot; &quot;There is a specimen of her temper, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;To see her when she is tearing about, neglecting everything else, you would suppose her to be at least good-humored. But bless you, ma’am, she is as pert and flouncing a minx as ever you met with in all your days!&quot; &quot;You must have a great deal of trouble with them, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;Ah, I have, indeed, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. &quot;What with their tempers, what with their quarrels, what with their never knowing what’s good for them, and what with their always wanting to domineer, deliver me from these unreasonable children!&quot; &quot;Well, I wish you good-morning, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;Well, I wish you good-morning, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Lemon. So Mrs. Orange took up her baby and went home, and told the family that plagued her so that they were all going to be sent to school. They said they didn’t want to go to school, but she packed up their boxes, and packed them off. &quot;O dear me, dear me! Rest and be thankful!&quot; said Mrs. Orange, throwing herself back in her little arm-chair. &quot;Those troublesome troubles are got rid of, please the Pigs!&quot; Just then another lady, named Mrs. Alicumpaine, came calling at the street door with a Ring-ting-ting. &quot;My dear Mrs. Alicumpaine,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, &quot;how do you do? Pray stay to dinner. We have but a simple joint of sweet-stuff, followed by a plain dish of bread and treacle, but, if you will take us as you find us, it will be so kind!&quot; &quot;Don’t mention it,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine. &quot;I shall be too glad. But what do you think I have come for, ma’am? Guess, ma’am.&quot; &quot;I really cannot guess, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;Why, I am going to have a small juvenile party to-night,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine, &quot;and if you and Mr. Orange and baby would but join us, we should be complete.&quot; &quot;More than charmed, I am sure!&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;So kind of you!&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine. &quot;But I hope the children won’t bore you?&quot; &quot;Dear things! Not at all,&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;I dote upon them.&quot; Mr. Orange here came home from the city, and he came too with a Ring-ting-ting. &quot;James, love,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, &quot;you look tired. What has been doing in the city to-day?&quot; &quot;Trap, bat, and ball, my dear,&quot; said Mr. Orange, &quot;and it knocks a man up.&quot; &quot;That dreadfully anxious city, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine; &quot;so wearing, is it not?&quot; &quot;O, so trying!&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine. &quot;John has lately been speculating in the peg-top ring; and I often say to him at night, &#039;John, is the result worth the wear and tear?&#039;&quot; Dinner was ready by this time: so they sat down to dinner; and while Mr. Orange carved the joint of sweet-stuff, he said, &quot;It’s a poor heart that never rejoices. Jane, go down to the cellar, and fetch a bottle of the Upest Ginger-beer.&quot; At tea-time Mr. and Mrs. Orange, and baby, and Mrs. Alicumpaine, went off to Mrs. Alicumpaine’s house. The children had not come yet, but the ball-room was ready for them, decorated with paper flowers. &quot;How very sweet!&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;The dear things! How pleased they will be!&quot; &quot;I don’t care for children myself,&quot; said Mr. Orange, gaping. &quot;Not for girls?&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine. &quot;Come! You care for girls?&quot; Mr. Orange shook his head and gaped again. &quot;Frivolous and vain, ma’am.&quot; &quot;My dear James,&quot; cried Mrs. Orange, who had been peeping about, &quot;do look here. Here’s the supper for the darlings, ready laid in the room behind the folding-doors. Here’s their little pickled salmon, I do declare! And here’s their little salad, and their little roast beef and fowls, and their little pastry, and their wee, wee, wee champagne!&quot; &quot;Yes, I thought it best, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine, &quot;that they should have their supper by themselves. Our table is in the corner here, where the gentlemen can have their wineglass of negus and their egg-sandwich, and their quiet game at beggar-my-neighbor, and look on. As for us, ma’am, we shall have quite enough to do to manage the company.&quot; &quot;O, indeed, you may say so! Quite enough, ma’am!&quot; said Mrs. Orange. The company began to come. The first of them was a stout boy, with a white top-knot and spectacles. The housemaid brought him in and said, &quot;Compliments, and at what time was he to be fetched?&quot; Mrs. Alicumpaine said, &quot;Not a moment later than ten. How do you do, sir? Go and sit down.&quot; Then a number of other children came; boys by themselves, and girls by themselves, and boys and girls together. They didn’t behave at all well. Some of them looked through quizzing-glasses at others, and said, &quot;Who are those? Don’t know them.&quot; Some of them looked through quizzing-glasses at others, and said, &quot;How do?&quot; Some of them had cups of tea or coffee handed to them by others, and said, &quot;Thanks! Much!&quot; A good many boys stood about, and felt their shirt-collars. Four tiresome fat boys would stand in the door-way and talk about the newspapers, till Mrs. Alicumpaine went to them and said, &quot;My dears, I really cannot allow you to prevent people from coming in. I shall be truly sorry to do it, but, if you put yourself in everybody’s way, I must positively send you home.&quot; One boy, with a beard and a large white waistcoat, who stood straddling on the hearth-rug warming his coat-tails, was sent home. &quot;Highly incorrect, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine, handing him out of the room, &quot;and I cannot permit it.&quot; There was a children’s band,—harp, cornet, and piano,—and Mrs. Alicumpaine and Mrs. Orange bustled among the children to persuade them to take partners and dance. But they were so obstinate! For quite a long time they would not be persuaded to take partners and dance. Most of the boys said, &quot;Thanks. Much. But not at present.&quot; And most of the rest of the boys said, &quot;Thanks. Much. But never do.&quot; &quot;Oh! These children are very wearing,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine to Mrs. Orange. &quot;Dear things! I dote upon them; but they ARE wearing,&quot; said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine. At last they did begin in a slow and melancholy way to slide about to the music, though even then they wouldn’t mind what they were told, but would have this partner, and wouldn’t have that partner, and showed temper about it. And they wouldn’t smile, no, not on any account they wouldn’t; but when the music stopped, went round and round the room in dismal twos, as if everybody else was dead. &quot;Oh! it’s very hard indeed to get these vexing children to be entertained,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine to Mrs. Orange. &quot;I dote upon the darlings; but it IS hard,&quot; said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine. They were trying children, that’s the truth. First, they wouldn’t sing when they were asked, and then, when everybody fully believed they wouldn’t, they would. &quot;If you serve us so any more, my love,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine to a tall child, with a good deal of white back, in mauve silk trimmed with lace, &quot;it will be my painful privilege to offer you a bed, and to send you to it immediately.&quot; The girls were so ridiculously dressed, too, that they were in rags before supper. How could the boys help treading on their trains? And yet when their trains were trodden on, they often showed temper again, and looked as black, they did! However, they all seemed to be pleased when Mrs. Alicumpaine said, &quot;Supper is ready, children!&quot; And they went crowding and pushing in, as if they had had dry bread for dinner. &quot;How are the children getting on?&quot; said Mr. Orange to Mrs. Orange, when Mrs. Orange came to look after baby. Mrs. Orange had left baby on a shelf near Mr. Orange while he played at beggar-my-neighbor, and had asked him to keep his eye upon her now and then. &quot;Most charmingly, my dear!&quot; said Mrs. Orange. &quot;So droll to see their little flirtations and jealousies! Do come and look!&quot; &quot;Much obliged to you, my dear,&quot; said Mr. Orange, &quot;but I don’t care about children myself.&quot; So Mrs. Orange, having seen that baby was safe, went back without Mr. Orange to the room where the children were having supper. &quot;What are they doing now?&quot; said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine. &quot;They are making speeches, and playing at Parliament,&quot; said Mrs. Alicumpaine to Mrs. Orange. On hearing this, Mrs. Orange set off once more back again to Mr. Orange, and said, &quot;James dear, do come. The children are playing at Parliament.&quot; &quot;Thank you, my dear,&quot; said Mr. Orange, &quot;but I don’t care about Parliament myself.&quot; So Mrs. Orange went once again without Mr. Orange to the room where the children were having supper, to see them playing at Parliament. And she found some of the boys crying, &quot;Hear, hear, hear!&quot; while other boys cried &quot;No, no!&quot; and others, &quot;Question!&quot; &quot;Spoke!&quot; and all sorts of nonsense that ever you heard. Then one of those tiresome fat boys who had stopped the door-way told them he was on his legs (as if they couldn’t see that he wasn’t on his head, or on his anything else) to explain, and that, with the permission of his honorable friend, if he would allow him to call him so (another tiresome boy bowed), he would proceed to explain. Then he went on for a long time in a sing-song (whatever he meant!), did this troublesome fat boy, about that he held in his hand a glass, and about that he had come down to that house that night to discharge what he would call a public duty, and about that on the present occasion he would lay his hand (his other hand) upon his heart, and would tell honorable gentlemen that he was about to open the door to general approval. Then he opened the door by saying, &quot;To our hostess!&quot; and everybody else said &quot;To our hostess!&quot; and then there were cheers. Then another tiresome boy started up in sing-song, and then half a dozen noisy and nonsensical boys at once. But at last Mrs. Alicumpaine said, &quot;I cannot have this din. Now, children, you have played at Parliament very nicely, but Parliament gets tiresome after a little while, and it’s time you left off, for you will soon be fetched.&quot; After another dance (with more tearing to rags than before supper), they began to be fetched, and you will be very glad to be told that the tiresome fat boy who had been on his legs was walked off first without any ceremony. When they were all gone, poor Mrs. Alicumpaine dropped upon a sofa and said to Mrs. Orange, &quot;These children will be the death of me at last, ma’am, they will indeed!&quot; &quot;I quite adore them, ma’am,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, &quot;but they DO want variety.&quot; Mr. Orange got his hat, and Mrs. Orange got her bonnet and her baby, and they set out to walk home. They had to pass Mrs. Lemon’s Preparatory Establishment on their way. &quot;I wonder, James dear,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, looking up at the window, &quot;whether the precious children are asleep!&quot; &quot;I don’t care much whether they are or not, myself,&quot; said Mr. Orange. &quot;James dear!&quot; &quot;You dote upon them, you know,&quot; said Mr. Orange. &quot;That’s another thing.&quot; &quot;I do!&quot; said Mrs. Orange rapturously. &quot;O, I DO!&quot; &quot;I don’t,&quot; said Mr. Orange. &quot;But I was thinking, James love,&quot; said Mrs. Orange, pressing his arm, &quot;whether our dear good kind Mrs. Lemon would like them to stay the holidays with her.&quot; &quot;If she was paid for it, I daresay she would,&quot; said Mr. Orange. &quot;I adore them, James,&quot; said Mrs. Orange; &quot;but SUPPOSE we pay her then!&quot; This was what brought that country to such perfection, and made it such a delightful place to live in; the grown-up people (that would be in other countries) soon left off being allowed any holidays after Mr. and Mrs. Orange tried the experiment; and the children (that would be in other countries) kept them at school as long as ever they lived, and made them do whatever they were told. *Aged half-past six18680501https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._IV_Holiday_Romance_Romance._From_the_Pen_of_Miss_Nettie_Ashford/1868-05_No4_Holiday_Romance_Nettie_Ashford.pdf
233https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/233No. V, 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'Published in <em>Household Words</em><span>, Vol. XVI, No. 397, 31 October 1857, pp. 409-416.</span>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-409.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-409.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1857-10-31">1857-10-31</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1857-10-31-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No5<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>Two of the many passengers by a certain late Sunday evening train, Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild, yielded up their tickets at a little rotten platform (converted into artificial touch-wood by smoke and ashes), deep in the manufacturing bosom of Yorkshire. A mysterious bosom it appeared, upon a damp, dark, Sunday night, dashed through in the train to the music of the whirling wheels, the panting of the engine, and the part-singing of hundreds of third-class excursionists, whose vocal efforts &quot;bobbed arayound&quot; from sacred to profane, from hymns, to our transatlantic sisters the Yankee Gal and Mairy Anne, in a remarkable way. There seemed to have been some large vocal gathering near to every lonely station on the line. No town was visible, no village was visible, no light was visible; but, a multitude got out singing, and a multitude got in singing, and the second multitude took up the hymns, and adopted our transatlantic sisters, and sang of their own egregious wickedness, and of their bobbing arayound, and of how the ship it was ready and the wind it was fair, and they were bayound for the sea, Mairy Anne, until they in their turn became a getting-out multitude, and were replaced by another getting-in multitude, who did the same. And at every station, the getting-in multitude, with an artistic reference to the completeness of their chorus, incessantly cried, as with one voice while scuffling into the carriages, &quot;We mun aa&#039; gang toogither!&quot; The singing and the multitudes had trailed off as the lonely places were left and the great towns were neared, and the way had lain as silently as a train&#039;s way ever can, over the vague black streets of the great gulfs of towns, and among their branchless woods of vague black chimneys. These towns looked, in the cinderous wet, as though they had one and all been on fire and were just put out—a dreary and quenched panorama, many miles long. Thus, Thomas and Francis got to Leeds; of which enterprising and important commercial centre it may be observed with delicacy, that you must either like it very much or not at all. Next day, the first of the Race-Week, they took train to Doncaster. And instantly the character, both of travellers and of luggage, entirely changed, and no other business than race-business any longer existed on the face of the earth. The talk was all of horses and &quot;John Scott.&quot; Guards whispered behind their hands to station-masters, of horses and John Scott. Men in cut-away coats and speckled cravats fastened with peculiar pins, and with the large bones of their legs developed under tight trousers, so that they should look as much as possible like horses&#039; legs, paced up and down by twos at junction-stations, speaking low and moodily of horses and John Scott. The young clergyman in the black strait-waistcoat, who occupied the middle seat of the carriage, expounded in his peculiar pulpit-accent to the young and lovely Reverend Mrs. Crinoline, who occupied the opposite middle-seat, a few passages of rumour relative to &quot;Oartheth, my love, and Mithter John Eth-cott.&quot; A bandy vagabond, with a head like a Dutch cheese, in a fustian stable-suit, attending on a horse-box and going about the platforms with a halter hanging round his neck like a Calais burgher of the ancient period much degenerated, was courted by the best society, by reason of what he had to hint, when not engaged in eating straw, concerning &quot;t&#039;harses and Joon Scott.&quot; The engine-driver himself, as he applied one eye to his large stationary double-eye-glass on the engine, seemed to keep the other open, sideways, upon horses and John Scott. Breaks and barriers at Doncaster station to keep the crowd off; temporary wooden avenues of ingress and egress, to help the crowd on. Forty extra porters sent down for this present blessed Race-Week, and all of them making up their betting-books in the lamp-room or somewhere else, and none of them to come and touch the luggage. Travellers disgorged into an open space, a howling wilderness of idle men. All work but race-work at a stand-still; all men at a stand-still. &quot;Ey my word! Deant ask noon o&#039; us to help wi&#039;t&#039; luggage. Bock your opinion loike a mon. Coom! Dang it, coom, t&#039;harses and Joon Scott!&quot; In the midst of the idle men, all the fly horses and omnibus horses of Doncaster and parts adjacent, rampant, rearing, backing, plunging, shying—apparently the result of their hearing of nothing but their own order and John Scott. Grand Dramatic Company from London for the Race-week. Poses Plastiques in the Grand Assembly Room up the Stable-Yard at seven and nine each evening, for the Race-Week. Grand Alliance Circus in the field beyond the bridge, for the Race-Week. Grand Exhibition of Aztec Lilliputians, important to all who want to be horrified cheap, for the Race-Week. Lodgings, grand and not grand, but all at grand prices, ranging from ten pounds to twenty, for the Grand Race-Week! Rendered giddy enough by these things, Messieurs Idle and Goodchild repaired to the quarters they had secured beforehand, and Mr. Goodchild looked down from the window into the surging street. &quot;By heaven, Tom!&quot; cried he, after contemplating it, &quot;I am in the Lunatic Asylum again, and these are all mad people under the charge of a body of designing keepers!&quot; All through the Race-Week, Mr. Goodchild never divested himself of this idea. Every day he looked out of window, with something of the dread of Lemuel Gulliver looking down at men after he returned home from the horse-country; and every day he saw the Lunatics, horse-mad, betting-mad, drunken-mad, vice-mad, and the designing Keepers always after them. The idea pervaded, like the second colour in shot-silk, the whole of Mr. Goodchild&#039;s impressions. They were much as follows: Monday, mid-day. Races not to begin until to-morrow, but all the mob-Lunatics out, crowding the pavements of the one main street of pretty and pleasant Doncaster, crowding the road, particularly crowding the outside of the Betting Rooms, whooping and shouting loudly after all passing vehicles. Frightened lunatic horses occasionally running away, with infinite clatter. All degrees of men, from peers to paupers, betting incessantly. Keepers very watchful, and taking all good chances. An awful family likeness among the Keepers, to Mr. Palmer and Mr. Thurtell. With some knowledge of expression and some acquaintance with heads (thus writes Mr. Goodchild), I never have seen anywhere, so many repetitions of one class of countenance and one character of head (both evil) as in this street at this time. Cunning, covetousness, secresy, cold calculation, hard callousness and dire insensibility, are the uniform Keeper characteristics. Mr. Palmer passes me five times in five minutes, and, as I go down the street, the back of Mr. Thurtell&#039;s skull is always going on before me. Monday evening. Town lighted up; more Lunatics out than ever; a complete choke and stoppage of the thoroughfare outside the Betting Rooms. Keepers, having dined, pervade the Betting Rooms, and sharply snap at the moneyed Lunatics. Some Keepers flushed with drink, and some not, but all close and calculating. A vague echoing roar of &quot;t&#039;harses &quot; and &quot;t&#039;races&quot; always rising in the air, until midnight, at about which period it dies away in occasional drunken songs and straggling yells. But, all night, some unmannerly drinking-house in the neighbourhood opens its mouth at intervals and spits out a man too drunk to be retained: who there-upon makes what uproarious protest may be left in him, and either falls asleep where he tumbles, or is carried off in custody. Tuesday morning, at daybreak. A sudden rising, as it were out of the earth, of all the obscene creatures, who sell &quot;correct cards of the races.&quot; They may have been coiled in corners, or sleeping on door-steps, and, having all passed the night under the same set of circumstances, may all want to circulate their blood at the same time; but, however that may be, they spring into existence all at once and together, as though a new Cadmus had sown a race-horse&#039;s teeth. There is nobody up, to buy the cards; but, the cards are madly cried. There is no patronage to quarrel for; but, they madly quarrel and fight. Conspicuous among these hyænas, as breakfast-time discloses, is a fearful creature in the general semblance of a man: shaken off his next-to-no legs by drink and devilry, bare-headed and bare-footed, with a great shock of hair like a horrible broom, and nothing on him but a ragged pair of trousers and a pink glazed-calico coat—made on him—so very tight that it is as evident that he could never take it off, as that he never does. This hideous apparition, inconceivably drunk, has a terrible power of making a gong-like imitation of the braying of an ass: which feat requires that he should lay his right jaw in his begrimed right paw, double himself up, and shake his bray out of himself, with much staggering on his next-to-no legs, and much twirling of his horrible broom, as if it were a mop. From the present minute, when he comes in sight holding up his cards to the windows, and hoarsely proposing purchase to My Lord, Your Excellency, Colonel, the Noble Captain, and Your Honorable Worship—from the present minute until the Grand Race-Week is finished, at all hours of the morning, evening, day, and night, shall the town reverberate, at capricious intervals, to the brays of this frightful animal the Gong-Donkey. No very great racing to-day, so no very great amount of vehicles: though there is a good sprinkling, too: from farmers&#039; carts and gigs, to carriages with post-horses and to fours-in-hand, mostly coming by the road from York, and passing on straight through the main street to the Course. A walk in the wrong direction may be a better thing for Mr. Goodchild to-day than the Course, so he walks in the wrong direction. Everybody gone to the races. Only children in the street. Grand Alliance Circus deserted; not one Star-Rider left; omnibus which forms the Pay-Place, having on separate panels Pay here for the Boxes, Pay here for the Pit, Pay here for the Gallery, hove down in a corner and locked up; nobody near the tent but the man on his knees on the grass, who is making the paper balloons for the Star young gentlemen to jump through to-night. A pleasant road, pleasantly wooded. No labourers working in the fields; all gone &quot;t&#039;races.&quot; The few late wenders of their way &quot;t&#039;races,&quot; who are yet left driving on the road, stare in amazement at the recluse who is not going &quot;t&#039;races.&quot; Roadside inn-keeper has gone &quot;t&#039;races.&quot; Turnpike-man has gone &quot;t&#039;races.&quot; His thrifty wife, washing clothes at the toll-house door, is going &quot;t&#039;races&quot; to-morrow. Perhaps there may be no one left to take the toll to-morrow; who knows? Though assuredly that would be neither turnpike-like, nor Yorkshire-like. The very wind and dust seem to be hurrying &quot;t&#039;races,&quot; as they briskly pass the only wayfarer on the road. In the distance, the Railway Engine, waiting at the town-end, shrieks despairingly. Nothing but the difficulty of getting off the Line, restrains that Engine from going &quot;t&#039;races,&quot; too, it is very clear. At night, more Lunatics out than last night and more Keepers. The latter very active at the Betting Rooms, the street in front of which is now impassable. Mr. Palmer as before. Mr. Thurtell as before. Roar and uproar as before. Gradual subsidence as before. Unmannerly drinking house expectorates as before. Drunken negro-melodists, Gong-donkey, and correct cards, in the night. On Wednesday morning, the morning of the great St. Leger, it becomes apparent that there has been a great influx since yesterday, both of Lunatics and Keepers. The families of the tradesmen over the way are no longer within human ken; their places know them no more; ten, fifteen, and twenty guinea-lodgers fill them. At the pastry-cook&#039;s second-floor window, a Keeper is brushing Mr. Thurtell&#039;s hair—thinking it his own. In the wax-chandler&#039;s attic, another Keeper is putting on Mr. Palmer&#039;s braces. In the gunsmith&#039;s nursery, a Lunatic is shaving himself. In the serious stationer&#039;s best sitting-room, three Lunatics are taking a combination-breakfast, praising the (cook&#039;s) devil, and drinking neat brandy in an atmosphere of last midnight&#039;s cigars. No family sanctuary is free from our Angelic messengers—we put up at the Angel—who in the guise of extra waiters for the grand Race-Week, rattle in and out of the most secret chambers of everybody&#039;s house, with dishes and tin covers, decanters, soda-water bottles, and glasses. An hour later. Down the street and up the street, as far as eyes can see and a good deal farther, there is a dense crowd; outside the Betting Rooms it is like a great struggle at a theatre door—in the days of theatres; or at the vestibule of the Spurgeon temple—in the days of Spurgeon. An hour later. Fusing into this crowd, and somehow getting through it, are all kinds of conveyances, and all kinds of foot-passengers; carts, with brick-makers and brick-makeresses jolting up and down on planks; drags, with the needful grooms behind, sitting crossed-armed in the needful manner, and slanting themselves backward from the soles of their boots at the needful angle; postboys, in the shining hats and smart jackets of the olden time, when stokers were not; beautiful Yorkshire horses, gallantly driven by their own breeders and masters. Under every pole, and every shaft, and every horse, and every wheel as it would seem, the Gong-donkey—metallically braying, when not struggling for life, or whipped out of the way. By one o&#039;clock, all this stir has gone out of the streets, and there is no one left in them but Francis Goodchild. Francis Goodchild will not be left in them long; for, he too is on his way &quot;t&#039;races.&quot; A most beautiful sight, Francis Goodchild finds &quot;t&#039;races&quot; to be, when he has left fair Doncaster behind him, and comes out on the free course, with its agreeable prospect, its quaint Red House oddly changing and turning as Francis turns, its green grass, and fresh heath. A free course and an easy one, where Francis can roll smoothly where he will, and can choose between the start, or the coming-in, or the turn behind the brow of the hill, or any out-of-the-way point where he lists to see the throbbing horses straining every nerve, and making the sympathetic earth throb as they come by. Francis much delights to be, not in the Grand Stand, but where he can see it, rising against the sky with its vast tiers of little white dots of faces, and its last high rows and corners of people, looking like pins stuck into an enormous pin-cushion—not quite so symmetrically as his orderly eye could wish, when people change or go away. When the race is nearly run out, it is as good as the race to him to see the flutter among the pins, and the change in them from dark to light, as hats are taken off and waved. Not less full of interest, the loud anticipation of the winner&#039;s name, the swelling, and the final, roar; then, the quick dropping of all the pins out of their places, the revelation of the shape of the bare pin-cushion, and the closing-in of the whole host of Lunatics and Keepers, in the rear of the three horses with bright-coloured riders, who have not yet quite subdued their gallop though the contest is over. Mr. Goodchild would appear to have been by no means free from lunacy himself at &quot;t&#039;races,&quot; though not of the prevalent kind. He is suspected by Mr. Idle to have fallen into a dreadful state concerning a pair of little lilac gloves and a little bonnet that he saw there. Mr Idle asserts, that he did afterwards repeat at the Angel, with an appearance of being lunatically seized, some rhapsody to the following effect: &quot;O little lilac gloves! And O winning little bonnet, making in conjunction with her golden hair quite a Glory in the sunlight round the pretty head, why anything in the world but you and me! Why may not this day&#039;s running—of horses, to all the rest: of precious sands of life to me—be prolonged through an everlasting autumn-sunshine, without a sunset! Slave of the Lamp, or Ring, strike me yonder gallant equestrian Clerk of the Course, in the scarlet coat, motionless on the green grass for ages! Friendly Devil on Two Sticks, for ten times ten thousand years, keep Blink-Bonny jibbing at the post, and let us have no start! Arab drums, powerful of old to summon Genii in the desert, sound of yourselves and raise a troop for me in the desert of my heart, which shall so enchant this dusty barouche (with a conspicuous excise-plate, resembling the Collector&#039;s door-plate at a turnpike), that I, within it, loving the little lilac gloves, the winning little bonnet, and the dear unknown-wearer with the golden hair, may wait by her side for ever, to see a Great St. Leger that shall never be run!&quot; Thursday morning. After a tremendous night of crowding, shouting, drinking-house expectoration, Gong-donkey, and correct cards. Symptoms of yesterday&#039;s gains in the way of drink, and of yesterday&#039;s losses in the way of money, abundant. Money-losses very great. As usual, nobody seems to have won; but, large losses and many losers are unquestionable facts. Both Lunatics and Keepers, in general very low. Several of both kinds look in at the chemist&#039;s while Mr. Goodchild is making a purchase there, to be &quot;picked up.&quot; One red-eyed Lunatic, flushed, faded, and disordered, enters hurriedly and cries savagely, &quot;Hond us a gloss of sal volatile in wather, or soom dommed thing o&#039;thot sart!&quot; Faces at the Betting-Rooms very long, and a tendency to bite nails observable. Keepers likewise given this morning to standing about solitary, with their hands in their pockets, looking down at their boots as they fit them into cracks of the pavement, and then looking up whistling and walking away. Grand Alliance Circus out, in procession; buxom lady-member of Grand Alliance, in crimson riding-habit, fresher to look at, even in her paint under the day sky, than the cheeks of Lunatics or Keepers. Spanish Cavalier appears to have lost yesterday, and jingles his bossed bridle with disgust, as if he were paying. Re-action also apparent at the Guildhall opposite, whence certain pickpockets come out handcuffed together, with that peculiar walk which is never seen under any other circumstances—a walk expressive of going to jail, game, but still of jails being in bad taste and arbitrary, and how would you like it if it was you instead of me, as it ought to be! Mid-day. Town filled as yesterday, but not so full; and emptied as yesterday, but not so empty. In the evening, Angel ordinary where every Lunatic and Keeper has his modest daily meal of turtle, venison, and wine, not so crowded as yesterday, and not so noisy. At night, the theatre. More abstracted faces in it, than one ever sees at public assemblies; such faces wearing an expression which strongly reminds Mr. Goodchild of the boys at school who were &quot;going up next,&quot; with their arithmetic or mathematics. These boys are, no doubt, going up to-morrow with their sums and figures. Mr. Palmer and Mr. Thurtell in the boxes O. P. Mr. Thurtell and Mr. Palmer in the boxes P. S. The firm of Thurtell, Palmer, and Thurtell, in the boxes Centre. A most odious tendency observable in these distinguished gentlemen to put vile constructions on sufficiently innocent phrases in the play, and then to applaud them in a Satyr-like manner. Behind Mr. Goodchild, with a party of other Lunatics and one Keeper, the express incarnation of the thing called a &quot;gent.&quot; A gentleman born; a gent manufactured. A something with a scarf round its neck, and a slipshod speech issuing from behind the scarf; more depraved, more foolish, more ignorant, more unable to believe in any noble or good thing of any kind, than the stupidest Bosjesman. The thing is but a boy in years, and is addled with drink. To do its company justice, even its company is ashamed of it, as it drawls its slang criticisms on the representation, and inflames Mr. Goodchild with a burning ardour to fling it into the pit. Its remarks are so horrible, that Mr. Goodchild, for the moment, even doubts whether that is a wholesome Art, which sets women apart on a high floor before such a thing as this, though as good as its own sisters, or its own mother—whom Heaven forgive for bringing it into the world! But, the consideration that a low nature must make a low world of its own to live in, whatever the real materials, or it could no more exist than any of us could without the sense of touch, brings Mr. Goodchild to reason: the rather, because the thing soon drops its downy chin upon its scarf, and slobbers itself asleep. Friday Morning. Early fights. Gong-donkey, and correct cards. Again, a great set towards the races, though not so great a set as on Wednesday. Much packing going on too, upstairs at the gunsmith&#039;s, the wax-chandler&#039;s, and the serious stationer&#039;s; for there will be a heavy drift of Lunatics and Keepers to London by the afternoon train. The course as pretty as ever; the great pincushion as like a pincushion, but not nearly so full of pins; whole rows of pins wanting. On the great event of the day, both Lunatics and Keepers become inspired with rage; and there is a violent scuffling, and a rushing at the losing jockey, and an emergence of the said jockey from a swaying and menacing crowd, protected by friends, and looking the worse for wear; which is a rough proceeding, though animating to see from a pleasant distance. After the great event, rills begin to flow from the pincushion towards the railroad; the rills swell into rivers; the rivers soon unite into a lake. The lake floats Mr. Goodchild into Doncaster, past the Itinerant personage in black, by the way-side telling him from the vantage ground of a legibly printed placard on a pole that for all these things the Lord will bring him to judgment. No turtle and venison ordinary this evening; that is all over. No Betting at the rooms; nothing there but the plants in pots, which have, all the week, been stood about the entry to give it an innocent appearance, and which have sorely sickened by this time. Saturday. Mr. Idle wishes to know at breakfast, what were those dreadful groanings in his bedroom doorway in the night? Mr. Goodchild answers, Nightmare. Mr. Idle repels the calumny, and calls the waiter. The Angel is very sorry—had intended to explain; but you see, gentlemen, there was a gentleman dined down stairs with two more, and he had lost a deal of money, and he would drink a deal of wine, and in the night he &quot;took the horrors,&quot; and got up; and as his friends could do nothing with him he laid himself down, and groaned at Mr. Idle&#039;s door. &quot;And he DID groan there,&quot; Mr. Idle says; &quot;and you will please to imagine me inside, &#039;taking the horrors&#039; too!&quot; So far, the picture of Doncaster on the occasion of its great sporting anniversary, offers probably a general representation of the social condition of the town, in the past as well as in the present time. The sole local phenomenon of the current year, which may be considered as entirely unprecedented in its way, and which certainly claims, on that account, some slight share of notice, consists in the actual existence of one remarkable individual, who is sojourning in Doncaster, and who, neither directly nor indirectly, has anything at all to do, in any capacity whatever, with the racing amusements of the week. Ranging throughout the entire crowd that fills the town, and including the inhabitants as well as the visitors, nobody is to be found altogether disconnected with the business of the day, excepting this one unparalleled man. He does not bet on the races, like the sporting men. He does not assist the races, like the jockeys, starters, judges, and grooms. He does not look on at the races, like Mr. Goodchild and his fellow-spectators. He does not profit by the races, like the hotel-keepers and the trades-people. He does not minister to the necessities of the races, like the booth-keepers, the postilions, the waiters, and the hawkers of Lists. He does not assist the attractions of the races, like the actors at the theatre, the riders at the circus, or the posturers at the Poses Plastiques. Absolutely and literally, he is the only individual in Doncaster who stands by the brink of the full-flowing race-stream, and is not swept away by it in common with all the rest of his species. Who is this modern hermit, this recluse of the St. Leger-week, this inscrutably ungregarious being, who lives apart from the amusements and activities of his fellow-creatures? Surely, there is little difficulty in guessing that clearest and easiest of all riddles. Who could he be, but Mr. Thomas Idle? Thomas had suffered himself to be taken to Doncaster, just as he would have suffered himself to be taken to any other place in the habitable globe which would guarantee him the temporary possession of a comfortable sofa to rest his ankle on. Once established at the hotel, with his leg on one cushion and his back against another, he formally declined taking the slightest interest in any circumstance whatever connected with the races, or with the people who were assembled to see them. Francis Goodchild, anxious that the hours should pass by his crippled travelling-to the personal appearance of the horse. I protest against the conventional idea of beauty, as attached to that animal. I think his nose too long, his forehead too low, and his legs (except in the case of the cart-horse) ridiculously thin by comparison with the size of his body. Again, considering how big an animal he is, I object to the contemptible delicacy of his constitution. Is he not the sickliest creature in creation? Does any child catch cold as easily as a horse? Does he not sprain his fetlock, for all his appearance of superior strength, as easily as I sprained my ankle? Furthermore, to take him from another point of view, what a helpless wretch he is! No fine lady requires more constant waiting-on than a horse. Other animals can make their own toilette: he must have a groom. You will tell me that this is because we want to make his coat artificially glossy. Glossy! Come home with me, and see my cat,—my clever cat, who can groom herself! Look at your own dog! See how the intelligent creature curry-combs himself with his own honest teeth! Then, again, what a fool the horse is, what a poor, nervous fool! He will start at a piece of white paper in the road as if it was a lion. His one idea, when he hears a noise that he is not accustomed to, is to run away from it. What do you say to those two common instances of the sense and courage of this absurdly overpraised animal? I might multiply them to two hundred, if I chose to exert my mind and waste my breath, which I never do. I prefer coming at once to my last charge against the horse, which is the most serious of all, because it affects his moral character. I accuse him boldly, in his capacity of servant to man, of slyness and treachery. I brand him publickly, no matter how mild he may look about the eyes, or how sleek he may be about the coat, as a systematic betrayer, whenever he can get the chance, of the confidence reposed in him. What do you mean by laughing and shaking your head at me?&quot; &quot;Oh, Thomas, Thomas! &quot; said Goodchild. &quot;You had better give me my hat; you had better let me get you that physic.&quot; &quot;I will let you get anything you like, including a composing draught for yourself,&quot; said Thomas, irritably alluding to his fellow-apprentice&#039;s inexhaustible activity, &quot;if you will only sit quiet for five minutes longer, and hear me out. I say again the horse is a betrayer of the confidence reposed in him; and that opinion, let me add, is drawn from my own personal experience, and is not based on any fanciful theory whatever. You shall have two instances, two overwhelming instances. Let me start the first of these by asking, what is the distinguishing quality which the Shetland Pony has arrogated to himself, and is still perpetually trumpeting through the world by means of popular report and books on Natural History? I see the answer in your face: it is the quality of being Sure-Footed. He professes to have other virtues, such as hardiness and strength, which you may discover on trial; but the one thing which he insists on your believing, when you get on his back, is that he may be safely depended on not to tumble down with you. Very good. Some years ago, I was in Shetland with a party of friends. They insisted on taking me with them to the top of a precipice that overhung the sea. It was a great distance off, but they all determined to walk to it except me. I was wiser then than I was with you at Carrock, and I determined to be carried to the precipice. There was no carriage road in the island, and nobody offered (in consequence, as I suppose, of the imperfectly-civilised state of the country) to bring me a sedan-chair, which is naturally what I should have liked best. A Shetland pony was produced instead. I remembered my Natural History, I recalled popular report, and I got on the little beast&#039;s back, as any other man would have done in my position, placing implicit confidence in the sureness of his feet. And how did he repay that confidence? Brother Francis, carry your mind on from morning to noon. Picture to yourself a howling wilderness of grass and bog, bounded by low stony hills. Pick out one particular spot in that imaginary scene, and sketch me in it, with outstretched arms, curved back, and heels in the air, plunging headforemost into a black patch of water and mud. Place just behind me the legs, the body, and the head of a sure-footed Shetland pony, all stretched flat on the ground, and you will have produced an accurate representation of a very lamentable fact. And the moral device, Francis, of this picture will be to testify that when gentlemen put confidence in the legs of Shetland ponies, they will find to their cost that they are leaning on nothing but broken reeds. There is my first instance—and what have you got to say to that?