A Christmas Carol

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A Christmas Carol

CHARLES DICKENS 

A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

AND OTHER CHRISTMAS BOOKS 



INTRODUCTION BY 

G. K. CHESTERTON 

CHARLES DICKENS, born at Landport 
(Portsea), near Portsmouth, in 1812. From 
the humblest beginnings became a parlia- 
mentary reporter, and so entered journalism. 
Went to America in 1842 and 1867-8, and 
to Italy in 1844. First editor of the Daily 
News, 1846. Founded Household Words (later 
restarted as All the Year Round) in 1849. 
Died at Gad's Hill, Kent, on 9th June 1870. 


LONDON J. M. DENT & SONS LTD 
NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & CO INC 



HAROLD B. LEE LIBRARY 
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY 

PROVO, UTAH All rights reserved 

Made in Great Britain 

at the 

Aldine Press • Letchworth • Herts 

for 

J. M. DENT & SONS LTD 

Aldine House • Bedford Street • London 

First published in this edition 1907 

Last reprinted 1961 



INTRODUCTION 



The mystery of Christmas is in a manner identical with 
the mystery of Dickens. If ever we adequately explain 
the one we may adequately explain the other. And in- 
deed, in the treatment of the two, the chronological or 
historical order must in some degree be remembered. 
Before we come to the question of what Dickens did for 
Christmas we must consider the question of what Christmas 
did for Dickens. How did it happen that this bustling, 
nineteenth - century man, full of the almost cock - sure 
common sense of the utilitarian and liberal epoch, came to 
associate his name chiefly in literary history with the per- 
petuation of a half pagan and half Catholic festival which 
he would certainly have called an antiquity and might 
easily have called a superstition ? Christmas has indeed 
been celebrated before in English literature; but it had, in 
the most noticeable cases, been celebrated in connection 
with that kind of feudalism with which Dickens would 
have severed his connection with an ignorant and even 
excessive scorn. Sir Roger de Coverley kept Christmas; 
but it was a feudal Christmas. Sir Walter Scott sang in 
praise of Christmas; but it was a feudal Christmas. And 
Dickens was not only indifferent to the dignity of the old 
country gentleman or to the genial archaeology of Scott; 
he was even harshly and insolently hostile to it. If Dickens 
had lived in the neighbourhood of Sir Roger de Coverley 
he would undoubtedly, like Tom Touchy, have been 
always " having the law of him." If Dickens had stumbled 
in among the old armour and quaint folios of Scott's study 
he would certainly have read his brother novelist a lesson 
in no measured terms about the futility of thus fumbling 
in the dust-bins of old oppression and error. So far from 
Dickens being one of those who like a thing because it is 
old, he was one of those cruder kind of reformers, in theory 
at least, who actually dislike a thing because it is old. He 

v 



vi Introduction 

was not merely the more righteous kind of Radical who 
tries to uproot abuses; he was partly also that more 
suicidal kind of Radical who tries to uproot himself. In 
theory at any rate, he had no adequate conception of the 
importance of human tradition; in his time it had been 
twisted and falsified into the form of an opposition to 
democracy. In truth, of course, tradition is the most 
democratic of all things, for tradition is merely a demo- 
cracy of the dead as well as the living. But Dickens and 
his special group or generation had no grasp of this per- 
manent position ; they had been called to a special war for 
the righting of special wrongs. In so far as such an in- 
stitution as Christmas was old, Dickens would even have 
tended to despise it. He could never have put the matter 
to himself in the correct way — that while there are some 
things whose antiquity does prove that they are dying, 
there are some other things whose antiquity only proves 
that they cannot die. If some Radical contemporary and 
friend of Dickens had happened to say to him that in de- 
fending the mince pies and the mummeries of Christmas 
he was defending a piece of barbaric and brutal ritualism, 
doomed to disappear in the light of reason along with the 
Boy-Bishop and the Lord of Misrule, I am not sure that 
Dickens (though he was one of the readiest and most rapid 
masters of reply in history) would have found it very eas}^ 
upon his own principles to answer. It was by a great 
ancestral instinct that he defended Christmas; by that 
sacred sub-consciousness which is called tradition, which 
some have called a dead thing, but which is really a thing 
far more living than the intellect. There is a dark kinship 
and brotherhood of all mankind which is much too deep tc 
be called heredity or to be in any way explained in scien- 
tific formulae; blood is thicker than water and is especially 
very much thicker than water on the brain. But this un- 
conscious and even automatic quality in Dickens's defence 
of the Christmas feast, this fact that his defence might 
almost be called animal rather than mental, though in 
proper language it should be called merely virile; all this 
brings us back to the fact that we must begin with the 
atmosphere of the subject itself. We must not ask Dickens 
what Christmas is, for with all his heat and eloquence he 
does not know. Rather we must ask Christmas what 



Introduction vii 

Dickens is — ask how this strange child of Christmas came 
to be bom out of due time. 

Dickens devated his genius in a somewhat special sense 
to the description of happiness. No other hterary man of 
his eminence has made this central human aim so specially 
his subject matter. Happiness is a mystery — generally a 
momentary mystery — which seldom stops long enough to 
submit itself to artistic observation, and which, even when 
it is habitual, has something about it which renders artistic 
description almost impossible. There are twenty tiny minor 
poets who can describe fairly impressively an eternity of 
agony; there are very few even of the eternal poets who 
can describe ten minutes of satisfaction. Nevertheless, 
mankind being half divine is always in love with the impos- 
sible, and numberless attempts have been made from the 
beginning of human literature to describe a real state of 
felicity. Upon the whole, I think, the most successful 
have been the most frankly physical and symbolic; the 
flowers of Eden or the jewels of the New Jerusalem. Many 
writers, for instance, have called the gold and chrysolite 
of the Holy City a vulgar lump of jewellery. But when 
these critics themselves attempt to describe their con- 
ceptions of future happiness, it is always some priggish 
nonsense about ** planes," about " cycles of fulfilment," or 
" spirals of spiritual evolution." Now a cycle is just as much 
a physical metaphor as a flower of Eden; a spiral is just as 
much a physical metaphor as a precious stone. But, after 
all, a garden is a beautiful thing; whereas this is by no 
means necessarih^ true of a cycle, as can be seen in the case 
of a bicycle. A jewel, after all, is a beautiful thing; but 
this is not necessarily so of a spiral, as can be seen in the 
case of a corkscrew. Nothing is gained by dropping 
the old material metaphors, which did hint at heavenly 
beauty, and adopting other material metaphors which do 
not even give a hint of earthly beauty. This modern or 
spiral method of describing indescribable happiness may, I 
think, be dismissed. Then there has been another method 
which has been adopted by many men of a very real 
poetical genius. It was in a certain sense the method 
adopted by Theocritus. It was in another way that 
adopted by the elegance and piety of Spenser. It was 
certainly expressed in the pictures of Watteau; and it 



viii Introduction 

had a very sympathetic and even manly expression in 
modem England in the decorative poetry of William 
Morris. These men of genius, from Theocritus to Morris, 
occupied themselves in endeavouring to describe happi- 
ness as a state of certain human beings, the atmosphere of 
a commonwealth, the enduring climate of certain cities or 
islands. They poured forth treasures of the truest kind 
of imagination upon describing the happy lives and land- 
scapes of Utopia or Atlantis or the Earthly Paradise. 
They traced with the most tender accuracy the tracery of 
its fruit-trees or the glimmering garments of its women; 
they used every ingenuity of colour or intricate shape to 
suggest its infinite delight. And what they succeeded in 
suggesting was always its infinite melancholy. William 
Morris described the Earthly Paradise in such a way that 
the only strong emotional note left on the mind was the 
feeling of how homeless his travellers felt in that alien 
Elysium; and the reader sympathised with them, feeling 
that he would prefer not only Elizabethan England but 
even twentieth-century Camberwell to such a land of shin- 
ing shadows. Thus literature has almost always failed in 
endeavouring to describe happiness as a state. Human 
tradition, human custom and folk-lore (though far more 
true and reliable than literature as a rule) have not often 
succeeded in giving quite the correct symbols for a real 
atmosphere of camaraderie and joy. But here and there the 
note has been struck with the sudden vibration of the vox 
humana. In human tradition it has been struck chiefly 
in the old celebrations of Christmas. In literature it has 
been struck chiefly in Dickens's Christmas tales. 

In the historic celebration of Christmas as it remains 
from Catholic times in certain northern countries (and it 
is to be remembered that in Catholic times the northern 
countries were, if possible, more Catholic than anybody 
else) there are three qualities which explain, I think, its 
hold upon the human sense of happiness, especially in such 
men as Dickens. There are three notes of Christmas, so 
to speak, which are also notes of happiness, and which the 
pagans and the Utopians forget. If we state what they 
are in the case of Christmas, it will be quite sufficiently 
obvious how important they are in the case of Dickens. 

The first quality is, I think, what may be called the 



Introduction ix 

dramatic quality. The happiness is not a state; it is a 
crisis. All the old customs surrounding the celebration of 
the birth of Christ are made by human instinct so as to 
insist and re-insist upon this crucial quality. Ever^^thing 
is so arranged that the whole household may feel, if possible, 
as a household does when a child is actually being bom in 
it. The thing is a vigil and a vigil with a definite limit. 
People sit up at night until they hear the bells ring. Or 
they try to sleep at night in order to see their presents the 
next morning. Everywhere there is a limitation, a re- 
straint; at one moment the door is shut, at the moment 
after it is opened. The hour has come or it has not 
come; the parcels are undone or they are not undone ; there 
is no evolution of Christmas presents. This sharp and 
theatrical quality in pleasure, which human instinct and 
the mother wit of the world has wisely put into the popular 
celebrations of Christmas, is also a quality which is essen- 
tial in such romantic literature as Dickens wrote. In 
romantic literature (that is, in permanent literature) the 
hero and heroine must indeed be happy, but they must 
also be unexpectedly happy. This is the first connecting 
link between literature and the old religious feast; this is 
the first connecting link between Dickens and Christmas. 

The second element to be found in all such festivity and 
all such romance is the element which is represented as 
well as it could be represented by the mere fact that Christ- 
mas occurs in the winter. It is the element not merely of 
contrast, but actually of antagonism. It preserves every- 
thing that was best in the merely primitive or pagan view 
of such ceremonies or such banquets. If we are carousing, 
at least we are warriors carousing. We hang above us, as 
it were, the shields and battle-axes with which we must do 
battle with the giants of the snow and hail. Man chooses 
when he wishes to be most joyful the very moment when 
the whole material universe is most sad. It is this con- 
tradiction and mystical defiance which gives a quality of 
manliness and reality to the old winter feasts which is not 
characteristic of the sunny felicities of the Earthly Paradise. 
And this curious element has been carried out even in all 
the trivial jokes and tasks that have always surrounded 
such occasions as these. The object of the jovial customs 
was not to make everything artificially easy; on the con- 

* 239 



X Introduction 

trary, it was rather to make everything artificially difficult. 
The fundamental principle of idealism is not only expressed 
by shooting an arrow at the stars; the fundamental prin- 
ciple of idealism is also expressed by putting a leg of mutton 
at the top of a greasy pole. There is in all such obser- 
vances a quality which can only be called the quality of 
divine obstruction. For instance, in the game of snap- 
dragon (that admirable occupation) the conception is that 
raisins taste much nicer if they are brands saved from the 
burning. About all Christmas things there is something a 
little nobler, if only nobler in form and theory, than mere 
comfort; even holly is prickly. 

It is not hard to see the connection of this kind of his- 
toric instinct with a romantic writer like Dickens. The 
healthy novelist must always play snapdragon with his 
principal characters; he must always be snatching the 
hero and heroine like raisins out of the fire. And though 
the third quality in Christmas is less obviously easy to ex- 
plain its connection with Dickens, if it were explained it 
would be equally unimpeachable. The third great Christ- 
mas element is the element of the grotesque. The gro- 
tesque is the natural expression of joy; and all the Utopias 
and new Edens of the poets fail to give a real impression of 
enjoyment, very largely because they leave out the gro- 
tesque. A man in most modem Utopias cannot really be 
happy; he is too dignified. A man in Morris's Earthly 
Paradise cannot really be enjoying himself; he is too de- 
corative. When real human beings have real delights they 
tend to express them entirely in grotesques — I might almost 
say entirely in goblins. On Christmas Eve one may talk 
about ghosts so long as they are turnip ghosts. One would 
not be allowed (I hope, in any decent family) to talk on 
Christmas Eve about astral bodies. The boar's head of old 
Yule-time was as grotesque as the donkey's head of Bottom 
the Weaver. But there are only one set of goblins quite 
wild enough to express the wild goodwill of Christmas, 
lliose goblins are the characters of Dickens. 

Arcadian poets and Arcadian painters have striven to 
express happiness by means of beautiful figures. Dickens 
understood that happiness is best expressed by ugly figures. 
In beauty, perhaps, there is something allied to sadness; 
certainly there is something akin to joy in the grotesque, 



Introduction xi 

nay, in the uncouth. There is something mysteriously 
associated with happiness not only in the corpulence oi 
Falstafi and the corpulence of Tony Waller, but even in 
the red nose of Bardolph or the red nose of Mr. Stiggins. A 
thing of beauty is an inspiration for ever — a matter of medi- 
tation for ever. It is rather a thing of ugliness that is 
strictly a joy for ever. 

All these traits are generally characteristic of Dickens's 
works, but that is only because this Christmas atmosphere 
is generally characteristic of all his works. All his books 
are Christmas books. But these traits are still especially 
typical of the " Christmas Books " properly so-called; his 
two or three famous Yuletide tales — " The Christmas Carol " 
and "The Chimes" and "The Cricket on the Hearth." 
Of these "The Christmas Carol" is beyond comparison the 
best as well as the most popular. Indeed, Dickens is in so 
profound and spiritual a sense a popular author that in his 
case, unlike most others, it can generally be said that the 
best work is the most popular. It is for " Pickwick " that 
he is best known; and upon the whole it is for Pickwick 
that he is best worth knowing. In any case this superiority 
of " The Christmas Carol " makes it convenient for us to 
take it as an example of the generalisations already made. 
If we study the very real atmosphere of rejoicing and of 
riotous charity in "The Christmas Carol" we shall find 
that all the three marks I have mentioned are unmistak- 
ably visible. "The Christmas Carol" is a happy story 
first, because it describes an abrupt and dramatic change; 
it is not only the story of a conversion, but of a sudden 
conversion; as sudden as the conversion of a man at a 
Salvation Army meeting. Popular religion is quite right in 
insisting on the fact of a crisis in most things. It is true 
that the man at the Salvation Army meeting would prob- 
ably be converted from the punch bowl; whereas Scrooge 
was converted to it. That only means that Scrooge and 
Dickens represented a higher and more historic Chris- 
tianity. But in both cases happiness is rightly valued 
because it follows dramatically upon unhappiness; happi- 
ness is valued because it is " salvation " — something saved 
from the wreck. 

Again, " The Christmas Carol " owes much of its hilarity 
to our second source — the fact of its being a tale of winter 



xii Introduction 

and of a very wintry winter. There is much about comfort in 
the story; yet the comfort is never enervating: it is saved 
from that by a tingle of something bitter and bracing in 
the weather. Lastly, the story exemplifies throughout the 
power of the third principle — the kinship between gaiety 
and the grotesque. Everybody is happy because nobody 
is dignified. We have a feeling somehow that Scrooge 
looked even uglier when he was kind than he had looked 
when he was cruel. The turkey that Scrooge bought was 
so fat, says Dickens, that it could never have stood upright. 
That top-heavy and monstrous bird is a good symbol of 
the top-heavy happiness of the stories. 

It is less profitable to criticise the other two tales in 
detail because they represent variations on the theme in 
two directions; and variations that were not, upon the 
whole, improvements. " The Chimes '* is a monument of 
Dickens's honourable quality of pugnacity. He could not 
admire anything, even peace, without wanting to be war- 
like about it. That was all as it should be. But in " The 
Chimes " he seeks to marshal together all the prigs and 
snobs who are the enemies of Christmas, the enemies of the 
cheerfulness of the poor; but indeed they were hardly 
worthy of his sword. And if " The Chimes " has too much 
of his mere pugnacity, *' The Cricket on the Hearth" 
tends to his opposite weakness — it has too much of his mere 
sentiment and cosiness. For all good things have a pos- 
sible peril, and there was in this humane hospitality of 
Dickens a peril of optimism and languor. Happiness 
should be shown in short flashes. It was wise of Dickens to 
show it in short stories. Even at the end of " The Cricket 
on the Hearth *' we feel vaguely that we have sat too long 
by the fire. We feel that we desire another and sharper 
kind of cheerfulness. For there are crickets on the heath 
as well as on the heaxth. 

G. K. CHESTERTON. 



SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 

WORKS. Sketches by Boz, ist series, 2 vols., 1836; 2nd series, i vol., 
1837 (from Monthly Magazine, Evening Chronicle, Bell's Life in London 
and The Library of Fiction)-, Sunday under Three Heads, etc., 1836; The 
Village Coquettes, comic opera, 1836; The Strange Gentleman, comic 
burletta, 1837; Is she his Wife? or Something Singular? comic burletta, 
acted 1837; Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, monthly numbers, 
1836-7; Mudfog Papers (Bentley's Miscellany), 1837-8; Memoirs of 
Joseph Grimaldi, edited by Boz, 1838; Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy's 
Progress, 1838-9 (from Bentley's Miscellany)) Sketches of Young Gentle- 
men, 1838; Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, monthly numbers, 
1838-9; Sketches of Young Couples, etc., 1840; Master Humphrey's Clocks 
weekly numbers, 1840-1; volume form, 1840, 1841 {Old Curiosity Shop, 
Barnaby Rudge); The Pic-nic Papers (preface and first story), 1841; 
American Notes for General Circulation, 1842; A Christmas Carol in 
Prose, 1843; The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, monthly 
numbers, 1843-4; The Chimes : a Goblin Story of some Bells, etc., 1844; 
The Cricket on the Hearth: a Fairy Tale of Home, 1845; Pictures from 
Italy, 1846 (from Daily News); The Battle of Life : a Love Story, 1846; 
Dealings with the Firm of Dombey & Son, etc., monthly numbers, 1846-8 ; 
The Haunted Man, and The Ghost's Bargain, 1848 ; The Personal History 
of David Copperfield, monthly numbers, 1849-50; Christmas Stories in 
Household Words and All the Year Round, 1850-67; Bleak House, 
monthly numbers, 1852-3; A Child's History of England, 3 vols., 1852-4 
(from Household Words) ; Hard Times for these Times, 1854 (from House- 
hold Words); Little Dorrit, monthly numbers, 1855-7; A Tale of Two 
Cities, 1859 (from All the Year Round) ; Great Expectations, 1860-1 (from 
All the Year Round); Our Mutual Friend, monthly numbers, 1864-5; 
Religious Opinions of the late Rev, CJiauncey Hare Townshend, ed. C. D., 
1869; 'Landor's Life,' last contribution to All the Year Round; The 
Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished), in monthly numbers, April to 
September 1870. 

Other papers were contributed to Household Words and All the Year 
Round. 

First Collective ed., 1847-74; Library Ed., 1857, etc.; 'Charles 
Dickens' Ed., 1868-70. 

Letters, ed. Georgina Hogarth and Mamie Dickens, 3 vols., 1880-2; 
ed. W. Dexter, 3 vols., 1938; E. Johnson, Letters from Charles Dickens to 
Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1953. 

LIFE. J. Forster, Life of Charles Dickens, 3 vols., 1872-4 (new edition, 
ed. J. W. T. Ley, 1928) ; G. K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens, 1906; Sir W. 
Robertson Nicoll, Dickens' Own Story, 1923; R. Straus, Dickens, a 
Portrait in Pencil, 1928; Sir H. F. Dickens, Memories of my Father, 1928; 
E. Wagenknecht, The Man Charles Dickens, 1929; Osbert Sitwell, 
Dickens, 1932; Una Pope-Hennessy, Charles Dickens, 1945; R. J. 
Cruikshank, Charles Dickens and Early Victorian England, 1949 ; Hesketh 
Pearson, Dickens, his Character, Comedy, and Career, 1949; Jack 
Lindsay, Charles Dickens, 1950; Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens — His 
Tragedy and Truimph, 1952; G. H. Ford, Dickens and his Readers, 1955; 
J. Butt and Kathleen Tillotson, Dickens at Work, 1957. 

See also George Gissing, Charles Dickens: a Critical Study, 1898; Sir 
J. A. Hammerton, The Dickens Companion, 1910; G. K. Chesterton, 
Criticisms and Appreciation of the Works of Charles Dickens, 191 1 ; W. G. 
Wilkins (ed.), Dickens in America, 191 1; J. W. T. Ley, The Dickens 
Circle: The Novelist's Friendships ^ 191 9; The Dickensian (magazine, 55 
vols, to date), founded 1905. 

xiii 



CONTENTS 



Introduction by G. K. Chesterton 
A CHRISTMAS CAROL .... 
Stave I — Marley's Ghost 
Stave II— The First of the Three Spirits . 
Stave III — The Second of the Three Spirits 
Stave IV—The Last of the Spirits 
Stave V— The End of it 



THE CHIMES .... 
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 
THE BATTLE OF LIFE . 



THE HAUNTED MAN 

Chapter I — The Gift Bestowed 
Chapter II— The Gift Diffused 
Chapter III— The Gift Reversed 



page 
v 

5 
9 

26 
42 
62 
76 

83 

163 

247 

329 
331 
354 
392 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

BEING A GHOST STORY 
OF CHRISTMAS 



PREFACE 

I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly Httle book to raise the 
Ghost of an Idea which shall 'not put my readers out of 
humour with themselves^ with each other^ with the season^ 
or with me. May it haunt their house pleasantly, and no 
one wish to lay it. 

Their faithful Friend and Servant, 

C. D. 

December, 1843. 



CHARACTERS 

Bob Cratchtt, clerk to Ebenezer Scrooge. 
Peter Cratchit, a son of the preceding. 

Tim Cratchit (" Tiny Tim "), a cripple, youngest son of Bob Cratchit. 
Mr. F'ezziwig, a kind-hearted, jovial old merchant. 
Fred, Scrooge's nephew. 

Ghost of Christmas Past, a phantom showing things past. 
Ghost of Christmas Present, a spirit of a kind, generous, and hearty 
nature. 

Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, an apparition showing the shadows 

of things which yet may happen. 
Ghost of Jacob Marley, a spectre of Scrooge's former partner in 

business. 
Joe, a marine-store dealer and receiver of stolen goods. 
Ebenezer Scrooge, a grasping, covetous old man, the surviving 

partner of the firm of Scrooge and Marley. 
Mr. Topper, a bachelor. 
Dick Wilkins, a fellow apprentice of Scrooge's. 

Belle, a comely matron, an old sweetheart of Scrooge's. 

Caroline, wife of one of Scrooge's debtors. 

Mrs. Cratchit, wife of Bob Cratchit. 

Belinda and Martha Cratchit, daughters of the preceding. 

Mrs. Dilber, a laundress. 

Fan, the sister of Scrooge. 

Mrs. Fezziwig, the worthy partner of Mr. Fezziwig. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 



STAVE I 
marley's ghost 

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt what- 
ever 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 know- 
ledge, 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 won- 
derful 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 

9 



lo A Christmas Carol 

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, clutch- 
ing, 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, no 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 advan- 
tage 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 glad- 
some 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 Hfe inquired the way to such and 
such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men'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 



Christmas Eve 1 1 

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 stamp- 
ing 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." 



12 A Christm'.is Carol 

*' 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, but 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 mav 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 



Scrooge and His Nephew i 3 

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, not- 
withstanding. 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 over- 
heard 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. 



14 A Christmas Carol 

They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him. 

*' Scrooge and Marley's, I believe/' said one of the gentle- 
men, referring to his list. " Have I the pleasure of address- 
ing 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; hun- 
dreds 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 Chris- 
tian 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 sliall 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 



Scrooge and the Charitable Gentlemen 15 

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 in- 
terfere 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 overflo wings sul- 
lenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ic^^^/Tlie bfi^M-' 
ness 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 im- 
possible to believe that siKi^dull principles as bargain and 
sale had anything to do-^The Lord Mayor, in the strong^^' 
hold of the mighty MartCion 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 



1 6 A Christmas Carol 

and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's pud- 
ding 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 sHde on Cornhill, 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-bufi. 



Marley's Face 17 

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melan- 
choly 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 medi- 
tation 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 hvery. Let it also be borne 
in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Mar- 
ley, 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 under- 
going 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 motion- 
less. That, and its Hvid colour, made it horrible; but its 
horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its con- 
trol, rather than a part of its own expsession. 

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a 
knocker again. 



i8 A Christmas Carol 

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 sauce- 
pan 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. 



Strange Noises 19 

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 nightcap; 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 fireplace 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 hke feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles 
putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to 
attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven 
years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swal- 
lowed 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 w^ere 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. 

B239 



20 A Christmas Carol 

" 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 pigtail, 
usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on the latter 
bristling, like his pigtail, 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 ker- 
chief 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 con- 
dition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being 
impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing 



The Ghost 21 

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 1 " 

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 distract- 
ing 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," repHed 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 



2 2 A Christmas Carol 

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! " 



An Incessant Torture of Remorse 23 

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thought- 
ful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on 
what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without Hfting 
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 I " 

*' 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 be- 
fore 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 opportunity misused ! 
Yet such was I ! Oh ! such was I ! " 

" But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," 
faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself. 

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 
" Mankind was my business. The common welfare w^as 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 



24 A Christmas Carol 

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 1 " 

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 I " 

" 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 faltering 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 ven- 
tured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural 



The Ghost's Departure 25 

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 w^as 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 filled with phantoms, wandering hither and 
thither in restless haste and moaning as they went. Every 
one of them wore chains hke 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 ankle, who cried piteously at being unable 
to assist a wTCtched woman with an infant, whom it saw 
below, upon a door-step. The misery v/ith 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 en- 
shrouded 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 undis- 
turbed. He tried to say '' Humbug!" but stopped at the 
first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had under- 
gone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the In- 
visible 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. 



2 6 A Christmas Carol 

STAVE II 

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. 



Another Unearthly Visitor 27 

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 he 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 hstening 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 v/ere 



28 A Christmas Carol 

very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold 
were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most deH- 
cately 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 con- 
tradiction 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 ex- 
tinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm. 

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with in- 
creasing 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 wuth 
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, dis- 
tinct and clear as ever. 

'* Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to 
me? " asked Scrooge. 

"lam!" 

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 I " 



Familiar Scenes 29 

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 thinkings 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 pur- 
poses; 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 to- 
gether, 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 1 



30 A Christmas Carol 

" 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! " ob- 
served 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 1 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 for- 
tunes; 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-pjn with grass. 
Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for 



Scrooge's School-days 31 

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 some- 
how 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 
used to be. 

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle 
from the mice behind the panelling, 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 a 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: w^onderfully real and distinct to look at: 
stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and 
leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood. 

''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 w^as 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 1 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 



32 A Christmas Carol 

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 : say- 
ing 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 panels 
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 every- 
thing 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 de- 
spairingly. 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 



A Delicate Creature 33 

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 school- 
master 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 celes- 
tial 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 in- 
stalments of those dainties to the young people : at the same 
time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of '' some- 
thing " 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 
school-master good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, 
drove gaily down the garden-sweep : the quick wheels dash- 
ing 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 



34 



A Christmas Carol 



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 Welsh 
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 beHeve 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 Fezzi- 



The Fezziwig Ball 35 

wig 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 every- 
how. 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 affec- 
tionate 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 scorn- 
ing rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began aguin, 
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 



36 A Christmas Carol 

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 Fezzi wig'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 
of 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, re- 
membered 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, 



Scrooge's Old Love 37 

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 powder to render us happy 
or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a 
pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in w^ords 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 ma^tter? " 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 tw^o to my clerk just now. That's all." 

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utter- 
ance 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 w^ear 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 w^ould 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 com- 
fort 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. 



38 



A Christmas Carol 



'' 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. 

"Ami?'' 

" 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 wordly 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 / 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, 



Another Scene 39 

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 1 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 punish- 



40 A Christmas Carol 

ment, 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 w^as 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 wdth 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 his 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 dow^n 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 wdnter 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.' 



Extinguishing the Light 41 

" 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 beheve." 

''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 un- 
disturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed 
that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly con- 
necting 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. 



42 A Christmas Carol 



STAVE III 

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 ventur- 
ing 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 
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 pro- 
claimed 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 appre- 
hensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting 



The Ghost of Christmas Present 43 

case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consola- 
tion 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 chest- 
nuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, 
immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that 
made the chamber dim with their dehcious 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 Hght 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 the Spirit's 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 



44 A Christmas Carol 

green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This gar- 

Gl ment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast 
I 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 fam^ily 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 ought 
to teach me, let me profit by it." 

^' Touch my robe!" 

Scrooge did as he was toid, 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 dpwn 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; 



The Christmas Shops 45 

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 w^as 
gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy 
mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles de- 
scended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in 
Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blaz- 
ing 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-belHed baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waist- 
coats 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 wink- 
ing 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 shop- 
keepers' 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, 



46 



A Christmas Carol 




to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in 
sl^w and passionless excitement. 

'he Grocers' ! oh the Grocers' ! nearly closed, with per- 
laps 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/^ie 
coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious, 
was 

plums ^To^dTn modest tartness from their highl^r^ecorated 
boxes, or tnH^^verything was good to eat a;a!din its Christ- 
mass dress; biibtie customers were aR/^ hurried and so 
eager in the hopefulJlTPQmise of the d^, that they tumbled 
up against each other a^NJie dp5r, crashing their wicker 
baskets wildly, and left thep^rchases upon the counter, 
and came running bacl^y^ febsti them, and committed 
hundreds of the likeiHris takes, in th^^t^st humour possible; 
while the Grocer^^la his people were so n^nk and fresh that 
the polishedJ*^ts with which they fastei^edtheir aprons 
behind migm have been their own, worn outsid^Sorgeneral 
inspepriSn, and for Christmas daws to peck at u 
cli^^. 

• 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 
dJQ pers to the bakers' shops .iV^he sight of these poor 
revellers appearedToTnTerestuie 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 un- 
common kind of torch, for once or twice when there were 
angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled 
each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, 
and their good humour was restored directly. For they said. 



An Uncommon Torch 47 

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 inno- 
cent 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 wTong. 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 selfish- 
ness 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 w^as 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. 



48 



A Christmas Carol 



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 sprinkling 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, Crachit'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! " 



At Bob Cratchit's 49 

" 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 threadbare 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 httle 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 before the fire; and while 
Bob, turning up his cuffs — as if, poor fellow, they were 
capable of being made more shabby — compounded some hot 



50 A Christmas Carol 

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 ex- 
pected 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 beheve 
there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and 
flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal 
admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, 
it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as 
Mrs. Cratchit said with great dehght (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. 



A Joyous Christmas Dinner 51 

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of 
the copper. A smell hke 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 fiat 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 Httle 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 hve." 

" I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, ^^ in the poor 
chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully 




C239 



52 A Christmas Carol 

?* preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, 
fi 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." 
1^ 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 Hve 
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 Hfe 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. 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 Situation for iM aster Peter 53 

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 Httle 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 
put into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, 



54 A Christmas Carol 

cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, 
again, were shadows on the window-Wind of guests assem- 
bling; 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, woe 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 



To Sea ^^ 

Christmas song — it had be n 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 w^hich 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 hke 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 helms- 
man 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 



56 A Christmas Carol 

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, indig- 
nantly. 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." 



At Scrooge's Nephew's 57 

" WTiat 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 v^on'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 lampHght. 

" Well! I'm very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, 
" because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers. 
What do y oil 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 out- 
cast, 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 going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, *' that the 
consequences 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 — 



•) 



58 A Christmas Carol 

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 
famihar 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 kind- 
nesses 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 against the piano, smother- 
ing himself among the curtains, wherever she went, there 
went he ! He always knew where the plump sister was. He 
f wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against 
I him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would have made 



k>^ 



A Merry Party 59 

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 pretend- 
ing 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 confi- 
dential 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. Like- 
wise 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 

*Q 239 



6o A Christmas Carol 

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 any- 
body, 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 com- 
pany 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 
lie 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 



Ignorance and Want 6i 

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 ap- 
peared 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, protrud- 
ing 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!" ex- 
claimed the Ghost. 

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowl- 
ing, 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 



62 A Christmas Carol 

the words choked themselves^ rather than be parties to a lie 
of such enormous magnitude. 

'' Spirit! are they yours? '^ Scrooge could say no moie. 

" 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 1 Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. 
And abide 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 work- 
houses? " 

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 IV 

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 



In the City 63 

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 gi\ing 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 



64 A Christmas Carol 

in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thought- 
fully with their great gold seals; ,nd 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 wav. 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 hsteners 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 



Trivial Conversations 65 

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 skater, 
I suppose? '' 

'' No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning ! " 

Not another word. That was their meeting, their con- 
versation, and their parting. 

Scrooge was at first incHned 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 appHed they had some latent moral for his own im- 
provement, 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 Hfe, 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 



66 A Christmas Carol 

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, Hke 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 him- 
self from the cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of mis- 
cellaneous 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 



Ghoules 67 

in the place as its own hinges, I beheve; and Tm sure there's 
no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha ! We're all suit- 
able 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 them- 
selves. 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? W^e're not going to pick holes in 
each other's coats, I suppose? " 

*' No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. 
" W^e 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 knew pretty well that we were helping our- 
selves, 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; 



68 A Christmas Carol 

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," repHed 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 any- 
thing 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 



The Dead Man 69 

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 thread- 
bare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. They'd 
have wasted it, if it had'nt 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 enough for such 
a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite as 
becoming to the body. He can't look ugHer 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, pro- 
ducing 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 ad- 
justed 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. 



"JO A Christmas Carol 

Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar 
here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy com- 
mand : 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 .lot 
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 mo- 
ment, 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 



Lighter Hearts 71 

to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was 
careworn 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 em- 
barrassed 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 



72 A Christmas Carol 

there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They 
entered Poor Bob Cratchit's house; the dwelHng 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 faltered 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 com- 
forter — 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 



True Sympathy 73 

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 gentle- 
man 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," repHed 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 



74 A. Christmas Carol 

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 how- 
ever 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 



The Dead Man's Name 75 

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 hfe; 
choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appe- 
tite. 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, trembhng 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 



76 



A Christmas Carol 



me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you 
have shown me, by an altered Hfe ! " 

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 V 

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 Hve 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 Mar ley ( 
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 inten- 
tions, 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, 



An Intelligent Boy 77 

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 Laocoon 
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 wander- 
ing 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! 
here!" 
;e was checked in his transports by the churches ring- 
ing 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; sweetfresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! 
Glorious ! ... (/ttAX^V^/n "P^ • // 

" What's to-day? " cried Scroogef calfing 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! " repHed the boy. '' Why, Christmas Day." 

"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. '* I 




78 



A Christmas Carol 



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 shan'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 wonder- 
ful 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. 



A Charitable Donation 79 

** 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 Mar- 
ley's, I beheve?" 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 taken away. '' My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious? " 

'' If you please/' said Scrooge. " Not a farthing less. A 



8o A Christmas Carol 

great many back-payments are included in it, T 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 1 " 

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. 



Scrooge Reclaimed by Christmas 8i 

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 jif^y; 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 ^he 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 earnest- 
ness 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 



82 A Christmas Carol 

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! 



THE CHIMES 

A GOBLIN STORY 

OF 

SOME BELLS THAT RANG AN OLD YEAR OUT 
AND A NEW ONE IN 



239 



CHARACTERS 

Sir Joseph Bowley, M.P., an old and stately gentleman. 

Master Bowley, son of the preceding. 

Alderman Cute, a man priding himself on his plain, practical, know- 
ing character. 

Will Fern, a poor and honest man, but who has been given a bad 
name. 

Mr. Filer, a disconsolate gentleman of middle age. 

Mr. Fish, confidential secretary to Sir Joseph Bowley. 

Richard, a handsome young smith. 

TuGBY, porter to Sir James Bowley. 

Toby Veck (" Trotty "), a ticket-porter. 

Lady Bowley, wife of S;r Joseph Bowley. 
Mrs. Anne Chickenstalker, keeper of a " general shop." 
Lilian Fern, an orphan; niece to Will Fern. 
Margaret Veck, daughter of Toby Veck. 



THE CHIMES 



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 op- 
ponent 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 

85 



86 The Chimes 

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 pre- 
serve 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 be- 
neath 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 
one 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 memorv of man, and no one knew their names. Thev 
had had their Godfathers and Godmothers, these Bells (for 
my own part, by the way, I would rather incur the responsi- 
bility of being Godfather to a Bell than a Boy), and 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 



Trotty Veck 87 

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, 
" all to fits,'' 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 pubHc 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 " Why, here he is! " 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 Hfted 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 very 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, 



88 The Chimes 

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; 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 com- 
fort 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 um- 
brellas 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 un- 
comfortable sprinklings ; when gutters brawled and water- 
spouts were full and noisy; when the wet from the project- 
ing 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'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't well afford to 



Trotty and the Bells 89 

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 him- 
self 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 think- 
ing 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 them- 
selves 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 participa- 
tion 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 m.any windows: 
sometimes pretty faces, youthful faces, pleasant faces : some- 
times 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'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 



90 The Chimes 

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 com- 
plicated feeling. For, being but a simple man, he invested 
them wdth 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 ! 

''Dinner-time, eh!" said Toby, trotting up and down 
before the church. ''Ah!" 

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. 

" Dinner-time, eh! " repeated Toby, using his right-hand 
muffler like an infantine boxing-glove, and punishing his 
chest for being cold. " Ah-h-h-h ! " 

He took a silent trot, after that, for a minute or two. 



Trotty's Reflections 91 

'' There's nothing." 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) ar^d 
he had soon finished. 

^' I thought it was gone/' said Toby, trotting off again. 
" It's all right, however. I am sure I couldn't blame it if it 
was to go. It has a precious hard service of it in the bitter 
weather, and precious httle to look forward to; for I don't 
take snuff myself. It'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't too often), it's generally from some- 
body else's dinner, a-coming home from the baker's." 

The reflection reminded him of that other reflection, which 
he had left unfinished. 

'' There's nothing," said Toby, " 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 'em. 
It's took me a long time to find it out. I wonder whether 
it would be worth any gentleman's while, now, to buy that 
obserwation for the Papers; or the Parliament! " 

Toby was only joking, for he gravely shook his head in 
self-depreciation. 

"Why! Lord!" said Toby. "The Papers is full of 
obserwations as it is; and so's the Parliament. Here's last 
week's paper, now; " taking a very dirty one from his pocket, 
and holding it from him at arm's length; " full of obserwa- 
tions! Full of obserwations! I like to know the news as 
well as any man," said Toby, slowly; folding it a little 
smaller, and putting it in his pocket again: " but it almo>t 
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! " 

" Why, father, father! " 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. 

" It seems as if we can't go right, or do right, or be 
righted," said Toby. " 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 thmk we must have — a little; and sometimes I think we 

*j) 239 



92 The Chimes 

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! '' said 
Toby, mournfully. " I can bear up as well as another man 
at most times; better than a good many, for I am as strong 
as a Hon, 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 '' 

" Why, father, father! " said the pleasant voice again. 

Toby heard it this time; started; stopped; and shorten- 
ing his sight, which had been directed a long way off as 
seeking the enlightenment in the very heart of the approach- 
ing 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: " I think we have some business here — a little! " 

Trotty kissed the lips belonging to the eyes, and squeezed 
the blooming face between his hands. 

''Why, Pet,'' said Trotty. ''What's to do? I didn't 
expect you to-day, Meg." 

" Neither did I expect to come, father," cried the girl, 
nodding her head and smiling as she spoke. " But here 
I am! And not alone; not alone! " 

" Why you don't mean to say," observed Trotty, looking 
curiously at a covered basket which she carried in her hand, 
" that you " 

" Smell it, father dear," said Meg. " Only smell it! " 

Trotty was going to lift up the cover at once, in a great 
hurry, when she gaily interposed her hand. 

*' No, no, no," said Meg, with the glee of a child. 



Trotty's Daughter 93 

"Lengthen it out a little. Let me just lift up the corner; 
just the lit-tle ti-ny cor-ner^ you know/' 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 some- 
thing inside the basket; "there. Now. What's that .^ " 

Toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge of the 
basket^ and cried out in a rapture: 

"Why, it's hot!" 

" It's'burning hot! " cried Meg. " Ha, ha, ha! It's scald- 
ing hot!" 

" Ha, ha, ha! " roared Toby, with a sort of kick. " It's 
scalding hot! " 

"But what is it, father.^" said Meg. "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 ! " 

Meg was in a perfect fright lest he should guess right too 
soon; shrinking away, as she held the basket tow^ards 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. 

"Ah! It's very nice," said Toby. "It an't — I suppose 
it an't Polonies? " 

"No, no, no!" cried Meg, delighted. "Nothing like 
Polonies!" 

" No," said Toby, after another sniff. " It's — it's 
mellower than Polonies. It's very nice. It improves every 
moment. It's too decided for Trotters. An't it? " 

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 Hver. 
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!" 



94 The Chimes 

" 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-hand- 
kerchief; 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 m.e, how clever they think us! " 

" Yes, my dear," said 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 gentle- 
folks 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 potato 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, Trolly 
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 



Trotty's Dinner-Table 95 

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 ! " 

" Seem to, my Pet," said Trotty, falling to with great 
vigour. *' And where's the difference? If I hear 'em, what 
does it matter whether they speak it or not? Why bless 
you, my dear," said Toby, pointing at the tower with his 
fork, and becoming more animated under the influence of 
dinner, " 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, Tobv ! ' A million times ? 
More!" 

^' 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 potato, and from hot potato 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 



96 The Chimes 

knife and fork. " My dove! Meg! why didn't you tell me 
what a beast I was? '' 

"Father?" 

'' Sitting here/' said Trotty, in a 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 " 

'^ 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 hesita- 
tion, "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 — " Meg resumed. Then 
stopped. 

" What does Richard say, Meg? " asked Toby. 

" Richard says, father — " 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 



Meg Has Something to Tell 97 

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; 



98 



The Chimes 



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 warn- 
ings 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, v;hat's the matter! " said the gentle- 
man 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 
w ithout any abatement of his dignity, but with an expression 
of having important and wealthy engagements elsewhere. 
*' What's the matter ! What's the mat'ter ! " 

*' You're always a-being begged, and prayed, upon your 
bended knees you are," said the footman w^ith 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 



Who Eats Tripe ? 99 

dog's-eared from that custom; and was not particularly well 
brushed or washed. The other^ a full-sized, sleek, well-con- 
ditioned 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, '' com- 
monly 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 know- 
ing 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- 
eighths 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, \vould 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?" 



lOO The Chimes 

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 dis- 
cussing 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 



The Practical Alderman Cute loi 

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 — prac- 
tical, 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 Alder- 
man, 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! 



I02 The Chimes 

Never out ol 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 — ' 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 I Not a bit of pride I 

" 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 I " 

" 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 



Alderman Cute's Advice 103 

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 bom. 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, wrath- 
fully, 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 Alder- 
man Cute was a Justice ! 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. These 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 



I04 The Chimes 

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 
^leg 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 ! " 

O, 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, 



Trotty Veck Is Wrong Every Way 105 

" 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. 

" 0! 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 
Httle 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 hurry- 
ing 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 encourage- 
ment. 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 



io6 The Chimes 

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 ]\I — e — " 



The New Year 107 

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 consola- 
tory 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 rejoic- 
ings. There were books and toys for the New Year, gHtter- 
ing trinkets for the New Year, dresses for the New Year, 
schemes of fortune for the New Year; new inventions to be- 
guile it. Its life was parcelled out in almanacks and pocket- 
books; the coming of its moons, and s/.ars, 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 worJ: 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 ! 



io8 The Chimes 

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. Knock- 
ing 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 fireplace. 

" What is this? " said the last-named gentleman. " Mr. 
Fish, will you have the goodness to attend? " 



At Sir Joseph Bowley's 109 

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 — '' 

" 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 



I lo The Chimes 

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, glanc- 
ing 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. 1 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. ]\Iy 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. 

'' Your only business, my good fellow/' pursued Sir Joseph, 
looking abstractedly at Toby; " 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;" Toby thought re- 
morsefully of the tripe; " but that you should feel the 
Dignity of Labour. Go forth erect into the cheerful morn- 
ing 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 }'Our 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." 



The Poor Man's Friend i i i 

" 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 w^ill 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 Labour, he sinks into his 
comfortable grave, then, my lady " — here Sir Joseph blew 
his nose — '' I will be a Friend and a Father — on the same 
terms — to his children." 

Toby was greatly moved. 

"O! You have a thankful family. Sir Joseph!" cried 
his wife. 

" j\Iy lady," said Sir Joseph, quite majestically, '' In- 
gratitude 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, 1 do," pursued Sir Joseph. *' I do 
my duty as the Poor Man's Friend and Father; and I en- 
deavour 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 desis^nins: 
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 re- 
mind 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 



I I 2 The Chimes 

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 ingrati- 
tude 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 favour- 
able. 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 per- 
suade him to be happy when he might. Under these cir- 



Will Fern Must Be Put Down 113 

cumstances, 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 reUed 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 ! " 



I 14 The Chimes 

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 im- 
practicable 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, Fm 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 likclv to be hurt him- 



The Countryman and His Child i 15 

self: and indeed^ he had flown out into the road; hke 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," pene- 
trated 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 sus- 
picion, and want to clear myself, and to be free to go a:id 
seek my bread — I don't know where. So, maybe he'll for- 
give my going to his house to-night." 

£239 



I I 6 The Chimes 

" 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/' cried 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 cor- 
roboration 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 mis- 
fortun'. 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 — " 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, with- 
out 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 



Trotty Veck and Will Fern i 17 

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 nowt 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 natur', 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 



1 1 8 The Chimes 

have taken care on her, the Union — eight-and-twenty mile 
away from where we Hve — 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 " 

'' 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 



Trotty's Hospitality 119 

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 



I20 The Chimes 

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 re- 
member where it was exactly, I'll go myself and try to 
findW' 

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 im- 
press 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 ap- 
peared to eat with infinite relish, but declared was perfectly 
uninteresting to him. 

No. Trotty's occupation was, to see Will Fern and Lilian 
cat 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 



A New Heart for a New Year 121 

Trotty, Trotty laughed at Meg. Meg shook her head, and 
made belief to clap her hands, applauding Trotty; Trotty 
conveyed^ in a 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, w^on't she.^ Fm 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 expand- 
ing 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 conveni- 
ences 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 ! " 



122 The Chimes 

The hand released from the child's hair, had fallen, trem- 
bling, into Trotty's hand. So Trotty, talking without inter- 
mission, 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 think- 
ing, 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 ? 

"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 



Trotty's Bewilderment 123 

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 — " 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. 
'' Haunt and hunt him, haunt and hunt him. Drag him to 
us, drag him to us! " Deafening the whole town! 

"Meg," said Trotty softly: tapping at her door. ''Do 
you hear anything? " 

" I hear the Bells, father. Surelv thev're very loud to- 
night." 

'* Is she asleep? " said Toby, making an excuse for peeping 
in. 

'' So peacefully and happily! I can't leave her yet though, 
father. Look how she holds my hand ! " 

'' Meg," whispered Trotty. '' Listen to the Bells! " 

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. 

*' If the tower-door is really open," said Toby, hastily 
laying aside his apron, but never thinking of his hat, '' 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." 

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! 

*£239 



124 The Chimes 

He thought^ on the first surprise, of going back; or oi 
getting a light, or a companion, but his courage aided him 
immediately, and he determined to ascend alone. 

" What have I to fear? " said Trotty. '' It's a church! 
Besides, the ringers may be there, and have forgotten to 
shut the door." 

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 search- 
ing 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 blurr 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 



Trotty in the Belfry 125 

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 '' Halloa! " 

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 " Haunt and hunt him," breathing monotonously 
through his sleep or swoon, became a voice exclaiming in the 
waking ears of Trotty, " Break his slumbers"; when and 



126 The Chimes 

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 drawf phantoms, spirits, elfin 
creatures of the Bells. He saw them leaping, flying, drop- 
ping, 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 



Trotty Seized with Fear 127 

election, in that a ball; he .saw, 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 com- 
pany who had gambolled in the tower, remained there, spin- 
ning 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 persever- 
ance, 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, w^th 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, head foremost, 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, 



128 The Chimes 

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 en- 
folding them, as well as by their looks and forms and super- 
natural 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. 

" What visitor is this! '' it said. The voice was low and 
deep, and Trotty fancied that it sounded in the other figures 
as well. 

'' I thought my name was called by the Chimes! " said 
Trotty, raising his hands in an attitude of supplication. 
'^ 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." 

'' And you have thanked them? " said the Bell. 

" A thousand times ! " said Trotty. 

"How?" 

" I am a poor man," faltered Trotty, '' and could only 
tliank them in words." 

"And always so?" inquired the Goblin of the Bell. 
" Have you never done us wrong in words? " 

" No! " cried Trotty eagerly. 

" Never done us foul, and false, and wicked wrong, in 
words? " pursued the Goblin of the Bell. 

Trotty was about to answer, '' Never! " But he stopped, 
and was confused. 

*' The voice of Time," said the Phantom, " cries to man, 
Advance! Time is for his advancement and improvement; 



What the Bells Said 129 

for his greater worthy his greater happiness, his better Hfe; 
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! " 

" I never did so to my knowledge, sir," said Trotty. ^^ It 
was quite by accident if I did. I wouldn't go to do it, I'm 
sure." 

" Who puts into the mouth of Time, or of its servants," 
said the Goblin of the Bell, '' 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." 

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. 

" If you knev/," said Trotty, clasping his hands earnestly 
— " 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 every had) 
when first her mother died, and she and me were left alone; 
you won't bear malice for a hasty word ! " 

'' Who hears in us, the Chimes, one note bespeaking dis- 
regard, 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 ! " said the Bell. 

" I have ! " said Trotty. " Oh forgive me ! " 

"Who hears us echo the dull vermin of the earth: the 
Putters Down of crushed and broken natures, formed to be 



I 30 The Chimes 

raised up higher than such maggots of the time can crawl or 
can conceive/' pursued the GobHn of the Bell; *' who does 
so. does us wrong. And you have done us wrong ! " 

" Not meaning it/' said Trotty. '' In my ignorance. Not 
meaning it! " 

*' Lastly, and most of all/' pursued the Bell. '' 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 ! " 

" Spare me/' cried Trotty, falling on his knees; for 
Mercy's sake ! " 

" Listen! " said the Shadow. 

" Listen! " cried the other Shadows. 

*^ Listen ! " said a clear and childlike 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. 

" Listen! " said the Shadow. 

*' Listen!" said the other Shadows. 

" Listen! " 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. 

" She is dead! " exclaimed the old man. '* Meg is dead! 
Her spirit calls to me. I hear it! " 

" The Spirit of your child bewails the dead, and mingles 
with the dead — dead hopes, dead fancies, dead imaginings 
of youth," returned the Bell, '' but she is living. Learn 
from her life, a living truth. Learn from the creature 



The Spirit of the Chimes 131 

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 ! " 

Each of the shadowy figures stretched its right arm forth, 
and pointed downward. 

" The Spirit of the Chimes is your companion/' said the 
figure. " Go ! It sands behind you ! " 

Trotty turned, and saw — the child! The child Will Fern 
had carried in the street; the child whom Meg had watched, 
but now asleep! 

" I carried her myself, to-night,'' said Trotty. '' In these 
arms ! " 

" Show him what he calls himself," 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. 

'* No more a living man ! " cried Trotty. " Dead 1 " 

" Dead ! " said the figures all together. 

** Gracious Heaven! And the New Year — " 

" Past," said the figures. 

"What!" he cried, shuddering. ''I missed my way, 
and coming on the outside of this tower in the dark, fell 
down — a year ago ? " 

" Nine years ago ! " 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. 

" What are these .^ " he asked his guide. " If I am not 
mad, what are these? " 

" Spirits of the Bells. Their sound upon the air," returned 
the child. " They take such shapes and occupations as the 
hopes and thoughts of mortals, and the recollections they 
have stored up, give them." 

'' And you," said Trotty wildly. " What are you? " 

'* Hush, hush ! " returned the child. " Look here! " 

In a poor, mean room; working at the same kind of 



132 The Chimes 

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 reign- 
ing 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! 

*^ Meg," said Lilian, hesitating. " How often you raise 
your head from your work to look at me ! " 

"Are my looks so altered, that they frighten you?" 
asked Meg. 

" Nay, dear! But you smile at that, yourself! Why not 
smile, when you look at me, Meg? " 

" I do so. Do I not? " she answered: smiling on her. 

*' Now you do," said Lilian, " 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." 

" Am I not now! " cried Meg, speaking in a tone of strange 
alarm, and rising to embrace her. '' Do / make our weary 
life more weary to you, Lilian ! " 

*'You have been the only thing that made it life," said 



Meg and Lilian 133 

Lilian^ fervently kissing her; '' 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! " she 
raised her voice and twined her arms about her as she spoke, 
like one in pain. " How can the cruel world go round, and 
bear to look upon such lives ! " 

"Lilly!" said Meg, soothing her, and putting back her 
hair from her wet face. *' Why, Lilly! You! So pretty 
and so young! " 

'' Oh Meg! " she interrupted, holding her at arm's-length, 
and looking in her face imploringly. " 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! " 

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 gentle- 
man 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 ac- 
quaintance 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 



134 The Chimes 

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! 

" Which quite reminds me," said Alderman Cute, '* of 
the days of old King Hal, stout King Hal, bluff King Hal. 
Ah. Fine character! " 

'' Very," said Mr. Filer, dryly. '' For marrying women 
and murdering 'em. Considerably more than the average 
number of wives, by the bye." 

'' You'll marry the beautiful ladies, and not murder 'em, 
eh? " said Alderman Cute to the heir of Bowley, aged twelve. 
*' Sweet boy ! We shall have this little gentleman in Parlia- 
ment now," said the Alderman, holding him by the shoulders, 
and looking as reflective as he could, " 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! " 

"Oh, the difference of shoes and stockings!" 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. 

*' Richard," moaned Trotty, roaming among the company, 
to and fro; "where is he? I can't find Richard! Where 
is Richard?" 

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, 
" Where is Richard? Show me Richard! " 

He was wandering thus, when he encountered Mr. Fish, 
the confidential Secretary: in great agitation. 

" Bless my heart and soul! " cried Mr. Fish. " Where's 
Alderman Cute? Has anybody seen the Alderman? " 

Seen the Alderman? Oh dear! Who could ever help 
seeing the Alderman? He was so considerate, so affable, 



Where Is Richard ? 135 

he bore so much in mind the natural desires 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. 

'' My dear Alderman Cute," said Mr. Fish. '' A little 
more this way. The most dreadful circumstance has oc- 
curred. 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 ! " 

'' Fish ! " returned the Alderman. '' Fish ! My good fellow, 
what is the matter ? Nothing revolutionary, I hope ! No — 
no attempted interference with the magistrates? " 

'' Deedles, the banker," gasped the Secretary. " Deedles 
Brothers — who was to have been here to-day — high in ofhce 
in the Goldsmiths' Company — " 

''Not stopped!" exclaimed the Alderman. "It can't 
be!" 

'' Shot himself." 

''Good God!" 

" Put a double-barrelled pistol to his mouth, in his own 
counting house," said Mr. Fish, " and blew his brains out. 
No motive. Princely circumstances!" 

"Circumstances!" exclaimed the Alderman. "A man 
of noble fortune. One of the most respectable of men. 
Suicide, Mr. Fish ! By his own hand ! " 

" This very morning," returned Mr. Fish. 

"Oh the brain, the brain!" exclaimed the pious Alder- 
man, lifting up his hands. "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 respect- 
able man. One of the most respectable men I ever knew! 
A lamentable instance, Mr. Fish. A public calamity! I 



136 



The Chimes 



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! " 

What, Alderman! No word of Putting Down? Re- 
member, 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, '* The most respect- 
able of men! " And added that he hardly knew (not even 
he), why such afflictions were allowed on earth. 

" It's almost enough to make one think, if one's didn't 
know better," said Alderman Cute, " 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!" 

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, 



New Year's Day at Bowley Hall 137 

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, '' Where is Richard? He should help and 
comfort her! I can't see Richard ! " 

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 Labour; when 
a slight disturbance at the bottom of the Hall attracted 
Toby's notice. After some confusion, noise, and opposi- 
tion, 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. 

"What is this!" exclaimed Sir Joseph, rising. "Who 
gave this man admittance ? This is a criminal from prison ! 
Mr. Fish, sir, will you have the goodness — " 

"A minute!" said Will Fern. "A minute! My Lady, 
you was born on this day along with a New Year. Get me 
a minute's leave to speak." 

She made some intercession for him. Sir Joseph took his 
seat again, with native dignity. 

The ragged visitor — for he w^as miserably dressed — looked 
round upon the company, and made his homage to them 
with a humble bow. 

" Gentlefolks! " he said. " YouVe drunk the Labourer. 
Look at me! " 

" Just come from jail," said Mr. Fish. 

" Just come from jail," said Will. " x\nd neither for the 
first time, nor the second, nor the third, nor yet the fourth." 

Mr. Filer was heard to remark testily, that four times was 
over the average; and he ought to be ashamed of himself. 

" Gentlefolks ! " repeated Will Fern. " 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 



138 



The Chimes 



could have done me good/' — he struck his hand upon his 
breast, and shook his head, *^ is gone, with the scent of last 
year's beans or clover on the air. Let me say a word for 
these/' pointing to the labouring people in the Hall; " and 
when you're met together, hear the real Truth spoke out for 



once." 



'' There's not a man here," said the host, " who would 
have him for a spokesman." 

" 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." 

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. 

*' '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." 

'' I am glad this man has entered," observed Sir Joseph, 
looking round serenely. " 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." 

" I dragged on," said Fern, after a moment's silence, 
*' 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, ' He's suspicious. I has my doubts,' says you, 
* about Will Fern. Watch that fellow!' I don't say, 
gentlemen, it ain't quite nat'ral, but I say 'tis so; and from 



Will Fern's Speech 139 

that hour, whatever Will Fern does, or lets alone — all one — 
it goes against him/' 

Alderman Cute stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, 
and leaning back in his chair, and smiling, winked at a neigh- 
bouring chandelier. As much as to say, ''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." 

" Now, gentlemen," said Will Fern, holding out his hands, 
and flushing for an instant in his haggard face, " 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 Fm 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." 

The Alderman nodded sagaciously, as who should say, 
" A very good home too ! " 

'' Do I say this to serve my cause! " cried Fern. " 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-work- 
ing for our lives; give as kinder laws to bring us back when 
we'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 



140 The Chimes 

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 : ' 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 r " 

A sudden stir and agitation took place in the 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 thres- 
hold. A slouching, moody, drunken sloven, wasted by in- 
temperance 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, re- 
tiring a pace or two from the open door, silently and sorrow- 
fully looked upon him. Trotty had his wish. He saw 
Richard. 

" May I come in, Margaret? " 

"Yes! Come in. Come in!'' 

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 



Richard at Last ! 141 

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. 

" Still at work, Margaret? You work late.'' 

" I generally do.'' 

"And early?" 

" And early." 

" 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." 

" You did," she answered. " And I implored you to tell 
me nothing more; and you made me a solemn promise, 
Richard, that you never would." 

" A solemn promise," he repeated, with a drivelling laugh 
and vacant stare. " A solemn promise. To be sure. A 
solemn promise! " Awakening, as it were, after a time; in 
the same manner as before; he said with sudden animation: 

" How can I help it, Margaret? What am I to do? She 
has been to me again! " 

" Again! " cried Meg, clasping her hands. '^ 0, does she 
think of me so often ! Has she been again ! " 

" Twenty times again," said Richard. " 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, ' Richard, don't look 
round. For Heaven's love, give her this ! ' 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! " 

He held out in his hand a little purse, and chinked the 
money it enclosed. 

" Hide it," said Meg. " 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, 



142 The Chimes 

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 ! " 

He slowly recalled his hand, and crushing the purse 
together, said with a kind of drowsy thoughtfulness : 

" 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? '' 

"You saw her!'' exclaimed Meg. ''You saw her! 0, 
Lilian, my sweet girl! 0, Lilian, Lilian! " 

" I saw her," he went on to say, not answering, but en- 
gaged in the same slow pursuit of his own thoughts. '' There 
she stood : trembling ! ' 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 ? ' 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. 

'' ' 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 be- 
tween you; fears, and jealousies, and doubts, and vanities, 
estranged you from her; but you did love her, even in my 
memory! ' I suppose I did," he said, interrupting himself 
for a moment. '' I did! That's neither here nor there. ' 
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 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! ' " 



Lilian Returns to Die 143 

So he sat musing, and repeating the last words, until he 
woke again, and rose. 

" You won't take it, Margaret? " 

She shook her head, and motioned an entreaty to him to 
leave her. 

" Good night, Margaret." 

^'Goodnight!" 

He turned to look upon her; struck by her sorrow, and 
perhaps by the pity for himself which trembled in her voice. 
It w^as 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. 

Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look at this. 
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 
^^ Lilian!" 

It was swift, and fell upon its knees before her; clinging 
to her dress. 

*' Up, dear! Up! Lilian! My own dearest! " 

" Never more, Meg; nevermore! Here! Here! Close to 
you, holding to you, feeling your dear breath upon my face ! " 

"Sweet Lilian! Darling Lilian! Child of my heart — no 
mother's love can be more tender — lay your head upon my 
breast!" 

"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 ! " 

"You have come back. My Treasure! We will live 
together, work together, hope together, die together! " 

"Ah! Kiss my lips, Meg; fold your arms about me; 



144 The Chimes 

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! '' 

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 ! 

''Forgive me, Meg! So dear, so dear! Forgive me! I 
know you do, I see you do, but say so, Meg ! '' 

She said so, with her lips on Lilian's cheek. And with 
her arms twined round — she knew it now — a broken heart. 

*' His blessing on you, dearest love. Kiss me once more! 
He suffered her to sit beside His feet, and dry them with her 
hair. Meg, what Mercy and Compassion ! '' 

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 com- 
pany. 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-cup- 
board ; 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. 



A Cosy Couple 145 

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 frag- 
ment, 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 accommodat- 
ing 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, shuttle-cocks, 
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 yield- 
ing fat of the soft face; the nose afflicted with that dis- 
ordered action of its functions which is generally termed 



146 The Chimes 

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 obliga- 
tions 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 some- 
times ; 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 Chicken- 
stalker 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. 

** What sort of a night is it, Anne? " 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, '* Here I am if it's bad, 
and I don't want to go out if it's good." 

"Blowing and sleeting hard," returned his wife; *' and 
threatening snow. Dark. And very cold." 

" I'm glad to think we had muffins," said the former 
porter, in the tone of one who had set his conscience at 
rest. ** It's a sort of night that's meant for muffins. Like- 
wise crumpets. Also Sally Lunns." 

The former porter mentioned each successive kind of eat- 
able, 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. 

'' You re in spirits, Tugby, my dear,' observed his wife. 



Mr. Tugby a Little Elewated 147 

The firm was Tugby^ late Chickenstalker. 

" No/' said Tugby. " No. Not particular. I'm a little 
elewated. The muffins came so pat! " 

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. 

" Good gracious, goodness, lord-a-mercy bless and save the 
man!" cried Mrs. Tugby, in great terror. "What's he 
doing?" 

Mr. Tugby wiped his eyes, and faintly repeated that he 
found himself a little elewated. 

" Then don't be so again, that's a dear good soul," said 
Mrs. Tugby, " if you don't want to frighten me to death, 
with your struggling and fighting! " 

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 deepen- 
ing purple of his face, he was always getting the worst of it. 

" So it's blowing, and sleeting, and threatening snow; and 
it's dark, and very cold, is it, my dear? " said Mr. Tugby, 
looking at the fire, and reverting to the cream and marrow 
of his temporary elevation. 