&quot; &quot;Nothing, but that I want my hat,&quot; answered Goodchild, starting up and walking restlessly about the room. &quot;You shall have it in a minute,&quot; rejoined Thomas. &quot;My second instance &quot;— (Goodchild groaned, and sat down again)—&quot;My second instance is more appropriate to the present time and place, for it refers to a race-horse. Two years ago an excellent friend of mine, who was desirous of prevailing on me to take regular exercise, and who was well enough acquainted with the weakness of my legs to expect no very active compliance with his wishes on their part, offered to make me a present of one of his horses. Hearing that the animal in question, had started in life on the turf, I declined accepting the gift with many thanks; adding, by way of explanation, that I looked on a race-horse as a kind of embodied hurricane, upon which no sane man of my character and companion as lightly as possible, suggested that his sofa should be moved to the window, and that he should amuse himself by looking out at the moving panorama of humanity, which the view from it of the principal street presented. Thomas, however, steadily declined profiting by the suggestion. &quot;The farther I am from the window,&quot; he said, &quot;the better, Brother Francis, I shall be pleased. I have nothing in common with the one prevalent idea of all those people who are passing in the street. Why should I care to look at them ?&quot; &quot;I hope I have nothing in common with the prevalent idea of a great many of them, either,&quot; answered Goodchild, thinking of the sporting gentlemen whom he had met in the course of his wanderings about Doncaster. &quot;But, surely, among all the people who are walking by the house, at this very moment, you may find—&quot; &quot;Not one living creature,&quot; interposed Thomas, &quot;who is not, in one way or another, interested in horses, and who is not, in a greater or less degree, an admirer of them. Now, I hold opinions in reference to these particular members of the quadruped creation, which may lay claim (as I believe) to the disastrous distinction of being unpartaken by any other human being, civilised or savage, over the whole surface of the earth. Taking the horse as an animal in the abstract, Francis, I cordially despise him from every point of view.&quot; &quot;Thomas,&quot; said Goodchild, &quot;confinement to the house has begun to affect your biliary secretions. I shall go to the chemist&#039;s and get you some physic.&quot; &quot;I object,&quot; continued Thomas, quietly possessing himself of his friend&#039;s hat, which stood on a table near him,—&quot;I object, first, habits could be expected to seat himself. My friend replied that, however appropriate my metaphor might be as applied to race-horses in general, it was singularly unsuitable as applied to the particular horse which he proposed to give me. From a foal upwards this remarkable animal had been the idlest and most sluggish of his race. Whatever capacities for speed he might possess he had kept so strictly to himself, that no amount of training had ever brought them out. He had been found hopelessly slow as a racer, and hopelessly lazy as a hunter, and was fit for nothing but a quiet, easy life of it with an old gentleman or an invalid. When I heard this account of the horse, I don&#039;t mind confessing that my heart warmed to him. Visions of Thomas Idle ambling serenely on the back of a steed as lazy as himself, presenting to a restless world the soothing and composite spectacle of a kind of sluggardly Centaur, too peaceable in his habits to alarm anybody, swam attractively before my eyes. I went to look at the horse in the stable. Nice fellow! he was fast asleep with a kitten on his back. I saw him taken out for an airing by the groom. If he had had trousers on his legs I should not have known them from my own, so deliberately were they lifted up, so gently were they put down, so slowly did they get over the ground. From that moment I gratefully accepted my friend&#039;s offer. I went home; the horse followed me—by a slow train. Oh, Francis, how devoutly I believed in that horse! how carefully I looked after all his little comforts! I had never gone the length of hiring a man-servant to wait on myself; but I went to the expense of hiring one to wait upon him. If I thought a little of myself when I bought the softest saddle that could be had for money, I thought also of my horse. When the man at the shop afterwards offered me spurs and a whip, I turned from him with horror. When I sallied out for my first ride, I went purposely unarmed with the means of hurrying my steed. He proceeded at his own pace every step of the way; and when he stopped, at last, and blew out both his sides with a heavy sigh, and turned his sleepy head and looked behind him, I took him home again, as I might take home an artless child who said to me, &quot;If you please, sir, I am tired.&quot; For a week this complete harmony between me and my horse lasted undisturbed. At the end of that time, when he had made quite sure of my friendly confidence in his laziness, when he had thoroughly acquainted himself with all the little weaknesses of my seat (and their name is Legion), the smouldering treachery and ingratitude of the equine nature blazed out in an instant. Without the slightest provocation from me, with nothing passing him at the time but a pony-chaise driven by an old lady, he started in one instant from a state of sluggish depression to a state of frantic high spirits. He kicked, he plunged, he shied, he pranced, he capered fearfully. I sat on him as long as I could, and when I could sit no longer, I fell off. No, Francis! this is not a circumstance to be laughed at, but to be wept over. What would be said of a Man who had requited my kindness in that way? Range over all the rest of the animal creation, and where will you find me an instance of treachery so black as this? The cow that kicks down the milking-pail may have some reason for it; she may think herself taxed too heavily to contribute to the dilution of human tea and the greasing of human bread. The tiger who springs out on me unawares has the excuse of being hungry at the time, to say nothing of the further justification of being a total stranger to me. The very flea who surprises me in my sleep may defend his act of assassination on the ground that I, in my turn, am always ready to murder him when I am awake. I defy the whole body of Natural Historians to move me, logically, off the ground that I have taken in regard to the horse. Receive back your hat, Brother Francis, and go to the chemist&#039;s, if you please; for I have now done. Ask me to take anything you like, except an interest in the Doncaster races. Ask me to look at anything you like, except an assemblage of people all animated by feelings of a friendly and admiring nature towards the horse. You are a remarkably well-informed man, and you have heard of hermits. Look upon me as a member of that ancient fraternity, and you will sensibly add to the many obligations which Thomas Idle is proud to owe to Francis Goodchild.&quot; Here, fatigued by the effort of excessive talking, disputatious Thomas waved one hand languidly, laid his head back on the sofa-pillow, and calmly closed his eyes. At a later period, Mr. Goodchild assailed his travelling companion boldly from the impregnable fortress of common sense. But Thomas, though tamed in body by drastic discipline, was still as mentally unapproachable as ever on the subject of his favourite delusion. The view from the window after Saturday&#039;s breakfast is altogether changed. The tradesmen&#039;s families have all come back again. The serious stationer&#039;s young woman of all work is shaking a duster out of the window of the combination breakfast-room; a child is playing with a doll, where Mr. Thurtell&#039;s hair was brushed; a sanitary scrubbing is in progress on the spot where Mr. Palmer&#039;s braces were put on. No signs of the Races are in the streets, but the tramps and the tumble-down carts and trucks laden with drinking-forms and tables and remnants of booths, that are making their way out of the town as fast as they can. The Angel, which has been cleared for action all the week, already begins restoring every neat and comfortable article of furniture to its own neat and comfortable place. The Angel&#039;s daughters (pleasanter angels Mr. Idle and Mr. Goodchild never saw, nor more quietly expert in their business, nor more superior to the common vice of being above it), have a little time to rest, and to air their cheerful faces among the flowers in the yard. It is market-day. The market looks unusually natural, comfortable, and wholesome; the market-people too. The town seems quite restored, when, hark! a metallic bray—The Gong-donkey! The wretched animal has not cleared off with the rest, but is here, under the window. How much more inconceivably drunk now, how much more begrimed of paw, how much more tight of calico hide, how much more stained and daubed and dirty and dung-hilly, from his horrible broom to his tender toes, who shall say! He cannot even shake the bray out of himself now, without laying his cheek so near to the mud of the street, that he pitches over after delivering it. Now, prone in the mud, and now backing himself up against shop-windows, the owners of which come out in terror to remove him; now, in the drinking-shop, and now in the tobacconist&#039;s, where he goes to buy tobacco, and makes his way into the parlor, and where he gets a cigar, which in half-a-minute he forgets to smoke; now dancing, now dozing, now cursing, and now complimenting My Lord, the Colonel, the Noble Captain, and Your Honorable Worship, the Gong-donkey kicks up his heels, occasionally braying, until suddenly, he beholds the dearest friend he has in the world coming down the street. The dearest friend the Gong-donkey has in the world, is a sort of Jackall, in a dull mangy black hide, of such small pieces that it looks as if it were made of blacking bottles turned inside out and cobbled together. The dearest friend in the world (inconceivably drunk too) advances at the Gong-donkey, with a hand on each thigh, in a series of humorous springs and stops, wagging his head as he comes. The Gong-Donkey regarding him with attention and with the warmest affection, suddenly perceives that he is the greatest enemy he has in the world, and hits him hard in the countenance. The astonished Jackall closes with the Donkey, and they roll over and over in the mud, pummelling one another. A Police Inspector, supernaturally endowed with patience, who has long been looking on from the Guildhall-steps, says to a myrmidon, &quot;Lock &#039;em up! Bring &#039;em in!&quot; Appropriate finish to the Grand Race Week. The Gong-donkey, captive and last trace of it, conveyed into limbo, where they cannot do better than keep him until next Race Week. The Jackall is wanted too, and is much looked for, over the way and up and down. But, having had the good-fortune to be undermost at the time of the capture, he has vanished into air. On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Goodchild walks out and looks at the Course. It is quite deserted; heaps of broken crockery and bottles are raised to its memory; and correct cards and other fragments of paper are blowing about it, as the regulation little paper-books, carried by the French soldiers in their breasts, were seen, soon after the battle was fought, blowing idly about the plains of Waterloo. Where will these present idle leaves be blown by the idle winds, and where will the last of them be one day lost and forgotten? An idle question, and an idle thought; and with it Mr. Idle fitly makes his bow, and Mr. Goodchild his, and thus ends the Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices.18571031https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._V_The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices/1857-10-31-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No5.pdf
224https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/224No.I 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>)<span>Published in <em>All the Year Round</em></span><em>,<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>vol. XIX, no. 458 (1 February 1868), pp. 120-124.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xix/page-180.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xix/page-180.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-02-01">1868-02-01</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=50&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=No.+I+%27George+Silverman%27s+Explanation%27+%28%3Cem%3EAtlantic+Monthly%3C%2Fem%3E%29">No. I 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>Atlantic Monthly</em>)</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-02-01-George_Silvermans_Explanation_1_ATYRDickens, Charles. No. I 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. <a href="Accessed%20[date]. https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02-01-George_Silvermans_Explanation_1_ATYR">Accessed [date]. https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02-01-George_Silvermans_Explanation_1_ATYR</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>FIRST CHAPTER. It happened in this wise: —But, sitting with my pen in my hand looking at those words again, without descrying any hint in them of the words that should follow, it comes into my mind that they have an abrupt appearance. They may serve, however, if I let them remain, to suggest how very difficult I find it to begin to explain my Explanation. An uncouth phrase: and yet I do not see my way to a better. SECOND CHAPTER. It happened in this wise: —But, looking at those words, and comparing them with my former opening, I find they are the self-same words repeated. This is the more surprising to me, because I employ them in quite a new connexion. For indeed I declare that my intention was to discard the commencement I first had in my thoughts, and to give the preference to another of an entirely different nature, dating my explanation from an anterior period of my life. I will make a third trial, without erasing this second failure, protesting that it is not my design to conceal any of my infirmities, whether they be of head or heart. THIRD CHAPTER. Not as yet directly aiming at how it came to pass, I will come upon it by degrees. The natural manner after all, for GOD knows that is how it came upon me! My parents were in a miserable condition of life, and my infant home was a cellar in Preston. I recollect the sound of Father&#039;s Lancashire clogs on the street pavement above, as being different in my young hearing from the sound of all other clogs; and I recollect that when Mother came down the cellar-steps, I used tremblingly to speculate on her feet having a good or an ill tempered look—on her knees—on her waist—until finally her face came into view and settled the question. From this it will be seen that I was timid, and that the cellar-steps were steep, and that the doorway was very low. Mother had the gripe and clutch of Poverty upon her face, upon her figure, and not least of all upon her voice. Her sharp and high-pitched words were squeezed out of her, as by the compression of bony fingers on a leathern bag, and she had a way of rolling her eyes about and about the cellar, as she scolded, that was gaunt and hungry. Father, with his shoulders rounded, would sit quiet on a three-legged stool, looking at the empty grate, until she would pluck the stool from under him, and bid him go bring some money home. Then he would dismally ascend the steps, and I, holding my ragged shirt and trousers together with a hand (my only braces), would feint and dodge from Mother&#039;s pursuing grasp at my hair. A worldly little devil was Mother&#039;s usual name for me. Whether I cried for that I was in the dark, or for that it was cold, or for that I was hungry, or whether I squeezed myself into a warm corner when there was a fire, or ate voraciously when there was food, she would still say: &quot;O you worldly little devil!&quot; And the sting of it was, that I quite well knew myself to be a worldly little devil. Worldly as to wanting to be housed and warmed, worldly as to wanting to be fed, worldly as to the greed with which I inwardly compared how much I got of those good things with how much Father and Mother got, when, rarely, those good things were going. Sometimes they both went away seeking work, and then I would be locked up in the cellar for a day or two at a time. I was at my worldliest then. Left alone, I yielded myself up to a worldly yearning for enough of anything (except misery), and for the death of Mother&#039;s father, who was a machine-maker at Birmingham, and on whose decease I had heard Mother say she would come into a whole court-full of houses &quot;if she had her rights.&quot; Worldly little devil, I would stand about, musingly fitting my cold bare feet into cracked bricks and crevices of the damp cellar-floor walking over my grandfather&#039;s body, so to speak, into the court-full of houses, and selling them for meat and drink and clothes to wear. At last a change came down into our cellar. The universal change came down even as low as that—so will it mount to any height on which a human creature can perch—and brought other changes with it. We had a heap of I don&#039;t know what foul litter in the darkest corner, which we called &quot;the bed.&quot; For three days Mother lay upon it without getting up, and then began at times to laugh. If I had ever heard her laugh before, it had been so seldom that the strange sound frightened me. It frightened Father, too, and we took it by turns to give her water. Then she began to move her head from side to side, and sing. After that, she getting no better, Father fell a-laughing and a-singing, and then there was only I to give them both water, and they both died. FOURTH CHAPTER. When I was lifted out of the cellar by two men, of whom one came peeping down alone first, and ran away and brought the other, I could hardly bear the light of the street. I was sitting in the roadway, blinking at it, and at a ring of people collected around me, but not close to me, when, true to my character of worldly little devil, I broke silence by saying, &quot;I am hungry and thirsty!&quot; &quot;Does he know they are dead?&quot; asked one of another. &quot;Do you know your father and mother are both dead of fever?&quot; asked a third of me, severely. &quot;I don&#039;t know what it is to be dead. I supposed it meant that, when the cup rattled against their teeth and the water spilt over them. I am hungry and thirsty.&quot; That was all I had to say about it. The ring of people widened outward from the inner side as I looked around me; and I smelt vinegar, and what I now know to be camphor, thrown in towards where I sat. Presently some one put a great vessel of smoking vinegar on the ground near me, and then they all looked at me in silent horror as I ate and drank of what was brought for me. I knew at the time they had a horror of me, but I couldn&#039;t help it. I was still eating and drinking, and a murmur of discussion had begun to arise respecting what was to be done with me next, when I heard a cracked voice somewhere in the ring say: &quot;My name is Hawkyard, Mr. Verity Hawkyard, of West Bromwich.&quot; Then the ring split in one place, and a yellow-faced peak-nosed gentleman, clad all in iron-grey to his gaiters, pressed forward with a policeman and another official of some sort. He came forward close to the vessel of smoking vinegar; from which he sprinkled himself carefully, and me copiously. &quot;He had a grandfather at Birmingham, this young boy: who is just dead, too,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard. I turned my eyes upon the speaker, and said in a ravening manner: &quot;Where&#039;s his houses?&quot; &quot;Hah! Horrible worldliness on the edge of the grave,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard, casting more of the vinegar over me, as if to get my devil out of me. &quot;I have undertaken a slight—a ve-ry slight—trust in behalf of this boy; quite a voluntary trust; a matter of mere honour, if not of mere sentiment; still I have taken it upon myself, and it shall be (O yes, it shall be!) discharged.&quot; The bystanders seemed to form an opinion of this gentleman, much more favourable than their opinion of me. &quot;He shall be taught,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard &quot;(O yes, he shall be taught!); but what is to be done with him for the present? He may be infected. He may disseminate infection.&quot; The ring widened considerably. &quot;What is to be done with him?&quot; He held some talk with the two officials. I could distinguish no word save &quot;Farm-house.&quot; There was another sound several times repeated, which was wholly meaningless in my ears then, but which I knew soon afterwards to be &quot;Hoghton Towers.&quot; &quot;Yes,&quot; said Mr. Hawkyard, &quot;I think that sounds promising. I think that sounds hopeful. And he can be put by himself in a Ward, for a night or two, you say?&quot; It seemed to be the police-officer who had said so, for it was he who replied Yes. It was he, too, who finally took me by the arm and walked me before him through the streets, into a whitewashed room in a bare building, where I had a chair to sit in, a table to sit at, an iron bedstead and good mattress to lie upon, and a rug and blanket to cover me. Where I had enough to eat, too, and was shown how to clean the tin porringer in which it was conveyed to me, until it was as good as a looking-glass. Here, likewise, I was put in a bath, and had new clothes brought to me, and my old rags were burnt, and I was camphored and vinegared, and disinfected in a variety of ways. When all this was done—I don&#039;t know in how many days or how few, but it matters not—Mr. Hawkyard stepped in at the door, remaining close to it, and said: &quot;Go and stand against the opposite wall, George Silverman. As far off as you can. That&#039;ll do. How do you feel?&quot; I told him that I didn&#039;t feel cold, and didn&#039;t feel hungry, and didn&#039;t feel thirsty. That was the whole round of human feelings, as far as I knew, except the pain of being beaten. &quot;Well,&quot; said he, &quot;you are going, George, to a healthy farm-house to be purified. Keep in the air there, as much as you can. Live an out-of-door life there, until you are fetched away. You had better not say much—in fact, you had better be very careful not to say anything—about what your parents died of, or they might not like to take you in. Behave well, and I&#039;ll put you to school (O yes, I&#039;ll put you to school!), though I am not obligated to do it. I am a servant of the Lord, George, and I have been a good servant to him (I have!) these five-and-thirty years. The Lord has had a good servant in me, and he knows it.&quot; What I then supposed him to mean by this, I cannot imagine. As little do I know when I began to comprehend that he was a prominent member of some obscure denomination or congregation, every member of which held forth to the rest when so inclined, and among whom he was called Brother Hawkyard. It was enough for me to know, on that day in the Ward, that the farmer&#039;s cart was waiting for me at the street corner. I was not slow to get into it, for it was the first ride I ever had in my life. It made me sleepy, and I slept. First, I stared at Preston streets as long as they lasted, and, meanwhile, I may have had some small dumb wondering within me whereabouts our cellar was. But I doubt it. Such a worldly little devil was I, that I took no thought who would bury Father and Mother, or where they would be buried, or when. The question whether the eating and drinking by day, and the covering by night, would be as good at the farm-house as at the Ward, superseded those questions. The jolting of the cart on a loose stony road awoke me, and I found that we were mounting a steep hill, where the road was a rutty by-road through a field. And so, by fragments of an ancient terrace, and by some rugged outbuildings that had once been fortified, and passing under a ruined gateway, we came to the old farm-house in the thick stone wall outside the old quadrangle of Hoghton Towers. Which I looked at, like a stupid savage; seeing no speciality in; seeing no antiquity in; assuming all farm-houses to resemble it; assigning the decay I noticed, to the one potent cause of all ruin that I knew—Poverty; eyeing the pigeons in their flights, the cattle in their stalls, the ducks in the pond, and the fowls pecking about the yard, with a hungry hope that plenty of them might be killed for dinner while I stayed there; wondering whether the scrubbed dairy vessels drying in the sunlight could be the goodly porringers out of which the master ate his belly-filling food, and which he polished when he had done, according to my Ward experience; shrinkingly doubtful whether the shadows passing over that airy height on the bright spring day were not something in the nature of frowns; sordid, afraid, unadmiring, a small Brute to shudder at. To that time I had never had the faintest impression of beauty. I had had no knowledge whatever that there was anything lovely in this life. When I had occasionally slunk up the cellar-steps into the street and glared in at shop-windows, I had done so with no higher feelings than we may suppose to animate a mangey young dog or wolf-cub. It is equally the fact that I had never been alone, in the sense of holding unselfish converse with myself. I had been solitary often enough, but nothing better. Such was my condition when I sat down to my dinner, that day, in the kitchen of the old farm-house. Such was my condition when I lay on my bed in the old farm-house that night, stretched out opposite the narrow mullioned window, in the cold light of the moon, like a young Vampire. FIFTH CHAPTER. What do I know, now, of Hoghton Towers? Very little, for I have been gratefully unwilling to disturb my first impressions. A house, centuries old, on high ground a mile or so removed from the road between Preston and Blackburn, where the first James of England in his hurry to make money by making Baronets, perhaps, made some of those remunerative dignitaries. A house, centuries old, deserted and falling to pieces, its woods and gardens long since grass land or ploughed up, the rivers Ribble and Darwen glancing below it, and a vague haze of smoke against which not even the supernatural prescience of the first Stuart could foresee a Counterblast, hinting at Steam Power, powerful in two distances. What did I know, then, of Hoghton Towers? When I first peeped in at the gate of the lifeless quadrangle, and started from the mouldering statue becoming visible to me like its Guardian Ghost; when I stole round by the back of the farm-house and got in among the ancient rooms, many of them with their floors and ceilings falling, the beams and rafters hanging dangerously down, the plaster dropping as I trod, the oaken panels stripped away, the windows half walled up, half broken; when I discovered a gallery commanding the old kitchen, and looked down between balustrades upon a massive old table and benches, fearing to see I know not what dead-alive creatures come in and seat themselves and look up with I know not what dreadful eyes, or lack of eyes, at me; when all over the house I was awed by gaps and chinks where the sky stared sorrowfully at me, where the birds passed, and the ivy rustled, and the stains of winter weather blotched the rotten floors; when down at the bottom of dark pits of staircase into which the stairs had sunk, green leaves trembled, butterflies fluttered, and bees hummed in and out through the broken doorways; when encircling the whole ruin were sweet scents and sights of fresh green growth and ever-renewing life, that I had never dreamed of;—I say, when I passed into such clouded perception of these things as my dark soul could compass, what did I know then of Hoghton Towers? I have written that the sky stared sorrowfully at me. Therein have I anticipated the answer. I knew that all these things looked sorrowfully at me. That they seemed to sigh or whisper, not without pity for me: &quot;Alas! poor worldly little devil!&quot; There were two or three rats at the bottom of one of the smaller pits of broken staircase when I craned over and looked in. They were scuffling for some prey that was there. And when they started and hid themselves, close together in the dark, I thought of the old life (it had grown old already) in the cellar. How not to be this worldly little devil? How not to have a repugnance towards myself as I had towards the rats? I hid in a corner of one of the smaller chambers, frightened at myself and crying (it was the first time I had ever cried for any cause not purely physical), and I tried to think about it. One of the farm-ploughs came into my range of view just then, and it seemed to help me as it went on with its two horses up and down the field so peacefully and quietly. There was a girl of about my own age in the farm-house family, and she sat opposite to me at the narrow table at meal-times. It had come into my mind at our first dinner, that she might take the fever from me. The thought had not disquieted me then; I had only speculated how she would look under the altered circumstances, and whether she would die. But it came into my mind now, that I might try to prevent her taking the fever, by keeping away from her. I knew I should have but scrambling board, if I did; so much the less worldly and less devilish the deed would be, I thought. From that hour I withdrew myself at early morning into secret corners of the ruined house, and remained hidden there until she went to bed. At first, when meals were ready, I used to hear them calling me; and then my resolution weakened. But I strengthened it again, by going further off into the ruin and getting out of hearing. I often watched for her at the dim windows; and, when I saw that she was fresh and rosy, felt much happier. Out of this holding her in my thoughts, to the humanising of myself, I suppose some childish love arose within me. I felt in some sort dignified by the pride of protecting her, by the pride of making the sacrifice for her. As my heart swelled with that new feeling, it insensibly softened about Mother and Father. It seemed to have been frozen before, and now to be thawed. The old ruin and all the lovely things that haunted it were not sorrowful for me only, but sorrowful for Mother and Father as well. Therefore did I cry again, and often too. The farm-house family conceived me to be of a morose temper, and were very short with me: though they never stinted me in such broken fare as was to be got, out of regular hours. One night when I lifted the kitchen latch at my usual time, Sylvia (that was her pretty name) had but just gone out of the room. Seeing her ascending the opposite stairs, I stood still at the door. She had heard the clink of the latch, and looked round. &quot;George,&quot; she called to me, in a pleased voice: &quot;to-morrow is my birthday, and we are to have a fiddler, and there&#039;s a party of boys and girls coming in a cart, and we shall dance. I invite you. Be sociable for once, George.&quot; &quot;I am very sorry, miss,&quot; I answered, &quot;but I—but no; I can&#039;t come.&quot; &quot;You are a disagreeable, ill-humoured lad,&quot; she returned, disdainfully, &quot;and I ought not to have asked you. I shall never speak to you again.&quot; As I stood with my eyes fixed on the fire after she was gone, I felt that the farmer bent his brows upon me. &quot;Eh, lad,&quot; said he, &quot;Sylvy&#039;s right. You&#039;re as moody and broody a lad as never I set eyes on yet!&quot; I tried to assure him that I meant no harm; but he only said, coldly: &quot;Maybe not, maybe not. There! Get thy supper, get thy supper, and then thou canst sulk to thy heart&#039;s content again.&quot; Ah! If they could have seen me next day in the ruin, watching for the arrival of the cart full of merry young guests; if they could have seen me at night, gliding out from behind the ghostly statue, listening to the music and the fall of dancing feet, and watching the lighted farm-house windows from the quadrangle when all the ruin was dark; if they could have read my heart as I crept up to bed by the back way, comforting myself with the reflection, &quot;They will take no hurt from me;&quot; they would not have thought mine a morose or an unsocial nature! It was in these ways that I began to form a shy disposition; to be of a timidly silent character under misconstruction; to have an inexpressible, perhaps a morbid, dread of ever being sordid or worldly. It was in these ways that my nature came to shape itself to such a mould, even before it was affected by the influences of the studious and retired life of a poor scholar.18680201https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No.I_George_Silverman_s_Explanation_[ATYR]/1868-02-01-George_Silvermans_Explanation_1_ATYR.pdf
225https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/225No.II 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>)<span>Published in&nbsp;<em>All the Year Round</em></span><em>,<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>vol. XIX, no. 460 (15 February 1868), pp. 228-231.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xix/page-228.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xix/page-228.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-02-15">1868-02-15</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=50&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=No.+II+%27George+Silverman%27s+Explanation%27+%28%3Cem%3EAtlantic+Monthly%3C%2Fem%3E%29">No. II 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>Atlantic Monthly</em>)</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-02-15-George_Silvermans_Explanation_2_ATYR<span>Dickens, Charles. No. II 'George Silverman's Explanation' (</span><em>ATYR</em><span>).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;</span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/Accessed%20[date].%20https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02-15-George_Silvermans_Explanation_2_ATYR">Accessed [date]. https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02-15-George_Silvermans_Explanation_2_ATYR</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>SIXTH CHAPTER. Brother Hawkyard (as he insisted on my calling him) put me to school, and told me to work my way. &quot;You are all right, George,&quot; he said. &quot; I have been the best servant the Lord has had in his service, for this five-and-thirty year (O, I have!), and he knows the value of such a servant as I have been to him (O yes he does!), and he&#039;ll prosper your schooling as a part of my reward. That&#039;s what he&#039;ll do, George. He&#039;ll do it for me.&quot; From the first I could not like this familiar knowledge of the ways of the sublime inscrutable Almighty, on Brother Hawkyard&#039;s part. As I grew a little wiser and still a little wiser, I liked it less and less. His manner, too, of confirming himself in a parenthesis: as if, knowing himself, he doubted his own word: I found distasteful. I cannot tell how much these dislikes cost me, for I had a dread that they were worldly. As time went on, I became a Foundation Boy on a good Foundation, and I cost Brother Hawkyard nothing. When I had worked my way so far, I worked yet harder, in the hope of ultimately getting a presentation to College, and a Fellowship. My health has never been strong (some vapour from the Preston cellar cleaves to me I think), and what with much work and some weakness, I came again to be regarded—that is, by my fellow-students—as unsocial. All through my time as a Foundation-Boy, I was within a few miles of Brother Hawkyard&#039;s congregation, and when ever I was what we called a Leave-Boy on a Sunday, I went over there at his desire. Before the knowledge became forced upon me that outside their place of meeting these Brothers and Sisters were no better than the rest of the human family, but on the whole were, to put the case mildly, as bad as most, in respect of giving short weight in their shops, and not speaking the truth: I say, before this knowledge became forced upon me, their prolix addresses, their inordinate conceit, their daring ignorance, their investment of the Supreme Ruler of Heaven and Earth with their own miserable meannesses and littlenesses, greatly shocked me. Still, as their term for the frame of mind that could not perceive them to be in an exalted state of Grace, was the &quot;worldly&quot; state, I did for a time suffer tortures under my inquiries of myself whether that young worldly-devilish spirit of mine could secretly be lingering at the bottom of my non-appreciation. Brother Hawkyard was the popular expounder in this assembly, and generally occupied the platform (there was a little platform with a table on it, in lieu of a pulpit), first, on a Sunday afternoon. He was by trade a drysalter. Brother Gimblet, an elderly man with a crabbed face, a large dog&#039;s-eared shirt collar, and a spotted blue neckerchief reaching up behind to the crown of his head, was also a drysalter, and an expounder. Brother Gimblet professed the greatest admiration for Brother Hawkyard; but (I had thought more than once) bore him a jealous grudge. Let whosoever may peruse these lines kindly take the pains here to read twice, my solemn pledge that what I write of the language and customs of the congregation in question, I write scrupulously, literally, exactly, from the life and the truth. On the first Sunday after I had won what I had so long tried for, and when it was certain that I was going up to College, Brother Hawkyard concluded a long exhortation thus: &quot;Well my friends and fellow-sinners, now I told you when I began, that I didn&#039;t know a word of what I was going to say to you (and No, I did not!) but that it was all one to me, because I knew the Lord would put into my mouth the words I wanted.&quot; (&quot;That&#039;s it!&quot; From Brother Gimblet.) &quot;And he did put into my mouth the words I wanted.&quot; (&quot;So he did!&quot; From Brother Gimblet.) &quot;And why?&quot; (&quot; Ah! Let&#039;s have that!&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;Because I have been his faithful servant for five-and-thirty years, and because he knows it. For five-and-thirty years! And he knows it, mind you! I got those words that I wanted, on account of my wages. I got &#039;em from the Lord, my fellow-sinners. Down. I said &#039;Here&#039;s a heap of wages due; let us have something down on account.&#039; And I got it down, and I paid it over to you, and you won&#039;t wrap it up in a napkin, nor yet in a towel, not yet in a pockethankercher, but you&#039;ll put it out at good interest. Very well. Now my brothers and sisters and fellow - sinners, I am going to conclude with a question, and I&#039;ll make it so plain (with the help of the Lord, after five-and-thirty years, I should rather hope!) as that the Devil shall not be able to confuse it in your heads. Which he would be overjoyed to do.&quot; (&quot;Just his way. Crafty old blackguard!&quot; from Brother Gimblet.) &quot;And the question is this. Are the Angels learned?&quot; (&quot; Not they. Not a bit on it.&quot; From Brother Gimblet, with the greatest confidence.) &quot;Not they. And where&#039;s the proof? Sent ready-made by the hand of the Lord. Why, there&#039;s one among us here now, that has got all the Learning that can be crammed into him. I got him all the Learning that could be crammed into him. His grandfather&quot; (this I had never heard before) &quot;was a Brother of ours. He was Brother Parksop. That&#039;s what he was. Parksop. Brother Parksop. His worldly name was Parksop, and he was a Brother of this Brotherhood. Then wasn&#039;t he Brother Parksop?&quot; (&quot;Must be. Couldn&#039;t help hisself.&quot; From Brother Gimblet.) &quot;Well. He left that one now here present among us, to the care of a Brother-Sinner of his (and that Brother-Sinner, mind you, was a sinner of a bigger size in his time than any of you, Praise the Lord!), Brother Hawkyard. Me. I got him, without fee or reward—without a morsel of myrrh, or frankinsence, nor yet Amber, letting alone the honeycomb—all the Learning that could be crammed into him. Has it brought him into our Temple, in the spirit? No. Have we had any ignorant Brothers and Sisters that didn&#039;t know round O from crooked S, come in among us meanwhile? Many. Then the Angels are not learned. Then they don&#039;t so much as know their alphabet. And now, my friends and fellow-sinners, having brought it to that, perhaps some Brother present—perhaps you, Brother Gimblet—will pray a bit for us?&quot; Brother Gimblet undertook the sacred function, after having drawn his sleeve across his mouth, and muttered: &quot;Well! I don&#039;t know as I see my way to hitting any of you quite in the right place neither.&quot; He said this with a dark smile, and then began to bellow. What we were specially to be preserved from, according to his solicitations, was despoilment of the orphan, suppression of testamentary intentions on the part of a Father or (say) Grandfather, appropriation of the orphan&#039;s house-property, feigning to give in charity to the wronged one from whom we withheld his due; and that class of sins. He ended with the petition, &quot;Give us peace!&quot; Which, speaking for myself, was very much needed after twenty minutes of his bellowing. Even though I had not seen him when he rose from his knees, steaming with perspiration, glance at Brother Hawkyard; and even though I had not heard Brother Hawkyard&#039;s tone of congratulating him on the vigour with which he had roared; I should have detected a malicious application in this prayer. Unformed suspicions to a similar effect had sometimes passed through my mind in my earlier school-days, and had always caused me great distress, for they were worldly in their nature, and wide, very wide, of the spirit that had drawn me from Sylvia. They were sordid suspicions, without a shadow of proof. They were worthy to have originated in the unwholesome cellar. They were not only without proof, but against proof. For, was I not myself a living proof of what Brother Hawkyard had done? And without him, how should I ever have seen the sky look sorrowfully down upon that wretched boy at Hoghton Towers? Although the dread of a relapse into a state of savage selfishness was less strong upon me as I approached manhood, and could act in an increased degree for myself, yet I was always on my guard against any tendency to such relapse. After getting these suspicions under my feet, I had been troubled by not being able to like Brother Hawkyard&#039;s manner, or his professed religion. So it came about, that as I walked back that Sunday evening, I thought it would be an act of reparation for any such injury my struggling thoughts had unwillingly done him, if I wrote, and placed in his hands before going to College, a full acknowledgment of his goodness to me, and an ample tribute of thanks. It might serve as an implied vindication of him against any dark scandal from a rival Brother, and Expounder, or from any other quarter. Accordingly, I wrote the document with much care. I may add with much feeling, too, for it affected me as I went on. Having no set studies to pursue, in the brief interval between leaving the Foundation and going to Cambridge, I determined to walk out to his place of business and give it into his own hands. It was a winter afternoon when I tapped at the door of his little counting-house, which was at the further end of his long low shop. As I did so (having entered by the back yard, where casks and boxes were taken in, and where there was the inscription &quot;Private Way to the Counting-house&quot;), a shopman called to me from the counter that he was engaged. &quot;Brother Gimblet,&quot; said the shopman (who was one of the Brotherhood), &quot;is with him.&quot; I thought this all the better for my purpose, and made bold to tap again. They were talking in a low tone, and money was passing, for I heard it being counted out. &quot;Who is it?&quot; asked Brother Hawkyard, sharply. &quot;George Silverman,&quot; I answered, holding the door open. &quot;May I come in?&quot; Both Brothers seemed so astounded to see me, that I felt shyer than usual. But they looked quite cadaverous in the early gaslight, and perhaps that accidental circumstance exaggerated the expression of their faces. &quot;What is the matter?&quot; asked Brother Hawkyard. &quot;Aye! What is the matter?&quot; asked Brother Gimblet. &quot;Nothing at all,&quot; I said, diffidently producing my document.&quot; I am only the bearer of a letter from myself.&quot; &quot;From yourself, George?&quot; cried Brother Hawkyard. &quot;And to you,&quot; said I. &quot;And to me, George?&quot; He turned paler, and opened it hurriedly; but looking over it, and seeing generally what it was, became less hurried, recovered his colour, and said: &quot;Praise the Lord!&quot; &quot;That&#039;s it!&quot; cried Brother Gimblet. &quot; Well put! Amen.&quot; Brother Hawkyard then said, in a livelier strain: &quot;You must know, George, that Brother Gimblet and I are going to make our two businesses, one. We are going into partnership. We are settling it now. Brother Gimblet is to take one clear half of the profits. (O yes! And he shall have it, he shall have it to the last farthing!)&quot; &quot;D.V.!&quot; said Brother Gimblet, with his right, fist firmly clenched on his right leg. &quot;There is no objection,&quot; pursued Brother Hawkyard, &quot;to my reading this aloud, George?&quot; As it was what I expressly desired should be done, after yesterday&#039;s prayer, I more than readily begged him to read it aloud. He did so, and Brother Gimblet listened with a crabbed smile. &quot;It was in a good hour that I came here,&quot; he said, wrinkling up his eyes. &quot;It was in a good hour likewise, that I was moved yesterday to depict for the terror of evil-doers, a character the direct opposite of Brother Hawkyard&#039;s. But it was the Lord that done it. I felt him at it, while I was perspiring.&quot; After that, it was proposed by both of them that I should attend the congregation once more, before my final departure. What my shy reserve would undergo from being expressly preached at and prayed at, I knew beforehand. But I reflected that it would be for the last time, and that it might add to the weight of my letter. It was well known to the Brothers and Sisters that there was no place taken for me in their Paradise, and if I showed this last token of deference to Brother Hawkyard, notoriously in despite of my own sinful inclinations, it might go some little way in aid of my statement that he had been good to me, and that I was grateful to him. Merely stipulating, therefore, that no express endeavour should be made for my conversion—which would involve the rolling of several Brothers and Sisters on the floor, declaring that they felt all their sins in a heap on their left side, weighing so many pounds avoirdupoise—as I knew from what I had seen of those repulsive mysteries—I promised. Since the reading of my letter, Brother Gimblet had been at intervals wiping one eye with an end of his spotted blue neckerchief, and grinning to himself. It was, howerer, a habit that Brother had, to grin in an ugly manner even while expounding. I call to mind a delighted snarl with which he used to detail from the platform, the torments reserved for the wicked (meaning all human creation, except the Brotherhood), as being remarkably hideous. I left the two to settle their articles of partnership, and count money; and I never saw them again but on the following Sunday. Brother Hawkyard died within two or three years, leaving all he possessed to Brother Gimblet, in virtue of a will dated (as I have been told) that very day. Now, I was so far at rest with myself when Sunday came, knowing that I had conquered my own mistrust, and righted Brother Hawkyard in the jaundiced vision of a rival, that I went, even to that coarse chapel, in a less sensitive state than usual. How could I foresee that the delicate, perhaps the diseased, corner of my mind, where I winced and shrunk when it was touched or was even approached, would be handled as the theme of the whole proceedings? On this occasion, it was assigned to Brother Hawkyard to pray, and to Brother Gimblet to preach. The prayer was to open the ceremonies; the discourse was to come next. Brothers Hawkyard and Gimblet were both on the platform: Brother Hawkyard on his knees at the table, unmusically ready to pray: Brother Gimblet sitting against the wall, grinningly ready to preach. &quot;Let us offer up the sacrifice of prayer, my brothers and sisters and fellow-sinners.&quot; Yes. But it was I who was the sacrifice. It was our poor sinful worldly-minded Brother here present, who was wrestled for. The now-opening career of this our unawakened Brother might lead to his becoming a minister of what was called The Church. That was what he looked to. The Church. Not the chapel, Lord. The Church. No rectors, no vicars, no archdeacons, no bishops, no archbishops, in the chapel; but, O Lord, many such in the Church! Protect our sinful Brother from his love of lucre. Cleanse from our unawakened Brother&#039;s breast, his sin of worldly-mindedness. The prayer said infinitely more in words, but nothing more to any intelligible effect. Then Brother Gimblet came forward, and took (as I knew he would) the text, My kingdom is not of this world. Ah! But whose was, my fellow-sinners? Whose? Why, our Brother&#039;s here present was. The only kingdom he had an idea of, was of this world. (&quot;That&#039;s it!&quot; from several of the congregation.) What did the woman do, when she lost the piece of money? Went and looked for it. What should our brother do when he lost his way? (&quot;Go and look for it,&quot; from a Sister.) Go and look for it. True. But must he look for it in the right direction, or in the wrong? (&quot;In the right,&quot; from a Brother.) There spake the prophets! He must look for it in the right direction, or he couldn&#039;t find it. But he had turned his back upon the right direction, and he wouldn&#039;t find it. Now, my fellow-sinners, to show you the difference betwixt worldly-mindedness and unworldly-mindedness, betwixt kingdoms not of this world and kingdoms of this world, here was a letter wrote by even our worldly-minded Brother unto Brother Hawkyard. Judge, from hearing of it read, whether Brother Hawkyard was the faithful steward that the Lord had in his mind only t&#039;other day, when, in this very place, he drew you the picter of the unfaithful one. For it was him that done it, not me. Don&#039;t doubt that! Brother Gimblet then grinned and bellowed his way through my composition, and subsequently through an hour. The service closed with a hymn, in which the Brothers unanimously roared, and the Sisters unanimously shrieked, at me, that I by wiles of worldly gain was mock&#039;d, and they on waters of sweet love were rock&#039;d; that I with Mammon struggled in the dark, while they were floating in a second Ark. I went out from all this, with an aching heart and a weary spirit; not because I was quite so weak as to consider these narrow creatures, interpreters of the Divine majesty and wisdom; but because I was weak enough to feel as though it were my hard fortune to be misrepresented and misunderstood, when I most tried to subdue any risings of mere worldliness within me, and when I most hoped that, by dint of trying earnestly, I had succeeded.18680215https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No.II_George_Silverman_s_Explanation_[ATYR]/1868-02-15-George_Silvermans_Explanation_2_ATYR.pdf
230https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/230No.II, 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>Household Words</em><span>, Vol. XVI, No. 394, 10 October 1857, pp. 337-349.</span>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-337.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-337.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1857-10-10">1857-10-10</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1857-10-10-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No2<span>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins. No.II 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'.</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;</span><span>Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-10-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No2">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-10-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No2</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>The dog-cart, with Mr. Thomas Idle and his ankle on the hanging seat behind, Mr. Francis Goodchild and the Innkeeper in front, and the rain in spouts and splashes everywhere, made the best of its way back to the little Inn; the broken moor country looking like miles upon miles of Pre-Adamite sop, or the ruins of some enormous jorum of antediluvian toast-and-water. The trees dripped;the eaves of the scattered cottages dripped; the barren stone-walls dividing the land, dripped; the yelping dogs dripped; carts and waggons under ill-roofed penthouses, dripped; melancholy cocks and hens perching on their shafts, or seeking shelter underneath them, dripped; Mr. Goodchild dripped; Francis Idle dripped; the Innkeeper dripped; the mare dripped; the vast curtains of mist and cloud that passed before the shadowy forms of the hills, streamed water as they were drawn across the landscape. Down such steep pitches that the mare seemed to be trotting on her head, and up such steep pitches that she seemed to have a supplementary leg in her tail, the dog-cart jolted and tilted back to the village. It was too wet for the women to look out, it was too wet even for the children to look out; all the doors and windows were closed, and the only sign of life or motion was in the rain-punctured puddles. Whisky and oil to Thomas Idle&#039;s ankle, and whisky without oil to Francis Goodchild&#039;s stomach, produced an agreeable change in the systems of both: soothing Mr. Idle&#039;s pain, which was sharp before, and sweetening Mr. Goodchild&#039;s temper, which was sweet before. Portmanteaus being then opened and clothes changed, Mr. Goodchild, through having no change of outer garments but broadcloth and velvet, suddenly became a magnificent portent in the Innkeeper&#039;s house, a shining frontispiece to the Fashions for the month, and a frightful anomaly in the Cumberland village. Greatly ashamed of his splendid appearance, the conscious Goodchild quenched it as much as possible, in the shadow of Thomas Idle&#039;s ankle, and in a corner of the little covered carriage that started with them for Wigton- a most desirable carriage for any country, except for its having a flat roof and no sides; which caused the plumps of rain accumulating on the roof to play vigorous games of bagatelle into the interior all the way, and to score immensely. It was comfortable to see how the people coming back in open carts from Wigton market made no more of the rain than if it were sunshine; how the Wigton policeman taking a country walk of half-a-dozen miles (apparently for pleasure), in resplendent uniform, accepted saturation as his normal state; how clerks and schoolmasters in black, loitered along the road without umbrellas, getting varnished at every step; how the Cumberland girls, coming out to look after the Cumberland cows, shook the rain from their eyelashes and laughed it away; and how the rain continued to fall upon all, as it only does fall in hill countries. Wigton market was over, and its bare booths were smoking with rain all down the street. Mr. Thomas Idle, melo-dramatically carried to the Inn&#039;s first floor, and laid upon three chairs (he should have had the sofa, if there had been one), Mr. Goodchild went to the window to take an observation of Wigton, and report what he saw to his disabled companion. &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle. &quot;What do you see from the turret?&quot; &quot;I see,&quot; said Brother Francis, &quot;what I hope and believe to be one of the most dismal places ever seen by eyes. I see the houses with their roofs of dull black, their stained fronts, and their dark-rimmed windows, looking as if they were all in mourning. As every little puff of wind comes down the street, I see a perfect train of rain let off along the wooden stalls in the market-place and exploded against me. I see a very big gas-lamp in the centre which I know, by a secret instinct, will not be lighted to-night. I see a pump, with a trivet underneath its spout whereon to stand the vessels that are brought to be filled with water. I see a man come to pump, and he pumps very hard, but no water follows, and he strolls empty away.&quot; &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle, &quot;what more do you see from the turret, besides the man and the pump, and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and the rain?&quot; &quot;I see,&quot; said Brother Francis, &quot;one, two, three, four, five, linen-drapers&#039; shops in front of me. I see a linen-draper&#039;s shop next door to the right—and there are five more linen- drapers&#039; shops down the corner to the left. Eleven homicidal linen-drapers&#039; shops within a short stone&#039;s throw, each with its hands at the throats of all the rest! Over the small first-floor of one of these linen-drapers&#039; shops appears the wonderful inscription, BANK.&quot; &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle, &#039;&#039;what more do you see from the turret, besides the eleven homicidal linen-drapers&#039; shops, and the wonderful inscription &#039;Bank&#039; on the small first floor, and the man and the pump and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and the rain?&quot; &quot;I see,&quot; said Brother Francis, &quot;the depository for Christian Knowledge, and through the dark vapour I think I again make out Mr. Spurgeon looming heavily. Her Majesty the Queen, God bless her, printed in colours, I am sure I see. I see the Illustrated London News of several weeks ago, and I see a sweetmeat shop—which the proprietor calls a &#039;Salt Warehouse&#039;—with one small female child in a cotton bonnet looking in on tip-toe, oblivious of rain. And I see a watchmaker&#039;s, with only three great pale watches of a dull metal hanging in his window, each in a separate pane.&quot; &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle, &quot;what more do you see of Wigton, besides these objects, and the man and the pump and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and the rain?&quot; &quot;I see nothing more,&quot; said Brother Francis, &quot;and there is nothing more to see, except the curlpaper bill of the theatre, which was opened and shut last week (the manager&#039;s family played all the parts), and the short, square, clunky omnibus that goes to the railway, and leads too rattling a life over the stones to hold together long. O yes! Now, I see two men with their hands in their pockets and their backs towards me.&quot; &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle, &quot;what do you make out from the turret, of the expression of the two men with their hands in their pockets and their backs towards you?&quot; &quot;They are mysterious men,&quot; said brother Francis, &quot;with inscrutable backs. They keep their backs towards me with persistency. If one turns an inch in any direction, the other turns an inch in the same direction, and no more. They turn very stiffly, on a very little pivot, in the middle of the market- place. Their appearance is partly of a mining, partly of a ploughing, partly of a stable, character. They are looking at nothing—very hard. Their backs are slouched, and their legs are curved with much standing about. Their pockets are loose and dog&#039;s-eared, on account of their hands being always in them. They stand to be rained upon, without any movement of impatience or dissatisfaction, and they keep so close together that an elbow of each jostles an elbow of the other, but they never speak. They spit at times, but speak not. I see it growing darker and darker, and still I see them, sole visible population of the place, standing to be rained upon with their backs towards me, and looking at nothing very hard.&quot; &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle, &quot;before you draw down the blind of the turret and come in to have your head scorched by the hot gas, see if you can, and impart to me, something of the expression of those two amazing men.&quot; &quot;The murky shadows,&quot; said Francis Goodchild, &quot;are gathering fast; and the wings of evening, and the wings of coal, are folding over Wigton. Still, they look at nothing very hard, with their backs towards me. Ah! Now, they turn, and I see—&quot; &quot;Brother Francis, brother Francis,&quot; cried Thomas Idle, &quot;tell me quickly what you see of the two men of Wigton!&quot; &quot;I see,&quot; said Francis Goodchild, &quot;that they have no expression at all. And now the town goes to sleep, undazzled by the large unlighted lamp in the market-place; and let no man wake it.&quot; At the close of the next day&#039;s journey, Thomas Idle&#039;s ankle became much swollen and inflamed. There are reasons which will presently explain themselves for not publicly indicating the exact direction in which that journey lay, or the place in which it ended. It was a long day&#039;s shaking of Thomas Idle over the rough roads, and a long day&#039;s getting out and going on before the horses, and fagging up hills, and scouring down hills, on the part of Mr. Goodchild, who in the fatigues of such labours congratulated himself on attaining a high point of idleness. It was at a little town, still in Cumberland, that they halted for the night—a very little town, with the purple and brown moor close upon its one street; a curious little ancient market-cross set up in the midst of it; and the town itself looking, much as if it were a collection of great stones piled on end by the Druids long ago, which a few recluse people had since hollowed out for habitations. &quot;Is there a doctor here?&quot; asked Mr. Goodchild, on his knee, of the motherly landlady of the little Inn: stopping in his examination of Mr. Idle&#039;s ankle, with the aid of a candle. &quot;Ey, my word!&quot; said the landlady, glancing doubtfully at the ankle for herself; &quot;there&#039;s Doctor Speddie.&quot; &quot;Is he a good Doctor?&quot; &quot;Ey!&quot; said the landlady, &quot;I ca&#039; him so. A&#039; cooms efther nae doctor that I ken. Mair nor which, a&#039;s just THE doctor heer.&quot; &quot;Do you think he is at home?&quot; Her reply was, &quot;Gang awa&#039;, Jock, and bring him.&quot; Jock, a white-headed boy, who, under pretence of stirring up some bay salt in a basin of water for the laving of this unfortunate ankle, had greatly enjoyed himself for the last ten minutes in splashing the carpet, set off promptly. A very few minutes had elapsed when he showed the Doctor in, by tumbling against the door before him and bursting it open with his head. &quot;Gently, Jock, gently,&quot; said the doctor as he advanced with a quiet step. &quot;Gentlemen, a good evening. I am sorry that my presence is required here. A slight accident, I hope? A slip and a fall? Yes, yes, yes. Carrock, indeed? Hah! Does that pain you, sir? No doubt, it does. It is the great connecting ligament here, you see, that has been badly strained. Time and rest, sir! They are often the recipe in greater cases,&quot; with a slight sigh, &quot;and often the recipe in small. I can send a lotion to relieve you, but we must leave the cure to time and rest.&quot; This he said, holding Idle&#039;s foot on his knee between his two hands, as he sat over against him. He had touched it tenderly and skilfully in explanation of what he said, and, when his careful examination was completed, softly returned it to its former horizontal position on a chair. He spoke with a little irresolution whenever he began, but afterwards fluently. He was a tall, thin, large-boned, old gentleman, with an appearance at first sight of being hard- featured; but, at a second glance, the mild expression of his face and some particular touches of sweetness and patience about his mouth, corrected this impression and assigned his long professional rides, by day and night, in the bleak hill-weather, as the true cause of that appearance. He stooped very little, though past seventy and very grey. His dress was more like that of a clergyman than a country doctor, being a plain black suit, and a plain white neck-kerchief tied behind like a band. His black was the worse for wear, and there were darns in his coat, and his linen was a little frayed at the hems and edges. He might have been poor—it was likely enough in that out-of-the-way spot-or he might have been a little self-forgetful and eccentric. Anyone could have seen directly, that he had neither wife nor child at home. He had a scholarly air with him, and that kind of considerate humanity towards others which claimed a gentle consideration for himself. Mr. Goodchild made this study of him while he was examining the limb, and as he laid it down, Mr. Goodchild wishes to add that he considers it a very good likeness. It came out in the course of a little conversation, that Doctor Speddie was acquainted with some friends of Thomas Idle&#039;s and had, when a young man, passed some years in Thomas Idle&#039;s birthplace on the other side of England. Certain idle labours, the fruit of Mr. Goodchild&#039;s apprenticeship, also happened to be well known to him. The lazy travellers were thus placed on a more intimate footing with the Doctor than the casual circumstances of the meeting would of themselves have established; and when Doctor Speddie rose to go home, remarking that he would send his assistant with the lotion, Francis Goodchild said that was unnecessary, for, by the Doctor&#039;s leave, he would accompany him, and bring it back. (Having done nothing to fatigue himself for a full quarter of an hour, Francis began to fear that he was not in a state of idleness.) Doctor Speddie politely assented to the proposition of Francis Goodchild, &quot;as it would give him the pleasure of enjoying a few more minutes of Mr. Goodchild&#039;s society than he could otherwise have hoped for,&quot; and they went out together into the village street. The rain had nearly ceased, the clouds had broken before a cool wind from the north-east, and stars were shining from the peaceful heights beyond them. Doctor Speddie&#039;s house was the last house in the place. Beyond it, lay the moor, all dark and lonesome. The wind moaned in a low, dull, shivering manner round the little garden, like a houseless creature that knew the winter was coming. It was exceedingly wild and solitary. &quot;Roses,&quot; said the Doctor, when Goodchild touched some wet leaves overhanging the stone porch; &quot;but they get cut to pieces.&quot; The Doctor opened the door with a key he carried, and led the way into a low but pretty ample hall with rooms on either side. The door of one of these stood open, and the Doctor entered it, with a word of welcome to his guest. It, too, was a low room, half surgery and half parlor, with shelves of books and bottles against the walls, which were of a very dark hue. There was a fire in the grate, the night being damp and chill. Leaning against the chimney-piece looking down into it, stood the Doctor&#039;s Assistant. A man of a most remarkable appearance. Much older than Mr. Goodchild had expected, for he was at least two-and-fifty; but, that was nothing. What was startling in him was his remarkable paleness. His large black eyes, his sunken cheeks, his long and heavy iron-grey hair, his wasted hands, and even, the attenuation of his figure, were at first forgotten in his extraordinary pallor. There was no vestige of color in the man. When he turned his face, Francis Goodchild started as if a stone figure had looked round at him. &quot;Mr. Lorn,&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;Mr. Goodchild.&quot; The Assistant, in a distraught way—as if he had forgotten something—as if he had forgotten everything, even to his own name and himself—acknowledged the visitor&#039;s presence, and stepped further back into the shadow of the wall behind him. But, he was so pale that his face stood out in relief against the dark wall, and really could not be hidden so. &quot;Mr. Goodchild&#039;s friend has met with an accident, Lorn,&quot; said Doctor Speddie. &quot;We want the lotion for a bad sprain.&quot; A pause. &quot;My dear fellow, you are more than usually absent to-night. The lotion for a bad sprain.&quot; &quot;Ah! yes! Directly.&quot; He was evidently relieved to turn away, and to take his white face and his wild eyes to a table in a recess among the bottles. But, though he stood there, compounding the lotion with his back towards them, Goodchild could not, for many moments, withdraw his gaze from the man. When he at length did so, he found the Doctor observing him, with some trouble in his face. &quot;He is absent,&quot; explained the Doctor, in a low voice. &quot;Always absent. Very absent.&quot; &quot;Is he ill?&quot; &quot;No, not ill.&quot; &quot;Unhappy?&quot; &quot;I have my suspicions that he was,&quot; assented the Doctor, &quot;once.&quot; Francis Goodchild could not but observe that the Doctor accompanied these words with a benignant and protecting glance at their subject, in which there was much of the expression with which an attached father might have looked at a heavily afflicted son. Yet, that they were not father and son must have been plain to most eyes. The Assistant, on the other hand, turning presently to ask the Doctor some question, looked at him with a wan smile as if he were his whole reliance and sustainment in life. It was in vain for the Doctor in his easy chair, to try to lead the mind of Mr. Goodchild in the opposite easy chair, away from what was before him. Let Mr. Goodchild do what he would to follow the Doctor, his eyes and thoughts reverted to the Assistant. The Doctor soon perceived it, and, after falling silent, and musing in a little perplexity, said: &quot;Lorn!&quot; &quot;My dear Doctor.&quot; &quot;Would you go to the Inn, and apply that lotion? You will show the best way of applying it, far better than Mr. Goodchild can.&quot; &quot;With pleasure.&quot; The Assistant took his hat, and passed like a shadow to the door. &quot;Lorn!&quot; said the Doctor, calling after him. He returned. &quot;Mr. Goodchild will keep me company till you come home. Don&#039;t hurry. Excuse my calling you back.&quot; &quot;It is not,&quot; said the Assistant, with his former smile, &quot;the first time you have called me back, dear Doctor.&quot; With those words he went away. &quot;Mr. Goodchild,&quot; said Doctor Speddie, in a low voice, and with his former troubled expression of face, &quot;I have seen that your attention has been concentrated on my friend.&quot; &quot;He fascinates me. I must apologise to you, but he has quite bewildered and mastered me.&quot; &quot;I find that a lonely existence and a long secret,&quot; said the Doctor, drawing his chair a little nearer to Mr. Goodchild&#039;s, &quot;become in the course of time very heavy. I will tell you something. You may make what use you will of it, under fictitious names. I know I may trust you. I am the more inclined to confidence to-night, through having been unexpectedly led back, by the current of our conversation at the Inn, to scenes in my early life. Will you please to draw a little nearer?&quot; Mr. Goodchild drew a little nearer, and the Doctor went on thus: speaking, for the most part, in so cautious a voice, that the wind, though it was far from high, occasionally got the better of him. When this present nineteenth century was younger by a good many years than it is now, a certain friend of mine, named Arthur Holliday, happened to arrive in the town of Doncaster, exactly in the middle of the race-week, or, in other words, in the middle of the month of September. He was one of those reckless, rattle-pated, open-hearted, and open-mouthed young gentlemen, who possess the gift of familiarity in its highest perfection, and who scramble carelessly along the journey of life making friends, as the phrase is, wherever they go. His father was a rich manufacturer, and had bought landed property enough in one of the midland counties to make all the born squires in his neighbourhood thoroughly envious of him. Arthur was his only son, possessor in prospect of the great estate and the great business after his father&#039;s death; well supplied with money, and not too rigidly looked after, during his father&#039;s lifetime. Report, or scandal, whichever you please, said that the old gentleman had been rather wild in his youthful days, and that, unlike most parents, he was not disposed to be violently indignant when he found that his son took after him. This may be true or not. I myself only knew the elder Mr. Holliday when he was getting on in years; and then he was as quiet and as respectable a gentleman as ever I met with. Well, one September, as I told you, young Arthur comes to Doncaster, having decided all of a sudden, in his hare-brained way, that he would go to the races. He did not reach the town till towards the close of the evening, and he went at once to see about his dinner and bed at the principal hotel. Dinner they were ready enough to give him; but as for a bed, they laughed when he mentioned it. In the race-week at Doncaster, it is no uncommon thing for visitors who have not bespoken apartments, to pass the night in their carriages at the inn doors. As for the lower sort of strangers, I myself have often seen them, at that full time, sleeping out on the doorsteps for want of a covered place to creep under. Rich as he was, Arthur&#039;s chance of getting a night&#039;s lodging (seeing that he had not written beforehand to secure one) was more than doubtful. He tried the second hotel, and the third hotel, and two of the inferior inns after that; and was met everywhere by the same form of answer. No accommodation for the night of any sort was left. All the bright golden sovereigns in his pocket would not buy him a bed at Doncaster in the race-week. To a young fellow of Arthur&#039;s temperament, the novelty of being turned away into the street, like a penniless vagabond, at every house where he asked for a lodging, presented itself in the light of a new and highly amusing piece of experience. He went on, with his carpet-bag in his hand, applying for a bed at every place of entertainment for travellers that he could find in Doncaster, until he wandered into the outskirts of the town. By this time, the last glimmer of twilight had faded out, the moon was rising dimly in a mist, the wind was getting cold, the clouds were gathering heavily, and there was every prospect that it was soon going to rain. The look of the night had rather a lowering effect on young Holliday&#039;s good spirits. He began to contemplate the houseless situation in which he was placed, from the serious rather than the humorous point of view; and he looked about him, for another public-house to enquire at, with something very like downright anxiety in his mind on the subject of a lodging for the night. The suburban part of the town towards which he had now strayed was hardly lighted at all, and he could see nothing of the houses as he passed them, except that they got progressively smaller and dirtier, the farther he went. Down the winding road before him shone the dull gleam of an oil lamp, the one faint, lonely light that struggled ineffectually with the foggy darkness all round him. He resolved to go on as far as this lamp, and then, if it showed him nothing in the shape of an Inn, to return to the central part of the town and to try if he could not at least secure a chair to sit down on, through the night, at one of the principal Hotels. As he got near the lamp, he heard voices; and, walking close under it, found that it lighted the entrance to a narrow court, on the wall of which was painted a long hand in faded flesh-colour, pointing, with a lean forefinger, to this inscription:— THE TWO ROBINS. Arthur turned into the court without hesitation, to see what The Two Robins could do for him. Four or five men were standing together round the door of the house which was at the bottom of the court, facing the entrance from the street. The men were all listening to one other man, better dressed than the rest, who was telling his audience something, in a low voice, in which they were apparently very much interested. On entering the passage, Arthur was passed by a stranger with a knapsack in his hand, who was evidently leaving the house. &quot;No,&quot; said the traveller with the knap-sack, turning round and addressing himself cheerfully to a fat, sly-looking, bald-headed man, with a dirty white apron on, who had followed him down the passage. &quot;No, Mr. Landlord, I am not easily scared by trifles; but, I don&#039;t mind confessing that I can&#039;t quite stand that.&quot; It occurred to young Holliday, the moment he heard these words, that the stranger had been asked an exorbitant price for a bed at The Two Robins; and that he was unable or unwilling to pay it. The moment his back was turned, Arthur, comfortably conscious of his own well-filled pockets, addressed himself in a great hurry, for fear any other benighted traveller should slip in and forestall him, to the sly-looking landlord with the dirty apron and the bald head. &quot;If you have got a bed to let,&quot; he said, &quot;and if that gentleman who has just gone out won&#039;t pay you your price for it, I will.&quot; The sly landlord looked hard at Arthur. &quot;Will you, sir?&quot; he asked, in a meditative, doubtful way. &quot;Name your price,&quot; said young Holliday, thinking that the landlord&#039;s hesitation sprang from some boorish distrust of him. &quot;Name your price, and I&#039;ll give you the money at once, if you like?&quot; &quot;Are you game for five shillings?&quot; enquired the landlord, rubbing his stubbly double chin, and looking up thoughtfully at the ceiling above him. Arthur nearly laughed in the man&#039;s face; but thinking it prudent to control himself, offered the five shillings as seriously as he could. The sly landlord held out his hand, then suddenly drew it back again. &quot;You&#039;re acting all fair and above-board by me,&quot; he said: &quot;and, before I take your money, I&#039;ll do the same by you. Look here, this is how it stands. You can have a bed all to yourself for five shillings; but you can&#039;t have more than a half-share of the room it stands in. Do you see what I mean, young gentleman?&quot; &quot;Of course I do,&quot; returned Arthur, a little irritably. &quot;You mean that it is a double-bedded room, and that one of the beds is occupied?&quot; The landlord nodded his head, and rubbed his double chin harder than ever. Arthur hesitated, and mechanically moved back a step or two towards the door. The idea of sleeping in the same room with a total stranger, did not present an attractive prospect to him. he felt more than half-inclined to drop his five shillings into his pocket, and to go out into the street once more. &quot;Is it yes, or no?&quot; asked the landlord. &quot;Settle it us quick as you can, because there&#039;s lots of people wanting a bed at Doncaster tonight, besides you.&quot; Arthur looked towards the court, and heard the rain falling heavily in the street outside. He thought he would ask a question or two before he rashly decided on leaving the shelter of The Two Robins. &quot;What sort of a man is it who has got the other bed?&quot; he inquired. &quot;Is he a gentleman? I mean, is he a quiet, well-behaved person?&quot; &quot;The quietest man I ever came across,&quot; said the landlord, rubbing his fat hands stealthily one over the other. &quot;As sober as a judge, and as regular as clock-work in his habits. It hasn&#039;t struck nine, not ten minutes ago, and he&#039;s in his bed already. I don&#039;t know whether that comes up to your notion of a quiet man: it goes a long way ahead of mine, I can tell you.&quot; &quot;Is he asleep, do you think?&quot; asked Arthur. &quot;I know he&#039;s asleep,&quot; returned the landlord. &quot;And what&#039;s more, he&#039;s gone off so fast, that I&#039;ll warrant you don&#039;t wake him. This way, sir,&quot; said the landlord, speaking over young Holiday&#039;s shoulder, as if he was addressing some new guest who was approaching the house. &quot;Here you are,&quot; said Arthur, determined to be beforehand with the stranger, whoever he might be. &quot;I&#039;ll take the bed.&quot; And he handed the five shillings to the landlord, who nodded, dropped the money carelessly into his waistcoat-pocket, and lighted a candle. &quot;Come up and see the room,&quot; said the host of The Two Robins, leading the way to the staircase quite briskly, considering how fat he was. They mounted to the second-floor of the house. The landlord half opened a door, fronting the landing, then stopped, and turned round to Arthur. &quot;It&#039;s a fair bargain, mind, on my side as well as on yours,&quot; he said. &quot;You give me five shillings, I give you in return a clean, comfortable bed; and I warrant, beforehand, that you won&#039;t be interfered with, or annoyed in any way, by the man who sleeps in the same room with you.&quot; Saying those words, he looked hard, for a moment, in young Holliday&#039;s face, and then led the way into the room. It was larger and cleaner than Arthur had expected it would be. The two beds stood parallel with each other—a space of about six feet intervening between them. They were both of the same medium size, and both had the same plain white curtains, made to draw, if necessary, all round them. The occupied bed was the bed nearest the window. The curtains were all drawn round this, except the half curtain at the bottom, on the side of the bed farthest from the window. Arthur saw the feet of the sleeping man raising the scanty clothes into a sharp little eminence, as if he was lying flat on his back. He took the candle, and advanced softly to draw the curtain—stopped half way, and listened for a moment—then turned to the landlord. &quot;He is a very quiet sleeper,&quot; said Arthur. &quot;Yes,&quot; said the landlord, &quot;very quiet.&quot; Young Holliday advanced with the candle, and looked in at the man cautiously. &quot;How pale he is!&quot; said Arthur. &quot;Yes,&quot; returned the landlord, &quot;pale enough, isn&#039;t he?&quot; Arthur looked closer at the man. The bed-clothes were drawn up to his chin, and they lay perfectly still over the region of his chest. Surprised and vaguely startled, as he noticed this, Arthur stooped down closer over the stranger; looked at his ashy, parted lips; listened breathlessly for an instant; looked again at the strangely still face, and the motionless lips and chest; and turned round suddenly on the landlord, with his own cheeks as pale for the moment as the hollow cheeks of the man on the bed. &quot;Come here,&quot; he whispered, under his breath. &quot;Come here, for God&#039;s sake! The man&#039;s not asleep—he is dead!&quot; &quot;You have found that out sooner than I thought you would,&quot; said the landlord composedly. &quot;Yes, he&#039;s dead, sure enough. He died at five o&#039;clock to-day.&quot; &quot;How did he die? Who is he?&quot; asked Arthur, staggered for the moment by the audacious coolness of the answer. &quot;As to who is he,&quot; rejoined the landlord, &quot;I know no more about him than you do. There are his books and letters and things, all sealed up in that brown paper parcel, for the Coroner&#039;s inquest to open tomorrow or next day. He&#039;s been here a week, paying his way fairly enough, and stopping indoors, for the most part, as if he was ailing. My girl brought him up his tea at five to-day; and as he was pouring of it out, he fell down in a faint, or a fit, or a compound of both, for anything I know. We could not bring him to- and I said he was dead. And the doctor couldn&#039;t bring him to- and the doctor said he was dead. And there he is. And the Coroner&#039;s inquest&#039;s coming as soon as it can. And that&#039;s as much as I know about it.