" Hard weather indeed," returned his wife, shaking her 
head. 

" Aye, aye 1 Years," said Mr. Tugby, " 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! " 

Attentive to the rattling door, Mrs. Tugby had already risen. 

"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." 

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. 

" This is a bad business up-stairs, Mrs. Tugby," said the 
gentleman. " The man can't Hve." 

F259 



148 



The Chimes 



" Not the back-attic can't! " cried Tugby, coming out into 
the shop to join in the conference. 

'' The back-attic, Mr. Tugby/' said the gentleman, " is 
coming down-stairs fast, and will be below the basement 
very soon." 

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. 

" The back-attic, Mr. Tugby," said the gentleman: Tugby 
having stood in silent consternation for some time: " is 
Going." 

** Then," said Tugby, turning to his wife, '' he must Go, 
you know, before he's Gone." 

" I don't think you can move him," said the gentleman, 
shaking his head. " 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." 

" It's the only subject," said Tugby, bringing the butter- 
scale down upon the counter with a crash, by weighing his 
fist on it, '' 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 ! " 

" And where should he have died, Tugby? " cried his wife. 

" In the workhouse," he returned. '' What are work- 
houses made for? " 

*' Not for that," said Mrs. Tugby, with great energy. 
" 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, inde- 
pendent 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! " 

Her old face, which had been a plump and dimpled one 



A Sad Story 149 

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, "Bless her! Bless 
her!" 

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 per- 
fect calm : when he raised his head, and said to Mrs. Tugby, 
late Chickenstalker. 

" There's something interesting about the woman, even 
now. How did she come to marry him ? " 

'' Why that," said Mrs. Tugby, taking a seat near him, 
" 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 



I50 



The Chimes 



grieve more truly for a man, than she for Richard when he 
first went wrong." 

"Oh! he went wrong, did he?" said the gentleman, 
pulling out the vent-peg of the table-beer, and trying to 
peep down into the barrel through the hole. 

" Well, sir, I don't know that he rightly understood him- 
self, 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 re- 
sources 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! " 

" He didn't lose everything, Mrs. Tugby," returned the 
gentleman, " because he gained a wife; and I want to know 
how he gained her." 

" 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, ' 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.' Something like that, 
in his anger and vexation." 

" Ah ! " said the gentleman. " Well.? " 

*' 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." 

" And she? — Don't distress yourself, Mrs. Tugby." 

'' She came to me that night to ask me about living here. 
* What he was once to me,' she said, ' 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 



The Back-Attic Gone 1 5 1 

her) who was to have been married on a New Year's Day; 
and for the love of her Richard.' 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." 

The gentleman got off the cask, and stretched himself 
observing: 

'' I suppose he used her ill, as soon as they were married? " 

" I don't think he ever did that," said ^Irs. Tugby, shaking 
her head, and wiping her eyes. '' 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 ' Meg,' 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 ! " 

'' I know," muttered Mr. Tugby; looking at the till, and 
round the shop, and at his wife; and rolling his head with 
immense intelligence. '' Like Fighting Cocks ! " 

He was interrupted by a cry — a sound of lamentation — 
from the upper story of the house. The gencleman moved 
hurriedly to the door. 

" My friend," he said, looking back, " you needn't discuss 
whether he shall be removed or not. He has spared you 
that trouble, I believe." 

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. 

''Follow her! Follow her! Follow her!" He heard the 
ghostly voices in the Bells repeat their words as he ascended. 
" Learn it from the creature dearest to your heart! " 



152 The Chimes 

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! 

" Thank God! '* cried Trotty, holding up his folded hands. 
" 0, God be thanked ! She loves her child ! '' 

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, " His pain is over. It's better as it is ! '' 
Mrs. Tugby tried to comfort her with kindness. Mr. Tugby 
tried philosophy. 

" Come, come! " he said, with his hands in his pockets, 
" 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! " 

Again Trotty heard the voices saying, ''Follow her!" 
He turned towards his guide, and saw it rising from him, 
passing through the air. ''Follow her!" 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, "She loves it! God be thanked, she 
loves it! " 

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 



Love and Fear 153 

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 con- 
sciousness, 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. 

" For the last time," he said. 

"William Fern!'' 

" For the last time." 

He listened like a man pursued: and spoke in whispers. 

" Margaret, my race is nearly run. I couldn't finish it, 
without a parting word with you. Without one grateful 
word.'^ 

'' What have you done.^ " 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: 

" It's long ago, Margaret, now: but that night is as fresh 



154 The Chimes 

in my memory as ever 'twas. We little thought, then/' he 
added, looking round, *' that we should ever meet like this. 
Your child, Margaret? Let me have it in my arms. Let 
me hold your child." 

He put his hat upon the floor, and took it. And he 
trembled as he took it, from head to foot. 

"Is it a girl?" 

"Yes." 

He put his hand before its little face. 

" 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? " 

" Margaret," she answered, quickly. 

" I'm glad of that," he said. " I'm glad of that! " 

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. 

" Margaret ! " he said ; and gave her back the child. " It's 
Lilian's." 

"Lilian's!" 

" I held the same face in my arms when Lilian's mother 
died and left her." 

" When Lilian's mother died and left her! " she repeated, 
wildly. 

" How shrill you speak! Why do you fix your eyes upon 
me so? Margaret! " 

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. 

" Follow her! " was sounded through the house. " Learn 
it from the creature dearest to your heart! " 

" Margaret," said Fern, bending over her, and kissing her 
upon the brow: " 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." 

" What have you done? " she asked again. 

" There'll be a Fire to-night/' he said, removing from her. 



A Bleak Night 155 

" 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 ! '* 

She called to him; but he was gone. She sat down stupe- 
fied, until her infant roused her to a sense of hunger, cold, 
and darkness. She paced the room with it the live-long 
night, hushing it and soothing it. She said at intervals, 
" Like Lilian, when her mother died and left her! " Why 
was her step so quick, her eye so wild, her love so fierce and 
terrible, whenever she repeated those words? 

" But it is Love,'' said Trotty. '' It is Love. She'll never 
cease to love it. My poor Meg!" 

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, " Go to such a place," to that one, " Come next 
week "; to make a football 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. 

'' 0! " he said softly. " You have come back.^ " 

She looked at the child, and shook her head. 

" Don't you think you have lived here long enough with- 



156 



The Chimes 



out paying any rent? Don't you think that, without any 
money, you've been a pretty constant customer at this shop, 
now? " said Mr. Tugby. 

She repeated the same mute appeal. 

'' Suppose you try and deal somewhere else/' he said. 
^' And suppose you provide yourself with another lodging. 
Come! Don't you think you could manage it? " 

She said in a low voice, that it was very late. To-morrow. 

"Now I see what you want," said Tugby; "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." 

She put her hair back with her hand, and looked in a 
sudden manner at the sky, and the dark lowering distance. 

" 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," said Tugby, who was quite 
a retail Friend and Father. " 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." 

" Follow her! To desperation! " 

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. 

"She loves it!" he exclaimed, in agonised entreaty for 
her. " Chimes ! she loves it still ! " 

"Follow her!" 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, "Like Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!" and 
her speed redoubled. 

0, 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 ! 

"I was her father! I was her father! " cried the old 



Love and Desperation 157 

man^ stretching out his hands to the dark shadows flying on 
above. " Have mercy on her, and on me ! Where does she 
go? Turn her back! I was her father! '' 

But they only pointed to her, as she hurried on; and said, 
" To desperation ! Learn it from the creature dearest to 
your heart! " 

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, " Like Lilian! To be 
changed like Lilian ! " 

All at once she stopped. 

^* Now, turn her back! " exclaimed the old man, tearing 
his white hair. "My child! Meg! Turn her back! Great 
Father, turn her back! " 

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, im- 
penetrable, melancholy shade. 

To the River! To that portal of Eternity, her desperate 
footsteps tended with the swiftness of its rapid waters run- 
ning 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 



158 



The Chimes 



in a shriek addressed the figures in the Bells now hovering 
above them. 

'* I have learnt it!" cried the old man. "From the 
creature dearest to my heart! 0, save her, save her! '' 

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. 

** I have learnt it! " cried the old man. " 0, 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." 

He felt his hold relaxing. They were silent still. 

'' Have mercy on her! " he exclaimed, " 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. 0, 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! " 

She was in his arms. He held her now. His strength 
was like a giant's. 

*' I see the Spirit of the Chimes among you! " cried the 
old man, singling out the child, and speaking in some inspira- 
tion, which their looks conveyed to him. " I know that 
our inheritance is held in store for us by Time. I kno\v 
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. Spirits, merciful 
and good, I take your lesson to my breast along with her! 
O Spirits, merciful and good, I am grateful! " 

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 



Ringing in the New Year 159 

" And whatever you do, father/' said Meg, " don't eat tripe 
again, without asking some doctor whether it's Hkely to agree 
with you; for how you have been going on, Good gracious! " 

She was working with her needle, at the Httle 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. 

" No ! " cried the voice of this same somebody; a generous 
and jolly voice it was! "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 ! '' 

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 approach- 
ing 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 be- 
tween 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. 

"And to-morrow's your wedding-day, my pet!" cried 
Trotty. " Your real, happy wedding-day! " 

" To-day ! " cried Richard, shaking hands with him. " To- 
day. The Chimes are ringing in the New Year. Hear 
them!" 

They were ringing! Bless their sturdy hearts, they 
WERE ringing! Great Bells as they were; melodious, deep- 



i6o The Chimes 

mouthed, noble Bells; cast in no common metal; made by 
no common founder; when had they ever chimed like that, 
before ! 

" But to-day, my pet/' said Trotty. " You and Richard 
had some words to-day." 

^' Because he's such a bad fellow, father," said Meg. 
" 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 " 

" — Kissing Meg," suggested Richard. Doing it too! 

" No. Not a bit more," said Meg. " But I wouldn't let 
him, father. Where would have been the use! " 

" Richard, my boy! " cried Trotty. ^' 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? " 

" I was thinking of the years we've passed together, 
father. Only that. And thinking that you might miss me, 
and be lonely." 

Trotty was backing off to that extraordinary chair again, 
when the child, who had been awakened by the noise, came 
running in half-dressed. 

''Why, here she is!" cried Trotty, catching her up. 
" Here's little Lilian ! Ha ha ha ! Here we are and here we 
go ! here we are and here we go again ! And here we are 
and here we go! and Uncle Will too! " Stopping in his trot 
to greet him heartily. " 0, Uncle Will, the vision that I've 
had to-night, through lodging you ! 0, Uncle Will, the obliga- 
tions that you've laid me under, by your coming, my good 
friend!" 

Before Will Fern could make the least reply, a band of 
music burst into the room, attended by a lot of neighbours, 
screaming ''A Happy New Year, Meg!" "A Happy 
Wedding! " " Many of 'em! " and other fragmentary good 
wishes of that sort. The Drum (who was a private friend of 
Trotty's) then stepped forward, and said : 

''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 



The New Year's Dance i6i 

bring. And here we are^ to play it in and dance it in^ 
accordingly. '' 

Which was received with a general shout. The Drum 
was rather drunk, by-the-bye; but never mind. 

** What a happiness it is, I'm sure/' said Trotty, " to be 
so esteemed! How kind and neighbourly you are! It's all 
along of my dear daughter. She deserves it ! " 

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 leathering 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, " It's Mrs. Chickenstalker ! " And sat down 
and beat his knees again. 

" Married, and not tell me, Meg! " cried the good woman. 
*' 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." 

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. 

'' Mrs. Tugby! " said Trotty, who had been going round 
and round her, in an ecstasy. — " I should say, Chickenstalker 
— Bless your heart and soul ! A happy New Year and many 
of 'em! Mrs. Tugby," said Trotty, when he had saluted 
her; — " I should say, Chickenstalker — This is WilHam Fern 
and Lilian." 

The worthy dame, to his surprise, turned very pale and 
very red. 

"Not Lilian Fern whose mother died in Dorsetshire!" 
said she. 

Her uncle answered " Yes," and meeting hastily, they 
exchanged some hurried words together; of which the up- 
shot 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. 



I 62 The Chimes 

''Will Fern!" said Trotty^ pulling on his right-hand 
muffler. " Not the friend you was hoping to find? " 

" Ay! '' returned Will, putting a hand on each of Trotty's 
shoulders. '' And like to prove a'most as good a friend, if 
that can be, as one I found." 

'' 0! " said Trotty. " Please to play up there. Will you 
have the goodness ! '' 

To the music of the band, 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, 
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* 



THE 

CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

A FAIRY TALE OF HOME 



TO 



LORD JEFFREY 



THIS LITTLE STORY IS INSCRIBED 
WITH 
THE AFFECTION AND ATTACHMENT OF HIS FRIEND 

THE AUTHOR 
December, 1845. 



CHARACTERS 

John Peerybingle, a carrier; a lumbering, slow, honest man. 
Caleb Plummer, a poor old toymaker, in the employ of Tackleton. 
Edward Plummer, son of the preceding. 

Tackleton (called " Gruff and Tackleton "), a stern, ill-natured, 
sarcastic toy-merchant. 

May Fielding, a friend of Mrs. Peeryb 

Mrs. Fielding, her mother; a Lttle, peevish, querulo^js old lady. 

Mrs. Mary Peerybingle (" Dot "), John Peerybingle's wife. 

Bertha Plummer, a blind girl; daughter of Caleb Plummer. 

Tilly Slowboy, a great clumsy girl; Mrs. Peerybingle's nursemaid. 



THE 

CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

CHIRP THE FIRST 

The kettle began it! Don't tell me what Mrs. Peer}^bingle 
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 what- 
ever. 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 

167 



1 68 The Cricket on the Hearth 

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 em- 
ployed against Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again. 

It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carry- 
ing its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout 
pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, '' I 
won't boil. Nothing shall induce me ! " 

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 up- 
rose 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 



The Kettle Grows Musical 169 

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-comer as its own domestic 
Heaven, it trolled its song with that strong energy of cheer- 
fulness, 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 



lyo The Cricket on the Hearth 

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 w^ay 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 over- 
charged 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 perforniance. 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 yours 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 1 Kettle making play in the distance, like a great top. 
Chirp, chirp, chirp 1 Cricket round the corner. Hum^ hum, 



The Cricket and the Kettle 171 

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 yours 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, " Welcome home, old 
fellow! Welcome home, my boy! " 

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 ap- 
pearance 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. 

" Oh, goodness, John! " said Mrs. P. " What a state you 
are in with the weather! " 

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. 

" Why, you see, Dot," John made answer^ slowly, as he un- 



172 The Cricket on the Hearth 

rolled a shawl from about his throat; and warmed his hands ; 
 it — it an't exactly summer weather. So, no wonder." 

" I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John. I don't like it," 
said Mrs. Peerybingle: pouting in a way that clearly showed 
she did like it, very much. 

" Why, what else are you? " 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. '* A dot and " — here 
he glanced at the baby—" 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." 

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 
^vay— 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, endeavour- 
ing to adopt 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. 



John the Carrier 173 

" An't he beautiful, John? Don't he look precious in his 
sleep?" 

" Very precious/* said John. " Very much so. He gene- 
rally is asleep, an't he? " 

" Lor, John! Good gracious no ! " 

'' Oh," said John, pondering. " I thought his eyes was 
generally shut. Halloa!" 

" Goodness, John, how you startle one! " 

" It an't right for him to turn 'em up in that way! " said 
the astonished Carrier, " 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! " 

" You don't deserve to be a father, you don't," said Dot, 
with all the dignity of an experienced matron. " But now 
should you know what little complaints children are troubled 
with, John! You wouldn't so much as know their names, 
you stupid fellow." 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. 

" No," said John, pulling off his outer coat. " 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." 

"Poor old man, so it has!" cried Mrs. Peerybingle, 
instantly becoming very active. "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. 
' How doth the little ' — and all the rest of it, you know, 
John. Did you ever learn ' how doth the little,' when you 
went to school, John? " 

" Not to quite know it," John returned. " I was very 
near it once. But I should only have spoilt it, I dare say." 

" Ha, ha," laughed Dot. She had the blithest little laugh 
you ever heard. " What a dear old darling of a dunce you 
are, John, to be sure! " 

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 w^as fatter than you would 



174 The Cricket on the Hearth 

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 obstrusive 
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 oft, at a round 
trot, to keep it. 

"There! There's the teapot, ready on the hobl" said 
Dot; as briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house. 
"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! " 

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 sHding 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, a pair of stays, in colour a dead-green. Being always 
in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and alDsorbed, 
besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's per- 
fections 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 bring- 



The Cricket's Merry Chirp 175 

ing into contact with deal doors, dressers, stair-rails, bed- 
posts, 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, vehe- 
mently. 

'' Heyday! " said John, in his slow way. '' It's merrier 
than ever, to-night, I think." 

" 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 ! " 

John looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought 
into nis 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. 

" 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? " 

yes. John remembered. I should think so ! 

" 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." 

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. 

" It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so; for 
you have even oeen, I am sure, the best, the most considerate, 



176 The Cricket on the Hearth 

the most affectionate of husbands to me. This has been a 
happy home^ John ; and I love the Cricket for its sake ! '' 

" Why, so do I then/' said the Carrier. '' So do I, Dot." 

" I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the 
many thoughts its harmless music has given me. Some- 
times, in the twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and 
downhearted, John — before baby was here to keep me com- 
pany 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, how- 
ever 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 con- 
fidence. I was thinking of these things to-night, dear, when 
I sat expecting you; and I love the Cricket for their sake! " 

''And so do I," repeated John. ''But, Dot? / 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 httle mistress, Dot! " 

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. 

" 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? '' 

" Oh yes," John said. " A good many." 

" Why what's this round box? Heart alive, John, it's 
a wedding-cake! " 

" Leave a woman alone to find out that," said John, ad- 
miringly. " Now a man would never have thought of it. 
Whereas, it's my belief that if you was to pack a wedding- 



GrufF and Tackleton 1 77 

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." 

" And it weighs I don't know what — whole hundred- 
weights! '' cried Dot, making a great demonstration of try- 
ing to lift it. " Whose is it, John? Where is it going? '' 

" Read the writing on the other side," said John. 

" Why, John ! My Goodness, John ! " 

" Ah! who'd have thought it! " John returned. 

** You never mean to say," pursued Dot, sitting on the 
floor and shaking her head at him, " that it's Gruff and 
Tackleton the toymaker! " 

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 delecta- 
tion 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. 

" And that is really to come about! " said Dot. " Why, 
she and I were girls at school together, John." 

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. 

"And he's as old! As unlike her! — Why, how many 
years older than you, is Gruff and Tackleton, John? " 

" How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night at 
one sitting, than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in four, 
I wonder! " replied John, good-humouredly, as he drew a 
chair to the round table, and began at the cold ham. " As 
to eating, I eat but little; but that little I enjoy. Dot." 

Even this, his usual sentiment at meal times, one of his 
innocent delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, 



178 The Cricket on the Hearth 

and flatly contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of 
his little wife, who stood among the parcels, pushmg the 
cake-box slowly from her with her foot, and never once 
looked, though her eyes were cast down too, upon the damty 
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. 

'' So these are all the parcels, are they, John?^'' she said, 
breaking a long silence, which the honest Carrier had de- 
voted 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. "So these are all the 
parcels; are they, John? '' 

'' That's all," said John. '' Why— no— I—" laying down 
his knife and fork, and taking a long breath. '' I declare— 
I've clean forgotten the old gentleman! " 

''The old gentleman? " 

" In the cart," said John. " He was asleep, among the 
straw, the last time I saw him. I've very nearly remembered 
him, twice, since 1 came in; but he went out of my head 
again. Halloa! Yahip there! Rouse up! That's my 

hearty!" u- 1 1 

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 imagina- 
tion certain associations of a religious nature with the phrase, 
v/as 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 onlv 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 



The Deaf Stranger 179 

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. 

*' You're such an undeniable good sleeper, sir," said John, 
when tranquillity was restored; in the mean time the old 
gentleman had stood, bareheaded and motionless, in the 
centre of the room; " 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," murmured the 
Carrier, with a chuckle; " very near! " 

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. 

" There! " said the Carrier, turning to his wife. '^ That's 
the way I found him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as 
a milestone. And almost as deaf." 

" Sitting in the open air, John! " 

" In the open air," replied the Carrier, " just at dusk. 
' Carriage Paid,' he said ; and gave me eighteenpence. Then 
he got in. And there he is." 

"He's going, John, I think ! " 

Not at all. He was only going to speak. 

" If you please, I was to be left till called for," said the 
Stranger mildly. " Don't mind me." 

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, 

*' Your daughter, my good friend.^ " 

" Wife," returned John. 

** Niece? " said the Stranger. 

g239 



i8o The Cricket on the Hearth 

'' Wife/' roared John. 

'^ Indeed? " observed the Stranger. ''Surely? Very young!" 

He quietly turned over^ and resumed his reading. But, 
before he could have read two lines^ he again interrupted 
himself to say: 

"Baby, yours?" 

John gave him a gigantic nod; equivalent to an answer 
in the affirmative, delivered through a speaking trumpet. 

"Girl?" 

" Bo-o-oy! " roared John. 

" Also very young, eh? " 

Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. " 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 w^ay quite won-der-ful ! May seem 
impossible to you, but feels his legs al-ready! " 

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. 

"Hark! He's called for, sure enough," said John. 
^'There's somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly." 

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, for all kinds of neighbours liked to have a cheerful 
word or two with the Carrier, though he was no great talker 
himself. Being opened, it gave admission to a little, meagre, 
thoughtful, dingy-faced man, who seemed to have made him- 
self 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 & T in large black capitals. Also the word 
GLASS in bold characters. 

"Good evening, John!" said the little man. "Good 
evening. Mum. Good evening, Tilly. Good evening. Unbe- 
known! How's Baby, Mum? Boxer's pretty well, I hope ? " 



Caleb Plummer i8i 

" All thriving, Caleb/' replied Dot. '' I am sure you need 
only look at the dear child, for one, to know that." 

" And I'm sure I need only look at you for another/' 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. 

" Or at John for another/' said Caleb. " Or at Tilly, as 
far as that goes. Or certainly at Boxer." 

*' Busy just now, Caleb? " asked the Carrier. 

'' Why, pretty well, John," he returned, with this dis- 
traught air of a man who was casting about for the Philoso- 
pher's stone, at least. '' 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? " 

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. 

" There it is ! " he said, adjusting it with great care. '' Not 
so much as a leaf damaged. Full of buds ! " 

Caleb's dull eye brightened, as he took it, and thanked 
him. 

'' Dear, Caleb," said the Carrier. " Very dear at this 
season." 

" Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, what- 
ever it cost," returned the little man. " Anything else, 
John?" 

" A small box," replied the Carrier. " Here you are ! " 

" ' For Caleb Plummer,' " said the little man, spelling out 
the direction. " *' With Cash.' With Cash, John? I don't 
think it's for me." 

*' With Care," returned the Carrier, looking over his 
shoulder. " Where do you make out cash? " 

'' Oh! To be sure! " said Caleb. '' 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 



I 82 The Cricket on the Hearth 

had lived, John. You loved him like a son; didn't you? 
You needn't say you did. / know, of course. ' Caleb 
Plummer. With care.' 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." 

" I wish it was, or could be ! " cried the Carrier. 

'* Thank'ee," said the little man. '* 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? " 

''I'll damage you," said John, ''if you inquire. Dot! 
Very near? " 

" Well! it's like you to say so," observed the little man. 
" It's your kind way. Let me see. I think that's all.'* 

" I think not," said the Carrier. " Try again." 

"Something for our Governor, eh?" said Caleb, after 
pondering a little while. " 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? " 

" Not he," returned the Carrier. " He's too busy, 
courting." 

" He's coming round though," said Caleb; " 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 
tai), Mum, for half a moment, could you? " 

" Why, Caleb! what a question! " 

" Oh never mind. Mum," said the little man. " 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." 

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 migh have spared himself the trouble, for he met the 
visitor upon the threshold. 

"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! 



Tackleton the Toy-merchant 183 

Better too, if possible! And younger/' mused the speaker, 
in a low voice; " that's the Devil of it! " 

" I should be astonished at your paying compliments, 
Mr. Tackleton," said Dot, not with the best grace in the 
world; " but for your condition." 

" You know all about it, then? " 

'' I have got myself to believe it, somehow," said Dot. 

'' After a hard struggle, I suppose? " 

'' Very." 

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 children 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 insinu- 
ate 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 in- 
ventions. 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 in- 
tensifying 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 



184 The Cricket on the Hearth 

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 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 his 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-coloured tops. 

Still, Tackle ton 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. 

" In three days' time. Next Thursday. The last day of 
the first month in the year. That's my wedding-day," 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. 

''That's my wedding-day!" said Tackleton, rattling his 
money. 

" Why, it's our wedding-day too," exclaimed the Carrier. 

" Ha, ha ! " laughed Tackleton. " Odd ! You're just such 
another couple. Just!" 

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. 

*' I say! A word with you," murmured Tackleton, nudg- 
ing the Carrier with his elbow, and taking him a little apart. 
'^You'll come to the wedding? We're in the same boat, 
you know." 

" How in the same boat? " inquired the Carrier. 



Tackleton's Humour 185 

** A little disparity, you know/' said Tackleton, with 
another nudge. " Come and spend an evening with us, 
beforehand." 

''Why?" demanded John, astonished at this pressing 
hospitality. 

"Why?" returned the other. "That's a new way of 
receiving an invitation. Why^ for pleasure — sociability, you 
know, and all that! " 

" I thought you were never sociable," said John, in his 
plain way. 

" Tchah ! It's of no use to be anything but free with you, 
I see," said Tackle ton. " 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 — " 

" No, we don't know better," interposed John. " What 
are you talking about? " 

"Well! We don't know better, then," said Tackleton. 
" 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 ap- 
pearance, 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? " 

" We have arranged to keep our Wedding-Day (as far 
as that goes) at home," said John. " We have made the 
promise to ourselves these six months. We think, you see, 
that home — " 

"Bah! what's home?" cried Tackleton. "Four walls 
and a ceiling! (why don't you kill that Cricket? I would! 
I alw^ays do. I hate their noise.) There are four walls and 
a ceiling at my house. Come to me! " 

" You kill your Crickets, eh? " said John. 

" Scrunch 'em, sir," returned the other, setting his heel 
heavily on the floor. "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 w^oman is determined to clinch^ 



1 86 The Cricket on the Hearth 

always. There's that spirit of emulation among 'em^ sir, 
that if your wife says to my wife, ' I'm the happiest woman 
in the world, and mine's the best husband in the world, and 
I dote on him,' my wife will say the same to yours, or more, 
and half believe it." 

" Do you mean to say she don't, then? " asked the Carrier. 

''Don't!" cried Tackleton, with a short, sharp laugh. 
''Don't what?" 

The Carrier had some faint idea of adding, '* dote upon 
you." 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, " that she don't believe it? " 

" Ah, you dog! You're joking," 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. 

" I have the humour," said Tackleton: holding up the 
fingers of his left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply 
" there I am, Tackleton to wit ": "I have the humour, sir, 
to marry a young wife, and a pretty wife: " here he rapped 
his little finger, to express the Bride; not sparingly, but 
sharply; with a sense of power. " I'm able to gratify that 
humour and I do. It's my whim. But — now look there! " 

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. 

" She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know," said 
Tackleton; " 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? " 

" I think," observed the Carrier, " that I should chuck any 
man out of window, who said there wasn't." 

" Exactly so," returned the other with an unusual alacrity 
of assent. " To be sure ! Doubtless you would. Of course. 
I'm certain of it. Good night. Pleasant dreams! " 

The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and 
uncertain, in spite of himself. He couldn't help showing it, 
in his manner. 

" Good night, my dear friend! " said Tackleton, compas- 



Only a Fancy 187 

sionately. ** Tm 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? 
Thank'ee. What's that?" 

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. 

'' Dot ! " cried the Carrier. '' Mary ! Darling ! What's the 
matter?" 

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. 

''Mary!" exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his 
arms. '* Are you ill! What is it? Tell me, dear! " 

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. 

" I'm better, John," she said. " I'm quite well now — I — " 

" John! " But John was on the other side of her. Why 
turn her face towards the strange old gentleman, as if address- 
ing him. Was her brain wandering ? 

" 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." 

*' I'm glad it's gone," muttered Tackleton, turning the ex- 
pressive eye all round the room. " I wonder where it's gone, 
and what it was. Humph ! Caleb, come here ! Who's that 
with the grey hair? " 

" I don't know, sir," returned Caleb in a whisper. '' 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." 

'' Not ugly enough," said Tackleton. 

*Q 239 



I 88 The Cricket on the Hearth 

'' Or for a firebox, either/' observed Caleb, in deep con- 
templation, '' 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! " 

" Not half ugly enough," said Tackleton. " Nothing in 
him at all ! Come ! Bring that box 1 All right now, I hope ? " 

''Oh quite gone! Quite gone!" said the little woman, 
waving him hurriedly away. " Good night! " 

" Good night," said Tackleton. '' Good night, John Peery- 
bingle! Take care how you carry that box, Caleb. Let it 
fall, and I'll murder you ! Dark as pitch, and wxather worse 
than ever, eh? Goodnight!" 

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. 

'' He don't belong to them, you see," said John. " I must 
give him a hint to go." 

'' I beg your pardon, friend," said the old gentleman, 
advancing to him; " the more so, as I fear your wife has 
not been well; but the Attendant whom my infirmity," he 
touched his ears and shook his head, " renders almost indis- 
pensable, 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? " 

'' Yes, yes," cried Dot. '' Yes ! Certainly ! " 

" Oh! " said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this 
consent. " Well, I don't object; but, still I'm not quite 
sure that — " 

" Hush ! " she interrupted. " Dear John ! " 

'* Why, he's stone deaf," urged John. 

" I know he is, but — Yes, sir, certainly. Yes! certainly! 
I'll make him up a bed, directly, John." 

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. 

'' Did its mothers make it up a Beds then! " cried Miss 



John and Dot 189 

Slowboy to the Baby; '' and did its hair grow brown and 
curly, when its caps was Hfted off, and frighten it, a precious 
Pets, a-sitting by the fires ! " 

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. 

" And frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by the fires. 
What frightened Dot, I wonder! " 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 Tackle- 
ton 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 alwavs 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 



190 The Cricket on the Hearth 

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. 

And the Cricket and the kettle, turning up again, acknow- 
ledged 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, watch- 
ing Dots of daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat 
Dots, encircled and beset by troops of rosy grandchildren; 
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 (" Peerybingle Brothers " 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 ''Married! 
and not to me! " 

Dot ! failing Dot ! There is no place for it in all your 
husband's visions; why has its shadow fallen on his hearth! 



Caleb Plummer's Dwelling 191 



CHIRP THE SECOND 

Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter Hved all alone by 
themselves, as the Story-books say — and my blessings 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 w^as, in truth, no 
better than a pimple on the prominent red-brick nose ot 
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 improve- 
ment. 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 h\'ed 
here. 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 moulder- 
ing and tending downward. The Blind Girl never knew 
that iron was rusting, wood rotting, paper peeling off; the 
size, and shape, and true proportion of the dwelling, wither- 
ing aw^ay. The Blind Girl never knew that ugly shapes of 
delf and earthenware were on the board; that sorrow and 



192 The Cricket on the Hearth 

faintheartedness 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 who, while he was 
the Guardian Angel of their lives, disdained to hear one word 
of thankfulness. 

And all w^as 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 
ihat 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, vv^hich 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 estab- 
lishments 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, bed- 
steads, 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 



Caleb Plummer's Workroom 193 

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 possi- 
bility 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. i\Iany 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, on 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 weak- 
ness, 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; 
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 



194 The Cricket on the Hearth 

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 considera- 
tion, 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. 

" So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your 
beautiful new great-coat," said Caleb's daughter. 

" In my beautiful new great-coat," answered Caleb, glanc- 
ing towards a clothes-line in the room, on which the sack- 
cloth garment previously described was carefully hung up 
to dry. 

" How glad I am you bought it, father! " 

" And of such a tailor, too," said Caleb. '' Quite a fashion- 
able tailor. It's too good for me." 

The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed with 
delight. "Too good, father! What can be too good for 
you?" 

"I'm half -ashamed to wear it though," said Caleb, watch- 
ing the effect of what he said, upon her brightening face; 
"upon my word! When I hear the boys and people say 
behind me, ' Hal-loa ! Here's a swell ! ' 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, 
'No, your Honour! Bless your Honour, don't say that!' 
I was quite ashamed. I really felt as if I hadn't a right to 
wear it." 

Happy Blind Girl ! How merry she was, in her exultation ! 

" I see you, father," she said, clasping her hands, " as 
plainly as if I had the eyes I never want when you are with 
me. A blue coat — " 

" Bright blue," said Caleb. 

" Yes, yes! Bright blue! " exclaimed the girl, turning up 
her radiant face; " the colour I can just remember in the 
blessed sky! You told me it was blue before! A bright 
blue coat — " 

" Made loose to the figure," suggested Caleb. 

** Made loose to the figure! " cried the Blind Girl, laughing 
heartily; " and in it, you, dear father, with your merry eye, 



Caleb and His Blind Daughter 195 

your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair — looking 
so young and handsome ! " 

"Halloa! Halloa!" said Caleb. "I shall be vain, 
presently! " 

" I think you are, already," cried the Blind Girl, pointing 
at him, in her glee. ''I know you, father! Ha, ha, ha! 
I've found you out, you see! " 

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 foot- 
fall 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 BHnd Daughter. How could the httle 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 ! 

" There we are," said Caleb, falling back a pace or two 
to form a better judgment of his work; '' 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." 

" You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, 
father? " 

'' Tired! " echoed Caleb, with a great burst of animation, 
" what should tire me. Bertha? / was never tired. What 
does it mean? " 

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 repre- 
sented 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. 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. 



196 



The Cricket on the Hearth 



*'What! You're singing, are you?" said Tackleton^ 
putting his head in at the door. " Go it! / can't sing." 

Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn't what 
is generally termed a singing face, by any means. 

" I can't afford to sing/' said Tackleton. " I'm glad you 
can. I hope you can afford to work too. Hardly time for 
both, I should' think? " 

'' If you could only see him, Bertha, how he's winking at 
me! " whispered Caleb. " Such a man to joke ! you'd think, 
if you didn't know him, he was in earnest — wouldn't you 
now? " 

The Blind Girl smiled and nodded. 

" The bird that can sing and won't sing must be made to 
sing, they say," grumbled Tackleton. '' 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? " 

''The extent to which he's winking at this moment!" 
whispered Caleb to his daughter. " 0, my gracious! " 

"Always merry and light-hearted with us!" cried the 
smiling Bertha. 

" 0, you're there, are you ? " answered Tackleton. " Poor 
Idiot!" 

He really did believe she was an Idiot; and he founded 
the belief, I cant say whether consciously or not, upon her 
being fond of him. 

" Well! and being there, — how are 3^ou? " said Tackleton, 
in his grudging way. 

''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 ! " 

" Poor Idiot ! " muttered Tackleton. " No gleam of reason. 
Not a gleam! " 

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 unspeak- 
able affection and such fervent gratitude in the act, that 
Tackleton himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than 
usual : 

" What's the matter now? " 

*' 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? " 



Caleb's Innocent Deception 197 

" Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha/' said 
poor Calebs with a woeful glance at his employer. 

'* 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! " 

*' Bedlam broke loose ! " said Tackleton under his breath. 
" We shall arrive at the strait-waistcoat and mufflers soon. 
We're getting on! " 

Qileb, 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. 

"Bertha!" said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a 
little cordiality. '' Come here." 

"Oh! I can come straight to you! You needn't guide 
me ! " she rejoined. 

" Shall I tell you a secret. Bertha? " 

" If you will! " she answered, eagerly. 

How bright the darkened face! How ^.dorned with light, 
the listening head ! 

" This is the day on which little v>^hat's-her-name, the 
spoilt child, Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to you — 
makes her fantastic Pic-Nic here; an't it? " said Tackleton, 
with a strong expression of distaste for the whole concern. 

" Yes," replied Bertha. " This is the day." 

" I thought so," said Tackleton. " I should like to join 
the party." 

" Do you hear that, father! " cried the Blind Girl in an 
ecstasy. 

" Yes, yes, I hear it," murmured Caleb, with the fixed look 
of a sleep-walker; " but I don't believe it. It's one of my 
lies, I've no doubt." 



198 



The Cricket on the Hearth 



'* You see I — I want to bring the Peerybingles a little 
more into company with May Fielding," said Tackle ton. 
" I am going to be married to May." 

*' Married ! " cried the Blind Girl, starting from him. 

'' She's such a con-founded Idiot/' muttered Tackleton, 
'* 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? " 

" I know," replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone. *' I 
understand! " 

" Do you? " muttered Tackleton. " It's more than I ex- 
pected. Well! On that account I want to join the party, 
and to bring May and her mother. I'll send in a little some- 
thing or other, before the afternoon. A cold leg of mutton, 
or some comfortable trifle of that sort. You'll expect me ? " 

'' Yes," she answered. 

She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, 
with her hands crossed, musing. 

*' I don't think you will," muttered Tackleton, looking at 
her; '' for you seem to have forgotten all about it, already. 
Caleb!" 

" I may venture to say I'm here, I suppose," thought 
Caleb. "Sir!" 

'* Take care she don't forget what I've been saying to her." 

*' She never forgets," returned Caleb. '' It's one of the 
few things she an't clever in." 

" Every man thinks his own geese swans," observed the 
Toy-merchant, with a shrug. " Poor devil ! " 

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 sorrow- 
ful 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 pro- 
cess 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: 



A Check upon Bertha's Gaiety 199 

** Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, my 
patient, willing eyes." 

" Here they are," said Caleb. " Always ready. They are 
more yours than mine. Bertha, any hour in the four-and- 
twenty. What shall your eyes do for you, dear? " 

'' Look round the room, father." 

" All right," said Caleb. '' No sooner said than done. 
Bertha." 

'' Tell me about it." 

'' It's much the same as usual," said Caleb. *' Homely, but 
very snug. The gay colours on the walls ; the bright flowers 
on the plates and dishes; the shining wood, w^here there are 
beams or panels; the general cheerfulness and neatness of the 
building; make it very pretty." 

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. 

" You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant 
as when you wear the handsome coat? " said Bertha, touching 
him. 

" Not quite so gallant," answered Caleb. " Pretty brisk 
though." 

" Father," said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side, 
and stealing one arm round his neck, " tell me something 
about May. She is very fair? " 

" She is indeed," said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was 
quite a rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw on his 
invention. 

'' Her hair is dark," said Bertha, pensively, '' darker than 
mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have often 
loved to hear it. Her shape — " 

'' There's not a Doll's in all the room to equal it," said 
Caleb. " And her eyes !—" 

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 in- 
fallible resource in all such difficulties. 

" Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never tired, you 
know, of hearing about him. — Now, was I ever? " she said, 
hastily. 



200 The Cricket on the Hearth 

" Of course not/' answered Caleb, '' and with reason." 

''Ah! With how much reason!" cried the BHnd 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. 

'' Then, tell me again about him, dear father," said Bertha. 
" 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 un- 
willingness, beats in its every look and glance." 

"And makes it noble!" added Caleb, in his quiet des- 
peration. 

"And makes it noble!" cried the Blind Girl. "He is 
older than May, father." 

" Ye-es," said Calebs reluctantly. " He's a little older than 
May. But that don't signify." 

" Oh father, yes ! To be his patient companion in infirmity 
and age; to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant 
[riend 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? " 

" No doubt of it," said Caleb. 

" I love her, father; I can love her from my soul! " ex- 
claimed 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 



A Sharp Commotion 201 

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 with- 
out the least regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, 
being all ahve again, was invested, by the united efforts of 
Mrs. Peerybingle and j\Iiss Slowboy, with a creami-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 toil 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, 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, '' John ! How can you ! Think of Tilly ! " 

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 un- 
genteel, I'll think of it. 

'' 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." 

" You're a nice little article," returned the Carrier, " to be 
talking about turning round, after keeping me a full quarter 
of an hour behind my time." 



202 The Cricket on the Hearth 

" I am sorry for it, John/' said Dot in a great bustle, " 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! " 

This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn't 
mind it at all. 

'* Oh do way, John! " said Mrs. Peerybingle. " Please! " 

" It'll be time enough to do that," returned John, " when 
I begin to leave things behind me. The basket's here, safe 
enough." 

'' What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not to 
have said so, at once, and save me such a turn ! I declared 
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." 

'' It was a kind thought in the first instance," said the 
Carrier: " and I honour you for it, little woman." 

" My dear John," replied Dot, turning very red, " don't 
talk about honouring me. Good Gracious ! " 

" By the bye — " observed the Carrier. " That old 
gentleman — " 

Again so visibly, and instantly embarrassed ! 

" He's an odd fish," said the Carrier, looking straight along 
the road before them. '' I can't make him out. I don't 
believe there's any harm in him." 

*' None at all. I'm — I'm sure there's none at all." 

" Yes," said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face 
by the great earnestness of her manner. ^' 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' tit? Things come about 
so strangely." 

** So very strangely," she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely 
audible. 

*' However, he's a good-natured old gentleman," said John, 
" 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 



Concerning the Old Gentleman 203 

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. ' Why, then I shall be returning 
home to-night your way,' he says, ' 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.' He was sound asleep, 
sure-ly! — Dot! what are you thinking of ? " 

" Thinking of, John? I — I was listening to you." 

" ! That's all right ! " said the honest Carrier. '' 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." 

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 " How are 
you!" 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 recogni- 
tions 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 everyAvhere; 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 



204 The Cricket on the Hearth 

customer. Wherever he vvcnt^ somebody or other might 
have been heard to cry, " Halloa! Here's Boxer! ' 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 expecta- 
tion about their parcels, and other people were so full ot 
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 re- 
quired to be considered and discussed, and in reference to 
the adjustment and disposition of which, councils had to be 
holdcn 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. 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 any- 
thing, 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 ! 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 



May Fielding 205 

in the shade, near hedges and by trees, was a pleasant occupa- 
tion; 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 
'* getting up her nose," 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 bhnd 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 respect- 
able 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 



2o6 The Cricket on the Hearth 

— 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 con- 
sequence of having once been better off, or of labouring under 
an impression that she might have been, if something had 
happened w^hich 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. 

''May! My dear old friend!" cried Dot, running up to 
meet her. '' What a happiness to see you." 

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 dissipa- 
tion 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 " things," as Mrs. Peerybingle called 
them; which were chiefly nuts and oranges, and cakes, and 
such small beer. 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 I 



Reminiscences of Girlhood 207 

Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old school-fellow 
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 inchned to have 
a fiendish joy in the contemplation of Tackleton's discom- 
fiture, 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. 

" Ah, May! " said Dot. " Dear, dear, what changes ! To 
talk of those merry school-days makes one young again." 

" Why, you an't particularly old, at any time; are you? " 
said Tackleton. 

" Look at my sober plodding husband there," returned Dot. 
" He adds twenty years to my age at least. Don't you, 
John?" 

" Forty," John repHed. 

" How many you'll add to May's, I am sure I don't know," 
said Dot, laughing. " But she can't be much less than a 
hundred years of age on her next birthday." 

'' Ha, ha! " laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum, that 
laugh though. And he looked as if he could have twisted 
Dot's neck, comfortably. 

" Dear, dear! " said Dot. '' 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." 



2o8 The Cricket on the Hearth 

May seemed to know which to do ! for the colour flushed 
into her face^ and tears stood in her eyes. 

" Even the very persons themselves — real live young men 
— were fixed on sometimes/' said Dot. " We little thought 
how things would come about. I never fixed on John, Tm 
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? " 

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. 

*' You couldn't help yourselves, for all that. You couldn't 
resist us, you see," said Tackleton. " Here we are I Here 
we are ! Where are your gay young bridegrooms now? " 

" Some of them are dead," said Dot; " 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! " 

" Why, Dot! " exclaimed the Carrier. " Little woman! " 

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 inter- 
fered, 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. 

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 them- 
selves 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, 



The Approaching Nuptials 209 

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 ]\Ir. 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 antici- 
pated the greatest possible amount of bliss — not rapturous 
bliss ; but the solid, steady - going article — from the ap- 
proaching nuptials. She concluded by informing the com- 
pany 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 wav home. 



2 TO The Cricket on the Hearth 

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. 

*' Good bye! " said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on his 
dreadnought coat. " I shall be back at the old time. Good 
bye all!" 

" Good bye, John," 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. 

" Good bye, young shaver! " 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; 
''good bye! Time will come, I suppose, when you'W turn 
out into the cold, my little friend, and leave your old father 
to enjov his pipe and his rheumatics in the chimney-corner; 
eh? Where's Dot?" 

'' I'm here, John! " she said, starting. 

" Come, come ! " returned the Carrier, clapping his sounding 
hands. " Where's the pipe? " 

'' I quite forgot the pipe, John." 

Forgot the pipe ! Was such a wonder ever heard of ! She ! 
Forgot the pipe ! 

" I'll— I'll fill it directly. It's soon done." 

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 had commended her dis- 
cretion, 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 hers — or caught 
it, lor it can hardly be said to have ever met another eye: 



Bertha's Sorrow 21 1 

rather being a kind of trap to snatch it up — augmented her 
confusion in a most remarkable degree. 

''Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon!'' 
said John. " I could have done it better myself, I verily 
believe! " 

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. 

"Bertha!'' said Caleb, softly. "What has happened? 
How changed you are, my darling, in a few hours — since 
this morning. Yon silent and dull all day! What is it? 
Tell me!" 

" Oh father, father! " cried the Blind Girl, bursting into 
tears. " Oh my hard, hard fate! " 

Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered 
her. 

" But think how cheerful and how happy you have been. 
Bertha ! How good, and how much loved, by many people." 

"That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always so 
mindful of me! Always so kind to me! " 

Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her. 

" To be — to be blind. Bertha, my poor dear," he faltered, 
" is a great affliction; but " 

" I have never felt it! " cried the Blind Girl. " 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," she laid her hands upon her breast, 
" 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 re- 
semblance of yourselves. But I have never had these feel- 
ings long. They have passed away and left me tranquil and 
contented." 

" And they will again," said Caleb. 

" But, father! Oh my good, gentle father, bear with me, 

if I am wicked ! " said the Blind Girl. " This is not the 

sorrow that so weighs me down! " 

Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes over- 
ly 239 ^ 



212 The Cricket on the Hearth 

flow ; she was so earnest and pathetic, but he did not under- 
stand her, yet. 

*' Bring her to me/' said Bertha. " I cannot hold it closed 
and shut within myself. Bring her to me, father! " 

She knew he hesitated, and said, " May. Bring May! " 

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. 

*' Look into my face. Dear heart, Sweet heart!" said 
Bertha. " Read it with your beautiful eyes, and tell me if 
the truth is written on it." 

"Dear Bertha, Yes!" 

The Blind Girl still, upturning the blank sightless face, 
down which the tears were coursing fast, addressed her in 
these words: 

" 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; " and she drew towards her, in 
a closer grasp; " 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 ! " 

While speaking, she had released May Fielding's hands, 
and clasped her garments in an attitude of mingled supplica- 
tion and love. Sinking lower and lower down, as she pro- 
ceeded 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. 

'' Great Power! " exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow 
with the truth, '' have I deceived her from her cradle, but to 
break her heart at last ! " 

It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, 
busy little Dot — for such she was, whatever faults she had. 



Mrs. Fielding's Lecture 213 

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. 

'* 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," said the 
cheery little woman, kissing her upon the forehead. " Come 
away, dear Bertha. Come ! and here's her good father will 
come with her; won't you, Caleb? To — be — sure! " 

Well, well ! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and 
it must have been an obdurate nature that could have with- 
stood 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; / 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. 

" So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly," said she, drawing 
a chair to the fire; "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? " 

Not even the W^elsh Giant, who, according to the popular 
expression, was so " slow " 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 mys- 
terious 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 
infalHble domestic recipes and precepts, than would (if acted 



2 14 '^'^^ Cricket on the Hearth 

on) have utterly destroyed and done up that Young Peery- 
bingle, though he had been an Infant Samson. 

To change the theme^ Dot did a httle 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 Tackle- 
ton 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, " Have I deceived her from her cradle, but to 
break her heart! " 

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! 

** Whose step is that ! " cried Bertha, starting up. 
"Whose step?" returned the Carrier, standing in the 
portal, with his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the 
keen night air. " Why, mine." 



The Carrier in High Spirits 215 

" The other step/' said Bertha. '' The man's tread behind 
you!" 

'' She is not to be deceived/' observed the Carrier, laugh- 
ing. " Come along, sir. You'll be welcome, never fear! " 

He spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the deaf old 
gentleman entered. 

'' He's not so much a stranger, that you haven't seen him 
once, Caleb," said the Carrier. " You'll give him house- 
room till we go? " 

'^ Oh surely, John, and take it as an honour." 

'' He's the best company on earth, to talk secrets in," said 
John. '' I have reasonable good lungs, but he tries 'em, I 
can tell you. Sit down, sir. All friends here, and glad to 
see you! " 

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, " A chair in the chimney-comer, 
and leave to sit quite silent and look pleasantly about him, 
is all he cares for. He's easily pleased." 

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. 

''A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!" he said, en- 
circling her with his rough arm, as she stood, removed from 
the rest; '' and yet I like her somehow. See yonder. Dot! " 

He pointed to the old man. She looked down. I think 
she trembled. 

"He's — ha, ha, ha! — he's full of admiration for you!" 
said the Carrier. " Talked of nothing else, the whole way 
here. Why, he's a brave old boy. I hke him for it! " 

" I wish he had had a better subject, John," she said, with 
an uneasy glance about the room. At Tackleton especially. 

" A better subject! " cried the jovial John. " 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, 



21 6 The Cricket on the Hearth 

Dot. And a glass of beer here^ if there's any left^ small 
wife!" 

His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accept- 
ing 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 atten- 
tion gradually became absorbed upon the cards; and he 
thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder 
restored him to a consciousness of Tacklcton. 

'' I am sorry to disturb you — but a word, directly." 

'' I'm going to deal," returned the Carrier. *' It's a crisis." 

'' It is," said Tackleton. " Come here, man! " 

There was that in his pale face which made the other rise 
immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was. 

"Hush! John Peerybingle," said Tackleton. ''I am 
sorry for this. I am indeed. I have been afraid of it. I 
have suspected it from the first." 

" What is it? " asked the Carrier, with a frightened aspect. 

" Hush ! I'll show you, if you'll come with me." 

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. 

" A moment! " said Tackleton. '' Can you bear to look 
through that window, do you think? " 

" Why not? " returned the Carrier. 

'' A moment more," said Tackleton. '' 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." 

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 — 



John Receives a Crushing Blow 217 

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. 

" Now, John, dear ! Good night, May ! Good night, Bertha I 

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 closelv, 
and she did all this. 

Tilly was hushing the Baby, and she crossed and re- 
crossed Tackleton, a dozen times, repeating drowsily: 

" '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! " 

" Now, Tilly, give me the Baby! Good night, Mr. Tackle- 
ton. Where's John, for goodness' sake? " 

" He's going to walk beside the horse's head," said Tackle- 
ton, who helped her to her seat. 

'^ My dear John. Walk? To-night?'' 

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. 



21 8 The Cricket on the Hearth 

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, '' Have I deceived 
her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last! " 

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 fail- 
ing 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 remem- 
brance, 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 



Terrible Thoughts 219 

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 neath his outraged roof. Three 
steps would take him to his chamber-door. One blow would 
beat it in. " You might do murder before you know it/' 
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. 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 inquiring 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, remind- 

*jj 239 



2 20 The Cricket on the Hearth 

ing him how desolate he was become, and how the great 
bond of his Hfe 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, sorrow- 
ing, 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 '' Kill 
him! In his bed!" 

He reversed the gun to beat the stock upon the door; he 
already held it Hfted 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 
hers, 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 — 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 hre^ and found relief in tears. 



John's Reverie 221 

The cricket on the Hearth came out into the room^ and 
stood in Fairy shape before him. 

'' ' I love it/ " said the Fairy Voice, repeating what he well 
remembered, '' ' for the many times I have heard it, and the 
many thoughts its harmless music has given me/ " 

'' She said so ! " cried the Carrier. '' True ! " 

" 'This has been a happy home, John; and I love the 
Cricket for its sake! ' " 

" It has been, Heaven knows," returned the Carrier. 
*' She made it happy, always, — until now." 

'' So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful, busy, 
and light-hearted! " said the voice. 

" Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did," re- 
turned the Carrier. 

The Voice, correcting him, said, '' do." 

The Carrier repeated " as I did." But not firmly. His 
faltering tongue resisted his control, and would speak in its 
own way, for itself and him. 

The Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand 
and said: 

"Upon your own hearth — " 

" The hearth she has blighted," interposed the Carrier. 

''The hearth she has — how often! — blessed and bright- 
ened," said the Cricket; " 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 every- 
thing that speaks the language of your hearth and home 1 " 

" And pleads for her? " inquired the Carrier. 

" All things that speak the language of your hearth and 
home, must plead for her ! " returned the Cricket. " For they 
speak the truth." 

And while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands, con- 
tinued to sit meditating in his chair, the Presence stood beside 
him, suggesting his reflections by its power, and presenting 



22 2 The Cricket on the Hearth 

them before him, as in a glass or picture. It was not a soli- 
tary 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 imple- 
ments; from every thing and every place with which she 
had ever been familiar, and with which she had ever en- 
twined 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 honour 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, 
'' Is this the light wife you are mourning for? " 

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. no ! For presently, there came a 
certain Carrier to the door; and bless her, what a welcome 
she bestowed upon him 1 



The Household Spirits 223 

Again the staring figures turned upon him all at once, and 
seemed to say, " Is this the wife who has forsaken you! " 

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 counter- 
part 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 



2 24 The Cricket on the Hearth 

showed her with the BHnd 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 wonder- 
ful 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, " Is this the wife who has betrayed your 
confidence! " 

More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful 
night, they showed her to him sitting on her favourite seat, 
with her head bent, her hands clasped on her brow, her fall- 
ing 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 faith- 
ful 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 avoca- 
tions — 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. 



The Stranger Disappears 225 

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 favours. 

The horse looked much more like a bridegroom than 
Tackleton^ whose half-closed eye was more disagreeably ex- 
pressive than ever. But the Carrier took little heed of this. 
His thoughts had other occupation. 

" John Peerybingle! " said Tackleton^ with an air of con- 
dolence. " My good fellow^ how do you find yourself this 
morning? " 

" I have had but a poor nighty Master Tackleton/' returned 
the Carrier^ shaking his head: " 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? " 

" I came on purpose/' returned Tackleton, alighting. 
*' Never mind the horse. He'll stand quiet enough, with the 
reins over this post, if you'll give him a mouthful of hay." 

The Carrier having brought it from his stables, and set it 
before him, they turned into the house. 

" You are not married before noon," he said, '' I 
think?" 

" No," answered Tackleton. " Plenty of time. Plenty 
of time." 

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 ver}^ 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. 

'' If you please I can't make nobody hear," said Tilly, 
looking round. " I hope nobody an't gone and been and 
died if you please! " 

This philanthropic wish. Miss Slowboy emphasised with 
various new raps and kicks at the door; which led to no 
result whatever. 

'' Shall I go? " said Tackleton. " It's curious/' 



226 The Cricket on the Hearth 

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. 

" John Peerybingle," said Tackleton, in his ear. " I hope 
there has been nothing — nothing rash in the night? " 

The Carrier turned upon him quickly. 

" Because he's gone ! " said Tackleton; '' 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? " 

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. 

" Make yourself easy," said the Carrier. '' 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! " 

" Oh! — Well, I think he has got off pretty easy," 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. 

" You showed me last night," he said at length, " my 
wife; my wife that I love; secretly — " 

'* And tenderly," insinuated Tackleton. 

*' Conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him oppor- 
tunities 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." 

" I confess to having had my suspicions always," said 
Tackleton. '' And that has made me objectionable here, I 
know." 

" But as you did show it me," pursued the Carrier, not 
minding him; *' and as you saw her, my wife, my wife that 



The Carrier's Love for Dot 227 

I love '' — his voice, and eye, and hand, grew steadier and 
firmer as he repeated these words : evidently in pursuance ot 
a steadfast purpose — *' 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," said the Carrier, regarding 
him attentively. " And nothing can shake it now." 

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 honour dwell- 
ing in the man could have imparted. 

'' I am a plain, rough man," pursued the Carrier, *' 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 comipare with, who never could have loved 
my little Dot hke me, I think ! " 

He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with 
his foot, before resuming. 

'* 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." 

" Hah 1 " said Tackleton, with a significant shake of the head. 

'' I had studied myself; I had had experience of myself; 
I knew how much I loved her, and how happy I should 
be," pursued the Carrier. " But I had not — I feel it now — 
sufficiently considered her." 

" To be sure," said Tackleton. '' Giddiness, frivohty, fickle- 
ness, love of admiration! Not considered! All left out of 
sight! Hah!" 

" You had best not interrupt me," said the Carrier, with 
some sternness, " 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 ! " 



2 28 The Cricket on the Hearth 

The Toy-merchant gazed at him in astonishment. He went 
on in a softer tone: 

" Did I consider/' said the Carrier^ " 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 Httle 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 con- 
sider 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! " 

The Toy-merchant gazed at him, without winking. Even 
the half-shut eye was open now. 

" Heaven bless her! " said the Carrier, " 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 ! / 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 ! " 

" She made a show of it," said Tackleton. " She made 
such a show of it, that to tell you the truth it was the origin 
of my misgivings." 

And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, who 
certainly made no sort of show of being fond of him. 

" She has tried," said the poor Carrier, with greater 
emotion than he had exhibited yet; " 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." 

" Here alone? " said Tackleton. "Oh! Then you do 
mean to take some notice of this? " 

*' I mean/' returned the Carrier, "to do her the greatest 



The Carrier's Resolve 229 

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." 

"Make her reparation!" exclaimed Tackleton, twisting 
and turning his great ears with his hands. " There must 
be something wrong here. You didn't say that, of course." 

The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the Toy-merchant, 
and shook him like a reed. 

*' Listen to me! " he said. " And take care that you hear 
me right. Listen to me. Do I speak plainly? " 

" Very plainly indeed," answered Tackleton. 

"As if I meant it? " 

" Very much as if you meant it." 

" I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night," exclaimed 
the Carrier. " 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! " 

Staunch Cricket on the Hearth ! Loyal household Fairies ! 

"Passion and distrust have left me!" said the Carrier; 
" 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 ! " 

" If that is your opinion " — Tackleton began. 

" So, let her go! " pursued the Carrier. " 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 riveted, 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. 



230 The Cricket on the Hearth 

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! " 

'' 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! " 

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. 

'^ No hand can make the clock which will strike again for 
me the hours that are gone," replied the Carrier, with a faint 
smile. " 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." 

" Well! " muttered Tackleton. " 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 I " 

" I have spoken plainly? " said the Carrier, accompanying 
him to the door. 

"Oh, quite I" 

" And you'll remember what I have said ? " 

'' Why, if you compel me to make the observation," said 
Tackleton, previously taking the precaution of getting into 
his chaise; '* I must say that it was so very unexpected, that 
I'm far from being likely to forget it." 

'* The better for us both," returned the Carrier. '' Good 
bye. I give you joy ! " 

" I wish I could give it to y6>w," said Tackleton. '' 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 



Caleb and His Daughter 231 

about me^ and too demonstrative. Good bye ! Take care 
of yourself/' 

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 rest- 
less, 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. 

" Ow if you please don't! " said Tilly. " It's enough to 
dead and bury the Baby, so it is if you please." 

" Will you bring him sometimes, to see his father, Tilly," 
inquired her mistress^ drying her eyes; ^' when I can't live 
here, and have gone to my old home? " 

'' Ow if you please don't! " cried Tilly, throwing back her 
head, and bursting out into a howl — she looked at the 
moment uncommonly like Boxer. " Ow if you please don't! 
Ow, what has everybody gone and been and done with every- 
body, making everybody else so wretched! Ow-w-w-w! " 

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 (prob- 
ably 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 bed- 
clothes, apparently deriving much relief from those extra- 
ordinary operations. 

'' Mary ! " said Bertha. '' Not at the marriage ! " 

" I told her you would not be there, mum," whispered 
Caleb. " I heard as much last night. But bless you," said 
the little man, taking her tenderly by both hands, " I don't 
care for what they say. / 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 ! " 



232 The Cricket on the Hearth 

He put his arms about her and hugged her, as a child 
might have hugged one of his own dolls. 

" Bertha couldn't stay at home this morning/' said Caleb. 
" 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 think- 
ing of what I have done,'' said Caleb, after a moment's 
pause; '' 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? " he inquired, trembling 
from head to foot. '* 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 ! " 

" Mary," said Bertha, '' where is your hand! Ah! Here 
it is; here it is! " pressing it to her lips, with a smile, and 
drawing it through her arm. " I heard them speaking softly 
among themselves, last night, of some blame against you. 
They were wrong." 

The Carrier's Wife was silent. Caleb answered for her. 

'* They were wrong," he said. 

" I knew it! " cried Bertha, proudly. '' I told them so. 
I scorned to hear a word! Blame her with justice!" she 
pressed the hand between her own, and the soft cheek 
against her face. " No! I am not so blind as that." 

Her father went on one side of her, while Dot remained 
upon the other: holding her hand. 

" I know you all," said Bertha, " 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 w^ord were 
spoken, I could choose her from a crowd! My sister! " 

'' Bertha, my dear! " said Caleb, '' 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." 

'' A confession, father? " 

'' I have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my 
child," said Caleb, w'th a pitiable expression in his bewildered 



Caleb's Confession 233 

face. *' I have wandered from the truth, intending to be 
kind to you; and have been cruel." 

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and 
repeated '^ Cruel!" 

" He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha," said Dot. 
" You'll say so, presently. You'll be the first to tell 
him so." 

"He cruel to me!" cried Bertha, with a smile of in- 
credulity. 

" Not meaning it, my child," said Caleb. " But I have 
been; though I never suspected it, till yesterday. My dear 
Wind daughter, hear me and forgive me! The world you 
Hve in, heart of mine, doesn't exist as I have represented it. 
The eyes you have trusted in, have been false to you." 

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still; 
but drew back, and clung closer to her friend. 

" Your road in life was rough, my poor one," said Caleb, 
" 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 conceal- 
ments from you, put deceptions on you, God forgive me! 
and surrounded you with fancies." 

" But living people are not fancies! " she said hurriedly, 
and turning very pale, and still retiring from him. '' You 
can't change them." 

" I have done so. Bertha," pleaded Caleb. '* There is one 
person that you know, my dove — " 

" Oh father! why do you say, I know? " she answered, 
in a term of keen reproach. '' What and whom do / know! 
I who have no leader! I so miserably blind." 

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. 

" The marriage that takes place to-day," said Caleb, " is 
with a stem, 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 cliild. In 
everything." 

" Oh why," cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it seemed, 
almost beyond endurance, '* why did you ever do this ! Why 
did you ever fill my heart so full, and then come in like 



2 34 The Cricket on the Hearth 

Deaths and tear away the objects of my lovel Heaven, 
how blind I am ! How helpless and alone 1 " 

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. 

" Mary," said the Blind Girl, " tell me what my home is. 
What it truly is." 

" 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," 
Dot continued in a low, clear voice, " as your poor father in 
his sack-cloth coat." 

The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the Carrier's 
little wife aside. 

" Those presents that I took such care of; that came almost 
at my wish, and were so dearly welcome to me," she said, 
trembling; ** where did they come from? Did you send 
them?" 

'' No." 

"Who then?" 

Dot saw she knew, already, and was silent. The blind 
Girl spread her hands before her face again. But in quite 
another manner now. 

*' 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? " 

''No, Bertha, indeed!" 

'' 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." 

" I see," said Dot, who understood her well, " an old man 
sitting in a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with 



Blind no Longer 235 

his face resting on his hand. As if his child should comfort 
him J Bertha." 

" Yes, yes. She will. Go on." 