&quot; Arthur held the candle close to the man&#039;s lips. The flame still burnt straight up, as steadily as ever. There was a moment of silence; and the rain pattered drearily through it against the panes of the window. &quot;If you haven&#039;t got nothing more to say to me,&quot; continued the landlord, &quot;I suppose I may go. You don&#039;t expect your five shillings back, do you? There&#039;s the bed I promised you, clean and comfortable. There&#039;s the man I warranted not to disturb you, quiet in this world for ever. If you&#039;re frightened to stop alone with him, that&#039;s not my look out. I&#039;ve kept my part of the bargain, and I mean to keep the money. I&#039;m not Yorkshire, myself, young gentleman; but I&#039;ve lived long enough in these parts to have my wits sharpened; and I shouldn&#039;t wonder if you found out the way to brighten up yours, next time you come among us.&quot; With these words, the landlord turned towards the door, and laughed to himself softly, in high satisfaction at his own sharpness. Startled and shocked as he was, Arthur had by this time sufficiently recovered himself to feel indignant at the trick that had been played on him, and at the insolent manner in which the landlord exulted in it. &quot;Don&#039;t laugh,&quot; he said sharply, &quot;till you are quite sure you have got the laugh against me. You shan&#039;t have the five shillings for nothing, my man. I&#039;ll keep the bed.&quot; &quot;Will you?&quot; said the landlord. &quot;Then I wish you a good night&#039;s rest.&quot; With that brief farewell, he went out, and shut the door after him. A good night&#039;s rest! The words had hardly been spoken, the door had hardly been closed, before Arthur half-repented the hasty words that had just escaped him. Though not naturally over-sensitive, and not wanting in courage of the moral as well as the physical sort, the presence of the dead man had an instantaneously chilling effect on his mind when he found himself alone in the room—alone, and bound by his own rash words to stay there till the next morning. An older man would have thought nothing of those words, and would have acted, without reference to them, as his calmer sense suggested. But Arthur was too young to treat the ridicule, even of his inferiors, with contempt—too young not to fear the momentary humiliation of falsifying his own foolish boast, more than he feared the trial of watching out the long night in the same chamber with the dead. &quot;It is but a few hours,&quot; he thought to himself, &quot;and I can get away the first thing in the morning.&quot; He was looking towards the occupied bed as that idea passed through his mind, and the sharp angular eminence made in the clothes by the dead man&#039;s upturned feet again caught his eye. He advanced and drew the curtains, purposely abstaining, as he did so, from looking at the face of the corpse, lest he might unnerve himself at the outset by fastening some ghastly impression of it on his mind. He drew the curtain very gently, and sighed involuntarily as he closed it. &quot;Poor fellow,&quot; he said, almost as sadly as if he had known the man. &quot;Ah, poor fellow!&quot; He went next to the window. The night was black, and he could see nothing from it. The rain still pattered heavily against the glass. He inferred, from hearing it, that the window was at the back of the house; remembering that the front was sheltered from the weather by the court and the buildings over it. While he was still standing at the window—for even the dreary rain was a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, also, because it moved, and had some faint suggestion, in consequence, of life and companionship in it—while he was standing at the window, and looking vacantly into the black darkness outside, he heard a distant church-clock strike ten. Only ten! How was he to pass the time till the house was astir the next morning? Under any other circumstances, he would have gone down to the public-house parlour, would have called for his grog, and would have laughed and talked with the company assembled as familiarly as if he had known them all his life. But the very thought of whiling away the time in this manner was now distasteful to him. The new situation in which he was placed seemed to have altered him to himself already. Thus far, his life had been the common, trifling, prosaic, surface-life of a prosperous young man, with no troubles to conquer, and no trials to face. He had lost no relation whom he loved, no friend whom he treasured. Till this night, what share he had of the immortal inheritance that is divided amongst us all, had lain dormant within him. Till this night, Death and he had not once met, even in thought. He took a few turns up and down the room—then stopped. The noise made by his boots on the poorly carpeted floor, jarred on his ear. He hesitated a little, and ended by taking the boots off, and walking backwards and forwards noiselessly. All desire to sleep or to rest had left him. The bare thought of lying down on the unoccupied bed instantly drew the picture on his mind of a dreadful mimicry of the position of the dead man. Who was he? What was the story of his past life? Poor he must have been, or he would not have stopped at such a place as The Two Robins Inn—and weakened, probably, by long illness, or he could hardly have died in the manner which the landlord had described. Poor, ill, lonely,—dead in a strange place; dead, with nobody but a stranger to pity him. A sad story: truly, on the mere face of it, a very sad story. While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he had stopped insensibly at the window, close to which stood the foot of the bed with the closed curtains. At first he looked at it absently; then he became conscious that his eyes were fixed on it; and then, a perverse desire took possession of him to do the very thing which he had resolved not to do, up to this time—to look at the dead man. He stretched out his hand towards the curtains; but checked himself in the very act of undrawing them, turned his back sharply on the bed, and walked towards the chimney-piece, to see what things were placed on it, and to try if he could keep the dead man out of his mind in that way. There was a pewter inkstand on the chimney-piece, with some mildewed remains of ink in the bottle. There were two coarse china ornaments of the commonest kind and there was a square of embossed card, dirty and fly-blown, with a collection of wretched riddles printed on it, in all sorts of zig-zag directions, and in variously coloured inks. He took the card, and went away, to read it, to the table on which the candle was placed; sitting down, with his back resolutely turned to the curtained bed. He read the first riddle, the second, the third, ail in one corner of the card—then turned it round impatiently to look at another. Before he could begin reading the riddles printed here, the sound of the church-clock stopped him. Eleven. He had got through an hour of the time, in the room with the dead man. Once more he looked at the card. It was not easy to make out the letters printed on it, in consequence of the dimness of the light which the landlord had left him—a common tallow candle, furnished with a pair of heavy old-fashioned steel snuffers. Up to this time, his mind had been too much occupied to think of the light. He had left the wick of the candle unsnuffed, till it had risen higher than the flame, and had burnt into an odd pent-house shape at the top, from which morsels of the charred cotton fell off, from time to time, in little flakes. He took up the snuffers now, and trimmed the wick. The light brightened directly, and the room became less dismal. Again he turned to the riddles; reading them doggedly and resolutely, now in one corner of the card, now in another. All his efforts, however, could not fix his attention on them. He pursued his occupation mechanically, deriving no sort of impression from what he was reading. It was as if a shadow from the curtained bed had got between his mind and the gaily printed letters—a shadow that nothing could dispel. At last, he gave up the struggle, and threw the card from him impatiently, and took to walking softly up and down the room again. The dead man, the dead man, the hidden dead man on the bed! There was the one persistent idea still haunting him. Hidden! Was it only the body being there, or was it the body being there, concealed, that was preying on his mind? He stopped at the window, with that doubt in him; once more listening to the pattering rain, once more looking out into the black darkness. Still the dead man! The darkness forced his mind back upon itself, and set his memory at work, reviving, with a painfully-vivid distinctness the momentary impression it had received from his first sight of the corpse. Before long the face seemed to be hovering out in the middle of the darkness, confronting him through the window, with the paleness whiter, with the dreadful dull line of light between the imperfectly-closed eyelids broader than he had seen it—with the parted lips slowly dropping farther and farther away from each other—with the features growing larger and moving closer, till they seemed to fill the window and to silence the ram, and to shut out the night. The sound of a voice, shouting below stairs, woke him suddenly from the dream of his own distempered fancy. He recognised it as the voice of the landlord. &quot;Shut up at twelve, Ben,&quot; he heard it say. &quot;I&#039;m off to bed.&quot; He wiped away the damp that had gathered on his forehead, reasoned with himself for a little while, and resolved to shake his mind free of the ghastly counterfeit which still clung to it, by forcing himself to confront, if it was only for a moment, the solemn reality. Without allowing himself an instant to hesitate, he parted the curtains at the foot of the bed, and looked through. There was the sad, peaceful, white face, with the awful mystery of stillness on it, laid back upon the pillow. No stir, no change there! He only looked at it for a moment before he closed the curtains again—but that moment steadied him, calmed him, restored him—mind and body to himself. He returned to his old occupation of walking up and down the room; persevering in it, this time, till the clock struck again. Twelve. As the sound of the clock-bell died away, it was succeeded by the confused noise, down stairs, of the drinkers in the tap-room leaving the house. The next sound, after an interval of silence, was caused by the barring of the door, and the closing of the shutters, at the back of the Inn. Then the silence followed again, and was disturbed no more. He was alone now—absolutely, utterly, alone with the dead man, till the next morning. The wick of the candle wanted trimming again. He took up the snuffers—but paused suddenly on the very point of using them, and looked attentively at the candle—then back, over his shoulder, at the curtained bed—then again at the candle. It had been lighted, for the first time, to show him the way up stairs, and three parts of it, at least, were already consumed. In another hour it would be burnt out. In another hour—unless he called at once to the man who had shut up the Inn, for a fresh candle—he would be left in the dark. Strongly as his mind had been affected since he had entered the room, his unreasonable dread of encountering ridicule, and of exposing his courage to suspicion, had not altogether lost its influence over him, even yet. He lingered irresolutely by the table, waiting till he could prevail on himself to open the door, and call, from the landing, to the man who had shut up the Inn. In his present hesitating frame of mind, it was a kind of relief to gain a few moments only by engaging in the trifling occupation of snuffing the candle. His hand trembled a little, and the snuffers were heavy and awkward to use. When he closed them on the wick, he closed them a hair&#039;s breadth too low. In an instant the candle was out, and the room was plunged in pitch darkness. The one impression which the absence of light immediately produced on his mind, was distrust of the curtained bed—distrust which shaped itself into no distinct idea, but which was powerful enough, in its very vagueness, to bind him down to his chair, to make his heart beat fast, and to set him listening intently. No sound stirred in the room but the familiar sound of the rain against the window, louder and sharper now than he had heard it yet. Still the vague distrust, the inexpressible dread possessed him, and kept him in his chair. He had put his carpet-bag on the table, when he first entered the room; and he now took the key from his pocket, reached out his hand softly, opened the bag, and groped in it for his travelling writing-case, in which he knew that there was a small store of matches. When he had got one of the matches, he waited before he struck it on the coarse wooden table, and listened intently again, without knowing why. Still there was no sound in the room but the steady, ceaseless, rattling sound of the rain. He lighted the candle again, without another moment of delay; and, on the instant of its burning up, the first object in the room that his eyes sought for was the curtained bed. Just before the light had been put out, he had looked in that direction, and had seen no change, no disarrangement of any sort, in the folds of the closely-drawn curtains. When he looked at the bed, now, he saw, hanging over the side of it, a long white hand. It lay perfectly motionless, midway on the side of the bed, where the curtain at the head and the curtain at the foot met. Nothing more was visible. The clinging curtains hid everything but the long white hand. He stood looking at it unable to stir, unable to call out; feeling nothing, knowing nothing; every faculty he possessed gathered up and lost in the one seeing faculty. How long that first panic held him he never could tell afterwards. It might have been only for a moment; it might have been for many minutes together. How he got to the bed—whether he ran to it headlong, or whether he approached it slowly—how he wrought himself up to unclose the curtains and look in, he never has remembered, and never will remember to his dying day. It is enough that he did go to the bed, and that he did look inside the curtains. The man had moved. One of his arms was outside the clothes; his face was turned a little on the pillow; his eyelids were wide open. Changed as to position, and as to one of the features, the face was otherwise, fearfully and wonderfully unaltered. The dead paleness and the dead quiet were on it still. One glance showed Arthur this—one glance, before he flew breathlessly to the door, and alarmed the house. The man whom the landlord called &quot;Ben,&quot; was the first to appear on the stairs. In three words, Arthur told him what had happened, and sent him for the nearest doctor. I, who tell you this story, was then staying with a medical friend of mine, in practice at Doncaster, taking care of his patients for him, during his absence in London; and I, for the time being, was the nearest doctor. They had sent for me from the Inn, when the stranger was taken ill in the afternoon; but I was not at home, and medical assistance was sought for elsewhere. When the man from The Two Robins rang the night-bell, I was just thinking of going to bed. Naturally enough, I did not believe a word of his story about &quot;a dead man who had come to life again.&quot; However, I put on my hat, armed myself with one or two bottles of restorative medicine, and ran to the Inn, expecting to find nothing more remarkable, when I got there, than a patient in a fit. My surprise at finding that the man had spoken the literal truth was almost, if not quite, equalled by my astonishment at finding myself face to face with Arthur Holliday as soon as I entered the bedroom. It was no time then for giving or seeking explanations. We just shook hands amazedly; and then I ordered everybody but Arthur out of the room, and hurried to the man on the bed. The kitchen fire had not been long out. There was plenty of hot water in the boiler, and plenty of flannel to be had. With these, with my medicines, and with such help as Arthur could render under my direction, I dragged the man, literally, out of the jaws of death. In less than an hour from the time when I had been called in, he was alive and talking in the bed on which he had been laid out to wait for the Coroner&#039;s inquest. You will naturally ask me, what had been the matter with him; and I might treat you, in reply, to a long theory, plentifully sprinkled with, what the children call, hard words. I prefer telling you that, in this case, cause and effect could not be satisfactorily joined together by any theory whatever. There are mysteries in life, and the conditions of it, which human science has not fathomed yet; and I candidly confess to you, that, in bringing that man back to existence, I was, morally speaking, groping hap-hazard in the dark. I know (from the testimony of the doctor who attended him in the afternoon) that the vital machinery, so far as its action is appreciable by our senses, had, in this case, unquestionably stopped; and I am equally certain (seeing that I recovered him) that the vital principle was not extinct. When I add, that he had suffered from a long and complicated illness, and that his whole nervous system was utterly deranged, I have told you all I really know of the physical condition of my dead-alive patient at the Two Robins Inn. When he &quot;came to,&quot; as the phrase goes, he was a startling object to look at, with his colourless face, his sunken cheeks, his wild black eyes, and his long black hair. The first question he asked me about himself, when he could speak, made me suspect that I had been called in to a man in my own profession. I mentioned to him my surmise; and he told me that I was right. He said he had come last from Paris, where he had been attached to a hospital. That he had lately returned to England, on his way to Edinburgh, to continue his studies; that he had been taken ill on the journey; and that he had stopped to rest and recover himself at Doncaster. He did not add a word about his name, or who he was: and, of course, I did not question him on the subject. All I inquired, when he ceased speaking, was what branch of the profession he intended to follow. &quot;Any branch,&quot; he said bitterly, &quot;which will put bread into the mouth of a poor man.&quot; At this, Arthur, who had been hitherto watching him in silent curiosity, burst out impetuously in his usual good-humoured way: &quot;My dear fellow!&quot; (everybody was &quot;my dear fellow&quot; with Arthur) &quot;now you have come to life again, don&#039;t begin by being down-hearted about your prospects. I&#039;ll answer for it, I can help you to some capital thing in the medical line or, if I can&#039;t, I know my father can.&quot; The medical student looked at him steadily. &quot;Thank you,&quot; he said coldly. Then added, &quot;May I ask who your father is?&quot; &quot;He&#039;s well enough known all about this part of the country,&quot; replied Arthur. &quot;He is a great manufacturer, and his name is Holliday.&quot; My hand was on the man&#039;s wrist during this brief conversation. The instant the name of Holliday was pronounced I felt the pulse under my fingers flutter, stop, go on suddenly with a bound, and beat afterwards, for a minute or two, at the fever rate. &quot;How did you come here?&quot; asked the stranger, quickly, excitably, passionately almost. Arthur related briefly what had happened from the time of his first taking the bed at the inn. &quot;I am indebted to Mr. Holliday&#039;s son then for the help that has saved my life,&quot; said the medical student, speaking to himself, with a singular sarcasm in his voice. &quot;Come here!&quot; He held out, as he spoke, his long, white, bony right hand. &quot;With all my heart,&quot; said Arthur, taking the hand cordially. &quot;I may confess it now,&quot; he continued, laughing, &quot;Upon my honour, you almost frightened me out of my wits.&quot; The stranger did not seem to listen. His wild black eyes were fixed with a look of eager interest on Arthur&#039;s face, and his long bony fingers kept tight hold of Arthur&#039;s hand. Young Holliday, on his side, returned the gaze, amazed and puzzled by the medical student&#039;s odd language and manners. The two faces were close together; I looked at them; and, to my amazement, I was suddenly impressed by the sense of a likeness between them—not in features, or complexion, but solely in expression. It must have been a strong likeness, or I should certainly not have found it out, for I am naturally slow at detecting resemblances between faces. &quot;You have saved my life,&quot; said the strange man, still looking hard in Arthur&#039;s face, still holding tightly by his hand. &quot;If you had been my own brother, you could not have done more for me than that.&quot; He laid a singularly strong emphasis on those three words &quot;my own brother,&quot; and a change passed over his face as he pronounced them—a change that no language of mine is competent to describe. &quot;I hope I have not done being of service to you yet,&quot; said Arthur. &quot;I&#039;ll speak to my father, as soon as I get home.&quot; &quot;You seem to be fond and proud of your father,&quot; said the medical student. &quot;I suppose, in return, he is fond and proud of you?&quot; &quot;Of course, he is!&quot; answered Arthur, laughing. &quot;Is there anything wonderful in that? Isn&#039;t your father fond—&quot; The stranger suddenly dropped young Holliday&#039;s hand, and turned his face away. &quot;I beg your pardon,&quot; said Arthur. &quot;I hope I have not unintentionally pained you. I hope you have not lost your father?&quot; &quot;I can&#039;t well lose what I have never had,&quot; retorted the medical student, with a harsh mocking laugh. &quot;What you have never had!&quot; The strange man suddenly caught Arthur&#039;shand again, suddenly looked once more hard in his face. &quot;Yes,&quot; he said, with a repetition of the bitter laugh. &quot;You have brought a poor devil back into the world, who has no business there. Do I astonish you? Well! I have a fancy of my own for telling you what men in my situation generally keep a secret. I have no name and no father. The merciful law of Society tells me I am Nobody&#039;s Son! Ask your father if he will be my father too, and help me on in life with the family name.&quot; Arthur looked at me, more puzzled than ever. I signed to him to say nothing, and then laid my fingers again on the man&#039;s wrist. No! In spite of the extraordinary speech that he had just made, he was not, as I had been disposed to suspect, beginning to get light-headed. His pulse, by this time had fallen back to a quiet, slow beat, and his skin was moist and cool. Not a symptom of fever or agitation about him. Finding that neither of us answered him, he turned to me, and began talking of the extraordinary nature of his case, and asking my advice about the future course of medical treatment to which he ought to subject himself. I said the matter required careful thinking over, and suggested that I should submit certain prescriptions to him the next morning. He told me to write them at once, as he would, most likely, be leaving Doncaster, in the morning, before I was up. It was quite useless to represent to him the folly and danger of such a proceeding as this. He heard me politely and patiently, but held to his resolution, without offering any reasons or any explanations, and repeated to me, that if I wished to give him a chance of seeing my prescription, I must write it at once. Hearing this, Arthur volunteered the loan of a travelling writing-case, which, he said, he had with him; and, bringing it to the bed, shook the notepaper out of the pocket of the case forthwith in his usual careless way. With the paper, there fell out on the counterpane of the bed a small packet of sticking-plaster, and a little water-colour drawing of a landscape. The medical student took up the drawing and looked at it. His eye fell on some initials neatly written, in cypher, in one corner. He started, and trembled; his pale face grew whiter than ever; his wild black eyes turned on Arthur, and looked through and through him. &quot;A pretty drawing,&quot; he said, in a remarkably quiet tone of voice. &quot;Ah! and done by such a pretty girl,&quot; said Arthur. &quot;Oh, such a pretty girl! I wish it was not a landscape—I wish it was a portrait of her!&quot; &quot;You admire her very much?&quot; Arthur, half in jest, half in earnest, kissed his hand for answer. &quot;Love at first sight!&quot; he said, putting the drawing away again. &quot;But the course of it doesn&#039;t run smooth. It&#039;s the old story. She&#039;s monopolised as usual. Trammelled by a rash engagement to some poor man who is never likely to get money enough to marry her. It was lucky I heard of it in time, or I should certainly have risked a declaration when she gave me that drawing. Here, doctor! Here is pen, ink, and paper all ready for you.&quot; &quot;When she gave you that drawing? Gave it. Gave it.&quot; He repeated the words slowly to himself, and suddenly closed his eyes. A momentary distortion passed across his face, and I saw one of his hands clutch up the bedclothes and squeeze them hard. I thought he was going to be ill again, and begged that there might be no more talking. He opened his eyes when I spoke, fixed them once more searchingly on Arthur, and said, slowly and distinctly, &quot;You like her, and she likes you. The poor man may die out of your way. Who can tell that she may not give you herself as well as her drawing, after all?&quot; Before young Holliday could answer, he turned to me, and said in a whisper, &quot;Now for the prescription.&quot; From that time, though he spoke to Arthur again, he never looked at him more. When I had written the prescription, he examined it, approved of it, and then us both by abruptly wishing us good night. I offered to sit up with him, and he shook his head. Arthur offered to sit up with him, and he said, shortly, with his face turned away, &quot;No.&quot; I insisted on having somebody left to watch him. He gave way when he found I was determined, and said he would accept the services of the waiter at the inn. &quot;Thank you, both,&quot; he said, as we rose to go. &quot;I have one last favour to ask—not of you, doctor, for I leave you to exercise your professional discretion—but of Mr. Holliday.&quot; His eyes, while he spoke, still rested steadily on me, and never once turned towards Arthur. &quot;I beg that Mr. Holliday will not mention to any one—least of all to his father —the events that have occurred, and the words that have passed, in this room. I entreat him to bury me in his memory, as, but for him, I might have been buried in my grave. I cannot give my reasons for making this strange request. I can only implore him to grant it.&quot; His voice faltered for the first time, and he hid his face on the pillow. Arthur, completely bewildered, gave the required pledge. I took young Holliday away with me, immediately afterwards, to the house of my friend; determining to go back to the inn, and to see the medical student again before he had left in the morning. I returned to the inn at eight o&#039;clock, purposely abstaining from waking Arthur, who was sleeping off the past night&#039;s excitement on one of my friend&#039;s sofas. A suspicion had occurred to me, as soon as I was alone in my bedroom, which made me resolve that Holliday and the stranger whose life he had saved should not meet again, if I could prevent it. I have already alluded to certain reports, or scandals, which I knew of, relating to the early life of Arthur&#039;s father. While I was thinking, in my bed, of what had passed at the Inn—of the change in the student&#039;s pulse when he heard the name of Holliday; of the resemblance of expression that I had discovered between his face and Arthur&#039;s; of the emphasis he had laid on those three words, &quot;my own brother;&quot; and of his incomprehensible acknowledgment of his own illegitimacy—while I was thinking of these things, the reports I have mentioned suddenly flew into my mind, and linked themselves fast to the chain of my previous reflections. Something within me whispered, &quot;It is best that those two young men should not meet again.&quot; I felt it before I slept; I felt it when I woke; and I went as I told you, alone to the Inn the next morning. I had missed my only opportunity of seeing my nameless patient again. He had been gone nearly an hour when I inquired for him. I have now told you everything that I know for certain, in relation to the man whom I brought back to life in the double-bedded room of the Inn at Doncaster. What I have next to add is matter for inference and surmise, and is not, strictly speaking, matter of fact. I have to tell you, first, that the medical student turned out to be strangely and unaccountably right in assuming it as more than probable that Arthur Holliday would marry the young lady who had given him the water-colour drawing of the landscape. That marriage took place a little more than a year after the events occurred which I have just been relating. The young couple came to live in the neighbourhood in which I was then established in practice. I was present at the wedding, and was rather surprised to find that Arthur was singularly reserved with me, both before and after his marriage on the subject of the young lady&#039;s prior engagement. He only referred to it once when we were alone, merely telling me, on that occasion, that his wife had done all that honour and duty required of her in the matter, and that the engagement had been broken off with the full approval of her parents. I never heard more from him than this. For three years he and his wife lived together happily. At the expiration of that time, the symptoms of a serious illness first declared themselves in Mrs. Arthur Holliday. It turned out to be a long, lingering, hopeless malady. I attended her throughout. We had been great friends when she was well, and we became more attached to each other than ever when she was ill. I had many long and interesting conversations with her in the intervals when she suffered least. The result of one of those conversations I may briefly relate, leaving you to draw any inferences from it that you please. The interview to which I refer, occurred shortly before her death. I called one evening, as usual, and found her alone, with a look in her eyes which told me that she had been crying. She only informed me at first, that she had been depressed in spirits; but, by little and little, she became more communicative, and confessed to me that she had been looking over some old letters, which had been addressed to her, before she had seen Arthur, by a man to whom she had been engaged to be married. I asked her how the engagement came to be broken off. She replied that it had not been broken off, but that it had died out in a very mysterious way. The person to whom she was engaged— her first love, she called him—was very poor, and there was no immediate prospect of their being married. He followed my profession, and went abroad to study. They had corresponded regularly, until the time when, as she believed, he had returned to England. From that period she heard no more of him. He was of a fretful, sensitive temperament; and she feared that she might have inadvertently done or said something that offended him. However that might be, he had never written to her again; and, after waiting a year, she had married Arthur. I asked when the first estrangement had begun, and found that the time at which she ceased to hear anything of her first lover exactly corresponded with the time at which I had been called in to my mysterious patient at The Two Robins Inn. A fortnight after that conversation, she died. In course of time, Arthur married again. Of late years, he has lived principally in London, and I have seen little or nothing of him. I have many years to pass over before I can approach to anything like a conclusion of this fragmentary narrative. And even when that later period is reached, the little that I have to say will not occupy your attention for more than a few minutes. Between six and seven years ago, the gentleman to whom I introduced you in this room, came to me, with good professional recommendations, to fill the position of my assistant. We met, not like strangers, but like friends—the only difference between us being, that I was very much surprised to see him, and that he did not appear to be at all surprised to see me. If he was my son, or my brother I believe he could not be fonder of me than he is; but he has never volunteered any confidences since he has been here, on the subject of his past life. I saw something that was familiar to me in his face when we first met; and yet it was also something that suggested the idea of change. I had a notion once that my patient at the Inn might be a natural son of Mr. Holliday&#039;s; I had another idea that he might also have been the man who was engaged to Arthur&#039;s first wife; and I have a third idea, still clinging to me, that Mr. Lorn is the only man in England who could really enlighten me, if he chose, on both those doubtful points. His hair is not black, now, and his eyes are dimmer than the piercing eyes that I remember, but, for all that, he is very like the nameless medical student of my young days—very like him. And, sometimes, when I come home late at night, and find him asleep, and wake him, he looks, in coming to, wonderfully like the stranger at Doncaster, as he raised himself in the bed on that memorable night! The doctor paused. Mr. Goodchild who had been following every word that fell from his lips, up to this time, leaned forward eagerly to ask a question. Before he could say a word, the latch of the door was raised, without any warning sound of footsteps in the passage outside. A long, white, bony hand appeared through the opening, gently pushing the door, which was prevented from working freely on its hinges by a fold in the carpet under it. &quot;That hand! Look at that hand, Doctor!&quot; said Mr. Goodchild, touching him. At the same moment, the doctor looked at Mr. Goodchild, and whispered to him, significantly: &quot;Hush! he has come back.&quot;18571010https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No.II_The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices/1857-10-10-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No2.pdf
226https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/226No.III 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>ATYR</em>)<span>Published in&nbsp;<em>All the Year Round</em></span><em>,<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>vol. XIX, no. 462 (29 February 1868), pp. 276-281.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xix/page-276.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/all-the-year-round/volume-xix/page-276.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-02-29">1868-02-29</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=50&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=No.+III%2C+%27George+Silverman%27s+Explanation%27+%28%3Cem%3EAtlantic+Monthly%3C%2Fem%3E%29">No. III, 'George Silverman's Explanation' (<em>Atlantic Monthly</em>)</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1868-02-29-George_Silvermans_Explanation_3_ATYR<div class="element-set"> <div id="dublin-core-bibliographic-citation" class="element"> <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <p><span>Dickens, Charles. No. III 'George Silverman's Explanation' (</span><em>ATYR</em><span>).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;</span><a href="http://dickenssearch.com/admin/short-stories/Accessed%20[date].%20https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02-29-George_Silvermans_Explanation_3_ATYR">Accessed [date]. https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-02-29-George_Silvermans_Explanation_3_ATYR</a></p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="element-set"> <div id="scripto-transcription" class="element"> <div class="field two columns alpha"></div> </div> </div><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EAll+the+Year+Round%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>All the Year Round</em></a>SEVENTH CHAPTER. My timidity and my obscurity occasioned me to live a secluded life at College, and to be little known. No relative ever came to visit me, for I had no relative. No intimate friends broke in upon my studies, for I made no intimate friends. I supported myself on my scholarship, and read much. My College time was otherwise not so very different from my time at Hoghton Towers. Knowing myself to be unfit for the noisier stir of social existence, but believing myself qualified to do my duty in a moderate though earnest way if I could obtain some small preferment in the Church, I applied my mind to the clerical profession. In due sequence I took orders, was ordained, and began to look about me for employment. I must observe that I had taken a good degree, that I had succeeded in winning a good fellowship, and that my means were ample for my retired way of life. By this time I had read with several young men, and the occupation increased my income, while it was highly interesting to me. I once accidentally overheard our greatest Don say, to my boundless joy: &quot;That he heard it reported of Silverman that his gift of quiet explanation, his patience, his amiable temper, and his conscientiousness, made him the best of Coaches.&quot; May my &quot;gift of quiet explanation&quot; come more seasonably and powerfully to my aid in this present explanation than I think it will! It may be, in a certain degree, owing to the situation of my College rooms (in a corner where the daylight was sobered), but it is in a much larger degree referable to the state of my own mind, that I seem to myself, on looking back to this time of my life, to have been always in the peaceful shade. I can see others in the sunlight; I can see our boats&#039; crews and our athletic young men, on the glistening water, or speckled with the moving lights of sunlit leaves; but I myself am always in the shadow looking on. Not unsympathetically—GOD forbid!—but looking on, alone, much as I looked at Sylvia from the shadows of the ruined house, or looked at the red gleam shining through the farmer&#039;s windows, and listened to the fall of dancing feet, when all the ruin was dark, that night in the quadrangle. I now come to the reason of my quoting that laudation of myself above given. Without such reason: to repeat it would have been mere boastfulness. Among those who had read with me, was Mr. Fareway, second son of Lady Fareway, widow of Sir Gaston Fareway, Baronet. This young gentleman&#039;s abilities were much above the average, but he came of a rich family, and was idle and luxurious. He presented himself to me too late, and afterwards came to me too irregularly, to admit of my being of much service to him. In the end I considered it my duty to dissuade him from going up for an examination which he could never pass, and he left College without taking a degree. After his departure, Lady Fareway wrote to me representing the justice of my returning half my fee, as I had been of so little use to her son. Within my knowledge a similar demand had not been made in any other case, and I most freely admit that the justice of it had not occurred to me until it was pointed out. But I at once perceived it, yielded to it, and returned the money. Mr. Fareway had been gone two years or more and I had forgotten him, when he one day walked into my rooms as I was sitting at my books. Said he, after the usual salutations had passed: &quot;Mr. Silverman, my mother is in town here, at the hotel, and wishes me to present you to her.&quot; I was not comfortable with strangers, and I dare say I betrayed that I was a little nervous or unwilling. For said he, without my having spoken: &quot;I think the interview may tend to the advancement of your prospects.&quot; It put me to the blush to think that I should be tempted by a worldly reason, and I rose immediately. Said Mr. Fareway, as we went along: &quot;Are you a good hand at business?&quot; &quot;I think not,&quot; said I. Said Mr. Fareway then: &quot;My mother is.&quot; &quot;Truly?&quot; said I. &quot;Yes. My mother is what is usually called a managing woman. Doesn&#039;t make a bad thing, for instance, even out of the spendthrift habits of my eldest brother abroad. In short, a managing woman. This is in confidence.&quot; He had never spoken to me in confidence, and I was surprised by his doing so. I said I should respect his confidence, of course, and said no more on the delicate subject. We had but a little way to walk, and I was soon in his mother&#039;s company. He presented me, shook hands with me, and left us two (as he said) to business. I saw in my Lady Fareway, a handsome well-preserved lady of somewhat large stature, with a steady glare in her great round dark eyes that embarrassed me. Said my Lady: &quot;I have heard from my son, Mr. Silverman, that you would be glad of some preferment in the Church?&quot; I gave my Lady to understand that was so. &quot;I don&#039;t know whether you are aware,&quot; my Lady proceeded, &quot;that we have a presentation to a Living? I say we have, but in point of fact I have.&quot; I gave my Lady to understand that I had not been aware of this. Said my Lady: &quot;So it is. Indeed, I have two presentations; one, to two hundred a year; one, to six. Both livings are in our county: North Devonshire, as you probably know. The first is vacant. Would you like it?&quot; What with my Lady&#039;s eyes, and what with the suddenness of this proposed gift, I was much confused. &quot;I am sorry it is not the larger presentation,&quot; said my Lady, rather coldly, &quot;though I will not, Mr. Silverman, pay you the bad compliment of supposing that you are, because that would be mercenary. And mercenary I am persuaded you are not.&quot; Said I, with my utmost earnestness: &quot;Thank you, Lady Fareway, thank you, thank you! I should be deeply hurt if I thought I bore the character.&quot; &quot;Naturally,&quot; said my Lady. &quot;Always detestable, but particularly in a clergyman. You have not said whether you would like the Living?