'* 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 see him many times before, 
and striving hard in many ways for one great sacred object. 
And I honour his grey head, and bless him ! " 

The Blind Girl broke away from her; and throwing her- 
self upon her knees before him, took the grey head to her 
breast. 

'' It is my sight restored. It is my sight ! " she cried. '' 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! " 

There were no words for Caleb's emotion. 

'' There is not a gallant figure on this earth," exclaimed 
the Blind Girl, holding him in her embrace, " 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 ! " 

Caleb managed to articulate *^ My Bertha! " 

*' And in my blindness, I believed him," said the girl, 
caressing him with tears of exquisite affection, "to be so 
different ! And having him beside me, day by day, so mind- 
ful of me always, never dreamed of this ! " 

" The fresh smart father in the blue coat. Bertha," said 
poor Caleb. "He's gone!" 

" Nothing is gone," she answered. " 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! " 

Dot's whole attention had been concentrated, during this 
discourse, upon the father and daughter; but looking, now, 
towards the Httle Haymaker in the Moorish meadow, she saw 



236 



The Cricket on the Hearth 



that the clock was within a few minutes of striking, and fell, 
immediately, into a nervous and excited state. 

'' Father/' said Bertha, hesitating. '' Mary." 

" Yes, my dear," returned Caleb. " Here she is." 

" There is no change in her. You never told me anything 
of her that was not true? " 

" I should have done it, my dear, I am afraid," returned 
Caleb, " 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." 

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. 

" More changes than you think for, may happen though, 
my dear," said Dot. '* 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?" 

" Yes. Coming very fast." 

'' I — I — I know you have a quick ear," said Dot, placing 
her hand upon her heart, and evidently talking on, as fast 
as she could to hide its palpitating state, " 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, ' Whose 
step is that ! ' 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." 

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. 

" They are wheels indeed ! " she panted. '' 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 ! " — 

She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and 
running up to Caleb put her hands upon his eyes, as a young 



The Stranger Returns 237 

man rushed into the room, and flinging away liis hat into 
the air, came sweeping down upon them. 

" Is it over? " cried Dot. 

" Yes! " 

"Happily over?" 

"Yes!" 

" Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you ever 
hear the like of it before? " cried Dot. 

'' If my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive " — 
said Caleb, trembling. 

"He is alive!" shrieked Dot, removing her hands from 
his eyes, and clapping them in ecstasy; "look at him! See 
where he stands before you, healthy and strong ! Your own 
dear son ! Your own dear living, loving brother. Bertha ! " 

All honour to the little creature for her transports! All 
honour 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 house- 
breaker, 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. 

" Look, John! " said Caleb, exultingly, " 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! " 

The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but, re- 
coiling, as some feature in his face awakened a remembrance 
of the Deaf Man in the Cart, said : 

"Edward! Was it you? " 

" Now tell him all! " cried Dot. " Tell him all, Edward; 
and don't spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself 
in his eyes, ever again." 

" I was the man," said Edward. 

" And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your 
old friend? " rejoined the Carrier. " There was a frank boy 
once — how many years is it, Caleb, since we heard that he 



238 



The Cricket on the Hearth 



was dead, and had it proved, we thought? — who never would 
have done that." 

*' There was a generous friend of mine, once; more a 
father to me than a friend;" said Edward, ''who never 
would have judged me, or any other man, unheard. You 
were he. So I am certain you will hear me now." 

The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept 
far away from him, replied, " Well ! that's but fair. I will." 

" You must know that when I left here, a boy," said 
Edward, '' 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." 

'' You had ! " exclaimed the Carrier. '' You ! " 

'' Indeed I had," returned the other. '' And she returned 
it. I have ever since believed she did, and now I am sure 
she did." 

** Heaven help me!" said the Carrier. "This is worse 
than all." 

" Constant to her," said Edward, '' 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 be- 
stowed 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 un- 
like myself — you know how; and waited on the road — you 
know where. You had no suspicion of me; neither had — 
had she," pointing to Dot, " until I whispered in her ear at 
that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me." 

" But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had 
come back," sobbed Dot, now speaking for herself, as she 
had burned to do, all through this narrative; ''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 



Dot Tells All 239 

— being a clumsy man in general/' said Dot, half laughing 
and half crying—" to keep it for him. And when she— 
that's me, John," sobbed the little woman—" 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 advantage- 
ous; 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 be- 
tween 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! " 

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. 

"No, John, no! Hear all! Don't love me any more, 
John, 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 when I knew what you thought, 
I felt how giddy and how wrong it was. But oh, dear John, 
how could you, could you, think so ! " 

Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peerybingle 
would have caught her in his arms. But no; she wouldn't 
let him. 

" 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 



240 The Cricket on the Hearth 

lovers ; and knew that her heart was far away from Tackle ton. 
You believe that, now. Don't you, John? " 

John was going to make another rush at this appeal; but 
she stopped him again. 

"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." 

''Hooroar!" said Caleb with unusual vigour. "My 
opinion! " 

" 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." 

She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. 
But she was very nearly too late. 

" 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! " 

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 



Mrs. Edward Plummer 241 

rapture; and you may be sure Dot was likewise; and you 
may be sure they all were, inclusive of Miss Slowboy, who 
wept 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 v/as heard again outside 
the door; and somebody exclaimed that Gruff and Tackleton 
was coming back. Speedily that worthy gentleman appeared, 
looking warm and flustered. 

''Why, what the Devil's this, John Perrybingle ! " said 
Tackleton. " 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." 

'' But I can't spare her," returned Edward. " I couldn't 
think of it." 

'' What do you mean, you vagabond? " said Tackleton. 

" I mean, that as I can make allowance for your being 
vexed," returned the other with a smile, '' I am as deaf to 
harsh discourse this morning, as I was to all discourse last 
night." 

The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start 
he gave! 

'* I am sorry, sir," said Edward, holding out May's left 
hand, and especially the third finger; '' that the young lady 
can't accompany you to church; but as she has been there 
once this morning, perhaps you'll excuse her." 

Tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a little 
piece of silver-paper, apparently containing a ring, from his 
waistcoat-pocket. 

" Miss Slowboy," said Tackleton. " Will you have the 
kindness to throw that in the fire? Thank'ee." 

" It was a previous engagement, quite an old engagement, 
that prevented my wife from keeping her appointment with 
you, I assure you," said Edward. 

*' 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," said May, blushing. 

" Oh, certainly! " said Tackleton. '' Oh to be sure. Oh 



242 The Cricket on the Hearth 

it's all right. It's quite correct. Mrs. Edward Plummer, 
I infer?" 

'* That's the name/' returned the bridegroom. 

*' Ah, I shouldn't have known you, sir," said Tackleton, 
scrutinising his face narrowly, and making a low bow. '* I 
give you joy, sir! " 

'' Thank'ee." 

'' Mrs. Peerybingle," said Tackleton, turning suddenly to 
where she stood with her husband; "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 
Perrybingle, I am sorry. You understand me; that's 
enough. It's quite correct, ladies and gentlemen all, and 
perfectly satisfactory. Good morning! " 

With these words he carried it off, and carried himself of! 
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. Accord- 
ingly, 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 



A Great Expedition 243 

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 Expedi- 
tion 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, '' Now carry me to the grave " : 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 }delded 
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 Hberty of look- 
ing where she pleased. At last they came: a chubby Httle 
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. 

J 239 



244 The Cricket on the Hearth 

Then, Dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance with 
May's mother; and May's mother always stood on her gen- 
tihty; and Dot's mother never stood on anything but her 
active Httle 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 him- 
self 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 honours 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 
over-flowing 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: 

" Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and as he hasn't got no 
use for the cake himself, p'raps you'll eat it." 

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 cere- 
mony 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. 



Rejoicings at John Peerybingle's 245 

" Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few toys 
for the Babby. They ain't ugly." 

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. 

" Mrs. Peerybingle! " said the Toy-merchant, hat in hand. 
" Fm 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!" 

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 ! 

'' John ! you won't send me home this evening; will you ? " 
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 en- 
deavours 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. 



246 The Cricket on the Hearth 

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 got up, amid great applause, to dance 
alone; and Bertha plays her liveHest 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. Tackle- 
ton 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 ! 

:|c i|c « :|c :|: 4( ♦ 

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. 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

A LOVE STORY 



THIS 

CHRISTMAS BOOK 

rS CORDIALLY INSCRIBED TO MY ENGLISH FRIENDS 
IN SWITZERLAND 



CHARACTERS 

Benjamin Britain (called " Little Britain"), a small man with a sout 

and discontented face ; servant to Dr. Jeddler. 
Mr. Thomas Craggs, attorney-at-law; partner of Jonathan Snitchey. 
Alfred Heathfield, a young medical student. 
Dr. Anthony Jeddler, an elderly gentleman; father of Grace and 

Marion Jeddler. 
Mr. Jonathan Snitchey, attorney-at-law; partner of Thomas Craggs. 
Michael Warden, a client of Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs. 

Mrs. Craggs, wife of Thomas Craggs. 

Grace Jeddler, elder daughter of Dr. Jeddler. 

Marion Jeddler, younger daughter of Dr. Jeddler. 

Aunt Martha, sister to Dr. Jeddler. 

Clemency Newcome, servant to Dr. Jeddler. 

Mrs. Snitchey, wife of Jonathan Snitchey. 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 



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 d}dng 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 be- 
came 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 aftervvc.rds 
upon the tainted wind that blew across the scene of that 
day's work and that night's death and suffering! llsmy 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 
*i 2^ 251 



z^2 The Battle of Life 

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 water- 
mill; 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, and 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 grow- 
ing 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 



An Old Stone House 253 

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, gather- 
ing 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 



254 The Battle of Life 

very glad to please them, but they danced to please them- 
selves (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 delight- 
ful air of off-hand inspiration, from the chirping little cas- 
tanets. 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 
munnur 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 philo- 
sopher, Doctor Jeddler, and not very musical. 



Dr. Jeddler and His Daughters 255 

" Music and dancing to-day ! " said the Doctor^ stopping 
short, and speaking to himself. " I thought they dreaded 
to-day. But it's a world of contradictions. Why, Grace, 
why, Marion!" he added, aloud, "is the world more mad 
than usual this morning? " 

" Make some allowance for it, father, if it be," replied his 
younger daughter, Marion, going close to him, and looking 
into his face, " for it's somebody's birth-day." 

" Somebody's birth-day, Puss ! " replied the Doctor. 
" 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 pre- 
posterous and ridiculous business called Life, every minute? " 

"No, father!" 

" No, not you, of course; you're a woman — almost," said 
the Doctor. " By-the-by," and he looked into the pretty 
face, still close to his, '* I suppose it's your birth-day." 

"No! Do you really, father? " cried his pet daughter, 
pursing up her red lips to be kissed. 

"There! Take my love with it," said the Doctor, im- 
printing his upon them; " and many happy returns of the 
— the idea! — of the day. The notion of wishing happy 
returns in such a farce as this," said the Doctor to himself, 
"is good! Ha! ha! ha!" 

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. 

"Well! But how did you get the music?" asked the 
Doctor. " Poultr^^-stealers, of course! Where did the 
minstrels come from? " 

" Alfred sent the music," said his daughter Grace, ad- 
justing 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. 

"Oh! Alfred sent the music, did he?" returned the 
Doctor. 

" Yes. He met it coming out of the town as he was 



256 



The Battle of Life 



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." 

" Ay, ay,'' said the Doctor, carelessly, " he always takes 
your opinion." 

" And my opinion being favourable," said Grace, good- 
humouredly; and pausing for a moment to admire the pretty 
head she decorated, with her own thrown back; " 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? " 

'' Oh, I don't know, Grace. Now you tease me about 
Alfred." 

" Tease you by mentioning your lover? " said her sister. 

" I am sure I don't much care to have him mentioned," 
said the wilful beauty, stripping the petals from some flowers 
she held, and scattering them on the ground. " I am almost 
tired of hearing of him; and as to his being my lover " 

'' Hush! Don't speak lightly of a true heart, which is all 
your own, Marion," cried her sister, " even in jest. There is 
not a truer heart than Alfred's in the world ! " 

" No — no," said Marion, raising her eyebrows with a 
pleasant air of careless consideration, ** perhaps not. But 1 
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 ! " 

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 



A Contrast 257 

was; and more removed, in course of nature, from all com- 
petition 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 un- 
deceived — 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. 

" Britain ! " cried the Doctor. '' Britain ! Halloa ! " 

A small man, with an uncommonly sour and discontented 
face, emerged from the house, and returned to tliis call the 
unceremonious acknowledgment of " Now then! " 

'' Where's the breakfast table? " said the Doctor. 

" In the house/' returned Britain. 

" Are you going to spread it out here, as you were told 
last night? " said the Doctor. '' 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? " 

" I couldn't do anything, Dr. Jeddler, till the women had 



258 



The Battle of Life 



done getting in the apples, could I?'* said Britain, his 
voice rising with his reasoning, so that it was very loud 
at last. 

" Well, have they done now? " replied the Doctor, looking 
at his watch, and clapping his hands. " Come ! make haste ! 
Where's Clemency? " 

*' Here am I, Mister," said a voice from one of the ladders, 
which a pair of clumsy feet descended briskly. " It's all 
done now. Clear away, gals. Everything shall be ready 
for you in half a minute, Mister." 

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 per- 
fectly wrong places when they were set in motion, is to offer 
the mildest outline of the reaHty. 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 scrupu- 
lously 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, 



Mr. Snitchey 259 

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 corrup- 
tion 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 cIIdows with 
opposite hands, and staring at it very composedly, until she 
suddenly remembered something else she wanted, and jogged 
off to fetch it. 

''Here are them two lawyers a-coming. Mister!" said 
Clemency, in a tone of no very great good-will. 

'' Ah! " cried the Doctor, advancing to the gate to meet 
them. "Good morning, good morning! Grace, my dear! 
Marion! Here are Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs. Where's 
Alfred.^" 

" He'll be back directly, father, no doubt," said Grace. 
'' He had so much to do this morning in his preparations for 
departure, that he was up and out by daybreak. Good 
morning, gentlemen." 

" Ladies! " said Mr. Snitchey, " for Self and Craggs," who 
bowed, "good morning! Miss," to Marion, "I kiss your 
hand." Which he did. " And I wish you " — which he 
might or might not, for he didn't look, at first sight, hke a 
gentleman troubled with many warm outpourings of soul, 
in behalf of other people, " a hundred happy returns of this 
auspicious day." 

" Ha, ha, ha! " laughed the Doctor thoughtfully, with his 
hands in his pockets. " The great farce in a hundred acts ! " 

" You wouldn't, I am sure," said Mr. Snitchey, standing 
a small professional blue bag against one leg of the table, 
" cut the great farce short for this actress, at all events, 
Doctor Jeddler." 

" No," returned the Doctor. " God forbid! May she 
live to laugh at it, as long as she can laugh, and then say, 
with the French wit, ' The farce is ended; draw the curtain.' " 

" The French wit," said Mr. Snitchey, peeping sharply into 
his blue bag, " was wrong. Doctor Jeddler, and your philo- 
sophy is altogether wrong, depend upon it, as I have often 



2 6o The Battle of Life 

told you. Nothing serious in life! What do you call 
law?'^ 

*' A joke/' replied the Doctor. 

'' Did you ever go to law? " asked Mr. Snitchey, looking 
out of the blue bag. 

" Never/' returned the Doctor. 

*' If you ever do/' said Mr. Snitchey, '^ perhaps you'll alter 
that opinion." 

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. 

'* It's made a great deal too easy/' said Mr. Craggs. 

" Law is? " asked the Doctor. 

" Yes/' said Mr. Craggs, " 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 pre- 
pared 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." 

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 Parting Breakfast 261 

the sister Fates, or like the Graces most effectually disguised, 
or like the three weird prophets on the heath, and greeted 
him. 

" Happy returns, Alf ! " said the Doctor, lightly. 

'' A hundred happy returns of this auspicious day, Mr. 
Heathfield! " said Snitchey, bowing low. 

'' Returns! '' Craggs murmured in a deep voice, all alone. 

"Why, what a battery!" exclaimed Alfred, stopping 
short, '' 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!" 

" If you please. Mister, / was the first, you know," said 
Clemency Newcome. " She was walking out here, before 
sunrise, you remember. I was in the house." 

" That's true ! Clemency was the first," said Alfred. '* So 
I defy you with Clemency." 

'' Ha, ha, ha, — for Self and Craggs," said Snitchey. 
"What a defiance!" 

" Not so bad a one as it appears, may be," said Alfred, 
shaking hands heartily with the Doctor, and also with 
Snitchey and Craggs, and then looking round. " Where 
are the — Good Heavens ! " 

With a start, productive for the moment of a closer partner- 
ship between Jonathan Snitchey and Thomas Craggs than 
the subsisting articles of agreement in that wise contem- 
plated, 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 con- 
sidered it " too easy." 

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 comers, 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. 



2 62 The Battle of Life 

"Meat?'' said Britain, approaching Mr. Snitchey, with 
the carving knife and fork in his hands, and throwing the 
question at him Hke a missile. 

** Certainly/' returned the lawyer. 

" Do you want any? " to Craggs. 

*' Lean and well done/' 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, " I thought he was gone ! " 

" Now, Alfred," said the Doctor, "for a word or two of 
business, while we are yet at breakfast." 

" While we are yet at breakfast," 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 : 

** If you please, sir." 

** If anything could be serious," the Doctor began, " in 
such a — " 

" Farce as this, sir," hinted Alfred. 

" In such a farce as this," observed the Doctor, " 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." 

"Ah! yes, yes. Dr. Jeddler," said the young man. " 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," he looked down at Marion 
beside him, " fraught with such considerations as I must 
not trust myself to speak of now. Come, come ! " he added, 
rallying his spirits and the Doctor at once, " there's a serious 
grain in this large foolish dust-heap. Doctor. Let us allow 
to-day, that there is One." 



Alfred Heathfield 263 

" To-day! " cried the Doctor. '' Hear him ! Ha, ha, ha ! 
Of all the 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 ! " said the Doctor, laughing. " Such 
a system! " 

" But all this seems to me," said Alfred, '' to be very 
serious." 

"Serious!" cried the Doctor. "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." 

'' Besides — so long ago," said Alfred. 

'' Long ago ! " returned the Doctor. " Do you know what 
the world has been doing, ever since? Do you know what 
else it has been doing? / don't! " 

" It has gone to law a little," observed Mr. Snitchey, 
stirring his tea. 

" Although the way out has been always made too easy," 
said his partner. 

'' And you'll excuse my saying. Doctor," pursued Mr. 
Snitchey, " 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 alto- 
gether, I do observe a serious side — now, really, a something 
tangible, and with a purpose and intention in it — " 

Clemency Newcombe made an angular tumble against the 
table, occasioning a sounding clatter among the cups and 
saucers. 

''Heyday! what's the matter there?" exclaimed the 
Doctor, 



264 The Battle of Life 

" It's this evil-inclined blue bag/' said Clemency, " always 
tripping up somebody! '' 

'' With a purpose and intention in it, I was saying/' 
resumed Snitchev, '' that commands respect. Life a farce, 
Dr. Jeddler? With law in it? " 

The Doctor laughed, and looked at Alfred. 

** Granted, if you please, that war is foolish," said Snitchey. 
** There we agree. For example. Here's a smiling country," 
pointing it out with his fork, " once over-run 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," said Mr. Snitchey, with such great 
emotion that he actually smacked his lips, " of the compli- 
cated laws relating to title and proof of title, with all the con- 
tradictory precedents and numerous acts of parliament con- 
nected with them; think of the infinite number of ingenious 
and interminable chancery suits, to which this pleasant pro- 
spect may give rise; and acknowledge. Dr. Jeddler, that 
there is a green spot in the scheme about usl I believe," 
said Mr. Snitchey, looking at his partner, " that I speak for 
Self and Craggs? " 

Mr. Craggs having signified assent, Mr. Snitchey, some- 
what freshened by his recent eloquence, observed that he 
would take a little more beef and another cup of tea. 

^' I don't stand up for life in general," he added, rubbing 
his hands and chuckling, '' it's full of folly; full of some- 
thing worse. Professions of trust, and confidence, and un- 
selfishness, 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. Dr. Jeddler, 
when you win — and then not much. He, he, he! And 
then not much," repeated Snitchey, rolling his head and 
winking his eye, as if he would have added, " you may do 
this instead! " 



Infidelity and Faith 265 

"Well^ Alfred!" cried the Doctor, ''what do you say 
now? '* 

'' I say, sir/' repHed Alfred, '' that the greastest 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.*' 

'' Really, Pm afraid that wouldn't soften his opinions, 
Mr. Alfred,'' said Snitchey. " 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. There is terrible treading down, and 
trampling on. It is rather a bad business." 

" I believe, Mr. Snitchey," said Alfred, " 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." 

Both the sisters listened keenly. 

"Well, well!" said the Doctor, ''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 con- 
tradictions prevail in everything. One must either laugh or 
cry at such stupendous inconsistencies; and I prefer to 
laugh." ^ 

Britain, who had been paying the profoundest and most 
melancholy attention to each speaker in his turn seemed 



266 The Battle of Life 

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 con- 
nected 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. 

" Not you! " said Britain. 

^^Who then?" 

'' Humanity,'' said Britain. " That's the joke! " 

'' What between master and them lawyers, he's getting 
more and more addle-headed every day!" cried Clemency, 
giving him a lunge with the other elbow, as a mental stimu- 
lant. " Do you know where you are? Do you want to get 
warning? " 

" I don't know anything," said Britain, with a leaden eye 
and an immovable visage. " I don't care for anything. I 
don't make out anything. I don't believe anything. And 
I don't want anything." 

Although this forlorn summary of his general condition 
may have been overcharged in an access of despondency, 
Benjamin Britain — sometimes called Little Britain, to dis- 
tinguish him from Great; as we might say Young England, 
to express Old England with a decided difference — had de- 
fined 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 sugges- 
tions from within and without, that Truth at the bottom 
of her well, was on the level surface as compared with 
Britain in the depth 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 



A Matter of Business 267 

causes of his state of mind, and held them in abhorrence 
accordingly. 

" But this is not our business, Alfred," said the Doctor. 
** Ceasing to be my ward (as you have said) to-day; and 
leaving us full to the brim of such learning at 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 pro- 
bation 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 ! " 

" If I do — But you know better; why should I speak to 
you! " said Alfred, laughing. 

" I don't know anything of the sort," returned the Doctor. 
" What do you say, Marion? " 

Marion, trifiing with her teacup, seemed to say — but she 
didn't say it — that he was welcome to forget, if he could. 
Grace pressed the blooming face against her cheek, and 
smiled. 

" I haven't been, I hope, a very unjust steward in the 
execution of my trust," pursued the Doctor; '' 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 dehvered." 

'^ And duly witnessed as by law required," said Snitchey, 
pushing away his plate, and taking out the papers, which his 
partner proceeded to spread upon the table; " 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? " 

*' I an't married. Mister," said Clemency. 

" Oh! I beg your pardon. I should think not," chuckled 
Snitchey, casting his eyes over her extraordinary figure. 
** You can read? " 



2 68 The Battle of Life 

'' A little/' answered Clemency. 

"The marriage service, night and morning, eh?" ob- 
served the lawyer, jocosely. 

" No/' said Clemency. " Too hard. I only reads a 
thimble." 

** Read a thimble!" echoed Snitchey. "What are you 
talking about, young woman? " 

Clemency nodded. " And a nutmeg-grater." 

"Why, this is a lunatic! a subject for the Lord High 
Chancellor! " said Snitchey, staring at her. 

— " If possessed of any property," 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 Newcombe, who was not 
much given to the study of books. 

" Oh, that's it, is it. Miss Grace! " said Snitchey. 

"Yes, yes. Ha, ha, ha! I thought our friend was an 
idiot. She looks uncommonly like it," he muttered, with 
a supercilious glance. " And what does the thimble say, 
Mrs. Newcombe? " 

" I an't married. Mister," observed Clemency. 

"Well, Newcome. Will that do?" said the lawyer. 
" What does the thimble say, Newcome? " 

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 



Clemency and the Lawyer 269 

finger, and rattled the nutmeg-grater: the Hterature of both 
those trinkets being obviously in course of wearing out and 
wasting away, through excessive friction. 

''That's the thimble, is it, young woman?" said Mr. 
Snitchey, diverting himself at her expense. " And what 
does the thimble say? " 

*' It says," replied Clemency, reading slowly round as if it 
were a tower, " For-get and For-give." 

Snitchey and Craggs laughed heartily. " So new! " said 
Snitchey. *' So easy!" said Craggs. ''Such a knowledge 
of human nature in it! " said Snitchey. " So applicable to 
the affairs of hfe! " said Craggs. 

" And the nutmeg-grater? " inquired the head of the 
Firm. 

" The grater says," returned Clemency, "Do as you — 
wold — be — done by." 

" Do, or you'll be done brown, you mean," said Mr. 
Snitchey. 

" I don't understand," retorted Clemency, shaking her 
head vaguely. " I an't no lawyer." 

" I am afraid that if she was. Doctor," said Mr. Snitchey, 
turning to him suddenly, as if to anticipate any effect that 
might otherwise be consequent on this retort, " 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," said Mr. Snitchey, 
" that I speak for Self and Craggs ? " 

" Decidedly," said Craggs. 

" And so, if Mr. Britain will oblige us with a mouthful of 
ink," said Mr. Snitchey, returning to the papers, " we'll 
sign, seal, and deliver as soon as possible, or the coach will 
be coming past before we know where we are." 

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 



270 The Battle of Life 

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 under- 
standing, 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 signa- 
ture, afterwards had a mysterious interest for him, and he 
couldn't leave it; also, how Clemency Newcombe, 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 char- 
acters, which required a deal of ink, and imaginary counter- 
parts 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. 



Marion Co-entrusted to Grace 271 

" Britain 1 " said the Doctor. " Run to the gate, and 
watch for the coach. Time flies, Alfred." 

" Yes, sir, yes/' returned the young man, hurriedly. 
" Dear Grace ! a moment Marion — so young and beauti- 
ful, so winning and so much admired, dear to my heart as 
nothing else in life is — remember ! I leave Marion to you ! " 

'' She has always been a sacred charge to me, Alfred. 
She is doubly so, now. I will be faithful to my trust, 
believe me." 

" 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 ! " 

*' Would you? " she answered with a quiet smile. 

*^ And yet, Grace — Sister, seems the natural word." 

** Use it! " she said quickly. " I am glad to hear it. Call 
me nothing else." 

*' And yet, sister, then," said Alfred, '* Marion and I had 
better have your true and steadfast qualities serving us here, 
and making us both happier and better. I wouldn't carry 
them away, to sustain myself, if I could ! " 

'' Coach upon the hill-top! " exclaimed Britain. 

" Time flies, Alfred," 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. 

" I have been telling Grace, dear Marion," he said, " 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." 

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 h^r lover. 



272 The Battle of Life 

" And when the time comes, as it must one day/' said 
Alfred, — '* I wonder it has never come yet, but Grace knows 
best, for Grace is ahvays 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! " 

Still the younger sister looked into her eyes, and turned 
not — even towards him. And still tho^e honest eyes looked 
back, so calm, serene, and cheerful, on herself and on her 
lover. 

'' 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 — '' 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 " 

" Coach coming through the wood! " cried Britain. 

" 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? " 

'^Yes!" interposed the elder sister, eagerly, and with a 
radiant smile. "Yes! Alfred, don't linger. There's no 
time. Say good bye to Marion. And Heaven be with you ! " 

He pressed the younger sister to liis 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. 

'' Farewell, my boy! " said the Doctor. '' To talk about 
any serious correspondence or serious affections, and engage- 
ments and so forth, in such a — ha, ha, ha I — 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." 

'* Over the bridge! " cried Britain. 

'' Let it come! " said Alfred, wringing the Doctor's hand 
stoutly. '' Think of me sometimes, my old friend and 
guardian, as seriously as you can! Adieu, Mr. Snitchey! 
Farewell, Mr. Craggs ! " 

" Coming down the road ! " cried Britain. 

*' A kiss of Clemency Newcome for long acquaintance' 



Alfred's Farewell 273 

sake! Shake hands, Britain! Marion^ dearest hearty good 
bye! Sister Grace! remember!'' 

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. 

" He waves his hat to you, my love," said Grace. " Your 
chosen husband^ darling. Look ! " 

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. 

"Oh, Grace. God bless you! But I cannot bear to see 
it, Grace 1 It breaks my heart." 



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 aji 
estate in Chancery, and now had some light skirmishing 
among an irregular body of small debtors, just as the occa- 
sion 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 after- 
wards 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 con- 
venient, with an open door down two smooth steps, in the 
market-place; so that any angry farmer inclining towards 



274 The Battle of Life 

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 fire- 
proof, 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 pro- 
fessional 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 dispen- 
sation not uncommon in the affairs of life, was on principle 
suspicious of Mr. Craggs; and Mrs. Craggs was on principle 
suspicious of Mr. Snitchey. " Your Snitcheys indeed," the 
latter lady would observe, sometimes, to Mr. Craggs; using 
that imaginative plural as if in disparagement of an objec- 
tionable pair of pantaloons, or other articles not possessed of 
a singular number; '' 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 fmd my 
words come true." While Mrs. Snitchey would observe to 
Mr. Snitchey, of Craggs, " 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 
Cragg's eye." Notwithstanding this, however, they were 
all very good friends in general: and Mrs. Snitchey and 
Mrs. Craggs maintained a close bond of alliance against 
*' the office," which they both considered the Blue chamber, 
and common enemy, full of dangerous (because unknown) 
machinations. 

In this office, nevertheless, Snitchey and Craggs made 



In the Lawyer's Office 275 

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 comfort- 
ably. 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 neigh- 
bouring desk. One of the fireproof 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. 

'' That's all," said Mr. Snitchey, turning up the last paper. 
" Really there's no other resource. No other resource. ' 

'' All lost, spent, wasted, pawned, borrowed, and sold, eh? " 
said the client, looking up. 

'' All," returned Mr. Snitchey. 

" Nothing else to be done, you say? " 

'' Nothing at all." 

The client bit his nails, and pondered again. 

" And I am not even personally safe in England? You 
hold to that, do you? " 



276 



The Battle of I.ifc 



" In no part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and 
Ireland/' replied Mr. Snitchey. 

" A mere prodigal son with no father to go back to, no 
swine to keep, and no husks to share with them? Eh? " 
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. 

" Ruined at thirty! " said the client. '' Humph! " 

" Not ruined, Mr. Warden," returned Snitchey. " Not so 
bad as that. You have done a good deal towards it, I must 
say, but you are not ruined. A little nursing — " 

*' A little Devil," said the cHent. 

" Mr. Craggs," said Snitchey, " will you oblige me with a 
pinch of snuff? Thank you, sir." 

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 : 

" You talk of nursing. How long nursing ? " 

" How long nursing? " repeated Snitchey, dusting the snuff 
from his fingers, and making a slow calculation in his mind. 
" For your involved estate, sir ? In good hands ? S. and C.'s 
say? Six or seven years." 

'^ To starve for six or seven years ! " said the client with 
a fretful laugh, and an impatient change of his position. 

" To starve for six or seven years, Mr. Warden," said 
Snitchey, " would be very uncommon indeed. You might 
get another estate by showing yourself, the while. But we 
don't think you could do it — speaking for Self and Craggs — 
and consequently don't advise it." 

" What do you advise? " 

" Nursing, I say," repeated Snitche}^ " 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." 

" Hundreds," said the client. '* And I have spent thou- 
sands!'^ 



Mr. Warden Is in Love 277 

" That/' retorted Mr. Snitchey, putting the papers slowly 
back into the cast-iron box^ " there is no doubt about. No 
doubt a — bout/' 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. 

" After all," he said, " my iron-headed friend — " 

Mr. Snitchey pointed out his partner. '' Self and — excuse 
me — Craggs." 

" I beg Mr. Craggs's pardon," said the client. " After all, 
my iron-headed friends," he leaned forward in his chair, 
and dropped his voice a little, '' you don't know half my 
ruin yet." 

Mr. Snitchey stopped and stared at him. Mr. Craggs also 
stared. 

" I am not only deep in debt," said the client, " but I 
am deep in — " 

" Not in love! " cried Snitchey. 

" Yes ! " said the client, falling back in his chair, and 
surveying the Firm with his hands in his pockets. '' Deep 
in love." 

'* And not with an heiress, sir? " said Snitchey. 

" Not with an heiress." 

"Nor a rich lady.?" 

" Nor a rich lady that I know of — except in beauty and 
merit." 

" A single lady, I trust? " said Mr. Snitchey, with great 
expression. 

" Certainly." 

" It's not one of Dr. Jeddler's daughters? " said Snitchey, 
suddenly squaring his elbows on his knees, and advancing 
his face at least a yard. 

" Yes! " returned the client. 

" Not his younger daughter? " said Snitchey. 

" Yes ! " returned the client. 



278 



The Battle of Life 



" Mr. Craggs/' said Snitchey, much relieved, " 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." 

'' We know the fact," repeated Craggs. 

" Why, so do I perhaps," returned the client quietly. 
" What of that ! Are you men of the world, and did you 
never hear of a woman changing her mind ? " 

'^ There certainly have been actions for breach," said Mr. 
Snitchey, " brought against both spinsters and widows, but, 
in the majority of cases — " 

'' Cases ! " interposed the client, impatiently. " 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 hved six weeks in the Doctor's house for nothing? " 

" I think, sir," observed Mr. Snitchey, gravely addressing 
himself to his partner, " 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." 

" Mr. Alfred Heathfield too — a sort of client, Mr. Snitchey," 
said Craggs. 

" Mr. Michael Warden too, a kind of client," said the care- 
less visitor, '' 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." 

** Really, Mr. Craggs," Snitchey began. 

" Really, Mr. Snitchey, and Mr. Craggs, partners both," 
said the client, interrupting him; '' you know your duty to 
your clients, and you know well enough, I am sure, that it 



Mr. Warden's Intentions 279 

is no part of it to interfere in a mere love affair, which I am 
obHged 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." 

" He can't, Mr. Craggs," said Snitchey, evidently anxious 
and discomfited. " He can't do it, sir. She dotes on Mr. 
Alfred." 

" Does she? " returned the client. 

" Mr. Craggs, she dotes on him, sir," persisted Snitchey. 

" I didn't live six weeks, some few months ago, in the 
Doctor's house for nothing; and I doubted. that soon," 
observed the client. " 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." 

" Why should she, Mr. Craggs, you know? Why should 
she, sir? " inquired Snitchey. 

" I don't know why she should, though there are many 
likely reasons," said the client, smiling at the attention and 
perplexity expressed in Mr. Snitchey's shining eye, and at 
his cautious way of carr^^ng on the conversation, and making 
himself informed upon the subject; " 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." 

"He, he! Mr. Alfred, her old playfellow too, you re- 
member, Mr. Craggs," said Snitchey, with a disconcerted 
laugh; " knew her almost from a baby! " 

" Which makes it the more probable that she may be 
tired of his idea," calmly pursued the client, " 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 reputa- 
tion — 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 — 



28o The Battle of Life 

might perhaps pass muster in a crowd with Mr. Alfred 
himself." 

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 care- 
lessness 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. 
'* A dangerous sort of libertine," thought the shrewd lawyer, 
'' to seem to catch the spark he wants, from a young lady 
eyes." 

" Now, observe, Snitchey," he continued, rising and taking 
him by the button, " and Craggs," taking him by the button 
also, and placing one partner on either side of him, so that 
neither might evade him. '* 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." 

^^ I think it will be better not to hear this, Mr. Craggs ? " 
said Snitchey, looking at him across the client. 

" / think not," said Craggs. — Both listened attentively. 

'' Well ! You needn't hear it," replied their client. '' 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. I 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 



This Day Month 281 

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 favour; 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? " 

" In a week," said Snitchey. '' Mr. Craggs? " 

*' In something less, I should say," responded Craggs. 

*' In a month," said the client, after attentively watching 
the two faces. " This day month. To-day is Thursday. 
Succeed or fail, on this day month I go." 

" It's too long a delay," said Snitchey; '' much too long. 
But let it be so. I thought he'd have stipulated for three," 
he murmured to himself. "Are you going? Good night, 
sir!" 

"Good night!" returned the client, shaking hands with 
the Firm. " You'll live to see me making a good use of 
riches yet. Henceforth the star of my destiny is Marion! " 

" Take care of the stairs, sir," replied Snitchey; " for she 
don't shine there. Good night! " 

"Goodnight!" 

So they both stood at the stair-head with a pair of office- 
candles, watching him down. When he had gone away, 
they stood looking at each other. 

"What do you think of all this, Mr. Craggs?" said 
Snitchey. 

Mr. Craggs shook his head. 

" 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," said Snitchey. 

" It was," said Mr. Craggs. 

" Perhaps he deceives himself altogether," pursued Mr. 
Snitchey, locking up the fireproof box, and putting it away; 
" 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," said Mr. Snitchey, putting on 
his great-coat (for the weather was very cold), drawing on his 
gloves, and snuffing out one candle, " that I had even seen 



282 The Battle of Life 

her character becoming stronger and more resolved of late 
More like her sister's." 

'' Mrs. Craggs was of the same opinion/' returned Craggs. 

" Vd really give a trifle to-night/' observed Mr. Snitchey, 
who was a good-natured man, " 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." 

*' Nothing," returned Craggs. 

** Our friend the Doctor makes light of such things," said 
Mr. Snitchey, shaking his head. " I hope he mayn't stand 
in need of his philosophy. Our friend Alfred talks of the 
battle of life," he shook his head again, " 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." 

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 fireside. 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. 



Overcome by the Story 283 

" ' And being in her own home/ " read Marion^ from the 
book; " ' her home made exquisitely dear by the these remem- 
brances, she now began to know that the great trial of her 
heart must soon come on, and could not be delayed. 
Home, our comforter and friend when others fall away, to 
part with whom, at any step between the cradle and the 
grave ' " — 

"Marion, my love!" said Grace. 

''Why, Puss!" exclaimed her father, ''what's the 
matter?" 

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. 

" ' To part with whom, at any step between the cradle 
and the grave, is always sorrowful. 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 re- 
proachfully ! 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! ' " 

" Dear Marion, read no more to-night," said Grace — for 
she was weeping. 

" I cannot," she replied, and closed the book. " The 
words seem all on fire! " 

The Doctor was amused at this; and laughed as he patted 
her on the head. 

" What! overcome by a story-book! " said Doctor Jeddler. 
" 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 ? " 

" It's only me. Mister," said Clemency, putting in her head 
at the door. 

" And what's the matter with you ? " said the Doctor. 

" Oh, bless you, nothing an't the matter with me," re- 
turned Clemency — and truly too, to judge from her well- 



284 



The Battle of Life 



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 under- 
stood, 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. 

" Nothing an't the matter with me," said Clemency, 
entering, ^' but — come a little closer. Mister." 

The Doctor, in some astonishment, complied with this 
invitation. 

^* You said I wasn't to give you one before them, you 
know," 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 favourable inter- 
pretation, meant a chaste salute. Indeed the Doctor him- 
self 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. 

'' Britain was riding by on a errand," she chuckled, hand- 
ing it to the Doctor, " 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! " 

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. 

''Here! Girls!" cried the Doctor. ''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." 



Sisterly Affection 285 

" Directly! " exclaimed Marion. 

** What ! The story-book is soon forgotten ! '' said the 
Doctor, pinching her cheek. '' I thought the news would 
dry those tears. Yes. ' Let it be a surprise/ he says, here. 
But I can't let it be a surprise. He must have a welcome." 

" Directly! " repeated Marion. 

'' Why, perhaps not what your impatience calls ' directly/ '' 
returned the Doctor; " 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." 

'' This day month! " repeated Marion, softly. 

" A gay day and a holiday for us," said the cheerful voice 
of her sister Grace, kissing her in congratulation. " Long 
looked forward to, dearest, and come at last." 

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 happi- 
ness 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 show^n. It was not love and grati- 
tude 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 him- 
self 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. 

"Ah! The day was," said the Doctor, looking at the fire, 
" when you and he, Grace, used to trot about arm-in-arm, 
in his holiday time, like a couple of walking dolls. You 
remember? " 

" I remember," she answered, with her pleasant laugh, 
and plying her needle busily. 

" This day month, indeed! " mused the Doctor. '' That 



286 The Battle of Life 

hardly seems a twelvemonth ago. And where was my little 
Marion then! '' 

'^ Never far from her sister/' said Marion, cheerily, '' how- 
ever little. Grace was everything to me, even when she was 
a young child herself." 

" True, Puss, true/' returned the Doctor. " 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." 

" I am afraid I have changed sadly for the worse, since," 
laughed Grace, still busy at her work. '' What was that 
one, father? " 

" Alfred, of course," said the Doctor. " 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." 

'* Indeed? " said Grace, placidly. 

** Why, don't you remember? " inquired the Doctor. 

" I think I remember something of it," she returned, ** but 
not much. It's so long ago." And as she sat at work, she 
hummed the burden of an old song, which the Doctor liked. 

'' Alfred will find a real wife soon," she said, breaking off; 
" and that will be a happy time indeed for all of us. ]\Iy 
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? " 

" Tell him, dear Grace," replied Marion, " that there 
never was a trust so generously, nobly, steadfastly dis- 
charged ; and that I have loved yoic, all the time, dearer and 
dearer every day; and ! how dearly now ! " 

" Nay," said her cheerful sister, returning her embrace, 
** 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." 

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 



Clemency and Mr. Britain 287 

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 meantime, having accom- 
plished her mission and lingered in the room until she had 
made herself a party to the news, descended to the kitchen, 
where her coadjutor, ]\Ir. 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. 

" Well, Clemmy," said Britain, " how are you by this 
time, and what's the news? " 

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 joUier in all respects. It 
seemed as if his face had been tied up in a knot before, and 
was now untwisted and smoothed out. 

'* There'll be another job for Snitchey and Craggs, I 
suppose," he observed, puffing slowly at his pipe. " More 
witnessing for you and me, perhaps, Clemmy ! " 

"Lorl" replied his fair companion, with her favourite 
twist of her favourite joints. " I wish it was me, Britain 1 " 

" Wish what was you? " 

" A-going to be married," said Clemency. 

Benjamin took his pipe out of his mouth and laughed 
heartily. " Yes! you're a likely subject for that! " he said. 



288 The Battle of Life 

*' Poor Clem ! " Clemency for her part laughed as heartily 
as he, and seemed as much amused by the idea. " Yes/* 
she assented, *' I'm a likely subject for that; an't I? " 

^' y^^^'ll never be married, you know," said Mr. Britain, 
resuming his pipe. 

" Don't you think I ever shall though? " said Clemency, 
in perfect good faith. 

Mr. Britain shook his head. " Not a chance of it! " 

'' Only think! " said Clemency. '' Well! — I suppose you 
mean to, Britain, one of these days; don't you? " 

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. 

" I wish her joy, whoever she may be! " cried Clemency. 

*^ Oh she'll have that," said Benjamin, '' safe enough." 

*' 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," said Clemency, spreading 
herself half over the table, and staring retrospectively at 
the candle, " 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? " 

'' Certainly not," 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. '' Oh! I'm greatly beholden to you, 
you know, Clem." 

" Lor, how nice that is to think of! " 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. 

" You see I've made a good many investigations of one 
sort and another in my time," pursued Mr. Britain, with 
the profundity of a sage, " having been always of an inquir- 
ing turn of mind; and I've read a good many books about 



A Nutmeg-grater and a Thimble 289 

the general Rights of things and Wrongs of things, for I 
went into the Hterary Hne myself, when I began life." 

'' Did you though! " cried the admiring Clemency. 

'' Yes/' said Mr. Britain: " 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 discus- 
sions 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." 

Clemency was about to offer a suggestion, but he stopped 
her by anticipating it. 

'' Com-bined," he added gravely, '' with a thimble." 

'' Do as you wold, you know, and cetrer, eh! " observed 
Clemency, folding her arms comfortably in her delight at 
this avowal, and patting her elbows. '' Such a short cut, 
an'tit?" 

^^ I'm not sure," said Mr. Britain, " 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." 

" See how you used to go on once, yourself, you know! " 
said Clemency. 

'' Ah! " said Mr. Britain. " 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! 
Whv, I suppose you haven't so much as half an idea in your 
head." 

Clemency, without taking the least offence, shook it, and 
laughed, and hugged herself, and said, " No, she didn't 
suppose she had." 

" I'm pretty sure of it," said Mr. Britain. 

"Oh! I dare say you're right," said Clemency. " I don't 
pretend to none. I don't want any." 

Benjamin took his pipe from his hps, and laughed till 
the tears ran down his face. " What a natural you are, 
Clemmy! " he said, shaking his head, with an infinite relish 
of the joke^ and wiping his eyes. Clemency, without the 



290 The Battle of Life 

smallest inclination to dispute it, did the like, and laughed 
as heartily as he. 

'' I can't help liking you/^ said Mr. Britain; " 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." 

"Will you?" returned Clemency. "Well! that's very 
good of you." 

" Yes, yes," said Mr. Britain, giving her his pipe to knock 
the ashes out of it; "I'll stand by you. Hark! That's 
a curious noise! " 

" Noise! " repeated Clemency. 

" A footstep outside. Somebody dropping from the wall, 
it sounded like," said Britain. " Are they all a-bed up- 
stairs? " 

" Yes, all a-bed by this time," she replied. 

" Didn't you hear anything? " 

" No." 

They both listened, but heard nothing. 

" I tell you what," said Benjamin, taking down a lantern. 
" I'll have a look round, before I go to bed myself, for 
satisfaction's sake. Undo the door while I light this, 
Clemmy." 

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 " Very likely "; 
but sallied out, nevertheless, armed with the poker, and cast- 
ing the light of the lantern far and near in all directions. 

" It's as quiet as a churchyard," said Clemency, looking 
after him; " and almost as ghostly too ! " 

Glancing back into the kitchen, she cried fearfully, as a 
light figure stole into her view, " What's that! " 

"Hush!" said Marion in an agitated whisper. "You 
have always loved me, have you not? " 

" Loved you, child! You may be sure I have." 

" I am sure. And I may trust you, may I not? There 
is no one else just now, in whom I can trust." 

" Yes," said Clemency, with all her heart. 

" There is some one out there," pointing to the door, 
" whom I must see, and speak with, to-night. Michael 
Warden, for God's sake retire ! Not now ! " 

Clemency started with surprise and trouble as, following 



Marion's Visitor 291 

the direction of the speaker's eyes, she saw a dark figure 
standing in the doorway. 

" In another moment you may be discovered/' said Marion. 
" Not now! Wait if you can, in some concealment. I will 
come presently." 

He waved his hand to her, and was gone. 

''Don't go to bed. Wait here for me!" said Marion, 
hurriedly. " I have been seeking to speak to you for an 
hour past. Oh, be true to me! " 

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. 

" All still and peaceable. Nobody there. Fancy, I sup- 
pose," said Mr. Britain, as he locked and barred the door. 
" One of the effects of having a lively imagination. Halloa! 
Why, what's the matter? " 

Clemency, who could not conceal the effects of her sur- 
prise and concern, was sitting in a chair: pale, and trem- 
bling from head to foot. 

"Matter!" she repeated, chafing her hands and elbows 
nervously, and looking anywhere but at him. " 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 ! " 

" If you're frightened out of your life by a lantern, 
Clemmy," said Mr. Britain, composedly blowing it out and 
hanging it up again, " that apparition's very soon got rid of. 
But you're as bold as brass in general," he said, stopping to 
observe her; " and were, after the noise and the lantern too. 
What have you taken into your head? Not an idea, eh? " 

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. 

" Open the door," she said; " and stand there close beside 
me, while I speak to him, outside." 

Timid as her manner was^ it still evinced a resolute and 



292 The Battle of Life 

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 ship- 
wreck 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. 

" It's little that I know, my dear," cried Clemency, '' very 
little; but I know that this should not be. Think of what 
you do ! " 

" I have thought of it many times," said Marion, gently. 

'' Once more," urged Clemency. " Till to-morrow." 
Marion shook her head. 

^' For Mr. Alfred's sake," said Clemency, with homely 
earnestness. '* Him that you used to love so dearly, once! " 

She hid her face upon the instant in her hands, repeating 
'' Once! " as if it rent her heart. 

'' Let me go out," said Clemency, soothing her. '' 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." 

" I have," said Marion, hastily raising her head. " You 
don'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," she kissed her on her friendly face, " or shall I 
go alone? " 

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 



" This Day Month '' Arrives 293 

speech it emphasised 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, pro- 
tectingly 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 



294 The Battle of Life 

not miss a face that he had known and Hked. 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 bounti- 
ful 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 sorrow- 
ful, and yet so spiritual, high, and stirring, sat again upon 
her brow, enhanced a hundred-fold. 

'' The next wreath I adjust on this fair head, will be 
a marriage wreath," said Grace; '' or I am no true prophet, 
dear." 

Her sister smiled, and held her in her arms. 

'' A moment, Grace. Don't leave me yet. Are you sure 
that I want nothing more? " 

Her care was not for that. It was her sister's face she 
thought of, and her eyes were fixed upon it, tenderly. 

*' My art," said Grace, *^ can go no farther, dear girl; nor 
your beauty. I never saw you look so beautiful as now." 

'' I never was so happy," she returned. 

" Ay, but there is a greater happiness in store. In such 
another home, as cheerful and as bright as this looks now," 
said Grace, " Alfred and his young wife will soon be living." 

She smiled again. " 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." 

'' Well," cried the Doctor, bustling in. '' Here we are, all 
readv for Alfred, eh? He can't be here until pretty late — 



Waiting for Alfred 295 

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 non- 
sense; but we'll be nonsensical with the rest of 'em, and give 
our true lover a mad welcome. Upon my word! " said the 
old Doctor, looking at his daughters proudly. ** I'm not clear 
to-night, among other absurdities, but that I'm the father of 
two handsome girls." 

" x\ll that one of them has ever done, or may do — may 
do, dearest father — to cause you pain or grief, forgive her," 
said Marion, " 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 — ," and the rest was not 
said, for her face was hidden on the old man's shoulder. 

'' Tut, tut, tut," said the Doctor gently. " 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 pre- 
pared 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 every- 
thing, 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 ! " 

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. 



296 The Battle of Life 

Mr. and Mrs. Craggs came arm in arm, but Mrs. Snitchey 
came alone. '' Why, what's become of him ? " 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. 

" That nasty ofhce," said Mrs. Craggs. 

'' I wish it was burnt down," said Mrs. Snitchey. 

*' He's — he's — there's a little matter of business that keeps 
my partner rather late," said Mr. Craggs, looking uneasily 
about him. 

'' Oh — h ! Business. Don't tell me ! " said Mrs. Snitchey. 

*' We know what business means," 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. 

^' I wonder you could come away, Mr. Craggs," said his wife. 

'' Mr. Craggs is fortunate, I'm sure! " said Mrs. Snitchey. 

** That office so engrosses 'em," said Mrs. Craggs. 

*' A person with an office has no business to be married at 
all," 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 " his Snitcheys " were de- 
ceiving 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. 

'* Good evening, ma'am," said Craggs. '' You look charm- 
ingly. Your — Miss — your sister. Miss Marion, is she " 

" Oh, she's quite well, Mr. Craggs." 

*' Yes — I — is she here? " asked Craggs. 

*' Here! Don't you see her yonder? Going to dance?" 
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. 



Marion Not Missing 297 

The bright fire crackled and sparkled^ rose and fell, as though 
it joined the dance itself, in right good fellowship. Some- 
times, 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. 

" Is he gone? " he asked. 

''Hush! He has been with me," said Snitchey, ''for 
three hours and more. He went over everything. He 
looked into all our arrangements for him, and was very 
particular indeed. He — Humph! " 

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. 

"You see! All safe and well," said Mr. Craggs. "He 
didn't recur to that subject, I suppose? " 

" Not a word." 

" And is he really gone? Is he safe away? '* 

" 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." Mr. Snitchey wiped 
his forehead, which looked hot and anxious. 

" What do you think," said Mr. Craggs, " about—" 

"Hush!" replied his cautious partner, looking straight 
before him. " I understand you. Don't mention names, 
and don't let us seem to be talking secrets. I don't know 



298 The Battle of Life 

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? " 

" Not yet/' said Mr. Craggs. " Expected every minute." 

'' Good." Mr. Snitchey wiped his forehead again. " 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." 

Mrs. Craggs and Mrs. Snitchey joined them as he announced 
this intention. The Bird of Paradise was in a state of ex- 
treme vibration, and the little bells were ringing quite 
audibly. 

'' It has been the theme of general comment, Mr. 
Snitchey," said Mrs. Snitchey. " I hope the office is 
satisfied." 

'^ Satisfied with what, my dear? " asked Mr. Snitchey. 

'' With the exposure of a defenceless woman to ridicule 
and remark," returned his wife. '' That is quite in the way 
of the office, that is." 

" I really, myself," said Mrs. Craggs, ^^ 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." 

" My dear," urged Mr. Craggs, '^ your good opinion is in- 
valuable, but 1 never avowed that the office was the enemy 
of your peace." 

"No," said Mrs. Craggs, ringing a perfect peal upon the 
little bells. " Not you, indeed. You wouldn't be worthy 
of the office, if you had the candour to." 

"As to my having been away to-night, my dear," said 
Mr. Snitchey, giving her has arm, " the deprivation has been 
mine, I'm sure; but, as Mr. Craggs knows — " 

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! 

" At which man, my dear? " said Mr. Snitchey. 

"Your chosen companion; i'm no companion to you, 
Mr. Snitchey." 

" Yes, yes, your are, my dear," he interposed. 

" No, no, I'm not," said Mrs. Snitchey with a majestic 



Mrs. Craggs Is Oracular 299 

smile. " 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?" 

The habitual association of Self with Craggs, occasioned 
Mr. Snitchey to look in that direction. 

'* If you can look that man in the eye this night/' said Mrs. 
Snitchey^ '' 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 im- 
possible to explain and against which no warning of mine is 
of the least avail, all I can say is — I pity you ! " 

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. This 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 '' why 
don't you ask somebody else? " and " you'll be glad, I know, 
if I decline," and " I wonder you can dance out of the office " 
(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 



300 The Battle of Life 

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, in- 
cessantly 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 respect- 
able 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 " too easy," 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, favoured 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 ofl 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 the breeze rustled in the room as if an invisible com- 
pany of fairies, treading in the footsteps of the good sub- 
stantial 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. 



The Dance at Its Height 301 

Hot and breathless as the Doctor was, it only made him 
the more impatient for Alfred's coming. 

" Anything been seen, Britain? Anything been heard? '' 

" Too dark to see far, sir. Too much noise inside the 
house to hear." 

" That's right! The gayer welcome for him. How goes 
the time? " 

" Just twelve, sir. He can't be long, sir." 

" Stir up the fire, and throw another log upon it," said the 
Doctor. " Let him see his welcome blazing out upon the 
night — ^good boy! — as he comes along!" 

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 w^as 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 



302 The Battle of Life 

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 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. 

'' Clemency," he said, ''don't you know me? " 

" Don't come in ! " she answered, pushing him back. *' Go 
away. Don't ask me why. Don't come in." 

" What is the matter? " he exclaimed. 

" I don't know. I — I am afraid to think. Go back. 
Hark! 

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. 

" Grace ! " He caught her in his arms. '' What is it ! Is 
she dead! " 

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 hands. 

"What is it!" 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. " 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? " 

There was a murmur among them. " She is gone." 

" Gone! " he echoed. 

*' Fled, my dear Alfred!" said the Doctor, in a broken 
voice, and with his hands before his face. " 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." 

"With whom? Where?" 

He started up, as if to follow in pursuit; but, when they 
gave way to let him pass, looked wildly round upon them, 



Marion Lost 303 

staggered back, and sunk down in his former attitude, clasp- 
ing 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 them- 
selves 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 a 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 kindhng 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 gUttering on their 
leaves and twinkling as they fell. The verdant meadow- 
land, bright and glowing, seemed as if it had been bHnd, a 
minute since, and now had found a sense of sight wherewith 
to look up at the shining sky. Corn-fields, hedge-rows, 
fences, homestead, and clustered roofs, the steeple of the 
church, the stream, the water-mill, all sprang out of the 



304 The Battle of Life 

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 colours 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 com- 
fortable 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 dark- 
ness 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 every- 
thing 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 sweet-briar, roses, wall- 
flowers, the plants at the windows, and the leaves on the old 
tree, were in the beaming state of moderate company that 



The Nutmeg-Grater 305 

had taken no more than was wholesome for them, and had 
served to develop 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 — reason- 
ably changed by time, but for the better; a very comfortable 
host indeed. 

" Mrs. B.," said Mr. Britain, looking down the road, " is 
rather late. It's tea-time." 

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. " It's just the sort of house," said Benjamin, 
" I should wish to stop at, if I didn't keep it." 

Then, he strolled towards the garden-paling, and took a 
look at the dahlias. They looked over at him, with a help- 
less drowsy hanging of their heads : which bobbed again, as 
the heavy drops of wet dripped off them. 

*' You must be looked after," said Benjamin. " Memo- 
randum, not to forget to tell her so. She's a long time 
coming ! " 

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. 

^* She hadn't much to do, I think," said Ben. '* There 
were a few little matters of business after market, but not 
many. Oh ! here we are at last ! " 

A chaise-cart, driven by a boy, came clattering along the 
road : and seated in it, in a chair, with a large w^ell-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 



3o6 



The Battle of Life 



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 reHsh of by-gone days was 
not diminished; and when the cart stopped at the Nutmeg- 
Grater door, a pair of shoes, ahghting from it, sHpped 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 con- 
dition. 

" You're late. Clammy! " said Mr. Britain. 

*' Why, you see, Ben, I've had a deal to do ! " she replied, 
looking busily after the safe removal into the house of all the 
packages and baskets: " 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? " 

'' Hearty, Clemmy, hearty." 

" Bless their precious faces! " said Airs. Britain, unbonnet- 
ing her own round countenance (for she and her husband 
were by this time in the bar) and smoothing her hair with 
her open hands. " Give us a kiss, old man ! " 

Mr. Britain promptly complied. 

" I think," 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 : '' I've 
done everything. Bills all settled — turnips sold — brewer's 
account looked into and paid — 'bacco pipes ordered — seven- 
teen 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." 

'' I thought he wouldn't," returned Ben. 

" 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." 

Mr. Britain's face assumed a serious expression, and he 
looked hard at the wall. 

" An t it kind of him? " said Clemency. 



The Host and His Wife 307 

" Very," returned Mr. Britain. " It's the sort of kindness 
that I wouldn't presume upon, on any account." 

" No/' retorted Clemency. " Of course not. Then there's 
the pony — he fetched eight pound two; and that an't bad, 
is it?" 

" It's very good," said Ben. 

"I'm glad you're pleased!" exclaimed his wife. "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 up. Oh ! Wait 
a minute. Here's a printed bill to stick on the wall. Wet 
from the printer's. How nice it smells ! " 

'' What's this? " said Ben, looking over the document. 

" I don't know," replied his wife. " I haven't read a word 
of it." 

" ' To be sold by Auction/ " read the host of the Nut- 
meg-Grater, " ' unless previously disposed of by private 
contract.' " 

" They always put that," said Clemency. 

" Yes, but they don't always put this," he returned. 
" Look here, ' Mansion/ etc. — ' offices,' etc., * shrubberies,' 
etc., ' ring fence,' etc. ' Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs,' etc., 
' ornamental portion of the unencumbered freehold property 
of Michael Warden, Esquire, intending to continue to reside 
abroad ' ! " 

''Intending to continue to reside abroad!" repeated 
Clemency. 

" Here it is," said Britain. " Look ! " 

'' 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!" said Clemency, shaking her head 
sorrowfully, and patting her elbows as if the recollection of 
old times unconsciously awakened her old habits. " Dear, 
dear, dear ! There'll be heavy hearts, Ben, yonder." 

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. Clemency, after meditating in 
silence for a few moments, roused herself, cleared her thought- 
ful 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 

l239 



3o8 



The Battle of Life 



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 com- 
parison ! 

It was comfortable to Mr. Britain, to think of his own 
condescension in having married Clemency. She was a per- 
petual 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 — chuck- 
ling 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 " like a picture," 
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. 

'' It's the first time I've sat down quietly to-day, I de- 
clare," 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; 
** how that bill does set me thinking of old times ! " 

" Ah ! " said Mr. Britain, handling his saucer like an oyster, 
and disposing of its contents on the same principle. 

" That same Mr. Michael Warden," said Clemency, shaking 
her head at the notice of sale, '' lost me my old place." 

'' And got you your husband," said Mr. Britain. 

''Well! So he did," retorted Clemency, "and many 
thanks to him." 

" Man's the creature of habit," said Mr. Britain, surveying 
her over his saucer. " I had somehow got used to you, 



A Traveller 309 

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 ! " 

" Who indeed! " cried Clemency. " It was very good of 
you, Ben." 

" No, no, no/' replied Mr. Britain, with an air of self- 
denial. '^ Nothing worth mentioning." 

'' Oh yes it was, Ben," said his wife, with great simplicity; 
" I'm sure I think so, and am very much obliged to you. 
Ah! " looking again at the bill; " 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? " 

" You told it, anyhow," observed her husband. 

'' And Dr. Jeddler," pursued Clemency, putting down her 
tea-cup, and looking thoughtfully at the bill, " in his grief 
and passion turned me out of house and home! I never 
have been so glad of anything in all my hfe, 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, after- 
wards. How often he has sat in this room, and told me over 
and over again he was sorry for it! — the last time, only yes- 
terday, 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 be- 
cause he knows she used to like me, Ben! " 

'' Why, how did you ever come to catch a glimpse of that, 
Clem? " asked her husband: astonished that she should 
have a distinct perception of a truth which had only dimly 
suggested itself to his inquiring mind. 

" I don't know, I'm sure," said Clemency, blowing her tea, 
to cool it. " Bless you, I couldn't tell you, if you was to 
offer me a reward of a hundred pounds." 

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. " Will you please to walk up-stairs, 
sir? There's a very nice room up-stairs, sir." 



3IO The Battle of Life 

^' Thank you/' said the stranger, looking earnestly at Mr. 
Britain's wife. '' May I come in here? " 

'' Oh, surely, if you like, sir," returned Clemency, admit- 
ting him. " What would you please to want, sir? " 

The bill had caught his eye, and he was reading it. 

'' Excellent property that, sir," 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. '' You were asking me," — he said, still 
looking at her, — 

" What you would please to take, sir," answered Clemency, 
stealing a glance at him in return. 

'' If you will let me have a draught of ale," he said, moving 
to a table by the window, '' and will let me have it here, 
without being any interruption to your meal, I shall be much 
obliged to you." 

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 : 

'' It's a new house, is it not? " 

" Not particularly new, sir," replied Mr. Britain. 

" Between five and six years old," said Clemency; speak- 
ing very distinctly. 

" I think I heard you mention Dr. Jeddler's name, as I 
came in," inquired the stranger. " 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? " 

" Yes, he's living, sir," said Clemency. 

" Much changed? " 

'' Since when, sir? " returned Clemency, with remarkable 
emphasis and expression. 

" Since his daughter — went away." 

"Yes! he's greatly changed since then," said Clemency. 
'* He's grey and old, and hasn't the same way with him at 
a.11; 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; 



A Long Story 3 1 1 

and it was enough to make one's heart bleed, to see him 
wandering about, raiUng 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 say- 
ing, 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? '' 

Mr. Britain remembered very well. 

''The sister is married then," returned the stranger. He 
paused for some time before he asked, " To whom? " 

Clemency narrowly escaped oversetting the tea-board, in 
her emotion at this question. 

" Did you never hear? " she said. 

" I should like to hear," he replied, as he filled his glass 
again, and raised it to his lips. 

" Ah! It would be a long story, if it was properly told," 
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. " It would be a long story, I 
am sure." 

" But told as a short one," suggested the stranger. 

" Told as a short one," repeated Clemency in the same 
thoughtful tone, and without any apparent reference to him, 
or consciousness of having auditors, " 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 / do. No one better," added 
Clemency, wiping her eyes with her hand. 