&quot; With apologies for my remissness or indistinctness, I assured my Lady that I accepted it most readily and gratefully. I added that I hoped she would not estimate my appreciation of the generosity of her choice by my flow of words, for I was not a ready man in that respect when taken by surprise, or touched at heart. &quot;The affair is concluded,&quot; said my Lady. &quot;Concluded. You will find the duties very light, Mr. Silverman. Charming house; charming little garden, orchard, and all that. You will be able to take pupils. By the bye!—No. I will return to the word afterwards. What was I going to mention, when it put me out?&quot; My Lady stared at me, as if I knew. And I didn&#039;t know. And that perplexed me afresh. Said my Lady, after some consideration: &quot;Oh! Of course. How very dull of me! The last incumbent—least mercenary man I ever saw—in consideration of the duties being so light and the house so delicious, couldn&#039;t rest, he said, unless I permitted him to help me with my correspondence, accounts, and various little things of that kind; nothing in themselves, but which it worries a lady to cope with. Would Mr. Silverman also, like to—? Or shall I—?&quot; I hastened to say that my poor help would be always at her ladyship&#039;s service. &quot;I am absolutely blessed,&quot; said my Lady, casting up her eyes (and so taking them off of me for one moment), &quot;in having to do with gentlemen who cannot endure an approach to the idea of being mercenary!&quot; She shivered at the word. &quot;And now as to the pupil.&quot; &quot;The—?&quot; I was quite at a loss. &quot;Mr. Silverman, you have no idea what she is. She is,&quot; said my Lady, laying her touch upon my coat sleeve, &quot; I do verily believe, the most extraordinary girl in this world. Already knows more Greek and Latin than Lady Jane Grey. And taught herself! Has not yet, remember, derived a moment&#039;s advantage from Mr. Silverman&#039;s classical acquirements. To say nothing of mathematics, which she is bent upon becoming versed in, and in which (as I hear from my son and others) Mr. Silverman&#039;s reputation is so deservedly high!&quot; Under my Lady&#039;s eyes, I must have lost the clue, I felt persuaded; and yet I did not know where I could have dropped it. &quot;Adelina,&quot; said my Lady, &quot;is my only daughter. If I did not feel quite convinced that I am not blinded by a mother&#039;s partiality; unless I was absolutely sure that when you know her, Mr. Silverman, you will esteem it a high and unusual privilege to direct her studies; I should introduce a mercenary element into this conversation, and ask you on what terms—&quot; I entreated my Lady to go no further. My Lady saw that I was troubled, and did me the honour to comply with my request. EIGHTH CHAPTER. Everything in mental acquisition that her brother might have been, if he would; and everything in all gracious charms and admirable qualities that no one but herself could be; this was Adelina. I will not expatiate upon her beauty. I will not expatiate upon her intelligence, her quickness of perception, her powers of memory, her sweet consideration from the first moment for the slow-paced tutor who ministered to her wonderful gifts. I was thirty then; I am over sixty now; she is ever present to me in these hours as she was in those, bright and beautiful and young, wise and fanciful and good. When I discovered that I loved her, how can I say. In the first day? In the first week? In the first month? Impossible to trace. If I be (as I am) unable to represent to myself any previous period of my life as quite separable from her attracting power, how can I answer for this one detail! Whensoever I made the discovery, it laid a heavy burden on me. And yet, comparing it with the far heavier burden that I afterwards took up, it does not seem to me, now, to have been very hard to bear. In the knowledge that I did love her, and that I should love her while my life lasted, and that I was ever to hide my secret deep in my own breast, and she was never to find it, there was a kind of sustaining joy, or pride, or comfort, mingled with my pain. But later on—say a year later on—when I made another discovery, then indeed my suffering and my struggle were strong. That other discovery was—? These words will never see the light, if ever, until my heart is dust; until her bright spirit has returned to the regions of which, when imprisoned here, it surely retained some unusual glimpse of remembrance; until all the pulses that ever beat around us shall have long been quiet; until all the fruits of all the tiny victories and defeats achieved in our little breasts shall have withered away. That discovery was, that she loved me. She may have enhanced my knowledge, and loved me for that; she may have overvalued my discharge of duty to her, and loved me for that; she may have refined upon a playful compassion which she would sometimes show for what she called my want of wisdom according to the light of the world&#039;s dark lanterns, and loved me for that; she may—she must—have confused the borrowed light of what I had only learned, with its brightness in its pure original rays; but she loved me at that time, and she made me know it. Pride of family and pride of wealth put me as far off from her in my Lady&#039;s eyes as if I had been some domesticated creature of another kind. But they could not put me further from her than I put myself when I set my merits against hers. More than that. They could not put me, by millions of fathoms, half so low beneath her as I put myself when in imagination I took advantage of her noble trustfulness, took the fortune that I knew she must possess in her own right, and left her to find herself in the zenith of her beauty and genius, bound to poor rusty plodding Me. No. Worldliness should not enter here, at any cost. If I had tried to keep it out of other ground, how much harder was I bound to try to keep it from this sacred place. But there was something daring in her broad generous character that demanded at so delicate a crisis to be delicately and patiently addressed. After many and many a bitter night (O I found I could cry, for reasons not purely physical, at this pass of my life!) I took my course. My Lady had in our first interview unconsciously over-stated the accommodation of my pretty house. There was room in it for only one pupil. He was a young gentleman near coming of age, very well connected, but what is called a poor relation. His parents were dead. The charges of his living and reading with me were defrayed by an uncle, and he and I were to do our utmost together for three years towards qualifying him to make his way. At this time he had entered into his second year with me. He was well-looking, clever, energetic, enthusiastic, bold; in the best sense of the term, a thorough young Anglo-Saxon. I resolved to bring these two together. NINTH CHAPTER. Said I, one night, when I had conquered myself: &quot;Mr. Granville:&quot; Mr. Granville Wharton his name was: &quot;I doubt if you have ever yet so much as seen Miss Fareway.&quot; &quot;Well, sir,&quot; returned he, laughing, &quot;you see her so much yourself, that you hardly leave another fellow a chance of seeing her.&quot; &quot;I am her tutor, you know,&quot; said I. And there the subject dropped for that time. But I so contrived, as that they should come together shortly afterwards. I had previously so contrived as to keep them asunder, for while I loved her—I mean before I had determined on my sacrifice—a lurking jealousy of Mr. Granville lay within my unworthy breast. It was quite an ordinary interview in the Fareway Park; but they talked easily together for some time; like takes to like, and they had many points of resemblance. Said Mr. Granville to me, when he and I sate at our supper that night: &quot;Miss Fareway is remarkably beautiful, sir, and remarkably engaging. Don&#039;t you think so?&quot;—&quot;I think so,&quot; said I. And I stole a glance at him, and saw that he had reddened and was thoughtful. I remember it most vividly, because the mixed feeling of grave pleasure and acute pain that the slight circumstance caused me, was the first of a long, long series of such mixed impressions under which my hair turned slowly grey. I had not much need to feign to be subdued, but I counterfeited to be older than I was, in all respects (Heaven knows, my heart being all too young the while!), and feigned to be more of a recluse and bookworm than I had really become, and gradually set up more and more of a fatherly manner towards Adelina. Likewise, I made my tuition less imaginative than before; separated myself from my poets and philosophers; was careful to present them in their own light, and me, their lowly servant, in my own shade. Moreover, in the matter of apparel I was equally mindful. Not that I had ever been dapper that way, but that I was slovenly now. As I depressed myself with one hand, so did I labour to raise Mr. Granville with the other; directing his attention to such subjects as I too well knew most interested her, and fashioning him (do not deride or misconstrue the expression, unknown reader of this writing, for I have suffered!) into a greater resemblance to myself in my solitary one strong aspect. And gradually, gradually, as I saw him take more and more to these thrown-out lures of mine, then did I come to know better and better that love was drawing him on, and was drawing Her from me. So passed more than another year; every day a year in its number of my mixed impressions of grave pleasure and acute pain; and then, these two being of age and free to act legally for themselves, came before me, hand in hand (my hair being now quite white), and entreated me that I would unite them together. &quot;And indeed, dear Tutor,&quot; said Adelina, &quot;it is but consistent in you that you should do this thing for us, seeing that we should never have spoken together that first time but for you, and that but for you we could never have met so often afterwards.&quot; The whole of which was literally true, for I had availed myself of my many business attendances on, and conferences with, my Lady, to take Mr. Granville to the house, and leave him in the outer room with Adelina. I knew that my Lady would object to such a marriage for her daughter, or to any marriage that was other than an exchange of her for stipulated lands, goods, and moneys. But, looking on the two, and seeing with full eyes that they were both young and beautiful; and knowing that they were alike in the tastes and acquirements that will outlive youth and beauty; and considering that Adelina had a fortune now, in her own keeping; and considering further that Mr. Granville, though for the present poor, was of a good family that had never lived in a cellar in Preston; and believing that their love would endure, neither having any great discrepancy to find out in the other; I told them of my readiness to do this thing which Adelina asked of her dear Tutor, and to send them forth, Husband and Wife, into the shining world with golden gates that awaited them. It was on a summer morning that I rose before the sun, to compose myself for the crowning of my work with this end. And my dwelling being near to the sea, I walked down to the rocks on the shore, in order that I might behold the sun rise in his majesty. The tranquillity upon the Deep and on the firmament, the orderly withdrawal of the stars, the calm promise of coming day, the rosy suffusion of the sky and waters, the ineffable splendour that then burst forth, attuned my mind afresh after the discords of the night. Methought that all I looked on said to me, and that all I heard in the sea and in the air said to me: &quot;Be comforted, mortal, that thy life is so short. Our preparation for what is to follow, has endured, and shall endure, for unimaginable ages.&quot; I married them. I knew that my hand was cold when I placed it on their hands clasped together; but the words with which I had to accompany the action, I could say without faltering, and I was at peace. They being well away from my house and from the place, after our simple breakfast, the time was come when I must do what I had pledged myself to them that I would do: break the intelligence to my Lady. I went up to the house, and found my Lady in her ordinary business-room. She happened to have an unusual amount of commissions to entrust to me that day, and she had filled my hands with papers before l could originate a word. &quot;My Lady&quot;—I then began, as I stood beside her table. &quot;Why, what&#039;s the matter!&quot; she said, quickly, looking up. &quot;Not much, I would fain hope, after you shall have prepared yourself, and considered a little.&quot; &quot;Prepared myself! And considered a little! You appear to have prepared yourself but indifferently, anyhow, Mr. Silverman.&quot; This, mighty scornfully, as I experienced my usual embarrassment under her stare. Said I, in self-extenuation, once for all: &quot;Lady Fareway, I have but to say for myself that I have tried to do my duty.&quot; &quot;For yourself?&quot; repeated my Lady. &quot;Then there are others concerned, I see. Who are they?&quot; I was about to answer, when she made towards the bell with a dart that stopped me, and said: &quot;Why, where is Adelina!&quot; &quot;Forbear. Be calm, my Lady. I married her this morning to Mr. Granville Wharton.&quot; She set her lips, looked more intently at me than ever, raised her right hand and smote me hard upon the cheek. &quot;Give me back those papers, give me back those papers!&quot; She tore them out of my hands and tossed them on her table. Then seating herself defiantly in her great chair, and folding her arms, she stabbed me to the heart with the unlooked-for reproach: &quot;You worldly wretch!&quot; &quot;Worldly?&quot; I cried. &quot;Worldly!&quot; &quot;This, if you please,&quot; she went on with supreme scorn, pointing me out as if there were some one there to see: &quot;this, if you please, is the disinterested scholar, with not a design beyond his books! This, if you please, is the simple creature whom anyone could overreach in a bargain! This, if you please, is Mr. Silverman! Not of this world, not he! He has too much simplicity for this world&#039;s cunning. He has too much singleness of purpose to be a match for this world&#039;s double-dealing.—What did he give you for it?&quot; &quot;For what? And who?&quot; &quot;How much,&quot; she asked, bending forward in her great chair, and insultingly tapping the fingers of her right hand on the palm of her left: &quot;how much does Mr. Granville Wharton pay you for getting him Adelina&#039;s money? What is the amount of your percentage upon Adelina&#039;s fortune? What were the terms of the agreement that you proposed to this boy when you, the Reverend George Silverman, licensed to marry, engaged to put him in possession of this girl? You made good terms for yourself, whatever they were. He would stand a poor chance against your keenness.&quot; Bewildered, horrified, stunned, by this cruel perversion, I could not speak. But I trust that I looked innocent, being so. &quot;Listen to me, shrewd hypocrite,&quot; said my Lady, whose anger increased as she gave it utterance. &quot;Attend to my words, you cunning schemer who have carried this plot through with such a practised double face that I have never suspected you. I had my projects for my daughter; projects for family connexion; projects for fortune. You have thwarted them, and overreached me; but I am not one to be thwarted and overreached, without retaliation. Do you mean to hold this Living, another month?&quot; &quot;Do you deem it possible, Lady Fareway, that I can hold it another hour, under your injurious words?&quot; &quot;Is it resigned then?&quot; &quot;It was mentally resigned, my Lady, some minutes ago.&quot; &quot;Don&#039;t equivocate, sir. Is it resigned?&quot; &quot;Unconditionally and entirely. And I would that I had never, never, come near it!&quot; &quot;A cordial response from me to that wish, Mr. Silverman! But take this with you, sir. If you had not resigned it, I would have had you deprived of it. And though you have resigned it, you will not get quit of me as easily as you think for. I will pursue you with this story. I will make this nefarious conspiracy of yours, for money, known. You have made money by it, but you have, at the same time, made an enemy by it. You will take good care that the money sticks to you; I will take good care that the enemy sticks to you.&quot; Then said I, finally: &quot;Lady Fareway, I think my heart is broken. Until I came into this room just now, the possibility of such mean wickedness as you have imputed to me, never dawned upon my thoughts. Your suspicions—&quot; &quot;Suspicions. Pah!&quot; said she indignantly. &quot;Certainties.&quot; &quot;Your certainties, my Lady, as you call them; your suspicions, as I call them; are cruel, unjust, wholly devoid of foundation in fact. I can declare no more, except that I have not acted for my own profit or my own pleasure. I have not in this proceeding, considered myself. Once again, I think my heart is broken. If I have unwittingly done any wrong with a righteous motive, that is some penalty to pay.&quot; She received this with another and a more indignant &quot;Pah!&quot; and I made my way out of her room (I think I felt my way out with my hands, although my eyes were open), almost suspecting that my voice had a repulsive sound, and that I was a repulsive object. There was a great stir made, the Bishop was appealed to, I received a severe reprimand, and narrowly escaped suspension. For years a cloud hung over me, and my name was tarnished. But my heart did not break, if a broken heart involves death; for I lived through it. They stood by me, Adelina and her husband, through it all. Those who had known me at College, and even most of those who had only known me there by reputation, stood by me too. Little by little, the belief widened that I was not capable of what was laid to my charge. At length, I was presented to a College-Living in a sequestered place, and there I now pen my Explanation. I pen it at my open window in the summer-time; before me, lying the churchyard, equal resting-place for sound hearts, wounded hearts, and broken hearts. I pen it for the relief of my own mind, not foreseeing whether or no it will ever have a reader.18680229https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No.III_George_Silverman_s_Explanation_[ATYR]/1868-02-29-George_Silvermans_Explanation_3_ATYR.pdf
231https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/231No.III, 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'Published in <em>Household Words,</em> Vol. XVI, No. 394, 17 October 1857, pp. 361-367.Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins<em>Dickens Journals Online, </em><a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-361.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xvi/page-361.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1857-10-17">1857-10-17</a>Scanned material from <em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> www.djo.org.uk. Available under CC BY licence.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Short+story">Short story</a>1857-10-17-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No3<span>Dickens, Charles and Wilkie Collins. No.III 'The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices'.</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig.&nbsp;</span><span>Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-10-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No3">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1857-10-10-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No3</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>The Cumberland Doctor&#039;s mention of Doncaster Races, inspired Mr. Francis Goodchild with the idea of going down to Doncaster to see the races. Doncaster being a good way off, and quite out of the way of the Idle Apprentices (if anything could be out of their way, who had no way), it necessarily followed that Francis perceived Doncaster in the race-week to be, of all possible idlenesses, the particular idleness that would completely satisfy him. Thomas, with an enforced idleness grafted on the natural and voluntary power of his disposition, was not of this mind ; objecting that a man compelled to lie on his back on a floor, a sofa, a table, a line of chairs, or anything he could get to lie upon, was not in racing condition, and that he desired nothing better than to lie where he was, enjoying himself in looking at the flies on the ceiling. But, Francis Goodchild, who had been walking round his companion in a circuit of twelve miles for two days, and had begun to doubt whether it was reserved for him ever to be idle in his life, not only overpowered this objection, but even converted Thomas Idle to a scheme he formed (another idle inspiration), of conveying the said Thomas to the sea-coast, and putting his injured leg under a stream of salt-water. Plunging into this happy conception head-foremost, Mr. Goodchild immediately referred to the county-map, and ardently discovered that the most delicious piece of sea- coast to be found within the limits of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, The Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands, all summed up together, was Allonby on the coast of Cumberland. There was the coast of Scotland opposite to Allonby, said Mr. Goodchild with enthusiasm; there was a fine Scottish mountain on that Scottish coast; there were Scottish lights to be seen shining across the glorious Channel, and at Allonby itself there was every idle luxury (no doubt), that a watering-place could offer to the heart of idle man. Moreover, said Mr. Goodchild, with his finger on the map, this exquisite retreat was approached by a coach-road, from a railway- station called Aspatria—a name, in a manner, suggestive of the departed glories of Greece, associated with one of the most engaging and most famous of Greek women. On this point, Mr. Goodchild continued at intervals to breathe a vein of classic fancy and eloquence exceedingly irksome to Mr. Idle, until it appeared that the honest English pronunciation of that Cumberland country shortened Aspatria into &quot;Spatter.&quot; After this supplementary discovery, Mr. Goodchild said no more about it. By way of Spatter, the crippled Idle was carried, hoisted, pushed, poked, and packed, into and out of carriages, into and out of beds, into and out of tavern resting-places, until he was brought at length within sniff of the sea. And now, behold the apprentices gallantly riding into Allonby in a one-horse fly, bent upon staying in that peaceful marine valley until the turbulent Doncaster time shall come round upon the wheel, in its turn among what are in sporting registers called the &quot;Fixtures&quot; for the month. &quot;Do you see Allonby ? &quot; asked Thomas Idle. &quot;I don&#039;t see it yet,&quot; said Francis, looking out of window. &quot;It must be there,&quot; said Thomas Idle. &quot;I don&#039;t see it,&quot; returned Francis. &quot;It must be there,&quot; repeated Thomas Idle, fretfully. &quot;Lord bless me!&quot; exclaimed Francis, drawing in his head, &quot;I suppose this is it!&quot; &quot;A watering-place,&quot; retorted Thomas Idle, with the pardonable sharpness of an invalid, &quot;can&#039;t be five gentlemen in straw-hats, on a form on one side of a door, and four ladies in hats and falls, on a form on another side of a door, and three geese in a dirty little brook before them, and a boy&#039;s legs hanging over a bridge (with a boy&#039;s body I suppose on the other side of the parapet), and a donkey running away. What are you talking about?&quot; &quot;Allonby, gentlemen,&quot; said the most comfortable of landladies, as she opened one door of the carriage; &quot;Allonby, gentlemen,&quot; said the most attentive of landlords, as he opened the other. Thomas Idle yielded his arm to the ready Goodchild, and descended from the vehicle. Thomas, now just able to grope his way along, in a doubled-up condition, with the aid of two thick sticks, was no bad embodiment of Commodore Trunnion, or of one of those many gallant Admirals of the stage, who have all ample fortunes, gout, thick-sticks, tempers, wards, and nephews. With this distinguished naval appearance upon him, Thomas made a crab-like progress up a clean little bulk-headed staircase, into a clean little bulk-headed room, where he slowly deposited himself on a sofa, with a stick on either hand of him, looking exceedingly grim. &quot;Francis,&quot; said Thomas Idle, &quot;what do you think of this place?&quot; &quot;I think,&quot; returned Mr. Goodchild, in a glowing way, &quot;it is everything we expected.&quot; &quot;Hah!&quot; said Thomas Idle. &quot;There is the sea,&quot; cried Mr. Goodchild, pointing out of window; &quot;and here,&quot; pointing to the lunch on the table, &quot;are shrimps. Let us— &quot; here Mr. Goodchild looked out of window, as if in search of something, and looked in again,—&quot;let us eat &#039;em.&quot; The shrimps eaten and the dinner ordered, Mr. Goodchild went out to survey the watering-place. As Chorus of the drama without whom Thomas could make nothing of the scenery, he by-and-bye returned, to have the following report screwed out of him. In brief, it was the most delightful place ever seen. &quot;But,&quot; Thomas Idle asked, &quot;where is it?&quot; &quot;It&#039;s what you may call generally up and down the beach, here and there,&quot; said Mr. Goodchild, with a twist of his hand. &quot;Proceed,&quot; said Thomas Idle. It was, Mr. Goodchild went on to say, in cross-examination, what you might call a primitive place. Large? No, it was not large. Who ever expected it would be large? Shape? What a question to ask! No shape. What sort of a street? Why, no street. Shops? Yes, of course (quite indignant). How many? Who ever went into a place to count the shops? Ever so many. Six? Perhaps. A library? Why, of course! (indignant again). Good collection of books? Most likely couldn&#039;t say had seen nothing in it but a pair of scales. Any reading-room? Of course, there was a reading-room. Where? Where! why, over there. Where was over there? Why, there! Let Mr. Idle carry his eye to that bit of waste-ground above high water-mark, where the rank grass and loose stones were most in a litter; and he would see a sort of a long ruinous brick loft, next door to a ruinous brick outhouse, which loft had a ladder outside, to get up by. That was the reading-room, and if Mr. Idle didn&#039;t like the idea of a weaver&#039;s shuttle throbbing under a reading-room, that was his look out. He was not to dictate, Mr. Goodchild supposed (indignant again), to the company. &quot;By-the-bye,&quot; Thomas Idle observed; &quot;the company?&quot; Well! (Mr. Goodchild went on to report) very nice company. Where were they? Why, there they were. Mr. Idle could see the tops of their hats, he supposed. What? Those nine straw hats again, five gentlemen&#039;s and four ladies&#039;? Yes, to be sure. Mr. Goodchild hoped the company were not to be expected to wear helmets, to please Mr. Idle. Beginning to recover his temper at about this point, Mr. Goodchild voluntarily reported that if you wanted to be primitive, you could be primitive here, and that if you wanted to be idle, you could be idle here. In the course of some days, he added, that there were three fishing-boats, but no rigging, and that there were plenty of fishermen who never fished. That they got their living entirely by looking at the ocean. What nourishment they looked out of it to support their strength, he couldn&#039;t say; but, he supposed it was some sort of Iodine. The place was full of their children, who were always upside down on the public buildings (two small bridges over the brook), and always hurting themselves or one another, so that their wailings made more continual noise in the air than could have been got in a busy place. The houses people lodged in, were nowhere in particular, and were in capital accordance with the beach; being all more or less cracked and damaged as its shells were, and all empty—as its shells were. Among them, was an edifice of destitute appearance, with a number of wall-eyed windows in it, looking desperately out to Scotland as if for help, which said it was a Bazaar (and it ought to know), and where you might buy anything you wanted—supposing what you wanted, was a little camp-stool or a child&#039;s wheelbarrow. The brook crawled or stopped between the houses and the sea, and the donkey was always running away, and when he got into the brook he was pelted out with stones, which never hit him, and which always hit some of the children who were upside down on the public buildings, and made their lamentations louder. This donkey was the public excitement of Allonby, and was probably supported at the public expense. The foregoing descriptions, delivered in separate items, on separate days of adventurous discovery, Mr. Goodchild severally wound up, by looking out of window, looking in again, and saying, &quot;But there is the sea, and here are the shrimps—let us eat &#039;em.&quot; There were fine sunsets at Allonby when the low flat beach, with its pools of water and its dry patches, changed into long bars of silver and gold in various states of burnishing, and there were fine viewsl—on fine days—of the Scottish coast. But, when it rained at Allonby, Allonby thrown back upon its ragged self, became a kind of place which the donkey seemed to have found out, and to have his highly sagacious reasons for wishing to bolt from. Thomas Idle observed, too, that Mr. Goodchild, with a noble show of disinterestedness, became every day more ready to walk to Maryport and back, for letters; and suspicions began to harbour in the mind of Thomas, that his friend deceived him, and that Maryport was a preferable place. Therefore, Thomas said to Francis on a day when they had looked at the sea and eaten the shrimps, &quot;My mind misgives me, Goodchild, that you go to Maryport, like the boy in the story-book, to ask it to be idle with you.&quot; &quot;Judge, then,&quot; returned Francis, adopting the style of the story-book, &quot;with what success. I go to a region which is a bit of water-side Bristol, with a slice of Wapping, a seasoning of Wolverhampton, and a garnish of Portsmouth, and I say, &#039;Will you come and be idle with me?&#039; And it answers, &#039;No; for I am a great deal too vaporous, and a great deal too rusty, and a great deal too muddy, and a great deal too dirty altogether; and I have ships to load, and pitch and tar to boil, and iron to hammer, and steam to get up, and smoke to make, and stone to quarry, and fifty other disagreeable things to do, and I can&#039;t be idle with you.&#039; Then I go into jagged up-hill and down-hill streets, where l am in the pastrycook&#039;s shop at one moment, and next moment in savage fastnesses of moor and morass, beyond the confines of civilisation, and I say to those murky and black-dusky streets, &#039;Will you come and be idle with me?&#039; To which they reply, &#039;No, we can&#039;t, indeed, for we haven&#039;t the spirits, and we are startled by the echo of your feet on the sharp pavement, and we have so many goods in our shop-windows which nobody wants, and we have so much to do for a limited public which never comes to us to be done for, that we are altogether out of sorts and can&#039;t enjoy ourselves with any one.&#039; So I go to the Post-office, and knock at the shutter, and I say to the Post-master, &#039;Will you come and be idle with me?&#039; To which he rejoins, &#039;No, I really can&#039;t, for I live, as you may see, in such a very little Post-office, and pass my life behind such a very little shutter, that my hand, when I put it out, is as the hand of a giant crammed through the window of a dwarf&#039;s house at a fair, and I am a mere Post-office anchorite in a cell much too small for him, and I can&#039;t get out, and I can&#039;t get in, and I have no space to be idle in, even if I would.&#039; So, the boy,&quot; said Mr. Goodchild, concluding the tale, &quot;comes back with the letters after all, and lives happy never afterwards.&quot; But it may, not unreasonably, be asked—while Francis Goodchild was wandering hither and thither, storing his mind with perpetual observation of men and things, and sincerely believing himself to be the laziest creature in existence all the time—how did Thomas Idle, crippled and confined to the house, contrive to get through the hours of the day? Prone on the sofa, Thomas made no attempt to get through the hours, but passively allowed the hours to get through him. Where other men in his situation would have read books and improved their minds, Thomas slept and rested his body. Where other men would have pondered anxiously over their future prospects, Thomas dreamed lazily of his past life. The one solitary thing he did, which most other people would have done in his place, was to resolve on making certain alterations and improvements in his mode of existence, as soon as the effects of the misfortune that had overtaken him had all passed away. Remembering that the current of his life had hitherto oozed along in one smooth stream of laziness, occasionally troubled on the surface by a slight passing ripple of industry, his present ideas on the subject of self-reform, inclined him—not as the reader may be disposed to imagine, to project schemes for a new existence of enterprise and exertion—but, on the contrary, to resolve that he would never, if he could possibly help it, be active or industrious again, throughout the whole of his future career. It is due to Mr. Idle to relate that his mind sauntered towards this peculiar conclusion on distinct and logically-producible grounds. After reviewing, quite at his ease, and with many needful intervals of repose, the generally-placid spectacle of his past existence, he arrived at the discovery that all the great disasters which had tried his patience and equanimity in early life, had been caused by his having allowed himself to be deluded into imitating some pernicious example of activity and industry that had been set him by others. The trials to which he here alludes were three in number, and may be thus reckoned up: First, the disaster of being an unpopular and a thrashed boy at school; secondly, the disaster of falling seriously ill; thirdly, the disaster of becoming acquainted with a great bore. The first disaster occurred after Thomas had been an idle and a popular boy at school, for some happy years. One Christmas-time, he was stimulated by the evil example of a companion, whom he had always trusted and liked, to be untrue to himself, and to try for a prize at the ensuing half-yearly examination. He did try, and he got a prize—how, he did not distinctly know at the moment, and cannot remember now. No sooner, however, had the book—Moral Hints to the Young on the Value of Time—been placed in his hands, than the first troubles of his life began. The idle boys deserted him, as a traitor to their cause. The industrious boys avoided him, as a dangerous interloper; one of their number, who had always won the prize on previous occasions, expressing just resentment at the invasion of his privileges by calling Thomas into the play-ground, and then and there administering to him the first sound and genuine thrashing that he had received in his life. Unpopular from that moment, as a beaten boy, who belonged to no side and was rejected by all parties, young Idle soon lost caste with his masters, as he had previously lost caste with his school-fellows. He had forfeited the comfortable reputation ot being the one lazy member of the youthful community whom it was quite hopeless to punish. Never again did he hear the head-master say reproachfully to an industrious boy who had committed a fault, &quot;I might have expected this in Thomas Idle, but it is inexcusable, sir, in you, who know better.&quot; Never more, after winning that fatal prize, did he escape the retributive imposition, or the avenging birch. From that time, the masters made him work, and the boys would not let him play. From that time his social position steadily declined, and his life at school became a perpetual burden to him. So, again, with the second disaster. While Thomas was lazy, he was a model of health. His first attempt at active exertion and his first suffering from severe illness are connected together by the intimate relations of cause and effect. Shortly after leaving school, he accompanied a party of friends to a cricket-field, in his natural and appropriate character of spectator only. On the ground it was discovered that the players fell short of the required number, and facile Thomas was persuaded to assist in making up the complement. At a certain appointed time, he was roused from peaceful slumber in a dry ditch, and placed before three wickets with a bat in his hand. Opposite to him, behind three more wickets, stood one of his bosom friends, filling the situation (as he was informed) of bowler. No words can describe Mr. Idle&#039;s horror and amazement, when he saw this young man—on ordinary occasions, the meekest and mildest of human beings—suddenly contract his eyebrows, compress his lips, assume the aspect of an infuriated savage, run back a few steps, then run forward, and, without the slightest previous provocation, hurl a detestably hard ball with all his might straight at Thomas&#039;s legs. Stimulated to preternatural activity of body and sharpness of eye by the instinct of self preservation, Mr. Idle contrived, by jumping deftly aside at the right moment, and by using his bat (ridiculously narrow as it was for the purpose) as a shield, to preserve his life and limbs from the dastardly attack that had been made on both, to leave the full force of the deadly missile to strike his wicket instead of his leg; and to end the innings, so far as his side was concerned, by being immediately bowled out. Grateful for his escape he was about to return to the dry ditch, when he was peremptorily stopped, and told that the other side was &quot;going in,&quot; and that he was expected to &quot;field.&quot; His conception of the whole art and mystery of &quot;fielding,&quot; may be summed up in the three words of serious advice which he privately administered to himself on that trying occasion—avoid the ball. Fortified by this sound and salutary principle, he took his own course, impervious alike to ridicule and abuse. Whenever the ball came near him, he thought of his shins, and got out of the way immediately. &quot;Catch it!&quot; &quot;Stop it!&quot; &quot;Pitch it up!&quot; were cries that passed by him like the idle wind that he regarded not. He ducked under it, he jumped over it, he whisked himself away from it on either side. Never once, throughout the whole innings did he and the ball come together on anything approaching to intimate terms. The unnatural activity of body which was necessarily called forth for the accomplishment of this result threw Thomas Idle, for the first time in his life, into a perspiration. The perspiration, in consequence of his want of practice in the management of that particular result of bodily activity, was suddenly checked; the inevitable chill succeeded; and that, in its turn, was followed by a fever. For the first time since his birth, Mr. Idle found himself confined to his bed for many weeks together, wasted and worn by a long illness, of which his own disastrous muscular exertion had been the sole first cause. The third occasion on which Thomas found reason to reproach himself bitterly for the mistake of having attempted to be industrious, was connected with his choice of a calling in life. Having no interest in the Church, he appropriately selected the next best profession for a lazy man in England—the Bar. Although the Benchers of the Inns of Court have lately abandoned their good old principles, and oblige their students to make some show of studying, in Mr. Idle&#039;s time no such innovation as this existed. Young men who aspired to the honourable title of barrister were, very properly, not asked to learn anything of the law, but were merely required to eat a certain number of dinners at the table of their Hall, and to pay a certain sum of money; and were called to the Bar as soon as they could prove that they had sufficiently complied with these extremely sensible regulations. Never did Thomas move more harmoniously in concert with his elders and betters than when he was qualifying himself for admission among the barristers of his native country. Never did he feel more deeply what real laziness was in all the serene majesty of its nature, than on the memorable day when he was called to the bar, after having carefully abstained from opening his law-books during his period of probation, except to fall asleep over them. How he could ever again have become industrious, even for the shortest period, after that great reward conferred upon his idleness, quite passes his comprehension. The kind benchers did everything they could to show him the folly of exerting himself. They wrote out his probationary exercise for him, and never expected him even to take the trouble of reading it through when it was written. They invited him, with seven other choice spirits as lazy as himself, to come and be called to the bar, while they were sitting over their wine and fruit after dinner. They put his oaths of allegiance, and his dreadful official denunciations of the Pope and the Pretender so gently into his mouth, that he hardly knew how the words got there. They wheeled all their chairs softly round from the table, and sat surveying the young barristers with their backs to their bottles, rather than stand up, or adjourn to hear the exercises read. And when Mr. Idle and the seven unlabouring neophytes, ranged in order, as a class, with their backs considerately placed against a screen, had begun, in rotation, to read the exercises which they had not written, even then, each Bencher, true to the great lazy principle of the whole proceeding, stopped each neophyte before he had stammered through his first line, and bowed to him, and told him politely that he was a barrister from that moment. This was all the ceremony. It was followed by a social supper, and by the presentation, in accordance with ancient custom, of a pound of sweetmeats and a bottle of Madeira, offered in the way of needful refreshment, by each grateful neophyte to each beneficent Bencher. It may seem inconceivable that Thomas should ever have forgotten the great do-nothing principle instilled by such a ceremony as this; but it is, nevertheless, true, that certain designing students of industrious habits found him out, took advantage of his easy humour, persuaded him that it was discreditable to be a barrister and to know nothing whatever about the law, and lured him, by the force of their own evil example, into a conveyancer&#039;s chambers, to make up for lost time, and to qualify himself for practice at the Bar. After a fortnight of self- delusion, the curtain fell from his eyes; heresumed his natural character, and shut up his books. But the retribution which had hitherto always followed his little casual errors of industry followed them still. He could get away from the conveyancer&#039;s chambers, but he could not get away from one of the pupils, who had taken a fancy to him,—a tall, serious, raw-boned, hard-working, disputatious pupil, with ideas of his own about reforming the Law of Real Property, who has been the scourge of Mr. Idle&#039;s existence ever since the fatal day when he fell into the mistake of attempting to study the law. Before that time his friends were all sociable idlers like himself. Since that time the burden of bearing with a hard-working young man has become part of his lot in life. Go where he will now, he can never feel certain that the raw-boned pupil is not affectionately waiting for him round a corner, to tell him a little more about the Law of Real Property, Suffer as he may under the infliction, he can never complain, for he must always remember, with unavailing regret, that he has his own thoughtless industry to thank for first exposing him to the great social calamity of knowing a bore. These events of his past life, with the significant results that they brought about, pass drowsily through Thomas Idle&#039;s memory, while he lies alone on the sofa at Allonby and elsewhere, dreaming away the time which his fellow-apprentice gets through so actively out of doors. Remembering the lesson of laziness which his past disasters teach, and bearing in mind also the fact that he is crippled in one leg because he exerted himself to go up a mountain, when he ought to have known that his proper course of conduct was to stop at the bottom of it, he holds now, and will for the future firmly continue to hold, by his new resolution never to be industrious again, on any pretence whatever, for the rest of his life. The physical results of his accident have been related in a previous chapter. The moral results now stand on record; and, with the enumeration of these, that part of the present narrative which is occupied by the Episode of The Sprained Ankle may now perhaps be considered, in all its aspects, as finished and complete. &quot;How do you propose that we get through, this present afternoon and evening?&quot; demanded Thomas Idle, after two or three hours of the foregoing reflections at Allonby. Mr. Goodchild faultered, looked out of window, looked in again, and said, as he had so often said before, &quot;There is the sea, and here are the shrimps;—let us eat &#039;em!&quot; But, the wise donkey was at that moment in the act of bolting: not with the irresolution of his previous efforts which had been wanting in sustained force of character, but with real vigor of purpose: shaking the dust off his mane and hind-feet at Allonby, and tearing away from it, as if he had nobly made up his mind that he never would be taken alive. At sight of this inspiring spectacle, which was visible from his sofa, Thomas Idle stretched his neck and dwelt upon it rapturously. &quot;Francis Goodchild,&quot; he then said, turning to his companion with a solemn air, &quot; this is a delightful little Inn, excellently kept by the most comfortable of landladies and the most attentive of landlords, but—the donkey&#039;s right!&quot; &quot;The words, &quot;There is the sea, and here are the—,&quot; again trembled on the lips of Goodchild, unaccompanied however by any sound. &quot;Let us instantly pack the portmanteaus,&quot; said Thomas Idle, &quot; pay the bill, and order a fly out, with instructions to the driver to follow the donkey!&quot; Mr. Goodchild, who had only wanted encouragement to disclose the real state of his feelings, and who had been pining beneath his weary secret, now burst into tears, and confessed that he thought another day in the place would be the death of him. So, the two idle apprentices followed the donkey until the night was far advanced. Whether he was recaptured by the town-council, or is bolting at this hour through the United Kingdom, they know not. They hope he may be still bolting; if so, their best wishes are with him. It entered Mr. Idle&#039;s head, on the borders of Cumberland, that there could be no idler place to stay at, except by snatches of a few minutes each, than a railway station. &quot; An intermediate station on a line—a junction—anything of that sort,&quot; Thomas suggested. Mr. Goodchild approved of the idea as eccentric, and they journeyed on and on, until they came to such a station where there was an Inn. &quot;Here,&quot; said Thomas, &quot; we may be luxuriously lazy; other people will travel for us, as it were, and we shall laugh at their folly.&quot; It was a Junction-Station, where the wooden razors before mentioned shaved the air very often, and where the sharp electric-telegraph bell was in a very restless condition. All manner of cross-lines of rails came zig-zaging into it, like a Congress of iron vipers; and, a little way out of it, a pointsman in an elevated signal-box was constantly going through the motions of drawing immense quantities of beer at a public-house bar. In one direction, confused perspectives of embankments and arches were to be seen from the platform; in the other, the rails soon disentangled themselves into two tracks, and shot away under a bridge, and curved round a corner. Sidings were there, in which empty luggage- vans and cattle-boxes often butted against each other as if they couldn&#039;t agree; and warehouses were there, in which great quantities of goods seemed to have taken the veil (of the consistency of tarpaulin), and to have retired from the world without any hope of getting back to it. Refreshment-rooms were there; one, for the hungry and thirsty Iron Locomotives where their coke and water were ready, and of good quality, for they were dangerous to play tricks with; the other, for the hungry and thirsty human Locomotives, who might take what they could get, and whose chief consolation was provided in the form of three terrific urns or vases of white metal, containing nothing, each forming a breastwork for a defiant and apparently much-injured woman. Established at this Station, Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild resolved to enjoy it. But, its contrasts were very violent, and there was also an infection in it. First, as to its contrasts. They were only two, but they were Lethargy and Madness. The Station was either totally unconscious, or wildly raving. By day, in its unconscious state, it looked as if no life could come to it,—as if it were all rust, dust, and ashes—as if the last train for ever, had gone without issuing any Return-Tickets—as if the last Engine had uttered its last shriek and burst. One awkward shave of the air from the wooden razor, and everything changed. Tight office-doors flew open, panels yielded, books, newspapers, travelling-caps and wrappers broke out of brick walls, money chinked, conveyances oppressed by nightmares of luggage came careering into the yard, porters started up from secret places, ditto the much-injured women, the shining bell, who lived in a little tray on stilts by himself, flew into a man&#039;s hand and clamoured violently. The pointsman aloft in the signal-box made the motions of drawing, with some difficulty, hogsheads of beer. Down Train! More beer. Up Train! More beer. Cross Junction Train! More beer. Cattle Train! More beer. Goods Train! Simmering, whistling, trembling, rumbling, thundering. Trains on the whole confusion of intersecting rails, crossing one another, bumping one another, hissing one another, backing to go forward, tearing into distance to come close. People frantic. Exiles seeking restoration to their native carriages, and banished to remoter climes. More beer and more bell. Then, in a minute, the Station relapsed into stupor as the stoker of the Cattle Train, the last to depart, went gliding out of it, wiping the long nose of his oil-can with a dirty pocket-handkerchief. By night, in its unconscious state, the station was not so much as visible. Something in the air, like an enterprising chemist&#039;s established in business on one of the boughs of Jack&#039;s beanstalk, was all that could be discerned of it under the stars. In a moment it would break out, a constellation of gas. In another moment, twenty rival chemists, on twenty rival beanstalks, carne into existence. Then, the Furies would be seen, waving their lurid torches up and down the confused perspectives of embankments and arches—would be heard, too, wailing and shrieking. Then, the Station would be full of palpitating trains, as in the day; with the heightening difference that they were not so clearly seen as in the day, whereas the station walls, starting forward under the gas, like a hippopotamus&#039;s eyes, dazzled the human locomotives with the sauce-bottle, the cheap music, the bedstead, the distorted range of buildings where the patent safes are made, the gentleman in the rain with the registered umbrella, the lady returning from the ball with the registered respirator, and all their other embellishments. And now, the human locomotives, creased as to their countenances and purblind as to their eyes, would swarm forth in a heap, addressing themselves to the mysterious urns and the much-injured women; while the iron locomotives, dripping fire and water, shed their steam about plentifully, making the dull oxen in their cages, with heads depressed, and foam hanging from their mouths as their red looks glanced fearfully at the surrounding terrors, seem as though they had been drinking at half-frozen waters and were hung with icicles. Through the same steam would be caught glimpses of their fellow-travellers, the sheep, getting their white kid faces together, away from the bars, and stuffing the interstices with trembling wool. Also, down among the wheels, of the man with the sledge-hammer, ringing the axles of the fast night-train; against whom the oxen have a misgiving that he is the man with the pole-axe who is to come by-and-bye, and so the nearest of them try to back, and get a purchase for a thrust at him through the bars. Suddenly, the bell would ring, the steam would stop with one hiss and a yell, the chemists on the beanstalks would be busy, the avenging Furies would bestir themselves, the fast night-train would melt from eye and ear, the other trains going their ways more slowly would be heard faintly rattling in the distance like old-fashioned watches running down, the sauce-bottle and cheap music retired from view, even the bedstead went to bed, and there was no such visible thing as the Station to vex the cool wind in its blowing, or perhaps the autumn lightning, as it found out the iron rails. The infection of the Station was this:—When it was in its raving state, the Apprentices found it impossible to be there, without labouring under the delusion that they were in a hurry. To Mr. Goodchild, whose ideas of idleness were so imperfect, this was no unpleasant hallucination, and accordingly that gentleman went through great exertions in yielding to it, and running up and down the platform, jostling everybody, under the impression that he had a highly important mission somewhere, and had not a moment to lose. But, to Thomas Idle, this contagion was so very unacceptable an incident of the situation, that he struck on the fourth day, and requested to be moved. &quot;This place fills me with a dreadful sensation,&quot; said Thomas, &quot;of having something to do. Remove me, Francis.&quot; &quot;Where would you like to go next? &quot; was the question of the ever-engaging Goodchild. &quot;I have heard there is a good old Inn at Lancaster, established in a fine old house: an Inn where they give you Bride-cake every day after dinner,&quot; said Thomas Idle. &quot; Let us eat Bride-cake without the trouble of being married, or of knowing anybody in that ridiculous dilemma.&quot; Mr. Goodchild, with a lover&#039;s sigh, assented. They departed from the Station in a violent hurry (for which, it is unnecessary to observe, there was not the least occasion), and were delivered at the fine old house at Lancaster, on the same night. It is Mr. Goodchild&#039;s opinion, that if a visitor on his arrival at Lancaster could be accommodated with a pole which would push the opposite side of the street some yards farther off, it would be better for all parties. Protesting against being required to live in a trench, and obliged to speculate all day upon what the people can possibly be doing within a mysterious opposite window, which is a shop-window to look at, but not a shop-window in respect of its offering nothing for sale and declining to give any account whatever of itself, Mr. Goodchild concedes Lancaster to be a pleasant place. A place dropped in the midst of a charming landscape, a place with a fine ancient fragment of castle, a place of lovely walks, a place possessing staid old houses richly fitted with old Honduras mahagony, which has grown so dark with time that it seems to have got something of a retrospective mirror-quality into itself, and to show the visitor, in the depths of its grain, through all its polish, the hue of the wretched slaves who groaned long ago under old Lancaster merchants. And Mr. Goodchild adds that the stones of Lancaster do sometimes whisper, even yet, of rich men passed away—upon whose great prosperity some of these old doorways frowned sullen in the brightest weather—that their slave-gain turned to curses, as the Arabian Wizard&#039;s money turned to leaves, and that no good ever came of it, even unto the third and fourth generations, until it was wasted and gone. It was a gallant sight to behold, the Sunday procession of the Lancaster elders to Church—all in black, and looking fearfully like a funeral without the Body—under the escort of Three Beadles. &quot;Think,&quot; said Francis, as he stood at the Inn window, admiring, &quot;of being taken to the sacred edifice by three Beadles! I have, in my early time, been taken out of it by one Beadle; but, to be taken into it by three, O Thomas, is a distinction I shall never enjoy!&quot;18571017https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No.III_The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices/1857-10-17-The_Lazy_Tour_of_Two_Idle_Apprentices_No3.pdf
85https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/85On Macready Going to AmericaSpeech given at Richmond ahead of William Charles Macready&#039;s American theatrical tour (26 August 1843).Dickens, CharlesMacready, William Charles. <em>The Diaries of William Charles Macready 1833-1851</em>. Vol. 2. Ed. William Toynbee. New York: Putnam's, 1912. p. 218.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1843-08-26">1843-08-26</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1843-08-26_Speech_On_Macready_Going_to_America<span>Dickens, Charles. 'On Macready Going to America' (26 August 1843). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1843-08-26_Speech_On_Macready_Going_to_America">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1843-08-26_Speech_On_Macready_Going_to_America</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Star+and+Garter">Star and Garter</a>&#039;Dickens proposed the only toast of the evening, my health etc., in a very feeling and elegant speech.&#039;<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Diary">Diary</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Diaries+of+William+Charles+Macready">The Diaries of William Charles Macready</a>18430826<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Richmond">Richmond</a>
84https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/84On Return from AmericaSpeech given at Greenwich (9 July 1842).Dickens, Charles<em>The Letters of Charles Dickens. The</em><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Pilgrim Edition.<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Edited by Madeline House, Graham Storey and Kathleen Tillotson. Volume 3 (1842-1843), p.264<em>n</em>. Oxford University Press, 1974.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=18420709">18420709</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1842-07-09_Speech_on_Return_from_AmericaDickens, Charles. 'On Return from America' (9 July 1842). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1842-07-09_Speech_on_Return_from_America">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1842-07-09_Speech_on_Return_from_America</a>.&#039;Well, we drank &quot;the Boz&quot;, with a delectable clatter, which drew from him a goood warm hearted speech, in which he hinted the great advantage of going to America for the pleasure of coming back again – &amp; pleasantly described the embarrassing attentions of the Transatlantickers, who made his private house &amp; private cabin particularly public.&#039;<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>189420709<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Greenwich">Greenwich</a>
91https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/91On Thackeray Going to AmericaSpeech given at the London Tavern ahead of William Makepace Thackeray going to America (11 October 1855).Dickens, CharlesForster, John.<em> The Life of Charles Dickens</em>. Ed. J. W. T. Ley. London: Cecil Palmer, 1928. p. 575.; <em>Chester Chronicle</em> (20 October 1855).<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1855-10-11">1855-10-11</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1855-10-11_Speech_On_Thackeray_Going_to_America<span>Dickens, Charles. 'On Thackeray Going to America' (11 October 1855). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1855-10-11_Speech_On_Thackeray_Going_to_America">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1855-10-11_Speech_On_Thackeray_Going_to_America</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a><p>‘Dickens’s speech gave a happy expression to the spirit that animated all, telling Thackeray not alone how much his friendship was prized by those present, and how proud they were of his genius, but offering him in the name of the tens of thousands absent who had never touched his hand or seen his face, life-long thanks for the treasures of mirth, wit, and wisdom within the yellow-covered numbers of <em>Pendennis </em>and <em>Vanity Fair</em>.’</p>; <p>‘The chairman rose, amid furiously friendly applause; he had, he said, decided that it would be the wish of everybody to avoid toasts and speech-making, and he therefore went at once to the one object of the assemblage – to propose the health of Mr. Thackeray.’</p>; <p>‘Mr. Dickens made a neat speech – a very neat speech, in his polished actor-like manner, which has but this defect, that they countenance never swerves with the words – that his superbly brilliant eye stares at you all the time with the fixed clearness of an Argand lamp. He was not fulsome in his compliments to his friend – his highest praise was, that Mr. Thackeray was “no ordinary man,” and he avoided, in praising a novel writing, the laudation of novel-writing, with great tact, merely saying, that he was, with his whole soul, devoted to, and proud of that art, and declaring that Thackeray was an honour, in his life, as in his writings, to that art (which is not altogether too recklessly true). Dexterously he referred to Thackeray’s visit to America, for the purpose of paying a compliment to the Americans, who, he said, whatever motes might be noticed in their keen optics, were to be recognized as a high-spirited, advancing, intellectual, generous race, – the which people who remembered the foolish American notes, cheered as a recantation deserves to be cheered. Mr. Dickens delivered himself in a finished manner of some jokes. The table at which we were dining was horse-shoed in shape; and this table was allegorically or metaphorically pitched at Mr. Thackeray, and nailed on to him by way of securing good luck. Then, it was remembered, that though he went away by himself, he left his creations behind, which was a comfort: - “Jeames” could not act as his servant, and the “snobs” would continue to amuse us. And so on; the wit not magnificent, but sufficient; and so far so good – the speech answered its purpose; and when D., before sitting down, put his little hand into T.’s big hand, and shook T. solemnly, and even pathetically, the room rang with applause – it was an historical picture which Tenniel was taking a note of.’</p>; 'Mr. Dickens rose and said that he would make no more speeches; speeches were a nuisance, and he called on somebody for a song.'; 'Mr. Dickens responded, to the effect that he would not make any more speeches, and called on another (idiot) for a song, which was more frightful than the last...'<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Biography">Biography</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Life+of+Charles+Dickens">The Life of Charles Dickens</a>18551011<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/6/On_Thackeray_Going_to_America/1855-10-11_Speech_On_Thackeray_Going_to_America.pdf
90https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/90Opening of the South-Eastern Railway Company Line from Minster to DealSpeech given at a dinner celebrating the opening of the South-Eastern Railway Company (SER) line from Minster to Deal, Kent (30 June 1847).Dickens, Charles'Opening of the Minster and Deal Railway.' <em>The Railway Times </em>(3 July 1847): p. 875.; <em>Google Books</em>, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_mI3AQAAMAAJ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_mI3AQAAMAAJ</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1847-06-30">1847-06-30</a>Google Books, Fair Use.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1847-06-30_Speech_Opening_of_the_SER_Company_Line_Minster_to_DealDickens, Charles. 'Opening of the South-Eastern Railway Company Line from Minster to Deal' (30 June 1847). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1847-06-30_Speech_Opening_of_the_SER_Company_Line_Minster_to_Deal">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1847-06-30_Speech_Opening_of_the_SER_Company_Line_Minster_to_Deal</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Town+Hall">Town Hall</a><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1847-06-30_Speech_Opening_of_the_SER_Company_Line_Minster_to_Deal.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Opening of the South-Eastern Railway Company Line from Minster to Deal (30 June 1847).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Railway+Times">The Railway Times</a>The allusion, at the bottom of the table, to my travels abroad, is particularly agreeable and pleasant to me at this moment, for I can assure you that I never felt more perfectly and entirely at home than your kind reception has made me. Gentlemen, I confess that I should have felt it a subject of great embarrassment to have my name connected with so great an occasion as the present, under any circumstances, but I feel it particularly so, when the hasty requisition by electric telegraph which brought me here, and which reached me about the middle of the day; but through your kindness, I am relieved of much of that embarrassment. Gentlemen, nothing which extends the happiness, intelligence, and welfare of the human race – nothing which tends to diminish prejudices – nothing which tends to cement us together as one body – nothing which tends to bring down to places such as these those great armies of invasion which my friend on my right has just spoken of, bearing, instead of warlike banners, those little fluttering flags which we have seen to-day – gentlemen, nothing of that kind can be foreign to the profession of literature or art. And nothing so agreeable and so pleasant as the faces I have seen here to-day, and the honest, earnest, and generous welcome that I have witnessed in this room, can be foreign to the breast of any man who is a man. Gentlemen, as time is wearing I will only detain you by saying that I hope and believe that so long as the broad sea rolls on this beautiful beach of Deal – so long as the men who launch their boats on that sea – so well alluded to just now – so long as they are framed for gallantry and skill throughout England and throughout the world, so long I hope and believe that you will feel the advantages of the great work which has been brought home to your doors to-day, in the persons of your sons, and sons&#039; sons&#039;, and your sons&#039; sons&#039; sons. Gentlemen, I beg to return you my most cordial thanks, and to drink all your healths in return.18470630<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Deal">Deal</a>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Kent">Kent</a>https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/6/Opening_of_the_South-Eastern_Railway_Company_Line_from_Minster_to_Deal/1847-06-30_Speech_Opening_of_the_SER_Company_Line_Minster_to_Deal.pdf
251https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/251Polytechnic Institute of BirminghamSpeech for the Polytechnic Institute of Birmingham (28 February 1844).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1844-02-28">1844-02-28</a>1844-02-28_Speech_Polytechnic-Institute-Birmingham<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Polytechnic Institute of Birmingham' (28 February 1844)</span><span>. </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1844-02-28_Speech_Polytechnic-Institute-Birmingham">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1844-02-28_Speech_Polytechnic-Institute-Birmingham</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Town+Hall">Town Hall</a>You will think it very unwise, or very self-denying in me, in such an assembly, in such a splendid scene, and after such a welcome, to congratulate myself on having nothing new to say to you; but I do so notwithstanding. To say nothing of places nearer home, I have had the honour of attending at Manchester shortly before Christmas, and at Liverpool only the night before last (whence I have brought with me a slight hoarseness), for purposes similar to that which bring you together now; and, looking down a short perspective of similar engagements, I feel immense satisfaction in the thought that I shall very soon have nothing at all to say; in which case I shall be content to stake my reputation, like the Spectator of Addison, and that other great periodical Spectator, the Speaker of the House of Commons, on my powers of listening. That feeling, and your earnest reception of me, are not my only reasons for feeling a genuine, cordial, and sincere pleasure in the proceedings tonight. The Polytechnic Institution of Birmingham is now in its infancy, struggling into life under all those adverse and disadvantageous circumstances which, to a greater or lesser extent, naturally beset all infancy; but I would much rather connect myself with its records now, however humble, in its days of difficulty and danger, than look back upon its origin when it may have become strong, and rich, and powerful. I should prefer an intimate association with it now, in its early days and apparent struggles, to becoming its advocate an acquaintance, i&#039;s fair-weather friend, in its high and palmy days. I would rather be able to say to it, ‘I knew you in your swaddling clothes. Your two elder brothers had drooped and died, their chests were weak. About your cradle nurses shook their heads, and gossips groaned; but up you shots apace, up, up, indomitable in your constitution, strong in your tone and muscle, well-knit in your figure, steady in your pulse, wise and temperate in your speech, of good repute in all your doings, until you have grown a very giant.’ Birmingham is, in my mind, and in the minds of most men, associated with many giants; and I can no more believe that this young institution will turn out sickly, dwarfish, or of stunted growth, then I can that when my glass slipper of chairmanship falls off, and the clock strikes twelve tonight, that this hall will be turned into a pumpkin! I found that strong belief upon the splendid array of grace and beauty by which I am surrounded, and which, if it only had 100th part of the effect upon others it has upon me, could do anything it pleased, with anything in anybody. I found my strong conviction, in the second place, upon the public spirit of the town of Birmingham – upon the name, and famous of its capitalists and working men; upon the greatness and importance of its merchants and manufacturers; upon its inventions, which are constantly in progress; upon the skill and intelligence of its artisans, which are daily developing; and the increased knowledge of all portions of the community. All these reasons lead me to the conclusion that your institution will advance, that it will and must progress, that the town will stride in advance of time, and will not content itself with lingering leagues behind. I have another peculiar ground of satisfaction in connexion with the object of this assembly, and it is this: that the resolutions about to be proposed do not contain in themselves anything of a sectarian or class nature; that they do not confine themselves to anyone single institution, but assert the great and omnipotent principles of comprehensive education, everywhere, and under each and every circumstance. I beg leave to say that I can concur heart and hand in those principles, and will do all in my power for their advancement; for such imperfect knowledge as I possess of the mass of my fellow creatures, and their condition in this country, weds me to this principal heart and hand, beyond all powers of divorcement but one. I hold that for any fabric of society to go on day after day, and year after year, from father to son, and from grandfather to grandson, unceasingly punishing men for not engaging in the pursuit of virtue and for the practice of crime, without showing them the way to virtue, has no foundation in justice, has no foundation in religion, has no foundation in truth, and has only one parallel in fiction that I know of, – which is the case of an obdurate old Genie, in the Arabian Nights, who was bent on taking the life of a certain merchant, because he had struck out the eye of his invisible son. Again, if I may refer to another tale in the same book of charming fancies – not inappropriate to the present occasion – there is the case of a powerful spirit who had been imprisoned at the bottom of the sea, shut up in a casket with a leaden cover, sealed with the seal of Solomon upon it. There he lay neglected for many centuries, and during that period made many different vows: at first, that he would reward magnificently those who should release him, and, at last, that he would destroy them. Now, there is a spirits of great power, the Spirit of Ignorance, long shut up in a vessel of Obstinate Neglect, with a great deal of lead in its composition, and sealed with the seal of many, many Solomons, and which is exactly in the same position. Release it in time, and it will bless, restore, and reanimates society; but let it lie under the rolling waves of years, and its blind revenge at last will be destruction. That there are classes which, rightly treated, are our strength, and wrongly treated are our weakness, I hold it impossible to deny; and that for these industrious, intelligent, and honourably independent classes, in whom Birmingham is, especially interested, there are no means of mutual instruction and improvement so peculiarly adapted to their circumstances as a Mechanics’ Institute, is a proposition which I take to be, by this time, quite beyond disproof. Far be it from me, and here I wish to be most particularly understood, to attempt to depreciate the excellent Church instruction Societies, or the worthy, sincere and temperate zeal of those reverend gentlemen by whom they usually conducted. On the contrary I believe that they have done, and are doing, much good, and are deserving of high praise; but I hope it may be said, without offence, that in a community such as Birmingham, there are other objects not unworthy in the light of heaven – and objects of unrecognized utility – which are worthy of support, but which lie beyond their influence: principles which are practised in word and deed, in Polytechnic Institutions, principles for the diffusion of which honest men of all degrees and of every creed may associate together on an independent footing and on neutral ground, and at small expense, for the better understanding and the greater consideration of each other, and for the better cultivation of the happiness of all. But it surely cannot be allowed that those who labour day by day, surrounded by machinery, shall be permitted to degenerate into machines themselves; but, on the contrary, they should be able to assert the common origin in that Creator from whose wondrous hands they came, and unto whom, responsible and thinking men, they will return. There is, indeed, no difference in the main with respect to the dangers of ignorance, and the advantages of knowledge, between those who hold different opinions; for, it is to be observed, that those who are most distrustful of the advantages of education, are always the first to exclaim against the results of ignorance. This fact was pleasantly illustrated on the railway, as I came here. In the same carriage with me, there sat an ancient gentleman (I feel no delicacy in alluding to him, for I know that he is not in the room, having got out far short of Birmingham), who expressed himself most mournfully as to the ruinous effects and rapid spread of railways, and was most pathetic upon the virtues of the slow-going old stage coaches. Now I, entertaining some little lingering kindness for the road, made shift to express my concurrence with the old gentleman’s opinion, without any great compromise of my own. Well, we got on tolerably comfortably together; and when the engine, with a frightful screech, dived into the darkness, like some strange aquatic monster, the old gentleman said this would never do, and I agreed with him. When it parted from each successive station with a shock and a shriek, as if it had had a double tooth drawn, the old gentleman shook his head, and I shook mine. When he burst forth against such new fangled notions, and said that no good could come from them, I did not contest the point. But I invariably found that when the speed of the engine was abated, or there was the slightest prolongation of our stay at any station, the old gentleman was up in arms, and his watch was instantly out of his pocket, denouncing the slowness of our progress. Now I could not help comparing this old gentleman to that ingenious class of persons who are in the constant habit of declaiming against the views and crimes of society and at the same time are the first and foremost to assert that vice and crime have not their common origin in ignorance and discontent. The good work, however, in which whatever maybe your parties and opinions you are all deeply interested, has been well begun. We are all interested in it, it is advancing and cannot be stopped by any opposition although it may be retarded, in this place or that, by the indifference of the middle classes, with whom it successful progress chiefly rests. Of this success I cannot entertain a doubt; for whenever the working classes enjoy an opportunity of effectually rebutting accusations, which falsehood or thoughtlessness have brought against them, they always avail themselves of it, and show themselves in their true characters; and it is this which made the damage done to a single picture in the National Gallery in London, by some poor lunatic cripple, a mere matter of newspaper notoriety and wonder for some few days. This has established a fact evident to the meanest comprehension, that any number of thousands of persons of the humblest condition of life in this country, can pass through that same National Gallery, or the British Museum, in seasons of holiday making, without damaging in the slightest degree, the smallest rarity, in either wonderful collection. I do not myself believe that the working classes were ever the wanton or mischievous persons they have been so often and so long represented to be; but I rather incline to the opinion that some wise men took it into their heads to lay it down as a matter of fact, without being particular about the premises, and that the idle and prejudiced, not wishing to have the trouble of forming opinions for themselves, took it for granted – until the people had an opportunity for disproving, the stigma and vindicating themselves before the world. Now this assertion is well illustrated by what has occurred respecting an equestrian statue in the metropolis, with respect to which a legend existed that the sculptor hanged himself, because he had neglected to put a girth to the saddle. The story was currently believed for many years, until it was inspected for a different purpose, and it was found to have had a girth all the time. But surely if, as it is stated, the people are ill disposed and mischievous, surely that is the best reason that can be offered for teaching them better; if they are not, surely that is a reason for giving them every opportunity of vindicating their injured reputation; and they cannot possibly, I think, have a better one than the opportunity of associating together voluntarily for such high purposes as it is proposed to carry out by the establishment of the Birmingham Polytechnic Institution. In any case, and in every case, if you would reward honesty, if you would give encouragement to good, if you would stimulate the idle, eradicate evil, or correct what is bad, education – comprehensive liberal education – is the one thing needful, and the one effective end. And if I may apply to my purpose, and render into plain prose, some words of Hamlet, not with reference to any government or party (for party being, for the most part, an irrational sort of thing, has no connexion with the object we have in view), and if I might apply those words to education as Hamlet applied them to the skull of Yorick, the King’s Jester, I would say, ‘Now hie thee to the council chamber, and tell them, though they lay it on in sounding language and fine words an inch thick, to this complexion they must come at last’. Ladies and Gentlemen, We are now even, for if I have ever been as fortunate as to touch your feelings, you have amply returned the compliment. But I am as little disposed to say to you, ‘Go, and sin no more’, in this wise, as I am to promise of myself that ‘I will never do so again’. As long as I can make you laugh or cry, I will; and you will easily believe me when I say that you cannot do too much on your parts to show me that we are still cordial and loving friends. To you, ladies of the institution, I am – as who is not? – especially and deeply indebted. I have sometimes thought that much of whatever little magic lies in that short name yonder must be attributable to its having as many letters in it as there at were three Graces, and to the Graces having been of your fair sisterhood. A story is told of an eastern potentate of modern times, who, for an eastern potentate, was a tolerably good man – sometimes bow-stringing his friends rather indiscriminately in his moments of anger, but burying them with great splendour in his moments of penitence – that whenever intelligence was brought him of any new plot or turbulent conspiracy, his first inquiry always was, ‘Who is she?’ – meaning that there must be a woman at the bottom of it. In my small way, I differ from that potentate. Whenever any good is to be done, and any great end is to be attained, any ministering angel’s hand is needed, my first inquiry always is, ‘Where is she?’ And the certain answer is, ‘She is here&#039;. Ladies and gentlemen, you have made me very proud and happy, and with all my heart I thank you for your heartfelt generosity, A thousand times, goodnight: A thousand times the worst to want your light!18440228<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Birmingham">Birmingham</a>
237https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/237Presentation to Captain HewettA speech given at the presentation to Captain Hewett, Boston (29 January 1842).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1842-01-29">1842-01-29</a>1842-01-29_Speech_Presentation-to-Captain-Hewett<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Presentation to Captain Hewett </span><span>(29 January 1842). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1842-01-29_Speech_Presentation-to-Captain-Hewett">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1842-01-29_Speech_Presentation-to-Captain-Hewett</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Tremont+Theatre">Tremont Theatre</a>Ladies and gentlemen, I am assured by your presence here this morning that you have become acquainted with the nature of the welcome duty which I have to discharge, and which is most pleasantly commended to me in a double sense: firstly because it cannot fail to be gratifying to a worthy man who has established a strong claim upon my interest and esteem; and, secondly, because it affords me an opportunity of meeting you, whom I have a thousand reasons for longing to see, here, or anywhere.&amp;nbsp; It may be known to you, perhaps, that passengers on board the Britannia Steamship which bore me and some four score others to these happy shores, held a meeting together the day before our arrival, the object of which to do honour to Captain Hewett, the able commander under whose guidance we had crossed the wide Atlantic. I, and two other gentlemen, (one of whom stands near me, and the other of whom is prevented by business from attending here today) had the honour to be deputed by that meeting to carry its intention into effect. In the execution of the trust reposed in us by our fellow passengers, we are most desirous to impress you with the fact that this is very far from being an ordinary or matter of course proceeding: that it is not a matter of form, but of good sound substance; that in presenting Captain Hewett with these slight and frail memorials, we are not following out a hollow custom, but are imperfectly expressing the warmest and most earnest feelings, being well assured that with God’s blessing we owe our safety and preservation under circumstances of unusual peril, to his ability, courage, and skill. You will please to understand that these tokens on the table are an acknowledgement, not in themselves, but in the feeling which dictates their presentation, of many long and weary nights of watching and fatigue, of great exertion of body, and much anxiety of mind, and of the prompt and efficient discharge of arduous duties such as do not often present themselves. In a word, this is anything but an extraordinary return for really extraordinary services; and we wish you to regard it in that light that our present may have the value which it was intended to bear, and which is far enough removed, Heaven knows, from its intrinsic worth or beauty. Captain Hewett, I am very proud and happy to have been selected as the instrument of conveying to you the heartfelt thanks of my fellow passengers on board the ship entrusted to your charge, and of entreating your acceptance of this trifling present. The ingenious artists who work in silver do not always, I find, keep their promises even in Boston. I regret that instead of two goblets, which there should be here, there is at present only one. This deficiency, however, will soon be supplied; and when it is, our little testimonial will be, so far, complete. You are a sailor, Captain Hewett, in the truest sense of the word; and the devoted admiration of the ladies, God bless them, is a sailor’s first boast. I need not enlarge upon the honour they have done you, I am sure, by their presence here. Judging of you by myself, I am certain that the recollection of their beautiful faces will cheer your lonely vigils upon the ocean for a long time to come. In all time to come, and in all your voyages upon the sea, I hope you will have a thought for those who wish to live in your memory by the help of these trifles. As they will often connect you with the pleasures of those homes and firesides from which they once wandered, and which, but for you, they might never have regained, so they that trust that you will sometimes associate them with your hours of festive enjoyment: and that when you drink from these cups, you will feel that the draught is commended to your lips by friends whose best wishes you have, and who earnestly and truly hope for your success, happiness, and prosperity in all the undertakings of your life.18420129<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Boston">Boston</a>