" And so," suggested the stranger. 

" And so," said Clemency, taking him up mechanically, 
and without any change in her attitude or manner, ^^ 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, ' Grace, shall our wedding-day 
be Marion's birth-day? ' And it was." 

" And they have lived happily together? " said the 
stranger. 



3 1 2 The Battle of Life 

*' Ay/' said Clemency. '* No two people ever more so. 
They have had no sorrow but this.'' 

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 extra- 
ordinary 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 *' milk and water," '* monthly 
warning," ^' mice and walnuts " — 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: 

'' And what is the after history of the young lady who 
went away ? They know it, I suppose ? " 

Clemency shook her head. '* I've heard," she said, '' 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 — " 

She faltered here, and stopped. 

" And which " — repeated the stranger. 

'' Which only one other person, I believe, could explain," 
said Clemency, drawing her breath quickly. 

'' Who may that be? " asked the stranger. 

"Mr. Michael Warden!" answered Clemency, almost in 



The Traveller Recognised 313 

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. 

" You remember me, sir? " said Clemency, trembling with 
emotion; "I saw just now you did! You remember me, 
that night in the garden. I was with her! '' 

" Yes. You were," he said. 

" Yes, sir," returned Clemency. '' 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! " 

" Stay! " said Michael Warden, quietly interposing himself 
between the door and Britain. '' What would you do? '' 

" Let them know that you are here, sir," answered 
Clemency, clapping her hands in sheer agitation. " 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," she struck 
herself upon the breast with both hands, *^ with a sight of 
her sweet face. Run, Ben, run ! " 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. 

'' Or perhaps," said Clemency, running past her husband, 
and catching in her emotion at Mr. Warden's cloak, " 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 ! " 

He gazed at her with compassion, not unmixed with 
wonder: but he made no gesture of assent. 

'^ I don't think she can know," pursued Clemency, '' 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? " 

*' She is not," he answered, shaking his head. 



3 1 4 The Battle of Life 

This answer^ and his manner^ and his black dress^ and his 
coming back so quietly, and his announced intention of con- 
tinuing 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. 

''Good Heaven, Mr. Warden!" said the lawyer, taking 

him aside, '' what wind has blown " He was so blown 

himself, that he couldn't get on any further until after a 
pause when he added, feebly, *' you here? " 

" An ill wind, I am afraid," he answered. " If you could 
have heard what has just passed — how I have been besought 
and entreated to perform impossil^ilities — what confusion 
and affliction I carry with me ! " 

" I can guess it all. But why did you ever come here, my 
good sir? " retorted Snitchey. 

'' 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 every- 
thing 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." 

'' Our caution! " returned the lawyer, " speaking for Self 
and Craggs — deceased," here Mr. Snitchey, glancing at his 
hat-band, shook his head, '' 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 " 

'' I had given a solemn promise of silence until I should 
return, whenever that might be," interrupted Mr. Warden; 
'' and I have kept it." 

'* Well, sir, and I repeat it," returned Mr. Snitchey, " we 
were bound to silence too. We were bound to silence in our 



Mr. Snitchey and His Client 315 

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.'' 

'' By whom? " inquired his client. 

*' 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." 

" And you know it? " said his cHent. 

" I do, sir! " repHed Snitchey; " and I have also reason 
to know that it will be broken to her sister to-morrow even- 
ing. They have given her that promise. In the meantime, 
perhaps you'll give me the honour 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 even- 
ing. 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," said Snitchey, shutting his eyes tight for an 
instant, and opening them again, " was struck off the roll of 
life too soon." 

" Heaven forgive me for not condoling with you," returned 
Michael Warden, passing his hand across his forehead, " 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." But he looked at Clemency as he said it, and 
seemed to sympathise with Ben, consoling her. 

'' Mr. Craggs, sir," observed Snitchey, " didn't find Hfe, 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, he's alive. You 
may observe that I speak for Self and Craggs — deceased, sir 

*L 239 



3i6 



The Battle of Life 



— deceased/' 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. 

''Ah, poor thing!" said Snitchey, shaking his head. 
" 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." 

Clemency only sighed, and shook her head. 

''Well, well! Wait till to-morrow," said the lawyer, 
kindly. 

" To-morrow can't bring back the dead to life, Mister," 
said Clemency, sobbing. 

" No. It can't do that, or it would bring back Mr. Craggs, 
deceased," returned the lawyer. " But it may bring some 
soothing circumstances; it may bring some comfort. Wait 
till to-morrow ! " 

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 acci- 
dent to its head, in a fit of giddiness — and all the other pre- 
parations in the kitchen for their dinner. 

To-morrow was a bright and peaceful day; and nowhere 
were the autumn tints more beautihilly 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 land- 
scape was as tranquil and serene as it had ever been; but 
where was she ! 

Not there. Not there. She would have been a stranger 



Grace and Her Husband 317 

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 birthday. 

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 by- 
paths of this 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 glor^^ round their 
heads. 

He lived to better purpose on the altered battle-ground, 
perhaps, than if he had contended restlessly in more ambi- 
tious lists ; and he was happy with his wife, dear Grace. 

And Marion. Had he forgotten her? 

*' The time has flown, dear Grace," he said, '^ since then; " 
they had been talking of that night; '' and yet it seems a long 
long while ago. We count by changes and events within us. 
Not by years." 

^' Yet we have years to count by, too, since Marion was 
with us," returned Grace. " 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 ex- 
pected and so long deferred. Ah, when will it be? When 
will it be?" 



3 1 8 The Battle of Life 

Her husband attentively observed her, as the tears col- 
lected in her eyes; and drawing nearer, said: 

'' 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? " 

She took a letter from her breast, and kissed it, and said 
'' Yes." 

*' That through these intervening years, however happy 
she might be, she w^ould look forward to the time when you 
would meet again, and all would be made clear; and that she 
prayed you, trustfully and hopefully to do the same. The 
letter runs so, does it not, my dear? *' 

'' Yes, Alfred." 

"' And every other letter she has written since? " 

" 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." 

He looked towards the sun, then fast declining, and said 
that the appointed time was sunset. 

" Alfred! " said Grace, laying her hand upon his shoulder 
earnestly, ^' 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." 

"What is it, love?" 

*' 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 beseech- 
ing 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." 

" — And make me a proud, and happy man again, Grace. 
Did she say so? " 

*' She meant, to make myself so blest and honoured in 
your love," was his wife's answer, as he held her in his arms. 

" Hear me, my dear! " he said. — " No. Hear me so! " — 
and as he spoke, he gently laid the head she had raised, 
again upon his shoulder. " I know why I have never heard 
this passage in the letter until now. I know why no trace 



Marion's Birth-day 3 1 9 

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 ! '* 

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. 

" Alfred,'' said Grace, raising her head quickly at these 
words. '' The sun is going down. You have not forgotten 
what I am to know before it sets." 

'' You are to know the truth of Marion's history, my love," 
he answered. 

" All the truth," she said, imploringly. '^ Nothing veiled 
from me, any more. That was the promise. Was it not? " 

" It was," he answered. 

" Before the sun went down on Marion's birth-day. And 
you see it, Alfred? It is sinking fast." 

He put his arm about her waist, and, looking steadily into 
her eyes, rejoined : 

" That truth is not reserved so long for me to tell, dear 
Grace. It is to come from other lips." 

" From other lips! " she faintly echoed. 

'^ 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." 

"What messenger?" she said. "And what intelligence 
does he bring? " 

" I am pledged," he answered her, preserving his steady 
look, " to say no more. Do you think you understand me? " 

" I am afraid to think," 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. 

' ' 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 ! " 



320 The Battle of Life 

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 girFs 
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 ! 

"Oh Marion, Marion! Oh, my sister! Oh, my heart's 
dear love! Oh, joy and happiness unutterable, so to meet 
again ! " 

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. 

" When this was my dear home, Grace, as it will be now 
again — " 

" Stay, my sweet love! A moment! Marion, to hear 
you speak again! " 

She could not bear the voice she loved so well, at first. 

" When this was my dear home, Grace, as it will be 



Marion's Story 321 

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 every- 
thing 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 / left here." 

Her sister, bending over her, could look into her face, and 
hold her fast. 

" But he had gained, unconsciously," said Marion, with a 
gentle smile, ^' 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; w^as 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, in- 
estimable 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, 
knowing 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 ! '' 



322 The Battle of Life 

''0 Marion! Marion!'' 

'' I had tried to seem indifferent to him; " and she pressed 
her sister's face against her own; " 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 contest- 
ing 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." 

'' I have sometimes feared of late years, that this might 
have been," exclaimed her sister; and her countenance was 
ashy-pale. '' You never loved him — and you married him 
in your self-sacrifice to me ! " 

'* He was then," said Marion, drawing her sister closer to 
her, " 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?" 

Her sister looked into her face, attentively. She seemed 
in doubt. 

'* 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? " 

Grace looked confusedly upon her. She scarcely seemed 
to hear. 

" My love, my sister! " said Marion, '' recall your thoughts 
a moment; listen to me. Do not look so strangely on me. 



The Sisters Reunited 323 

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 who, 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? " 

Still she looked fixedly upon her, and made no reply. 

** Oh Grace, dear Grace," said Marion, clinging yet more 
tenderly and fondly to that breast from which she had been 
so long exiled, " 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! " 

. 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. 

'' This is a weary day for me," said good Aunt Martha, 
smiling through her tears, as she embraced her nieces; *' for 
I lose my dear companion in making you all happy; and 
what can you give me, in return for my Marion ? " 

" A converted brother," said the Doctor. 

" That's something, to be sure," retorted Aunt Martha, 
" in such a farce as — " 

" No, pray don't," said the Doctor penitently. 

" Well, I won't," replied Aunt Martha. '' But I consider 
myself ill used. I don't know what's to become of me with- 



324 The Battle of Life 

out my Marion, after we have lived together half-a-dozen 
years." 

" You must come and live here, I suppose/' replied the 
Doctor. '' We shan't quarrel now, Martha." 

" Or you must get married, Aunt," said Alfred. 

" Indeed," returned the old lady, *' 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? " 

" I've a great mind to say it's a ridiculous world altogether, 
and there's nothing serious in it," observed the poor old 
Doctor. 

" You might take twenty affidavits of it if you chose, 
Anthony," said his sister; ^^ but nobody would believe you 
with such eyes as those." 

" It's a world full of hearts," said the Doctor, hugging his 
yoimger daughter, and bending across her to hug Grace — for 
he couldn't separate the sisters; " 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 wickedi 
ness 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! " 

You would not be the better pleased with my rude pen, 
if it dissected and laid open to your view the transports oi 
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 



Mr. Snitchey's Memory Taxed 325 

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. 

'' I beg your pardon, Doctor," said Mr. Snitchey, looking 
into the orchard, " but have I liberty to come in? " 

Without waiting for permission, he came straight to 
Marion, and kissed her hand, quite joyfully. 

'' If Mr. Craggs had been alive, my dear Miss Marion," 
said Mr. Snitchey, " 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 j\Ir. Craggs 
was a man who could endure be to convinced, sir. He was 
always open to conviction. If he were open to conviction, 
now, I — this is weakness. Mrs. Snitchey, my dear," — at his 
summons that lady appeared from behind the door, '* you are 
among old friends." 

Mrs. Snitchey having delivered her congratulations, took 
her husband aside. 

" One moment, Mr. Snitchey," said that lady. *' It is not 
in my nature to rake up the ashes of the departed." 

" No, my dear," returned her husband. 

" Mr. Craggs is — " 

*^ Yes, my dear, he is deceased," said Snitchey. 

'* But I ask you if you recollect," pursued his wife, ** 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 — " 

*' Upon your knees, my dear? " said Mr. Snitchey. 

" Yes," said Mrs. Snitchey, confidently, '' 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." 

" Mrs. Snitchey," returned her husband, in her ear, 
** Madam. Did you ever observe anything in my eye? " 



326 The Battle of Life 

** No/' said Mrs. Snitchey, sharply. " Don't flatter your- 
self/' 

" Because, Madam, that night/' he continued, twitching 
her by the sleeve, " 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 ! " 

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. 

" Now, mistress," said the lawyer, checking Marion as she 
ran towards her, and interposing himself between them, 
'* what's the matter with you ? " 

** The matter! " 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 ob- 
served 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, re- 
marked 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, 



Forget and Forgive 327 

and appeared surprised; but soon recovering from her con- 
fusion, she timidly approached the stranger, in Aunt Martha's 
company, and engaged in conversation with him too. 

'* Mr. Britain/' said the lawyer, putting his hand in his 
pocket, and bringing out a legal-looking document, while 
this was going on, " 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." 

" Would it make any difference in the vote if the sign was 
altered, sir? " asked Britain. 

" Not in the least," replied the lawyer. 

'* Then," said Mr. Britain, handing him back the con- 
veyance, " just clap in the words, ' and Thimble,' will you 
be so good; and I'll have the two mottoes painted up in 
the parlour instead of my wife's portrait." 

'' And let me," said a voice behind them; it was the 
stranger's — Michael Warden's; '' 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 self-reproach. 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 for- 
gotten, yet with some profit too, I would fain hope, from one," 
he glanced at Marion, " to whom I made my humble suppli- 
cation 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! " 

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, lean- 
ing easily upon his scythe, that Michael Warden never went 
again away, and never sold his house, but opened it afresh. 



328 The Battle of Life 

maintained a golden means of hospitality, and had a wife, 
the pride and honour of that country-side, whose name was 
Marion. But, as I have observed that Time confuses facts 
occasionally, I hardly know what weight to give to his 
authority. 



THE HAUNTED MAN 



AND 



THE GHOST'S BARGAIN 



A FANCY FOR CHRISTMAS TIME 



CHARACTERS 

Edmund Denham (otherwise Longford), a student. 

Mr. Redlaw, a learned chemist, and a lecturer at an ancient institu- 
tion; a melancholy but kind-hearted man. 

George Swidger, eldest son of old Philip Swidger; a bold and callous 
ruffian. 

Philip Swidger, a venerable old man, formerly custodian of the 
institution in which Mr. Redlaw is a lecturer. 

William Swidger, youngest son of the preceding; servant to Mr. 
Redlaw, and the good-hearted husband of M.ill5\ 

Mr. Adolphus Tetterby, a newsman, with a number of small children. 

'DoLPHUS Tetterby, his eldest son; a newsboy at a railway station. 

Johnny Tetterby, his second son; a patient, much-enduring child. 

MiLLY Swidger, the wife of William Swidger; the embodiment of 

goodness, gentleness, love, and domesticity. 
Mrs. Sophia Tetterby, the wife of Adolphus Tetterby ; a robust and 

portly woman. 
Sally Tetterby (" Moloch "), her infant daughter: a large, heavy 

infant. 



THE HAUNTED MAN 



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; " but 
that's no rule," as the ghost of Giles Scroggins savs in the 
ballad. 

The dread word, Ghost, recalls 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 
will-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 bygone 
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 ? 



332 The 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 for 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; — v/ho 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 ob- 
solete 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 compensa- 
tion 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. 



A Vault-like Dwelling 333 

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 w^as 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 w^andering 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 tavellers 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 



334 "The Haunted Man 

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 impene- 
trable 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 wheel- 
wright and the blacksmith shut their workshops, the turn- 
pike-gate closed, the plough and harrow were left lonely in 
the fields, the labourer and team went home, and the strik- 
ing of the church clock had a deeper sound than at noon, 
and the churchyard 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 sprung into a blaze. When they 
fantastically mocked the shapes of household objects, making 
the nurse an ogress, the rocking-horse a monster, the wonder- 
ing 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 Enghshmen, 
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 



Mr. William Swidger 335 

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 out- 
side were so shaken and beaten, that one querulous old rook, 
unable to sleep, protested now and then, in a feeble, dozy, 
high-up " Caw ! " 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. 

'' Who's that ? " said he. '' Come in ! " 

Surely there had been no figure leaning on the back of his 
chair, no face looking over it. It is certain that no gHding 
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! 

^' I'm humbly fearful, sir,'' said a fresh-coloured busy man, 
holding the door open with his foot for the admission of him- 
self 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, " that it's a good bit past 
the time to-night. But Mrs. William has been taken off her 
legs so often " 

" By the wind ? Ay ! I have heard it rising." 

" — 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." 

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. 

" 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.'' 



336 The Haunted Man 

" No/' returned Mr. Redlaw good-naturedly, though 
abruptly. 

" No, sir. Mrs. William may be taken ofif 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 o5 
her balance by Air; as being once over-persuaded by a friend 
to try a swing at Peckham Fair, which acted on her constitu- 
tion 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 miles 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. Williams 
must be taken out of elements for the strength of her 
character to come into play." 

As he stopped for a reply, the reply was " Yes," in the 
same tone as before. 

''Yes, sir. Oh dear, yes!" said Mr. Swidger, still pro- 
ceeding with his preparations, and checking them off as he 
made them. '' That's where it is, sir. That's what I always 
say myself, sir. Such a many of us Swidgers! — Pepper. 
W^hy there's my father, sir, superannuated keeper and 
custodian of this Institution, eigh-ty-seven year old. He's 
a Swidger! — Spoon." 

" True, William/' was the patient and abstracted answer, 
when he stopped again. 

" Yes, sir," said Mr. Swidger. " 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 — Tumblers — might take hold of hands, and 
make a ring round England ! " 

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 



Mrs. William Swidger 337 

decanter, to rouse him. The moment he succeeded, he went 
on, as if in great alacrity of acquiescence. 

"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 voluntar}^ 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? '' 

" I am quite ready,'' said the other, waking as from a 
dream, and walking slowly to and fro. 

" Mrs. William has been at it again, sir! " 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. 

" 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." 

'' What has she done?" 

" 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 course of lectures at this ancient foundation 
■ — it's surprising how stone-chaney catches the heat this 
frosty weather, to be sure ! " Here he turned the plate, and 
cooled his fingers. 

"Well?" said Mr. Redlaw. 

" That's just what I say myself, sir," returned Mr. William, 
speaking over his shoulder, as if in ready and delighted 
assent. " That is 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 



338 



The Haunted Man 



— never mind her name, though it is Swidger, by rights. 
Let 'em call her Swidge, Widge, Bridge — Lord! London 
Bridge, Blackfriars, Chelsea, Putney, Waterloo, or Hammer- 
smith Suspension — if they like! " 

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. WiUiam'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, ]\Irs. 
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 ! 

'' Punctual of course, Milly," said her husband, relieving 
her of the tray, *' or it wouldn't be you. Here's Mrs. 
William, sir! — He looks lonelier than ever to-night," whis- 
pering to his wife, as he was taking the tray, " and ghostlier 
altogether." 

Without any show of hurry or noise, or any show of her- 
self even, she was so calm and quiet, Milly set the dishes she 
had brought upon the table, — Mr. WiUiam, after much 



Merry and Happy 339 

clattering and running about, having only gained possession 
of a butter-boat of gravy, which he stood ready to serve. 

*' What is that the old man has in his arms? " asked Mr. 
Redlaw, as he sat down to his solitary meal. 

** Holly, sir/' replied the quiet voice of Milly. 

'' That's what I say myself, sir," interposed Mr. Wihiam, 
striking in with the butter-boat. '' Berries is so seasonable 
to the time of year ! — Brown gravy ! " 

'' Another Christmas come, another year gone ! " murmured 
the Chemist, with a gloomy sigh. '^ 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 ! " 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. 

" My duty to you, sir," returned the old man. " 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! " 

" Have you had so many that were merry and happy? " 
asked the other. 

" Ay, sir, ever so many," returned the old man. 

" Is his memory impaired with age? It is to be expected 
now," said Mr. Redlaw, turning to the son, and speaking 
lower. 

'' Not a morsel of it, sir," replied Mr. William. '' 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 ! " 

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 p,^ate 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. 



340 The Haunted Man 

" It recalls the time when many of those years were old 
and new, then?" he said, observing him attentively, and 
touching him on the shoulder. '' Does it? " 

*' Oh many, many! " said Philip, half awaking from his 
reverie. " I'm eighty-seven! " 

"Merry and happy, was it?" asked the Chemist, in a 
low voice. " Merry and happy, old man ? " 

*' May-be as high as that, no higher," said the old man, 
holding out his hand a little way above the level of his knee, 
and looking retrospectively at his questioner, '' 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 ! " 

'* Merry and happy! " mused the other, bending his dark 
eyes upon the stooping figure, with a smile of compassion. 
" Merry and happy — and remember well! " 

"Ay, ay, ay!" resumed the old man, catching the last 
words. " I remember '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'll 
believe me, hadn't my match at foot-ball within ten mile. 
Where's my son William? Hadn't my match at foot-ball, 
William, within ten mile! " 

"That's what I always say, father!" returned the son 
promptly, and with great respect. " You are a Swidger, if 
ever there was one of the family! " 

" Dear! " said the old man, shaking his head as he again 
looked at the holly. " His mother — my son William's my 
youngest son — and I, have sat among 'em all, boys and girls, 
like 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 'em are gone; she'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's a 
blessed thing to me, at eighty-seven." 



Lord! Keep My Memory Green 341 

The keen look that had been fixed upon him with so 
much earnestness^ had gradually sought the ground. 

'* 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/' said the old man, " — which was 
upwards of fifty years ago — where's my son William? 
More than half a century ago, William ! '' 

'' That's what I say, father," replied the son, as promptly 
and dutifully as before, " that's exactly where it is. Two 
times ought's an ought, and twice five ten, and there's a 
hundred of 'em." 

" It was quite a pleasure to know that one of our founders 
— or more correctly speaking," said the old man, with a 
great glory in his subject and his knowledge of it, " 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, 
* Lord ! keep my memory green ! ' You know all about him, 
Mr. Redlaw?" 

" I know the portrait hangs there, Philip." 

" Yes, sure, it's the second on the right, above the panel- 
ling. 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'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 every had 
affection for, or mourned for, or delighted in — and they're 
a pretty many, for I'm eighty-seven! " 

" Merry and happy," murmured Redlaw to himself. 

The room began to darken strangely. 

" So you see, sir," pursued old Philip, whose hale wintry 
cheek had warmed into a ruddier glow, and whose blue eyes 



342 The Haunted Man 

had brightened while he spoke^ '' I have plenty to keep, 
when I keep this present season. Now, where's my quiet 
Mouse? Chattering's the sin of my time of life, and there's 
half the building to do yet, if the cold don't freeze us first, 
or the wind don't blow us away, or the darkness don't 
swallow us up." 

The quiet Mouse had brought her calm face to his side, 
and silently taken his arm, before he finished speaking. 

" Come away, my dear," said the old man. " Mr. Redlaw 
won't settle to his dinner, otherwise, till it's cold as the 
winter. I hope you'll excuse me rambling on, sir, and I 
wish you good night, and, once again, a merry — " 

** Stay! " 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. 
'' 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.^ " 

" Why, that's where it is, you see, sir," returned Mr. 
William Swidger, looking towards his wife in considerable 
embarrassment. " Mrs. William's got her eye upon me." 

'' But you're not afraid of Mrs. William's eye? " 

" Why, no, sir," returned Mr. Swidger, " that's what 1 
say myself. It wasn'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." 

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. 

" Him, you know, my love," said Mr. William. '' Down 
in the Buildings. Tell, my dear. You're the works of 
Shakspeare in comparison with myself. Down in tlie 
Buildings, you know, my love. — Student." 

" Student? " repeated Mr. Redlaw, raising his head. 

*' That's what I say, sir!" cried Mr. William, in the 
utmost animation of assent. *' If it wasn'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." 

" I didn't know," said Milly, with a quiet frankness, free 



The Poor Student 343 

from any haste or confusion, '' that WilHam had said any- 
thing about it, or I wouldn't have come. I asked him not to. 
It'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's all, sir." 

"Why have I never heard of him?" said the Chemist, 
rising hurriedly. " Why has he not made his situation 
known to me ? Sick ! — give me my hat and cloak. Poor ! — 
what house? — what number? " 

'' Oh, you mustn't go there, sir," said Milly, leaving her 
father-in-law, and calmly confronting him with her collected 
little face and folded hands. 

"Not go there?" 

" Oh dear, no! " said Milly, shaking her head as at a most 
manifest and self-evident impossibility. " It couldn't be 
thought of!" 

" What do you mean? Why not? " 

" Why, you see, sir," said Mr. William Swidger, per- 
suasively and confidentially, " that's what I say. Depend 
upon it, the young gentleman would never have made his 
situation known to one of his own sex. Mrs. William has 
got into his confidence, but that's quite different. They all 
confide in Mrs. William; they all trust her. A man, sir, 
couldn't have got a whisper out of him; but woman, sir, 
and Mrs. William combined — 1 " 

" There is good sense and delicacy in what you say, 
William," 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. 

"Oh dear no, sir!" cried Milly, giving it back again. 
" Worse and worse! Couldn't be dreamed of! " 

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 astonish- 
ment, she quietly repeated — looking about the while for any 
other fragments that might have escaped her observation : 

" Oh dear no, sir! He said that of all the world he would 



344 The Haunted Man 

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.'' 

''Why did he say so?'' 

'' Indeed I can't tell, sir," said Milly, after thinking a 
little, *' 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 some- 
how neglected too. — How dark it is! " 

The room had darkened more and more. There was 
a very heavy gloom and shadow gathering behind the 
Chemist's chair. 

" What more about him? " he asked. 

" He is engaged to be married when he can afford it," said 
Milly, " 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 ! " 

" It's turned colder, too," said the old man, rubbing his 
hands. '' There's a chill and dismal feeling in the room. 
Where's my son William ? William, my boy, turn the lamp, 
and rouse the fire! " 

Milly's voice resumed, like quiet music very softly played : 

" He muttered in his broken sleep yesterday afternoon, 
after talking to me " (this was to herself) '' about some one 
dead, and some great wrong done that could never be for- 
gotten; but whether to him or to another person, I don't 
know. Not by him, I am sure." 

*' And, in short, Mrs. William, you see — which she wouldn't 
say herself, Mr. Redlaw, if she was to stop here till the new 
year after this next one — " said Mr. William, coming up to 
him to speak in his ear, ''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! " 

The room turned darker and colder, and the gloom and 
shadow gathering behind the chair was heavier. 

" Not content with this, sir, Mrs. William goes and finds, 



An Awful Likeness 345 

this very night, when she was coming home (why it's not 
above a couple of hours ago), a creature more Hke 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's as much as ever it did; for it's sitting 
in the old Lodge chimney, staring at ours as if its ravenous 
eyes would never shut again. It's sitting there, at least," 
said Mr. William, correcting himself, on reflection, " unless 
it's bolted!" 

" Heaven keep her happy! " said the Chemist aloud, '' 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 longer now. Good night! " 

''I thank'ee, sir, I thank'ee!" said the old man, "for 
Mouse, and for my son William, and for myself. Where'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! / remember — though I'm 
eighty-seven ! ' Lord, keep my memory green ! ' It's a ver>^ 
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. ' Lord, keep my memory green ! ' It's very good and 
pious, sir. Amen! Amen!" 

As they passed out and shut the heavy door, which, 
however carefully withheld, fired a long train of thunder- 
ing 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 liim, in that 
place where it had been gathering so darkly, it took, by 
slow degrees, — or out of it there came, by some unreal, un- 
substantial 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 



346 



The Haunted Man 



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. 

" Here again ! '' he said. 

'* Here again! " replied the Phantom. 

" I see you in the fire," said the haunted man; " I hear 
you in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night.'' 

The Phantom moved its head, assenting. 

" Why do you come, to haunt me thus? " 

" I come as I am called,'' replied the Ghost. 

^' No. Unbidden," exclaimed the Chemist. 

" Unbidden be it," said the Spectre. " It is enough. I 
am here." 

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 em-pty 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 unimagin- 
able millions, glittering through it, from eternal space, where 
the world's bulk is as a grain, and its hoary age is infancy. 

" Look upon me ! " said the Spectre. " 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." 

*' I am that man," returned the Chemist. 



Morbid Remembrance 347 

" No mother's self-dying love/' pursued the Phantom, 
" 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." 

It paused, and seemed to tempt and goad him with its 
look, and with the manner of its speech, and with its smile. 

" I am he," pursued the Phantom, " 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." 

" Not all," said Redlaw, hoarsely. 

" No, not all," returned the Phantom. '* i had a sister." 

The haunted man, with his head resting on his hands, 
replied " I had! " The Phantom, w^ith 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: 

'' 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! " 

" I saw her, in the fire, but now. I hear her in music, in 
the wind, in the dead stillness of the night," returned the 
haunted man. 

" Did he love her? " said the Phantom, echoing his con- 
templative tone. '* 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 ! " 

'' Let me forget it," said the Chemist, with an angry motion 
of his hand. " Let me blot it from my memory! " 

The Spectre, without stirring, and with its unwinking, 
cruel eyes still fixed upon his face, went on: 

*' A dream, like hers, stole upon my own life." 

" It did," said Redlaw. 

" A love, as like hers," pursued the Phantom, *' as my 
*m239 



348 



The Haunted Man 



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 Hfe, 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!'' 

" I saw them, in the fire, but now," he murmured. '* They 
come back to me in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness 
of the night, in the revolving years." 

** — Pictures of my own domestic life, in after-time, 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, extend- 
ing back so far, that should bind us, and our children, in a 
radiant garland," said the Phantom. 

" Pictures," said the haunted man, " that were delusions. 
Why is it my doom to remember them too well ! " 

" Delusions," echoed the Phantom in its changeless voice, 
and glaring on him with its changeless eyes. '' 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 — " 

" Then died," he interposed. " Died, gentle as ever, 
happy, and with no concern but for her brother. Peace ! " 

The Phantom watched him silently. 

"Remembered!" said the haunted man, after a pause. 
" 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 sym- 
pathy, as if it were a younger brother's or a son's. Some- 
times 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 



A Sorrow and a Wrong 349 

from a hand I loved and trusted^ and a loss that nothing can 
replace, outlive such fancies." 

" Thus/' said the Phantom, '' 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!" 

''Mocker!" said the Chemist, leaping up, and making, 
with a wrathful hand, at the throat of his other self. " Why 
have I always that taunt in my ears? " 

''Forbear!" exclaimed the Spectre in an awful voice. 
" Lay a hand on me, and die ! " 

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. 

" If I could forget my sorrow and wrong, I would," the 
Ghost repeated. " If I could forget my sorrow and wrong, 
I would!" 

" Evil spirit of myself," returned the haunted man, in a 
low, trembling tone, " my life is darkened by that incessant 
whisper. 

" It is an echo," said the Phantom. 

" If it be an echo of my thoughts — as now, indeed, I know 
it is," rejoined the haunted man, " 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? " 

" Who would not, truly, and be the happier and better for 
it? " said the Phantom. 

" These revolutions of years, which we commemorate," 
proceeded Redlaw, "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." 

" But common natures," said the Phantom, with its evil 
smile upon its glassy face, " unenlightened minds and 
ordinary spirits, do not feel or reason on these things like 
men of higher cultivation and profounder thought." 

" Tempter," answered Redlaw, " whose hollow look and 
voice I dread more than words can express, and from whom 



350 The Haunted Man 

some dim foreshadowing of greater fear is stealing over me 
while I speak, I hear again an echo of my own mind.*' 

" Receive it as a proof that I am powerful/' returned the 
Ghost. ''Hear what I offer! Forget the sorrow, wrong, 
and trouble you have known! " 

" Forget them! " he repeated. 

*' I have the power to cancel their remembrance — to leave 
but very faint^ confused traces of them, that will die out 
soon," returned the Spectre. "Say! Is it done .^ " 

" Stay! " cried the haunted man, arresting by a terrified 
gesture the uplifted hand. " 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? " 

" 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 re- 
collections. Those will go." 

'* Are they so many? " said the haunted man, reflecting in 
alarm. 

" 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," returned the Phantom scornfully. 

" In nothing else? " 

The Phantom held its peace. 

But, having stood before him, silent, for a little while, it 
moved towards the fire; then stopped. 