245https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/245Printers&#039; Pension Society Anniversary Festival 1843Toast at the Printers&#039; Pension Society Anniversary Festival (4 April 1843).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1843-04-04">1843-04-04</a>1843-04-04_Speech_Printers-Pension-Society<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Printers' Pension Society Annual Dinner' </span><span>(4 April 1843). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1843-04-04_Speech_Printers-Pension-Society">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1843-04-04_Speech_Printers-Pension-Society</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a><p>It had, he observed, a more immediate reference to the object for which they were that day assembled. The Printers’ Pension Society had existed, as most them no doubt knew, about sixteen years, and was founded for the purpose of maintaining the widows of deceased printers, or decayed printers themselves. The amounts awarded in the estimation of some might be said to be small, – the good that was done was great. It afforded to many, and the most deserving persons, relief in the hour of distress, – that distress which sooner or later comes to most of us. But the printers were peculiarly liable to premature decay, to injury in their faculties when many others were still able to earn their daily bread (which was a fact known to most of them) from the character of their occupation – the late and arduous hours during which they were obliged to tax powers that were often of the most delicate nature.</p> <p>That peculiar liability to decay gave printers powerful claims to their sympathy and support. But that claim was largely enhanced when they recollected that by the printers’ means they were enabled to scatter throughout the world the loftiest efforts of intellect – the ‘thoughts that breathe, the words that burn’ – to send to every part of the universe the great imaginings of the most accomplished minds, to instruct and regenerate mankind. When they reflected thus – and who could avoid it? – the claims of the printers became irresistible. He felt quite assured from what took place at the last election for pensioners, and from what he saw now in that room, that everyone would promptly put his hand into whatever pocket he had, and thereby enable their Treasure to make a most favourable report. He was sure it was unnecessary to add more to arouse their sympathies; but he could assure them that the knockings at the door of the institution were very numerous.</p> <p>Be it borne in mind that this institution gave no encouragement to thoughtlessness and extravagance; for every claimant must have contributed to the funds for some years before he was qualified should necessity arise to appeal for aid. Many had belonged to it from its foundation. He knew many who were so circumstanced. The institution was further valuable as generating good feeling among the workmen themselves. On every account they deserved the respect and consideration of every honest man, to the truth of which he could bear ample testimony from considerable intercourse with that valuable body of men. There was an asylum for warriors who had fought the battles of their country, and most justly and properly; but, in God’s name, let them sustain an asylum for those who suffered in struggles, in the bloodless contests, of promoting knowledge, of civilizing or of improving mankind, and of advancing the peaceful superiority of human beings. He gave them 'The Printers’ Pension Society, and prosperity to it'.</p> <p>He felt deeply obliged, he said, for the kindness thus shown, and the enthusiastic manner in which it had been evinced. There were few proceedings which went so home to his heart, as such testimonies of kind regards.</p> <p>He then continued:</p> <p>He had, he said, to propose another toast, and he would introduce it with a remark or two, not because they were requisite, but because such a toast on such an occasion ought not to be named without some observation.</p>; <p>He had next to propose, he said, ‘The Stationers’ Company’. He believed that notwithstanding what had been declared by a Noble and learned Lord, ‘a friend of ours elsewhere’, the Stationers’ Company were alive and doing well, and that Stationers’ Hall still stood where it did. He gave, with great pleasure, ‘The Stationers’ Company, the steady supporters of the Printers’ Pension Society’.</p>The Printers’ Pension Society, and prosperity to it. I now give ‘The Press’, that wonderful lever Archimedes wished for, and which has moved the world! which has impelled it onward in the path of knowledge, of mercy, and of human improvement so far that nothing in the world can ever roll it back! The mass of the people, said Dr. Johnson very truly, in any country where printing is unknown, must be barbarous; and Sir Thomas More, the best, and wisest, and the greatest of men, who, before the press was established, died what was almost the natural death of the good, and the wise and the great – Sir Thomas More so clearly saw into futurity, and descried from afar off the stupendous influence of the press, that he went out of his way to set up a printing-press in Utopia, knowing that without it even the people of that fancied land would not bear competition in the course of years with the real nations of the earth. If they looked back only for two hundred years, to that time when the Dutch citizen carved letters on the bark of the beechen tree, and took off impressions of them on paper as toys to please his grand-children – he little knew the wonderful agent which, in scarcely a century, was about to burst on mankind; what a strong engine in the course of time it must become, even in the land where the ruthless vices and crimes of the anointed ruffian who spread More’s bloody pillow were to acquire him an immortality of infamy. I thank God that it has been so; from that hour no good has been devised, no wonderful invention has been broached, no barbarism has been struck down, but that same press has had its iron grip upon it, and never once has it let it till it was done. If we look at our social and daily life, we shall see how constantly present the press is, and how essential an element it has become of civilized existence. In great houses, and even in lowly huts, in crowds, and in solitudes, in town and country, in the nursery of the children and by the old man’s elbow chair – still, in some shape or other, there it is! Now it is an alphabet, with its fat black capital letters; now in the form of whole words; now in the story of Puss in Boots; now as Robinson Crusoe; now as a tale of the Caliph Haroun al-Raschid; now as a Lindley Murray; now as a Tutor’s Assistant; then as a Virgil, a Homer, or a Milton; now in the form of the labours of the editor of a popular newspaper: in some shape or other the press is constantly present and associated with our lives, from the baptismal service to the burial of the dead. I know that to some its power is obnoxious. There are some gentlemen of a patriotism so unselfish that they would put the newspaper press of their native country on an equality of efficiency with that of another nation, which, as long ago as Benjamin Franklin wrote, was an unique, a distinct and a singular thing. But as we have means of judging for ourselves every morning and evening of the newspaper literature, it is satisfactory to know that there never was a righteous cause but the same men have hated it; and there never was a disappointed man or a discontented patriot, anxious to pass upon a people determined not to recognize him as such, but he has bemoaned the privileges of the press in the same crocodile’s tears. With regard to the influence of the press on public men, I only leave you to judge from what public men often are even with this engine in full operation, what sort of characters they would be without it. I give you then, – ‘The fountain of Knowledge and the bulwark of Freedom, the founder of free states and their preserver – the Press!’<br /> The Stationers’ Company, the steady supporters of the Printers’ Pension Society.18430404<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
264https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/264Printers&#039; Pension Society Anniversary Festival 1864Chairman&#039;s Speeches at the Printers&#039; Pension Society Anniversary Festival (6 April 1864).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1864-04-06">1864-04-06</a>1864-04-06_Speech_Printers-Pension-Society-Anniversary-Festival<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Chairman's Speeches at the Printers' Pension Society Anniversary Festival' (6 April 1864).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1864-04-06_Speech_Printers-Pension-Society-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1864-04-06_Speech_Printers-Pension-Society-Anniversary-Festival</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a>I do not know whether my feelings are exceptional, but I have a distinct recollection (in my early days at school, when under the dominion of an old lady, who to my mind ruled the world with the birch) of feeling an intense disgust with printers and printing. I thought the letters were printed and sent there to plague me, and I looked upon the printer as my enemy. When I was told to say my prayers I was told to pray for my enemies, and I distinctly remember praying especially for the printer as my greatest enemy. I never now see a row of large, black, fat, staring Roman capitals, but this reminiscence rises up before me. As time, wore on, however, and I became interested in Jack the Giant Killer, and other storybooks, this feeling of disgust became somewhat mitigated; and was still further removed when I became old enough to read The Arabian Nights and Robinson Crusoe with his man Friday; in fact, from the savages enjoying their feast upon the beach, I believe I might trace my first impression of a public dinner! But this feeling of dislike to the printer altogether disappeared from the time I saw my own name in print. I now feel gratified at looking at the jolly letter O, the crooked S, with its full benevolent turns, the curious G, and the Q with its comical tail, that first awoke in me a sense of the humourous. The printer of myself are, and have been for some time, inseparable companions. I have served three apprenticeships to life since I last presided over one of the festivals of this Society. It is twenty-one years since I have taken this chair. How many chairs have I taken since then? – In fact, I might say, a whole pantechnicon of chairs; and, in having worked my way round, I feel that I have come home again. My interest in the prosperity of the Society remains unabated. It has not been an existence forty years, and it has accumulated a fund of £11,000, and has now seventy-six pensioners – male and female – on its funds, at an annual outlay of £850. It has done and is doing great good, and it is only to be regretted that the whole of the claimants on the charity cannot be taken under his charge. The printer is a faithful servant, not only of those connected with the business, but of the public at large, and has, therefore, when labouring under infirmity or disease, an especial claim on all for support. Without claiming for him the whole merit of the work produced by his skill, labour, endurance, and intelligence; without it what would be the state of the world at large? Why, tyrants and humbugs in all countries would have everything their own way! I am certain there are not in any branch of manual dexterity so many remarkable men as might be found in the printing trade. For quickness of perception, amount of endurance, and willingness to oblige, I have ever found the compositor pre-eminent. His labour is of a nature calling for the sympathy of all. Often labouring under an avalanche of work, carried through half the night – often through the whole night – working in an unnatural and unwholesome atmosphere produced by artificial light, and exposed to sudden changes from heat to cold, the journeyman printer is rendered peculiarly liable to pulmonary complaints, blindness, and other serious diseases. The afflicted printer who has lost his sight in the service, sitting through long days in his one room, the pleasures of reading – his great source of entertainment – being denied him, his daughter or wife might read to him; but the cause of his misfortune would invade even that small solace of his dark seclusion, for the types from which that very book was printed he might have assisted to set up. Is this an imaginary case? Nearly every printing office in London of any consideration has turned out numbers such. The public, therefore, in whose interest and for whose instruction and amusement the work was executed, were bound to support the Printers’ Pension Society! In connexion with this part of the subject I may mention two pleasing facts: my good friend Mr. Bunting who has incurred a certain amount of public ridicule for writing a pamphlet on the cure of corpulency, has presented the society with £52.10s, being the present amount of profit received from the sale of this pamphlet. I can only say, if the society could find many friends like that, it would soon get fat. A Mr, Vincent, who had published some works, and whose interest in the welfare of the printer had originated entirely from the kind and ready assistance, the civility, and the courtesy he had received during his business engagements at the office where his printing had been done, has signified his intention of bestowing upon the society house property in Liverpool of the annual rent of £150, from which there are to be created five pensions of £20, and the residue to go to the capital fund of the Society. The tyrants and humbugs before referred to – and many tyrants and humbugs there were in Europe – would gladly pension off all the printers throughout the world and have done with them; but let the friends of education and progress unite in pensioning off the worn and afflicted printers, and the remainder would ultimately press the tyrants and humbugs off the face of the earth. For if ever they were to be pressed out, the printer’s is the press that will do it. The printer is the friend of intelligence, of thought; he is the friend of liberty, of freedom, of law; indeed, the printer is the friend of every man who is the friend of order; the friend of every man who can read. Of all inventions, of all the discoveries in science or art, of all the great results in the wonderful progress of mechanical energy and skill, the printer is the only product of civilization necessary to the existence of free man.18640406<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
242https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/242Private Dinner, WashingtonA speech at a private dinner, Washington (14 March 1842).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1842-03-14">1842-03-14</a>1842-03-14_Speech_Private-Dinner-Washington<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at a Private Dinner, Washington' </span><span>(14 March 1842). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1842-03-14_Speech_Private-Dinner-Washington">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1842-03-14_Speech_Private-Dinner-Washington</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Boulanger%27s">Boulanger&#039;s</a>I rise to propose to you one more sentiment; it must be my last; it consists of two words – ‘Good Night!’ Since I have been seated at this table I have received the welcome intelligence that the news from the dear ones has come at last – that the long-expected letters have arrived. Among them are certain scrawls from little beings across the ocean, of great interest to me, and I thought of them for many days past, in connexion with drowned men and a noble shop, broken up and lying in fragments upon the bottom of the ocean. But they are here, and you will appreciate the anxiety I feel to read them. Permit me, in allusion to some remarks made by a gentleman near me, to say that every effort of my pen has been intended to elevate the masses of society; to give them the station they deserve among mankind. With that intention I commenced writing, and I assure you that as long as I write at all, that shall be the principal motive of my efforts. Gentlemen, since I arrived on your hospitable shore, and in my flight over your land, you have given me everything I can ask but time–that you cannot give me, and you are aware that I must devote some of it to myself. Therefore, with the assurance that this has been the most pleasant evening I have passed in the United States, I must bid you farewell, and once more repeat the words, Good Night!18420314<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Washington+D.+C.">Washington D. C.</a>
263https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/263Public Meeting of the Printers&#039; Readers&#039; AssociationChairman&#039;s Speech at the Public Meeting of the Printers&#039; Readers&#039; Association (17 September 1867).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1867-09-17">1867-09-17</a>1867-09-17_Speech_Public-Meeting-of-the-Printers-Readers-Association<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Chairman's Speech at the Public Meeting of the Printers' Readers' Association' (17 September 1867).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1867-09-17_Speech_Public-Meeting-of-the-Printers-Readers-Association">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1867-09-17_Speech_Public-Meeting-of-the-Printers-Readers-Association</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Salisbury+Hotel">Salisbury Hotel</a>Gentlemen, as this society is convened not to hear a speech from me, but to hear a statement of facts and figures very nearly affecting the personal interests of, at all events, the great majority of those who compose it, I feel that my preface need be but very brief. Of the details of the question at issue, I know, of myself, absolutely nothing. I have consented to occupy the chair at the request of the London Association of the Correctors of The Press for two reasons. Firstly, because I think that openness and publicity in such a case is a very wholesome example, very much needed at this time, and highly becoming a body of men associated with the great public safeguard, the Press. Secondly, because I know from some slight practical experience, what the duties of the correctors of the press are, and how those duties are usually performed; and I can testify, and do testify here, that they are not mechanical, that they are not mere matters of manipulation and routine, but they require from those who perform them much natural intelligence, much superadded cultivation, considerable readiness of reference, quickness of resource, an excellent memory, and a clear understanding. And I most gratefully acknowledged that I have never gone through the sheets of any book that I have written without having had presented to me by the corrector of the press, some slight misunderstanding into which I have fallen, some little lapse I have made; in short, without having sat down in black and white some unquestionable indication that I have been closely followed through my work by a patient and trained mind, and not merely by a skilful eye. In this declaration I have not the slightest doubt that the great body of my brother and sister writers, as a plain act of justice, heartily concur. For these plain and short reasons, briefly stated, I am here; and being here I beg to assure you that if anyone is present who is in any way associated with the printing press, and should desire to address you, he shall receive from me, whatever his opinions, the readiest attention and the amplest opportunity.18670917<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
88https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/88Reading at Reading Literary, Scientific and Mechanics&#039; InstitutionSpeech given before a reading of <em>A Christmas Carol </em>(19 December 1854).Dickens, Charles'Mr. Charles Dickens' Visit to Reading.'<em> Berkshire Chronicle </em>(23 December 1854): p.6.; <em>British Library Newspapers,</em><span> </span><a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/JA3228166379/BNCN?u=leedsuni&amp;sid=bookmark-BNCN&amp;xid=4d1a8520" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/JA3228166379/BNCN?u=leedsuni&amp;sid=bookmark-BNCN&amp;xid=4d1a8520</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1854-12-19">1854-12-19</a><em>British Library Newspapers,</em><span> </span><a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/JA3228166379/BNCN?u=leedsuni&amp;sid=bookmark-BNCN&amp;xid=4d1a8520" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/JA3228166379/BNCN?u=leedsuni&amp;sid=bookmark-BNCN&amp;xid=4d1a8520</a><span>. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1854-12-19_Speech_Reading_at_Reading_Literary_Scientific_and_Mechanics-Institution<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Reading at Reading Literary, Scientific and Mechanics' Institution' (19 December 1854).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1854-12-19_Speech_Reading_at_Reading_Literary_Scientific_and_Mechanics-Institution">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1854-12-19_Speech_Reading_at_Reading_Literary_Scientific_and_Mechanics-Institution</a>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Reading+Literary%2C+Scientific+and+Mechanics%27+Institution">Reading Literary, Scientific and Mechanics&#039; Institution</a><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1854-12-19_Speech_Reading_at_Reading_Literary_Scientific_and_Mechanics-Institution.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reading at Reading Literary, Scientific and Mechanics Institution (19 December 1854).</a>'Mr. Dickens then stated that the last time he had had the pleasure of reading his Christmas Carol, it was to an audience of three thousand, and they were kind enough to consider themselves a Christmas party listening to a Christmas story. He wished his audience so to consider themselves that evening; and to give a free and natural expression of their feelings, without entertaining any feer of disturbing him. He then proceed to give his reading.'<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Berkshire+Chronicle">Berkshire Chronicle</a>Ladies and Gentlemen, you will feel with me, I am sure, that the time is past when it would have become me to make any reference of a merely personal nature to the cause of your having so greatly honoured me in selecting me as your president – for the memory of the good is still removed to a region, in which all public life and private attachment must equally rise. Therefore you must equally agree with me that it is not my task to disturb its serenity by any reference to private grief or individual attachment. I stand here in the place of one whose name is deeply dear to all of us. He recognised as you do, in the selection of a friend to follow him, the expression of a hope that that friend my have learnt some lessons at least from the example of his gentle nature and his simple heart.18541219<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Reading">Reading</a>https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/6/Reading_at_Reading_Literary_Scientific_and_Mechanics_Institution/1854-12-19_Speech_Reading_at_Reading_Literary_Scientific_and_Mechanics-Institution.pdf
95https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/95Reading in BrightonSpeech given before a matinée reading of 'Little Dombey' (13 November 1858).Dickens, Charles<em>Brighton Gazette</em> (18 November 1858).<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1858-11-13">1858-11-13</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1858-11-13_Speech_Reading_in_Brighton<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Reading in Brighton' (13 November 1858).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-11-13_Speech_Reading_in_Brighton">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-11-13_Speech_Reading_in_Brighton</a>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Town+Hall">Town Hall</a>‘Mr. Dickens, in commencing, expressed a hope that his audience would speedily forget the cold light of day and lose themselves with him amidst those childish footsteps, trusting that they would laugh if they thought proper, or cry if they thought proper, as nothing could give him greater pleasure than to see them do so unconstrainedly.’<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Brighton+Gazette">Brighton Gazette</a>18581113<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Brighton">Brighton</a>
93https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/93Reading in CliftonSpeech given before a reading of The Chimes (2 August 1858).Dickens, Charles<p><em>Clifton Chronicle</em> (4 August 1858).</p><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1858-08-02">1858-08-02</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1858-08-02_Speech_Reading_in_Clifton<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Reading in Clifton' (2 August 1858).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-08-02_Speech_Reading_in_Clifton">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-08-02_Speech_Reading_in_Clifton</a>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Victoria+Rooms">Victoria Rooms</a>‘Mr. Dickens addressed his audience in a few prefatory words to the effect that the book which he was about to read, was written several years previously, in consequence of certain circumstances which seemed to render a few words of earnest remonstrance necessary. Though the cause for this remonstrance was now to some extent removed, and in part he hoped, by the aid of his little work, yet a plea for the poor and distressed was never out of season, and in that light he trusted his little work would be welcome to his hearers.’<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Clifton+Chronicle">Clifton Chronicle</a>18580802<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Clifton">Clifton</a>
92https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/92Reading in DublinSpeech given before a reading of <em>The Chimes</em> (24 August 1858).Dickens, Charles<em>Saunders’ News-Letter </em>(25 August 1858).<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1858-08-24">1858-08-24</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1858-08-24_Speech_Reading_in_Dublin<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Reading in Dublin' (24 August 1858). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-08-24_Speech_Reading_in_Dublin">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-08-24_Speech_Reading_in_Dublin</a>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Rotunda">Rotunda</a><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1858-08-24_Speech_Reading_in_Dublin.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>Reading in Dublin (24 August 1858).</span></a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Saunders%27+News-Letter">Saunders&#039; News-Letter</a>I have been accustomed to remark in England, when reading the parts of this fancy, that it was written about a dozen years ago, at a time when I was living in Italy, and when some circumstances recorded in the home newspapers – all within the compass of a single week – appeared to me to render the utterance of a few earnest words very necessary. If there be in our United Kingdom, as I hope and believe, less direct need of such utterance now than there was then, so much the better for us all: we have only to assume to-night that a few hints for compassionate and merciful remembrance are never out of date in the Christian calendar.18580824<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Dublin">Dublin</a>
94https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/94Reading in EdinburghSpeech given before a reading of <em>The Chimes</em> (27 September 1858).Dickens, Charles<em>Edinburgh Courant</em> (28 September 1858).<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1858-09-28">1858-09-28</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1858-09-27_Speech_Reading_in_Edinburgh<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Reading in Edinburgh' (27 September 1858). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-09-27_Speech_Reading_in_Edinburgh">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-09-27_Speech_Reading_in_Edinburgh</a></span>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Queen+Street+Hall">Queen Street Hall</a>‘Mr. Dickens, who, on entering, was welcomed by prolonged and cordial applause, premised his reading by informing us that the little story he was to read was written by him in Italy about twelve years ago, and for the purpose of expressing his views on certain subjects then before the public mind. With the season the story passed away, leaving with us, however, some visionary remembrances of the ghosts of the Chimes, as well as some lingering recollections of less aerial groups hovering round the destiny of poor Toby Veck.’<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Edinburgh+Courant">Edinburgh Courant</a>18580927<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Edinburgh">Edinburgh</a>
239https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/239Reading in ManchesterSpeech before a reading of <em>A Christmas Carol</em>, Manchester (31 July 1857).Dickens, CharlesManchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser (1 August 1857).<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1857-07-31">1857-07-31</a>1857-07-31_Speech_Reading-in-Manchester<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Before a Reading of the&nbsp;<em>Carol</em>' </span><span>(31 July 1857). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1857-07-31_Speech_Reading-in-Manchester">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1857-07-31_Speech_Reading-in-Manchester</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Free-Trade+Hall">Free-Trade Hall</a>'Mr. Dickens introduced his reading by saying that on the occasions when he had the honour of repeating his "Carol" before audience he was accustomed to commence with two observations. The first was, that he should pause for five minutes half way through the story; and the second, that whenever as they proceeded the audience felt disposed to give utterance to any emotions, he frankly begged they would do so in the most natural manner possible, and without the least apprehension of disturbing him.'<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Manchester+Courier+and+Lancashire+General+Advertiser">Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser</a>I need hardly say to you that nothing can be more delightful to me than to know that you are interested, and nothing can be more agreeable to me than that the short personal relations between us may be perfectly friendly, easy, unaffected and unconstrained.18570731<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Manchester">Manchester</a>https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/6/Reading_in_Manchester/1857-07-31_Speech_Before-Reading-Carol .pdf
99https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/99Reading in New HavenSpeech given before a reading of &#039;Doctor Marigold&#039;s Prescriptions&#039; and &#039;Mr. Bob Sawyer’s Party&#039; (24 March 1868).Dickens, Charles<em>New Haven Evening Register</em> (25 March 1868).<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1868-03-24">1868-03-24</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1868-03-24_Speech_Reading_in_New_Haven<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Reading in New Haven' (24 March 1868).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1868-03-24_Speech_Reading_in_New_Haven">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/</a></span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1868-03-24_Speech_Reading_in_New_Haven">1868-03-24_Speech_Reading_in_New_Haven</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Music+Hall">Music Hall</a>‘The audience was large and gave Mr. Dickens their undivided attention. – His apology for the “inconvenience of which he asserted himself to have been the innocent cause” was very timely, and gave him the entire support of his audience.’ <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=New+Haven+Evening+Register">New Haven Evening Register</a>18680324<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=New+Haven">New Haven</a>
96https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/96Reading in PeterboroughSpeech given before a reading of 'Little Dombey' and 'The Pickwick Trial' (19 October 1859).Dickens, Charles<em>Peterborough Advertiser</em> (22 October 1859).<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1859-10-19">1859-10-19</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1859-10-19_Speech_Reading_in_Peterborough<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Reading in Peterborough' (19 October 1859). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1859-10-19_Speech_Reading_in_Peterborough">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/</a></span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1859-10-19_Speech_Reading_in_Peterborough">1859-10-19_Speech_Reading_in_Peterborough</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Corn+Exchange">Corn Exchange</a>‘Mr. Dickens was warmly received, and before commencing the reading said, that some years ago he had given a reading in this place – rendered dear to him by a personal friend – for the benefit of a local institution, and it occurred to him that, as on that occasion he read the Christmas Carol, it might be the pleasure of the audience to hear The Story of Little Dombey instead of the Carol. The audience signified their approval of the proposition, and Mr. Dickens proceeded to read the work mentioned.’<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Peterborough+Advertiser">Peterborough Advertiser</a>18591019<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Peterborough">Peterborough</a>
89https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/89Royal Academy DinnerSpeech given at the Royal Academy Dinner (3 May 1862).Dickens, Charles'Banquet at the Royal Academy.' <em>The Times&nbsp;</em>(5 May 1862): p. 5.; <em>The Times Digital Archive</em>, <a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS84056741/TTDA?u=leedsuni&amp;sid=bookmark-TTDA&amp;xid=bbfb6803" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://l</a><span><a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS84056741/TTDA?u=leedsuni&amp;sid=bookmark-TTDA&amp;xid=bbfb6803" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ink.gale.com/apps/doc/CS84056741/TTDA?u=leedsuni&amp;sid=bookmark-TTDA&amp;xid=bbfb6803</a>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1862-05-03">1862-05-03</a><em>The Times Digital Archive</em>, <a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS84056741/TTDA?u=leedsuni&amp;sid=bookmark-TTDA&amp;xid=bbfb6803" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://l</a><span><a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS84056741/TTDA?u=leedsuni&amp;sid=bookmark-TTDA&amp;xid=bbfb6803" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ink.gale.com/apps/doc/CS84056741/TTDA?u=leedsuni&amp;sid=bookmark-TTDA&amp;xid=bbfb6803</a>. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1862-05-03_Speech_Royal_Academy_Dinner<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Royal Academy Dinner' (3 May 1862). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. </span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/admin/speeches/1862-05-03_Speech_Royal_Academy_Dinner"><span class="citation-url">https://dickenssearch.com/admin/speeches/1862-05-03_Speech_Royal_Academy_Dinner</span></a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Royal+Academy">Royal Academy</a><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1862-05-03_Speech_Royal_Academy_Dinner.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Royal Academy Dinner (3 May 1862).</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Times">The Times</a>It is one of the privileges of literature to speak from the walls of this room rather than from the floor, and to find expression here in the great works of painting and sculpture rather than in spoken words. From these walls, even in our own times, Shakespeare, Moliere, Le Sage, Cervantes, Goldsmith, Sterne, Fielding, Smollett, Defoe, a host of illustrious writers has been so eloquent in the masterpieces of members of this Academy that one poor writer of fiction left to his own lips may well find nothing to say in this otherwise difficult task assigned to him. However, he finds consolation in this that his own art is inseparable from the art of his entertainers, that the great magic circle of the arts is impossible to be broken, and that here at least &#039;his foot is on his native heath&#039;, even though his name is not by any means Macgregor. In the name of many distinguished gentlemen, present and absent, foreign and native, I have to thank you for your remembrance of the sister art, though I beg to say on behalf of those whom I represent that we cannot by any means hold that the present President of the Royal Academy is at all disinterested in this proposal to do honour to literature, seeing that he himself is so near akin to it. We scarcely ever open any book with a higher interest and pleasure than we open this great annual volume, of which the leaves are now spread before this company; and we certainly never open a book to which we find so graceful and appropriate a preface as that which is always delivered from the red chair which you, Sir Charles, occupy. If I might have changed the figure, supposing noble lords and right hon gentlemen to have remained, I might even in conclusion have gone so far as to say that I think we receive the annual budget of the President of the Royal Academy with almost as much interest as we receive the annual budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; having in addition the pleasant consideration that it is not attended with those terrific consequences which we cannot by any strength of imagination separate from the latter production.18620503<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/6/Royal_Academy_Dinner/1862-05-03_Speech_Royal_Academy_Dinner.pdf
261https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/261Royal General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival 1853Speech at the Royal General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival (22 March 1853).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1853-03-22">1853-03-22</a>1853-03-22_Speech_Royal-General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival-1853<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Royal General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival' (22 March 1853).</span><span>&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1853-03-22_Speech_Royal-General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival-1853">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1853-03-22_Speech_Royal-General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival-1853</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London+Tavern">London Tavern</a><p>On a recent occasion, he said, they were informed that a respectable and active police officer had insinuated himself into the midst of an incorruptible election. This very intellectual person had reason to believe, from information he had received, that if he proceeded in a certain direction he would encounter a sage, between whom and himself a most mysterious and magnetic influence would arise if he laid his hand upon his nose. He obeyed these instructions, and in reply to the gesture alluded to, the sage observed, ‘It is all right, but there is something more’; whereupon the police officer repeated the necessarily cabalistic sign, which secured his admission into the mysterious region, and he took the chief magician into custody.</p> <p>If he might adapt this incident, of a not very agreeable or creditable nature, to the present very agreeable and creditable occasion, he would suggest it was all right, but there was something more. Without having applied their hands to their noses, they might be said to have placed them in grateful homage on their hearts, and also to their ears in listening to those sweet sounds produced by the musicians, and which gave delight, not only in themselves, but from the generous spirit in which they were uttered. They had used their hands in making those sounds very agreeable to the management of the fund, and in acknowledging the very admirable exposition of its claims they had heard from the Chair. In reference to the Chair, he would simply say that he hoped the ‘devil’s bird-catchers’ might always be able to lime so good a bird. He was too old a bird to be caught by chaff, whether of a celestial or infernal description.</p> <p>The chairman had laid the fund, under a very great obligation, and the cabalistic sign which he was advised as the next in order was, that every gentleman presented empty a wine glass in his honour. They were so fortunate in having for their president a gentleman who was the representative of a large mercantile community, and his presence afforded a graceful expression of that union of sympathy which should exist between the busy pursuits of life and its wholesome recreations. They also had in their chairman of the night one who was personally and pleasantly acquainted with the objects of their assembly. He, therefore, called up upon them to drink his health, and when they had done that, he hoped they would recollect that they were still ‘something more’.</p>18530322<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
82https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/82Shakespeare Club DinnerSpeech given at the Shakespeare Club dinner, London (30 March 1839).Dickens, CharlesMacready, William Charles.&nbsp;<em>The Diaries of William Charles Macready 1833-1851.</em> Vol. 1. Ed. William Toynbee. New York: <span>Putnam's, 1912. pp. 504-505.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1839-03-30">1839-03-30</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1839-03-30_Speech_Shakespeare_Club_DinnerDickens, Charles. 'Shakespeare Club Dinner' (30 March 1839). <em>Dickens Search</em>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1839-03-30_Speech_Shakespeare_Club_Dinner">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1839-03-30_Speech_Shakespeare_Club_Dinner</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Shakespeare+Club">Shakespeare Club</a>&#039;most earnest, eloquent, and touching, It took a review of my enterprise at Covent Garden, and summed up with an eulogy of me that quite overpowered me.&#039;<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Diary">Diary</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Diaries+of+William+Charles+Macready">The Diaries of William Charles Macready</a>30031839<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
86https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/86Shakespeare's Birthday at the Garrick ClubSpeech given at the Garrick Club (22 April 1854).Dickens, CharlesO'Dowd, James. 'A Shakespeare Birthday: A Reminiscence of Charles Dickens.' <em>Pall Mall Magazine</em> (April 1906): 423-28.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1854-04-22">1854-04-22</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1854-04-22_Speech_Shakespeares_Birthday_at_the_Garrick_Club<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Garrick Club' (22 April 1854). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1854-04-22_Speech_Shakespeares_Birthday_at_the_Garrick_Club">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1854-04-22_Speech_Shakespeares_Birthday_at_the_Garrick_Club</a><span>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Garrick+Club">Garrick Club</a>'He began by saying that we were met to celebrate an event, a great event. Not, as some thought, merely the birthday of a dramatist and an actor. We met on that day to celebrate a great deal more. We met on that day to celebrate the birthday of a vast army of living men and women, who would live for ever with an actuality greater than that of the men and women whose external forms we saw around us, and whom we knew ourselves – types of humanity, the inner working of whose souls was open to us, as were the faces of ordinary men.<br /><br />To-day was born a Prince of Denmark, who would live for ever as the type of man whose mind was "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," and whose life-story was fore-shadowed by his appearance from the moment he came before us as "a broken glass of fashion, a mould of form," pale and worn with weeping for his father's death, and remotely suspicious of its cause, and not with "his hair crisply curled short as if he were going to an everlasting dancing-master's party at the Danish court," as "most Hamlets since the great Kemble have been bound to do." A Prince of Denmark who will live for ever, even though he be remembered by no more than the words that ask, [quotes from "Whether 'tis nobler to "a consummation Devoutly to be wished"].<br /><br />On this day was born not only this lasting embodiment of deep insight into life and its problems, but also "Laughter holding both his sides." On this day was born Falstaff, who, like one who takes the chair on such an occasion as this, has to be the cause of speaking in others. And on this day the famous Justice Shallow, who, though you may not admire his qualities, will live in the memory of all who laugh at him, and all who try to personate him on the stage. "'Tis the heart, Master Page, 'tis here, 'tis here. I have seen the time, with my long sword I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats."<br /><br />But on this day, that saw the birth of Justice Shallow, as well as of the "merry knight," that "mountain of flesh," of whom Prince Hal said (as we all would now say had Falstaff not been born): "I could have better spared a better man," there was also born Queen Mab: [quotes from "She is the fairies' midwife to "as they lie asleep"].<br /><br />And on this day was born that weaver who felt as out of place among fairies as "a lion among ladies": [quotes from "God shield us! A lion among ladies" to "a man as other men are"].<br /><br />On this day, too, was born Macbeth, the type of all who show how the first fall into evil leads even men capable of noble thoughts down, eventually, into the lowest depths; Macbeth, who said: [quotes from "If it were done" to "jump the life to come"].<br /><br />To-day was born a certain Signior Benedick of Padua –that is, not the Benedick of this or that theatrical company, but the constant occasion of merriment among the persons represented in&nbsp;<em>Much Ado about Nothing</em>: "all mirth," as Don Pedro has it, "from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot"; and who may well inspire mirth in all.<br /><br />This day was born a Duke who, exiled from the "painted pomp" of his "envious court", could utter words teaching what I hold to be a vital truth, "above all, that nothing is high because it is in a high place, and that nothing is low because it is in a low one." This is the lesson taught us in the great book of Nature and the lesson uppermost in the mind of that inspired man who tells us that there are –<br /><br />Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,<br />Sermons in stones, and good in everything.<br /><br />Today was born a villain, for whose birth we may yet be glad, because he was not the ordinary villain of the stage. For Iago can be portrayed without "frowning, sneering diabolically, grinning, and elaborately doing everything else that would induce Othello to run him through the body very early in the play" Shakespeare's Iago is a man who could and did make friends, who could dissect his master's soul without flourishing his scalpel as if it were a walking-stick; who could overpower Emilia by other arts than a sign-of-the-Saracen's-Head grimness; who could be a boon companion without,&nbsp;<em>ipso facto</em>, warning all beholders off by the portentous phenomenon; who could sing a song and clink a can naturally enough, and stab men really in the dark – not in a transparent notification of himself as going about seeking whom to stab.<br /><br />On this day was born the ideal embodiment of woman's passionate love, to whom her lover in his passion idealised as the sun at the dawn rising to – [quotes from "Kill the envious moon" to "And none but fools do wear it"].<br /><br />And on this day was born a fool, not dressed in vestal livery, but dressed in motley, who "laid him down and basked him in the sun, and as quoted by the melancholy Jacques (whose words are in-woven in this tablecloth before me: "All the world's a stage") described, for all time, the qualities, the privileges and the duties of the satirist of him who, like this fool, "should be so deep contemplative" as to make the sage "ambitions for a motley suit." "Invest me in my motley: give me leave to speak my mind, and I will, through and through, cleanse the foul body of whole infected world, if they will but patiently receive my medicine."<br /><br />In like manner Dickens dealt with many more of Shakespeare's characters, each time acting and speaking the lines with consummate art and skill.<br /><br />Dickens went on to say that this was also the birthday of the English novel. "Every writer of fiction, although he may not adopt the dramatic form, writes, in effect, for the stage. He many never write plays, but the truth and passions which are in him must be more or less reflected in the great mirror which he holds up to Nature."<br /><br />Furthermore, he reminded us that it was the birthday of some of those present –of Compton, of Vanderhoff, of Wallack. For their art and fame would not have been but for the birth of whim whose birthday they were celebrating. He would go further, and say that it was the birthday of that club. For if there had never been a Shakespeare there never would have been a Garrick, and if there had never been a Garrick there would never have been a Garrick club.'<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Pall+Mall+Magazine">Pall Mall Magazine</a>18540422<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
100https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/100Sporting Event, Gad’s HillSpeech at a Gad&#039;s Hill sporting event (26 December 1869).Dickens, CharlesForster, John. <em>The Life of Charles Dickens</em>. Ed. J. W. T. Ley. London: Cecil Palmer, 1928. p. 833.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1869-12-26">1869-12-26</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a>1869-12-26_Speech_Sporting_Event_Gads_Hill<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Sporting Event, Gad’s Hill' (26 December 1867).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span>&nbsp;Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;<a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1869-12-26_Speech_Sporting_Event_Gads_Hill">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/</a></span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1869-12-26_Speech_Sporting_Event_Gads_Hill">1869-12-26_Speech_Sporting_Event_Gads_Hill</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Gad%27s+Hill">Gad&#039;s Hill</a>‘I made them a little speech from the lawn, at the end of the games, saying that please God we would do it again next year. They cheered most lustily and dispersed.’<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Biography">Biography</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Life+of+Charles+Dickens">The Life of Charles Dickens</a>18691226<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Kent">Kent</a>
227https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/227The 1850 Christmas Number<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>Household Words,<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Vol. II, No. 39, 21 December 1850, pp. 289-312.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online,</em> <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-ii/page-289.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-ii/page-289.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1850-12-21">1850-12-21</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1850-12-21-The_1850_Christmas_Number<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'A Christmas Tree' (No.1), pp. 289-295.</strong></li> <li>William Blanchard Jerrold and William Henry (W.H.) Wills. 'Christmas in Lodgings' (No.2), pp. 295-298.</li> <li>James Hannay. 'Christmas in the Navy' (No.3), pp. 298-300.</li> <li>Charles Knight. 'A Christmas Pudding' (No.4), pp. 300-304.</li> <li>Frederick Knight Hunt. 'Christmas Among the London Poor and Sick' (No.5), pp. 304-305.</li> <li>Joachim Heyward Siddons ('J. Stocqueler'). 'Christmas in India' (No.6), pp. 305-306.</li> <li>Dr. Robert McCormick and Charles Dickens. 'Christmas in the Frozen Regions' (No.7), pp. 306-309.</li> <li>Samuel Sidney. 'Christmas Day in the Bush' (No.8), pp. 309-310.</li> <li>Richard H. Horne. 'Household Christmas Carols' (No.9), pp. 310-312.</li> </ul>Dickens, Charles et. al.&nbsp;<i>1850 Christmas Number </i>(21 December 1850).&nbsp;<em>Dickens Search.</em>&nbsp;Edited by Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/%201850-12-21-The_1850_Christmas_Number">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/</a><br /><a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/%201850-12-21-The_1850_Christmas_Number">1850-12-21-The_1850_Christmas_Number</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>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 endless 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 Wolverhampton), 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, &quot;There was everything, and more.&quot; This motley collection of odd objects, clustering on the tree like magic fruit, and flashing back 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 realisation 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 brightness of its top—for I observe, in this tree, the singular property 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&#039;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&#039;s wax on his tail, far off; for there was no knowing where he wouldn&#039;t jump; and when he flew over the candle, and came upon one&#039;s hand with that spotted back—red on a green ground—he was horrible. The cardboard lady in a blue-silk skirt, who was stood up against the candlestick to dance, and whom I see on the same branch, was milder, and was beautiful; but I can&#039;t say as much for the larger cardboard 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 intolerable? Surely not because it hid the wearer&#039;s face. An apron would have done as much; and though I should have preferred even the apron away, it would not have been absolutely insupportable, like the mask? Was it the immovability of the mask? The doll&#039;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 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 awake me in the night all perspiration and horror, with &quot; O I know it&#039;s coming! O the mask!&quot; I never wondered what the dear old donkey with the panniers—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 commonly seen at Newmarket. The four horses of no colour, next to him, that went into the waggon of cheeses, and could be 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 tinkling 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, head foremost, on the other, rather a weak-minded person—though good-natured; but the Jacob&#039;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&#039;s house!—of which I was not proprietor, but where I visited. I don&#039;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 plentiful 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&#039;s hands, what does 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 dissolved 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! &quot; A was an archer, and shot at a frog.&quot; 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 for ever 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&#039;s house! And now, those dreadfully interesting, double-headed giants, with their clubs over their shoulders, begin to stride along the boughs in a perfect 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 debate 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 Red Riding-Hood comes to me one Christmas Eve, to give me information of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling Wolf who ate her grandmother, 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 Red Riding-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 Noah&#039;s Ark there, and put him late in the procession on the table, as a monster who was to be degraded. O the wonderful Noah&#039;s Ark! It was not found seaworthy when put in a washing-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&#039;s wonders, without mention), but an Eastern King with a glittering scimitar and turban. By Allah! two Eastern Kings, for I see another, looking over his shoulder! Down upon the grass, at the tree&#039;s foot, lies the full length of a coal-black Giant, stretched asleep, with his head in a lady&#039;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 enchanted to me! All lamps are wonderful; all rings are talismans. 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&#039;s son of Bussorah, who turned pastrycook after he was set down in his drawers at the gate of Damascus; cobblers 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 necromancy, that will make the earth shake. All the dates imported come from the same tree as that unlucky date, with whose shell the merchant knocked out the eye of the genie&#039;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&#039;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&#039;s counter, and put his paw on the piece of bad money. All rice recals the rice which the awful lady, who was a ghoule, 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 virtue thereof to fly away with me, as the wooden horse did with the Prince of Persia, in the sight of all his father&#039;s Court. Yes, on every object that I recognise 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. &quot; Sister, sister, if you are yet awake, I pray you finish the history of the Young King of the Black Islands.&quot; Scheherazade replies, &quot;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.&quot; 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 Robinson Crusoe on his desert island, Philip Quarll among the monkeys, Sandford and Merton with Mr. Barlow, Mother Bunch, and the Mask—or it may be the result of indigestion, assisted by imagination and over-doctoring—a prodigious nightmare. It is so exceedingly indistinct, that I don&#039;t know why it&#039;s frightful but I know it is. I can only make out that it is an immense 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 leaden 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 Forest 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 irreverence to compare in my own mind to my grandfather) puts red-hot pokers in his pocket, and cries &quot;Here&#039;s somebody coming!&quot; or taxes the Clown with petty larceny, by saying &quot;Now, I sawed you do it!&quot; when Everything is capable, with the greatest ease, of being changed into Anything; and &quot;Nothing is, but thinking makes it so.&quot; 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&#039;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 Christmas 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 the opened 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, teaching a great multitude; again, with a child upon his knee, and other children round; again, restoring 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. &quot; Forgive them, for they know not what they do!&quot; Still, on the lower and maturer branches of the Tree, Christmas associations cluster thick. School-books shut up; Ovid and Virgil silenced; the Rule of Three, with its cool impertinent enquiries, 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 boarding-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 solemnly 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 Winter 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 distrustfully 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 tapestry. We don&#039;t like the portrait of a cavalier in green, over the fireplace. 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 accommodation. But, we are not a superstitious nobleman, and we don&#039;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&#039;t sleep. We toss and tumble, and can&#039;t sleep. The embers on the hearth burn fitfully and make the room look ghostly. We can&#039;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 &quot;This is very foolish, but we can&#039;t stand this; we&#039;ll pretend to be ill, and knock up somebody.&quot; 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&#039;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&#039;t even faint, we are in such a state about it. Presently she gets up, and tries all the locks in the room with the rusty keys, which won&#039;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, &quot;The stags know it!&quot; 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&#039;t be done. We pace the gallery till daybreak; then return 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 Cavalier 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 whispered 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 her 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&#039;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, 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 &quot;walk&quot; 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&#039;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, &quot;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!&quot; Then, every one asked Lady Mary what she meant? Then, Lady Mary replied, &quot;Why, all night long, the carriages were driving round and round the terrace, underneath my window!&quot; 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 Honour at Court, often told this story to the old Queen Charlotte; by this token that the old King always said, &quot;Eh, eh? What, what? Ghosts, Ghosts? No such thing, no such thing!&quot; And never left off saying so, until he went to bed. Or, a friend of somebody&#039;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 asunder. But, one night, many years afterwards, our friend, being in the North of England, and staying for the night in an Inn, on the Yorkshire Moors, happened to look out of bed; and there, in the moonlight, leaning on a Bureau near the window, stedfastly regarding him, saw his old College friend! The appearance being solemnly addressed, replied, in a kind of whisper, but very audibly, &quot;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!&quot; Then, the whole form becoming 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 neighbourhood. 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, &quot;Oh, dear father, I have met myself!&quot; He took her in his arms, and told her it was fancy, but she said &quot;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!&quot; 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&#039;s wife was riding home on horseback, one mellow evening at sunset, when, in a green lane close to his own house, he saw a man, standing before him, in the very centre of the narrow way. &quot;Why does that man in the cloak stand there!&quot; he thought. &quot;Does he want me to ride over him?&quot; 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&#039;s wife, exclaiming, &quot;Good Heaven! It&#039;s my cousin Harry, from Bombay!&quot; put spurs to his horse, which was suddenly in a profuse sweat, and, wondering at such strange behaviour, 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. &quot;Alice, where&#039;s my cousin Harry?&quot; &quot;Your cousin Harry, John?&quot; &quot;Yes. From Bombay. I met him in the lane just now, and saw him enter here, this instant.&quot; Not 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 incorrectly told, but, of which the real truth is this—because it is, in fact, a story belonging to our family—and she was a connexion 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 India-Merchant, had newly bought. There was a story that this place had once been held in trust, by the guardian 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, &quot;Who is the pretty forlorn-looking child who has been peeping out of that closet all night? &quot; The maid replied by giving a loud scream, and instantly decamping. She was surprised; but, she was a woman of remarkable strength of mind, and she dressed herself and went down stairs, and closeted herself with her brother. &quot;Now, Walter,&quot; she said, &quot;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&#039;t open. This is some trick.&quot; &quot;I am afraid not, Charlotte,&quot; said he, &quot;for it is the legend of the house. It is the Orphan Boy. What did he do?&quot; &quot;He opened the door softly,&quot; said she, &quot;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.&quot; &quot;The closet has no communication, Charlotte,&quot; said her brother, &quot;with any other part of the house, and it&#039;s nailed up.&quot; This was undeniably true, and it took two carpenters a whole fore-noon 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&#039;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-looking 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 little 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 setting 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, 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 foot-stool he has chosen for his seat, when the door accidentally blows open. Vast 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 unalterable! Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas time, still let the benignant figure of my childhood stand unchanged! 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&#039;s pause, O 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&#039;s Son; and God is good! If Age be hiding for me in the unseen portion of thy downward growth, O may I, with a grey head, turn a child&#039;s heart to that figure yet, and a child&#039;s trustfulness and confidence! Now, the tree is decorated with bright merriment, and song, and dance, and cheerfulness. And they are welcome. Innocent 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. &quot;This, in commemoration of the law of love and kindness, mercy and compassion. This, in remembrance of Me!&quot;18501221https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_1850_Christmas_Number/1850-12-21-The_1850_Christmas_Number.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_1850_Christmas_Number/1850-12-21-A_Christmas_Tree.pdf
228https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/228The 1851 Christmas Number<span>Published in&nbsp;</span><em>Household Words,<span>&nbsp;</span></em><span>Vol. IV, Extra Christmas Number, 25 December 1851, pp. 1-24.</span>Dickens, Charles<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-iv/page-601.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-iv/page-601.html</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1851-12-25">1851-12-25</a><span>Scanned material from&nbsp;<em>Dickens Journals Online</em>,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a><span>. A</span><span>vailable under CC BY licence.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Christmas+Number">Christmas Number</a>1851-12-25-The_1851_Christmas_Number<ul> <li><strong>Charles Dickens. 'What Christmas Is, as e Grow Older' (No.1), pp. 1-3.</strong></li> <li>Richard H. Horne. 'What Christmas is to a Bunch of People' (No.2), pp. 3-7.</li> <li>Edmund Ollier. 'An Idyl for Christmas In-doors (No.3), pp. 7-8.</li> <li>Harriet Martineau. 'What Christmas is in Country Places' (No.4), pp. 8-11.</li> <li>George Augustus Sala. 'What Christmas is in the Company of John Doe' (No.5), pp. 11-16.</li> <li>Eliza Griffiths. 'The Orphan's Dream of Christmas' (No.6), pp. 16-17.</li> <li>Samuel Sidney. 'What Christmas is after a Long Absence' (No.7), pp. 17-20.</li> <li>Theodore Buckley. 'What Christmas is if you Outgrow it' (No.8), pp. 20-23.</li> <li>Richard H. Horne. 'The Round Game of the Christmas Bowl' (No.9), pp. 23-24.</li> </ul><span>Dickens, Charles et. al.&nbsp;</span><i>1851 Christmas Number<span>&nbsp;</span></i><span>(25 December 1851). </span><em>Dickens Search.</em><span> Edited by Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1851-12-25-The_1851_Christmas_Number">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1851-12-25-The_1851_Christmas_Number</a>.</span><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Periodical">Periodical</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EHousehold+Words%3C%2Fem%3E"><em>Household Words</em></a>Time was, with most of us, when Christmas Day encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped every thing and every one around the Christmas fire; and made the little picture shining in our bright young eyes, complete. Time came, perhaps, all so soon! when our thoughts overleaped that narrow boundary when there was some one (very dear, we thought then, very beautiful, and absolutely perfect) wanting to the fulness of our happiness; when we were wanting too (or we thought so, which did just as well) at the Christmas hearth by which that some one sat; and when we intertwined with every wreath and garland of our life that some one&#039;s name. That was the time for the bright visionary Christmases which have long arisen from us to shew faintly, after summer rain, in the palest edges of the rainbow! That was the time for the beatified enjoyment of the things that were to be, and never were, and yet the things that were so real in our resolute hope that it would be hard to say, now, what realities achieved since, have been stronger! What! Did that Christmas never really come when we and the priceless pearl who was our young choice were received, after the happiest of totally impossible marriages, by the two united families previously at daggers-drawn on our account? When brothers and sisters in law who had always been rather cool to us before our relationship was effected, perfectly doted on us, and when fathers and mothers overwhelmed us with unlimited incomes? Was that Christmas dinner never really eaten, after which we arose, and generously and eloquently rendered honor to our late rival, present in the company, then and there exchanging friendship and forgiveness, and founding an attachment, not surpassed in Greek or Roman story, which subsisted until death? Has that same rival long ceased to care for that same priceless pearl, and married for money, and become usurious? Above all, do we really know, now, that we should probably have been miserable if we had won and worn the pearl, and that we are better without her? That Christmas when we had recently achieved so much fame; when we had been carried in triumph somewhere, for doing something great and good; when we had won an honored and ennobled name, and arrived and were received at home in a shower of tears of joy; is it possible that that Christmas has not come yet? And is our life here, at the best, so constituted that, pausing as we advance at such a noticeable mile-stone in the track as this great birthday, we look back on the things that never were, as naturally and full as gravely as on the things that have been and are gone, or have been and still are? If it be so, and so it seems to be, must we come to the conclusion, that life is little better than a dream, and little worth the loves and strivings that we crowd into it? No! Far be such miscalled philosophy from us, dear Reader, on Christmas Day! Nearer and closer to our hearts be the Christmas spirit, which is the spirit of active usefulness, perseverance, cheerful discharge of duty, kindness, and forbearance! It is in the last virtues especially, that we are, or should be, strengthened by the unaccomplished visions of our youth; for, who shall say that they are not our teachers to deal gently even with the impalpable nothings of the earth! Therefore, as we grow older, let us be more thankful that the circle of our Christmas associations and of the lessons that they bring, expands! Let us welcome every one of them, and summon them to take their places by the Christmas hearth. Welcome, old aspirations, glittering creatures of an ardent fancy, to your shelter underneath the holly! We know you, and have not outlived you yet. Welcome, old projects and old loves, however fleeting, to your nooks among the steadier lights that burn around us. Welcome, all that was ever real to our hearts; and for the earnestness that made you real, thanks to Heaven! Do we build no Christmas castles in the clouds now? Let our thoughts, fluttering like butterflies among these flowers of children, bear witness! Before this boy, there stretches out a Future, brighter than we ever looked on in our old romantic time, but bright with honor and with truth. Around this little head on which the sunny curls lie heaped, the graces sport, as prettily, as airily, as when there was no scythe within the reach of Time to shear away the curls of our first-love. Upon another girl&#039;s face near it placider—but smiling bright—a quiet and contented little face, we see Home fairly written. Shining from the word, as rays shine from a star, we see how, when our graves are old, other hopes than ours are young, other hearts than ours are moved; how other ways are smoothed; how other happiness blooms, ripens, and decays—no, not decays, for other homes and other bands of children, not yet in being nor for ages yet to be, arise, and bloom and ripen to the end of all! Welcome, everything! Welcome, alike what has been, and what never was, and what we hope may be, to your shelter underneath the holly, to your places &#039;round the Christmas fire, where what is sits open-hearted! In yonder shadow, do we see obtruding furtively upon the blaze, an enemy&#039;s face? By Christmas Day we do forgive him! If the injury he has done us may admit of such companionship, let him come here and take his place. If otherwise, unhappily, let him go hence, assured that we will never injure nor accuse him. On this day, we shut out Nothing! &quot;Pause,&quot; says a low voice. &quot;Nothing? Think!&quot; &quot;On Christmas Day, we will shut out from our fireside, Nothing.&quot; &quot;Not the shadow of a vast City where the withered leaves are lying deep?&quot; the voice replies. &quot;Not the shadow that darkens the whole globe? Not the shadow of the City of the Dead?&quot; Not even that. Of all days in the year, we will turn our faces towards that City upon Christmas Day, and from its silent hosts bring those we loved, among us. City of the Dead, in the blessed name wherein we are gathered together at this time, and in the Presence that is here among us according to the promise, we will receive, and not dismiss, thy people who are dear to us! Yes. We can look upon these children angels that alight, so solemnly, so beautifully, among the living children by the fire, and can bear to think how they departed from us. Entertaining angels unawares, as the Patriarchs did, the playful children are unconscious of their guests; but we can see them—can see a radiant arm around one favorite neck, as if there were a tempting of that child away. Among the celestial figures there is one, a poor mis-shapen boy on earth, of a glorious beauty now, of whom his dying mother said it grieved her much to leave him here, alone, for so many years as it was likely would elapse before he came to her—being such a little child. But he went quickly, and was laid upon her breast, and in her hand she leads him. There was a gallant boy, who fell, far away, upon a burning sand beneath a burning sun, and said, &quot;Tell them at home, with my last love, how much I could have wished to kiss them once, but that I died contented and had done my duty!&quot; Or there was another, over whom they read the words, &quot;Therefore we commit his body to the dark!&quot; and so consigned him to the lonely ocean and sailed on. Or there was another who lay down to his rest in the dark shadow of great forests, and, on earth, awoke no more. O shall they not, from sand and sea and forest, be brought home at such a time! There was a dear girl—almost a woman—never to be one—who made a mourning Christmas in a house of joy, and went her trackless way to the silent City. Do we recollect her, worn out, faintly whispering what could not be heard, and falling into that last sleep for weariness? O look upon her now! O look upon her beauty, her serenity, her changeless youth, her happiness! The daughter of Jairus was recalled to life, to die; but she, more blest, has heard the same voice, saying unto her, &quot;Arise for ever!&quot; We had a friend who was our friend from early days, with whom we often pictured the changes .&#039;that were to come upon our lives, and merrily imagined how we would speak, and walk, and think, and talk, when we came to be old. His destined habitation in the City of the Dead received him in his prime. Shall he be shut out from our Christmas remembrance? Would his love have so excluded us? Lost friend, lost child, lost parent, sister, brother, husband, wife, we will not so discard you! You shall hold your cherished places /in our Christmas hearts, and by our Christmas fires; and in the season of immortal hope, and on the birthday of immortal mercy, we will shut out Nothing! The winter sun goes down over town and village; on the sea it makes a rosy path, as if the Sacred tread were fresh upon the water. A few more moments, and it sinks, and night comes on, and lights begin to sparkle in the prospect. On the hill-side beyond the shapelessly- diffused town, and in the quiet keeping of the trees that gird the village-steeple, remembrances are cut in stone, planted in common flowers, growing in grass, entwined with lowly brambles around many a mound of earth. In town and village, there are doors and windows closed against the weather, there are flaming logs heaped high, there are joyful faces, there is healthy music of voices. Be all ungentleness and harm excluded from the temples of the Household Gods, but be those remembrances admitted with tender encouragement! They are of the time and all its comforting and peaceful reassurances; and of the history that reunited even upon earth the living and the dead; and of the broad beneficence and goodness that too many men have tried to tear to narrow shreds.18511225https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_1851_Christmas_Number/1851-12-25-The_1851_Christmas_Number.pdf; https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_1851_Christmas_Number/1851-12-25-What_Christmas_Is_As_We_Grow_Older.pdf
246https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/246The Literary Fund Anniversary FestivalSpeech at the Literary Fund Anniversary Festival (3 May 1837).Dickens, Charles<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1837-05-03">1837-05-03</a>1837-05-03_Speech_Literary-Fund-Anniversary-Festival<span>Dickens, Charles. 'The Literary Fund Anniversary Festival' </span><span>(3 May 1837). </span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1837-05-03_Speech_Literary-Fund-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1837-05-03_Speech_Literary-Fund-Anniversary-Festival</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Freemasons%27+Tavern">Freemasons&#039; Tavern</a><p>He spoke unaffectedly, he said, when he declared that his feelings were overpowered by receiving such an honour from such a company. He felt peculiarly embarrassed in acknowledging the toast, from the language in which it was couched. Wherever he looked around him he saw many more distinguished for ability than he could ever hope to be, to whom that honour might with far more justice have been awarded. He was proud to receive so friendly a shake of the hand from the old stagers, who sought to raise him up to their own level. The great discrepancy in the toast that had been drunk would have been in coupling them with ‘the rising authors of the day’. Now, the difference was that they had risen, while he at the most was only rising.</p> <p>He hoped that the rising authors would all feel it an honour to be connected with that institution, and that should he ever leave any literary work that should carry his name to posterity (a circumstance the least likely to happen) that it would also be known that the flattering encouragement he had that night received from his literary brethren had nerved him to future exertions, smoothed his path to the station he had gained, and animated his endeavour not to do other than justice to their kind praise.</p>18370503<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>
236https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/236Toast at the Artists&#039; General Benevolent Institution Charity DinnerToast given at the Artists&#039; General Benevolent Institution Charity Dinner, Freemasons&#039; Hall (24 March 1839).Dickens, Charles<em>The Morning Chronicle&nbsp;</em>(25 March 1839).<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1839-03-24">1839-03-24</a>1839-03-24_Speech_Artists-General-Benevolent-Institution<span>Dickens, Charles. 'Toast at the Artists' General Benevolent Institution Charity Dinner</span><span>&nbsp;(24 March 1839).&nbsp;</span><em>Dickens Search</em><span>. Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date].&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1839-03-24_Speech_Artists-General-Benevolent-Institution">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1839-03-24_Speech_Artists-General-Benevolent-Institution</a>.<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Freemasons%27+Hall">Freemasons&#039; Hall</a>&#039;Mr. Charles Dickens said that, if he could consider the compliment as one paid to himself, unexpected as it was, he should have had great difficulty in returning thanks; but he was relieved from any such consideration, because he only recognised in it the connection which existed between the pencil and the pen, and therefore in the name of the sewards, of whom he had the honour to be one, he begged to return their sincere acknowledgments for the mark of distinction which had been paid to them. It would be bad taste in him if he were to detain them at any length, but he must at the same time say, that it gave him sincerely gratification to see around him, on an occasion of this kind, those distinguished artists, who cast lustre by their genius on the lowest subjects, and raised them by the power of their graphic pencils to the level of their own fanciful imaginations. He hoped he would be permitted to say, that it gave him pleasure and delight to be connected even for a moment with an institution which partook of the grace and beauty of the pencil, and shed its soft light upon poverty and distress, into the house of sickness and sorrow.&#039;<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a><a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Morning+Chronicle">The Morning Chronicle</a>18390324<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/6/Toast_at_the_Artists_General_Benevolent_Institution_Charity_Dinner/1839-03-24_Speech_Artists-General-Benevolent-Institution.pdf