" Decide ! " it said, " before the opportunity is lost ! " 

*' A moment ! I call Heaven to witness," said the agitated 
man, " that I have never been a hater of my 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? " 

" Say," said the Spectre, " is it done? " 

*' A moment longer! " he answered hurriedly. " I would 



The Compact 351 

forget it if I could I Have / 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 ! '' 

" Say," said the Spectre, " is it done? '' 

^'Itis!" 

" It is. And take this with you, man whom I here re- 
nounce ! 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 ! " 

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, '' Destroy 
its like in all whom you approach! " a shrill cry reached his 
ears. It came, not from the passage 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 w^hich he 
was accustomed to pass into and out of the theatre w^here he 
lectured, — which adjoined his room. Associated with youth 
and animation, and a high amphitheatre of faces w^hich his 



2S^ The Haunted Man 

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. 

'* Halloa! " he cried. '' Halloa! This way! Come to the 
light! " 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 couched down in a corner. 

" What is it? " he said, hastily. 

He might have asked " What is it? " 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 ex- 
periences 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 ex- 
pected blow. 

'' I'll bite, he said, '' if you hit me I " 

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. 

** Where's the woman? " he replied. '' I want to find the 
woman." 

*'Who?" 

** 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." 

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. 



A Baby Savage 353 

''Come! you let me go!" muttered the boy, struggling, 
and clenching his teeth. " I've done nothing to you. Let 
me go, will you, to the woman! " 

'' That is not the way. There is a nearer one," said 
Redlaw, detaining him, in the same blank effort to remember 
some association that ought, of right, to bear upon this 
monstrous object. '' What is your name ? " 

'' Got none." 

" Where do you live? " 

''Live! What's that?" 

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 " You let me 
go, will you? I want to find the woman." 

The Chemist led him to the door. " This way," he said, 
looking at him still confusedly, but with repugnance and 
avoidance, growing out of his coldness. " I'll take you 
to her." 

The sharp eyes in the child's head, wandering round the 
room, lighted on the table where the remnants of the dinner 
were. 

" Give me some of that! " he said, covetously. 

" Has she not fed you? " 

" I shall be hungry again to-morrow, shan't I? Ain't I 
hungry every day? " 

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: 

" There ! Now take me to the woman ! " 

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. 

" The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go 
where you will! " 

The Phantom's words were blowing in the wind, and the 
wind blew chill upon him. 

" I'll not go there, to-night," he murmured faintly. 

" I'll go nowhere to-night. Boy! straight down this long- 
arched passage, and past the great dark door into the yard, 
— you see the fire shining on the window there." 

" The woman's fire? " inquired the boy. 

He nodded, and the naked feet had sprung away. He came 



354 The Haunted Man 

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 constitu- 
tional 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 Britains), 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 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 sub- 
stance 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 



The Tetterby Family 355 

baby, which he was supposed, by a fiction that obtains some- 
times 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 com- 
pose 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. '' Tetterby's baby " was as well known in the neigh- 
bourhood 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 ]\Ionkey, 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 httle 
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 fruit- 
less 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, 



356 



The Haunted Man 



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 com- 
merce 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 repre- 
sentation 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 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 liveHhood 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 thrist, 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 



Johnny and Moloch 357 

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. 

*' You bad boy! " said Mr. Tetterby, " 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 '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," said Mr. Tetterby, heaping 
this up as a great climax of blessings, *' but must you make 
a wilderness of home, and maniacs of your parents.? Must 
you, Johnny? Hey? " At each interrogation, Mr. Tetterby 
made a feint of boxing his ears again, but thought better of 
it, and held his hand. 

"Oh, father!" whimpered Johnny, "when I wasn't 
doing anything, I'm sure, but taking such care of Sally and 
getting her to sleep. Oh, father! " 

" I wish my little woman would come home! " said Mr. 
Tetterby, relenting and repenting, " 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? " indicating Moloch; 
" 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? " 

Softening more and more, as his own tender feelings and 
those of his injured son were worked on, Mr. Tetterby con- 
cluded 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 his infant, whom he condignly punished, 
and bore to bed. This example had a powerful, and ap- 
parently, mesmeric influence on him of the boots, who in- 
stantly fell into a deep sleep, though he had been^ but a 



358 The Haunted Man 

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. • • u • 

" My little woman herself," said Mr. Tetterby, wiping his 
flushed face, "could hardly have done it better! ^^I only 
wish my little woman had had it to do, I do indeed ! 

Mr Tetterby sought upon his screen for a passage appro- 
priate to be impressed upon his children's minds on the 
occasion, and read the following. 

" ' It is an undoubted fact that all remarkable men have 
had remarkable mothers, and have respected them in after 
life as their best friends.' Think of your own remarkable 
mother, my boys," said Mr. Tetterby, " and know her value 
while she is still among you ! " ^ v • u 

He sat down in his chair by the f^re, and composed himself, 
cross-legged, over his newspaper. . , , , 

" Let anybody, I don't care who it is, get out of bed again, 
said Tetterby, as a general proclamation, delivered m a very 
soft-hearted manner, " and astonishment will be the portion 
of that respected contemporary ! "-which expression Mr. 
Tetterby selected from his screen. " Johnny, my child 
take care of your only sister, Sally; for she's the brightest 
gem that ever sparkled on your early brow 
. Johnny sat down on a little stool, and devotedly crushed 
himself beneath the weight of Moloch. 

" Ah what a gift that baby is to you, Johnny! sa_id his 
father, "and how thankful you ought to be! It is not 
generally known,' Johnny," he was now referring to the 
screen again, " ' but it is a fact ascertained, by accurate cal- 
culations, that the following immense per-centage of babies 
never attain to two years old; that is to say— 

" Oh, don't, father, please ! " cried Johnny. I can t 
bear it, when I think of Sally." 

Mr Tetterby desisting, Johnny, with a profounder sense 
of his trust, wiped his eyes, and hushed his sister 

" Your brother 'Dolphus," said his father, poking the fire, 
" is late to-night, Johnny, and will come home like a lump 
of ice. What's got your precious mother? 



Mrs. Tetterby's Return 359 

''Here's mother, and 'Dolphus too, father!" exclaimed 
Johnny, '' I think." 

''You're right!" returned his father, listening. "Yes, 
that's the footstep of my little woman." 

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 magnifi- 
cent. 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 Adol- 
phus 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. Tet- 
terby, 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. 

" Whatever you do, Johnny," said Mrs. Tetterby, shaking 
her head, " take care of her, or never look your mother in 
the face again." 

" Nor your brother," said Adolphus. 

" Nor your father, Johnny," added Mr. Tetterby. 

Johnny, much affected by this conditional renunciation 
of him, looked down at Moloch'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. 

"Are you wet, 'Dolphus, my boy?" said his father. 
" Come and take my chair, and dry yourself." 

" No, father, thank'ee," said Adolphus, smoothing him- 



360 The Haunted Man 

self down with his hands. " I an't very wet, I don't think. 
Does my face shine much, father? " 

'' Well, it does look waxy, my boy," returned Mr. Tetterby. 

'' It's tlie weather, father," said Adolphus, polishing his 
cheeks on the worn sleeve of his jacket. '' 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't it, though! " 

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 enter- 
taining himself, and of dividing the long day into stages of 
interest, without neglecting business. This ingenious in- 
vention, 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, pierc- 
ing the heavy air with his cry of " Morn-ing Pa-per! " which, 
about an hour before noon, changed to " Morn-ing Pep-per! " 
which, at about two, changed to "Morn-ing Pip-per!" 
which, in a couple of hours, changed to " Morn-ing Pop-per ! " 
and so declined with the sun into " Eve-ning Pup-per!" 
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. 

" Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me! " said Mrs. Tetterby. 
** That's the way the world goes ! " 

'* Which is the way the world goes, my dear?" asked 
Mr. Tetterby, looking round. 

*' Oh, nothing! " said Mrs. Tetterby. 



Mrs. Tetterby Is Put Out 361 

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. 

'' Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me! " said Mrs. Tetterby. 
*' That's the way the world goes ! " 

" My duck," returned her husband, looking round again, 
" you said that before. Which is the way the world goes? '' 

'' Oh, nothing! " said Mrs. Tetterby. 

*' Sophia I" remonstrated her husband, "you said that 
before, too." 

" Well, ril say it again if you like," returned Mrs. Tetterby. 
" Oh nothing — there ! And again if you like, oh nothing — 
there 1 And again if you like, oh nothing — now then 1 " 

Mr. Tetterby brought his eye to bear upon the partner of 
his bosom, and said, in mild astonishment : 

" My little woman, what has put you out? " 

'' I'm sure I don't know," she retorted. '' Don't ask me. 
Who said I was put out at all? / never did." 

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 accord- 
ing perfectly with the resignation of his manner — addressed 
himself to his two eldest offspring. 

" Your supper will be ready in a minute, 'Dolphus," said 
Mr. Tetterby. " 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's pleased with you, my man, for being so 
attentive to your precious sister." 

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 



362 The Haunted Man 

seated, stood repeating slowly, '' Yes, yes, your supper will 
be ready in a minute, '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 '' — until Mrs. Tetterby, who had been 
exhibiting sundry tokens of contrition behind him, caught 
him round the neck, and wept. 

"Oh, 'Dolphus!" said Mrs. Tetterby, "how could I go 
and behave so? '' 

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. 

" I am sure, 'Dolphus," sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, '' coming 
home, I had no more idea than a child unborn " 

Mr. Tetterby seemed to dislike this figure of speech, and 
observed, " Say than the baby, my dear." 

"—Had no more idea than the baby," said Mrs. Tetterby. 
— " 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, 'Dolphus " Mrs. Tetterby paused, and 

again turned her wedding-ring round and round upon her 
finger. 

" I see! " said Mr. Tetterby. " 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," continued Mr. 
Tetterby, exploring the basin with a fork, " 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's simmering." 

Master Adolphus, needing no second summons, received 
his portion with eyes rendered moist by appetite, and with- 
drawing 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 



Mr. Tetterby's Little Woman 363 

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'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 
vvere 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 night-gowns were careering about the 
parlour all through supper, which harassed Mr. Tetterby 
exceedingly, and once or twice imposed upon him the neces- 
sity 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. 

" My little woman,'* said Mr. Tetterby, " if the world 
goes that way, it appears to go the wrong way, and to 
choke you." 

" Give me a drop of water," said Mrs. Tetterby, struggling 
with herself, " and don't speak to me for the present, or take 
any notice of me. Don't do it ! " 

Mr. Tetterby having administered the water, turned 
suddenly on the unluckly 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 condi- 
tion to bear that trying appeal to her feelings, he was inter- 
dicted from advancing another inch, on pain of perpetual 



364 The Haunted Man 

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. 

'' My little woman/' said her husband, dubiously, " are 
you quite sure you're better? Or are you, Sophia, about to 
break out in a fresh direction? " 

" No, 'Dolphus, no," replied his wife. " Fm quite myself." 
With that, settling her hair, and pressing the palms of her 
hands upon her eyes, she laughed again. 

'' What a wicked fool I was, to think so for a moment! " 
said Mrs. Tetterby. " Come nearer, 'Dolphus, and let me 
ease my mind, and tell you what I mean. Let me tell you 
all about it." 

Mr. Tetterby bringing his chair closer, Mrs. Tetterby 
laughed again, gave him a hug, and wiped her eyes. 

" You know, 'Dolphus, my dear," said Mrs. Tetterby, 
" 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." 

" We're all sons of Ma's, my dear," said Mr. Tetterby, 
*' jointly with Pa's." 

'' I don't mean that," replied his wife, " I mean soldiers — 
Serjeants." 

"Oh! "said Mr. Tetterby. 

" Well, 'Dolphus, I'm sure I never think of such things 
now, to regret them; and I'm sure I've got as good a 
husband, and would do as much to prove that I was fond of 
him, as " 

"As any little woman in the world," said Mr. Tetterby. 
" Very good. Very good." 

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. 

" But you see, 'Dolphus," said Mrs. Tetterby, " 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 



Family Cares 365 

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, 'Dolphus? '' 

*' Not quite," said Mr. Tetterby, '' as yet/' 

"Well! I'll tell you the whole truth," pursued his wife, 
penitently, " 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 trudg- 
ing about, too, that I began to think whether I mightn't 
have done better, and been happier, if — I hadn't — " the 
wedding-ring went round again, and Mrs. Tetterby shook 
her downcast head as she turned it. 

" I see," said her husband quietly; '' if you hadn't married 
at all, or if you had married somebody else? " 

"Yes," sobbed Mrs. Tetterby. "That's really what I 
thought. Do you hate me now, 'Dolphus? " 

" Why no," said Mr. Tetterby, " I don't find that I do, 
as yet." 

Mrs. Tetterby gave him a thankful kiss, and went on. 

" I begin to hope you won't, now, 'Dolphus, though I am 
afraid I haven't told you the worst. I can't think what came 
over me. I don't know whether I was ill, or mad, or what 
I was, but I couldn't call up anything that seemed to bind 
us to each other, or to reconcile me to my fortune. All 
the pleasures and enjo}Tnents 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." 

" Well, well, my dear," said Mr. Tetterby, shaking her 
hand encouragingly, " that's truth after all. We are poor, 
and there are a number of mouths at home here." 

" Ah! but, Dolf, Dolf ! " cried his wife, laying her hands 
upon his neck, " 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 



366 



The Haunted Man 



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, 'Dolphus, how could I ever have the heart to 
doit!'' 

The good woman, quite carried away by her honest tender- 
ness 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. 

'* Look at that man ! Look there ! What does he want ? " 

** My dear," returned her husband, " I'll ask him if you'll 
let me go. What's the matter? How you shake ! " 

'' 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." 

''Afraid of him! Why?" 

*' I don't know why — I — stop! husband!" 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. 

*' Are you ill, my dear? " 

" What is it that is going from me again? " she muttered, 
in a low voice. " What is this that is going away? " 

Then she abruptly answered : " 111 ? No, I am quite well," 
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 strange- 
ness of her manner did not tend to reassure, addressed him- 
self to the pale visitor in the black cloak, who stood still, 
and whose eyes were bent upon the ground. 

" What may be your pleasure, sir," he asked, '* with 
us?" 

" I fear that my coming in unperceived," returned the 



A Visitor 367 

visitor, "has alarmed you; but you were talking and did 
not hear me." 

'' My little woman says — perhaps you heard her say it/' 
returned Mr. Tetterby, " that it's not the first time you have 
alarmed her to-night." 

'' 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." 

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. 

" My name," he said, " 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? " 

" Mr. Denham? " said Tetterby. 

'' Yes." 

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. 

'' The gentleman's room," said Tetterby, '^ is up-stairs, 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," showing one communicating 
directly with the parlour, " and go up to him that way, if 
you wish to see him." 

" Yes, I wish to see him," said the Chemist. '' Can you 
spare a light? " 

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, '' I'll light you, sir, if you'll follow me." 

'' No," replied the Chemist, " 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." 

In the quickness of his expression of this desire, and in 



368 



The Haunted Man 



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 com- 
municated, 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. 

" Come! " said the father, roughly. " There's enough of 
this. Get to bed here ! " 

'' The place is inconvenient and small enough," the mother 
added, '' without you. Get to bed ! " 

The whole brood, scared and sad, crept away; little Johnny 
and the baby lagging last. The mother, glancing con- 
temptuously 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 inter- 
change 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. 

" What have I done! " he said, confusedly. '' What am 
I going to do! " 

"To be the benefactor of mankind," 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. 

" It is only since last night," he muttered gloomily, 
*' 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!" 



The Chemist and the Student 369 

There was a door before him, and he knocked at it. Being 
invited, by a voice within, to enter, he complied. 

" Is that my kind nurse? " said the voice. *' But I need 
not ask her. There is no one else to come here." 

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. 

" They chink when they shoot out here," said the student, 
smiling, " 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." 

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. 



370 The Haunted Man 

" Mr. Redlaw! " he exclaimed, and started up. 

Redlaw put out his arm. 

" Don't come nearer to me. I will sit here. Remain you, 
where you are! '' 

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. 

" I heard, by an accident, by what accident is no matter, 
that one of my class w^as 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.'' 

** I have been ill, sir," returned the student, not merely 
with a modest hesitation, but with a kind of awe of him, 
*' but am greatly better. An attack of fever — of the brain, 
I believe — has weakened me, but I am much better. I can- 
not say I have been solitary, in my illness, or I should forget 
the ministering hand that has been near me." 

'' You are speaking of the keeper's wife," said Redlaw. 

'' Yes." 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 yes- 
terday 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. 

'' I remembered your name," he said, " when it was men- 
tioned to me down-stairs, just now; and I recollect your 
face. We have held but very little personal communication 
together? " 

" Very little." 

" You have retired and withdrawn from me, more than 
any of the rest, I think? " 

The student signified assent. 

" And why? " said the Chemist; not with the least ex- 
pression of interest, but with a moody, wayward kind of 
curiosity. '' 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? " 



The Student's Mother 371 

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 
trembhng Hps : 

^' Mr. Redlaw! You have discovered me. You know my 
secret ! " 

" Secret? " said the Chemist, harshly. '' I know? " 

" 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,'' replied the student, " 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." 

A vacant and contemputous laugh was all his answer. 

" But, Mr. Redlaw," said the student, " 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." 

" Sorrow !" said Redlaw, laughing. "Wrong! What are 
those to me? " 

'' For Heaven's sake," entreated the shrinking student, 
" 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 Long- 
ford—" 

" Longford! " exclaimed the other. 

He clasped his head with both his hands, and for a moment 
turned upon the young man his own intelligent and thought- 
ful face. But the light passed from it, like the sunbeam of 
an instant, and it clouded as before. 

" The name my mother bears, sir," faltered the young 

man, *' the name she took, when she might, perhaps, have 

taken one more honoured. Mr. Redlaw," hesitating, " 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 ahnost reverence. I have heard 
n239 



372 



The Haunted Man 



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 ? " 

Redlaw, unmoved, unchanged, and looking at him with a 
staring frown, answered by no word or sign. 

" I cannot say," pursued the other, " 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 is all 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," said the student, faintly, " 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 ! " 

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 : 

" Don't come nearer to me! " 

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. 

'' The past is past," said the Chemist. '' It dies Hke the 
brutes. Who talks to me of its traces in my life? He raves 
or Hes! 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," he muttered, holding his head again, with both his 
hands. *' There can be nothing else, and yet " 



Redlaw Avoids Milly 373 

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. 

" Take it back, sir/' he said proudly^ though not angrily. 
" I wish you could take from me^ with it, the remembrance 
of your words and offer." 

*^ You do?'' he retorted, with a wild light in his eyes. 
"You do?" 

"I do!" 

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. 

" There is sorrow and trouble in sickness, is there not? '' 
he demanded, with a laugh. 

The wondering student answered, " Yes." 

" In its unrest, in its anxiety, in its suspense, in all its 
train of physical and mental miseries? " said the Chemist, 
with a wild unearthly exultation. '' All best forgotten, are 
they not? " 

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. 

'' I can see very well now," she said, " 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! " 

Redlaw released his hold, as he listened. 

" I have feared, from the first moment," he murmured to 
himself, " 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." 

She was knocking at the door. 

" Shall I dismiss it as an idle foreboding, or still avoid 
her? " he muttered, looking uneasily around. 

She was knocking at the door again. 

" Of all the visitors who could come here," he said, in a 
hoarse alarmed voice, turning to his companion, " this is the 
one I should desire most to avoid. Hide me! " 

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. 



374 The Haunted Man 

The student then resumed his place upon the couch, and 
called to her to enter. 

" Dear Mr. Edmund," said Milly, looking round, " they 
told me there was a gentleman here." 

" There is no one here but I." 

'' There has been some one? " 

'* Yes, yes, there has been some one." 

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. 

" Are you quite as well to-night? Your head is not so 
cool as in the afternoon." 

"Tut!" said the student, petulantly, ''very little ails 
me." 

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 noise- 
lessly 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. 

" It's the new muslin curtain for the window, Mr. 
Edmund," said Milly, stitching away as she talked. *' It 
will look very clean and nice, though its 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 re- 
covering so well, or the glare might make you giddy." 

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. 

'' The pillows are not comfortable," she said, laying down 
her work and rising. " I will soon put them right." 

'' They are very well," he answered. '' Leave them alone, 
pray. You make so much of everything." 

He raised his head to say this, and looked at her so thank- 
lessly, that, after he had thrown himself down again, she 
stood timidly pausing. However, she resumed her seat, and 



The Contagion Spreads 375 

her needle, without having directed even a murmuring look 
towards him, and was soon as busy as before. 

" 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 .^ " 

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. 

*' Ah! " said Milly, with her pretty head inclining thought- 
fully on one side, as she looked down, following her busy 
fingers with her eyes. " 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." 

His getting up from the couch, interrupted her, or she was 
going on to say more. 

'' We needn't magnify the merit, Mrs. William," he re- 
joined slightingly. " 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." 

Her fingers stopped, and she looked at him. 

" I can't be made to feel the more obliged by your exag- 
gerating the case," he said. " I am sensible that you have 
been interested in me, and I say I am much obliged to you. 
What more would you have? " 

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. 



37^ 



The Haunted Man 



'' I say again, I am much obliged to you. Why weaken 
my sense of what is your due in obhgation, by preferring 
enormous claims upon me? Trouble, sorrow, affliction, 
adversity ! One miglit suppose I had been dying a score of 
deaths here! " 

'' Do you believe, Mr. Edmund," she asked, rising and 
going nearer to him, " that I spoke of the poor people of 
the house, with any reference to myself? To me? " laying 
her hand upon her bosom with a simple and innocent smile 
of astonishment. 

'' Oh! I think nothing about it, my good creature," he re- 
turned. " I have had an indisposition, which your solicitude 
— observe! I say solicitude — makes a great deal more of, 
than it merits; and it's over, and we can't perpetuate it. 

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 : 

'' Mr. Edmund, would you rather be alone? " 

'' There is no reason why I should detain you here," he 
replied. 

" Except — " said Milly, hesitating, and showing her work. 

" Oh! the curtain," he answered, with a supercilious laugh. 
*' That's not worth staying for." 

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: 

" 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. " 

If she had been as passionate as she was quiet, as in- 
dignant as she was calm, as angry in her look as she was 



A Dreadful Gift 377 

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. 

" When sickness lays its hand on you again," he said, 
looking fiercely back at him, " — may it be soon! — Die here! 
Rot here!" 

" What have you done? " returned the other, catching at 
his cloak. " What change have you wrought in me ? What 
curse have you brought upon me? Give me back myself! " 

" Give me back myself!" exclaimed Redlaw Hke a mad- 
man. "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 
blighted 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." 

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, drift- 
ing with the clouds, shining in the moonlight, and heavily 
looming in the darkness, were the Phantom's words, " The 
gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where you 
will!" 

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 un- 
intelligible heaps and made a ruinous confusion of. Those 
traces in his breast which the Phantom had told him would 
" die out soon," 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 



378 



The Haunted Man 



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 redden- 
ing 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, clutched 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. 

*' Get up! " said the Chemist. ** You have not forgotten 
me?" 

"You let me alone!" returned the boy. "This is the 
woman's house — not yours." 

The Chemist's steady eye controlled him somewhat, or 
inspired him with enough submission to be raised upon his 
feet, and looked at. 



Something the Matter 379 

*' Who washed them, and put those bandages where they 
were bruised and cracked? " asked the Chemist, pointing to 
their altered state. 

'^ The woman did." 

" And is it she who has made you cleaner in the face, 
too?" 

" Yes, the woman." 

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. 

" Where are they? " he inquired. 

** The woman's out." 

*' I know she is. Where is the old man with the whit^ 
hair, and his son? " 

" The woman's husband, d'ye mean? " inquired the boy. 

" Aye. Where are those two? " 

'' Out. Something's the matter, somewhere. They were 
fetched out in a hurry, and told me to stop here." 

" Come with me," said the Chemist, " and I'll give you 
money." 

" Come where? and how much will you give? " 

" 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?" 

*^ You let me go," returned the boy, suddenly twisting out 
of his grasp. '' I'm not a-going to take you there. Let me 
be, or I'll heave some fire at you ! " 

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 
coatact, 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. 

" Listen, boy! " he said. " You shall take me where you 
please, so that you take me where the people are very miser- 



380 The Haunted Man 

able 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 ! '' He made 
a hasty step towards the door, afraid of her returning. 

" Will you let me walk by myself, and never hold me, nor 
yet touch me? " said the boy, slowly withdrawing the hand 
with which he threatened, and beginning to get up. 

"I will!'' 

" And let me go before, behind, or anyways I like? " 

^^ I will!'' 

" Give me some money first then, and I'll go." 

The Chemist laid a few shillings, one by one, in his ex- 
tended hand. To count them was beyond the boy's know- 
ledge, but he said " one," 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 his 
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, somewhat 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 clothes, 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 



Redlaw and His Guide 381 

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, with- 
out 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. 

" In there! " he said, pointing out one house where there 
were scattered lights in the windows, and a dim lantern in 
the doorway, with " Lodgings for Travellers " 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, to- 
wards 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 



3S2 The Haunted Man 

that frightful Hkeness of expression so apparent in his face, 
that Redlaw started from him. 

" In there! " said the boy, pointing out the house again. 
'' I'll wait." 

'' Will they let me in? '' asked Redlaw. 

** Say you're a doctor," he answered with a nod. " There's 
plenty ill here." 

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. 

'* Sorrow, wrong, and trouble," said the Chemist, with a 
painful effort at some more distinct remembrance, " at least 
haunt this place, darkly. He can do no harm, who brings 
forgetfulness of such things here ! " 

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 un- 
naturally 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. 

'' What are you? " said Redlaw, pausing, with his hand 
upon the broken stair-rail. 

*' What do you think I am? " 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. 

" I am come here to give relief, if I can," he said. '* Are 
you thinking of any wrong? " 



A Ruined Temple 383 

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. 

" Are you thinking of a wrong? " 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. 

'' I had a good home once. My father was a gardener, far 
away, in the country." 

''Is he dead?" 

'' He's dead to me. All such things are dead to me. You 
a gentleman, and not know that!" 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 wTong 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." 

" ril 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! " 



384 



The Haunted Man 



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 recog- 
nised him, and who had kept aloof, in the remotest cornes' 
of the room. He seemed to be about his own age; and 



The Favourite Son 385 

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 re- 
membrances 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 
his stupor. 



386 The Haunted Man 

" 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 for- 
gave 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 un- 
happy 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 shrunk 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 to 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 



The Old Man's Supplications 387 

back ! Not but as he is, 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 com- 
pletely 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." 

239 



388 



The Haunted Man 



It was working. It was on his face. His face was chang- 
ing, 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 



The Old Man and His Son 389 

good cheer, without being disturbed by any such uncomfort- 
able, wretched sight as him there ? Is it twenty, WilHam ? " 

" 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 who 
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. 



390 The Haunted Man 

'* 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 with- 
drew 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 hi^ 
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 companion I have left on 
earth." 

How long it was before he was aroused from his con- 
templation 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! " 



A Call for Help 391 

" 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 wanderings, 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 tne 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 ! " 



392 The Haunted Man 

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 conceal- 
ments 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 buildings, 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 suc- 
ceeded 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, 



Seek Her Out 393 

began to play. He listened to it at first^ as he had Hstened 
in the churchyard; but presently — it playing still, and being 
borne towards him on the night-air, in a low, sweet, melan- 
choly 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 wonder- 
ing; 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. H 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 ears, he raised his head to 
Hsten to its lingering vibration. Beyond the boy, so that 
his sleeping figure lay at its feet, the Phantom stood, immov- 
able 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 to 
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 ! " 



394 The Haunted Man 



" 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 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 his 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 with- 
out 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 conscious- 
ness 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 con- 
sciousness? " 

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. 



A Harvest of Evil 395 

*' 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 \4elded up. No 
softening memory of sorrow, wrong, or trouble enters here, 
because this wretched mortal from his birth has been aban- 
doned 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 wilder- 
ness. 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, hang here, by hundreds, and by thousands ! " 

Redlaw shrunk, 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 child- 

*Q 239 



396 The Haunted Man 

hood, 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 trem- 
bling fear and pity, from the sleeping boy to the Phantom, 
standing above him with its fmger pointing down. 

" Behold, I say," pursued the Spectre, '' the perfect type 
of what it was your choice to be. Your influence is power- 
less here, because from this child's bosom you can banish 
nothing. His thoughts have been in ' terrible companion- 
ship ' with yours, because you have gone down to his un- 
natural 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 
shrunk 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 un-windy con- 
stancy, shook off the finer particles of snow that had accumu- 
lated on his dull old face in the night, and looked out at the 
little white wreaths eddying round and round him. Doubt- 
less 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 
deep 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 half way on to Morning 



Young Moloch 397 

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 com- 
plete 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 cer- 
tainly 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 rub- 
bing 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 indis- 
criminately 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 httle race, sharing short- 
commons when it happened (which was pretty often) con- 
tentedly and even generously, and taking a great deal of 
enjoyment out of a very Httle meat. But they were fighting 
now, not only for the soap and water, but even for the break- 
fast 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 



398 The Haunted Man 

Johnny — rose against the baby! Yes, Mrs. Tetterby, going 
to the door by a 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. Tet- 
terby. " Had you the heart to do it? " 

" Why don't her teeth come through, then," retorted 
Johnny, in a loud rebelHous voice, " instead of bothering 
me? How would you Hke 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 ex- 
pression 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 aspira- 
tion, " 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 / don't," said Mrs. Tetterby. 

" I'll take my oath / don't," said Mr. Tetterby. 

A diversion arose here among Johnny and his five younger 
brothers, who, in preparing the family breakfast table, had 



The Shadow on the Tetterby's 399 

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 out- 
side the knot of combatants, and harassing their legs. Into 
the midst of this fray, Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby both precipi- 
tated 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 themJ^ 

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. Tetterbv. "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. 



400 The Haunted Man 

" 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. 

^^ 1 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. 



An Outrage on Dr. Watts 401 

" 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 occa- 
sional shrill whoops, and brandishings of bread and butter, 
with which it was accompanied, as well as in the intricate 
filings ofi into the street and back again, and the hoppings 
up and down the doorsteps, 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 Doctor 
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 were 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 



402 The Haunted Man 

rubbed hers. Mr. Tetterby's face began to smooth and 
brighten; Mrs. Tetterby's face 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 nearlv 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. Tet- 
terby, 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." 



Milly's Reception 403 

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 as 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. 



404 The Haunted Man 

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 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 over- 
flowed, 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 sunk in a doze; and even then, when I with- 
drew 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 



News for the Student 405 

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 
know 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 in- 
voluntarily towards Redlaw, who had come down from the 

"Hush! No," said Milly. 



4o6 The Haunted Man 

" It can be no one else/' 

" Indeed/' said Milly, '' are you sure? " 

*^ It is not " Before he could say more, she put her 

hand close 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 morn- 
ing 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 com- 
passionate 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. 



A Far Better Gift 407 

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 unwholsome 
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 fireplace, 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 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 ? " 



4o8 



The Haunted Man 



" Strong and brave, my boy/' returned the old man. 

It was quite a sight to see Mr. WiUiam 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 in- 
quiry, 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 was 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 young lady to walk in, and sit by the fire that is 



A Good Prayer 409 

always a-buming 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 picter. * 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 Am." 

" 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 



41 o The Haunted Man 

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 



The Student's Father 41 i 

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 gentle- 
man, 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 con- 
nected 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. '' 1 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 



412 The Haunted Man 

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 had 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 his 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 down- 
ward, 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. Some- 
thing 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." 



The First Fatal Step 413 

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, *' Hke 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 d}dng 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!" exclaimxcd 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 



414 The Haunted Man 

upon, and that never breathed the breath of life — it has 
made you quiet-Hke, 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 disap- 
pointed 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 is at 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 1" 



Redlaw's Prayer 415 

Redlaw fell upon his knees, with a loud cry. 

** Thou/' he said, *' who through the teaching of pure 
love, has 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 mv 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 him- 
self! 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, in- 
cluding young Adolphus, who arrived in his prismatic com- 
forter, in good time for the beef. Johnny and the baby 



4i6 



The Haunted Man 



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 know- 
ledge 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, and 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 own gloomy thoughts, and 
Milly, the embodiment of his better wisdom. / 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 firelight, 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